Angry at players...

[Morfedel]

You know, I only tell the players what they missed if they plan on not returning; and it sounds to me like they ARE metagaming - unless they were figuring it out down that road. What you said in the beginning made me think of shadows, however, even before what you revealed later, and the dragon crack could easily have added to a 2+2.

But not all dragons just hang around all the time. Perhaps the dragon just packed up and moved to a better lair; or perhaps they have all kinds of traps. Or, perhaps the guy who made the dragon crack didnt know the truth; an insidious illusion hiding something else entirely.

Or something like that. Point being, the characters dont know what the players know, and if they whine, shrug your shoulders; if they acted on player knowledge, you have the right as a DM to change things on the fly.

Or maybe the shadow dragon has a mate that has just returned behind them as they are engaging the first....

 

[takyris]

Chiming in a bit late, but I'd be fine with my party wanting to go back and kill the monster, but not fine with them using OOC knowledge about Shadow Dragons to max out their tactics. If they made their good Knowledge:Arcane checks, cool. If they paid a sage to give them a lot of information about Shadow Dragons, cool. If they went back and scouted more and watched what it did to an intruder, cool.

But if they are just going, "Huh, shadow dragon, drains energy levels and does this with its breath weapon", and did not verify any of that information in-character, I would have no problem at all changing things.

That said, there's always the possibility that the dragon put up a ward around its lair. Maybe it hired an evil cleric to slap up an Unhallow on there with a targetted Dispel Magic on any non-Shadow-worshipping person who enters the chamber. That's not you reacting to the players by specifically having it prepare "This Party"-killing traps. That's just you playing the monster smart.

Failing that, Unhallow with Silence was a veritable party-killer back in 3.0, although I don't know if it's been altered for 3.5. Watching the party wizard and cleric try to regroup and replan while the monsters unloaded their biggest, nastiest spells was always fun.

 

[Morfedel]

That's just you playing the monster smart.

I want to agree; monsters play smart too; especially dragons and such. And while we are at it, that wall of force trick.... if the characters are becoming well known, so would their tactics. Eventually, someone is going to realize they are facing this group and plan accordingly.

Sit down and think up some very devious combo maneuvers. Something to divide the group; heck, maybe that wall of force can be gotten around by a stone to mud to open a hole in the adjacent stone wall; maybe the dragon has its own wall of force to break up the front half from the back half. dispell magic from the dragon, traps, blah blah blah....

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Hopefully that will dissuade them from tangling with the Shadow Dragon out of the sole desire to farm XP and GP (which I think is one big reason why I am po'ed, thats just TACKY in my book).

If you think about this from an in-game point of view:

The creature is evil
It has a nice treasure
The PC's believe they have an advantage over it (they know what it is and know how to defend themselves from it) and thus can probably defeat it more easily.

I think that the PC's acting on this information is totally legitimate.

AR

 

[Nifft]

Evil Dragons have Evil Dragon friends. This one happens to have a mate who's watching his stuff while he's away (getting more stuff).

The mate is a Half-Fiend Black Dragon with the Shadow Template (from Manual of the Planes).

It looks dark & shadow-y -- hell, it is dark & shadow-y! -- but it ain't your momma's Shadow Dragon.



DM: "A line of blackness shoots from the huge wyrm's maw! You, make a Reflex save!"

Player: 'I have Death Ward on! Ha-ha-ha!"

DM: "Actually, this seems to be a gout of acid. Reflex save?"

Player: "But you said that this was a Shadow Dragon!"

DM: "I described what was here yesterday. What, you want monsters to sit around waiting for you to kill them? Let's finish this encounter off, so the big daddy Shadow Dragon has good reason to hunt you down later..." *evil smirk*

EDIT: No players were harmed in the making of this ad.

-- N

 

[Trickstergod]

Well, two parting thoughts:

1) If the character's have fought creatures from the plane of Shadow before, making assumptions about negative energy attacks, and negative energy immunity, isn't too far off base, particularly in light of everything the characters seem to know.

