Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 cdiddy1980 Jan 14, 2015 23:16:50	Okay so I am playing D&D 5E and have a 3rd level human Ranger named Meridious Decimus.  I took Beast Master path and have a Panther as my animal companion. I decicded to do something different with how my beast companion came to be (I was inserted into the game at 3rd level, I didn't start there). In a anutshell, Meridious's human wizard wife, Tera,  was turned into a panther by a evil human Warlock necromancer. He did so to have her kill Meridious so he could escape, but Tera remembered enough about her past to not kill Meridious. So now they, as well as the party he's with, are tracking down this Warlock to make him turn her back to normal and such. The party has another main nemesis they are tracking too. Her beast name is Pantera, haha. What are some creative and fun things I could do with her? Also, below is a few ideas I am mulling voer and want to do. Please read and add some extra stuff I could do.    (Sidenote: we have a big party. It consists of a Paladin, Ranger, another Ranger, a Sorcerer, a Rouge, another Rouge, a Druid, and a Cleric.    1. At times when we are interrogating someone and the person is being stubborn, I'd like to have Meridious pull out a singe six sided bone dice he carries around (from the stuff granted to him in his background). He will then tell the suspect something like "Pick an array of numbers from one through three or four through six. If it lands on the array you picked, no harm will come to you, but if it doesn't, you're in for some pain." I will then roll an actual six sided dice in real life and play it out like that. I am also going to switch the dice scenario up to where he tells the suspect that whatever the dice lands on is how many fingers of his he is going to remove, or how many body parts in general he is going to remove. Of course he will mention how their healer Cleric can keep him alive forever so the torture won't stop via bad guy passing out or something. What are some other good ideas for incorporating this use of bone dice and such?   2. Similir to what I just mentioned, but instead of bone dice it is riddles. Maybe I could role play Meridious asking the suspect a clever riddle. In real life the other memebers at the table could try to answer the riddle, and if one of them does, it is the same as if the bad guy answered it correctly in character. If nobody can answer it, though, then the bad guy pays a pentaly for it in character. I guess I could have it played out between just me and the DM in lieu of the rest, or maybe I roll an intimidation check (or some kind of skill thing) to see if the supect answers correctly or something. What are your thoughts with this? Any more things I can do with it?    The scenarios end if the bad guy decides to help or if he dies.   Are there any cool, fun, or creative things I can do with my weaponary during combat or even away from combat? My Ranger is a TWF with Dual Weilder feat. His weapons are Longsword and Morningstar. He has a Longbow and arrows. Would love some creative stuff to do with arrows.    Meridious is Chaotic Good but would this stuff I mentioned make him Chaotic Neurtal or even a form of evil?    Also feel free to share stories of cool things you've done in and out of combat, or stuff you've seen done that was pretty rad.
#2 iserith Jan 15, 2015 6:34:15	How about we don't make a game of torture?   As for your alignment, is your torturing people just you following your whim, holding your personal freedom above all else? If it is, your alignment may shift over time to Chaotic Neutral. Is your torturing people just yout acting with arbitrary violence, spurred by your greed, hatred, or bloodlust? If so, then your alignment may gradually shift to Chaotic Evil. The same applies for another alignments. See page 34 of the Basic Rules and talk to your DM about it.   Cool, fun, or creative things you can do with your weaponry are limited only to the fictional situation, your imagination, and the DM's adjudication. My fighter, Butch Uprise, almost never uses his battleaxe in combat, preferring to improvise based on what's around him. I've had him beat down kobolds using another kobold that was under the effect of a sleep spell. He grappled a thug with a heavy crossbow on his back, then angled the crossbow to shoot another thug. He's also threatened the nest of a couple swarms of rats to draw them off his companions and attack him (he's well armored and they never hit).
#3 steelwulf99 Jan 15, 2015 10:20:04	I second that. Torture is not a technique for good characters, and can be abstracted down to "after x time the subjects give you y information".
(Reply to #2) cdiddy1980	First off, I love your fighter's name. Loved reading what you said he did during combat. I might try to do something like that in the future. I just don't want my party members gettign mad at me for goofing around lol, which I don't think they will, but you never know until you try it.    The scenarios I spoke of are purely when a suspect who has attacked us or caused us harm in some way, or has the ability to harm us in the future, is unwilling to be tamed by diplomacy, intimidation or other means. It is not a "game" so to speak, it is fate, especially if the enemy has a god. It could be a fate/god thing then, where if the dice lands on the suspect's guessed array then the interrogation is over and we will release him, figuring his god has spoken or my god has deemed the man fit for releasing for whatever reason.. It is a lot better than outright killing him, right, since he is subdued and unarmed at that point? Our leader burned our group's symbol in an enemies hand and released him, and we mercilessy murdered unarmed hobgoblins who fell under a sleep spell (granted they attacked us first). So while we consider ourselves "good" we already have chaotic neutral tendacies lol.
#5 iserith Jan 15, 2015 12:36:08	cdiddy1980 wrote:
#6 Noon Jan 15, 2015 16:53:52	cdiddy1980 wrote:
#7 guachi Jan 15, 2015 19:22:08	We know in real life that torture doesn't work. So if I were your DM, not only would I insist your character's alignment was evil, I'd also make the torture completely useless. Like the torture victim gives bogus information and lots of people die as a result of your idiocy. And then you get thrown in jail and/or shunned by polite society.
