My party will meet again at Feb 15th after a 2 months break due to exams in Jan. So here is the situation my folks are in: The warlock made a pact with his Great Old One to bring the Tiefling back from the dead, but in return they have to kill another warlock, who has risen to the lead of a large city. Basically, the Great Old One wanted to see, if he is worth being his champion. They could not decide how to engage him for 8 full hours in one session and got frustrated (although they had plenty good ideas), so I decided to make the villain act with NPCs if they do not engage the next session. They did not. They were watching his coronation to the Lord of the city and were about to leave the scene. At this time, I decided that 2 NPC knights of the ruling emperor engage him (because they suspected him of being a warlock and thus using dark, forbidden magic. Because he felt strong enough in his new position to overcome the two knights, they ended up in a fight. This was when the leaving party decided "ah f**k it, lets join the fight and help them". We had to interrupt the session mid-fight, all guards of the warlock are down, one knight was turned by the warlock to fight amongst him and he has his court wizard left. So its 3 (warlock, wizard and a knight) against 5 (4 party members and a knight) at the moment. The party felt like "why did we even try to come with a plan for so long, if we ended up in a fight without any preparation/advantage" but then again, they also felt they had no real decision how to engage him and it could have dragged on for another couple of sessions.
With this situation explained, what would the BBEG warlock do? He has burned all his spells except dimension door as his escape plan and his wizard has no high level spells left either. So I think being outnumbered, the BBEG would retreat with his wizard. Buuuut, would this be dramatic? I fear my party could be annoyed, because the fight took so long and now they had to come up with a plan again. Moreover, the NPC knights, now fully aware of his dark magic, would try to come up with a plan to overthrow him themselves with the help of the empire.
Should I let the warlock retreat (most plausible way)? Should I them them finish him (maybe the more satisfying ending for the party)? How could I let them feel they didn't waste time in the sessions with all their preparation (maybe let him retreat and let them know their earlier research about the palace could be to their advantage)? And how could I keep the empire from killing the warlock himself (maybe they don't want to start an open war in a city and would reward the party if they can kill him without a fight on the streets)? Should they get full XP for the fight, if he escapes (they would then earn twice his XP if they kill him afterwards, but giving no XP they could feel the long fight wasn't worth anything)?
Im open for suggestions how to make the next session feel worth my parties time and a rewarding experience.
Honestly, there is no one way to do this. One way may work for one DM and another for a different DM. It also depends on your situation. Do your players want to continue with this story line or end it? If they want to end it, then let them kill the BBEG. If they still want to play the story then, let the BBEG escape and they have to track him down. As for the empire, have it where they are hired by the empire to take him down because they are engaged in another war and can't spare the men needed to take down the BBEG. Personally I like the milestone leveling versus XP, because your players level up when they complete certain events. So I would have them level up, and have some sort of magic item that was left behind or dropped by the BBEG or was given to them by the knight as a thank you for helping him. In the end you know your players best and what they would expect and want in the end. We can only guess and go with what we might do if in your situation. Hope I could be of help.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Remember this is a game and it's suppose to be fun for everybody. Let's all have fun and kill monsters.
Yeah, like Welder said... are they sick of this storyline? From your description, it doesn't seem like they're overly engaged or invested.
If you want to keep it going, then retreat. Or a mob could form. He's about to be corronated, surely he has a lot of support in the city. Could the BBEG's patron get involved? There's a few ways you could handle it. As far as XP, if it was me, I would give partial XP. And then when they kill him, I would give more XP. Why not! XP for everyone!!!
I asked them today, because they have multiple questlines up ahead, if they liked one in particular, which they want to persue next. They said, they want to finish the current plot first. I did not get complaints about the current plot being worse than the others. Maybe they just like to complain mid-session as a form of coping? Sooo, I guess I will let the villain try to escape. Then they can get an extra motivation/reward from the ruler for defeating the warlock. They can try to persue the paths they worked out before plus I can have the villain set up a trap, bc so far the battle was not as challenging as it would have been appropiate. @MajorPuddles: I think I will reward them half the XP now, if he escapes, seems reasonable :).
