[3.5e] My Very first DM Session. Advice on how to fill it out?

[RMS Oceanic]

I think the title says almost everything, except that it's a level six gestalt game with four or five guys and will be a one off adventure that should last three or four hours. I have the basic plot laid out:

After a scuffle of some sort, the party are taken to the mayor, who promises to drop the charges if you find his kidnapped daughter. After going to a conveniently abandoned warehouse and fighting some dudes, the daughter is rescued and a guy actually pins the plot on the mayor. The players will confront the mayor, who will be revealed to be possessed by a mysterious amulet. A fight against a Sorceror/Favoured soul will require them to subdue, not kill, the bloke and break the amulet, and the greatful mayor will reward them. Simples! *Meerkat noise*

So basically, I need a few details to help flesh it out:

- What sort of clue could the mayor give the party to lead them to the warehouse.
- Basically they'll be fighting a criminal gang. I see rogue//fighters, rogue//duskblades and maybe a couple of spellcasters. What level should these dudes be and how many should the party face at once?
- What spells should a Favoured Soul 8//Sorceror 8 have to be a challenge to the party?
- Is there anything else I can do to add a spice of variety to it?

[Roc Ness]

- What sort of clue could the mayor give the party to lead them to the warehouse.
- Basically they'll be fighting a criminal gang. I see rogue//fighters, rogue//duskblades and maybe a couple of spellcasters. What level should these dudes be and how many should the party face at once?
- What spells should a Favoured Soul 8//Sorceror 8 have to be a challenge to the party?
- Is there anything else I can do to add a spice of variety to it?

1: A warehouse key, of course!
2: Sorry, I dunno. Maybe 4?
3: Hmm... Power Words from Races of Dragon. That'll anoy them no-end. Hit the caster with a Power Word Deafen, hit the meatshield with a Power Word Sicken.
4: An elephant in the warehouse. I'm serious here. CR 7 (mild challenge for even unoptimised gestalt characters), and they won't see it coming. Can be easy to explain, too, if its a criminal gang. Animal smuggling. No, a skeleton elephant. Then it'll be undead smuggling, possibly a greater crime than animal smuggling.


EDIT: Also, not to derail this thread or anything, but I just want to tell you that I really like your 10 lvl Force Missile Mage PRC.

[Glass Mouse]

- What sort of clue could the mayor give the party to lead them to the warehouse.

How are your players, and what do they like? (I'm guessing you know them). Do they like to get straight to the action? Do they like investigative/talkative work?
If the former, then follow Roc Ness' advice. The mayor knows something is happening at the warehouse, and that it may be related to his daughter. Ready, set, go.
If the latter, how would they do? Run around and check out suspicious places? Well, then, let them stumble across the warehouse. Knock on doors and gather information? Have random people on the street lead them to Gossiping Gordon who can in turn lead them to someone (maybe the town drunk - those are always fun NPCs) who's heard strange sounds from the warehouse. This last approach can double as a subtle way of throwing in a few hints about the mayor's "sudden change in personality".
Alternatively, while they ask around, have a random gang member jump out and attack them. If they're smart, they'll subdue him and ask him questions - if not, well, at least they had a bit of action.

Also, you should read this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76474). Really, every new (and some old) GM should.

Edit: Also, this,


4: An elephant in the warehouse. I'm serious here. CR 7 (mild challenge for even unoptimised gestalt characters), and they won't see it coming. Can be easy to explain, too, if its a criminal gang. Animal smuggling. No, a skeleton elephant. Then it'll be undead smuggling, possibly a greater crime than animal smuggling.

may be the coolest idea I've seen for months. You should definitely go for this!

[Aroka]

All of the below is general stuff - you know your players, I don't, and I can't know what they're likely to do, but these are things GMs need to be aware of:


After a scuffle of some sort, the party are taken to the mayor

How do you guarantee this without railroading ("no, stop doing things, you're taken to the mayor!") ? What if the PCs make an escape, use magic to charm or avoid the guards, or just knock them out or kill them? You can't script PC actions.

It's not a bad plot device, but it is a risky RPG device. Unless you know your players will play along, or the characters have an established reason to go along with authorities who may plan to punish them (which would probably require an ongoing campaign or some serious groundwork before starting), you can't predict their response to a situation.


After going to a conveniently abandoned warehouse and fighting some dudes, the daughter is rescued and a guy actually pins the plot on the mayor.

