Ahnehnois
First Post
Not by me!
It does seem important though, that a banshee is a destructive thing that makes its presence felt, and that the DM should consider what the players might be able to know about it in advance.
The Ethics of the Banshee
- Thread starter Greenfield
- Start date
It does seem important though, that a banshee is a destructive thing that makes its presence felt, and that the DM should consider what the players might be able to know about it in advance.
Li Shenron
Legend
Nothing personal but this is a bit of a low blow to use such expression... If I am playing an immersive game of D&D, I can still use a Banshee to scare the players, but also I am going to either modify its power or the general rules so that death doesn't happen easily, if at all. And I am more likely to change the general rules, than the Banshee specific power, if I can. That kind of playstyle cannot coexist with "a dangerous game", high-lethality is counter-productive. Now the RAW might not support this playstyle out of the box, but I am confident that one house rule can totally change this: just house rule that if a PC dies, instead something else happens to him that either takes it out temporarily or grants him a dire penalty for a time long enough. From the point of view of the PC it's still damn dangerous, but it preserves the player's goal of playing a game where they can develop a story for their character without worrying of having to reset everything every few sessions.
OTOH, let's switch gamestyle to old-style dungeon crawl, and Wail of the Banshee is fine as is!
I'm thinking you have this gamestyle in mind, or at least some mixed style where death can still happen randomly, as long as it's not too frequent. This is probably what most gaming groups prefer anyway, but I think it's important to realize that there is a range of options to choose from (in my previous post, I mentioned the 2 extremes only).
Ahnehnois
First Post
That playstyle most certainly can coexist with a dangerous game. That said...
If you prefer to run your game a different way, that's perfectly fine and none of my business and not what I was talking about.
My point was that given the situation this thread posits, and the opinion question that follows it, I consider that level of lethal force to be a justifiable exercise of a DM's discretion, regardless of whether anyone else (such as yourself) would exercise your discretion in that manner.
Li Shenron
Legend
But he didn't tell us what their playstyle was in the OP... he actually said he handwaved some rule to let the killed PC be raised with no penalty (at least no level loss), so it sounded to me like they are not so in favor of save-or-die effects. It's just one episode, so I can't assume he does that often.
Also notice, when I say "lethal", I mean permanently! If dying is easy but most of the time you can get the PC back, it's not exactly lethal in the sense I was talking about.
It's not really possible to give a one-size-fits-all answer to his question, which he labelled as an "ethical" issue, suggesting that in fact it's about being fair with the group's expectations on PC life expectancy, but those expectations aren't clear to me in his case! All I know is that he used a potentially TPK effect in the surprise round (which doesn't mean that the players can do nothing against it... in fact they did many things before the encounter, and potentially they could have done something that would have prevented the Banshee to Wail), it killed only one PC (which he allowed to be saved by bending the rules), but I think he's more worried about the fact that if it had been a TPK he would have had a much harder time bending the rules to save the group. But he DID bend the rules anyway, and just to save ONE of them... thus it doesn't sound to me like they want a lethal game, if they bend the rule for just one PC death.
The only answer I can give, is that IMO something is possibly "unethical" only when the players really can't do anything at all to prevent it, and they are disappointed by the outcome.
Savage Wombat
Hero
It's worth it to consider whether your PCs are capable of recovering from a setback like that. If they can, they should have to. That's another one of the implications of high-level play, at least from 3rd ed on.
Ahnehnois
First Post
Given the prevalence of resurrection in all D&D versions and the level one would expect a banshee to be encountered at, I think that generally, permanent lethality will not be assumed. You're right that there's no one-size-fits-all answer. My answer is just that: my opinion on the subject.
Greenfield
Adventurer
Some have commented on what the players knew or should have known.
Their base of operations, for the moment, was a way station, meaning a somewhat fortified holding along a road, the kind the Romans build every two days travel on their highways.
The party arrived about sunset, and had already noticed the blighted plant growth in the area.
At the holding they observed that there was a third road joining the one they were on, one that lead directly north. One that wasn't on their map. They inquired, casually, and were told that nobody uses that road any more, that it doesn't go any place. Odd, considering that it was of Roman high-road quality.
They mad no other efforts to Gather Information, even in the informal "What's happening lately" sense. They didn't ask about the blight, any local troubles, anything.
The Ranger/Druid decided to scout around, to "get the lay of the land" and see what he could sense about the blight. I had him roll Knowledge Nature and Knowledge - Arcana (used to recognize magical or supernatural effects, by the book). He didn't have any Knowledge Arcana. (Ironically, the player of the Druid was the DM who ran a scene I recently ranted about, where Knowledge skills were all useless because it was never the right skill, and who didn't know that Knowledge Arcana was the catch all for "weird stuff".)
With his roll he could tell that something unnatural was going on, but without Arcana he really had no chance to know what. He went back inside and asked the help of the Cleric/Wizard. She told PC #3 and he decided to come along. I did give the Ranger/Druid a Spellcraft check, and told him that what he was seeing resembled a Diminish Plants spell, but appeared to be much more wide spread.
