I'm running a campaign for a little kid. He's playing a Tiny videogame console with arms and legs, level 2 rogue/wizard, and has a talking rat, Warrior, for a sidekick. The campaign he's on sends him to a sort of border crossing between the Underdark and the overworld, to collect a homebrew magic item called the scepter of Time-Molasses. To get it, I plan to have him fight some big bad dude, in an area that the scepter is working in, so everything takes 10x as long. Could I have some advice for how to run this? Thanks!
I'm also homebrewing in a bunch of zelda stuff; races and monsters mostly, and it also means that the underdark he'll visit is basically the same as the Depths from TotK. Don't know if that could affect much.
If you put something inside moving slowly as they enter and something outside moving quickly then that should convey the effect.
As everyone inside should be slowed and equal amount you won't actually have to apply any combat effects but if you wanted to have some people fast and some people slow then you can use the effects of haste and slow. I also find the vanishing effect from blink to convey well the idea of them moving so quickly you can't attack them.
Qell probably see something like this in the new monster manual, but this seems a good time to try the variant boss initiative model. Instead of 1 turn per round, augmented with legendary actions, the boss gets a number of actions per round equal to the number of PCs (+/- 1) and can expend any number of them immediately after a PC's turn until theyre all exhausted. This would give the impression of being relatively slower than this enemy.
Now that I've written this, I realize you said you have 1 player, so probably not going to make much difference there. So instead, just five them 2 turns for every player 1. This will make the fight significantly harder, so adjust stats elsewhere accordingly.
Also, casting times should feel weighted: instead of one action, it might take an action and a ba. An action instead of a BA. reaction maybe uses reaction but then can't take a BA next turn.
Maybe effects with instantaneous damage deal additional damage with d4s on the next round, like a fireball might do 8d6 on impact plus 4d4 next round.
If you really wanted to crank up the challenge (I know you said it's for a little kid, but I'm enjoying this thought exercise) maybe have spell effects manifest on the round after they're cast. That could be fun, tactically, so a wizard and a warlock cast an AoE and EB at tbe same time, while someone grappling the enemy or luring them into position and casts misty step to avoid the eb just as it pushes the bbeg into the fireball. Delayed blast already does this, but now it works for any aoe spell.
Maybe concentration ends spell effects 1 round after the caster loses concentration, which could help if the players know it.
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I'm running a campaign for a little kid. He's playing a Tiny videogame console with arms and legs, level 2 rogue/wizard, and has a talking rat, Warrior, for a sidekick. The campaign he's on sends him to a sort of border crossing between the Underdark and the overworld, to collect a homebrew magic item called the scepter of Time-Molasses. To get it, I plan to have him fight some big bad dude, in an area that the scepter is working in, so everything takes 10x as long. Could I have some advice for how to run this? Thanks!
I'm also homebrewing in a bunch of zelda stuff; races and monsters mostly, and it also means that the underdark he'll visit is basically the same as the Depths from TotK. Don't know if that could affect much.
If you put something inside moving slowly as they enter and something outside moving quickly then that should convey the effect.
As everyone inside should be slowed and equal amount you won't actually have to apply any combat effects but if you wanted to have some people fast and some people slow then you can use the effects of haste and slow. I also find the vanishing effect from blink to convey well the idea of them moving so quickly you can't attack them.
Qell probably see something like this in the new monster manual, but this seems a good time to try the variant boss initiative model. Instead of 1 turn per round, augmented with legendary actions, the boss gets a number of actions per round equal to the number of PCs (+/- 1) and can expend any number of them immediately after a PC's turn until theyre all exhausted. This would give the impression of being relatively slower than this enemy.
Now that I've written this, I realize you said you have 1 player, so probably not going to make much difference there. So instead, just five them 2 turns for every player 1. This will make the fight significantly harder, so adjust stats elsewhere accordingly.
Also, casting times should feel weighted: instead of one action, it might take an action and a ba. An action instead of a BA. reaction maybe uses reaction but then can't take a BA next turn.
Maybe effects with instantaneous damage deal additional damage with d4s on the next round, like a fireball might do 8d6 on impact plus 4d4 next round.
If you really wanted to crank up the challenge (I know you said it's for a little kid, but I'm enjoying this thought exercise) maybe have spell effects manifest on the round after they're cast. That could be fun, tactically, so a wizard and a warlock cast an AoE and EB at tbe same time, while someone grappling the enemy or luring them into position and casts misty step to avoid the eb just as it pushes the bbeg into the fireball. Delayed blast already does this, but now it works for any aoe spell.
Maybe concentration ends spell effects 1 round after the caster loses concentration, which could help if the players know it.