Semi-new DM looking for advice for encounters/world building

[Diachronos]

With the group I'm currently playing with, we have one player who's DMing his own campaign every Sunday, but usually he ends up not running it because of one reason or another (to be fair, he's somewhere between 11-15, so...). I offered to run something with Pathfinder on the off weeks when he doesn't run his, but I'm having a bit of trouble planning things out. So far there's been one session, which was mainly character creation and a little bit of actual gameplay.

This isn't my first time DMing, but it's probably the first time I'm running one that's likely to go anywhere; my previous attempts fell apart because people stopped showing up and I couldn't really run something with only 2-3 players, but this group is consistent enough that it probably won't fall apart unless I lose interest or really screw up.

That said, I'm in need of advice. The starting dungeon is being mapped out now (the party didn't get very far when we started, so there wasn't much that needed to be put together), but I'm at a loss for encounters. The current dungeon is an ancient tower that's been basically non-existent for (some arbitrarily long time) years in the world, and the party's been dropped into the lowest depths after being plucked from their home world. Since the place has been sealed up for a long time, it severely limits the things that could realistically be found inside; I'm assuming that undead would be the best idea for the early encounters, but would anything else be suitable for a place that doesn't really have a reliable source of food that wouldn't slaughter a party of 1st level characters?
If it helps, the current party consists of a Cleric, a Fighter, a Summoner, and Oracle, and a Magus/Arcanist gestalt (there will probably be a few more players joining in, but I don't know what they'd build).

I'm also still trying to work out the world itself. The climates and nations have been somewhat worked out:

A tropical island inhabited mainly by the elemental-blooded races (Ifrit, Oread, Undine, Sylph, and Suli-jann)
A swampland inhabited by Lizardfolk
A heavily mountainous area (still deciding whether to make this ruled by kobolds or goblins; tempted to have multiple mountain ranges, each ruled by one of the two)
A nation in the tundra to the far north, ruled by a Vampire (thinking of having undead/half-undead races be the predominant inhabitants)
A dense forest ruled over by fey (mainly fairies and a plant-based race)
The central plains, which is where the core races (human, elf, dwarf, etc) are usually found
A vast desert, mainly inhabited by monstrous humanoid races (likely ruled by a Medusa)
A land of semi-nomadic beastfolk races (kitsune, catfolk, etc.) in the taigas between the tundra and central plains


The tower that the party is starting in is going to be situated in one of those areas; the simplest solution would be the plains, seeing as only 2 characters are non-core races (one's a Changeling, the other's a custom, earth-based Outsider race), but would any of the others be a good fit?

The only other thing I have worked out at all right now is the first NPC they're going to encounter: a Vampire Wizard/White Necromancer who set up shop in the ground level of the tower in order to study it. He's your typical "nice but eccentric" hermit mage sort of character, and his interest in the tower is mainly academic. The party may have some issues with their initial encounter with him, seeing as he has his undead servants working to open up other parts of the tower so they can explore it further and he's going to try to take away the magic items they found inside (temporarily, of course) so that he can study them, but he's going to end up being one of their best allies in the campaign.

[Ingus]

First and foremost, good luck with that!

I can see what's your problem.
I would suggest you to use this opportunity to start in a horrific way your campaign.

As you pointed out, undead are the go-to guys. People who inhabited the tower are all dead by starvation or cannibalism and this is the kind of horror that can trigger spontaneous-undead-fluff.

Some of them can be so desperate to have asked to be saved to demonic forces, thus becoming a Dretch/Quasit or something of your liking.
A good encounter of this liking can be a little family (parent/son) or a couple of lovers, one of which crossed the line of desperation to save the other.

Another good solution is to put somewhere some minor guardian construct. While is 3.5 material, you can find insight into the Mechonorum (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=177.0) thread.
An encounter of the liking can be the warding of a high profile chamber - mage lab, prince's room and so on - or the entrance room.

A very nasty solution is to implant a brand new ecosystem. People died, leaving corpses to be eaten by saprophagus, to be eaten by oozes or plants or vermins. Fungi, mosses, oozes, plants and vermins are all typical low level encounters.
Moreover, this environment can trigger diseases, nausea and any nasty condition you may want them to explore.
This can be described as a very repulsive scenario, to have the horror effect.

By the way, if you want the vast majority of this can be played for laughs (if your party is not really into horror) in a Zelda / Mario Bros style

Hope this helps

[Diachronos]

First and foremost, good luck with that!

....

Another good solution is to put somewhere some minor guardian construct. While is 3.5 material, you can find insight into the Mechonorum (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=177.0) thread.
An encounter of the liking can be the warding of a high profile chamber - mage lab, prince's room and so on - or the entrance room.


Thanks!

I was actually already thinking of doing some kind of lesser construct for some of the encounters. They'd need to fight the things at least once, because they're going to be carrying objects needed to activate the warp pad to the higher floors.
For those constructs I was thinking of making them severely damaged golems, so beaten up that they've lost most of their defensive capabilities (no DR or magic immunity, cutting the armor/nat armor bonuses in half) and their other stats have deteriorated.

