[PF1e] Need ideas for fun encounters at lvl 1

[EisenKreutzer]

I’m starting up a new campaign, and my players have made a unique and interesting bunch of characters.
We’ll be starting our story with the players being new arrivals in Hyraeatan, the City of 7 Seraphs, where the story kicks off with them meeting and (hopefully) agreeing to help the god of cities rescue some very special cities on various Prime Material planes.

I need some ideas for fun combat encounters, since I’m in the middle of a long moving process and won’t have much time to prep for a few weeks.

The first encounter of the campaign will take place on the Plane of Shadow, as the characters wake up bound in chains. They are being transported by a group of Kytons in an iron wagon travelling the lattice to some unknown dedtination for no doubt nefarious ends.
The characters are rescued by wardens of the lattics, and after hastily retrieving their weapons I want a fight so the players can get a feel for their characters and their combat abilities.

The characters are a gearforged wizard, a noral vitalist, an android warden bushi, a dwarf rogue and a nameer rajah.

As you can see we’re using DSP material for this, in addition to Co7S and Lost Spheres publishing stuff.

Any help would be tremendously helpful, as I don’t have a lot of time right now but have spent considerable effort preparing this campaign. I want the players to really have fun exploring the weirdness of the planes!

[Calthropstu]

Having a god ask for their aid at level 1 is not really believable or immersive. But an injured low level cleric of the god of cities who recklessly went out on her own to investigate a rash of skeletons in a nearby graveyard desperate for help...
But unbeknownst to them, the graveyard has been steeped in the plane of shadows. As soon as they enter, they are in the plane of shadows.
A kyton group captures them post skeleton battle. In order to return home they must either escape or perform tasks for the kytons who captured them.

[EisenKreutzer]

Having a god ask for their aid at level 1 is not really believable or immersive. But an injured low level cleric of the god of cities who recklessly went out on her own to investigate a rash of skeletons in a nearby graveyard desperate for help...
But unbeknownst to them, the graveyard has been steeped in the plane of shadows. As soon as they enter, they are in the plane of shadows.
A kyton group captures them post skeleton battle. In order to return home they must either escape or perform tasks for the kytons who captured them.

Ok, theres a lot more to this than my brief summary. The players will unwittingly unleash a very special creature from confinement, after being given a strange item: A stone brick with a gold coin embedded in it. This brick was supposed to be the founding stone laid down at the foundation of a city that never was, and trapped within it is the personification of that unbuilt city, a creature that hungers to exist and seeks to devour other cities in order to become them and thus gain existence.

This creature will present itself to the characters as Urbanus, "the god of cities," and dupe them into performing very specific tasks for it in various cities across the planes.

The central conceit of the campaign is that all cities are alive, taking the form of beings known as anthropoli. An anthropolis is both the physical form of the city and the personification of its people, history and culture. These beings are normally benevolent, at least towards their inhabitants, but Urbanus is hungry and malevolent.

The characters are also a very special kind of being: They are people of unfulfilled destinies, having been snatched by Kytons just as their destiny was about to be fulfilled.
In this campaign, having an unfulfilled destiny is a powerful and dangerous thing, as this destiny will seek to bind itself to significant people, places and events, but it is also a thing of great power.
This unfulfilled destiny is what Urbanus seeks to exploit, and also how the stone brick found its way into their possession in the first place.

Like I said, theres a lot going on behind the scenes here.

[Gallowglass]

I’m starting up a new campaign, and my players have made a unique and interesting bunch of characters.
We’ll be starting our story with the players being new arrivals in Hyraeatan, the City of 7 Seraphs, where the story kicks off with them meeting and (hopefully) agreeing to help the god of cities rescue some very special cities on various Prime Material planes.

I need some ideas for fun combat encounters, since I’m in the middle of a long moving process and won’t have much time to prep for a few weeks.

The first encounter of the campaign will take place on the Plane of Shadow, as the characters wake up bound in chains. They are being transported by a group of Kytons in an iron wagon travelling the lattice to some unknown dedtination for no doubt nefarious ends.
The characters are rescued by wardens of the lattics, and after hastily retrieving their weapons I want a fight so the players can get a feel for their characters and their combat abilities.

The characters are a gearforged wizard, a noral vitalist, an android warden bushi, a dwarf rogue and a nameer rajah.

As you can see we’re using DSP material for this, in addition to Co7S and Lost Spheres publishing stuff.

Any help would be tremendously helpful, as I don’t have a lot of time right now but have spent considerable effort preparing this campaign. I want the players to really have fun exploring the weirdness of the planes!

So.... I have no integral problem with starting a game as prisoner and escaping to start things off. I'm a little leery of your "they are rescued by..." because you seem to be steering toward "players as observers rather than actors" which is fun for you as a story teller and not fun for them as players.

Kytons are too powerful to realistically fight at 1st level. In fact, there's not much on the plane of shadows that CAN be fought realistically at first level. So, assuming you are going to stick with your outline, while the wardens of the lattice are battling the kyton slavers, the PCs are best served by skedattling out of the way. So I see two options there:

1. The Kytons have some more mundane caravan guards/slave soldiers for them to fight. Something they can realistically deal with that are thematically kyton like but not kytons. Perhaps Gnolls dressed up in spiked leather with shaved bodies to make them creepier and muzzles to play up the weird S&M slave motif of the kytons.

