Part of the Slums mission is to defeat 15 random encounters. As much as I like the idea for how it makes the Slums feel completely overrun with enemies, I'm thinking of running it online and I don't want to completely slow the game down by throwing a bunch of REs at them even if I just used minions.
Since you usually get the option to talk with the enemy, I was thinking of using an ongoing skill challenge to clear the slums.
This is just a very rough idea:
Primary Skills:
Bluff
Diplomacy
Intimidate
Success would grant one success.
Failure would require the use of a power. You'd make the appropriate attack roll for the power you chose.
-At-will: Hit - no change. Miss - lose one Healing Surge.
-Encounter: Hit - Gain one success. Miss - lose one Healing Surge. Effect - Power is expended at the beginning of the next encounter. A short rest before an encounter does not renew the power.
-Daily: Hit - Gain 2-3 successes. Miss - lose one Healing Surge. Effect - Power expended until an extended rest as normal for a daily power.
Returning to the city to rest would add to the total number of successes needed.
There wouldn't really be a final failure to the skill challenge, it would just go on until they get enough successes to clear the Slums.
I think I may need to increase HS penalties for failure, at least for using an at-will.
Is this an okay idea, something I should try to polish? Or should I throw it out and just narrate the party defeating a lot of weak enemies?
When our group went through the Slums (oh so long ago...), I came up with five "random" encounters and the group encountered them at certain points in the Slums. Basically, the encounters represented the group clearing out the Slums yet did not have the feel of having to do 15 random encounters (which I would agree, that would be an awful lot to have a party "trudge" through). I arbitrarily put them at any point that I felt like, and I would make a "random" roll to "determine" if there was an encounter.
It went pretty well, I thought. At level 1, we were able to clear out the Slums in one night's worth of playing and they leveled up to 2nd at the end of the night.
The "boss" fight was not a group of ogres and trolls, but instead it was a low-level elite ogre with several orc cohorts within the old Rope Guild. I did have the group go through a skill challenge to navigate through the Rope Guild; any failures and they would have been attacked by a green slime or two (if memory serves) or some other hazard (which I cannot remember right now; I don't have my notes in front of me).
But a skill challenge to represent the group clearing out the slums would be an interesting idea. I don't know how I would do it but that sounds like a good idea. Having the group spend encounters and dailes in order to gain successes might work; I'm not sure how having Encounter powers not recharging after a short rest would work, though.
I would love to hear how it goes for you. BTW, we just finished up the storyline and the group took out Tyranthraxus and freed the city. I may be taking a break for a while and let someone else run a new game for a little while before I start up part 2. We are now sitting at 13th level. Keep me updated!
TheSeventhStooge...
That said, it doesn't include the 'kill 15 random encounters' mission in any form.
I'd suggest moving away from the original format, and try something like this:
You have specific mission zones in the ruins (Mantor's Library, the Cadorna Textile House, etc). These are specific adventure locations that run more or less like a typical dungeon, albeit an aboveground ruin.
Getting safely to and from these places is a minor skill challenge. Success allows the PCs to arrive without incident, while each failure costs the PC(s) involved in a check a healing surge, and overall failure in the challenge costs everyone a healing surge. This represents the danger of moving through the ruins in a general way, accounting for traps and unstable areas as much as monster attacks.
Alternately, failure could lead to a special encounter - not a random one, but rather a plot-advancing one that is meant to be inserted at an appropriate point like this, such as an ambush by some members of Norris the Gray's gang, thereby setting up a hook for another mission.
In some cases, like the Podol Plaza mission, it would segue into another skill challenge focusing on different skills, possibly leading to another combat encounter if the PCs blow it. (I will admit this one small thing in the print adventure's favor: it does a better job of explaining the background and circumstances of what's going on, especially for missions like this.)
The print adventure based on the game is an unusable mess as written. That said, it doesn't include the 'kill 15 random encounters' mission in any form. I'd suggest moving away from the original format, and try something like this: You have specific mission zones in the ruins (Mantor's Library, the Cadorna Textile House, etc). These are specific adventure locations that run more or less like a typical dungeon, albeit an aboveground ruin. Getting safely to and from these places is a minor skill challenge. Success allows the PCs to arrive without incident, while each failure costs the PC(s) involved in a check a healing surge, and overall failure in the challenge costs everyone a healing surge. This represents the danger of moving through the ruins in a general way, accounting for traps and unstable areas as much as monster attacks. Alternately, failure could lead to a special encounter - not a random one, but rather a plot-advancing one that is meant to be inserted at an appropriate point like this, such as an ambush by some members of Norris the Gray's gang, thereby setting up a hook for another mission. In some cases, like the Podol Plaza mission, it would segue into another skill challenge focusing on different skills, possibly leading to another combat encounter if the PCs blow it. (I will admit this one small thing in the print adventure's favor: it does a better job of explaining the background and circumstances of what's going on, especially for missions like this.)
