[3.5] DM Help Needed: 4th Level Adventures

[Thurbane]

OK, so I've been caught napping.

I need some quick adventure ideas for tomorrow night.

Party is a follows:

Aasimar Paladin (spell less variant) 4
Human Ranger (spell less variant) 4
Human (?) Warmage 4 (this character will be finalized tomorrow, and is new to the game)
Human Favored Soul 4 [NPC] (casts off Int, thanks to Lost Tradition)
They also have a some time cohort of an Awakened Warbeast Heavy Warhorse [NPC]

We're picking up these characters after almost a 2 year break. Initially they were "fill in" characters for a short game I ran before my main Against the Iron Tower campaign (that group is level 8, in a campaign with Dispater as the BBEG).

These characters exist in the same setting (a slightly homebrewed Greyhawk). The last adventure for these characters was them defending an important character form the main campaign (a Half-celestial Elf Rogue/Healer) from a Bearded Devil attack.

...they mainly operate out of a smallish town a couple days outside the city of Greyhawk.

The group is far from optimized, but I'm happy to tailor encounters to their strengths (and weaknesses).

All ideas welcome!

Cheers - T

[Theobod]

OK, so I've been caught napping.

I need some quick adventure ideas for tomorrow night.

Party is a follows:

Aasimar Paladin (spell less variant) 4
Human Ranger (spell less variant) 4
Human (?) Warmage 4 (this character will be finalized tomorrow, and is new to the game)
Human Favored Soul 4 [NPC] (casts off Int, thanks to Lost Tradition)
They also have a some time cohort of an Awakened Warbeast Heavy Warhorse [NPC]

We're picking up these characters after almost a 2 year break. Initially they were "fill in" characters for a short game I ran before my main Against the Iron Tower campaign (that group is level 8, in a campaign with Dispater as the BBEG).

These characters exist in the same setting (a slightly homebrewed Greyhawk). The last adventure for these characters was them defending an important character form the main campaign (a Half-celestial Elf Rogue/Healer) from a Bearded Devil attack.

...they mainly operate out of a smallish town a couple days outside the city of Greyhawk.

The group is far from optimized, but I'm happy to tailor encounters to their strengths (and weaknesses).

All ideas welcome!

Cheers - T

Level four is about the first time a Troll moves from TPK into substantial bossfight, I suggest a savage attack of orcs or goblins or somesuch that hold as their warchief a Troll, this will give the ranger and paladin plenty of meat to grind up to the boss and the warmage will love blasting small groups to pieces and taking out the archer support, if you chose goblins go for worg riding ones for extra mobility to force the issue of ranged fire, something the ranger will be able to help with, while also giving melee troops some fodder to keep them at bay.

Maybe have a level six ex soldier who is teaching the hordes tactics and uses the troll as a 'puppet captain', while he pulls the shots, if the party manage to get to their stronghold/camp/treefort/abandoned keep he fights and tries to flee, bringing in the troll by raising an alarm (he may or may not manage to flee, be prepared for capture if it happens)

As they base themselves out of a small settlement a few days away from the city maybe the attacks have been getting steadily worse but not yet greivous, if the party head out then they may never get bad, if the do its a four day round trip for word and reinforcements, maybe the town sends them out with a few redshirts to make them feel safe but infact serve to show the danger by having them one by one die to the onslaught of the Green Tide.

Other notable examples of this level, Ogres, Lycanthropes, Ghouls (be careful with outnumbering with ghouls, paralysis can be a tpk) and maybe Shadows if the FS has lesser restoration, notable bosses: Ogre Magi, Hill Giant, very young Dragons

Hope you have fun and keep us informed of what you choose and how it went :smallsmile:

[Thurbane]

Level four is about the first time a Troll moves from TPK into substantial bossfight, I suggest a savage attack of orcs or goblins or somesuch that hold as their warchief a Troll, this will give the ranger and paladin plenty of meat to grind up to the boss and the warmage will love blasting small groups to pieces and taking out the archer support, if you chose goblins go for worg riding ones for extra mobility to force the issue of ranged fire, something the ranger will be able to help with, while also giving melee troops some fodder to keep them at bay.

Maybe have a level six ex soldier who is teaching the hordes tactics and uses the troll as a 'puppet captain', while he pulls the shots, if the party manage to get to their stronghold/camp/treefort/abandoned keep he fights and tries to flee, bringing in the troll by raising an alarm (he may or may not manage to flee, be prepared for capture if it happens)

As they base themselves out of a small settlement a few days away from the city maybe the attacks have been getting steadily worse but not yet greivous, if the party head out then they may never get bad, if the do its a four day round trip for word and reinforcements, maybe the town sends them out with a few redshirts to make them feel safe but infact serve to show the danger by having them one by one die to the onslaught of the Green Tide.

