So, our group's 4ed campaign was supposed to end in June or thereabouts, but as everyone was busy with various personal events and with finishing the semester in uni, the final session was pushed back to until we started school again. Now, classes start again next week, and so I am planning to hold the final Heroic tier session on the weekend. It will have to do with holding a city against a rampaging horde of demons, summoned forth by a ritualist who hopes to become Tzeentch, the god of change (yeah, I have Warhammer gods in my D&D world). The heroes will probably have an army of golems to help them. As all of us are huge metal fans, I sprinkle in quite a lot of references. For example, the BBG's physical description was exactly the one given in the chorus of Satyricon - K.I.N.G. I want to do something similar for this final session of the Heroic tier (and also, for the first session of the year), so that it would be a memorable final session and also an awesome beginning to a new tier. Kind of like starting a TV series with an awesome season finale.
We have talked about how awesome the scene narrated at the end of Manowar - Sons of Odin is. I want to give it to the players in the best way possible. Here are the lyrics for those not familiar with it:
This has been a pretty grey-morality campaign; the PCs have pretty much scorned all gods (except for the Shifter Cleric who knows that some kind of God of Battle is on his side, but having grown up all by himself in the wilderness he has no idea what god that might be - that should give you an idea of how powerful the PCs are) so being helped into such a demigod-like state by a god is not expected. It will probably be an archmage that they befriended (who lives in that city, yet is bound to his tower due to their choice to use the golems) that summons an incantation that saves their asses and turns them into indestructible juggernauts in order to win the battle. I believe I can fix the roleplay side of it to make sense.
What I am looking for is mechanics that would make the transformation from Heroic badasses into Paragon demigods (we will not go into Epic tier with this adventure) actually play as awesomely as it sounds. It is not supposed to be challenging - the actual 'final battle of the tier' will play out near the start of the session, and in that one they will have a real chance of dying. The huge battle in which they are given the gift of supreme warfare happens later, catching them off guard. I thought about simply making it an impossibly hard fight, in which after they die, the monsters turn into minions. Maybe I should ask them in advance what their Paragon path choices are going to be, and then give them the ability to use one key spell or action once they are 'resurrected'? I am looking for some kind of mechanic that would be better than just turning opponents into minions.
TL;DR - Heroes are going to die in battle and get resurrected as unstoppable juggernauts of battle, what kind of mechanics should I use once they have been resurrected?
We have talked about how awesome the scene narrated at the end of Manowar - Sons of Odin is. I want to give it to the players in the best way possible. Here are the lyrics for those not familiar with it:
This has been a pretty grey-morality campaign; the PCs have pretty much scorned all gods (except for the Shifter Cleric who knows that some kind of God of Battle is on his side, but having grown up all by himself in the wilderness he has no idea what god that might be - that should give you an idea of how powerful the PCs are) so being helped into such a demigod-like state by a god is not expected. It will probably be an archmage that they befriended (who lives in that city, yet is bound to his tower due to their choice to use the golems) that summons an incantation that saves their asses and turns them into indestructible juggernauts in order to win the battle. I believe I can fix the roleplay side of it to make sense.
What I am looking for is mechanics that would make the transformation from Heroic badasses into Paragon demigods (we will not go into Epic tier with this adventure) actually play as awesomely as it sounds. It is not supposed to be challenging - the actual 'final battle of the tier' will play out near the start of the session, and in that one they will have a real chance of dying. The huge battle in which they are given the gift of supreme warfare happens later, catching them off guard. I thought about simply making it an impossibly hard fight, in which after they die, the monsters turn into minions. Maybe I should ask them in advance what their Paragon path choices are going to be, and then give them the ability to use one key spell or action once they are 'resurrected'? I am looking for some kind of mechanic that would be better than just turning opponents into minions.
TL;DR - Heroes are going to die in battle and get resurrected as unstoppable juggernauts of battle, what kind of mechanics should I use once they have been resurrected?
