My Pcs are walking into a deathtrap

[Tinker Gnome]

Okay, the PCs are in Faerun and are 100 years in the future from the current timeline. Now, Faerun is overrun by demons, and they had a skirmish with some this session. Now someone told them of a rumor that there was a WIzard in the city of shade who supposedly unleashed the demons 100 years ago. I dropped some not so subtle hints that he was way out of their league. The barbarian may be able to do gobs of damage even at sixth level, but this caster is high teens to twenty. Not to mention all the other WIzards in the city of shade. They seem to plant to bust in the place and kill the Wizard. their death is gaurenteed if they go. should I let hem go or no? granted they will probaby go anyway. I am just wondering whether or not to stop them or not?

EDIT: They are all sixth level, though they could probably be considered around CR 10. Yes, they are very powerful, but I do want to instill in them that in this new world they are still relatively weak compared to the reater powers, for now that is.

 

[Alzrius]

If the PCs really want to go, you can't stop them. What you may want to do is let them walk in over their heads and get smacked down hard, with only a casual effort by the bad guys. Then, have them be taken alive and escape somehow.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

If the PCs really want to go, you can't stop them. What you may want to do is let them walk in over their heads and get smacked down hard, with only a casual effort by the bad guys. Then, have them be taken alive and escape somehow.

That is what I was thinking. If I am in a really rat bastardy mood have someone use Mordenkainens Disjunction on them to have all their magic items destroyed. that may sound harsh, but it will show them that they are not all powerful. I am still undecided if the city is actually the location of the Wizard who did it. I was actually thinking about having it be an NPC they met briefly, and helped them. Although they will not suspect him because a hundred years have passed. They went forward in time 100 years.

 

[lord_banus]

Another option is that if they get far enough to him them might be considered too good to be killed and will instead become servants via some sort of magical bond. Then you have a years worth of them trying to get out of the bond and in the mean time become powerful enough to face him.

 

[BSF]

It sounds like PC Smackdown time. You've given them fair warning and they will proceed as they wish. You don't need to kill them, but they also need to approach this realistically. There are rumors this guy unleashed a horde of demons. He is not to be trifled with.

Concerns:
It is easy to kill PC's. It is easy to beat PC's. The trick is to convey the feeling of the NPC's power without violating the trust the players have that you are not out to get them. When all is said and done, the Players need to understand that you are not trying to screw them, but you are not going to tone down an encounter that they *chose* to seek out.

Is there a chance that the Players don't understand the scope of the adventure? Maybe they think it is just supposed to be a quick glimpse into a possible future and once they find the bad guy they can wipe him out, clean up the mess and get back home to their real time?

Is there a chance that the Players are not happy with this turn in the game? Could they be showing their displeasure by pursuing a death wish?

Resolutions:
If they pursue this madness, let them. Heck, even let them fight it out and barely succeed against that powerful wizard. Only, make sure that the guy they fought wasn't whom they were looking for. This guy was an apprentice of a minion. They barely beat him and the guy they are really looking for would eat this guy as a between-meals snack.

Capture them and have them sold off into the Abyss. Yeah, that kind of scraps your existing storyline, so maybe it isn't so cool.

Capture them put them in the sanitation pits making sure all the waste keeps moving. This can suggest a way to escape and provides a fair motivator to extract their revenge later down the road. For added fun, have the bad guy laugh at them and toss them in to help clean with the zombies that do that work. In the bad guy's eyes, the PC's are no more a threat alive than if they were dead and animated. He is doing this just to humiliate them.

Have them reach the city and be unable to even gain entrance to the bad guy's abode. Leave them stumped on the porch for a while.

BTW - The idea about Disjunction is hilarious. It gives them an immediate grasp of the guys power and it takes away their toys. It is very cruel. I'm not sure I would do it, but I might. With the correct group of players, this could work. If the players are attached to their toys though, this could suck horribly and piss them off.

 

[pogre]

Another option is that if they get far enough to him them might be considered too good to be killed and will instead become servants via some sort of magical bond. Then you have a years worth of them trying to get out of the bond and in the mean time become powerful enough to face him.

WAY OFF TOPIC HERE
lord_banus did you paint the miniature in your avatar? Would you mind sharing a link to a picture of the whole mini if you got one.

Thanks.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled TPK

 

[fba827]

Could you drop another not-so-subtle hint that they need (or would be greatly helped) by getting some artifact (or just high magic item) "or mage and demon slaying" or some other plot device that they feel they need first to send them in another direction for a time being to build up their levels/abilities... ?

 

[rushlight]

Another option is to have the BBEG take the "Bond Bad Guy" approach.

The PCs burst in - and there's the wizard! He calmly stands, looks at the PCs, and says "So, here you are. What took so long? Well, it doesn't really matter. I'm sorry to disapoint you so, but I have other pressing matters to attend to. While I'd enjoy draining the life force from each of you individually, I'm afraid I'll have to let my young assistant here take care of you. He's just begun his training under me, and is eager to prove his worth. Farewell, naive little theives!"

At that point, he swoops off with a whip of his cape, as another wizard steps up. If your PCs are capable of shooting at the BBEG, have a Wall of Force seperating the two. At that point, the battle begins with the assistant begins. Of course, the assistant is a challenge to the PCs, one which they will barely overcome. Even slow-witted PCs should figure out that if they barely survived the battle with the flunkies, there's no way to directly challenge the BBEG at this time.

Of course, after that I'd let the BBEG kill and roast any PCs dumb enough to try again without gaining some levels.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Thanks for the advice evrybody. The asistant idea sounds good. they may not even reach the city, they are going through the desert where some Phaerimmm(Uber monsters who brought about the downfall of a strong magical empire.) after seeing how cocky they were I wanted to say in a melodramtic creepy voice. "You pitiful fools" but I did not. Now I just need to get to work on carefully choosing his spells and feats so i can assure he will not be easy.

The Bond villain approach is cool, but Ihave a tendency to do that a lot. I just thinking about just having them get to just some random crazy mage, who they think is him(a potion of glibness and a high bluff score will help him) and barely defeat him. when he dies, they will find out that it is not even him. And that that was one of the weaker mages of the area.

Another idea I had was after they had beat him, to have the real one show up, use a dominate spell on all of them, and then make them give hi, all their stuff. That would give the PCs some insentive to be really ngry at this guy.

they seem to want to go back onne hundred years, but I do intend for this to last much longer.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

If all else fails -- and, believe me, it sometimes will -- don't be afraid to just go, "Guys, out-of-character, here: if you follow this course of action, your characters will all die. And I mean all of them."

Sometimes players assume that anything the DM is prepared to allow them to do, there's a means of surviving. To be fair to the players, to some extent that assumption is implicit in the game, so, to be fair to the players, you should be willing to be completely straightforward with them when it isn't. And I don't mean just "hints," even big ones; players see their characters defeat monsters that everyone else in the game-world thinks are very powerful all the time. Your hints may very well sound exactly like the usual "advertisement for heroes" to them.

I've dealt with this exact issue, if you can't tell. There may be better ways of handling it (or not), but none are surer.