[3.5] Help a DM bail their players out?

[Golden Ladybug]

Okay, so I'm gonna preface this with an acknowledgement; I screwed up, and I'm trying to fix it without my Players ever knowing anything was amiss. I'm just having a bit of trouble figuring out how

Context for the curious

You see, we've just started a new campaign, relatively high power and set in a proudly "Fantasy Kitchen Sink" type setting, in which sea travel is heavily involved. My intention was to have the Party starting off in a relatively safe location, where they could get the hang of their new characters and become intertwined with a Goblin revolution type thing... which would give the captain of a ship that has just docked a desire to hire the competent adventurers who had saved the town/liberated the Goblins.

Of course, this didn't go according to plan, and they inadvertedly skipped that portion of my plans and approached the captain themselves, getting themselves hired and kicking out of port immediately. Okay, that's fine, I'll just improvise some stuff, I think to myself and they arrive at a deserted island, bristling with possibilities. I was hastily putting together an encounter with Brood Monkeys (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20041126a) in my head, but the PCs, horrible people that they are, decided to stay on the boat and ignore any and all plot hooks.

Boggles the mind, doesn't it?

Then, one player (who is playing a tweaked Nycter from the Monster Manual III, basically just removing the RHD and tweaking the other racial traits to match) decides to go flying off into the jungle, searching for something interesting. Brood Monkeys forgotten, I start vomiting up stuff, an ancient, rotting village full of the corpses of the long, long dead, and a huge pit sunk down into the ground at its center. He decides to investigate, and flies down to check it out.

After a long flight down, he encounters some short, misshapen and pale humanoids who look up at him in silence, before retreating into a spiralling tunnel around the edge of the pit. He follows, curious, and attempts to communicate with them. After getting no response, he flies forward and taps one on the shoulder, which ends with him grappled and knocked out. He wakes up in a cage, which has been carved out of the side of a cavern, around an underground lake.

As he tries to escape, a voice reverberates around the cavern and tells him to stay put, which he ignores and continues to break open the old, battered lock, and then start flying around the top of the cavern looking for gaps in the ceiling. So, the voice hits him with an Enslave, and he fails the saving throw.

He is then instructed to tell his new master all he knows about his crew, their capabilities and strengths, and then told to bring them to his new master's chamber, so they can experience the same "good fortune to be favored by such a glourious and kind master"

So, as you might've guessed if you read that, my party of 8 level 2 characters is going off to fight an Aboleth, unprepared, in its own stronghold with one of their number under the Aboleth's control.

Yeah.

My players are pretty good at punching above their weight class, but they aren't going to get out of this one by running at it and making attack rolls. The Party is mostly made up of very linear melee types, who are only really built (or have the equipment) to deal with problems in a single way (and the only one that really does something different is the Nycter, who is flying over people to drop bricks on them, abusing the falling object rules). Magic wise, we have a Binder/Warlock multiclass and a Focused Specialist Conjurer.

I cannot fathom how they are going to be able to beat an Aboleth, what with its ridiculously versatile suite of Illusions and its various "you lose" abilities.

So, what I'm asking for is help thinking of an Exit strategy; what can I do to help these guys get out of here alive, without fiating them out of it? Are there any creatures with a similiar ability to the Aboleth's* Enslave at a more reasonable CR? Are there any good quests that it can give the Party in exchange for their lives, that it couldn't reasonably accomplish with the 6 or so Duegar it has under its control, or by itself? Any other ways of getting out of this?

*The Nycter hasn't seen it yet, and has only been exposed to that ability, so swapping it out for something else won't cause any problems

[Kornaki]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dominatePerson.htm


Because of this limited range of activity, a Sense Motive check against DC 15 (rather than DC 25) can determine that the subject’s behavior is being influenced by an enchantment effect (see the Sense Motive skill description).

Seven sense motive checks - someone has to succeed. Then they can be properly frightened of the level 9+ wizard and not venture into the island

[Golden Ladybug]

Spectacular; that'll be the first thing I call for when we start this week's session.

...but knowing them, I'd like to still have some sort of backup plan, since I know for a fact that no one has any ranks in Sense Motive, and even if they did succeed, I'd give them even odds for cutting and running, or throwing their dice down on the table and charging forwards.

