Grimmy |
The whole thing seems thematically appropriate. I am not 100% on board with the greater dispel auto-fail ruling, but I'm probably 95% OK with it, since imho, the GM could easily have had the explosive runes be specially researched versions of the spell the caster can detonate on command if he wanted to.
So the only question to me is "how did the players react?"
I too suspect strongly that RD was the GM in question.
Shhhh
Fergie |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm going to call BS.
That Explosive Runes is permanent, with no material cost, or other limits, and nothing explicit against stacking, is a very obvious oversight in the design of the spell. Do you think the designers intended it to be able to do 12d6 or 60d6 or 600d6? Of course not! At the very least, the first blast would destroy the object, making the other castings non existent.
Also, in the spell it says "Another creature can remove them with a successful dispel magic or erase spell, but attempting to dispel or erase the explosive runes and failing to do so triggers the explosion." Dispel magic automatically succeeds against your own spells, while the greater version gives you the option. Deliberately failing is NOT in the rules, and seems counter to the intention of the rules.
With that said, confronting the wizard (presumably in his lair) is probably going to get you killed anyway, but at least you should have a chance. Rocks fall, everyone dies is lame.
I haven't seen Departed, but just because they did it in a movie doesn't mean it is good in pencil and paper. Ending a campaign, even a short one, with the parties instant and utterly pointless death would not be a fun experience in my opinion. Then again, everyone plays a different game, and if this works for your group, have fun.
Ascalaphus |
I'm going to call BS.
That Explosive Runes is permanent, with no material cost, or other limits, and nothing explicit against stacking, is a very obvious oversight in the design of the spell. Do you think the designers intended it to be able to do 12d6 or 60d6 or 600d6? Of course not! At the very least, the first blast would destroy the object, making the other castings non existent.
Also, in the spell it says "Another creature can remove them with a successful dispel magic or erase spell, but attempting to dispel or erase the explosive runes and failing to do so triggers the explosion." Dispel magic automatically succeeds against your own spells, while the greater version gives you the option. Deliberately failing is NOT in the rules, and seems counter to the intention of the rules.
I'll agree that the dispel trick for unlimited ER is broken. You could have your apprentice cast those ER so that you can dispel them. If we rely on such small details to keep the game sane, a clever villain will find a way around.
Harrison |
TPK is bad enough, but TPK through debateable rules loophole is something else entirely.
Agreed.
I'd be really ticked off if all the group's hard work in the campaign ended in 2 seconds because the GM thought b+$!$!*!ting some rules to instantly and without fail kill everyone would be funny.
Personally, I just hope that the GM of a former campaign I was in doesn't find and read this thread, because he'd totally the kind of person who would murder the whole party for kicks in dickish ways (we sometimes call him Gygax 2.0 because of his GM practices).
ciretose |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
ciretose wrote:Cheesesteaks are terrible, so I can only assume you are saying TPKs are delicious.TriOmegaZero wrote:Only one is delicious, but both could cause heartburn...DrDeth wrote:Super cheesy.So is a Philly cheesesteak.
Blasphemy sir...you may have been wronged by a bad cheesesteak somewhere along the line, but I assure you their are other cheesesteaks in the sea.
Try and love again.
Stubs McKenzie |
I am still at a loss as to why the party didn't suspect the one thing they were to deliver to the king, given in multiples, was the thing that was meant to harm said king if they thought the wizard was up to no good. Could be an explosive rune, could be a powerful suggestion spell meant to control the king, could have summoned devils and demons when read, or could have been a note that read:
Dear King,
Piss off!
Sincerely,
The Adventurers who boffed your wife last night.
...
One way or another, once I doubt the credibility of the oh so powerful wizard, I worry about anything he might have handed to me. I wouldn't have gone back to the wizard with notes in hand unless I checked over the notes thoroughly, and I wouldn't have checked the notes thoroughly until I had sent an important missive to the king in question regarding a possible betrayal by said wizard. "If this note reaches you, we are dead... know that Oh So Important And Powerful Wizard C tried to coerce us into delivering deadly letters to your door. We are, at this very moment, looking into just how the letters were meant to harm you, so the stable boy may have more information. AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH."
