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Intro: I'm now running Lords of Rust. The PCs are a party of 5, 20pt buy, and they've picked up the cerebric fungus from Fires as a mascot/cohort in training. I've reworked the fungus a bit to make sure it doesn't usurp the stage, but it's still another body with tentacles and fast healing. All in all a fairly sizeable group.
Meanwhile, I use milestone leveling; PCs level up at roughly appropriate times in the path. I'm doing this somewhat conservatively, because they're bigger than the AP was written for so they can face some stuff at a level lower sometimes. I also want there to be enough stuff happening between levels that the players get a chance to try their new toys before they get even more toys. Mostly it's going fine.
However, at level 4, a brutal roll on the random encounter table had them bumping into the CR 6 mutant manticore, right before they met with Redfang, who gave them the quest to save Whiskifiss from Marrow. So in a hurry to save him, but still a bit sore from the manticore fight, they beat their way through the Smiler compound. I did help them by letting the rats have schematics of the compound, so they went in somewhat informed of where to look, and with warning of the laser rifle trap.
Big fight, and afterwards the PCs leveled to 5. The problem is, apart from the wreck in the haunted canyon, I'm out of scripted material before going to the arena to face the Lords themselves. And taking on that whole compound is sort of assumed to happen in one big rush (before they escape/regroup). And though my players are competent, I don't think a L5 party can take that on.
So I need some filler material, that'll fill a couple of days and provide a bit of space for them to flex their muscles. Then they can level up to 6 and start in on the final crawl.
Does anyone have ideas for some nice side quests/encounters? As for hooks, the PCs are on good terms with the Steel Hawks, Meyanda and Redfang.
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This AP needs more Technic League.
How about a recovery team (CR7)
For five characters, add
Add them on the trip back from the haunted wreck (Area P), near Area 0 after the fog has been lifted (they moved in from the east while the heroes were in the ship).
I'll be back if I can think of something else that you can add into scrapwall.
Redfang is in The Choking Tower. You mean Redtooth, the leader of a ratfolk gang in Scrapwall. :-)
Are all the Smiler's wiped out? Survivors could engage in sabotage, maybe luring gremlins to the party.
The party in my Iron Gods game took over the Smiler's headquarters. (Actually, at the moment they are alternating between Dinvaya Lanalei's temple workshop, the Smilers' headquarters, and the wreck in the no-longer-haunted canyon.) They met the farmers who were peasants under the Smilers and hired some ratfolk (not from Redtooth's gang) to clean the place and make it livable. Then a tribe of eight ogres climbed over the hills of scrap and raided the Smiler territory, so the party had an obligation to defeat the ogres to keep their peasants safe.
While the party battled the ogres, the Thralls of Hellion showed up to help. I had replaced the chokers with grippli to have Thralls of Hellion who would not be killed on sight. They were there to regain scrapworth after their humiliating defeat by the Lords of Rust. This laid some groundwork for inviting the technologically adept PCs to fix the receiver antenna, because Hellion believed the lack of power beamed from Torch was their fault.
The Steel Hawks invited the PCs invited to a beer festival in their area (life in Scrapwall is not all battles). This involved singing, drinking, gambling, and betting on fistfights. The fighter PC had a friendly boxing match with a former professional boxer (4th-level brawler).
In my imaginary history of Scrapwall, the Smilers' territory used to be the Rustlers' territory. That section was good pasture land for cattle. Ten years ago, Marrow and the Smilers came to Scrapwall, killed the Rustlers, and took over their building and laborers. All the cattle were stolen by dark folk and other scrappers because the Smilers did not guard them. Several people are trying to persuade the party to steal some cattle from surrounding villages and set up a herd in Rustlers' territory again. They miss the beef.
That's what I did. Though in my game, the manticore is still undefeated. And I am also planning a gang war between the small unnamed gangs as they notice that the haunted valley is now open for scavenging and fight each other over the good bits, but only the goody two shoes nature of my party will get them involved in that fracas.
Finding a new source of food would give the Steelhawk a powerful economic lever to undermine the Lords of Rust. (... especially given that the Sellen Hills region is not especially rich agriculturally.)
How about having them persuade the heroes to go outside of the city and broker a deal with Sellen River fishermen, which of course would require solving a problem they might have (Such as Ghost Wolf barbarian raiders).
(The PC might also realize that such a move would set the Steelhawks up as a de-facto government in Scrapwall, so they may or may not be okay with that.)
