[Discussion] Lost Love OOC

Some secret revealed:

1) The tomb was a prison made by Gatekeeper long time ago to capture the soul of a Daelkyr they were unable to banish. The Daelkyr was a master at mind controlling.

2) The ward had been weaken and the Daelkyr had been able to use his influence over the last decade. It was small, but he was slowly entering in the mind of people. Many people killed themselves. Jasper knew only of the last owner, but if you would have asked his staff, you would have heard of many more like story.

3) The poem was a warning. You had to read only the first and third line of each paragraph to read the warning properly. The second and fourth were there only to confuse unwanted intruder.

4) The room of Earth, the trap was obvious (Cave In), but if you wanted to spot that the Cave In was unstable, you needed to make a Dungeoneering check. That was the same as the unstable Pillar trap.

5) You got the Room of Air greatly. Twilsemail and Evilbob, you had been great on that one. I think you didn't made any Arcane or Nature check. High enough roll would have given hint on the meaning of the runes, which was name of some winds. Also, the little symbol added in front of some runes meant the wind was twice (or three time) stronger.

6) You got the Room of Water too.

7) The cultist wasn't planned in my first draft of adventure. I added them after suggestion of some judge, to break change the beat of puzzle solving. It was my first mistake because I didn't took the time to think about it. All the rooms had been played on my table top game, but not that encounter.

For the gnome and his two swordsmen, I wanted to make it clear that the swordsmen were zealot. They were brainwashed and no, they were not even caring about themselves. They were just obeying orders.

Those three together was en encounter level 2 or 3, their was no menace from them by themselves unless they acts like they were. Pis was vulnerable at that moment and tried to pass through the three. He had good chance to make it, but two lucky attack and barely enough damage to drop him made the change.

I'm in agreement, I guess, that a wrap-up is probably the best thing at this point. For one reason or another it seems that we have an increasingly adversarial relationship between players and DM, and that's not a good basis to keep playing on.

Ok, I'll make one last post, a wrap up, and let your leave.

I'll open the way to Twilsemail resurrection, so if he want to continue with that character, he will be welcome.

I'm sorry for the turn up of this adventure. Never meant to break your fun. I must tell, I, myself, had less fun to master it after the first combat, that should have warned me. I had many good adventure, good feedback, and I'm sad and frustrated after myself to have poorly handle this one.

If you wish to, I would like each of you to send me a private mail. Tell me what you liked, what you disliked, what you hate. I'll take a note of all that and make sure that the next adventure I make, I will not produce the same mistake.

Anyway, I think I'll take a break as a DM for a time at the moment. Time to think about this adventure and also time set a few thing in my real life that asks for time.

Just a quick note re: Coup de Grace and tactics

A coup de grace/killing an unconscious PC is one of the best moves an enemy can make even if the WF has him marked. Most people/intelligent NPC's are aware of magical healing, most have encountered Jorasco healers. If the enemy knows that there's magical healing out there, it's also a logical belief that PC's, being a group that leads a dangerous life, would go out and get it, however that is, i.e. potions, items, a healer, etc.

Therefore, as an intelligent enemy, I have a helpless foe here who I can permanently (at least until raise dead, which is less commonly known I'm sure) remove as a threat because otherwise they'll (the party) will use whatever magical healing they have on hand to bring them back to the fight. If it's a choice of that or attack the armored warforged... I'll take the chance.

Seems like you've all got things worked out here though. PM me if there's anything you need from me as well.

I agree about the coup de grace being effective in the land of magical healing, I guess I add a bit too much survival instint for the red shirts. I only ever killed PC's as a result of bad tactics, or put them in a position to kill themselves. I've also never triggered a defenders mark, since I always viewed it as a taunt and magical compulsion. Different strokes for different folks.

re: Coup de Grace

Yeah, honestly it sort of comes down to a philosophy thing. What you said is completely true and valid. On the other hand, what Mez said is also true and valid: in this situation, we had just killed the guy's boss and smacked him upside the head; the likelihood of him dying just to stab at us was decent enough and we were certainly going to kill him if he did it. One could argue that a merc at that point would cut his losses and surrender - it has been known to happen.

Velmont stated the guy was a zealot, and that is certainly the impression I got: he clearly intended to die with his action, but it was particularly shocking since we'd never even encountered these guys before.

Anyway, I guess it all comes down to context, and the situation itself. It's hard to kill a PC, frankly, and a lot of factors come into play. Not the least of which tends to be luck: in this case, Pis had a +8 against OAs or something like that and he still got hit - twice - for exactly his HP total. There was about 10 different ways the dice could have favored him, but it didn't happen. But in the end, it's all very situational.


re: Thread

Thanks for being honest and cool, everyone. Sorry this hasn't turned out better but any resolution that leaves everyone still playing PbP is a good resolution.

Mezegis said:

I guess I add a bit too much survival instint for the red shirts. I only ever killed PC's as a result of bad tactics, or put them in a position to kill themselves. I've also never triggered a defenders mark, since I always viewed it as a taunt and magical compulsion. Different strokes for different folks.

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re: survival instinct - of course different NPC's are different. In my Cannith game the NPC surrendered rather than "die for the cause" as he's only a merc working for gold.

re: Marks - I find some enemies may trigger them, especially mindless ones as if the bear is finding opening up the tin can knight hard, they may try the lightly armored rogue behind it.

I usually ignore mark at least once during a fight. Many creature, not PC class, have mark, and have no other effect than giving a -2 to hit. And side effect that a mark can trigger vary a lot in danger.

I usually assume that an NPC marked thinks, that guy can be dangerous, but it can be just an annoying guy too, so they likely to take a risk at some moment. They donèt know the concept of a PC and an NPC. Once the PC have shown his mark, now, that's another story, they know the consequence, and they might decide they can live with it too. Example: having the mark of a shielding swordmage and you want to stun that striker, you don't care much to get your damage reduce, the swordmage can do little to stop the monster to stun the striker.

re: Wrap Up

I'm not sure how Velmont is planning to wrap things up, but I'll go ahead and throw my final cards on the table here. Unit 16's plan was to go back to Jasper's house - since he is quite wealthy - and basically just take 1000g and use that to raise Pis and Jasper at the nearest temple. A bit odd, and possibly to be met with limited success, but that was the plan. Then, he was going to hand Jasper the platinum key and let him decide what to do with it, as well as whether or not he was going to shell out for any other raises.

I'm sure there are other ways to handle the situation but that was his bid. Also, I figured we would allow twils to decide in-game if he wanted to come back since Raise Dead still only works on voluntary participants.