Thanks for the quick response though :smallsmile:

[Kantolin]

Depending on how much the character knows about what happened to him, you could get them in an unrelated fight against something, and have someone protection from evil him to deal with the unrelated fight.

Protection from evil suppresses mind control, including MC it doesn't know about, so it may help here. And having a NPC use protection from evil isn't that big of a deal in general.

It may also work with multiple fights on the way there. Maybe there's an evil necromancer who's also at odds with the aboleth. That way, you can have the NPC more or less randomly protection from evil people, and just make sure that at some point the mind controlled person happens to get at it. No harm, no foul.

[Randomguy]

Why did you throw an aboleth at a party of level 2 characters? :smallconfused:

[Amnestic]

Why did you throw an aboleth at a party of level 2 characters? :smallconfused:


I start vomiting up stuff

Sounds like she panicked due to players going completely off from what she planned and rattled off whatever came to mind and is now trying to salvage the situation.

Edit: She, not he.

[Malroth]

They can either make a DC 15 sense motive check to find out something's wrong and subdue their mind controled party member before they reach the cave or they all wind up temporarily enslaved by the Aboleth. Its not paticularly intrested in keeping long term slaves, but it does want to get rid of the brood monkeys and will use the party to exterminate them and then order them to go away.

[Kantolin]

Guys, she said:


Okay, so I'm gonna preface this with an acknowledgement; I screwed up, and I'm trying to fix it without my Players ever knowing anything was amiss.

So I'm pretty sure she's quite aware that an aboleth is not a good encounter for a level 2 party. :P

[Jack_Simth]

Spectacular; that'll be the first thing I call for when we start this week's session.

...but knowing them, I'd like to still have some sort of backup plan, since I know for a fact that no one has any ranks in Sense Motive, and even if they did succeed, I'd give them even odds for cutting and running, or throwing their dice down on the table and charging forwards.

Thanks for the quick response though :smallsmile:
Well, any form of Protection From (or magic circle against) Evil/Good/Chaos/Law will do, as they ALL suppress mind control. The lowly Lantern Archon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/archon.htm#lanternArchon) has it continuously; what's to stop them from seeing one in a fight and coming to it's aid? They might pass through an Unhallowed (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/unhallow.htm) area that a necromantically inclined Cleric set up to help his acolytes Command some skeletons he left for them while he headed out to do other things. Maybe they stumble across Magic Circle that's part of the calling diagram needed for Planar Binding (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/planarBindingLesser.htm) (or anything in that chain) (and in the process, freeing the critter that the Wizard was hoping to Bind... thus explaining why the Wizard has Better Things to Do than blast the party for interrupting the ritual). Obviously, the person who's under orders to LEAD them to the aboleth is going to be the first one to step into such areas.

[JustPlayItLoud]

Perhaps the aboleth doesn't bear them any ill will. They have a bizarrely alien mindset and could want any number of things. Or maybe there's just something else on the island that are a bigger annoyance. Perhaps the aforementioned brood monkeys have killed some of its enslaved minions and it seeks to bargain for a force large enough to wipe them out. Maybe it's obsessed with some sort of magical or psionic research and just wants to be left alone, but if all its enslaved dwarves die, they can't bring it food. It could offer them unneeded magic items or wealth for this service.

Then, after all that, if they still decide to charge in swinging you can have the aboleth turn all their flesh to gelatin guilt free.

[Golden Ladybug]

Why did you throw an aboleth at a party of level 2 characters? :smallconfused:

Oh, I am very aware that an Aboleth is so far out of this parties league that its not even funny. As others have pointed out, this was really just something that fell to pieces around my ankles accidentally.


Depending on how much the character knows about what happened to him, you could get them in an unrelated fight against something, and have someone protection from evil him to deal with the unrelated fight.

Protection from evil suppresses mind control, including MC it doesn't know about, so it may help here. And having a NPC use protection from evil isn't that big of a deal in general.

It may also work with multiple fights on the way there. Maybe there's an evil necromancer who's also at odds with the aboleth. That way, you can have the NPC more or less randomly protection from evil people, and just make sure that at some point the mind controlled person happens to get at it. No harm, no foul.


