First time DM - "into the Dragons Lair

[Dwarfi]

Working on the next big encounter.
The group was betrayed by the guy who was supposed to lead them through the mountains. Instead of the goblin cave, he led them to another cave, where the freedom warriors where waiting in an ambush. It came to a fight, which was long and exciting.
As the freedom warriors didnt get the upper hand, the guide didnt joing the fight but fled instead (unseen)

Now the group will find out that the cave they are in is a dead end and that they have to go back a couple of miles to a valley, from where they can take the way back south or another way into the mountains north.

Here is where I am still searching for a good build up.
When they go north there is another group of adventurers. The group is already designed: A female dragon in human form, her bard lover, an evil cleric (who flees immediately when he finds out that she is a dragon) and a frenzy bers. barbarian. who is under a  charm spell of the dragon. If dispelled when not in a frenzy he turns against the dragonlady.

But I would like to make the meeting a little more interesting:
My thought would be:
Our group goes north, through a narrow pass and comes across a gory scene, where another group of very young adv. has been already slain ( they know these poor guys) and a little ahead is a person, bound to a small tree.
Its the mountain guide, who was captured by the dragon group, so they know about them already and prepared him as an alarm signal,

As the group gets closer to him, they can see that he doesnt look so good. Suddenly he starts screaming like crazy as the "symbol of pain" painted on his back has been activated as soon as 1 person with magical abilities comes closer to him. Everyone in 60 ft gets the effect.

The scream lets the dragon know that there is another group and they prepare some buffs and stuff.
As soon as the group deactivates the symbol or leaves its area, the bard of the other group shows up. The bard might play a song to catch most of the group and let them be unprepared.
The only one who can really make the high check is the cleric. He might free his friends or be talked to by the dragon lady, giving him a last warning to turn around and go away.
This might be the only chance to somehow talk their way out. If they get really lucky with a diplomacy check or bribe the dragon with some strong magical items, she might even be willed to go along the group for a short while.
---------
Usually its thought as an encounter, but having the dragon ready for a later fight might be interesting too. I like keeping npcs in the story and build up to something.

The next part of the story after this would be the goblin city of grod (see earlier post) Where the dragon lady might have a pretty easy way. As the goblins serverd under a dragon before and she has a very high bluff skill + a wand to change shape. (Very useful in this situation) So she might go through the city and take control over one of the generals pretty quickly.

They teleport there by entering a big cave, filled with fog.
To throw in some extra suspense, everyone who enters, makes a dice roll with a 50/50 chance. Lets say below 10= -1 permanent HD, above and nothing bad happens.

[Dwarfi]

The encounter was thrilling. The cleric died in the firt attack, so he wasnt of any help. Couldnt cast a single spell.
The bard tried a confusion but everyone made the DC, after that he simply ran for his life.
Leaving a frenzy berserker and a young adult dragon behind. The dragon lady made a couple of mistakes and took quite some damage until she got the hand of how to deal with the group.
The real problem was the berserker, as the Pcs had absolutely nothing left to stop him from attacking.
Finally they had to make a deal with the dragonlady to be able to flee into the goblin cave.

So the dragon might come up in a later point in time again.

Another idea for the goblin city:
Gobby the outcast. In some point in the outer caves lives gobby a small and kinda crazy goblin.
The group might come across his hut or saves him from an animal.
If they dont kill him he will be really greateful to the one pc who killed the beast.
He can give the pcs some basic informations about the city, though they cant be too sure if everything he says is true or not.
He might want to have some magic items from the players, depending on what they give to him, they might get something even better or far worse.
A lot of potential there.

[Dwarfi]

The last session was very long and had a lot or roleplaying in it.

They befriended a strange little goblin, who loves the cleric for saving his life. He was a good source of information and a lot of fun to play as a DM. ^^

The group is now in the goblin city of grodd, a giant 5x5 miles big city in a gigantic cave. ( It think I have described this somewhere before already)
They had to move through the city without beeing seen. They managed to do so by using an extended invis. and air walk spell. They dropped the sneakyness to attack a temple and of course some goblins run away so the city now knows that outsiders with invis. abilitys are in the city. But thanks to a black urn that needs to be protected a goblin general approached them and made a deal with them. They wont touch the urn and will maybe help him, while he offers a save place to stay inside the city.

It was really a lot of roleplay in this.

The next part will take place in the sewers where the group already came across a gel. cube and got partially digested. ^^
This surrounding is so great for encounters: Looking up to a hole (exit) of the sewers a ochre jelly might fall straight down on the victim. XD
Someone might slip or beeing bull rushed into the sewer "water". XD
Gas might come up and if they use a fire spell or the burning hammer of the barb.... Boom XDE
A group of digesters is really good too. (What do they eat down here ???)

