Crescent City 11 (Drow Part 1)

[BigSteveUK]

Hi,

Spoilers for Drow War Part 1.

My group have nearly finished the Thieves maze, which nearly got them all slaughtered and now intend to attempt the bank.

How did your players get on with this and did any of them pull it off, as it looks pretty difficult. Personally I can see another reservoiur dogs moment coming up.

Cheers,

BigSteveUK

 

[TopCat]

Mine spent a day or two scouting out the bank, decided it was too difficult and so talked to Lord Malthus. They had good diplomacy/bluff skills so I allowed them to negotiate a deal where he could get the remaining signature items for them at a cost of pretty much everything that the party had.

Tha bank isn't a lethal place since most of the defences are designed to capture or incapacitate intruders but I can't see how a party of that level would be able to rob it, given all the defences.

TC

 

[Graphil]

Mine spent a couple of days scouting, decided it was too difficult and talked to one of the crime lords. They ended up with a give everything you have and we will steal it for you.

 

[BigSteveUK]

OMG, what a complete and under disaster, but at least it was very funny.
After a bit of planning and very little ground work or reconnaissance my session went from what I thought would be Oceans 11 to Reservoir Dogs!!!
The players decided to cut to the chase; they waited till the boss was out and stormed the bank, to be fair the rolls were against them. In the first round 2 of them failed to even hit the mage upstairs and then the black tentacles and the shield guard held them up.

3 Others got through into the cashiers area and then used shape stone to drop down into the hallway below. One of the druid’s summoned monkeys set off the force wall (by accident) and then they were set upon by the Mage guard and again black tentacles ruled the day.

The Paladin got crit’d by a shield guardian and basically had a Marvin the Martian moment as he was squashed under the Guardian mighty fist.
The magic and sorcerer hoped to hold off the shield guardian and both got battered senseless.

This left the barbarian, monk and druid, the first 2 surrendered to the militia and bank manager, the druid is trying to escape (can you use spider climb in conjunction with stone meld??).

I am now not sure what to do, I was going to allow the mayor to be involved e.g. give me cash, and a favour and I’ll let you go. But the barbarian killed a mage guard and nobody held back. So I am tempted to do 2 things.

1.Nice GM its Christmas
The mayor will get involved and after a bit of walking about in chains and a bit of torture he will hear their stories. He will obtain the items for them, they have to pay the bank say 50,000gp, owe the mayor a favour and one of them will be hung to appease the people, manager and be made an example. A story will be leaked that the others will have supposedly died under torture or during the robbery.

2.Ba-Humbug
Same as above except their boat is impounded and their debt is 100,000gp, also all the good players get an alignment shift toward evil as everyone used lethal force on LG NPC’s who were just doing their job. Also the Paladin must appease his god and lose all his abilities for a level.

The thing that swings me towards one is the scenario is very, very hard and it’s not very hero like, I want them to start acting like the heroes they will become but a lot of the ventures so far have been fairly dubious in natures, robbing banks, taking out a new gang of thieves, ruffling up some people who upset the thieves etc.

Cheers,

BigSteveUK

 

[Graphil]

Definately if a paladin is involved in killing then he should have an atonement. Maybe run the interrogations on the players individually and see what they come up with as why they did it. Find out which one was the killer and apply the death penality. Perhaps have the crime lords break him out and extract service from them.

 

[TopCat]

Yeah, you've got problems there. Personally, I'd not have let them get as far with the assault plan as they did, but you're obviously beyond that now.

I think you have to throw the book at them. Execute them all. Then have the mayor raise them (-1 level all round) at the node in the city hall. Give them another message from Nuith stressing how they are the only hope for light in the world and telling them to act like the heroes that they are. Make sure the players are aware that they'd better start acting like heroes or else. Take all their money and the boat but let them keep personal equipment. Make sure that they're aware that doing things like this is not going to help get nations on their side in the long term. Give them fewer Caldrazan soldiers for the battle at Underdell, and make sure they know that they could have had more but for their actions here.

Oh, and even after that, the paladin is still in big trouble. No way should he have gone along with a plan to rob the bank. Even if he'd been persuaded to go along with it "for the greater good", as soon as violence started, he should have acted to stop it. I'd strip his abilities until at least after the battle in Underdell. His player has to be made to understand that paladins just do not do that sort of thing, under any circumstances.

Tough love is the order of the day, I think.

TC

 

[Graphil]

So what did you do in the end?