One of my PCs is playing a "chaotic stupid" fighter. While visiting Habe's Sanitorium and after a successful intimidate check yielded no information that he found useful he started bullying Erin Habe further at which point Habe decided to run and free the prisoners. The tieflings decided to stay out of it and stepped aside. After fighting through the hostile occupants that Habe released as well as the Necromancer coming up to investigate the noise, they corner him in his room. He surrenders and immediately apologizes offering his life savings if they'll forget the whole thing and leave. At this point they take the savings, tie him up and question him again, he starts blubbering and has no new information so the fighter decapitates him against the protests of the group. This was all done with Walt in the room, (i decided to play him like Tom from 50 first dates) and the blind man just down the stairs, clearly within earshot.
Decapitating a helpless man who was mostly scared and not particularly evil is clearly a crime. I've had the tieflings report the murder to Sheriff Hemlock who has put out a warrant for hte PCs arrest. My fear is that this PC, who has generally chosen the most violent possible solution will resist arrest and ruin the game. I don't plan on seriously punishing him, having the sheriff "in light of his heroic contributions to the town" require just a small sidequest of repetence to find a new sanatorium head and some monetary compensation, but i'm afraid he'll overreact to the arrest. Any advice?
Well, does the sanatorium fall into Sandpoints and thus Magnimars jurisdiction? I would guess so. I ´d also assume that murder is punishable by death here. And killing a prisoner is murder.
So, if you decided that the PC will have to stand trial, he should. If they return to Sandpoint and the arrest will be imminent, have Sheriff Hemlock and Mayor Deverin along with a sizable number of guards coming to make the arrest - hopefully, he won´t attack the towns leaders. Maybe they can tell him at the arrest that they really regret this, but justice must be served, no matter what. Just in case, have a spellcaster with Hold Person as a backup - having a backup for arresting a murderer, especially one as (relatively) powerful as an adventurer, is only reasonable. Father Zantus could even provide that, memorizing at least one and probably up to three spells. With fighters not having strong will saves, this might help a lot.
With the trial itself, death penalty should be unlikely. The tiefling witnesses don´t have a good reputation, Habes practices were unsavory, and he hid an evil necromancer. A weregeld would be in order, and perhaps some sidequest, as you already wrote.
From a campaign point of view, IF you just want to run RotRL, your player has really caused some long term problems, but its not insurmountable.
I'd try to put off the arrest until after the mansion.
Include a paladin - who has smites that work on the PC - sometimes players happen to "accidentally" write down the wrong alignment for characters that they want to play.
Trial at the very least, and without shenanigans, things may look bad.
But outsource the trial to Magnimar, where they may "have better resources to handle such a trial." Things continue to look bleak until in comes...
And that someone helps him deal with the trial in some way - perhaps some way that discredits Habe, and puts a better light on the matter for the folk of Sandpoint who come to think that the PCs have saved them again from "...the threat of the hidden evil of Erin Habe and his necromantic cult - he was probably doing horrible things to his patients anyway and making undead out of them - look what happened to poor Grayst Sevilla!"
I wonder how much the PCs know of what the tieflings and Hemlock have done. My advice is somewhat different than those above, and may not be worthwhile depending on how much information the PCs have about the word of this getting out. I also assume that the other party members are at least silent on the issue of killing prisoners, if not in support of it? Let's be honest: Habe didn't let the prisoners out and get the necromancer in order to have a cup of tea with the party. And killing 4 or so people would probably tip him from "not particularly evil" to "reasonably evil" in short order.
Taking the slippery slope of relative moralities off the table, though. What part of the story does it serve to have the PC put on trial? If you follow the Lorax's advice, then I can see how it would serve well, but you already recognize the inherent danger of the PC's capture. Things could go pear-shaped very quickly with either the player feeling railroaded by a hold person or getting into real trouble by successfully resisting. You run a real danger of making the plot center around this character's misdeeds if you decide to punish his character for being evil.
Here's another take: if I'm a tiefling underling, and someone overpowers my boss, his partner, and a building of crazies and then lops off my boss's head- maaaaaybe I don't go running to the authorities. What's keeping my head on it's shoulders? (this is why I ask how much the PCs know about what you're doing behind the scenes) Plus, do I, a tiefling ne'er-do-well even trust Hemlock and those do goody types? Wasn't those do goody types what came here and lopped off 'ol Habe's head, then?
Maybe word of this beheading doesn't exactly make it back to Sandpoint, or not quickly. Maybe the town grows a little colder towards this PC because something seems off about the stories being told, and how his buddies are acting, but there isn't enough to definitively say he did something worthy of punishment. The sanatorium doesn't seem like it's in constant contact with Sandpoint.
So rather than going through the work of capturing said PC with the intent of punishing him (to teach the player a lesson?), all the while hoping the player understand ahead of time that "it's just going to be a light punishment" and not overreact in the exact way his character tends to overreact, try allowing his evil guy to be evil, and if it's harming the party, then set up situations in which it's obvious to the other characters that this guy his letting vital info get away because of his temper. They'll help you police him.
