* * * Wizards Community Thread * * * -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Thread : Campaign Ideas/ Need feedback Started at 01-17-07 07:06 PM by Bardofcyberspace Visit at http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=774286 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 1] Author : Bardofcyberspace Date : 01-17-07 07:06 PM Thread Title : Campaign Ideas/ Need feedback Hello, First let me say, I can't spell and sorry if anything is way off. 2nd this is ment to be a 2nd edition campaign starter but can be use for any with a little ajusting. Tell me what you think and be honest, I won't get any better if you lie to me. Thanks. Bardofcyberspace@aol.com Introduction: The Clouds in the sky say its going to be a rough night of storms ahead. Still about 8miles outside of town, You decide to stop and wait out the storm. Only about 1mile off the road you find a cave entrance. It looks like it could be deep. It goes back about 30yards before it drops straight down. So you figure it is save from creatures that might live in caves and what not. You picket your mule in the back of the cave about 10yrs from the drop. As you start up a fire, it begins to rain. Thunder spokes your mule. After a couple of min he gets use to the noise. You roll out your bedroll and fix a stew of sorts to eat. The storm picks up and rages on. You unstring your bow, and place your sword in reaching distance. No reason to get careless. You drift off to sleep listening to the storm. You are startered out of your sleep to see, someone or something grabbing your gear and jump or sided if you will down the cliff. As you stand at the edge of the cliff listening for the person who stole your gear to hit bottom you hear a splash. By your guess it can be more than 150ft down. Question is how he made the jump with out a rope and what or who is down there. Question 1. Do you follow him down? If you do, you will have to leave your mule. Or do you chalk it up as a loss and take your mule into town and sell it for gear? The only thing left with you is your unstrung bow/20arrows quriver. Your Sword. And 50 of rope.+ what you have on your person. Your party ties the rope around a “rock” and lowers itself down as far as it can. Then let go and slide into … Splash. You can see what looks like a shining beach about 50yards from where you landed. The water is only about 12ft deep where you landed. You swim your way to the beach. The beach is litter with jewels, perils and other shining quarts. DM note 1 if players take any of the shining things, A Grell. Page 173 in the monster Manual. IT is a Worker type. Only difference is it can’t paralyzed with ever hit. It can only paralyze one opponent a round. Has 45 hit points. If party does not take jewels no fight happens. (encounter grell and killing it is 2,000) Once you reach the beach and look around you see bootprints that lead down the only corridor. Upon reaching the corridor it appears to go (200ft back) for any with dark vision. You don’t see any doors or paths just a straight path. There is 4 traps. One every 50ft or so. 1st trap is a set of poison darts that shoot out of the walls. Doing 1d2 damage and anyone hit must roll vs death or fall into a deep sleep for 1d4 hours. Trap 2 is just alarm , PC step on the plate or spring trap”nothing happens, that they can tell. Traps 3 and 4 are a single spear trap doing 1d6 points of damage.To anyone hit. When the party reaches the end of the corridor they see a light coming from a doorway to the right. “if the party set off trap 2 the Party find a group of arm gaurds waiting form them.” If not, then they see humnoids with long, shaggy, white hair covering their entire bodies. They wear no clothing. perpareing to scaricfic a woman on an alter made of some black stone. DM not 2 If the party did not set off trap 2 they get a surpise +2 to all attacks for the frist 2 rounds of combat. There are 10 Quaggoths page 298 in MM (either armed ready to fight or unarmed watching the scafice.) depending on trap 2 above. The priest or holy man doing the scafice is Not a quaggoth but is a werewolf, in Werewolf form. If attack he will run out a back way. (encounter exp for killing 10 quaggoths is 1,750 ) After the battle the party finds its gear in a chest next to the alter, If combat is over in under 10rounds the person on the alter is saved. Other wise she is died. On searching room they also find a scroll with the holy symbol the woman on the alter is wearing. Scroll says: You Elizabeth have been charged by the church to seek out this dark order that hunt the good people of this land and destroy them. Sign Head priest of the order of Light. Town of Hallbrook. The party then goes down the only way out of the room to find it leads to a ship ( Keelboat) on river. That looks to be the only way out. The party then can try and stear the ship out the river and find they are with insight of the town. The cave entrence can’t be seen once they left it. “must be somekind of an illusion. Upon reashing town the party can rest, and decide to seek out the church to tell them what happen to there warrior or return her to the church if she lived. (total XP for Into is 5000 for both battle enclude in the 5000.) Should put all characters between level 3 and 4. If you award all players the 5,000. I figure with this you are 3rd level, you have a small boat, and a hidden hide out. Plus you can chase the werewolf, or help the chruch which ever you and the dm deicde to go. Well let me know what you think as far as fair, fun stuff like that. Thanks. