Help me on an idea for 1st level characters

[yennico]

I need an idea for what I have planned. I want the characters to start all in a dungeon, locked up, with no equipment, and find a way out. The only thing I need is who would hold the characters. I don't want it to be the town, but something new.

Thanks

No equipment means no spellbook for the wizard. The wizard can not prepare his spells. He is pretty useless. Even if he can retrieve his spellbook he needs a long time to prepare his spells. He is at least one day uselss.
If the PCs can escape out of their cell, the fighter grabs any weapons and armor and can fight normally. The only thing a wizard can do at that time is: also grab a weapon and armor and fight as bad fighter.

Just my 2 cents
yennico

 

[Mark the Hammer]

Maybe they are being imprisioned not for what they have done, but for they will do the in future. Many seers have fortold of the deeds that they will commit and how it will lead to the ruin/destruction of mankind. They have been imprisioned to keep this future from occuring.

That being said now there are a few different roads that you could go from here:

1. The seers visions were actually altered by a great and powerful evil. It was able to peer into the future and it saw that the PCs are actually the only people that stop it. Having them imprisoned and wanted by authorities the evil force thinks that it has altered the future.

2. Actually through no evil intentions (unless they are evil); they actually will cause this ruin to occur and they will have to deal with the consequences. Forces of true good will oppose them and forces of evil will help them (maybe unknowingly to the PCs).

 

[Henry]

Re: Re: Help me on an idea for 1st level characters

If the PCs can escape out of their cell, the fighter grabs any weapons and armor and can fight normally. The only thing a wizard can do at that time is: also grab a weapon and armor and fight as bad fighter.

However, if we are talking 1st level characters, it's not quite as bad as that - at worst, we are talking about fighting as well as a rogue. While bad, it's not as bad a disparity that goes on at hgher levels.

Almost forgot - spellcasters no longer lose their spells if rendered unconscious, so they WOULD have their initial load of spells to start with; think of them as "one-charge" magic items until they can recover their spell books, or someone else's.

 

[Cyclops]

This is a good oportunity to introduce a recurring villain.

they could be political prisoners for speaking out against the injustices of an evil barron...or debters who could not pay his taxes.

For those PCs who love the tragic, "You killed my family!" style origin this would be a good tie in.

Certainly the evil barron could be doing what a previous poster said. Collecting a group of people who fit a prophecy that would prevent his ascention to the throne...or would kill his "true" master.

Whenever I see this style of campaign opening, I think of the Conan movie where he was pursued by wolves-still in chains-and fell into a cave with dead kings in armor. He took his sword from one. I always wanted to intoduce items to players this way, but I could never quite get this to work.

 

[Rastfar]

Not exactly on the subject. One of the campaigns that I started was similar in that the PC's suddenly found themselves in an unknown place at an unknown time, disrupted from their ordinary lives. If you read the 2E version of Monster Summoning (i), it actually details that sometimes erroneously PC's are summoned instead. I find this great. An evil/good NPC may have been expecting one thing but all of a sudden 'POP' free-willed PC's show up.
As per the 'useless' mage comment. Well, with erratic magic, anything can happen. Maybe all metal matter is not summoned but organic matter is. Thusly, a spellbook is not out of the question but most holy symbols, arms and armor are. You may have a bow and arrows but what good are they without arrowheads? Besides, you don't want your PC's to starve to death.

By the by, this is exactly how Nemmerle started a campaign years ago in which a lonely Marshall of Thor named Buhrad-Puhn Rastfar grew to become a world-shaping influence. Perhaps he could shed some light with his ideas?

 

[DaveStebbins]

When people ask how to get the PCs together, my favorite answer is to tell them to have the players come up with the story of how the PCs came to be a group. That could also work here.

Tell the PCs how you plan to start the campaign (in general terms, keep some specifics hidden) and ask them to figure out what happened. I'll bet they come up with something fun, and it will be something they have a personal interest and investment in, which lowers the chance of one or more players feeling railroaded.

-Dave