I'm planning on running a murder mystery subplot in my next game. I was wondering if anyone has ever done that in Pathfinder and if you have any suggestions on what I should or should not use, what an assassin could do to cover his tracks even if magic is used against him and all that.
I would like to follow this.
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I ran one once. A master summoner found a fragment of a powerful summoning artefact at an estate auction, and set about tracking down the other fragments in various antique and jewelry stores in the city. He used summoned earth elementals to collapse the buildings to cover his tracks and sent his snake eidolon in to retrieve the fragments. The party got involved when they were asked to investigate. A security guard had died in one of the collapses, though the party learned he'd been killed by some sort of snake. The adventure ended with the party confronting the summoner at a lord's manor (he owned the last piece) during a party for the lord's daughter.
In another one I ran, an expelled student from a wizard school had become a follower of Zyphus (god of accidental death), and developed a poison that caused arcane casters to suffer from paranoid hallucinations. She went around poisoning former classmates, causing them to lose it and attack random citizens with magic. They had to stop the villain as well as prevent the city from turning on the magic school.
The main problem with murder mysteries is dealing with divinations, so they are much harder to pull off at higher levels.
This article is very useful.
The party is level 5. Human Rogue 2/Cleric 3, Elf Ranger 5, Sylph Magus 5, Oread Sorcerer 5. Ranger has skirmisher and guide archetypes, Cleric has an archetype as well, but I don't remember exactly which one - he loses medium armor proficiency for some area buffs (rerolling d20s or something).
My idea is basically that an aristocract has been under attack by undead, lead by a revenant - they attack every night and eventually run away, they seem to have magical backup. The aristocrat hires the party to protect him and they have to figure out how to keep the revenant from coming back - basically realizing who killed her.
So we would have investigation by day, tower defense by night.
The plot I have right now is that the aristocract had a lover - she was an alchemist's daughter. The alchemist wanted her to marry into high nobility, so he did not approve of their romance. He disguised himself as the aristocract and tried to scare his daughter, but ended up killing her. She comes back as a revenant and he helps her with more undead (reanimator archetype), buffs and all. She thinks the aristocract really did kill her. I'm going to have her in a mask of some sort (a magical item) so as to keep her identity secret until an interesting turning point.
My advice is this:
Determine what kind of investigative resources the party has/could get access to and, rather than find ways to counter them all, actively plan for their use. Have a few clues that can only be found that way for instance. Then, think of blocking one or two of these methods, depending on the intelligence of your murderer and how challenging you want this scenario to be.
Expect the party to use the tools they have. If they don't, then think of alternate ways to deliver the crucial info - remember the rule of 3: there should be 3 different places for the PCs to pick up the same information.
Also remember: you, as the DM know all the pieces to the puzzle. This means when you are designing clues, the tendency is going to be to make them too vague. You'll think it is enough information but only because you know the whole story. Your players will need more than you think in order to reach the conclusions you want.
Hope that helps
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Two things.
1) Dialogue and Characters
In regular hack-'n-slash gameplay, NPCs characters are mostly vessels for quests and loot. In a murder/mystery they are VASTLY more important. Make sure you prepare dialogue beforehand, and keep in mind each character's personality, motives, and knowledge; index cards are a good way to keep this straight. It also helps to give each one a face the PCs can associate with a name, since they'll be having to keep a number of them in mind.
2) Dramatic Tension & Pacing
I like the investigate by day/defense by night thing, and I think a great way to improve it would be to put the PCs on a clock. That doesn't necessarily mean actually setting a timer/hourglass (though that is one way to do it) - just make sure they feel a time pressure. They shouldn't have time to investigate everything they want to before night falls and they have to focus on defense. Also, make sure you set up some good dark music. If you really want to go all the way, dim the lights, or even try playing by candlelight.
As for an assassin, there are plenty of spells and archetypes devoted to that type of thing.
Reynard, I love the index cards idea. I'll be using that for sure.
I hadn't considered the time pressure thing, but that should work wonders. I like it.
As for spells, the murderer is an alchemist. I could have him hire someone else to do it, but that would be yet another layer, so I'm not sure.
I'm also a bit concerned the players could simply destroy the revenant and be done with it.
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The only advice I can really add here is the 3 Clue Rule.
All it means is make sure there are multiple clues that lead to other threads of investigation. If there is only one clue and the party doesn't find it than the entire story comes to a halt. So give about three, preferably found in different ways. If the party searches the room they may find the scrap of paper that has the witnesses address, but alternatively if they question the neighbor they may learn about the witness and where she lives. Alternatively you can have multiple threads of investigation with a few of them leading to the same place in a decision tree format (in my opinion the best way to run a mystery) so the party may or may not find clues that lead to certain scenes but the party is still able to get to the ending and find the killer.
I'm considering using a Red Mantis Assassin as the actual killer, being hired by the alchemist (revenant's father).
Any suggestions on which magical mask I should give the revenant?
As for the "three clues things", this is how the mystery breaks down so far, I think:
- Why is the noble being attacked?
They can identify a revenant with a Knowledge (religion) check.
- Who is attacking the noble?
They know it's a female already.
Talking to the noble or asking around (both Diplomacy checks) would allow them to know about the dead lover.
- Who killed the lover?
They can't just ask the body with Speak with Dead, since it's undead. Other divinations might provide some help.
If they check the grave, they will find a red mantins there, which hints at the Red Mantis Assassins (Knowledge checks, again).
- What about the other undead?
They could smell alchemical reagents or a Knwoledge (religion) check would let them notice there is something different here and a Knowledge (arcana) check would reveal alchemical zombies.
Aha, but watch yourself some Law and Order...
Who else has a motive? (??)
Who might be a suspect? (the other females)
If you assume that the players will succeed in finding every clue, and correctly make every deduction, you will be a) wrong, and b) forced to improvise.
Don't make it up as you go, PLAN IT OUT.
Don't make it up as you go, PLAN IT OUT.
That's what I'm doing ^^
OK, so I might set up some red herrings. That could work.
The aristocrat could think it's a necromancer or an evil cleric he knows sending the undead after him and/or someone who was interested in his lover. That should work fine - I'm leaning towards a neutral and timid necromancer who was in love with the girl but could never really talk to her. He hates the aristocrat, of course.
Once they find out about the girl and all, they could suspect this poor necromancer dude. I could also add a ruthless merchant that wants to marry the aristocrat and the noble who the girl's dad wanted her to marry.
I still have to flesh out the concepts, but it looks good for now.