So we have a player in our group who is a major coward, I mean he is by far the biggest coward we have ever played with. One example of the many many times he has chickened out of is this, we are playing gestalts with max hp every level "just playing this to have fun with the combos/see what shenanigans we get into" we were level 5 characters fighting a clay golem cr 10. Only I and the dm know how powerful this is monster is at this time because two players are not as experienced.
We have a Invulnerable rager/Battle oracle with the lame curse and then a Hunter/Archer "the coward" and myself playing two characters "Dual blooded Undead and Infernal/Word-caster Lore oracle"deaf curse" who has cast charm person on 3 wights who are wearing full plate and grave-walker/malefactor. Now during this battle, our barbarian is eating hits like a champ, he is just going blow for blow with this clay golem but the golem hastes himself which is taking a big chunk out of our barb. I'm mage handing one of the magical items over to ourselves because non of my spells will work on him and if we have to flee we atleast get one item there is a greataxe/full plate/belt all magical from this altar, "which was made after my dwarf fighter, one of my old characters who we all came to love and make jokes about how powerful he was, we now refer to as a god of war. Now as the fight continues our barbarian eventually drops below negative because the clay golem was preventing my healing. My oracle/sorc has taken no damage but my witch has eaten a couple AoO to make sure he could cackle and fortune and misfortune without being bothered. Our archer/hunter has better ac than our raging barbarian and close to as much health and has taken no damage at all. I leave the room with the belt and my other character to heal up so I can then come back and try to heal our dying barbarian with a possible heal check and heal spell. Our hunter runs too whining how hes gonna die even though his ac is like 20-21 and his health is still full. I then charge back in with my sorc first to eat the AoO for my witch so that my witch can have time to heal the barbarian while the hunter then says " i have to go back in!?" The dm forgot to mention that 3 damage on the barbarian wasn't from the clay golem so I could atleast stabilize him while I had my wights trying to aid my ac. I finally convince the archer to come back in and help which he eventually kills this golem.
Now the reason we are fighting this golem is we are on our way to hell to meet a fire giant who has beaten his way out of his jail cell in the depths of the abyss and we are delivering elven maidens to him to sacrifice. There is to be a trial if he accepts this gift and if we pass this trial he will bestow upon us a "magical gift" which the dm kinda dropped the ball and told me and only me that we if succeeded we would get the half-fiend template.
My dm and I are looking for some good challenges to make this cowardly player have his final chance at being brave or lose out on an awesome gift which we hope in turn makes him play more bravely even though our past attempts have failed "we have talked to this player about how his character is a hero and he should play as such." So if you have any good ideas for some challenges we would love to hear them. I have played my character to the best of HIS knowledge so should there be something my character wouldn't do in your suggestion that's how I would play it. As long as your suggestion is good we would love to take it into consideration.
