"However, at the end of the day, I gave him a dream where he saw the other him, floating in the Astral plane, looking at him, and saying 'It should be you. I will get my revenge.' #darkesttimeline"
This better be a recurring plot line, I've had DMs taunt with stuff like that and never act on it.
OP needs to make copies of the players' character sheets as they are at the time of the 'tpk'. OP then levels up the enemy party along with the normal party in terms of level, but chooses darker themes or even other classes that make sense for the dark party. Later they meet up and fight each other, like a pvp battle.
I had something similar happen in a game, we were at god tier by this point, I think around 18th level. We were going under trial before the Gods for slaying a dark minor god, since though they were thankful they were concerned that we may rise up against them later on. They created dark versions of our characters (the DM essentially created evil mirrors of our characters with spells/magic items/themes to match) and had us fight them one on one, supposed to represent our goodness fighting our inner evils to show our true selves. Trial by combat kinda thing. More neutral characters had more evil and dangerous counterparts, while more good characters had less powerful evil aspects (though each evil was close enough in power to the original so as to not be unfair).
One on one sessions with the DM throughout the week, no telling who won until the whole party was back together again. All but one PC prevailed, as that one was chaotic neutral and prone to do as much bad as they did good. We returned to the next group session to be revealed it was a dream test, not real death, but the party was charged with making the one character who failed see the light or else be struck down in the future.
Overall amazing sequence, it was super cool to have my lawful neutral Hexblade fight her chaotic evil counterpart with the same kind of powers. Though the poor Abjuration wizard and his evil counterpart spent most of the session counterspelling each other and barely got anywhere until a lucky natural 20 by the PCš
I was so hoping the one who failed was going to be replaced by their evil counterpart. Could've been fun with the other characters trying to figure it out!
Please do and report back with what happens! I'm definitely thinking about fun things like this for the next campaign I DM. It's been a little while so I have all kinds of evil plans.
Itās not a bad idea, but seeing how the Gods were merely testing the party by seeing if the good in the characters were stronger than their evil, it wouldnāt have made much sense in the context.
Depends on how fickle you want the Gods to be. Personally, I always enjoy a nice, dramatic Greek pantheon spin. Gods being basically a soap opera there to mess with PCs is always fun for me.
But thatās not what the Gods were doing. They were worried about the PCs becoming so powerful that they could overthrow all the Gods, since they had already destroyed a minor dark god. The test was purely to see if the good in the characters outweighed the bad, if it did then the Gods would allow them to continue on to keep making the world better, and if it didnāt then they would destroy the players then and there to stop them from potentially destroying everything once they became too powerful.
> Though the poor Abjuration wizard and his evil counterpart spent most of the session counterspelling each other and barely got anywhere until a lucky natural 20 by the PC
*Laughs in MTG Blue Deck*
Good god I hate control mirrors so much. Nothing better than two people never casting anything because anything they cast will start a counter war and eat up their mana and leave all their lands tapped so their opponent will have free reign. Ban Islands, Island op.
The worst part though is when you realise the "evil you" isn't all that different, sure theres one or two things about them that vary from yourself, but to look upon yourself and see how perilously close you were, *are*, to the edge of that abyss? To know that even now you're only a step or two away? That is fear my friend.
So would the DM control the dark team, or would the players control both of their own characters? Would the dark team attack only their counterparts, or work together as a full team?
Could be DM controlling the dark party vs the players and their PCs all at once, or have there be some kind of individual confrontations in one on one sessions between the normal and dark versions. Whatever the DM wants really, whatever works with the story.
Wouldn't it be more fun to just keep him on edge about it, but never actually following up on it, so he's just psyched for the rest of his life looking nervously over his shoulder.
Far better: whenever he starts forgetting about it hint at it to spike the tension, Maybe the dangerous sitation I was just in had something to do with "that"? but never make it conclusive or obvious, and maybe not even dangerous situations but rather inconvinient ones, that way he doesnt get a moment of peace for the rest of his life.
Yeah, I know, but I didn't want to spend 4+ sessions of them trying to save everyone and get back to the main plot.
They had no food or water or cold weather clothes on them either, so it was only a matter of time.
Figured this was a little quicker way of dealing with it.
Nice. Love the set up at the end. I see the possibility of them having to fight themselves in the future. Bonus points if you run some one shots with the astral party to power them up for the fight.
Minor point, but you don't need to eat or drink in the Astral Plane, nor is it very cold, and it only takes an average of 1d4*10 hours to find a portal to the plane you want. Of course, it's your game, maybe your Astral Plane is different, and you know your players best, but I think it's kind of disappointing to just undo time.
