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What level mobs should I be using in a standard encounter? Player level +1? If there's 3 players and I'm putting them up against 5 opponents and there's no "boss" mob, should they be player level +2? +3? Also, should I just reskin MM entries to suit the campaign? I want the players to fight some human soldiers, is there a "best fit" for generic human? What's the best way to go about creating a "nemesis" for my players? They made the choice to be evil and I want to make a Paladin that they double-crossed their recurring foe.
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May 31, 2012 14:43
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Balon posted:What level mobs should I be using in a standard encounter? Player level +1? Use the XP guidelines for encounters and don't go more than level+2 to start. Nothing bad happens if the players hit some easy pitches out of the park, and definitely avoid the temptation to go higher than level+4 in Heroic tier -- even though the monster may fall within the XP guidelines, the PCs will have a hard time hitting the creature and can conversely get creamed easily.
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May 31, 2012 21:19
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I'm hoping to run Dread (of the Jenga-block variation) for three friends this coming week. None of them have ever played TTRPGs before, but they have a history of acting and improv so that should be fine and from the way the rules work I think being amateurs might actually be a plus. Any interesting ideas or things to bear in mind?
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May 31, 2012 23:10
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Would love some advice from skilled DMs. So I have this campaign going and everything is cool so far. I am the DM. My players just faced an orc invasion which almost resulted in a TPK... because one of the characters thought it would be a brilliant idea to kill the tiny village's wizard just because he smoked "honeyherb", a plant very similar to marijuana. And that after both the mage and the ranger in the party tried some and had a nice time with it. This particular character, a Chaotic Evil human fighter, always loves to put the group in difficult situations. To be frank, neither the group nor I actually mind his dick moves. But this last time it WAS almost a TPK, and it was a very tense moment. Anyway, the time is coming when they are going to once again meet a certain villain of the game. This villain is strong, very strong, and not to be faced at their level right now. They will be entering a certain town, and he'll be leaving, they will meet at a simple road. I know for a fact that this guy will attach the villain. This is a very dumb move, and I'm seriously thinking about having the villain cast Disintegrate on him, just for the terror of it. What do you guys think?
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Jun 1, 2012 20:00
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Andre Banzai posted:Would love some advice from skilled DMs. So I have this campaign going and everything is cool so far. I am the DM. My players just faced an orc invasion which almost resulted in a TPK... because one of the characters thought it would be a brilliant idea to kill the tiny village's wizard just because he smoked "honeyherb", a plant very similar to marijuana. And that after both the mage and the ranger in the party tried some and had a nice time with it. Sounds counterproductive. If you don't mind his dick moves, don't punish him for them. If you're worried that the villain will TPK the party if attacked, and the attack is a virtual certainty, why not just give the villain some kind of power to incapacitate/immobilize the party instead? It will solve your problem and not cheese off your player. Killing off a PC, if anything, will only exacerbate bad player behavior.
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Jun 1, 2012 20:12
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Andre Banzai posted:Anyway, the time is coming when they are going to once again meet a certain villain of the game. This villain is strong, very strong, and not to be faced at their level right now. They will be entering a certain town, and he'll be leaving, they will meet at a simple road. I know for a fact that this guy will attach the villain. This is a very dumb move, and I'm seriously thinking about having the villain cast Disintegrate on him, just for the terror of it. a) Do not put villains "not to be faced right now" in front of your players. b) Seriously, don't do it. It's annoying and unsatisfying. They'll try to face him and get roasted (as you already know), or they'll try to face him and he'll get deus ex machinaed away, and neither is good. c) Don't let players play chaotic evil in non-evil parties. EDIT: some loving LIAR posted:why not just give the villain some kind of power to incapacitate/immobilize the party instead? It will solve your problem and not cheese off your player. In my experience, this does cheese off the player, because then the player just feels like they've been shunted into the audience for the DM's ~story~ instead of an active participant. disaster pastor fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Jun 1, 2012 |
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Jun 1, 2012 20:13
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Those are very good advices, thank you. Ok so another question relating to the advices. Should I never present a situation in which a clearly dumb move should be awarded with an awful consequence? I mean, they have seen this guy summoning shades from a pentagram and these shades sucked the breath from their lungs. This same fella has paralyzed this evil fighter and a rogue and stolen an idol from their hands. And they have been warned by a secret rogue organization not to mess with him, as some spying on him is about to take place (with the help of the players). After all that, is it that hard to figure out that a frontal assault on him is, at the very least, a dangerous move? What I'm trying to ask is... am I running an adventure or babysitting the players? Where do I draw the line?
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Jun 1, 2012 20:30
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tzirean posted:
If the encounter were "villain appears; villain mass hold persons whole party; villain monologues for a while" then I would be in full agreement. However, I think that the scenario is more like "this is the time when the villain shows up", which is an acceptably minimal use of the plot railroad. Then, hold person becomes an acceptable solution to the player-created "what do I do if/when the fighter freaks out?" problem.
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Jun 1, 2012 20:55
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Andre Banzai posted:Ok so another question relating to the advices. Should I never present a situation in which a clearly dumb move should be awarded with an awful consequence? You certainly can. But you need to know how likely that awful consequence is, and you need to be okay with playing it out. That didn't sound like it was the case in this instance: "I don't mind his dick moves, but I've decided the penalty for this dick move will be character death, what should I do?" Andre Banzai posted:I mean, they have seen this guy summoning shades from a pentagram and these shades sucked the breath from their lungs. This same fella has paralyzed this evil fighter and a rogue and stolen an idol from their hands. And they have been warned by a secret rogue organization not to mess with him, as some spying on him is about to take place (with the help of the players). After all that, is it that hard to figure out that a frontal assault on him is, at the very least, a dangerous move? It's not hard to figure out, but you're running at cross purposes here. This guy is clearly a villain and you have given them good reasons to want to attack him, but you don't want them to attack him and you'll kill them if they do. He's antagonized them in the past, he's dangerous when prepared, it's possible/likely that the players will see "randomly encountering him alone on the street" as their best chance to take him down. This goes double if one of them is probably going to charge him no matter what; the others will end up thinking "we fight him now at full strength, or we fight him later minus one party member" and will commit to the attack. If he's too powerful and you don't want them to die trying to take him on, you shouldn't tempt them to take him on. Andre Banzai posted:What I'm trying to ask is... am I running an adventure or babysitting the players? Where do I draw the line? This isn't the dichotomy, and "babysitting" is the wrong word to use. You need to take the players' motivations into account. It's easy to do this with things that would benefit them -- don't drop them into a treasure vault with +5 weapons if you don't want them to have +5 weapons, because they will take them and they will use them -- but a lot of DMs miss it when it comes to things that won't. The players are highly motivated to off this guy. Your plan is to drop him in front of them, but then punish them if they play by their motivations. That's very, very rarely a good idea, and those very, very rare cases have major payoffs to counteract it. You're running an adventure, not writing a narrative. The players are going to act, often in unexpected ways at unexpected times. In this case, you have a totally expected way and time, which means you can sidestep it altogether, but instead you're going for "how do I prevent them from doing this thing I know they're going to do so that I can tell my story?" That's not going to make anybody happy. some loving LIAR posted:If the encounter were "villain appears; villain mass hold persons whole party; villain monologues for a while" then I would be in full agreement. However, I think that the scenario is more like "this is the time when the villain shows up", which is an acceptably minimal use of the plot railroad. Then, hold person becomes an acceptable solution to the player-created "what do I do if/when the fighter freaks out?" problem. I agree in general, but if the guy has hosed with them in the past and he shows up here, but the party can't do anything about it – he just casts hold person, does whatever he's supposed to do without interference, and walks away – I feel it's just going to annoy/frustrate the players.
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Jun 1, 2012 21:05
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Very good points. To be totally frank, this particular villain doesn't even need to appear there, I was just going to throw him there for the heck of it. Now you have convinced me that "for the heck of it" is not a particularly wise reason. Thank you very much!
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Jun 1, 2012 21:24
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tzirean posted:You're running an adventure, not writing a narrative. This was the hardest thing for me to wrap my head around. I threw away soooo many storylines, that I just couldn't figure out how to work, because my task was impossible--you can't write a story when you don't know what the protagonists are going to do. If you want to write a story, make it something that happened in the past. That kind of thing adds depth to the world, makes everything carry more weight, seem more real. Everything you write in the story of the past is something else your players and NPCs can react to. Everything you write in a story of the future is a hundred choices you're taking away from the players, and yourself. Villains that adapt are much more scary.
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Jun 1, 2012 21:27
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One of the best villains I ever made was a Vizier who had an amulet that would teleport anyone he wanted to a random location 200 miles a way with a thought. So it would basically get rid of anyone who threatened him without him actually knowing what happened to them. The players attacked him, were teleported into a desert (that the ranger was familiar with, so it didn't feel like a complete screw-over) and they regrouped, trekked back, and tried to figure out how to get the amulet away. The entire campaign turned into an elaborate heist to get that amulet. I couldn't use the same plot device again with those same players, obviously, but it worked very well as a way to make the villain powerful without being overpowered.
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Jun 1, 2012 21:28
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How did they take the amulet, if I may ask?? And what did they do with it later? I mean, it's one hell of a magical item!
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Jun 1, 2012 21:38
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Andre Banzai posted:Very good points. To be totally frank, this particular villain doesn't even need to appear there, I was just going to throw him there for the heck of it. Now you have convinced me that "for the heck of it" is not a particularly wise reason. My pleasure!
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Jun 1, 2012 21:39
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tzirean posted:My pleasure! And by the way, about your "c)"... This evil fighter is not an RPG kind of guy. Never seen him playing even a videogame RPG. But he does enjoy our company and likes the camaraderie, the pizza and the laughs. But he absolutely refuses playing anything other than chaotic evil and fighter. For him, it seems, the RPG is kind of a cathartic experience, he likes to be unpredictable and violent and many times awkward. Last session we had a player switch character from a cleric to a mage (he didn't enjoy playing a good character, was his first time playing pen and paper RPG). So we are in the process of introducing the new character, the new guy is trying to roleplay him into the party, and the fighter goes: - I want to kiss him on the mouth. - WTF? - There's no way you'll resist it, my strength is 19, yours is 9. I will win. I kiss him in the mouth, with tongue, and then slap his rear end and call him "bitch". Everyone laughed, including the mage player, who just rolled with it. So how do I tell this guy "you can't have a chaotic evil character who attacks old pothead wizards and kisses newbies in the mouth"?
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Jun 1, 2012 22:07
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Andre Banzai posted:So how do I tell this guy "you can't have a chaotic evil character who attacks old pothead wizards and kisses newbies in the mouth"?
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Jun 1, 2012 22:16
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No one has any idea on the legality of the Serenity RPG? 
