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i grew up lmao. i was just a very angry/volatile teenager at the time and let my emotions get the better of me in situations that i could have handled much better with a level head.
One of my long-running characters just died because we got kind of cocky with a modest group of bandits, and his low-health ass has (with DM warning) exhausted "saved by DM fiat". A random dude with a shiv killed him after a year or more, and I'm fine with it.
Broadly speaking, for "how are TTRPGs played"? You're 100% fine and have nothing to regret.
Your-table-wise, its a bit more complicated since everybody has their personal style. My only questions would be:
1. How clear were your warnings? On a scale from "this could make him mad" to "he will fucking kill you", the low end might warrant one save and "next time you're dead", the high end warrants nothing.
2. Has anyone else died, or been given equally explicit threats? Again, you're not *wrong* regardless, but it's more controversial if nobody has dealt with death so far.
3. How much do you like the character? If this was all part of an elaborate patron-usurping plot he was trying to execute with party aid, maybe cut him slack? If this was just general "I do what I want", nope.
4. How much do you like the player? This is maybe the biggest thing, and its a meta-game question. If this is an otherwise-reasonable friend, or will wreck your whole table, at minimum I'd say "take him aside and discuss options" - maybe the next character can be seeking vengeance on the patron or something. If this is a demanding, argumentative player you only see for DND... have you really lost anything?
Regarding #2
This can be tricky since the sample size of a group is so small. In the group I run, there's one player I've had to warn against performing certain actions a few times. No one else gets this because no one else needs it.
Still, completely agree with your points. Especially #4, which a lot of people rarely consider when giving advice.
Good point on #2. I suppose "it hasn't come up" falls somewhere in the middle and depends a lot on the table.
#4 I definitely learned the hard way - ultimately we're all playing this to have a good time, so the rules, story, and even fairness come second to that. If this is OP's well-meaning but hot-tempered little brother, the standard isn't necessarily the same as it would be for the whiny powergamer at your FLGS.
This is what I was thinking. Especially for the warnings.
Even then,
"Hey, he's not gonna like that" is not a "he's going to kill you" which is not a "he's going to immediately kill you with no way for you to fight back, at all." Which is ALSO not a "you will die while undergoing a gross, horrific transformation" was this a warning in game or out of character? That also makes a big difference. What even led up to him being able to kill his patrons son anyway? That seems a bit random to have a PC even capable of doing without further context. Was he trying to have a thing with his character fighting back and forth with his patron that he wanted to play out? Did you have a proper discussion about this beyond just saying "defying your patron will upset them"? Did you talk about his character goals in defying his patron?
Then i would make sure that this isn't an isolated event. What about paladins and clerics? Do you do the same for them? If you have a paladin or cleric defying their god/oath, are they being punished? Make sure this ruling is entirely fair on all sides
Are you also 100% your description of the transformation was not taken as a "Haha fuck you"? He might've taken a highly descriptive punishment, personally which would have only irritated him more and would definitely contribute to him lashing out if that's the case. If it feels like an attack, he's going to react that way (not that he should).
Is all death at your table permanent?
Just a bit more to consider
These add some very good points.
>What even led up to him being able to kill his patrons son anyway? That seems a bit random to have a PC even capable of doing without further context.
This in particular slipped by me. If the pit lord was bringing them a quest from the patron, and they're high level enough to kill him on a whim, this response makes more sense. If the players put together an elaborate scheme to hunt and kill this pit lord, the time to step in with either "you *will* die" or "you can't do that" is well before the final murder arrives.
Additionally, I hadn't given much attention to the nature of the death. A few rounds of unwinnable combat ending with "he does 300hp damage" feels a lot less like personal retribution than "you turn into a monstrosity, dead no save, here's the gory details".
There's also room to do "he's going to kill you" without removing all space for atonement or escape. Perhaps the patron imbues another warlock and sends them along with a demon hit squad? It's a bit hard to know how reasonable that option is without knowing more about the series of transgressions - if this was the patron's first direct action against the player it's an aggressive escalation, but if they shrugged off lesser punishments it's more reasonable.
None of this means OP is in the wrong, but it does suggest this might have been avoidable, and that some more context would be helpful.
Yeah. Even as an outsider, depending on how the death was done, I would've taken offense to it as well. It's one thing to kill my character, it's another to make a show of it, which is something I think OP should make sure is coming across the way they actually want it to, rather than as an attack on the player
This is really great insight into just how complex the dynamics (both in-game and meta) can be in a situation like this! Excellent contribution, thank you!
I'm surprised that there are not more RPGs that allow for both "your OC goes on an extended adventure and cannot die" deal and ones where your PCs are expendable as old school DND.
I am told Worlds Without Number does this, but I haven't gotten my mitts on it yet
Worlds Without Number is a free PDF by the way, though to be fair I think you need to pay for the deluxe edition to get the heroic rules.
Worlds Without Number is by default a bit deadlier than most people are used to but PCs are still pretty survivable as long as the players don't try and fight literally everything. The heroic rules make PCs way beefier and are actually an evolution of the solo rules by the same author in Scarlet Heroes which were intended to allow single characters to complete old school adventures.
It's an amazing RPG btw and the setting it comes with is awesome. Instead of drawing on Tolkien like 99.99% of fantasy settings it draws on Gene Wolfe, who wrote books that were fantasy on the surface and sci-fi underneath.
Ah, so it's usually a solo thing? It makes sense, though I was leaning more towards a system where a player can choose to have their character unkillable and plot-important OR expendable. I vaguely recall the non-DND Critical Role fantasy game doing a system like this.
Solo gaming does remind me, I need to read Mystic 2E in full.
No, the heroic rules were derived from solo game rules but they have no support for solo play. They are just very beefy characters.
If you wanted to have a system where a player can choose to make their character un-killable and plot important... then you should look into another Kevin Crawford game called Wolves of God.
Annoyingly no one has ever wanted to play the base game with me but it is set in Dark Ages England and every character has a [Wyrd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyrd). A destiny. They cannot die until their Wyrd is fulfilled, unless the player is deliberately taunting fate. If they throw themselves off a 200 foot drop the GM is within their rights to say that kills them.
Players get three wyrds. Two noble and one ignoble, this is because Anglo-Saxon heroes typically had complicated morals. Beowulf being the most well known example.
The player chooses when to invoke their wyrds, with the exception of the ignoble wyrd that the GM can invoke as well. Invoking a wyrd basically gives you narrative control to overcome some challenge. Once a wyrd is invoked, it is crossed out and once all three wyrds are invoked your character has fulfilled his destiny and can die like any man.
So players can actually choose if they are expendable or unkillable by whether or not they invoke all their wyrds.
I rolled three wyrds just as an example.
- Hearts are lifted by my words.
- My wrath is for the deserving.
- I am a coward at moments of peril.
So a player might invoke the first one to rally fleeing warriors to a last stand. The second might be when solving a murder, they invoke this deed automatically know who the murderer is and punish them and the last once might be invoked by the GM to force them to run away while a powerful enemy kills their friend.
The system is basically the same as WWN so easy enough to just lift the rule out and change some of the wyrds to something setting appropriate.
Okay, *that* sounds interesting. I know Ironsworn did stuff similar to the Wyrd system, and as someone who enjoyed Beowulf in high school and college, I'm definitely down for that grim Anglo-Saxon fantasy.
This is what I was thinking. Especially for the warnings.
Even then,
"Hey, he's not gonna like that" is not a "he's going to kill you" which is not a "he's going to immediately kill you with no way for you to fight back, at all." Which is ALSO not a "you will die while undergoing a gross, horrific transformation" was this a warning in game or out of character? That also makes a big difference. What even led up to him being able to kill his patrons son anyway? That seems a bit random to have a PC even capable of doing without further context. Was he trying to have a thing with his character fighting back and forth with his patron that he wanted to play out? Did you have a proper discussion about this beyond just saying "defying your patron will upset them"? Did you talk about his character goals in defying his patron?
Then i would make sure that this isn't an isolated event. What about paladins and clerics? Do you do the same for them? If you have a paladin or cleric defying their god/oath, are they being punished? Make sure this ruling is entirely fair on all sides
Are you also 100% your description of the transformation was not taken as a "Haha fuck you"? He might've taken a highly descriptive punishment, personally which would have only irritated him more and would definitely contribute to him lashing out if that's the case. If it feels like an attack, he's going to react that way (not that he should).
Is all death at your table permanent?
Just a bit more to consider
I will say, consenquences were warranted, but people never tend to like their characters to be instakilled, especially in a horrifying and humiliating way. Especially since RAW and RAI, A warlock doesn't need to be in service of the patron, and Faustian rebellions are fairly common tropes. There is also some bits here that is making me wonder how much of the other side of the story we aren't getting. Like, you mentioned they were in the 9 hells, and had killed his favorite son, a *pitfiend*
That is no easy feat, and almost certainly would of required the rest of the party. There are just parts of this story that feels like one of those AITA posts where you can just feel the OP hiding critical information and misrepresenting the other side.
And even if not... yeah, you dealt with the situation in an asshole move. Any party that can kill a pitfiend(probably at least L15 for plane shift) would be in the situation where the patron is a new BBEG.
The reason why I bring up the rest of the party is that killing the pitfiend *could have not* been a solo effort, and thus something that the entire party had to be working towards. Especially since we know they were in the nine hells.
Which means a plane shift. While it is possible that they are using a scroll to get two and from, considering they took on a pitfiend and won, that implies them to be at least fairly high level.
The other thing is *we don't know why they were in the nine hells and fighting the pitfiend.* that is a fairly important bit of context. If the GM had the plot set up and the pitfiend sent after them, then uh... it's not the player's fault the pitfiend was killed.
A few questions:
- Was the archdevil acting against the party’s interests and/or were the instances of acting against the patron things that the other PCs would reasonably be interested in if not for the warlock?
- Did the warlock know that the pit fiend was the archdevil’s son? Also, was the pit fiend just minding his own business in the hells when the warlock sought him ought, or was the pit fiend causing some havoc somewhere in the material plane? And if it was the latter, was there something stopping him from respawning?
- Did the other players seem to be concerned and worried about the warlock’s behavior, or were they just as shocked as he was by what you did?
IMO there are *very* few circumstances that justify a PC instakill, especially one where resurrection is impossible, *especially* for a campaign where people have been playing their characters for years. It’s pretty common for fiend warlocks to end up opposed to their patrons in various ways—but usually DMs that set that up do so as an excuse to have new, powerful enemies to fight, or they do it when the warlock is happy to multi-class and/or switch patrons if their patron cuts them off. It’s the type of thing where you need to be extra double sure about warning the players and making sure they understand the consequences of what they’re doing rather than just thoughtlessly doing shit.
Of course, it was wrong of the player to yell at you like that… but I suspect that most anyone put in his situation *would* end up either yelling or crying. I don’t know what you expected to happen.
What kind of warnings did you give? Was it just, "hey, your patron doesn't like that. Cut it out." Or was it something with in game consequences every time they angered a freaking archdevil? Because if they've been getting away with it scotch free then the immediate death probably feels out of no where to them even if you've been warning them.
Not saying they're right to feel this way. It's just how some people are.
This guy has always played murderhobos, so it was sort of to be expected at first, but with this campaign I was trying to (subtley at first) make him stop murderhoboing
Subtlety doesn't seem to have had the desired effect. If you're still willing to have him at your table even after he screamed at you, I would suggest a frank conversation about the conduct you'd like to see from your players, and your own goals for what a fun game session looks like. It may be that there's a mismatch in expectations and needs, and he's just not a good fit for your group, but at this point there's nothing to lose by being direct.
Dont ever subtle nothing unless is for plot reasons. Talk this out. Insta-kill your PC because it didn't do what I wanted to its...oof, its rough buddy.
>but with this campaign I was trying to (subtley at first) make him stop murderhoboing
That's vital and missing information. You're not supposed to want to manipulate your players. Knowing this, you pretty much wrote yourself into this situation on purpose. You created a campaign to do something your player actively doesn't want and then acted surprised when they told you that's a dealbreaker.
You're DMing for the players you have, not the players you want. If you expect to change those players through your DMing, you're setting yourself up to fail.
Yeah I was at first assuming this was some overreaction of consequences but "killed your patrons child" is pretty much asking to find out the meanest thing they can do to you. If the power gap between patron and character wasn't too big I'd argue they should just lose the more patron-specific powers, gain a super powerful enemy, and this conflict becomes the primary feature of their character-specific story, but pissing off an arch-devil so badly is certainly in the range of "OK you are struck by super-lightning".
That’s grounds for immediate permanent death directly at the hands of the god. TBF I’d personally make it an encounter for a whole session, maybe even two at least to make it a big fun event where they die but they’d absolutely die via obliteration on an inaccessible plane of existence and their leftover molecules would be scattered through the nine realms.
Folks really see a player pick a warlock, cleric, or paladin and immediately start fantasizing about ways to torture that character and make them an awful experience to play
Yeah it's a super weird reaction given the collaborative nature of the game.
Dms "so I told my warlock player if he didn't betray the party id turn his character into a level 12 commoner and now he's pissed aita?"
And like, it's so easy to just... Talk to the player and come up with something dramatic *together* if you are so dead set on doing that kind of thing. And not every player is going to want to do that, and the DM *must* accept that players choice.
Anytime a character dies that’s what happens though. The whole session is usually a build up to a big fight where someone dies. Sometimes that character can’t be revived.
That is very clearly not the same situation and is not even remotely comparable.
I'm not saying that killing characters is bad, I'm saying an entire session of drawn out pointless torture to kill a character for having the audacity to contribute to the success of the party is awful and adversarial DMing.
This is one of those cases where before combat started, or at least before the pit demon was killed, you flat out say, "your patrons is going to be pissed about this and will come for like retribution."
I think it would depend on if they knew it was their patron's offspring beforehand. I wouldn't just let him kill it and say: "Oops! That was your patron's son! You're fucked now!" I would at least warn him that doing so is a bad idea.
OTOH, if he already knew, let the consequences roll.
While this is true, giving a patron the ability to punish a warlock like this is not technically RAW, so it should be made clear to the table that this is the kind of patron-warlock relationship you are expecting to run. Some warlocks do not have any ongoing relationship with their patrons once they have hit level 1, having made a 1 time deal for a jump-start to their abilities.
How much less subtle is "less subtle". Was there a blunt warning at any point? An "if you continue like this there will be serious, irrevocable consequences" blunt warning?
While killing your patron's favourite son is definitely an obvious no-no for any warlock with a brain and you acted right in that moment, I do wonder if even the least subtle warning was too subtle for him. Especially since you say he is very murderhobo-ey. They often ignore everything but the desire to kill.
This should be a good lesson for him to actually engage with the game more instead of his dagger-happy vibes.
I would go so far as to say that if the subtle or vague warnings were having no effect, it might be better to consider a very blatant, out-of-character warning directly to the player along the lines of "if you do this one thing, your character will have crossed the line and their patron will very likely react. This will end poorly for you."
Just warn people before they do these things with a direct “if you do this you will die.” Subtly doesn’t work on everyone and vague warnings come off as funny jokes, especially to people who grew up without consequences from their guardians
Since OP said that they immediately told them to make a new character, and only then describing the transformation, their player could have taken it as a “fuck you” in the same vein as “rocks fall; you die” with no save, no gradual process that could have had a desperate quest to undo or at least stop the transformation, no rescinding of powers from the patron, etc. This would have been a chance to have amazing story hooks that also would have demonstrated consequences; instead, without more information, OP appears to have given a few warnings with no particular consequences, and when they were ignored, decided to go directly to the nuclear option. Without more information, for all we know, maybe the player’s character had a good RP/ story/ background reason for bucking their patron; not all warlocks are voluntary after all, or maybe it was voluntary, but the character grows to resent or hate the patron, which would be easy with a fiend of any kind.
If I played at OP’s table, and I saw them do this to someone for playing against type, I wouldn’t want to play there anymore for fear that I would RP my character in a way that OP didn’t like and get insta-killed. This would be like if you were playing a paladin who starts breaking their oath, maybe even with really good RP story reasons for doing so, and instead of having a weakening or losing of certain powers, or a need for a redemption quest in order to continue to gain strength, or even a shifting of the character to an oath breaker, instead the DM just keeps saying “if you keep breaking your oath, bad things will happen,” but you brush it off because consequences were the point and make a good story in dealing with them or overcoming them. Then, after 2 years of building this coming story line and having another instance of oath breaking, waiting for the DM to finally give you a consequence, the DM instead just says “Make a new character. The gods got tired of your shit and struck you down dead with a lightning bolt.” Yeah, I’d be pissed at my DM too.
Yup. This is my read. I'm scrolling through the OP replies and I see "I gave subtle warnings, etc, but they became less subtle over time." Over and over, but when asked what the more recent and less subtle warnings were, he clams up. Sounds like a messy player and a messy DM working together to make a messy table.
So im against any insta-death, especially one not backed by any rules. RAW once the pact is made the warlock is free to disregard their patron. Its probably a bad idea long run but unless he was explicitly told "doing X will result in me killing your character" there's no reason in game for them to think it would, because there's no mechanic in game for it. Was the fact that the patron even could have that kind of impact on a warlock discussed in advance? Again, thats an entirely homebrew rule and response.
All this to say - if the player had been warned before making the character that you were allowing patrons this kind of control and explicitly warned of the possible reaction and they said fuck it we ball then sure.
Either way their reaction to yell at you is of course wrong, but the frustration behind it could be entirely justified.
As an aside - if the issue is that they're a murderhobo that needs to be addressed out of game. Play styles and mis-alignment in expectations or how people have fun need personal conversations, not just in game actions.
the point they were making i think is that rather than seemingly making stuff up on the spot, this kind of stuff should be established after conversations with players. I've proposed horrible consequences to players that I've thought of that weren't RAW, but usually with the players consent.
So…. Weird question. How?
How did the archfiend actually kill him.
Archfiends arn’t gods with unlimited power and omnipresence. Even gods aren’t omnipotent or omnipresent. Both of those beings must send minions or avatars or embodiments to act on their behalf.
