Player is set on doing something MASASIVELY stupid, needs to feel consequences

[Contrast]

PS, he believes he has a way to escape...As the dungeon master I highly doubt a level six multi classier can escape from a Drow city, in anyway shape or form. Again I want a punishment that'll stick

I would ask him how he's intending to escape. Players trying to keep secrets from the DM is the height of silliness - better for him to be told now that his character would understand his plan won't work than the player getting annoyed when it doesn't later.

I would be cautious of the mentality of imposing 'punishments'. Consequences are fine but you seem very keen that the player regret his choices here - if the character is annoying you then it may be better to talk to the player rather than punishing the character.

[Aprender]

{scrubbed}
If a player wants to suicide his character, he will find a way. Allow him to do it off screen.

[Ganryu]

Must say, love all the varied answers. Means there are a lot of different styles of how to DM, and that's a good thing. OP should take that into account as well, there's the matter of what he WANTS to do as well. If it fits his style go with it. Whatever answer aligns best with you.

Dm's are the consequences of the world. If he does something stupid, and the dice end up bad, it is up to DM to decide what the consequences are. Player has no right to whine. Good luck!

(Also, someone earlier said Cleric Sorcerer was bad. Depends how you do it. Most Multiclasses suck so hard, but 2 Cleric/18 Sorcerer tends to be very, very strong. Example, Tempest Cleric, Storm Sorcerer.)

[Sigreid]

I would just tell the player that downtime activities are just that, down time activities. Anything that can't be solved with a few simple rolls and no major consequence for failure is not a down time activity, it's an adventure. And when I'm DMing, adventures have to include the rest of the group.

[zinycor]

I do't think the situation is so cut and dry as you describe it.

In any case, explain to him that

1: Downtime activities are not meant to do these sort of things.
2: If he were todo suhg a thing his character would die, no die rolls needed
3: If he wants to go into a Drow city and meet some drow, He will need to convince the party to go with him as an adventure, no downtime activity.

Having said that, I would say that as a downtime activity he could spend resources and time in order to find out a way into a "Friendly" drow city.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Have him return to the passage go about an hour inside and the passage further down has been collapsed. The area is also flooding because the collapse dug into an underground lake.
Seems some locals got nervous about there being a passage to the Underdark nearby and took steps to seal it.

Or just have the party run into a Drow who escaped to the surface. If you’re a sadist have it happen during his failed attempt to return to the Underdark.

Have him make a DC 5 insight check. On success tell him “your gut tells you this is a suicidally dumb idea.” If he does it
anyway he gets down there and have him spot something obviously way out of his league. Something the entire party was
necessary to beat before.

Or say no. Downtime is not for adventures and if he wants to go to the Underdark he has to convince the party to go with and you aren’t going to narrate two different adventures.

[1Pirate]

To be honest, it’s still a little hazy what he wants to do. If he just wants to meet a drow and say “What’s up muh brotha from a spida motha!” It doesn’t seem like something that really needs lots of punishment. He goes in, they chase him away.

If it’s a matter of you not wanting to spend play time on a downtime activity, just tell him he met a drow, complimented him on his boots, there was a misunderstanding and, long story short, he’s now wanted in the Underdark for alleged unlawful carnal knowledge of a drider. Have it come up whenever he fails a Charisma check(“Guards, I must speak to King at once on an urgent matter of national security!” “Well we—wait, aren’t you Lucien the Drider-****er? You’re not seeing anyone you sick bastard!”).

Actually, if you get the other players to buy-in and have their characters make jokes at his expense, that would probably be a bigger and longer lasting punishment than any encounter you could throw at him.(“Why don’t you cast Web on the Bugbears?” “I want Lucien to Lightning Bolt them, not make-out with them!”)

If he wants to go in and immediately talk to the high priestess of Lolth about ending the millennia-spanning strife between their people...well after a few minutes in the city, the guards are going to fill him full of those drugged arrows, he’ll pass out and the player rolls a new character.