Or something equally as silly as that.
What prompted them to return to a powerful wizards home without protection or a backup plan in the first place?
Adamantine Dragon |
Even my lawful good characters would be suspicious of documents handed out like this. My neutral or other alignment characters would certainly have checked the documents out.
In a recent campaign our group was asked to deliver some "diplomatic papers" to different groups. My witch decided to check into them and discovered they included an offer to the recipients to kill the party if they wanted to. So he forged new copies of them. And he has some plans for the guy who sent us out to deliver them. But there was never much chance that those papers were going to get delivered without him knowing what was in them.
In this case, having been given them by a wizard, most of my characters would have more or less automatically assumed they had a very high chance of being explosive runes. In fact, many of my characters would have been plotting how to get them back to the wizard so THEY could use "dispel magic" themselves. With so many copies of the documents just about any character of mine would have dispelled one copy just to see what would happen.
Mojorat |
i think the whole scenario really has two issues.
One can a DM deliberately whipe out a party as a story Element. Provided it leads to more rp based on an ongoing story (new pcs to avenge the fallen heros, leads tot he death of the king and the new Pcs are peasants who start a resistance vs the rising tyrany or whatever) If its just You guys all Die game over new campaign with no connection then...
However i think the /method' of how this is done matters. There seem to be a long of questionable or at least debatable rules used to justify how the method.
Really i think the end result of all this is the next generation of PC's sticking giant paper rolls on a rolling cart which is then flung into the enemy and a PC then dispelling them for mass repeatable fireballs. at hire levels enchant the cart to move on its own and be immune to fire with fresh rolls of paper appearing every morning for Pcs to write on it.
Essentially the method used is in my view lame and its bad when DM's game the system (its bad when players do it too but thats a seperate issue) I really dont think you can volontarily fail to dispell at all.
Steelfiredragon |
hmmm interesting.
I hate it, a designed tpk....
your gm had a kobyashi maru moment, the no win situation.
I like kirk hate those, there should always be a way to win it.
that however is not his fauglt for the players keeping one of the documents and useing debatable rules... but then it was his spell that was used and a spell trigger is a spell trigger and if you wish to interrupt your own spell casting to fail it and detonate it well...
Melissa Litwin |
At the very least, my parties would:
1) Cast detect magic on the papers/scrolls. If it pinged as anything but abjuration, something fishy is going on.
2) Keep the papers in extradimensional space. Portable hole, bag of holding, handy haversack- something! Otherwise enemies could just sleight of hand the papers away, which would be bad if they were legitimately important.
3) Argue vociferously that there were a ton of Reflex saves involved. We'd probably accept that you can choose to fail a dispel check, as that makes sense. But everyone would get lots of saves, and we'd force a GM to sit through each and every one of them, especially in a deus ex machina situation like this one.
4) Once we realized the wizard was a Bad Person, we'd open the letters. At least one of them. We would do so at a distance of at least 30 feet with a mage hand and some readied actions just in case something was summoned. We'd also cast at least a few divination spells about it; at the level the PCs were at, they could easily cast some pretty powerful spells. If the letters were truly important documents, we'd beg for forgiveness from the King.
5) I don't know how long this campaign was or what level it started at. If we got the letters at 9th level or higher, and trusted them, we could have spent a scry spell + teleport spell to deliver them quickly. We probably would trust them, depending on party makeup. At that point, all the buildup about the wizard being a Bad Person would be wasted.
Selgard |
i think the whole scenario really has two issues.
One can a DM deliberately whipe out a party as a story Element. Provided it leads to more rp based on an ongoing story (new pcs to avenge the fallen heros, leads tot he death of the king and the new Pcs are peasants who start a resistance vs the rising tyrany or whatever) If its just You guys all Die game over new campaign with no connection then...
However i think the /method' of how this is done matters. There seem to be a long of questionable or at least debatable rules used to justify how the method.
Really i think the end result of all this is the next generation of PC's sticking giant paper rolls on a rolling cart which is then flung into the enemy and a PC then dispelling them for mass repeatable fireballs. at hire levels enchant the cart to move on its own and be immune to fire with fresh rolls of paper appearing every morning for Pcs to write on it.
