Encounters for 2nd level characters

Hopefully this doesn't get lost in the post Gen-Con/D&D4e excitement....

Anyway, tonight I'm running my current 3.5 campaign for my players. The party is 2nd level.

The set-up: a gang leader will ask the PCs to put the kabash on a rival gang's drug business. The drug is the Dragon Lotus, and the PCs will be raiding an opium-style drug den to eradicate the gang's crop. A "dungeon" is basically below the den. Cultivating the lotus will have something to do with a young black dragon I want to use as an antagonist. I'd also like to have an offshoot of the dungeon (not frequented by the gang) have some undead in it.

So ... I'd like the encounters to be flavorful, but I don't think I have time to conjure up 8-12 encounters by tonight. What kinds of rooms, monsters, and weird wacky stuff would I find in this place?

Well, of course you'll need thieves. Try throwing together low-level rogues and warriors together for mixed encounters - the rogues are the brains of the bunch, and the warriors just knock heads together like simple thugs. Perhaps a 1st lvl rogue and two 1st lvl warriors for a nice EL 2 encounter. The groups of enemies could have a random chance of being hopped up on too many drugs as well. You could sprinkle a few of these throughout the dungeon, maybe change a level here and there to spice things up. Should be simple to write up, and you can re-use the mooks.

Since you're using a black dragon as the end bad guy, maybe she has some lizardfolk retainers? Perhaps she doesn't trust the humanoids in the gang with her protection, since they're addicted to their own drugs (and who trusts a crack head?). The lizardfolk could be drug-free and merciless, with clear heads ready to defend their master at a moment's notice. Monitor lizards, crocodiles, and similar beasts would make good pets.

For undead, try a lone wight or two to really scare your players. They're CR 3, so it'll be a good fight for a 2nd lvl party. If you have Libris Mortis, inside is a bunch of low-level undead that should serve you well, if you're not interested in just using ghouls, zombies, and skeletons.

Isn't a dragon a bit too much for 2nd level characters?

Do you have any thoughts about what the building or the dungeon was before it became the crackhouse opium den?

For example, maybe the dungeon was part of a secret escape route. Perhaps part of it collapsed at some point, trapping a bunch of ... oh, I don't know ... gnomes and halflings who were trying to sneak into or out of the area. So maybe you've got Small skeletons or Small ghouls or something along those lines. If you want to extend the "drug" metaphor, maybe these undead are surrounded by a purple haze that has some kind of minor effect (sickening).

Quartz said:

Isn't a dragon a bit too much for 2nd level characters?

Click to expand...

I'm using my CR4 young black dragon from D&D minis (I think its from Night Below).

Awesome ideas, guys. Thanks. I especially like the haze around the undead.

Some ideas I've been kicking around:
--the gang has enslaved a bunch of kobolds to "harvest" the lotus from the dragon's den. The kobolds are on a kind of "beserker" drug that gives them huge bonuses to Strength, but also huge minuses to Dex and Wis, causing them to do stupid things.

--the undead portion has a magical gem that radiates some kind of animate undead effect (what would that be, Negative Energy?) The gem is an artifact of a long-dead wizard, and its effect is specifically tied to the area (therefore, loses its power away from the area.)

Ok a different idea...

I'm thinking something like a big vat of bubbling goo, maybe part of the drug-creation process, spilled at some point and ran down cracks or vents into the dungeon below. Maybe it contaminated some corpses down there and now you've got these gooey zombies. Maybe they can spit something akin to a tanglefoot bag, or maybe they have some kind of acidic touch. Or maybe they all melted together (think "undead gibbering mouther").

Changeling rogue crackwhores.
-blarg, adding a touch of class to ENWorld since 2000.

I'll second sprinkling in some drug addled protitutes.

A handful of commoners with the endurance and diehard feats to emulate someone so drug addled they can't feel pain.