After lots of dungeon crawling, battling one room after another (sometimes two when they merge) in a grueling gauntlet, I decided to try something different.
My champion/sorcerer just gained his first 3rd-level spell. I opted to pick up illusory disguise. Now, instead of kicking in doors and being totally at the mercy of whatever is on the other side, I am now the enemy captain, walking through that door wielding the deceased captain's distinctive weapons and acting like I own the place. I pick random enemy minion A and B from the hoarde and send them into the death trap my buddies have set up a few rooms away.
Now we're picking apart massive dungeons with ease.
Divide and conquering really works. Who knew? XD
Just wait until there is a distinctive salute or handshake you're expected to make but know nothing of and then get stabbed in the back (four rooms away from the rest of your party) the moment you try to move past a group of goons + the mini-boss.
So you're saying the enemies have read the Evil Overlord list?
Google if needed, it's essential for genre-trope mastery. :-)
After lots of dungeon crawling, battling one room after another (sometimes two when they merge) in a grueling gauntlet, I decided to try something different.
My champion/sorcerer just gained his first 3rd-level spell. I opted to pick up illusory disguise. Now, instead of kicking in doors and being totally at the mercy of whatever is on the other side, I am now the enemy captain, walking through that door wielding the deceased captain's distinctive weapons and acting like I own the place. I pick random enemy minion A and B from the hoarde and send them into the death trap my buddies have set up a few rooms away.
Now we're picking apart massive dungeons with ease.
Divide and conquering really works. Who knew? XD
Such tricks are especially fun when the champion's deity has the Trickery domain. As with the following story.
The party had defeated the (goblinoid) Ironfang garrison in the conquered village Ecru and freed some slaves. Then the party moved on to an adjacent Ironfang camp on anther mission; however, Tikti (tailed goblin detective-background liberator-cause champion of Grandmother Spider) and an elf ranger needed to sit out that second mission because their players were not available that session. We declared that Tikti and the elf were guarding the slaves rescued in Ecru, waiting for a boat that the party had called for via a Sending spell, and hauling the munitions stored in Ecru down to the docks.
Next game session I had a hobgoblin patrol return to Ecru along the river. The elf spotted them first and hid, but Tikti said that she did not need to hide. She was trained in Deception. She is a goblin and pretended to be a workboss ordering the slaves around as they carried barrels of explosives. She bantered with the hobgoblin patrol as they passed. The hobgoblins had some racial prejudice against goblins but were not going to bother a lesser member of the Ironfang Legion. The patrol moved on and soon realized the garrison was missing, but the other five members of the party returned at that moment. The patrol was caught between the two parts of the party and quickly defeated without risk to the rescued slaves.
Trickery is one of Grandmother Spider's domains.
So you're saying the enemies have read the Evil Overlord list?
Google if needed, it's essential for genre-trope mastery. :-)
Peter Anspach, one of the two people who independently invented the Evil Overlord list, used to be my boss. He was no longer actively maintaining the list, but he was interested whenever I spotted someone referencing the list.
Peter Anspach, one of the two people who independently invented the Evil Overlord list, used to be my boss. He was no longer actively maintaining the list, but he was interested whenever I spotted someone referencing the list.So you're saying the enemies have read the Evil Overlord list?
Google if needed, it's essential for genre-trope mastery. :-)
Wait! You had THE Evil Overlord as your boss?!
That's either incredible or deeply traumatic.Oh, wait, one of guidelines was to treat your minions well so that they don't betray you plus there were the others about running a fine organization, so all's good...err, evil? :-)
ETA: Thanks for adding the link.
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Wait! You had THE Evil Overlord as your boss?!
That's either incredible or deeply traumatic.
Oh, wait, one of guidelines was to treat your minions well so that they don't betray you plus there were the others about running a fine organization, so all's good...err, evil? :-)
Peter was a good boss.
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I've disolved several flavors of bandit camps by taking out the leader and Impersonating them. You don't even necessarily need to fight the followers. I sent a fortress full of hobgoblins to attack a stronghold full of orcs and basically killed two sidequests with one stone.