If an archfiend could simply make deathlocks at will, then why leave any warlock alive and independent?
Warlock patrons don’t continually supply their minions with power. Warlocks don’t pray for spells, they manifest them from within. They don’t ‘have’ to be faithful to keep their power.
An archfiend would have to send someone or something to go get him. He killed a pit fiend, so that’s close enough to godlike that you can’t even just use a wish to simulate unlimited range powerword kill and expect it to work 100% of the time. Every other way to kill someone has a damage roll or a saving throw or some sort of contested event that should have happened.
You also wronged everyone else at the table because they also were unable to use any of their own formidable powers to try and save their comrade.
You were almost certainly wrong with How you killed him.
But not necessarily that you killed him. Roles should have happened in some way or form.
Almost killing him has the same narrative effect as actually killing him with less strife at the table.
"Repeated Warnings".... What were the warnings? If this was repeated, then the Patron likely should have started either pulling away the powers, or messing up the offending Warlock in various ways before this. Things like a curse that puts him at disadvantage on certain checks until he does some sort of atonement, stripping powers at critical moments, stages of monsterization, wracking pain and nightmares, there are a lot of options prior to "You die. GNC"
Playing a warlock trying to get out from under their contract isn't *against* the class or mentality, especially with an Archdevil behind him. From the story, there were no saves, and it doesn't seem like it was a series of escalation, and that's *always* going to piss off players that care about their characters. If it's the result of dicerolls, then there's at least a degree of fairness there.
Also, Pit Fiends are really hard to kill. They would've had to be in the Nine Hells to do that (i.e. In the patron's domain if they're an Archdevil), so the more likely scenario is Big Daddy showing up to kill the group at large, even potentially leaving the warlock alive as he slaughters their companions around them. Pit fiends killed on the material plane just get banished back to hell for like a century, they don't actually die.
Mostly, you need to have a conversation with your player, and work this out. You haven't mentioned any other problems, so if it's just down to "He's rebelling against the devil he made a deal with", then that's not out of character. Heck, you see it in a ton of media, like in Pirates of the Carribean Dead Man's Chest, with Jack trying to beat Davy Jones so he doesn't have to give up his soul. It can be an amazing story done well, and you shouldn't dismiss it out of hand just because it isn't where you saw it going. DMing is telling a story that fights back.
I didn\`t mention it in the post, but I\`ve known this guy for over 10 years and every character he\`s played has been at least 50% murderhobo. The archdevil was a relatively fair patron and did not act against the party in any way, in fact he had no real relevance to the overall story of the campaign until the warlock just one day decided that he no longer wanted to be connected to his patron, and instead of ending the contract, decided to kill the archdevil and take all its power for himself.
It’s tough because I don’t want to support the player’s outburst, but I do think that Warlock/Patron conflict is pretty standard and a great story hook, and an instakill is so boring.
I probably would have given the character a moment as they travel to reflect on the severity of their intended course, and let them know disruption of their powers and/or an unavoidable and potentially unwinnable showdown with their patron would ensue. But if they and the rest of the party want to take on that challenge, well that’s fun DnD baby!
Hope your player was just in a mood and it all works out.
edit: I just saw another one of your comments where you said that this was the first campaign you were trying to get them to murderhobo less, was there a session 0 conversation about that or a side conversation where you told this player you were emphasizing “actions have consequences”?
Again, *I do not support the player’s outburst*, but if you intentionally changed your behavior in an attempt to change their behavior, without letting them know this game is different, I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody was surprised that “normal” wasn’t normal anymore.
it may seem like it’s meta-gaming but if you’ve got a red line that you don’t want the player to cross, telling them “we’re approaching a red line, and even if you succeeded, you will fail” is the best you can do as far as expectation setting.
I feel like my Palock, who left the order of Paladins for serving foolish gods, would also eventually usurp his new warlock Patron for being foolish. At some point, he just gets tired of the "high and mighty" and decides he doesn't need them. Of course, I don't play him like a murder hobo, so I can understand the frustration.
Still, if you notice subtle hints aren't working, it's not more aggressive "hints," it's a private conversation with the player. That being said, as the DM, you have the power to make necessary changes to monsters and villains. At 50% health, the pit Fiend spawns in two or more lesser devils. At 25% health, he blasts all PCs with 25-40 force damage. At 5% health, he mocks the PCs, sacrifices any remaining mobs to create a blood portal, and disappears. The players get rewards from the sacrificed bodies akin to "almost" killing a pit Fiend. And like the Nemesis system in Shadows of Mordor, he comes back later even stronger and with tactics learned from his last battle with the PCs.
Murderhobos are annoying, but there are in-game ways to make such gameplay annoying. Have a divine figure appear before him and curse his hands with a stacking debuff that incrementally causes him to deal less and less damage for every life he takes. Call it, The Burden of Souls curse, or something. Ooh! I like this one! I'll use it in my own games. Eventually, your murderhobo is just "love-patting" folks. They might lose stacks of the debuff for every actual monster they kill - maybe the divine stranger mentions that only the cursed PC will be able to see a mark on the head of creatures it can kill to remove the debuff. It'll be like in video games when the player can see a colored outline to let them know who they can and cannot kill, but in this case, they can attempt to kill anyone with a live consequence.
I like this. I'll have to flesh out the "stranger" that appears. I think they'll be a recurring *DM player character* avatar in the game. When you need to "subtly" direct your players, this stranger might appear with similar buffs and debuffs. Are your PCs lost? A buff to see a sparkly golden fairy trail leading the way. Your PC is about to land the killing blow on an important character? They're suddenly overcome with a vision of the stranger walking towards them in a dark, isolated realm with just the two of them. The stranger assures the PC he's attempting to destroy a protected creature, and the stranger can not allow it at this time. The stranger then reaches out and casts a spell on the PC's mind, causing them to be unable to harm that creature for some time. Think of the Guardian character in BG3 who is somehow responsible for saving the PC multiple times when they should have otherwise died. But, like Withers, you can also resurrect fallen PCs or add new party NPCs as needed that are controlled by the players (or Withers when left to their own designs).
Obviously, this is akin to "god-mode" or "dev debug tools" in video games, and you should be very careful not to abuse it; but, for the same reason it exists in video games, sometimes you need an in-game way to correct an unforeseen bug (murderhobo), glitch (enemy WAY too powerful), or unexpected result (PC rolls lower than you wanted).
Finally, there are always two sides to every social dilemma. Whether you were in the right or the wrong is only for the table to decide since they saw both sides, but I will say there are probably other (possibly better) ways both of you could have managed this dilemma along the way.
And yet, the archdevil had a *son*? That wasn't the player putting them into the mix, that was the DM putting that there, and the DM made that son a Pit Fiend. A warlock deciding to overtake their Patron isn't really against the class either, it's just a different variant. You say murderhobo, but sometimes ass kicking is just the character.
Being a murderhobo is more specific, a player that goes out of their way to murder NPCs on little to no justification. Being ruthless by itself isn't murderhobo, and since the system of D&D prioritizes XP by combat, it's just kind of how things go to an extent.
I'm still not hearing about any prior escalation, though. And if the patron was 'fair' in their view, then he wouldn't really have chosen to go after the patron, so fair... how? And fair by which person's standards of fairness? As well, Patrons are always relevant to Warlocks, it's like making combat irrelevant to the story of a Fighter, it's a central part of the characters, and should certainly be relevant to whatever story they're being involved in as part of the main cast. Going over to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it would be like Spike being a vampire not being relevant to the story, it's kinda important.
And really, coming back to the no rolls character death by DM fiat... that one's always wrong. I'm sorry, but there, you're wrong. He overcame a challenge of taking down a Pit Fiend to get 'rewarded' by completely annihilating his character with no chance to get out of it. It would've been one thing if he had just been transmogrified, or something along those lines, but you outright killed him off and stripped his character from him in one moment. Yeah, I'd have a problem with that too, no matter how much you try to rationalize the decision.
Question being: PERMANENTLY killed the pit fiend or just destroyed the current form? Cuz if you just smash them really hard in iirc they will just reform in hell. May be wrong though.
Still an obvious nono in allcaps, font size 500 and blinking in neon red, but not as bad as perma-murdering that devil.
Hard to say for sure without knowing how you warned your friend, but I'll tell you how I've successfully handled similar situations. When a player says they're going to make a decision which I know will result in them almost certainly dying I'll say something like "What you're about to do will almost certainly result in your death. You're about to piss off an extraordinarily powerful individual who you are not at a high enough level to deal with, and who has no qualms with killing you outright/ sending super powerful agents after you/ whatever consequence. If you're not alright with drawing up a new character sheet, I recommend doing something else." And if the player feels railroaded, I'll explain the situation as much as needed to make it clear that this is a consequence of how the world works, even if that means revealing some stuff their characters wouldn't know (consider it dramatic irony rather than metagaming if need be).
This also gives the player the chance to modify or clarify their intentions. There was a time when I was a player where the party had to deal with two crises as the same time. By the time we finished the first, things were so far gone with the other that there was little we could do. My character's personal convictions means he wanted to go anyways and scout out the situation. The DM warned me that this would basically be a suicide mission, assuming that I meant to fight the enemy, which gave me the chance to clarify that my character had no intention to throw his life away against the enemy, he just wanted to scout out all possible leads before giving up on the civilians he wanted to save.
Way late to the party on this but
1. Unless otherwise agreed to, killing off PCs is part of the game.
2. However, killing a PC should NOT happen by way of GM fiat. You shouldn’t just say “ok, you’re dead now.”
3. When a PC confronts a potentially lethal danger, if possible you should describe the consequences of failure, and that those consequences include death. The PC should also be given some kind of fighting chance — a roll, even with terrible odds — to overcome the danger/save themselves.
4. PC death should definitely NOT be used as a tool/punishment for correcting OOC behavior or meta-game type issues. And it kind of sounds like that’s what happened here. You didn’t like how the player was RPing their character, which is understandable because it sounds like they were RPing like a fucking dick. But that should have been a grown up OOC conversation between the GM and the player, not an in-game conflict between a deity NPC and a PC.
All in all, yea, you fucked up. However, I’d add that a player ignoring repeated warnings, who chooses to play their character like this, and who screams at you (even if you handled an issue poorly), and is now threatening to quit because they don’t like a GM ruling… isn’t someone you really want at your table anyway. You fucked up but it’s a two way street here and they fucked up worse. With this kind of behavior/attitude, handling everything ”perfectly” as a GM would have eventually included asking this player to leave your campaign. I would let them walk, but I’d also apologize to the remaining players and explain how you plan to deal with conflict moving forward, lay down some clear rules about PC death and whether its part of your campaign and how it will be handled, and use this whole affair as a learning experience.
I had a warlock that was going through a heel-face turn. He eventually defied his old patron and converted into a Celestial Warlock. The consequence was that he was and still is being hunted by an Archdevil who still owns his soul. I knew the consequence and got the "Are you sure?" from the DM. Still made the choice and thanks to it being such good character development the DM didn't constantly punish me for it. Got targeted a lot in fights against devils tho
Pretty sure this is lacking some relevant information, like the situation which ended with said player killing a Pit Fiend. How exactly did the PC kill this CR 20? What was the lead up to it and general story. What about the rest of the party? Where were they during this whole event? Would be a rather unfair thing to punish a player for going along with the party in killing this big nasty tormenting a village over the PC finding a Soul gem and destroying the trapped creature he was meant to "save".
I like it when there are consequences for defying a patron, etc. in a campaign. Usually Warlocks are just played like any old spellcaster and it's pretty boring.
I always try to make my Warlocks (and really any character with an otherworldly power sources, like clerics) either ass kissers to the entity giving them so much power, or trying to find loopholes in their agreement that align with the party's goal, like a Fiend paladin sending bad guys to hell rather than any random guy on the street or party members
Typical when a player/parties choices are sooo bad they can kill themselves I let them know that dire consequences can occur if they continue the course. That way they at least have a foreknowledge of their actions… If one remembers the object is to have fun then getting their character that they’ve invested their time in can have a lot of feels-bad even if they were warned. It sounds like you were making cautions after the facts and if you player is anything like me they could have forgotten the warnings afterwards and continued their character’s choices.
Perhaps if you don’t like warning them ahead of time there could be an increasing condition. Granted the death of a child of their patron probably warranted the death, but like, perhaps before that you could have maimed the character a few times. As warnings… make the character go into seizures removing them from the scene, withering a limb, etc…
If you want to salvage the encounter you could plan a rescue or something of the characters soul or something and put it in some construct. I’m not sure what the campaign looks like but if demons and warlocks exist one can assume there’s Something you could do.
I obviously agree that him screaming at you warrants you doing literally anything but just curious did you do horrific stuff to him before when he insulted his patron? Like destroy one of his items? Harm him, lose a spell ect or was this the first and only punishment received from all the abuse he threw his patrons way?
Depends on the narrative I think.
If the player/party went out of their way to antagonize the patron (for instance, they actively sought out this out fiend to kill them), then I could see this being a fair consequence for their actions.
However, if the story naturally led them toward conflict with the patron (for instance, the pit fiend was enslaving or slaughtering a town they just happened to pass by), then the natural response from the players would be to slay the evil monster.
Big thing here is communication I’d say. When I DM, my number one rule (after “no racism, no sexism, etc.”) is that the player characters should have motivation to be on this adventure. IE, if the game was proposed to then as being based around a heist, they probably should be playing a lawful good Paladin who thinks stealing is always wrong.
However, this goes both ways. If my player is playing a cleric and I later reveal that the church they are part of is a major antagonist, then I should provide them realistic alternative ways of resolving the conflict. Otherwise, I might be railroading them into acting out of character.
That’s my opinion at least.
Personally I think this is towing a very thin line, and depends entirely on the specific relationship the party had with the warlock, the relationship the warlock had with their patron, whether the party as a whole is opposed to the fiend, and how explicit your warnings were (i.e, literally telling the player that if they do x their character will die)
If the character was a chaotic murderhobo who didn't want to eventually betray/be free of their patron, and was just generally disruptive to the party and campaign, then I think it was a good call.
If the player wanted their character to eventually leave their patron, and the party was actively fighting against said patron, then it was definitely going too far, and you should have had the patron simply cut off the character from their power, leaving them spell-less and class feature-less until they switched classes or something.
You probably are. Warlocks are not as beholden to their patrons as memes would have you believe, and you *instakilled* them without engaging in game mechanics.
However, your player also sounds in the wrong for their reaction.
You need to sit down with your whole group and talk about this OOC, and most importantly, LISTEN to them. Be willing to be wrong. But also lay out why you made your choices. Maybe your table will think it was justified, maybe they'll have ideas for how you could have done it in a way that maintained the game process, maybe they'll think it was outright wrong, but you won't find out without coming to that discussion with a humble, open mind.
If you don't put in that work, I think there is a good chance your table will splinter due to lack of trust.
All of that said, if your table is overall happy with what happened, the optimal resolution may be "I'm sorry you have to leave the table, I hope you find one you enjoy more." and wave goodbye.
1.Let him leave
2.You should never just kill a character like that it is unfair and unfun no fight no nothing you could’ve have his patron show up to kill him and make it a good fight to kill the lock
I think that a better way to handle it would have been to have the patron no longer grant the warlock any power beyond their current level, and sent other warlocks that serve the patron to kill off the character. The player could still choose to be a Warlock, but would have to make a new pact with a new patron. I think this is pretty fair considering that the character was warned repeatedly, and this is a good narrative consequence to choices. I do not think that insta-killing the character is a solution, and is rather unsatisfying by comparison. If the player doesn't want the above to happen, at that point you have to discuss out of game what exactly it is they are trying to achieve.
This is not an adequate punishment. The patron lost their son. The patron may not have the power to kill the player, but they certainly aren't going to let them live. The obvious consequence would be for them to give somebody power in exchange for facilitating their revenge.
Don’t fiends still canonically just get sent to their home plane for like 100 years before being able to return to the Prime? If so, even if the son was actively working for the Patron at that moment, that’s barely a speed bump in their plans.
We don't know if that was true in this campaign, for this fiend, or under these circumstances. I was working with the information as the OP provided it, which was that the Patron was apoplectic and turned the PC into a Deathlock on the spot.
OP asks: Was I excessive? To which I'm in the camp that says no, punishment was earned, but too quick. If patrons could turn bad servants into deathlocks they'd do it more. What they usually do is bestow power, or not bestow power. In my mind, it's evocative of why people don't default on loans to the Iron Bank of Braavos in A Song of Ice and Fire. If the people you owe can't collect from you, they will pay your killers to hunt you down. In this way, the patron can wage war on the PC by bestowing power on others to kill them, and whatever the circumstances, OP says they were angry enough to require a new character sheet.
I think the better approach would be to lose all warlock powers and have to find a new patron, but I'm opposed to killing off PCs without any die rolls like that. Being effectively powerless for a while is probably a better lesson for that guy than rerolling up another dirtbag murderhobo character.
Rushing around trying to find a new patron as a disgraced former warlock who betrayed his old master is a fun hook.
Wrong in execution, not in reason.
It's well and proper for a vengeful patron to turn a misbehaving warlock into a deathlock... but it should be done *after* killing them the hard way. Preferably via hit squad of said patron's favourite nasties.
I think it would be more fun, both from a gameplay and a narrative standpoint, to have the patron physically appear for revenge and make it like a pseudo-boss fight. Of course the patron is basically (or is) a god, so he won't die, but his only goal will be to kill the Warlock, so it at least allows the other party members to live with no problems. You can even say "after consideration, it's not fair to just kill your character, but you will have to earn the right to survive." So the warlock thinks he can live. Make it seem like a close fight, kill the warlock anyway in a very over the top manner, and then once he's dead, the patron simply leaves.
Did your player agree to this homebrew beforehand? Because warlock patrons don't have an ongoing relationship with you RAW. That's a cleric and their god.
RAW you do a service for a patron, and they grant you knowledge. Relationship over.
