4e Plotline Help - FR

[kalos72]

So in the 4E story line, Neverwinter has a big ole mass of Spellplague under the city causing some havoc.

Now its mostly directed by the Aboleth but my group wants to "contain" the Spellplague even though the Aboleth threat is removed.

The idea came to one of the group last night, lead. Lead protects you from things like scyring and such in 3.5E right? Would it stop the 'residual effects' of the Spellplague maybe?

Thoughts?

[georgie_leech]

I think if you let lead block magic carte blanche, expect to see a lot lead armor in the future. Considering the Spellplague was a huge, world altering thing, it should probably have a suitably mystical containment method, since anything mundane would have been done ages ago.

[kalos72]

Yeah, I guess I see that. But since there is SO little information on it or what it really is, containing it is really an open book.

One of the group asked if there was really even a need? He said as long as no one is going down making contact with it, what residual effects are there? I thought the Plaguechanged Warrens were directly caused by the proximity of the Spellplague but he thought it was all because of the Aboleth's influence.

Maybe it can be used through some sort of ritual/High Magic concept to super power spells...

[MoutonRustique]

In many ways, the spell plague should never be "removable" w/o great cost. And by "great cost" I mean a significant sacrifice from those attempting the removal. This is where ritual magic shines - but can also be a PITA (if it's locked behind a high level requirement, for example.)

Unless your group are deep role-players, the cost needs to be felt by the player(s). As such, things like : "all your healing surges are depleted and you only get one back per day - but then there are no encounters for a week..." are just bad. Worse! They are opportunities missed!

As always (not the ALWAYS, always, just, you know, the very often always), while penalties to offense "make more sense" to many (myself included), they're a bad idea. Penalties to defense are much better - they don't slow the game down, increase tension and will create that feeling of "I wish I hadn't done that" that we are looking for.

Things like : weakened or -4 to hit, etc. will reduce PC damage output, which drags out fights while not really making them feel more threatening. Just that Bob the wizard isn't pulling his weight.

Suggestions :
Preface all the following with : "until your next milestone"*
- can't regain hit points or spend healing surges
- suffers a -4 to a (or :evilgrin: ALL) defense
- vulnerable x/all
- grant CA
- must spend healing surge to use daily attack power
- targets you hit gain +x to hit**
- targets you hit gain +y force and fire to damage rolls**
- targets you hit gain an aura 1 (x force and fire damage)**
- targets you hit gain : their next attack also deals ongoing z fire and force damage**

*The milestone mechanic can be a great way to "enforce a duration" when dealing with these kinds of penalties : it gives a sort of "excuse" that is easy to accept and makes it so there's no need to use "days" or "hours" or another such metric that can get in the way of the game - plus it works very well for a more story-driven style.

** I especially like these : it's like the spellplague you're trying to destroy gets a last little "insult" in before vanishing completely. Plus it's just cool.

As a general rule, using the spellplague is "Bond villain" in terms of alignment choice.

[Leewei]

Overall, the changes caused by Mystra's death are very substantial. It represents damage to the Weave, and should be very hard to fix.

It's great that your players are interested in doing so.

Reward them with one hell of a quest. PCs should seek out a knowledgeable sage who can advise them as to how this might be done. The sage lived through the Spellplague, and was hurt by it in ways they can barely understand. They'll need to do something to help restore him.

Once restored, they'll need to convince him to help. While he owes them, he did not ask to be restored, and is very bitter and tired. All of his friends and associates have passed on. Perhaps if they can find one or two others from his time?

If they can remove his malaise, he will finally remit. The problem is, the damage to the Weave is beyond any mere mortal's power to fix. Doing so will require divine intervention. What's worse, while they've been running around questing, just such a being has taken an interest in the Spellplague -- unfortunately, one whose ambition is matched by its malice. Can the adventurers stop this deity while simultaneously finding one more sympathetic to them?

You get the idea. Use their good will to launch them on a massive series of adventures.

[tiornys]

Something to tie into the above, you might have the solution be an extremely elaborate ritual casting, something along these lines:
Performing the ritual requires:

• 4 epic-level ritual casters to direct the ritual
• A divine token from every major deity to provide the immense divine and magical energies needed for the ritual
• 4 powerful warding talismans which must be wielded by 4 non-casting ritual participants (guardians), in order to protect the ritual casters from the immense energies being channeled.

So, once the ritual's requirements had been determined through research, the PCs would have to secure divine tokens from all the major deities, figure out how to make/acquire suitable warding talismans, and find enough ritual casters and guardians to fill any spots that they can't personally fill. Oh, and the ritual probably can't be cast just anywhere, so you can also determine a suitably epic location for the ritual to take place, possibly requiring some sort of guards outside the ritual to prevent it from being interrupted by worldly forces.