Well, any form of Protection From (or magic circle against) Evil/Good/Chaos/Law will do, as they ALL suppress mind control. The lowly Lantern Archon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/archon.htm#lanternArchon) has it continuously; what's to stop them from seeing one in a fight and coming to it's aid? They might pass through an Unhallowed (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/unhallow.htm) area that a necromantically inclined Cleric set up to help his acolytes Command some skeletons he left for them while he headed out to do other things. Maybe they stumble across Magic Circle that's part of the calling diagram needed for Planar Binding (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/planarBindingLesser.htm) (or anything in that chain) (and in the process, freeing the critter that the Wizard was hoping to Bind... thus explaining why the Wizard has Better Things to Do than blast the party for interrupting the ritual). Obviously, the person who's under orders to LEAD them to the aboleth is going to be the first one to step into such areas.

That's...that's not bad. That is, in fact, really good. I'm really liking both of those ideas, and I'll litter them around the place. Having a Necromancer hanging around the place, negating the Aboleth's Enslave and the potential interaction between the two evil forces on the island, might turn this disaster into something fun and worthwhile.

And of course, if they don't feel like palling up with the Necromancer, the Archon he summoned to fight the Aboleth for him shouldn't be too hard to free... :smallamused:


Perhaps the aboleth doesn't bear them any ill will. They have a bizarrely alien mindset and could want any number of things. Or maybe there's just something else on the island that are a bigger annoyance. Perhaps the aforementioned brood monkeys have killed some of its enslaved minions and it seeks to bargain for a force large enough to wipe them out. Maybe it's obsessed with some sort of magical or psionic research and just wants to be left alone, but if all its enslaved dwarves die, they can't bring it food. It could offer them unneeded magic items or wealth for this service.

Then, after all that, if they still decide to charge in swinging you can have the aboleth turn all their flesh to gelatin guilt free.

I almost like this one more :smallbiggrin:

This is actually all coming together rather nicely; Aboleth with Duegar Slaves is doing research into Magic/Psionic stuff, Evil Necromancer rocks up on the island, wants to take said research but doesn't want to risk becoming one of the Aboleth's Mind Slaves, so can't go near it himself. Attempts to bind an Archon to help him with its Magic Circle effect, but the Archon refuses (because [reasons]).

Necromancer ambushes the Aboleth's Duegar slaves whenever they come up above ground for food, trying to deny the Aboleth servants/food. Party rocks up, have to try and decide which of them to help, if at all, and may perhaps gain an ally in a reasonably powerful Archon or the Aboleth if they play their cards right.

Thanks so much for all the helpful suggestions, everyone :smallredface:

[nedz]

...

And of course, if they don't feel like palling up with the Necromancer, the Archon he summoned to fight the Aboleth for him shouldn't be too hard to free... :smallamused:

...


WTF: Necromancer, Archon and an Aboleth ?
Your level 2 party are certainly punching above their weight.

[Twilightwyrm]

Salt.

Allow me to elaborate: As mentioned before, the PCs should be able to sense that the character is being enslaved, and deal with it appropriately. Assuming they actually find out that it is an aboleth, you can either have them research the creature, or have them otherwise find out something about its basic physiology. (A high enough Knowledge (Dungeoneering) check from the Warlock, Wizard, or any other PC with ranks in the skill could cover this) The description of Aboleth physiology in the supplement Lords of Madness indicates that they do not actually have skin, that the layer of mucus around them acts as a form of skin, but is still susceptible to osmosis. Therefore, hitting the aboleth with sufficient (read: large) quantities of salt, even under water, would have the same effect as salt does on an ordinary slug (massive, instantaneous dehydration), potentially ending the encounter right there it. The conjurer should be able to manage this easy enough. As a result, the PCs get to feel like they overcame the encounter through their own ingenuity and strategy, and you get out of your dilemma. Further, it encourages smart tactics, and lateral thinking in your players, meaning their fights are less likely to come down to charge into melee and hope for the best. Finally, you don't need to worry about DM interpretation going against this plan because, well, you are the DM.

