I have the plot, but can't find the rules. - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

I have the plot, but can't find the rules.

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
samotet
May 25, 2011 1:36:52
     I won't backtrack beyond what's relevant, lets just say this fit where my players are. Overwhelmed and captured by the leader of a slave running organization, my players have no way of escape. Not caged but left 'until next week' face to face to the big boss, as he tells them what they'll be spending the rest of their days doing. This is next weeks plot. The female ranger will be sold as a sexual play thing. Thus to keep her from fleeing he removes her legs. The dwarven paladin refuses to translate holy scripts and rituals thus they burn his eyes, leaving him only able to see close shapes. The dragonborn sorc, made a beast of burden, made to drag the litter of the boss man himself, had his hands and tongue, and ability to cast, removed.
     An outside party plans the escape. To recapture and free our heroes. The ranger is able to mount her lion companion. The paladin is able to blind fight. The sorc will be equipped with prosthetics clubs of hands, fashioned with daggers, his implement.
     The original plan was for them to have to survive from their current level of seven until they reach eight, then allowing them to off themselves and cast raise dead, rejuvenating their bodies and continuing as adventurers. Here’s the problem. Raise dead says, "Permanent conditions remain." I've always been a rule Nazi, but I'm thinking of either fudging that line of the rule, or having an npc create a ritual that does the same thing adding that they get a new identical body, and for plot reasons adding a large amount to the component cost.
     I'm asking for advice, ideas, or feedback.
#2
Crimson_Concerto
May 25, 2011 2:14:24 These are things that have already happened? Or are they things that you plan to have happen? Because if they're things that you plan to have happen, my advice is that you simply allow them to escape before these horrible things are done to them to begin with. Because honestly, as a player, none of these things sound like fun to me. The only permanent injuries that should be inflicted on player characters are those that have no mechanical effect and only actually serve to make them more badass, like cool battlescars or an eyepatch. Honestly, anything more than that is typically excessive and ridiculous, and this doesn't at all seem like any exception.

"Don't do this." is probably not the advice you were looking for, but it needed to be said.

Besides, if you were really a rules Nazi, then you'd know that nowhere in the rules does it say that a character needs legs to walk normally, eyes to see normally, hands to hold objects normally, etc. ^_~

(Edit: Also, even if you do decide to go ahead with this anyway, please think of something else for the Ranger other than becoming a sex slave. I see pretty much no way to do that without it being both cliche and tasteless.
Besides, realistically, horifically maiming slaves isn't even a good idea from a slaveholder's perspective. It devalues the slave both by making it far less flexible in what it can do and by requiring greater medical expenses. There are far better ways to punish slaves without inhibiting their abilities to do work, ways that generally merely cause scars, marks, burns, etc.)
#3
samotet
May 25, 2011 2:32:49 The opinion on the slave is duely noted, and I agree with you about everything, but, my characters know how I dm, and expect thing of this nature. They know they are't going to grind prewritten and mundane dungeons. Things are going to happen to them and they litteraly have to struggle to move on. I know it's rough and borderline unfair, but when we play casual it's casual but when Ramsius, Daeliss, and Skourne sit at my table, they do so willingly and welcome my style. It's not standard and I'm not gloting, just proving that the players outlook on what's soon to happen isn't going to be dissapointment.
#4
rampant
May 25, 2011 4:18:39 Is limb loss covered in the rules?
If not then it's not a condition.
Seems simple to me.

#5
alitain
May 25, 2011 4:22:26
The opinion on the slave is duely noted, and I agree with you about everything, but, my characters know how I dm, and expect thing of this nature. They know they are't going to grind prewritten and mundane dungeons. Things are going to happen to them and they litteraly have to struggle to move on. I know it's rough and borderline unfair, but when we play casual it's casual but when Ramsius, Daeliss, and Skourne sit at my table, they do so willingly and welcome my style. It's not standard and I'm not gloting, just proving that the players outlook on what's soon to happen isn't going to be dissapointment.

Admittedly, my stomach churned a bit. That sounds completely unappealing to find my character permanently disfigured and unusable. Also agree with Crimson on well...everything. But that simply put slaves who are disfigured don't get much money so logically torture and disfigurement is a bad way to go for them, at least permanent disfigurement.

