Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Werlynn Oct 15, 2009 12:25:13	I'm working on a 3 encounter adventure to run as a delve. Right now all I have is an idea of the encounters and their timeline.  It's set in Eberron. The background is that the PCs were hired to stop a group of goblins from raiding the tomb of an ancient goblin king to get an artifact. If they've gotten in then they need to be stopped and the tomb resealed. Level-wise I am thinking between 3 and 6. Encounter 1 Set outside the tomb/necropolis I'm not sure if I want minions here. I'm thinking skirmishers or lurkers and some soldiers Encounter 2 Once the PCs have rested and are about to go into the tomb the leader of the goblins emerges to see (what the commotion was/why its so quiet/where the guys who were supposed to join him inside are). Option 1: the head goblin is a solo with 2 soldier bodyguards. I'm thinking he will be a soldier or a brute. I'll try to set their levels so it falls in the range of hard encounter. Option 2: The head goblin is a Leader Controller (maybe elite) and he has a bodyguard that is a solo brute or soldier. In this case bloodying or slaying (undecided) will trigger the guard's on-bloodied effects. Encounter 3 The players head into the necropolis and find that the goblins managed to break the seal on the tomb. Now they have to complete a skill challenge (arcane, religion, dungeoneering, thievery) to reseal the tomb and return the angry undead arriving in waves to meet them back to rest. The undead are there to offer something for people who may have made characters totally incapable of assisting with the skill challenge in a logical way. I'm thinking waves of minions with the odd easy grouping here and there, maybe tying their arrival to the skill challenge. Failing the skill challenge may bring forth some sort of powerful undead like the actual goblin king. In this case I'll do my best to make it obvious that fleeing is an option. I'm interested in any constructive feedback that can help me build the adventure that I have in mind while making something that will be challenging and fun. I want to threaten my PCs so they experience tension but I'm not out to kill them.
#2 QuestingWord Oct 15, 2009 19:49:36	I like the idea, I also like the way your sketching out the encounters for the short adventure... I believe that if the PCs fail to complete the skill challenge successfully, the Goblin-King Undead/Abomination might escape and exist again in the Eberron world, and if they succeed, perhaps they have just caught the eye of patrons, who could be comprised of both lawful-good secrete / organizations and or perhaps the new patrons for the PCs are actually nefarious to the core and want to manipulate the characters for their own ends.  The Goblin-King could have had something to do with the incursions over 2-3ooo years ago and was cursed to rise again and set free either some breach to the Far Realms or take this and spin it again but with a Lords of Dust / Demon Lord flavor to it.   Just some expansion of the story ideas...
#3 Werlynn Oct 17, 2009 14:29:47	Thank you. I like those ideas. Right now I'm just planning it as a 1-shot though. My plot for it was that they are hired to stop a band of Bladebearers from entering the tomb. I haven't decided if the goal is to stop them from getting an artifact or to stop the undead king from being released. I'm leaning towards the latter because this way they won't be as likely to go deep into the necropolis looking for the artifact for themselves. I'm either going to have them hired by Breland, ala the Ashen Crown, or hired by one of the other factions like the Wordbearers or the king himself (via a changeling intermediary POSING as somebody from another nation of course). I hope that describing the signs that something dark and terrible is approaching their position will also encourage them to stop and work on the tomb sealing skill challenge rather than try to battle the king, who will be built to be hard for players who HAVEN'T been battling undead all encounter and probably already used their dailies. My goal will be that lots of luck could mean they beat him but it would have to be ridiculous luck. He's not supposed to show up until they fail the skill challenge and even then it's supposed to mean they flee. My main concerns are the makeup for the first 2 encounters. I'll be aiming for +3 levels for the second encounter with the solo and his guards or leader. The first encounter I think will be around +1 and the third encounter I think will be either LOTS of minions or many very easy (level 1 or 2) undead which arrive in waves during the skill challenge.