Ending a quest with a last second steal from the players

[the Jester]

Your players are likely to feel cheated if you can't show them that you actively gave them a fair chance to prevent this from happening.

I'd give them several chances to notice that someone is trailing them via Perception (or perhaps Insight) checks. I'd also do the whole "snatch" trick strictly by the rules and on initiative. (Depending on the setup, I would probably have a final "guardians of the artifact" encounter and just stay on initiative until the snatch was resolved- probably have the npc in question attempt to snatch the artifact while the party is fighting the guardians in mid-combat.)

Be careful! This kind of thing can go awry VERY easily.

 

[Omegaxicor]

I am asking here because I can already see it might go awry. I like the idea of using initiative to give the party a chance but I don't think it will help, which is probably why I am happy including it.

I don't want to ACTIVELY give them a chance to stop it but I will put clues in to alert them to the idea, sort of passively giving them a chance

 

[Brainwatch]

One option, depending on your campaign is not steal the item from the players, but steal it from whoever they handed it off to. Were they hired to retrieve the item for somebody (since low level adventures are often "employed: by others)? Do they need to leave it overnight with the silent monks so they can study it before learning how to use it? Steal it from them. Perhaps a low level grp that the party can deal with tries to steal it from them before they return. This alerts the players that somebody is after it. Then that first night when they've handed it over, have the big bad grp attack and take it. The actual theft can be done off screen and the players part is dealing with the mooks the BBG brought with him.


A second option is to let the players keep the item, but to find out it's incomplete and does function. To pull and old reference, think of the staff from Raiders, they players just recovered the headpiece. But the thing is useless without the staff. Everybody is still targeting them to try to steal it so they are in constant danger. But until they can assemble the whole thing it won't work.

 

[MarkB]

A second option is to let the players keep the item, but to find out it's incomplete and does function. To pull and old reference, think of the staff from Raiders, they players just recovered the headpiece. But the thing is useless without the staff. Everybody is still targeting them to try to steal it so they are in constant danger. But until they can assemble the whole thing it won't work.

The reverse of this also works well. The villain steals the artifact and leaves, but then the party find some essential key (either a physical object, or simply information on how it works) without which the artifact is useless.

That way, it doesn't feel like a complete failure - the bad guy got the drop on them, but he screwed up too, and now they have some leverage. The missing element means that the villain can't use the artifact immediately, buying time to pursue him, and it may help clue them in on what the villain will have to do next.

 

[Omegaxicor]

I actually like the second of those options but that's an idea I hadn't considered. Then the party leave with something but not enough to appease the employer, just enough to not appease the enemy either...hmm, I have to try and work that in somehow

 

[GX.Sigma]

It's weird how people are saying that if an NPC were to react according to his interests within his abilities, that would be a railroad; whereas having a pre-scripted, EL-appropriate encounter wouldn't.

If the artifact is that powerful, then surely lots of powerful people want it for their own grander purposes (e.g., if it's Thor's hammer, Thor just comes down and takes it back). Actually, it's probably already in the hands of powerful people who won't let a couple of level 1 chumps just come in and take it. However you take the artifact away from the players, maybe make it have something to do with why it was so easy to get in the first place (like the demilich who owns it was astral projecting at the time, or nobody wants it because it turns you into a mindless ooze little-by-little every time you touch it, or it's an intelligent item that eats people then hides itself and spreads rumors about itself so more people come in and it can eat them).

 

[Omegaxicor]

@GX.Sigma hahahaha, I like that idea but I don't know that I can work that in, I'll have a think

 

[sheadunne]

Indiana Jones the Artifact.

The get out maneuvered when they come out with the artifact. If only they spoke hovitos (or Abyssal).

Make the villain several levels above the party, but with a bunch of allies. Then, later in the game, when they're level appropriate or above, they run into the villain again. This time they get their revenge.

I think as long as the villain has an outrageous accent and a funny hat, all is forgiven.

 

[Umbran]

the issue is how to make it seem less defeating.

That's tough. I mean, you *are* defeating them. You are just going to trump them and say, "I sent you to get it, and now you can't have it!" Kind of hard to make an actual defeat nto seem like one.

One way to do it is this: Make it so their original job is not to get the artifact for themselves! Whatever the party is trying to do, let them succeed in that, and end up with the artifact sort of by accident or just as a result of their other action. So, for example, the job is Stop Evil Warlord. Evil Warlord has Artifact (doesn't know it, doesn't have all the parts, or cannot use it for some reason, or else he would squish the Party with it). Party kills Evil Warlord, and gets Artifact simply 'cause they looted Evil Warlord's tent. Then, when Thief swoops in, he's not stealing their actual victory.

 

[Omegaxicor]

@Umbran I kinda like that idea might see if I can work that in