Pathfinder 2E Help me Design a Tree-Spirit Hazard

[JmanTheDM]

Hey all,

would love some feedback on designing a complex hazard for next game session. any thoughts or feedback would be awesome!

Background:
PC's level 6
they are at an Ekujae tree village. have been accepted as guests, will spend the night. some of the Elves are not happy with them being present have "awakened" the tree spirit of the room that is granting the PC's shelter for the night.

the Ekujae "record" their knowledge by having tree spirits modify their tree's shape and form and thereby creating a "living history" of the people.

my thought is this:
late at night, the tree spirit is "activated". the tree spirit is hungry for knowledge, and will be trying to grab and "merge" the PC with the tree so that the tree can "learn" the PC's Lore skill and add this to the overall knowledge of their society.

so, I'm thinking about things like:

• nature and Occutism to learn about this hazard
• the branches of the tree taking grab attacks and trying to push the PC's "into" the tree trunk in a kind of merge.
• the tree trying to "fight" the PC for their individual LORE skills. the tree is trying to consume this information. maybe "fighting" the tree by resisting the Lore "drain". maybe even delaying the tree by sacrificing your lore to buy others time to respond.
• some kind of skill checks and possibly combat to ward off the branches - to get the tree spirit to relent.

first, is this stupid?
second. any help in building this? I'm perfectly cool joining hazards and VP systems. like other threads elsewhere, I'm trying to spread skill usage here for a mostly non-combat yet potentially deadly encounter.

thoughts?

cheers,

J.

 

[transmission89]

This is a really cool concept, definitely paging @Justice and Rule et al to come check it over (I feel they are better on the mechanical side than I). With regards to the “lore drain” what are the proposed stakes here? Like a reverse VP system where if it runs out, the PCs die or did you have something else in mind?

From a more narrative point of view (where I feel on firmer ground) if you want to avoid combat in this, why not already have them grabbed, they are each trapped in several different historical memories with a problem to solve?

 

[JmanTheDM]

With regards to the “lore drain” what are the proposed stakes here?

my thought (and it may not be mechanically supported... fully) is kinda as follows:

• this is a life and death struggle.
• eventually, if the tree spirit "wins", the PC's physical form will get "merged" with the tree, and the PC's essence will essentially transform into the tree's living form adding the PC's Lore to the village's knowledge.
• mechanically, not 100% certain, but what's swirling around my mind is a branch grabbing the PC, maybe the PC or tree spirit trying to "merge", which could be extracting knowledge through a branch or trying to push the PC INTO the trunk of the tree and merging.
• the PC's should have several different ways to over come this spirit
• and related to the VP system (and picking locks system as a template), needing multiple successes to ultimately defeat this threat.

From a more narrative point of view (where I feel on firmer ground) if you want to avoid combat in this, why not already have them grabbed, they are each trapped in several different historical memories with a problem to solve?

that's cool! I was thinking of having this happen at night when the PC's were asleep. could be a completely mental conflict within the minds of the PC using their knowledge / lore skills as a kind of Saving throw? knowing my PC's though, even in a friendly village they'll still keep a watch, and a physical way to involve that person on watch to also participate in the complex hazard will need to be considered.

cheers,

J.

 

[transmission89]

my thought (and it may not be mechanically supported... fully) is kinda as follows:

• this is a life and death struggle.
• eventually, if the tree spirit "wins", the PC's physical form will get "merged" with the tree, and the PC's essence will essentially transform into the tree's living form adding the PC's Lore to the village's knowledge.
• mechanically, not 100% certain, but what's swirling around my mind is a branch grabbing the PC, maybe the PC or tree spirit trying to "merge", which could be extracting knowledge through a branch or trying to push the PC INTO the trunk of the tree and merging.
• the PC's should have several different ways to over come this spirit
• and related to the VP system (and picking locks system as a template), needing multiple successes to ultimately defeat this threat.

that's cool! I was thinking of having this happen at night when the PC's were asleep. could be a completely mental conflict within the minds of the PC using their knowledge / lore skills as a kind of Saving throw? knowing my PC's though, even in a friendly village they'll still keep a watch, and a physical way to involve that person on watch to also participate in the complex hazard will need to be considered.

cheers,

J.

