Boy am I in a fix! [Archive] - Wizards Community

Boy am I in a fix! [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Karazephryn
07-09-06, 10:33 PM Calling All DMs! Your help is needed!!

Okay, so I'm going on a little pseudo camping trip for a few days... We leave tomorrow evening... Tuesday I'm supposed to run a campaign like... all day... It's a one shot deal, I doubt we'll ever use the characters again... It's me and three friends... One of the players is semi-new to D&D but she's having a blast.

Now, normally I can have fun with a pre-cooked mod, or just fly by the seat of my pants...

Problem is, I'm on EXTREME short notice, can't find a module I like, and I'm TOTALLY uninspired...

I need ideas. Fast.

Conditions are as follows: Character starting level ~14ish, and since it's a one time thing, it needs to be fun.

Help me!!
KurenaiYami
07-09-06, 11:10 PM You could always go with the generics. There is a BBEG...Vampire or Lich, my two favorites, who is on a conquest to rule the world. Maybe there has been an artifact that has recently been unearthed that has caught the notice of the BBEG. Nobody else knows what it is, but as soon as he gets his hands on it, queer things start happening. No, not THAT kind of queer.

Maybe it has some evil power that lets him cast Baleful polymorph on a lot of NPCs which he then...does something...evil...with...

<_<
>_>
KurenaiYami
07-09-06, 11:18 PM There's also the famous 'world is in dire danger' jazz. One I've been thinking about doing for a while is just having an Umbral creature let loose on the world. The Umbral template (Savage Species p. 134) gives the creature the ability to pass on it's template to any it kills with it's Strength Damage ability. You could have this situation get out of hand, and have it spread like a plague.

But for some reason, the PCs are immune. It is up to them to find a way to stop the Umbral creatures from taking over the rest of the planet and save the other species from extinction. The best part is the template can be added on to so many other things, that you can just slap it on anything apropriate for the level of characters that your PC happen to be, so it's quick and ready to use in your time of need.

---------------------------------Edit----------------------------------------------------

Or...

You can take a hint from the fiction on this very site, Oroon Rising. The PCs simply wake up inside an uber dungeon with flashes of memories as though they've been here before. Turns out they have ran at this dungeon before and died several times. It can work better than my other suggestions for a short, one time campaign.
Zheon
07-09-06, 11:57 PM ooo, i like the edited part. *scam*

as for ideas.. have them wake up after having drugged food at an inn one night, after a lot of *consumption*, and they happen to be at the bottom of a closed well, robbed of all coin but not much else. have them force thier way out through things that were designed to keep them there. someone got jealous of thier power, or something. had them robbed, and tried to have them "rubbed out".
ChaoticGood
07-10-06, 12:06 AM OK, for an unusual campaign...

The party is hired to return a valuable relic to the tomb of its original owner, a noble warrior of ages past. So they enter the ancient cemetary, looking for the tomb. They soon discover that the cemetary has been too-long abandoned, and some rather ugly beasties are living there now. At first, they only find signs of these baddies, such as dug-up graves, the tracks of large snake-like creatures, and scorched-earth pawprints.

While puzzling the presence of these signs, a marut appears, insisting that one of the characters is meant to be dead. Naturally, the characters will insist that this is not the case, to which the marut replies that her grave lies on the next hill over, and if she is not lying in that grave come morning, the marut will but her there. Then it opens a portal and disappears.

Upon investigating, the party will find that there is indeed a grave on the next hill bearing the name of the character, but it is the cairn of a noble who lived and died centuries before the character was born. They may handle this any way they see fit, but remind them that they have a mission in the cemetary and that night is falling.

The monsters living in the cemetary include two nests of Nagas (a mix of Dark Nagas and Spirit Nagas), a pack of Nessian hellhounds, a few Nightwings and a Nightwalker (all from the Monster Manual so as to limit the need to take books along).

If the party finds the tomb of the ancient warrior and returns the relic to its proper place, the warrior's spirit appears to thank them. It asks the names of the party members, so that it may remember them when they join him in their eternal rest. Upon hearing the name of the "doomed" character, the spirit is surprised and says, "Surely not my patron of old? Of course not, I have seen her spirit here in the Nether Realms! Are you her descendant?"

If the party is smart, they will see that this spirit knows the dead noble, and can, if reminded of the good turn they have just done for him, summon her spirit to vouch for her current status of "death" when the Marut returns. This is all the proof the Marut needs to leave the "doomed" character in peace.

If the party is not so quick on the up-take, they will have to face the Marut before they can leave the cemetary. For fun, replace the Marut's chain lightning spell-like ability with a combination animate dead / entangle spell-like ability that causes the cemetary's corpse to reach up through the ground, grasping at the characters' legs as they do battle with the Inevitable.