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Redfang is in The Choking Tower. You mean Redtooth, the leader of a ratfolk gang in Scrapwall. :-)
Ugh. I think I'll just rename the guy in Choking Tower. If I'm confused about those names, it'll be worse for my players :P
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I should probably give a bit more detailed account of what the party's been up to.
At just fresh level 4, they arrived at Aldronard's Grave. Ran into the smilers which I'd rebuilt as level 1 unchained rogue/level 1 savage technologist barbarian. Tough fight, especially with the portcullis splitting the party. Rescued the crusaders and laid Aldronard to rest.
Went up to the gate and had a talk with Sevroth. She let them in and they bonded over mutual dislike of the Smilers. The party agreed to take on Birdfood in exchange for an introduction to Dinvaya, which I'd described as being someone who hides in a lair behind lots of traps. You know, a single attractive female cleric of a deity that's big on clockwork, in a town full of scumbags. Lad's gotta take care of herself.
I'd redrawn the map of Hawk Palace because I couldn't make sense of the floor levels in the book map, so I made it a bit bigger. Big fight, what with the whole party being human or half-elf. But they eventually cornered Birdfood and then he got critted with an elven curve blade.
After that they went to Dinvaya, figured out the door and fought the golem and met her. She didn't really want to go on the offensive herself, but provided them with some healing and pointers on two places to go next: Redfangtooth and Borunizhev.
Borunizhev is my own invention; a Triaxian captive of the Androffans who recently escaped from a stasis pod. He's a Skyfire Mandate wizard, intended to be an interesting conversation partner for the evoker wizard in my party. He's working for Hellion to figure out a way to use lightning storms to provide a new power source but it's under duress; he was promised a cybereye to replace a missing one (awkward for an evoker who wants depth perception), but now he's got two "bodyguards" shadowing him. He might become the PCs' ally depending on whether they can talk him over, but to do so they'll also have to get rid of the bodyguards.
The party decided to go to the rats first, because they'd heard the rats where under attack from the Smilers and my players want the Smilers all dead. That's when I rolled a random encounter for the manticore, so at level 4 they fought the manticore. Tough fight, but the evoker's angry thundercloud spells did a number on its electricity vulnerability.
Over at Redfangtooth they heard Whiskifiss had been captured, and that there was little time to waste before Marrow might do something horrible to him. While some players muttered a bit about being out of resources after the fight with the manticore, this turned out to be just fine. They had a lot of tech items that so far they hadn't really used, and now was a good time to start lobbing some grenades.
I figured that since they'd been accumulating scrapworth quite fast and basically shown their competence, the rats would be forthcoming too. I gave them the map of the Smiler compound, location of the laser rifle trap, and warning about what sort of enemies to expect. The rats would organize a distraction while the PCs assault Marrow.
So with an Invisibility spell the rogue crept up to the laser rifle and took it. Then they fought Gunshy, who promptly sundered the laser rifle after eating a point-blank shot. He was succesfully tanked with mirror images and sheer luck and beaten, along with the Smiler reinforcements.
Trying to eke out the remaining time on a Communal Protection From Evil, the party hurried on but ran into the lobotomites. Although they posed no credible threat, that took time and the CPFE ran out.
I'd respecced Marrow a bit to really indulge in making a hateable necromancer, with spells like Aura of Cannibalism, Excruciating Deformation and so forth. In addition, she joined the fight with the rust-risen immediately from around the corner, using Spectral Hand to harass the PCs. Tough and tactically interesting fight ensued, in which Marrow used a Darkness spell and the PCs took the dark-ratiating object and folded it away, restoring light. All the while the PCs fought their way through rust-risen and the occasional lightning bolt.
After the PCs got back to Dinvaya, she stopped the radiation poisoning on the cleric (manticore bite is brutal), removed the evoker's blindness and healed up the nearly dead roguebarian. The PCs then went back to the rats to discuss the outcome.
Currently the Smilers are in disarray and the rats and Steel Hawks are discussing an alliance against them. However, there is a new issue in the air: now that Birdfood has been defeated, the Steel Hawks need to get a new leader. But given how Birdfood was installed after intervention from the Lords of Rust, the new leader will probably be challenged as well.
So now the players are discussing acting as champions for the Hawks, and going into the arena with that. Problem is, they just turned level 5.
I'm struggling a bit to justify the quest to destroy the receiver array and go to the haunted canyon for the cylex. It looks like the players are moving to the endgame already. Right now they're gonna talk with the Hawks about stuff and then gonna catch a show at the arena, so there's still opportunity to try to sway them. But I'm a bit lost on a good pitch.