Other notable examples of this level, Ogres, Lycanthropes, Ghouls (be careful with outnumbering with ghouls, paralysis can be a tpk) and maybe Shadows if the FS has lesser restoration, notable bosses: Ogre Magi, Hill Giant, very young Dragons

Hope you have fun and keep us informed of what you choose and how it went :smallsmile:

I like that idea!

I'll give a report after the session. I have a feeling that tonight might be mostly taken up the Warmage finishing up his character sheet and the other two player's finding their old sheets, but I can definitely set the scene.

[BowStreetRunner]

I like that idea!

I'll give a report after the session. I have a feeling that tonight might be mostly taken up the Warmage finishing up his character sheet and the other two player's finding their old sheets, but I can definitely set the scene.

One of my favorite setups for an encounter like this is to have the PCs first come across the badly mangled survivors of the last party who fought the monsters. The remaining survivors mention some of the enemies they took down (including some relatively high CR monsters) some of the allies they lost (including some relatively high level heroes), and a confused description of what was left over. This usually has the effect of putting the players well on their guard for their first fight (or first in a couple years in this case) and ensures they don't get too cocky and blunder into a TPK for the first encounter.

After that, they're on their own! :smallwink:

[Thurbane]

OK, so we ran the session last night.

As expected, the vast bulk consisted of the new player finishing up his character, as well as general catching up (the group has been on hiatus for a little while).

I used the new character entering the town as source of rumours, that he's picked up in his travels. One of the rumours being several farmers in outlying areas of the town had been complaining of "greenskin" attacks.

The party travelled to an outlying farm to investigate, and ended up being invited to stay for dinner with the farmer and his family.

As desert was being served, there was a ruckus outside, which turned out to be a small band of humanoids (6x Orc Fighter 1, 2x Goblin Adept 2).

...the fight went fairly disastrously. The orcs were inflicting decent damage with the greatclubs (1d10+6) and hurled javelins. Fortunately, everyone managed to save against the Sleep and Cause Fear spells the adepts threw.

A critical from an Orc knocked the Paladin to -3 (I was misremembering: the Paladin is level 3, not 4, and will be buying off his LA +1 next level). The Warmage got knocked down to 2 by a few javelins, and the Ranger's dog similarly got taken down to 1 or 2 hp. The group won the battle, but took some hefty damage. The spend a few round using a Wand of CLW and some of the FS spells to get most of their HP back.

...that's where we left the session, as it was pretty late...

My plan was to introduce the troll by having it in the barn with the farmer's (and party's) horses, chowing down on a couple of them. I've already indicated a major disturbance in the barn which the party will investigate at the start of next session.

My concern is now that the party, running a bit low on spells and still carrying some minor wounds, might not be up to a fight with a troll.

I was wondering - could I give the troll some kind of handicap to even up the fight, and maybe drop it down a CR or two? Maybe partial blindness (giving it a miss chance on each hit), or some kind of debilitating disease?

[weckar]

Not sure how system-savvy your players are, but drop the trolls HP by a minor amount and give him some scorchmarks as a clue to his weakness. This being a 1-on-many fight should take care of the rest.

[Theobod]

Maybe give the troll Awesome Blow and have him genuinely surprised by being found showing down on a horse, have him swing a dead horse as an improvised weapon (-4 will help the party a lot) and use awesome blow to make him feel a lot tougher than he is, when his reinforcement doesn't come make him run for it.
That way he can have reinforcements later and is unlikely to wreck the party.
Enjoying reading the log :)

[Thurbane]

Not sure how system-savvy your players are, but drop the trolls HP by a minor amount and give him some scorchmarks as a clue to his weakness. This being a 1-on-many fight should take care of the rest.

Maybe give the troll Awesome Blow and have him genuinely surprised by being found showing down on a horse, have him swing a dead horse as an improvised weapon (-4 will help the party a lot) and use awesome blow to make him feel a lot tougher than he is, when his reinforcement doesn't come make him run for it.
That way he can have reinforcements later and is unlikely to wreck the party.
Enjoying reading the log :)

I like both of those ideas, might combine them! :smallsmile:

[Theobod]

One trick I like to use for big single bosses is two HP bars, one the average and another the difference between the average and the maximum.
If the party are really struggling and its getting close to the wire have him go down after the first bar (average hp), if there is still a lot of fight in the party and it's looking like a curbstomp use that max hp buffer either to deal more pain or run away.
Gives more wiggle room without breaking a single rule.

