So my last session didn't quite get to the material I had prepped (hastily) before it ended which is giving me a bit more time to expand on what I had planned.
Imma tell you what I have, and what I'm looking for and hopefully we can make this more fun lol
WHAT I HAVE:
* Party bought a map to a location marked as a "Hunting Ground" of an ancient hero.
* Hunting ground will be in a cold, boreal forest.
* There is a (invisible?)barrier around the grounds.
* There will be an encounter with a direwolf pack + one "rune wolf" (a homebrew tweak off of a guardian wolf with added magic stuff)
* The reward is a fancy magic bow
WHAT I WANT:
* What should happen in the forest surrounding the area (if anything)? what kind of ambiance/scenery should I set? Any particularly good "boxed text" you can think of?
* what type of solutions should I bake into this barrier dilemma? (I'm tempted to not plan any solution and just wait until they do something cool and be like "Wow! You figured it out!")
* What can I do with this wolf encounter to make it more interesting than a beatdown? One of my goals with this campaign is to (as much as possible) avoid 100% slugfests. Not avoid fighting necessarily, but at least have a gimmick or a trick, or some kinda "THING" to the fight (ya know what I mean?)
* What else could be here? I have this one encounter, but what you've read is what I've got lol. I am MORE than open to adding/changing things to expand/complicate this.
Data:
Party of 5 characters currently at level 4. They are all pretty optimized and experienced so I typically try to make encounters really hard
Do you have access to the Icewind Dale: Rime if the Frostmaiden adventure book? If so, the Lonelywood side-quest "The White Moose" is a good building block for the kind of adventure you want this to be. It has a nice tracking mini-game with a table of interesting encounters that you can keep or adjust as needed. There is a fun puzzle of sorts with an odd "NPC" that can be encountered, and a small cliffside tomb that animals are lairing in that can be explored.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
You could always heavily invest in flavoring the fight. Sure, on paper it's still a slugfest. But if you make sure to describe every attack as if, say, the rune wolf was the old Hero's spirit or something, then it'll make the fight memorable no matter what imo. Maybe it's less of a combat and more of a test of mettle to see who's worthy of that fancy bow.
That's what I'd do anyway, but I definitely lean much more into RP/exploration than combat.
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
If you're using wolves then you could also use werewolves or tweak the combat encounter and add them in. Maybe the forest is infested with werewolves and the ancient hero was killed by one (or if their still alive they could be one).
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Ancient hero sounds like a good place for ghosts. I do not mean D&D ghosts, but movie ghosts - i.e. scary but they can not affect the physical world. You know, the hitchhiker that you lend a jacket to and later you find it on her grave.
Maybe they get a warning from the ancient hero that they may or may not realize is a ghost. Or maybe they chase a 'wolf' around until they realize the reason they can't hit it and it ignores them is that it is a ghost.
As for the barrier, you can do it with snow pits. Ground looks a bit off (perception check DC 15??), and if you try to step on it, you fall 10 ft down (only 1 hp damage because of the snow), and have to climb out (takes 30 ft of movement to climb out because the snow is slippery)
* What should happen in the forest surrounding the area (if anything)? what kind of ambiance/scenery should I set? Any particularly good "boxed text" you can think of?
"Trudging toward the spot marked on your map you find yourselves trekking into a snowy wood, a steady crunching noise made with each footfall. Heading onward the wood grows deeper and denser, as the day turns to twilight and finally to night. A waxing moon bathes the snow leaden branches in an eerie glow while casting strange twisted shadows around you..."
Ok, your setup got me on a bit of a horror kick, I think someone mentioned the possibility of werewolves. Anyway at this point I was thinking of giving the PCs a chance to make camp before the silence of the evening is broken by the "bailing howl of a wolf and the accompanying choir of a pack" ... roll initiative.
* what type of solutions should I bake into this barrier dilemma? (I'm tempted to not plan any solution and just wait until they do something cool and be like "Wow! You figured it out!")
A barrier can be a lot of things. Taking some inspiration from Frozen II it could be a magical fog that prevents the party from leaving until they have defeated ...something and broken whatever curse has befallen the area. If the party tries to force their way through the fog they find themselves back where they started.
* What can I do with this wolf encounter to make it more interesting than a beatdown? One of my goals with this campaign is to (as much as possible) avoid 100% slugfests. Not avoid fighting necessarily, but at least have a gimmick or a trick, or some kinda "THING" to the fight (ya know what I mean?)
Yeah, one idea is to have the fight lead to a quest. Like after you've thrown enough wolves at the party, the rune wolf can call out, "Enough! Who are you and why do you tress pass upon the lands of my pack?"
