Astral Dreagnaught Solo Encounter Design for tonight

[Markn]

Hey all,

I have a game happening tonight and I've hit a writers block.

During the session tonight, my PCs will be travelling the Astral Plane on an Astral Skiff when they will encounter an Astral Dreagnaught - a creature I have never used, but have always wanted to- and now will!

I tend to design solo encounters as a staged fight progression sort of thing. For example, in the past, I created a solo fight with a Purple Worm that during the first stage of the fight had minions (baby worms) come out of the ground to attack the PCs. Once the worm reached 75% of HPs, the minions stopped coming out, but now stalactites started falling from the cavern roof (as the purple worms thrashing began loosen them and cause them to fall). At 25%, the worm burst a hole in a thin cavern wall realeasing a tidal wave of water that filled the bowl shaped cavern (limiting the squares the PCs could use for dry ground as well as complicating the fight quite a bit).

I would like to do something along these lines and I just can't think of anything unique/interesting/fun that is along these lines yet feels different.

So I'm asking you guys to help me brainstorm.

Thanks.

 

[MrMyth]

In a (vaguely similar) situation, my group recently had our airship attacked by a flying Kraken, and the DM ran it by treating the tentacles as their own monsters. So we had one giant head for the kraken, plus 4 big tentacles, plus a dozen small tentacles (minions), and we had to deal with them all at the same time. (Which meant we couldn't just run over and beat on the head, or the crew would be torn up by the tentacles wrapping around the deck.)

Not sure how much of that could be applied to your encounter, but some similar elements might be usable.

 

[Markn]

It's not too applicable in this case so I don't think I will be able to use it.

BUT...

Consider the idea yoinked for a future solo fight.

Thanks for the idea!

 

[Celebrim]

The fact that the Astral Plane is an endless open space tends to make designing interesting encounters on it difficult, because there is no terrain to speak of and hense, little in the way of tactics and little oppurtunity for drama.

And on top of that, the Astral Dreadnaught is a brute monster, and not a finesse monster.

The only sort of terrain to speak of on the Astral Plane are Pyschic Storms and Hurricanes, so that's were I'd start - with their skiff being caught in a Pyschic Storm. I'd work it like a skill challenge (more or less, as I don't approve of the actual official skill challenge mechanics) with a series of skill tests, which carry some consequence of failure - fail the skill check, and everyone in the party must save or have something bad to them. Repeat for several rounds.

After/during the storm, I'd have them 'wash up' on a dream dust beach, where fragments of dreams have collected as a thin glittering sand that floats in a narrow shelf extending some mile in diameter and a few inches thick, and on the beach I'd have the wreckage of other boats blown to this shore by the frequent storms in this region - raw material for repairing their little skiff. The largest and most intact of these would be a nearby Astral Galleon with a great hole in the side. This is the lair of the Astral Dreadnaught, which is resting after having devoured the crew of the larger vessel. You fight the Dreadnaught, make some skill checks to repair your craft (failure means possible wandering encounters or having to endure another storm), and encounter over.

Alternately, they can try repairing and outfitting one of the bigger damaged crafts here, but that means more skill checks and hense more challenges to endure.

Psychic Storm Challenges

I'm not sure what you use for skills wt. respect to planeswalking or handling boats, but I'm going to assume 4e RAW here:

Test #1: Insight, DC character level + 15, recognize storm brewing with sufficient time to prepare +2 bonus on all further skill checks, no penalty on failure.
Test #2: Dungeoneering, DC character level + 15, gain control of craft and run before storm, on success go to test #3, on failure characters take 1d6+3 pyschic damage from buffetting and attack vs will - pychic shrieking (dazed, ongoing 5 psychic damage, save ends) and repeat test.
Test #3: Arcane, DC character level + 10, avoid psychic thunderbolts, on success go to test #4, on failure all must attacks fort for 5d6 psychic damage and lose healing surge.
Test #4: Dungeoneering, DC character level +15 , in the eye of the storm, keep control of craft, on success go to test #4, on failure characters take 1d6+3 pyschic damage from buffetting and attack vs. will - pychic shrieking (dazed, ongoing 5 psychic damage, save ends) and repeat test.
Test #5: Endurance, DC character level + 15, keep control of craft, on success go to test #6, on failure all characters must make reflex save or be thrown overboard. Anyone thrown over board loses a healing surge and half of remaining hit points. They are swept out of sight, but appear on beach in next scene unconscious (save -2 ends).
Test #6: As #4, but on success challenges is over.

Beach Challenges
Total the number of failures in the storm challenge. That's the number of successes required to get out of here. For every half that number of failures, have some minor encounter and lose an accumulated success. A long rest automatically encurs an addtional minor encounter and loses an accumulated success.

Insight/Dungeoneering/Arcane/Nature, DC character level + 10 (can't use same skill twice in a row): Scrounge materials and repair skiff.

 

[Markn]

Thanks Cel,

I'm going to use some of these ideas. The lack of terrain has been my issue so I know what you mean.

Gotta run, my 1 month old is making a fuss. I'll post later or tomorrow on how it went.

