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Elvenoutrider
2014-01-28, 05:48 PM
Dear Playgrounders, This is a repost from the 3.5 section that I made the mistake of posting very early in the morning so only a handful of people saw it before it cycled through.

Even though the campaign is pathfinder, what I am asking for help with is story related rather than mechanics so I think this will fit in this section.

My players have asked me to write a campaign that goes from levels 1-20 with a satisfying conclusion that leaves room for them to effect the world in their own way and pursue their own goals. I have a lot of experience writing shorter adventures but have never attempted anything on this scale. I have a full plot summary written up with the early adventures a bit more fleshed out than the later ones. I am currently missing 2 levels in the adventure making it run from 1-18. The way I have the campaign written up I don't think I can simply start the campaign at 3rd level so I am looking for 2 more levels worth of adventure ideas.

Beyond this, I just want to hear your thoughts on the campaign plan I have detailed here so far. If you think you would enjoy this and it sounds perfect, great! Likewise if you think its terrible or could see potential trouble spots or places it could be improved please don't keep it to yourself.

if this post receives enough interest I will post the full campaign write up or campaign log as I write it so hopefully something I do can help another gm.

Without further ado:

note: the numbers denote what level the pcs will be at for the adventure
1) Pcs arrive on Stormreach Island, a place known for unusual weather for its climate. It is unseasonably warm allowing for exotic crops to be grown though it is also hit by unusual numbers of storms. They have been asked to join a garrison of soldiers being sent to reinforce the island in the wake of increased bandit and monster attacks in the tactically significant island.
• Pcs find the stronghold beleaguered. The soldiers are exhausted and have ptsd. Bandits are attacking with new coordination, and a large number of their men have been disappearing. The bandits even managed to raze a small fort but they didn’t take anything or try to ransom the peasants. A few of the larger isolated farms have also had their workers vanish. As such they have had their peasants pull back into closer farm houses. The only survivors of the attacks seem to be insane
• Pcs can interview the victims to find that the local bandit leaders have been using drow slavers and parasitic monsters to capture entire villages. The monsters attack their host’s spine using it to control their hosts body while the host is fully aware of every action and powerless to stop it. This results In the monster using the body to attack people while the host screams and begs for mercy. Eventually the insect grows to medium side and erupts its legs from the host, using the host body as a shell while it breeds new parasites.
• Interviewing the survivors reveals that people from their village went missing right before swarms of insects descended on the village attempting to bite and burrow into people. Once the insects had caused panic and confusion, the bandits would send in the host bodies to further induce terror before sending in the bandits to flank and capture any survivors. (note: the drow just sell their poison and materials, they do not participate)
• Pcs have to draw out and attack the bandits. This results in the pcs having to survive the swarms, hosts and bandits so they can interrogate the survivors.
2) Pcs interrogations reveal that the bandits have taken over a small fort in the forest and are operating out of there and out of the abandoned wizard tower where they take the prisoner
• Dead bodies are thrown by the barbarians into an old well in an abandoned town. Investigation reveals that the bodies are gone.
• The woman performing the procedures where the parasites are implanted in the hosts was a former healer who has been dominated by a high leveled caster. She was one of the early kidnapping victims who was spared “indignities” in exchange for her medical services. After she was dominated be a force unknown to the prisoners, bandits would start disappearing more and more after being sent to her medical tent. When the bandits decided to get rid of her, they found out she had been building up hosts who turned the tables on the mutineering bandits. The remaining bandits are still loyal to their leader who has been promised a lordship by the krathrakian army if he can help push the Pc’s forces off the island.
• Bandit leader has about 30 men under his service but the bandits don’t know how many implanted hosts there are – they are not very strong but they are good for shock value
• Pcs will raid wizard tower and adjoining manorhouse. Wizard tower defenses are largely harmless, just annoying, but added to the entrenched bandits, this fight will be make difficult. Manorhouse has a lab in the basement where the bandits were inserting parasites into helpless hosts to create more soldiers. In the basement the pcs will fight one surgeon and her ogre orderly who attempts to use his reach to incapacitate pcs.
• Once the bandits are cleared the pcs need to get to the top of the wizard tower where they will find a data storage device made by the archmage of divination. He will reveal that he has seen a great evil coming but needed to keep the information safe from those who are corrupted. He reveals that underneath highpoint keep is an abandoned mine where a part of an artifact is buried away. In order to make it more difficult to enter there he buried the key to the artifact in a bunker in one of the abandoned towns on the island. Only those free from “corruption” can access it. Just in case, he also filled the bunker with some magic devices to aid anyone who needed to protect the artifact. Until the pcs can get there, the holocron will reveal nothing else as the corruption is spreading and the tower may be compromised. At the end of the recording, the walls begin to bleed as some horrible monster begins to materialize.
• Pcs or any npcs that accompany them can find paperwork leading them to the conclusion that krathrak is funding the bandit attacks and are, themselves, planning on attacking the keep
3) Pcs need to prep for and participate in the battle for their keep. They have one week:
