How does RAW factor into this in any way, shape, or form? Except for the battle itself, it's all simply story discussion between the GM and players.
How could you miss this?
Manacles: Manacles can bind a Medium creature. A manacled creature can use the Escape Artist skill to slip free (DC 30, or DC 35 for masterwork manacles). Breaking the manacles requires a Strength check (DC 26, or DC 28 for masterwork manacles). Manacles have hardness 10 and 10 hit points.
However, be wary in the use of manacles as they can cause physcial harm. Once per hour the creature manacled makes a saving throw (Fortitude, DC 13) against the tight nature of the manacles. If he fails, he takes 1 point of bleed damage every hour until a Heal check is performed.
Ravingdork, I am disappointed in you.
Sorry for the confusion, it was a joke.
Most here are pretty knowledgeable on the rules, more so than I am, so I figured everyone would pick up on it.
But thinking more on it, probably should go edit it out or add a disclaimer. It's confusing enough as it is sometimes on our rules discussions.
Well, too late to edit, so this post is my disclaimer then.
I also like the idea that the expert sage was a gnoll. I hope he becomes a recurring character in the game. Every encounter with him becomes a hedge ring of paranoid precautions.... He makes a good foil for the paladin - not because of alignment, but because of a different world view.
He will be a recurring character. If he cannot escape from the PCs themselves, he will most certainly escape from the proper authorities later on.
I intend to create a conundrum when the PCs are later tasked with hunting him down for death shortly after escape. They will either have to kill him and quickly find a way to cure the contract's curse of ages, or they will decide to spare him in which case an NPC (who follwoed the PCs to Paegin) will kill him (putting the PCs loyalty into question and causing them no end of trouble).
If the PCs help Paegin in the end, as he dies he will curse the world and prophesy a great doom. Since the PCs helped him in the end, he "blesses" them by declaring them as the heralds of this coming doom.
If the PCs personally kill him, then Paegin additionally curses them, prophesying them as the bringers of doom for their own beloved world.
This of course, will lead into many more plot/story elements, which you can read about here.
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RavingDork! Thanks for sharing such an awesome experience with us! I love to read a good tale of how a GM and his group of PC's had a blast and walked away from the table with everyone feeling satisfied and like they contributed to an awesome game session. I hope you'll continue to share the campaign with us as it progresses.
Thanks for the kind comments everyone. I will strive to share more with you in the future.
However, the game wasn't perfect. Out of my 3 players, I managed to piss 2 of them off during the game.
The paladin player came down with the devil chills and asked if he could cure it with his disease mercy. I looked up the disease mercy and said that he could try to, but to use his spells' caster level (5) because there wasn't a caster level listed for the supernatural ability. I told him I would ask the forums about it later, but for the time being I had made my ruling. Naturally, he looked up the mercy himself and told me that his caster level was 8, not 5. It seemed I somehow read the entire ability except for the last sentence which said that the caster level of the mercy was equal to his paladin level. It got to the point where he banged his fist on the glass table hard enough that we thought he was going to break it.
Later on, the fighter player was struck by an elite gnoll's large guisarme (the gnoll was under the effects of enlarge person at the time). It rolled a natural 20 (which I announced), failed to confirm the crit (which I also announced) and then I rolled crit damage for a total of 42 (knocking the fighter out). The player went momentarily ballistic, screaming about my being out to get him with unbalanced encounters.
I apologized to the first, truthfully citing that I had misread the rule. I apologized to the second as well, explaining that I had rolled crit damage when I should have rolled normal due to a brain fart.
My only explanation is that it was three in the morning and my brain was messing with me. Despite those minor fiascos, they had a good time and (to my knowledge) think of it as a great game.
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Thanks for the kind comments everyone. I will strive to share more with you in the future.
However, the game wasn't perfect. Out of my 3 players, I managed to piss 2 of them off during the game.