Will the PCs believe it? Might be safer to make it the daughter (or, if the PCs doubt the guy, have the daughter confirm it).


The players will confront the mayor, who will be revealed to be possessed by a mysterious amulet.

See above - the confrontation is unlikely to happen unless the PCs buy the story. Players may also be inclined to take the long way, looking for more information or preparing in other ways before a confrontation.


A fight against a Sorceror/Favoured soul will require them to subdue, not kill, the bloke and break the amulet, and the greatful mayor will reward them.

How will they realize this? How will they make the link between the amulet and any possession? How will they know they need to subdue rather than kill, and will they be willing to take the extra risks associated?


What sort of clue could the mayor give the party to lead them to the warehouse.

Why does the mayor want them at the warehouse anyway? Why did he have his daughter kidnapped? Why is he sending the PCs instead of guards (who apparently are capable of making the PCs come peacefully)? What is the aim of the gambit (both the kidnapping and involving the PCs)?

You've got a bunch of events but not the motivations and reasons. This isn't a bad way to design adventures - when I do D&D adventures, I usually come up with a bunch of themed encounters and string them together loosely, because that's all I and my players want from D&D - playing through fun encounters (combat or not).

If the possession is intermittent and requires concentration, the Mayor might have been able to get the PCs to help during a moment of lucidity, when the possessor is busy with something else. In this case, you could give a big hint something is wrong: after getting halfway through the instructions for finding the girl ("go to the docks, there is a warehouse-"), a change comes over his face and bearing, and he brusquely orders the PCs escorted out. Guards confirm the kidnapping and assure them unconvincingly that they are handling it. If the PCs aren't motivated to move, a young man who's in love with the Mayor's daughter and has been watching the Mayor steps out of an alley to address them, asks for their help, and even offers payment if they aren't just good-hearted.

At the docks, the PCs find there's a dozen warehouses, and have to observe them to notice which one has suspicious activity despite appearing abandoned/empty/boarded up; maybe all the windows and doors but one are nailed shut, for instance.

An important thing with clues is to never limit yourself. Players will inevitably miss clues, and you always need to have more to drop in their way, unless you're perfectly comfortable with advancing the story by having them not do what they "should" have done. (Some stories can advance perfectly fine with PC failures - things get more difficult, maybe they lose something, but they try again.) You'll have to think on your feet to run a good mystery, inventing new clues and accommodating PC attempts - there can't be just one way to do things, because it's so incredibly unlikely the PCs will make just the right decision at each juncture.


Also, crates/cages of exotic animals is an awesome idea. The bad guys release an elephant to hold the PCs off, and maybe tip some crates of size Small and Medium snakes (or a swarm) on them... you could place a dozen animals around the place, and have the bad guys use them when you feel a need to adjust the challenge - or the PCs could even try to make use of them, although the bad guys would be wary of it. (But it'd be awesome to actually let someone make good use of bull-rush to slam an opponent against the bars of a cage with an angry bear in it, who promptly improved grabs the sucker through the bars.)

[Galileo]

I was gonna ask about how much you were taking player motives and potential plot-derailing actions into account when planning this, but Aroka covered that elephant in the room, in far greater detail than I ever would have. Onto the next elephant!

I like the idea of having an animal smuggler brawl in a warehouse. It's actually a scientifically proven fact that every room is improved by having an elephant in it. Every feng shui book out there starts off with "Buy an elephant, and place it in the room." If it doesn't, it's a typo. Go ahead and write it in, especially if you got it from the library. Librarians just love people correcting books. It's how they pay for their coffee, which they drink while cleaning said books.

...Go ahead and back away slowly there. It's what most folks do.

[RMS Oceanic]

My idea behind the amulet is rather lycanthropic: The wicked soul trapped inside it is only strong enough to overpower the wearer during the full moon, or possibly just at night. He knows of a ritual, however, that can transplant his soul in the host body permanently, but requires a sacrifice of a close blood relative, hence kidnapping the daughter. However, during the kidnap, the Mayor's subconscious resisted slightly by leaving a clue the Sorceror didn't notice, and then subconsciously remembered the clue when he went in to investigate his daughter's room. If all had gone as planned, he'd have gone to the warehouse in a day or two to carry out the ritual.

The reason they shouldn't really kill the guy is that he's still the mayor, and the guards naturally know squat of this evil plot, so it looks like this squad just killed the mayor for no reason. The sorceror will point this out as he takes fun in trying to bring them down.

