Darkmoon Vale is known for its werewolves, and it is also known for its danger. Travelers who get lost in the Arthell Forest are often considered dead by the locals, and those who do survive either found the Druids living there or escaped on their own accord.
High concept:
The campaign is about survival and escape against overwhelming forces. The heroes must somehow escape Darkmoon Vale, but know they cannot defeat the wolves in a straight fight. In 10 days the full moon rises spelling doom for anyone left in the forest.
Starting level 6, all encounters start at Difficult. A victory raises the ante and a harder encounter attacks the player next turn, a defeat lowers the ante.
Setup:
One score werewolves (20) lead five score wolves (100) against the caravan the players were part of as they traveled out of Andoran. With the caravan pillaged, the defenders devoured, the wolves now chase the fleeing heroes of our story. What seems strange to the heroes is that the wolves have them surrounded, they obviously move faster than them, and yet they have not attacked. The realization sets in as they near the edge of the Darkmoon Vale: The wolves want to play the Greatest Game, and the heroes are the hunt. The initial cinematic ends as the heroes rush into the lush forest, behind them howls fill the winds as the story begins!
Goal of the villains:
The werewolves want to split the party up, and therefore choose to attack them when they are split up such as when they are climbing a hill, or are in a particularly thick layer of underbrush where visibility is extremely limited. In these vulnerable positions the heroes will be attacked by (number of players) groups of enemies who will attempt to defeat or drive the heroes away from one another. If successful in forcing heroes to retreat away from one another the wolves give up the chase having achieved their goal.
Killing the heroes is not their ultimate goal, but instead to terrorize and ultimately afflict them all with Lycantrhopy. Once per day the lycanthropes will attack if the party sticks together, this will be when the heroes are forced to cross a dangerous obsticle, but the wolves will still try to fighten them before the attack to see if any run off.
Attacks:
On a failed survival check the wolves attack.
On a successful survival check that does not enable two heroes to meet up the wolves attack.
If two heroes succeed their survival checks then they the wolves attack having the heroes just barely able to make one another out, but they are still 200 feet apart. They must both defeat their individual encounters before they can meet up. If one character defeats his encounter he can try to full-round-run the distance to lend aid.
Once per day the wolves will attempt a fear check against the players, this is collective as to not give away the position of the characters. Shortly after this the wolves attack each player. Players who become panicked flee randomly, become fatigued, and then are attacked while disadvantaged!
When a hero is about to escape Darkmoon Vale an Epic encounter is waiting for him. If he is defeated by this encounter he is taken back deep into the forest, loses all of his success points, and must start over on his attempts to escape.
On the 10th day when the full moon rises all of the afflicted characters turn into werewolves. Hundreds of afflicted werewolves pour out of the darkness and attack the non-afflicted characters. Victory is impossible for those still inside. Each character still in the forest has 7 wolves and 1 werewolf attacking them, and these creatures reinforce automatically when killed. Defeat is inevitable. A cinematic way to do this is cries of men and women turn bestial all throughout the forest from all directions, and then the sound of foot falls grow louder and louder until a wave of dark fur and glowing eyes pours over the heroes consuming them.
Fear:
Each morning heroes must make a fear check DC 15 + (2 * number of allies they cannot see). Characters who are alone can be forced to make another fear check by the wolves one extra time a day either before or after an attack by snarling, howling, and barking all around them to put them further on edge. Characters do not lose fear as they sleep, the first failed save makes them Shaken, the second failed save makes them frightened, the third failed save makes them panicked. A successful save takes the character down a fear level.
Note: A frightened character moves away from where he thinks the threat is coming from, and as the werewolves know the forest he automatically fails his survival check as they herd him to becoming completely lost.
Note: A panicked character flees from his fear in a full sprint, hence becoming fatigued. Panicked reduces down to frightened after winning or losing the battle with the enemies who are going to attack as soon as he becomes fatigued.
Survival checks (Days 1-4): The check to not get lost in the Darkmoon Vale is a Survival DC 20. If two characters both succeed their survival checks they meet up with each other, which triggers a fear attempt and an attack before they can reach one another to drive them away again. Characters who are together will be attacked each day as they are traveling to try and split them up again.
Survival checks (Days 5-10): The heroes are entitled to three survival checks a day. The successful survival checks give them 1 Success Point each success, while failed survvial checks take 1 success point away each failure. When the character reaches 6 success points they can see the edge of the forest, but standing in their way is an epic encounter, most likely 3 werewolves per character present.
On the 10th day as it turns night and the full moon comes up the characters who have been afflicted with Lycanthropy change into hybrid form and in a way of hundreds of afflicted werewolves mob the remaining characters. Victory is impossible, defeat is inevitable, let this battle play out if you wish, but the heroes who have no escaped are dead.
Surrendering: Characters can choose to surrender to an encounter that they know they cannot win if things get to the point of no return, E.G. a wizard being grappled by 4 wolves. When a character surrenders he beaten into the exhausted state, and then is bitten by a werewolf forcing a save against lycanthropy at a -2 penalty. The surrendered hero is still on his own, but gains +2 on his survival checks to find other characters.
