Ruining the GM's plans immediately

[mehs]

The gm planned on one of the PC's being evil. This was ruined almost immediately. When we met with the PC, my celestial wolf/giant samoyed animal companion (I have exalted companion) went to nuzzle the person. This immediately outed the person as evil as my wolf as touch of golden ice. Any physical contact with the dog essentially poisons anyone evil. 1 round of combat and two failed saves later, the person has taken 12 points of dex damage, is on the floor, with the Samoyed standing in top of them. No actual damage to anyone though.

Did I do something wrong by immediately ruining the GM's plans? Should I have done something else? Do I get an achievement badge?

Combat essentially went: dog nuzzles you inflicting dex damage, "I stand up" dog aoo trips you, inflicting more dex damage

[BWR]

This is entirely on the DM. Trying to sneakily insert a disruptive element in the party is OK in itself - it's just a plot element - and if you suss it out and handle it earlier than expected, kudos to you. The GM should have planned this more carefully, or handled the situation bit differently, like the PC trying to pretend he wasn't affected by the affliction, or pointing out that attacking anything that pings as evil is usually a morally questionable move.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Nah. The GMs gameplan -requiring- an evil PC was a bonehead move for one, allowing you to play an exalted character when that was the plan was another for two. You can't really be faulted for him screwing up twice in his designs, especially if I'm correct in the presumption that you knew none of this until the whole thing blew up.

On the other hand, there are some rules issue here that might've made a difference.

First, an AoO interrupts the thing that triggers it. As such, you cannot use the AoO provoked by someone getting up from prone to trip them because they're still prone until that AoO is resolved.

Second, the text of touch of golden ice could be interpreted to mean that a -deliberate- touch, either a touch attack, unarmed strike, or natural weapon attack delivers the golden ice effect rather than just an incidental brushing up against someone. It could likewise be interpreted to mean that you must choose between the three at the time the feat is chosen. That your group takes the loosest interpretation whereby any physical contact triggers the effect could very quickly and easily lead to a -lot- of headache. Did you know that about a third of all humans are evil by the guidelines and rules the system lays out? Whoops, ravaged a random barmaid. Whoops ravaged a random shopkeep. Whoops, ravaged a random town guard. It gets old fast.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I agree that it's your DM's problem. Evil and exalted in the same party? Not going to go down well. What if you'd have Favoured Enemy (evil) and Nemesis?


First, an AoO interrupts the thing that triggers it. As such, you cannot use the AoO provoked by someone getting up from prone to trip them because they're still prone until that AoO is resolved.
I suspect that that won't affect the outcome, since the wolf would get an AoO either way. Golden Ice deals Dexterity damage equal 1d6 + target's Charisma modifier, so it's pretty easy to knock out a target with just two hits.

Touch of Golden Ice specifically requires you to touch your target with "your bare hand, fist, or natural weapon", so a dog nuzzling you won't ordinarily count, if we take the reading that the "bite" natural weapon requires an actual bite. Then again, the doggie equivalent of "touch with bare hands" might be "nuzzle", given that a dog's manipulator is arguably its mouth, and it uses its nose to investigate things. Ask your DM, on that one.

[False God]

Did your dog nuzzle the new person because you knew they were evil, or because your dog is cute and fluffy and does that to everyone?

If its the former, metagaming's bad mmkay?

If it's the latter well...oops, but no foul there.

Golden Ice doesn't have an impossible Fort save, but yeah, yikes. Probably not a real good plan to introduce anything with an E in its alignment to the party.

[Psyren]

I'm very confused as to how the heck this played out. Did you already know OOC that the PC was evil and therefore you claimed "my wolf nuzzles and poisons you!" or did you not know at all, your wolf did something wolfy and the GM suddenly called for a fort save?

If it's the former, I'm with False God, you were metagaming and that isn't worthy of any kind of achievement. If it's the latter, your GM needed to have a plan in place for that scenario if they wanted this to be some kind of big reveal later.