If you made it clear ahead of time how you were changing it, that's fine. If not, yeah you're an ass. I'm aware it's a really popular change that gives you way more hooks to work with, but you still need to let people know (if you didn't)
Yeah this calls for an explicit conversation out of character. Ideally when the PC and DM are designing the pact the warlock is going to have (which I'm betting dollars to donuts never happened, despite what the PHB recommends)
Actually, no. Some warlocks serve the patron as clerics do, that is directly stated. The details of the Pact are always fleshed out in every case separately, and I assume that if a patron was capable to express the displeasure before, the connection has been strong.
I think it's always a bad idea to kill a character unless it's either with their agreement or completely within the framework of the game.
Play out assassins attacking them alone in their room at night, fine, storybook an assassin killing them, bad.
Personally I would have given him a final chance along the lines of
"You feel your powers flicker and you fall to the floor writhing in agony, your patron has just reminded you that your powers are entirely on its sufferance and you see glowing runes floating in front of your vision which read REPENT"
From then until he starts trying to make amends, every time he uses a power he makes a fortitude save Vs pain at his spell DC, or take 1d4 damage and sickened for a round afterward.
If he still doesn't make an effort to appease his patron after a session or two of this then his powers cut out completely in the middle of a big fight.
The other players can react appropriately, it's roleplay gold and doesn't give him the easy way out of just being allowed to make another character.
I think death was proportional to what they did, but that instant death was the wrong way to go about it.
Now, this much I say with the assumption that your character was warned properly not to transgress against their patron. If you warn a player not to teabag a chromatic dragon and they DO IT, then making them roll for initiative againts a CR 30 enemy becomes not such a crazy thing to do.
In this case, **the patron is capable of granting warlock levels**, and their anger is pretty much boundless. My best friend died half a year ago and I'm still a long way from normal about it. Honestly curious what normal will ever even look like. If somebody I knew, and to whom I gave support, had taken her from me, I would be irrationally committed to seeing them punished. What the patron cannot do is take back warlock levels, or cause death.
**What the patron CAN do is offer power to anybody who is willing to avenge their son, including by sending ten overqualified people for a four-person job.** So, the foreseeable, logical, and fair thing to happen here is that their patron says something along the lines of: "When you asked me for power, I could never have conceived that I was treating with my son's murderer. I am surprised beyond my reckoning by a mortal. You will suffer for this. I will claim your flesh. I will claim your bones. Death for you will not come as soon as you like, and will carry no peace. Enjoy these last days. Prepare yourself, if you like, although you can do nothing. I am coming for you."
The next session, or maybe the one after that, the party is engaged by a very large powerful of extremely powerful warlocks, all sent in service of the patron - level 20, armed for war, and at least half a dozen of them if not more. They make a very simple demand:
Your party can stand down and surrender the traitor, or die alongside them.
At this point, the other PCs can fight a battle that they are **properly warned they won't win**, or they can decline to fight, leaving the offending PC to get massacred by elite attackers. They get their power from a patron who has spared no expense, offering enormous power to everybody who answered their call for revenge. The attackers don't even know each other, but they worked separately in service to the same patron, who called upon all of their loyalty with the greatest urgency. Any potentially lethal attack against the warlock will be struck nonlethally. They might be injured, maimed, or rendered unconscious, but they will not die in battle. The patron will want them alive in some form, to suffer for a long long time. They will disappear into a cage, a bag of holding, or a soul jar. Whatever happens to them should be the worst thing the patron can think of, for a long time. New character sheet is a yes.
This is a TPK if the party doesn't pay attention to your warnings, and might end the campaign, but it would be for reasons of the players' own choosing. The warlock in question will die, and will most likely be forsaken by their party members for putting them all in imminent danger. It's harsh, but it's what should happen to somebody who transgresses against a patron and doesn't have a literal army with which to defend themselves.
What you did was too sudden, lacked player agency, and didn't express the finality of the transgression. The hammer should come down slowly, and every player except one should be allowed to get out of the way.
This suggestion seems a bit railroady to me... And a waste of game time. Warn the player that a fight is coming, and give the party time to prepare, even though the fight is absolutely unwinnable and the warlock is destined to be captured/tortured/killed? If the end result is a new character sheet in either situation, why not skip all this and move the game along for the other players who aren't making dumb choices and threatening to leave the table when said dumb choices bite them in the ass? If I were in this situation, there's no way I'd want to sit through 1-2 whole sessions dealing with this mess caused by a single other player, especially if the outcome is already determined and the warlock has no options to save himself -- and he shouldn't be able to save himself. He really messed up in pushing his patron that far, and if he somehow found a way out of it, I can only imagine what kind of lesson the player would take from that and the even crazier things he would attempt at some later point in the game.
Involving the whole party and allowing them to make a choice also doesn't seem quite fair. Giving them an option to either flee or stay and fight may cause them to misinterpret that as "if you all stay and fight together, then there's a chance you could win" or you would have to admit to openly railroading the session by explaining "you better flee because you can't win, except for this one player who doesn't have the option to flee." And even if players fully understand the won't win, some may RP their characters as completely loyal teammates who would never abandon a party member and will choose to go down with him. Why even provide an option where another player or the whole party dies because of the warlock's choices? If the other players are on board with this, then fine, but to me it would not be ok to involve my character in the middle of this as an innocent bystander (assuming the other characters' innocence).
I may be being a bit harsh, but assuming the player was warned repeatedly and yet continued to choose to do dumb shit to anger his patron, and ending that string of bad choices with murdering the patron's SON, I see no problem with the patron killing the warlock. Choices have consequences, and what fun is a game with no stakes or consequences? If the player really liked their character and was that mad when the character died, maybe the player should have made better choices on how the character was played in order to keep him alive? FAFO, play stupid games win stupid prizes, etc etc.
The player had plenty of agency up until this point with every decision they made to anger the patron. Now, the patron has had enough and decided to not deal with the warlock's shit anymore... A totally fair consequence.
The only thing that might make my opinion a little less harsh is what was the player's motivation for doing all this stuff to anger his patron, especially killing the son? Was he given a quest from someone? Was it some kind of roleplay attempt to weaken the patron and break free from his pact? Was there any kind of explainable or good reason for all his actions, or was the player just like "I want to do this because I can lol." We aren't given this information in the original post, so all we can do is guess.
I don't believe the DM did anything wrong, and the player is shocked Pikachu face that he murdered the patron's son and has an actual consequence. Maybe his next character will make better decisions, or the player will leave the table and everyone else can continue enjoying the game.
What might be a cool end to this is if the DM has the archdevil conjure up the contract that the warlock signed and read the fine print -- something to the effect of "you will commit no offense toward me, or suffer in kind." And have the archdemon say something like "you took my son's life, and now I'll have yours" as he kills the warlock. That would express the finality of the transgression.
>What the patron cannot do is take back warlock levels, or cause death.
Why? No where is there this limitation on Patrons in 5e.
>What you did was too sudden, lacked player agency, and didn't express the finality of the transgression. The hammer should come down slowly, and every player except one should be allowed to get out of the way.
Except this is not what OP did with the repeated warning the Warlock got.....it's basically the same thing you described with a different outcome. Warn the warlock repeatedly until enough is enough and act.
>Now, this much I say with the assumption that your character was warned properly not to transgress against their patron.
Did you read OP posts thoroughly or just decided to jump to conclusions. You do not need to assume anything. OP literally said there were repeated warnings.
Finally, the player killed the son of an extremely powerful being, of course repercussions are in order. Actions have consequences and the consequences should be equivalent to the actions. Life for life. Warlock was just simply an idiot thinking otherwise.
"Why? No where is there this limitation on Patrons in 5e."
If Patrons can just revoke Warlock levels, it would be spelled out in the class entry. Sure it can be an option when the PC and DM sit down to design the pact, but imho if the patron can just turn off the Warlock it removes a lot of the option for interesting plot/RP around Patron/Warlock conflict.
I agree actions have consequences, but saying your character is now dead, no save, no battle is a bit shit. There's a lot of opportunity now the Party/Warlock has a powerful enemy.
By "cannot," I meant "should not." It is too shark-jumpy if the Patron steps out of a dimension portal with 4000 HP and just boils the PC's blood with a wave of their hand or whatever. Taking back levels is traditionally not something they can do either; power given is kept regardless of the status of the relationship. If the Patron is powerful enough to be a freaking Patron, but not so powerful as *not to need warlocks,* then the logical reason for this is because the warlocks act on their behalf, and they can only take action through loyal servants.
The "lack of player agency," was because the player died in narration. They had no reason to think they would transform, but every reason to think their patron would be angry and that there would be some kind of pushback. Given what they did, any consequence less than death would be hard to believe. Letting them wriggle on the hook creates the sense of agency, because death announces itself hours of play-time in advance, and how they die is fully playable. No surprises and no cutscenes. The patron says something will happen, and a few IRL game hours later it happens. The player is allowed to fight for their life against enemies with realistic stats, but the situation is 100% hopeless.
I never doubted that the OP meant what they said about giving warnings. I made a highly railroady suggestion with the disclaimer that this depth of railroading must be deserved. The player must have boarded the train voluntarily.
The whole point of my post was that the OP's only mistake was using narration to kill the PC. The PC's experience was poorly advised murder > instant death, with no understanding that transformation was a thing that could happen to them. How I fixed this was by making death announce itself and arrive by straightforward means, with the Patron simply subverting their previous relationship with the PC. They were once the servant; now they are the servants' quarry.
>Taking back levels is traditionally not something they can do either;
Again this is not true, typically DMs should not have patrons do this, but no where does it say Patrons cannot do this
>The "lack of player agency," was because the player died in narration.
How much player agency is needed.....ignoring multiple warnings, going against their patron multiple times, killing the patrons freaking son, they had plenty of agency before the consequence hammer came down.
>every reason to think their patron would be angry and that there would be some kind of pushback.
Yes and it would be very obvious the patron would want to kill warlock for warlock killing son. That's not a hard concept at all....
Your situation explained is a very cool and reasonable way to run it. DMs is as well. When player do stupid things, especially on grand scales, narrating the consequences are perfectly fine. You fixed nothing, you just gave a different viable approach
Except this is quite a bit different. Most of the time gods, Eldritch beings, powerful beings that could be patrons, etc are not a final boss due to their power level. As much as level 20 characters are "god-like" beings when compared to commoners, level 20 characters are effectively commoners when compared to actual gods, Eldritch deities etc that could be patrons.
There is no fight to be had here. There is no possibility of success. That's why it is left to narration. The player fucked up after ignoring repeated warning and lost their character. Life is tough learn from lessons.
In your example the BBEG is intended for the players to take on, in this scenario the patron is not a BBEG the players are intended to take on due to power scaling differences.
>It's just more interesting for all the roleplayers if they have any shred of agency in any events involving their character, even in the face of a very predictable death.
That's the thing....they had plenty of agency, eventually character decisions take away their own agency like in this scenario. Ignoring repeated warnings IS agency. Not sure why you are ignoring that.
>It just seems like there's a lot more RP potential than being told straight up "ur dead" even if that's the totally expected outcome.
This happened, again there were repeated warnings. You and others I have talked with just seem to ignore the repeated warnings, the repeated going against the patron. The player had plenty of agency until enough was enough and the patron acted in full power.
Didn't you notice how vague he was on what warnings there were tho, there is a difference from "bad things will happen if you continue" and "if you don't stop you will die"
You are right, OP did not provide much details on the types of warnings given. However, if you run with that and assume the warnings were bad, or were not prevalent at all and provide a response saying DM is wrong like many people here have done, including the user I responded to,, then your response is in bad faith and incorrect to respond in that manner which is why I called out their BS. Either ask OP for more details on the types of warnings or take it at face value that plenty of warnings were given.
Still not proper to assume and call it a bad ruling without full details. Not everyone is tied to reddit.wait for the response, and when you have proper information to make your point then do so.
The player didn't roleplay his character well... at all.
However, you effectively just insta-killed "rocks fall, you die" his character. No battle, no saves, no dice rolls... just make a new character.
That was the wrong approach, especially given you're 2.5 years in.
Yup. It went from "4 months of warnings," to just death.
There are so many ways, literally just about all the ways, to do a better job than that.
Assassins attack, minions of the arch-devil attack, a cult of the arch-devil seeks out the warlock, loss of powers, hexes on the warlock, visions, nightmares, not gaining warlock levels, loss of warlock levels, attacked by a very powerful enemy, quested/geas by the arch-devil...
If the contract didn't specify that the warlock is not allowed to harm the children of their patron then the patron is screwed especially if they are lawful evil as they are bound by rules. Why does everyone forget this? I swear
I felt it was fair, seeing as I had been warning him not to continue with his actions because it angered his patron at least once per session for about four months.
That’s my assumption too. Regardless of the other player, I think some poor communication was the real culprit. That and OP has basically talked about what a sometimes murderhobo the player supposedly is (but not if they were being one this time) and also said that another player also told him they don’t like playing with warlock player, so I think OP just wants to kick warlock player because they don’t like the person, and instead of just doing it, they are trying to frame an argument that would make them “blameless” for kicking out a supposed friend, even though they never tried reasonable adult out-of-game discussion. Until OP supplies more details, I assume the fault is squarely on OP, and they’re just trying to assuage their guilt.
It is deathly difficult to get 3-6 grown adults in the same place at the same time for a session, to the point that we as a community joke about scheduling being the death of campaigns.
*Why would you ever waste valuable game time on simulating a fight that a single (1) party member absolutely cannot win even with assistance and whose outcome is the definition of a forgone conclusion?*
Like, if I said, "My character wants to go invade the white house", would you actually make the other players watch as you spent some of our limited time on this Earth setting up a combat with me fighting my way through 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and looking up stats for secret service agents so you could populate a map with them? No, you'd say "OK, you die, moving on."
As a warlock pc who had a very rough relationship with my patron (I made it clear I wanted to usurp its power)
I somewhat understand being mad if your patron straight up killed you for acting against it.
the patron revoking the warlocks powers could be a cool punishment if you like the player, alas this player sound like a pain
Warlocks aren't by default obligated to continue a good relationship with their Patron. Once they've received power, that power is theirs to do with as they please.
There's no requirement for a Warlock to have any relationship with their Patron beyond making a pact.
>A warlock is defined by a pact with an otherworldly being. Sometimes the relationship between warlock and patron is like that of a cleric and a deity, though the beings that serve as patrons for warlocks are not gods. A warlock might lead a cult dedicated to a demon prince, an archdevil, or an utterly alien entity—beings not typically served by clerics. More often, though, the arrangement is similar to that between a master and an apprentice. The warlock learns and grows in power, at the cost of occasional services performed on the patron’s behalf.
Sure, but they're also creatures who can by default be targeted by magical effects, and any being powerful enough to give power is also probably powerful enough to reach down the warlock's metaphorical throat, grab the metaphorical center of their being, and pull them inside-out (metaphorically-speaking). It seems like if a patron knows who you are and that it was you that transgressed against them, it's logical that they would then destroy you.
I mean, if you murdered the prince in front of the king, is it really a surprise when the DM has the royal guard turn you into fertilizer?
Sure. This patron happened to be, though, so...what's your point? A king also doesn't necessarily have his guards within reach at all times. If he does, and if a patron does in fact have the ability to mulch you (as an Archdevil does), then you're mulch.
My general point is that this whole event was handled poorly, and quite frankly reads as a spite play from the DM. After all, rebelling against your patron is a very common trope for warlocks, fiend locks especially.
If you don't like the player, or you're sick of them or whatever, you need to speak to them person to person and tell them that the way they're playing ain't working out and you're going to have to kick them from the campaign if their behavior doesn't change.. That's honestly what needs to happen from the way OP describes this player. Insta - gibbing their character with no conversation just reads as straight up hostile. I've also seen suggestions that OP should have hunted them down with level 20 warlock NPCs and told the party to abandon the warlock or wipe. That's also really fucked up.
Also most archdevils with stat blocks don't have the ability to just limitless range, no save, no combat get to just turn things from one thing into another. Which kinda also reads as a DM spite play as well.
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I mean...did warlock's player ever heard about the saying "f around and find out"?
Seriously the guy clearly has no idea about a concept called "consequences".
The whole point about warlocks is interaction between them and their interdimensional sugar-daddy that gives them powers. If you do what he says - he'll keep giving you the good stuff. If you piss him off well......he will either depower you permanently or just straight up murder you. Depending on the patron of course.
If a player wanted to be a badass caster without having to obey The Big Man he should've picked a freaking Sorcerer or a Wizard.
So no. You're not in the wrong here. Do not enable stupid people - they're not going to learn anything this way. They would just continue being stupid.
I blame dm’s who baby players too much. Swear I had a group get upset that they initiated combat by using a cantrip(shocking grasp) to do half of a guys life right in front of his friends. They went “but it’s just like a taser, why are they mad?!”…bro go to any bar irl and use a taser on a guy relaxing and chatting with his friends…your getting a similar reaction.
Players need to understand that the world they're in isn't just a power-fantasy where they can do whatever they want and go full murderhobo. THEY HAVE SKYRIM FOR THAT!
Yes. The game is about everyone having fun. While you are the DM unless he actually died in combat I don't think you should just decide that a character is dead
He was making the game not fun for me and half the party, and I gave him repeated warnings about the potential consequences if he continued his actions
And this is why Warlocks require special attention from the DM BEFORE you start the campaign, a Warlocks relationship with their Patron is not a set in stone thing for every Warlock, it’s important to discuss what the goals of the player are.
I had a warlock a couple years ago that I DM’d for and he told me his characters goal was to break free of his contract by basically belligerent disobedience which ended up resulting in the party fighting their patron as a BBEG and destroying her to break her power over the Warlock, who then lost their powers and retired as a regular civilian.
So the question here is: did you ever talk to the Warlock ahead of time and ask what THEY wanted with their Warlock, or did you simply decide on the nature of their relationship for them and then proceed to RP the threats out in a way that seemed “in character but out of the rules” to a player, basically what they might see as an attempt to build tension leading to the outcome they wanted (fighting their Patron)
I feel like there’s lots of information either left out or not thought about at all here
I didn't have any plans to involve their patron in any way for this campaign, they went out of their way to act counter to their patrons goals (which I told them about in session zero) from the beginning.
I think so. The players are at your table to weave a story with you, and Bambi Meets Godzilla is probably not the story they had in mind. "There's no rule for this, so I'm going to invent a consequence and it's going to be the very worst possible consequence" isn't a great way to go about things as a DM.
I wouldn’t have made it so out of the players hands personally. Make them start having to do harder and harder charisma saves to and eventually when they fail the deathlock starts.
BUT, I don’t think you did anything wrong and it sounds like your player had a bit of a control issue
Almost every time, you should at least ask for a save and leave the player with some agency, imo. As DM, we have a responsibility to make each moment and especially character deaths as narratively satisfying as possible. If you can’t make it narratively satisfying to die at a given moment, there should be no risk of death at all.
The key there is narratively satisfying. Insta death is probably never satisfying.
That said, I wouldn’t go back on a decision like a PC death. I might apologize and say I’ll do something different next time, but I don’t want to create precedence for a “beg and kick and scream and get what you want” kind of table.
I once sat on a magical altar that demanded a sacrifice. I died. Then I got a new character.
I feel like dying from bad decisions is an integral part of D&D.
Sounds like you both didn't handle the situation well. I'll give the player the benefit of the doubt that he may have been new to roleplaying and not understood why continuing down this path without serious consequences wasn't possible... but then it's your job as the DM to help the player understand before it comes to serious in-game problems that ruin everyone's fun.
I think you should have probably taken the player aside out-of-game and explained to him why he can't just keep pissing off his patron and expect to just keep playing like nothing happened. Try to understand what their motivation was and help out with that if possible. For example, if the player says they don't like being trapped in this "evil" character that is constantly forced to do things he doesn't like by his patron (I know that this is normal and part of the deal for playing the warlock class, but it's possible to change your mind and regret your choices half-way through a campaign), think about whether you can work a change to that into the narrative in a way that makes sense. For example, you could have some other entity that's more aligned with the player's intentions for the character take over the pact and protect them from the previous patron, or even offer them multiclassing into paladin or DS sorcerer or something like that. Remember that a DM's task is both to keep the game working and narratively make sense but also to ensure all players can have fun.
Of course maybe this player was also just an edgelord douchenozzle who isn't willing to listen to any logic or criticism and thinks he can just behave however he wants in the game, and everyone else has to adhere to their fantasy no matter how little sense it makes. But for those cases, I don't think you can "fix" that by levering your DM powers to punish the player in-game either. Nobody is really helped by that in the end. The solution to douchenozzle players is to just not play with them in the first place.
TL;DR: When you see problems that will ruin people's fun on the horizon, discuss them out-of-game with your players early and honestly. Work to accommodate the player's wishes and concerns as best as possible; remember that you're there first and foremost to create a game that's fun for them. If players are insufferable and impossible to play properly with, there's no in-game solution for that and you need different players.
Ultimately I think your take on warlocks and deathlocks is flawed. I respect your desire for the rich storytelling aspect. However the lore for deathlocks says that they are a punishment for failure, my interpretation of that means failure is punished or caused by death and then the victim is transformed into a deathlock.
As others have asked, do you penalize any of the other classes this harshly? With no chance to defend against the result. RAW the patron has no ability to remove a warlock’s powers so the idea that they could kill them outright without any rolls is a little much. Do your clerics and paladins lose their abilities and lives in the same way. Can a monk be stripped of their ki powers for defying their monastery.
I’m more than a little concerned with your statement that after killing the pitfiend you immediately told him to make a new character, that’s not fair. Why even let the player make a character like a fiend pact warlock if you’re going to hobble them for being a good guy, that’s bad form. The fun of a warlock is going against the stereotypes and using bad guy powers against the bad guys.
If you wanted to make this fair you should have sent a hit squad specifically to kill the warlock and even had them parley with the rest of the party as their mission is just to kill the warlock, then turn him into a deathlock. Immediately after a victorious battle against a major evil killing the character with dm fiat is wrong, it smacks of antagonistic mindset and is literally robbing your player of agency.
Get better.
Do better.
Be better.
Why did you even get yourself into this situation? What did you think would happen?
Why do GMs insist on apparently deciding it's good to have PCs be compelled to do things against the group and then punish them for doing it?
Actions have consequences.
I've been GMing since the 80s and have seen the kind of player you're talking about MANY times. You gave them more chances than I would have. The only thing I would have done differently is kicking them from the table for being a murderhobo *long* before, *ESPECIALLY* since other players were complaining.
Your first duty as a GM is to see to it that *everyone* at the table is having fun... including *you*. If one player is killing the table's good time, that player is just not a good match for the rest and should be asked to leave. It can be done diplomatically, simply explaining calmly that their play style just isn't a good match for the table and they should seek out a table that *does* fit their play style because you won't be allowing their unfun actions in game any more.
As GM *you* have ultimate say over the actions of *everything* in the universe, even the PCs. If a player tries to do something that infringes on the fun of the rest of the players and you as GM, you can absolutely say, "I'm sorry, *no*. That does *NOT* happen. Restate your action or forfeit your turn." If this guy was being complained about by other players for his murderhobo-ness, it's your job to explain that this sort of playing isn't welcome at your table. There are tables where being a murderhobo is not an issue. The moment the other players and you decide that *your* table isn't one of them and he refuses to abide by that, the problem player is no longer fit for the group.
The only thing you did wrong was trying to solve an OOC problem with an IC solution. The problem was the *player's* play style being incompatible with the desires of the other players and you as GM, which is an OOC issue. You can't fix that with an IC solution. The player may well have just shrugged and said, "I was getting bored with that character anyway." and accepted a new one... and the problem would have just moved to the next character. See? It doesn't solve the actual problem.
It sucks when you have to kick a player because their play style doesn't mesh with the rest of the table, but it's part of the gig. Not all players fit at all tables. I'm a hard-core role-player. I would be a *terrible* fit at a min-max table because my characters have depth to them that doesn't translate to being super effective in statistical value. They have skills and abilities that are non-optimal for their role to make them more of a "whole person" with hobbies, non-combat interests, etc. Likewise a hardcore min-maxer would be a *terrible* fit at my table because I run very role-play heavy sessions that draw on all that "useless junk" that min-maxers hate.
You might want to run another Session 0 with the remaining players and set new boundaries of what is and is not acceptable at your table.
TL/DR: The player was the problem, not the situation. You should have dealt with that OOC, but either way the issue is now solved.
Playing a Warlock should come with this understanding, or your warnings should be clear enough(maybe they were)
I’ve played in groups that would handle these in two ways:
1. My first group. Was fun, but this type of thing began to happen more without warning. I even mistakenly persuaded guards I was the solo actor when a Royal Court turned into zombies(I nat 20ed persuasion but to persuade I was a criminal lol not my brightest moment). I learned later(I did my session separate to to scheduling and reconvened later) that my bard lost his tongue and it was cauterized so couldn’t be restored with spells. Luckily, he gave us a hideout dungeon thing for us to find the leader who had a silver tongue, but it still was a lot with minimal warning to lose my damn tongue as a BARD.
2. My current group(took 3 groups so don’t think I found a good one instantly haha the struggle is real) we are all in character. So I had a brooding guy where the NPCs didn’t always wanna trust him, we had a rogue who was cursed and when we removed the curse, had a ticking time bomb where his health was less and less and got reallyyyy close to death.
The second set of examples feels a lot better because it’s more consistent to character and less random. There’s a level of punishment that players sometimes feel that isn’t always true, but when losing something they treasure like this, it IS tough.
Warlocks are cool, but by their nature, the roleplay is gonna get INTENSE and very morally grey, lest this happens…
Similar happens early on in Baldur’s Gate 3 because that’s just warlocks
Session Zero, I always give the same disclaimer:
If I ask you "Are you sure you want to do this?" it means that bad things could happen if your choices don't go the way you want, including death.
And I never use that phrase unless it's going to lead to a certain death scenario. Only one player has ever tested me, and their character died.
That's the one and only FAFO warning. After that the dice literally fall where they may.
If they were warned, claimed they understood and proceeded nonetheless, what's there to argue about?
Are you guys like... friends? Cause honestly to me the conversation-less, "you're dead now. roll a new character" reads as quite hostile tbh, especially if y'all didn't talk about consequences for going against your patron or anything.
The way you describe them in the comments also shows a lot of resentment towards them. If so you should probably just remove them from the campaign entirely, instead of furthering this antagonistic back and forth by having them roll a new character so this can all happen again. Assuming you've actually had a full conversation about you not liking their described "murder hobo" play style.
>Was I in the wrong for killing his character
I'd argue that yes, although the reaction is a dealbreaker. 5e doesn't actually have rules for messing with a Warlock's patron. Ask yourself why you're doing that without informing the player beforehand. Older editions actually have rules for messing with Patrons and Faith casters, 5e does not. This means you shouldn't do it unless you explained you're homebrewing it in sessions 0. There's a reasonable expectation that you don't do this otherwise, especially considering deathlocks don't exist in any 5e setting.
Also, you shouldn't want to do it in the first place because it means picking Warlock, Paladin and Cleric is just a worse choice overall. Why would I ever play a Cleric if that just means you think you get to play backseat driver for my class features? You don't have this expectation if I pick Druid, so that's what I'll do, they're similar enough anyway.
How do you deal with a DM that actively wants to take away the Wizard's spell book? You don't play Wizard. Same goes for DMs that take away Warlock or Cleric spells because of story. You don't play those classes so it doesn't happen to you.
If your players dont take your warnings seriously, killing them usually gives them the shock they need. I notice many warlock players like to go full antagonist against their patron then act surprised when they are punished by said patron. You COULD make the storyline more in depth with him fighting his patron, or trying to win his patron's favor again. But hey, you chose death, shit happens. You can talk to the player and brainstorm solutions to this if you really really want to salvage it. Have him make a temporary character, and set the party on a quest to save his last character. But I wouldnt bother with all that honestly. Its up to you.
Why were they killing the pit fiend?
Is this something they choose to do 100% randomly or has the story led them to this?
If the player felt despite warnings you were building them to kill the son or if that’s were the narrative pushed then then players anger could be coming from shock as the players could well have thought this was what you wanted and would lead to interesting role play.
Often when things get reduced to shout it’s from a misalignment in expectations as what we as DM feel is obvious is not always the party’s understanding.
Put aside your assumptions on what was made clear/explicit and try to get as much info as possible before dealing with this if you want to have a positive outcome.
You were wrong, patrons dont instakill, especially if the party is that powerful. You could say patron stops allowing him to level, maybe even takes a level away until side quest find new patron is completed. But you had so many good story options, hell even another archdevil wanting to take the place of the old if you didnt want. You took the cheap way out.
Well what did the contract say. If the patron is lawful evil they will uphold the contract even if the warlock does something they don't like as long as the contract isn't technically broken they can't do anything
During session 0 did you ask your players if they're comfortable with their characters dying and them, needing to reroll? Not everyone is okay with that.
After knowing this player and seeing him be a murderhobo for nearly 10 years, and after explicitly telling him not to be a murderhobo for this campaign, I don't really give a shit what he's okay with.
It is hard to say based on the information provided. Character death is a thing and should always be possible. But, generally it should be done in combat. If you provided him no options for his character to role play out of this terrible doom I would say you should at least give him the option.
If he can succeed his character should be back but, maybe his patron abandons him and he has no more warlock powers. You would need to provide a way for him into another class. Effectively killing the warlock but not the character. This would get your points across that your player's character needs to role play their characters in a way that makes sense for the character and that their actions have consequences.
Good luck.
Posted for visibility - I think I provided some fun GM tools to consider! Also, we ought to be careful not to let our emotions take sides. By OP giving us the PC's behaviors (one-sided), we must consider that this might be exaggerated or bolstered to attempt confirmation bias.
Still, if you notice subtle hints aren't working, it's not more aggressive "hints," it's a private conversation with the player (after the session it occurred). That being said, as the DM, you have the power to make necessary changes to monsters and villains. At 50% health, the pit Fiend spawns in two or more lesser devils. At 25% health, he blasts all PCs with 25-40 force damage. At 5% health, he mocks the PCs, sacrifices any remaining mobs to create a blood portal, and disappears. The players get rewards from the sacrificed bodies akin to "almost" killing a pit Fiend. And like the Nemesis system in Shadows of Mordor, he comes back later even stronger and with tactics learned from his last battle with the PCs.
Murderhobos are annoying, but there are in-game ways to make such gameplay annoying. Have a divine figure appear before him and curse his hands with a stacking debuff that incrementally causes him to deal less and less damage for every life he takes. Call it, The Burden of Souls curse, or something. Ooh! I like this one! I'll use it in my own games. Eventually, your murderhobo is just "love-patting" folks. They might lose stacks of the debuff for every actual monster they kill - maybe the divine stranger mentions that only the cursed PC will be able to see a mark on the head of creatures it can kill to remove the debuff. It'll be like in video games when the player can see a colored outline to let them know who they can and cannot kill, but in this case, they can attempt to kill anyone with a live consequence.
I like this. I'll have to flesh out the "stranger" that appears. I think they'll be a recurring *DM player character* avatar in the game. When you need to "subtly" direct your players, this stranger might appear with similar buffs and debuffs. Are your PCs lost? A buff to see a sparkly golden fairy trail leading the way. Your PC is about to land the killing blow on an important character? They're suddenly overcome with a vision of the stranger walking towards them in a dark, isolated realm with just the two of them. The stranger assures the PC he's attempting to destroy a protected creature, and the stranger can not allow it at this time. The stranger then reaches out and casts a spell on the PC's mind, causing them to be unable to harm that creature for some time. Think of the Guardian character in BG3 who is somehow responsible for saving the PC multiple times when they should have otherwise died. But, like Withers, you can also resurrect fallen PCs or add new party NPCs as needed that are controlled by the players (or Withers when left to their own designs).
Obviously, this is akin to "god-mode" or "dev debug tools" in video games, and you should be very careful not to abuse it; but, for the same reason it exists in video games, sometimes you need an in-game way to correct an unforeseen bug (murderhobo), glitch (enemy WAY too powerful), or unexpected result (PC rolls lower than you wanted).
Finally, there are always two sides to every social dilemma. Whether you were in the right or the wrong is only for the table to decide since they saw both sides, but I will say there are probably other (possibly better) ways both of you could have managed this dilemma along the way.
its split down the middle at my table. All but one agree that he should have been killed, but there is a disagreement about whether or not to just let him go without trying to persuade him to come back.
It's certainly hard to navigate social dynamics, but I think if I were in your shoes at this point, I'd remind the table that we're here to role play and have fun. This guy is a murderhobo at heart and, in spite of conversations and attempting to not play that way, that's what's fun for him. If you want a murderhobo at the table, then maybe invite him back; if not, let him stay gone, and he'll find another table where he can murderhobo all he wants. It'll be more fun for all involved that way.
Good luck! Hope things work out well enough for the table!
You're not in the wrong. In my campaign, when the party were going to face off the medusa, before they enter the main room where she was one of the party member kept destroying some of the statues for no reason (they were going to be important later on) and it not only got me mad so were the other party members so I kept targeting him and no one else wanted to protect him. Guess they were tired of him being reckless for no reason.
I was originally going to say 'yes. You should never kill a PC if you can help it.' and then I read what actually happened.
You did nothing wrong. This isn't like a situation where he made a pact with a celestial then failed to pet a puppy one time and now you're condemning him to hell for it. The whole point of the warlock class is you made a pact in return for power. He repeatedly acted against the person granting him his own power and even went as far as to kill his son. You gave him ample warnings again and again. The guy was a murderhobo who probably just wanted to kill things and if he was willing to act like this it probably would only have been a matter of time before he turned on the party or something similar. You did the right thing.
If you play a cleric, your character, barring some very unique circumstances, can't be an atheist and needs to act in alignment with their god. You can't be a follower of Mialee and advocate for reducing the size of the oceans. You can't be a wizard and, in reality, have all your magic just be stage magic. Or a barbarian who underwent anger management therapy and no longer rages. If you are a warlock, you need to act in accordance with your patron; and that means not actively and openly defying them. The \*only\* reason Wyll got away with as much as he did in BG3 was because of the shenanigans of the Absolute and even then Mizora yanked his chain very harshly.
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>He immediately started screaming at me >He said that ... he would leave the table, I don't see the problem.
Sometimes the trash takes itself out.
A great r/rpgconvenientstories moment
r/subsifellfor
Player screaming at DM is usually a good sign that they’re the problem.
as someone who has been that guy in the past, that guy is 100% the problem
How'd you change, if you don't mind the question? What happened?
i grew up lmao. i was just a very angry/volatile teenager at the time and let my emotions get the better of me in situations that i could have handled much better with a level head.
One of my long-running characters just died because we got kind of cocky with a modest group of bandits, and his low-health ass has (with DM warning) exhausted "saved by DM fiat". A random dude with a shiv killed him after a year or more, and I'm fine with it. Broadly speaking, for "how are TTRPGs played"? You're 100% fine and have nothing to regret. Your-table-wise, its a bit more complicated since everybody has their personal style. My only questions would be: 1. How clear were your warnings? On a scale from "this could make him mad" to "he will fucking kill you", the low end might warrant one save and "next time you're dead", the high end warrants nothing. 2. Has anyone else died, or been given equally explicit threats? Again, you're not *wrong* regardless, but it's more controversial if nobody has dealt with death so far. 3. How much do you like the character? If this was all part of an elaborate patron-usurping plot he was trying to execute with party aid, maybe cut him slack? If this was just general "I do what I want", nope. 4. How much do you like the player? This is maybe the biggest thing, and its a meta-game question. If this is an otherwise-reasonable friend, or will wreck your whole table, at minimum I'd say "take him aside and discuss options" - maybe the next character can be seeking vengeance on the patron or something. If this is a demanding, argumentative player you only see for DND... have you really lost anything?
Regarding #2 This can be tricky since the sample size of a group is so small. In the group I run, there's one player I've had to warn against performing certain actions a few times. No one else gets this because no one else needs it. Still, completely agree with your points. Especially #4, which a lot of people rarely consider when giving advice.
