Hello everyone
I need some input on possible ways to continue my campaign.
Since I am rather stressed out with non-roleplay-related stuff at the moment, I haven't found time to do much prepwork lately, which means, my players have more or less caught up to the status quo of my notes last session. We will be playing again on Friday and I have a vague Idea on what I want to accomplish in the following sessions, but I can't come up with a way to do it and I fear, I am kind of blocking myself by worrying about it.
I would greatly appreciate your input for the sake of my players' fun and my sanity.
Now for the situation I need advice on:
My players (A level 7 TN Shaper-Psion (essentially a caster focused on summoning constructs and creating all kinds of stuff from ectoplasm) and a level 7 CG Synthesist (combat focused, demon-like eidolon), together with 4 level 5 and 6 Monk NSCs (controlled by the players in battle, by me outside of it) will be entering the darklands next session. They will do so through the entrance in Highhelm in the Five Kings Mountains. In my Golarion, the dwarves (being LN) allow trade with the darklands through the outer city (at a price), as long as isn't slave trade (mainly due to not wanting to anger their good neighbouring countries). Foreigners aren't allowed inside the inner city without a good reasen.
The journey is suppposed to take up about 2-3 Sessions, before they arrive in a cavern in Sekamina below Lastwall.
I know what awaits them there, but I don't want the trip to be to easy, since the characters have (rightfully) been making a big deal out of entering the darklands and are preparing for all kinds of dangers.
They have a magical device that points them into the direction of their target, but otherwise have no knowledge about the nature of the path there.
What I need now, are some interesting encounters and problems for the way. Some of them can simply be "random" encounters, but I don't want to sit there and just throw monsters at my players until the journey has been "hard" enough.
What I'm looking for are challenges that have to be solved by creative use of skills and Magic or by roleplaying.
They will most probably hire some kind of guide, so getting lost is not really an option, also I find that rather boring.
Additionally, the Synthesist is, unbeknownst to the others, trying to find an evil Artifact of Zon-Kothun that has been stolen from a Shellyn-monastery where it had been kept safe.
The only things he knows about the artifact are, that it looks like a rusty knife and it grants the the bearer enormous power, but quickly kills him. He has been told to "follow the trail of corpses".
(It can't be put down once it has been touched and the bearer needs to make a dc 20 fort save every day or gain a permanent negative level.) The bad guy who stole it is using a horde of weak minions/slaves to transport it, who, due to their low HD and saves, die about every other day. One of them will have died in Highhelm.
Now I need a situation in which the player can a) find the corpse or information about it and b)somehow be able to follow the group of bad guys based on it. (their route more or less concides with the direction the party is travelling in)
I had thought about there being some kind of dwarven police force who, upon finding the (supernaturally aged and warped) corpse, used speak with dead to find out more about it and from whom he can obtain the information (he is very charming and knows the value of a good bribe), but I am open to better suggestions.
Thanks to everyone who managed to read through my wall of text and tnanks in advance for all input.
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Regarding the ability to follow the group of bad guys, the obvious solution is to use survival checks to track them. Tracking a large group of creatures, is not gonna be too hard, and even if the players lose the track, the occasional corpse could bring them back on it.
Survival can also be your way to showcase the dangers of journeying. Journeying in plain old wildlands can be incredibly dangerous, even if you're properly prepared, and the dice are against you, and these darklands are probably not gonna be more hospitable than grassy plains.
Further, and this holds especially true for undeveloped routes or regions, there is not always a path to follow. I'm not just talking about a path, in the sense that someone had walked where you're not walking and have trodden a brown trail into the ground for you to follow. I'm talking about the way you want to travel, abrubtly ending in a deep ravine. There's not always a path.
A long, steep incline, that either needs to be travelled around, taking you through unknown terrain and off your general direction, or perhaps you have to go back and try a different route entirely. Maybe you elect to try to climb it? Maybe the giant spiders living in the holes in the incline would like you to try to climb it too?
Dungeons can sometimes be the least dangerous part of the journey, because depending on the leniency of the GM, travelling can either be super dangerous, or trivially easy. Sticking with the dice, and accepting the randomness of the system, can sometimes provide great challenges for the players to overcome. Sometimes the challenges are even too much to handle, but that's okay - the players will then have to decide if they want to go that way, or find another.
