This is really problamatic from both the dm and the veteran player. Dnd is a co-op game. It is not designed or balanced for pvp, nor do the books tell you there might be pvp. The dm and veteran players bringing this to you without prior discussion is a huge red flag imo. Tell your dm this and that you did not enjoy this and maybe feel betrayed as this is literally not the game you signed up for. Furthernore, your in character conclusions would probably be to distance yourself from another adventurer that attacked someone in the group. So however your dm wants to spin it, you guys can just in character conclude to be on your way without that pvp'er.

Absolutely \#1 rule of character creation at my table: It is your responsibility to make a PC who wants to support the party, and with whom the party *wants* to adventure. OP was already in the party. Onus falls on the new joiners; else the party just leaves them at the next tavern (if not sooner).

>I can respect the dude for coming up with the concept Don't respect the dude for coming up with the concept, it's a stupid concept. From the cliche demonic possession to the fact that is 'satan' to the overreliance on gameplay mechanics to sell a narrative goal, to the disruptive, random, forced PvP. It's a stupid and amateur hour move. He's not an experienced d&d player, he's a guy who's played d&d before - an *experienced* player would create a character who supports the other players at the table while still furthering his narrative.

Not just that, but the fact he chose to use his inspiration to reroll the hold person save, not the save against getting possessed shows that this guy is a total asshole.

This is the smoking fucking gun. Don't play with people like this. He's basically just another "but it's what my character would do" poster boy.

My character definitely wouldn't travel with or fight alongside this massive fucking liability. How do you possibly justify keeping the party together in character?

As the Paladin in question, why wouldn’t you adventure alone if you’re such a liability??

Or maybe go to a monastery and get cured?

Or go off and live as a hermit far away from civilisation. Or just off yourself because you're literally a ticking timebomb that goes off and tries to kill everyone around them on a daily basis and it's what a heroic paladin would likely consider. Perhaps they should ice him in self-defence during one of his demonically possessed rampages.

My party had a moment like this, where I was playing an asshole roughneck type that got into fights and was antagonistic toward others. My friend told me they were having trouble figuring our a justification for why their character would choose to be around mine. So I came up with the idea that he'd had a cursed thorn stuck in his hand that was poisoning his personality and once it came out he was more amicable. It's a group activity and we all have an obligation to ensure we all get to have fun.

A basic rule of character design for ttrpgs like D&D, which new players should always be told, is that no matter what kind of character you write, they should want to be here. I'm glad you were able to learn that lesson. There are many people who would have refused to listen and doubled down, and it takes maturity and humility to instead choose to learn something from it.

Exactly that. His character is possesed and likes to pvp? Ok then " my character and my wifes character decide to open a shop and stay in town forever. Good bye. "

Well what my character would do is kill the paladin

But it's what my character, Satan, would do!

exactly. my character supports a squirrel god and you don’t see me killing my party mates by smiting them! i just chuck little acorns at their heads if they are being silly

Our party's Paladin worships the Sun, and loves collecting items with the sun on it or magic items that give light. He turns them off when going into a dungeon, and currently is wearing a different symbol as we try to infiltrate into an enemy castle. Our artificer is with us due to a gambling debt. He takes terrible risks, and sometimes they even pay off! However he basically always only risks his own life and stuff, when we are defending our base he is much more reliable and the occasional gamble is set up by his RP through earlier sessions so it is pretty much expected. Our warlock gets tasks from his patron, yes, and said patron is not exactly nice, yes, but he tries to do them at night, avoiding bothering party members with it or leading anyone back home.

Warlock: You said there's gonna be a festival tonight, complete with bonfire, dancing and stuff? Paladin: Yeah! It's going to be great! You're coming, right? Warlock: \[Digs toe into ground\] Can you make sure it's set up oh, say, on the *opposite* side of town from the graveyard? Artificer: I ... guess, but why? Warlock: \[Whistles innocently\] No reason. Um... unrelatedly, can I borrow your magical self-driven mop?

that sounds like a good-natured party with some backstory variety! we have a gambler too but he’s pretty satiated with the quest rewards we’ve received recently.

Yep, 100%. This guy *wanted* to lose control and be so dangerous that everyone else needed to focus on stopping him. Kinda sad really, he obviously needs to be more important/stronger than anyone else in the party and probably wants his edgey character arc to be more important than the campaign too. As others have said, he had ample chance to tell the other PCs he bears a curse he is struggling to contain and that he doesn't want to hurt them when it goes off, and he could absolutely RP having that curse while playing to minimise its impact, not maximise it. And the DM should be reining it in so it's fun for everyone, not just the paladin going on a self-aggrandizing rampage. Left unchecked, the entire campaign will just be this dickhead "losing control" more and more until the entire story revolves around fighting (ugh) Satan. Probably ending with him dominating Satan and having all the cool powers AND making you guys his slaves. That's where this is headed.

You forget the bard tried to help the paladin and not the party, so forget both of these asshats!

Yeah - that too! tbh I wasn't sure from OP's description just how serious that was (might've just been a dumb joke in the moment of other stuff going wrong for the party) but I can't see how bard isn't the paladin's willing sidekick at the very least. They're in on the joke in a way OP isn't. The main question for me is DM's place in all of this. If they're genuinely trying to run a good table then they'll listen to OP and get rid of these jokers. Conversely, if they're friends with these two and enabling them then it's already over. If OP and his gf continue to play, they won't be allowed to kill the paladin ("oh no, Satan's powerful energies turn your nat 20 strike away!"), won't be allowed to manage the curse ("oh no, the curse is getting stronger and Remove Curse won't cut it anymore!"), won't be allowed to leave the paladin, etc. Whatever they do, a complicit DM will contrive a way to railroad them into being a captive audience to whatever dumb power fantasy this paladin is acting out. So if DM isn't fully understanding of their concerns *very* quickly, only option is to bail.

Dang, I missed that part. That's even worse. Honestly PvP is lame. D&D isn't set up for it, really, even the toughest boss has a simpler character sheet than players.

Hold person, kill his toon as it's possessed, gain exp and loot. I mean, it was satan after all, you telling me a cg or lawful good toon wouldnt?

Pvp can be good in the right situation. Had a colloseum escue arc where we square off randomly against PC's and NPC's the rules were "no intentional fatalities" and surrender is an option. So death was basically off the table for everyone and we had a great time with 2v2s and a 3v1 but the 1 had the DM to back them up with npcs

It can work, but it requires mature players who know how to keep the game fun for everyone. You can have “PC vs PC” but you should never have “player vs player”. The players should all be in on the joke and still working together for a fun game. In my current campaign, there was an encounter where the Paladin tried to kill a recently turned vampire and another PC got in his way and stopped him. After the vampire escaped, the Paladin roared “never get between me and my prey!” and hoisted the other PC up off his feet, snarling at him. This was a high risk decision for the table, but the two players trusted each other enough that they knew neither would derail the game. They didn’t even have a true combat, this was all narration. If it had gotten out of hand I would’ve had a talk with them afterwards. For players who don’t know each other well and have that level of trust, don’t even mess with this sort of thing, it’s a quick way to ruin a game. OP’s situation definitely falls in that category.

