This one might have been a bit too tough.

[Sabeta]

http://i.imgur.com/WLxFC8w.png

http://i.imgur.com/t1j6zzg.png

So, I guess I wasn't thinking when I designed this encounter, but somewhere in my mind I thought that 14 CR 1/4ths and 4 CR 1/8ths would be an appropriate challenge for a party of level 3s. So here's how the Encounter works.

1) The four red Kobolds are ordinary. They're stationed above murderholes ready to shove rocks on any player who walks under it.
--A)The Paladin has a penchant for kicking doors. If he kicks the door open, the first red Kobold will be startled and push his Rock early, alerting the players to the danger.
--B) The Kobolds have very poor vision since it's both daylight and raining, so as long as the players remain undectected they won't push the rocks.
2) The Dark Green Kobolds are all elite Snipers. They have a modified version of Crossbow Expertise which allows them to attack every turn, and within melee range, but can't take bonus actions or reactions (outside of ready actions) with the Crossbow.
--A) The ones inside the gatehouse had 3/4ths Cover, and a mounting slot so that the PCs on the other side wouldn't.
--B) The kobolds had disadvantage on any attacks made that weren't directly in front of them, and the wall prevented pack tactics.
--C) A DC 18 Perception Check would let them spot levers inside the gatehouse that could be disabled with ranged attacks. Disabling two leaves lowers the front gate, allowing access to behind the Kobolds, negating their Cover bonuses. If a Kobold in front of the lever died, the DC dropped to 12. (there's one in each corner)

So how this played out was
Initiative gets rolled, with all of the Kobolds having hidden Initiative for now, except for the four on top. They get easily taken out by the ranger and wizard, but this ultimately gives the rest of the Kobolds a chance to take a Ready Action for attacking.
A) The Paladin destroyed the front door as predicted. Because he rolled insanely high I decided the door itself would fly far enough to kill the two light-green gate gaurds instantly. Normally, those were kobolds with swords, shields, and chainmail.
B) The Monk walked straight in, I gave her plenty of chance to check for the kobolds behind the walls, but she failed her rolls. She walks in and gets shot. Forgot that she can deflect arrows, and took a lot of damage.
C) The Paladin and Monk start working against the Kobolds, they both fail to notice the levers, and as a consequence get halfway through before the Ranger has enough space to get in and notice one. Meanwhile, the Paladin takes a lot of hits, and after directly telling the Monk to use her reactions she stops taking so many hits. (she was hit at least once nearly every turn, and negated and average of 90% damage from them. Overall I believe she blocked nearly 100 damage)
D) They finally get the gates down, and get behind them. The Ranger goes 1v1 with a Kobold, and through absolutely garbage rolls. (and both him and I forgetting he had cast Hunters Mark earlier in the encounter) he manages to lose. Going unconcious.
E) The Paladin challenges a Kobold to a duel after calling him a coward for hiding behind walls. A successful intimidation check brought him out in the open, where he promptly shot and downed the Paladin.
F) The Wizard ran out of spell slots, and decided to loot the Paladin. He found a Potion of Healing, and despite being LE decided that reviving the Paladin was in his best interest. From there, they manage to clear the room.

So they'll short rest now, but after two KOs and 0 spell slots between the two of them I don't think they can assault the castle properly. If they take the time to long rest then realistically the guards would be doubled. (This castle is directly above a huge kobold network. The players don't need to fight the network, just kill the boss, but it basically means an infinite supply of backup soldiers to replenish the front ranks) So right now their options are

A) Infiltrate the castle with next to no resources, where either I'm forced to reduce encounters to a survivable level, or create a traitor Kobold who will shelter the players long enough for a long rest.
B) Back out, and try again hopefully with better odds and possibly a level up.

No matter how I look at it, starting their adventuring day off with a Deadly Encounter was probably a bad idea...I'm so used to them doing only one epic battle a day that I forgot there's a whole extra dungeon for them to fight. A fairly large, three story castle with a super kobold boss and a potentially dangerous encounter with one of the BBEG.

[Cespenar]

It's not just Deadly, it's Deadly-3, if linear extrapolation was a thing. Plus the clever opponents and traps and stuff.

Now, it's not totally out of place, and it should create hard and (hopefully) memorable moments, but expect them to long rest each time if all encounters are similar to this.

Or conversely, if you wanted them to go through the whole thing without long resting, then you should consider making the encounters Easy or Medium. That's 4-6 kobolds. Or give them backup NPCs.

[comk59]

Sabeta, may I suggest you change your name to Tucker?