Why is it so easy to write adventures for other people and so hard to write them for myself???
KJW
07-10-06, 10:02 AM Here are some random ideas:

1) The party has been hired to track down an ancient tomb, but they must find the directions as they go. Their employer gives them the first location a tomb hidden underneath the royal castle of a city. There is a map there to another tomb hidden underneath a old ruined citadel. Only with the maps from both locations will the party learn that the last marker tomb is behind a waterfall. Each of these complexes can be really small with only one or two super guardians. You can pace the adventure with travel encounters and rivals who also want the tomb. At the waterfall the party gets the final location and their employer takes the location and then betrays the party so that he can have all the wealth to himself. Race to ancient tomb, where another big evil is. Shoot for CR 15-17 beasties as guardians. I do run very fast adventures so this is probably too much for a single session, but you could trim some of the initial tombs and speed up travel.

2) The party has been hired to purge a small dominion of an evil cult. This cult should have undead, vampires are always a hoot, and be led by maybe a member of the local nobility. Thing classic horror stories as the party comes to the oppressed dominion, deals with the bizarre NPCs of the community, and tries to ferret out the cult.

3) Go for the cliche...a prince has been kidnapped by a dragon and the party has been hired to rescue the prince. You have a wilderness trek with all manner of encounter/tests and then a final fight with the dragon, and then marry off the prince to one of the players. This type of adventure can run itself.

4) A god challenges the party to complete seven tasks within one week for some divine reward. Just steal from classic mythology, have them need to steal a golden fleece, clean a stables, slay a beast, figure out a maze, get a golden apple from an enchanted orchard, win various athletic challenges, and so forth.
BeginnerDM
07-10-06, 10:39 AM You need to DM all day... my god...

I'd download one of those free "Dungeon" creator programs, run it, and then throw them in it.

I love the idea of that they have run it serveral times and died trying. You can even mix in the idea of them eventually finding their own bodies from previous attempts...

And hope that this will be the attempt they finally get home...

Once they do finally get out, it turns out they have all sinned something awful

The paladin used to be a paladin of slaughter and had lead attacks against small southern towns in a bid for creating a new province...

The druid angered at the lost forest, turned towards the grey druid role, raiding up the dead animals and slaughthered the people who attacked the forest...

The bard/rogue was an assassin who killed for pleasure / money.

etc..

And they're in purgatory / Hell, and they are approached by some awesome being of goodness who offers them a chance to attone for their sins if they partaken in one last adventure to clean their immortal souls.

