Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 870409" data-attributes="member: 259">Interesting.  And are those 20th-level NPCs hanging out at the local tavern, just waiting for the PCs to come up to them and give them a quest?  You can assume they are, but IMC, most leveled NPCs are engaged in their own personal quests and adventures, and are difficult to locate.  In the time it takes to track down a high-level NPC who's willing and able to confront the giants, the giants can wreak all sorts of havoc.  This plan fails on the "sound, likely to work" front.Sure, assume there's a local populace.  And what's the local populace going to do -- get ready to give tribute to the giants?  Challenge them to a game of dominoes, winner takes all?  Or do you think they're going to prepare by figuring out a way to kill the giants?Best case scenario, the villagers kill the giants, failing my "nonlethal" criterion.  Worst case, the villagers get massacred by the giants because they are, after all, villagers, who had hoped that the adventurers would protect them from the menace.Interesting.  What sort of diversion are you imagining that would stand a very good chance of leading the giants away permanently from any populace that they might pillage?  Leading them into somebody else's village is hardly a Good solution, and leading them astray for a week doesn't exactly solve the problem.  And if you lead them into a trap (e.g., to the doorstep of a cranky dragon), you run right up against the "nonlethal" criterion.And what, pray tell, might a fire giant get from a 3rd-level party through negotiation that she couldn't equally gain through force?  Were I the DM, I'd certainly have the giants listen to offers of parlay -- but if that 3rd-level party was just blowing smoke up the giants' massive butts, the giants would eat them like french fries.You might promise them great treasure, in which case the giants will probably tote the PCs along as surety.  You might promise them tribute, in which case the giants are almost certain to get greedy and ask for more and more.  You might promise them all your own magic items, in which case the giants will eat you and take the magic items for themselves.Or you might threaten them in your parley, which will have one of several possible outcomes -- 1) The giants are fooled into thinking you're way tough, and leave, never to bother innocent people again (fantastically unlikely); 2) The giants fight and die (fantastically unlikely, and failing the "nonlethal" criterion); 3) The giants fight, and you die (highly likely, and failing the "effective" criterion).Oh, honey, you are SO not in a position to play the  "You started it!"  card.  Don't even go there.Your 4 ideas hardly suffice, and if your DM lets you get away with tricks like this, why, you play a different style from what I play.  I can certainly see the pleasure in playing in a world in which such child-storybook tricks work, but that's not the style we play.  No, we play in a world in which evil creatures engage in evil.  The consequences of not stopping a band of marauding giants will be orphaned children.  Peasants will watch their house burn down with grandmother trapped inside -- perhaps her son will rush in to save her, dying in the inferno as well.  A Villager will sob as she describes watching the giant tear her betrothed in half and eat him in two bites.  Maimed and broken peasants rallied by the PCs to fight the giants will now turn away, refusing to speak to those who, in their eyes, betrayed them for the sake of their honor.And PCs who decided to lead the giants on a whimsical wild-goose chase the first time around -- who decided to see if St. Agnes the Almighty was available for giantkilling -- who decided to rally the villagers into a ragtag and hopelessly outmatched army -- will decide what they want to do before the giants reach the next village.Daniel</blockquote>

Verification