A necromancer has uncovered the tomb of a demon which has long since been sealed away and the young band of adventurers failed in stopping the ritual. The party are now fleeing through the wilderness to the next town over to seek information and aid to put a stop to the demon has been raised from the dead.
On his dark steed, the demon Femur, the Harvester of Death is hunting down the party with his shadow hounds to reap their souls. The party was able to keep Femur and his hounds at bay until dawn through the cleaver use of Turn Undead but must flee and seek sanctuary in the town which is still 2 weeks travel away.
My question for you veteran DM's is how would you run this? In my mind I'd love it to be some form of chase scene but I don't really know how I would successfully run it. I'd like to cause tension by perhaps only having Femur and his hounds only being able to become corporeal in the dark and I don't want it to just turn into a combat where the party fight him and either die/prevail.
My intention for this story arc is for the party to get to the next town over, learn some information and secrets about the undead, perhaps get a weapon or tool they can use against it and then confront the demon in battle.
At the moment the idea (albeit lacks detail) will be to use a sand timer that I have (approx 5 minutes) and each time the sands run out represents how long the daylight/night time lasts for. During the day they must decide how they wish to travel, forage for supplies and set up any traps/hazards to slow their pursuers and then at night they will have to somehow avoid their persuers (not sure how this part would look).
Do any of you have any thoughts, advise or suggestions for what I can use?
You're really dealing with two issues here: how to handle wilderness travel, and how to handle chases.
For chases of the "through the city streets" variety, I've used an adaptation of the 4e Skill Challenge . The AngryDM has an excellent example of running one suchhere.
What you're describing for Wilderness travel sounds like yet another of the AngryDM's systems ( see here): choose a route, make daily progress, roll for daily encounters, roll for daily discoveries, roll for foraging - get lost, or remove rations, remove water, suffer exhaustion, etc. depending on your rolls.
Where things get sticky is trying to merge the systems. What you're really looking for is to have the BBEG be X days travels behind them. Depending on their successes and failures in travel, the BBEG gets closer, falls further behind, and possibly loses ( or re-acquires ) their trail. This isn't hard to figure out some quick-and-dirty mechanics for - a contested roll between his tracking/Survival roll against their overall group stealth check should be sufficient for that. Give one side, or the other, advantage, depending on whether or not the Party is going slow and stealthy ( less chance of an encounter, but higher chance of the BBEG closing the gap ), or going full speed ( less chance of closing the gap - but higher chance of an encounter or 3, which would slow them down and negate the benefits of going faster ). Choosing speed or stealth becomes a strategic choice here.
Or - you could let the terrain influence things more: have both sides roll against the terrain's difficulty. If they both succeed, or fail, then the don't make any progress with relation to each other. The side that succeeds while the other fails has the gap change size in a way that favors them. I'd also modify the Party's Stealth based on the terrain in that case: it's easy for the BBEG to follow their trail through a sand desert, hard to track them through rocky foothills. If the BBEG can pick up their trail, he might have a bonus to his rolls, as he doesn't need to navigate, he just follows the Party. You could make it that if he picks up their trail, he can make double speed progress, or has an advantage to his roll to close the gap. This really makes terrain choice, and the the stealth/speed choice on behalf of the Party more interesting; " ... might be slow going through the foothills, but if we move over the grasslands, he'll pick up our trail and home in on us like an arrow!"
Advantage might also be given to the BBEG if the Party gets lost - and they won't be making it any closer to their sanctuary while lost. If the BBEG navigates poorly enough he gets lost ( loses their trail ); he needs to re-acquire their trail to start closing the gap again.
The part I would struggle with here, is that there should be something to telegraph to the Party how well they are doing - I'm not 100% sure how you'd do that. In a street chase, you can see your progress. Perhaps sketch out what effects/encounters they have at certain "distances" from the BBEG: they encounter one of his scouts, or a hunting pack (possibly at a distance enough to hide and avoid the encounter, perhaps not - depending on how well or badly they roll Navigation or Stealth ), or he's close enough to visit them via some spell that allows him to project his image - etc. It's trickier than them chasing him, as you can't litter their trail with evidence and witnesses of his passage to indicate where they are in relation to him.
I'd make the BBEG be a megalomaniac who wants to taunt the Party - wants to let them know he's getting closer. He's toying with them, taunting them. It's good drama, and it informs the Party how well ( or poorly ) they are doing trying to flee ahead of the BBEG.
I don't know if I'd put them through two weeks of that if I can help it. I think this would start to feel "grindy" after 5 or 6 rounds/days of that - much similar as a combat encounter would.
