Some help from clever GMs, please!

[Wik]

So, we had a neat session today, and the PCs got a little bit of downtime after finishing up a few tasks. The campaign they're involved in has entered the "endgame" right now, where the PCs know who the BBEG is (but don't know her motivation yet), have some major allies, and have a few concrete goals.

The PCs are now major movers and shakers in the feywild!

Anyways, they've just purchased a brewery which they are fixing up (the PCs actually destroyed this brewery a few months ago, as it was being used to brew a poison; the PCs are now using the same brewery to brew the antidote to said poison). While their labourers are fixing the silly thing, everyone is taking a few days off for their own goals. This is where I'd like some help - ideas for what could be neat to do. If you have any ideas on how I can make the PCs' leisure activities cool, interesting, or fun, please let me know!

1) Hammer, our Minotaur Fighter, is using his spare time to start up a garden (he's a herbivore, after all). He got some seeds from a druidic hierophant (one of the big honchos of the feywild). Any ideas on what plants could be developed? I was thinking a treant variant - a talking plant could be fun.

2) Seahorse, our Halfling Rogue, is spending the time at the city gates with a former adventuring companion (an Eladrin Warlord who is now in charge of the city's defence in a very tough crisis). I don't want her involved in any combats or anything, but I was hoping a mini adventure involving her could possibly flare up. This one is hard to explain without going into full campaign detail, so I'll leave it at that.

3) Lear, a human blood mage wizard, decided to teach a young wizard apprentice some new magic. Lear met the young guy a while ago, and is now deciding to use it to show the kid some new tricks. Lear is kind of evil, and the kid is a thief and gang member, so they get along well. Ideas on how to implement an apprentice into the game?

4) Zahar, a drow/eladrin half-breed (mechanically Shadar-Kai) Bard, has decided he wants to be king. Most of the half-breeds in the eladrin city are aware of Zahar (approximately 30% are half-breeds right now - basically, Eladrin & Drow are the same race, and half-breeds are those who remain politically neutral in the Twilight Court). Zahar's player is going to get back to me with his political scheme, so any general ideas here would be helpful, but I can't provide specific information yet.

5) Kirra, a drow rogue with ties to the drow royal family, is going to talk to the Drow princess (and next in line to be Drow Queen). Kirra's goal is to convince the Queen to marry Zahar. This should be interesting - any feedback on how to do THAT would be greatlpy appreciated.

 

[Wik]

So, my main concerns:

1) What sort of crazy vegetables and plants should I put in Hammer's garden? What sort of weird plants would come from seeds that are in a feywild druid's pocket?

2) How should I handle a blood mage taking on an apprentice? How do you handle apprentices in game?

3) How do you deal with one PC trying to talk an NPC into marrying another NPC? Granted, it'd be a political marriage and not for love (ha!). But how do you handle that situation?

 

[Stormonu]

1) The gardens from Alice in Wonderland come to mind; plants that take their names literally, such as the tiger lily.

 

[Gilladian]

I think the "literal plants" is a good idea. Loads of fun possibilities there. also, have you ever played "Plants vs Zombies"? Pea Shooters, Wall-nuts, Sun flowers, Corn cob-apults, cherry bombs, etc...

For the apprentice, if you need mechanics, I'm no help, but as far as actually what happens; he tries to do something he's not ready for, and a skill challenge to rescue him from the results ensues (ie try casting haste and it backfires - you're stuck moving at 1/4 speed while the building collapses around you both).

Could the halfling on the wall somehow have an adventure spying on the enemy? Or discovering a traitor in the ranks? Or just deal with a crucial supply or morale issue?

 

[luckless]

For an apprentice I would just go with a DMPC or something, but with a very low level character. (Or toss the character out and let another player run him.) If it is less than half their level, then it can be of use from time to time, but other wise is more likely to be a character that needs to be bailed out, which could make for interesting adventuring.

 

[BriarMonkey]

1) I agree with the other sentiments towards the garden.

2) For an apprentice, I'm not sure I'd go with a DM PC, simply because of the additional work. However, you could use the mechanics similar to how the Leadership feat is laid out (or Henchmen for older versions). Though, I guess it really depends on how much you want to roleplay this and how long it is to last.

