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It is a really sucky situation to be in
And what then is the point of the encounter? For the DM to illustrate that he can stack the deck against the PCs anytime he likes? And they're somehow lesser if they're not up to it? Really? That's certainly the vibe you're giving off, Finn.
You're assuming that the Devil won't parley in good faith. You're assuming that even if the PCs surrender and the children live, that they'll still be in danger in the future.
That may be true. And Golarion Fall may happen before than too. It doesn't matter. None of what might happen matters at all. What does matter is what the PC's do right now.
If they fight, and children die, then it happened on their watch. You can rationalize it however you like, but they're still responsible. I have a sneaking suspicion that they were running under the assumption that RD was going to make them pay for any mistake they might make. People get tired of that and it shows when they fireball everything in sight.
You can talk about you would do in-game or what you think individual people would do out of game and it is still completely irrelevant. The problem here isn't grey worlds or dead children, rather it's the huge disconnect between RD and his group.
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1) the suggestion that the DM should have 'given notice' that the guy was willing to negotiate is ridiculous. Unless your arguments always go something like this
You: "I believe x is right"
Other: "That's crazy, you are wrong"
You: "Well, I still think I am right, but maaaybe..."You can have a reasonable discussion with someone like that, but usually that sort of discussion doesn't happen when lives are on the line, certainly not right off the bat.
BBEG: "Surrender"
PCs: "Lets talk about this, how about you let them go for some of us"
BBEG: "No negotiation, everyone surrenders or the children die"That third line does not mean the children are going to die, he is still talking, and any good negotiator would tell you the same. The goal would be to keep him talking, and work something out.
Yes, my arguments are not just me and another person going back and forth saying that our point is correct and the other person is wrong. We explain our points and discuss them trying to show why our position is correct. However, an argument is not a negotiation and a negotiation in real life is different than one in the game.
In real life you usually know if you are negotiating even if the other party does not. In real life most of us are not facing life or death in negotiations we are just buying something (like a car). We are also facing the person with whom we are negotiating and need to find our own clues.
In the game we have a DM playing the person for good or ill. The DM wants the game to continue (I hope) so he needs to give his players enough information to continue the game. If negotiation was still an open option the DM needs to give the players a clue that it is still open. They are just playing at being in a life or death situation so the stakes are not high for the players and as much as you might try to up the stakes you can't duplicate the effect of being there in real life. Just ask any army about that. They would love to be able to duplicate the feel of real battle in training. But if you know the enemy really can't kill you then it changes everything.
This is a game and the DM has a responsibility in the game to give the players enough information to play the game. A response of all or nothing makes the players think all or nothing is the only option. You can see the results above. All or nothing....maybe would have had a different result as the players would see a possibility in future negotiation.
I think the ideal solution would be to trade the paladin for the children. Then the paladin can be the great sacrificing hero if he dies and the rest of the group can guarantee the safety of the children and the town.
Just wanted to say that the PCs, at the time, were part of a larger military force (though they were the only ones on scene).
Had they surrendered and died, or fought and died, Paegin wouldn't have been free to bring ill will to others for a long time to come as many of you so believe. The Emperor had made a point of hunting him down. His military was already in the process of dismantling Paegin's forces all over the place.
In a sense, Paegin was like Osama Bin Ladin, a terrorist, with various cells throughout the nation wreaking havoc. When the Emperor had, had enough, he sent out his entire military force to hunt down the bandit cells that were bringing harm to his nation's infrastructure, and set the PCs themselves to hunting down Paegin specifically (since they had experience dealing with him in the past).
Had they all died, someone else would have been sent after him. Whatever actions they took, they were just as aware of this fact as Seal Team Six was aware that if they failed to stop Osama Bin Laden, someone else would have. The President wasn't just about to let him go just because he lost a few heroes.
Honestly though, I'm beginning to think the party panicked. The last time they fought a barbed devil (and summoned companion), the paladin died. Getting him back again was a long and arduous process. The last time they fought Paegin and his elite gnoll bandits, the entire party nearly died, only being saved by the sorcerer and his bag of tricks.
Now they were faced with both Paegin, his elite bandits, AND a barbed devil (and his summoned companion), AND had children caught in the middle of it all. So I think they panicked. One troublemaker simply said "f*ck it" and the others were all too ready to jump on board both because they were tired (it was late at that point) and because they panicked and felt it was a hopeless situation.
In the future, I shall work on my communication skills and try to better show them that though it is most certainly an up-hill challenge, there are plenty of options available.
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And one of those options was the one they took: it just wasn't an option that you expected them to take, RD.
Master Arminas
First thing to note is that we are playing a game, and that making the party "take the consequences" in a way that is not "game fun" but "game punishment", whilst good in theory, it is not going to make a fun session or two. I've done some stupid things before both as GM and player, but as someone who works and has other committments and plays with other people who work hard and have other committments, wrecking everyones precious downtime is never an option.
