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Necro_EX
2011-03-24, 07:28 PM
Alright, the campaign I'm running is coming close to its end. We've got three sessions left, I already have the next one planned out pretty well, but the last two sessions I don't have completely finished just yet. I've got the general ideas in my head, but I seem to be having a little issue putting this all down on paper.

I still have some time before this needs to be done, but I want the last session to be double our normal length and for the end to be something worth all this work they've gone through.

--Derek, Alex, Bryant if you happen by here, don't read past this line--

Alright, to set the scene:

The campaign takes place in Faerun, focusing on the Western Heartlands and the North. The party consists of Rickt Lighthand a halfling cleric of Lathander, Sefris Amon a Mulhourandi tiefling wizard, Nyrim Rhistle a moon-elf duskblade (nephew of the party's main benefactor), and Evendur Graycastle "Gray" a roguebuckler in the employ of Mirt and Savelor (Savelor is Nyrim's uncle, a duskblade Harper and an elven noble).

They've worked their way from the frightening times of level 1 where an alley cat could pose a potential threat all the way to level 7 so far. The campaign began with some basic 'go here, do that' types of adventures, but they've come across a plot to bring back the Onyx Tower (Dark Alliance 1&2, anyone?) by a powerful fire giant living in the crags, only to discover the Shades have an interest in the relic being used in this plot as well (though they have not directly interacted with the Shades, yet). After collecting most of the planar trestle they were ambushed by members of a xenophobic moon-elf cult that worships a powerful long-dead wizard.

So, there are four factions vying for possession of this artifact.
(The planar trestle, not the Onyx Tower)

-The fire giantess seeks it to open a permanent gate to the plane of fire.
-The Shades seek it for their own sinister purposes.
-The Cult of the Amethyst Eye seek it to open a gate to the pocket dimension the wizard they worship is kept in)
-The Harpers (and the party) seek it so that it may be destroyed.

The party is in possession of 6 of the 7 pieces of this artifact, and have chosen to leave it with the wizards of Waterdeep for the time being (the party is stationed in Waterdeep, so it is still very close by). The last remaining piece is in a Githzerai monastery.

Now, what I'm planning for next session is for them to get to the monastery and, knowing the party, they'll likely try to get it peacefully (the cleric is a bit of a diplomancer). Considering Githzerai are typically neutral and the lives of many are at stake, I'm fine with this. I was even thinking of using this as an excuse to bump them up a level, but I'm not so certain of that. I was expecting them to be at level 10 by this point, but we spent four sessions on something I thought would only take one.*

After they retrieve that last piece I was planning on one of the NPCs they've been fairly chummy with to reveal himself as a traitor. You see, there is a moon elf in the employ of Savelor, Faelor. Faelor was one of Nyrim's childhood friends and they've fought alongside him against a pyrohydra in the past. Faelor has even been a useful tool for me, because I've had him go out and fetch some of the trestle that would have been too much for the party to handle at the time and to save time. So, he's definitely earned their trust and no one has used detect evil in his presence, so for all they know Faelor is just one badass NPC who's nothing short of extremely helpful.

You see, the plan is that I will have Faelor take the last piece of the trestle to the wizards where he will abscond with the entirety of it. Some time will pass and dread will set in as the party questions what could be taking him so long, and when they go to find him (likely thinking he's been assaulted) the Onyx Tower will lodge itself into Waterdeep.

Now, if you've played either Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (I don't think the Onyx Tower has been in any of the many Forgotten Realms books, but I could just be wrong on that) you know that the Onyx Tower showing up is bad news. It turned all of Baldur's Gate into an undead wasteland for a time, and similar magics might work their way out when it arrives in Waterdeep.

So, here is where I need some help figuring things out.

I have next session planned out, and a general idea of what to do in that last session, but what about the session between? I could maybe just use it to set up the arrival of the tower, but I'll need an encounter or two to spice it up (one of my players, the one playing Gray, is mostly interested in his character killing things, it seems).

That last session, though...

I can figure out how to populate the tower to make it a terrifying and exciting place, but with the party being only at level 7 or 8 they don't exactly have a whole lot of lasting power. The meatiest character in the party, Nyrim, only has 49 hp, so if I put in more than one or two challenging encounters I'm facing a TPK on floor 2 or 3 out of 10. That's just not very satisfying for anyone.

So, how can I keep them going, without it being too cheap and overpowering? Do I just give them a chest full of potions, send another cleric with them, have the githzerai bump them all the way up to level 10, what?

They really only need to be able to make it toward the top. What I have planned is that at the top is the real BBEG of the campaign, the object of worship for the cult that assaulted the party before. The ancient moon-elven wizard Aerelor Amalith, believed to be a sleeping god by this cult will have been awoken by the cultists atop the tower. Somewhere near the top (I'm thinking floor 8) they will face Faelor (revealed to be the captain of the group that assaulted them) with a force of several archers. A TPK here would be acceptable.

