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Thread: Do Not Look Up

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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
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    Default Do Not Look Up

    I’ve had this idea in my head for a long time, inspired by the video Weather Service by Local58TV and I would appreciate some feedback on how best to implement it.

    The party is investigating a strange illness resistant to traditional curative magic that causes violent mania in those afflicted. They came to the village of Twinfalls seeking a Druid who has been researching it herself for some time, but she has been away in the wilderness for over a fortnight, leading some to grow concerned. The night after they arrive, the party witnessed a very strange phenomena; the moon gradually turning red, starting with a small speck in the center and growing rapidly. At the same time, various kinds of Fey creatures harassed them. Fairies casting Sleep, Boggles leaving oil slicks to trip them. The NPCs with them urged the party to flee and not look at the moon. Their point was crystallized when one of the NPCs fell so deeply asleep upon looking directly at it that they would not wake to the usual shaking/yelling. It was then that the true threat appeared; Darklings. The party failed to spot it in time and the sleeping NPC was stabbed, waking to the pain and then falling unconscious and failing one death save.

    This is where we left off. In the off chance any of my players come across this post I won’t spoil the truth about the red moon, but in practical terms it causes anyone who looks at it to fall asleep hard enough to require actual damage to awaken rather than an Action to rouse them. The notion is to require the party to fight at a disadvantage by avoiding looking up, and any time they are hit by Sleep they have to do 1 damage to each other to recover, wearing down a party of 6 1st level characters with a lot of healing by attrition.

    What I need help with is how best to execute the plan. One of my players is a Half-Elf so she’s immune to Sleep, so I can either let that roll or incorporate Charm from the Pixies. One of my other players is a Yuan-ti so they have magic resist, which would help against Charm but doesn’t prevent Sleep I believe. Not being able to look up means they can’t attack the flying Pixies without risking a look at the moon. Should I apply a saving throw if they do, or just make it happen?

    One of my players brought up Coup de Grace on helpless creatures causing instant death, but as far as I’m aware they were referring to a past edition for that mechanic. I ruled it was an Advantage attack that guaranteed a crit, which I believe is RAW, right?

    I appreciate any assistance the Playground can provide!

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    Titan in the Playground
     
    AssassinGuy

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    Default Re: Do Not Look Up

    IMO, let the half-elf be immune to sleep. Nothing is more frustrating to a player than having their protective abilities invalidated by fiat.

    If you want something bad to happen to them anyway, you could give them a save vs charm to be knocked prone perhaps. They still have a good chance of fighting through it, because it's a charm, but it's also a consequence to keep them engaged in the fantasy.

    As far as looking up, i would offer them a choice to either take the blinded condition for the combat or have to make a save whenever they take an action targeting the pixies. Wisdom seems like a solid save here but you could justify a lot of them.

    Having said all this, I would make sure to have a backup plan in the event of casualties, because this seems like an encounter that could heavily swing against the players if the dice don't favor them. Low level combat is already hazardous without adding in save or suck combat conditions and giving enemies advantage and crits all over the place.
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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Do Not Look Up

    I have several NPCs with class levels around to handle things should the dice turn against them. I’ll be sparse with enemies and focus their attention on NPCs, the fallout of this encounter has more to do with the effect on the village than the party.

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    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    BarbarianGuy

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    Default Re: Do Not Look Up

    I like this a lot. Very creative and will likely be copied by a few of us. Just being truthful.

    I'm concerned that what you're considering is a bit much for a bunch of 1st level chars. Be ready to soften things if the players' dice decide to be jerks.

    - Elvish immunity to sleep is a core of the race... perhaps make them save w/ advantage to up the stress level (unlikely to fail, but possible)
    - Yuan-Ti, yeah they're immune to the charm but I'd prob do the "save with advantage" for the sleep
    - Disadvantage against attacking flying pixies is prob good enough (rules for attacking unseen enemies)
    - Avoid having enemies attack unconscious characters... auto-crit is very bad at low levels.

    Edit:
    Ignore all parts of this that you addressed in the post above.
    Last edited by JonBeowulf; 2022-05-23 at 08:52 AM.

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    Default Re: Do Not Look Up

    As a reminder, RAW is a starting point so feel free to make any changes you need to for your campaign/story, so long as the players are on board.

