RollynT.Glal
2013-03-09, 03:14 PM
Greetings Playgrounders,
For an upcoming dwarf-themed cityscape-style campaign I'm planning out a short quest to a distant mining outpost. The overarching threat in the campaign will be a separatist part of a prominent clan who plan on delivering the city back to the giants in return for special favor in the following tyranny. The clan has had a few decades to plan the destruction of the city and one of the first steps is to one-by-one attack of the city's outlying iron mines, causing a bit of instability as the lesser clans cannot trust the rulers to protect them. Due to this being an early step in the attack the PC's will be 3rd or 4th level (likely 3rd).
My plan is to have the first mine (the one the PCs will be personally sent to investigate) attacked by undead. The mine houses 50 individuals and their demographics are as follows: 35 dwarves, 11 humans, 4 mul (who only have +1 racial bonus to saves vs Poison, this will become important later). The mine is a three days horse ride away from the city.
For the purposes of this attack I would like to add a special attack to zombies in order to increase their threat-level. I'm thinking about adding a bite attack the zombies can use while in a grapple with their target and having that bite attack deliver a disease that eventually deals Con damage with a special note that if the creature dies of the Con damage they raise as a zombie.
I would like to not have a member of the separatist clan occupying the mine when the PC's arrive but would like a desecrated area for undead to be empowered. The clan attacking originally sent 5-10 members, most of whom were warriors but there were a couple clerics to cast Animate Dead and Summon Undead I, II & III and start the havoc. Once the undead were set loose they were mostly left to their own devices and overran the mine.
So my questions are, what would be the best way for my bad guys to leave a few desecrated areas without members of "clan bad guy" there to be readily identified and if I assume the majority of miners are 1st level commoners what should I set the disease's DC at to make it believable that it could turn some of the NPCs without auto-killing the PCs?
For an upcoming dwarf-themed cityscape-style campaign I'm planning out a short quest to a distant mining outpost. The overarching threat in the campaign will be a separatist part of a prominent clan who plan on delivering the city back to the giants in return for special favor in the following tyranny. The clan has had a few decades to plan the destruction of the city and one of the first steps is to one-by-one attack of the city's outlying iron mines, causing a bit of instability as the lesser clans cannot trust the rulers to protect them. Due to this being an early step in the attack the PC's will be 3rd or 4th level (likely 3rd).
My plan is to have the first mine (the one the PCs will be personally sent to investigate) attacked by undead. The mine houses 50 individuals and their demographics are as follows: 35 dwarves, 11 humans, 4 mul (who only have +1 racial bonus to saves vs Poison, this will become important later). The mine is a three days horse ride away from the city.
For the purposes of this attack I would like to add a special attack to zombies in order to increase their threat-level. I'm thinking about adding a bite attack the zombies can use while in a grapple with their target and having that bite attack deliver a disease that eventually deals Con damage with a special note that if the creature dies of the Con damage they raise as a zombie.
I would like to not have a member of the separatist clan occupying the mine when the PC's arrive but would like a desecrated area for undead to be empowered. The clan attacking originally sent 5-10 members, most of whom were warriors but there were a couple clerics to cast Animate Dead and Summon Undead I, II & III and start the havoc. Once the undead were set loose they were mostly left to their own devices and overran the mine.
So my questions are, what would be the best way for my bad guys to leave a few desecrated areas without members of "clan bad guy" there to be readily identified and if I assume the majority of miners are 1st level commoners what should I set the disease's DC at to make it believable that it could turn some of the NPCs without auto-killing the PCs?