Help me plan THE END (My players can look now)

[Pielorinho]

What I would do is, I would cheat.

I would create several events that may or may not happen over the course of the battle, depending on what drama called for.

For example, if the PCs are having the fight of their lives, then nothing much may happen except for window dressing.

But if the PCs are having an easy time of it, then:
-The bad guy takes a MacGuffin ring off his finger, crushes it, and calls in the demon-granted favor he's been saving for an emergency; suddenly there's a new power on the battlefield!
-The artifact generates a beam of purplish light that arcs through half of the peons on both sides, disintegrating their bodies and raising their spirits as weak wraiths that swarm toward the ship.
-A sudden wind buffets the ship, throwing everyone not fling to the ground, and requiring balance checks to avoid falling over the side. (The bad guy is flying, of course).
-The artifact arcs energy into the Big Bad, granting him huge power at the expense of excruciating pain.

Daniel

 

[Rel]

The PC's in addition to having the Lyrandar elites with them, will also have one of their airships - so the maneuverability is about the same. The PC's could all fly (as the Lvl 3 spell) if they wanted to, and this is a good point.

Given the levels we're talking about I'd initially say that the party would have a big advantage because they would tend to nuke the enemy airship with spells from range. But your PC's aren't really all that "wizardly". I'd ask myself how fixed they are with area effect spells anyway. I'm not totally clear on what (if anything) the Artificer could pull off on that vein.

If they've got much at all in the way of AoE spells then I think it is going to be more or less a cakewalk for them. They can pound the decks of the enemy ship with such spells and kill off most or all of the enemy mooks. At that point they can either finish them off with ranged attacks or close and board. Either way the PC team will have a heavy advantage in numbers and therefore firepower.

The enemy could try to do the same thing but you've already said that the only two spellcasters of real consequence are going to be tied up with the McGuffin. I seriously doubt the other 4th level Druids are going to be a major irritant to the party's ship spellwise.

I think that one way you could use the same set of baddies and stretch their utility and make the combat a more even affair is to have them establish some sort of "base" or fort on the ground. It doesn't have to be fancy. Just a few hastily constructed structures or even a few big tents would do. The key thing is that upon approaching, the PC's don't know whether the McGuffin is in one of the tents or in the airship circling above.

That puts the PC's in the position of having to split their forces or risk that they pick wrong and BAD THINGS happen. So what I'd probably do is this:

They see the little tent-fort and the airship above. Bad guys see them too. Airship immediately takes off. The party would assume that the Wacky Warforged and McGuffin must be on the airship or it wouldn't have fled. But the baddies might know that too and they only need a little while to end the world so the party can't risk that (or maybe they do). Either way the tension is heightened by the fact that they probably need to set down and send in some troops to attack the fort and all the while the other airship is getting further and further away...

For added fun in this kind of scenario, add some "neural bombs" (these were a Rolemaster - Shadow World item). They look like a red crystal that's been pressed into the foreheads of the enemy guys. When that guy dies, the crystal explodes, kinda like a Fireball. Crazy? Sure! But these guys are Nihilists! [Lebowski]"Say what you will about the tenets of national socialism, at least it's an ethos!"[/Lebowski]

I had a great fun battle on the back of a flying whale one time with a group of Nihilists wearing the Neural Bombs. I recommend it.

 

[Old One]

Hmmm...

Henry,

What does the artifact "do"? Does it suck up spell energy, drain life force, make pretty colors before creating a small, thermonuclear explosion?

I like Pie's idea about negative energy lashing out and smoking about half the grunts, turning them into something upleasent and level-draining...

What about sticky pseudo-pods of nil energy that shoot out when spell or spell-like effects go off...seeking to locate and devour the source of the magic...the more powerful the magic, the nastier the pseudo-pod? If it is total chaos...maybe 2-4 random effects (energy surge, null magic areas, recycling critters that are killed and dropped into the mess or fall off ships as umbral wraiths).

That way, the PCs not only have to worry about the bad guys...they have to worry about the environment. I also agree with Pie in that you could have several events to ratchet up the tension depending on how the battle is going.

PCs doing great? An energy wave smashes their ship and drops part of the crew into the drink. PCs doing really great? A black tendril of null energy connects with their ship and starts slowly eating it away...if they don't capture the enemy vessel...they might be in trouble.

Just to make it fun, you could also have the energy maelstrom slowly starting "feeding" off of magical buffs and other spells...describe how that Fly spell is starting to become unstable as the flashing light, null energy death cloud grows and gets closer.

I do agree that, as described, the PCs will probably make mince-meat of the opposition...unless some environmental effects starting taking their toll on the run-in.

~ Oldie

 

[ZSutherland]

Player Propensity for Overachievement

Henry,

This sounds like a really cool way to end your campaign, but I must echo the caution of some other posters. I think your players are likely to waltz through the fight.

I also know very little about Eberron until xmas, but I do have a few questions that could up the ante one way or another.

Artifact questions:

How large is it, both in dimensions and weight? Is it possible the players can use telekinesis to just take it away?

Will it be on deck where they can see it or below? Taking the fight into close quarters below deck with 7 PCs should up the odds for the baddies.

