Lack of sleep and being chased

[Telperion]

I'm planning on running a session where I will use Preychasers. These are wilddogs, that have a special ability to cause Fear effects on those who hear their howling.

The plan is that the Preychasers will hound the group for 5 - 8 days in a row. The Preychasers will be using their howling to keep the party awake during nighttime and stop spell casters from resting properly. And because the Preychasers' howl causes a Fear effect everyone who hears it must make a Will save to avoid becoming panicked for 2d6 rounds.

Once a panicked character, animal companion or horse runs away from the party the Preychasers will pursue him/it until him/it drops from exhaustion. Then they will eat the character / animal companion / horse.

Now, I was thinking that any normal person can stay up for 24 hours, right? Throw in a bit of coffee, tea, limonade or whatever, and it shouldn't be a big problem. So, for extraordinary people like player characters it should be an easy thing to do without any help at all.

After 24 + Constitution score hours have passed the character makes a Will save (or a Fort. I haven't decided yet). DC 10. If he makes it then no trouble, and the character keeps functioning without penalties. One hour later the check is repeated, except that it is DC 10 +1 for every previous check. If a character doesn't physically move (sitting on a Tenser's Floating Disk doesn't qualify) around during an hour the above given DC is increased by +2 for every previous check. These checks are repeated once an hour until a character fails.

When a character fails he or she gets a -1 on all combat rolls, checks and saves. In addition they have a chance of falling asleep. Basically falling asleep on their feet, sitting or otherwise. At the first failed check this chance is 5%. The possibility increases by 5% every time a character fails a check and a new falling asleep roll is made with a d100. Once a characters falls asleep he will sleep for 8 hours non-stop, unless attacked or subjected to very loud noise. After 8 hours of non-stop sleep the character has recovered and no longer suffers any penalties, or has to make any Will saves to stay awake.

So, what do you think? I need a system for this, so...

 

[Khaalis]

Just a few thoughts...

Though people can stay awake for long periods of time, it is not so easy to do when heavily fatigued (such as running all day).

Some info from the 3.5 PHB (p.164) has all you need for this scenario.

* Walking can be done for 8 hours without issue. Walking for longer is considered a Forced March. For each hour past 8, a CON check (DC 10+2 per extra hour) is required. Failure = 1d6 Nonlethal damage and become Fatigued. Elimination of the Nonlethal damage removes the Fatigue.

* Hustling can be done for 1 hour without a problem. Hustling for longer without a sleep cycle in between deals 1 point of Nonlethal damage, and each additional hour deals twice the damage taken the hour previously. As soon as Nonlethal damage is taken the PC is Fatigued. Eliminating the Nonlethal damage also removes the Fatigue.

Fatigued: Cannot run or charge and takes a -2 penalty to STR and DEX.

For Sleeping, I would use this:
When the PC is Fatigued, make a Fatigue Saving Throw each hours they are fatigued. A Fatigue saving throw is a Will save at DC 10 +2 per hour of fatigue. Failure indicates becoming "exhausted" (-6 to Strength and Dexterity, move at half speed) which lasts until they have rested for 1 hours upon which they are still fatigued. An exhausted character who fails a Fatigue saving throw becomes unconscious for 10 minutes for each point by which the saving throw was failed, and is exhausted upon awaking.


Under these rules, your party isnt going to last for more than a few days at most, assuming they have access to magical healing.

 

[Telperion]

Sounds pretty good. There are two 6th level paladins and a 6th level cleric in the party, but by the second or third day they will be battling against non-lethal damage caused by forced march and keeping a sharp eye on everyone who is not protected from Fear effects.

 

[Sammael]

Is there a particular reason why the party wouldn't simply stop running and try to fight the dogs?

 

[Telperion]

The dogs are faster than the characters.
The dogs won't stick around to fight the characters.
The dogs will keep harassing the characters from a safe distance until the characters are ready to drop from exhaustion.
The dogs will then separate the characters, their animal companions and mounts from each other one by one, and then eat their targets.
The dogs are rather weak and pitiful physically, compared to stronger mosters, so they use their Fear inducing howl to keep their targets on their toes, awake and unhappy.

EDIT: but, yes. If you have any brains in your head you don't want a pack of these dogs following you for a week or so. It's just generally a bad idea. The characters will most likely try to attack the dogs sooner or later, but that's when they make a run for it (the dogs are very good at running) and return when the party is ready to move out again. Pack tactics and all that...

