The Lone Corndog
First Post
My players, God love ‘em, are embarking on a ‘plan’ for our next session that has DISASTER written all over it. And they don’t seem to realize it. I’m on the other side of the table, screaming ‘No, No, No, you idiots!!’ at the top of my internal monologue voice. These are intelligent guys, playing intelligent characters; we’ve been rpg-ing for about 15-18 years together – so this is not newbie silliness. The party wizard has an 18 Int, for the love of Pete, and it’s mostly his plan. I think (hope?) it’s a matter of not seeing the forest for the trees. If they go through with this plan, the likelihood of TPK is near certain. I’m thinking of swatting the wizard’s player with a clue-by-four via email, but y’all let me know what you think. I just gotta vent here a little.
Facts known to the party:
1. At some point in the distant past, there was a World Changing Event (hereinafter referred to as the WCE.) The WCE was powerful enough to deny access to the world by even the deities, prevented clerics from gaining divine spells, and caused a number of arcane spells to no longer function. Major fricken mojo, in other words.
2. The effects of the WCE are slowly fading, allowing some rare individuals to gain clerical levels and divine magic.
3. The WCE is/was connected to a large elven city with 5 towers. Said city is no longer in existence. Neither are the elves. Any of them. Anywhere.
4. The party found a map, which they have reason to believe indicates the location of the city of five towers. A diary found with the map suggests that the elves of the city caused the WCE in an act of folly and arrogance.
5. The place marked on the map is in the middle of a swamp, and the whole area has a grim and dark reputation.
6. The party entered the swamp, and headed for the center, using the wizard’s raven familiar for aerial recon. The raven located the ruins of a city deep in the swamp, the most distinguishing feature being a tall tower. Said tower had an ominous green light glowing from the top floor, visible for some distance (when viewed from the air – the party can’t see it yet.) The tower had a number of crypts around it, and there were humanoid figures moving around in the ruins.
7. The party encountered and killed a group of creatures taking a slave back to the ruins. The slave told the party that the ruins are populated by roughly 100 of the creatures, who are busy exploring/looting the ruins.
8. The creatures’ society is rigidly structured in a caste/class system, and wear robes that indicate the wearers caste/class. The slain guards were of the lowest caste. There are at least two higher castes that the slave is aware of: a warrior elite and a priestly caste. The slave describes the difference in markings on the robes, so that the party can recognize the different castes. The markings are not very complex.
9. The slave escaped by killing one of the low caste guards, donning his robe, and simply walking out of the ruins. No one paid any attention to him, since he wasn’t doing anything to draw particular attention to himself.
10. The creatures have been in the city for at least nine months, and probably longer.
11. The creatures have not been able to gain access to the tower, or a number of the larger crypts, as they are sealed with magical doors that require a particular key, combined with a spoken code/activation word. They have, however, gotten into a number of the smaller crypts – having apparently found the keys to them.
12. A number of the higher ranking castes are camped near the base of the tower, presumably studying the tower door – though the slave was not allowed near enough to the tower to see what they were doing.
Whew, sorry about the long list of info, but it was necessary to understand my frustration with the ‘plan’ about to be committed by my guys.
Plan version 1.0 went like this: Don the robes of the slain guards, slip into the ruins by keeping a low profile and looking like they are on a errand of some kind. (OK, so far) Find a ‘safe house’ of some kind, perhaps a previously looted crypt or shrine that no one is messing around with anymore. (Still OK) At this point they began discussing the best way to kill the 100 or so creatures in the ruins. Just the three of them, mind you, two third level characters and one fourth level. (Very much not OK – sudden left turn to Stupidville) Luckily for them, the slave had not yet left the rescue site. He turns to them, and tells them that they are absolutely stark raving mad if they think that they can successfully take on 100 or so highly organized creatures in a standup fight on relatively open ground. The players look at each other, go ‘Hmmm, maybe he’s got something there,’ and go back to the drawing board. The slave, very wisely, thanks the party for rescuing him, bids the party a hasty farewell, and makes tracks
Version 1.01 starts off like 1.0, except for the fighting-100-enemies-in-open-battle part. They substitute instead: slip up to the tower gate (exact method not yet finalized), somehow escape the notice of the high caste types who are studying said door, the wizard will cast knock on the door. The wizard states “I better make a scroll of knock too. The door might be barred or something on the other side and I might have to cast it twice.” (I’m not kidding, that’s almost a direct quote.) At this point, plan 1.01 becomes pretty vague – they’ll loot the tower, dealing with whatever is inside, and slip away past the creatures outside…somehow.