Well that aside, it's your world. Looking over the ritual, I gotta say I think there's room for interpretation. Mind you, interpretation so take as you will. But I think when it says "temporary conditions" and "permanent conditions" at time of death, I don't think it meant loss of limbs and such. A little lookie at the rules compendium for the word "condition" gave me the list of status effects. Now mind you there really aren't any rules for dismemberment, so that could be why. But I think what the ritual means is that say the character is suffering from a disease that they can saving throw their way out of, basically making it a temporary condition. If they died and were resurrected then they would no longer be suffering the disease. But if they were say...under a curse(like from the Unearthed Arcana article), that were permanent unless specific conditions were met like getting a fire archon to remove the curse, and such that curse would still be on the character upon coming back.

Mind you, interpretation. But basically it comes down to this. You're already mutilating your players' characters and leaving them for dead in a crappy situation. No offense, I personally enjoy struggle in games, don't get me wrong. But YOU are the DM, and regardless of if you're a "rules nazi" or not, as DM it's expected your going to do stuff against the rules, or tweak them. Also it's the simple fact that what your doing makes it impossible for the characters to function and thus would mean they'd have to ditch their characters. In which case, there's no point in this outside force rescuing them at all. You should just flat out tell your players, "hey, they're all dead, make new characters." You could just have the group make new characters and say that group is the outside force sent in to rescue their old characters who they find dead or sold off or whatever. Thus, unless you're players are fine with given no choice but to lose their characters, as the DM you need to cut them some slack.

And just because your players are use to a hard ass DM, again not a bad thing, doesn't mean cutting them slack by letting the Raise Dead ritual regrow limbs is going to suddenly make your game, as you say, "grind prewritten and mundane dungeons". You do realize that torture and dismemberment already make it NOT mundane. So I think regrowing limbs isn't too much of a stretch here. There's also the simple fact that as DM, you can simply have healers regrow the limbs if you really feel necessary to interpret the ritual as leaving them disfigured. Our group does it, mostly because we have a crit chart(things happen in percentage when crit'd on), and sometimes a limb or eye is loss. Now this isn't something we just wave off, because it's not easy to regrow limbs and we can't just do it after battle, but at our effective home base city. So that's an option for you as the DM, you really should be open to bending rules or at least doing things outside the rules to help make sure the game continues on and also so the players are having an enjoyable time. Instead of being forced to make new characters.

Here's something to, just to point out. Sorcerer doesn't need hands or tongue to use their powers. No they wouldn't gain any benefit from their implements, but actually they don't need either to use powers. This isn't 3rd where it says specifically if their hands are say bound, or they're gagged, that they can't cast. What it does say in the DM's guide I believe, or PH, can't remember which, is that at the DM's discretion you can say that a caster character is not able to use their powers if their hands are bound, or gagged. So just wanted to point this out as simply an example of you going above the rules, or choose to interpret the rules as you see fit while TECHNICALLY the sorcerer is free to use powers if he wanted.  So it wouldn't be a stretch for you to simply let their limbs grow back.

You can still be a rules nazi, but the simple fact is that there are no rules governing loss of limbs and thus, no rules to nazi about it. It's left to DM's discretion on how to handle dismemberment, which means you can do whatever you want. Then again, you say your players aren't disappointed with you DMing style which is cool, but I would be kinda annoyed if I was forced into a situation where my character was given no real option but to be captured. Now this might not be the choice, since you haven't explained that just from what you posted it seems that the group didn't just make a mistake that resulted in them being captured, but were instead, as you said, "overwhelmed and captured". So correct me if I'm wrong on that, but going off that interpretation if I basically had no choice but to be captured, and then immediately permanent disfigured by losing limbs or eyes, that would annoy me greatly because it meant I had absolutely no control over my character and at this point would simply be sitting back at the table listening to you telling me what my character is doing effectively.

Again, you're style so maybe your players are use to these impossible, out of their control situations but most other players would be very pissed to have the DM effectly block any attempts to do anything with their characters, and then have they dismembered and left in a state that made the player basically need to ditch their character and start over entirely with a new character because of the dismemberment. So maybe it would be a good idea, as Crimson suggested, to give the players a chance to escape before you force their characters into retirement. But again, for the last time, your deal just my opinion as are others', so good luck!  Let us know what happens though, kinda curious.
#6
ceiling90
May 25, 2011 13:40:17 Couldn't you just make a regenrate ritual?

