| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
To bring it away from Hitler, I don't think it's a player issue, yet.
It's a player issue when the player takes exception to his character being left behind.
I've had games as a player where the character development of the party drifted in different directions, mostly due to character death leading to new characters with a fresh slant that gradually pulled the party in to a different perspective.
It has been the case that my character was not on board for an episode of killing a fort full of guards to protect a berserking friend, because my guy wasn't willing to kill dozens of guards on decent-but-not-solid evidence the lord had at some point killed a lot of people in a village. I was pretty sure that when my character put his foot down he was either going to be killed by or ejected from the party. And I was cool with that, because that was pretty much the apex of his character development and discovering who he was, what he stood for, and what he'd really risk his friends and life for.
It helped that I had a GM who was cool about XP transfer to new characters. And while there were a few grumbles about HOW I had my character take his stand, doing so fell short of an inter-player problem.
Still, leaving the party before an assault on a fort is one thing, separating while inside the temple of elemental evil, with a party who's SOP is NOT to clear everything behind you?? Not an excellent idea.
In fact. I'm not sure I would adventure with this party at all (characters or players).
I think I would have a hard time making a character, who was a professional adventurer who would think it was a good idea to do this. IF I did, I would think it would be a rogue or sneaky guy who could get a way or hide easily.
Being the guy who plays a cleric frequently, I certainly object to being told where I should allocate my spells, and certainly in the realm of "I goofed, now use your spells to fix it"
However, putting this in perspective, that you are deep in a dangerous dungeon? I would adopt my tactics to what I knew the fighter would do, after all the more things focused on beating him the death the less that are focused on me.
I snowmachine, frequently, When going with groups, I am not always the leader, but one of the major rules about backcountry exploration is don't separate. Would I go in some places where other guys go? No. I could get hurt, I could damage my very expensive machine, but being alone and lost in alaska is a worse idea.
So, I go places I don't like or wouldnt choose to go, because Im staying with the group.
So we make it through? yea. does it always work out for the best? no. this past week end two guys wrecked their sleds. (several hundred dollars of damage to each of them...like $700 ish)
The week before that a fellow rider received $5000 damage to his new sled.
Not good choices, did the group as a WHOLE decided to go and do things that lead to these bad things happening? Yup, Pretty much.
Did I follow? Yup.
Because being lost and alone is worse.
so translating that to the cleric and the rest of the party: Maybe I didnt want to fight that ogre skeleton, but NOW we are fighting that ogre skeleton, LETS GO BOYS, holding back and letting the fighter get beat up, more than likely caused more damage to the fighter causing him to need more heals, instead of a group effort, where maybe I could have even turned/channeled the skeleton?
So although I dont like the fact the fighter went in anyway, doesnt mean Im going to stand there and let him get killed , 'because I told you so'
standing there, after you help your buddy pull his sled off the tree, tape it up and use wood sawed off a branch to jury rig it and ride out the 4 miles back to the trailer... yea you can laugh, and say "I told you so" once he's alive, not bleeding and everyone is not in harm's way,,,,,
that means AFTER the ogre is dead.... THEN you say I told you so.
When you go back to town to refit, you can choose to not go with that party back into that dungeon again...
There are several people i WILL NOT ride snowmachines with (although Im still friends, I just wont ride with them)
What amuses me is that if the other player were to post on these forums and present 'his side,' he'd be blasted for being 10 different kinds of fool. So it's not really an issue of who's right and who's wrong. It's that whoever actually posts about it in the forums is wrong.
I'm actually happy for this.
Whoever posts their side of the story about some dispute is doing just that -- posting *their* side of things. We should meet any complaints lodged on an internet forum about some other person's behavior with hefty skepticism and subject it to thorough scrutiny. We're being presented with a biased set of information.
So it's awesome that the posters here realize this and react appropriately.
...Or they just subconsciously dislike anyone that goes complaining to a 3rd party about how some other person acted behind that person's back while calling him names.
It's probably one of those things.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Normally I would just ignore this sort of thing but there's only so much wrong I can ignore.
You're saying this guy has to do what everyone else decides to do, because majority rule is always right? Yea, that's always proven to be true.
Hyperbole.
My buddies all think we should go out drinking and driving, I have to follow along because they all decided it was right.
Part of me thinks I shouldn't comment on this because how you deal with your friends is your own business but you brought it up as subjective experience to prove your point and IMO that means it's fair game. It sounds like you let your friends walk over you, which is the opposite of what the Fighter did. He went in despite his friends not wanting to, not in spite of his own personal desire not to.
The players made a meta-game decision (according to the OP) to not go into the room because they didn't want to "activate" the "aggro". Totally meta game, there was no reasonable in game conversation that could have taken place between the characters. It was ALL out of character jibber jabber (and essentially cheating)
Lol no. Don't quote people saying things they didn't actually say. Yes he did say aggro, but it wasn't a noun so he wasn't using it like you used it, and he never even said activate. Not only is that incredibly bad form, it's misleading and confuses people. What the OP actually said was:
The fighter of the party decided that he wanted to enter a room guarded by an Ogre skeleton, even though it didn't aggro when we opened the door.
The rest of the party did not. We're currently looking for the Cleric or Clerics in charge, not random monsters that aren't actively attacking us. We voted up or down to go in the room and he was the only one who wanted to go in.
->looking for clerics in charge, open a door, see a skeleton in a room, party decides not to go in because they have a more important goal, fighter disobeys party wishes tries to go in anyway, they restrain him, warn him they won't back him up, he goes in anyway and almost dies.
I imagine the Cleric with Knowledge (Religion) as a class skill is going to know that if the mindless skeleton didn't attack automatically it was probably following a command, something like "guard". In fact, anyone with a little int would suspect something after the skeleton stayed put.
As to the metagame issue, not only was there a proper conversation (actions the characters took and what the OP said more than suggests it's IC too) but automatically assuming their game is full of metagame and 'cheating' is frankly offensive. I'm not surprised the OP hasn't posted in this thread again with so many people letting their personal issues cloud their judgement.
How did they know there was an active ogre skeleton in the room?
And if they DID know it was there, WHY would they leave it there and continue on, knowing full well it was somewhere behind them?
1) They saw an upright skeleton of an Ogre, they tend not to be that way if they're not magically held together. Not to mention they're in the Temple of Elemental Evil. Pretty safe guess, even without Knowledge (Religion) rolls.
2)Mindless undead tend to not just decide to do things on their own.3)With the above information, and the goal of the party in mind, a decision was made to leave the skeleton alone. A decision that was tactically sound, the only reason they fought it was because the Fighter directly engaged it.
Sure, you can sneak by an encounter if you need to, but if room 1 has the ogre skeleton in it, and room 2 has the BBEG, then don't you think this ogre skeleton is going to get involved anyway?
Oh yes, how silly of me. Every time there's a fight with a BBEG he's going to blow his magic whistle and call every single enemy left in the entire dungeon instantly to him to teach players to kill everything else first. No, I don't think so at all. Especially with the PC knowing how undead work.
You would have to have reasonable belief that you would be able to sneak past it and get far enough away from it before there was another encounter that it would be totally bypassed.
Well normally, at least at my table, when you try to avoid encounters you don't have to worry about your party members actively sabotaging you.
But the characters are in the Temple of Elemental EVIL. The entire place is a ward of evil psychos who are all out to get you. Random troll encounter in the woods on the way to the temple? sure avoid them. Deep dungeon crawl?
Leaving enemies to your rear is suicidal.
Nothing more than a broad sweeping generalisation. The only threat to the party's safety was a member of the party. (First the Fighter, then the Cleric)
They never said they left active threats behind, just this one mindless undead. Just this Ogre Skeleton, which they killed anyway. Stop making generalisations about their play style and inferring their game is full of badwrongfun.
The idea of trying to spend up as much or all of your resources to get to the end fight sooner, with more is very very dumb,
This doesn't make grammatical sense. I'm not sure what you could be trying to say, but I assume that up isn't supposed to be there. In which case: They're not expending resources to get to the end sooner, they're looking for specific cleric(s) and avoiding spending resources to do it. We can disagree about what is the best move from a tactical standpoint, you thinking you should spend resources on every enemy, me spending no resources to bypass some enemies.
what if you have to retreat? now instead of running backwards through empty hall ways and cleared rooms, you have enemy to your rear between you, safety and your supply line.
