- The idea of having a special obelisk with a true name on it is loosely inspired by one of the possible endings of the Neverwinter Nights campaign "Hordes of the Underdark", except there all you have to do to get Mephistopheles' true name is pay a guy a bunch of gold. In that game, with the true name you can order Mephistopheles to die, become your servant, or hand rulership of his layer of the Hells over to you.
- Another idea is that the PC could literally swap places with Levistus, becoming entombed in the glacier prison. He would be the most safe from other archdevils here.
- He could also go the legitimate route, but that doesn't seem that exciting.
- He could also shift gears and try to take over an Abyssal layer instead, but that's also extremely difficult.
this is primarily what i'm addressing when i said 'don't get bogged down into the mechanics.' by plotting these out and writing them down as the branching paths of possibility, you're constraining things for your group, but more importantly you're constraining things for yourself even more. give them some obvious tools to navigate the social structure (maybe a box full of souls, or mark their souls to give them some level of standing) and let them start getting their information by interacting with people (in this case, devils) within the competition for the endgoal (rulership of Stygia, in this case?)
basically my point was that you're funneling yourself and your creativity by marking down these "four paths" when social intrigue is really about the agents within the game and how they maneuver/respond to the actions of the others. if you try to funnel them down into one of these main buckets (especially by saying "you can only do these things") you're going to end up with a "if x, then y" flow chart of reactions that may feel inorganic or even worse your group does something squirrelly and you are left in pure improv territory (which I don't know if you're more improv or prep leaning but i get the impression prep leaning)
I dont really see the issue. Writing his name onto the obelisk seems like a trap of traps. He becomes ruler of the tower sure. But Asmodeus shows up and commands him using his true name. He is now an NPC. Maybe he dies, maybe he doesnt. Maybe the party fights Asmodeus and their wizard friend, maybe they do not. Maybe this fulfils the contract on his soul, maybe it does not. But the player is 100% no longer in his own control and is now controlled directly by Asmodeus.
to further expound because i have a lot of thoughts, i'm not saying don't give any thought to the how, but what i mean is don't let that dictate your session and how the actual 'competition' goes down. the mechanics of how should be a formality they go through (maybe it is an adventure, later) after they've politically outmaneuvered their enemies within the confines of the game.
to draw an example from my own campaign, my group is now smack dab in the middle of a tense "cold war" of ascension to the throne of the elven queendom on their continent. one of the players found out that, surprise, his mother who raised him is not his biological mother--his biological mother is the 2k+ year old Eladrin, the last of her kind on the prime material, the elven queen. she wants to retire, and she had an heir already, but that heir died, and the other heirs are... unsuitable for various reasons. this means the humble ranger boy from the backwoods is suddenly the dark horse, and his newly-met half-siblings have various differing opinions.
without going into too much detail because i have some player eyes here, i have a lot of agents within this competition (5 other heirs), and how they interact is driven by their goals and impulses and methods and means. i don't know how my group plans to eventually get past them, and i don't have any routes mapped out for them to do so. i don't need to. i know what the opposition wants to do, and so i can have them react appropriately and drive the story forward.
this allows the protagonists (my group) to drive the story and their choices matter way more than if they just pick 1 of however-many doors that i have already laid out.
Once again, don't know what sort of campaign you're running, but:
1) becoming archdevil is an adventure unto itself. Perhaps once you're done doing whatever it is you're currently doing you can put that into focus but it isn't something I'd want to sideline. I mean it sounds like your players are a bunch of murderhobos, it would give them a chance to explore the price of their fealty, for example. Perhaps the PC wanting to become the archdevil doesn't because someone else in the party outwitted him/her.
2) There's 2 ways to become a devil: be another sort of outsider and become one (ala Zariel) or be a mortal, die, and have your soul twisted until it's ready. Perhaps the PC (once again, sounds like a murderhobo, so pretty evil already) could barter to skip the torture and be able to keep his memories. The campaign could then becomes a twisted pokemon game where the party guide and nurture their little lemure all the way up to archdevil status!
3) If he's going to stay mortal and try rule the hells (again, not sure if Glasya or Asmodeus are going to rule in the PCs favour), he's going to have to find a way to become immortal. Otherwise he's a barely noticable interruption in the standard day to day runnings of the nine hells.
Part of it is I don't feel like I do a very good job when I improv versus when I write things down. I don't want to railroad everyone, but presenting them the "illusion of choice" by having a few pre-planned routes I can go to makes my prep more manageable.
Next time I start a campaign I think I'll at least start with a portion of a published adventure to reduce my workload. I know I have to spend at least a cumulative 12 hours or so a week (probably more than that, honestly) prepping for my 3 hour Sunday sessions. I mostly enjoy it until it comes Sunday morning and I'm still not sure what exactly I want to do.
Part of it is I don't feel like I do a very good job when I improv versus when I write things down. I don't want to railroad everyone, but presenting them the "illusion of choice" by having a few pre-planned routes I can go to makes my prep more manageable.
Next time I start a campaign I think I'll at least start with a portion of a published adventure to reduce my workload. I know I have to spend at least a cumulative 12 hours or so a week (probably more than that, honestly) prepping for my 3 hour Sunday sessions. I mostly enjoy it until it comes Sunday morning and I'm still not sure what exactly I want to do.
Improving stuff gets better as you go along. When I started out I had flow charts and was fixated on making sure the encounter math was right.
Now I wing most of it. Even the monsters. Either the players get what they expect (but not boredom) or some "interesting" subversion thereof (ok, not every idea pans out :P ).
I find that if you have a "working" world (i.e. what's going on now, what'll happen next week, etc) then you don't need to plan thaaaat much ahead or railroad as hard.
Is this your first campaign by any chance? My first was a shoe stringed together affair, exploring whatever I thought the players would find interesting (either blind guesses or going on stuff they mentioned). After putting a big bow tie around that one the next campaign story just fit together better.
Keep in mind that railroads don't just limit the players, they limit you, too.
Part of it is I don't feel like I do a very good job when I improv versus when I write things down. I don't want to railroad everyone, but presenting them the "illusion of choice" by having a few pre-planned routes I can go to makes my prep more manageable.
Next time I start a campaign I think I'll at least start with a portion of a published adventure to reduce my workload. I know I have to spend at least a cumulative 12 hours or so a week (probably more than that, honestly) prepping for my 3 hour Sunday sessions. I mostly enjoy it until it comes Sunday morning and I'm still not sure what exactly I want to do.