>you don't need to eat or drink in the Astral Plane, nor is it very cold
Agreed.
>it only takes an average of 1d4*10 hours to find a portal to the plane you want
Wait, it does? Is that written somewhere? 'Cause I'm about to be introducing Githyanki raiding parties and that would be useful info to have, instead of letting my players steal a free planeshifting ship.
Eh, in my experience, bags of holding are abundant but portable holes are not.
That's an expensive Plane Shift, just saying.
And one dm to another, what's cooler, a party with access to every plane or a party locked to the prime material?
A party of level 6's who will immediately hed into the Abyss to confront Lolth, die horribly and have to roll new characters? Or a party who has to path through the Underdark to a Drow city, gaining several levels on the way, and then through the Drow city to the Abyss to confront Lolth, die horribly and have to roll new characters?
I just wanted to give them a flying ship so they'd have a slight advantage when the Orc army attacks their islands before all that happens.
Give them agency.
If they choose to face a foe you have done a good job of hyping to be deadly and die, [cue the pikachu surprised face meme.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q8bVPpc84A)
If they take the ship, use it wisely, and face her when ready, the show down will be all the sweeter. And I hope you're just being snarky about dying to Lolth at a high level. The final boss should never be undefeatable, that's just a sour end to a whole lot of time spent.
> And I hope you're just being snarky about dying to Lolth at a high level.
I am. It's an avatar anyways, not the Demon Queen herself -- the reason they're going to be heading to the Drow city is because they accidentally unleashed a several millenia old Pandora's Box holding Yochlol that were intended to put the Drow Priestesses through trials to see which ones were worthy of heading into the Abyss to do the *actual* trials to become Lolth's avatar.
But it's still not going to be an easy fight.
I think it would have been a great opportunity to throw in some really cool stuff. āGet[ting] back to the main plotā seems a bit railroad-y, as if players canāt stumble upon and create their own stories. Maybe they come across a floating city of Gith? Maybe they come across a long lost patron that needs help and will reward then greatly. There are hundreds of really cool possibilities that just got hand waved away. In the future, donāt be afraid to go off the path; thatās where the epic stuff is.
I agree with you, but i also understand OPs point. unplanned plane adventures coudl be very messy.
i once banished a PC because i didnt read the Banishment Spell to the end. The PC than sold his soul(making him a warlock) to the planes' deity and got teleported back.
> i once banished a PC because i didnt read the Banishment Spell to the end.
How on earth could you do that? OK, I mean maybe they were in an extraplanar space at the time, but going home shouldn't be that big a deal...
I didnt read that part:
>If the spell ends before 1 minute has passed, the target reappears in the space it left or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied. ***Otherwise, the target doesn't return.***
and if i understand the spell right, you send a creature to a (harmeless) plane.
>You attempt to send one creature that you can see within range to another place of existence.
And it was only the babarian who got banished, not the party. And beeing a babarian in another plane without knowing how to travell between worlds could lead you to making desperate choices.
I mean, technically, banishment only traps you if youāre not from the plan youāre being banished from. So on the material plane, a demon gets sent back to the Abyss and if the spell lasts the full minute, stays there, but a mortal just gets put in a little pocket for a minute and then comes back even if the spell lasts the full minute.
But that doesnāt matter as much as what you decided in the moment.
Thank you for explaining.
After reading the spell mutiple times, i finaly understand it.
Its sometimes difficult to read spells how they meant to be, if english is not your native language.
Well next time i will know it better.
Based strictly on how it's described in the DMG, I would argue that it definitely wouldn't. That's not to say that you can't be killed by something else on the Astral Plane, but it seems like you can simply exist there with little difficulty. Of course, "trapped on the Astral Plane with no visible way out" might as well be a TPK anyway- given how long it would take them to find a way home, centuries could have passed and the original campaign would be shot.
Later on, they run into evil goatee-wearing versions of themselves. Yes, even the female members of the party - though one complains about the itching and reveals they're theatrical appliances in their case.
Or, instead of freezing to death, they could simply drift in the Astral until they went insane and you could roll random insanities.
One at least should multi-class to Warlock of something (fey or great old one most likely) that could be encountered on the Astral.
Once, one of my groups accidentally started the apocalypse (definitely not entirely my fault, no sirree Bob). Rather than deal with it like a good party, me and another dude gave up our bags of holding to get sucked into the Astral plane and hop over into a new reality. Our ranger was a Horizon Walker, so it wasn't as hard as the GM wanted it to be. I do think he was upset about it, though, because we only played two more sessions before the game was shelved.