I was thinking of the mayor giving some written pass giving the party leave to investigate some stuff in case the guard asks questions, and then when they find the daughter, they also find documents contacting the criminal group have the same handwriting.

I definitely like the smuggling exotic creatures angle. It's a good excuse to leaf through random Monster Manual pages to find things to throw at them. :smalltongue:

[Glass Mouse]

My idea behind the amulet is rather lycanthropic: The wicked soul trapped inside it is only strong enough to overpower the wearer during the full moon, or possibly just at night. He knows of a ritual, however, that can transplant his soul in the host body permanently, but requires a sacrifice of a close blood relative, hence kidnapping the daughter. However, during the kidnap, the Mayor's subconscious resisted slightly by leaving a clue the Sorceror didn't notice, and then subconsciously remembered the clue when he went in to investigate his daughter's room. If all had gone as planned, he'd have gone to the warehouse in a day or two to carry out the ritual.

Why doesn't the mayor just smash the amulet during the day?

[RMS Oceanic]

Why doesn't the mayor just smash the amulet during the day?

It's Return of the Joker: "He's not aware of what I do, chalking up any lingering memories to bad dreams."

[Glass Mouse]

It's Return of the Joker: "He's not aware of what I do, chalking up any lingering memories to bad dreams."

Makes sense :smallsmile:

Aroka asks some really good questions. Some people like having all plotholes filled out, some just want to DO stuff, but most people like at least some coherence in the story.
It's always nice to have your back covered.

A few other things, since you're new to GMing and may not know it:
- Players will ALWAYS surprise you. I'm not kidding. Once, in a highly magical game where my players were mages, strong on magic an frail in body, I threw an NPC fairy after them and made sure that they had no way of defeating it - spell resistance, possible invisibility, powerful spells, etc. It had it all. What was the PCs' first action? They picked up a shovel and... squashed it in the surprise round. Dammit. Of course, this was mostly me being stupid, but the point still stands. You will always leave a hole open, and there will always be a possibility that the players abuse it. You cannot prevent this or plan your way out of it. It's more to say... don't throw a fit when it happens. Don't try to retcon. Don't force the players to not do it. (unless there really is no way to improvise your way out of the problem).
- More relevant to your game, and less serious point... Games always take longer than you think. The whole "joking OoC and planning IC" takes... incredible amounts of time. Personally, I'm getting in the habit of multiplying the expected time consumement with 2.7... but that's a pretty talkative group.
Oh yeah, unless they find a loophole and circumvent your entire adventure... in which case you take your revenge by making them spend the rest of the session spending their earned treasure. In excruciating in-game detail.

[Aroka]

The reason they shouldn't really kill the guy is that he's still the mayor, and the guards naturally know squat of this evil plot, so it looks like this squad just killed the mayor for no reason. The sorceror will point this out as he takes fun in trying to bring them down.

You're answering the wrong question: I don't ask "why shouldn't they", but "why wouldn't they." You have to assume that PCs will do everything "wrong" for the progression of your plot, and make sure it'll still be fun. If you want to make sure the players understand and actually take the "right course", you have to beat them over the head with it and wave a reward in their face, pretty much.

No plan survives contact with the enemy. It's the number one rule. If you're not prepared for the derailment, there'll be frustration on all sides, and the more you try to force the players into a course, the more they're likely to resist.


I was thinking of the mayor giving some written pass giving the party leave to investigate some stuff in case the guard asks questions, and then when they find the daughter, they also find documents contacting the criminal group have the same handwriting.

Remember to assume that players will not get clues. I've just watched a nice mystery plot I helped write whizz over the heads of a huge bunch of players who were being beat over the head with clue after clue. Eventually, the plot was explained to them in character, and they shook their heads and refused to believe the exposition because of the source.

That was their loss - the game goes on, and they're missing critical information for understanding some intrigues as a result of this. It will bite them in the ass, but it's not the end of anything.

So the number two rule is to not treat your players as idiots, but to prepare as if they were. This is where improvisation saves you endless trouble - rather than come up with theoretically infinite clues and devices beforehand, come up with new things on the fly, and ask your players to propose ideas and roll with them. If you're out of clues and the investigation is stuck, send thugs at the PCs who happen to have a clue on them. If they retread old locations looking for something they missed, let them find something they "missed" (even though there was nothing to miss the first time).

