Hello everyone. I've been running a game with my players for about 8 months now and haven't had too much trouble keeping things both challenging and fun for them. However, they're coming up on a major plot point for the campaign and I've been having a hard time deciding just what sort of encounters and such this area should have. I was wondering if there were any experienced DMs amongst the readers here who might offer some guidance? I'll put some information about the area and the party below, but any help in guiding me through selecting what to use for encounters or what sort of puzzles or traps should be present for a place like this would really be appreciated!
History: The hold the player base has been in belongs to a noble family known as the Nightengales. They're a family of arcane casters in my game that can wear armor / cast spells with metamagic enhancements for cheaper (lower spell slot increases). Something went wrong in their domain and the great catacombs under the city (comparable to the Paris catacombs) have suddenly spilled an overflow of undead casters and minions onto the surface. The players are employed by a reputable mercenary regiment known as the crimson knights, and have been hired by the Imperial family to investigate and if possible, retrieve a few important items from the area.
Area: The players have been navigating the city itself for a while, but the specific area I'm seeking help in inspiration for is the "College of Nightengale." It's built like a military fortress, but with much more artistic flairs to it. To the average every day person, it's a place where prominent casters could seek higher learning under the naturally gifted of the Nightengale house. Secretly, it's a magical repository used to safe guard powerful artifacts, cursed items, intelligent items, and unkillable creatures that would pose serious risk to the outside world if they weren't contained. This is where the players have been directed to go abd where they're heading to next session. To retrieve a few of the items and activate the seals on any others that were left unguarded during the chaos.
Party: The party themselves are pretty competent. There are 2 groups of 4 players each with 2 NPCs with them as well. They're all level 10 at this point, almost level 11, including the NPCs who were built in the same way as the players. (I run the two groups on different days, they're pursuing different things in the college). So each effective party size is 6 people of 10th level. The first group has a Magus/Arcanist, a Cleric, a Paladin, a Rogue/Gunslinger, a Sorcerer, and a Ranger (archer). The second group has 2 Oracles, a Fighter, 2 Gunslingers, and a Magus. (They chose their own group compositions).
So my real question to all of you is, what would you suggest to use against them encounter, puzzle, and trap wise that would still be fair for their groups? I want it to be hard, fitting, but still achievable if they're careful.
So far I'm thinking of using golems as "guards" of a sort for the repository and having a few escaped magical beasts, undead, and aberitions roaming about. Any input you all have would certainly be appreciated!
the trick here will be many small fights, few ambushes, and no chance to rest.
Sounds like a perfect recipe for doppelgangers. Have dimension door traps all over that activate after x people step over it, then the member shows up a few rooms over, let the player keep playing themselves regardless. Pass notes of insight to go in different directions with the maze like area. Notes might be: Make a guess confidently, go left, go straight, next room has a trap, go last into the next room, go first into the next room, etc. Then reveal when a trap goes off who was the doppelganger if any. Have a few crazed staff saying they watched four of themselves leave a vault and kill everyone, but make it clear he is insane.
Spell traps with simple key bypasses are a good idea, just hold the key out and the trap is disabled until everyone passes through. Trouble is they need to find the keys in various offices, which have their own anti-theft locks. Animated object being an easy go to that will wear them down without being dangerous.
Cerebral stalker could be fun, have zombified staff walking around from some unknown hole.
Cloakers, chokers, and flumphs as coming through could be fun side diversions for isolated party members. Have dopplerats, etherreal rats, and ratlings with wands running around with valuable trinkets (And keys) going in every direction, encouraging the party to split up (and fall into simple traps like cantrip blasts, or CR2 fights).
Finally I would have a secret aberration worshiping cabal of dark creepers with a few custom bosses thrown in running around chasing the same keys and treasures to get to the same vault so they can unleash the worth thing there (Maybe an aboleth? or a templated huge mimic?)
