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View Full Version : DM Help RP/skill challenge to free someone from undeath



Brahamut
2015-05-29, 10:56 AM
Hey everyone, I'd like some advice on helping my players in the direction they want to go. They're in an extra-dimensional prison of a historical big bad. They've found a room where the big bad's wife is suspended in a net of fire and necrotic energy. My intent was that they'd "free" her, which would cause her to just go on a murderous rampage around the area if they weren't able to destroy her. Due to some surprisingly good rolls and a healthy dose of suspicion, they figured out that this was a trap. They realized that the big bad killed her, made her undead, and left her here as a trap (and to suffer since he blames her for his defeat).

So they want to release her from undeath without releasing her from the energy net that's keeping her from running amok. I want to reward them for RPing around this fight, but I don't know how to do that from a fluff or crunch prospective. The party consists of a pascifist bard who knows raise dead (and is leading this effort), a tiefling wizard (who wants to just leave before this goes horribly wrong), a half orc rogue (who agrees with the tiefling), an elf ranger (who's up for whatever), a (distressingly evil) shifter guardian (who wants to fight her), and the GMPC dragonborn chaos sorcerer (who wants to do the "right thing").

I rather want to do this fight because I think it'll be fun and challenging, but I also want them to direct the story. I'd appreciate any input you guys have on how I could handle this.

Geddy2112
2015-05-29, 11:26 AM
If a party can beat a monster or enemy without fighting, I always give them the XP as if it was a fight. Most of the time killing the thing is the easy route, so sometimes I give them more, particularly when it is a good roleplay and dilemma they have to work together on.

For treasure, you can design encounters to have different treasure depending on how the encounter is solved. Perhaps you have to kill the monster and take part of it's body, which is actually X wondrous item or enchanted weapon/thing. On the other hand, not using violence means allows the players to access a boon that it can only give living.

Make sure you have several ways the players can solve the encounter, as well as being open to their ideas.

JeenLeen
2015-05-29, 12:22 PM
If you rule (via "this is awesome, forbidden magic the bid bad knows" version of "a wizard did it") that the necromantic field she is is making her undead, then you could rule that dispelling it properly will revert her to normal. Or, if she's left undead, restore her mind. Maybe the trap is such that the barriers around her are what is twisting her into the monster she is planned to be.

If a D&D system (which I gather), I could see skill checks using appropriate Knowledge or Spellcraft, perhaps also Disable Device and/or Use Magic Device, or their equivalents for the given edition, to figure out how to undo the fields in a way that does not set off the trap.

The downside of this is that it definitely requires you to change how you conceptualized the energy net (a minor thing) and potentially would require a retcon for what you told the players about the energy net (more severe.) But if you can add it as an addition to the energy net that they didn't realize at first, that could keep make 'free her' an option without breaking player immersion or the game's internal consistency.

Another idea is that simply freeing/re-livening her is not an option. But maybe they can communicate with her spirit, and it asks for them to destroy her to set her at rest. (Use skill checks to sense her spirit and be able to communicate with it, instead of disabling it like I suggest above.) Since they found out how the energy field works, perhaps they can disable it partially so they can put her to rest (either by attacking her via range and she cannot escape, or cause it to invert on her and destroy her quickly). That gives a peaceful resolution and rewards them for thinking outside the box. They could also be rewarded by special info her spirit tells them.

MistahBoweh
2015-05-29, 01:29 PM
Think an actual trap. In reality, if this is a high end big bad who schemes a bunch and really wanted to make sure his wife would suffer, he would set up some form of countermeasure amongst the spells he laidthat would recognize when his magic was being tampered with, much like modern bomb design with multiple failsafes to avoid tampering once a timer is set. In this case, since this is a trap meant to catch the party via high level undead, I would think that upon a spell being cast within a set radius of the trap, a ward triggers which causes the net to shut itself off. After all, if someone casts a spell near the cage, they're probably someone the trap was meant for in the first place. I'm not one for railroading, but this feels like a situation in which the villain may have prepared for such an eventuality. If you'd like, you could always roll a knowledge check of some sort to figure out if the villain thought this far in advance. I get the impression, however, that they're competent enough to set up such a ward.

Were I this villain, I wouldn't just make the ward cancel the net. It would trigger a full on dispel magic trap to unleash the undead and screw over a meddlesome party at the same time. Of course, you'd have to give them suitable rewards within the lair elsewhere to basically refuel their entire stock of magic items. If they lived.