DM advice

[Facemandu]

I am DMing a solo campaign for a friend. He is playing a lawful evil halfling summoner. Currently 5th lvl. He had a npc goblin fighter in his party and I played a paladin that reluctantly joined him to help destroy a cult of shax. In the dungeon with the cult the goblin got killed and then he turned on the paladin and killed her. I am fairly certain he wont make it out of this dungeon alive by himself. Not sure how to handle it.. I want this campaign to continue. Ive had a blast as a first time dm but I dont want to reward him for bringing this on himself. Any suggestions? I kind of want to try to kill his character now. (Fairly)
Thanks in advance for suggestions. DFTBA

[Deaxsa]

send reinforcements, whether in the present or in the past.
-maybe another group tried to attack a while earlier, and he finds their remains? (inluding things like potions of invisibility, barksin, cure moderate wounds, etc)
-maybe another group JUST attacked, and his enemies must go fight the new threat, letting him have an easier time?

maybe he finds a secret passage which lets him circumvent most of the dungeon?

whatever you do, though, don't make it TOO deus ex machina, or it will ruin the fun.

edit: also, maybe you should let him die, and learn his lesson that turning on your friends in dangerous locations is lethal, and say "well the story continues, want to play a new character that picks up where yours left off?"

[Callin]

continue on as normal and let him reap what he has sowed. make him have to think and really step up his game. reward his odd off the wall ideas.


then as he is walking out kill him. :smallbiggrin: paladins dont like to hear about people killing paladins and their God can most certainly tell the faith about the turncoat and request revenge.

[Sylthia]

Keep the encounters geared toward a party of three. Depending on the reason, it's not a good idea to reward foolish behavior.

[Miranius]

There are multiple ways of coping with that. How about....:

Having him captured, beaten and placed a geas on himself to work in the interest of the cult for a specific endeveor.

Oooor.... Have him beaten unconscious and wake up 3 weeks later in a random location above the body of X, the cute fiend of posession that borrowed his body just saying his goodbyes before disappearing (he got no save because of ritual or whatever...).


Oooor....Have emeny Y steal his casting powers some way and he has to cooperate with yucky do-gooders in order to get them back.


How about these?

[Devils_Advocate]

I want this campaign to continue. Ive had a blast as a first time dm but I dont want to reward him for bringing this on himself.
These are tricky goals to reconcile! Pretty much any change that allows him to survive is effectively a reward. But if you do want to be lenient while still allowing negative consequences for his actions, I second Miranius's suggestion that the cultists try to capture the summoner and place a geas (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/geasQuest.htm) or lesser geas (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/geasLesser.htm) on him.


I kind of want to try to kill his character now. (Fairly)
It would be perfectly fair to simply run things exactly as you intended to before.

A lack of meatshields is less of a concern for a well-played summoner than a typical mage, after all. Perhaps that was his thinking. Still can't imagine why he didn't wait until had they dealt with their mutual foe for his betrayal, mind. Perhaps he's decided to retreat, now that the Fighter's dead? Maybe he assumed that the Paladin would want to press on, and this was his last chance to kill her and loot her corpse.


then as he is walking out kill him. :smallbiggrin: paladins dont like to hear about people killing paladins and their God can most certainly tell the faith about the turncoat and request revenge.
Ugh. Why not just have the god show up and kill him personally, if you're going to invoke divine intervention? It's not like being indirect about it makes it any less of a deus ex machina.

And it's not like it's likely that the deity would even be aware of what happened (via Remote Sensing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm#remoteSensing) or Portfolio Sense (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm#portfolioSense), presumably). You do realize, I hope, that there are non-trivial limits to what gods do, and that these limits are necessary for mortals to have meaningful agency?

[Barsoom]

Put him before a hard choice. A permanent sacrifice is needed. An ability score, or a magic item. Remind him that if the paladin was alive, it was possible to talk the do-gooder into making that sacrifice himself, but now that he's dead ...

[Callin]

Ugh. Why not just have the god show up and kill him personally, if you're going to invoke divine intervention? It's not like being indirect about it makes it any less of a deus ex machina.


That was for his comment about wanting to kill the dude. Was just a way to have someone there or at least coming after him sometime down the line for killing the Paladin. (Say the dead Paladins friend has a Divination cast to find out what happened to him. Of course his God will tell him.)

Besides why would the God kill the guy personally. He did kill one of his followers but why do it himself when he can have his followers do it. Its beneath him to do himself.

[ArcturusV]

I'd say not to change encounters or dungeon layout per se. He should feel that he is effectively in a much harder place for what he's done. But a slight alteration to Encounters that lets him choose the pace a bit or gives him a bit of a breather.

Thus instead of having encounters where the moment the guy opens the door the enemies inside see him and attack, you have the same encounter set up so no one is looking at the door when he opens it up. He has about 1, maybe 2 rounds to do something before someone notices.

This little sort of change can mean that the challenges are just as challenging resource and game wise, but the player has the advantage of Time and Planning. Particularly with a spellcaster focus like that, he should be very into detailed planning and making his limited spell slot resources go as far as possible.

So it's playing into his strengths, potentially. But since all the encounters are still geared for Him + 2 meatshields he would need to get pretty creative and tactical with those small windows of opportunity to even up the odds. So you end up with Possible but not Probable encounters.

[Devils_Advocate]

That was for his comment about wanting to kill the dude.
But Facemandu noted, albeit parenthetically, a desire to do so fairly. :smallannoyed:


(Say the dead Paladins friend has a Divination cast to find out what happened to him. Of course his God will tell him.)
His god probably doesn't know!

Look, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but your capital "G" is reinforcing my suspicion that you don't quite understand how deities are supposed to work in D&D. They are far from omniscient.


Besides why would the God kill the guy personally. He did kill one of his followers but why do it himself when he can have his followers do it. Its beneath him to do himself.
Hey, if you want something done right, do it yourself! Plus, his avatar could probably show up and chop a halfling's head off in less time than it would take him to explain the situation, so why bother?

I mean, yeah, you could say that this god is too egotistical to do any real work, but not so egotistical that he's unwilling to entrust a task to lowly mortals, but that's an awfully specific level of arrogance. Also, I'd expect a paladin's god to be less of a prick.

[Facemandu]

Wonderful advice from you all! I am still figuring out what I want to do about it, but this has given me a lot of great ideas. Considering he found the cache of gear and will get to loot the paladin he may opt to leave the dungeon and forget the cult but I will somehow make him pay for it.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Interesting idea: the paladin was strong enough his god knew and was VERY pissed about how. However, some lawful evil god intervened and the halfling will be fine. That OTHER god will want a return on his investment and may geas the halfling/demand her help... or else.