[bid]

Have them run and come back another day. Since they came during a "changing of the guards", next time it'll be half the group.

[Sabeta]

Sabeta, may I suggest you change your name to Tucker?

It makes sense in my homebrewed setting. During the 2nd Age there was a period known as the God Wars, where various Gods arrived on the plane and either picked races already there or brought their own races. In this setting, Dragons serve as Kings under the God of Fire, Salamander, and below them serving as Nobles are the Dragonborn, Lizardfolk and other similar creatures serve as commoners below that, and below them serving as slaves are Kobolds. Now here's the thing, the Gods are responsible for meting out Souls to their races. This fills them with things like creativity, ingenuity, compassion, and the negative sides to those as well. It bolsters a race, but makes them less predictable. Salamander decided that slaves with souls was a bad idea, and didn't give them any.

Fastforward to the plot, in an entirely different region are some independent kobolds. They're fairly lore friendly to Faerun. Cowardly, Cunning, good at tunnels, good at stealing, et cetera. The leader of these Kobolds is one of the lucky few to make it as far as 112 years old, which is the same year that a lot of bad stuff started happening to the world. A couple of months prior to the campaigns start, he was approached by one of the BBEGs, who offered him a Soul. (It's a very long story how a person could give out a soul like that, and why, but he did and does). So you have a 100 year old kobold who has spent most of his life tormented by the world itself, his homeland would enslave him, his adopted land would kill him, and his own clansmen don't trust him for being born on an ominous year. Take THAT guy, and give him the power to create, to feel true rage, and to become as intelligent as other civilized races.

The end result, is highly organized and highly effective Kobolds. Once they kill the leader the rest will eventually forget their training and return to being normal Kobolds, and the few that retain their skills will become new leaders.

But anyway that was sort of my goal. I had originally planned for this gate to be an interesting puzzle-like encounter, and ended up creating a monster that took an entire session to bring down. I'm not sure what possessed me to make something like this. I plan on using some of the Volo's Kobolds throughout the dungeon, but my general solution to combat is lots of guys, so I went and put like 4 Dragonshields and Scale Sorcerers into a room, crunched the numbers and was like "oh god that's way too hard. I forgot CR 1s are harder than 1/4ths". Here's my ideas for now:

The players will have the choice of pushing inward or retreating. If they push inward, they'll be joined by two allied NPCs. This makes sense, as on the way to the dungeon they bumped into other allied NPCs who had actually failed to get past the front door (they alluded to some of the traps they would encounter there). Those NPCs will make it back and request that the two remaining supporters will show up to help. The Helpers will somehow be removed before the boss of the area, probably via the boss displaying his terrible power.

If they retreat, the gate will be filled with half as many Kobolds; however I'll say that the players hadn't noticed one of the gate guards from the first run, and their faces are known. When they approach the gate, the Kobolds will instead flee because they know how powerful the PCs are, and retreat inside the castle and raise the alarm. Instead of sleepy kobolds playing cards or whatever, they'll run into makeshift fortifications such as flipped over beds and tables.

By the way, anyone know of a good way to stop a falling castle? The Boss is going to dramatically reveal that this castle can actually fly, and set it on a crash course during his first turn. The idea being that even if he dies he can at least take the PCs with him, and if he wins he can correct the course. The PCs have a reason they're unaware of for knowing how to pilot this castle (despite nobody in over 2,000 years even knowing the feature existed), but it would be a bit too obvious a connection to the main plot, and I also don't want to give them a flying castle this early in the game.

[Cespenar]

I don't think they could manage the three-story castle even with the two NPCs now that they are fully spent after the fight, but your call. They'll probably retreat, so prepare against that.

Also, if you feel like they aren't playing up to your level of forethought/preparedness, they simply may not be at that mindset. You could drop some hints via NPCs or whatever on subjects like scouting, traps, assaulting defended positions, etc.

You can make it easily into a puzzle. Maybe they can't fully pilot the castle, but they can find the emergency controls and try to trigger a safe landing. There could be small pictograms on buttons which they could figure out to lower/raise/strafe left-right/rotate left-right the castle (but the speed could be locked), and they could use those to divert the crash course into a lake or something.

Then, next scene is escaping from a sinking castle. Athletics checks and stuff.

