PC Morals: Outhouses, Drug dealers, and misguided dwarves

[Grim]

Ok, so this is what happened:

It all started when my DM read the Drugs Section of Lords of Darkness.

I have a 6th level chaotic good dwarven rogue. A local dealer offers him some pretty potent drugs, which my DM claims were probably legal back then (sure...), but i dont want them.

My character is morally opposed to things that mess up his body. IE, he doesnt drink... etc(even though he's a dwarf. I'm trying to do one of those characters who are special because they are not the standard of thier race).

I see a whole bunch of people, including a party member, who have been seriously messed up by this guy. I decide that i'm going to take him out, so i agree. He takes me outside, to a secluded outhouse where he keeps his stuff. I pull my axe, and he starts casting. Turns out he is a 7th level wizard, who, although tripped out off his arse, can still cast. So i get my attack of oppertunity, and do some massive dammage. He screams, and the party fighter, who until then was in then in, runs all 160 feet to right next to the mage. OOC the guy tells me he is going to help kill the mage, but then when the mage starts casting, he doesnt attack.

The mage nukes me with a lighting bolt, but im still standing. Since he is not threatening, i cant get another flanking attack to do more dammage. I hit anyway, and do some pretty nasty dammage again. The mage is almost dead, and then the fighter grapples me.

I surrender, the fighter knocks me out, and then the mage injects me with a highly addictive drug, which takes my character litterally weeks (and some amount of gold) to shrug off. Obviouslly, im pretty angry.

By this time, the drug dealler has hired some protection, and so i buy some potions of invisblity. This time, he is in the outhouse again, and so is his body guard. I go invisible, and attack him. I get initiative again, and he goes unconcious. I step back, glug the other potion, and wait. The body guard closes the door, makes a heal check on the mage (who now has -8 hp), and stablizes him.

Realizing that the outhouse must be highly flamible, given all the fumes, dry wood, and methane, i spend the next round setting off the inner workings of a fire trap i had in my backpack. My dm doesnt really say how long that takes, but does say that there is an explosion that does 3d6 dammage to me.

Sometime during the inditerminate time it takes me to set off the trap, the fighter pushes the drug dealler into the latrine. It is a thirty foot drop into 20 feet of what is descibed as "liquidish sludge." I, and the fighter, take 3d6 fire dammage, and my dm does not tell me how much the mage took. I dont even know if he is dead. And then the session ends.

My questions are as follows:

1. Was it just for me to attack the dealer?

2. How long should it take for the trap to be set off? (in rounds)

3. How much dammage did the mage take from the unconcious fall into the muck?

4. If he survived the fall, would he sink or float?

5. Depending on that answer, how much dammage should the explosion do to the guy?

 

[Psychotic Jim]

Wow, quite an um, colorful, story .

1. I am not going to touch this, depends on the campaign, character, intentions, and circumstances.

2. No idea.

3. How deep was the latrine and how soft was the landing? Normal falls do 1d6 per ten ft.

4. How much gear was the guy carrying and how deep was the muck?

5. Don't know. A pint of burning oil does 1d3 damage for 2 rounds for comparison, though.

If the mage was at negative 8 hp, it should not really matter though as the explosion should have left him in pieces and the fall should have crushed the pieces up even more, unless he had a protection from the elements spell or some such and a feather fall spell or magical item on.

 

[Tonguez]

My questions are as follows:

1. Was it just for me to attack the dealer?
So the drug is legal (according to the DM) and the dealer is being helped by your party fighter (why?)

For the first instance I can't answer this without lots more info - but I'd guess that you were not justified (afterall those who got messed up by the drug took it voluntarily (I suspect)(. In the second case however (after he had injected you against your will) then yes you had 'some' justification.

PS I also want to know just how big this outhouse was that could fit the dealer, you AND his bodyguard!!!

2. How long should it take for the trap to be set off? (in rounds)
Pass

3. How much dammage did the mage take from the unconcious fall into the muck?
Okay its a 30 foot drop into 20 feet of muck - assuming the muck 'cushions' his fall he only has 10 feet of kinetic energy from the drop to take damage from so 1d6


4. If he survived the fall, would he sink or float?
Float for a while then sink slowly (assuming otherwise unecumbered)

5. Depending on that answer, how much dammage should the explosion do to the guy?
At least 1d6 (allowing for some 'protection' due to submersion in liquid sludge

ergo -8 +1d6 damage + 1d6 damae (The mage/Dealer is dead)

 

[Moe Ronalds]

I have a feeling you'll be seeing the dealer again. Reasoning:

----Fighter who didn't help you out last time suddenly has a change of heart

----THe fighter who suddenly has this change of heart pushed the mage off the cliff

----Falling off high ledges is always what you do to a villain you want to survive

----You don't know if this guy survived anyway

I figure the DM told the fighter to push to drug dealer off, so that he could end a bad battle without him dying.

