A village have been attacked by werewolves and now the surviving villagers are fleeing for the closest town, of course where the PCs reside. The townguard or one of the PCs themselves notice a group of people running towards town in the dark only having one torch. The group is being attacked by a large pack of wolves and people are disappearing left and right. If the PCs want more than maybe one or two people surviving they have to go out and rescue them.
So here is what I need help with. The group I'm making this encounter for is a lvl 2 group. I'm picturing high grass all around the road where the villagers are running so seeing the wolves is hard, it is also dark making it even harder. The goal of the encounter is to have as many villagers as possible enter the town alive.
You can do this encounter as a skill challenge or as a normal fighting one.
I have done a Skill challenge (not a good one) that I will post in a day or two just too see what you can think up from a blank slate.
Let the creative juice flow!
If you really want to do it this way though obvious skills to include are perception (to know where the wolves and villagers are), diplomacy (to calm down the panicked villagers and have them listen), nature for obvious hunting patterns and anything about the environment or the wolves) and athletics (for running fast or something).
My best advice is to script it out as much as possible and throw in some good fights. Then at least you'll have a good time.
It might not be that easy to make this a straight-up skill challenge. It is probably a lot easier to ask your players what they want to do and just let them roll whatever checks are necessary.
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My best advice is to script it out as much as possible and throw in some good fights. Then at least you'll have a good time.
Agreed.
Add a combat encounter or two (diferent situations) for several stages of skill failures (2 failures, 5 failures); if you go this way, do not limit yourself with the prescribed skill challenge (SC) success/failure numbers, just follow the Monster Vault adventure SC example and run with the SC as long as its fun to.
Just be careful with combat situations where the PCs may be split up.
Of course, you could make each stage have up to 3 failures with escalating bad stuff happening and a fight only breaking out with a third failure. Good tension there as well.
Or you could change this around. I think it's more interesting to have the characters encounter the villagers on a dark road in the forest. The villagers are fleeing for their lives and the PCs quickly realize there are a lot of werewolves out there, and they'd better flee too. Assuming a good group, they'll try to help. At that point, enter a complex skill challenge (10-12 successes).
That assuming the party wont try to make a stand, barricade the encampment, until the werewolves give up (unless of course the attack isnt random at all).
Having the safety of the village on sight may eliminate this turn of events.
Based on my (IRL) experience in an LFR module:
The person in charge of the fleeing villagers is almost as dangerous as the werewolves. He is setting the fastest pace HE can go at. He's trying to leave the exhausted behind (sometimes he can be talked out of it). And he's actively demanding that the injured be kicked out. Let's give him a little credit; he scared out of his wits and doesn't know that only the werewolf bites are infectious. However, he is turning the villagers from a sort-of-cohesive group into single terrified individuals, plus he's creating stragglers. For the PCs to get a handle on the situation, they have to take over leadership of the group. A really good Diplomacy or Intimidate roll will work; so will coming out under the Town Mayor's banner. Otherwise, you have to fight / throw out HIM first. With him in the group, any effort to collect the stragglers or give first aid to the injured is doomed to failure; the villagers under his influence will abandon the PCs to the wolves.
The villagers won't go back; it's not safe there in their eyes, even if it would be safer than being in the woods at night.
Any primal PC ought to be able to use Nature to scare off the wolves for a while. Of course, the werewolves will regroup and try again later.
I like the idea of previously injured villagers turning into werewolves inside the group and attack. If you do this before the group reaches safety, have the previous leader (if he's still with them) give them a public "I told you so".
As noted above, every success in a skill challenge should see something good happen for the group. Every failure causes problems or a fight. Even with a Pacifist Cleric in the group, there are too many injuries to go around; the PCs NEED to get themselves and their charges to safety.
The IRL experience: 5 players do not automatically a group make; you could just get 5 solo stars. With some guidance from me (StarLock3), our group (Sentinel Druid3?, Rogue1, Warlord1) went to the aid of the dwarf battlerager Fighter when he actually went down for the first time all day - after 2 1/3 mods in the thick of everything. The mood of the group afterwards was that we COULD rely on each other in a pinch. (Good thing, too, because the next fight I took a crit that would have one-shot-killed-dead anybody but the dwarf.)
I like.
