D&D 5E Is it right for WoTC to moralize us in an adventure module?

[Emoshin]

(Replying because you quoted me... if not relevant, then please disregard)

I'm wondering how that sentence tracks with the Keen Mind feat. It seems to me like Keen Mind would defeat that challenge.

Hypothetically, for sure.
In my game, none of the PCs have Keen Mind feat and have not shown any interest in that, so this would be irrelevant.

What is written is virtually NEVER all that the PCs can do or try that might work.

Agree, and would never claim otherwise.

Rogue: "Buuuut, I do have a contact in Calimshan who might be interested in what you have to say. If I put you in contact with him, you can expand your operation into the south and make it much more profitable."
13: "That intrigues me, but I would have to have contact with him before I give you the key."
PCs: "That can be arranged."

Hypothetically yes.
In my game, no. My players don't feel comfortable with aiding and abetting criminals. Also see the second last paragraph in the OP.

 

[Maxperson]

I guess I just don't see a rando dwarven clan that got robbed being an actual standing member of the Lords' Alliance, but then, who knows? Some dumbass towns with like more sheep than people randomly are. I just wish they'd actually said what they meant, rather than detailing all the tattoos on the body of an explicitly fully-clothed person or how extra-awesome the prison warden was (puking now).


I mean yeah that is the stronger suggestion and what makes all the LG people being involved even more terminally stupid. I think WotC are just outright cowards, like really scared and pathetic here, that they couldn't portray this prison as LN or LE as it probably should be. They might like offend some part of the US prison-industrial complex. I also strongly suspect this wasn't written or looked over by a POC or other minority writer given it's basically a celebration of prisons (which is highly weird choice for fantasy or science-fiction, I note - in both genres prisons are usually portrayed as very evil places - I think that's bigger than the magitech issue discussed earlier).

The adventure isn't written well. It's more like the outline to an adventure. I mean, I write mine like that, but then I usually(sometimes my ADD brain loses things) remember what the details are when I look at my outline. We don't have that advantage with an adventure written by someone else.

Yup. Or they could stop using alignments at all and just, y'know, give us a sentence about the personality of the individuals involved!

I don't mind alignment, but I'd also like personality to be included, and more than just one sentence.

 

[Maxperson]

Hypothetically yes.
In my game, no. My players don't feel comfortable with aiding and abetting criminals. Also see the second last paragraph in the OP.

Sure. I wasn't saying for your specific game. I was just giving an example of one possible way other than what they wrote that could work.

It sounds like this particular adventure wouldn't work for your group. Not all adventures work for every group or party of PCs, and that's okay. There are plenty that do work to pick from(or write).

 

[Emoshin]

Sure. I wasn't saying for your specific game. I was just giving an example of one possible way other than what they wrote that could work.

It sounds like this particular adventure wouldn't work for your group. Not all adventures work for every group or party of PCs, and that's okay. There are plenty that do work to pick from(or write).

Oh I am sure I could salvage it, time permitting. I'd want to facilitate a heroically "good"/morally correct outcome. Also would need to reduce the DC 19 Insight check to deduce the tattoo is the key or (better yet) not make that single check a contingency to winning (in lieu of aiding and abetting or maiming or murder).

 

[Maxperson]

Oh I am sure I could salvage it, time permitting. I'd want to facilitate a heroically "good"/morally correct outcome. Also would need to reduce the DC 19 Insight check to deduce the tattoo is the key or (better yet) not make that single check a contingency to winning (in lieu of aiding and abetting or maiming or murder).

You could also just alter her story a bit so that making her an even greater criminal isn't her goal. Maybe she did something to justify the life sentence(25 to life and she got max) and she kept quiet out of spite, but now years later she's rethinking things and is willing to negotiate for a shorter sentence.

 

[Emoshin]

You could also just alter her story a bit so that making her an even greater criminal isn't her goal. Maybe she did something to justify the life sentence(25 to life and she got max) and she kept quiet out of spite, but now years later she's rethinking things and is willing to negotiate for a shorter sentence.

That's a good one, allowing the PCs to be part of her redemption arc. Very helpful, I probably would not have thought of that myself.

 

[Steampunkette]

Sure. They might get lucky and deduce that it's the key. That doesn't mean that they know that an illusion will work. It might be a physical key and they might need her hand as well. Knowing that the tattoo is the key doesn't tell them everything that they need to know.

The passage specifies that a disguise self spell or other illusion works just as well as the hand.

Right. 10 minutes of studying her hand or 10 minutes in front of her drawing the tattoo over and over. Unless they have the Keen Mind anyway. That to me gets by that issue.

If I had to spend 10 minutes drawing the tattoo from a willing life-model I would count that both "Studying" and also "Way too much time investment".

It's on her finger. The tattoo artist probably didn't spend 10 minutes on it in the first place.

 

[Maxperson]

The passage specifies that a disguise self spell or other illusion works just as well as the hand.

The DM knows that, yes. The PCs and players? Not so much. The players will have to worry that they need the physical hand, because if they leave and try an illusion, coming back will be much harder since it will be strange for them to wander back in as guests again, or disappear as workers and then suddenly reappear weeks later.

If I had to spend 10 minutes drawing the tattoo from a willing life-model I would count that both "Studying" and also "Way too much time investment".

You also can afford to get a line slightly off. With magic, not so much. It has to be absolutely perfect or it will fail as the key.

It's on her finger. The tattoo artist probably didn't spend 10 minutes on it in the first place.

And if the artist had to do it a second time, it would be slightly different and fail. The PC can't allow it to be slightly different, so it takes longer to get right.

 

[Steampunkette]

The DM knows that, yes. The PCs and players? Not so much. The players will have to worry that they need the physical hand, because if they leave and try an illusion, coming back will be much harder since it will be strange for them to wander back in as guests again, or disappear as workers and then suddenly reappear weeks later.

You also can afford to get a line slightly off. With magic, not so much. It has to be absolutely perfect or it will fail as the key.

And if the artist had to do it a second time, it would be slightly different and fail. The PC can't allow it to be slightly different, so it takes longer to get right.

This is a whole lot of "I'm gonna add reasoning to the book that isn't there in order to naysay anything but cutting off her hand... or using my own ideas which aren't covered by the book!"

 

[Maxperson]

This is a whole lot of "I'm gonna add reasoning to the book that isn't there in order to naysay anything but cutting off her hand... or using my own ideas which aren't covered by the book!"

Show me where it says that the PCs somehow intuitively know that the key can absolutely be done via illusion. Or where tattoo artists or you can make an arcane tattoo with your normal skills. Those sorts of things are precise.

You don't have to run the tattoo drawing that way, but at the very least as written the PCs aren't going to know just by looking at the tattoo that an illusion will work.