Help me stop my Player!

[Rkhet]

For one thing, the shadows would drastically reduce the Encounter Level, as shown in the DMG, because circumstances would make the battle much easier for the PCs.

Yuerrk. Long post with no breaks in the middle. Sigh... let me see if I can type a suitably short reply before I lose interest.

Here's an example. Party A and Party B is facing the same encounter. Party A is fully rested and has all resources available, because Party A camped out. Party B rushed in with all their once-per-day abilities spent.

The combat resolves, Party A comes out without a scrape. Party B is down to single-digits on HP, and one of their guys is dead, another wound-cursed by a clay golem. Should Party B get more XP, because it was harder for them? No. It could potentially have been a breeze, but for the player's actions.

Party C and Party D faces a different encounter. Party C charges in headlong. The BBEG, supported by all his minions, almost kills them all. Party D spends a whole month scouting the terrain, and picking off minions one by one, until they face the BBeG - who turns out to be a pushover without backup. Should Party D get less XP because it was easy? No. It was easy because of the player's actions. They get exactly the same amount.

This is covered in the DMG somewhere.

Secondly, as the original poster described, his player found out about this stuff but there is no in-game reason/way for the character to have learned this knowledge too.

Certainly. Shadows are 3HD. A Knowledge(religion) check to know about them is DC13. Then you can Shapechange into them. Hmm... here's an assumption I'd have to make: when you Shapechange into something, you know about their Ex and Su abilities, and how to use them. The spell cannot do what it says (grant all Ex and Su abilities) otherwise.

And, in-game, the character has no reason to go looking for this knowledge specifically

The knowledge that some undead can replicate themselves should be rather common. The character would initially see if he could somehow take advantage of that. What Shapechange does would be slightly harder, but in a world where a scroll of Shapechange is available for purchase, not terribly so - especially if he's seen how Polymorph works. Or he could chat with whoever sells them, next time he goes to buy magic gear. With these leads the character can go, 'hey, what if...'

It does take a little RPing, perhaps. But there you go.

On the availability of level 9 spells, see my post above.

 

[Rkhet]

Some ponderings, on player metagaming:

Say your average player plays a Paladin. The player's motivation, like the rest of his party: kill things and take their lewt. Level up. The Paladin's? Destroy evil, protect good, uphold justice, et cetra. Is the player by default metagaming? What if he can RP it well and do both?

Given two missions, both involving destruction of evil and upholding of good, but the first of which has more leet lewt and xp, the Paladin would be fine with either. The player would pick the first. Is he metagaming? Certainly. But does it mean the DM should force him to pick the other one?

 

[gabrion]

Wow, lots of responses and I really appreciate the ideas everyone. As for how we arrived at this particular juncture, I should have given a few more details to begin with, since I think it could ahve cleared some things up.

Knowledge of the Shadow
It wasn't exactly that the character was just flipping throught the MM (I did say that though..hmm), but instead that he was specifically looking at the Shadow. Why? Because he just gained his third level in Shadowdancer and wanted to read about his knew buddy. The shadow under his control doesn't have the ability to create spawn, but he did see that and ask about it.

Although I could have used Knowledge (religion) as some people pointed out, my game actually contains a skill called Knowledge (monsters), which allows you to learn things about a monster based on how well you do on the check. He is one of the players who invested in the skill and therefore he has the opportunity to make a check, which should probably have an ad hoc bonus if anything since he has a shadow "familiar."

Access to scrolls
Very high magic world. This has obviouly caused some minor problems before, but usually nothing I can't handle. Characters interact with magic every day, and currently the characters are staying in the largest city on the continent, making access to these kinds of things quite easy. Since the character doesn't have Knowledge (arcana) or Spellcraft, he wouldn't know much about spells, but I could make him roleplay asking someone about it. The party wizard may be able to help, or if he chooses to try the black market (a dangerous endeavor), he can tell people what he is looking for and they may very well give it to him.

Now that I think about it, this may be my best tool. If he has to roleplay obtaining the scroll it will undoubtedly leave a trail, which will give me a non-metagame reason for having certain NPCs track him after he carries out the plan.

Rule 0ing/Changing Monsters

Rule 0 is a house rule?

Call me a crazy DM, but I'm pretty sure the answer to that question is yes. I'm pretty sure they eliminated most Rule 0 references in 3.5.

Really it doesn't matter for this case though. If the character uses the Shapechange spell to turn into something, then they do have the right to know if I've modified the creature, right? Sure if they run into a mummy and I've made him fire resistent, that's fine, but the description of Shapechange makes me think that the character would be aware of what they are turningn into. For those of you proposing a switcheroo, that's like having the 20th level wizard turn into a dragon for combat purposes via shapechange and then telling him, "Oh ya, dragons are really weak in my world. They don't have a breath weapon and if they get hit by any projectiles they die. Noticing that you've turned into a dragon, the enemy archer turns his attention to you..." Not cool IMO.

----------------------------------------

I apologize for not having given more details about the character being a shadowdancer and having a way to access knowledge about creatures, but I was just more interested in the legality of the act and the consequences should it take place. Right now I can't see a fair way of preventing it shot of DM tyranny, of which I'm not a big fan, so I believe I will allow him to proceed. I will require that all of his plan be carried out in game, and I will have an out of character dicussion detailing the possible ramifications of such a course of action, but if he makes the rolls I won't keep him from doing it. I will also point out to him that the DMG does talk about the relative challenge of encounters and that if the Shadoes make everything easy, the group will get lower XP rewards (something he will need to really think about). That said, I think this will be a very interesting situation and it will have a major impact on the game world. If I keep on my toes though it should be a fun character developement eexperience.

