Big Climatic Battle -- Fizzles due to save or die...

[sorites]

Last night the party formulated a plan (a couple, actually) to assassinate a ranking member of the evil enemy organization. They made good use of Etherealness and Silence to ensure that they would not be spotted, nor heard while they made their attack.

They ambushed him while he slept in his bed and used Slay Living to kill him. He rolled a 4 on his save.

It should have been a big battle, but it fizzled due to the save or die spell they laid on him. They came up with a good plan, but in the end, I know at least one player was disappointed the plan went so well. I agreed with him. I was hoping for a big battle, but the way they did it, I just couldn't see how the enemy could mount a defense.... I don't want to punish them for coming up with a good plan, but at the same time, I want the game to be interesting and fun.

Making a plan is fun, but it's also fun to deal with the mess when you're plan starts to fall apart. Do you think I should have just handwaved a reason for their plan to fail?

 

[heymejack]

all villians should follow this very important rule: always have an escape plan. your bbeg should have had some sort of trap door under his bed, or something. killed in his sleep? yeah, i'd say you just have to be dm/god and make something happen so he gets away. should the players still be rewarded for having such a good plan and great execution of said plan? of course. they're in the bedroom of the bad guy, there has to be some advantage to be had in there. they find his weapon/journal complete with secret plans/map to macguffin/whatever.

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

Do you think I should have just handwaved a reason for their plan to fail?

Not in the slightest.

You say he was a high-ranking member of an evil organization. That means that the party should have faced challenges getting in (ethereal solids in the walls, guardians with see invisibility/true seeing, etc.), they should have faced challenges finding the guy (illusionary or transmuting layout, scry-proof rooms, etc.), and they should probably have run into active room defenses (fire trapped/explosive runed doors, etc.) but once you finally get to the room, when you have four powerful, silent, ethereal characters versus one sleeping, helpless character, a death spell should be a one-hit KO. A coup de grace would have ended the same way...or a regular damaging spell...or a mind-control spell...or whatever other tactic you want to try, because they have their enemy at their mercy. Being ticked off that a dramatic boss battle was ended by a natural 1 vs. a SoD is one thing, but a middle-of-the-night assassination that goes off as planned should do that with enough preparation.

Now, there could still have been ways to protect the baddie--maybe his wards summon creatures that can wake him, maybe he sleeps with a death ward up, and so on--but let the PCs have their fun. If it's just the one PC, throw a nice battle their way later. If every PC was disappointed that it went so well...then why the heck didn't they just charge in blind instead of, y'know, making a plan?

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Sometimes things actually work as planned.
That's one of the hazards of D&D.


Sounds like you did what you could, especially in a world with save-or-dies. Best chalk it up to a learning experience, make sure the next BBEG has a fool-proof escape route or a good way to really soften up the PCs, and carry on. Heck, next time maybe the players will slip up and underestimate your deviousness...

 

[HoboGod]

Killing the BBEG in his sleep? That's the kind of thing that just doesn't happen in good fiction. The BBEG is always scrying on his enemies. Unless they devised this plan in a scry-proof zone, the BBEG knew the party was coming that night and would totally use a double in his place. And even then, the BBEG is so paranoid that the true place he sleeps should be a pit of endless booby traps.

 

[Magesmiley]

I think I would let the players' plan go ahead - there should be a return for careful planning. Look at it as an opportunity to spring more adventures on them.

You noted that he was part of an organization. What would the organization's response to this be? The players may have just set themselves up as a major target for the organization. Equal ranking members of the organization to the one who was slain may suddenly see the PCs as a major threat, causing them to cooperate in a manner they ortherwise might not have in order to eliminate the threat. Folks in the organization higher ranking are also likely to take note. Furthermore, said individuals will probably do their best to figure out how the PCs managed to pull it off, and set up defenses (or even a trap) if they should try it again.

 

[Water Bob]

Making a plan is fun, but it's also fun to deal with the mess when you're plan starts to fall apart. Do you think I should have just handwaved a reason for their plan to fail?

It is the job of the DM to guide the story and keep the intriguing and addicitive. But, in this situation, I say, "Let the Players have one."

I bet most of your players, besides the one you mention, are patting themselves on the back for a job well done.

Make a big deal out of it. Slap some praise out of it. They are heroes, and they pulled off the IMPOSSIBLE. Make them feel that way. Make them feel like they've just done something amazing.

Then...

Use what they did in your plot.

I don't know how your story is going, but, off the top of my head, let's say their fame grows a bit "on the street" for their deed. Inside their own organization, word of what they did spreads.

At first, this will be cool--a sense of celebrity. The local whores will sleep with the PCs for free. The alekeep won't accept their gold when they drink.

Then, after a night of revelry, a man comes knocking. He's heard of them. "Oh, cool!" The players think, "Man, we did so good its turned into work!"

The job....Somebody has killed this big wig in the other organization, and the organization wants to find out who did it. They're distrustful of people in their own organization and needed to go outside to hire professionals. The PC's fame has spread, even to them, though the organization doesn't know exactly what the PC's did.

So...the PCs are hired, if they take the job, to find out who killed the big wig. I'd save this part--let them find out the details of the job after being hired.

Ever seen that movie No Way Out with Kevin Costner? Rent it. Pay attention to how the drama unfolds as he has to search for himself.

So, the PCs can start feeding false information to the organization. Maybe they try to set someone up.

But, there're in some hot water now....because the big-wig's brother is even higher up in the organization and is leading up the investigation.

If not this, then some other idea. You understand where I'm going. Don't turn your game into a "bad game" because the PCs' plan worked. Use it in your game to build it up and make it fantastic.

What the PCs did can be a stepping stone to a bigger, badder, more absorbing adventure down the road.

