First off, the group was indeed railroaded into this quest. That being said, the player in question, the Grave Cleric, has not voiced a single objection, in-char or out of game.
The group was chasing down a bunch of baddies. They get to the edge of a huge swamp, and lo and behold, they find a Halfling (sure she is) named Auntie Sunshine. Auntie Sunshine offers them a map through the swamp to their destination, and a Cloak of Protection, if they take this "bag" to a "prisoner" in the Sinking Keep. The Sinking Keep is the hopeful destination of the players. The "prisoner" is not involved in the original plan for the players, when they decided on this quest.
So the Wizard agrees to the deal, and the other players, including the Grave Cleric, do not voice any objections. Now, for 3 nights, the Wizard has dreams of screams of terror emanating from the bag, and Auntie Sunshine's voice saying "we have a deal". The Grave Cleric has experienced 3 nights of dreams of his god screaming at him soundlessly, looking enraged.
If things go as planned, the group will end up handing the "bag" over to the "prisoner". The bag is a Hag's Soul Bag, and contains the soul of an low level evil NPC. The prisoner is a Demi-Lich. The Demi-Lich will feed the soul to its phylactery (per the method described in the Monster Manual), reforming into a Lich. This Lich, while still horribly evil, will also be "grateful", and present the group with various magical toys and information. There is an over-arching plot line where the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" where the Lich recognizes this group can further his evil designs.
Now, to a Grave cleric, this is the anti-thesis of everything they stand for. So here is the thing. The group is to level to 8 at the end of this encounter. I am thinking that the Grave Cleric will have to atone for his grievous lapse of faith, since he participated in unleashing a trapped, extremely powerful Undead on the world. To that end, I am thinking that in the morning, he finds that not only did he not level up, he has lost his Divine features, including Channel Divinity. Whatever spells he had the day before has retained, but no others are available, since when he prays to his god, he is met with utter silence. Now, I plan on using this as another plot hook that the Undead Cleric can atone. If he speaks with a higher level cleric of his faith, that cleric will commune with their god and find what the god has decided is proper atonement.
Now, if the players renege on the deal, then the Wizard is in for a world of hurt. See page 178 of the MM, Night Haunting. BTW, the Wizard has already told me his char is evil.
So either way, someone in the group is in for a lot of pain.
I would check with the player, not with the internet. Different players will be okay with different things, you have to talk to that player when the moment comes, and ask them if they're okay with that. If not, you can use a backup plan, whatever that might be.
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"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
The fact that you are asking implies that you have doubts about doing it. Personally as a DM I would never consider punishing one player for the actions of another player like this unless they were explicitly part of it - watching from the sidelines would not count. As a player, if a DM did this without at the very least discussing it with me then I would be pissed, and probably drop the game.
First off, the group was indeed railroaded into this quest. That being said, the player in question, the Grave Cleric, has not voiced a single objection, in-char or out of game.
When you say he hasn't voiced any objections, do you mean to this general subplot in your sessions or to the idea that if he doesn't act in accordance with his "faith" that he'll lose mechanical abilities? It is totally possible the player did not fully pick up your hints and could feel targeted. Like Humbug said, I would definitely have an offline conversation with the player to see what he is ok with to begin with.
I think using atonement to his god is a good plot hook for a cleric but that seems a bit harsh to me.
I'm not sure about preventing the level-up. I would probably allow the additional HP and whatever other mechanical bonuses come with the level (increased proficiency that kind of thing).
I would instead do something with Channel Divinity (that would not work, for sure) and probably also spells. You get spells as a cleric from the power of your deity... if the deity is mad then maybe fewer or even no spells for a while, until they atone.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
It really depends on your player and to be honest, I would discuss this with your player in advance and dump it if they object.
You say that you gave the cleric bad dreams. "The Grave Cleric has experienced 3 nights of dreams of his god screaming at him soundlessly, looking enraged." As DM, you automatically KNOW why the character is having bad dreams. Remember that the player does NOT.
If you have NOT given the cleric more specific information then this is what they know.
1) The party met a halfling with a bag who asked the wizard to take it to a prisoner in the castle they were going to anyway. Why would ANYONE in the party object - YOU as DM gave them NO information that might lead them to be anything other than a bit suspicious at most. Why would a good party NOT agree to help out someone?
2) The party take the bag and heads into the swamp towards the castle.
- the cleric starts having bad dreams - the player thinks of reasons why ..
A) The party needs to speed up their pace to get to the castle and complete their quest
B) There is something at the castle that is irritating the cleric's god
C) There is something in the swamp the cleric needs to do.
