What To Do With Silly, Power-Mongering Players

[Xar]

Re: Re: What To Do With Silly, Power-Mongering Players

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.

Ah, someone with the same problems I have. When I witnessed how the cleric picked his way trough the peasants who were hitting his full plate with their innefectual sticks and axes and plows and hammers and scythes while he was walking around lookin' for some kiddies... well now I have an extra reason to switch to a low-magic setting, preferably with the Grim&Gritty system. It was just unreal and unrealistic. Worlds just dont work when high-levels are running around, doing whatever they please, untouchable like gods for the common folk, only stoppable by other high-level characters, or at least people with the same amount of magic. The rift between the power levels is just too big.

Thats also the reason that I recently switched to a more political style of play. But occasionally they can still give me the creeps with their actions.


"Ceterum censeo Shadowdalem esse delendam"

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

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? Good PC's massacre whole groups of evil monsters and organisations, and are (most of the time) not hunted down and killed by an all-out planned attack. Or how else could they survive 'till they reach high levels?

Uh, at the very least, the cleric is not good. Even if the character sheet has a good alignment written on it, I don't think a good deity would be granting high-level spells any time soon. No high level spells = much weaker character. And probably all domain spells and powers could be stripped until an atonement (if they were ever allowed again at all).

 

[Pielorinho]

Re: Re: Re: What To Do With Silly, Power-Mongering Players

Ah, someone with the same problems I have. When I witnessed how the cleric picked his way trough the peasants who were hitting his full plate with their innefectual sticks and axes and plows and hammers and scythes while he was walking around lookin' for some kiddies... well now I have an extra reason to switch to a low-magic setting, preferably with the Grim&Gritty system.

Whatever works for you, but I don't think this is necessary.

Magic in D&D gives about the same advantages that technology gives in our world -- maybe a little more. And if you have some schmoe with $2 million worth of military hardware on him wandering into a village in Nepal looking to kidnap children -- well, the locals with their clubs and knives aren't going to be able to do much good.

However, if they do that a lot, they'll attract attention from other folks with $2 million worth of military hardware. Therein lies the problem for them.

And honestly, when word gets out that they're feeding babies to demons, they're gonna wish they'd just been using babies for shields. That's exactly the kind of thing that gets paladins' knickers all in a knot.

One more thing: if the commoners really want to stop a cleric from wandering through their village, they should probably grapple the cleric. Sure, a few of them will die, but not nearly as many as will die if they try using sticks and hoes. Use the aid another rules, the pinning rules, and the like. The farmers could try dragging the cleric over to a horse trough and drowning him, or try other tactics that don't depend on getting through the ridiculous armor class. Even these tactics are likely to fail, but they're less likely than the hoe-attack.

When the paladins come looking for the players, I suggest that the mother of one of the babies be with the paladins to identify the villains and to coup de grace them (if it comes to that).

Daniel

 

[Henry@home]

Re: Re: Re: Re: What To Do With Silly, Power-Mongering Players

One more thing: if the commoners really want to stop a cleric from wandering through their village, they should probably grapple the cleric. Sure, a few of them will die, but not nearly as many as will die if they try using sticks and hoes. Use the aid another rules, the pinning rules, and the like. The farmers could try dragging the cleric over to a horse trough and drowning him, or try other tactics that don't depend on getting through the ridiculous armor class. Even these tactics are likely to fail, but they're less likely than the hoe-attack.

Daniel, you brought up an interesting point.

From Angraminayu's quick ref sheet:

• Grapple check = base attack + strength mod + special size mod
• Special size mod: Colossal +16, Gargantuan +12, Huge +8, Large +4,
Small -4, Tiny -8, Diminutive -12, Fine -16
• To start, grab an opponent (make a melee touch attack), provokes AoO
from target; if AoO does damage, you fail to grapple
• If attack succeeds, attacker and opponent make opposed grapple checks
to start the grapple
• If succeeds, move into target’s space (provokes AoO from others)
• You can join a grapple with no AoO from target and grab succeeds
automatically
• When grappled, make opposed grapple check as an attack to do any of
following:
• 1d3 + Str mod subdual damage (-4 to check for normal)
• Pin target, or break the pin a target has over an ally
• Escape

Now, if you combine this with the following:

AID
Make attack against AC 10, if you succeed, an ally who is attacking an
opponent you threaten can take either a +2 to their attack, or +2
circumstance bonus to their AC against that opponent.

A bunch of peasants would be able to plausibly grapple a single opponent, and take him down, unless he were of rediculously high level. He only gets one attack of opportunity per round on average, and the peasants working together would be able to take him down if sufficient numbers were able to do it. Would this said clerics recognize the danger in time to do something about it? I don't know, but grapple rules can be quite nasty if you get odds of 10 to 1 or greater involved. (I did this every once in a while in 2nd edition with overbearing checks. )

 

[reapersaurus]

Re: Re: Re: What To Do With Silly, Power-Mongering Players

Ah, someone with the same problems I have
Worlds just dont work when high-levels are running around, doing whatever they please, untouchable like gods for the common folk, only stoppable by other high-level characters, or at least people with the same amount of magic. The rift between the power levels is just too big.

Xar, HOW did you miss all the discussion about a month ago about this very thing?

In no less than 3 or 4 seperate threads was the proposition that "Mid- to High- level magic is too powerful, and impacts the campaign too much" talked about in great detail.

_I_ was personally attacked in great depth for not liking the fact that the only way you can deal with powerful mages controlling things with their spells is with MORE powerful mages casting MORE powerful spells.
It IS apparently an ever-increasing spiral of one-upsmanship.

Once magic becomes front-and-center THE way to surmount obstacles, and get things done, than the game becomes a "What spell can I pull out to accomplish this task" power-gaming-fest.

