Far Realm Shenanigans

[Blackhawk748]

Ok im going to be running a short encounter for my group this weekend and its gonna involve......... The Far Realm! and i would like some suggestions, its a 6 player party in Kingdoms of Kalamar and we are level 2 currently.

The party consists of a gnome Infiltrator, a half elf ranger (bow), a gray elf Sorcerer, a lesser tiefling dragon fire adept, a duskling totemist, and a rankki hobgoblin fighter.

Now i have a loose plan, we are gonna venture down the east side of a large lake (Lake Adesh for those that know the setting) and we are gonna run into a village. Now this village is gonna feel "off". Thats because in the middle of town a Cerebrant mage is trying to summon a Void creature (its something i made up, werewolf+shadow template+psudonatural template+ a few HD). Well the party shows up and tries to stop the ritual because the bugger is gonna use some villagers for a sacrifice. Well im gonna have my character hit the mage with an throwing axe (cutscene basically) and the mage is gonna "be knocked unconcious" (their gonna play possum). Anywho, we will go about freeing captives and then the mage will do so magic and cause a cut on all of us and draw it into the magic circle, and then he summons the big bad Void beast.

Thats when a cerebrotic blot forms and we get trapped in town with a really big beast that was summoned to destroy us.

So id appreciate a few suggestions about things to do to the party as we are stuck or encounters up to the mage, or how to get rid of the thing cuz i really dont know how to unsummon it other than beating the bejeezus out of it.

PS this is a horror campaign

[The Glyphstone]

Yeah, what do you do if the rest of the party doesn't fall for the 'knocked unconscious' bit?

[Acanous]

Your party is liable to coup de gras the unconsious mage, bypassing the entire encounter. Have them just be "Too late" to stop him, like by killing him, it was the final blood sacrifice needed to open the portal.

Having your DMPC knowck the bad guy unconsious is unneccesary.

[Blackhawk748]

honestly we almost never coup de grace anything, we have a tendency to leave unconscious enemies laying around, so taking him out shouldnt be a prob, they'll just assume he was a lvl 1 or 2 mage and i lucked out on initiative (i have accidentally screwed up my own plans by having my PC roll higher init than the BG) and if they do approach him he'll just immediately do the blood ritual thing

(not sure if i was particularly clear, the mage isn't actually unconcious, hes faking, becasue he doedn't have the power to tangle with 6 adventurers)

[The Glyphstone]

We got that, the problem was if the players aren't fooled. Even if they aren't a CdG style group, it'd be very foolish of them to just leave an enemy unconscious without so much as tying him up or gagging him, when they know he's a mage. You say it's unlikely, but if it happens, then you'll be forced to blatantly and unsubtly railroad your entire group by forcing them not to check on him, restrain him, or finish him off, or else your whole plot disintegrates.

Or, what if you don't beat the other players in initiative, and they actually deal enough damage to kill him. Now you have to railroad them by artificially raising his hit points.

There's just too many ways for this to go wrong. Skip the middleman of faking the players out, take Acanous's advice, and eliminate the plan where your DMPC 'knocks him out', and have the group arrive Just Too Late to stop the Terrible Ritual.

[JoshuaZ]

Are the PCs going to get to make any checks to figure out that he's not really unconscious?

[Absol197]

Are the PCs going to get to make any checks to figure out that he's not really unconscious?

A DC 15 or 20 Heal check should be able to determine that.

I'm all for cunning plans like this, but I think everybody else is right: if your entire plot hinges on this guy being alive, there are many, many ways he could end up dead, and then you're screwed. Now, you could have there be multiple mages, and when the DMPC knocks the first guy out, he fakes unconsciousness until the rest of the party is distracted, then books it out of there, but then there are additional problems that crop up.

But either not giving the PCs a chance to mess things up (because they will, even if they don't mean to) or having redundancies in your plot so that one point of failure doesn't destroy the entire thing is the best way to go, always.