 

[kinem]

It sounds like it went just the way it should have.

That doesn't mean that there will be no challenges/repercussions in the PCs' future.

Want to really be evil? Bring the bad guy back ... as a ghost

 

[Water Bob]

Want to really be evil? Bring the bad guy back ... as a ghost

That's a good idea.

Or...just bring the guy back. If he's that high in the organization, maybe they'll raise dead on him.

Have the PCs been using a lot of clerical healing? Regeneration? Raise Dead? Etc?

If so, show them what it's like to be on the other side of that magic.

"Wait! I thought we killed him already!"

 

[sorites]

Thanks for all your replies. I'm definitely going to have the organization respond in some fashion -- this will not go unnoticed, and the party definitely knows that. Really, it was mainly that this particular NPC baddie was important to the one character's backstory (the first of three on a hit list, think Kill Bill).

Here's a little more info about the campaign. Any more ideas and comments are welcome!

The campaign is set in Zhentil Keep in the Moonsea, and the evil organization is the Zhentarim. The NPC was a mid-ranking captain named Marcus. In my game, I've broken the Zhentarim leadership down into five ranks, and Marcus was a three-star. He was a 9th-level Ranger formerly responsible for training and leading a small unit of specialized soldiers, now promoted to administrative duties.

I am playing up the martial law aspect of Zhentil Keep. To move around the city, you must have papers and be able to produce them at any time. The Zhentarim are constantly on the lookout for traitors and agents working against them. Fzoul Chembryl recently addressed the citizens of the Keep with a massive display of force. He has thousands of Zhentarim troops stationed in the Keep. Then, during the assembly, he used his Scepter's (artifact) Rod of Rulership ability to command a large number of people to serve him and then brought out a group of four beholders to further illustrate the Zhentarim's might. The beholders floated over the throng of people and zapped anyone who ran away. Those who stood their ground and proclaimed their allegiance to Bane and Fzoul were spared.

One of the party members is a former Zhentarim soldier who, so that he might be free of their grip, killed all the members of his patrol (this is his backstory). He is now living underground in Zhentil Keep and biding his time until he can finish off the three remaining Zhentarim who can identify him by face and name. They are: Captain Marcus (three-star), his former superior officer, as yet unnamed (four-star), and Scullya Darkhope, Castellon of Zhentil Keep (five-star).

Another party member is a cleric of Shar. In my version of the Zhenatarim, the Bane is "the One True God" and the Church has brought several other "lesser" deities under Bane's dominant fist. Shar serves Bane by secretly working with Zhenatarim investigators as a kind of secret police. A specialized Zhenatarim interrogator acts as the muscle and asks the questions. The Sharran stands cloaked in the corner casting spells like Discern Lies, etc. to determine if the subject is a traitor or not. A mere nod from one of these Sharrans is enough to have a man thrown in prison for the rest of his life (or worse).

In reality, the Sharrans give only lip service to Bane and are actively working to undermine the Church's control over the city. They hate the Zhentarim and the Church of Bane and would love to see it all crumble. Therefore, the Sharran PC is actually a double-agent. He works for the Zhentarim and is a paper-carrying member (though his Sharran status is nowhere mentioned on his papers). He also works with the party to destabilize the Zhenatarim. This has led to many in-game arguments as the ex-Zhentarim PC tries to learn the true identity and motivations of his shady party member. (Great RP, there.)

The third party member is actually a Master of Masks who uses a combination of Disguise Self, the Disguise skill, and Perform (Act) skill to impersonate lots of different people in the city. The plan was for the group to kill Captain Marcus and then have this guy "become" Marcus. Unfortunately, they forgot to account for Marcus's animal companion (a dog) which they killed along with him in his apartment.

After killing Marcus, they put his corpse and the dog's body in their bag of holding. I think Resurrection requires you have a part of the corpse. I'm not sure they would spend the money on a True Resurrection for Marcus. I mean, the Zhenatarim and the Church *do* want to root out traitors in their midst, but a True Res. is quite expensive.

Before they killed Marcus, he had become quite suspicious of one of the men serving beneath him. Brandwyn (NPC) is one of the special investigators who had been paired with a Sharran cleric (PC). About half-way through the campaign, the cleric decides to kill Brandwyn, so the party sets and ambush, they kill him, and the Master of Masks (PC) takes his place. So for the last couple of months, Marcus has been dealing with a PC in disguise. The PC's disguise check is always off the chart, as is his Acting skill checks. But there have been enough weird things happen that Marcus no longer trusts Brandwyn. He did not yet realize that Brandwyn was dead, but if he had survived to see the next day, he was going to requisition the use of a Banite Cleric to cast Scry for him. I believe the spell would have failed because the subject (Brandwyn) is dead. That would have immediately made Marcus deduce that his must subordinate is dead, but since he'd been talking to him recently, it *must* be someone in disguise.


Now, I think the party is considering getting out of town for a while and laying low. They have a "side quest" (as they put it) to do off in the swamps of Thar if they want to. Or, they might decide to stay in town. Who knows. I'm trying to make this a player-driven campaign, and so far, they are doing a great job. It's been a lot of fun, and I've even had one of the players tell me it's been the best D&D game he's played yet.

The PCs are around 10th level right now. There are four in the party. I'd kind of like to have the Zhentarim track and follow them if they leave the city, but I want it to be believable. The Zhentarim has access to a lot of magic and resources, but it is also a bureaucracy and a trade organization. It doesn't waste money. Any thoughts on how I could realistically harass them on the roads leading away from the Keep? I mean, I could throw in some random encounters with caravans and so forth, but I think a scout patrol or something where they are specifically looking for these guys would be best. The only problem: the party left no witnesses, not even a corpse to Speak with Dead.