Failure of Assassin Boss(not assassin) NPC

[HoboKnight]

Hey guys,
I could really use some help with NPC actions, so I'll write this story from NPC perspective. I ask for advice in how would this NPC proceed?

So. There was this village with a shrine to Kelemvor, LN god of death. Shrine was tended to by a priest and two acolytes. Until adventurers visited the village. Going full on murderhobo, they instigated the village against the priest, tortured him and both acolytes and had them burnt alive in a shrine. At the end, they raises them as undead and left the village.

Weeks later another priest of Kelemvor visited the village, figured out what happened and decided to revenge his fallen brethren(and 2 sisters). Being well off, Priest nr. 2 hired two Scry specialists and Scryed the party. He hired a group of about 20 goblin casters (lvl 1 and 2 spell slots). Goblins attacked murderhobos in a town, party survived, goblins did not. Next hire were two Oni Nightblades, professional assassins. They tried, they failed.

Priest is just lvl 3, but has an abundance of funds. 2 attacks with strong groups have failed.

How should Priest nr. 2 proceed? Party seems to be very strong and very murderous.

Thanks

[Pauly]

Hire bards to spread songs of their misdeeds far and wide. Causing ither NPCs to refuse to deal with well known murderers.

Hire investigators to gather proof of their other misdeeds and present them in a court of law.

Raise ethereal spirits to haunt the murder hobos. Following them around constantly and making a racket whoever they go, preventing any stealth or surprises. The spirits can’t hurt the MHs but the MHs can’t hurt the spirits either.

Hire the MHs to investigate a murder. Turns out it’s a murder the MHs committed themselves. The twist being that the contract is actually a geas with consequences for the MHs if the perpetrators are not brought to justice.

[Satinavian]

Honestly, the best course of action would be to analyze what went wrong the first two times and take that into account for the third one.

Also, the first group of hireling that Khelemvor priest has found are 20 goblin spellcasters ? And they had no problem doing their ambush in a town ? Your worldbuilding might differ a bit from the standard. That is not wrong, but it makes it difficult to make suggestions that fit.

[HoboKnight]

It's Feywild and goblin casters are a common sight. So wild stuff is on the table.

[Easy e]

Sun Tzu would say to strike the enemy where they are weakest.... or something.

They are strong at fighting, so do not attack them directly. Attack them indirectly.

[Cygnia]

I second Pauly's suggestions. Social assassination can be pretty darn crippling.

As an aside though, can you talk to your players about not being murderhobos?

[Slipjig]

The priest should probably be bringing in higher help. The authorities may ignore it if undesirables (like adventurers) kill each other, but killing civilians like the local priest is going to draw a reaction. The priest should be going to the local lord for assistance, or going to the higher church hierarchy.

Also, while not everybody likes Kelemvor, most other gods don't have beef with him, so if word about this gets around the PCs may not be able to access temple services from most other gods, either.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Hire bards to spread songs of their misdeeds far and wide. Causing ither NPCs to refuse to deal with well known murderers.

Hire investigators to gather proof of their other misdeeds and present them in a court of law.

I love the idea of a PR campaign, but that could backfire. See Sailor variant background Pirate Bad Reputation:
"No matter where you go, people are afraid of you due to your reputation. When you are in a civilized settlement, you can get away with minor criminal offenses, such as refusing to pay for food at a tavern or breaking down doors at a local shop, since most people will not report your activity to the authorities."
PHB 139

The Priests returning as revenants comes to mind as well.

How about a warlock especially commissioned/created by the offended Deity could serve as a point of contact for a fiend outbreak. This could be the consequence for the PI investigation. Some mild mannered public defender attorney who finds this killing an outrageous affront to the law, and Asmodeus (or some lesser entity) takes an interest. Or maybe it's a Judge Dredd kind of NPC.

Blur the lines here from good/evil to law/chaos, and you could have celestials and devils both vying to wipe this party out.

I look forward to a report of their TPK.

[KorvinStarmast]

How should Priest nr. 2 proceed? Party seems to be very strong and very murderous.
Hire two NPC assassins, per the MM. Their aim is to hide and do sneak attacks.
Have you seen the nova damage NPC assassins can do? (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/174944/22566)

You don't have to kill the whole party, just one or two of them, but the assassins may be able to kill them all.
What level is the party?

[Pauly]

To clarify my initial suggestions.
The cleric is LN. Hiring unlicensed assassins seems a bit of a CN/CE thing to do. To my mind the LN thing to do is to see the perpetrators brought to justice.
It’s lawful to publish the truth if the party’s actions.
It’s lawful to bring them before the courts.
It’s lawful to have them haunted by their victims.
It’s lawful to get the party to enter a contract.
Hiring assassins to get revenge, not so lawful.

Another suggestion. Kelemvor is the Lord of the Dead. The priest could get Kelemvor to refuse resurrection services to the party, holding the souls in his plane until their actions are accounted for.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Hire two NPC assassins, per the MM. Their aim is to hide and do sneak attacks.
Have you seen the nova damage NPC assassins can do? (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/174944/22566)

You don't have to kill the whole party, just one or two of them, but the assassins may be able to kill them all.
What level is the party?

