Player feels he's being treated unfairly

[DrDeth]

No, we're all seasoned players and I had already babied them with a few things before that and eventually put the rule down that there are no more "idiot" hints and no take backs. They are all adults and can live with the consequences of they're actions.

Umm, either he’s a CE (rarely a good idea) necromancer who challenger a Pally 9 levels above him to get some solo eps (which he shouldn’t have been allowed ) and who took many ranks in a silly “profession” – *OR* he’s a adult. Pick one.

[Darth_Versity]

Umm, either he’s a CE (rarely a good idea) necromancer who challenger a Pally 9 levels above him to get some solo eps (which he shouldn’t have been allowed ) and who took many ranks in a silly “profession” – *OR* he’s a adult. Pick one.

LOL. He's 'technically' an adult (he's 27) so i will treat him as one in terms of consequences. That doesn't mean he acts like one!

[Tyndmyr]

Not to mention, the OP said the DN deliberately sought this fight out. It wasn't an encounter, it was a "I want to fight that 20th level dude there for major XP!" In this case, it would be awful DMing to say "Ok, you can fight him. Also, he mysteriously loses 1/3 of his paladin abilities for no reason so that he becomes an appropriate fight for you."

Correct. I don't have a problem with shutting the player down, merely the style with which it was done.

You want something that doesn't sound too much like the DM thinking up a random, easy excuse to say no. Not because he deserves a yes or anything...just because you don't want to break immersion for everyone.

Personally I wouldn't have had him fight Kord himself, but a few of his more powerful minions, but that's irreverent. . The guy tried to transform an area literally made of goodness into an area of evil. Of course someone would notice and curbstomp him. Ignoring the duel thing entirely, he tried to unhallow part of a plane of good. He should be grateful he got off with a slap on the wrist.

Someone, yes. An avatar of a god personally intervening? Less likely.

Also, for reference, Unhallow is a full 24 hours to cast. Considering he only had one day to the duel...that's cutting it remarkably close.

Honestly, a better analogy than the CEO would rather be the security guard in front of the video surveillance monitors. The guy who see's everything, including the guy smoking in a no smoking area near some incredibly flamable objects/gas/whatever that could burn the building down.

Oh? Why is Kord more like the security guard than the CEO?

And what, exactly, do these metaphorical flammable objects/gas/whatever represent? Unhallow will not make the entire plane explode or burn down.

[Reluctance]

Correct. I don't have a problem with shutting the player down, merely the style with which it was done.

You want something that doesn't sound too much like the DM thinking up a random, easy excuse to say no. Not because he deserves a yes or anything...just because you don't want to break immersion for everyone.

...

Someone, yes. An avatar of a god personally intervening? Less likely.

Imagine the PCs cast the chaotic version of Unhallow in Mechanus. Without cracking your books or taking more than a few seconds to think about it, what stops by to tell him to knock it off? Or is it better to tell the DN's player that he can paralyze the game at whim by doing something incredibly stupid and forcing the DM to flip through rulebooks until he finds the thing that best fits his needs.

Yes, an avatar is a bit over the top. So's a solar. It's just that after you get past the big iconic monsters, who really has the headspace to devote to "here's a reasonably overpowered monster to come curbstomp you when you go flashing your ass at powerful people in public"?

[Tyndmyr]

Imagine the PCs cast the chaotic version of Unhallow in Mechanus. Without cracking your books or taking more than a few seconds to think about it, what stops by to tell him to knock it off? Or is it better to tell the DN's player that he can paralyze the game at whim by doing something incredibly stupid and forcing the DM to flip through rulebooks until he finds the thing that best fits his needs.

Yes, an avatar is a bit over the top. So's a solar. It's just that after you get past the big iconic monsters, who really has the headspace to devote to "here's a reasonably overpowered monster to come curbstomp you when you go flashing your ass at powerful people in public"?

When something comes by to monitor the area(plane of law, they likely do this in a notably mechanical fashion), it'll probably be one of the various constructs(Marut being one of em, can't think of the others offhand, but they're all in the monster manual together. Could find it in a second).