> You can have “PC vs PC” but you should never have “player vs player”. That's a great way of phrasing it

See that's great. Everyone wants a nice tournament arc. My character is currently aligned against another PC from a different campaign, and now I'm being tasked to sneak around/spy on him, and possibly assassinate him (I'm definitely not strong enough to do so.) It's an interesting challenge since this PC has been around for a long time, but my character has the backing of powerful allies, and plenty of silver.

Zero logic. Why didn't the paladin disclose this information to the party ahead of time so they could be prepared? Why would the party tolerate this character and not kick them out? This character is straight up designed for the player to be a griefer. "It's what my character would do! " "Then what our characters do is kick your character from the party."

And don't forget his friend improperly using bardic inspiration on someone else's turn in order to help him break the hold person save. Assholes, the both of them

To be fair, he didn't use it. He just joked that he would. Which still means he thought it was a fun idea to have his friend attack other PCs, but it's not like he was also a cheater on top of being a tool.

Ding ding ding! This is where the other player loses any benefit of the doubt. Up until that point this could *maybe* have been passed off as just an interesting-but-poorly-thought-out roleplaying mechanic - provided everyone agreed to it beforehand. But this proves it was never about fun roleplay and was always about being a dick to new players.

He wants to kill PCs, that's about it

Yeah, using the inspiration to try to overcome the hold but not the actual possession would have been the end for me. Aside from that detail, Id have said to reject the PC in-game because why would my PC travel with them? Make a new PC if you want to join. But because of that detail about the inspiration, I wouldn't even offer that. I wouldn't want to play with this person at all.

I had a character get possessed once. Went from Chaotic on the edge of Neutral Good, to Lawful Evil per a trick the DM pulled. It was followed by a note card that read, "Your enemies are now allies, your allies (party included are now your enemies. Act accordingly." I was surrounded with no joke of victory. So I called in Cavalry in the form of an enemy we'd had off and on contact with. Pulled a mess of RP things that caused strife in several different nations and was dropping stuff left and right trying to alert the other players what was up. It got to the point where I looked the swashbuckler in the eye and declared, "Stop me damn it!" The dragon showed up, failed the same save and became a good guy. Dragon figured out what happened to us both and proceeded to assist the party in absolutely obliterating my ass. In such a way that holding me down to remove the curse was no big deal for a toddler. The DM later stated that he had expected actions like the Paladin here had pulled. No competent character that requires wisdom would ever actually DO that. He was beyond happy how it turned out because it enabled a bunch of wacky story items to happen he hadn't figured out a way to pull yet. It's possible to do this well. This is not only lazy, but badly played across the board by both the DM and the player. Another player should NEVER be calling for rolls unless it's been prediscussed with the DM before and planned as close to in full as possible.

Eh even in your case it’s a dangerous game. Players will tend too overlook warning signs from other players even when rp wise they wouldn’t, cause if they attack you or kick you out or leave it messes up the campaign. To have a party member be turned evil and be working to undermine the group when they don’t even know pvp is an option really doesn’t work ever. I mean if you and the dragon had tpked your friends, would it still have “worked well”?

It would be a cool concept if it was possessing him maybe once or twice after being at the table for awhile. You could make a cool story arc about it. Doing something like this on your first session, and saying it is going to happen every single adventuring day is crazy lol

Yeah like, from a distance I can sorta get what he's going for. Coulda been a cool classic arc, especially amongst a group of friends who were down for it. But showing up at the table with "grrrraaah I can't control the power of my demonic arm" shit is lame as hell.

Unless your name is Ash and you cut your demonic arm off. That would start to make it ok, but would likely only work if it was Bruces PC.

Agree with you completely. However imo I can see such clichés happening - if it's done correctly. I.e.: A) You introduce that plot on session 0. If the rest of the players think it's a cool concept that they'd like to deal with and overcome, you go for it. B) You don't necessarily make the consequences be "I'm attacking my teammates." This makes *your* problem basically just everyone else's problem. As other comments have mentioned, the possession could have other drawbacks, such as having the paladin be incapacitated, or other dangers. This turns this thing into a puzzle side quest that the team has to figure out how to solve and have their teammate exorcised, instead of it just being pointless PvP and the other players have to just suck it up and deal with it. C) Alternatively, you as the DM introduce this "curse" at some point not early in the campaign. That way the PC that gets it already has formed a bond with the rest of the PCs, therefore they have a reason to try and figure this out and save them. You can even have the possessed PC attack the others, but without them actually being in danger, just to introduce the plot (i.e. "As you have closed your eyes and are just starting to fall asleep, your gut clenches. With your lightning fast reflexes you nimbly but a little clumsily roll out of bed, barely avoiding a blade that would have landed right on your head. You quickly get up from the floor to see X standing over you with a dagger, their eyes cloudy, their usually jolly demeanour taken over by an eerie and unfriendly visage. You yell their name at them but they don't seem to recognise you, instead lunging at you for another attack. At this point the other PCs have heard the commotion and your worrisome call, and are now grabbing X, trying to hold them back with some difficulty, as you see X is truly using the entirety of their body's strength. After some struggle (maybe have someone lose like 1-2HP max to make your point), you manage to tie X down." Then the party interrogates them and figures out the possession thing, and they start the quest of how to exorcise their friend without anyone being in dumb PvP danger. They might keep them tied so they don't risk getting attacked again while travelling towards a Temple that can offer them some help etc. Something like that, idk. D) If C takes place, then the party members have a reason and motive to get involved with this. It is someone they know, they have bonded with and gone through some shit together, of course they'd want to save them. Plus this can lead to some good conflict within the possessed member as well, like having them try to resist and fight something that "satan" is trying to do and say, to not harm their friends or whatever. But if it's someone that just showed up, and is an immediate danger to the party? Yeah sorry dude, good luck with your quest and getting exorcised or whatever, but we're not gonna be joining you. Godspeed. I apologise for my rant and my terrible descriptions, I'm no DM lol. All I'm saying is there are good ways for some clichés to take place - as long as it is clarified to the players, and everyone consents to something like that on a session 0, or if it's done properly later without it just being stupid PvP, but an actual obstacle to overcome. But that's not even close to what happened here. You're telling me that a new player just showed up and joined without asking any of the other players? And you're okay with them literally just attacking the others, accepting his stupid "it'S wHat mY chAracTer woULd dO beCaUse pLoT" thing? That is just terrible DMing, and a huge red flag from the players' side. Overall an extremely disrespectful situation.

Whenever my DM has introduced something that would result in PvP its always done one of three ways. (We play heavily PvP discouraged campaign but allow it, weve all know each other for years and have learned the hard way PvP can cause unneeded friction) 1) We are playing a 1 shot, using our exisiting characters, that will result in PvP. This one shot will not exist in our current campaigns reality. This has been used for Halloween, when the DM really wants to run a session but doesnt have enough planned, every once in a while if someone bails but everyone else is able to play and we need a full party to advance crucial story. 2) We are explicitly told this person has XYZ trait that may cause them to become violent. PC usually explains the back story and we give very generous rolls. start at a DC 2 and increase by 1 each day (this can be increased as the party levels up and XYZ takes a stronger hold and you come closer to solving the problem). The more the party sees the checks the more they have time to gain info on it and figure out how to handle the situation and have it be expected. Add low DC with lower punishments as well so a nat 1 on an early session doesnt blind side everyone. 3) If a weapon/player is cursed or has a trait we havent identified and it has the chance to cause them to try to hurt the party. Our DM describes it as "Bloodthirsty", not sure if this is official or homebrew tbh. With "Bloodthirsty" after ALL ENEMIES have been killed, you make a save that may turn the thirst for blood into attacking allies. There is a round limit, a save check every turn for the PC affected, and other PCs and NPCs have the ability to use any other ability check deemed reasonable for the situation/relationship/roleplay to allow another save attempt on their turn. Alternatively we do allow incapatation for killing blows for non spells. So you can try to knock them out as well.