About the same level and cost as raise dead, but make it that it restores lost limbs, removes disfigurements, and other scars and effects that are the result of no longer current curses, diseases, or whatever happenstance that caused the issue in the first place.

I think if you make your own ritual for the case you presented, you should be fine. I mean if raise dead is an everyday ritual event, then maybe not. If that was thier only actual choice... maybe writing a new ritual that does exactly what you want might be better.
#7
gadren
May 25, 2011 18:19:30 I'd also like to say "don't do this", ESPECIALLY the sex slave thing. As had been said, it doesn't even make any sense realistically to cut off a woman's legs to sell her as a sex slave, and concept-wise it is (to put it mildly) disturbing. I'm not saying this to insult you, this is not a personal attack, but I honestly strongly encourage you to talk about your entertainment with such concepts with a psychiatrist.

That being said, if your plot calls for dismemberment, how you cure said dismemberment is dependant on how much of the story you want it to take up. If you want it to just be over when the adventure is over, just make regrowing limbs part of an existing ritual (since limb loss is already not part of the existing rules.) If you want to make it harder, make it part of some new unknown ritual, and make it an adventure to obtain said ritual.
#8
dieffenbachj
May 26, 2011 2:59:58 I like to think I'm pretty laid back--my last session included drug references in almost every scene (though, to be fair, it's Sharn's lower city--what else is there to do?) and we all split a bottle of rum at the table while graverobbing innocents and selling their souls to necromancers in order to save the day, and I'm certainly all for a well-deserved mutilation/murder of a player. But even I went "...wtf" at your Story So Far.

