If you know Urmmek Ironhold, please leave immediately.
cool.
I have a party of six level 8 characters. Last session 3 of them were petrified. One of the three remaining has a plan to bury the statues while they seek a cure. Good idea! The problem? Their guide is a Yuan-Ti spy who is going to use her sending stone on her watch to tell the other yuan-ti where the statues are. The best part is they have no suspicion on their guide yet.
Here’s hoping your players signed up for a “party versus DM”, since taking three of them out by petrification and then hampering their ability to play those characters is going is unlikely to sit well in most modern groups.
Here’s hoping your players signed up for a “party versus DM”, since taking three of them out by petrification and then hampering their ability to play those characters is going is unlikely to sit well in most modern groups.
I’ve made it abundantly clear to them that this is a meat grinder. If they catch their guide contacting her reinforcements they can race back and save the party.
side note. These characters’ souls will be trapped and used for clones to interrogate, so they might get these characters back eventually. Albeit with more trauma and scars
Here’s hoping your players signed up for a “party versus DM”, since taking three of them out by petrification and then hampering their ability to play those characters is going is unlikely to sit well in most modern groups.
I’ve made it abundantly clear to them that this is a meat grinder. If they catch their guide contacting her reinforcements they can race back and save the party.
side note. These characters’ souls will be trapped and used for clones to interrogate, so they might get these characters back eventually. Albeit with more trauma and scars
Oh they aren’t even at that place. I swapped the skeleton at needles bones for a dragon bone golem. They’ll likely go where you’re thinking for an antidote.
Good times that nest of Yuan-Ti (part of which is covered in the Arnara stories in my sig line). My group barged in, blew up a lot of snakes, and then the fighter was petrified and we bolted. Turned out to be no loss, as he wasn't real happy with that character. Came in next morning and blew up the rest of the nest. As players we were ready to deal with the consequences. The characters had much drama to discuss.
If he had wanted to keep that character, I'm sure that there would have been some interesting consequences knowing the DM. But, we left them behind and unpetrified the poor guy after we left Omu and returned to Port Nyanzaru for an interesting epilogue.
Here’s hoping your players signed up for a “party versus DM”, since taking three of them out by petrification and then hampering their ability to play those characters is going is unlikely to sit well in most modern groups.
Those are level 8 chars. Petrification is most certainly on the menu at 8th level. D&D is most definitely not "the players can steamroll every encounter", no matter how "modern" the group is.
The problem has less to do with "can steamroll every encounter" than with "okay, I get to twiddle my thumbs for a session while the rest of the players rescue me". If you're going to take a PC out of play for an extended period, it's important to provide the player with something entertaining to do in the meantime. Various options include backup characters, playing an NPC, playing the monsters (warning: may result in the rest of the party dying, players running monsters are often much more bloodthirsty than the DM), or just arranging for whatever happened to end fast.
Not to be too brutal but at this point why hasn’t the Yaun Ti guide led the rest of the party into a trap? Why would the yuan-ti even care about the statues? I’m just trying to see this from the monsters point of view. Perhaps the Yaun Ti need something that only the remaining PCs have (or can get) and are willing to trade?
Not to be too brutal but at this point why hasn’t the Yaun Ti guide led the rest of the party into a trap? Why would the yuan-ti even care about the statues? I’m just trying to see this from the monsters point of view. Perhaps the Yaun Ti need something that only the remaining PCs have (or can get) and are willing to trade?
The yuan-ti in that particular module, are supposed to capture players, instead of kill them. So the statues are basically slaves in waiting.
There's a logical sequence to the events that you're describing, but isn't this what will happen, from the players' perspective:
The players bury their petrified friends, in hopes of reviving them once they have access to greater restoration.
The players whose characters are petrified are effectively dead (and should be treated as such until revived), so those 3 players join the party with new characters
The players later return to dig up their friends
They dig them up and they aren't there
Either:
The players never discover what happened to them [if so, this will not feel good for the players]
The players rediscover them by finding wherever they've been dragged off to [could be fun, but needs to happen sooner rather than later]
The petrified characters are put into cloned bodies for interrogation, and so now you have a split party to run with neither side of the party knowing where the other is [the game is most fun when the party is together]
This potentially seems to be making a lot of headachy issues for you as DM and the expectations of the players. There'll need to be a way for them to understand how this all went down and why the statues are missing, without you just explaining it, if it's going to feel satisfying.