You said the artifact was charging by absorbing planar energy. How exactly does this work? Does it have to be exposed to open air? Light? Etc. How long will charging take and what happens when it's done? Will it automatically detonate at that point, or will Robobbeg have to activate it? If he has to activate it, how long will that take and what does it entail?

Does it have to be activated from the air to achieve desired results? What happens if it finishes charging and the PCs blow the ship out of the sky, sending it crashing down to the ground?

PC questions:

How do the PCs and their followers plan to board the ship if both are moving at high speeds?

What sort of long range spells, espcially of the area variety do they have at their disposal?

How much do they know about the artifact, especially the answers to the questions above?

What are the chances the PCs will level again in the next few weeks? That cleric adding flame-strike to his repetoire would eliminate a lot of their obsticales.
General:

Are you using the psionics are different from magic or the same ruleset?

What are the ships made of?

Anyway, I hope these will help.

Z

 

[Ashy]

Pie's ideas + Old One's ideas = ROCKIN'!

 

[GrayIguana]

Henry,

Your group seems really similar to mine at the moment. We have a very tank-oriented group (Paladin, 2 Rangers, 2 Fighters, Barbarian and a Wizard) which are around 11th level. It is also very hard (in my opinion) to estimate the CR for seven 10th level PCs.

My first thought would be to add 10 more barbarians (CR 12), or add more druids and ogres in order to split up the groups forces. If the tanks are able to close on the druids (let alone gang up on them), the druids won't last very long.

Of course that is just a first glance. I really like the ideas on having some means to add tension if the conflict is going to easy for the PCs. I've got to have more back up plans for my big encounters.

 

[blargney the second]

In Green Ronin's Arcana: Societies of Magic, there's a prestige class called the Moon Wraith Adept. The society's goal is to pass beyond the veil of death, so one of the prestige class' abilities is to come back as an undead several days after death. I can easily see a group like this aiding your warforged.

-blarg

 

[blargney the second]

Moon Wraith Adept

Incidentally, this PrCl is great for tactical melee fighting - they're full of fun tricks!

 

[coyote6]

I might beef the bad guys up a little (especially the BBEG; BBEG tend to draw lots of fire, and d4 HD are not conducive to surviving "lots of fire"), and I would definitely go with some random (or "random") side effects spitting out of the artifact.

If you leave it to the BBEG to do something -- summon up a demon, for instance -- to turn the tide, you risk the very real possibility of him being quite thoroughly killed before you've barely began to think about having him activate his Ring of Reinforcements. OTOH, if it's the artifact randomly convert the freshly killed into various sorts of undead, shoot out Evil Rays, & the like, then it can happen whenever you want.

If you want to give the PCs fair warning about the artifact's possible effects, draw up a table of Bad Things That Might Happen, and roll on it once in a while.

 

[Henry]

I'm loving these ideas, and if anyone else wishes to contribute, so much the better!

A running comment:
Darkness - an Eberron Artificer is a rogue-like class that uses Use Magic Device to emulate class prerequisites, and hence can make and use almost any magic item, whether it be Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, etc. Caster level and type of item are restricted by level, since they aren't casters, per se, and can't actually take any of the Item Creation feats until they become higher level. This artificer, due to his amazingly high UMD score, won't have any problem with magic items, and could in theory make any item that a 12th level caster could.

Pielorinho & Blargny- To quote the Simpsons, Yoink!

Rel - I'm really going to think about those Neural Bombs. They, or something like them, sound too good to ignore. Given the nature of the Mournland, don't know if I can put the basecamp on the ground idea into action - think of the Nine Hells, but with a cloud ceiling and aberrations instead of brimstone and devils.

Old One - in Eberron are "manifest zones", places where the walls between certain planes are "thinner" - and characteristics of the plane leak out. I extended the concept and invented temporary Manifest zones, where during certain planar orbits in the multiverse, these zones spring up for a few months and then vanish for long periods. This artifact was built specifically to channel the characteristic forces from a plane and manifest them, much like a lens, so it has to be in the zone to channel that type of energy. The larger the effect you want, the artifact has to be in place and soaking up energy, kind of like a battery on an alternator, and the manifest zone is the alternator.

The PCs faced it one time, from afar, when their Young adult dragon ally they were riding got shot for 20d20 damage from a flame-strike-like blast channeled from the Positive Plane. They have an idea of what the thing does, and don't want to get hit again, which means they will probably aim for stealth instead of sailing up and blasting away. I like the feeding off ambient magic idea, because it will definitely make the battle more uncertain.

Blargney - Moon Wraith adept? I need to look them up, since I don't have that source. OTOH, PCGen has this book permissioned from Green Ronin. Maybe I'll look into that, because it would definitely fit some of these druids. BTW, the Children of Winter are Vermin-friendly druids who believe that the World must go through a Blighting winter of Death before it can Bloom again - perfect for what Wacky Warforged has in mind.

Coyote6 - Thought about the Hit points - it's why he's going to be packing a maxxed-out Vigor manifestation every chance he gets, which almost doubles his hit points...

Any others? And thanks to all in advance!