After some dialogue the wolf can explain "These lands are cursed by ... " or "plagued by ..... " "if you can defeat/destroy whatever it is, you will grant yourselves the freedom to leave and we will not harass you."
* What else could be here? I have this one encounter, but what you've read is what I've got lol. I am MORE than open to adding/changing things to expand/complicate this.
If you go with the quest route (see previous) you can make this as complicated or straightforward as you like. i was thinking the wolfs give the party a quest to defeat a ... say banshee or ghost that is haunting a nearby ruined chateau (Beauty and the Beast... I'm really on a Disney thing tonight) and placed a curse upon this area. The party can then investigate the chateau (singing silverware optional, but a mimic would be fun) and encounter the appropriate undead spirit (carrying a bow). The ghost will reveal that they are the ancient hero (or hero's spouse?) and they cannot rest until the head of the great wolf that killed them is mounted on their mantel. The party can now choose to go back and finish the fight they started with the wolves or deal with the ghost. Either way, when the ghost is defeated or placated the bow they are carrying is the only thing left behind as they vanish, taking the fog with them.
If this adventure is on the longer side it might make sense to connect it some how to one of the character's back stories or some larger plot arc you've got going. Ideally the bow serves some purpose in the future (like its a bow of dragon slaying and the BBEG is a red dragon ect.) rather than just being a random magic bow.
Thanks everyone!! I think imma lean heavily into that one RotF quest suggested by Metamongoose. I skimmed over the quest and it is basically (with some tweaks) what I want. Though I DO like a LOT of what Wango2000 is suggesting >>
Maybe I'll do a mix of the two!
Solarsyphon, as to your questions, thats mainly why i made this thread lol. My group alternates DM's each weekend and this past weekend was supposed to be the other DM's game but he cancelled last second (literally a few hours before) So just to make sure we could still play, I said "We could do my game again!" having not planned anything lol.
So I kinda improved EVERYTHING (confidently lol) and am now trying to retroactively create the lore and explanations. So anything you've got is on the table lol
1: What was the hero like? a nature lover, a wild outdoors type, a recluse or a showboat, that sot of thing.
2: Why would they have created an inaccessible hunting ground - to keep the game for themselves, or to keep them safe from over-hunting, or to keep predators out of there to let the game grow to huge sizes?
For example, a hero who was reknowned as a great hunter but who loved nature might have made a haven for the last of a wild creature, to keep them safe. Perhaps their fame as a hunter inspred the people of the town, breeding a whole generation of hunters who were wiping out the wildlife. Maybe the hero made the barrier such that it would be accessable for animals, but not to those who would hunt them for sport - only those who hunt out of hunger. You could make the barrier very much one of Protection for a giant elk, and as such anyone who would do the elk harm are not able to get in. Maybe a youngster who is starting to become a Druid can get in. And maybe the runic wolf is the BBEG of the side quest, and has sworn to kill the giant elk and take it's strength. The wolf could appear at first to be helpful - telling them of a dungeon where they must pass the three trials of >hero< to get inside the barrier. The giant wolf might give them his "blessing", which appears as a rune on their hand. This rune is actually linking them to the wolf, making the trials think the wolf has completed them and so allowing the wolf access, which then leads to a race against time to find the giant elk before the rune wolf does, and either hunt it or protect it. Perhaps by hunting the Elk, the wolf will become the king of the wolves and take up a place as a sub-BBEG, or even as an ally as the party helped them, but their decision can change the world in some way. Perhaps they get the bow from the Elk if they slay the wolf, and they can get a blessing from the Wolf if they help him to slay the Elk.
so, level 4 players, this seems like a perfect opportunity to use a banshee as like, idk the hero's spouse that has some strange command over the wolves and makes the forest a cold, desolate wasteland, and would toy with the players, doing something like "help me! the wolves are attacking!" and then leading them to the wolf encounter.
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Proud member of the spider guild.
i Play Ursula, Ariadne, Bolehs, Uhluhtc and Lizagnazeialqi in the tavern at the end of the world.
spiders are absolutely wonderful works of nature and if you say otherwise i shall feast tonight.
"Those who fight with Swords are Fools. those who fight with Bows are Cowards. You, My friend, Seem to be Both a Coward and A Fool." -Wilbur, Archmage of the Sunset sea addressing a Warrior.
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So my last session didn't quite get to the material I had prepped (hastily) before it ended which is giving me a bit more time to expand on what I had planned.
Imma tell you what I have, and what I'm looking for and hopefully we can make this more fun lol
WHAT I HAVE:
* Party bought a map to a location marked as a "Hunting Ground" of an ancient hero.