[mehs]

Wolf was nuzzling everyone, I did not know beforehand that the new person or anyone was evil. The thing we are going with with touch of golden ice is that it is played like a poison ability of a creature, so the DC is based on the creature's stats. If it was statted out, the nuzzle would probably have been a touch attack slam with only the ravage as the damage. He did make a roll for a touch attack for the nuzzle.
The gm didn't require the player to be evil, he just allowed it. Meanwhile me taking pretty much only exalted feats is a voluntary measure to constrain my behavior, last campaign with that gm went wild due to animate dead spam.

[An Enemy Spy]

I had some baddies hide behind a secret door to come around the back of the party when they went past into the next room so they could split the party with a portcullis and take them from one side while more enemies engaged them from the front. One of the players decided she wanted to check the room for secret doors and since she was an elf I had to let her find it. That's just how the game goes.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Well if the evil PC wasn't planned ahead then I guess it's really no one's fault all in all. Forseeable from the GM's angle, perhaps, but not necessarily inherently a problem.

[mehs]

Talked with the dm, the nuzzle/only ravage damage attack would be an unarmed strike

[Buufreak]

It shouldn't even be that. You can make a touch attack with no intent or purpose other than to simply touch something or someone. It doesn't have to have mal intent, it doesn't have to produce a damage roll.

[Psyren]

Wolf was nuzzling everyone, I did not know beforehand that the new person or anyone was evil. The thing we are going with with touch of golden ice is that it is played like a poison ability of a creature, so the DC is based on the creature's stats. If it was statted out, the nuzzle would probably have been a touch attack slam with only the ravage as the damage. He did make a roll for a touch attack for the nuzzle.
The gm didn't require the player to be evil, he just allowed it. Meanwhile me taking pretty much only exalted feats is a voluntary measure to constrain my behavior, last campaign with that gm went wild due to animate dead spam.

A nuzzle is not a slam. Touch of Golden Ice requires a "bare hand, fist, or natural weapon." I would have ruled that the ToGI would not have triggered from that. Sounds to me like your GM jumped the gun when they didn't need to.

[Reversefigure4]

A group with an evil character and an exalted one was probably going to fall apart fairly rapidly anyway, if your group actually roleplays being exalted as opposed to just using the feats.

[ZamielVanWeber]

If it's the latter, your GM needed to have a plan in place for that scenario if they wanted this to be some kind of big reveal later.
There is literally a feat for this in Champions of Ruin.

[Aotrs Commander]

Yeah, I have to say that was the DM's bad. If you're going to do something like that and have a PC plant (and it's a fun idea occasionally!), you make damn sure that you and that player make sure that sort of thing is accounted for (I mean, first of all by not having an Exalted characted in the party).



I have only done that once to date - it never was never discovered, as we never finished that camapign - I finally revealed it a few weeks ago, since we were never going to be going back to that campaign. (There was also a secondary reason for setting it up with this player; as I recall, the player know he might be moving around and living away for long periods, so I made the character a sort of PC/NPC that he would start and play when he was around, and I NPC when he wasn't.)

I (obviously) talked to the player before hand - his job was basically to play as being a Lawful Good cleric/monk and get all pally with the Chosen One and then make sure when it came for The Choise, he choose the way the bad guys wanted him to, because he's gonna listen to his best mate, right?

I made sure that the character's holy symbol was a very carefully protected magic item (it started in AD&D, but if it had ever come up, I would have said it would have been likely immune to Detect Magic or would have had other properties), which basically made his alignment read as Lawful Good. (And, had BoED been something that existed at the time, I would have said it would have screened him equally from afflictions.)

Now, if the PCs had been very, very sharp and the campaign had gone on, they might have figured it out, and it would have been fair play. I did drop one clue once - they were in a sort of vision, where they were all going with flickering, slightly changing colours when they figured were pertaining to their alignment (all of them being various stripes of good) - except the cleric/monk, who I specifically described as having a complete steady aura, without the slightest of flickers. But they never noticed...!