The group will come acrosse the wizard of another group, that works for another goblin general. The wiz. will do anything to become friends with the PCs, trying to buff them and stuff like that, just to teleport away instead. XD After this both generals know about the other hero group but cant oppose them directly, though they might inform the other generals in secret.
If publicly accused of working with outsiders the other general would just do the same and both would loose support. So they send the groups after each other. As the rival group is rogue focused they have the edge. Creating some nice situations.

A fireball stored in an hourglass in the bedchamber, poison in the food.... and finally a big set up encounter.

I fill have to think of something after this. If the general of the PCs becomes more powerful he might come up with a plan to get rid of them. Sending them inito the heavy guarded and treasured grand palace where some treasures are located. If stolen some nasty thing happen and the general might turn against them if they got caught in public. Otherwise he will happily take the treasures, gaining him more influence. At that point he could easily declare himself high count and take the throne.

I am not sure about the betrayel, maybe they can just make dipl. checsk or come up with something else instead. ^^

[Dwarfi]

I had to prepare the political dev. a littl ahead of time.

The group is allied with a goblin general in a situation where they just want to find the big treasure, that supposed to be hidden somewhere in the big hostile city.
7 generals are fighting over the city.
The general starts "unfriendly" towards them, he doesnt like them and doesnt really give much about them, as long as they are of some use for him and dont reveal themself to the city. (Which would weaken his position)

1 Pake (our ally)
2 Sana (the big enemy, as she works with a team of outsiders as well, but no one knows)
They cant attack Sana directly as only outsiders would be able to pull of an assasination against her right now.
3 Urm - the 3rd BIG general after Pake and Sana. The others try to ally with him but he keeps his distance.

Timeline:
Arrival and ally with pake
- Sana declares herself high council
- Failed assasination on Sana (she boasts with it and impresses two generals, one is URM)
To stop URM from going for Sanas side Pake wants to bribe him. The PCs can help here by contributing mithrall to the deal. Pake will deliver the present himself.
- Sana is now allied with 2 other generals, to weaken this the group is supposed to make mischief. They can forge a letter, enchant a messenger or something like that. If they ask Pake, he might come up with a forged letter by himself.
- Sana and one of her Allys argue heavily and the general gets assasinated + replaced by another ally of Sana, which is not a general but the leader of the clerics.
- Pake is now neutral- to the players
- A battle between some generals breaks out, Pake sees a chance to get a new ally and helps, while another ally of Sana interfers. Pake wants him dead and sends the PCs as assasins.
- Pake is now friendly to the players
Sana is now knows about the alliance between Pake and the PCs and sends her own adv. group after them.
A big battle emerges where the PCs might help. Sana and her alliance attack Pake, using a clerical evil cage as a weapon.

If the group hasnt been to the grand palace already by now, Sana will retreat there and the fight continues inside.
There is an urn with an ancient evil inside, that is supposed to never be opened. ( an ethereal reaver is captured inside) Sana could become insane enough to actually use it against the PCs.

When Sana gets defeated, Pake becomes high council and is now "helpful" to the players. (If they stick with him for that long) He is now in the position and willing to really help them.
This goes as far as finally declaring peace between the goblins and humans.

[Dwarfi]

As it is now, the group pretty much follows the path with the allied Goblin general.

They did some very funny conspiracy jobs for him against his enemys and are now about to get an assasination request.
I wonder if anyone in our group might have a problem with that as its a goblin anyway. ^^

They will have to go to the palace of the "target". But this time they will have to do everything on their own.
The ally-general is busy fighting and leading his forces so its entirely up to the group to get this job done.
Everything is possible, fly in front of the window of the targets room, climb up, enter the buildings through doors, roof or the sewers... teleport through the door, poison the food, maybe get to know about an allergy of the general, while listening to the kitchen folks. ^^
Beeing sneaky with poison and spells or just bash your way through everyone. Or dont risk it and wait a couple of hours until he maybe leaves the palace.

EDIT: A little idea I had yesterday: In case one of the PCs asks the general something like: "And why should we do this for you"? He answers - "Well, they say that General X is a collector of "very special" magical items." (Which should get those greedy PCs moving XD)
Inside the palace of general X they might come across a vitrine or chest with different items. Though because of the lack of time (except if they bashed their way through) they can get there hands on either 2 items randomly, or pick themself, but that costs time and might end in a surprise attack.
What they dont know is that those "special" items are all cursed items. None has a deadly effect, but all are kind of funny. ^^

[Rejakor]

Sounds like you're doing pretty well.

