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View Full Version : DM Help A Split Party and an Odd Request



Fishyninja
2019-05-13, 12:58 PM
Ok so I had an interesting session yesterday and I have come to a bit of situation I have never dealt with before and I was looking for advice.

I'll give the full background below, but for the TL:DR version: Half the Party has been captured, of which one has died. The other half have made a tactical retreat back to town


We start the session where they had left off, just clearing an area of Orc's with a large chasm in front of them. Afer some investigation they manage to access a secret tunnel and follow it.
Unfortunately it enters into an Orc Barracks.
The party fight, and win (except for one orc who got away....more about him later).

Anyway they spend some time searching the barracks for loot and decide to continue on (without short resting).
They leave the barracks and immediately trigger a poison gas trap leaving all but the Paladin Poisoned.



Human Druid
Dragonborn Draconic Sorcerer
Halfling Gloomstalker Ranger
Warforged Paladin
Gnome Alchemist Artificer
Tabaxi Swashbuckler Rogue



So they proceed down this long hallway with a door at the far end and a door immediately to the right of them. They make out a humanoid shape, and since they have only seen orc's in this place they assume (correctly) that it is an enemy. They decide to get all the ranged characters to stealthily try to attack it so they can proceed through the rest of the dungeon carefully.

They all attack, they all miss.

The Orc raises the alarm. Cue lots of reinforcements and unfortunately for the group the Dice Gods were not in their favour, during the battle 3 of them are downed including the Warforged and they essentially get split into a two groups of three either side of the enemy lines and due to them not resting they have low health and minimal healing capabilities, cue the three people behind enemy lines going down and one of them dying, Warforged Paladin. The others make it and the Orcs drag all three deeper into the dungeon.

The rest of the group make a tactical retreat and have decided to go back to town to gather reinforcements from the local milita.

That was where the session ended.
So here are my two questions which I would like some opinions on

Party Split
My potential ideas, include:

Letting the captured players assume roles of NPC's for the next session
Having the Orc's ransom the characters back
Running an extra session with the captured team to see if they want to try to escape etc.

What are your thoughts?

Resurrection Request from the Artificer
In the full background I give the full party make up, this concerns two characters, our Gnome Alchemist Artificer and the Warforged Paladin. The Paladin unfortunately died, IC the Artificer doesn't know this yet. OOC the Player of the Artificer asked me:

"If I was to roll really high on my Tinker's tools, could I resurrect him, or bring him back to life in some way"

My instant thought on this is No for a multitude of reasons:

Makes Tinkers Tools more powerful than higher level magic
Effectively makes the Paladin Invincible so long as the Artificer is alive
The player of the Paladin is thinking of Re-rolling anyway

Again what are your thoughts?

Man_Over_Game
2019-05-13, 01:12 PM
Ok so I had an interesting session yesterday and I have come to a bit of situation I have never dealt with before and I was looking for advice.

I'll give the full background below, but for the TL:DR version: Half the Party has been captured, of which one has died. The other half have made a tactical retreat back to town


We start the session where they had left off, just clearing an area of Orc's with a large chasm in front of them. Afer some investigation they manage to access a secret tunnel and follow it.
Unfortunately it enters into an Orc Barracks.
The party fight, and win (except for one orc who got away....more about him later).

Anyway they spend some time searching the barracks for loot and decide to continue on (without short resting).
They leave the barracks and immediately trigger a poison gas trap leaving all but the Paladin Poisoned.



Human Druid
Dragonborn Draconic Sorcerer
Halfling Gloomstalker Ranger
Warforged Paladin
Gnome Alchemist Artificer
Tabaxi Swashbuckler Rogue



So they proceed down this long hallway with a door at the far end and a door immediately to the right of them. They make out a humanoid shape, and since they have only seen orc's in this place they assume (correctly) that it is an enemy. They decide to get all the ranged characters to stealthily try to attack it so they can proceed through the rest of the dungeon carefully.

They all attack, they all miss.

The Orc raises the alarm. Cue lots of reinforcements and unfortunately for the group the Dice Gods were not in their favour, during the battle 3 of them are downed including the Warforged and they essentially get split into a two groups of three either side of the enemy lines and due to them not resting they have low health and minimal healing capabilities, cue the three people behind enemy lines going down and one of them dying, Warforged Paladin. The others make it and the Orcs drag all three deeper into the dungeon.

The rest of the group make a tactical retreat and have decided to go back to town to gather reinforcements from the local milita.

That was where the session ended.
So here are my two questions which I would like some opinions on

Party Split
My potential ideas, include:

Letting the captured players assume roles of NPC's for the next session
Having the Orc's ransom the characters back
Running an extra session with the captured team to see if they want to try to escape etc.

