Help request - high level NPCs, and planning a large narrative battle.

Stahn Li, sorry, don't read this thread.

For next week's game, it looks like there's going to be a large battle, sparked by an attempted assassination. It's mostly an excuse for me to show off what a few of the NPCs are capable of, since the party likes them now, but they'll actually end up being villains. However, I've also been playing a lot of Halo 2, and I like the idea of multi-dimensional battles where different groups have different objectives, and I want to see how well I can translate something like that to an RPG.

So, I'm asking for help. I need three things.

• Stats for the key NPCs. I don't need all the T's crossed and I's dotted, but the necessary info for characters who are high-level and thus have lots of options.
• Ideas for what different things the attackers could be up to, beyond the assassination plot. I need different things for the PCs to do, so they're not just hacking and slashing, but having to tackle problems in the middle of combat.
• Suggestions for keeping the pace of such a long encounter intense enough to keep people interested, without being too stressful.

I'm welcome to all sorts of suggestions, and I have until Friday to get all this in place. So, here are the key NPCs:


Crystin Ja-Nafeel. Female human wizard 13.
She is the point of contact between the party and a wizard academy. Unbeknownst to them, she is part of a conspiracy to unlock ancient planar seals that protect the world from extradimensional dangers. Crystin is only 27 years old, fairly fragile physically, but she has the well-known but little-understood power of Foresight. She can see the future, but only events, not in context or in much detail.

She has a Wisdom of 34, and specializes in defensive magic, though she is smart enough to know a variety of offensive spells. She doesn't like enchantment spells, but knows they have their uses. Her actual challenge rating should be somewhere around 15 or 16 due to special abilities from her Foresight, so I need ideas of what that can do. She also has a family heirloom magical staff with a variety of minor magical powers related to the people who used to carry the staff.

Of the villains, she's the least evil. She is actually a nice person, but she knows that she has to do what's she's doing to stop an even greater magical danger, so she's willing to be Machiavellian.


Kiernan. Elf wizard 17. Kiernan is a bit of an arrogant ass, but he respects skill. He's highly intelligent and skilled at tactics, and he's the brains in charge of the villainous conspiracy. He specializes in earth magic, and has the ability to counterspell any earth-based spell he sees cast by expending an equivalent spell slot. Not really significant for this party, but part of a plot element later.

Kiernan builds golems. He should have several to defend him. I'm thinking more along the lines of warforged than the irritating 'resistant to all spells' golems in the core rules.


The Plot. The assassination is against Emperor Rantle, a hero from a recent war who managed to get the survivors to live together peacefully, at least for a while. He's a bardic warrior, human, and I've already got him statted out. What I need are ideas for what his defenses would be. He's visiting this city to talk to the wizard academy, and to watch some famous performers put on an opera he likes. He won't be traveling in state; this is just an excursion, and though he's prepared for trouble, he's not decked out with defenses. The PCs don't like Rantle as a ruler, but they don't have it out for him.

I also need to think of how some people could try to assassinate the emperor. I want the whole event to take place on a large stone bridge that spans a channel, with the opera house in a ship floating in the channel below. Different things need to be going on in different places, and they need to have different flavors. One place with one or two big foes and some sort of challenge, another with lots of weenies to be mowed down, and a third place with a mostly non-combat challenge. The NPCs need to show their stuff in the first two areas, and the PCs need to save the day in the third one.


The PCs. The group is 11th level.

We have a goodly half-fiend fighter who throws a returning falchion, and likes to grapple mages.

There's a kitsune iaijutsu master, basically a nimble warrior who can cut through objects with ease, using her katana.

An elderly human witch who flies around on a broom, and has a toad familiar/cohort who just knows a lot of counterspells.

A classic human fighter, who is a bit of a revolutionary at heart.

A human voodoo priest who doesn't need to use his schtick this adventure because he talked to tons of dead spirits this past adventure, and the rest of the group needs to shine more.

A belligerent human cleric with a 6 Charisma, but lots of ranks in a pseudo-Intimidate skill. He likes to insult people to keep them attacking him, to let his allies deal with the real threats. He also has a lyre of building, though he can only pull off the necessary perform check to use it if he rolls a 16 or higher.