Improving stuff gets better as you go along. When I started out I had flow charts and was fixated on making sure the encounter math was right.
Now I wing most of it. Even the monsters. Either the players get what they expect (but not boredom) or some "interesting" subversion thereof (ok, not every idea pans out :P ).
I find that if you have a "working" world (i.e. what's going on now, what'll happen next week, etc) then you don't need to plan thaaaat much ahead or railroad as hard.
Is this your first campaign by any chance? My first was a shoe stringed together affair, exploring whatever I thought the players would find interesting (either blind guesses or going on stuff they mentioned). After putting a big bow tie around that one the next campaign story just fit together better.
Keep in mind that railroads don't just limit the players, they limit you, too.
It's not my first campaign, but it's by far my longest.
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joshgotroDeviled EggThe Land of REAL CHILIRegistered Userregular
My two come every week players regardless of life players want to start up Lost Mines and coast into HotDQ/Tiamat.
Part of it is I don't feel like I do a very good job when I improv versus when I write things down. I don't want to railroad everyone, but presenting them the "illusion of choice" by having a few pre-planned routes I can go to makes my prep more manageable.
Next time I start a campaign I think I'll at least start with a portion of a published adventure to reduce my workload. I know I have to spend at least a cumulative 12 hours or so a week (probably more than that, honestly) prepping for my 3 hour Sunday sessions. I mostly enjoy it until it comes Sunday morning and I'm still not sure what exactly I want to do.
i have a full home brew setting going and my prep time per week is 3-ish hours at most, but usually only an hour or so (it’s been more because they’re headed to a dungeon soon so i had to spin that up from scratch)
here’s an example of my notes for my last two sessions (it’s an image, my players better don’t look in the spoiler you know who you are)
everyone is going to have their own methodology of writing and formatting notes, and because i use onenote i have places directly linked in there, but there’s a part in there where I talk about npc goals
it might help ease your prep burden and adventure planning in general if instead of focusing on the “what” you focus more on the “who”
also excuse the awkward formatting and typos and sometimes half finished thoughts. it’s a living document and basically everything is a mnemonic/reference to jog my memory inside the session.
also when i lay down scenes not everything happens how i write it down (which is why i try to keep things very general)
edit: it bears mentioning there’s no wrong way to go about it either. even if this stuff isn’t helpful to hexmage (and sorry for offering a worddump of unsolicited advice) maybe it’s of use to some of our lurkers
Note: this does not apply for the first session where you should provide some impetus for the players to work with.
1) players tell you what theyre going to do next session this session. If they want to go to the temple of toffee then fine you prep that. If they decide the day before they dont want to? Too bad they told you that is where they were.
2) goals not actions; you cannot predict every eventuality so if you know what the characters involve want, and what they know, then you can fairly easily construct what they do on the fly
3) make a spreadsheet of monster stats so you can cook up a monster on the fly.
Someone did a break down of monster stats and reverse engineered their creation. The advice fits neatly onto ONE PAGE and allows you to churn out monsters rather quickly. Take a gander!
Would it be wierd in SKT if Zephros showed up at the end of chapter 2 instead of chapter 1?
His only job in the module is to ferry the party somewhere and give details about he Ordening and the plot, correct?
Why can't he ferry the party from Triboar to Everlund, I stead of Nightstone to Triboar?
He never even showed up in my SKT campaign. I decided that his castle was too goofy and my party wouldn't respond well to the 'fated heroes' angle he wants to throw around, so I cut him! Instead after chapter 2 right at the start of chapter 3 they had a long discussion with a Harper Wizard (with illusory powerpoints!) about the Ordning.
Maybe the Z man will appear in the campaign sometime if I have need of him.
Right. Ok. My point though is that the PCs need some inkling of the greater plot at hand, rather than just a random giant attack, which is all you get starting at Chapter 2. The module uses a goofy cloud giant in Chapter 1, where you used a Harper wizard.
The story needs something to tell the players that there is a story here, and not just an encounter with giants.
I used a Harper wizard to open chapter 3, just as you were asking about!
When and how you do that hook is pretty flexible. I'd even be willing to argue that the events of chapter 2 coming before the hook makes the campaign work better, the PCs will actually have an idea of the power and chaos they're facing.
Honestly the difference between the end of chapter 1 and 2 is likely one or two sessions anyway.
Beware though that your party doesn't immediately go hostile to Zeph. That is probably the largest danger in changing up the timing, if your party decides to go murderhobo on every giant after chapter 2.
Would it be wierd in SKT if Zephros showed up at the end of chapter 2 instead of chapter 1?
His only job in the module is to ferry the party somewhere and give details about he Ordening and the plot, correct?
Why can't he ferry the party from Triboar to Everlund, I stead of Nightstone to Triboar?
He never even showed up in my SKT campaign. I decided that his castle was too goofy and my party wouldn't respond well to the 'fated heroes' angle he wants to throw around, so I cut him! Instead after chapter 2 right at the start of chapter 3 they had a long discussion with a Harper Wizard (with illusory powerpoints!) about the Ordning.
Maybe the Z man will appear in the campaign sometime if I have need of him.
Right. Ok. My point though is that the PCs need some inkling of the greater plot at hand, rather than just a random giant attack, which is all you get starting at Chapter 2. The module uses a goofy cloud giant in Chapter 1, where you used a Harper wizard.
The story needs something to tell the players that there is a story here, and not just an encounter with giants.
I used a Harper wizard to open chapter 3, just as you were asking about!
When and how you do that hook is pretty flexible. I'd even be willing to argue that the events of chapter 2 coming before the hook makes the campaign work better, the PCs will actually have an idea of the power and chaos they're facing.
Honestly the difference between the end of chapter 1 and 2 is likely one or two sessions anyway.
Beware though that your party doesn't immediately go hostile to Zeph. That is probably the largest danger in changing up the timing, if your party decides to go murderhobo on every giant after chapter 2.
Yeah. I think I've wrapped my mind around the module now and I'm good with it. Thanks for the push, guys.
And if my level 5 players want to go murderhobo on muthafuckin' giants then I'll gladly splat them if that's how the dice fall.
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NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Someone did a break down of monster stats and reverse engineered their creation. The advice fits neatly onto ONE PAGE and allows you to churn out monsters rather quickly. Take a gander!
The only thing I really prep before a game these days are the set piece encounters. I like having it all ready to go with minimal slow down at the table.
Maps ready beforehand, baddies all statted out and ready to go. Maybe even the first few turns of a bosses actions noted down. That kind of stuff.