Well it won't be from the mindless skeleton that's guarding that one room many floors below. The OP hasn't mentioned other enemies, or what his party would do in those instances. He only mentioned this one encounter and only what happened in this instance.
So again, why was by passing the room a good idea?
Meta game, dont activate the encounter and it wont exist!
Not a good reason, besides, there could have been treasure in there or even something that could have helped with the end goal.
You're assuming far too much about his party, reading into things that aren't there, and generally letting your own personal bias blind you to what the OP actually said.
This is not an RP issue. This is a player issue.
With two players gunning for internal combustion of the group, it's a miracle there *would* be a next day in the moathouse. As a GM, I'd be seriously considering the dire need for new players. Preferably a few with a clue as to the meaning of "cooperation". Got to remember, you're not here for one night, you're here (hopefully) for many months of games to come.
Are the OP as well as the fighter's player about 15 years old, perhaps?
its true, the longer a conversation goes on on the internet, the clock just starts counting down until nazis get dragged into the argument
happens every time
Chances are that the Nazis would have formed a better party, though. More efficient at least. And they don't claim to be CG when they actually enjoy to see the wounded suffer, THEN insist on taking them back into a fight!
ok before i say anything and people here get the wrong idea, because it will happen, let me say that i 100% agree with everything that Aioran said in his/her rebuttal of Pendghast above, they made several valid points that i agree with, and a few i wouldn't have thought of. Second of all, for the OP, who likely went to bed a few hours ago and is going to come back to 106 posts in a topic they likely thought would only get a few veiws... Good luck making your fort-save-or-die vs this box text...
but more to the point, As a Battle-Cleric of Gorum you 100% should have been the first, if not second person in this room. Gorum rewards his followers for battle, often simply for the sake of battle. however, as a party putting it to a vote on whether to skip the encounter, including from a meta-game point of view its gold, potential boons, and other item rewards (it was guarding something after all) is a decision the party needs to make together.
i agree with your party in wishing to avoid a tough and unnecessary encounter in order to preserve resources for a potentially more difficult encounter later on, and i agree that it would be better to skip it than to go back and rest for a day so you don't die later, but your character would most likely have voted to kill it.
from a personal point of view, i agree wholeheartedly with your refusal to heal his stupidity as you said it, its hilarious, and sounds like something that a gruff, i picture dwarven, battle cleric would say. even though i do feel as though your cleric should have congratulated his bravery in taking on an enemy much tougher than him alone before graciously healing him and egging his allies on to more glorious battle. you have to remember that your diety loves fighting, and all that comes with it.
thirdly, a refusal to heal a teammate is not a good act. you're character is CG and must be played as such, especially as a cleric, if you want to be selective with your healing and how you care for your allies, be CN, but as a CG character you should be doing everything within your power, be it legal or not, to spread good throughout your travels and actions. nothing i hate more than a lawful good paladin or cleric that runs around looting bodies, leaving corpses to rot, doing lethal damage to non evil npcs, or lieing to achieve faction missions/scenario goals, if you're going to play a certain alignment, play that alignment.
finally, deciding to offer long term care was stupid, but ill assume you didn't know how it works. long term care denies you sleep, meaning you wasted a night, and as such all of your spells for the next day, taking care of someone you could have spent 12 seconds tending to. its something i'd expect an 8 int character to do, and im sure you're higher than 8 int.
well it is return to the temple of elemental evil. it is a very long adventure with lots of chances to die.
Hrm? 3.0 didn't do away with gaining XP for bypassing encounters without killing monsters. I specifically remember an example (somewhere in the DMG?) where PCs are rewarded by getting past a minotaur by diplomacy or stealth.
The good old AD&D DMG pages 84-86 give XP for 2 things: monsters slain (slain, not defeated) and GP values of treasure taken. One sentence handwaves "Tricking or outwitting monsters or overcoming tricks and/or traps placed to guard treasure must be determined subjectively..."; another couple paragraphs suggest that 1,000 XP can be given to raised characters. Comparing the 2ed DMG with the 3rd edition DMG (pages 36-41 in 3.5) I don't see substantive difference; both put a lot of emphasis on defeating monsters and offer a little handwaving on story rewards, with some optional rules tossed in there.
There were optional rules for the rogue classes to get XP for treasure. Yes, the optional individual class awards disappeared after 2nd edition, and optional rules for per-adventure awards (that could have the characters doing anything) showed up. That's hardly "Third Edition is the one that took away practically everything else a character could do to earn XP."thieves could get a bunt load of xp just for recovering treasure, they never had to defeat a single enemy, that's why in the older editions, the thief was always known for sneaking off during the battle and grabbing all the loot.... ie never trust a thief in your party.
Treasure XP was taken away in 3e... thats what the post you quoted was getting at.
You brought up the fact that getting treasure gave you XP, and then in the next breath you are criticizing someone for mentioning the fact that thieves could get treasure by ignoring monsters and stealing treasure. Is there any reason to believe that you are posting with any intent but to cause arguments?
|
I think Gorum can live with you ignoring enemy A because you're trying to get to enemy B.
Also, Gorum probably doesn't mind that much if a stupid fighter gets killed in battle. People dying in battle is good as far as Gorum is concerned; doesn't really matter who's doing the dying. The only reason you should be healing people is so they can fight more. (Hint: don't heal people when they hit retirement age.)
Finally, the skeleton: mindless undead tend to have simple instructions sets. If it doesn't react to you peeking in through the door, it's probably okay to close the door and move on to your real target.
I mean, what's more bloodshed? Killing a skeleton or a live cleric?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
To the OP,
I very much understand your frustration, but I agree with most of the other posters that it was handled ... less than optimally by all parties involved.
I have had to deal with players being complete idiots and expecting me to use up all my capabilities just to keep them standing through their stupidity.
1) A priest of Gorum should encourage impulsive and aggressive behavior. But not necessarily stupidity.
2) Care costs you more effort than healing. So doesn't make sense if you are 'fed up' with his antics.
3) Not healing him puts you in danger the next day.
So, what I have done is:
- Gorum wants you to fight, but intelligently to maximise the odds of glorious victory.
- Only enough in-combat healing to keep him allive. I don't even try to get him back in the fight let alone back up to full. Stabilize and drag him out of range. Or just enough cure light to get him mobile.
- If I can reasonably come up with a legitimate 'better' use for the spells than healing him, that's where it goes. Basically each time he acts like a jack hole he goes one lower on the priority list. He time he behaves tactically intelligent he goes one higher on the priority list. So out-of-combat healing will get him functional but not perfect condition. "I need to keep a silence and cure moderate ready incase there is an emergency. You will have to be a bit more careful for the rest of the day."
- "If you really want your own dedicated healing capability, invest in it. Just buy a wand of reach cure serious wounds at the next temple and I will only use it on you. Otherwise the healing is for everybody when I dont alreay have a more effective use for the spells." (Most will not but it works fine if they do.)
The player I'm thinking of wasn't real happy about it. I think he still feels I should follow him around as a big HP battery, but he is learning to play a bit better.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So my party is currently investigating the moathouse in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. (Retooled for PF) I'm playing a battle cleric of Gorum, although I am CG instead of CN.
In short the fighter acted against the wishes of the entire group. He displayed a complete lack of common sense, proper tactics (by going in alone and aggroing it back to us, and failure to listen to the will of the party.
Everyone seems to be fine with what happened (DM included), but I thought I would check with those of you who have experience with Gorum to see if this is character appropriate.
