Challenging one-shot for really powerful characters


Advice


We do one-shot adventures over here to set up plotlines for future campaigns and we tend to use these one-shots to min-max like crazy since we tend to tone things back in actual campaigns. The thing is that I had a deadline for one of these adventures suddenly presented to me and I have very little time to go crazy with monster builds and encounters.

The characters are all 14th level with level-equivalent wealth and 20 point buy. So far what I know to expect is a character that is a dhampir magus/oracle/mystic theurge with a lifedrinker greataxe so he can deal 2 negative levels a round. Another character will be telekinetically hurling around colossal swords, and the others will be similarly arcane classes. The antagonist for this game is a 17th level antipaladin/psion gestalt made with the Psionics Unleashed rules. The story is pretty standard fare. An antipaladin is being resurrected and imbued with psychic power, he wants to destroy the world, some champions are sent to retrieve him, and this will set the stage for the upcoming campaign we'll run.

I'm not exactly sure what I am asking honestly. I just don't have the time to learn ever nuance of the PCs like I normally would and I need some help planning to mechanically challenge some advanced players.


Develop a tight one or two day deadline, give them a good roadmap then start hammering away. Maybe start with a bad guy targeting one or two of them (or NPC quest giver) with greater scrying followed by a mix of outsiders teleporting nearby to unload.

After that have a race to some lost temple atop mt doom or volcano under the sea etc

Grand Lodge

Wild Magic, think there is a table for it in the GMG.

Would become a challenge for all these caster types, though it may also help them at times.

The Exchange

Cast quickened silence(you need both wayang spellhubter and magical lineage)/apply oil of silence on yourself (only lasts 3 rounds - you need the actual spell soon),have a ring of evasion, somehow get them all get them all in the silence region. The magus/oracle mystic theurge shouldn't have that good to hit so wear some decent armor, you should be fine. Maybe the final room of the temple is a trap with doors swinging inwards once a certain pressure plate is stepped on, or the bbeg(being a psion gesalt) has keyed the doors to close and lock on his mental comnand (free or swift action). Psionics works fine in full plate, even in a zone of silence, if I dont remember wrongly. Use schism so you can full attack on anti pally side while casting around as a psion. I cannot remember most of what I studied about psionics now.

If your gesalt is psion, you should have decent int, so you can pick unsanctioned knowledge (technically paladin, but you can probably stretch rules for anti pally). Use mirror image before they arrive.


Those all sound like really cool ideas, thanks. Wild Magic sounds insane. Silence seems like a copout but at level 14 if you're not prepared for silence you only have yourself to blame I suppose :P

The Exchange

You never know players and their lack of silence plans. I personally have yet to deal with silence haha, so that trick would probably work on me. If you have psionic and magic transparency, try a null psionic field, then beat them up using your anti pally side. The problem is keeping them in that 10ft field, in which I have no answer for. Tripping on level 14s is probably not going to work, since everyone and their dog can fly. Does psionics have enlarge spell or something to make radius wider?

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