Help! A party member wants to tame the Barghest


Rise of the Runelords


Big scary dog-like creature is a room is seems magically trapped in. We only know what it is because the GM slipped up when trying to google an image of what a barghest is meant to look like. Currently our only character competent at ranged combat is away and likely won't be back next session, but that isn't the issue.

The party cavalier wants to keep the creature as a pet/mount. He wants to tame it. My character, via crazy perception rolls, noticed a secret door on the other side of the Barghest, hence I'm not keen to just leave the cavalier taming the beast as an impossible long term goal, as I want to open the secret door. Can't kill it without upsetting the party's most competent party member.

So, how to go about this? How can I get to the secret door without anyone or anything dying? Is taming a barghest to use as a mount even possible? If not, how do we safely shatter a cavalier's dreams?


Uh, yeah, no. That's a Greater Barghest. It is sentient. In fact, its mental stats are all 18s. It can speak Common, not to mention Goblin and Infernal. Its natural cycle--the method by which it grows up--is to consume the bodies of innocents, and eventually command legions of goblins.

It's kind of nuts, because it's been in that room for millennia, but it's not feral. Just angry.

That's not a "dog-like creature" that you can keep as a mount. Especially not at 3rd level, which is what the book calls for the party to be at that point.

Shadow Lodge

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He can keep it if your GM is very very mean and wants you to make new characters. Deals with devils and all that.

Silver Crusade

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Patrick summed it up. Taming a barghest is like taming Hannibal Lector.


Quid pro quo, I'd say to keep the tune.

Although in principal I do not see a problem with the barghest travelling with the group--not as an AC but rather a cohort and at later levels and with all the possible evil that will ensue.

So, what happened to [enter ex-party member's name here] during watch last night?, you might ask. Well, that's another story completely.

On a more serious note, someone in your party should show the PCs erroneous thinking and flawed assumptions and convince her of the sure-to-happen disastrous outcome. Surely, you do have a sage in your group who is either more knowledgable about what's going on on the planes then the cav, right? RIGHT (roleplay opportunity, anyone?)? This or a good Bluff check...

And I do realize how meta-gamey that all will be.

Ruyan.


We are to identify it is a barghest through research at the library in Sandpoint. Still, I'm not sure the cavalier will be put off by the fact of pure evil and smarter than him. If we can just get the secret door and whatever is behind it without killing the barghest, then that would be enough for me. After all, the cavalier will not be able to work out how to free it alone, thus no danger by leaving it alive, plenty of danger of killing it.

We don't have enough knowledge skills to fully explain why barghests are very very bad. We don't have much bluff skills. And the cavalier isn't exactly good aligned, plus we found early on he is hurt by positive energy, healed by negative. He's been trying his best to hide what he is, but when he does things like asking to be left alone with the goblin harem (To drink their blood). I wouldn't say he is evil either, but he would not ever judge a creature of an evil race as certainly evil, most certainly not ever assume they can't be made useful. Except goblins, he hates goblins, so maybe if I can find a proper picture of a barghest I'd have a chance to convince him it is too goblin-like.

The session is tonight. Likely once we realise it is intelligent, we will attempt to negotiate with it. I don't expect this to go well, but it seems impossible to convince the cavalier to let us kill it. I expect to come back with stories of a near TPK.


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I say let him try. It's these kind of epically bad ideas that make for stories that you'll be talking about years from now:

"Remember that time when Jim's cavalier tried to tame a greater barghest?"
"Yeah, and it gutted him then and there and made a jacket out of his skin."
"That was the best! What was he thinking?!"

or it's possible he might succeed:

"Remember that time when Jim's cavalier tried to tame a greater barghest?"
"Yeah, and it worked for two sessions until the barghest gutted him and made a jacket out of his skin."


Tyal-Kelvar wrote:
The session is tonight. Likely once we realise it is intelligent, we will attempt to negotiate with it. I don't expect this to go well, but it seems impossible to convince the cavalier to let us kill it. I expect to come back with stories of a near TPK.

Let the cavalier do all the talking. In all likelihood, the barghest will eat him first. Serve him right, too.