So what does the player do? They wait until their god provides something a bit more concrete since there is NOTHING obvious to the player that could be the cause of their god being angry. The players do NOT know what the bag is ... they don't have the DM information. So to them, these are WTF dreams that they hope will make sense later since the DM doesn't want to tell them now. The wizard may have a clue that the bag is nasty in some way but they also know that they made a deal to deliver it.
Even if the cleric hears all of this, why would they object ... the wizard is clearly in trouble for making a deal but none of the others made a deal so why should they be in trouble?
3) You create a situation which has no winner. Either the wizard is screwed or the cleric is screwed and you haven't given enough foreshadowing for the cleric to even know what the problem might be. How is the cleric supposed to know that there is a demi-lich involved?
4) You impose an utterly draconian penalty :
"To that end, I am thinking that in the morning, he finds that not only did he not level up, he has lost his Divine features, including Channel Divinity. Whatever spells he had the day before has retained, but no others are available, since when he prays to his god, he is met with utter silence. Now, I plan on using this as another plot hook that the Undead Cleric can atone"
No spells - no features - no divine abilities. Essentially not even a playable character anymore and all because the DM railroads a situation that they did not even give sufficient information to the characters to see coming.
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Please correct me if I am missing something ... but if a DM railroaded a character of mine into a dead end no win situation like this then insisted on taking away all the character abilities and preventing leveling up because the character didn't make the right decision to prevent the party from accepting a side quest without being psychic and knowing it was a bad decision OR being forced to enforce a curse on another PC because the character's god (AKA the DM) said they had to ... I'd just walk away since that is not a DM I would play with.
To me this is one of those ideas some DMs think are cool that really aren't when viewed from the character/player viewpoint (except in the rare cases where the table has agreed on these sorts of railroaded plot events in advance and everyone is onside with it).
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P.S. A more reasonable penalty would be the grave cleric, upon realizing that the bag had restored a lich, dedicates themselves to destroying the creature and those like it. The PLAYER decides to atone for their mistake by taking positive character oriented in game actions rather than suffering a DM imposed rail roaded penalty.
What kind of god is going to see this mistake as a “grievous lapse of faith?” Sure, they might be upset with the cleric’s blunder and require some holy quest of atonement, but they sure as heck wouldn’t take the poor cleric’s powers away.
Im not sure how into class and subclass lore (or general lore) your players are, but for many players class is a series of mechanics, and backstory is the basis of roleplay. If you haven't been stressing the lore of a subclass (or their chosen deity) then don't be surprised that your player forgot (or never understood) their deity's stance towards undead.
I also know from experience that "hints" such as bad dreams are not always as strong as a DM might believe; I tried a similar thing with my players once, giving them bad dreams after agreeing to a contract with an NPC who was secretly an archdevil, and they were interested...for about 2 minutes until they couldn't figure out how to act on them or even research them. I wound up abandoning that plotline since they moved on.
Ultimately, if you are creating situations where "punishments" can be meted out that affect game mechanics this strongly, this is something you should get player input on in a session zero prior to the campaign starting.
If you still want to go down this road, I would recommend lessening the punishment so as to not strip the player of (nearly all) their abilities. Maybe reduce the number of spell slots available to them, or require a (relatively low) religion check to cast spells, or give undead advantage resisting the characters attempts to turn them.
I'm having a difficult time grasping why the grave cleric is the one being punished? It's the Wizard having the bad dreams, have they even told the rest of the group? Also, why would the cleric have to take the responsibility for the actions of an evil wizard?
I'd say, if you really want to go the whole "god turnign their back" route you will need to give the cleric something more to go on. To start with, do they even know what a soul bag, a phylactery and a demi-lich is? Sure, they can detect that the creature is undead once they actually encounter it. But before that, how is the cleric even supposed to know?
I can totally see a situation where the cleric's god punishes them if they, for example, choose to start actively helping the lich.
1. The Grave Cleric subclass is explicit in its hatred of the Undead. That is all over the description of the subclass.
2. Yes, there is RP at the table, and yes, the player does indeed dive into the ethos of that subclass. Last session he spent time crushing the skull of an NPC Undead Cleric he had killed, and chipping away all iconography on various religious items of said NPC.
3. What I mean is he would keep whatever spells he had take the day before, and the spell slots would refresh each day until the antonement is completed. He would lose his Channel Divinity, and would not level up. Given that the group will be handwaved back to the regional capital, the player will have zero issue finding an NPC in his temple to give the player a plan. That will be likely in the same session as the player discovers the something is not right. This will drive another major plot line.
