After the Boss - spicing it up

[Bobur]

Hello everyone,

in my current 3.5e Dragonlance camapaign (I amd the DM), my Lv17 grp just killed an elven witch, who was about to wipe out all elves.

Most of her "guard" is either blinded, confused or just cant attack since the PCs are invisible or out of reach, at least for a couple of rounds more, which should be plenty of time to kill anything.
So I will try to wrap that part up a bit faster. The witch itself is a "tenacious soul" so she will never stay dead forever - might be an idea for another time.

Still, since the entire encounter took so long (1 round in 1 session) it wasnt much fun and I want to make the follow up of her troops a bit more interesting.

Situation:
All of this takes place in the ruins of an ancient elven city. Nobody is there but the evil guys and prisoners + some undead.
There are a couple of hundred elven warriors who are still loyal to the witch, somewhere in there is a camp of prisoners (which the PCs might forget all together) and a group of cultists who still wait in a hall for the arrival of the witch. Our PCs also look for a great dragon skull, but that has been taken by an enemy beforehand - which they dont know yet either, otherwise they would find it in the hall.
As written this doesnt appear very interesting and I am trying to come up with ways to make it more appealing than just fighting through some hundred of elves. O_o

A hostage situation might be interesting, but for what? The army would only want the PCs dead if anything and none of them would be able to continue the ritual that the witch planned. Of course I could throw in a new high priest to pick it up, but he would still need the items the withc had. ^^

So far I havent brainstormed a lot and I would like to have some thoughts and ideas from you guys.
Thanks!

[AlanBruce]

In my current 3.5e Dragonlance campaign (I am the DM), my Lv17 group just killed an elven witch, who was about to wipe out all elves.

Most of her "guard" is either blinded, confused or just cant attack since the PCs are invisible or out of reach, at least for a couple of rounds more, which should be plenty of time to kill anything.

So I will try to wrap that part up a bit faster. The witch itself is a "tenacious soul" so she will never stay dead forever - might be an idea for another time.

You have a party of 17th level PCs. Can you provide us some information on the general builds for each one? Also, they killed a being that was about to wipe out all elves and have seriously crippled what I can only take as her personal guard. So the debuffed hostiles should be a quick mop up for the party, especially since they have the higher ground, being out of reach and invisible.




Situation:

All of this takes place in the ruins of an ancient elven city. Nobody is there but the evil guys and prisoners + some undead.

How tough are these bad guys? Again, their leader- I am guessing a very powerful witch- was killed (whether they are aware she is a cunning soul that can return later depends on how much she has shared that information with them). Unless they are hardcore zealots, I would have them either flee or, in a last act of spite, murder the prisoners and then flee/commit suicide in her name. You should allow the PCs to have some knowledge of this, if you are to take this course of action so the heroes can save some or all the prisoners.



There are a couple of hundred elven warriors who are still loyal to the witch, somewhere in there is a camp of prisoners (which the PCs might forget all together) and a group of cultists who still wait in a hall for the arrival of the witch. Our PCs also look for a great dragon skull, but that has been taken by an enemy beforehand - which they dont know yet either, otherwise they would find it in the hall.

How tough is this elven army? Are we going with your standard MM elf warrior? if yes, and they got news or saw their leader slain, I doubt they'd want to stay and fight the party. Perhaps a surrender or fleeing would be in order.

The undeads mentioned could be sent by the elves to cover their escape.



A hostage situation might be interesting, but for what? The army would only want the PCs dead if anything and none of them would be able to continue the ritual that the witch planned. Of course I could throw in a new high priest to pick it up, but he would still need the items the witch had.


Rather the a hostage situation, have this new high priest, privy to what's happening, use either Plane Shift or Word of Recall to leave the already lost city, but not before taking some key hostage (maybe a young oracle who can be used by him to find the pieces needed later on) and thus giving you a reason for the party to pursue this enemy further down the line, since he'd want to stay off the radar after the massacre.