Before anything else, I'd take a look at the Angry GM's articles. Specifically the ones about encounter and adventure building, and the ones about why traps and mazes inherently suck.
Well it's not meant to be a maze per-say, just an extremely secure fortress beneath a college with an even more secure vault beneath that. In regards to the cult, the insane staff, and the doppelganger though, I really enjoy those ideas though. They're things I hadn't considered off hand.
Traps and security measures of some sort are a must though, because lore wise they'd have known they'd need to fall back on magical and mechanical means to contain / protect the items & entities within in the event of something like this happening. Especially since, in my game's setting, it has happened before.
I think you need to make a basic design choice: All eggs in one basket, or create secured areas based on how dangerous an item is? Seperate areas makes for a longer adventure. I'd suggest a central 'safe' area that is the school and main fortress. Then a series of teleportation 'traps' that lead to the secured sections. The standard set up might be an entrance teleportation room, then a foyer that connects to an exit teleportation room and then the first trap before you get to the vault. Up to you if you want to use physical keys to activate the teleports, or phrases/rituals. Items are easier on the players, but phrases are very appropriate.
Thematically I think you need to say what happened to make everything else go bad in the city is the start of what when horribly wrong here. Like the students and instructors here initially held out when they noticed bad stuff happening. Then one of the key members of the staff thought they knew exactly what was going on and decided to pull out a sealed creature that could resolve things...and instead it took advantage of the situation and decided to take revenge for its sealing.
If the creature remains here or not is up to you. This is actually a good opportunity to pick your favorite group of Outsiders and populate this section with their minions. A decent story would be the instructors attempted to release and bind a Balor but failed. The Balor killed all of the fleeing instructors and summoned up a host of lesser demons to hunt down the students before it broke into a few of the other secured areas and left. Or maybe it was defeated by one of the traps into an even more secure area?
Legend has it that the Nightengales:
1. Were great arcane magic wielders
2. Mastered the art of casting arcane spells while wearing armor
3. Developed metamagic enhancements that are a lower cost to the caster to use (less spell slot cost for use of metamagic)
This means that the Nightengales were diverse, dynamic arcane casters focused as much on defense as spellcasting. They were innovative yet pragmatic. Their college's threat areas should reflect these attributes.
It was, however, at one time a college. Design wise, I don't care what a popular book series says about magic schools, you DON'T want areas where inept students can wander across, say, a giant 3 headed dog that could murder and eat them.
So the college should ALSO reflect the more mundane needs of potential staff and students. Classrooms, lecture halls, common areas and so on. If you design purely a fortress you might as well call it the Vault of the Nightengale or Nightengale Keep or something.
Finally, you're suggesting that MULTIPLE items, desired by nobles and worthy of level 11 PCs being used to retrieve them, are housed here. Some modules create whole megadungeons designed to house 1 or 2 of said items; one very old school one I can think of was a mountain-based dungeon for 3.
All of this together seems to suggest a massive, sprawling locale, not a couple of college buildings around a modest campus. My advice would be to examine what kind of scope or grandeur you want to design to, but consider making this entire college a megadungeon with multiple sub-levels broken down into digestible sites a single team of PCs can explore.
Each of these might have their own theme, based loosely around their former purpose or the artifact contained there. One might be the Necrotic Vaults - a series of morgue-like laboratories (that the GM should pronounce "Lah Bore Ah Tore ees").
Here necromantic magics were taught. However Professor Gauntus Von Nightengale brought the Wand of Orcus into the Vaults to study and siphon it's incredible powers and the demonic Artifact corrupted the elder Arcanist. The Necrotic Vaults had to be shut down and sealed off by the college's patrons after Gauntus slew and reanimated dozens of staff and students in a series of horrific experiments. Some remain as tortured ghosts, others as powerful, intelligent undead. There are rumors of a powerful, unique flesh golem referred to only as Ettindryvar, an eldritch term for a 2-headed brute of myth, for the flesh golem appears to be 2 lesser golems fleshwarped into a single, terrifying subject.