Having chipped in my stern finger-wagging note of disapproval, I'd say loosen the belt a bit, and just improvise. Don't worry so much about the specific rules or wording of whatever you're doing, and just let the adventure flow. As a general rule, if you're examining a rule's wording rather than just going with what makes the most logical sense, you're overthinking it and your game would probably run smoother and better if you just improvised something that makes sense.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 samotet May 25, 2011 1:36:52	I won't backtrack beyond what's relevant, lets just say this fit where my players are. Overwhelmed and captured by the leader of a slave running organization, my players have no way of escape. Not caged but left 'until next week' face to face to the big boss, as he tells them what they'll be spending the rest of their days doing. This is next weeks plot. The female ranger will be sold as a sexual play thing. Thus to keep her from fleeing he removes her legs. The dwarven paladin refuses to translate holy scripts and rituals thus they burn his eyes, leaving him only able to see close shapes. The dragonborn sorc, made a beast of burden, made to drag the litter of the boss man himself, had his hands and tongue, and ability to cast, removed. An outside party plans the escape. To recapture and free our heroes. The ranger is able to mount her lion companion. The paladin is able to blind fight. The sorc will be equipped with prosthetics clubs of hands, fashioned with daggers, his implement. The original plan was for them to have to survive from their current level of seven until they reach eight, then allowing them to off themselves and cast raise dead, rejuvenating their bodies and continuing as adventurers. Here’s the problem. Raise dead says, "Permanent conditions remain." I've always been a rule Nazi, but I'm thinking of either fudging that line of the rule, or having an npc create a ritual that does the same thing adding that they get a new identical body, and for plot reasons adding a large amount to the component cost. I'm asking for advice, ideas, or feedback.
#2 Crimson_Concerto May 25, 2011 2:14:24	These are things that have already happened? Or are they things that you plan to have happen? Because if they're things that you plan to have happen, my advice is that you simply allow them to escape before these horrible things are done to them to begin with. Because honestly, as a player, none of these things sound like fun to me. The only permanent injuries that should be inflicted on player characters are those that have no mechanical effect and only actually serve to make them more badass, like cool battlescars or an eyepatch. Honestly, anything more than that is typically excessive and ridiculous, and this doesn't at all seem like any exception. "Don't do this." is probably not the advice you were looking for, but it needed to be said. Besides, if you were really a rules Nazi, then you'd know that nowhere in the rules does it say that a character needs legs to walk normally, eyes to see normally, hands to hold objects normally, etc. ^_~ (Edit: Also, even if you do decide to go ahead with this anyway, please think of something else for the Ranger other than becoming a sex slave. I see pretty much no way to do that without it being both cliche and tasteless. Besides, realistically, horifically maiming slaves isn't even a good idea from a slaveholder's perspective. It devalues the slave both by making it far less flexible in what it can do and by requiring greater medical expenses. There are far better ways to punish slaves without inhibiting their abilities to do work, ways that generally merely cause scars, marks, burns, etc.)
#3 samotet May 25, 2011 2:32:49	The opinion on the slave is duely noted, and I agree with you about everything, but, my characters know how I dm, and expect thing of this nature. They know they are't going to grind prewritten and mundane dungeons. Things are going to happen to them and they litteraly have to struggle to move on. I know it's rough and borderline unfair, but when we play casual it's casual but when Ramsius, Daeliss, and Skourne sit at my table, they do so willingly and welcome my style. It's not standard and I'm not gloting, just proving that the players outlook on what's soon to happen isn't going to be dissapointment.
#4 rampant May 25, 2011 4:18:39	Is limb loss covered in the rules? If not then it's not a condition. Seems simple to me.
#5 alitain May 25, 2011 4:22:26	The opinion on the slave is duely noted, and I agree with you about everything, but, my characters know how I dm, and expect thing of this nature. They know they are't going to grind prewritten and mundane dungeons. Things are going to happen to them and they litteraly have to struggle to move on. I know it's rough and borderline unfair, but when we play casual it's casual but when Ramsius, Daeliss, and Skourne sit at my table, they do so willingly and welcome my style. It's not standard and I'm not gloting, just proving that the players outlook on what's soon to happen isn't going to be dissapointment. Admittedly, my stomach churned a bit. That sounds completely unappealing to find my character permanently disfigured and unusable. Also agree with Crimson on well...everything. But that simply put slaves who are disfigured don't get much money so logically torture and disfigurement is a bad way to go for them, at least permanent disfigurement. Well that aside, it's your world. Looking over the ritual, I gotta say I think there's room for interpretation. Mind you, interpretation so take as you will. But I think when it says "temporary conditions" and "permanent conditions" at time of death, I don't think it meant loss of limbs and such. A little lookie at the rules compendium for the word "condition" gave me the list of status effects. Now mind you there really aren't any rules for dismemberment, so that could be why. But I think what the ritual means is that say the character is suffering from a disease that they can saving throw their way out of, basically making it a temporary condition. If they died and were resurrected then they would no longer be suffering the disease. But if they were say...under a curse(like from the Unearthed Arcana article), that were permanent unless specific conditions were met like getting a fire archon to remove the curse, and such that curse would still be on the character upon coming back. Mind you, interpretation. But basically it comes down to this. You're already mutilating your players' characters and leaving them for dead in a crappy situation. No offense, I personally enjoy struggle in games, don't get me wrong. But YOU are the DM, and regardless of if you're a "rules nazi" or not, as DM it's expected your going