Take this to heart, folks. peterrco is spot on. RD and his *group have a huge disconnect and they need to all step up and get things back on track.
/ *if one guy can turn the herd, so to speak, I submit that speaks to a problem with the group as a whole.
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No matter how you try and spin it, no matter how philosophical you want to approach it the Fireball should have never been cast at the children, period.
Let's look at it this way. How do you think the parents are going to react when they are told this: "Well we ran in and the caster shot a Fireball into the crowd and killed the children, but hey we got some bad guys as well." or "We charged in and we were able to save all the children except for two, we tried our best to save them all. We killed the one that was responsible so those children that died have been avenged."
Now, the parents are going to be upset but they are going to be a lot more forgiving if you take the second scenario.
What happened was like me rigging a building to blow when terrorists have hostages and setting them off when they start their demands.
I just looked at the list of spells . . . I think they could have handled the situation and overcame the hostage situation within a single round followed by enough chaos that the enemey would have been fighting to survive.
Wall of fire around the children.
Dimension door inside wall to deal with any baddies inside the safety of the ring.
With this a few touches from the others would have at the very least gone along way. Had they done these in a sneaky fasion while the party face engaged the attention of the BBEG they might have even got a surprize round prior to rolling initative.
Wall of fire around the children.
Dimension door inside wall to deal with any baddies inside the safety of the ring.The only one there with Wall of Fire was the BBEG. Besides, Wall of Fire damages all within 20 feet of the spell.
A DDoor rescue would take at least two turns, and it wouldn't take a gnoll or two very long to kill several children.
How many children were there again? And how many guards were in close proximity to the children? As said earlier ITT, a single gnoll with Whirlwind Attack could probably kill every hostage in a single round, or the BBEG, being a spell caster could also kill them all in a round.
Your right I thought he just posted the party not the BBEG. Though wall of fire is one sideded. If the PCs had it you could drop a ring around the children taking out the guards on the edges those on the inside fo the ring would not be harmed. The Dimension door was not to one by one teleport the kids to safety its to get the caster on the bridge in the middle of the bridge inside the ring to deal with any guarding the kids not dealt with by the fire. Depending on how many there are the other casters could summon a few monsters to attack the creatures who might be directly threatening the kids.
This is of course a moot point as the PC's did not have wall of fire, but they definately had options.
Paegin had drunk a see in invis potion before the encounter.
They don't exist. Personal spells do not a potion make!
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Wall of fire around the children.
Dimension door inside wall to deal with any baddies inside the safety of the ring.The only one there with Wall of Fire was the BBEG. Besides, Wall of Fire damages all within 20 feet of the spell.
A DDoor rescue would take at least two turns, and it wouldn't take a gnoll or two very long to kill several children.
How many children were there again? And how many guards were in close proximity to the children? As said earlier ITT, a single gnoll with Whirlwind Attack could probably kill every hostage in a single round, or the BBEG, being a spell caster could also kill them all in a round.
The key part of a Dim door rescue would take 1 turn, you don't need to bring the sorcerer in.
Possible sequence:
Sorcerer Lighting bolt on Paegin. 35/18 hp of damage. The bridge seem to be sturdy enough that 13 hp of damage will not faze it much.
The summoner dim door himself, the paladin and the fighter near Paegin
Paladin: smite evil and attack on Paegin (Paegin hasn't mirror image, blur or invisibility, so there is a small chance to miss him). About 20 hp of damage.
Fighter: great cleave, power attack, furious focus on Paegin, if he hit he get to attack some other nearby baddie. Another 20 hp of damage.
If possible they use a 5' step to flank him. Between 58/75 hp of damage on a 9th level sorcerer. if Paegin is still alive he is hurting badly.
(I am assuming it is a surprise round, so only 1 melee attack if it is treated as a regular combat round there is only need for the paladin and the summoner to coordinate their actions so that the Paladin can take his action after the dimension door and Peegin will be likely toast).
With Paegin dead the first devil (the one bound by a contract) will likely disappear to collect his soul.
The gnoll will have some more pressing matter that killing the children, as they will have 2 murderous machines in their middle.
if their morale keep up they could try to gang upon the heroes. The one in the worst danger would be the summoner as he is a soft target, but he good chances to be capable to dim door away the next turn, possibly together with some of the children, or fly away.
The sorcerer can targets single enemies with scorching rays (4d8 with no save and an almost guaranteed to hit are nothing to sneeze at) or use black tentacles on targets away from the PC and children.
Sure, success isn't guaranteed and probably some child would die, but there are good chances to save most of them.
It will require a bit of coordination so that the group member get to act in a thigh sequence, that is why the party face should have stalled trying to negotiate a better deal while the other guys were spending a couple of rounds coordinating.
RD, the summoner is missing his second 4th level spell (unless he has taken monster summoning V, a spell that he would already get when his eidolon isn't out) and the sorcerer spell are those of a 8th level sorcerer. he is missing his second level 4th spell and his level 5th spell.
