Should I punish my players with a high CR encounter

[N'raac]

To the original question - no, you should not punish the players.

By all means, however, you should use the consequences of their failure as a springboard for further challenging adventures. This thread has provided some great discussion in that regard.

Ultimately, the players (as opposed to their characters) will hopefully look back on this failure, not with regret, but with fond memories of the great adventure it lead into. Practically, there is no reason the players even need to know it was intended and expected they prevent the summoning, rather than being intended and expected they would fail, with the adventure continuing with their efforts to mitigate the damage and ultimately force the creature back to the pit from whence it came. Sometimes, failure is more fun than success!

As a GM, I find it very satisfying, when matters are going badly for the PC's, to hear a player say "Guys, I think this is one of those fights we were never intended to win". I've heard that several times from my players (probably about equally split between battles they were, and were not, expected to win). I consider it a great compliment that the players trust me to use their losses and failures to enhance the game, rather than end it. Even more so when I read posts from players who would rather have their characters commit suicide than be captured by the enemy.

In my experience, a game is enriched greatly when the players trust that the GM is not acting as their opponent, but as the designer of an exciting and challenging plot for their enjoyment.

 

[kitsune9]

I would release the demon with full powers and all. If the PC's stand and fight, that's the way it goes.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

First: I don't think it's punishment to hit them with the Demon. You've warned them, they know it's potentially coming, and that it's bad.

A TPK would be bad, because it would end the story, but there are LOTs of ways to work around that. Maybe they get knocked down, dying, and some peasant saves them, pulls them into a root cellar under a demolished house where they can recover while they Demon prowls the landscape.

I'd be tempted to immobilize them with the horrific presence -- maybe go so far as to INCREASE the save DC so they're less likely to save very often -- and leave them to watch, paralyzed and helpless, as the demon trashes the town.

One of the Keys is what the demon wants. It will help a lot of the demon's goals don't include necessarily fighting the PCs. That way, it can allow it's aura to take them out of the equation and ignore them.

Demons and devils are supposed to trade in mortal souls, and being summoned through to the mortal plane is like getting some free time in the vaults of Fort knox. With so many souls around, it's possible that this thing doesn't want just any souls -- it wants the tasiest, most valuable ones. The caviar of souls -- the souls of children.

So, what if the demon trashes the whole town rounding up all of the children in town -- infants up pre-pubescents. Takes them all off to some hideout to wait through the painful daylight hours, where it can kill and harvest the souls of the children without interruption. Then, in the morning, it might move on to another town -- or do as others have suggested, and start building a power base and sending out agents and servants.

Maybe each soul harvested grants the power to bring in another lesser demon to serve it -- which both helps develop the reason for taking the kids alive (so they can be sacrificed in the ritual) and starts to build a power base of demons that the PCs can reasonably fight while they try to figure out what to do about the demon.

I'd be inclined to keep the demon around for a while as a for that can't be defeated in a toe-to-toe fight, so the PCs have to start looking for other ways to deal with it -- banish it, undo the summoning, etc.

There's a whole campaign sitting there waiting for you.
-rg

 

[rkarnes]

Demons and devils are supposed to trade in mortal souls, and being summoned through to the mortal plane is like getting some free time in the vaults of Fort knox. With so many souls around, it's possible that this thing doesn't want just any souls -- it wants the tasiest, most valuable ones. The caviar of souls -- the souls of children.

My-oh-my, that's a good idea.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

oooh, been thinking. I don't think the souls are required for the ritual; they're payment to the servant demon. So, all of those souls represent a mercenary army of demons -- perhaps hired away from other demon lords, etc.

 

[concerro]

If they failed it is not a punishment, but a result of failure. With that said I would still not use a CR 12 monster. If you told them in-game then it can be made to look as though the NPC was incorrect. If you told them out of game then just tell them you used the wrong name.

 

[rkarnes]

I did the fight, and it went great! I started the game with a handful of scenarios in the village. Our wizard spoke to the NPC wizard in the village, and was given an impromptu pop-quiz on magic. Our war-scarred veteran compared war wounds with a retired military grunt in the village. Our elf was followed around by the local children, who asked her for "an angel's blessing." It was great.

Just before dawn, the demon attacked. It galumphed down the hill from the temple, ready to take what it wanted! The three cultist who released him were in tow, close and ready to fight.

The first couple or rounds were pretty much just getting into position. Characters took cover behind houses, and those who succeeded on knowledge checks explained what it was they were facing.

The wizard and the elf both knew about Chernabue's horrific appearance, and they did their best to avoid looking at its disgusting visage. As the dawn came, they could see more clearly its details, and the harder it became to resist.

Two NPCs, the wizard and the war-scarred grunt began to attack the monster, but the wizard had difficulty overcoming the monster's SR and ultimately decided to run. The party saw this as an act of ultimate cowerdice.

Throughout the fight, the demon moved toward the huts sprinked over the board, smashing them open and pulling out children. The PCs knew that whatever awaited them at the hands of the demon was horrific, and so began... mercy killing them.

I didn't really see that one coming.

The grizzled war-torn NPC tried to stop the PC's, but she fell under the sway of the demon's mind effecting "confusion" effect and spent the rest of her time attacking the other confused PCs.

Every child in the village was kidnapped, except for the few the players managed to mercy-kill. After that, the group gathered the remaining villagers and began a long, miserable trip back to the city.

I think it went great... but... they killed kids, man. D:

If they failed it is not a punishment, but a result of failure. With that said I would still not use a CR 12 monster. If you told them in-game then it can be made to look as though the NPC was incorrect. If you told them out of game then just tell them you used the wrong name.

How can an NPC be incorrect? I do not understand.

 

[rkarnes]

By the way, the monster in question is not actually a demon according to the fluff presented in the monster's description, and it is actually "a" Chernabue, not "The" Chernabue, but simply repurposed it to fit the need of my campaign.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

HOLY COW.

Hats off, sir, that sounds like a helluva session. You need to make sure there's some sort of lingering effect that they get from having killed those kids - and NOT necessarily a bad one. Do you have/can you reproduce an idea of which PCs killed how many of the little nippers? Those kids' souls might hang around in ghost form to help feed the PCs information about ways to defeat the demon.

I'd love it if at least some of the ghost kids continue to haunt the PCs even after the Demon is banished. "You did kill me, after all."

Anyway..... once more, that's AWESOME.

-rg

 

[BriarMonkey]

I did the fight, and it went great!
...

Nice. Glad it went well.

And now, you have an entirely new branch of the campaign with which to play. And with the machinations of an abyssal spawn at work, you can keep the players guessing and introduce all sorts of outflow from that branch.

Not to mention, you can still have the whole rest of the world going on about its business. Of course, regional affairs may soon pivot depending on what the spawn and characters do...