upcoming session help

[lytokk]

Well, I ended my last session with a little bit of a cliffhanger. 25 days ago, one of the characters was bitten by a lycanthrope and nat 1'ed the secretly rolled fort save in order to avoid getting the curse. The character is a halfling rogue, and with maxed out hide and move silently, so pretty much transformed and snuck away without anyone knowing what happenned. Her turn in watch came about and when the other PC went to wake her up she was missing. *end of session*

Now, the players have no clue what happened to her, including her character. I've come up with a few options as to how to do the next session, assuming the players chose to look for her, which I'm 99% they will.

A) have them look all night and find nothing, only to have her walk back to camp the next morning

B) have them look for her, find her in her lycan form (werebird) and have them set about catching her

C) have them look for her, and throw in some sort of darkness based hunter as a sort of red-herring which they would more than likely assume took her away. Shadow Mastiff's come to mind, and would work well in getting another character into a sort of shadow template. It also works since the PC getting the shadow template is going to be getting into a relationship with the werebird and I could always use the werebird to fight them off, right before sunrise, so the whole party could see her transform back.

Since, according to the rules, the rogue is under my control until sunrise, that player wont have a character the entire session, if I go with option B r C that is. Thankfully, I've got a handy dandy DMPC that I could relinquish control of for this session, so she'll have someone to play. Being out in the wilderness doesn't loan itself well to having another humanoid just wander onto set, so the DMPC sounds like a logical choice.

So, I'm wondering what the playground thinks of my options? I'm leaning heavily towards option C, with the player using my PC. Thanks for the feedback.

In addition, the rogue should be fatigued the day after the transformation due to the fact she got no real rest the night before right?Well, I guess the whole party would be as well.

[NoACWarrior]

Well Lycanthropy, when undetected, is not known by the players, and the players won't recognize the character in her hybrid or animal form, so no problem there. It is concievable that you could make up some kind of dream sequence for the Halfling's PC to play through and tell her that since her character isn't around she can play as your DMPC for a bit. The problem is forcing the PC to play as the DMPC, and having her and the party NOT get suspicious about her PC's whereabouts. This is where the dream state could play a role - a vivid dream implying some type of magical sleep walking as a compulsion - the party hears exactly what goes on in this dream state - the dream state doesn't need to be factual, but only needs to distract the party from discovering that the halfling PC is doing other things besides not controlling her body and sleep walking.

Option A then becomes believable, option B isn't too bad but the Party wouldn't recognize her (since they arn't looking for a animal, only a halfling), and option C is an interesting intervention.

I would choose Option A as the Player isn't penalized for not participating in the hunt. It would also better hide her condition.

Last thing to note - the lycanthrope which bit her wasn't large in hybrid form was it? If so she couldn't have contracted Lycanthropy unless you house rulled it possible.

Edit: taken out assumed wolf lycanthropy.

[lytokk]

Nope, it was an eagle, which is small.

[lytokk]

I suppose it would be worth calling the player up and cluing her in on whats going to happen. Basically, just tell her that it may happen that her character will be unplayable for the duration of the session and ask her what she wants to do.

[NoACWarrior]

Ah well, at least in hybrid form, such a eagle lycanthrope would look very odd. And a few of the PCs could try to put 1 and 1 together, the issue is metagame knowledge which you need to address by throwing the red herring in (my suggestion of the dream state).

There's always a chance that the PCs don't care and won't go looking, its dangerous to go out looking when you've exhausted all your spells and are low on HP. But if they have strong ties in game, and out of game, chances are they will go looking for her. I'd say use the normal DC 15 for a knowledge nature / religion when they spot her in hybrid form (but if shes in animal form they shouldn't get a check). Mind night time rules for spotting things and the fact that she can hide in the dark.

[lytokk]

no spells exhausted, full HP. Overland travel day and there weren't any encounters that day, so they're golden.

My only hesitation with the dream state is that I'm not so great at splitting the party.

[NoACWarrior]

Good point. If the party insists on finding their halfling PC, then in between the mundane spot listen search track checks the dream sequence could play. Since the dream sequence is only there to distract the party, having the others listen in wouldn't be too bad. Especially if the whole thing is made up. If the player agrees to play your DMPC the dream sequence is unneeded but makes the situation a bit suspicious and the party would be inclined to find out sooner rather than later.

The way I've done it in the past was simply to let the other PCs experience the same thing, so that in game communication isn't needed as much, it is a breakdown in realism, but forces the PCs to do more RP (they need to start separating their meta-game experiences provided to them for entertainment purposes from in game knowledge).

Asking the player what she wants to do is important - she could be up for the dream sequence and decide not to play the DMPC, or other mixes of that situation. If she wants just her dream sequence to herself then you can adlib it to her without taking up campaign time.

[lytokk]

I sent the player a text seeing what she would want to do, either playing her character with no one else around in some sort of escape sequence splitting the focus, or playing the DMPC. All up to her. Didn't let her know it was going to be a dream sequence since I wanted her to believe its all real. Of course as the sequence goes on its going to get more and more strange, if she chooses to go with it.

[MadGreenSon]

In my experience (with an almost exact duplicate of this situation), it would probably be best to have the PCs look for her, use cheap tricks to ratchet up the tension during the hunt and then have her turn up in the early morning hours. (I forget, is lycanthropes shredding clothing a thing I house-ruled or RAW?)

