DMed myself into a corner

[Thajocoth]

So, the party (evil), has released a powerful undead half-god half-primordial under Vecna's influence upon a city, that is turning every inhabitant into a zombie.

There's no one left to give them a plot hook. They want to smash things next session, so I'm thinking a dungeon crawl. I don't have a reason for their characters to do anything, except perhaps leave the city. (Since it's about to be crawling with zombies.)

Any quick ideas? Game's tomorrow.

[Toofey]

So, the party (evil), has released a powerful undead half-god half-primordial under Vecna's influence upon a city, that is turning every inhabitant into a zombie.

There's no one left to give them a plot hook. They want to smash things next session, so I'm thinking a dungeon crawl. I don't have a reason for their characters to do anything, except perhaps leave the city. (Since it's about to be crawling with zombies.)

Any quick ideas? Game's tomorrow.
Umm.... The forces of good coming down on them like a damn hammer.

Man up son, it's time to whip the **** out of the PCs and make them fear for their lives!

[Gavinfoxx]

City turned into zombies?

uhm, high level adventurers teleport into the area and start clearing house with FIRE LOTS AND LOTS OF FIRE, and are completely oblivious to the existence of the party?

[Thajocoth]

Umm.... The forces of good coming down on them like a damn hammer.

Man up son, it's time to whip the **** out of the PCs and make them fear for their lives!

In the previous session, the mountain sized pregnant undead primordial (also their fault) was smashing a region of the city. Forces of good came from all over to help take down what they thought was a golem. The party infiltrated the forces of good and caused their holding barrier around it to fail, causing confusion and casualties. They were also able to shift all the blame onto one other guy who they convinced to help them. Then, when they thought they finally defeated it, the undead it was incubating came out and dealt with the stragglers. Had it's mother been defeated any sooner (it would have without the player's intervention), the new undead thingy would not have made it.

The party's Changeling Mage can literally not fail any bluff checks ever. If he rolls a natural 1 and there's a hard DC, he still succeeds.

EDIT: I just realized what I can do. Have a city under the city. Ruins that were built over. The mountain sized undead broke a hole down into it. Put a few dead adventurers with notes about it and have it lead to the old city's vault... With an escape route up into another city. Thanks for the help. Now I just need to plan out a few encounters and I can fudge the rest as I go.

[Antonok]

Primordial Undead? Me thinks Pelor himself would intervene on that one...

[Toofey]

Spoon feeding good guys to the party in the past is not relevant here. Not doing that is the Man Up part. Your party can't infiltrate the next group that comes if they're coming for your PCs.

You can make heroes more powerful than your PCs, I'm not saying cheat and TPK, I'm saying it gets more interesting if the Party knows there's still bigger "baddies" out there than them. "Running from the law" is a lot more interesting than "Mop up the survivors" or "go in a hole because we killed everyone under the sun" (although that last one has a ring to it)

[Thajocoth]

Primordial Undead? Me thinks Pelor himself would intervene on that one...

Once they figure it out. It just happened...

The primordial was comatose and treated as a mountain since the Dawn War. It was also pregnant with a god's baby. The players, aided by a Vecna-worshiping dragon and her followers, healed the crack in it's heart and cast an undeadifying spell on it, transforming it and it's unborn child, putting them in Vecna's hands.

At first, she was a dungeon crawl. They entered through the back door...


Spoon feeding good guys to the party in the past is not relevant here. Not doing that is the Man Up part. Your party can't infiltrate the next group that comes if they're coming for your PCs.

You can make heroes more powerful than your PCs, I'm not saying cheat and TPK, I'm saying it gets more interesting if the Party knows there's still bigger "baddies" out there than them. "Running from the law" is a lot more interesting than "Mop up the survivors" or "go in a hole because we killed everyone under the sun" (although that last one has a ring to it)

Yeah but... No one knows. How will they know to attack the party?

I give them difficult encounters sometimes. Nearly TPKed once. (I almost underestimated their complete lack of any healer.)

[Thinker]

Yeah but... No one knows. How will they know to attack the party?

There is very little privacy in D&D. There are lots of spells available that allow for safe observation unless the party is specifically avoiding such scrutiny. Additionally, nothing says that those good guys or the party's patsy have to stay dead. If they don't stay dead, they might want revenge.

