Players in my Horror Campaign read no further.
Please help with suggestions! I'm gaming pretty soon and I need ideas for a climactic encounter!
Here's the situation: My PC's are storming a Frost Giant fortress in pursuit of the Troll King's ring of teleportation that was stolen by the Frost Giant shaman Ashaya. I had designed a whole complex series of scaling encounters to get them to level up (APL is 13) before facing Ashaya on the other side of the fortress.
However, instead they have bypassed the entire thing by using flight, some lucky skill checks in the high mountain winds, and some EXTREMELY lucky escapes from the ancient white dragon guarding the fortress' airspace.
Anyway, they reached Ashaya's tower by the skin of their teeth, and are about to enter her lair/workshop below the tower. Only problem is, I have no encounter planned! I thought I would have several sessions before I needed to nail down the specifics! Normally I would just wing it and it would be fine, but events have been building up to this fight for a while and it really needs to be special (I gotta top the airborne escape from the ancient white dragon)!
Ashaya is statted out as a female frost giant boreal bloodline sorcerer 11 (CR 20!) with ice spells of course (though the party will ignore those, considering all the anti-cold buffs they've got going). There definitely needs to be some sort of twist to make it a little easier on the party if they can be clever.
I'm thinking some sort of enormous cave with icy ledges and chasms lined with shelves for her giant-sized books, with maybe icicles dangerously perched on the roof? But why would she go around with dangerous icicles in her library? Maybe this encounter can be more memorable with something completely different?
I need some new inspiration, please help!
-Moox
Either demonstrate to the party through show of force that they are not yet ready to face her, or start working on enounters as fast as you can. Maybe they could spend a session role-playing with an ice giant toddler. Does she have kids?
She has a ring of teleportation, right?
Have her engage for a round or two, but then juke out with the ring, leaving the party to fight her minions.
I'm assuming she stole it for a purpose other than simply teleportation (since she's already capable of casting that) - so she teleported away to see an ally who can help with that (maybe it's a key to an artifact of some sorts, and she goes to join a planar ally like an ifrit?). The minions might know something of the ally, and there would be notes on the ally around the lab, so there's plenty of hooks to continue their quest.
Hope this helps!
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Moox, I don't think she should be alone for a memorable encounter.
Does she have a number of lab assistants running around? At least one of them can fire off the last few charges of that wand of dispel magic, can't it?
Why did she steal the ring? Has she been teleporting places and gathering ingredients, parts, etc. to build something... say a golem or another kind of construct?
I personally love encounters with moving bits. A rotating platform, or whatnot.
Is she prepared for them? As a shaman, has she foreseen their arrival? That could give her a few tricks up her sleeve. A readied storm will still block visibility and give her and her cronies a round or two to pull themselves together.
Even if the PCs are highly resistant to cold, an ice cage might still tie them up for a round or two. And if any of those dispel magic spells get through, woe to the PC who doesn't like to be cold. Plus, even themed baddies know they they need a spare acid spell or electricity spell to tackle foes who know their reputation.
Moox, I don't think she should be alone for a memorable encounter.
Does she have a number of lab assistants running around? At least one of them can fire off the last few charges of that wand of dispel magic, can't it?
Why did she steal the ring? Has she been teleporting places and gathering ingredients, parts, etc. to build something... say a golem or another kind of construct?
I personally love encounters with moving bits. A rotating platform, or whatnot.
Is she prepared for them? As a shaman, has she foreseen their arrival? That could give her a few tricks up her sleeve. A readied storm will still block visibility and give her and her cronies a round or two to pull themselves together.
Even if the PCs are highly resistant to cold, an ice cage might still tie them up for a round or two. And if any of those dispel magic spells get through, woe to the PC who doesn't like to be cold. Plus, even themed baddies know they they need a spare acid spell or electricity spell to tackle foes who know their reputation.
Thank you, GermanyDM! This is good stuff. I should have mentioned that the dungeon tower the PC's were teleported to by a friendly ice troll contained several frost giant encounters that the PC's dealt with summarily, but not before one of the giants raised the alarm with a gong. Ashaya and her minions will be on the alert, but not specifically expecting the PC's.
