Author Topic: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome  (Read 13540 times)

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veekie

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Re: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome
« Reply #60 on: February 06, 2009, 02:39:10 AM »
Make that a regular dungeon feature that bypasses dungeon walls, the enemy and his minions can use that to  preempt PCs who must take the long way around. Have a couple of murals that are the 'wrong' dragon types that lead into deadend passages and deathtraps.

Minions are so much more effective when they can do hit and run attacks on the invaders. Another fun dungeon idea is reconfigurable dungeons, traps, or a central control room can rotate or slide dungeon passages to change the layout, 3d reconfiguration a plus. Mapping goes a bit nuts though.

A simple example of this is a Rubik's Cube dungeon, put doors on some sides of each subcube, and when they align with a matching door, they are passable. Or, in 2 dimensions instead, a bullseye layout, overlapped with a spiderweb, rooms rotate clock and anticlockwise to present different configurations. For maximum fun, put a trap on each door to rotate the layer it's on whenever the door closes.
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Operation Shoestring

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Re: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome
« Reply #61 on: February 06, 2009, 04:11:16 AM »
The traditional Room of Pillars is always fun.

1) Some pillars are broken, others intact.  Most reach up pretty high.  The enemy are mid/high level rogue/swordsage types who have skill mastery: jump and play a vertical maze game on the pillars.

2) Or just have them run from pillar to pillar, strafing with shot on the run, and always ending the turn under cover.

3) Having a few of the pillars be illusionary is fun too.  Have a big ugly grappler hidden in at least one.  Secret passage in another.

Sunic_Flames

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Re: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome
« Reply #62 on: February 06, 2009, 08:45:33 AM »
It doesn't really work as a regular dungeon feature as it becomes too easy to predict, and too easy to get the password from the guys that are needing at least a full round to open the door.

If you want them zipping in and out of places just make sure they have Dimension Door on their spell list, and that the Unhallow is set to 'those who adhere to a different faith or alignment'. At which point PCs can't teleport but they can.

Overuse takes the trick out of it. Now normal secret doors, go ahead and use those that way.
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BowenSilverclaw

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Re: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome
« Reply #63 on: June 17, 2009, 12:02:52 PM »
*Thread resurrection*


If anyone cares to provide me with some more ideas, please feel free :)
I'm working on plenty of stuff myself as well, but extra ideas are always welcome :)

The campaign has taken on a sort of 'find and retrieve powerful artifacts' theme so far.


Okay, so the PCs (who are level 9 at the moment) are currently on their way from Karrlakton to the Mror Holds, since they learned that the next Dragonshard they must retrieve is located somewhere in the vaults of House Kundarak.

So, what would they encounter on their way from Krona Peak to Korunda's Gate and from their to the vaults? What obstacles would they face if they wanted to infiltrate the vaults? What would the layout and defenses of the vaults look like? Any potential allies or enemies/rivals?



Aside from this Mror Holds portion of the adventure, I'm also working on the next portion of the campaign, which will likely feature the PCs travelling to Q'Barra. I'd like to place the next artifact somewhere in the lost city of Haka'torvhak, but that's guarded by the Half-Fiend Black Dragon Wyrm Rhashaak...

I'd love to find a way to run this portion in a manner that involves the PCs finding a way in without alerting Rhashaak to their presence, seeing as they'd be fucked if they encounter him (they'll be level 11 tops by then), but I don't want to make it seem like some kind of cheap cop-out.

My main conundrum here is how to make the threat of being discovered by Rhashaak very real, but without severely screwing the PCs over and without severely downplaying his presence or resorting to some sort of deus-ex-machina...


Thanks again for any ideas, tips and insights,
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Re: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome
« Reply #64 on: June 17, 2009, 12:34:37 PM »
What obstacles would they face if they wanted to infiltrate the vaults?
Besides magical traps? Dungeoncrashing golems. Big-ass golems and/or undead that crush you into goo on the wall.

Quote
What would the layout and defenses of the vaults look like?
This seems like you're leaning towards a good old fashioned crawl, if they haven't been through one yet.  It would be an interesting change of pace. Especially if it was a Labyrinth effect...