Tyal-Kelvar wrote:

We are to identify it is a barghest through research at the library in Sandpoint. Still, I'm not sure the cavalier will be put off by the fact of pure evil and smarter than him. If we can just get the secret door and whatever is behind it without killing the barghest, then that would be enough for me. After all, the cavalier will not be able to work out how to free it alone, thus no danger by leaving it alive, plenty of danger of killing it.

We don't have enough knowledge skills to fully explain why barghests are very very bad. We don't have much bluff skills. And the cavalier isn't exactly good aligned, plus we found early on he is hurt by positive energy, healed by negative. He's been trying his best to hide what he is, but when he does things like asking to be left alone with the goblin harem (To drink their blood). I wouldn't say he is evil either, but he would not ever judge a creature of an evil race as certainly evil, most certainly not ever assume they can't be made useful. Except goblins, he hates goblins, so maybe if I can find a proper picture of a barghest I'd have a chance to convince him it is too goblin-like.

The session is tonight. Likely once we realise it is intelligent, we will attempt to negotiate with it. I don't expect this to go well, but it seems impossible to convince the cavalier to let us kill it. I expect to come back with stories of a near TPK.

Either you have an undead cavalier in your party, or your not using channeling energy correctly. Positive energy heals living creatures hurts undead creatures regardless of alignment, thus the importance of the selective channeling feat. Negative energy heals undead creatures, and harms living creatures regardless of alignment.

It's cool if he's evil, but unless his desire is to roleplay a character that is dominated by a fairly powerful evil planer creature, he'd be best to leave the Barghest alone. He'd wind up being the cohort of the Barghest it wouldn't end up being his animal companion.

You as the party should be willing to stand up on that point, and force him to change his plans unless you want to become a party that is following a Barghest. Because that is where you are going if you try to bring it into the party.


lol. That barghest will probably tame the cavalier and keep him as a pet more likely. If it doesn't just rip his arms off and beat him to death with them.

Good luck with that encounter! :P


Ahlmzhad wrote:


Either you have an undead cavalier in your party, or your not using channeling energy correctly. Positive energy heals living creatures hurts undead creatures regardless of alignment, thus the importance of the selective channeling feat. Negative energy heals undead creatures, and harms living creatures regardless of alignment.

Unless you're a damphir, which is probably what he is.


It didn't go well, as expected. We decided it was wise to let the character with social skills do the talking, who was an oracle, due to that character also having comprehend languages. We did buy a traveller's dictionary for goblin so as the character could talk back (We assumed goblin would be one of the languages it spoke, plus goblins hated writing thus would be fun later if we used it to communicate with goblins). Things went bad the moment the barghest used charm person on the only one who could understand it, despite that character having the best will save of the lot of us.

The barghest convinced her to go into the room, and the oracle convinced the rest of us it'd be fine so we let her. The barghest seemed friendly enough, till the moment the oracle mentioned she couldn't dispel the wards holding the barghest in the room. Which ended our only healer at the time with full attack, straight to negative constitution from full. All with the rest of us not knowing what was being talked about.

Yes, the cavalier wanted revenge at that point and understood waiting was needed, but also the player said out of character he'd change his mind back to wanting it as a pet overnight. My plan to prevent this from ever happening again is to buy a lot of skyrockets and fuse grenades (+1 magic ones if possible/if they count as ammo for cost), and sneak out at night and just explode the room till the barghest is dead, justifying it as "you wanted revenge yesterday" to avoid upsetting the cavalier too much. Yes, cost will hurt, but a dead character worth of extra wealth should mitigate that a bit.

And yes, the cavalier is a damphir.


If it's any consolation, it sounds like your GM is doing a good job of playing the barghest in-character. The only change I would have made would have been to invite the other party members into the room for a nice friendly sit-down and chit-chat, then gotten myself between the PCs and the exit.

Mmmm.... food for weeks!

Sovereign Court

yeah, that bugger is a pain to deal with. Every group I have run through that has lost at least one party member.

And you still haven't met the ... ;)

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

That's why he's a bonus boss. Heck, I'm actually a bit relieved my party failed to find the secret way beyond the "golden" pillar. They'd already been run ragged by the rest of Thistletop, and faced Nualia with basically nothing in reserve but Hero Points. Facing Malfy would have been disastrous. It still may, depending on what they do when they go back (and when they go back).

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