 

[RangerWickett]

Well, the astral plane/astral sea intersects many planes, right? I'm not sure how 4e does it, but you could maybe have them be sailing through a turbulent area, where the tides churn up fragments of different planes. One round they're on the ocean with rolling waves, the next they're in a jungle that is still somehow fluid around the skiff, yet solid if they jump off.

Could be complicated if you're drawing maps.

Perhaps they come across an old derelict ship, which the dreadnought considers its own. The PCs investigate (give them a reason to investigate; i.e., shiny things float around the ship, waiting to be looted), and the dreadnought attacks. Perhaps some sort of astral remoras lurk on the derelict ship's hull, or its magical engine has a pulsing leak that shoots dangerous energy out of the different holes in the hull. These pulses blast things away and deal damage.

Since the PCs are smaller than the dreadnought, they could potentially stand near the holes, and if the dreadnought flies over them, the blast might miss the PC but hit the critter. It provides a sort of dangerous safe haven.

 

[RangerWickett]

Oops, just saw I missed the boat. Well, I hope it turned out well!

 

[Markn]

Thanks RW,

As it turns out, you didn't miss the boat. Some roleplaying took longer than expected and the Astral Dreadnaught encounter will be at the start of the next session which gives me (and anyone else interested) more time to work on the encounter.

I ended the session using Celebrim's idea announcing that a psychic hurricane engulfs their skiff so there will be a skill challenge to maintain control and then at some point the AD will attack. The terrain/features/hazards are still open to suggestions.

 

[Celebrim]

The terrain/features/hazards are still open to suggestions.

Terrain on the Astral Plane is hard. There is concievably small pockets of matter that have survived out into the astral sea, but because you can basically see forever, anything that isn't huge and moving can be pretty easily avoided. You never actually have to encounter anything you don't want to unless it wants to encounter you. And while an area of floating islands might be pretty cool, if you clutter up the Astral Plane too much it loses its distinctive character and becomes basically a variation on the Plane of Air or Limbo.

Things that you might commonly see on the Astral Plane:

1) Flickering shadows or dimly glowing curtains of light, representing some large emotion or ideology passing through the astral plane. This is the tangible manifestation of, 'I feel a great disturbance in the Force...' sort of thing. Many of these would be thousands of miles away, but on the rare occassion you got to close to one you might be effected as by the Emotion or Suggestion spell. When these curtains become dense and violent enough, they are the source of psychic storms.
2) Clouds of diffuse glittering dust, representing some thought of some sort slowly fading away. Where enough of these collects, you get thin floating beaches.
3) Floating fragments of dreams or fantasies. A few of these are actually semi-sentient and dangerous, and they attempt to catch the unwary in them and force them to relive the dream (thereby sustaining it). Treat as anything from Persistant Illusion, to Maze, to Temporal Stasis, to Wierd spells. Living Spell templates might be appropriate for some of the most nasty of these.
4) In some parts of the Astral Plane, you begin to encounter shallow pools of darkness or faintly glowing light where ideologies, thoughts, and emotions have condensed to a fluid consistency. These are often near to some connection to the outer planes, and often contain a portal to them within. They might seem to steam, fountain, or rain ideas near them or to swirl, froth, or bubble. The area might collect a local trait so that the vicinity of them is treated as an aligned plane. Contact with these pools or drinking from them could have various effects, and drinking from a lower planar 'well' could be particularly painful. It's also a convienent place to hide behind if you want to ambush something. Promenient ones that make an important connection are likely to be gaurded by anything from Astral Devas to Modrons to Succubi.

More rarely:

5) Islands of real matter occasionally end up on the astral plane. You might find a small 'star' of fire that has broken off from the Elemental Plane of Fire, or an archaepeligo of a small floating tropical islands long ago hurled here by some vengeful diety. There might be floating beads of real water, like tiny watery planets. All these tend to either have inherent hazards explaining why they were banished here, or attract dreams and creatures quite heavily and so are generally worth avoiding. The Gith tend to claim all the real matter that they can, so anything that isn't really dangerous is probably a Gith colony and so... really dangerous.
6) Dead Gods: The bodies of dead gods tend to be some of the most promenent solid spaces in the astral plane. They are almost always enveloped in various curtains that conceal there presence at a distance. For the most part, these are like islands of real matter only much much worse. If you don't have business being near them, back off as quickly as possible.

 

[Mentat55]

Maybe you could expand the encounter inside the astral dreadnought? I kinda like the idea of having the party fighting both inside and outside the monster. Maybe some githyanki have been stuck inside the astral dreadnought for years, and even have a sort of self-sufficient colony inside of it.

The fight could proceed in stages -- first the PCs battle the dreadnought outside (I'd probably tweak it to make it a bit tougher and nastier), then it uses an amped up version of its power to suck the PCs inside, and you have a whole new type of encounter -- maybe some other prisoners, maybe just the various organ systems, "white blood cells", and flora (giant astral E. coli, anyway) that populate the dreadnought's innards, then the PCs cause enough havoc to be spit out, and the final stage of the battle resumes with wailing on the dreadnought in normal D&D fashion.