The Long, Hard Road: Help me waylay a party of 5

[Buttercup]

My party of 5 2nd level players will be setting out for a big city that is about 300 miles away. They are the advance party for a group of clerics that is moving many old & infirm to a new, safer home. The clerics will have hired guards to protect their wagon train, but they want the PCs to go on ahead and clear the way, and to report back if they find trouble that the clerics need to go around. I'm hoping that this will take so long that the party won't reach the city until they're 4th level, or nearly so. Why? Because they've heard rumors of a mysterious complex of ruins near this city, and if I know my players, they're going to want to check it out at once. I plan to run Rappun Athuk as the ruin, which is recommended for "at least" 6 level 3 characters. So I figure 5 level 4 should be good. The other thing is that all but one of my players is inexperienced or hasn't played for 10 years. So I'm looking for encounters to waylay them with. I can easily throw in small communities, small ruins, or what have you. Geographically, they're crossing about 250 miles of plains, and 50 miles of forest at the end.

Let me give you some background.

The clerics are leaving a border town because their goddess is withdrawing her protection from it, due to the local warlords foul traffic in slaves and drugs. The party is nervous enough about the Goddess's decision that they are eager to get the hell out of Dodge.

The indigenous race around here are shapeshifters(dopplegangers). I don't want to throw too many of these at the party, for obvious reasons. However, they did just kill one, who was fairly important (the PCs didn't know this), so the party has now captured their attention.

Further, they shut down the drug trade and this season's slave trade in this border town, thus earning the enmity of the Warlord's son. (The Warlord is an addict and useless, unbeknownst to the party. The son holds all the power.) So now Biono, this son, also wants them dead. He'll want it even more when the shapeshifters attack and destroy his town, thinking that the PCs were sent by him.

Here's the party makeup:

Fighter 2
Sorcerer1/Fighter 1
Bard 2
Rogue 2
Druid 2 (hasn't joined the party yet)

Now, I can throw bandits at them, or wild animals, or even some more ratmen (Creature Collection II). But none of that seems quite involved enough to waylay them for a really long time. So I was hoping someone here would have a nice, juicy, evil suggestion?

 

[Cyclops]

The PCs see smoke up ahead. around a turn they see a burned out cabin. One central wooden pillar still stands, and a woman about 30ish is tied to it. The cabin is what a typical homesteader would have.

Hulking in front of her is an ogre, back to the party. Its wearing half plate, and its speaking to the woman: "where is treasure?!" it demands. before she can answer, it punches her in the stomach. She faints.
By now the party should be charging. The ogre, the woman, and most importantly, the FLOOR is an illusion. The goal is to get the tough fighters and any backstabers to fall in a 10 foot pit.

Should the party hail the beast it will place a shortsword (its dagger) to her throat, and demand their valuables.

Should the party try misile fire, the beast will be immune, turn and look at the party fingering an amulet-he laughs with a toothy grin. Again, the goal is to get the party to charge.

The ambush. One female human illusionist, 4 worgs to make the pit more interesting. A goblin ranger to control the worgs. 4 goblin archers, and two goblin fighters.

The illusionist is currently wearing an Alterself spell-she is a goblin shaman in the background-she wont enter into any combat. But the party met her true self at an inn down the road. Adventurers mean magic and wealth. At the inn, she spoke with the party, cast discrete detect magics, and likely served them a few drinks.

The goblins are charmed. they believe they are on a holy mission to enrich the shrine back at the lair. Actually they are AWOL, and will be punished severely. The true benificiary is the enchantress who will pocket what she can, and abandon her toys at the first sign of trouble.

Possble flaws in the illusion: IF the party takes the time to study (and I have never met a group of of PCs who did), but IF they do: they might notice that there is no smell to the smoke. Or that the wooden floor is in good condition considering the rest of the cabin just burned down.
The illusionist is good, but she is human. She is on her guard, but a stealthy thief with a good move silent role could sneak past her. A surprise arrow could sail right THRU the Ogre!
But I doubt you will need any help with flaws, the PCs may just charge.

 

[Cyclops]

The robber baron.

A local lord needs cash. And quite convieniently a major crossroads lies on his lands. Merchants, caravans, and travelors pay heavily to pass thru-they will pay even if they decide to turn back.
At any bridge, crossroads, or a sudden turn in the main road (to surprise the PC's with) they come across a group of lord's men. They wear the livery of the robber lord, and they wear nice armor.
You don't need a lot of men here-just enought for the PC's to beat up easliy. One captain, and 3 first level warriors should do it.

To the captain, armed travelors independant of any lord means one of two things. Rebels, or adventurers. Either one can be shaken down for cash. So he will demand the surrender of weapons armor magic and cash.

If the PC's are worth their salt, they will thrash this upstart, loot his men, and sell the weapons in the next county. thats the goal.
The men at least should auto fail Sleep spells.

Now this lord has a personal score to settle with the PC's. Its a matter of honor (twisted, yes, but to this lord geek, its honor).

He will start by sending his men out after the party. after a few failures, he will hire a spy to learn about them, and later assassins. his whole rule is corrupt, his fellow lords hate him, and he does things like kidnap noble daughters for his evil son's to wed. In short the PCs will feel led to take him down. Of course, hated or not, they will need to vamoose out of that kingdom-helped by the other lords of course

If their names become known, possbly a kings honor may be stung-or failing that, the robber baron's extended family might become involved...