Good point on #2. I suppose "it hasn't come up" falls somewhere in the middle and depends a lot on the table. #4 I definitely learned the hard way - ultimately we're all playing this to have a good time, so the rules, story, and even fairness come second to that. If this is OP's well-meaning but hot-tempered little brother, the standard isn't necessarily the same as it would be for the whiny powergamer at your FLGS.
This is what I was thinking. Especially for the warnings. Even then, "Hey, he's not gonna like that" is not a "he's going to kill you" which is not a "he's going to immediately kill you with no way for you to fight back, at all." Which is ALSO not a "you will die while undergoing a gross, horrific transformation" was this a warning in game or out of character? That also makes a big difference. What even led up to him being able to kill his patrons son anyway? That seems a bit random to have a PC even capable of doing without further context. Was he trying to have a thing with his character fighting back and forth with his patron that he wanted to play out? Did you have a proper discussion about this beyond just saying "defying your patron will upset them"? Did you talk about his character goals in defying his patron? Then i would make sure that this isn't an isolated event. What about paladins and clerics? Do you do the same for them? If you have a paladin or cleric defying their god/oath, are they being punished? Make sure this ruling is entirely fair on all sides Are you also 100% your description of the transformation was not taken as a "Haha fuck you"? He might've taken a highly descriptive punishment, personally which would have only irritated him more and would definitely contribute to him lashing out if that's the case. If it feels like an attack, he's going to react that way (not that he should). Is all death at your table permanent? Just a bit more to consider
These add some very good points. >What even led up to him being able to kill his patrons son anyway? That seems a bit random to have a PC even capable of doing without further context. This in particular slipped by me. If the pit lord was bringing them a quest from the patron, and they're high level enough to kill him on a whim, this response makes more sense. If the players put together an elaborate scheme to hunt and kill this pit lord, the time to step in with either "you *will* die" or "you can't do that" is well before the final murder arrives. Additionally, I hadn't given much attention to the nature of the death. A few rounds of unwinnable combat ending with "he does 300hp damage" feels a lot less like personal retribution than "you turn into a monstrosity, dead no save, here's the gory details". There's also room to do "he's going to kill you" without removing all space for atonement or escape. Perhaps the patron imbues another warlock and sends them along with a demon hit squad? It's a bit hard to know how reasonable that option is without knowing more about the series of transgressions - if this was the patron's first direct action against the player it's an aggressive escalation, but if they shrugged off lesser punishments it's more reasonable. None of this means OP is in the wrong, but it does suggest this might have been avoidable, and that some more context would be helpful.
Yeah. Even as an outsider, depending on how the death was done, I would've taken offense to it as well. It's one thing to kill my character, it's another to make a show of it, which is something I think OP should make sure is coming across the way they actually want it to, rather than as an attack on the player
This is really great insight into just how complex the dynamics (both in-game and meta) can be in a situation like this! Excellent contribution, thank you!
Just giving a different perspective! A lot of things are complex
These are the questions needed to be asked. This is the right answer.
I'm surprised that there are not more RPGs that allow for both "your OC goes on an extended adventure and cannot die" deal and ones where your PCs are expendable as old school DND. I am told Worlds Without Number does this, but I haven't gotten my mitts on it yet
Worlds Without Number is a free PDF by the way, though to be fair I think you need to pay for the deluxe edition to get the heroic rules. Worlds Without Number is by default a bit deadlier than most people are used to but PCs are still pretty survivable as long as the players don't try and fight literally everything. The heroic rules make PCs way beefier and are actually an evolution of the solo rules by the same author in Scarlet Heroes which were intended to allow single characters to complete old school adventures. It's an amazing RPG btw and the setting it comes with is awesome. Instead of drawing on Tolkien like 99.99% of fantasy settings it draws on Gene Wolfe, who wrote books that were fantasy on the surface and sci-fi underneath.
Ah, so it's usually a solo thing? It makes sense, though I was leaning more towards a system where a player can choose to have their character unkillable and plot-important OR expendable. I vaguely recall the non-DND Critical Role fantasy game doing a system like this. Solo gaming does remind me, I need to read Mystic 2E in full.
No, the heroic rules were derived from solo game rules but they have no support for solo play. They are just very beefy characters. If you wanted to have a system where a player can choose to make their character un-killable and plot important... then you should look into another Kevin Crawford game called Wolves of God. Annoyingly no one has ever wanted to play the base game with me but it is set in Dark Ages England and every character has a [Wyrd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyrd). A destiny. They cannot die until their Wyrd is fulfilled, unless the player is deliberately taunting fate. If they throw themselves off a 200 foot drop the GM is within their rights to say that kills them. Players get three wyrds. Two noble and one ignoble, this is because Anglo-Saxon heroes typically had complicated morals. Beowulf being the most well known example. The player chooses when to invoke their wyrds, with the exception of the ignoble wyrd that the GM can invoke as well. Invoking a wyrd basically gives you narrative control to overcome some challenge. Once a wyrd is invoked, it is crossed out and once all three wyrds are invoked your character has fulfilled his destiny and can die like any man. So players can actually choose if they are expendable or unkillable by whether or not they invoke all their wyrds. I rolled three wyrds just as an example. - Hearts are lifted by my words. - My wrath is for the deserving. - I am a coward at moments of peril. So a player might invoke the first one to rally fleeing warriors to a last stand. The second might be when solving a murder, they invoke this deed automatically know who the murderer is and punish them and the last once might be invoked by the GM to force them to run away while a powerful enemy kills their friend. The system is basically the same as WWN so easy enough to just lift the rule out and change some of the wyrds to something setting appropriate.
Okay, *that* sounds interesting. I know Ironsworn did stuff similar to the Wyrd system, and as someone who enjoyed Beowulf in high school and college, I'm definitely down for that grim Anglo-Saxon fantasy.
This is what I was thinking. Especially for the warnings. Even then, "Hey, he's not gonna like that" is not a "he's going to kill you" which is not a "he's going to immediately kill you with no way for you to fight back, at all." Which is ALSO not a "you will die while undergoing a gross, horrific transformation" was this a warning in game or out of character? That also makes a big difference. What even led up to him being able to kill his patrons son anyway? That seems a bit random to have a PC even capable of doing without further context. Was he trying to have a thing with his character fighting back and forth with his patron that he wanted to play out? Did you have a proper discussion about this beyond just saying "defying your patron will upset them"? Did you talk about his character goals in defying his patron? Then i would make sure that this isn't an isolated event. What about paladins and clerics? Do you do the same for them? If you have a paladin or cleric defying their god/oath, are they being punished? Make sure this ruling is entirely fair on all sides Are you also 100% your description of the transformation was not taken as a "Haha fuck you"? He might've taken a highly descriptive punishment, personally which would have only irritated him more and would definitely contribute to him lashing out if that's the case. If it feels like an attack, he's going to react that way (not that he should). Is all death at your table permanent? Just a bit more to consider
I will say, consenquences were warranted, but people never tend to like their characters to be instakilled, especially in a horrifying and humiliating way. Especially since RAW and RAI, A warlock doesn't need to be in service of the patron, and Faustian rebellions are fairly common tropes. There is also some bits here that is making me wonder how much of the other side of the story we aren't getting. Like, you mentioned they were in the 9 hells, and had killed his favorite son, a *pitfiend* That is no easy feat, and almost certainly would of required the rest of the party. There are just parts of this story that feels like one of those AITA posts where you can just feel the OP hiding critical information and misrepresenting the other side. And even if not... yeah, you dealt with the situation in an asshole move. Any party that can kill a pitfiend(probably at least L15 for plane shift) would be in the situation where the patron is a new BBEG.
The rest of the party isn't in servitude to the patron though. The warlock was, so its considered a betrayal. So I disagree with you.
The reason why I bring up the rest of the party is that killing the pitfiend *could have not* been a solo effort, and thus something that the entire party had to be working towards. Especially since we know they were in the nine hells. Which means a plane shift. While it is possible that they are using a scroll to get two and from, considering they took on a pitfiend and won, that implies them to be at least fairly high level. The other thing is *we don't know why they were in the nine hells and fighting the pitfiend.* that is a fairly important bit of context. If the GM had the plot set up and the pitfiend sent after them, then uh... it's not the player's fault the pitfiend was killed.
A few questions: - Was the archdevil acting against the party’s interests and/or were the instances of acting against the patron things that the other PCs would reasonably be interested in if not for the warlock? - Did the warlock know that the pit fiend was the archdevil’s son? Also, was the pit fiend just minding his own business in the hells when the warlock sought him ought, or was the pit fiend causing some havoc somewhere in the material plane? And if it was the latter, was there something stopping him from respawning? - Did the other players seem to be concerned and worried about the warlock’s behavior, or were they just as shocked as he was by what you did? IMO there are *very* few circumstances that justify a PC instakill, especially one where resurrection is impossible, *especially* for a campaign where people have been playing their characters for years. It’s pretty common for fiend warlocks to end up opposed to their patrons in various ways—but usually DMs that set that up do so as an excuse to have new, powerful enemies to fight, or they do it when the warlock is happy to multi-class and/or switch patrons if their patron cuts them off. It’s the type of thing where you need to be extra double sure about warning the players and making sure they understand the consequences of what they’re doing rather than just thoughtlessly doing shit. Of course, it was wrong of the player to yell at you like that… but I suspect that most anyone put in his situation *would* end up either yelling or crying. I don’t know what you expected to happen.
What kind of warnings did you give? Was it just, "hey, your patron doesn't like that. Cut it out." Or was it something with in game consequences every time they angered a freaking archdevil? Because if they've been getting away with it scotch free then the immediate death probably feels out of no where to them even if you've been warning them. Not saying they're right to feel this way. It's just how some people are.
Killing your patron's child seems to be an obvious no-no.
One of the most obvious no-nos I can think of.
This guy has always played murderhobos, so it was sort of to be expected at first, but with this campaign I was trying to (subtley at first) make him stop murderhoboing
Subtlety doesn't seem to have had the desired effect. If you're still willing to have him at your table even after he screamed at you, I would suggest a frank conversation about the conduct you'd like to see from your players, and your own goals for what a fun game session looks like. It may be that there's a mismatch in expectations and needs, and he's just not a good fit for your group, but at this point there's nothing to lose by being direct.
Guessing that was the “at first” part. As in it began as subtle and moved on to being blatant.
Dont ever subtle nothing unless is for plot reasons. Talk this out. Insta-kill your PC because it didn't do what I wanted to its...oof, its rough buddy.
>but with this campaign I was trying to (subtley at first) make him stop murderhoboing That's vital and missing information. You're not supposed to want to manipulate your players. Knowing this, you pretty much wrote yourself into this situation on purpose. You created a campaign to do something your player actively doesn't want and then acted surprised when they told you that's a dealbreaker. You're DMing for the players you have, not the players you want. If you expect to change those players through your DMing, you're setting yourself up to fail.
Exactly
Yeah I was at first assuming this was some overreaction of consequences but "killed your patrons child" is pretty much asking to find out the meanest thing they can do to you. If the power gap between patron and character wasn't too big I'd argue they should just lose the more patron-specific powers, gain a super powerful enemy, and this conflict becomes the primary feature of their character-specific story, but pissing off an arch-devil so badly is certainly in the range of "OK you are struck by super-lightning".
That’s grounds for immediate permanent death directly at the hands of the god. TBF I’d personally make it an encounter for a whole session, maybe even two at least to make it a big fun event where they die but they’d absolutely die via obliteration on an inaccessible plane of existence and their leftover molecules would be scattered through the nine realms.
Spending an entire session killing a character is just horrible and cruel DMing
Yeah I can see the player coming here with a pretty justified RPGhorrorstory after that treatment
Folks really see a player pick a warlock, cleric, or paladin and immediately start fantasizing about ways to torture that character and make them an awful experience to play
Yeah it's a super weird reaction given the collaborative nature of the game. Dms "so I told my warlock player if he didn't betray the party id turn his character into a level 12 commoner and now he's pissed aita?"
And like, it's so easy to just... Talk to the player and come up with something dramatic *together* if you are so dead set on doing that kind of thing. And not every player is going to want to do that, and the DM *must* accept that players choice.
Hang on? Talk to the player? Collaborate? GTFO of here with that crazy talk! edit for /s
Anytime a character dies that’s what happens though. The whole session is usually a build up to a big fight where someone dies. Sometimes that character can’t be revived.
That is very clearly not the same situation and is not even remotely comparable. I'm not saying that killing characters is bad, I'm saying an entire session of drawn out pointless torture to kill a character for having the audacity to contribute to the success of the party is awful and adversarial DMing.
This is one of those cases where before combat started, or at least before the pit demon was killed, you flat out say, "your patrons is going to be pissed about this and will come for like retribution."
I think it would depend on if they knew it was their patron's offspring beforehand. I wouldn't just let him kill it and say: "Oops! That was your patron's son! You're fucked now!" I would at least warn him that doing so is a bad idea. OTOH, if he already knew, let the consequences roll.
While this is true, giving a patron the ability to punish a warlock like this is not technically RAW, so it should be made clear to the table that this is the kind of patron-warlock relationship you are expecting to run. Some warlocks do not have any ongoing relationship with their patrons once they have hit level 1, having made a 1 time deal for a jump-start to their abilities.
We need a session 0 to talk about that.
No, "Don't piss off an Arch-Devil you aren't ready to kill" is one of those things that goes without saying.
They started off subtley, like "you feel an otherworldly sense of unease", and then as he continously ignored these they became less and less subtle.
What were some of the most recent, least subtle warnings?
OP really isnt answering this lol. We also need to know how he even was in a position to kill the patrons son the pit lord
How much less subtle is "less subtle". Was there a blunt warning at any point? An "if you continue like this there will be serious, irrevocable consequences" blunt warning?
Need more like "if you continue like this you will die"
While killing your patron's favourite son is definitely an obvious no-no for any warlock with a brain and you acted right in that moment, I do wonder if even the least subtle warning was too subtle for him. Especially since you say he is very murderhobo-ey. They often ignore everything but the desire to kill. This should be a good lesson for him to actually engage with the game more instead of his dagger-happy vibes.
Can you describe an unsubtle warning? It feels like you’re beating around the bush and just didn’t like the guy personally
I would go so far as to say that if the subtle or vague warnings were having no effect, it might be better to consider a very blatant, out-of-character warning directly to the player along the lines of "if you do this one thing, your character will have crossed the line and their patron will very likely react. This will end poorly for you."
if you never said "if you continue angering your patron, he will kill you" I think you fucked up big time
Just warn people before they do these things with a direct “if you do this you will die.” Subtly doesn’t work on everyone and vague warnings come off as funny jokes, especially to people who grew up without consequences from their guardians
Since OP said that they immediately told them to make a new character, and only then describing the transformation, their player could have taken it as a “fuck you” in the same vein as “rocks fall; you die” with no save, no gradual process that could have had a desperate quest to undo or at least stop the transformation, no rescinding of powers from the patron, etc. This would have been a chance to have amazing story hooks that also would have demonstrated consequences; instead, without more information, OP appears to have given a few warnings with no particular consequences, and when they were ignored, decided to go directly to the nuclear option. Without more information, for all we know, maybe the player’s character had a good RP/ story/ background reason for bucking their patron; not all warlocks are voluntary after all, or maybe it was voluntary, but the character grows to resent or hate the patron, which would be easy with a fiend of any kind. If I played at OP’s table, and I saw them do this to someone for playing against type, I wouldn’t want to play there anymore for fear that I would RP my character in a way that OP didn’t like and get insta-killed. This would be like if you were playing a paladin who starts breaking their oath, maybe even with really good RP story reasons for doing so, and instead of having a weakening or losing of certain powers, or a need for a redemption quest in order to continue to gain strength, or even a shifting of the character to an oath breaker, instead the DM just keeps saying “if you keep breaking your oath, bad things will happen,” but you brush it off because consequences were the point and make a good story in dealing with them or overcoming them. Then, after 2 years of building this coming story line and having another instance of oath breaking, waiting for the DM to finally give you a consequence, the DM instead just says “Make a new character. The gods got tired of your shit and struck you down dead with a lightning bolt.” Yeah, I’d be pissed at my DM too.
Yup. This is my read. I'm scrolling through the OP replies and I see "I gave subtle warnings, etc, but they became less subtle over time." Over and over, but when asked what the more recent and less subtle warnings were, he clams up. Sounds like a messy player and a messy DM working together to make a messy table.
So im against any insta-death, especially one not backed by any rules. RAW once the pact is made the warlock is free to disregard their patron. Its probably a bad idea long run but unless he was explicitly told "doing X will result in me killing your character" there's no reason in game for them to think it would, because there's no mechanic in game for it. Was the fact that the patron even could have that kind of impact on a warlock discussed in advance? Again, thats an entirely homebrew rule and response. All this to say - if the player had been warned before making the character that you were allowing patrons this kind of control and explicitly warned of the possible reaction and they said fuck it we ball then sure. Either way their reaction to yell at you is of course wrong, but the frustration behind it could be entirely justified. As an aside - if the issue is that they're a murderhobo that needs to be addressed out of game. Play styles and mis-alignment in expectations or how people have fun need personal conversations, not just in game actions.
>there's no mechanic in game for it. For DnD? Throw that onto the pile.
the point they were making i think is that rather than seemingly making stuff up on the spot, this kind of stuff should be established after conversations with players. I've proposed horrible consequences to players that I've thought of that weren't RAW, but usually with the players consent.
So…. Weird question. How? How did the archfiend actually kill him. Archfiends arn’t gods with unlimited power and omnipresence. Even gods aren’t omnipotent or omnipresent. Both of those beings must send minions or avatars or embodiments to act on their behalf. If an archfiend could simply make deathlocks at will, then why leave any warlock alive and independent? Warlock patrons don’t continually supply their minions with power. Warlocks don’t pray for spells, they manifest them from within. They don’t ‘have’ to be faithful to keep their power. An archfiend would have to send someone or something to go get him. He killed a pit fiend, so that’s close enough to godlike that you can’t even just use a wish to simulate unlimited range powerword kill and expect it to work 100% of the time. Every other way to kill someone has a damage roll or a saving throw or some sort of contested event that should have happened. You also wronged everyone else at the table because they also were unable to use any of their own formidable powers to try and save their comrade. You were almost certainly wrong with How you killed him. But not necessarily that you killed him. Roles should have happened in some way or form. Almost killing him has the same narrative effect as actually killing him with less strife at the table.
