Been awhile since I've been here, but these forums have always had excellent campaign advice.
I am running a Play By Post campaign, and at the start of level 2, the PCs will witness the death of the King, and take the princess into their custody.
The princess is not only the heir to the throne but also the only witness to the real murderers of the King, so there are good aligned and neutral aligned reasons to keep her safe.
After the 11 or so encounters required to escape the castle, I would like to
A) have multiple exits from the castle, which favor different skillsets...sneaking, climbing, fighting their way to the drawbridge, maybe a magical means... I'm still chewing those ideas in the old noggin.
however once they escape, they will be in the capital city, with guards and special forces of the evil organization searching for them.
I would like to set up skill encounters and sort of a "City Search" skill challenge to avoid detection en mass, plus individual sneaking sessions.
I think that this part would be useful for the disquise self skill, and spell, and I have already fed them 2 levels of direct combat. This level is supposed to serve as a break from that except for individual fights that they may or may not choose.
Also there is a cleric in the party who wants to incriminate his church for collaboration, so I would like to set up interrigation and information gathering to tie in his own side quest with the party escape.
I have a few ideas on how to do this, but you guys always seem to think of stuff I haven't.
Thanks for any advice!
Basically, you divide the city into quarters and assign different DC for several skills, according to the flavor of the quarter; if a failure occurs, a random encounter happens (you also prepare such encounters, kinda like the old random encounters), and increases the alert level, which will have repercussions on the next encounters.
Regarding the cleric situation, since they are on the run, there isnt much they can do for now, IMHO.
However, they could try breaking into either the house or the sanctuary of the head of the church to gather incriminating evidences (letters, for example); they could then run or deliver them to someone, who could be on the fence regarding the innocence of the party (assuming they are being incriminated), and thus be convinced by the hard evidence (it can become the man inside for future incursions/information gathering).
The capital city is actually already divided up into quadrants, so that works out perfectly.
As I come up with more specific ideas to flesh these out, I'll post more individual concepts for criticism/expansion here.
Please keep the advice coming,
Causa
Just a little piece of flavor... I dunno if there's an explicit mechanic behind it, other than an acrobatics check to get across it. Also, I would think the "home team" (that is, the guildsmen) would know about these, but people from out of town would not.
I will actually try to work in the Thieve's Guild's attention based on gather information checks from the party. If they start asking questions and looking for specific, valuable information, the thieves guild could take interest, etc..
There would be new checks and stealthing options for sewer monsters.
How would you all suggest that the city guard investigate the sewers? A time delay after the PCs enter, or after x many failed stealth checks in the sewers...
IE: They stir up enough monsters or rat swarms or what not, that the guard would take notice of the heightened activity.
Hrm, looking at the example in DMG2 that you mentioned...I think sewers could work as a branching option for crossing districts or leaving the city.
There would be new checks and stealthing options for sewer monsters.
How would you all suggest that the city guard investigate the sewers? A time delay after the PCs enter, or after x many failed stealth checks in the sewers...
IE: They stir up enough monsters or rat swarms or what not, that the guard would take notice of the heightened activity.
If the sewers had some bad inhabitants, i believe they would just go along with "Let the monsters take care of them", and just guard the sewer exits outside the city; on top, the searches continue.
A good hazard that you can create, if the guards figure out that the PCs are in the sewers, would be diverting the river to the sewers, and "flush them out".
If the usurper needs proof (bodies), let him hire a mercenary group to hunt the players in the sewers (or up); if not, he will give up after a time, after having full control of the realm, with the right ppl in place and most of the "rotten ones" either dead, or fleeing.