Design Request: Secret Test of Character
Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2020 6:40 am
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.
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.