[kalos72]

Love it! All great ideas!

Kinda like the story with a group of High Mages "sacrificed their lives to create Rhymanthiin, the Hidden City of Hope". I like it...

Anyone put any thought or maybe there is some published materiel I missed on the effects of Spellplague besides the scars?

[ScrivenerofDoom]

Firstly, it's so good to see that I'm not the only DM still running both 4E and the 4E Realms!

So in the 4E story line, Neverwinter has a big ole mass of Spellplague under the city causing some havoc.

Now its mostly directed by the Aboleth but my group wants to "contain" the Spellplague even though the Aboleth threat is removed.

The idea came to one of the group last night, lead. Lead protects you from things like scyring and such in 3.5E right? Would it stop the 'residual effects' of the Spellplague maybe?

Thoughts?

The FRPG has a level 24 ritual - purge Spellplague - that lets you remove the effects of the Spellplague from an area up to 10 miles in radius (the exact area is determined by an Arcana check).

I am assuming that your players are not level 24 which leaves you with finding another option. What about including a ruined temple of Mystra at the bottom of The Chasm? There they find ghostly clerics who set the PCs on a fetch quest for seven gems of Mystra which, when combined in the holy symbol of Mystra at the centre of their temple, can be used to power a far more potent ritual than the casters can normally perform?

It's a bit generic, I know, but some players love that sort of thing.

Another option is to tie the plaguechanged threat to a plaguechanged deepspawn which is producing all of the plaguechanged horrors that attack the city above. It could be what is actually located in the Twisted Fane.

IMC, I was going to use the deepspawn but ended up tying in the plaguechanged threat to Neverwinter above to the actions of House Xorlarrin drow performing experiments that would ultimately create the Demon Weave. Basically, destroying the deepspawn would have ended the plaguechanged threat to the city without actually nixing the area of Spellplague in the Chasm. (I also had some plans based on the temple of Mystra that I mentioned but my players wanted to keep the story moving along a lot faster than what I would have liked.)

As for lead, why not? After all, it's toxic and difficult to move (density). It's not a quick fix, that's for sure.

I think if you let lead block magic carte blanche, expect to see a lot lead armor in the future. Considering the Spellplague was a huge, world altering thing, it should probably have a suitably mystical containment method, since anything mundane would have been done ages ago.

Why would you make armour out of play-doh? Lead is too soft - and also too heavy - to be used for anything like armour. And even if you choose to ignore that aspect of its properties, lead poisoning is not a very nice experience....

[georgie_leech]

Why would you make armour out of play-doh? Lead is too soft - and also too heavy - to be used for anything like armour. And even if you choose to ignore that aspect of its properties, lead poisoning is not a very nice experience....

If play dough turned out to be perfect shielding from magic, then yes, I would expect most heavy armors to start including a a layer. And lead poisoning isn't all that threatening when low level rituals can cure it in a flash.

[ScrivenerofDoom]

If play dough turned out to be perfect shielding from magic, then yes, I would expect most heavy armors to start including a a layer. And lead poisoning isn't all that threatening when low level rituals can cure it in a flash.

OK, I will leave the lead poisoning to the side.

So, how much lead needs to be "installed" in your armour? I think the 3.xE materials - such as Stronghold Builder's Guidebook - mentioned an inch. So, you have your plate armour modified to be able to take a lining of one inch of lead which results in armour that weighs three/four/five times as much as before. Are you strong enough? How's your speed? How's your manoeuvrability? How do you joints flex without the lead coming away at the seams?

You also need perfect shielding. Oops, there go your eye holes. And your ear holes. That's OK: who needs to be able to see and hear when you've just convinced your DM that this lining of lead makes you immune to magic. Hmmm, is any oxygen getting through this perfect shielding?

But, hey, if your DM is so lacking in Insight that your Bluff worked to convince him that you're now immune to magic, chances are he'll also believe that, because lead is soft, your new armour is even more manoeuvrable than before! :)

[kalos72]

I have never seen the Ritual stuff...those are awesome! Strictly new with 4E correct?

Thats the answer right there as they dont look very difficult...even if you have to do it several times.

I assume that Spellplague can only appear where there is physical space for it yes? Like there has to be a cave or someplace for it to manifest, if not above ground of course.

[ScrivenerofDoom]

I have never seen the Ritual stuff...those are awesome! Strictly new with 4E correct?

Thats the answer right there as they dont look very difficult...even if you have to do it several times.

