D&D 5E Make Characters being affected from conditions without telling Players explicitly?

lkwpeter · Aug 12, 2017

Hi,

for my next adventure as a DM I want my party to pass a magic elven forest. The forest will try to stop the players from passing through it by influecing them with magic & disease. My aim is to make the Players use their advantages to pass through it.

The following points are planned:

Strange lights charm the characters and make them follow them into the deeper forest, if they fail a WIS saving throw against DC 17. They move slowly 5 foot every round into different directions. They need to make their saving throw every turn, until they solve this problem generally. Our bard could countercharm. Or the cleric could cast Beacon of Hope to get them advantage against WIS saving throws.
Thorns are cutting through their armor while travelling. After 1 hour everybody gets diseased that fails a CON saving throw agains DC 17. A Medcine check could tell them that this is a desease. Otherwise the cleric could cast Detect Poison and Desease and cure it afterwards.
The characters hear strange and dangerous sounding noises. If they decide to go off the road to look after them, they will need to find their way back with Survival against DC 20. Each missed check makes them walk in circles for one hour.

But I have the following problems implementing those things:

How do I determine, which characters are affected by desease/charm, etc. without giving them too information about what's going on? If I ask them to make a CON saving throw they immediately know it must be a poison or desease. If I tell them "You missed the saving throw, you are charmed ..." they know it's the charm condition (with some extra features).
But how can I implement those things, so that they still need find out themselves? If I roll the dice hidden, they won't be able to use the Inspiration from the Bard and they - indeed - have very little information about what's going on.
Should I just rule that Character X + Y get affected (without any checks)? They could maybe start thinking that I use my DM power abritrarily...

Would be very glad about some help!

Thanks in advance

Peter

Shiroiken · Aug 12, 2017

Lights
Rather than have it be a round by round (or turn by turn), I'd have it as a traveling event. Everyone rolls a Wis save, and each player that fails wanders off. It will take the party time to regroup, possibly needing wis/survival checks to determine how long. I would say based on your other event, that 1 hour per wandering PC, with each successful wis/survival check reducing the time by 1 hour. Alternately, use this as part of a combat, where charmed characters move into hazardous terrain. In either case, you need to be aware of who is immune/resistant to charm effects (like elves).

Thorns
This is easy. Tell them the travel has been particularly rough, and they need to make a Con save. Don't tell them the DC, nor if they pass or fail. Simply note the result and mention the infection after the next short/long rest. If you feel merciful, you can make a check against the character's passive medicine.

Noise
How does this need any help? The only thing you might do is warn them in advance they're entering mystic/fey/dangerous woods, and they should already be on their guard.

BoldItalic · Aug 12, 2017

You can ask them to roll a d20 without telling them what it's for, then ask to look at their character sheets and do the adjustments yourself, decide the result and still not tell them what's going on. They will know that something scary is happening and worry about what it is.

lkwpeter · Aug 12, 2017

Shiroiken said:
Lights
Thorns
This is easy. Tell them the travel has been particularly rough, and they need to make a Con save. Don't tell them the DC, nor if they pass or fail. Simply note the result and mention the infection after the next short/long rest. If you feel merciful, you can make a check against the character's passive medicine.

That's a perfect idea. I always thought of doing the saving throw right before the effect. But this one quite a simple and perfect idea! Thanks!

BoldItalic said:
You can ask them to roll a d20 without telling them what it's for, then ask to look at their character sheets and do the adjustments yourself, decide the result and still not tell them what's going on. They will know that something scary is happening and worry about what it is.

I was thinking about that too. But the problem is, I want to split the group. For example:

a) the ones who fail the save (e.g. they want to go after the noise) and
b) the ones who succeed the save (e.g. they think it's an illusion and want to stay).

If I do so, all the characters with high results will know that they are right. That's actually my main problem for all situations. I know this is meta gaming, but my Players will likely do so. :-(

JonnyP71 · Aug 12, 2017

If you don't want them to know the results of a save then the easiest way is for you to roll the dice yourself.

It was common in older versions of D&D for the DM to make quite a few hidden rolls on behalf of PCs, but it seems to have fallen out of favour. I still do it frequently though.