If you use the Necrotic Vaults you could include Haunts that give the players insights into Professor Von Nightengale's descent into madness, many tiers of undead or demonic foes and one or two unique, sentient creatures willing to work WITH the players to get the Wand of Orcus out of the area. These allies might be temporary, like a demon bound to the area who wants to get the wand into the hands of a corrupt noble in the city to complete it's mission on the Prime so it can return to the pits, or a more honest helper like a ghost who can only find their final rest in the Boneyard and beyond if the players remove the Wand from the Necrotic Vaults.
That's just one example though. Depending on how many items the PCs have to recover you could craft a handful of these sublevels. PCs may come and go from a central "safe" zone, like a dorm house the city has secured against monstrous incursion. Alternately you could give the PCs a dual mission; not only to recover the items but also to assess the threat of the College of Nightengale SO THAT the city can set up a "safe" zone for further containment after the PCs leave.
Dane Cook wrote: major plot point How rich in nuance do you want your story to be?
Dane Cook wrote: overflow of undead casters What is/are the origins and motivation of these undead?
Dane Cook wrote: College of Nightengale So, I'm getting the sense that these undead casters are the remains of faculty and staff at the college, motivated to continue their studies, deliver their lectures, and pass their exams.
Maybe the undead are protesting poor treatment by the College, and they are demanding rights for the students and/or faculty, and the ideal resolution of this encounter is to convince the living members of the Nightengale family to negotiate with the undead to resolve their disputes: secure regular places for the liches on the professorial staff (I REALLY feel sorry for their research assistants!), schedule exams for the Haunts. Hire the PCs with high Will Saves to help the Haunts pass their exams so they can finally rest in peace, etc. Form the revanents into sports teams endowed by the descendants of the wronged families...
Hmm, is there a music hall in this college? I could see a Dirge Bard being appropriate, if there is a music hall, that is. Maybe even as a low level Lich.
Are there Drow? Do you want there to be Drow? Drider Mystic Theurges are a lot of fun. Driders can innately cast as 6th level Sorcerers, so it only takes 4-6 levels of Oracle to get access to Mystic Theurge. They aren't especially powerful, just fun. And to me it makes sense when you are dealing with magical catacombs which logically can connect to the Underdark/Darklands.
Dane Cook wrote:
Traps and security measures of some sort are a must...
Sure. They're a staple of the game and they fit logistically in your setting right here.
The article on traps lays out why traps suck and how to unsuck them. Specifically, telegraphing their presence so splayer choices have consequences.
Maybe the traps that spew gouts of flame are all incased in similar gargoyle statues. Maybe doors with lightning traps on them all have bronze knobs and bestow curse traps are on the western corridor of every intersection.
You'll make your players pay closer attention and they'll feel smart when they figure it out.
And, as I can personally confirm, you can't be too obvious with the hints. Friends are smart, players are dense.
I am going to have to give that article a look... I have pretty much given up on using traps altogether. I hadn't thought about using traps laid out in obvious patterns. All the bronze doorknobs, I like that.
VoodistMonk wrote: I am going to have to give that article a look... I have pretty much given up on using traps altogether. I hadn't thought about using traps laid out in obvious patterns... Right? Either your players search every single 5ft square, which isn't so much of a choice as it is a time and effort tax, or you occasionally get to randomly roll attacks against them and they don't really get to interact with it after that. It's a really dull, part of a typical dungeon.
I set up an abandoned wizard's tower and told my players the brass knocker was "shaped in the likeness of a leering demon". It was fire trapped.
Then there was a large chest in the wizard's workshop. "The brass lock is shaped like a leering demon." They just shrugged and opened it. Fire trapped.
