Aquatic Encounters You Can't Forget

[MendedWall12]

All right community. I'm counting on all you bright, experienced minds out there to help me out.

I'm going to need to start building some encounters for a group of 7 adventurers. I realize specifics are necessary to help with knowing what is appropriate, so the party looks like this:
-

2 level 5 Rogues
1 Level 6 Sorcerer
1 Level 6 Ranger (Sable Company Marine, with Hippogriff companion, so he can go airborne--and usually does so at any sign of battle. This adds a significant wrinkle into all my encounter plans.)
1 Level 5 Fighter (Two-handed fighter archetype)
1 Level 4 Barbarian (Armored Hulk Archetype)
1 Level 4 Cleric (Notably, has a full wand with Water Walk, and full wand with Air Bubble at his disposal)
If you want more party specifics let me know, I can fill in any details that seem necessary.

They'll be sailing (I think on a Longship) up the Profit's Flow from Macridi to Kerse, then out of the Gulf of Accord across Lake Encarthan to the Tourondel River, finally all the way down the Tourondel as far as the river allows exiting in the hills of the Mindspin Mountains, on their way to Kaer Maga.

I'm thinking I'd like to throw 6 to 8 total encounters on them at varying times of day and in varying types of weather throughout the course of the whole journey.

That's where you come in. Help me come up with 6 to 8 great monsters/encounters. Think about those aquatic encounters your groups have had over the years that you still remember today.

Can't wait to hear what this great community comes up with. Of course, I'll be shamelessly stealing all of your good ideas.

Have at you!

[Xemnas]

I was part of a Boat crew campaign once but the only 2 encounters that i really remember lead to the group being shipwreaked. one of them was a Kraken/whale fight that slammed into the ship cause we wanted to see what all the splashing was. and the other we ran into the water Behemoth as he was riseing (Not fun ship was completely destroyed and one character died.)

[Bacon666]

I (as a gm) once had a dire shark pull a fishing wizard into the ocean... That was fUN...

wind elemental / water elemental team works wonders too...

Another ship with pirates are great (let 1 be able to summon fire elementals)

If they are FAR from shore, anything that threatens the ship more than the chars are usually fun...

Some1/something casting shrink item on the oars, and shoot them away...

Non combat encounters can be storms, leaks, whirlpools or lack of wind...

[MendedWall12]

Good stuff so far, keep 'em coming.

[Alex Cunningham]

Here's an encounter I whipped up for my sailing PCs in RAZOR COAST:

- A Benthic Serpent (from the RAZOR COAST book) surprises the boat, wants to treat. Turns out he has a hankering for pleseasaur (sic) but is too big to catch the little guys (plus it's more fun for him to send minions and watch them get frazzled). He tells the ship they have 1 day to catch him some pleseasaur or he sinks the boat.

- Turns out the ship's cook (a character in her own right) knows how to catch them with the right chum. But they're skittish; they've got to trail a dingy behind the vessel and trail chum off of that.

- PCs prep, only 3-4 will fit in the boat, have to come up with how they'll catch the pleseasaur when they attract it.

- The chum attracts a Nessie, the PCs try to catch it. They are effectively sitting on the hook of the fishing line. 5 rounds later, a young kraken or devilfish shows up; it turns out it was attracted by the chum, too, but now it wants the wounded pleseasaur. If the PCs lose the pleseasaur, the Benthic Serpent ain't happy. Oh, and some of the PCs had to stay on the main vessel and try to be effective/reel the dingy in. Antics ensue!

[- At this point, my PCs let the pleseasaur and the devilfish fight it out, while using the dingy to push them towards the main boat, and killed the devilfish with readied actions just after it killed and was trying to swallow the pleseasaur. The Benthic Serpent especially enjoyed the terducken of Nessie-inside-evilsquid.]

[MendedWall12]

Another great idea, but I'd love to hear a lot more.

[TGMaxMaxer]

Dragon turtle, nuff said.

Aquatic-type Druid, level... 8-9. Not the actual archetype, just the fluff. Wildshape whatever, wood shape, warp wood, etc. ship starts springing leaks, rudder is all warped, sharks/squid/octopus companions... Control weather and Call lightning, all because the ships anchor just dragged thru her protected reef.

Aboleth, with gillmen slaves. This can get really bad really quick.

[MC Templar]

A single marsh Giant standing on a small island in the middle of the river who demands 2 crewmen be sacrificed to him for lunch or he will sink the boat (threatening with a thrown rock)

[MendedWall12]

More great ideas. I'd still love to see more though. Any other memorable aquatic encounters?

[Amir Hiram]

I LOVE putting players on a boat! *CACKLE*

...Okay. The first time I ever had my players fight an aquatic encounter was in 3.5. It was actually how the campaign opened; in that campaign world, a new continent had been discovered, and the players were sailing over there to work as mercenaries and join the ranks of colonists.

The problem, however, is that the orcish equivalent of Vikings made the "New World" their home. Necromantic, slavery-practicing orcish Vikings with hydra pets.

They were on their boat when thick fog came around the ship. Rules-wise, the fog was an enlarged, persistent Obscuring Mist spell being activated from rods that orc clerics were using on their ships, though you could use other spells in place of that (and I probably should have). Anyway, this fog their rods were producing was obscuring their raiding vessels from sight. The players went below deck to roleplay and meet each other. Well, the halfling that manned the crow's nest decided to go on below deck to have a drink, too, because, quote: "I'm useless up there anyway! I can't see s&@$."