[Sabeta]

snip

I forgot a detail. Somewhere in the castle could be a defector kobold. One who doesn't approve of the new radical, aggressive lifestyle. One who still wants to be a bit cowardly, and offers shelter to the players so that they can long rest. In the hopes that they'll spare him and kill the boss. It is my intention that the players will ultimately realize the Kobolds are pitiable, and may hope to repair relations once everything is settled. One of the subplots involves the town they've been in for quite a while recieving a huge sum of cash, and with it will come various construction projects. Volo's Guide makes me think that it might be fun to let the Kobolds live under or near the city.

Anyway, I need to be very prepared for the very real possibility that they'll assault the castle. The Paladin is a great combination of a fun roleplayer and playing a lawful stupid character on purpose. He doesn't go overboard like a lot of Paladins do, but he literally wrote on his character sheet that retreat is for cowards, always march forward.

The biggest problem here is the language that the controls are in. It's a long-dead language that the players can read. It wouldn't make sense for the flying castle to have bizarrely cryptic rules or controls when the players will just flat-out know what they say. One possibility is an emergency failsafe that protects them immediately before crashing, allow them the freedom of flight for a bit, but ultimately forcing it to land somewhere because it runs out of "juice", or presenting a Deus Ex Machina to save them.

[Cespenar]

I forgot a detail. Somewhere in the castle could be a defector kobold. One who doesn't approve of the new radical, aggressive lifestyle. One who still wants to be a bit cowardly, and offers shelter to the players so that they can long rest. In the hopes that they'll spare him and kill the boss. It is my intention that the players will ultimately realize the Kobolds are pitiable, and may hope to repair relations once everything is settled. One of the subplots involves the town they've been in for quite a while recieving a huge sum of cash, and with it will come various construction projects. Volo's Guide makes me think that it might be fun to let the Kobolds live under or near the city.

Anyway, I need to be very prepared for the very real possibility that they'll assault the castle. The Paladin is a great combination of a fun roleplayer and playing a lawful stupid character on purpose. He doesn't go overboard like a lot of Paladins do, but he literally wrote on his character sheet that retreat is for cowards, always march forward.

The biggest problem here is the language that the controls are in. It's a long-dead language that the players can read. It wouldn't make sense for the flying castle to have bizarrely cryptic rules or controls when the players will just flat-out know what they say. One possibility is an emergency failsafe that protects them immediately before crashing, allow them the freedom of flight for a bit, but ultimately forcing it to land somewhere because it runs out of "juice", or presenting a Deus Ex Machina to save them.

Pretty cool stuff, looks like you have already thought this through. Only thing remains is to balance the encounters a bit.

Then how about this: all normal systems are locked, so they have to use seemingly irrelevant secondary systems to divert the castle to the lake. Things like "open all windows on the east wing" to slowly veer east, overtax the weapons systems to draw power from the propellers and lose altitude, etc.

Maybe too science fictiony, but we're talking about a flying castle.

[SharkForce]

if they're creative, it is entirely possible the party can find another way to get into the castle that doesn't involve a frontal assault of the castle gates. i have my doubts about a complete lack of escape routes, for example, and there's no particular reason for that party to be completely unable to get up walls.

[Sabeta]

if they're creative, it is entirely possible the party can find another way to get into the castle that doesn't involve a frontal assault of the castle gates. i have my doubts about a complete lack of escape routes, for example, and there's no particular reason for that party to be completely unable to get up walls.

All true, the simplest way would have been to have the Ranger recieve Invisibility from the Wizard, because of the Rain the Kobolds have extremely poor perception, and it was a DC 10 Acrobatics check to get past the gate bars. It was entirely possible to stealth right through there and throw the gates so that the rest of the party could rush in and get behind them. negating most of the Kobolds advantages. The walls were 20 feet high, and since it's a spoiler castle scaling it is quite difficult, but there's plenty of trees they could have used to fashion a ladder had they taken the time.

I try to design easy and hard ways to do thing, but the problem with the hard way is that it prevents them from progressing well enough. If my players constantly choose the hard way it should at least be survivable. Perhaps not winnable, but survivable.

[Samayu]

after directly telling the Monk to use her reactions she stops taking so many hits. (she was hit at least once nearly every turn, and negated and average of 90% damage from them. Overall I believe she blocked nearly 100 damage)

Just a note, a monk can only deflect one missile per round, not one per turn. It's a reaction, and you only get one reaction until your next turn.

[SharkForce]

All true, the simplest way would have been to have the Ranger recieve Invisibility from the Wizard, because of the Rain the Kobolds have extremely poor perception, and it was a DC 10 Acrobatics check to get past the gate bars. It was entirely possible to stealth right through there and throw the gates so that the rest of the party could rush in and get behind them. negating most of the Kobolds advantages. The walls were 20 feet high, and since it's a spoiler castle scaling it is quite difficult, but there's plenty of trees they could have used to fashion a ladder had they taken the time.

