How Much is that Construct in the Window?
I mean, she’s got a point. Those diamonds embedded in Golden Boy could probably power a rez on their lonesome. Any gold she happens to retrieves is pure profit!
Sure it’s baldly mechanical and blatantly unrealistic. Who’s gonna throw themselves into lava for a bit of financial upside? But as Barbarian and Sorcerer learned not so long ago, there’s a big difference between solving a problem and 100 percenting it.
These decisions are not easy. The same agonizing choice that powers the deck of many things is also present when it’s time to kick the fully decked-out boss into the bottomless pit. It’s simple risk and reward. You can pull a card for fortune and glory, but beware of that ‘lose your soul to the void’ result. You can go for the Disney Special TKO rather than winnowing down boss-man’s hit points, but then you’re not getting any of his fancy gear.
If there are any souls-like fans in the house, then you know this feeling well. You might be tempted to try one more room for the chance at extra blood echoes / souls / MacGuffin Points™, but then you’re just as likely to lose everything on that roll of the dice.
No one can make that decision for you. It’s the gambler’s thrill, and has more to do with your own special blend of gamer fun than some hypothetical “correct choice.” In the present case however, I will say that that Cleric and Wizard likely have the right of it. While I’m unsure how much her tiefling heritage will protect Thief from lava, I’m positive that her dice luck isn’t doing her any favors.
So what do you say, guys? When’s the last time you gambled on a big payday? Did you run through the gauntlet o’ traps for the shiny jewel? Head back into the dragon’s lair for one last burgle? Or maybe you just wanted to pickpocket the High Sheriff for the bragging rights? Tell us all about those times you bet big and won big (or lost bigger) down in the comments!
ARE YOU AN IMPATIENT GAMER? If so, you should check out the “Henchman” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. For just one buck a month, you can get each and every Handbook of Heroes comic a day earlier than the rest of your party members. That’s bragging rights right there!
Well, if we’re talking about what’s unrealistic, let’s discuss convection! 😀
Cleric, Thief and Wizard really should be frying like crispy critters, standing this close to free-flowing magma. (It’s not above ground, so I call it magma.)
Thief is probably okay… tieflings usually have some form of fire/heat resistance. Not enough to save them from a lava bath, but probably enough to cope with proximity…
It only hurts if you don’t have the high ground.
It certainly hurts if you have the *low* ground…
I’m 99% certain I’ve seen videos of tourists in Hawaii casually walking within kicking distance of decently sized lava flows
I guess there’s different degrees of lava. :/
Ok here’s some relevant pictures and articles
http://www.marinebio.net/marinescience/02ocean/hwimg/hw052.jpg
http://www.marinebio.net/marinescience/02ocean/hwgeo.htm
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/959F/production/_101630383_gettyimages-957850282.jpg
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44174455
https://www.sites.google.com/a/laverne.edu/it-s-a-volcano/_/rsrc/1391393245798/lava/lava-picture.jpg
https://www.sites.google.com/a/laverne.edu/it-s-a-volcano/lava
https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/180507223102-cm-101-hawaii-volcano-0507.jpg?q=x_3,y_20,h_1684,w_2993,c_crop/h_540,w_960
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/08/us/hawaii-roads-volcano-lava/index.html
I also found one of a person who had gotten unambiguously too close but was still very far from being instantly fried
https://petapixel.com/2013/07/13/photographer-gets-so-close-to-lava-that-his-shoes-and-tripod-catch-on-fire/
https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2013/07/burning.jpg
I tried to post some links I found to photos of people hanging around near lava flows, but I think the post got auto-deleted by the spam filter because there were too many links in it
Warhammer, Norse marauders. We hit a empire port, what initially seemed like simple attack, kill and PRB. Turns out there was a sisable army unit nearby and was attracted by bells ringing alarm. Cue us performing rapid smash and grab and being chased out in a hail of musket and cannon fire, if not for faith points my character would be one armed.
Was there a moment during the smash and grab where you could have maybe (just possibly!) run for the boats a bit earlier? If so, what kept you from retreating immediately?
Depended on player, our sorceror(still a squishy learner not a peoper chaos sorceror) started to run immidiately the sings were apparent, Two others started a fighting withdrawal, another wanted a kill on Garrison commander and me, well I was busy gathering captives and looting what I could from the market before going to assist the madman fighting a unit of Empire greatswords men protecting the garrison commander. Yeah he’s trying to go Khornate. I’m trying undivided but only nurgle has gazed on my deeds.
I mean we could have started running the moment we heard the drums and horns, but running away at first sign of danger is not a Nord way, well at least not to those who want to cretae their own warbands and small kingdom, I was able to use one of the very few non combat skills Besrserker comes with to attract more followers to our cause thanks to our successfull raid, with high body count, loot and plenty of prisoners. Granted the incompetent sailors I have to work with almost got me killed regardless, thank gods Berserker also knows how to swim.
This is why you need protection from energy, not just resistance for these dangerous terrain encounters.
