My players have been having a great time and the AP has been flowing quite well until yesterday...
Characters are
Player 1: LG Cleric of Sarenrae
Player 2: N Wizard
Player 3: CG Ranger/Rogue
Player 4: N Fighter
So, here's the situation
After the dinner party, Rayhan is kidnapped and they find the note. Player 1 is a smart and very experienced D&D player, also he's the husband of player 1, father of player 3, and long time DM of both players 2 and 4. (: So, he sort of leads the group but he doesn't try to dominate the game or anything, but the rest of the group relies on him and doesn't really come up with any other plans than his, which I think caused a problem this time.
So, first the group gathers some information. The Wizard grew up in Katapesh and has lots of ranks in K(local) and easily found out everything about both Father Jackal and the OneSource Merchant's guild. The Fighter had befriended an NPC in the city and so went to him and also got information including exactly where the warehouse was.
Player one then came up with a plan (which I thought was pretty cool). They'd make a decoy box, they were going to place then 2 glyphs of warding on the box, one with dispel magic and one with hold person. The player was assuming (correctly as it turns out) that someone might cast water breathing on themselves, collect the box, and then walk along the bottom of the sea to their hide out. Dispel magic to get rid of the water breathing and then hold person to make them drown.
Now, while that happened they had trouble coming up with a plan on what else to do, the one they eventually settled on was to pay someone to toss the box in the water and while at least one bad guy was retrieving it, they'd raid the warehouse, figuring that the enemy was split least by one member. I was getting ready for this, thinking it sounded great. However, player 1 made a lot of comments implying that the group didn't know where the OneSource Merchant's guild was, so I made it clear they did know where it was. But he continued to doubt his own plan for some reason, possible he was thinking that Rayhan was not going to be at this warehouse and instead at some other location, I'm not really sure, but he scrapped the entire plan.
Instead, he writes a "You messed with the wrong people" note, places that in the box and sends it off. His new plan is to have the wizard cast fly on him and then follow the box with locate object. And apparently has no intention of meeting Father Jackal's deadline.
Now, he realizes that he also has the deadline of the Pactmaster's to deal with. So, very publicly, the group essentially sells the Scroll to Marzuk, with the condition that they of course finish their research to make sure that the scroll is the real thing and that they give them a few weeks to explore the realm of Kakishon. Since the adventure states that Marzuk's family wants the item for the prestige of it, it sounded like a reasonable deal. I had him accept that offer which really negated the Pactmaster's complaints. (As an aside, that's the one part of the adventure that I didn't like, the dinner party and the Pactmaster's attitude really only makes sense if the party had thoughts of actually selling the Scroll...which would of course prematurely end the AP, my group never intended to sell it and I had to fudge a lot of stuff, and even then they all thought it was odd that everyone was walking around assuming they were going to sell it.)
So, anyway, now they didn't need to worry about the Pactmaster's 1 day deadline on top of Father Jackal's deadline. And...what about Rayhan...well, that's where the problem arose. Player one, playing again the LG Cleric of Sarenrae says "No problem, we'll just raise him from the dead when they kill him."
I've been lucky in my groups and never had to deal with any sort of alignment issues in the past so I'm a little unsure on what to do here.
Plot development-wise, I figure, the note gets delivered and Father Jackal would be fairly upset about it, realize his plan didn't work and just immediately kill Rayhan. In the case that Father Jackal had actually gotten a hold of the scroll (instead of Rayhan) it states that he doesn't turn it over to the Captain immediately, but 3 days later he does and the Captain departs. So, I figured I'd use that 3 days as the grace period before the Captain decides that he's done waiting for the Scroll and just takes the Rough Seed and Father Jackal. The party has let almost 2 days go by at this point. They do now know where the OneSource Merchant's guild warehouse is for sure, plus the secret water entrance.
