RangerWickett
Legend
This weekend my party of four paladins is going to ride to a Mines of Moria-esque ruined dwarven city. It once sprawled for miles and had a population of tens of thousands, but long ago the Tarrasque rampaged above it, collapsing sections and leaving rent open areas where rain could fall in and start to flood the tunnels. Now less than a thousand dwarves remain, and other creatures have inhabited the outskirts of the ruin.
In this situation, how would you handle the party navigating the ruin? Actually having the players map it would be a massive pain, though having a few checks to represent the PCs trying to make an accurate map would be interesting, I think. Maybe give the PCs a choice of how much the party explores (and the likelihood of them running into a random encounter or deadly part of a crumbling ruin), which gets them bonuses on mapping (which helps them locate treasures and find the villain they're pursuing).
The party has come here because they know a dwarven antipaladin has allied with gnolls and is looking for something magical inside the ruin. They don't know what specifically, but they want to stop him.
What I'd like the adventure to involve is getting to the ruin, seeing clues the antipaladin and his gnolls have arrived first, and then deciding how to move through the huge Moria-style tunnels and chambers. Do you sneak and avoid the enemies, since you don't know if they might call overwhelming reinforcements? Do you boldly challenge the gnolls? When they find out that the gnolls have taken hostages from among the dwarves and are threatening to kill them unless the other dwarves act as their slaves, how will they address that? Do they focus on finding the antipaladin in charge, and hope that once he's dead the cowardly gnolls will surrender their hostages in exchange for a chance to flee? Or do the PCs attack directly, and probably watch in horror as several dwarves have their throats slit?
How many different locations of interest do you think I need for the ruins to feel vast and a little daunting, but not so big that exploring them gets boring?
Ultimately, I'd like a big open chamber with some unusual terrain as the spot where the PCs (all of whom are mounted) can battle the antipaladin (who's also mounted) and his gnoll back-up. What the antipaladin is looking for is a small portal that recently opened to dimension where the Tarrasque was trapped. He wants to widen the portal and then go on a quest to awaken the Tarrasque. Maybe the fight could happen in a chamber with uneven stone floors - some areas flooded, some areas where it's safe to ride - and the ceiling is torn open hundreds of feet overhead from when the Tarrasque attacked long ago.
And I'd love it if somehow the PCs could interact with the antipaladin -- either talking to him directly or exchanging communication through a third party (maybe a dwarf slave courier?) -- so that they have a little more emotional weight when they finally get around to smiting him. Perhaps I have him in command of gnolls who are watching a bunch of hostages, and so the party is incentivized to talk, but once combat starts, he'll use some item to teleport away and withdraw to where the rift is?
Mostly, though, my challenge is figuring out how to present the ruin so that the party feels challenged by it, but also has the option to scout it and use that knowledge to outmaneuver the villain and save innocent lives.
Ideas?
In this situation, how would you handle the party navigating the ruin? Actually having the players map it would be a massive pain, though having a few checks to represent the PCs trying to make an accurate map would be interesting, I think. Maybe give the PCs a choice of how much the party explores (and the likelihood of them running into a random encounter or deadly part of a crumbling ruin), which gets them bonuses on mapping (which helps them locate treasures and find the villain they're pursuing).
The party has come here because they know a dwarven antipaladin has allied with gnolls and is looking for something magical inside the ruin. They don't know what specifically, but they want to stop him.
What I'd like the adventure to involve is getting to the ruin, seeing clues the antipaladin and his gnolls have arrived first, and then deciding how to move through the huge Moria-style tunnels and chambers. Do you sneak and avoid the enemies, since you don't know if they might call overwhelming reinforcements? Do you boldly challenge the gnolls? When they find out that the gnolls have taken hostages from among the dwarves and are threatening to kill them unless the other dwarves act as their slaves, how will they address that? Do they focus on finding the antipaladin in charge, and hope that once he's dead the cowardly gnolls will surrender their hostages in exchange for a chance to flee? Or do the PCs attack directly, and probably watch in horror as several dwarves have their throats slit?
How many different locations of interest do you think I need for the ruins to feel vast and a little daunting, but not so big that exploring them gets boring?
Ultimately, I'd like a big open chamber with some unusual terrain as the spot where the PCs (all of whom are mounted) can battle the antipaladin (who's also mounted) and his gnoll back-up. What the antipaladin is looking for is a small portal that recently opened to dimension where the Tarrasque was trapped. He wants to widen the portal and then go on a quest to awaken the Tarrasque. Maybe the fight could happen in a chamber with uneven stone floors - some areas flooded, some areas where it's safe to ride - and the ceiling is torn open hundreds of feet overhead from when the Tarrasque attacked long ago.
And I'd love it if somehow the PCs could interact with the antipaladin -- either talking to him directly or exchanging communication through a third party (maybe a dwarf slave courier?) -- so that they have a little more emotional weight when they finally get around to smiting him. Perhaps I have him in command of gnolls who are watching a bunch of hostages, and so the party is incentivized to talk, but once combat starts, he'll use some item to teleport away and withdraw to where the rift is?
Mostly, though, my challenge is figuring out how to present the ruin so that the party feels challenged by it, but also has the option to scout it and use that knowledge to outmaneuver the villain and save innocent lives.
Ideas?