Crafty players and a new-ish DM

[Dolza]

Hi EnWorld, i need a little help.

I've been dming for about a year and a half now and playing for around 6 years. My group has 5 regulars and soon we'll be dropping down to 4. Here's the group breakdown.

Hestemee Furnok- Human Fighter7/Wereboar3/Sorcerer1- Pretty much a straight fighter, took one level of sorcerer early on and never really went back. Died fighting a steam-hydra and was reborn as one of natures creatures. We worked together to make the wereboar a 3 level class so he could get all the benefits over time and not totally unbalance the party.

Hendel Bolaf- Dwarven Paladin4/Fighter4/Kensai3- Hendel has pledged himself to his dwarven king and works in his service. He spent a couple of feats and tons of money for his large adamantine waraxe. Also comes equipped with adamantine full plate. (yes i know, thats a lot of stuff. he came in once the campaign restarted at 10th level and being a still new dm i let him spend the money as he wanted. big mistake. I live and learn)

Istaqa and Coyote- Half elven Spirit Shaman11- Istaqa and his Spirit Guide Coyote have left his tribe on the Summer Plains to travel the world and test himself against it. Istaqa's thing is to summon monsters. He's taken feats and spent money on items to make his summonings better. Istaqa is looking for a way to add monsters to his list or maybe use templates to make his friends even stronger when summoned.

Yuanshao Zhuge- Monk3/Wizard5/Arcane Fist3- Yuanshao was creating this character when Complete Divine came out. We decided to make the Divine fist into an arcane class and see how it worked out. So far he's enjoying playing this character immensely. He can stand up in a fight and hit the bad guys with his necromancy spells.

Sephram- War Mage 11- Straight War Mage blasting goodness. Sephram wont be with us long since his player is moving out of town but we've loved the class so far. Their spell list is awesome and with his Scuplt Spell feat he's doing a great job of battlefield control.

Ok, so here's my predicament, most of these guys have been playing since 1st edition came out. I've only played in 2nd edition and now 3 & 3.5. needless to say they've seen and done it all. I have two main problems i guess

First some of them are not giving me a whole lot to work with in the way of hooks and character motivations. The dwarf has things to do and he's been easy to work with. The monk and spirit shaman are both out to see the world and challenge themselves....nothing much to work with there. The were-boar was framed for a crime he did not commit and has cleared himself of the charges so he's kind of blowing in the wind right now.

Second, I ran a version of Destan's Ippicizus Child Eater demon at them and 3 of the 5 has souls riding with them right now. Since my game isn't as low magic as his, i'm not going to give bonuses to the characters based on the soul they have, i want it to be more of a putting the souls to rest thing. This ties in well with the spirit shaman but i'm not sure where to take this. What should the characters have to do in order to free the spirits? Would it entail planar travel? Would it be easier if they just had to return the spirits to their hometowns and "bury" them there or something more involved?

If anyone has any ideas for the other two demons they need to fight please post them here. The party is 11th level now but i want something in the CR14 range i think. by the time they get to the other demons they should be a little higher in level and more able to take things on.

On a side note, what have other dm's done when they've let something in the game and later discovered the bad side effects, for example all the adamantine the dwarf is carrying around? I've thought about just melting it with a slime or breaking it with a destrachan, but i want to be fair to him. Breaking his weapon would be really harsh since his class ability works with one weapon only. He'd have to take time off to rededicate his weapon.

thanks so much for the help everyone! please give me any and all ideas. if it's off the wall or weird great! maybe i can surprise them with something they haven't seen in a while.

Dolza

 

[Piratecat]

Whoo, lots of questions! I'm going to go ahead and move this into the General Discussion forum, since it deals mostly with DMing issues.

Some thoughts:

- I have some PCs who provide their own hooks, and others which are tougher. The general rule that we use is "provide the DM with character background (siblings, plot hooks, etc.) or he'll probably do it for you." In the latter case, that may or may not be a good thing.

I think a great encouragement for this is to provide your players with in-game benefits for providing a good background. Several people here start with a 25 point build and give up to 7 additional points if the players fill in their backgrounds and contribute to the game in other ways.

- I have no great advice on freeing the spirits, other than it's be fun to make it meaningful for the PCs. Do they have a responsibility or a secret that needs to be resolved?

- Don't worry about the adamantine. Just give less dwarf-centric treasure than normal for a while to make up for the gain. Meanwhile, you should have people trailing him who wants it for some nefarious purpose. . .

 

[Dolza]

secrets and nefarious uses for adamantine

Woo! I got a reply from the great Pireatecat! of course it had something to do with posting on the wrong fourm but whatever.

"- I have no great advice on freeing the spirits, other than it's be fun to make it meaningful for the PCs. Do they have a responsibility or a secret that needs to be resolved?"

I think you hit on just the idea i need for the spirits, unfulfilled quests or a secret would be just the thing i need. now i just have to think of at least one of the three for this week....err tomorrow i mean. The three spirits are:

Idrial- elven girl
Donnovan- human boy
Krinkle- gnome boy

I think i can use this for tomorrow. The party has never even met elves or gnomes in the game, both societys are pretty insular for the most part. The elves are ultra secluded from the rest of the world and the gnomes hide in their hills and burrows to keep their experiments secret from the rest of the world....and to keep from hurting others too.

Now i just need a nefarious purpose for all that mithril!

thanks so much Piratecat!

 

[Piratecat]

Want to have some fun with the adamantine? Have a suspicious-looking mind blanked wizard (actually a simulacrum -- the real one is too cautious to show himself) approach the dwarf and offer to enchant his armor and axe for free. "Oh no, sir, I couldn't possibly take money for it. I want to help you for free. Really, I insist." Have the wizard refuse to take no for an answer, and don't give a reason other than "my divinations indicate that you'll need it. You really want me to do this." Don't say what the enchantment will be, just that it's good and useful for the dwarf. Don't give the wizard a name just yet. Act like a pushy used car salesman determined to help the dwarf at no cost to himself.

It'll freak the PC's mind out.

He'll wonder, "Why? What does he get out of it? Why does he want to do this? What's in it for him? Will he try to steal it? How'd he learn about me?"

You don't even need to have a definitive answer ready. Maybe the real wizard is LG but paranoid with a very low charisma, and saw in a premonition that enchanting the item would help the world (or him in particular.) Maybe he wants to insert a tracking enchantment that will always tell him where the dwarf is. I can think of a dozen sneaky reasons both good and bad, but the dwarf's player won't know which it is... and he'll have no way of finding out.

This is a good way to turn any negative such as too powerful treasure into a positive, actually. It turns it into a fun plot point, which helps offset the amount it unbalances combat and makes the game more fun for everyone.