2) If the characters primary motivation is XP, well, as I said: fighting something like a dragon in the hopes of becoming a better swordsman or spell-slinger...ahh...not so bright. Stupidity should not be rewarded, unless it's accompanied by something more (exceptional bravery, virtue, or the like).

So perhaps the battle will be a cakewalk, in which case, there's at least one compelling reason not to give full XP, and if it's not a cakewalk, well, I think I'd give them full XP, so long as the battle itself makes the characters stop and think perhaps they shouldn't have gone through with it.

 

[Wraithdrit]

Well the back story of this campaign (CotSQ) is that an evil cult has a ticking time bomb (basically) that will go off in t-30 days. The same NPC that told them about the dragon was there because another NPC told him to go tell the PCs to hurry the heck up. They still have to get to the city, find out where the cult is, break into their headquarters, and stop what they are planning.

So under those context, the PCs seemed to be doing something smart by passing by a VERY dangerous encounter. Now they are metagaming it, wanting to 'farm' the experience because they are scared of the end fight. All reasons given so far are pretty damned OOC. Its a complete 180 for the characters advocating the fight (we have some not advocating going back and right now it looks like THEY will be the ones winning the debate).

So if this were not a time based campaign, I would have no problem with them back tracking to the dragon's lair. But it is, and its also a complete reversal of character.

 

[takyris]

Yeah, see, if it was "And it might have some clues" or "It might have a magical item that can help us defeat the BBEGs", that'd be one thing. But blatant "We need to, uh, practice, on the dragon, to get better at, uh, stuff, before we go stop the BBEGs" is a no-no.

And if you've already given full XP, you shouldn't give any more. Otherwise, you'll be rewarding them for defeating monsters, then letting them go, then defeating them again, then letting them go again, and so on.

And really, they need to make their Knowledge:Arcane check. And knowing about the negative energy level aspect of shadow dragons might not be an easy check -- unless they've fought shadow dragons before.

And if all they've fought are shadows, and this is a shadow dragon, they should be thinking "Oooh, it's a draconic shadow, incorporeal and strength-draining." Unless they made the aforementioned Knowledge check.

Really. If they don't make the check, and they don't pay a sage for the information, then they have no reason to know what they know. And, by extrapolation, there's no reason for you not to change things until an in-game precedent has been established for what someone in the party KNOWS about Shadow Dragons.

 

[Umbran]

You make some VERY good points. But I still feel as if THEY are metagaming. I told them very specifically what the dragon could do with its breath weapon. They are using that in their preparations.

Well, it was your mistake to tell them that, but it is still not nice for them to do this. Tell them so.

The thing I REALLY don't want is for this encounter to turn into a chump encounter. Its a dragon. It should not be a chump encounter....

No, go ahead and let it turn into a chump encounter. If the situation (which includes what the party knows to make it's prep) makes the encounter very easy, then they get little XP for it. So, they go in, use up some resources, take some minor risk, and get diddly out of it. You can even tell the party this beforehand, and then find out if they're going to bother when they find out that their own meta-gaming has ruined the gains they might have otherwise gotten.

 

[takyris]

PS: Possible note from RBDM... how does time work on the plane of shadow? What if the Shadow Dragon had an artifact that caused time to work differently... say, for each round they spend in the lair, a day passes in the outside world. The ticking time bomb becomes a much, uh, loomier threat when instead of "Yeah, we'll go back and fight, heal ourselves the day after, and have only lost one day... not even that, if we can heal and still teleport."

Note: The dragon could be using this in combination with other artifacts that gather energy from dying creatures. The artifacts are planted in graveyards, and the dragon is siphoning off the energy to grow stronger. It's taking too long, though, so he used the time-artifact to slow down time in his lair, so that he can sit around and plan and scheme and let the energy gather a lot more quickly, from his point of view. He doesn't have any long-term plans. He just wants to get powerful enough to evolve into something nastier.

Killing the dragon is still a perfectly viable option, of course (the complaints about them not having the In-Char knowledge to know all Shadow Dragon weaknesses notwithstanding), but it's now just a wee bit more risky.