[Brookshw]

I skimmed most of this thread so apologies if these were suggested. Does it need to be a drow city in the underdark? Could he instead meet a wandering drow? Or be heading for an entrance to the underdark, stop by a nearby town, and the town be raided by drow while he's there? Maybe hire along with some duergar traders to get to a drow outpost?

Doesn't seem like a great idea to do during downtime, but would he be happy if you threw some drow into the campaign later?

[the_david]

There's a bunch of random encounter charts for the underdark on page 106-109 of Xanathar's Guide to Everything. I'd give him a chance to change his mind after every encounter.

Quick tip: Roll a bunch of encounters before the session, then rearrange them however you like. Least to most dangerous would probably be the most enjoyable. This gives you the added bonus of not having to add details on the fly.

I'm not seeing how it would be railroading if the party has to save him from the underdark. The entire thing is his idea. If anything, this is going of the rails.

[JakOfAllTirades]

Feed him to the Illithids.

[Sigreid]

To add to what I said earlier, if he can convince the rest of the party to make an expedition of it, sounds like a cool adventure!

[Elysiume]

He just wants to say hi? To some drow?

[Laserlight]

I've told players doing something similarly suicidal "If you do this, you will lose your character. Do you want to change your mind, or play it out, or I can just narrate it and you can roll a new character. If you want to play it out, come early for next session."

[ProsecutorGodot]

I'd be rather impressed if he even made it to the Drow by themselves, there are innumerable other things on the trip that could and probably will kill them.

Have them roll stealth (or if they don't choose to be stealthy, a percentile die). Set an arbitrary number. Best case scenario is that they were able to sneak in, meet a drow and become a shiny new prisoner. Worst case scenario is a few intellect devourers found a easy to kill but not very filling snack. There are stupid actions you can take, but this is clearly a suicide attempt. If, despite your best efforts, the player is still convinced that this is an idea they can live from after you tell them plainly that they will very likely die then all you can do is let it happen.

My much more lenient but probably unrealistic solution is that a Drow scouting party has followed them out of the Underdark in an attempt to capture some seemingly able bodied new slaves. Done well, this doesn't necessarily have to be tied the players interest in meeting Drow more than it was a consequence of travelling into the Underdark at all.

[greenstone]

Regardless, just tell him that what he's planning is not even remotely downtime activity; it's an adventure. If everybody is planning to go adventuring together, great. If not, he's writing his character out of the game and needs to make a new character unless you want to run a solo game for him.

QFT. Downtime is the boring stuff that characters do between adventures.

Often, downtime stuff doesn't even need the GM to intervene. When it does, it comes down to one or two rolls and a quick narration.

What this player wants is a solo adventure, which is just selfish. Adventures happen at the table with all the players involved.

Downtime has predetermined times. You carouse for two weeks. You spend 1 month building your business. You spend 3 days researching in a library. "Go into the Underdark to find Drow" doesn't fit this model.

[Lvl45DM!]

Get the other players to play the squad of drow and let them play out the encounter. Fun for the whole group.

[Mordaedil]

Do a one-on-one session with him if he really wants to go through with it and allow him to go on a solo adventure in the underdark and see if his skills are suited for it. If the dice allow it, he might get captured by the drow and they might question why he'd be stupid enough to go down there all by himself and roleplay it out. Just draw out a map of crossing corridors and dead ends with no treasure and possibly overly strong encounters from beings beyond reasoning. Be clear with him that this counts as his downtime, so he can't earn too much solo experience or treasure and he'll have to pull off encounters that would be challenging to his entire party solo to get anything beneficial.

See where the roleplay takes him and if he has a plan or if he faces his end down there. Play up the underground survival bit. And there should be constantly beasts stalking him after a certain depth.

[KorvinStarmast]

Could he instead meet a wandering drow? Or be heading for an entrance to the underdark, stop by a nearby town, and the town be raided by drow while he's there? Maybe hire along with some duergar traders to get to a drow outpost?

Doesn't seem like a great idea to do during downtime, but would he be happy if you threw some drow into the campaign later?

This seems to me to be a very doable approach.

Get the other players to play the squad of drow and let them play out the encounter. Fun for the whole group.

Now that would be fun.

