What To Do With Silly, Power-Mongering Players

[your_mother]

Elminster Killed

They had Elminster killed? That's just too cool!

Anyway, "landlords" or whatever do report to someone, right? I mean, this is a feudalist kind of regime, eh? A king or Lord above him, etc? Who enforces the king or nation's laws?

 

[Ravellion]

Yes, exactly, how did they kill big E? Wished him dead?

Rav

 

[Orco42]

. But it seems to hard to me to just say: "Well, now you crossed the line, Elminster pops up and kill you all..." (luckily he can't do that anymore, they killed him a while ago).

How the heck did they do that? I thought you said they were level 12. If so they would all be dead with E only casting one spell.

Even if they did kill him they would all die.

The 7 sisters would attack en force and the PC's would all be dead before they rolled initiative.

 

[Ravellion]

Re: Elminster Killed

Anyway, "landlords" or whatever do report to someone, right? I mean, this is a feudalist kind of regime, eh? A king or Lord above him, etc? Who enforces the king or nation's laws?

That is a very good point. Next tax collections, they'll tell the lord's collectors that they'll not pay, since the Lord isn't fulfilling his side of the bargain (protection). The Lord then sends knights, to inquire about the problem.

They'll probably be killed.

This really makes the Lord angry... you know what to do from there on.

Rav

 

[Xar]

Whoohoo, why suddenly all this attention? Is El-Munchkin such a threat then?

In my campaign, Big E has been nothing more than a name and a pointy hat. With a good PR-man, of course. The Elminster they killed was the 43rd in line, a 4th level Expert/6th level Diviner.

Why do you think that E was hiding all the time in the basement of his tower? Why didn't he de-naughty all those baddies in the Realms? Simple, the real E has been dead for centuries now. But his name still carries such a power and fame that it could give a person tremendous political power.

Right now the party's mage, a Cormyrean purple Wizard who turned to the dark side is pondering if he would take over his position or not. See, they still have Elminsters Hat. When put on this will change your appearence to that of the 'real' Elminster. Forever. Includes protection from all kinds of Divinations. Minor artifact, actually.

Could become quite interesting. Heh.

 

[your_mother]

Dred Pirate Elminster

"the real E has been dead for centuries now. But his name still carries such a power and fame that it could give a person tremendous political power."

ahahaha! The Dread Pirate Roberts never takes prisoners!

That's excellent, I'm gonna have to work that into my own campaign if I ever run in FR; very nice!

 

[Xar]

Oh forgot to say, that with the landlord is just a hypothetical situation. There is no real ruler over the area they reside in. Someone is now bussy to take up the reigns again, but the PC's messed up the negotiations (see example of fireballing the party guests).

The Dragon Coast in FR consist of all kinds of independent city-states, ruled by merchant houses. No kings or whatever. The people love their freedom, and it is good for the trade too (they like the concept of 'free trade', heh).

 

[Ravellion]

Oh forgot to say, that with the landlord is just a hypothetical situation. There is no real ruler over the area they reside in. Someone is now bussy to take up the reigns again, but the PC's messed up the negotiations (see example of fireballing the party guests).

The Dragon Coast in FR consist of all kinds of independent city-states, ruled by merchant houses. No kings or whatever. The people love their freedom, and it is good for the trade too (they like the concept of 'free trade', heh).

So you want the PCs to have less freedom in a area that's known for it... ah.

Rav

 

[Teflon Billy]

...they think that they can solve all their problems within a few hours with the use of some spells. And if they need some 'spell components' they just get some from a nearby village.

Together with their high-level powers came the idea that they can and may do anything they want. They are allready quite infamous in the area, but they keep moving from place to place, so it is not easy for anyone to pin them down. They allready slaughtered some headhunters and old rivals, and I feel that it is unrealistic to send dozens of high-level characters after them just because they bashed some villagers, sacrified some children and fireballed a major of a small hammlet. ..

Well, welcome to mid-to-high level D&D. If you have a vaguley "medieval" world (Spellcasters are rare), in pretty short order your spellcasters can do whatever they want, without repercussions.

This is a big reason why our group has abandoned 3E lately. The spellcasters eclipse all other characters in power and the "game world" no longer makes any sense (assuming the NPC's behave like the PC's).

I've discussed this in other threads in the past, unfortnately search is disabled.

 

[Henry@home]

Also, if I wanted to kill them all then I could easily do that, but it wouldn't be realistic. When did it last happen to good PC's that they were systematically hunted down by high-level evil NPC's just because they foiled some of their plans or killed some of the evil organisations members?...

Oh, about two years ago, in one of our groups' 2nd edition campaigns.

Remember that, good or bad, PC's who partake in actions that thwart the plans of their opposition will attract attention from that opposition. Unless the PC's are remarkably thorough in killing all witnesses, using non-detection 24/7, and leaving no clues after the fact, they are going to be found out by those who oppose their philosophies. (Let's face it, have EVER seen a party that left no trace of their activites?)

In our campaign, a very powerful lich, a powerful priestess, and a very powerful priest had been thwarted many many times by the PC's. They decided enough was enough, they contacted one another through emmisarries off-screen, and got together to form a plan to take out the PC's one at a time. In the end, they were thwarted, but the players were sweating bullets the whole time because of the fact that some of their key NPC's and in one case ONE OF THEIR OWN went missing.

(I roleplayed the encounter off to the side with the player, and when he was captured, he was under secrecy not to reveal to the other players what had happened! He had a scared look on his face the whole time, desperately waiting for the group to find out what happened to him!!! I loved every minute of it! )

In closing, I suggest that it would be realistic if the big bad guys of a campaign DIDN'T take an interest in PC's who were becoming terrors to their operations. So if your PC's are using evil means to solve their problems, eventually, the good guys of the realm are going to come calling, and it doesn't take a squad of 15th level paladins to take care of things - as PCat said, only a few competent guys and a battle plan.