Inventive and it sounds like the players are having fun.

[Dwarfi]

@rejaker: thanks, I hope to make it a little more challenging again. Bashing goblins is fun, but if it goes on for too long it might become dull.

The group killed the gobbo general, got seen by 60 goblins and of course looted everything they could. And to top it all they came across an enemy assasin, which they befriended and showed him where they live, who they are allied with, their room... basically everything he needs to know XD

3 items
- the +3 throwing hammer - which actually throws the user got found out pretty quickly, but it was fun when the barbarian bounced of the wall. ^^
- A cloak or res +4 which made our mages' eyes glow = cloak of vermin ;P
- amulet of inv. = summons a swarm of bumblbees and fireflys around the user- not so stealthy.

Usually the group has only +2 items, +3 at the most, but rarely. Combined with the obviously cursed hammer and our discussion about too much loot I really wonder why no one questions the other 2 item, as they are obviously way too good for the LV. Well... thats not my problem.

Loot is still my biggest problem: The group has roughly the right amount of gear, the cleric is~4k above the usual limit for Lv10 (~50k), but thats ok. But our barbarian is 20k above everyone else and that worrys me a little and makes me ask: They are coming across a very strong npc group soon, obviously they will get gear, but I can basically only give them stuff they wont use for themself or at the most exchange stuff. I guess it will be stuff they just cant or dont want to use. A lot of +1 or +2 items, some potions... maybe 1 or 2 special magical items like shoes or stuff like that.

When the cloak and the amulet are found out it will suck, but I might give them something simmilar but weaker after the big encounter... a cloak +2 maybe and some other rogue items that may be usefull but not THAT expensive.

[Dwarfi]

Planning for the next session:
The group wakes up after 8 hours of sleep (enough for the other group to walk through the city, sneak into the palace kitchen and poison the food
Nothing too terrible but it hurts.

With the news of the heroes in pakes palace, Sana decides to attack, together with her allys. They use an evil magical cage to blast through the army and general Pake sends our group out to destroy it, while his army defends the palace. So  the Pcs are in a hurry as they have a time limit.
Knowing my players I would guess that they go either for the direct attack tactic, fighting a 400 goblin army + slave ogres or they use a fly spell to move above. They used that quite often already so this time they will eat a dispell while in sight of the enemy casters. ;P

The best would be if they just walk around the army, there it would be a good opportunity to encounter the opposing group, which is already prepared for them.
The "tank" of the group might show up alone and maybe have a short talk with them. Join us and stuff like that- he basically just wants time for his friends to get into position - they are all very sneaky and prefer an ambush.
If he thinks enough time has passed he quits the talk and throws a glove at the group. They will think its just a gesture for a challenge, but it is more than that. The enemy wiz. has cast suspended silence on the glove which he activates now and the battle begins.

The tank tries to hold of the barbarian while the enemy illusionist casts nasty stuff like mind fog, sensory deprivation, persist image and confusion. dom. person of phantasmal killer are in the pool too. Another memeber is a duskblade, that will attack from a side street. Using No-save spells to bug the cleric (who is otherwise imune to any spell with Will19 --°)
The leader of the team is a rogue type, sneaking around the group to get a good hit on the weaker PCs.

The time between each blast of the cage might be 5 minutes. So they are quite in a hurry to destroy that thing, otherwise the palace is destroyed and Pakes missing.
Now Sana is the most powerful general and the Players suddenly are in a giant goblin city without an ally to protect and hide them.

Open for any ideas as usual.

[Rejakor]

I've found that being openhanded with loot, but then being realistic/harsh about taking it away, can work.  Players HATE losing their shinies, but if it's in a way that it could be retrieved (the goblin king demands the amulet of iggysilth, as it is important to his people, the bandit king takes your weapons, has you tied up, later you escape but getting the weapons back would be hard, when you place the drinking vessel on the altar, it disappears in a flash of light), they tend to go with it.

Also, quirky magic items is a thing.  Like a black amulet that turns blows, but only when it feels like it (or if the enemies are good or neutral aligned - treat as Sanctuary, but not broken by attacking), or a tiny figurine of a wolf that lets you talk to wolves, and if you know how, turn into a wolf (speak with animals is a 1st level spell, but people will think this is AWESOME), or a black bearskin that makes you proof against the cold, or a single black boot that does 5d6 damage to you but teleports you about a mile in whichever direction you're facing when you take a step with it on (one half of a pair of seven league boots ).  A tiny orb that spins in midair and makes a noise that slowly increases in volume until it does sonic damage and shatters eardrums.

