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DeMouse
2010-11-28, 09:54 AM
and i'm going to run with it, i just need some advice about appropriate challenges to throw at them.

it is essentially a giant magically mechanized spider (think Wild Wild West movie) that was supposed to have a warlord that they were tracking down's soul bound to it. through clever play and lucky rolls they managed to get the soul of the party monk bonded instead.

my first attempt to crush it for fear of breaking the rest of the campaign was to send an ancient red dragon. after the most epic piece of combat i have ever played through a level 10 party managed to use a giant mechanised siege engine to take down an ancient red dragon.

so i'm going to run with it now out of respect for some awesome play, and because it getting allot of fun.

spider currently marching on a city under siege where they intend to destroy both armies and start an empire.

Don't want to crush them utterly, just want some interesting challenges and awesome enemies for them to take on.

Xallace
2010-11-28, 10:01 AM
I salute you for going along with it.

I think once someone figures out that there is a giant mechanical spider war machine on the loose, kingdoms are going to start paying big money to artificers to make counter-siege machines. Presumably mobile, animal-shaped ones piloted by hired adventurers.

AstralFire
2010-11-28, 10:03 AM
I salute you for going along with it.

I think once someone figures out that there is a giant mechanical spider war machine on the loose, kingdoms are going to start paying big money to artificers to make counter-siege machines. Presumably mobile, animal-shaped ones piloted by hired adventurers.

Also, they can combine. Please tell me they can combine.

That or transform into human shaped ones.

MightyTim
2010-11-28, 10:29 AM
spider currently marching on a city under siege where they intend to destroy both armies and start an empire.


Your party doesn't control the BBEG... they ARE the BBEGs now. If they're the biggest bully in the playground now, expect everyone else to start ganging up on them.


And yes. Giant animal shaped mechs that combine into even bigger ones.... piloted by teenagers in spandex.

Kyrthain
2010-11-28, 10:35 AM
I would just make sure that no-one in the party is getting overshadowed by the spider. If they all still have fun, useful ways to contribute, then just keep throwing other big, nasty monsters at them.

Xallace
2010-11-28, 10:39 AM
You know (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZZv5Z2Iz_s) what you (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCGue1RADRw) must do. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v23PsHes7RM&feature=related)

Susano-wo
2010-11-28, 10:43 AM
it is essentially a giant magically mechanized spider (think Wild Wild West movie) that was supposed to have a warlord that they were tracking down's soul bound to it. through clever play and lucky rolls they managed to get the soul of the party monk bonded instead.



See? Perfectly balanced! All you need to do is get your soul stuffed in a Fujiikoma >.>

J.Gellert
2010-11-28, 10:54 AM
City under siege is a great first challenge. Let's see how the spider does under catapult fire...

Once the scale has gone up to war, other challenges can include:

A tribe of Giants, with Heavy Metal Hammers.
Druids in the forest, that have the terrain and the Treants on their side.
Cabals of Wizards, that can fly, sink the spider in mud, hit it with lightning...
Five gnomes in golems that combine to form a Gargantuan Golem (Mecha Duel!)
Necromancers, who can try to unbind the soul from the machine.

Also ninjas, who can climb inside stealthily to perform sabotage.

Escheton
2010-11-28, 11:05 AM
Would not the scorekeeping of hp and such of the various legs, decks and wallsections get tedious?
And would it not be unfairly indestructible if you didnt?

Good on ya if this is a fun active game, but thats a lotta numbers floating in your head as a dm.

The Glyphstone
2010-11-28, 11:09 AM
Would not the scorekeeping of hp and such of the various legs, decks and wallsections get tedious?
And would it not be unfairly indestructible if you didnt?

Good on ya if this is a fun active game, but thats a lotta numbers floating in your head as a dm.

You don't (normally) keep track of individual HP for all of your fingers/legs/arms in D&D, do you? It's just a Colossal Construct with a massive pile of hit points - far from 'indestructible' if you attack it with something big enough to stand up to it.

Escheton
2010-11-28, 11:14 AM
Thats asuming its a golem or somesuch with a set total hp.
Sounds to me like an animated structure with seigeweaponry mounted to it.
Something one could disable for instance by targeting the legs, an option not given by standard attack-his-hp-till-he-drops constructs.