Hopefully I'm not BADWRONGFUN'ing you. That's not my intent. If so, sorry. I just think this behavior is either something your player wants to play and will feel stifled and picked on if you slap him on the wrist for playing his character... or you need to have a DM to player talk about consequences and make sure the player is ok with bad stuff happening. Shared convos about what the future holds for a player's character really work great. Player's can sometime surprise you with their willingness to be pawns in a larger game in order to make the story fun and exciting.
Thanks for the suggestions i'll have to give it some real thought.
Ultimately, you have to read your players.
Like mousmous sez, you've been put in a position where things can go pear-shaped fast here. It would be inconvenient for the players to decide at this point, "Screw Sandpoint, these guys are jerks." and it sounds like you recognize that.
It is really easy to turn situations like this into a Player vs. DM struggle as opposed to a PC vs. NPCs struggle. Your player probably doesn't realize what type of a position he has put you in.
If the player's PC gets arrested, you could just treat it the same way you would if he were turned to stone, lost on another plane, or dead: tell him to roll up a new character to play. After all, the wheels of justice may turn quite slowly and it's not fair for his chaotic evilness to ruin the adventure path for everyone.
I ´d also assume that murder is punishable by death here. And killing a prisoner is murder.
IIRC, the only crime punishable by death in Magnimar is treason. Life-long imprisonment is what I would rule is the sentence for murder, then again, if Ironbriar is the judge of the trial...
IIRC, the only crime punishable by death in Magnimar is treason. Life-long imprisonment is what I would rule is the sentence for murder, then again, if Ironbriar is the judge of the trial...I ´d also assume that murder is punishable by death here. And killing a prisoner is murder.
You are right. The Magnimar book says as much on p. 16, entry C6a. So, imprisonment would it be then. Although from that description, I´m not sure what fate is worse...
One of my PCs is playing a "chaotic stupid" fighter.
Reading that again, what alignment does he have? CN? Then you might have a case of "I play CN, because that lets my PC get away with everything".
So let's see if I have the events right ...
- PC Intimidates Habe
- Habe's responses do not satisfy the player (were they actually the best Habe could do?)
- Habe flees
- Gortus and Gurnak stay out of it
- Habe frees the patients
- Party fights the patients
- Necromancer hears the sounds and comes to investigate
- Necromancer and his pets join the fight
- PCs win
- PCs corner Habe in his room with Walt
- The blind man downstairs could made Perception checks to hear what was going on, but might not get all of it.
- Habe offers his life savings if the Party lets him go and forgets the incident
- Party accepts the bribe.
- Party reneges on the deal, ties Habe up, and starts questioning him again.
- Habe babbles (telling them anything he can? whatever he thinks they want to hear?)
- Fighter doesn't like the information, decapitates Habe; other PLAYERS protest (but no CHARACTERS try to stop it?)
- Party leaves
- Gortus and Gurnak head for Sandpoint and report the incident to Sheriff Hemlock (with Walt and other surviving inmates as additional witnesses?)
How much did the Tieflings see/hear?
They may be "questionable" as witnesses, but a Zone of Truth or Detect Lies can make up for that, and would almost certainly be used.
If the above is true...
Mitigating Circumstances: They killed a Necromancer and his undead pets.
Rebuttal: Coincidentally. After the bullying started, and after the slaughter of patients who were in their way.
Result: Loss of all party members. Re-set, or go on with them escaping and "Rise of the Runelords" is over as it becomes "Pursuit of the Murder Hobos", an adventure of redemption or further depravity.
First off, to be clear on my biases, my gutcheck answer would be much along the lines of Urath DM above. But...
I'm a little unclear on what exactly the OP's perception of the challenge is.
Is it a player who is disruptive and reducing everyone else's fun? In other words, the player is the problem.
Is it a player who has chosen a personality and alignment that is causing trouble? Player = ok; player character is troublesome
Is it a player and a character who everyone else is okay with but the OP wants the world to react authentically to the pc's actions and a) isn't sure what that is or b) isn't sure it won't annoy the player or maybe many players or c) both?
The solution will vary pending the underlying problem.
Follow-up question for the OP: if the pc's had either before or after killed any possible witnesses - notably the tieflings - would you be in this situation? Would that be okay for you or your table? Related nit: the tieflings really should not have stayed out of it - the AP presents them as loyal to Habe and they are primarily there as muscle - preventing troublemakers from messing with Habe is really their #1 job.
Again, I think killing a bound prisoner because you're frustrated with limited results from torturing him is in the Not Good category. However, Habe is not correctly described as "not particularly evil." When the pc's arrive he is deliberately allowing a patient in his care to die from ghoul fever so he and his necromancer tenant can watch him become a ghoul. Further he is knowingly sheltering a man who produces undead for fun and profit. The method is cruel and immoral but the outcome (Habe dies) is justifiable.
Latrecis ... agreed.. Habe is quite evil. He's also experimenting on his patients, so there's that, as well as the otehr things. But all of that is between him and Pharasma now, even if it is some kind of just desserts.
The attitudes of the Players, the Player Characters, and the expectations of the table are what matter now.
I would like to think I am clear on the events, but some appear to have read things a little differently, so confirming them would be good. What would be better is the question Latrecis raised ... what is the underlying problem, specifically?