I'd like some help building the climactic encounter for an adventure arc in one my campaigns. Players in the Guilds of Rivermeet campaign, go no further!
I'm running a campaign set in a large city with four 3rd-level PCs (a Divine Soul Sorcerer, Champion Fighter, Hexblade Warlock, and Inquisitive Rogue). The PCs are the members in a newly formed mercenary guild, and they're currently on a job looking for the missing son of a local shopkeeper who seems to have fallen in with a local gang.
The PCs are chasing a lead that will take them to an underground arena. The missing son has fallen in love with the daughter of a local crime lord. The crime lord also noticed the son's potential (he's a former soldier) and has hired him to be a fighter in an underground arena. The PCs are going to have some difficulty extricating the shopkeeper's son from this situation.
The arena was recently established and is a meeting place for local gangs and is mostly just a boxing ring, but the owner has also been holding special events where the fighters go toe-to-toe with wild beasts. Some of these beasts are magical creatures, and the body parts are being put to use in an illegal alchemical operation.
In doing so, the crime boss has run afoul of another illegal organization in the city, a group of alchemists, herbalists, and druids calling themselves the Blackwood Cabal. The cabal plans to crash the next event (which the PCs will attend) by releasing all the caged beasts to attack the guests at the arena.
I'm looking to build a final encounter set in the arena, involving various wild beasts, thugs, panicked crowds, and wild-shaped druids targeting the crime boss and his gang. The problem: I'm having trouble figuring out how to put together and run this scene (which will be pretty chaotic) and with choosing the right creatures for the battle. I want the wild beasts to be pretty intimidating, and ideally some of them should be magical creatures, but I'm not finding many creatures that a) seem well-suited to an arena (i.e. lack burrow, climb, flying, or swim speeds) and b) won't be too dangerous for 3rd-level PCs (especially with many different beasts running around).
Does anyone have advice on how to run this? Suggestions for creatures (official or homebrew) or how to handle the panicked crowds, etc.? My players are pretty tactically minded, so I'd like to put together an encounter that rewards those instincts.
Second question: what CR do you think a 2nd-level Moon Druid should be? I'm having trouble trying to calculate this. If it helps, at least one druid prefers the form of a Giant Spider and another the form of a Tiger.
Well I think you can run this without the players involved. Strange comment I know, but hear me out:
Have the crime boss and his goon squad handle all the creatures let free. Your players can simply witness the skirmishes and skirt them. You can hint at this by making sure there's displays of power before and during the chaos. Show how the syndicate handles an unruly beast with ease. Show a pit fighter takes down a monster, displays like this will set the stage that they don't needed help.
Then you show the beats fighting back and tossing some "red shirts" around with ease. Describe the rag dolls to appear like the other npcs who didn't need help. Describe a couple fights where the creatures mangle a pit fighter with one or two swipes. Now you've set the stage to avoid the creatures.
Then you give the players the green light to go save the boy. Throw in some low cr creatures like bears, phase spiders, nothing much more than cr 4. While there's a gap between fights you give skill challenges like navigating around a particularly nasty fight or trying to save an "innocent" from a creature.
All the while trying to escape, only to run into the crime boss and a couple body guards. They have to fight only to have some of the cabal show up for a 3 party fight. You can have three possible outcomes. They escape during the scuffle. They all get defeated and end up prisoners of the cabal or syndicate. There city guards show up and everyone is arrested.
I'd like some help building the climactic encounter for an adventure arc in one my campaigns. Players in the Guilds of Rivermeet campaign, go no further!
I'm running a campaign set in a large city with four 3rd-level PCs (a Divine Soul Sorcerer, Champion Fighter, Hexblade Warlock, and Inquisitive Rogue). The PCs are the members in a newly formed mercenary guild, and they're currently on a job looking for the missing son of a local shopkeeper who seems to have fallen in with a local gang.
The PCs are chasing a lead that will take them to an underground arena. The missing son has fallen in love with the daughter of a local crime lord. The crime lord also noticed the son's potential (he's a former soldier) and has hired him to be a fighter in an underground arena. The PCs are going to have some difficulty extricating the shopkeeper's son from this situation.
The arena was recently established and is a meeting place for local gangs and is mostly just a boxing ring, but the owner has also been holding special events where the fighters go toe-to-toe with wild beasts. Some of these beasts are magical creatures, and the body parts are being put to use in an illegal alchemical operation.
In doing so, the crime boss has run afoul of another illegal organization in the city, a group of alchemists, herbalists, and druids calling themselves the Blackwood Cabal. The cabal plans to crash the next event (which the PCs will attend) by releasing all the caged beasts to attack the guests at the arena.
I'm looking to build a final encounter set in the arena, involving various wild beasts, thugs, panicked crowds, and wild-shaped druids targeting the crime boss and his gang. The problem: I'm having trouble figuring out how to put together and run this scene (which will be pretty chaotic) and with choosing the right creatures for the battle. I want the wild beasts to be pretty intimidating, and ideally some of them should be magical creatures, but I'm not finding many creatures that a) seem well-suited to an arena (i.e. lack burrow, climb, flying, or swim speeds) and b) won't be too dangerous for 3rd-level PCs (especially with many different beasts running around).
Does anyone have advice on how to run this? Suggestions for creatures (official or homebrew) or how to handle the panicked crowds, etc.? My players are pretty tactically minded, so I'd like to put together an encounter that rewards those instincts.
Second question: what CR do you think a 2nd-level Moon Druid should be? I'm having trouble trying to calculate this. If it helps, at least one druid prefers the form of a Giant Spider and another the form of a Tiger.
Well I think you can run this without the players involved. Strange comment I know, but hear me out:
Have the crime boss and his goon squad handle all the creatures let free. Your players can simply witness the skirmishes and skirt them. You can hint at this by making sure there's displays of power before and during the chaos. Show how the syndicate handles an unruly beast with ease. Show a pit fighter takes down a monster, displays like this will set the stage that they don't needed help.
Then you show the beats fighting back and tossing some "red shirts" around with ease. Describe the rag dolls to appear like the other npcs who didn't need help. Describe a couple fights where the creatures mangle a pit fighter with one or two swipes. Now you've set the stage to avoid the creatures.
Then you give the players the green light to go save the boy. Throw in some low cr creatures like bears, phase spiders, nothing much more than cr 4. While there's a gap between fights you give skill challenges like navigating around a particularly nasty fight or trying to save an "innocent" from a creature.
All the while trying to escape, only to run into the crime boss and a couple body guards. They have to fight only to have some of the cabal show up for a 3 party fight. You can have three possible outcomes. They escape during the scuffle. They all get defeated and end up prisoners of the cabal or syndicate. There city guards show up and everyone is arrested.
Just some thoughts.