Staunton Vhane vs a 1st Level Party [Spoilers]

[Joshua Goudreau]

I am starting Wrath of the Righteous this weekend and decided to create a prequel adventure that takes place in Kenabres before the fall of the city. I feel this will get the party a little invested in the city so it's destruction has a bit more weight and make the rapid level progression of the first book feel a little more even.

The story I settled on is pretty simple and straightforward while establishing and foreshadowing future events and characters. I chose to take the confrontation of Staunton Vhane out of Irabeth's backstory and let the players have the honor of uncovering his betrayal.

The story is simply that Anevia was undercover in a group of local thugs on a mission for Trendelev rooting out cultists when she went missing. The party is tasked to find her and rescue her. She was captured by Vhane and his lackeys because she was close to uncovering him. The party traipses around the city a bit before finally confronting the gang and rescuing Anevia. They then confront Vhane and battle him as he mucks about in the Kite before he escapes astride his wasp mount.

The part I need help with is some simple and arrogant tactics that Vhane can use to quickly overwhelm the party but not kill them. I am wanting to establish him as a bonafide badass who thinks so little of the party that he doesn't even bother to kill them. Much to his detriment later when they come a-hunting.

[Joshua Goudreau]

Given his stat block in book 2 he doesn't have much for nonlethal options aside from hold person and with a save DC of only 14 its kind of a crap shoot if it will shut down a 1st level PC.

What other things could he pull out to shut them down as he makes his escape into the sky, laughing mockingly and twirling his mustache?

[Seannoss]

His antipaladin touch attack I think can fatigue people at relatively low levels, would put a big dent in any barbarians. Or a fear spell vs any paladins that think they're immune to fear.

Just ran him against my 8th lvl characters and he does hit very hard and fast. They were quite scared of him.

[Daniel Rust]

I think this is a really neat idea. Getting the PCs emotionally involved in Kenabres from the start is a big plus and using Vhane is a great way of achieving that. It also emphasises the corrupting influence of the templar cults which I don't think gets as much screen time in the AP as it could have.

As for what he should do to put the fear of Deskari in the PCs, you could switch out the Hold Person spell for Scare? Doubles the number of PCs affected.

However, I'd probably drop a channel energy on them. 4d6 damage is pretty heavy for first level PCs and it will likely drop several of them but, if they are at full hp, it shouldn't kill anyone. Especially if you just take average damage instead of what the dice roll. As long as one or two pass their saves you should have someone still up to watch him swagger off.

If you are worried that is too much, you could assume he is only level 6 at the point they meet him and roll 3d6 damage. Still pretty hefty but not lethal.

[Joshua Goudreau]

These are good ideas. Vhane could easily slaughter a group of 1st level characters but that's not what I want to do. Instead I want to make them hate him. Instead of just hearing about him later and learning that he was the one that made it possible for the Storm Lord to attack and break the barrier I wanted the party to see him do it. This way they will know something awful is coming but not what it is.

Also, I wanted to introduce the templar cults earlier, introduce Vhane and foreshadow Xanther Vang as the "man" Vhane answers to on the other side. This should make the transition into the core story in part 2 feel smoother, plus it gets the party involved with a couple of the NPCs early.

[Douglas Muir 406]

I like this idea. Really, really like it. A couple of thoughts.

1) Start this off as what SEEMS like a standard just-starting-out warmup adventure. Let's say the PCs have to escort an NPC somewhere. They don't know it, but this NPC exists only to die horribly at Vhane's hands. So I'd make it an NPC that one of the PCs have an emotional connection to, or at least backstory. Like, one of the PCs is a wizard? Then it's her old teacher. The teacher is something like an Exp 1/wiz 5 who has been in Kenabres for years helping the crusade. The teacher is Venerable -- like, Str 4, Con 5 -- and has a bad leg, so he walks with a cane at half speed. So, while smart and wise, he's slow and fragile. The PCs *think* the mission is to escort this person through a few mildly dangerous, level-appropriate encounters in order to look at some recently discovered inscriptions from the First Crusade or some such.

Why add the NPC? Three reasons. One is to give someone for Vhane to kill horribly. Two is to keep them near Vhane (see below). The third and biggest is to foreshadow the situation in the caves. The PCs are going to fail to protect this kindly old person. This should make them that much more determined to protect the weak in the caves. (If they don't make the connection later, you can have Horgus point out, obnoxiously, that he doesn't feel very safe with them -- everybody knows what happened to the last person they "protected".)

I might have the old teacher mention that he can still cast a mean lightning bolt. This will have clever players thinking that his lightning bolt will save them... see below.

2) In terms of set up, I would have Anevia maybe give them instructions, but not actually accompany them. They'll meet up with her later -- see below.

