I had already tried to post this, I do not know if it was eaten or if it will appear again out of the vast gloom of the internet, I am reposting it and apologize if it endup being a duplicate
So, I’m currently working on creating a new campaign world for the players. The world's details are unimportant all I am looking for is a critique of the campaign's "plot":
Roughly twenty years ago a hedge wizard was found attempting to create undead and was then beaten and hung by an angry mob of villagers. His sorceress wife, convinced of his innocence was driven mad by the death of her beloved husband. Using stealth, her murderous rage, and her husbands stock of magic items she soon killed every man, woman, and child within the village raising them as undead out of her twisted sense of irony.
Unsatisfied with slaughter and still vengeful she then turned her rage towards the destruction of the entire human race and the resurrection of her husband. Despite the capture and torture of many powerful clerics she has so-far failed in the resurrection of her husband (his soul is appalled at her actions and refuses) and now turns to an ancient artifact in an attempt to bring him back. This artifact is known simply as the soul-stone and has the ability to harness the power of sentient souls which are collected soon after the creature’s death and stored within the stone's magical matrix.
This is when the character's enter the story.
Fast-foreward into the future of the plot; characters discover plot, attempt to stop her, fail, entire city is destroyed and harvested (think full metal alchemist. She then uses the stones power to create a new body for her husband forged around and protected by the souls-tone before forcibly dragging her husband's soul back from beyond the grave. This forceful action twists his soul however and he returns as a malevolent mirror of her own thirst for revenge coupled with his long-standing grudge against other mages who looked down upon him when he was a hedge-wizard. The wife, seeing what her husband has become as a result of her actions is distraught, the shock gives her a moment of clarity in her madness, she confesses sincere repentance for her actions and kills herself. Now the characters must, piecing together bits of prophesy and old lore face an insane being of god-like power protected by the energy of, by now, a nation's worth of souls.
The stat out I have for him is thus:
Souls protect against all physical attacks, require successful turn undead and mordenkainens disjunction cast nearly simultaneously (readied action). Then he must be "poisoned" with the blood of his mortal form (cue, rogue sneak-attack to overcome massive dodge bonuses and dex bonuses to AC). After that he will finally be brought down to a power-level suitable to the characters and the death-blow must be using an old holy-weapon. The quests for all respective aspects of this will occur; I simply have not planned them out yet.
I made that overly-complicated layering of weaknesses on my BBEG for the reason that I want every class to feel necessary in his defeat with none excluded or given an "inferior" roll (I have a very balanced party of 4 players).
Anyway... what do you all think of the plot?
and please tell me I used the correct section of the forums.
Seems fine.
My main concern here is that this feels very railroaded. The PCs are going to try and stop her from destroying a city - and fail. So basically their actions here don't matter?
That is sort of my main concern with this write up. It seems to interact with the PCs a fair bit but everything is already decided by the DM before the game has even begun to start.
One of the reasons one tends to find, in things like APs, that the UPEs plan is well advanced is that this allows the players to do as they please in an attempt to unravel the plot without their actions being pointless. They essentially enter the story after the rail roady bits of the story have already taken place so that they don't need to be rail roaded (as much).
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I take Jeremy's point, but to be fair, some players actually quite like being railroaded - they quite want to know what the DM wants them to do.
However, while the DM may have decided that failure is inevitable in this particular plot segment, it might be worth trying to think of what the PCs can achieve even if this particular aspect is key to the plot. OK, the city gets destroyed, but do they get some key NPCs out first, like key patrons, loved-ones and so on? That way, rather then thinking, "Sheesh, the city got destroyed and it didn't matter what I did," they might think, "Sheesh, the city got destroyed, but at least I got Rover out in time."
I do agree, the "fail to protect the city" is nagging railroading...maybe go to that direction that it is more clear for the characters that if they do try to fight the destruction, they are very likely to fail, but what they can do is to save what they can...
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I take Jeremy's point, but to be fair, some players actually quite like being railroaded - they quite want to know what the DM wants them to do.
However, while the DM may have decided that failure is inevitable in this particular plot segment, it might be worth trying to think of what the PCs can achieve even if this particular aspect is key to the plot. OK, the city gets destroyed, but do they get some key NPCs out first, like key patrons, loved-ones and so on? That way, rather then thinking, "Sheesh, the city got destroyed and it didn't matter what I did," they might think, "Sheesh, the city got destroyed, but at least I got Rover out in time."
The adventure Foundation of Flame in the Shackled City AP might be worth checking out for how to do something like that, making it feel like the PCs actions still matter.