[darkpuppy]

Yeah, always keep in mind that plot is easily derailed. Even encounters. Good example, I tried to run the old SSI CRPG Eye of the Beholder as a 3.5E Realms adventure... there's one portion with 16-24 skeletal warriors in a series of holding cells, and some nice kit if they brave them all, group by group... the cleric, upon seeing a skeletal warrior lunge up against the bars of its cell, immediately cacked himself and yelled "I TURN UNDEAD!"

...Every part of that turning roll was a natural 20... It was, simultaneously, the most awe-inspiring, and the most heart breaking moment for me and my group. On the one hand, this guy's holy powers had wiped out every skeletal warrior in the area (the whole room/area being within the radius of effect), which was just so amazing it rocked. On the other, I didn't have the map for the next part of the area, and we were only a quarter of the way through the session. I was counting on that encounter taking up a large portion of time, and it didn't happen.

On the upside, they got lost within the first area, and the fight with the giant leeches took up the time left, due to the party being overly cautious. But a simple dice roll almost derailed a session. Always have rough plans in mind for when players don't go the way they should, but also make sure you run the sort of game everyone enjoys.

[RMS Oceanic]

Huh, that's a lot to think about. In the meantime. I need help with a miniboss and the boss fight.

The miniboss is a Warblade 8//Warmage 8. He'll be basically trying to beat down on the party. If he survives he'll point to the mayor. If not, there'll be something on his body they can use. Can you recommend feats/stances?

The tactics of my Favoured Soul 10//Sorceror 10 is to fling a couple of debuffs to start with, then fly around burning folk. I'll be throwing round a few hints that the easy way to beat him is to grab the amulet and break it, possibly getting it off with a niffy arrow shot. I'll have to hope they get the hint. Are there any spells in particular I should grab?

[Roc Ness]

Huh, that's a lot to think about. In the meantime. I need help with a miniboss and the boss fight.

The miniboss is a Warblade 8//Warmage 8. He'll be basically trying to beat down on the party. If he survives he'll point to the mayor. If not, there'll be something on his body they can use. Can you recommend feats/stances

Can you change the miniboss from Warblade to Swordsage? Warblade is very generic, not a lot to be creative with; he just hits stuff pretty well in fancy ways. Swordsage, now, it is easy to be creative with... :smallwink:

Anyhow, for Warblade, the most I can suggest is that you give him the best Shadow Hand Teleport Maneuver available to his level, via the Martial Study Feat. They have no prerequisites, so you can have one immediately with the feat. A rechargable 50ft Teleport can be a real asset to any villain. Also, the Leading the Charge White Raven Stance is excellent when combined with the White Raven Charge Maneuver line. Also, take a look at the Stormguard Warrior tactical feat. While you can't take full advantage of it at the current level, it can still be incredibly useful.

If you can change his class to swordsage:
Give him the Dance of the Spider stance.
Give him Setting Sun throwing maneuvers.
Improved Trip feat, to greater use Setting Sun Maneuvers.
Arcane Strike (a maybe, this is if he's engaged in melee).

If you want, give him dips in Warblade to increase his BaB.

When the PCs attack him, make him use the DotS stance to run up into a second story (or higher) building, via a second (or higher) story window. If the PCs stay at ground level, they get fired at with Warmage spells. If the PCs attempt to follow him into the building, let them enter the room. Then have your miniboss promptly throw them out of the window using Setting Sun throws... :smallbiggrin:

N.B: If the PCs have (good) Ranged Attacks, you might want to try to squeeze a Bow (doesn't have to be good at it) and Shot on the Run into this fella. Then at least he can make shots while also staying somewhere safe from ranged attacks, and you can convince the PCs to try and go melee as ranged attacks are futile.
N.B: If PCs can fly, let them know (via spells) that they make easy targets for warmage spells. Also, throwing them out the window probably won't help, but you could have traps around the room to throw them into, like spikes on the walls.
N.B: If the PCs try to blow up the building. Give miniboss a Shadow Hand teleport Maneuver, to let him teleport into another building.

If possible, find a minor distraction that will allow you miniboss to recharge maneuvers. The Cloak of Deception maneuver should work well, turn invisible, 5-foot step a random, unknown direction to recharge maneuvers.


Also, I'm glad people liked the elephant idea. :smallbiggrin: