Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Flambeaux wrote: Are they complaining? Or is this motivated by your own internal sense of justice?

No complaining (although there was obvious disappointment). They're already talking about what they want their "new" character to be. It's mostly my own sense of fairness.

austinjimm wrote:The encounter occurred at the end of a six-hour session, and the players were making some bad choices by that time. Even so, most of the characters fled when the monsters came to life, only turning back when the M-U was in trouble (dead actually). So... had I remembered that prot./evil was still running (it was 6 hours for me too), the M-U would probably have survived and followed the rest of the party in their hasty retreat.

I don't see the situation as a "bad ruling" so much as an outright mistake/oversight on my part as DM. And it was a damn tough encounter for the 3rd level of the dungeon, even though the players brought it on themselves.

If we re-do it, things will pick-up just after the creatures are loosed, so they're not likely to get away scot-free.

Ah, I see. Yeah, folks tend to get a little punchy and absent-minded after a few hours. I would say that your decision to rewind to the monster appearances is a fair one. Good luck!

austinjimm wrote:

Flambeaux wrote: Are they complaining? Or is this motivated by your own internal sense of justice?

No complaining (although there was obvious disappointment). They're already talking about what they want their "new" character to be. It's mostly my own sense of fairness.

Given that it is your own sense of justice motivating this do the rewind as you described above.

T. Foster wrote:I'd suggest that between the incense being lit and the monsters climbing out of the mural there be some fairly broad hints that things are amiss -- after one round the scene in the mural begins to show extra depth, after two rounds the monsters in the mural begin moving and looking at the characters, if the incense is extinguished in this period (before they climb out on the 3rd round) there are no lasting ill effects. (Not saying you didn't do something like this, but it wasn't mentioned in your description.

Actually, that is almost exactly how it was related to the players. They had plenty of chance to abort, and some of the players expressed grave misgivings about what was being done. The player who lit the stuff (had a retainer do it, actually) was insistent on getting at the treasure. I don't think the other players would normally have allowed this to happen, but there was a bit of player-fatigue by this point. Like I said, the players made some bad choices, but even so, they could have escaped had I run the prot./evil thing correctly.

The root problem is that you feel bad a PC died, possibly due to GM overtiredness, right?

There are in-game solutions. You could flat out tell the player, while he's rolling up his new shmoe, "Hey, you know there's a Raise Dead spell, right?" That plants the seed that they can run in, grab the body, and then become deeply indebted to some cleric for being raised from the dead. It's an excellent chance to lob a quest spell at the players too.

PatW wrote:The root problem is that you feel bad a PC died, possibly due to GM overtiredness, right?

There are in-game solutions. You could flat out tell the player, while he's rolling up his new shmoe, "Hey, you know there's a Raise Dead spell, right?" That plants the seed that they can run in, grab the body, and then become deeply indebted to some cleric for being raised from the dead. It's an excellent chance to lob a quest spell at the players too.

No, nearly the whole party died. One guy made it out, after most went back to help the dead M-U (who had the prot./evil running). The guy who made it out tried to bring the corpses with, but had to abandon them when a wandering monster roll brought 4 yipon demons after him.

Recovering the bodies? Not likely in this dungeon. They'll be eaten by giant rats, carried off by the exoskeleton ants, or turned into zombies by the Redblack wizard before anyone can make their way down to find them-- and that assumes that the rescue party is not wiped out on the way down.

Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure those yipon demons ate the carcasses.

EDIT: Actually, I'm mistaken. the yipons were earlier in the night. It was manes demons that came after the last guy and the bodies.

austinjimm wrote:No, nearly the whole party died. One guy made it out, after most went back to help the dead M-U (who had the prot./evil running). The guy who made it out tried to bring the corpses with, but had to abandon them when a wandering monster roll brought 4 yipon demons after him.

Oh gotcha.

Well-gnawed bones are enough for a raise dead. Maybe some scavengers from the upper levels grab the remains as trophies, love dolls, or barter items, and they can be recovered/stumbled upon...

Really it sounds like a giant player goof-up more than anything. One player might have gone down due to a DM mistake, but the rest charging in to their certain deaths is on them. It's lethal failures like this that make the successes so much sweeter, so I wouldn't sweat it too much.

Best of luck with however you proceed!

If I was in your place, I would ask myself, if the same situation occurs again in that campaign, how will I play prot from evil? If you decide to play it differently later, then I think It is a good idea to admit your "mistake" to your players and give them a do-over. Especially if there were character deaths. But if you plan to stick to this "ruling" (which I understand you will not), then no do-over is necessary.

It is important to give the players the illusion of a consistent universe, which may be deadly, but consistent IMO.

Love dolls?

I thought defiling player character corpses was de rigueur?

PatW wrote:I thought defiling player character corpses was de rigueur?

I would say without a doubt they were summoned. After all they did not arrive out of their of volition, they were brought by magic.

However POE doesn't protect from ranged attacks such as a manticore throwing its spikes, just against melee attacks with natural body parts/weapons. At least that is how I have always read it.

wolfpack wrote:POE doesn't protect from ranged attacks such as a manticore throwing its spikes, just against melee attacks with natural body parts/weapons. At least that is how I have always read it.

The LBBs (0e) makes no distinction between ranged/melee (or any other form of attack for that matter) with regard to "POE." All attacks from such opponents are blocked.