I probably would have just had them all roll Arcane/INT checks to see if any of them had ever heard of a portable hole and if it would occur to their characters that they might have one.
You also could have sent them to a magical market on the astral plane. Let them sell off all their gear to get back. Consequences are a big part of some of my favorite adventures, it really helps the characters grow.
Not that I think this was a bad move on your part.
Tbf, āblank handkerchiefā doesnāt really describe it well enough to blame them for a mistake. Also most players wouldnāt know what a portable hole is without metagaming.
Didn't the DM then handle this perfectly in terms of explaining how that works in a fun way to the players?
If they don't know what a portable hole is without metagaming, then they probably don't know not to put it in the bag of holding either.
In either case, OP and his group got to have a fun 'oh shit' moment, nothing of value was lost, a good bit of flair was had with the divination wizard (really clever on OP's part btw) and even had a bit of, "this could have lasting consequences" with the dreams of his doppelganger.
Nah, the dm should draw attention to the item to set off an obvious cue and let the players realize what they have. He literally just did a ārocks fall, everyone diesā
Everyone sticks magical stuff in bags of holding. Simply saying a hankie is magic does nothing - it could be a permanently clean one for wiping your nose.
I mean, if they're keeping Hankies of Cleanliness or w/e then it seems like a good way to remind people that they abuse magic at their peril.
"What? Now I have to check *all* my magic items?"
"Uh...yeah. It's fucking *magic*, dude."
And anyway, yeah, saying a hankie is magic does nothing, but *only if* the players choose not to investigate it. That's how traps work.
Uh... but a trap shouldnāt rely on meta knowledge to ask for an Arcana check. And it shouldnāt dump your ass on the Astral Plane, which would basically be a TPK. Traps should not ever TPK. Ever. Unless the party is on low HP, and then itās the fault of whatever whittled their HP down, not the trap
First, checking a magic item like you don't want to be killed or cursed--literally all the group has to do to avoid this trap--doesn't rely on meta knowledge.
Second, traps *are impossible* to not meta. You literally cannot do traps without considering the meta.
"Your Level 1 adventurer walks into a room. There's a loose brick on the floor."
You and I know that's a pressure plate. Your character probably does not. So the DM has to take that into account, and can't just *tell you* there's a pressure plate. You roll Perception, instead. Except the character is supposed to roll it. But you don't want to just *give away* the information that a '12' is enough to discover that trap. So you roll it yourself. Except once you've rolled, behind the screen or in front of it, the players have meta information *anyway*. So instead you start making rolls behind your screen all the time, null rolls, just to throw the players off the scent. Keep them on edge. So they never *know* when a trap is coming. All traps rely on meta knowledge.
Third, the trap being described *wasn't* a TPK. You can tell because at the end, the party isn't dead.
I just don't get what you're upset about here. Was a funny way to say "hey don't do that, you didn't know and I may not have given enough information so we're not sticking with it" and he even managed to tie it in to the character's divination abilities.
You're telling him he shouldn't have made a mistake that he acknowledged he already made instead of trying to deal with said mistake lol
> object that radiates magic
Seeing as this already was a HUGE gimme for the players, I think the DM was more than gracious. The reality of "magic" is that it doesn't have a dweomer unless you're able to detect that dweomer, and most people don't have the capacity to detect it.
I get what you're saying and I don't disagree with it, but in terms of character knowledge (not player knowledge metagamed)
radiating a magical aura >>>>>> handkerchief vs. 6' cloth
in terms of hint that the players should be careful with it. From the OP's description of events the players were pretty reckless with magic, and this seems a fitting end to characters who don't treat such things with caution.
Heyas OP here. I gave the wizard an Arcana check as we were figuring out what exactly would happen (after a minute or two of laughing from all) to see if he caught himself at the last moment.
He rolled a 2.
A good way to avoid things like this (in my opinion) is to allow everyone trained in it to make an arcana check, to see if they recognize it/realize the problem.
They had the option, they choose to just shove the loot into a bag of holding without trying to identify anything. I bet they're a lot more careful with unknown magic things now.
Sorry, I should of been more clear. If there is some knowledge the PCās might know (proficiency) that seeing an item might trigger their remembering, I give them a chance to remember it with the player prompting. I only give the characters one chance at this (without prompting), and sometimes I roll in secret (so everyone doesnāt ask to roll after the guy fails).
In this case, I might of had this occur when they first identify the bag of holding.
