Rules
Pathfinder base rules. Planescape setting. Wish economy, with the cap set for 8kgp rather than 15kgp.
Player Characters
Every PC has 30+ AC, mind blank, & is overall fairly well design. The wizard & cleric are the two weakest in a straight fight, but their versatility and strategic acumen are absolutely better than the rest.
[*] Warforged Occultist: Strongly focused on divination & various telepathic-themed powers. Has spent a large amount of resources on psychic-based pages of spell knowledge to expend her available spells. Probably the most paranoid of the group, and very capable of throwing down four spells in a round if deciding to nova.
[*] Dwarven Kineticist: Decidedly the highest DPS of the party. Other than a religious respect for dragons (and scaled-kind to a lesser extent), is an otherwise fairly ruthless character.
[*] Human Cleric: Strongly anti-authoritarian, with lots of contacts with the Anarchists faction in Sigil. Summoning focused.
[*] Elf Transmuter: Versatile. Self-explanatory. Has been given a few Tome spells (Frank's Dragonform, level 2 chain lightning, etc) to which he uses to good effect.
[*] Ifrit Were-Dire Polar Bear Bogeyman: Second highest DPS, generally invisible. Probably one of the most powerful examples of her people.
BBEG of the Month
The Worm Queen. A mysterious figure, they know she's powerful and wears a golden mask depicting a gorgeous woman. Seeming of wizardly persuasion, they've run into evidence before that she travels around the multiverse to perform incredible feats of magical creation (spawned multiple demiplanes to use the aftermath to forge a particularly powerful shining child, crafted a series of magic items that could enhance an artifact's capabilities by an order of magnitude, etc). I'm not 100% sure what her personality or motivations are besides artifice.
Background
The Beware Bear is a member of a network of various lycanthropes who live on a Prime world and guard a series of biomes from all outsiders, usually through fear (hence the Bogeyman being a common class choice). The secret reason why is because buried beneath them are vaults of exceedingly dangerous artifacts that are to never be used. It had recently been discovered that an epic spellcaster of some kind broke into a vault and resealed it to hide their passage, but Beware Bear found evidence. She doesn't know which artifacts were taken from the vault, and going in is dangerous even for a level 17 character on their own; so she wants to bring the party with her into the vault to see which and how many were stolen, then go try to hunt down the Worm Queen to get the artifacts back.
However, the rest of the tribes absolutely do not trust outsiders, requiring not only a letter of recommendation by a trusted member (achieved), but a Trial to prove their trustworthiness.
Request
What I need help with designing the Trial, those who succeed get to go into the dungeon vault with the Beware Bear. The basic idea I have is for each PC to be given a magic item intended to help them during the trial, generally giving a minor aid, but with a mention that the item has a secondary function that buffs the user by a dramatic amount at the cost of a small curse; once the test begins, I want it to be sufficiently intimidating that they are to be tempted to use the secondary function of the item - the curse being (once they use it) "you fail the Trial."
The problem is that I'm not sure what kind of obstacle course or whatever that would be typically used by these lycans that wouldn't be a cakewalk for these level 17 powerhouses.
Design Request: Secret Test of Character
Moderator: Moderators
Design Request: Secret Test of Character
Come see Sprockets & Serials
How do you confuse a barbarian?
Put a greatsword a maul and a greataxe in a room and ask them to take their pick
How do you confuse a barbarian?
Put a greatsword a maul and a greataxe in a room and ask them to take their pick
EXPLOSIVE RUNES!
My first instinct is to put the vault behind some sort of 'twelve keys in twelve different rooms, all turned simultaneously' mechanism, with a different hazard and a different guardian in each room. Each guardian has the key to a different room, but cannot leave their own room - the PCs have to acquire the keys without destroying/alienating (too many of) the guardians, distribute them out to the correct rooms and then get everyone to turn their keys on the signal. A big social challenge, in other words. Each guardian should have something it wants but which would be relatively annoying for the players to provide - home cooking, a better sword, a deadly insult delivered to the guardian across the complex, etc. The combat prowess doesn't really matter here, so you can just use twelve different flavours of mephits or something.
The magic item in this scenario would be a magic key ring. You put keys on it and they point you toward the nearest lock they fit. This makes it relatively straightforward to figure out where to take each key once they're obtained. But each key ring also comes with an Obviously Cursed Skeleton Key, which fits any lock - even the locks in the trial. The guardians refuse to use them and will attack anyone who tries, but if the PCs win the fight, they can use their skeleton keys to bypass whatever challenge was required to get the correct key in a different room. At the cost of failing the trial and having to stay in the lock room while the rest of the party goes ahead, of course.