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 2] Author : Varl Date : 01-17-07 08:07 PM Thread Title : Re: Campaign Ideas/ Need feedback Hello, As you stand at the edge of the cliff listening for the person who stole your gear to hit bottom you hear a splash. By your guess it can be more than 150ft down. Question is how he made the jump with out a rope and what or who is down there. Question 1. Do you follow him down? If you do, you will have to leave your mule. Or do you chalk it up as a loss and take your mule into town and sell it for gear? A good start to a fun-sounding adventure. Your party ties the rope around a “rock” and lowers itself down as far as it can. Then let go and slide into … Splash. You can see what looks like a shining beach about 50yards from where you landed. Unless the party specifically decided to do this (which isn't clear that they did), you shouldn't railroad them by telling them which way to go. Railroading is never an acceptable story device imo. Let the players choose what to do and which way to go. The water is only about 12ft deep where you landed. You swim your way to the beach. The beach is litter with jewels, perils and other shining quarts. Well, so much for the lost gear. Heh. In other words, beaches shouldn't be littered with gemstones enough to make the characters care less about the lost gear or who took it, unless the beach was in a dream sequence scenario, then you can get as extravagant as you desire, because none of it's real. DM note 1 if players take any of the shining things, A Grell. Page 173 in the monster Manual. IT is a Worker type. Only difference is it can’t paralyzed with ever hit. It can only paralyze one opponent a round. Has 45 hit points. If party does not take jewels no fight happens. (encounter grell and killing it is 2,000) I don't so much mind the Grell idea as what it's guarding. Mix up the treasure for the Grell to include all kinds of ruined and intact gear, coins, some gems, weaponry, and other odds and ends to show that this Grell has been there hunting successfully for quite some time. A few suggestions. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 3] Author : Bardofcyberspace Date : 01-18-07 12:35 AM Thread Title : Re: Campaign Ideas/ Need feedback All very good Ideas. your right about chosing if they go down or not. Most partys would go down. I should have made that clear and will fix it. The "Rock" was because I am sure there is something to tie a rope too kinda thing. About the jewels, pearls and other shining things, I ment it not so much as money but as like you said other treasure that the grell had gotten or left on the beach from his hunts. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 4] Author : GoriceXII Date : 01-20-07 03:15 PM Thread Title : Re: Campaign Ideas/ Need feedback I would not put the treasure so obviously either, but have at least one or two interesting things there to suggest that searching might be worthwhile. However it is a good start. I would make a great deal of what is obviously there junk, but have a fair amount of stuff of use and a certain amount of real worth if trouble is taken to search for it. It seems like a good start to me as well. What will happen with the woman if rescued? Is she a cleric? Will she ask the players to help her on her quest? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 5] Author : Bardofcyberspace Date : 01-20-07 08:13 PM Thread Title : Re: Campaign Ideas/ Need feedback The woman is a paladin from the town at the end of the story there. If she lives yes she will then ask for their help with the werewolf Necormancer. If they go to the chruch to return the body or just ask about her, the church will ask them to help find the werewolf necomancer...... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 6] Author : SamualT Barronsword Date : 01-21-07 07:01 PM Thread Title : Re: Campaign Ideas/ Need feedback Bardofcyberspace You have some interesting ideas here, but if you want a me to be frank, I would suggest several changes to your adventure. First off, as mentioned in an earlier thread, you could leave more of the decision making up to the players. For instance once they get to the cave I'd let the players tell me how they were setting up camp. If they didn't mention some detail that I as a DM wanted to know, like where they were parking the mule, I would then ask them that, but I wouldn't tell them 'this is where your parking the mule', 'you are starting a fire and fixing a stew', 'you are unstringing your bow and placing your sword next to you'. As I see it as a DM your job is to describe the scenario's and play the parts of the NPC's and Monsters, and then let the players decide what their characters are going to do, within reasonable limits as you the DM will allow. Second. There are rules to the game that you are either unaware of or ignoring, that you should be either be aware of or not ignore. It confuses players if you use one set of made up on the fly rules in one scenario, and