Help me stop my Player!

[Kae'Yoss]

Better yet, if the PCs (as opposed the players) have no actual experience with shadows, simply let him assume the shadows are as they are in the MM, but write up a new version of the monster making one minor change to the Create Spawn ability: new shadows aren't controlled by the killer.

Very evil, good work!

Shadow, Dread

Like shadow, but these shadows always attack all living targets they encounter, and this impulse cannot be negated by their master or any controll spell (though turning them works) since it is an effect caused by a domain lord.

 

[Rkhet]

Well, it is by no means original, this has been discussed before in different ways. I agree let him have his fun, but their are consequances for his action. You shouldn't let him kill have a village and not have anyone notice or care. An army of shadows is going to attract attention. And if the DM rules when he stops being a shadow he loses control of theml; then that's fine to. People really aren't trying to screw him, they are just figureing out how it would logically play out by the rules.

Nothing's original, if you want it that way. Every single idea, ever, has been discussed endlessly in countless boards just like this one. But it is reasonably novel, especially if he came up with it himself. Having paladins chasing after him for this is fine, but there is a difference between a role-play opportunity and killing him off.

There are countless things the DM could do, completely legally, to screw over a player. The question is whether he should. Just because the player does something unexpected doesn't mean he should now be 'punished' by having his character gang-banged by a horde of paladins and their planetar mommys and solar daddies, or having his shadows turn against him when there are no rules to support it.

There is even a chance that it'll go completely unnoticed, especially if the player plans well. Make up a table and roll dice. In non-metagame terms, there is no reason doing this should draw any more ire than any other evil act that a group of evil PCs should perform. i.e. A lot, but not enough to TPK.

Modifying the Create Shadows ability would be a houserule. The player would need to know beforehand and, preferably, before the campaign starts.

No xp: why were the shadows there? That's right: he created them. Then he used them to his advantage in combat. How is this any different to, say, a battlefield control spell? An encounter's xp output isn't determined by how easily the players overcame it. It is determined by how difficult it is to overcome, given an arbitrary party of the same CR. If there are pre-existing factors that would help the players, you cut the xp - even if they don't use those factors at all. But if the players bring their own, then they should get full xp.

 

[AuraSeer]

Last session one of the characters was reading through the monster's manual and came across the shadow.

That's your stopping point, right there. You just need to enforce the separation between player knowledge and character knowledge.

The player may have read the Monster Manual, but the character has not. The character does not know the details of undead special abilities, unless he has lots of ranks in an appropriate Knowledge skill (which may be very hard to acquire in Ravenloft). He doesn't even know exactly what shapechange does, necessarily; if he doesn't have a bunch of ranks in Spellcraft, he may never even have heard of that spell.

This is the same situation that comes up when a player reads a chemistry textbook and hten wants his character to invent gunpowder. That's abuse of player knowledge, and it shouldn't be allowed.

 

[Rkhet]

Very evil, good work!

Shadow, Dread

Like shadow, but these shadows always attack all living targets they encounter, and this impulse cannot be negated by their master or any controll spell (though turning them works) since it is an effect caused by a domain lord.

Heh.

Pie, Dread.

Like pies, but actually Tiny-sized Abominations that always attack any evil aligned adventurers that has cast Shapechange in the last 24 hours. Cannot be harmed by any means. Cannot be eaten, since it is an effect caused by a domain lord. CR1, since it is harmless to most things.

 

[Mark Chance]

Modifying the Create Shadows ability would be a houserule. The player would need to know beforehand and, preferably, before the campaign starts.

House rule? Certainly. Notified ahead of time of it. Nonsense. The players get to learn about changes to rules that do not directly affect their characters or characters' abilities when those changes become relevant to the game.

To paraphrase and summarize the recent encounter with fire-proof mummified hell hounds in my campaign:

"Well, that's not the way mummies are supposed to work!" said pouting player. "Mummies are vulnerable to fire."

"Well, apparently you're character was incorrect about these particular mummies."

IOW:

"Well, how come my character didn't know such-and-such monster had such-and-such ability."

"Because your character quite obviously has never encountered this sort of monster before."

 

[Rkhet]

"how come your character has 4000 hit points at level 5?"

"well, apparently the PHB was incorrect about my particular Wizard."

"how come you didn't tell me?"

"I was cheating. Oops, I mean because your monsters never encountered my PC before."

 

[Mark Chance]

"how come your character has 4000 hit points at level 5?"

"well, apparently the PHB was incorrect about my particular Wizard."

"how come you didn't tell me?"

"I was cheating. Oops, I mean because your monsters never encountered my PC before."

Yet another person confused about the fundamental differences between the separate roles of player and GM.

 

[RigaMortus]

Yeah, if you allow someone to read the MM and use their out-of-game knowledge to influence the game (when their character's wouldn't have the same knowledge)... well... that's the problem right there. You don't allow your player's to read your DM notes do you?

 

[IcyCool]

House rule? Certainly. Notified ahead of time of it. Nonsense. The players get to learn about changes to rules that do not directly affect their characters or characters' abilities when those changes become relevant to the game.

To paraphrase and summarize the recent encounter with fire-proof mummified hell hounds in my campaign:

"Well, that's not the way mummies are supposed to work!" said pouting player. "Mummies are vulnerable to fire."

"Well, apparently you're character was incorrect about these particular mummies."

IOW:

"Well, how come my character didn't know such-and-such monster had such-and-such ability."

"Because your character quite obviously has never encountered this sort of monster before."

If the player had made the appropriate Knowledge: Religion check (that being the skill governing knowledge about undead), would you have informed him of such?

 

[IcyCool]

"how come your character has 4000 hit points at level 5?"

"well, apparently the PHB was incorrect about my particular Wizard."

"how come you didn't tell me?"

"I was cheating. Oops, I mean because your monsters never encountered my PC before."

"Sweet. Your character is dead. Next!"