Note: An alternative would be selective freezing. Since aboleths breath through the mucus ducts on the sides of their head, if the PCs aimed frost spells, or the like, specifically at those ducts, they could effectively suffocate it. Since the mucus is generally intermixed with water, even when the aboleth is above ground, this could indeed work quite well, as it would be the functional equivalent of having your windpipe filled with ice.

Post Note: You might be able to tell I've spent a lot of time thinking about this...

[Rejakor]

High adventure 'escape the monster and the evil jungle' sort of thing. Not so much fight the aboleth as either bargain with it for something it wants, sneak away while it's distracted by something else, or use the environment to cause so much chaos (possibly by say letting in some Brood Monkeys to screw stuff up) that you can sneak away while the aboleth is busy.

The necromancer vs aboleth vs archon is perfectly within this theme.

[Cranthis]

The very simple answer to the Op's question is, the aboleth isn't in the fort they end up at.

[Gavinfoxx]

Here's what you do. Have them get dominated, completely and fully. They walked into something they were totally unprepared for, they should reap the consequences... But don't make that a losing condition.

Say the Aboleth realizes, 'well, if entities as weak as you can just walk in here, than eventually someone competent has to come along. I need to move. You are going to help me for the duration of this domination. After you do that, you are going to stay at this place, and wait for one of my associates to come and re-dominate you; relatively competent help is hard to come by.'


So they go and work for the Aboleth to the best of their ability, clear something out, help them set up some dimensional portal or something to move, and then go to a waiting area, to be picked up by another aboleth or something else.


....

A thing which never comes, and the mental control wears off.

[Laserlight]

since I know for a fact that no one has any ranks in Sense Motive

You're rolling the dice where they can see them? Why?

[Rejakor]

You're rolling the dice where they can see them? Why?

Because cheating is horrible and kills games and versimilitude and any sense of danger.

[Dr Bwaa]

WTF: Necromancer, Archon and an Aboleth ?
Your level 2 party are certainly punching above their weight.

To be fair, the first two might well be a lantern archon and a level 1 specialist wizard.


Because cheating is horrible and kills games and versimilitude and any sense of danger.

Presumably he was talking about the sense motive rolls, which are frequently rolled by the DM without even telling the players, let alone letting them see the result. To preserve a sense of danger and verisimilitude. :smallamused:

[Slipperychicken]

Maybe the Aboleth realized it's nest was spotted, so it fled with the village, leaving a CR ~3-4 encounter behind to pack up the remaining equipment (which happens to be an appropriate treasure for the party).

[Medic!]

Yeah there's nothing wrong with rolling in the open as a DM if it fits your table.


As far as the mess your party's in, I like the idea that there's more going on in the world than just what the PCs are up to. Instead of having them fight the Aboleth, they could just be caught up in the middle of a fight between the Aboleth and another creature of equal danger. Maybe toss them a few mooks as legitimate party vs creature fights while the big guys duke it out, have a spectacular cinimatic fight between the Aboleth and the Whatever and when all's said and done they either kill eachother, or the Whatever wins and flies off into the sunset, leaving the PCs going "What the hell just happened?" as you tie it into an over-arching plot-point.

It'd also be a good set-up for a show of power of a later villain early-on.

10 levels later the party runs into the Whatever and goes "Oh....hey I remember that guy, he curb-stomped that Aboleth that curb-stomped us way back when..."

[Zaq]

Perhaps an alternative . . . do the PCs have enough information to prove that this is an aboleth? If not, well, don't make it an aboleth. Pick something else with some kind of mind-control powers and leave the aboleth out of this. I can't think of anything offhand that would be level-appropriate (or at least not a TPK) that has Dominate, since that's a relatively high-level power, but you can come up with something, I'm sure.

[Laserlight]

Because cheating is horrible and kills games and versimilitude and any sense of danger.

"Cheating" is a loaded word, and inaccurate. But leaving that aside...

I'd suggest that at least some rolls ought to be done where the player can't see them, and Sense Motive is one of those.

As for a sense of danger, I'd expect a player to respond differently to "You rolled a 1, you believe he's telling the truth", rather than "Your roll is...hm. Okay, you're convinced he's telling the truth."
YMMV.