    With that said:

    1) Sleeping characters are Unconscious, which means that attack rolls against them have advantage and attacks against the creature from 5ft. away automatically crit. There is no "helpless" condition or "coup de grace" in 5e, but those are the nearest equivalents. Whether you dispense with a damage roll and move to death saves or instant death is really up to you.

    2) Let racial resistances and immunities work against this. It makes sense that such races should have an advantage against fey incursions or phenomena. (Note however that the new Yuan-Ti have spell resistance rather than magic resistance if you're using those.)

    3) Remember your players can spend hit dice on a short rest to aid with their HP recovery, though that will be a pretty limited resource at low levels.

    4) Keeping your eyes averted from direct observation of the moon = constant disadvantage seems a bit harsh, especially for 1st-level characters. If there's a rogue in the party they're permanently hosed for instance, and most of the other martials would be too. Meanwhile the casters of course can simply switch to non-attack-roll spells and be much less affected. I'd reconsider this penalty a bit, perhaps making it a % chance to view the moon each round (e.g. 50% vs. a same-elevation foe, 75% vs. a flying/higher one), and then if they roll badly, choosing between eating the disadvantage that round or falling asleep and needing to be roused.
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    Default Re: Do Not Look Up

    I feel like you should only hand out disadvantage on attack rolls if the players are explicitly going after flying fey, especially if the "save or fall asleep" effect only happens if you look directly at the moon.

    I mean, it's fairly easy to walk around and do stuff without directly looking at celestial objects.

    ...

    Also, I'm amused at the discussion about CDGs — getting hit with an auto-crit is pretty much the same thing at 1st level.
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    Default Re: Do Not Look Up

    Since there is a truth of the red moon, you should consider what that truth is in relation to why it puts people to sleep. And then ask yourself what happens if somebody who can't sleep is subject to the effect. This may be "nothing," or it may mean the half-elf sees something that has clues to things in it. Or drives him mad, or...a number of possibilities.

    If you think it should reveal information you don't want revealed yet, you could borrow from the Silence in Doctor Who. Whenever he looks up, then looks away, he can't remember anything that happened while he was looking up. And if he tries to speak of it, his tongue gets tied (this is not from the Doctor Who thing, but is a way to prevent him from laundering info). Later, he can have reverie-dreams about it or something, revealing snippets that are interesting and useful to your plot pacing.

    Don't make people have disadvantage; people usually don't look up. Instead, have flying enemies; looking at them constitutes looking up, so anybody who isn't looking at the moon is blind to the flying enemies, with all that entails. The flying enemies, of course, can see the people below them just fine.

    Also be open to strategies to try to block sight of the moon while looking up, but come up with reasonable Dexterity check or Dexterity save DCs to manage to do it since they have to block the moon without looking at it.

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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Do Not Look Up

    This is a great time for anyone with a full helmet. That limits sight so much that they can't see anything else anyway.

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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Do Not Look Up

    Thanks for all the great feedback! I'm glad to see this much engagement, and please feel free to steal this idea and throw your own spin on it! I'd love to see how it plays out with other groups at other tables. :)

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Since there is a truth of the red moon, you should consider what that truth is in relation to why it puts people to sleep. And then ask yourself what happens if somebody who can't sleep is subject to the effect. This may be "nothing," or it may mean the half-elf sees something that has clues to things in it. Or drives him mad, or...a number of possibilities.

    If you think it should reveal information you don't want revealed yet, you could borrow from the Silence in Doctor Who. Whenever he looks up, then looks away, he can't remember anything that happened while he was looking up. And if he tries to speak of it, his tongue gets tied (this is not from the Doctor Who thing, but is a way to prevent him from laundering info). Later, he can have reverie-dreams about it or something, revealing snippets that are interesting and useful to your plot pacing.
    That is an excellent idea! I'll lean into this for the Half-Elf in particular since she's the Wizard and only INT based character, so she has the most motivation and capability to learn the secrets.

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Don't make people have disadvantage; people usually don't look up. Instead, have flying enemies; looking at them constitutes looking up, so anybody who isn't looking at the moon is blind to the flying enemies, with all that entails. The flying enemies, of course, can see the people below them just fine.

