Post/Author/DateTime	Post
bholdr_mage 01-12-06, 01:07 AM	First let me say that I've learned my lesson on letting books being used and not knowing the DETAILS about the rules. I'm talking about the psionics book. Not that it's a bad system. In fact, I've been apreciating it more as I've familiarized myself with it. But it's important to know the book before players that don't know the book use it. And that has ruined a particular awesome story element. The main bad guy, a dragon who wore the shell of a bugbear, had his second showdown with the PC's yesterday. They have met now like four times-of course as the bugbear. The piece of $#!+ warforged soulknife/war mind, 8th level, decided to augment his expansion power to make him HUGE. Yeah, I should've checked it, since I doubted it, but I went ahead. The warforged critical fumbled in combat and fell on an enemy shaman, a (PC) summoned celestial lion, and the (PC) cleric. Of course the shaman enemy failed his reflex, and the PC's lion and the cleric did save. This equals almost dead shaman and ok lion and cleric. The two nagas were dealt with fairly easily, so that left all 5 pc's and the NPC to tackle the bugbear/dragon. Eventually, they hurt the bugbear enough that his *skin* of the bugbear was ruined so he revealed himself. Because of the manifester level ignorance of the player and myself, the main bad guy revealed himself with the possibility of not having to. I'm not worried that the PC's are going to mop the floor with mr. dragon, in fact, I plan for his escape. He's probably going to take out a couple of "lets jump in and take the CR creature that is 8x (exagguration) our level" players and snicker and leave. I have three ideas to fix this $#!+ 1) Start the fight over. Yes, the idea of *surprise, you've been after a dragon all along* is gone, but at least THIS time, it's right. 2) Keep the fight going, bringing back the shaman who "faked" his death. 3) Ignore it all and go on. Other ideas are definitly welcome. Another thing, we condensed books, and cut some out; albeit too late. We did this one adventure previously and players got to "redo" their characters with the appropriate feat changes and all. Psionics got cut as well. After this adventure, the player playing the psionics character is going to play a warlock (one that I definitely understand because I've played one.). So even though psionics is going to get the axe and this mistake won't happen easily again, ignorance has already done its damage. I'm just hoping for a general concensus on how to even the playing field now.
Archangel62 01-12-06, 01:12 AM	Keep going from there, tell the player that his abilities let him go that high not because they could normally but because something here amplifies magic. The dragon can then use the amplified magic, maybe an item, whatever, to severely damage the party and let them off with a warning of what will happen if they try to cross him again.
allenchan 01-12-06, 01:32 AM	The problem is using critical fumbles, which are not part of the standard 3.5 rules.
Mr_Smiley 01-12-06, 01:56 AM	If I am understanding this correctly, the character in question is a 4th level soulknife with 4 levels of warmind? You need to go read the rules about augmenting powers. A common mistake people who don't know much about psionics do (and which I believe you have made) is that you cannot spend power power points on a power than you have manifester levels. The character has only 4 levels of warmind, and therefore only 4 manifester levels. Meanwhile, an augmented Expansion requires 7 power points, which the character would not be able to do until he has at least 7 levels of warmind. Edit: Nevermind, I see that you realize your mistake. I'd say you should simply continue onward with the battle. Mistakes happen, but it sometimes makes matters worse when you try to rewind time.
Gnome_Dragon_Disciple 01-12-06, 10:03 AM	That said, I wouldn't axe Psionics just yet. Just stop by the Psionics board. I'm pretty sure there's a DM's primer to what you need to know about the system to keep things balanced. Moreover, campaign rewinds and power changes in the middle of a campaign simply don't work. Retire the character and bring him back in when you bring Psionics back. Run the campaign forwards from where you left off. Anything else will set back game immersion. A lot.
celtredleg 01-12-06, 10:30 AM	Definately go from where you are. If you feel you needed the shaman, then have another one waiting in the wings. Get the dragon out of there, and get yor adventure back on track. As for the psi, if you are not comfirtable with it, then drop it. Its not everybodys cup of tea. Any book you havent studied well should be approached with caution. Be ready however, for some posts that psi is just so cool that you are a rat for not letting it in. For some reason it has a rabid following that want to convert everybody to its use. They dont seem to have been as active lately and you may get lucky, but be warned they are out there.