I agree she should not be alone! I'm not sure what lab assistants or pets to put in this encounter. As for the use of teleportation, the PC's plan to hit her with a solid dimensional anchor first thing, and probably will succeed. She's been using the ring to cause trouble and give the frost giants a better foothold in the mountains--she has teleported to the PC's location and messed up all their plans in the past, getting them put in the frost giant prison, which they escaped from to plan a revenge.
I also like the idea of moving platforms!
--Moox
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I think you've mis-calculated her CR.
Classes that are marked “key” generally add 1 to a creature's CR for each level added. Classes marked with a “—” increase a creature's CR by 1 for every 2 class levels added until the number of levels added are equal to (or exceed) the creature's original CR, at which point they are treated as “key” levels (adding 1 to the creature's CR for each level added). Creatures that fall into multiple roles treat a class as key if either of its roles treat the class as key. Note that levels in NPC classes are never considered key.
A CR 9 frost giant (a Combat creature) with 11 levels of sorcerer would have their CR increased by 4 for the first 9 sorcerer levels, and then 2 for the last 2 sorcerer levels, resulting in a CR 15 creature. With the appropriate level of equipment (45,000 gp worth, by the NPC chart) she should be fine for a 13th level party to encounter. It's a Challenging encounter, but certainly winnable. It might even be too easy, due to her being a single target. It might be worth shaving off one or two levels and giving her some allies for the encounter to make it more interesting.
I think you've mis-calculated her CR.
Classes that are marked “key” generally add 1 to a creature's CR for each level added. Classes marked with a “—” increase a creature's CR by 1 for every 2 class levels added until the number of levels added are equal to (or exceed) the creature's original CR, at which point they are treated as “key” levels (adding 1 to the creature's CR for each level added). Creatures that fall into multiple roles treat a class as key if either of its roles treat the class as key. Note that levels in NPC classes are never considered key.A CR 9 frost giant (a Combat creature) with 11 levels of sorcerer would have their CR increased by 4 for the first 9 sorcerer levels, and then 2 for the last 2 sorcerer levels, resulting in a CR 15 creature. With the appropriate level of equipment (45,000 gp worth, by the NPC chart) she should be fine for a 13th level party to encounter. It's a Challenging encounter, but certainly winnable. It might even be too easy, due to her being a single target. It might be worth shaving off one or two levels and giving her some allies for the encounter to make it more interesting.
Oh, wow. Thank you so much! I knew she wasn't *really* CR 20, but I wasn't sure how the numbers worked out. I was just looking at her stats and comparing to my party for a good challenge. CR 15 will be perfect if I can pick some interesting minions for the encounter.
Cool stuff!--Moox
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Personally, I'd use this as an opportunity to teach them not to screw with the GM's plans.Worst advice of the day u.uHow so?
When a DM creates content, it's a labor of love and it's hard work. For PCs to basically spit in your face and "har har we skipped it all" is way beyond insulting. Patience in a virtue, and if you run off to fight the final boss while woefully under-leveled, then it's your own fault if you die.
Want something more gentle? Fine. Create the stage for the level it was intended to be entered at. When they start getting their butts kicked in the first room, they should be smart enough to say "Geez, we're not strong enough to handle this yet." They'll retreat and go gain some power of their own before coming back.
A DM shouldn't nerf the BBEG just because the PCs find a way to fight him early. If anything, that sort of insolence needs to be punished, otherwise any schmuck could go in there and take deal with it. Then maybe the PCs will think twice about skipping several levels of content in the future.
Everyone has their own way of handling these things. In this particular case, I want the encounter to be a hefty, memorable challenge, but not crushingly hard. That's why I'm looking for some sort of extra twist or trick that the PC's can exploit in the encounter.
--Moox
The thing is, just because they are at her abode does NOT mean she's home.
So, move some of the other, lesser encounters you meant to have to her tower, for them to chew through...multiples of them, enough to drive the characters back out, hopefully running for their lives.
The next time they try to get in, teleport wards are in place to stop just that sort of thing, raise alarms, etc., and if they try to insert aerially, Elder Air Elementals come out after them.
They should get out with the idea that the sorceress is looking for something to help her...do whatever, which should lead to the next encounter site you have planned, and get the adventure back on track.
Seeing the giantess and her half-dozen bodyguards coming back to the tower on giant rocs whilst battling other minions should be enough to get them running, I would hope!
