Panic Room style adventure

[Chaoszero]

So I'm coming up with a scenario for my adventurers where they will go into a city crawling with undead. The problem - none of the weapons the heroes have can hurt incorporeal creatures.

So, the idea is to (1) have them rush into the city, chased by undead, to a magic forge-house where the undead cannot go. (2) There, the blacksmith PC forges magic swords for the party using the forge's magic to create the proper blades in a short time (1 week). (3) After gaining magic swords, the heroes then can fight the baddies outside.

I figure the character crafting the blades can have help from the other characters, but they must choose to help the crafter or take part in any other needed actions, like getting food or watching for enemies. Everyday, the crafting character makes a check and the higher he makes the check the more non-mechanical "extras" he can put on one or more of the swords. For example, a mirror-like sheen, making it unbreakable, beautiful etching into the blade, etc.

The complications for the heroes -
Food; It is tough being trapped in one room for a week, they will need to go out on missions to find food and water.
Security; They will need to make sure the undead stay out of their safe house.

My Question - Has anyone done something similar before; having characters essentially under siege? What other obstacles would be appropriate in surviving in a room for a week? Should it be longer than a week, or would that just draw out the scene and annoy the players?

Note: I am aware of the craft rules, but I am prepared to throw them out in favor for drama.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Security; They will need to make sure the undead stay out of their safe house.

How? They apparently can't fight them, and the safe house is safe because of existing magic... so what exactly are they going to do?

My Question - Has anyone done something similar before; having characters essentially under siege? What other obstacles would be appropriate in surviving in a room for a week? Should it be longer than a week, or would that just draw out the scene and annoy the players?

In general, I've yet to see any endurance scenario (travelling the desert, being cast adrift, being trapped in a room during a zombie apocalypse, searching until you find the secret door) work in a fun way. It just doesn't happen.

For starters, D&D is loaded with ways to make food and drink a non-issue. Even in darksun it pretty much was never an issue. And darksun changed the rules to try to make it an issue.

Secondly it's almost impossible to simulate tension in a roleplaying game when nothing is happening. Roleplaying games are kind of like highlights reels: the DM only describes what's happening when the players have some sort of input. If the DM describes things when there is no real opportunity for interaction, then it's just a monologue, and players get bored, not tense.

I'd recommend you simply come up with 2 or 3 key scenes that will occur during the lockdown and then move on.

I'd also recommend you change the forge such that it only blocks incorporeal creatures. Then you can have the incorporeal undead recruit corporeal undead to infiltrate and try to destroy the source of the safehouse's power.

Then you have a couple of scenes possible:

1. Scavenge: the PCs have to go out into the city to get something. I'd heartily recommend you make this a macguffin necessary for the crafting process, and not food or water: like I said, PCs have a nasty habit of creating nutrition out of thin air. Or just not eating... Naturally the macguffin is surrounded by obstacles: something corporeal (maybe undead, maybe a natural creature the undead don't care about) that the PCs can fight, but too much ruckus will attract the incorporeal support. Potential solutions are: kill the thing fast, sneak past it, distract it and grab the macguffin, just run through and grab the macguffin and try to survive or try to bargain with it.

2. Zombie rush: corporeal undead assault the safehouse, trying to get to the safehouse's source of protection. On the way they cause other problems (such as setting fires, stealing and destroying macguffins etc).

Unfortunately that's about all I can think of. And maybe it's enough.

 

[Stormonu]

You might want to have the smith on the verge of creating the weapons; the PCs happen upon him "just in time" for him to close to finishing.

The PCs can be asked to help in several ways: The cleric (or wizard) may be asked to cast spells into the blades to make them effective. Other characters may be asked to collect certain "ingredients" or otherwise bait the undead to test the weapon's effectiveness. Perhaps the weapons have to be taken to a 2nd spot to be completed; the characters may have to bring the smith with them for the final enchantments.

The necrotic aura that surrounds the city may cause food to rot and water to spoil quickly. Magically summoned food might be tainted. The characters have to then find a way to get by either with no food or water or somehow figure out a way to get/keep food. As an out, you could have an ancient Consecrated area that is unaffected, with some sort of stocks there.

The characters may also face a "breakout" issue when the weapons are finally created; they've got to find a way to beat back or get through the undead that have been gathering since they found the safehouse. Preferably without leave the smith to his death.

 

[Xendria]

I have been running a campaign for about 6 months now (levels 1 through 9) that is a mix between a Romero movie and Escape from New York / L.A. Basically, a great city suffered an undead outbreak due to the dark plague. The city has been quarantined and the new reigning king sends criminals to the city as punishment. The party was sent in and have lived there for a little over a year.

Now, to the questions/advice at hand, this is very similar to what your attempting. here's some of the problems I've faced:

1) So an outlaw city thats basically been destroyed. Gold has no value, what so ever. So to solve the crafting issues I made the PC's search for enchanting materials and eventually gave them an artifact to "disenchant" magical items. This way when the party finds a +2 gnomish pick, they can use it as resources for more items/enchants.

