Attacking a low-level party

[The Mad Hatter 10 6]

Whipped?

I personally like the idea of keeping an open mind about the encounter. I would say this particular encounter has EXCELLENT potential to be one the PCs won't forget for a LONG time. I would have the BBEG attack the party and attempt to take the stone, but let THEM decide what they will do... they can obviously hand over the stone (Its a fair cop), or they can attempt to do battle with the villian (and lose), or clever PCs can find away to trick the villian and escape (I like the idea of an adventure filled chase with the bad guys hot on your heels, and if they are 5th level, Invis Sphere lasts all day... nothing like an invisible travelling party).

Take the villian's alignment into effect... if he is Lawful Evil, perhaps he doesn't really want to kill the players, he just wants the stone... while he won't take steps to PREVENT injury to the players, he and his minions won't murder them once they are beaten. They will take the stone, and perhaps the PCs gear, leaving them naked and helpless in the wilderness. I used a similar situation on an "artifact race" where the bad guys beat the snot out of the PCs and left them tied up and naked in the snow... not only were the players spared... they were ENRAGED at the evil NPC party... this fire burned in the group for a very long time as they clashed with the NPCs on several more occasions but never had enough "umpf" to defeat them villians. It builds a history of hatred and rivalry with the villian and motivates the players part to become more powerful and kick it to the bad guys that slighted/ beat the crap out of them.

Perhaps this strategy would work for you as well here.

 

[Malachai_rose]

good idea

I like the idea of a no win situation. It only makes sense the PC's at their level aren't the most powerful beings in the camapign setting, and any item that important would be taken back quickly. The question you might want to answer in game with clues and information for the PC's are

1) How did the evil villain find them

2) That the methods he used were within his power and that you weren't just pulling rabbits out of your ass.

3) That as PC's they are not the most powerfull people out there and there will be some situations that they cannot overcome.

I think that kind of setting helps to get the PC's out of a hack n slash mentality.

At least in the games where I have played it has always been an enjoyable element for me, helping add to the challenge and sense of acomplishment when we finally get something done. Just my 2cents though

PS anyone who wants to check out the Heroes of Hamh thread and give me any advice or feedback, it would be most appreciated.

 

[Missnox]

I'm really curious how this storyline worked out. I was in a game with a similar situation (sorta) and it is now one of the most memberable games my gaming groups discuss. The game was several years ago, but to this day if you mention specific NPCs everyone pulls out swords, ignores current foes, and vault over standing equiptment to get to them....

 

[rln]

Missnox,

I had a Paladin PC that was killed by a spectre just before I was going to take over as the group DM (we rotate between two of us). He rose as a spectre himself, and the party fled, being very drained after the encoutner with the first spectre.

Naturally, I had him go bad. A few nights later, when the party came back to finish off their former comrade-in-plate, they woke up seeing their friend (in the flesh, after making a bargain with his ex-archenemy Bane) riding into their camp and demanding an evil artifact the group had recovered earlier.

I stressed the point that they had no armor and that the horse looked quite nasty to discourage a fight. Yet, they declined, and their friend-turned-foe rode away, noting that "the next time we meet, it will not be to negotiate".

They still carry the artifact around, and now-and-then worry about sir Marcello. I don't even have to mention it; they do it by themselves. I accidentally pulled out the paladins old char sheet when I was DM'ing, saying "Oops, that one wasn't for you".

Paranoia is fun!

 

[Missnox]

Seems like players think the worest thing that can happen is to have another group member turn on them... I was also co DMing in my game so had a few characters besides the PC iwas playing... The group had hired out for a cleric and an under dark ranger for this champaiagn.. The Ranger eventually turned out to be a Drow Vampire..

 

[Painfully]

Here's an update:

The party was upstairs in the main feasthall enjoying the festivities when a forge apprentice came running up the steps yelling for help. Obviously, the local guards were the first to respond, although they are mostly for watching the walls outside, not inside.

The party, having gotten comfortable living here, had to go to their rooms to get their gear--weapons and armor, etc. By the time they reached the entrance to the forgehall, there were webs blocking the archway, and five drow were in melee with some of the guards and remaining apprentices. [I had the large meteorite already taken away--saving it for a suprise later ]

The fight goes on, and one of the drow, wearing a hooded robe, stays back near the "break in" point in the wall [basically a 10' hole]. At this point in the fight, all the dwarf guards are killed and three remaining drow attack the PCs. When the first of the three drow drops, and the second becomes severely wounded, the hooded drow at the hole calls them back and they retreat behind her. Now its the PCs and the hooded drow.

So one of the PCs charge the hooded drow. Fighting ensues, the hooded drow gets two attacks a round and uses them to good effect [she is a fighter 4/ranger 2]. The engaged PC hears something hiss, and on the next round the hooded drow lowers her mask to reveal her face--a medusa! The engaged PC failed his save and turned to stone. She laughs and promptly turns to escape, leaving a darkness effect behind her in the tunnel.

The players (and PCs) are stunned, and stop to gauge their situation. They're quite afraid of facing a medusa.

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot, in the melee I had the head priest of the clan come down and use a Daylight spell. It helped to turn the tide of the melee in general, as it gives penalties to drow attacks. Of course he was rather inebriated as well due to the celebrations so he wasn't quite as useful as he could have been [I couldn't let him steal the show from the PCs after all].

There's more, of course, but I think this covers it. The party got their compantion returned from stone to flesh with the help of a cloud giant sorcerer that lived in a nearby valley. The local dwarves know of the medusa, but she has been one to keep to herself and have not bothered the dwarves before. So this is a surprise to them, that she has allied herself with the drow.

