[3.5] Haunted Mansion game?

[aphoticConniver]

Halloween is coming up in a few months, and our D&D group usually does silly side-adventures for holidays. I'd like to do the planning for our spooky adventure, but when I craft campaigns, they tend to be linear, predictable, and not very fun. Hence why I'm asking for help. Here's what I have so far:

The party arrives through a dark forest at a fairly nice-looking mansion. They are tired, hungry, and it's starting to rain, so hopefully they seek shelter inside. They knock on the door, and it is opened by a warforged butler with green glowing eyes. The butler converses with them, and leads them to the master's chamber, where they meet another warforged, more fancily dressed/plated, with the same green eyes. General conversation happens, and they are invited to stay the night. The party is shown to a bedchamber, where they sleep. Around midnight, they all wake from the effects of a spell, and find themselves unable to return to sleep. And so starts their adventure.

The whole thing should take about 7 or 8 hours to play, and I'm basing the main villain off the character World, from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. In the series, he's a childlike disembodied face that can both warp reality and move along the ground/walls and possess objects, including blank-faced people inhabiting his world. I plan on making him more sinister and less childish, but the creepy feeling should be there.

Are there any tips/help that can be given? I really want this adventure to be fun for the whole party, and have a decent chance of killing them if they aren't careful.

The party consists of, as of today, a 13th level Cleric/Radiant Servant of Pelor, a 14th level Paladin/14th level Blackguard/Assassin, a 13th level Sorcerer, and a 16th level Rogue/Shadowdancer. Thanks!

[only1doug]

Have you seen the Board game House on Haunted Hill?

Last time I did a 1 shot horror game (Call of Cthulhu) I used the room tiles set with a pre-planned map and laid out the tiles as the party explored, it worked quite nicely for me.


Another game (WFRP) I ran prior to that involved a published mansion floor plan,
from basement to tower, I planned a forked passage adventure, they explored the mansion and found an area where a ritual was underway, I had planned two possible locations for the ritual, either a basement room or a Tower room, depending on which they reached at the appropriate moment in the adventure. the party explored the basement first, so the ritual occured in the tower (or it would of been too soon). So the Party leap in as there is a man chanting strange words within a pentagram, also within the pentagram is an enormous stitched together corpse...

Although the pentagram is drawn on the floor with chalk, each points marked by a large candelabrum, there is a mystical barrier that prevents the party from passing, destroying the candelabra dropped the barrier and the party gained access to the chanting man, killing him just as his gasps out the last words of the ritual...

I had generated stats for the monster, and as the party attacked it I kept revising it's totals (It would have died in the first round of combat under its original stats). As the party hacked away at it the monster gradually deteriorated, body parts dropping off as they aimed their blows at specific locations, with even the last hand still grasping towards the party until it was chopped up....

The group loved it, they had a feeling of achieving an epic victory over a nearly unstoppable threat.

[Zale]

Programmed Images and Magic Mouths would go a long way.. And Magic Aura..

[gorfnab]

For the villian look into the prestige classes Fiend of Possession (FF) and Dungeon Lord (DS).

[silverwolfer]

Luigi mansion

[Uhtred]

This chamber has no windows, and no doors...heh heh heh...which leaves you this chilling challenge: TO FIND A WAY OUT!...which isn't hard if someone can detect secret doors...or cast passwall...or warp wood...of course, there's always...MY WAY...