schneefink (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
schneefink) wrote2019-01-22 12:13 am
schneefink) wrote2019-01-22 12:13 am
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Manipulating Destinies #16: …oops, he's dead.
Last week I cancelled on my D&D group because of upcoming exams (two down, the last one is tomorrow), so they asked if one of them could run a self-contained one-shot, but one that is set in my campaign. I said yes, but in hindsight I'm very jealous that they played a session set in "my" campaign without me. It's fine but next time I'll be firmer about it not being "canon."
But this weekend I was back! My group is still in the middle of the detective plot, but I knew they wanted more combat encounters, so I decided to add a quest I'd planned for later now: Ghost Island! They got a call for help from one character's boyfriend and off they went.
As a reminder, one of the early quests was bringing back another adventurer, and to make it more interesting I'd had her find and befriend another adventuring party, one several levels above my group, so they'd have to figure out how to solve it without an all-out fight. That worked well. Because I didn't want to have to invent an entire other party, I borrowed/adapted the characters from a book ("Orconomics"+sequel) and that was very convenient. Therefore, the party followed a cleric who was on a prophesied mission from his goddess. That cleric, Niln, was comparatively weak, a bit naïve, but very nice. To my complete surprise, he and one of my players' characters (I'll call her Lea), who was completely enamoured of this guy being so nice to her, started flirting, and eventually got together. Which meant I couldn't just have Niln's party travel on and disappear from the story, because of course now Lea constantly tried to convince him and his party to join them. Which I couldn't let happen because they were way too powerful. So I had Niln receive a vision from his goddess that meant he had to go on another quest, but they would reunite later.
I'd planned to have my party search for a magical artifact on a haunted island, because haunted islands are cool. (Also my party has no cleric so undead are extra fun.) So now I just combined the problems and had Niln and his party also look for that artifact, but they were overwhelmed by the ghosts and other undead. Niln had to flee, and most of his party members died. Tragic, and also neatly solving the problem of not giving my players a level 20 ally to fight their battles for them. This also explained why nobody had recovered that artifact before them, since you need an entire party of high-level adventurers to clear the way. Niln's party destroyed the ghost of the elven magician queen and her dragon familiar, plus assorted other ghosts and undead, but died in the process. Most of them were turned into specters and shadows (that's gonna be a fun encounter later), but some of them were knocked unconscious and kidnapped by smugglers using the island as their base.
Niln got away and sent Lea a request for help. Lea mobilized her party and they arrived on the island. Niln still insisted on getting the artifact his goddess sent him after, and they can't wait too long because ghosts reform and if the queen comes back they have no chance. They had the option of looking for the smugglers, and fortunately one of them had a spell that had them find the smuggler's cave on the cliff immediately. They scouted ahead and saw that the smugglers were in the larger part of the cave, which is around a corner from the entrance area. So they all flew down the cliff (some under their own power, some carried) to assemble in the entrance area and then storm the cave. I asked what they wanted Niln to do, because Niln is not a warrior and would follow the party's lead, and they decided that leaving him alone on top of the cliffs was too dangerous because of the ghosts - even though they knew that most of the ghosts are non-aggressive, they wanted to keep him close. Okay, fine…
I'd already decided on the smugglers' strategy at that point. It would have been harder to justify a group of smugglers of a level equal to my party, so I decided that they were lower level but had some powerful magical items. So the first thing they did, when they noticed the intruders, was detonate a Fireball in the middle of the entrance hall. It did quite a lot of damage to several party members, but I knew they would survive it.
…I'd forgotten about Niln. Who failed his save and died on the spot. Oops.
This is why Niln's party kept the squishy low-level cleric away from battles...
Then Lea and the rest of my party got very angry and killed the smugglers in one and a half rounds (iirc), and they managed to rescue two of Niln's party, but Niln is still dead :( The first time an important character died in my campaign. There was some nice RP afterwards, and they took his corpse and are planning to save the money to bring him back, so it won't be forever, but still.