The Arcana checks from the others told them that the effect seemed stronger to the North, so they headed up that road, at night. The Cleric/Wizard was Human, so they brought out an Everburning Torch so she could see. That's what attracted the Ghouls and their Ghast leader to them.
When the Ghouls began their charge, the Druid/Ranger started off with his favorite standby, Entangle. That's when he found out how serious I was about the "blighted plant life" thing, that there was essentially no grass or other plants to grab anyone.
After the very brief battle, the Ranger and his Tiger hunted down the ones that ran away (Most of them had run when he cast a Radiance spell, dazzling the lot of them and forcing a retreat.) That's what lead him to the burnt out ruin of a building. The outer walls were mostly intact, but the interior was gutted. Looking up at a window, they could see the sky. All the interior floors had collapsed, as had the roof, when the place caught fire.
The Ranger/Druid scouted around, found the graveyard that had mud-slid down the hill (no living plants means no roots to hold the soil in place when the rains come). That's when he heard the other movement inside the building, and the harsh hisses of hate when he returned to the group.
Now, in his defense, all the players had heard the description of what he encountered, which may be why the player didn't actually report more undead activity within the house. He probably assumed that he didn't need to say it in character. But yeah, scouting a haunted house and ruined graveyard, at night, in an area where the life seems to have been sucked out of the landscape, and where undead are *known* to be roaming free, is the kind of thing that would normally call for more precautions than they took. Which were essentially none.
I think they were presuming that everything they'd meet would be of the same caliber as the Ghouls.
A swarm of a dozen or more Ghouls charging down a hillside would strike terror into a band of common travelers or a merchant caravan, to be sure. To a group of battle hardened veterans like the PCS, though, it hit with the force of a warm breeze. They heard the Ghouls approach, painted the area with a Dancing lights and revealed the enemy before the undead were ready, and triggered a premature charge instead of the skulk-and-pounce approach they normally favored.
After the brush with death, they decided to call the session early and wait until they could bring the full group to bear. That gives them time to plan. It also gives me some time to plan as well. Now I get to turn my one-villain throw away into a proper haunted house scene.
The upper building was burned out. I guess that leaves just the below ground levels, doesn't it? I'm going to have some fun! Hopefully they'll be better prepared this time.
(I suggested that, aside from limited duration spells like Silence and Death Ward, simply stopping their ears with wax would give Save bonuses, with matching penalties to Listen checks, and perhaps even to normal conversation. We'll see what they come up with.)
Their base of operations, for the moment, was a way station, meaning a somewhat fortified holding along a road, the kind the Romans build every two days travel on their highways.
The party arrived about sunset, and had already noticed the blighted plant growth in the area.
At the holding they observed that there was a third road joining the one they were on, one that lead directly north. One that wasn't on their map. They inquired, casually, and were told that nobody uses that road any more, that it doesn't go any place. Odd, considering that it was of Roman high-road quality.
They mad no other efforts to Gather Information, even in the informal "What's happening lately" sense. They didn't ask about the blight, any local troubles, anything.
The Ranger/Druid decided to scout around, to "get the lay of the land" and see what he could sense about the blight. I had him roll Knowledge Nature and Knowledge - Arcana (used to recognize magical or supernatural effects, by the book). He didn't have any Knowledge Arcana. (Ironically, the player of the Druid was the DM who ran a scene I recently ranted about, where Knowledge skills were all useless because it was never the right skill, and who didn't know that Knowledge Arcana was the catch all for "weird stuff".)
With his roll he could tell that something unnatural was going on, but without Arcana he really had no chance to know what. He went back inside and asked the help of the Cleric/Wizard. She told PC #3 and he decided to come along. I did give the Ranger/Druid a Spellcraft check, and told him that what he was seeing resembled a Diminish Plants spell, but appeared to be much more wide spread.
The Arcana checks from the others told them that the effect seemed stronger to the North, so they headed up that road, at night. The Cleric/Wizard was Human, so they brought out an Everburning Torch so she could see. That's what attracted the Ghouls and their Ghast leader to them.
When the Ghouls began their charge, the Druid/Ranger started off with his favorite standby, Entangle. That's when he found out how serious I was about the "blighted plant life" thing, that there was essentially no grass or other plants to grab anyone.
After the very brief battle, the Ranger and his Tiger hunted down the ones that ran away (Most of them had run when he cast a Radiance spell, dazzling the lot of them and forcing a retreat.) That's what lead him to the burnt out ruin of a building. The outer walls were mostly intact, but the interior was gutted. Looking up at a window, they could see the sky. All the interior floors had collapsed, as had the roof, when the place caught fire.
The Ranger/Druid scouted around, found the graveyard that had mud-slid down the hill (no living plants means no roots to hold the soil in place when the rains come). That's when he heard the other movement inside the building, and the harsh hisses of hate when he returned to the group.
