Pathfinder 2E Succubus on the offensive

[CapnZapp]

Idea workshop:

The classic, of course, is having the succubi seduce a hero's significant other, thereby generating jealousy and strife. (A low-level NPC is all but helpless against a level 7 succubi in Pathfinder 2) But while that in itself isn't wrong, it is also not unexpected or terribly interesting.

She should easily be able to cause any number of problem flare-ups:

• a circus performer storms in crying demanding to know why she's being fired from the circus (she isn't fired, she just overheard "somebody" gossiping that she would be)
• there's a row between two NPCs the heroes thought were dear friends. Questioning them they find out one NPC is convinced the other NPC has stolen something precious (and indeed the contraband can be found among the guilty party's belongings). You don't have to be a genius to understand the real story...
• a circus performer stuns the community by leaving the community, writing a hateful farewell letter. The benign version is that the succubi compels the NPC to simply walk away, maybe back to Abberton. The very much malign version is that the succubi compels the NPC to commit suicide.

More good evil ideas welcome!

The truly devious thing is that the adventure itself specifies a possible kidnapping, and so having the PCs automatically suspect the succubi instead should prove most interesting...

 

[Stormonu]

At some point have her start returning to the group in pairs. She reveals she can only keep one of the two individual's power active, the other has to give theirs up. She lets them decide who has to lose their advantage - then let the arguments and ill will towards each other fly.

 

[CapnZapp]

At some point have her start returning to the group in pairs. She reveals she can only keep one of the two individual's power active, the other has to give theirs up. She lets them decide who has to lose their advantage - then let the arguments and ill will towards each other fly.

Normally that'd be a great suggestion.

However, I suspect this would make the players instantly make plans to kill her off. It basically says "you can't enjoy bonuses all five of you", which in the context of a coöperative game like D&D is a big no-no.

Remember, the purpose of this Succubi sub-plot is to see how much they love combat upgrades; how much set backs and abuse they're willing to take to keep them.

As soon as I say they need to fight among themselves to keep upgrading their bonuses, they will realize the game is up, and that the time for free lunches has ended.

So instead I'll explore how much strife and discontent among their (NPC) friends they're willing to suffer...how much circus mishaps they can take.

That is, for the decision to keep their abilities to be a meaningful and interesting one, the cost must be something they can pay. Pitting character against character would be a red flag, a line I'm pretty sure they won't cross.

After all, the purpose of enjoying those powerups is to enjoy advantages in adventuring (i.e. combat). This you do as a group.

So it makes no sense to gain a bonus at the expense of another party member since that would not make the party stronger.

YMMV. For instance lots of players roleplay their character as an individual who doesn't live for the small scale skirmish that is D&D combat. Then it could make sense to gain power-ups and strike out on your own.

 

[CapnZapp]

The saga has ended - the succubus is no more. All in all good fun was to be had, and I got to try out most of my ideas, so I count this little scenario expansion as a success.

Spoiler

Remember, Balenni was scripted to face the heroes in a single encounter (back in level 4) and then die.

Instead, she wrote a full session's worth of extra material basically single-handedly!

She got to successfully persuade four out of five heroes to accept her offerings (making a deal). She got to mess with their friends and loved ones. She sent in two groups of malign creatures to make life hard on the heroes. She got her hooks deep into one character and nearly made him lose Tanterra the Bouncer (his NPC girlfriend).

Then she helped out against Mistress Dusklight's "showstoppers", got to "escort" two defeated agents out of the circus grounds unattended (which meant she sexxed them to death), and then participated in a Big Finale circus performance, where the other heroes manipulated the entire crowd to boo her out of existence!

Specifically:

She started off by approaching the heroes individually, when they first reached Escadar and immediately raced to the magic shoppes! She successfully offered +1 to attacks to the Fighter (as Liane the tattooed mercenary and party-girl), +1 to spell DC to the Cleric (as Master Albin the grizzled but handsome old northern warrior), +1d6 to damage to the Barbarian (as Ian the sweaty and strong half-Orc smith) and 1 MAP reduction to the Ranger (as Aline, the cute halfling knife thrower). Only the Wizard resisted the charms of Miss Elain the Gnome Potion Tinkerer (by completely bungling his social interaction... )

She sowed a rumor Deanna the servant girl (and cooch show trainee by Mrs Peacock) was about to be fired, causing discontent in the camp. She stole a valued trinket from Svenja Flamboni and planted it in the coffer of her sister Glumja Flamboni. She made Mordaine the Magician wrap Elizia (her hated rival) in chains and dropped her in her water tank, accusing her of sleeping her way into the Directors' favor (which actually is true, Elizia likes the company of men and found the small half-Leshy Wizard quite interesting, especially when he cast Enlarge on himself...). She told Gerban the Carpenter to walk back to Abberton, then wrote a hateful farewell letter with his signature and had Carla the Cook find it.

At this time the heroes started to hatch a plan to get rid of the Succubi, after overcoming their initial disappointment their lunch wasn't completely free after all... They liked the idea of a non-combat resolution that involves making a story out of her rejection vulnerability. The Ranger recruited her to his circus performance, and promptly fell under her spell (but gained +1 Intimidation and +1d6 damage for the full suit of demonic power).

She found a quartet of Caligni Stalkers and persuaded them to seek employment at the circus, nearly succeeding in causing a fight (which could easily have killed several bystanders given the Calign death trait). She told Morchi and Grasni, a married couple of hardened gamblers (actually undead Bone Croupiers) where to find easy marks (=the circus NPCs), at least until a few heroes triggered a fight and slaughtered them.

