Seeking Obstacles For A Chase Scene

[Peasant]

I am seeking suggestions for specific obstacles (per the chase rules) to put in the path of my players in an upcoming planned encounter. We quite enjoy the cinematic feel of these rules, but in practice I find that most of the obstacles I quickly envision boil down to an Acrobatics check. I would prefer to move away from just Acrobatics and instead showcase both the strengths of the party and their weaknesses.

The premise - The party will be aboard a doomed train when it comes under assault by a Purple Worm in deep desert. It's a poorly optimized 6th level party, so a straight up fight against a Purple Worm would be a TPK and they know it. So this won't be a strict combat encounter. Instead, as they move forward through the cars, the worm's actions will generate obstacles and create opportunities to strike at vital points. The more of these points which they reach and exploit, the better the outcome. Hence the chase rules, which are specifically structured around quick decision making and multiple paths to success.

The party - A cannibalistic urban barbarian that tries (and fails) diplomacy whenever given the chance. A stretchy limbed aberrant gnome sorceress (the party's tank, don't ask) that invariably tries to solve problems with necromancy, whether that's a good idea or not. A lizardfolk alchemist that's an adept climber and capable of gliding, but is easily distracted by shiny things. A drow ranger and trick shot artist that will be constrained by the availability of shadows during this encounter. A witch that has so far filled the roll of healer and knowledge monkey, though she's not actually good at either of those things and would like to get more use out of hexes. They also have a couple of hangers on, a Falcon companion and an immature Fire Elemental kept as a pet.

With that background, do any interesting or at least amusing obstacles present themselves? Feel free to make whatever assumptions you like about the actual capabilities of the characters. These are not the sorts of players that will limit their actions to the sensible.

[Christopher Dudley]

Try:
a STR check to pull something down into the worm's way to make it waste a turn of movement.
Reflex saves to avoid freight falling from overhead storage.
Handle Animal to get past the trained bear that escaped from its cage in the chaos.
Use Magic Device to open a car door that was magically locked by someone's personal sigil.
Cars separate and your glider has to glide across to the other car with a rope or chain to bind the two together again so the rest of the party can cross. Alternately, they can walk across on the back of the stretchy gnome.
Opportunities for your trickshot artist to drop obstacles in the worm's path. Possibly after the overhead storage falls on them, they see that they passed one overhead bin that was only tenuously hanging on to staying closed. Trickshotter should be able to open it.

Just some ideas. Like the chase rules, this should buy or lose them a single move worth of lead on the worm.

At some point in the chase, you MUST have a man with a cart full of cabbages in their way.

Are the cars getting wrecked behind them as the worm chases? Do they have to stay on the train? A lot of players don't like being railroaded, you know.

[Peasant]

All wonderful. For some reason I had overlooked falling baggage as an issue. And I can definitely see the gnome trying to play bridge, with much complaint as the significantly heavier party trods over her back. Sadly, I think the cabbages will be lost on this particular crew. Cars are destined to be destroyed around them if they take no action, but what they choose to do can change such events.

Puns aside railroading won't be a problem here. It's a sandbox campaign and they're welcome to abandon or alter their goals at any time. Presented with a variety of plothooks and given the freedom to ignore them all and define their own agenda, they felt that several personal goals could best be accomplished by embarking on a task so ludicrously difficult that they themselves have described it as a suicide mission (assassinating a powerful Div on its home turf in the Plane of Water). The train itself is simply an expedient means of getting out of town one step ahead of the consequences of their last escapade (a heist) and advancing quickly towards their next chosen objective (raiding a walking castle to make use of its portal to the elemental planes). The worm's attack is only meant to be a grand challenge in keeping with the by-the-skin-of-your-teeth nature of their quest.

[LuxuriantOak]

I love your campaign.
it sounds awesome.
(Pleaseohpleaseohpleasetell us more!)

How about events during the chase where the worm gets on the side of the train and attacks, getting stuck inside a car for a few rounds before tearing loose again?

(Reflex save to avoid being knocked prone or taking damage on the first attacks. Followed by 1 or 2 rounds of combat against the trapped head - possibly with reduced AC since it has reduced mobility. Then it tears free and the chase continues)

[Otherwhere]

Partially blocked passageways or doorways could require an Escape Artist check to try and squeeze past.

Climb checks (to get up on top of the train cars, for example) or to get up a trestle.

Acrobatics comes up a lot, but that's because it applies to jumping and leaping as well as rolling and tumbling.

Really - you can put in anything you can imagine - some checks will be ability checks (STR "Can I budge this door?"; DEX; etc) and some will be Skill/Knowledge checks.

[Christopher Dudley]

Peasant wrote:

All wonderful. For some reason I had overlooked falling baggage as an issue. And I can definitely see the gnome trying to play bridge, with much complaint as the significantly heavier party trods over her back. Sadly, I think the cabbages will be lost on this particular crew. Cars are destined to be destroyed around them if they take no action, but what they choose to do can change such events.

Puns aside railroading won't be a problem here.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. But the chase sounds better than awesome, and I will almost certainly steal it for a game of my own some time.

