Need some ideas to flesh-out a one-shot

[Gnome]

Sometime down the road, I want to run a one-shot where all the characters are extremely old dwarves (venerable age category) who are high-level adventurers who had retired a couple of hundred years ago. Something occurs that forces them to dust-off all of their old adventuring gear and save the day one last time.

I'm really stuck trying to think of why it would have to be the old-timer dwarves that need to save the day, however. Here are my current ideas, although I'm not fully satisfied with any of them:

1) The dwarven settlement is overtaken my some Underdark nasties with the surviving dwarves enslaved, leaving behind those who are deemed too feeble to have any value as slaves

2) Same as 1, except the caverns of the retired dwarves were somehow overlooked, or perhaps the entrance to those caverns collapsed during the battle

3) The members of the dwarven settlement are affected by some kind of life-draining magic, except for the very old ones, since they have so little life left in them to drain

Another issue is character creation: venerable age gives +3 to all mental stats, and -6 to all physical ones, so players who choose classes like fighter and rogue will be at a big disadventage compared to spellcasters. How can I even the playing field a bit and still be fair?

I was thinking of allowing players who play classes that depend more on physical stats to have more money to spend on starting equipment than those who play other classes. Does this seem fair, or does anyone have a better idea?

 

[Morgoth]

Sometime down the road, I want to run a one-shot where all the characters are extremely old dwarves (venerable age category) who are high-level adventurers who had retired a couple of hundred years ago. Something occurs that forces them to dust-off all of their old adventuring gear and save the day one last time.

I'm really stuck trying to think of why it would have to be the old-timer dwarves that need to save the day, however. Here are my current ideas, although I'm not fully satisfied with any of them:

1) The dwarven settlement is overtaken my some Underdark nasties with the surviving dwarves enslaved, leaving behind those who are deemed too feeble to have any value as slaves

2) Same as 1, except the caverns of the retired dwarves were somehow overlooked, or perhaps the entrance to those caverns collapsed during the battle

3) The members of the dwarven settlement are affected by some kind of life-draining magic, except for the very old ones, since they have so little life left in them to drain

Another issue is character creation: venerable age gives +3 to all mental stats, and -6 to all physical ones, so players who choose classes like fighter and rogue will be at a big disadventage compared to spellcasters. How can I even the playing field a bit and still be fair?

I was thinking of allowing players who play classes that depend more on physical stats to have more money to spend on starting equipment than those who play other classes. Does this seem fair, or does anyone have a better idea?

I don't know how your world is, but to make it easy for you, since they are old, they could be a old adventure group. Since dwarfes a stuborn and think very highly of honor (normally anyway) why don't you just let an old enemy, who they thought was dead, come back? This time the enemy want revenge, and threaten their dwarfen communty. They think, as their duty, to remove this threat since it was their fault it even come to exist.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Sounds like you've got some great ideas there. I like idea #1, as it gives a very clear goal (rescue the youngins!).

I wouldn't compensate for ageing with the physical classes; after all, that'd just be part of the challenge of playing a bunch of old fogies.

 

[DrNilesCrane]

How about a personal attack from an old enemy? Perhaps all of the old dwarves children (and grandchildren, etc.) are suddenly suffering from an illness of obviously magical origins (i.e. a cure disease doesn't cut it) and the group realizes, or gets a letter from, an old enemy that infected the group / cursed them decades ago and now wants one last shot at the adventuring party that took him out way back in the day? (You could do two one shots: the adventure of the group in their prime and a second adventure that takes place two hundred years later, or whatever).

You calculate the difference between what the melee fighters lose vs. what academics gain (due to stat changes for age) and translate that into gold (using the values in the DMG for stat enhancing items) to give those melee characters a boost. I would do it for all three stats (those negatives hurt the casters as much after all!), perhaps only one or 1.5. Another option is to have mostly geezer dwarves, but a few younger ones ("the next generation") help man the front line. Or just give the melee warriors and rogues an extra level (or two) to make up for the stat loss.

Hope that helps, or at least kicks off some ideas! I hope you post what you end up doing here - it sounds like a fun premise for an adventure!

 

[delericho]

How about a threat that the young ones don't believe exists? Perhaps the infiltration of dwarven society by foreign ideals that the older generation, with the greater experience, know are dangerous, while the young ones are seduced by the promise of easy wealth/pleasure/whatever?

Perhaps the heroes gather for the funeral of one of their old friends, and at the reading of the will hear of one great task that their friend left undone, to his everlasting regret. In memory of their friend, the heroes seek to complete the task.

Or you could have an interstellar collector of heroes abduct them all, and force them to quest for their freedom. But that's really contrived. Don't do that .

As for the issue with the stats, I'm not sure what's the best approach. One option is to require all the characters to have at least a few levels in Fighter (makes sense for dwarves anyway). You could give the physical-orientated characters a couple of extra feats (say 1 per 4 levels). You could do as you say, and give physical-orientated characters extra starting funds. Or you could argue that those ability adjustments are equivalent to a +1 or +2 LA for the mental-oriented characters (so a PC could be a Fighter 17 or a Wizard 15, for example).

 

[Gnome]

Wow, there's some great ideas here; thanks!

 

[Rel]

This band of dwarves, having served so long as each others companions, feel age catching up with them. As do so many old veterans, they often feel most at home in each other's company. And so they make it a point to gather once a year in the catacombs where their fallen brethren are entombed and enshrined. But this time is different...

With a thunderous boom the tunnel into the catecombs collapses sending dust everywhere and the old dwarves sprawling. Only something of terrible might could have caused that and they must find a way to discover what happened to the rest of the dwarven city. The only equipment available is what can be scavenged from the shrines to their long fallen comerades. But their dead brethren would have wanted nothing more than to have their weapons and armor borne into battle one last time.*

Now they must find their way through a forgotten passage into the underdark that is connected to the catecombs, make their way to the surface and across the mountain to discover what evil has overtaken their city...


*Skew the available equipment to be slightly in favor of the martial types and feel free to add a pair of Gauntlets of Ogre Power or Gloves of Dexterity.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Perhaps an old ally or enemy who will only speak to them. They garnered a peace with an enemy kingdom of some other long lived race, very xenophobic perhaps, and now that there is some new trouble, the ruler will not speak to anyone but the dwarves who he knows as honerable adversaries. Or something like that. You could pull them and their old enemy into a fight against a greater foe, saving their old enemy for the greater good.

 

[howandwhy99]

Right now our campaign uses a very useful technique. Anyone who could swing a sword with competence traveled over the mountains to fight "the big war". Those who were left behind were either very young, very old, or enfeebled. I think this will work when your main enemy threatens the dwarven hold with its armies gone.

On the other hand, why would you want to run an venerable-aged, all-dwarf game anyways? It sounds interesting, but something must be tugging at your imagination. I would suggest exploring what you want out of the game and developing the rest from there. Then go back after outlining the world to rationalize its setup.

 

[Gnome]

This band of dwarves, having served so long as each others companions, feel age catching up with them. As do so many old veterans, they often feel most at home in each other's company. And so they make it a point to gather once a year in the catacombs where their fallen brethren are entombed and enshrined. But this time is different...

<snip>

I like this setup ... if they were an adventuring party, then it makes sense that they'd want to meet occasionally to relive old times. That's a good way to seperate them from whatever befalls the settlement.