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what the hell is wrong with your players? In this thread and in the railroading thread you have described some truly masterful campaign design, which would keep me on the edge of my seat. If I were a player in your campaign, I would have insisted to the other players that the only choice is to surrender and allow the children to escape. How could you be more of a hero than to make a true self-sacrifice for the good of the innocent. It's like being in a great action movie.
It's not a situation from a great action movie; it's a situation from a cheesy TV series, which would have most people roll their eyes, groan, and shout "How stupid do they think we are?".
Villain of the week: "Ha Ha Ha. I have you now, Mr McGuyver. I will tie you up with this stretchy elastic, so you cannot possibly interfere with my plans. You may keep your bag of sugar, and your jerry-can of fertiliser; after all what possible help would they be?"
Surrendering only works in fiction, because it's fiction. The author can insert some deus ex machina, to bring the plot back on track.
Similarly, surrendering only works in games, when the players can rely on the metagame knowledge that the GM go soft on them, and insert some deus ex machina, because, while doing so makes his NPCs a laughing stock, it's preferable to tossing the whole campaign down the crapper.
And then the party gets to be Steve McQueen and engineer "The Great Escape" after they are captured. Come on, what's cooler than a jailbreak?
Just so you know; Steve McQueen's character didn't escape.
In fact, he didn't succeed on any of his many attempts, making him, if anything, the crappiest escapee in the entire film.So you couldn't have picked a worse example, from the entire cast, if you'd tried.
And given that only 3 of the 76 remain at large, by the end of the film, what you're saying, via that example, is that players should castrate themselves, for the hope of a 4% chance to start from scratch, and attempt to overthrow the BBEG without two copper pieces to their name.
Assuming they're not one of the 66% who get gunned down in a field.
Actor Role Fate
Steve McQueen Captain Virgil Hilts USAAF, "The Cooler King" Recaptured
James Garner Flight Lieutenant Bob Hendley DFC RAF, "The Scrounger" Recaptured
Richard Attenborough Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett DFC RAF, "Big X" Recaptured and executed
James Donald Group Captain Ramsey DSO MC RAF, "The SBO [Senior British Officer]" Stayed behind
Charles Bronson Flight Lieutenant Danny Velinski DSC DFC RAF, a "tunnel king" Escapes
Donald Pleasence Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe RAF, "The Forger" Shot
James Coburn Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick RAAF, "The Manufacturer" Escapes
Hannes Messemer Oberst von Luger, "The Kommandant" Relieved of command
David McCallum Lieutenant-Commander Eric Ashley-Pitt DSC RN, "Dispersal" Shot
Gordon Jackson Flight Lieutenant Andy 'Mac' MacDonald RAF, "Intelligence" Recaptured and executed
John Leyton Flight Lieutenant William 'Willie' Dickes RAF, a "tunnel king" Escapes
Angus Lennie Flying Officer Archibald 'Archie' Ives RAF, "The Mole" Shot
Nigel Stock Flight Lieutenant Denis Cavendish RAF, "The Surveyor" Recaptured and executed
Robert Graf Werner, "The Ferret"
Jud Taylor First Lieutenant Goff USAAF Caught before escaping
Hans Reiser Kuhn, Gestapo Killed by Ashley Pitt
Harry Riebauer Hauptfeldwebel Strachwitz, "The Security Sergeant" Holds back the POWs from escaping
William Russell Flight Lieutenant Sorren RAF, "Security" Caught before escaping
Robert Freitag Hauptmann Posen, "The Adjutant" Takes over as Kommandant from Von Luger
Ulrich Beiger Preissen, Gestapo Orders the execution of the recaptured POWs
George Mikell SS-Obersturmführer Dietrich Orders the execution of the recaptured POWs
Lawrence Montaigne Flying Officer Haynes RCAF, "Diversions" Recaptured and executed
Robert Desmond Flying Officer 'Griff' Griffith RAF, "The Tailor" Foils the plan; caught while escaping
Heinz Weiss Kramer, "The Ferret"
Tom Adams Flight Lieutenant 'Dai' Nimmo RAF, "Diversions" Recaptured
Karl-Otto Alberty SS-Obersturmführer Steinach Relieves Colonel Von Luger of his command
Paegin had drunk a see in invis potion before the encounter.
They don't exist. Personal spells do not a potion make!
It was a scroll then.
I just looked at the list of spells . . . I think they could have handled the situation and overcame the hostage situation within a single round followed by enough chaos that the enemey would have been fighting to survive.
Wall of fire around the children.
Dimension door inside wall to deal with any baddies inside the safety of the ring.With this a few touches from the others would have at the very least gone along way. Had they done these in a sneaky fasion while the party face engaged the attention of the BBEG they might have even got a surprize round prior to rolling initative.
You know if wall of fire would stop demons from walking over and tearing off the kids heads and then slapping around the sorcerer who dimension door'd over into their reach like a cheap hooker, and stopped the BBEG who's a spell caster from dumping his own fireball on the kids then that would be a pretty great idea but given that wall of fire does neither of those things I'm pretty sure it would result in a handful of dead kids a badly injured or dead sorcerer and some slightly singed demons.