In the hours after the fight, the head cleric tends to the wounded, a journeyman forgeworker retrieves the small piece of meteorite from the forgemaster's room, and the party learns of the cloud giant living a few days away.

With a few days of work, possibly a week, the local smiths think they can work the meteorite into something that can sense the location of the main meteorite [I learned that IRL meteorites are nearly ALWAYS magnetic--this combined with the fact that the cleric can cast locate object seems to make for a sensible magic item to me].

So a week later they have a magical gauntlet [effectively a compass to the meteorite], a cloud giant to whom they owe a debt for returning their companion from stone form, and a gaping hole in the wall leading them into the darkness.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Quick question.

You mentioned that there are two powerful NPC's who could divine the location of the meteorite.

Why would either do this though? Did either of them happen to be somewhere that allowed them to see the meteorite fall to the ground?

 

[Painfully]

The meteorites are a result of a comet that visits regularly. Here's a passage I read to the dwarves in the party, who had met privately with the NPC dwarven cleric who gave the speech.


----THE DRAFT----

Once every 350 years Moradin bestows a gift. A comet visits the skies for 7 days, some say it is the forge of Moradin, himself. During that time, often on the 3rd or 4th day, there are pieces of that comet that fall from the sky. All the clan leaders beseech their high priests to divine the location of where the pieces might fall to the earth so that they might retrieve the sacred rock, but in my clan, it was only I, Ori Cloudhammer, who had seen that place in my dreams. Again and again, I found myself always in the same dream, and looking at the same place. Word had gotten around to the high priest, and by his decree I have set forth to recover the stone.

The stone is very much like mithril, but it is much more than that. It is said to possess a raw soul, untouched, and unfinished, from the forge of the Allfather. Clans from ages past have fought wars over it. Devils have bargained for it. And now such knowledge comes only to a few, if any. The dwarves are no longer as close to the Allfather as they once were, but to possess this rock, to be able to craft it and to hold it in one’s hands, it is enough to command the respect of every dwarf that claims loyalty to Moradin.

It is said that the soul in the stone will form itself in the image of it’s possessor. It was argued amongst my clan that I was too young, but my grandfather, who is too old and ill to even walk, was quick to remind the clan elders of their debt to him. He was the one who led our clan to their home today, after our clan was decimated by drow. Some say it was disloyalty from someone inside the clan that led to our downfall there, but most refuse to believe it, even to this day. But such tales are best left for another time.

My mission is simple: retrieve the stone and take it to my clan. Priests there are waiting to use their powers to protect the stone from dark influences, and to make it stronger against our enemies.

If you will swear loyalty to Moradin, and aid me in my goal, my clan will reward you well. With most of my comrades dead, I am desperate for assistance, and it seems by chance, or fate, that I have finally set eyes on another dwarf. In a land of strangers, I am wary of trusting anyone else. What say you, ____________?

----END----

There's a bit more to the background, but you get the idea. The dwarves have slowly lost touch with Moradin over the generations until fewer and fewer dwarven clerics received the visions.

As for the two bad guys that are able to divine the meteorites as well. They are able to intelligently estimate, and/or use magical means (one of them specializes in scrying magic), to actually locate the pieces after they fall.

FYI, the seven day comet thing must seem peculiar, but there is at least one historical account of such a thing happening IRL, though I don't think it was seven days long.

The average party level was between 3rd and 4th, and they didn't have any caster types at all, so I used an NPC cleric to divine the meteorites location. No doubt there were plenty of diversions in between them and their destination. This was basically an action plot, with a race between the players and and infernal duergar priest (a durzagon from MM2).

The durzagon was an agent for one of the main bad guys.

 

[oliverhenshaw]

I think I'm too late for this to be useful, buit I've had an idea.

You're trying to work out how to deal with high level opponents who can scry the location of the party/meteor? Simple.

Circumvent the problem.

Just rule that the alien nature of the comet makes it impossible to scry. The NPC who guided the PCs to the crash site was able to divine it's location because it was the site of a catastrophe (the crash) NOT because of divining future of the comet itself.

So the high level enemies can't scry for the meteor or the party (they're protected too... at least while they're close to the rock).

A potential problem is that you say one of the NPC villians is very good at scrying - then this solution negates some of his power. But if he's that good at scrying, soon he'll be able to research a way of tracking the meteorite by the way it blocks divination (or, if the consequences of this are unpalatable for you, neghating it's anti-scrying powers another way) - perhaps by obtaining a small piece of the meteor and using homebrewed sympathetic magic.

In the meantime, the other NPC villian would have to turn to recruiting lackeys & putting up wanted notices. The PCs then have a price on their head and teams of low-level baddies scouring the countryside looking for them. That's a threat they can encounter piecemeal and can get deadslier as they increase in level.

You could also let your players know this - with hints to the comets powers from more scraps of prophecy and scraps of information about their enemies and their pet projects. And brief encounters with bounty hunters.

Hope that's some help.

Brief postscript after re-reading the posts. All groups know where to find the meteor. That's fine. But after it moves from their, it's not so easy to divine. You also mention that their are multiple fragments of meteor... that makes it easy for the scrying villian to get hold of some of it and work out a way to scry for the large piece once it's clear he can't use 'conventional' divinations and has to fall back on brute force spies/bounties/search parties.

 

[Sanackranib]

3 month trek

you have 3 months of game time right? amole time to implement several of these fine Ideas. I would have the Evil NPC first send out some low level thugs to try to take it (the party beats them) then he sends some higher level minions (even odds) finally he shows up himself to that it from the party. If 2 npc groups try these ploys at the same time then have them both show up with the party in the middle for the 3 way showdown. allow the party to escape in the chaos. return the stone and then introduce the drow angle. sounds like a good campaign.