Long story short: A garrison of troops (a variety of races and backgrounds) have fallen ill due to an agent of the Zhentarim poisoning the food with the intention of gradually weakening the fortress to the point where he can kill the captain and assume his form and start cashing in on revenues from the area.
My question: What check would a player character need to roll to be alerted to the fact that none of the dying patients in the chapel/ temple are dwarves (due to their poison resistance)?
The logical answer is 'Medicine', but that seems off considering that it would have to be a roll that provides the answer as a result of something being absent, which doesn't make much sense to me.
Are we simply talking perception? Maybe even passive perception? Or Investigation? But Investigation requires a character to be already alerted to something. (There is a room here, there might be loot. I will investigate. Ok rolla an investigation check for me...).
You could do a perception check to notice that none of the patients are dwarves. You could do a nature check to recall that dwarves are naturally resistant to poison.
You could do a perception check to notice that none of the patients are dwarves. You could do a nature check to recall that dwarves are naturally resistant to poison.
And I can initiate those without the player asking about it, right? (he is 13 and while bright, he might not be too familiar with other races' abilities and resistances - we only just begun :D) Thanks for replying!
You could call for a nature check at a time that wasn't super obvious. And for something like knowing dwarves resist poison, I imagine the DC would be pretty low. Just because the players might not know it, it might be something pretty obvious to the characters. That's why you set the DC appropriately. Fact of the matter is that if it's important for the story for players to know this, then call for the check and let them succeed regardless of what they roll. If it's just a helpful hint and not that big a deal if they never find out, then it's ok to make the DC a little higher. But don't let a roll (or lack of) bog down your story.
There's usually multiple ways to solve a problem I'd recommend that you don't try to force your players to approach this one specific way. Here's various ways I'd allow different proficiencies to be used in a situation like this:
If the poison has a symptom that's subtle or hard to spot, a wisdom (perception) check might allow someone to notice it.
Proficiency in the medicine skill and poisoner's kits could give let someone make a check to diagnose the issue based on the symptoms. If the poison is based on some plant or animal venom, or it has a natural remedy, the nature skill or proficiency with herbalism kits could also apply. Don't forget that you can mix skills and ability checks when a situation calls for it. Normally the medicine and nature are used with wisdom checks, but an intelligence (medicine) or intelligence (nature) check is a valid way to approach this too if the players are relying on having an encyclopedic knowledge of toxicology.
The investigation skill has more to do with logic and deduction than searching; an intelligence (investigation) check could allow them to deduce that the soldiers were probably poisoned based on the fact that very few dwarves were affected. Whether they'd know dwarves are commonly resistant to poison depends on how common dwarves are in your setting and whether they're known for that. That might just be common knowledge, not requiring any roll. If the player using the investigation skill is a dwarf, they'd know too. Otherwise you could call for an easy intelligence check to see if they've heard that before, you could let them use any of the previous skills related to dealing with poisons, or you could just increase the DC of the investigation check.
Ask yourself if you even need a check. If the characters aren't actively investigating or trying to deduce the possible cause of the illness then I wouldn't ask for a check. If the information is important to moving the story along, then maybe you can drop a few more hints until they clue in that they should be paying attention to this. Or just give them the information.
At some point the players should say something along the lines of "I look for clues." Ask what they are looking at or looking for and ask for checks accordingly. Medicine checks could have a character realize a symptom matches some poison they are familiar with. You can put a patient list or if they look at all the patients in one place an investigation check may reveal there are no dwarf patients, then that nature check for knowing dwarves resist poison (DC12 give advantage if the character has had significant interaction with dwarves).
Wow! I go to bed in Europe and wake up finding that my American friends have been to work figuring out my problem. THANK YOU for your replies! I have a ton of ways to go about this now. HAve a great day!
Following up InquisitiveCoder's great post, you could add History for stories of how Dwarves could resist the affects of poison because of a famous battle. Having multiple paths to the solution is good, and rewarding unobvious solutions to the problem is good.
Something I forgot to bring up: if it's absolutely essential to your story that the players discover something, leave at least 3 clues that they're guaranteed to find. Make the challenge figuring out what the clues mean instead of trying to find the clues in the first place; if they miss them or just don't think to look, you'll get stuck or be forced to nudge them in the right direction.
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Hi all - I need a quick piece of advice, please!
