Hi there!
I have an interesting bunch of shenanigans coming up and I would like to get some ideas.
To get you started I'll give you a bit of the background info.
Here's the rundown:
- Party consisting of a Bard, Kineticist, Medium and Summoner.
- Kineticist broke the law (illegal immigration and lack of respect towards the authorities)
- The Kineticist was sentenced to a week in jail (after he willing go through the proper immigration protocols.)
The Kineticist bends earth and the authorities did not know this. So for fun I placed him in a cell with an Oread (because big tough looking jail buddy is always a good idea).
Before I could tell him that it is an Oread, he earth bended the gravel out of it and so I pronounced the Oread to be dead. This added senseless slaughter of a sentient being to his list of crimes.
He was retrialed and he staged an escape by earth bending. His party members (one being his lawyer) were left out of the loop and regardless considered to be accomplishes. They convinced the Kineticist to give up and now he is in solitary confinement.
So here's what I need:
- I am going to turn this prison break into something very similar to the Ocean's (11, 12, 13) movies and I would like to have some suggestions regarding that.
But wait! There is more! The Summoner of the group is extremely Lawful Good and is against the prison break. The Bard and Medium want to break out the Kineticist.
This causes a clash of interests and the Summoner plans on stopping them, either by himself or by alerting the authorities.
I would really love to hear some suggestions regarding this matter.
If you have any clever ideas as to how I can make this prison break work while the Summoner can play an interesting role as well, then let me know!
Thanks :)
It kind of looks like the summoner's out of the party. They won't be able to trust him; he won't want to trust them. Rather than Ocean's 1X I'd try to finesse the situation by having someone in authority use them as deniable assets (to do something that the government can't be seen to be involved with) as the price of the kineticist's freedom. The summoner might be able to go along with that.
It kind of looks like the summoner's out of the party. They won't be able to trust him; he won't want to trust them. Rather than Ocean's 1X I'd try to finesse the situation by having someone in authority use them as deniable assets (to do something that the government can't be seen to be involved with) as the price of the kineticist's freedom. The summoner might be able to go along with that.
I like the angle on that!
Though disclaimer, the Summoner chose for this himself and he did not mind at all. He originally thought that his extreme LG character doesn't fit in the party of alignment whimsical adventurers.So this is his way of making a last stand in name of justice. To him this is fun, so don't worry about alienating the player from the party, he had planned on this and started making a new character out of his own initiative.
When the Summoner goes to the authorities, have them tell the Summoner that they're not worried, they haven't had a successful breakout to date. That way, in order to stop them, the Summoner will have to break IN to the prison, or else figure out exactly where they're going to come out of to stop them.
When the Summoner goes to the authorities, have them tell the Summoner that they're not worried, they haven't had a successful breakout to date. That way, in order to stop them, the Summoner will have to break IN to the prison, or else figure out exactly where they're going to come out of to stop them.
That's actually quite good. I wonder if the Summoner would go along with that. Things to check! Thanks for the suggestion!
I'm confused as to what happened here. I have no idea what "he earth bended the gravel out of it" means. Was it an accident?
Before I could tell him that it is an Oread, he earth bended the gravel out of it and so I pronounced the Oread to be dead.
No (times 50). This guy is usually a psycho, though so far he never managed to outright butcher a person so he never really became a big blip on the Summoner's radar, but he is now!
Basically what happened, he had a tendency to earth bend anything he sees for fun. Destroy, make pillars, make holes, whatever. This time he RP'd that his character was extremely pissed.
He entered the cell. I told him that in the cell there is something very statue like, though he didnt let me finish. Before I could tell him that this being is an Oread, he already disintegrated him into rubble.
I think his question was based more on the fact that Oreads don't actually have any kind of stone in their body, they're flesh and blood.
I assume he did this with the Geokinesis first level ability.
Interesting gamestyle.
Well, considering he was walking into the cell, he could have made some assumptions that it wasn't actually a statue. The phrase "What looks to be" seems like a red flag to me.
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Making assumptions on what a PC's actions are going to be never ends well in my experience. Unless the result was exactly what the GM was looking for.
And do you really believe it was mere chance and not GM fiat that there was a guy looking very much like a stone statue in the cell where they put the very angry PC who tends to destroy stony objects ?
