Avista
2018-11-28, 04:35 AM
In a campaign I ran awhile back that was never finished, I came into a roadblock that I never had a chance to find an answer to. If I play the campaign again or use a similar tactic and come up with a similar result, I'd like to have a backup plan.
Background:
The party (4 people) were to overthrow a city of brainwashed denizens. They had the counterspell for the mind control, but it had to be cast by a member of the royal family. The queen was the only member who had managed to survive the initial attack, and she had barricaded herself in the castle, using her own magic to maintain telepathy with surviving rebel fighters on the outside. The rest of her family were either killed or compromised, controlled by the enemy.
Long story short, the party was captured but two members escaped. Originally I was planning to have all 4 members participate in a deadly game of capture-the-flag. If all members of the party had managed to escape, I would simply allow them to continue working their way toward reaching the queen. I did not expect half the party to be captured, and the other half to remain free.
With that explanation in mind, what kind of arena deathmatch could I run with only 2 people? I wanted to avoid a regular fight. Or as an alternative, how would you have progressed the story?
Edit:
I should also mention there was an NPC with them who got captured early in the session - the prince of the family. He was going to either a) be a sidequest rescue by the party or b) become a miniboss before they got to the queen. Since they did not take the sidequest and rescued the prince, he was going to be a miniboss. I was not eager to pit only half the party on the prince. I would have to nerf him, and they would probably notice that.
Background:
The party (4 people) were to overthrow a city of brainwashed denizens. They had the counterspell for the mind control, but it had to be cast by a member of the royal family. The queen was the only member who had managed to survive the initial attack, and she had barricaded herself in the castle, using her own magic to maintain telepathy with surviving rebel fighters on the outside. The rest of her family were either killed or compromised, controlled by the enemy.
Long story short, the party was captured but two members escaped. Originally I was planning to have all 4 members participate in a deadly game of capture-the-flag. If all members of the party had managed to escape, I would simply allow them to continue working their way toward reaching the queen. I did not expect half the party to be captured, and the other half to remain free.
With that explanation in mind, what kind of arena deathmatch could I run with only 2 people? I wanted to avoid a regular fight. Or as an alternative, how would you have progressed the story?
Edit:
I should also mention there was an NPC with them who got captured early in the session - the prince of the family. He was going to either a) be a sidequest rescue by the party or b) become a miniboss before they got to the queen. Since they did not take the sidequest and rescued the prince, he was going to be a miniboss. I was not eager to pit only half the party on the prince. I would have to nerf him, and they would probably notice that.