do i attack again?

[Thac0 Redeye]

I am a novice DM and am running Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. My players are in the Vamp lords castle searching the crypts for 3 artifacts (as per part of their tasks). they found Strahds ( the BBEG) crypt and decided to destroy the golem protector. Strahd was scrying and knew and joined that fight, as well as other vamp spawn and zombies. the fight took a lot of time and resources for the players and at the end it was just the dwarf and golem trading hits with the cleric and paladin healing the dwarf. So they are pretty tapped out and decided to rest for the rest of the night, but were going to camp in one of the vacant crypts. Strahd has the paladin dominated but no one knows yet so he has knowledge to everything they do. My players have definitely seen and fought many incorporeal undead during the campaign, so it would be very easy to send in some ghosts types to attack while resting. But do I do it?
Any advice would be greatly helpful
Thanks

[XionUnborn01]

It depends on your campaign style. If you're playing a less serious very casual game, then probably not. Or if you do, with a fairly weak force.

If you're playing a more lethal game then it would totally make sense to attack. Maybe not go crazy for the first attack but remind them they're not in friendly territory.

[GrayDeath]

While I would agree with Xion in normal modules, this is Ravenloft.

Of course you attack them, ideally in a sneaky, long-term corrupting way they only realize happened much later, covered by a weak yet fast attack right now to make them less suspicious ^^

[Eldaran]

Keep in mind it's a fairly trivial DC 15 Sense Motive to know someone is dominated.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Keep in mind it's a fairly trivial DC 15 Sense Motive to know someone is dominated.

It's only trivial if someone actually puts ranks into it or has high wis.
It also only applies if you actually give the dominated creature a command. Until then their behavior is not being influenced so nobody gets a sense motive check.

Keeping a dominated player in reserve as a sleeper agent like that is fairly effective unless they regularly cast Status or check in other ways.
Though a vampire's Dominate ability is supernatural, so you can't dispel it even if you know about it. Unless your party has someone who can cast Disobedience or a familiar with a permanent Magic Circle against Evil you're pretty much ****ed.

[Thac0 Redeye]

Thanks for the replies so far...
As for the dominated paladin, Strahd has given no outward commands to him to make anyone suspicious. and they all do have high WIS but not sense motive. (FYI the party consists of: Dwarf fighter/cleric, human paladin/spontaneous cleric, aasimar warlock, and human cleric/radient pelor Prc) Sorry I'm away from books and don't remember the class names right now. So no checks have been made. I also have the warlock dominated but he has a shirt of wraith stalking (MIC) so we ruled that while wearing the shirt he is cut off just like when protection from evil is cast.

sleepyphoenixx, your said it cannot be dispelled but what about break curse or break enchantment spells?

GreyDeath, I like how you think, but what do you suggest as far as long term? How would you do it? (also I am using taint from HOH)

[sleepyphoenixx]

, your said it cannot be dispelled but what about break curse or break enchantment spells?

It's not a curse, so Remove Curse doesn't help. Break Enchantment does help, assuming the caster passes the DC 23 CL check.

Of course BE is a lot less likely to already be prepared than dispel when they find out about the domination and using it from a scroll isn't really feasible because of the CL check. :smallamused:
So they'll likely still have to deal with a dominated party member while the caster rests and prepares it, and since the dominator is aware of what the subject is experiencing he'll have plenty of time to give him orders to either disrupt things or try to flee.

The fact that they actively need to check to notice the domination is of course its best defense, but needing a spell pretty much nobody prepares without need is a pretty nice buffer.

[Kish]

It sounds like if you attack again with full force, you'll simply have a TPK. And if you attack again with less force than Strahd would logically use, it just makes him look weak or telegraphs that you're pulling punches.

I suggest you look for some way, without actually attacking, to send them a "camping in a vacant crypt is a really bad idea" message.

[Mike Miller]

It sounds like if you attack again with full force, you'll simply have a TPK. And if you attack again with less force than Strahd would logically use, it just makes him look weak or telegraphs that you're pulling punches.

I suggest you look for some way, without actually attacking, to send them a "camping in a vacant crypt is a really bad idea" message.

For example, they could all suffer from nightmares or terrible visions and not recover any health or spells. They could potentially be affected by some lingering disease, or you could have them roll various saves during the night without saying why and figure something out later. They'll never know!

[GrayDeath]

Depedning on your Players behaviour so far, some TAINT and/or Horrible Nightmares" might work....or they might need a smalla ttrack to be kept on their toes.

Iw ould however, unless they seem to be coming close to a solution, keep the Paladin in Strahds "Arsenal" until the perfect tijme for him to betray his "friends", after all, a Paladin is going to be depended on quite a bit, no?

As for real long term plans...depends ehavily on what your short term plans might nbe exactly.