Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ShadowDragon8685 03-27-06, 09:04 AM	This is a continuation of the story from the bonehead plays story. So here's what happened - Using Wall of Stone, me and the other wizard walled off the town. My Girrash friend used intimidate and nighttime attacks to delay the oncoming army. I cast Dragon Ally twice, and a buttload of Summon Monster Vs to bring up groups of Celestial Giant Eagles and Earth Elementals. With our friendly tribe shooting from the ramparts, and wizardly fire support, the fight was all over in a heartbeat. So later, while everyone's getting drunk, me and the other wizard are standing on the battlements, looking out over the battlefield and lamenting what had to happen, my Girrash friend is out there looting. So all of a sudden I see a three-inch piece of metal protrouding from my friend. At this point the battle is over, the rest of the tribe is getting drunk. Because of how I worded my request to them, the dragons (one 15HD Juvvie each, Brass and Bronze) are still with us, and following my directions. So the dragons start to circle, my Girrash friend runs for the wall. Sadly, I rolled a 1 on inititiative - even with Nerveskitter, Imp. Init, and 14 Dex, I only have an initiative of 12. He rolls a five, with a +9 modifier - he goes first, and promptly hamstrings my character with a sneak attack. To make a long story short, I roll pure suck, he rolls pure awesome in this fight, none of my attempts to stop him work, he runs out into the desert under the cover of improved invisibility. The Dragons are using their blindsense to track him so that my Girrash can try to attack him, but all of a sudden he dissapears from their sight. I dimension doored back into the party, yelled for the healer, said she was poisoned. The healer had no ability to stop poison - not high level enough - so I made an edge-of-my-range teleport to the temple district of Baldur's Gate. Double-Dimension-Dooring into a temple of Ilmater, I get a Remove Poison for her from the priest (he also hits each of us with a CMW). It dosen't work. He says that the poison is magically resistant, and that I need to take her to some some archdruid, who knows more about poisons than any other man he knows. It's a day's hard ride, and he gives me the horse, which collapses when we get to town. Dimension-Dooring up to the Archdruid's barrow (guess what spell I like), he examines her, proclaims that this is the dreaded lazarus poison, she has a month to live, and he will try to make her comfortable. He summons his circle, lets us use that home for the moment. I teleport back to BG and back to the desert, tell my friend to go and get the healer from the temple, and I go to get Khan Alabas. (The good tribe's leader.) He's dead on the floor. I D-D up to his roof, let off a Fireball to get the attention of anyone still alive. The only attention I get is my panicing friend, who wants to get out of Dodge. I D-D us up intop the Inn room, where the poisoned wizard is. We grab her things in a hurry, and double-teleport from BG to where she is. My friend runs to BG to buy scrolls of Scry and See Invisibility, and I start picking through my friend's spellbook to find a spell or two that would help us. So it's morning by the time I'm done copying, my friend gets back to us, and the wizard awakes. She keeps appologizing, and saying that she's going to die, and she gives me this almighty amulet of stones and godl that's probably a Mythallar (Did I mention this wizard was some 3000 years old, a half-nymph left over from the time of Netheril,) and tells my character she loves her. (A sentiment my character shares.) Then she promptly dies. So yeah. Just a bit of venting. And is anyone else annoyed at plot devices like magically-resistant poison that prevents one from ever coming back to life? Because I know I am. Hate the damn things.
Balor von Balorvitch 03-27-06, 09:32 AM	While the DM has singled out these NPCs for death and bent the raising the dead rules to make sure they stay that way it does not seem to be an out of control DM. It is the job of the DM to set the pace for the campagin and he should be given some slack for this plot thread. He most likely fears his NPCs being too powerful to be allies of the Pcs.
ShadowDragon8685 03-27-06, 09:35 AM	Maybe, maybe not. But now my Wizard has no more motivation to continue adventuring (or even breathing, for that matter.) She's nearly catatonic. In the space of a day, the DM has killed off an entire tribe of her friends and allies, and the ancient half-nymph wizardess she looked up to and loved. Frankly, it sucks. It's a complete and total downer. Bear in mind, the party consists of two players - we haven't had anyone else who showed up for more than two games.