- brainstorming multiple possibilities for actions the villains are taking behind the scenes, both to further their own plans and to interfere with other villains and the PCs
- looking up obscure D&D locations, characters, and items to incorporate; this last session I just finished included an artifact related to a 4E primordial named Umboras, Mephistopheles' half-devil, half-elemental daughter Burning Soul from a 3E Dungeon magazine adventure, a duke of Phlegethos who hates Belial but is loyal to Fierna named Bathym (probably from 2E & 3E), a beholder loyal to Geryon named Bleg, the archdevil Alloces from 4E, several references to the 2E Dungeon magazine adventure Bzallin's Blacksphere having just occurred, etc
- coming up with ideas for social encounters, like the one I had today where a rakshasa and an erinyes were debating over the actions of two legions in the Blood War, which had the subtext that one legion answered to Dispater and another to Mammon (the player actually a made a History check to see if there was an unsung third-party and mentioned a succubus mercenary's contributions; this intimate knowledge of current events in the Hells from a mortal impressed the rakshasa, who expressed a desire to do business in the future)
- deciding which poster maps to use, if any, and using dungeon tiles and backing board to make custom maps if necessary
It might ease a little time to spend some prep-work to come up with "computations" that will allow you to make those "behind the scenes actions" decisions within the game
like, instead of brainstorming a bunch of things for these NPCs to do or not do, instead come up with a list of traits/goals that would allow you easily make a decision at the table of what they'll do, and play accordingly
a info/rant {this in itself has come up with tons of cool ideas but I fall flat because the lack of certain things or people don't want to play it. Western style D&D with pistols and magic this was far more complex than just this brief thing can say and the one I have been working on for sometime a world with suppressed/forgotten magic how alchemy reigns supreme and other things that's just D&D stuff. I still have ideas I have kicking around from the West end's Star Wars I wanted to I feel the WotC and FFG ones are lacking in this regard.}
from there think of do I make player's character's classes or have them do it? Then make plans of what to do where the story should go what to do if it gets off track and tons of other things.
Today's session was pretty great! It mostly concerned a garden party at Glasya's palace in Malbolge with games that built up points towards winning a small treasure horde taken from the keep of the wizard Bzallin, who worked for the lesser demon lord J'zzhalshrak.
The enchanter wizard cheated a devil out of its business expenses account of 100,000 GP at the Bank of Mammon and used Planar Binding to press the minor archdevil Alloces into service, tasking him with devising a plan to kill one of the paladin PCs. Said paladin had a private audience with Mephistopheles, then walked with Glasya through her Garden of Delights before dancing with her in the exhibition hall of her palace (not wanting to be embarassed by the paladin in case he was a bad dancer, she used magic to give him both advantage and a plus 5 bonus to Performance checks). The paladin willingly consented to Glasya's magic being worked upon him; unbeknownst to him, said magic also included a Dominate Monster effect that she could invoke within the next 8 hours...
With all that and more accomplished, the party was tasked by Glasya with infiltrating the tower in Nessus where Levistus' true name is recorded. The enchanter, having secretly been given knowledge as to how to replace Levistus' true name with his own and take Levistus' place as an archdevil, ponders whether to make use of this or try another path.
. The enchanter, having secretly been given knowledge as to how to replace Levistus' true name with his own and take Levistus' place as an archdevil, ponders whether to make use of this or try another path.
So this is something the enchanter ought to let you know asap, so you don't have to spend any more time on the other options currently on the menu.
Ok, maybe not kill them but I definitely need them to be challenged.
Just so we are all on the same page, they are way too powerful and it is COMPLETELY my fault. I have given them sooo much magic and it's all way overpowered.
I used a complete 8 hour session to throw traps and puzzles at them, so they wouldn't be able to use their awesome artifacts, and that was super fun but they really wanted to test out their new toys and our very next session (also 8 hours) the following happened:
I dropped them into Hellgate Keep. I ripped off the 4 temples from Princes of the Apocalypse and stuck in my own baddies but the themes (fire, water, etc, etc) are all there.
Anyway, their very first encounter was against two Nalfeshnees (the party is all level 16) and 6 pumped up drow elves. The encounter happened in the Temple of Eternal Flame in the forges.
One demon was one shotted and the other enslaved. The drow guards were either thrown into the lava, banished, or in the case of one poor bastard, given to the slaves for super fun playtime.
They steam rolled a pair of Fire Giants (in full plate mail), a Balor (who was also one shotted) and two Hellkeeper Captains with lances that do all the things an Arcane Archer can do...in the same encounter.
My aim was to just drain their resources but they have a Rod of Sanctuary that I need to fucking break in half.
So I need some clever ideas on how to take their shit away or not make their shit work.
They are getting ready to face off against the big bad of this temple, a demon named Piemon the Beheader(thanks Hereditary!) who knows they are coming, 2 glabrezus, 2 vrocks, a bone devil and an open portal to hell that spits out a fresh demon every round.
I'm thinking that when they figure out they have to destroy the portal, that it blows up and destroys some of their shit but anything that's a little less on the nose would be welcome.
Again, I made this mess but I need help cleaning it up. Any ideas?
Null magic zones? Enemies with rust type effects where failing to resist them destroys an item (or unmagics it, if magic)? If they're not dutiful in setting Alarm there's always robbing them while they sleep.
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KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
Rod of Security? The thing that lets you bamf away mid combat, take a long rest without interruption while gaining free healing, then you come back and clean up?
Have things set a trap for them while they're gone. If they're gone 8 hours, that's a lot of time. If they use it to regroup, heal up with potions etc then come right back it's a little trickier.
I'd play it fair.
Enough fights to drain their resources so they can't style on the end boss and his minions. If they try to rod of security, let them. Boss will use the time to trap the area they poofed from. I'd go for a lava pit and outright kill a pc or two to show them you mean business. Or an antimagic field so you can style on their spellcasters.
When they beat the baddie you could negotiate the resurrection of their dead friends for the enemies victory/survival.
Orrrr if you don't want to be that mean include enough monsters for 1 use of the rod. If they attempt to wait the 10 days out, the baddie wins.
tip.. tip.. TALLY.. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
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MrVyngaardLive From New EtoileStraight Outta SosariaRegistered Userregular
edited April 2019
This sounds like a job for rust monster kaiju, which are known to devour artifacts as nothing else will sustain their massive bulk except that...
Sages theorize they fall from the very stars, dig into a planet, and devour its core. After that, the planet breaks up and they sail away into the night looking for more hearts of iron to consume.