 

[Jack Simth]

If it gets out of hand, just make sure to remember, as a DM (and remind the player), that the only shadows he can successfully give direct orders to are his class shadow and the ones he created while shapechanged. After that, he must order them to give orders, and if anything takes down the first generation spawn, the second generation become uncontrolled.

Don't tell him the rest, but keep track of which shadow is which (a simple two-column table of named shadows, their creator, and where they are should suffice).
Then note that he has an enforced command structure, and someone spying for even a fairly short time with ranks in something appropriet (perhaps Knoweledge (Nobility and Royalty)) will have a decent chance of figuring out the command structure (e.g., who is following who's orders, even if not why), and someone with ranks in Knoweledge (Religion) would be able to figure out roughly how the command structure works, and how to break it, given a knoweledge of the command structure.
Then note that an evil cleric of 6th level or more has a very decent chance of commanding his commanders out from under his control, or that a good cleric of 6th level or above has a good chance of destroying his commanders, freeing the second and third generation spawn.

If it gets particularly out of hand, introduce an evil NPC cleric with the Trickery Domain (hide as a class skill, full rebuke/command abilities) and snitch his army out from underneath him.

But at least he isn't going with Wights.

 

[IcyCool]

Some ponderings, on player metagaming:

Say your average player plays a Paladin. The player's motivation, like the rest of his party: kill things and take their lewt. Level up. The Paladin's? Destroy evil, protect good, uphold justice, et cetra. Is the player by default metagaming? What if he can RP it well and do both?

No, because part of playing a Paladin is living by the Paladin's code. This is an in-game thing.

Given two missions, both involving destruction of evil and upholding of good, but the first of which has more leet lewt and xp, the Paladin would be fine with either. The player would pick the first. Is he metagaming? Certainly. But does it mean the DM should force him to pick the other one?

Your example is misleading. Given those two missions, does the Paladin know which could yield greater "lewt"? Or did the GM just say that, "You have option A and option B. Option B gives more lewt."

 

[Ovinomancer]

You have two groups.

Group A relies on thier own abilities and skills to overthrow an evil overlord. It is a difficult and dangerous endevour. They earn many XPs.

Group B hires a mercenary army and attacks the overlord's fortress. After sipping tea for 6 months, their merc army wins the siege and overthrows the evil overlord. They earn few XP.

Replace merc army with shadows. Rinse and repeat.

 

[Ovinomancer]

To the OP:

If you're running a high magic game, it would be feasible for most villages to possess some means of detecting hostiles before its too late. Mabye the local church has placed detect undead or detect evil plinths around the area villages that sound an alarm if set off. Maybe something else entirely. If I had easy access to magic as a town mayor, I would definately invest in my town's defenses.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I like the idea of letting him do it and get away with it.....for a while. As a Shadowdancer he's going to have reason to know about shadows. So let's say he does it.

Day 1: shapechange to a shadow and turn a small hamlet into shadows.
Day 2: proceed to second small hamlet and command shadow minions to kill the hamlet.
Day 3-x: repeat until some cleric, RL Lord, or set of adventurers begin hunting them down. He'll probably have fun trouncing the first few groups that oppose him.

Have a bit of fun with the player, giving him the chance to decide this may be too big to get away with after a small army equipped with plenty of lanterns and enchanted weapons arrives and start cramping his style.

Then drop the hammer. Once too many of the shadows get destroyed they turn on their "master." Shadows are controlled by the one who kills them, right? Well, every shadow beyond that first batch is out of his control. If the shadows feel threatened by his commands they tell their "children" to kill the mortal and bring him into the fold. The mortal has to be killed since otherwise he can command the 1st gen shadows. Each and every 2nd generation shadow will be set against him. Mwa-ha-ha!

 

[Rkhet]

You have two groups.

Group A relies on thier own abilities and skills to overthrow an evil overlord. It is a difficult and dangerous endevour. They earn many XPs.

Group B hires a mercenary army and attacks the overlord's fortress. After sipping tea for 6 months, their merc army wins the siege and overthrows the evil overlord. They earn few XP.

Replace merc army with shadows. Rinse and repeat.

How did group B come by their gold? Mercenary armies ain't cheap. If the overthrowing of the EO is the whole campaign, they probably found an alternative way of playing it (spent their time gathering gold instead of killing underlings). They should get roughly the same amount of xp, though for encounters of a different type - politicking RP, perhaps. Maybe they should get a little more, for originality.

If the players just happened to have the gold because the DM gave out too much, that's the DM's fault for doing so and he should have gave it more thought beforehand.

New and original ways of doing things should be rewarded, not penaltized because they 'weren't hard enough'.

 

[Rkhet]

It seems to me that there are two issues here, so I would like some clarification from the other side:

Assuming that the player is not metagaming, but does something unexpected and potentially gamebreaking. Do you a. screw them over so they won't do it again, or b. change your campaign slightly to account for the new elements?

Assuming that the player is metagaming: how do you handle this, exactly? By having his character snapped like a twig by the uber paladin-gods of unkillable righteousness and evil-UMDing-shapechanging-PC bane? Isn't it better to, Idunno, talk to him and tell him to stop?