If Medusa dies, do petrified players/NPCs come back from stone?

I think you should seek compromise with your players. If they are unwilling to compromise, fire them; if you let the players dictate events, eventually you will run up against the Czege Principle. Here are some ideas you could float past them.

1. If the medusa is killed, all victims she petrified within the past X days are un-petrified. That way, when someone is petrified by a medusa, it becomes a race against time to kill the medusa. X should be the number of days it took for the backup party to arrive.

2. When the medusa is killed, all her petrified victims get an additional Constitution saving throw to break free of the curse. This way, some party members might not make it, and the others will have to find a way to un-curse them. (Good thing they have 3 charges of greater restoration handy!)

3. A medusa can only permanently petrify 1 creature per day. The rest are temporary, and undone when she is killed. Whoever got hit first is stuck, though; the party will need to go on another quest to free that person.

4. In 5E, medusas suffer from some kind of curse. When she dies, her victims un-petrify, but THEY slowly begin to take on the curse. It's very gradual, and different features manifest in different characters at different rates ("That's weird, the poison didn't damage you...") so that the party can be creeped out and go in search of a solution.

5. The party-unpetrifies, and the medusa is FURIOUS about it, and comes back as a ghost to haunt them. Rather than attacking the group straight-up, she interferes with them in various ways, and makes hit-and-run attacks against lone characters. Her gaze is no longer petrifying; now it's a fear effect or something.

6. It wasn't really a medusa; it was a demon disguised as a medusa, and the characters were not really petrified, they were just under the illusion that they were petrified! Unfortunately, the demon is much worse, and comes back for revenge. She needs to be recognizable as the same creature somehow; maybe she taunts the characters for a time before striking, explaining that they thwarted her medusa disguise, etc.

7. Killing the medusa doesn't un-petrify victims; rather, breaking the curse on the medusa is what does it. In this particular case, killing her has broken the curse, or maybe some other event caused it. (For example, maybe the backup party looted her corpse and got a magical amulet that was causing the curse.) This way, other medusas in the setting can have different criteria for breaking the curse.

iserith said:

I'm a little confused by how you lay out who was petrified, whether the medusa has in fact been killed, where the Red Wizards got introduced, and where the PCs (old and new) are at this point. It's a bit of a jumble to me. But setting that aside for the moment, here's a good rule of thumb: If it hasn't been stated in game yet, then effectively it doesn't exist.

Therefore, if the PCs have not been told that a greater restoration spell is the only solution to removing the petrification, then it's really no issue to just go with what they think will work. If, however, they have been told that a greater restoration spell is the only solution to removing the petrification, then their theory about killing the medusa to achieve the same end cannot work as that would be contradicting what you already established about medusas and their petrification power.

And with that in mind, for any element of fiction that is important to framing the challenge, you want to get that out there up front as quickly as possible.

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Basically, the original PCs were exploring Chult/looking for a way to stop the deathquest/Omu/soulmonger (essentially following the story arc), but got killed by a medusa in Nangalore, a location somewhere deep in the jungles.

In my game, the Red Wizards are also looking for a way to stop the Death Curse, but are also hoping to profit from its cure on a massive world-wide scale. So, theres a bit of "race for the cure" going on. I have previously told the players that it is very possible that the Red Wizards could have come along the petrified PCs and restored them back to flesh if they wanted there old characters back. The Red Wizards could easily hold them in bondage or persuade them to work together temporarily.

Either way, the players came up with new characters and ultimately defeated the medusa. At this point, they want their old petrified characters to simply be restored to flesh (even if they have no connection to the old PCs whatsoever). They do not want the Red Wizards to come along and restore them. and they do not want a magic item with Greater Restoration. They simply want the death of the medusa to unleash everyone who was ever petrified to stone to come back to life (which is something i never hinted at or mentioned...im not sure where they got this idea from?)

Either way, i am not opposed to allowing them to have thier old PCs back. I just want it to make sense. I havnt heard from them or anyone a good explaination on how the death of medusa brings back to flesh everyone shes ever petrified other than DM overrule...which is something that i am willing (but reluctant) to do...

Klaudius Rex said:

They do not want the Red Wizards to come along and restore them. and they do not want a magic item with Greater Restoration.

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And I'll bet they didn't want to be petrified in the first place, and I'll bet they'd like it if magical treasure fell from the sky and landed in their laps. But that is not how games work. "A game is a series of interesting decisions" -- if the consequences of their encounters are negated, that's usually kind of boring.