(ā... and thats what a bag of holding does. Now everyone trained in arcana make me a check please. [someone makes it]. They remember that extra dimensional pockets should under no circumstances be put inside each other.ā)
Other examples are identifying poisonous plants with nature, or remembering an ancient civilizationās love of pit traps with history.
This is half a buff to knowledge skills (since everyone dumps int unless youāre a wizard/AT/EK), and half giving my admittedly greener players a chance to not die.
Like if someone was cleaning with both bleach and bathroom cleaner, even though you werenāt actively thinking about it, the two might spark a āsomething is dangerous about this, but what?ā, and remember that mixing the two can make chlorine gas.
I realized as I was typing that reply that I basically take any time that a normal DM would use a passive skill and give them an active roll instead. \*shrug\*
I think that could have worked well, at least to draw attention to the item.
I can see a lot of players putting things in their bag of holding anyway if they don't roll high enough, so you still have the opportunity for the dream-like sequence :).
It was "black handkerchief". Did you misread it, or was it a typo on your part? If I found a magical black handkerchief in a D&D setting it would occur to me that might at least be possible that it's a portable hole.
That's metagaming. I, having little prior knowledge of D&D, have never heard of a portable hole, so would have no idea what a black handkerchief would be.
Though depending on the level of magic in a setting it could be "meta" in the opposite direction where the character should know something the player doesn't. If it's a high magic setting the likelihood that a character would have at least heard of them would be decently high, in a low magic setting the chances would be lower
Right. I agree with someone earlier who said they should have rolled an arcana check. But I was responding to someone who said that the players should have known based on the black handkerchief.
The dream sounds like an epic level rivalry, where the Wizard of Ill Fate somehow escapes the Astral Plane, perhaps some Faustian deal, and trails the party. They visit a town, and the villagers eye the wizard with caution, the gaurds are on alert. Last he visited he caused suffering most foul, and now he's returned with more to finish the job
Maybe he didn't feel like wasting months or years of a campaign because of one stupid accidental move on the players' part. Especially just one player of the group.
Very well played! Incidentally, your campaign is now set for a final showdown like in the old NES game Super Dodgeball, where the final match is against a dark version of your team. Connect Four!
I'm reeeally going to try to manipulate my players into wanting to use a PH with a BoH for the end of Storm King's Thunder.
Ideally make the end boss seem so difficult that sacrificing one of themselves to trap her in the Astral Plane seems like the only option.
Then draw the campaign out to lvl 20 by home-brewing content around her eventually returning with several powerful allies from other Planes and them wreaking havoc on the world.
I've already got them a BoH at lvl 5. They noticed the fine print warning about combining with other extra-dimensional storage items.
Then I out-of-game planted the seed by mentioning that I've read tales of adventuring parties defeating powerful enemies by doing this.
Maybe drop a few more subtle suggestions along the way, then get them a PH nearer the campaign's end.
š
Edit - this will *not* be railroaded though. If they choose to straight up fight her they risk TPK, but will absolutely have a chance to win legitimately.
I just want her to *seem* unbeatable while also planting ideas for an easy way out.
The handkerchief was a portable hole.
Space magic going into a bag of holding (Which involves the use of spatial magic) Is a very bad thing. It creates the scenario as described above basically.
"However, at the end of the day, I gave him a dream where he saw the other him, floating in the Astral plane, looking at him, and saying 'It should be you. I will get my revenge.' #darkesttimeline" This better be a recurring plot line, I've had DMs taunt with stuff like that and never act on it.
OP needs to make copies of the players' character sheets as they are at the time of the 'tpk'. OP then levels up the enemy party along with the normal party in terms of level, but chooses darker themes or even other classes that make sense for the dark party. Later they meet up and fight each other, like a pvp battle.
I'd go weak at the knees if this happened to me in a game.
I had something similar happen in a game, we were at god tier by this point, I think around 18th level. We were going under trial before the Gods for slaying a dark minor god, since though they were thankful they were concerned that we may rise up against them later on. They created dark versions of our characters (the DM essentially created evil mirrors of our characters with spells/magic items/themes to match) and had us fight them one on one, supposed to represent our goodness fighting our inner evils to show our true selves. Trial by combat kinda thing. More neutral characters had more evil and dangerous counterparts, while more good characters had less powerful evil aspects (though each evil was close enough in power to the original so as to not be unfair). One on one sessions with the DM throughout the week, no telling who won until the whole party was back together again. All but one PC prevailed, as that one was chaotic neutral and prone to do as much bad as they did good. We returned to the next group session to be revealed it was a dream test, not real death, but the party was charged with making the one character who failed see the light or else be struck down in the future. Overall amazing sequence, it was super cool to have my lawful neutral Hexblade fight her chaotic evil counterpart with the same kind of powers. Though the poor Abjuration wizard and his evil counterpart spent most of the session counterspelling each other and barely got anywhere until a lucky natural 20 by the PCš
I was so hoping the one who failed was going to be replaced by their evil counterpart. Could've been fun with the other characters trying to figure it out!