That would have been a great idea. It's too late for me now but I will have to remember that for future reference.
I need to remember to do more skill challenges that involve taxing the characters from a physical standpoint. Here's hoping I remember next time.
Thanks for the idea!
TheSeventhStooge...
Hey YS,
When our group went through the Slums (oh so long ago...), I came up with five "random" encounters and the group encountered them at certain points in the Slums. Basically, the encounters represented the group clearing out the Slums yet did not have the feel of having to do 15 random encounters (which I would agree, that would be an awful lot to have a party "trudge" through). I arbitrarily put them at any point that I felt like, and I would make a "random" roll to "determine" if there was an encounter.
It went pretty well, I thought. At level 1, we were able to clear out the Slums in one night's worth of playing and they leveled up to 2nd at the end of the night.
The "boss" fight was not a group of ogres and trolls, but instead it was a low-level elite ogre with several orc cohorts within the old Rope Guild. I did have the group go through a skill challenge to navigate through the Rope Guild; any failures and they would have been attacked by a green slime or two (if memory serves) or some other hazard (which I cannot remember right now; I don't have my notes in front of me).
But a skill challenge to represent the group clearing out the slums would be an interesting idea. I don't know how I would do it but that sounds like a good idea. Having the group spend encounters and dailes in order to gain successes might work; I'm not sure how having Encounter powers not recharging after a short rest would work, though.
I would love to hear how it goes for you. BTW, we just finished up the storyline and the group took out Tyranthraxus and freed the city. I may be taking a break for a while and let someone else run a new game for a little while before I start up part 2. We are now sitting at 13th level. Keep me updated!
TheSeventhStooge...
Hello again.
I guess you had the five "random" encounters plus the boss fight replace the nine encounters set in the game?
Part of the reason I'm thinking about this kind of skill challenge is because I'm stuck on directly converting the game. "Oh, there's 20 orcs here? Minons! Lots of MINIONS!!!" I know I need to get out of that rut since square room + monsters is bad design in 4e. (It's just so easy to drop treasure parcels wherever the party finds treasure though.
)Thinking about it, not having encounters recharge does seem a little wonky because they probably would rest if they'd actually played the encounter out. I think I was hoping it would convey the crowdedness of the slums through "If we wait here too long, we'll get attacked again. Let's go."
And one of my other ideas was in the next fight the player's chosen power is treated as "Recharge X" and it has a chance to recharge during the next encounter. That probably takes it too far in the direction of alternative rules as opposed to just creating skill challenge.
A skill challenge sounds like a great way to handle the rope guild. How'd you handle navigating the rest of the slums? Did you use the map from the game, design your own version, or do away with a map entirely?
The print adventure based on the game is an unusable mess as written.
That's good to know. I won't waste time trying to hunt it down on ebay.
(And even if it was usable, I know I'm intimidated by the way older adventures are written.)
That said, it doesn't include the 'kill 15 random encounters' mission in any form.
I'd suggest moving away from the original format, and try something like this:
You have specific mission zones in the ruins (Mantor's Library, the Cadorna Textile House, etc). These are specific adventure locations that run more or less like a typical dungeon, albeit an aboveground ruin.
Getting safely to and from these places is a minor skill challenge. Success allows the PCs to arrive without incident, while each failure costs the PC(s) involved in a check a healing surge, and overall failure in the challenge costs everyone a healing surge. This represents the danger of moving through the ruins in a general way, accounting for traps and unstable areas as much as monster attacks.
Alternately, failure could lead to a special encounter - not a random one, but rather a plot-advancing one that is meant to be inserted at an appropriate point like this, such as an ambush by some members of Norris the Gray's gang, thereby setting up a hook for another mission.
In some cases, like the Podol Plaza mission, it would segue into another skill challenge focusing on different skills, possibly leading to another combat encounter if the PCs blow it. (I will admit this one small thing in the print adventure's favor: it does a better job of explaining the background and circumstances of what's going on, especially for missions like this.)
That's a really good idea. I especially like the idea of getting ambushed by Norris the Gray's gang. Do any of the other blocks in Phlan have good plot-encounter potential like that?
Kovel Mansion would be another place to use a skill challenge for chasing the theives while avoiding the traps.
