D&D General That Which Cannot Be Fought

[cbwjm]

The gods would be largely unstoppable by mortals. Apart from them, I don't think I've had/have anything that a sufficiently powerful party couldn't defeat.

If a god comes down to talk to you (for whatever reason) and you decide to disrespect them, then you'll be affected by a hold person spell at best or obliterated at worst, no save.

 

[Steampunkette]

The ultimate antagonist in my campaign is called Hydra; a huge and powerful creature from beyond time and space. It is a sight too terrible to behold. Huge tentacles reaching down from the darkness that covers the cavernous roof of the Eternal Depths, where those that died at sea ultimately go. It speaks directly into the minds of mortals, and reminds them their souls are but a tasty snack to this god-like creature.

Although my players want to defeat this evil, I honestly don't know how they can succeed at this task.

Can I offer a potential solution?

The Gods are old. They struggle to follow the advancement of society and lives. While Artificers have been around for decades, no God claims their craft as it's own. Oh, there may be deities of invention. But the blending of magic and science is so new to them as to be opaque. They may understand it as well as a peasant with no interest might learn magic from his child. Slowly, and only with great enthusiasm from the child.

The Old Gods of the Forest are older still. Ancient beings whose existence is shadowed paths, sun-lit meadows, and the cycles of life and death. To them, a fence is mere underbrush. A house is a deadfall of limbs and trees. For that is all that they can imagine these things to be, lacking the concept in their ancient lives. An axe is nothing to them until the blade bites into the tree. Then it becomes known as danger, as death, as the fangs of some strange predator.

The Ancient Ones, those from beyond the stars, understand nothing of our world. Their minds are alien, containing patterns no mortal could ever hope to understand. But if you can find the edge of a pattern, the merest flicker of understanding, without losing yourself to unknowable madness, you can trap them in their own cycles. Cycles that they will not break. Can not break. Because the concept of escaping from such a thing has never occurred to them.

This is how the Gods trapped the Ancient Ones in the first place. And now that the cycles are broken, a new cycle must be created, a new maze for their impossible minds.

And then give the players the chance to learn complex information about the Hydra through the minds it's touched. Occultists and Madmen, fools and dreamers, as a way to learn some -aspect- of it's thought, so they can create a symbolic ritual, one which relies on Representational Magic, to contain the ancient thing. Not because some great wall of reality has bent to contain it. But because it will -believe- itself to be trapped... and thus be trapped.

 

[Imaculata]

And then give the players the chance to learn complex information about the Hydra through the minds it's touched. Occultists and Madmen, fools and dreamers, as a way to learn some -aspect- of it's thought, so they can create a symbolic ritual, one which relies on Representational Magic, to contain the ancient thing. Not because some great wall of reality has bent to contain it. But because it will -believe- itself to be trapped... and thus be trapped.

Interesting. Originally when I introduced Hydra to my campaign (several years ago), I did so with the idea that the pc's would some day venture into the Eternal Depths. As the campaign progressed, I fleshed out the story more of how this being came into that realm.

The God of Death had decided that it would share some of his responsibilities with a new patron deity of sailors: The Lady of the Waves. But during the transition period, 2 great evils helped Hydra take control of the realm and banished the deity from her own realm. Hydra maintains an icy grip on the Depths. It consumes the souls of the dead, and disrups the natural cycle of life and death. Souls consumed by Hydra are lost forever!

As Hydra's role in the story developed, my players decided that they would find a way to defeat Hydra. One method they've considered, is to restore the temple of the Lady of the Waves and thus weaken Hydra's hold of the realm. Not a bad plan honestly.

 

[Dausuul]

Have you ever used beings in your games that the PCs simply cannot hope to survive a fight with, or that they can't even try to fight?

Things like titans so big you're less than a bug to them, gods, etc?

Did you do so as a way to remind the PCs that they are still mere mortals, or was there a way to overcome the being that was more than just combat?

Example of the last one would be something like Shadow of The Collosus, wherein you have to solve an environment in order to defeat the creature.

One adventure, I had a monstrous crocodile whose digestive tract was a dungeon. The PCs had to pilot their enchanted boat through the rolling boulders of its gizzard, the acid lake of its stomach, and the twisting passage of its intestines, while fighting assorted parasites.

The final exit was... not as triumphal as dungeon exits usually are.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I've done stuff like this before. I generally try to run it as a skill challenge. But with that, it always seems like there's one player that tries to just approach it like standard combat, and then gets mad/frustrated when that doesn't work.

 

[Dausuul]

I've done stuff like this before. I generally try to run it as a skill challenge. But with that, it always seems like there's one player that tries to just approach it like standard combat, and then gets mad/frustrated when that doesn't work.

The thing is, D&D trains players to do exactly that. Are you fighting a dragon so big its toenail is longer than you are? No problem, you can hack it to death with your thumbtack sword. So why wouldn't you try to do the same thing to Godzilla, or an elder titan, or what have you? The game teaches you to ignore questions of relative scale.

As DMs, we have to go out of our way to push players out of "combat mode" when confronting a thing that looks like a monster. As I recall, in the giant crocodile scenario, the crocodile simply swallowed the PCs' boat whole--they barely got a chance to try to attack the thing before they were inside it. Then they were dodging boulders, which nudged them into "navigating terrain hazards" mode.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Absolutely agree there. D&D doesn't have to be combat-centric, but when so many of certain classes' tools are combat-based, some players are always going to think in those terms. I can say "your weapons and spells are incapable of directly harming this and you must rely on your skills and quick-thinking" and someone will still swing their axe at it anyway when their turn comes up.

The thing is, D&D trains players to do exactly that. Are you fighting a dragon so big its toenail is longer than you are? No problem, you can hack it to death with your thumbtack sword. So why wouldn't you try to do the same thing to Godzilla, or an elder titan, or what have you? The game teaches you to ignore questions of relative scale.

As DMs, we have to go out of our way to push players out of "combat mode" when confronting a thing that looks like a monster. As I recall, in the giant crocodile scenario, the crocodile simply swallowed the PCs' boat whole--they barely got a chance to try to attack the thing before they were inside it. Then they were dodging boulders, which nudged them into "navigating terrain hazards" mode.