So far I haven't brainstormed a lot and I would like to have some thoughts and ideas from you guys.
Thanks!

Hopefully this helps! But from what I have gathered, let the PCs loot and celebrate. It seems like it was a hard won victory.

[Bobur]

Thanks,
the grp looks like this: (some class names might be of)
1) An elf wizard of the red robes/arch mage - he basically won the entire fight by winning the initiative - Sunburst + quickened ray of enf on the witch - blinding everybody in the room but the grp
Also his former love interest is one of the prisoners
2) A tauren fighter/monk/ wrathful avenger - Extremely strong and hard to kill, but didnt get anything to do in the battle
3) A human mystique/ knight of neraka/ ordained champion - used a flamestrike + swift flamestrike to delete most of the witches HP
Both the tauren and the mystique dont really care for the elves, but they are stuck with the wizard for now and really want the items she has. ^^
4) A gnome beguiler - a confusion spell on a bunch of the enemys

5) An NPC mystique spirit, posessing a ranger ^^ - He is the only one who took dmg and might actually "die"

Everybody is buffed to the max, including mind blank from the beguiler. Haste just ran out and from now gr. invis will turn of on 1 PC each round.
The group also used a silence zone and spread out to pursue the witch.
There are still a bunch of enemys left, but like I sayd, most of them are blind and maybe confused. Some are still in the silence zone and dont know what happened. The enemys have scent but that doesnt do much so far except for the NPC. Everyb Pc could basically just walk away.

------

The army: Most of them are fodder of course, not incredibly weak, but nothing that would stand a chance against Lv17 Pcs. Even with a couple of stronger Lv10-12 guys in there.
However they are completely able to kill the prisoners or use them as hostages for whatever purpose. At this point they are not aware that the witch is "dead". Nobody knows that she would return, so that doesnt really matter. The special thing is that they are all addicted to a drug that the witch influenced with magic to keep them loyal to her.
I think some might run and others stay if they find out that the witch is gone, or just dont believe it.

I like the idea to introduce a sub villain. There is an assasin organisation who crosses our way every now and then. If one of them is there and escapes with a couple or all of the prisoners that would make a great transition into the next chapter, which would be about that assasin grp anyway.

[Bobur]

Alright, I think go with something like this.

There is one camp of prisoners, but since the guards noticed the battle already things started moving.

Once my group advances they will see the base camp with a lot of soldiers (mostly fodder)
This is the biggest part of the prisoners and will be pretty easy to clear - letting my players feel strong and good.
Some guards will run towards the prisoners and kill them if ignored for long.

The players will be told that there are more prisoners who were just taken away.
Following the troup who tried to move them elsewhere.
These guys are ready and if somebody dies here depends on the initiative and on what the players can come up with.
The guards are no real thread to the PCs, but the challenge will be to save everyone.

The last set will consist of only a hand full of prisoners taken by some elite troups.
Seeing them just as they enter a building. - This is story driven and not meant to be won completely.
The PCs might be able to save some but not everyone - some will be teleported away on sight in the final confrontation - by a masked man - we dont know him, but the uniform he is wearing.

As usual, open for thoughts and ideas

[InterstellarPro]

Why was the witch trying to wipe out all elves? What were her ultimate goals? Why have prisoners? Maybe there was a reason the party kicked her butt in a single round. Maybe she was not the true power behind this. Perhaps the witch was one of many working for the greater evil. All of the witches working together were supposed to generate enough energy to wipe out all elves, but since they stopped this one witch, the magics were incomplete. Instead of wiping out all elves, there is a plague, and most elves are dead or dying. The party must figure out how to cure the plague or all elves will be wiped out as the greater evil intended.

[Goaty14]

There's some kinda large elf-eating monster in Champions of Ruin that looks like a Colossal flying jellyfish. I just wanted to mention that because you could probably refluff it into some sort of elder evil or something and then run with it for the rest of the campaign.