Then the wizard's spell book. "This heavy tome is bound in leather, the cover dominated by a brass plaque shaped in the likeness of a hideous demon, it's head crowned with horns and three tongues hanging from it's gaping, fang-filled mouth." They shrugged again and opened the book. Empowered fire trap.
There's only so much one can do.
My friends were somewhat more alert when I last mentioned statues lining the corridor in a PF game. They started spinning stories and guesses before I finished describing them. The huge iron box under the sea in a GURPS game had a similar effect. Know your friends and what they get suspicious of I guess.
So a couple things about the Angry GM's article on traps, specifically about traps happening in patterns
1. Small dungeons: I make a lot of "5 room dungeons;" short, site-based scenarios roughly 5 encounters long. There's usually only enough room for 1 trap, maybe 2. If traps always happen between left handed statues, but your small dungeon only has 1 set of these leading to one trapped area, telegraphing a pattern isn't really useful.
2. Trap builder's cunning: If a person or group that has time and resources to set multiple traps around their area to protect it does so, is it in their best interest to always put them in the same style of locale? In other words, why would the kobolds lay traps between every set of left hand statues in the dungeon? Angry suggests this gives the builders an obvious pattern for them to recognize in order to avoid their own traps, but if something is obvious to them it may be obvious and thus detectable to the trespassers they're trying to keep out.
If you're going to telegraph your traps perhaps use info pertinent to the individual trap, not necessarily suggesting a pattern. Think of how a hunter IRL plants snares in the wild. Do they pick every 7th branch, or always between specific bushes or whatever? No, they pick places they think their prey will pass through. But THEN what do they do? They camouflage the snare among other flora in the area and bait the trap.
How would you telegraph that to a player running a rabbit character? "As you're traveling along a flattened game trail it suddenly narrows ahead, meandering through overhanging brambles; just through the brush you spot bits of carrot." You haven't revealed the trap though an intelligent player might be alarmed that there's just bits of their character's favorite food just sitting there in the open.
Now translate that to a group of undead spellcasters, protecting a valuable magic item.
Said spellcasters would likely reason that burglars and thieves might come for their precious item. Golems are expensive; animated dead are disposable but some can be quite fragile. Choosing to set a trap falls somewhere between those 2 issues; they can be somewhat expensive but less so than golem creation, and if done right with a bit of magic are a lot more lasting than skeletons.
They'd want to camouflage their trap which contains some necromantic spell effect. Knowing their dungeon will also have free-roaming undead the trap makers want to add an effect that won't damage any monsters that might be in pursuit of the trespassers. How do you hide a necromantic spell trap? Obscuring the aura and giving it a spell trigger such as Alarm that invisibly wards a specific area.
How would you telegraph an invisible, aura-obscured necromantic spell trap to a group of PCs? The undead casters didn't follow some pre-determined pattern their foes could guess at and being a necrotic effect they wouldn't care if they accidentally tripped it or if their unliving minions did either.
Get creative.
What happens if you set up a Necromantic effect and leave it to sit for, say, a decade, or a century? Maybe the walls show signs of premature decay, or when you get close to the Alarm's area you feel unnatural chills, anxiety or waves of regret. You could also "bait" the trap; just past the Alarm's area of effect there's a niche in the wall seemingly holding the item the PCs seek, behind a curtain of iron bars.
Heck, you could even make that "bait" part of the trap. You've got a facsimile of the item, stowed in a barred niche in the wall, 40' from where the PCs are standing. Instead of an Alarm spell, the trigger for the trap is Clairaudience. If the PCs stop to cast any spells in order to retrieve the item from a distance, Detect Magic, pre-buff or whatever, the trigger picks up the sound (unless the spellcaster has the Silent Spell metamagic or there's no V component on their spell/spells) and sets off the trap.