So, that's what is going to be going on with the bad guys, but what do I do about the cleric and his dispassionate decision to deliberately let someone die? Am I justified to take away his spell casting abilities until he seeks and atonement? Up until now he's roleplayed his character very well. When the found a large cache of poison and drugs, he immediately talked the group into destroying it instead of selling it. He didn't want another player purchasing poison. And he talked another player out of killing a slaver that they rescued and instead receiving slaves from him so that they could purchase their freedom and set them up with new lives in Kelmerane.
Listening to the player talk, I know that the he slipped into metagame thinking and I know that's why he went with the raise dead option but to me it just seemed way too out of character for a LG Cleric of Sarenrae to not enforce some sort of in game punishment for that decision. Any advice or thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks. (and sorry for the long post, concise is not in my vocabulary)
And follow up question. How mean should I be about Rayhan? I definitely feel Father Jackal would kill him. But, would he just slit his throat or would he toss him to the Rough Seed creature to eat. If the later, then Raise Dead won't work, and maybe not even Resurrection, forcing the party to hire a different expert to open the scroll, one who will charge them for the work this time. Or is that going to far? Story-wise, it makes sense to me that he'd throw Rayhan into the creature to be devoured. DM looking to make sure that the game remains fun, I'm not so sure.
I agree that Father Jackal would destroy the body precisely BECAUSE of the existence of Raise Dead.
Also, a dream visitation of Sarenrae or of her messenger to warn the cleric that she would be mightily displeased with the cleric should they allow Rayhan to die might be appropriate in this case. Unless of course they have a phylactery of faithfulness on them in which case it would be screaming at them.
Jackal wants the scroll. I don't see how killing Rayhan gets him the scroll so I don't see why J would kill him.
Does J have a second kidnap victim? He might kill this second person, let the party find the headless body as warning a warning, and then repeat the deadline for Rayhan.
Or, you can kill Rayhan. Marzuk insists on seeing the scroll, messes with it, and activates it himself somehow. (Pulling Marzuk into Kakishon with the party, giving them an annoying NPC to keep alive).
As the punishes the cleric's alignment - if it would be fun for the players, then do it.
Also, a dream visitation of Sarenrae or of her messenger to warn the cleric that she would be mightily displeased with the cleric should they allow Rayhan to die might be appropriate in this case. Unless of course they have a phylactery of faithfulness on them in which case it would be screaming at them.
Hmmm, I really like the dream idea. Since this is the first time something like this happened I didn't want to lay down a big in game punishment. The only problem now is that I may have to rewind the campaign a bit. He made the decision to let Rayhan die fairly quickly, so I could have said that happened on the first day and gave him the dream before FJ's deadline. But they didn't show me the note and tell me the entire plan (so I wasn't sure if they were going to try to go after him or let him die) until the deadline was up. So, where we stopped is, after the deadline is up and the box with the "Screw you" note has been delivered. I generally don't like rewinding, specially since they kept the contents of the note and the final plan from me, but that may be the best option.
That player did have the phylactery but sold it in order to wear the headband of wisdom.
Jackal wants the scroll. I don't see how killing Rayhan gets him the scroll so I don't see why J would kill him.
Does J have a second kidnap victim? He might kill this second person, let the party find the headless body as warning a warning, and then repeat the deadline for Rayhan.
The reason why I think he'd kill Rayhan is because his plan to kidnap him in exchange for the scroll didn't work at all. The party's note said that they were not going to give up the scroll for Rayhan, so keeping Father Jackal doesn't need Rayhan in any way now. He doesn't need him to do anything with the scroll since FJ is just handing the scroll over to the Captain. From my take on the adventure as well, FJ is feeling pretty nervous about the Captain and not having the scroll. Feeling pressured, frustrated, maybe even afraid, and getting a note that essentially says "Screw you, we're stronger than you are" AND no longer having any need for Rayhan, well, I see no reason he'd keep him alive. (:
I may have him go after Garavel (the party does like him) and use him but since the first kidnap for exchange plan didn't work, I think the most likely thing that FJ would do at this point is an all out assault on the PCs (who've also stated in the note that they will continue to stay at the villa).