Susano-wo
2010-11-28, 11:27 AM
yeah, I like hte kinja/rogue sabateurs climbing on it idea. forces the part y to come to his rescue. Possibly while he tries to deal with the Dragon/Golem/Giant/Cthulhu.

The Glyphstone
2010-11-28, 11:36 AM
Thats asuming its a golem or somesuch with a set total hp.
Sounds to me like an animated structure with seigeweaponry mounted to it.
Something one could disable for instance by targeting the legs, an option not given by standard attack-his-hp-till-he-drops constructs.

But why would it be? You just said yourself that keeping track of HP for individual components would be a lot of extra bookkeeping. Instead, he just treats it like a giant golem, and voila!

DeMouse
2010-11-28, 11:43 AM
actually i have set up seperate HP and DR and AC for the different armor sections already.

legs i havn't done yet but i intend to

Escheton
2010-11-28, 11:48 AM
actually i have set up seperate HP and DR and AC for the different armor sections already.

legs i havn't done yet but i intend to

so there, nya


having squads of harpies and and other winged battleunits descend onto the lumbering monstrosity while they are using railgun-like seigeweapons to fend them off just really makes for some nice Ebberonian visual displays.

GoatBoy
2010-11-28, 11:58 AM
If Gurren Lagann has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that there is always a bigger robot.

FMArthur
2010-11-28, 12:16 PM
I think this is one particular event that Mechanus should mobilize a large scale assault force for.

Ernir
2010-11-28, 12:30 PM
Giant mechanical spiders attract adventurers. Adventurers that see it as nothing but a giant bag of XP.

The-Mage-King
2010-11-28, 12:40 PM
If Gurren Lagann has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that there is always a bigger robot.


I think this is one particular event that Mechanus should mobilize a large scale assault force for.

Or, of course, Mechanus itself.

Who's to say that the plane of law and gears isn't a giant transformer?

wizuriel
2010-11-28, 12:41 PM
now sounds like the time for someone to start a rust monster breeding program.

absolmorph
2010-11-28, 12:45 PM
Or, of course, Mechanus itself.

Who's to say that the plane of law and gears isn't a giant transformer?
I don't think there's anything that says it isn't.
On the other hand, I don't think they've gone far enough to be facing a plane-sized mecha. Especially since only one PC is a giant mecha.
So far.

The-Mage-King
2010-11-28, 12:52 PM
I don't think there's anything that says it isn't.
On the other hand, I don't think they've gone far enough to be facing a plane-sized mecha. Especially since only one PC is a giant mecha.
So far.

So they just need to hunt down some more mecha, get the rest of the party added to the list, and throw in some HOT BLOOD! Problem solved.


And you can envision it, can't you... The glorious clicky-clicky noise of an entire plane transforming into a giant, vaguely humanoid robot, armed with... something, and having a swarm of inevitables floating around it...

nyarlathotep
2010-11-28, 12:52 PM
I don't think there's anything that says it isn't.
On the other hand, I don't think they've gone far enough to be facing a plane-sized mecha. Especially since only one PC is a giant mecha.
So far.

The chances of Mechnus not being one giant transformer approach zero the more often PCs/DMs think about. The only question is who is it; Primus' true form, a really big inevitable, some third thing?

InaVegt
2010-11-28, 12:53 PM
The chances of Mechnus not being one giant transformer approach zero the more often PCs/DMs think about. The only question is who is it; Primus' true form, a really big inevitable, some third thing?

It's a combiner of Unicron and Primus.

nyarlathotep
2010-11-28, 12:57 PM
It's a combiner of Unicron and Primus.

Of course this is working under my base assumption that Primus leader of the modrons is the same being as Primus leader of the transformers.

The-Mage-King
2010-11-28, 01:52 PM
Of course this is working under my base assumption that Primus leader of the modrons is the same being as Primus leader of the transformers.

... "Assumption"?

Warlawk
2010-11-28, 02:21 PM
There are some great ideas here so far that you should certainly take into consideration.

One I would like to expand on is Mechanus. Perhaps the BBEG didn't create this war machine. Perhaps he found it and tried to pass it off as his own creation (This could be something that is a discovery process for the PCs). Perhaps this thing is truly alive. It had a soul that was forced out of the body, and wants it back. This thing was the Chosen One, or some prophesied hero or savior or some faction within Mechanus and they REALLY want it back. A religious cult of rogue beings from Mechanus harrying the party trying to get back their savior could make for an interesting twist.

