Be the DM

>A much cheaper and believable option would just be to not let wizards see the king
Except there's stuff like invisibility and teleportation and whatnot.
>Antimagic fields are nothing to fucking sneeze at.
We're talking about someone with resources of an entire kingdom at his disposal after all.
>really don't get why it's everyone's go-to option for fucking with the caster.
You're using it against "that guy" as an in-game "no you don't"

The sorcerer was already lawful evil. The rest of them were varying goods and neutrals, including a lawful good paladin who justified her actions as "a good paladin wouldn't let their comrade-in-arms face this conflict alone".

And yes, I'm throwing every conceivable thing at them at this point. The campaign as thoroughly gone off the story's rails and is pretty much Fight Club at this point.

I'm also curious why there wasn't a court mage with the king in an advisory role. If the kingdom is large enough and wealthy enough to hire a group of high-level adventurers to rescue the princess, surely he'd know to shell out some extra coin to hire a court mage that is at least strong enough for Counterspell, Dispel Magic, and Remove Curse as spells known.

You got some grade A spergos on your hands

This was just a stupid mistake on my part. Hindsight is 20/20, after all. I didn't think they'd do that so... why would I think to add protection against it?

Honestly I'm taking it as a positive learning experience: Always assume your players are assholes trying to get one over on you.

Then just say "no you don't" and talk to the guy like a fucking adult instead of botching your setting. If the guy can afford a wizard that casts antimagic field every couple of hours, then he can afford to hire that same wizard to solve his problems instead of relying on random chucklefuck nobodies who might fireball him to death.

That's not how paladins work.

I'm not one for paladin's falling, but have that paladin drop like a stone. A lawful good paladin doesn't fight with their comrades in a way that breaks the laws or causes clearly evil acts to take place

Do you know why the character did that? Or even why the player did that? Is there any sort of motivation at all?

The wizard plays a vital role and can't be sent out on adventures, or the wizard simply refuses to go into hazardous situations because he's paid handsomely as it is.

You could have just had it appear. You're the Dungeon Master, the lord of the setting, your word is final. The internal logic of the setting bends to your whim. If he threw a fireball at the king you could have said "The throne room is encircled with an elaborate set of runes that causes magic to fizzle and die in it's confines, having been set up generations ago as a means of countering magical assassination attempts, after your attempt at casting that spell fails, a siren fills the castle, set off by the very same runes that defended the king, and the king and his daughter rush to the throne, grabbing hold of it, and are teleported from the room, another countermeasure to assassination attempts. You can hear the thunderous sound of guards rushing down the halls, as you are all now branded traitors and would be assassins to the crown."
And if they bitched about it, you could just say "Well if you thought assassinating a king in a setting where magic is commonplace would be as simple as hurling a fire ball at him, then you clearly didn't think this plot through"

And he can't take time out of his busy schedule to cast a divination to find some non-murderous idiots to hire? Or maybe summon something? Or use one of the many options available to high-level spellcasters to do something other than sit on his lazy ass all day?
Once you start flinging around antimagic fields, your game is fucking over. Period.

You lack imagination.

Says the guy defending the most bare-bones generic asspull solution to the problem. I mean, fuck me for thinking about the implications of high level magic more than not at all, right?

It's an example and you can easily figure it out if you put actual thought into it. I also like that you seem to be genuinely upset when it's literally just a game.

Oh, and not even a game that you're playing. A hypothetical game being talked about on Veeky Forums.

>URR IT'S JUST AN EXAMPLE
>JUST A GAYME MAN
So you admit you lost. Good. Hopefully you've learned not to talk about shit you don't know anything about, you fucking idiot.

I admitted no such thing. Stay mad and see where that attitude gets you when you have to deal with other people.

The good and cheap idea is a 'veil'. As in a semi-transparent curtain that covers the king blocking line of effect. To be let inside the veil is a great honour and a show of trust on the rulers part.

Invisibility could be combated by dogs, cats and other guard animals with scent trained to attack invisible creatures.

Teleportation is yeah, kind of the point where the things get really fucked up.

What a dick.

This. Don't be an asshole, but don't let assholes walk all over you and your world. Also, rise to the challenge, because that's fun.

As the king's skin burns off, the newly revealed imposter lich screams curses upon the heroes for foiling his plans at the last minute. He was just about to stab the trusting princess and complete his ritual to harness the powers of an Elder One, but clearly you saw RIGHT THROUGH HIS DISGUISE AAAAAAH! In an act of rage, he summons his undead hordes to siege the castle.

The court archmage maintains a powerful magic barrier on the king. When the fireball stops and leaves a massive scorch mark on the floor the royal guards charge in and straight up brutally kills that guy.