Also, if goblins are getting boring, teams of goblins with adventurer levels. Trolls with goblin alchemists riding them, Master/Blaster style.  Pterodactyls.  With goblins riding them.  A goblin shaman who can move through walls and whose idea of attacking the party is to teleport goblins at them and do the teleport damage to them from 2 people appearing in the same space.  Instead of bodyguards have an enemy of the party have the allegiance of a tribe of human pygmies with potent poison on their weapons.  Have a bag of hellwasp swarms thrown at the party.

[Dwarfi]

I am trying to get some more control over what the get. And I wan to give them a more "special" fealing. Not just the "hey, this sword is one stat better then my last, I take it"

Yesterday they had a big fight against an equally well equipped and skilled PC group.
The group was overall more stealthy then my group so it was a good opportunity to give some loot for the more weak equipped rogue.

I made up a rogue set and a story behind it.
The order of the black snake, a dark guild of murderers and assasins. And only the best earned the right to wear the set of the black snake. Of course they killed each other once in a while to get some of the pieces

Vest of the black snake: 3/day freed. of  movement (This is what they got)
Mask of the cobra (gain track + nightvision)
Cloak of the Viper ( +1d6 sneak attack dmg, +5 hide and move silently)
2 piece bonus: Use poison on a weapon as a swift action
3 piece bonus: invisible 1/day


They got some other loot for which I had them make some rolls.
the vest was easily 9-12k GP. / +2500k GP / Broach of stability 1k / Poison / Cloak of prot +2 4k

In the earlier campaigns they always got ALL the loot. Everything the enemy had was to take. But they still have a lot ahead of them and I dont want to overequip them. So although they dont like it that it wasnt as much as they expected. They like to say lines like "but we wouldnt use it" .... well but then they would still keep and sell it whenever possible. And they still have some pretty expensive stuff in the bags.

I know that this is metagame thinking, but I have to pull up some serious bad ass sh*t to really challenge this group. And humoind characters are especially tricky to do because they usually have so much loot.

[Dwarfi]

I think I found a good solution for my loot problem on NPCs.
I will just buff them up in the stats or raise a lv, but the loot will be magical on rather rare occasions. That way I can give them all the loot there is, but it will be hardly worth anything. And if there there are 1 or 2 magic items in the pool they become something more special.

[veekie]

That helps. If they need magical effects, you could grant them ritually (appeal to the gods for an intervention, get buffs from a caster before the fight, you know, same thing).

[ksbsnowowl]

As crappy as potions are in the cost/benefit field, they are a great way to buff your bad guys without increasing the wealth your PC's gain.

The only downside is that they take time to activate, and thus they don't work well against parties that are stealthy (like my group, who always goes in under invisibility sphere and silence).

[Dwarfi]

Next session: Our group entered the "final" stage of the campaign. A plane where 5 Lv11 elves live since almost a millenia.

The group entered the plane, and almost immediately faced the 1st elve. A ranger type archer. They actually managed to capture him alive which resulted in some nice rp moments.

Now the group is in a in small wood, where they tyed the elve up to a tree and made a campfire. (They basically now wait 1 full day to regain spells) Some harmless ghost events later they got attacked by giant wasps. After that the group isnt in danger of dying but rather low on spells. The prisoner blew a horn before he attacked at first and so the other 4 elves have gathered by now and found out what happened to their fellow.
After another wave of 6 wasps in the afternoon our group is in no condition to fight those strong opponents and I am thinking of what to do next.

Maybe you have an idea?
The elves could simply march in and attack the  PCs head on, which could easily result in 1-all dead Players, but that would risk the death of the prisoner, even though the elves have a cleric who could resurrect him.

B- They wait until dusk, when the twilight makes hit hard to see much for humans: The assasin type elve could be invisible, sneak close to the captured elve and cast a fake noise somewhere else to lure the players away. Cutting the ropes and giving him a pot. of invisib to flee.

The other option would be to take a hostage and maybe exchange him. Although the elves hate humans so much that they would prefer to kill the hostage. ^^

[veekie]

I think they'd probably start with spiriting away the hostage in the night. Sneak up close to cut the ropes loose, and slip him a potion, with a standing ambush waiting in case it goes wrong.

If it comes to a fight, the first priority is to douse the PCs lights. Wreck the lights(e.g. with pyrotechnics), then strike from the woods, pulling out once they get organized to avoid casualties rather than press the assault.

After all, elves don't need much sleep, they can harry the PCs for days at this rate, with a strike sometime in the middle of the night every night.

Until the PCs hunt them down and murder the lot of them anyway.

