A Paladin's Problem

[Goblyns Hoard]

I need some help on this one because I don't want a TPK on my hands (what can I say I like telling good stories which means developed characters).

One of my players has indicated he'd be interested in having his paladin go through a crisis of faith of some sort. This I like... it gives us a good opportunity for roleplaying and will bring in the other players a bit as they will also have to deal with the same moral question. I've just gone through the concept with another one of my players (who's ranger worships the same goddess) and together we came up with what we think is a good plan for this.

The paladin worships Fera my homebrew goddess of Fertility, Life and Lust. She despises the undead, so the plan is to have them go up against something like a Lich. The trick is that the Lich's phylactery is not an object but an innocent child. The only way to kill the undead (which Fera hates) is to kill the child (an innocent). Killing the child will piss off Fera - allowing the Lich to live will piss of Fera. Nice moral conundrum to play through and winner's on all sides in terms of game fun! The paladin can come up with good reasons for action or inaction, justify it to himself, and still end up on the wrong side of his goddess.

The problem - the characters are 5th level and are likely to be toasted by a Lich - minimum CR 13 (11th level casting required +2 for Lich template), particularly as there is no cleric (it's just a paladin, ranger and druid). Plus it's going to have to come back at least once so they know it's an ongoing problem. If I play the Lich stupidly to ensure their success it's obviously no fun either.

So any advice on what I can use instead of a Lich. I was thinking that some sort of fiend could also have a phylactery of sorts that bound it to this plane allowing it to stay around more. Alternatively some sort of weakened Lich may work but I don't have any rules for anything like that.

Any ideas?

The Hoard

 

[Kael]

The fact that the characters aren't able to confront the lich directly might make the decision to kill the child that much more poignant. Perhaps the lich is more dependent than usual on his/her phlyactery and killing the child also destroys the lich.

 

[GSHamster]

What if the characters don't encounter the lich? Maybe the lich is distracted and not present in his lair when the characters sneak in.

Alternatively, the party could meet the lich in combat, basically get TPKed and wake up imprisoned in the lich's stronghold (be careful not to use disintergrate or something). They could then escape and would have incentive to avoid fighting the lich again.

One last idea, going off the previous one where the lich has imprisoned them. The lich bargains with the paladin, saying that a child, one of the lich's descendants, is in danger from enemies. The lich sends the party to find and rescue this child, while the lich deals with the more powerful enemies. Of course, the child serves as the lich's phlactery, and the opposition are forces of Good who are perhaps more militant than the party. At some point (maybe after talking to the opposition), the party finds out the true nature of the child.

 

[painandgreed]

Introduce higher level adventurer party that they get alone well with. Later the high level party calls on them for help. The high level party will attack the lich and keep him occupied. Your party has the job of going in and destroying the phylactery while the lich is destracted. So the party enters a dungeon that would normally delay them till the lich could pop in but can't this time because he's fighting the other party. Perhaps the high level party is to kill him, and the low level party must enter the dungeon and destroy the phylactery while the lich is reforming. The high level party can't make it in time because the lich is too far away in travel time.

 

[Stormborn]

While the Lich's phylactry is a good idea, you are right, its too high level. Does the godess have an arch nemesis? Say a priest of the God of the Undead was slain by another party devoted to the godess some time ago. When the priest died he transfered his soul and power into that of a child, his illegitamate offspring by some unsuspecting pesant girl. Now, the child is still himself, still innocent, but is beign used as the anchor for the priests soul, a some kind of incoporeal undead with class levels. The party can face the priests ghosts, but killing it only dispells it temporarilly (the god of death keeps sending him back to finish his last mission). The party learns that the only sure way to get rid of it is to kill the child...tension insues.

 

[Zephyrus]

I manged to come up with a few ideas (including I belive somewhere is a template for an Demon-Lich which I recall having heard about somewhere.. cant recall off the top of my head)...


However... as awful as the idea I thought might work best.... well you are dealing with a crisis of faith here....

A Pregnant Necromancer... perhaps 6 months along or so. Definitly too early to survive as a premie and too far along that the infant will definitly have the makings for a soul etc.

This as I said as awful as it sounds has perhaps the most rounded set of possible RP hooks that wont force the characters immediatly into black/white decisions. perhaps the most dangerous crisis of faith are the gray answers.

Obviously Killing the mother will kill the child (much like your lich issue)
Obviously Evil Necromancer on the loose is bad (much like your luch issue)

However the potential for solutions are more attainable. The mother can be subdued. Direct conflict risks the child but perhaps their are round-abouts. Even then, their are longer term problems as even if they succeed at capturing the Necromancer the child remains at risk while still unborn. Handling that can be an extended matter.

The situation can be further confounded by the mother being posessed or similar and thus not acting of her own volition. With enough Hit Dice and Turn resistance the ghost can stave off being turned to remove the possession. Being a paladin that should help as their turning is weaker, however I dont know if the group may also contain a cleric.

Perhaps further, even after the ghost is removed the child remains in danger of being possessed itself and the mother becoming the victim (cliche perhaps but it became a cliche for a reason). The Ghost my be excised from the child but parent or child or both may have been tainted by the possession.

Cures to remove this taint could be an adventure in itself (perhaps, provided the paladin does 'well enough' in his handling of the situtation his goddess rewards him with the quest <some reward huh!?> to find this cure to remove the taint). On the other hand, maybe the 'vision' is false and the paladin may unwittingly be sent on a fools errand or worse.

Perhaps the paladin themselves becomes posessed, but doesnt know it...


