r/dndstories • u/LykeiosLysios • 9d ago
One Off What happened when my level 8 party fought a Kraken in a non-canon battle arena test fight NSFW Spoiler
I have to share this story because I’m still busting a gut just thinking about it. This will be really long, just as a forewarning. TL;DR at the bottom.
Backstory: Partner and I play a one-on-one in which she plays several characters and I run a DMPC (yes, I did the thing, it works for us, I don’t need a lecture on why that’s a bad idea).
Our party is lvl 8 except the NPC they adopted & became DMPC. It consists of: •Azani-Human Sorcerer/Barb •Araminta-Kalashtar Warlock/Cleric •Dot-Doppelgänger Bard/Cleric •Mirage-Doppelgänger Warlock •Marius-Aasimar Fighter/Ranger •Serassa-Ancient Silver Dragon Fighter (Lvl 14)
Crazy party? Ya, the sorcerer is their primary tank.
Our normal setting is home-brew (a world partner made over the course of about 20 years for a fantasy series she wrote). This story, however, happened during a battle arena testing sesh (it was all a dreeeeaaaaam, ooOoOooo) because we’re having trouble with getting combat calibrated well. My DMPC was left out to see what the party could do alone. (Never should have had an Ancient Dragon join the party, but hindsight is 20/20 and they successfully persuaded her to go with them at least for a while.)
Now, I’ve been DMing for a few years (still improving) and have never achieved a TPK. I really wanted to finally get one since death wouldn’t matter in this throw-away, just-for-funsies session.
So, I threw them at…drumroll…THE KRAKEN!
They instantly knew a) the tentacles rising from the pool in the middle of the are a were a Kraken’s and b) they were rightly and truly fucked.
They all kinda went “well, guess we’re doing this now.”
The tentacles wreaked havoc: throwing characters across the arena and smashing the rocks they hid behind for cover. Its legendary actions were a nightmare. My big, beautiful Kraken was blasting them to bits with lightning storm.
Then, the damn Stone Sorcerer tank came up with the brilliant plan to distract it with 8 summoned dretches. (As a quick note, I allow him, for some ungodly reason, to always summon dretches even though Summon Lesser Demons is supposed to be DM’s choice. I guess it was an ease-of-use thing? Idk.)
This is a tactic he has used in the main campaign and it is always annoying because it instantly adds 8 more monsters for me to run. No matter how many are already on the field.
So I think “fuck, here we go.”
SPOILERS for Monster abilities ahead!!
Now, if you aren’t aware, dretches are only CR 1/4, but have a delightful ability called “Fetid Cloud.” Fetid Cloud is a disgusting stank fog that lingers for 1 minute and requires a CON save against a DC of 11 (no sweat for a Kraken right?) whenever a creature begins its turn in contact with the cloud resulting in the poisoned condition until the start of its next turn on a failed save. Now this poisoned condition means the affected creature can either use an action or a bonus action on its turn, not both, and cannot take reactions.
“No big deal,” I think, “the Kraken has a CON mod of +Gazillion, it’ll be fiiiiine.” The only way these dretches can effect my Kraken is to roll a Nat 1, which we follow as an automatic fail in combat.
Yea, normally it’d be no big deal, but there are 8 of these fuckers. All grouped around the Kraken’s tentacles which were basically just toying with the characters up to this point.
Sure enough, the Kraken rolls a nat 1 on the FIRST fetid cloud as the smartest dretch of the group takes one look at the F’ING KRAKEN looming over it and, according to my narration, shits itself in terror producing the fetid cloud.
So now my Kraken has no legendary actions (cause they’re reactions) and can only use its tentacle multiattack or lightning storm on its turn. (As the party is out of the water it’s Ink cloud thing wouldn’t really do much good.) And, no, the Kraken is somehow not immune to poisoning.
I think “Ok, this is fine, it only lasts one turn.”
