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Hey guys,
I've got an idea for an adventure involving an "Evil" town/village. For the sake of this question let us say the entire town is popultated by Doppelgangers (a CR3 monster). The Doppelgangers all act like normal villagers and occasionally they waylay adventuring groups or lone travellers, people who won't be missed.
So the PCs enter the town and after a bit of snooping realise what is going on. Being good PCs they decide that these Doppelgangers need to be stopped (they found the remains of previous victims).
Now naturally the adventure will be structured so that the PCs can take down small groups of Doppelgangers at a time depending on their actions.
Alas knowing what all us DMs know is that things never work out as planned with your players and there is a chance that the PCs will do something stupid and end up facing the entire village of Doppelgangers all at the same time.
My question is based on the CR3 of Doppelgangers what level should a party of 4 characters need be to run through this scenario? Would I have to factor in the chance that the PCs might face the entire town at once into the equation for what level I should run this adventure at? Or is that just a too bad moment and your looking at a likely TPK?
Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Reebo
Hey guys,
I've got an idea for an adventure involving an "Evil" town/village. For the sake of this question let us say the entire town is popultated by Doppelgangers (a CR3 monster). The Doppelgangers all act like normal villagers and occasionally they waylay adventuring groups or lone travellers, people who won't be missed.So the PCs enter the town and after a bit of snooping realise what is going on. Being good PCs they decide that these Doppelgangers need to be stopped (they found the remains of previous victims).
Now naturally the adventure will be structured so that the PCs can take down small groups of Doppelgangers at a time depending on their actions.Alas knowing what all us DMs know is that things never work out as planned with your players and there is a chance that the PCs will do something stupid and end up facing the entire village of Doppelgangers all at the same time.
My question is based on the CR3 of Doppelgangers what level should a party of 4 characters need be to run through this scenario? Would I have to factor in the chance that the PCs might face the entire town at once into the equation for what level I should run this adventure at? Or is that just a too bad moment and your looking at a likely TPK?
Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Reebo
Cr's can be quite difficult as I am running into the same problem with my campaign. I would say they can be low level and if they pull an oops I pooped my pants moment then have a backup plan on how they can get out. Perception check to notice that hole in the gate that happens to be 20 ft away or something like that.
I am currently running a campaign where each player has 2 characters, a lvl 1 and lvl 10 and we made the lvl 1 guys so important to the campaign that the level 10's Really Really have to think about what they do so the wimps dont die. This was meant to give the players a sense of danger and has worked out very well thus far but creating the right CR's has been a huge challenge. I have learned the best way around this is to have a backup plan no matter how simple it is to overcome any dumb party mistakes.
Write it up like this:
.
.
.
(in the table below, # is the number of CR3 dopplegangers, CR is the encounter CR).
# CR
1 3
2 5
3 6
4 7
6 8
8 9
Plan four encounters at a CR equal to the average level of the PCs. This doesn't have to be exact. If the PCs are 7th level, you might have a couple encounters with 4 dopplegangers, one with 3, and one with 5-6. You could even vary it up from time to time and reduce the number of dopplegangers but give them a class level or two, just to keep the PCs guessing.
Assume that after these four encounters the PCs will be running out of spells and HP and will want to back off to rest and recover resources. If they don't want to, have the town gather en-masse so the PCs can clearly see they are wickedly outnumbered and retreating is the only option.
For fun, have the dopplegangers send out a couple scouts in the night and give them a little night-time fun. Make this a fairly weak encounter, something like a CR 3 points below the average party level (make it obvious that the weak doppleganger scouts counted on stealth and surprise or your players will wonder why you wasted their time with a nothing encounter).
Then the PCs return the next morning to find the dopplegangers have organized some serious resistance. Let them see this from a long way off. Hopefully they'll find a way to sneak in and hit the resistance from behind, picking off an easy group or two (CR = level -2 or -3), whittling down the numbers without using too much of their resources. Nudge them a little (give them INT checks, WIS checks, or maybe even Survival checks to realize that a frontal assault would be suicidal and they should find a sneakier approach.
Now for the finale, the remaining dopplegangers gather up into one big fight. Enough of them to be a CR 4 about points higher than the average PC level. The big bad doe-or-die conclusion to this arc. If you want it to be even more impressive, maybe the PCs can find a few survivors locked away, waiting for the dopplegangers to eat them. Maybe a couple of the survivors have some class levels to help the PCs (which means even more dopplegangers for the final battle) - this can become really big, really impressive, and really memorable.
And now for the unforseen plot twist: one of the survivors is really a doppleganger, one with a few class levels. A tough one. He blunders around the battle, fumbling, hiding, being mostly useless, biding his time, looking for opportunities. Move him near the part wizard or healer and have him cower there. Then, he hits the PCs right at the end of the big battle when they seem to have won, and suddenly the tide turns...
