RangerWickett
Legend
Stahn Li, sorry, don't read this thread.
For next week's game, it looks like there's going to be a large battle, sparked by an attempted assassination. It's mostly an excuse for me to show off what a few of the NPCs are capable of, since the party likes them now, but they'll actually end up being villains. However, I've also been playing a lot of Halo 2, and I like the idea of multi-dimensional battles where different groups have different objectives, and I want to see how well I can translate something like that to an RPG.
So, I'm asking for help. I need three things.
I'm welcome to all sorts of suggestions, and I have until Friday to get all this in place. So, here are the key NPCs:
Crystin Ja-Nafeel. Female human wizard 13.
She is the point of contact between the party and a wizard academy. Unbeknownst to them, she is part of a conspiracy to unlock ancient planar seals that protect the world from extradimensional dangers. Crystin is only 27 years old, fairly fragile physically, but she has the well-known but little-understood power of Foresight. She can see the future, but only events, not in context or in much detail.
She has a Wisdom of 34, and specializes in defensive magic, though she is smart enough to know a variety of offensive spells. She doesn't like enchantment spells, but knows they have their uses. Her actual challenge rating should be somewhere around 15 or 16 due to special abilities from her Foresight, so I need ideas of what that can do. She also has a family heirloom magical staff with a variety of minor magical powers related to the people who used to carry the staff.
Of the villains, she's the least evil. She is actually a nice person, but she knows that she has to do what's she's doing to stop an even greater magical danger, so she's willing to be Machiavellian.
Kiernan. Elf wizard 17. Kiernan is a bit of an arrogant ass, but he respects skill. He's highly intelligent and skilled at tactics, and he's the brains in charge of the villainous conspiracy. He specializes in earth magic, and has the ability to counterspell any earth-based spell he sees cast by expending an equivalent spell slot. Not really significant for this party, but part of a plot element later.
Kiernan builds golems. He should have several to defend him. I'm thinking more along the lines of warforged than the irritating 'resistant to all spells' golems in the core rules.
The Plot. The assassination is against Emperor Rantle, a hero from a recent war who managed to get the survivors to live together peacefully, at least for a while. He's a bardic warrior, human, and I've already got him statted out. What I need are ideas for what his defenses would be. He's visiting this city to talk to the wizard academy, and to watch some famous performers put on an opera he likes. He won't be traveling in state; this is just an excursion, and though he's prepared for trouble, he's not decked out with defenses. The PCs don't like Rantle as a ruler, but they don't have it out for him.
I also need to think of how some people could try to assassinate the emperor. I want the whole event to take place on a large stone bridge that spans a channel, with the opera house in a ship floating in the channel below. Different things need to be going on in different places, and they need to have different flavors. One place with one or two big foes and some sort of challenge, another with lots of weenies to be mowed down, and a third place with a mostly non-combat challenge. The NPCs need to show their stuff in the first two areas, and the PCs need to save the day in the third one.
The PCs. The group is 11th level.
We have a goodly half-fiend fighter who throws a returning falchion, and likes to grapple mages.
There's a kitsune iaijutsu master, basically a nimble warrior who can cut through objects with ease, using her katana.
An elderly human witch who flies around on a broom, and has a toad familiar/cohort who just knows a lot of counterspells.
A classic human fighter, who is a bit of a revolutionary at heart.
A human voodoo priest who doesn't need to use his schtick this adventure because he talked to tons of dead spirits this past adventure, and the rest of the group needs to shine more.
A belligerent human cleric with a 6 Charisma, but lots of ranks in a pseudo-Intimidate skill. He likes to insult people to keep them attacking him, to let his allies deal with the real threats. He also has a lyre of building, though he can only pull off the necessary perform check to use it if he rolls a 16 or higher.
At some point, I kinda want the bridge to start to break, so the lyre will be needed to fix it, and the much despised bardic emperor will play the lyre, which will piss off the PCs.
For next week's game, it looks like there's going to be a large battle, sparked by an attempted assassination. It's mostly an excuse for me to show off what a few of the NPCs are capable of, since the party likes them now, but they'll actually end up being villains. However, I've also been playing a lot of Halo 2, and I like the idea of multi-dimensional battles where different groups have different objectives, and I want to see how well I can translate something like that to an RPG.
