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Liquid Awesome
Ok gang, here's the deal:
I'm running a one shot adventure this weekend for my regular gaming group as well as Old One, one of the posters from here at ENWorld (creator of the world famous Faded Glory Story Hour). If perchance you are one of those players, STOP READING NOW! (I'm not too worried about this. I can barely get my players to read my own Story Hour.)
What I'm looking for is some last minute confirmation on how well you think my adventure idea will work and whether it is doable in the amount of time I've got available. The basic adventure outline is as follows...
I'm doing a sort of Return to the Dungeons of the Slave Lords (very loosely based on the AD&D module A4). The setup is like this: The party (A dwarf fighter, a dwarf cleric, a gnome sorcerer and a halfling rogue - all 5th level) has been captured by pirates and brought to their island hideout. They have been forced to work in the mines on the island and all their attempts to escape have been thwarted.
But they now have a chance at escape. An NPC Druid who was a member of the party but escaped capture has delivered a message and a few of their belongings to them. The message is that he hasn't been able to find a good way to bust them out of the mines, but they had better try something because the island is a volcano and it is going to erupt any day now. Included with the note are the cleric's holy symbol, the sorcerer's component pouch, a +1 dagger that glows and a divine scroll with three low level spells. That is the only equipment the party will have except that each of them has a canvas tunic, tied at the waist with 5 feet of rope.
The path to escape is clear because recently the dwarves have noticed that the area they have been mining has a hollow behind it - hopefully a cavern that leads to the surface. Once there, the party will need to steal the pirate's ship or one of its longboats and head for the mainland (which is fairly close by).
The path that the adventure follows is this (Please note that I don't usually design linear adventures but for a one shot with time constraints I feel I need to keep them on track.).
1- Garbage dump. This is where the slavers dump the bodies of dead slaves and other junk. The restless dead have risen as minor undead (3 skeletons and 2 zombies) which the cleric should easily turn. There is also a Common Raggamoffyn (from the MM2) that should give them a little trouble but not too much. The main treasure to be found here is some broken furniture that could be used as clubs, a broken shield and a broken breastplate (those last two could be repaired by the cleric's magic).
2 - Desperate Kobolds. These (10) Kobolds have set up an ambush from two ledges along the sides of the cavern. They only have slings and clubs as weapons, but 8 of them are Rogue 1's and there is a Sorcerer 3 and Cleric 3 among them too. This will be a tough fight, especially if the Kobolds get surprise (which I deem likely) but it should be doable. This encounter can net the party a couple suits of small leather armor and a makeshift spear made from a broken sword blade (the sword could also be repaired by the cleric if he wants to spend a spell on it).
3 - Mimic Bridge. There is a chasm here and a natural bridge spans it. But the center 10' of the bridge is actually a Mimic. This should be a tough fight for the party but they are well suited for using missile weapons and can hopefully take down the Mimic before it inflicts too much damage on its victim. I am thinking of having the Mimic (after it grabs its first victim) trying to Bull Rush the other characters off the bridge. I haven't added any useful treasure to this encounter and I'm not sure I need to. Any ideas?
4 - Myconid Caves. This is planned to be the one non-combat encounter for the party (again, I usually have more roleplaying in my full blown campaigns but this is supposed to be an action packed one-shot). The Myconids can virtually insure that the party will negotiate because there are a LOT of them and they have those "pacification" spores. The Myconid king knows that the island is going to blow up soon and that his tribe will die. He wants to help the party get free if they will bring along and protect one of the younger Myconids who is capable of making "reproduction" spores and carrying on their tribe on the mainland. Assuming that the party agrees, the Myconid king will provide them with several potions to aid their escape.
5 - Lava river. This place is hard evidence that the volcanic eruption is not far off. Here the encounter is with some (I'm thinking 3) Magmin and maybe half a dozen Ash Rats (from MM2). They must also negotiate their way across a series of stone pillars that are going to be collapsing soon. The trick with this encounter is that I can't decide whether the Magmin are going to be a total pushover or nearly kill the whole party. The Fiery Aura and Burning Touch abilities they have are pretty nasty. If the party uses lots of elemental protection magic, they should be ok but if not, things could get ugly fast. The Ash Rats will be more of a nuisance than anything. No real treasure here.