Rivelstraz 03-27-06, 09:46 AM	While the DM has singled out these NPCs for death and bent the raising the dead rules to make sure they stay that way it does not seem to be an out of control DM. It is the job of the DM to set the pace for the campagin and he should be given some slack for this plot thread. He most likely fears his NPCs being too powerful to be allies of the Pcs. If it's a power problem, that nymph could reincarnate on a female elf with very limited power. Player is happy, DM is happy (perhaps) and the world is a better place.
ShadowDragon8685 03-27-06, 09:47 AM	If it's a power problem, that nymph could reincarnate on a female elf with very limited power. Player is happy, DM is happy (perhaps) and the world is a better place. She was only a half-nymph, anyway. As near as we can tell, the only things she got out of it was a massive Cha boost (which wasen't all that useful since she was a Wizard, nor a Sorcerer) and immunity to death-by-natural-causes.
DracoPhoenix 03-27-06, 10:09 AM	It could understandably be a slightly overkill power management on the dms part. That said, if after saving a town everyone still gets wiped, losing the love of my life, I'd probably sulk for a week or so, and then go out for blood. A story like that would probably warrant a self made alignment change to pure evil, with a hint of retribution. Anyone and everyone connected to the force behind this tradgedy will meet a violent death, and if they're lucky quick and painful as opposed to slow and painful. (or at least my character would :D)
Always-Late 03-27-06, 10:13 AM	So yeah. Just a bit of venting. And is anyone else annoyed at plot devices like magically-resistant poison that prevents one from ever coming back to life? Because I know I am. Hate the damn things.Have your character obsess over bringing her back to life. See if she can be reincarnated; raised; resurrected; true resurrected; or spoken with. Of course, if that doesn't work, which it's probably not going to, seek the higher powers that be to bring her back. Of course, you'd have to start with twentieth level characters, then go epic, then go deific. Then search the world for the world's greatest antidote. It's probably going to end up as some horrible item, such as water from the fountain of *not going there,* or some uber-item far away. Carry it around. Splash it all over the body and try and resurrect her. (Of course, most likely your DM will be shaking his head at how incredibly stubborn you are and muttering to himself.) Whatever you do, don't go evil. Try to stay away from the whole demon-pact vengeance-oath blinding-rage stuff. That's how heroes are ruined.
Wargamer 03-27-06, 10:13 AM	Now this is why I like to play D&D in my bedroom; when there are five swords decorating the room, I tend to get my own way. :P I really think the DM was out of order here. You put a lot of effort into saving them, so they should have been saved. Whilst a DM shouldn't let the PCs do whatever they want, dragging them through the plot on a leash doesn't work either.
