Post/Author/DateTime	Post
korcheck 02-24-07, 05:56 PM	I and a friend share the duties as DM for our group but only have one set of books to date i have all the eberron books all core most races and most of the complete series (it is a major pain haulling nearly 40 books back and forth) and we take turns with running two game sessions each. the problem that i have had is that i have been a bit busy and haven't worked on the campaign ideas. to make matters worse after the last session i ran i had a very good idea of where i was taking the game now though i am having a block. so here is the campaign so far (of which only 2 sessions have been played.) location: sharn (because there is so much detail and fleshed out character to the city) plot: someone is killing off dragonmarked house members. in one night of whole sale slaughter a total of 26 members of the various houses were killed (the night just happens to be 1 Zol of Eyre (is that how you date in the system?) the night that "House Tarkanan" fell so long ago) the heroes: the group wasn't to happy but i limited them to house only races and members of seperate houses. why? because city watch and private justicars could not find leads or they turned up missing. so in a show of comaradery (or desperation?) the houses formed teams to get answers. three teams 4 to five members each. what the party knows: one of the other parties has turned up dead. the original killings were done by mostly magic the worst was a greater dragonmarked member of House Deneith. they have the connection to the House Tarkanan and a lead to the assassins guild of the same name in the city. also strong clues to support the idea that the killings were done by abberrant marked characters. the main bad guy(s): a dark council of abberrant marks from each of the house races and Chyrassk the mind flayer under sharn for a total of 13. the strongest abberrant mark is a "hier of khyber" Thora Tavin with greater shout as her ability. basically i am going for a new war of the mark theme but as i am a relatively new DM i may have gone over bored a bit and now i dont know where to take this the group is about 2nd level and alot of my idea's would be unsafe for such low pc's in fact the first 2 games were about like that so where do i take the group do i dump the idea of a murder mystery turned full scale war or do i nurse the group or what?
korcheck 02-26-07, 08:32 PM	I know it has only been a few days but there aren't any comments yet and there have as of right now been 35 visits is the thread to long or just not interesting? If either is the case then ok sorry to both and sorry if I sound like I am whining lol. I am stumped. :)
Kreistor2 02-26-07, 09:23 PM	What happens next has to be relative to what level you want the campaign to end. At 2 sessions/4 weeks, you're not advancing at breakneck speeds, so you probably don't want to target too high a level. At the same time, to keep the PC's wondering, you don't want every session to be on primary plot. You want some side stuff to break things up a little. Since most of your ideas are too high level, you want to give the group a side adventure with lots of fights and exp. You don't want to slow that down with a complex mystery. So, I'd suggest that someone they were involved with last time took notice of their talents and wants to hire them to retrieve something for them. Just model it off of the adventure in the back of the ECS. Just go down into the depths of Sharn like that, or into Fallen (a Dungeon module has that), or into an archeological site in Breland. I wouldn't suggest Xen'drik. Droaam isn't a bad idea. Gnolls are good enemies for L2. So, basically, I'm just suggesting a good, old style dungeon crawl. Target to raise them to L3 with it, or even half-way to 4. I can provide more precise suggestions depending on what kind of basic idea of what you want.
bholdr_mage 02-26-07, 09:35 PM	Mix it up. Sometimes it's best to have two villains instead of one. Before we go there, WHY are the bad guys doing this? Is the mind-flayer under the city grafting with dragonmarks like in the KB series? Is the abberrant marked guys killing DMH people out of envy? Vengeance? An item they covet? If it's an item, it's easy to add another group that wants it. Perhaps it's a covert :incog: sharn watch group that doesn't want to speak up for they want the item for more political power. If it's vengeance, leave it bloody. But FRAME another DMH (phiarlan and the other elf house...can't think right this second) and throw the other house as a red herring. When the PCs think it's them....BLAMO, they're dead too. Envy? that one's harder to pull off, but I'd still use the framing idea; maybe on warforged...it has to be someone who can't "grow" a dragonmark.
lordalm 02-26-07, 09:42 PM	Sounds like you have good start. I agree with the above that you might want to throw a side quest the party's way. Save the damsel in distress. Always a crowd favorite. Have some poor inconent(s) get mixed up in the investigation and force the group in to dealing with the here and now problem of said damsel or ignore her plight to track down the leads they have. If they ignore the damsel, have all leads dead end and have the murder of said damsel pinned on the party. Party's hate that.
korcheck 02-26-07, 11:00 PM	thanks for the input so far guys you're really helping an aspiring DM out.:D
Nimrud 02-27-07, 01:54 AM	Also, for lower level adventures, you can have the party deal with lower level problems which your higher level villains are causing, it doesn't necessarily have to be head on confrontation from the beginning. Later when your party gets deeper into the plot (and levels up) you can introduce the higher level villains one by one. The party can also deal with flunkies and henchman rather than the main baddies. The bad guys may have lots of subordinates doing their dirty work.
