Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 darklyte Apr 13, 2010 8:39:26	So I'm coming across a dilemma with an NPC I want to use.  Her name is Makenna Minova and she's a gnome cleric that specializes in necromatic magic.  She animates undead servants to help her with her research and she is sanctioned by her government. I want her to give some quests to my players, but I really don't want them to just be "go here, kill anything in your way, and bring back this McGuffin."  I'd prefer if was something more reasonable like "I need these supplies, please go get them for me" but I definitely want to include the characters and not just the players.  I know my players would be bored with a mission that essentially was "I go to this place and talk to this guy, and then go to this other place and talk to another guy."  I just want to be able to give my players non-murder based quests.  I know they're essentially killers-for-hire, but not everyone wants something dead.  Is there anything I can do that would be involving enough for them that wouldn't revolve around killing things or direct skill challenges?
#2 Shiftkitty Apr 13, 2010 14:36:06	Give her a little something in her past. Just because she's a necromancer doesn't have to mean that that's all she does. Perhaps, now that she has these dangerous characters in her employ, it's time to start cleaning house. Have her send them to "deliver a message" to a hated rival. He can't be killed. It would upset the balance of power in a necromantic cabal which could plunge things in that particular circle into a chaotic tizzy. So this guy needs to be taken somewhere and scared to death. Perhaps this hated rival isn't even a necromancer. Maybe she's got her fingers in some kind of underworld activities. Maybe the party has to retrieve a particularly high-profile corpse, a recently interred nobleman or high-ranking clergyman. They have to get the body and bring it back to her, but let the local authorites discover the theft of the body. How do you sneak a dead body around when everyone knows the guy on sight and is looking for him? Just some suggestions.
#3 grythome Apr 13, 2010 16:22:21	I would agree that the players would be bored with a straight 'go here and talk to this guy, then go there and talk to that guy'. However, from the description of what you want, it sounds like you are primed to run your characters through some skill challenges.  With some roleplaying for camoflauge, it isn't necessary to run a skill challenge as a straight up set of numbers checks (although you can certainly do that as well, if desired). With your knowledge of the group and their capabilities, you can make a skill challenge (or a series of them) which allows each of your players to participate, just as they would in a combat environment. Review their characters offline from a play session, and make some notes as to what skills each one has trained - then build your skill challenge around a mix that involves all of the characters. Is the person they need to find not easily located? Locating them could involve skill checks from:   Streetwise (if in an urban setting)   Dungeoneering (if underground)   Nature (if in the wilderness) Use non-murderous conversations with NPCs to obtain information about the target (location, habits, background, etc).   Diplomacy (talk 'em into it)   Bluff (an elaborate story about why they need to locate the target)   Intimidate (tell the characters, or else) Successful checks from the second section could provide a bonus to actual discussions with the target (i.e. information about the target's background or habits might provide a +2 to related skill checks when meeting with the target). The second part of your skill challenge might be to go obtain something that the target directs the characters to that your necromancer NPC will need. Maybe History checks to dig out geneologies to locate a special set of remains. Arcana to get past special wards on the tomb. Athletics to push open the weighty tomb door. Endurance to get past the overwhelming miasma inside the tomb (rotting dead bodies = smelly). As you get started on putting the challenge together, you'll likely end up with more choices than you can use. The DMG gives some great guidelines, including helping avoid them from being stalemated or blocked into a dead end.
#4 uhf Apr 13, 2010 17:02:49	How about rescuing the guy... then the PCs can talk to him.
#5 Grimbus Apr 13, 2010 18:00:29	As a necromancer your NPC talks to the dead a lot - so perhaps the players could be assigned quests by the dead - for example find Jim Stein in Rockingham and tell him the gold is hidden under the third haystack in Parsons Green. Also she may come across some corpses that should not be dead , and the players have to investigate the murders. Or you could do a Revenge of the Bodysnatchers type campaign - the Gnome has come across the corpse of a local dignitary and animated it. The problem is that the person who died is still walking around town - there is one body too many. Either there is an identical twin, a doppleganger or some other effect at work. The players have to investigate and turn up the corpse of the Mayor of town. The players have dinner with him an hour later and he seems fine. I'm not sure how to end this, but it could be something similar to the revenge of the body snatchers or similar - a cabal of witches have created Golem clones and are using them to replace key members of the cities defence units. Once they have completed the plan, an armt y of Orcs will turn up and be allowed to walk into the front gate. The players have to find the Cabal and then find and destroy the Golems and then hope to take on the Orc Army. A bit rambling (it is a bit late) but I hope this helps.
#6 warlawk Apr 16, 2010 10:26:06	Ok, here's what I see. Gnomecromancer operating in the region with governmental approval. She needs the player characters to go to the local city hall and pick up a package for her. Be it official documents or whatever. That's the official reason for the PCs visit. The real reason is that she has a contact with city hall who has obtained [Something Important] for her. This could be rare spell components, a powerful relic, a packet of information... whatever. Something relatively small but terribly important to her work and not something she wants known by those in City Hall.  A simple hand off, the contact will get them the package while they are there, and they return it to her along with the official package they are there picking up. Except the contact never shows up. He works in a restricted part of City Hall and the players are not officially allowed in there. Do they sneak in? Bluff/Disguise their way in? They need to get that package and quickly (perhaps it is ritual components she needs for a ritual that can only be done at midnight, on this, the night of the equinox or something equally time sensitive). But, they cannot just go on a murderous rampage through city hall without any sort of consequences now can they?
#7 darklyte Apr 16, 2010 19:36:13	These are wonderful ideas, everyone, I appreciate the assistance!  I have written down a good amount of little quests for her to give the players so they can get to know her and learn about the town as well.  Thanks for the great input!
#8 josh-hill Apr 17, 2010 6:56:48	maybe the suplies are becoming increasingly hard to get hold of and they need to enlist the help of smugglers e.c.t. maybe the warehouse could get raided by guards and the npc's caught up in it