Request that everyone provide a backstory that gives them a social obligation to the Mayor of Isolatedville.
In fact, all characters should be currently living in Isolatedville.
The Mayor calls up the favor, and asks the players to deliver the Macguffin to his cousin in the city.
Problems: there is currently a bandit problem on the main road out of the vale.
An encounter chart for such an adventure:
Code:
Village --> Downriver (skill challenge) --> Water fight --> CityB --> Wolves (x1) --> Weather in Ruins (undead)
| | \--> Water to CityA (no encounter) |
| | \--> Weather in Ruins (undead) |
Overland to Crashland (failure path) \--> Desert Caravan --> Village of Damned (x2) -> CityC (end) x2
Bandits! --> Flee | \-> Fail to Dire Wolves (x2) >-/
| \ |
| \--> Wolves (x2) <----> Flee into Ruins (undead) --> Teleport Circle to CityA
Wolves (x2) |
| /--< Flee to Bandits (Wolves & Goblins chase you, until they break off because the Bandits attack you)
| /-------
CityA --> Riverboat (Water Fight) --> CityB (no encounter)
| |
Desert Caravan (failure = retreat) --> Village of Damned (x2)
|
CityC (end) x2
You need to build the following combat encounters:
Bandits!, Dire Wolves, Undead in Ruins, Village of the Damned, Water fight, (CityA, CityB -- can be same encounter, reflavored), CityC
You need to build the following skill challenges:
Desert Caravan, Downriver, Bandits! (avoiding the main group)
That's 10 encounters, of which the players run into 6+. Skill challenges can fail, and impact pot. Players have options (do they flee into the haunted ruins, or make their way back up river? Do they take the desert caravan, or the water route? Do they brave the bandits, or take a boat?)
Village of the Damned is the 2nd last encounter, regardless of route.
Graph flows down and right, unless arrows indicate otherwise.
Rough map of area: (not to scale)
Code:
Vale River River RIver
Bandits Ruins Wolves River
CityA River River CityB
Desert Desert Desert Wolves
Desert Desert Desert Village of Damned
CityC
Village of Damned should be a double-encounter, as everyone passes through that node.
Dire Wolves should be a double-encounter (maybe wolves first, then wolves with goblin riders). In one case I listed a Dire Wolves x1 -- note that this branch cannot have hit the Dire Wolves earlier, so this is a matter of recycling half of that encounter.
CityC should be a double-encounter, as they deliver the MacGuffin.
Barring the "failure" routes, players run into 7 encounters before hitting CityC, then 2 inside the City itself.
Events are reused between the two branches for efficiency reasons, but the players do have impact over which encounters they run into.
Next, building each encounter.... Here is a start:
Bandits: Level 3 encounter of Human Bandits for 4 party members.
150*4 = 600 XP budget. Gnome Anarchist (150 XP), 2 Human Bandits (125 XP), 6 Human Rabble (level 2 Minions)
Downriver Skill Challenge: Make a skill challenge. Note that failure leads to a different plot. So make it nice and tricky!
Desert Skill Challenge: Note, again, that failure is an option. It just leads to a longer route to victory. So make it nice and tricky!
Wolves: Level 2 encounter of 4 Wolves (500 XP), followed by a level 3.5 encounter of Goblins and Wolves (650 XP) (2 Wolves 250 XP, 2 Goblin Warriors (200 XP), 1 goblin Skull cleaver (150 XP)). If this is adjacent to a flee node, after the 2nd attack, more bad guys are heard in the distance...
Water Fight: Level 1 encounter, but players have 4 human minions on the boat helping them. Budget = 625 XP.
How about 6 stirges? :-) (600 XP) As a bonus, they aren't that good against the ship's crew.
Undead in Ruins: Level 2 encounter, Budget = 500 XP.
Gravehound (150 XP), Zombie Rotter x6 (225 XP), Skeleton (150 XP)
Comment: Note that the minions look very different than the non-minions. Stress that the zombies are falling apart, but the Gravehound isn't. (Gravehound explains why the Wolves refuse to come near the Ruins).