 

[Kemrain]

Arent paladins immune to fear, and give anyone within 10 feet a +4 to their saves against it? Have you taken that into account?

- Kemrain the Afraid.

 

[Telperion]

Well, yes of course I have. The point being that there are, at best, going to be two paladins in the group who are immune to fear. The others aren't quite so lucky. The cleric in the group can cast spells that will temporarely protect the rest of them from fear, but those spells are going to be used up very quickly as I recall. And since these dogs are Chaotic Neutral by alingment you can't exactly go around smiting them or any of that other Good versus Evil stuff.

This whole encounter, where I'm going to use these dogs, is going to be one slow, very unnerving, war of attrition. The dogs are going to have the upper hand unless the group gets creative, and that's what I'm hoping for. Otherwise they are going to be exhausted in a manner of days, and that means very difficult fighting conditions.

And just because Paladins are immune to fear doesn't protect them from the sound the dogs can generate. They have very good vocal capabilities, which can keep the whole party awake all night long if the dogs feel like some plentiful howling.

As for the +4 against Fear effects aura that the paladins generate: I'm counting on the group to use that effectively. If they don't then they are going to be in quite a bit of trouble. You see they are all level 6, which is to say their Will save is something between +2 and +10. The fear effect DC is 13. It doesn't sound like much, but when the dogs can keep doing it non-stop for as long as they can howl it becomes a problem.

In the end this encounter is not about a glorious battle between the forces of Good and Evil. It's about a bunch of dogs with a really scary howl and an empty stomach. The dogs can grap little snacks while they are hounding the group, but those heavy war horses, animal companions and the characters themselves are basically just walking lunch boxes waiting to drop from exhaustion and to be eaten .

 

[MarauderX]

After a day/night of running, and still moving on without rest I have the PCs make a DC=15 fort save, minus 1 for each hour they slept. If they miss it, they are fatigued. I have them make this same save every 4 hours of moving, no matter how fast. If they made the last save, the new save is DC=20, then 25, 30, 35... until they miss it and become fatigued. Once fatigued and still moving 4 hours, they need to start making the saves again, starting at 15 or they become exhausted. According to the SRD:

Exhausted: An exhausted character moves at half speed and takes a –6 penalty to Strength and Dexterity. After 1 hour of complete rest, an exhausted character becomes fatigued. A fatigued character becomes exhausted by doing something else that would normally cause fatigue.

Quoting that to the rules lawyer players should quell them a bit, and so should the slack on fatigue. If they try to rest for a little bit, any PCs keeping watch should need to make a fort save vs. the last DC they had to not fall asleep or be caught unaware. If they are all sleeping, perfect time to kill an NPC, or wake them all with very close howling.

Some more advice:
Watch out for player creativity when running this. I have done the same thing several times (as mentioned before), typically with some modified krenshars supported by other pack hunters. A lot might depend on the party level, as they will take different tactics. One party scaled some trees and use missle fire to tag a few of them. That same group used bait as well, and waited for them to move to a closer range before launching an attack, with a hasted melee and other invisibles. Thankfully the baddies have some hiding ability to escape, and could smell the invisibles (downwind) to avoid them. Be prepared for animal companions and familiar abilities for the party to keep track of the pack.

To raise the fear level I added a few incompetants to go with the party through the woods, and have them fight a direct battle at first. This uses up much of the casters' resources and kills some extras in graphic horror-movie fashion. The idea is for the players to recognize to run, not to stay and fight. I tell the players that I am out to kill as many of the PCs as I can.

Settings like this is great stuff for ranger and druid players as they become invaluable to the party for tracking, finding directions, and general forest knowledge. It will also make the others realize the value of those core classes, and how much the others are out of their element, so give the 'outdoorsman' classes wilderness checks often.

Some more ideas to give the PCs for raising stress levels in your game: narrowly escaping the pack over a fallen log across a river; PCs climbing/descending a cliff to thwart them again (pooches can't climb rocks); giving them choices of which terrain to go (rocky, follow a river, stay in the forest, etc.); spot some militia a few hundred yards away, then attack them before the PCs can reach them; a lucky find of 1 horse (who gets it to go home 1st?).

I kept account of ammo, encumberance, rations and other equipment for the players in case they decided to hole up in a cave that contained a bear. It's interesting how soon players will strip off their heavy armor in order to escape.

Have fun with it -
~MX