(This assumes your party is Good aligned)
If you want to being some slightly more serious RP issues into the game, make sure the PCs fight a few other things that are as big as they are and force them to fight near a town. Things of that size have a tendency to destroy things around them without meaning too. Even should they not kill anyone they have just destroyed the homes and livelyhoods of many people who will likely now starve to death, or perhaps end up as beggars or slaves. A group of renowned heroes, or the representatives of an unquestionably Good deity come to end the menace that is the PCs. This puts them in a sticky situation of facing off against other heroes who have a very valid gripe against the PCs. This becomes even more pronounced if the NPC's are powerful enough to be a threat while still being very vulnerable to the PCs offenses. This leaves your PCs with the choice of destroying a good aligned group that is acting correctly, or leaving them alive knowing that they could be a threat again in the future.

DeMouse
2010-11-28, 08:46 PM
There are some great ideas here so far that you should certainly take into consideration.

One I would like to expand on is Mechanus. Perhaps the BBEG didn't create this war machine. Perhaps he found it and tried to pass it off as his own creation (This could be something that is a discovery process for the PCs). Perhaps this thing is truly alive. It had a soul that was forced out of the body, and wants it back. This thing was the Chosen One, or some prophesied hero or savior or some faction within Mechanus and they REALLY want it back. A religious cult of rogue beings from Mechanus harrying the party trying to get back their savior could make for an interesting twist.

(This assumes your party is Good aligned)
If you want to being some slightly more serious RP issues into the game, make sure the PCs fight a few other things that are as big as they are and force them to fight near a town. Things of that size have a tendency to destroy things around them without meaning too. Even should they not kill anyone they have just destroyed the homes and livelyhoods of many people who will likely now starve to death, or perhaps end up as beggars or slaves. A group of renowned heroes, or the representatives of an unquestionably Good deity come to end the menace that is the PCs. This puts them in a sticky situation of facing off against other heroes who have a very valid gripe against the PCs. This becomes even more pronounced if the NPC's are powerful enough to be a threat while still being very vulnerable to the PCs offenses. This leaves your PCs with the choice of destroying a good aligned group that is acting correctly, or leaving them alive knowing that they could be a threat again in the future.



considering that in the process of capturing the spider they practically caused an entire town to be eaten by ogres i don't think they are going to care much about collateral damage in a mecha battle. though they diddn't really realize it at the time so ill keep that in consideration. the bard is the only character who really breaks his alignment of chaotic good (still in character so i let it slide) and the other two are lawful and chaotic neutral.

Tvtyrant
2010-11-28, 08:52 PM
Have the enemy try to climb up the giant spider as it crushes their army; your group has to hold off swarms of mid levels that leap from castle towers or climb up legs into the cab. Wizards strafing it from above using Overland Flight is cool too. essentially you should be playing it as a giant rule of cool; the enemy armies send their best soldiers to kill the party while the machine easily destroys their lower level forces (don't even need to roll for that, just desceibe the carnage).

Keinnicht
2010-11-28, 08:57 PM
So they just need to hunt down some more mecha, get the rest of the party added to the list, and throw in some HOT BLOOD! Problem solved.


And you can envision it, can't you... The glorious clicky-clicky noise of an entire plane transforming into a giant, vaguely humanoid robot, armed with... something, and having a swarm of inevitables floating around it...


... "Assumption"?

Indeed, my first thought upon reading that was the ridiculously huge mech saying "Greetings, I am Primus Deluxe."

Zhalath
2010-11-28, 09:17 PM
If Gurren Lagann has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that there is always a bigger robot.

This.

Considering the ancient rivalry, you should have a Man Behind The Man of the Big Bad come back with a gianter robot scorpion.

Alternatively:
1. Use magic and willpower to make bigger spiderbot
2. Fight interplanar/interstellar BBEG
3. Throw galaxies
4. ????
5. Best campaign ever.

7RED7
2010-11-28, 09:54 PM
Well, since you've already got the whole anachronistic thing going, why not have it come under attack from mercenary forces piloting low flying airships with cannons, boarding ramps, and assault swashbucklers.
Piracy on the high... erm... grassy hills?!