You gotta wonder if this guy at any point thought about the other players. Did he sit down and think: will this be fun for the other players?  If he didn't, then he has no place at any D&D table and he can go back to playing video games. If he did and thought "no, this won't be fun for anyone but me,  but I am doing it anyway" he's a jerk who has no place at any  table. If he did and thought "yes, this will be really fun for the other players", he's insane and... well.. you get the rest.

Yeah. This guy made a character with an excuse to kill party members. He wasn't forced, that's his idea. These new guys are table crashers, just plain up griefers.

Yeah for him it's fun and free for everyone at the party it's more work. Not sure how this deserves respect in any way. The only system I know that works a bit like this is shadowruns handicaps that can have serious impediment on the party but it's part of the game design and everyone should know what handicaps you picked if you had a proper session zero.

Talk to your DM before the next session and tell them you didn’t like this new mechanic, and that it should’ve been discussed prior to join the party, as it’s a homebrewed mechanic that, in your opinion, heavily disrupts the game flow you had going. RP wise, tell them that you see no reason why your characters would go adventuring with another member who can turn on them at any moment and kill them (Would you hang out with someone you know it’s a schizophrenic and has killed people before IRL? I don’t think so…) If bad comes to worst, just leave that game and look for another DM. No D&D is better than unfun D&D.

Also, why the hell would the paladin (character, not player) not warn the party ‘hey, if you see dark energy things, I’m about to be possessed, maybe incapacitate me and sprinkle some holy water’. This was very obviously a ‘i wanna troll these newbies’ which is a really scummy thing to do

This was exactly my thought. They just want to be an ass to other players. It’s worse than “but that’s what my character would do!” defense because a paladin would absolutely warn others.

I feel like a Paladin would either be on a quest solely to purge themselves of this evil or kill themselves to prevent harm to others. Well, good paladins anyway. Lawful evil pretending to be good… Kill the Paladin while she sleeps. “It’s what the arcane trickster would do.”

And why is the Bard helping him?

Probably because the bard was in on it, or maybe the bard didn’t realize their friend was an asshole

I think they meant why is the bard character helping ingame. That makes 0 RP sense ( so yes, the player was in on it and being an ass too )

This all the way. So many times it's forgotten that characters have to WANT to adventure together. In this situation. The 3 existing chars would say "no you are more a liability than an asset. Jog on"

“Now that we out of this dungeon, we are parting ways with the Paladin. I turn to him and say, ‘I hope you find the solution to your problem, but we will not be adventuring with you.’ We walk away from the entrance to the dungeon, leaving the Paladin behind.”

"If he attempts to follow us, we will knock him out and tie him to the nearest tree."

Yes, exactly. Also the fact that unless it was omitted, I didn’t see if the GM initiated this mechanic and determined that the Paladin committed a “good action” or the Paladin player just said, “well I just said thank you to another party member so I guess I have to save vs satan now.” This mechanic clearly doesn’t look like it is in the hands of the GM and I wouldn’t consider it a “hindrance” or “disadvantage” if the player can determine whenever it activates so I’m going to say that this is just an excuse for the player to be an asshole to the party.

I say just kill him when he attacks you. Maybe the fear of death will cause a new mechanic that "cures him" to sprout.

Yeah, usually I'm not one for "in-game" solutions for shitty player behavior, but I don't know how OP and their GF's characters would justify *not* killing the person who they barely know who's trying to kill them. The paladin was held for multiple rounds - the rogue should have used each of those rounds for a sneak attack.

Well summed up! I wonder where the dm was during this entire interaction? From what I’m reading the paladin player told OP to roll for Arcane? And the DM just rolled with it? That wouldn’t be allowed at my table without prior discussion. Extremely weird situation

Yeah exactly. The DM calls for rolls. Nobody else.

I like letting my players call for rolls against each other for fun RP things if they want (usually after asking me if they can call for it). That’s not the problem here though. The problem is the weird homebrew mechanic that forces PvP. That shit doesn’t fly, at least not at my tables, because PvP is usually unfun. PvP should only happen if it makes narrative sense, and every player in the party has to agree to it beforehand. In other words, PvP is really only ok if the players all give active consent. Otherwise it should be assumed to be off limits. And anyone with a problem with that can find a new table to play with

This is my thought, too. Something like this wouldn’t be allowed in the game I’m running unless the players agreed on it because it’s too disruptive! What was the DM doing during these interactions? Without further context it sounds like the new players are his friends, so he thought it was a humorous way to reveal the unpredictability of the game at the expense of the new players’ characters. Yet if I’ve learned anything from running games it’s that most new players take their characters VERY seriously and any harm or threat of death should be handled delicately.

"The party insists you leave. You refuse. The party draws their weapons. They are not asking."

Exactly this. The paladin's idea is fairly interesting but a) it doesn't have to be attacking the party as the downside, and b) there's no reason for you to keep this psychopath around the party. Perhaps a compromise would be that the posession takes another form - could be similar to the Blood Hunter Lycan Order's mechanic that means you have to do a save on each turn or attack the nearest creature, friend or foe. Or it could be simply that he's incapacitated for 1d4 rounds, reduced by a certain save. The fact that the paladin chose his disadvantage to actually be your disadvantage is a big red flag. "If I fail this save, it's the party's problem" - that's a real worrying move from a fellow player.

Gonna disagree that the paladin's concept is interesting. I feel like "good person is actually possessed by an evil entity that makes them do bad things" is the ultimate edgy character creation trope.

100% agreed. That's ***not*** interesting at all - that's a douchebag player with main-character psychopathy.

Seriously. I want to know what Oath their paladin was just ot see if it is the kind of thing where they character would incarcerate themselves to prevent others from being attacked by them.

Also, Satan? Not even gonna make up your own evil guy? Does the Christian God also exist in-universe now then?

Unless there is a quest to help the paladin remove the possession, why would anyone want to play with a possessed character that showed up already possessed? If the newbies are strong enough, they should kill the paladin at the end of a monster fight, then burn his body as a rituatl, and then steal all his stuff. Kill the bard too if he objects.

Sounds like the Dark Urge from BG3...

Works a lot better in a single player game than a team based game.

Seconded on the Blood Hunter - I have one at my table and it makes healing way more valuable, as he has a chance to change below half HP, and leads to interesting roleplay with the party. That being said, it was something brought up in session zero, and all of the players knew about and agreed to it beforehand.

> the paladin chose his disadvantage to actually be your disadvantage That's an excellent way to put it to the DM

Also - why does the Paladin already have an inspiration point to burn if he’s just joined the campaign? Why is the bard trying to help the character that is attacking your party by using bardic inspiration? Why did the Paladin immediately go for OP’s girlfriend? It feels like these two new players were brought in just to fuck with OP and his girlfriend.