I've disolved several flavors of bandit camps by taking out the leader and Impersonating them. You don't even necessarily need to fight the followers. I sent a fortress full of hobgoblins to attack a stronghold full of orcs and basically killed two sidequests with one stone.
I love doing things like that. Sadly, other players and/or the GM are rarely onboard with it.
Players want to play the game (meaning they want to kill things themselves) and sometimes even go so far as to accuse me of trying to steal the spotlight, whereas GMs often impose so many checks that failure is all but inevitable.
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I've disolved several flavors of bandit camps by taking out the leader and Impersonating them. You don't even necessarily need to fight the followers. I sent a fortress full of hobgoblins to attack a stronghold full of orcs and basically killed two sidequests with one stone.I love doing things like that. Sadly, other players and/or the GM are rarely onboard with it.
Players want to play the game (meaning they want to kill things themselves) and sometimes even go so far as to accuse me of trying to steal the spotlight, whereas GMs often impose so many checks that failure is all but inevitable.
I like a mixture of activities in my campaigns: combat, scouting and exploration, social interaction, and mystery solving. Thus, my players expect more than combat.
And the best use of Deception and Diplomacy and Stealth is to avoid boring combat. Who wants to fight a bunch of unimportant guards on the way to confronting the big bad evil guy? Let the party face show some fake documentation to enter the evil castle, taking only five minutes of real time, and rush ahead to the good part of the story. Choosing their fights is the trademark of my players.
Besides, victory by Deception is often hilarious. My Ironfang Invasion party once had to rescue NPC Cirieo Thessadin from a fort temporarily controlled by korreds, who would let only fey in. Spotting the korreds and making successful recall knowledge checks to identify them, most of the party hid and sent the gnome druid Stormdancer with fey heritage and the halfing rogue Sam with scoundrel racket to talk with them. The korred guards laid down their rules that only fey could come to their festival, and grudgingly admitted that the gnome could enter. Sam responded, "Hey, I'm a fey, too. Don't you recognize a chergl?" Both korreds rolled low on their untrained Recall Knowledge (Society) to identify Sam as a halfling, and Sam rolled high on his Deception, so they apologized and let Sam in, too. Sam and Stormdancer managed to sneak the others in from the inside.
That became a no-combat scenario, bantering with satyrs rather than fighting them, but sneaking past anyone who would care about the fey-only rule. And ever since, Sam has been calling himself a chergl. No such creature exists.
The player of the elf ranger Zinfandel (great at Stealth and terrible at Deception and Society, so he was expertly hidden during this adventure) was bragging about the encounter to a friend, who became so interested that he joined our group to temporarily run NPC Cirieo as a PC before creating his own permanent character.
i would say it should require a deception check at best
Raving: I think that's one of those session zero things worth establishing. I usually tell people up front I like doing tricksy shenanigans like this and finding non-combat solutions. If there's pushback from players who want to kill things, or the setting notes/player's guide makes it sound like that won't be an option... Then I adjust my build and expectations accordingly. It is why I'm playing a Battle Oracle instead of a Bard in this one homebrew game.
Mathmuse: Love the anecdote! The Red Rock Revel was a pretty great time for my players too. They lured the Basirond in which caused all sorts of havoc.
And the best use of Deception and Diplomacy and Stealth is to avoid boring combat. Who wants to fight a bunch of unimportant guards on the way to confronting the big bad evil guy? Let the party face show some fake documentation to enter the evil castle, taking only five minutes of real time, and rush ahead to the good part of the story. Choosing their fights is the trademark of my players.
I share your sentiment. Making the GM read off XP you earned for sending a creature home on vacation instead of killing them is great. However... Some players really like fighting those unimportant guards, and that can serve an important role in making the players feel like badasses. Mook fights are an important part of the genre. I'd rather have 3 rooms of mooks who work for the BBEG than one lone monster who has no relation to any other creature in the dungeon.
Still, when the option for non-violent solutions present themselves, I find they are almost always more entertaining.