@WeldingBear: I thought about switching to milestone leveling once they hit level 10. I think of the 20 levels in DND as the 20 grades in karate: 10 student grades, where the student learns from a master (so they level by getting XP) and 10 master grades, where they can eventually train themselves (by reaching milestones). FYI: I'm using the optional rule, where they have to invest downtime and gold to acutally advance a level, if they cumulated the necessary XP.
Honestly, if he's supposed to be a BBEG it seems like you were happy for him to be killed off at this point so you might as well do it. This is a huge coronation and big event for the city and a couple of knights and people walking off the street have nearly killed him? This was an opportunity if that's what you wanted to do, for you to show just how powerful he is and how much of an uphill struggle they would have. He has control over the place and given it's a large city I would expect a sizeable militia at his disposal. Play on the pact he's made and have a cult like following within the city as well. They shouldn't have stood much of a chance but should be seeing how much of a threat he and his followers can be. To try and find a way of fighting back against him after witnessing the brutal way he dealt with potential rebellion. Although an 8 hour "what do we do about this?" session suggests the players might be suffering from a lot of analytical paralysis and are quite slow to come to a decision.
I wonder if their response to "finish this one first" was basically bought about by the fact that the villain is essentially dead anyway so might as well get it done. I mean, logically if he can't do anything now and is forced to run away from this situation he's not going to be gaining much more power and opportunity so let him die and move on. Mission accomplished. If this is meant to be a longer conflict then dimension door him out of there and try to come up with a plan, obviously from ruling over a large city anything is going to be downhill for the time being but play on the cult elements. Perhaps the warlock is trying to unleash the patron and is now having to work from the shadows to make it work but needs some way of influencing the population which is why he worked to become ruler in the first place. The wheels are already in motion and while I understand why you tried to push things in the direction you did I think it's written you into a bit of a hole. As an interesting take perhaps the warlock could go out in a blaze of glory by casting Fireball on himself/from the wizard causing a large blast damaging/destroying the monuments around them, maybe killing innocents, hitting the party with a hefty amount of damage and as it's suicide rather than your warlock killing them the patron has a way of pointing out that "technically" the contract wasn't fulfilled. Bonus points if as the fireball goes off the BBEG also casts dimension door and escapes but the party think he's dead. You said that he and the wizard have no more spells left but you can play that loosey goosey to work around that, it's not like the players know exactly what levels and assets are available to the NPCs and gets you out of the possible narrative hole you're in.
As an interesting take perhaps the warlock could go out in a blaze of glory by casting Fireball on himself/from the wizard causing a large blast damaging/destroying the monuments around them, maybe killing innocents, hitting the party with a hefty amount of damage and as it's suicide rather than your warlock killing them the patron has a way of pointing out that "technically" the contract wasn't fulfilled.
Wow, that is a good idea!! It's the villain for the first levels, so technically they are just a little bit ahead of time. I played the warlock as an incompetent, but power hungry warlock, that rose to power by a much smarter guy, that used him as a straw doll, so actions couldn't be traced back to the real culprit. They already know the noble in the city responsible for his rise, operating secretly and they don't have proof to blame him for the actions.
The warlock would not kill himself, because he is simple like that (he is hungry for power, not mad), but his court wizard, being in the cult of the real culprit (a mindflayer operating beneath the city, communicating through the noble through mindcontrol), would most certainly kill himself and the warlock, before they could interrogated. A partial victory would allow them to continue any questline (if the warlock is killed the patron will not kill the party warlock for his failure, but if the party wasnt responsible for the execution, the party warlock and the tiefling will continue to be lifeline-bound, so if one dies, the other will too).
Moreover, a fireball could damage the cathedral the fight took place in, making a memorial for the fight they had every time they return.
The warlock pants, breathing heavily, nearly exhausted. "I'm not finished yet" He reaches out a hand to grip the wizard by the throat and crushes the life out of him. You see the blood ooze out of the wizard's neck and seem to seep into the skin of the warlock, making him appear healthier and glow with power. Then, the warlock's chest bursts open spraying the room with bits of organs, bone, and gore.
A second passes, then the blood streams back to the shattered cavity of the villain's chest. Those hit by the blood (a bunch of innocent bystanders and the party?) feel part of their life essence flow away from them and into the reinvigorated warlock. The warlock, now fully healed, cackles in glee, and the party finds some of their spells missing...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"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?"
