Dragon Heist: all this nonsense with Nihiloor (spoilers for ch1)

[grobert]

I'm reading through the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist adventure. On page 28, there's an encounter with Nihiloor the mind flayer. Note that Nihiloor is CR7 and the characters are first-level. Any hit from Nihiloor will drop a player character.

When the group bursts into Nihiloor's hideout, it: "rises from the stone chair, sets its pet [an intellect devourer] down, and glides across the room, intending to leave through the double door in the west wall. The mind flayer expects [its minion] Grum'shar and the intellect devourer to cover its escape."

This seems so lame! The player characters are in Nihiloor's base, killing its minions. Nihiloor could kill them easily, but instead it abandons its minions, expecting them to cover its completely unnecessary escape.

As a DM, one principle I try to stick to is that the characters' actions should matter. But this development seems to contradict that pretty strongly. I'm worried that running this encounter will make the group feel like their actions don't matter, because they're grossly outclassed by the villains and the villains simply don't care enough to kill them.

Have you run this encounter? What did you do? How did you explain the mind flayer walking away?

[Pixel_Kitsune]

Caution, carefulness, mild fear?

We know the players are far lower level than the bad guy. But within the world? Not so much. After all, the PCs don't actually "level up" in world. Mechanically they're getting stronger, thematically they are gaining experience but are no more durable or threatening than before (Exception being spellcasters learning more).

Any group that smashes straight into my lair are one of two things. Stupid, or strong enough to face me. Given an option a smart villain will assume the second, not the first. So leaving makes perfect sense.

[Unoriginal]

I'm reading through the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist adventure. On page 28, there's an encounter with Nihiloor the mind flayer. Note that Nihiloor is CR7 and the characters are first-level. Any hit from Nihiloor will drop a player character.

When the group bursts into Nihiloor's hideout, it: "rises from the stone chair, sets its pet [an intellect devourer] down, and glides across the room, intending to leave through the double door in the west wall. The mind flayer expects [its minion] Grum'shar and the intellect devourer to cover its escape."

This seems so lame! The player characters are in Nihiloor's base, killing its minions. Nihiloor could kill them easily, but instead it abandons its minions, expecting them to cover its completely unnecessary escape.?

The adventure explicitly mentions that it is *not* Nihiloor's base, and that Grum'shar actually brown-nosed the Mind Flayer into coming to this rather insignificant base to impress it with the job his gang did capturing Neverember's son... only for them to get the wrong guy. So not only Nihiloor has no reason to be here, Grum'shar knows he's inches from getting terminated for the failure.

Furthermore, Nihiloor has an inflated opinion of his own importance, and doesn't know if the PCs have backups from Waterdeep's authorities or other gangs or not. So leaving the half-orc deal with the intruder while it retreats to somewhere of importance is perfectly in-character for the aberration.



As a DM, one principle I try to stick to is that the characters' actions should matter. But this development seems to contradict that pretty strongly. I'm worried that running this encounter will make the group feel like their actions don't matter, because they're grossly outclassed by the villains and the villains simply don't care enough to kill them.

One: no, it doesn't contradict your principle at all. The characters' actions matter, but it means the NPCs' actions matter. When you've been bothered by an underling into coming to see results, only for it to turns out being a failure, and then some yahoos with weapons storm the area, there is no reason for you to stick there.

Two: the Illithid isn't just "not killing them because it doesn't care enough", you should make it clear it's fleeing the scene as fast as possible because the local operation is busted and it doesn't want to be caught in it.



Have you run this encounter? What did you do? How did you explain the mind flayer walking away?

My players announced their arrivals rather than trying to sneak, so the Mind Flayers and the pet Intellect Devourer just left while the half-orc and his minions tried to deal with the group.

[MaxWilson]

I'm reading through the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist adventure. On page 28, there's an encounter with Nihiloor the mind flayer. Note that Nihiloor is CR7 and the characters are first-level. Any hit from Nihiloor will drop a player character.

When the group bursts into Nihiloor's hideout, it: "rises from the stone chair, sets its pet [an intellect devourer] down, and glides across the room, intending to leave through the double door in the west wall. The mind flayer expects [its minion] Grum'shar and the intellect devourer to cover its escape."

This seems so lame! The player characters are in Nihiloor's base, killing its minions. Nihiloor could kill them easily, but instead it abandons its minions, expecting them to cover its completely unnecessary escape.

As a DM, one principle I try to stick to is that the characters' actions should matter. But this development seems to contradict that pretty strongly. I'm worried that running this encounter will make the group feel like their actions don't matter, because they're grossly outclassed by the villains and the villains simply don't care enough to kill them.

