Identify Warlock Power 4e

[HMS Invincible]

I have a GM who is making some b.s. attack with a warlock power/class feature.

1. He handwaves a ritual that summons minions around him.
2. He action points and then sacrifices the minions around him by dealing damage to each minion. Since they are minions, they die no matter what. This is where he claim's the warlock power/class feature comes into play.
The power deals damage to his target with a number of dice equal to the number of minions killed.

[Kylarra]

Sounds like he's probably trying to use the Darkspiral aura pact boon. The problem fourfold

a) they all need to be cursed by the warlock's curse
b) curse can only be placed on enemies/pact boon only triggers when cursed enemies fall to 0 or less
c) Darkspiral Aura can only be activated when you are attacked
d) you shouldn't be fighting PC characters

Most likely it's the level 13 encounter power All Must Sacrifice

[Mauril Everleaf]

He may be throwing a Dark Pact Warlock at you. It has several powers that increase their damage when harming allies.

How he is summoning these minions in combat is where the "b.s." might lie.

[Tiki Snakes]

He is the GM. >_>
He is not restricted to the PHB, you know?

[Kylarra]

He may be throwing a Dark Pact Warlock at you. It has several powers that increase their damage when harming allies.

How he is summoning these minions in combat is where the "b.s." might lie.

Hmm, I forgot about All Must Sacrifice, which does work here too. My bad. Point d still comes into play, since abusive minionmancy makes that power way too strong, allowing for up to 2D8+45D10 damage or just 47D8 if not dark pacted (assuming you need three squares free for LoS).

[kieza]

What kind of minions, and how do they get there? Are we talking undead, elementals, soldiers, ninjas? Are they summoned summoned, or do they run in when he yells loudly? How many are there each time he summons them?

[Jothki]

Were it a player, you might have a right to complain.

It sounds like a boss battle. They're allowed to do interesting things that players can't, and are probably better off doing so.

[Aron Times]

Remind him that you should gain XP for those sacrificed minions, since they directly contributed to the challenge.

[Starsinger]

It's even most likely rules legal. I can't remember how I pulled it off before, but I made a monster using templates that could do that the moment I got FRPG, and thus Dark Pact Warlock.

[NPCMook]

He could be using the Death Master Template out of the DMG that as a Standard action he can summon 4 minions once an encounter.

[Gralamin]

He could be using the Death Master Template out of the DMG that as a Standard action he can summon 4 minions once an encounter.

Thats what its called.

Your opponent is likely an Elite NPC or Solo creature with a Class and functional template. Death Master gives minions (Summoning Minions with powers give no XP, despite what Joseph claims) and using All Must Sacrifice. Perfectly legal, but deadly.

[HMS Invincible]

The party is around lvl 9. The guy tries pick a fight, and I want to take this outside. He then kills a bar patron in front of me. Half the party hides behind a table, and the other half engages him.

We attack him, expecting to lose since he doesn't seem appropriate for our level. That's when he decides to cast his fancy "ritual". I am not sure if it's suppose to be a minor action or he is action pointing. Either way, the attack roll is 34 against AC. It hits me and I expect to go down or be really bloody. Instead, he pulls out a bag of dice and calculates it out to about 315 damage ("Hehe, I rolled high" says the GM). He asks me if I want divine intervention and I tell him either he's serious about the dice or he's not. He counts it out, and I teleport out of the way with my robe of contingency.

The only rules around this homebrewed stuff is that it only summons minions around him, say close burst 3.
Any square that takes up a space in the burst 3 doesn't summon a minion.

Some countermeasures that I thought up are:
1. counter spelling the ritual.
2. Readying an action to kill the minions before he does.
3. Make him waste his spell by escaping with my utilities.
4. Post fliers requesting someone stronger come in to deal with this guy because this is a BS side quest, it's not appropriate for our level and the power does too much damage.
It'd be a fun and mildly interesting concept if it wasn't for the retarded amount of damage.

The bad guy's concept interesting too. He is a former companion/npc that we traveled with. He got possessed by a demon who only posses petrified people. Now we have a dilemma, do we kill a friend? Can we save him before he kills too many people? etc, etc. But it's not fun if he can kill any of us like that. He's already killed someone, and then the GM saved that guy with divine intervention. I think our GM may enjoy the US vs HIM concept too much, and is getting carried away. But at the same time, he's too soft to kill any of us.

Yes, all must sacrifice is the power that I was looking for. Damn, I was hoping that he was misreading it. Maybe the definition of ally will exclude "summons". Alas, I fear that since he created this concept, he'll be too stubborn to change it merely due to RAW.

The minions are summoned summoned, and then he damages them all. He isn't summoning 4 of them, he summons 48 of them, space permitting. I can handle 4d10+2d8 damage, that's just fine. What I don't like, his 48d10 +2d8 damage. This number of minions means GM handwaving.

