[3.5] Hey! This looks familiar! (help a DM make a fun game)

[DementedFellow]

Sorry for the really horrible title, but it was the best I could come up with.

A little background, I'm DMing for my partner and his brother. So it's a 2-person D&D group. We typically let rule of cool override crunch, but it has to be pretty dang awesome. They are playing a CN Barbarian and a LE Cleric of Asmodeus. Weirdly enough, these two characters get along famously. I had them do a pretty simple fetch mission in an abandoned area filled with animated objects and a couple skeletons. Turns out I threw so much at them individually, that they were able to level up when the mission was complete!

They also wanted more of a challenge. So the next adventure will require them to go into the sewer level. Every adventure needs a sewer level, amiright?

The area full of animated objects was caused by a wizard's spell run amok. Sound familiar? Yep, the Mickey Mouse short "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" was the inspiration.

The sewer level will involve them fighting four human-like turtles and one human-like rat. I'm using the lycanthrope wererat as the basis for these enemies. The same wizard who flubbed up with the first mission and created the animated objects apparently tried his hand and created a mutagen.

Funnily enough when you fight 5 encounters that are CR3, you get enough to go up to level 3!

So what I am looking for is some inventive ideas on things that can be incorporated with relative ease and won't be too outlandish. Any ideas?

[Verditude]

Give each of the turtles 1 level in ninja, or 2 if you want to freak them out with invisibility, and the rat 2 levels in monk or unarmed swordsage (if you have ToB). A wererat is only CR 2, so you have room to breathe with adding class levels. The DR of the lycanthropes may present a problem, especially if they're natural lycanthropes, so you may want to make silver weapons or silversheen available somehow, but not necessarily easy to get (like, you have to get past the lycanthropes to get to the silversheen).

[Azoth]

Sorry, but the dual wielding sai user needs either Rage or Whirling Frenzy...so a barb1 dip should be used. Raph always had a habit of going psychotically all out once he was frustrated at a challenging foe.

I wish the TMNT squad used more off the wall items aside just skill and weapons, because their are some great alchemical items to use.

One you can get away with is...ugh name escapes me, but it gives some NA and short lived fast healing so that they survive a little longer than expected.

I also really want your Mikey to bust out throwing some sewer animal meat at the party yelling "COMBAT COLD CUTS!" while some annoying bard with no skill is in the background chanting "GO NINJA GO NINJA GO NINJA GO!"

[DementedFellow]

I'm sorry if I didn't make myself more clear in the OP.

I've already built the TMNT for the game. I used different core classes as the base classes for each one. The only thing I'm going to use as a hint to clue them in that they are fighting the TMNT is that among the spoils of their victory if they pass a DC 20 Spot check, they'll find a colored piece of cloth somewhere nearby.

I'm looking for more suggestions that can be incorporated in the future, meaning somewhat common ideas or cameos that can be integrated easily.

[BowStreetRunner]

Well if there is a wizard responsible for all this mayhem, maybe you could add his former lab assistant to the story - IIRC April O'Neil was former lab assistant to a mad scientist.

For a later set of encounters, you might consider having the party deal with a basilisk that is petrifying students at the local school of witchcraft and wizardry.

[hydraa]

There is a short 3.0 adventure out out by WOTC called Something's Cooking (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20010413a) that can perhaps give you a bit of stuff. One of the rooms has animated objects in it.