Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arc" data-source="post: 2641197" data-attributes="member: 12184">The debate as to whether or not this mechanic and plan is "fair" to the player or not seems rather moot at this point. Depending on your preference in gaming, it's very each to choose either side and be quite well justified. Maybe what we should be doing is offering suggestions for improvement to this, or alternatives that may be just as cool, but aren't necessarily as "railroady."So far, the basic idea is that the Empire is sending an assassin after the PCs. He's a smart guy, is well prepared, and isn't going to do the stupid villian thing and give himself away before he gets his chance. All well and good, but maybe we can improve this more. If he's smart enough to recognize the PCs, he'll also realize that their alliance with the ogres is very dangerous. If he can take out the entire party, that's great, but difficult for him to do alone. If he can get the ogres to turn on their new friends... that's even better.Howabout this: Our invisible assassin goes up to the window and studies for 3 rounds one of the ogres who has a connection to the Ogre Mage (justification: he's well dressed, seems to be respected by the other ogres, whatever you feel is necessary). He opens up a tiny hole in the window with a glass cutter (for Line of Effect and the pistol shot), and casts Major Image off of a scroll (UMD) onto one of the party members who's sitting by himself. Suddenly, the party rogue whips out a pistol and headshots the brother of the Ogre king. Listen checks to determine where the sound comes from, with circumstance penalties for it being a noisy room. Even if the party passes and realizes it wasn't the rogue... not all the ogres will. Roll initiative for the combat with the ogres, and on the first round, our assassin starts summoning as many small fire elementals as he can into the attic of the inn. After the building starts burning, he retreats to his maximum range in view of the main exit, casts silence on himself, and starts taking potshots at any party member who runs outside.This situation does require a listen check or two before the action starts, so it gives perhaps one or two of the party members a heads up, but makes stopping the events still very difficult. Fair to the players, but still pretty damn mean to them.Now, instead of a "make a fort save and wonder who killed you" situation, which might provide about 10 minutes of wonder as to what happened, and then a resigned search for a rez, we have the party fighting its own allies inside of a burning building. The bard's making hurried diplomacy checks (at that -20 modifier to reduce to a full round action), the rest of the party is in combat with the ogres (and possibly with the rogue, since they saw him do it), and it's getting very, very hot all of a sudden. Which one sounds more fun?This is just one random idea, which would definitely need a fair bit of tweaking, depending on the inn's location, the town's defenses, etc. Still, there are probably a lot more good ideas out there that offer constructive alternatives, instead of negative criticism.</blockquote>

Verification