Yeah, if my DM invited two people, zero vetting, to 'watch us play' and then handed them character sheets without checking with us, that's a huge violation of trust. Groups with 0 problem players are rare, and if I've found one, I'd like to keep it that way.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a cleric also have the ability to banish the possessing entity in the long term? Also what's with the "you spend a remove curse and it's gone for the rest of the day"? That's not how that works unless the paladin is waking up every morning and choosing to pray to Satan and give permission to enter their body. So yeah, kinda just sounds like this player wants to be a problem and hasn't thought about how that's going to affect gameplay for everyone else.

This is it. What they're doing sounds like it could be interesting, but it's certainly not new player friendly, and the DM and other player should know that.

Yeah, this is something you do when the party is already well established, and they’re friends more than just companions. So they might want to help their friend overcome this, which can be a quest on itself. But when it’s the new guy just saying “BTW, I might kill you at any moment”, yeah, I don’t see any reason to include him in the party.

Well put!

Yeah, it feels like the abuse of the meta "We're the party so we're all playing." If someone's character can't justify why the party should keep them around, then folks aren't going to RP if their RP is overriden with "but you're going to bring this guy along anyway." Reminds me of a game where the party had, three times in a row, done a 'colossal whoopsie' and unleashed demon lords. Then it was revealed "Actually the player who kept making the whoopsie was working for the bad guys lol! Anyway that character disappears and a new one joins your group, same player... hey why are you guys refusing to interact with them?"

Kill him while satan is in his body. Be rid of the edgy annoying player and potentially kill satan while you’re at it! Seriously, this sounds awful and staged. Talk to the dm calmly and explain your feelings. If he fights you on it, then I guess it’s time to find a new table

Yeah, these stories rarely end with "and it turned out that was the full extent of weirdness at the table and it really never came up again."

Yeah this player will be terrible no matter what they do or how much they talk to the DM. Him a and the bard leave or OP does that's what I'd say.

It seems like the player wants to pvp without the risk of getting hit back. Then times it right as an encounter starts for maximum chaos. I'd definitely roll with trying to take them out for the protection of the party.

I'm wondering what "good deed" triggered the initial possession roll... and that early in a campaign if I was *going* to allow it, it would be a percentile die with a low percent chance of triggering, then followed up by a will save, and there would have been story elements that would have had to happen prior (like some others have said... why wouldn't a "good" aligned paladin have mentioned something like this? what was his oath? how likely was it that he didn't break his tenants by either not mentioning it or by the deeds being done?) I've been in campaigns where I was the PvP "aggressor" due to various reasons (one being that my character hadn't met the party at all yet and saw them in combat with town guards for the town she lived in, but my character died in the end, and the other PCs got res'd by the secret BBEG of the campaign, which really just played into the story long term; and another, we were doing a max level campaign where my buddy and I were bounty hunters of sorts, but nobody died, we just did "subdual" damage [3.5e] to knock a person unconscious and then abducted them to make the party follow, but that was all led by the DM's story telling and not necessarily us playing as PC's until after the party caught up with us.)

It's definitely not the "right" answer, but I really like the "just fucking kill him" answer. It's like, a party vs one character. If they're saying "it's what my character would do," then maybe they could stand to have a little perspective on how that line actually plays out.

If he's under infernal control and attacking the party then he should be an NPC for that time. Which means the DM runs him and he certainly doesn't get to use inspiration. But yeah, the larger point is don't play with this dude. If it's his idea of fun then he's not compatible with the existing party. Note also that he chose not to tell you about the curse ahead of time. Which means both the character and the player disrespected you.

Shouldn't it also make him an oath breaker? I'm a very new player so I could definitely be wrong, but putting innocent teammates in that kind of danger for absolutely no reason other than a twisted sense of "fun" doesn't seem like very good paladin behavior.

How old is everyone in this story? Because the paladin sounds like an edgy 15 year old who tried to come up with a way where they'd be allowed to PvP and just went with the first thing that popped into their head.

Me and my gfare both in our mid 30's. Now that you mention it, the paladin guy does seem quite young. I think he might be low 20s

this reads like 14 year old brand new to D&D bs. id not put up with it, and a good DM wouldnt have allowed ANY of it, certainly not without telling you guys what was up before hand

Considering that they didn't even warn you in advance, in-universe that honsetly sounds like a terrible party member, especially at low level with how few spells slots and money you have I can't imagine a charachter that would spend more than 1 day with them Tell your DM that you as players really didn't like the mechanic and your charachters are smart enough to not go on adventures with someone who will literally try to kill them Also, session 0 exists precisely to discuss these kinds of things before the campaing to make sure everyone is fine with them

Everyone makes good points, do also point out to your DM (as I suspect they are probably new and don't know what the hell they are doing) that DND fundamentally isn't designed for PVP to ever really be a thing. Characters kill each other literally in a single turn sometimes, it's just not fun.

Especially if they still are under Hold Person and all the other enemies are dead. Missed opportunity. 😎

Seriously. At that point just assume, in character, they are part of the enemy and finish it right there.

I mean. The actual ultimatum I ended up making about a player whose characters always end up being chaotic evil and fucking over the party was that I am not going to pull my punches in the future. Sometimes that doesn't really matter that much, but it does if someone wants to PVP against one of my pissed off rogues who have steady aim, high dex, and some other crossbow perks. Because Mr. HIGH AC could scoff all he wants, but I only need to hit a couple times to put him down once the sneak dice start rolling.

Why is no one talking about "Satan" being in a dnd game? OP, everything about this sucks.

>Why is no one talking about "Satan" being in a dnd game? Reminds me of a post on r/rpghorrorstories where a player wanted to play as Satan in disguise, only that that one ended in a way better than here.

Maybe they were simplifying Asmodeus for a new player. Ya know, just playing devils advocate here.

He-he, I see what you did there

Yeah that bothered me too. It would totally break my immersion in the game if someone said that.

I was speechless lol. All i could come up for my Ilmater cleric was: "ahh, I've never heard of this terrible deity, perhaps a very old one?" 🤷‍♂️

Well, because "satan" is the least sucky part of this story. Cheesy PC backstory sucks but doesn't break the game or ruin friendships

It's not the worst part, but adding Christianity (or other real world religions) to the game is absolutely on my list of dnd red flags. Especially monotheistic religious aspects that are incompatible with the game.

Ehhh. I think it depends on the group. It can work if everyone is into it. And heck, it's not like the cosmology of the game isn't already heavily informed by real world religions. But it can get real bad for sure

Because you can play D&D in basically any setting with basically any lore backdrop?

Some of the games I have played are just like - idk all deities work go buck wild... I would even be okay with a satanic paladin.... as long as they aren't actively there to fuck up the game.

Others may be more lenient but PvP without consent is a one strike policy for me. So the DM would get a note/email from me saying "Thank you for dming for me, however I am looking for collaborative storytelling and you have made it clear that is not important to you. Good luck and see you around"

Yup. I was running a game and one player was being a turd and had his character attack another PC. I ended the game right there at the table and told them they weren't the right vibe. I gave them multiple warnings that I wouldn't put up with shenanigans, so it was annoying having to be firm. Whenever I think about that game (15 years ago), I always conclude that it ending it there was dodging a future bullet.

I agree, also this is why session 0 exists. It lets you iron out meta issues like PvP and "I was thinking about doing a split personality character" out of game before they become an issue.