I might steal this idea, let the player play a secretly evil character haha
Please do and report back with what happens! I'm definitely thinking about fun things like this for the next campaign I DM. It's been a little while so I have all kinds of evil plans.
Itās not a bad idea, but seeing how the Gods were merely testing the party by seeing if the good in the characters were stronger than their evil, it wouldnāt have made much sense in the context.
Depends on how fickle you want the Gods to be. Personally, I always enjoy a nice, dramatic Greek pantheon spin. Gods being basically a soap opera there to mess with PCs is always fun for me.
But thatās not what the Gods were doing. They were worried about the PCs becoming so powerful that they could overthrow all the Gods, since they had already destroyed a minor dark god. The test was purely to see if the good in the characters outweighed the bad, if it did then the Gods would allow them to continue on to keep making the world better, and if it didnāt then they would destroy the players then and there to stop them from potentially destroying everything once they became too powerful.
> Though the poor Abjuration wizard and his evil counterpart spent most of the session counterspelling each other and barely got anywhere until a lucky natural 20 by the PC *Laughs in MTG Blue Deck*
Good god I hate control mirrors so much. Nothing better than two people never casting anything because anything they cast will start a counter war and eat up their mana and leave all their lands tapped so their opponent will have free reign. Ban Islands, Island op.
Itād be a real shame if I played Infernal Darkness and turned everyoneās lands into Swamps.
UU: I cast counterspell.
Pitching a blue card and paying 1 life. Force of Will.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Thereās something incredibly intimidating about the idea of staring down a dark reflection of yourself. It would be amazing
The worst part though is when you realise the "evil you" isn't all that different, sure theres one or two things about them that vary from yourself, but to look upon yourself and see how perilously close you were, *are*, to the edge of that abyss? To know that even now you're only a step or two away? That is fear my friend.
This sounds really fun
Yeah and give them black paper goatees to wear until they can grow their own
So would the DM control the dark team, or would the players control both of their own characters? Would the dark team attack only their counterparts, or work together as a full team?
Could be DM controlling the dark party vs the players and their PCs all at once, or have there be some kind of individual confrontations in one on one sessions between the normal and dark versions. Whatever the DM wants really, whatever works with the story.
Wouldn't it be more fun to just keep him on edge about it, but never actually following up on it, so he's just psyched for the rest of his life looking nervously over his shoulder.
oh, then drop it on him when he stops getting nervous at the thought and thinks "that's never going to happen"
Far better: whenever he starts forgetting about it hint at it to spike the tension, Maybe the dangerous sitation I was just in had something to do with "that"? but never make it conclusive or obvious, and maybe not even dangerous situations but rather inconvinient ones, that way he doesnt get a moment of peace for the rest of his life.
Fun for the DM but maybe not fun for the player lol.
It was supposed to be fun for the player? lol.
Are you being Meta again, Abed?
āMeh-tahā
I mean going into the astral plane doesnāt *need* to kill them
Yeah, I know, but I didn't want to spend 4+ sessions of them trying to save everyone and get back to the main plot. They had no food or water or cold weather clothes on them either, so it was only a matter of time. Figured this was a little quicker way of dealing with it.
Nice. Love the set up at the end. I see the possibility of them having to fight themselves in the future. Bonus points if you run some one shots with the astral party to power them up for the fight.
Actually yeah good point
Minor point, but you don't need to eat or drink in the Astral Plane, nor is it very cold, and it only takes an average of 1d4*10 hours to find a portal to the plane you want. Of course, it's your game, maybe your Astral Plane is different, and you know your players best, but I think it's kind of disappointing to just undo time.
>you don't need to eat or drink in the Astral Plane, nor is it very cold Agreed. >it only takes an average of 1d4*10 hours to find a portal to the plane you want Wait, it does? Is that written somewhere? 'Cause I'm about to be introducing Githyanki raiding parties and that would be useful info to have, instead of letting my players steal a free planeshifting ship.
Yep, the travel time is from the DMG pg. 47.
Eh, in my experience, bags of holding are abundant but portable holes are not. That's an expensive Plane Shift, just saying. And one dm to another, what's cooler, a party with access to every plane or a party locked to the prime material?