SiouLubb 02-27-07, 02:00 PM	Do you have a specific reason for the killings? Why these people, and why on that date? Killing that many people in that many houses would take a great deal of effort and planning. Concealing the murderers from the authorities also takes a good deal of resources and effort (protection from divinations, scrying, etc). Here's my suggestion for keeping the PCs alive- the killings were not performed by Tarkanan at all. A group of low-level members of Tarkanan have been subverted by an agent of the Lords of Dust. The LoD hope to spark a new War of the Marks. At the very least, they want to bleed the houses a bit. The agent of the LoD who masterminded the killings spent quite a bit on magical resources (potions, one-shot items, etc) in order to let the killers succeed. (Thus explaining how low-level opponents managed to pull off such a formidable crime in one night) House Tarkanan has gone to ground, realising that the murders will be blamed on them. If they have any inkling as to what happened, they may try to either directly or indirectly push the PCs towards the true killers. I kind of like the idea though that the killers are within Tarkanan, but working against it for the LoD. If the LoD's main agent determines that the PCs are getting closer to the truth, the killers start turning up dead. nothing like getting rid of the evidence. Perhaps one of the killers decides that his odds are better if he surrenders to the PCs and sells out the agent of the LoD. (Setting up your final confrontation with the agent as the agent tries to escape? or is it a trick to lure the PCs to ambush? Only the DM knows for sure.....)
korcheck 02-27-07, 03:10 PM	[QUOTE=SiouLubb;11607872]Do you have a specific reason for the killings? Why these people, and why on that date?QUOTE] the reason for the killings was originally as a venddeta and the beginings of a new war of the mark set off by my "Dark Council." the people were chosen for the ease of these particular prey. the night in question in my story was the night that house tarkanan fell, there is not a real date for this in any of the books so i made this date up. until i had read the dragonmark book in full this sounded plausible to me but when i read about the extensive use of srying by house phairlan i saw that this night massacre would have been alot harder to pull off. i like your idea better as it will help to tie up some loose string in the plot and in fact i will be stealing pretty much all of it.:D the help on this board has been greatand has i think set me on the right path. i had also been thinking of pulling the characters away from sharn for a while to do some leveling up in "true cyre" pulled from another thread but had problems with why they would be pulled in the first place but this may be an easier route to go with the story. thank you all for helping a noob tighten his story. :)
SiouLubb 02-28-07, 10:33 AM	For how the murders were committed, may I suggest that the murderers used potions of Pass Without Trace? Alternatively, they jumped off a Sharn bridge with feather fall active. Given a strong wind, picking up their trail would be impossible as you'd have no idea where they landed. If the PCs can determine that potions of Pass Without trace were used. Spellcraft checks, perhaps. But how to get them to make the check without being a blatant DM and flat-out telling them? Ah- here's how. One of the murderers dropped his potion vial after drinking it. The initial investigation missed it. (Search DC 20, or a Detect magic spell should catch a faint aura from the vial) perhaps the vial is distinctively one that is made by a certain artificer or only one or two are known to make the potion. (If the PCs suck on their rolls to ID the potion, have the Cannith ID it for them. If they are assembled by the houses to solve this, the houses will provide necessary assistance.) Follow up with the person who created the potions and you have your first lead....
Shady314 02-28-07, 05:59 PM	The biggest problem I see is that the DM houses just lost 26 members in a single night? And conventional wisdom says someone or some group that does something like that probably is not going to stop there. So they assemble a crack team of level 2 PCs??? I'd expect the hammer to be coming down. And that's just the DM houses. You know the Dark Lanterns and the Citadel would be all over it too. What you could do is make that background the whole city is buzzing about while the PCs pursue something completely unrelated ... of course it turns out to have everything to do with the big story and now they are caught up in events far beyond them. Tricky for a brand new DM but not impossible. Whereas making them the center of that S---storm is either going to get them killed easily or not going to make much sense. On the plus side that would let your PCs choose what they would like to play instead of getting forced by you which it sounds like they were unhappy about. So you can start a new group picking up the story wherever it left off but from a new perspective. My first thought would be they are all members of a freelance inquisitive company/or adventuring guild (two in Sharn) who are contacted by a member of House Tarkanan. Tarkanan has gone to ground, they may not responsible for the killings but there's going to be a lot of scrutiny and scholars are going to equate the date to the War of the Mark so they need to be in hiding. So Tarkanan needs to lie low and not draw any attention to itself but there may be important things they need done. So they need either allies or patsies (up to you what the PCs are) to do a few odd jobs. Maybe a group from the DM (perhaps using their reitred characters as rivals!) houses looking for the rumored House Tarkanan catches onto the PCs and now the PCs are suspects in the murders, there's a lot of ways you could go with it and a lot of choice for the PCs on how they handle it all.