This is why rangers, or people who know the lay of the land, in general, are so valuable. This is why you bring maps and put ranks in knowledge (geography). Let's say you bring Aragorn along, because you want someone to guide you through the Kodar Mountains. Well, unless one of the PCs step up and teamwork with him, Aragorn is not only gonna be your pathfinder, but also your scout, meaning if something goes pear-shaped, he's probably the first to step in it. Now you're all alone in the Kodars, with the corpse of a dead ranger, biting cold, deceptively forceful winds cooperating with narrow ledges, and a GM with table full of high CR beasties and a bloodthirsty d100.
The travelling rules alone can make their trek into the darklands intense and dangerous as heck. If you want to change up the pace, offer them a skill-challenge that they can chose to try to overcome, or go another way and encounter a different challenge. Use monsters, hazards and traps, and palette-swap them as appropriate. Maybe they didn't encounter an elephant, maybe it's a west-varisian black-striped storm-elk (that just so happens to have the elephants stat-block), and maybe it doesn't attack, maybe it just blocks the way, leaving it to the players to decide if they wanna tango, run or get creative. Maybe that trap is not actually a mechanized spear-launcher, that harpoons you with spears from the ground, but rather a deceptive layer of gravel and sand, covering some wickedly pointy stalagmites. You can use the existing material, give it your own spin and make it fit the setting, and still have solid challenges without having to write anything =]
Hope it helps.
-Nearyn
If the group stays together, have a single drow playing querilla with them for days, striking with spells whenever she can get 3 persons in effective area.
When they have learned to keep small distance with each other, use earthquake with cave in separating them with each other. Let them fear of attack while trying to find each other.
Instead make it natural occurence, no attack as would be enemies have more important thing at their minds. next encounters would be wounded, even cripled, who may be desperate enough to plead their help or try attack for food/eguipment and leave as soon as possible. You could get big monster who is already dead, crushed under rocks and maybe some weak beast guarding its feast.
First of all, thanks for the reply.
Sadly I am well aware of the fact that I can reskin things and that skill challenges are an option, I just can't seem to come up with interesting ones. This is why I explicitly ask for input on those.
I know that the wilderness is dangerous and that is how I want it to be, but what I'm asking for is input on specific Ideas as to what kind of skill challenges etc I should throw at the players.
I want to avoid making this whole thing a "roll survival to find path, roll survival to spot danger, roll climb to avoid it, roll perception to notice bad guys, roll initiative..."-dicefest.
Climbing, difficult terrain, natural hazards, monster encounters, these are all things I am aware of. What I am searching for are things that are not only challenging in a mechanical way, but also interesting for the Players.
I don't want to bore my players by GMing the Frodo&Sam chapters of the 2nd book of LotR...
Thanks Bunnyboy, stuff like this is what I'm looking for.
Additionally, the Synthesist is, unbeknownst to the others, trying to find an evil Artifact of Zon-Kothun that has been stolen from a Shellyn-monastery where it had been kept safe.
The only things he knows about the artifact are, that it looks like a rusty knife and it grants the the bearer enormous power, but quickly kills him. He has been told to "follow the trail of corpses".
(It can't be put down once it has been touched and the bearer needs to make a dc 20 fort save every day or gain a permanent negative level.) The bad guy who stole it is using a horde of weak minions/slaves to transport it, who, due to their low HD and saves, die about every other day. One of them will have died in Highhelm.
So, you need something with the "trail of corpses."
My suggestion for this: After the party has to make a choice on what appear to be equally valid paths for their destination, come to a small "neutral territory" encampment, some place semi-civilized that they can gather information, supplies, etc.
