Hunting my PCs and making it intense

[Wasum]

Hello everybody!

I want to generate an intense atmosphere of danger in the next session of my current campaign.
Last session the 7th level PCs entered the realm of an evil fey and managed to stay unnoticed for a while. When they decided to use "Secure Shelter" for resting their shelter for the night was spotted by fey units and they surrounded the bulding until reenforcements arrive. Inbetween the PCs developed an escape plan and actually managed to flee - 3 of them teleported out, the druid left in eagle form, invisible, and the alchemist tried to escape invisible as well but is chased by a Babau, who was summoned by an antagonist to shut down the invisibility. Now the Dimension Door they used to teleport has no huge range and therefore they are not out of danger. The session ended with them regrouping close about 400 m away with the alchemist still being chased by the Babau (who will stay whole 10 Minutes as it was summoned by a summoner).
The PCs want to reach the tower of said evil fey queen which is about 30 km away. As they dont have means of fast travel (other than wildhape of the druid) this will take them at least two days, more if they actaully stealth. I want those days to be intense. I want them to feel hunted, with creatures looking for them and constant thread of being outnumbered.

Do you have recommandations on how to design such a scenario? I'd really appreciate every single idea you can contribute :)

Wasum

[J4RH34D]

Good mood music
Watch the origional Alien for inspiration

[quibblemuch]

A few thoughts in no particular order...

One thing that might help is curtailing lengthy conversations. I know every group I've GM'd for likes to talk about what they're going to do for a long time--if you remind them at every turn that taking a half hour to debate their next move will certainly lead to them getting caught, and then follow through on that threat, it might drive home the urgency.

These being fey, they're perfect for taunting. Make up (or steal) a few creepy rhymes that a hunting party can call out through the woods--the hunters might not mind giving up the advantage of stealth, if they see the hunt as a game to maximize terror in the prey/PCs.

Create an encounter that looks like the PCs are helping someone (e.g., a huldra, crying alone in a clearing) and then have her turn on them, renewing the chase.

Dolls. Creepy dolls nailed to trees, that crudely resemble the PCs.

[J4RH34D]

A really good thing for the creepy would be kindred from League Of Legends.

She has some seriously creeping humming, and her voice lines are awesome.

She could easily be a fey with ranger levels, and an ephemeral animal wolf companion.

Her humming

[Wasum]

Thanks for the advice so far!

I will definitly use some of those ideas.

Now I'm especially curious on how to pace this scenario.

How can I decide when and how often the PCs find themself in a special situation? At what pace will they encounter things o their way to said tower?

[J4RH34D]

Don't have it defined.
Watch the players, provide them with an event when it will work best for the story.

Oh, also use the getting lost rules.

Another thing is to strike a balance between showing them the thing is powerful enough to easily kill them, but not so powerful that they should just give up.

[Tacticslion]

Others have great non-mechanical suggestions.

You may already have mechanics down, but just in case...

Inspiration.

Also inspiration.

Add to (or in exchange for) those, I recommend the terror of...

... mites. Especially if they have poisonous template - not so dangerous, individually, by any means, even with the poisonous template, but a tribe of 20 (plus chieftan and vermin), four bands of 8, and a dozen solitary encounters with the little buggers heh will virtually guarantee some people are starting to fail saves of some kind or another. Put them in reverse order - a poisonous solitary mite here or there, then the bands, then the whole tribe - to give an escalating sense of danger.

A tendriculous makes a pretty tough foe (weaker than their CR, but still), and a ton* of assassin vines (again, especially if diseased, blighted, or with the poisonous or similar template) can make for that "dangerous hunter" vibe.

Calathgar by the tons*, and living topiary as well.

Check out low-CR plants and fey for ideas. Pod spawned and drunk** and ofuda** templates can bring higher CRs down a bit, as can the young and repeatedly drained*** templates.

Colour blighted, hungry, nocturnal, terror creature, yellow musk creature can make things different without making them more powerful.

Skeleton and zombies could help. Plant imbued and vermanoid could be thematic. Miniature template could be interesting as well.

Thorny monsters could be useful to make it thematic.

Check out some of the low grade templates to see some possibilities.

* Figuratively; again, a single patch of six, probably preceded by four different pairs, and preceded by a dozen individual encounters grants that feeling of escalating danger.

** Doesn't mean literally, either. Can be otherwise intoxicated or made of other weak materials.

*** Doesn't have to be by vampire. Any creature that drains blood, like a fey, or a plant! XD

Blighted fey for any who's up to it.

