Summary
There was a dispute about the validity of a game run by Natie involving Karma, Avraham, Conall, and Emilia. The group fought a high level NPC, which resulted in the death of the character Karma on the Ethereal Plane, followed by her being sealed inside a gemstone via soul trap, which prevents revival or retrieval even through wish, miracle or even true resurrection unless the group could get the gemstone back from the NPC. This resulted in a dispute between some of the players and the GM (Natie). The logs can be found here for public record: karma-vs-soul-eater-log
Case In Question
Avraham and Karma have petitioned that the game Natie ran be declared void due to malicious intent to kill, rule-breaking, and presenting an impossible encounter that was rigged in the NPC's favor in a manner that was unwarranted for their level of game-play; along with a declaration of improper GMing conduct. In doing so, the petition if passed would render the game non-cannon, resulting in the return of the character Karma; whom is otherwise un-retrievable without further adventure and defeat of the NPC who killed her.
Plaintiff Accounts
Avraham has mentioned repeatedly that the encounter was bogus; and that the GM was out to kill them and making it impossible for them to fight the opponent in question; and levying a complaint that the NPC was arbitrarily overpowered; and that it should have been toned down after 1/4th of the party had left during the battle, 1/4th the party was killed, and 1/4th the party did some NPC-kicking and then had to log off, the final 1/4th of the party (Avraham) resigned from the game and declared it void.
Karma lodged pretty much the same complaint.
Defendant Accounts
Natie proclaims that she was entirely fair with the combat; and while the encounter was intended to be tough, she had given multiple warnings that it was going to be very challenging and that they all risked permanent character destruction if they continued with the adventure; she maintains that it was fair, legitimate, and that the NPC wasn't arbitrarily over CR'd for the encounter.
Essentially, fair is fair, and you need to suck it up if something bad happens, rather than whining at the GM.
General Investigation
I requested the logs from the event, as well as an audit of the NPC that Natie had created to be the challenge of the adventure, interviewed Natie on the mechanics of her NPC, as well as several eye-witnesses who were present in the room at the same time; as well as taking down everyone's accounts of the incident; which indicate that while there was some hostility at certain points of the incident, it was unfounded.
Results of NPC Audit
The NPC in question was a PC-styled 20th level cleric with feats and prestige classes from the Book of Vile Darkness. Since she was intended to be used as a difficult encounter for a party with an Average Party Level (APL) of about 19-20, she applied some adjustments to her to bring her up to CR 22-23 as per the standard for difficult but winnable encounters. The adjustments were akin to a template, granting her a Su ability which functioned like a mirror of life trapping that could contain 1 person at a time and was level appropriate, and bonus hit points based on HD (similar to improved toughness) brought her to roughly 350 hit points; with a +2 CR increase to compensate. Honestly, not enough to warrant a +3 CR increase, but that's what she was going for and was going to award treasure and XP as appropriate for that level of encounter.
I personally think it was worth…maybe CR 21-22; especially since she didn't include spells like Gate on its spell list, which she provided to help sort this mess out. It came back clean as well.
Personal Note: I found that the NPC was pretty mild for a foe of that level. As noted, I believe it was actually over-estimated, which is good for a GM to do if they are uncertain. I have a creature in my high level adventure who permanently destroys your junk, hurts you really badly, casts spells at you, and also sports an overwhelming BAB, and has over 600 HP; and that's if you also can overcome his 50 SR and DR 15 / unusual things; not to mention he summons nasty things too; my tabletop party deals with stuff like this - no templates or GM fiat involved.
Evaluation of the Encounter
The encounter went pretty basic. Cleric buffed, was pretty indestructible at first but was de-buffed and fought for a while and hurt well enough. Karma pulled her I-win combo of projected image + ethereal jaunt //or etherealness. She was taken by surprise when the enemy cast //etherealness (having ID'd her spell via Spellcraft) and followed her to the plane for a 1 on 1. Now that Karma had separated herself from the rest of the party, they could do nothing and Karma ended up getting killed and soul-trapped. From there, the evil-cleric proceeded to loot Karma's items while the rest of the group could do nothing about it; and deciphered her scrolls of heal.