[Spiritchaser]

The problem I see is’t allowing him to go. Absent other considerations, if he wants to try he should be allowed to try, stupid or not, suicidal or not.

The problem is that this endeavour is clearly a full on gaming situation, not to be hand-waved or resolved with two or three rolls (unless he really does die that quickly), and this solo project intrudes on gameplay with the group. It’s fine for a player to politely request a one on one adventure, but it is certainly not fine to act in a way that actually forces the DM to accommodate, and before the next group session no less.

If you have the time, I would have the player roll up a fresh character to play with the group, then DM the solo player as and when you have free time to make it work. Given the project at hand this might not be all that much spare time before the project reaches its conclusion. If you do this try and have some fun with it. You might even find a way to let this character contribute in their demise... maybe finding a way to convey some critical information before... whatever horror they walk into does it’s horrible thing. It’s also possible that the first barely escaped encounter might scare them back to the surface... though if this is an experienced player I wouldn’t go out of my way to arrange this.

If you don’t have time, or just don’t feel like making time: You are entirely within your rights to say “I simply do not have time right now”. The player needs to be cool with that. You can have them roll up a fresh character and put this one away for a rainy day when you might, or just outright say no.

[Beleriphon]

As a potential option, he's captured, and rescued by Jarlaxle. Now the character owes Jarlaxle a favour.

[Cicciograna]

Completely different approach, that might help him gather some interesting data.

He goes solo in the Underdark, meets a small Drow patrol which is being mauled by a larger group of Duergar or an Illithid. The character helps the patrol survive the encounter, some of the (low-level) Drows grudgingly form a sort of alliance with him, smuggling him into the city. Maybe the Drow tell their sergeant that he was captured during the patrol, but then helped them survive the Duergar/Illithid ambush and so has now the rank of "battle-slave" or something like that. He receives some sort of Drow insigna that gives him a modicum of safe passage, but he's considered as a de facto subject to the Drow.

You have to make clear that what he's doing is INSANELY dangerous, that he has the feeling that he could be betrayed without a moment notice, that he constantly hears whispering behind his back from the members of the military who're disgruntled by his presence but who are clearly impressed by his combat prowess. At the same time, wandering the city (or more probably, being ordered around), he can feel the hateful gaze of other Drow in the military, the contempt of the Matrons, the sneering of the nobles: let him feel the haughtiness of the Dark Elves for a lowly combat slave. He might even be cast in the Coliseum for an unfair fight for the solace of the people.

If the player wants to meet Drow, let him. It's dangerous, yeah, but he's the hero of the story, let him have his fun. If he decides to stick around, then discuss with him for a way to abandon his character, as this would probably end his participation to the adventuring life with his party. If he decides, after a while, that he's got his share of Drow life, allow him to escape: maybe he's sent again on patrol, and he's able to run away somehow.
Whatever you decide to do, this would probably better be run privately as solo missions, otherwise the other players might resent him having the spotlight.
OR! You could play at the same table with everybody, with the rest of the party mounting an expedition to save him.

[VonKaiserstein]

You can approach this two ways, as I'm seeing you want memorable justice, and a lesson. First, have him be taken captive, and leave him blindfolded in the dark. Give him 3 or 4 weird, out of context moments and some saves to roll. The crown jewel?

You feel hunger like you've never felt. There is food, if you're brave enough to eat it, but you can't see anything in here.
If they eat, roll d10. If they don't, lose a constitution point.

They wake up missing d10 fingers if they chose to eat. That could increase their critical fumble chance, or limit the items they can hold, or even force them to spend some time and money relearning the spells they can cast with somatic components.

Oh, and of course, they've been sold to someone on the service, who's marked them with a mystical tattoo and now can scry on them at will and communicate with them in secret. Congratulations on your new plot hooks.

Alternatively, have someone overhear them at the bar, and post advertisements for a Drow safari. Then have the 'safari' be ambushed by 'Drow', again in the dark, and probably during the night after drugging them.The attackers and caravan are all in on it. He is horribly beaten, loses all gear, and ends up with weird fragmented memories of laughing black faces grinning at him. It's just dudes in black makeup with pointy ear extenders. Henceforth, he has disadvantage in complete darkness from the very traumatic experience.

