help! I've written myself into a corner!

[big teej]

greetings playgrounders.

within the past week or so, I had a few kython threads about. namely checking on if I was going to kill my players.

well, due to time constratints I seem to have written myself into a corner and I need some help.

beware, rambling -bring-you-up-to-speed- below.

okay, last session my party bit on my hook to go kython hunting.

they encountered a hunting party of 3 kython broodlings.

they tracked these broodlings back to a cave, where the session ended due to time constraints.

slated for next session is an encounter with 4 juvies, 8 broodlings, and an adult as a seperate encounter.

here's where my problem starts
my normally 5 man party is going to be 3 players this time around (one player is going to be in a drug induced coma, the other is working)

as such, I need to tone the encounter down a bit.

this is my first question.

given a 5th level party of (yes 5th now, they leveled up since last time)
Tiefling Duskblade
Human Barbarian
Dwarf Knight

vs. the -current- baddies of
8 broodling kythons
4 juvenile kythons.

and then as a boss encounter
1 Adult Kython

how far down do I need to tone down that first encounter to make it survivable?

now,
second problem.

the players have requested a "good ol fashion dungeon crawl"
now, my initial reaction to this was merely to expand on my "kython infestation" and blow it up to a full grown nest. with maybe 5 adults and 20 juvies, and maybe 50 broodlings scattered about the dungeon.

the entrance to the nest was going to be in the 'brood chamber' from the intial adventure.

now, given that I'm going to be missing 2 players, I feel uncomfortable putting all this effort in for only half the group.

so now I've kinda gotten stuck/writer's block/written myself into a corner

I need one of two things
1) the first, dungeon crawl suitable creatures that could.... "co-exist" with a kython brood-nest without too much hand waving on my part.

2) a second plothook that can lead into a standard issue dungeon crawl without it seeming contrived and forced given the nature of the original adventure.

the hook to the original kython infestation was as follows
-summary-

"farmer Mcntyre's cattle have been beeing butchered and carreid off, he's going mad with grief, and if something isn't done soon, the town may begin to starve"

soooo....

thoughts/help?
:smallbiggrin:

note: as always, assume an op level of REALLY REALLY REALLY LOW TO NON EXISTANT, when examining my parties.

[big teej]

nobody has any suggestions about what they would do in this situation?

[Fenryr]

For the dungeon crawl, I should recommend some traps, not only monsters. Obvious or simple traps and mysteries. Maybe the creatures don't co-exist and they fight within the dungeon or the nest.

[Gabe the Bard]

The Kythons' nest could have other creatures that the Kythons have captured for food. These could include wild animals (like boars) or creatures with regenerative abilities (like trolls). Or the Kythons could be serving some other fiend that has subjugated them.

As for the plot hook, one of the prisoners in the Kythons' nest could be a person from the farmer's town, or some other town that the Kythons have raided. The prisoner could provide some clues about where the adult Kython may be found.

[big teej]

For the dungeon crawl, I should recommend some traps, not only monsters. Obvious or simple traps and mysteries. Maybe the creatures don't co-exist and they fight within the dungeon or the nest.

this could work.... I was kicking around the idea of a goblin/kobold/something warren being at war with the intruding kythons.... I had discarded the idea as to grandoise... but I suppose I could use it...



The Kythons' nest could have other creatures that the Kythons have captured for food. These could include wild animals (like boars) or creatures with regenerative abilities (like trolls). Or the Kythons could be serving some other fiend that has subjugated them.

As for the plot hook, one of the prisoners in the Kythons' nest could be a person from the farmer's town, or some other town that the Kythons have raided. The prisoner could provide some clues about where the adult Kython may be found.

I like the food idea, this could work very well.

and I believe I may have been unclear, the Adult Kython appears about 6 rounds after the last broodling and/or juvie is slain.

it's "da boss"

[Undercroft]

Hmm, you could always apply some ad hoc penalties to the hp and rolls of the enemies. I'm fond of cutting the hp in half and throw a -4 penalty to their rolls every other round (and let them go last on initiative). You can explain away this weakness that they're underfed or diseased or something. Perhaps the food is being taken by stronger kythons further back in the nest or by something else controlling them or whatever.