You don't have to limit their foes to good guys. Bad guys might want to kill the party because they're in the way or have somehow inadvertently interfered with the baddy's plans. Further, who is to say that Vecna wants to keep them around?

[Dust]

Check it.

The half-diety half-primordial is special, in that it's a combination that's never been seen before/in countless aeons, and now empowered by dark magic. Trouble is, Vecna is having a problem controlling the thing. Its mother just died, and it sees the party as its parents.

So Vecna gets an idea, and hands custody of this beast to them.
Have them foster and nurture this thing until it can wage war on the heavens themselves. Have the parties go on quests to the far corners of the globe in order to help it reach its true potential. Then, using it a living superweapon, the party can seize divinity for themselves - just like 'ol Vecna himself once did, albeit with far more cunning and less smash. Still, he's approve of the plan.

Have the quest things be like 'obtain the seed of life from the Elven capital city,' 'seek a rare mineral from the elemental planes, then bring that to a primordial smith who can use it to forge armor for the undead godling,' etc.

[The Reverend]

Snorri Kneebreaker's tomb lid slid open above him and fell to the floor. He looked up in the unlight that undeath brought. Jarvin offered him a dusty glove, Snorri rattled "You know, Jarvin, even the Elf thought you were a morning person and they dont even have that phrase in their language." Jarvin chuckled, "As a follower of Pelor it pretty much comes with the job. Come on lets get the others out."

The party assembled Jarvin looked over them with pride, such greatness were they that the gods had called them back for another confrontation with the forces of darkness. Slisssidsf's tentacles rasped driely "we do have the option we can bow out and go back. Pressent company excluded of courssss." Indicating the Illumian liche. "Besidesss Jarvin haven't you had enough heroicsss for one lifetime?"

Jarvin looked at his friends and a smile crept across his mummified face, "Nope, Paladin."


Ok so the break down for this group of atypical heros is as follows

Human Paladin/choose a multiclass of Pelor maybe prestige grey guard
Dwarvin expert in traps and assassination by traps
Illumian liche Wizzzzaaaarrd
Reformed Illithid Cerebromancer
Elven monk
Half giant psion
Gargoyle ghost faces killer

All Good characters, the general consensus is whatever gets the job done and doesn't kill innocents. This good party should be tricksy and deceitful. all undead, illumian is a liche of her own creation their crypt is in that dungeon your party has broken into. Its a good dungeon. And this party is going to use traps, tricks, and sand in the eyes of their enemies. In fact they would go so far as to trick the PC party into thinking they are using the good npcs "code of honor" against them, when in fact it is another trap. Gods have also probably gifted them with a boon that resists turns and rebuke etc undead. They would also use a successful bluff that the caster succeeded just to get close for a strike.

[oblivion6]

undead primordial. interesting idea

[Toofey]

So your PCs are the only high power characters left after the previous attack on this primordial evil was stymied... by the PCs.

Are you going to tell me that, beyond common sense, anyone with some divination spells, or any priest with a commune couldn't figure this puzzle out?


Also how about they know the PCs are the bad guys, because you said so?

[Jay R]

The party's Changeling Mage can literally not fail any bluff checks ever. If he rolls a natural 1 and there's a hard DC, he still succeeds.

This has to be removed, or the game is over. You cannot give the players an irresistible force, or the DM ceases to be an immovable object.

Also, it seems to me that a party of evil clerics and liches who can control undead can move in and become very powerful. They've been given the raw material they need, in the form of many undead to take over. Their first priority would be to get rid of the half-god half-primordial, and their second priority is to destroy the PCs. Also, at least one of them should be deaf, and thus not subject to bluff checks at all. Perhaps none of the speak the language that the Changeling Mage knows, or they've learned about the bluff checks and open with a curse that takes away the Changeling Mage's ability to speak, or just something as simple as a Silence spell.

[jindra34]

Bluff can't be a perfect force, as every use of it against people can be opposed by sense motive. And that check happens automatically. So anyone with a high enough score in sense motive should be able to see through the bluff.

