I'm trying to introduce the artifacts Rash and Reckless (PH2) to my heroic tier campaign. I am aware of the fact that they are meant for paragon level heroes, but if you tone them down a tad, they're really not much more powerful than the Amulet of Passage, except that there are two of them. Furthermore, it will probably be much more difficult for the intended wearers to achieve high concordance with the boots, since they're playing rather timidly and overly carefully as of now (which is why I want to give this particulat artifact to them in the first place).
Anyway, I thout it would be most befitting Rash and Reckless' personalities to enter the campaign with an audible "Bang!", to be more specific, sitting at the centre of a huge trap complex begging to be reaped by a pair of daring adventurers.
Since I've never done any traps this scale before, I'm looking for ideas. PH2 lists a nice collection of traps and hazards, but they're usually intended as supplements to normal combat encounters. I'm unsure how to combine them and make them fit in as a whole, not just isolated contraptions. I'm also worried about including all characters equally, since my Paladin has been complaining about being useless in skill challanges that don't involve diplomacy or intimidation. So there probably should be some arcane traps to occupy the wizard and some sort of creature spawner to give the defenders something to protect weaker party members against.
Thanks in advance!
I'm running a party of six characters:
-elf Ranger (decent Athletics, good Acrobatics and Perception),
-human Wizard (excellent knowledge skills, decent Insight),
-dwarven Cleric (not much of anything apart from Dungeoneering, Insight and a bit of Endurance),
-dragonborn Paladin (only Diplomacy),
-human Rouge (good Athletics, Acrobatics and Thievery) and
-githzerai Druid (pretty much the all-rounder, good Athletics and Acrobatics, some Thievery).
Here are my ideas so far:
I'm thinking of a large, rectangular room. Rash and Reckless are each sitting on top of a marble collumn (a visual sign of their tremendous ego) to either side of the chamber. The whole complex looks a bit like a weird kind of circus tent, with colourful bands of cloth covering the walls and narrow walkways, planks and ropes crisscrossing the room. Whenever a character does something really spectacular (or reckless), the sound of enthusiastic applause echoes through the air. I really want to bring accross that the artefacts built their own little illusionary "testing grounds".
As soon as the characters enter, the door closes behind them. They can then a) try to reopen it, b) reach the other door accross the room (getting past all the traps, of course) or c) get both Rash and Reckless into the party's possession, which causes the chamber to revert back to the ruined storage room it once was.
To reach one of the artefacts, a character needs to climb/jump/swing on ropes accross the room, which should occupy two of the players with decent Acrobatics/Athletics (Ranger, Rouge or Druid). To make things more difficult, they are beset upon by a group of small, flying nuisances (harpies?) that try to push them off ledges etc. There's also a row of blaster traps (crossbow turrets?) on either side to keep them busy.
The blasters are magical in nature and controlled by a magical circle near the entrance. The mage character can deactivate one turret, delay all of them or take control of one and make an attack with it each round. Entering the circle activates two summoning devices that spew forth shadow hounds or undead that try to get at the mage, which should give the defender and leader something to do. The mage could also try to deactivate the summoning circles first and let the melee fighters deal with the blasters (brute force ftw).
I'm not sure that this is the right approach, though, because these traps are all quite deadly, which gives a bit of a wrong impression to the "testing". I don't want my characters to harbor any hard feelings towards Rash and Reckless, they're supposed to be a major reward, after all. I wanted to add a time limit or something, like a contraption that moves the artifacts out of reach if the adventurers aren't fast enough. That way, they could fail without necessarily coming to serious harm. But adding moving walls and such seemes to really overdo it.
I'd also like do do something with levers or buttons that allow for some really creative action on the part of the players, like shooting arrows or throwing stones at the buttons or sending the mages pseudo dragon familiar to pull a lever.
This is all still kind of vague and I'm not sure how to pull it all together. I really want this to be a fun encounter that my players will remember for some time, since they've been complaining about stale and boring dungeon fights of late.
I like what you have so far for the encounter. As for the leathality, pad all the traps and include safty nets and other soft stuff. If character is droped to 0 HP they are just out instead of dying. I would also include trap that might teleport down characters out of the room. Try and find some minions that are fast and have push pull or slide power and have them respawn every round as on of the traps. If they spend an AP give them +1 to what ever they do. Give a +1 for bold description of the what they are doing. If some one tries something that requires an 18 or higher to do and pulls it of give them AP they must spend on the next round. Have the artifacts be slowly lowered into a pool of acid or something and be "destroyed" if they take longer then 3 rounds. Make sure traps work together, if a trap pushes make sure it pushes into something, put pressure plate at bottom of the pit that were pushed into that triggers air jet that throws them into air and lands them back where they started.
Mathius
I thought the safety nets and such were sarcastic at first, but it's actually a really good idea. Fits in perfectly with the circus-tent-atmosphere. Though Rash and Reckless revel in dangerous and imprudent actions, so maybe not. I'm not sure.
I thought I about placing some kind of large hour glass relief on the far wall that trickles out in four rounds. I'd have to experiment with the number of turns, though, depends on how hard it is to reach the artefacts.
The problem with lowering the pillars is that the whole point is in getting up there, so lowering them might actually make it easier to reach them. It's hard to design a safe route to something that isn't set in its height.
The action points are a good idea, thanks! Conversely, I could appoint penalties if a character uses brute force (like hacking at the blasters) or behaves cowardly.
In my current design, I placed the walkways no more than four squares above the floor. With acrobatics to reduce falling damage and a safewing amulet for emergencies, falling damage should be less of a problem. I plan to give falling characters plenty of opportunities to catch hold of some lower ledge or rope, too. So falling should probably only set them back a turn or two, enough to make them get Reckless (hah, pun intended).
The floor is riddled with a toned-down version of the elemental tiles from DMG2, so moving around has its risks. The access panel is across the room, so the rouge has the additional option of trying to disarm it. I chose the shadow hound for the spawning creature because it teleports, which should serve it well in avoiding the floor traps to get close to the mage. It's also vulnerabe to radiant damage, so the two holy warriors can feel mighty, too. And characters using pull, push or slide can even make the trap work for them, for a change. Two hounds are a bit strong at level six to have them respawn each round, so I'll porbably have to tone them down to level three or make it every second round instead. I'll also give them a ranged shadow attack (recharging?) and have them engage the mage from the middle of the room to tempt the fighters a bit more out into the fray.
I am going to make the floor unattactive no matter what and have multipul arial paths that will lead to the piller. The low path will be the longest but will not require any skills to use. You will have to trust you defences on this one however because there will be many traps. This is great for defenders.
The Middle path will be based on knowledge and perception and be shorter then the low path. The traps are the most harsh but will be easies to avoid as long as you see them. Bypassing will be about intellect and knowledge. The high path will be the shortest but have many effect to shove them off and all movement will require skill checks. This will make you players will both acro and Ath trained happy.
Mathius
Mathius
The githzerai can shift her speed (7) once per encounter when using second wind, and has earthwalk, which might be something to consider. I plan to roll two minor encounters before this one so they have an additional action point at the cost of a few healing surges.
Mathius
The blue is a flying disk that moves mostly randomly. Hope I have time to get it all out of my head to the paper.
mathius