Oh, where to begin….let’s see. Oooh, oooh – let’s start with the idea that these creatures, having had nine months to a year to experiment, never thought to try the knock spell. More fundamentally, what about the idea that the builders of the tower (you know, the one with the ominous green glow emanating from the top, the tower that is located in the ruins of the city of five towers, from which the WCE originated, said WCE having the power to kick the gods out of the world) might not have relied on a magical door that could be defeated by a 2nd level spell? Oh yeah, maybe two second level spells – after all, the magic door might also be barred from inside.
The previous owners of the tower had, as mentioned in fact #1 above, major fricken mojo to work with.
Or what about the idea that they can approach the tower, wearing the outfits of the lowest ranking caste, whose duties involve overseeing slaves and some manual labor, without being challenged or discovered?
Or what about the idea to not explore the other buildings and crypts in the area first? I mean, what are the odds of finding anything of interest/use in the other places the slave told them about. Just because the creatures apparently found the keys to some of the other crypts around here somewhere, in addition to treasure of other kinds, and are still looting the crypts doesn’t mean anything, right?
I could go on, but this is getting way longer than I had intended. After talk turned to ways the three of them could maybe take on the whole $%^*@* band of bad guys, I just sat there in utter disbelief as the ‘plan’ was discussed. I kept my mouth shut after the slave’s outburst and quietly (I hope) ground my teeth and tried not to wince. I cannot, however, go to bed without venting to someone and considering the hour, you folks on the boards are the best target.
So, what do I do about this situation? I really don’t want to end the campaign, as we are really getting into the meat of it now. A TPK wouldn’t necessarily end things, but it would be a huge setback and I don’t know if I would have the heart to go back to square one and start over. On the other hand, I don’t want to nerf the bad guys and the challenges of the adventure site to keep things going either. It has been a really good campaign so far, I think, and the guys have been giving me plenty of feedback telling me that they are enjoying it too.
I know that one of the first things I’ll probably get by way of response to my ranting will be the old “Let ‘em all get killed. That’ll teach ‘em.” Not that I disagree, but I’d rather try something else, anything else, first. I don’t DM much, and I’m having fun being on the other side of the screen, so to speak. I don’t want the campaign to end so soon, and I think a TPK would end it. I’m thinking of emailing the player running the wizard (on the basis of the character’s high Int) and laying out a shorter version of the fact list I posted - sort of an executive summary of pertinent facts – and pointedly asking if this is the best plan they can come up with, given these facts. For gameplay purposes, I’ll say that the night before executing the plan, his subconscious throws up some objections or something like that. Maybe they’ll sit back and review everything they know and come up with something better.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Facts known to the party:
1. At some point in the distant past, there was a World Changing Event (hereinafter referred to as the WCE.) The WCE was powerful enough to deny access to the world by even the deities, prevented clerics from gaining divine spells, and caused a number of arcane spells to no longer function. Major fricken mojo, in other words.
2. The effects of the WCE are slowly fading, allowing some rare individuals to gain clerical levels and divine magic.
3. The WCE is/was connected to a large elven city with 5 towers. Said city is no longer in existence. Neither are the elves. Any of them. Anywhere.
4. The party found a map, which they have reason to believe indicates the location of the city of five towers. A diary found with the map suggests that the elves of the city caused the WCE in an act of folly and arrogance.
5. The place marked on the map is in the middle of a swamp, and the whole area has a grim and dark reputation.
6. The party entered the swamp, and headed for the center, using the wizard’s raven familiar for aerial recon. The raven located the ruins of a city deep in the swamp, the most distinguishing feature being a tall tower. Said tower had an ominous green light glowing from the top floor, visible for some distance (when viewed from the air – the party can’t see it yet.) The tower had a number of crypts around it, and there were humanoid figures moving around in the ruins.
7. The party encountered and killed a group of creatures taking a slave back to the ruins. The slave told the party that the ruins are populated by roughly 100 of the creatures, who are busy exploring/looting the ruins.
8. The creatures’ society is rigidly structured in a caste/class system, and wear robes that indicate the wearers caste/class. The slain guards were of the lowest caste. There are at least two higher castes that the slave is aware of: a warrior elite and a priestly caste. The slave describes the difference in markings on the robes, so that the party can recognize the different castes. The markings are not very complex.
9. The slave escaped by killing one of the low caste guards, donning his robe, and simply walking out of the ruins. No one paid any attention to him, since he wasn’t doing anything to draw particular attention to himself.
10. The creatures have been in the city for at least nine months, and probably longer.
11. The creatures have not been able to gain access to the tower, or a number of the larger crypts, as they are sealed with magical doors that require a particular key, combined with a spoken code/activation word. They have, however, gotten into a number of the smaller crypts – having apparently found the keys to them.
