D&D General Wishing Away The Adventure

[Mort]

Wow. My players always flatly refuse to pay the bandit toll. They will always attack bandits. No matter what level they are. LOL.

(One day I'll work up some high-level bandits who can kick the low-level PCs' butts and make them pay the toll until the PCs finally get high enough level themselves to be able to challenge the bandits and win.)

That's always fun.

In my 3e/3.5 campaign, the group (1st level) was passing through a road where the was that exact setup, a higher level bandit (4th-5th or so, with his big group of outlaws) demanded their gold. The group, predictably, refused. The bandit and his gang beat them senseless and took ALL their stuff, not just the gold. The group slunk off.

Much later. The same group, now 13-14th level, passes through the same area.. They get waylaid by the same highway man and his crew. But the highway man is basically the same level, and they're, well, not. 1 or 2 rounds later the entire gang is down, and the group take all of THEIR (the gangs) stuff. Not that they had any use for it, pure vengeance. The group had as much/more fun with that encounter as they had with any of the nail biting actually important ones. They got to experience the fun of being better than they used to be, right up close

When the group needed a tax collector for their keep, they tracked the highway man down and gave him and his gang a job.

 

[Oofta]

At a an Epic event at a local convention I was playing the wandering monster, an high CR Red Dragon, that could call down siege weapons, and I arrived at a tier 4 table, eight people six level 20s. They were suffering pretty bad. I let ‘em have it, at that tier why not, they can take it. All but one player went down. Most of them dead dead dead.

That one player had wish.

I can’t remember the details of the wish but the DM granted it and they were all back on their feet. Then she rolled and her character could never cast wish again.

Sounds like a great use of the spell.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I was going from memory and, You know, I must have gotten that from somewhere else (now I have to find out where)!

The ACTUAL 5e consequences aren't worse, but they're pretty bad:

"The stress of casting this spell to produce any effect other than duplicating another spell weakens you. After enduring that stress, each time you cast a spell until you finish a long rest, you take 1d10 necrotic damage per level of that spell. This damage can't be reduced or prevented in any way. In addition, your Strength drops to 3, if it isn't 3 or lower already, for 2d4 days. For each of those days that you spend resting and doing nothing more than light activity, your remaining recovery time decreases by 2 days. Finally, there is a 33 percent chance that you are unable to cast wish ever again if you suffer this stress."

So you're definitely WAY off your A game, and the 33% chance of never being able to cast wish again isn't nothing! And that DEFINITELY transfers to items.

But that just lasts for 1 day anyway (except the possibility of losing wish). How big a consequence that is can vary a lot.

 

[aco175]

Wow. My players always flatly refuse to pay the bandit toll. They will always attack bandits. No matter what level they are. LOL.

This seems to be a 5e thing, since he said there does not seem to be anything to spend gold on. He will also walk into the bar and throw a bag of coins to the barkeep and says, this ought to cover things.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This seems to be a 5e thing, since he said there does not seem to be anything to spend gold on. He will also walk into the bar and throw a bag of coins to the barkeep and says, this ought to cover things.

Hit point totals also make it hard to feel truly threatened by bog-standard bandits. They can't really do the sort of things an actual mugger could do to PCs.

 

[Oofta]

We had this Party rule that wishes (Ring of Three Wishes) were to only be used to instantly resurrect a dead character.

But once I used a wish to crumble down the wall of a fortified city so our troops, who were about to freeze to death because of winter, could enter it and take it back from the invaders. The DM's face turned white and he announced that I had just destroyed 3 months of preparation. He thought we would get captured by the Saladins and taken prisoner to their continent. Once there we were supposed to escape and have many adventures. We never played again in that campaign.

I wished away a whole chapter instead of just one adventure. He learned a hard lesson that day. Never over-prepare an RPG campaign.

Lesson learned: plan for the next session or so but only have a broad idea of possibilities after that. The players frequently figure out a plan B. Players don't need wish to make that happen.

 

[Reynard]

Hit point totals also make it hard to feel truly threatened by bog-standard bandits. They can't really do the sort of things an actual mugger could do to PCs.

This is the sign of an unimaginative GM at work.

 

[Retreater]

Yes.
There's a player I've been gaming with since the 90s who hilariously, predictably finds any way to avoid the adventure.
Recent example...
GM: "There's a monster coming."
Player: "This looks dangerous. I'm going to Teleport back to town!"
GM: "So ... uh ... what are you going to do for the rest of the night?"
Player: "I'll just sit here and watch you guys play. At least my character is safe."
GM: "So ... it's kind of a part of the social contract that you are playing with everyone else. This is a team game."
Player: "Well, next time I'll bring them with me on the Teleport."

Can't believe I forgot to add a great part of the story.
About 20 years ago, this same player once had a barbarian called "The Reaver." He got into a fight with some vargouilles and thought he was cursed. So he ran out of the dungeon, stole the party's horses, and attempted to make it back to town hastily.
So the barbarian's name got twisted to ... "Retreater."
I took it as a joke screen name on this site.

 

[Mort]

Can't believe I forgot to add a great part of the story.
About 20 years ago, this same player once had a barbarian called "The Reaver." He got into a fight with some vargouilles and thought he was cursed. So he ran out of the dungeon, stole the party's horses, and attempted to make it back to town hastily.
So the barbarian's name got twisted to ... "Retreater."
I took it as a joke screen name on this site.

Frankly, it's amazing you guys kept playing with this guy. His actions seem to go from not helpful to downright harmful. And wile amusing in hindsight, at the time they'd be positively rage inducing (at least for me). Especially if/when an out of game chat failed to produce want meaningful improvement. Was he just someone you group felt obligated to include?

 

[Retreater]

Frankly, it's amazing you guys kept playing with this guy. His actions seem to go from not helpful to downright harmful. And wile amusing in hindsight, at the time they'd be positively rage inducing (at least for me). Especially if/when an out of game chat failed to produce want meaningful improvement. Was he just someone you group felt obligated to include?

He's not a regular player. He's a guy we play with sporadically maybe twice a year these days.
A good friend whose gaming style is not the most fun - but great to grab a drink and chat with. If that makes sense.