(don't overdo that plot twist or you could have PC-deaths on your hands)
Presto, a fun little side adventure with a conclusion the players won't soon forget.
Now how do you do all that?
Easy, I gave you the formulas. You decide what level you want to run this and then don't use it until your PCs are the right level. Then all you have to do is stick dopplegangers into the forumulas and you're set.
For example, if you want to run this at level 8:
Day 1:
Encounter 1: 6 dopplegangers
Encounter 2: 4 dopplegangers (all with 1 level of fighter)
Encounter 3: 5 dopplegangers (give one of them 3 levels of cleric)
Encounter 4: 7 dopplegangers
Encounter Night-time ambush: 2 dopplegangers (one with 2 rogue levels, 1 with 2 ranger levels)
Encounter 1: 4 dopplegangers (give one 1 level of sorcerer)
Encounter 2: 3 dopplegangers (all with 1 level of fighter)
Encounter Finale: 12 dopplegangers (include a 3rd level sorcerer, a 2nd level cleric, a 2nd level rogue, and a 2nd level fighter)
Survivor #1: cleric level 5 (helfpul healing spells and a few buffs)
Survivor #2: rogue level 4 (flanking, sneak attacks)
Sneaky Doppleganger "Survivor": level 4 fighter w/Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Power Attack, and Cleave (using a +2 weapon).
Make sure to leave them some treasure, and make sure to have the dopplegangers use some of the treasure against the PCs, and if you think they need it, you can have the PCs find some useful stuff like a wand of Cure x Wounds or a wand of some offensive spell, maybe a few potions of healing, or some one-shot damage items like a Bead of Force or an Elixir of Fiery Breath.
I'll go ahead and ask what I think should be the obvious questions here:
1. Why does the village that murders the occasional traveler have to be populated with doppelgangers to have this be a viable business model?
2. Why does the village of doppelgangers have to be evil?
3. If the entire village is in fact all doppelganger and all evil, couldn't they come up with a better business model for their wonderful talents and lack of morality than just waylaying the odd traveler?
Ever seen the X-Files episode "Small Potatoes"? To spoil it, there's this guy who discovers he's a mutant with doppelganger powers. He uses them for a spree of crime. His crimes? Impersonating his dad, who's died, so he can continue to collect his dad's social security checks. Also, to take the form of hot women's husbands while they're away so he can get free sex with hot women.
This is not to say there can't be evil psycho doppelgangers, but you'd think that most of the doppelgangers out there would consider these people to be something between a horror and an embarrassment. I mean, if you have a village of doppelgangers, one would consider that they probably enjoy living there and having Joe down the street murder visitors who "never would be missed" is proof that Joe's an idiot, because they obviously are missed, because there are people coming looking for them. Worse, if you kill visitors, that really puts a dent in repeat business with the tourist trade, doesn't it? That nice young couple Joe murdered? You think if they'd had a good time in Doppelgangerville (or whatever the town is called) they might have come back again, brought more money, paid for stuff?
This isn't to say that a village of doppelgangers couldn't kill people, but it would be more along the lines of the inquisitor who thinks that shapeshifters are an abomination that must be stamped out at all costs. One of the doppelgangers had enough of reading these bigoted thoughts, and snapped, and the others just sort of swept it under the floor because, well, community is community.
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Write it up like this:
.
.
.(in the table below, # is the number of CR3 dopplegangers, CR is the encounter CR).
# CR
1 3
2 5
3 6
4 7
6 8
8 9Plan four encounters at a CR equal to the average level of the PCs. This doesn't have to be exact. If the PCs are 7th level, you might have a couple encounters with 4 dopplegangers, one with 3, and one with 5-6. You could even vary it up from time to time and reduce the number of dopplegangers but give them a class level or two, just to keep the PCs guessing.
Assume that after these four encounters the PCs will be running out of spells and HP and will want to back off to rest and recover resources. If they don't want to, have the town gather en-masse so the PCs can clearly see they are wickedly outnumbered and retreating is the only option.
For fun, have the dopplegangers send out a couple scouts in the night and give them a little night-time fun. Make this a fairly weak encounter, something like a CR 3 points below the average party level (make it obvious that the weak doppleganger scouts counted on stealth and surprise or your players will wonder why you wasted their time with a nothing encounter).
Then the PCs return the next morning to find the dopplegangers have organized some serious resistance. Let them see this from a long way off. Hopefully they'll find a way to sneak in and hit the resistance from behind, picking off an easy group or two (CR = level -2 or -3), whittling down the numbers without using too much of their resources. Nudge them a little (give them INT checks, WIS checks, or maybe even Survival checks to realize that a frontal assault would be suicidal and they should find a sneakier approach.
