To her, dreaming and waking are all the same existence. She doesn't distinguish between the two. I've decided next time the party takes an extended rest, they will be pulled into her dream where they will face a nightmare specific to them.
I'm thinking there will also be some cool terrain that either helps you out (dream flying, incredible physical feats, wishing things into existence) or hinders you ( feeling like you're moving through molasses, being suddenly naked & without your equipment, and other weird dream things ).
This should be fun.
Any ideas for additional shenanigans? I'm especially trying to think how to incorpate cool dream things like flying and such without completely breaking the encounters or making the players feel totally screwed (like suddenly losing all their equipment because they are suddenly naked).
What say you all?
While there, the demon used the tortured dreaming villagers to attack by casting them as demonic forces which broadcast their tormented cries out at the party. This took the form of a constant draining effect on the party (Aura 5, 1d8 psychic damage; centered on each "lesser demon"), and the demon would channel a twist of the dream world through those figures to remove a party member's weapon or implement (+12 vs Will, save ends).
I suppose it was fortunate I could never hit with it, until the fighter was about to bring down an attack on the demon with flanking from the rogue. After I commented that "save ends", the cleric used his turn just after the demon to use Divine Aid . . . restoring the weapon and allowing the fighter to . . . whiff with his daily (rolled a 3).
("Seriously, why do I keep trying to use these things, they never hit." "Because they're awesome." ". . . yeah.")
That said, I do have a small notepad file of ideas for dream world concepts . . . mostly in the nature of "adventure into the dream realm". They are so far only concepts and I haven't drawn too much up in the way of mechanics or encounters . . . all I know are two facts.
- The player characters must not be allowed to DIE from death in the dream world. Suffer a penalty from it, yes. But I am not intending to make it the Matrix. (And, naturally, the PLAYERS NEED NOT KNOW YOU WON'T KILL THEM. That takes all the tension out . . .)
- It's not the strength of the person in the real world which determines who has the power in the dream world. It's the dream which is being inhabited which defines what happens.
The terrain sounds great. I can even see crossing from one to the other instituting effects immediately. Like your flying along then suddenly you fall into thick sticky rock.
Dramatic scene changes are the first thing i think of if living in a dream world. One minute you are fighting in an arena the next you are at the bottom of the ocean (without any need to swim or breath). This could make things so much fun. I imagine putting a PC in his childhood home while battling and he is more concerned with not breaking the furniture.
I also could see bringing back enemies that the party may have had a hard time defeating. If it has been a long time since facing them a crazy daemon form might fit the nightmare better.
Also with your wanting to make them naked you could make the encounter much weaker or have all their equipment turn invisible to have some mental games against them. Another option would be a skill challenge where using a skill could give one PC a weapon related to threat skill. Such as a 15 arcana check grants the fighter a great club that looks like a giant wand. Another example might be a nature check allows the ranger to have a bow that uses snakes instead of arrows.
Their rolls might effect the world too like your mood changes your dreams. Maybe every 10th roll changes the world around them high rolls in a row make the surroundings more epic, low make everything more dire around them and mediocre rolls create mundane places like a farm or inn.
I will be using this idea at one point. While typing i have been convinced of it.
For instance, as I mentioned, I have an extremely arrogant drow thief who is nothing but confident in his own charms and prowess. He has certain bad experiences in his past, primarily drow matron mothers with snake whips, one of whom used to be his girlfriend until her body was possessed by the spirit of his actual (matron) mother (talk about oedipal issues!).
With that in mind, what would be a good nightmare for him?
And also as a player in this game, I will henceforth not look at this thread, so as not to spoil myself. :D
Cheers
Nice idea!
Though I have no experience with dreamscape-scenarios in my own campaigns, you can also use popular references for inspriration. For example, you can use the Fade of the Dragon Age-Setting for muse.
As a player in this game (whose charismatic drow thief does some of his best work while naked), I might suggest tailoring it to the specific characters as well.
For instance, as I mentioned, I have an extremely arrogant drow thief who is nothing but confident in his own charms and prowess. He has certain bad experiences in his past, primarily drow matron mothers with snake whips, one of whom used to be his girlfriend until her body was possessed by the spirit of his actual (matron) mother (talk about oedipal issues!).
With that in mind, what would be a good nightmare for him?
And also as a player in this game, I will henceforth not look at this thread, so as not to spoil myself. :D
Cheers
Ack, Erik. I forgot to put a spoiler warning for you. Just pretend like you don't realize it's a dream at first next week. :D
Nice idea!
Though I have no experience with dreamscape-scenarios in my own campaigns, you can also use popular references for inspriration. For example, you can use the Fade of the Dragon Age-Setting for muse.
Yeah that was kind of what I was thinking. Remember that part from Dragon Age: Origins when you have to rescue your party from the demons in the Fade? This will be like that only cooler I hope.
Love this Idea!
The terrain sounds great. I can even see crossing from one to the other instituting effects immediately. Like your flying along then suddenly you fall into thick sticky rock.
Dramatic scene changes are the first thing i think of if living in a dream world. One minute you are fighting in an arena the next you are at the bottom of the ocean (without any need to swim or breath). This could make things so much fun. I imagine putting a PC in his childhood home while battling and he is more concerned with not breaking the furniture.
You had a lot of great ideas. Thank you. I especially like the scene changes. I think it's time to dig out my dungeon tiles and get creative with some kind of system that allows a player to draw a dungeon tile and place it on the board.
