Welcome to the Big Top, the Greatest Show on Earth (Encounter Idea)

[Morbis Meh]

Hello Playgrounders,

I am starting a new campaign up and I promised an extra long session, which led me to come up with the idea of the party being trapped in a demonic circus. I want to make it a 7 ring circus (so 7 mini encounters within the overall encounter) and I am trying to come up with idea's for the 7 rings (they all don't have to be combat encounters).
So this is what I have so far (I just want ideas I will figure the logistics based upon my teams set up and level):
1: Beast Tamer
2: Strong Men
3: Jugglers/Clowns
4: Fire Breathers
5: Tight Rope Walking
6: Fortune Teller (I will get tarot cards and tempt them to pick and have random outcomes)
7: The Ring leader who will be a succubus with or without minions

Now what do you think? Is there anything that would fit better with the theme?

[Chilingsworth]

Have the beast tamer be handling creatures like hell-hounds and howlers.

Have the jugglers be Gray Jesters from Heroes of Horror, with an audience of their personality-drained slaves. (The things aren't demons [they're fey, iirc,] but they'd fit, I think)

Oh, have the clowns be those nasty demon-touched halflings from Fiend Folio (quiklings? Whisplings? something like that, irrc they're listed under "planetouched.") Put them in a demon car (maybe homebrew up something like a weak version of a hellfire engine with a passenger compartment,) and stuff a bunch of them in it.

That's all I can think of atm, maybe more later.

[Doorhandle]

Fire breather: Skip the punches and have them attacked by a dragon.

[Ason]

You know, this doesn't exactly relate to your specific encounter requests, but Baldur's Gate 2 did a circus adventure that was relatively enjoyable.

Spoiler Alert for Baldur's Gate 2:
The overall theme was that a circus had been taken over by its twerpy illusionist, who had enchanted monsters to look like people, people to look like monsters and the entire circus tent to look drastically different than it was in reality.

Perhaps illusions and deception could be another element of this adventure, much like how many real-life circuses depend on misdirection and trickery to weave "magic" of their own. I'm not talking about simply having fake doors here and there- I mean illusions on a massive scale that are very difficult to penetrate (but also ones where seeing through them is not an essential to victory).

My one request is that you do not have a winged elf mystic theurge make an appearance, as that road's already been traveled. :smalltongue:

[Morbis Meh]

Fire breather: Skip the punches and have them attacked by a dragon.

Well first off... they are only level 5 so that would be mean, I may have them fight 2 wyrmling dragons...

I have played baldurs gate 2 and I was considering an illusionist but in order for it to be much of a threat it the enemy would have to be a higher level and gnome...

[mootoall]

You definitely want some (Fiendish) Elephants in there. Bonus points if they're pink.

[Zonugal]

1: Beast Tamer

Basic Animal Handlers can take care of this and by merely slapping the fiendish template onto some animals you should be okay to prepare these folks. For the extra mile you could have them be Knight 5/Beast Heart Adept 1 with whips to really sell home the mechanical image.

2: Strong Men

Bearded Devils might be pretty okay here as long as some strength boosts were applied. Re-flavor their glaive to be a barbell.

3: Jugglers/Clowns

Fiendish halflings work well, especially if you focus on the halflings racial affinity towards thrown weaponry. Something like Rogue 2/Binder 1 (binding Naberius) would be easy enough to get the juggling & clown aspects down.

4: Fire Breathers

Any type of standard Dragonfire Adept build works here. In fact you can use these guys as minions with them being available at level 1.

5: Tight Rope Walking

Thief acrobat jumps out as the biggest candidate for something like this although any character who focuses on balance (and has a back-up use of feather fall ready) should suffice.

6: Fortune Teller (I will get tarot cards and tempt them to pick and have random outcomes)

Standard divination mage works well here...

[Morbis Meh]

I think I should clarify I was wondering if people had different suggestions for the rings you know other than animal tamer, fire breather etc etc

[Dimers]

Aside from what's been said already, I thought of human cannonballs (charger build?), trapeze artists (maybe they make throwing attacks mid-flight?), ladies in tutus standing on horses (could morph into cackling, tutu-wearing centaurs?), and the guy who can dive into a small tub of water from 100 feet up (maybe he can survive it because he's a water elemental?).

Also, randomly throw cotton candy tanglefoot bags :smallsmile:

[mootoall]

Paragon Pseudonatural Half-Fiend Feral Mineral Warrior Shadow Phrenic Chickens masquerade as the sideshow, but they run the whole joint.

[Chilingsworth]

Paragon Pseudonatural Half-Fiend Feral Mineral Warrior Shadow Phrenic Chickens masquerade as the sideshow, but they run the whole joint.

not to derail the thread, but what would the stats be on one of these?

Oh, and with both Feral and Mineral Warrior in there, the things might be kinda dumb.

[Devronq]

If you think that feral and mineral warrior are going to be a problem than you probably don't know what paragon does lol assuming he means the epic handbook paragon it's like +20 all stats +20ac huge epic dr and the only way to hurt the chicken would be spells it's sr is based on hd and would be like 11 or something I can't quite remember

[mootoall]

not to derail the thread, but what would the stats be on one of these? High. Very very high.
Oh, and with both Feral and Mineral Warrior in there, the things might be kinda dumb. Phrenic and Paragon, Half-fiend and Pseudonatural, iirc, all give fairly considerable Int bonuses. They'd end up with far over 18 Int.