[Thurbane]

OK, quick update: so the group confronted the troll in the barn, reduced it to low enough HP that it fled, and tracked it back to the bandit lair (Human Ftr 6, with a bunch Orc and Goblin Warrior 1 cronies, and the troll, of course).

As a twist, I decided to have the troll be CN, and raised by the human fighter (as an abusive father figure who bullied him into attacking farms).

The Warmage made good use of a Pyrotechnics spell, and the group slaughtered the Orcs and Goblins. It came down to the Troll and Fighter vs. party. The Ranger suspected that the Troll wasn't all evil (she spied on the camp first and saw the Fighter mistreating it). She eventually pleaded with the troll to help them, and after some Cha checks etc., the troll turned on the Fighter and helped the party defeat him.

After some questioning by the Paladin and party, they agreed to let the Troll (Yavo) go free. He fled into the forest (I have some plans to have him be a recurring NPC). :smallwink:



...anyway, long story short, Ranger and Favored Soul are now 5th, the Paladin is 4th and the Warmage is also still 4th.

With my insanely busy IRL commitments, I haven't prepared for the game tonight, and need some more inspiration for a short adventure fr the group! They will be heading back to town from the bandit encampment to re-equip and get some identify spells.

HALP!

[BowStreetRunner]

They will be heading back to town from the bandit encampment to re-equip and get some identify spells.

On the way back to town you could have the party encounter another armed group that is heading out to find the troll. Possible scenarios that could develop from this might include:

The second group discovers that the first let the troll live and decides to continue after the troll, hoping to finish it off.
The second group decides the first party is actually in league with the troll and attacks.
The second group sees that the party has already come away with the loot and is worn out from the first fight so decides to attack to take the loot for themselves.

[Thurbane]

Thanks for the suggestion, but sadly I read it a little late.

So what happened was that the party took their loot back to the small town they were staying at. In amongst the loot was a locket with a painting of a half-elf woman with an inscription of her name. It was just a piece of random loot, but became an adventure hook.

They asked some scholarly types and eventually found she was the beloved of a noble from Dyvers, and rumours say that he has since become a vampire, so they are travelling to Dyvers to investigate. The Awakened Warbeast Warhouse companion has now rejoined them.

On the way there, camping in the Gnarly Forest, they were attacked by 6 Worgs, which was a tough fight but they defeated them...

...I'm planning on the search for the nobleman to be an adventure in itself, and hopefully they'll level up once or twice before they find the vampire.

[Thurbane]

Group may have lost a player now, unfortunately.

Next mini-adventure I'll be dropping in is A Dead Man’s Party from the Module Workshop.

Levels 4-6, investigating a haunted asylum.

3.0, but needs very little conversion.

[Fizban]

A Warbeast Warhorse is effectively double templated: applying it to a Heavy Warhorse is explicitly disallowed. For the troll, I would have recommended swapping it for an orge or something instead, following the rule of "never introduce a monster for the first time at less than full power."

As for adventures, 4th-5th is in the right range to start Red Hand of Doom or Return to the Temple if you want. A big campaign isn't exactly ideal with players dropping, but you wouldn't be rushing to dig up short adventures to string together and your party seems well set up for unmodified RHoD with average martials and a Warmage on fire support.

On reduced player count, your other thread says you'd prefer 4 PCs and your players have doubled up in the past, so I'd say doing that again is probably best. The awakened horse won't scale well enough to fill a melee role (not enough damage or AC) or I'd suggest just handing the servant soul to one and the horse to the other. With handle animal the ranger could train a non-companion animal to take point, say rescue a circus bear or something, but that has all sorts of other problems. Paired PCs is just better and easier.

[Thurbane]

Our group has run through RHoD twice, so I'll give that one a miss.

RttToEE is interesting - I was desperately hoping to run through it as a player rather than a DM; but I might reconsider.

[Fizban]

Hehe, yeah you can only run the same module so many times. I've had two different tries at RttToEE in the player seat, but both fell through before reaching the second dungeon, haven't read it through myself yet either.

I would recommend War of the Burning Sky (https://wotbsadventurepath.com/), except I think I may have heard of it from one of your own posts, and I'm not sure I'd recommend it anyway (starts out good but loses form as it goes on and starts relying extremely heavily on classed foes).

[Thurbane]

Yes, definitely want to try War of the Bunring Sky at some point.

As a player, we did RHoD fairly early in our 3.5 days, and I was a Human Cleric of St Cuthbert. Second time around, I was a Human Favored Soul of Bahamut (I wanted to try out FS as a player).