==Aelryinth
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The thing is, just because they are at her abode does NOT mean she's home.
So, move some of the other, lesser encounters you meant to have to her tower, for them to chew through...multiples of them, enough to drive the characters back out, hopefully running for their lives.
The next time they try to get in, teleport wards are in place to stop just that sort of thing, raise alarms, etc., and if they try to insert aerially, Elder Air Elementals come out after them.
They should get out with the idea that the sorceress is looking for something to help her...do whatever, which should lead to the next encounter site you have planned, and get the adventure back on track.
Seeing the giantess and her half-dozen bodyguards coming back to the tower on giant rocs whilst battling other minions should be enough to get them running, I would hope!
==Aelryinth
Amazingly enough, we've already done a pretty similar encounter: during the PC's escape from the frost giant prison the first time, they had to speed away from the pursuing giant army mounted on huge mammoths. They only escaped by flying over an ice plain that was a breeding ground for remorhazes! Things got real interesting when the party went down due to high winds and had to traverse the rest of the plain on foot...
Anyway, the main point of this plea for help is NOT "help me get the players to go through the fortress after all," but rather "help me design a memorable encounter quickly!"
Thanks for the help so far!
--Moox
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Players should be punished for having good ideas and avoiding encounters that aren't necessary to engage in?
Wha?
That's the weirdest thing I've read on here for ages. And I've been checking out some of shallowsoul's posts...
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If this thread were to NOT get hijacked into a discussion of...stuff, that would be super cool.
--Moox
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I find your post hilarious, really. " I am the DM and if you do not do exactly th thing I have planned for you then I will kill your Pcs".
If they get TPKed while fighting the BBEG that is fine provided the DM run the encounter fairly, not for DM-rage as you advice.
Pardon me if I would be a bit ticked off to work really hard on a nice adventure and then the PCs decice "screw it, we're gonna storm the BBEG's fortress instead", leading to delays in gaming and a loss of productive time.
I don't put in hard work on a stage just for it to be skipped. That's disrespect on the part of the PCs.
Players should be punished for having good ideas and avoiding encounters that aren't necessary to engage in?
Wha?
That's the weirdest thing I've read on here for ages. And I've been checking out some of shallowsoul's posts...
They didn't just avoid encounters, they avoided entire stages. That's not a "good idea", that's called "derailing the campaign". I won't have that at my table.
If I put hard work into an adventure, I expect it to be played out.
I foresaw that this might happen, and put in an ancient white dragon to deal with it. I'm totally fine with the way things worked out, I'm just somewhat unprepared. See my post above :)
--Moox
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If you're looking for assisting creatures groups of Ice Golems and Winter Wolves are both setting a appropriate and could harry the party pretty effectively with their breath weapons. Winter wolves could stay mobile and strike with their breath weapon whenever an opportunity presents itself, and the golems could get in their way. Their DR/adamantine and explosion on death would act as effective deterrents from getting locked down fighting them.
Also worth considering:
Shadows and Wraiths: Shadows and wraiths are always nice backup. They can harass the party while moving through the floor and deal ability damage and drain, which is threatening no matter what level you are.
Cryohydras: Alone or with a few of them, they could provide some serious "fire" support with a large number of breath weapons.
Babau Demons: A number of babau demons could help hem the party in with reach weapons, or take advantage of their at-will dispel magic and constant see invisibility to help keep party buffs down, especially invisibility effects and protection from energy or resist energy.
Nothing else comes to mind right now, but I'll let you know if I think of anything. :)
If you're looking for assisting creatures groups of Ice Golems and Winter Wolves are both setting a appropriate and could harry the party pretty effectively with their breath weapons. Winter wolves could stay mobile and strike with their breath weapon whenever an opportunity presents itself, and the golems could get in their way. Their DR/adamantine and explosion on death would act as effective deterrents from getting locked down fighting them.
Also worth considering:
Shadows and Wraiths: Shadows and wraiths are always nice backup. They can harass the party while moving through the floor and deal ability damage and drain, which is threatening no matter what level you are.
Cryohydras: Alone or with a few of them, they could provide some serious "fire" support with a large number of breath weapons.
Babau Demons: A number of babau demons could help hem the party in with reach weapons, or take advantage of their at-will dispel magic and constant see invisibility to help keep party buffs down, especially invisibility effects and protection from energy or resist energy.