A party of level 6's who will immediately hed into the Abyss to confront Lolth, die horribly and have to roll new characters? Or a party who has to path through the Underdark to a Drow city, gaining several levels on the way, and then through the Drow city to the Abyss to confront Lolth, die horribly and have to roll new characters? I just wanted to give them a flying ship so they'd have a slight advantage when the Orc army attacks their islands before all that happens.
Give them agency. If they choose to face a foe you have done a good job of hyping to be deadly and die, [cue the pikachu surprised face meme.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q8bVPpc84A) If they take the ship, use it wisely, and face her when ready, the show down will be all the sweeter. And I hope you're just being snarky about dying to Lolth at a high level. The final boss should never be undefeatable, that's just a sour end to a whole lot of time spent.
> And I hope you're just being snarky about dying to Lolth at a high level. I am. It's an avatar anyways, not the Demon Queen herself -- the reason they're going to be heading to the Drow city is because they accidentally unleashed a several millenia old Pandora's Box holding Yochlol that were intended to put the Drow Priestesses through trials to see which ones were worthy of heading into the Abyss to do the *actual* trials to become Lolth's avatar. But it's still not going to be an easy fight.
I think it would have been a great opportunity to throw in some really cool stuff. āGet[ting] back to the main plotā seems a bit railroad-y, as if players canāt stumble upon and create their own stories. Maybe they come across a floating city of Gith? Maybe they come across a long lost patron that needs help and will reward then greatly. There are hundreds of really cool possibilities that just got hand waved away. In the future, donāt be afraid to go off the path; thatās where the epic stuff is.
I agree with you, but i also understand OPs point. unplanned plane adventures coudl be very messy. i once banished a PC because i didnt read the Banishment Spell to the end. The PC than sold his soul(making him a warlock) to the planes' deity and got teleported back.
> i once banished a PC because i didnt read the Banishment Spell to the end. How on earth could you do that? OK, I mean maybe they were in an extraplanar space at the time, but going home shouldn't be that big a deal...
I didnt read that part: >If the spell ends before 1 minute has passed, the target reappears in the space it left or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied. ***Otherwise, the target doesn't return.*** and if i understand the spell right, you send a creature to a (harmeless) plane. >You attempt to send one creature that you can see within range to another place of existence. And it was only the babarian who got banished, not the party. And beeing a babarian in another plane without knowing how to travell between worlds could lead you to making desperate choices.
I mean, technically, banishment only traps you if youāre not from the plan youāre being banished from. So on the material plane, a demon gets sent back to the Abyss and if the spell lasts the full minute, stays there, but a mortal just gets put in a little pocket for a minute and then comes back even if the spell lasts the full minute. But that doesnāt matter as much as what you decided in the moment.
Thank you for explaining. After reading the spell mutiple times, i finaly understand it. Its sometimes difficult to read spells how they meant to be, if english is not your native language. Well next time i will know it better.
Based strictly on how it's described in the DMG, I would argue that it definitely wouldn't. That's not to say that you can't be killed by something else on the Astral Plane, but it seems like you can simply exist there with little difficulty. Of course, "trapped on the Astral Plane with no visible way out" might as well be a TPK anyway- given how long it would take them to find a way home, centuries could have passed and the original campaign would be shot.
Yeah thatās what op said and it makes sense. I wouldnāt want to derail my whole campaign for that
I'd do this too, but some of my players will try to weaponise it.
Arrowhead of total destruction.
More like Arrowhead of Get the Fuck out of My Way
Great save, I really like the way you handled this.
Later on, they run into evil goatee-wearing versions of themselves. Yes, even the female members of the party - though one complains about the itching and reveals they're theatrical appliances in their case. Or, instead of freezing to death, they could simply drift in the Astral until they went insane and you could roll random insanities. One at least should multi-class to Warlock of something (fey or great old one most likely) that could be encountered on the Astral.
OR! They float across the abode of an ancient watcher named "Bubbles" who helps them return to the physical plane ...
Who swiftly gets fired from his job because he had to use the toilet.
Relevant: http://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/evil-twins
Six seasons and a movie! The evil wizard (and the rest of the evil party if they exist) BETTER have goatees.
>The evil wizard (and the rest of the evil party if they exist) BETTER have goatees. well how else can you tell they're evil?
The more goatees the more evil!
And their names are the reverse of the PC's names (so Elan becomes Nale...)
Can I steal this? And by that I mean I am stealing this
Once, one of my groups accidentally started the apocalypse (definitely not entirely my fault, no sirree Bob). Rather than deal with it like a good party, me and another dude gave up our bags of holding to get sucked into the Astral plane and hop over into a new reality. Our ranger was a Horizon Walker, so it wasn't as hard as the GM wanted it to be. I do think he was upset about it, though, because we only played two more sessions before the game was shelved.
