D&D 5E Is it right for WoTC to moralize us in an adventure module?

[Emoshin]

(Replying because you quoted me... if not relevant, then please disregard)

I'm wondering how that sentence tracks with the Keen Mind feat. It seems to me like Keen Mind would defeat that challenge.

Hypothetically, for sure.
In my game, none of the PCs have Keen Mind feat and have not shown any interest in that, so this would be irrelevant.

What is written is virtually NEVER all that the PCs can do or try that might work.

Agree, and would never claim otherwise.

Rogue: "Buuuut, I do have a contact in Calimshan who might be interested in what you have to say. If I put you in contact with him, you can expand your operation into the south and make it much more profitable."
13: "That intrigues me, but I would have to have contact with him before I give you the key."
PCs: "That can be arranged."

Hypothetically yes.
In my game, no. My players don't feel comfortable with aiding and abetting criminals. Also see the second last paragraph in the OP.

 

[Maxperson]

I guess I just don't see a rando dwarven clan that got robbed being an actual standing member of the Lords' Alliance, but then, who knows? Some dumbass towns with like more sheep than people randomly are. I just wish they'd actually said what they meant, rather than detailing all the tattoos on the body of an explicitly fully-clothed person or how extra-awesome the prison warden was (puking now).


I mean yeah that is the stronger suggestion and what makes all the LG people being involved even more terminally stupid. I think WotC are just outright cowards, like really scared and pathetic here, that they couldn't portray this prison as LN or LE as it probably should be. They might like offend some part of the US prison-industrial complex. I also strongly suspect this wasn't written or looked over by a POC or other minority writer given it's basically a celebration of prisons (which is highly weird choice for fantasy or science-fiction, I note - in both genres prisons are usually portrayed as very evil places - I think that's bigger than the magitech issue discussed earlier).

The adventure isn't written well. It's more like the outline to an adventure. I mean, I write mine like that, but then I usually(sometimes my ADD brain loses things) remember what the details are when I look at my outline. We don't have that advantage with an adventure written by someone else.

Yup. Or they could stop using alignments at all and just, y'know, give us a sentence about the personality of the individuals involved!

I don't mind alignment, but I'd also like personality to be included, and more than just one sentence.

 

[Maxperson]

Hypothetically yes.
In my game, no. My players don't feel comfortable with aiding and abetting criminals. Also see the second last paragraph in the OP.

Sure. I wasn't saying for your specific game. I was just giving an example of one possible way other than what they wrote that could work.

It sounds like this particular adventure wouldn't work for your group. Not all adventures work for every group or party of PCs, and that's okay. There are plenty that do work to pick from(or write).

 

[Emoshin]

Sure. I wasn't saying for your specific game. I was just giving an example of one possible way other than what they wrote that could work.

It sounds like this particular adventure wouldn't work for your group. Not all adventures work for every group or party of PCs, and that's okay. There are plenty that do work to pick from(or write).

Oh I am sure I could salvage it, time permitting. I'd want to facilitate a heroically "good"/morally correct outcome. Also would need to reduce the DC 19 Insight check to deduce the tattoo is the key or (better yet) not make that single check a contingency to winning (in lieu of aiding and abetting or maiming or murder).

 

[Maxperson]

Oh I am sure I could salvage it, time permitting. I'd want to facilitate a heroically "good"/morally correct outcome. Also would need to reduce the DC 19 Insight check to deduce the tattoo is the key or (better yet) not make that single check a contingency to winning (in lieu of aiding and abetting or maiming or murder).

You could also just alter her story a bit so that making her an even greater criminal isn't her goal. Maybe she did something to justify the life sentence(25 to life and she got max) and she kept quiet out of spite, but now years later she's rethinking things and is willing to negotiate for a shorter sentence.

 

[Emoshin]

You could also just alter her story a bit so that making her an even greater criminal isn't her goal. Maybe she did something to justify the life sentence(25 to life and she got max) and she kept quiet out of spite, but now years later she's rethinking things and is willing to negotiate for a shorter sentence.

That's a good one, allowing the PCs to be part of her redemption arc. Very helpful, I probably would not have thought of that myself.

 

[Steampunkette]

Sure. They might get lucky and deduce that it's the key. That doesn't mean that they know that an illusion will work. It might be a physical key and they might need her hand as well. Knowing that the tattoo is the key doesn't tell them everything that they need to know.

The passage specifies that a disguise self spell or other illusion works just as well as the hand.

Right. 10 minutes of studying her hand or 10 minutes in front of her drawing the tattoo over and over. Unless they have the Keen Mind anyway. That to me gets by that issue.

If I had to spend 10 minutes drawing the tattoo from a willing life-model I would count that both "Studying" and also "Way too much time investment".

It's on her finger. The tattoo artist probably didn't spend 10 minutes on it in the first place.

 

[Maxperson]

The passage specifies that a disguise self spell or other illusion works just as well as the hand.

The DM knows that, yes. The PCs and players? Not so much. The players will have to worry that they need the physical hand, because if they leave and try an illusion, coming back will be much harder since it will be strange for them to wander back in as guests again, or disappear as workers and then suddenly reappear weeks later.