3) Starting out, I'd throw a couple of simple, easy encounters at them -- dire rats or some such -- and then have them just stumble across Vhane. IMS Vhane is supposed to be pretending to be a mercenary commander? So, you can have the PCs arrive just after he has dropped the pretence. He has just done something truly horrible and is packing to head home. Maybe he has a couple of mercenary guards close at hand? The PCs can have a nice little warmup fight with these guys -- a couple of 2nd level warriors, say -- while Vhane *completely ignores them* and continues packing his bag. When they've beaten the mooks, Vhane sighs heavily, says "You just can't get good help these days," and joins the fight.

4) Vhane should waste a certain amount of time fooling with the PCs. The pre-fight with the guards has given him a good estimate of their powers, so he knows they're not a real threat. The only remotely plausible concern here would be a couple of crits from a mass-damage barbarian, so he'll probably fatigue-cruelty any barbs early on. Have him do suboptimal stuff like walk past a couple of PCs (eating AoOs) in order to grab someone (another AoO) and grapple them -- "he walks up to the cleric of Iomedae. 'I hate you people,' he says. 'You give yourself airs.' And he grabs you by the neck and begins choking you."

5) Three events in the combat come to mind. One is, after a few rounds the venerable NPC should yell, "Everybody out of the way!" and cast Lightning. Clever PCs will think, ah hah, this is where we win. So describe how awesome the lightning bolt is, the echoing sound of it, the ozone... and then describe how Vhane is just standing there, armor smoking a little, shaking his head and smirking. "You singed my beard, old man. For that, I'm going to make it hurt." He then takes a round of non lethal attacks on the venerable wizard -- basically a brutal, bone snapping beating that ends with the wizard collapsing unconscious.

(This goes to another reason to have the venerable NPC: slow movement. What you don't want to happen is, the PCs figure out that Vhane is an unstoppable high level juggernaut and RUN. That would kind of spoil things. Giving them a precious but slow NPC should keep them from doing that. If they run anyway, well, shame.)

5) Second event is, have him kill any familiars or animal companions he can get his hands on, thoroughly and horribly. Not just "he does 16 points of damage and kills your familiar" but he snatches the hawk out of midair and pulls its wings off. Or he strangles your wizard PC into unconsciousness, starts to rummage through your unconscious body (ignoring attacks from any surviving PCs) muttering to himself "any loot? Spellbook?" and when your toad familiar panics and jumps out of your robes, he takes an AoO and stomps it underfoot -- squish!

6) Third event is, yes, Vhane says "This was fun, but I have places to be. Playtime's over," and then channels energy. If any PCs are already down, be careful -- 4d6 damage is average 14 and can easily be 17 or 18. Your goal is to drop PCs into negative territory, not kill them.

7) And then have him kill the NPC, slowly, thoroughly and horribly. Use your imagination, but it should be something beyond an ordinary coup de grace.

8) And THEN, when most of the PCs are down and the party is clearly beaten, have Irabeth come rushing in. And have Vhane curse -- no longer playing, obviously really concerned -- grab his backpack, and run.

Irabeth hangs around for a round or two to stabilize any dying PCs. She looks at the dead NPC and shakes her head, then tells the PCs to go back to meet Anevia. If any of them want to join the chase she will firmly forbid it. "This foe is beyond any of you. Go!"

Aaaand fast forward to a day later; the PCs have received healing and are mostly okay, and they meet Anevia at the festival. Which is why she's standing right next to them when everything literally goes to Hell.

What do you think?

Doug M.

[Daniel Rust]

Some really nice thoughts there Doug. I think that would play out well - very intimidating. Using Irabeth is a very good touch. I would be tempted not to have them meet Anevia in this case. I think it would be fun to have the PCs work out the connection when they are traveling with her underground.

I wouldn't take out PCs' familiars and companions though. It's nicely horrible, but a bit too harsh on them when they have no chance of stopping it. He could do it to your venerable wizard's familiar though. I especially like the squashed toad.

One extra thing. I'm sold on channel energy but why not use the variant channeling option to channel pain? It does 2d6 damage (no save) and sickens the affected PC with extreme agony if they fail a DC 16 will save. That would be super evil and memorable - not deadly but very debilitating and horrifying.

[Douglas Muir 406]

Daniel Rust wrote:

Some really nice thoughts there Doug. I think that would play out well - very intimidating. Using Irabeth is a very good touch. I would be tempted not to have them meet Anevia in this case. I think it would be fun to have the PCs work out the connection when they are traveling with her underground.

And that would work too. Totally up to the DM.

Quote:

I wouldn't take out PCs' familiars and companions though. It's nicely horrible, but a bit too harsh on them when they have no chance of stopping it. He could do it to your venerable wizard's familiar though. I especially like the squashed toad.