to do stuff against the rules, or tweak them. Also it's the simple fact that what your doing makes it impossible for the characters to function and thus would mean they'd have to ditch their characters. In which case, there's no point in this outside force rescuing them at all. You should just flat out tell your players, "hey, they're all dead, make new characters." You could just have the group make new characters and say that group is the outside force sent in to rescue their old characters who they find dead or sold off or whatever. Thus, unless you're players are fine with given no choice but to lose their characters, as the DM you need to cut them some slack. And just because your players are use to a hard ass DM, again not a bad thing, doesn't mean cutting them slack by letting the Raise Dead ritual regrow limbs is going to suddenly make your game, as you say, "grind prewritten and mundane dungeons". You do realize that torture and dismemberment already make it NOT mundane. So I think regrowing limbs isn't too much of a stretch here. There's also the simple fact that as DM, you can simply have healers regrow the limbs if you really feel necessary to interpret the ritual as leaving them disfigured. Our group does it, mostly because we have a crit chart(things happen in percentage when crit'd on), and sometimes a limb or eye is loss. Now this isn't something we just wave off, because it's not easy to regrow limbs and we can't just do it after battle, but at our effective home base city. So that's an option for you as the DM, you really should be open to bending rules or at least doing things outside the rules to help make sure the game continues on and also so the players are having an enjoyable time. Instead of being forced to make new characters. Here's something to, just to point out. Sorcerer doesn't need hands or tongue to use their powers. No they wouldn't gain any benefit from their implements, but actually they don't need either to use powers. This isn't 3rd where it says specifically if their hands are say bound, or they're gagged, that they can't cast. What it does say in the DM's guide I believe, or PH, can't remember which, is that at the DM's discretion you can say that a caster character is not able to use their powers if their hands are bound, or gagged. So just wanted to point this out as simply an example of you going above the rules, or choose to interpret the rules as you see fit while TECHNICALLY the sorcerer is free to use powers if he wanted. So it wouldn't be a stretch for you to simply let their limbs grow back. You can still be a rules nazi, but the simple fact is that there are no rules governing loss of limbs and thus, no rules to nazi about it. It's left to DM's discretion on how to handle dismemberment, which means you can do whatever you want. Then again, you say your players aren't disappointed with you DMing style which is cool, but I would be kinda annoyed if I was forced into a situation where my character was given no real option but to be captured. Now this might not be the choice, since you haven't explained that just from what you posted it seems that the group didn't just make a mistake that resulted in them being captured, but were instead, as you said, "overwhelmed and captured". So correct me if I'm wrong on that, but going off that interpretation if I basically had no choice but to be captured, and then immediately permanent disfigured by losing limbs or eyes, that would annoy me greatly because it meant I had absolutely no control over my character and at this point would simply be sitting back at the table listening to you telling me what my character is doing effectively. Again, you're style so maybe your players are use to these impossible, out of their control situations but most other players would be very pissed to have the DM effectly block any attempts to do anything with their characters, and then have they dismembered and left in a state that made the player basically need to ditch their character and start over entirely with a new character because of the dismemberment. So maybe it would be a good idea, as Crimson suggested, to give the players a chance to escape before you force their characters into retirement. But again, for the last time, your deal just my opinion as are others', so good luck! Let us know what happens though, kinda curious.
#6 ceiling90 May 25, 2011 13:40:17	Couldn't you just make a regenrate ritual? About the same level and cost as raise dead, but make it that it restores lost limbs, removes disfigurements, and other scars and effects that are the result of no longer current curses, diseases, or whatever happenstance that caused the issue in the first place. I think if you make your own ritual for the case you presented, you should be fine. I mean if raise dead is an everyday ritual event, then maybe not. If that was thier only actual choice... maybe writing a new ritual that does exactly what you want might be better.
#7 gadren May 25, 2011 18:19:30	I'd also like to say "don't do this", ESPECIALLY the sex slave thing. As had been said, it doesn't even make any sense realistically to cut off a woman's legs to sell her as a sex slave, and concept-wise it is (to put it mildly) disturbing. I'm not saying this to insult you, this is not a personal attack, but I honestly strongly encourage you to talk about your entertainment with such concepts with a psychiatrist. That being said, if your plot calls for dismemberment, how you cure said dismemberment is dependant on how much of the story you want it to take up. If you want it to just be over when the adventure is over, just make regrowing limbs part of an existing ritual (since limb loss is already not part of the existing rules.) If you want to make it harder, make it part of some new unknown ritual, and make it an adventure to obtain said ritual.
#8 dieffenbachj May 26, 2011 2:59:58	I like to think I'm pretty laid back--my last session included drug references in almost every scene (though, to be fair, it's Sharn's lower city--what else is there to do?) and we all split a bottle of rum at the table while graverobbing innocents and selling their souls to necromancers in order to save the day, and I'm certainly all for a well-deserved mutilation/murder of a player. But even I went "...wtf" at your Story So Far. Having chipped in my stern finger-wagging note of disapproval, I'd say loosen the belt a bit, and just improvise. Don't worry so much about the specific rules or wording of whatever you're doing, and just let the adventure flow. As a general rule, if you're examining a rule's wording rather than just going with what makes the most logical sense, you're overthinking it and your game would probably run smoother and better if you just improvised something that makes sense.