MrVyngaard on
"now I've got this mental image of caucuses as cafeteria tables in prison, and new congressmen having to beat someone up on inauguration day." - Raiden333
So we're making new characters for a one off (the DM needs time to get the story of the main campaign in order). Level 17 with 1 legendary, 1 Rare, 1 uncommon.
Right now I have a Half Elf Forge Cleric. I wanted to rolled Air Gensi Knowledge Cleric but for a shorter combat focused game this seemed better.
For my items:
Rod of Resurrection
Amulet of Health
Ring of Regeneration
Ok, maybe not kill them but I definitely need them to be challenged.
Just so we are all on the same page, they are way too powerful and it is COMPLETELY my fault. I have given them sooo much magic and it's all way overpowered.
All their broken-good stuff is resonating with some mad demon/wizard/demon wizard's plan to destroy reality. As they progress through and destroy a twisted siege engine that's tunneled through the very fabric of the planes, it breaks, piece by piece. You can design encounters that share a theme with their gear as kind of one last hurrah, and when the whole mad scheme ingloriously fails, they can loot more reasonable replacements from the wreckage.
Ok, maybe not kill them but I definitely need them to be challenged.
Just so we are all on the same page, they are way too powerful and it is COMPLETELY my fault. I have given them sooo much magic and it's all way overpowered.
All their broken-good stuff is resonating with some mad demon/wizard/demon wizard's plan to destroy reality. As they progress through and destroy a twisted siege engine that's tunneled through the very fabric of the planes, it breaks, piece by piece. When the whole mad scheme ingloriously fails, they can loot more reasonable replacements from the wreckage.
This is excellent but I would be careful to signpost it
The least good magical item starts vibrating when they enter the engine. It breaks in the third room. As they progress more things vibrate and then break two rooms later. If they somehow sprint past the obstacles it slows how fast vibrating things break but not how fast more things begin vibrating, and everything still breaks when the siege engine fails
My session went great yesterday, Zephyros turned into a dog and ran off leaving the party without their senile wizard friend, the rogue found a curious stitched leather vest that, when put on, boiled and turned to ooze, enveloping her and melting through all her nonmagical gear, bonding with her skin and turning her white, the item is gone now, it's part of her - and she no longer has to breath.
"We're not supposed to get cursed items at level 4!", well, get used to it hehehe
On the upside she's really hard to kill now, on the downside she's immune to most healing magic and pretty traumatized
It came in handy later when the party was ambushed by an Oni while walking through the woods, she was instantly killed (!) by the cone of cold, but I ruled that being undead, she's just frozen until somebody thaws her out, at which point regeneration will kick in! Other important events
- Party has a cleric of madness (fun walrock homebrew, if you want to look it up) who dresses like a plague doctor and has expertise in medicine. The party robbed the rich mage's overpriced inn by the doctor convincing the owner he was coming down with something and taking him off to perform unnecessary surgery on him while the rogue and sorcerer pilfered
- The fighter stole all the towels from their room since they're paying 15gp a night for their rooms, which is robbery, so he is going to steal from them
- They found out a group of dopplegangers is cooking people underneath the fancy restaurant (thats where the rogue got the vest from). All but one escaped, but---
- Word is fire giants are headed this way at the head of a bunch of orc cavalry, the city's military garrison of mounted knights having been led off in pursuit of a diversionary force
- The party found a wounded hill giant in a tower, abused by smallfolk, they calmed her down and since the doctor has *expertise* in medicine, he treated her head wound clearing up the amnesia (doing brain surgery to remove the broken off bit of sword and combining it with healing magic) so the hill giant wont try and kill them every few hours as she forgets where she is. After offering up some cows they didn't own as food and some cojoling now they kind of have a pet hill giant, they're keeping her in the forest outside of town as she flatly refuses to fight any giant over her in the "hierarchy" as she is scared of them
- Party is investigating a place of worship for rangers, following a ghostly elf... before an invisible creature cone of colded 4 of them and we ended the session with one person unconscious, one dead (frozen solid), 2 almost dead. They have a full health fighter and npc ranger with them, this should be fun!
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AssuranIs swinging on the SpiralRegistered Userregular
I'm terrible at creating puzzles and interesting traps, but when I did my campaign questionnaire, multiple players commented on how much they liked puzzle encounters and hoped I included more.
Well, they are level 5 and about to enter their first true dungeon. I'd like to have 3 for this dungeon and I'm not afraid of ruthlessly "liberating" traps from other sources to modify and use. For instance, I liberally stole from Tomb of Annihilation last campaign (specifically the wine room and the book on the pedestal).
I think I'm going to rip from Dragon Age and use one of their tile puzzles modified so they have a certain limit on attempts where it will reset and do a bit of damage on failure.
That leaves two more.
So, DND thread, what are your favorite traps/puzzles?
So, DND thread, what are your favorite traps/puzzles?
To be honest, I almost never use either. I tried a slightly modified version of one of the complex traps from Xanathar's Guide to Everything and the players honestly seemed confused as to what was going on.
So, DND thread, what are your favorite traps/puzzles?
To be honest, I almost never use either. I tried a slightly modified version of one of the complex traps from Xanathar's Guide to Everything and the players honestly seemed confused as to what was going on.
This might just be because you dont use them very often.
Not a knock on you or anything, but if traps or puzzles aren't a somewhat regular part of the experience, it would definitely confuse players at first when you use them. They would probably handle them better as they get used to it.
I'm terrible at creating puzzles and interesting traps, but when I did my campaign questionnaire, multiple players commented on how much they liked puzzle encounters and hoped I included more.
Well, they are level 5 and about to enter their first true dungeon. I'd like to have 3 for this dungeon and I'm not afraid of ruthlessly "liberating" traps from other sources to modify and use. For instance, I liberally stole from Tomb of Annihilation last campaign (specifically the wine room and the book on the pedestal).
I think I'm going to rip from Dragon Age and use one of their tile puzzles modified so they have a certain limit on attempts where it will reset and do a bit of damage on failure.
That leaves two more.
So, DND thread, what are your favorite traps/puzzles?
I have liberally stolen puzzles from video games. Liberally.
I'm terrible at creating puzzles and interesting traps, but when I did my campaign questionnaire, multiple players commented on how much they liked puzzle encounters and hoped I included more.
Well, they are level 5 and about to enter their first true dungeon. I'd like to have 3 for this dungeon and I'm not afraid of ruthlessly "liberating" traps from other sources to modify and use. For instance, I liberally stole from Tomb of Annihilation last campaign (specifically the wine room and the book on the pedestal).