Really if I wanted to do it it with free access to those spells and making the assumption that the BBEG is sitting there twiddling his thumbs while we're in his vision waving our hands in arcane signs it would be haste -> double dimension door except the second casting would have to be within attack range of several enemies and if he flubbed his concentration check again dead caster.
You are assuming only 1 or 2 of the party are acting because that was only what I suggested. The other casters could be dropping summoned creatures on the potential heavy hitters in the chaos, and so forth.
Still without a complete layout of enemies and so forth I was only making monday morning quarterback suggestions. But you point out part of what I wanted. At the start of the combat there were many gnolls a couple devils, and the BBEG. The wall around the children takes out and limits the enemies that can approach the children. Considering that it has also been revealed that the party had fly on their mobility can get them quite a bit of advantage under the right circumstances.
We can pick apart my suggestions but my point is the party had options it was not a no win situation. Take the real life senario from recent history. The rescue of sailors in the indian ocean a couple years back with the somali pirates. They were faced with no win situation. But they took the shots needed and took down the pirates. This party would have just topedoed the lifeboat.
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This thread really makes me appreciate the group of friends I play PFRPG with. Many both play and GM. Almost every GM has created sinister puzzles of this sort for the players, and every time we have come up with clever and morally consistent solutions to these puzzles. Never once has anyone at the table decided that instead of trying to find a solution they would commit evil acts to spite the GM. We have at least once been captured rather than let innocents suffer, and escaped using our characters' abilities and fought our way out without equipment, until we found our confiscated equipment.
No; you escaped via GM fudging, and a side order of Handwavium.
No; you escaped via GM fudging, and a side order of Handwavium.
Nah it was clearly Greater Handwavium.
@Gnomezrule: I think the point I'm trying to make is that even the good ideas on this thread are not win scenarios. And furthermore they almost invariably require the party to divide and risk being defeated with ease by a superior united enemy force.
And the reason I assumed the others weren't doing anything is because they'd have to be running down the bridge to get into range which would take them at least 1 full round.
The issue here for me isn't that the players had no options whatsoever it's that all of their options were pretty darn terrible and had a decent chance of being losing options if they bothered to try to save the kids.
I have to concede you may be right. Simply because absent the battle mat and the layout of enemies what are we really basing it on. I can tell from the argument we are picturing things differently though it is based on the OP's description.
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Then I submit, again, that RD set his players up to fail. Children were going to die. The party got screwed in the moral dilemma and went nuclear as a result. Joy.
Certainly it seemed to the party that this was the case, yes. I can think of several things they could have at least tried, but they didn't. I do agree that complete, immediate surrender was not an option. I also think that the paladin should not be punished for an action not his.
Did RD set them up? He seems to have had a dramatically brilliant but RP awful scene in mind. What he wanted was for the party to make the heroic sacrifice; what he found was that they were more pragmatic than romantic.
Y'know, devils are getting a lot of bad press, here. Of all the fiends, devils are the most likely to parley, the most likely to bargain, the most likely to keep their word. Because lawfulness is hardwired into 'em.
So is EVIL. Never forget that, no matter how much the devils try and gloss it over. What devils enjoy most is offering you what looks like a good or at least acceptable deal, then twisting it around when you have agreed to it so that it turns out worse than otherwise, then making out that it's all your fault for doing so. The only safe word in dealing with devils is: DON'T.
For example, the party surrenders, the children are released, then are attacked and killed by a pack of wargs on their way back to the village. "You insisted I let the children go in the middle of the forest, you could have arranged an escort for them, it's not MY fault YOU were negligent..."
Think of the most unscrupulous, manipulative, devious and out-to-get-you lawyer you can, and then make them ten times worse, and that's what devils are like.
Given how fiendishly RD set up the scene, I wouldn't have put money on the players coming out on top of the bargain.
Not suggesting that dealing with devils is a Good idea, or even a good one; just pointing out that they're the best sort of fiend to deal with if one must deal with fiends.
It is a really sucky situation to be inAnd what then is the point of the encounter? For the DM to illustrate that he can stack the deck against the PCs anytime he likes? And they're somehow lesser if they're not up to it? Really? That's certainly the vibe you're giving off, Finn.
You're assuming that the Devil won't parley in good faith. You're assuming that even if the PCs surrender and the children live, that they'll still be in danger in the future.
That may be true. And Golarion Fall may happen before than too. It doesn't matter. None of what might happen matters at all. What does matter is what the PC's do right now.
If they fight, and children die, then it happened on their watch. You can rationalize it however you like, but they're still responsible. I have a sneaking suspicion that they were running under the assumption that RD was going to make them pay for any mistake they might make. People get tired of that and it shows when they fireball everything in sight.
You can talk about you would do in-game or what you think individual people would do out of game and it is still completely irrelevant. The problem here isn't grey worlds or dead children, rather it's the huge disconnect between RD and his group.