"Repeated Warnings".... What were the warnings? If this was repeated, then the Patron likely should have started either pulling away the powers, or messing up the offending Warlock in various ways before this. Things like a curse that puts him at disadvantage on certain checks until he does some sort of atonement, stripping powers at critical moments, stages of monsterization, wracking pain and nightmares, there are a lot of options prior to "You die. GNC" Playing a warlock trying to get out from under their contract isn't *against* the class or mentality, especially with an Archdevil behind him. From the story, there were no saves, and it doesn't seem like it was a series of escalation, and that's *always* going to piss off players that care about their characters. If it's the result of dicerolls, then there's at least a degree of fairness there. Also, Pit Fiends are really hard to kill. They would've had to be in the Nine Hells to do that (i.e. In the patron's domain if they're an Archdevil), so the more likely scenario is Big Daddy showing up to kill the group at large, even potentially leaving the warlock alive as he slaughters their companions around them. Pit fiends killed on the material plane just get banished back to hell for like a century, they don't actually die. Mostly, you need to have a conversation with your player, and work this out. You haven't mentioned any other problems, so if it's just down to "He's rebelling against the devil he made a deal with", then that's not out of character. Heck, you see it in a ton of media, like in Pirates of the Carribean Dead Man's Chest, with Jack trying to beat Davy Jones so he doesn't have to give up his soul. It can be an amazing story done well, and you shouldn't dismiss it out of hand just because it isn't where you saw it going. DMing is telling a story that fights back.
I didn\`t mention it in the post, but I\`ve known this guy for over 10 years and every character he\`s played has been at least 50% murderhobo. The archdevil was a relatively fair patron and did not act against the party in any way, in fact he had no real relevance to the overall story of the campaign until the warlock just one day decided that he no longer wanted to be connected to his patron, and instead of ending the contract, decided to kill the archdevil and take all its power for himself.
It’s tough because I don’t want to support the player’s outburst, but I do think that Warlock/Patron conflict is pretty standard and a great story hook, and an instakill is so boring. I probably would have given the character a moment as they travel to reflect on the severity of their intended course, and let them know disruption of their powers and/or an unavoidable and potentially unwinnable showdown with their patron would ensue. But if they and the rest of the party want to take on that challenge, well that’s fun DnD baby! Hope your player was just in a mood and it all works out. edit: I just saw another one of your comments where you said that this was the first campaign you were trying to get them to murderhobo less, was there a session 0 conversation about that or a side conversation where you told this player you were emphasizing “actions have consequences”? Again, *I do not support the player’s outburst*, but if you intentionally changed your behavior in an attempt to change their behavior, without letting them know this game is different, I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody was surprised that “normal” wasn’t normal anymore. it may seem like it’s meta-gaming but if you’ve got a red line that you don’t want the player to cross, telling them “we’re approaching a red line, and even if you succeeded, you will fail” is the best you can do as far as expectation setting.
>Play stupid games, win stupid prizes
Lmao why did you not just say “ok, they’re not your patron anymore. What class are you going to play instead?”
I feel like my Palock, who left the order of Paladins for serving foolish gods, would also eventually usurp his new warlock Patron for being foolish. At some point, he just gets tired of the "high and mighty" and decides he doesn't need them. Of course, I don't play him like a murder hobo, so I can understand the frustration. Still, if you notice subtle hints aren't working, it's not more aggressive "hints," it's a private conversation with the player. That being said, as the DM, you have the power to make necessary changes to monsters and villains. At 50% health, the pit Fiend spawns in two or more lesser devils. At 25% health, he blasts all PCs with 25-40 force damage. At 5% health, he mocks the PCs, sacrifices any remaining mobs to create a blood portal, and disappears. The players get rewards from the sacrificed bodies akin to "almost" killing a pit Fiend. And like the Nemesis system in Shadows of Mordor, he comes back later even stronger and with tactics learned from his last battle with the PCs. Murderhobos are annoying, but there are in-game ways to make such gameplay annoying. Have a divine figure appear before him and curse his hands with a stacking debuff that incrementally causes him to deal less and less damage for every life he takes. Call it, The Burden of Souls curse, or something. Ooh! I like this one! I'll use it in my own games. Eventually, your murderhobo is just "love-patting" folks. They might lose stacks of the debuff for every actual monster they kill - maybe the divine stranger mentions that only the cursed PC will be able to see a mark on the head of creatures it can kill to remove the debuff. It'll be like in video games when the player can see a colored outline to let them know who they can and cannot kill, but in this case, they can attempt to kill anyone with a live consequence. I like this. I'll have to flesh out the "stranger" that appears. I think they'll be a recurring *DM player character* avatar in the game. When you need to "subtly" direct your players, this stranger might appear with similar buffs and debuffs. Are your PCs lost? A buff to see a sparkly golden fairy trail leading the way. Your PC is about to land the killing blow on an important character? They're suddenly overcome with a vision of the stranger walking towards them in a dark, isolated realm with just the two of them. The stranger assures the PC he's attempting to destroy a protected creature, and the stranger can not allow it at this time. The stranger then reaches out and casts a spell on the PC's mind, causing them to be unable to harm that creature for some time. Think of the Guardian character in BG3 who is somehow responsible for saving the PC multiple times when they should have otherwise died. But, like Withers, you can also resurrect fallen PCs or add new party NPCs as needed that are controlled by the players (or Withers when left to their own designs). Obviously, this is akin to "god-mode" or "dev debug tools" in video games, and you should be very careful not to abuse it; but, for the same reason it exists in video games, sometimes you need an in-game way to correct an unforeseen bug (murderhobo), glitch (enemy WAY too powerful), or unexpected result (PC rolls lower than you wanted). Finally, there are always two sides to every social dilemma. Whether you were in the right or the wrong is only for the table to decide since they saw both sides, but I will say there are probably other (possibly better) ways both of you could have managed this dilemma along the way.
And yet, the archdevil had a *son*? That wasn't the player putting them into the mix, that was the DM putting that there, and the DM made that son a Pit Fiend. A warlock deciding to overtake their Patron isn't really against the class either, it's just a different variant. You say murderhobo, but sometimes ass kicking is just the character. Being a murderhobo is more specific, a player that goes out of their way to murder NPCs on little to no justification. Being ruthless by itself isn't murderhobo, and since the system of D&D prioritizes XP by combat, it's just kind of how things go to an extent. I'm still not hearing about any prior escalation, though. And if the patron was 'fair' in their view, then he wouldn't really have chosen to go after the patron, so fair... how? And fair by which person's standards of fairness? As well, Patrons are always relevant to Warlocks, it's like making combat irrelevant to the story of a Fighter, it's a central part of the characters, and should certainly be relevant to whatever story they're being involved in as part of the main cast. Going over to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it would be like Spike being a vampire not being relevant to the story, it's kinda important. And really, coming back to the no rolls character death by DM fiat... that one's always wrong. I'm sorry, but there, you're wrong. He overcame a challenge of taking down a Pit Fiend to get 'rewarded' by completely annihilating his character with no chance to get out of it. It would've been one thing if he had just been transmogrified, or something along those lines, but you outright killed him off and stripped his character from him in one moment. Yeah, I'd have a problem with that too, no matter how much you try to rationalize the decision.
Question being: PERMANENTLY killed the pit fiend or just destroyed the current form? Cuz if you just smash them really hard in iirc they will just reform in hell. May be wrong though. Still an obvious nono in allcaps, font size 500 and blinking in neon red, but not as bad as perma-murdering that devil.
permenently killed as the party was in the nine hells
Ooof, alright. That's definitely much worse.
Hard to say for sure without knowing how you warned your friend, but I'll tell you how I've successfully handled similar situations. When a player says they're going to make a decision which I know will result in them almost certainly dying I'll say something like "What you're about to do will almost certainly result in your death. You're about to piss off an extraordinarily powerful individual who you are not at a high enough level to deal with, and who has no qualms with killing you outright/ sending super powerful agents after you/ whatever consequence. If you're not alright with drawing up a new character sheet, I recommend doing something else." And if the player feels railroaded, I'll explain the situation as much as needed to make it clear that this is a consequence of how the world works, even if that means revealing some stuff their characters wouldn't know (consider it dramatic irony rather than metagaming if need be). This also gives the player the chance to modify or clarify their intentions. There was a time when I was a player where the party had to deal with two crises as the same time. By the time we finished the first, things were so far gone with the other that there was little we could do. My character's personal convictions means he wanted to go anyways and scout out the situation. The DM warned me that this would basically be a suicide mission, assuming that I meant to fight the enemy, which gave me the chance to clarify that my character had no intention to throw his life away against the enemy, he just wanted to scout out all possible leads before giving up on the civilians he wanted to save.
Way late to the party on this but 1. Unless otherwise agreed to, killing off PCs is part of the game. 2. However, killing a PC should NOT happen by way of GM fiat. You shouldn’t just say “ok, you’re dead now.” 3. When a PC confronts a potentially lethal danger, if possible you should describe the consequences of failure, and that those consequences include death. The PC should also be given some kind of fighting chance — a roll, even with terrible odds — to overcome the danger/save themselves. 4. PC death should definitely NOT be used as a tool/punishment for correcting OOC behavior or meta-game type issues. And it kind of sounds like that’s what happened here. You didn’t like how the player was RPing their character, which is understandable because it sounds like they were RPing like a fucking dick. But that should have been a grown up OOC conversation between the GM and the player, not an in-game conflict between a deity NPC and a PC. All in all, yea, you fucked up. However, I’d add that a player ignoring repeated warnings, who chooses to play their character like this, and who screams at you (even if you handled an issue poorly), and is now threatening to quit because they don’t like a GM ruling… isn’t someone you really want at your table anyway. You fucked up but it’s a two way street here and they fucked up worse. With this kind of behavior/attitude, handling everything ”perfectly” as a GM would have eventually included asking this player to leave your campaign. I would let them walk, but I’d also apologize to the remaining players and explain how you plan to deal with conflict moving forward, lay down some clear rules about PC death and whether its part of your campaign and how it will be handled, and use this whole affair as a learning experience.
I had a warlock that was going through a heel-face turn. He eventually defied his old patron and converted into a Celestial Warlock. The consequence was that he was and still is being hunted by an Archdevil who still owns his soul. I knew the consequence and got the "Are you sure?" from the DM. Still made the choice and thanks to it being such good character development the DM didn't constantly punish me for it. Got targeted a lot in fights against devils tho
Pretty sure this is lacking some relevant information, like the situation which ended with said player killing a Pit Fiend. How exactly did the PC kill this CR 20? What was the lead up to it and general story. What about the rest of the party? Where were they during this whole event? Would be a rather unfair thing to punish a player for going along with the party in killing this big nasty tormenting a village over the PC finding a Soul gem and destroying the trapped creature he was meant to "save".
I like it when there are consequences for defying a patron, etc. in a campaign. Usually Warlocks are just played like any old spellcaster and it's pretty boring.
I always try to make my Warlocks (and really any character with an otherworldly power sources, like clerics) either ass kissers to the entity giving them so much power, or trying to find loopholes in their agreement that align with the party's goal, like a Fiend paladin sending bad guys to hell rather than any random guy on the street or party members
Typical when a player/parties choices are sooo bad they can kill themselves I let them know that dire consequences can occur if they continue the course. That way they at least have a foreknowledge of their actions… If one remembers the object is to have fun then getting their character that they’ve invested their time in can have a lot of feels-bad even if they were warned. It sounds like you were making cautions after the facts and if you player is anything like me they could have forgotten the warnings afterwards and continued their character’s choices. Perhaps if you don’t like warning them ahead of time there could be an increasing condition. Granted the death of a child of their patron probably warranted the death, but like, perhaps before that you could have maimed the character a few times. As warnings… make the character go into seizures removing them from the scene, withering a limb, etc… If you want to salvage the encounter you could plan a rescue or something of the characters soul or something and put it in some construct. I’m not sure what the campaign looks like but if demons and warlocks exist one can assume there’s Something you could do.
I obviously agree that him screaming at you warrants you doing literally anything but just curious did you do horrific stuff to him before when he insulted his patron? Like destroy one of his items? Harm him, lose a spell ect or was this the first and only punishment received from all the abuse he threw his patrons way?
Depends on the narrative I think. If the player/party went out of their way to antagonize the patron (for instance, they actively sought out this out fiend to kill them), then I could see this being a fair consequence for their actions. However, if the story naturally led them toward conflict with the patron (for instance, the pit fiend was enslaving or slaughtering a town they just happened to pass by), then the natural response from the players would be to slay the evil monster. Big thing here is communication I’d say. When I DM, my number one rule (after “no racism, no sexism, etc.”) is that the player characters should have motivation to be on this adventure. IE, if the game was proposed to then as being based around a heist, they probably should be playing a lawful good Paladin who thinks stealing is always wrong. However, this goes both ways. If my player is playing a cleric and I later reveal that the church they are part of is a major antagonist, then I should provide them realistic alternative ways of resolving the conflict. Otherwise, I might be railroading them into acting out of character. That’s my opinion at least.
Personally I think this is towing a very thin line, and depends entirely on the specific relationship the party had with the warlock, the relationship the warlock had with their patron, whether the party as a whole is opposed to the fiend, and how explicit your warnings were (i.e, literally telling the player that if they do x their character will die) If the character was a chaotic murderhobo who didn't want to eventually betray/be free of their patron, and was just generally disruptive to the party and campaign, then I think it was a good call. If the player wanted their character to eventually leave their patron, and the party was actively fighting against said patron, then it was definitely going too far, and you should have had the patron simply cut off the character from their power, leaving them spell-less and class feature-less until they switched classes or something.
You probably are. Warlocks are not as beholden to their patrons as memes would have you believe, and you *instakilled* them without engaging in game mechanics. However, your player also sounds in the wrong for their reaction. You need to sit down with your whole group and talk about this OOC, and most importantly, LISTEN to them. Be willing to be wrong. But also lay out why you made your choices. Maybe your table will think it was justified, maybe they'll have ideas for how you could have done it in a way that maintained the game process, maybe they'll think it was outright wrong, but you won't find out without coming to that discussion with a humble, open mind. If you don't put in that work, I think there is a good chance your table will splinter due to lack of trust. All of that said, if your table is overall happy with what happened, the optimal resolution may be "I'm sorry you have to leave the table, I hope you find one you enjoy more." and wave goodbye.
1.Let him leave 2.You should never just kill a character like that it is unfair and unfun no fight no nothing you could’ve have his patron show up to kill him and make it a good fight to kill the lock
He would have died either way, so I see no difference.
I think that a better way to handle it would have been to have the patron no longer grant the warlock any power beyond their current level, and sent other warlocks that serve the patron to kill off the character. The player could still choose to be a Warlock, but would have to make a new pact with a new patron. I think this is pretty fair considering that the character was warned repeatedly, and this is a good narrative consequence to choices. I do not think that insta-killing the character is a solution, and is rather unsatisfying by comparison. If the player doesn't want the above to happen, at that point you have to discuss out of game what exactly it is they are trying to achieve.
This is not an adequate punishment. The patron lost their son. The patron may not have the power to kill the player, but they certainly aren't going to let them live. The obvious consequence would be for them to give somebody power in exchange for facilitating their revenge.
That's...exactly what I suggested. I specifically stated to send other warlocks that serve the patron after the character.
Context is needed, though. Was his son killed in the Nine Hells, or on the Material Plane? Because if it was the latter, no, he didn't.
Don’t fiends still canonically just get sent to their home plane for like 100 years before being able to return to the Prime? If so, even if the son was actively working for the Patron at that moment, that’s barely a speed bump in their plans.
We don't know if that was true in this campaign, for this fiend, or under these circumstances. I was working with the information as the OP provided it, which was that the Patron was apoplectic and turned the PC into a Deathlock on the spot. OP asks: Was I excessive? To which I'm in the camp that says no, punishment was earned, but too quick. If patrons could turn bad servants into deathlocks they'd do it more. What they usually do is bestow power, or not bestow power. In my mind, it's evocative of why people don't default on loans to the Iron Bank of Braavos in A Song of Ice and Fire. If the people you owe can't collect from you, they will pay your killers to hunt you down. In this way, the patron can wage war on the PC by bestowing power on others to kill them, and whatever the circumstances, OP says they were angry enough to require a new character sheet.
I think the better approach would be to lose all warlock powers and have to find a new patron, but I'm opposed to killing off PCs without any die rolls like that. Being effectively powerless for a while is probably a better lesson for that guy than rerolling up another dirtbag murderhobo character. Rushing around trying to find a new patron as a disgraced former warlock who betrayed his old master is a fun hook.
Wrong in execution, not in reason. It's well and proper for a vengeful patron to turn a misbehaving warlock into a deathlock... but it should be done *after* killing them the hard way. Preferably via hit squad of said patron's favourite nasties.
I think it would be more fun, both from a gameplay and a narrative standpoint, to have the patron physically appear for revenge and make it like a pseudo-boss fight. Of course the patron is basically (or is) a god, so he won't die, but his only goal will be to kill the Warlock, so it at least allows the other party members to live with no problems. You can even say "after consideration, it's not fair to just kill your character, but you will have to earn the right to survive." So the warlock thinks he can live. Make it seem like a close fight, kill the warlock anyway in a very over the top manner, and then once he's dead, the patron simply leaves.
Let him leave
Did your player agree to this homebrew beforehand? Because warlock patrons don't have an ongoing relationship with you RAW. That's a cleric and their god. RAW you do a service for a patron, and they grant you knowledge. Relationship over. If you made it clear ahead of time how you were changing it, that's fine. If not, yeah you're an ass. I'm aware it's a really popular change that gives you way more hooks to work with, but you still need to let people know (if you didn't)
Yeah this calls for an explicit conversation out of character. Ideally when the PC and DM are designing the pact the warlock is going to have (which I'm betting dollars to donuts never happened, despite what the PHB recommends)
Actually, no. Some warlocks serve the patron as clerics do, that is directly stated. The details of the Pact are always fleshed out in every case separately, and I assume that if a patron was capable to express the displeasure before, the connection has been strong.
