my planescape game

For fellow Planescape enthusiasts I'm going to post notes from my campaign and ask for feedback here. This consolidates several other posts I've made, the most recent one http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4t...s-fleeing-thru-sigils-sewers-friday-13th.html.
We're only a couple sessions into the game, and it's sort of a big experiment for unusual ideas and adventures in a planar sandbox.

Last adventure the PCs jumped thru a portal into Mechanus, navigating it's clockwork labyrinth until following a strange magic mouth sent by the Hollow Woman who they were tracking.

The way I've "structured" the sandbox is with a portal map that looks a little like a circuit board. Every location has multiple access/exit points and has a list of quests associated with it.

They made a group orienteering check, which is a mechanic I intent to use a lot. Each successful check meant a benign description of the plane, while each failed check meant a roll on a random encounter table. The group had 2 successes, 2 fails, and 1 seeking out a safe and sound resting place (which I treated as requiring facing a random encounter to secure).


They began with a benign description, a decaton searching for a haywire unit of moderns lost in the labyrinth due to the influences of the Hollow Woman. The PCs negotiated payment from the decaton if they returned the haywire modrons, though that didn't pan out so well.

Their first random encounter was "Terrified Monodrone Stampede". As expected, it did not go as expected. After dealing with the stampede the PCs found a floating silver face (a magic mouth which the monodrones were fleeing) which offered to lead them to the Hollow Woman. Surprisingy they agreed! So they shortcuted the clockwork labyrinth and were transported to the Hollow Woman's cog.

I had some monster stats for heavily modified warforged resounders and a vague idea of a gladiatorial game in an "unstable" matter zone which could be modified with sufficient will (as detailed in the MotP), but I was already in full-on improv mode. One of the players compared it to Tron. Heh. Only in Planescape can a DM get away with that.

Next: The party has just parlayed with the Hollow Woman, though we ended the night as negotiations were getting underway about whether they could forge a temporay alliance. Though it's just as likely that negotiations will break down and they'll fight the monstrous Hollow Woman... I could use some help with figuring out the Hollow Woman fight - she would definitely be a 3-phase solo (FWIW my initial inspiration was the 2e parai).

Here's the mini I'm thinking of using for the Hollow Woman:



She also has control of the Orrerry, a "sacred" modron artifact which appears as a immense planetarium of the planes extending up some 175' to where she resides in a mechanical cocoon above. Here's a picture of the Orrerry from te front cover of Planes of Law:



I'm thinking of constructing a simple paper/foam core version, either pinning it to the ceiling and letting it hang, or supporting it somehow with my plastic Combat Tiers.

Sounds interesting . I have never played a planescape game but besides that, what type of powers does the Hollowed Woman have? And what is the party make-up? (prolly a good idea to explain classes )

Hi Arctic Wolf, have you started that game you were prepping for?

Arctic Wolf said:

Sounds interesting . I have never played a planescape game but besides that, what type of powers does the Hollowed Woman have? And what is the party make-up? (prolly a good idea to explain classes )

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Oops I left that part out, huh?

The Party (6th level)
Halfling crossbow sniper rogue
Pixie cavalier fey beast tamer
Wilden swarm druid fey beast tamer
Minotaur monk
Modron (warforged) crossbow artificer

[sblock=Background]
The Hollow Woman belongs (once belonged?) to a race called the parai. I changed the mythos of the 2e parai so that they were the first mortal followers of Primus ("deity" of the modrons) seeking to attain utopia thru group-mind. Their social experiment and devotion to Primus was a success, and the followers shed their mortality becoming parai. IMC they appear as feminine but androgenous creatures with porcelain masks for faces and crackling energy radiating from underneath their robes. The parai seek to assimilate exemplary beings into their group mind as part of their evolutionary development; IMC they aren't usually hostile about it.

As the parai settled into group mind colonies, an unexpected race of mechanical angels dubbed "celestrons" broke away from Primus. The celestrons sought to forge more of their kind, an act Primus had expressly forbidden, and thus they were hunted down. Sympathizing with the rare celestrons, the parai hid the few survivors from Primus' modron armies. In so doing the parai were banished from Primus' side.

Unfortunately the celestrons died off once disconnected from the divine energy of Primus. One of the parai, the one who'd become the Hollow Woman, attempted to save the celestrons to no avail, even resorting to some truly bizarre methods involving extracts of psionic abberations. Finally with the last of the celestrons dying on her operating table, the Hollow Woman attempted to bring it into the group mind.

In so doing she changed, gaining self-awareness lost to her people. It turns out that the celestrons were dying from exposure to an incursion of reality-warping magic from the Far Realm. And now the Hollow Woman had exposed all her people to it. Her first pangs of awareness were of a yawning emptiness as she was exiled from the parai group mind colony.

[/sblock]

The Hollow Woman would have some of the features of her original race (parai), powers related to the mechanical cocoon she sleeps in, mechanical pincers to restrain PCs or draw them into their own cocoons, psionic powers of assimilation and division, psychic surgery, and some kind of memory/emotion stealing power. For starters I know she's a level 8-10 solo controller, and will be encountered with a level 8 elite hazard / skill challenge complexity II. As a parai she also has a limited ability to turn enemies dropped to 0 HP into sister parais (level 8 elite controller at half HP).

Hey there and not yet. Going to post the basic set-up later today. And don't worry, we all leave stuff out .