korcheck 02-28-07, 10:07 PM	To be Honest shady your first two sentences were the very reason for me posting here in the first place. my solution since first reading some of the responses to explain this story flub was that they really aren't the "crack team" rather they are the bait and the distraction. While they are stomping around making noise and nuisances of themselves the real teams are out doing what they need to. the group consists of this: a cannith artificer, phiarlan ninja, deineth fighter, and a cleric from house Jorasko. I have spoken to each individually and asked how they would respond to this, the cannith's histroy is that his father isn't happy with him because he doesn't bare a mark (going for heir PrC) so he could see his father sending him to be bait, the ninja is used to this since his house does this regularly with low lvls. the fighter saw this action as being "tactically sound" and "for the greater good" which only left my healer whom i have decided would be ****** that his house would do this to him. They all agreed that I had bitten off more than i could chew with these characters and have agreed to use the original group that i had run through all the pre-built games i.e. in the back of the ECS and most of the others that have been published. (this was my first attempt at my own story campaign) this original group are all about 9th lvl at i think would work quite well. what do you think?
Hopeless 03-03-07, 04:28 PM	To be Honest shady your first two sentences were the very reason for me posting here in the first place. my solution since first reading some of the responses to explain this story flub was that they really aren't the "crack team" rather they are the bait and the distraction. While they are stomping around making noise and nuisances of themselves the real teams are out doing what they need to. the group consists of this: a cannith artificer, phiarlan ninja, deineth fighter, and a cleric from house Jorasko. I have spoken to each individually and asked how they would respond to this, the cannith's histroy is that his father isn't happy with him because he doesn't bare a mark (going for heir PrC) so he could see his father sending him to be bait, the ninja is used to this since his house does this regularly with low lvls. the fighter saw this action as being "tactically sound" and "for the greater good" which only left my healer whom i have decided would be ****** that his house would do this to him. They all agreed that I had bitten off more than i could chew with these characters and have agreed to use the original group that i had run through all the pre-built games i.e. in the back of the ECS and most of the others that have been published. (this was my first attempt at my own story campaign) this original group are all about 9th lvl at i think would work quite well. what do you think? You might want to keep these other characters as back up in case your core group loses any of its members so they have spare characters to hand.
Shady314 03-04-07, 04:21 AM	To be Honest shady your first two sentences were the very reason for me posting here in the first place. my solution since first reading some of the responses to explain this story flub was that they really aren't the "crack team" rather they are the bait and the distraction. Ok but to be bait they would need to be watched and protected at all times. Or at least be constantly tracked somehow. Most DMs try to avoid having more powerful NPCs watching over the PCs shoulders since it makes them technically the real heroes if they show up all the time to save the PCs bacon. While they are stomping around making noise and nuisances of themselves the real teams are out doing what they need to. the group consists of this: a cannith artificer, phiarlan ninja, deineth fighter, and a cleric from house Jorasko. Having them be bait is a good idea except for the possible nuisance I mentioned above but this isn't being bait. What you're describing is a sacrifice. And it's a sacrifice that doesn't make much sense. These aren't just members of a DM house they are FAMILY members. Would you send relatives to their deaths for no reason? Family members with PC classes. Jorasko NEEDS clerics. Cannith NEEDS artificers. Etc. Those are rare in Eberron. The Houses need people like them. They are not disposable. At least not like this. I have spoken to each individually and asked how they would respond to this, the cannith's histroy is that his father isn't happy with him because he doesn't bare a mark (going for heir PrC) so he could see his father sending him to be bait, the ninja is used to this since his house does this regularly with low lvls. the fighter saw this action as being "tactically sound" and "for the greater good" which only left my healer whom i have decided would be ****** that his house would do this to him. They should ALL be beyond ****** if they know their house is sacrificing them for no good reason whatsoever. Their house should have their backs so long as they serve ably. Dragonmark or not they are still PC classed and they can still bear heirs that can have marks. Not to mention the houses are well aware any heir could manifest a DM at any point in their life. And anyone could end up as that