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Fun story from tonight's Rise of the Runelords session I just had to share. Minor spoilers follow.
We arrive, and not long afterward we see this ugly ass vulture looking thing flying around, and it looks like it's headed for us.
My Barbarian, Crokus, and our Monk, Zix have no idea what it is, but it doesn't seem overtly hostile, even though it's carrying a bow. And to be honest, even in character we're like "Whatever it is, there's only one of them. It will get its s*## wrecked if it starts something". So we're content to see how this plays out.
Our three casters, Jerol (Sage Sorcerer), Savariss (Wizard), and Dove (Dark Tapestry Oracle) all identify it as a Kuthrima, akin to some Lamia things we've fought before.
Jerol and Savariss are like "This thing is not very strong, and it hasn't attacked yet. Probably not a threat." (OOC: It's CR 8. Alone. And we're level 16.).
Dove is like "IT'S F$%&ING EVIL". Shortly followed by "I cast Destruction."
The thing looks might confused, but makes its Fort save and so only takes 10d6 damage (as opposed to the flat 170 it would have taken otherwise). Still takes about a 3rd of the sucker's HP, but he's alive.
We all laugh a little bit and are like "Seriously Dove, what?"
The GM goes "Um. Okay. Let me look up the stats for this thing then..." and we all crack up more.
He lands on the ground, a bit wobbly, and Initiative is rolled. I win Initiative, but both IC and OOC I'm f!*!ing confused as to what's going on, so I just delay.
Dove's up next. Thing goes to open its mouth like it's going to say something.
"I hit it with another Destruction."
It does not get lucky with another 19 on the save, and is utterly destroyed. Overkilled, as you might expect, 170 damage vs its max of 104 HP.
For those of you who don't know, Destruction has a secondary effect: Anybody killed by it is "consumed by holy or unholy fire", and utterly destroyed. No pile of ash, ala Disintegrate. Just GONE. But only the creature, not its equipment.
And we crack up. "Dude, Dove, what? Was it really necessary to go all murder hobo on the little guy?"
In short order, two more show up.
Dove immediately Hides in Plain Sight, and rolls a Stealth check of like 74 or something. On top of Invisibility (Ring of Invis). Long story short: Ain't nobody seeing her.
"Where's Joe?"
Crokus, of course, tries to cover for his buddy.
"Yeah he um, he just kinda landed here, dropped his bow, and took off?". My whopping -3 Bluff fools absolutely nobody.
Zix rolls his eyes and tells the truth. "Our friend just flipped out and killed your friend for no reason."
"What friend?"
"That frie-...oh."
(Dove OOC: "Yeah I see this going well. 'Our invisible madwoman friend totally just killed your buddy and ran off.'")
And sure enough, they're like "Yeaaaaaaah."
At this point, it's obvious they're itching for a fight...but just as obvious they don't want to get into it with us, the guys who just killed their friend and destroyed all trace of him in less than 6 seconds.
We do a little back and forth and remark on how for Kuthrima, they're awfully restrained (they're usually Chaotic Evil, and quite vicious).
They go on to explain that they are f*~&ing CATTLE RANCHERS.
That's right: Dove wigged out and obliterated Farmer Joe the Cattle Ranching Kuthrima outta nowhere.
Cue collective facepalm.
Everybody else in the party is like "S~%@, we've got to fix this. Dove just ganked a peasant. A butt ugly peasant, but still."
Problem being, of course, Destruction is mighty thorough, and really expensive to undo.
So we're like "Wait here a second." and Teleport to Absalom. Thankfully, we've got like 60k gold saved up in the party fund from when we were going to buy a flying robot that shoots laser beams, so we dipped into our robot fund and bought a scroll of True Resurrection, and brought Farmer Joe back into existence.
So of course we're just kinda standing around awkwardly while Dove (who made herself visible) apologizes to the group of (now 6) Kuthrima for obliterating Farmer Joe out of nowhere.
Many laughs were had.
Anyone else there might be spoilers if you plan to play Rise of the Runelords.
What I changed was that they had a little more patience to talk, and less fear of Karzoug, but they were still bad tempered. And due to their dislike of Karzoug they would have been more than willing to give you any information, which they had, since they knew they were not capable of dealing with him. <---That is why I did not have a them prepped to fight. I thought something would really have to go bad for a fight to start.
DM just meta-gamed some precognitive gate guards passive due to your (to them unknown) power level to steal your gold ! jibbed lol
Well, not exactly. As he said above, he just made them more willing to talk. Then we messed that up. =)
PS how is a oracle hiding in plain sight? is it eldritch heritage (shadow)?
Yeah. Just checked her sheet.
Well, we've generally given things the benefit of the doubt. Truth be told we tend to just faceroll every encounter so my Barbarian tends to let people say their piece before murdering their face the first round he gets to act.
We'd already negotiated with a Demon because we didn't feel like fighting it at the time, I dealt non-lethal damage to a Giant who seemed like a pretty cool guy, and so on.
So this wasn't really SOP for us. Generally unless it attacked us, it got to keep its limbs attached.
Funny story, but it honestly makes me wonder, how would you go about having an enemy that is known to be generally hostile and have the PCs even consider giving them the time of day? Shoot first ask questions later seems to be the standard SOP when it comes to such creatures.
Allow a sense motive roll during character's 1st actions to determine hostility? before combat itself if they think to ask can also work.