You could have a lot of fun with this scenario, too. Get the players god and paranoid, and have the assassins be the last people they'd think would do them in.

And the linked discussion is of ONE assassin...

[KorvinStarmast]

To clarify my initial suggestions.
The cleric is LN. {snip}
That's you tying your own hands with alignment.
You do you.
And you didn't answer my question: what level are they?

[Mechalich]

So the scenario is that a low-level priest is mobilizing vast monetary resources to punish those who have defiled his faith and the temple of his god? Sounds like a job for a high-powered extraplanar servant, conveniently acquired through a scroll of Greater Planar Ally (5,500 gp), which can be used to call up a Marut (LN and thematically appropriate), which hopefully is sufficient powerful to overwhelm the party.

Usefully, a Marut also has the ability to apply Mark of Justice at will and to inflict Geas on at least one party member, meaning you can turn this into a beatdown+quest lesson in not offending the gods rather than just a TPK.

[Pauly]

That's you tying your own hands with alignment.
You do you.
And you didn't answer my question: what level are they?

How would I know what level the party is? I’m not the OP.

It doesn’t matter whether you like alignment or not. It is a core rule of D&D, and NPCs are expected to have their actions informed by their alignment, especially clerics and paladins whose abilities and spells are mechanically linked to their alignment.

If you find the idea that alignment is offensive and overly limiting, then I’d suggest that D&D isn’t the game for you. It is one of the reasons why I no longer care to play D&D, admittedly very low on my list of reasons and one I’d overlook if it was the only thing I didn’t care for.

[HoboKnight]

That's you tying your own hands with alignment.
You do you.
And you didn't answer my question: what level are they?
Hey, OP here. They are lvl8. Cleric of War, Barbarian, Battemaster fighter, Artificer, another Battlemaster fighter. With a troll servant.

[Zombimode]

How should Priest nr. 2 proceed? Party seems to be very strong and very murderous.

Hire adventurers to deal with the probably demon-possessed marauders.

[King of Nowhere]

I love the idea of a PR campaign, but that could backfire. See Sailor variant background Pirate Bad Reputation:
"No matter where you go, people are afraid of you due to your reputation. When you are in a civilized settlement, you can get away with minor criminal offenses, such as refusing to pay for food at a tavern or breaking down doors at a local shop, since most people will not report your activity to the authorities."
PHB 139


the party is already killing people indiscriminately and getting away with it, so I don't see how that could make anything any worse

[KorvinStarmast]

How would I know what level the party is? I’m not the OP. Whoops, my apologies! :smalleek:

Hey, OP here. They are lvl8. Cleric of War, Barbarian, Battemaster fighter, Artificer, another Battlemaster fighter. With a troll servant. OK, my Two Assassins suggestion remains, but now tell me:
who is the leader of this group?
Your NPC(priest) concerned about the Murder Hobo group has already failed twice to deal with them.
Are they serious about dealing with them or are they going to keep screwing around? Your lay out is that "money is no object" - also, what edition of what game is this? D&D 5e or something else?


{1} Being well off, Priest nr. 2 hired two Scry specialists and Scryed the party. He hired a group of about 20 goblin casters (lvl 1 and 2 spell slots). Goblins attacked murderhobos in a town, party survived, goblins did not.
{2} Next hire were two Oni Nightblades, professional assassins. They tried, they failed.
Priest is just lvl 3, but has an abundance of funds.
2 attacks with strong groups have failed.

[Cygnia]

OP, my question still remains -- are you concerned at all that your players are murderhobos? Is this something you encouraged?

[Sapphire Guard]

Does it matter to your NPC if they're detected by the party? If not, he could just post a substantial open bounty and create a John Wick situation, where any random assassin that feels like it can try their luck. You could create any kind of encounters you want from that, as a wide range of people would go for that if the bounty was high enough.

Downside would be that they would see the wanted posters and might try to hunt down the person posting it. Alternatively, the bounty could be signed by the Church of Kelemvor, payable at any temple on delivery of the player's heads, leaving the players with options of trying to find the specific priest posting the bounty or just declare war on the church.

[HoboKnight]

Whoops, my apologies! :smalleek:
OK, my Two Assassins suggestion remains, but now tell me:
who is the leader of this group?
Your NPC(priest) concerned about the Murder Hobo group has already failed twice to deal with them.
Are they serious about dealing with them or are they going to keep screwing around? Your lay out is that "money is no object" - also, what edition of what game is this? D&D 5e or something else?
Cleric of War is the leader. Its 5e.

[HoboKnight]

Does it matter to your NPC if they're detected by the party? If not, he could just post a substantial open bounty and create a John Wick situation, where any random assassin that feels like it can try their luck. You could create any kind of encounters you want from that, as a wide range of people would go for that if the bounty was high enough.

