A thieves guild's last hideout - encounter ideas

[LordHenry]

My current campaign is mid game and low op (especially regarding casters). After a long time in Luskan, my 3 players, who allied with the mage guild (Arcane Brotherhood), are about to launch an attack on the thieves guild's hideout, located in the submerged, abandoned sewers below Luskan.
Without any more (boring) details, all you have to know is that the thieves guild (Approx. 10 powerful individuals, ranging from Lvl 10-15, The leader a half-succubus Nar Demonbinder Lvl 16ish) also has a lot of potent casters among them, although not as many and as advanced ones as the mage guild (Approx 7 casters with access to lvl 5-7 spells, the guild leader having access to 9th level spells). Of course, there are quite a lot of other members on each team, but at this level of power, they are rather unimportant at this point of the game

My players are lvl 10ish, but are in terms of power and wealth around Lvl 13-14. So what they do does matter a lot in the current situation. Also, there are no magic shenanigans in my campaign, so the Caster with access to 9th level spells is in no way able to solve this on his own.

So my question: What are interesting encounters (of any sort) you can think of, that could come up while raiding the submerged hideout?

The thieves guild is aware of the upcoming threat, knows roughly the enemies' power (the mage's guild probably has the advantage on the paper) but does not know when and if they will attack. They will most likely prepare for such a scenario, but won't just yet give up all their work and ongoing operations in Luskan.

Some things I have thought of already:
The Half-Succubus Nar Demonbinder will most likely (depending on various circumstances) bind a pit fiend.

I have a trap in mind (crafted by a very famous and skilled trap smith) involving a widened forcecage (most likely via a Metamagic Rod of Widen, greater) then some spell like cloudkill and to make teleporting out of it not too easy combined with an intelligent dispel magic trap.

[Red Fel]

First, think of all the methods thieves would employ to break into a place, kill someone, or take something.

Set up traps and spells explicitly designed to subvert or overcome them. Thieves know their own, they will protect against their own.

That means having things that overcome concealment, invisibility, illusions, and disguises, for starters. (Think of the waterfall in Gringott's from Harry Potter that gets rid of illusions.) For example, a magic trap that triggers an area burst of Glitterdust.

Next, have floors that make noise. Basically, musical tiles. Bonus points if they also light up. This prevents enemies from sneaking in.

Next, have low ceilings. This will prevent enemies from flying over obstacles. Bonus points if you use a classic pit-with-a-narrow-log-over-it trap, combined with spikes on the left wall and strong winds gusting out of the right. (Anybody trying to fly over gets slammed into the spikes. Get the point?)

As for encounters, you want unintelligent things, and things immune to Sneak Attack and crits. Undead are good, as are constructs. Put some oozes at the bottom of pit traps, if you like. Remember, these are Thieves - they don't share, they don't trust, and they don't pay bodyguards. They use unintelligent minions who don't ask questions and don't disobey, and then they handle matters themselves.

[Captnq]

Luskin, right?

Pirate Ship. Anchored off the coast. not just any pirate ship. Dimensionally out of phase pirate ship. It floats in the Shadowlands, upside down. Gravity is all wonky. The Thieves know how to jump and where they will land, but if anyone else tries they might find themselves falling sideways.

The water is the air and the air is the water. So in the shadowlands, the ship is floating upside down and they look up to see the bottom of the bay over their heads. You get in by super secret ointment you rub on your eyes when you jump in the water or something.

You'll figure something out.

[aeauseth]

For actual fights, you should have a few well built rogues. One of the Rogue Handbooks (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1028051) can be inspirational for specific builds.

Maximize their sneak attacks. Flanking is an obvious tactic. They have use magic device (DC20 for a wand), so that opens all sorts of interesting possibilities. I'm thinking blurr, greater invisibility, etc.

If your feeling up to it some prestige classes could be fun to build. Obviously keep the lootable treasure low. Use potions and one time use items where possible. Wands should have 10 charges or less. Remember NPC's should have half the wealth of a player of equal level. With so many potential NPC rogue's you may want to lower their wealth even more. Seems like your players are already wealthy.

Use marbles/grease in the areas of fighting, give rogues good Balance skills.

Throw in some Area of Effect attacks (via wand?) that allow reflex saves. Fireball the entire fight (rogues + party), the rogues will likely make their save and evade their way out of any damage. Party (without evasion) will take at least a little.

Use lots of secret doors. Make all the real doors trapped. If the rogue's guild is evil you can use poisons (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#poison).

The floors are all squeaky (-X to move silent). Some may be off kilter (balance check). Remember that if you are actively balancing and have less than 5 ranks in Balance, your are considered flat footed (perfect for a rogue's sneak attack). Some floor tiles may be weak and collapse under the weight of someone in heavy "plate" armor.

A water base? Perhaps a room trap that floods? Make players wade thru high water, but have rogues use water walking (via wand)?

