I'm running a homebrew campaign, 15 point buy. PC's are at level 2. I ended the last session on a cliffhanger; dropped a PC with a sneak attack from a musket-wielding sniper gunslinger/rogue. Why did I do this? Because said player just played her last session. It was always my plan to kill her at the end of the third session, which she knew from the start. Really PC is kind of an NPC, except that she was played by a live player for three sessions.
The party just got through a pretty brief dungeon crawl after having escaped from prison
PC's:
Gnome Sorcerer: focuses on illusion spells. With Spell Focus, he's got the illusion DCs up to 15, which isn't too bad for a second level character. Newb player; despite my advice he's got a 10 Dex and an 11 AC.
Fetchling Ninja: Probably the strongest player of the group, mechanically. Picked Ray of Frost magical talent as a SLA so that he can make a ranged sneak attack vs. touch AC once per day. Unfortunately he doesn't have a proper weapon at the moment.
Human Undead Lord Cleric: Has an undead skeleton companion, wrapped up like the invisible man. I think she's nearly out of spells, but she has a few negative channels yet. The undead companion has a switchscythe.
Human Buccaneer: Has alchohol, but no firearm.
Human Gun Tank: In the dungeon crawl, I provided him with a breastplate and longsword.
The PC's traveled through a sewer to escape from prison. At the exit tunnel into a swamp, the gnome bard was shot in the head and killed. Next session will begin with initiative. As far as I know, the party doesn't have HP damage.
Here's what they're up against:
Ruggles the Rat
Ratfolk Sniper
Rogue 2 (fav class)
Gunslinger 1
Beneficial bandolier 1000
MW Musket 1800
Paper Cartridge x10 120
Str 10
Dex 16
Con 14
Int 14
Wis 14
Cha 7
RT: Camouflage
Rapid Reload
Medium Firearms Feat
Alternate Racial Traits: Cornered Fury, Skulk
HP:30
BAB 2
Base Fort 2=4
Base Reflex 5=8
Base Will 0= 2
AC 14 (18 prone vs. ranged), Touch 14
Stealth (camouflaged) 19
Percep 8
The "Medium firearms feat" is a custom feat I offered the PC's for this campaign. Basically it's "Goblin Gunslinger", with the prereqs of Small size, BAB 1, and Grit class feature.
In addition to the MW musket, the sniper has a plain pistol in place of the battered one that a gunslinger gets for free, the idea being that both the gunslingers will get a weapon from defeating him.
So I'm a bit worried about dropping another PC with this guy. I spent yesterday creating a pretty big swamp battlefield for the encounter, with various areas of tall grass that can act as improved cover/concealment. It's already established that this takes place at night during the full moon, with thick cloud cover intermittently passing overhead. So in other words, the light will alternate between low light (fetchling and gnome) and dark (fetchling, undead companion, sniper). The gnome is also used to spamming dancing lights.
My thinking is that if the party gets into serious trouble, the gnome bard who was killed to kick off the encounter can help them out... as a ghost.
Ghost template - there's nothing in the rules about the amount of time it takes for a living creature can become a ghost. As this was a particularly violent and sudden death, I think it's pretty fitting that killing this sniper could count as her "unfinished business".
Can a ghost bard sing to give the PC's a bardic performance bonus?
Can a ghost arcane caster cast spells with physical effects on the living? (like grease)
Sounds legit.
The ghost retains all its special abilities (nothing about losing casting/etc) except those that are physical...
So inspiring music, casting spells etc should all be fine.
Plus, of course, you are the GM... anything you want to happen can happen :)
Yeah, but I'm already stretching things by auto-critting a "PC" and declaring that her head is blown off with no chance of saving her.
How about the encounter? OP? UP?
|
If you had a normal party with expected equipment, then this encounter would fall under "average" to "challenging" (because of environmental effects). This is assuming they have about 50% of their resources left.
As is, however, your party will likely find even CR 1 encounters to be challenging. They are severely lacking equipment. 2nd level and they lack the basic equipment to use their class abilities.
That said, I might suggest against having the ghost interfere. It could just frustrate the players even more, leading to feelings of "why am I even playing?" Consider having the sniper flee after the kill, and let the PCs face him later when they are better equipped. Tracking him down can be an entire story arc.
If you had a normal party with expected equipment, then this encounter would fall under "average" to "challenging" (because of environmental effects). This is assuming they have about 50% of their resources left.
As is, however, your party will likely find even CR 1 encounters to be challenging. They are severely lacking equipment. 2nd level and they lack the basic equipment to use their class abilities.
That said, I might suggest against having the ghost interfere. It could just frustrate the players even more, leading to feelings of "why am I even playing?" Consider having the sniper flee after the kill, and let the PCs face him later when they are better equipped. Tracking him down can be an entire story arc.
Interesting, but a couple of points:
The sniper killed the gnome because she has something important (plot hook).
The party is fairly well equipped and armored. When they were thrown in jail, it was with most of their gear, sans obvious weapons. Despite not having their firearms, the cleric has a switchscythe that she's letting the bloody skeleton use, the gun tank has a breastplate and longsword, and the fetchling was in the process of pulling a branch off a tree to turn it into a club when the gunshot happened. They tore through a giant spider and a crocodile in the sewers like they were paper.
Do you think a ghost bard giving you a +1 to your attack and damage rolls translates into "why am I even playing?"
