Need trade road encounter suggestions - Results posted

[JoeBlank]

I am running an online game session tonight. My players have completed a revised Morrick Mansion and are on their way to the Hall of the Rainbow Mage. I gave them an easy teleport option, but they are choosing a three-day horseback ride along a trade road instead.

Anyone have any suggestions for an interesting encounter along the way? Standard D&D in a fairly low-magic setting, party is about 7th level, but ECL should be more like 5 given their lack of magic items and divine magic.

PCs are: Wiz6, Rog6/Fgt2, Pal5, Rog2/Fgt3/Clr2/Wiz2

Thanks!

 

[Shallown]

If you mean other than mundane things (of which I could generate a long list) one Idea I had is while they are staying in a small town/village have a fire break out or perhaps a flash flood. Some sort of natural disaster the party has to deal with. Doesn't require high magic or special stuff just everyday heroes being heroic.

Mundane stuff would be bandits, Gossipy merchants, Patrols, Snakle oil salesmen, Traveling troupes of performers, gypsies, Occasional animal encounters. Not a terrible long list but this is just a start.

Most of that depends on your campaign world. Road travel is a good chance to inject some real world info into the players mind. Gossip and lifestyle says a lot about the campaign world and the character's place in it. Showing how wealthy they are compared to pilgrims on the road or even how much better their equipmentis than the average patrol member helps shine a brief spotlight on the characters helping them realize what they have accomplished.

Abondoned villages with an undead curse, lost temples filled with engineering kobolds worshiping the God of engineers and mechanics (lots of nasty traps) You can have any sort of side venture you want.

Later

 

[diaglo]

have you looked at the Marco Volo adventures on the free downloads from WotC?

departure, journey, arrival

the classic case of mistaken identity.

 

[JoeBlank]

Marco Volo is too involved, I just want a simple encounter. Shallown has some good ideas, I'm hoping for something simple I can find online, as my prep time is limited.

diaglo also mentioned an encounter angelsboi ran involving a mage who runs a travelling circus and a fight over a tiger animal companion to a druid. Anyone familiar with the scenario? May have been in freebie from WoTC, or a web enhancement, or might be part of Speaker in Dreams.

 

[diaglo]

i also like to raid the archives over at WotC for random encounters or night time things that go bump in the night.

try this one: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20010427

 

[LostSoul]

I once ran a pretty cool encounter while the PCs were travelling on a road.

I foreshadowed it a bit. There was a forest that they had travelled by boat around, and they were going to have to go back through it. Everyone told them it was full of trolls, blah blah blah. They also saw a wanted poster for a group of bandits.

So they're going through the forest, with a cart full of apples (trolls love apples) and a jackass of a driver. They see something in the forest banging and crashing and eating someone, and they rush out to attack it. They make spot checks, but fail to notice that it's just a dummy until they actually hit it.

That's when the bandits attacked them, and we had a nice little battle, moving off into the woods a bit. The PCs cleaned up, and returned to the road to find the driver trembling under the cart. He pointed into the forest; the PCs turned to look, and saw a severed head fly their way.

The troll stalked them a bit in the woods, then charged out. In the end it died, but not before it nearly killed the fighter. It was pretty cool.


I also use road encounters to let the PCs hear rumours and such. There was another encounter with a merchant, his daughter, his guard, and some scholar. They didn't trust the PCs at first, nor the PCs them, but eventually they made nice.

I've always wanted to use pilgrims travelling to a holy site. That would be cool. Maybe a man and woman carrying their sick and lame child.

 

[Thanee]

A moderately powerful illusionist is preparing for an upcoming battle and is practicing his magic against travelers... and the party just happens to be his next test subjects...

Bye
Thanee

 

[JoeBlank]

Thanks for the suggestions.

LostSoul, I have loved your sig for so long that I think I will try to use your idea. I may go with an owlbear instead, since I have been wanting to use one. A fake owlbear would be funny, actually, a big stuffed dummy tarred and feathered.

Not much time for foreshadowing, but I could have them meet a merchant or some such who warns them that an owlbear has been attacking travelers. Next day, they see the fake owlbear in the distance, probably rush in to help, and are ambushed by the bandits. They likely make quick work of the bandits, only to be attacked by the real owlbear.

Incorporating Thanee's idea, an illusionist could be working with the bandits and the owlbear could be an illusion instead of a dummy. Off to make some decent bandits, maybe goblins or dwarves.

 

[diaglo]

Dungeon 3 Falcon's Peak... hobgoblins

or the Ogre magi from a later Dungeon who attacks travelers could make for a decent bandit leader.

 

[warlord]

Marco Volo? TSR made a guy named Marco Volo how lazy were those guys? Back on topic a band of marauding merchent hunters is always fun.