• Pcs have 100 trained soldiers, the low leveld staff of clerics guarding their church in the keep, a team of 3rd level archers, a wizard and group of adepts, a single frigate with a trained crew, a small group of ballistas, and a group of low leveled cavalry. The pcs can press up to 300 peasants into service wielding whatever they can find. They have many options of how to spend their time during the week to prepare. In a little over a week, the pcs can expect reinforcements.
• Pcs can find that krathrak has called in around 300 trained soldiers, the bandits and their hosts, a team of cavalry, 500 peasants, a small group of ships they can press into service, a team of mercenaries, and a team of siege engineers. This is in addition to their garrison.
• There are villages of ogres, druids, and elves that he pcs can convince to join in their fight against krathrak
• The pcs can go to the bunker for some extra weapons. In it they will find some shrunken siege engines, a small team of contructs, some healing wands, and some basic magic weapons
• The bandit leader can be assassinated at his stronghold. This will eliminate their faction from the battle.
• Roads can be sabotaged and traps set for the incoming army.
• The pcs can convince a dragon to join the battle but the price is substantial
i. After preparations, krathraki forces will show up with the listed weapons and set up siege weapons. Their plan involves sending peasants at the walls with ladders to tie up the defenders. While this is happening they send a smoke churning covered battering ram at the main gate and have a team of mercenaries on flying mounts try to take the towers so their forces can get a foothold. Once a foothold is established they send in their trained soldiers before sending in more commoners to overwhelm the enemy. If the main gate is breached, it is revealed that the covered ram was concealing a force of monsters that are part construct and part undead. Once these move in, the krathraki send in their cavalry. Over the course of the battle, several gestalt bosses will try to punch holes in the pcs defenses and groups of monsters will start appearing in the middle of the pcs stronghold in vulnerable spots. The pcs job will be to stop the enemy bosses from breaking their lines. If they stop that from happening casualties will be minimized.
4) Krathraki forces retreat and pcs will have to take the fight to them. They will know from interrogating soldiers that the enemy army is trying to build up a force of more abominations and as such they have set up a lab in the dungeons of their stronghold to build more monsters. There is also a hellhound kennel, a tribe of ogres, and a kobald commune. The enemy general is named Zarrick and has baby dragons under his command. The pcs will be able to use their new reinforcements to attack him. The pc’s job in the battle is to sneak into the castle dungeons and undermine the defenses allowing their forces to storm in and win the battle. Then, they will need to kill zarick.
• The pcs will have to enter the castle dungeons through a gauntlet set up by the kobalds. Through this the pcs will have to deal with extensive traps and constantly being outnumbered and flanked by very weak creatures.
• The next room the pcs have to fight through are the labs full of ogre orderlies and a few groups of soldiers. If the pcs make too much noise, the clergy will release more steam zombies to stop them. In one of the rooms are a large wuantity of explosives the pcs can use to blow open the gates
• After clearing out the castle, they will find a private lab where a mutated dragon will burst forth from, allowing the mad scientist in charge of the whole mess to escape.
• Once the mission is clear, the pcs will find paperwork detailing the fact that zarick defected from krathrak after the dragons murdered his father. He was promised enough money for a powerful army if he could obtain this artifact. He would be given the aid of the mad scientist and his monsters to help him. The orders are sgned by a man named Vanguard.
• Pcs find out that vanguard is the leader of a very successful terrorist group that hunts down magic artifacts and mages and destroys them. He has launched major attacks against most nations and has even held cities ransom. No one really knows his goals.
• Once the island is clear of enemy forces the pcs will be briefed on what the artifact is and will be inducted into the order of the cerulean sign, dedicated to preventing a fortold cataclysm, and will be given positions of leadership in the keep.
• Pcs will be given a few months to do something for the world with their characters. Eventually they will be told that the mutated dragon has resurfaced on the mainland
5) Pcs find out the dragon has landed in a warzone and has severely disrupted the pc’s faction by taking out a group of important siege weapons and digging. The general, when the pcs arrive, asks for the pcs to help his forces stave off a major attack while he sets up some new weapons. Once the battlefield has been stabilized, the pcs can take out the dragon.
• Dragon has dug into the entrance of a bunker. The pcs need to enter the bunker.
• After clearing the dungeon, they find a living member of a precursor race in stasis. Even if the pcs can try to communicate, he is completely insane, though he is a scientist with no combat ability.
• While the pcs were clearing the dungeon, a spelljammer has landed and dropped off an enemy force of soldiers and steam powered undead raised from the bodies of former heroes. Their leader is a member of the same precursor race as the scientist. Their objective is to steal the scientist back from the pcs. They want him alive so they spam debuff spells. If the pcs left soldiers to cover the entrance, they will launch a surprise attack to aid the pcs. Whether the pcs keep the precursor scientist or he dies doesn’t effect the story.
6) Head cleric in pcs stronghold launches a coup to take the area back for the clergy. It is at this point he has revealed that he has offered promises of redemption and pardons to any soldiers who follow him for any crimes they may commit. Head cleric also summons several demons to aid him using malconvoker powers. Pcs have to find a way to take back their own keep with minimal damage. The lord and other important npcs have been killed in the town square already leaving the head positions open
• After this, the pcs are now lords of their keep, just in time to take leadership feats
