A Ridiculous, Broken Situation to Which I Look Forward - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 AaronOfBarbaria Jan 03, 2015 9:57:39	I've recently started a campaign set in Rappan Athuk and its environs, situated nicely into my group's home-brewed campaign setting and converted to 5th edition. The most recent session has resulted in a set of circumstance that I find very interesting, and I am looking forward to seeing how the players handle things. The exact cause of the situation will be placed in a spoiler block, just in case anyone wants to avoid learning about the dungeon. Show There is effectively a magical slot machine present in one sub-level, which has a 1/216 chance of a particularly beneficial result - multiplying the money placed on the altar by fifty - that is kept in balance by various severely bad outcomes with similarly chance of happening, and by there being a limit to how many times each character can roll the dice. The party managed to lose every copper coin they had, but get a longsword out of that. Then they turned a few gold to platinum, and subsequently lost those platinum and all the silver coins they had. And last, but central to the thread at hand, the party wagered 50 gold and had it multiplied into 2,500, wagered that and lucked into it being multiplied up to 25,000 - and then they decided to wager the portion of that which they didn't have the means to carry, 1,570 gold, and again landed on the x50 result, flooding the room with gold coins.
#2 Rhenny Jan 03, 2015 10:24:28	I love the added complication that their luck has produced. The fact that the pcs have to even discuss and plan how to keep their winnings safe is priceless. Let them hem figure it out. I actually like the barrels in the water trick, but if there is a current that is strong enough, they may have to search to find their treasure later. It might be a funny moment of panic.
#3 iserith Jan 03, 2015 10:40:27	Rival leprechauns Gerald Fitzpatrick and Patrick Fitzgerald (who look remarkably alike but for the position of a mole on their faces) catch the scent of gold on the air and approach the PCs at separate times. Each of them offers to safely store the characters' wealth in a secure iron pot at the end of a rainbow for a fee: Gerald quotes a large sum while Patrick quotes a small sum. In truth, this is a ruse by a single leprechaun who needs to steal the wealth to pay tribute to a fomorian who recently claimed a swath of a fey forest nearby. If the PCs agree, they may find their wealth in the hands of a fomorian in the near future. If they don't agree to do business with the leprechaun, he calls upon his many fey friends to play tricks on the PCs and generally make their lives harder until they relent. "Patrick" blames all the PCs' troubles on "Gerald," claiming that putting the gold in Patrick's protection will encourage Gerald and his fey tricksters to leave off. Ironically, in the lair of the fomorian is probably the safest place to store their treasure, but requires the PCs to deal with the fomorian to make a withdrawal later on. In any case, this would likely be a fun interaction that leads to future adventure.
#4 guachi Jan 03, 2015 10:56:48	In a D&D campaign about 20 years ago the characters had tons of money because the modules gave out tons of gold as it was the means to get XP. Specifically, they killed the dragon at the end of Horror on the Hill. It turns out the local ruler was a good, trustworthy cleric and one of the Royal Mints just happened to be located in his sleepy logging town. They made a deal with the local ruler and the Duke to keep the money... for a fee of course. In return the characters could withdraw money at various locations in the Duchy. More precisely, it allowed them to buy stuff without even having to withdraw the money. Need some plate? Go to the Royal Armorer and just ask for a suit and it's yours! The result was a low level party that was more tied to the politics of the area than they otherwise might have been and fit well with the tiers of play in the old D&D game. By the time they were high level Expert adventurers (about level 15) the career long relationship came in handy. It was also an almost endless source of plot hooks, gossip, and rumors.
#5 ankiyavon Jan 03, 2015 12:22:51	They could always found a bank. Possession of a giant pile of gold is basically the easiest prerequisite towards founding a bank. Then you work on giving loans to nobles and making them pay you back. At first, you need to be there yourselves to back up whatever security measures you went with. Once you're already viable and nobles use your services, you can leave it to the hired help, because then the nobles will have a stake in helping you hunt down anyone who robs you, and that fact will deter most potential robbers.
#6 BRJN Jan 03, 2015 14:58:20	Find a natural cave, clear it out, contract the services of a Dwarven stonesmith, buy about 1,000,000 bricks, and build a lair. There is a set of false walls in the middle enclosing a space full of GP. There is also a set of obvious dead-end paths that fairly cry out "For the love of God, Montesqueue, for the love of God!" to creep out would-be thieves. -or- Many episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies involved the slick banker trying to defraud the Clampett family out of their wealth. The PCs might meet somebody who claims he is able to help them out ... he is also a Charlatan and has a Criminal Contact waiting in the background ... he claims to be a representative of the Guilds and have connections to a well-known Banker family.
#7 Psikerlord Jan 03, 2015 15:41:41	I love it, The PCs got lucky. Let them establish a cool base with that wealth - or whatever else they want to do with it .... buy a flying ship. Portal access/sigils and travel somewhere. Lost lore pointing to adventure for some highly sought after item(s). Hire a powerful mercenary company for a special attack on neighbouring bad guy land. Run with it man!
#8 THEMNGMNT Jan 03, 2015 16:05:46	Sounds great. Rappan Athuk is a meat grinder anyway, right? Might as well let the players have fun while they can. I'd love to get more updates on how your campaign is progressing and what you think of the dungeon overall.
#9 Coredump00 Jan 03, 2015 16:43:54	One campaign we played in we were really careful about taking out every copper piece possilble. One time we found a lot of treasure, but the vast majority was in copper pieces...... there was tons of wieght in coins to deal with. It was a blast trying to get that back to town....
#10 AaronOfBarbaria Jan 05, 2015 3:13:21	Thanks for the responses, everyone. My players got their chance to work through this situation last night, and went with a plan that involved half staying in the dungeon guarding the cold while the other half took a bit of coin back to the nearby outpost and bought a couple horses, a wagon, and a number of barrels. Then they loaded 96,000 of the gold into barrels, leaving them with a few thousand they could carry safely, and loaded the wagon to take the barrels to the river that night - celebrating the first campaign ever in which the entire party has darkvision, so they didn't have lights giving away their position to the gnolls camped on a hill further along the river - where they hid them for the time being. In the following days, they elected to buy the outpost, hire its' former owner as a steward (effectively having nothing about the outpost change except that now the PCs are in charge, and so they are allowed to build their castle within its walls), and attempt to test whether they can trust their newly hired steward by asking him to keep one barrel of coin (about 12,000 gold) safe for them. They didn't get a chance, with the other complications that arose (wandering monsters, namely), to decide whether to start construction on a keep or wait on that while continuing to adventure - since they've only had 1 day of adventuring so far, I think they may try to press on a bit more while taking the time to consider what they want their castle to be like.
(Reply to #10) SleepsInTraffic	AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
(Reply to #11) AaronOfBarbaria	SleepsInTraffic wrote:
#13 guachi Jan 05, 2015 13:30:52	I'm not certain if the outcome of the gambling should be considered fail forward or succeed forward. So exciting, though! Complications requiring the players to make real choices that have consequences.
#14 THEMNGMNT Jan 05, 2015 19:36:42	Woot!