It will almost certainly deal with this by notifying higher ups and giving a warning to the transgressor.

There will no avatar poofing in without explanation.

Good plane? Probably a planetar. Or a local cleric or pally or some such. How you deal with them determines how things play out.

[Gullintanni]

...break immersion for everyone...Unhallow is a full 24 hours to cast.

Cut for relevance. I'm on the side of those who said this is a bit heavy handed but given that the spell has a 24 hour casting time, then Kord, a deity, has one full day of time to notice somebody pouring black ink all over the white sheet of paper that is his plane of existence, and respond accordingly.

Depending on the fluff surrounding the actions...for example,

"...A ring of Celestials surround the area as your dark energies stain the ground beneath you. Their eyes burn with fury as they bear witness to the desecration of their sacred battlefield. One begins casting a spell."

DM: Make a spellcraft check.
DN:-roll-
DM:-success-

"You successfully identify the spell as a Sending spell. Minutes pass, as you continue your casting. Eventually, the ring parts, making way for a hulking, giant of a man. His divinity permeates the very air around you, and the resolute blackness of your spell seems to drain away from the earth as he approaches. He draws a weapon and..."

DM: Roll initiative. What was your roll? 29? Yeah he still rolled higher.
DN: But you didn't roll!
DM: Fine. -rolls- He won.
DN: You didn't even look at the die.
DM: Tell you what, make a knowledge religion check.
DN: ...uhh...I rolled a 30.
DM: The man is Kord. You defiled his land. Suck it up princess.

"...and you die."

DN: ...I hate this game.

If it went down as above? IMHO, you'd have earned your death legitimately. Still a bit on the heavy handed side, I mean, the ring of celestials could just as easily do the job that you called in Kord to do...but it's defensible. At the very least, the sense of immersion is preserved.

[Reluctance]

Tyn is right that, if the OP had to do it all over again, something less than an avatar would be more appropriate. And permadeath for casting an evil spell is like summary execution for shoplifting. It's grossly disproportionate unless the players enjoy hard mode.

To go back to the CEO metaphor, though, it's like being caught smoking by the CEO. Incredibly unlikely that he just happens across you, but if it happens, sucks to be you. It's much more likely that you'll be caught by your boss (a high-level cleric or similarly beefy celestial), which will leave you just as fired. Someone powerful was liable to come along and squish the PC as a warning. It's just the OP's blanking on a more appropriate foe and the character's extreme bad luck that an avatar of Kord happened to be in the area that made things quite so extreme.

[Mnemnosyne]

Imagine the PCs cast the chaotic version of Unhallow in Mechanus. Without cracking your books or taking more than a few seconds to think about it, what stops by to tell him to knock it off? Or is it better to tell the DN's player that he can paralyze the game at whim by doing something incredibly stupid and forcing the DM to flip through rulebooks until he finds the thing that best fits his needs.

Yes, an avatar is a bit over the top. So's a solar. It's just that after you get past the big iconic monsters, who really has the headspace to devote to "here's a reasonably overpowered monster to come curbstomp you when you go flashing your ass at powerful people in public"?

Off the top of my head, on Mechanus? Modrons, obviously. A squad of pentadrones investigates at the appointed time. If/when the player(s) defeat the pentadrones, then a decaton might personally lead a larger group of pentadrones after the offender, and there would be escalation. Because that's how it works on the plane of ultimate law.

On Ysgard, things are clearly a lot more chaotic. I'd probably roll percentile dice to see how long it takes someone to even pass by the area and notice, then I'd roll off a quick chart that pops into my head that includes some really powerful stuff and some not-so-powerful stuff. Maybe a chart including a solar, asuras, deva, planetar, and then probably throw in something layer-specific like fire giants in Muspelheim. And add in a couple proxies of various gods that have their domains on Ysgard. Or, I might pick something at random off the top of my head, it doesn't really matter. But I wouldn't even consider sending the avatar of a god after a player...in pretty much any circumstances. If they were actually in the god's realm is the only way I'd even have a god potentially get involved at all, and in that case they'd just send a proxy or a powerful celestial.

