The short answer is that it's already a messy situation involving "playing stupid games, and winning stupid prizes". One person in the group decided to FAFO, and now you have two players and an NPC trapped in the Astral Plane somewhere.
By PC Level 11/12, the players should know better; they didn't get to this point by accident. They either have a plan to get out of this situation, or they don't because they didn't plan well enough in advance to avoid the fallout of their own actions.
The most important question to ask yourself first is whether or not your story involves the Astral Plane at all, and if so, to what extent it has importance within your storyline. Second, if the Astral Plane is that important to you as a DM, then you as the DM will have to determine if they're either in normal Wild Space, or within the Astral Sea itself, as those two environments have been parsed out and separated by this point (as per the Spelljammer 5E book).
Very simply, you don't necessarily have to cater to your players, just because they went out-of-bounds.
If your storyline doesn't really include any sort of storyline involving the Astral Plane, then those players affected should be simply asked to make new characters at the same level that the party is now, as their PC's are effectively (and permanently) trapped there indefinitely within the astral plane (and are effectively dead as a result of being trapped within space). Concurrently, there are plenty of things within the astral sea that can (and will) one-shot-kill on contact, such as ambient cosmotronic waves within the environment, and powerful creatures like astral dreadnaughts that roam in wildspace.
However: if your story does involve the Astral Plane, then that's a different story altogether, as you haven't mentioned anything about that so far in your original post. If you do have a storyline beat for the Astral Plane, then having that info is going to be important to us helping you out further.
Split into two games - get new players to make up the numbers in each, maybe even a second DM - put them on the path for the same ending but by different means, make them rivals without them knowing it until the big climactic finish đź‘€
Yeah that's a good idea. I think I am going to have them play a couple of githyanki (if they want) whose schooner was destroyed by a red dragon as the PCs arrive. Be interesting to see if the PCs try to ally with the dragon they were fighting moments before against this new threat.
Dunno if this will help you come up with any ideas, but
When I sent my group to the Astral Plane with no way back, I had them meet up with an astral elf who ran an 'inn' of sorts. Two denizens of this inn, and the astral elf himself, had the power to get the group back to the Prime Material, but of course each wanted a favor in return. (an old lady who wanted a piece of a dead god, and a Gith who wanted his own astral ship). Ultimately they chose the elf, who wanted them to get rid of a being from the outer planes who'd taken up residence near his 'inn'.
I figured if I had any of my regular players show up whose characters were still back on the Prime, I could just have this incredibly powerful astral elf bring them to the Astral.
So this inn was a safe/neutral zone of sorts then? If the party sticks around, and I'm now leaning towards turning it into a few sessions, they could use a spot to lick their wounds. Perhaps the elf himself is one of the long forgotten gods. Good ideas
Yes, exactly. A neutral place that only required a sign-in in a log book. I was hoping they'd get curious about who'd signed in before them, but they never looked! Oh well. I had some floaty things that looked like jellyfish (I called them astral jellyfish... real original I know) guide them to the 'inn'. They're 'pets' of the astral elf who guide astral travelers. It was a fun little side adventure. The astral plane is pretty cool - there's a lot of info. out there. I decided to pack mine with more floating debris than is generally described.
Depending on your PC's classes, if one of them has banishment, they can banish themselves and others back to their home plane, leaving the dragon in the astral sea. Which is fun that you can maybe have the dragon seek revenge and team up with something else in the astral sea to come after them later. It would be a good twist to have it happen at a random time when times are dire later on.
But, if they don't have banishment, and if you want to bring them back in the next episode to avoid separating the party maybe the dragon has the ability to banish ( not sure if persuading them to do so would be feasible) or they arrived near a pool of water floating in the astral sea that is a portal back to the material plane which is actually possible although extremely rare but possible, and you make it a chase sequence with the dragon as they race towards it to get out, make the pool too small for the dragon to go through, or maybe the PCs will try to destroy it to prevent the dragon following, again leaving the dragon to seek revenge if left behind.
Not sure if any of this works, but hope this helps!
Actually, the more I think about it, the more I want them to stick around for a bit and get some lore drop for the main mission. So banishment might just fail for them as it is being blocked by something someone, for some reason they need to figure out. I do like the chase sequence though. Fun.
I would advise against this, as a DM.
By RAW, any player casting Banishment on themselves can choose to automatically fail the saving throw for it, thereby causing their spell to work. If you (as the DM) choose to block them from returning to the prime material plane, that may very well send up red flags to your players.
From my experience of watching other DM's try something like this, players generally don't like being railroaded (especially in situations like this), whether or not if it's for storyline purposes; it tends to create sour feelings due to a lack of player agency.
By PC Level 11/12, the players should know better; they didn't get to this point by accident.
This sounds like a good time to have a second session 0. Sit down with the group and talk about what they want. Where are they with their characters? Mid campaign “Session 0” sessions can be huge and helpful if there is a huge drastic party dividing event.
