Quickleaf
Legend
My 4th-5th level PCs are approaching a scene in which they'll have an audience with the aging ruler (pharaoh), where they're attempting to present evidence of a renewed threat that the ruler believes to have died with his grandfather. I'm designing this as a skill challenge to determine how convinced the ruler is – and this will impact the support the PCs get later on.
At the climax of the scene, the ruler is non-fatally poisoned (poison was administered earlier and kicks in during the audience). It leaves him debilitated for a time.
My intention with the poisoning scene is that it serves as an impetus for the PCs to depart the capital city, and for a little while to experience life outside of the ruler's graces (context: several of them have connections to the royal court). This could either be the cliched "you've poisoned me!" where the ruler fingers the PCs, and guards give chase. Or it could be more politically nuanced, where the ruler fears his advisors will use the poisoning to renew a costly war against the southern kingdom (who had nothing to do with the poisoning), and beseeches (or forces) the PCs to "take the fall" until they can investigate & dismantle the true conspiracy. This scene serves to propel them to seek out a rumored bastard heir behind the conspiracy, without having the weight of their respective urban organizations behind them.
It's not exactly "the NPC dies before your very eyes", "but I cast cure wounds" kind of scene, but I'm a bit concerned that I'm skating too close to that territory given that the 4th-5th level PCs have access to lesser restoration. The obvious choice would be to heal the ruler without consequences/side effects – the drama and suspense dissipates, the poisoning becomes trivial, the PCs have no blame or suspicion upon them, and the scene is reduced to the ruler giving them a quest to find the bastard heir.
How can I successfully run this kind of scene in D&D? Or are scenes like this wholly undesirable in D&D? Does it require intelligent selection or homebrewing of the poison to avoid inflicting the easily removable poisoned condition while imposing ongoing effects? Do I need to include more variables / potential outcomes to maximize player agency?
At the climax of the scene, the ruler is non-fatally poisoned (poison was administered earlier and kicks in during the audience). It leaves him debilitated for a time.
My intention with the poisoning scene is that it serves as an impetus for the PCs to depart the capital city, and for a little while to experience life outside of the ruler's graces (context: several of them have connections to the royal court). This could either be the cliched "you've poisoned me!" where the ruler fingers the PCs, and guards give chase. Or it could be more politically nuanced, where the ruler fears his advisors will use the poisoning to renew a costly war against the southern kingdom (who had nothing to do with the poisoning), and beseeches (or forces) the PCs to "take the fall" until they can investigate & dismantle the true conspiracy. This scene serves to propel them to seek out a rumored bastard heir behind the conspiracy, without having the weight of their respective urban organizations behind them.
It's not exactly "the NPC dies before your very eyes", "but I cast cure wounds" kind of scene, but I'm a bit concerned that I'm skating too close to that territory given that the 4th-5th level PCs have access to lesser restoration. The obvious choice would be to heal the ruler without consequences/side effects – the drama and suspense dissipates, the poisoning becomes trivial, the PCs have no blame or suspicion upon them, and the scene is reduced to the ruler giving them a quest to find the bastard heir.
How can I successfully run this kind of scene in D&D? Or are scenes like this wholly undesirable in D&D? Does it require intelligent selection or homebrewing of the poison to avoid inflicting the easily removable poisoned condition while imposing ongoing effects? Do I need to include more variables / potential outcomes to maximize player agency?