None of that required more than a few moments of thought to determine, it's pretty obvious if you know the terrain. There may be something even more Ysgard-appropriate to send, but I don't know it off-hand, and it's a chaotic plane anyway, so who cares if it's the perfect response?

[Doug Lampert]

Tyn is right that, if the OP had to do it all over again, something less than an avatar would be more appropriate. And permadeath for casting an evil spell is like summary execution for shoplifting. It's grossly disproportionate unless the players enjoy hard mode.

To go back to the CEO metaphor, though, it's like being caught smoking by the CEO. Incredibly unlikely that he just happens across you, but if it happens, sucks to be you. It's much more likely that you'll be caught by your boss (a high-level cleric or similarly beefy celestial), which will leave you just as fired. Someone powerful was liable to come along and squish the PC as a warning. It's just the OP's blanking on a more appropriate foe and the character's extreme bad luck that an avatar of Kord happened to be in the area that made things quite so extreme.

You get crushed by overwhelming force for being a git == You get crushed by overwhelming force for being a git.

I don't see why it matters that the overwhelming force was an avatar of a god rather than a squad of solars or planetars. Level 11 with decent play by the planetars it comes to the same thing either way.

And it wasn't even a permadeath.

If anything the DM went WAY too easy on the guy.

[RedWarrior0]

What I would have done: the paladin comes back about four rounds before the unhallow is cast and goes for a mounted holy lance charge smite. Also, if the DN was undead, Turn/Destroy, with extra destroy.

[GreenSerpent]

An interesting way to deal with the problem would be Kord's Avatar Plane Shifting him out of Ysgard to a location (we'll call it Area A). The avatar could then demand some variety of recompense from the rest of the party in order to allow the necromancer back from Area A, as well as disspelling the unhallow.

Might be interesting as if they accept the DN has got the party annoyed at losing them time, money and magic items, if they do not then they have to plane shift about to find him, wasting the party time and resources.

[Kittenwolf]

It's the casting of Unhallow which pisses him off. Also, cheating in a one-on-one duel (by bringing in allies) would rather piss him off.

You agreed to a one-on-one duel. Then you bring in an ally. Duel null and void, proceed to curb-stomp.
.

I think this is definitely the big one.
Throwing an Unhallow in Ysgard would no doubt be frowned upon, but this is the plane that has probably seen every spell in existence infinity times over cast there, so it likely wouldn't attract personal attention.

Cheating by tipping out a bagful of undead into a duel? Against a Paladin? Now that is going to get you spanked by whatever powerful beings happen to be nearby.

[Tyndmyr]

You get crushed by overwhelming force for being a git == You get crushed by overwhelming force for being a git.

I don't see why it matters that the overwhelming force was an avatar of a god rather than a squad of solars or planetars. Level 11 with decent play by the planetars it comes to the same thing either way.

And it wasn't even a permadeath.

If anything the DM went WAY too easy on the guy.

It doesn't matter from a mechanics perspective. It matters from a story perspective.

If someone is doing something ridiculous, it's better to have his actions fail because of the natural reactions of ordinary members of the universe than because the DM does something ridiculous back.

If, at any point in telling the tale, the logical reason for something happening is "the DM thought that was crazy", you have a break in immersion. Take care of poor in char decisions in game, with the minimal amount of unrealistic actions. It's like "rocks fall, everyone dies" as an answer to someone trying to sell iron from walls of stone. A better answer is something based on the fact that it's a common spell in the setting. Someone else is bound to have already considered this.

[Doug Lampert]

It doesn't matter from a mechanics perspective. It matters from a story perspective.

If someone is doing something ridiculous, it's better to have his actions fail because of the natural reactions of ordinary members of the universe than because the DM does something ridiculous back.

If, at any point in telling the tale, the logical reason for something happening is "the DM thought that was crazy", you have a break in immersion. Take care of poor in char decisions in game, with the minimal amount of unrealistic actions. It's like "rocks fall, everyone dies" as an answer to someone trying to sell iron from walls of stone. A better answer is something based on the fact that it's a common spell in the setting. Someone else is bound to have already considered this.

