D&D 5E (2024) Mike Mearls explains why your boss monsters die too easily

[pemerton]

I struggle a little with that sometimes.
I know SC in 4e are explicit with the stakes declared upfront but in this retaliation (assassination attempt) was a consequence which would have been unknown to the PCs (and by extension the players).

If I was transparent with it, the fiction is known upfront and the revelation feels like it becomes subdued as it plays second fiddle to the mechanics.

Here's an example of how I managed this sort of thing in my most recent Torchbearer session:

Fea-bella filled two waterskins from the rivulet, and noticed the lint in the water. Then, the Ob 4 Dungeoneering check, for the PCs to successfully enter via the cleft, succeeded. The PCs saw the body that the lint had come from. I explained that the body looked as if it had fallen from the cleft more-or-less head first, and suffered a broken neck. This was how the clay pot had survived, cushioned by the body. It was mostly skeletal, years old.

<snip>

I then had one of the evil water spirits speak, but the PCs took it to be the ghost of the dead body. It urged them to drink, but they didn't want to drink corpse water, and Fea-bella emptied the waterskins she had filled. Telemere led the retort to the spirit, and offered to help them find peace. So I declared him the captain in the Trickery conflict that the spirit had initiated. The PCs' disposition was 5, vs the spirits' 10. I equipped Malicious Pranks, and scripted Feint/Attack/Attack; the players scripted Manoeuvre as their first action - and in the ensuing independent tests, I knocked off their whole disposition while losing none of my own.

I then had the talking spirit narrate something (I can't remember what it was now, but the players found it suitably confusing for a feint), while I secretly noted that the second spirit had been able to (maliciously) defile all their water. The players were uncertain what, exactly, had happened as a result of them losing the contest - but I didn't have to wait all that long before I had the chance to reveal the truth of the trick.

I described the two ways on in the antechamber, and the PCs lit two candles - one with Golin and one with Fea-bella, leaving Telemere in dim light - and chose to descend the stairs. When I described the ammoniac smell, they (correctly) inferred it was bat guano, and Golin's player, playing Golin's Explosives-wise, mooted the possibility of blowing things up. It turned out that he got his wish!

When they got to the base of the stairs, I described the statue's legs, but with only candle light they couldn't make out its upper body. Then three troll bats swooped on them. I offered to default to a drive-off conflict, but Golin wanted to capture them: he equipped his large sack to trap them in, Fea-bella equipped some fresh rations to lure them in, and Telemere equipped his spear. The PCs won this conflict handily, and so ended with a sack full of bats.

This was the fourth turn on the grind, and so the PCs became hungry and thirsty. Fea-bella and Telemere each ate a portion of fresh rations, and Golin took a sip of water. Which was defiled by the spirits, and so rather than quench his thirst it made him Sick! I thought this was hilarious, but the players didn't fully agree. It only got better when Telemere made a Survivalist test to check if all their water was spoiled, and didn't roll a single success. So he got Sick too!, from tasting some of the tainted water as part of his inspection of it. Golin ate some food to recover from his hunger. And they all emptied their waterskins.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Speaking of malapropisms...

Goodness! - I meant repository ofc.
Ah well! Let's leave it for the laughs

 

[AnotherGuy]

Here's an example of how I managed this sort of thing in my most recent Torchbearer session:

@pemerton thanks for this. A few questions.

1. Did the second evil water spirit taint the water that was already on them? I ask you because you said they emptied their waterskins and you never mentioned they refilled them.

2. This sentence I equipped Malicious Pranks, and scripted Feint/Attack/Attack; the players scripted Manoeuvre as their first action - and in the ensuing independent tests, I knocked off their whole disposition while losing none of my own.
I do not understand the mechanics behind this but I assume the PCs were bested in some trickery which provided cover for the 2nd spirit to do its water tainting.

3. So, the PCs goal was to acquire clean water and SC ensued.
I think that is where I'm having the disconnect.
I created the SC for something I as GM initiated (the assassination attempt) as opposed to the PCs.
So secret backstory is where the mechanic as written, becomes muddy.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It was never about dispelling LTH. It was about how many monsters have a reasonable intelligence to understand that invaders into their lair are holed up in a seemingly magic bubble. Those monsters can do many many things in eight hours. And the answer to how many, approximately 3/4 of the monsters the MM.

So assuming the characters have burned most of their potent spells and such, as well as being low on HP, what do you imagine these monsters doing in eight hours that would be worse than facing them in that condition instead at full power?

 

[pemerton]

@pemerton thanks for this. A few questions.

1. Did the second evil water spirit taint the water that was already on them? I ask you because you said they emptied their waterskins and you never mentioned they refilled them.

Only Fea-bella emptied hers - because she'd refilled them from the rivulet flowing out from the pool with the corpse in it. But the others hadn't emptied their waterskins, and those were the ones that got tainted.

2. This sentence I equipped Malicious Pranks, and scripted Feint/Attack/Attack; the players scripted Manoeuvre as their first action - and in the ensuing independent tests, I knocked off their whole disposition while losing none of my own.
I do not understand the mechanics behind this but I assume the PCs were bested in some trickery which provided cover for the 2nd spirit to do its water tainting.

Think of it as a bit like a skill challenge, but with checks on both sides resolved via slightly intricate rock/paper/scissors. Feint vs Manoeuvre means that each side rolls independently - but the Manoeuvre successes provide buffs and impose debuffs for the next action; whereas the Feint does "damage" - and I got enough successes to get a full victory, so the players never got the benefit of their Manoeuvre successes.

The second spirit's success doesn't require any sort of separate resolution or action economy - that was the goal of the spirits in their Trickery, and how well they achieve it depends on (i) whether they win (they did) and (ii) how much "damage" they suffered on the way to victory (in this case, none). A win with no "damage" suffered is a total victory, so the spirits achieved their goal of tainting the PCs' water without being noticed.

At the table, the players knew the spirits had won completely (except they thought there was only one spirit), but I deliberately didn't tell them what that victory consisted in, because I didn't want to warn them away from having their PCs drink their water.

3. So, the PCs goal was to acquire clean water and SC ensued.

The players, as their PCs, conjectured that the spirit was a dead spirit (of the corpse). They were trying to persuade it to go to its final rest. I knew from the outset, based on my scenario prep, that the spirits' goal was to sneakily taint the PCs' water: that's the spirits' raison d'etre. (Their stat block includes Instinct: Defile all clean drinking water and Nature 5 (Defiling, Swimming, Tricking).)

If the players had succeeded in the conflict, then (depending on how much "damage" they suffered on the way through) they would have realised the truth about the spirits, and/or what they were trying to do (at least in part).

I think that is where I'm having the disconnect.
I created the SC for something I as GM initiated (the assassination attempt) as opposed to the PCs.
So secret backstory is where the mechanic as written, becomes muddy.

In my example, the secret is maintained; but the players know they've lost. The way the system works allows this easily, because in resolving the declared actions I have to speak the part for the spirit, but don't have to reveal its true goal. I think a skill challenge could be done similarly: revealing the count, but not necessarily revealing the full consequence for the players of the PCs losing. (I don't recall now if I did this in any 4e skill challenges, as it's a bit of a while ago.)