Should this be fixed

[Elf Witch]

My DM likes to give funky things as treasure instead of just dropping a ton of gold or gems in the game. Part of her fun is coming up with some strange items.

We just defeated a major bad guy and we were expecting a nice pay off. We got some cool magic items. But there was only about 300 in coins and gems in his lair.

He had on shelves a ton of oddities like beholder stalks in a jar a dragon's head stuffed and a bunch of small skeletons of various animals and magical beasts. When you looked at them they moved. Not in a menacing way they just moved as they would if they were alive.

I made a successful arcana check and I realized that these were a lost form of necromancy that used to be used to teach anatomy at magical and other colleges.

I told the party this and the cleric detected evil and they were not evil.

The party voted to take the items and sell them. I was going to cast tensor's floating disc to get them out. One of the party a dwarf follower of St Cuthbert kept protesting that necromancy is evil. Even though in the game world it is not.

Anyway we had to go take care of an ooze in another room and the dwarf took his greater invisibility potion went back into the room and smashed all the skeletons.

It turns out that those skeletons were worth around 30,000 GP the bulk of our reward.

I am annoyed but I am also like well we made our bed so be it. But there is some hostility over this and one player feels that it is not fair and the DM should find away to get us more treasure.

I don't think she should. And to be honest she does not either she feels that we were given a lot of information which we were that these were valuable items and that we would have no problem finding a buyer and that they were not dangerous or evil.

She tried to stop the player from doing it by having him make a wisdom roll but he was determined and she won't tell a player how to play. She also had the rest of us make listen checks and spot checks but we all failed.

So do you think the fair thing would be to find a way to give us more treasure?

 

[pawsplay]

I let my players get within 20' of the most valuable sapphire in the world, an essentially priceless gem that could fetch hundreds of thousands if not millions of gold pieces if you could find a wealthy-enough buyer, perhaps an ancient gold dragon or an emperor. Then the wizard carelessly destroyed it with a fireball. Oops.

 

[falcarrion]

My DM likes to give funky things as treasure instead of just dropping a ton of gold or gems in the game. Part of her fun is coming up with some strange items.

We just defeated a major bad guy and we were expecting a nice pay off. We got some cool magic items. But there was only about 300 in coins and gems in his lair.

He had on shelves a ton of oddities like beholder stalks in a jar a dragon's head stuffed and a bunch of small skeletons of various animals and magical beasts. When you looked at them they moved. Not in a menacing way they just moved as they would if they were alive.

I made a successful arcana check and I realized that these were a lost form of necromancy that used to be used to teach anatomy at magical and other colleges.

I told the party this and the cleric detected evil and they were not evil.

The party voted to take the items and sell them. I was going to cast tensor's floating disc to get them out. One of the party a dwarf follower of St Cuthbert kept protesting that necromancy is evil. Even though in the game world it is not.

Anyway we had to go take care of an ooze in another room and the dwarf took his greater invisibility potion went back into the room and smashed all the skeletons.

It turns out that those skeletons were worth around 30,000 GP the bulk of our reward.

I am annoyed but I am also like well we made our bed so be it. But there is some hostility over this and one player feels that it is not fair and the DM should find away to get us more treasure.

I don't think she should. And to be honest she does not either she feels that we were given a lot of information which we were that these were valuable items and that we would have no problem finding a buyer and that they were not dangerous or evil.

She tried to stop the player from doing it by having him make a wisdom roll but he was determined and she won't tell a player how to play. She also had the rest of us make listen checks and spot checks but we all failed.

So do you think the fair thing would be to find a way to give us more treasure?

I applaud your Dm. Creativity is what makes the game so much fun.
But she needs to give out some gold too. Maybe every other session.
The dm in the group i'm in right now has given out less than 100 gold apeice.
and is very stingy on magic items. and we are 5th and 6th level.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I could go either way on this.

On the one hand, its kind of sucky to go through a long story arc and come away with virtually nothing. OTOH, if everything was done in character- and in keeping with those characters' motivations, etc. (IOW, good roleplay)- I'd just let it stand.

Then again, I'm part of a group that stopped a BBEG while simultaneously getting Mordenkainen's baby killed (via my character's acting in character).

 

[Mort]

Sounds like you have a very fun creative DM - this is a great thing and should be encouraged.

On to the question:

Should the DM replace the treasure in some way? If it were me, I probably wouldn't replace it, but I might beef up some future rewards to make sure players are not totally screwed (if the players are not having any problem with challenges and/or inherent bonuses are in place I'd leave it alone - actions should have consequences).

That said, I think the bigger question is: what the heck was up with that player, is this common?

Anyway we had to go take care of an ooze in another room and the dwarf took his greater invisibility potion went back into the room and smashed all the skeletons.

St. Cuthbert is a LG to LN deity; this act is both extremely chaotic and a bit nonsensical. I'd (if I were the DM) have a chat with the player and ask, why if they knew the skeletons were not evil they did what they did, and more importantly why in the extremely chaotic manner they did it. Heck the players is playing a cleric of an extremely lawful god. If I were the DM I would strongly consider a small punishment (big wart on the face for a week, loss of spell casting for a few days etc.) Yes that's heavy handed but 1) Clerics (not just paladins btw) are held to a high standard 2) St. Cuthbert is a heavy handed, uncompromising deity.

Probably not for a first offense though, and I would make sure I had all the facts. If, for example, this worlds clerics hate necromancy in all forms and tend to destroy it on site - well that's an expected outcome - but then it would be particularly rat-bastard to give them this type of reward!