4. Whether he picks up on the meaning of the dreams, well, that is on me to make it clear.
What kind of god is going to see this mistake as a “grievous lapse of faith?” Sure, they might be upset with the cleric’s blunder and require some holy quest of atonement, but they sure as heck wouldn’t take the poor cleric’s powers away.
I agree. It isn't like the Cleric went out with the intent of doing the bad thing. Faith and intent are fairly well combined. If the cleric had no idea what was going to happen, it wouldn't make sense to punish them.
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While gods aren't particularly required to be fair, (a) you probably shouldn't make being a cleric disproportionately hard, and (b) it's hard to see how this punishment actually serves the god's purposes. If the situation is worth direct divine attention in the first place, more specific omens to sabotage the exchange ahead of time seem more productive than after the fact punishment for being deceived.
While gods aren't particularly required to be fair, (a) you probably shouldn't make being a cleric disproportionately hard, and (b) it's hard to see how this punishment actually serves the god's purposes. If the situation is worth direct divine attention in the first place, more specific omens to sabotage the exchange ahead of time seem more productive than after the fact punishment for being deceived.
1. The Grave Cleric subclass is explicit in its hatred of the Undead. That is all over the description of the subclass.
2. Yes, there is RP at the table, and yes, the player does indeed dive into the ethos of that subclass. Last session he spent time crushing the skull of an NPC Undead Cleric he had killed, and chipping away all iconography on various religious items of said NPC.
3. What I mean is he would keep whatever spells he had take the day before, and the spell slots would refresh each day until the antonement is completed. He would lose his Channel Divinity, and would not level up. Given that the group will be handwaved back to the regional capital, the player will have zero issue finding an NPC in his temple to give the player a plan. That will be likely in the same session as the player discovers the something is not right. This will drive another major plot line.
4. Whether he picks up on the meaning of the dreams, well, that is on me to make it clear.
From my reading of the above quote from the OP - This punishment is not intended to serve the god's purposes at all - it is intended to serve the DMs purposes to "drive another major plot line" at the expense of the grave cleric who couldn't possibly have any idea that they might be doing something wrong until after it has happened given the descriptions of the situation so far provided by the OP.
If the DM gives the player enough information to understand what is going on then the cleric is put into a no win situation where either they are punished by their god or the wizard is punished by a curse and the entire decision has to be taken by the cleric.
The cleric may try to find a way out but the DM has created a situation that (unless they change something) doesn't have any other solution than the wizard failing the hag's quest or the lich being freed. The only possible solution for the cleric if the DM allowed it would be for the cleric to snatch the bag back from the demi-lich as soon as the wizard passes it to them. They were tasked with delivering the bag - not allowing the "prisoner" to use it. So with careful timing the bag might possibly be removed from the demi-lich - the party could then kill it - and everyone except the DM is happy since the players manage to upset his carefully managed rail-roaded plot.
While gods aren't particularly required to be fair, (a) you probably shouldn't make being a cleric disproportionately hard, and (b) it's hard to see how this punishment actually serves the god's purposes. If the situation is worth direct divine attention in the first place, more specific omens to sabotage the exchange ahead of time seem more productive than after the fact punishment for being deceived.
1. The Grave Cleric subclass is explicit in its hatred of the Undead. That is all over the description of the subclass.
2. Yes, there is RP at the table, and yes, the player does indeed dive into the ethos of that subclass. Last session he spent time crushing the skull of an NPC Undead Cleric he had killed, and chipping away all iconography on various religious items of said NPC.
3. What I mean is he would keep whatever spells he had take the day before, and the spell slots would refresh each day until the antonement is completed. He would lose his Channel Divinity, and would not level up. Given that the group will be handwaved back to the regional capital, the player will have zero issue finding an NPC in his temple to give the player a plan. That will be likely in the same session as the player discovers the something is not right. This will drive another major plot line.
4. Whether he picks up on the meaning of the dreams, well, that is on me to make it clear.
From my reading of the above quote from the OP - This punishment is not intended to serve the god's purposes at all - it is intended to serve the DMs purposes to "drive another major plot line" at the expense of the grave cleric who couldn't possibly have any idea that they might be doing something wrong until after it has happened given the descriptions of the situation so far provided by the OP.
If the DM gives the player enough information to understand what is going on then the cleric is put into a no win situation where either they are punished by their god or the wizard is punished by a curse and the entire decision has to be taken by the cleric.