Quote
My main conundrum here is how to make the threat of being discovered by Rhashaak very real, but without severely screwing the PCs over and without severely downplaying his presence or resorting to some sort of deus-ex-machina...
Do they do research ahead of time? Scry? Scout? Anything? The best way to do something like this is A) rumors of how dangerous he is/things he has done and B) an actual show of his force. Party A gets there first and gets rape-faced. PCs arrive to catch the last 1/2 of the fight or so. And what's left is unpleasant at best.  Hell have the wizard hop out and "wind up" near the party, beaten and dying, terrified of the place.  Lots of ways to instill terror.
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BowenSilverclaw

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Re: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome
« Reply #65 on: June 17, 2009, 12:45:14 PM »
Quote
What would the layout and defenses of the vaults look like?
This seems like you're leaning towards a good old fashioned crawl, if they haven't been through one yet.  It would be an interesting change of pace. Especially if it was a Labyrinth effect...
Yep, that's what I'm thinking about, combined with some guard patrols and whatnot.

Quote
Quote
My main conundrum here is how to make the threat of being discovered by Rhashaak very real, but without severely screwing the PCs over and without severely downplaying his presence or resorting to some sort of deus-ex-machina...
Do they do research ahead of time? Scry? Scout? Anything? The best way to do something like this is A) rumors of how dangerous he is/things he has done and B) an actual show of his force. Party A gets there first and gets rape-faced. PCs arrive to catch the last 1/2 of the fight or so. And what's left is unpleasant at best.  Hell have the wizard hop out and "wind up" near the party, beaten and dying, terrified of the place.  Lots of ways to instill terror.
Thanks, that would definitely help with the instilling fear and terror part :)

And yeah, once they learn of the dangerous nature of the territory they'll probably have the Artificer perform at least some basic scrying.


Any particular ideas about keeping the fear alive during the PCs expedition into Rhashaak's territory without actually having them encounter the big guy, but also without rape-facing them by saying something like "Okay, the sound of this last battle with some Lizardfolk alerted Rhashaak. Roll up some new characters, guys."?
Basically I need a good excuse why he doesn't teleport into action or something after hearing a battle, or why he wouldn't notice said battle.
I don't want it to look like the only reason he doesn't hunt the PCs is because the DM doesn't want them to end up killed.
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AfterCrescent

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Re: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome
« Reply #66 on: June 17, 2009, 01:08:51 PM »
Minions. Send minions. Also, make sure they're ready to 'port out or have a good hiding place. If they don't, they want to die, obviously.  I mean worst case scenario they'll go hire someone else to get it for them. ;) If I was prepared, you can be sure Illusions of us running down alley X would be there for him while we hid behind Door Y.
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BowenSilverclaw

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Re: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome
« Reply #67 on: June 17, 2009, 01:18:34 PM »
I'll have to remind them of that. Preparation is a major key to success, but they seem to forget that a lot of the time :P


Thanks for the tips, they'll most certainly help :)
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AfterCrescent

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Re: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome
« Reply #68 on: June 17, 2009, 03:59:28 PM »
No problem. ;)
In a situation like that, you need guerrilla tactics, and it can be hard if you've never had to do that before.
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BowenSilverclaw

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Re: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome
« Reply #69 on: June 17, 2009, 04:00:51 PM »
Yeah, at least 2 players are new to the game, one of which really needs a PHB to properly learn the rules (would've gotten it for her birthday, but it wasn't in stock), and the others don't always think ahead in terms of planning either :)
« Last Edit: June 17, 2009, 04:03:16 PM by BowenSilverclaw »
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BowenSilverclaw

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Re: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome
« Reply #70 on: June 25, 2009, 11:24:10 AM »
"Weakness? Come test thy mettle against me, hairless ape, and we shall know who is weak!"

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Re: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome
« Reply #71 on: June 25, 2009, 11:28:55 AM »
Well, finding a few dragonshards in the corpse of some other warlock, with the scene implying that something big broke out and started attacking couldn't hurt.
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BowenSilverclaw

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Re: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome
« Reply #72 on: June 27, 2009, 02:38:41 PM »
Thanks, that's one way to drive the point home :P

Anyone else have anything? :)
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Risada

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Re: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome
« Reply #73 on: June 27, 2009, 02:51:13 PM »
Put the party against some lowly Rakshasas that call the warlock as "vessel", "container", "keeper", "human seal" or anything else...

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Re: Working on an Eberron Campaign - Ideas welcome
« Reply #74 on: June 27, 2009, 03:02:45 PM »
Oh, and have any Rakshasa minions that attack do nonlethal damage exclusively to the warlock.
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