Funny: A treadmill device with rogues at far end. As players run toward the rogues, the treadmill pushes them back. Rogues continue to fire bows at players. Could even make players RUN to get to the end of treadmill (making them loose their DEX bonus). If they fall off treadmill they fall prone.

Use silence spell (via wand) to keep party casters from being effective. Use grease (via wand) to keep heavy armor party members prone.

[LordHenry]

Great ideas!

How would you block teleport in order to not make it too easy for the party to just port in and out of danger?
And would it be possible for the rogues to get around that?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Take some tips from this encounter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=251305#14), particularly the environment.

[ArcturusV]

It's my sense of drama, but since you also mentioned it's a fairly Low Op world you're working with... I think there's the wrong focus here. The theives I take it know that Mages are coming after them, they know that the mage guild is their major rivals, right, and that this is the place they chose to fall back to when the mage guild started pushing them around.

Now why this comes up in particular is... in most settings Mages are kind stupid. Not to insult, just drawing attention with that. What I mean is... they get too focused on the Magic. They know the Supernatural threats. They feel confident dealing with the supernatural threats. They know how to handle that. They might even know how to handle threats in direct terms of applying magical force to the guy with the stick trying to get in their face.

But they tend to be bad at respecting mundane threats. And in particular, as mages, not respecting mundane threats, plus the fact that a mage's greatest strength is being prepared for exactly what they're going to face, and not being blind sided... sets up a chance for a really challenging, terrible event for the attackers.

Here's what I'm getting at. Chances are your level 10 with level 15 power and wealth characters aren't really sweating the idea of what the rogues might do to them. They're focused on Demontits and her legions she might call up from the abyss. Just knowing how players mindsets tend to work.

They'll be on the look out for those things. They won't respect 'simple' things like just the dangers of being in a sewer. What, a rat's going to bite me? Please. I might get filth fever? Ha, as if I won't just sail past that easy save. Etc.

A simple thing that can really end their day? Gas. Sewers aren't exactly clean. You have them walking through the filth, telling them about how it reeks down here, and how it's hard to breathe through the stench and everything. Start rolling some dice behind your screen. They probably start thinking some demon is stalking them, particularly if you play up things like "you hear some scrabbling noises from down the tunnel", etc. Course what it really is, is a terrible pocket of methane that had built up. Rats are fleeing from it. They charge in to go smite a demon before it reports in? Suddenly they're choking on a lack of oxygen. And I guarantee your players won't even see it coming until you get to the point where you're like "And you see apprentice lee from the Mage's guild just pass out and take a header into the ****water".

Little things like that unsettle players. Particularly when they realize that just casting a spell doesn't really solve it. It gives them an issue they can't just magic through necessarily. They don't know how long that pocket is and can't risk just teleporting/DDing there. They don't know if that demon, or undead, or whatever that doesn't necessarily need to breathe is waiting for them. ... might do something like detonate a flask of alchemist fire, trigger the whole pocket, dealing explosive damage to everyone in it... maybe even collapse a tunnel (Draw from the earthquake spell effect) and suddenly a very simple, mundane thing, environment plus a cheap alchemical item just laid low this Mage Guild Assault team.

Combine this with simple mundane traps. They're slogging through a tunnel, someone hits a trip wire that triggers a net snare from below the sewage and binds him up. Does your character have a decent strength or escape artist skill? Probably not with mages. Effectively silenced them because if they try to verbal component all that's gonna happen is they get a mouthful of very nasty stuff.

I mean... if I was a thief/rogue, in charge of trying to shore up defenses against mages in our last hold out like that... that's the sort of thing my mind would go to. What are mages bad at? Reflex savign throws... low HP, low physical skills like Strength, Escape Artist, etc. Unlikely to find traps other than the stupid way of blundering into them. Throw in some biiiiiig traps that do something like collapse a tunnel on them so some smart ass with Reserve Summoning doesn't think he can just coast through.

[LordHenry]

ArcturusV - I reall like your take on the whole thing. I thought pretty much the same. And although it is not THAT low op, the idea remains the same: Taret their weaknesses, especially traps that at places they would not guess, targeting their reflex saves.
And as far as strength goes, I thought about the classic crushing wall trap - However, teleportation would still render this trap useless, unless I have their teleportation somehow diverted.

[jokeaccount]

All that is cool but you have to be extremely careful of some things:

Don't create situations to which you can't find a solution. For example, don't create a battle where the PC party is surrounded by 5 pitfiends with dimensional anchor on the floor. They will 100% lose and there is nothing to do against it. That's just stupid and you're making it too hard for no reason and without thinking it through.

With that said, don't create situations which have specific solutions either. What I mean by this is, for example, don't create a trap where the room walls start moving in order to squash the party, expecting the wizard to shapechange into a bear with 35 strength and hold them off. He might as well have used his shapechange prior to that or not picking it at all and now they're dead because there is no other solution. The traps/encounters have to be hard but must also have generally accessible solutions.