The cleric may try to find a way out but the DM has created a situation that (unless they change something) doesn't have any other solution than the wizard failing the hag's quest or the lich being freed. The only possible solution for the cleric if the DM allowed it would be for the cleric to snatch the bag back from the demi-lich as soon as the wizard passes it to them. They were tasked with delivering the bag - not allowing the "prisoner" to use it. So with careful timing the bag might possibly be removed from the demi-lich - the party could then kill it - and everyone except the DM is happy since the players manage to upset his carefully managed rail-roaded plot.
I know.....totally outrageous.....heaven forbid a DM create an entire homebrew campaign, with a complete history of a continent, with said history key to the plot, starting at 1st level, running to hopefully 20th level, with multiple over-arching plot lines, plus subsidiary plots lines that directly tie to each and every player's individual character and backstory. How selfish of the DM to actually use the players to forward the plot.
Oh, and I particularly enjoy your idea of this group not only antagonizing a demi-lich, in its lair, but actually killing it. Note, in the original post, I said the group would be leveling to 8, after this encounter. Do you actually play much D&D?
That said, I am taking under advisement some of the rational arguments that have been made against this idea. The char will level up, have his spell slots refresh, and still have at his disposal all the spells he had the day before. He WILL lose his Channel Divinity and his 8th level Divine Smite, until he atones. That should set him back for a whole session and a half, maybe even 2 full sessions, while he and the group run another side quest.
While gods aren't particularly required to be fair, (a) you probably shouldn't make being a cleric disproportionately hard, and (b) it's hard to see how this punishment actually serves the god's purposes. If the situation is worth direct divine attention in the first place, more specific omens to sabotage the exchange ahead of time seem more productive than after the fact punishment for being deceived.
1. The Grave Cleric subclass is explicit in its hatred of the Undead. That is all over the description of the subclass.
2. Yes, there is RP at the table, and yes, the player does indeed dive into the ethos of that subclass. Last session he spent time crushing the skull of an NPC Undead Cleric he had killed, and chipping away all iconography on various religious items of said NPC.
3. What I mean is he would keep whatever spells he had take the day before, and the spell slots would refresh each day until the antonement is completed. He would lose his Channel Divinity, and would not level up. Given that the group will be handwaved back to the regional capital, the player will have zero issue finding an NPC in his temple to give the player a plan. That will be likely in the same session as the player discovers the something is not right. This will drive another major plot line.
4. Whether he picks up on the meaning of the dreams, well, that is on me to make it clear.
From my reading of the above quote from the OP - This punishment is not intended to serve the god's purposes at all - it is intended to serve the DMs purposes to "drive another major plot line" at the expense of the grave cleric who couldn't possibly have any idea that they might be doing something wrong until after it has happened given the descriptions of the situation so far provided by the OP.
If the DM gives the player enough information to understand what is going on then the cleric is put into a no win situation where either they are punished by their god or the wizard is punished by a curse and the entire decision has to be taken by the cleric.
The cleric may try to find a way out but the DM has created a situation that (unless they change something) doesn't have any other solution than the wizard failing the hag's quest or the lich being freed. The only possible solution for the cleric if the DM allowed it would be for the cleric to snatch the bag back from the demi-lich as soon as the wizard passes it to them. They were tasked with delivering the bag - not allowing the "prisoner" to use it. So with careful timing the bag might possibly be removed from the demi-lich - the party could then kill it - and everyone except the DM is happy since the players manage to upset his carefully managed rail-roaded plot.
I know.....totally outrageous.....heaven forbid a DM create an entire homebrew campaign, with a complete history of a continent, with said history key to the plot, starting at 1st level, running to hopefully 20th level, with multiple over-arching plot lines, plus subsidiary plots lines that directly tie to each and every player's individual character and backstory. How selfish of the DM to actually use the players to forward the plot.
Oh, and I particularly enjoy your idea of this group not only antagonizing a demi-lich, in its lair, but actually killing it. Note, in the original post, I said the group would be leveling to 8, after this encounter. Do you actually play much D&D?
That said, I am taking under advisement some of the rational arguments that have been made against this idea. The char will level up, have his spell slots refresh, and still have at his disposal all the spells he had the day before. He WILL lose his Channel Divinity and his 8th level Divine Smite, until he atones. That should set him back for a whole session and a half, maybe even 2 full sessions, while he and the group run another side quest.
So you asked for everyone's opinion and then got offended when people unanimously disagreed with your idea. Woof.
Sounds like you've got a lot to unpack there, buddy. Good luck to your players -- especially the Grave Cleric.
First, why did you ask for an opinion if you didn’t intend to listen to what people said and only minimally change your ideas, treating advice and suggestions as attacks?