Now, in his defense, all the players had heard the description of what he encountered, which may be why the player didn't actually report more undead activity within the house. He probably assumed that he didn't need to say it in character. But yeah, scouting a haunted house and ruined graveyard, at night, in an area where the life seems to have been sucked out of the landscape, and where undead are *known* to be roaming free, is the kind of thing that would normally call for more precautions than they took. Which were essentially none.
I think they were presuming that everything they'd meet would be of the same caliber as the Ghouls.
A swarm of a dozen or more Ghouls charging down a hillside would strike terror into a band of common travelers or a merchant caravan, to be sure. To a group of battle hardened veterans like the PCS, though, it hit with the force of a warm breeze. They heard the Ghouls approach, painted the area with a Dancing lights and revealed the enemy before the undead were ready, and triggered a premature charge instead of the skulk-and-pounce approach they normally favored.
After the brush with death, they decided to call the session early and wait until they could bring the full group to bear. That gives them time to plan. It also gives me some time to plan as well. Now I get to turn my one-villain throw away into a proper haunted house scene.
The upper building was burned out. I guess that leaves just the below ground levels, doesn't it? I'm going to have some fun! Hopefully they'll be better prepared this time.
(I suggested that, aside from limited duration spells like Silence and Death Ward, simply stopping their ears with wax would give Save bonuses, with matching penalties to Listen checks, and perhaps even to normal conversation. We'll see what they come up with.)
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
Ah, ye old "favorable conditions" bonus! Always a good thing to remember to use as a reward for creative ideas.
Doug McCrae
Legend
D&D's too binary with its high DC Save-or-Dies. Either an encounter is a TPK/near TPK, or the PCs use spells like Death Ward or Protection From Evil, which render the encounter trivially easy. I've noticed this quite frequently in 3e, more so at high levels. Imo it's a flaw in the game system.
Greenfield
Adventurer
Agreed. Even low-DC "Save or Die" is a problem. The other side of that coin, however, is that at higher levels there is no significant disability short of death.
Everything's curable, treatable, manageable. Most bad conditions can be flat out negated before they occur, if you plan carefully.
Monsters like Kraken and Tendriculous are unstoppable killing machines, unless you have Freedom of Movement up, in which case they're lunch meat.
Now my party's version of planning was to advise the Cleric to prepare multiple Silence spells for their return trip. Note that the party is largely spell casters, so this tactic will hurt them at least as much as it helps them.
Innovative solutions that are less extreme would be to drop a Thunderstone in your own area, and intentionally fail the Save. You're deaf for 20 minutes or so, and thus immune to the sonic death attack. You suffer a spell failure percentage, naturally, but it's less than the 100% that happens in Silence. Then there's less severe solutions, like blocking your ears with wax, like a certain Greek hero had his crew do, so he could hear the Siren's song without losing his ship.
I should probably give a spell failure percentage for that, but even with your ears blocked, you can always hear yourself. Bone conductivity.
Should that act as a Fort bonus, or a straight percentage for failure, the way averting your gaze does for fighting a Baselisk or Medusa.
While I let them bring back their dead easily enough this last time, I did warn them that, in pointedly *not* looking at the rules that should have kept that from working, I was also making this the one and only "Get out of Dead - Free" card I'd ever issue.
So they have precautions they'll take to protect themselves from the Banshee, the Banshee has tactics to protect herself from them. Simply hiding until they leave, or until their magical defenses are down, will probably frustrate them no end.
As DM, I have to be fair and impartial. My monsters, on the other hand, have no reason to fight fair, and they never should.
Everything's curable, treatable, manageable. Most bad conditions can be flat out negated before they occur, if you plan carefully.
Monsters like Kraken and Tendriculous are unstoppable killing machines, unless you have Freedom of Movement up, in which case they're lunch meat.
Now my party's version of planning was to advise the Cleric to prepare multiple Silence spells for their return trip. Note that the party is largely spell casters, so this tactic will hurt them at least as much as it helps them.
Innovative solutions that are less extreme would be to drop a Thunderstone in your own area, and intentionally fail the Save. You're deaf for 20 minutes or so, and thus immune to the sonic death attack. You suffer a spell failure percentage, naturally, but it's less than the 100% that happens in Silence. Then there's less severe solutions, like blocking your ears with wax, like a certain Greek hero had his crew do, so he could hear the Siren's song without losing his ship.
I should probably give a spell failure percentage for that, but even with your ears blocked, you can always hear yourself. Bone conductivity.
Should that act as a Fort bonus, or a straight percentage for failure, the way averting your gaze does for fighting a Baselisk or Medusa.
While I let them bring back their dead easily enough this last time, I did warn them that, in pointedly *not* looking at the rules that should have kept that from working, I was also making this the one and only "Get out of Dead - Free" card I'd ever issue.
So they have precautions they'll take to protect themselves from the Banshee, the Banshee has tactics to protect herself from them. Simply hiding until they leave, or until their magical defenses are down, will probably frustrate them no end.
As DM, I have to be fair and impartial. My monsters, on the other hand, have no reason to fight fair, and they never should.
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