Still, tracking down the sniper would actually make for an interesting arc. Thank you for the suggestion.
I'd say let the characters fight the sniper you have, but make the sniper cautious. His primary goal seems to be acquiring this trinket from the character he just shot in the head, so unless he just won't have another shot at it let him run as soon as he's got it or whenever he drops to about 10HP.
That effectively gives him 20HP, which shouldn't be too much for your players to dish out in a couple rounds. It also poses the possibility of having a temporarily recuring villain if he gets away, either with or without the trinket.
Besides, if he never lays hands on the item till all the players are dead they may not be able to figure out what the plot hook is.
As for ghosting the KO'd "NPC", if the bad guy gets the upper hand it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to appear in a ray of moonlight over their corpse or the injured body of one of the PC's. In fact, seeing as it is presumably rare for a character to become a ghost (and that ghosts have a pretty nice attack against material creatures, none of whom present could harm it as they seem to lack magic weapons), the very act of the NPC rising as a ghost may be enough to send the sniper running, possibly dropping one of their items in their haste to depart.
Furthermore, in this scenario the NPC could possibly inform the PCs about the hook they may have missed. Even if the PCs prevail, you may want to have the NPC rise for this very reason. As is often the case in RPGs, when a plot hinges on noticing relatively small details it is often best to explain them to your players as they often go overlooked.
|
|
If you had a normal party with expected equipment, then this encounter would fall under "average" to "challenging" (because of environmental effects). This is assuming they have about 50% of their resources left.
As is, however, your party will likely find even CR 1 encounters to be challenging. They are severely lacking equipment. 2nd level and they lack the basic equipment to use their class abilities.
That said, I might suggest against having the ghost interfere. It could just frustrate the players even more, leading to feelings of "why am I even playing?" Consider having the sniper flee after the kill, and let the PCs face him later when they are better equipped. Tracking him down can be an entire story arc.
Interesting, but a couple of points:
The sniper killed the gnome because she has something important (plot hook).
The party is fairly well equipped and armored. When they were thrown in jail, it was with most of their gear, sans obvious weapons. Despite not having their firearms, the cleric has a switchscythe that she's letting the bloody skeleton use, the gun tank has a breastplate and longsword, and the fetchling was in the process of pulling a branch off a tree to turn it into a club when the gunshot happened. They tore through a giant spider and a crocodile in the sewers like they were paper.
Do you think a ghost bard giving you a +1 to your attack and damage rolls translates into "why am I even playing?"
Still, tracking down the sniper would actually make for an interesting arc. Thank you for the suggestion.
Sorry. My post sounded bad. I worded it poorly. Of course adding in a bardic performance isn't going to feel like too much deus ex machina. I meant that you should avoid having the ghost interfere too much.
You certainly I know better than I do what equipment your characters have. I was basing my assumptions on what you posted.
If you had a normal party with expected equipment, then this encounter would fall under "average" to "challenging" (because of environmental effects). This is assuming they have about 50% of their resources left.
As is, however, your party will likely find even CR 1 encounters to be challenging. They are severely lacking equipment. 2nd level and they lack the basic equipment to use their class abilities.
That said, I might suggest against having the ghost interfere. It could just frustrate the players even more, leading to feelings of "why am I even playing?" Consider having the sniper flee after the kill, and let the PCs face him later when they are better equipped. Tracking him down can be an entire story arc.
Interesting, but a couple of points:
The sniper killed the gnome because she has something important (plot hook).
The party is fairly well equipped and armored. When they were thrown in jail, it was with most of their gear, sans obvious weapons. Despite not having their firearms, the cleric has a switchscythe that she's letting the bloody skeleton use, the gun tank has a breastplate and longsword, and the fetchling was in the process of pulling a branch off a tree to turn it into a club when the gunshot happened. They tore through a giant spider and a crocodile in the sewers like they were paper.
Do you think a ghost bard giving you a +1 to your attack and damage rolls translates into "why am I even playing?"
Still, tracking down the sniper would actually make for an interesting arc. Thank you for the suggestion.
Sorry. My post sounded bad. I worded it poorly. Of course adding in a bardic performance isn't going to feel like too much deus ex machina. I meant that you should avoid having the ghost interfere too much.
You certainly I know better than I do what equipment your characters have. I was basing my assumptions on what you posted.
No apology needed. I posted so that I could be challenged.
And the two gunslingers are, of course, gunless, which certainly falls under the purview of "lacking basic equipment to use class abilities".
Of course, part of the purpose of the sniper is to provide said gunslingers with firearms, paper cartridges, and a wondrous item. So I do want him to go down, but not too easy. I would like the encounter to take at least an hour, which is why I spent so much time on the environment. I suppose this is why I might be tempted to keep the ghost bard's grease spell in reserve, since she can use it on the enemy musket when he's got a PC in his crosshairs.
I suppose I should point out that I'm fairly new to GMing, at least at Pathfinder, and it's hard to know where to draw the line when planning out an encounter.
If the players do not already know he has rapid reload then drop that feat off the mob.
He spends the entire next round loading the musket ( which is plausible in my view), Once they close the distance, they have a decent chance of taking him out.
The sniper making a stand with a single shot musket makes no tactical sense, if he had two or three friends that would be different. I think he would try to run, or stay concealed where he could kill another pc with the pistol. Then go toe to toe with the surviver.
But even that is real risky.