So, either I go back and give them a dream warning, which I do think they deserve, or if we go from where we left off, I think a large assault is going to happen, but in that case I'm still not sure what sort of consequences there will be for the cleric.
Hmm, Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions so far!
Hmmm, yes, I sort of forgot about that. If the Captain reaches his deadline and doesn't have the scroll, he'll take Father Jackal and the Rough Seed, but if he knows that the scroll is also in the city, why not get all three. Ha, I think I have a bit of writing to do to get all of things going off at once to work.
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I totally agree it is time to take the Captian to the Party. Also, does someone in the Party still acting as the moldspeaker? (Our moldspeaker perished on Kardswann's Axe...) Vardishal would recognize that if Rayhan gave up his knowledge to the wrong folks, it could be just as bad as giving up the scroll. I also think Vardishal would not let the scroll be sold to Marzuk...
Yeah, one of the other players is the moldspeaker. He didn't mind the plan for the scroll because he doesn't really plan on really letting it go. But I didn't think about using Vardishal's voice to hint to him not to let Rayhan die, but then again, the cleric said to him very confidently that they'd just raise him from the dead. Maybe going back the day before and dropping some more hints would be the best course of action.
Maybe Father Jackal uses the PCs note against them. Maybe he shows it to Rayhan, convincing the old diviner that his "friends" had forsaken him and gotten rich selling the Scroll to Marzuk. Maybe Father Jackal, Tamir, Maysam Fajr, Khair-al-Din, or the Sunset Captain could use some mind-affecting magic to help convince Rayhan to betray his betrayers.
After that they just have to stage Rayhan's "escape." Then Rayhan goes back home and helps the One Source Merchant's Guild steal the Scroll and murder the PCs.
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Maybe Father Jackal uses the PCs note against them. Maybe he shows it to Rayhan, convincing the old diviner that his "friends" had forsaken him and gotten rich selling the Scroll to Marzuk. Maybe Father Jackal, Tamir, Maysam Fajr, Khair-al-Din, or the Sunset Captain could use some mind-affecting magic to help convince Rayhan to betray his betrayers.
After that they just have to stage Rayhan's "escape." Then Rayhan goes back home and helps the One Source Merchant's Guild steal the Scroll and murder the PCs.
Ooh, I think that is an interesting idea.
Maybe Father Jackal uses the PCs note against them. Maybe he shows it to Rayhan, convincing the old diviner that his "friends" had forsaken him and gotten rich selling the Scroll to Marzuk. Maybe Father Jackal, Tamir, Maysam Fajr, Khair-al-Din, or the Sunset Captain could use some mind-affecting magic to help convince Rayhan to betray his betrayers.
After that they just have to stage Rayhan's "escape." Then Rayhan goes back home and helps the One Source Merchant's Guild steal the Scroll and murder the PCs.
It's a good idea, but I don't see the Captain of the Sunset Ship behaving that way. He's an immortal being as far as I can tell, with an immortal being's patience. If the PCs don't rescue Rayhan and the Captain's deadline is up for Father Jackal, then I see the Captain forcefully taking the Rough Seed and Father Jackal, then going to the PCs and offering them some outrageous price for the Scroll (all in rubies of course). If they refuse, well, they've already proven to be a little reckless, I think he'll shrug it off (he's already gotten the 2 things he really came for) and figure he'll get it when he returns in 7 years. Other than offering people money to do his work for him, he's not the direct involvement type of guy.
He doesn't seem to either be able to or want to directly feed the Rough Seed the vial of dreams. So, I could see him using Rayhan for that. "Rescue" him. Give him the vial to feed to the Rough Seed. Ooops, the Rough Seed eats him (and the vial) then goes after Father Jackal. Once over the Captain collects his prizes.
OK, I now know how I am going to run this, we'll see next weekend how it turns out...I feel I may be posting in the Obits thread soon!
The last session ended with the cleric flying with locate object and discovered the secret underwater entrance.
