Hey all,
My players experienced a pretty resounding defeat upon attempting to raid an alerted evil cultist temple. Since the cultists were defending their territory in a last stand of sorts, I ruled that only some of the bad guys pursued them as they ran. With some quick thinking the PCs killed their pursuers and managed to flee despite 2 of them falling unconscious.
With no more healing spells or items they will probably need to spend at least a full day regrouping to try and go back in. I'm wondering what I should do with the bad guys in the temple. Would they have had time to replenish their ranks? Having been discovered by the PCs would the leaders have escaped? There was no back door out of the temple but now the players have left the entrance unguarded.
Would you recommend keeping the encounters mostly the same but with added reinforcements? Or would you recommend designing it so the main bad guys got away, leaving behind only small fry? (ie the PCs failed to catch them?) I'm sure this issue might pop up again so I wanted to get feedback.
Thanks!
Have the cultists, finish up what they were doing, destroy the evidence as best they can (leave a few vague clues), pack up and leave. Maybe a few of the crazier ones stay behind out of devotion or something. Depending on how much time has past some wandering monsters like oozes or aberrations could take up in whatever sort of structure is left. For a "final boss" type thing make it so that the cultists were able to successfully summon a planar being with some significance to whatever they were worshiping. Pad that fight out with a few more mooks and you should be good to go.
Great chance for forshadowing what might happen in light of the party's initial failure.
|
Personally, I think you should do what makes sense for the cult. If they're a cult dedicated to personal betterment through pacts with evil outsiders, they likely would flee, as they're acting based on greed. If instead they're death cultist, trying to bring about the end of the world, they likely wouldn't flee as long as they don't think the party has a reasonable chance to stop their plans. It doesn't matter if a few of them die, everyone's going to die anyway, so...
So do what makes sense for the story so far, and what makes sense for the cultist's motivations.
No, I never keep it the same (except in cases where the dungeon denizens don't know what happened and don't know that they should prepare for anything).
Your cultists also get a day to recover spells and they are about 98% certain the PCs will be back (of it not, they're 100% certain that their lives depend on acting like it - being underprepared might mean death but being overprepared means being mildly embarrassed at the most; it's a no brainer).
No they should plan ambushes and set traps and meet their invaders in one giant blaze of battle.
If that defeats the PCs, well, then maybe they'll learn not to let their enemy get so prepared OR to wait more than one day so the enemy could go back to being complacent.
I like Pipedreamsam's suggestion. Cultists aren't going to be stupid. If they were attacked and won, they may or may not finish what they were doing, but they would certainly relocate and try to cover their tracks as best they can. This could be turned into a bit of a pursuit, again depending on the amount of time that passes. They could also leave a couple nasty surprises for the PCs, like traps or summoned monsters.
If this evil temple, once discovered, would have problems with local authorities, it is logical to conclude that they packed up and left. To build a new temple somewhere else, without fear of an imminent raid by the local lord's army.
Sometimes you simply dont win at 1st try. And to know that victory is not assured makes earning once the much sweeter.
Thanks for the advice so far.
This is an instance from Curse of the Crimson Throne Book 2 for those who are familiar. Those who are unfamiliar and don't want to be SPOILED please stop reading.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Just to give an idea of the cultists' motivations, the temple is actually located deep under a warehouse in the city, only accessible by lift. It would make sense for the authorities to investigate, quarantine, and aid in the destruction of this institution true, but the cultists are responsible for loosing a plague that has absolutely decimated the city's resources, and there are not enough (capable) guards to carry out such an operation. Furthermore, the cultists are in league with the royal authorities (without solid proof) (ie under the main antagonist the evil Queen) and as such might not have much trouble with anyone else messing with them. For one, as written the leader of the cult is a crazed fanatic that fights to the death for her deity Urgathoa.
As such, I can see arguments for having them either buckle down, prepare and attempt to meet the PCs again with great force, or to get outta there and set up shop somewhere else. Really kind of torn as to which would make more narrative sense.
I would either (a) split the difference and send the most critical personnel out of the dungeon to relative safety while gearing up for a siege & rigging to destroy in case the PC's advance too far -OR- (b) I would do a variation on the classic 'empty fort' strategy. Suggestion 'A' is fairly straightforward, so I'll concentrate on suggestion 'B'.
In example - I had a group of PC's advance on a town that had a legacy of grossly mutated and misshapen creatures. The PC's find out that a very evil wizard has been experimenting with making chimera's for years.
Wizard is human, but is smitten by a female vampire. Consequently he's on a night cycle to stay up at night with his lady-love, and the PC's arrive at the surrounding town during the day.
One of the party, a spell-caster, decided that he would announce his presence by throwing a maximized fireball at the keep's stone wall. - Meanwhile the rest of the party was preparing to rest for the evening in town, with an order of local clerics. (God of machinery, they were kind of indifferent to the whole undead/chimera thing as long as they didn't lose too many followers themselves)
Anyway, there is a nice whole blown in the side of the keep, but no one bothers to step inside. - That evening, the party receives an embossed, formal, invitation from the lord of the keep (wizard) to a formal dinner/masquerade party.
Unknown to the party, the wizard already had enough time to question the locals about (generally) what the party had to offer, and took steps.
While the party was sitting down to the meal, and the lady-vampire (disguised, of course) was using a wand of wall of force blocking the party from pushing out their chairs too far, in the guise of directing servants from cane-point. ( No one saw through the sleight of hand check to conceal the use of the wand.)
The lord had a spell prepared that made shrapnel out of any convenient objects, and would reflect off of walls, and also had both the metamagic feat that allowed spells to do push-back effects and the feat that allowed a spell to be shaped. -
It basically turned all of the cutlery and silverware into a giant meat-grinder of death, all for the application of a 1st level spell made a 4th level spell from two metamagic feats, and six uses of wall of force.
This creative application of two basic spells freed up the majority of the wizard's repertoire to target specific PC's with specific kinds of spells. He even had a scroll of harm with which to save his lady-love in case she got too close to becoming a vapor.
In the end, the PC's prevailed, but at cost. - One was turned into a cat, but managed to keep his memories and personality. He had to live with the townsfolk for awhile another party figured out his predicament. (That particular player wasn't around much and the other PC's carried on without him) One died and was raised as a skeleton. One died and was brought back as a golem (the wizard had been working on one in his keep for some time, but was waiting on soul to put into it.), and one died but had previously spent a majority of the party loot on a contingency (coincidently the same jackass who fire-balled the keep in the first place).
(EDIT) I forgot to mention that this encounter was /meant/ to happen during the day, while the party encounters an unprepared and slumbering vampire, and a recently woken high-level wizard who would rise about 2 to 3 hours before his lady-love did. - It went from a CR7 encounter (a party of level 6+) to a CR-12+ encounter by virtue of the alert. - So I took liberties, and presumed that the evil NPC's would enjoy toying with the PC's as much as possible before killing them. - It brought the CR closer in line, and gave the PC's a chance to win (at cost) despite their error, because of the greater error on the part of the evil occupants: hubris.
So..., getting to the point. I would make the PC's /very/ cautious by sending them an engraved invitation. They could find the very evidence they seek standing in plain sight in a large room. - Of course no one will touch it, because it /has/ to be a trap. It doesn't have to be, paranoia will get the best of them regardless of whether or not it is or not.
Bottom-line. If you're going to smack them, smack them with the /least dangerous/ things that you can think of in the /most dangerous/ kind of circumstances. - Let Paranoia rule, and let the evil NPC's figure out the most fiendishly clever ways of offing the party with the least resources possible.
If the party blows through the first line, there's still plenty more to come from. - If the party takes a drubbing, they'll have to grudgingly learn from the experience. - Despite the outcome, most of the players I had DM's for liked the module, even if half of them were grossly altered by the time it was done.
|
|
So! I'm in Book 6 of CotCT, so I think know pretty well what the cultists should do. Spoilered for AP details:
The Queen's Physicians, meanwhile, probably should replenish their numbers. They're up against a wall here. If ranged worked well last time, they'll likely gather on the catwalks and prepare to rain hell on the poor PCs.
The actual cultists in the cavern below should be very on guard, probably gathered together in one room for safety.
I'd have everyone (including Rolth) I don't mention below gather together in Rooms G5, G7, and G8, and peep through the keyholes. All the undead available are in Room G4 waiting. When the PCs engage said undead, they all come out and join the fight. You should probably give the PCs a Perception check to realize they're being watched through the doors...but the cultist's stealth effectively has a +5 bonus for being through doors, a +5 bonus for the PCs being distracted by a horde of undead, a +2 for bad conditions (the undead making noise), and a +1 for distance (for a +13 bonus total).
The door to room G3 is blocked. Probably with Hold Portal cast via a scroll (or add it to Rolth's spellbook...he had time to go buy it and add it).
There should be four or five exceptions to this set of locations:
1. Technically, the sentinels in G2 should still be there, but instead of fighting the PCs on their own, if they hear the lift they immediately move to join the others via Room G4 (the undead are under Rolth's control, after all).
2. Ramoska Arkminos doesn't care about this crap and will be doing his research as normal.
3. One cultist (probably a Queen's Physician, actually) should be in G13, as soon as they see the PCs, they know things have gone terribly wrong and smash the glass and unleash the Leukodaemon. Then run.
4. Lady Andaisin is busy being arrogant as hell and communing with Urgathoa. she stays where she is.
5. It's entirely logically justified for Dr. Davaulus to have run. He dislikes physical combat and this is just a job for him. That said, that's dramatically unsatisfying, so I'd have him stay to try and finish his mission. He'll be with the other ground-floor Queen's Physicians on the catwalk if so.