That background information is interesting. Hmmm, for your encounter I was thinking of making a simple first stage 1 where she isn't too worried about using her real power and just simple attacks (throw in a few encounter powers to keep em guessing what she will do next). For stage 2 maybe have her slightly pissed off and she uses the Orrerry to attack the PCs (if it can be used for that?) and have the PCs make skill checks to see if they can bring it down. For stage 3, have her really angry and make her go all out. I think it is a basic set-up but if you could provide more info, maybe I could throw out something better

Yeah I'm lucky they didn't say "screw it she's a Borg we attack!" then I really would have been up DM creek without a paddle. I really only have a vague idea of what the Hollow Woman could do, based (loosely) on the parai (Parai (Monstrous Manual)), the mythos I came up with, a bad anime I can't remember the name of, and that cool looking mini.

One thing I know for sure needs to be a constant threat is getting assimilated, probably when the PC is dropped below 0 HP or fails a death save.

The trick about the stages is that the first part would have them closing into fighting range by climbing the orrery. I'd like to give her some very long ranged attacks so that she can bombard them as they climb. Once the PC are halfway thru ascending the orrery their ranged attackers will be able to join in. Part of the skill challenge will be "how fast do you climb?" (using 'climb' loosely) Oh, the Orrery itself is a massive acrying focus throughout the planes; however it can be (mis)used to planeshift too.

I think that's a logical Stage One, much like you described where she isn't drawing on the full force of her attacks.

You know for climbing the orrerry, I thought of something fun to do. Make it so that there are 4 ways to get up or to a plateform for ranged to attack and have it so she only *shakes* one path and anyone on that path gets knocked down. It sorta sounds like a game which may be fun at the table. (I think it would be lol.) But besides that you could do something like this:

Stage 1: To reach her, have multiple ways up like a ramp, climbing it, or maybe random teleportation portals that lead to different levels or make it go somewhere randomly. This way they get in favorful positions depending on the class and like you said, the Hollowed Woman will just use simple ranged attacks and think nothing of it.

Stage 2: Now she is pissed off at them for hurting her so she starts unleashing her unique attacks and you can throw an aura that assimilates the PCs if they die or if they suffer from a special melee touch attack where she infuses herself in them.

Stage 3: She has been beaten and needs to get away so she plans to use the Orrerry to escape. The PCs need to climb higher and the only way to do it is through skill checks. They can also choose to try to destroy the foundation/Orrerry itself to possibly kill her or mess with the control system so she doesn't get that far. I would also make it so that she needs to climb also to show her desperate attempt to escape.

How does this sound? And I am sure you will find moves for it

[MENTION=6686199]Arctic Wolf[/MENTION]

That's a great framework thanks! Would XP ya if I could XP ya.

Here's a homebrew write-up for the 2e 'parai' race which the Hollow Woman belongs to; I'll probably borrow loosely from some of these powers. More brainstorming to do!



Ascending the Orrery
The first part of the encounter is a skill challenging hazard (or a hazardous skill challenge?). Imagine a big whirling planetarium/orrery fueled by magic that rises up 175' into a huge chamber. There are several strategies I envision PCs using to ascend the Orrery.

 Feats of Daring (tumbling, climbing, leaping...): Choose a Medium DC to advance speed, or hard DC to advance 2x speed. If check fails, PC gets moved in wrong direction by Orrery's moving machinery. If check fails by 5+, PC gets banged up and falls 30-60 feet.

 Planar Lore: Predicting movement of planar orbits to time a change perfectly, allowing PC to step seamlessly from one part of Orrery to another.

 Reverse Engineering: Adjusting a control panel or weighting a ring’s orbit can change the Orrery’s movement pattern. This can also involve...

 Attacking the Orrery: While the Orrery in its entirety is virtually indestructible, individual spheres and rings can be severely damaged (AC/Fort 25; HP 120 large, 300 huge, 600 gargantuan).

 Using the Orrery: A bold PC might try to use the Orrery to scry or planeshift, though this grants the Hollow Woman an opportunity ranged attack against them. This could cover lots of creative tricks.

 Teleport Plates: This idea is shamelessly stolen from the Prince of Persia video game Teleport plates adorn certain planar spheres, color-coded into three ranges (oxidized copper = short, bluish silver = medium, faded gold = long). As these plates use a form of ethereal jaunting (rather than true teleportation), and the orrery is in motion, they must be used in the right sequence or there are catastrophic consequences.

Sounds good to me. Remember to tell us how it goes

Arctic Wolf said:

Sounds good to me. Remember to tell us how it goes

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Heh, with this group who knows what they'll do. I am slowly understanding the terror (er, I mean joy!) of what being a sandbox DM means.

Since we're in between game sessions, I had time to go back and organize my notes. It's likely next session will see the PCs encountering the Wild Hunt in the Feywild or Beastlands (http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-discussion/315768-feedback-wild-hunt-monster.html). For now it sounds like they've got a truce with the Hollow Woman.

One of the things I'm trying to do with the Planescape sandbox is to let the game be the character creator & world builder. That means I'm slowly introducing factions, planes, planewalking concepts, NPCs, alignment moral dilemmas, etc.

An idea crossed my mind of a way to translate Belief Points (from the 2e Planewalker's Handbook) using Action Points. A big meme in Planescape is that "belief shapes the multiverse." So what if re-skinned action points could be used to have an effect on the setting: (de)stabilizing portals, creating pockets of safety in otherwise hostile planes, planeshifting gate-towns, triggering worldfalls, creating new sites on our big map, and so on? Cool, huh?

At first I was considering each change having an associated belief point cost, but that seemed more complicated than necessary. I'd like to brainstorm an easy system for belief points that I could introduce in the next session or two...