Word.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/the-floor-is-lava
You say it’s unrealistic and mechanical, I call it going with the setting. Rez exists and is affordable for a high level party like them. That, and thief has probably died at least once, she’s got experience with it. The cost to benefit analysis says rescue gold at the cost of life. Besides, she *might* survive if it’s 5e. Fire resistance means half damage and decently high level so higher health. Though if it’s back to pathfinder, that fire resistance won’t really do much.
Butch and Sundance could barely make themselves jump to Dave their own lives. It’s not just a cost benefit analysis.
See, the thing is that this assumes that she can actually save the loot before she dies so that the rest of the team can grab the loot without dying.
Furthermore, the rest of the team also needs to be able to grab her charred corpse without dying. Unless things have changed since I last played D&D (this was back in the 3rd edition day after all, I missed out on Pathfinder, 4e, and 5e), Rez needs the remains, and if you don’t have them you need a significantly more expensive True Rez spell or Wish/Miracle instead.
The handbook is right, don’t destroy the loot. Keep it. That thing of needing to destroy the ring sure is propaganda 😛
I look forward to reading your Dark Lord Faramir fan fic.
First i need to finish the one about Sauron and Saruman being in love 😛
Hot beard on eye action.
Took me a while to think of a time I took a big gamble- it’s normally something I leave to the others, being more the “don’t do that you’ll die” type who hangs back to bail someone out if they get stuck in a trap. Went diving in the oubliette -turned-well of a haunted castle, since I felt I hadn’t been living up to me character’s description of a daredevil sort of character (though to be fair, she’d recently adopted a kid and wasn’t too jazzed about the idea of him becoming an orphan again) so I volunteered to explore with the party’s bottle of air.
She ended up failing a will save and being forced to swim back as fast as she could for a few rounds (something that might’ve been more of an issue without the bottle of air magic item) before regathering her courage and forcing herself to go back down. Thankfully, the walls did not turn to writhing flesh reaching out for her again. Less thankfully, there wasn’t much to find beyond a leather bound book. After a quick detection check for magic, she popped it open to find it was written in blood… and went on to describe the stories of those who died down there. They made it with the materials they had on hand (hair, blood, and “leather”) and the ghastly discovery nevertheless made the oppressive air lighten a tad, some souls no doubt put to peace by their stories making it out of the pit. RP value is sometimes the best reward, I’m sure Wizard would agree (though Thief no doubt has very different opinions).
Funny enough, the exact opposite story could be said of my group being over cautious on my suggestion. We were in a tomb of gold, with heavy doors you had to make strength checks and cooperate to lift. Not wanting to risk getting trapped in a room with an imminent threat and no escape route, I can recommended opening the door, laying out our Portable Hole under it, and letting it drop in.
We realized that solid gold door was worth… a lot. Our DM was understandably miffed at herself by the realization, but we logic’d ourselves out of an issue by saying our characters- varying in alignment as they might’ve been- had no intention of destroying the local economy and wouldn’t be able to get their full gold’s worth in one or even two or three cities, and worked it out to automatically bumping our coffers up to wbl with each level up as the group slowly sold the bounty bit by bit.
The former campaign had a similar event with giant gold statues in a hidden area. Not… entirely sure how the folks who wrote the adventure were expecting, but they were apparently gold and apparently weren’t fake or hollow or anything of the sort. We worked out a similar deal in that group, that time with a focus on giving a good chunk toward seeing to the gold going to the poor district of the city we were in at the time.
Cool book. Hope you got XP for your derring-do.
Stealing valuable doors is tradition. As is GMs getting miffed about it. Balancing loot drops can be a bitch when the module doesn’t give a damn.
Not exactly an answer to the question, but just an observation I have made having played D&D, D&D adjacent and other dungeon crawlers for quite some time. That Thiefs actions made me think of. My answer to the actual question is in the last paragraph.
I think it is pretty interesting how I know a lot of players who get more upset if they loose an item, than if they loose a character. My personal conclusion is that it is because losing a character can be fun (And also very sad). You can get a cool or fun story out of it, and you get to make a new one. But if you loose a magic item, you still have to play that character. Now its just worse (Mechanically) than it was before.
First time I really became aware of this was when I played in a homebrewed game as a child. I played a fighter who had a sword he had himself crafted. It was decent, had some drawbacks but was pretty good overall. Then a dragon tried to intimidate him into giving it up and I utterly refused. I was more willing to let a character I had played as for two years (A sizable amount of my life at that point) die rather than lose the sword.
Because the sword had become completely intertwined with my character, both mechanically and character wise. Sure there were better swords, but the tactic I used with him was build entirely around that sword and every single drawing of him made sure to note the sword. So if I lost the sword there would not just be a mechanical hole that would need to be filled, but it would be as if I lost an important part of what made my character my character.
In the end we survived and kept the sword, in return for most of our gold and other treasures. But it was one of the most upsetting moments I had faced in a RPG at that point, and that is counting losing several characters.
