Ideas about an adventure fighting a sentient defense system? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Ideas about an adventure fighting a sentient defense system?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
generic_poster
May 10, 2011 14:29:39 I had recently taken over DMing a 4E adventure group from a friend (they are now at 6th level), and my group recently got to the point where they are starting to explore some old tielfling ruins where they are expecting (hoping) to find some dungeon crawl.

Anyway, I had an idea about a tiefling artificer who built a prototype sentient construct guarding a vault and then abandoned it hundreds of years ago. I've also decided that this tiefling would go on and later learn how to construct warforged, but when this vault was designed he was limited mostly to homonculus, traps and golems (possibly some other monsters as well, as long as I can justify them surviving in a nearly empty vault for hundreds of years).

But now I'm sort of stuck on how I want to roleplay this constuct mastermind. I've considered making him schizophrenic or insane in other ways (maybe split personalities?), but that might be hard to play out. I know the party is going to immediately try to talk their way free, so I need to figure out the motive for keeping in their and thus why their attempts will fail. There seems to be a lot of ways I can go with this. I'm also going to have to figure out thematically appropriate monsters at level and some interesting traps.

Thanks in advance.
#2
cool_guy
May 10, 2011 21:04:32 Well he could be trying to defend the city form outsiders even though the city has fallen long ago. its just what he was made to do and he cant change even if its a good idea or what he should do. just like the villain in WALLY movie. In fact there is no shortage of robots in video games and cartoons maybe you could get some ideas from them
#3
khorne37
May 11, 2011 10:48:06 Make him based on HAL from 2001.
#4
aldwynn
May 11, 2011 12:07:02
I know the party is going to immediately try to talk their way free, so I need to figure out the motive for keeping in their and thus why their attempts will fail.

You could come up with something along the lines of it requiring a security code if they wish to pass. If the code(or phrase, or riddle ) is incorrect, it attacks because it regarded it as a threat to the vault/city.
#5
vman3force
May 18, 2011 20:59:35 I just got through single player on Portal 2 (if you havent played it yet you need to) The computers in that game go insane with power and get excstacy from making people go through tests. maybe the construct is similar - he forces the players through trials for his own amusement. He should have control over moving rooms and boobytraps and things like that, so that he is constantly adding new features and changing the layout of the ruins.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 generic_poster May 10, 2011 14:29:39	I had recently taken over DMing a 4E adventure group from a friend (they are now at 6th level), and my group recently got to the point where they are starting to explore some old tielfling ruins where they are expecting (hoping) to find some dungeon crawl. Anyway, I had an idea about a tiefling artificer who built a prototype sentient construct guarding a vault and then abandoned it hundreds of years ago. I've also decided that this tiefling would go on and later learn how to construct warforged, but when this vault was designed he was limited mostly to homonculus, traps and golems (possibly some other monsters as well, as long as I can justify them surviving in a nearly empty vault for hundreds of years). But now I'm sort of stuck on how I want to roleplay this constuct mastermind. I've considered making him schizophrenic or insane in other ways (maybe split personalities?), but that might be hard to play out. I know the party is going to immediately try to talk their way free, so I need to figure out the motive for keeping in their and thus why their attempts will fail. There seems to be a lot of ways I can go with this. I'm also going to have to figure out thematically appropriate monsters at level and some interesting traps. Thanks in advance.
#2 cool_guy May 10, 2011 21:04:32	Well he could be trying to defend the city form outsiders even though the city has fallen long ago. its just what he was made to do and he cant change even if its a good idea or what he should do. just like the villain in WALLY movie. In fact there is no shortage of robots in video games and cartoons maybe you could get some ideas from them
#3 khorne37 May 11, 2011 10:48:06	Make him based on HAL from 2001.
#4 aldwynn May 11, 2011 12:07:02	I know the party is going to immediately try to talk their way free, so I need to figure out the motive for keeping in their and thus why their attempts will fail. You could come up with something along the lines of it requiring a security code if they wish to pass. If the code(or phrase, or riddle ) is incorrect, it attacks because it regarded it as a threat to the vault/city.
#5 vman3force May 18, 2011 20:59:35	I just got through single player on Portal 2 (if you havent played it yet you need to) The computers in that game go insane with power and get excstacy from making people go through tests. maybe the construct is similar - he forces the players through trials for his own amusement. He should have control over moving rooms and boobytraps and things like that, so that he is constantly adding new features and changing the layout of the ruins.