Non combat climactic challenges

[nimisgod]

As a GM, I prefer endings that are non combat. The dice can screw the players on terrible occasions, laying waste to a campaign without them to blame. I'd rather they choose how to end the campaign, though I tend toward LOTR-ish martyrdom to destroy the great evil. Choices, choices, choices.

My beloved players play selfless characters, generally, but it just takes just some shaking up for their characters' despair to bubble up. Well, not a little.

One campaign had two sacrifices.

The party's fighter, Freyd, found out that his ancestral weapon held the last piece of essence of a dying evil gawd. And it was an artifact. The only way to destroy it was his death. Not just a normal death, but one by his own hand. By any other hand, he wouild arise again as an incarnation of that gawd, like he did several sessions previously when he temporarily went crazy. The result was ravaged town. After some poetics, he slew himself and the sword shattered.

Instead of getting destroyed however, the divine essence possessed the resident CN turning CE sorcerer, Surrandel Blackaster.

"Arson Blackaster" now had to go against his twin because Surrandel was mad with power and possessed by a dying gawd. One of the kewlest moments was when the Surrandel offered his beloved brother to join him in power. Throughout the entire 7 year campaign, Arson's sole motivation was to protect his "weaker" brother no matter the cost to himself. Caramon and Raistlin-esque, I know.

But Arson shook his head. "I'm sorry brother. The cost is too great" then he plunged his sword into the other's chest. After the requisite explosion and avalanche, the remaining 2 PCs had to convince him not to gut himself with that very same sword.

It was a fitting end. And I've been running somewhat diceless endings ever since.

 

[Steverooo]

I would say that ideally, the sort of climactic challenge I would find most compelling:

1. Should have some risk if the party fails and/or handles the situation improperly. That risk need not necessarily be direct physical threat to the PCs, but it should impress on them the importance of the situation.
2. Dice rolling or not is not that important, but ideally, it should be something that allows most or all of the party to contribute.
3. To a lesser extent, I would say it would be nice if at least some character abilities contributed. That gives the player the ability that their character plays a specific role that others could not play. This need not involve dice rolling, but might involve having the player figure out that an ability is useful in a given situation.
4. Finally, this may be a bit much to ask, but a challenge that contains puzzles of any sort should have alternatives to the puzzles or the puzzles are helpful but not essential. My best puzzler players moved a few months back and I don't know if my new players are up to a bunch of steely intellectual challenges.

A few people have mentioned an escape scenarios. Any ideas on how you would run that so that player decisions and character abilities were important? I mean it seems like it would be easy to turn that into a mere narration, and if you leave a lot to chance, it could be disastrous. Perhaps the best way to address this is by "degrees of failure" sort of thing. Staying here will mean certain death. Risking grabbing the dingus or failing too many challenges on the way out could leave you alive but trapped, etc.

The PCs were all captured. Those at negative HP had a Cure Minor Wounds spell applied, to stabilize them, then Deeper Slumber, and then were transported to the Big-Bad's prison complex...

Before the game begins, make sure the players have all updated their character sheets and equipment lists, and have noted where items are located (you can tell them that if a Thief picks their pockets, you want to know what's in them, and pouches, and where purses are located, etc., or that you want to know where weapons are located, so that Trapper attacks, etc., can be adjudicated).

Once you have the equipment lists, go through them, removing any obvious weapons and armor, all packs, pouches, etc.... Anything which is obviously weapons, armor, or magical, the guards will take away, and lock in a locker in the main room. Any hidden weapons, have the unconscious PCs' players roll a Sleight of Hand (skilled or otherwise) vs. the guards' unskilled Spot rolls, to see if they were found.

Now, have the PCs wake up, chained to the wall in the dim, dank prison... What do they have on them? No armor, certainly! Probably no weapons... No packs, nor pouches, including spell component pouches! Ergo, no material components! Does the Rogue have his picks and tools? (Where were they listed as being, on his equipment sheet? If in a pouch, No! If hidden about his body, perhaps!)