a seperate set of made up on the fly rules in a latter scenario, and a third set of made up on the fly rules for a third. It may be neccessary to use some made up rules where none exist, but if the rules do exist, then you should always use the rules, so everyone knows your not just making things up off the top of your head. For instance in your advenuture you have the players climb down a rope, fall several feet, and swim through water to a beach. You don't require any kinds of roll's or special test, you just assume all the PC's do this. Well, there are rules for climbing, rules for swimming, rules for falling, and there is no time like at first level for the players and DM to start using the rules as written, otherwise you could get into some difficulties later. Third. You apparently plan to run first level characters through this scenario. The monsters as you have outlined are to tough, IMO, for first level characters. Even with its paralyzing ability reduced to only one victim per round, a grell with 10 attacks doing 1d4 in a round can kill off a first level party in two rounds. Three hits and the thief (6 to 8 hp's max) could be unconcious or dead. Two hits and the Magic User (4 to 6 hp's max) could be dead. And facing 10 quaggoth after fighting a grell and possibly taking damage from several traps, well that's just to much to. 1st levels have lousy armor classes in general, and even armor class 6 is hard to hit, and their hit points are low to begin with. Unless you have a large number of players (say 6 or more), 10 quaggoth would probably be a match for you players if they were at full strength, much less after they've already battled a grell with 45 hp. (which is another thing, in 2nd Edition monsters all use an 8 sided die to roll hit points. The most hit points a worker grell with 5 HD could have is 40). Well, I could go on with some more critique but, well look at the following, this is what I would do with your adventure, see what you think. Introduction: The clouds in the sky say its going to be a rough night of storms ahead, and by late evening you are still about eight miles outside of town, with no tavern or farmhouse in sight. There are some tree covered hills about ¾ of a mile to your west which might offer some possible shelter. It is starting to rain. Question 1: Do you go towards the trees to find shelter or do you try to continue heading towards the town? Dm’s NOTE 1: If they head towards the trees, see below. If they continue on towards town, they soon find themselves caught up in a blinding rainstorm and, being unable to tell the road from the rest of the muddy ground, become lost. After several hours of stumbling about in the dark and the rain, they come upon a cave in the countryside, see below. You believe you are about a mile off the road. You find a cave entrance which is about ten feet wide at its mouth. It looks like it could be deep. It goes back about 30 yards before it drops straight down. Thunder spooks your mule but after a couple of minutes it gets used to the noise. Question 2: What are you doing? DM’s NOTE 2: Have the players describe their actions. If the players don’t think of it themselves, ask them: Are you entering the cave? (at this point they really have little choice); Are you starting a fire? Where are you parking the mule? Are going to eat and if so what do you have to eat?. As the party gets settled in mention that “The storm picks up and rages on.”. Ask them if they are all going to sleep at the same time, or are they going to take turns standing watch. Ask those who are going to sleep what they are doing with their wet clothes, armor, weapons, etc. You drift off to sleep listening to the storm. You are startled out of your sleep by what you at first think is the sound of a woman’s voice crying out, but which then changes into the sound of a wolf howling. The sounds seem to have come from deeper in the cave. Question 3. Do you investigate or go back to sleep? DM’s Note 3: the shaft in the back of the cave is a 40 foot drop to a pile of rocks which then drop another 20 feet to a ledge on the side of a large body of water. If the players decide to investigate, they can find a rocky outcrop to which to tie a 50 foot section of rope and climb down the side of the cliff using the rope and wall modifier for the first 40 feet and the abundant handholds modifier for the last 20 feet (See pg. 122 of the DMG, climbing modifiers). Also note that unless they all have infravision, someone will have to be carrying a and maintaining a light source of some sort as long as the party remains underground. Assuming the party decides to investigate the sounds, read the following after the first PC with a light source reach’s the bottom of this shaft. If none of the players are using a light source (all have infravision), eliminate the word “shining” from the following description. You climb down until you find yourself standing upon a ledge in a wide cave chamber almost entirely filled with water. About 50 feet across the water from the ledge where you are standing, you can see what looks like a shining beach. DM’s NOTE 4: The water is only about 12ft deep at its deepest part. See “Swimming”, pages 120 to 121 of the DMG to determine who can swim easily and who may need help