So for context, Orcus is the BBEG of my campaign. I intended for him to ascend into godhood as the god of undeath during the finale but he would be unable to fully utilize his godlike power because he just became a god. He, however, through the stupid actions of the players, became the god of undeath early. What do I do?
Not clear on the tier here. But three off the cuff 'No idea if it works!' ideas.
While the world falls apart, create a quest for a player to be ascended to an avatar of life. The player that takes up the mantle make a sacrifice to slay Orcus at the cost of their permanent death. Party gets to choose who.
Time travel back, and have their wiser selves fix it. Either change the past (like your typical time travel movie) or go the Avengers route and undo it, and have the responsibility to fix those timelines.
Quest to challenge Orcus and take the mantle of undeath from him. May involve other gods, and machinations.
Do the Kil'Jaeden. Players need not defeat him outright but merely slow him down in order to temporarily trap him on another plane. OR Do the Gandalf. One doomed player takes one for the team. OR In epic fashion, kill your party.
I could certainly see a god like Asmodeus making a deal with the players, maybe give them some infernal power to get one over a demon lord and maybe gain a few souls too but that would be the fine print!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Alston | Level 12 | Human | Cleric | Forge Dorrin | Level 1 | Stone Dwarf | Warlock | Fiend DM | Toril Catastrophe | Rime of the Frostmaiden DM | Clockwork Contingent | Tyranny of Dragons
Yeah, I'm not sure how long the group has been playing for or how much longer you wanted this campaign to go on for, but without some Deus ex Machina type of situation, I don't know how they, or the world, will solve this problem if it's "way" too early to fight Orcus. So, with all that said... this might be a fun time to really switch gears! Kill the players, and like 85% of the world, and then "start" a new campaign in an apocalyptic version of the world your players have been playing in several years down the line. Have them make new characters that have been survivors, or maybe some how their characters were time traveled forward by divine intervention. The reason they have time to get stronger now without Orcus finding/killing them is maybe he's gotten lazy or comfortable with the level of destruction he's caused, or maybe he's off temporarily terrorizing another plane.
It's never too early to become a god. Provided they're not standing immediately under his deified boot your players can escape, find allies in rival pantheons (Correlleon progenitor of the elves, Luthic Den mother of the Orcs, Moradin crafter of dwarves, Asmodeous Lord of the damned [amc_Ferret], and others with a vested interested in their followers souls). Your players could make pacts, swear oaths, and be chosen by divine beings to gain in instant level if the affiliated class to speed them on their way to deicide. Mean while the gods can contend with Orcus while the heroes deal with his mortal champions. Surely there's a weapon somewhere with the power to kill gods hidden deep in the planes they could quest for perhaps guarded by its creator, a long forgotten elder god. It Who Birthed The First Death or something suitably melodramatic.
"Who dare seeks the Blade Immaterial?" "Tis I, your greatness. A God has risen, he threatens your greatest creation. He threatens death itself." "Hmm what a strange eon indeed, that death should die. But no... it shall not be so. Take up my blade mortal, all things must come to an end, ensure death endures until the last.
You could steal a page from Storm King's Thunder and kill 2 birds with one stone. Build some powerful ally NPC stat blocks and let your players run them. Your players get the power to fight Orcus, they get to play a demon, yugoloth, etc, and you don't have to try and balance monstrous races.
edit: There's also a fantastic (literally) Aquisitions Incorporated episode in which the relatively low level party gets access to a Mecha-Halaster to fight the (definitely not Godzilla) Tarasque, which you could use as inspiration.
I actually ran a campaign with an ending just like this. The BBEG was a demi god, and did a compromised karsus' avatar, and took the godhood of his dad, letting him to permanently merge with the god power rather than 30 minutes. That part is kinda irrelevant to your solution.
Earlier on in the campaign there was a powerful wizard who would have been able to interrupt the spell ritual, making it not take full effect in battle, or the Great Mother, who hated the specific god of death who was father to the demi god, so she could subdue his power.
They went the route of befriending her. Basically something that can interfere with what grants them their power, or another god that helps and subdues their power can help when thinking of a way for them to kill the BBEG.
