Challenging my high-lvl group (NPCs and monsters; my players shouldn't read this!)

[Piratecat]

Regarding today's story hour:

Recipe for a Coin Golem

Take one iron golem. Remove appearance, keeping its stats and setting aside. Replace iron with coins. Replace poison gas breath weapon with a breath weapon of sharpened coins that does 10d6 damage (DC same as iron golem's), plus 1d4 wounding per round thereafter if save is failed. Add fast healing 5 if coin golem is standing on loose coins. Add secret vulnerability to be mentioned later.

Stir well, and bake in a flame strike at 700 degrees for one round.

Seriously, this is the easy path to cool monsters! Shuck off something else's appearance, change a few abilities (within a theme) to keep the experienced players guessing, and you're good to go.

 

[incognito]

It's like a template without all the number crunching.

 

[Akin Ringpeace]

Didn't you once have a race of rat people in your underdark?

Maybe the Defenders ought to need to hire one for a guide--like that kid in the Majipoor Labrynth--Hissune?

You remember--the one who charges the visitors 3 copper to get guided through the maze of twisty little passages to an important site, and then charges them 10 gold to help them find their way out.

Not that that exact shill would work on the Defenders, I'm sure, but you get the idea.

 

[Kaodi]

Monster of Legend

I was looking through the SRD for suitable monsters to apply the Monster of Legend template to, and finally while looking through the I,J,K section I spotted the Kuo-Toa. I remembered that the Kuo-Toa were present (or at least mentioned) in the original adventure and I was wondering if they had any place in yours. With this I was thinking that a Kuo-Toa of Legend Cleric 12 (who is mildly evil, hehehe) or there abouts would make an interesting character to add in. If you are interested, PirateCat, I could make up some statistics and post them here.

 

[Akin Ringpeace]

In case you think of a cool word to use as the first part of the name, here are some generic names for a place deep undergound where a couple of tunnels converge (since this isn't a "city" per se):

Junction/Knot/Cross/Splice/'Fluence/Tangle/Groin

Sump/Seep/Slough

Hole/Pit/Tunnel/Fall

(You can stick any of these after a cool noun and get stuff like "Cutterhead Junction," "Bugbear Sump," "Goblin Splice","Zaitaro's 'Fluence," "Loblolly Seep")


'Course this gives the whole atmosphere a sort of "Dukes of Hazard" feel . . .

For more fungus names than anybody could ever use for anything apart from naming all the fungus species in California, check out http://www.mykoweb.com/CAF/species_index.html

A few choice ones:
Simocybe, Gomphus, Suillus, Polyporous, Collybia, Phellinus, Inocybe, and Psathyrella.

There's even a Nolanea, Marasmius, and Agaricus!

There's cool photos of most of them, too.

 

[Bronz Dragon]

BAH! ... wouldn't you know, I finally get a good idea for the marketplace on the night PC is using them.. Oh well.

Here it is for any RBDMs who like playing nasty tricks on their PCs.

Some demon is selling a truly groteque peice of armor. It looks like an Ankheg carapace or some such, but the shopkeeper claims all these wonderful things about it: it melds with your skin, giving you complete freedom of movement(no max dexterity); you never have to take it off to sleep as it feels completely natural; etc etc, some random other magic powers.

What he doesn't tell you is that it is evilly intelligent when awakened. Until some nefarious condition, such as the wearer slaying a foe. It will 'awaken' and slowly begin insinuating itself into the wearer's consciousness. Every 1d4 days the wearer must make a will save (DC 24, or thereabouts)or his alignment will move one notch toward chaotic evil (ex.: a lawful good PC will become Neutral good, then true neutral, then true chaotic, then chaotic evil). As this process goes along, the PC will become irritable and snappish toward his compatriots, becoming more and more violent (this can get interesting with a spellcaster), eventually trying to kill them all.

Attempts to remove the armor will harm the PC (the armor is part of their skin. About 1d8 con damage from blood loss plus scarring), causing him great pain especially after the armor is awakened, in which case it will dig in and actively resist the separation.

In less that a few weeks, demon boy has a new slave to play with, plus some extra gold!

 

[Akin Ringpeace]

Fried Mice

This idea prolly too late, too.

Howzabout a fried mice stand?

Like this: the shopkeeper has a cage full of live mice. He grabs a few, drops em squirming into a sort of cement slurry, and then picks 'em up by the tails and drops 'em into hot oil. A minute or so late, he uses one of those long handled wire basket ladles like you use with a wok and scoops the poor bastards out.

Y'all supposed to pick 'em up by the tail, give 'em a sharp rap on the counter to break off the coating and all the hair goes with it. Then you dip the pink bits in sauce and eat 'em whole.

I suppose you could use pinkies instead--you know--blind hairless baby mice--and skip the cement batter.

Mmmmm.

 

[mythago]

Re: The Kid

Used sparingly, kids are great for unnerving party members. Experienced gamers are likely to be on the watch for "innocent cherub who is actually a shapeshifted demon" trick, but there are many other possibilities....

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Re: Re: The Kid

So be nasty, have an innocent cherub that really is an innocent cherub.

No one in the town messes with the cherub because everyone in the town thinks the cherub just HAS to be something big and powerful shapechanged.

In the end though the cherub really is a very minor angel that cannot get out of the village and is scared to death that one day his secret will get out that he really is no more than he appears to be.

Used sparingly, kids are great for unnerving party members. Experienced gamers are likely to be on the watch for "innocent cherub who is actually a shapeshifted demon" trick, but there are many other possibilities....

 

[MTR]

Coin Golem

You know, my first thought was "I wonder if he just used an iron golem... no, it wouldn't be powerful enough." I imagine it worked out ok since only two combat types went through the portal and there was the ghoul king too. But I would expect more of the defenders to blow the thing away. Did you have alternate plans if more had gone in?