Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Psifon 02-13-06, 08:23 PM	I just bought & read Heroes of Battle. What can I say, I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me. Anyway, I am planning to take my party of 4th level PC's through a battlfield adventure. The setting is Eberron, and a faction of Droamite Humanoids has been influenced/mind - controlled by a bunch abberations (probably mind flayers or aboleth, I haven't decided yet). They are attacking the Breyland community of Orcbone in force, in an attempt to de-stabalize the reagion, and get some political cover in accessing a nearby gate to the plane of madness. Anyway, I wanted some ideas to add some pizazz to the battlefield encounters. So far, what I have is a standard humanoid army, maybe a few psionic Blue Goblins, some wyvern riders and maybe harpies as well. A medusa or two will probably figure into the mix too. What I am looking for is a way to make a big impression on the PC's that this is an army with an otherworldly backing. I also want some seriously wierd and disturbing effects going on on the field, but ones that aren't too lethal. For my plotline to work, the humans need to hold out long enough for re-enforcements to arrive. Think Abberations, Chaos, and Madness. One idea was to use carrion crawlers as draft animals, pulling a warcart into the frey. Raising undead on the battlefield is pretty much standard practice as well. Any other ideas?
Setherial 02-14-06, 07:56 AM	sounds like fun. What about after some fighting and some losses on both sides but mostly on the side of the droaam army (giving the players a false sense of victory) a huge aberration surfaces, some kind of gargantuan worm, the ground trembles as it burrows its way upwards and finally surfaces in an explosion of dust and earth. Most of the allied troups who are not crushed will flee at the site of this thing. Ofcourse this is very lethal and a deathblow to the army of the party. They'll have to flee and regroup later at a next town hoping for re-enforcements. By this point half of their army will be destroyed and one city has fallen to the enemy (by dusk they'll see the red glow of a giant fire on the horizon where once the city was they came from.) This should shake them up pretty bad and give them a feeling of how dire the situation is. News might arrive however of reenforcements being on the way (giving that very needed hint of hope), or they might have sent a messager themselves days before and are hoping he'll return with an army soon.
Mr. Twist 02-14-06, 08:29 AM	Have the PCs in a division involved in a skirmish, and have the opponents fall back in a "route". The army persues, with the PCs held back to help a fallen friend. The opposing armie falls back to a line, then sets for a charge. Just as the good army is about to reach them, a massive ring of Grell rise up out of the ground (burried before hand in rat-holes). Silentlly they rise up, with tenticles swinging excitedlly. There is a pure moment of silence where the good armie catches up on this new development, wide eyed with shock. When the first one screams and tries to retreat, the Grell all start blasting. They each have a single shot of the spell that creates embankments, dig in, and slaughter the division. The PCs can have an effect by taking out the Grell and making an exit for some of the troops. What ever they rescue they get until reinforcments arrive.
Brastan 02-15-06, 09:16 PM	I think you should run several Battle encounters. The first battle should involve the humanoids/giants/monsters humanoids of Droaam with some aberrations in command position in the battle. This battle is the for shadow of the next one or two which should increasing aberration presence. Alternatively if you only doing one battle include aberrations troops among the regular units as support. In the case of Gricks or other less intelligent aberrations you will need handlers. Look at that half-dead aberration thing in Magic of Eberron. It would make a good commander and like give the PCs something they haven't seen before.
Lurkalot 02-16-06, 02:50 PM	What I am looking for is a way to make a big impression on the PC's that this is an army with an otherworldly backing. I also want some seriously wierd and disturbing effects going on on the field, but ones that aren't too lethal. Go with the madness. If you genuinely want the otherworldly evil have growing rage spreading through your allies. Build it up slowly - a bloodthirsty unit that refuses to break from engaging an Ogre squad, a knight who savagely stabs the corpse of an ogre he has slain, laughing with glee as he severs it's head. As it progresses, arguments break out amongst the allies over strategy, PCs must prevent a fight between commanders, lone soldiers charge recklessly at the enemy, the PCs witness an orc and a human soldier wrestling on the ground, the human biting at the orc's throat. A unit attacks an allied unit, neither remembering by this point what over, lines fall apart as the allied army descends into a seething mob, swords dropped, people tearing at each other with teeth and nails, ordinary units entering beserk frenzy. When the PCs have to hack their way to safety through their own side, they'll understand that the enemy has otherworldly backing, alright. And if none of that works, there's always this (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=524354). :D
Belabras 02-16-06, 03:46 PM	Liberal application of the Psuedonatural template to the Droammite forces will get the point across right quick.
Psifon 02-16-06, 07:37 PM	Great ideas! Thanks guys, and keep 'em comming! One idea I had was to have a cart load of larval mindrenders (small Abberations from MM3 - I think I got that name right). Say about 30 of them. After the battle starts up, the mindrenders are dropped off "dumptruck" style in the middle of the battlefield. What these creatures do is drain wisdom from their enemies. When they have drained 20 points they enter a crysalis stage, hybernate for a month, and come back as large combat machines (who also drain wisdom). These drain wisdome to transform as well, and the final stage is a highly intelligent veriety, who produces the larval ones (by draining wisdom). So what happens when you dump a truck load of these little guys on a battlefield? They run around to all the unconcious troops and suck their minds dry, that's what! Then they run into the nearby woods, and set up cocoons for themselves. One month later they rampage the countryside as horse-sized monstrosities! How cool is that? Of course this will hit the good guys with their pants down later on in the campaign. I'll have to just see how this unfolds. One nice roleplaying aspect of this is that mind-drained wounded will start poring into the human basecamp. This means that some of the wounded are catatonic (0 wisdom) and some are completly insane (1-2 wisdom), others are shell-shocked but lucid (3-5 wisdom). Should make for some wierd badness for the PC's to figure out/be disturbed by.