El Coro
First Post
There was a thread here a while back about how to do a skill challenge as a chase through a masquerade festival, and it got me thinking of how to turn it into something more.
Unmasked is a short adventure for five 3rd to 5th-level players, taking place during a masquerade festival in a crowded city. The players will engage in a fast-paced chase through the city’s streets, facing a series of short skill challenges and quick encounters in an attempt to keep up with and apprehend a masked villain.
The adventure takes place in 5 chapters, each one containing a quick skill challenge to further the chase, and 3 of the chapters including a short encounter.
Most of the skill challenges are very short (2-3 successes), and work a little differently than usual 4E skill challenges. The skill challenge ends when a player makes the required Perception check (can be made once per round by any player), and every primary skill success lowers the Perception check DC. The idea here is that you're trying to find the masked man in the crowd, and the primary skills help you get a better look until you finally locate him with the Perception check (which could even be made on the first turn, if the roll is good enough).
The encounters and skill challenges all have a soft limit on the number of rounds it takes for the players to complete them, applying a bonus or penalty to the next chapter. Though both a success and failure still lead to the next chapter, a success means that the players finished it quickly and are hot on the heels of the masked man.
There are a total of 5 skill challenges and 2 encounters with round limits--if the players succeed on 4 or more of the 7 challenges/limits, the masked man is much weaker in the final fight (he's exhausted from the players being close behind him the whole time).
Flavor text is included for every chapter and skill challenge skill, if you like that sort of thing. Each encounter includes a map you can print and cut out to use.
The PDf can be downloaded here.
Or you can download it without the map here.
Enjoy! I'd love to hear any thoughts, comments, or questions.
Unmasked is a short adventure for five 3rd to 5th-level players, taking place during a masquerade festival in a crowded city. The players will engage in a fast-paced chase through the city’s streets, facing a series of short skill challenges and quick encounters in an attempt to keep up with and apprehend a masked villain.
The adventure takes place in 5 chapters, each one containing a quick skill challenge to further the chase, and 3 of the chapters including a short encounter.
Most of the skill challenges are very short (2-3 successes), and work a little differently than usual 4E skill challenges. The skill challenge ends when a player makes the required Perception check (can be made once per round by any player), and every primary skill success lowers the Perception check DC. The idea here is that you're trying to find the masked man in the crowd, and the primary skills help you get a better look until you finally locate him with the Perception check (which could even be made on the first turn, if the roll is good enough).
The encounters and skill challenges all have a soft limit on the number of rounds it takes for the players to complete them, applying a bonus or penalty to the next chapter. Though both a success and failure still lead to the next chapter, a success means that the players finished it quickly and are hot on the heels of the masked man.
There are a total of 5 skill challenges and 2 encounters with round limits--if the players succeed on 4 or more of the 7 challenges/limits, the masked man is much weaker in the final fight (he's exhausted from the players being close behind him the whole time).
Flavor text is included for every chapter and skill challenge skill, if you like that sort of thing. Each encounter includes a map you can print and cut out to use.
The PDf can be downloaded here.
Or you can download it without the map here.
Enjoy! I'd love to hear any thoughts, comments, or questions.