So you worship the CN god of battle, but actively restrain someone from a battle they wish to engage in, and then want to punish them for having that battle anyway... Would be pretty interested in what Gorum though of that from one of his clerics. Gorum wants there to be more battles, not have his clergy preventing them though their actions.
finally, deciding to offer long term care was stupid, but ill assume you didn't know how it works. long term care denies you sleep, meaning you wasted a night, and as such all of your spells for the next day, taking care of someone you could have spent 12 seconds tending to. its something i'd expect an 8 int character to do, and im sure you're higher than 8 int
This was covered at the end of page 1. While arcane casters have to get 8 hours rest and spend an hour preparing their spells, divine casters don't. They just need to spend an hour at the time of day decreed by their God. The CRB specifically says that sleep is not required.
I once played a cleric of Thor and when my allies took some damage after the first combat of the day they wanted healing. My response was:
"Verily I have communed with Thor and he hath said thou shalt suck it up princess. Art thou an adventurer or art thou a milk-maid fresh from the farm? Thou shalt be cured when it is neededeth, verily I shall not swap out the lightning of Thor to fixeth thy tiny booboo."
Would Thor fix Honey Boo Boo? :)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
First off, wow. Thanks for all of the replies even if most of them are pointing out flaws in my take on the situation. Secondly, I'm currently on my break and can't give a full reply at this time.
Ok, my domains are tactics and ferocity. They are not Leroy and Jenkins. The party had a plan to deal with the skeleton after we found the Clerics who are currently our top priority. We have found out through an NPC we rescued that the bad guys have reinforcements on the way and that they are rapidly trying to finish whatever escavation they're doing. So time is a major issue with us at the moment.
My character already had his "moment of glory" by rushing in to a bar fight in hommlet. He ran in, threw some punches, slipped on a puddle of spilled beer, (nat 1+ fumble check) and cracked his head against a table. This knocked him out for three rounds. The character decided this was his gods way of telling him to use proper tactics, even in something as simple as a tavern brawl. This has altered his view of all combat since then.
The skeleton in question did not move towards us as we opened the door. We backed away and observed it for a round or two, making skill checks to figure out what it was and why it wasn't attacking. The room was the last one on a level and had another door we could lock/bar to hinder anyone who came to claim it. Not perfect, but we still are pressed for time.
We do also have a Druid and a Summoner in this game so extra healing is available. I concede the point that not healing him is also bad tactics but because I told the character beforehand that I wouldn't heal him I couldn't take that back afterwords.
Lastly, the fighter in question is a bow specialist who had his bow out when he went into that 20 by 20 room.(Ogre skeleton in middle) His only actions were to get hit and run away yelling "run!" to the rest of the party at the top of his lungs as he ran by us.
Thanks again for all the replies.
First off, wow. Thanks for all of the replies even if most of them are pointing out flaws in my take on the situation. Secondly, I'm currently on my break and can't give a full reply at this time.
Ok, my domains are tactics and ferocity. They are not Leroy and Jenkins. The party had a plan to deal with the skeleton after we found the Clerics who are currently our top priority. We have found out through an NPC we rescued that the bad guys have reinforcements on the way and that they are rapidly trying to finish whatever escavation they're doing. So time is a major issue with us at the moment.
My character already had his "moment of glory" by rushing in to a bar fight in hommlet. He ran in, threw some punches, slipped on a puddle of spilled beer, (nat 1+ fumble check) and cracked his head against a table. This knocked him out for three rounds. The character decided this was his gods way of telling him to use proper tactics, even in something as simple as a tavern brawl. This has altered his view of all combat since then.
The skeleton in question did not move towards us as we opened the door. We backed away and observed it for a round or two, making skill checks to figure out what it was and why it wasn't attacking. The room was the last one on a level and had another door we could lock/bar to hinder anyone who came to claim it. Not perfect, but we still are pressed for time.
We do also have a Druid and a Summoner in this game so extra healing is available. I concede the point that not healing him is also bad tactics but because I told the character beforehand that I wouldn't heal him I couldn't take that back afterwords.
Lastly, the fighter in question is a bow specialist who had his bow out when he went into that 20 by 20 room.(Ogre skeleton in middle) His only actions were to get hit and run away yelling "run!" to the rest of the party at the top of his lungs as he ran by us.
Thanks again for all the replies.
Your description of your strategy changes my impression of the situation. You had a strategy that included fighting it, but were selectively choosing your battle to maximize your strategic assets. As such, this makes much, MUCH more sense given your chosen deity.
Additionally, the fighter showed a lack of tactical sense and bravery. It would appear that Gorum would frown upon his actions.
That's good details to see. It reinforces what I suspected - you were tending to think about the group and what the actual mission is, and the fighter was more thinking about himself.
His choice to go into a 20x20 room as a bow specialist was poor, to say the least. If I was a bow-focused character, you couldn't pay me to go into that room.
If you warned him ahead of time, saying "Look, one thing I'm not going to do it heal you if you run in there. We made a choice for the good of the mission. You can go in if you want, but don't expect a welcome home party", I don't think it's so bad not to heal him. I probably would have anyway, but offered buffs and the like to other party members instead of him to compensate for it.
Bow vs Skeleton is a bad idea in the first place - DR/bludgeoning. A bow specialist had no business even using a bow in that fight.
I thought about this kind of subject a lot lately (I have my own problems with individuals meshing with group decisions, as a GM), and I think it's best to just let it go. Let him know "Hey, this is what we are doing. We can't force you to go with us, but it's better for all of us if you do."
I tend to think the negative reaction from other characters he'll receive due to poor judgment will discourage further "ventures". But if it continues, it's a player problem, and needs to be handled as such.
The one time I was playing a healer we had something almost exactly like that happen. With the exception that the rest of the part listened to me and let him try to take it on his own. We let him die, went back to town and hired 2 warrior npc's to help us out and proceeded with the adventure.
When he asked if we were going to get him rezed, I told him there was no coming back from stupid.
Funny thing, my group won't let me play a healer anymore, go figure.
@TheRedArmy
Blunt arrows do exist (they are in the APG).
Normally I would just ignore this sort of thing but there's only so much wrong I can ignore.
You're saying this guy has to do what everyone else decides to do, because majority rule is always right? Yea, that's always proven to be true.No, I dont let my buddies walk all over me, because I don't drink at all. That was a general statement as an example to the above, in reference to people saying majority rules should be right, because the majority came up with it.
A mindless skeleton, hmmmm if it's not controlled it will attack, if it is controlled, the cleric they are looking for can use it. so if it's not a random viscous skeleton, it's being controlled.
The skeleton is guarding an empty room?
No it must be guarding something. What thing would be worth guarding? do you think maybe it might be something important or worth having?
Again, the concept of trying to delve straight to the cleric in charge still doesn't make any sense. Like the sands of the hour glass is running out or something?
From the sounds of it, they must be in the moat house, if they were actually in the temple it's self, this tactic is really going to get them killed. More than a few NPCs are trapped in there from previous groups for literally just that tactic.
It's an ogre skeleton, they have a cleric, it should have been an easy battle with little or no damage and they might have found something valuable....
"you see a guard"
Oh let's ignore that, there is nothing important here.
Yes there is always a guard post at a random urinal.
I think the fighter has very good reason to want to go in that room, and still stand by the groups idea of bypass whatever they can is foolish, and certainly leaving your traveling companion to get pelted, and then letting un used spells expire is even more foolish.
If I were the fighter would I have gone in alone?No.
If I were the cleric would I have let him fight alone once he did, and/or not heal him later? No.
I might however, have my character choose not to continue adventuring with that fighter, at a later date.
Not every business venture (which is what an adventuring company is) is a "Hive mind".However, Does a cleric of the god of battle have to heal a warrior who 'battled' if he didn't agree with the choice to battle. No, I dont believe so. He's a cleric, not a puppet.
That's good details to see. It reinforces what I suspected - you were tending to think about the group and what the actual mission is, and the fighter was more thinking about himself.
His choice to go into a 20x20 room as a bow specialist was poor, to say the least. If I was a bow-focused character, you couldn't pay me to go into that room.
If you warned him ahead of time, saying "Look, one thing I'm not going to do it heal you if you run in there. We made a choice for the good of the mission. You can go in if you want, but don't expect a welcome home party", I don't think it's so bad not to heal him. I probably would have anyway, but offered buffs and the like to other party members instead of him to compensate for it.
