Bad GM rulings? How would you rule?

[azhrei_fje]

Option 2: BBEG casts Trap the Soul on the PC and takes it along as he flees.

I appreciate your viewpoint. And I agree that other options are valid. Heck, there are probably dozens of options!

Trap the soul was not one of them, though -- that spell is an 8th level arcane spell and the BBEG is a cleric and not that high a level. And when a cleric needs to take out a sleeping creature, do you really think they'll use a spell when a knife works just as well? (To be honest, I'm not sure the BBEG has many spells left at this point. And the weapon was better than a knife, but I don't want to give any information to players who may be going through this module right now.)

In fact, the CdG was a much better situation for the PCs. They have two clerics in the party who can cast raise dead. If I were to Trap the Soul or something similar, I would have my BBEG plane shift somewhere and leave the soul there. In fact, this is an evil cult of elemental worshippers ... how about I give the soul to the recently summoned Prince of Elemental Fire?

No, death is -- ironically -- a much better approach.

(From a module standpoint, the party doesn't have time for a side quest to retrieve a PC's soul. In a very short time, the cult will summon Yan-C-Bin and may start the destruction of the Prime Material Plane shortly after. Or rather, the destruction of EVERYTHING shortly after. It only takes a single night to prepare raise dead and IMC there is only a special negative level, not a true level loss -- when they next level-up, the negative level goes away. And the cost in material components is one-half normal. IMO, this is the quickest and least painful way for the players to know that the BBEG is seriously pissed at them and they need to stay on their toes. After all, this cleric could've fed the PC's soul to an evil artifact. No recovery whatsoever except by divine intervention.)

 

[Animal]

Whatever your reasons, and I do respectfully disagree with them, killing a PC in the way you did just seems spiteful. This isn't real life or realistic, so there is no need to insist on auto-killing a PC. If you want realism, get the BBEG to teleport to them while they're sleeping, invisble, cast disintegrate on the sentry, and then CdG the whole party. You win.

so you run games where party is never caught flatfooted?
imho, it's not about realism. it's about consistency. if my DM took on option 2 i'd seriously reconsider playing with him. such behavior just can't be expected from a BBEG. who wants to play an endless comics for 5 year olds, where baddies never kill stupid heroes, but imprison them, waiting for batman to come and spank their hapless asses? boring! D&D is about violence, risk and bloodshed (it's true). players must know that their foes are wielding real steel swords just like they are, not some rubber clubs.
but of course, it's a question of taste.

 

[MithrasRahl]

I have no problem with PC death. What I do have a problem with is PC death in a situation where they are far removed from being able to do anything about it.

I'm kind of confused about the Raise Dead though, it seems a relatively harmless penalty for dying, so why go extra hard with the bad guys when the penalty isn't that great? Wouldn't it run a bit smoother if you never auto-killed a PC, but also had a harsher penalty when they really scdrewed up and when of them died as a result?

 

[Zelc]

1B. OF COURSE you take damage when you stick your hand into a magical blender! It makes no sense whatsoever to let someone do that without consequence.

Let's go down this path and see where the logic takes us. So, if we stick something through the Blade Barrier, it takes damage. Well, what if someone tries to swing a Longsword through it? The Longsword would take 15d6 damage. That's an average of 52.5 damage. A +3 Longsword has a hardness of 16 and 35 HP, enough to survive 51 damage. Oh look, we have a broken +3 Longsword! The Blade Barrier would also destroy arrows and other ranged weapons.

So instead of a level 6 spell that deals good damage, lasts multiple rounds, and provides cover, the spell also blocks pretty much all weapon attacks through it. It's like Uber-Wind Wall, because it also stops most melee attacks (if not the first, then probably the second), on top of all the other stuff like damage and cover.

When dealing with these kinds of things, game balance is the first and foremost thing to worry about. Maybe there are large holes in the Blade Barrier to attack through, but they're too small to walk through. There are enough broken spells, we don't need to create another one.

Just keep this message in mind:
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[irdeggman]

you guys shouldn't be mobbing OP like that. he didn't ask how he should run his campaign and play his baddies. he asked if he should have forced PCs to stay in combat mode. my answer is NO. never force players to do anything even if its for their own good. the most you can provide is a slight hint.

No he actually asked about a series of rulings he made (that his players questioned) - which leads to the path of how he runs his campaign, since the way the rulings were made (including the stopping while fleeing to perform a CDG on two characters) leads (or is derived from) how the game is being run.

 

[moritheil]

Frank used to describe fireball as "fat licks of flame" to avoid such issues. ("But if the area is TOTALLY full of flame, how can they avoid taking full damage? And how does evasion work?")

 

[boolean]

Let's go down this path and see where the logic takes us. So, if we stick something through the Blade Barrier, it takes damage. Well, what if someone tries to swing a Longsword through it?

They (the character, not the longsword) take the appropriate damage. The longsword is an attended item. Attended items only take damage if the character posessing them roll a natural 1 on their save.

 

[Zelc]

They (the character, not the longsword) take the appropriate damage. The longsword is an attended item. Attended items only take damage if the character posessing them roll a natural 1 on their save.

Well, that doesn't make sense, and I guess that's fairly important if you want to make rulings based on making sense . It's not their body part they're sticking through the Blade Barrier, it's the weapon. If you really want to press the point, I can use the example of a reach weapon instead. So it's the poor fighter's +3 Longspear that gets shredded.

Again, I'm not talking about the character passing through the barrier, I'm talking about the character attacking through the barrier.

 

[Elethiomel]

Honestly, people. Where's this whole "we must not kill unconscious characters left behind inside the BBEG's lair" come from? I mean, the way you guys post it seems like the GM decided to teleport a sleeping character from their own bedroom into a dangerous area and *then* directed the BBEG there out of pure evil. Man.

The players had plenty of opportunity to not let that PC die. How? By not letting them lie helpless in the lair of the BBEG.

Maybe it's just me, but whenever I roleplay I never go "but the evil GM killed my character", I instead go "wow, that BBEG sure was mean and nasty and stuff".

 

[Infiniti2000]

After hearing more of the story, I agree with your ruling on the BBEG and ethereal jaunt, azhrei_fje. Tell your "rules lawyer" player (who doesn't know the rules on Listen checks) to just shut up, that you have the how's and why's well in hand and that all will be made clear at some future point.

Just keep in mind that you're using a very powerful ability for her that was unforeseen in the module. Perhaps you did not consider how that would play into the death of a PC. It's a fine ruling if it helps the story (the attack from the other board) or provides a very useful escape route, but it sucks when it's 'abused' merely to kill a PC. Killing the traitor is okay, but it's also quite reasonable to assume that she's pressed for time. She need not push fate to see if she can get away with another murder.

Also, there's some truth in what the poster said about it being lame. Ignore how justified it is for the BBEG or any other similar in-game concern. It just sucks as a player for your character to be killed like that, out of combat. And, maybe I missed it, but this player wasn't even there, right?