Sounds like this could be a lot of fun if it works out - best of luck! :)
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
A necromancer has uncovered the tomb of a demon which has long since been sealed away and the young band of adventurers failed in stopping the ritual. The party are now fleeing through the wilderness to the next town over to seek information and aid to put a stop to the demon has been raised from the dead.
On his dark steed, the demon Femur, the Harvester of Death is hunting down the party with his shadow hounds to reap their souls. The party was able to keep Femur and his hounds at bay until dawn through the cleaver use of Turn Undead but must flee and seek sanctuary in the town which is still 2 weeks travel away.
My question for you veteran DM's is how would you run this? In my mind I'd love it to be some form of chase scene but I don't really know how I would successfully run it. I'd like to cause tension by perhaps only having Femur and his hounds only being able to become corporeal in the dark and I don't want it to just turn into a combat where the party fight him and either die/prevail.
My intention for this story arc is for the party to get to the next town over, learn some information and secrets about the undead, perhaps get a weapon or tool they can use against it and then confront the demon in battle.
At the moment the idea (albeit lacks detail) will be to use a sand timer that I have (approx 5 minutes) and each time the sands run out represents how long the daylight/night time lasts for. During the day they must decide how they wish to travel, forage for supplies and set up any traps/hazards to slow their pursuers and then at night they will have to somehow avoid their persuers (not sure how this part would look).
Do any of you have any thoughts, advise or suggestions for what I can use?
An interesting problem.
You're really dealing with two issues here: how to handle wilderness travel, and how to handle chases.
For chases of the "through the city streets" variety, I've used an adaptation of the 4e Skill Challenge . The AngryDM has an excellent example of running one such here.
What you're describing for Wilderness travel sounds like yet another of the AngryDM's systems ( see here ): choose a route, make daily progress, roll for daily encounters, roll for daily discoveries, roll for foraging - get lost, or remove rations, remove water, suffer exhaustion, etc. depending on your rolls.
Where things get sticky is trying to merge the systems. What you're really looking for is to have the BBEG be X days travels behind them. Depending on their successes and failures in travel, the BBEG gets closer, falls further behind, and possibly loses ( or re-acquires ) their trail. This isn't hard to figure out some quick-and-dirty mechanics for - a contested roll between his tracking/Survival roll against their overall group stealth check should be sufficient for that. Give one side, or the other, advantage, depending on whether or not the Party is going slow and stealthy ( less chance of an encounter, but higher chance of the BBEG closing the gap ), or going full speed ( less chance of closing the gap - but higher chance of an encounter or 3, which would slow them down and negate the benefits of going faster ). Choosing speed or stealth becomes a strategic choice here.
Or - you could let the terrain influence things more: have both sides roll against the terrain's difficulty. If they both succeed, or fail, then the don't make any progress with relation to each other. The side that succeeds while the other fails has the gap change size in a way that favors them. I'd also modify the Party's Stealth based on the terrain in that case: it's easy for the BBEG to follow their trail through a sand desert, hard to track them through rocky foothills. If the BBEG can pick up their trail, he might have a bonus to his rolls, as he doesn't need to navigate, he just follows the Party. You could make it that if he picks up their trail, he can make double speed progress, or has an advantage to his roll to close the gap. This really makes terrain choice, and the the stealth/speed choice on behalf of the Party more interesting; " ... might be slow going through the foothills, but if we move over the grasslands, he'll pick up our trail and home in on us like an arrow!"
Advantage might also be given to the BBEG if the Party gets lost - and they won't be making it any closer to their sanctuary while lost. If the BBEG navigates poorly enough he gets lost ( loses their trail ); he needs to re-acquire their trail to start closing the gap again.
The part I would struggle with here, is that there should be something to telegraph to the Party how well they are doing - I'm not 100% sure how you'd do that. In a street chase, you can see your progress. Perhaps sketch out what effects/encounters they have at certain "distances" from the BBEG: they encounter one of his scouts, or a hunting pack (possibly at a distance enough to hide and avoid the encounter, perhaps not - depending on how well or badly they roll Navigation or Stealth ), or he's close enough to visit them via some spell that allows him to project his image - etc. It's trickier than them chasing him, as you can't litter their trail with evidence and witnesses of his passage to indicate where they are in relation to him.
I'd make the BBEG be a megalomaniac who wants to taunt the Party - wants to let them know he's getting closer. He's toying with them, taunting them. It's good drama, and it informs the Party how well ( or poorly ) they are doing trying to flee ahead of the BBEG.
I don't know if I'd put them through two weeks of that if I can help it. I think this would start to feel "grindy" after 5 or 6 rounds/days of that - much similar as a combat encounter would.
Sounds like this could be a lot of fun if it works out - best of luck! :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.