Maybe it only works on relatively recent victims. Maybe it takes a year(or whatever time frame works best for your campaign) for the effect to set in permanently.

Edit: I get that you don’t see any reason why slaying the Medusa would turn characters back... but what is the reason why it can’t? I don’t really see this as a ‘hill to die on’.

Like 77IM says, you need to compromise with your players. Ask them for a solid reason killing the medusa will bring them back. If they are going to make demands on the game, they have to take some responsibility for ensuring their ideas are appropriate and interesting. In the long run, working for what they want, or challenging consequences will be more rewarding for them.

fjw70 said:

In my current campaign, one of the PCs was turned to stone by a Medusa and after the rest of the group killed the Medusa they took some of her blood and found an alchemist to make a potion to restore the stoned PC. Something like that could work.

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This is the most elegant solution.

blood...solution...get it?


nevermind.../exits thread

Klaudius Rex said:

Either way, the players came up with new characters and ultimately defeated the medusa. At this point, they want their old petrified characters to simply be restored to flesh (even if they have no connection to the old PCs whatsoever). They do not want the Red Wizards to come along and restore them. and they do not want a magic item with Greater Restoration. They simply want the death of the medusa to unleash everyone who was ever petrified to stone to come back to life (which is something i never hinted at or mentioned...im not sure where they got this idea from?)

Either way, i am not opposed to allowing them to have thier old PCs back. I just want it to make sense. I havnt heard from them or anyone a good explaination on how the death of medusa brings back to flesh everyone shes ever petrified other than DM overrule...which is something that i am willing (but reluctant) to do...

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And I want my lottery ticket to be the winning number. Unfortunately we don't get to dictate to the universe what we want to happen.

I once started a campaign where all the PCs were petrified and now thawed out, but 100 years later in the time frame from what they remember. Sometimes it helped, like when nobody knew about the secret door to the castle built 100 years ago, but one of the PCs. Mostly it hurt the PCs in that everything was new.

Another thought for a campaign is that killing the medusa brings everyone back to life in that a BBEG keeps petrifying his orc minions and eventually has enough to try and take over the world by simply killing the medusa. Think of the cost savings not needing to feed an army or shelter them. You could keep stock piling bad guys until the rainy day you unleashed WMD upon the word at the cost of only one medusa.

Seems like not a great place to be in. I think you've laid out the solutions for them. If they want those characters back, they need to do a little extra work. If they just thought the old characters would magically instantly return and didn't run that by you to see if it was a possibility, that is their fault. You can't just give the players whatever they want because they ask for it. You've already offered plenty of compromises to let them get their characters back. This is also Tomb of Annihilation, which is supposed to be more unforgiving when it comes to PC deaths.

Klaudius Rex said:

Basically, the original PCs were exploring Chult/looking for a way to stop the deathquest/Omu/soulmonger (essentially following the story arc), but got killed by a medusa in Nangalore, a location somewhere deep in the jungles.

In my game, the Red Wizards are also looking for a way to stop the Death Curse, but are also hoping to profit from its cure on a massive world-wide scale. So, theres a bit of "race for the cure" going on. I have previously told the players that it is very possible that the Red Wizards could have come along the petrified PCs and restored them back to flesh if they wanted there old characters back. The Red Wizards could easily hold them in bondage or persuade them to work together temporarily.

Either way, the players came up with new characters and ultimately defeated the medusa. At this point, they want their old petrified characters to simply be restored to flesh (even if they have no connection to the old PCs whatsoever). They do not want the Red Wizards to come along and restore them. and they do not want a magic item with Greater Restoration. They simply want the death of the medusa to unleash everyone who was ever petrified to stone to come back to life (which is something i never hinted at or mentioned...im not sure where they got this idea from?)

Either way, i am not opposed to allowing them to have thier old PCs back. I just want it to make sense. I havnt heard from them or anyone a good explaination on how the death of medusa brings back to flesh everyone shes ever petrified other than DM overrule...which is something that i am willing (but reluctant) to do...

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Basically, my approach would be:

If the PCs were told about how greater restoration is the only method for reversing the petrification PRIOR to them saying that killing the medusa is the way to do it, then their proposal is invalid.

If the PCs were NOT told about how greater restoration is the only method for reversing the petrification prior to them saying that killing the medusa is the way to do it, then their proposal may be accepted.

How and in what order this played out would determine my response.

As far as having things make sense, it's a fictional world, man. You can literally make up anything. (It's just easier to do that if the answer hasn't already been established.)