If I had to spend 10 minutes drawing the tattoo from a willing life-model I would count that both "Studying" and also "Way too much time investment".

You also can afford to get a line slightly off. With magic, not so much. It has to be absolutely perfect or it will fail as the key.

It's on her finger. The tattoo artist probably didn't spend 10 minutes on it in the first place.

And if the artist had to do it a second time, it would be slightly different and fail. The PC can't allow it to be slightly different, so it takes longer to get right.

 

[Steampunkette]

The DM knows that, yes. The PCs and players? Not so much. The players will have to worry that they need the physical hand, because if they leave and try an illusion, coming back will be much harder since it will be strange for them to wander back in as guests again, or disappear as workers and then suddenly reappear weeks later.

You also can afford to get a line slightly off. With magic, not so much. It has to be absolutely perfect or it will fail as the key.

And if the artist had to do it a second time, it would be slightly different and fail. The PC can't allow it to be slightly different, so it takes longer to get right.

This is a whole lot of "I'm gonna add reasoning to the book that isn't there in order to naysay anything but cutting off her hand... or using my own ideas which aren't covered by the book!"

 

[Maxperson]

This is a whole lot of "I'm gonna add reasoning to the book that isn't there in order to naysay anything but cutting off her hand... or using my own ideas which aren't covered by the book!"

Show me where it says that the PCs somehow intuitively know that the key can absolutely be done via illusion. Or where tattoo artists or you can make an arcane tattoo with your normal skills. Those sorts of things are precise.

You don't have to run the tattoo drawing that way, but at the very least as written the PCs aren't going to know just by looking at the tattoo that an illusion will work.

 

[Steampunkette]

Show me where it says that the PCs somehow intuitively know that the key can absolutely be done via illusion. Or where tattoo artists or you can make an arcane tattoo with your normal skills. Those sorts of things are precise.

You don't have to run the tattoo drawing that way, but at the very least as written the PCs aren't going to know just by looking at the tattoo that an illusion will work.

If illusions don't work, what good are illusions? shrug

Unless the tattoo itself is magic, which is not in the text, an illusion should work as good as anything else. And since you can copy the tattoo, and use the copy, it ain't the tattoo that's magic.

 

[Maxperson]

If illusions don't work, what good are illusions? shrug

Illusions have no physicality. They can look like things, but they fail if you touch them. Why do you think an illusion would work on something keyed to physical touch only?

 

[Flamestrike]

Gary Gygax argued that genocide was perfectly acceptable behaviour for a lawful good character, if it was genocide against an evil race. So are you being unfaithful to your alignment?

So did Hitler (and every other perpetrator of genocide ever), and I dont take him as my personal moral arbiter either thanks.

Genocide is evil. If we cant agree on that, we have nothing further to talk about.

 

[Flamestrike]

I'm talking about when the 'evil' choice isn't as black and white. When the options are kind of gray.

Such as?

I've provided my definition of evil above in this thread (ditto good).

Give me an example.

 

[Steampunkette]

Illusions have no physicality. They can look like things, but they fail if you touch them. Why do you think an illusion would work on something keyed to physical touch only?

You know what else has no physicality?

An image.

Like a tattoo or a picture drawn on a page. Both of which work.

You know what else would work? A temporary tattoo. Or using a permanent marker to draw it on your skin. Or Disguise Self according to the text. And shock of shocks, a faked tattoo with the Disguise Self spell would not "Fail if you touch it" because it's a tattoo and it feels like skin... just like a tattoo does.

RAW, RAI, Illusions work because it's an image. Not a physical key.

But even if it WAS a Key, a physical real tangible key... an Illusionist could open the door with the Creation Spell. The key they make would just cease to exist after a certain amount of time based on the material it was made of. Because some illusions can do Tactile stuff. Like Mirage Arcana, which can create a rockface where a tunnel once existed that you can reach out and touch. There's also Simulacrum, which makes a whole freaking person.

Or if you wanna look at 3rd level, there's always Phantom Steed which makes a freaking HORSE you can RIDE.

Illusions work.

 

[Emoshin]

This is a whole lot of "I'm gonna add reasoning to the book that isn't there in order to naysay anything but cutting off her hand... or using my own ideas which aren't covered by the book!"

I am not @Maxperson and I don't mean to pick on you @Steampunkette but "This is a whole lot..." statement, at least to me, reads like an unfounded interpretation or assertion of the intention or state of the mind of basically some person on the Internet that you hardly know.

And I think there are sensitivities around an inference like "in order to naysay anything but cutting off her hand". At worst, this could be upsetting and presumptuous. At best, it's still reactionary and unhelpful, I think.

I have been on the receiving end of this kind of thing myself, and at least for me, it doesn't feel good. Maybe a lot of you folks are used to this, I don't know.

If I could somehow have put a + on this thread saying please no unfounded assertions/inferences/judgements about someone else's intentions, I would have.

