The Long Duel

[Dirigible]

So, I've been looking for a way to start this solo-character quiet high power campaign (equivalent to a 12th-14th level fighter, but in a setting where characters and NPCs tend towards to lower end of the spectrum, a bit like Eberron). My initial plot doodles were fairly mild; he's returning from a long journey to the other side of the continent, meets some odd folks in the woods, sees a critter that foreshadows the campaign's major villain blah blah blah.

Then I thought: I'm not thinking high budget enough. In context, this guy is nearly epic in power. He shouldn't be kicking around like some neophyte schmuk. He can face down small armies on his own!

An image came to mind:

The hero stands alone on a thin bridge / the mouth of a narrow valley / a tight tunnel, his twin swords glinting. Before him, hundreds of foes clamour for his life, swarming forward. This would be a Long Duel; only a few of them could attack him at a time, but their numbers were great.

And I look to the powerful imaginations of ENworld for help. Where is he? What are these enemies; orcs, demonlings, fanatical cultists? What is ahead of him that he seeks, or behind him that he protects?

And on a more gamey note, how do you run a scenario like this without it becoming an endless string of dice rolls? How do you give the battle a sense of ebb and flow? What kind of set piece stunts and events can you throw in?

 

[xnosipjpqmhd]

Naw, don't make it static.

Give the guy a time limit to get to a certain place, and he has to run through a lot of interesting locations and get past TONS of foes as quickly as possible. This gives him incentive to think creatively instead of just standing and fighting.

You could build a whole string of neat locations where a clever player could take advantage of the terrain to get past the foes quickly, like a large chamber with multiple chandeliers from which to swing, or perhaps a long downward slope which, if he's smart, he can ride down on some sort of make-shift sled (fashioned out of the broken remnants of wooden crates at the top perhaps), all the while fighting various foes that swoop in or past, then he comes to the next place which is a large area where the floor ahs mostly fallen away leaving a criss-crossing maze of intersecting 1-foot-wide ledges, with some foes sprinkled around it (or flying above it, or shooting arrows from the other side, etc).

I do like the image of a lone figure facing off against hordes of foes, though. Here's another idea if you decide to keep the fight static: have it on the edge of a cliff. Foes keep pressing the hero back, ever closer to the brink...

I dunno. Read some old Conan stuff. Seems like there were quite a few bouts between Conan and hordes of enemies in interesting locales.

ironregime

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

1. Flashbacks.

Cue a pause in the fighting. Trust me, these will happen - mooks will get less and less likely to attack when the corpses are waist high. Have a flashback to something the character did - a romance that went wrong, ending with PC killing lover (or bad guy doing the same thing). You need to show that the char is high level for a reason.

A training master, teaching the basics. Especially useful when the character loses some hit points.

A nemesis, long since dead due to PC killing him.

A long and hard adventure, ending with much treasure. Pissing the treasure away.

2. Changes in the combat. Don't have the mooks all be the same. Have them think about tactics. Have them make morale saves when they realise they are about to die. Have them use anything they can; arrows, spears, anything to defeat the character when melee doesn't work.

3. Magic. Don't forget this, it's important.

4. A reason to live and continue.

 

[Wayside]

Thermopylae!

 

[EdL]

Sounds impressively cinematic. Now what do you do if you're rolling hot and the player is rolling cold that day? That's bad enough when it happens to a party, but when the 'party' is one character it can end the whole campaign in one session.

 

[RedWick]

He's returning to his homeland which had been invaded and conquered (by what, I don't know). He's fighting his way up a long mountain pathway, bordered by cliffs going down on one side and cliffs going up on the other.

I like the idea of breaking up the endless fight with both flashbacks (going back and establishing exactly why this character is so über), as well as having different locations for scenes along whatever pathway you choose. You could even break the session into two halves. The first half could deal with the fighting in whatever new environment and ending it when he successfully "solves" it (killing all the enemies at that point, figuring out some clever way to bypass the whole group, etc.). The second half could handle the flashback, and the character build-up. It'd require a heck of a lot more planning on your part though, if you took that route, but it could be really worth it.

The whole thing could lend itself quite well to an episodic structure...

Hmm...getting ideas myself...

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

How to make the battle feel like it has ebb and flow and not just be one set of dice rolling after another?

1. Vary your NPCs and tactics. If the villain has tossed five rounds worth of monster manual zombies at the PC, maybe he tries a pack of ghouls in the next few rounds.

1.5 Have your NPCs vary their tactics. If the evil cleric has been having no luck with his zombies attacking, he can have them start to grapple. But grappling is a low success rate attack against a vastly higher level character, and will just be more dice rolling if you stick with that. So, have some try to bull rush him off the bridge. And others try to over-run the hero and get by him.