Wish the wizard had simply said "we don't negotiate with terrorists" and then started the barrage.
what the hell is wrong with your players? In this thread and in the railroading thread you have described some truly masterful campaign design, which would keep me on the edge of my seat. If I were a player in your campaign, I would have insisted to the other players that the only choice is to surrender and allow the children to escape. How could you be more of a hero than to make a true self-sacrifice for the good of the innocent. It's like being in a great action movie.It's not a situation from a great action movie; it's a situation from a cheesy TV series, which would have most people roll their eyes, groan, and shout "How stupid do they think we are?".
Villain of the week: "Ha Ha Ha. I have you now, Mr McGuyver. I will tie you up with this stretchy elastic, so you cannot possibly interfere with my plans. You may keep your bag of sugar, and your jerry-can of fertiliser; after all what possible help would they be?"
Surrendering only works in fiction, because it's fiction. The author can insert some deus ex machina, to bring the plot back on track.
Similarly, surrendering only works in games, when the players can rely on the metagame knowledge that the GM go soft on them, and insert some deus ex machina, because, while doing so makes his NPCs a laughing stock, it's preferable to tossing the whole campaign down the crapper.
And then the party gets to be Steve McQueen and engineer "The Great Escape" after they are captured. Come on, what's cooler than a jailbreak?Just so you know; Steve McQueen's character didn't escape.
In fact, he didn't succeed on any of his many attempts, making him, if anything, the crappiest escapee in the entire film.
So you couldn't have picked a worse example, from the entire cast, if you'd tried.And given that only 3 of the 76 remain at large, by the end of the film, what you're saying, via that example, is that players should castrate themselves, for the...
Exactly. I wouldn't surrender in character to gnolls. Not sure about the rest of you guys. Children be damned.
I also wouldn't have surrendered, but I certainly wouldn't have used spells guaranteed to kill the hostages!! Let the Paladin guarantee our surrender, then the neutral and NG characters break their word in the interest of good.
As I said before too much "No negotiating" talk, modern ideology...
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The player that laid down the black tentacles claims he did it because the gnolls had just pumped him full of arrows and he didn't want to die. The children never entered into it. He was taking out the bad guys before they could take him out.
I don't buy it.
The player has a history of happily killing fellow PCs and innocent NPCs whenever he is afforded the opportunity (such as being charmed).
The player's character was under the effects of the fly spell and could easily have flown behind total cover in a single move action, if not two. He could have protected himself without harming the children.
If he REALLY wanted to take out the bad guys quickly and efficiently in order to prevent them getting off another volley, he wouldn't have chosen a spell that was unlikely to kill the bad guys right away, but was almost guaranteed to kill the kids quickly (he chose 1d6+4 black tentacles over something like a 10d6 fireball against gnolls). He even had a CL 10 wand of fireball with ~30 charges at his disposal, so he wouldn't have been missing much.
No. He was, as another player put it, just "being himself."
Definitely going to have a talk with him. Not that I really expect him to care in the slightest what I have to say.
Isn't that the kind of information that should be up front and centre, in the first opening post?
Isn't this, in fact, the real reason for your frustration?
Not that the players, as a whole, acted in a way that was unexpected, but that one player continued to act in a way that was easily predictable?
As to the other players going along with the overkill, it's difficult to do otherwise, once the player with the itchy trigger finger has made the whole situation a fait accompli.
Maybe they could have stalled for time, maybe they could have sent a message to the rest of the army, maybe they could have had a flash of inspiration how to use their spells to shield or extract the hostages.
But we'll never know, will we? Because before they could do so, someone jumped the gun and set both sides at each others throats.
And maybe the other players didn't shout him down, but that doesn't mean approval. Choosing not to derail the session with an out-of-character debate is actually good table etiquette. I wish more players would get on with declaring their own actions in the here and now, and less micromanaging everybody else's options. It may be that Talking Is A Free Action, but you should still limit yourself to six seconds per round.
For all you know, there could have been a whole party wanting to give the reckless PC an intervention after the fight, but then it turns out the kids were an illusion, and the moment's gone. He's all "Told ya so!", and they're left with less grounds for complaint.
Clearly this is what nonlethal fireballs are meant for I mean come on knock the whole group out cold then grab the kids and play a game of CdG the Gnolls.
Exactly. I wouldn't surrender in character to gnolls. Not sure about the rest of you guys. Children be damned.I never play "Heroic" type characters so I do not get pigeonholed in to situations like this where you are forced to act stupidly.
Ha ha, yeah. I've played low wisdom heroic characters, and even they wouldn't just kill themselves and trust in evil. Hero originally meant someone perishing for a community, in service to it, doing great deeds, but yeah, heroic is a bad idea here. They could have possibly strong-armed the incredibly well armed and tough opponents, leave the kids and we let you escape, but then, a force of evil is being allowed to escape and do more evil in the world. Not good for the paladin, not good overall. How important are these kids really?