Also, given a lot of people do advocate making the adventure your own, I am not sure I understand the reasoning for "using my own ideas which aren't covered by the book" to even be included in the above statement.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Oh I am sure I could salvage it, time permitting. I'd want to facilitate a heroically "good"/morally correct outcome. Also would need to reduce the DC 19 Insight check to deduce the tattoo is the key or (better yet) not make that single check a contingency to winning (in lieu of aiding and abetting or maiming or murder).

DC 19 seems reasonable under the circumstances. It's shouldn't be easy to do something that would require a skilled interrogator. And if that's the players' only plan, frankly, they deserve to fail.

And I think that's one problem with the mindset approaching written adventures: the assumption that the players will win. Really, with something like this, the players should only win through skilled play. For any of these heists "you fail" should be as likely an outcome as "you win".

 

[Maxperson]

You know what else has no physicality?

An image.

Like a tattoo or a picture drawn on a page. Both of which work.

Are you even reading what I'm typing here? What if..................you need to PHYSICALLY press the tattoo to the vault to open it? No illusion that the party can cast will be able to do that.

Also, you're wrong about the tattoo. The inks have physicality. The skin has physicality and for all the party knows it takes both.

You know what else would work? A temporary tattoo.

That is not necessarily true. It might require permanent inks. Or special arcane inks that the party doesn't have. Or...

RAW, RAI, Illusions work because it's an image. Not a physical key.

Is there some part of "Only the DM knows that" that you are not understanding from what I am saying here? I've said that three times now and you keep bringing it back up as if it changes something. There is no way for the party to know that by looking at the tattoo.

an Illusionist could open the door with the Creation Spell.

He doesn't have that spell, because he's too low level. There's a reason why I said "that the party can cast." You seem to have missed this at the top of the first page. "An Adventure for 4th-Level Characters" But hell, even if the group was 9th level and could cast creation, you cannot create a tattoo with it.

Or if you wanna look at 3rd level, there's always Phantom Steed which makes a freaking HORSE you can RIDE.

That's not a tattoo. Not that 4th level PCs can cast that spell, either.

Illusions work.

Wait?! You're actually arguing that because there are two illusions that specify that they have physicality, that the rest of the illusions which specify that they do not have physicality have physicality?

Here is what a 4th level PC can cast.

Minor Illusion(cantrip): "Physical interaction with the image reveals it to be an illusion, because things can pass through it."
Disguise Self(1st lvl): "The changes wrought by this spell fail to hold up to physical inspection." - so that isn't physical at all.
Illusory Script(1st lvl): - Doesn't specify physical or not, so according to Crawford it is not. Also doesn't make tattoos. It's writing.
Invisibility(2nd lvl): - Not capable of making tattoos. Has no physicality in any case.
Mirror Image(2nd lvl): - Same as above.
Phantasmal Force(2nd lvl): - Same as above.

No illusion spell castable by a 4th level group(even if you have a caster that can cast them in the first place, can take the place of a tattoo that needs to be there physically.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Are you even reading what I'm typing here? What if..................you need to PHYSICALLY press the tattoo to the vault to open it? No illusion that the party can cast will be able to do that.

Also, you're wrong about the tattoo. The inks have physicality. The skin has physicality and for all the party knows it takes both.

That is not necessarily true. It might require permanent inks. Or special arcane inks that the party doesn't have. Or...

Is there some part of "Only the DM knows that" that you are not understanding from what I am saying here? I've said that three times now and you keep bringing it back up as if it changes something. There is no way for the party to know that by looking at the tattoo.

He doesn't have that spell, because he's too low level. There's a reason why I said "that the party can cast." You seem to have missed this at the top of the first page. "An Adventure for 4th-Level Characters" But hell, even if the group was 9th level and could cast creation, you cannot create a tattoo with it.

That's not a tattoo. Not that 4th level PCs can cast that spell, either.

Wait?! You're actually arguing that because there are two illusions that specify that they have physicality, that the rest of the illusions which specify that they do not have physicality have physicality?

Here is what a 4th level PC can cast.

Minor Illusion(cantrip): "Physical interaction with the image reveals it to be an illusion, because things can pass through it."
Disguise Self(1st lvl): "The changes wrought by this spell fail to hold up to physical inspection." - so that isn't physical at all.
Illusory Script(1st lvl): - Doesn't specify physical or not, so according to Crawford it is not. Also doesn't make tattoos. It's writing.
Invisibility(2nd lvl): - Not capable of making tattoos. Has no physicality in any case.
Mirror Image(2nd lvl): - Same as above.
Phantasmal Force(2nd lvl): - Same as above.

No illusion spell castable by a 4th level group(even if you have a caster that can cast them in the first place, can take the place of a tattoo that needs to be there physically.

So no matter what creative idea the players come up with to mimic the tattoo, you'll say "No, that doesn't work"? That seems to be the implication here.

 

[Emoshin]

So no matter what creative idea the players come up with to mimic the tattoo, you'll say "No, that doesn't work"?

Is that a fair inference to make? Or would it not be better to engage directly with what the poster actually wrote?

That seems to be the implication here.

How do you know that for sure? If you don't know for sure, why don't you just ask from a place of curiosity and fact-finding?