At some point, I kinda want the bridge to start to break, so the lyre will be needed to fix it, and the much despised bardic emperor will play the lyre, which will piss off the PCs.

Bump, for hope.

If you want the bridge to break, what about combining that with the initial Idea of assasination of the emperor. emperoro on boat, listening to opera, and bridge collapsing on top of him.

Golems that do the destruction of the bridge will make several large enemies.

Maybe the run towards the bridge/boat as the challenge part, run/jump checks to get through the crowds that are there to cheer the emperror, (or protest)

and several minions, maybe backed up by one of the villians to keep the emperor on the boat, and the PC's away from the bridge.

That's nice. Dropping a bridge on someone is certainly a novel way to kill them. This gives me part one in the conspiracy -- someone has to manuever the opera boat so that it goes under the bridge in the middle of the performance.

In order to make sure the bridge fell, I'd have the constructs (not too familiar with the warforged, so this might not work with them) digging out the bridge's foundations for a week or so before hand. Without the need for air, they could easily just sit down there and weaken the supports. This way the earth mage can cast a simple Earthquakep spell and drop it when the time is right.

As a back-up, I'd have a handful of those constructs up atop the bridge. The plan is that if the bridge falling plan fails, they can easily jump off the bridge and into the ship. A couple of tons falling onto a ship like that could easily go right through and cause the ship to sink.

With this later option, to give the PCs something to do, they might spot the constructs climbing out of the water and heading for the top of the bridge. They would probably have no clue what they were doing until it was too late, but they'd at least know it couldn't be good and might be motivated to stop the constructs before they can get into place.

Of course, we need something for whatever silver-tongued PC you have. Once they find out that the good-hearted wizard is working for the bad guys, I'd have him start going up against her in a duel of words to try to get her to realize her mistakes and try to atone. One way might be to let the PCs know about those constructs' plans.

Do these wizard assassins want the death to look like an accident or not?

I imagine the PC's suspect the assasination attempt and they race against time to stop it from happening. The scene would be happening to the tune of the Opera, the natural valley acting as a large ampitheter echoing the music. The music should rise in cresendo the closer the PC's get to the King and for a comic moment it literally will be all over when the fat lady sings.

The wizards can Charm the boat crew or implant a suggestion that under the bridge is the best place to here the opera.

High above small gargoyle like golems can be tearing at the underside of the bridge aka that Stephen King or Twilight Zone story when they are tearing up the airplane. The PC's may see this happening and either race down the valley to save the king or fly or feather fall off the bridge down to the boat.

I favour gargoyles because they fly, and the final song can be sung while a fireworks display starts. The PC's can have a cinemetic battle with fireworks going off around them, the king unaware below, and the bridge on the verge of collapse above.

Perhaps there are some new statues (golems) lining the side of the bridge that wernt there a few days ago. They can be of the King but done in a pose or style honoring past (dead) kings. The bard may notice this and get suspicious. They may search the bridge but find nothing unless they hear or see underneath.

If the PC's get to the boat the wizard may try and convince the king its a hoax, or cast a wall or force above the boat (fake so a high spellcraft roll will detect the fudging of it)

If confronted they will say it wasnt memorised and only wanted to stop the king from worrying about these lunatic PC's.

When the fat lady sings they go below deck and teleport away or dimension door to safety. later they claim the contingencies on them kicked in and they got back as soon as they memorised teleport.

The wizards may even be contributing to the fireworks display and thus able to do long range attacks against the PC's fighting gargoyles, and a final l;ightning bolt may cause the bridge to collapse.

It could be played that if a PC choose to dodge a lighning bolt the bridge WILL collapse and the king will die So they have to purposely take full hits to keep the king safe.

Well, the high level villains I was mentioning weren't intended to be the ones behind the assassination. This is actually unrelated to their plans, and they have to protect the emperor because they're relying on his assistance for the moment.

The actual assassins are led by an old personal enemy of Lord Rantle, who has a lot of stoneshaping powers, but isn't actual an earth mage. He's liable to use undead and demons. But gargoyle-esque demons that look like statues can still work.