[Traab]

Some grand poobah archmage lord of light grand vizier of goodness or something has his magical sensor net start screaming at him about a horrific evil attack on this city full of undead. He sends out the call, scrys for info, and sends a bunch of justice league npc types who arent going to be talking to anyone, just killing them. Go with your underground city idea, and have the party be clearly outgunned and forced to flee. They collapse the entrance behind them ala walking through mordor style, and they now have to make the long pilgrimage through monster infested underground city ruins to find an exit a long ways away. Meanwhile those overpowered good guys clean up the huge mess of undead and leave. Make sure mister never fails a bluff loots some cursed item or triggers a trap that causes some sort of aura of distrust over him that cant be broken to lower his unstoppable bluff ability, and move on.

[The Reverend]

What traab said.

[nedz]

Deaf opponents can't be bluffed; nor can a party who are designed to operate in a silence; nor can opponents who don't speak your language, even if they are in the mood for talking. Make some of these recurring opponents, who all have get-outs and can learn from past mistakes.
Its generally wrong to shut down a PC's schtick but if its cheesing up your game it has to be moderated.
As to the undead, well perhaps they have annoyed some other evil/neutral power who had designs/worshipped the primeval mountain. They are now very angry that this entity was undeadified and then killed. This might be less cliche'd that the do-gooders.

[Arbane]

Give the PCs some way to find out about the Undercity, either before, during, or after a multi-caster attempt by the forces of good to NUKE THE SITE FROM ORBIT, one Meteor Swarm (or whatever, pick their favorite Spells of Mass Destruction) at a time. That gives them an excellent incentive to find cover quickly.

[Gavinfoxx]

I like the nuking the site from orbit idea. Well, Long spell distance as cast by at least a level 17 caster... so a bunch of floating casters fly above the city, and start a barrage that doesn't stop until the city is leveled...

First doing something like butting a bunch of battlefield control spells AROUND the city to prevent the undead from getting out....

[Traab]

Heh, I like the nuke from orbit plan, but I still like the idea of them being specifically targeted by a group of npcs that they cant beat. Have them teleport in and start blasting. They can do some plot exposition like, "You thought you could raise an army of the undead on the same landmass of Archmage Hammerlightswordgoodholysmite the Awesome?! Prepare to die!" Then, have you ever played final fantasy 6? There is a monster you can fight, its a brontosaurus. It has a move called sneeze that basically ends the battle by launching you away. Find a way to do that. Let them see how brutally overmatched they are, then create some form of sneeze that gives them space to run away towards that dungeon escape. Maybe a ground explosion that sends each party flying in a different direction.

[Gavinfoxx]

I would never get the enemies in even longbow distance. REALLY. Just have them be at maximum range for Long spells, otherwise there is always the chance that the party could kill your high level casters, if you didn't stat them out right or didn't know a few particular rules for their defenses or whatever...

[Traab]

So come on, tell us what you went with and how well it worked!

[Arbane]

Heh, I like the nuke from orbit plan, but I still like the idea of them being specifically targeted by a group of npcs that they cant beat. Have them teleport in and start blasting. They can do some plot exposition like, "You thought you could raise an army of the undead on the same landmass of Archmage Hammerlightswordgoodholysmite the Awesome?! Prepare to die!"

Not a bad plan, but why would they STOP chasing the PCs once they get underground?

[Traab]

Not a bad plan, but why would they STOP chasing the PCs once they get underground?

Well, if the players are smart, they will collapse the entrance behind them. Or dm fiat can cause that to happen after a final exchange of explosive spell power. The heroes will stay behind in the city instead of pursuing the bad guys because they have a city full of undead to cleanse or risk a world wide catastrophe.

[Mafic]

Well seeing as how Vecna does not trust generals due to Kas you could always have him turn on your players and force them to fight the dragon. Otherwise have them dungeon crawl to hunt down several paladins and clerics that managed to escape to the underground pathways of the city prior to the it being overrun with undead.

Do something to scar the mage and reduce his charisma so that his bluff suffers or take away the items that are giving him too much power. Also you could start implementing critical failures where a roll on a 1 does the opposite of a 20. I usually have players lose grip of their weapons while in battle.

Or if you really just want to kill them... Deathstar.

[Arbane]

Also you could start implementing critical failures where a roll on a 1 does the opposite of a 20. I usually have players lose grip of their weapons while in battle.

Blargh. I hate critical failures. I signed up to play Conan, not Inspecteur Jacques Clouseau.

[The Reverend]

Try crit fails with a thermal detenator....almost had a party wipe where it not for the good graces of the dm.