The warlock pants, breathing heavily, nearly exhausted. "I'm not finished yet" He reaches out a hand to grip the wizard by the throat and crushes the life out of him. You see the blood ooze out of the wizard's neck and seem to seep into the skin of the warlock, making him appear healthier and glow with power. Then, the warlock's chest bursts open spraying the room with bits of organs, bone, and gore.
A second passes, then the blood streams back to the shattered cavity of the villain's chest. Those hit by the blood (a bunch of innocent bystanders and the party?) feel part of their life essence flow away from them and into the reinvigorated warlock. The warlock, now fully healed, cackles in glee, and the party finds some of their spells missing...
That is some nice and sick event. What is your experience with players reactions to OP bad guy mechanics? I mean, nothing in the levels of the players or the CR of the villain could even have this kind of power, if I went by the rules. Sounds more like a CR20 rather than a CR6 mechanic..
I would like it if my villain could do something like this, however, maybe my players feel like "ok, our DM just wants us to die". They are newbs to the game, so they don't know what a CR6 can and can't do and it could work, but what is your experience introducing these mechanics?
I once had Maglubiyet knock a PC barbarian unconscious because he was trying to tame a wolf while the party was beset on all sides by goblins AND after the bard had already healed him up from unconsciousness due to attacks. If the bad guy is a warlock, have his patron intercede on his behalf if you want him to survive, or have the patron withdraw his support for his failure (interrupting his dimension door) and leaving him powerless. Perhaps the wizard decides to turn on the warlock and act as a spy amongst the party ranks for the bigger bad in an effort to forestall their efforts. With this not being a competent big boss, how important is he to the machinations of the bigger bad and thus the story. It doesn't sound too important so I'd say finish him or have a really nice payoff shortly for letting him go.
The warlock pants, breathing heavily, nearly exhausted. "I'm not finished yet" He reaches out a hand to grip the wizard by the throat and crushes the life out of him. You see the blood ooze out of the wizard's neck and seem to seep into the skin of the warlock, making him appear healthier and glow with power. Then, the warlock's chest bursts open spraying the room with bits of organs, bone, and gore.
A second passes, then the blood streams back to the shattered cavity of the villain's chest. Those hit by the blood (a bunch of innocent bystanders and the party?) feel part of their life essence flow away from them and into the reinvigorated warlock. The warlock, now fully healed, cackles in glee, and the party finds some of their spells missing...
That is some nice and sick event. What is your experience with players reactions to OP bad guy mechanics? I mean, nothing in the levels of the players or the CR of the villain could even have this kind of power, if I went by the rules. Sounds more like a CR20 rather than a CR6 mechanic..
I would like it if my villain could do something like this, however, maybe my players feel like "ok, our DM just wants us to die". They are newbs to the game, so they don't know what a CR6 can and can't do and it could work, but what is your experience introducing these mechanics?
You're the GM so you can do whatever you want =)
If he is supposed to be the final boss he should be epic. Your players should feel unnerved and scared, and when they win it'll be awesome for them.
My favorite villain item is Heart of the Child (homebrew)
Hello folks,
My party will meet again at Feb 15th after a 2 months break due to exams in Jan. So here is the situation my folks are in: The warlock made a pact with his Great Old One to bring the Tiefling back from the dead, but in return they have to kill another warlock, who has risen to the lead of a large city. Basically, the Great Old One wanted to see, if he is worth being his champion. They could not decide how to engage him for 8 full hours in one session and got frustrated (although they had plenty good ideas), so I decided to make the villain act with NPCs if they do not engage the next session. They did not. They were watching his coronation to the Lord of the city and were about to leave the scene. At this time, I decided that 2 NPC knights of the ruling emperor engage him (because they suspected him of being a warlock and thus using dark, forbidden magic. Because he felt strong enough in his new position to overcome the two knights, they ended up in a fight. This was when the leaving party decided "ah f**k it, lets join the fight and help them". We had to interrupt the session mid-fight, all guards of the warlock are down, one knight was turned by the warlock to fight amongst him and he has his court wizard left. So its 3 (warlock, wizard and a knight) against 5 (4 party members and a knight) at the moment. The party felt like "why did we even try to come with a plan for so long, if we ended up in a fight without any preparation/advantage" but then again, they also felt they had no real decision how to engage him and it could have dragged on for another couple of sessions.