That said, I do have a small notepad file of ideas for dream world concepts . . . mostly in the nature of "adventure into the dream realm". They are so far only concepts and I haven't drawn too much up in the way of mechanics or encounters . . . all I know are two facts.
- The player characters must not be allowed to DIE from death in the dream world. Suffer a penalty from it, yes. But I am not intending to make it the Matrix. (And, naturally, the PLAYERS NEED NOT KNOW YOU WON'T KILL THEM. That takes all the tension out . . .)
- It's not the strength of the person in the real world which determines who has the power in the dream world. It's the dream which is being inhabited which defines what happens.
I think these are great thoughts. I especially am with you on the no death in the dream aspect. If they "die" in the dream, I will have them wake in the real world and give them an opportunity to wake the others. In the dream world I will let them control the monsters/nightmares that was tailored to them.
First of all, do you have the 3rd edition Manual of the Planes by any chance? If you do, then take a look at the entry for Limbo, and the checks to control it -- then look at the Region of Dreams and the Lucid Dreaming skill. I think you might start to see where I'm going with this: a fact of dreams is that they're mutable, subject to the human mind: anyone could create gear or defy the laws of physics (such as deciding there was no gravity, allowign them to fly), their mind just has to be strong and focused enough to manage. This also allows terrain and other incredable feats... some of these may happen randomly, but beign good at lucid dreaming, or simply very wise/attuned, will allow you to manage such at your will and possibly counteract nightmarish (negative) effects.
dying in the dream world should never kill you if you didn't travel there bodily. the following are my set of rules for dying while "dreamwalking". again, they reference 3rd terms, so adapt as necessary
1 - You wake up.
2 - You are so charged with adrenaline that you won't be able to get back to sleep for at least a few hours (this puts you out of the rest of the dream-verse "adventure" - concequence for failure!)
3 - You get no effective rest, even if you'd been asleep for near eight hours. That means no spell recovery and fatigue penalties the following day if you just soldier on.
4 - You MIGHT (about half the time) take a single point of Wisdom damage from the psychological trauma. This ability damage will recover normally, so shouldn't be a big deal.
5 - You MIGHT (about a quarter of the time) take a single point of Constitution damage from the physical shock of waking up like that. Again, remember that under 3rd rules 1 point of ability damage heals each day, so not a big deal.
6 - When you enter the Dream Realm again, you might find yourself somewhere other than where you "died" -- generally a familiar or safe place (I added this in mostly to be generous about dreamland tpk's)
The other feature of dream realms that is interesting is the foes... they come in three flavors
1) Other dreamers. probably the least interestign for random encounters. bak
2) Creatures from the Id/Primal Fears. Neat at first, but since any character is goign to have a small list of vices and nightmares, these alone woudl get repetitive ("ANOTHER spider monster?")
3) Dream/Nightmare "natives" - not specific to any dreamer, these creatures are not bound by the laws of physics, even loose D&D physics, and may be friendly or hostile. A few canon monsters, especially ones from the Far Realm, can fill in here, but i found making homebrew WTF monsters to be more satisfying. I've heard that's even easier in 4th, so good luck!
Thank you! That is a lot of great info. I'll have to see if I can find that Manual of the Planes. I wonder if the 4E book of the same name has anything similar.
Dreams behave in some strange and mysterious ways - sudden insights about the world will come to you without any logical source, things change suddenly in reaction to your moods, trying to walk can feel like moving through quicksand and things that should physically be easy can take a great deal of exhausting effort, physics do not work the way they should in the waking world....
Such changes are dramatic, and might require a dream version character sheet; perhaps you can even start the characters out as level 1 dreamers with pre-generated character sheets. The pregenerated characters might use a standard non-heroic ability score array (8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13), assigned loosely based on the waking-world version of the characters, using a generic class for everyone (something similar to the 3.5E Expert, with added spell-casting ability, or a modified version of a jack-of-all-trades PC class like the Bard), which the players can then multiclass out of without penalty into the PC class of their choice as they gain experience in the dream world, with ability score increases or the occasional limited selection of bonus powers or feats awarded every level or so. The (probably desirable) result would be that dreaming characters are weaker than they are when awake and thus more vulnerable to nightmare threats, and the dream selves have disorienting and alien abilities.
Waking world magical equipment might change to mundane equivalents in the dream world (unless the waking world version is specifically enchanted to persist into the dream world); dream world equipment might generally only last for the duration of the dream, unless it is specially enchanted to be a recurring dream element.
A waking world Wisdom-based Dreaming skill (possibly a Class skill of Monks, Clerics, Druids, and Sorcerors) might allow players to subtly alter the dream environment. For example, forgetting to bring a torch into a dungeon in the waking world could be troublesome for characters who can't see in the dark, but producing one in a dream might be an easy challenge for the Dreaming skill; a more difficult challenge might be for the characters to teleport to a new location, a still greater challenge might be to fly or produce a magical dream-world weapon or armor, to wake up or resist waking up from the dream, or to make dream world characters appear or temporarily disappear, and highly skilled dreamers might struggle with making massive changes to the dream world (make a recurring dream world mountain permanently disappear, build a recurring dream world castle) or to have waking-world effects on waking-world characters (force a dreamer to wake up, or even cause physical damage to his/her sleeping body.)
Have random things happen, or suddenly put the group in the middle of a fight or discussion. When they ask how they got there, either say nothing, or give some possible but implausible answer. Pretty quickly, they'll either start testing things, or figure it out. As they do, hit them with the nightmare attacks. Might be cool if they could use skills to convince the dreamer of things that help (or hurt on a skill fail) their cause (changing environments, weaker opponents, etc.).