Long story short: A garrison of troops (a variety of races and backgrounds) have fallen ill due to an agent of the Zhentarim poisoning the food with the intention of gradually weakening the fortress to the point where he can kill the captain and assume his form and start cashing in on revenues from the area.
My question: What check would a player character need to roll to be alerted to the fact that none of the dying patients in the chapel/ temple are dwarves (due to their poison resistance)?
The logical answer is 'Medicine', but that seems off considering that it would have to be a roll that provides the answer as a result of something being absent, which doesn't make much sense to me.
Are we simply talking perception? Maybe even passive perception? Or Investigation? But Investigation requires a character to be already alerted to something. (There is a room here, there might be loot. I will investigate. Ok rolla an investigation check for me...).
Anyway, hope you can shed some light!
Thanks for any answers
You could do a perception check to notice that none of the patients are dwarves. You could do a nature check to recall that dwarves are naturally resistant to poison.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
And I can initiate those without the player asking about it, right? (he is 13 and while bright, he might not be too familiar with other races' abilities and resistances - we only just begun :D)
Thanks for replying!
You could call for a nature check at a time that wasn't super obvious. And for something like knowing dwarves resist poison, I imagine the DC would be pretty low. Just because the players might not know it, it might be something pretty obvious to the characters. That's why you set the DC appropriately. Fact of the matter is that if it's important for the story for players to know this, then call for the check and let them succeed regardless of what they roll. If it's just a helpful hint and not that big a deal if they never find out, then it's ok to make the DC a little higher. But don't let a roll (or lack of) bog down your story.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
There's usually multiple ways to solve a problem I'd recommend that you don't try to force your players to approach this one specific way. Here's various ways I'd allow different proficiencies to be used in a situation like this:
If the poison has a symptom that's subtle or hard to spot, a wisdom (perception) check might allow someone to notice it.
Proficiency in the medicine skill and poisoner's kits could give let someone make a check to diagnose the issue based on the symptoms. If the poison is based on some plant or animal venom, or it has a natural remedy, the nature skill or proficiency with herbalism kits could also apply. Don't forget that you can mix skills and ability checks when a situation calls for it. Normally the medicine and nature are used with wisdom checks, but an intelligence (medicine) or intelligence (nature) check is a valid way to approach this too if the players are relying on having an encyclopedic knowledge of toxicology.
The investigation skill has more to do with logic and deduction than searching; an intelligence (investigation) check could allow them to deduce that the soldiers were probably poisoned based on the fact that very few dwarves were affected. Whether they'd know dwarves are commonly resistant to poison depends on how common dwarves are in your setting and whether they're known for that. That might just be common knowledge, not requiring any roll. If the player using the investigation skill is a dwarf, they'd know too. Otherwise you could call for an easy intelligence check to see if they've heard that before, you could let them use any of the previous skills related to dealing with poisons, or you could just increase the DC of the investigation check.
Ask yourself if you even need a check. If the characters aren't actively investigating or trying to deduce the possible cause of the illness then I wouldn't ask for a check. If the information is important to moving the story along, then maybe you can drop a few more hints until they clue in that they should be paying attention to this. Or just give them the information.
If you don't want to just give them the information, have an NPC go up to them and comment how weird it is that none of the dwarves are sick.
At some point the players should say something along the lines of "I look for clues." Ask what they are looking at or looking for and ask for checks accordingly. Medicine checks could have a character realize a symptom matches some poison they are familiar with. You can put a patient list or if they look at all the patients in one place an investigation check may reveal there are no dwarf patients, then that nature check for knowing dwarves resist poison (DC12 give advantage if the character has had significant interaction with dwarves).
Wow! I go to bed in Europe and wake up finding that my American friends have been to work figuring out my problem. THANK YOU for your replies! I have a ton of ways to go about this now. HAve a great day!
Following up InquisitiveCoder's great post, you could add History for stories of how Dwarves could resist the affects of poison because of a famous battle. Having multiple paths to the solution is good, and rewarding unobvious solutions to the problem is good.
Something I forgot to bring up: if it's absolutely essential to your story that the players discover something, leave at least 3 clues that they're guaranteed to find. Make the challenge figuring out what the clues mean instead of trying to find the clues in the first place; if they miss them or just don't think to look, you'll get stuck or be forced to nudge them in the right direction.