Madcap Hillarity Encounter [3.5]

[Human Paragon 3]

So I am injecting some levity into my Silver Hellstar campaign (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145066). I'm looking for advice to make the following encounter as humorous and madcap as possible (lazy people skip to the bolded part):

The Scene:

Our PC wizard has just been let go as the Archmage's apprentice. He and his friends are leaving the archmage's tower and a long line of potential replacement apprentices has queued up outside the door. Unbeknownst to the party or the Archmage, but knownst to us, an assassination attempt is afoot. A high level Assassin has disguised himself as an apprentice applicant, and as the PCs are leaving the tower, he's beginning his "interview" with the Archmage.

The Assassin's plan is a solid one, but doomed to fail. However, there is a backup assassin outside, lower level (6th), whose job it is to eliminate the archmage if he tries to flee. He mistakes the PC wizard for the archmage and hilarity ensues.

The assassin attacks the PC wizard, then uses his feats to blend into the crowd of apprentice candidates. When combat breaks out, the dozen+ low level wizards panic and start spellcasting, throwing around multiple mirror images, greases, etc. etc. while the Assassin hides among them and tries to eliminate the PCs. One or more of the low level wizards is working with the assassin.

I'm looking for the craziest, silliest things that could happen in the crossfire to make this encounter as funny and memorable as possible.

Thanks!

[Cyrion]

Sounds like you need to get lots of mileage out of prestidigitation, a la the fight between the fairies over Aurora's birthday party in Sleeping Beauty.

One of the more comical encounters I inflicted on a party was a group of clowns on ice skates. Ostensibly they were starting a random pie fight in the park, but they had much more sinister plans.

[Fulkerin]

Just some ideas

Glitterdust. You now have a couple wizards casting blindly :smalltongue:.

Colour spray. Great for causing... well general havoc.

Wizard with mirror image casts fly -> wizard(s) gets hit with glitterdust -> wizard(s) hit(s) wall, casts color spray blindly (in a random direction. maybe even at the assassin)

Bumping into invisible people while running through the crowd too...

etc.

[Xallace]

This (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20060807a) should do you well.

[Human Paragon 3]

The PC wizard already has a rod of wonder! I am really, really hoping he uses it in this encounter.

The rod of wonder table:


01-05 Slow creature pointed at for 10 rounds (Will DC 15 negates).
06-10 Magic Mouth appears on the target's gludius maximus and loudly sings baudy tavern songs.
11-15 Wielder incorrectly believes his allies have been turned into dogs by the rod (no save).
16-20 Gust of wind, but at windstorm force (Fortitude DC 14 negates).
21-25 Wielder makes three random knowledge checks and learns three random facts about his surroundings.
26-30 Shrink Item Targeting 3 random objects within a 30 foot radius.(Fortitude DC 15 negates).
31-33 Heavy rain falls for 1 round in 60-ft. radius centered on rod wielder.
34-36 Summon an animal—a gorilla (01-50 on d%), white whiskered gibbon that speaks common with an int of 5 (50-90), or jellyfish, even in a non aquatic environment (90-100).
37-46 Rod's base becomes a spectral dragon's head, which immediately breathes its breath weapon (6d6 damage) 1-25% Red Dragon (fire 20 ft cone) 26-50% Blue Dragon (Lightning 30 ft line) 51-75% Green Dragon (20 ft. Acid Cloud) 76-100% White Dragon (20ft cone of cold)
47-49 Stream of 600 large butterflies pours forth and flutters around for 2 rounds, blinding everyone (including wielder) within 25 ft. (Reflex DC 14 negates).
50-53 Enlarge person if within 60 ft. of rod (Fortitude DC 13 negates).
54-58 Obscuring Mist, 30-ft.-diameter hemisphere, centered 30 ft. away from rod.
59-62 Large, multi-colored mushrooms grow in 160-sq.-ft. area before the rod..
63-65 Transmute Rock to Mud or Mud to Rock any object of up to 1,000 lb. mass and up to 30 cu. ft. in size.
66-69 Wielder Dimension Doors 210 feet strait upward (no save).
70-79 10 ft. radius wall of stone surrounds target if within 100 ft. (Reflex DC 15 to avoid).
80-84 Wielder and adjacent creatures subject to Fly spell, duration 10 rounds..
85-87 Target's nose becomes a huge dill pickle for 24 hours.
88-90 Currency from around the world, value 1 gp each, shoot forth in a 30-ft.-long stream. Each of the 10-40 coins deals 1 point of damage to any creature in its path: Roll 5d4 for the number of hits and divide them among the available targets.
91-95 Intense black shadows cover a 30x40 foot area in front of the rod. That area is silenced, and creatures therein are blinded for 1d6 rounds (Fortitude DC 15 negates).
96-97 Wielder (50% chance) or target (50% chance) turns permanently sepia-toned like an old-timey photograph (no save).
98-100 Forceful Hand appears and moves as you direct until you activate the Rod again.