How about this? Instead of one mage, the party knows that there are several, and you actually fight three of them instead of the "knocked unconscious" cutscene. Then, as you're freeing the prisoners, one of them says that they overheard that the cult of mages was attempting this ritual in four different locations, and it should be completed in an hour or two! Now the PCs have to quickly locate and take out the three other places the cult is doing the ritual. This turns it into a time-based hunt, and there are encounters that could fill out the entire night even if the ritual is ultimately stopped from being completed.

Heck, you could even have it be so that for each additional ritual the PCs stop, the Void creature is less and less powerful, until if they stop them all, the creature doesn't get summoned. That way, the PCs are basically having an effect no matter how well they do, and there's a chance to succeed entirely.

If I was running this, I would make each encounter with three to four mages, possibly with some hired muscle (warriors or rogues, likely rogues), except at least one mage must maintain casting of the ritual, so not all the mages are attacking at once. And it gives the PCs an advantage if they think laterally - if they kill the ritual caster (who can't defend himself), a different mage has to stop what he's doing and pick it up where the other one left off, allowing them to take down enemies without really fighting them (if they can get to the vulnerable one). You can even make it so that if every mage in the encounter is prevented from continuing the ritual, they all instantly die as the energies backfire on them. Although that might be too much. There should be some penalty though; maybe stunned for a round?

Just some ideas. As it currently is, you either need to get incredibly lucky that the PCs don't do anything to mess your plan up (which almost never happens, even when they're trying to be good), or you need to railroad something fierce. As DM, I usually try to find a way around both situations.


~Phoenix~

[Acanous]

The important thing to remember is that when you're the DM, everything you do affects how the players interact with the world.
Your group might not Coup-de-gras enemies, and might be letting downed enemies live. If you give them a reason why that should change, like by having a downed enemy be faking them out, they are highly likely to change tactics and start ensuring their kills in the future.

This might be a cool thing that adds some depth to your enemy. Maybe his whole faction does things like this, and you're introducing the players to it.
That's cool, but there will be a tactics change, and by having your DMPC be the guy who triggers the whole event, you're going to erode what trust your players have that the DMPC isn't a tool meant to screw them over.

Now, if what you're going for is to have your players start being more paranoid about their allies and making dang sure the enemies stay down, then this is going to work wonderfully. You said it was a horror story, so this tactic is valid.

But if you do it like this, you won't be able to use the same tactic in the future, and by that I mean across multiple games.
Further, players metagame a lot. Even when they don't mean to. So while they might still trust other players, when NPCs start faking the players out they're more likely to mistrust and murder new NPCs you introduce.

Finally, your players might do something like "Kill the DMPC and take it's stuff". There's a lot of vitrol against DMPCs out there, some of it justified. Even if they don't come to that conclusion themselves (There's a lot of variety between tables) if they were to hit an internet forum and ask for advice, they're going to be told to kill the DMPC. It looks very much like he may be a double agent. (That, and a lot of people don't like DMPCs).

Really, you can get the same horror factor by having the party be too late to stop the evil. You can even get a cool battle in there where they fight the wizard, with an imagined time limit looming over their heads. They kill him, feel a fleting moment of victory, only to have it cast into despair by being too late after all.

Or you could go with Phoenix's idea, that's pretty solid DMing. Requires a bit more work, though.

At the end of the day, it's your table. Make the DMing decisions you think will be the most fun for the most people.

[Absol197]

I've been thinking about this for the past day, and so I've come up with some more stuff for you to use, should you wish. All of it is based on the scenario I set up in my previous post, though.

The rituals are set to finish at midnight, and it's currently around sunset, so the party has 6 hours to find and defeat all of the cults to stop it.

To do so, they can either try searching the town themselves, gather information from the townsfolk about either good places to hold a secret ritual, or about the mages themselves. However, each Search or Gather Information check takes 1d4 hours, so they might run out of time. They can also use Diplomacy to attempt to convince the townsfolk to help them with their search, as a cabal of crazed magicians summoning a demon of the outer void to their town is probably something they have a vested interest in stopping. Additionally, after the first ritual is stopped, the party finds some texts detailing the ritual. It's only part of what they need, but those with magical knowledge can spend some time reading through the materials to glean information about what might be coming through, to learn about the vulnerability of the ritual, and to figure out a way to hinder or even banish the creature should it be called.