In her guise as Aline the knife thrower, she talked down Aives the Crossdressing Tiefling and his hanger-on Duke (I gave each of the three scenario NPCs a wing-man since it would be too easy otherwise; Duke used the stats of a Duskwalker) from sabotaging the animal pens of the circus. When the Ranger chose to help out his friends, asking her to walk them out of the circus by herself (not surprising since he trusted Aline...) she took them out into the woods and... (the GM making a random roll) "wore" them out, leaving only their lifeless husks behind. Bad luck there Aives - no circus for you!

The other heroes managed to talk Ruanna and her lover-boy Jared (a Charming Scoundrel) out of it, even confiscating a bunch of CM tickets. They later made an attempt to recruit her but a natural 1 cut that story short. They charmed Armand, Delamar's dwarf bodyguard (and a Hellknight Armiger), but Delamar couldn't accept being bested by "country yokels" so they subdued him (using non-lethal attacks) and let Armand run back to CM with his war flail between his legs.

Then finally everybody succeeded in their plans to turn the audience against her, and she flopped to the ground, dead from massive amounts of mental damage, reverting to her natural form of the "sexy librarian" Balenni (with wings) to the oohs and aahs of the excited audience

The show was a success, Delamar Gianvin's plan to sabotage the performance was stopped (and he himself ended up dead, dumped by the heroes into the quicksand out the swamp, probably to emerge as a new will'o'wisp for future generations of heroes!)

The only drawback of finally killing off Balenni - and stopping their circus community from disintegrating - was that they lost all their demonic upgrades, which stung the Ranger the most. At least he got to reconcile with his girlfriend, who had threatened to leave the circus when he was repeatedly unable to resist the charms of Aline.

And hey, they leveled up!

 

[Lackofname]

Edit- looks like my suggestion was just too late.

 

[CapnZapp]

Edit- looks like my suggestion was just too late.

If your "edit" means you added something only to then take it away again, please don't feel you're too late. While your suggestion might not be used by me, this thread is much about giving us all inspiration than merely helping me out.

Cheers

 

[Lackofname]

I was thinking that the idea of having a succubus exemplify seduction and corruption is a great start, and thinking "PCs are more motivated by raw bonuses" is a good direction, but it doesn't go far enough. Raw dice math is less narratively exciting. Also that going back on the deal should have negative consequences beyond simply losing the bonus, and those consequences might be more than merely math on the stats.

Think of a cursed magical weapon. Without the curse, it's a pretty sweet weapon. But the curse either does something mechanically, or it does something out-of-combat ("You have to talk in a lisp" "It's an assassin's dagger, but every step you take makes a squeak, sneaking is impossible" "No one believes anything you say, ever") Now, the succubus hands the PC the magical weapon, but her demonic magic suppresses the curse. Once the PC pulls out of the deal, the curse kicks in and they can't get rid of it unless they [insert hook or other narrative thing].

So the succubus could offer the players say, more sway with the crowd. They become more popular, etc. This can be reflected in a mechanical boost to their perform skill maybe, but it's going to have other benefits; the PC's going to have their act bumped up closer to main events, maybe they're getting a larger share of earnings, etc. But when they pull out of the deal, it reverses. Suddenly they are off-putting to the crowd, and the opposite happens; the ringmaster sees the unhappy crowd and has to put the character in the worst slot, etc.

Once PCs willingly take the deal, they are more vulnerable to her. They could have penalties to out-of-comb at skill checks/saves against her, or (behind the screen) they simply auto-fail--she can cast mental deception spells on them without save or them noticing, they believe her lies and sense motive is always rosey, etc. This is to reflect that once you let a demon in, you're giving up a little bit of your will, giving them access to you.

Also the PCs no doubt have goals in the larger adventure. The succubus could offer a shortcut to their goal. The problem being that it further entangles them in her debts and magic.

 

[CapnZapp]

Thanks. Yes, curses is not trivial to get "right".

In this case, for negative consequences I did go beyond "mere math". Though not by cursing the PCs directly - by having the characters' choices impact NPCs around them.

The theme of a succubi is the promise of power followed by moral corruption. For this to be at as interesting as possible, I made the bonuses entirely positive - no ifs, no buts. The penalties on the other hand were entirely "out of combat" (social).

My focus was "why pull out of the deal at all?", or more specifically "how far are the players willing to go (in terms of their characters getting corrupted)?".

Being able to judge a +1 here against a -1 there would have defeated this purpose since it would have allowed the players to justify their decision in a detached analytical manner. I wanted the benefit and consequence to play out on entirely different scales. This way you can't simply apply min-max analysis and keep the deal until the drawbacks loom larger than the benefits. I wanted to "force" the player to evaluate "extra damage" against "your friend is hurting", since this is much more telling of the player's personality (and/or his characterization of his character).

In short; I wanted there to be no point where the deal could be objectively calculated and identified as being a bad deal. I wanted to encourage players to have their characters justify to themselves why their friends and family will have to "live with it"... in order to not have to give up those sweet sweet attack bonuses

Cheers

 

[Lackofname]

Oh, of course! I was suggesting a strong negative that didn't come into play until they broke the deal. It's supposed to seem like a too-good-to-be-true deal. The downside is that taking it gives a succubus free reign to further mentally control you, and if you resist, your fortunes reverse.

 

[CapnZapp]

Oh, of course! I was suggesting a strong negative that didn't come into play until they broke the deal. It's supposed to seem like a too-good-to-be-true deal. The downside is that taking it gives a succubus free reign to further mentally control you, and if you resist, your fortunes reverse.

Sure, but why end a deal that's just good for you?