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Jun 1, 2012 22:48
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Andre Banzai posted:How did they take the amulet, if I may ask?? And what did they do with it later? I mean, it's one hell of a magical item! The Vizier played off the amulet's powers as favor from the Gods in a very religious kingdom (not a magic-fearing kingdom, just one where clergy was greatly respected). When the amulet worked, it produced a loud clap and a bang, which the Vizier told the King was the Gods "removing anyone who didn't have the kingdom's best interest at heart from the kingdom, in the way that a surgeon draws out infection from a wound", which the King was totally in the tank on as the effect of the Amulet didn't register as Arcane magic. Little did the King know that the Vizier was selling him out to a rival Evil Kingdom - and the party did know, but obviously trying to get an audience with the King wasn't going to work. You were just going to end up somewhere outside the kingdom once you started leveling accusations at the Vizier. So the party has to get in and get the amulet from the Vizier to actually see the King. Well actually first they had to figure out that it was the Amulet that was causing the effect. This was one series of adventures: discover the source of the power. Then, they had to find drawings and pictures of it to make a copy (more on this later). Lastly, they had to get the amulet away from the Vizier. The party posed as traveling performance troupe, infiltrated the castle, donned disguises and costumes, performed various feats of acrobatics, magic, archery, and strength to wow the castle guards while the party thief slipped away and filled the cistern that the Vizier drew his bath from with sleeping agent. Later that evening, the party waited until the Vizier slept, crept through the castle, stole the amulet, replaced it with a forgery, returned to the castle as themselves, and again sought audience with the King. Vizier moves to intercept and send them away again, but it doesn't work and this time the King is actually summoned. The party then reveals the real amulet, teleports away the Ranger as an example, and points out that the whole thing was a sham while the Vizier comically and continually tries to teleport them away with his fake amulet. The Vizier is thrown in the dungeon for the blasphemy of trying to pass off a magical item as divine providence, and the Ranger marches back into town from the forest in 5 days having enjoyed a refereshing walk through the countryside. Party destroys the amulet (another short quest) after learning that it is the fabled Black Amulet of King Auld, a failed experiment in dimensional travel that derived it's power from the DIVINE energy of 1000 souls trapped inside the amulet and denied true rest. Party becomes advisers, works against a secret organization called The Clergy that's responsible for religion becoming a free ticket to do whatever you want, campaign sort of fizzles out before we got any further. Worked out pretty good, I think. Edit: Sorry about the campaign fiction diversion there but you did ask. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Jun 1, 2012 |
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Jun 1, 2012 23:12
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How would setting up a two part end of arc battle go. So far I've got a villain who's known to the party and is probably going to harrass them or they're going to harrass them. However, when they beat him in his little fortress/mansion/hideout/whatever. I was going to have him be transformed into some demonic hellspawn form by the main villain after he begs for his life to be saved by her. Boom, it's gone from a tough fight against the mafia boss to fighting against hellspawn but I was thinking, would it be an idea to give them a short rest in between. Say he gets teleported into the room behind him, although the door is locked so it'd take time and they can heal/gain encounter powers in preperation to take on whatever I throw at them. good plan or bad plan?
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Jun 1, 2012 23:23
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:The Vizier played off the amulet's powers as favor from the Gods in a very religious kingdom (not a magic-fearing kingdom, just one where clergy was greatly respected). When the amulet worked, it produced a loud clap and a bang, which the Vizier told the King was the Gods "removing anyone who didn't have the kingdom's best interest at heart from the kingdom, in the way that a surgeon draws out infection from a wound", which the King was totally in the tank on as the effect of the Amulet didn't register as Arcane magic. Little did the King know that the Vizier was selling him out to a rival Evil Kingdom - and the party did know, but obviously trying to get an audience with the King wasn't going to work. You were just going to end up somewhere outside the kingdom once you started leveling accusations at the Vizier. That was REALLY cool, dude. My players would NEVER devise something like that, I think. Most of the times they always go for the violent method. But I mean, it's not entirely their fault, I guess. They grew up with videogames and tend to like being railroaded, they enjoy clear choices. Every time I present an open scenario to them, they become completely confused. And sometimes they think I'm just throwing something impossible to solve at them. Last time we played (the almost TPK session) they brute forced their way out of captivity. Later on, I took one of the newbies aside and explained how many things they could have done if they used their imagination. He stared at me like he was having an epiphany, like the ideas of "barring doors with tables and chairs", "sliding lockpicking tools to players in another room through the lower part of the door" and "jumping on the roof to snipe on the orcs from safety" were the stuff of genius-level intelligence. Let's see if in the next session they use their imagination more. I'm preparing this huge sandbox for them with plot hooks scattered throughout and I'm frankly scared of what this will result in. But thank you for the story, it was really cool!!!
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Jun 1, 2012 23:37
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Fuzz posted:No one has any idea on the legality of the Serenity RPG? Maragaet Weis Productions, Ltd. still very much exists and they were the ones who made it. You could ask them if you can share files or whatever you were going to do, but the answer's probably going to be "no". A book being in print has nothing to do with the legality of copying.