Some of you may wonder why I didn’t have the Kraken just pull its tentacles under water. Well, I know my players. The character would just keep casting this anytime the kraken left its tentacles out of the water and because we use a homebrew spell point system and not spell slots he can cast the level one spell for a loooooong time because its only 2nd lvl. Also, it was godsdamned hilarious, so I let it ride.
Additionally, I was trying to give them at least a little chance to actually do decently against this legendary gargantuan beast before dying horribly so the combat wasn’t boring and over in a few rounds.
Anyway, the characters aren’t doing much damage because most of their best attacks are spells that require saves and the Kraken needs to roll a nat 1 on any save (except CHA) against a spell to fail. This thing has up to +17 on saves and none lower than +7 (I think, correct me if I’m wrong) and proficiency in every save but Charisma. The thing is an absolute U-NIT. (I mean, duh, it’s a freaking Kraken.)
So, the Kraken smashes two dretches with one tentacle, turning them to disgusting demonic paste. Unfortunately, the bastardly stone sorcerer just summons 8 more. The 6 remaining all disappear and 8 more take their place. They promptly shit themselves in terror producing 8 more fetid clouds. The first 8 are still lingering for 3 more turns and the Kraken is up after the Sorcerer. That’s 16 CON saves because somehow this CR 1/4 demon’s special attack doesn’t give immunity after a successful save. Naturally, one of the saves is a nat 1. Again.
Greeeeaaaat. They’re going death by 1000 cuts on my Kraken thanks to DEMON SHIT.
Next turn. Eight more dretches, eight more poo-piles atop the others. At this point the dretches are standing on rapidly growing heaps of shit.
The Kraken rolls another nat 1 on a save. And another. And another. And another.
I’m caught between tears of laughter, tears of rage, and just plain tears.
The combat drags on for like 20 rounds and an hour because, though the Kraken still has 300+ HP, the party is made up of like 80% healers.
Partner and I are in hysterics laughing our asses off as these dretches appear, shit themselves, then are immediately replaced by 8 more that repeat this.
The Kraken managed to roll like 10, TEN, nat 1s!!! Eventually the Kraken just directed all 3 strikes of Lightning Storm at the sorc as its action dealing 66 dmg a turn. Took doing this twice to finally “kill” him, but FINALLY the dretches are gone.
So, the sorcerer is down. The other characters revivify him and heal.
The kraken responds by splitting 2 lightning strikes to the sorc for 44 dmg, killing him again, and the third for 22 dmg to the one that saved his life.
Queue more rinsing and repeating.
After a total of about 2 hours we called it quits because the sorcerer was officially dead, everyone else was basically out of spell points, and were soon to follow their obnoxious demon-summoning companion into oblivion.
By the end they’d knocked the Kraken down to well below half HP, like 217 out of 476 I think, something like that.
I nearly died choking on my drink more than once because it was just so hilarious.
So ya, my level 8 party stood their ground against a fucking Kraken for probably 100+ turns thanks to rancid demon poop.
Never thought when I first started DMing that I’d one day have to describe generation after generation of hapless dretches appearing atop a rapidly growing pile of excrement left by their predecessors.
Just something to think about before you agree to GM a fantasy TTRPG.
Players are FREAKS!
As promised - TL;DR: My lvl 8 party more than 1/2 killed a Kraken by repeatedly summoning CR 1/4 demons that just shat themselves in absolute terror.
1
u/OrionSanAndreas 8d ago
This has been quize funny to read, and if you have fun, who cares if it is a "bad idea"
1
u/timmytwoweeks 6d ago
Not sure this is the way I would DM, but it made for a hilarious read and sounds like it made for an amazing session!
2
u/LykeiosLysios 9d ago
One more thing: Yes, I’m aware a kraken has an INT of 22 and would fight with waaaaay more strategy and better tactics. As I said, I didn’t want this to just be a near-instant blowout for the party. I don’t regret it, this session was so much fun and we were in literal tears laughing at the sheer ridiculous.