DM needs advice (player death eminent)

[Alhandra]

Norm - this seems to be just one example of a very serious problem.

Are you saying your players are not responding to the situations you are presenting them with in a reasonable fashion?

Describe a bit, if you would, about what other problems you are facing with this group.
It might help in our understanding of your problem.

 

[med stud]

If you dont kill them of now, they will never learn. I think this is a case of players who take their PCs survival for granted.

If we look at what we got here:
*A number of people are at the mercy of one guy.
*Those people, who are dangerous, threatens to kill the guy who has them at his mercy.

If the CN guy has Int above 5 he will kill off the PCs. No believable reason will let them survive.
This may have the good side effect that the players try to act with a bit of common sense ín the future.

 

[Berandor]

I actually had a rather similiar situation:

The campaign begun at level 1, when the players all found themselves in a town beset by an evil priest and his minions. The priest was described as really (chaotic) evil, a crazy murderer to boot.
In the course of their affiliation with the resistance movement, the PCs got caught by the priest's men and transported to prison.

The priest even spoke to them personally in order to find out about the leader of the movement. Nothing more.

I had several possibilities planned how they could escape, or even join him (though they wouldn't do that).

But one player insisted on annoying him, disturbing his speech with silly comments, and laughing at him.
The priest cast "Giant Vermin" on a bug and let it fight against the PC, calling it back just before the PC was dead (he was second level at the time) - which means after two rounds.

The PC didn't stop.
I told the player OOC that we was very close to dying, very close, and i wouldn't want to kill the character, but I would.
He stopped for a moment... just long enough for the priest to be called away.

Later on, the players managed their escape, and as they were fleeing, the priest followed one of them - of course the annoying brat - with his boots of flying.
The two faced off, and due to incredible rolling the player managed to tackle down the priest. Now, instead of fleeing, he stole the priests boots.
In a town where the priest claimed absolute reign, he dropped him prone then stole his boots, laughing at him after all the situations before.

Blade Barrier.

Until today, I am angry at myself that I didn't make a point earlier. Don't let the players dance on your nose.

Berandor

 

[UD]

I think a player death is needed to beat the PC's into thinking straight... combat isnt alwasy the solution...

A similar thing happened when a group of PC's slaughted some ORcs I ahd put there to help them... I let them know this through things they found as they explored the Orcs home latter, they also didnt get to do things as well, I missed bits of the Dungeon off. I didn't end up killing a PC, but one did shoot himself.... Mainly because he snapped at what the other PCs were doing.

 

[DungeonKeeperUK]

I see your problem here, I'm not one for killing off PC's, but if you let them go easy here, they are going to strat to get even cockier thinking themselve invulnerable (or more like thier DM aint going to Kill em ever...)

You could maybe have them pummeled where they sit giving subdual dammage, then left unconcious in a cell somewhere while the NPC checks them out and offers another solution to the predicament....

Its a difficult one for sure

 

[Villano]

If you don't want to flat out kill them, you can always have the NPC and his men strip them of everything (gold, weapons, armor, and clothes), take them out into the middle of nowhere, and give them poison.

Let the PCs roll. Those that fail, die. And those that live are still stuck in the middle of nowhere, helpless.

This way you leave it up to luck as to who survives.

And then there's always torture. Seriously. If you want to make it interesting, make a d20 chart with different punishments. Then have the players roll their punishments. Some may get sold into slavery. Others may lose an eye or limb. Still others may just be killed.

Or, you can punish each of them according to what would hurt them most. Cut the hands off the fighters, and the tongues of the magic users.

Or strip them naked and have them haul the manure cart through town. It won't be fatal, but it'll humiliate them.

Or let the evil army use them for target practice.

Or, better yet, force them to use each other for target practice. Pair them up. Have them each take turns firing arrows for a set amount of turns. You can use the old William Tell apple on the head trick. If a PC misses (either by hitting the other PC or by missing everything), the PC with the target is put to death and the one who fired the missed shot is blinded.

Sorry, but I'm feeling evil today.

 

[Norm]

oooo

I like the idea of cutting hands of fighters and things. It would not kill them, but teach them a valuable lesson, not to mention motivate them better than anything.


But a new question,.... how easy would it be for them to get it back. They could always just save some money and pay a cleric, but that would ok as later they can return to normal, and if they play it good I can give them bonuses to fighting one handed and tinga after they get their other hand back, etc....


So what would it take for them to get a bodypart back ?

 

[Villano]

Glad I Could Be Of Help

I like the idea of cutting hands of fighters and things. It would not kill them, but teach them a valuable lesson, not to mention motivate them better than anything.


But a new question,.... how easy would it be for them to get it back. They could always just save some money and pay a cleric, but that would ok as later they can return to normal, and if they play it good I can give them bonuses to fighting one handed and tinga after they get their other hand back, etc....


So what would it take for them to get a bodypart back ?

Regenerate. A 7th level Cleric/Healing spell. I think that there might also be a druid spell in Masters Of The Wild, as well.

