ZSutherland
First Post
It's my groups off week (second in a row due to scheduling stuff), but that gives both my players and myself time to think about something that happened at the end of the last game.
I have 6 players ranging in levels from 7-9 due to death/rais & absenteeism. Before we started the campaign, my four core players sat down and we spent a night discussing what we all wanted from the game, and what characters they would play. In the end we decided we wanted high heroics, no kid gloves, FR in Waterdeep starting at 6th level. They spent the rest of the evening making characters.
The other two players, who used to play full time but left with an open invitation to return whenever they wished, showed up the week after when we were to start with the campaign. I told them to make characters and spent the time updating my plans to incorporate two more PCs.
These other two players are boyfriend/girlfriend. She almost always plays a ranger (after all this time she still doesn't really get the rules because he mollycoddles her too much at the table) and he's usually a powergamer extrodinaire. However, for some bizarre reason, he went with a high Int, high Cha rogue. Fine with me. I looked over his character sheet and thought it looked a bit weak, but all essential party niches were filled, so I wasn't much concerned. Up until last week, he plays the character mostly as a role-playing character, not doing much mechanically except making good use of diplomacy & gather information, and decent ranged attacking.
This brings us to last adventure. All six PCs start the adventure right where we left off (one of the core 4 is absent, but his PC was there last week, so I hand his sheet to someone else) and shortly thereafter are ambushed by some vampire spawn. Cleric turns most of them and the others beat the last into gaseous. They chase the gaseous form back to the City of the Dead in Waterdeep. Long story short, it goes into a dungeon in the cemetary. They're going, too, but they decide wait until tomorrow owing to a few negative levels they picked up in the last fight.
Now, I have an excuse to get rid of the absent player's character for the game so no one gets stuck running two. So, when they head back to the dungeon the next night, I say, "If no one has a problem with it, Milo's not coming, but if you want him along, work out between you who'll run him and let me know." Milo is the other rogue, and they all shake their heads and say, "Nah, we can manage." This unanimous refusal of the backup rogue includes the Int Cha rogue mentioned above.
They get in and get to business, and it isn't until they encounter the first trap that the rogue present finds that he admits he has Search and Open Lock but no ranks in Disable Device. The wizard has 1 rank in Disable Device and very good Intelligence score so he gives it a whirl, but it's a magical trap, so of course they fail at disarming it since he has no rogue levels. To top it off, he refuses to go through doors or scout ahead. He's always played the character as a bit cowardly, but not quite this badly though of course they've always had the other rogue in dungeons who revels in scouting & trailblazing, so perhaps it's not out of character. As a result of his cowardice, he causes the party cleric to drop through a 100' pit trap, hits everyone with chain lightning when he finally agrees (after being threatened) to open the door they'd failed to disable mentioned above, and then, refusing to scout causes the dwarven barbarian to be seperated from them during the second to last encounter (two chaos beasts) because the dwarf was doing the scouting. All in all, this ate up a bunch of the cleric's healing for things they could and should have avoided. Findally, during the fight with the chaos beasts, the ranger winds up botching a save vs. the chaos beasts and since she had only a 10 charisma, she wound up holding on until the last fight was over (the next room) and then having to flee to a nearby temple. She did not make it and became a chaos beast, losing her character.
The PCs where, needless to say, pissed at the rogue and his player. They kept it quiet since his girlfriend was upset at the death of his character, but in the next couple of days, several of the players called angry (though not with me) and wanted to know how I was going to handle it. I told them I wasn't going to do anything about it because I felt it was an entirely in character matter. I did, however, encourage them to decide how their characters would react to this.
The dwarf player (OOC our groups peacemaker) decided his character had always viewed the rogue as a useless pretty boy but wasn't bright enough to piece together the cause & effect chain that lead to the ranger's death. The cleric (NG of Yondalla and very big on family and trust IC) decided he'd unintentionally betrayed the family that the party represents with his cowardice and by not telling them he wouldn't be any use if they encountered traps, and so has decided to start charging him marketprice for heaing on the spot until he redeems himself. She also considered casting Hold Person on him and using Mark of Justice against him, so that if he refuses to scout or fight in the future he will suffer a -6 to Charisma. The wizard player is still mulling things over, but is considering turning him into a tropical fish and putting him in a bowl of water on display, which he thinks would make the rogue (a worshiper of Sune) a much better follower of his deity and would be his due, but he's considering warning him of this first and seeing if he screws up again. They've also decided to sell the pieces of the rangers eq I let them recover (they chased closely behind but she was flying) and not give him any of the split. The ranger's player is not really all that bright IRL and so hasn't figured out what wrong (she may actually be a bit peeved at me)
So, my question is, did I do the right thing telling the players to handle the squabble amongst themselves (I do admit I deducted a bit of the rogues exp because he did nothing valuable since all the monsters except the chaos beasts were undead and the chaos beasts are immune to criticals so no SA so he effectively contributed nothing at all) and are their actions in character and appropriate? The Dwarf is CG of Clandenggin (sp?) the dwarf barbarian god that revels in the blood of his enemies, already mentioned the cleric, the wizard is NG Sun Elf of the Archery & Vengance elven god from Faiths & Pantheons.
Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks.
Z
I have 6 players ranging in levels from 7-9 due to death/rais & absenteeism. Before we started the campaign, my four core players sat down and we spent a night discussing what we all wanted from the game, and what characters they would play. In the end we decided we wanted high heroics, no kid gloves, FR in Waterdeep starting at 6th level. They spent the rest of the evening making characters.
The other two players, who used to play full time but left with an open invitation to return whenever they wished, showed up the week after when we were to start with the campaign. I told them to make characters and spent the time updating my plans to incorporate two more PCs.
These other two players are boyfriend/girlfriend. She almost always plays a ranger (after all this time she still doesn't really get the rules because he mollycoddles her too much at the table) and he's usually a powergamer extrodinaire. However, for some bizarre reason, he went with a high Int, high Cha rogue. Fine with me. I looked over his character sheet and thought it looked a bit weak, but all essential party niches were filled, so I wasn't much concerned. Up until last week, he plays the character mostly as a role-playing character, not doing much mechanically except making good use of diplomacy & gather information, and decent ranged attacking.
This brings us to last adventure. All six PCs start the adventure right where we left off (one of the core 4 is absent, but his PC was there last week, so I hand his sheet to someone else) and shortly thereafter are ambushed by some vampire spawn. Cleric turns most of them and the others beat the last into gaseous. They chase the gaseous form back to the City of the Dead in Waterdeep. Long story short, it goes into a dungeon in the cemetary. They're going, too, but they decide wait until tomorrow owing to a few negative levels they picked up in the last fight.
Now, I have an excuse to get rid of the absent player's character for the game so no one gets stuck running two. So, when they head back to the dungeon the next night, I say, "If no one has a problem with it, Milo's not coming, but if you want him along, work out between you who'll run him and let me know." Milo is the other rogue, and they all shake their heads and say, "Nah, we can manage." This unanimous refusal of the backup rogue includes the Int Cha rogue mentioned above.
They get in and get to business, and it isn't until they encounter the first trap that the rogue present finds that he admits he has Search and Open Lock but no ranks in Disable Device. The wizard has 1 rank in Disable Device and very good Intelligence score so he gives it a whirl, but it's a magical trap, so of course they fail at disarming it since he has no rogue levels. To top it off, he refuses to go through doors or scout ahead. He's always played the character as a bit cowardly, but not quite this badly though of course they've always had the other rogue in dungeons who revels in scouting & trailblazing, so perhaps it's not out of character. As a result of his cowardice, he causes the party cleric to drop through a 100' pit trap, hits everyone with chain lightning when he finally agrees (after being threatened) to open the door they'd failed to disable mentioned above, and then, refusing to scout causes the dwarven barbarian to be seperated from them during the second to last encounter (two chaos beasts) because the dwarf was doing the scouting. All in all, this ate up a bunch of the cleric's healing for things they could and should have avoided. Findally, during the fight with the chaos beasts, the ranger winds up botching a save vs. the chaos beasts and since she had only a 10 charisma, she wound up holding on until the last fight was over (the next room) and then having to flee to a nearby temple. She did not make it and became a chaos beast, losing her character.
The PCs where, needless to say, pissed at the rogue and his player. They kept it quiet since his girlfriend was upset at the death of his character, but in the next couple of days, several of the players called angry (though not with me) and wanted to know how I was going to handle it. I told them I wasn't going to do anything about it because I felt it was an entirely in character matter. I did, however, encourage them to decide how their characters would react to this.
The dwarf player (OOC our groups peacemaker) decided his character had always viewed the rogue as a useless pretty boy but wasn't bright enough to piece together the cause & effect chain that lead to the ranger's death. The cleric (NG of Yondalla and very big on family and trust IC) decided he'd unintentionally betrayed the family that the party represents with his cowardice and by not telling them he wouldn't be any use if they encountered traps, and so has decided to start charging him marketprice for heaing on the spot until he redeems himself. She also considered casting Hold Person on him and using Mark of Justice against him, so that if he refuses to scout or fight in the future he will suffer a -6 to Charisma. The wizard player is still mulling things over, but is considering turning him into a tropical fish and putting him in a bowl of water on display, which he thinks would make the rogue (a worshiper of Sune) a much better follower of his deity and would be his due, but he's considering warning him of this first and seeing if he screws up again. They've also decided to sell the pieces of the rangers eq I let them recover (they chased closely behind but she was flying) and not give him any of the split. The ranger's player is not really all that bright IRL and so hasn't figured out what wrong (she may actually be a bit peeved at me)
So, my question is, did I do the right thing telling the players to handle the squabble amongst themselves (I do admit I deducted a bit of the rogues exp because he did nothing valuable since all the monsters except the chaos beasts were undead and the chaos beasts are immune to criticals so no SA so he effectively contributed nothing at all) and are their actions in character and appropriate? The Dwarf is CG of Clandenggin (sp?) the dwarf barbarian god that revels in the blood of his enemies, already mentioned the cleric, the wizard is NG Sun Elf of the Archery & Vengance elven god from Faiths & Pantheons.
Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks.
Z
