batsofchaos
2008-03-27, 12:13 PM
I'm in the planning stages for an adventure I'm running on Sunday for my group. One member will not be in attendance, so I thought I'd put together a one-off adventure that could be run completely in the session without being too combat-strenuous, partly because they'll be short the wizard and partly because I don't want the XP levels to diverge too much. I thought it would be fun to run a strictly problem-solving adventure, with little to no combat. Here's a synopsis of the campaign so far, feel free to skip down to the adventure premise:
The campaign is currently built arround the goal of providing safety and support for a colony on a civilization-free island. So far they've befriended a family of ogres that were kicked out of a large tribe for having more brain than brawn, and started a war between the main tribe of ogres and a group of gnolls; partly out of friendship for the smart ogres, and partly because the dumb ones were camped out on a rock quarry that could prove useful for the burgeoning town. The war ended with disasterous effects to the ogres, because the gnoll leader is actually the Big Bad of the first half of the campaign. In between they've started some meager construction on the town. The first wave of laborers and new citizens is arriving on the island in two weeks time, and in that time the only major task they have left is to locate a fresh water source close by.
Here's the premise for the adventure I've worked up. The party is 6th level, and there will be a ranger, a paladin of freedom, and a cleric in attendance:
The goal of the adventure is to provide a source of fresh water for the new town. The party has several options for getting water to the area, many of which are fairly labor and time intensive. There is a huge river that could have a tributary run off the side to the village, but the river is about 15 miles away, most of which is thick jungle. Possible, but would be a lot of dangerous work, especially considering the jumgle is home to a large tribe of lizardfolk. There are also some rivers that run through the mountains nearby, but diverting would be a Herculean effort. There is a possible quick solution in the form of a dried up lake-bed located within a mile from the planned town. The leader of the ogre family they befriended has some information about the lake-bed, if asked: The lake used to be large and clean, until several years ago it became blighted and filled with festering disease and sludge. Two years ago it mysteriously dried up.
If the party opts to investigate the lake, they can follow the dried river-bed up into the mountains. The river dead-ends at a 350-foot cliff-face that has a cave about twenty feet up. The bed close to the glive face is muddy and infested with mushrooms and molds, and the cave itself is oozing sludge. Another cave across the other side of the cliff-face has a waterfall cascading out, leading down the mountains towards the big river. The mission then becomes finding out what'sGetting up the cliff-face would be exceedingly difficult, and air and ground is festering with disease. Not too far in the way is blocked off with muck. The other cave is forty feet up from the ground level, and has a lot of water flowing, making scaling and entering very difficult and dangerous. The best option for getting into the cave is to try and find another entrance.
At the top of the cliff face, not too far away, a fairly large river runs down into the mountain. The river is fairly low as a result of the season, and there is easy access into the cave system along the side. The river goes straight for about 200 feet before becoming a waterfall, dropping 300 feet into a large lake. 100 feet down there is a natural balcony that can be scaled to, and then scaled down the rest of the way to the lake, but doing so would be difficult and dangerous. before the waterfall, the river branches off into winding tributaries that can be navigated, some of which dead end, but most end up at the lake without too much headache.
Once at the lake, the two big exits can be seen; the once that's working on the far side, and the one that's blocked. The blocked one has been slightly walled up with muck, and further in there is an aboleth that somehow got stuck in the tunnel. It's dried out and dormant. Killing it won't be difficult, since it's mostly dead to begin with, but the real task comes from removing it, cleaning up its pollution, and getting rid of the muck that's blocking the water. If the party can manage, the river will be restored and the lake will refill with water.
So my questions come as thus: Does this sound like a fun adventure? My party has shown that they won't mutiny if there's no direct combat, so I'm not worried about that part of it, but does the rest of it sound enjoyable?
Will it be either a cake walk, or too challenging? I have no preconceptions on how they plan on removing the aboleth, so that's totally on them to figure out. Is there something really simple they could do to remove it that I haven't thought of?
Is there a way that they can bipass the caves easily? They won't have the wizard, so they can't just feather-fall down the waterfall, and the two entrances on the cliff-face have their built in dangers, but anything I neglected?