I think a good rule is this
>If your players are low level and try to act like dicks for no reason, have them face realistic consequences (the king gets hurt, but escapes, or the king is killed, and now the kingdom wants them fucking dead)
>If the players are high level and try to act like dicks for no reason, bend the very rules of the universe in a way that can punish them (the castle is filled with anti magic runes, the kingdom has elite super guards just in case, the king escapes and rallies an army along with his allies, knowing full well how dangerous the party is)

We had a thread go to 500 posts once debating whether or not it was a wise idea to try and kill the king in his own court at lower levels.
The conclusion was that some players like to play characters in the world and some players,want to play as General Zod prancing about the landscape doing as they please with everything adjusted to their level to be capable of being defeated.
Neither playstyle is objectively better.
But my opinion is that when the players do a dangerously stupid thing, there should be consequences.
Of course, if they were honestly that much more powerful than a king's defences were likely to be, then the king was the dumb one.
Meeting deadly adventurers is unpopular Prince work.

That said, I've screwed up and let parties get away with things they shouldn't have, simply because I couldn't think of a reasonable way to stop the party at the time.

I once had a party murderhobo the evil, but well connected villain and then just steal his gold, buy a ship, and nope the fuck out of dodge.
Veeky Forums later pointed out how I could have handled it and then gave me the perfect weapon to stop my group's evading consequences: J. Jonah Jameson.

Ask him why. If he has a satisfying explanation, let the game go on(likely ending up in a TPK). If not, kick him out of the group.

Hell, make the rulers of the kingdom to really have divine mandate and an angel protector always standing besides them.

>including a lawful good paladin who justified her actions as "a good paladin wouldn't let their comrade-in-arms face this conflict alone".
The Paladin should fall so hard that the player's next character will be Chaotic Evil.

that guy thread? I got one of those.

>exclusively runs D20 modern for Silent Hill esque games in which choice is less than an illusion, its downright arbitrary
>this isn't quantum ogre theory or some other form of behind the screen back pedaling thats common for GM's to do.
>this is like he has every possible choice planned out so the players can never think outside the box since he made the box like some Fisher Price toybox with only 3 functions, no instructions and assumptions that they can figure out this shit.
>punishes outside the box thinking all while screaming at us to think outside the box or else we get smacked.
>when he is a player, keeps bothering me the only other GM in the group for preferential treatment in my shadowrun game
>this has gone on to the point where he constantly calls the other players dumbasses in and out of character because they don't think like trained operators in any RPG.

>I would have asked for a in-character reason for WHY he wanted to fireball the king.
This.

I allow my players to try anything, but only if they can stretch out an in character reason for it.
If you can't tell me why your character is doing it, he can't do it.

>cast invisibility on myself as soon as wet met with the king
>know our dragonteifling hexblade would do something stupid
>push daughter in way of fireball to protect king
>she's completely obliterated
>cast disguise self and pretend to be her
>king has that guy executed
>use my new position to save the rest of the party
>retire from adventuring and stay a princess
>mfw the king doesn't know he's been banging a dude every night instead of his daughter

> Is your character a mentally ill asshole with no self-preservation instinct?
> Is your character a member of radical revolutionary terrorist group that ?
> Is your character secretly a demon that likes murdering random at random times for laughs?
> No? Then it's most definitely not something your character would do.
> Yes? Then he should not have survived by this point.

> radical revolutionary terrorist group that wants to overthrow the monarchy
Forgot to finish the sentence.

>Yes? Then he should not have survived by this point.
That's a pretty poorly thought-out objection, since clearly he DID survive regardless of whether he should have or not.

>radical revolutionary terrorist group
A.k.a.: Adventurers Guild

This
>Court sorcerer on hand
>Casts hold person on attempted assassin
>Ten highly trained guards close in, king is moved away as more guards arrive in case the party is in on it
>Character is tortured to say who he worked for, the rest of the party is interrogated to see if they were in on it
>Character is publicly beheaded for attempted assassination of the king

that last part really got me

>The king is engulfed in flames, his daughter flung away by the blast and bodyguards incinerated
>The king himself emerges from the smoke nearly unharmed, with only ruined clothes and a singed moustashe.
>He glares at the party and cracks his knuckles

>"that guy" says: "I cast maximized fireball on the king"
Continue the scene as if nothing happened.
>Uh, GM? I cast..."
"The king says that blah blah blah..."
>GM? Heeey? I want to-
"Riches, titles, if only you finish one more assignment..."
>Fuck it, i'm rolling for fireball!
>Hey, GM, I rolled 15!
>GM! Heeeeeey!

I had my resident GoTfag do this.

