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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jordan" data-source="post: 86977" data-attributes="member: 3362">Another perspectiveDon't take this the wrong way, but I think you made a crucial mistake in setting up the encounter: you didn't take into account all the abilities your players had at their disposal.A villian taking a girl hostage would have been a fine challenge for a lower level party. But once the PCs have access to Raise Dead, the threat of killing an innocent person just isn't going to carry the same weight as it once did. And for everyone saying that the players did something horrible, how is that the case? They simply used the abilities they possessed to bring about a satisfactory end to the encounter.Monte Cook recently wrote something about this on his website. He made the point that, as characters go up in level, they gain access to more powerful abilities, and you as a DM have to take them into account:"If you aren't prepared for what the PCs can do with their skills, spells, feats, and magic items, they are going to throw you for a loop, and quickly. You have to be ready when the spellcaster pulls out the high-level divination spell that "ruins" the adventure, or when the monk just jumps over the 30-foot chasm of fire, or when the cleric brings the murdered king back to life."There are perfectly vaild arguments on both sides of the allow/don't allow Raise Dead debate, but given that you have it in your game, you have to plan for it. For example, if you want to have an effective hostage situation, you could have the villian take the whole village hostage: He tells the PCs that, if they don't give him what he wants, he has a small band of soldiers/monsters waiting in the hills that will kill everyone in the village. While raising two girls from the dead is perfectly feasible for a 10th level party, raising an entire village (100+ people) is probably going to be beyond their abilities.This type of situation could be a lot of fun for the PCs, because they have several different choices about how to handle the situation. They could give the villian what he wants (possibly trying to take it back at a later date). They could fight the villian. They could quickly return to the village and try to fight off the monsters. Any of these choices would allow them to use their abilities to full effect, rather than being hamstrung by the DM saying, "Sorry, you can't do that because I don't want you to handle the encounter that way", which is the course of action some people here seem to be suggesting - and that's certainly not fun for the players.-Jordan</blockquote>

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