Hi,
One of my two nexts adventures will have a scientist obsessed with generation and growth as a final boss. The adventure take place in a infested forest with bone-trees and flesh-leaves, plenty of flesh and blood oozes.
In fact, the whole forest is a titan. Inside the titan, there will be the secret lab of the final boss.
Knowing my players, It is very probable they awake the titan, which will go to attack and devour a nearly city. My players will have to kill it (almost imposible) or scale it.
Any suggestion for that part?
I dont know that happened to my post (I promised I edited it to add more information). I can't edit it, so I write a second post.
THe party composition is:
A flying human witch (boudas eye)
A flying unchained rogue tengu (underground chemist)
An archer magus
A sniper slayer (Maybe he wont come to the sessions: would be the first time, but he want to come)
A formless adept psychic (the same as the sniper)
A summoner drow (blood summoner)
A very strong samurai orc (sword saint)
A gillman oracle (seer, war mystery.)
An antipaladin asimaar (Opposite of slayer: dont know if he will come more sesions)
A bloodline sorcerer (same as the antipaladin)
Party will be an average level 8 at the titan encounter. With that party compositon, players will be in a very complicated situation to climb the titan (except the tengu and witch).
I have been searching in google for similar threads. I found these useful for inspiration:
Have you had or designed a colossal encounter?
The goal of my encounter is not to kill the titan. Is to kill the mad scientist inside his body. I am searching for narrative inspiration and combat advice for my party(better withount creating new rules).
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Firstly, could you clarify: does killing the Mad Scientist stop the titan? If not, will the player's have access to a 'kill switch'.
Second, a fairly reasonable method for preventing your flying character's from skipping the majority of the dungeon would to have your titan covered in flailing appendages (wings, tentacles, oar-like fins, etc.) which would disturb the air sufficiently to make flying outside impossible. I'd then make it possible to climb into and move within the titan itself, in 20ft. wide-ish region between it's outer carapace/skin and it's muscle masses, and put your 'forest' elements in this region.
I realize you would prefer not creating rules, but there's not really any available for this sort of thing that I know of. My recommendation is to make it a flavorful dungeon, but in constant motion, as if a ship in a storm (+5 DC to all Acrobatics checks, Concentration DC 10 + Spell Level). Dealing significant damage to the titan (50 hp in a round vs DR 0 and Hardness 0) causes it enough pain that it might buck wildly for a 1d4 rounds (+10 DC Acrobatics, Concentration DC 15 + Spell Level). Depending on the Titan's size, I might even suggest upping each of those values by 5 once every minute or so, representing the impact of each footstep.
I'd also recommend some traps representative of the rhythmic movement of the Titan, such as it's gait or cardiovascular systems, preferably combined with a combat encounter (so players can toss enemies between various grinding joints and the like).
Lastly, I'd recommend that you incorporate a healthy amount of precarious climbing segments: the climb DCs should not be the challenge themselves, nor should the falls be auto-death, but there ought to be places where a 30 ft. drop is a serious possibility if an enemy knocks you off-balance.)
For monsters, I'd recommend Hungry Flesh and swarms of Positively Aligned Bloody Skeleton Monkey Swarms (thus, swarms of tiny, mangled monstrosities that can only be fully killed with applications of negative energy or unholy water... thus likely requiring some creativity from your players) as minions to a series of more serious threats within the Titan.
As far as thematics go, I can't think of any more disturbing a dungeon crawl than being just beneath the half-grown skin of a 200 foot behemoth, racing against time to prevent the destruction of a city. But maybe that's just me.
Wow, this is the first time someone answered me with an answered of that size... And the content of your answer is very useful for me, so thanks you very much!
Ok, here I go (I am very bad writting in Englisg because I am not native english speaker, sorry if I write something which appeals offensive or weird...):
Firstly, could you clarify: does killing the Mad Scientist stop the titan? If not, will the player's have access to a 'kill switch'.
We could assume that. But it wont be an istant kill: Titan will go mad and grow a couple of minutes before exploding...
Second, a fairly reasonable method for preventing your flying character's from skipping the majority of the dungeon would to have your titan covered in flailing appendages (wings, tentacles, oar-like fins, etc.) which would disturb the air sufficiently to make flying outside impossible. I'd then make it possible to climb into and move within the titan itself, in 20ft. wide-ish region between it's outer carapace/skin and it's muscle masses, and put your 'forest' elements in this region.
