Awesome encounter - help me keep it going

[Lord Zardoz]

Recurring NPC's who aren't plot connected are great to have handy. It lets you pad out a game a bit when you need something fast.

I suggest that when it becomes level appropriate, but after they have run up against the gnomes at least 3 times, hit them with a real set of Savage Gnome Dire Were-Moles, led by a Gnomish Vampire.

Keep to the pattern with the fake outs though. Apply templates in an unlikely manner to each of these encounters. I suggest a run in against Fiendish Half Dragon Halfling Zombies led by a Half Fiend Half Elf Necromancer.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Deekin]

Savage halfing-werecats lead by a half-fiendish halfling.

 

[JonMonster]

You've done the bandit scam with these guys. I'd make sure that the next scam they run isn't another bandit scam. Two quick ideas that pop into my mind are running a shady inn and a benevolent cult.

I'd have them own and operate a place called, literally, The Shady Inn. The leader professes to have gone straight but the whole place is actually a set up. He's got a couple of quick order tinker/forgers working in the basement. His 'stage hands' pilfer a few valuable items from the clientele and replace them with perfect (but non-magical) forgeries. If your evil DM plan works then the PCs won't learn that they've been had until it is almost too late to do anything about it.

The Church of Benevolent Arms would see the would-be Gnomish vampire as a regular toothy-grinned televangelist type who has set up shop in a largish city. His non-denominational philosophy and charitable ways have made his organization fairly large and powerful. Of course, the leader is skimming a sizable portion off the top of the proceeds and the expensive "Miracle Water" that they are selling has no reall effects other than as a potent placebo. It's a shame that the NPC the PCs desparately need to talk to is in the midst of a long sensory deprivation and ethereal rest retreat and won't be available for at least a week. That is, unless the PCs can do the Church a quick favor or two...

 

[Oryan77]

That's actually a pretty clever idea you did.

I'm sure you won't want to hear this though, but I say leave it at that and move on with the game. If you start to imitate the campy-but-fun encounter you did, it'll ruin the originality of the first encounter and it will just become campy (without the fun). That's what producers do...they get something like a funny commercial on their hands, people love it, so then they grind it into the ground until people think it's eventually lame (Budwieser frogs, Geico lizard, Burger King King, Geico Cavemen, ect ect).

If you like them so much that they gotta appear again, rather than make imitation scenarios, have them make cameo appearances throughout the campaign that are completely different. Obviously they are a batch of quirky goofball-like guys. So play off that, but don't have them continue to disguise themselves as scary creatures and make a gimmick of that.

Instead, run them as oddball side quests encounters. One idea could be:

Early on, commoners have told the PC's of some recent bandit raids on the road. The bandits lure travellers by pretending that one of them is a girl on her pony and she's lost on the road. When people stop to help her, the bandits cast sleep spells & rob them. So while travelling, the PC's find a wagon that has been destroyed. Get the PC's to realize that giants (or whatever) may have just recently taken captives from this wagon (footprints appear to be small children) and hopefully the PC's will want to rescue them. The giant tracks lead off into the woods and to a cavern mouth up on a hill. When the PC's scout the area, they find those same Gnomes piled into a cage with the gnome leader dressed as a girl and nervously dancing on a giants table trying to entertain the giants. The scenario is that these Gnomes are the bandits (those weren't children tracks), they have been captured, and the Giants are forcing them to entertain them before they eat them. Now the PC's get to rescue these Gnomes and the Gnomes deny being the bandits...then have them escape.

I say keep making the Gnomes appear silly in ways other than impersonating monsters. Keep changing it up.

 

[HandofMystra]

For the constructs, I was thinking of an old story about a guy who fooled a giant into thinking he was strong by telling him that the could squeeze water out of a stone but the stone was a cheese.

 

[Wik]

another little schtick that springs to mind:

"Step one... we steal their underpants.... step two..... step three.... profit!"