If they make it all the way through and kill the big bad, well that's just fine and dandy, but I'm at a loss as to how they're going to get to the 4th floor without dying. D:

So, to recap:
-Githzerai training, how far could that get the party before it just seems like I'm playing Santa Claus?
-That middle session, what do I do?
-How can I keep such a low level party alive through the perils of a ten-floor dungeon leading up to a ridiculous boss fight?

This is the first campaign I've run, and I'd like to say it's been going well so far, but we're in a bit of a time crunch (one of the players is shipping out for the navy) and I'm really unsure about some of those points earlier.

--

*-Silent Hill, basically. I thought I'd splash some horror on to the campaign for a session and have them go uncover what was wrong with this village, but it ended up eating four whole sessions. It was great fun, though. It's even made them a little more paranoid. (Gray wouldn't enter an old woman's cottage in the woods for example. Good thing, turned out she was a night hag.)

Force
2011-03-24, 09:20 PM
Is the tone of the campaign such that you could reasonably fluff one or more deities taking enough interest in the characters to imbue them with the skills of someone else, a la Varsuuvius's soul splice? Or, heck, could the Gith do it?

Necro_EX
2011-03-24, 11:29 PM
The cleric is wielding a weapon of legacy given to him directly by his god, so I suppose it wouldn't be so far out of reason, but I'm not so sure I'd want to bring in direct divine intervention like that.

EDIT: The biggest issue I'm having is how to give the party some lastability without directly bumping up their levels or handing them chests full of potions.

Seonor
2011-03-25, 01:38 AM
-How can I keep such a low level party alive through the perils of a ten-floor dungeon leading up to a ridiculous boss fight?


I am basing this purely on your post, since I have no direct knowledge of the Onyx Tower.
If I understand you correctly, the Onyx Tower will affect Waterdeep directly. So what is the city doing to defend itself?

My idea would be for some mages trying to contain the towers influence outside while a second group is sent into the tower to buy additional time, get some intel out and destroy/weaken whatever summoned the tower in the first place. The second group knows that their mission is likely suicide but the only way to save Waterdeep. Your party is asked to go with the second group (given that they think a friend is in there they will perhaps even offer to go inside without being asked). With the support of the city the party manages to get into the tower and pobably survives longer than without it. While the npcs die fast, they provide enough distraction that the party makes it to Faelor. Faelor kills the last npc. Cue epic battle.

To avoid having the npcs slowing the combat down, use them to hold important points in the tower and/or to cover the partys back to avoid being attacked from two directions, while the party advances alone as fast as they can. Have the npcs die pretty fast, the party are the heroes after all. Think of them as Kirk and some redshirts.

Once you can save the party from a tpk with reinforcements (but make it costly in some way, perhaps kill of a named character or because the npcs saved the party an important objective was lost).

Depending on your players/playstyle giving them a timelimit can be fun, with the mages only able to hold the tower's influence back for a limited amount of time.

If you want to give the party some additional power, have the city offer them one item each. Nothing specialised or overpowerd, but something that either covers a weakness or boosts a strength (or let them choose from a list of readily available items - they are pressed for time and can't wait till whatever they are looking for can be found in the city but some things should be in the armory).

Try to bring them to lvl 8, that should help somewhat.

Healing in the tower can probably be done by a npc cleric, but make sure that the party knows that this comes with a price since the cleric can only heal a finite amount of hp - the more healing the party needs, the less healing the npcs get. If they take the heal, the npc over there who joked with them only a few minutes ago is dying.


If the party doesn't survive, make sure that in a later campaign there is a bard singing of their epic battle and heroic sacrifice that saved the city, or a historian writing a book about the party and hiring the new party to find witnesses of the exploits of the first party. If you do not plan another campaing in this setting, write a short ballad/story how the party is remembered and give it the players, it helps to give the players an ending/closure to their story.





Overall this reads like a fun game, so keep up the good work, good GMs are always needed.

Necro_EX
2011-03-25, 03:43 AM
Alright, that all sounds great, Seonor. I especially like the idea of making their healing costly like that, that's exactly the kind of flavor I like to have in my campaign. A good give-and-take like that should definitely be impactful, especially considering how the cleric's player is running him. (He's all about life, being a cleric of Lathander, and all. He's even spared the lives of goblins while they were raiding a town.)


So, it looks like I've got how to keep them alive worked out, now to think of how to be counterintuitive to that.

What should I throw in their way?
In the Dark Alliance games it was full of insanely tough constructs and such, if I recall...

I'm going to have the inside a four-way battle royale between the different factions vying for control of the trestle, so that definitely takes care of the bulk of the lower floors, but the tower's gotta have its own defenses.

I've got some ideas from the books, but if anyone knows of some good shadow-plane homebrewed monsters or somesuch, I'd definitely enjoy hearing it. :D

Also, thanks. I try to keep the game fun. :3