5 Rooms in a Vampire's Mansion

[Gorilla726]

These are the last five rooms in a very powerful vampire’s mansion. The vampire owns an intelligent sword that the party may mistake for the Great Sword of Darkness. The treasures are hid extremely well and the entire room must be searched inch for inch to find anything. The party is just beginning on it's search for the Great Sword of Darkness which caused a war which supposedly wiped out an entire race, of which one of the characters is a part descendant. They are foolhardy at this point and think that this is the sword. They are wrong. I made the treasures huge because the Lawful Evil Clerics that rule the town have demanded 80% of all treasures found as a "tax" for letting them enter the vampires home and it should be fun when the players try to keep the treasure. Any suggestions?

Room 1
50x50
- 10 Skeletons
- 2 Gelatinous Cubes
+5,000 GP, 3 Gold Necklaces, 3 Rubies, Sword +1 (Flames 3 times a day), Staff Of Striking, Boots Of Speed.


Room 2
50x50
- 15 Large Skeletons
- 1 Wight
- 1 Stun Jelly
- 2 Gelatinous Cubes
+10,000 GP, 17 diamonds, Dagger -3, Battle Axe +2 (Find Traps), Plate Mail +2, Potion Of Dragon Control (White Dragons), Ring Of Swiftness, Ring Of Plant Control.


Room 3
50x50
- 5 Elemental Skeletons (Treat as Huge Skeletons with elemental weapons and full elemental immunities, one each of Fire, Water, Earth, Electricity and Spirit)
- 2 Wights
+15,000 PP, 7 Books (Rare and valuable to local libraries), 4 Bottles of very fine wine, Sword +2 (Charm Person), 15 Arrows +2, Mace +2 (+4 vs. Orcs), Potion Of Treasure Finding, Treasure Map, Scroll Of Fireball, Rings of: X-Ray Vision, Regeneration and Djinni Summoning, Cursed Ring Of Gender, Flying Carpet.

Room 4
75x75
- 5 Elemental Skeletons (As above)
- 2 Wights
- 1 Wraith
+Silver Sword +2 (+3 vs. Vampires), 10,000 PP, 15,000 GP, 300,000 CP, Silver Bladed Battle Axe +1, Potions of Heroism, Fire Resistance, Healing (x2), Plant Control, Ring of Fireball, Ring of Magic Missile, Scroll of Invisibility, Wand of Teleport Without Error, Gauntlets Of Ogre Power.

Room 5
50x75
- Vampire
+Intelligent Long Sword*


*Intelligent Long Sword


Intelligence Score: 10
Powers: Detect Good, Extra Damage
Languages: Common, Elvish.
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Special: Attempts to control any user that is not Evil.

 

[Merova]

Sights and Sounds

Any suggestions?

Hi all!

Yeow! That looks mighty over the top, IMO, but if it works for your group, enjoy! I've got three questions:

1) How do you plan for the evil clerics to collect the taxes? If my group came across a jackpot like this we'd hightail it away from that town as fast as possible. Furthermore, will taking the "kewl toiz" cause a feeling of frustration among your players? If so, you may want to scale back on the magic goodies. It seems less painful to hand over gps than magic, IME.

2) Are the encounters properly balanced for the party encounter level? The encounters seem a bit diverse to me. In a related point, what's keeping the PCs active in their search? By this I mean, if the PCs get low on resources, what is keeping them searching the mansion? Can't they just call it a day and come back later, all rested up?

3) How do the rooms look like? What type of furnishings are found within? How does it smell? What type of lighting is inside? Do the floors and doors creak? Is it cold inside or filled with an unnatural stuffiness? Imagine these elements of setting and try to convey them to your players. It creates for a more viscerally immersive experience.

In any case, thanks for posting. Have a good game!

---Merova

 

[Gorilla726]

1.) The Evil Clerics are actually pitifully weak and they just have really high Charisma and Intelligence so they are able to trick the town into thinking that the town would fall apart with out them. They're levels are 4, 4, and 6. They will send their level 3 thugs to deal with the players, of which the players can take care of without much difficulty at all. I'm planning on letting my players keep most or all of the toys.

2.) The encounters purposefully vary to confuse the players. Really easy, really easy, medium, hard, sort fo easy. It works out pretty fun. I'm gonna make the vampire pretty tough though. The doors lock behind the players so that they are not able to retreat once they make it past the first room.