Agree Talonhawke, it was a subdual fireball (or sub forceball) situation. K.O all, throw gnolls off the bridge.
The party were somewhat fortunate they were quick damage dealers, because if they were defensive or skirmishers, the gnolls could have killed everyone while they hit and dashed in the opening few rounds (I do love skirmishers with great mobility personally, but not so good for hostage rescue when blades are to throats). Which would have added an even more tragic vein to the whole affair. Adventurer: yeah we tried to save them and drive off the evil, but they just turtled up and slit the throats of the children. A few gnolls even ate a meal while we were held back. Good news is we killed all of them eventually.
Also first poster, shouldn't have changed details on the fly. Go without and run a game without fear or worry, those are the best. If they kill children to kill evil, then that is who they are.
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No; you escaped via GM fudging, and a side order of Handwavium.
Nah it was clearly Greater Handwavium.
@Gnomezrule: I think the point I'm trying to make is that even the good ideas on this thread are not win scenarios. And furthermore they almost invariably require the party to divide and risk being defeated with ease by a superior united enemy force.
And the reason I assumed the others weren't doing anything is because they'd have to be running down the bridge to get into range which would take them at least 1 full round.
The issue here for me isn't that the players had no options whatsoever it's that all of their options were pretty darn terrible and had a decent chance of being losing options if they bothered to try to save the kids.
It seem that your point is: if compete victory isn't guaranteed, any option is a no win solution.
Taking a risk to is anathema (and I don't mean surrendering, but simply putting the character in harm way), so a solution that require the group or some of them to be put in position where they are in danger is unacceptable. It is not guaranteed that you could save all the children so it is useless to try to save even some of them.Very non-heroic.
And maybe the other players didn't shout him down, but that doesn't mean approval. Choosing not to derail the session with an out-of-character debate is actually good table etiquette. I wish more players would get on with declaring their own actions in the here and now, and less micromanaging everybody else's options. It may be that Talking Is A Free Action, but you should still limit yourself to six seconds per round.
For all you know, there could have been a whole party wanting to give the reckless PC an intervention after the fight, but then it turns out the kids were an illusion, and the moment's gone. He's all "Told ya so!", and they're left with less grounds for complaint.
From what RD is saying the whole group of players was favourable to the summoner scorched earth solution.
It can be metagaming, but when a paladin player want a to apply the "kill them all, God will know his own" solution and the character is (figuratively) chanting LALALA and covering his hears not to notice what the summoner was doing, I think that the character has broken his ethos.The gods know what he is thinking and feeling, they don't judge only his actions and in this situation the player words show what the paladin was thinking and feeling.
it is like the situations in which some party members want to torture a prisoner for informations and the character say "we need some wood for the campfire, I will go gather it."
The player and the character know perfectly what is happening, they only want to distance themselves for it to claim "plausible deniability" before the gods.
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It is only not a total failure if you don't include the children in the area of effect with spells that will kill them yourself...<Lots more good stuff, cut for space>
Stubs-- Great post. I agree with you entirely (some of the thoughts you've brought up, I also mentioned in earlier posts)-- especially that the most critical failure on the PCs part was directly targeting the children with a lethal AoE spell. As stated earlier-- whatever else happens, you certainly do NOT kill the children yourself.
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And what then is the point of the encounter? For the DM to illustrate that he can stack the deck against the PCs anytime he likes? And they're somehow lesser if they're not up to it? Really? That's certainly the vibe you're giving off, Finn.
Not sure how I'm giving off that vibe. The GM obviously can stack the deck against the PCs if he/she wants to-- I however, have always been an advocate that it's cooperative storytelling at the heart of the game, not competition. So-- what's the point of a situation like this? It's a tremendous challenge-- and like episodes in history and in many genres of fiction-- there are going to some things about the likely outcome that suck, and the characters will doubtless have some well-earned angst for the ones they couldn't save (unless they're just heartless bastards-- in which case, the nuke 'em all response makes sense-- but so does the thought that they're really evil, not good).
You're assuming that the Devil won't parley in good faith. You're assuming that even if the PCs surrender and the children live, that they'll still be in danger in the future.
Because devils usually don't. Lawful Evil is about the letter of the law, and all about the fine print-- but not about fair play. I'm presuming that if the PCs surrender, they're dead, or might as well be-- because to assume otherwise-- is to take the thoroughly unrealistic, metagamed, cheap fiction view that Paegin and company are total, utter, worthless idiots.... because that's about the only explanation that does not result in the PCs promptly getting their throats slit.
Put it to ya this way as well-- the reason the PCs shouldn't surrender, goes along the same lines as why military and police hostage rescue teams don't surrender to hostage takers either. It doesn't work in reality-- and this is one of the many cases where I also don't think it should work in the game. Yes, with the PCs being the big heroes and Paegin being the terrorist leader-- with the PCs out of the way, who's left to stop Paegin? People who aren't as good as our heroes, who will therefore have much less chance...