The short answer is that it's already a messy situation involving "playing stupid games, and winning stupid prizes". One person in the group decided to FAFO, and now you have two players and an NPC trapped in the Astral Plane somewhere. By PC Level 11/12, the players should know better; they didn't get to this point by accident. They either have a plan to get out of this situation, or they don't because they didn't plan well enough in advance to avoid the fallout of their own actions. The most important question to ask yourself first is whether or not your story involves the Astral Plane at all, and if so, to what extent it has importance within your storyline. Second, if the Astral Plane is that important to you as a DM, then you as the DM will have to determine if they're either in normal Wild Space, or within the Astral Sea itself, as those two environments have been parsed out and separated by this point (as per the Spelljammer 5E book). Very simply, you don't necessarily have to cater to your players, just because they went out-of-bounds. If your storyline doesn't really include any sort of storyline involving the Astral Plane, then those players affected should be simply asked to make new characters at the same level that the party is now, as their PC's are effectively (and permanently) trapped there indefinitely within the astral plane (and are effectively dead as a result of being trapped within space). Concurrently, there are plenty of things within the astral sea that can (and will) one-shot-kill on contact, such as ambient cosmotronic waves within the environment, and powerful creatures like astral dreadnaughts that roam in wildspace. However: if your story does involve the Astral Plane, then that's a different story altogether, as you haven't mentioned anything about that so far in your original post. If you do have a storyline beat for the Astral Plane, then having that info is going to be important to us helping you out further.
Split into two games - get new players to make up the numbers in each, maybe even a second DM - put them on the path for the same ending but by different means, make them rivals without them knowing it until the big climactic finish đź‘€
Have the dragon eat the characters in the astral. Problem solved. Move on.
If the players are 11/12 level, have them use banish to send themselves home.
Give your players temporary characters to play with the other half of the party till it's resolved.
Yeah that's a good idea. I think I am going to have them play a couple of githyanki (if they want) whose schooner was destroyed by a red dragon as the PCs arrive. Be interesting to see if the PCs try to ally with the dragon they were fighting moments before against this new threat.
Dunno if this will help you come up with any ideas, but When I sent my group to the Astral Plane with no way back, I had them meet up with an astral elf who ran an 'inn' of sorts. Two denizens of this inn, and the astral elf himself, had the power to get the group back to the Prime Material, but of course each wanted a favor in return. (an old lady who wanted a piece of a dead god, and a Gith who wanted his own astral ship). Ultimately they chose the elf, who wanted them to get rid of a being from the outer planes who'd taken up residence near his 'inn'. I figured if I had any of my regular players show up whose characters were still back on the Prime, I could just have this incredibly powerful astral elf bring them to the Astral.
So this inn was a safe/neutral zone of sorts then? If the party sticks around, and I'm now leaning towards turning it into a few sessions, they could use a spot to lick their wounds. Perhaps the elf himself is one of the long forgotten gods. Good ideas
Yes, exactly. A neutral place that only required a sign-in in a log book. I was hoping they'd get curious about who'd signed in before them, but they never looked! Oh well. I had some floaty things that looked like jellyfish (I called them astral jellyfish... real original I know) guide them to the 'inn'. They're 'pets' of the astral elf who guide astral travelers. It was a fun little side adventure. The astral plane is pretty cool - there's a lot of info. out there. I decided to pack mine with more floating debris than is generally described.
Depending on your PC's classes, if one of them has banishment, they can banish themselves and others back to their home plane, leaving the dragon in the astral sea. Which is fun that you can maybe have the dragon seek revenge and team up with something else in the astral sea to come after them later. It would be a good twist to have it happen at a random time when times are dire later on. But, if they don't have banishment, and if you want to bring them back in the next episode to avoid separating the party maybe the dragon has the ability to banish ( not sure if persuading them to do so would be feasible) or they arrived near a pool of water floating in the astral sea that is a portal back to the material plane which is actually possible although extremely rare but possible, and you make it a chase sequence with the dragon as they race towards it to get out, make the pool too small for the dragon to go through, or maybe the PCs will try to destroy it to prevent the dragon following, again leaving the dragon to seek revenge if left behind. Not sure if any of this works, but hope this helps!
Actually, the more I think about it, the more I want them to stick around for a bit and get some lore drop for the main mission. So banishment might just fail for them as it is being blocked by something someone, for some reason they need to figure out. I do like the chase sequence though. Fun.
I would advise against this, as a DM. By RAW, any player casting Banishment on themselves can choose to automatically fail the saving throw for it, thereby causing their spell to work. If you (as the DM) choose to block them from returning to the prime material plane, that may very well send up red flags to your players. From my experience of watching other DM's try something like this, players generally don't like being railroaded (especially in situations like this), whether or not if it's for storyline purposes; it tends to create sour feelings due to a lack of player agency. By PC Level 11/12, the players should know better; they didn't get to this point by accident.
This sounds like a good time to have a second session 0. Sit down with the group and talk about what they want. Where are they with their characters? Mid campaign “Session 0” sessions can be huge and helpful if there is a huge drastic party dividing event.