3.) We're working on what exactly the rooms look like. I think I'm planning on having them pretty much barren because the vampire set these rooms up for his own protection.

 

[doghead]

Are each of the rooms completely discrete encounters? To what extent are the occupants of each room in communication with each other. How much time are you going to give the players in each room before the occupants of the next room join in? Pacing could be used very effectively here.

To what extent are the dominant creatures in the rooms loyal to the Vampire? Would it be possible that one of them sees in the party an opportunity to free itself from bondage or even usurp the Vampire?

How about allowing whateveer is in the first room to allow the party to pass into the second before revealing itself. This could be used to pressure the party forward.

Are there any alternative to battleing their way through all the rooms?

 

[Gorilla726]

1.) Well, I was thinking that when the players walked into a room, the creatures would come out from hiding and attack. The players will probably be all with each other unless one got left behind. The rooms will probably be in a straight line, going 1-2-3-4-5. I hadn't thought about having a time limit. That's an awesome idea. Maybe I could give them 5-6 rounds before the next door opens and the next creatures come in after another round.

2.) That's another good idea... I might be able to let the players have the wight's help so it can finally rest in peace...

3.) That's cool too. Let the players walk through an empty room and let their guard down until the next room where they're ambushed and have no escape. That'd be great.

4.) As to battling their way through, the only other option I can think of is having help from the creatures that want to be free.

Also, I was wondering how many floors do you think the mansion should have? Right now I'm planning on three then the attic with the five rooms. The first floor has a library, a kitchen and a dining room, the help's room, a staircase to the second floor, and a hidden one that goes right to the third. The second floor is just going to be mostly hallways and bedrooms. And the third is going to be completly hallways and passage ways, creating a rather difficult maze the players have to get through to get to the stairs to the attic. Any suggestions?

 

[doghead]

I saw in a movie once, some actor said in order to know what to do in the scene, you need to know what you were doing before the scene.

Why are the creatures in the rooms? Are they unaware of the PC's presence and they are there just "by chance". If so, how will things change when they become aware of the PC's.

How about having the rooms come off a corridor. Once the PC's open a door they will run into an encounter. However, the noise of that encounter will bring other creatures out of other rooms into the corridor (assuming the creatures are unaware of the PC's before this time). Alternatively, you could stage it around a large central foyer/staircase up from the first floor (a la Matrix reloaded). This would be a lot more complexe to handle of course.

Regardless, I would probably avoid the "sequence of rooms" approach. I can't imagin may houses that would have such an arrangement. How about a clust of interconnected rooms. If you can find some mansion floorplans on the net etc, you may be able to plan around that.

Hope that helps.

 

[Kyramus]

1) what is the party composition and level?
2) If the toys are so good, why aren't the three stooges clerics use them?
3) I doubt 2- level 4, and a level 6 cleric can make the elemental skeletons. logic defies that.
4) is this dnd 3.0 or dnd 3.5? the intelligent sword should be 3.5 since it'll be an NPC that the pcs don't know about.
-----

Some suggestions for fix.
1) check CR vs players. Increase weak creature HD to compensate.
2) The clerics tossed the items int he rooms for safe keeping, using their rebuke to control the creatures, what happens when they don't control the creatures?
3) The clerics WANT the players to get the treasure so that THEY can get their stuff cause they didn't realize that the undead COULD resist being controlled.
4) It's a Vampire Mansion and it sounds like everyone knows it. A Hallow spell would keep the evil in. it would also make controlling the skeletons harder. you can put some reason that there is a great evil there that keeps the undead from being destroyed and the Hallow spell is keeping it in check. Tie the hallow spell to the intelligent sword and whoever brings the sword out into the world, the hallow spell vanishes, releasing the evil still lurking in the mansion.

5) tactics for room1. Put the skeletons in the gelatinous cubes, when battle is engaged, they jump out and attack, their first attacks with their claws will deal some acid damage to gelatinous ooze, then they grab weapons to fight.

 

[Gorilla726]

Actually, the skeletons and such are being controlled by the vampire, not the clerics. And the clerics that run the town are scared to death of the vampire and give him the toys as a sacrifice. The other idea work great though. Thanks.

Gorilla