2. There are other prisoners in the caravan and when the breakout happens, those prisoners try to take the PCs stuff.

Is you intention for these wardens to take the PCs to where they are going to find Urbanas or are the PCs supposes to wander through the plane of shadows for a while until they stumble upon him?

Assuming you want to wander for a while, again there's not much native to the plane of shadows that won't just murderize 1st level characters. So you'll need to homebrew something level appropriate.

1. As they wander, they hear creepy little girl singing. They find a seemingly lost little girl by a mirror pool, brushing the hair of her doll. "Will you help me find my mommy?" Then of course, the teeth and the attacking.

2. A maze where when they pass through shadows they find themselves elsewhere in the canyons. They can see each other across vast chasms but can't figure out how to get back together. That's when the shadow birds attack (reskinned celestial eagles)

[Drackstin]

As said above, you have a lot of higher level stuff going on for level 1 characters. but it can still happen if you twist it a bit. the plane of shadows is just that, so almost every creature on the plane are just shadow versions. so make the demons your captured by weaker, make them get ambushed by something like a group of shadow creature template goblins, their cages destroyed in the mayhem. they can grab their weapons from the storage box attacked to the outside of the cage, and fight off the goblins. having a hero save them and then make them fight something their level is kind of like whats the point. make them save themselves.

[EisenKreutzer]

So.... I have no integral problem with starting a game as prisoner and escaping to start things off. I'm a little leery of your "they are rescued by..." because you seem to be steering toward "players as observers rather than actors" which is fun for you as a story teller and not fun for them as players.

Kytons are too powerful to realistically fight at 1st level. In fact, there's not much on the plane of shadows that CAN be fought realistically at first level. So, assuming you are going to stick with your outline, while the wardens of the lattice are battling the kyton slavers, the PCs are best served by skedattling out of the way. So I see two options there:

1. The Kytons have some more mundane caravan guards/slave soldiers for them to fight. Something they can realistically deal with that are thematically kyton like but not kytons. Perhaps Gnolls dressed up in spiked leather with shaved bodies to make them creepier and muzzles to play up the weird S&M slave motif of the kytons.

2. There are other prisoners in the caravan and when the breakout happens, those prisoners try to take the PCs stuff.

Is you intention for these wardens to take the PCs to where they are going to find Urbanas or are the PCs supposes to wander through the plane of shadows for a while until they stumble upon him?

Assuming you want to wander for a while, again there's not much native to the plane of shadows that won't just murderize 1st level characters. So you'll need to homebrew something level appropriate.

1. As they wander, they hear creepy little girl singing. They find a seemingly lost little girl by a mirror pool, brushing the hair of her doll. "Will you help me find my mommy?" Then of course, the teeth and the attacking.

2. A maze where when they pass through shadows they find themselves elsewhere in the canyons. They can see each other across vast chasms but can't figure out how to get back together. That's when the shadow birds attack (reskinned celestial eagles)

Good ideas! The rescue isn’t intended to be a spectacle, but a fight. Their rescuers, while technically higher level characters, will indeed be battling the kytons sort of off-screen while the PCs fight something else, lesser. I had an idea of reskinning some orcs and kalling them «kyton spawn» or just describe them as kytons, but I LOVE your shaved gnoll idea!

I had intended for the wardens to bring the characters directly to Hyraeatan, where other scenes will play out, but allowing them to roam the plane of darkness for a while is also appealing, and knowing my players they will most likely decide to do something reckless and unexpected.
Your two ideas for scenes are compelling, and I might borrow from them if an opportunity presents itself.

[EisenKreutzer]

As said above, you have a lot of higher level stuff going on for level 1 characters. but it can still happen if you twist it a bit. the plane of shadows is just that, so almost every creature on the plane are just shadow versions. so make the demons your captured by weaker, make them get ambushed by something like a group of shadow creature template goblins, their cages destroyed in the mayhem. they can grab their weapons from the storage box attacked to the outside of the cage, and fight off the goblins. having a hero save them and then make them fight something their level is kind of like whats the point. make them save themselves.

One tool I like to employ is reskinning lower level monsters as stand in for higher level foes. If done right, it allows lower level characters to take part in «higher level content.»
I’m a very narrative focused GM, and player agency is very important to me. I want the players to feel awesome, and that their characters are cool and competent.

The reason I want «higher level stuff» to happen this early is to reinforce how weird and different these planar locations are. Weird will be a recurring theme in this campaign. I mean, the primary antagonist will be an anthropomorphic city that was never built. Thats the bar I want to set in terms of weird.

[Drackstin]

One tool I like to employ is reskinning lower level monsters as stand in for higher level foes. If done right, it allows lower level characters to take part in «higher level content.»
I’m a very narrative focused GM, and player agency is very important to me. I want the players to feel awesome, and that their characters are cool and competent.