The magic item in this scenario would be a magic key ring. You put keys on it and they point you toward the nearest lock they fit. This makes it relatively straightforward to figure out where to take each key once they're obtained. But each key ring also comes with an Obviously Cursed Skeleton Key, which fits any lock - even the locks in the trial. The guardians refuse to use them and will attack anyone who tries, but if the PCs win the fight, they can use their skeleton keys to bypass whatever challenge was required to get the correct key in a different room. At the cost of failing the trial and having to stay in the lock room while the rest of the party goes ahead, of course.
FrankTrollman wrote:I think Grek already won the thread and we should pack it in.
Chamomile wrote:Grek is a national treasure.
While I fail to grasp why the PCs would want to be in there...
How about, instead of giving them helping McGuffins, you design each obstacle so they can only be overcome by using the PCs specific talents... but in ways they don't commonly use. They themselves are the pieces, and the solution to the puzzle is learning something new about their characters, things they didn't know they could do (sort of a "stupid wizard trick" for each of their character builds, or perhaps synergy combos).
...props if those tricks are things they'll actually need to pull off later in the adventure (if with a twist).
How about, instead of giving them helping McGuffins, you design each obstacle so they can only be overcome by using the PCs specific talents... but in ways they don't commonly use. They themselves are the pieces, and the solution to the puzzle is learning something new about their characters, things they didn't know they could do (sort of a "stupid wizard trick" for each of their character builds, or perhaps synergy combos).
...props if those tricks are things they'll actually need to pull off later in the adventure (if with a twist).
Last edited by Dogbert on Mon Jun 08, 2020 9:00 am, edited 3 times in total.
I think you may need to convey these lycanthropes' philosophy more clearly, because to me it's unclear why "voluntarily take on a small curse, to yourself, from something that the artifact guarding group voluntarily gave you" is even bad, much less an instant-fail on the test.
Now if it was "at the cost of unleashing a small hazard to the world at large" or "at the cost of blighting the land a little" then I could see it more. Although then I'd really wonder why it was ok for them to take that risk as part of a test.
An alternate trial, although it risks wasting too much time OOC, is for the party to be allowed into the vault on just the Beware Bear's approval ... except that it's actually an illusion, of the Microcosm variety (ie. it happens entirely within the character's heads). A good way to disguise that would be to say that only the vault's current keeper can teleport people in, and they have to willingly accept the teleport (which is actually said illusion).
In the illusion vault, they'll see a number of powerful items that they could easily smuggle out if they wanted to. Doing so is what makes them fail the test. If they only take an inventory like they're supposed to, they pass.
The issue is that if the vault is a dungeon with hazards that need defeating, which the fact that sending the entire party would be desirable seems to imply, then you either have to:
A) Have no/few hazards in the illusion version, making people wonder why the Beware Bear couldn't have done this alone.
B) Have no/few hazards in the real version, same issue.
C) Make the players fight through two dungeons, and one of them isn't even real.
Although if the players like dungeon crawling enough to enjoy C, you could add a fun twist by having the illusion be based off the state of the dungeon as it was several centuries ago. So by going through the illusion the players get a map of the dungeon and where the traps are, except that it won't be totally accurate any more in the real one because of the earlier intrusion and whatever changes have occurred over the years.
I mean, if I was the lycanthropes I would probably just go with "voluntarily accept a binding compulsion not to steal anything or remove the compulsion, and after you leave you'll be searched and we'll check if that's still in place", or (if I had the resources) "astral project and have the astral bodies go in, while your real bodies are here with us" but that isn't really a trial.
Now if it was "at the cost of unleashing a small hazard to the world at large" or "at the cost of blighting the land a little" then I could see it more. Although then I'd really wonder why it was ok for them to take that risk as part of a test.
An alternate trial, although it risks wasting too much time OOC, is for the party to be allowed into the vault on just the Beware Bear's approval ... except that it's actually an illusion, of the Microcosm variety (ie. it happens entirely within the character's heads). A good way to disguise that would be to say that only the vault's current keeper can teleport people in, and they have to willingly accept the teleport (which is actually said illusion).
In the illusion vault, they'll see a number of powerful items that they could easily smuggle out if they wanted to. Doing so is what makes them fail the test. If they only take an inventory like they're supposed to, they pass.