Second, I’d like to send back your own words: “do you actually play much D&D?” I hate to break it to you, but I’ve DMed for several friend groups and game stores, and players do not care about your epic 1 to 20 campaign, even and especially when it hinges on your cool and unique world and its lore. They want to to go on a fun adventure and be epic heroes, not get caught up in a quest too big for them or lore too complex to care about.
I know I sound harsh here, but it’s because I made the same mistake, and a good group fell apart for a year because I focused on big plots and deep lore instead of the player’s fun and the story right in front of them. Now I’ve learned how big a mistake I made. I don’t want you to follow in my footsteps. I’m also being harsh because of the tone you set for the discussion; please don’t be so snarky to people trying to help. (And for the record, I agree with you that the demilich shouldn’t die here unless the players are smart and lucky, but that’s not the most important issue here.)
First, why did you ask for an opinion if you didn’t intend to listen to what people said and only minimally change your ideas, treating advice and suggestions as attacks?
Second, I’d like to send back your own words: “do you actually play much D&D?” I hate to break it to you, but I’ve DMed for several friend groups and game stores, and players do not care about your epic 1 to 20 campaign, even and especially when it hinges on your cool and unique world and its lore. They want to to go on a fun adventure and be epic heroes, not get caught up in a quest too big for them or lore too complex to care about.
I know I sound harsh here, but it’s because I made the same mistake, and a good group fell apart for a year because I focused on big plots and deep lore instead of the player’s fun and the story right in front of them. Now I’ve learned how big a mistake I made. I don’t want you to follow in my footsteps. I’m also being harsh because of the tone you set for the discussion; please don’t be so snarky to people trying to help. (And for the record, I agree with you that the demilich shouldn’t die here unless the players are smart and lucky, but that’s not the most important issue here.)
First off, yes, I recognize that the idea has met with universal pushback. And as you stated, I have eased back on what would happen to the player. The changes may be minimal, but then again, the penalty is actually fairly minimal. The player can't change spells, and does not have Channel Divinity nor an extra +5 of damage with cantrips for one or two sessions. Meantime, we have the campaign focused on that player for those sessions. I consider that a fair tradeoff.
But ultimately, this thread was useful for me, as I have scaled back the impact on the player, and I will find a way for the player's god to make it clear there will be implications for this potential action. Keep in mind, the Grave Cleric was right there, 5 feet from the Wizard. Though the Wizard was the one that accepted the Bag, all party members agreed to the deal. I should have made that more clear, in my original post.
Secondly, I really don't think anyone is a position to comment on what or what not my players like. Frankly, I have never grasped the concept of "player agency", which many seem to imply I am ruining here. I have played with DM's that try to run a sandbox, and players dictate where they do, what will happen. I have found those games founder. If the DM is not prepared, now he is struggling in a session to react to what the players do, scrambling though sources to come up with encounters on the fly. That leads to downtime in-game, and gametime is a precious thing.
Lastly, anyone suggesting (it was clearly not you), who suggests that level 7 players can kill off a Demi-Lich, in its lair, just don't know the game that well, or at least the power of a Demi-Lich. My group has come across several entities that were way way above their paygrade, and the group was smart enough to NOT fight those entities. The only players I have killed was a near TPK, when one player (no longer with the group, to much rejoicing from all the remaining players), worked out a plan to split the party 3 ways, and engage in battle.
Keep in mind, the Grave Cleric was right there, 5 feet from the Wizard. Though the Wizard was the one that accepted the Bag, all party members agreed to the deal. I should have made that more clear, in my original post.
From the PCs point of view, the bag is an item to be delivered to a prisoner in a keep. Why would the cleric object to this quest? Were the PCs told that it was a hag's soul bag?
First off, the group was indeed railroaded into this quest. That being said, the player in question, the Grave Cleric, has not voiced a single objection, in-char or out of game.
The group was chasing down a bunch of baddies. They get to the edge of a huge swamp, and lo and behold, they find a Halfling (sure she is) named Auntie Sunshine. Auntie Sunshine offers them a map through the swamp to their destination, and a Cloak of Protection, if they take this "bag" to a "prisoner" in the Sinking Keep. The Sinking Keep is the hopeful destination of the players. The "prisoner" is not involved in the original plan for the players, when they decided on this quest.
So the Wizard agrees to the deal, and the other players, including the Grave Cleric, do not voice any objections. Now, for 3 nights, the Wizard has dreams of screams of terror emanating from the bag, and Auntie Sunshine's voice saying "we have a deal". The Grave Cleric has experienced 3 nights of dreams of his god screaming at him soundlessly, looking enraged.
