Zaq
2012-06-19, 10:59 PM
Warning to players: If you've ever played in a game featuring a kobold statue with a portal gun, stay the hell out!
Anyway, I'm going to be running a goofy one-shot this weekend. After some deliberation, I decided that having a bunch of characters with no backstories running around a quirky dungeon for an ill-defined purpose can really only lend itself to one theme:
"Greetings, test subject. The Enrichment Center hopes that you enjoyed your sleep cycle and are feeling refreshed for the next test."
So yeah. I'm going to have a handful of random level 7 adventurers running around Aperture Labs. Naturally, it'll be a very D&D-icized version, with things to fight and so on, especially since they won't have portal guns. But the theme and the idea will be there. (Turrets make excellent minions, by the way.)
So, any thoughts for what I can put in there? I think I've got turrets planned out, though I'm debating whether them opening fire when someone steps in their field of view should be an immediate action or an opportunity action. Aerial Faith Plates, Thermal Discouragement Beams, and orange gel are all pretty straightforward to D&D-icize. (Blue gel will be a little bit trickier, and white gel will be irrelevant, since the PCs won't have actual portal guns.) What else can I throw in? Any ideas for monsters, given that there's gotta be combat? There will be portals, but the PCs won't be in control of them. I'm thinking that some of the challenges will be able to be bypassed without destroying the enemies, but some of them will require things the enemies are holding and guarding, with the intent being to mix up whether killing everything that moves is necessarily the optimal strategy (while still recognizing that the heart of D&D is killing things and taking their stuff, like it or not). Thoughts, comments, suggestions? I've got a fair bit of stuff to work with, I think, but you never know what the Playground can come up with.
Anyway, I'm going to be running a goofy one-shot this weekend. After some deliberation, I decided that having a bunch of characters with no backstories running around a quirky dungeon for an ill-defined purpose can really only lend itself to one theme:
"Greetings, test subject. The Enrichment Center hopes that you enjoyed your sleep cycle and are feeling refreshed for the next test."
So yeah. I'm going to have a handful of random level 7 adventurers running around Aperture Labs. Naturally, it'll be a very D&D-icized version, with things to fight and so on, especially since they won't have portal guns. But the theme and the idea will be there. (Turrets make excellent minions, by the way.)
So, any thoughts for what I can put in there? I think I've got turrets planned out, though I'm debating whether them opening fire when someone steps in their field of view should be an immediate action or an opportunity action. Aerial Faith Plates, Thermal Discouragement Beams, and orange gel are all pretty straightforward to D&D-icize. (Blue gel will be a little bit trickier, and white gel will be irrelevant, since the PCs won't have actual portal guns.) What else can I throw in? Any ideas for monsters, given that there's gotta be combat? There will be portals, but the PCs won't be in control of them. I'm thinking that some of the challenges will be able to be bypassed without destroying the enemies, but some of them will require things the enemies are holding and guarding, with the intent being to mix up whether killing everything that moves is necessarily the optimal strategy (while still recognizing that the heart of D&D is killing things and taking their stuff, like it or not). Thoughts, comments, suggestions? I've got a fair bit of stuff to work with, I think, but you never know what the Playground can come up with.