#8 Razintarr Jan 16, 2015 4:18:25	The wife turned panther is an interesting concept. She probably balances between acting human and acting on animal instincts. She probably objects to being treated like a pet. I can see her refusing to drink from a bowl of water if it is placed on the ground, only drinking when it is put on a table. Refusing to wear a collar, only nice necklaces. She probably realised she doesn't need clothes, but she may like having a belt with some pouches. Licking herself to clean is not very ladylike, she probably prefers having baths. Oh, and she can probably read. Maybe she has a favorite book that her husband carries around and that she likes to read in.   Panthers have a tendency to hide the carcasses of their prey in trees, so they can eat the rest on another day. If this instinct takes over in the wife, the players might find pieces of meat stuffed into their bags for safekeeping purposes.    In combat she can do things that are beyond most animals. She can operate handles, levers, maybe even insert and turn keys. She can retrieve healing potions from a bag and deliver them to players. Maybe fling vials of acid or holy water around too.
(Reply to #7) Yunru	guachi wrote:
(Reply to #7) Coredump00	guachi wrote:
#11 RufusRockbottom Jan 16, 2015 11:27:18	First off, even a good man may do bad things during times of war, so I find it very possible good characters are capable of torture. The methods of torture may vary depending on alignment, but a lawful good character could still waterboard someone using real world logic and not feel any guilt about it.   Secondly, I dont think making a game of it would really be a good idea, as it condradicts the precise and intentionally escalating anxiety of torture. Torture is about the entrapment of the mind more than the physical pain, not allowing the victim to think past the current moment which leads them to believe this is this their existence forever as they currently can no longer see anything past that moment. The body is just the tool to break the mind.   Besides if you reeeeeally want to torture them, just feed them a silk rope over the course of 3 days, wait till an end is passed, tie that end to a rock or dagger and then tie the end still hanging out of their mouth to a horse. Then describe how much the horse loves to run.
#12 Noon Jan 16, 2015 15:44:04	Fact is teenage males tend to have a torture fetish going on.   The funny thing to do (and possibly helpful thing) is to show them their own torture fetish in play and question its value.   Because from my own experience, they tend to just start doing it, not even recognising their own overall behaviour - they just have an urge to do X, then Y, then Z - when X, Y and Z end up at a torture fetish.
#13 Devils-Advocate Jan 16, 2015 16:14:13	RufusRockbottom wrote:
(Reply to #13) RufusRockbottom	Devils-Advocate wrote:
#15 Yunru Jan 17, 2015 3:53:06	Also silly. Give the guy you want to torture a knife and thus a way to end it? :P But yeah, I once had the best session (of DnD) that involved toture ever. It went like this: "I'm going to torture him for information. Offscreen."
#16 BRJN Jan 17, 2015 7:45:05	IRL: I forget the title of the book, but an Interrogation Officer from Iraq stated that the best threat he could use against teenaged boys who wanted to join al-Qaeda as a way to be a hero / protect their people / be seen as a grown up, was:  "I'm going to tell your mom."   Because the teens knew their mom's reaction would be to treat them - publicly - like a naughty little boy.  How embarrassing !   The next-best technique was to make a gunman an offer: tell me useful information and I'll get you off the hook as best as I can.  More information is better, and you CAN tell me enough to let you go free.  Then pump the guy over several days / weeks.   My point: effective interrogation techniques play to the mind, not the body, and take longer.  Torture is ultimately high-cost / low-reward - although it IS also emotionally satisfying to inflict.
#17 RufusRockbottom Jan 17, 2015 11:05:40	BRJN wrote:
#18 iserith Jan 17, 2015 13:02:05	While I personally don't care for playing out torture scenes or the like, the best point the article I linked makes is how the whole interrogation scene itself arises out of poorly-structured play. When there is so common a happening as the "Let's-torture-answers-out-of-the-goblin" scene in D&D, I figure there's probably a basis for why so many tables experience it at least once. Sometimes a police procedural can be somewhat amusing, but for the most part beating answers out of an NPC generally follows a fight that has no purpose and during which the DM felt the need to hide information. If the fight, however, has purpose and the NPCs impart the information the players are looking for during the battle, there is no need at all for the ubiquitous interrogation/tortue scenes to follow. Check out that article if you haven't already. It can help in more ways than just this one.
#19 Noon Jan 17, 2015 15:45:21	Coredump00 wrote:
#20 Yunru Jan 17, 2015 15:53:54	And that's why you verify. And then make it worse if they lied.
#21 BRJN Jan 17, 2015 19:05:10	cdiddy1980 wrote:
#22 Coredump00 Jan 17, 2015 19:10:23	Yep, any interrogation, police, or enhanced, or torture, etc  Includes asking questions that you already have answers for.  That way you can better judge when they start telling the truth.  Even things you don't know for sure, you may have some info about.  New things, you work to verifty first, if some of it is true, chances are most of it is.  As I said, there are limitations.... but it does work within those limitations.
#23 BRJN Jan 18, 2015 16:15:26	RufusRockbottom wrote: