Particle_Man said:
One thing I would need to be clear on: Does the mage's character know what you houserule stoneskin as doing?
This is very important, and let me answer succintly.
Yes, she absolutely knows what Stoneskin can do. I and her would have discussed spells and their effects as throughly as we could, before the game.
So she would know that the tactic she pulled, would work ... assuming the dragon did actually choose to ram her deliberately and that it would choose not to use it's breath weapon. (A calculated gamble if ever there was one ... I would call this woman's character a real heroine.)
Note that she knew her spells probably would not penetrate the dragon's SR. She had no other effective weapons at her disposal. So she played psychology with the dragon, and it worked.
So does the mage's character know that this particular trick will almost certainly work, because of how you houserule stoneskin, and how overconfident you run dragons?
I must stress: SHE ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT KNOW if the tactic will work or not. If she chooses to play psychology with the Great Wyrm Red Dragon, it's a case of Play at Your Own Risk!!
Or would it be more like, whatever the mage did (magic missle, sleep, etc.), you could houserule it on the fly to make the dragon suffer?
Absolutely not. The spell effects are set before the game begins, and the player knows what those effects are. It is *crucial* that she (and all the other spellcasters) know what their spells will or will not do (and the characters would, obviously, know the effects of their own spells!)
If there is a situation where the effect and result are unclear, I'm in the position of having to adjudicate. That does sometimes happen. But this is not one of those situations.
Because if it is the latter, it seems like it doesn't really matter what the players do - it looks more like the DM telling a story, with the players occasionally nodding.
It is ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL that the players not be railroaded.
I had the misfortune of being railroaded through DL1, DL2, DL3 ... all the way through DL12. I know what that's like.
The choice of whether to take that dragon on, or hide in the Rope Trick, or do something else, is entirely up to the players!!
The former situation would be required for the players to participate, since they need information about their tactical options before they can decide what tactical options are available to them and which they will use.
Ah yes. Unfortunately, the dragon is coming fast, and time is limited.
But I see no reason why the players couldn't have a minute to discuss things. Call it suspension of belief.
I would hope my players had a pre-planned strategy for emergencies (and a Great Wyrm Red Dragon approaching is an emergency ...) such as Strategy 21 (which involved more than just the elven mage flying up into the air like that ... I didn't go into what the other characters did.) I would hope any party would have contingency plans for major confrontations where time is short and immediate action is needed.
I've had to live through many tables where Mass Confusion reigned, when a minor encounter occurred. (ala, 4 orcs show up. What do you do? (half-hour later ... Well, we attack them by ...))
Also, "maneuver 21" implies that the party has worked out at least 21 different maneuvers, something like the X-Men, I imagine. This makes for a rather different style of play than I would be used to. I would be curious as to how many players have been in groups that have worked out, separately, at least 21 different tactical maneuvers for their party in order to deal with possible encounters. I have been in groups that work out 1 maneuver, that is SOP for combats, but that is about it. Everything else is adapted on the fly. But perhaps I do not represent the average player.
Just think of it as Option 1 (the All-Out Emergency Option.) It's the first thing the players considered: what to do if an overwhelming encounter occurred.
Obviously, most other actions will be worked out on the fly.
If my (say, now, EL 15) group *insisted* on going through S1, The Tomb of Horrors, they would need a number of contingency plans of this sort. But that's an exceptional situation.
I do agree that you and the players should agree as to what conventions the game will involve (which might include, as per your OP, an evil party that doesn't act evil towards each other, which to me seems to be an alignment house rule or perhaps a contrived situation, but that is a topic for another thread).
It is contrived and artificial, I admit, in this case. But the alternative is disaster. I saw that disastrous alternative happen personally ... the group disintegrated, and it came close to an actual physical brawl.
Don't ask me why that happened, for I don't know. Some people just can't handle evil characters, I guess ... after that debacle, I houseruled that evil PCs must cooperate. They can be evil against NPCs and otherwise do what they want, but never act against their own party.
I do not allow paladins and evil characters to adventure together. Houseruled as a no-no.
I suggest you and the players should also be on the same page as to what houserules are involved. They can't plan out maneuvers if they don't know what a maneuver would do.
I could not agree more. The players *must* know what they can do, before the game.
But one thing comes to mind. If stoneskin is houseruled as being a "Dragon Stopper", and the party has access to that spell, then the dragon is no longer a CR 18 encounter for that party and they should probably get less experience points for defeating the dragon.
Hmmm ... I would give the party full experience. Here's why ...
Put yourself in the place of the elven girl. She heroically flew up to intercept the dragon.
But she did *not* know if it would ram her. For all she knew, it would fire it's ungodly breath weapon at her, and then she would just be instantly dead.
No, she took a calculated gamble, heroically rising to protect her party. (And her party, by the way, was readying heroics on the ground, which I haven't gone into.)
It takes a pretty special woman to face an onrushing dragon. I think her deeds are worth full experience points.
And that leads to a dilemma for you, perhaps: If the party knows about your houserules, they can min/max towards those houserules, and your challenges will not be perceived as being challenging (your illusion of danger will falter - you could have a mage stock up on stoneskin scrolls and go dragon hunting, for example).
I want the players to min/max. I support them using the rules to give themselves the edge. In both roleplaying and strategic/tactical terms, IC and OOC, it makes sense for them to do so (in this, I differ from the opinions of a lot of other players, I guess.)
I want the players to roleplay, obviously. But I want them to do their best to win. I want them to give their best. Not sit around and argue with each other, or point fingers of accusation at each other, or be bored, or sit back and do nothing but watch casually (I don't condemn such idle players, but I do tend to suddenly look at them and speak abruptly: What do you do?!
)
If my illusion of danger fails, I've failed. I've failed to do my job as DM. My job is to entertain my players, and now they are bored. I've failed.
I will do everything I can to maintain the illusion. There are more than just dragons out there (those 5 ogres, for example.) There are problems other than fighting just monsters. There are puzzles to solve, decisions to make, roleplaying to do. This is not a video game, but a D&D game. These are characters in a fantasy setting, not images on a video game screen. And they must deal with all the aspects of the fantasy setting. All of them.
If that does not work, if nothing I can do works for my players, then it is time for me to step down as DM, and request someone else volunteer for the job.
Incidentally, stacking up on Stoneskin scrolls is fine (if expensive.)
Stacking up on Stoneskin scrolls to fight dragons? Well ... there was only that one dragon, it's Clone has emerged and is looking for them (and burning up assorted villages and towns in the process, along with anything else unfortunate enough to get in it's infuriated way) and the dragon knows full well the party might try this stunt again. It will be ready for such a stunt, know to avoid it.
If the party goes dragonhunting at 5th level, that would be quite audacious in general (!) But let's say they go after the Great Wyrm to stop it's rampage. They have a real problem ... their Stoneskin tactic won't work, so what will? (*My* 5th level characters never actively went after a dragon! In the scenario in question, the dragon blundered onto the party by accident, and would have passed them by entirely if they had bothered to do something as simple as hide in the grass ... the dragon was interested in the deer herd, not some cowering, pathetic humanoids hiding in the grass.)
On the other hand, if your party does not know your houserules, then they don't know what tactical options to use, and will get either frustrated when their efforts fail or sidelined when their efforts succeed by some means unknown to them (the sneezing on the dragon example given above).
They absolutely will get frustrated. It is *imperative* that the players understand my houserules. I will explain all my houserules in detail at the start, and allow the players time to adjust their characters accordingly.
I will not tell my players about my houseruled monsters, of course. Nasty surprises are for me to know and them to find out.
The mere fact that I houserule monsters, throw the unexpected at them, that just about anything could come out of the blue, helps to maintain the illusion of danger, in my experience (sorta the Newbie Situation, as it were, extrapolated to higher levels.)
Yours Sincerely
Edena_of_Neith
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