Love Potions of Disaster

[Desril]

Had the first session of a new campaign today. I think a love potion may bring the whole thing crashing down.

In an effort to secure aid from a Dryad, the party of level 1s was given a spiked (buffed via power of plot to have a higher DC save and work on Fey) Elixir of Love to get a Nereid to drink. Once she'd fallen madly in love with whichever of the trio she happened to be looking at, the party was to obtain her shawl and hand it over to the Dryad. The problem is that player who had the potion decided that a toast would be the best way to get the nereid to drink, so he had some of the potion too. A roll put the nereid as falling in love with the party Alchemist, who due to being unconscious until being revived by the Nereid, was totally unaware of the plan. The Rogue who had the toast, fell madly in love with the Nereid, and now intends to kill the Alchemist, since he is the type who kills rivals. The Alchemist is still quite injured, totally unaware of gaining the rogue's hatred, and the main reason the party even met the Nereid in the first place.

So now our Rogue is going to kill our Alchemist, the Summoner may or may not care, but even if he doesn't try to avenge his fallen comrade (the Summoner is evil and will probably only be worried about saving his own skin), the Nereid who is sitting at a nice round 10 CR against a level 1 Rogue will definetly want to avenge her murdered lover and butcher him in ways that will probably make ogres look humane.

That leaves the level 1 Summoner all on his own, in the middle of a forest, several miles from any help and knowing his luck, he's going to walk headfirst into a Wyvern nest.


Anyone else have such chaos and disaster caused by a love potion, either due to players being obstinate or them actually being trapped in a situation where there is no good outcome?

[Morithias]

One campaign we found an artifact called a "Love Note" which was basically a death note that created love.

Needless to say we had a lot of fun with it, until we realized it just created infatuation and not love.

We had a hard time explaining to the King why the Princess was suddenly in love with 3 different men.

Probably should've destroyed the thing when we had the chance.

[Calanon]

That doesn't sound like a love potion to me... More like Love poison

Hmm... I recommend keeping them away from each other for a solid 1 hour... it should get it out of there system...

SERIOUS SOLUTION TO YOUR PROBLEM

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Alright lets get serious... I honestly recommend a healthy knife in the back... Nobody will be in love anymore and the Nereid will be dead... as with the Dryad incase she gets upity... AH KNIFE IN THE BACK! IS THERE NOTHING YOU CANNOT SOLVE?

[deuxhero]

Unless you WANT them to kill eachother, any Evil party (and to a lesser degree other parties as well) should have some method of no PVP, even just a gentleman's agreement.


Regardless of that, the item only lasts 1d3 hours.

[Jay R]

Had the first session of a new campaign today. I think a love potion may bring the whole thing crashing down.

Don't blame the love potion. The problem is that he chose to drink his own trap.

A stupid decision may bring the whole thing crashing down.

[Telonius]

This sounds suspiciously like the plot of Midsummer Night's Dream...

[Dr Bwaa]

This sounds suspiciously like the plot of Midsummer Night's Dream...

Heh, I was thinking the same thing.

Also, when I saw the thread title, my first thought was "is there some other kind?"

Frankly, a level 1 party deciding to interact in any way with a CR10 Nereid is where your problems started. The love potions and bad decisions following that one are just gravy.

[W3bDragon]

So now our Rogue is going to kill our Alchemist, the Summoner may or may not care, but even if he doesn't try to avenge his fallen comrade (the Summoner is evil and will probably only be worried about saving his own skin), the Nereid who is sitting at a nice round 10 CR against a level 1 Rogue will definetly want to avenge her murdered lover and butcher him in ways that will probably make ogres look humane.

There is plenty of good outcome possible from this. There is also nothing wrong with having a CR 10 involved at level 1.

The following statements assumes the rogue is at least somewhat intelligent, even though he demonstrated a lapse of judgment in drinking the potion. Maybe he just didn't believe in this mumbo jumbo? It also assumes that the player is looking for a plausible way to NOT kill the alchemist. Anyway:

The magical effect of the potion is simply to make the imbiber love the first one they see, right? Nothing else? No compulsions to go without food and drink in chase of a lover or kill rivals or anything else right? Your rogue needs to understand that.

He loves the Nereid, and since the rogue is planning to kill the alchemist, he obviously knows that the Nereid loves the alchemist. If the Nereid ever finds out that he killed the alchemist, his love will be lost forever, to say nothing of his life. Besides, what's to guarantee that killing the alchemist will break the effect on the Nereid? Maybe she'll spend the rest of her days pining over her lost love?

If he really wants the Nereid to love him back, he's probably better off letting the alchemist wake up and show the Nereid that he's a clueless, useless, good for nothing dabbler that cannot hold a candle to the sheer awesomeness of the rogue.

This way, instead of a TPK, you'll have an interesting scenario where the rogue is trying to impress the Nereid, while the Nereid is fawning over the (now awake?) alchemist, while he remains clueless. The rogue might indeed be planning to kill the alchemist, but only AFTER he's secured the Nereid's attention. Once the shawl is delivered to the Dryad, the potion wears off.

Hilarity ensues.

[Desril]

There is plenty of good outcome possible from this. There is also nothing wrong with having a CR 10 involved at level 1.

The following statements assumes the rogue is at least somewhat intelligent, even though he demonstrated a lapse of judgment in drinking the potion. Maybe he just didn't believe in this mumbo jumbo? It also assumes that the player is looking for a plausible way to NOT kill the alchemist. Anyway:

The magical effect of the potion is simply to make the imbiber love the first one they see, right? Nothing else? No compulsions to go without food and drink in chase of a lover or kill rivals or anything else right? Your rogue needs to understand that.