The issue is that if the vault is a dungeon with hazards that need defeating, which the fact that sending the entire party would be desirable seems to imply, then you either have to:
A) Have no/few hazards in the illusion version, making people wonder why the Beware Bear couldn't have done this alone.
B) Have no/few hazards in the real version, same issue.
C) Make the players fight through two dungeons, and one of them isn't even real.
Although if the players like dungeon crawling enough to enjoy C, you could add a fun twist by having the illusion be based off the state of the dungeon as it was several centuries ago. So by going through the illusion the players get a map of the dungeon and where the traps are, except that it won't be totally accurate any more in the real one because of the earlier intrusion and whatever changes have occurred over the years.
I mean, if I was the lycanthropes I would probably just go with "voluntarily accept a binding compulsion not to steal anything or remove the compulsion, and after you leave you'll be searched and we'll check if that's still in place", or (if I had the resources) "astral project and have the astral bodies go in, while your real bodies are here with us" but that isn't really a trial.
Last edited by Ice9 on Mon Jun 08, 2020 11:57 pm, edited 13 times in total.
How about if you send the party in like a normal dungeon, but the "helper artifacts" are just keys that also act as scrying foci. The Beware Bear is watching their every move, so if they steal something, he can spring the "BZZT TRIAL FAILED" on them when they leave.
If somebody asks why they couldn't just scry the dungeon without them, say that the place is warded against it, the keys are actually broadcasting OUT and they were just receiving the signal.
If somebody asks why they couldn't just scry the dungeon without them, say that the place is warded against it, the keys are actually broadcasting OUT and they were just receiving the signal.
Koumei wrote:...is the dead guy posthumously at fault for his own death and, due to the felony murder law, his own murderer?
hyzmarca wrote:A palace made out of poop is much more impressive than one made out of gold. Stinkier, but more impressive. One is an ostentatious display of wealth. The other is a miraculous engineering feat.
There are three room in the trial. The last room has writing on the wall that the PCs cannot read because it is encoded, which tells them how to proceed into the dungeon. The artifacts are decoders, if they don't have their decoders, they cannot continue forward. Using the artifact's secondary function destroys it, preventing its decoder function from being used. The PCs are not told this beforehand.
The first room is simple, illusory floor over a pit. Fall in the pit and you fail the test, but it's not lethal, and is actually padded below. Walk around or fly over. Or teleport past, whatever.
The second room has two doors with two door guards, a Balor and a Pit Fiend. The Balor always lies and the Pit Fiend always tells the truth, but that doesn't matter since both doors go to the same place. The two Outsiders hate each others' guts, but are compelled to work together. If the PC tries to force their way through a door, will attack them. The test artifact is sufficient to defeat them, through brute force, but will be destroyed if it is used.
The correct solution is to ask politely, then they'll be compelled to let the PC through.
The first room is simple, illusory floor over a pit. Fall in the pit and you fail the test, but it's not lethal, and is actually padded below. Walk around or fly over. Or teleport past, whatever.
The second room has two doors with two door guards, a Balor and a Pit Fiend. The Balor always lies and the Pit Fiend always tells the truth, but that doesn't matter since both doors go to the same place. The two Outsiders hate each others' guts, but are compelled to work together. If the PC tries to force their way through a door, will attack them. The test artifact is sufficient to defeat them, through brute force, but will be destroyed if it is used.
The correct solution is to ask politely, then they'll be compelled to let the PC through.
Having the test require sufficient cleverness or sufficient power is pointedly not what the tribes care about in the test. Even great villains can fly over a pit or do some other stupid wizard trick. What they care about is whether they can trust the PCs to be around artifacts without giving into the temptation to take/use them, even if the consequences seem minor.
Come see Sprockets & Serials
How do you confuse a barbarian?
Put a greatsword a maul and a greataxe in a room and ask them to take their pick
How do you confuse a barbarian?
Put a greatsword a maul and a greataxe in a room and ask them to take their pick
EXPLOSIVE RUNES!
-
deaddmwalking
- Prince
- Posts: 3574
- Joined: Mon May 21, 2012 11:33 am
Well then, you give them a sob story about how your tribe's sacred object was stolen, and you would like the PCs to recover it for you for a token reward. The sacred object is designed to radiate strong magic and identify reveals all kinds of super-awesome stuff. The PCs should be tempted to take it, because they could use it for the good of the world.
But giving it to the tribe shows that they can be trusted.
But giving it to the tribe shows that they can be trusted.
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