Oh silly PCs, what hast thou wrought?

[edge3343]

<Spoiler Warning: This post contains spoilers for the "Red Hand of Doom" module>

OK I have been playing through "The Red Hand of Doom" with a newish group of players. I have two players who are pretty new to D&D and two that are fairly experienced. We've played some low level stuff but decided to start a new campaign with PCs at level 5. So they rolled new PCs and off we go...

One of the new PCs is a lawful evil cleric who likes to make zombies out of all the bodies the crew leaves behind. The rest are all lawful neutral or lawful good. I told the players that I'd allow the LE character as long as everybody assumes the party has come to a sort of equilibrium with each other. The good characters are at peace with the evil character and have found a way and a reason to work together, vise versa.

Earlier in the campaign the party tried to enter a town with a couple of zombies in tow. This was the first time they had tried to do something as boneheaded as this so I was going easy on them. They approached the town guards with the zombies, the guards freaked out and called their superior officer, long-story-short the zombie maker released the zombies into the wild instead of dismissing them. I was clear with him what the difference was and even hinted at the consequences of letting the zombies go under their own will. So the party shouldn’t be surprised when the returned to town after various adventures and what-not to find a funeral underway for a small girl and her father who were viciously attacked and partially eaten.

My point with the funeral was simply to hammer home the notion that the stuff the PCs do (good and bad) have consequences. Well, the LG paladin (why is it always these guys) basically ratted out his party member to the local cleric of Pelor. I was going to play it among the local authorities as another hobgoblin attack. But this changes things. The LG player is playing it really heavy handed against the LE player although the two guys are great friends. This isn’t coming from any interpersonal conflict as far as I can tell.

OK so what should I do? The town has enough guards and a cleric and wizard to detain the party if they wanted to. A couple of complicating factors:

1. The town is under threat by an advancing horde of monsters and only has about a week and a half before the horde arrives and wipes the town off the map.
2. The townsfolk are clueless about what’s coming. The PCs are the only ones who know about the horde. Up until this point everyone thinks that there’s maybe a large band of hobgoblins coming down out of the mountains, not a horde of thousands, plus dragons and all sorts of other baddies.
3. If the PCs can’t find a way to weaken and slow the horde the whole region will be under their control in two month’s time.

Here’s what I was kinda thinking I would do. I’d love your ideas and feedback:

1. Throw the entire party in jail and take all their stuff. Let ‘em stew for a while. The players are all pretty hilarious and I’d love to sit back and listen to them try to figure out how to get out of this mess.
2. Time is against the PCs in this scenario. They are going to loose all the time they gained by doing various things to slow the advancing horde and give the town more time.
3. The PCs will be given the opportunity to warn the towns folk about what’s coming and their testimony will be backed up by an NPC familiar to the towns folk.
4. I’d love to work it so that the PCs are left to rot in jail as the horde arrives only to escape as a giant-thrown boulder smashes the jailhouse open. They’d then have to choose to flee or stay and look for their gear & treasure.

Here’s a question, the PCs have a decent amount of magic items and treasure with them. How much, if any, loss should they take in treasure?

 

[Gilladian]

I say throw them in jail, but don't be surprised if they
1) find a way to convince the townsfolk to let them out as the town is in anger
2) break out early and run away; they may go fight the horde or just leave the area, no telling which from here

3) sit in jail til the attack begins and then leave the area, probably with "they got what they deserve" remarks.

In any case, I don't think making them suffer a serious loss of material goods is very fair. Their stuff should be in a locker or storage somewhere in the jail, and they should have a fair chance of retrieving it if they try.

 

[invokethehojo]

First, let me say, this situation is almost as awesome as Charlie Sheen's life, bravo for being the creator of such circumstances.

You say the town does have the personnel to detain the PC's, what would be awesome is to have the town pardon the PC's if they stay and help fight the horde. But as soon as victory is imminent to turn on the PC's and capture them. Not sure how that would factor into your ongoing plans, but it would be a cool scenario: do they fight the basically innocent townsfolk, or do they run?


The zombie raiser (sorry I can't remember what class you said he was) just let these things run wild, so it really is his fault the girl is dead, and the townsfolk would have to take that personally, and the dude needs to learn a lesson that, unlike a videogame, the world in an RPG works (somewhat) logically, and there are consequences.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I would like to point out that the paladin didn't do anything when the zombie maker let the porters go, so it is pretty hypocricical of him to complain now. Surely, he is as much to blame as the zombie maker. I would drive that point home, and drive it home hard. And when he asks if he should have fought his companion over it, the simple answer is, No, but he should have slain the undead.