[hymer]

Since the place has been sealed up for a long time, it severely limits the things that could realistically be found inside; I'm assuming that undead would be the best idea for the early encounters, but would anything else be suitable for a place that doesn't really have a reliable source of food that wouldn't slaughter a party of 1st level characters?

Lesse... Animated objects and other lesser constructs (make sure you use some with low or no Hardness - you could say the chair is rotting, so it doesn't get the Hardness of wood, for example); traps that summon monsters give you an excuse to use a wide range of beings; elementals; creatures that can burrow.

Starting them out on an island (though the creatures you mention for the tropical island sound rather high for them) is often a good idea. That way, you can sort of set them loose, and yet they won't be going any place you can't predict. When they're running low on stuff to explore or people to deal with, they can board a (passing) ship to the next place.
I'd suggest you have a place where they can sell their loot and buy equipment very soon after they get out of the tower. Could be a trading post from the plain lands, for example. They may be looking for someone to deal with some local problems, just the sort of thing beginning adventurers would be suited for.

[Diachronos]

Starting them out on an island (though the creatures you mention for the tropical island sound rather high for them) is often a good idea. That way, you can sort of set them loose, and yet they won't be going any place you can't predict. When they're running low on stuff to explore or people to deal with, they can board a (passing) ship to the next place.
I'd suggest you have a place where they can sell their loot and buy equipment very soon after they get out of the tower. Could be a trading post from the plain lands, for example. They may be looking for someone to deal with some local problems, just the sort of thing beginning adventurers would be suited for.

The thing is, the only thing that makes the cities and villages of these nations different from the "normal" D&D/Pathfinder places is the race of the NPCs. The majority of their NPC encounters are going to be with commoners, warriors, and other NPC classes... they're just going to be ifrits or kobolds or something instead of the usual Core races.
The encounters will have the locals being suspicious at worst, especially in the desert, but there likely won't be any actual conflict unless party members are going out of their way to cause trouble.

[Diachronos]

I'm sorely tempted to bring back an old thing that I was working on for another campaign that never got off the ground (fortunately; it was a level 40 gestalt and one of the players wanted to use most of his levels to get templates and make himself nearly untouchable)...

I was working on building the Tyranids from Warhammer 40,000 as 3.5 monsters, and now I'm wanting to try bringing them back as the main enemy force once the campaign gets into full swing.

The main issue, aside from stating them all up (admittedly more time-consuming than "difficult"), would be working out their "Shadow in the Warp" ability. In the WH40K setting, it causes a distortion in the Warp (a combination of magic/psychic energy, Hell, and Hell's worst nightmares) that throws off a lot of the advanced Warp-based technology in the setting: communication systems fail or are garbled, Warp travel ends up sending your vessel lightyears off course, etc.
I wanted to have a similar effect on magical energy, but I'm having a hard time doing it in a way that doesn't completely screw over the party. Easier said than done when only one member doesn't rely on magic...

[Diachronos]

I'm trying to work out a few boss encounters for the rest of the dungeon. A few are just going to be severely nerfed golems that are so ancient that they've lost a lot of their magical defenses and power, but are still capable of challenging a low-level party. Stat-wise, I was thinking:

Remove DR and magic immunity
Half Strength and maximum HP
Use BAB of a Fighter of equal level to the party
Severely reduced natural armor
Severely reduced damage dice


The others are giving me a bit of trouble, mainly for figuring out how to gauge the CR and XP.

The first one they'll encounter is a trio of Skeletal Champions. Two are perfectly normal, while the third (who will come in after the other two are defeated) is going to have a few (1-3) levels of Magus and a masterwork elven curve blade (intended for the Magus/Arcanist in the party, so he'll have a sensible reason for acquiring a black blade for Bladebound).
Assuming the party reaches level 3 by the time they encounter the Magus skeleton, how many levels of Magus should I give him to make him a challenge for the party (will most likely have 4-5 members at the time) coming off of 2 ordinary Skeletal Champs? And what kind of XP increase should come with that?

The second one is meant to be more of a "puzzle" boss: a minotaur construct that effectively has shocking added to all of its attacks (going to drop the greataxe for a slam), and uses a series of electric pylons lining certain hallways in the maze to enhance its Powerful Charge ability (it basically functions like a railgun in those halls). It'd be immune to electricity, obviously, and a bit tougher than a normal minotaur (just figuring maybe +2 or +3 to its natural armor and either a few more HD or additional hp from, on top of what it gets for being a construct). The party could just beat it down until it stops moving...
Or, if they reach the end of the maze first, they can use a switch on the floor to open a pool of water and lure the minotaur into charging into the pool, which would short it out and cripple it for several turns, making it easier to defeat.
Issue is that I'm not sure what level the party will be by the time they reach the maze floor, and I'm worried that adding too much will lead to an unintentional TPK.

Any thoughts?