Crap. The objections are entirely and solely based on the lack of a metagame issue of dropping a god on someone WITHOUT warning! There is no realism objection to an avatar, the realism problem would be with a warning being issued.

The Avatar just showing up IS realistic! The reason the God HAS avatars is so that he can deal with MANY problems at once and be in MANY places at once. This is a problem, it's on his home plane, he'd want it dealt with. Thus if there happens to be an avatar close by he'll send that rather than the squad of solars.
Maybe that it's an avatar rather than a squad of solars is a 1% chance, maybe it's a 20% chance, we don't have enough information to say. But, it is utterly clear that it's a non zero chance. The ONLY setting based objection is that a divine avatar might well make it permanent to avoid having to waste time on this particular waste of of air again.

The objections are metagame based purely on a non-realism based claim that there should be warnings prior to an overwhelming encounter. You can't then turn arround and say it's a realism issue. Realistically what he was doing results in permanent, no resurection, death. And an avatar is a perfectly reasonable delivery vehicle for that realistic response.

[VanBuren]

It doesn't matter from a mechanics perspective. It matters from a story perspective.

And the story perspective justifies what happened.

If someone is doing something ridiculous, it's better to have his actions fail because of the natural reactions of ordinary members of the universe than because the DM does something ridiculous back.

What is ridiculous about a god taking action on his own plane because someone is both explicitly offending his portfolio and actively defiling his plane? You continually assert that this doesn't make sense, now I would like to understand why.

If, at any point in telling the tale, the logical reason for something happening is "the DM thought that was crazy", you have a break in immersion. Take care of poor in char decisions in game, with the minimal amount of unrealistic actions. It's like "rocks fall, everyone dies" as an answer to someone trying to sell iron from walls of stone. A better answer is something based on the fact that it's a common spell in the setting. Someone else is bound to have already considered this.

We should be thankful then, that "the DM thought that was crazy" was not the logical reasoning.

[killem2]

What is ridiculous about a god taking action on his own plane because someone is both explicitly offending his portfolio and actively defiling his plane? You continually assert that this doesn't make sense, now I would like to understand why.

Equal and opposite reaction.

To me, looking it all over, I would have gladly let the paladin destroy the necro mancer. Utterly detroy him.

A level 11 necro mancer is like a bottle cap dropped onto jupiter, when comparing the reaction given to the action completed.

You, (and many others in this thread), seem to think this was a legion of undead that would make the orc fleets of LOTR look like a day care center, and I'm just not getting this.

It's like a the state FBI, dealing with a domestic dispute, at the other end of the state.

[The Glyphstone]

I'd call it more like the cranky old guy with the shotgun coming out on his porch to threaten the teenager prankster taking a dump on his front lawn. Grossly excessive force in retribution for a 'crime' that's more of a direct personal insult than anything substantial.


(BTW, isn't 'State FBI' an oxymoron by definition?)

[NichG]

Location is key here I think. It's not 'cranky old man with a shotgun'. This is the deity's home plane, a place that living mortals just don't go to normally. Any living mortals there are powerful beings: legendary heroes (Lv11 qualifies for Legend Lore...). I think it bears noting that a Lv11 party, especially an optimized one, can take down a Balor, a Solar, etc (not to say that even a deity in D&D can read off character level to know) So given that other party members are in the area, and this is a god with thousands of years of experience, why risk it with a proportional response when this might be a group that can slaughter a legion of angels?

[VanBuren]

Equal and opposite reaction.

To me, looking it all over, I would have gladly let the paladin destroy the necro mancer. Utterly detroy him.

A level 11 necro mancer is like a bottle cap dropped onto jupiter, when comparing the reaction given to the action completed.

You, (and many others in this thread), seem to think this was a legion of undead that would make the orc fleets of LOTR look like a day care center, and I'm just not getting this.

It's like a the state FBI, dealing with a domestic dispute, at the other end of the state.