After defeating the encounter, the party finds an old teleportation circle, and a scroll to use it. More undead are heard coming towards them... Fortunetally, the circle sends them somewhere safe! (well, other than the fact that they land in the middle of a Halfling Thieves Guild, who didn't know there was a circle there...)
Village of the Damned: Minion-heavy human fight, where the humans turn to undead after they die. 1 level 2 guard (150 XP), 8 level 2 minions (250 XP), dead minions and soldier reanimate as level 3 zombie minions (342 XP) the turn after they die. (level 3.5 fight, but in two waves, so not that hard).
Boss of the Village: Human Mage (L 4, 175 XP), Spectre (L 4, 175 XP), 4 decrepit skeleton minions (L 1 4 minions = 100 XP), 2 Zombie Brutes (L 2, 250 XP), total 800 XP = L 4 encounter (very hard!)
Comment: The village should look like a good place to rest. Then they come for you in the night... When the party beats off the first attack wave, they get to recover, then the necromancer who was controlling the town comes after you.
Urban Encounter (CityA or B) -- A halfling mugging! Level 2.5 encounter (550 XP)
Halfling Thief x2 (pretending to be children, plays around party, steals something then runs), Halfing Slinger x2 (starts out hidden, and has lots of cover), 3 Halfling Stouts (for flanking and distraction).
Final CityC: Characters should
gain a level when they reach CityC (or, if the players are hurting, before the Boss of Village of the Damned).
Any suggestions/ideas for what they run into there?
Naturally the macguffin has to be planned out.
...
The above plot is based off of using "drama-based pacing", where a night's rest only recovers (End Check / 10 rounded down) healing surges and does not recover daily powers (and reduces you to 1 action point, if you had more).
Each milestone (every 2 encounters or so), you get to roll 456 to recover each daily power, and you get back half (rounded up) of your max healing surges.
This allows plot to determine number of encounters per day, instead of having to force each day to contain 4 encounters for balance reasons.
Milestones:
Reach a City or Ruin other than your home for the first time.
Reach Village of the Damned.
Reach Final City. (City C).
Half way through final city final encounter (just because!)
At final city... hmm.
They manage to contact the person they are supposed to deliver the macguffin to without problem. When they meet, they are attacked -- by ninjas!
The person they are supposed to deliver the macguffin to is a priest of bahamut. Use Kobold Wyrmpriest. Damage is radiant from orb. Weapon is a mace. Incite Faith becomes Bless (and works on PCs). Lose shifty and trap sense. Dragon Breath becomes Ranged 10 Burst 1, Recharge 6, Flame Strike.
Base XP for encounter: 150 + 125*4 = 650. Ramping it up to a level 3 encounter for the party *= 150/125 = 780 XP budget.
How about 3 Shadar-kai Chainfighter? (Only use Dance of Death once per round over all of them, to prevent instant-splat issues due to their high level).
The MacGuffin has forced the Shadar-kai to move sooner than they liked.
The Priest of Bahamut is poisoned by the Chainfighter during the fight. He directs them to flee with him to a nearby shrine. There, the magic can keep him from dieing. He says that the MacGuffin can be used to seal the door through which the Orcus-corrupted Shadar-kai are invading. Are the players willing to try?
If so, a milestone kicks in, and he teleports the players to the final fight.
Final Fight:
They teleport in. Light flares out. Out of nowhere, a the priest's head is cut off, as a Shadar-kai Gloomblade becomes visible holding a blade.
Roll initiative.
Shadar-kai Gloomblade (250), Deathlock Wight (175), 2 Gravehounds (300), a Dark Creeper (175), and 4 Decrepit Skeletons (100) = 1000 XP, or a level 6 (party level +4!) encounter. For the purpose of this encounter, the Gloomblade and Dark Creeper can be reanimated as undead by the Wight.
This battle takes place in the same Ruins that the party may have run into earlier. Using the MacGuffin requires that the user stand in the portal, then stick the MacGuffin into the seal, and rotate it 6 times (takes 6 standard actions). Then everyone in the room is thrown into the Shadowfel -- but the plan was that the Dragonpriest would do it. Now the Dragonpriest is dead...
And once the defenders of the location are down, you hear the undead approaching outside...
---
Ok, to tie it all together.
