questions: speak with dead, laws against killing, barbarian rage

[aboyd]

1. You're using the Speak With Dead spell. If you ask, "Is your murderer in this room?" is the corpse able to answer accurately? Why or why not?

2. A baron, well loved by the citizens of the town, finds his keep under attack from villains. The villains manage to kill 15 guards and a handful of farmers who rushed to help defend the keep. They also deeply wound the baron before finally being killed and/or captured. For the villains who live, what is a typical penalty, under ye olde laws? (Not looking for guesses so much as hoping for actual historical citations, or close to it. Any reference to the fate of those that infiltrate and kill leaders of a town's militia would be appreciated.)

3. A barbarian villain rages at the entrance to the keep, and takes out a handful of warriors. He then makes it inside, and his rage ends. He is now penalized. He bars the door and sits for two rounds. The keep door is sundered and combat resumes. Was two rounds of sitting enough to remove the penalties from rage ending? If no, why?

 

[Runestar]

1. You're using the Speak With Dead spell. If you ask, "Is your murderer in this room?" is the corpse able to answer accurately? Why or why not?

I am not sure if the dead creature has access to its 5 senses while under the influence of speak with dead. So it may be able to determine who or what is in the room, much less if a particular person is its murderer. At most, I suppose it can give you a description of what he looked like, assuming he had time to register his features.

3. A barbarian villain rages at the entrance to the keep, and takes out a handful of warriors. He then makes it inside, and his rage ends. He is now penalized. He bars the door and sits for two rounds. The keep door is sundered and combat resumes. Was two rounds of sitting enough to remove the penalties from rage ending? If no, why?

It would depend on whether you consider the prior encounter to have ended before the 2 rounds and a new encounter to have commenced after those 2 rounds.

As a general rule of thumb, wotc defined an encounter in 3e as ending when the players/DM has no more need to track actions in terms of rounds. Here is what the faq has to say, but note that this was a 3.0 ruling (it does not appeared to have been updated for 3.5).

When a barbarian is fatigued for the rest of the encounter after raging, how long is that exactly?

In this case, an “encounter” continues until the DM stops tracking the encounter in combat rounds. That usually happens when the last foe is defeated or escapes, or it lasts until the last PC is defeated or forced to escape. A creature has escaped from an encounter when its foes decide not to pursue it or until they have no reasonable chance of catching the fleeing creature.

However, the factotum faq has this to say.

Can a factotum (Dungeonscape, page 14) use his "cunning insight" to boost his save outside of combat (for example, against a poison trap)?

Yes, you can use such abilities outside of combat. An "encounter" is more than a combat, but it also includes any other significant event in the game such as stopping to bash down a door, navigating a rickety bridge, or dealing with a trap.

If the characters have a minute or two to catch their breath and rest, assume that the last encounter has ended and all per encounter abilities refresh.

Personally, I think those 2 rounds would be enough to signal the start of a new encounter, much as it seems too quickly for a barb to catch his breath...

 

[Starbuck_II]

1. You're using the Speak With Dead spell. If you ask, "Is your murderer in this room?" is the corpse able to answer accurately? Why or why not?

Only if the corpse would know at the time of death.
If it was from the sjadows then no. If it was face to face: likely unless a disguise.

2. A baron, well loved by the citizens of the town, finds his keep under attack from villains. The villains manage to kill 15 guards and a handful of farmers who rushed to help defend the keep. They also deeply wound the baron before finally being killed and/or captured. For the villains who live, what is a typical penalty, under ye olde laws? (Not looking for guesses so much as hoping for actual historical citations, or close to it. Any reference to the fate of those that infiltrate and kill leaders of a town's militia would be appreciated.)

Depends on danger (like spellcaster). Possibly manual labor if not too dangerous unarmed. Possibly death.

3. A barbarian villain rages at the entrance to the keep, and takes out a handful of warriors. He then makes it inside, and his rage ends. He is now penalized. He bars the door and sits for two rounds. The keep door is sundered and combat resumes. Was two rounds of sitting enough to remove the penalties from rage ending? If no, why?

Hard to say: If encounter ended maybe, but it sounds like it never stopped (as enemies are chopping at door).

3a. Is the combat scene outside the keep different from the combat inside (in the sense, are they separate encounters, or do I flag the entire thing as 1 big encounter, even though there were a couple rounds of respite)?

If there is interaction at all it is same encounter. So guys chopping at your door is still an encounter.

 

[frankthedm]

1. You're using the Speak With Dead spell. If you ask, "Is your murderer in this room?" is the corpse able to answer accurately? Why or why not?

Corpse has no way to know who is in the room, nor which room it currently is in. Now "My murder was in the room i died." is an example of an answer the corpse could give.

This spell does not let you actually speak to the person (whose soul has departed). It instead draws on the imprinted knowledge stored in the corpse. The partially animated body retains the imprint of the soul that once inhabited it, and thus it can speak with all the knowledge that the creature had while alive. The corpse, however, cannot learn new information.

2. A baron, well loved by the citizens of the town, finds his keep under attack from villains. The villains manage to kill 15 guards and a handful of farmers who rushed to help defend the keep. They also deeply wound the baron before finally being killed and/or captured. For the villains who live, what is a typical penalty, under ye olde laws? (Not looking for guesses so much as hoping for actual historical citations, or close to it. Any reference to the fate of those that infiltrate and kill leaders of a town's militia would be appreciated.)

Treason - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List of people convicted of treason - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
punishment for treason probably gets pretty bad in worlds where fates worse than death are possible.

3. A barbarian villain rages at the entrance to the keep, and takes out a handful of warriors. He then makes it inside, and his rage ends. He is now penalized. He bars the door and sits for two rounds. The keep door is sundered and combat resumes. Was two rounds of sitting enough to remove the penalties from rage ending? If no, why?

I would say no. Breaking LOS should not end the encounter. If the gate held for minutes, i'd say yes, but for a few rounds of respite, no.

 

[Vegepygmy]

1. Exactly what frankthedm said.
2. The penalty would without question be death. For some related information, see also felony: West's Encyclopedia of American Law (Full Article) from Answers.com
3. In my opinion, if you have to roll for initiative again, it's a new encounter. See DMG, page 22, "Starting an Encounter."

 

[irdeggman]

3. A barbarian villain rages at the entrance to the keep, and takes out a handful of warriors. He then makes it inside, and his rage ends. He is now penalized. He bars the door and sits for two rounds. The keep door is sundered and combat resumes. Was two rounds of sitting enough to remove the penalties from rage ending? If no, why?

Nope.

The "encounter" is still progressing - becasue you have decided to have the opponents "sunder" the door - which means that they are still using combat system (and round by round damage) - thus you have continued the intiative clock, unless I have missed what you have been describing.
So the barbarians' penalty must still progress.

Would it be a different encounter if the barbarian ran down a hallway and tried to hide while the opponents pursued him?

If you stop all combat actions (and the initiative clock) then by your actions as a DM it is now considered a different encounter.

 

[Jhaelen]

1. Nope. The dead doesn't perceive anything about it's surroundings, except it's able to hear the caster's questions.

2. It's death unless a (probably quite high) fine is payed. IIRC, theft was regarded a more serious crime than murder and you could normally buy yourself free from pretty much everything. The only reason anyone was ever imprisoned was to give relatives a chance to offer some payment before the prisoner was killed.

3. I think the penalties are still there. If you didn't stop counting rounds, the encounter isn't over, yet.

 

[Jhaelen]

edit: double post