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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sammael" data-source="post: 1685524" data-attributes="member: 4475">Hello. I'd appreciate some feedback on the dilemma I have as a DM after tonight's session. I'll cross-post this on other forums so as to get as much feedback as possible.Tonight's session went unexpectedly for me. I had planned to have the party (level 11-12, NG sun elf wizard, NG human cleric of Selune, LN human fighter, N moon elf monk - yes, I allow nonlawful monks, N human enchanter, CN halfling rogue) be ambushed by a group of bounty hunters who are after the halfling's head (reward 20,000 gp). Unfortunately, halfling's player was away tonight, so I had to play him as an NPC.There is a lot more to the story, but the point is this: the first bounty hunters (four level 5 fighter-types) was an unwitting decoy for the second group (four level 9-10 characters). After the first group attacked (and got slaughtered/disabled in two rounds), the second group teleported in (having scried on the first group via magical tokens disguised as coins) and started its attack. The PCs made short work of them as well, but managed to take one (a CE half-elf bard) alive. Party monk disarmed him and was standing above with a sword to his heart, and then the enchanter cast dominate person and proceeded to interrogate him. After the enchanter ordered him to remove all his magic items, I decreed that another save was allowed, and he passed. Now, since he was pretty intelligent, and had good diplomatic skills, I decided that he would plead for his life and try to get them to let him go. When that failed, I had him plead to the LN fighter to take him to prison (since he saw that other party members weren't so keen on letting him stay alive). Now, the LN fighter is a fairly high-ranking member of the Berdusk guard, and he would have certainly taken him to jail... but then the monk coup-the-graced him. The monk had a few reasons to do this, although he acted mostly on impulse (the bard demanded that he should be taken to prison, which is what pissed the monk off, I believe).Whoops. Murder. Within the Berdusk zone of control. The fighter requested that the party returned to Berdusk, and the monk went willingly and even offered fighter his weapon as a sign of goodwill. They went to the city guard, and the monk was allowed to stay free until the trial (based on previous behavior and the fact that three party members are Harpers).And here I was, stuck with an unpredicted situation, and trying desperately to think of something to get him free. Since the murdered bard admitted to being in Darkhold a few weeks previously while being interrogated, and one of the party Harpers informed the Twilight Hall of this, I had one of the Harper-high-ups offer to be the monk's lawyer, in exchange for two things.First, the Harper would do her best to push for a verdict where the monk had to pay for the murdered bard to be raised (so, 5,000 gp and 900 xp for a 9th level character as per my campaign house rules), so that the Harpers don't have to pay those costs - and then get to interrogate him to their heart's content. Second, that he should become an agent for the Harpers. Due to his vast knowledge and other campaign circumstances, the Harpers would really want him in their ranks, murder or no.The player asked for some time to think, which I gave him. And then, he declined. He said that it was OOC for him to pay for the bard's raising since he didn't feel any remorse for the act, and that he did not want to become a pawn of the Harpers. Fair enough. I warned him that he is looking at a sentence in prison and that he'll have to effectively retire the character, and he said that he'd rather do that than play OOC. The session thus ended.But, he really likes playing this character. As a DM, I would absolutely HATE for him to have to retire him. Furthermore, I had some nifty plans for his character's future (although that is secondary). And, after all this introductory text, here is my question: how should I fix the trial so that he doesn't have to retire the character?</blockquote>

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