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There was a thread on a similar topic a little while ago that kinda changed my view on "PCs have to lose to further the plot" situations. I think it was in regard to someone's STAP campaign, and his characters were very experienced sailors, but the campaign makes it clear that a shipwreck has to happen to continue the AP as written. He didnt want to force his characters to screw up, and someone suggested that in a case such as this, the matter of perspective is all-important. Instead of forcing the salty dogs into a shipwreck against their PCs skills and abilities, he "turned up the volume" on the crisis at hand and instead of the PCs getting shipwrecked despite their abilities, they used their skills to valiantly save what they could of the ship and its crew because a shipwreck was inevitable. Instead of a "save the ship from wrecking" encounter it became "the ship is doomed--how much can we save?" situation. The PCs still get to shine and use the skills and abilities they have, they still get to be heroes and save the day. The trick is to not let them think they can save the ship in the first place and that the only way they will succeed is to deal with the disaster as it comes instead of trying to avert it entirely.
You might want to consider such a position in the city-destruction plot. Make the obliteration of the city a foregone conclusion and let the PCs deal with mitigating the disaster. Not only does it increase the "oh crap" factor for that badie who has essentially won once already, it can also lead to a lot of really good encounters that your playes might not have considered before.
Others have touched on the Kobiashi Maroo, so I will move on. My concern is that the only way to defeat the Big Bad is overly complicated. Give the PCs a chance to fail and they will. Are you prepared to deal the consequences when your PCs not only do not pull off a Turn Undead and Mordenkinen's Disjunction in perfect unison but are completely oblivious they were suppose to?
I have found, in my years of GMing experience, that what seems obvious to me is far from such to my players who can not see inside my twisted head. And if you insist on them doing it 'Your Way' and force feeding them your ingenious battle plan via NPCs, you are right back to 'rail roading'.
You should give your PCs multiple ways of completing their goal.
Now that you point it out it does seem like a ver rail-roadish section. In my mind it does need to happn and will simply enhance the characters respect or fear oh him when they finally do face the BBEG. That said, you make important points and I will try to factor them into the campaign.
One thought I just had was this: they need to rescue something from within the city as the people are being absorbed. Undead abound, sent in to make shure escapes from the city were minimaland what the PCs want is at the heart of the city. This way the city's destruction, while unavoidable, provides a dangerous "battleground" wherein the PCS race against time and their enemies. Furthermore, it allows the PCs to rescue some of the citizens if they decide that that is important to them.
I do desire the complexity in this instance, I do not see it as railroading anymore than any campaign with "defeat the BBEG and you need to remove his source of power". Your point about the "what if they dont do it" is valid but I am relying on them being nearly (if not above) 20th level by the time they get there and, like most players of that level they can find the resources to pull off nearly anything. As a final point; if they choose to attempt a different combination (such as trap the soul and something else) I am inclined to treat it as a success in any case (moreso because it was their idea). They will be given hints that it requires the near-immediate aplication of divine and arcane magic but I rely on their intelligence to put 2-and-2 together. Besides, it makes them feel better than if I have some sage say "do X and Y will happen". The MD and Turn Undead were an example as I thought of an appropriate combination of divine and arcane abilities.
Thanks for the comments I hope to hear more as they give me ideas and help me think.
Retrieve [item] from [location] during [event] while battling [opponent]. Sounds good to me.
I think to really make this adventure fun, you need to instill a sense of urgency. As you said, a race against time. Make the players feel like they are on a timer. You do not have to enforce it, just do not let the players know you are not enforcing it. You could imply the longer they stay within the city, the more likely they are to be 'absorbed'. You could ask everyone what their CON score is, write it down purposefully then start a timer when they enter the city. Then, throughout the adventure mention to whoever has the lowest score he can feel the pull of the 'darkside'. Constantly make references to how long things take.
wonderful idea, thank you ^_^
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Sounds like a fun campaign plot, but besides the comments already given I have one minor issue.
Why is the hedge wizard first revolted by his wife's actions. He was trying to create some undead, wasn't he? What is his beef with her taking revenge? And then when he is finally back and pretty much in her image, then she kills herself? That doesn't make too much sense to me in the present form.
Good luck with the campaign!
oops, forgot that part... the original plot was that he wasn't actaully creating them. a villager oversaw him attempting to destroy a coven of ghouls, mistook it for animation and ran screaming for help. then, well... you know what supersticous peasants are like when they get it in their head that someone is a bad-buy.