So my friend and DM (Onrie) let me borrow a dungeon magazine. This had the flumph in it, they are neat little creatures in my eyes. So the first adventure went great, infact it was practically the first time I DM'd, and it was the first time I ran a premade magazine adventure. So I need a little help with the follow up adventure. Luckily the group managed to save the boat (stupid low roll, I really rolled two ones on how long it would be to steady the boat...) and now the captain Siram, has decided to make one big adventure through the seas for his last time at the sea. See, in the magazine it said the theives guild was going to watch the PC's if they managed to catch the Grackle. But where to start. Well where we last left off....
Captain Siram met the PC's at the Sand Crab Tavern and said that all his month long work was gone, all of his food he was storing was stolen, along with everything below deck. Now, I recently got Dragon magazine back issue #302 for summoners circle and along with it, came this neato little free traps and treasure cuttable card thing. It had a big ritual looking circle that looked perfect for the theive's guild symbol. I plan to use this. Well this is kinda how it's gonna play out...
1) The PC's decided to not look for the crates (side-adventure) and just take a while longer and then ride off into the ocean in the boat. Well, because of this, one night they will be gambling, talking, about to go to sleep, ect... And then they will make a listen check. (versus rouge move silently check) And if they make it than they hear light footsteps under the deck. If they decide to follow this then we get to stage 2. If not go to stage 3.
2) The PC's manage to get to a hidden circle that has the symbol in the middle that I told you about, then I shall give the card so they can see it. If they decide to go onto the ritual circle they will be teleported to a cellar filled with the old stolen crates. (They will really be in theives guild hide-out cellar) And there is a door, of course there is a trap but it's nothing major just an arrow or two. When they open it...well i'm kinda lost from there. That's what I really need help with
3) if they didn't hear it or decide not to go into the circle than it disapears in about 5 minutes and becomes hidden DC 25 search. True seeing also makes it visible. But if they go to bed, they wake up from a agonizing scream from Siram, he's bellow the deck and is fighting two rouges, all of the crates of food are gone. The rouges try to get him in a net and drag him into the now visible ritual circle. The PC's will probably chase after him, but if they don't then they have no food, no captain which usually guides the boat, and are lost at sea. So they really can't do much. (and a storm is approaching) They will eithier jump in or starve to death at sea and then they will be in the cellar as described in part 2).
So if you could be kind enough and help me continue this, I would be very greatful. Constructive critism also is good, but i'm kinda new to DMing but have played for 3 or so years. Thank you to all my paizo buddies, i'll check back later.
~Love The Flabulator!?!
How big of a dungeon do you want the thieves' guild to be?
Once they're through the trapped door, you have some options:
* They run into some of the rogues who were stealing from the boat. Combat ensues!
* They stumble across an old, half-blind rogue who doesn't realize they're outsiders. He barks at them for being lazy and tells them to follow him. If they comply, he puts them to work moving crates from their arrival room to a storeroom down the hall.
* The trapped door is really just part of a greater insidious trap for intruders. The real exit from the arrival room is a well-hidden secret door behind some crates (leave a 5-10' gap between the crates and the door; the rogues don't want to move crates every time they go through the room).
One round after the storeroom is empty (meaning all the PCs are in the trap-hallway), the door slams shut again, locking them in the hallway beyond. It looks like a 10' by 40' hallway with a plain wooden door at the end. The wooden door is locked with a lock appropriate to the PCs' level - it should be something that the rogue needs 15 or higher on his Open Locks roll to beat. It's really just a fake door covering a blank wall. When the door to their arrival room closes, have something nasty happen - panels from the ceiling open, dropping in a Gelatinous Cube, or maybe the chamber starts flooding, or maybe trapdoors in the floor drop them into a pit full of poisonous snakes.
Once they beat that trap, let them find the way out with a good Search check - someone has to reset the trap, make sure the snakes get fed, etc., and they can get to the next part of the thieves' guild from that access.
Good luck!
EDIT: I strongly encourage you to avoid railroading them into this thieves' guild. Give them a chance to stop the thieves before their food is gone. If they don't chase the thieves into the circle, even after the captain is kidnapped, have another ship notice them at sea before they starve to death.