It seems to be a real problem with D&D.
You are NOT the only one to see it, and have it affect the realisticness of your campaign.
IF you are playing your campaign under the supposition that there are not very many powerful NPC's around (which makes sense in a lot of worlds), than you have effectively made your PC's gods who walk the earth.

I think PirateCat had some great suggestions, but basically, unless you are going to use MORE powerful monsters or NPC's than your PC's are... HOW are you supposed to teach them a lewsson?

They WILL find a way out, and their spells WILL win the day for them.
Eventually.
(My guess is that your players know the magic system in 3E better than you. Would you agree with that guess?)

Good luck, Xar.
I really hope your campaign can withstand the increase in power it's going to take to deal with this problem that is inherent in the D&D magic system.

 

[ascendance]

If there are high-level evil munchkins in your gameworld, there really should be high-level good munchkins. Maybe Drizzt, Wulfgar, Catti-Brie, and Regis go after them, out to punish them just for the heck of it.

Or maybe less ethical 'good' munchkins just want to whack them for their magic items...

 

[Xar]

Of course, nobody wants to grapple a cleric equiped with Body Blades spell (MoF). Especially if a Fiendish Girallon is standing by, grabbing their children. When not taking a possible grapling situation into account, the cleric alone would be able to level the entire village within a minute. Two villages. This actually happend before, a few levels earlier. The peasants didn't had a chance. What if one of the peasants had a crossbow? What would the cleric say? "I walk over to him and whack his head..." What if there were 20 peasants with crossbows? "I walk over to them and..." See where I am going? This is just unreal.

My main problem with high-level characters in D&D is their ridiculous hit point totals. Even if someone get trough the huge AC, the damage is still insignificant to a high-lev character. Picture a half-orc barbarian with 50 arrows sticking out him, smashing heads as if not even hurt. Sigh. Grim&Gritty is much more realistic for high levels. But that is a discussion for another thread.

"Ceterum censeo Shadowdalem esse delendam"

 

[pontus]

He used Planar Ally to summon a Retriever to track the thief for him.

Hate to ruin your fun (well, not really) but Planar Ally can't summon Retrievers. Retrievers are not demons at all, but rather golems created by demons, and planar ally doesn't get you Constructs, just Outsiders and Elementals.

Now, even if the players somehow did manage to summon a Retriever, keep in mind that the retriever belongs to someone. Right now, somewhere in the abyss, a demon prince is saying "Hey, where the ******* did my assassin go?!" I don't know how aggressive demons are in your campaign, but if it was my game the players would already be dead.

 

[Infinite Monkey]

My suggestion would be to check your tactics. Assuming you have 4 12th level characters on your hands, design a EL 16 encounter, using mostly lower level NPCs. If properly played, this should be enough to seriously hamper your characters.

Before the encounter, decide exactly what you want the encounter to acheive. Do you want to kill a character, or subdue a character and teleport away with them or subdue them all and have them wake up in prison. Think about group tactics, such as attacking from multiple angles so that area spells can't get them all, concentrating on one character at a time, grappling, traps, nets, reach weapons.

Consider toning down the realism of you campaign for one session so that you can teach them a lesson. Make up a reason why what they have done would get them in deep trouble, rather than thinking of reasons why it wouldn't. Don't overdo this, so that it doesn't feel like you are changing things just to get the players, but just a bit.

Maybe on of the children was related to a powerful paladin, who hears about the kidnap and comes (with buddies) to investigate. They don't need to be as high level as the characters, so long as there are lots of them and they use good group tactics. Maybe there is a druid living nearby that doesn't like them wandering through his turf with a demon. Maybe he's angry enough to really make their life difficult. All you need to do is attack with a few creatures every hour and the characters will eventually run out of spells. Then keep attacking every hour and they will eventually run out of hit points and maybe take the point. If they have spells that allow them to escape, thats OK, because the druid has informed all of his druid friends, who have informed all their friends and the local treants and the local animals and the local etc....

Also, if the characters get out of scrapes too easily because they know how things work, change how they work. If they have pissed off a powerful mage at some time, maybe he sends an iron golem to take them out. They kill it with rust spells. Thats fine, the mage just makes one out of mithril, so that its immune to rust and has an even higher DR. Inscribe symbols of pain and insanity and the like all over the golem, so that even looking at it is likely to ruin the characters day. Give it wands for eyes. Replace its breath weapon with a fireball wand, so that anytime they damage it, it just breathes near its feet and heals itself. Then order the golem to capture one of the characters and take them back to the wizard, who is really eager to explain just how annoyed he is about the characters destroying his favourite iron golem.

Hope that is enough ideas. One last point...

Think about tactics again.

 

[Infinite Monkey]

Just had another thought. Basically an expansion of the druid idea above.

Figure out how their actions might have annoyed a LARGE tribe of ordinary humanoids like orcs or something. I'm talking tens of thousands of the things. Give them the appropraite amount of orcs with class levels. Make up a reason that they don't care about how many of them die. Maybe they breed really fast or something.

Now attack the characters. A few at a time. Each group dies in a fire ball or flame strike or at the hands of a fighter. Doesn't matter. So long as each group has a cost. Maybe each group costs a spell, or does one point of damage to one of the fighters. Wear them down. Think of ways of speeding up the combats so that you don't have to run each one. Don't let the characters rest. Hve them followed by rogues with lots of archery feats and shoot the spell casters any time they look like casting a spell. Make their life a misery. Still don't let them rest. Eventually they will teleport somewhere else in the realms. Make absolutly certain that wherever they go is even worse.

Basically my point is that if your players feel they can get away with anything, make sure that they don't any more. I think that one of the best possible tactics is to NEVER let the casters rest. Eventually they will be useless, and THEN, the higher level enemies come in and make your point on them. Preferably with sharp pointy things.