Either way, they're not dead, and they'll remember that suicidal idiocy has long term consequences- plus there's every chance the moment will become a talking point of local thugs, or the party members themselves.

[Lvl45DM!]

This seems to me to be a very doable approach.
Now that would be fun.

I have a player who insists on running off. Shes new and its kinda funny, but after the first few times it was too hard to run two games simultaneously. So next time she ran off in the Isle of the Ape I whipped out 4 dinosaurs character sheets and gave them to the other players and let them kill and eat her character.
She got resurrected with a scroll from a some blood and now owes the party the worth of that scroll and diamond, so no more running.

[LordCdrMilitant]

I disagree with the notion presented that it should be along the lines of "you're dumb, so you're dead. Period." That said, I agree with the notion that travelling to the underdark isn't really a downtime thing, it's an adventure.

I have a couple of observations in the vein of how I would handle this:
A: There are a lot of bad things in the underdark, odds are he would die before reaching a Drow city alone.
B: The Drow are intelligent and have a civilization

Therefore, I would definitely approach the problem like: "An expedition to the underdark would be a multi-session adventure; not downtime, you'll need to convince your party to go with you once downtime is over. However, if your goal is just to see Drow, there's a trader who arrived in town from <A DROW CITY> a few days back, and a convoy departing for <A SMALL DROW CITY> looking for some muscle to protect them from the monsters on their way there."

[Contrast]

Therefore, I would definitely approach the problem like: "An expedition to the underdark would be a multi-session adventure; not downtime, you'll need to convince your party to go with you once downtime is over. However, if your goal is just to see Drow, there's a trader who arrived in town from <A DROW CITY> a few days back, and a convoy departing for <A SMALL DROW CITY> looking for some muscle to protect them from the monsters on their way there."

Assuming typical FR setting Drow really hate elves. We're talking kill on sight or capture to torture and sacrifice.

There's no way an elf is wandering into any sort of drow city and getting out unaccosted in the normal course of events. Being a guard of a caravan will not cut the mustard there.

[lordarkness]

Lots of good points and great advice here. Just remember its a game and its all for fun, but it must be fun for you as well. If you have the time and inclination then play it out. If not, let him encounter one of the random horrors patrolling the underdark and be done with it (either with or without a chance to escape [and if he chooses not to escape don't save him]).

Ive seen players do something improbable and dumb in the hopes of coming out with a good story either of heroic deeds or of a grisly death. It makes for great times as long as the result is explosive. Foolish as this clearly is, consider at least letting him go out with a bang and having some fun with that.

[strangebloke]

If this is 'downtime' and not being roleplayed: ask if the pc insists on going. "Yes, i do." Then just ask "what OTHER character will you be bringing into my next adventure?" No dice no talk, just whats the next character. That ought to be a wakeup call. Hopefully the player will say "OK then I don't go."

"If your character is leaving the party to go on an adventure, you and I will resolve that outside of the campaign. Regardless, the rest of the party will be moving on without you so if you want to play with the group you need a new character."

Players don't get to hold the entire table hostage just so they can go on a private journey of self-actualization. The fact that this is a suicidal venture is completely irrelevant. Well, not completely irrelevant. Its relevant insofar as, if you want to, you can just kill him

If you're going the #2 route, let him know that he will almost certainly die if he takes this path. If he persists, he's playing 'chicken' with you. He's driving his PC into your wall of death and daring you to kill him. Players do this sometimes, to test your will. That sounds melodramatic but its 100% a thing I've seen. If this ever happens, you have to show them that you're not kidding around, or else your players will not respect anything else that happens in the rest of the campaign. Trying to trap and kill your players with 'gotcha' nonsense is bad, but so is refusing to ever, every take off the kid gloves and bubblewrap.