What are your thoughts?

Resurrection Request from the Artificer
In the full background I give the full party make up, this concerns two characters, our Gnome Alchemist Artificer and the Warforged Paladin. The Paladin unfortunately died, IC the Artificer doesn't know this yet. OOC the Player of the Artificer asked me:

"If I was to roll really high on my Tinker's tools, could I resurrect him, or bring him back to life in some way"

My instant thought on this is No for a multitude of reasons:

Makes Tinkers Tools more powerful than higher level magic
Effectively makes the Paladin Invincible so long as the Artificer is alive
The player of the Paladin is thinking of Re-rolling anyway

Again what are your thoughts?

On the note of the Alchemist reviving the Paladin, I'd say make it happen, with these caveats:


The Alchemist replaces their Homunculus feature for reviving the Paladin. Doing so changes the Paladin (into a suitable build of his choosing, from the reanimation process), and any features the original Homunculus could do, the Alchemist can now command the Paladin to do with the Paladin's Reaction.
This feature costs a hefty tax, and required part of the Alchemist's soul (akin to the Create Homunculus spell). Using this reanimation feature again will reanimate the creature, but at the cost of the Alchemist's life.

MarkVIIIMarc
2019-05-13, 02:29 PM
Ok so I had an interesting session yesterday and I have come to a bit of situation I have never dealt with before and I was looking for advice.

I'll give the full background below, but for the TL:DR version: Half the Party has been captured, of which one has died. The other half have made a tactical retreat back to town


We start the session where they had left off, just clearing an area of Orc's with a large chasm in front of them. Afer some investigation they manage to access a secret tunnel and follow it.
Unfortunately it enters into an Orc Barracks.
The party fight, and win (except for one orc who got away....more about him later).

Anyway they spend some time searching the barracks for loot and decide to continue on (without short resting).
They leave the barracks and immediately trigger a poison gas trap leaving all but the Paladin Poisoned.



Human Druid
Dragonborn Draconic Sorcerer
Halfling Gloomstalker Ranger
Warforged Paladin
Gnome Alchemist Artificer
Tabaxi Swashbuckler Rogue



So they proceed down this long hallway with a door at the far end and a door immediately to the right of them. They make out a humanoid shape, and since they have only seen orc's in this place they assume (correctly) that it is an enemy. They decide to get all the ranged characters to stealthily try to attack it so they can proceed through the rest of the dungeon carefully.

They all attack, they all miss.

The Orc raises the alarm. Cue lots of reinforcements and unfortunately for the group the Dice Gods were not in their favour, during the battle 3 of them are downed including the Warforged and they essentially get split into a two groups of three either side of the enemy lines and due to them not resting they have low health and minimal healing capabilities, cue the three people behind enemy lines going down and one of them dying, Warforged Paladin. The others make it and the Orcs drag all three deeper into the dungeon.

The rest of the group make a tactical retreat and have decided to go back to town to gather reinforcements from the local milita.

That was where the session ended.
So here are my two questions which I would like some opinions on

Party Split
My potential ideas, include:

Letting the captured players assume roles of NPC's for the next session
Having the Orc's ransom the characters back
Running an extra session with the captured team to see if they want to try to escape etc.

What are your thoughts?

Resurrection Request from the Artificer
In the full background I give the full party make up, this concerns two characters, our Gnome Alchemist Artificer and the Warforged Paladin. The Paladin unfortunately died, IC the Artificer doesn't know this yet. OOC the Player of the Artificer asked me:

"If I was to roll really high on my Tinker's tools, could I resurrect him, or bring him back to life in some way"

My instant thought on this is No for a multitude of reasons:

Makes Tinkers Tools more powerful than higher level magic
Effectively makes the Paladin Invincible so long as the Artificer is alive
The player of the Paladin is thinking of Re-rolling anyway

Again what are your thoughts?

I vote for a modified version of your first idea. Come up with a way for the escaped players and some allies to rescue the captured players. If the prison they are in is too powerful make a reason they are being transported up. Its seasonal for my area so I'd blame flooding lol.

A lot of players have back up characters. Those could be the heroes who help the non captured players rescue them. You could give the magic casters fighter NPC's and the melee fellows magic user NPCs if they don't.

That way the captured players still can show up and have fun. I'd also be motivated to rescue my long term character.

Fishyninja
2019-05-13, 03:09 PM
A lot of players have back up characters. Those could be the heroes who help the non captured players rescue them. You could give the magic casters fighter NPC's and the melee fellows magic user NPCs if they don't.

That way the captured players still can show up and have fun. I'd also be motivated to rescue my long term character.

I think I am going to incorporate this idea because then if everything hits the proverbial fan and the captured characters die. They can continue playing straight away.