I try to design easy and hard ways to do thing, but the problem with the hard way is that it prevents them from progressing well enough. If my players constantly choose the hard way it should at least be survivable. Perhaps not winnable, but survivable.

that's one way of looking at it.

the other way of looking at it, is that the players are responsible for knowing when to run away :P

[ShikomeKidoMi]

On the one hand, 14 is a very big number for a party who isn't high enough level to have good area of effect spells.

On the other hand, what party of level 3 characters sees a castle and thinks "I've got it, the correct approach here is a frontal assault through the main gates!"?

As to the party surviving, remember that there's no penalty for making nonlethal attacks, so the Kobolds could knock them out and capture them, leading to an escape sequence.

[Citan]

I really think you are a great DM. ;)

While this encounter was obviously very difficult, you gave boons to reward luck rolls and obviously provided hints to allow several ways to tackle it.

If the players are, well, "blunt" enough (to stay polite) to just rush in without any strategic thinking beforehand AND forgetting a third of their features (Deflect Missiles, Hunter's Mark), well, it is their own damn problem. You as a DM reminding them of those is not an obligation, it's just being very kind for the sake of everyone having fun.

You also prepared several options for their next run (allies, traitor) and you obviously keep your mind peeled for any fair way to help them and reward creativity/sheer luck.
So if they run to their death, it's their own choice, feel no regret.

[Sabeta]

On the one hand, 14 is a very big number for a party who isn't high enough level to have good area of effect spells.

On the other hand, what party of level 3 characters sees a castle and thinks "I've got it, the correct approach here is a frontal assault through the main gates!"?

As to the party surviving, remember that there's no penalty for making nonlethal attacks, so the Kobolds could knock them out and capture them, leading to an escape sequence.

This is partially my fault. You see, the entire game the Paladin has been wanting to kick open doors for some reason. I tell him that the people inside may be aggravated by such boisterous entrances, and he usually backs down; while taking great pains to roleplay out how politely and daintely he's opening these oh so precious doors. I even tried to tempt him with a fancy glass door once but he declined. I figured I'd throw him a bone and present a slightly rotted oak door as the door to the castle. He obviously couldn't resist the temptation, and I knew that he wouldn't be able to. Which is why when he did kick the door open he made an extra DC 20 check for the door to splinter and kill the two Kobolds in the back.

Technically, even at that point the Invisibility strat would have worked still, since the Kobolds didn't want to aim down angles due to it giving them disadvantage (The arrow slits were designed for longbows, not Crossbows, so I ruled that the stock would hinder angular firing) they were spending their turns Readying Attacks instead of firing at angles, so the end result was actually a lot of wasted turns on the Kobolds part. Only when the kobolds were outnumbered did they switch tactics and start firing at angles...which nearly decimated the party. Even with disadvantage I kept rolling 15+ for them. It to a point where I force-lucked some rolls. The players very clearly saw the die say they were getting hit and instead "The bolt strikes one of the iron bands on your helmet, just barely deflecting it from a headshot"

I don't think they liked having DM intervention save them like that, as it removes some of the risk from the battle, but this was not meant to be a potential TPK point.

@ Citan: Thanks for the compliment. This thread was mostly meant to help me collect my thoughts on the subject at hand. This is the first campaign I've ever done and I'm still pretty bad at combat balance. Or rather, I know how to design winnable deadly encounters that are fun. (although the Wizard has been annoyed that he alone doesn't feel threatened enough, ehehehe. How meek he will soon feel), but designing "an adventuring day" is something I haven't actually done yet. Hopefully I'll get there soon enough to make future dungeons interesting. This entire kobold plot was meant to be a testing grounds. I wrote a very simple narrative that would reveal a portion of the complex narrative beneath it, and fed the players quests so that they didn't need to act on their own initiative so that I could see what kind of people they were.

Afterwords I'll give them a survey and find out which parts they liked, disliked, and what they'd like more/less of. From there on, I'll start letting them take their own initiatives (I sort of alluded to this recently. The quest giving heroes guild stopped giving them quests because they've been successful enough that Kobolds have stopped raiding for the time being), in the next region the quests given to them will be completely unrelated to their main objective, and they'll have to use their own initiative to decide if pursuing the main quest is more important than doing seemingly unrelated side quests)

[Citan]

Afterwords I'll give them a survey and find out which parts they liked, disliked, and what they'd like more/less of. From there on, I'll start letting them take their own initiatives (I sort of alluded to this recently. The quest giving heroes guild stopped giving them quests because they've been successful enough that Kobolds have stopped raiding for the time being), in the next region the quests given to them will be completely unrelated to their main objective, and they'll have to use their own initiative to decide if pursuing the main quest is more important than doing seemingly unrelated side quests)
You just proved my point. :smallbiggrin:
Actively looking for feedback and keeping fun as the main goal is the mark of great DMs. ;)
Good luck for the end of this plot!

