Someone in the past said that they restructured the second half of Flood Season so that the wands were hidden around the city instead of yet another dungeon. I was not able to find that post. If someone could find it I would appreciate it.
What I want to do is to make the Urban Ranger's Urban Tracking highly relevant in this adventure. First, make the clues provided by the Last Laugh informer available as information that highly skilled investigators can dig up with good rolls. Then, find one wandholder hidden in town and get from him clues to another wand, etc. There is already one time pressure in place, which is the flooding. I'll solidify it by putting the flooding on a fixed time schedule. In addition, I'll have the Stormblades find out that they are looking for wands throughout town and they will try to one up the party by finding them first. Of course, the PCs will have the advantage with their urban ranger, but I want to have the Stormblades breathing down their necks.
So, what I need is an alternate setup where the wands are hidden in buildings around town, guarded by alleybashers with the occasional hidden mini-dungeon under a building to house the spiders of the wizard and a seperate one for the undead gnoll.
Any ideas?
An interesting idea, and one that I might be able to use if some ideas are forthcoming in the next week or so. The party has just entered the Lucky Monkey, and I expect them to have their hands full with a certain feralized werebaboon this Friday. Ironically, the thief in the party took the Urban Ranger variant as his 4th level, with the idea being to focus on the Last Laugh (his favored enemy). I like the idea of using the city as an alternate location, both to give the ranger something different to do and to get out of yet another dungeon.
The only concern is that Triel is a wanted criminal in Cauldron; unless she's got points in Disguise, it might not be the best idea for her to hang out in the city itself.
An alternate idea to use the urban ranger's skills would be to have HIM be the one to track down the Ebon Triad's hideout instead of using Artus Shemwick, or at least have the ranger be the one that finds Artus; maybe he's a contact of some sort.
I had Triel hiding at an abandoned inn at the lake with a secret entrance down to the dungeon under the dock. The learned of the red-headed woman at the Lucky Monkey and then our Urban Tracker used his skill to track her to the inn. Using this setup, you can eliminate a good portion of the dungeon to make that go faster.
So, what I need is an alternate setup where the wands are hidden in buildings around town, guarded by alleybashers with the occasional hidden mini-dungeon under a building to house the spiders of the wizard and a seperate one for the undead gnoll.Any ideas?
I'm running that now, but kind of setting it up on the fly, life kept me too busy to properly plan it.
IMC, Tarkilar's sanity degenerated much quicker. He went crazy on the rest of the Triad and started killing and animating all the lackeys. Triel and Skaven fled.
Now my PC's have been led to the Kopru Ruins as planned in the book, only they are finding skeletons and zombies rather than Alleybashers and Hillfolk. I've also been dropping lots of clues and little notes passed between the guards about goings on in the base. They have pieced together a lot, like which characters have wands, who the three main bosses are (and are close to labelling race and sex to the names). Also hinted at Grehlia joining the Cagewrights and mentioned the Firegiant crafter (now my groups really scared).
I had Skaven escape with the Big Spider and the Ettercaps using a watery tunnel to an abandoned warehouse on the waterfront. (He used a stack of Water Breathing scrolls and some potions of swimming for the Spider-folk, which my group found the remnants of and collected without investigating).
Triel will be mobile during the Mardi Gras style Flood festivities.
Meanwhile, back in the Ruins, Tarkilar's base is as written.
I expect them to overload the carriage on the way out and fight the Skulvyn.
Once in the city, the two urban druids can track them down, using their clues from the ruins. Skaven is next, should track him through wizard type supply shops I think. Of course, with the right information up front and money, I'll let the cook at the Tipped Tankard point them in the right direction.
I expect I'll hint at Minuta's Board as the base of the Alleybashers (again), and they'll catch Triel's trail from there, chasing her through the streets, being ambushed by Alleybashers.
When I'm all done, I want to write up my variant of flood season to put up on RPGenius site. I am leaving as much, stat wise for creatures and traps as is. Just shifting around the encounters to make it more Urban.
-c
Okay, here's one idea. Pick a building that can house the Alleybashers, and have Triel staying there under cover with her wands. Building floorplans are ridiculously easy to find in just about any Dungeon magazine. You can keep the Triel part of the Kopru ruins more or less intact, including having the PCs catch her in the bathtub if they're stealthy enough (not a concern for my group, what with the dwarf fighter and human cleric both wearing full plate armor).