Id love some advice on something im coming up with. I like the idea (needs to be fleshed out) but Im worried I've over complicated things. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
So I am running a 3rd party module that has the party (5x level 10 w/ 3 CR 8 NPCs) encounter a Lich. Due to a PC backstory we now ALSO have a Vampire Lady living on the same island.
The players are aware of the vampire, and "far greater evils" but not specifically the lich. However I wanted to try something interesting to make the two connected and have a dual encounter instead of two separate boss fights
My "plan"
The newly re-risen lich uses the Vampire Lady as a pawn (upcast geas?), using her and her thralls to protect his phylactery in her liar. She agrees thinking they are more like collaborators and her dominion/wealth/ influence will grow because of his great magic. Overtime she learns that she is in less control than she thought and is now greatly fearful of the lich.
One member of the party is a greatly favored thrall, so Im thinking (pending what the party actual does) they will try a diplomatic approach with the vampire. She welcomes her favored thrall and his friends into her massive home.
Then to prevent railroading I suspect either of the two will happen
A.
Unable to communicate her plight, she tries to get the party to destroy the phylactery she cannot mention or destroy herself.
The party, rightfully suspect of the hospitality, is offered a place to sleep in the liar. During their time they are free to explore the house finding the phylactery, PC lore and the like.
B.
The party fights the vampire lady nearly killing her
Where the paths converge:
The lich enraged by the failure to properly defend his phylactery uses power word kill on the lady vampire; sending a goon to stake her (maybe a member of the party will try to save her?)
The party then fights the lich.
Im trying my best to not railroad by I am excited by and hope to use:
Get the party to explore the veeeeery cool vampire liar I created
The drama of encountering/ possibly fighting a vampire lord but something more powerful kills it first (always a bigger fish)
The other option is I just drop the lich entirely and make it simpler and replacing the big bad.
That plan sounds really good, I noticed a few things though.
One, including 3 CR 8 NPCs may outshine the party substantially during the battle. Even 2 CR 8 creatures is a deadly encounter for 5 level 10 PCs so 3 of them will leave little for the party to accomplish. To solve this you could include 1 of these NPCs at most, or if they are all important people to the plot, send them off on an adjacent mission such as hold off the liches minions or something, or make them much less powerful. If you are using published monster stats for them this website ********(Sorry, link kept getting cencered),lets you easily change the CRs of monsters. You could also use this site to make the lich less powerful, you could also manually debuff it as well because this isn't perfect.
Two, you made multiple paths for the party to go down if they choose to talk to the vampire but you should also plan something for if they decide to sneak in or take the lair by force. Also do you have a plan on how the party will destroy the phylactery, if I remember correctly they are invulnerable to all but one specific method of destruction.
As for removing the lich, I think it will be an amazing plot twist for the party to prepare to fight a vampire but instead find a lich that scares even her.
Well, your first problem is that the described party will roflstomp a lich.
I would start with a cheat: mind control the three NPCs and have them try to kill the PCs (the details of how this is done are plot device; possibly the vampire turns them into spawns). This will solve a lot of problem, notably:
It gives the PCs a reason to hate the BBEG.
It gives an interesting and thematic fight to start things out with.
It makes balancing later fights a lot easier.
It means you don't have to deal with them in combat.
Once you do that, a lich (possibly with some fodder to act as a meat wall) is a decent boss fight for 5x level 10 (a vampire, unless you bulk out the fight with a bunch of spawn, is pretty weak).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Id love some advice on something im coming up with. I like the idea (needs to be fleshed out) but Im worried I've over complicated things. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
So I am running a 3rd party module that has the party (5x level 10 w/ 3 CR 8 NPCs) encounter a Lich. Due to a PC backstory we now ALSO have a Vampire Lady living on the same island.
The players are aware of the vampire, and "far greater evils" but not specifically the lich. However I wanted to try something interesting to make the two connected and have a dual encounter instead of two separate boss fights
My "plan"
The newly re-risen lich uses the Vampire Lady as a pawn (upcast geas?), using her and her thralls to protect his phylactery in her liar. She agrees thinking they are more like collaborators and her dominion/wealth/ influence will grow because of his great magic. Overtime she learns that she is in less control than she thought and is now greatly fearful of the lich.
One member of the party is a greatly favored thrall, so Im thinking (pending what the party actual does) they will try a diplomatic approach with the vampire. She welcomes her favored thrall and his friends into her massive home.
Then to prevent railroading I suspect either of the two will happen
A.
Unable to communicate her plight, she tries to get the party to destroy the phylactery she cannot mention or destroy herself.
The party, rightfully suspect of the hospitality, is offered a place to sleep in the liar. During their time they are free to explore the house finding the phylactery, PC lore and the like.
B.
The party fights the vampire lady nearly killing her
Where the paths converge:
The lich enraged by the failure to properly defend his phylactery uses power word kill on the lady vampire; sending a goon to stake her (maybe a member of the party will try to save her?)
The party then fights the lich.
Im trying my best to not railroad by I am excited by and hope to use:
Get the party to explore the veeeeery cool vampire liar I created
The drama of encountering/ possibly fighting a vampire lord but something more powerful kills it first (always a bigger fish)
The other option is I just drop the lich entirely and make it simpler and replacing the big bad.
I would love some help solidying this thing
That plan sounds really good, I noticed a few things though.
One, including 3 CR 8 NPCs may outshine the party substantially during the battle. Even 2 CR 8 creatures is a deadly encounter for 5 level 10 PCs so 3 of them will leave little for the party to accomplish. To solve this you could include 1 of these NPCs at most, or if they are all important people to the plot, send them off on an adjacent mission such as hold off the liches minions or something, or make them much less powerful. If you are using published monster stats for them this website ********(Sorry, link kept getting cencered),lets you easily change the CRs of monsters. You could also use this site to make the lich less powerful, you could also manually debuff it as well because this isn't perfect.
Two, you made multiple paths for the party to go down if they choose to talk to the vampire but you should also plan something for if they decide to sneak in or take the lair by force. Also do you have a plan on how the party will destroy the phylactery, if I remember correctly they are invulnerable to all but one specific method of destruction.
As for removing the lich, I think it will be an amazing plot twist for the party to prepare to fight a vampire but instead find a lich that scares even her.
Well, your first problem is that the described party will roflstomp a lich.
I would start with a cheat: mind control the three NPCs and have them try to kill the PCs (the details of how this is done are plot device; possibly the vampire turns them into spawns). This will solve a lot of problem, notably:
Once you do that, a lich (possibly with some fodder to act as a meat wall) is a decent boss fight for 5x level 10 (a vampire, unless you bulk out the fight with a bunch of spawn, is pretty weak).