[Slipperychicken]

"Cheating" is a loaded word, and inaccurate. But leaving that aside...


I'm with Raj on this one. I've played games where the DM cheats (and that word describes it perfectly. From dice-lying, to rules-fudging, to ass-pulling, to arbitrary mid-session house-ruling), and trust me, it is not fun at all. We quickly lost all sense that our characters' lives were in danger (or that there was any drama at all, since all success or failure was determined entirely by how the DM was feeling at the time), and he has tried all kinds of stunts to convince us our characters still had a chance of dying, even pulling out a Disjunction... But to no avail. We knew he won't let us die, and he knew it too. We knew he wouldn't let anything bad happen to anyone because of a die roll. We knew that if someone announced he had an AC of 28, the DM would suddenly roll 5 criticals in a row. That if a boss rolled a lucky critical, the DM would ask for our health total and give exactly enough damage to put us at -9 hp, somehow leaving us miraculously stable.

It's not fun, at all. I've been there, and it's not a good place to be. You might as well put away the dice and character sheets at that point, because they don't matter anymore. The results of your actions are determined, not by rules, not by physics or common sense, but entirely by the whimsy of the guy sitting behind the screen.


Caveat: There are very few rolls involving PCs which are worth keeping secret, but even this secrecy isn't necessary for mature roleplayers. They are as follows: Sense Motive, Perception, and saves against things the PCs don't know about.

[Kantolin]

I've played games where the DM cheats (and that word describes it perfectly.

I've played quite a few games where the DM 'cheats'. I found it exceptionally fun, as did the remainder of my table.

I have then played in quite a few more games where the DM did no such 'cheating', which were outrageously less fun by such a dramatic margin that the games usually fell apart. The only lasting games we've had were ones where the DM, in fact, 'cheated'.

...different strokes, and all.

[Nabirius]

Look in Lords of Madness, there is a slave-taker races called the Neogi, and if you only take some weak ones and maybe some slaves that they can either try to rescue or kill that the Neogi will force to fight. It could be interesting. They don't seem too tough other than the enslave, so if your players are clever they can fight/flee without too much difficulty.


I've played quite a few games where the DM 'cheats'. I found it exceptionally fun, as did the remainder of my table.

I have then played in quite a few more games where the DM did no such 'cheating', which were outrageously less fun by such a dramatic margin that the games usually fell apart. The only lasting games we've had were ones where the DM, in fact, 'cheated'.

...different strokes, and all.

Well I will also say it depends on how the DM cheats. Cheating is often a necessary evil, for instance my DM at the moment in order to challenge out party of 7 in 4e made an encounter against Magma Elementals (we are level 7), and then he decided to buff the Elementals, giving them a burst attack vs reflex on recharge, made their magma slam their at-will, whenever they were hit (at-will) everything in 1 burst 1 of them was attacked vs. Reflex, a hit did ~10 fire damage and did 5 ongoing fire damage (save ends) a miss did 5 damage. He also buffed their death explosion. Now normally this wouldn't really be a problem, we won, it was a fairly tough fight, and it dragged a bit, but we won. The problem was that I had played vs magma elementals before and knew these were wrong (they also just felt wrong, probably due to the sheer number of powers). Nothing feels quite as wrong as seeing the DM 'cheat', now the DM never cheated in other ways during that fight, that I know of. When the cheating becomes blatant and frequent enough it becomes a problem, or if the players catch you. Because it breaks tension at its knee caps, that said I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with 'cheating' and a bit of hand-waving can enhance a game, especially when used to keep things moving at a steady pace.

[Rejakor]

I've played quite a few games where the DM 'cheats'. I found it exceptionally fun, as did the remainder of my table.

I have then played in quite a few more games where the DM did no such 'cheating', which were outrageously less fun by such a dramatic margin that the games usually fell apart. The only lasting games we've had were ones where the DM, in fact, 'cheated'.

...different strokes, and all.

There is a style of gaming where the DM cheating is intended and even supported by groups.

These games are often about social interaction between the players, jokes, and roleplaying, and the DnD rules are relatively superfluous except to create a supporting world for the roleplaying to occur in.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this.

If it happens with consent from everyone involved.