Gathering Information

Gather Information checks can be made to learn about the mages and their habits, or the secret places in and around the town. Be sure to check which characters are asking about what - they should be able to pursue both lines of questioning without increasing the time taken, but if they don't ask about one, then they don't get the information!

It takes 1d4 hours for each roll, although the characters can rush the attempt (halving the time necessary) by taking a -10 penalty. Although because this is so concerning for the townsfolk, if the characters mention the reason why they're asking, they should get a +5 bonus on their checks.

Searching

Simply Searching the town for places that the mages might be hiding is very difficult without guidance. The town might not be very big, but they don't have much time. I would make the base DC for each cult 30, 35, and 40, and take as long as a Gather Information check. They can rush these too, but they still take some time. Every good Gather Information check should reduce the DC for one or more of the cult's hiding places should be reduced by 5, or if they get some specific information, they can find the hiding place with no trouble. Obviously, just searching the town on their own isn't going to be their best bet.

Diplomacy

The characters might try to gather townsfolk support to help with the search, or even with stopping the cult. There shouldn't be too many people as part of the militia so that they can't get too many NPCs on their side, but it could still be helpful. Getting a mob to help them should be difficult, but with something like a DC 30, they might be able to do so. The higher they roll, the larger crowd they should be able to gather. Gathering a crowd can automatically allow them to make a Gather Information check to get information with a total time of no more than an hour (for getting the crowd together, and for getting the information out of them). Depending on how the PCs go about it, they could get the crowd to accompany them as reinforcements (Warrior 1's, probably), help with the search (giving the PCs a large aid another bonus on any Search checks), provide information (bonus on Gather Information, and reduce the time necessary).

Tracking

Tracking the mages in the town is probably not very easy, but I think one of the cults should be set up outside the town somewhere, allowing a character with tracking to try and track them down. Survival checks would be used, and would be only mildly difficult (DC 15?) and take less time than a normal Search check. I would have the most difficult to find cult (the DC 40 Search one) be the one that it outside the city, which is why it's hard to find with a search, but easy to find via tracking. Of course, if the party can get information from the town, the DC will be lower, and the time will likely be lower, too.

Interrigation

If, during the first couple of fights with the cult, the PCs can manage to capture one of the mage's alive, they can try to interrogate him (Diplomacy, Intimidate, or Bluff). This is unlikely to work, but they can try it, and there should be some chance of success. Higher DCs with this, of course.

Research

Those with Knowledge (arcana), Spellcraft, or Knowledge (religion) can peruse the texts that they find at each of the cult's sites to try and get information, and learn how to stop the beast that they're trying to call.

{table=head]Arcana DC|Spellcraft DC|Religion DC|Knowledge
25|30|35|Hindering spell
30|35|40|Immobilizing spell; ritual vulnerability
35|40|45|Trapping spell
40|45|50|Banishing spell[/table]

For each copy of materials the party recovers (including those found in the first battle) the DC decreases by 5, meaning the base DC would actually only be 25. A character can try as many times as they like with the materials they have at hand, and it takes 4 hours divided by the character's Intelligence bonus to make a check. But there's also a hidden danger to reading, see below!
Hindering Spell: A character who learns this can cast a hindering spell at the beast as a standard action. This spell inflicts a -2 penalty on all the beast's rolls for 1 round, but it may attmept a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 Caster level + spellcasting ability modifier) to half the penalty. But, the penalty stacks for each character that casts it, so multiple characters could team up to hinder it.
Immobilization Spell: This spell reduces the number of actions the beast can take on its turn for 2 rounds. A Will save negates. Each successful time the spell is cast, the effect rises one degree (stackable by multiple castings and casters):

{table=head]Degree|Effect
1|No swift action
2|No move action
3|No standard action
4|No move or standard action
5|No actions[/table]

Trapping Spell: This spell allows a caster to trap the beast so it cannot move, but it also cannot be hurt. It is effectively trapped as if in temporal stasis, but a Will save every minute allows it to try and escape, and the caster must maintain concentration. This sould allow a different caster to take time to try and learn the Banishing Spell, below.
Banishing Spell: This spell requires a 1 round casting time, but banishes the creature back to its domain permanently. A will save negates, of course, but the creatures is stunnied for a turn unless is succeeds by 4 or more.