With this situation explained, what would the BBEG warlock do? He has burned all his spells except dimension door as his escape plan and his wizard has no high level spells left either. So I think being outnumbered, the BBEG would retreat with his wizard. Buuuut, would this be dramatic? I fear my party could be annoyed, because the fight took so long and now they had to come up with a plan again. Moreover, the NPC knights, now fully aware of his dark magic, would try to come up with a plan to overthrow him themselves with the help of the empire.
Should I let the warlock retreat (most plausible way)? Should I them them finish him (maybe the more satisfying ending for the party)? How could I let them feel they didn't waste time in the sessions with all their preparation (maybe let him retreat and let them know their earlier research about the palace could be to their advantage)? And how could I keep the empire from killing the warlock himself (maybe they don't want to start an open war in a city and would reward the party if they can kill him without a fight on the streets)? Should they get full XP for the fight, if he escapes (they would then earn twice his XP if they kill him afterwards, but giving no XP they could feel the long fight wasn't worth anything)?
Im open for suggestions how to make the next session feel worth my parties time and a rewarding experience.
Honestly, there is no one way to do this. One way may work for one DM and another for a different DM. It also depends on your situation. Do your players want to continue with this story line or end it? If they want to end it, then let them kill the BBEG. If they still want to play the story then, let the BBEG escape and they have to track him down. As for the empire, have it where they are hired by the empire to take him down because they are engaged in another war and can't spare the men needed to take down the BBEG. Personally I like the milestone leveling versus XP, because your players level up when they complete certain events. So I would have them level up, and have some sort of magic item that was left behind or dropped by the BBEG or was given to them by the knight as a thank you for helping him. In the end you know your players best and what they would expect and want in the end. We can only guess and go with what we might do if in your situation. Hope I could be of help.
Remember this is a game and it's suppose to be fun for everybody. Let's all have fun and kill monsters.
Yeah, like Welder said... are they sick of this storyline? From your description, it doesn't seem like they're overly engaged or invested.
If you want to keep it going, then retreat. Or a mob could form. He's about to be corronated, surely he has a lot of support in the city. Could the BBEG's patron get involved? There's a few ways you could handle it. As far as XP, if it was me, I would give partial XP. And then when they kill him, I would give more XP. Why not! XP for everyone!!!
I asked them today, because they have multiple questlines up ahead, if they liked one in particular, which they want to persue next. They said, they want to finish the current plot first. I did not get complaints about the current plot being worse than the others. Maybe they just like to complain mid-session as a form of coping? Sooo, I guess I will let the villain try to escape. Then they can get an extra motivation/reward from the ruler for defeating the warlock. They can try to persue the paths they worked out before plus I can have the villain set up a trap, bc so far the battle was not as challenging as it would have been appropiate. @MajorPuddles: I think I will reward them half the XP now, if he escapes, seems reasonable :).
@WeldingBear: I thought about switching to milestone leveling once they hit level 10. I think of the 20 levels in DND as the 20 grades in karate: 10 student grades, where the student learns from a master (so they level by getting XP) and 10 master grades, where they can eventually train themselves (by reaching milestones).
FYI: I'm using the optional rule, where they have to invest downtime and gold to acutally advance a level, if they cumulated the necessary XP.
Thank you for your advice, appreciate it!
warlock could escape, the party could be hired to track him down and bring to justice. Boom, new connected story hook
Honestly, if he's supposed to be a BBEG it seems like you were happy for him to be killed off at this point so you might as well do it. This is a huge coronation and big event for the city and a couple of knights and people walking off the street have nearly killed him? This was an opportunity if that's what you wanted to do, for you to show just how powerful he is and how much of an uphill struggle they would have. He has control over the place and given it's a large city I would expect a sizeable militia at his disposal. Play on the pact he's made and have a cult like following within the city as well. They shouldn't have stood much of a chance but should be seeing how much of a threat he and his followers can be. To try and find a way of fighting back against him after witnessing the brutal way he dealt with potential rebellion. Although an 8 hour "what do we do about this?" session suggests the players might be suffering from a lot of analytical paralysis and are quite slow to come to a decision.
