Ideas for individual sessions - campaign design help needed

[WarKitty]

So the premise of the game is that each PC has a vision. During the vision they have to accomplish something. This something is the key to unlocking new abilities. Failure simply dumps them back at the start of the vision.

The PC's:

One human fighter/customized goblin summoner. Former general and war leader. Wanted to become a blackguard before he met his wife. LN

One elf ranger/scout. Wife to said fighter. Had family killed by dark elves; very attached to her companion pegasus. CG

One doppelganger bard/cleric. Trickster with multiple personalities. CN

One werewolf rogue. Outcast from her village due to not having fully come into her werewolf abilities. CN

One catfolk sorcerer. Got turned into a catperson via a magical attack and is searching for the person he believes to be the attacker. Bores easily and likes to cause trouble. Same attack destroyed his home village. CN

I need a short individual session for each of these. Here's what I have so far:

Fighter: This one's simple. A goblin village is being threatened by a powerful warrior. The warrior turns out to be the blackguard he wanted to be.

Ranger: I'm thinking of having her pegasus disappear, but I'm not sure to where. Possibly by the dark elves? She's very mobile but too fragile for melee

Bard: Some sort of puzzle, keep it combat-light. Something she could trick her way through would be best

Rogue: This one's also fairly easy. She wants a scrap with some of her old buddies. She's a pretty good combat build for a rogue, shall have to make sure she has some way to make them flatfooted.

Sorcerer: Not sure here. Some tie-in to the destruction of his village. Don't want to bring in the person he's looking for just yet.

Ideally I'd like these dream-episodes to be more than just a fight, although fights are allowed. Could I get ideas on fun things to do and ways to throw twists in?

Relevant houserules and other info:

Classes are all at least somewhat custom. There is no multiclassing in this world; your levels are all considered to be levels in the Class of PC. If you want something different than the normal, it will be worked into your class.

Alignments do not exist.

The planar arrangement is very different. You can't planeshift out of dreamland. None of them can planeshift anyways.

The PC's are level 10.

[TinselCat]

This sounds like a cool and fun idea.

For the sorcerer, I'm uncertain about some of the information. You mentioned the destruction of his village for the vision, but not in his summary. I am working off the idea that the vision will take place during said destruction.

If this means the village was not destroyed while he was living in it / prior to the vision episodes...He is witnessing it in the vision, and has to survive. Getting out alive is the challenge.

This could function if the village is already destroyed, if the vision is construed to be some kind of flashback.

This means the PC has to have a smart fight-or-flight response (which some of mine don't have, so I know this won't work with everyone).

As for the bard, it's difficult to make a challenge without knowing what motivates her. The puzzle will have to be something she wants to achieve. Since she's CN (edit: wait, CN or GN/NG? never mind, then) , I don't know what to recommend other than something shiny or interesting. The puzzle could be something material blocking her path that can't be overrun with force, or it could be some unhelpful, enigmatic person that she has to win over/manipulate.

And finally, as for the ranger, if she specializes in scouting and sneaking, her retrieval of the pegasus can focus on that. If it ends up in the hands of dark elves, it could be held somewhere she can sneak into and out of. This might trigger combat with poor rolls, but I would make the location complex and labyrinth-like to give her opportunities for hiding, sneaking and attacking with surprise. Play to her strengths. I like having terrain that rewards players who think.

Hope this was helpful. Just my two cents.

[WarKitty]

This sounds like a cool and fun idea.

For the sorcerer, I'm uncertain about some of the information. You mentioned the destruction of his village for the vision, but not in his summary. I am working off the idea that the vision will take place during said destruction.

If this means the village was not destroyed while he was living in it / prior to the vision episodes...He is witnessing it in the vision, and has to survive. Getting out alive is the challenge.

This could function if the village is already destroyed, if the vision is construed to be some kind of flashback.

This means the PC has to have a smart fight-or-flight response (which some of mine don't have, so I know this won't work with everyone).

The village was already destroyed; that was the magical attack that turned him into a catperson. Sorry that wasn't clear. And the PC has no common sense at all.