Surrender is an option in a situation like this, only for "everything is sunshine and butterflies" style fantasy-- where everything will just coincidentally work out for the best in the end, no matter how unlikely an outcome that is, and the bad guys will just coincidentally make the stupidest decisions at precisely the moment the PCs need them to suddenly screw up.
That may be true. And Golarion Fall may happen before than too. It doesn't matter. None of what might happen matters at all. What does matter is what the PC's do right now.If they fight, and children die, then it happened on their watch. You can rationalize it however you like, but they're still responsible. I have a sneaking suspicion that they were running under the assumption that RD was going to make them pay for any mistake they might make. People get tired of that and it shows when they fireball everything in sight.
And again, NO, they are not responsible for the murders which Paegin and his gnolls choose to commit-- Paegin and his gnolls are responsible for it, if they kill the badguys. Not sure what you don't get about, an individual is responsible for killing someone-- IF AND ONLY IF THAT INDIVIDUAL KILLS HIM, OR GIVES THE ORDER TO KILL HIM. This theory of yours maligns every hostage rescue team-member who has ever failed to save 100% of the hostages when dealing with such a situation. They are responsible if they kill the children themselves-- which they did. They are responsible to some extent, but not as responsible as your statement appears to imply, if they behave with gross negligence and do not make every reasonable effort to save the children (surrender is not an action that can be taken reasonably as it leads to too many other most-likely worse consequences). But if we follow your statement-- the police should always lay down their weapons and let the criminals go (and hope the criminals are true to their word and let the hostages go free), rather than make any rescue attempts-- because people (sometimes hostages) die in those rescue attempts-- if we follow this statement, seems like we should be holding the police responsible for each and every one, not the criminal who actually killed the hostage.
I have no idea what RD's players were assuming about the situation-- looks to me like they just kind'a chucked commonsense and concerns for moral behavior out the window and deliberately crossed the 'moral event horizon'. Why? Could be as you suggest-- they thought RD was out to get them, or really thought they were in a no-win situation, or just panicked.
You can talk about you would do in-game or what you think individual people would do out of game and it is still completely irrelevant. The problem here isn't grey worlds or dead children, rather it's the huge disconnect between RD and his group.
It's not at all irrelevant to the question of whether the PCs are responsible or not for the deaths of the hostages if they didn't immediately surrender. Also not at all irrelevant to the general discussion of what should have been done, or not done, in this situation. Also, since some of the moral theories and principles being discussed have applications and concerns that apply both in andout of game, asking what individual people who might face these situations in real life is not irrelevant-- since presumably, for the fictional characters (in game or in a good book or movie) the consequences are real-- I maintain that perhaps the characters should be behaving more like real people do when faced with those choices, instead of like video-game "no reality, no consequences, nothing really matters" characters. Thus, no, not at all irrelevant to ask what someone might do if really faced with a similar situation-- granted, one should consider this with, IMO, the provision that the characters are experienced at dealing with high-stress, mortal consequences, combat situations, rather than being civilians fresh off the street who have never seen blood before-- the reactions of someone with training and experience when suddenly faced with such circumstances are likely to be different from the reactions of someone who's never been put on the spot with lives on the line before.
However-- the very last point you make-- is one I do agree with. Regarding direct game advice-- there does appear to be a major disconnect between RD and his group-- and between the game the players want to be in, and the game RD wants to run. If [b][i]THAT[b][i] had clearly been the point you were trying to make, instead of how the PCs must surrender or all the deaths of the children are on their heads, yes, most of this discussion would not have been relevant to that.
Paegin was intending to interigate/torture them in hopes of learning military secrets (such as troop movements, strengths/weaknesses, or figuring out how much knowledge the military had about his bandit cells, etc.).
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Paegin was intending to interigate/torture them in hopes of learning military secrets (such as troop movements, strengths/weaknesses, or figuring out how much knowledge the military had about his bandit cells, etc.).
Paegin sounds like he is not too bright. He could just kidnap officers of the empire and interrogate them without going through the whole surrender or the children die routine.
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Clearly this is what nonlethal fireballs are meant for I mean come on knock the whole group out cold then grab the kids and play a game of CdG the Gnolls.
Nonlethal fireballs would kill the children anyway.
If a creature's nonlethal damage is equal to his total maximum hit points (not his current hit points), all further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage. This does not apply to creatures with regeneration. Such creatures simply accrue additional nonlethal damage, increasing the amount of time they remain unconscious.
So a bunch of children? 1st level commoners. 3 HP. Maybe less if they have the young simple template (bringing them to 1 HP). A 5d6 fireball deals an average of 17.5 damage. Even nonlethal, it would have killed all of them.
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Clearly this is what nonlethal fireballs are meant for I mean come on knock the whole group out cold then grab the kids and play a game of CdG the Gnolls.
Nonlethal fireballs would kill the children anyway.
So a bunch of children? 1st level commoners. 3 HP. Maybe less if they have the young simple template (bringing them to 1 HP). A 5d6 fireball deals an average of 17.5 damage. Even nonlethal, it would have killed all of them.