But what I believed Laserlight was advocating was changing, or 'fudging' the sense motive rolls in a game where the players did not expect fudging to occur (as evidenced by Golden Ladybug's expectation that the party were going to be, without some DM quickstep, annihilated or enslaved for all time by the Aboleth), which is not consent, or fair play.

Which is what I was objecting to.

Creating a world in which heroic tales can be told is the DM's job. Changing or 'fudging' die rolls without prior consent from the party is beyond that job, and can and has removed all danger or interest from many campaigns and games.


As an alternative suggestion to the original problem, have you considered simply having the aboleth enslave them? I'm sure an aboleth has many uses for a party of adventurers which would throw them into dangerous situations and give them interesting problems to solve... you said that you had problems motivating this party to do anything, so... the adventure of 'do what the aboleth says while scheming to find a way to get free of his tentacles' is actually a pretty good one.

[Golden Ladybug]

Here's what you do. Have them get dominated, completely and fully. They walked into something they were totally unprepared for, they should reap the consequences... But don't make that a losing condition.

I like where your coming from, but I'd feel a little bit... heavy handed, I suppose. This isn't something that they* legitimately made a mistake on; I'm the one who screwed up here, and I don't want to have this end up looking like I just went on a DM power trip or something. I want to give them an out.

Preferably more than one, because my players can be a little bit dense sometimes in this regard.

*If they had gone into an Aboleth's lair and gotten into this situation on their own volition, I would be happy to implement your solution.


Assuming they actually find out that it is an aboleth, you can either have them research the creature, or have them otherwise find out something about its basic physiology. (A high enough Knowledge (Dungeoneering) check from the Warlock, Wizard, or any other PC with ranks in the skill could cover this)

Yeah, that's another thing they're lacking in; a single character between with any ranks in Knowledge skills that aren't Local or History (which they demand be some omniscient skill that can be used to tell them anything and everything, and complain about loudly when it doesn't), even the wizard :smallmad:

But the rest of your idea is very interesting and cool. If they figured something like this out on their own, I would rise from the table and clap because it is really amazing. I can only hope they take the initiative to plan in this way, or think of a proper plan. I'll do my best to give them an oppurtunity to learn what they're up against, and make a plan to deal with it.


Perhaps an alternative . . . do the PCs have enough information to prove that this is an aboleth? If not, well, don't make it an aboleth. Pick something else with some kind of mind-control powers and leave the aboleth out of this. I can't think of anything offhand that would be level-appropriate (or at least not a TPK) that has Dominate, since that's a relatively high-level power, but you can come up with something, I'm sure.

Nope, they have zero information as to what it is, except for the Nycter, who knows that its pretty big. I brought up this line of thinking in the OP, since if there is anything in the lower rungs of the CR ladder that can pull off the same sort of thing that an Aboleth can, I'd love to be able to use the magic of (secret) retconjuration to fix this.

I'll do some scouring of my monster books before this weeks session and see if I can come up with anything :smallsmile:


Yeah there's nothing wrong with rolling in the open as a DM if it fits your table.

As far as the mess your party's in, I like the idea that there's more going on in the world than just what the PCs are up to. Instead of having them fight the Aboleth, they could just be caught up in the middle of a fight between the Aboleth and another creature of equal danger. Maybe toss them a few mooks as legitimate party vs creature fights while the big guys duke it out, have a spectacular cinimatic fight between the Aboleth and the Whatever and when all's said and done they either kill eachother, or the Whatever wins and flies off into the sunset, leaving the PCs going "What the hell just happened?" as you tie it into an over-arching plot-point.

It'd also be a good set-up for a show of power of a later villain early-on.

10 levels later the party runs into the Whatever and goes "Oh....hey I remember that guy, he curb-stomped that Aboleth that curb-stomped us way back when..."

We seem to be of similar opinion :smallamused:

That is basically what I'd be aiming for in the Necromancer V Archon V Aboleth scenario, with relatively equally powerful bruisers running into each other head first, with their much weaker minions milling around in the conflict. Regardless of which side the PC's weigh in on, if they do at all, they should have a decent and (hopefully) memorable encounter to show for it, and leave it with some insight into how the world works, and what sort of power level exists above them.