If you stick with it for a while then you might want to work in some systems for other party members to interact with it. Otherwise you'll most likely end up with the giant wrecking ball fighting something equally crazy while everyone else just fights random disposable boarding parties. Maybe suggest that your party arcanist(s) research the design of the machine and either run across some embedded technology or find a way to upgrade it such that they can use it as a conduit for their spellcasting and/or rituals. Doing so may provide a power source that benefits allies in close proximty, such as providing them with offensive/defensive buffs, or even some kind of magic electro-grapple which can fling fighter characters around as a sort of mobile defense system.
If it's working, go with it, just give them enough new things to do with it so they don't get bored.

Alternatively, the next land they attack could turn out to be Dinotopia.
Come on, adventurers riding a giant mechanical monk spider, fighting renaissance era soldiers piloting talking dinosaurs and the occasional cyborg war machine. That has classic written all over it.

Morbid power gamer curiosity requires me to ask though...
Is the monk getting flurry of blows and other unarmed feat effects?
Quivering I-Beam?

marius\tobius
2010-11-28, 10:14 PM
when you say huge, how huge?
like AF spirit of motherwill huge or shadow of the collossis huge

DeMouse
2010-11-29, 12:41 AM
when you say huge, how huge?
like AF spirit of motherwill huge or shadow of the collossis huge

think a just as large but stocker version (larger body, slightly smaller and thicker legs) of the mechanical spider from the Wild Wild West movie

see pic

http://storage.canoe.ca/v1/blogs-prod-static/mediam/wildwildwest.jpg

DragonOfUndeath
2010-11-29, 02:07 AM
I am so subscribing to this thread. You should start a campaign journal.

Strife Warzeal
2010-11-29, 02:14 AM
Do you have a character sheet for Awesomeness Prime (as your spider robot-monk is now to be called)?
In terms of categories what size is it? Huge? Gargantuan? Colossal?

DragonOfUndeath
2010-11-29, 02:15 AM
Do you have a character sheet for Awesomeness Prime (as your spider robot-monk is now to be called)?
In terms of categories what size is it? Huge? Gargantuan? Colossal?

I think that it is Mechanus that is called Awesomeness Prime

Tvtyrant
2010-11-29, 02:17 AM
I think that it is Mechanus that is called Awesomeness Prime

:( Horrible pun is horrible. how dare you!:smallfrown:

DragonOfUndeath
2010-11-29, 02:20 AM
:( Horrible pun is horrible. how dare you!:smallfrown:

:smallbiggrin: :smallbiggrin: :smallbiggrin: :smallbiggrin: :smallbiggrin: :smallbiggrin:

DeMouse
2010-11-29, 02:29 AM
I am so subscribing to this thread. You should start a campaign journal.

Ill have a go at writing one then, the campaign is a bit schizophrenic as we started off using a pre-made adventure path as it is all of our first times playing (me included) but i dropped it quickly since it was getting pretty lame and because the quest descriptions made me facepalm. ill skip to where i decided to drop the pre-made path to protect the guilty (i'm looking at you paizo).

Even if you recognize the setting by the early summary i didn't even look at how the rest of the world operated at the point of divergence so everything is made up except possibly the map layout.


Do you have a character sheet for Awesomeness Prime (as your spider robot-monk is now to be called)?
In terms of categories what size is it? Huge? Gargantuan? Colossal?

doesn't have a character sheet, armor is divided into head (DR10 AC 40 HP 100 and allot of magic resist. it can retract into the body), front armor (DR 30 HP 200 AC 15), left and right armors (DR 20 HP 200 AC 15) and rear armor (DR 20 HP 100 AC 15). the more damaged the carious sections the easier it is for attackers to shoot at the occupants of the spider or the central core shaft (thing with all the power crystals). central core has HP of 25 DR of 75 100 of all elemental resistances an AC of 50 against ranged and 0 against melee.

weaponry is a forward fireball (mounted on the head) it can be fired once every 10 minutes as a full round action and no other weapons can be used for 3 rounds after and does 20d10 damage in double standard fireball radius. has the same melting properties as the ancient dragon's breath weapon. can also be used as an ice or fire version dealing half as much damage in half the radius but not stopping other weapons for the three rounds.

it has a flamethrower with a 90 ft cone that does pretty low damage (4d8) or a 60ft cone with 6d8. (standard action at will)

also has a total of 14 turrets (7 on each side) which can fire CL 1 scorching rays (3d8 if i remember correctly) as fire or frost damage. if they are firing automatically then they have an attack bonus of +0 but use the ranged attack bonus of anyone operating them

final armaments is 5 enchanted trebuchets with permanent gravity shot (increase size category) and each can use trueshot 5 times per day

advice on the stats is appreciated as well

Coidzor
2010-11-29, 02:48 AM
actually i have set up seperate HP and DR and AC for the different armor sections already.

legs i havn't done yet but i intend to

Why didn't you finish it before exposing the PCs to it? :smallconfused:

FelixG
2010-11-29, 03:06 AM
A pack of hungry rust monsters come upon the colossal mecha!