It helps if you have some method of making the creatures continue to return over and over again. Either regeneration, the eternal creature template (or similar, albeit maybe de-powered), can make for super-creepy and frustrating foes, especially if they increase over time.

Make it hard to sleep. This will slowly wear them down and make things ever-more-desperate. Control weather can either shut down, or make it really hard on, the flying druid.

[Ventnor]

Fry who are hunting the PCs down, you say?

I’d recommend doing a little research on the Wild Hunt. They might provide some interesting ideas for your scenario.

[Tacticslion]

Ventnor wrote:

Fry who are hunting the PCs down, you say?

"Gosh, Professor, that sounds like a lot of work. I thought the future was supposed to be better? Oh well, a job's a job, I suppose..."

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Roll dice when players are talking too much and say that they hear something coming their way (even if it isn't). If they value undetection, they'll be frantic in avoiding them, and may make decisions on-the-fly, which can cause player stress (which helps drive the feeling of being hunted home). Fey have magical homes that are outlandish and even haunted, so it makes sense thematically.

If they take too long, have some random denizens encounter them and call for help while they chase/fight them, forcing the PCs to fight quickly, or run fast to evade them.

Basically, you want the PCs to be more concise in their decisions, and possibly more aggressive; elements which force players into this behavior (which varies based on what kind of players you have) will accomplish the kind of mood you want to set.

[Tacticslion]

Illusions. Tons of them. Until they get complacent. Then mix in one - one! - tough opponent into a batch of illusions (that one opponent registers as an illusion because they are under a disguise other).

Also, throw in some shadow illusions, later - weak ones with high DCs - it's great for making them not know who or what to trust.

[Kifaru]

I ran a scenario a while back that required the players to roll a will save every 30 minutes, real time. If they failed the roll, a random demon or three burst out of a magic item they were carrying. The saving throw got progressively harder and the critters that popped out got nastier. The players needed to complete a mission and neutralize the magic item to stop the demon attacks. I have never seen a group play more intensely. There was a real edge of panic in the air.

You could do something like that. Every half hour they need to make a group stealth check or they get found by a squad of bag guys. If they are still fighting a half hour later they need to make a second stealth check at a major penalty or a second group joins the fray.

I've also just recently started having things go one while the group plans. If they spend too long plotting what they are doing the bad guys get another action. It really cut down on the lengthy dithering.

[Chuck Mount]

A lot of these are great ideas. I was actually thinking of a creepy ringtone on you phone, roll a die and set the timer that many minutes. When it goes off, have them hear something or see something in the distance coming their way.
Also, the getting lost rules should come into play since their running in a mad panic.

[Diachronos]

Have them roll Perception checks every so often. Whoever rolls the highest, give them a private note saying that they spot something moving through the forest nearby, or that they notice eyes watching that disappear into the undergrowth when the PC meets their gaze.

[SmiloDan]

Look at the Hustle and Forced March rules.

Read up on the rules for Fatigue and Exhaustion. Forcing the PCs to make Con checks every hour can intensify the situation.

Also, look for ways to tack on other harmful conditions, like sickened and shakened.

Remember, the scariest monsters in PF don't cause hit point damage. They have special attacks, like the rust monster. Heck, fey hate cold iron, so they might even HAVE rust monsters!

Also, use the chase rules, where the PCs have to make decisions, and have those decisions have consequences. Do they run through that copse of dead trees, or sneak through that misty fen? Do they try to balance along that downed tree over the crevasse, or swing on the vines to cross the crevasse? Do they hide underwater to avoid that hive of angry bees, or try to out race it?

[Hugo Rune]

Conceptually there are two ways this could be run. You could run it as an invisible railroad, i.e. a series of pre-defined events that occur at certain times or progress points regardless of the PCs actions or how long it takes them to reach a certain point. Alternatively, you could define the evil fey queen's actions and responses and play events as they unfold. I find playing the latter, but planning the former to be the best overall approach.

Making some assumptions, I'm guessing there are three routes. The easy route along established tracks. The direct route across wilderness and may or may not cross settlements and a route that is intended to avoid contact so is neither direct nor crosses established tracks or settlements.

It is unclear from your description whether getting to the tower is a race between the party and the evil fey who discovered them. I am going to assume that it isn't but that it is a capture the intruders scenario. I'm also going to assume that the fey are generally chaotic and that any alert / chase scenario dies down after a period of non-contact only to rise higher if there is subsequent contact.

