1) Can such a thing be accomplished?
2) Suggest wonderfull way´s to include xp in the encounter without it being a TPK
Ok let me detail the basic plot behind the encounter first...
The players are asked by Bren ir´Gadden (from Mark of Prophecy - in my game a Dark Lantern secret member of the Aurum - Based on Nick Fury so you never know where you have him) to go look for a old adventuring buddy of his that has gone missing as they seem to be targetted by Aric Blacktree (also from MoP and a formerly the Ruthless Ruffian from Brens group)
The players arrive in a small frontire town between Breland and Darguun and start looking for Anton d´Sivis a Gnome Artificer (calls himself Eldritch Engineer as he focues on Eldrich Machines) and hear that he took his Earth Elemental Burrowing Machine out of town two day´s erlier to search for old Daakani ruins.
After being pointed to where said ruins shold be i assume the players will want to go there.
After traveling out to the strange hills the fun starts. I was thinking of haveing a Skill Challange to follow the trail of elemental energy and disruptions in the natural patterns useing Arcana and Nature. When they finish that a strange thing happens... the top of the hill they are standing on collapses under their weight and they plummet down into the dark...
...and land in a ceremonial fountain inside a buried Daakani temple that was covered thousands of years ago in sandstorms and then grass grew and covered the temple. The temple now serves as the main hub in a Kobold warren and this is where the characters have landed. As they pick themselves up in the water of the fountain they see the small reptilian creatures poised to attack them and we roll initiative...
The idea is to throw wave after wave of level 1 kobolds at this six man 3rd level party with several skill challenges around the room that can have an effect the outcome.
The basic layout is that it is a large chamber about 25-30 hexes across with a 8x8 pool in the middle.
Four colums in the shape of the Daakani versions of gods in the Sovreign Hoast keep up the roof of the chamber and i was thinking of designing skill challenges that either collaps them on top of groups of kobolds or to activate them for divine blessing.
There are four tunnels sized for small creatures only that lead into the chamber and three of thouse are collapsable with a skill challenge.
The gnome hangs in a cage from the outstreched hand of one of the Daakani gods and can be saved with a skill challenge.
Once the Gnome is saved his Elemental vehicle can be repaired with a very difficult skill challenge (the gnome was captured when his vehicle fell trough the top of the dome and caused the damage that then lead to the players falling throug, the gnome exited the vehicle, closed it behind him and was then jumped by the kobolds)
In one alcove of the chamber there is a statue of a Hobgoblin hero holding a magical sword in his hands, the statue is trapped and can only be disabled by a classic hobgoblin millitary greeting that the players discover if they read the script on the statue that says "Hail Daakan and its generals" followed by a recount of the hobgoblins deeds in his wars against the elves where he won the magical sword. If someone goes to close to the statue it attacks in a Close Burst 3 with Force damage and push 3.
The kobold waves would be something like this
Starting encounter in the room when the players drop in
-Kobold King (Kobold Dragonsield leveled to 4 and given Leader subtype)
-500 xp worth of random kobolds of level 1-2
Once the King dies roll d10, that is the turns untill the next wave giveing the players a little time to see the room.
When the second wave comes roll d20 for the third wave and continue doing this every time a wave enters.
I would do a wave chart with some waves being bigger then others so the waves would range from 350-750 xp give or take. One wave would maybe bo 20 Kobold Miners (level 1 minions) while others are just 3-4 level 1-2 standard mobs.
Continue that untill the players have reached the xp for level 4
Is this idea horrible and a TPK or can it be done if handled correctly?
Thank you very much in advance and i hope you can help me designing this encounter
The problem with combining a level's worth of encounters like this into a long series of waves is that you will either overwhelm the character's healing ability VERY quickly (they may have 11 healing surges each, but they probably only have ways to use 2 or 3 of those per encounter per PC), leading to TPK, or you will have to make each individual wave so nonthreatening (in order to avoid overwhelming their healing ability) that it will turn into a very long slog with no real danger to the PCs. Either one of those things is bad. Even if you get the waves just right so that the PCs can defeat each one, they will still be fighting 10 or so mini-encounters without the choice to use their encounter and daily abilities more than once, meaning approximately 9 encounters worth of fighting using only at-wills. Players like using their higher-powered abilities. This alone will make the combat less interesting and longer for the players.
My suggestion is to either allow short rests between the encounters or limit the encounter to 2 or 3 waves, which is enough to set up the novelty of the situation without having the idea overstay its welcome.
- One of the statues, Arawai or Boldrei preferably, could allow them to spend a healing surge and regain their use of second wind.
- Another statue lets them regain an encounter power, maybe Dol Arrah or Dol Dorn
- When they down a key enemy, maybe the king (don't put him in the first wave but later), give them another AP to use this combat.
- Conclude with a swarming of kobolds and allow them to overload the elemental cart to stun them all so they can get away with the Gnome. Seems like an epic finish to me.
Thing like this keep the battle flowing and keep it from falling into an at-will slugfest.
If it's an exercise, I'd make sure you let your players know what the deal is, and make sure they're on board with a scenario that's designed exclusively to give them a level in the most direct manner. Nothing wrong with experimental game play, a lot of players enjoy it. Just make sure they know what they're in for.
If, on the other hand, you've decided it's a crucial element to your storyline, then I think you might be approaching it from the wrong end. I would figure out how you want this series of encounters to play out, without regard to the xp total. Design the encounters, and stop when it feels like you've told the chapter you want to tell. Only after that should you start working on the mechanical stuff such as totalling xp. Then adjust story and mechanics as necessary.
The wave-after-wave raid encounter works really well in MMOs because the medium keeps the tedium of die rolling and checking tables behind the scenes, and it's all done in milliseconds. It gets tedious for a lot of people, however, when you're doing nothing but rolling dice and moving figures for an entire evening. I think you could pull it off in an entertaining and meaningful way, but just be careful to make it all meaningful to the players.
@Magicstar: I really like your ideas, consider them stolen :D I had already had a simular idea with the statues of the gods and in fact that is the only reasone i am setting it in a buried temple and not just a cave. Now i just have to find a thematicly appropriate power for each statue
@moxcamel: The players are on board and it is a experiment. The players are genuinely excited on trying something like this out, they see it as a real test on their heroic ability´s
Cool!
For healing I let them find a stash of healing potions and I allowed the Bard to recharge her Majestic word at the hotspot. That gave them enough options.
The waves were not exactly worked out before hand, I threw a bunch of minions in with a couple of tougher guys and carried on adding small groups until they seemed to have used about half their resources. Then the big guys came in, making it a tough fight but doable. In a previous adventure they had picked up some alchemists fire so they all had a minion killing area affect weapon or 2 in their arsenal.
Another possibility I thought of, but didn't use, was having traps in the area that the PCs find out how to spring. When the bad guys are in the right position they can let off the trap (falling rocks, pit, darts from the wall, boiling oil, etc) and possibly take out a bunch of XP bad guys at once. Maybe have a simple skill challenge to figure out how to use/fix the mechanism before they can use it.
Otherwise, as someone mentioned already, there are more ideas in the DM book 2.