"Cheating" is a loaded word, and inaccurate. But leaving that aside...

I'd suggest that at least some rolls ought to be done where the player can't see them, and Sense Motive is one of those.

As for a sense of danger, I'd expect a player to respond differently to "You rolled a 1, you believe he's telling the truth", rather than "Your roll is...hm. Okay, you're convinced he's telling the truth."
YMMV.

One of the things I've really liked doing recently is getting my Players to keep me up to date on their character sheets, and the recording their Saving Throws, Perception, Stealth and Social Interaction skills. Whenever something of that nature comes up, I can just ask for a d20 roll and crunch the numbers myself.

This hasn't worked so far, since despite my frequent asking, only one person has actually given me a digital copy of his character sheet :smallannoyed:


Look in Lords of Madness, there is a slave-taker races called the Neogi, and if you only take some weak ones and maybe some slaves that they can either try to rescue or kill that the Neogi will force to fight. It could be interesting. They don't seem too tough other than the enslave, so if your players are clever they can fight/flee without too much difficulty.

Oh, that's neat. I'll give them a look over, and see if I can slot them into the scenario without anything going amiss.


Well I will also say it depends on how the DM cheats. Cheating is often a necessary evil, for instance my DM at the moment in order to challenge out party of 7 in 4e made an encounter against Magma Elementals (we are level 7), and then he decided to buff the Elementals, giving them a burst attack vs reflex on recharge, made their magma slam their at-will, whenever they were hit (at-will) everything in 1 burst 1 of them was attacked vs. Reflex, a hit did ~10 fire damage and did 5 ongoing fire damage (save ends) a miss did 5 damage. He also buffed their death explosion. Now normally this wouldn't really be a problem, we won, it was a fairly tough fight, and it dragged a bit, but we won. The problem was that I had played vs magma elementals before and knew these were wrong (they also just felt wrong, probably due to the sheer number of powers). Nothing feels quite as wrong as seeing the DM 'cheat', now the DM never cheated in other ways during that fight, that I know of. When the cheating becomes blatant and frequent enough it becomes a problem, or if the players catch you. Because it breaks tension at its knee caps, that said I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with 'cheating' and a bit of hand-waving can enhance a game, especially when used to keep things moving at a steady pace.

I can see what you mean there, but I'm not sure if I agree with your premise; I wouldn't consider altering monsters in such a way "cheating". I have altered monsters to make them more or less threatening before, and I'm sure I'll do it again (I mean, I designed an encounter for later in this campaign that is effectively "The Ship gets attacked by an Aquatic Tyrannosaurus"). I don't think its that much of a big deal, as long as it maintains the feel of the monster in question...

Okay, maybe Aquatic Tyrannosaurus doesn't quite remain true to the feel of the monster, but hey, I think its cool :smalltongue:


There is a style of gaming where the DM cheating is intended and even supported by groups.

These games are often about social interaction between the players, jokes, and roleplaying, and the DnD rules are relatively superfluous except to create a supporting world for the roleplaying to occur in.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this.

If it happens with consent from everyone involved.

But what I believed Laserlight was advocating was changing, or 'fudging' the sense motive rolls in a game where the players did not expect fudging to occur (as evidenced by Golden Ladybug's expectation that the party were going to be, without some DM quickstep, annihilated or enslaved for all time by the Aboleth), which is not consent, or fair play.

Which is what I was objecting to.

Creating a world in which heroic tales can be told is the DM's job. Changing or 'fudging' die rolls without prior consent from the party is beyond that job, and can and has removed all danger or interest from many campaigns and games.

As an alternative suggestion to the original problem, have you considered simply having the aboleth enslave them? I'm sure an aboleth has many uses for a party of adventurers which would throw them into dangerous situations and give them interesting problems to solve... you said that you had problems motivating this party to do anything, so... the adventure of 'do what the aboleth says while scheming to find a way to get free of his tentacles' is actually a pretty good one.

I think I have to agree with you here; I'm not a DM that thinks fudging rolls is okay. I want my players to trust that I'm being honest with them, and I want to have a game where bad things can happen. Characters can, and will, die, and not always in glorious or heroic circumstances.

