D&D 5E My group is questioning everyone.

[Beleriphon]

(In fantasy fiction, by the way, I wouldn't be surprised if slightly more than 5 percent of villains who fall off cliffs managed to survive.)

Or get blown up in warehouse explosions. Remember no body no death. Even with a body they still probably aren't dead.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Taking prisoners is a great opportunity for info dumping. Of course not every mook is going to know anything of worth. In those cases just skip playing out the questioning and move on. Leaders and important npc's will usually have a bit more of use to contribute so those interrogations are worth playing out.

The players in my current campaign take a lot of captives, but rarely bother interrogating them thoroughly before turning them over to the law for a reward. So much information there for the asking and ignored. Oh well. What you don't know CAN hurt you and by providing npc's with answers I consider my duty as DM to convey relevant information justly discharged. You can lead the players to information but you can't make them ask for it.

 

[Agamon]

Out of curiosity, who is this character named right hand that you are alluding to being psychotic? If that's a literary reference, I don't believe I read that book.

Yes, Dexter Morgan. Sorry, the reference was a tad vague.

And to pick a nit, psychopathic, not psychotic (two very different things).

 

[Tormyr]

In this case, the bad guy would have taken two automatic failed death saves when he hit bottom. The odds were not in his favor. He just happened to get lucky (and in D&D, "lucky" = 5 percent). But let's be clear -- 4d6 damage (average 14) is not all that much. This situation is no stranger than the player character who gets knocked out, takes a boot to the chest while he's down, then rises the next turn (having rolled a 20) to wreak bloody vengeance.

In this case, I only gave him 1 failure. I think you only get 2 automatic failures for a critical hit, such as a hit from within 5 feet. I don't think falling damage counts as the 2 failures for a critical.

The best part of that scenario? They had captured him earlier and used Suggestion to get him to lead him through the security of the next cult temple so they could easily get to the bad guy at the end. I almost always roll in the open, but this time I rolled his saving throw in secret. Natural 20. He went along with it, and when the party was surrounded by security and needed to cross a ravine by a rope, he went first. At that point he revealed that the party was invaders, and the Grimlocks, Krenshars, Grimlock Kennel master, and Grimlock archers next to the guy who crossed the ravine all attacked. One of the party read off a scroll of Sound Burst which knocked the former prisoner back out, and he and the Grimlock archers fell into the ravine. The Grimlocks died, but the prisoner had one death saving throw failure on impact. They continued to fight off the grimlocks and krenshars, but after a few rounds and death saving throws, the prisoner rolled and 20 and got up. One of the PCs was at the edge of the ravine and noticed this. The PCs were so pissed that he was still alive after betraying them, that they started pelting him with ranged attacks. He immediately went back down. Then they started to burn inspiration points to hit him and overcome the ranged attacks' disadvantage on the newly unconscious target. One PC even jumped into the ravine (using her ring of feather falling) and landed next to him, but everyone else finished him off before her turn next round.

 

[MechaPilot]

Yes, Dexter Morgan. Sorry, the reference was a tad vague.

And to pick a nit, psychopathic, not psychotic (two very different things).

No, no, I should have gotten it. While I've never seen the show, I've seen enough commercials for it that if someone asked me if I watched Dexter, I'd have the awareness of it to reply that I don't have HBO.

I think the place where I became confused is that you used "Dextra," and rightly so as the "a" ending is a feminine ending in Latin (which I'm studying at the moment). I just accidentally connected it too strongly to the Latin language.

 

[Joe Liker]

[MENTION=6776887]Tormyr[/MENTION] Are you saying the ground wasn't within 5 feet of him when it hit him? Just kidding -- you're right, of course.

If I were one of your players, I would hate your dice and their critical ways.

 

[Tormyr]

@Tormyr Are you saying the ground wasn't within 5 feet of him when it hit him? Just kidding -- you're right, of course.

If I were one of your players, I would hate your dice and their critical ways.

No, see, the ground did a ranged attack from 40' away.

They seemed to enjoy it though. Even though they had to knock this guy to 0 HP 3 times. Thankfully the last 2 times he only had 1 hp.