I´ll consider to use that if the samurai orc buys a flying boots. If not, I prefer to allow my flying characters to fly.
I realize you would prefer not creating rules, but there's not really any available for this sort of thing that I know of. My recommendation is to make it a flavorful dungeon, but in constant motion, as if a ship in a storm (+5 DC to all Acrobatics checks, Concentration DC 10 + Spell Level). Dealing significant damage to the titan (50 hp in a round vs DR 0 and Hardness 0) causes it enough pain that it might buck wildly for a 1d4 rounds (+10 DC Acrobatics, Concentration DC 15 + Spell Level). Depending on the Titan's size, I might even suggest upping each of those values by 5 once every minute or so, representing the impact of each footstep.
Well, Paizo is has so huge stuff that I prefer to use paizo sources, or at least third party rules rather than making my own system: It is safer for balance purposes. However, excepting the samurai orc (Who is my 28 years twin brother), the rest of the players are very noobs (mostly adolescents) who dont mind the rules source. But, hey, that rules fit wells with the titan.
I'd also recommend some traps representative of the rhythmic movement of the Titan, such as it's gait or cardiovascular systems, preferably combined with a combat encounter (so players can toss enemies between various grinding joints and the like).
Ok, searching for oozes and hazards.
Lastly, I'd recommend that you incorporate a healthy amount of precarious climbing segments: the climb DCs should not be the challenge themselves, nor should the falls be auto-death, but there ought to be places where a 30 ft. drop is a serious possibility if an enemy knocks you off-balance.)
The titan itself is a fleshy body with bone trees. They could use death trees to climb safely. The titan will be quadruped multi-limbed to avoid very high falls. And if they overcome a particular challenge in the adventure, a NPC (a diviner semi-villains who helps the PC) will provide them feather falls spells and more.
For monsters, I'd recommend Hungry Flesh and swarms of Positively Aligned Bloody Skeleton Monkey Swarms (thus, swarms of tiny, mangled monstrosities that can only be fully killed with applications of negative...
. Mm interesting. The adventure following this one will be focused on inmortality (previous ones were about omnipresence, transcendene and judgement) with a dread lich whose phylacterie is a demilich..., so maybe I reserve the bloody skeleton for that moment.
As far as thematics go, I can't think of any more disturbing a dungeon crawl than being just beneath the half-grown skin of a 200 foot behemoth, racing against time to prevent the destruction of a city. But maybe that's just me
Yes, my adventures is turning very crazy ones, I know... the titan is bioluminiscent to allow all character to see all the surprises in its bowels.
And the mad scientist will be special to. To start with, Worm who walks's template alchemist...Thanks you a lot. I have a lot of work to do now.
Flying + 50' Rope = Easy climb.
You have two flyers. The climb will be easy...
...unless the climb is interrupted, say by some insect swarms that live off the titan like lice.
With ten PCs, you will have huge combats or very quick ones. If you only have 2-3 enemies, action economy will kill them quickly. If you go mob vs. mob, then each round of combat will drag out a long time.
With ten PCs at 8th level, I expect a CR appropriate encounter to be CR 11, and an epic one CR 15. Anything under CR 10 will only be a speed bump.
For the encounter:
Mad Scientist is hooking equipment into titan's biology, and that is causing is pain. Every once in a while, it lurches. [mini-earthquake: low reflex DC or fall prone. Could happen in a fight.] Any damage to the area is damage to the titan. Enough damage and it wakes up. Any healing applied reduces damage to titan and lets it sleep. BBEG is causing slow damage per round. Don't stop him soon enough, and it wakes up.
/cevah
Wow, two replies to me! for this weird thread! I love this site! Thanks
Flying + 50' Rope = Easy climb.
You have two flyers. The climb will be easy...
...unless the climb is interrupted, say by some insect swarms that live off the titan like lice.
/cevah
That players obtained flying recently and It is limited to level-minutes per day. Flying inside the titan wont be very advantageous (like in another dungeons ), and when they walked into the fleshy forest I suppose they will have to use that once. So, I dont think I need to cap their flying skills. Just a bit.
The fleshy forest, before the titan awake, will containt flesh and blood oozes, swarms and some thematic hazards, so the body's titan wont be very easy to break through, although it will be "easy" to climb.And the flying characters are a rogue and a witch. Rogue's Sneak attack and witch's mind affecting abilities wont be very useful against oozes in this adventure. Let they fly if they want.
