5E In our last session... some bits and bobs.

[dnd4vr]

I don't really get into torture other than some generic "They torture you trying to get information." but no specifics. Some of the players go a bit more but we try to keep things PG13.

I also tend to give outs when things go bad or place things that may solve problems. I might place a potion of flying or climbing in a place they could find that will help them later or a scroll of regeneration/ raise dead at some point in the dungeon if the PCs are likely to die. It goes to the point of havine a player sitting for a night while the rest of the players bring his body back to town or such.

I did have an elf with one arm in a game but he also had a metal arm I stole from Dragonlance. I gave him some powers that went with it. I could see me giving something like this to a PC.

Sure, every DM and table is different. I don't mind how our DM handled things in that respect because I don't give things to help out the PCs when things go bad. If things go bad, it was probably because players took a risk they should have realized was beyond them. I like it when PCs RUN from monsters in my game. Our DM is similar.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

The rulings seem sound, especially given the added context of the time constraints, etc.
And the moral of this story is:
Always keep a spare one of these in your handy haversack:

Ersatz Eye
Wondrous item, common (requires attunement)
This artificial eye replaces a real one that was lost or removed. While the ersatz eye is embedded in your eye
socket, it can't be removed by anyone other than you, and you can see through the tiny orb as though it were a
normal eye.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This is one of those situations where I'd go with narrative fulfillment, rather than a mechanical one. If there's a cleric in the party (or someone else whose narrative abilities are healing the injured or infirmed) and they have someone who has been blinded and without eyes... I personally wouldn't just look at all the various healing spell descriptions, find the one that "applies", and then say "Well, sorry, this is the only way to do it, so you can't until you have mechanically reached the proper XP to finally "receive" this spell." That seems much too beholden to the "game" rather than the story and is not something I actually like doing.

If you have healing abilities throughout all 9 spell levels... narratively-speaking there should be a progression of what a person could accomplish. So to me... the idea that at a "2nd level spell slot" a healer could restore the sight of a blinded person (who had their eyes), but that same person couldn't fix the eyes themselves until using a "7th level spell slot" is just narratively wayyyyyyy too big of a jump. Especially considering that in that time, these healers can not only restore life to a dead person, but also completely reincarnate someone by creating a whole body for them? They can do all that... but they can't somehow just fix a person's broken eyes.

To me... that's just another point where being beholden to game mechanics for the sake of game mechanics results in incoherent story and gameplay. And a much less satisfying... and dare I say it... to me, a stupid game.

"Yeah, I know you had your ear burned off by that acid... but I can't replace that ear. So instead I'm going to create a whole new body for you, kill you, and then put your soul into it. Because that's easier."

Nah. Forget that ridiculousness. If a 2nd level slot can restore blindness, then a spell a couple level slots higher can give someone their eyes back-- either straight away if you don't want to roleplay the story, or by sending the group on an adventure to get the items necessary to create the invented ritual that would allow it. Make the eye restoration part of the story, not just a hurdle that the group has to play through over months just to earn "XP" so they eventually "get" a fix for it.

 

[dnd4vr]

This is one of those situations where I'd go with narrative fulfillment, rather than a mechanical one. If there's a cleric in the party (or someone else whose narrative abilities are healing the injured or infirmed) and they have someone who has been blinded and without eyes... I personally wouldn't just look at all the various healing spell descriptions, find the one that "applies", and then say "Well, sorry, this is the only way to do it, so you can't until you have mechanically reached the proper XP to finally "receive" this spell." That seems much too beholden to the "game" rather than the story and is not something I actually like doing.

If you have healing abilities throughout all 9 spell levels... narratively-speaking there should be a progression of what a person could accomplish. So to me... the idea that at a "2nd level spell slot" a healer could restore the sight of a blinded person (who had their eyes), but that same person couldn't fix the eyes themselves until using a "7th level spell slot" is just narratively wayyyyyyy too big of a jump. Especially considering that in that time, these healers can not only restore life to a dead person, but also completely reincarnate someone by creating a whole body for them? They can do all that... but they can't somehow just fix a person's broken eyes.

To me... that's just another point where being beholden to game mechanics for the sake of game mechanics results in incoherent story and gameplay. And a much less satisfying... and dare I say it... to me, a stupid game.

"Yeah, I know you had your ear burned off by that acid... but I can't replace that ear. So instead I'm going to create a whole new body for you, kill you, and then put your soul into it. Because that's easier."