At the very least, let 'em all stew for a while. There should be a weregild paid to the family of the victims, and it should be dear.

I would demand (in the persona of head priest) that the paladin takes a holy vow not to escape, and to prevent his friends from escaping. Then let the paladin - and only the paladin - keep his stuff so as to be able to fulfill his vow. But the PCs might well be treated as the well-to-do, and their prison might not otherwise be a festering hole.

While they are stewing, there can be another zombie attack (and, therefore, more weregild). Let the PCs go and hunt down the zombies.....an absent player's character, or some of their gear of great value, can be hostage against their return.

While they are off zombie-hunting, you can have them run into outriders of the main problem, to remind them of the time limit and what else is happening.

Allow them to contribute to the town's defense under the same terms -- some valuable gear is held hostage, and the paladin must vow to neither attempt escape nor allow his companions to escape, if it is within his means to prevent it. Make sure that they know that the matter is deferred, but not dismissed.

And then have their actions in the town's defense swing the outcome one way or the other. But they still have to pay the weregilds. They don't get out of it for free.

EDIT: As a side note, I would caution you to play the townsfolk as being, by-and-large, on the up-and-up. If the townsfolk pardon the PCs when their fat's in the fire, and then renege when it is pulled out, as suggested above, your PCs won't feel bad about the townies getting eaten by zombies at all. Bad things happening to good people always mean more than bad things happening to bad people.

Plus, if the players become used to the idea that most NPCs do what they say they will, the few weasels always stand out more.


RC

 

[edge3343]

I like the weregild idea. I was thinking 2000g from each of the PCs and 4000g from the zombie-lovin' cleric. That should hurt sufficiently. The Pally will make the oath. If they refuse it's to jail with 'em and the selling off of magic items until the money is raised for the victims. They'll remain in jail until the horde arrives.

 

[pawsplay]

While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.

I'm pretty sure by letting the LE cleric turn those zombies lose, they have become an oathbreaker.

 

[Lord Ipplepop]

I have to say that I am surprised pawsplay is the first one to hit on the paladin and the LE working together...'
Presuming that it was permitted somehow, and he got a special dispensation from his deity or priest in leiu thereof, the permitting of zombies being created goes WAY out of bounds.
Having the Paldin swear an oath to do anything is a moot point, as he is no longer a paladin.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Got to disagree with those who want to take the paladin down right away. What the paladin did was stupid, not evil. I would hope that the player takes the opportunity to play up the paladin's remorse and begin working damn hard to make amends.

Talk to the player, how would they feel about a temporary fall from grace? Is there some act or penance the paladin could undertake during the conflict with the oncoming horde? MAybe rescuing a small child from certain death at great cost in hit points to themself. Maybe rescue the wife/mother of the deceased? And she does not forgive the pally, but harangues them the whole way.

I think situations like this should be used to give the paladin's player a chance to role play rather than be a chance to punish them with game mechanics.

As for the original question: I think Raven Crowking has it spot one.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Something else has occurred to me, vis-a-vis consequences.

The paladin has come in for some flack (rightly so) but what about the LAWFUL evil cleric who caused the trouble in the first place?

Surely they should be reprimanded for their stupidity too. Not because it was evil, but because it was CHAOTIC. Letting a few undead go wild in a settled area to cause mayhem is pretty bad. When that same area is being threatened by an enemy horde it's even worse. I'm assuming here that the cleric's church is opposed to the Red Hand (and if not, why then is this individual cleric?)

The way I see it Lawful Evil will enforce laws/cohesion with much more draconian measures than Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral.

So is the cleric facing any punishment?

 

[Mishihari Lord]

4. I’d love to work it so that the PCs are left to rot in jail as the horde arrives only to escape as a giant-thrown boulder smashes the jailhouse open. They’d then have to choose to flee or stay and look for their gear & treasure.

I like this option, and I've run some really fun games with similar scenarios. If you can keep the PCs in the cell until the attack, then when it comes have a couple of guards run into the storeroom where the PCs stuff is kept and take a couple of the best weapons to help in the defense in view of the PCs. Then smash the outside of the cell open with a boulder. Then they have some choices: run for the woods right in front of them, fight their way around to the front door so they can get in the building and retrieve their gear, and/or go track down the guards who have a couple of their better weapons.

Oh, and if you allow a paladin and LE types in the same group you're going to have to expect this kind of stuff to happen. Speaking from experience here - I ran a campaign for many years with this kind of mix.