A rival party in the same dungeon

[DragonBaneDM]

Hey guys!

This is for my 5E Eberron game, BUT I'm just looking for general advice and brainstorming colleagues.

The idea that I want to bring to life is that my party (Warforged Paladin, Half Elf Warlock, Halfling Rogue, and Human Shadow Monk) are hired by a near-bankrupt heiress to a long-dead empire to retrieve her ancestor's ancient weapon, a powerful artifact, from a dungeon underneath a vast city.

I want to add competitors, though. A rival adventuring party also racing to claim the artifact to have it sold to a private collector. (The setup I have is Human Bard, Dwarf Fighter, Elf Ranger, and Warforged Artificer). I've already thought through the personalities, and the Dwarf is really the only one willing to surrender and work together if defeated in combat. The others will try to run or fight to the death.

Now, the easiest way out would be to have the two forces immediately clash and be done with it. What I'm looking for is more of a race approach. Trying to speed through combat encounters and skill checks, matching wits against the other team, hindering or helping them through traps and the like, trading arrows across bridges, and only at the end either coming to blows or setting differences aside and teaming up. I'm just not sure what kinds of traps and challenges work best when a second party is at play, or how my dungeon design should be set up to make this idea more fun/easier to implement.

The only other denizen I've thought up for this dungeon so far is a wyrmling metallic dragon that's wandered away from his guardians elsewhere in the city and has interests in both the dwarf NPC and claiming the dungeon. I also want four Large golems that are guarding the blade itself. Undead are a definite possibility, and for some reason I was thinking Troglodytes would work too. Heck, maybe undead Troglodytes?

What are your thoughts? The rival party is such a time honored tradition, and I really want to do this right.

[LibraryOgre]

The big question is "How are you going to work the time limit", and, having played in some 4thcore and 4thcore inspired stuff, I'd say "Give them an actual table time limit."

"Ok, guys, you know there's a rival party looking for this. They're going to be facing some of the same sorts of challenges, so if you don't find the artifact in 4 real-time hours, they will find it, and you will lose."

Then set a point where, if they make it to the artifact BEFORE that point in time (say, 2.5 hours or less), then they got away clean. After that time, they're going to run into the rival party at the end game. Miss out on 4 hours? They're toast, the other party has it.

That real time limit can really focus a party and make them play. Make a couple random encounters, and a couple set piece encounters, show up as "The other party already beat this"... perhaps, again, with time limits ("Don't make it to the Library before the first 30 minutes? Well, that's the first thing they did. Hurry!")

[DragonBaneDM]

The big question is "How are you going to work the time limit", and, having played in some 4thcore and 4thcore inspired stuff, I'd say "Give them an actual table time limit."

"Ok, guys, you know there's a rival party looking for this. They're going to be facing some of the same sorts of challenges, so if you don't find the artifact in 4 real-time hours, they will find it, and you will lose."

Then set a point where, if they make it to the artifact BEFORE that point in time (say, 2.5 hours or less), then they got away clean. After that time, they're going to run into the rival party at the end game. Miss out on 4 hours? They're toast, the other party has it.

That real time limit can really focus a party and make them play. Make a couple random encounters, and a couple set piece encounters, show up as "The other party already beat this"... perhaps, again, with time limits ("Don't make it to the Library before the first 30 minutes? Well, that's the first thing they did. Hurry!")

I like this! I'm a little worried it won't play out over multiple sessions, but honestly I can just stop the session before with the race starting, and use the tension from that announcement as the cliffhanger leading into the next one. My players will have "off time" to truly get a plan together, and we'll go from there during the next week!

Cool element, and I like them running across places the other party's been to. Now I need to figure out what sort of encounters and obstacles I'm gonna put in their way that play well with having competitors out there.

[LibraryOgre]

Keep in mind that you won't have to completely develop some of them... you can toss in a couple that the other party OBVIOUSLY dealt with, but with no clear idea of how they did so or what they gained.

[VoxRationis]

It's definitely a good way to get the players worried without necessarily making them worried for their skins, and if it does come down to a fight, fighting another party (and thus typical PC tactics) would be an interesting change from fighting monsters.
If you have the map lined up, you might want to establish the route the NPC party will take, assuming no interference from the PCs. Remember that the NPCs don't necessarily know the optimal routes through the dungeon, unless they've got a lot of divination magic or prior intel on their side.

[DragonBaneDM]

How would you introduce this concept to your players?

Would you have them overhear the rival party talking about their goals, to have the rivals shout out, slam a trapped door in the PCs' faces, and then let the race begin?

Or would you be more subtle about it. Have them come across very fresh magical traces, such as a fresh magical aura from a bard spell, an arrow deep in a dead monsters flesh, gradually letting them guess at their competitors' identities and motives.

Screw it, they both sound really cool. Subtle, then big reveal and forced race.

[VoxRationis]

This happened to my party in Secrets of the Whispering Cairn, I think. We first ran into the NPC party in town, and heard they were exploring the local ruins. Then after a few delves into the (incredibly HP-depleting) ruins, they stopped us and demanded that they know what we were doing in 'their' ruins. I think the campaign ended due to out-of-game logistics before anything could come of it.

[Doorhandle]

I had a con game where WE were playing the rival adventuring party, and we set out specifically to get at whatever tasty loot our predecessors were hunting.
It played out like this:

*Early on, we got a few opportunities to tail our foes and see what they were trying to get, such as maps and the like.
*They left a macguffin in the stream in order to make running water flow through an area below (more on that later.) We were given an opportunity to screw with or loot it: we settled for putting it under a rock, which ended up screwing them a bit.
* We had an encounter with some trolls, due to the other party defeating them but not putting them down for good. Likewise with a few zombies they had snuck past.
* Their rogue pokes at a huge coffin and got disgenerated: later on, it turns out he faked it.
* Their wizard throw a thunderstone at us in order to wake up nearby dire apes. Unsurprisingly, we ran from those, after looting nearby corpses.
*The final battle was a Mêlée à Trois, between us, the opposing party, and the vampire lord they sought to slay. Complicating the matter was the items they brought to kill the vampire, such as a stone that radiated sunlight, the teleporting rock gem that was supposed to make running water in the cave (instead making a small stream of rocks), and the deed to the only exit to prevent the vampire's escape. With some tricky stealth rolls and teleportation on our part, we managed to get the drop on them and take control on the items, ensuring we were victorious.