Enormous Encounter?

[Adoendithas]

Hello everyone,

I had an idea for an encounter that's probably going to put the party into Paragon tier, since it functions sort of as a series of shorter encounters one after another with a pair of skill challenges tying them together.

The PCs previously sold their souls for a limited amount of time to an archfiend, who is now using the time to send them on a mission to deliver a magic item. They realized that she hadn't said to deliver it intact, so they attempted to destroy it at the last moment (when it would be too late for the devils to react).

The item (a small glass lens that allows you to see and hear between planes, intended to let the devils see into the Abyss) exploded and the area they were in started flickering between different planes as the portal tried to reconnect, then eventually settled into five different sections: one in Twelvetrees in the Abyss, one near Astrazalian in the Feywild, one at an entrance to the Underdark, one in a crypt in the Shadowfell, and one in a clearing in Ysgard (which I brought back because the cleric wanted to know if Kord had an astral domain). There are fragments of glass scattered all over, and the party has been split between the different areas.

Touching a shard of the portal will move you between planes, but there's a combination puzzle/skill challenge to try to "rewire" the connections beteen the shards. There are several demons and devils (both groups now hate the PCs for destroying the lens) who were also caught in the blast, and are also scattered across the areas.

It should be a great encounter, but I'm nervous about the PCs running out of resources. I don't want them to run out of all their encounter and daily powers and be stuck trying to figure out the puzzle before they're killed, but I also don't want to say "you move to a different section, take a short rest" (I'm going to lay out all the sections at once and allow teleporting with a shard as a standard action, so it should happen during combat).

How would you recommend giving resources back to the PCs? I suppose I could place some terrain that gives you Action Points or a bit of healing or such, but I'm not sure how to balance that.

Sorry about the wall of text, I've been planning this encounter for a while and am pretty excited about it. :smallsmile:

[kieza]

Perhaps as they rewire the shards, some of them become items which can be held, allowing the wielder to use an item power related to the appropriate plane? That way, as they use up their powers, they get new ones from the shards. I'd suggest making the item powers at-will, or maybe on a 56 or 456 recharge, and make them roughly as powerful as the party's lowest-level encounter powers. And if you don't want to give out permanent items, they can be consumed or depowered in order to complete the rewiring.

Also, if you have five characters in the party, you could try tailoring each of the shards' powers to one of them. But for some general ideas:
--The Twelvetrees shard grants the wielder demonic powers; it can be used to unleash a torrent of flame around the user, and passively causes weapon attacks to deal fire damage.
--The Astrazalian shard allows the wielder to tap into a confluence of ley-lines under the town (no idea if there actually is one, just tossing it out there). Aside from a passive bonus to spell damage, it allows you to call beams of starlight that burn the foe.
--The Underdark shard gives an invisibility power, and gives the user a 1d6 Sneak Attack.
--The Shadowfell shard gives a power that creates zones of life-sapping mist, which conveniently also grants concealment.
--The Ysgard shard, since the cleric is already interested in Ysgard, grants a power along the lines of "Hit with a weapon attack; you regain a few hp, next ally to hit the target also regains a few hp." (I assume your cleric worships Kord, and is thus probably a Str Cleric?)

[Adoendithas]

That's a cool idea! I'll probably go with that. Thanks, Kieza!

[kieza]

Let me know how it works, I might do something similar in one of my own games.

[Tegu8788]

A very interesting idea, I'm curious just how it plays out, jumping from plane to plane could get complex. You'd have to set up several different maps, and keep track of which monsters, in which plane, get's to go when. Still, a very cool idea.

[Adoendithas]

A very interesting idea, I'm curious just how it plays out, jumping from plane to plane could get complex. You'd have to set up several different maps, and keep track of which monsters, in which plane, get's to go when. Still, a very cool idea.

My plan is to constrain each to an 8x8 area and set them all out at once. That way there's no break in the combat when a character teleports.

[Arkhosia]

Maybe set up a couple "waves" with a group of minions and a couple monsters pouring out of the portals, and maybe a helpful monster can appear as well.
For example: As a pack of dire wolves dives through the portal, you hear a blast of a horn as two eladrin hunters pursue them through.

[Adoendithas]

Well, I've started to run the encounter, and it's going pretty well. I'll post the whole thing as a PDF if the party gets out alive. It's been really awesome so far.