IMO this is one of those things that the player should be told to roll a relatively easy Knowledge check for first, unless it’s being presented as a new development in-universe (and then the DM should probably have engineered a less lethal way to introduce it). Wizard schools presumably hand out “creatures not to nuke” lists to their students…
I completely agree. The existence of these creatures would be common knowledge for wizards. Not so much for sorcerers though…
Print out a “creatures not to nuke” binder at the start of the campaign and see if they pay attention
The only time that I’ve seen this monster introduced into a story is through the “story” that’s built into Strixhaven. I use that word very fucking loosely because they leave an enormous amount of work to the DM. At any rate, that story is across several years in a magical Hogwarts-y school. In Year 2 or 3 they gain access to this big boggy area and have to go looking for shit. While spending time out there they can come across tracks and stuff of these monsters. I think there’s something that also says a professor is supposed to mention something vague about these types of monsters.
In that case the expectation is that the players have just been paying attention to the game in general.
Otherwise yeah I agree in having a roll although only if the player asks for one. If they fire off the spell first without thinking and then inquire I would still allow the roll but the spell is cast. Only thing you’d get from that is advantage on the dex save.
the expectation is that the players have just been paying attention to the game in general.
Hahaha. We just spent several months of game time (and several years of real time) taking a succubus-esque thing around with us because we didn’t listen to some NPCs at the very beginning and thought she was just a hostage we were rescuing. The GM spent so much time slowly building her up and making her ever so slightly more evil to see when we’d finally notice. Turns out it took literally mind controlling one of our named NPCs that worked in the circus. Boy, did we feel bad afterwards. We still didn’t know she was a succubus, we thought she was just an asshole, so we fired her. The GM let us know afterwards. There was no detail about her in the book other than the initial encounter, we were just supposed to kill her.
So yeah. Paying attention. We don’t really do that…
creatures not to nuke
Oh my, this just made my evening, thank you
“The shopkeeper. No, really, do not murder random civilians. No matter how much of a good idea it seems like at the time. No, even if he has something you really want. Don’t. HEY. DON’T. DROP IT…DROP IT! SIT. STAY. Good initiate.”
“At my school it was pretty much just the teacher’s name and then he told us to go nuts.”
So I’m curious about this kind of thing.
I’ve been playing since the blue box days (on and off but have been interested in getting back into it). In the games I’ve run and the groups I’ve played with, we’ve generally played in such a way that the PCs don’t get killed off if we’re doing a long running campaign. For one off games that has everyone with a new character and is finished in a couple of sessions, we will sometimes play with PC deaths, but for ones where players actually take their characters from level 1s on up, we take the plot armor approach.
I’ve considered it appropriate because I see D&D as interactive fantasy literature rather than a game that people can lose. If a player wants to quit, we can Tasha Yar them out of the story, but otherwise we manage it so that they end up wiping and getting another go (eg, the way it works in a game like WoW), or whatever works for the storyline.
If you do have character permadeath in your games, do you have the player just roll another 15th level whatever and join the party as a new character? Does role playing get affected by that?
We just had our first character death in the campaign I’m in. Our DM gave us the choice. We were in a situation where we could be TPKed, so he told us, we could choose, die, or be Deus ex Machina’d.
Most of us chose to continue playing our same characters. The other players didn’t feel like it would be a satisfying death. I let my character die though.
He’s a Warlock that got his powers by swearing an oath of service in exchange for his patron saving his sister, who had been caught in a cave in. When he died this time, his patron was there, and I decided it would make sense for him to make the same choices again. He swore further oaths in exchange for his patron saving his friends.
So now, he’s the only one that died, and the other players have to deal with that. The Paladin is angry, and upset with himself, because he feels like it’s his job to sacrifice himself for his friends, not the other way around. The Bard is reeling, because he grew up a bastard in a noble household, without any real connections, and now, the only person he’d ever really grown close to is dead.
To further complicate things, the Bard took up my Warlock’s holy symbol, which is an enchanted amulet that gains power as he “saves” the souls of others in service of his patron. He had basically been charged with being a missionary for an unknown, probably evil, maybe god. The Paladin really didn’t like that, but now the Bard is staked on it, because, to believe that my Warlock is in a good place, he has to believe in my Warlock’s religion.
And now, I get to come in as a totally new character (a Bladesinger Wizard, and the surprise husband of a local rebel leader), in the middle of all of this, while they’re dealing with their grief and confusion, and I have to make them like and trust me so we can fight off an army that’s marching on the forest we’re hiding in.
Plus, my original character will now be coming back as a villain.
We do player death beacause D&D is interactive fantasy literature. Death isn’t losing, it’s just another part of the story
We do player death beacause D&D is interactive fantasy literature. Death isn’t losing, it’s just another part of the story
Exactly my take on it as well. In a fantasy setting, death isn’t necessarily the end. There are ways to be revived, raised, etc. Plus in a game without any stakes, what is the fun?
That sounds like it was done perfectly.
Thanks! It’s been super fun. We’ve had two sessions since my Warlock’s death, and, even though there hasn’t been any combat, or other traditional D&D encounters, I think they’ve been our best sessions so far. The Bard’s player actually cried, and we haven’t even done the funeral yet.
It just so happened that, while we were exploring the dungeon where my character died, they found some statues, and he mentioned that that’s what his people (a dwarf clan) do for their dead. So now the Bard is going to try to carve him a statue to bury him under. It’s gonna be great