* Hunting ground will be in a cold, boreal forest.
* There is a (invisible?)barrier around the grounds.
* There will be an encounter with a direwolf pack + one "rune wolf" (a homebrew tweak off of a guardian wolf with added magic stuff)
* The reward is a fancy magic bow
WHAT I WANT:
* What should happen in the forest surrounding the area (if anything)? what kind of ambiance/scenery should I set? Any particularly good "boxed text" you can think of?
* what type of solutions should I bake into this barrier dilemma? (I'm tempted to not plan any solution and just wait until they do something cool and be like "Wow! You figured it out!")
* What can I do with this wolf encounter to make it more interesting than a beatdown? One of my goals with this campaign is to (as much as possible) avoid 100% slugfests. Not avoid fighting necessarily, but at least have a gimmick or a trick, or some kinda "THING" to the fight (ya know what I mean?)
* What else could be here? I have this one encounter, but what you've read is what I've got lol. I am MORE than open to adding/changing things to expand/complicate this.
Data:
Party of 5 characters currently at level 4. They are all pretty optimized and experienced so I typically try to make encounters really hard
Elf Drakewarden Ranger
Yuan-ti Sorlock (storm/fathomless)
Minotaur Wild Magic Barbarian
Variant Human Bladesinger Wizard
Kobold Evocation Wizard
Do you have access to the Icewind Dale: Rime if the Frostmaiden adventure book? If so, the Lonelywood side-quest "The White Moose" is a good building block for the kind of adventure you want this to be. It has a nice tracking mini-game with a table of interesting encounters that you can keep or adjust as needed. There is a fun puzzle of sorts with an odd "NPC" that can be encountered, and a small cliffside tomb that animals are lairing in that can be explored.
You could always heavily invest in flavoring the fight. Sure, on paper it's still a slugfest. But if you make sure to describe every attack as if, say, the rune wolf was the old Hero's spirit or something, then it'll make the fight memorable no matter what imo. Maybe it's less of a combat and more of a test of mettle to see who's worthy of that fancy bow.
That's what I'd do anyway, but I definitely lean much more into RP/exploration than combat.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
If you're using wolves then you could also use werewolves or tweak the combat encounter and add them in. Maybe the forest is infested with werewolves and the ancient hero was killed by one (or if their still alive they could be one).
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Ancient hero sounds like a good place for ghosts. I do not mean D&D ghosts, but movie ghosts - i.e. scary but they can not affect the physical world. You know, the hitchhiker that you lend a jacket to and later you find it on her grave.
Maybe they get a warning from the ancient hero that they may or may not realize is a ghost. Or maybe they chase a 'wolf' around until they realize the reason they can't hit it and it ignores them is that it is a ghost.
As for the barrier, you can do it with snow pits. Ground looks a bit off (perception check DC 15??), and if you try to step on it, you fall 10 ft down (only 1 hp damage because of the snow), and have to climb out (takes 30 ft of movement to climb out because the snow is slippery)
* What should happen in the forest surrounding the area (if anything)? what kind of ambiance/scenery should I set? Any particularly good "boxed text" you can think of?
"Trudging toward the spot marked on your map you find yourselves trekking into a snowy wood, a steady crunching noise made with each footfall. Heading onward the wood grows deeper and denser, as the day turns to twilight and finally to night. A waxing moon bathes the snow leaden branches in an eerie glow while casting strange twisted shadows around you..."
Ok, your setup got me on a bit of a horror kick, I think someone mentioned the possibility of werewolves. Anyway at this point I was thinking of giving the PCs a chance to make camp before the silence of the evening is broken by the "bailing howl of a wolf and the accompanying choir of a pack" ... roll initiative.
* what type of solutions should I bake into this barrier dilemma? (I'm tempted to not plan any solution and just wait until they do something cool and be like "Wow! You figured it out!")
A barrier can be a lot of things. Taking some inspiration from Frozen II it could be a magical fog that prevents the party from leaving until they have defeated ...something and broken whatever curse has befallen the area. If the party tries to force their way through the fog they find themselves back where they started.
* What can I do with this wolf encounter to make it more interesting than a beatdown? One of my goals with this campaign is to (as much as possible) avoid 100% slugfests. Not avoid fighting necessarily, but at least have a gimmick or a trick, or some kinda "THING" to the fight (ya know what I mean?)
Yeah, one idea is to have the fight lead to a quest. Like after you've thrown enough wolves at the party, the rune wolf can call out, "Enough! Who are you and why do you tress pass upon the lands of my pack?"