With ten PCs, you will have huge combats or very quick ones. If you only have 2-3 enemies, action economy will kill them quickly. If you go mob vs. mob, then each round of combat will drag out a long time.
With ten PCs at 8th level, I expect a CR appropriate encounter to be CR 11, and an epic one CR 15. Anything under CR 10 will only be a speed bump.
/cevah
Since most of my players are adolescents of a youth club, some of them dont come to all sessions. I expect seven players, being optimistic. However, I have to say they have three mythic tiers in "stand-by", which will reactivate inside the titan.
And the players wont be alone against the titan. The city in titan's way will envoy some little help (lures), and if players managed to rescue a high level technomancer NPC during the adventure, there probably will be a mech against the titan, and they cant receive help of another NPC villain if they defeat his two powerful minions (a winged marauder goblin and a lizarfolk full BAB combatant) . In they achieve one of the villain or the technomancer quest, I suppose they cant afford a CR18 encounter...For long encounters with lot of NPC or PC, I used pregenerated actions and dice throws for NPC. Turns are crazy quick, and they as players and me as GM have little time to think their actions, but we enjoy that.
For the encounter:
Mad Scientist is hooking equipment into titan's biology, and that is causing is pain. Every once in a while, it lurches. [mini-earthquake: low reflex DC or fall prone. Could happen in a fight.] Any damage to the area is damage to the titan. Enough damage and it wakes up. Any healing applied reduces damage to titan and lets it sleep. BBEG is causing slow damage per round. Don't stop him soon enough, and it wakes up./cevah
Interesting. The mad scientist is the lord of "generation taboo", so I think healing could cause tumours spreads... Slashing damage cause titan grows (like flesh oozes rules). Instead, negative energy could work instead.
I could see poisons being prevalent as a representation of the titan's immune system. Gives the party more reason to get mechanical/undead assistance. Does this titan have a rival?
Immune system: oozes and lymes ambong titan body represent that.
Lots of poisons and diseases, I agree... I have never used poison with that prevalence as a GM, and the only disease I have used is the Mummy roots, and the player had luck with saves. Do you think a dex/con poisons would be too much for this adventure (fort and reflex saves climbing or inside the titan)?
Gives the party more reason to get mechanical/undead assistance. Does this titan have a rival?
[/xenoblade]
More and less. Its long to explain, but I think it is useful for your inspiration.
In my game world, a mysterious villain have researched about "the 5 taboos of deities": transcendence(beyond body and soul)/immortality/omnipresence/judgement(eternal destiny)/generation(power of create things or life). Gods have all these qualities, and mortal people don´t. But, recently, 5 "lords of taboos" have appeared, each one domaining a taboo (which is in fact very dangerous for kingdoms and world security, with mortals having god powers).
Other villain, diviner wizard, started to research the taboos, and helped the lord of taboos to obtain their powers while he obtained taboo knowledge in exchange. Nowadays, the diviner is trying to erase the taboo lords, but not directly: he is helping he PC if they deserve it.
The mad scientist is the Lord of Generation, and the battle against him inside the titan will be focused in appearing new creatures and regenerating wounds, etc... (So, economy actions for the villain don't worry me)
In previous adventures, PC defeated lords of Omnipresence and trasncendence, and managed to obtain the atonement of lord of judgment (paradox?).
Lord of immortality is alive. They slained him once, but of course he resurrected... He is a dread lich with a demilich phylactery...
One of the PC have some pact with lord of Immortality (Although he doesn´t know he is lord of taboo in his new form). If he convinced him (paying a painful price), they could obtain undead assistance.
The technomancer I talked before is the classical NPC who crafts stuff for PC between adventures. He is a gnome alchemist rejected by the alchemist guild because of techological phobias.
One day, some alchemist of the Guild started to disappear or die (because of the mad scientist), and they accused the technomancer and pursued him. The technomancer fled away, not without writing the PC where thet can find him.
And the mad scientist were a member of the Alchemist Guild. He loves fleshwarping and doing creepy things, searching for the perfect form of life. The alchemist guild hates him (but they don`t know he is the cause the contaminated forest and the alchemists deaths).
At last, there will be a clan of driders resulting of fleshwarping the clan of the drow summoner PC.
To resume,they can obtain help for:
the technomancer (probably)
the diviner wizard (probably)
The drider clan (probably)
The alchemist guild (not probably, PC hate them)
the lord of immortality (depends on drow PC, but I think the pary will ignore him, as always)
And the city