I think I'm going to rip from Dragon Age and use one of their tile puzzles modified so they have a certain limit on attempts where it will reset and do a bit of damage on failure.
That leaves two more.
So, DND thread, what are your favorite traps/puzzles?
1. The base calculator
A round chamber with a fine, sandy floor features a door and 4 alcoves. The door, one surmises, will grant the heroes access to where they need to go. In each alcove sits a statue made entirely of metal, the only wear each statue has appears to be the knuckles of each fist; a brownish tinge that, oddly enough, resembles small spots of sand on the floor. Upon closer inspection, the statues are, in fact, iron golems and the sand is bone, blood and organs that have been pounded together into a fine muck. The door features 4 large gem stones that, in turn, are orbited by rings of smaller gem stones. The larger gem stones are not in the door's center, however: a smooth granite surface sits, neigh, beckons to be messed with, and indeed, touching the smooth surface leaves a glowing mark behind that dissipates mere moments later ..
This one is straight forward.
Each gem pattern is number system with a different base. I did mine with 2, 3, 4 and 5. The large gem in the middle tells you what base you're working with, the orbiting gems are the 0, X, X^2, etc. positions. The idea is to simply calculate the 4 numbers and add them together and then write it into the door. Failure results in 4 iron golems punching whatever is in the room to death. The punching continues until a fine paste has been produced. You can hint your players in the right direction with scrawls on the wall and warn them via hostile gestures made by the golems (flexing, punching their hands, crackling knuckles)
2. People are weighed down by their own perceptions
This isn't so much a trap as it is fun for you, the DM. I showed my players a fortified building with obvious loot inside of it. There was no other way in except by a very impressive door with an even more impressive lock on it. It's important to highlight the security aspects of the door. If your players try any sort of gaseous form or stone melding then have it fail, explaining that the stone walls themselves must be magically enhanced. Whatever is inside MUST be good! Next to the door I placed a well. At the bottom of said well is a clear liquid and sitting prominently at the bottom of the well is a magnificent key. The liquid is acid (hopefully they try send someone with a decent passive perception, you can then inform them that as the lower they go the drier and .. more bitey the air gets, overwise horrific acid death). If they try fish it out of the well, inform them that something is blocking the key from being janked up. Allow them to either see the glass (sand) or break it (big rock). At some point, hopefully after someone died, they'll have the key, only to find out it doesn't operate the lock on the door.
Now, you can keep this up and add more layers to it, but the trick is that the door isn't locked. All they had to do was walk up to it and give it a shove.
The treasure in my vault was all gimmicky cursed stuff. A necklace that strangled whoever put it on. An emerald ring that, when put on, forced the person wearing it to dance. A dance that ended with a power pose and an outstretched hand to the heavens. At which point the emerald flew out of the ring to become a disco ball of disintegration rays. Another ring, this one exsanguinated whoever put it on.
3. Team coordination exercise!
This one could be hit and miss, depends on the group. Adapt and flavour according to setting. My group wanted to go dunk an evil alchemist. They enter the room and get hit by a debilitating gas. At which point the alchemist started jumping from player to player jabbing them with a hypodermic full of .. something. Every jab would result in a different effect. The somethings were things for my amusement. Flatulence, an uncontrollable erection, projectile vomitting, bleeding from places where you really don't want to bleed from and so on. An NPC that had accompanied them told that the antidote would save them, however he only knew that the bottle it was kept in was unique.
The puzzle:
I had x tables (x is the player number!) with about 40ish bottles on each (I drew a handout for each player, this was time consuming). 3 drawings contained a unique bottle (I differentiated bottles via bottle shape, cork shape and color). The idea was that the players had to come up with a plan to sort this out whilst being put on the clock. I kept initiative going and each player had 6 seconds to do or say something. Players that were not "up" had to turn the drawing over. The method for solving it isn't hard: kill all duplicates on your drawing and shout out the uniques you have to the others so that they can eliminate the cross drawing uniques.
The closer your players get to finishing, the more you can make them sweat (I find there's no real fair way of adding damage to this; people fuck it up alot): the last jab didn't do anything .. except make you lose 25% of your health. Oh and take a failed death saving throw.
The alchemist himself posed no threat beyond his jab happy nature. I had him commenting on the subjects being tested ("overweight dwarf, male, about 120 years of age") and what effects the different jabs had.
when I design either one, I basically scour the internet for puzzles (or riddles) and work it around, but I also operate around two parallel axes: complexity and urgency
High Urgency <--> Low Urgency
Low complexity <--> High complexity
basically, anytime you put in a puzzle, be cognizant of the time & consequences element. example of two puzzles i used:
the dreadfort braziers
the players have to move through a scaaary haunted fortress and gather 3 magical torches to light three braziers on the walls. it's also filled with scaaaary undead! because this is a low complexity puzzle, the urgency needs to be dialed up and so the undead need to be a presence that magnify and enforce tension as the group gather the torches and then light the braziers. (this is the same puzzle used in Dark Souls 3 in the swamp that leads to the cathedral, btw)
the puzzle of the seasons
the players are in a circular room with a mural painted on the wall that shows the 4 seasons in flux with their associated gods/goddesses. in the center is a patch of soil. the entire room is basically a complex riddle: the solution is to invoke the elements/seasons in sequence. Water/spring to fire/summer to wind/autumn to ice/winter. each element used on the dirt will cause a tree to grow and progress through its life cycle until it crumbles and reveals the key/path forward. this is a high complexity/low urgency puzzle.
also, don't ever rely on riddles/puzzles that rely heavily on "noticing details" within the universe via perception. you'll basically always fall into a scenario where "the things you talk about are the relevant pieces and usually lead right to the answer". an example here is "here's a room and a mirror of the room, what is different?" these types of puzzles fall like a lead weight in a conversation-based game with no actual visuals. (unless of course you present them with two drawings or something but that might feel a little uh, Highlights for Kids-esque)
So in my next session the party is going to be in Malsheem, Asmodeus' palace at the very bottom of Nessus, the final layer of the Nine Hells.
They're level 14.
I want to sell that they need to be clever to survive here, that they're in a place where they are not the top dogs. Just running into combat encounters willy nilly will end with a TPK as there's gonna be a number of pit fiend guards. Clever tactics, spells, "tactical retreats", and ways to cut-off pursuit are vital. The focus should be to get in, accomplish their goal, and get out.