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Jun 1, 2012 23:45
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Andre Banzai posted:That was REALLY cool, dude. My players would NEVER devise something like that, I think. Oh I made it very clear that trying to fight their way in was going to get them teleported away. And probably have a division of the King's hit squad after them for good measure, as they were now a repeated threat. I gave a bunch of events going on at the castle and let them pick the one they wanted. Some stuff: 1) Sneak in through the sewers. 2) A Masquerade ball! 3) The King Loves Perfomers (this is what they went with), possibly combined with #2 at the Masquerade ball (this was discussed but ultimately discarded) 4) A Tournament of Champions! 5) Religious Conference Then they asked questions about each event, I made up answers, they made up a plan. They actually came up with the fake amulet idea in order to "show that this guy is just a total dick" (one player's words) If you take violence off the table you'll get great results. Just don't do it a lot. Edit: fixed formatting Edit 2: if your player's response is to walk away when they can't solve a problem with violence, they are missing out on a large part of the fun of RPGs. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Jun 1, 2012 |
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Jun 1, 2012 23:47
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Andre Banzai posted:Very good points. To be totally frank, this particular villain doesn't even need to appear there, I was just going to throw him there for the heck of it. Now you have convinced me that "for the heck of it" is not a particularly wise reason. If what you want to do is introduce a villain who you want your players to be afraid of, then the absolute best way to do it is by having other villains name-drop him. In series 1 of the TV show Heroes, one of the major antagonists is Mr. Linderman, but you don't ever see him in the flesh until it's nearly the end of the series. What you have heard, since episode 1, is a lot of powerful people saying "Linderman wants this" or "Linderman won't let us do that" or "We have to keep Linderman happy". The absolute easiest route to do this is to have the bad guys be carrying a letter from the villain with instructions on how to do whatever it is the players just killed them for. But there are lots of ways to vary this. You can have the letter describe the PCs in detail, as well as containing a tactical analysis of their favourite strategy. If one PC likes using fire spells a lot, have a promise from the villain that enough anti-fire potions will be delivered in a week's time to equip the minion's whole army. Then the next miniboss the PCs face will be loaded up with exactly the right magic items to counter their favourite tactics so far. You can have, rather than a letter, a diplomat from the Big Bad providing advice to the Little Bad. So suppose your big bad is a necromancer: then when the PCs come up against a bunch of orcs, their chief has an undead "advisor" who he's clearly terrified of. Smart PCs can even try to drive a wedge between the two. You can even, if you want to add the personal touch, have the Big Bad be capable of projecting simulacra / aspects / duplicates / whatevers of himself. Weaker versions that have fooled whoever he's employing into thinking they're the real deal. He can see through their eyes and negotiate with the PCs (if they get his attention), but if they take the simulacra down, all they're doing is inconveniencing him, not solving the problem for good.
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Jun 2, 2012 02:04
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Whybird posted:If what you want to do is introduce a villain who you want your players to be afraid of, then the absolute best way to do it is by having other villains name-drop him. In series 1 of the TV show Heroes, one of the major antagonists is Mr. Linderman, but you don't ever see him in the flesh until it's nearly the end of the series. What you have heard, since episode 1, is a lot of powerful people saying "Linderman wants this" or "Linderman won't let us do that" or "We have to keep Linderman happy". Those are very good points, thank you! I'll be implementing a few for sure. Ok, so explaining a little more... this particular villain is called Volryn, and although he is not the Big Bad, he's one of the Big Bad's lieutenants. But I think I'll start dropping the Big Bad's name, maybe in a cryptic way... You see, I based the Big Bad's story in Aleister Crowley's. He's supposed to have betrayed a whole city of elves who went to live in a flowing city above the clouds, and instead consorted with demons for more power (he's an elf warlock). He now has prestige in a big city (call it Rosegold) which has a young ruler in the throne. This ruler (Sebastian) enjoys the advice of the Big Bad (Sabin Melisi) and his particular lines of research (demonology, new drugs and firearms). Sabin also owns a whorehouse in town. All that to fund his quest for power and domination. Sabin has founded an order, like that of Aleister's, for young prodigies in the arcane arts to learn to commune with demons and explore cosmic secrets. His lieutenants are high in rank in the order. And some prodigies (2 in fact: Aurik and Ubel) are going to play the antagonists in the next chapter. Volryn is the personal teacher of these students. So I have one villain who is in another city, far from where they are right now... but I also made stories for the lieutenants and even the students. So I have lots of name dropping to do. Any particular insightful ideas for the scenario I have described?? I know it's a lot of stuff, and believe me, there's way more from where this came from. One day I shared the whole scenario over the course of three hours with a friend of mine who isn't playing and he told me to write a book. :-P And I know my players are gonna crush all my plans etc etc, but adapting is cool. I'm cool with changes, whatever they may be. No sweat.
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Jun 2, 2012 15:40
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Edit 2: if your player's response is to walk away when they can't solve a problem with violence, they are missing out on a large part of the fun of RPGs. I KNOW! But I have two rogues in the party who are planning to reroll fighters (we'd have 4 fighters total!) because they can't seem to put their thieving skills to good use! I mean, I can understand a thief being a subpar character in a videogame where you'll eventually have to solve many conflicts with violence and you'll end the game having killed thousands of monsters... but this is pen and paper, thieves are awesome in pen and paper. I'll tell you this, one of them (my girlfriend) has been turned into a frog-girl. Kinda like the Frog Hero in Chrono Trigger, but a female thief frog (she was a halfling). She can't figure out clever ways to use her long tongue, her superior wall climbing and her ability to jump higher. It makes me anxious to give her suggestions, but I don't wanna play for her. It IS kinda frustrating.
