Here is the system I've created for the Mistwalkers finale. Note that this whole system is separate from the Viggo fight which will be its own session.
Design Goals
- Give the players interesting choices in how they get to Viggo.
- Don't go insane trying to set up every possible variable in a huge castle and siege.
- Make the PC's allies, army, and foreknowledge of the castle and enemies very useful.
- Add a degree of randomness where even I don't fully know whats going to happen.
Core setup
There will be a total of four encounters (not including the final one with Viggo). Each encounter takes places in a different location in the castle and represents progress towards the top. Each encounter will also have an added complexity for the PCs to deal with. PCs can short rest between encounters.
| Location | Area Description | Complexity |
|---|---|---|
| Outside the castle | Wide open field of mist with no cover | Artillery Support At Initiative 20, The castle will shoot three fireballs at the party. (DC 17 dex check, 10d6 damage) |
| First Floors | Dining Room very small and narrow room with a table in the middle |
Re-enforcements Once the enemy forces are down to approximately half health, they will be reinforced by a mystery combatant |
| Second Floors | Throne room Wide hallway with ledges on the sides |
Ambush The whole party starts the fight surprised and the DM gets to decide where the party starts |
| Tower | Spiral staircase with no guardrails. Goes 100 feet in the air | Movement Buff All enemies have innate spiderclimb or a flying speed equivalent to their walking speed |
You might have noticed there are no monsters in these encounters. Thats because the monsters that show up in each encounter will be determined by the following monster table. The encounters here all lean standard to hard.
| D8 | Monsters |
|---|---|
| 1 | |
| 2 | Mummy Lord and Retinue (up next) |
| 3 | Demon Squad |
| 4 | Elemental Falconer |
| 5 | |
| 6 | Royal Skeleton Horde |
| 7 | Overminds |
| 8 | Time Raiders |
Using your armies
The party will have five different armies at their disposal. Before rolling on the above monster table, the party will order their armies to "tie up" certain enemies, which will remove them from the table when rolling for the encounter.
After each encounter the party can re-arrange their armies. Also one army will be chased from the field by whatever creature(s) they faced and a player will have an opportunity to describe that battle.
Using NPCs
The party has several powerful NPCs who will be at the battle and can help the party directly in encounters. Battles are chaotic, and they're risking their lives in being there. After each encounter the DM will roll a D8 and keep the results hidden from everyone (including himself). The D8 will indicate which NPC was wounded offscreen during that battle. If an NPC is wounded twice, they will die.
NPCs can also help the party during encounters. The table below lists each NPC and a way they can help. The NPCs can only help once for the entire battle, and when they do they take a wound. This represents both party planning ahead of time, and an NPC pushing themselves to help achieve the final goal.
| D8 | NPC | Wound | Wound | Help |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Valdak | Add a damage type vulnerability to an enemy type (double damage) | ||
| 2 | Ireena | Do 10d10 damage to one target | ||
| 3 | Mordenkainen | Cast Time Stop targeted on one PC | ||
| 4 | Miruna | x | Heal each PC for 20 HP | |
| 5 | Kronos Quillright | One PC gains 30 temp hp as the bone mech surrounds them defensively | ||
| 6 | Argus | Fire a catapult (fireball) at one location on the battlemap, DC 18, 30 foot radius 8d6 (or half on failed save) | ||
| 7 | Arther Sedgwick and Alanik | x | See complete stat blocks of enemies before an encounter | |
| 8 | Rufus Casckbow | Every PC gets one free use of the shield spell as a reaction (+5 AC) |
Encounter Knowledge
Mummy Lord and Retinue
Mummy (2x)
Ashyra (1x)