Upon using her looted items to restore herself to full health, she returned to the physical plane and used a cloak of the bat to fly 60ft above the group and cast implosion and kept concentrating each round as she was flying to rain death and destruction on the party as she well should have. There was some colorful commentary by Avraham at this point. The spell ended up almost killing some of the party members, and took out an animal companion.
At this point Conall proceeded to use some of his martial maneuvers to attack her while she was in the air. Out of desperation, they decided to attempt to sunder her cloak; which while not even legal within the rules, Natie allowed them the option of trying (which was more than she should have been expected to). Avraham showed increased frustration with the encounter. After Conall logged off for the night, the game ended with Avraham calling it an intentionally impossible battle and refusing to accept it.
Personal Opinion: This was the fault of the party. This was an encounter gone wrong. This was an encounter where one of the party's tricks got turned against them, and being unprepared to adapt in the slightest amount from their standardized specialties, ended up folding under the pressure. The main complaint was her flight which was almost painful to hear, because everyone has access to flying by as early as 5th level (either via the spell or potions of such). Frankly, by level 10, everyone should have access to fight in some form or another; it's just so easy (potion of fly, cloak of the bat, celestial armor, winged boots, horseshoes of the zypher, a 1/day item of overland flight that lasts 11 hours minimum, or any number of other methods).
The fact that the encounter was deemed impossible because near epic level characters were grossly unprepared for encounters of even half their character level has left me a bit shaken. Even more-so at the commentary present in the logs involving the illegitimacy of the situation due to the NPC not happily volunteering to dive on the swords of the heroes, and actually do something except commit suicide via the PCs.
"Let's think. Hmm, I can fly because I purchased an item with by WBL that's not expensive at this level, and I can fly. You aren't flying, so I think I will do so. I mean, why should I come and engage you in melee combat and let you stick swords in my face?"
Final Verdict
After examining all of the evidence, it seems that this was a fair fight. Fairer than I would have expected from a CR 23 creature, since actually dealing damage to it after it returned from the ethereal plane is a testament to how gently this NPC was being used. I find that Natie did not present a challenge above the expected abilities of the group, nor did she actually (had the casters prepped some basic buffing spells, it could have gone in wildly different ways) fight in any ways that were particularly devious; nor in a situation that favored the NPC over the other party members (in fact, Karma could likely have taken her out by herself if she hadn't failed a saving throw and been separated from the party).
Also, not having resources for adventures that you are going on is not a legitimate reason to complain or try to have a game invalidated. If I choose to go naked into a den of kobolds at 1st level, I have about as much right to complain the GM wasn't being fair with the challenges as I would in this situation; and vice-versa (hint - none).
Combined with the repeated warnings (which IMO was a kind gesture on Natie's part given the meta-game foreknowledge it provided) that the encounter was going to be a higher than average party level encounter should have been enough to decide whether or not you can handle something of your level or higher or not; and frankly, if flight is in your way, you need to go back to level 5 and adventure back up to this level again until you learn. This one could be player inexperience.
As such, I cannot with a clear conscience rule in anything other than Natie's favor on this one. Karma was killed, trapped, and swallowed. Without killing the soul-eater NPC, there's not much hope of getting her back. That's just part of the way it goes. Also, before anyone asks, the spell bars Wish and Miracle from bringing them back, so by virtue of reasoning you cannot wish for the gemstone either.
Personal Notes: I like Karma, so this has been a difficult judging for me; and I had to consider a lot with this case. I've also sought the advice from my D&D group outside of OpenRPG and the Black Marches to make certain I wasn't ruling in error, and all of them pretty much arrived to the same conclusion. Sometimes you die, and sometimes it's permanent. On one hand, I wanted to give Karma's player their character back, but on the other hand, I want this to be legitimate and fair. Justice is blind as they say.
In Short
Karma's been eaten. Likely the only chance to reclaim her vanished when the adventure ground to a halt. Unless Natie feels up to running a different adventure involving the same NPC, it is likely that won't change for quite some time. Karma is MIA.