 

[Elf Witch]

I applaud your Dm. Creativity is what makes the game so much fun.
But she needs to give out some gold too. Maybe every other session.
The dm in the group i'm in right now has given out less than 100 gold apeice.
and is very stingy on magic items. and we are 5th and 6th level.

She often gives out gold. But sometimes we get things worth a lot of gold that we have to sell and we often make allies doing so.

 

[falcarrion]

Sounds like you have a very fun creative DM - this is a great thing and should be encouraged.

On to the question:

Should the DM replace the treasure in some way? If it were me, I probably wouldn't replace it, but I might beef up some future rewards to make sure players are not totally screwed (if the players are not having any problem with challenges and/or inherent bonuses are in place I'd leave it alone - actions should have consequences).

That said, I think the bigger question is: what the heck was up with that player, is this common?



St. Cuthbert is a LG to LN deity; this act is both extremely chaotic and a bit nonsensical. I'd (if I were the DM) have a chat with the player and ask, why if they knew the skeletons were not evil they did what they did, and more importantly why in the extremely chaotic manner they did it. Heck the players is playing a cleric of an extremely lawful god. If I were the DM I would strongly consider a small punishment (big wart on the face for a week, loss of spell casting for a few days etc.) Yes that's heavy handed but 1) Clerics (not just paladins btw) are held to a high standard 2) St. Cuthbert is a heavy handed, uncompromising deity.

Probably not for a first offense though, and I would make sure I had all the facts. If, for example, this worlds clerics hate necromancy in all forms and tend to destroy it on site - well that's an expected outcome - but then it would be particularly rat-bastard to give them this type of reward!

I totaly disagree. The player stated his characters view and stuck to his guns.
Nothing wrong with that in my view. He felt they where evil so he destroyed them. If they didn't move and jump around this would not have happened.
We assume that the dwarf is a cleric.Most likley he is but since it is stated as a follower he may not be.

 

[Elf Witch]

Sounds like you have a very fun creative DM - this is a great thing and should be encouraged.

On to the question:

Should the DM replace the treasure in some way? If it were me, I probably wouldn't replace it, but I might beef up some future rewards to make sure players are not totally screwed (if the players are not having any problem with challenges and/or inherent bonuses are in place I'd leave it alone - actions should have consequences).

That said, I think the bigger question is: what the heck was up with that player, is this common?



St. Cuthbert is a LG to LN deity; this act is both extremely chaotic and a bit nonsensical. I'd (if I were the DM) have a chat with the player and ask, why if they knew the skeletons were not evil they did what they did, and more importantly why in the extremely chaotic manner they did it. Heck the players is playing a cleric of an extremely lawful god. If I were the DM I would strongly consider a small punishment (big wart on the face for a week, loss of spell casting for a few days etc.) Yes that's heavy handed but 1) Clerics (not just paladins btw) are held to a high standard 2) St. Cuthbert is a heavy handed, uncompromising deity.

Probably not for a first offense though, and I would make sure I had all the facts. If, for example, this worlds clerics hate necromancy in all forms and tend to destroy it on site - well that's an expected outcome - but then it would be particularly rat-bastard to give them this type of reward!

I know that she plans to make up for the loss in other ways by putting more treasure in later she just doesn't want to just hand wave away what happened. She is good at making sure we have what we need to succeed.

As for the player he is not playing a cleric but a rogue who is dedicated to St Cuthbert. His back story is that he was captured by the drow skinned almost to death and rescued by a cleric of St Cuthbert who gave his life for him. He has dedicated his life to service to St Cuthbert since then. Which he views as stomping out evil.

This is the second time his actions have gotten the party in big trouble. Earlier in the game we encounter a necromancer who was there to help us with information on worms that were turning people into undead.

We were being watched by evil clerics and snuck in to talk to this guy. When the rogue saw he was a necromancer he went nuts and killed him before the rest of us got up the stairs, he was scouting ahead. The necromancer was a member of my guild a group of lawful good wizards. I was able to find the information we needed in the wizard's notes.

We ended up arrested for murder and and the party had to cough up the gold to get the wizard raised. The dwarf spent sometime in jail. We still work with the necromancer from time to time and I thought the dwarf was over his all necromancy is evil stand.

Out of game the DM has talked to the player and asked why, and he says he is playing the dwarf in a black and white way with no shades of gray. He knows the world we are playing in is not black and white and he is fine with that. He says he is having fun playing a fanatic to the cause of stomping out all evil.

Most of the time it is not an issue and we are real life friends and this issue does not carry out of the game most of the time.

 

[wedgeski]

Sounds like a fun game, perhaps with a slight clash of expectations. The DM wants you to work for your rewards, and is putting stuff in the game which forces your characters to expand their social circle and will no doubt lead to many excellent adventure hooks. This player not only wants his gold and magic, but is playing a blunt instrument in a game where thoughtless deeds have serious consequences.

The PC in question will have to change, there's no doubt about it. Whether through the example of his comrades or via a game-changing error in judgement that makes him face his beliefs head-on. If he doesn't, it will get very hard for the other characters in the game to justify having him around. On the plus side, this sounds like excellent roleplaying fodder.

 

[S'mon]

Fair would be for the party to fine the dwarf 30,000gp. Nothing to do with the DM.

Edit: If he won't pay up, you should kick the PC (not the player) out of the party. You should probably have done that after he murdered the LG Wizard.