Plot and Encounter help (long)

[beldar1215]

Hello,
I've come up with the following plot, but could use some help fleshing it out. I'm also looking for good encounter ideas. I'm also including some ideas I came up with. The coins I'm using are from Campaigin magazine. This is my first attempt at doing my own adventure!

Plot:
Wealthy person (merchant) hires the PC’s to find a set of coins. The coins are “The Coins of the Dead”. A rival merchant gave the merchant the coins. The merchant used one of his employees’ to get the coins to his rival. The merchant’s wife was working the shop at the time that the coins were used. The wife took the coins. She took the gold coin and put it in her purse. The other two coins were given as change during the day. That night the wife was looking at the strange gold coin she had received that day. She fell asleep with the coin still in her hand. The next morning the merchant tried to wake up his wife and could not. She was still breathing, but could not be awoken. The merchant sent for a cleric. When to cleric arrived, he noticed that the wife was clutching something in her hand. When he got the object out of her hand he noticed that it was a gold coin. The cleric was unable to figure out what the coin was. He sent word to the big wig at the temple. The big wig showed up and figured out that the coin was one of the coins of the dead. He told the merchant that the only way to revive his wife was to find the other two coins. The merchant went through his earnings from the day before but could not find the other coins. He was very distraught. His wife was pregnant and is due to give birth in two months time. The coins need to be found before this. Enter the PC’s!!!!

Ideas:
Silver coin- Given to a local man as change for a purchase. He then used the coin to buy an item from a traveling merchant. The merchant left town the morning after receiving the coin.

How will the PC’s find the coins?
1. The merchant does have a rival. He has been having problems with this other man for some time. He will ask that the PC’s to check out this person. The rival will not cooperate. As soon as he realizes the PC’s are asking around about him, he will have his employee killed so that he can not give the PC’s any info. The merchant will deny any knowledge of the coins or of having anything to do with the situation.
2. Coins- After the merchant left town, his caravan was attacked by a band of brigands. They took all of his supplies and money. The PC’s will come across the caravan. If the PC’s follow this merchant with in one day, they will come upon the caravan and find one guard still alive. He can tell them what happened and which way the brigands went. The PC’s can pick up their trail with a Check (DC 10 if day one, +5% up to +25% for each day after the first day) If they arrive after the first day everyone is dead and they will have to try to find the brigands on their own.
3. If the PC’s find the brigands, they no longer have the coin. They were attacked by a band of goblins and hobgoblins. The coin is now in the hands of the goblins. The goblins then end up sending the coin with a human, who is in with the goblins, to a town to buy some supplies.


Thank You
Beldar

 

[gpetruc]

Interesting.
It might be very difficoult for the players to find the coins, I think.
I don't know about the coins: are they easyly recognizable or they look like ordinary ones ? probably these coins will be detected when a suspicious wealthy merchant gets something to detect magic in his shop to avoid being fooled.

Anyway, you have hooks for both RP encounters (if the party wants to know about coins, expecially from the merchands), combat encounters (if the goblin band is small enough to be attacked) with tactical options (we must keep the leader alive because he knows where the coins are) and/or sneaking (for example if the goblin tribe is bigger and they want to find the coins without starting a big and dangerous battle).

I think you could have the players find one coin (the copper one, if the three are of different metals) in the hands of a goblin, while the other has been used to pay for supplies.

Note that tracking down a common silver coin in a town that is not small might be tricky. Consider if it has been given to a beggar, or stolen by a common cutpurse, or it simply has slipped out of the man's pocket and fell on the dirty ground and found there by a young boy.

What level are the PC ? Do they have access to divination spells ?

 

[beldar1215]

Thanks for your input. I agree thathe PC's may have a hard time find the coins. I'm not sure whathe coins look like, but I'm going to have each of them be the same, just the different metal.

All the PC's are about 3rd level. I could give them some help by using a seer. I don't want to make it to hard to find the coins, but I also want them to have to work a little to locate them.
Any Ideas on how to balance this would be great. The idea of having them find one of the coins on a goblin is good. I'm going to use it!
Beldar