The reason I want «higher level stuff» to happen this early is to reinforce how weird and different these planar locations are. Weird will be a recurring theme in this campaign. I mean, the primary antagonist will be an anthropomorphic city that was never built. Thats the bar I want to set in terms of weird.

I think you meant reskin higher level monsters as lower level ones, and even if that's the case here, which is fine, reducing HD of monsters is part of the rules anyway, but having someone else save them and having something happen where that person who saved them wont help at all seems off, to add urgency to the player and a better seance of accomplishment, then make them do it themselves, the shadow template was made though for adding on to everything in the shadow plane. and if your going for some weird stuff, i would say keep your demons, but have them attacked by something from the far realm, things that fly with human arms flapping and mouths for eyes, that's the weird stuff. make it so the attack on the demons was just a random thing. the demons got surprised by something that shouldn't have been, an effect of the PC letting out a elder evil type of monster. but if you really want to add someone to "save them" i would have him join in mid fight to help the PC as if he found them as he was travailing. don't have him do much but maybe come from the sidelines and take out the last thing, or maybe more if your PC are getting killed. i know at 1st level it only takes one or two attacks for PCs to start and drop.

[EisenKreutzer]

I think you meant reskin higher level monsters as lower level ones, and even if that's the case here, which is fine, reducing HD of monsters is part of the rules anyway, but having someone else save them and having something happen where that person who saved them wont help at all seems off, to add urgency to the player and a better seance of accomplishment, then make them do it themselves, the shadow template was made though for adding on to everything in the shadow plane. and if your going for some weird stuff, i would say keep your demons, but have them attacked by something from the far realm, things that fly with human arms flapping and mouths for eyes, that's the weird stuff. make it so the attack on the demons was just a random thing. the demons got surprised by something that shouldn't have been, an effect of the PC letting out a elder evil type of monster. but if you really want to add someone to "save them" i would have him join in mid fight to help the PC as if he found them as he was travailing. don't have him do much but maybe come from the sidelines and take out the last thing, or maybe more if your PC are getting killed. i know at 1st level it only takes one or two attacks for PCs to start and drop.

The idea I had for this first scene is that the NPCs free them, but that they have to fight to save themselves. I felt that introducing the wardens of the lattice was a good way of introducing them to Hyraeatan and the planes in general, but I absolutely did not want to take away their agency in any way.
Thats why I had the idea of reskinning lower level monsters, such as orcs, and just give them the appearance of kytons.
To have the players feel like their characters, once the opportunity presented itself, sprang to action and kicked their captors asses. Not only that, but that they dealt with «kytons!» (that were secretly just reskinned orcs)

[Drackstin]

The idea I had for this first scene is that the NPCs free them, but that they have to fight to save themselves. I felt that introducing the wardens of the lattice was a good way of introducing them to Hyraeatan and the planes in general, but I absolutely did not want to take away their agency in any way.
Thats why I had the idea of reskinning lower level monsters, such as orcs, and just give them the appearance of kytons.
To have the players feel like their characters, once the opportunity presented itself, sprang to action and kicked their captors asses. Not only that, but that they dealt with «kytons!» (that were secretly just reskinned orcs)

I have to say, honestly if i killed something like a Kyton demon so easily at level 1 i wouldn't be over joyed. to a PC its just a low level demon, most of the PC knowledges might not even let them know what it is. and if they did they would know they didn't have a chance, and when they won they would feel cheated because it wasn't actually one. and if they didn't know what it was, it would just be a lesser demon that didn't matter. but whatever you choose its a CR1 maybe. i still think the NPC freeing them defeats the point of using an encounter. helping is a lot better for the PC mind.

What might be something to do is let the demons finds the NPC, and when they start to fight it gives the PC the chance to escape and help him. then he can monologue whatever you want. make them the star.

[EisenKreutzer]

I have to say, honestly if i killed something like a Kyton demon so easily at level 1 i wouldn't be over joyed. to a PC its just a low level demon, most of the PC knowledges might not even let them know what it is. and if they did they would know they didn't have a chance, and when they won they would feel cheated because it wasn't actually one. and if they didn't know what it was, it would just be a lesser demon that didn't matter. but whatever you choose its a CR1 maybe. i still think the NPC freeing them defeats the point of using an encounter. helping is a lot better for the PC mind.

What might be something to so is let the demons fins the NPC, and when they start to fight it gives the PC the chance to escape and help him. then he can monologue whatever you want. make them the star.

Thanks for your input! I’ll keep your advice in mind.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by EisenKreutzer
...an iron wagon travelling the lattice....

What is the lattice?

Is this something from Pathfinder cosmology, or an innovation of your own?

[EisenKreutzer]

What is the lattice?

Is this something from Pathfinder cosmology, or an innovation of your own?

It’s a part of the excellent City of 7 Seraphs setting. Essentially its a network of mysterious roadways that run through the Plane of Shadow and connects to many other planes. At it’s centre sits Hyraeatan, the eponymous Coty of 7 Seraphs, a planar metropolis in the vein of Planescapes Sigil.
The wardens of the lattice are a group from Hyraeatan that make it their mission to patrol the lattice and keep travellers safe.