Essentially the method used is in my view lame and its bad when DM's game the system (its bad when players do it too but thats a seperate issue) I really dont think you can volontarily fail to dispell at all.
I'd be extremely leery of a DM who thought that murdering the whole group was a proper method to get his campaign idea off the ground.
"Oh but now you get to be the commoners who over throw the government! ".. yeah.. well, then that should be the campaign idea. not "rocks fall you die, time to redo the campaign in this other neat direction that i thought of"Maybe I'm in the minority here- I dunno. but I usually take a few days to make a character, mull over the details, ponder his history and backstory and all that. Having a DM just decide to waste all my effort because he thought instant death was just the plot device he needed to further the campaign would not be something I appreciate.
I'm not against dying, or even a TPK. But that should never be the *design* of the DM. the DM's job is to create challenge and garner interest. Not murder my PC's with challenges I can't over come because he got bored with creating campaign ideas.
-S
Dosgamer |
I think I would be suspicious the minute a powerful wizard hands us all a bunch of letters and says "Deliver these to the king, please!" Isn't that what magic is for?
I wouldn't give a fig as a player what rules the DM used to TPK the party. Rules legal or not the fact of the matter is the DM killed off all of our characters without giving us much of a chance in the moment. I wouldn't be happy.
Animation |
I would say its a jerk move. I don't play games to satisfy someone's artistic ego. Maybe I need something else out of the game? I would consider my time completely wasted in such a situation. If the GM wants to have a game like that, then he at least needs to give the players some indication that they shouldn't get attached to their characters, or that some aspect of the campaign may be a total set-up or screw job, or something. That way, people who aren't interested in that can bow out without the "plot" being outright spoiled.
The same goes double for lame crap where the GM and a player conspire in advance for that player to become the villain or kill all the other players. If you think that's cool, great, but I would rather get my time back or sit that campaign out. It would be a total waste of my personal time.
But some people simply shouldn't play together. If that GM's friends all think its cool, down to the last player, then fine, but I think that it breaks the social contract. I would lose all trust in the GM (as a GM, not as a person).
Mike J |
As a player, I'd be pretty unhappy with the outcome unless I knew it was going to be "that" kind of game. Really, there is not much opportunity for the players to be heroic, at least knowingly. I'd feel more like a bystander than a main character.
What if the players had missed the clues about the wizard? The game would be: you get hired for a job, talk to some people, yada, yada, you and the king get blown to bits.
Personally, I don't like the kind of game this story creates. I think it encourages PCs vs. GM. The PCs have to assume everything is opposite and be completely paranoid. Which is fine if you like that sort of thing. I don't, unless I know that's the deal up front.
Deadmanwalking |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Okay, wait a minute here, dubious rules uses aside*, what was the wizard's plan here? I mean, as was established earlier in the thread, reading the message would only trigger a single Explosive Runes. That's 6d6 (maybe more like 9d6 with Empower, possibly 36 +3d6 with Empower and Maximize) so that's a max of what, 36-54 damage with decent odds of taking only half that? That's...a really inefficient and chancy assassination tool vs. any mid-level character (and if he's low level there are vastly easier ways to kill him). And the message is from the Wizard officially, and he's presumably been seen with the PCs (or at least is known to employ them), so the king will know who just sent him an exploding postcard. Making him angry at the Wizard. An extremely counterproductive thing to do.
So, why is the Wizard doing this again? The only actual reason for more than one Explosive Runes per missive is to do precisely what it's used for here and kill the party...but if that was his goal, why not do it as soon as he gave them the missives? I mean, them getting delivered is actually bad for him...so why would he let there be a chance of that happening? Even if he's not known as it's source, it'll likely only annoy the king (54 damage is nowhere near enough to prevent Raise Dead), so what's the point of investing all these resources into it?
The Wizard's plot makes no sense IC, making this a purely metagamed "I want this to be a TPK" GM trick, and I would thus be very upset with it.