As for the bard, it's difficult to make a challenge without knowing what motivates her. The puzzle will have to be something she wants to achieve. Since she's CN (edit: wait, CN or GN/NG? never mind, then) , I don't know what to recommend other than something shiny or interesting. The puzzle could be something material blocking her path that can't be overrun with force, or it could be some unhelpful, enigmatic person that she has to win over/manipulate.

I'm not really sure what motivates her either. She tends to make background or follower characters. She's the person in our group that sort of takes up whatever role the rest of the party doesn't have covered. I do get the feeling that she'd enjoy some sort of disguise or alter self ability the most. Helpfully, she's also the character that would do something out of sheer amusement value.


And finally, as for the ranger, if she specializes in scouting and sneaking, her retrieval of the pegasus can focus on that. If it ends up in the hands of dark elves, it could be held somewhere she can sneak into and out of. This might trigger combat with poor rolls, but I would make the location complex and labyrinth-like to give her opportunities for hiding, sneaking and attacking with surprise. Play to her strengths. I like having terrain that rewards players who think.

Hope this was helpful. Just my two cents.

She's not built for either of those. She does have a tracking build, but that's it. She's optimized for ranged damage, with some spellcasting - ranger casting swapped out for arcane archer type abilities.

[TinselCat]

Alright, I'm game for a second brainstorm.

Sorcerer: Did the village just go *kaboom* and was gone? If not, and there was prolonged fighting, the idea might still work, but the pass/fail requirements might change. Perhaps he's given a chance to try to save his younger self. But that will be innately set up to fail, unless he succeeds, wakes up, and realizes it was just a vision. Can get complicated, though.

If it just went *kaboom*, I'd find something that's a lot of fighting. If we're leaning to a no common sense type of character, I'd set him up with a hoard of low level enemies that he can just go to town on. Area of Effect spells, stuff that can take out a whole bunch from a nice safe distance, it'll make him feel really happy and be a lot of fun. Maybe a "defeat all enemies" or "defeat x enemies" kind of victory. Combat oriented.

Bard: Something for sheer amusement value. In that case, I'd give her the opportunity to disguise herself as someone else. Someone with influence, who just had a bunch of important decisions to make. Depending on the type of player, this person would be a corrupt businessman or a naive professor. The player could take the corrupt businessman and alter his business practices to be generous, altruistic, or just start selling his wares at an absurdly low discount so he goes broke. To encourage her to do this I'd make it clear up front that this somehow will affect the party. For example, maybe this businessman is offering wares extremely useful to the PCs. Maybe he actually fences stolen goods, and the PCs magic items are the next target. To set it up, maybe the guy will run into the bard in a side street, somehow get knocked out by accident, and make her the only one that can help him make these 'important decisions'. Contrived, but I'm going for something fun. That problem would be if the player doesn't take the initiative, which it sounds like she doesn't. Oh, well. This one is tough.

Ranger: Ah, a fix can be easy, then. Pegasus can fly, so put it in the middle of a dark elves camp. She won't even have to enter the camp, but just fire in ranged and/or magical attacks from above to give it cover to escape on its own. And, of course, that tracking build would help her to find it and get into the most optimal position for sniper-like activities.

[WarKitty]

Alright, I'm game for a second brainstorm.

Sorcerer: Did the village just go *kaboom* and was gone? If not, and there was prolonged fighting, the idea might still work, but the pass/fail requirements might change. Perhaps he's given a chance to try to save his younger self. But that will be innately set up to fail, unless he succeeds, wakes up, and realizes it was just a vision. Can get complicated, though.

If it just went *kaboom*, I'd find something that's a lot of fighting. If we're leaning to a no common sense type of character, I'd set him up with a hoard of low level enemies that he can just go to town on. Area of Effect spells, stuff that can take out a whole bunch from a nice safe distance, it'll make him feel really happy and be a lot of fun. Maybe a "defeat all enemies" or "defeat x enemies" kind of victory. Combat oriented.

Prolonged fight. I might have some luck with him if I build it so that he has to let it happen in order to get through. Have to work with that more.