• The rest of level 6 will be side quests based on the pcs previous goals. This allows them to develop the world a little more as they bring their keep to working order and gives . them a chance to get the leadership feat
• Pcs find out the priest was spending extensive time with the artifact before he decided to stage a coup
• Pcs find it glowing now though still unresponsive
• An ally tells them that now that the artifacts have activated, they need to collect them. For this they need to find an information dealer
• Mercenaries from third level may make an appearance
7) Pcs need to go to a drow city. They can enter the underdark in the mountains. The journey will be long and full of encounters
• Drow information dealer needs a favor done – dungeon needs crawling – get to it bitches
8) Pcs get list of artifact locations
• First one is located in the capital of a more technologically advanced city – soldiers all have muskets. Pcs can either infiltrate, negotiate, or invade.
• This stronghold has the mad scientist’s construct/undead soldiers as well
• If pcs connect the artifacts to each other, it shuts off magic for miles and summons a monster – magic turns back on when reactivated
• Come up with a reason for the pcs not to throw it away: compulsion?
9) University mages find a way to unlock the mind of the precursor
• If the pcs lost him they will get a hint as to where he is and can rescue him
• Pcs need to steal the staff of dreams from an arcane museum – play it like a bank heist
10) Pcs need to enter the dreams of the precursor where they can fight his insanity to banish it. Each pc get a different challenge before they can come together to defeat him.
• Precursor tells the story of how all magic suddenly stopped working one day. A week later when the world was in chaos, mind flayers came down in great machines and began murdering people left and right. The war was over in a month as they were powerless. They decided to hide out in bunkers until the mind flayers had left. Once they were gone they discovered that they used the artifacts to attack lay lines and turn off magic. They were able to separate the artifacts. This prevented them from being used remotely. This means that the “mind flayers” that are left on the planet need to shut off the magic themselves. The precursors couldn’t stop them but the enemy’s job is now much harder.
11) An artifact gets revealed in the north – a faction of magic resistant soldiers attacks the expedition. Pcs get introduced to Vern, a fighter/monk gestalt who radiates an antimagic field.
• Pcs will probably fail to keep this artifact but it doesn’t matter much.
12) Pcs get invited to the royal tournament in the city. Characters will all have challenges they can participate in. During the tournament, the pcs find out some of the guards and soldiers have been disappearing and need to investigate.
• Last night of the tournament, the king is judging theater groups. Vanguard has undead soldiers who have been sitting and waiting in hidden shipping containers move out to start attacking from within the city
• While this happens, a theater group uses a play to put on a summoning ritual a la the king in yellow – pcs can sneak into the basements through the sewers and halt the ritual. The cultists use a lyre of building to make the building invincible so the pcs cant just bust in through the front door.
• While the city is in chaos, vanguard attacks the city using a mindspider and steals a staff of communications from the university.
• King is killed in single combat by vanguard – wounds indicate something inhuman killed him – hints that vanguard is a monster of some sort
13) Vanguard sends Dr. Malleus to use the remainder of his forces to attack an arcane university where there is a magical flux zone that can boost the power. He needs this to contact his forces on the moon.
• Dungeon is based on Hogwarts and has a boss for each school of magic, a hydra bodak and a lobotomized beholder.
• Recurring mercenary team may also be there
• Pcs finally kill dr malleus in the headmaster’s office. Vanguard shows up and finishes off malleus in front of the pcs explaining that his services are no longer required as he is getting reinforcements.
14) Pcs need to deal with the metal soldiers emerging from ancient tombs around the world. After fighting a war against them, the pcs will have to take over one of these tombs. This will make them the first people who have ever survived this – they can now access the teleportation matrix
• While the pcs are returning from battle Vern and his magic resistant monks attack and try to obtain the artifacts
15) The pcs either find out that vanguard is trying to disable magic – if he doesn’t have the artifacts, he has found another way.
• Pcs have the opportunity to assault his stronghold and take the fight to him. They find out vanguard is not there but has left Vern behind. His ultimate goal was always to eliminate magic. The pcs will finally kill this boss. (if the pcs can make him doubt himself or his goals, his antimagic field drops making him very vulnerable)
16) Vanguards forces land with magic still active – fleet of spelljammers attack the major cities and cause a lot of damage. Pcs find out that another race has survived this before – the deep ones.
• Pcs need to travel out to a chain of islands in the middle of the ocean. The deep ones attack on sight
• Deep ones are a race of bioengineering mutants. Pcs find a horrible monster in the bottom of the deep one city who tells them the secret to stopping the mind flayers is to break their psionic network
• Deep ones have their own small spelljammer fleet
17) Pcs need to get aboard the command ship spelljammer and put a rod of cancelation in the main controls on the bridge – this is where vanguard finally meets his end
• Vanguard reveals himself to be an ultralithid created from performing ceremorphasis on a doppleganger body. He also has expert transmutation powers that a low him to easily take on any kind of disguise. He is an absolute beast in combat and can both cast and fight to his full effectiveness in the same round.
• Once the network is down the pcs can lead a ragtag group to stop the enemy.
18) Pcs use the teleportation network to chase the enemy back to the moon to fight the elder brain.
• Elder brain summons an equal number of heroes as the pcs all resurrected form harvested races. New enemies keep spawning as the pcs kill them until the brain dies.