[Marnath]

One could rule that so many poorly trained wizards casting wily-nily could produce wild magic effects as their concentration fails and the spells spiral out of control, hitting other spells and becoming something that was not at all intended. The effects should be mostly harmless, like a patch of ground suddenly becoming mud, or 1d4 living glitterdusts spawn. Extra points for accidental plane-shifting of one or more unfortunate npcs.

[Human Paragon 3]

That might be fun. Maybe I'll have two color sprays combine into a super color spray with the cone size and hit dice limits doubled!

[TheAmishPirate]

Just perusing the low-level spell list makes for some interesting ideas. :smallbiggrin:

-At least one PC gets hit by a Reduce Person.

-Panicking Wizard throws up Obscuring Mist. Hilarity Ensues.

-Wizard who is in cahoots with the Assassin throws an Animated Rope as far as he can, and orders it to tie onto the closest thing it lands next to. Other end gets tied to a pole. Instant tripwire or, dice willing, freaked out Wizard running around with a tripwire tied to his ankle.

-Blindness or Deafness cast on one of the NPC Wizards for more random spell-slinging hijinks .

-If there is fire being flung around, somebody casts Pyrotechnics

[boomwolf]

Well, It's just my style, but in the campaign world I am running people are EXTRA paranoid, so something like this would quickly turn into a FFA of attack spells.

Burning Hands there, Color Spray here, Ghoul's Touch, Summon Monster/Swarm, Flaming Sphere (extra good as it has a duration and moves on its own.), shatter on random support pillars/floor under people, that kinda stuff.

But if you look for not-so-dangerous effects that could be fun and make this one wacky fight I recommend the following spells to be spammed. (and reasons)
Grease (people keep falling)
Obscuring Mist/Fog Cloud/Darkness (vision blocked)
Hypnotism/Sleep (random people taken out of the fight, but are still standing there. good PC's won't want to hurt them.)
Silent Image (of the caster/PC's/assassin, go nuts. throw too many of these.)
Enlarge/Reduce Person (because people changing sizes is funny.)
Summon Swarm (have the pesky little critters run amok, attacking whatever dares to step on them.)
Touch of Idiocy (because everything gets move comedic when the participates get dumber. although it will reduce casting.)
Mirror Image (just to make it seem more crowded then it is.)
Scare (let panic rule the scene!)
Pyrotechnics (because both blinding light and chocking smoke are pesky little things.)

Then have some of the wannabes panic so hard they start hitting everyone they see with random objects. (staff, forks, spellbooks, hats, rubber fish. go nuts.)

[Human Paragon 3]

This is going to be so hilarious. I think I'm going to have an NPC wizard cast ventriliquism and pretend to be another assassin in the bushes, or an invisible person. That'll have my players running around in circles, possibly distracting them to the point of uselessness without even rolling a die.

[ArcanistSupreme]

Don't forget summon monster X spells for even more chaos. With a fiendish dire weasel running around, how could you go wrong?

Some AoE spells such as lightning bolt, entangle, explosive runes, web, and wall of X spells could all be fun too. Perhaps someone got their hands on a scroll of reverse gravity?

[Mr.Smashy]

Someone accidentatlly summons 2d4 spider monkeys. Tiny monkeys with spider legs.

Have someone get hit with a reduce person and enlarge at the same time, causeing portions of his body to grow, and some to shrink.

Perhaps a grease spell, and some arcane mark for funny looking tattoos in wierd places? This would be so much fun to play out.

[Realms of Chaos]

1. Celestial Monkeys and Fiendish Scorpions running out of Obscuring mist only to slip on grease and fly into walls of fire, perhaps.

2. Magic mouths that say things such as "Oh ****, wrong scroll"

3. An entire gaggle of casters, blindly following the lead of the assassin's caster, all disguising themselves as copies of the exact same person (someone the party needs, if possible) and running around.

4. Casters using spider climb to scale walls before using sticky floor (or whatever that spell from RotD is called) to attach themselves to the ceiling.

5. Loud, distracting noises made by half a dozen casters via ghost sound to avoid detection.

6. Helpless mages chasing after their spooked familiars.

The list goes on.

[Tyrmatt]

A sixth level assassin should be able to cast Misdirection, while fools things like Detect Evil which PCs love to use in a crowd. 3 Castings available allows him to make 3 apprentice wizards get dogpiled by the party and the other apprentices.

He can also cast Magic Circle against good which I feel can be treated rather like A) Running into a brick wall or B) Running into a trampoline as the spell pushes out the intruder.

[Human Paragon 3]

He's actually Feat Rogue 5/Assassin 1. The party is level 5.

[Tyrmatt]

Oh. Well, I still like the Misdirection idea. Maybe a wand? A roguessassin should be capable of UMDing it.

[W3bDragon]

I recommend against obscuring mist and things of that nature until near the end of the fight. Its funnier if the PCs actually see what's going on.

However, blindness on one of the PCs followed by ventriloquism by the assassin's wizard buddy could be funny. PC goes blind, then gets conflicting instructions from "his friends".