6 - Steam chamber. Some water coming in from the ocean is a sure sign that the party is getting near the exit. The water is hitting one of the lava flows and this whole chamber is full of dense, hot fog, limiting visibility to about 5'. I was planning to have a group of Grimlock Barbarians attack the party here. They will of course be able to "see" just fine and can get right on top of the party before anyone knows they are there. I see this as a rousing good fight but nothing the party can't handle (unless they are very beat down from the last encounter). The Sorcerer's Web spell will probably take a few of the Grimlocks out of the battle long enough for the party to deal with the rest. The real gain from this encounter will be the stone battleaxes that the dwarven fighter can use (he has Weapon Focus and Weapon Spec. Battleaxe).
7 - Pirate battle. The party will exit the cavern near the shore and then gain entry to the sea cave where the pirates keep their ship. The pirates aren't stupid and they know about the volcano too. They are currently loading their ship with ill gotten gains and preparing to flee the island. They are all 4th level characters (there will be 4-6 of them) and decently equipped. But they will be scattered throughout the cave, the surrounding caves and the ship. If the party takes them on piecemeal, they should be able to capture some equipment making each successive encounter easier. Alternatively, they could try to stealthily make off with one of the longboats without the pirates noticing. In short, there are a lot of ways this encounter could play out but I think it will be an exciting climax regardless. Needless to say, after this encounter, the remaining members of the party will sail off into the sunset and the adventure will end.
A couple of notes on how I plan to run this adventure:
We will have somewhere between 5 and 6 hours to complete it. My plan is that right after the group finds out about the volcano, I'm going to set a clock on the table and say, "When the clock hits 11:00 PM, the volcano erupts." and go from there.
So do you think that the party can accomplish this adventure in that time frame? Are the encounters too difficult since they don't have much equipment? Should I add in some more treasure to make the final encounter easier? Should I leave out any of the encounters to shorten things or allow them to save some hit points for the final battle?
Let me know and please do it soon. This game is going to be run starting tomorrow afternoon at around 5:00. And I need to do all final prep by tomorrow morning.
Thanks in advance.
I'm running a one shot adventure this weekend for my regular gaming group as well as Old One, one of the posters from here at ENWorld (creator of the world famous Faded Glory Story Hour). If perchance you are one of those players, STOP READING NOW! (I'm not too worried about this. I can barely get my players to read my own Story Hour.)
What I'm looking for is some last minute confirmation on how well you think my adventure idea will work and whether it is doable in the amount of time I've got available. The basic adventure outline is as follows...
I'm doing a sort of Return to the Dungeons of the Slave Lords (very loosely based on the AD&D module A4). The setup is like this: The party (A dwarf fighter, a dwarf cleric, a gnome sorcerer and a halfling rogue - all 5th level) has been captured by pirates and brought to their island hideout. They have been forced to work in the mines on the island and all their attempts to escape have been thwarted.
But they now have a chance at escape. An NPC Druid who was a member of the party but escaped capture has delivered a message and a few of their belongings to them. The message is that he hasn't been able to find a good way to bust them out of the mines, but they had better try something because the island is a volcano and it is going to erupt any day now. Included with the note are the cleric's holy symbol, the sorcerer's component pouch, a +1 dagger that glows and a divine scroll with three low level spells. That is the only equipment the party will have except that each of them has a canvas tunic, tied at the waist with 5 feet of rope.
The path to escape is clear because recently the dwarves have noticed that the area they have been mining has a hollow behind it - hopefully a cavern that leads to the surface. Once there, the party will need to steal the pirate's ship or one of its longboats and head for the mainland (which is fairly close by).
The path that the adventure follows is this (Please note that I don't usually design linear adventures but for a one shot with time constraints I feel I need to keep them on track.).
1- Garbage dump. This is where the slavers dump the bodies of dead slaves and other junk. The restless dead have risen as minor undead (3 skeletons and 2 zombies) which the cleric should easily turn. There is also a Common Raggamoffyn (from the MM2) that should give them a little trouble but not too much. The main treasure to be found here is some broken furniture that could be used as clubs, a broken shield and a broken breastplate (those last two could be repaired by the cleric's magic).