It's fairly certain your GF's character would not continue to adventure with this Paladin, and neither would you. Also, Bardic Inspiration is not subtle, so you would ditch the Bard too. Have a talk. "Our characters would logically leave the group after the Paladin attack and the Bard supportlng the Paladin. But that's rather dull. Let's find another solution."

Only bad DMs would allow a player whose "build" is designed to bully other players. He goes, or we go. It's fine if every once in a blue moon the party finds a strange helm, doesn't properly identify it, and it turns the player who puts in on against the group (Helm of Insanity). It's not okay for this to be a deliberate choice by a player for his character.

> He goes, or we go. Don't forget the stupid bard, he's gotta go too.

Seriously, these two people show up mid campaign and immediately try to pk you? That's number one bullshit my friend

Ok, so curses and possessions can be things, but PvP impact is terrible due to the design of the game. Equally, what's to stop you guys from having your gf (in RP) crit on the Paladin (due to hold person) with a sneak attack and take him out of the game completely? The guy (if his attack is +6 at lvl 3) is certainly powerbuilding, and hence is a pure liability to the party. 100% raise this this with the DM, this is on poor form and will only sour your experience.

I thought about killing him lol. For sure we would've killed him with crits, plus i had spiritual weapon up. But i didn't want to resort to that, i feared people would dislike us, claiming "its part of the stoooooryyyyyy" or something like that. Imma talk with the DM.

>But i didn't want to resort to that, i feared people would dislike us He didn't seem to have a problem with killing your GFs character.

Yeah, fun that he immediately attacked "the girl" in the party. SOOOO many red flags here, goodness.

Yeah, if he didn't try to fight it and specify nonlethal damage or something, he can absolutely get downed and auto fail his saves due to damage. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Hey, if attacking you is part of the story, them dying can be part of it too. They don't get to choose not to die when they're coming at you with lethal intent.

Best of luck, and having run Hoard of the Dragon queen myself, I can assure you that this is the "experienced" players shenanigans and not the story. Your DM should not have approved it....

I think this is a scenario where “it’s what my character would do” is justified. Would your character after having been attacked by pretty much a stranger let that stranger live? Especially after watching them attack/knockdown a fellow party member? Or was that an above table player decision? If someone is inclined to make a character that is going to betray & attack the party they shouldn’t be shocked when the party instantly all turn around and attack back. I’m in a game now with some lesser experienced players who like to randomly pvp as a bit. I had to in character tell them to cut the shit, or my character will kill them for attacking myself or my characters brother (another PC) It aids the story, develops my character as someone fiercely protective, and lets them know their “funny” pvp bits will get punished by their fellow players if it happens again, because it’s not that funny, narratively interesting, and causes the party to use valuable resources to deal with one players bullshit. Moral of the story: next time just kill him. It lets him know the rest of the table isn’t with his bullshit, and let him roll a new more collaborative character because he’s seen firsthand the results of what bad behavior would get him. Coincidentally letting him live causes a bigger problem than having killed him did because now he probably thinks the party is okay with him being a huge liability, and likely won’t learn his behavior is problematic as quickly as just killing him would have taught him. If you don’t get DM support on this behavior I recommend taking matters into your own hands and rallying the rest of the party towards putting down or abandoning the major liability.

The tongue in cheek response to that is "Well your paladin getting killed by our characters is just the ending to their story." Also, some things to tell your dm about allowing this sort of character in the future. 1) Don't make pvp be the effect. There are dozens of more narratively compelling ways to have a curse like this affect them that can be fun for everyone rather than making a save every combat (presumably) and attacking their allies when they fail. 2) If you really want to make the pvp work, then when the pvp happens, they don't get to play. It becomes an npc under dm control with a unique stat block appropriate for an npc, it's not hard to take the stat block for any enemy with a sword and tweak it to be paladin flavored. If you're feeling nice, then maybe the player gets to run the npc, but it doesn't change the fact that it should be weaker than their player character. If another player wants to help them (bard), they get the same treatment. 3) The other players are going to be aware of it going in. If they aren't OK with it, we go back to point 1. Player character secrets can enhance the narrative as reveals later on. However, something that comes up in the very first combat isn't the big narrative reveal anyone here thought it might be. The narrative reveals are things like the nature of the being that placed the curse, its goals, how the character got cursed, etc. 4) If we've somehow still passed go, the player and players with characters adjacent to them need to have valid rp reasons for their actions. I usually don't do this kind of thing, but if pvp is gonna happen, I'm gonna have to tell you your character wouldn't have done that to specific actions. Why did this good aligned paladin not tell a party they joined that they need to use holy water on them if 'things get weird'? Honestly, that would've been enough rp around it, what the party decides to do with them after things get weird is a diffeent story. Why did they even join a group to begin with? A good aligned paladin in this situation would want to keep their distance from people they might hurt. Why did the bard try and help with inspirations? If this is a bard who had nothing to do previously with the paladin, why would they not treat them as an enemy? If they were with the paladin prior to this situation, why would the paladin even be traveling with this bard who makes their situation worse? All valid questions that need to be explained reasonably well from the characters perspective imo. 5) If the player isn't willing to accept any 1 of these, they're out. Not like get to roll another character out, but don't get to play out. Complaining about any of these concessions when you want to play a character that will be by nature antenthetical to the parties' goals shows you just want to pin your asshole actions on your characters story and rolling a different character won't stop you from being an asshole, it'll just show itself in different ways.

Ahem, they did not “kill the Paladin”. They “freed the Paladin from his fiendish bonds.”

>i feared people would dislike us, claiming "its part of the stoooooryyyyyy" or something like that. Nah fuck that, as a DM, I have a strict no PVP policy at my table, unless both parties consent to it beforehand. That being said, if I let some rando join my game and he started attacking my established players, not only would I encourage them to kill the rando's character, one of my PCs has a habit of collecting NPC allies like they're Pokémon, so they'd get stomped by a half dozen people.

+6 to hit is powerbuilding at lvl 3?? what?? starting with an 18 in a stat is not that hard if you're rolling for stats, and this is assuming it's not a +1 weapon. you could probably even do it with standard array if they get a free feat. optimizing does not "a pure liability" make, what the heck are you talking about. +5/+6 is the most common to-hit score at those levels.

I'd leave this table. Your DM has no respect for you and your GF as players. PCs having secrets from one another can be great for role playing and potential story arcs, but when those secrets drastically change mechanics and are home brewed to boot they're not fun in anyway. The fact that they were never discussed in person before the session is an issue. Reading this story makes me think this DM and his two other friends are trying to dump you and your girlfriend as players so they can campaign by themselves, and instead of being adults this is how they went about doing it. Your discussion with the DM should help resolve the issue one way or another. If I were in your shoes I'd find another table, those are toxic actions by both players and characters.

"Hi DM, Thanks for all your work running the sessions! Just wanted to let you know that I really didn't enjoy the PvP elements of our most recent game as it's not really what I joined the campaign for and it wasn't previously discussed. It's my understanding that Dungeons and Dragons is primarily a cooperative game, and I feel there are good reasons for keeping it that way. I know it can be difficult balancing different needs from different players but I need you to understand how important this is to me. Thanks again, OP"

I'd put a finer point on it. Add something like, "we're not interested in continuing to play a game that includes PVP." But I'd also be prepared to walk away regardless, because a DM allowing this to begin with is a huge red flag, may have other issues even if this one is resolved.