This is a judgment call, but we really want the PCs to hate this guy. For me it would really depend on how experienced the players are and what their expectations are. Experienced players are likely to go into this with a certain amount of metagame thinking: "start of an AP, here are the sorts of things likely to happen". Getting brutally beaten up -- including the loss of companions and familiars -- is likely to unsettle them a bit. Which, speaking only for myself, is exactly what I'd want to do at this point. I'd be a lot less likely to try this with newer players, mind.

(One might ask if this is too much, given that the very next step is to wipe out their safe base -- and maybe home city -- and dump them into a bunch of dark tunnels with no help. Personally, my answer would be "absolutely yes" -- I liked the start of the AP already, but I like it even better as part of a one-two punch.)

Also, having a wolf or something down in the tunnels would be slightly problematic anyway. Also-also, if you think taking these resources away is too challenging, you can allow a week to pass so that the PCs have time to find or summon new companions and familiars. (A new familiar costs 200 gp. To twist the knife, maybe the old wizard left the PC an item worth about that much in his will...)

Quote:

One extra thing. I'm sold on channel energy but why not use the variant channeling option to channel pain? It does 2d6 damage (no save) and sickens the affected PC with extreme agony if they fail a DC 16 will save. That would be super evil and memorable - not deadly but very debilitating and horrifying.

I love it! Great idea. And it's better in game terms, too, because it lets you the DM adjust the damage to the point where the PCs are at negative hits but not dead yet. Cool visual, too. "'Okay, playtime is over,' says the dwarf. He raises his hands as if in prayer. Suddenly, crackling bolts of black energy leap from him, striking you. You are wracked by horrible, agonizing pain... 'Oh, I'm sorry,' he smirks. 'Did that hurt? Maybe I did it wrong. Here, let me try again...'"

If we wanted to nit-pick, one could ask whether Deskari has Pain in his portfolio. But forget that -- this is such a cool idea that I'd totally say Vhane has it anyway. It's not actually all that powerful (except for fighting a bunch of lower level characters, heh heh heh) and it fits his character perfectly.

Doug M.

[Joshua Goudreau]

Damn, I wish I'd read this before the game. We wrapped up the prelude about two hours ago and it was a smashing success.

it began with a summons to meet with Trendelev, the majestic woman who is the de facto crusader leader of Kenabres. She informed them that a member of her crusaders, a rogueish type named Anevia, had gone missing while rooting out cultists in the underworld. Before meeting her they also met the noble war hero Sir Staunton Vhane and learned about his past as the defender of Drezen when the city fell to the demons then his harrowing story of time trapped behind enemy lines and his eventual return to Kenabres. Recounted by others they were suitably impressed by him and his tale of survival and dedication to the cause.

A couple of visits to underworld types revealed the Wallside Gang who claimed the Waller Slums as home. While investigating the party was attacked by street hoods who ended up with a holy symbol of Baphomet in their possessions.

The trail led to a safe house where the party fought a few more thugs and a couple sewer goblins. They were getting trounced by the thugs (bad dice for them/good dice for me) so they attempted to parlay in the last fight. The gang turned cult had Anevia kidnapped and the party managed to rescue her but not wipe out the cult.

As soon as Anevia was free she told the party they needed to hurry because Vhane was doing something at the Kite. She was going to rush to the temple for backup. The party immediately broke into a run to confront Vhane, now knowing that he was not the hero everyone claimed he was.

At the Kite they came upon him performing a magical ritual. The barbarian rushed him and landed a pretty solid blow, almost knocking him into double digit hit points. Vhane swaggered and taunted and was generally a mustache twirling villain douchebag. He blinded the barbarian, all while mocking the party. The paladin invoked her smite but the rest of the group couldn't touch his 24 AC. He then whistled for his mount and the party heard a strange buzzing. Before mocking the party a final time, he called to the Locust Host and blasted a channel energy and dropped everyone but the barbarian.

The last thing they saw before blacking out was Vhane leaping on the back of a giant wasp and flying off over the river into the Worldwound. Then the crusaders came rushing in and everything went black. The party then awoke, healed, in the temple with Trendelev standing over them.

The party now officially hates Staunton Vhane.

[Joshua Goudreau]

If anyone is interested I can clean up my notes and post this as a side trek adventure.

[Douglas Muir 406]

That sounds like great fun! Yes, I'd like to see the side trek, if yo have the time.

Going forward, I'd suggest you should spend at least the first 30 minutes of the next session just hanging around Kenabres. Buy some stuff, get healed, talk to some NPCs. Take a moment to point out some landmarks of the city. Have the map printed out and on the table. You want to be signaling, at a metagame level, that this is their home and base of operations and the campaign will be conducted here.

The idea, of course, is that it will be that much more shocking when you graphically blow it all up.

Doug M.

[Joshua Goudreau]

The festival is starting in a few days game time and the city is preparing. The party is planning on enjoying the festival so they will have time to move around the city some more and get attached. However, they know some kind of threat is hanging over the city. Also, one of the players read King of Chaos so she knows that Kenabres falls to the demons eventually.