Also, I really like the "click" mechanic in the Angry GM's article. There's a houserule I've adapted for my own games from this. If a trap triggers any PC that will be affected by the trap and any other PCs within 30' of the target(s) of the trap get a Surprise round. They roll an initiative; traps get a static bonus to their roll based on half the CR, minimum +1. I warn my players though; I'm only giving them a 30 sec count IRL to decide what their PC does with their one action. They don't know what's coming, what's happening or any other info, they just have to decide and take their chances. If they don't make a choice within the 30 seconds their PC does nothing during the Surprise round.
Clever players who have been through this in my games may ask to combine a second Perception check with a Move action in the Surprise round. This lowers their Initiative by 1. In this way their character might hesitate too long glancing around for clues that they fail to do anything constructive, but that's the chance they take. If their second Perception check beats the trap's DC to be detected and they still beat it's Initiative, the PC has some idea what's on the way and can better plan their Move action.
You said puzzle. Like the catacombs are a maze? Possibly even a labyrinth, one might say?
Enter the Gorgotaur:
XP 19,200 CR12
NE Large monstrous humanoid
Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, scent; Perception +26
DEFENSE
AC 25, touch 9, flat-footed n/a
(+16 natural, –1 size)
hp 175 (14d10+98)
Fort +18, Ref +9, Will +14
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft.
Melee greataxe +21/+16/+11 (3d6+10/×3) and gore +16 (2d8+3)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks
breath weapon (60-foot cone, turn to stone, Fortitude DC 24 negates),
powerful charge (gore +23, 4d8+10),
trample (2d8+10, Reflex DC 24 half)
STATISTICS
Str 24, Dex 10, Con 24,
Int 7, Wis 16, Cha 9
Base Atk +14;
CMB +22; (+24 bull rush)
CMD 31 (33 vs bull rush)
Feats Furious Focus, Great Fortitude, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Power Attack, Skill Focus (Perception)
Skills (4+Int):
Acrobatics +8, Climb +11, Craft +2, Perception +26, Stealth +8, Survival +15, and Swim +11.
Racial Modifiers +4 Perception, +4 Survival
Languages Giant
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Breath Weapon
A gorgotaur can use its breath weapon once every 1d4+1 rounds to create a 60-foot cone of green gas. Those caught in the area of the gas can attempt a DC 24 Fortitude save to resist the effects, but those who fail the save are immediately petrified. This petrification is temporary—each round, a petrified creature can attempt a new DC 24 Fortitude save to recover from the petrification as long as it is not caught within the area of effect of the gorgotaur’s breath weapon a second time while petrified. A creature exposed to the gorgotaur’s breath a second time while already petrified becomes permanently petrified, and can no longer attempt to make additional Fortitude saves to recover naturally. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Natural Cunning (Ex)
Although gorgotaurs are not especially intelligent, they possess innate cunning and logical ability. This gives them immunity to maze spells and prevents them from ever becoming lost. Further, they are never caught flat-footed.
Powerful Charge (Ex)
When a creature with this special attack makes a charge, its attack deals extra damage in addition to the normal benefits and hazards of a charge. The attack and amount of damage from the attack is given in the creature’s description.
Trample (Ex)
As a full-round action, a creature with the trample ability can attempt to overrun any creature that is at least one size category Smaller than itself. This works just like the overrun combat maneuver, but the trampling creature does not need to make a check, it merely has to move over opponents in its path. Targets of a trample take an amount of damage equal to the trampling creature’s slam damage + 1-1/2 times its Str modifier. Targets of a trample can make an attack of opportunity, but at a –4 penalty. If targets forgo an attack of opportunity, they can attempt to avoid the trampling creature and receive a Reflex save to take half damage. The save DC against a creature’s trample attack is 10 + 1/2 the creature’s HD + the creature’s Str modifier (the exact DC is given in the creature’s descriptive text). A trampling creature can only deal trampling damage to each target once per round, no matter how many times its movement takes it over a target creature.