Bard: Something for sheer amusement value. In that case, I'd give her the opportunity to disguise herself as someone else. Someone with influence, who just had a bunch of important decisions to make. Depending on the type of player, this person would be a corrupt businessman or a naive professor. The player could take the corrupt businessman and alter his business practices to be generous, altruistic, or just start selling his wares at an absurdly low discount so he goes broke. To encourage her to do this I'd make it clear up front that this somehow will affect the party. For example, maybe this businessman is offering wares extremely useful to the PCs. Maybe he actually fences stolen goods, and the PCs magic items are the next target. To set it up, maybe the guy will run into the bard in a side street, somehow get knocked out by accident, and make her the only one that can help him make these 'important decisions'. Contrived, but I'm going for something fun. That problem would be if the player doesn't take the initiative, which it sounds like she doesn't. Oh, well. This one is tough.

I think she's slowly getting into it more. She started playing more because everyone else was and she wanted to hang with friends. I'm showing her how to build a bard for max useful trouble, so I think she'll enjoy that more. The character as written is very childlike, so probably better to keep the motivations simple. Maybe a simple case of treachery against her, where she'd need to get herself out of a fix.


Ranger: Ah, a fix can be easy, then. Pegasus can fly, so put it in the middle of a dark elves camp. She won't even have to enter the camp, but just fire in ranged and/or magical attacks from above to give it cover to escape on its own. And, of course, that tracking build would help her to find it and get into the most optimal position for sniper-like activities.

Nice, thanks!

[TinselCat]

Alright! Glad I could help. It was fun getting my brain-juices flowing. I might have to use this neat idea for the campaign I'm running...but my players are at a lower level, so I'll hold off and see how they start to develop.

[Ajadea]

I presume that the fighter will then have to kill his blackguard counterpart or something along those lines?

The ranger having to track down and kill a party of dark elves who kidnapped the pegasus would be interesting. Possibly the pegasus could be seriously injured when she finds it...that could make things very complicated. If she's so attached to the pegasus, and you feel evil, make the dream ending requirement putting the pegasus out of its misery.

The bard...well, a dream involving trickery...meet a nobleman who invites her to his house and then gets assassinated? She then has to defend herself, take the initiative, and attempt to live as the nobleman until she can get his heir back while dodging more assassination attempts and trying to find the assassin. And all of the important people in the dream behave like one of her multiple personalities.

Wacky antics abound, and the dream ends when either the heir comes back or the assassin is found. Or maybe the nobleman drops dead and she has to go push for some sort of important political decision which directly affects the PCs.

EDIT: Direct treachery? Easy. Wakes up bound, gagged, in a room, has to impersonate a whole bunch of guards and maybe find out something plot important while she's there.

And the sorcerer...well, we really have to know how the destruction of the village went. If there is a delay in the backstory, maybe he has to cause it. If there isn't...maybe he has to stabilize his younger self.

Or maybe he just dreams he's a cat.

[Dreadn4ught]

For the Bard, perhaps he could find himself tied up in a prison and he would have to escape. Give him a chance to do some trickster-like things.

Sorcerer: Maybe all the buildings in his destroyed village are falling apart and on fire and he needs to make his way through the destruction and occasionally fight enemies. To add a strange emotional twist, maybe make the enemies his own townspeople.

As for the Ranger, I have absolutely no idea.

Don't like my ideas? Use somebody else's ideas!

[Gabe the Bard]

I like the idea for the Fighter's vision. The Fighter and Ranger both seem to have visions tailored to their psyches: the fighter confronting the man he could have become, and the ranger losing her closest companion. You could take the ranger's vision a step further and have the Pegasus abandon her in the middle of a forest. Perhaps the Pegasus has been possessed by an evil spirit. Or the Pegasus in the vision is actually a shapeshifter who has captured the real pegasus and wants the ranger to think that she was abandoned.

For the bard, the first thing that came to mind was a town full of dopplegangers, or a town where everyone looks the same as everyone else. Or perhaps everyone looks like whoever the bard looks like at any given moment (which could get crazy).

For the rogue, perhaps in her vision she has to find her true werewolf self. Then her character and the true werewolf can work (and flank) together in their fight.

For the sorcerer, you could turn the situation around on him. His trouble-making ways have caused some real harm, maybe the destruction of another village. He is pursued by the survivors who want revenge. He could simply do away with them, but they're the sort of people he can like and relate to, so he could try to convince them that he didn't mean any harm and dissuade them from attacking him.