Bow vs Skeleton is a bad idea in the first place - DR/bludgeoning. A bow specialist had no business even using a bow in that fight.
I thought about this kind of subject a lot lately (I have my own problems with individuals meshing with group decisions, as a GM), and I think it's best to just let it go. Let him know "Hey, this is what we are doing. We can't force you to go with us, but it's better for all of us if you do."
I tend to think the negative reaction from other characters he'll receive due to poor judgment will discourage further "ventures". But if it continues, it's a player problem, and needs to be handled as such.
How is the fighter thinking about himself here? Maybe not thinking, but how is what he did self centered?
There has to be more to this, or perhaps it was just random chaos?Why run into the room make the skeleton move and then run out, doesnt seem self serving.
Did he run in to grab treasure or open a chest, or something else...then that would be self serving.
He had to do something more than run in, get hit and run out... what was his plan?
did he think if he ran in anyway his buddies would follow and he thought he was calling a bluff on their part (wrestling matches dont seem like a bluff, really)
I'm really interested to here... ran into the room because....
Is this guy CN and does stuff like that because he thinks thats how CN characters act?
If I was the fighter I would cluster shot the Skeleton to death from outside the room, I might ask the caster to create a web or grease (low level spell) in front of the skeleton to make sure by the time the monster can get to be me he is already dead, I certainly wouldn't get closer range being my chief advantage.
While that makes sense (yea why would an archer go in the room when they can use the door as a choke point) , what do you gain by shooting at it. If it is just standing there motionless, who knows WHAT it's orders are.
this could be dead ogre storage room, meaning the command is "stand here and wait"
What else was in the room? a 20x20 empty square with a big dead thing standing in it?
I'm either going to explore the room and deal with the ogre if it attacks me due to my actions, or I'm going to peer in the room, realize there is nothing but an ogre skeleton doing nothing, and... well do nothing in return.
The only other thought that makes sense is destroy it now, so we dont have to deal with it later.
Seems to me there would have to be legitimate reason for the fighter to go in the room, like he wanted to look at something, but 20x20 isnt really that big, unless it was cluttered with a lot of furniture or boxes, you could theoretically get a good idea of what was in there from peering through the door.
I'm really interested to here... ran into the room because....
Some players (I know, we have one of them) love combat so much they simply will not bypass any chance at engaging.
Very likely he is a player who is only having fun when he is in combat. Thus, “no combat= no fun”. He doesn’t understand why you DON’T want to attack the monster. Don't *you* want to have fun?
Honestly, Op you have to talk to him OOC about this.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
my domains are tactics and ferocity. They are not Leroy and Jenkins.
This may be one of my fav board quotes ever =^)
-TimD
I think the OP roleplayed this properly. While gorum might have had issue with expending spells to heal the tactical moron, the cleric didn't use his god given powers to heal him so gorum didn't get to argue it out. I'd look at it as a dm as if the cleric thought or assumed gorum wouldn't like the healing done in this situation, but the cleric wanted to show a bit of mercy to the dumb fighter.
Asta
PSY
|
Wait. So a cleric of the god of battle got miffed when a fighter went into battle? Then acted petty about it after the foe was defeated...
REALLY???
He isn't a cleric of stupid battle. He went into a room the group didn't want to enter atm. The skeleton could've been a ploy to unleash a trap for all they knew and the fighter could've been turned to stone, hit by a falling block, dropped into an acid pit, unleashed a swarm beetles, been cursed, etc, etc....
It isn't about having to have a combat. It is about one person going rogue and pulling unnecessary hardship down on the group.I would warn him that the party will fire him if he goes against the party's wishes again and dock his share of loot by the healing required to heal the group back to full, including the fighter. Listen next time.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The fighters actions were stupid. You are right to seek a form of punishment. Of course, this particular and effective form of punishment leaves the group having a harder time with some things since tanking and/or damage dealing from the fighter are severely hampered by HIS decision.
Most responses are trying to make it sound like somehow...this is all your fault. That somehow...you beat up the fighter and made him unable to tank. That somehow, you are a bad person because of a choice the fighter made. That somehow, you should suffer and be penalized because of the decisions and stupidity of others.
There is also this ongoing assumption that because your class has an ability to heal, you have to. You're absolutely a robot with NO CHOICE on how to use any features you've got. Someone's hurt? Your programming overrides that free will software and you automatically walk through 30 squares of traps and foes, in an attempt to heal the injured ally. You know...because you are supposed to be stupid, too.
These arguments are inane, and you know it. You don't have to heal. 'You CAN heal. Period' (that's said mockingly to the people saying that healers heal, period, etc).
When the RAW under a class or ability entry says 'you have to' then I'll consider the arguments of those people as relevant in this regard. Until then, you should do as you have been- healing when you see fit. Not when they do.
You're in the tough spot of rewarding his stupidity (by healing him) which undermines the very principle of the matter, which is that he shouldn't be healed. If he gets healed, there is no real in game reason the guy would stop that path of behavior. He just denied the group wishes AFTER having a discussion about it...and the seriousness of it was that he was physically being grappled and warned not to do action X...which he did anyway. So he ALREADY knew there were consequences for his action if he took- and he took it. So now, not making there be consequences- immediate ones as stark as the near death battle, would seem inappropriate.
I totally see where you are coming from. Stupidity is stupidity and it should never be rewarded when it hurts others.
Was your decision right or wrong to use denial of healing? That's up to you. If your character and deity have it worked out that it was fine, then cool. There has been mention that your particularly deity would suggest that not going in to fight, not healing the fighter, etc, was dishonorable to the deities theme. Maybe. But I am sure there are an equal number of clever RP arguments that would easily explain your actions as fitting in with the deities wishes, too.
So this isn't about the deity, his wishes, etc. It's really about weighing the appropriate punishment and the pros and cons of it. I know that if I were a cleric, I probably would not heal him either. I'd heal everyone else....just not him.
If he survives the following day, bloody, broken and injured- cool. He'll have hopefully learned his lesson (As HE faced near death the entire time and not the party) and we can resume healing again.
Tactically? I have been in several groups over the past 9 months. Not one of these groups has had a healer. Only twice have my hp dropped below 5. There was a 3rd time but that was a tpk.
You don't have to heal this guy, and you shouldn't. If he's is so reliant on your healing to do his job, then he will appreciate your healing that much more if he survives the next day to continue doing his job. If the rest of your party is unable to adapt, tactically to avoid taking a beating because of a lack of a healer, or to have invested in some means of healing themselves without one, that's poor planning on their part and ultimately, they'd be punished by the 'law of preparedness' anyway..because one day you'll be unconscious and bleeding and nobody will be able to reach you to pot you up before the battle is over. They'll have to win without you or flee and take you with them. It'll happen sooner or later.
But all of that aside, you offered him long term care- cool. You understood his plight offered a meager, token service but nothing that could be construed as rewarding his behavior or cruel.
The party should be prepared to function without their fighter if/when he drops. After that, business can return to normal. I personally don't see the problem, but if you want to agree with the theme that 99% of the post above say: the guy who nearly got everyone killed after being warned not to do it, should be rewarded for his actions and you should be to blame for it, somehow. Also, you are the fighters slave (and tacitly the parties slave).
@TheRedArmy
Blunt arrows do exist (they are in the APG).
I forgot about those. They're kinda silly for Skeletons, but whatever. I mean, the arrow still goes through the bones. That's always what I imagined when dealing with skeletons. Piercing goes between the bones (at least somewhat if damage is high enough to still damage). Slashing isn't consistent through the whole blade (some is on, some is off). I'm not describing them well, but it always made sense to me. By RAW I'm sure they work fine, and I would let them in my game.
Been ages since I played. I've been a full-time GM for a while now. Searching equipment for my NPCs is not high on my to-do list.
How is the fighter thinking about himself here? Maybe not thinking, but how is what he did self centered?