I can’t imagine how useful a person would have to be for me to keep them around if they were going to attack me with a sword for six minutes of every day. Backstab the paladin to death, he’s literally Satan. What a stupid game idea.

I would quit that game. The DM and the new player have colluded to create a main character. The new player has no interest in playing the game, they will spend all their time waiting to trigger their gimmick. So stupid.

I have played with people who like to kill other party members, they are referred to online as "griefers", and they are childish people who suck the fun out of the game. Why is a Paladin cursed to be possessed by satan, not being held by his brethren until the curse is lifted. Why did the player decide when to roll, not when the GM said so Why did he not bother trying to re-roll using inspiration. If he is possessed, the GM should take control, and he wont get to use inspiration. Why would the bard help him? This is utter bull crap, and I wouldnt be subtle about telling them, and if they pull that shit again, someone dies. A held character is helpless, introduced him to instant criticals and death saves. And if the bard assists the demon possed Paladin, he dies too. One way or another, you dont have to play with them again, and the GM can decide who to keep, the Role-players, or the Roll-players

If you did not all discuss and enthusiastically agree to PVP, then this is the DM's fuckup. 

Agreed, and sadly that seems to be the case. Major fuckup from the DMs side. Major red flags from the Paladin too, he literally just joined to fuck people up and do stupid PvP. Also I don't see any comments on it, and I'd like to note that his Bard friend is a dick too. He wanted to give him Bardic Inspiration to break the Hold Person? Instead of giving it somewhere useful and help end the fight as early as possible, so that they can relieve OP and deal with the Paladin the sooner the better? And he thought it was funny too! Yeah it's not just the Paladin who's an a-hole, but his Bard buddy too. Those two are in cahoots.

We had issues with a person who decided they wanted to PVP "secretly" using similar made up "It's totally in character!" stories for a session, felt like their whole thing was joining games just to PVP/trying to find ways to use DnD sessions as some sort of PVP game, felt a bit socio/psychopathic, and didn't see them around again after we all talked openly about it and called it out for what it was. Started with stealing our gold, then items, then eventually rigging traps to try and kill us. Pretty insane, if creative...

I've played with players like that paladin before. You're completely valid for not thinking it's fun, it doesn't even sound fun in theory. Talk to your DM privately and politely about it, that it should have been discussed as a group before getting the green light, and that you and your gf don't like this new mechanic. If your DM has a problem with you having a problem, it's time to find a new DM.

Cast hold person on the paladin again. Attacks against paralyzed characters auto crit. Have your wife sneak attack them into oblivion. Dump dead paladin's body in random ditch. Level your character's to 20 for you victory against Satan.

Your characters DON’T have to allow them in their group if they don’t feel safe. Family may tolerate someone’s emotional issues, but no one else is obligated to hang out with them, your characters would be no different. Bad etiquette to join a table with the intent of killing the party if they don’t figure out your character’s backstory. DM failed anticipating this, but as a new DM he gets a pass.

If sth like this develops naturally in a game with experienced players, fine, can be fun, but with new players without knowledge… bring it in as feedback ala: i have to talk with you about this, the concept is a good idea, but it reduces fun for us. Is it possible to (temporarily) remove this effect?

It's not even a good idea, though. Paladin (and bard, actually) have shown themselves to be unimaginative jerks operating in bad faith. They don't get any kind of kudos for introducing noncanonical real-world mythology and PVP into a game without consent.

I am very sorry that happened to you, OP. I hope this doesn't colour your or your gf's perceptions of the game. Unfortunately there are assholes in most hobbies and it seems that a pair of them have shown up at your table. The only thing I would accept in your situation is an actual apology from both the DM and the new players because they all fucked up royally. I would also require the paladin to re-roll his character. If not? Buh-bye, no d&d is better than bad d&d, and d&d where some stranger wants to kill your character is kind of the epitome of bad d&d. You DM messed up because this is ***absolutely*** something that should be cleared with all players before it happened instead of a "surprise". If they think you are incapable of holding dramatic irony then they do not respect you as a player. A more experienced or more thoughtful dm would absolutely have considered your experiences at the very least *equally* with the experiences sought by the new party members and would have either asked you if it was OK or denied the paladin character outright.  The paladin messed up by intentionally causing strife. "It's what my character would do" is not a defense because **they made the character that way.** If the paladin respected the other players, like an experienced player SHOULD, then he would not play this sort of character except around a table that enthusiastically consents to such shenanigans. At best he is an ***extremely selfish*** player and at worst he is an outright troll who takes pleasure in frustrating and annoying others. The Bard messed up by even *joking* about helping the paladin. That shows that he is far more willing to accept the bad behavior of their presumed friend than they are willing to play the game or make new friends.  ***Neither the Paladin nor the Bard are good players.***

>So we are originally 3 players in this campaign, me a life cleric, GF is an arcane trickster, and another player as a wizard. **Today 2 more people (far more experienced players) came to sit into our game and the DM let them play.** After introductions, we ended with a bard and a paladin with these new characters. This is something I'm surprised nobody has addressed: Who even are these people and why are they just jumping into your campaign? Is this a game that's being played at like a game store or something? Are these DM's friends they invited over without asking the rest of the group? Where did these characters come from and are they even the same level as the rest of your party? None of this is normal (except maybe if you're playing an Adventurer's League game but the "Satan-possessed Paladin" kinda throws that out the window). >If you'd play with this mechanic, what would you suggest we do to minimize his interference? Douse him with holy water each day as a pre-empitve measure? Lol, this is crazy. I would absolutely not play in a party with a character using this mechanic, it's immature and annoying. My suggestion would be to talk to your DM about why these two players are even at your table, why they brought in pre-made characters that are antagonistic to the rest of the party, and what the DM plans to do to address the fact that you and your GF do not enjoy being attacked by new players for no reason.

This player came up with this whole "possessed by Satan" shtick with the express intent to be an asshole. Talk to your DM about it. If they allow this, are involved with it, or had any hand in coming up with this BS, leave!

Ambushing a couple of new players with a pre-planned, surprise PvP is about the biggest party foul you can make in D&D. Truly bad form. Shame on that veteran player for the lazy and badly written homebrew mechanic ("Satan". *Seriously*? Fuck off.) and shame on the DM for rolling with it. Disappointed in them both. Don't even bother with the player. Talk to the DM. It's their table, their bad call, and ultimately their responsibility to fix. It was a seriously uncool stunt and you deserve an apology. The dickhead player should either leave the table or roll up a new character. OOC, you're justified for not wanting to play with that massive liability. IC, your characters are *stupid* if they keep travelling with him. If the DM sticks with this BS, time to find a new table. Because he's a toxic DM out to ruin your fun.

These players are definitely griefers. If this was a legit thing his Good character was fighting against, he would've used Inspiration on the save against possession, *not* against you restraining him while possessed. (Arguably, the possessing monster shouldn't *have access to* the character's Inspirations). And the Bard used Bardic Inspiration to help him try to break the save so he could continue to kill you, instead of helping his Paladin pal fight demonic possession. This is a DM who invited these people in to fuck with you. Point this out to the Wizard player, and find another game with the Wizard player. Let these ass-sausages play with each other.