lucky SoB with a Siberys mark that always come much later in life. So the father would need to be an idiot and somehow be in control of his son's life. The fighter is a bad fighter too. They're too valuable to be a distraction that the houses expect to be killed. They did just lose 26 members. They WANT to make it 30? They all agreed that I had bitten off more than i could chew with these characters and have agreed to use the original group that i had run through all the pre-built games i.e. in the back of the ECS and most of the others that have been published. (this was my first attempt at my own story campaign) this original group are all about 9th lvl at i think would work quite well. what do you think? Oh 9th level is very powerful in Eberron. They could definitely be involved in some VERY heavy stuff. I may be missing something though? Youre upping these PCs to level 9? Or they are bringing in old characters to take the place of the current ones? Because at 9th level they can BE the crack team and it'd all make sense. :)
korcheck 03-04-07, 01:52 PM	Ok but to be bait they would need to be watched and protected at all times. Or at least be constantly tracked somehow. Most DMs try to avoid having more powerful NPCs watching over the PCs shoulders since it makes them technically the real heroes if they show up all the time to save the PCs bacon. What I said was a bit of an error on my part I should have said something like a distraction or something, what i imagine is something like slight of hand averyone is watching the left hand while the right is stealing your watch. as for protection i do concur and this is where house phairlan comes in with its scrying etc. Having them be bait is a good idea except for the possible nuisance I mentioned above but this isn't being bait. What you're describing is a sacrifice. And it's a sacrifice that doesn't make much sense. These aren't just members of a DM house they are FAMILY members. Would you send relatives to their deaths for no reason? Family members with PC classes. Jorasko NEEDS clerics. Cannith NEEDS artificers. Etc. Those are rare in Eberron. The Houses need people like them. They are not disposable. At least not like this. No arguements out of me at all here (see above). which is the reason that everyone was freaked out when one of the NPC parties that was creating a distraction as well was gacked and found dead, it should not have happened and that means someone dropped the ball but the pc's no nothing of this except that the other search team is dead. They should ALL be beyond ****** if they know their house is sacrificing them for no good reason whatsoever. Their house should have their backs so long as they serve ably. Dragonmark or not they are still PC classed and they can still bear heirs that can have marks. Not to mention the houses are well aware any heir could manifest a DM at any point in their life. And anyone could end up as that lucky SoB with a Siberys mark that always come much later in life. So the father would need to be an idiot and somehow be in control of his son's life. The fighter is a bad fighter too. They're too valuable to be a distraction that the houses expect to be killed. They did just lose 26 members. They WANT to make it 30? these were there comments not mine. i believe the reason for the comments stems a bit from the fact that they were relieved to be getting pulled out of the whole thing in answer to the question below they are bringing in older characters when this suggestion was made and then i asked what there pc's would say that was the answer i got i would have most likely recived a different answer had i change the sequence of questions a bit. which is why i think that i got the only honest answer from myself if this is true. Oh 9th level is very powerful in Eberron. They could definitely be involved in some VERY heavy stuff. I may be missing something though? Youre upping these PCs to level 9? Or they are bringing in old characters to take the place of the current ones? Because at 9th level they can BE the crack team and it'd all make sense. :) here is what i am going to do with the "crack team" 2 fighters shifter and half orc 1 rogue human (mine) 1 wizard a freakin goblin (goblin nation should love him) :D the rogue sends a message to the team asking for aid in sharn. when they come to his assisstance they discover him beaten and in chains by house Tarkanan. it turns out that he was hired by the lanterns to infiltrait the tarkanans shortly before the massacre took place. of course when it happened the tarkanans holed up and took a good look at there people discovering the spy in there midst. they took him alive trying to find out the connection when they found out about the rest of the team they decide to "hire" them to find out who the real killers are....
Zombomaniac 03-05-07, 12:51 AM	Ok sorry I'm not commenting on your story (sounding very good by the way), but you keep saying "there" instead of "their." It just kinda bugs me. "There" is a location. "Look there lads. It's a dragon!" "Their" is what you have been meaning to use. "of course when it happened the tarkanans holed up and took a good look at their people discovering the spy in their midst. " Sorry for the interuption.