Heck, I don't even use a DM screen. All rolls at my table are done in the open, where everyone can see them; fudging isn't a reasonable possibility, unless I'm just pulling numbers out of nowhere.

I'll consider your suggestion, and although I'll do my best to avoid it, it does work as a way of getting the game's momentum going. We haven't really hit our stride yet, and things are still getting off the ground. If having them being shoehorned into ADVENTURE!!! is the best way to do that, then so be it.

[prufock]

I'd just like to point out that


The control is also broken if the aboleth dies or travels more than 1 mile from its slave.

Presumably the ship is more than one mile from the cave? If you want an easy out, that is. There are some great ideas here, I particularly like JustPlayItLoud's ideas to tie things into the original adventure you had planned. Keep the sense motive checks in mind.

[Rejakor]

Well I will also say it depends on how the DM cheats. Cheating is often a necessary evil, for instance my DM at the moment in order to challenge out party of 7 in 4e made an encounter against Magma Elementals (we are level 7), and then he decided to buff the Elementals, giving them a burst attack vs reflex on recharge, made their magma slam their at-will, whenever they were hit (at-will) everything in 1 burst 1 of them was attacked vs. Reflex, a hit did ~10 fire damage and did 5 ongoing fire damage (save ends) a miss did 5 damage. He also buffed their death explosion. Now normally this wouldn't really be a problem, we won, it was a fairly tough fight, and it dragged a bit, but we won. The problem was that I had played vs magma elementals before and knew these were wrong (they also just felt wrong, probably due to the sheer number of powers). Nothing feels quite as wrong as seeing the DM 'cheat', now the DM never cheated in other ways during that fight, that I know of. When the cheating becomes blatant and frequent enough it becomes a problem, or if the players catch you. Because it breaks tension at its knee caps, that said I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with 'cheating' and a bit of hand-waving can enhance a game, especially when used to keep things moving at a steady pace.

Changing a monster is a DM prerogative; those weren't magma elementals - they were 'advanced' magma elementals. The problem is when a DM changes rolls, or stats, in the middle of a fight or situation, in order to railroad players.

[Nabirius]

Changing a monster is a DM prerogative; those weren't magma elementals - they were 'advanced' magma elementals. The problem is when a DM changes rolls, or stats, in the middle of a fight or situation, in order to railroad players.

True, the main problem was the feeling that something was off, and the story was more to illustrate that players catching you cheating can ruin the immersion, rather than what the DM did which was totally fine. As an above poster noted if it happens too often it can feel like the DM is just forcing you along the path. In my case it was less like feeling like a puppet on strings and more like seeing that the enemies in a shooter spawn in a way to flank you, not that it makes anything different, it just feels weird. Maybe its just me, but I prefer to not see how the DM is cheating.

[Acanous]

Just a suggestion-

The Aboleth is Steve (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13630097), this is where he retired to, he's got levels in Bard and really just wants an appreciative audience.

(And all their gold. All of it. They can go back on the ship after but they're broke.)
Edit: Link fixed.

[Twilightwyrm]

Yeah, that's another thing they're lacking in; a single character between with any ranks in Knowledge skills that aren't Local or History (which they demand be some omniscient skill that can be used to tell them anything and everything, and complain about loudly when it doesn't), even the wizard :smallmad:

But the rest of your idea is very interesting and cool. If they figured something like this out on their own, I would rise from the table and clap because it is really amazing. I can only hope they take the initiative to plan in this way, or think of a proper plan. I'll do my best to give them an oppurtunity to learn what they're up against, and make a plan to deal with it.



Well good to know this was helpful at least. On the plus side, if you are ever facing an aboleth with a high knowledge wizard, and you think your DM would let you get away with this, you now have another option for dealing with it.

[Rejakor]

Isn't the environment of an aboleth saltwater pools deep underground?

Wouldn't they then have some biological defense against salt? Slugs are killed by salt because they are land creatures, and leeches are swamp creatures.

And considering an aboleth's natural armour, while they are slimy, I don't think they are necessarily gelatinous.

This tactic might work better against a gelatinous cube (although since they can survive being immersed in water, they probably lock the fluid into themselves in some way regardless).