Nah. Forget that ridiculousness. If a 2nd level slot can restore blindness, then a spell a couple level slots higher can give someone their eyes back-- either straight away if you don't want to roleplay the story, or by sending the group on an adventure to get the items necessary to create the invented ritual that would allow it. Make the eye restoration part of the story, not just a hurdle that the group has to play through over months just to earn "XP" so they eventually "get" a fix for it.

Yeah, disregarding mechanics at this point would have been nice. Since something like Greater Restoration is 5th level (which we do have access to), even that would have been preferable IMO (as @Stormonu suggested). Allowing it to restore ears, eyes, etc. maybe no more than a hand (but not an arm) would have been fine.

Maybe a 4th level spell, Lesser Regeneration, would be a nice addition to the game. We're playing soon so I'll have to ask the DM.

I think that fits the bill pretty well for power, level, etc. Does it look reasonable to others?

 

[Richards]

What's that "Duration: 1 minute" all about? I don't play 5E and am unfamiliar with whether or not any terminology has changed from earlier editions, but I would have expected "Duration: Permanent," as once cast it was a permanent effect that couldn't be dispelled. "Duration: 1 minute" to me means that the regenerated eyes (in this case) only last for one minute. Am I missing something?

Johnathan

 

[Aebir-Toril]

Sure, every DM and table is different. I don't mind how our DM handled things in that respect because I don't give things to help out the PCs when things go bad. If things go bad, it was probably because players took a risk they should have realized was beyond them. I like it when PCs RUN from monsters in my game. Our DM is similar.

I realize more, every day that I read these forums, that I am a very gory DM in terms of my descriptions.

 

[Henry]

All this sounds positively Gygaxian to me.

 

[Shiroiken]

I'd probably try to find a high level caster to cast Regenerate before resorting to such extreme measures like suicide/reincarnation. This could be an interesting adventure for the DM, because depending on the type of character the now blinded character (spellcasters are worst affected, because most spells require you to see your target).

 

[dnd4vr]

What's that "Duration: 1 minute" all about? I don't play 5E and am unfamiliar with whether or not any terminology has changed from earlier editions, but I would have expected "Duration: Permanent," as once cast it was a permanent effect that couldn't be dispelled. "Duration: 1 minute" to me means that the regenerated eyes (in this case) only last for one minute. Am I missing something?

Johnathan

I was thinking more in terms of the 1 minute it took to restore the body part, but changed it over all to be Permanent to avoid confusion.

I'd probably try to find a high level caster to cast Regenerate before resorting to such extreme measures like suicide/reincarnation. This could be an interesting adventure for the DM, because depending on the type of character the now blinded character (spellcasters are worst affected, because most spells require you to see your target).

If we had time we would have, but time was of the essence and we had to do what we could since we didn't have access to a capable caster in time.

Yeah, that was why the drow removes the wizard's eyes and the sorcerer's tongue. It really hurt the wizard but the sorcerer had Subtle Spell metamagic to overcome the lack of vocal component.

 

[Arvok]

My only issue with all this would be that players might try to use reincarnate as a cheap and easy way to overcome poor decisions/bad luck. If the players role played it well--making it obvious how much of a dangerous and frightening ordeal reincarnation is--I don't see it as much of a problem.

As far as ability scores for the reincarnated form, I like the idea of taking existing ability scores (before racial adjustments) and letting the player assign them as he sees fit to the new form. Also, for anyone except an elf (because they naturally reincarnate to a new elven or fey form when they die--at least in my world) being in a new body would be terribly unsettling. The human might be more or less OK as an elf (or maybe not, depending on the human viewed elves before hand), but the half-orc would probably have a lot of problems being trapped in an elf (even a drow) body.

This is all based on my concept of the races of the world and how they view each other. Your world might be different. If there were issues with the new forms, it creates great incentive for a new quest to get their old bodies back--possibly seeking out someone who can cast wish. Simply finding out what spells need to be cast might be a quest in itself.

 

[Arvok]

By the way, sounds like a great campaign.

 

[iserith]

My only issue with all this would be that players might try to use reincarnate as a cheap and easy way to overcome poor decisions/bad luck.

I just don't see that as the DM's problem.

 

[dnd4vr]

My only issue with all this would be that players might try to use reincarnate as a cheap and easy way to overcome poor decisions/bad luck. If the players role played it well--making it obvious how much of a dangerous and frightening ordeal reincarnation is--I don't see it as much of a problem.

