D&D 5E [Tomb of Annihilation] The Flaming Fist

[fjw70]

I tend to not have authority figures harass adventurers so the conflicts between the two groups doesn't come up much in my games. If adventures were to abuse authorities in the civilized areas then I would have an Avengers type answer for them (as all super villains deserve).

In general I try to keep the conflicts in uncivilized or evil areas of the world.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The 50 gp charter is nothing, just as you say. The "confiscate half of all loot" is another matter... that's outrageous at ANY level.

And which is a clear-cut example of why from a story-perspective you can't just "ignore" encounters that are meant for lower-level parties as though those encounters don't exist. One, because a lot of the those encounters are just interesting from a story-perspective and to pretend like they don't exist means excising large swathes of the adventure... and Two, so long as you are treating the entirety of Chult as a sandbox you will go back and forth within as you adventure around it, you will always encounter these encounters regardless of what level you are at.

Thus it makes little narrative sense to pretend the Flaming Fist aren't there, if for no other reason that what the FF are statted out to expect and demand from the PCs are good for only a certain period of time within the adventure when the PCs are level appropriate. If the FF are there, and they have a dominant position within the hierarchy of the NPCs of ToA... they should always be a potential antagonist the PCs need to deal with, and should always have both a narrative *and* mechanical authority to remain a legitimate antagonist. Otherwise, you're basically just erasing one of the large antagonist from the game just because they were mechanically designed for only a "certain level" of PC.

At least to me, that is very unsatisfying. So I applaud coming up with new ideas on how to maintain a potential for antagonism.

 

[DEFCON 1]

In general I try to keep the conflicts in uncivilized or evil areas of the world.

I think D&D works best and makes the most narrative "sense" when this is done. It isn't designed to work as well the other way. It can be done... but it requires either massive player buy-in, or a large amount of rules adjustment.

 

[Sacrosanct]

In D&D life is cheap. .

Not in this particular adventure it's not It's quite permanent. You die here, you die for good. No take backs.

The 50 gp charter is nothing, just as you say. The "confiscate half of all loot" is another matter... that's outrageous at ANY level.

The reason I brought up 50gp is because by the time the PCs get that (can be as early as level 1 ), the whole thing is moot anyway. They would have enough to get a charter and do what they want. So let's say you have a party of level 5 PCs. They are approached by the FF who declare they are the legal authority and demand the 50gp as a charter fee, or they will confiscate the items. The party looks around at each other and says, "10gp a person? I spend more than that on a meal. No probs." I.e., there wouldn't be much incentive for the PCs to fight the "law" just to save 50gp. At 5th level, they probably have a lot more than that in their pockets.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I thought about Animal Messenger, yes, but it doesn't have the range unless you upcast it. Of course, that's a minor nitpick. My bigger reason was that Flaming Fist didn't strike me as particularly "in phase with nature".

I'm not talking animal messenger. I'm talking actual trained animal like carrier/homing pigeon (probably a parrot given the setting.) Each patrol has a couple and will either write a note for the fort, or just release them if it looks like they won't survive a fight.
When a patrol's parrot arrives back at the fort, that is when magic may become involved, probably through Speak with Animal to find out what the parrot saw before it left and to tell it to lead reinforcements back to where it was released. Reinforcements include tracker dogs/dinos and more powerful NPCs. Their intent is probably not to be able to rescue the patrol, but more to investigate what killed them and to recover the bodies - including destroying any undead that they may have risen as.

I can imagine that while they aren't going to be resurrecting dead members, that sort of organisation may well have the sort of loyalty and contracts to invest very significant resources into ensuring members slain in the line of duty are not abandoned as undead.

Remember, for veteran players feeding their slain foes to the crocodiles to prevent Speak with Dead comes naturally after decades of playing D&D!

If the party is made up of the sort of CE murderhoboes that that implies, simply being the authorities isn't going to impress them. You'll probably need capability to apply fairly major sanctions to divert that merry band of munchkins. - Particularly if they're just playing their characters as XP-and loot- gathering proxies of themselves.

Not seeing the relevance for this adventure...?