Where are they headed, anyway?
I will follow your advise. After I posted I thought about a way that they could catch the theives in the process. I say they have to succeed in a listen check at least 5 over the move silent check, and they will know exactly where the noise is coming from in part 1. If they succeed the check but not by 5 or greater they hear the noise, but aren't sure where it's coming from. So by the time they get to the lower level of the ship the crates are gone but the circle is still there. I got some good ideas now, and am trying not to train-track the PC's. Oh and for where they are going, well the captain secretly has a map and on this map is a supposed sunken-ship graveyard. It is said among sailors that if you managed to live past the creature (hydro 7 headed hydra) then you can get treasure from all of the sunken ships. But that will be later on in the campaign when they find out. For now all the PC's know is that the captain promised them gold and treasure if they followed him on a journey across the oceans. Thank you for your help, oh and I like that option 2 thing you made. I will probably use that. And I guess if they decide to not go in I will let them use flares kept in the galley to call other ships. I'll roll to see if some come, but a few bad rolls could lead to the desperate option of jumping into the ritual circle/portal.
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What level party are you running for?
One possible plot hole is the summoning circle itself. That's some pretty serious magic being thrown about (2-way travel, big enough to push crates through), just to steal a few crates of regular goods.
The players may well expect that the person casting it is a VERY powerful enemy, who will be waiting at the other end, and be paralysed into inaction, either by not entering the circle, or (if they do go through), hiding in the cellars for days, waiting to slip away, rather than boldly hacking their way through low-level rogues, as you (probably) intended.
In general, any plot hook that requires the PCs to hurl themselves through a wormhole to an unknown destination is to be avoided, since it requires the players to indulge in meta-gaming (ie, Hey, guys, we're all 4th level, yeah? So whatever's through that swirly-whirly thing HAS to be CR4 encounters, right? Or else the DM isn't doing his job correctly...).
That doesn't stop it cropping up all the time in published adventures though.....
Hmmm...good point. But the actual plan of the theives guild is to lure the adventurers and captain Siram to them. They want to get them into a position where they can be quesioned. The high ranking rouges wish to actually question them about how they caught the Grackle and there are a few secrets captain Siram has but the rest don't know about... (trouble with gambling, was a runaway from the law, changed name and so forth) The Grackle had heard about who captain Siram was before and tipped the theives guild off. And the guild also believes the PC's are helpers in the captains hide-away. The captain is now good but still is wanted for previous trouble. The guild will be given great power by the other guilds in other places. The PC's will have to convince the leader that Siram has changed. And trust me the people aren't just low lvls. Sure the thugs gaurding the crates and picking up and moving stuff are one of the many low lvls. But there is just about no way they will be able to kill or barely harm the leader and his trusted right hand men. If they role play bad than it's not gonna be a pretty sight. I'm actually trying to get my PC's to talk, one likes to lie and i'm gonna show to him that lying all of the time will get you into serious trouble. But how my PCs role play is up to them. The PCs love to fight so I have to have them fight something that is possible to kill, like as was said before their CR thugs and rouges. of course though I am planning for them to be captured if they can't find their way out. A trap might get them of they may be knocked out in a fight. Or if they can manage to escape captain Siram is going to be put in jail and a bail can get him out. Of course this bail could make for an intresting campaign, getting the captain out of trouble by trying to earn enough money. Oh if they want to slip away rather than killing rouges (though I doubt that to tell the truth) I will let them try to escape. It's really rather if they want to or not. This will be a challenging adventure to them, but I think they can do it, and that even though because I know this seems kind of like a problem, the fact that the enemys will be their lvl it will still make it hard for them. The enemys will outnumber them, they are in a guild of rouges and traps. How it plays out is mostly in their power.
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Further to the previous post, I think your writer's block problem is a common one, which strikes any DM (myself included), who gets too attached to an (admittedly, cool) event or scene (such as the teleport circle), and then has to work backwards, to explain or justify its inclusion.