At this location, they find rumors and panics of a strange plague that has recently struck the location. In reality, the possessor of the artifact and his small horde moved through here for supplies not too long ago. While here, the Rusty Knife of Zon-Kothun was stolen from the minion who was carrying it; perhaps after the first minion who was carrying it died from its curse. The poor looter nearly died from the curse before selling the whole thing, only to die in a small public fight unexpectedly because of the negative levels not yet removed. Through the petty criminals of the town, the Rusty Knife of Zon-Kothun bestowed chaos and confusion as their numbers died unexpectedly and quickly over the course of several weeks or a month, while the leader raged at his minions to retrieve. Without the explanation of what was actually happening, wild rumors of a new plague weakening and killing people spread like fire, as did stores of a spectre seeking revenge on the living, dire wraiths in the service of the neolithids seeking to cull the weak, and whatever other wacky rumors you can come up with. Just days before the party arrived, the villian finally had his minions recover the Rusty Knife of Zon-Kothun and left town.
People are on edge, rumors are flying, and some subtle investigation would be required to dig up the truth of what happened, and who had the item that no one realized was the key element. The party could get approached to resolve the "threat" (dire wraith attacks or whatever the rumor of the moment has) even though it is already gone; the party could be approached for extra healing and protection; other NPCs in town could be leaving etc.
Hopefully, your Synthesist has a chance to gather information about his foes, e.g. who was the first to die from this, what are the symptoms, when did it end, etc. In the meantime, the rest of the party deals with a strange situation that appears to have nothing to do with them...
I thought and developed more of my suggestions.
Hunter
At first, she is more careful, poking reactions from safe distance and trying to find out the capacity of adventurers and waste their resources. With time, she gets more brave and use traps, other cave dwellers etc to slow them down. she might also watch them magically (sensor, small animal, etc).
Quake
Let every player get one playing card. The value of card +10 is DC of whatever they get.
Hearts: Friend is trouble, make Reflex save to get with him and take a share of whatever he got. If royal card, he can push his friend out of danger, but suffer the result himself.
If two players gain hearts and success their Reflex save, they survive together without any damage.
Diamonds: Enter into small hole to avoid being buried. Escape artist check when he squishes in or takes 3d6 damage. The entry is blocked by huge stone. Strength check is required to push it away.
Clubs: Character is in slide zone, use DC of card.
Spades: Character is in bury zone, use DC of card.
Joker: Take 2d6 damage from falling as floor disappear. Reflex save or Acrobatics check with DC 10 halfs the damage. Find the drow pinned under huge rock and having only 0 HP left.
Bury and slide zone effects and damage from cave-in-or-collapse
Out of curiosity, what is the target in the Darklands that their magical device is pointing them towards?
@ JAMRenaissance: As of now, they are the only "good" party after the artifact, since the synthesist is, for reasons to complicated to explain, the only one who can carry it without suffering the negative levels (he can not access the power of the artifact either). But I might put in a rival "evil" party, maybe some other worshippers of Zon-Kothun who want the favour of their god for themselves. :)
@ thekpw: thanks for the input, I will probably be using a slight variation on this, since the "bad guys" are not far enough ahead of the PCs to use your suggestion completely, but the "camp of neutral primitives" is definitely going to happen thanks. :)
(Also, yes, I should totally come up with a better name for the Artifact ^^)
@ Bunnyboy: yes, tying some "random encounters" together by having them triggered/set up by a 3rd party is a good idea and gives them a little more depth. I will probably just include the cave in into this.
@ Yossarin: Their target is the first of a series of serpentfolk ruins that they will have to visit. As I wrote, one of the PCs is a Psion. The player begged me, until I allowed him to play one, but since in my version of Golarion there are no psionics (or at least haven't been so far), he has actually been transported to Golarion from Abeir Toril, where everything D&D/Pathfinder the player has played so far took place.
When he arrived on Golarion, he popped out of one of the gates of the Elfgate network, which has been expanded, made more secret and changed to function on a psionic basis (which no one really understands anymore) for the purpose of the campaign.
Now he is trying to find a way back home and has come into the possession of a journal written by Candlaron the Sculptor, the creator of the gates who was the only Psion in Golarion they now of so far. Most of the journal is encoded and the little bit of it that is readable, sent them on their way to their destination. Candlaron did this, because he wants other people after him to learn about psionics (which he did in the old serpentfolk ruins) but he doesn't want to withhold the thrill of the discovery from them, so he has set up a kind of scavenger hunt that leads the reader along the path of his journey, so they can make the discoveries themselves.