    Also be open to strategies to try to block sight of the moon while looking up, but come up with reasonable Dexterity check or Dexterity save DCs to manage to do it since they have to block the moon without looking at it.
    Something I did wrong in the previous session was have a Pixie reveal itself after casting Sleep on one of the players. They have at-will Greater Invisibility so they can cast spells without breaking it, which brings to mind an odd redundancy. The notion I have is that the players don't want to look up for fear of being hit with the Moonwoozies™ but the Pixies are going to be repeatedly pestering them with spells. They're really not going to have much incentive to try though because not only are they taking the sleep risk, but they're also invisible so Disadvantage to even attempt it.

    What I'm thinking now is that the Pixies will mainly use Charm Person to try and make the players look up, causing them to sleep and forcing their allies to slap them awake with an Attack action for 1 HP. Having the Half-Elf Wizard be immune means there's no risk of all of them falling to this, and she has the lowest HP so her not having to take that attrition means less stress for her. I can also have Boggles trying to trip them up, and maybe roll a d4 evens/odds or a Dex Save to see if they land on their face (safe) or back (fall asleep)?

    The Yuan-ti has Magic Resistance which says, "You have advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects." I guess this means they should get that Advantage on anything magical regardless of it being a spell, so they'll be less likely to fall to the Charm spells and maybe I should give them a Disadvantage roll to save against the Moonwoozies™ where the others don't get a roll at all? Or just ignore the MR because there's no roll baseline? Notably they also took Fey Touched as the bonus level 1 Feat I gave to all players, so that should play into this too, right? Hmm...
    Last edited by ZenBear; 2022-05-23 at 06:02 PM.

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    Colossus in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Do Not Look Up

    Magic resistance does nothing to effects that don't permit a save.

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    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Do Not Look Up

    Fey touched only provides the abilities it states - nothing extra unless the DM wants it to. For example, someone with the fey-touched feat does not gain an ability to resist sleep or charm.

    If the creatures are flying above the characters then just give the character disadvantage on attack rolls at creatures above them. This is consistent with the "averting gaze" effects for attacking creatures like a basilisk and also the unseen attackers rules.

    However, players are usually smart. How do you plan to handle the paladin or other martial character who holds their shield above the ranged or caster character, blocking the moon and allowing them to shoot upward without a risk of seeing the moon?

    Finally, pixies, boggles and darklings altogether would be a challenge for a high level party - unless their goal isn't to kill off the party. Pixies have a long list of spells but sleep is 1/day like the others - so repeatedly casting sleep might not be an option. However, they also have polymorph and confusion among others that could cause the affected creature to look up and see the moon.

    On top of that, you could call the state induced by the moon as something other than sleep. It could be called stupor, daze, unconscious, entranced - anything you like since you are the DM - you only run into issues with game mechanics when you call it "sleep" as opposed to some sleep-like effect.

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    Default Re: Do Not Look Up

    I finally had the session! We had to delay a week due to Memorial Day shenaniganry. It did NOT go as planned, which is to be expected. No plan survives first contact with the players.

    The party was split up across town. Three were in the hunting lodge at the edge of the forest being attacked by a lone Darkling. It got a nasty cut on the Rogue but went down after the second round. I had to pull the punch because the 1d6+3 was bad enough for 1st level characters, 2d6 Necrotic damage on top of that was a death sentence. The second party was in a chapel being attacked by 3 Boggles. These litter buggers are a ton of fun. I only had them attack if they had a clear advantage or at the very least were 1 on 1. Every other round they would leave an Oil Slick and teleport away. The Slippery Oil knocked the Paladin on her ass a couple times and the Sticky Oil screwed over the Bard and Wizard enabling a few nasty Advantage attacks. That one took a lot longer, which was a bit of a bummer to the Hunting Lodge party. I should have been more aware of action economy, I'm just an idiot sometimes. I'll do better.

    Once the fights were done, each party made a break for the tavern. They put up their hoods and ran, so I abstracted out their general distance and rolled dice to determine who would suffer a Charm Person spell to compel them to look up. Over about a dozen saving throws, only one player and one NPC failed. Instead of slapping them awake, they just picked them up and kept running. It wasn't until they reached the tavern and discovered a pair of Darklings led by an Elder attacking the barkeep and his sons that the Druid slapped the Bard awake.

    Obviously this didn't go as planned regarding the attrition factor, but it was still a fun time. I need to find a good way to introduce the idea of slapping sleepers awake because they did not even think to try it until I mentioned the option OOC. I'll keep this concept in my pocket for future campaigns and iterate on it as I go. Hopefully others will try it too!

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