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

AaronOfBarbaria

Jan 03, 2015 9:57:39

I've recently started a campaign set in Rappan Athuk and its environs, situated nicely into my group's home-brewed campaign setting and converted to 5th edition. The most recent session has resulted in a set of circumstance that I find very interesting, and I am looking forward to seeing how the players handle things.

The exact cause of the situation will be placed in a spoiler block, just in case anyone wants to avoid learning about the dungeon.

Show

There is effectively a magical slot machine present in one sub-level, which has a 1/216 chance of a particularly beneficial result - multiplying the money placed on the altar by fifty - that is kept in balance by various severely bad outcomes with similarly chance of happening, and by there being a limit to how many times each character can roll the dice.

The party managed to lose every copper coin they had, but get a longsword out of that. Then they turned a few gold to platinum, and subsequently lost those platinum and all the silver coins they had. And last, but central to the thread at hand, the party wagered 50 gold and had it multiplied into 2,500, wagered that and lucked into it being multiplied up to 25,000 - and then they decided to wager the portion of that which they didn't have the means to carry, 1,570 gold, and again landed on the x50 result, flooding the room with gold coins.

Rhenny

Jan 03, 2015 10:24:28

I love the added complication that their luck has produced. The fact that the pcs have to even discuss and plan how to keep their winnings safe is priceless.

Let them hem figure it out. I actually like the barrels in the water trick, but if there is a current that is strong enough, they may have to search to find their treasure later. It might be a funny moment of panic.

iserith

Jan 03, 2015 10:40:27

Rival leprechauns Gerald Fitzpatrick and Patrick Fitzgerald (who look remarkably alike but for the position of a mole on their faces) catch the scent of gold on the air and approach the PCs at separate times. Each of them offers to safely store the characters' wealth in a secure iron pot at the end of a rainbow for a fee: Gerald quotes a large sum while Patrick quotes a small sum. In truth, this is a ruse by a single leprechaun who needs to steal the wealth to pay tribute to a fomorian who recently claimed a swath of a fey forest nearby. If the PCs agree, they may find their wealth in the hands of a fomorian in the near future. If they don't agree to do business with the leprechaun, he calls upon his many fey friends to play tricks on the PCs and generally make their lives harder until they relent. "Patrick" blames all the PCs' troubles on "Gerald," claiming that putting the gold in Patrick's protection will encourage Gerald and his fey tricksters to leave off.