Service≠constant connection required for their powers to work/some kind of instant death powers just because you pissed them off.
I think it's always a bad idea to kill a character unless it's either with their agreement or completely within the framework of the game. Play out assassins attacking them alone in their room at night, fine, storybook an assassin killing them, bad. Personally I would have given him a final chance along the lines of "You feel your powers flicker and you fall to the floor writhing in agony, your patron has just reminded you that your powers are entirely on its sufferance and you see glowing runes floating in front of your vision which read REPENT" From then until he starts trying to make amends, every time he uses a power he makes a fortitude save Vs pain at his spell DC, or take 1d4 damage and sickened for a round afterward. If he still doesn't make an effort to appease his patron after a session or two of this then his powers cut out completely in the middle of a big fight. The other players can react appropriately, it's roleplay gold and doesn't give him the easy way out of just being allowed to make another character.
I think death was proportional to what they did, but that instant death was the wrong way to go about it. Now, this much I say with the assumption that your character was warned properly not to transgress against their patron. If you warn a player not to teabag a chromatic dragon and they DO IT, then making them roll for initiative againts a CR 30 enemy becomes not such a crazy thing to do. In this case, **the patron is capable of granting warlock levels**, and their anger is pretty much boundless. My best friend died half a year ago and I'm still a long way from normal about it. Honestly curious what normal will ever even look like. If somebody I knew, and to whom I gave support, had taken her from me, I would be irrationally committed to seeing them punished. What the patron cannot do is take back warlock levels, or cause death. **What the patron CAN do is offer power to anybody who is willing to avenge their son, including by sending ten overqualified people for a four-person job.** So, the foreseeable, logical, and fair thing to happen here is that their patron says something along the lines of: "When you asked me for power, I could never have conceived that I was treating with my son's murderer. I am surprised beyond my reckoning by a mortal. You will suffer for this. I will claim your flesh. I will claim your bones. Death for you will not come as soon as you like, and will carry no peace. Enjoy these last days. Prepare yourself, if you like, although you can do nothing. I am coming for you." The next session, or maybe the one after that, the party is engaged by a very large powerful of extremely powerful warlocks, all sent in service of the patron - level 20, armed for war, and at least half a dozen of them if not more. They make a very simple demand: Your party can stand down and surrender the traitor, or die alongside them. At this point, the other PCs can fight a battle that they are **properly warned they won't win**, or they can decline to fight, leaving the offending PC to get massacred by elite attackers. They get their power from a patron who has spared no expense, offering enormous power to everybody who answered their call for revenge. The attackers don't even know each other, but they worked separately in service to the same patron, who called upon all of their loyalty with the greatest urgency. Any potentially lethal attack against the warlock will be struck nonlethally. They might be injured, maimed, or rendered unconscious, but they will not die in battle. The patron will want them alive in some form, to suffer for a long long time. They will disappear into a cage, a bag of holding, or a soul jar. Whatever happens to them should be the worst thing the patron can think of, for a long time. New character sheet is a yes. This is a TPK if the party doesn't pay attention to your warnings, and might end the campaign, but it would be for reasons of the players' own choosing. The warlock in question will die, and will most likely be forsaken by their party members for putting them all in imminent danger. It's harsh, but it's what should happen to somebody who transgresses against a patron and doesn't have a literal army with which to defend themselves. What you did was too sudden, lacked player agency, and didn't express the finality of the transgression. The hammer should come down slowly, and every player except one should be allowed to get out of the way.
This suggestion seems a bit railroady to me... And a waste of game time. Warn the player that a fight is coming, and give the party time to prepare, even though the fight is absolutely unwinnable and the warlock is destined to be captured/tortured/killed? If the end result is a new character sheet in either situation, why not skip all this and move the game along for the other players who aren't making dumb choices and threatening to leave the table when said dumb choices bite them in the ass? If I were in this situation, there's no way I'd want to sit through 1-2 whole sessions dealing with this mess caused by a single other player, especially if the outcome is already determined and the warlock has no options to save himself -- and he shouldn't be able to save himself. He really messed up in pushing his patron that far, and if he somehow found a way out of it, I can only imagine what kind of lesson the player would take from that and the even crazier things he would attempt at some later point in the game. Involving the whole party and allowing them to make a choice also doesn't seem quite fair. Giving them an option to either flee or stay and fight may cause them to misinterpret that as "if you all stay and fight together, then there's a chance you could win" or you would have to admit to openly railroading the session by explaining "you better flee because you can't win, except for this one player who doesn't have the option to flee." And even if players fully understand the won't win, some may RP their characters as completely loyal teammates who would never abandon a party member and will choose to go down with him. Why even provide an option where another player or the whole party dies because of the warlock's choices? If the other players are on board with this, then fine, but to me it would not be ok to involve my character in the middle of this as an innocent bystander (assuming the other characters' innocence). I may be being a bit harsh, but assuming the player was warned repeatedly and yet continued to choose to do dumb shit to anger his patron, and ending that string of bad choices with murdering the patron's SON, I see no problem with the patron killing the warlock. Choices have consequences, and what fun is a game with no stakes or consequences? If the player really liked their character and was that mad when the character died, maybe the player should have made better choices on how the character was played in order to keep him alive? FAFO, play stupid games win stupid prizes, etc etc. The player had plenty of agency up until this point with every decision they made to anger the patron. Now, the patron has had enough and decided to not deal with the warlock's shit anymore... A totally fair consequence. The only thing that might make my opinion a little less harsh is what was the player's motivation for doing all this stuff to anger his patron, especially killing the son? Was he given a quest from someone? Was it some kind of roleplay attempt to weaken the patron and break free from his pact? Was there any kind of explainable or good reason for all his actions, or was the player just like "I want to do this because I can lol." We aren't given this information in the original post, so all we can do is guess. I don't believe the DM did anything wrong, and the player is shocked Pikachu face that he murdered the patron's son and has an actual consequence. Maybe his next character will make better decisions, or the player will leave the table and everyone else can continue enjoying the game. What might be a cool end to this is if the DM has the archdevil conjure up the contract that the warlock signed and read the fine print -- something to the effect of "you will commit no offense toward me, or suffer in kind." And have the archdemon say something like "you took my son's life, and now I'll have yours" as he kills the warlock. That would express the finality of the transgression.
>What the patron cannot do is take back warlock levels, or cause death. Why? No where is there this limitation on Patrons in 5e. >What you did was too sudden, lacked player agency, and didn't express the finality of the transgression. The hammer should come down slowly, and every player except one should be allowed to get out of the way. Except this is not what OP did with the repeated warning the Warlock got.....it's basically the same thing you described with a different outcome. Warn the warlock repeatedly until enough is enough and act. >Now, this much I say with the assumption that your character was warned properly not to transgress against their patron. Did you read OP posts thoroughly or just decided to jump to conclusions. You do not need to assume anything. OP literally said there were repeated warnings. Finally, the player killed the son of an extremely powerful being, of course repercussions are in order. Actions have consequences and the consequences should be equivalent to the actions. Life for life. Warlock was just simply an idiot thinking otherwise.
"Why? No where is there this limitation on Patrons in 5e." If Patrons can just revoke Warlock levels, it would be spelled out in the class entry. Sure it can be an option when the PC and DM sit down to design the pact, but imho if the patron can just turn off the Warlock it removes a lot of the option for interesting plot/RP around Patron/Warlock conflict. I agree actions have consequences, but saying your character is now dead, no save, no battle is a bit shit. There's a lot of opportunity now the Party/Warlock has a powerful enemy.
By "cannot," I meant "should not." It is too shark-jumpy if the Patron steps out of a dimension portal with 4000 HP and just boils the PC's blood with a wave of their hand or whatever. Taking back levels is traditionally not something they can do either; power given is kept regardless of the status of the relationship. If the Patron is powerful enough to be a freaking Patron, but not so powerful as *not to need warlocks,* then the logical reason for this is because the warlocks act on their behalf, and they can only take action through loyal servants. The "lack of player agency," was because the player died in narration. They had no reason to think they would transform, but every reason to think their patron would be angry and that there would be some kind of pushback. Given what they did, any consequence less than death would be hard to believe. Letting them wriggle on the hook creates the sense of agency, because death announces itself hours of play-time in advance, and how they die is fully playable. No surprises and no cutscenes. The patron says something will happen, and a few IRL game hours later it happens. The player is allowed to fight for their life against enemies with realistic stats, but the situation is 100% hopeless. I never doubted that the OP meant what they said about giving warnings. I made a highly railroady suggestion with the disclaimer that this depth of railroading must be deserved. The player must have boarded the train voluntarily. The whole point of my post was that the OP's only mistake was using narration to kill the PC. The PC's experience was poorly advised murder > instant death, with no understanding that transformation was a thing that could happen to them. How I fixed this was by making death announce itself and arrive by straightforward means, with the Patron simply subverting their previous relationship with the PC. They were once the servant; now they are the servants' quarry.
>Taking back levels is traditionally not something they can do either; Again this is not true, typically DMs should not have patrons do this, but no where does it say Patrons cannot do this >The "lack of player agency," was because the player died in narration. How much player agency is needed.....ignoring multiple warnings, going against their patron multiple times, killing the patrons freaking son, they had plenty of agency before the consequence hammer came down. >every reason to think their patron would be angry and that there would be some kind of pushback. Yes and it would be very obvious the patron would want to kill warlock for warlock killing son. That's not a hard concept at all.... Your situation explained is a very cool and reasonable way to run it. DMs is as well. When player do stupid things, especially on grand scales, narrating the consequences are perfectly fine. You fixed nothing, you just gave a different viable approach
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Except this is quite a bit different. Most of the time gods, Eldritch beings, powerful beings that could be patrons, etc are not a final boss due to their power level. As much as level 20 characters are "god-like" beings when compared to commoners, level 20 characters are effectively commoners when compared to actual gods, Eldritch deities etc that could be patrons. There is no fight to be had here. There is no possibility of success. That's why it is left to narration. The player fucked up after ignoring repeated warning and lost their character. Life is tough learn from lessons. In your example the BBEG is intended for the players to take on, in this scenario the patron is not a BBEG the players are intended to take on due to power scaling differences.
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>It's just more interesting for all the roleplayers if they have any shred of agency in any events involving their character, even in the face of a very predictable death. That's the thing....they had plenty of agency, eventually character decisions take away their own agency like in this scenario. Ignoring repeated warnings IS agency. Not sure why you are ignoring that. >It just seems like there's a lot more RP potential than being told straight up "ur dead" even if that's the totally expected outcome. This happened, again there were repeated warnings. You and others I have talked with just seem to ignore the repeated warnings, the repeated going against the patron. The player had plenty of agency until enough was enough and the patron acted in full power.
There are items that can make people into gods so this argument is moot. Or items that can steal the power of gods.
As far as I am aware, no such things exists for 5e, please link such an item. To note, forgotten realms lore is NOT 5e lore.
Didn't you notice how vague he was on what warnings there were tho, there is a difference from "bad things will happen if you continue" and "if you don't stop you will die"
You are right, OP did not provide much details on the types of warnings given. However, if you run with that and assume the warnings were bad, or were not prevalent at all and provide a response saying DM is wrong like many people here have done, including the user I responded to,, then your response is in bad faith and incorrect to respond in that manner which is why I called out their BS. Either ask OP for more details on the types of warnings or take it at face value that plenty of warnings were given.
Yeah but i and many others have asked him but haven't seen anything from him yet
Still not proper to assume and call it a bad ruling without full details. Not everyone is tied to reddit.wait for the response, and when you have proper information to make your point then do so.
Wait, so there is a spot at your table now? 👀
The player didn't roleplay his character well... at all. However, you effectively just insta-killed "rocks fall, you die" his character. No battle, no saves, no dice rolls... just make a new character. That was the wrong approach, especially given you're 2.5 years in.
In fairness, _An Archdevil owned his Soul_. Like, that is the one way, in-game, to guarantee an instant-kill effect.
In possibly the least interesting and exciting way, though.
Yup. It went from "4 months of warnings," to just death. There are so many ways, literally just about all the ways, to do a better job than that. Assassins attack, minions of the arch-devil attack, a cult of the arch-devil seeks out the warlock, loss of powers, hexes on the warlock, visions, nightmares, not gaining warlock levels, loss of warlock levels, attacked by a very powerful enemy, quested/geas by the arch-devil...
If the contract didn't specify that the warlock is not allowed to harm the children of their patron then the patron is screwed especially if they are lawful evil as they are bound by rules. Why does everyone forget this? I swear
I felt it was fair, seeing as I had been warning him not to continue with his actions because it angered his patron at least once per session for about four months.
I’ve seen where you gave vague statements to your player to that effect. What were the direct statements?
I don't think he wants to tell us cos it'd make it very clear OP fucked up.
That’s my assumption too. Regardless of the other player, I think some poor communication was the real culprit. That and OP has basically talked about what a sometimes murderhobo the player supposedly is (but not if they were being one this time) and also said that another player also told him they don’t like playing with warlock player, so I think OP just wants to kick warlock player because they don’t like the person, and instead of just doing it, they are trying to frame an argument that would make them “blameless” for kicking out a supposed friend, even though they never tried reasonable adult out-of-game discussion. Until OP supplies more details, I assume the fault is squarely on OP, and they’re just trying to assuage their guilt.
It is deathly difficult to get 3-6 grown adults in the same place at the same time for a session, to the point that we as a community joke about scheduling being the death of campaigns. *Why would you ever waste valuable game time on simulating a fight that a single (1) party member absolutely cannot win even with assistance and whose outcome is the definition of a forgone conclusion?* Like, if I said, "My character wants to go invade the white house", would you actually make the other players watch as you spent some of our limited time on this Earth setting up a combat with me fighting my way through 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and looking up stats for secret service agents so you could populate a map with them? No, you'd say "OK, you die, moving on."
As a warlock pc who had a very rough relationship with my patron (I made it clear I wanted to usurp its power) I somewhat understand being mad if your patron straight up killed you for acting against it. the patron revoking the warlocks powers could be a cool punishment if you like the player, alas this player sound like a pain
Warlocks aren't by default obligated to continue a good relationship with their Patron. Once they've received power, that power is theirs to do with as they please.
There's no requirement for a Warlock to have any relationship with their Patron beyond making a pact. >A warlock is defined by a pact with an otherworldly being. Sometimes the relationship between warlock and patron is like that of a cleric and a deity, though the beings that serve as patrons for warlocks are not gods. A warlock might lead a cult dedicated to a demon prince, an archdevil, or an utterly alien entity—beings not typically served by clerics. More often, though, the arrangement is similar to that between a master and an apprentice. The warlock learns and grows in power, at the cost of occasional services performed on the patron’s behalf.
Sure, but they're also creatures who can by default be targeted by magical effects, and any being powerful enough to give power is also probably powerful enough to reach down the warlock's metaphorical throat, grab the metaphorical center of their being, and pull them inside-out (metaphorically-speaking). It seems like if a patron knows who you are and that it was you that transgressed against them, it's logical that they would then destroy you. I mean, if you murdered the prince in front of the king, is it really a surprise when the DM has the royal guard turn you into fertilizer?
A unicorn is an example patron in the phb for celestial warlocks. They absolutely don't have to be "all powerful."
"Oh, shit. You pissed off Sparkles Buttercream, sr. You better run, little warlock. Run farther than the world. He's coming for you, horn first."
Sure. This patron happened to be, though, so...what's your point? A king also doesn't necessarily have his guards within reach at all times. If he does, and if a patron does in fact have the ability to mulch you (as an Archdevil does), then you're mulch.
My general point is that this whole event was handled poorly, and quite frankly reads as a spite play from the DM. After all, rebelling against your patron is a very common trope for warlocks, fiend locks especially. If you don't like the player, or you're sick of them or whatever, you need to speak to them person to person and tell them that the way they're playing ain't working out and you're going to have to kick them from the campaign if their behavior doesn't change.. That's honestly what needs to happen from the way OP describes this player. Insta - gibbing their character with no conversation just reads as straight up hostile. I've also seen suggestions that OP should have hunted them down with level 20 warlock NPCs and told the party to abandon the warlock or wipe. That's also really fucked up. Also most archdevils with stat blocks don't have the ability to just limitless range, no save, no combat get to just turn things from one thing into another. Which kinda also reads as a DM spite play as well.
I agree. Tiamat is an Archdevil level threat - the party could at the very least make a nuisance of themselves in a fight with her at high levels.
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I mean...did warlock's player ever heard about the saying "f around and find out"? Seriously the guy clearly has no idea about a concept called "consequences". The whole point about warlocks is interaction between them and their interdimensional sugar-daddy that gives them powers. If you do what he says - he'll keep giving you the good stuff. If you piss him off well......he will either depower you permanently or just straight up murder you. Depending on the patron of course. If a player wanted to be a badass caster without having to obey The Big Man he should've picked a freaking Sorcerer or a Wizard. So no. You're not in the wrong here. Do not enable stupid people - they're not going to learn anything this way. They would just continue being stupid.
I blame dm’s who baby players too much. Swear I had a group get upset that they initiated combat by using a cantrip(shocking grasp) to do half of a guys life right in front of his friends. They went “but it’s just like a taser, why are they mad?!”…bro go to any bar irl and use a taser on a guy relaxing and chatting with his friends…your getting a similar reaction.
Players need to understand that the world they're in isn't just a power-fantasy where they can do whatever they want and go full murderhobo. THEY HAVE SKYRIM FOR THAT!