Make the goal now to be to hunt down the necessary items to perform a ritual to stop Orcus all while being harried by the forces of evil. God Orcus doesn’t care about the movements of mortals so he’s letting his minions deal with it. Then.... work your way back up. Just killing the party off would be really annoying from a player perspective. Let them re earn the power to fight a god.
Make the goal now to be to hunt down the necessary items to perform a ritual to stop Orcus all while being harried by the forces of evil. God Orcus doesn’t care about the movements of mortals so he’s letting his minions deal with it. Then.... work your way back up. Just killing the party off would be really annoying from a player perspective. Let them re earn the power to fight a god.
it's their fault, you gave them the tools to succeed, and because they played poorly, they lost. a mature group shouldn't be annoyed at you for losing in a perfectly fair scenario. If, however, this is your fault, for not explaining the situation properly, or putting them in a far to tight spot with one obscure way out, then at least try to fix your mistakes.
That said, give them whatever chance they would realistically have given the circumstances.
Make the goal now to be to hunt down the necessary items to perform a ritual to stop Orcus all while being harried by the forces of evil. God Orcus doesn’t care about the movements of mortals so he’s letting his minions deal with it. Then.... work your way back up. Just killing the party off would be really annoying from a player perspective. Let them re earn the power to fight a god.
it's their fault, you gave them the tools to succeed, and because they played poorly, they lost. a mature group shouldn't be annoyed at you for losing in a perfectly fair scenario. If, however, this is your fault, for not explaining the situation properly, or putting them in a far to tight spot with one obscure way out, then at least try to fix your mistakes.
That said, give them whatever chance they would realistically have given the circumstances.
What are you suggesting? Just kill the party then? Start over from scratch. Seems like nuking the problem instead of solving it. Because... cool, no more campaign? Why not give the players a chance to turns things back around instead of saying “too bad, you screwed up, and lost and there’s nothing you can do to fix it.” Having to navigate the game world with a god constantly sending his minions after you seems way more fun than telling the players they’ve “lost the campaign, better role up new characters and start something new.”
Make the goal now to be to hunt down the necessary items to perform a ritual to stop Orcus all while being harried by the forces of evil. God Orcus doesn’t care about the movements of mortals so he’s letting his minions deal with it. Then.... work your way back up. Just killing the party off would be really annoying from a player perspective. Let them re earn the power to fight a god.
it's their fault, you gave them the tools to succeed, and because they played poorly, they lost. a mature group shouldn't be annoyed at you for losing in a perfectly fair scenario. If, however, this is your fault, for not explaining the situation properly, or putting them in a far to tight spot with one obscure way out, then at least try to fix your mistakes.
That said, give them whatever chance they would realistically have given the circumstances.
What are you suggesting? Just kill the party then? Start over from scratch. Seems like nuking the problem instead of solving it. Because... cool, no more campaign? Why not give the players a chance to turns things back around instead of saying “too bad, you screwed up, and lost and there’s nothing you can do to fix it.” Having to navigate the game world with a god constantly sending his minions after you seems way more fun than telling the players they’ve “lost the campaign, better role up new characters and start something new.”
This was basically what I was suggesting, just a dramatic increase in difficulty, not a Tpk.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I did NOT eat those hikers.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So for context, Orcus is the BBEG of my campaign. I intended for him to ascend into godhood as the god of undeath during the finale but he would be unable to fully utilize his godlike power because he just became a god. He, however, through the stupid actions of the players, became the god of undeath early. What do I do?
Not clear on the tier here. But three off the cuff 'No idea if it works!' ideas.
Do the Kil'Jaeden. Players need not defeat him outright but merely slow him down in order to temporarily trap him on another plane.
OR
Do the Gandalf. One doomed player takes one for the team.
OR
In epic fashion, kill your party.