If you've made it this far, you have my gratitude for taking the time to read through that wall of text


Thanks again for your time playground

SillySymphonies
2014-01-29, 07:43 AM
My players have asked me to write a campaign that goes from levels 1-20 with a satisfying conclusion that leaves room for them to effect the world in their own way and pursue their own goals.
Aren't you concerned that by planning the campaign all the way trough, you leave little to no room for the PCs to affect the world, expect where the plot dictates they should ('railroading')?

Rosstin
2014-01-29, 07:56 AM
I concur, your campaign is too neatly plotted. The game won't go the way you plan.

Just build some villains with various goals, plop the PCs down in a strange and interesting place, and see what happens. You'll grow less grey hair that way.

veti
2014-01-29, 03:29 PM
The planned starting point is fine. I'd be a bit flexible about how, exactly, all the PCs end up together in Stormreach - wait till you've talked to the players about their character backgrounds etc., then come up with the "how you got here" story (or get them to). All that really matters is that it gives them a reason to stay together.

Then, you've got a planned plot. That's great, except for the bits where it involves the PCs. Let your villains go ahead with their plans. You should have a whole timeline plotted out that assumes no PC intervention at all - this is what will happen if the PCs get on the first bus out of town and never look back. (On day 7, such-and-such rumour starts circulating. On day 9, Lord Bumface employs a party of 4 6th level characters to investigate. On day 15, this party gets TPKd and the villains now have their gear. On day 21, they launch their attack on the regional capital. And so on.)

It's then up to the players, whether, when and how they want to get involved in this mess. Maybe they'll follow exactly the plan you wrote (it's extremely unlikely, but possible). Plan for plenty of other things for them to do, which should allow them to gain loot and/or XP in the meantime while the villains are taking over the world behind their backs.

Elvenoutrider
2014-01-29, 11:28 PM
Thanks for the advice. The plot line may seem stringent but I'm very good at improvising and letting my players have their way. I guess I should use the plot as a secondary consideration and see what the players do first. Thanks for the advice.