[BillyBobShorton]

Insane DM drawing nearly unwinnable encounter, singing to tune of jingle bells:

"Trudging through the cave, killing lots of stuff, then they walk into the boss room, that I made too tough!

Oh! TPK, TPK, TPK for me! Doesn't matter what they do, still rollin' new PC's!!"

[Sir cryosin]

I have started using a suggestion I got from Matt colvillle. And that's is using the minion mechanics from older Editions. So what it really is all minions have 1hp That's it. I would give all the ones with less then a CA 1. 1hp. This will make them feel bad ass. But still have a very very very high chance of a tpk. Because of bound accuracy and they are low lv.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Ah, yes. While your players employed a poor strategy, you basically goaded them into it. You probably shouldn't have punished the paladin's love of door-breaking quite so badly.

[jkat718]

This might be too drastic a change for your campaign, but you could look into the Heroic Rest rules from the DMG. Short Rest becomes 10 minutes, Long Rest 1 hour.

[RumoCrytuf]

http://i.imgur.com/WLxFC8w.png

http://i.imgur.com/t1j6zzg.png

So, I guess I wasn't thinking when I designed this encounter, but somewhere in my mind I thought that 14 CR 1/4ths and 4 CR 1/8ths would be an appropriate challenge for a party of level 3s. So here's how the Encounter works.

1) The four red Kobolds are ordinary. They're stationed above murderholes ready to shove rocks on any player who walks under it.
--A)The Paladin has a penchant for kicking doors. If he kicks the door open, the first red Kobold will be startled and push his Rock early, alerting the players to the danger.
--B) The Kobolds have very poor vision since it's both daylight and raining, so as long as the players remain undectected they won't push the rocks.
2) The Dark Green Kobolds are all elite Snipers. They have a modified version of Crossbow Expertise which allows them to attack every turn, and within melee range, but can't take bonus actions or reactions (outside of ready actions) with the Crossbow.
--A) The ones inside the gatehouse had 3/4ths Cover, and a mounting slot so that the PCs on the other side wouldn't.
--B) The kobolds had disadvantage on any attacks made that weren't directly in front of them, and the wall prevented pack tactics.
--C) A DC 18 Perception Check would let them spot levers inside the gatehouse that could be disabled with ranged attacks. Disabling two leaves lowers the front gate, allowing access to behind the Kobolds, negating their Cover bonuses. If a Kobold in front of the lever died, the DC dropped to 12. (there's one in each corner)

So how this played out was
Initiative gets rolled, with all of the Kobolds having hidden Initiative for now, except for the four on top. They get easily taken out by the ranger and wizard, but this ultimately gives the rest of the Kobolds a chance to take a Ready Action for attacking.
A) The Paladin destroyed the front door as predicted. Because he rolled insanely high I decided the door itself would fly far enough to kill the two light-green gate gaurds instantly. Normally, those were kobolds with swords, shields, and chainmail.
B) The Monk walked straight in, I gave her plenty of chance to check for the kobolds behind the walls, but she failed her rolls. She walks in and gets shot. Forgot that she can deflect arrows, and took a lot of damage.
C) The Paladin and Monk start working against the Kobolds, they both fail to notice the levers, and as a consequence get halfway through before the Ranger has enough space to get in and notice one. Meanwhile, the Paladin takes a lot of hits, and after directly telling the Monk to use her reactions she stops taking so many hits. (she was hit at least once nearly every turn, and negated and average of 90% damage from them. Overall I believe she blocked nearly 100 damage)
D) They finally get the gates down, and get behind them. The Ranger goes 1v1 with a Kobold, and through absolutely garbage rolls. (and both him and I forgetting he had cast Hunters Mark earlier in the encounter) he manages to lose. Going unconcious.
E) The Paladin challenges a Kobold to a duel after calling him a coward for hiding behind walls. A successful intimidation check brought him out in the open, where he promptly shot and downed the Paladin.
F) The Wizard ran out of spell slots, and decided to loot the Paladin. He found a Potion of Healing, and despite being LE decided that reviving the Paladin was in his best interest. From there, they manage to clear the room.