If they succeed in the mission they characters go to their respective heavens... if they fail... no more chances eternal damnation.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Karazephryn 07-09-06, 10:33 PM	Calling All DMs! Your help is needed!! Okay, so I'm going on a little pseudo camping trip for a few days... We leave tomorrow evening... Tuesday I'm supposed to run a campaign like... all day... It's a one shot deal, I doubt we'll ever use the characters again... It's me and three friends... One of the players is semi-new to D&D but she's having a blast. Now, normally I can have fun with a pre-cooked mod, or just fly by the seat of my pants... Problem is, I'm on EXTREME short notice, can't find a module I like, and I'm TOTALLY uninspired... I need ideas. Fast. Conditions are as follows: Character starting level ~14ish, and since it's a one time thing, it needs to be fun. Help me!!
KurenaiYami 07-09-06, 11:10 PM	You could always go with the generics. There is a BBEG...Vampire or Lich, my two favorites, who is on a conquest to rule the world. Maybe there has been an artifact that has recently been unearthed that has caught the notice of the BBEG. Nobody else knows what it is, but as soon as he gets his hands on it, queer things start happening. No, not THAT kind of queer. Maybe it has some evil power that lets him cast Baleful polymorph on a lot of NPCs which he then...does something...evil...with... <_< >_>
KurenaiYami 07-09-06, 11:18 PM	There's also the famous 'world is in dire danger' jazz. One I've been thinking about doing for a while is just having an Umbral creature let loose on the world. The Umbral template (Savage Species p. 134) gives the creature the ability to pass on it's template to any it kills with it's Strength Damage ability. You could have this situation get out of hand, and have it spread like a plague. But for some reason, the PCs are immune. It is up to them to find a way to stop the Umbral creatures from taking over the rest of the planet and save the other species from extinction. The best part is the template can be added on to so many other things, that you can just slap it on anything apropriate for the level of characters that your PC happen to be, so it's quick and ready to use in your time of need. ---------------------------------Edit---------------------------------------------------- Or... You can take a hint from the fiction on this very site, Oroon Rising. The PCs simply wake up inside an uber dungeon with flashes of memories as though they've been here before. Turns out they have ran at this dungeon before and died several times. It can work better than my other suggestions for a short, one time campaign.
Zheon 07-09-06, 11:57 PM	ooo, i like the edited part. scam as for ideas.. have them wake up after having drugged food at an inn one night, after a lot of consumption, and they happen to be at the bottom of a closed well, robbed of all coin but not much else. have them force thier way out through things that were designed to keep them there. someone got jealous of thier power, or something. had them robbed, and tried to have them "rubbed out".
ChaoticGood 07-10-06, 12:06 AM	OK, for an unusual campaign... The party is hired to return a valuable relic to the tomb of its original owner, a noble warrior of ages past. So they enter the ancient cemetary, looking for the tomb. They soon discover that the cemetary has been too-long abandoned, and some rather ugly beasties are living there now. At first, they only find signs of these baddies, such as dug-up graves, the tracks of large snake-like creatures, and scorched-earth pawprints. While puzzling the presence of these signs, a marut appears, insisting that one of the characters is meant to be dead. Naturally, the characters will insist that this is not the case, to which the marut replies that her grave lies on the next hill over, and if she is not lying in that grave come morning, the marut will but her there. Then it opens a portal and disappears. Upon investigating, the party will find that there is indeed a grave on the next hill bearing the name of the character, but it is the cairn of a noble who lived and died centuries before the character was born. They may handle this any way they see fit, but remind them that they have a mission in the cemetary and that night is falling. The monsters living in the cemetary include two nests of Nagas (a mix of Dark Nagas and Spirit Nagas), a pack of Nessian hellhounds, a few Nightwings and a Nightwalker (all from the Monster Manual so as to limit the need to take books along). If the party finds the tomb of the ancient warrior and returns the relic to its proper place, the warrior's spirit appears to thank them. It asks the names of the party members, so that it may remember them when they join him in their eternal rest. Upon hearing the name of the "doomed" character, the spirit is surprised and says, "Surely not my patron of old? Of course not, I have seen her spirit here in the Nether Realms! Are you her descendant?" If the party is smart, they will see that this spirit knows the dead noble, and can, if reminded of the good turn they have just done for him, summon her spirit to vouch for her current status of "death" when the Marut returns. This is all the proof the Marut needs to leave the "doomed" character in peace. If the party is not so quick on the up-take, they will have to face the Marut before they can leave the cemetary. For fun, replace the Marut's chain lightning spell-like ability with a combination animate dead / entangle spell-like ability that causes the cemetary's corpse to reach up through the ground, grasping at the characters' legs as they do battle with the Inevitable. Why is it so easy to write adventures for other people and so hard to write them for myself???
KJW 07-10-06, 10:02 AM	Here are some random ideas: 1) The party has been hired to track down an ancient tomb, but they must find the directions as they go. Their employer gives them the first location a tomb hidden underneath the royal castle of a city. There is a map there to another tomb hidden underneath a old ruined citadel. Only with the maps from both locations will the party learn that the last marker tomb is behind a waterfall. Each of these complexes can be really small with only one or two super guardians. You can pace the adventure with travel encounters and rivals who also want the tomb. At the waterfall the party gets the final location and their employer takes the location and then betrays the party so that he can have all the wealth to himself. Race to ancient tomb, where another big evil is. Shoot for CR 15-17 beasties as guardians. I do run very fast adventures so this is probably too much for a single session, but you could trim some of the initial tombs and speed up travel. 2) The party has been hired to purge a small dominion of an evil cult. This cult should have undead, vampires are always a hoot, and be led by maybe a member of the local nobility. Thing classic horror stories as the party comes to the oppressed dominion, deals with the bizarre NPCs of the community, and tries to ferret out the cult. 3) Go for the cliche...a prince has been kidnapped by a dragon and the party has been hired to rescue the prince. You have a wilderness trek with all manner of encounter/tests and then a final fight with the dragon, and then marry off the prince to one of the players. This type of adventure can run itself. 4) A god challenges the party to complete seven tasks within one week for some divine reward. Just steal from classic mythology, have them need to steal a golden fleece, clean a stables, slay a beast, figure out a maze, get a golden apple from an enchanted orchard, win various athletic challenges, and so forth.
BeginnerDM 07-10-06, 10:39 AM	You need to DM all day... my god... I'd download one of those free "Dungeon" creator programs, run it, and then throw them in it. I love the idea of that they have run it serveral times and died trying. You can even mix in the idea of them eventually finding their own bodies from previous attempts... And hope that this will be the attempt they finally get home... Once they do finally get out, it turns out they have all sinned something awful The paladin used to be a paladin of slaughter and had lead attacks against small southern towns in a bid for creating a new province... The druid angered at the lost forest, turned towards the grey druid role, raiding up the dead animals and slaughthered the people who attacked the forest... The bard/rogue was an assassin who killed for pleasure / money. etc.. And they're in purgatory / Hell, and they are approached by some awesome being of goodness who offers them a chance to attone for their sins if they partaken in one last adventure to clean their immortal souls. If they succeed in the mission they characters go to their respective heavens... if they fail... no more chances eternal damnation.