Ironically, in the lair of the fomorian is probably the safest place to store their treasure, but requires the PCs to deal with the fomorian to make a withdrawal later on. In any case, this would likely be a fun interaction that leads to future adventure.

guachi

Jan 03, 2015 10:56:48

In a D&D campaign about 20 years ago the characters had tons of money because the modules gave out tons of gold as it was the means to get XP. Specifically, they killed the dragon at the end of Horror on the Hill.

It turns out the local ruler was a good, trustworthy cleric and one of the Royal Mints just happened to be located in his sleepy logging town. They made a deal with the local ruler and the Duke to keep the money... for a fee of course. In return the characters could withdraw money at various locations in the Duchy. More precisely, it allowed them to buy stuff without even having to withdraw the money. Need some plate? Go to the Royal Armorer and just ask for a suit and it's yours!

The result was a low level party that was more tied to the politics of the area than they otherwise might have been and fit well with the tiers of play in the old D&D game. By the time they were high level Expert adventurers (about level 15) the career long relationship came in handy. It was also an almost endless source of plot hooks, gossip, and rumors.

ankiyavon

Jan 03, 2015 12:22:51

They could always found a bank.

Possession of a giant pile of gold is basically the easiest prerequisite towards founding a bank. Then you work on giving loans to nobles and making them pay you back.

At first, you need to be there yourselves to back up whatever security measures you went with. Once you're already viable and nobles use your services, you can leave it to the hired help, because then the nobles will have a stake in helping you hunt down anyone who robs you, and that fact will deter most potential robbers.

BRJN

Jan 03, 2015 14:58:20

Find a natural cave, clear it out, contract the services of a Dwarven stonesmith, buy about 1,000,000 bricks, and build a lair. There is a set of false walls in the middle enclosing a space full of GP. There is also a set of obvious dead-end paths that fairly cry out "For the love of God, Montesqueue, for the love of God!" to creep out would-be thieves.

-or-

Many episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies involved the slick banker trying to defraud the Clampett family out of their wealth. The PCs might meet somebody who claims he is able to help them out ... he is also a Charlatan and has a Criminal Contact waiting in the background ... he claims to be a representative of the Guilds and have connections to a well-known Banker family.

Psikerlord

Jan 03, 2015 15:41:41

I love it, The PCs got lucky. Let them establish a cool base with that wealth - or whatever else they want to do with it .... buy a flying ship. Portal access/sigils and travel somewhere. Lost lore pointing to adventure for some highly sought after item(s). Hire a powerful mercenary company for a special attack on neighbouring bad guy land.

Run with it man!

THEMNGMNT

Jan 03, 2015 16:05:46

Sounds great. Rappan Athuk is a meat grinder anyway, right? Might as well let the players have fun while they can. I'd love to get more updates on how your campaign is progressing and what you think of the dungeon overall.

Coredump00

Jan 03, 2015 16:43:54

One campaign we played in we were really careful about taking out every copper piece possilble. One time we found a lot of treasure, but the vast majority was in copper pieces...... there was tons of wieght in coins to deal with. It was a blast trying to get that back to town....

#10

AaronOfBarbaria

Jan 05, 2015 3:13:21

Thanks for the responses, everyone.

My players got their chance to work through this situation last night, and went with a plan that involved half staying in the dungeon guarding the cold while the other half took a bit of coin back to the nearby outpost and bought a couple horses, a wagon, and a number of barrels.

Then they loaded 96,000 of the gold into barrels, leaving them with a few thousand they could carry safely, and loaded the wagon to take the barrels to the river that night - celebrating the first campaign ever in which the entire party has darkvision, so they didn't have lights giving away their position to the gnolls camped on a hill further along the river - where they hid them for the time being.

In the following days, they elected to buy the outpost, hire its' former owner as a steward (effectively having nothing about the outpost change except that now the PCs are in charge, and so they are allowed to build their castle within its walls), and attempt to test whether they can trust their newly hired steward by asking him to keep one barrel of coin (about 12,000 gold) safe for them.

They didn't get a chance, with the other complications that arose (wandering monsters, namely), to decide whether to start construction on a keep or wait on that while continuing to adventure - since they've only had 1 day of adventuring so far, I think they may try to press on a bit more while taking the time to consider what they want their castle to be like.

(Reply to #10)

SleepsInTraffic

AaronOfBarbaria wrote:

(Reply to #11)

AaronOfBarbaria

SleepsInTraffic wrote:

#13

guachi

Jan 05, 2015 13:30:52

I'm not certain if the outcome of the gambling should be considered fail forward or succeed forward. So exciting, though! Complications requiring the players to make real choices that have consequences.

#14

THEMNGMNT

Jan 05, 2015 19:36:42

Woot!