I'm actually reminded of the time when five NPCs, each individually significantly more powerful than my PC showed up with the express purpose of killing my character (which was highly implausible...he was badass and hadn't pissed anyone new off recently...we're talking the equivalent of five 15th level CE Fighters being sent after a single 12th level Paladin here) in a LARP I played in once. It was clearly not for any actual IC reason, and had no real justification, and is the only time I've ever walked out of a game. Now that was motivated by petty interpersonal s$*@ (I suspect), while this seems more story guided/railroady, but the principle is still the same.
NPCs trying to kill you in logical ways, even if those ways are cruel and clever? Absoutely fine. The GM trying to kill you, even if that violates all logic? Not fine at all.
Now, if there were an actual, rules-legal, magical trap on each letter only activated by command word (or when read) that could actually kill the king...there might actually be a plot here that made sense (and the TPK would be the PCs own fault for not checking the damn letters, an admittedly crucial error on their part)...but the actual scenario presented, the spells don't actually work right for that to make any logical sense, so it's just the GM (not the Wizard) wanting to kill the players.
.
.
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*For the record, I, too, am calling b#$&*! on this methodology in and of itself. Two entirely different reasons have been presented why this doesn't work mechanically (Line of Effect and Auto-Dispelling your own stuff) and either on it's own is a perfectly valid objection. Doing this is like having a Fighter with the Vital strike chain who does 8d6 base damage per attack on every attack of a full attack action, it's not rules legal or appropriate, and players have every right to be upset about it if the GM's cheating or incompetence causes a TPK. Especially if that's what he was trying for. It's a somewhat easier mistake to make, granted, but it's the GM's responsibility to either House Rule stuff, publically and officially, or know the existing rules well enough to not make this kind of error on such a crucial thing (and anything that inflicts a TPK is crucial).
EntrerisShadow |
I think it would make a lot more sense of the plot were to deliver the letters to a king and several other high end NPCs. (The high priest of a church, the king's general, so on and so forth.) Even better if the Wizard does so with the express knowledge that these runes won't kill anybody and is instead using them to begin a brutal civil war. And if the PCs are tried and executed as traitors, all the better for him.
Grey Lensman |
Hmm, I've never had an "authentic" one, either, as I've never been to philly. I just like to give credit where it's due for concept. Less greasy and with more various kinds of vegetables is definitely better, tast and health wise.
Real cheese beats Cheeze Whiz any day of the week. But you're right, it was an incredible idea.
The equalizer |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Perhaps the DM's intention is to end the campaign on a high note and not to screw over the players. However, the wizard was clearly lying about the letters so did the players get a reactive bluff vs sense motive check? I'm assuming the wizard didn't speed explain the situation and teleported away immediately after that. If the party had the chance to make their sense motive checks, its highly unlikely everyone failed it. Wizards don't get bluff as a class skill and even if they did, has this wizard beefed his charisma, maxed out the ranks and taken skill focus bluff? When the wizard started casting, did he do so without saying aything or deceive them into thinking he was casting another spell? If he did a sucessful bluff then he would pull it off against the unsuspecting party. If he didn't, the DM should ask the players if there is anything their characters want to do before he completes the spell. As previously posted, if the party willingly sacrificed themselves for the greater good/evil and all that, it would be cool. I am not against PC death. I'm just really against the DM setting up a situation and conveniently bending/breaking certain rules where if the party fails an important check, its the end of the line for the entire party.
DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Say that, during an interesting and thought-provoking political mystery, your GM had a highly intelligent wizard send you and your fellow PCs on an important quest to deliver some missives to the King. These messages were SO important, a matter of national security in fact, that the PCs were given multiple copies spread out amongst the party (should someone fall) and then expressly forbade from reading them themselves (as they were meant for the king's eyes only).
Along the way, you meet some NPCs, some friendly, others not. You go through several encounters and a few semi-related mini-adventures--some of which involve people, for and against the king, trying to stop you for various reasons. Through interacting with them, you slowly begin to suspect that your employer is a really bad guy. Eventually, you realize the truth of his past history. Rather than continue the quest and be a pawn in whatever evil scheme the wizard has going, you return to your would-be benefactor and demand an explanation of his past crimes that have so recently come to light.