Agents of various factions could also turn up in these random encounters - a cadre of thugs or assassins that were sent to stop the PCs (by Tyranthraxus's forces if they're well enough known, or one of the other evil groups, or even by rivals of the mission-patron in the settled area: Cadorna wants his family wealth reclaimed so that he can use it to buy influence, but there are probably a few others who would rather he not get that chance, whether or not they want it for themselves.
The PCs might turn up evidence of some of these factions' operations, which could be valuable if shown to the right people - the difficulty being that they'll need to pry it from the cold dead hands of those agents!
The Cadorna mission brings up another possibility, although several others that are on behalf of specific patrons rather than for the council as a whole would also work: a "Once again, Doctor Jones..." scenario - nothing says that the PCs are the only group hired to recover/eliminate/etc the target, so now there's a possible skirmish on the way there as well as on the way back if the PCs aren't careful.
Hello again.
I guess you had the five "random" encounters plus the boss fight replace the nine encounters set in the game?
Part of the reason I'm thinking about this kind of skill challenge is because I'm stuck on directly converting the game. "Oh, there's 20 orcs here? Minons! Lots of MINIONS!!!" I know I need to get out of that rut since square room + monsters is bad design in 4e. (It's just so easy to drop treasure parcels wherever the party finds treasure though.
Thinking about it, not having encounters recharge does seem a little wonky because they probably would rest if they'd actually played the encounter out. I think I was hoping it would convey the crowdedness of the slums through "If we wait here too long, we'll get attacked again. Let's go."
And one of my other ideas was in the next fight the player's chosen power is treated as "Recharge X" and it has a chance to recharge during the next encounter. That probably takes it too far in the direction of alternative rules as opposed to just creating skill challenge.
A skill challenge sounds like a great way to handle the rope guild. How'd you handle navigating the rest of the slums?
Let's see...
First, yeah, I got rid of the nine set encounters and replaced them with my own. Some of them felt a little out-of-line (a fellow resides in the Rope Guild that has a potion for a wizard that lives in anotther part of the Slums that is "just there" didn't feel right to me so I removed that, for instance). Basically, it was a search and destroy mission (as in the original game), but I didn't want TOO many encounters, so that is why I reduced it to five plus the boss encounter. They were able to get through it without resting, though, but if they WOULD have had to rest I might have come up with a 1-in-6 or 2-in-6 chance of one of the five encounters coming up.
Really, the only purpose of the Slums being cleared out, from a player standpoint, is to get the charactrs to 2nd or 3rd level, so they would be ready for the future encounters, so I looked at the Slums from that point of view.
I didn't use a map per se, I did come up with some landmarks of sorts (a couple of buildings, a now-half-destroyed guard tower, and of course the Rope Guild building), and as they were wandering around, I would put one major treasure parcel at one of the locations as well as a good treasure hoard with the boss encounter.
I don't know if I personally would consider your ideas behind the skill challenges to be radically altering the rules, you are just putting in additional conditions and stipulations in the challenge. It could work but you might want to do a little experimenting on your own to see how it would work.
ND's ideas about turning the recovery of Phlan into a three-way (or more) would have been a good idea for me, especially the encounters at Valhingen Graveyard. I am sure you could incorporate that into your game. You have plenty of time to do that though; perhaps as the characters advance in level they see more and more of Tyranthraxus' forces in conflict with Yarash the Sorcerer at Sorcerer's Isle, after he rejected the Boss' demands that he submit to the Boss' forces. So they get to the island at the same time that Tyranthraxus is launching a siege of Sorcerer's Isle, and now they have to get through them as well as enter the pyramid and shut down the sewage that is ruining the river. Or, you could throw in a twist and say that Yarash did in fact accept the Boss' terms but he has his own ideas of overthrowing Tyranthraxus.
Or a lot of other possibilities. You could really go a lot of different directions while still staying true to the original storyline. Perhaps, as ND said, the graveyard is causing all kinds of problems and there will be a four-way battle between Tyranthraxus' forces, the settlers, the undead and you (don't let that overwhelm you, though; if you have to, do the encounters separately).
TheSeventhStooge...
My Game
I finally got some answers out of more of my players. There's interest, so I'm going to try to run it. Since it's online, I think I'm going to try to squash all the missions down to about 3 battles and level them when they report to the council. I think that'll be an interesting challenge for me since as a player I tend to be rather hack'n'slash at times.
Slums
Yeah, Ohlo just hanging out is kind of... odd.
On the other hand, I picked up the PoR novelization and the slums weren't populated by monsters. The characters went to investigate a wizard's tower which had finally been breached during one of the nightly attacks.
It might be workable to have a few stubborn citizens refusing to leave the slums. Maybe the slums were secured earlier, but recently fell as the Boss gathered more forces.