Well, if the entire party, not once, but twice grabbed me and said "Hey, this is a really bad idea, we have this plan that works better for our goal" and I still run in because I want the XP, or the gold, or the fun of combat, or whatever, it seems pretty selfish to me. And they were going to some clerics (most likely hostile) anyway. Combat was right around the corner - one the entire group wanted. He couldn't wait five (or fifteen, or however long) minutes? And if he really wanted to, he could ask if they could handle this guy after they finish up with the clerics.
I mean, really. Fifteen seconds of thinking about it and this entire situation can be avoided. Most likely, since the party took a confrontational view (by grappling him), he became more stubborn and determined to go in. Confrontations tend to escalate toward the bad, not the good.
There has to be more to this, or perhaps it was just random chaos?
Why run into the room make the skeleton move and then run out, doesnt seem self serving.
Did he run in to grab treasure or open a chest, or something else...then that would be self serving.
He had to do something more than run in, get hit and run out... what was his plan?
Judging by the OP's first post and the new one with more details, my guess is it happened like this:
- The Party tells the fighter not to go in.
- The Fighter runs in, the DM calls for initiative.
- The Ogre goes first, moves in and hits the fighter for a ton of damage.
- The Fighter, now at 1 HP (see first post), runs out screaming at the party to run.
- The following events (running, followed by beating the Ogre) occur.
In which case, I sure as hell wouldn't stop and grab treasure (provoking an AO) or even try to continue to fight. I'm using the withdraw action and saying "Get to tha Choppa!"
did he think if he ran in anyway his buddies would follow and he thought he was calling a bluff on their part (wrestling matches dont seem like a bluff, really)
Certainly possible. One could make an assumption like that, particularly if other PCs have been bailed out from bad decisions by the character before. And in RL, I'm sure some people get into fights like this. One guy starts a fight in a bar, certain his friends have his back - except they don't (or maybe they do, who knows).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Please use the quote function properly when replying to a poster, it makes it easier to read your post and respond to it. As is, it's going to take me a while to break up your post, reformat it, and then reply to each point.
No, I dont let my buddies walk all over me, because I don't drink at all. That was a general statement as an example to the above, in reference to people saying majority rules should be right, because the majority came up with it.
And as I said, you are using hyperbole and personal/subjective experience to justify your opinion because there isn't/wasn't anything directly from the OP's post that supported it. It's also the reverse situation to the one the OP described.
The fighter (comparison in your example is you) voted against party wishes (like you did) and went in anyway (not what you did, you went with your friends), despite being told not to, actively ignoring them and endangering the whole party (again not what you did, you went with your friends because they're your friends and you want to make sure that they have a good time and are safe). Which means, that in the OP's example, the Majority was in the right and had the fighter listened everyone would have been better off. Your example is not comparable because the fighter behaved opposite to how you do/did. You put the group before you, the fighter put himself before the group.A mindless skeleton, hmmmm if it's not controlled it will attack, if it is controlled, the cleric they are looking for can use it. so if it's not a random vicious skeleton, it's being controlled.
You're misinterpreting what I said, or at least I assume so because you just rehashed my point about the mindless skeleton. The fact that it's being controlled is the reason I said it wasn't an issue, you cannot just cast a spell and summon/command every undead in your service. They have to actually be able to hear and understand your commands. The skeleton already had a command to follow, it was 'guard'.
The skeleton is guarding an empty room?
I never said, nor implied this.
No it must be guarding something.
Yes, that could be anything. Assuming that it's a valuable is either jumping to conclusions or metagaming.
What thing would be worth guarding? do you think maybe it might be something important or worth having?
It's irrelevant what it might have, the important thing was that it wasn't the cleric(s) they were looking for. They were under time and resource constraints. "Might be something important or worth having [so we'd kill and loot everything we come across]" doesn't make any sense at all because it's at odds with the group objective.
Again, the concept of trying to delve straight to the cleric in charge still doesn't make any sense. Like the sands of the hour glass is running out or something?
Yes, yes they are. That's the whole point!
From the sounds of it, they must be in the moat house, if they were actually in the temple it's self, this tactic is really going to get them killed. More than a few NPCs are trapped in there from previous groups for literally just that tactic.
I believe you chastised the OP for metagaming and cheating and now you're doing the same thing? Not to mention spoilers.
It's an ogre skeleton, they have a cleric, it should have been an easy battle with little or no damage and they might have found something valuable....
"you see a guard"
Oh let's ignore that, there is nothing important here.
Yes there is always a guard post at a random urinal.
More metagaming, there's no guarantee IC that when you kill something you'll get anything out of it. That's an entirely OOC concept brought about by loot tables and GP value on monster entries.
I think the fighter has very good reason to want to go in that room, and still stand by the groups idea of bypass whatever they can is foolish,
The group idea is perfectly fine so long as they realise what can be bypassed. I think a mindless undead, with no master around, under orders to stand in a room doing something qualifies.
and certainly leaving your traveling companion to get pelted, and then letting unused spells expire is even more foolish.
The fighter ran off of his own volition. It's not the rest of the party's fault that he did this, they can't play his character for him when he wants to make bad decisions. They didn't 'let him' do anything. Yes, the cleric not healing him was a bad decision, but the fighter going in there in the first place to get the skeleton to attack was significantly worse (he didn't need to go in there since he's using a bow anyway) because he actively ignored the rest of the party's wishes. Trust is an incredibly important part of any adventuring group and if you can't trust the guy in front to not just do what he wants then you are stuck either: a) always doing what he wants to ensure things happen as planned (tyranny of the minority), or b) being paranoid he's going to just do what he wants anyway. Loose cannons tend to blow up in your face. This time he almost died, next time he could take someone else down with him.
If I were the fighter would I have gone in alone?No.
If I were the cleric would I have let him fight alone once he did, and/or not heal him later? No.
That's not really fair to the cleric. Because of how initiative/turn order works I can imagine the fighter going in as soon as he's released, triggering the skeleton (readied action) who walks up and hits him, party moves to a tactically sound position, fighter runs triggering AoO and gets hit, skeleton follows, party attacks skeleton.
I agreed that the cleric should have healed the fighter afterward because having a wounded tank is a liability but the fighter is an archer anyway so it doesn't really matter and the tending to his wounds action makes more sense if the OP doesn't know it takes hours, though I still would have healed him.I might however, have my character choose not to continue adventuring with that fighter, at a later date.
Not every business venture (which is what an adventuring company is) is a "Hive mind".
Well yes, similarly I would have requested that the fighter either change his ways, or the player make a new PC because ICly he's getting the boot.
Why are you quoting "Hive mind"?However, Does a cleric of the god of battle have to heal a warrior who 'battled' if he didn't agree with the choice to battle. No, I dont believe so. He's a cleric, not a puppet.
It wasn't really a battle on the part of the fighter. He ran in there and got wailed on, then ran. Gorum would not be impressed with this sort of cowardly behaviour and the PCs weren't impressed with the fighters lack of respect for the group. As punishment for both, or for ignoring the group, either works, the cleric refused to used the gifts of his god on the fighter.
My issue with your post was just that you incorrectly portrayed the situation, whether or not I disagree about the cleric's behaviour and the group's behaviour is secondary. Though to summarise it, I agree that the cleric should have healed him, I disagree that the fighter should have gone in the room, or that the room would have had valuables and was worth clearing.
Please use the quote function properly when replying to a poster, it makes it easier to read your post and respond to it. As is, it's going to take me a while to break up your post, reformat it, and then reply to each point.
No, I dont let my buddies walk all over me, because I don't drink at all. That
Im making things smaller because there is no real point in requoting the quoting making a larger post.
1) assuming there is something that might be interesting because the creature is there, is not meta gaming. You can see it, it's not doing anything, you made your skill checks to understand it, so why is it here? Dead ogre storage? (I posted that consideration) or it's guarding 'something'. This would depend on room description, which we don't have. Which makes me think there is more to this encounter, what interested the fighter SO much about this room? was it literally a motionless lone ogre skeleton in a bare room (my vote would be for dead ogre storage), maybe is there something unseen? Depends on how far one might want to read between the lines on a skeleton standing in a bare room doing nothing.