From a player perspective, I think that the most fun option would be:
Discover the Yuan-Ti Guide using her Sending Stone
Here’s hoping your players signed up for a “party versus DM”, since taking three of them out by petrification and then hampering their ability to play those characters is going is unlikely to sit well in most modern groups.
Those are level 8 chars. Petrification is most certainly on the menu at 8th level. D&D is most definitely not "the players can steamroll every encounter", no matter how "modern" the group is.
The problem has less to do with "can steamroll every encounter" than with "okay, I get to twiddle my thumbs for a session while the rest of the players rescue me". If you're going to take a PC out of play for an extended period, it's important to provide the player with something entertaining to do in the meantime. Various options include backup characters, playing an NPC, playing the monsters (warning: may result in the rest of the party dying, players running monsters are often much more bloodthirsty than the DM), or just arranging for whatever happened to end fast.
Yeah, there's nothing fun about being stuck in limbo and out of the game.
Since the players can't know that there's a way to revive them unless the DM basically says "Don't worry, you can definitely revive them later" there's no difference to sitting out of the game petrified and sitting out of the game as a dead character. Best to let them bring in new characters.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
If you know Urmmek Ironhold, please leave immediately.
cool.
I have a party of six level 8 characters. Last session 3 of them were petrified. One of the three remaining has a plan to bury the statues while they seek a cure. Good idea! The problem? Their guide is a Yuan-Ti spy who is going to use her sending stone on her watch to tell the other yuan-ti where the statues are. The best part is they have no suspicion on their guide yet.
Here’s hoping your players signed up for a “party versus DM”, since taking three of them out by petrification and then hampering their ability to play those characters is going is unlikely to sit well in most modern groups.
I’ve made it abundantly clear to them that this is a meat grinder. If they catch their guide contacting her reinforcements they can race back and save the party.
side note. These characters’ souls will be trapped and used for clones to interrogate, so they might get these characters back eventually. Albeit with more trauma and scars
Then, by all means, have fun!
Ah yes, good ole
Salida. She's a lot of fun. When I ran her, the party didn't treat her well and was totally clueless. Made the betrayal that much more logical, lol.
My party managed to escape with only one petrification. We got that PC back after a bit of effort, too. Made for a great high-stakes rescue mission!
Hope your players enjoy the way the story unfolds!
Oh they aren’t even at that place. I swapped the skeleton at needles bones for a dragon bone golem. They’ll likely go where you’re thinking for an antidote.
Good times that nest of Yuan-Ti (part of which is covered in the Arnara stories in my sig line). My group barged in, blew up a lot of snakes, and then the fighter was petrified and we bolted. Turned out to be no loss, as he wasn't real happy with that character. Came in next morning and blew up the rest of the nest. As players we were ready to deal with the consequences. The characters had much drama to discuss.
If he had wanted to keep that character, I'm sure that there would have been some interesting consequences knowing the DM. But, we left them behind and unpetrified the poor guy after we left Omu and returned to Port Nyanzaru for an interesting epilogue.
The problem has less to do with "can steamroll every encounter" than with "okay, I get to twiddle my thumbs for a session while the rest of the players rescue me". If you're going to take a PC out of play for an extended period, it's important to provide the player with something entertaining to do in the meantime. Various options include backup characters, playing an NPC, playing the monsters (warning: may result in the rest of the party dying, players running monsters are often much more bloodthirsty than the DM), or just arranging for whatever happened to end fast.
Not to be too brutal but at this point why hasn’t the Yaun Ti guide led the rest of the party into a trap? Why would the yuan-ti even care about the statues? I’m just trying to see this from the monsters point of view. Perhaps the Yaun Ti need something that only the remaining PCs have (or can get) and are willing to trade?
The yuan-ti in that particular module, are supposed to capture players, instead of kill them. So the statues are basically slaves in waiting.
There's a logical sequence to the events that you're describing, but isn't this what will happen, from the players' perspective:
This potentially seems to be making a lot of headachy issues for you as DM and the expectations of the players. There'll need to be a way for them to understand how this all went down and why the statues are missing, without you just explaining it, if it's going to feel satisfying.
From a player perspective, I think that the most fun option would be:
Yeah, there's nothing fun about being stuck in limbo and out of the game.
Since the players can't know that there's a way to revive them unless the DM basically says "Don't worry, you can definitely revive them later" there's no difference to sitting out of the game petrified and sitting out of the game as a dead character. Best to let them bring in new characters.