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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Help with first time DM's One-shot



Centik
2016-06-11, 01:45 AM
Hello fellow DMs and players alike! I'm here today to ask your opinion on my first knock at DMing 5e with a one-shot I'm building. Any tips or ideas for both plot and DMing would be amazingly helpful. I've been playing 5e and pathfinder for two years with the same group and this time I'd like to take the DM seat.

The premise: (I'm not going into any specifics here in order to not make this post horribly long, but know that this will be a bare-minimum description and won't reflect the depth in which I'm hoping to accomplish.)

The party has been hired to find a woman's husband who is a paladin of Lathander. He disappeared in the middle of the night, only telling his wife that he was given a quest by his god and that he was heading for the town of King's Cross some miles away.

They will get to the town, maybe do some RP around the different shops, vendors, and tavern I've created (with my luck, they'll just blast through all my hard work) and eventually head to the temple of Lathander where an older, high-ranking Paladin and friend of the missing paladin will tell the group that many of their order had traveled to a certain old temple hidden deep within a nearby forest. Those who traveled there had seemed quite entranced when questioned, almost as if by a siren's song. The tally of missing paladins and clergymen is large enough to warrant a constant watch of non-order guardsmen flanking the front of the temple. Some had even been locked in their rooms in order to keep them from leaving.

The party will be asked to find the temple and drive out whatever force is effecting the holy men as they search for those who are missing. They will finally reach the old temple which has lost the battle to nature. Overgrown trees and wildlife have half-engulfed the walls and exterior. Inside there will be a combat or two (not entirely sure what these will be yet, so any advice is great.) and finally stumble upon a large room with broken pews and an altar to Cyric, the god of Madness and Trickery. Surrounding the altar is a scattering of bodies that seemed to have been sucked dry by magical means. Kneeling in front of the altar is the paladin they had been tasked to locate, a jagged crown of daggers adorning his head. The crown is showing him visions of his god and generally just driving him insane and has been attracting holy men to become the vessel for the god of lies.

Driven to insanity, the paladin (Level 5) will then attack the party alongside two hooded acolytes.

So, that's the gist of my oneshot. It will be for, most likely, a party of three at third level. What do you think?

Is the final encounter too difficult?

What would make a good precursor encounter in the few rooms before the boss fight?

Should I have another encounter planned before they reach the temple?

R.Shackleford
2016-06-11, 01:50 AM
You should post this in the 5e forum instead of homebrew

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?63-D-amp-D-5e-Next

Centik
2016-06-11, 01:53 AM
You should post this in the 5e forum instead of homebrew

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?63-D-amp-D-5e-Next

Yeah, I started wondering if I posted in the right area after I finalized it haha. I'm not used to asking these kinds of questions.

ravencroft0
2016-07-09, 07:48 AM
What level are the two hooded acolytes? 3 3rd level characters would be able to take on the paladin, but those two flunkies may make things more challenging that you'd want. Also when dealing with the god of madness and trickery, who's to say the paladin is the real bad guy here? Is there someone else the adventurers need to be worried about? Where did the crown come from? Who are the hooded goons and for whom do they work?

Doesn't sound like a one-off. More like the first stepping stone.

Good luck with the adventure!

R.Shackleford
2016-07-10, 09:57 AM
Yeah, I started wondering if I posted in the right area after I finalized it haha. I'm not used to asking these kinds of questions.

Ask a mod to move it :)