However is the room is full of stuff, tables chairs, whatever. It's reasonable to assume that skeleton might be guarding something you can't see easily by peering in through the door way. That's not metagaming, that's basing assumptions off the appearance of the room and asking ones self. what the heck is it doing? This might spark ones curiosity into finding out what is in there.
Like finding a locked box... what's in it? It wouldnt be locked if it wasn't good... so it must be good. Now we have to open it.... could be treasure, could be boxed up mummy rot. But now someone is curious....
Could the skeleton be guarding nothing? Sure. Are you sure the cleric you are looking for is not within communication range of the skeleton? How can you know that? You can't.
I think you are very confused as to what meta gaming is, and what information you can go with, based on what you have as a PC.
It would reasonable to assume that if the skeleton was guarding nothing (depending on what you can or cannot see) that the cleric who made it has it here for when he needs it, and then is unlikely to be far away. But then if it is guarding something, then it may be important enough to have bothered creating the skeleton and taking up the portion of the clerics ability to control, to have the creature exist.
there for, brings back the curiosity of... what is it guarding, and can it be useful to us.
You also assume that, the battle with BBEcleric will happen far away enough that the ogre skeleton cannot hear his masters commands or that the master must be physically present to have a way of doing that.
there is also the ability of the cleric to circumvent the party and then activate the skeleton they left behind. which happened in our group just the other day, as it was written in the description of the evil guys actions what he would do "If" and "then".
the "Hive mind" comment is based on a bunch of other posters whose opinion is if the group decides to do one thing, it must be right and you have to go along with it, because they said so.
That type of thinking reduces alot of players to sitting there waiting for the part where they say "I hit it with my axe" and rolling some dice, because, the other "decision makers" are always deciding whats best and what everyone will do.
as far as spoilers you are talking about a legendary dungeon that is older than 50% of the players that post on this forum. That's like saying there is a magic sword in white plume mountain.... oh my! a spoiler.
IF they are in the moat house, they know it, and know they are not in the temple it's self. Not a secret. The name of the WHOLE module is "Temple of Elemental Evil"...when the PCs are in the Moathouse, they know where they are.... so where is the spoiler again?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There is also this ongoing assumption that because your class has an ability to heal, you have to. You're absolutely a robot with NO CHOICE on how to use any features you've got. Someone's hurt? Your programming overrides that free will software and you automatically walk through 30 squares of traps and foes, in an attempt to heal the injured ally. You know...because you are supposed to be stupid, too.
These arguments are inane, and you know it. You don't have to heal. 'You CAN heal. Period' (that's said mockingly to the people saying that healers heal, period, etc).
So if someone is playing the sorcerer with a bunch of spell slots left and the appropriate spells, you're cool with your character outside in freezing cold weather instead of inside a Tiny Hut or safely protected from everything in a Mage's Magnificent Mansion? I'm not. A party member has to support the party. There's a lot of tactical choices that get left to the player, but if the character has daily resources left over that could help the party, if you're part of the party, you have to use them. If you don't, it's no better then attacking them.
This case, withholding healing was part of an ongoing PvP action that had the effect of making the cleric's opponent hurt for the next day. That's par for the course; the cleric not expending remaining spells for healing is a PvP action.
So how does anyone know how many spells a cleric (or sorcerer) has left for the day? OR that a cleric can covert spells into cures? would they know that?
You can simply say i dont have spells left for that, Im sorry,
By not healing you are doing wrongbad things?
so if someone is injured, I MUST heal them because Im the cleric, so I can NEVER cast my flame strike or earthquake or whatever I MUST convert it into healing?
And we wonder why it's hard to find players willing to roll a cleric.....
@TheRedArmy
Blunt arrows do exist (they are in the APG).I forgot about those. They're kinda silly for Skeletons, but whatever. I mean, the arrow still goes through the bones. That's always what I imagined when dealing with skeletons. Piercing goes between the bones (at least somewhat if damage is high enough to still damage). Slashing isn't consistent through the whole blade (some is on, some is off). I'm not describing them well, but it always made sense to me. By RAW I'm sure they work fine, and I would let them in my game.
Been ages since I played. I've been a full-time GM for a while now. Searching equipment for my NPCs is not high on my to-do list.
How is the fighter thinking about himself here? Maybe not thinking, but how is what he did self centered?Well, if the entire party, not once, but twice grabbed me and said "Hey, this is a really bad idea, we have this plan that works better for our goal" and I still run in because I want the XP, or the gold, or the fun of combat, or whatever, it seems pretty selfish to me. And they were going to some clerics (most likely hostile) anyway. Combat was right around the corner - one the entire group wanted. He couldn't wait five (or fifteen, or however long) minutes? And if he really wanted to, he could ask if they could handle this guy after they finish up with the clerics.
I mean, really. Fifteen seconds of thinking about it and this entire situation can be avoided. Most likely, since the party took a confrontational view (by grappling him), he became more stubborn and determined to go in. Confrontations tend to escalate toward the bad, not the good.
...There has to be more to this, or perhaps it was just random chaos?
Why run into the room make the skeleton move and then run out, doesnt seem self serving.
Did he run in to grab treasure or open a chest, or something else...then that would be self serving.
He had to do something more than run
Selfish and dumb/pointless are two different things. Selfish means you get something out of it (or you think you will) and to heck with how this effects others. Pointless is what this sounds like, which makes me wonder.... If this player just does pointless things, it's likely all his characters will do pointless things because it's the player doing it, so changing characters isnt going to change anything.
So it could be "selfish" on the part of the player because his idea of fun is creating wild pointless chaos, like Video Gamers who want to murder pedestrians and steal from the store keeper rather than follow the actual plot of the game.That wouldnt be the 'fighter' that is being selfish (otherwise he would have had to have reason to know there was something in the room worth bothering with, like a treasure chest)
IF the player continually acts like this (there was some eluding to that from the OP, something about a bard the player had as well) ignoring his character and letting him die maybe the the only way to go, aside from refusing to play with this player at all anymore.
Which would have the same result as PvP (bad feelings and someone leaving the table)
Here's the thing that gets me tho. the entire real time it took to play out the argument, make points, roll to wrestle down and blah blah blah, most definitely took MORE time than the actual skeleton battle did.
what was the fighters argument this whole time "Im going to do this just because i want to run around and do dumb stuff?" (possible)
or he had a reason no one else agreed with?
IF it's the first reason.... THEN you have a player issue, especially if all his players do this because that player thinks it's "fun".
But something still makes me think the fighter had a REASON to want to go into the room (other than for the mere point to cause a fight) that isn't being full explained to us.
Selfish and dumb/pointless are two different things. Selfish means you get something out of it (or you think you will) and to heck with how this effects others. Pointless is what this sounds like, which makes me wonder.... If this player just does pointless things, it's likely all his characters will do pointless things because it's the player doing it, so changing characters isnt going to change anything.
Very true on the last point. I have a player who's very much like this (in the sense that, with the sole exception of his current character, virtually all characters he has played has been a different gist on the same basic theme - The Bard from the video game A Bard's Tale. Guess what class he plays most is?)
We clearly disagree on whether it's selfish or simply "pointless". Remember that some people get a kick out of wrecking others' fun. If that's what he (the player) would get out of it, it answers the question "Why?"
It's sometimes important to remember that players do things that are out of character because they are eager to have more fun (because of lack of things to do, frustration, or a million other possible reasons). It's important to remember that not everyone is in iron-clad role-playing when they are at a table. Likely the best are, but those are the exception, not the rule.
So it could be "selfish" on the part of the player because his idea of fun is creating wild pointless chaos, like Video Gamers who want to murder pedestrians and steal from the store keeper rather than follow the actual plot of the game.
That wouldnt be the 'fighter' that is being selfish (otherwise he would have had to have reason to know there was something in the room worth bothering with, like a treasure chest)
IF the player continually acts like this (there was some eluding to that from the OP, something about a bard the player had as well) ignoring his character and letting him die maybe the the only way to go, aside from refusing to play with this player at all anymore.
Which would have the same result as PvP (bad feelings and someone leaving the table)
Here's the thing that gets me tho. the entire real time it took to play out the argument, make points, roll to wrestle down and blah blah blah, most definitely took MORE time than the actual skeleton battle did.
