Author Topic: Fleshing out an adventure idea using Poison Dusk Lizardfolk; Against the Giants  (Read 4375 times)

Offline ksbsnowowl

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So anyway, the main point of this post is to run my 5th level adventure idea past you guys and gals, and get input on it.  The idea just came to me yesterday, so it's a bit rough, yet.  The three things that started the wheels churning in my head were:
  • The Invisible Fist Monk ACF from Exemplars of Evil
  • Poison Dusk Lizardfolk from MMIII
  • The Sepulchral Thief template from Cityscape

Here are my quickly-jotted notes of the adventure idea:
Quote
Poison Dusk Lizardfolk - Sunless Citadel campaign idea
For the adventure to fill 5th-6th levels, use a Sepulchral Thief Poison Dusk Lizardfolk (Rog 3/Monk 2 w/ Invisible Fist - CR 7).  Lackeys can be Rog 1/Monk 2, or have NPC classes. 

Adventure Background
An adventuring party was murdered in town (town near temperate marsh) after having returned from an expedition into the swamp.

The party stole something from the Poison Dusk Lizardfolk tribe (admittedly, the Poison Dusk Lizardfolk had been stealing things from the town.) and so the lizardfolk came, murdered the adventurers during the night, and took the item back.  Maybe the adventurers had already contacted an art dealer or something, who will pay the PC's the same amount he was planning to offer the old adventurers.

The Poison Dusk Lizardfok's crime spree has been on-going in the town, but for the most part they had been undetected and/or unidentified. The Sepulchral Thief was created as he failed in stealing from a church? And that is what alerted the town to hire the first group of adventurers.

The party of NPC adventurers tracked down the most recent missing items, falling upon the Poison Dusk Lizardfolk village while their best warriors (the Rogue/Monk invisible fists) were away on a thieving mission.  The adventurers slaughtered many of the lizardfolk villagers, took a bunch of poison damage in the process, but recovered a lot of the items.  Some items were old (stolen from other travelers or a generation ago), and the party kept those, while returning recently stolen items to the townsfolk.

The Sepulchral Thief rose as undead, gathered his thieving gang, and vowed revenge.  He and his thieves murdered the NPC party in the night, and stole back what they could, both from the adventurers and the townsfolk.

Thus enter the PC's.  They are investigating the murders, (poison was involved; was it the lizardfolk or a disgruntled townsperson who didn't have items recovered and returned, or had items stolen once again?) and are asked to truly bring the situation to an end, unlike the previous party, who claimed to have finished things (bringing back heads & missing items), but were unintentional liars who were paid by the town.  The town tells the PC's that their payment will be the recovery of the payment to the previous party (now stolen by the lizardfolk, though the townsfolk only assume the payment was stolen by whomever murdered the former party, as all their gear & wealth is missing.)

So, the PC's enter town just after there was a murder of another adventuring group.  The town is small, and the constable asks them to help look into the matter (unbiased eyes, etc), and initial suspicions are on a red herring townsperson; after all, the murdered party had solved the problem...

The PC's look into the matter, maybe giving the lizardfolk a look on their own, or maybe only once items continue to go missing around town.  The party eventually track down the lizardfolk thieves, or encounter a small group of them during a thieving raid, and dispatch the problem... (enter site-based monster killing with added swamp environmental condition difficulty) ... or so they think.

The leader is a Sepulchral Thief, which is sort of like a Rogue-Lich.  When they die, the most expensive item on their person becomes their phylactery.  The item has to either be destroyed or cleansed with dispel evil or hallow (and succeeding on a CL check) for the master thief's soul to be destroyed, and stop him from coming back.  If the PC's don't figure it out, he can escape and become a constant thorn in their sides, or have a re-climax as he attempts to murder them later, too.


The Poison Dusk Lizardfolk

Part of the fun will be the ridiculous Hide modifier on these guys, so that makes me lean more toward Ninja or Monk w/ Invisible Fist builds (armor negates the poison dusk lizardfolks' racial Hide bonus).
Hide modifiers: +5 racial chameleon ability, +4 size, +1 from racial Dex bonus puts them at a net +10 before skill ranks or 25 point buy stats; The Sepulchral Thief leader will get another +8 racial* and +2 from racial Dex modifier.

*According to PHB p. 171, racial bonuses stack - "... With the exception of dodge bonuses, most circumstance bonuses, and racial bonuses, only the better bonus works..."


As I said above, the Invisible Fist ACF from Exemplars of Evil is one of the things that triggered this adventure idea.  It requires 2 levels of Monk, and replaces Evasion.  It grants the supernatural ability to, once every three rounds, become invisible for one round, as an immediate action.  Note, this is the condition of being invisible, not invisible as the spell, so attacking would not end it.