Nothing else comes to mind right now, but I'll let you know if I think of anything. :)
I like these ideas! I think for a pet, I can't go wrong with a remorhaze, which can tunnel through the walls of the ice cave and make some crazy stuff happen. Now for a research assistant. Your suggestion of a Babau is very very excellent!
--Moox
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If this thread were to NOT get hijacked into a discussion of...stuff, that would be super cool.
--Moox
Apologies, that was just an indirect way of suggesting "don't take this advice!" I guess my comment was superfluous, as I can see you have no inclination to punish.
What with moving sections, remorhazes, and multiple other cool ideas for minions, I'd just suggest ensuring that the interesting terrain (slippery ice, stalactites and mites, ice columns etc) come into play, giving the PCs (and their enemies) interesting tactical choices.
Sounds fun!
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I say keep it real. Are they strong enough to handle your final encounter? Who cares? Either way, they legitimately made it there. Let them play it out. One of the best features of table-top rpg's is the open-ended problem solving. If they are too weak, they should learn that lesson. That's the double-edged consequence of being clever. After all, a humbling defeat is fine story pulp. You can redirect it from there. You may have to rethink some hooks, but your work needn't go wasted. If they win the encounter, well, they win! Good for them. You wanted clever and engaged players, and you got them. You're lucky. Retool those encounters and stick them in your next adventure.
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Dming is giving the illusion of choice. If this was my campagin I would describe all the deadly areas they avoidby flying. Then put them at the start of where I designed the dungeon crawl.
I would give them the illusion their choice of flight and skill checks avoided all the dangerous areas, but you have developed all this other area and it is a shame to watse. So unbeknownist to them when they flew into the what appears to be the villians lair they are acutally at the start of your crawl.
The flight and everything that happened after it was all just a dream.
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I wouldn't punish the players for making a sound (but harrowing) tactical choice. Instead I would move the goalposts on them.
So you originally planned to have the end battle in a fortress. Great! Use that same fortress, but leave a high level lackey lieutenant guarding a teleportation circle to wherever you want the new "final battle" to take place. As Mario taught me as a wee lad, "Your princess is in another castle."
I wouldn't just make another castle though. And now you have time to make it Epic. Mini demi plane of Frost? Why not? Your circle could go anywhere. Does your BBEG realize that the PC's are adapted for cold magic? Make the final fight deep in a scalding desert with a powerful previously unrevealed fire wielding ally. Or the reveal of the BBEG's long term plan of trying to slay said fire creature by bringing Ice to a fire realm. The choices are endless.
The bottom line is that your players shouldn't know that this is where the final battle is. If they think so, let them. It makes the reveal of yet another place to go that much better.
Don't extend this out to far however. Having the "real" princess never get rescued really does get old after a while.
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The frost giant sorceress was not CR 20, it was a calculation error. There's no nerfing going on here, it was always CR 15. :)
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I find your post hilarious, really. " I am the DM and if you do not do exactly th thing I have planned for you then I will kill your Pcs".
If they get TPKed while fighting the BBEG that is fine provided the DM run the encounter fairly, not for DM-rage as you advice.
Pardon me if I would be a bit ticked off to work really hard on a nice adventure and then the PCs decice "screw it, we're gonna storm the BBEG's fortress instead", leading to delays in gaming and a loss of productive time.
I don't put in hard work on a stage just for it to be skipped. That's disrespect on the part of the PCs.
Players should be punished for having good ideas and avoiding encounters that aren't necessary to engage in?
Wha?
That's the weirdest thing I've read on here for ages. And I've been checking out some of shallowsoul's posts...
They didn't just avoid encounters, they avoided entire stages. That's not a "good idea", that's called "derailing the campaign". I won't have that at my table.
If I put hard work into an adventure, I expect it to be played out.
If this thread were to NOT get hijacked into a discussion of...stuff, that would be super cool.
--Moox
It's okay, I'm not hijacking your thread or even planning to do so. That was my honest advice. If you intended it to be for later levels, make it for later levels and show them they're not ready for it.
I'm just saying, don't let other work you've put into this campaign go to waste by the PCs skipping over a bunch of content. It's totally not cool for players to do that. There's sort of an unspoken agreement that players aren't supposed to derail things just because they can.