I went into that a bit in the above. In my experience, when a character is being selfish, the player is the one actually being selfish. My group isn't exactly the bees knees for role-playing. Most of us put in the effort and the like, but I find it hard to do extended dialogues in character. I have never seen a situation where the player was contributing to the group while his character was doing something that was selfish. Perhaps it's impossible due to definition (how can you help others while being selfish)?
At any rate, groups will more skill in Role-Playing can probably shed light on this issue better.
EDIT: What I mean by that is "groups with more skill than me". By which I really mean "players with more skill than me." Just clarifying.
what was the fighters argument this whole time "Im going to do this just because i want to run around and do dumb stuff?" (possible)
or he had a reason no one else agreed with?IF it's the first reason.... THEN you have a player issue, especially if all his players do this because that player thinks it's "fun".
But something still makes me think the fighter had a REASON to want to go into the room (other than for the mere point to cause a fight) that isn't being full explained to us.
You could very well be right. I wasn't there, I certainly can't say for sure - all my musings are based off what I know. I suspect there was some kind of MacGuffin in there the Fighter was interested in (a shiny sword or whatnot), but who really knows?
I guess the OP, actually. :-p
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Assuming I was a player, and assuming my character was one of the ones that voted against attacking the ogre skeleton, I would have handled it like this if it was the first time.
OOC : Turn to the player. "Hey John, just so you know, this is all in character at this point, ok?"
IC : "Look Gunther, I know you want to attack the skeleton, but nobody else does. We are supposed to be a team, if you want to run off and attack things, then that's you're business. But we're not going to put ourselves in danger for it, ok? We're going to fall back, set up a defensive position, and let you do whatever you want. All we ask is you give us a slow count to 100 before you attack."
OOC : "John, seriously, do a sense motive, my character is ticked off, and would be happy to let Gunther go get himself killed if he insists." Later, if the fighter survives, my character would heal him. Then again, OOC, I'd turn to John. "Sorry John, but Gunther is not behaving like a team player, so again, this is all in character, ok?"
IC : "I'd like to call a team conference. Gunther nearly got himself killed, and we got mauled, despite our express desire not to engage the ogre skeleton. I don't think I feel safe continuing on with Gunther in the party. Does anyone else feel this way?" Then call a vote in character.
OOC : "Sorry John, but your guy is acting like a @*#&."
If this was a repeated thing, with the player always doing this, across multiple characters, I'd call an OOC conference, and state to the group that I was tired of John going off like a random cannon all the time with every character being a foaming at the mouth battle psycho. If nobody agreed with me, I'd nod and give my apologies and exit myself from the game. If everyone agreed with me, I'd ask John to tone it down. If he refused, I'd shrug and tell the group that am unable to play with someone who ignores everyone elses feelings. Then it would be up to the group to either ask John to leave, or accept my leaving.
typically, when I play a character, I'm likely to do the "my character would do this" (meaning maybe I wouldn't IRL, but this is the character, so....)
So the question is, am I playing a selfish character? what's his motivations why is he adventuring?
It's like the monkey in aladdin..."touch nothing but the lamp" what does he do? ooooh shiny ruby! so you have a general idea of what you character may do in a situation, and one day one of the situations comes up. What do you do? Make an OOC decision to not engage/indulge because it's a bad idea, or have fun roleplaying?
We have a druid in our party right now, a menhir savant. The player has decided, for whatever reason, Zombies terrify him, he will always run from zombies. One of the first encounters we had, he found some zombies and left because he didn't want to fight them, eh was looking for treasure and found gooey zombies instead, he let the other players fight them while he searched elsewhere for zombies, by the second time they found zombies, it had "morphed" into his 'fear' of zombies... so now...if zombies show up 'Ede the druid will run!
The player might know that's a bad idea sometimes, but he's playing his druid, who fears zombies....
I doubt every character this guys plays will run from zombies.... so it's just a RP thing he made up.
Leroy Jenkins did it to spoof on all the nerds making 20 minutes of plans to defeat the scenario, just so he could screw up it up.
Our friend the fighter may just want to screw things up... for leroy jenkins.... it's only funny once.
But what if he was tasslehoff bur foot? and his character was curious about everything? Tas would have gone in that room...
I guess it boils down to his this, this guys play style, or is he playing a character that does this.
Could he have gotten swatted for way more damage than he was expecting on the first shot....hmmm sure, maybe that totally ruined what he originally planned on.
But I cant but help think he went into that room expecting something other than the obvious (getting beat down by a skeleton) was going to happen, thus enlightening us to his motivation and reason for what must have been 20 minutes of burned up role play.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You are right to seek a form of punishment.
That's BS.
No player has a right to punish another. It's a game for Christ's sake. Everyone is there to have fun. You should talk to him instead. Try and come to an understanding that promotes fun for everyone.
If anyone felt a need to punish me for something I did in a game, and acted upon it, then we're done. I would never play with that person again. To them, it's obviously not just a game, but a power struggle of some kind. Who the hell would want a part in that?
Assuming I was a player, and assuming my character was one of the ones that voted against attacking the ogre skeleton, I would have handled it like this if it was the first time.
OOC : Turn to the player. "Hey John, just so you know, this is all in character at this point, ok?"
IC : "Look Gunther, I know you want to attack the skeleton, but nobody else does. We are supposed to be a team, if you want to run off and attack things, then that's you're business. But we're not going to put ourselves in danger for it, ok? We're going to fall back, set up a defensive position, and let you do whatever you want. All we ask is you give us a slow count to 100 before you attack."
OOC : "John, seriously, do a sense motive, my character is ticked off, and would be happy to let Gunther go get himself killed if he insists." Later, if the fighter survives, my character would heal him. Then again, OOC, I'd turn to John. "Sorry John, but Gunther is not behaving like a team player, so again, this is all in character, ok?"
IC : "I'd like to call a team conference. Gunther nearly got himself killed, and we got mauled, despite our express desire not to engage the ogre skeleton. I don't think I feel safe continuing on with Gunther in the party. Does anyone else feel this way?" Then call a vote in character.
OOC : "Sorry John, but your guy is acting like a @*#&."
If this was a repeated thing, with the player always doing this, across multiple characters, I'd call an OOC conference, and state to the group that I was tired of John going off like a random cannon all the time with every character being a foaming at the mouth battle psycho. If nobody agreed with me, I'd nod and give my apologies and exit myself from the game. If everyone agreed with me, I'd ask John to tone it down. If he refused, I'd shrug and tell the group that am unable to play with someone who ignores everyone elses feelings. Then it would be up to the group to either ask John to leave, or accept my leaving.
yea, that sums it up pretty much
You are right to seek a form of punishment.That's BS.
No player has a right to punish another. It's a game for Christ's sake. Everyone is there to have fun. You should talk to him instead. Try and come to an understanding that promotes fun for everyone.
If anyone felt a need to punish me for something I did in a game, and acted upon it, then we're done. I would never play with that person again. To them, it's obviously not just a game, but a power struggle of some kind. Who the hell would want a part in that?
I think he means the character should punish the fighter. Not the player should punish the fighter. Those are (albeit subtly) different.
But all the same, it's bad news. Characters punishing characters tends to result in PvP before the end of the campaign (if not the session, if not the encounter), which is bad unless you're looking for that.
So I got sapped. Fell unconscious. When I came to, my character left the party. Just like that. I was then seriously considering playing "Dwarf the Fighter" with absolutely no personality or backstory, just someone who can beat on things so I wouldn't get as upset as I did that night. I really liked that character. Not forming an emotional attachment to them seemed like a good idea. Still does, sometimes.
Im making things smaller because there is no real point in requoting the quoting making a larger post.
Oh, no I just meant that it wasn't formatted properly so I had to put in tags before I could respond. I didn't mean you had to requote each point, I just like doing that for clarity.
