And holy crap did my Pc's get powerful quickly. I started them on 6th, and asked them to be evil. That was mistake number one, but i'm dealing with it, and even giving out hero points for truly evil acts. So they cut the antagonists throat in his sleep before he even got to fight them. So their solution to the dissidents is to burn the town to the ground and salt the earth. So i had to go to extraordinary measures to prevent them from killing their superiors outright. It's all good fun.
Anyway, now that i'm starting to get really annoyed, i want to send them to hell. Not literally, but a botched demon summoning is going to bring hell to them, with all the trimmings. The river will turn to blood, darkness over the land, moon as of blood, ect... what spell rules should i use for the mist that spreads over the town? Fog cloud seems too limiting. Should i just make an effect up, one that maybe allows them to see ten feet instead of five, or one that allow the ones with darkvision to see, but sucked all the light out. The Shadow Demons they will be fighting already have something like that-DEEPER DARKNESS. But that limits darkvision, and i don't understand how that wouldn't affect the demons themselves. Any help would be hot.
oh wait..i get it..Deeper darkness only makes already dark areas supernaturally dark, which then affects darkvision. So the area around the torch would still be dark, but those with darkvision could see normally(for them) Ok. it pays to read it through thrice.
Sounds like a fun and interesting campaign. If you're worried about them turning on their leader then you might want to make the consequences so dire that they don't even think about it.
Ex: An arch-mage who is holding back an arch-demon whose only desire is to flay the skin from the players skin might make them think twice before they do anything stupid.
As for the "bring hell to them" you might want to look at some of the older Ravenloft campaigns that are out there. Not sure if you've played them but I loved the idea of a realm of individuals so cursed, corrupted and evil that the gods just banished them rather than deal with them. Those old campaigns might give you some ideas.
This is a truly awesome concept, and I want to stress something now before you get too far into your game: don't let the rules limit your imagination.
There are plenty-a-DM on these boards who balk at the idea of doing something that the PCs wouldn't be able to. They might say that they don't wan to use "made-up" spells, or have NPCs with too many or too few feats/skills. I personally feel this approach hinders what could be great storytelling and adventure.
So you want to bring hell to your adventurers? Do it! Have darkness blanket the town, pouring from the light fixtures like thick smoke. Brimstone and sulfur hang heavy in the air, clinging to clothes and hair and nauseating your adventuring party for a few rounds before they adjust to it. Allow your characters to attempt to produce light, only to find that it sheds illumination no farther than 10 feet. Your characters with darkvision can see up to 15 feet away, but only in indistinct shapes beyond that. Sparks of light and curls of flame seem to dance off in the distance, popping in and disappearing as quickly as they arrived.
You could have so much fun with this. Just decide what you think your personal hell would be like and hand it over to the PCs. Go hog wild!
The owl above me got it right. If you want fog to roll through town, just do that. There doesn't need to be a spell. The key to good GMing, believe me, has absolutely nothing to do with the rules. It has everything to do with the players having a good time, no matter what that means.
Look, the rules *are* important. Anyone who tells you differently is silly. But the rules are like lines painted on the floor, not concrete walls and iron bars. They should give you ideas, and they should give you guidance on how to handle things mechanically, but the bottom line is your player-characters don't have to know how the fog works in terms of dice, duration, and spell level. Neither do you.
The rules matter most, I have found, when they interact closely with the players, particularly in terms of damage or disability. You should have a good idea of how their opponent managed to mind-control them and what rolls or counterspells will let them escape. Of course the opponent doesn't say "And now I shall mind control your fighter with Edwards Greater Mind-Melter, a fourth level spell which counts as a mind-affecting enchantment and can be dispelled by the Heal spell, among others!" But when the cleric makes a great spellcraft roll, you should probably have *something* to tell him.
But more than anything, don't let yourself feel helpless. No matter how powerful your players get, no matter how world-shattering their abilities become, remember this, and please, PLEASE take it to heart:
You wear the magical, invisible GM hat. There is nothing, ever, that they can build that you cannot knock down. If you tire of their antics, the planet they are on could experience a sudden, global gravitational inversion, and they all die instantly as they hit hard vacuum.