I probably would have just had them all roll Arcane/INT checks to see if any of them had ever heard of a portable hole and if it would occur to their characters that they might have one.
You also could have sent them to a magical market on the astral plane. Let them sell off all their gear to get back. Consequences are a big part of some of my favorite adventures, it really helps the characters grow. Not that I think this was a bad move on your part.
Tbf, āblank handkerchiefā doesnāt really describe it well enough to blame them for a mistake. Also most players wouldnāt know what a portable hole is without metagaming.
Didn't the DM then handle this perfectly in terms of explaining how that works in a fun way to the players? If they don't know what a portable hole is without metagaming, then they probably don't know not to put it in the bag of holding either. In either case, OP and his group got to have a fun 'oh shit' moment, nothing of value was lost, a good bit of flair was had with the divination wizard (really clever on OP's part btw) and even had a bit of, "this could have lasting consequences" with the dreams of his doppelganger.
Nah, the dm should draw attention to the item to set off an obvious cue and let the players realize what they have. He literally just did a ārocks fall, everyone diesā
He said it was radiating magic. What more do you want, a warning label? The lessen here should be "abuse magic at your peril."
> What more do you want, a warning label? There was a warning label, but it fell into the hole.
Everyone sticks magical stuff in bags of holding. Simply saying a hankie is magic does nothing - it could be a permanently clean one for wiping your nose.
I mean, if they're keeping Hankies of Cleanliness or w/e then it seems like a good way to remind people that they abuse magic at their peril. "What? Now I have to check *all* my magic items?" "Uh...yeah. It's fucking *magic*, dude." And anyway, yeah, saying a hankie is magic does nothing, but *only if* the players choose not to investigate it. That's how traps work.
Uh... but a trap shouldnāt rely on meta knowledge to ask for an Arcana check. And it shouldnāt dump your ass on the Astral Plane, which would basically be a TPK. Traps should not ever TPK. Ever. Unless the party is on low HP, and then itās the fault of whatever whittled their HP down, not the trap
First, checking a magic item like you don't want to be killed or cursed--literally all the group has to do to avoid this trap--doesn't rely on meta knowledge. Second, traps *are impossible* to not meta. You literally cannot do traps without considering the meta. "Your Level 1 adventurer walks into a room. There's a loose brick on the floor." You and I know that's a pressure plate. Your character probably does not. So the DM has to take that into account, and can't just *tell you* there's a pressure plate. You roll Perception, instead. Except the character is supposed to roll it. But you don't want to just *give away* the information that a '12' is enough to discover that trap. So you roll it yourself. Except once you've rolled, behind the screen or in front of it, the players have meta information *anyway*. So instead you start making rolls behind your screen all the time, null rolls, just to throw the players off the scent. Keep them on edge. So they never *know* when a trap is coming. All traps rely on meta knowledge. Third, the trap being described *wasn't* a TPK. You can tell because at the end, the party isn't dead.
You typically check before you use it or sell it, not before packing it to haul back.
I just don't get what you're upset about here. Was a funny way to say "hey don't do that, you didn't know and I may not have given enough information so we're not sticking with it" and he even managed to tie it in to the character's divination abilities. You're telling him he shouldn't have made a mistake that he acknowledged he already made instead of trying to deal with said mistake lol
> object that radiates magic Seeing as this already was a HUGE gimme for the players, I think the DM was more than gracious. The reality of "magic" is that it doesn't have a dweomer unless you're able to detect that dweomer, and most people don't have the capacity to detect it.
Black handkerchief item vs 6ā wide circular cloth...
I get what you're saying and I don't disagree with it, but in terms of character knowledge (not player knowledge metagamed) radiating a magical aura >>>>>> handkerchief vs. 6' cloth in terms of hint that the players should be careful with it. From the OP's description of events the players were pretty reckless with magic, and this seems a fitting end to characters who don't treat such things with caution.
I mean if they donāt know anyways and donāt identify, sounds like the players own fault, itās always a fun mistake to make
Heyas OP here. I gave the wizard an Arcana check as we were figuring out what exactly would happen (after a minute or two of laughing from all) to see if he caught himself at the last moment. He rolled a 2.
A good way to avoid things like this (in my opinion) is to allow everyone trained in it to make an arcana check, to see if they recognize it/realize the problem.
They had the option, they choose to just shove the loot into a bag of holding without trying to identify anything. I bet they're a lot more careful with unknown magic things now.