ShadowDragon8685 03-27-06, 10:38 AM	Sadly we play online... I do have a sword, though... :P A bit more background, perhaps, is in order. The friend Wizard was disguised as another wizard (noticing a trend) who has apparently become some kind of living Mythallar. And there are people out to kidnap her, or so we thought. So we decided to take a trip to the Anarouch to an old Netheril ruin that we knew of, and that was to the best of our knowledge already cleaned out. A diversionary trip, hoping kidnappers would come after us, and we could deliver the beat-down. Along the way, we got caught up with the Bedine tribe, and vested in their survival. We accidently ignited the simmering war between them and their neighboring tribe, and in the space of ten days rallied Dragons, monsters, "demons" (My Girrash friend being a smart-alec with the Blackbeard fire-in-your-hair-trick, Intimidate and Bluff, and the fact that she is the Warrior Ascendant (15 attacks in a full attack), and seemingly built the walls overnight. In other words, that's the kind of thing that desert legends get sung about. And then he stabbed our friendly wizard with an assassinator, and then a squad of Super-Secret Ninjas wiped out the entire settlement except for the Girrash, who somehow missed all of this while it was going on. :(
Feor 03-27-06, 05:06 PM	The way I see it, you have three real options. A) Vengence/Justice. Not neccissarily evil, righteous anger is entire possible and plausible in this particular instance. You go out and hunt down the person who killed her and see to it that they get what they deserve. This is likely what your DM wants you to do, using her death as a Forcible plot hook, especially if your group tends to not go for his regular plot hooks. B) Find her. She's shuffled off the Mortal Coil and joined the Choir Invisible, but in D&D that doesn't neccissarily mean she's out of reach. I'm not terribly familiar with the Cosmology of the Forgotten Realms, but I assume extraplanar travel is possible if, perhaps, not common. Set out to find your way onto the Planes (you seem to have the teleport thing down, next step is Plane Shift anyways) and to find her in whatever celestial abode her spirit's found her way onto. You'll of course spend most of your time on the Upper Planes (unless they're something you suspoect about her you're not telling us) but errand boy trips to the lower planes (aka Dungeon Crawls) in exchange for information might not be out of the question. C) Join her. If you truly feel that your character wouldn't want to go on without this Wizard, maybe he'd just take his own life. DM might be a bit upset, but it's your character, not his. And if he's just doing this to mess with you it'll give him something to think about next time he tries it.
neilthrun 03-27-06, 05:35 PM	This sounds like a great oportunity to turn lawfull evil and exact revenge in souls.
The Amazing Dancing Bear 03-27-06, 05:56 PM	I actually have to say I admire the skills of your DM. The fact that he/she was able to create ties so strong in game that you were actually disheartened out of game is a sign of his/her skill. However, I am crying foul on the whole "Lazarus Poison" thing. Random one-uppery never solved anything, and he/she probably should have come up with something else. Of the above choices offered, I recommend planar travel. I hope you find this masterfully built NPC. Play well, all.
Ysera_the_destroyer 03-27-06, 11:53 PM	hmmm maybe he wanted your character to be so sadened and enraged by the death of his friend that he is inspired to kill the rest of the badies with increased vigor?
Vasquine_DeTsar 03-28-06, 04:00 AM	So your DM killed a couple NPCs. So what if he makes up a poison to do so, I don't see this as underhand.
Cifer 03-28-06, 04:52 AM	I personally have absolutely no problems with your DM's actions. He wants the players to live a novel - and there is almost no good novel where there are no setbacks. Basically, my group in a different system had about the same problem: I killed their beloved group mascot and for a while, the group almost seemed to fall apart - then they pulled themselves together and managed to slay the one responsible, with a hatred against him otherwise not possible. The choice of poison probably happened for dramatic purposes: You just can't break down crying over the corpse of a beloved friend when he is just a trip to the temple away from ressurection. Thus, the dramatic meaning that death normally has (the permanent and absolute severing from a beloved one) is just not existant in usual D&D. I therefore think it completely possible and fitting to create something that bars usual raising.
ShadowDragon8685 03-28-06, 08:37 AM	Sez you. Sez me, I really don't want to play the game anymore. Frankly my character would just be utterly blown away by that, and the whole IC suicide thing is looking better and better like an idea. Frankly the character is just depressing to me now, like a sick parody of what she was.
Otto the Bugbear 03-28-06, 09:41 AM	To me, this whole thing basically screams, PLOT HOOK! Seriously, if the DM has a multi-session story arch, why is it so hard to understand that everything would be neither revealed, nor wrapped up in one game session? NPCs that die without you being able to do anything. Being directed to the druid. Poison immune to magic. All that stuff makes my detect plot hook spell register like crazy. As far as not wanting to continue without the NPC; well, you're a powerful wizard. Just find what plane the soul is on, then go there and never return. Sounds like something a powerful wizard in love would do. Or, go there, be reunited, then find out who the bastards are that did this and get revenge. Overall, sounds like a well done story. Cheers Otto :)