swimming, and who may need to take off their armor before swimming, across this pool of water. Once one or more players reaches the far side of the pool, read the following. You swim your way to the other side. You find the opposite shore is covered in a fine grit like sand with tiny bits of quarts scattered throughout. You also find some other items of interest scattered upon this small beach, some gold and silver pieces, some weapons and bits of armor, an unopened crystal vial apparently filled with some type of liquid. DM Note 5: The quartz in the sand is of no mercantile value. There are 30 gp, 28 sp, a dozen or so useless (rusted) weapons and equally useless pieces of armor, a usable medium shield in good condition with what appears to be a holy symbol upon it, and a potion of extra healing. If players take any of these things, A grell (Page 173 in the Monster Manual) descends to attack them. This is a Worker type which has been permanently damaged in a past battle, and due to its handicapped condition has been forced from its hive and now inhabits this area by itself. Due to its damage it can only make four attacks in one round, and can only paralyze one opponent a round. It has 30 hit points. If the party does not take anything from the beach no fight happens. Due to its degraded fighting ability, slaying this grell is only worth 975 x.p., not the normal 2000 for killing a full strength worker grell, Once you reach the beach and looked around you see bootprints in the sand that lead out the only exit on this side of the water, and leading down the corridor visible beyond. The corridor goes straight and level. You don’t see any exits or side passages just a straight path and what appears to be a faint glimmer of light far ahead. DN Note 6: There are 4 traps set in this corridor. Trap 1: The first trap is set off by a simple trip wire stretched across the corridor which the first PC to move 50 yards down the corridor will set off, if it is not discovered (base 10% chance to spot the wire assuming the PC has adequate lighting or infravision, thieves looking for traps ahead of the party have their normal Find Traps % + 10% chance to find the wire). This trap is easily disabled if found (no Remove Traps % roll required). If the trap is not found, but activated, a set of 4 poisoned darts shoot out of the walls at the person who set off the trap (THAC0 10, dmg 1d3 + save vs poison or fall asleep for 1d4 hours). Trap 2: This alarm trap is 100 yards down the corridor and is set off by a PC stepping upon a pressure plate. Only a thief using their normal find traps % can find this trap by looking for it. If thus spotted, it can easily be avoided or the thief can attempt to use their Remove Trap ability to disable the trap. Successfully rolling to disable the trap makes it inoperable, an unsuccessful roll to disable the trap sets it off, but while the thief will realize the trap activated, they will not be able to ascertain what, if anything, happened when it did so. Likewise a PC accidentally stepping on the plate (2 in 6 chance for each PC passing over the pressure plate without knowing it is there) will feel it sink down as they step on it and realize they have sprung a trap, but nothing happens, that they can tell. Traps 3 and 4: Set at 150 and 200 yards down the corridor respectfully, both are trip wire traps which work in every respect like Trap 1, except they shoot a single spear doing 1d6 points of damage to anyone hit, if activated. When the party reaches the end of the corridor they see a light coming from what looks to be a normal doorway to the right. DM’s note 7: If the party has set off trap 2 they find a group of humanoids armed with stone clubs. These humanoids are not wearing clothing, but rather have long, shaggy, white hair covering their entire bodies, and are waiting to attack the party members as soon as one of them looks into the doorway. There are 1 + 1 Quaggoth (page 298 in MM) per party member. They are armed with stone clubs (dmg 1d6). DM’s note 8: If the party avoided setting off trap 2, then they see these same creatures standing in a large cavern with their backs to the party, watching something at the far end of the chamber. The PC’s are not noticed until one or more of them actually enters the room, and even then the PC’s get a surprise round in which to act against the quaggoth‘s, which are unarmed in this case, but can still fight (2 claws, dmg 1-4/1-4). Non thief PC’s who attack a quaggoth from behind during the surprise round gain a +3 bonus to hit (+1 for surprise, +2 for attacking from the rear). Thief characters attack with a +4 bonus and do double damage on a successful hit (backstab ability). DM’s note 9: Regardless of whether or not the occupants of this room are surprised or not, read the following as soon as one of the players gets his character into the room. The far end of this chamber, beyond where the shaggy white haired creatures are standing, is lit by a bright light, allowing you to clearly see what looks to be a priest or holy man in a black robe, his head covered by a cowl, holding a knife over a women in blood stained chain mail with her helm removed. The women is manacled by her hands and feet upon what looks like an altar made of black stone. DM’s note 10: This is not