And regarding the issue of not being able to use Bardic inspiration, seriously so what? That's not a problem. Just say that's it's not usable because the PCs are not aware of anything happening..

One other aspect you might try - imagine a circumstance where a successful save causes an adverse effect, similar maybe to the possible bad effects of successful Idea rolls in Call of Cthulhu. Fail the save, oblivious to the danger, but pass the save and you understand the true nature of the peril, and that's what causes the insanity.

lkwpeter · Aug 13, 2017

JonnyP71 said:
If you don't want them to know the results of a save then the easiest way is for you to roll the dice yourself.

It was common in older versions of D&D for the DM to make quite a few hidden rolls on behalf of PCs, but it seems to have fallen out of favour. I still do it frequently though.

And regarding the issue of not being able to use Bardic inspiration, seriously so what? That's not a problem. Just say that's it's not usable because the PCs are not aware of anything happening..

One other aspect you might try - imagine a circumstance where a successful save causes an adverse effect, similar maybe to the possible bad effects of successful Idea rolls in Call of Cthulhu. Fail the save, oblivious to the danger, but pass the save and you understand the true nature of the peril, and that's what causes the insanity.

Thanks for your answer. I like your suggestions. But they have one problem: If I roll secretly or inverse the effect of a succesful check, the players don't have any clue what is right and what is wrong.

Simple example. If I say:

a) "Character A believes the party should go and look for the noise."
b) "The other characters believe that ignoring the noises seems a better idea."

Doing so, the Players have a 50/50 chance to take the right oder wrong decision. They need to guess.

I am serching for way to not let them actually know what is right/wrong, but giving them tiny hints, so they have a chance to find out without them having to guess.

How would you do that?

Yunru · Aug 13, 2017

Well one problem I see there is b. You shouldn't be deciding what the characters believe unless they fail.
If succeeding the save means they know it's an illusion then it's no problem. They know it's an illusion. Will they try and stop characters a? Probably, why wouldn't they?

It's not the saving throw that's the problem, it's that the idea doesn't work to force the party to split. More likely you'll get everyone either following the lights (be it charmed or to find out the source of the illusion), or no-one will (the charmed being restrained by the uncharmed).

lkwpeter · Aug 13, 2017

Yunru said:
Well one problem I see there is b. You shouldn't be deciding what the characters believe unless they fail.
If succeeding the save means they know it's an illusion then it's no problem. They know it's an illusion. Will they try and stop characters a? Probably, why wouldn't they?

That's a good point. But if I let them roll a WIS saving throw and tell those guys who failed that "they believe the party should go and look for the noise", they instantly know it's a bad effect (because they know they missed the check).

So, I could do a hidden check (as the DM), right? But then I would have the problem that the Players have no clue to find out what's right and what's wrong.

Are there any other ways? Is it just not possible to solve this issue?

Sunseeker · Aug 13, 2017

Typically I just call for the check, and then go "hmmm okay." and note down on my side of the table who is affected by what. This works better if you have a DM screen. Sometimes I'll say the same if they succeed, just to throw people off. If players start getting meta, like "OH, he made a roll, it was kinda low (5) I should check him for problems!" I'll wag my finger at them until they either stop or can produce a reasonable reason to want to check on that person.

If you want a single person to do something, I suggest flash cards. Pre-write on them the effect: "You want to follow the light." Fold it in half so noone else can see it when you hand it to the player. Make a couple of them that say "The light is not particularly interesting." and hand them out to people who pass the check, again to throw other people off.

I would also suggest not telling people the DCs of the checks.

hawkeyefan · Aug 13, 2017

Jot down all the PCs' saving throws and Perception scores on an index card prior to play. Then when relevant, ask the player to make a D20 roll. Don't say it's a saving theow or perception check or whatever. Then, narrate the results of the roll. This way you can pass it off as a perception roll or whatever.

I personally will ask a player to make a D20 roll from tine to time for no reason whatsoever just to keep them on their toes.

Based on the rolls, some players may figure out something's up, but that's okay. They won't know exactly what...which is good; uncertainty is pretty powerful.