Step 1, the PCs must get free... If the Rogue has his tools, fine. If not, does anyone else have a needle, or other makeshift tool for an attempt with a -2 Circumstance Modifier? Does a Wizzer or Sorcerer have Knock, and can they cast it without Material Components (if any)? Any Shadowdancers can shadowshift out?

Once free, can they fight? A Monk is very handy, here, as is anyone else with Improved Unarmed Strike, a Druid with Wild Shape, etc. Everyone else needs weapons...

Have a few "disguised goodies", such as some sand and a few small stones on the floor... A belt or other strip of cloth can be made into a simple sling, and the rock becomes a missile weapon. The sand in a sock or glove becomes a sap. Someone might be able to rip a chain off the wall, thus arming someone with a light flail...

After that, the door must be opened, or wait for someone to come check on the prisoners/bring them a meal, etc. Time and noise are a factor, throughout... Make too much noise breaking chains, etc., someone will come check!

Once the PCs get free, they now have choices to make... Run for it, or go to the guardroom to get their stuff back? The layout of the prison is a mystery (Monks, Rangers, and Rogues with good stealth and perceptions rolls are required, here... or perhaps a wild-shaping druid)!

Fighting the guards, unarmed and unarmored, when they have both, is a lousy idea! Anyone have a better one? Sneaking out without their stuff will be bad news, too... The Wizzers and Clerics won't be much help, as Material Components will have to be gathered from the (literal!) dungeon, and Verbal Components are DC:0 (+1/10' distant) to overhear!

So, what to do? Search for a way out, then try to take it, armed with only saps and slings (-1, due to rock ammo), or try to draw off the guards, and dog-pile them?

The Monks, Rangers, Rogues, and any Druids who can wild shape will shine, while the spellslingers will be in the background, for a change...

To help the smarter ones get back in the game, however, you can include SOME Material Components in the dungeon... Sand is a component for Sleep, is it not? A cricket is another... Spider Climb needs a live spider (should be easy enough to find), and a drop of sap/treacle... Will other sticky stuff do?

To make the dungeon a bit less dangerous, you can have the Big-Bad temporarily "out of town", and his underlings ordered to keep the PCs alive, for the time being. Sleep/Deeper Slumber, Force Cage, saps, disarming weapons like Ranseurs and Spetums, Man-catchers, etc., are the order of the day. This way, if the PCs try and fail, they can be beaten down, returned to their cells, and start all over again (with no weapons, and maybe even less equipment, the next time).

In three days, or so, the Big-Bad comes back, and things get worse! Can the PCs escape, with extremely limited magic? Can they find a way out? Can someone get to a window, undetected? If so, can someone climb down with no rope or tools? What about the rest? Can the Wizard/Sorcerer find a feather to cast Feather Fall?

"Quick! Somebody find me a down pillow!"

 

[Psion]

/me casts Raise Thread

 

[Klaus]

Complex Skill Checks are your friend here (several rounds rolling Disable Device to stop the room from filling with water/acid/marshmallow while the other PCs wither use Aid Another or try to find high ground -- specially if there are innocents there).

"Cut to the Chase" (by barsoomcore) allows for a very thrilling chase, which is non-combat (specially if you only need to catch the bad guy, then he surrenders).

 

[Warrior Poet]

SPOILERS











To go along with the chase/race-against-time idea, the end of the first Halo game had a great climax that didn't involve any combat (if you haven't played it, and don't want to know the end, stop reading now. Also, if you haven't played it, what the hell are you doing? Hie thee to Halo, posthaste! ).

It was a race-to-escape before everything blows up, in a suped-up hot rod military jeep vehicle, and if you sat around fighting, it was sure to end in death. Instead of a big boss or something like that, they had a get-away-from-the-expanding-fireball-of-death sequence that worked great.

So there's always something like that: escape from Atlantis before it sinks! Escape the crumbling daemon's fortress before it collapses on the party! Escape the underground cavern before it floods! Escape the busy market bazaar before it's trampled by rampaging elephants! Escape with the loot stolen from the ancient reliquary before the awakened spirits catch you! Escape the dimly-lit, velvet-curtained hallways and chambers of the brothel haunted by the lust-fevered dreams of a sultry psionic succubus!