I assume that Spellplague can only appear where there is physical space for it yes? Like there has to be a cave or someplace for it to manifest, if not above ground of course.

Yeah, rituals were a 4E innovation.

As for where the Spellplague can appear, that's really up to you because not a lot of guidance for it or examples of it. I've mainly used it underground. I had drow wizards shape it into a web-like pattern as part of a ritual they were performing and I had another giant "sea" of blue volcanic glass in which Spellplague flames were burning just beneath the surface in various locations.

(The PCs could "tap" the Spellplague energy to enhance their magic or even heal themselves with an Arcana check but at the risk of damage and/or a spellscar. Ultimately, two of my four PCs ended up spellscarred in that campaign as a result of the drow and in my next campaign beginning this weekend one of the PCs is actually starting as a spellscarred harbinger (character theme from the Neverwinter Campaign Setting). )

[Kurald Galain]

I have never seen the Ritual stuff...those are awesome! Strictly new with 4E correct?

Not particularly, no. They're basically standard 1E/2E/3E spells, except they take much longer to cast, cost quite a lot of money, and have all kinds of crazy restrictions that make them mostly unusable in practice.

That is, if you play them by their fluff text, they're fine. If you play them by the actual rules text, you'll find that most of them don't even remotely do what they claim to do; yeah, they're one of the more controversial game elements of 4E and one of the most common things to houserule or to ignore entirely.

[georgie_leech]

That is, if you play them by their fluff text, they're fine. If you play them by the actual rules text, you'll find that most of them don't even remotely do what they claim to do; yeah, they're one of the more controversial game elements of 4E and one of the most common things to houserule or to ignore entirely.

'Pay no attention to the Bard playing music and weaving magical energies around us, I assure you all that we are being entirely honest and would never use magic to hide our deeds! We just need nine more minutes before we give our statement.'

[kalos72]

Ritual rules in the 4e PH I assume?

[georgie_leech]

Mostly. There are an assortment of rituals added in other books. But they mostly all have the same problem, being too expensive and taking too long for a comparitivly minor effect.

[ScrivenerofDoom]

Some of them do suck - as has been alluded to here - but some of them work really well, and not just those relating to teleportation. (The ones that suck normally grant a small bonus to a skill.)

(We're fans of the ones that boost travel speed, for example.)

The cost is an issue but as the DM I look at ways at ameliorating the cost by using such things as magical locations, specific components that the PCs can gather that are specific to a ritual etc.... In other words, if rituals are going to become a big part of your game, talk to your DM about ways like these of making them easier to use. There is also a feat that allows faster casting of some rituals: I think it was in a DDi article?

And they are a 4E innovation even if they are based on, in many cases, spells from previous editions. In previous editions, those spells had an opportunity cost in that they took up slots for spells with more use in combat. In 4E, the cost is an actual cost in gold/residuum and time.

[Kurald Galain]

'Pay no attention to the Bard playing music and weaving magical energies around us, I assure you all that we are being entirely honest and would never use magic to hide our deeds! We just need nine more minutes before we give our statement.'

'You can communicate with the ancient mystic spirits of divination! However, you get two questions only, those spirits don't necessarily know what they're talking about, and the DM is encouraged to be as cryptic as possible. That'll be $10,000; thank you very much!'

[georgie_leech]

'You can communicate with the ancient mystic spirits of divination! However, you get two questions only, those spirits don't necessarily know what they're talking about, and the DM is encouraged to be as cryptic as possible. That'll be $10,000; thank you very much!'

That said, a lot of them become pretty funny with the Magister ED.

"Oi Bob, get down here and tell me where the bad guy is!" "I am not Bob, I am the great sage Ryalthorbob-" "Right, Bob, get on with it."

Very much a gimmick ED, but I've seen someone use it in a "Pull out all the Stops" BBEG fight by abusing the fact that a player revived by Raise Dead (as a Standard Action) returns as if they had just taken an Extended Rest. The ultimate in recharge mechanics.

[kalos72]

Sort of a side note question - I know that the Aboleth are considered Aberrations...are the Shades / Shadovar evil outsiders?

My two main enemies in Neverwinter in this timeline...

[ScrivenerofDoom]

Sort of a side note question - I know that the Aboleth are considered Aberrations...are the Shades / Shadovar evil outsiders?

My two main enemies in Neverwinter in this timeline...

In 4E, aboleth are aberrant magical beasts and shades are shadow humanoids. It's a different classification system to the one used in 3.xE which is what you are referring to.

(I don't think shades were evil outsiders in 3.xE. I think they were humanoids [extraplanar] but I could be wrong.)