If your players are pissing you off, you need to take a step back and relax. Communicate. You gave them mandate to be evil and at a high enough level to do some real damage, and the fact is that most players mistake 'evil' and 'a~++$!&'. Give them a break, but better yet, give them direction. Don't let them get you angry because, seriously, they can't 'beat' you, and you shouldn't be trying to beat them.
Make sure you're having fun, too, which is sometimes a challenge when you're running a game.
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To add to this, go with the fog/dark and further make it temporarily inescapable. Simply cause them to get lost when they leave town only to wind up wandering back into it. Ravenloft used this mechanic in great ways, and it really ramps up the whole 'I guess I have to deal with the mess I am in' angle. Which you're likely going to need, using evil characters.
As another tidbit, start planning those bad things that will happen when they off their superiors, and then start subtly encouraging them to do it. Loads of fun ahead of that one.
Sounds like a cool scenario!
I’d use the fog rules, but make the fog ‘patchy’. That way you can apply the fog effects where you’d like but can say the party is in a ‘clear’ area (can see further than 5ft within the area, but vision stops at the edge of the ‘clear patch’) if the fog’s effects get too cumbersome. I’d also include area’s within the fog that have more powerful effects along the lines of the Solid Fog, Mind Fog and Acid Fog spells. These effects can be used as kind of a ‘fence’ if the PCs need a little extra incentive to resolve the encounter, not just hightail it out of there. I’d give the shadow demons lifesense or scent so they can stalk the PCs through the fog and ambush them when they are weakened or distracted. I’d also add some incorporeal creatures roaming around in the fog as well (just because I like the creepy visual of ghosts manifesting from the fog).
Also, don't be afraid to flavor the self-interest of the evil party with more spite and wrath from their superiors. They threatened their plot bringer? Cool. He's a 15th level mystic theurge who opens combat with quickened truestrike + disintegrate. While flying above them. After he fixes the deadified party member he orders the party to complete their next mission without using some key items/abilities. Because he can. And he's evil.
Oh, and now they're indebted to him for 30,000gp. resurrection cost + upstart know-it-all tax
Oh, god, I love it. Delicious.
that is awesome advice, and i wish i had gotten it last week.
Session five is tomorrow (Wednesday) and as they didn't finish the Hell town quest yet, i will be using some of that. My PCs were so annoyed to be fighting demons. "We're Eeeevil, Th demons should be heeeeellllping us!". It was such delicious revenge. I've been setting it up to allow them to control the demons, if they figure out where the final key to the tower room with the codex in it is. This was to be session five, but it's looking like i may have to extend the story an extra session to accommodate it.
There is one problem i'm having with one of the players, an 8th lvl witch. It's a feat called "Dazzling display" and it's ability to shake even a high lvl demon. Gods, this thing is broken. No save, just a lvl check against an intimidate score of, like, 35. And he whines if he can't use it. I'm all for letting the players use their Chars to their full potential, but this means that i have to figure every encounter to a -2 to everything, meaning that they either own on anything i throw at them, or are fighting things well beyond their APL, giving them more Xp then i planned on advancing them so soon. Any advice on mitigating this before they end up 3 lvls ahead of where i wanted them to be at the climax of this story? Or should i just keep adjusting my encounters and roll with it? The angels were going to get wind of their activities for the finale, but if this continues i'm gonna have to send the Gods themselves...
There is one problem i'm having with one of the players, an 8th lvl witch. It's a feat called "Dazzling display" and it's ability to shake even a high lvl demon. Gods, this thing is broken. No save, just a lvl check against an intimidate score of, like, 35. And he whines if he can't use it. I'm all for letting the players use their Chars to their full potential, but this means that i have to figure every encounter to a -2 to everything, meaning that they either own on anything i throw at them, or are fighting things well beyond their APL, giving them more Xp then i planned on advancing them so soon. Any advice on mitigating this before they end up 3 lvls ahead of where i wanted them to be at the climax of this story? Or should i just keep adjusting my encounters and roll with it? The angels were going to get wind of their activities for the finale, but if this continues i'm gonna have to send the Gods themselves...