If things go as planned, the group will end up handing the "bag" over to the "prisoner". The bag is a Hag's Soul Bag, and contains the soul of an low level evil NPC. The prisoner is a Demi-Lich. The Demi-Lich will feed the soul to its phylactery (per the method described in the Monster Manual), reforming into a Lich. This Lich, while still horribly evil, will also be "grateful", and present the group with various magical toys and information. There is an over-arching plot line where the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" where the Lich recognizes this group can further his evil designs.
Now, to a Grave cleric, this is the anti-thesis of everything they stand for. So here is the thing. The group is to level to 8 at the end of this encounter. I am thinking that the Grave Cleric will have to atone for his grievous lapse of faith, since he participated in unleashing a trapped, extremely powerful Undead on the world. To that end, I am thinking that in the morning, he finds that not only did he not level up, he has lost his Divine features, including Channel Divinity. Whatever spells he had the day before has retained, but no others are available, since when he prays to his god, he is met with utter silence. Now, I plan on using this as another plot hook that the Undead Cleric can atone. If he speaks with a higher level cleric of his faith, that cleric will commune with their god and find what the god has decided is proper atonement.
Now, if the players renege on the deal, then the Wizard is in for a world of hurt. See page 178 of the MM, Night Haunting. BTW, the Wizard has already told me his char is evil.
So either way, someone in the group is in for a lot of pain.
Is this too much?
I would check with the player, not with the internet. Different players will be okay with different things, you have to talk to that player when the moment comes, and ask them if they're okay with that. If not, you can use a backup plan, whatever that might be.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
All I got to say, is that you need to have some "Player Agency" if you don't know the RPG term, you can look it up, that's all I can say to help you.
The fact that you are asking implies that you have doubts about doing it. Personally as a DM I would never consider punishing one player for the actions of another player like this unless they were explicitly part of it - watching from the sidelines would not count. As a player, if a DM did this without at the very least discussing it with me then I would be pissed, and probably drop the game.
When you say he hasn't voiced any objections, do you mean to this general subplot in your sessions or to the idea that if he doesn't act in accordance with his "faith" that he'll lose mechanical abilities? It is totally possible the player did not fully pick up your hints and could feel targeted. Like Humbug said, I would definitely have an offline conversation with the player to see what he is ok with to begin with.
I think using atonement to his god is a good plot hook for a cleric but that seems a bit harsh to me.
I'm not sure about preventing the level-up. I would probably allow the additional HP and whatever other mechanical bonuses come with the level (increased proficiency that kind of thing).
I would instead do something with Channel Divinity (that would not work, for sure) and probably also spells. You get spells as a cleric from the power of your deity... if the deity is mad then maybe fewer or even no spells for a while, until they atone.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
It really depends on your player and to be honest, I would discuss this with your player in advance and dump it if they object.
You say that you gave the cleric bad dreams. "The Grave Cleric has experienced 3 nights of dreams of his god screaming at him soundlessly, looking enraged." As DM, you automatically KNOW why the character is having bad dreams. Remember that the player does NOT.
If you have NOT given the cleric more specific information then this is what they know.
1) The party met a halfling with a bag who asked the wizard to take it to a prisoner in the castle they were going to anyway. Why would ANYONE in the party object - YOU as DM gave them NO information that might lead them to be anything other than a bit suspicious at most. Why would a good party NOT agree to help out someone?
2) The party take the bag and heads into the swamp towards the castle.
- the cleric starts having bad dreams - the player thinks of reasons why ..
A) The party needs to speed up their pace to get to the castle and complete their quest
B) There is something at the castle that is irritating the cleric's god
C) There is something in the swamp the cleric needs to do.
So what does the player do? They wait until their god provides something a bit more concrete since there is NOTHING obvious to the player that could be the cause of their god being angry. The players do NOT know what the bag is ... they don't have the DM information. So to them, these are WTF dreams that they hope will make sense later since the DM doesn't want to tell them now. The wizard may have a clue that the bag is nasty in some way but they also know that they made a deal to deliver it.
Even if the cleric hears all of this, why would they object ... the wizard is clearly in trouble for making a deal but none of the others made a deal so why should they be in trouble?
3) You create a situation which has no winner. Either the wizard is screwed or the cleric is screwed and you haven't given enough foreshadowing for the cleric to even know what the problem might be. How is the cleric supposed to know that there is a demi-lich involved?