All of these spells do not require a spell slot to be used, but do require someone able to cast spells to use.

Of course, reading material on the Far Realms is not healthy for one's sanity. Every check made to gain information from the texts requires a Will save: for one text, it's only 5, but it increases by 5 for every additional set of texts added (the greater the chance of getting information, the greater the chance of slipping!). The effects of failing shouldn't be readily apparent. Maybe the beast choses to prioritize attacking those who haven't failed such a save or something, but that should be all for this adventure.

But, some time later, the people who failed start seeing things. Weird, yes, but not too troublesome, and likely only when they roll well on a Spot/Listen check, preferably when others in the group are doing so to. Little flashes of something out of the corners of their eyes, and no one can ever confirm what it is. Then, Far Realms entities start taking an interest in those characters - encounters with such beings start to become more common, and they don't often attack those that failed. The visions start to become more common, more disturbing, and others begin to notice that the person is seeing and hearing things that aren't there. Then, after an encounter with another, more powerful cult, the character realizes they really want to see what all the fuss is about, and starts getting possessive of any Far Realms material they come across. And the visions keep getting worse (slowly! Slowly, don't ruin it by going too fast!), and then things start to happen that makes it seem like they might not actually be just visions...

Finally, those with the materials can make Spot or Search checks to notice clues as to the whereabouts of the other cults on any reading materials they find (maybe for one or two of the other locations for each book, but including the first one that they automatically disrupt).

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Hopefully that helps you get some ideas. Obviously you don't need to use all, or any, of it, but I just wanted to put this out there! Good luck with your session!


~Phoenix~

[Blackhawk748]

ok gonna make a few changes, the lead mage is gonna have a few dominated minions, 2 lvl 2 sorcerers, and 2 lvl 2 barbarians, and he will be a 5 sorcerer/2 alienist. and as soon as he takes damage from anyone he'll do a bluff check to "curl up his toes and lay unconscious on the floor". and shortly after that we get to fight the big beasty

[The Glyphstone]

Does anyone in the party have a good Sense Motive check?

Also, that's a pretty overpowering encounter there. 4 2nd level enemies plus a 7th level enemy is a CR 9 fight. Considering you're following this up immediately with your custom void beast, then a cerebrotic blot...

[Spuddles]

Does anyone in the party have a good Sense Motive check?

Also, that's a pretty overpowering encounter there. 4 2nd level enemies plus a 7th level enemy is a CR 9 fight. Considering you're following this up immediately with your custom void beast, then a cerebrotic blot...

It's alright, he's got a DMPC.

[Blackhawk748]

its a 6 man party and this group has a tendency to murder things it shouldnt, and besides their not SUPPOSED to fight the void beast right away. Their supposed to run and then its standard monster movie slasher fest. (and to answer the question, no, no one has a single rank in sense motive)

I know it might say CR 9 but the Alienist isn't going to be doing anything, hes burned his highest spell slots on using Dominate (how he got his minions) and hes gonna be maintaining the ritual.

If you would like proof that they can kill massive CR encounters, just the other week they fought a Gargantuan 8 headed (reduced to 6 because this was a recurring villain) half farspawn hydra lich 5 lvl cleric, who got an extra standard action every round to be used for spells or spell like abilities. rough CR 15 party lvl 9, only 4 members. it is one of the only boss fights i've ever run that actually was a challenge.

PS: my PC is a rankki hobgoblin fighter who was made primarily to wield the "plot-bane" sword in case noone else could, turns out no one else can except the sorcerer and the ranger both of which don't want to (bloodline stuff)

[georgie_leech]

Does the party have a history of actually running away if things get dicey? If not, they might just try to fight the thing anyway.

[Blackhawk748]

when i hint that its probably a good idea, and its a horror campaign so running is always plan B. The sorcerer is gonna get to do a knowledge (the planes) check to get a vague idea of what the thing is, then he'll know that we should probably run, on top of that i've been thinking of adding a few captives, that way we need to get them out of there before the thing fully materializes.