If you cut off their right hands, they can either be forced to use their off-hands (with penalty) or else use the stump knife from Sword And Fist.

Hmmm...I think there's also a spell which temporarily replaces a limb with a weapon. Off course, it may not be abe to do that if you're missing the limb.

BTW, if you don't want to render the spellcasters mute, thereby reducing them to non-verbal spells, you might consider making them blind or deaf. When deaf, they would suffer a % chance of missing a spell due to the fact that they can't hear themselves when casting. Without eyes, they'll be forced to rely on the others just to get around and any spell which they need to aim will have a 50% (I believe) miss chance.

Boy, I'm glad my evil ways have finally paid off.

 

[turtle]

just kill them and then tell them it was because they were idiots.

then roll up new characters.

 

[Forrester]

To borrow a phrase, it's time to "4d6" them.

I'm a huge fan of realism in campaigns -- if they are being idiots, and if they should know that the leader would have no choice but to kill them in a situation like this . . . you have to do it.

If you don't, the players are just going to get WORSE, thinking that you'll never put them in a situation where they'll ever die after being captured.

My feelings are especially strong on this because I just weenied out of a player-asking-for-it situation.

The party (all humanoids, average 4th level) decided to head into the mountains -- the mountains I've repeatedly said were full of manticores, giants, ogre clans, and worse -- to do a little Hill Giant hunting. They knew where a pair was, and were hoping to be able to sneak up on maybe one of them at a time, and dispatch them quickly.

To make a long story short, they didn't find the giants, but they did meet some randomly rolled up some wights. Which they were NOT expecting. Some good to-hit rolls on my part later, and one blown save, and someone lost a level. Pissing him off greatly, of course (and it'd piss me off to. I HATE energy drains.) But I warned them that the mountains were no place for idle combat.

So they decide, surprise surprise, to hightail it out of there. Roll up another wandering encounter -- gnolls. I figure that a group of gnolls surviving in these mountains must be pretty tough, and so figure there's a clan of maybe 30 or 40, with a few shamans, probably led by a 6th or 7th level gnoll fighter. Time for the party to swallow some pride.

The party comes upon a couple gnoll guards, the guards run inside a cave leading to the lair, and then the party fighter-types (one Orcish Fighter-mix named Hedkarakk, one Orcish Psionic Warrior named Ugluk -- pissed off after just having lost a level) chase after them. And catch up to them just at the entrance.

The orcs, to their credit, don't start combat, preferring to try to parlay (maybe they've found possible allies against the elves!). The guards go get their leader, who

1) Doesn't give a about the nearby elves
2) Figures he deserves some tribute/taxes from the trespassers. After all, he's got the numbers. He's got the talent. Time for them to pay.

He demands a few hundred in gold. The party balks, even though:

1) they have no USE for gold -- they're trapped in a place w/out a passage to the Underdark, and haven't seen a store, etc., in months (really, since the beginning of the campaign)
2) They have 2000gp+ easily, having just made a major haul.

So, what does the party do?

Do they try to bluff -- pretend they are high high level adventuring types? No. Do they pay the $$, and vow to come back later to kick their asses? No. What happens is that the players (well, at least a couple of them) give me blank stares to the effect of "Hey, no FAIR taking our gold away! . . ." and that's about it, for a little while.

So an orc throws 100gp at the leader, and insists that should be enough. He laughs, and says that if that's the best they can do, he'll just have to kill them and take all their gold. The orcs, of course, are forced through roleplaying constraints (I suppose) to never never never cave in to such demands . . . but another party member (Dark creeper) coughs up some more gold, and then the party wizard throws in a scroll of two first-level spells that he can't use bcs they're from a forbidden school.

I decide, in a weenie fit of niceness, that after the trouble with the wights that I'll let them off the hook:

"Okay. 350gp and the scroll will be sufficient -- and if I ever see any of you . . . say, after fifteen seconds from now, you're all dead."

The non-orcs back out, thankful that this is over with.

Hedkarakk starts backing out.

And then . . . *sigh* . . . Ugluk says to the gnoll leader "What is your name, BOY?"

And I let him live. Sure, the gnoll leader took a 5-foot step forward, swung his greatsword twice, and brought Ugluk down to zero hp, but did he demand that as a further penalty Ugluk cough up his sword? Or his shiny shield? Or more gold? No.

He let Ugluk go. Hell with more tribute -- he SHOULD have chopped off his head, and told the rest of the party that this should be a lesson to them.

It was the nice DM move to make, I suppose. Especially given Ugluk had just lost a level. But I still feel I did something wrong.

Ugluk is brash and foolhardy and sensitive to insults and never backs down. I can't let that mean that he NEVER faces an *BETTER* opponent that is brash and sensitive to insults and never backs down. I just can't . . . but I did this time.

Sometimes good roleplaying gets you killed, and that's the way it should be. But hell, from what you've said, these two guys are doing *lousy* roleplaying. You shouldn't even think about sparing them!