4) You impose an utterly draconian penalty :
"To that end, I am thinking that in the morning, he finds that not only did he not level up, he has lost his Divine features, including Channel Divinity. Whatever spells he had the day before has retained, but no others are available, since when he prays to his god, he is met with utter silence. Now, I plan on using this as another plot hook that the Undead Cleric can atone"
No spells - no features - no divine abilities. Essentially not even a playable character anymore and all because the DM railroads a situation that they did not even give sufficient information to the characters to see coming.
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Please correct me if I am missing something ... but if a DM railroaded a character of mine into a dead end no win situation like this then insisted on taking away all the character abilities and preventing leveling up because the character didn't make the right decision to prevent the party from accepting a side quest without being psychic and knowing it was a bad decision OR being forced to enforce a curse on another PC because the character's god (AKA the DM) said they had to ... I'd just walk away since that is not a DM I would play with.
To me this is one of those ideas some DMs think are cool that really aren't when viewed from the character/player viewpoint (except in the rare cases where the table has agreed on these sorts of railroaded plot events in advance and everyone is onside with it).
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P.S. A more reasonable penalty would be the grave cleric, upon realizing that the bag had restored a lich, dedicates themselves to destroying the creature and those like it. The PLAYER decides to atone for their mistake by taking positive character oriented in game actions rather than suffering a DM imposed rail roaded penalty.
What kind of god is going to see this mistake as a “grievous lapse of faith?” Sure, they might be upset with the cleric’s blunder and require some holy quest of atonement, but they sure as heck wouldn’t take the poor cleric’s powers away.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Im not sure how into class and subclass lore (or general lore) your players are, but for many players class is a series of mechanics, and backstory is the basis of roleplay. If you haven't been stressing the lore of a subclass (or their chosen deity) then don't be surprised that your player forgot (or never understood) their deity's stance towards undead.
I also know from experience that "hints" such as bad dreams are not always as strong as a DM might believe; I tried a similar thing with my players once, giving them bad dreams after agreeing to a contract with an NPC who was secretly an archdevil, and they were interested...for about 2 minutes until they couldn't figure out how to act on them or even research them. I wound up abandoning that plotline since they moved on.
Ultimately, if you are creating situations where "punishments" can be meted out that affect game mechanics this strongly, this is something you should get player input on in a session zero prior to the campaign starting.
If you still want to go down this road, I would recommend lessening the punishment so as to not strip the player of (nearly all) their abilities. Maybe reduce the number of spell slots available to them, or require a (relatively low) religion check to cast spells, or give undead advantage resisting the characters attempts to turn them.
I'm having a difficult time grasping why the grave cleric is the one being punished? It's the Wizard having the bad dreams, have they even told the rest of the group? Also, why would the cleric have to take the responsibility for the actions of an evil wizard?
I'd say, if you really want to go the whole "god turnign their back" route you will need to give the cleric something more to go on. To start with, do they even know what a soul bag, a phylactery and a demi-lich is? Sure, they can detect that the creature is undead once they actually encounter it. But before that, how is the cleric even supposed to know?
I can totally see a situation where the cleric's god punishes them if they, for example, choose to start actively helping the lich.
Folks, to clarify:
1. The Grave Cleric subclass is explicit in its hatred of the Undead. That is all over the description of the subclass.
2. Yes, there is RP at the table, and yes, the player does indeed dive into the ethos of that subclass. Last session he spent time crushing the skull of an NPC Undead Cleric he had killed, and chipping away all iconography on various religious items of said NPC.
3. What I mean is he would keep whatever spells he had take the day before, and the spell slots would refresh each day until the antonement is completed. He would lose his Channel Divinity, and would not level up. Given that the group will be handwaved back to the regional capital, the player will have zero issue finding an NPC in his temple to give the player a plan. That will be likely in the same session as the player discovers the something is not right. This will drive another major plot line.
4. Whether he picks up on the meaning of the dreams, well, that is on me to make it clear.
I agree. It isn't like the Cleric went out with the intent of doing the bad thing. Faith and intent are fairly well combined. If the cleric had no idea what was going to happen, it wouldn't make sense to punish them.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
While gods aren't particularly required to be fair, (a) you probably shouldn't make being a cleric disproportionately hard, and (b) it's hard to see how this punishment actually serves the god's purposes. If the situation is worth direct divine attention in the first place, more specific omens to sabotage the exchange ahead of time seem more productive than after the fact punishment for being deceived.
From my reading of the above quote from the OP - This punishment is not intended to serve the god's purposes at all - it is intended to serve the DMs purposes to "drive another major plot line" at the expense of the grave cleric who couldn't possibly have any idea that they might be doing something wrong until after it has happened given the descriptions of the situation so far provided by the OP.
