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Message: <blockquote data-quote="azhrei_fje" data-source="post: 4072637" data-attributes="member: 12966">I agree.  So looking at the facts in this situation, let's see if I "had it in" for the PCs:1.  PC succumbs to insanity effect from a symbol.2.  Party clerics can't/don't heal her (don't remember if they had the spells and were saving them; they did this when the fighter was hit with feeblemind and they didn't want to use the heal until there was -quote- REAL DAMAGE -quote-).3.  They can't control the insane PC, so they use calm emotions and talk with her.  When calm emotions wears off, she once again attacks the party!4.  They knock her unconscious and tie her up, hands and feet, and gag her.5.  She and the cult traitor (a body without a soul, so effectively in a coma) are left at the bottom of the stairs going up to the level where the combat will take place.6.  The level the unconscious PCs are left on is the same one that holds the quarters for the top three head-honchos of the cult!  If they were to word of recall back home, where are they most likely to appear?  This floor of the tower is only 30-foot diameter, so the distances are short.7.  While all this combat is going on, the BBEG and her minion are buffing up on the next level.  They see the light source from the party's torches flickering against the walls near the stairs and they hear the screaming and clash of weapons on the floor below.  In addition, they were warned by other minions on other levels of the tower.Now when BBEG is getting her butt kicked and decides to leave, she sees the two tied up people on the floor below.  This is her stronghold -- she knows not just the layout of the tower, but every nook and cranny.  She's not that far down on hit points and knows that staying ethereal is what the party would expect, so she wants to change her mode of travel anyway.Did the GM engineer the situation?  I honestly don't think so.  Did the BBEG take advantage of the party members left behind by the party?  Definitely.There were a number of things that the party could've done.Hindsight is 20/20 and given the knowledge of future events I would've said, "Are you sure it's a good idea to leave party members just laying here?  In the cult's stronghold??"The characters were not captured.  They were left behind.  Some might say, "left for dead."I can't argue with any of that.  As my wife is so fond of saying, "Perception IS Reality."  And while I may have been technically correct in the rules interpretation, I misplayed the social interaction part of it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />Part of the problem is how quickly it happened.  After dropping through the floor, it was the next round that the BBEG made her split decision.  She would've made the CdG on one of the unconscious characters before I would've thought to include the Sense Motive check.  Unfortunately, it didn't even occur to me what she would do when she saw the traitor until it happened. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />  And all of a sudden, it was obvious what she would do.You can bet I will be more careful in the future.  In fact, I'm usually pretty careful in general.  I had typed in a story here about another player spat, but you don't want to read about that, so I've removed it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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