Have you run this encounter? What did you do? How did you explain the mind flayer walking away?

Predator instincts: when surprised, run for cover and regroup.

All Nihiloor knows is that someone just burst into its hideout unexpectedly. It's not stupid to assume that they wouldn't have done that if they didn't think they could kill or capture you. How would it know that it can kill them all easily? If it does retreat from something that turned out not to be a threat, well, it can take its revenge later.

[Beleriphon]

As a DM, one principle I try to stick to is that the characters' actions should matter. But this development seems to contradict that pretty strongly. I'm worried that running this encounter will make the group feel like their actions don't matter, because they're grossly outclassed by the villains and the villains simply don't care enough to kill them.

Read the intro to the adventure again, it makes it very clear that most of the main villains have little to no interest in killing the characters for a variety of reasons, and the PCs probably shouldn't make killing the villains their their main goal either. Nevermind, that the villains start at CR10 and go up. The final confrontation the treasure potentially has Laeral helping the PCs when they get ambushed outside of the horde, and she's a CR17 character.

BTW, does anybody think Jarlaxle's goals seem infinitely reasonable in comparison to everybody else?

[Ganymede]

As a DM, one principle I try to stick to is that the characters' actions should matter. But this development seems to contradict that pretty strongly. I'm worried that running this encounter will make the group feel like their actions don't matter, because they're grossly outclassed by the villains and the villains simply don't care enough to kill them.

They're level one and just got in way over their heads in a city-wide criminal enterprise. They damn well better feel like the odds are against them.

That's the whole feel of the adventure: some small fries trying their best to foil the plots of adversaries powerful enough to slay them with a single word. They should feel like little ants in this adventure, little ants attempting to pull off the score of a lifetime.

[Unoriginal]

BTW, does anybody think Jarlaxle's goals seem infinitely reasonable in comparison to everybody else?

"Seem" being the key word.

Stealing tons of money from a nation to strongarm/blackmail its ruler into an alliance that would only benefit you is not reasonable.


You could argue the Cassalanters' goal is the most reasonable, even if their methods are far more evil than what Jarlaxle is planning.

[Damon_Tor]

I'm reading through the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist adventure. On page 28, there's an encounter with Nihiloor the mind flayer. Note that Nihiloor is CR7 and the characters are first-level. Any hit from Nihiloor will drop a player character.

When the group bursts into Nihiloor's hideout, it: "rises from the stone chair, sets its pet [an intellect devourer] down, and glides across the room, intending to leave through the double door in the west wall. The mind flayer expects [its minion] Grum'shar and the intellect devourer to cover its escape."

This seems so lame! The player characters are in Nihiloor's base, killing its minions. Nihiloor could kill them easily, but instead it abandons its minions, expecting them to cover its completely unnecessary escape.

As a DM, one principle I try to stick to is that the characters' actions should matter. But this development seems to contradict that pretty strongly. I'm worried that running this encounter will make the group feel like their actions don't matter, because they're grossly outclassed by the villains and the villains simply don't care enough to kill them.

Have you run this encounter? What did you do? How did you explain the mind flayer walking away?

He was about to kill his underling anyway. I think he just thought it would fitting to let his underling die as a logical consequence of his failure. The only thing I changed about the encounter is that I had him stay to watch. When one of the PC tried to take a shot at him he used Dominate Monster on him, but instead of making his attack his teammates as the notes suggest he redirected him to attack the half-orc wizard like he was supposed to be doing. It created the clear impression that the mindflayer just does not give a single **** about the PCs, and even less of a **** about his supposed ally.

The bigger problem I had with the scenario as written was the fact that the guard goblins watching the central nexus don't raise any kind of alarm if the PCs fail the stealth checks.

[MaxWilson]

He was about to kill his underling anyway. I think he just thought it would fitting to let his underling die as a logical consequence of his failure. The only thing I changed about the encounter is that I had him stay to watch. When one of the PC tried to take a shot at him he used Dominate Monster on him, but instead of making his attack his teammates as the notes suggest he redirected him to attack the half-orc wizard like he was supposed to be doing. It created the clear impression that the mindflayer just does not give a single **** about the PCs, and even less of a **** about his supposed ally.

That is brilliant.

[Unoriginal]

The bigger problem I had with the scenario as written was the fact that the guard goblins watching the central nexus don't raise any kind of alarm if the PCs fail the stealth checks.

The adventure doesn't need to precise "the guards raise the alarm if woken up". It's implied by the fact they are guards.

[Damon_Tor]

The adventure doesn't need to precise "the guards raise the alarm if woken up". It's implied by the fact they are guards.