The paladin player came down with the devil chills and asked if he could cure it with his disease mercy. I looked up the disease mercy and said that he could try to, but to use his spells' caster level (5) because there wasn't a caster level listed for the supernatural ability. I told him I would ask the forums about it later, but for the time being I had made my ruling. Naturally, he looked up the mercy himself and told me that his caster level was 8, not 5. It seemed I somehow read the entire ability except for the last sentence which said that the caster level of the mercy was equal to his paladin level. It got to the point where he banged his fist on the glass table hard enough that we thought he was going to break it.
Later on, the fighter player was struck by an elite gnoll's large guisarme (the gnoll was under the effects of enlarge person at the time). It rolled a natural 20 (which I announced), failed to confirm the crit (which I also announced) and then I rolled crit damage for a total of 42 (knocking the fighter out). The player went momentarily ballistic, screaming about my being out to get him with unbalanced encounters.
I apologized to the first, truthfully citing that I had misread the rule. I apologized to the second as well, explaining that I had rolled crit damage when I should have rolled normal due to a brain fart.
My only explanation is that it was three in the morning and my brain was messing with me. Despite those minor fiascos, they had a good time and (to my knowledge) think of it as a great game.
Um. Wow. It looks like the "Fun Pendulum" is swinging wildly in this campaign. Anyway, good luck! I hope you're able to keep it going.
Handcuffs would be an annoyance at best unless they're actually slicing up his wrists.Which shackles did in the middle ages. Enough so that they caused necrosis from festering wounds.
Fine... I'm not going to bother re-reading the OP to see if he used shackles or not. So if you rule that manacles cause "harm," there are still a number of other ways to restrain the bad guy and cart him away to see justice is done:
--the aforementioned tanglefoot bags--Web spell
--Hold Person/Monster
--Telekinesis
--Animate Rope spell
--a couple of the "Bigby's" Hand spells
--summon large cuddly monster with insane Grapple skill; i.e. Plush Golem, giant Care Bear, low-fat non-acidic Gelatinous Cube, umm... okay, I can't think of one right now.
--Paralysis
--Net or Whip (I think gnoll's +1 natural armor would negate dmg from whip)
--soft rope
--felt-lined manacles
--frozen in carbonite!
You get the point... you may be assuming here, and if not, there's still other ways the players could have "got their man". The point is they showed restraint when they didn't have to, thought outside the box, and did what pally's are supposed to do... Defeat Evil!
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Handcuffs would be an annoyance at best unless they're actually slicing up his wrists.Which shackles did in the middle ages. Enough so that they caused necrosis from festering wounds.Fine... I'm not going to bother re-reading the OP to see if he used shackles or not. So if you rule that manacles cause "harm," there are still a number of other ways to restrain the bad guy and cart him away to see justice is done:
--the aforementioned tanglefoot bags
--Web spell
--Hold Person/Monster
--Telekinesis
--Animate Rope spell
--a couple of the "Bigby's" Hand spells
--summon large cuddly monster with insane Grapple skill; i.e. Plush Golem, giant Care Bear, low-fat non-acidic Gelatinous Cube, umm... okay, I can't think of one right now.
--Paralysis
--Net or Whip (I think gnoll's +1 natural armor would negate dmg from whip)
--soft rope
--felt-lined manacles
--frozen in carbonite!You get the point... you may be assuming here, and if not, there's still other ways the players could have "got their man". The point is they showed restraint when they didn't have to, thought outside the box, and did what pally's are supposed to do... Defeat Evil!
Spells don't last long enough. Neither does the tanglefoot bag. Paralysis via what? Net or whip could work until you havd to move him. Then your in a grapple situation and that is pretty hard to argue that it isn't harm. Soft rope or felt line manacles are nice for BDSM play, but they make lousy actual restraints. Very easy to get out of those. Frozen in carbonite = FROZEN...honestly gonna say that isn't harm?!? Just look at Han's face when it happens to him.
And finally I think RD made an AWESOME call. I don't care what the little details are, he made a call that increased the fun of his group. That makes it the right call period. My little nit picking is for details really...although my infernal contracts tend to be much more lawyery and evil :P .