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View Full Version : Gamer Tales nothing good happens after 2 AM



2E Phoinex
2015-01-31, 08:11 PM
So last night during our weekly 5E game, in which I am one of the more experienced players, it happened that one guy couldn't make it and another guy left after getting bored/tired during a long and uneventful traveling section.

Naturally, the rest of us aren't about to quit so they entrusted their characters to me because I have the most familiarity with the rules. Most familiar perhaps, but by no means an expert in their classes. I was left controlling three characters (the party has about 8 members) which I don't really like doing but you do what you've got to so the game can keep moving.

Finally we arrived. We were tracking a group of dragon cultists and decided to send the two members of our party with criminal experience (one of whom was a Tiefling warlock I was asked to play) into the seedier parts of town to see if local crime organizations had any dealings with the cult. Well, it turns out the cult was actively recruiting new members and we soon found a recruiter in a crowded inn.

Now, before I go any further, I need to explain that it was about 2 in the morning and an illness I had been fighting all week had over the course of the game developed into a feverish judgement impairing mess. Also, It seemed like such a good idea at the time...

My fellow party member, a dragonborn assassin, and I got it in our heads that we needed to knock this recruiter out and search him for clues about the larger organization he represented. So, I used thaumaturgey around the room in little ways to provoke the bar into several fights. Chaos ensued (at least thats what we thought) and I topped it off with a particularly unkind remark from the direction of the recruiter. So, thinking the bar had become a giant brawl my companion and I decked him.

Well our understanding of just how bad the fighting in the bar was turned out to be incomplete and the recruiter had like 8 friends who weren't fighting and they quickly tackled us while he cast hold person on the tiefling warlock. None of the brawlers came to our aid or bothered the recruiter and his friends at all so things were looking pretty bleak for us as we were both close to being restrained.
I finally made a saving throw and decided to change tactics. I used an offensive cantrip against the recruiter thinking we could kill him, turn invisible, and escape with his pack or something in the chaos of the fighting. Well the recruiter responds with a nasty inflict wounds spell and his friends pull out scimitars and KO the tiefling warlock. Of course he first triggered my Hellish Rebuke reaction and I was able to kill him before falling unconscious. The assassin fled and warned the other party members who returned just in time to save the warlock's life and drag him out of there, but we were unable to search the recruiter at all.

We used the lasting injury rules from the DMG and when he fell unconscious the tiefling suffered a wound that lost him his leg.

So now I get to explain to the missing player why his character lost a leg under my control... The DM rather magnanimously decided we could get it restored at the temple for 900gp, but that's still quite a loss for us.

So I'm feeling a little ashamed and regretful (though the player tends to play this character a bit recklessly) especially since there isn't really an in game way for me to make recompense since it doesn't make sense for my character to pay a greater share of the healing bill or anything. However, I will admit that I'm also left feeling a tiny bit hopeful that in the future the players wont want to dump their characters on me when they get bored or decide not to come.

Anybody else ever screw over a character while their usual player was absent? What do you do about it afterwards?

Susano-wo
2015-01-31, 10:42 PM
I, trying to act in character for the player, who is often impulsive, and not understanding that the thing we needed to get into was connected to a nuclear reactor, has his remote control robot pull a locked container that I was unable to get into off of its pedestal. Huge rad leak and almost caused a meltdown >.> Whoops!