He legitimately thought this was how you do the "court intrigue".

One anti-magic barrier and one execution later, he was proven wrong.

>>PC casts fireball at the king.

Wow, nobody as has ever thought of something like that happening in a magical world.

Oh, they have? Oddly enough, it seems that royal courts have extremely powerful defenses.

Fireball fizzles. Royal guards (their levels set at the PC's level + 3) attack the PCs. Hordes of supernatural defenders teleport in. The arch-mage and divine hierophant who were in attendance at the court swing into action.

Afterwards, the players roll up new characters. Then the other players hopefully take that fuckwit player out onto the lawn and beat him senseless.

>>PC casts fireball at the king.

Wow, nobody has ever thought of something like that ng in a magical world.

Oh, they have? And, oddly enough, it seems that royal courts have extremely powerful defenses?

Fireball fizzles. Royal guards (their levels set at the PC's level + 3) attack the PCs. Hordes of supernatural defenders teleport in. The arch-mage and divine hierophant who were in attendance at the court swing into action.

Afterwards, the players roll up new characters. Then the other players hopefully take that fuckwit player out onto the lawn and beat him senseless

>The princess was Finger of Death'd
I hope they made jokes about fingering her to death because if not you need a new play group.

>Not having counter magic measures
>Not having the king have crazy high HP and AC
>Not having the guards at a much higher level than party to arrest them

Gotta be more prepared. I would not let that PC survive the encounter unscathed, unless it truly was in his or her character to perform said action (which clearly it wasn't).

You sound really fun and safe to play with and definitely are not a sociopath at all.

>Royal guards (their levels set at the PC's level + 3)
how are they constantly becoming stronger at a consistently faster rate than the PCs?

Oats and squats.

constant training against would-be that guys thinking they're hot shit

Don't actually do this. Be consistent.

/thread

>Casts hold person on attempted assassin
Can't cast a spell that fast.

You could have the events afterwards be the party trapped in an illusion (that the court wizard, king, and jury can watch to determine their punishment) after attempting to kill the king, and everyone is stuck in the illusion awaiting execution

finally they are broken out of their illusion as they are being take to the chopping block, make sure they are bound with anti magic cuffs and chains and random bullshit debuffs and the paladin has fallen so their god won't bother saving them

The king dies
Then they die unless they have a teleport spell since they're now in the middle of a hostile army

Cant almost all of this be avoided by setting expectations on session 0?

You know what you have to do now, Batman.

>I let it happen
first mistake
if you didn't remove all powers the paladin had, that's your second mistake
live and learn op, just say no to retards

>"a good paladin wouldn't let their comrade-in-arms face this conflict alone"
that is not how you paladin

He was implying that he did it after the counterspell ya goob.

King is a 12th level Fighter with a Ring of Fire Resistance

He beats the save and ends up taking 1/4 damage probably around 10 or so

He then Action Surges and attacks the PC wizard 6 times with his flametongue greatsword for 24d6+30 damage + 6 uses of his maneuvers including Trip Disarm and Menace for an extra 6d10 damage

The wizard is now disarmed of his foci, knocked prone and frightened and has taken an average 144 damage.

The wizard is most likely dead

Why is it what your character would do ?

> Then please roll a new character who wouldn't want to sabotage the rest of the party.

Kick him out.

this sounds disturbingly familiar to my recent experience, except for
>exclusively runs D20 modern for Silent Hill esque games

The royal family was secretly kidnapped by doppelgangers last week. He is incredibly grateful for the keen insight the party displayed by spotting the fakes, and while he is a little sad about the loss of his two men, he understands that they did everything they could to minimize the damage.

If they burn down an orphanage, it was actually a cover operation for drug smuggling, run by poorly disguised goblins masquerading as children.

If they brood in the darkest corner of the tavern, a Disney princess will bring a musical number down on their heads.

>I cast maxmimized fireball on the king
>the vizier casts improved counterspell
>the hidden archers shoot you with antimagic imbued arrows that penetrate your magical defenses
>the poison on them paralyzes you for one round before you get your first save
>the Antimagic shackles are placed on you by the royal guard
>you are taken to prison to be executed
>as you are taken away the king says
"You think you're the first to try that?"

Nothing. Continue sucking his cock like good little bitch that you are.