[FrznTear]

Have the thieves guild trick the party into thinking their base is deep within the Tomb of Horrors.

[ArcturusV]

Well, speed is the answer. I wouldn't go "Bond Villain" and have the crushing walls moving at a pace where it takes 5 minutes to do the deed. I'd have it more like something where they'd get a warning... but not an obvious warning.

Like "You hear a heavy click, followed by three lighter clicks from further down the hall."

"You hear a rumbling and a grinding noise."

"... make a reflex save or get splatted."

Still depends on them not having a clue and sitting there for two rounds. But it's not an obvious visual clue. Granted their party should hear something like that and think to haul ass out of the fire zone naturally. But they're not sure what the fire zone really is, or where it will be, other than "... we just moved here and it triggered... so probably near here". Teleport further head and find out you hit the "Front" of the trap and just teleported into the far side of it? Teleport out and watch your path slam shut in front of you?

I dunno. It's just one of those mindsets. Your players have dimension door for example as their go to get out of jail card. Well how do you beat it? Large areas of effect is one as they lose actions after they DD so they won't be able to escape chain detonations. Casting doubt on which way is "Safe" as well. Using improvised barricades and makeshift terrain so people are teleporting "Blind". A simple makeshift "I nailed some planks together" wall can do wonders. You close off the end of a tunnel. There's traps on either side. Or they might think there are traps on either side. Or even just plain ambushes. Since they know they're fighting mages they probably are using an appropriate thickness to these caps to foil detectovisions.

Heck, situation like that you could have even the perfectly mundane thieves suddenly be a real threat. Especially if you can fake out the players so they think that the cap is trapped, and don't want to blow it up/crowbar it. Someone teleports to the other side, finds a rogue is right behind him with a black jack, sneak attacking him into lala land.

Though I only tend to do the blackjack thing because I had a habit of players who crafted contingents that said things like "If my HP is reduced to ____% or less..." and the Nonlethal got around those contingencies.

[LordHenry]

This won't be a problem, since there is no form of contingency (and no celerity) in my game.
Any other ideas how roguish characters in particular could compensate for the lack of sheer spell versatility compared to the mages?

[aeauseth]

How would you block teleport in order to not make it too easy for the party to just port in and out of danger?
And would it be possible for the rogues to get around that?

Blocking teleport can get expensive. The straight forward solution is to use forbiddance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/forbiddance.htm).

I'm not aware of a way to selectively block teleportation.

[LordHenry]

Would you, as a player, find a Divert Teleport trap unfair?

[ArcturusV]

Depends. In the short run, particularly if that trap lead into something appropriately harrowing "Burn your character sheet" sort of thing? I probably would.

Long term? Well... it depends. Factors that would effectively help me get over it:

1) Is it my own damned fault? Do I rely on a certain effect so terribly much that I am predictable. Is my first knee jerk reaction to use this trump card? If I use it a lot, it only makes sense that sooner or later I'd stumble into a trap designed against it.

2) Do they have a way of knowing about it? If I busted up their prior headquarters by using a lot of teleportation... and someone got away (Or could have gotten away), or gotten answers out of the people, a speak with dead, whatever.... then in conjunction with point 1 it makes more sense that it should happen. I have to generally assume number 2 is correct unless I took specific actions to prevent it (Killed all witnesses, was certain there were no witnesses, defended against scrying and divinations to watch the area somehow, sealed away the souls of everyone I killed so they couldn't be seanced into spilling the beans, etc).

3) How bad was the trap? Even if point 1 and 2 are valid.. I'm probably going to be ticked if some trap springs where I end up shunted into a stone box filled with acid and no way out, told to just die. If there was any chance, even slim, that I could have reasonably escaped (Including having to effectively nova, blow my wad, and be helpless just to get out of the trap), then I'm not really going to be pissed at anything other than my own inability to outfox the enemy or not realize that I HAD to nova to get out of it.

[LordHenry]

Well, I certainly won't run a "you are a 100% screwed scenario". But since teleportation in higher levels is so common, in certain situations, it seems like such a trap would only be natural. Especially in combination with another trap... what's a forcecage worth, if you can just teleport out of it.

On a side note, you also get a save according to Divert Teleport from EPH: As I understood it, only the caster of the teleportation spell hast to make save, am I right?

[aeauseth]

On a side note, you also get a save according to Divert Teleport from EPH: As I understood it, only the caster of the teleportation spell hast to make save, am I right?

Teleport (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleport.htm) requires you to touch the objects and creatures you take with you, so it would seem you would all end up in the same place (still touching each other). Would seem reasonable that only the caster of the teleport spell needs to make the save.

[LordHenry]

This would only seem reasonable, because otherwise the party might end up split if some make the save and others don't - which could be even worse.