Perhaps Ohlo could stick around and become a patron after they deliver the MacGuffin. He's protecting a teleportation circle in the tower? If they've been away from the city too long, the slums could be overtaken and they get attacked if they return through the portal.
Factions
I like this idea. If the PCs are doing really well, the city guard might be able to secure additional blocks, but if they start screwing up missions, then the monsters could start reclaiming blocks and they'd have to clear them again.
Unfortunately, I don't think I've ever played long enough to deal with the Yarash mission. He's polluting the river with his experiments, right?
I think if I include a rival party, they'll definitely have to be hired by Cadorna.
Skill Challenges
I'm not sure if I'll try to keep my original idea with my new thoughts about the Slums. I may work it into the overall scheme of things, though.
Navigating through the ruined parts of Phlan is a must. I'm thinking XP for skill challenges will be awarded when they return to civilized Phlan and treasure will either be found if they're searching or similar or it could also be awarded by the council.
(Sidenote on rewards: I am tempted to use GP= XP or award minor quest XP for finding treasure in addition to standard XP.)
My Game Reprise
I think the first thing I need to do is come up with some interesting encounters for the slums and for Sokal Keep in case they go that direction first.
I'm thinking with the Slums as disputed territory, I could put Ohlo in a tower and have a group of monsters assaulting it. He can send them to get the MacGuffin, probably a box of ritual components - until Sokal Keep is cleared, they're super expensive and in short supply. Maybe there's a combat encounter when they go to the Rope Guild? Instead of running a random shop, the guy in the Rope Guild could be the last person Ohlo sent after the components or maybe he's Ohlo's apprentice. They bring the package back, he'll give them a Linked Portal scroll.
Sokal Keep... Since the monsters there are endangering the shipping lanes, I might have the first encounter be an attack on the boat before they even get to Phlan. Skill challenge for avoiding the undead, drain healing surges for failure and losing battles. Going to use a ton of minions for the big battle. Not sure if there needs to be any other combat encounters for it.
Eh, I think I'll post before I lose another one.
> and the slums weren't populated by monsters.
In the print adventure, the slums were a semi-settled section of the city that was partially occupied by the desperate and/or criminal among the settlers, who faced the occasional orc/goblin/etc raid and otherwise mainly contended with poverty and the dilapidated nature of the ruins, along with the occasional unaffiliated hazard (beasts lairing in an unoccupied building, roaming undead from the graveyard, etc).
In some cases those goblin/orc/etc intruders weren't outright hostile, since this was also a great place for them to engage in black market trading; the slums as a whole were regarded as a no-man's land by both sides, though both nevertheless had eyes and ears in the area.
Ohlo was not in the print adventure (though the print adventure had a roster of NPCs of various inclinations and abilities who might turn up around the city and region if the DM felt like using them), nor was the rope guild, so I can't offer any insight into either.
Yarash is the magician who controls the pyramid that's polluting the river. He's trying to create a mutant breed of lizardfolk and the pollution (apart from being used in the process) is intended to eventually cause a subtle alchemical shift in the Moonsea (which the river flows into), making it more suitable (and advantageous) for his creations. He is NOT affiliated with any of the other factions, and in fact is a thorn in the side of the 'boss' as much of the settlers since that pollution also keeps his forces from using the river - this is one reason why the settlement didn't get crushed early on.
Stopping Yarash and shutting down the pyramid can (unless the PCs are reckless) earn them an alliance among one of the lizardfolk tribes in the swamps to the east, which helps to tilt the balance of power towards the settlers (especially since it ensures that the river remains unsafe for the forces of the boss while opening it up for the settlers' use).
One possible alternative would be to open with an attack on the PCs' ship and have it damaged enough that it grinds ashore on Thorn Isle (where Sokal Keep stands), giving the PCs an opportunity to explore it before meeting with the council.
Cadorna in particular is very interested in the keep - he regards the clearing of the keep as the most important priority for the town and as a means to assess the worthiness of the PCs to take on other missions within the city (especially to the library and to the textile house).
Also, the boss will be ramping up his efforts to destroy the PCs and/or the settlement as matters progress, which means that enemy forces will become more numerous and more vigilant (especially in areas on the fringe of settler-held territory), and his sleepers within the settlement will also become more active in trying to sabotage the town and the PCs' missions. In the print adventure (not reflected in the game) it leads to a massed assault by his forces (with him providing fire support) on the main settlement after they've become too much of a nuisance, which can potentially lead to its fall if the PCs can't drive him off and/or reinforce the gates and walls.
There is one other major difference to the ending (in which the PCs finally confront the boss and deal with Cadorna) in the print adventure, which actually makes much more sense than the computer game version, but that's a getting a bit ahead of your situation.