You can find yourself trying to second-guess the players, trying to stymie their possible tactics, so as to allow the scene to play 'as written'. So the BBEG 'needs' this power, and 'needs' this power, and this, and this...Before you know it, the NPC ends up 10 levels higher than the PCS, and you have to throw in a Magical Doo-dad to give them a chance of stopping him.
A better way is to work from the other direction; if the PCs are level X, then create an NPC of up to (say) level (X+2). Look at what powers and equipment he could (realistically) have, then work out an evil plan using only those resources.
Even low-level spells can be deadly (or infuriating), when used against regular folks who have little defence.
Even a 1st level wizard who wanted to get rich quick, could use disguise self, charm person, and some forged papers, to take delivery of a shipment and send it anywhere he liked. And he'd still have a spare slot for another spell! Don't worry about making him hard enough to take out the party, after all that's what charmed goons are for...
Well it's not really so much that the BBEG is a ton of higher lvls and has magic items beyond belief. It's more along the lines that he has traps about, and by the time they get to him they will probably be weakened if they aren't lucky, and aside from the traps there are his right hand men which are a +1 level above them. There are two and one is a monk and another is a rouge, and finally there is the leader which is +2 lvls above them. They really don't have magical powers, or the like, to tell the truth this theives guild is a rather weak one. Not just because the PCs are weak, but if they manage to capture the Grackle, Captain Siram, and The supposed cohorts, the higher and more powerful guilds in the land will hear about this and help them. If the PCs choose to fight him they will have a very big challenge but the reward is good. They will become feared and respected, not to mention the loot from the leaders room. And yes low-level spells seem to be pretty powerful against the defensless, we have a sorcerer and i've started to notice that as a DM.
~Love The Flabulator!?!
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Well it's not really so much that the BBEG is a ton of higher lvls and has magic items beyond belief. It's more along the lines that he has traps about, and by the time they get to him they will probably be weakened if they aren't lucky, and aside from the traps there are his right hand men which are a +1 level above them. There are two and one is a monk and another is a rouge, and finally there is the leader which is +2 lvls above them. They really don't have magical powers, or the like, to tell the truth this theives guild is a rather weak one. Not just because the PCs are weak, but if they manage to capture the Grackle, Captain Siram, and The supposed cohorts, the higher and more powerful guilds in the land will hear about this and help them. If the PCs choose to fight him they will have a very big challenge but the reward is good. They will become feared and respected, not to mention the loot from the leaders room. And yes low-level spells seem to be pretty powerful against the defensless, we have a sorcerer and i've started to notice that as a DM.
~Love The Flabulator!?!
Rogue is spelled R-O-G-U-E not R-O-U-G-E, rouge is makeup or a reddish color, rogue is a sneaky lil' bastard. Heathanson, come and explain my stance on the rouge rogue issue please.....
FH
Well it's not really so much that the BBEG is a ton of higher lvls and has magic items beyond belief. It's more along the lines that he has traps about, and by the time they get to him they will probably be weakened if they aren't lucky, and aside from the traps there are his right hand men which are a +1 level above them. There are two and one is a monk and another is a rouge, and finally there is the leader which is +2 lvls above them. They really don't have magical powers, or the like, to tell the truth this theives guild is a rather weak one. Not just because the PCs are weak, but if they manage to capture the Grackle, Captain Siram, and The supposed cohorts, the higher and more powerful guilds in the land will hear about this and help them. If the PCs choose to fight him they will have a very big challenge but the reward is good. They will become feared and respected, not to mention the loot from the leaders room. And yes low-level spells seem to be pretty powerful against the defensless, we have a sorcerer and i've started to notice that as a DM.
~Love The Flabulator!?!
Rogue is spelled R-O-G-U-E not R-O-U-G-E, rouge is makeup or a reddish color, rogue is a sneaky lil' bastard. Heathanson, come and explain my stance on the rouge rogue issue please.....
FH
Jeeze, I was in a hurry and had no time, it was just before my bus came. A few spelling errors, I have enough trouble as it is and am busy, do you need to get so angry and stress me out? Please, I never correct others spelling, why must you?
~Flabulator Out