I wonder if their response to "finish this one first" was basically bought about by the fact that the villain is essentially dead anyway so might as well get it done. I mean, logically if he can't do anything now and is forced to run away from this situation he's not going to be gaining much more power and opportunity so let him die and move on. Mission accomplished. If this is meant to be a longer conflict then dimension door him out of there and try to come up with a plan, obviously from ruling over a large city anything is going to be downhill for the time being but play on the cult elements. Perhaps the warlock is trying to unleash the patron and is now having to work from the shadows to make it work but needs some way of influencing the population which is why he worked to become ruler in the first place. The wheels are already in motion and while I understand why you tried to push things in the direction you did I think it's written you into a bit of a hole. As an interesting take perhaps the warlock could go out in a blaze of glory by casting Fireball on himself/from the wizard causing a large blast damaging/destroying the monuments around them, maybe killing innocents, hitting the party with a hefty amount of damage and as it's suicide rather than your warlock killing them the patron has a way of pointing out that "technically" the contract wasn't fulfilled. Bonus points if as the fireball goes off the BBEG also casts dimension door and escapes but the party think he's dead. You said that he and the wizard have no more spells left but you can play that loosey goosey to work around that, it's not like the players know exactly what levels and assets are available to the NPCs and gets you out of the possible narrative hole you're in.
Wow, that is a good idea!! It's the villain for the first levels, so technically they are just a little bit ahead of time. I played the warlock as an incompetent, but power hungry warlock, that rose to power by a much smarter guy, that used him as a straw doll, so actions couldn't be traced back to the real culprit. They already know the noble in the city responsible for his rise, operating secretly and they don't have proof to blame him for the actions.
The warlock would not kill himself, because he is simple like that (he is hungry for power, not mad), but his court wizard, being in the cult of the real culprit (a mindflayer operating beneath the city, communicating through the noble through mindcontrol), would most certainly kill himself and the warlock, before they could interrogated. A partial victory would allow them to continue any questline (if the warlock is killed the patron will not kill the party warlock for his failure, but if the party wasnt responsible for the execution, the party warlock and the tiefling will continue to be lifeline-bound, so if one dies, the other will too).
Moreover, a fireball could damage the cathedral the fight took place in, making a memorial for the fight they had every time they return.
The warlock pants, breathing heavily, nearly exhausted. "I'm not finished yet" He reaches out a hand to grip the wizard by the throat and crushes the life out of him. You see the blood ooze out of the wizard's neck and seem to seep into the skin of the warlock, making him appear healthier and glow with power. Then, the warlock's chest bursts open spraying the room with bits of organs, bone, and gore.
A second passes, then the blood streams back to the shattered cavity of the villain's chest. Those hit by the blood (a bunch of innocent bystanders and the party?) feel part of their life essence flow away from them and into the reinvigorated warlock. The warlock, now fully healed, cackles in glee, and the party finds some of their spells missing...
"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
That is some nice and sick event. What is your experience with players reactions to OP bad guy mechanics? I mean, nothing in the levels of the players or the CR of the villain could even have this kind of power, if I went by the rules. Sounds more like a CR20 rather than a CR6 mechanic..
I would like it if my villain could do something like this, however, maybe my players feel like "ok, our DM just wants us to die". They are newbs to the game, so they don't know what a CR6 can and can't do and it could work, but what is your experience introducing these mechanics?
I once had Maglubiyet knock a PC barbarian unconscious because he was trying to tame a wolf while the party was beset on all sides by goblins AND after the bard had already healed him up from unconsciousness due to attacks. If the bad guy is a warlock, have his patron intercede on his behalf if you want him to survive, or have the patron withdraw his support for his failure (interrupting his dimension door) and leaving him powerless. Perhaps the wizard decides to turn on the warlock and act as a spy amongst the party ranks for the bigger bad in an effort to forestall their efforts. With this not being a competent big boss, how important is he to the machinations of the bigger bad and thus the story. It doesn't sound too important so I'd say finish him or have a really nice payoff shortly for letting him go.
You're the GM so you can do whatever you want =)
If he is supposed to be the final boss he should be epic. Your players should feel unnerved and scared, and when they win it'll be awesome for them.
My favorite villain item is Heart of the Child (homebrew)
"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