[Kylarra]

Well that's an absurd amount of damage. AMS only gives you an additional die of damage per damaged ally, and even at my most generous calculations (assuming that you don't need LoS because your minions are dying first) 2D8+24D10 for sacrificing everything around you, is "only" 256 (+cha mod) points of damage.

AMS also targets reflex, so it's not that...

[Asbestos]

Make sure that you have like... a billion caltrops to fill a burst 3 area around this guy. As he summons up his minions they take damage and insta-die.

[HMS Invincible]

Well that's an absurd amount of damage. AMS only gives you an additional die of damage per damaged ally, and even at my most generous calculations (assuming that you don't need LoS because your minions are dying first) 2D8+24D10 for sacrificing everything around you, is "only" 256 (+cha mod) points of damage.

AMS also targets reflex, so it's not that...

No, I misspoke, it's definitely AMS.

[Kylarra]

Okay. My bad though, I miscalculated my bursts again. v_v

2D8+48D10 is well within 315 damage capabilities, and blatant abuse of homebrew.

[Mando Knight]

Who let a munchkin behind the DM screen?

[NPCMook]

Take the DMG away from your DM, yell at him for being a **** and doing it wrong, and make him read Death Master.

[Not Five]

Yes, he can do that. It doesn't matter what power he used, whether he made it himself or not.





It was also complete bull****, and astonishingly terrible DMing on his part, for reasons I shouldn't have to explain (but that, again, have nothing to do with whether it was "legal" or not).

[KillianHawkeye]

Any ability that lets you summon 48 minions in one round is stupid crap. Even if they're all half the PCs' level, they's probably be able to wipe out a typical adventuring party even without the uberspell cheese.

[Grynning]

+1 to those saying this is a unfair/munchkingry on the DM's part. I think this is something that requires a reasonable away from the table discussion, something along the lines of "if you pull crap like that again, I'm not going to play anymore."

Of course, it's entirely possible that he didn't realize how bad he was making his bad guy, or that he planned on those encounters being "unwinnable," but either way, he needs to be set straight.

Or you could just be vindictive and insta-gib his character with a silly homebrew ability the next time you DM

[Tiki Snakes]

Or you are simply not meant to fight that guy.

Just throwing out crazy ideas here.

[Not Five]

Or you are simply not meant to fight that guy.

Just throwing out crazy ideas here.

Instantly killing your PCs without warning is never, ever the correct way to indicate "this enemy is too powerful to fight at your current level", and you should not be the DM if this needs to be explained to you.

[Asbestos]

Instantly killing your PCs without warning is never, ever the correct way to indicate "this enemy is too powerful to fight at your current level", and you should not be the DM if this needs to be explained to you.

Yeah, ways to get the point across to players without straight up killing the PCs:
Have the BBEG obliterate a monster that players absolutely know is above their level.
Have him do something else to the PCs that puts them out of action/removes them from the BBEG path without actually killing them.

[alchemyprime]

Yeah, ways to get the point across to players without straight up killing the PCs:
Have the BBEG obliterate a monster that players absolutely know is above their level.
Have him do something else to the PCs that puts them out of action/removes them from the BBEG path without actually killing them.

Oh, what I call the "Seymour Example".

Have them fight a fight they think they have no chance of winning, only to let our new NPC party member, "Seymour", blow it away in one shot.

Then, later, they find out Seymour isn't on their side, but is in fact the big bad, who's been palling around to keep tabs on them and lower their XP gains.

On top of that, if it gets worse, give Seymour the means to kill them, but make it so they don't die (via divine intervention, Seymour playing with them, destiny, what have you). Make it obvious that the players will see more of him in the future.

Named for (spoiler to last gen game ahead)

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Seymour, from Final Fantasy X

[Gametime]

Oh, what I call the "Seymour Example".

Have them fight a fight they think they have no chance of winning, only to let our new NPC party member, "Seymour", blow it away in one shot.

Then, later, they find out Seymour isn't on their side, but is in fact the big bad, who's been palling around to keep tabs on them and lower their XP gains.

On top of that, if it gets worse, give Seymour the means to kill them, but make it so they don't die (via divine intervention, Seymour playing with them, destiny, what have you). Make it obvious that the players will see more of him in the future.

Named for (spoiler to last gen game ahead)

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Seymour, from Final Fantasy X

I approve of this strategy, but regrettably...

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...my players never seem impressed when the big bad summons his giant mummified mom to blast stuff with her eyes.

[Tiki Snakes]

Instantly killing your PCs without warning is never, ever the correct way to indicate "this enemy is too powerful to fight at your current level", and you should not be the DM if this needs to be explained to you.

Half of the Party hid behind a table, though. Sounds like SOMEONE picked up on some warnings, to me. The OP explicitely says that the other half of the party goes in 'expecting to lose', even.

And the player hit by the attack survives, through use of a continent teleport robe, thing. Also, the DM offered Divine Intervention.

I think this issue is more complex than many are assuming. :)