If the DM gives the player enough information to understand what is going on then the cleric is put into a no win situation where either they are punished by their god or the wizard is punished by a curse and the entire decision has to be taken by the cleric.
The cleric may try to find a way out but the DM has created a situation that (unless they change something) doesn't have any other solution than the wizard failing the hag's quest or the lich being freed. The only possible solution for the cleric if the DM allowed it would be for the cleric to snatch the bag back from the demi-lich as soon as the wizard passes it to them. They were tasked with delivering the bag - not allowing the "prisoner" to use it. So with careful timing the bag might possibly be removed from the demi-lich - the party could then kill it - and everyone except the DM is happy since the players manage to upset his carefully managed rail-roaded plot.
I know.....totally outrageous.....heaven forbid a DM create an entire homebrew campaign, with a complete history of a continent, with said history key to the plot, starting at 1st level, running to hopefully 20th level, with multiple over-arching plot lines, plus subsidiary plots lines that directly tie to each and every player's individual character and backstory. How selfish of the DM to actually use the players to forward the plot.
Oh, and I particularly enjoy your idea of this group not only antagonizing a demi-lich, in its lair, but actually killing it. Note, in the original post, I said the group would be leveling to 8, after this encounter. Do you actually play much D&D?
That said, I am taking under advisement some of the rational arguments that have been made against this idea. The char will level up, have his spell slots refresh, and still have at his disposal all the spells he had the day before. He WILL lose his Channel Divinity and his 8th level Divine Smite, until he atones. That should set him back for a whole session and a half, maybe even 2 full sessions, while he and the group run another side quest.
So you asked for everyone's opinion and then got offended when people unanimously disagreed with your idea. Woof.
Sounds like you've got a lot to unpack there, buddy. Good luck to your players -- especially the Grave Cleric.
Let them try to atone, and if they go with the lich I guess switch them over to death domain?
The fire giants made a gundam wheeeeee
@Vince, I’d like to say two things.
First, why did you ask for an opinion if you didn’t intend to listen to what people said and only minimally change your ideas, treating advice and suggestions as attacks?
Second, I’d like to send back your own words: “do you actually play much D&D?” I hate to break it to you, but I’ve DMed for several friend groups and game stores, and players do not care about your epic 1 to 20 campaign, even and especially when it hinges on your cool and unique world and its lore. They want to to go on a fun adventure and be epic heroes, not get caught up in a quest too big for them or lore too complex to care about.
I know I sound harsh here, but it’s because I made the same mistake, and a good group fell apart for a year because I focused on big plots and deep lore instead of the player’s fun and the story right in front of them. Now I’ve learned how big a mistake I made. I don’t want you to follow in my footsteps. I’m also being harsh because of the tone you set for the discussion; please don’t be so snarky to people trying to help. (And for the record, I agree with you that the demilich shouldn’t die here unless the players are smart and lucky, but that’s not the most important issue here.)
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
First off, yes, I recognize that the idea has met with universal pushback. And as you stated, I have eased back on what would happen to the player. The changes may be minimal, but then again, the penalty is actually fairly minimal. The player can't change spells, and does not have Channel Divinity nor an extra +5 of damage with cantrips for one or two sessions. Meantime, we have the campaign focused on that player for those sessions. I consider that a fair tradeoff.
But ultimately, this thread was useful for me, as I have scaled back the impact on the player, and I will find a way for the player's god to make it clear there will be implications for this potential action. Keep in mind, the Grave Cleric was right there, 5 feet from the Wizard. Though the Wizard was the one that accepted the Bag, all party members agreed to the deal. I should have made that more clear, in my original post.
Secondly, I really don't think anyone is a position to comment on what or what not my players like. Frankly, I have never grasped the concept of "player agency", which many seem to imply I am ruining here. I have played with DM's that try to run a sandbox, and players dictate where they do, what will happen. I have found those games founder. If the DM is not prepared, now he is struggling in a session to react to what the players do, scrambling though sources to come up with encounters on the fly. That leads to downtime in-game, and gametime is a precious thing.
Lastly, anyone suggesting (it was clearly not you), who suggests that level 7 players can kill off a Demi-Lich, in its lair, just don't know the game that well, or at least the power of a Demi-Lich. My group has come across several entities that were way way above their paygrade, and the group was smart enough to NOT fight those entities. The only players I have killed was a near TPK, when one player (no longer with the group, to much rejoicing from all the remaining players), worked out a plan to split the party 3 ways, and engage in battle.
From the PCs point of view, the bag is an item to be delivered to a prisoner in a keep. Why would the cleric object to this quest? Were the PCs told that it was a hag's soul bag?