These all make the situation 'not so simple' and also continues it into more than simple one-off situations but rather an on going thing. Consider making the Ghost a Pale Master or True Necromancer or maybe a Necromancer Wizard/Acolyte or the Skin (say a Succubus or Eryine). The last of the bunch could be interesting if using a Ghost route I mentioned. The ghost perhaps attempting to gain Acolyte of the Skin levels onto the creature it possess.

Food for thought. Hope I dident scare anyone.. (asside from my self)

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

The fact that the characters aren't able to confront the lich directly might make the decision to kill the child that much more poignant.

Nice idea - They try and take the lich - are almost slaughtered and leg it, but then kill the child. However it gets risky because they might not run. Plus I'd like to build the lich (or lich substitute if I can come up with some-such) up as a bad guy but I also like the idea of them killing it and thinking it's already over.

GSHamster - I don't think they'd take the time to listen to the lich in the first place to set them up with going after the child... or trust it to be telling the truth. And if I'm going to introduce a villain like this I definitely want him to encounter the party - otherwise I don't get the fun of playing him.

Painandgreed - The idea works but I'd rather not introduce another adventuring party in the area - they already have a few allies around and too many will mean some of the longer term campaign issues may fall apart if I can't explain away the other party. Cheers for the thought though.

Stormborn - That's a good idea - kinf of what I was hoping for (avoids the need for a Lich by downgrading who uses the phylactery). I think I can go with that. My Gods don't really oppose each other in the classical sence (as none of them have any alignment - they are beyond 'earthly morality'). But there is certainly a god of Death - part of him is anti-undead but the other side is certainly in favour of it and would support this.

DOH! - a couple of adventures back they killed a half-demon Thrall of Orcus (BoVD) in an old Thanis Death Cult mountain temple. If I have him reappear now something's going to be up with it - and Thanis (God of Death, Reflection and Revenge) certainly has the power to send him back...


How to tie that in to the child though?

The child then is Kel's (the half-demon) own daughter... which makes it just an infant (cause he was fairly young himself - little more than a boy). It also means that the mother will be reluctant to let the party near it (It's a tiefling afterall and the mother is probably ashamed of that) to even find out that Kel is somehow clinging to life through it. Last time they just dumped his body down a shaft to dispose of it - when he first comes back they may try burning it in order to kill him, so I've got a few more sessions to build up to it.

Cheers for that Stormborn... and thanks to the rest of you for the ideas, I may try and twist some of those into it as well.

The Hoard

 

[reapersaurus]

The trick is that the Lich's phylactery is not an object but an innocent child.

I don't think this is a good idea.

1) It's not exactly a very compelling "moral dilemma".
It basically boils down to simply "is it better to sacrifice one innocent life than to allow a great Evil to live"?
Since every paladin would answer yes to this if it was THEIR innocent life that was being sacrificed, than they are a long way down the road to answering this questions already.
IMO, that's simple - kill the innocent if you have to. But I'd try to pull some kind of Magic Jar stunt and at worst transfer the kid's soul into the Jar before killing his body (the phylactery). Or Jar into the kid's body and somehow sacrifice yourself in place of the kid.

2) A lich is an absurdly overpowered creature for 5th level PC's. It's a BAD idea to use a creature that could wipe the floor with all them and not break a sweat. No matter how dumbed-down it is, there's no way they should beat it.
It is akin to people throwing an adult dragon at a low level party and somehow having them beat it. That's why B.A.D.D. was formed.
Maybe I should form B.A.D.L. (Bothered About Disposable Liches)?

3) No lich in their right mind would use a flesh-bound, finite-lived creature as a phylactery. Too fragile. Too hard to keep hidden, etc. Heck, the kid could kill himself, go on a hunger strike, walk away, etc.
Plus, I don't think you can build a kid with the Create Wondrous Item feat, which is required to create a phylactery.

 

[Patlin]

How about a spirit posessing an inocent, instead? Could be a lot lower CR that way. Also, the RP oportunity would be just as good if there was a less than obvious out... capturing the bad guy and bringing them to a holy shrine to be exorcised, for example. Bad news for the Paladin character if he jumps in to slay the innocent without at least considering other alternatives...

I've often thought that the whole point to D&D as opposed to more restrictive games like chess is that there are always more choices, more possibilities. All dilemas are false.

 

[LostSoul]

You don't have to use a Lich for this. True, other monsters in D&D don't have a weakness/strength like a Lich's phylactery, but you can introduce something like that as window dressing.

Grab something of an appropriate CR that you want to use. Perhaps something like an Annis Hag or a Babau demon. The Hag could be linked to the girl somehow - maybe it's the girl's momma, and she feeds on the girl's blood (or pain) to gain her powers. The demon could be linked to some kind of family curse or deal that allowed the demon into the material plane while the girl lives.

That being said, I like the idea of using a Lich. Set it up so the Lich doesn't have to kill them outright. Set it up so that they don't have to face the Lich in combat. They will have to use their brains and research and come up with some kind of an idea about how to take out this foul monster. When they discover its power is tied to the girl, then they can worry about what they should do.

(Maybe you can have the crystal pylactery imbedded in the girl's brain or some such, so they have to kill her to get it out.)

If they do decide to kill the girl, build on their rationalization and use that to drive them down the wrong path. And make sure you realize the pain that they've caused to the girl's family and friends, etc. Or make the girl the daughter of a noble or something like that, so that things are politically hairy if she's killed.

So you killed one innocent to take down a great evil. Now where do you draw the line? How much further can you take that same line of thought before it becomes twisted? Burning a plague-ridden town to the ground before it wipes everybody out? etc.

edit: The thing I like about using a CR-13 Lich is that you can't just rush in and slice him to ribbons. You have to deal with the girl.