12. A number of the higher ranking castes are camped near the base of the tower, presumably studying the tower door – though the slave was not allowed near enough to the tower to see what they were doing.
Whew, sorry about the long list of info, but it was necessary to understand my frustration with the ‘plan’ about to be committed by my guys.
Plan version 1.0 went like this: Don the robes of the slain guards, slip into the ruins by keeping a low profile and looking like they are on a errand of some kind. (OK, so far) Find a ‘safe house’ of some kind, perhaps a previously looted crypt or shrine that no one is messing around with anymore. (Still OK) At this point they began discussing the best way to kill the 100 or so creatures in the ruins. Just the three of them, mind you, two third level characters and one fourth level. (Very much not OK – sudden left turn to Stupidville) Luckily for them, the slave had not yet left the rescue site. He turns to them, and tells them that they are absolutely stark raving mad if they think that they can successfully take on 100 or so highly organized creatures in a standup fight on relatively open ground. The players look at each other, go ‘Hmmm, maybe he’s got something there,’ and go back to the drawing board. The slave, very wisely, thanks the party for rescuing him, bids the party a hasty farewell, and makes tracks
Version 1.01 starts off like 1.0, except for the fighting-100-enemies-in-open-battle part. They substitute instead: slip up to the tower gate (exact method not yet finalized), somehow escape the notice of the high caste types who are studying said door, the wizard will cast knock on the door. The wizard states “I better make a scroll of knock too. The door might be barred or something on the other side and I might have to cast it twice.” (I’m not kidding, that’s almost a direct quote.) At this point, plan 1.01 becomes pretty vague – they’ll loot the tower, dealing with whatever is inside, and slip away past the creatures outside…somehow.
Oh, where to begin….let’s see. Oooh, oooh – let’s start with the idea that these creatures, having had nine months to a year to experiment, never thought to try the knock spell. More fundamentally, what about the idea that the builders of the tower (you know, the one with the ominous green glow emanating from the top, the tower that is located in the ruins of the city of five towers, from which the WCE originated, said WCE having the power to kick the gods out of the world) might not have relied on a magical door that could be defeated by a 2nd level spell? Oh yeah, maybe two second level spells – after all, the magic door might also be barred from inside.
The previous owners of the tower had, as mentioned in fact #1 above, major fricken mojo to work with.Or what about the idea that they can approach the tower, wearing the outfits of the lowest ranking caste, whose duties involve overseeing slaves and some manual labor, without being challenged or discovered?
Or what about the idea to not explore the other buildings and crypts in the area first? I mean, what are the odds of finding anything of interest/use in the other places the slave told them about. Just because the creatures apparently found the keys to some of the other crypts around here somewhere, in addition to treasure of other kinds, and are still looting the crypts doesn’t mean anything, right?
I could go on, but this is getting way longer than I had intended. After talk turned to ways the three of them could maybe take on the whole $%^*@* band of bad guys, I just sat there in utter disbelief as the ‘plan’ was discussed. I kept my mouth shut after the slave’s outburst and quietly (I hope) ground my teeth and tried not to wince. I cannot, however, go to bed without venting to someone and considering the hour, you folks on the boards are the best target.
So, what do I do about this situation? I really don’t want to end the campaign, as we are really getting into the meat of it now. A TPK wouldn’t necessarily end things, but it would be a huge setback and I don’t know if I would have the heart to go back to square one and start over. On the other hand, I don’t want to nerf the bad guys and the challenges of the adventure site to keep things going either. It has been a really good campaign so far, I think, and the guys have been giving me plenty of feedback telling me that they are enjoying it too.
I know that one of the first things I’ll probably get by way of response to my ranting will be the old “Let ‘em all get killed. That’ll teach ‘em.” Not that I disagree, but I’d rather try something else, anything else, first. I don’t DM much, and I’m having fun being on the other side of the screen, so to speak. I don’t want the campaign to end so soon, and I think a TPK would end it. I’m thinking of emailing the player running the wizard (on the basis of the character’s high Int) and laying out a shorter version of the fact list I posted - sort of an executive summary of pertinent facts – and pointedly asking if this is the best plan they can come up with, given these facts. For gameplay purposes, I’ll say that the night before executing the plan, his subconscious throws up some objections or something like that. Maybe they’ll sit back and review everything they know and come up with something better.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Glad to see your ivin Rel and the4 other guys hell, heh. Not so glad to see they've obviously subscribed to TPK monthly (A strategy magazine for rash players 
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