[Dwarfi]

Nice strategy.

Though I am not sure if the PCs can be kept from sleeping entirely, but regaining spells will become difficult. The cleric has to spend 1 hour in the morning to regain his spells, so they just have to keep an eye on him to avoid that.

The elfen assasin can hide pretty well and the mage could cast inv. to make the approach even saver. Then a pyrotechnique spell causes some smoke. I think that is more effective than taking the risk of a will save with the fireworks. A fake noise is cast to lure them into the wrong direction and then they try to save the hostage.

Edit:
I looked for the sleep part: Lack of sleep: After 24 hours without 8 hours of sleep fatigued. After more than 2-3 days without sleep exhausted. After 4 days you just collapse (unconcious) for 1d8+8 hours. ^^ With endurance this effect might be delayed or weaker.

Sleeping in armor: I dont want to really penalise the players but there should be some effect. I think not gaining HP from resting should be fair enough.
With endurance or armor focus you dont have that problem.

[veekie]

Sleeping in Armor

Sleeping in Armor

A character who sleeps in medium or heavy armor is automatically fatigued the next day. He or she takes a -2 penalty on Strength and Dexterity and can’t charge or run. Sleeping in light armor does not cause fatigue.

[Dwarfi]

Alright, the group is facing the 2nd part of the final encounter.
Part 1 was getting through the lair, a wyvern, 6 trolls, a puzzle and a rage drake.
Now they looted the treasure and magical items and will be resting. At least thats what I expect them to do.

The last encounter will be the group of elves, waiting outside of the cave on a 30ft highground.

An archer - they already captured and looted him once
A wizzard - he has some nice items and scrolls for protection, but other then that not too special
An assasin - I just wanted to play a little with the swift spells, uses a dagger of humanbane and has humans as fav. enemy.
A warblade - Lots of counters to get nasty, uses a unholy longsword.
A cleric/ ordained champion of hextor - Enlarge and big hitting is his goal + quick casting war domain spells or inf. wounds with his blade. His ace is his highest lv spell that makes him explode when he dies.

The elves wait and send in 2 waves of summoned monster when the players dont come out during the night.
A group of Shadow mastiffs and a group of howlers.

They are pretty much prepared for battle and set up a wall of dispell magic at the entrance. After that the melees will attack, while the range fighters stay scattered on the cliff to make fireballs and aoe blasts ineffective. The elves will be the final big encounter and hopefully give a hell of a fight.

[Dwarfi]

I was thinking of using some nifty items or special arrows in this encounter.

Sleep arrows ? Dispelling arrows or stuff like that ? Any ideas?
I could as well use some kind of scrolls/spells to affect the ground.

Open for any ideas.

A personal list to see what spells they used ahead.

Wizzard: Scroll of stoneskin (self) + wall of dispel + mage armor (+6), uses a wand of slow + a violett ioun stone flying around her. (absorb 8th lv spell or lower)
first spell ?: Mass sugestion (DC 20), slow (wand) (DC16), ice storm, solid fog, wall of fire ... not sure yet.
As the fog doesnt give saves, I think I will use that as a first spell, following with wall of fire or ice storm.
Rogue: He will stay on the cliff, hiding and trying to get a nice sneak attack on someone. If possible a death attack on the 3rd round + swift invsib or true strike
Warblade: stance of abolute steel. +10 speed/+2 AC
Cleric: Death throes/ shield of faith mass (+3AC for all), when the battle begins right. might. and maybe spiritual weapons or silence. In the battle channelling crit wounds into his weapon should do the trick.
Ranger: He is using only very basic gear, because he was looted before. But he got some MW items from the others. He only knows minor spells.

Loot:
Wizzard: Wand of slow (4 charges), ioun stone (14 spell LVs to absorb remain), pot.of inv. pot. of cure wounds (3d8).
Rogue: +1 dagger of human bane, cloak of elvenkind, pot of cure wounds (3d8) poison wyvern DC16/ wasp DC18, elven chainmail, MW Longbow
Warblade: +2 Unholy longsword, elven chainmail, pot of cure wounds,
Cleric: MW Fullplate, Heavy shield, +1 Flail (Hexxtor)
Ranger: MW Longbow, 20 MW arrows, Breastplate, MW shortsword

Special Arrows: Arrows of darkness and silence (x3) 2 for the ranger and 1 for the rogue

[veekie]

Use arrows with Darkness+Silence cast on them, shoot a hail of those at predetermined locations before pounding the area with AoE stuff like stone fall traps or dumping expendable summoned creatures(preferably stuff like Fire elementals) into the area with instructions to kill eveyrhing.