So you've got a player who has spent two feats (one of which is useless) to apply a -2 to most of the important rolls the enemy can make. And you're worried about this? If I were one of your players and discovered that you were actively thwarting me I'd be pissed enough to leave, personally. Why not let him roll with it? It's a full round action, and I can think of better things for a full caster to do.
Also, you should maybe look into the rules of Intimidate, bud. A +35 is just absurd for 8th level. Assuming a charisma of 16 (which is a generous assumption) you're looking at a max of:
8 ranks, +3 class skill, +1 trait, +3 charisma, +3 feat, +2 racial, +5 item, for a total of +25.
And that's if they picked the right race, grabbed a circled of persuasion, grabbed skill focus (intimidate), invested in charisma, and snagged a trait for the bonus. All to penalize her enemies with a -2.
So, covering the rules of Intimidate, it goes like this: As a full round action make an intimidate check against every enemy within 30 feet using Dazzling Display. The DC is equal to 10 + the enemy's hit dice + their wisdom modifier. If successful, the enemy is shaken for 1 round, plus 1 additional round for every 5 the check exceeds the DC. Larger creatures increase the DC by 4, and failed attempts increase the DC by 5. Shaken is a fear effect, which many creatures are immune to.
It's seriously not as bad as you're making it out to be.
Echoing Sean here: If Dazzling Display is wreaking your game, it’s most likely do to y’all misunderstanding or just not knowing the RAW for it.
I also see a couple of other potential issues here. One of which Sean also touched on – you seem to have established an adversarial relationship with your players to the point of taking it personally when they win and vice versa. Friendly competition is fine, but when it comes to the point where you are arbitrarily disallowing players’ abilities (“He whines if he can't use it.” – I’m assuming he can’t use it by GM ruling, not RAW. If he is whining about the RAW, well… he knew what he was getting and should stop acting like it’s your fault.) and/or building all encounters around negating them (“I have to figure every encounter to a -2 to everything.”) then it is crossing the line.
The second issue is the players’ understanding of the game setting and the nature of evil. I’m not really sure what’s going on here… I just find it very hard to believe they really think every intelligent evil creature will want to help them because, “We’re evil too!” There has to be more to the story. Are the party’s goals and/or past actions such that it really doesn’t make sense for some random demons to want to kill them? Are they just complaining about such things because they correctly suspect you tailored everything about the encounter toward the sole purpose of pissing them off (and not in the good, love-to-hate sense) and neutering their cool abilities and they resent you for it?
"We're Eeeevil, Th demons should be heeeeellllping us!"
They really don't get the nature of Eeevil, it seems to me. It's not like there's Side A and Side B, and each side has team cohesion. (Lawful Evil can kinda sorta fake team cohesion if it must, but it sees "rules" more as "a way to backstab suckers" than "a way to make us ALL better").
And demons -- ha! They really really do their own thing (in fact they're pretty much defined by it.)
That said, I'd agree with the suggestion to watch out about getting too antagonistic. It's not your job to beat the players. It's the NPC's job to beat the players; your job is to make sure that everyone has fun.
oh wait..i get it..Deeper darkness only makes already dark areas supernaturally dark, which then affects darkvision. So the area around the torch would still be dark, but those with darkvision could see normally(for them) Ok. it pays to read it through thrice.
A torch doesn't shed light in an area of deeper darkness (just like darkness). So if you're in a normally dark room that is completely in the effect of a darkness spell, lighting a torch means the room is still in darkness. A daylight spell's effect would brighten the room completely suppressing the darkness effect in the daylight effect's area.
A torch lit *outside* the darkness effect would radiate light into the darkness effect. *That* light would be lowered by one step. But if the torch goes into the darkness area, it ceases to radiate light. . . even though it is still lit.
Nonmagical sources of light, such as torches and lanterns, do not increase the light level in an area of darkness. Magical light sources only increase the light level in an area if they are of a higher spell level than darkness.
If a creature with darkvision casts deeper darkness in a normally dark room, he can't see. If he lights a torch, he still can't see (normal light sources fail to increase the light level if they're in the darkness area). If he casts a daylight spell, the two spells cancel each other if they're in the same area. The creature with darkvision can see normally in the room, but it's a normally dark room still. If he lights a torch in both a daylight and deeper darkness effect, it works as per normal.