If the apprentice is a longer term element, it may make more sense to just have the PC run him around - with your interaction as needed. This would be similar to Leadership. If though, this is short term, then yeah, skill challenges for teaching him - or use a set of skill checks if you use a different game version.

3) I'd probably run this "matchmaking" around lots of Diplomacy checks, bribes, and maybe even some Knowledge (Nobility) checks. It sorta depends to on just how connected the PC is, as well as their reputation.

If they are well respected and reputed, then mayhaps it just requires some additional incentive on the part of the NPCs; such as a worthy ring for the ceremony (hint hint). On the other hand, if they aren't well thought of in the courts, there would be a looooot of bribery and skills involved.


Yeah... That sounds kinda wishy washy - but it really does depend on how long this "down" time is to last. Unless you want to grow some side quests, which could take time, it may be more straight forward to lightly roleplay and skill challenge vice going too elaborate.

 

[anest1s]

So, my main concerns:

1) What sort of crazy vegetables and plants should I put in Hammer's garden? What sort of weird plants would come from seeds that are in a feywild druid's pocket?

2) How should I handle a blood mage taking on an apprentice? How do you handle apprentices in game?

3) How do you deal with one PC trying to talk an NPC into marrying another NPC? Granted, it'd be a political marriage and not for love (ha!). But how do you handle that situation?

1-Plants too dangerous to be left on the wild, or plants too delicate to survive alone in the wild- but very useful for herbs (or else the druid wouldn't have collected them)

2) Well, no thieves guild/gang/whatever wants someone who knows their secrets to leave the, alive.
Either make a small quest about making the apprentice "die", or a continuous assault from said gang (or a kill-them-all quest)

Also, with leadership. Or don't give him exp unless the PC gets leadership. Or rp the apprentice not following commands.

3) One of the NPCs may want to, the other may not want to. If forced, one tries to kill the other. Or someone else tries to kill one of them. Quest to protect them. Maybe one of them is in love with the others closest relative, or whatever. Make something difficult/special about the situation. After all, if it was easy they would have already married.

 

[Oryan77]

It's hard to give good ideas not knowing the campaign world or even things like how long the downtime can be. But I'll throw some ideas out in case something might give you a basis to work with.

1) Hammer, our Minotaur Fighter, is using his spare time to start up a garden (he's a herbivore, after all). He got some seeds from a druidic hierophant (one of the big honchos of the feywild). Any ideas on what plants could be developed? I was thinking a treant variant - a talking plant could be fun.

I find this scenario to be pretty bland if it is something to be played out in game. Don't get me wrong, I love this sort of depth in game, but if this is supposed to be catering to a player, it's not much more interesting than shopping at a merchant store. It needs some kind of conflict (not necessarily combat) to pull the player into the scenario more.

I'm not sure if Minotaurs in your world still follow the labyrinth mythology. But you could play up that by having the PC notice his garden growing more and more each day at an alarming rate. It starts to spread out of control. After a few days, his racial "trait" has caused his garden to form into some sort of hedge maze (not necessarily bushes; it could be a maze of exotic plants or whatever matches the type of seeds he has). If his land is not open enough for an entire maze, it could be just big enough to fit on his plot of land, but if anyone goes inside it, it's magically bigger on the inside than it appeared to be on the outside.

To add conflict to it, maybe the seeds created a form of Treant that lives in the center of the maze. For fun, it creates natural traps & puzzles anytime people explore it. The maze could be a new wonder of the world that you can use for some harmless fun. Or it could turn out to be a hazard that the PCs may need to get rid of. This maze could even make the Minotaur more famous.

2) Seahorse, our Halfling Rogue, is spending the time at the city gates with a former adventuring companion (an Eladrin Warlord who is now in charge of the city's defence in a very tough crisis). I don't want her involved in any combats or anything, but I was hoping a mini adventure involving her could possibly flare up. This one is hard to explain without going into full campaign detail, so I'll leave it at that.

By "spending time" at the city gates, what's she doing there? Working the gates? You didn't really give any info about this PC that anyone can work with. We can just come up with any generic rogue scenario, but you don't need anyone to tell you that. You can think of that just as easily as we would. If you want it to be more personal to the PC, let's hear some more details about this character.

