DMing help - no looking, Tallarn!

[Sejs]

for underdark encouters:

Fiendish Drow. Either an enclave that lives with an open portal to the demonweb pits, or a group that's visiting from Lloth's hone turf. Clerics. Phase Spiders. Arachnae sorcerers. Yeth Hounds. Dire Wolves with the Shadow template over them. Incorporeal Undead.

PrCs!! Fiendish Drow Bladesingers! Fiendish Drow Earth Elemental Savants! That one Priest of Lloth prc from the FR Gods book! Fiendish Drow Fighter/Templars! Fiendish Drow Monk/Cleric of Lloth/Sacred Fists! Fiendish Drow Blackguards with Arterial Strike and Expertise (bluff, arterial strike 5 times, then fight defensivly and watch your opponent bleed to death)

Demons are easy, just don't forget all their spell-like abilities and power to gate in more demons, who can in turn gate in more demons, etc etc.


Dragon? Deep dragon with class levels of Cleric, and make sure it has 'get away' type spells for it's sorc line up.

 

[Kyramus]

Undead.... more than meets the EYE.

I've ran my campaign for quite a few years. There are times I send the players against skeletons.

Skeletons normal.
Skeletons with some more intelligence (ie fighter class)
Then there are the Gem Eyes.
You can make your own, but basically the Gem eyes follow the color of the gem.
I had Fire opals that allow the Gem Eyes to do burning hands 3/day.
When they are killed the Fire Opals are lost, crumbling to dust. HOWEVER, if they are killed with Disrupt Undead, there is a chance that the Gems remain solid. 50% each eye.

Shadows can have tactics to, what happens when a shadow touches a person who is asleep repeatedly. I'd give the player some sort of check or save to see if he wakes up. if he fails, then describe nightmares upon nightmares of where the character seems to grow progressively smaller.

Imagine that on a fighter. He wakes up and lifts his sword and feels it is heavier for some reason. (grins)

Vampire slam attack adds negative levels. using several of the vampire spawn can make it a very harrowing fight very easily.

5 medusa. 3 with bows. Unless the characters have some way of fending off gaze attacks, they are at risk and all their attacks are at 50% chance of missing. Have 3 of the medusa go hand to hand with obvious spell casters, and grappling them to open their eyes.

Hope these helps some.

 

[Happiest_Sadist]

Alarms (not the spells). If he is fighting a orginized force like the drow or even kobolds, they should have an a alarm system. If he lets anyone escape from a fight, blow a horn, or casts some flash spells himself, the opponents should react. Ex. The Hobgoblin guard wings a thunderstone at him as soon as his two companions fall. The boom echoes throughout the caves. The 25 warriors who are in the mess hall grab their weapons and armor. The priest comes out of the temple to buff up the champions. Rangers begin to track from the guardpost if the players have run. And rogues sneak off to observe likely paths of retreat, and sound further alarms and hary the PCs if they pass.

Even if they kill all three guards at once, a patrol which passes the guardpost may notice they are gon on the hour, and at least something will be noticed at shift change.

Assuming the enemies have powerful magic, there might be ALARM spells scattered throughout the fortress cued to give mental note to a low ranking wizard. They might be spied on by any sort of divination spell once their presence is known.

 

[randomling]

It’s half a day’s journey to the Six Mills, through thick forest. (4 hours, on foot.)
Random encounters, getting more likely every hour as you get closer to the source of the evil. Evil, magical forest encounters.

The Six Mills.
You reach the Six Mills – a ring of six vast windmills surrounded by mist. It’s completely silent, and a successful Spot (high DC, maybe 25 or something? 10th level, someone will make that) reveals an ethereal, screaming face at the window of one of the mills – but it quickly disappears. As you walk into the circle, the fog thickens. Turning and walking out will do nothing once you’ve started to walk in – the fog just gets thicker and thicker as you keep moving. If you stay still, nothing happens. But if you walk far enough (it takes about 10 minutes) the fog clears completely and you are left standing at the edge of a thick forest in grey daylight with a 100-ft wall in front of you.

You can scale the wall (Climb check? DC?) but if you follow it right for about 20ft you come to a door. It’s open. Go through to see a vast edifice of a grey stone building set in even huger gardens. It looks completely deserted. Going in and exploring the first floor reveals what seems to be a completely empty building. It looks like a monastery, it’s full of (seemingly abandoned) dormitories, kitchens, prayer rooms, training rooms, the works. No stairs, either, just a vast first-floor mansion. Or so it seems.

The one strange thing is that in the middle of the mansion is a kind of zoo. The caged animals are all revolting. Snakes, dire rats, some not-very-intelligent evil monsters. If you free them, they’ll attack you. And in the middle is, caged or dimensional anchored or something, a very powerful evil outsider of some kind. Free it, and it will not only attack you but set off an alarm that brings hordes of evil clerics and monks to you. And they will attack you.

But the last will flee – you can pursue him, and he’ll lead you through a secret door and underground...

More later!

Three questions though:

1) What bizarre things can turn up in a evilly magical forest?
2) I want there to be a few things that are creepy and out-of-place in the castle. But like what?
3) What debauched and evil practices can be carried out downstairs? I'm thinking there'll be (at least) loads of undead, and hordes and hordes of gnolls, classed orcs and kobolds. Evil clerics and monks of Vecna here.

 

[Balgus]

kool story. but i was concerned about the spot check. what happens if no one makes it? no one sees it? yeah DC 25 isnot all that high- but there is a chance. Might as well just have them roll for the hell of it- and then the one with the highest roll gets to see it. if others gets abnormally hig rolls too- have more than one- but let one see it. If you say just straight DC25- then there is a chance no one will see it- and you lose some zing from the story.

1) magical stuff in the forest- sparks of magnificent light. I always categorized forsts as magical if they have floating glowing bodies just randomly doing their thing. in your case, you can have willow wisps- bright spheres of light that just does their thing in teh forest.

2) i would say the zoo is already out of place as is. If you really wanna go nuts- have a pond with sealions.

3) have a room that is locked so tight that it is almost tempting to go in. have the last orcs/gnolls plead with his dying breath not to open the door. It has 4 locks, high DC- and is made of solid iron. Behind the door is a monster that the gnolls locked away cause they could not control it. they found it in the woods and thought it might make a cool pet/ slave/ warrior. but it was too unpredictable and untame. Think Brotherhood of teh Wolf- but no one can tame this monster. It is large/ huge with four arms and agiant maw. It can rend and swallow whole. It can blast you with fireballs from it eyes and lightning bolts from its arse... - sorry i couldn't resist.

 

[Nightfall]

Nightfall, I apologize if I sounded rude. I didn't mean to, just have very little money. What I meant to say was, thanks, when I have some cash I'll see if I can get hold of it!

I understand and no offense was taken by me.

 

[jmucchiello]

It can blast you with fireballs from it eyes and lightning bolts from its arse... - sorry i couldn't resist.

Heck, why stop there? Make it a tarrasque. That will test a party.

 

[randomling]

Heck, why stop there? Make it a tarrasque. That will test a party.

Well... I want to give them a good, tough, challenge. I don't want to just cut their heads and other parts off with no warning!

But I'm liking the locked room idea! Maybe that's one of my dragons. Or something vast and undead.

Or a Balor.

No, that's a bit *too* cruel for a 10th-level party!!