2) Some one can live a week without food, and as the story progresses the party will STRIVE to make rings of sustenance. But at low level food can be an issue, my suggestion, have food that's gone bad or even some how diseased. Make them use that knowledge nature skill

3) Don't make the forge ... just make a building that's easier to fortify. The party will naturally use it as a base of operations and that way you can force the party to search for forge components and build it themselves.

Hope this all helped. Enjoy DM'ing the dark horror I know I have alot.

 

[dmccoy1693]

The complications for the heroes -
Food; It is tough being trapped in one room for a week, they will need to go out on missions to find food and water.

Create Food and Water will blow a whole in that idea. Plus if they brought rations, that stops that idea dead as well (pardon the pun). If you force the idea, your players might feel that you are forcing them to fight the undead.

Different idea is... (see next point)

Security; They will need to make sure the undead stay out of their safe house.

Have the place warded against undead. People in fantasy times are very, very supersticious so it is not unreasonable that someone in town had his house warded against low level undead (or some other random thing in a different situation). The ward keeps out zombies and other unintelligent undead, but something like a Wight could just pass right on through. One strategy for the wight would be to just walk through and try to parley with the PCs. Failing their surrender, he would leave and direct the zombies to try and attack the ward itself, forcing the PCs to make their way through the zombies to kill it or use ranged attacks while holding off the zombies that are attacking the wards.

My Question - Has anyone done something similar before; having characters essentially under siege? What other obstacles would be appropriate in surviving in a room for a week? Should it be longer than a week, or would that just draw out the scene and annoy the players?

You can explain it as a god intervened. Specifically a crafting god. He sees what the PCs are doing and helps them to make the swords in a single week. This way you are not throwing out the crafting rules, but they have help in this particular instance.

But do not not draw out the scene to much. 1 pre-prepared battle for the whole week. This will allow for the PCs want to try and do something like venture out and loot the town.

 

[ruemere]

I have run similar scenarios several times. Here is a short list of things you may want to be aware of.

1. [safety] Whoever your baddies are, make them slower than the party. Should the characters get accidentally stuck (dead end, for example), you, as a GM, would be in danger of TPK.

2. [atmosphere] Make the baddies come and go in tides. For example, daylight makes them disappear. Strange sounds in the distance causes change of scenery (known as Silent Hill solution). Introduce some foreshadowing for their reappearance (Silent Hill solution, part two).

3. [resource consumption] Equip baddies with resource spoiling abilities. For example, food rots within 10' of a baddie. Unearthly howl breaks glass containers. Whispering in shadows causes scrolls go blank. Spell slots disappear. You need to be careful here - you don't want the players to complain they lost everything. All you want to do, is to inflict cosmetic damage to create sense of urgency.

4. [limits] Introduce a plausible explanation why the party cannot simply leave the locale. Maybe they are searching for kidnapped friend. Or there is a group of nasty opponents waiting outside of the city, who want to make sure that characters do not leave.

5. [bad guy] There should be a root cause of the problem. And that cause should have a face, nasty disposition and ability to mock or threaten players. It's not really needed to have such villain, but it increases the sense of accomplishment for characters, when they finally get to rub the nasty person's face in dirt.


Examples:
- poor village located at the end of a fiord. The fishermen request help because they are on the edge of starvation, however there are things calling at night, and promising sleep under waves. The characters venture into partially submerged underground complex only to find themselves besieged by these things, cut off from surface and running deeper into caves, discovering forgotten city. Meanwhile, the things due to ability to summon darkness (and see in darkness), follow the part trying to drive the characters insane.
- Silent Hill. Shadow Plane. Swarms of shadow roaches. The roaches cannot approach to anyone wielding light... but their presence causes each light to grow dimmer over time.

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[dmccoy1693]

5. [bad guy] There should be a root cause of the problem. And that cause should have a face, nasty disposition and ability to mock or threaten players. It's not really needed to have such villain, but it increases the sense of accomplishment for characters, when they finally get to rub the nasty person's face in dirt.

After experiencing something like this last night at game, I must agree. All villains should be james bondian, in that they reveal their evil plans and gloat to heavily before their victory is certain.

 

[ruemere]

After experiencing something like this last night at game, I must agree. All villains should be james bondian, in that they reveal their evil plans and gloat to heavily before their victory is certain.

Heheh. Actually, my belief is that only some semblance of sentience is necessary to spook the players. I seldom go for pulp feel.

Examples:
- there was a giant, huge laughing humanoid. The characters were not impressed with its combat performance until they realized that the monster took several mortal wounds and still kept laughing and coming at them. And throwing its own innards at opponents.
- a zombie like vagabond, who kept threatening party throughout encounter while "bleeding" ants, until those ants formed another monster.

Regarsd,
Ruemere