1) assuming there is something that might be interesting because the creature is there, is not meta gaming. You can see it, it's not doing anything, you made your skill checks to understand it, so why is it here? Dead ogre storage? (I posted that consideration) or it's guarding 'something'. This would depend on room description, which we don't have. Which makes me think there is more to this encounter, what interested the fighter SO much about this room? was it literally a motionless lone ogre skeleton in a bare room (my vote would be for dead ogre storage), maybe is there something unseen? Depends on how far one might want to read between the lines on a skeleton standing in a bare room doing nothing.
I don't want to speculate since it doesn't serve any purpose but I will say that I said 'jumping to conclusions or metagaming'. (And I didn't think you were really metagaming)
However is the room is full of stuff, tables chairs, whatever. It's reasonable to assume that skeleton might be guarding something you can't see easily by peering in through the door way. That's not metagaming, that's basing assumptions off the appearance of the room and asking ones self. what the heck is it doing? This might spark ones curiosity into finding out what is in there.
At best, guarding a valuable item. At worst, is a red herring because you automatically assume it has to be guarding a valuable. Besides, this is the Temple of Elemental Evil, of all the things to spark my curiosity a skeleton is not one of them.
Like finding a locked box... what's in it? It wouldn't be locked if it wasn't good... so it must be good. Now we have to open it.... could be treasure, could be boxed up mummy rot. But now someone is curious....
Remind me, if I ever GM, to put lots of odd monsters in empty rooms and leave lots of locked items around. My BBEG will have plenty of time to escape while the party try to figure out what monster x had in locked box 4.
Could the skeleton be guarding nothing? Sure.
Again, I never said nor implied this. I said it was commanded to 'guard'.
Are you sure the cleric you are looking for is not within communication range of the skeleton? How can you know that? You can't.
Because you have to speak with undead to command them, which means talking to the skeleton. Which means you don't have it shut away in a 20x20 room because then it can't hear you. If you're asking me 'how I know' then the answer is I don't 'know' but the educated guess I'm making is significantly more reasonable/probable than skeleton staying put = valuable treasure.
I think you are very confused as to what meta gaming is, and what information you can go with, based on what you have as a PC.
No, I know. The only thing that confuses me is why you keep making up examples that have nothing to do with the OP and seem fixated on exploring every nook and cranny of every room and fighting every monster when people's lives are at stake.
It would reasonable to assume that if the skeleton was guarding nothing (depending on what you can or cannot see) that the cleric who made it has it here for when he needs it,
I agree up until the next part.
and then is unlikely to be far away.
Okay, assuming I was concerned about the BBEcleric being nearby (I'm not, again I was just annoyed at how you portrayed what the OP said). Distance is relative, and the distance to the creator is also relative to the importance of the skeleton. You don't unintentionally shut doors to places you frequently spend larges amount of time because it makes moving between areas inconvenient. It's something you do deliberately when you want to make an area appear neater. If the door had been open, or the room had been described to have a large workspace/area then I might agree with you, but since it was closed and there was no mention of contents it implied that whoever controlled it left it alone for extended periods of time. A quick look around would have confirmed or denied the presence of the creator but then the fighter lured it out of the room.
But then if it is guarding something, then it may be important enough to have bothered creating the skeleton and taking up the portion of the clerics ability to control, to have the creature exist.
there for, brings back the curiosity of... what is it guarding, and can it be useful to us.
Ignoring the 'every monster has to have treasure' argument, the thing you're forgetting is that the undead is permanent and cost money to animate. It's financially unsound to just dispose of a skeleton when you no longer need it if it's still in working order and you aren't otherwise going to use the HD you have to control more/other undead. It's entirely possible that it was in a storage room, in between projects/tasks that required it.
You also assume that, the battle with BBEcleric will happen far away enough that the ogre skeleton cannot hear his masters commands or that the master must be physically present to have a way of doing that.
To give an undead orders you have to have a way to communicate with it, for a skeleton that is talking to it. Further away you are the more difficult that is to the point that it is outside the realms of possibility. It's rather hard to yell from inside a room, across levels, down corridors, and into another room, to draw the attention of a skeleton. It's actually rather hard to yell from out in the hallway to inside a shut room. As to assuming how far away BBEcleric is, that's what recon is for. Unfortunately, BDF did his thing.
there is also the ability of the cleric to circumvent the party and then activate the skeleton they left behind. which happened in our group just the other day, as it was written in the description of the evil guys actions what he would do "If" and "then".
You mean he went back around the party and commanded (by speech?) the skeleton to attack you after you triggered his 'if;then' clause? Maybe he heard you doing your sector search and fastidious clearing of every room for loot/xp.
the "Hive mind" comment is based on a bunch of other posters whose opinion is if the group decides to do one thing, it must be right and you have to go along with it, because they said so.
That type of thinking reduces alot of players to sitting there waiting for the part where they say "I hit it with my axe" and rolling some dice, because, the other "decision makers" are always deciding whats best and what everyone will do.
That's probably because adventurers typically all have a cohesive group dynamic in which each member agrees to put forth their own desires but ultimately respect the wishes of the group if their requests are overruled. This makes logical sense since otherwise you couldn't trust other party members. However, the way you're describing it is a bunch of henchmen being lead around by a face. I'd recommend you take it up with your group if this sort of thing happens in your party, they may not even realise it occurs.
as far as spoilers you are talking about a legendary dungeon that is older than 50% of the players that post on this forum. That's like saying there is a magic sword in white plume mountain.... oh my! a spoiler.
No, not even close. That's mentioned in the description of the adventure. (Ugh, why would you even joke about that sort of thing, that's just being a dick even if it's inconsequential). But it's not the same sort of spoiler. Not to mention age isn't relevant, it's just if you know the end/plot or not. I said that because what you said could ultimately affect the way in which a group plays through talking about captured NPC parties. You're altering a potential players experience by saying which tactics work, regardless of whether they work or not.
IF they are in the moat house, they know it, and know they are not in the temple it's self. Not a secret. The name of the WHOLE module is "Temple of Elemental Evil"...when the PCs are in the Moathouse, they know where they are.... so where is the spoiler again?
Nevermind >_>"
EDIT: oops, missed a tag
Leroy Jenkins did it to spoof on all the nerds making 20 minutes of plans to defeat the scenario, just so he could screw up it up.
Wait wait wait...
...Leroy Jenkins charged blindly into battle- a battle that had given his group "lots of trouble" before- getting himself and his entire party killed... as a social commentary?
This is now considered CLEVER?!?
I... just... I...
'Kay. I'm popping a couple advil and sleeping this one off. Have a good night, all.
Thanks again. You have all raised interesting questions. I made it a point OOC before the group broke for the night to ask if everyone had fun. We all said yes. The rest of the players (and the DM) are enjoying themselves which is all that really matters at the end of any gaming session. No one got loud or obnoxious about this incident OOC before or after it happened.
I honestly don't remember why the fighter insisted he wanted to go in there. The room description wasn't indicating some kind of gigantic treasure hoard. Right after the up or down vote failed his character immediately moved into "I'm going in there!" mode and it was grapple check time. He did mention the xpees after the fact though, but I don't think it was the whole reason for going in. On a side note we didn't search the room after the fight, we left and camped so we do not know what's in there.
I will call for a OOC meeting before this weeks game to see what's going on and deconstruct last week. It could be as simple as the fighter feels he's not getting enough spotlight time. That can happen in a six person group.
Thanks.
** spoiler omitted **
That's kind of messed up. And also not how readied actions work at all.
Double gypped. D:
|
OP did you ever think this may be a good thing?
once you guys leave the encounter/dungeon and get back to town, have a RP sit down. discuss IN CHARACTER why what he did was bad for the party, and that if he chooses to go against the group again they will kill him/ leave him/ tie him up and give him to a demon ect... the fighters player will have to respond IN CHARACTER about how he feels about the situation. if the rest of the group IN CHARACTER decides to kick him from the group, then have the gm allow him to roll up a new character, or keep the same character and just rename him with a new alignment and patron deity, then continue on your way.
if the player refuses to change/reroll then he needs to find a new game, and since its no longer a RP issue but a disruptive player issue you should not feel bad at all for kicking him from the table.
this is how i handle these issues: in game issues in game, and out of game issues out of game.