The basic plan is to make the leader a Rogue 3/Monk 2 with Invisible Fist.  Most of his lackeys would be CR 3 Rogue 1/Monk 2 also with Invisible Fist.  Poison Dusk Lizardfolk are normally neutral, so having a thieving contingent that are LN wouldn't be out of bounds, though thieving isn't a particularly lawful activity in the societal sense, being part of a different society than the humans, it could fall well within the code of ethics of the lizardfolk.  Either way, the potential "non-lawfulness" of thieving got me thinking of other ways to build the characters.

Making the leader a 5th level Swordsage would get a fairly similar result.  He could get 2d6 sneak attack from Assassin's Stance, and he could periodically turn invisible via Cloak of Deception.  Third level lackeys could still get Cloak of Deception, but wouldn't have sneak attack.  The problem is that Cloak of Deception won't refresh on its own.

To that end, I could do some sort of multiclassed Rogue 1/Warblade 2/Fighter 2, picking up Martial Study (Cloak of Deception) to allow the leader to refresh Cloak of Deception every other round.  Not a terrible idea, but perhaps not the best; they also wouldn't get Wisdom to AC.  Similarly, I could do Crusader in place of Warblade.

I could also go with a Ninja based build, getting the invisibility via Ghost Step and ki points.  Rogue 1/Ninja 4 would get 1d6 sneak attack and 2d6 sudden strike, could turn invisible a few times when needed, would get Wisdom to AC like the Invisible Fist and Swordsage builds, and unlike the Swordsage, would still get to add the Poison Dusk Lizardfolk's racial bonus to Hide (only applies when not wearing armor).

I could also head into more convoluted multiclass options, such as Rogue 1/Ninja 2/Warblade 1/Fighter 1, picking up Cloak of Deception via Martial Study, for two ways to gain invisibility.  But, neither of those options is quite as nice as what Invisible Fist is, since that is an immediate action, and lasts for one round (Cloak of Deception is swift, but only to the end of your turn; Ghost Step is a swift action, and lasts one round).

So, I suppose I'm looking for comments or insight into the basic premise of the adventure idea (the party participates in a murder mystery, and ends up cleaning up after the murdered adventurers who didn't finish the job), and I'm also looking for thoughts on which way to go with building my villains for the adventure.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

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« Last Edit: June 15, 2015, 12:36:55 PM by ksbsnowowl »

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: Fleshing out an adventure idea using Poison Dusk Lizardfolk
« Reply #1 on: June 30, 2014, 04:47:50 PM »
SorO puts Invisible Fist to good use on his handbook.

Quanak Lizardfolk ... if you want some psi-ish stuff mixed in.
3 or 4 posts here http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=11474.msg209436#msg209436

There was 1 short poison dusk lizardfolk goog-hit.
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=3484.0
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Offline ksbsnowowl

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Re: Fleshing out an adventure idea using Poison Dusk Lizardfolk
« Reply #2 on: July 11, 2014, 08:20:25 PM »
Okay, so Invisible Fist is as good as I thought.  I'll just plan to go that route.

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions for the very basic plot that I've outlined?  Come to a small town, start to investigate the murder of a "successful" adventuring party, and discover the party wasn't as successful as they'd thought they were.

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: Fleshing out an adventure idea using Poison Dusk Lizardfolk
« Reply #3 on: July 12, 2014, 04:08:52 PM »
The towns npc casters can be secretly at each others throats, like a mafiawars situation.  They've all splashed lots of Divinations at the events, and are only somewhat the wiser.  You get told some of this, but only reluctantly, and certainly not when it'd be timely to know, just later.  You're "neutral" so they've all got tails watching as many of your moves as possible.  Tail on Tails violence, which you aren't helping.  Trouble.  Assassin of the King shows up later to take out who they think was the most problematic.  Your party gets rumor-mongered into that too.

 :p :smirk
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Offline ksbsnowowl

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Re: Fleshing out an adventure idea using Poison Dusk Lizardfolk
« Reply #4 on: August 11, 2014, 03:34:15 AM »
I worked up the stat blocks for the Poison Dusk Lizardfolk.  I have stat blocks for Rogue 1, Rogue 1/Monk 2, two different versions of Rogue 3/Monk 2 (using slightly different point-buy allocations), and the BBEG Sepulchral Thief Rogue 3/Monk 2.
My PC's for this campaign are 28 point-buy; I made these guys using 26 point buy.

Now that I think about it, I really should give these guys longspears... they have Combat Reflexes, and they would threaten at range and up close... though that would prevent the use of claws as secondary natural attacks...