So you must kill him. Or at least, put him in a situation where only luck and immediate action will save him. I wouldn't do it offscreen. There's a lesson for everyone here. Don't cheat. Just have him bump into 15 normal Drow with Longbows in a narrow tunnel. That's a "medium" encounter for his whole party. There's a 75% chance his perception rolls below ten and a 94% chance they'll roll over 10. So its trivial for them to ambush him at 60 feet just before his darkvision would pick them up. They open with darkness cast centered on him, then faerie fire. Then they just kill him. He can't see them, so 90% of his spells do nothing, and he's not got third level spells so he can't kill the darkness. If he dashes 300 feet back to a bend in a tunnel he has a chance, but its a small one.

[Willie the Duck]

"If your character is leaving the party to go on an adventure, you and I will resolve that outside of the campaign. Regardless, the rest of the party will be moving on without you so if you want to play with the group you need a new character."

Players don't get to hold the entire table hostage just so they can go on a private journey of self-actualization.

Very much. A simple, "Well, your PC will not be back in time for the next adventure upon which we as a table will be focusing. If you want to play next week, I suggest making an alternate character and figuring out how they will fit in the party" should probably suffice.

The fact that this is a suicidal venture is completely irrelevant. Well, not completely irrelevant. Its relevant insofar as, if you want to, you can just kill him

I'd suggest to the OP that they explain that it looks like suicide, asking why they think otherwise, and listening to the player explain what he thinks his character would do to get out of this certain doom (or just why they don't think it would be the case). If the player is making some bizarre leap of logic that their character would know better, let them know (saying, "your character would know that the drow would not XYZ, and thus..."). If they are just supremely overconfident, well then let the chips fall where they may... if you have the time to run a separate encounter with the drow, have that happen and see how it goes. If you don't, just say, "yeah, that didn't work. It was never going to work. Your character is defeated and captured or killed." -- but then if you don't actually let them play out the encounter probably err on the side of captured and let rescuing them be a plot point if desired.

[Doug Lampert]

{scrubbed}
If a player wants to suicide his character, he will find a way. Allow him to do it off screen.

Correct if you want to let him suicide, but I disagree that suicide is a good idea because you can simply RETIRE the unwanted character. PCs suddenly becoming suicidal for no good reason hurts immersion and the tone of the game.

I tell players having their character do something blatantly stupid and suicidal that they can always simply have the character retire from adventuring and make a new one. I do not care how many characters you make up, if you can convince the rest of the party to put up with adding a new guy every week, go for it.

That has always settled this kind of crap IME.

Players usually know that the stupid, suicidal thing is stupid and suicidal, if, after you make it clear that "your character knows that this is stupid and suicidal" the player still wants the character to do it, it's almost always because the PLAYER wants a new character, and at some point in the past someone trained the player to think that the only way he gets a new character is for his current one to die.

I want you to role play a character that the rest of the party might reasonably take on their adventures, and that could plausibly have survived past the age of 5. If you can't meet those two minimal standards, go play in someone else's game. Star elf that want's to visit drow alone fails at least one and probably both. If you genuinely think that's a reasonable character, I don't need you in an RPG, if we still want to socialize over a game, Spades, Bridge, and board games all exist. If you just want a new character, Abe retires, Bob joins the party. Done.

[LordCdrMilitant]

Assuming typical FR setting Drow really hate elves. We're talking kill on sight or capture to torture and sacrifice.

There's no way an elf is wandering into any sort of drow city and getting out unaccosted in the normal course of events. Being a guard of a caravan will not cut the mustard there.

I doubt it. Sure they really hate elves, but I doubt it would manifest as being abducted out of his caravan. He's only really looking at bad things if he wanders away from his superiors [which shouldn't really be an option]. More importantly, who is actually going to do anything to him? It's not like the Drow government/powers that be is going to put a hit on a random caravan goon, lynch mobs tend to avoid people who can fight back [not to mention large groups of such people like a merchant's security detachment], and your average civilian isn't prone to acting on their views on a ethnic conflict besides avoidance.

And even if he does wander away to a bar or something, unless he deliberately sticks his head into dark and narrow alleys and places he shouldn't [which would be straying into the realm of an adventure and not a downtime gig], he's still most likely to be left alone.