He loves the Nereid, and since the rogue is planning to kill the alchemist, he obviously knows that the Nereid loves the alchemist. If the Nereid ever finds out that he killed the alchemist, his love will be lost forever, to say nothing of his life. Besides, what's to guarantee that killing the alchemist will break the effect on the Nereid? Maybe she'll spend the rest of her days pining over her lost love?

If he really wants the Nereid to love him back, he's probably better off letting the alchemist wake up and show the Nereid that he's a clueless, useless, good for nothing dabbler that cannot hold a candle to the sheer awesomeness of the rogue.

This way, instead of a TPK, you'll have an interesting scenario where the rogue is trying to impress the Nereid, while the Nereid is fawning over the (now awake?) alchemist, while he remains clueless. The rogue might indeed be planning to kill the alchemist, but only AFTER he's secured the Nereid's attention. Once the shawl is delivered to the Dryad, the potion wears off.

Hilarity ensues.

That would be what a rational person would do, however, he seems to have taken something the Alchemist did earlier as a personal slight, rather than something done for the overall entertainment value, and is planning on killing the Alchemist with knowledge he gained out of character because his Rogue is the type that grew up with a "kill potential rivals" background apparently (I was never informed of this before that point). So it's less "the Rogue did one stupid thing, it doesn't mean he'll do another" it's more of "the normally intelligent Rogue's player did something stupid and, feeling insulted, has decided to get revenge against the Alchemist's character because he blames him."

Though over the intervening days, I think I've managed to convince him that it would be both stupid In and Out of Character to try and kill the Alchemist in a fit of jealous rage, and that if his character was half as cunning as he claimed it was then he would have the wisdom to get revenge at a less suicidal time, which would hopefully let the potion expire.

[Fayd]

Why am I reminded of A Midsummer Night's Dream all of a sudden? Warning: The previous question was not sincere. I do, in fact, know the answer.

[Desril]

Why am I reminded of A Midsummer Night's Dream all of a sudden? Warning: The previous question was not sincere. I do, in fact, know the answer.

People keep saying that, but that's one of the Shakespearean plays that I only know about rather than having actually read...

[Fayd]

People keep saying that, but that's one of the Shakespearean plays that I only know about rather than having actually read...

You should read it, it's pretty good. It's also fairly clear and readable (some work better performed, this one is good even when just read, in my opinion)

[Telonius]

People keep saying that, but that's one of the Shakespearean plays that I only know about rather than having actually read...

Wikipedia gives a pretty good summary.

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"Meanwhile, Oberon, king of the fairies, and his queen, Titania, have come to the forest outside Athens. Titania tells Oberon that she plans to stay there until after she has attended Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding. Oberon and Titania are estranged because Titania refuses to give her Indian changeling to Oberon for use as his "knight" or "henchman," since the child's mother was one of Titania's worshipers. Oberon seeks to punish Titania's disobedience, so he calls for his mischievous court jester Puck or "Robin Goodfellow" to help him apply a magical juice from a flower called "love-in-idleness," which when applied to a person's eyelids while sleeping makes the victim fall in love with the first living thing seen upon awakening. He instructs Puck to retrieve the flower so that he can make Titania fall in love with the first thing she sees when waking from sleep, which he is sure will be an animal of the forest. Oberon's intent is to shame Titania into giving up the little Indian boy. He says, "And ere I take this charm from off her sight, / As I can take it with another herb, / I'll make her render up her page to me."

Having seen Demetrius act cruelly toward Helena, Oberon orders Puck to spread some of the magical juice from the flower on the eyelids of the young Athenian man. Instead, Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius, not having actually seen either before, and administers the juice to the sleeping Lysander. Helena, coming across him, wakes him while attempting to determine whether he is dead or asleep. Upon this happening, Lysander immediately falls in love with Helena. Oberon sees Demetrius still following Hermia and is enraged. When Demetrius decides to go to sleep, Oberon sends Puck to get Helena while he charms Demetrius' eyes. Upon waking up, he sees Helena. Now, both men are in pursuit of Helena. However, she is convinced that her two suitors are mocking her, as neither loved her originally. Hermia is at a loss to see why her lover has abandoned her, and accuses Helena of stealing Lysander away from her. The four quarrel with each other until Lysander and Demetrius become so enraged that they seek a place to duel each other to prove whose love for Helena is the greatest. Oberon orders Puck to keep Lysander and Demetrius from catching up with one another and to remove the charm from Lysander, so that he goes back to being in love with Hermia."

[Thialfi]

Back when our group got the 2e Humanoid Handbook everyone had to make up a couple characters from the book.

One of my characters was a cereberally challenged (9 int, 7 wis) female pixie thief that I named Trixie and played her as a sweet but rather vacuous valley girl type that rambles incessantly about everything that crosses her mind.

As pixie thieves are wont to do she came upon a stash of potions that the rest of the party did not know about and she decided to test them out to see if she could use some of them for pranks.

Of course one of those potions was a philter of love that the DM decided would have enhanced effects on my poor girl. She fell madly in love with the party's straight laced dwarven paladin. Of course the rest of the party did not know that she had drank a potion and much hilarity ensued.

We still have fun with it as both characters are still active well over a decade later and Trixie is still head over heels for her sweet baboo.

[Jay R]

People keep saying that, but that's one of the Shakespearean plays that I only know about rather than having actually read...

Go find it on Netflix. Shakespeare didn't write plays to be read, but to be watched.

[nedz]

Go find it on Netflix. Shakespeare didn't write plays to be read, but to be played.

FTFY

Get the scripts, get a few friends together, make/steal some costumes and put on a show.