In response, he asks you one question: Do you still possess the King's letters? Yes? Good.
*greater dispel magic*
The GM TPKs the entire party in one go via the dozens of explosive runes letters we had been carrying all along--those that were meant for the king.
Your GM ends the (brief) campaign and congratulates you all on completing a rather "interesting" story. He compares it to the movie, THE DEPARTED, which was apparently his inspiration.
How would you feel after that? Was it a good game with a great and interesting story? Or were you totally cheated?
As regards orchestrated TPKs in general -- it depends a LOT on the nature of the campaign and the expectations of the players.
I recall a friend of mine recounting a one shot adventure she'd played through: "And then our heads exploded and the game ended! It was AWESOME!"
But the game she was describing an old World of Darkness one-shot where people played employees of Pentex, the fiendishly corrupted world devouring corporation in the setting. They didn't expect their heads to explode at the end, but they knew they were going to play a dark horror game as pawns of corruption and were willing to go into this and expect bizarre, creepy, and horrible but surprising plot twists. I also gather that the head explosion brought a sense of closure of sorts--it was the end of the story.
If those players had been playing what had been presented as a fun sword and sorcery campaign and then was suddenly told seemingly halfway through the story that their heads exploded and the story was over, sorry, no save, no nothing, then they probably would have been angry. Not just because the GM might be enjoying a power trip, but because they were probably enjoying the story and felt no sense of closure or accomplishment, which is generally what we expect out of a typical fantasy adventure.
So a lot of it is about both expectations of the players and about the intentions of the GM as well. In my personal opinion, it is the GM's responsibility to ensure that everyone has fun. This includes the GM him or herself, of course (if the GM's not having fun, no one likely is or will in the long run). If what happens results in fun, then it works. If it doesn't, it's not. If the GM is out to "tell a great story" but at the expense of the player's fun, then in my opinion, they are in fact doing it wrong. So it's important to make sure everyone's on the same page as to what kind of game you're playing and that the players are willing to go along with happens.
As to the specific scenario presented, based on the information provided, I find there are a lot of loopholes that would make me royally pissed at the GM if he tried to pull it off, not because it results in TPK per se, but how it's gone about. Some (but likely not all) issues:
- The PCs suspect the wizard of wrongdoing, and thus are likely to be on their guard when talking to him. They are close enough to him to have a conversation. Therefore, if he begins to cast a spell, especially one with both verbal and somatic components, the PCs should easily notice and should have an opportunity to make an AOO or cast a counterspell. Also, since they are suspicious and trying to get him to own up, there should be Sense Motive checks going to raise their guard before he even starts casting.
- The PCs again, suspect the wizard of wrongdoing, and thus may suspect something is up with the notes. Would they really keep the notes with them? Heck, as a rule, most of my fellow players in my games tend to carry important items in handy haversacks, so there is no way a dispel magic could affect them, since they are in in an extradimensional space. The wizard could try to negate the magic of the haversacks, but then that would give the PCs a chance to react.
- Why assume the PCs would encounter the wizard as a group? If they suspect him, I can also see my players specifically splitting the party to have the social characters deal with the confrontation, with the others waiting elsewhere to find what happens, and/or go in later if they don't return.
- Not to mention, if they suspect the wizard, they could simply examine the notes with detect magic before they confront him and discover the strong evocation magic present.
- If the PCs are confronting the wizard and were close enough to be within conversation distance, the wizard would subject himself to the range of the explosive runes, and it sounds like there are enough spells that even spell protections like spell immunity or spell resistance would ultimately fail versus at least some of the explosions, so it would be ridiculously foolish for him to try that. Now, if he heard that the PCs suspected him and he snuck up on them and tried to trigger the letters, that would be different, but that is not the scenario presented.
The shame is, I like the idea of an enemy presenting a message to the PCs to deliver, to set them up for a fall. But for me, the good story would be letting the PCs live with their mistake and clean up the mess, not try to suddenly kill them halfway through. The OP claims it's a good story, but it certainly doesn't sound like one--it sounds ill thought out and makes a lot of assumptions about PC actions that may not ever actually happen. And even if the situation did play out as described, the PCs still should have been allowed to react as the wizard cast the spell as noted above.