If you've made the quest to get the magic ring, then the players should be able to use whatever resources and strategies they want to get the magic ring.
I don't want to hijack the thread as Moox requested, but I actually think this is relevant. He's doing the right thing in trying to figure out a way to roll with it. If you've put in a ton of work in designing a railroad quest where you want the players to do A, B, and C to get to D, then you need to make A, B, and C make sense beyond "they're what I designed." If the steps don't make sense or aren't necessary, that's not their fault, that's your fault.
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To me, the "disrespectful PC's avoiding content" type of thing is you put an adventure in front of them, and they settle down to run an inn. You gave them a goal, don't punish them for meeting it.
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No, I don't herd the PCs anywhere. Like I said, we hold to the old unspoken agreement of not trying to skip entire stages. Not catching every encounter within one stage is one thing, but PCs intentionally going around content is just bad gaming etiquette.
In addition, if your BBEG is (just as an example) CR 20 and your APL is 13 (I know that's not the case here, this is just an example), you're not obligated to nerf said BBEG down to CR 15 just so the PCs stand a chance. The grinding is part of, shall we say, training. It's how you get powerful enough to beat the BBEG. If you skip the content intended to make you stronger to fight the CR 20 boss at Level 13, getting decimated is a perfectly just reward for such stupidity.
I'm not gonna nerf my BBEG just so you can feel clever for having bypassed four or five stages.
Now this is understood at my table, and of course there is also confidence that I make all content interesting and fun to play through. In addition, if there's a TPK and it's not a "story encounter" where anything can happen, I actually let the group retry the fight (classic "Game Over" and "Retry" options found in concole RPGs) because rolling up new characters is lame and incredibly un-fun when you've vested a lot of work into developing a character (which is the most important part of the game).
For starters, I would advocate against nerfing the BB too. If that's what's there, that's what's there. So we agree on that.
As far as your unspoken agreement at your table, cool! If all you guys like that, no probs. Many tables play differently though - as MyTThor says, if the quest is to get the ring, many groups play " get the ring however we can".
That's all. If my players skip a bunch of encounters through clever ideas, I applaud them and give them xp for that. They're still gonna miss out on all the tasty loot I've sprinkled through the dungeon :)
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Contention in the ranks maybe? The white dragon, knowing that the castle is under attack decides this is an excellent time for him to betray the giantess and steal the ring for himself as he had been planning all along. Pump up the giantess and her minions to make them an epic challenge for the PCs and in the middle of the encounter have the dragon and his kin burst in through the ceiling. It suddenly stops being about surviving and perhaps even beating a high level foe and instead becomes about being caught in the middle as the white dragon and his kin duke it out with the ice giantess and her minions. In the end the giant lies dead, the party has a new BBEG as the dragon has made off with the ring and there’s a room full of loot left behind, but to claim it they must fight off the giants they bypassed earlier, who’ve come to investigate the commotion.
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Seems the OP's problem resolved itself quite nicely. Maybe it's worth a separate thread to argue how to reward/punish/otherwise deal with parties skipping dungeons? Here, I'll start one.
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Contention in the ranks maybe? The white dragon, knowing that the castle is under attack decides this is an excellent time for him to betray the giantess and steal the ring for himself as he had been planning all along. Pump up the giantess and her minions to make them an epic challenge for the PCs and in the middle of the encounter have the dragon and his kin burst in through the ceiling. It suddenly stops being about surviving and perhaps even beating a high level foe and instead becomes about being caught in the middle as the white dragon and his kin duke it out with the ice giantess and her minions. In the end the giant lies dead, the party has a new BBEG as the dragon has made off with the ring and there’s a room full of loot left behind, but to claim it they must fight off the giants they bypassed earlier, who’ve come to investigate the commotion.
