Shemeska
Adventurer
Fimmtiu said:Meta-pedantry!
An excellent tension-building update. Must have been frustrating for your players to walk into their enemy's lair without a single chance to kick any ass.
A combination of things:
1) they were worried by the level of magic outside the palace, springing magical traps etc. One part that I seem to have not included was a brief attempt to break into the place using a stoneshape spell on one of the outside walls. The spell failed miserably. Not a good sign.
2) They were half expecting him to give a stereotypical villain speech, along the lines of, 'but before I kill you, let me reveal my master plan' sort of thing. And given his attention to protocol and aristocratic pretensions, they figured they had a decent chance of getting one of those at some point if they let him. Hell, the PCs and players alike were rather curious about what all this guy was up to in the Astral in the first place.
The frustration wasn't there till later, in what was probably my most rat bastard moment as a DM.