[Thanael]

The train driver is hurt/dead the trains is out of control. Can they control/stop the train before they crash into the train station?

Also collaterals: can they free the child who is stuck before the worm gets him?

A wagon is sealed and guarded, can they convince the guard to cooperate?

[Protoman]

The purple worm's assault on the train knocks over several crates full of cabbages in the stowage car. The owner of the cabbages is screaming and in a tantrum is throwing cabbages at anyone nearby.
Diplomacy 19 to try to get past the cabbage owner peacefully.
Reflex 17 to avoid the cabbages as you move past.

[Peasant]

LuxuriantOak wrote:

I love your campaign.

it sounds awesome.
(Pleaseohpleaseohpleasetell us more!)

Since you asked, here's the short version. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic, high-magic Africa. This particular apocalypse was the emergence of the Great Old Ones from the Far Realm, which essentially ended humanity's supremacy on the planet. Subsequent grand feats of celestial engineering resculpted the solar system, fashioning it into first a beachhead for interstellar war, then a weapons proving ground and ultimately a doomsday device that drifts in and out of alignment with the Prime Material Plane. Glimpses of other worlds bleed through from time to time and whatever horrid things you might think that means for the inhabitants... you're probably right. But life has soldiered on for some millions of years, long after the Great Old Ones departed.

I try to spin vivid stories, full of exotic geography, flora and fauna. You'll rarely see me throw a band of ill equipped kobolds at a party unless the PC's have chosen to go vermin-stomping. You will however see the Guecubu, the Inkanyamba, and the Deathknell Scarab. That's assuming you don't decide to get involved in the affairs of the various immortal beings (I am particularly fond of Aboleth, Rakshasa and Djinn). You needn't dwell too much on those though; immortality breeds complacency and if you don't poke it with a stick you... should... be... fine.

In this particular campaign the party began in a hidden city located in what was once the Central African Republic. While carrying out a milkrun they chanced upon the scene of a train derailment seemingly brought about by a spider-eater swarm. (insert heroic rescues here). After, they learned of missing children and went off to play the heroic rescuers. This led them into a harpy infested canyon and ultimately to the den of a Fungus Queen that had plans to sell the larva-infested children to Drow slavers and stage a biological attack on the nearby Drow metropolis using the kids as time bombs. Decisions, decisions. The party cut a deal with the Fungus Queen, capturing and delivering a Succubus in exchange for the kids, returned to the village where they organized an effort to recover the fortune in silver that had gone into the river when the train derailed, and returned home to much acclaim. It wasn't that tidy of course... the Succubus had assumed the identity of the Mayor's mistress and exposing her sent public confidence spiraling downward. And the Fungus Queen ate several of the children and sold several more before the party made it back. And the gnome took a side job from a Ghul somewhere along the way that "accidentally" woke up a walking tower that had been buried in the canyon wall.

Then... it got a bit strange. No one especially wanted to deal with the tower, but they kind of felt bad. I mean, it was the Gnome's fault, it was tromping all over the home territory of the witch and it might prove a tad problematic that it was spewing out an ocean in the middle of the Sahara... and then there was the revelation that the tower was somehow linked to the Div that had (in an adventure the character literally couldn't remember) removed portions of the Gnome's brain to make little sorceress homonculi out of....

In the absence of someone with common sense, when a deranged old Aboleth offered the party a contract to assassinate the Div, they bit. Of course, first they'd need to find out what a Div was (cue 2nd creepy meeting with the Ghul), find the alchemical macguffin they'd need to kill her and hunt her down on the elemental planes. Piece of cake! So in the company of a traveling merchant that wanted to leverage their growing name recognition to build a brand, they traveled to a city known for its intrigue and shady deals (Cairo), to steal the macguffin from a hijacker. What could be simpler? Just foment a gang war between the cops and a band of Sahuagin and under cover of that noise, break into the hijacker's lair (a drydock), overcome her Caryatid Columns in a lightless vault, try not to get squished by falling naval vessels and sneak away, hopefully without getting shot by the sentries.

This... they pulled off. Now, the train, heading west into the desert where the party (but not the crew) know it will eventually run into a sea. Should that go well they'll have to swim through a lesser sea infested with elemental beasties with bad attitudes to reach the tower, then navigate it's crumbling stones as if they were playing Shadow of Colossus, trick an inevitable into giving them a second macguffin, vanquish an ally turned enemy and saunter through a gate to the elemental plane of water. Should they pull that off, the next stage of the plan involves willfully trapping themselves on the other side by shutting the gate. Then they're off to find the craftsman that will forge their macguffin. That should be easy. While holding their breath they'll take advantage of subjective gravity and orient such that their destination will be down. Then its merely a matter of slaloming through the whirling props of the naval blockade and hoping they don't hit the shipyard at terminal velocity. No big deal. Then its time for the showdown with the boss in her floating fortress of flotsam and ineffable evil. Should all of that go according to plan, the Gnome will have her revenge and a chance to regain her stolen memories by chowing down on the brains of the homonculi. Yummy.

For fairly obvious reasons I haven't sketched out much beyond that. I'm not out to kill them by any means, but their plan is not good.