SiouLubb 03-06-07, 08:54 AM	The biggest problem I see is that the DM houses just lost 26 members in a single night? And conventional wisdom says someone or some group that does something like that probably is not going to stop there. So they assemble a crack team of level 2 PCs??? I'd expect the hammer to be coming down. And that's just the DM houses. You know the Dark Lanterns and the Citadel would be all over it too. Remember that Level 2 in PC classes in Eberron is actually considered to be pretty powerful. As far as the higher level members of the houses, not many of them are going to be suited for investigations. For example, a lvl 7 artificer might be old, fat and totally inadequate at dealing with people, thus completely out of the question for the assignment. Plus, after 26 dragonmarked heirs are killed in an night, you'd be amazed how fast many of the others find that they have urgent business anywhere but Sharn. ("Sorry, our operations in Karrnath need inspection... I'll be leaving in ten minutes....") The PCs are likely young and can be ordered around or tempted with the promise of advancement. If they have a house mentor, the mentor may see this as a great opportunity for the PC and push him towards joining the effort. OTOH, a rival may see this as the chance to get the PC killed and manipulate him towards the assignment. Recall also that people don't go around assigning levels to each other. A watchman with 30 years experience could still be a lvl 1 warrior and a watchman with six months might be a fighter 5. The PCs are young, capable and above all, heroes. The story can easily fit them into the role of investigators. I'll certainly agree that the Citadel and Dark Lanterns would be all over this set of murders. There's not reason for the Houses to trust Breland's enforcement and investigation operations though. The PCs might even be cautioned by their Houses that they may have to avoid the official investigations in order to succeed. ("We don't want justice to have to go through Breland's courts. Too risky and it might not go in our favour. In the end, we want you to find out who did this, and then make sure that people get the message that the Houses are not to be trifled with! A Brelish jail will not do for these murderers! They are to be given our justice!")
Shady314 03-07-07, 04:37 AM	Remember that Level 2 in PC classes in Eberron is actually considered to be pretty powerful. Eberron may be low level but it isn't that low level. I never said level 2 was weak though. But level 2 is not going to be the best that the DM houses can send and they are going to send their best or close to it in that situation. As far as the higher level members of the houses, not many of them are going to be suited for investigations. Unless they are from House Tharashk, Medani, Phiarlan or Thuranni and some from Deneith and in Sharn the Deneith enclave has been infiltrated by the DD.... yep that group would definitely compromise the worst investigators in Eberron. :rolleyes: For example, a lvl 7 artificer might be old, fat and totally inadequate at dealing with people, thus completely out of the question for the assignment. Plus, after 26 dragonmarked heirs are killed in an night, you'd be amazed how fast many of the others find that they have urgent business anywhere but Sharn. ("Sorry, our operations in Karrnath need inspection... I'll be leaving in ten minutes....") I see so in your world the DM houses that provide mercenaries, spies, counter intelligence, and detective services are full of cowards that have no interest whatsoever in stopping family (literally blood relatives) from being murdered. Very interesting idea. :rolleyes: The PCs are likely young and can be ordered around or tempted with the promise of advancement. If they have a house mentor, the mentor may see this as a great opportunity for the PC and push him towards joining the effort. OTOH, a rival may see this as the chance to get the PC killed and manipulate him towards the assignment. I never said they couldn't be ordered to do it. Just why would the Houses order THEM? The houses aren't run by idiots. Recall also that people don't go around assigning levels to each other. A watchman with 30 years experience could still be a lvl 1 warrior and a watchman with six months might be a fighter 5. The PCs are young, capable and above all, heroes. The story can easily fit them into the role of investigators. To recall it I'd have to have forgotten it. It simply has nothing to do with anything. I never said anything about every old member of a House being a high level PC class. The PCs are young and capable and heroic but that doesn't mean they can handle every conceivable problem in existence. :rolleyes: I'll certainly agree that the Citadel and Dark Lanterns would be all over this set of murders. There's not reason for the Houses to trust Breland's enforcement and investigation operations though. ??? There's not ??? I'd love to know why not. Especially since earlier you postulated every other DM member in Sharn would run for the hills. :rolleyes: The PCs might even be cautioned by their Houses that they may have to avoid the official investigations in order to succeed. ("We don't want justice to have to go through Breland's courts. Too risky and it might not go in our favour. In the end, we want you to find out who did this, and then make sure that people get the message that the Houses are not to be trifled with! A Brelish jail will not do for these murderers! They are to be given our justice!") Thuranni might say that. And most of the DM houses would definitely be out for vengeance. Still have no idea how that justifies level 2's being used to hunt a group way beyond their level of ability. And the OP agreed. Plus you act like jail is such a cushy place to be. Prisoners like them would either wind up in Dreadhold or more likely executed. So you can try to kill everyone involved privately and claiming to have punished the evil doers. Or you can capture them (a very impressive and much tougher feat than killing), try them, sentence them and execute them publicly for all to see, all nice and legal like.... Hmmmm which sends the better message?