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Hi all,
I'm working on a horror campaign and I want to throw in a couple of heart-pounding chase scenes. One through a haunted forest, and the second through a cyclopean ruin of blasphemous geometry. The chases will be separated by 14 or so character levels, so I'm not worried about it getting old.
My problem is thinking up what to put on the challenges, so I though I'd ask the forums for ideas.
Chase #1: Get away from the monster in the woods. Remember that scene in Army of Darkness where Bruce Campbell is running away in terror from the camera, but you never see what he's running from? I'd like to do that for level 2 characters.
Chase #2: Cyclopean ruin chase. Towards the end of my campaign, the characters will be fleeing a cyclopean ruin in the nightmare realm of Leng. They need to get away from the ruin before it collapses. One of those clamactic escape scenes at the end of the movie. Character level 16 or so.
Any suggestions will be welcome.
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Suggestion on chase #2: Dimensional Anchor. They're gonna be level 16, right? They're just going to want to use Dimension Door, Teleport, Fly, Ethereal Jaunt, etc. Those are just what I can think of off the top of my head. At 16th level- hell, even at 5th- PCs can completely and totally wreck a chase scene unless you completely lock down everything interesting they can do.
Great now i need to make a chase-like-encounter as well...
Brainstorming a bit...
lvl 2 - okay if the players are running away from something - what do the players do besides trying to avoid difficult terrain, take run og double move actions?
Is something standing in their way?
- overun maneuvers?
- tings try to trip them?
How to make the encounter a teameffort - so fullplate guy isn't just trying to keep up, while barbarian with fastmovement get all the action?
lvl 16 encounter
- I think something like ruins falling down/lava running with a movement speed of 20-30 feet at initiativ 10. So the players have to move at least 20 feet/round or start taking 10d6 fire/what ever dam each turn - so if a player takes a run action or double move action turn one he can open a door/fullround action the next without burning/being covered in falling ruins.
Again there need to be something in the way. gatekeepers, locked doors.
Or
nightmare realm of leng - something is moving forward - the players can jump on the ganganturan back of some creature swimming against the current in a river of nightmares (like bad dreams - will save or something bad happens) - flying things try to knock them into the river.
The Creature moves forward - moving the players that are on its back. The river drags the players backwards unless they can make a swim check - if failed enough players can start to drown..
behind them - a void expands like a black hole if to close reflex save or fall you are sucked into it. (there need to be somekind last chance to get out if the player should fall in)
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Well, I've roughed our the first chase idea. I'm going to do a ten tile chase and give the players a two or three tile had start. The object will be to get from their start point, through the foothills of Droskar's crag to the relative safety of the monastery. Their pursuer will be a classic Lovecraft horror that I dare not describe, but they instinctivly know that they are outmatched and must flee.
I will randomly place the tiles (except the finish), and give them a head start. If the unnamed horror reaches their tile, all characters caught will suffer ability damage to a random stat to represent loss of sanity or vitality. Just 1d6 to a random ability to make it unpleasant, but not likely lethal.
DC's for each challenge will be between 10 and 20. Some saves, done skill or ability checks.
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continued from first post since I ran out of time...
2 Clear tiles (just move actions to get through)
2 Steep Hills (DC 15 Acrobatics or Climb to negotiate without falling)
2 Spooky Mists (DC 10 Kn:Geography or 15 Survival to not get lost)
2 Thick Brush (DC 15 Kn:Nature or 20 Fortitude to know safe way around or plunge through)
2 Crags (DC 15 Reflex to avoid falling in or DC 20 Climb to get through)
Droskar's Crucible is the final end tile. PC's get 2 tiles head start. The nameless horror simply advances 1 tile per turn until it catches someone, then remains in that square and only advances if there are no more PC's left in it.
Does this sound like an exciting chase?
I figure CR 3 as it is tough, but not totally lethal for 2nd level characters.
PS I think only 1d2 ability damage. They won't have lesser restoration at that level and I don't want to gimp them completely.
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I think you need a little air of the theatrical here -- Really visualize the things that will make a chase dramatic and memorable in their minds. Here are some suggestions I'd offer -- your organization and mechanics may be fine... but you need "oomph" in a visual/visceral sense. So I'm thinking:
1) change the altitude/environment of the chase: At one point, have them fall into a burrow or lair of "THE" creature or at least "a" creature. -- for instance maybe the monster has dug burrows as various points in this section of the wild, or it could be an entirely different monster, or just a coincidental point of interest they find themselves in... they characters are running, and POW! the ground gives way or as they are running for their lives and looking behind them as often as they are looking forward so they take a header off of a not-so-high cliff, or into a crack in the earth... BOOM... they land in a pile of bones in the bottom of a dark pit and have to climb OUT and resume the chase with SO MUCH GROUND LOST, or perhaps they find themselves running through a long abandoned graveyard in the woods and fall through the ceiling of a buried crypt and now what to get their bearings and RUN UNDERGROUND for part of the chase while the creature decends and follows them. Or maybe they fall into a massive nest of spiders, or a gorge full of all manner of panicked and injured animals that are also instinctively running from the creature... it could be quite exciting to have to fight a bear, dodge a couple of kicking and jumping deer or hinds, all the while yourself trying to clamour out of the gorge and in an orgy of chewing and noisome suck the characters flee with the gorge behind them, hearing the shrieks of the animals in the very pit they climbed out of seconds ago. The image alone of fleeing from some horror only to fall headlong into a web, see a huge bulbous spider decending to eat you, only to have the whole web go collapsing to the bottom of a pit because the creature fell into the same pit chasing you, and is quickly devouring your would be devourer, then changing the chase to a vertical terror-race back to the moonlight above with the horrible unseen thing whipping it's tentacles in the darkness... STUFF LIKE THAT.
Give them visuals that increase the terror and hopelessness... tell them there is a well-lit cabin in the deep woods they didn't notice before, but it is off to one side from where they are running, and they'd never make it there with the monster moving parallel to them and it being closer to it... have the monster flat out crash THROUGH the house, and all the light in it suddenly goes out, or it blows up... and suddenly furniture and house pieces are whipping into their path making it difficult terrain or forcing them to dodge. You know... get cinematic.
Tell them it suddenly seems brighter behind them and then they notice, to their horror, this thing is knocking down or wholly consuming some of the larger trees behind them in it's pursuit to destroy them, as such, the shadow they were normally cast in is now an eerie moonlit brightness, with both their shadows, and some awful pulsating silloutte cast long and far ahead of them.
Have them run right past an old prospector and his mule and let them hear his friendly chiding as to "what's the commotion?" and "Where y'all doing in such a hurry" give way to screaming and agony and then have a bloody mule hoof strike one of them like a missile... ejected from the maw of the creature like an aggravating seed in one's meal.
The idea of having to run blind through a crypt mini-dungeon as an underground part of the chase is of particular appeal to me. Also the idea of winding up in it's or some other giant horrible creature's lair is also appealing.
Let me know if any of that appeals, and maybe I'll take a shot at your Leng chase. I'd have to meditate on that but I already think (if these sorts of ideas appeal) where I could go with that.
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Something else that would seem fun to me, is have the monster cloaked in darkness or shadows. Any character that turns to get a look at it, must make a sanity check or loose some sanity gain a mental disorder or whatever (Paizo Sanity rules are pretty good).
Also have the monster jump ahead at least once, and be waiting for the PCs when they arrive on the tile (sort of like the 80's slasher movies where the teenager is running away and then runs right into the killer). Have them make sanity checks, escape artist checks, etc to avoid encountering the monster in a fight. But ya see it's toying with them so doesn't go for full melee damage, maybe uses some supernatural powers to induce fear, cause some condition to be inflicted, such as nausea- which is just awful.
and get some music to play... something from a horror movie to help out... :)
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Steam and bats (razorcrows actually) added. Thanks.
I like the idea of keeping the chase tense, so I'm going to add a cinematic blurb for each tile as the players encounter it, and then as the monster enters the tile.
The creature is going to be deliberately vague, more of a sense of terror and evil presence than a physical thing. I am going to be vague about it to let the player's imaginations run wild and also because the creature is actually a manifestation of their nightmares brought forth by a rift to the nightmare plane of Leng.