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Jun 2, 2012 15:46
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So, my group's Iron Heroes game is wrapping up, and I'm rather sick of D&D, so I'm pitching an Unknown Armies game. I'm stealing heavily from The Wire, setting it in a local city so everyone's familiar with the geography, and tossing in some local current events because a sideplot of avatars of the masked avenger infighting in the form of Anon and BlackBloc is just too interesting to pass up. I've run the the group through an avatar centered one shot, and have been keeping jealous track of the sections of the book behind street level. Since they've been enjoying guessing at how magic works, I'm putting the campaign at street level. (Note to self, I'm gonna need to check in to ensure they want to continue to avoid being spoiled before play starts.) So I've got two problems. 1. My notebook is a loving disaster. Anyone got hints about how to keep track of powerblocks and notable characters within them and all the relationships that implies in a sane and easy to reference way? 2. Entry points. I'm gonna pitch it with as many reasonable entry points as possible, so the group can decide how they want to play this, but so far all the group concepts I can throw at them for good starting points have problems. So far I've got: a. Cops. If the players aren't cool with the entire department except for them (and maybe them too) being horrifically corrupt, it's going to gently caress with the themes implicit to what I'm aiming for here. b. Dealers. Pretty bleak. The life expectancy and quality of life here is pretty depressing. Maybe I should just accept that and make clear from the outset that the campaign is pretty much a super downer. It's not like UA is designed for anything but obsessed nutjobs making terrible decisions, anyway. c. City counsel members. The game of cops and robbers is much easier to get into than the game of political corruption, and is closer to what we've been playing previously. d. Lawyers. If the exciting part with Narco-alchemists and avatars of the True King and Executioners is at the cops and robbers level, and the exciting part with urbanomancers and avatars of the Demagogue and the Merchant is at the local politics level, Lawyers are just observers of the fun, not mixed up in it without a good bit of prompting. Anyway, if anybody's got some hints on how to map out groups, or a group concept that'll be easy to suck in, let me know.
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Jun 2, 2012 19:03
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If the players go with cops and have a problem with department corruption, just make it clear to them that there ain't poo poo they can do about it. Insert a figure in their backgrounds who was a good friend of the PCs at the Academy or whatever, and tell them how before the game's start, he went on a crusade to uncover corruption in the department and tried to get the details to a journalist (since he couldn't find an honest cop highly-ranked enough to actually do anything about it) and was promptly hounded off the force, had pictures of himself in compromising situations posted on the Internet, his wife left him, and he vanished amongst rumors of a severe drug addiction. This should illustrate to the PCs the problems inherent in being Serpico, and hopefully nudge them in more of a Young James Gordon (honest cop doing the best he can in a terrible department) direction. (Then have their former friend resurface as a mid-level Narco-Alchemist; after corrupt cops injected him with heroin against his will and got him hooked he started chasing bigger, better highs to replace the sense of purpose that being a cop had given him; now he's a potential antagonist who knows everything about the PCs and how they work, and his tragic fall and potential redemption - if the PCs work real hard at it - should be a hell of a good plot hook) Another interesting group idea could be journalists - a group of police beat reporters, say, who may work for different papers and may compete with one another but who know that each other are the closest things to friends they have - in a city where the police are corrupt and the government is corrupt and the streets are corrupt, even competitors can band together in service of the Great God Truth.
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Jun 2, 2012 19:27
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homullus posted:Maragaet Weis Productions, Ltd. still very much exists and they were the ones who made it. You could ask them if you can share files or whatever you were going to do, but the answer's probably going to be "no". A book being in print has nothing to do with the legality of copying. Tried that already, they never replied.
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Jun 3, 2012 16:53
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If your players aren't creative, suggest things. Enlist strongly imaginative players to help others OOC. "What would Elfrogue do to get past the guard?" Or even "How would Batman do it?". Call out heroes who rely on their wits, and REWARD THE TYPE OF PLAY YOU WANT. That's why Paranoia is a great, great newbie system - you can toss out perversity points like candy, give weird problems, and let your players die up to 6 times each. It encourages risk and lateral thinking.
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Jun 4, 2012 08:46
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Fuzz posted:Tried that already, they never replied. It's possible that they don't care if you share it, but didn't reply because they don't want to officially authorize it in case they ever go back to revisit it. But that's just speculation.