3) Lear, a human blood mage wizard, decided to teach a young wizard apprentice some new magic. Lear met the young guy a while ago, and is now deciding to use it to show the kid some new tricks. Lear is kind of evil, and the kid is a thief and gang member, so they get along well. Ideas on how to implement an apprentice into the game?

Is this apprentice supposed to be like a cohort that will travel with the party? Or is it just a character to be used during downtime when the PCs are back in town? I'll assume it's just a downtime character since I'd think you would know how to handle a cohort as far as rules are concerned.

The PC could train the apprentice by giving him missions around town that involve him using the spells he has learned. Maybe the NPC complains to the PC about some rival gang member and asks the PC to teach him a spell that will eliminate this threat. The NPC could fail the mission and it somehow comes back to the PC. It could require that the PC rescue his apprentice from this gang and kill the leader. Maybe the PC impresses the rival gang members enough that they turn to him as a possible new gang leader? Then the PC can establish the apprentice as a 2nd in command that runs the gang while the PC is adventuring.

4) Zahar, a drow/eladrin half-breed (mechanically Shadar-Kai) Bard, has decided he wants to be king. Most of the half-breeds in the eladrin city are aware of Zahar (approximately 30% are half-breeds right now - basically, Eladrin & Drow are the same race, and half-breeds are those who remain politically neutral in the Twilight Court). Zahar's player is going to get back to me with his political scheme, so any general ideas here would be helpful, but I can't provide specific information yet.

5) Kirra, a drow rogue with ties to the drow royal family, is going to talk to the Drow princess (and next in line to be Drow Queen). Kirra's goal is to convince the Queen to marry Zahar. This should be interesting - any feedback on how to do THAT would be greatlpy appreciated.

So Zahar is an NPC and you want Kirra to, "talk one NPC into marrying another NPC"? I'll approach this as if you have full control over Zahar. I'm also assuming that being half drow, he's evil? I don't know anything about Shadar-Kai, but I thought I heard that they are evil.

Again, this seems kind of dull if it is supposed to be something played out in game. You could just do a series of social skill checks, but that's extremely boring and doesn't seem very rewarding for a player. It needs some sort of conflict that will pull the PC in and force her (is Kirra a he or she?) to be proactive.

Not knowing the details of the characters and the world, it makes it hard to know what may be possible to do in your game. But based off the info you've given, my idea is for Zahar to trick the princess into being interested in him.

I don't know if the two NPCs know of each other, but maybe Zahar asks Kirra to throw a party and invite all of the high ups that she knows (specifically the princess). Since he's a bard, he wants to be the entertainment for the party. He tells Kirra that he hopes to woo the princess with his awesomeness. But what he doesn't tell Kirra is that he has a more involved plan to help him get the princesses attention.

He hires some thugs to crash the party and kidnap the princess. But Zahar knows where they have taken her (or are taking her). Maybe he's the only one at the party that was able to identify a thug and knows who they are. So Zahar brings Kirra along to help track down the princess so it's less obvious that he's responsible for the kidnapping. Zahar double crosses his hired thugs though to make the event seem more real to the princess. Him and Kirra can kill all of the thugs and rescue the princess. Now he can tell the princess how he feels about her (even if his love is a lie) and this allows him to get his foot in the door and begin his attempt at romancing her. The princess can then start to ask Kirra about Zahar and this could be where Kirra gets to do some social skill checks.

Well, these are the ideas I was able to quickly think up. I'm not sure how lame or useful they would be. But there ya go.

 

[anest1s]

Well, these are the ideas I was able to quickly think up. I'm not sure how lame or useful they would be. But there ya go.

Yeah, so lame that I got exp-blocked 2 times today with your posts -.-

Why is the blocking anywayz lol

 

[Oryan77]

Yeah, so lame that I got exp-blocked 2 times today with your posts -.-

Why is the blocking anywayz lol

I have a very very very high Will save and it causes me to resist XP. Seriously, my wisdom bonus is off the charts! I'm surprised people have managed to even give me XP.