I've given them a lillend ally (which I'm going to base on a planetar with some of the innate spells replaced with bard spells) and a homebrew magic item that allows a 1 minute short rest and a 4 hour long rest (both once per day). They also have multiple sources of healing, including two paladins, a druid/ranger with a staff of healing, and several healing potions.
I don't know exactly who will be able to attend next session, but the entirety of PCs looks like this:
- Oath of Ancients Paladin
- Oath of Vengeance Paladin (this one has revivify, not sure about the other)
- Berserker Barbarian
- Druid/Ranger
- Diviner Wizard
- Enchanter Wizard
- Illusionist Wizard
Posts
this is primarily what i'm addressing when i said 'don't get bogged down into the mechanics.' by plotting these out and writing them down as the branching paths of possibility, you're constraining things for your group, but more importantly you're constraining things for yourself even more. give them some obvious tools to navigate the social structure (maybe a box full of souls, or mark their souls to give them some level of standing) and let them start getting their information by interacting with people (in this case, devils) within the competition for the endgoal (rulership of Stygia, in this case?)
basically my point was that you're funneling yourself and your creativity by marking down these "four paths" when social intrigue is really about the agents within the game and how they maneuver/respond to the actions of the others. if you try to funnel them down into one of these main buckets (especially by saying "you can only do these things") you're going to end up with a "if x, then y" flow chart of reactions that may feel inorganic or even worse your group does something squirrelly and you are left in pure improv territory (which I don't know if you're more improv or prep leaning but i get the impression prep leaning)
to draw an example from my own campaign, my group is now smack dab in the middle of a tense "cold war" of ascension to the throne of the elven queendom on their continent. one of the players found out that, surprise, his mother who raised him is not his biological mother--his biological mother is the 2k+ year old Eladrin, the last of her kind on the prime material, the elven queen. she wants to retire, and she had an heir already, but that heir died, and the other heirs are... unsuitable for various reasons. this means the humble ranger boy from the backwoods is suddenly the dark horse, and his newly-met half-siblings have various differing opinions.
without going into too much detail because i have some player eyes here, i have a lot of agents within this competition (5 other heirs), and how they interact is driven by their goals and impulses and methods and means. i don't know how my group plans to eventually get past them, and i don't have any routes mapped out for them to do so. i don't need to. i know what the opposition wants to do, and so i can have them react appropriately and drive the story forward.
this allows the protagonists (my group) to drive the story and their choices matter way more than if they just pick 1 of however-many doors that i have already laid out.
I like #2
Next time I start a campaign I think I'll at least start with a portion of a published adventure to reduce my workload. I know I have to spend at least a cumulative 12 hours or so a week (probably more than that, honestly) prepping for my 3 hour Sunday sessions. I mostly enjoy it until it comes Sunday morning and I'm still not sure what exactly I want to do.
Improving stuff gets better as you go along. When I started out I had flow charts and was fixated on making sure the encounter math was right.
Now I wing most of it. Even the monsters. Either the players get what they expect (but not boredom) or some "interesting" subversion thereof (ok, not every idea pans out :P ).
I find that if you have a "working" world (i.e. what's going on now, what'll happen next week, etc) then you don't need to plan thaaaat much ahead or railroad as hard.
Is this your first campaign by any chance? My first was a shoe stringed together affair, exploring whatever I thought the players would find interesting (either blind guesses or going on stuff they mentioned). After putting a big bow tie around that one the next campaign story just fit together better.
Keep in mind that railroads don't just limit the players, they limit you, too.
It's not my first campaign, but it's by far my longest.
Woo!
this article may help you out:
https://gnomestew.com/prep-lite-philosophy/
i have a full home brew setting going and my prep time per week is 3-ish hours at most, but usually only an hour or so (it’s been more because they’re headed to a dungeon soon so i had to spin that up from scratch)
here’s an example of my notes for my last two sessions (it’s an image, my players better don’t look in the spoiler you know who you are)
everyone is going to have their own methodology of writing and formatting notes, and because i use onenote i have places directly linked in there, but there’s a part in there where I talk about npc goals
it might help ease your prep burden and adventure planning in general if instead of focusing on the “what” you focus more on the “who”
also excuse the awkward formatting and typos and sometimes half finished thoughts. it’s a living document and basically everything is a mnemonic/reference to jog my memory inside the session.
also when i lay down scenes not everything happens how i write it down (which is why i try to keep things very general)
edit: it bears mentioning there’s no wrong way to go about it either. even if this stuff isn’t helpful to hexmage (and sorry for offering a worddump of unsolicited advice) maybe it’s of use to some of our lurkers
Note: this does not apply for the first session where you should provide some impetus for the players to work with.
1) players tell you what theyre going to do next session this session. If they want to go to the temple of toffee then fine you prep that. If they decide the day before they dont want to? Too bad they told you that is where they were.
2) goals not actions; you cannot predict every eventuality so if you know what the characters involve want, and what they know, then you can fairly easily construct what they do on the fly
3) make a spreadsheet of monster stats so you can cook up a monster on the fly.
Someone did a break down of monster stats and reverse engineered their creation. The advice fits neatly onto ONE PAGE and allows you to churn out monsters rather quickly. Take a gander!
http://blogofholding.com/?p=7338
I used a Harper wizard to open chapter 3, just as you were asking about!
When and how you do that hook is pretty flexible. I'd even be willing to argue that the events of chapter 2 coming before the hook makes the campaign work better, the PCs will actually have an idea of the power and chaos they're facing.
Honestly the difference between the end of chapter 1 and 2 is likely one or two sessions anyway.
Beware though that your party doesn't immediately go hostile to Zeph. That is probably the largest danger in changing up the timing, if your party decides to go murderhobo on every giant after chapter 2.
No idea what kind of angel that is, but it looks like this may be Nine Hells related.
Yeah. I think I've wrapped my mind around the module now and I'm good with it. Thanks for the push, guys.
And if my level 5 players want to go murderhobo on muthafuckin' giants then I'll gladly splat them if that's how the dice fall.
Holy shit, this is amazing. Thank you for the link!
Maps ready beforehand, baddies all statted out and ready to go. Maybe even the first few turns of a bosses actions noted down. That kind of stuff.