But I think it is an interesting issue. Especially as I started playing less combat/dungeon-crawly focused games, where there were more of a focus on narrative rather than loot. And I ran into people who could not fathom why someone would be willing to let their character die before letting go of an object (That the character might not even have all that big of an attachment to). But it makes sense to me that players would get attached to their loot. It is a big part of what makes the game fun. And also because my father is a craftsman and I have seen how he gets if someone touches his tools without permission.
To answer the actual question. I once played a dwarf Oracle (Not pathfinder Oracle, same homebrew game as the sword story) whose party found this grand golden disc in the middle of an empty room. When we lifted it (Having not searched for traps) it sank into the ground and flesh eating beetles started pouring from it. My short legged dwarf was left behind, as the others ran out and closed the door. Right in front of him. All that was left was a skeleton. He was later resurrected, as a skeleton. Meaning he had to go everywhere dressed as a Jawa.
I like your insight. Losing a character means more interesting stuff happens. Losing gear means you can do less interesting stuff. Players want to affect the world, and losing your capabilities means you are less able to do that.
Sad times about the dwarf. You got the greatest treasure of all though.
https://images.app.goo.gl/aVXbTK8XSwMKQ1qj6
I am disappointed that Golden Boy (any relation to Goldie? She’d probably be into his… plating) chose not to give a thumbs up as he sank to his molten destruction.
I too am disappointed in Laurel. She’s usually so on-the-ball with the sight gags. You know what? You’re right. She should feel bad!
Roll a save vs Couch (prevents restful sleep). -2 penalty for Evil Eye hex.
I failed. 🙁
I have to say, if the disintegrate spell didn’t have a caveat of ‘A disintegrated creature’s equipment is unaffected’, it would be one of those spells that nobody uses, no matter how good it is on terms of numbers.
The spell ‘Acid Pit’ comes to mind – fantastic in numbers and cool/badass factor, but in practice, say goodbye to potentially hundreds of thousands of gold worth of magical equipment as it dissolves or corrodes to worthless junk. And using it on a PC will net you the worst of stink-eye when you tell them their heirloom +5 Vorpal blade is now a piece of scrap metal.
By comparison, the Hungry Pit beats it purely by virtue of the DM not being obliged to destroy everything lootable on the target.
Sunder is also likely unpopular as a combat option. Good job, you destroyed the BBEGs +5 vorpal greataxe. Bad news: now you have to deal with the PC barbarian who really wanted that greataxe for their build. Or the wizard who needs money for his new headband. Or the cleric who you already owe 20k in rez costs.
That’s not a broken vorpal sword. That’s a quest waiting to happen!
For me, sunder is one of those options that is either unusable (often less-than-effective and takes away from your WBL) or without drawbacks (the wizard will just cast mending).
sunder is a great ego boost for a GM introducing ‘don’t fuck with’ characters.
one of the main BBEG in my game was a snobish Noble who would diss the characters in public and if threatened send his right hand man to teach them a lesson. said person was a high level fighter with a very nasty sunder build and an adamantium greatsword. (of course if blood was draown the BBEG would call in the city guards and have the riff-raff spend a night or two in jail)
Very early dungeon with my halfling rogue– While the rest of the table was distracted with fighting the stone golem I *might* have accidentally triggered by prematurely exploring the room, I a) swiped the MacGuffin box we were sent for (WIN!!!), b) picked the lock on said MacGuffin (WIN!!!), c) failed to note the *explosive runes* (or something) on said box. (FAIL!!!) While I and the party survived the explosion, only the DM and I knew that the box and its contents (our objective) were destroyed by me and not from being stepped on by the golem (as I claimed). It was a hectic battle, and –like I said– everyone else was distracted with that whole *combat* thing.
G1-“Steading of the Hill-Giant Chief” has the caveat that although it is highly unlikely (2%-8%) that a party could set the wooden structure ablaze, if they do, it takes at least a week for the embers to cool, and all treasure and XP is lost. My druid decided to test that theory and (technically) won. The postulation. I nearly lost friends.
The party decided that we didn’t want to wait that long, collected our pay for killing all of the giants (minus the pay for finding out the reasons why they were attacking), and moved on to something else, thus skipping the next 6-7 modules in the series.
(At least until the DM could think up his own hook. As we were still in high school, it took him a while to figure new angle of his own.)
There’s a reason all the wooden structures in my games are in swamps / rainforests / made from asbestos trees.
“Rez scrolls are cheap”. Not in 5E they ain’t. You’d need at least the 7th level scroll for **Resurrection** since a lot of the body wouldn’t be salvageable from the lava. Said scroll probably costs more than the half-melted gold armor.
Been playing online (roll20) and at 1st level. we dropped the evil wizard down the pit and he crocked. GM’s electronic voice tell us the pit was fifteen foot deep, so my level one wizard just jump in there -pathfinder, acrobatic roll can ease the drop etc.
turn out the GM said FIFTY foot deep.
..and i was wondering why he kept asking if i’m sure.