Story thus far. The party's initial goal was to find out what happened to a silver dragon that has been battling against the local red dragon. They found this dragon and it has been cursed. One member of the group has volunteered to go get a scroll from a high level NPC that will be able to cure the dragon. So happens this player will not be at the next session...
I've hinted that this curse was caused by a high level bbeg working with the red dragon (part of a tribe that worships him). I want the rest of the group to go after this bbeg (of the day) and take him/her out (I'm thinking a witch or shaman). I want to set up a series of encounters to get to the bbeg, utilizing skills other than combat where available.
**Adds 6 1st level Qadiran prostitutes and 1 5th level Qadiran pimp**
You're welcome.
A shaman, a bodyguard for the shaman (juju zombie or other undead, construct, charmed or magically controlled "ally," summoned or called elemental or outsider, half-dragon animal companion), an acolyte (providing invisible or Heightened sanctuary healing via Reach Spell cure spells via Magical Lineage trait), and a bunch of minions (adept/warriors and/or undead and/or undead adept/warriors?).
The group is 7 I think. There will be 5 to 8 players. Looking for ideas where skills are used rather than combat. Skills used in combat is good too. I'm thinking about having the bbeg being the head of a witch conclave. The group can go around taking out the lesser witches first.
Maybe have the witches doing some circle magic to summon something nasty. Use Knowledge arcana and/or Spellcraft to ID what. Maybe the same to target the right witches, or the best order to take them down.
Maybe use difficult terrain and allow Acrobatics and Climb checks to bypass it?
Maybe a bunch of fake cultists chanting mumbo-jumbo, so they're making Bluff or Performance checks opposed by PC Sense Motive to determine the fakers and find the real magic-users.