Hello "the great community" that is Paizo.
Edit2: I had an old thread about the samme issue, but when I tried to edit it, I got "kicked" out, and lost all my edited text. And now it's not possible to edit it anymore, I am not sure the problem is on my end, or the messageboard server.
Edit: I have a second group that is going to play the same session, and I feel certain parts needs to be done better. I will add visual aid so that it will be easier for you to understand my problem. I just noticed that you cannot link images directly here, so I hope a url link will suffice, let me know if the url does not work!
I am sort of a moderate experienced GM who needs help balancing out a level 3 adventure I have made.
They have been ordered to either question or kill him.
The combat encounters are as follow:
The party will travel down a deep mountain with some mining carts (hanging, not wheels), during this travel, they will need to make split second decisions on which path they need to take, if they are lucky they will end up in a small room above the first room of the dungeon, this room has a small treasure chest. I like to have a d100 table for magic items. During all this traveling, they will encounter other mining carts about 20 feet away for the most part, (not sure what monsters to put here) and they will get fired at by the monsters, the mining cart gives partial cover at best, so they can either hide and wait them out, or try to shoot them down.
Imagine two of these on a dark table]
Edit: The first group encountered 3 mites, 2 of them that had alchemist fire. One of them was able to throw the flask over, doing moderate damage for the encounter. The party was able to make the right turn.
Should I add a relex save to turn the wheel for the right direction. Suggestion for DC?
There are no monsters in the first room, it is shaped like a half plus, sort of. It will contain some markings that will reveal to the party that this place is a mite lair. (their quest is about the end of the tunnel). Maybe I should add some history/religion check here?
The first door leads to a curvy cave like corridor, which are quite smelly, and its hard to travel through. The party does not know that if they spend too much time in this room, they will get sickened.
At random, a green mite (yes you read right, a green one, not blue), will appear, who wish to warn the party of the upcoming battle, however, he does not speak common, nor can see very well. If he gets scared, he will run away the mite hole he came through. I think I can do more for this part, but not sure yet.
I tried doing a Fortitude check DC 15, less than 10 result would make the players more slow, he would throw up every now and then, he would also get a -3 on attack roles and further fortitude save, a proper rest of 15 min would get red of this effect. If you got less than 15, but higher than 9, you would throw up once, then get a -2 on attack roles for 10 min. If a player would get lucky and get over 20, he would become immune to the effects, for the rest of the day.
I wish I made this room a bit bigger.
The next room is quite big, it is is very similar to DM crafts creation in this video. With similar strategy as he mentions at the end of the video. I want the encounter to end with that they needing to run away to survive, maybe have 3 mites be ready for the ambush.
I used a big spider and a swarm of spiders to ambush them by the rock seen on the picture. The biggest problem I have here with this part, is how strong each monster should be, last time, the mites couldn't hit anything, and never was able to withstand more than one 1 hit from the characters. Any good suggestions here?
THe miniatures are just for scale
The next room is a corridor leading to the main quest, the tower for a dwarf paladin. It's 3 floors, medium size. I am not sure how I should create this encounter. Should I add some traps? Should it be two encounters?
Edit: I added a treasure chest on the first floor, with two arrow traps close by, it wasn't made to be difficult to deactivate or notice, but some of the party just rushed for the trap. The party faced a dwarf paladin with 4 skeletons and 2 zombies. The biggest flaw here, was to give the paladin too much high ac, 24 for a level 3 party was not a good idea. The third floor was filled with treasure and a chest that contained a magic item (d100 to roll).
I will add furnitures and other props to each floor
Thanks!
I can't access the images thanks to my firewall at the office, but I'll try and remember to check them out when I get home later tonight.
As far as my initial impressions go:
1) Crazy Cart Ride of Doooom! Awesomely fun sounding encounter with the mining carts!
What you do here depends entirely upon how much you want the characters to wind up at the "right" room at the end of this sequence. If you really want them to do it, then I would suggest you go the route of reflex saves to switch to the proper track. If there are 3 tracks, maybe DC 10, DC 11, and DC 13 would be good targets. A successful saves mean they switch to the "correct" track, a failed save means they remain on the "wrong" track.
If you want to let your players decide on their own, just let them take which ever track they declare. And if they have decided in the span of 2 or 3 seconds, roll a d6. Evens they go Right and Odds they go Left.
A third option would be to have the tracks all go to the "best" outcome, but the decision (either "right" or "wrong") apply bonuses or penalties for however many rounds that length of track lasts.
For instance,
First Turn is coming up! Make a Reflex Save! You manage to, at the last second, bear onto the left track which suddenly lurches 20 ft higher in the air. Your opponents are denied cover until the next turn!
or
Second Turn is coming up! Make a Reflex Save! Ooooh - too slow! The track you turn onto is in poor condition and the cart bounces crazily along the track. -2 to all your attack rolls until the next turn.
2) The Half plus room - a Knowledge (Nature) or Knowledge (Dungeoneering) check would be appropriate here to determine that it's a Mite den rather than say a Goblin or Kobold den.
3) Curvy, Smelly Corridor - being grossed out is already folded into the rules with the Sickened and Nauseated conditions. Nauseated is hugely debilitating though, so I'd caution against it. I'd probably go with a series of Fortitude saves - with each failure adding 10 minutes to the duration of being sickened. Passing all the saves means they dodge the condition entirely.
4) Super AC Paladin - A 24 AC is pretty huge at 3rd level, but it depends on how many PCs you have. Having a big AC like this is a good way to encourage less-than-typical actions in a combat if you have a handful of players, namely: Aid Another! If your player count is less than 4 though, you should probably consider making the Dwarf easier to hit.
1) Crazy Cart Ride of Doooom!
Thanks, that got me inspired :)
Sorry about the images, I couldn't find a free image uploader, so I just used google + :P
BTW, you wouldn't have a suggestion on how high CR the creatures should be for one room? I could make up a room in between the paladin and the multi level room, so that they can catch a break.
It seems to me, to be almost no challenge when they face so many creatures that are less than 1 CR each. (that the monsters miss a lot, and the players instant kill them).
Of course, I don't mind doing that from time to time, letting my players feel powerful killing minions isn't a bad thing :)
Regarding images: there is no site you could have hosted them on that my firewall wouldn't have blocked anyhow. However! I keep getting 403 errors when I try and click those links. Do you have the images set to a private setting or something?
Now, on to GMing ideas:
Personally, I like final encounters to push my players to the limit. If they gulp nervously as the very real possibility of a TPK looms over them only for them to pull out the win in the end, that's the sweet spot I like to aim for.
As such, final encounters like this one are ones where I pump the CR up to 2 or 3 above the Average Party Level.
If you want the mooks to be dangerous, give them a template or something that gives them a good bonus to hit. Still let the PCs hit them easily and kill them in one or two swings, but if the little guys can hit and hurt that makes for snap decisions on the players' end.
You could also have a McGuffin in the room, like an altar or an idol that obviously radiates dark power which could give the zombies/mooks bonuses to hit. That would also make the encounter a little more dynamic by giving your players a 3rd option - disable/destroy the idol/thing to weaken the badguys a bit.
ooh, I like the idea of a dark idol, an easy way to pump up the undead without fiddling with stat blocks too much :)