Since they didn't commit to their plan until they actually put it forth, there was no chance for me to give them a warning on their actions, and I don't want to rewind for it, since it's all sort of hazy anyway.
As the cleric travels back to the villa somehow (fly spell ended), FJ gets their taunting note. I reread their note and now I realize they made a huge assumption, they believe that FJ needs Rayhan alive to have him open the scroll for him, of course he doesn't. The note also clearly states that they (and the scroll) will be at the villa until FJ wants to try again.
Since FJ doesn't need Rayhan at all and the party isn't trading the scroll for him, he beheads Rayhan. Writes on the back of their note "You Assume Too Much" and stuffs it in his mouth. He also sends people out and kidnaps Garavel, forcefully removes his pactmaster's favor from his face and puts that and Rayhan's head in a box and has the box delivered to the villa at noon the next day.
In the meantime, the cleric will learn either as soon as he tries to cast a new spell or at dawn when he's suppose to get new spells that Sarenrae is displeased. He'll have to seek an Atonement to get his spellcasting back.
So, the day he goes to get atonement, the box from FJ arrives. The party will realize that he now has Garavel and perhaps they will plan to rescue him. However, FJ is no longer interested in a trade since he knows where the scroll is and he goes with an all out assault on the villa when the sun goes down (so less people notice and for the sahuagin's light weakness).
The party is likely to wait until the next day because the cleric will be down spells until the following day. If they decide to actually go rescue Garavel right away, they will get a chance to attack the OneSource Merchant's before they completely group together, if not...the assault force will be: 5 Sauhagin plus their leader climbing the cliff from the sea, Maysam, Khair, Tamir and 8 Thugs, and Father Jackal.
Hopefully the party will realize that their original tactic of 'not doing anything and taunting the bad guys' isn't going to work and they either a) go after the warehouse immediately, or b) at least suspect an attack and prepare for it. We'll see how it turns out!
It's a good idea, but I don't see the Captain of the Sunset Ship behaving that way.
It doesn't have to be the Captain; I just wanted to point out that Father Jackal has several people around him with access to mind-affecting magic that could help convince Rayhan to turn on the PCs. I thought you were looking for a way to resolve the situation without killing Rayhan.
Also, I'm curious. Did you talk to the cleric's player OOC about his plan? Did you point out that they will need Rayhan's whole body in order for raise dead to work? Did you further point out that Father Jackal is a successful crime lord and therefore he probably has ways of disposing of bodies such that they are never found? Did you point out that "we'll just raise him from the dead after they kill him" is not a sentiment you expected to hear from a Lawful Good character?
Also, is your player's cleric already capable of casting 5th level spells? My party didn't reach 9th level until they were well inside Father Jackal's lair.
It's a good idea, but I don't see the Captain of the Sunset Ship behaving that way.It doesn't have to be the Captain; I just wanted to point out that Father Jackal has several people around him with access to mind-affecting magic that could help convince Rayhan to turn on the PCs. I thought you were looking for a way to resolve the situation without killing Rayhan.
Also, I'm curious. Did you talk to the cleric's player OOC about his plan? Did you point out that they will need Rayhan's whole body in order for raise dead to work? Did you further point out that Father Jackal is a successful crime lord and therefore he probably has ways of disposing of bodies such that they are never found? Did you point out that "we'll just raise him from the dead after they kill him" is not a sentiment you expected to hear from a Lawful Good character?
Also, is your player's cleric already capable of casting 5th level spells? My party didn't reach 9th level until they were well inside Father Jackal's lair.
Well, mostly I was just trying to figure out what the NPC's would do and how much leeway as a DM I should give the PCs. With the clock running down from the Captain I felt it fit the scenario better to just have FJ attack them directly, specially after the taunting letter which also tells FJ that the PCs (and the scroll) are going to continue to stay at the villa.