As far as ability scores for the reincarnated form, I like the idea of taking existing ability scores (before racial adjustments) and letting the player assign them as he sees fit to the new form. Also, for anyone except an elf (because they naturally reincarnate to a new elven or fey form when they die--at least in my world) being in a new body would be terribly unsettling. The human might be more or less OK as an elf (or maybe not, depending on the human viewed elves before hand), but the half-orc would probably have a lot of problems being trapped in an elf (even a drow) body.

This is all based on my concept of the races of the world and how they view each other. Your world might be different. If there were issues with the new forms, it creates great incentive for a new quest to get their old bodies back--possibly seeking out someone who can cast wish. Simply finding out what spells need to be cast might be a quest in itself.

Yeah, in hindsight the thing that bothers me about Reincarnate is there is no penalty or need to recover like there is with Raise Dead and even Resurrection do which both have the -4 penalty.

The bigger shock isn't the new race (although the half-orc is not happy about having sunlight sensitivity now) but the new gender. While the human remained male when he became an elf, the half-orc male became a drow female. Nice in some ways (since females hold more position in drow society), but it IS an adjustment.

By the way, sounds like a great campaign.

LOL It is! In case you haven't followed, the campaign was set to end after we escaped as the other players were interested in trying new characters and were disheartened by the defeat and loss of the elf. But, by the time the session ended, they were gung-ho again and ready to fight on to rescue their captured friend.

We're taking a break to play CoS with one of the other players running it, but then we'll get back into the main campaign.

 

[MarkB]

Dying and coming back as a completely different race seems like a fairly extreme thing to do, and I'd hope that it would at least come up somewhat in play. For one thing, anyone they know aside from their fellow party members won't recognise them anymore. Mechanically, it all seems sound, though.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think the idea of viewing healing along a continuum rather than just looking at the individual spells is a marvelous idea. I'm going to use that when the situation arises. That idea could be applied to lots of things actually, at least in terms of using magic to solve out-of-the-box problem X.

The missing eyes thing is also a perfect excuse for a side quest. One or two sessions to escort the blinded character to the fabled healing pools of Fnargh. That's the easy way for the DM to step outside the normal strictures of what's possible with spell X.

 

[Draegn]

I house rule that reincarnation in giving a new body also alters all physical and mental attributes which are rolled in order randomly. This has the potential of rendering a wizard unable to use magic. The deities of the world do not take kindly to someone killing themselves (destroying the gift of life they were given) and then asking for a new body.

 

[Coroc]

Well, a bit of backstory:

We encountered the drow (a priestess, wizard, two elite warriors) in conference with some giants (2 hill giants, 2 ogres, and a cave bear). Now, I am the only real experience player, so I cautioned the others against it, but even after the DM emphasized this was about a 50/50 chance of success or TPK, the others out-voted me. Honestly, he gave the others about as much warning as he could and they decided to risk it anyway.

We nearly won, even after a yochlol and shadow demon joined the fight, but in the end the last character standing (the captured high elf) was forced to drop her weapon after the drow threatened to kill the downed characters.

After torture and such, we managed to break out of prison, orchestrated an uprising, and freed ourselves. However, the high elf was taken by the wizard as a sacrifice to Lolth for the death of the priestess we killed. Now, we are hunting after them to rescue her before she is sacrificed.

So, in a very real sense the DM didn't "punish" us after he warning us about the risk, but played out the drow was he felt they would be, maiming and torturing us. We accept that as part of the game and know it was our fault for trying to defeat a force so clearly equal to us in strength. Like I said, we nearly won out... but the adventure goes on.

Well the DM played the drow as the sadistic monsters they are intended, kudos for that. The reincarnation spell i nformer editions was a risky thing, you could become basically any humanoid in the book e.g. i had a player coming back as a gnoll.

A more conservative approach would have been to seek a cure for those disabled and eventually ressurect the prisoner still in captivity if this delayed the group to much.

5e (or 4e dunno what version you play) is not designed very good to gritty things, so on your DM depicting cruelty would eventually handled this better if he used torture which does not cause permanent disability, especially since your group does not seem to have the means to counter this.

It is like with HP, it is only the last hit that kills you, unless you use custom rules here also.

What i do not get is, how died the drow priestess know that your downed PCs were still alive at all, to me this requires an action and a successful medicine check with disadvantage, since she still is in combat. I mean, do not retcon the situation because i said so, but ask your DM about my view, i would like to know how he sees these things.