1.75 The basic point of varying tactics in order to prevent it becoming a dice rolling contest is that you need to vary tactics and foes in such a way that the player's best options change. If the zombies are attacking, combat expertise and power attack are both good against them. (Combat Expertise only if the AC is low and Power Attack only if the character's damage is low if we're talking a level 14+ character here though). However, if the zombies start grappling, those could be disadvantages if you rule that the CE and PA attack penalties apply to grapple checks.

2. Another way to simulate ebb and flow is to well, simulate ebb and flow. The bad guys try some tactics for a while and then maybe they retreat, cast a few spells and come back. The hero could move forward and try to stop the spellcasting, but he'd have to move beyond the bridge, making it possible/easier to get by him.

3. Vary the environment. Maybe it's a wooden bridge and one five foot section has a rotten plank that requires a balance check to avoid. If he's bull rushed onto that section, it's a different fight all of a sudden. Or, maybe after ten rounds of great cleaving zombies, the bridge becomes slick with gore and now requires a DC 10 balance check each round to remain standing. The PC could retreat to a dry square, but he'll run out of squares before his enemy runs out of zombies.... Maybe, after figuring out that brute force won't work, the enemy conjures up a storm to blow him off the bridge. Sure, some zombies will fall into the ravine, but 50% losses are acceptable....

4. Parlays and challenges. The villains should stop attacking at some point, step forward and say "very well, you've made your point. You are a worthy adversary. But you can't keep this up forever. I have 10,000 zombies. Retreat now and live another day; what are the people of this town to you that you should die for them?" Then maybe later, he says, "you are truly skilled. Drink the blood of Vol and join us. We can offer you immortality; do not choose death instead."

Or perhaps, the villain chooses to challenge him to single combat instead. "You have fared well against slaves and scum, but now you face Enpeecee Vilanus. Let our duel this day decide the fate of armies." If Enpeecee Vilanus is not the BBEG, then, after his death, the hordes of darkness will rush forward again.

5. Another thing to consider is magic--not just for the obvious ways. If you change the PC's abilities through magic, you will change the way he has to fight. For instance, if you hit him with a ray of enfeeblement or ray of exhaustion, he may find it harder to great cleave the minions and discover that forms of attack (like grapple, disarm, or bull rush that were formerly laughable are now very threatening). That will also force him to vary his tactics.

 

[Stalker0]

Also, check out the mob template from the dmg II. This can give you a way to handle 50 guys at once without a whole lot of dice rolling, which is good if he ever starts wading into the fury.

 

[Dirigible]

Naw, don't make it static. Give the guy a time limit to get to a certain place, and he has to run through a lot of interesting locations and get past TONS of foes as quickly as possible.

That's a worthwhile suggestion. Stand there and defeating an army ala the Widow vs the 88 Ninjas is badass; but charging through a gauntlet is more playable.

Sounds impressively cinematic. Now what do you do if you're rolling hot and the player is rolling cold that day? That's bad enough when it happens to a party, but when the 'party' is one character it can end the whole campaign in one session.

Mook rules... and I love the taste of fudge

He's returning to his homeland which had been invaded and conquered (by what, I don't know). He's fighting his way up a long mountain pathway, bordered by cliffs going down on one side and cliffs going up on the other.

I like that. Wasn't there a scene in one of the Amber books with a battle along a mountain-side stairway?

I like the idea of breaking up the endless fight with both flashbacks (going back and establishing exactly why this character is so über), as well as having different locations for scenes along whatever pathway you choose. You could even break the session into two halves.

Hmm. At the very least, I could break it up with 'minibosses'; the horde brings up an ogre or a siege engine or a mage.

Great advice, E-B, and everyone!

 

[Satori]

Here's an idea I've been dorking around with.

"Village of the Dead"

I recently saw "Shaun of the Dead", and it made me want to throw a one shotter with the characters in the middle of a city.

Maybe your PC comes across a mid sized city, rents a room, hires some entertainment, then goes to sleep...

...only wake up and find everyone within the city dead.

Why did they die? Disease? Magic?

Who is responsible?

Can it be stopped?

Throw in the fact that the city's inhabitants begin to rise again...and you've got a creepy horror/adventure movie!

Also, since 2 HD zombies aren't very scary, use 6 HD ghouls and create a bizarre, wasting disease that causes 1 hp damage every hour per ghoul strike.

Sure, he might laugh at a horde of 15 ghouls shambling towards him...but will he laugh when he's taking 27 points of unhealable damage hourly?