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Message: <blockquote data-quote="sfedi" data-source="post: 5048468" data-attributes="member: 15746">Khazyk's offerNow, onto the last session:After they accepted Indomitable's offer, Khazyk showed up and negotiated the truce with the party.Since they already accepted Indomitable's offer, they thought that makeing the truce with this devil was a free bonus.But they were worried about dealing with a demon, and the Lawful Good Swordmage also thought about if he wasn't commiting an evil act. Fortunately, he was not and he was free to act.I was glad on how I ran Khazyk, he was believable, convincing, charming and at the same time intimidating. Not because of his fighting powers, that was already settled the last time they crossed swords with him, but because he was able to deliver his promise of harassing them.I made a little break on the negotiation to explain the players what was at stake on this conversation.But first I must tell you how I'm running encounters a little bit differently in this campaign:Since we don't want the campaign to end due to a not so climatic encounter, or bad luck or whatever reason, I, as the DM, determine the outcome of an encounter if they loose or if they win.Most of the time, if the PCs loose, they are left unconscious or wounded (but stable) or they simply flee the battle.Only in some encounters the failure means death, resurrection and the end of the adventure or the end of the campaign.So every time they have an encounter, they know what's at stake.Since they can't die, I usually raise the difficulty of encounters by one or two levels. But I must be careful, because that makes them spend more healing surges and that can screw up the math behind encounters per day.This is what I told them on how I would run Khazyk if he was harassing them: - before each encounter, they had the chance to get rid of him with opposed bluff or stealth checks - if they were succesful, they could make the encounter without the devil's intromision - if they failed, then Khazyk would enter the battle on round 2 or later - if they "killed" Kazhyk during this encounter, he would teleport out - if they lost the encounter, even with Khazyk's hindrance, they wouldn't be killed by him. But after that, they and Khazyk (if he's still around) would immediately benefit from a short rest and begun another combat. This time, if they lost, Khazyk could kill them. If Khazyk was killed, he would be out of the adventure. But Khazyk could teleport out before that.So, basically, having Khazyk on their backs would mean harder encounters and a remote possibility of death and end of the campaign.They accepted his offer, knowing that it's quite possible that they will have to break both promises if freeing the spirit turned out to be an evil act or something worse than him been kept prisoner.</blockquote>

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