Down the Dire Rabbit Hole [4e]

[Sir_Elderberry]

So, I had an idea for a 4e adventure, the main point of which would be craziness.

The fluff would probably invoke the Elemental Chaos or the Feywild or something, but I was thinking that in the beginning, the players would be hired to stop an evil, very eccentric sorcerer from...getting up to magical no-good. Probably involving a ritual or an artifact from the aforementioned fluff-place. They'd find him and start to fight him (and maybe his constructs or something). However, when first bloodied, he spends his next turn pulling his "oh crap" on this magic artifact and wild magic bursts out. The PCs come to "elsewhere", and spend the rest of the session trying to work their way out of this nonsense.

The plot is vague at best, but what I thought might be interesting would be some random effects that the wild magic would temporarily put on the PCs, which I would ideally put onto index cards, shuffle, and pass out. Here are some ideas I had:

-You are affected by the Wizard 6 power "Levitate"
-You lose the ability to speak Common. (Or all languages? Think Haley.)
-At the beginning of your turn, roll a d6. If you roll an even number, you are invisible until the beginning of your next turn. If you roll an odd number, you mark the nearest enemy, and overwrite all other marks.
-Your "each creature" powers target "each enemy", your "each enemy" powers target "each creature".

Etc, etc. The only problem is that some of these are absolutely devastating to some classes and a boon to others. My wizard would love the last one; the cleric would probably hate it. Levitate works for ranged attackers, but melee'ers would be four squares above where they want to be. Does anyone have some better ideas? While these ones affect combat, they dont' need to. I just think this'll be memorable and amusing, but I'm worried it'll come off as irritating.

[FoE]

Seems interesting, except for the "You lose the ability to speak Common", which would be more annoying than inconvenient. (How many PCs don't have access to Comprehend Languages anyways?)

There was a 4E adventure called "Dark Heart of Mithendrain" that started similiarly. Basically, the PCs are pursuing a group of goblins and become enveloped in magical fog that cause all sorts of interesting combat effects. When the fog clears, the PCs find themselves in the eladrin city of Mithendrain, deep in the Feywild.

[Sir_Elderberry]

That's an interesting idea. The thing with Common is, yeah, probably a little too irritating, and would require policing the IC/OOC divide a bit more than our group usually does.

[dragoonsgone]

I don't know why, but it makes me think of the final fantasy tactics advance Judges. In this fight you can't use swords. In this fight you can't jump. Etc etc

[Indon]

There's an effect for you.

-An arbitrator arrives from nowhere and gives both sides a strange-sounding instruction. Whichever side violates the instruction takes -1 to their attacks for the rest of the combat as the judge incessantly yells at them!

[Project_Mayhem]

There's an effect for you.

-An arbitrator arrives from nowhere and gives both sides a strange-sounding instruction. Whichever side violates the instruction takes -1 to their attacks for the rest of the combat as the judge incessantly yells at them!

I cast silence on the arbitrator.

Followed by finger of death

[Mercenary Pen]

It would be even more amusing if the selected restrictions were put into a random table and rolled up for each encounter, with just as much chance of affecting the DM as it had of affecting the players...

Restrictions on this table might include:
Daily powers, encounter powers, weapon powers, particular weapon groups (e.g. Polearms), healing, particular dice (e.g. no d6 for this encounter)... it all depends on how far you're willing to take it.

If you're really after emulating the FFTA experience and willing to take the flak when it comes up, you could even institute the Damage to animals and damage to specific race bans, as well as bans on specific types of powers (exploits, spells, prayers, etc.)

Maybe even bring in law cards to allow either side to change the rules mid battle...

[Sir_Elderberry]

Hah, well, that explains where I subconsciously got the idea from--I've been playing FFTA the past week or two. However, that's kind of what I want to happen, but I want less restriction, and more just difference. Something to just knock the players out of their element. Like levitate, it's not that it's a major nerf or restriction--meleers could even hover just a square above the ground and strike downwards or something, if they wanted--it's just something odd. But I will take this concerns into consideration.