I would think so too, but compare it to Forge of Fury, for example, which details exactly what the guards do if alerted: it says which rooms they go to first and how the inhabitants of those rooms respond. The extra time would allow for several different tactics which could radically alter the course of the adventure, probably the most likely of which would be if they simply decide to kill Floon so he can't ID them and escape through the secret tunnel in Q8. By this point they know Floon is just some jackass and doesn't know anything about the treasure. Why wouldn't they kill him and run? And in this scenario, the party doesn't see Nihiloor (important foreshadowing) and they've got nobody to question, nobody who knows anything. They just show up and find a corpse, and have to slink back to Volo having failed their quest. No mansion, no leads on the treasure, it's basically game over. That's a pretty heavy burden to put on the guy who failed that one stealth check.

[Unoriginal]

I would think so too, but compare it to Forge of Fury, for example, which details exactly what the guards do if alerted: it says which rooms they go to first and how the inhabitants of those rooms respond. The extra time would allow for several different tactics which could radically alter the course of the adventure, probably the most likely of which would be if they simply decide to kill Floon so he can't ID them and escape through the secret tunnel in Q8. By this point they know Floon is just some jackass and doesn't know anything about the treasure. Why wouldn't they kill him and run? And in this scenario, the party doesn't see Nihiloor (important foreshadowing) and they've got nobody to question, nobody who knows anything. They just show up and find a corpse, and have to slink back to Volo having failed their quest. No mansion, no leads on the treasure, it's basically game over. That's a pretty heavy burden to put on the guy who failed that one stealth check.

Well they're still torturing Floon, presumably to learn what happened to Renaer, and the half-orc is arrogant enough to think he can kill all the intruders and get back at it.

As I said, at the table I DM the PCs didn't even try stealth. So they're not even aware Nihiloor was here, and they had to face nearly all of the gang at once.

Would have died, too, if not every single one of them managed to pass their save against Burning Hand.

[Damon_Tor]

Well they're still torturing Floon, presumably to learn what happened to Renaer, and the half-orc is arrogant enough to think he can kill all the intruders and get back at it.

He's got int 14. He's got to have a better plan than "fight unknown guys to the death".

Anyone else notice he has "Disguise Self" prepared? Anybody use this creatively?


Goblin warns everyone about intruders
Wizard uses Disguise Self to look like Floon
Knocks out Floon with a punch, drags him off someplace
Party shows up and sees "Floon" wrestling an Intellect Devourer
"Help, it's trying to eat my brain!"
Party fights the Devourer, probably not taking the time to make a check against the disguise
"Floon" gets into a perfect position and casts "Burning Hands" on the whole party

[Unoriginal]

He's got int 14. He's got to have a better plan than "fight unknown guys to the death".

Anyone else notice he has "Disguise Self" prepared? Anybody use this creatively?


Goblin warns everyone about intruders
Wizard uses Disguise Self to look like Floon
Knocks out Floon with a punch, drags him off someplace
Party shows up and sees "Floon" wrestling an Intellect Devourer
"Help, it's trying to eat my brain!"
Party fights the Devourer, probably not taking the time to make a check against the disguise
"Floon" gets into a perfect position and casts "Burning Hands" on the whole party


Oh he didn't think he was going to fight them to the death. They had surrendered and were surrounded by his men. He also opened with a spell that could have killed them all.

He'd probably have come up with a more complex plan if the PCs are noticed while sneaking rather than loudly declaring they want to talk with the boss.

Also INT 14 is decent, bu you need to believe there is a reason to plan to do so. And Grum'shar is noted to have an overgrown ego despite his ****ups.

[Malifice]

I'm reading through the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist adventure. On page 28, there's an encounter with Nihiloor the mind flayer. Note that Nihiloor is CR7 and the characters are first-level. Any hit from Nihiloor will drop a player character.

When the group bursts into Nihiloor's hideout, it: "rises from the stone chair, sets its pet [an intellect devourer] down, and glides across the room, intending to leave through the double door in the west wall. The mind flayer expects [its minion] Grum'shar and the intellect devourer to cover its escape."

This seems so lame! The player characters are in Nihiloor's base, killing its minions. Nihiloor could kill them easily, but instead it abandons its minions, expecting them to cover its completely unnecessary escape.

As a DM, one principle I try to stick to is that the characters' actions should matter. But this development seems to contradict that pretty strongly. I'm worried that running this encounter will make the group feel like their actions don't matter, because they're grossly outclassed by the villains and the villains simply don't care enough to kill them.

Have you run this encounter? What did you do? How did you explain the mind flayer walking away?

He had better things to do, and left his incompetent minions to handle it.

Man you dont watch enough Bond movies.