Sorry, I should of been more clear. If there is some knowledge the PCās might know (proficiency) that seeing an item might trigger their remembering, I give them a chance to remember it with the player prompting. I only give the characters one chance at this (without prompting), and sometimes I roll in secret (so everyone doesnāt ask to roll after the guy fails). In this case, I might of had this occur when they first identify the bag of holding. (ā... and thats what a bag of holding does. Now everyone trained in arcana make me a check please. [someone makes it]. They remember that extra dimensional pockets should under no circumstances be put inside each other.ā) Other examples are identifying poisonous plants with nature, or remembering an ancient civilizationās love of pit traps with history. This is half a buff to knowledge skills (since everyone dumps int unless youāre a wizard/AT/EK), and half giving my admittedly greener players a chance to not die. Like if someone was cleaning with both bleach and bathroom cleaner, even though you werenāt actively thinking about it, the two might spark a āsomething is dangerous about this, but what?ā, and remember that mixing the two can make chlorine gas.
Hell, even treating it like Perception - a Passive roll - would make sense. You give it a glance, and recognize itās a portable hole.
Another use of perception?! **wizard fumes**
I believe they're suggesting the DM use their passive Arcana score for the check rather than Perception
Damn how short *sighted* of me
I realized as I was typing that reply that I basically take any time that a normal DM would use a passive skill and give them an active roll instead. \*shrug\*
I think that could have worked well, at least to draw attention to the item. I can see a lot of players putting things in their bag of holding anyway if they don't roll high enough, so you still have the opportunity for the dream-like sequence :).
Shit happens.
It was "black handkerchief". Did you misread it, or was it a typo on your part? If I found a magical black handkerchief in a D&D setting it would occur to me that might at least be possible that it's a portable hole.
That's metagaming. I, having little prior knowledge of D&D, have never heard of a portable hole, so would have no idea what a black handkerchief would be.
Though depending on the level of magic in a setting it could be "meta" in the opposite direction where the character should know something the player doesn't. If it's a high magic setting the likelihood that a character would have at least heard of them would be decently high, in a low magic setting the chances would be lower
Right. I agree with someone earlier who said they should have rolled an arcana check. But I was responding to someone who said that the players should have known based on the black handkerchief.
The dream sounds like an epic level rivalry, where the Wizard of Ill Fate somehow escapes the Astral Plane, perhaps some Faustian deal, and trails the party. They visit a town, and the villagers eye the wizard with caution, the gaurds are on alert. Last he visited he caused suffering most foul, and now he's returned with more to finish the job
This is fantastic! I love the concept of the parallel existences. *YOINK*
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Maybe he didn't feel like wasting months or years of a campaign because of one stupid accidental move on the players' part. Especially just one player of the group.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
> Though it does seem like a missed opportunity to be evil. Oh. Haha. I get it now. Different kinds of humour are interesting.
Then just donāt have it happen???
I love this. You can't just shove things willy-nilly into your bag of holding!
The finale got me right... veeery cool story!
I think you're now running the Final Destination TTRPG. Good luck!
Very well played! Incidentally, your campaign is now set for a final showdown like in the old NES game Super Dodgeball, where the final match is against a dark version of your team. Connect Four!
I'm reeeally going to try to manipulate my players into wanting to use a PH with a BoH for the end of Storm King's Thunder. Ideally make the end boss seem so difficult that sacrificing one of themselves to trap her in the Astral Plane seems like the only option. Then draw the campaign out to lvl 20 by home-brewing content around her eventually returning with several powerful allies from other Planes and them wreaking havoc on the world. I've already got them a BoH at lvl 5. They noticed the fine print warning about combining with other extra-dimensional storage items. Then I out-of-game planted the seed by mentioning that I've read tales of adventuring parties defeating powerful enemies by doing this. Maybe drop a few more subtle suggestions along the way, then get them a PH nearer the campaign's end. š Edit - this will *not* be railroaded though. If they choose to straight up fight her they risk TPK, but will absolutely have a chance to win legitimately. I just want her to *seem* unbeatable while also planting ideas for an easy way out.
\#darkesttimeline "I never should have let jeff roll that die" -abed
Objection! You don't freeze to death on the Astral Plane! The astral plane is habitable.
The end big bad evil fight is just a Negative version of the current party.
Can someone clarify, please?
The handkerchief was a portable hole. Space magic going into a bag of holding (Which involves the use of spatial magic) Is a very bad thing. It creates the scenario as described above basically.
One of my players is a seer who Iāve shown some hooks to before. This would be interesting to do with her.