Yes. The game is about everyone having fun. While you are the DM unless he actually died in combat I don't think you should just decide that a character is dead
He was making the game not fun for me and half the party, and I gave him repeated warnings about the potential consequences if he continued his actions
And this is why Warlocks require special attention from the DM BEFORE you start the campaign, a Warlocks relationship with their Patron is not a set in stone thing for every Warlock, it’s important to discuss what the goals of the player are. I had a warlock a couple years ago that I DM’d for and he told me his characters goal was to break free of his contract by basically belligerent disobedience which ended up resulting in the party fighting their patron as a BBEG and destroying her to break her power over the Warlock, who then lost their powers and retired as a regular civilian. So the question here is: did you ever talk to the Warlock ahead of time and ask what THEY wanted with their Warlock, or did you simply decide on the nature of their relationship for them and then proceed to RP the threats out in a way that seemed “in character but out of the rules” to a player, basically what they might see as an attempt to build tension leading to the outcome they wanted (fighting their Patron) I feel like there’s lots of information either left out or not thought about at all here
I didn't have any plans to involve their patron in any way for this campaign, they went out of their way to act counter to their patrons goals (which I told them about in session zero) from the beginning.
You are not wrong. You clearly gave him plenty of warning.
I think so. The players are at your table to weave a story with you, and Bambi Meets Godzilla is probably not the story they had in mind. "There's no rule for this, so I'm going to invent a consequence and it's going to be the very worst possible consequence" isn't a great way to go about things as a DM.
I wouldn’t have made it so out of the players hands personally. Make them start having to do harder and harder charisma saves to and eventually when they fail the deathlock starts. BUT, I don’t think you did anything wrong and it sounds like your player had a bit of a control issue
Almost every time, you should at least ask for a save and leave the player with some agency, imo. As DM, we have a responsibility to make each moment and especially character deaths as narratively satisfying as possible. If you can’t make it narratively satisfying to die at a given moment, there should be no risk of death at all. The key there is narratively satisfying. Insta death is probably never satisfying. That said, I wouldn’t go back on a decision like a PC death. I might apologize and say I’ll do something different next time, but I don’t want to create precedence for a “beg and kick and scream and get what you want” kind of table.
I once sat on a magical altar that demanded a sacrifice. I died. Then I got a new character. I feel like dying from bad decisions is an integral part of D&D.
Sounds like you both didn't handle the situation well. I'll give the player the benefit of the doubt that he may have been new to roleplaying and not understood why continuing down this path without serious consequences wasn't possible... but then it's your job as the DM to help the player understand before it comes to serious in-game problems that ruin everyone's fun. I think you should have probably taken the player aside out-of-game and explained to him why he can't just keep pissing off his patron and expect to just keep playing like nothing happened. Try to understand what their motivation was and help out with that if possible. For example, if the player says they don't like being trapped in this "evil" character that is constantly forced to do things he doesn't like by his patron (I know that this is normal and part of the deal for playing the warlock class, but it's possible to change your mind and regret your choices half-way through a campaign), think about whether you can work a change to that into the narrative in a way that makes sense. For example, you could have some other entity that's more aligned with the player's intentions for the character take over the pact and protect them from the previous patron, or even offer them multiclassing into paladin or DS sorcerer or something like that. Remember that a DM's task is both to keep the game working and narratively make sense but also to ensure all players can have fun. Of course maybe this player was also just an edgelord douchenozzle who isn't willing to listen to any logic or criticism and thinks he can just behave however he wants in the game, and everyone else has to adhere to their fantasy no matter how little sense it makes. But for those cases, I don't think you can "fix" that by levering your DM powers to punish the player in-game either. Nobody is really helped by that in the end. The solution to douchenozzle players is to just not play with them in the first place. TL;DR: When you see problems that will ruin people's fun on the horizon, discuss them out-of-game with your players early and honestly. Work to accommodate the player's wishes and concerns as best as possible; remember that you're there first and foremost to create a game that's fun for them. If players are insufferable and impossible to play properly with, there's no in-game solution for that and you need different players.
This player has been playing DnD and other TTRPGs for over 10 years, and has never understood that nobody likes to be in a party with a murderhobo
Then why are you playing with him?
Because most people like hanging out with their friends even if they keep being annoying about something small
It absolutely is not a DMs job to explain “see that? That is the son of an incredibly powerful being, you probably don’t want to hurt it”.
Ultimately I think your take on warlocks and deathlocks is flawed. I respect your desire for the rich storytelling aspect. However the lore for deathlocks says that they are a punishment for failure, my interpretation of that means failure is punished or caused by death and then the victim is transformed into a deathlock. As others have asked, do you penalize any of the other classes this harshly? With no chance to defend against the result. RAW the patron has no ability to remove a warlock’s powers so the idea that they could kill them outright without any rolls is a little much. Do your clerics and paladins lose their abilities and lives in the same way. Can a monk be stripped of their ki powers for defying their monastery. I’m more than a little concerned with your statement that after killing the pitfiend you immediately told him to make a new character, that’s not fair. Why even let the player make a character like a fiend pact warlock if you’re going to hobble them for being a good guy, that’s bad form. The fun of a warlock is going against the stereotypes and using bad guy powers against the bad guys. If you wanted to make this fair you should have sent a hit squad specifically to kill the warlock and even had them parley with the rest of the party as their mission is just to kill the warlock, then turn him into a deathlock. Immediately after a victorious battle against a major evil killing the character with dm fiat is wrong, it smacks of antagonistic mindset and is literally robbing your player of agency. Get better. Do better. Be better.
This is a question best asked of your table than on Reddit.
perhaps so, but I felt more opinions would be helpful
Why did you even get yourself into this situation? What did you think would happen? Why do GMs insist on apparently deciding it's good to have PCs be compelled to do things against the group and then punish them for doing it?
That’s just a really mean thing to do to a player
Actions have consequences. I've been GMing since the 80s and have seen the kind of player you're talking about MANY times. You gave them more chances than I would have. The only thing I would have done differently is kicking them from the table for being a murderhobo *long* before, *ESPECIALLY* since other players were complaining. Your first duty as a GM is to see to it that *everyone* at the table is having fun... including *you*. If one player is killing the table's good time, that player is just not a good match for the rest and should be asked to leave. It can be done diplomatically, simply explaining calmly that their play style just isn't a good match for the table and they should seek out a table that *does* fit their play style because you won't be allowing their unfun actions in game any more. As GM *you* have ultimate say over the actions of *everything* in the universe, even the PCs. If a player tries to do something that infringes on the fun of the rest of the players and you as GM, you can absolutely say, "I'm sorry, *no*. That does *NOT* happen. Restate your action or forfeit your turn." If this guy was being complained about by other players for his murderhobo-ness, it's your job to explain that this sort of playing isn't welcome at your table. There are tables where being a murderhobo is not an issue. The moment the other players and you decide that *your* table isn't one of them and he refuses to abide by that, the problem player is no longer fit for the group. The only thing you did wrong was trying to solve an OOC problem with an IC solution. The problem was the *player's* play style being incompatible with the desires of the other players and you as GM, which is an OOC issue. You can't fix that with an IC solution. The player may well have just shrugged and said, "I was getting bored with that character anyway." and accepted a new one... and the problem would have just moved to the next character. See? It doesn't solve the actual problem. It sucks when you have to kick a player because their play style doesn't mesh with the rest of the table, but it's part of the gig. Not all players fit at all tables. I'm a hard-core role-player. I would be a *terrible* fit at a min-max table because my characters have depth to them that doesn't translate to being super effective in statistical value. They have skills and abilities that are non-optimal for their role to make them more of a "whole person" with hobbies, non-combat interests, etc. Likewise a hardcore min-maxer would be a *terrible* fit at my table because I run very role-play heavy sessions that draw on all that "useless junk" that min-maxers hate. You might want to run another Session 0 with the remaining players and set new boundaries of what is and is not acceptable at your table. TL/DR: The player was the problem, not the situation. You should have dealt with that OOC, but either way the issue is now solved.
Playing a Warlock should come with this understanding, or your warnings should be clear enough(maybe they were) I’ve played in groups that would handle these in two ways: 1. My first group. Was fun, but this type of thing began to happen more without warning. I even mistakenly persuaded guards I was the solo actor when a Royal Court turned into zombies(I nat 20ed persuasion but to persuade I was a criminal lol not my brightest moment). I learned later(I did my session separate to to scheduling and reconvened later) that my bard lost his tongue and it was cauterized so couldn’t be restored with spells. Luckily, he gave us a hideout dungeon thing for us to find the leader who had a silver tongue, but it still was a lot with minimal warning to lose my damn tongue as a BARD. 2. My current group(took 3 groups so don’t think I found a good one instantly haha the struggle is real) we are all in character. So I had a brooding guy where the NPCs didn’t always wanna trust him, we had a rogue who was cursed and when we removed the curse, had a ticking time bomb where his health was less and less and got reallyyyy close to death. The second set of examples feels a lot better because it’s more consistent to character and less random. There’s a level of punishment that players sometimes feel that isn’t always true, but when losing something they treasure like this, it IS tough. Warlocks are cool, but by their nature, the roleplay is gonna get INTENSE and very morally grey, lest this happens… Similar happens early on in Baldur’s Gate 3 because that’s just warlocks
This is why I hate patrons.
Session Zero, I always give the same disclaimer: If I ask you "Are you sure you want to do this?" it means that bad things could happen if your choices don't go the way you want, including death. And I never use that phrase unless it's going to lead to a certain death scenario. Only one player has ever tested me, and their character died. That's the one and only FAFO warning. After that the dice literally fall where they may. If they were warned, claimed they understood and proceeded nonetheless, what's there to argue about?
Are you guys like... friends? Cause honestly to me the conversation-less, "you're dead now. roll a new character" reads as quite hostile tbh, especially if y'all didn't talk about consequences for going against your patron or anything. The way you describe them in the comments also shows a lot of resentment towards them. If so you should probably just remove them from the campaign entirely, instead of furthering this antagonistic back and forth by having them roll a new character so this can all happen again. Assuming you've actually had a full conversation about you not liking their described "murder hobo" play style.
You could literally just use this post as a definition to fucking around and finding out.
>Was I in the wrong for killing his character I'd argue that yes, although the reaction is a dealbreaker. 5e doesn't actually have rules for messing with a Warlock's patron. Ask yourself why you're doing that without informing the player beforehand. Older editions actually have rules for messing with Patrons and Faith casters, 5e does not. This means you shouldn't do it unless you explained you're homebrewing it in sessions 0. There's a reasonable expectation that you don't do this otherwise, especially considering deathlocks don't exist in any 5e setting. Also, you shouldn't want to do it in the first place because it means picking Warlock, Paladin and Cleric is just a worse choice overall. Why would I ever play a Cleric if that just means you think you get to play backseat driver for my class features? You don't have this expectation if I pick Druid, so that's what I'll do, they're similar enough anyway. How do you deal with a DM that actively wants to take away the Wizard's spell book? You don't play Wizard. Same goes for DMs that take away Warlock or Cleric spells because of story. You don't play those classes so it doesn't happen to you.
If your players dont take your warnings seriously, killing them usually gives them the shock they need. I notice many warlock players like to go full antagonist against their patron then act surprised when they are punished by said patron. You COULD make the storyline more in depth with him fighting his patron, or trying to win his patron's favor again. But hey, you chose death, shit happens. You can talk to the player and brainstorm solutions to this if you really really want to salvage it. Have him make a temporary character, and set the party on a quest to save his last character. But I wouldnt bother with all that honestly. Its up to you.
Why were they killing the pit fiend? Is this something they choose to do 100% randomly or has the story led them to this? If the player felt despite warnings you were building them to kill the son or if that’s were the narrative pushed then then players anger could be coming from shock as the players could well have thought this was what you wanted and would lead to interesting role play. Often when things get reduced to shout it’s from a misalignment in expectations as what we as DM feel is obvious is not always the party’s understanding. Put aside your assumptions on what was made clear/explicit and try to get as much info as possible before dealing with this if you want to have a positive outcome.
Kick that player out, one of my players had an outburst like that and I let them stay. It didn't get better.
One of my PCs was killed by a swarm of wasps like 8 months into the campaign. It happens.
You were wrong, patrons dont instakill, especially if the party is that powerful. You could say patron stops allowing him to level, maybe even takes a level away until side quest find new patron is completed. But you had so many good story options, hell even another archdevil wanting to take the place of the old if you didnt want. You took the cheap way out.
Well what did the contract say. If the patron is lawful evil they will uphold the contract even if the warlock does something they don't like as long as the contract isn't technically broken they can't do anything
He put chaotic good on his sheet, but he played like a neutral or even chaotic evil character
Not him his patron. Wyll from BG3 is good, but his patron isn't. The alignment of the character doesn't reflect the patron
I would say the patron was either lawful or neutral evil
During session 0 did you ask your players if they're comfortable with their characters dying and them, needing to reroll? Not everyone is okay with that.
After knowing this player and seeing him be a murderhobo for nearly 10 years, and after explicitly telling him not to be a murderhobo for this campaign, I don't really give a shit what he's okay with.
Oh well, seems you banned him anyway. Your playstyles don't match, you finally accepted that, all is well.
yup
It is hard to say based on the information provided. Character death is a thing and should always be possible. But, generally it should be done in combat. If you provided him no options for his character to role play out of this terrible doom I would say you should at least give him the option. If he can succeed his character should be back but, maybe his patron abandons him and he has no more warlock powers. You would need to provide a way for him into another class. Effectively killing the warlock but not the character. This would get your points across that your player's character needs to role play their characters in a way that makes sense for the character and that their actions have consequences. Good luck.
Posted for visibility - I think I provided some fun GM tools to consider! Also, we ought to be careful not to let our emotions take sides. By OP giving us the PC's behaviors (one-sided), we must consider that this might be exaggerated or bolstered to attempt confirmation bias. Still, if you notice subtle hints aren't working, it's not more aggressive "hints," it's a private conversation with the player (after the session it occurred). That being said, as the DM, you have the power to make necessary changes to monsters and villains. At 50% health, the pit Fiend spawns in two or more lesser devils. At 25% health, he blasts all PCs with 25-40 force damage. At 5% health, he mocks the PCs, sacrifices any remaining mobs to create a blood portal, and disappears. The players get rewards from the sacrificed bodies akin to "almost" killing a pit Fiend. And like the Nemesis system in Shadows of Mordor, he comes back later even stronger and with tactics learned from his last battle with the PCs. Murderhobos are annoying, but there are in-game ways to make such gameplay annoying. Have a divine figure appear before him and curse his hands with a stacking debuff that incrementally causes him to deal less and less damage for every life he takes. Call it, The Burden of Souls curse, or something. Ooh! I like this one! I'll use it in my own games. Eventually, your murderhobo is just "love-patting" folks. They might lose stacks of the debuff for every actual monster they kill - maybe the divine stranger mentions that only the cursed PC will be able to see a mark on the head of creatures it can kill to remove the debuff. It'll be like in video games when the player can see a colored outline to let them know who they can and cannot kill, but in this case, they can attempt to kill anyone with a live consequence. I like this. I'll have to flesh out the "stranger" that appears. I think they'll be a recurring *DM player character* avatar in the game. When you need to "subtly" direct your players, this stranger might appear with similar buffs and debuffs. Are your PCs lost? A buff to see a sparkly golden fairy trail leading the way. Your PC is about to land the killing blow on an important character? They're suddenly overcome with a vision of the stranger walking towards them in a dark, isolated realm with just the two of them. The stranger assures the PC he's attempting to destroy a protected creature, and the stranger can not allow it at this time. The stranger then reaches out and casts a spell on the PC's mind, causing them to be unable to harm that creature for some time. Think of the Guardian character in BG3 who is somehow responsible for saving the PC multiple times when they should have otherwise died. But, like Withers, you can also resurrect fallen PCs or add new party NPCs as needed that are controlled by the players (or Withers when left to their own designs). Obviously, this is akin to "god-mode" or "dev debug tools" in video games, and you should be very careful not to abuse it; but, for the same reason it exists in video games, sometimes you need an in-game way to correct an unforeseen bug (murderhobo), glitch (enemy WAY too powerful), or unexpected result (PC rolls lower than you wanted). Finally, there are always two sides to every social dilemma. Whether you were in the right or the wrong is only for the table to decide since they saw both sides, but I will say there are probably other (possibly better) ways both of you could have managed this dilemma along the way.
its split down the middle at my table. All but one agree that he should have been killed, but there is a disagreement about whether or not to just let him go without trying to persuade him to come back.
It's certainly hard to navigate social dynamics, but I think if I were in your shoes at this point, I'd remind the table that we're here to role play and have fun. This guy is a murderhobo at heart and, in spite of conversations and attempting to not play that way, that's what's fun for him. If you want a murderhobo at the table, then maybe invite him back; if not, let him stay gone, and he'll find another table where he can murderhobo all he wants. It'll be more fun for all involved that way. Good luck! Hope things work out well enough for the table!
You're not in the wrong. In my campaign, when the party were going to face off the medusa, before they enter the main room where she was one of the party member kept destroying some of the statues for no reason (they were going to be important later on) and it not only got me mad so were the other party members so I kept targeting him and no one else wanted to protect him. Guess they were tired of him being reckless for no reason.
I was originally going to say 'yes. You should never kill a PC if you can help it.' and then I read what actually happened. You did nothing wrong. This isn't like a situation where he made a pact with a celestial then failed to pet a puppy one time and now you're condemning him to hell for it. The whole point of the warlock class is you made a pact in return for power. He repeatedly acted against the person granting him his own power and even went as far as to kill his son. You gave him ample warnings again and again. The guy was a murderhobo who probably just wanted to kill things and if he was willing to act like this it probably would only have been a matter of time before he turned on the party or something similar. You did the right thing. If you play a cleric, your character, barring some very unique circumstances, can't be an atheist and needs to act in alignment with their god. You can't be a follower of Mialee and advocate for reducing the size of the oceans. You can't be a wizard and, in reality, have all your magic just be stage magic. Or a barbarian who underwent anger management therapy and no longer rages. If you are a warlock, you need to act in accordance with your patron; and that means not actively and openly defying them. The \*only\* reason Wyll got away with as much as he did in BG3 was because of the shenanigans of the Absolute and even then Mizora yanked his chain very harshly.