[McSmack]

Perhaps there are two groups of Kythons squabbling over the same nest area. For gits and shiggles make one group of kythons have blue exoskeltons and the other group have red :) The party could discover that weapons coated in blue kython blood act as bane weapons against the others, and vise versa. This way you can have plenty of wounded kythons running about.

I also support the food idea. What might be interesting is to have the 'nest' actually be converted from what would otherwise be a normal dungeon crawl. Perhaps it was the lair of an evil cult who botched a summoning ritual. Now the kythons have them imprisoned and using them as a food source. The traps/treasures/monsters that the cultists had originally brought in are also doing battle with the invaders.

In the Kython dungeon I built back int the day. (already posted somewhere else, see spoiler)

I love them. One of my favorite dungeons was populated by kythons.

It was a Cyran research facility that had been working on taming them to use as shock troopers during the Last War.

When the Mourning came the village surrounding the compound was covered in molten glass. The researchers managed to put up a resilient sphere to keep the molten glass from covering the town, but unfortunately their spell did nothing to stop the heat transfer. The heat caused the towns ground water supply to vaporize and shoot up through the wells as steam, scalding all the inhabitants and quickly killing them.

The kythons, with their elemental resistance, were fine. Although they were trapped inside a bubble in the center of the Glass Plateau.

So the PC's are sent to said facility on a rescue mission. Their patron had already sent one adventuring group in there and they didn't return.

So the PC's arrive to find a tunnel bored into the side of the Plateau. Following it the arrive in the ruins of the town. All the water in the air leaves the entire town covered in a perpetual fog. Since the air has no where to go, it can't be removed with effects like Gust of Wind.

The PC's can hear a strange chirping growl in the distance (I had a recording of the whistle the spitters made in Jurassic Park, and played that as the walked through the town.) They can't see very well because of the fog. The Kythons don't care, they've got blindsight 60'.

The PC's enter into the first level of the lab and see a broodling rummaging through some refuse. The little bastard bites the ranger, who'd been trying to study it, then ran through some double doors. The PC's follow, the barbarian leading the way. Fog fills the room up to waist level. He dives after the varmint and grapples it easily, holding it above his head. It's then that he hears the chorus of angry chirps. He sees the fog swirl around him as the creatures surround him.

A dozen of the critters jump on him, dragging him to the ground.
Earlier he'd been buffed with Protection from Energy, but was unaware that he only had about a half a dozen points of fire resistance left. The cocky barbarian calls on the rest of the party to nuke his location.

So, thinking he was mostly immune, the warmage lets off a fireball, the rogue uses her necklace of fireballs, and the artificer uses his wand of fireballs.

The barbarian turns into a very large piece of charcoal, and the kythons (with their fire resistance 20) just looked at the rest of the party and chirped.

Then the adult kythons, who'd been sleeping in a nest above the door jumped down and flanked the rest of the party.

Never in all my years of GM'ing have I seen a party go from cocky to scared sh*tless in such a short time.

Kythons were great because they are strange, bloodthirsty aliens, often unexpected and not often used by most DM's.

Nothing is more frightening than the unknown, especially when the unknown just shrugged off your fireball.


The barbarian's next character was a Valenar ranger who had been captured by the kythons years ago. Somehow he had fast healing (shadow creature template?). So I had the kythons use this to their advantage by coccooning him to the wall and implanting eggs in him...for four years.

Another thing that I did was to have one of the larger kythons trapped in a room where the McGuffin was stored. The large Kython was too big to fit through the door, but what the PC's needed was on the other side.

It's a good way to give them a challege with a simple way for them to retreat.

[Andorax]

The thing that comes to my mind is to ask questions:

Why did the Kythons recently emerge and start marauding the farms? Has their previous food supply recently run out? Is this a "new" colony? Did their access to their original supply (perhaps further in) get cut off?



One possibility that comes to my mind is a stalling technique. Place your "bigger dungeon" further on in...the adult Kython was sent out to start a new colony here, and the initial dungeon is the whole thing...plus a tunnel that heads into the underdark (or its local equivalent).

The main nest...the bigger dungeon...is a couple-day trek through whatever other races, hazards, obstacles, and stalling techniques you'd care to employ. The motivation to eradicate it is still there, because if one new colony was started here, another could be too.