Downside would be that they would see the wanted posters and might try to hunt down the person posting it. Alternatively, the bounty could be signed by the Church of Kelemvor, payable at any temple on delivery of the player's heads, leaving the players with options of trying to find the specific priest posting the bounty or just declare war on the church.
Bounty! How did I not think of that!! Thanks!

[Aliess]

What is the outcome you want as the DM?
- kill the party
- teach them the error of their ways
- keep being a thorn in their side until they find out who's sending all these assassin's and confront them?
- convert them to the faith of killing the right things.
- start hiring them to take out the church's enemies. It's a win win scenario.

That should influence the approach you take (there's no point throwing continually more powerful assassin's at them if you want to stop them being murder hobos for example, just as there's no point ruining their reputation if you know they won't care and will just keep murdering.

Some really good ideas in previous posts though.

[HoboKnight]

What is the outcome you want as the DM?
- keep being a thorn in their side until they find out who's sending all these assassin's and confront them?


This. So this.

[KorvinStarmast]

Cleric of War is the leader. Its 5e. To raise the stakes, the NPC assassins lay a trap and try to kill the Cleric. How the party overcomes that (and maybe gets the Cleric raised or reincarnated) can make for an intense adventure for a few sessions.

[Easy e]

If you really want to make their life tough, have the actual authorities of the state get involved. Nothing makes players squirm more than the actual "cops" getting involved as antagonists.

You really can't murder your way out of that issue, unless you want to be an Outlaw. Which then just raises the stakes an propels the adventure in another direction.

[Kurt Kurageous]

the party is already killing people indiscriminately and getting away with it, so I don't see how that could make anything any worse

Good point. I was not sure if this was a one time thing or a party play-style.

Cinematic Wild West analogy: It could make things worse if worse is less convenient. Businesses close their doors, walled towns close their gates, wanted posters everywhere, every gunslinger looking to make a name out for them, every lawman with a rifle in their arms... Its all up to the DM to respond.

[Kurt Kurageous]

To raise the stakes, the NPC assassins lay a trap and try to kill the Cleric. How the party overcomes that (and maybe gets the Cleric raised or reincarnated) can make for an intense adventure for a few sessions.

I like poison and disease, but players always have really good CON saves.

A fun misdirection could be a third faction (Drow or Drow-adjacent) attempting an abduction for reasons wholly unrelated to the current open conflict. Big traps with big nets in the (magical and magical-adjacent) dark and a fusillade of sleep poison arrows and saves. A 1 is going to be rolled at some point when making many saves/round.

[2BobHeroes]

Is this a story issue or a monster issue?

If it's a story issue, then we need to know why the PCs tortured and ganked the priest and acolytes, why the town went along, the general tone of the game, and where you want to go with the adventure, so we know what tropes are in play.

Without knowing that, advice is a lot more general.

Story suggestion:
Make sure the PCs know that there's a priest of Kelemvor with an unhealthy obsession with killing them, so the revenge angle isn't wasted. You want to avoid, "Another group of random guys who hated us for no reason showed up and got killed again. Funny." This allows the PCs to affect the plot by disrupting the priest's plans, or even taking the initiative and counterattacking.

The priest cleaning up this mess, a lawful priest of a lawful organization, is going to involve the priest's supervisors. After the priest has spent sufficient money without results, those supervisors are going to tell the priest to deal with it personally so it doesn't get screwed up again, appoint a new person in charge of the revenge campaign, or stop throwing good money after bad. You decide which is the most narratively satisfying.

Potential signposts:
* Mercenary assassins may have been paid in temple offerings.
* Zealot assassins have copies of Kelemvor's 'bible', exhortations from Kelemvor to purge the unclean, or be wearing a depiction of his holy symbol
* Townspeople who helped the PCs may warn them/ask for help because Kelemvor's church is coming down on them first
* Wanted posters in taverns, etc.
* Special Kelemvor's church wanted posters around the temple district of whatever town they visit
* Local lords asking for the PCs to do them a favor (quest) in exchange for them looking the other way
* Thieves guild offering protection and places to lie low in exchange for a favor (quest)
* Some sort of Kelemvor representative offering to accept wergild/have them convert to Kelemvor/be appeased for a favor (quest)


Monster suggestion:
Two inquisitors of the tome (gender does not matter), both dressed like monks/nuns (the artillery), and both wearing cloaks with Kelemvor's holy symbol on them that are actually cloakers (the meatshields). Their goal is to wound and capture the PCs and bring them to public, humiliating trial with as much fanfare as possible. Have them talk like Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint (assassins in James Bond.)

Refluff the inquisitor powers to be Kelemvor-themed, for example: silver sword -> bastard sword, force bolt -> grasping motion creating a spectral claw that tears soul energy out of the PCs when it hits, implode -> spectral skeleton hands claw the PCs and try to drag them down. (Don't change the numbers.)

[KorvinStarmast]

Have them talk like Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint (assassins in James Bond.) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Wint_and_Mr._Kidd) That's a neat idea. (For those unsure of the reference, the James Bond film featuring the two assassins is Diamonds Are Forever).

[Easy e]

I thought that those two characters were considered "problematic" by today's standards?