Not being able to buy anything or hire any guides is probably going to put a severe crimp on the party's navigation or capability to actually find the useful areas in the trackless jungle.

 

[futrtrubl]

I actually don't see the Flaming Fist as the authority in Chult. They have power sure, but it's been stated that if the Chultans had a standing army they would have been run out a while ago. Some Chultans of course appreciate that they are at least doing something about the threats in the wilderness, eg the guide that's the son of a merchant prince, while his mother considers him a spy against the Fist. My party will of course be warned that there could be repercussions beyond Chult if they do decide to take them on since my campaign will continue after the end of ToA. Their Chultan guide will tell them of the Fist and the license but will not require they go for one from this foreign invader.

 

[JeffB]

Why not have the patrols on mounts? dinosaurs, e.g.

When in Rome.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I absolutely agree with your larger point towards the bottom, and goes along with it feeling weird for me in 4E when a goblin and a dragon could both become CR 15 challenges for no other reason than to actually make a threatening creature actually a mechanical threat should it devolve into violence.

In 3e & 4e you could 'level up' a monster, sure (in 3e, by literally giving it class levels), but it wasn't like you had to, there were plenty of monsters at any given level, and nothing illegal about allowing a lower-level creature to exist in the party's presence.

In 5e, with BA, it's not really an issue. A low-challenge patrol might be a minor encounter in a vacuum, but even if they're not equipped with magical body cams, the point of the patrol is the organization, not the patrol itself, and there's no way to entirely suppress information.

If sending scrolls fit the tennor and background of your take on the setting, that's just fine, you get a sense of verisimilitude with consumable items filling the role of technology, making the world pervasively magical, like the feel of Ebberron writ small. Or the magical solution might be more centralized, a tame, but very capable, Diviner who investigates missing patrols or the like (to keep magic more rare/powerful in the setting). Or the reporting or investigation could be more mundane. Witnesses could be questioned in an altercation happened in town, or patrols could be shadowed by informants, or have those homing pigeon equivalents someone mentioned.

Personally, my feeling is that heroes being harassed under color of authority is fairly meh, and would rather have a powers-that-be with which they could share some level of common interest or mutual respect.

 

[fjw70]

I actually don't see the Flaming Fist as the authority in Chult. They have power sure, but it's been stated that if the Chultans had a standing army they would have been run out a while ago. Some Chultans of course appreciate that they are at least doing something about the threats in the wilderness, eg the guide that's the son of a merchant prince, while his mother considers him a spy against the Fist. My party will of course be warned that there could be repercussions beyond Chult if they do decide to take them on since my campaign will continue after the end of ToA. Their Chultan guide will tell them of the Fist and the license but will not require they go for one from this foreign invader.

That's a good point. In such wilderness areas without any democratic systems in place then the authority is whomever has the most power. If the PCs are more powerful then they can start calling themselves the local authority.

 

[CapnZapp]

And which is a clear-cut example of why from a story-perspective you can't just "ignore" encounters that are meant for lower-level parties as though those encounters don't exist. One, because a lot of the those encounters are just interesting from a story-perspective and to pretend like they don't exist means excising large swathes of the adventure... and Two, so long as you are treating the entirety of Chult as a sandbox you will go back and forth within as you adventure around it, you will always encounter these encounters regardless of what level you are at.

Thus it makes little narrative sense to pretend the Flaming Fist aren't there, if for no other reason that what the FF are statted out to expect and demand from the PCs are good for only a certain period of time within the adventure when the PCs are level appropriate. If the FF are there, and they have a dominant position within the hierarchy of the NPCs of ToA... they should always be a potential antagonist the PCs need to deal with, and should always have both a narrative *and* mechanical authority to remain a legitimate antagonist. Otherwise, you're basically just erasing one of the large antagonist from the game just because they were mechanically designed for only a "certain level" of PC.

At least to me, that is very unsatisfying. So I applaud coming up with new ideas on how to maintain a potential for antagonism.

You aren't addressing that to me, are you?

I mean, I'm going for the opposite of ignoring the Flaming Fist...?

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