Gnome_Dragon_Disciple 01-12-06, 10:35 AM	Actually, not allowing psionics because you don't understand the rules of it is a very important reason to NOT use it. But if that's the only reason, then retire the Warforged character for a little while, study the book, internalize it, then bring it back when you understand it a bit better. It won't dissapoint.
bholdr_mage 01-12-06, 10:40 AM	The issue is: The character had ALREADY decided to run a warlock rather than a soulknife. With a group consisting of a cleric, an arcane archer, a rogue, a fighter/sorcerer, and a samurai, there is no need to continue having psionics with this particular campaign. The point of cutting books has been quite simple. Rules lawyers (or I guess I should say wannabe rules lawyers since they only THINK they know the rules of everything) that play in my game (theres two) tend to look up rules or take time looking over a spell or whatever and it bogs down the game. This player was one of the RL. The idea is less books=less books to look at during the game. And unfortunately the DMG has to be out considering the Arcane Archer is in the group. I printed off feats, PrC's and spells I deemed cool or important to the different CORE character classes, this means, the characters only have THEIR feats, Prc's, and spells in front of them, with full descriptions so they don't have to interrupt game play to look up range, can I do it, who it effects, how long the skill takes, and so on. Last time we cut the races books (with a few stuff to spare of course) and soon we will cut the complete books albeit warlock, samurai, and the selected few the cut. Psionics is next. Then we should only have selected stuff from Eberron (hopefully the Players guide is beneficial throughout) and go from there. Short list and simple. The K.I.S.S. method. Back to the basics. Again, psionics could return to a campaign I run in the future, but until I feel 100% good with the details of it, I'm cutting it.
Joe Khol 01-12-06, 11:44 AM	bholdr_mage, You certainly shouldn't reset anything in the game just to recover one aspect of your plot (in fact I'd argue that you shouldn't reset for anything other than the most extreme of cases). The reason the battle went against you and led to your disguised Dragon being revealed is irrelevant - it could have been any combination of good/bad rolls or good/bad tactics on either side. If you're BBEG was in the area, there was always a chance this could have happened. So, you've learned a vital lesson though - Never rely on anything you don't have under your complete control (especially your players). So something has gone differently to how you planned it. Roll with it. I think you're on the right track with having the Dragon escape and then you'll have to adjust the future plot to take account of the change of circumstances. Make a feature out of a mistake.
Xykon 01-16-06, 04:24 AM	In the face of such a situation just move on. Actually its not as bad as you think, hardly a big deal at all. Turning back the clock and re-doing anything usually does far more harm than what it sets out to correct. Another pitfall that you should avoid. What you can do is try to turn the situation into another "plot". Players knowing the bad guy does not really give them anything anyway. Its like one of my sessions: Paladin detect evil and detects that the baron who commissioned them to retrieve a stolen scepter is evil. So what do you do now that you know the baron is evil? 1. He can't outright lunge in and kill the baron as thats murder. Not that it matters since a) he won't survive the encounter b) if he survives, he can kiss his paladinhood goodbye for committing murder. 2. He can't openly question the baron since that will expose the party going against the baron and may potentially provoke retribution from the evil baron. 3. It was interestingly tense in that moment. If the paladin accepts the quest, does it mean that he will be part of a potential crime which the baron is getting them to do? He will have to do something so that it turns out alright or else he will be "furthering the cause of evil" :D Players then accept the quest and brainstorm about what to do with the scepter. Theories like the scepter may be something the baron had stolen before and the owners now stole it back, etc were forming -- and in a way, they're actually giving me ideas on a side quest or plot! What you can do is turn this into another plot/story arc. Re: Cutting back on Books Good to hear that you're learning from your mistake by finally cutting back on the source materials. Never introduce anything which you're not familiar with. My trick is: If the source is something i myself have played to some extent before, then i would include it. Otherwise, its out.
spectralphoenix 01-16-06, 04:52 AM	I had the same problem with 3e psionics and a player who remembered Call Weapon as being substantially more powerful then it really was. They were fighting a spellcaster who had used darkness (the 3e version that was actually useful) to conceal his location and then proceeded to hammer on the PC's. The psionicist proceeded to manifest Call Weapon, which he claimed would disarm the spellcaster and make his weapon fly into the psionicist's hands. The player said that since he knew which direction the staff came from, the next player could charge along that line and be assured of attacking the caster's square. I thought this was overpowered at the time, but the player had not brought his PH so I couldn't check. In retrospect, I shouldn't have allowed it anyway because the psionicist had no line of sight. However, the next player made up for it by charging into the darkness along the same line as the first. That said, I think that your have 2 problems: 1) If you're not sure what an ability does, look it up or have the player look it up for you. 2) Don't use critical fumbles. I've seen several threads by DM's who've had something truly bizzare happen in their games because someone had a critical fumble
FriendoftheDork 01-16-06, 08:25 AM	Every time a player uses a spell, feat, skill etc. you are not very familiar with, check it out. Yes, it will take a minute or two, but if you read up on every spell, feat and skill a PC have before the game it won't happen so often. Last game I even checked the Sleep spell, as the player thought he could target people with it and not just an area. 1 minute later and I clarified it. I allow the XPH (psionics HB) as I have read quite a bit in it, and like it. I ban everything else that's not core as I have not. This prevents mistakes such as this.
grandaustino 01-16-06, 10:15 AM	Who says the Dragon has to remain your BBEG. If you want to restore the sense of mystery, you could just say he was an agent working for a greater power. There are plenty of options for rebuilding your storyline without invalidating what the characters have allready done, which is a dangerous precident to set.