And that's before we get into the point that the Merciful feat and weapon quality are ridiculous gamist concepts, which wussify a game to match a Saturday morning cartoon, so players never have to consider the consequences of their actions.
Like Ninja Turtles, or Wolverine, you can take a character from their original gore-filled source material, and still sell them to 5-year olds, because, "Hey, they still get to flex, and grimace, and be all Raah!, and bad-ass, and still slice up ninjas, with their razor-sharp weaponry, but hey, look, it's all right! No-one's really hurt, because the ninja were all, like, robots? And Stuff? And, like, it's time to go back to the HQ, and eat pizza, and stuff?".
'Merciful' fireball - bleccch. Either it's made of fire, and it's lethal, or it's not, and it's not, and does sweet ****-all.
"Whatchoo gonna doo, lickle baby wizard? Throw some more of yer pritty lickle lights at me? Bwahahaha!"
"Ooh, look, he's gettin mad! He's goin all red! Gonna fill his diaper. That'll show us, huh? Bwahahaha!"
Clearly this is what nonlethal fireballs are meant for I mean come on knock the whole group out cold then grab the kids and play a game of CdG the Gnolls.Nonlethal fireballs would kill the children anyway.
So a bunch of children? 1st level commoners. 3 HP. Maybe less if they have the young simple template (bringing them to 1 HP). A 5d6 fireball deals an average of 17.5 damage. Even nonlethal, it would have killed all of them.
And that's before we get into the point that the Merciful feat and weapon quality are ridiculous gamist concepts, which wussify a game to match a Saturday morning cartoon, so players never have to consider the consequences of their actions.
Like Ninja Turtles, or Wolverine, you can take a character from their original gore-filled source material, and still sell them to 5-year olds, because, "Hey, they still get to flex, and grimace, and be all Raah!, and bad-ass, and still slice up ninjas, with their razor-sharp weaponry, but hey, look, it's all right! No-one's really hurt, because the ninja were all, like, robots? And Stuff? And, like, it's time to go back to the HQ, and eat pizza, and stuff?".
'Merciful' fireball - bleccch. Either it's made of fire, and it's lethal, or it's not, and it's not, and does sweet ****-all.
"Whatchoo gonna doo, lickle baby wizard? Throw some more of yer pritty lickle lights at me? Bwahahaha!"
"Ooh, look, he's gettin mad! He's goin all red! Gonna fill his diaper. That'll show us, huh? Bwahahaha!"
Humorously, this was somewhat addressed in Season 1 of the Ninja Turtles cartoon series which was surprisingly mature when it first aired (an old lady pulls a gun on them at one point). The turtles were fighting defensively and not doing so hot for fear of killing somebody, until one of them struck one of the ninja-robots in a nonlethal way and it made a clanging sound. At which point one of the turtles goes "Clang? Did he say clang??", and they disrobe one of them to determine they're robots. Once that occurs, they go nuts on them and begin slaughtering them without remorse; which included decapitations, dismemberments, etc.
Humorously, this was somewhat addressed in Season 1 of the Ninja Turtles cartoon series which was surprisingly mature when it first aired (an old lady pulls a gun on them at one point). The turtles were fighting defensively and not doing so hot for fear of killing somebody, until one of them struck one of the ninja-robots in a nonlethal way and it made a clanging sound. At which point one of the turtles goes "Clang? Did he say clang??", and they disrobe one of...Clearly this is what nonlethal fireballs are meant for I mean come on knock the whole group out cold then grab the kids and play a game of CdG the Gnolls.Nonlethal fireballs would kill the children anyway.
So a bunch of children? 1st level commoners. 3 HP. Maybe less if they have the young simple template (bringing them to 1 HP). A 5d6 fireball deals an average of 17.5 damage. Even nonlethal, it would have killed all of them.
And that's before we get into the point that the Merciful feat and weapon quality are ridiculous gamist concepts, which wussify a game to match a Saturday morning cartoon, so players never have to consider the consequences of their actions.
Like Ninja Turtles, or Wolverine, you can take a character from their original gore-filled source material, and still sell them to 5-year olds, because, "Hey, they still get to flex, and grimace, and be all Raah!, and bad-ass, and still slice up ninjas, with their razor-sharp weaponry, but hey, look, it's all right! No-one's really hurt, because the ninja were all, like, robots? And Stuff? And, like, it's time to go back to the HQ, and eat pizza, and stuff?".
'Merciful' fireball - bleccch. Either it's made of fire, and it's lethal, or it's not, and it's not, and does sweet ****-all.
"Whatchoo gonna doo, lickle baby wizard? Throw some more of yer pritty lickle lights at me? Bwahahaha!"
"Ooh, look, he's gettin mad! He's goin all red! Gonna fill his diaper. That'll show us, huh? Bwahahaha!"
If there was one thing that Samurai Jack taught me, it's that slaughtering robots is a okay :)