Now the party plans to storm the haunted castle and recover the magical artifact next session, and I can hardly wait. None of them are clerics, but they have some spells/weapons that are effective against incorporeal undead, and one of the allies they rescued is a competent wizard so they have extra help - I'll have to figure out how best to use all the specters and shadows and ghosts…. :D I'm getting myself an assault on a haunted castle D&D session for my birthday next week, best party plans.
But this weekend I was back! My group is still in the middle of the detective plot, but I knew they wanted more combat encounters, so I decided to add a quest I'd planned for later now: Ghost Island! They got a call for help from one character's boyfriend and off they went.
As a reminder, one of the early quests was bringing back another adventurer, and to make it more interesting I'd had her find and befriend another adventuring party, one several levels above my group, so they'd have to figure out how to solve it without an all-out fight. That worked well. Because I didn't want to have to invent an entire other party, I borrowed/adapted the characters from a book ("Orconomics"+sequel) and that was very convenient. Therefore, the party followed a cleric who was on a prophesied mission from his goddess. That cleric, Niln, was comparatively weak, a bit naïve, but very nice. To my complete surprise, he and one of my players' characters (I'll call her Lea), who was completely enamoured of this guy being so nice to her, started flirting, and eventually got together. Which meant I couldn't just have Niln's party travel on and disappear from the story, because of course now Lea constantly tried to convince him and his party to join them. Which I couldn't let happen because they were way too powerful. So I had Niln receive a vision from his goddess that meant he had to go on another quest, but they would reunite later.
I'd planned to have my party search for a magical artifact on a haunted island, because haunted islands are cool. (Also my party has no cleric so undead are extra fun.) So now I just combined the problems and had Niln and his party also look for that artifact, but they were overwhelmed by the ghosts and other undead. Niln had to flee, and most of his party members died. Tragic, and also neatly solving the problem of not giving my players a level 20 ally to fight their battles for them. This also explained why nobody had recovered that artifact before them, since you need an entire party of high-level adventurers to clear the way. Niln's party destroyed the ghost of the elven magician queen and her dragon familiar, plus assorted other ghosts and undead, but died in the process. Most of them were turned into specters and shadows (that's gonna be a fun encounter later), but some of them were knocked unconscious and kidnapped by smugglers using the island as their base.
Niln got away and sent Lea a request for help. Lea mobilized her party and they arrived on the island. Niln still insisted on getting the artifact his goddess sent him after, and they can't wait too long because ghosts reform and if the queen comes back they have no chance. They had the option of looking for the smugglers, and fortunately one of them had a spell that had them find the smuggler's cave on the cliff immediately. They scouted ahead and saw that the smugglers were in the larger part of the cave, which is around a corner from the entrance area. So they all flew down the cliff (some under their own power, some carried) to assemble in the entrance area and then storm the cave. I asked what they wanted Niln to do, because Niln is not a warrior and would follow the party's lead, and they decided that leaving him alone on top of the cliffs was too dangerous because of the ghosts - even though they knew that most of the ghosts are non-aggressive, they wanted to keep him close. Okay, fine…
I'd already decided on the smugglers' strategy at that point. It would have been harder to justify a group of smugglers of a level equal to my party, so I decided that they were lower level but had some powerful magical items. So the first thing they did, when they noticed the intruders, was detonate a Fireball in the middle of the entrance hall. It did quite a lot of damage to several party members, but I knew they would survive it.
…I'd forgotten about Niln. Who failed his save and died on the spot. Oops.
This is why Niln's party kept the squishy low-level cleric away from battles...
Then Lea and the rest of my party got very angry and killed the smugglers in one and a half rounds (iirc), and they managed to rescue two of Niln's party, but Niln is still dead :( The first time an important character died in my campaign. There was some nice RP afterwards, and they took his corpse and are planning to save the money to bring him back, so it won't be forever, but still.
Now the party plans to storm the haunted castle and recover the magical artifact next session, and I can hardly wait. None of them are clerics, but they have some spells/weapons that are effective against incorporeal undead, and one of the allies they rescued is a competent wizard so they have extra help - I'll have to figure out how best to use all the specters and shadows and ghosts…. :D I'm getting myself an assault on a haunted castle D&D session for my birthday next week, best party plans.