So, I'm asking for help. I need three things.
- Stats for the key NPCs. I don't need all the T's crossed and I's dotted, but the necessary info for characters who are high-level and thus have lots of options.
- Ideas for what different things the attackers could be up to, beyond the assassination plot. I need different things for the PCs to do, so they're not just hacking and slashing, but having to tackle problems in the middle of combat.
- Suggestions for keeping the pace of such a long encounter intense enough to keep people interested, without being too stressful.
I'm welcome to all sorts of suggestions, and I have until Friday to get all this in place. So, here are the key NPCs:
Crystin Ja-Nafeel. Female human wizard 13.
She is the point of contact between the party and a wizard academy. Unbeknownst to them, she is part of a conspiracy to unlock ancient planar seals that protect the world from extradimensional dangers. Crystin is only 27 years old, fairly fragile physically, but she has the well-known but little-understood power of Foresight. She can see the future, but only events, not in context or in much detail.
She has a Wisdom of 34, and specializes in defensive magic, though she is smart enough to know a variety of offensive spells. She doesn't like enchantment spells, but knows they have their uses. Her actual challenge rating should be somewhere around 15 or 16 due to special abilities from her Foresight, so I need ideas of what that can do. She also has a family heirloom magical staff with a variety of minor magical powers related to the people who used to carry the staff.
Of the villains, she's the least evil. She is actually a nice person, but she knows that she has to do what's she's doing to stop an even greater magical danger, so she's willing to be Machiavellian.
Kiernan. Elf wizard 17. Kiernan is a bit of an arrogant ass, but he respects skill. He's highly intelligent and skilled at tactics, and he's the brains in charge of the villainous conspiracy. He specializes in earth magic, and has the ability to counterspell any earth-based spell he sees cast by expending an equivalent spell slot. Not really significant for this party, but part of a plot element later.
Kiernan builds golems. He should have several to defend him. I'm thinking more along the lines of warforged than the irritating 'resistant to all spells' golems in the core rules.
The Plot. The assassination is against Emperor Rantle, a hero from a recent war who managed to get the survivors to live together peacefully, at least for a while. He's a bardic warrior, human, and I've already got him statted out. What I need are ideas for what his defenses would be. He's visiting this city to talk to the wizard academy, and to watch some famous performers put on an opera he likes. He won't be traveling in state; this is just an excursion, and though he's prepared for trouble, he's not decked out with defenses. The PCs don't like Rantle as a ruler, but they don't have it out for him.
I also need to think of how some people could try to assassinate the emperor. I want the whole event to take place on a large stone bridge that spans a channel, with the opera house in a ship floating in the channel below. Different things need to be going on in different places, and they need to have different flavors. One place with one or two big foes and some sort of challenge, another with lots of weenies to be mowed down, and a third place with a mostly non-combat challenge. The NPCs need to show their stuff in the first two areas, and the PCs need to save the day in the third one.
The PCs. The group is 11th level.
We have a goodly half-fiend fighter who throws a returning falchion, and likes to grapple mages.
There's a kitsune iaijutsu master, basically a nimble warrior who can cut through objects with ease, using her katana.
An elderly human witch who flies around on a broom, and has a toad familiar/cohort who just knows a lot of counterspells.
A classic human fighter, who is a bit of a revolutionary at heart.
A human voodoo priest who doesn't need to use his schtick this adventure because he talked to tons of dead spirits this past adventure, and the rest of the group needs to shine more.
A belligerent human cleric with a 6 Charisma, but lots of ranks in a pseudo-Intimidate skill. He likes to insult people to keep them attacking him, to let his allies deal with the real threats. He also has a lyre of building, though he can only pull off the necessary perform check to use it if he rolls a 16 or higher.
At some point, I kinda want the bridge to start to break, so the lyre will be needed to fix it, and the much despised bardic emperor will play the lyre, which will piss off the PCs.
So they have to purposely take full hits to keep the king safe.