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Jun 4, 2012 18:46
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4e game, I'm going to have my party visit a magical tower that's basically build around doing research into poisons/poison magic. (if any of you are following along at home, its a heavily modified Vor Rukoth setting, and this is the Tower of Poison) The idea is that this is one of the spires that has been militarized; the research used to be involved in antidotes and cures, but a few years before being abandoned, the scholars and alchemists were set to work creating new poisons and mass producing poisons. The whole complex is going to be littered with old barrels containing toxins, that explode, releasing poisonous clouds. I'm having trouble coming up with really innovative traps and encounters beyond the obvious "swarm enemies with poison resistance fighting by the barrels" and a skill challenge for the party to gather ingredients to make poison resist/+5 to save potions, and liter items like resist potions and protective gear about (retrieved from the corpses of dead researchers). I'm thinking about having a garden level, and the boss fight take place in an area filled with poison gas. I just really feel like I could do better, and that this place deserves better, but am drawing a complete blank, and wondering if anyone had any suggestions. (also, if it matters, each level is hexagonal, 80ft to a side (the tower is like a giant, dead-black quartz crystal growing from beneath the ground). the levels are connected by arcane circles that teleport characters between levels, but a few levels could be connected with stairs.) Edit: One of the things I've come up with is a security check point, where the characters need to expose themselves to different poisons in a specific order, before passing through a gate. If a player does it right, they just end up with a weakened (save ends) effect. If they do it wrong (or walk through without doing the sequence), various bad effects depending on where they went wrong. (This is the equivalent of swiping your badge to get into the secure offices) Any ideas on how I could tip off the players to not just run through the door? I could do the note on a dead adventurer thing, but I'd like to do something a little more subtle. Guesticles fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Jun 5, 2012 |
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Jun 5, 2012 06:52
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P.S. STILL COMPLETELY DEVOID OF MERIT
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Guesticles posted:poison research lab themed encounters Off the top of my head, there's the possibility of animals that were experimented on (so still poison resistant, but not necessarily swarms), if the tower is abandoned (couldn't tell from your post, but the Vor Rukoth setting looks like it is) you could have defunct maintenance/quarantine golems attack the PCs as intruders, or flavorful enemies that are blind or lack certain senses as a result of poisons and breeding (depending on how old the tower is), like an amphibious slimy eyeless vizzerdrix. Fortunately, if they have flaws like that it's a great excuse to make them tough. I am assuming the tower is abandoned because then the hostiles you would fight would be whoever took over the tower, right? It depends on the story of the tower. If it was in military control for a while, there could already be security golems or sharks with poison rays attached to their heads. Also depends on who took over the tower, because if it was wizards they do some crazy poo poo. Skill challenges depend also on the story, they may have to get through security areas without quarantine response golems ruining their faces or what have you. I'm tempted to say, HL1 style repair the generators challange to activate access to certain areas. If you want weird or surprising things, don't hesitate to add wizard researchers to the mix, as long as you haven't run a Riptide Laboratory type setting in a while. It also helps to keep track of the locale, and what the wildlife might be like. Perhaps it is a seaside cliff tower that has been spewing toxic runoff from military unscrupulousness and there is a lurking mutant kraken? If you post more of the tower's story it could help a lot. Sorry if all of my ideas were terrible! Hope I helped a little.
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Jun 5, 2012 09:06
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Guesticles posted:I just really feel like I could do better, and that this place deserves better, but am drawing a complete blank, and wondering if anyone had any suggestions. All those militarised poisons need test subjects. They're kept in cages, horrifically mutated, and go berserk and attack anything that comes near. When the PCs reach the floor where they're kept, a lab assistant sees them, throws the lever to release them, and flees up the stairs. One floor's a test chamber, designed to see how quickly the effects of a new toxin take hold. There are six pipes on each wall dispensing airborne poison; the players need to shut each one off by hand while enemies hamper their ability to move around.
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Jun 5, 2012 12:06
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Guesticles posted:The idea is that this is one of the spires that has been militarized; the research used to be involved in antidotes and cures, but a few years before being abandoned, the scholars and alchemists were set to work creating new poisons and mass producing poisons. The first thing on any proper poison researcher's list is making a poison that ignores poison resist/immunity. Confront them with some poison resistant stuff, but on the higher levels, have even the poison immune monsters start avoiding the puddles, cluing them in that whatever the hell this poison is, it's nasty enough that even things that are normally immune to poison step carefully. That gives them environmental hazards they can use in their favor. They will probably want to take some of this stuff with them, if they can work out a way. LET THEM. Sprinkle the tower with protective gear, galoshes and lab coats and such that they can potentially use to mitigate or avoid exposure. At the top of the tower, present them with the head researchers, and cages holding the most dangerous test subjects, all of which are reasonably impressive monsters that are usually immune to poison. The researchers, aside from a few Igors, do not open the cages, and for very good reason. All of the beasts are pretty much uncontrollable, and will become berserk neutral parties in the fight if released. When the head honcho is about to fall, he reveals his trump card. A dead man's switch that will blow open the cage of some absurd boss monster. Assuming they don't find another solution, though, there's a built in solution in the lab: X doses of a Conceptual Poison. A poison so highly refined that it no longer attacks life, it attacks the concept of life. It will kill living things, things that were once living, things that never lived, but look like they might have, things that aren't living but move like things that do, you loving name it.
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Jun 5, 2012 12:18
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If the Legend of Grimrock has taught me anything, it's that teleporting is amazingly fun to work with. You're in a tower, you say, and the way to get from level to level is by teleporting? Put in a secret level. Occasionally have them step on a teleporter and have absolutely nothing happen. It just fizzles, but if they can find a map of the tower it's completely drawn on the map. If you use stairs, the stairways to this level have collapsed (both from the bottom up and from the top down) and the doors into the labs are sealed, hopefully physically and magically. Basically, make this a refuge. This is where a few adventurers have lived out their last days, this is where the lone not-insane scientist tried to make a few antidotes, and this is where the subjects who escaped and couldn't find a way out have been holding up. It's likely the most 'politically heavy' part of the tower, but also the least dangerous. From here they could get quests, just find out details likely ruined in other parts of the labs, or even keys to defeating the monsters/wizards inside. Perhaps the one sane researcher was on his way to building an Antidote Golem, but he's missing a few key ingredients (such as the most powerful poison in the tower) in order to be a complete antidote, and they can bring it to life. And then maybe it attacks them anyway, not because they're poisonous, but because they've been poisoned so the toxin is still inside them. That said, the work needed to get here should be worth it. Also, you can keep track of every time a player suffers poison damage or fails a poison save, to represent the poison growing inside them. Then have the final encounter be a guy that can somehow use that to his advantage.
