Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 6153131" data-attributes="member: 6669384">I just ran a brief scene for part of my group (some wanted to play on the 4th of July holiday, some couldn't.)The entered an area where the land seemed blighted, even by the standards or our "no sunlight" world.They investigated, after securing a place to stay in a way station (fortified truck stop), which means it was just about sunset.  (They'd traveled all day.)First they were set upon by Ghouls, which at their level don't count as even speed bumps.  But, in trailing the ones that ran away, the party Ranger/Druid found a ruined house, with the insides burned out.  He heard the sounds of other things skittering inside.  Scouting around, he found a ruined graveyard, partially washed out by storms.  The Wizard/Cleric/Mystic Thurge decided to throw Consecrate on the remains of the cemetery, and used Sudden Widen to expand the effect into the house.That's when the Banshee struck.  She was somewhat afraid of a sizable party, one that had scattered and destroyed the lesser undead so easily.  She'd held off, scouting for weakness.  Then they Consecrated part of her home.A Banshee can "Wail" as a 60 foot emanation, centered on her, or as a 120 foot cone effect she can direct.  The effect can be repeated after a D4 rounds, and making the Save once doesn't grant you any immunity to the next scream.  Fail a DC26 Fort save, and you're dead.  She's CR 17, same as my party.When they tried to Consecrate part of her home, she screamed.  Of the three, the weakest Fort save was the Wiz/Cleric/Mystic Thurge.  The strongest was the Ranger/Druid.  His Tiger was probably pretty high on the list as well.Now, since Murphy loves irony, you can guess what happened next.  The Wiz/Cleric/Thurge rolled an 18 on her dice, making the DC26 Fort save by two points.  The Barb3/Wiz13 rolled a 19, making the Save by three.  The Druid/Ranger rolled a 5 and dropped dead.  His Animal Companion (a Siberian snow tiger) rolled a 9 and dropped dead as well.Now, no matter how you lay the groundwork for a scene lie this, unless you explicitly *tell* the players what they're getting into, it seems pretty cold to "say hello" with an effect that could be a party TPK, before they even know there's an enemy there.I bent a rule, and pointedly didn't look at the description of Revivification that says it worked like Raise Dead, without level loss, if cast within a round of death.  Raise Dead can't raise people killed by Death effects.I let them raise him with it.  I even bent the rules a bit to let them use Revenence  and Revivify on the Tiger.But the question is the ethics:  How fair is it to use a mass death effect as the surprise action?Is there any reason a Banshee wouldn't use that as her opening salvo?</blockquote>

Verification