A minute or so later, screaming came from above deck. Then, the door burst open, and orcish raiders charged in through the door.

I forget their exact stats, but I was using Weapon Group rules and had given them a Raiding weapon group. They were proficient in shortspears, shortswords, handaxes, throwing axes, javelins, torches and nets; this is because, realistically, you don't swing a greataxe around in the cramped quarters of a ship. There's just not enough room to do so.

These frontline orc warriors (Fighters) fought side-by-side in a shield wall (and had a feat that gave them bonuses to their AC when they stood adjacent to others with the feat). They opened by throwing javelins and throwing axes into the room, then marched forward defensively. Meanwhile, lightly armored orcs (Fighter/Rogues) rushed out from behind the shieldwall and flanked the party, dealing sneak attack damage and using nets to impair and capture their opposition (for purposes of dragging them to their own ship to enslave them, of course).

The party managed to beat two groups of these orcs, though they were pretty damned bloody by the time they had finished. They heard a loud roar come from the decks above, and the whole ship shook. By this point, my players were anxious and afraid. They went above deck...

...and got to fight a zombified aquatic hydra. I chose to make it zombified to make it easier to kill (I.E.: No Fast Healing) while still giving them the "OH CRAP" factor of fighting a hydra on deck. It was supported by two first level orcish clerics (negative energy) and was under attack by several (4-5) first level Human/Halfling/Half-Elf warriors. It killed a couple of them before the party reached it. The fighting was somewhat brief, but when it looked like my party was going to lose a member before the adventure even reached the shoreline, I had a couple more Warriors join the fight and distract the hydra for them (this made the rest of the battle go a little worse for the crew, since they had to stop fighting orcs to engage the monster).

It was my second game I ever ran as a GM, and I have to say that I sincerely loved this intro more than any other campaign intro I've ever run for my players.

[Mark D Griffin]

You could take a look at the Guttersnipe from this years RPG superstar. They're small greedy dragons that have a breath weapon that rots wood. According to their description they're fond of threatening to sink boats if the sailors don't throw some valuables overboard for them. They're only CR 3, so you'd need a pack of them, or have one leading a group of thugs or pirates.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qlv6?Guttersnipe

[Amir Hiram]

OH! Before I forget...

Hydras are fantastic creatures to throw templates on. While using the zombie template seriously hindered the hydra for my group, I had another hydra type planned for higher level encounters that used the Vampiric template. Now, rules-wise, you're supposed to get rid of the natural Fast Healing a hydra has if it's Vampiric; but since this was for a homebrew game, I ignored that. So, it had all the benefits of being a hydra as well as undead benefits and vampiric bites that drained Constitution. Vicious? Very. Backed up with supporting negative energy clerics, an Aquatic Vampiric Hydra of this design can make an extremely fun encounter.

And never forget: If your party is fighting enemies on another boat, the other boat can fire weapons at them. Cannonballs flying around can be environmental hazards. Harpoon guns can be fired at the party from across the water. Throwing weapons and crossbow bolts can be hurled. Enemies can come swinging onto the battlefield (err, the deck) around the party via ropes. You have LOTS of scenic luxuries at your disposal in ship vs. ship combat. Be creative!

[Wyrd_Wik]

There's a fun encounter I ran the other week from Wake of the Watcher (Carrion Crown)

Spoiler:

The party uses a diving bell to descend 400' to the bottom of the lake. Halfway down the bell is attacked by a sorcerer devilfish (who the party ran afoul of earlier but backed away from). The party is squeezed into the bell and have to exit the bell. Luckily prepared for underwater action but hard pressed as the devilfish uses its unholy blood to essentially blind the party underwater (it can see through the cloud). The party won but there were a lot of nervous rolls.

[MendedWall12]

These are all awesome ideas, but I'm still open for more to select from. Anyone else have some memorable aquatic encounters?

[Ashtathlon]

I had a encounter in a campaign many years ago, where we were on a ship voyage, and in the middle of the night a freak hurricane style storm hit us, and while we had to make all kinds of checks to bail water and furl the sails, and make a sea anchor..so we did not sink.

We suddenly entered the eye of the storm, and everything became still, while we were re-grouping from that a group of sahuagin with a bunch of sharks began attacking the under hull of the ship with wood eating acids and picks and drills, so we had to defend the ship from inside and outside..with a hurricane surrounding it...

Very nasty fight we lost 2 of our party as captives to the seadevils, and had to stage a rescue mission as soon as we cleared the hurricane, that took a while.

Hope this helps

P.S. give the leader of the seadevils a wand of warpwood, and that should make things a nightmare.

[Master of the Dark Triad]

How about a little, lost, innocent BABY KRAKEN???

Just stack the young template on it a bunch of times and lower any save DCs.

[Xemnas]

I have never been in this situation but last night I though of haveing a group having to repel King Mogaru(The Godzilla esc Kaiju) Have him rise from sleeping in a river or near a cost because the ship bumped into him. Depending on the size of the crew that could be done fairly easily or how high of knowledge nature your party has they could repel it by Knowing how.