- brainstorming multiple possibilities for actions the villains are taking behind the scenes, both to further their own plans and to interfere with other villains and the PCs
- looking up obscure D&D locations, characters, and items to incorporate; this last session I just finished included an artifact related to a 4E primordial named Umboras, Mephistopheles' half-devil, half-elemental daughter Burning Soul from a 3E Dungeon magazine adventure, a duke of Phlegethos who hates Belial but is loyal to Fierna named Bathym (probably from 2E & 3E), a beholder loyal to Geryon named Bleg, the archdevil Alloces from 4E, several references to the 2E Dungeon magazine adventure Bzallin's Blacksphere having just occurred, etc
- coming up with ideas for social encounters, like the one I had today where a rakshasa and an erinyes were debating over the actions of two legions in the Blood War, which had the subtext that one legion answered to Dispater and another to Mammon (the player actually a made a History check to see if there was an unsung third-party and mentioned a succubus mercenary's contributions; this intimate knowledge of current events in the Hells from a mortal impressed the rakshasa, who expressed a desire to do business in the future)
- deciding which poster maps to use, if any, and using dungeon tiles and backing board to make custom maps if necessary
like, instead of brainstorming a bunch of things for these NPCs to do or not do, instead come up with a list of traits/goals that would allow you easily make a decision at the table of what they'll do, and play accordingly
the rest is research based so i feel that
But with various ways I do is build a idea
The enchanter wizard cheated a devil out of its business expenses account of 100,000 GP at the Bank of Mammon and used Planar Binding to press the minor archdevil Alloces into service, tasking him with devising a plan to kill one of the paladin PCs. Said paladin had a private audience with Mephistopheles, then walked with Glasya through her Garden of Delights before dancing with her in the exhibition hall of her palace (not wanting to be embarassed by the paladin in case he was a bad dancer, she used magic to give him both advantage and a plus 5 bonus to Performance checks). The paladin willingly consented to Glasya's magic being worked upon him; unbeknownst to him, said magic also included a Dominate Monster effect that she could invoke within the next 8 hours...
With all that and more accomplished, the party was tasked by Glasya with infiltrating the tower in Nessus where Levistus' true name is recorded. The enchanter, having secretly been given knowledge as to how to replace Levistus' true name with his own and take Levistus' place as an archdevil, ponders whether to make use of this or try another path.
So this is something the enchanter ought to let you know asap, so you don't have to spend any more time on the other options currently on the menu.
Ok, maybe not kill them but I definitely need them to be challenged.
Just so we are all on the same page, they are way too powerful and it is COMPLETELY my fault. I have given them sooo much magic and it's all way overpowered.
I used a complete 8 hour session to throw traps and puzzles at them, so they wouldn't be able to use their awesome artifacts, and that was super fun but they really wanted to test out their new toys and our very next session (also 8 hours) the following happened:
I dropped them into Hellgate Keep. I ripped off the 4 temples from Princes of the Apocalypse and stuck in my own baddies but the themes (fire, water, etc, etc) are all there.
Anyway, their very first encounter was against two Nalfeshnees (the party is all level 16) and 6 pumped up drow elves. The encounter happened in the Temple of Eternal Flame in the forges.
One demon was one shotted and the other enslaved. The drow guards were either thrown into the lava, banished, or in the case of one poor bastard, given to the slaves for super fun playtime.
They steam rolled a pair of Fire Giants (in full plate mail), a Balor (who was also one shotted) and two Hellkeeper Captains with lances that do all the things an Arcane Archer can do...in the same encounter.
My aim was to just drain their resources but they have a Rod of Sanctuary that I need to fucking break in half.
So I need some clever ideas on how to take their shit away or not make their shit work.
They are getting ready to face off against the big bad of this temple, a demon named Piemon the Beheader(thanks Hereditary!) who knows they are coming, 2 glabrezus, 2 vrocks, a bone devil and an open portal to hell that spits out a fresh demon every round.
I'm thinking that when they figure out they have to destroy the portal, that it blows up and destroys some of their shit but anything that's a little less on the nose would be welcome.
Again, I made this mess but I need help cleaning it up. Any ideas?
Have things set a trap for them while they're gone. If they're gone 8 hours, that's a lot of time. If they use it to regroup, heal up with potions etc then come right back it's a little trickier.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Enough fights to drain their resources so they can't style on the end boss and his minions. If they try to rod of security, let them. Boss will use the time to trap the area they poofed from. I'd go for a lava pit and outright kill a pc or two to show them you mean business. Or an antimagic field so you can style on their spellcasters.
When they beat the baddie you could negotiate the resurrection of their dead friends for the enemies victory/survival.
Orrrr if you don't want to be that mean include enough monsters for 1 use of the rod. If they attempt to wait the 10 days out, the baddie wins.
Sages theorize they fall from the very stars, dig into a planet, and devour its core. After that, the planet breaks up and they sail away into the night looking for more hearts of iron to consume.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disenchanter
Right now I have a Half Elf Forge Cleric. I wanted to rolled Air Gensi Knowledge Cleric but for a shorter combat focused game this seemed better.
For my items:
Rod of Resurrection
Amulet of Health
Ring of Regeneration
Thoughts?
All their broken-good stuff is resonating with some mad demon/wizard/demon wizard's plan to destroy reality. As they progress through and destroy a twisted siege engine that's tunneled through the very fabric of the planes, it breaks, piece by piece. You can design encounters that share a theme with their gear as kind of one last hurrah, and when the whole mad scheme ingloriously fails, they can loot more reasonable replacements from the wreckage.
This is excellent but I would be careful to signpost it
The least good magical item starts vibrating when they enter the engine. It breaks in the third room. As they progress more things vibrate and then break two rooms later. If they somehow sprint past the obstacles it slows how fast vibrating things break but not how fast more things begin vibrating, and everything still breaks when the siege engine fails
"We're not supposed to get cursed items at level 4!", well, get used to it hehehe
On the upside she's really hard to kill now, on the downside she's immune to most healing magic and pretty traumatized
It came in handy later when the party was ambushed by an Oni while walking through the woods, she was instantly killed (!) by the cone of cold, but I ruled that being undead, she's just frozen until somebody thaws her out, at which point regeneration will kick in! Other important events
- Party has a cleric of madness (fun walrock homebrew, if you want to look it up) who dresses like a plague doctor and has expertise in medicine. The party robbed the rich mage's overpriced inn by the doctor convincing the owner he was coming down with something and taking him off to perform unnecessary surgery on him while the rogue and sorcerer pilfered
- The fighter stole all the towels from their room since they're paying 15gp a night for their rooms, which is robbery, so he is going to steal from them
- They found out a group of dopplegangers is cooking people underneath the fancy restaurant (thats where the rogue got the vest from). All but one escaped, but---
- Word is fire giants are headed this way at the head of a bunch of orc cavalry, the city's military garrison of mounted knights having been led off in pursuit of a diversionary force
- The party found a wounded hill giant in a tower, abused by smallfolk, they calmed her down and since the doctor has *expertise* in medicine, he treated her head wound clearing up the amnesia (doing brain surgery to remove the broken off bit of sword and combining it with healing magic) so the hill giant wont try and kill them every few hours as she forgets where she is. After offering up some cows they didn't own as food and some cojoling now they kind of have a pet hill giant, they're keeping her in the forest outside of town as she flatly refuses to fight any giant over her in the "hierarchy" as she is scared of them
- Party is investigating a place of worship for rangers, following a ghostly elf... before an invisible creature cone of colded 4 of them and we ended the session with one person unconscious, one dead (frozen solid), 2 almost dead. They have a full health fighter and npc ranger with them, this should be fun!