First up, design a series of encounters and challenges for the wilderness. The overall encounters should not be too threatening e.g. maybe 4 encounters per day with plants or unintelligent creatures not allied to the fey queen for a total of 3/4 of the party level as well as around 8 challenges per day such as ravines, fast flowing rivers, impassibly dense forest or lakes to be circumnavigated. These will sap resources, particularly spells and let the skill monkeys shine. If you do have a race scenario or the party is being actively hunted then the time lost on the challenges will raise the tension and the encounters will sap resources. If the party needs to gain time, or outrun their pursuers and cannot rest to restore resources then the tension will rise.

Secondly, design the response for the fey queen's resources. It seems that the play will start with a pursuit led by a Babau demon. Once the party has lost their pursuers or the pursuers have retreated (the third option being the party captured or a TPK and game over). Then the pursuing party are likely to head back to the tower report via the easy route. En route they are likely to alert all the allied settlements. Initially, they would only respond if they saw the party but with contact the pursuit would be harder and the search time longer.

A model for the searches you may want to consider could be similar to that used by pig hunters in NZ. They have two teams of dogs, a team of high stamina sheepdog like dogs that that search for the pig and identify its location. They then then bark for more substantial dogs like mastiffs and bull terriers to hold the pig so the hunter can kill the pig with a knife. The fey may assume that the party is killed in the wilderness but once contact is resestablished send out a hunting party of winged or fast moving fey to try and find them. Once found another group is summoned to capture or kill the party. Each time the party triggers an alert the chase is harder, the post chase search is longer and wider and the enforcers are stronger. After two or three alerts are raised, perhaps some form of triangulation and/or perimeter creation takes place. A party being pursued through dense forest by twigjacks, with quicklings passing messages between settlements and sprites overhead might have some difficulty losing their pursuers.

Next design a few encounters for the easy route and settlements with a pre and post alert reaction.

You now have a series of time based wilderness encounters and a pre-defined set of responses to the party's discovery. But you do not know what is going to happen. Given your party almost certainly has characters with appropriate knowledge skills or just high intelligence you could feed them some information, suggesting they suspect they are going to be hunted so that they know to be wary and therefore tense.

[Selvaxri]

Are you familiar with the Chase mechanic? There are two variants; think about implementing a few individual chases since the party is more or less separated.

[Pizza Lord]

Wasum wrote:

Do you have recommandations on how to design such a scenario? I'd really appreciate every single idea you can contribute :)

You probably don't want a constant chase over the time. You want short bursts of adrenaline and excitement when they're spotted or need to evade and you want the other times to feel tense, with the PCs thinking another chase is about to occur.

You should always plan a chase encounter with some location, gimmick, or goal ready to be used in case something goes wrong or the encounter turns into just a boring chase. A ravine with a log to cross, a river they have to swim, a thicket of biting, clawing undergrowth they have to swing or climb over on a branch. This way you can have a reason for the pursuers to halt without it being a fight. Then you can have the fey say things that you can use to hint at your players. Like, they're going to go around to the ford, or they'll ride to the west (for instance) and meet the next hunting party (hopefully alerting the PCs not to go west). Or they might mention thinking the PCs are going to a cave or the ruins of an old church or shine nearby.

When they're talking or at a seemingly quiet moment, always mention what is going on around them. Even innocuous things like branches moving or sounds they hear. They should always be wondering if it's something involving their pursuers.
"You hear a wolf howl nearby. A short time later, you hear another howl, slightly closer. It's probably a different wolf, no wolf could have moved that fast..."
"You hear a raven caw nearby."
"A breeze rustles some bushes nearby. The sounds of the forest stop momentarily. ... Now they're back."
"A small grey squirrel watches you, clinging sideways to the trunk of a twisted oak. It's eyes and body are completely still except for its tail, twitching. Twitch. It's gone; around the tree when you blinked."

Have ravens following them. Some fey are likely sorcerers or have familiars or a relationship with animals. The druid might be able to talk to some, so why not the fey. Have a few just sitting, watching. Later they see another one, maybe a PC says something and the bird mimics what they say. They might think it's a familiar, but maybe it's just a bird, however hunting parties might overhear it and realize they passed this way.

Also, make sure they see strange patrolling things, like birds or something else in the skies, screeching. Maybe at one point you mention to the druid that he spots a majestic eagle nearby. The creature spreads its wings and takes flight. It rises a short distance and then mention how its body is pierced by 3 different arrows suddenly from somewhere a short ways off in the forest and how it plummets stone dead. Or change it up; an arrow, a bolt of arcane energy, and a small iron sphere that encapsulated the bird and begin spinning like a blender, dicing it into blood and feathers.