Now for the finale, the remaining dopplegangers gather up into one big fight. Enough of them to be a CR 4 about points higher than the average PC level. The big bad doe-or-die conclusion to this arc. If you want it to be even more impressive, maybe the PCs can find a few survivors locked away, waiting for the dopplegangers to eat...
DM_Blake you have gone beyond the call of duty. Kudos to you sir!
I think in one fell swoop you have managed to explain the whole CR encounter system to me. Maybe you should have written that chapter in the PFHB. lolThanks again mate
Reebo
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I'll go ahead and ask what I think should be the obvious questions here:
1. Why does the village that murders the occasional traveler have to be populated with doppelgangers to have this be a viable business model?
2. Why does the village of doppelgangers have to be evil?
3. If the entire village is in fact all doppelganger and all evil, couldn't they come up with a better business model for their wonderful talents and lack of morality than just waylaying the odd traveler?
Ever seen the X-Files episode "Small Potatoes"? To spoil it, there's this guy who discovers he's a mutant with doppelganger powers. He uses them for a spree of crime. His crimes? Impersonating his dad, who's died, so he can continue to collect his dad's social security checks. Also, to take the form of hot women's husbands while they're away so he can get free sex with hot women.
This is not to say there can't be evil psycho doppelgangers, but you'd think that most of the doppelgangers out there would consider these people to be something between a horror and an embarrassment. I mean, if you have a village of doppelgangers, one would consider that they probably enjoy living there and having Joe down the street murder visitors who "never would be missed" is proof that Joe's an idiot, because they obviously are missed, because there are people coming looking for them. Worse, if you kill visitors, that really puts a dent in repeat business with the tourist trade, doesn't it? That nice young couple Joe murdered? You think if they'd had a good time in Doppelgangerville (or whatever the town is called) they might have come back again, brought more money, paid for stuff?
This isn't to say that a village of doppelgangers couldn't kill people, but it would be more along the lines of the inquisitor who thinks that shapeshifters are an abomination that must be stamped out at all costs. One of the doppelgangers had enough of reading these bigoted thoughts, and snapped, and the others just sort of swept it under the floor...
Hi Kevin, you make very valid points but I wasn't planning on using Doppelgangers, I had something else in mind and just used them an example. Still if anyone's interested in a doppelganger town then this thread has several great tips.
I've used Doppelgangers in the past and made sure I used their unique ability to their full advantage. In one adventure a Doppelganger replaced one of the PCs and I took the original characters magic sword which meant that her To Hit modifier was the same as the replaced PCs and so I let the player play the character without telling them they had been replaced until the moment the rest of the party found the unconcious, imprisoned replaced PC. Good times.Thanks for weighing in.
Reebo
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A town full of evil doppelgangers? Perhaps you are referring to...The town where everyone is Hitler!
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Hi Kevin, you make very valid points but I wasn't planning on using Doppelgangers, I had something else in mind and just used them an example. Still if anyone's interested in a doppelganger town then this thread has several great tips.
I've used Doppelgangers in the past and made sure I used their unique ability to their full advantage.
I know you say you may use something else, but until we know what that something else is, I'll continue to refer to the 'gangers, for convenience.
Having recently run an adventure that featured very heavily on doppelgangers, I can advise that a little of something can go a very long way.
Creatures that rely on misinformation, deception, charms or illusions can only really achieve their potential against unsuspecting targets. As soon as the alarms go off that this type of enemy is active, they are scuppered, and should flee to new pastures. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.".
For that reason, the CR system should always be viewed with a heavy dose of scepticism. Blake's figures for effective Encounter Level are perfectly correct under the RAW, but the rules do assume the PCs are being faced with a variety of opponents throughout the scenario.
A variety of opponents means a variety of solutions are required, which cost a variety of party resources, since what worked against opponent A, is less effective vs opponent B, C, D, etc.
When facing opponent A, then some more of opponent A, followed by A, A, A, etc, then apart from the the PCs retaining the knowledge of how to fight these creatures, the buffs and wards they threw on in the first encounter may well still be active.
A doppelganger facing PCs who are already aware they are active in town, is a doppelganger who is unable to effectively use his abilities.
He is no more than a level 4 Warrior NPC; he's blown all his skill ranks on skills that no longer work (suspicious PCs inflict higher DCs, and have methods to prove his ID), his feats relating to deception are wasted. His only advantage is the ability to auto-pass UMD checks (new with PF!), which will rarely come into play, since most will have little wealth to speak of. So he should be treated not as CR3, but CR 2? 1? ½? zero?