Sepulchral Thief Poison Dusk Lizardfolk Rogue 3/Monk 2
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Poison Dusk Lizardfolk Rogue 3/Monk 2
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Poison Dusk Lizardfolk Rogue 1/Monk 2
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Poison Dusk Lizardfolk Rogue 1
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« Last Edit: December 03, 2014, 05:55:45 PM by ksbsnowowl »

Offline ksbsnowowl

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Re: Against the Giants
« Reply #5 on: March 04, 2015, 04:55:53 PM »
So, half my party met a grisly end in the town of Ossington, at the climax of The Standing Stone.  That leaves one newly-8th level character, and a 7th level character whose player was planning to leave the group at the conclusion of their investigations around Ossington.  Rather than follow the rules of the DMG and have my killed PC's come back as 6th level and 7th, since they both want to make new characters, I'm going to have them come in at 8th level.  As it is, due to previous deaths and negative levels, as well as failing to defeat the true foes of the adventure, the now-highest-level character among them is a level behind where I expected the party to be.

So, if the two dead PC's come in at 8th level with new characters, they still won't be ready for Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, which is intended for a 9th-level party of four.  Add in the fact we're losing our fourth player (though I am trying to recruit a new player), and I really need to cobble together an adventure of some sort to get them to 9th level, or possibly most of the way to 10th.

Then my mind started wandering... Expedition to the Demonweb Pits... GDQ!  There are conversions of the original Against the Giants adventures, and I actually have copies of the original adventure series... However, they suffer from a disconnect of the CR system.  The first installment, The Steading of the Hill Giant Chief is meant for 8th level characters.  But it is a large "dungeon" location filled with Hill Giants, which in 3.5 are CR 7.  It's been probably a year since I looked at it, but I recall calculating what some of the Encounter Levels would be... and I think there were quite a few that were EL 13 or higher.  Hill Giants in first edition only had 60 hit points or something like that; in 3.5 they have 102 hp.

I don't intend to run the PC's through the whole series of Against the Giants, but I think I will do the Hill Giant one... and at the end they will find a Drow emissary meeting with the chief, and they'll find the note on her that leads to the same point in the EttDwP adventure.  But I think I'll need to change the Hill Giants somehow...  Maybe just make them Trolls, then they are CR 5 creatures instead of CR 7's...

I need to work this out...  Anyway, this was just a quick note to myself, more than anything, but certainly comment if you have any ideas.

Edit:  So I looked at Against the Giants and I see why it would still work as written in a straight-up conversion to 3rd edition... Even though the cover says for levels 8 - 12, the first page of the adventure warns the DM that the adventure should be for NINE 9th-level PC's.

Maybe if I make them Ogres instead...
« Last Edit: July 08, 2017, 01:43:54 PM by ksbsnowowl »

Offline Keldar

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Re: Fleshing out an adventure idea using Poison Dusk Lizardfolk
« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2015, 12:28:43 AM »
You could always replace that drow emissary idea with a bunch of dead drow and knock a few hit points off most of the giants.

Yeah, just go with Ogers.

Offline MrPurple

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Re: Fleshing out an adventure idea using Poison Dusk Lizardfolk
« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2015, 02:19:01 AM »
why not the big brothers, skull crushers ogres MM3 or 4 I think? or a just some half giant with class levels.
If there's a mistake in my post please let me know.

Offline ksbsnowowl

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Re: Against the Giants
« Reply #8 on: March 05, 2015, 09:45:51 AM »
Skullcrusher Ogres might just be the best of both worlds... I'll run the numbers and see what the encounters end up looking like.
I was planning to treat these ogres as more "civilized," thus the large lodge they'd constructed.  Skullcrushers are perfect in that regard.  Just need to double check the CR and EL calculations.

Probably change their half-plate to breastplates.  I like this idea, thank you.

Prior to the suggestion of Skullcrusher Ogres, my plan was to scale everything down thusly:
Hill Giants replaced with Ogres
Stone Giants replaced with Trolls (or maybe Ice Trolls from UE)
The Cloud Giant replaced with a Hill Giant
The Hill Giant children (which have the same stats as Ogres) be replaced with Eneko (Secrets of Sarlona; Medium Giants w/ Powerful Build)
Ogres replaced with Half Ogre Warrior 2's
Orcs would remain orcs
Bugbears replaced with hobgoblins (Warrior 2?)
Dire Wolves replaced with normal wolves

That should make things much more appropriate for an 8th level party.  I'll run the encounter EL numbers for both the above, and with Skullcrusher Ogres.  Hopefully, the skullcrushers aren't too strong, at CR 5.

Edit: I ran the numbers, and the top floor of the steading will be enough to raise the party one level, and maybe about a level and a half, so there won't be a dungeon level.  The great hall is still something like an EL 15 (using skullcrusher ogres) or an EL 14 (using normal ogres), so I'll just stick with the Skullcrushers.  The party just has to be smart, and listen to the uproarious commotion occurring in that room, and not enter it.  The adventure was designed to have the PC's leave, rest, and return, and doing so will slowly dwindle the numbers that can join in the nightly carousing, while others are siphoned off to replace the guards the PC's have previously killed.  They experienced this same sort of thing with the goblins in the Sunless Citadel, so a little smarts will go a long way.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2015, 12:47:11 PM by ksbsnowowl »