The party does not need to destroy the receiver array. It would make sense as short-term sabotage to keep the Lords of Rust out of Torch, because with no receiver array to receive the power stolen from Torch, the Lords of Rust have no reason to return to Torch. But really the party is going to remove that problem permanently by removing Hellion.
The plot hinges on the party's motivation. Recently, your party's actions in Scrapwall have been motivated by disgust at the Smilers. The Smilers are easy to hate.
The module gives a possible motivation of being hired by Torch to stop a future raid on their reactor. The party in my game was motivated partly by that, though without being formally hired to do it, but also by curiosity what Scrapwall and their cult of Hellion wanted with the power. Another possible motivation is that they could hate Hellion sight unseen because of their battle with Meyanda and her minions.
At this point, I emphasized that the Lords of Rust had had an alliance with the Thralls of Hellion for a few years, but to all the other gangs, it appears that the alliance has broken because the Lords of Rust are attacking the Thralls of Hellion. Really, this is Hellion punishing the Thralls because the power transmission stopped and he blames them. This would seem the perfect time to the Steel Hawks to select a new leader for themselves without interference from the Lords of Rust. But just in case, they will want the party involved to protect from interference. And you seem to be playing on that:
Currently the Smilers are in disarray and the rats and Steel Hawks are discussing an alliance against them. However, there is a new issue in the air: now that Birdfood has been defeated, the Steel Hawks need to get a new leader. But given how Birdfood was installed after intervention from the Lords of Rust, the new leader will probably be challenged as well.
So now the players are discussing acting as champions for the Hawks, and going into the arena with that. Problem is, they just turned level 5.
Not all battles in the arena are to the death. The Lords of Rust are using the arena as a test for recruits and having one person die, either the recruit or the Lord of Rust opponent, for each recruit would not increase the size of the Lords of Rust. Perhaps arrange a non-lethal battle in the arena between individual champions of the Steel Hawks, i.e., individual party members, and individual champions of the Lords of Rust to decide which group will select the new leader of the Steel Hawks.
Of course, since the Lords of Rust are led by Hellion, and Hellion is evil and insane, some sinister twist will occur, such as, "Hey, for our second champion we have Pegleg Smiler here. He doesn't seem to like you guys." But overall, keeps the powerhouses of the Lords of Rust, such as Draigs and Kulgara, out of the fight and keep the fight to the rules, so that the party will want to leave peacefully after their victory instead of pressing on to face Hellion.
So now the players are discussing acting as champions for the Hawks, and going into the arena with that. Problem is, they just turned level 5.
I'm struggling a bit to justify the quest to destroy the receiver array and go to the haunted canyon for the cylex. It looks like the players are moving to the endgame already. Right now they're gonna talk with the Hawks about stuff and then gonna catch a show at the arena, so there's still opportunity to try to sway them. But I'm a bit lost on a good pitch.
A couple of things:
But, at a certain point you need to let them progress as they see fit.
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The party does not need to destroy the receiver array. It would make sense as short-term sabotage to keep the Lords of Rust out of Torch, because with no receiver array to receive the power stolen from Torch, the Lords of Rust have no reason to return to Torch. But really the party is going to remove that problem permanently by removing Hellion.
This was basically my problem. Why would they go after the receiver if at the speed things are going, they're gonna go after Hellion shortly after?
However, I do want to motivate them to go after the haunted canyon because it's important to the exposition of the Divinity story.
The plot hinges on the party's motivation. Recently, your party's actions in Scrapwall have been motivated by disgust at the Smilers. The Smilers are easy to hate.
The module gives a possible motivation of being hired by Torch to stop a future raid on their reactor. The party in my game was motivated partly by that, though without being formally hired to do it, but also by curiosity what Scrapwall and their cult of Hellion wanted with the power. Another possible motivation is that they could hate Hellion sight unseen because of their battle with Meyanda and her minions.
You've given me an idea here. Make the Smilers the new motivation for going to the canyon.
Given that the main headquarter of the Smilers is compromised and the Hawks and rats are out for blood, the PCs could also be asked to retrieve the cylex to blow up the Smiler's hideout where they're currently withstanding what approaches a siege - before the Lords make up their mind to relieve the Smilers or something. The Hawks have the initiative for the moment but they'd need to win fast, or else the Lords might rally the remaining gangs against them.