The player knows very well the limitations of Raise Dead, he's been DMing once a week for something like 18 years. The problem is that the players are assuming that FJ needs Rayhan to open the scroll for him and so they think that FJ won't really kill him. Well that's what happens when you assume. (:
But no, I didn't "correct" the player when he mentioned the whole "I'll just raise him from the dead later" and that's why I was unsure at first about being too harsh on them (thinking that I didn't do my job as a DM to give them fair warning). But I thought about it a lot and really, there wasn't much I could do. The comments were OOC, and hypothetical at the time (before they committed to any real plan). Then they didn't give me any warning either (they wrote the note in secret, then told me ok this is what we're doing right at sunset of that next day and handed me this note that they wrote).
And no, they're not 9th level yet, that's part of the problem, the cleric's player is meta gaming, he knows that I've been leveling them up at the end of the adventure, so he's thinking, even if Rayhan is killed (because he believes that he won't be) that they'll get to the end of the adventure and level up and then raise dead.
With the player's (all but one) being SO experienced I thought it fair to let the scenario play out the way I have above. They still have a couple of opportunities to not just let the whole army of bad guys attack, we'll see if their hubris wears off before that happens. (:
Well, mostly I was just trying to figure out what the NPC's would do and how much leeway as a DM I should give the PCs. With the clock running down from the Captain I felt it fit the scenario better to just have FJ attack them directly, specially after the taunting letter which also tells FJ that the PCs (and the scroll) are going to continue to stay at the villa.The player knows very well the limitations of Raise Dead, he's been DMing once a week for something like 18 years. The problem is that the players are assuming that FJ needs Rayhan to open the scroll for him and so they think that FJ won't really kill him. Well that's what happens when you assume. (:
But no, I didn't "correct" the player when he mentioned the whole "I'll just raise him from the dead later" and that's why I was unsure at first about being too harsh on them (thinking that I didn't do my job as a DM to give them fair warning). But I thought about it a lot...
Yeah, that's some pretty extensive metagame-thinking there, coupled with some bad assumptions. Good luck. I think your players deserve what they get.
Ha, I talked a bit with one of the other players (not the cleric) and from the conversation I'm fairly certain that he at least knew completely well that they were heading down a slippery slope but he's playing his character as extremely naive and so went along with it. Now I'm def not feeling bad about my decisions and can't wait 'til next weekend.
OK, finally got to our game yesterday!
When we left off, the players talk made me believe that they were not going immediately after Rayhan and instead were going to bunker down at the villa and wait for Father Jackal to come to them. Which is what I planned for, so of course they did something different. haha (:
So, the cleric had just used fly and locate object to track the box and their note and found the underwater entrance. Since the players decided to go right after Rayhan and seemed to be more concerned with his safety than that last time they played I decided not too be too cruel to them. ha So, I told the player that while his character was flying over the city he got a bad sunburn on the back of his neck. And then later on when he started casting spells I made him make concentration checks (15 + spell level).
After following the note with a flying castle using locate object the cleric used the silver raven that they got off of Radi to tell the rest of the party to come to him. They arrive sometime after and the cleric uses a scroll of water breathing that he had just purchased the day before to enter the secret underwater tunnel.
They did a pretty good job, killed two Sahuagin very quickly and so they surrendered, told them about the eye of the deep and then the group went around and attacked him. After that they found that Rayhan was killed, and found his head in a box (FJ was going to send it to them the next morning) with a their note in his mouth with "You Assume Too Much" written on the back (which I also poured red food coloring all over it as blood). When they found Rayhan dead that's when the cleric starting putting it together and realized that the sunburn was Sarenrae's displeasure. He took it well, the other players found it very enjoyable since he's a very hard DM for them haha. After they finished the adventure, I had the sunburn fade on it's own but the player still bought the focus for atonement and prayed for Sarenrae's favor.
They used the Captain's 10K to get Rayhan resurrected, then I had him figure out how to open the scroll (and since I didn't want to keep track of an npc with them) I had the opening of the scroll shatter Rayhan as it pulled them into Kakishon. It set a good "oh crap" tone. haha