Heroes who are defeated by the werewolves in battle are stabilized by the werewolves--they don't want them to die, the fun has just began--but the players don't know that. The next day they awaken with 1hp, and are exhausted. Werewolves ignore the exhausted and heavily injured heroes, but know where they are.
Heroes who run out of food will find dead animals shortly after leaving their camps in the morning. These carcasses provide enough sustenance for 1 day but can give filth fever (DC 12 fort), and the many streams in the forest can give the heroes filth fever (DC 12 fort) unless the heroes spend time to cook and prepare their food.
Difficulty modifiers:
Cooking and preparing raw food, boiling water +1 difficulty (Easy becomes normal, normal becomes difficult, .etc).
Victory! +1 difficulty.
Defeat! -1 difficulty.
Surrender!-2 difficulty.
NOTE: epic encounters cannot become harder than they are. If someone has won ever battle and is taking his time cooking food nothing changes for him.
Typical Encounters:
(Epic) per character in the fight.
CR 5: 2 wolves (CR1)(CR1), 1 advanced werewolf (CR3)
CR 5: 4 wolves (CR1)(CR1)(CR1)(CR1)
CR 5: 3 werewolves (CR2)(CR2)(CR2)
CR 5: 1 Dire werewolf Barbarian 5 (CR5)
CR 5: 2 Dire Wolves (CR3)(CR3)
(Hard)
CR 4: 3 wolves (CR1)(CR1)(CR1)
CR 4: 2 werewolves (CR2)(CR2)
(Difficult)
CR 3: 2 wolves (CR1)(CR1)
CR 3: 1 Dire Wolves (CR3)
CR 3: 1 Advanced Werewolf (CR3)
(Normal)
CR 2: 1 werewolf (CR2)
(Easy)
CR 1: 1 wolf (CR1)
This could also be used as part of a campaign. On the 10th night when the afflicted werewolves all turn the non-lycanthrope heroes could find a cave to hide in that leads to the Darklands where they find solitude.
They could still try to escape by ground but the going would be tough, as they would have to endure 3x werewolves with DR 5/silver instead of DR 10/silver after each survival check.
Laying low until the full moon passes is their best bet if they do not want to be delicious.
Does anyone have Knowledge: Local? If so...
1. I roll a knowledge check to see if there's druids in the woods that might actually help me out if I can contact them.
2. I shoot a fireball into the trees to get their attention
3. I beg forgiveness and seek succor with my druid captors.
Also, does anyone have knowledge: nature? Wolves harry their prey, hunt in packs and generally kill stragglers. Running and scattering is a terrible idea. We were just driven INTO the woods, best to go out how we entered.
Don't run around in the woods, playing their games. Make camp, use spells/skills to make a defensible perimeter. Use ACs or summoned creatures to scout over the treetops and find the way we were just driven in. Prepare and go. This will probably trigger an epic encounter, but really wasn't that inevitable?
It seems as if most of the players potential actions here are either already considered and discounted or not considered at all. This might work at first level to start the campaign, but at 6th level I doubt anyone still just walks around with cantrips anymore.
Thanks Mark, keep in mind that more creative solutions are to be carried out by the creativity of the current DM. These would be made up on the spot or added to the system at a later date.
The way I envision the druids going down after incinerating a few trees to get their attention is they would just leave the character, quite literally, to the wolves.
The theme is fear and being lost. It is also possible that since characters have different run speeds that they all reached the forest line at different times, hence resulting in them already being separated. AC is worthless against a DM who knows the grappling is flat-out more effective. AC is extremely easy to raise, but CMD is almost always 10+DEX+STR+BAB+/-SIZE. Feats change this, but not by much.
Most fights with at least 2 or more monsters would usually play out with one monster trying to full attack and the rest trying to grapple from flanking. This does mean a particularly dexterous character will be able to kill the 4-wolves with just AOO on the same round if he has the right enchants, but this is just a feature of his character more than anything.
It is always good for the PCs to make a defensive perimeter, dig in, and so forth. They have to move daily to try and escape so it isn't so much a possibility that they will succeed in finding a defensively sound location each night.
If someone casts fly the werewolves will shoot at them with their bows, but it is entirely plausible for the character to fly out of the forest only for his epic encounter to be chasing after him at 240ft a round. If said character is smart then cast fly again, wait, and then when they get close fly up and nuke them to death or into a route--either way is victory.
It is also possible that rangers and druids, as well as other people who focus in Survival, will be able to waltz through this with their 5-15 or higher survival checks. DAY 5: Survival check, defeat encounter, survival check, defeat encounter, survival check, defeat epic encounter, escape.
...Well, Phil won. I guess he can go drink early or something.
There is also teleport if anyone has it.
There is discern north, which would count as an auto survival success 50% of the time--the rest of the time there is something in the way preventing going north.
Nowhere is it written that the PCs must play by the basic rules. Creativity tends to trump rules every day.