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So... Our DM in our regular 4e game was doing savage tides, because he'd played through it but wanted to dm, and it was fun, so he was taking us through his heavily modified version and we ran into a spot where he realized he was about to have to heavily modify the entire thing from where we ended up to just about the end of the whole thing, and we had some definite intermission time - he was going to suggest him running a side game while he got other stuff done, and I butted in and said "OOH I wanna run pathfinder!"
Everybody kinda took a step back because they hadn't tried it and it sounded interesting. So we agreed. I got to run a short little adventure, then he'd do one, and we'd go back and forth until we were back at the normal, ready to adventure with our other dudes again.
So here's how their adventure began...
*Wicked grin*
*hands rubbing together*
The setting was Cheliax, and before the players could even get their stuff together and purchase gear, they were set upon by guards at every turn, beaten unconscious, and dragged off to prison.
The elf in the party, having offended another elf who invoked ilduliel (elves of golarion, it's an ancient elven feud tradition) was also set upon by the guards, after that elf pointed him out, not knowing what they were accused of.
They learned in prison very quickly that they had been framed for the murder of a very high profile, well known and respected lady. (they did/do not know who she was - a relative of the queen!) sentenced to be chucked into hell and eaten by bad things that dawn, someone else arrived and congratulated them on their performance, and set them free to cause havok in, well, wherever it was they were. he let them out the back side of their cell, they found some improvised weapons, fought a group of rats that started out as minions and worked their way up to a clutch (a new monster type I created) and then a swarm, then they faced off against a phantom fungus (a rather entertaining fight) and with a few more entertaining fights along the way, ended the day with the cleric (of all things) charging into battle against 2 small earth elementals and a medium.
The party barely scraped by, only to see a complete group of themselves walk into the room, sliding the door shut behind them. They turned to look at their rear and saw 2 worgs blocking the exit, clearly interested in seeing what kind of crazy mayhem would be unleashed.
Then, at the beginning of our second night, (this past saturday) The two groups charged at each other and much blood was shed! Both of the party's fighters had the diehard feat - and they needed it! At the end of the fight, as the double of the tiefling fighter slew the player, his corpse sunk to the ground, and with a shrinking, popping noise, it revealed that the party themselves had been the dopplegangers all along. Since technically there was still a complete group left standing, the party was allowed to continue (after a much needed rest) and they bashed their way through the door to find a makeshift group of soldiers armed with crossbows who quickly realized they were not going to be able to hold back what was coming through the door.
The cleric of asmodeus ran screaming thanks to the power of his expeditious retreat - who could blame him, and the party's next encounter was against a fully prepared group holding up at a shrine to asmodeus himself. minion soldiers formed a wall of meat at the entry while the lieutenants and commander Chux fired and missed repeatedly trying to hit the tanks. The NPCs' strategy nearly pulled itself off as the halfling sorcerer pyromaniac, now mounted atop his worg pet, charged Chux and attempted to trip him, not realizing that Chux was a political figurehead, it was his two lieutenants who were the real threat. As the battle dragged on into round 5, Asmodeus looked down and bestowed the last lieutenant with some attack and damage buffs. A few whiffs later, and the party witnessed the wrath of the Devil Prince firsthand as he yelled out "You... are a failure!" and blew up the inaccurate lieutenant with his fiery finger of doom.
The pitched battle attracted the attention of a hellknight, which forced the party into diplomatic mode - the halfling managed to think quick enough to fool the knight into believing that it was the priest, not Chux (the halfling's disguise, courtesy of disguise self) who had offended him, and the priest's body at his feet was an attempt to make amends. the ploy worked - barely, and the party was able to rest.
Searching the room for treasure landed the party what appeared to be at first, a shiny new sword! walking into the room with a weapon drawn, however, triggered the Caryatid Column (don't have a heart attack yet) which was built for one purpose: destroy weapons! The tiefling fighter saw his weapon shattered and picked the +2 longsword off the rack, and took a swing, only to see the column retaliate against the weapon itself - two swings and the new shiny sword was vapor. The tiefling then served as comedic relief as he picked up sword after sword from the weapon racks, striking at the column, hoping to get damage in before the weapon shattered. The halfling attempted to join in only to see himself disarmed - literally! The one time that the column broke his weapon on the attack, it failed to hit with its followup, so the fight was rather one sided - or so you'd think! He began the fight at 0 hp, and each swing of his own sword dealt him a single hit point. With the fighter at -17 hp and ready to bite the dust, the rest of the party joined into finish off the beasty.
End of the night tallies:
2 versions of the party cleric brought to below 0 hp. one survives.
one human fighter at -16 hp, retreats to safety, his 'double' is killed.
one tiefling fighter brought to below 0 hp, then the other one as well, then the first is killed. later, he is brought to -17 hp once and then again before finally pulling a +1 shatterspike from the wreckage of a mighty foe as his trophy.
1 halfling sorcerer brought to -8 hp (shhh, don't tell the party it survived!), and the other killed.
1 elf wizard thinks he's lucky staying back in the back of the group not taking any damage. He's in for a rude awakening.
The party:
One tiefling fighter with the features of a glabrezu, obviously demonic, hated and feared, but gets along well with the worgs!
One human fighter, intelligent and wise enough to run away when he needs to!
One Halfling sorcerer, pyromaniac extraordinaire, clever enough to think on his feet when the need arises.
One Goliath Cleric, who tends to hit just as hard as the tanks, but really needs to learn to let them do all the dying.
One elven wizard, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and liked the plot twist of "surprise, you were the dopplegangers all along!"
I just felt like sharing but this is hardly a place for just one story. Share your own adventures from recent note, I'd love to... pick your brain. NOM NOM NOM
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Oh, I really like this a lot... which spurred my creative juices to the floodgate breaking level.
Ahem.
To add to the confusion, you might have had a tucked away, folded piece of paper with the title of "DM Rules" to be shown at a later time (after said melee).
(as an aside, you as DM certainly DO rule, sexy beast that you are!)
On it, of course, would be written the following:
DM Party vs. Player Party combat:
1) first double to die by his/her alternate is the actual Doppleganger (whether played by DM or Player)
2) if any two or more PC characters choose to gang up on any specific character (DM controlled or party controlled) member (not identified as humanoid or doppleganger with some type of divination spell) and kills him/her, well that was the real humanoid character and the dopplegangers won a battle
Mayhem, confusion, and screaming ensues until (hopefully) the real characters (or fraction thereof) remain standing.
that way the player will never know if he is a doppleganger or the real character...
When your characters go WTF???!!! You simply take out your DM RULES sheet and let them know how much you really do rule... and they all bow down to your glorious wisdom.
(in a perfect world)