Well, they are level 5 and about to enter their first true dungeon. I'd like to have 3 for this dungeon and I'm not afraid of ruthlessly "liberating" traps from other sources to modify and use. For instance, I liberally stole from Tomb of Annihilation last campaign (specifically the wine room and the book on the pedestal).
I think I'm going to rip from Dragon Age and use one of their tile puzzles modified so they have a certain limit on attempts where it will reset and do a bit of damage on failure.
That leaves two more.
So, DND thread, what are your favorite traps/puzzles?
To be honest, I almost never use either. I tried a slightly modified version of one of the complex traps from Xanathar's Guide to Everything and the players honestly seemed confused as to what was going on.
This might just be because you dont use them very often.
Not a knock on you or anything, but if traps or puzzles aren't a somewhat regular part of the experience, it would definitely confuse players at first when you use them. They would probably handle them better as they get used to it.
I have liberally stolen puzzles from video games. Liberally.
1. The base calculator
This one is straight forward.
Each gem pattern is number system with a different base. I did mine with 2, 3, 4 and 5. The large gem in the middle tells you what base you're working with, the orbiting gems are the 0, X, X^2, etc. positions. The idea is to simply calculate the 4 numbers and add them together and then write it into the door. Failure results in 4 iron golems punching whatever is in the room to death. The punching continues until a fine paste has been produced. You can hint your players in the right direction with scrawls on the wall and warn them via hostile gestures made by the golems (flexing, punching their hands, crackling knuckles)
2. People are weighed down by their own perceptions
Now, you can keep this up and add more layers to it, but the trick is that the door isn't locked. All they had to do was walk up to it and give it a shove.
The treasure in my vault was all gimmicky cursed stuff. A necklace that strangled whoever put it on. An emerald ring that, when put on, forced the person wearing it to dance. A dance that ended with a power pose and an outstretched hand to the heavens. At which point the emerald flew out of the ring to become a disco ball of disintegration rays. Another ring, this one exsanguinated whoever put it on.
3. Team coordination exercise!
The puzzle:
I had x tables (x is the player number!) with about 40ish bottles on each (I drew a handout for each player, this was time consuming). 3 drawings contained a unique bottle (I differentiated bottles via bottle shape, cork shape and color). The idea was that the players had to come up with a plan to sort this out whilst being put on the clock. I kept initiative going and each player had 6 seconds to do or say something. Players that were not "up" had to turn the drawing over. The method for solving it isn't hard: kill all duplicates on your drawing and shout out the uniques you have to the others so that they can eliminate the cross drawing uniques.
The closer your players get to finishing, the more you can make them sweat (I find there's no real fair way of adding damage to this; people fuck it up alot): the last jab didn't do anything .. except make you lose 25% of your health. Oh and take a failed death saving throw.
The alchemist himself posed no threat beyond his jab happy nature. I had him commenting on the subjects being tested ("overweight dwarf, male, about 120 years of age") and what effects the different jabs had.
very good discussion on worldbuilding and other intersectional topics!
when I design either one, I basically scour the internet for puzzles (or riddles) and work it around, but I also operate around two parallel axes: complexity and urgency
High Urgency <--> Low Urgency
Low complexity <--> High complexity
basically, anytime you put in a puzzle, be cognizant of the time & consequences element. example of two puzzles i used:
the dreadfort braziers
the players have to move through a scaaary haunted fortress and gather 3 magical torches to light three braziers on the walls. it's also filled with scaaaary undead! because this is a low complexity puzzle, the urgency needs to be dialed up and so the undead need to be a presence that magnify and enforce tension as the group gather the torches and then light the braziers. (this is the same puzzle used in Dark Souls 3 in the swamp that leads to the cathedral, btw)
the puzzle of the seasons
the players are in a circular room with a mural painted on the wall that shows the 4 seasons in flux with their associated gods/goddesses. in the center is a patch of soil. the entire room is basically a complex riddle: the solution is to invoke the elements/seasons in sequence. Water/spring to fire/summer to wind/autumn to ice/winter. each element used on the dirt will cause a tree to grow and progress through its life cycle until it crumbles and reveals the key/path forward. this is a high complexity/low urgency puzzle.
also, don't ever rely on riddles/puzzles that rely heavily on "noticing details" within the universe via perception. you'll basically always fall into a scenario where "the things you talk about are the relevant pieces and usually lead right to the answer". an example here is "here's a room and a mirror of the room, what is different?" these types of puzzles fall like a lead weight in a conversation-based game with no actual visuals. (unless of course you present them with two drawings or something but that might feel a little uh, Highlights for Kids-esque)
(feel free to steal those two puzzles)
They're level 14.
I want to sell that they need to be clever to survive here, that they're in a place where they are not the top dogs. Just running into combat encounters willy nilly will end with a TPK as there's gonna be a number of pit fiend guards. Clever tactics, spells, "tactical retreats", and ways to cut-off pursuit are vital. The focus should be to get in, accomplish their goal, and get out.
I've given them a lillend ally (which I'm going to base on a planetar with some of the innate spells replaced with bard spells) and a homebrew magic item that allows a 1 minute short rest and a 4 hour long rest (both once per day). They also have multiple sources of healing, including two paladins, a druid/ranger with a staff of healing, and several healing potions.
I don't know exactly who will be able to attend next session, but the entirety of PCs looks like this:
- Oath of Ancients Paladin
- Oath of Vengeance Paladin (this one has revivify, not sure about the other)
- Berserker Barbarian
- Druid/Ranger
- Diviner Wizard
- Enchanter Wizard
- Illusionist Wizard
Any suggestions?
because honestly the easiest way to do that to me is to have a friendly npc say “if you aren’t clever you are dead”