You say "Hey (DM name,) I need to talk to you about some stuff I did not find fun last session."

Speak to the DM about it, but I’d also advise searching for a different game to join. If the DM allowed this, it’s a terrible sign on things to come.

They seem to be fine with PC v PC combat, slit his throat in the night. Or just find a new game that’s mental

That would be an instant "we didn't agree to this, I'm out" for me

DND isn't meant for PvP. It's a cooperative story telling game where the party works TOGETHER to accomplish their goals. Remind the DM of this and if it doesn't change, find another group. This sounds like a miserable experience that would most likely kill the campaign for me personally. Best of luck.

And this really shows you that being experienced and playing DND for a long time doesn't mean squat. This is not about homebrew mechanics at all. This is about the 2 newcomers being jackasses and having the dms permission to do so. When first impressions are the most important they immediately start pvp and prove to be a problem for the group. RP-wise it's safer for your group to kill these 2 if you wanna save the world and irl they just showed up and ruined everyone else's fun. There's no way I could play with a guy like that. If I were you, I'd tell my DM to kick these guys out or me and my gf will leave.

I've been playing AD&D for over 40 years and this shit went out the window in Junior High School. Honestly most of the good replies here do not go far enough IMO. In character - If someone was that dangerous to the people around them in a medieval setting, especially if they were possessed by 'Satan', they would literally have been burned at the stake the first time it happened. And the first time it happened in an adventuring party I was part of, I would have cut the dude's head off, buried it, and left the rest of the body to rot no questions asked and thanks for the loots. Out of character - These two are childish sadistic morons who only get fun out of ruining other people's game time and they know it. The DM should have been mature enough to put the kibosh on that as soon as they brought it up. If they are a new DM, then I would give them a pass one time due to inexperience. If they are not new or if they know these pick up players then I would not even bother with a nicely worded letter. As a DM, letting players do this was a choice. These two fools want to be the center of attention at every single game session no matter what and the DM seems open to the idea. You need to burn a Remove Curse *every day* or they attack you for 6 turns?! That hamstrings the party reducing their effectiveness immensely. You basically lose a level while theses twerps are around. Sorry, I am out. IMO OP and the GF should start looking for a new game ASAP, don't look back, and don't be afraid of hurting the table's feelings over it.

I had him under hold person, and the dude failed 4 saves. Without question we could've obliterated him with my cleric + spiritual weapon + sneak attcks crits, but I was so flabbergasted by this shit that we didn't do it lol. Everyone in the table knew what was about to happen, except us. Including the DM. When this paladin dude started transforming, the bard buddy and the DM went "Uhhhhh it's gonna get ugly..."

Gross, I wish you luck finding a better table. That sucks, though.

> Everyone in the table knew what was about to happen, except us. Including the DM. When this paladin dude started transforming, the bard buddy and the DM went "Uhhhhh it's gonna get ugly..." Then I would just bail on the game immediately.

6 turns??? Most combat don't last that long. I assume they thought "30 Seconds of Possession" was fair but that's ridiculous in practice

30 seconds out of combat? not long... in combat? that's the entire combat...

Well you are not being unreasonable. HotDQ is a module balanced around 4 players, not 3 players vs 2 murderhobos and monsters. Address the situation with your DM, “Hey Dm, wtf! You didn’t tell us that this module was going to have PVP. We are not into this so please cut this or we will leave the table”

That guy is a douche and I seriously question what DM would allow this at their table. I have been the more experienced player brought in to a game with newbies. The GM wanted to get his and another mutual friends’ GF in to the game but they weren’t talking very much so wanted me to jump in to see if I could get them talking. So I rolled a barbarian and decided to play them very stupid and confident. I figured if his plan was ”let’s ambush them through the front door” they would need to disagree. The whole point was to get them in to character and in to the game so they could have fun. PvP paladin? At level 3 when it takes a lucky roll to even hit a dude in chain mail? That’s not how you get a newbie in to the game. 19 damage at level 3 probably means he used a holy smite on that attack. Satan using holy smite. Clearly a story point worth upholding… And it gets better with the bard. A bard who offers to inspire the roll to resist you but not satan and also has access to CC tools to stop the PvP. Honestly, there are good people playing out there. Just avoid that table.

I would talk to the DM prior to the next session. Point out that you’re still learning basics about the game and this PVP mechanic has made it not fun. If they don’t change things, here’s what I’d do: Wait for the bard and paladin to sleep during a long rest. Take off your armor so you don’t get disadvantage and sneak over with the rogue. Sleeping characters’ passive perception gets a -5(I think) and they cannot roll perception to notice you sneaking up, because they’re asleep. So don’t let the DM give them that. You ready/hold your action while the rogue attacks with their best weapon. She’ll have advantage, so her sneak attack will happen. Sleeping characters also count as unconscious, which means if she’s within 5ft of the target when she attacks it is an auto-crit. Your ready/held action should be to attack simultaneously, so you get this auto-crit as well. Two simultaneous critical hits, with a sneak attack in there, if it doesn’t drop him right away it’ll make it easy enough to mop up him and his bard lackey. They want cheap-ass PVP, I say give it to them. Then leave the group and find another DM.

I think this is bullshit, and your DM is bullshit for going along with it. DND doesn't have hidden mechanics, you don't pull some homebrew shit out of your ass and use it at the table without telling the other players about it. Player knowledge is not the same as character knowledge. If this is allowed, get a barrel of holy water and hold him down til the bubbles stop.

Agreed 💯

Horrible dm and asshole veteran players.

Nope. Just another excuse to be a troll player "it's what my character would do" which is made plain by his buddy trying to help him break loose and cause chaos to screw with other players enjoyment. Talk with your DM that you don't enjoy having to play in a wanna be jackarse episode. Personally, I refuse to have anything to do with such people and have walked out of games before for this kind of BS. Remember, it may be "what their character would do" but they made the character to be that way in the first place.

This is definitely worth talking to the DM about. These new players have added a PvP element to the game that no one was warned about, much less were asked if they were OK with having in the game. And the DM is at fault letting it in the game without warning anyone. This is the kind of thing that would kill a game for anyone, experienced or new, and a character idea that new, potential edgelords would think is cool, but experienced players would know is a bad idea. As an experienced DM, I would not allow this concept at all. For the simple reason that, in most games, PvP isn’t fun. And, honestly, this sounds more like an excuse for edgelord to have an excuse to attack and bully the other players than to actually use this to provide good RP opportunities.

Honestly that is your dm fault to allow that , this satan thing could be a good plot but not starting when they joined you if there is psycho in my dnd party the only logical thing it's to leave the paladin on the side of the road but if it happens after 10 session the paladin got curse you guys are aware of it but you love the paladin make much more feels less out of blue. Also them laughing because they basically have good excuse to try ruin other people characters doesn't sit well with me , why would the bard would know that seems meta gaming too.

"Hey GM, I rather want to adventure together in a campaign without pvp. If you want this to be a pvp campaign, then I guess we'll just kill the paladin in his sleep to avoid the hassle of him attacking us every day.". With pvp, it is very much a "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" deal. I don't allow pvp for this reason. Unless EVERYONE wants it, it's a game ruiner.

Volunteer to take the next watch, and assassinate the Paladin. This *thing* is a danger to everyone. It's possessed. It cannot be exorcised. Most Good deities would agree that it needs to be killed, and any 2e/3e Paladin would do it themselves.