I could certainly see a god like Asmodeus making a deal with the players, maybe give them some infernal power to get one over a demon lord and maybe gain a few souls too but that would be the fine print!
kill them
Yeah, I'm not sure how long the group has been playing for or how much longer you wanted this campaign to go on for, but without some Deus ex Machina type of situation, I don't know how they, or the world, will solve this problem if it's "way" too early to fight Orcus. So, with all that said... this might be a fun time to really switch gears! Kill the players, and like 85% of the world, and then "start" a new campaign in an apocalyptic version of the world your players have been playing in several years down the line. Have them make new characters that have been survivors, or maybe some how their characters were time traveled forward by divine intervention. The reason they have time to get stronger now without Orcus finding/killing them is maybe he's gotten lazy or comfortable with the level of destruction he's caused, or maybe he's off temporarily terrorizing another plane.
It's never too early to become a god. Provided they're not standing immediately under his deified boot your players can escape, find allies in rival pantheons (Correlleon progenitor of the elves, Luthic Den mother of the Orcs, Moradin crafter of dwarves, Asmodeous Lord of the damned [amc_Ferret], and others with a vested interested in their followers souls). Your players could make pacts, swear oaths, and be chosen by divine beings to gain in instant level if the affiliated class to speed them on their way to deicide. Mean while the gods can contend with Orcus while the heroes deal with his mortal champions. Surely there's a weapon somewhere with the power to kill gods hidden deep in the planes they could quest for perhaps guarded by its creator, a long forgotten elder god. It Who Birthed The First Death or something suitably melodramatic.
"Who dare seeks the Blade Immaterial?" "Tis I, your greatness. A God has risen, he threatens your greatest creation. He threatens death itself." "Hmm what a strange eon indeed, that death should die. But no... it shall not be so. Take up my blade mortal, all things must come to an end, ensure death endures until the last.
You could steal a page from Storm King's Thunder and kill 2 birds with one stone. Build some powerful ally NPC stat blocks and let your players run them. Your players get the power to fight Orcus, they get to play a demon, yugoloth, etc, and you don't have to try and balance monstrous races.
edit: There's also a fantastic (literally) Aquisitions Incorporated episode in which the relatively low level party gets access to a Mecha-Halaster to fight the (definitely not Godzilla) Tarasque, which you could use as inspiration.
I actually ran a campaign with an ending just like this. The BBEG was a demi god, and did a compromised karsus' avatar, and took the godhood of his dad, letting him to permanently merge with the god power rather than 30 minutes. That part is kinda irrelevant to your solution.
Earlier on in the campaign there was a powerful wizard who would have been able to interrupt the spell ritual, making it not take full effect in battle, or the Great Mother, who hated the specific god of death who was father to the demi god, so she could subdue his power.
They went the route of befriending her. Basically something that can interfere with what grants them their power, or another god that helps and subdues their power can help when thinking of a way for them to kill the BBEG.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.
This sounds awesome and there are some great ideas above.
So you could depending on the group...
Describe what the world now looks like with Orcus in charge, then:
Curious what you decide in the end, good luck.
just let their actions have consequences, including one or all of them dying.
I did NOT eat those hikers.
Make the goal now to be to hunt down the necessary items to perform a ritual to stop Orcus all while being harried by the forces of evil. God Orcus doesn’t care about the movements of mortals so he’s letting his minions deal with it. Then.... work your way back up. Just killing the party off would be really annoying from a player perspective. Let them re earn the power to fight a god.
it's their fault, you gave them the tools to succeed, and because they played poorly, they lost. a mature group shouldn't be annoyed at you for losing in a perfectly fair scenario. If, however, this is your fault, for not explaining the situation properly, or putting them in a far to tight spot with one obscure way out, then at least try to fix your mistakes.
That said, give them whatever chance they would realistically have given the circumstances.
I did NOT eat those hikers.
What are you suggesting? Just kill the party then? Start over from scratch. Seems like nuking the problem instead of solving it. Because... cool, no more campaign? Why not give the players a chance to turns things back around instead of saying “too bad, you screwed up, and lost and there’s nothing you can do to fix it.” Having to navigate the game world with a god constantly sending his minions after you seems way more fun than telling the players they’ve “lost the campaign, better role up new characters and start something new.”
This was basically what I was suggesting, just a dramatic increase in difficulty, not a Tpk.
I did NOT eat those hikers.