Is there anything glaringly wrong with the concept? I read yesterday that aboleths enter a dormant stage when dried out, and the cave system is close enough to how limestone caves work that I'm not overly concerned with unbelievability, but is there something against the rules, or inherently broken in the design?
Thanks for any comments!
The campaign is currently built arround the goal of providing safety and support for a colony on a civilization-free island. So far they've befriended a family of ogres that were kicked out of a large tribe for having more brain than brawn, and started a war between the main tribe of ogres and a group of gnolls; partly out of friendship for the smart ogres, and partly because the dumb ones were camped out on a rock quarry that could prove useful for the burgeoning town. The war ended with disasterous effects to the ogres, because the gnoll leader is actually the Big Bad of the first half of the campaign. In between they've started some meager construction on the town. The first wave of laborers and new citizens is arriving on the island in two weeks time, and in that time the only major task they have left is to locate a fresh water source close by.
Here's the premise for the adventure I've worked up. The party is 6th level, and there will be a ranger, a paladin of freedom, and a cleric in attendance:
The goal of the adventure is to provide a source of fresh water for the new town. The party has several options for getting water to the area, many of which are fairly labor and time intensive. There is a huge river that could have a tributary run off the side to the village, but the river is about 15 miles away, most of which is thick jungle. Possible, but would be a lot of dangerous work, especially considering the jumgle is home to a large tribe of lizardfolk. There are also some rivers that run through the mountains nearby, but diverting would be a Herculean effort. There is a possible quick solution in the form of a dried up lake-bed located within a mile from the planned town. The leader of the ogre family they befriended has some information about the lake-bed, if asked: The lake used to be large and clean, until several years ago it became blighted and filled with festering disease and sludge. Two years ago it mysteriously dried up.
If the party opts to investigate the lake, they can follow the dried river-bed up into the mountains. The river dead-ends at a 350-foot cliff-face that has a cave about twenty feet up. The bed close to the glive face is muddy and infested with mushrooms and molds, and the cave itself is oozing sludge. Another cave across the other side of the cliff-face has a waterfall cascading out, leading down the mountains towards the big river. The mission then becomes finding out what'sGetting up the cliff-face would be exceedingly difficult, and air and ground is festering with disease. Not too far in the way is blocked off with muck. The other cave is forty feet up from the ground level, and has a lot of water flowing, making scaling and entering very difficult and dangerous. The best option for getting into the cave is to try and find another entrance.
At the top of the cliff face, not too far away, a fairly large river runs down into the mountain. The river is fairly low as a result of the season, and there is easy access into the cave system along the side. The river goes straight for about 200 feet before becoming a waterfall, dropping 300 feet into a large lake. 100 feet down there is a natural balcony that can be scaled to, and then scaled down the rest of the way to the lake, but doing so would be difficult and dangerous. before the waterfall, the river branches off into winding tributaries that can be navigated, some of which dead end, but most end up at the lake without too much headache.
Once at the lake, the two big exits can be seen; the once that's working on the far side, and the one that's blocked. The blocked one has been slightly walled up with muck, and further in there is an aboleth that somehow got stuck in the tunnel. It's dried out and dormant. Killing it won't be difficult, since it's mostly dead to begin with, but the real task comes from removing it, cleaning up its pollution, and getting rid of the muck that's blocking the water. If the party can manage, the river will be restored and the lake will refill with water.
So my questions come as thus: Does this sound like a fun adventure? My party has shown that they won't mutiny if there's no direct combat, so I'm not worried about that part of it, but does the rest of it sound enjoyable?
Will it be either a cake walk, or too challenging? I have no preconceptions on how they plan on removing the aboleth, so that's totally on them to figure out. Is there something really simple they could do to remove it that I haven't thought of?
Is there a way that they can bipass the caves easily? They won't have the wizard, so they can't just feather-fall down the waterfall, and the two entrances on the cliff-face have their built in dangers, but anything I neglected?
Is there anything glaringly wrong with the concept? I read yesterday that aboleths enter a dormant stage when dried out, and the cave system is close enough to how limestone caves work that I'm not overly concerned with unbelievability, but is there something against the rules, or inherently broken in the design?
Thanks for any comments!