Your Patron in the Vale has just received a message from an old friend in CityC, who is looking for an amulet. He thinks he has what is friend wants -- an amulet -- and he needs it to be brought to his friend, soonest.
So the Patron asks the players to bring the Amulet to city C.
City C is a fair ways away. The main trade-road out of this vale is currently experiencing bandit problems -- you could risk the bandits, or you could try the river route.
What is really going on:
Some Orcus-Worshipping cultists have managed to connect with some Orcus-worshipping Shadar-kai from the Shadowfel. Between the two of them, they are seeking to open a portal between these two realms, and use it to take over the world (tm), or at least a corner of it.
The players have a number of possible routes to reach CityC. Along the way, they may take shelter in some undead-infested ruins, then move on. (the location of these ruins changes based on player decisions)
As they approach CityC, they pass through a small halmet at dusk. (This shouldn't be the first Halmet they pass through -- generally, sleeping in villages should be safer than skipping them -- but I'm only detailing the combat framework of the adventure). The Orcus-cursed members of the hamlet attack them, and then the head of the local cult tries to take them out. They should find holy symbols of Orcus on these guys, together with some Shadar-kai writing.
When they reach CityC, they meet up with the contact. They are then attacked by 3 Shadar-kai during the meeting (this is a tough fight).
Poisoned by the attackers, the priest takes them to a shrine where he can recover and hide. But hiding isn't enough. The amulet should be able to shut down the Shadar-kai portal, which (based off the writing you found in the Village of the Damned) is in a Ruined city (in fact, the one that you passed through earlier). Clearly the Orcus cult has been warned, and they are ramping up plans to open the portal -- he didn't know they could send Shadar-kai through from the Shadowfel yet. Time is of the essence.
The priest asks for the characters to help him. He can seal the portal by placing the amulet into each of the 6 points of the teleportation gate in the ruined city of X, then hold the amulet in the middle and ask the Raven Queen to close this gate between the worlds. When that is done, the entire room will be torn into the Shadowfel, sealing the portal that is powering the Orcus cult. The portal will be thrown into some random part of the Shadowfel, and he might even be able to make his way back -- but that isn't important. Sealing the portal is.
But he suspects there may be resistance -- and wants you to come along. He can send you back via the teleportation gate before he finishes the ritual, but he thinks there might be resistance.
If the players don't go along, the world goes to hell in a handbasket. If the players do go along, they teleport to the city, the priest gets attacked immediately by an invisible Shadar-kai (they suck!), and the players get 1 last fight.
After the fight, they either seal the portal (losing at least 1 of their group) and then attempt to fight their way out, or leave the portal unsealed, or all go through to the Shadowfel. Regardless of choice, the adventure is over, with about 10 encounters.
The Goblins and Bandits and Stirges and Skill Challenge encounters are simply things that make travel dangerous in this world. The Undead encounters are part of the plot arc.
...
What do you think of this quick adventure thrown together?
I built the adventure graph, then built encounters for each node, then tweaked them a bit to fit together. I expanded/contracted some nodes to contain multiple encounters, to generate the pacing we want. Then I came up with a plot, modified the encounters a tad...
The next step would be to fill in the transitions. You need explanations, in-game, why the options above are the clear ones.
NPCs who give them advice, point out complications, or clues in the environment. Weather cues that drive them into shelter.
Multiple villages to stay the night in, and consequences if they don't stay the night (extra encounters, less recovery, etc), so they end up staying the night in the village of the damned.
Consequences if they refuse to weather in the ruins (really, you can just strip away healing surges and the like from exposure to hostile weather, and maybe throw in someone fleeing the ruins afterwards).
NPCs to travel with -- the desert caravan, for example (which, naturally, gets hit by a sand storm, causing the skill challenge). I'd have the caravan mostly wiped out (the storm flows over the camp, and you swear you hear words in the wind. When you leave your tent, nearly everyone is gone). Only the PCs and a handful of others are left. The others say that they are too far from the previous city to make it back with current supplies -- they have to move on. Skill challenge failure results in the party, animals dead, supplies running low, running into a caravan going north (who is willing to bring you north, but not lend you camels to carry supplies south).
etc etc.