 

[dnd4vr]

What i do not get is, how died the drow priestess know that your downed PCs were still alive at all, to me this requires an action and a successful medicine check with disadvantage, since she still is in combat. I mean, do not retcon the situation because i said so, but ask your DM about my view, i would like to know how he sees these things.

The drow priestess was already dead (she died in the first couple rounds).

At the end, of the PCs: the wizard, paladin, rogue (fighter), and druid (sorcerer) were all down--only the barbarian was left.

Two drow elite warriors remained (one injured badly, one uninjured), the drow mage (badly injured), two ogres (one near dead, the other in good shape), and the yochlol (about half dead) remained. Both ogres, the yochlol, and the uninjured drow elite warrior had the high elf barbarian surrounded. Leaving the injured drow elite warrior and the drow mage free to act.

The DM rolled for the drow mage's reaction to the situation as he was now the leader. He rolled high (good for us??) and decided it would be better to capture the PCs if possible. With the high elf surrounded, the hurt elite drow warrior grabbed the wizard PC and demanded the high elf surrender or he would make sure all the PCs were dead (as the drow mage had ordered).

The high elf tried to bargain, but when she didn't comply immediately the drow warrior ran his shortsword through the unconscious wizard (was stable, but now with two failed death saves!). The high elf immediately dropped her weapon and was beaten into unconsciousness.

The wizard was the first to wake on the rack in the torture chamber... and well a bit of warning for what happened next...

Spoiler

The drow mage burned out the wizard's eyes. Next he cut out the druid (sorcerer)'s tongue, then cut off the rogue's right arm at the elbow, and castrated the paladin. The high elf was left unharmed until she will be sacrificed but was forced to watch everyone else.

The drow laughed cruelly, taunting her for her failure and the fate of her friends.

 

[Inchoroi]

I could definitely see giving the PCs the option of really odd solutions. Like there's someone who can graft on temporary body parts but he doesn't have great supplies at the moment. So slug eyes on the end of stalks, maybe a tentacle for the arm. They aren't permanent, but enough to get by until they can be regenerated.

But ... physically disabling a PC, especially if the player did nothing wrong would not sit well with me as a player. I get it, different strokes for different folks and all, life is not fair. That doesn't mean a game can't be fair; if I take a gamble and I lose and the penalty is appropriate that's on me. But if that's not then I'm not going to enjoy the campaign.

Linguring injuries don't come up often for my groups, fortunately. Only twice for anything permanent, one of which was to a bad guy (which they still love talking about two years later and completely changed a fight in which they were in over their heads); the one for the good guy was the wizard got his leg chopped off.

For us, when a natural 20 happens, the attacker rolls a d20, and if its 11 or higher, then you roll on the lingering injuries chart. So, it doesn't happen often.

However, I will say that we've been using the same system (with minor changes to wording and such) for going on five years, so we may just be used to it.

By all means, though: if its not right for your group, don't use them. Maybe the @OP should have a chat with the DM over email or text or whatever (away from the table, in other words) and see if there's a "is there an NPC that has a little quest for us in exchange for a magic prosthetic from the Eberron book?" option.

My issue with straight suicide becuase your character has a disability now is a personal one, however.

 

[dnd4vr]

Linguring injuries don't come up often for my groups, fortunately. Only twice for anything permanent, one of which was to a bad guy (which they still love talking about two years later and completely changed a fight in which they were in over their heads); the one for the good guy was the wizard got his leg chopped off.

For us, when a natural 20 happens, the attacker rolls a d20, and if its 11 or higher, then you roll on the lingering injuries chart. So, it doesn't happen often.

However, I will say that we've been using the same system (with minor changes to wording and such) for going on five years, so we may just be used to it.

By all means, though: if its not right for your group, don't use them. Maybe the @OP should have a chat with the DM over email or text or whatever (away from the table, in other words) and see if there's a "is there an NPC that has a little quest for us in exchange for a magic prosthetic from the Eberron book?" option.

My issue with straight suicide becuase your character has a disability now is a personal one, however.

We use lingering injuries from the DMG as well (two characters have scars).

I would like to point out that our choice for reincarnation to restore our disabilities was for one purpose only: the chances of us succeeding in rescuing our friend is drastically reduced if we aren't at full strength. We don't have magical prosthetics, etc. from other books (such things just aren't in our game).

If we didn't have a friend to rescue immediately, we would find someone do just handle the regeneration even if it took quite a bit of time. When our druid's player got 5th level spells (e.g Reincarnate) he had the idea of reincarnating the others. He can get by solely because his Sorcerous metamagic will allow him to cast verbal spells even without his tongue.