So the specific scenario smacks of a non creative GM going on a power trip and trying to manipulate rules to do so. If such a situation tried to unfold in a group I was playing in, I'd definitely leave the group and find another GM (which where I am, is a very easy thing to do).
Mathmuse |
ok RD, give us the details.
is this a theory craft or did it happen
if it was real how did the party react? the dm?
I'm 95% certain it is theory craft. The wizard's purpose is ill thought out--as Deadmanwalking explains above, as a plot to assassinate the king it is not worth the effort--and the party skipped several obvious safety measures, such as Detect Magic. And consider the background. To cast Greater Dispel Magic, the wizard has to be at least 11th level. If he was meant as a level-appropriate challenge to the party, the party would be at least 8th level. Who asks a party of 8th-level adventurers to serve as nothing more than couriers? Definitely not a wizard who should know Sending or Teleport.
Furthermore, returning to start to ask the wizard for further details undoes all the work the party accomplished in traveling toward the king. They spend a few days heading out, a few days heading back, and the wizard, if he is innocent, will complain, "Hey, I know you had your suspicions, but the king needed the information in the message by yesterday. Good thing I also sent another one via a a peasant riding a plowhorse. He succeeded, you failed."
As for whether a GM should put this theory into practice, no, definitely not.
Consider the metagame. As a GM I have used some modules with lame plot hooks. When I write my own plot hooks, sometimes they don't work either, though I have more opportunity to improvise a new one. But even with a stupid plot hook, the players are usually willing to play their characters stupid for a little while and bite on the hook just to keep the game moving.
"Mr. Wizard, let me get this straight. You wants us, the saviors of Seaside City and the slayers of the Great Ogre, to do nothing more than deliver these messages to the king. You are so worried that the message will be destroyed that you want each one of us to carry two copies? And you say that you don't know of any danger we would face or who would want to stop us? And we cannot read the messages or have any clue what they are about? Sure, we'll do it."
It would be that "Let's be stupid just so that the GM does not have to rewrite his adventure" attitude that leads to the party's death. The players would trust that the lame setup was part of an honest adventure. To lead them by the nose to failure would betray that trust.
Selgard |
It would be that "Let's be stupid just so that the GM does not have to rewrite his adventure" attitude that leads to the party's death. The players would trust that the lame setup was part of an honest adventure. To lead them by the nose to failure would betray that trust.
^^ this, so much this.
-S
P.H. Dungeon |
It sounds like it was the players' own fault to some extent. They should have done a more investigation of the scrolls once they realized that their employer was not playing them straight. If they had done that they could easily have avoided the TPK. The explosive runes thing might be a little on the cheese side on the dm's part, but it looks like the evil wizard just took advantage of an opportunity. He probably would have been hacked apart otherwise. It's a bit unfortunate, but I think the players should have been more careful and really have themselves to blame for that one.
If I were a player it wouldn't bother me all that much (I'd blame myself, especially if I was playing a supposably bright character), assuming I felt the dm had been running a fair and fun game up until that point.
ciretose |
ciretose wrote:
Blasphemy sir...you may have been wronged by a bad cheesesteak somewhere along the line, but I assure you their are other cheesesteaks in the sea.Try and love again.
Bad cheesesteak is a redundant phrase.
(And TPKs are delicious...)
.
A cheesesteak combines steak (awesome) with (cheese) awesome.
I am lactose intolerant and still I understand that when you put awesome with awesome, everyone wins.
Unless a cheese steak killed your father, I can see no reason you could feel this way...and even then through your sadness a part of you would understand the death came from a place of deliciousness...
Not liking cheese steaks...inconceivable...
phantom1592 |
The creation of cheesesteaks contribute to the ongoing bovine genocide. Also, they look gross.
After traveling through Texas, and seeing herds upon herds of cows doing nothing but standing, sleeping, and eating... without ever seeing one WALKING...
I've come to the conclusion that they are happier as food. and belts... and shoes.. and coats...
REALLY the perfect animal ^_^
Irontruth |