. . . or, you know, maybe, don't escape, in the case of that last one

[Jack-As-Joker] "If you're gonna go, go with a smile!" [/Jack-As-Joker]

Warrior Poet

 

[Psion]

. . . or, you know, maybe, don't escape, in the case of that last one

I shall spank the peril!

 

[RangerWickett]

One thing I tried once in my fantasy game was a set-up like this:

Villain has a tower, and the only entrance is guarded by a device that sucks magic and converts it to magic missiles. So they couldn't get in the front. But there was an unknown entrance. See, the tower was a stalagmite in the middle of an underground river, named Needlepoint Spire, so called because of a tiny shaft at the base of the stalagmite where the river had carved a tunnel. It was possible, albeit very hard, to jump in, be shot down the tunnel by the river, and jump out in the basement of the tower. If you missed, you'd get shot out of the tower, then over a waterfall.

Once inside, you could get to the front door, disable it from the inside, and let your buddies in. I had a nice chase set up, with the sorcerer's monsters spotting the PC and chasing him toward the entrance, trying to kill him before he opened the door. I figured correctly that either the water mage or the rogue would attempt this (it was the rogue).

But I forgot that I had 3 other players. They kinda didn't have anything to do while the rogue slipped in and dealt with the traps and stuff. Looking back, I suppose I could've made it faster by just having the PC sneak in and open the doors easily. Or, if I wanted to keep everyone busy at once, I could have had it so that the party outside needed to stage an assault to distract the attention of the sorcerer inside, so that the party rogue could get through unmolested.



Now I'm running a modern fantasy game, and I'm discovering that, sadly, the d20 Modern rules do not capture the action movie feel as well as they could. Sure, combat is good; I enjoy doing combat, and I'm good at it. But I had a car chase, and it was a bit of a chore (I spiced it up by having it also involve a gunfight). I tried to have a 'disarm the bomb' scene, and thankfully the psychic PC who got a vision of the bomb was smart -- he hired a retired bomb squad guy to disarm it for him. If he hadn't, it would have been rather boring.

The thing is, the rules reduce everything to a single roll, except combat. I wonder if maybe it'd be better to change the rules so that unimportant things only require a single roll. You're fighting the boss, you actually keep track of HP. With mooks, you just make an attack roll, and if you beat their Mook DC, they drop.

If you're trying to convince a traffic cop to not ticket you, just make your Diplomacy check. If you want to convince the sorcerer that his dead wife would not want him to let his grief drive him to destroying the world, that'd take a few Diplomacy checks to steer him in the right direction, lowering his Will or something.

And disarming a bomb should never be one check. Bombs are too impressive to reduce to a single die roll. Make it one check to figure out how to disarm it, and depending on the difficulty of the device, one or more checks (each one easy to very hard). A simple "cut the blue wire" bomb would be one easy check, once you succeed a hard DC to figure out which wire to cut. But if you're going up against Dennis Hopper, and the bomb is on the bottom of a speeding bus, connected to the driveshaft and the electrical system, with a bevy of dead-ends and traps involved, you'd need to make a ton of checks to disarm the puppy.

What I want to see? A singing competition.

Please.

 

[S'mon]

Wars/battles not involving personal combat. Diplomatic negotiations and other interpersonal roleplay challenges.

 

[S'mon]

Actually most of my campaigns tend to end with a "Treaty of Versailles" type moment where the foes sit down and agree peace.

 

[eris404]

My favorite climatic ending was a trial. Our characters had brought an enemy wizard to be tried by his peers. Since we were merely apprentices, we didn't think we would be allowed into the trial. To our surprise, we were called as witnesses. It was nerve-wracking to have to remember little details about previous encounters and being asked trick questions by the wizard who acted as his own defense lawyer. I really thought at one point "Oh man, he's going to walk, isn't he?"