I do not think it was a "legion of undead". As I, and many of those others have continually stated, is that the Necromancer was casting a spell that explicitly took some of the holy and good plane and was turning it into something corrupted and evil. Literally twisting the very home plane of the god into a twisted mockery. I'm just not getting why people have a problem with the deity intervening to protect the nature of his own plane.

Yes, there may have been other, better ways to enforce that, but you know what? He got a True Rez out of the deal and no lasting harm was done, so it really doesn't even matter.

[wiimanclassic]

I think he got what he deserved. A little heavy handed but also fitting. I would tell them when they started casting "You wanna **** with a deities realm? Haha, my god you are a suicidal little thing aren't you?" because honestly, what do they think will happen?

[Lycar]

3rd Edit: Ever hear of appropriate CR encounters?

Ever read the DMG? Especially page 49? That little table in the lower right corner?

By the holy RAW, a full 5 % of all encounters are supposed to be 5+ (read: 5 or more) levels above the party's. If the party in question happens to be a sole Dread Necromancer encountering a lv. 20 Paladin, well, that is just tough luck for the poor DN.

CR appropriate are a mere 50 % of the encounters a party faces by RAW.

So what was your complaint again?

Lycar

[ahenobarbi]

For what it is worth, I feel that the punishment was either just, or very light-handed. I am basing this off of the Unhallow effect, not the duel or what not.
My reasoning is below, if any want to see it.

Spoiler

Show

The Heroic Domain of Ysgard is on the good side of the outer planes. This means that it is under constant threat (if not action) of invasion from the evil aligned planes. I am quite certain that there are Devils constantly looking in on the whole plane, to see if there are any exploitable weaknesses. It is one of Kord's jobs, as a Deific caretaker of this plane, to ensure that this does not happen to the best of his ability. The duel itself is really just par for the course for the plane in question. The Unhallow is the big thing. Being cast, it represents a weakness that those of evil alignment can exploit to attempt an invasion of the realm. That is the main reason why I think that the punishment is, at the minimum, acceptable. Honestly, when your domain is under constant threat of invasion, a seditious element is dealt with immediately and harshly to prevent damage to the domain from said element.
This is also why it had to be an Avatar of Kord, rather than a gaggle of good aligned entities noticing and dog-piling the Dread Necromancer. The action had to be stomped out, fast. The unhallow basically had to never have existed, to prevent other external forces from utilizing it to cause havoc in the realm. Anything less than Kord's intervention brings an amount of uncertainty.
I probably would have done something far worse, maybe kill then transport to the Abyss or even Baator. What the DN got was basically a spanking and told to sit in the corner for a day.

Exactly. I'd add that if I were the player I'd be happy that it was some god who did it. Because he settled for preventing problem with a tiny punishment. If it was someone less busy they might take some extra effort to make sure I won't cause problem anymore.

Edit: For those who say "this is infinite plane so finite unhallowed space doesn't matter". Evil planes are infinite. So if you don't prevent every unhallowing they will unhallow the whole place pretty fast.

[myancey]

While I agree that the punishment was justified, Kord prolly should have just sent an agent of his to deal with the issue. MM's are filled with goodly agents of the gods to deal with threats both on their home planes and the material plane.

This would have also allowed the player a fighting chance to defend himself. I doubt a major deity as Kord would have gotten off his throne to deal with anyone as low as 11th level. That's like outer plane noob level.

[Grendus]

Personally, I would have required a deific level CL check to even cast unhallow in Ysgard. It's a plane made of pure good energy, you can't just taint the landscape with negative energy like you can on the more neutrally aligned Prime Material. I'd require something like a DC 50 CL check, he's literally trying to overcome a god's spell resistance.

That said, having an Avatar of Kord pop up to kill him wasn't disproportional to his actions. He literally tried to push evil into a good aligned plane, gods have chained people to rocks and had their livers pecked out for eternity for less. Heck, considering that Ysgard will true resurrect him the next day, you were downright generous.

[Snowbluff]

Seems like neither side will reach an accord.

Note to self, learn to sage on this forum...