Only time in a campaign journal you will see a mecha bounding across a plain being chased by storming hordes of rust monsters throwing up dust in their wake :smallbiggrin:

I also like the commandos idea, getting on board and wrecking vital equipment.

the BBEG built the ting in the first place, he should still have designs for it...Have him make an appearance after they start to form their empire leading a coalition of kingdoms against the PCs, make it clear that the rest of the world supports him now and that THEY are the BBEGs

Kind of a twist that the BBEG becomes the good guy in the face of an even more terrable enemy which were the good guys trying to take him down heh

DeMouse
2010-11-29, 03:10 AM
Why didn't you finish it before exposing the PCs to it? :smallconfused:

mostly because they were only supposed to see it form a distance for now. then they found a way to capture it

Coidzor
2010-11-29, 03:13 AM
Kind of a twist that the BBEG becomes the good guy in the face of an even more terrable enemy which were the good guys trying to take him down heh

Heh, that reminds me of Soul Nomad and the World Eaters (http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/soulnomad/)(mild profanity on the site, peruse at your own risk).

Fri
2010-11-29, 03:19 AM
PCs got anachronistic giant transport all the time. So yeah, to make things interesting for the rest of the players, they could fight enemies that're trying to board the giant mech while the giant mech is fighting dragons or giant treant or something.

And sometimes there are times where giant mechs are just inappropriate. Sneaking around, an underground cave, battle in a busy town's street, and so on.

ajkkjjk52
2010-11-29, 12:09 PM
And sometimes there are times where giant mechs are just inappropriate. Sneaking around, an underground cave, battle in a busy town's street, and so on.

+1 to this. Unless you want this campaign to get one-sided fast, try to find situations where the mech is providing support to the rest of the party, not the other way around.

Throwing bigger mechs at it will just make the rest of the party feel useless, and nothing leads to campaign breakdown faster than a bored player.

Grelna the Blue
2010-11-29, 07:04 PM
A few ideas:

I see others have beaten me to the basic idea, but a crack team of gnomes inside battle constructs with gunports for wands could be fun.

Reverse Gravity at a crucial moment would be a very nasty surprise..

A Gargantua monster. Make it a Godzilla v. Mothra sort of conflict, with them as Mothra.

A Retriever demon (spider v. spider).

Escheton
2010-11-29, 09:02 PM
The Arms and Equipment Guide has some great sections on Vehicles and the stuff strapped to it.
Heros of Battle also has some stuff on it I think, and is more war and seige based and could be of use.

The party is clearly a group of adventurers and not a group of hero's. Thus throwing moralityissues at them and making them deal with responsibility and suchwould just be a downer on the crazy fun ride/trip they are on.
As such, I recommend against it.
That would be something for later campaigns when the seriousness kicks in.


Having them find blueprints and a map in a hullcompartment during repairs that reveals that this thing can be modded with wings, which can be found in a dungeon or something can be a great adventurehook. One that has them leave/hide the monstrosity and go back to a bit of crawling.
After which they can go back to an ever crazier fun ride/trip.
I think it will deal with the otherwise inevitable (anti-)climax of a couple a sessions of rampaging.

randomhero00
2010-11-29, 09:13 PM
OP:

Well basically once word gets out that such a destructive, powerful thing is on the loose, kingdoms, ancient powers, ancient evils will all come up to strike at it. Its really a huge list of choices on what you want to choose. Could be an entire armada of ancient dragons for instance.

DeMouse
2010-11-30, 07:49 PM
OP:

Well basically once word gets out that such a destructive, powerful thing is on the loose, kingdoms, ancient powers, ancient evils will all come up to strike at it. Its really a huge list of choices on what you want to choose. Could be an entire armada of ancient dragons for instance.

i can see it now: an entire armada of elder wyrms are on the loose, we most mass produce spider-bots to defend the mortal relms