2 - Desperate Kobolds. These (10) Kobolds have set up an ambush from two ledges along the sides of the cavern. They only have slings and clubs as weapons, but 8 of them are Rogue 1's and there is a Sorcerer 3 and Cleric 3 among them too. This will be a tough fight, especially if the Kobolds get surprise (which I deem likely) but it should be doable. This encounter can net the party a couple suits of small leather armor and a makeshift spear made from a broken sword blade (the sword could also be repaired by the cleric if he wants to spend a spell on it).
3 - Mimic Bridge. There is a chasm here and a natural bridge spans it. But the center 10' of the bridge is actually a Mimic. This should be a tough fight for the party but they are well suited for using missile weapons and can hopefully take down the Mimic before it inflicts too much damage on its victim. I am thinking of having the Mimic (after it grabs its first victim) trying to Bull Rush the other characters off the bridge. I haven't added any useful treasure to this encounter and I'm not sure I need to. Any ideas?
4 - Myconid Caves. This is planned to be the one non-combat encounter for the party (again, I usually have more roleplaying in my full blown campaigns but this is supposed to be an action packed one-shot). The Myconids can virtually insure that the party will negotiate because there are a LOT of them and they have those "pacification" spores. The Myconid king knows that the island is going to blow up soon and that his tribe will die. He wants to help the party get free if they will bring along and protect one of the younger Myconids who is capable of making "reproduction" spores and carrying on their tribe on the mainland. Assuming that the party agrees, the Myconid king will provide them with several potions to aid their escape.
5 - Lava river. This place is hard evidence that the volcanic eruption is not far off. Here the encounter is with some (I'm thinking 3) Magmin and maybe half a dozen Ash Rats (from MM2). They must also negotiate their way across a series of stone pillars that are going to be collapsing soon. The trick with this encounter is that I can't decide whether the Magmin are going to be a total pushover or nearly kill the whole party. The Fiery Aura and Burning Touch abilities they have are pretty nasty. If the party uses lots of elemental protection magic, they should be ok but if not, things could get ugly fast. The Ash Rats will be more of a nuisance than anything. No real treasure here.
6 - Steam chamber. Some water coming in from the ocean is a sure sign that the party is getting near the exit. The water is hitting one of the lava flows and this whole chamber is full of dense, hot fog, limiting visibility to about 5'. I was planning to have a group of Grimlock Barbarians attack the party here. They will of course be able to "see" just fine and can get right on top of the party before anyone knows they are there. I see this as a rousing good fight but nothing the party can't handle (unless they are very beat down from the last encounter). The Sorcerer's Web spell will probably take a few of the Grimlocks out of the battle long enough for the party to deal with the rest. The real gain from this encounter will be the stone battleaxes that the dwarven fighter can use (he has Weapon Focus and Weapon Spec. Battleaxe).
7 - Pirate battle. The party will exit the cavern near the shore and then gain entry to the sea cave where the pirates keep their ship. The pirates aren't stupid and they know about the volcano too. They are currently loading their ship with ill gotten gains and preparing to flee the island. They are all 4th level characters (there will be 4-6 of them) and decently equipped. But they will be scattered throughout the cave, the surrounding caves and the ship. If the party takes them on piecemeal, they should be able to capture some equipment making each successive encounter easier. Alternatively, they could try to stealthily make off with one of the longboats without the pirates noticing. In short, there are a lot of ways this encounter could play out but I think it will be an exciting climax regardless. Needless to say, after this encounter, the remaining members of the party will sail off into the sunset and the adventure will end.
A couple of notes on how I plan to run this adventure:
We will have somewhere between 5 and 6 hours to complete it. My plan is that right after the group finds out about the volcano, I'm going to set a clock on the table and say, "When the clock hits 11:00 PM, the volcano erupts." and go from there.
So do you think that the party can accomplish this adventure in that time frame? Are the encounters too difficult since they don't have much equipment? Should I add in some more treasure to make the final encounter easier? Should I leave out any of the encounters to shorten things or allow them to save some hit points for the final battle?
Let me know and please do it soon. This game is going to be run starting tomorrow afternoon at around 5:00. And I need to do all final prep by tomorrow morning.
Thanks in advance.