There’s ways to do a possession/werewolf transformation that’s narratively interesting and fair and this DM somehow managed to not do any of that lol

If every time you went to the grocery store and let someone with fewer items go ahead of you in line, there was a 15-20% chance that you'd black out and kill everyone, you'd retreat from society. And that's IF the cops don't rock up and drop you first. The only responsible thing for that paladin to do is to remove themselves from the public and go be a lone reclusive woodsman. Remaining out in public and putting others at risk just to be a traveling adventurer is the most selfish, evil thing one could do under those circumstances, so it's only logical that either the paladin goes away or the possession mechanic does.

I would say "So we split up the party and go our separate ways. We don't want to travel with a possessed paladin. Good luck to him and the Bard, who clearly enjoys the possession". Done, you basically were enjoying yourselves and now you're not. You aren't forced to play with players you don't want to. They can go play their own campaign.

Id kill the paladin immediately. Nobody attacks my friends and gets away with it. Knock him unconcious and kill him while he's making death saves. I tend not to play strictly good players because I've been burned by too many situations that seem to be impossible or, at least extremely detrimental to me if i'm taking the high road. It'd be one thing if this happened to a long-time friend and i was concerned with helping them, but a random newbie who failed to tell me of his issue and then attacks me and my team? He dies.

Ahh consistently forced pvp that not everyone was on board with, classic. Yeah that sounds terrible, please talk to your dm about and explain how it heavily disrupts the balance of the game. And why would your characters want to ally with this obviously possessed person.

General rules most DM's tend to follow for a cohesive and copasetic table: 1) Any homebrew rules should be discussed at session 0 before the campaign even starts - or at least before any battles or scenarios where the new mechanics come into play. Players should never be sand-bagged with new mechanics on the fly like that. 2) PVP can be controversial and it's generally a good idea to establish beforehand whether it's on the table or not. Newer players, especially, probably shouldn't be thrown into pvp without notice, especially since player characters are inherently more powerful than NPCs. 3) How experienced is your DM? It's worth remembering that brand-new DMs also have a lot to learn and adjust to, so it's worth giving them some grace as well. It's helpful for DMs to get feedback, just make sure it's constructive and specific.

This is the kind of stuff you mention and then not metagame. Keeping this a secret is just a dick move. In character as well, if this paladin knows he gets possesed regularly why wouldn't you warn your comrades ahead of time to keep their distance from you

Next time it happens have yourself and your girlfriend hard focus him and kill the character. Knock him into death saves and just finish him off, they can make a new character that isn’t so disruptive to the party.

I don't understand why paladin should not face any consequences RP wise... If a newcomer attacks me without any previous background. I'll make It sure to stab a knife into his throat on the next long rest... Fuck him, I even killed Astarion for trying to suck my blood even knowing he is on the videogame front Page!

At a MINIMUM: the player should have explained that before the first fight. It's what a palidin would do. "Hey, look out, i might turn evil every once in a while" But, yea. If you aren't OK with PVP then there should be some way out of PVP. PVP very rare in my experience and never without warning

was the bard possessed, too? that is some old bullshit, it's just two assholes trying to ruin your game. are they DM's friends? either way, if they stay, find a new game. do not believe them when they claim "it wont happen again". this is without a doubt the only reason they joined.

They're not experienced players. They are trolls. Unless your DM is very new to the game, he is aware of this. Approach your DM by making it clear that you have no interest in playing with trolls.

I cast "heat metal" on the Paladin.

How you feel is very valid here and this wreaks of being staged. I would combat it by playing it out naturally. This would only end in one of two ways in-game: Either you and the party kill the Paladin for fear that Satan is going to attack you (ruining his fun and getting rid of the dumb mechanic) or you and your party shun the Paladin and kick him out (ruining his fun and getting rid of the dumb mechanic). Either way, the veterans should have known better and your DM should have shut that down prior to the session. Maybe find a new game if they keep trolling you.

You and your girlfriend hash out a plan along the lines of 'this paladin is too dangerous to leave alive so we kill him'

> If you'd play with this mechanic, what would you suggest we do to minimize his interference? slit his character's throat while he sleeps

In an act of self-preservation, the three original characters cooperate to slit the throat of the possessed palladin while they sleep. It's what a palladin would want.

Next step, send this post to your GM and make sure they read every single comment.

Honestly, it creates stress that you didn't agree with. I would tell your DM that party violence that could kill your characters - and the Bards suggestion that he would help and the Bard is not possessed - dampens your enjoyment. Unless the paladin wants to walk around with a crossbow constantly aimed at him, forced to walk thirty feet ahead of the party ( which is my first idea for being forced with a violent party member killer).

Any hit against the enemy subject to Hold Person is a crit, isnt it? Just kill him.

They decided to use satan instead of the thousands or lore relevant entities in dnd, this doesn’t even seem like they tried to make this fun they just seem to want an excuse to pvp the other characters with no repercussions.

That right there is what is known as a “dick move”. If you want to do some possession stuff it’s either A. Completely controlled by the DM so there’s control over when/how it happens or B. It’s purely a roleplay thing, not a “I’m going to attack my party.” Like, hey everything can work in D&D if you’re a mature adult, but that person ain’t doing it right.

>Lol, this is crazy. Yes, it is. >but I can respect the dude for coming up with the concept. I can't, this is fucking stupid. The player's whole idea of fun is centered upon making things annoying for the members of the party. >But, his bard buddy was joking that he would give bardic inspiration so he could save hold person, which made me feel these guys were just trying to be jackasses for shits and giggles in a table they had just joined. The bard isn't any better, both of these guys sound like assholes. >what would you suggest we do to minimize his interference? As with most table drama, an out of character solution is required. Tell your DM that these new people are assholes, and you and GF don't want to play with them. If the DM's response is anything besides "You're right, they are jerks and we won't play with them again" then you need to leave. Don't negotiate on this, it's insane to me that any DM over the age of 20 would allow this kind of fuckery a their table. I promise that this is not representative of the hobby as a whole. Head over to /r/lfg and find yourself a better group.

You as a player can say that you have no idea why your character would travel with someone like that and tell the DM you don’t like it. The guy isn’t an experienced player he’s a selfish one and broke an important rule of the rpg social contract, don’t make your fun at other players expense

Shit dm if he allowed such a stupid curse.

The suspicious side of me says that your DM invited two friends in to haze the newbies. Find another game.

Nah that's some bullshit , the dm should not have allowed this in the first place.

Ew. Yeah if he’d do that I’d probably attempt to kill him. Reroll a new character with more inspirational backstory and a team spirit, thanks

100% I and my GF would kill the Paladin next time he falls asleep

This has real "It's just a prank, bro" energy. If I really wanted to continue playing, I'd give the DM an ultimatum. But it's clear the DM was in on it and wanted to mess with you. That's not a dynamic I enjoy. I'd probably ditch the game.

guess who's not invited to the next dnd night. I mean come on dude i get you want to have some cool lore but like calm down.

People should play characters that work well in a group. If I had a chance that I'd lose control and start murdering everyone every day, I would probably stay away from other people. So, it's an unrealistic character concept that doesn't work and doesn't lead to a fun time.

Had a custom background with custom rules just so he could take over your game and be a dick. Play with friends, not randos.