GM's trap for the PC/player IMO, on par with throwing goblin babies at a Paladin.
I just hope the player had his share of fun with what is happening to his character
Don't try to make the Summoner player stay with his character. Let him create a character more Inkeeping with your primary plot-driver.
If you need a fail/foil character have it be an NPC.
ALRIGHT!
For the people who were interested in how this played out, this is how it went.
I asked the Summoner player to go along like how Tyinyk suggested it.
They went to prepare and I informed them on how one could perform a prison break and I also gave them information if needed but not all as they had to work for it themselves as well.
They found out who build the prison and he boasted that it was the best prison ever built. He actually wanted people to try and beat it, so he gave the party a global blueprint of the facility but not detailed inside each building.
So they started talking to some guards to find out how long they would have to prepare. They received the impression that they execution of their buddy in prison wasn't going to be today or tomorrow but in at least a week time. Only they didn't know which building he was in.
So to find out more detailed info regarding the prison buildings and to find out where their party member is, they opted to break into one of the buildings themselves, the records facility. This was the least protected building in the entire prison.
The player whose character is stuck in prison received a new temporary character from me. He wanted AC and I gave him a Holy Shield Paladin with around 40 total AC. He played him as a drunk as his chosen deity was Cayden Cailean The Accidental God.
Long story short, they broke into the facility. They agreed to disguise or invis themselves and use codenames as I mentioned that they might be watched (scrying). They kind of forgot about the scrying all together and two party members unmasked themselves and called the third one by name.
They found out where their ally was held (as a power source for the prison) and they also found out that the entire prison has total scrying and immediately opted to run. After debating to perform the escape then and there, they opted to make a tactical retreat.
So the night of the breakout, they tunneled underground using the Summoner's earth elementals. They had split the party. Two went after the warden (as they suspected that he was the one behind the scrying) and the other two went after the power source of the scrying itself which evidently was also the building where their ally was being held.
The warden kicked the asses of the two party members (they fumbled a lot. Accidental friendly fire and such). One other party member was messaged and he left his post to assist them.
Eventually they all regrouped at the power source and deactivated it. They went to the cell of their ally.
At this point, the Summoner wanted to sound the alarm but he waited for them to be caught redhanded. When they approached the cell and wanted to open it, a large screen of gears blocked their way (clockwork golem in gear screen form).
They couldn't reach the handles to open the cell (which was very much like a floating Mewtwo back in his Team Rocket experiment days). One party member used magic hand to open the cell and to flood the room with water. The golem reacted by transforming.
So now here they were, 4 characters vs a clockwork golem. They used magic that allowed spell resistance. The golem wasn't impressed. They used mind affecting spells, golem was also immune to that. They used Grease, they gave the golem the haste effect.
One melee character was smashed near unconscious while the Bard sneaked towards their trapped ally, the golem did not approve.
The golem grabbed the Bard and took away a good chunk of his health.
The Bard, the most interesting character of the campaign, chose to end it. He ignited 20 pellet grenades in his backpack. He gave an awesome monologue which declares him to be the greatest person ever lived and that he is the only person to ever kill such a great person. Himself.
The grenades exploded, he turned into dust. The Golem was one shotted and the trapped friend they wanted to rescue was also turned into guacemole.
The remaining members of the party needed to escape, but the explosion alerted every guard in the prison. The melee character chose to stand and fight in enlarged form so his allies might be able to escape with their lives.
The summoner escaped after being convinced by the melee character and he then understood that not all things that seem evil, chaotic or unjust are exactly that. All things have a chance to shine and be lawful, good and bring forth justice. He regretted his original plans and he chose to remember them as the heroes they were that day instead of the amazing and hilarious fools they actually were in the entire campaign.
The campaign actually ended there. Earlier than expected, mainly because I don't have a lot of time to DM anymore and they actually prefered it keep the ending like that as they were immensely content with it.
Hope you enjoyed this wall of text!
Sounds like a good climactic ending.
Sounds like a good climactic ending.
Surprising to me but I rather enjoyed it. I made sure that the Bard and others had epic music te roleplay on. It was an epic thing indeed!