So they'll short rest now, but after two KOs and 0 spell slots between the two of them I don't think they can assault the castle properly. If they take the time to long rest then realistically the guards would be doubled. (This castle is directly above a huge kobold network. The players don't need to fight the network, just kill the boss, but it basically means an infinite supply of backup soldiers to replenish the front ranks) So right now their options are

A) Infiltrate the castle with next to no resources, where either I'm forced to reduce encounters to a survivable level, or create a traitor Kobold who will shelter the players long enough for a long rest.
B) Back out, and try again hopefully with better odds and possibly a level up.

No matter how I look at it, starting their adventuring day off with a Deadly Encounter was probably a bad idea...I'm so used to them doing only one epic battle a day that I forgot there's a whole extra dungeon for them to fight. A fairly large, three story castle with a super kobold boss and a potentially dangerous encounter with one of the BBEG.


I like the way this looks (Perhaps because I'm a sadist at heart :P ). The traitor Kobold idea might work if they managed to capture one and intimidate it into staying quiet. I say keep it, and force the players to be creative. The DC 18 perception sounds a bit high though, maybe lower it to 13-15? Also, a lot of this sounds like poor tactics on the players part. The monk forgetting to block arrows? Not saving the paladin sooner? The ranger forgetting a Hunters mark? Also, bad rolls. Can't control that. I presume you're playing with a screen. Fudge a roll every now and again. Just not critical hits/fails.

Final Verdict: Let the players retreat, get a long rest in, and have at it again.

[Sabeta]

Alright, so a new player they've been waiting on for a while now will be joining next session. That helps guide things, they'll get the allied NPC and the new PC. The NPC will probably set off a trap and be forced to return in some fashion so that party balance is maintained. Anyway, here's a few plot threads I would like people to weigh in on.

Playable races in this setting were all chosen by various patron deities to have souls. Souls bolster a creature in many ways, while also making them harder to control. Kobolds, and by extension all monsters do not have souls.

This is very significant for the plot, you see if a creature with a soul dies in this world, then it gets back up if it's not properly buried. For this reason, the PCs have mostly fought monsters, since burying people is time consuming and a bit macabre for PCs.

Now, the boss of this campaign is a Kobold with a Soul. The soul will be removed from him when he dies, but I've been thinking of having this guy become something like a revenant to hunt the players down since they'll surely forget to bury him.

The beneficiary of the players is a group called the Shepherds Guild. They're a LG group which prioritizes the needs of the people over grand heroic escapades. Now, every single one of these players has gone against the core tenners of the group at least once. They all lied about escorting some undead to a kingdom of undead in order to get a huge payoff. One player later admitted to it when pressured about it. The Paladin has done as well as he can, but his overbearing personality doesn't fit with the wholesome image the group strives to uphold. Far from evil or chaotic, but certainly a little bit rude and boisterous. The Monk is the least offensive of the group, bit is also the one who does the least.

But the important one is the Wizard. He has recently stolen something of great value from magic item shop. Now, the item itself is of little consequence to the party balance, and he managed to forge the inventory well enough that not even the owner will recognize it's missing.

However the actual theft was done while moving crates. He stopped in a dark alleyway where he thought there aren't people, and pocketed the item. He took quite a bit of time deciding which magic item he wanted, and also a lot of time forging the inventory. He has a very low Passive Perception, so should I say he was caught stealing and have him reported?

This character intends to continue being evil, and I don't mind that. I like evil characters, but part of playing evil is the harrowing events that happen afterwords. Killing everyone in Whiterun wouldn't be fun if the guards ignored you. The problem is that because all of the players aren't fitting in well, especially the event with the undead, the only reasonable consequence short of jail time is being excommunicated with he guild. Problem being that it would most likely apply to everyone, not just the Wizard.

How would you handle this?

[Steel Mirror]

But the important one is the Wizard. He has recently stolen something of great value from magic item shop. Now, the item itself is of little consequence to the party balance, and he managed to forge the inventory well enough that not even the owner will recognize it's missing.

However the actual theft was done while moving crates. He stopped in a dark alleyway where he thought there aren't people, and pocketed the item. He took quite a bit of time deciding which magic item he wanted, and also a lot of time forging the inventory. He has a very low Passive Perception, so should I say he was caught stealing and have him reported?