a quaggoth but is a werewolf, in half human, half wolf form. Startled by the party’s appearance and unaware of their exact numbers and strength, he will decide to run out a back way as soon as half or more of his quaggoth allies are defeated. (encounter XP for killing quaggoths is 175 each). If the party takes too long in killing at least half the quaggoth (more than 5 rounds), the werewolf will remember to slice the throat of the women (a 3rd level Paladin, currently at 0 hp‘s) on the altar before he flees, otherwise he just flees and she is left alive. After the battle, assuming the PC’s indicate they wish to look around, or search, the room, read the following. On searching the room, in addition to the women and some stone clubs, you also find a helmet which glows with a bright light behind the altar sitting on top of a backpack with adventuring gear to include a 50 foot length of rope, a longsword in a sheath attached to a belt, and a scroll with a holy symbol embossed upon a wax seal which matches the symbol found on the shield in the room with the pool of water. You notice that the chainmail the woman on the alter is wearing is also stamped in several places with this same symbol. The scroll says: You Elizabeth have been charged by the church to seek out this dark order that hunt the good people of this land and destroy them. Signed; Head priest of the order of Light. Town of Hallbrook. Conclusion: The helmet has had a continual light cast upon it. The woman’s hands and feet are chained by four locked shackles attached to metal loops hammered securely into the black stone altar, the werewolf having run off with the key. A thief can unlock these locks with a successful open locks roll (+30% chance to open each lock as they are not of good quality), or they can be bashed open after receiving 10 pts of damage each from a blunt weapon (the quaggoths stone clubs will do nicely). If the party goes down the only way out of the room other than the entrance through which they came, they will find it leads to a cave exit which seems to disappear as soon as they walk out of it, obviously some kind of illusion (Hallucinatory Terrain with Permanency). The “priest” who fled out of the room is nowhere to be seen, but the road to town is easily seen from where the party stands. They can soon determine, if they care to look around, that they are within a half mile of the other cave entrance where they left their mule. Upon reaching town the party can rest, and decide to seek out the church to tell them what happened to their warrior, or return her to the church if she is still alive. In the first case the church will award each player 100 gp, in the second case the church will award each player 100 gp and offer to grant free healing to the PC’s, up to the limit of what the church’s chief priest (a 7th level cleric) can cast, whenever they need it, for the next year, in gratitude of their efforts. Each PC should receive 250 XP (if you give story award points) for completing this adventure, plus each should get an equal share of any XP awarded for monsters slain in battles they participated in. This should be enough to put most characters near 2nd level. From here the PC’s have several options. They can attempt to track down the “priest” (werewolf), but should not actually find it until they have gained at least a few more levels and acquired some magical or silver weapons with which to fight it. Since there were no living quarters in the caves searched by the party in this scenario, it can be assumed the quaggoth encountered must have come from some other cave system, and the PC’s could try to search out the main lair of these creatures. With their paladin wounded, the church may have another task for the PC’s to perform, or the party may have other goals, which ever they and (the you the DM) decide. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 7] Author : Bardofcyberspace Date : 01-22-07 08:47 PM Thread Title : Re: Campaign Ideas/ Need feedback I am not going to lie I like the way you wrote it better LOL. Thanks. Yeah I noticed that as I tried to write the adventure I keep turning it into a story. If you notice i use I for the first part then it becomes the party and so I can see the flaws. But I do like the changes you have made. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 8] Author : Bardofcyberspace Date : 01-22-07 08:51 PM Thread Title : Re: Campaign Ideas/ Need feedback I was unaware of the monsters only using a d8 for hp I thought it was a d10 and I forgot about the rules for climbing falling and swimming. LOL See this is why I posted it thank you. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 9] Author : SamualT Barronsword Date : 01-24-07 06:43 PM Thread Title : Re: Campaign Ideas/ Need feedback Bardofcyberspace Its clear you have a vivid imagination and storytelling abilities, elements most good DM’s share in common, IMO. Just review the rules a little more and keep in mind the differences between writing a story, and writing a D&D scenario, and you should have few problems when writing out the scenarios you imagine in your mind for use in a D&D campaign. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Downloaded from Wizards Community (http://forums.gleemax.com) at 05-10-08 08:21 AM.