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Jun 5, 2012 14:32
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fe: This turned into a giant wall of text. Thanks for the ideas everyone, I've got some great ideas for this tower, and other towers as well. I'd still welcome more, though. For this one, I think I'm going to break down and do the "You find a dead adventurer, and he carries a letter written in a shakey hand. This letter seems to be a final letter to a loved one, describing his journey through the tower.", since I've thought of a way to work it into the broader political landscape. vumbles posted:Off the top of my head, there's the possibility of animals that were experimented on (so still poison resistant, but not necessarily swarms), if the tower is abandoned (couldn't tell from your post, but the Vor Rukoth setting looks like it is) I didn't want to  too much in my previous post, but here's a bit more background: a few thousand years ago, Vor Rukoth was the main trading capital of a Lawful-Evil empire (Vor Rukoth to the Empire's capital what New York is to Washington D.C.), who were at war with a Chaotic-Good kingdom. After a few centuries of strife wearing down both sides, things shifted from epic decisive battles for regions to slogged out guerrilla win-at-all-costs campaigns that never really end. Scorched earth policies, magical biological warfare, double and triple agents, regional powers playing the two off each other, etc. Some factions on both sides wanted peace, or at least a truce, so that the victor's prize wouldn't be a wasteland.Something bad happened, the city was overrun, and then literally vanished until about 100 years ago. Now its completely depopulated, and full of undead and devils. Its on an island, and the rest of the island has some scraps of civilization on it. These scraps are trying to exploit the ruins for resources and knowledge, which make it worth braving the dangers. The Towers origins go back to the founding of the Law Evil Empire. The first emperor made a deal with a group of non-human craftsmen from the elemental chaos, for a relic called the Obsidian star, which would amplify arcane energies. The beings meant the star to be a white elephant: it was so powerful, almost anyone who wasn't a god or primordial who attempts to use it as an arcane focus would be killed by the raw magical power that would surge from it. The Emperor suspected as much, so instead of using it as a focus, he had it broken into 5 pieces, and used a component for a ritual. Each of the 5 pieces grew into a massive (like 30-40 stories tall) obsidian-black crystal. The crystals were hollowed out/magically sculpted, and used as research labs. At first they were used for peaceful research for the good of the people (Composition, Cures and Antidotes, Life, Creation, Illusion), but in the latter days they were weaponized (Acid, Poison, Death, Fire, Illusion). As things progressed, morals completely went out the window. Eventually the city was overrun (from both external and internal forces). Then, the city magically vanished from the plane. 100 years ago, the Empire long since relegated to legends and ruins, the city reappears as suddenly as it vanished. (The event that brought it back was a magical shockwave from the fall of the capital of the most recent 'Civilized' human kingdom) Ever since the day the city was overrun, the towers have been magically sealed (the main enterance for the towers is an arcane teleport circle). Like the staff of four of the five towers, the researchers in the Poison Tower sealed themselves inside and survived the initial invasion/catacylsm, but eventually succumbed to the destructive energies they'd been channeling for reseach. Its been over 100 years since any significant movement of material into and out of the towers has happened, and its generally been at least 50 years since anyone has entered any of the Towers from the outside (and its been a handful of adventurers maybe every decade or so before that) So anything living inside is either able to hibernate, subsist on arcane energy, or suvive being very, very hungry. There are other places in the city that have more the wider-ranging environmental effects going on that you describe, but the towers are fairly self contained and sealed. vumbles posted:Sorry if all of my ideas were terrible! Hope I helped a little. These are great suggestions, but I've previously gone and rendered a lot of them sort of moot. This is the second magical spire (the first was Acid) that the party has encountered, and I did the themed enemies for that one, with a bunch of crazed, undead researchers continuing their work. After this tower there are 3 more (Fire, Necomancy, Illusion) so I don't want it to be "ugh, another series of hexagons, full of [DAMAGE TYPE] monsters". Poison seemed like a great opportunity to mix it up, and make it less about enemies and more about traps. The enemies I've planned are actually fairly easy, I want the major threat to be the tower itself. I really like the quarantine response Golems (they can't pass checkpoints while taking poison damage, or it sounds an alarm). Whybird posted:All those militarised poisons need test subjects. They're kept in cages, horrifically mutated, and go berserk and attack anything that comes near. When the PCs reach the floor where they're kept, a lab assistant sees them, throws the lever to release them, and flees up the stairs. I mentioned in response to vumbles that I did the "test subjects run amok" in a previous tower. I like the test chamber idea, but I want a twist. Maybe one of the pipes actually dispenses the antidote (but then how do I drop clues about that?). I could maybe have the chamber inhabited by fungus or mold or something that lives around the pipes, except for that one, and make it clear, through battle effects, that the fungus thrives on poison, so the place where it's not growing much be the antidote. (Or an even more toxic poison) NinjaDebugger posted:The first thing on any proper poison researcher's list is making a poison that ignores poison resist/immunity. Confront them with some poison resistant stuff, but on the higher levels, have even the poison immune monsters start avoiding the puddles, cluing them in that whatever the hell this poison is, it's nasty enough that even things that are normally immune to poison step carefully. That gives them environmental hazards they can use in their favor. That's a great idea. I liked your idea about the head researcher, but I've already used a similar sort of mechanic with an earlier fight. I might see if I can put a unique spin on it for the Fire Tower, I've envisioned the poison tower as being largely devoid of living enemies. The acid tower still had a lot of partially confined enemies, but I think the fire tower being overrun with the former test subjects works well. Swags posted:If the Legend of Grimrock has taught me anything, it's that teleporting is amazingly fun to work with. You're in a tower, you say, and the way to get from level to level is by teleporting? Put in a secret level. Occasionally have them step on a teleporter and have absolutely nothing happen. It just fizzles, but if they can find a map of the tower it's completely drawn on the map. If you use stairs, the stairways to this level have collapsed (both from the bottom up and from the top down) and the doors into the labs are sealed, hopefully physically and magically. You've got some great ideas, but this isn't going to be the only tower of this type that they encounter. They've encountered a very similar tower of acid, and have a tower of fire, tower of illusion, and tower of death that they'll be undertaking in the future. The tower of illusion is going to have "lone sane surviving researcher", so I dont' want to use that just yet. This tower is also a one-off dungeon. There is lots of very heavy political poo poo going down at the salvage camp, town, and a dwarven settlement further on, and this to be a fairly standard dungeon crawl to sort of give them a break from political powerplay. But I think the undead tower is going to have a group of "survivors" who don't realize they're dead. I like the idea of accumulating poison poison counters. I think I might use it to determine who the security golems target, and maybe enough infections and you'll catch a disease/suffer penalties to poison saves.