This character intends to continue being evil, and I don't mind that. I like evil characters, but part of playing evil is the harrowing events that happen afterwords. Killing everyone in Whiterun wouldn't be fun if the guards ignored you. The problem is that because all of the players aren't fitting in well, especially the event with the undead, the only reasonable consequence short of jail time is being excommunicated with he guild. Problem being that it would most likely apply to everyone, not just the Wizard.

How would you handle this?What if he was noticed, but not by somebody who is pure and good themselves? What if he's now being blackmailed by the local thieves' guild (or some equivalent), who knows that he'd be cast out of his hero club if they ever learned of his transgression, and are happy to remind him of this fact? Now that they have a hold on him, they slip him little instructions every now and then, seemingly inconsequential acts. Like casting knock on a certain door on a certain night and then leaving, or showing up in an alley to cast invisibility on a shifty elf with a worrying number of daggers and not asking any questions. Maybe they instruct him to make sure that an enemy they face as part of one of their adventures has an "accident" during the fight and doesn't come out alive. There are tons of things you could come up with I'm sure, and the player might even have fun doing some of them.

Eventually, he'll start realizing the full ramifications of those actions, or one of his fellow PCs might discover his conundrum, and then they have to decide whether to figure out who in the guild is blackmailing him, and silence them, or to come forward to the hero club and make right.

At least this way there could be consequences that don't (immediately) interfere with the whole group dynamic, while also providing an interesting way for the evil character to be incrementally digging himself deeper and deeper into that alignment pit.

[Sabeta]

That's all very compelling. The town they're in isn't large enough to have anything like a Theive's Guild, but I may have him spotted by a lone agent of some antagonistic force. In fact, I've been needing an organization that works for the BBEG but doesn't know it (or his ultimate goals), and they might do the trick. Brief story synopsis

The BBEG works for Bigger Badder Evil Girl who lives off of Souls. The BBEG thus desires to create as much death and mayhem as reasonably possible without ruining it. Right now however, the world is in a very uneasy peace, as the players Home Country is where all of the Undead have begun flocking for shelter thanks to a sympathizing queen who has the power to kill whatever she sees. This undead portion of the kingdom numbers into the millions, and is a very scary prospect for would-be invaders.

Thus, the BBEG is trying to manipulate the political climate of various countries into starting a good old fashioned world war. Which side wins is irrelevant, as too many undead would make for more boring peace, and having living people die obviously helps his cause. He'll be using himself and six others to infiltrate various influential organizations across the world and manipulate them internally to his advantage. One of these organizations may be fully corrupted down to the last man, and one of their henchmen could approach the Wizard and start blackmailing him.

The only problem I forsee with this is that the Wizard is fancies himself chaotic. He hasn't played it just yet because he's scared of the consequences if he gets caught (heh), but he's always trying to push the boundaries. I have a feeling he wouldn't respond well to being a lackey, but if that's the case and he tries to fight it then he'll end up penalized in increasing ranks. Starting with the reveal of his treachery to his campanions, who by the way currently think of him as "the kind one", and is actually best friends with the Paladin. (I'm actually hoping the Paladin ultimately converts the Wizard to good, or the Wizard causes the Paladin to fall. Either would make for interesting story beats and/or redemption arcs)

Interesting Tidbit: I created this BBEG as a small revenge against my players. They decided that one of my NPCs "knew too much for a common merchant" and named "mister exposition", so I promoted that little forgettable Merchant from "Gary Onename" to "Altair of the First Star", leader of a shadow organization where everyone is named after a Star such as Aldebaran, Elnath, and Sirius.

[Lawful Good]

Insane DM drawing nearly unwinnable encounter, singing to tune of jingle bells:

"Trudging through the cave, killing lots of stuff, then they walk into the boss room, that I made too tough!

Oh! TPK, TPK, TPK for me! Doesn't matter what they do, still rollin' new PC's!!"

Ooooo
Can I please sig that?



Alright, so a new player they've been waiting on for a while now will be joining next session. That helps guide things, they'll get the allied NPC and the new PC. The NPC will probably set off a trap and be forced to return in some fashion so that party balance is maintained. Anyway, here's a few plot threads I would like people to weigh in on.

Playable races in this setting were all chosen by various patron deities to have souls. Souls bolster a creature in many ways, while also making them harder to control. Kobolds, and by extension all monsters do not have souls.

This is very significant for the plot, you see if a creature with a soul dies in this world, then it gets back up if it's not properly buried. For this reason, the PCs have mostly fought monsters, since burying people is time consuming and a bit macabre for PCs.

Now, the boss of this campaign is a Kobold with a Soul. The soul will be removed from him when he dies, but I've been thinking of having this guy become something like a revenant to hunt the players down since they'll surely forget to bury him.