This will amount to using the cylex to bury the Smilers in a rockslide of collapsing Scrap. It's quite possible the players will balk at that. But then I've already told them that there's something of interest in that canyon. In fact, it may be worthwhile to get the cylex to help breach the Lords' compound.
At this point, I emphasized that the Lords of Rust had had an alliance with the Thralls of Hellion for a few years, but to all the other gangs, it appears that the alliance has broken because the Lords of Rust are attacking the Thralls of Hellion. Really, this is Hellion punishing the Thralls because the power transmission stopped and he blames them. This would seem the perfect time to the Steel Hawks to select a new leader for themselves without interference from the Lords of Rust. But just in case, they will want the party involved to protect from interference. And you seem to be playing on that:
Currently the Smilers are in disarray and the rats and Steel Hawks are discussing an alliance against them. However, there is a new issue in the air: now that Birdfood has been defeated, the Steel Hawks need to get a new leader. But given how Birdfood was installed after intervention from the Lords of Rust, the new leader will probably be challenged as well.
So now the players are discussing acting as champions for the Hawks, and going into the arena with that. Problem is, they just turned level 5.
Not all battles in the arena are to the death. The Lords of Rust are using the arena as a test for recruits and having one person die, either the recruit or the Lord of Rust opponent, for each recruit would not increase the size of the Lords of Rust. Perhaps arrange a non-lethal battle in the arena between individual champions of the Steel Hawks, i.e., individual party members, and individual champions of the Lords of Rust to decide which group will select the new leader of the Steel Hawks.
Of course, since the Lords of Rust are led by Hellion, and Hellion is evil and insane, some sinister twist will occur, such as, "Hey, for our second champion we have Pegleg Smiler here. He doesn't seem to like you guys." But overall, keeps the powerhouses of the Lords of Rust, such as Draigs and Kulgara, out of the fight and keep the fight to the rules, so that the party will want to leave peacefully after their victory instead of pressing on to face Hellion.
That's also an interesting idea. I'd kinda planned on using the arena as a chance to open talks with Borunizhev - while he's guarded, he can be reached with Message spells or anything else the PCs come up with.
If the PCs beat some mid-level Lords talent and a few Smilers, that could also contribute to a building atmosphere of "at last, here is credible opposition to the Lords".
I've already started hinting that this is important, if only to try to sway the ratfolk that had switched to Hellion into standing away during their assault.
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So now the players are discussing acting as champions for the Hawks, and going into the arena with that. Problem is, they just turned level 5.
I'm struggling a bit to justify the quest to destroy the receiver array and go to the haunted canyon for the cylex. It looks like the players are moving to the endgame already. Right now they're gonna talk with the Hawks about stuff and then gonna catch a show at the arena, so there's still opportunity to try to sway them. But I'm a bit lost on a good pitch.
A couple of things:
Use the "Show" at the arena to demonstrate them how brutal Helskarg's Ogre-chariot is. There allies may suggest that the PCs will want something to counter it.
You may need to add to the canyon encounters (see my suggested Technic League team above). But, at a certain point you need to let them progress as they see fit.
I still need to work out the chariot encounter. I think that even right now the party could quickly vanquish it. A troll with no elemental protection to speak of stands little chance against a party with a serious evoker in it. I'm thinking that she has Nalakai cast Resist Energy on him before arena battles just to be sure.
I'm a bit hesitant to put the League on the stage, because I've portrayed Scrapwall as a place that's basically not on their radar. I'm planning to feature them heavily in part III however. I've made up some new gangs, among which is the Waywards. They're crusaders from the worldwound who've fallen into disgrace. Their leader, Alistair of Lauterbury, is hoping to provoke a conflict between the League and Ghost Wolves and then swoop in to "teach the barbarians a lesson". He's hoping that the League will appreciate that, and that the crusaders on the Sellen are happy to have a crusader "guarding the route".
It may be time to start some foreshadowing on that however. Maybe give them a prominent spot in the arena. He could try to get some influence over the Hawks by supporting their bid for renewed independence.
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Destroying the array as a PR stunt against the LoR sounds plausible. That's a good point. If I'm not mistaken the PCs are actually hanging at just enough scrapworth that people don't randomly fight them anymore, but also kind of out of scripted encounters to get it high enough that the arena will take them over the edge.
I think I need to emphasize to them that if they actually defeat one of the LoR, that at that point there'll be no more pausing, that if they do so they need to push on before the LoR regroup and come after them en masse.