This is cool. It sounds like you’ve an idea of how you want this to go.

you’ve established there is a “win condition” and “lose condition”. So how could this be measured? Victory points certainly seem to present themselves. So now, what kind of actions could a pc do to move it forward and gain points to over come this? Pure strength? Mental challenges? Logic problems?

 

[JmanTheDM]

PS. my goal here is to build the hazard with your feedback. I'd love to hear those with better system mastery feedback on gotcha's and considerations. I'll build the hazard, but would love to iterate through this. its my first time building a custom hazard.

cheers,

J.

 

[JmanTheDM]

you’ve established there is a “win condition” and “lose condition”.

May be obvious, but "winning" is dissuading the spirit from continuing to try and "extract" all the PC's knowledge. "losing" is one or all PC's getting subsumed by the tree.

So now, what kind of actions could a pc do to move it forward and gain points to over come this? Pure strength? Mental challenges? Logic problems?

completely brainstorming here. possible thoughts include:

• physical. "attack" branches that are trying to grab the PC and merge the PC with the tree. here, it might not be a challenge of attack roll vs. an armour class or hardness - but more like a BT/HP threshold that needs to be reached for the connections to be severed.
• Mental. resist the extraction of knowledge. or better, "fight" the unrestrained knowledge transfer between the PC and the tree spirit
• Logic. using skills (eg. nature, occultism, etc.. other?) to "defeat" the tree spirit in stages
• Physical. avoiding the branches from trying to attach to the PC to start the knowledge transfer
• mental. "fight back" to the spirit, confusing it with bad knowledge or negotiate with the spirit to not follow-though with this hostile action on unwilling PC's (may be unknown to the spirit as all Ekujae may have willingly giving up their knowledge as part of their society)

Cheers,

J.

 

[transmission89]

PS. my goal here is to build the hazard with your feedback. I'd love to hear those with better system mastery feedback on gotcha's and considerations. I'll build the hazard, but would love to iterate through this. its my first time building a custom hazard.

cheers,

J.

Yeah, would love to pitch in here, and love what you’re going for, but I don’t feel I can fairly contribute to what you’re wanting. I’m much more laid back with rules application as a GM

 

[!DWolf]

I agree that it’s a cool concept.
From the scenario described I would actually run it as two hazards - the tree grabbing and a “dream/lore” realm hazard that follows once grabbed. I did something similar with a dream serpent fighting the PCs through a rapidly shifting dreamscape that worked pretty well - though you would probably want to do more of a puzzle for each lore skill than a travelogue combat like I did.

 

[transmission89]

May be obvious, but "winning" is dissuading the spirit from continuing to try and "extract" all the PC's knowledge. "losing" is one or all PC's getting subsumed by the tree.


completely brainstorming here. possible thoughts include:

• physical. "attack" branches that are trying to grab the PC and merge the PC with the tree. here, it might not be a challenge of attack roll vs. an armour class or hardness - but more like a BT/HP threshold that needs to be reached for the connections to be severed.
• Mental. resist the extraction of knowledge. or better, "fight" the unrestrained knowledge transfer between the PC and the tree spirit
• Logic. using skills (eg. nature, occultism, etc.. other?) to "defeat" the tree spirit in stages
• Physical. avoiding the branches from trying to attach to the PC to start the knowledge transfer
• mental. "fight back" to the spirit, confusing it with bad knowledge or negotiate with the spirit to not follow-though with this hostile action on unwilling PC's (may be unknown to the spirit as all Ekujae may have willingly giving up their knowledge as part of their society)

Cheers,

J.

These are cool. What about a contest of strength instead of attack? What about your players? You know the party comp. design it so it attacks each one of their weaknesses but give them an opportunity to use their main strength?

 

[JmanTheDM]

one other note - to help frame this encounter in the context of the game session. this will likely be the only non-social encounter for the night. likely up to this point, it will have been a very heavy role play session, negotiation, diplomacy, and building trust. odd's are there will have been zero fights in the past 3-5 hours.

so, this should be a tough encounter. scary. sever level at least. it'll not be a bump in the path, but likely the pinnacle event for a 4 hour gaming session.

if this matters when designing it.

Cheers,

J.