So the adventure is for 11 and 12 year olds, so it’s ok if a lot of the adventure doesn’t make sense. It makes more sense then any adventure I put together at their age, and I’m only slightly more mature when we play.
An Ogre Mage (sorry Oni Mage) and his minions attacked a village and stole important documents form a merchant there. While at it he killed 2 party members and made off with their bodies. The purpose of the adventure is two-fold recover the fallen comrades if they haven’t been eaten yet – mainly for their magic items, and recover the documents which hold information on the manufacture of superior weapons which will be needed to arm to forces of good since an evil army is approaching,
As I was designing the Oni Mages lair full of geysers and water filled corridors I realized many of the encounters where similar to White Plume Mountain and decided to just rip off whole sale many of the more exciting locales from there.
I’ve never designed a skill challenge before so please feel free to point out bad spots;
Hot Mud Room
A large cavern with boiling hot mud, and ledges at either end hold the entry and exit, between are large wooden disks suspended by thick chain. Occasionally large bubbles of mud spew steam and slim into the air, coating various areas in slippery goo.
Primary Skills; Athletics, Acrobatics, Dungeoneering, and Endurance
Skill Challenge Complexity 2 Difficulty Check 20 Successes 6 (5 disks between ledges) Failures 3
Each Success advances a character one stage toward the opposite side, and the succeeding character can do things to ease the challenge for those who follow to a Difficulty Check of 15
Each failure produces dramatic story elements like almost slipping off to a final on of actually falling or being hit directly by a mud blast causing a D8, D10, 2D10 in succession and increasing each following difficulty check by 2.
Not sure about including some kind of battle as well, its 5th level characters and meant to be an exciting but easy challenge. Perhaps some giant steam breathing giant bats, as 2nd lvl minoins.
Thanks for your time and input,
Andy