>party of extradimensional raiders
>allied with an adult dragon which they know has impulse control problems
>taken to see the king in his meeting with the high council to cope with the threat of mind flayers
>mention in passing
-the Grave Knight (fighter version of a lich) standing in front of the inner citadel
-the royal guard has them on levels and are a combination of two powerful clerics and two high level warlords
-the inner council consists of at least one 14+ level wizard
-the king has a rod of lordly might
-that this citadel withstands and survives commonplace attacks by magical beats, including bandersnatchi
>"He has a rod of lordly might?"
>....yeessss?
>"I telepathic tell the dragon that she gets half of my share of the treasure for the raid if she gets me that rod of lordly might!"
>dragon breaths fire killign half the council members....and injuring the king.
>idiot runs up to king and attacks
>king survives, reduces him to negative hitpoints in one round him in one round
>the king is a 20th level fighter
>the friend of the idiot attacks the idiot, coup de grace
>king kills him too because monster and just lost his wife, a half dozen friends, and the crown prince
>dragon breathes on him again
>still alive
>sane party member grabs ally and moves out of fight
>king stabs dragons everal times
>dragon breaths and incincerates king, gets rod
>party makes it's escape
Consequences? The two dead people are resurrected at great cost, by powerful person who now more or less owns them.
>Let's change games
>We want an intrigue campaign now!
This should go well....you paid SO MUCH ATTENTION TO THE CLUES LAST TIME.

Why would he do that? Why would there be punishment for just playing the game differently all of a sudden?

...

Why are your such a fucking faggot? You seriously do lack imagination. You lack extremely low level empathy. You honestly cannot imagine a scenario where an expert is contracted once for a single purpose by somebody with way more than enough money to afford spot fix hires.

It's because you function with an autistic sort of pragmatism that is completely uninformed by anything that would take any sort of social or emotional intelligence. Just, "The king could do so much more with his employment budget, this scenario is an in-setting non sequitur, is unfathomable!"

>Why can't I just murder the King, the highest form of authority in a kingdom behind the Gods themselves, with zero punishment?
You're not playing a game otherwise, you're just telling an improv comedy bit to each other that happens to be set in fantasy land

Why tho? If everybody is willing to sink to that level, just let them. Punishing them serves literally no purpose. What are they gonna learn, how to stick to playing only one type of game lest the GM make it impossible to continue out of spite? How to, because of your training, reflexively create in party conflict by avoiding certain behaviors?

Just make it a game about being on the cosmic lamb. Punishing them is throwing away the game for no good reason.

No, I mean, after you already let it happen. Like, that's the wrong way. Don't assume you'll be able to train away behaviors in your players. If he said this and you LET IT HAPPEN, that means it's time to move on and make the game about something else. You gain literally nothing from letting it happen and then passive aggressively ruining the rest of the games because you didn't have the balls to talk openly about the clash of tone that bothered you.

This.

Just killing the king is so fucking boring. The only time it was remotely interesting for the party was when a paladin fell and ended up annihilating a rather large kingdom

...

Yes.

I agree that trying to 'train' the players is a megagay thing to do. Killing the king should still have a major impact on the game, or else any action taken by the players loose all meaning. And a lawful good paladin that allows the outright murder of the king for no reason should fall so hard that their God comes down and shittalks them in person.
The game should still go on if the players want it to go in this direction, but having them able to walk around the land with no consequences as if they didn't just commit regicide is stupid as hell.
If the rest of the players don't want to go this route, just tell him "no, you don't fireball the king that's dumb."

I think that's a terrible rule for high levels. It just shreds the believeability of your world.

Just have other powerful beings in the world take note. You can still bend reality of the world to make it happen.

I usually have a 'true hero' the idea is shamelessly ripped from undertale, I'll admit hidden somewhere in the world who will manifest if the players turn evil or don't do the big heroic deed I had planned for them. Then you either get a campaign where they're playing in the shadow of a good vs. evil conflict, or you get some spicy justice meted out to them further down the line.

>Your character wouldn't do that.

This is my first and only post in this thread. You are THAT guy and hearing your autistic arguments and deconstructions for reasoning in fantasy (most of which don't even make fucking sense you're just going "Nuh-uh") would make me and everyone else at the table want to kill ourselves.

Have the royal guard kill the stupid son of bitch.

Then Ask him if he wants to roll another character

>You're not playing a game otherwise, you're just telling an improv comedy bit to each other that happens to be set in fantasy land

These are the worst fucking people to play with.
Im starting to lose patience with a few people in my group.

A good paladin wouldn't have an evil sorcerer as a comrade-in-arms you half-roasted walnut

court wizard casts time stop from across the castle, leisurely walks over to 'that guy' and removes his magical focus/components and pantses him

Why the fuck would you need adventurer's for absolutely anything if you had all that at your disposal, though

>"You think you're the first to try that?"
He probably is? In what the fuck kind of setting would a situation like that (where a trusted ally to the king just up and decides to cast a fireball) be common?

...

Heroes existed in stories and myth for hundreds of years before Undertale, user...

you should stop GMing until you have a spine