Play out some stuff with the halfling's player too like you plan to, but try to keep the whole thing contained to the first part of the game.

If you're slick, you can make it look like someone/something is messing with them. If they're deep enough in the woods, do everything possible to crank up their paranoia, up to and including a red-herring creature in the area that might have been able to lead the halfling on a wild-goose chase or that has mind-affecting abilities that could have been responsible.

Best case, after some tense stuff, they think they have it solved, and then...

[lytokk]

according to what I read, in 3.5 at least, anything worn by the lycanthrope melds into the body during transformation. I think in 3.0 it fell to the ground.

I'm not entirely sure with how slick I am, or if I shoudl even try to get a whole session out of it. I could, but its not necessary.

[MadGreenSon]

Your call. But if you left them on a cliffhanger, resolve it in such a way as to either leave doubt as to what really happened, or have a horrifying reveal.

Either one works.

[lytokk]

Well, the player has decided that she'd be willing to play the DMPC if it would make things easier. Unfortunately, I had a bit of inspiration last night while thinking about and re-reading this thread. So I told her it would be fine to play her own character, and even though I've never done anything like this before, I need to push my own envelope as much as I'm pushing the players.

So, what I've come up with is the other players are trying to find her, and ending up running into some shadow mastiffs. Small fight ensues, with the dogs running off, and the players more than likely giving chase. Everything going on with the party will take them til about dawn.

Her character, will end up going one on one with a shadow mastiff in the dreamscape, who will for whatever insane reason (rule 0) be unable to hit her often. Once she escapes from the lair, have her being pursued by some giant dream creature, and take her through her worst nightmare, through things in her backstory, ending with the dream creature grabbing her, eating her, then her falling through nothingness when she spots the party and joins the fight, in her bird form, with the fight ending just at sunrise, and the transformation back.

[MadGreenSon]

Well, the player has decided that she'd be willing to play the DMPC if it would make things easier. Unfortunately, I had a bit of inspiration last night while thinking about and re-reading this thread. So I told her it would be fine to play her own character, and even though I've never done anything like this before, I need to push my own envelope as much as I'm pushing the players.

So, what I've come up with is the other players are trying to find her, and ending up running into some shadow mastiffs. Small fight ensues, with the dogs running off, and the players more than likely giving chase. Everything going on with the party will take them til about dawn.

Her character, will end up going one on one with a shadow mastiff in the dreamscape, who will for whatever insane reason (rule 0) be unable to hit her often. Once she escapes from the lair, have her being pursued by some giant dream creature, and take her through her worst nightmare, through things in her backstory, ending with the dream creature grabbing her, eating her, then her falling through nothingness when she spots the party and joins the fight, in her bird form, with the fight ending just at sunrise, and the transformation back.

Que the horrifying reveal!

Question, is this gonna be curable or is she going to need to invest in Control Shape?

[lytokk]

If she wants it cured, yes, it'll be curable.
The player had always wanted to do a lycanthrope, its a were-eagle, or falcon, haven't quite decided. Her alignment is NG and the alignment I gleaned from sources said that birds were more often of good alignment, so its not going to hurt her with her alignment.
Everyone in the game is getting ~= +2 level adjustments, so this is hers. Granted, everyone is having a choice as to accept it or not, not going to force any of these changes on anyone. About the biggest thing I'm doing is dropping that 1 HD of animal she'd have to take, and increased the dex by a single point, so that she'd get a +6 when shifted, as oppsoed to +4, since eagles/falcons only have 15, and the creation rules say to round down. Also, she's a rogue and will still get the full benefits of that class while shifted.

* edit * I'd prefer to think of it as a dramatic reveal instead of horrifying.

[lytokk]

well, the session went off with only a single hitch. The player loved the dream sequence, the rest of the party really enjoyed the red herrings. The hitch, after the player changed back from bird to eagle in the rising sun, in front of the whole party, Nat 1ed the wisdom check to see if they realized they were a were-eagle. As I looked up from behind my DM screen in complete disbelief, I told everyone else to roll to see if they realize what happened, and again everyone failed.

In the end, I really didn't want to do this again, so I gave her a final roll which she succeeded at. So yay, and thanks for all the advice.

[MadGreenSon]

well, the session went off with only a single hitch. The player loved the dream sequence, the rest of the party really enjoyed the red herrings. The hitch, after the player changed back from bird to eagle in the rising sun, in front of the whole party, Nat 1ed the wisdom check to see if they realized they were a were-eagle. As I looked up from behind my DM screen in complete disbelief, I told everyone else to roll to see if they realize what happened, and again everyone failed.

In the end, I really didn't want to do this again, so I gave her a final roll which she succeeded at. So yay, and thanks for all the advice.

Awww! You shoulda rolled with the dice! Have her suddenly realize that she must have somehow become a Druid or something! It would've been comedy gold, like that Star Wars alt-uni comic where Han Solo got convinced by circumstance (and likely a failed Wisdom check) that he had to carry on poor dead Luke's Jedi legacy and go train on Dagobah.
Luckily, he brought Leia with him and Yoda cleared things up for him, but it was still pure gold.