Also, from what I've read, I really dont think you're justified in killing the dealer. If the drugs are legal, and your friends took them voluntarily, and he didn't do anything other than offer you the drugs, I'd say you're wrong. If the drugs weren't legal, you may just knock him out and have him arrested. If he did harm you, or force your friends to take the drugs, I'd say you're okay. Though your DM may disagree.

 

[Larry Fitz]

Where to start....


Ok, if these substances were 'probably legal back then" does that mean that your campaign is set in a historic time? No I guess you mean he just figured that if it was ok in Medeival times then it is ok in the campaign. That brings up the point, if they're legal why does he need to have "stash" in a latrine? Why not keep the goods in a shop or on him?

The Fighter told you OOC that he was going to help when he clearly didn't intend to? IMO that is cheating and the GM should have interfered at that point. Were you justified in trying to take this guy out, apparently you were because his drug is not just addictive, it put him in some sort of position of control over your friend the fighter, and this mage was clearly a bad guy because after you attacked him, instead of turning you into the local authorities or heck, killing you for trying to kill him, he instead gave you his addictive and mind altering substance. The guy at the local store who sells Coca Cola does not force it down the throat of people who try to kill him, not generally anyway.

As to the life or death of your Mage/Pusher, sounds like the DM was being pretty heavy handed there. It does seem unreasonable that he survived however, after all he had a 50/50 chance of landing face first in the muck, he was already at -8, death would take moments IMO... but frankly this sounds like a plot railroad, like your GM has an agenda that he isn't going to let a little thing like Player actions alter, I could be wrong, but that's the way it seems....

 

[Darkness]

I agree that the fighter telling you OOC that he was going to help you when he really didn't intend to is cheating. Myself, when I'm the DM, I discourage (read: "use extreme violence to prevent" ) similar OOC talk, whether truthful or not.
(BTW, why did your DM tell you that the mage was at -8 hp? It's information your character can't know, after all... Anyway, if he already was at -8, I think his chance of survival is objectively pretty slim. Be aware, though, that your DM is quite within his rights to keep him around anyway. Also, the story ought to be more important than strict application of the rules, I believe. Myself, I'd either talk to the DM about it - if I thought he was usually reasonable - or else try to kill the mage yet again... )

As for you being justified or not in attacking the dealer: Unless vigilantism is legal (or illegal but still commonly practiced) and what the dealer was doing is illegal (or at the very least commonly perceived as immoral), your attack on the man can't be excused by the law of the land. However, it is quite in-character (and quite acceptable by his alignment) for a CG character to act like you did under the given circumstances.

 

[Larry Fitz]

The apparently Evil Moderator agrees with the Seemingly Good Author! We must both be right!

It really does sound like there could be some DM maturity issues here, best advice is have a discussion with the DM that is NOT plot specific, just in general what are the themes he wants to incorporate into his game and if he fully understands what it means to him personally that you know where he lives....

Seriously though he did seem to unnecessarily railroad you into having your character get 'high', it would have been less disturbing to have the bad guy kill you, and there does seem to be some sort of collusion between the DM and the Fighter, of course that could just be the caffeine and candy talking....

 

[Black Omega]

One thing that strikes me as weird...

If selling the drugs was legal, why was he going out to the outhouse to so it? Just seems a curious way to handle if if he could have sold the drugs legally in the open.

 

[MaxKaladin]

It may not have been legal, but I'd say it was just. I'd say he'd already attacked the rest of the party with his trash. Others might argue they made the decision to take it themselves, but I somehow doubt they were informed of FULL consequences of using the substances in question in their entirety. Dealers never do. I saying that'll anger the pro-drug folks out there, but I really don't care.

For instance, it seems to give the guy mind control power over the fighter.... If he doesn't, then the fighter is cheating, plain and simple. Actually, he's cheating plain and simple unless he has magic that allows him to move faster than normal since, even with the run feat, a normal human fighter can only go 150 feet, normally goes only 120 feet and none of that accounts for slowing for corners, opening doors, etc.

I'd also, as someone else suggested, wonder about this GM of yours. What's his big hangup with getting everyone on drugs and making a dealer invulnerable?

Heck, I'd say he's trying to railroad something here. Either he simply has decided he's not going to let anyone kill his precious drug dealer or he has some plotline going that requires him to live. Either way, it's pretty poor DMing the way he's going about it. Of course, the flip side of this is it looks like no matter what you do, he's not going to let you kill the dealer.

Maybe you ought to just ignore the dealer from now on and just wait for the game to get around to the fun stuff. If there isn't much (or any) fun stuff, tell these losers to give you a call when they're ready to go back to being heros instead of drug additcs and leave.

 

[Xar]

Uh, you tried to kill him just because your character is against 'anything that messes up your body'? Really, if I was the DM i would let your character change his alignment to Chaotic Evil, killing someone because he sells drugs (weeds, powders or just alchohol) would be considered quite immoral. C'mon how often kill people others in real life with such an excuse? I know lot of people who are against any form of drugs, but you have to be psychotic to kill someone for such a reason...

But that's just my 2 coppers...