After some dialogue the wolf can explain "These lands are cursed by ... " or "plagued by ..... " "if you can defeat/destroy whatever it is, you will grant yourselves the freedom to leave and we will not harass you."
* What else could be here? I have this one encounter, but what you've read is what I've got lol. I am MORE than open to adding/changing things to expand/complicate this.
If you go with the quest route (see previous) you can make this as complicated or straightforward as you like. i was thinking the wolfs give the party a quest to defeat a ... say banshee or ghost that is haunting a nearby ruined chateau (Beauty and the Beast... I'm really on a Disney thing tonight) and placed a curse upon this area. The party can then investigate the chateau (singing silverware optional, but a mimic would be fun) and encounter the appropriate undead spirit (carrying a bow). The ghost will reveal that they are the ancient hero (or hero's spouse?) and they cannot rest until the head of the great wolf that killed them is mounted on their mantel. The party can now choose to go back and finish the fight they started with the wolves or deal with the ghost. Either way, when the ghost is defeated or placated the bow they are carrying is the only thing left behind as they vanish, taking the fog with them.
If this adventure is on the longer side it might make sense to connect it some how to one of the character's back stories or some larger plot arc you've got going. Ideally the bow serves some purpose in the future (like its a bow of dragon slaying and the BBEG is a red dragon ect.) rather than just being a random magic bow.
Happy Gaming!
I mainly have questions.
Why is it walled off?
Who is this ancient hero?
Why do they have their own hunting grounds?
You can really theme this allot of ways
ect...
That's all really going to depend on who this hero is and why the set up in this forest
Thanks everyone!! I think imma lean heavily into that one RotF quest suggested by Metamongoose. I skimmed over the quest and it is basically (with some tweaks) what I want. Though I DO like a LOT of what Wango2000 is suggesting >>
Maybe I'll do a mix of the two!
Solarsyphon, as to your questions, thats mainly why i made this thread lol. My group alternates DM's each weekend and this past weekend was supposed to be the other DM's game but he cancelled last second (literally a few hours before) So just to make sure we could still play, I said "We could do my game again!" having not planned anything lol.
So I kinda improved EVERYTHING (confidently lol) and am now trying to retroactively create the lore and explanations. So anything you've got is on the table lol
I think the important questions for me are:
1: What was the hero like? a nature lover, a wild outdoors type, a recluse or a showboat, that sot of thing.
2: Why would they have created an inaccessible hunting ground - to keep the game for themselves, or to keep them safe from over-hunting, or to keep predators out of there to let the game grow to huge sizes?
For example, a hero who was reknowned as a great hunter but who loved nature might have made a haven for the last of a wild creature, to keep them safe. Perhaps their fame as a hunter inspred the people of the town, breeding a whole generation of hunters who were wiping out the wildlife. Maybe the hero made the barrier such that it would be accessable for animals, but not to those who would hunt them for sport - only those who hunt out of hunger. You could make the barrier very much one of Protection for a giant elk, and as such anyone who would do the elk harm are not able to get in. Maybe a youngster who is starting to become a Druid can get in. And maybe the runic wolf is the BBEG of the side quest, and has sworn to kill the giant elk and take it's strength. The wolf could appear at first to be helpful - telling them of a dungeon where they must pass the three trials of >hero< to get inside the barrier. The giant wolf might give them his "blessing", which appears as a rune on their hand. This rune is actually linking them to the wolf, making the trials think the wolf has completed them and so allowing the wolf access, which then leads to a race against time to find the giant elk before the rune wolf does, and either hunt it or protect it. Perhaps by hunting the Elk, the wolf will become the king of the wolves and take up a place as a sub-BBEG, or even as an ally as the party helped them, but their decision can change the world in some way. Perhaps they get the bow from the Elk if they slay the wolf, and they can get a blessing from the Wolf if they help him to slay the Elk.
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so, level 4 players, this seems like a perfect opportunity to use a banshee as like, idk the hero's spouse that has some strange command over the wolves and makes the forest a cold, desolate wasteland, and would toy with the players, doing something like "help me! the wolves are attacking!" and then leading them to the wolf encounter.
Proud member of the spider guild.
i Play Ursula, Ariadne, Bolehs, Uhluhtc and Lizagnazeialqi in the tavern at the end of the world.
spiders are absolutely wonderful works of nature and if you say otherwise i shall feast tonight.
"Those who fight with Swords are Fools. those who fight with Bows are Cowards. You, My friend, Seem to be Both a Coward and A Fool." -Wilbur, Archmage of the Sunset sea addressing a Warrior.