Every now and then, the PCs LOVE to flaunt authority!

Of course after a few encounters like this. the PCs might begin to feel they are the pebbles that start avalanches. PCs might even learn to be more discrete....NAH! never happen.

 

[Buttercup]

Heh. I like that second suggestion. And you know, what if the warlord hired an illusionist to hassle, capture or kill the PCs? I could combine both scenarios...

Keep 'em coming, please!

 

[Salamander Napolean]

Have the shape-shifters mess with their heads; not a direct confrontation or combat, but something tricky. Maybe by posing as one of their cleric employers, or as someone else that they know and trust, the doppelgangers will feed them dangerous misinformation. That way the party will get sidetracked, encounter enemies they would have avoided, and they'll learn to be a little more wary.
Sometimes enemies aren't dangerous just b/c they have more hit dice. You could make the doppelganger possess some item that is strange and notable. When they encounter him later on in a different form but w/ the same item, they'll figure out what happened and be introduced to a recurring villain.

 

[Xarlen]

Check out 'Ettin Got Your Tongue?' I posted. But, I'm planning on doing the same thing, for a 9th level party, soon. Here's some ideas:

Bathroom Horror.

One of the PCs has to go to the bathroom. While going off the side of the road, he is unaware that his pitstop has taken him right next to the burrow of a giant Trap Door Spider.

Pixie Prank (Of Doooooom!).

A pixie sorceror has taken up the challange of testing the merit of adventurers, or prehaps is working with bandits or those toll men.

The Pixie's ploy is to polymorph itself into a gnome, and set up a fake snare, to make it appear as if the gnome has been caught in a goblin (or shapeshifter) made trap. It will use Detect Evil to see if anyone approaching is manevolent. When the party approaches, the pixie-now-gnome will call for help, and offer reward for freeing it.

When freed, the gnome will offer the party the reward of a Magic weapon (Trust me . If they refuse, the gnome will smile, and disappear. If they accept, the gnome will ask the fighter what weapon he prefers. When the order is made, the pixie walks off into the brush, to where a mimic is being kept. Casting Nystul's Magical Aura on the mimic, and telling it to change shape into the desired weapon, the gnome then returns to the party, handing the mimic-weapon to the fighter.

The gnome will offer to travel with them for about a mile, asking questions about their adventures or their tactics, in a casual manner. Then the pixie will go off, disappear, and fly ahead to a toll booth like above, or bandits, whatnot, inform them of what the pixie learned, then be off.

When the ambush or fight comes, the Mimic will attack the fighter as soon as he tries to use the new magic weapon, grappling and slamming him (And anyone who comes to help).

 

[Buttercup]

Ooo! Good stuff, all. I like the idea of having the shapeshifters mess with their heads. The party needs to learn to think through things a bit better. And I like the idea of testing them too. Only I don't have any gnomes in my world. But I do have lizardmen, who the party has just helped. They have gotten into the habbit of thinking of them as victims, so a trapped 'lizardman' would work nicely.

Thanks everyone! I'm still open for more ideas, so keep 'em coming, please!

 

[Wicht]

I have found that giant ants work well to level a party up quickly from 1st to 2nd or even 2nd to 3rd.

Giant Worker Ants begin hasteling the party and/or caravan at night, trying to drag off food (think ants at a picnic). Being rather large and heavy, they make a general mess of things while they are at it and though they do not initiate combat, they will attack anything (horses) or anyone who appears to be threatening them. If enough worker ants are killed, warrior ants will soon appear to check out the threat to their colony and allow the worker ants to carry the gatherings to the nest. If the ants are played right, it should be a chaotic mess, though not necessarily as dangerous as it might appear to be at first glance (with ants everywhere getting into everything)

or

The PCs spot a giant ant carrying a very large shiny rock into its hole. Do they care to wiggle into the ant tunnels in order to find out how valuable it is?

 

[Wicht]

Oh, and from what I can tell the first few levels of Rappan Athuk is not unsuited for 5th-6th level parties and even 4th level parties may find aspects of it very challenging.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

I don't know too much about your campaign or players, but I'll try to help a bit.
We'll assume, by now, some of the party is 3rd level, so I'll jump up the difficulty a bit.

Let's see, the PC's are ahead of the caravan, and come across the river that the clerics are planning to use to water the animals and resupply the water casks.
The water is befouled, and if the party chooses to investigate upriver, they will find several deer chained to posts, dead in the water, poisoning the water of the river.
There are several goblins here, two archers, six warriors (give them the warrior class out of the DMG), backed up by a low level shaman. They are all hiding in pits dug in the ground and covered with woven grass mats, and the pits are interlinked by tunnels. The one that the shaman hides in has a tunnel that leads to a dug out cavern, containing 9 bunks, and supplies (food, clean water, and arrows) for the goblins. Hiding down here is the leader of the hit team, a goblin blue (see Psionic Handbook monsters) who communicates with the one of the Warlord's troops. They will find written orders to the goblins to kill the PC's and destroy the caravan, since they interfered with important operations and lured the dopplegangers into attacking the village (totally untrue, but that's how the Warlord sees it)

If that helps, or fits in the style of your campaign, let me know, and I'll post some more stuff.
(Like goblins attacking the caravan itself while the party is back making thier report. The goblins will use fire as a cover (a plains fire is no joke!) and advance behind it to kill off any survivors.