ECOLOGY
Environment temperate ruins or underground
Organization solitary, pair, or gang (3–4)
Treasure standard (greataxe, other treasure)
Gorgotaurs are magical, foul-tempered creatures—while they might appear to be constructs at first glance, beneath their artifical-looking armor plates they are made of flesh and bone. Like aggressive bulls, they challenge any unfamiliar creature they encounter, often trampling their opponent’s corpse or shattering its stony remnants until the creature is unrecognizable. The females are just as dangerous as the males, and the two sexes appear identical. A typical gorgotaur stands 10 to 15 feet tall and weighs up to 4,000 pounds.
Nothing holds a grudge like a gorgotaur. Scorned by the civilized races centuries ago and born from a deific curse, gorgotaurs have hunted, slain, and devoured lesser humanoids in retribution for real or imagined slights for as long as anyone can remember. Many cultures have legends of how the first gorgotaurs were created by vengeful or slighted gods who punished humans by twisting their forms, robbing them of their intellects and beauty, and giving them the heads of bulls. Yet most modern gorgotaurs hold these legends in contempt and believe that they are not divine mockeries but divine paragons created by a potent and cruel demon lord named Baphomet.
The traditional gorgotaur’s lair is a maze, be it a legitimate labyrinth constructed to baffle and confuse, an accidental one such as a city sewer system, or a naturally occurring one such as a tangle of caverns and other underground passageways. Employing their innate cunning, gorgotaurs use their maze lairs to vex unwary foes who seek them out or who simply stumble into the lairs and become lost, slowly hunting the intruders as they try in vain to find a way out. Only when despair has truly set in does the gorgotaur move in to strike at its lost victims. When dealing with a group, gorgotaurs often let one creature escape, to spread the tale of horror and lure others to their mazes in hope of slaying the beasts. Of course, to gorgotaurs, these would-be heroes make for delicious meals.
Gorgotaurs derive nutrients from the consumption of minerals, particularly the stone of their petrified victims, and any statues they create are likely to be gnawed thoroughly. They cannot digest metal or gems, so their dung (which resembles bitter-smelling gray powder) often contains small, raw crystals and nuggets of ore. Their aggression toward all other creatures means that there are few to no predators or other prey animals in their stomping grounds. Each gang is led by a dominant bull; solitary gorgotaurs are usually adolescent bulls driven out of their gang by the lead bull.
Gorgotaurs might also be found in the employ of a more powerful monster or evil creature, serving it so long as they can still hunt and dine as they please. Usually, this means guarding some powerful object or valuable location, but it can also be a sort of mercenary work, hunting down the foes of its master.
Gorgotaurs are relatively straightforward combatants, using their horns to horribly gore the nearest living creature when combat begins. Powdered gorgotaur horn is worth 250 gp as an alternate material component for magic items using bull’s strength, stoneskin, flesh to stone, statue, and similar magic.
Gorgotaur Encounters
Gorgotaur marauders are much more nimble and confident on the slopes than their bulk would suggest. They are most often encountered stalking prey, including humanoids, in the wilds. Raiding parties of two or more marauders surround their prey, braying and stamping from all sides to confuse, frighten, and scatter. If they occupy higher ground, these gorgotaurs prefer to attack with their bows, but they are equally competent in melee if a foe survives long enough to engage toe-to-hoof.
Resistant as they are to spells, energy, and physical damage, labyrinth guardians’ closest thing to a weakness is their single-mindedness. Most are tied to the mazes or tombs in which they dwell and will not chase foes out into the light. Tangle tenders hold similar sway over their lairs, but act more with cunning than with brute force. These devious trapsmiths delight in building wicked mechanical devices to harm those that dare intrude on their mazes.
Gorgotaur prophets are much more brutal than humanoid cultists. Through fear, manipulation, and reverence, the prophets command disproportionate respect from the Templars of the Ivory Labyrinth, a secret cabal of the demon lord’s most devious worshipers. The prophets wield their clout in the same ways that they wield their brass glaives of office—by striking from a distance.
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