Encounter Design for Crazy Level 10 encounter.

[MadBear]

I need help designing an epic encounter for 5 level 10 PC's.

History: The small orc camp (an auxiliary force of the main orc encampment) nearby has been an ally for the last 3 years. They've been invited to a grand celebration as the main force of the Orcs moves in (lead by a Cloud Giant and Ancient Red Dragon). The PC's are invited under the guise that the leaders of the main encampment wants to test their strength and prove that it's worth keeping an alliance. However, in reality he has no love for this small budding kingdom and is looking to crush the PC's during this ceremony.

Setup: The betrayal will take place during the grand finale fight where the PC's tank will be fist fighting an orc who in reality will part way through the match turn into a werebear. The PC will begin to notice that instead of subdual damage, he's beginning to take actual lethal damage during the fight. It's when the heroes retaliate against the werebear and kill him that the Boraag will announce his plans to kill all the humans at the fair, and using an ancient curse will turn all the loyal orcs from the small auxillary forces into zombies.

Goal: I want to encourage the heroes to end up having to flee this encounter. These will be the BBEG for the next 5-8 levels, and this will create an ongoing war in which the heroes will be at a severe disadvantage.

Issues:
1. Outside of just telling them, does anyone have advice for getting heroes to retreat.
2. How can I break this down into more manageable bite size encounters?
3. What backup plans might I keep in the pocket if the heroes decide to go for the good ole TPK (I don't normally pull stuff like this, so hopefully if needed, it won't break immersion too much since I normally let them deal with the consequences. But getting murdered by a Cloud Giant & Ancient Red Dragon doesn't seem like it would end with any of us having fun).
4. How can I help sell the deadliness of the enemies. I want them to hate these guys, and in addition realize their gonna need to get better gear and level before trying to fight them for real (or at least have a better non-ambushed situation when it occurs).

Any help on any of the above would be greatly appreciated.

[Yakk]

Unless your players are willing to ride a railroad for you, don't do this.

You are requiring a whole bunch of extremely narrow choices to be made for your plot to advance. As a writer of a book you can force this (note: readers will notice, but might not care), but as a DM you don't have that power in general.

I'd take a step back and look at your goals.

1) You want the PCs to be afraid of some BBEGs.
2) You want them to hate those BBEGs.
3) You want the alliance with the local orcs to fall.
4) You want the PCs to feel like they both have to flee and can flee.

Doing this is possible, but doing it while they are within combat range of an ancient red dragon and cloud giant is implausible. When you are that close to such a being, the rational thing to do is to attempt to kill it unless you have an instant teleportation escape, because you aren't outrunning it or hiding from it.

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Do the PCs have a working relationship with the leader of the nearby orc tribe? A leader or a champion or a shaman?

You can have the "allied tribe slaughtered and turned to zombies" happen off-screen, or you could even have the PCs have a side-quest where they play the champions of their allied tribe in the great celebration. Have that betrayal happen there.

The NPCs the PCs play in this "side mission" can survive, if they figure out a way to get away from the Cloud Giant, Red Dragon and the orc army. Or they can die. The orc spellcaster should have a sending type spell, and a chance to send a message to the PCs before they fall (if the PC chooses to while playing it).

The Orcs who didn't go to the celebration turn into undead, and the real PCs get to witness that attack. Then the red dragon can do something really violent and nasty, like burn down a nearby village, again off-screen.

An orc horde now descends over the pass, led by the cloud giant. The PCs have plenty of warning that this will be fatal to fight, as they have fought them already (if with weaker NPC characters) and witnessed the horrible power they wield.

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Fear: Check. The PCs have faced down the BBEG in the form of NPCs.
Hate: Check. Their allies where slaughtered out of hand.
Alliance gone: Check. The traitor orcs have been turned into zombies.
Flee: Check. The horde moves in over the pass, and the PCs have plenty of time to pack up their civilians and make a break for it.

---

The dragon is cruel, vain and cowardly. It has a clue that the PCs are dangerous. So it kills their allies by ambush, and destroys a settlement not defended by heroes. It would rather its army destroy the PCs, as that reduces the chance those annoying heroes have a dragon-slaying arrow and get lucky, like its brothers and sisters fell.

The dragon overlord rule is simple.

You rule by fear, you destroy settlements that aren't defended by heroes to undermine the supply of heroes, and you use a horde to wipe out actual heroes. 1000 orcs are a renewable resource; given 40 years, you can grow a new horde from a handful of survivors. Your life isn't.

[Nidgit]

If the local tribe has been allied for the past few years, there are presumably a couple of NPCs among them that the PCs know and hopefully like. I'd lean on those NPCs to drive home the betrayal- have one or two, particularly a cleric type of possible, survive and attempt to escape with the PCs. They can encourage the PCs to escape rather than fight, and if they also escape they can reflect on the betrayal later for some nice development. Try to set up a fight with zombified versions of some other NPCs they knew. Make them feel not just the personal betrayal but anger on behalf of the NPCs.

A few questions- how are only the local orcs being turned into zombies? Why is the main force targeting just them? Have they done this to previous minor groups of orcs? If so, where are the other zombies?

I think I'd save the Ancient Red for later just to help with the logistics of the escape. Have the chase for the party mostly called off (you can leave one or two smaller squads left to hunt them down) as the Cloud Giant loudly proclaims that they're moving directly to take the nearby city. When the PCs attempt to go there to help, it can be already under attack by the dragon.

As far as making it clear the PCs should run, just be vague about numbers. There are too many to keep track of outside of specific encounters, so don't.

[MadBear]

A few questions- how are only the local orcs being turned into zombies? Why is the main force targeting just them? Have they done this to previous minor groups of orcs? If so, where are the other zombies?


That's a good question. All the orcs have a small skull shaped tattoo somewhere on their body. They see were told that this was to mark them as part of the tribe. In actuality is a powerful curse that kills weak orcs turning them into zombies, but more powerful orcs can attempt to resist. (Was inspired by the brand from Berserk).

I love the idea btw, of having a few of their allies escape with them.

The force is targeting them because they're the leaders of this new kingdom, and they're pretty much the glue holding it together. If they kill the PCs the rest of will easily fall.

I haven't had any other orcs turn yet. Their was a chance of it happening earlier in the campaign, and the PCs avoided that situation from coming up.

There are there are be the dead swamps where v they know undead typically reside.