Ahahahahahahaaaaaaahahahahhahahahahahaaaa *breathe* aaahahahahahahahhahaaaacanIpleaseplayinyourgame
--Moox
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Contention in the ranks maybe? The white dragon, knowing that the castle is under attack decides this is an excellent time for him to betray the giantess and steal the ring for himself as he had been planning all along. Pump up the giantess and her minions to make them an epic challenge for the PCs and in the middle of the encounter have the dragon and his kin burst in through the ceiling. It suddenly stops being about surviving and perhaps even beating a high level foe and instead becomes about being caught in the middle as the white dragon and his kin duke it out with the ice giantess and her minions. In the end the giant lies dead, the party has a new BBEG as the dragon has made off with the ring and there’s a room full of loot left behind, but to claim it they must fight off the giants they bypassed earlier, who’ve come to investigate the commotion.Ahahahahahahaaaaaaahahahahhahahahahahaaaa *breathe* aaahahahahahahahhahaaaacanIpleaseplayinyourgame
--Moox
You asked for a memorable encounter, the idea of PCs scampering around as dragons are breathing ice at the non-immune to cold minions of the giantess(if there are any), and throwing lightning bolts at the giants as they're immune to all their frost spells, maybe one of the dragons cast invisibility as it goes in for a melee attack and all the players can see of it are the giant foot prints appearing in the debris created by the battle, maybe another casts Freezing fog, hampering visibility, greasing the floor and doing cold damage each round, all the while the giants are picking up large chunks of ruined ceiling and throwing them at the dragons, once the fog goes up their accuracy is hampered and rocks could begin landing all over, requiring reflex saves from the PCs to avoid, well that seems like a memorable encounter to me.
i dont realy see a problem. As a GM you can always make the content liniar! If they bypassed your content somehow alow it to be placed in front of where they are gooing right now! They dont need to know you actuly changed it a bit and placed it right smack in the midle of them and what they are trying to do
if they should go from A to C in the normal sequence a to b to c and they are skipping B just replace B richt back in front of them. there are magic ways enough to block them from gooing to C right away.
in games most of the times its a key they need from B to get to C design a "key" why they need to go to your set up encounters and make your content liniar again! :-)
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A GM can give out ad hoc XP awards for anything. That's RAW.
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If the players jump to the end, that means they've understood the goals correctly, i.e. job well done.
if they reach a particular event a little too soon, you could always throw in a new event that delays them a little while.
Or, if they pass a challenge without fighting, they have overcome that challenge -> earn the XP anyway as if they defeated the enemies in combat.
http://paizo.com/products/btpy8go0?Pathfinder-Module-The-Witchwar-Legacy
This seems to match your theme and (almost) the level, but tuning down should be easier than scaling up.
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If the monster's job is to stop you from getting to the end room of the dungeon, and you get past it, you deserve the XP; you overcame the challenge. In principle.
However, if you didn't even know the monster was there? Do you still deserve the XP?
Hypothetically, the PCs first look at going through the dungeon from the front entrance. See monster A. Sneak away and enter end room through the fire escape. PCs bypassed monster A, deserve XP. Okay.
Or: the PCs never bothered with the front entrance and went directly to the fire escape. PCs bypassed monster A without knowing it was there. Do they deserve XP?
I'm thinking, yes they do. Otherwise you get some sort of weird slippery slope: we saw monster A and went around, so got XP for A. But we didn't see monster B in the middle room, so didn't get XP for B.
Or: we saw there was a monster in the first room. We didn't know what it was, but we went to the fire escape anyway instead of risking the monster alerting all the other guards. XP? We don't know what kind of monster A was, but we knew it was there.
Or do we require some minimum time spent looking at monster A before qualifying for XP? This slope keeps getting more and more slippery.
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Um, no. That's not how it works.You get XP for overcoming an encounter. If you skip it altogether, no XP, period. I don't any GM who'd actually give you XP for entire stages you skipped.
In my most recent final stage, I put a back door to the boss room that skipped the rest of the dungeon (encounters and treasure). The PCs found it, surprisingly enough, and skipped the encounters. I wasn't mad because I put the back door in there to begin with, it was an option. I still didn't give them XP for the encounters they skipped.
Generally, you have to have at least started an encounter to get XP for it, regardless of the resolution.
Um, no, actually XP is given for whatever the DM feels is appropriate.
If the point of the Great Caverns of Orcish Obstacles (tm) is to put a dent in the Procreation Tribe, then you only give them XP for killing off all the orcs. If the point is to get to the Ancient Sword of Enemy Incision that's in the cave behind them, then if you do something especially clever or difficult to get to the Sword another way, there's absolutely no reason not to give xp for bypassing the caverns. Maybe not full XP, but they've overcome the encounter, so long as you hold that the reason for the encounter is to stop the PC's from getting to the Sword.