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View Full Version : D&D Arkham City-like encounter/adventure help?



Saint Jimmy
2017-01-07, 11:23 AM
As the title suggests, I am running a 5e game based loosely on Arkham City, and possibley the show Gotham, with the players as "troubleshooters" for a mob boss. (Emphasis on the "shooters" part. The basic background is that an order of knights and paladins combined all of their Law™ and Good™ to cast an epic spell that trapped large groups of
1. "Evil" races
2. Worshippers of "evil" deities
3. (To a lesser extent) morally reprehensible individuals, such as paid assassins

into several pocket dimensions, (possibly in the Astral Sea or something) guarded by knights and paladins. However, they sealed the pocket dimensions or destroyed the vessells so that no prisoners escaped. However, that left the knights and paladins trapped. Naturally, the prisioners were enraged and a war ensued. A few months later is where the campaign picks up, with gangs of goblinoids and savage orc tribes controlling most of the "city". The Yaun-Ti cult is another large organization that is warring with those factions for control. Their numbers severely weakened, the paladins and knights essentially retreated to two locations, an armory with things like magic weapons, magic armor, and muskets. The other location is a courthouse/jail cell. That is also where they store prisoners to interrogate them for info and stuff like that.

Wow that was a lot of background. The players are members of a smaller, interracial gang in a very tactical advantageous area. Some of the hobgoblin clans have been encroaching on their territory, so they went to put a stop to that. Several burned out hobgoblin carcasses and a "stay away" painted in the hobgoblins blood, they got the message across, but continued to that particular gang's lair, to send an even bigger message and to gain the respect of the other goblinoid gangs. I have the whole fort planned out and stuf, I'm just at a loss as to encounter and plot ideas after that. I love the campaign and stuff, it's just that I can't figure out how to incorporate some of the ideas I have into that particular setting. Any help?


EDIT: The players are level five, and the party consists of
A Halfling Cleric of an unnamed war god who is mediocre in melee but focuses on boosting and healing allies,
An Elf Rouge (bascily an assassin) with a longbow,
A Drow Sorcerer with Harry Dresden Syndrome (burns up and explodes EVERYTHING)
And possibly a Half Oeprc fighter, who is an insane tank.

KnightOfV
2017-01-10, 05:20 PM
Really like the idea. If I were running a game like this, I'd copy the Arkham Asylum story beat for beat. What I mean is... focus on one enemy at a time. Arkham started out with the premise of chasing down the Joker and beating up some generic thugs. The player's first challenge is to take out the Hobgobs leader since they are so organized and threatening them. They are the first story arc. Do a bunch of encounters with the Hobgoblins, introducing other elements as you go. Maybe the goblins have a Paladin surrounded and are about to kill him. Do they save the Palladin and make an ally, or let him die? Maybe a Yuan-ti cultist sneaks into the player's area and asks for help killing the hobgoblins leader, in a temporary alliance.

Just when they are about to finish off the hobgoblins, something crazy happens that changes the whole story. In Arkham, Ivy's plants start taking over a huge area. Maybe in your game Yuan-ti summon a bunch of abberations, or open a portal to a lower plane and demons start pouring out. Now the Yuan-ti are killing everyone and they are the big threat, an if their summoning is not stopped NOW, the whole place will be overrun. That's your next act, going after a threat that will kill everyone.

So after the players take care of THAT, something unexpected hits them. In the games, it was scarecrow's fear toxin, or Crocs sewer ambush. Your players might be ambushed by orcs or drow (whatever kind of enemy you like, really), who were waiting for someone to kill the Yuan-ti, and now see an opening to get rid of the new strongest threat. These guys are the attackers, so as soon as their initial ambush is defeated, they'll throw another one, then another, until the party escapes, kills them all, or dies. That's the next act, escaping from a personal ambush.

By this point most of the major sides should be dead, or very weak. You should save one last encounter for the grand finale. In Arkham, it all comes back to the Joker, but in this game... maybe make it the Paladins. The Paladins have figured out how to get out of the prison, and now that most of the bad stuff is dead, that's what they are going to do... but they will close the door behind them. The characters are proven to be violent, dangerous murderers, and they've killed literally all the things, so they are going to get stranded forever as they are too dangerous for the outside. What will the players do?

Happy DMing:smallamused:

Saint Jimmy
2017-01-10, 08:08 PM
First off, thank you SO MUCH for the advice, its great. After posting I was thinking about several things, including
The leader of the hobgoblins is a Kraken Preist (from Volo's) This would be an "early boss fight" kinda like the Asylum cutscenes where Joker dodges the batarang and then unleashes the Titan thug on Bateman. There would be a huge whirlpool that leads to a huge ocean under the city in the base that he flees down if the fight goes sour. (I was thinking the portal could be held together by some form of holy leech spell, feeding off of the Kraken that is in the pocket dimension, and thats what's keeping it running.) it's too deep for the PCs to go down though so they won't find out about that for awhile. It deviates from the theme a great deal but I think it should be good for introducing the players to more of the "fantasy" kind of thing, as they are all new. Anyways, the other idea I have that goes well with the whole Ivy/scarecrow unseen challenge thing is the climax of the whole campaign. This would be way later, the pallies have figured out how to cut the holy leech spell off or something, and are gonna escape. However, to keep the inmates from escaping as well, many low level knights and paladins stay behind to cover the escape till they die. Seems to work, until I blatantly rip off the scene in Arkham City with the choppers torching the place, only it's mind flayers (I'll have to drop a great deal of background and clues for this one) who arrive in their ship things (forgot the name, but they are from Volos as well) to "get" the paladins and seal the dimension so they can lord over a new pocket dimension of slaves without interference. Naturally it falls to the players to stop them, as they don't wanna be mind slaves.
The space in between these huge events will probably be like what you suggested, I really like that idea.
Does that all kinda make sense?

Sorry for the wall of text. My thoughts on the matter are all kinda connected so that makes it hard to figure out where to put parentheses:smalltongue: