Sanareth |
I'm currently designing next weeks first encounter for my group and I'd appreciate some new angles.
As of last session the campaign has hit level 14/MR 1, having long since deviated and evolved from the original Iron Gods AP.
Some spoilers for said AP's may follow.
If you don't want to know the details skip to the end.
The situation is thus. The Technic league within two days will be fortifying the entrance to their new skymetal mine, which has already begun to supply their factories with the materials needed for an arms deal with the denizens of Leng. The latter exchanging rubies for weapons to use in their perpetual war against the spiders of their realm- Rubies that the league plans to grind to powder to create simulacrums (Various reasons).
After about a year out of game of being on the back foot and avoiding the league, I gave them a week of in-game breathing room while the leagues team of construction bards and their lyres of building came off cool-down.
They have surpassed my expectations, managing to steal a league dropship that had come to the valley of the brain eaters to capture the Mi-Go there (intending to use them for crafting)- managing to clear an encounter with 4 souped up Pulsepounders and over 20 riflemen thanks to the local topography and a hefty control winds, combo'd with the hacking of a newly acquired non-traumatised tactical combat AI. I threw a mech in for good measure, but it got hit by a summoned chaos beast and turned to goo long enough for the mutated* brawler to jump in and grab the pilot.
*(Yes. He drank strange fluids once, rolled the 100 and got the mutant template in book 1.)
They made it priority one to obtain a scroll of greater demiplane for hyperbolic time chamber shennanagins, eventually obtaining it in the aftermath of the breaching festival.
A year of timestop'd crafting later, yesterday they challenged and succeeded the test of the starstone gaining a mythic rank.
I've currently got the build site setup with what i thought would be a challenging (AKA, why do you people never die), level of enemies.
21 riflemen, 2 +1 seeking rocket launcher equipped Magus's, 12 grenadiers, 4 Wolverine light Mechs (large) , 7 rocketeers (jet-pack and machine gun equipped) and 2 slayer/rogue snipers with the infinite range sneak attack scopes.
There's a brace of stationary turrets as well.
The problem I'm seeing is this. The samarasan shaman will probably open up with either control winds or greater black tentacles. The ground inside the base walls is bare earth, but I don't know if they have a way around that.
If it's GBT, then the strix slinger will snipe from a great distance, putting out 7-8 attacks a round.
Meanwhile the rogue and the brawler will respectively walk in and charge in at a speed of about 210 miles per hour, turning anything they come into contact with into tomato paste.
They have good vision on the base thanks to the satellites being launched out of scrap-wall, but permanently invisible units aren't out of the question.
Normally stealth wouldn't be a problem *thermal imaging, hooray*, but the rogue is now completely undetectable thanks to mythic legendary item. I don't consider that to be much of a threat relative to the other stuff though.
While this place is supposed to be 'lightly' defended, I'm looking for methods to bolster it magically to make it less of a walk in the park.
Derrick Winters |
I think the first reply to this reddit thread is pretty much spot-on:
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1) Mess with Magic
A zone of unstable/Wild magic - maybe a localized rift in space; have a mage identify it via Spellcraft/Knowledge(Arcana) and attempt to close it via a specific sequence of Spells to "normalize" the area's magic again...or maybe a specific "Jamming" technological artifact that projects psychic "noise" and alters the mystic wave frequency of a certain area...protected by a forcefield
(Variant Persistent Haunt of Emergency Force Sphere, is triggered by an engineer operating the artifact and refreshes each turn...)
Unstable magic zone (Suggested radius: 1 mile) effects:
Roll 1d6 each turn:
1 limited magic
2 Primal magic effects(triggered when someone casts a spell, CR = Spell level)
3 Wild Magic effects (triggered when someone casts a spell)
4 - Each spell cast forces a Will save (DC 14, +2 per spell cast within 1 minute) to avoid contracting a minor spellblight
5 - Each spell cast forces a Will save(DC 22, +2 per spell cast within 1 minute) to avoid contracting a major spellblight
6 - Magic fails entirely (As Antimagic field/Dead magic zone)
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2) Mess wth Vision
Mythic Obscuring mist is an EXCELLENT way to totally obscure a battlefield quickly; thanks to Ascendant Spell, you can use it as a 6th-level spell effect (Perhaps via scroll?)
If some of your NPCs have ways to see through fog (Fogcutting lenses, Water Sight revelation, Some Utility talent of a Kineticist...), you can make the fight very one-sided (or provoke a hasty retreat of your players...or force fireballs to burn away the fog...)
Technically, permanent Darkness (Hallow + Deeper Darkness, for example) can serve a similar role, if you can find ways for your NPCs to see while denying sight to your players.
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3) Mess with Movement
At the ECL of your players, difficult terrain is a joke.
Weather, however, is not - just have them fight during rain, with severe wind - you both provide a dramatic backdrop to the battle, have an excuse to randomly launch Lightning bolts at the players, apply penalties to perception and ranged attacks(the penalties from rain and severe wind STACK)
Since your NPCs are entrenched defenders, they may be (partially) protected from the elements.
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Points 4)- 8) are already covered by your defenses; let's examine Point 9) Divide and conquer briefly:
I suggest something like a Variant Persistent Haunt of PersistentInstigate Psychic Duel to briefly drain resources and put a character on unfamiliar battleground, give the Haunt something like 1 MP per turn...
Sanareth |
Thanks for the feedback, I didn't even consider persistent haunts.
For messing with magic, there is a permanent GATE effect in the area with a set of monorail tracks going into it (It links to where the refinery is located). I'll have a train at the fortress station when they show up, with the disruption device on the train.
As much as I love E.F.S, both the brawler and the Slinger can shatter it pretty easily. Might have a Variant haunt like that anyway though, just to delay the destruction of the jammer.
Equipping the troops with fog/smoke grenades should work for cover versus the Slinger- so long as there aren't any wind effects.
I think that I could re-fluff psychic duel as electronic warfare from the league side interfering with their suits.
For weather, I could have a summer thunderstorm; lots of clouds, not much wind. If there's even a mild breeze, a hurricane or tornado could wipe everything.
Though to address that, they're going to be in hostile airspace if they bring their dropship to the party- which they probably will. In which case, League AA missiles/interceptors could put the whole thing on a timer.