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Jun 5, 2012 20:10
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Such cool ideas and backstory! With the Tower of Illusion I guess that renders the idea of neurotoxin-induced hallucinations impeding progress as too much of the same. Though perhaps some sort of neurotoxin may have affected a kind of magical test subject affected by the brainmelts to explode and release magical energy as a defense mechanism, so basically the old gas spore trick. Or just gas spores themselves. Essentially, they would have to sneak by it without triggering a cloud of deathkillcloudkill. Perhaps a blink dog with muscle spasms and a propensity to blink into pieces and shower poisonous blood. The more I think about it, it's all really palette-swapped exploding poison barrel traps isn't it? I really like the idea of compounding poison effects on the players, that prioritizing security golem idea seems pretty cool (I wonder if they'll catch on and keep the group tank more poisoned than the rest?). You could have really gross combo poison action against the PCs, like one type that deals necrotic flesh withering damage and another poison that attacks necrotic flesh (because every evil arms race needs non-radiant anti-zombie weapons). The PCs might even have to roll nature/arcana/heal checks as pseudo spellcraft to determine if the potions will interact badly with whatever cocktail of poisons coursing through their magically upright and alive bodies. Garden levels would be great for combo poisons because magical wizard plants do crazy poo poo and do not care about anyone. A hybrid poisons boss would be able to lay down some sort of necrotic spore and attack the necrotic flesh, or lay down fungal algae that grabs on to flesh and then attack that with an algicide (or perhaps psionic neuro-fungus for a domination effect? Clearly the PCs are already in hell anyway). You could even have them track spores from the garden into another place and cause some sort of ridiculous mutant plant creature that hates their guts. Inorganic traps seem really difficult to do, maybe they have to turn on some kind of security overhead fan to get rid of some immovable cloud of cloudkill?
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Jun 5, 2012 20:50
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vumbles posted:Such cool ideas and backstory! With the Tower of Illusion I guess that renders the idea of neurotoxin-induced hallucinations impeding progress as too much of the same. Though perhaps some sort of neurotoxin may have affected a kind of magical test subject affected by the brainmelts to explode and release magical energy as a defense mechanism, so basically the old gas spore trick. Or just gas spores themselves. Essentially, they would have to sneak by it without triggering a cloud of deathkillcloudkill. Perhaps a blink dog with muscle spasms and a propensity to blink into pieces and shower poisonous blood. Thanks, but I can't claim all the credit. Some of this was spelled out or implied by the campaign setting. Actually, I really like the idea of hallucinatory poisons, especially in the garden rooms. The non-organic traps are fairly easy. Poison arrows shooters, hypodermic needles on surfaces, flooding the enrichment chamber with a deadly toxic nerve gas, etc. Its arranging them/giving them triggers that respond in interesting, devious and fun ways.
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Jun 5, 2012 22:10
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So I'm running a playtest of this Scion thing some people I know came up with. Essentially its set in America and has a bunch of new American Gods and such. Anyways so its 1982, they've set out into the countryside of Nebraska (technically a "long and lonesome highway, east of Omaha") in search of a music festival slash battle of the bands supposedly being put on by The Devil himself. They've so far encountered an undead Mariachi band, a giant record producer who is trying to murder any band he thinks might beat the bands he's backing and other such mystery. But I need some stuff to pad out a few sessions before the actual battle of the bands takes place. We've gotten pretty far with them traveling the wasteland, dueling other musical acts. But what I really need is some American urban legend slash mythical creatures kind of poo poo. Does anyone know of some good ones? Especially music flavored ones? Oh yeah, and as an aside the book introduces a really awesome mechanic. Basically you make a playlist of (mostly instrumental, although we use more varied songs for the musical duels) songs (in our case the soundtrack to Lords of Thunder, the Rockman Anniversary Rock album and some Ennio Morricone western stuff). Each character then gets two theme songs that are tossed into the playlist. You then randomize the playlist, and whenever a characters theme song plays they get a one die bonus to stunts.
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Jun 7, 2012 08:23
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| # ? May 8, 2024 12:46 |
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El Estrago Bonito posted:the countryside of Nebraska (technically a "long and lonesome highway, east of Omaha") That'd be Iowa  I don't have any ideas for your monsters but the premise and the theme song mechanic sound pretty cool.
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Jun 7, 2012 13:02
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