The beneficiary of the players is a group called the Shepherds Guild. They're a LG group which prioritizes the needs of the people over grand heroic escapades. Now, every single one of these players has gone against the core tenners of the group at least once. They all lied about escorting some undead to a kingdom of undead in order to get a huge payoff. One player later admitted to it when pressured about it. The Paladin has done as well as he can, but his overbearing personality doesn't fit with the wholesome image the group strives to uphold. Far from evil or chaotic, but certainly a little bit rude and boisterous. The Monk is the least offensive of the group, bit is also the one who does the least.

But the important one is the Wizard. He has recently stolen something of great value from magic item shop. Now, the item itself is of little consequence to the party balance, and he managed to forge the inventory well enough that not even the owner will recognize it's missing.

However the actual theft was done while moving crates. He stopped in a dark alleyway where he thought there aren't people, and pocketed the item. He took quite a bit of time deciding which magic item he wanted, and also a lot of time forging the inventory. He has a very low Passive Perception, so should I say he was caught stealing and have him reported?

This character intends to continue being evil, and I don't mind that. I like evil characters, but part of playing evil is the harrowing events that happen afterwords. Killing everyone in Whiterun wouldn't be fun if the guards ignored you. The problem is that because all of the players aren't fitting in well, especially the event with the undead, the only reasonable consequence short of jail time is being excommunicated with he guild. Problem being that it would most likely apply to everyone, not just the Wizard.

How would you handle this?

Wow. I love your campaign.

[JellyPooga]

Looking at the set-up in the OP, if this fight was too tough, the Players only have themselves to blame for it. GM gave them every opportunity to turn this into a 18-0 slaughter for the PC's and it was only their own recklessness and absent-mindfulness that made it much harder than it should have been.

When I first started reading it, I was thinking "Hmm, good, the PC's are taking the sensible approach by taking out the wall-top sentries first; divide and conquer. This should be easy". Then the rest turned into some kind of cluster-£$%& as they proceeded to walk blindly into an obvious trap (I mean seriously; it's the front-gate of a castle, who doesn't expect murder-holes and arrow-slits?) that they refused to extricate themselves from (with, I'll reiterate, every opportunity to) and even forgot about their own character abilities...I mean, really? Blundering into a trap you should have expected is one thing, but then unintentionally pulling your punches, so to speak...that's all kinds of dull. Hell, the GM even gave them a freebie double-kill just for kicking the door down, when they shouldn't even have considered it (regardless of "goading" the Paladin into it...seriously, "kick-in-the-door style" isn't meant to be literal).

Have at it GM and don't hold back. It's the only way these players will learn how to deal with even half-way interesting encounters. Otherwise, you'll be spoon-feeding them boring and uninspiring, easy fights the whole campaign. Keep up the good work Sabeta, keep up the good work.

[Sabeta]

snip

You know what the funniest part of this is? Prior to arriving at this castle they passed by two allied PCs in very bad shape. When questioned they said they had tried scouting out the old castle based on the PCs recommendation, and that they failed to make it through even the front door because they were assaulted the exact moment they walked in. He specifically said that he was "shot", and that he didn't get a look at how many were in there because they had to bail almost immediately.

So they KNEW they would be walking into Kobolds who were ready to kill whatever walked through the door, and still walked through the door, and then decided to try and stick swords through arrows slits to bat at Kobolds with 3/4ths Cover. In retrospect, I don't even feel bad anymore.

@Lawful Good: Thanks man. Really though, this setting is just a series of cool ideas strapped together into something that looks kind of like cohesion. It's doesn't quite have the feeling that I want it to have just yet, and there are a number of critical elements that I feel I messed up or didn't think all the way though. Chances are once the players have finished, either through victory or through TPK or through absence I'll heavily revise this setting. The undead aspect in particular is something I intend to do away with, as it's created more problems than a cool story beat is worth. I could have achieved the same story without having the capital of the nation be run by undead, but I'm kind of stuck with it until the campaign is over.

Still, I'm learning a lot from this campaign. It's my first run, and there's a lot that I can still improve (everything regarding combat is one of these things. This is literally my first dungeon, and everything else has been relatively safe (admittedly "deadly", but with various factors stacked in the players favor to mitigate the deadliness). I have to say that I've come to love Kobolds though, and I'm pretty interested in writing a campaign centered around various monster races. Maybe someday.

I think I've exhausted the use of this thread. I'll probably still respond if people reply but I'm content with the answers I've gotten so far. Thanks everyone.