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Ok. The group I'm GMing is at the *spoiler text here* Crater Ridge Mines/Temple of All Consumption in the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil Adventure.
We use a time based leveling up system, kind of like Shadowrun (so no soutomatic leveling).
The party leaves the "dungeon of evil" for a local-ish city to train, level up, buy and make magic items. They're taking 5 months to do this. The problem is that the dungeon restocks itself (since there are active parties in here and inside, blah, blah). 20% of the CR of humanoids per week and 10% of the CR of non-humanoids per week. By the time they come back, the place will be fully stocked again (ooohhhh, the players are going to *hate* that. )
Anyways, I'm a little tapped for ideas right now. Any ideas, suggestions, things or humanoids that you've used?
<font color=#5c7898>A high I.Q. is like a jeep. You'll still get stuck; you'll just be farther from help when you do.
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Kobolds with character levels are my favorite. Have a tribe of sorcerer Koblods and their body guards decide to take over the dungeon now that the party has cleared it out...no one expects a Kobold to cast fireball on them.
_
“Logic merely enables one to be wrong with authority.”
Had to think on this one. It has been a while since I have played D&D.
Mind flayers: Over used at one point in those forgotten relams, but balls nasty if I remember correctly.
Other Sentients: Like the Kobold tribes mentioned by Jackal, primitives and savages, but also more advanced and dangerous underworld dwellers. Maybe another party, in a Survivor style/reality tv thing. Or maybe Indiana Jones.
Your standard Orcs, hobgoblins and assorted nasty humanoids. ALways fun at parties.
something always really nasty to do is to make whatever you do end up using, say you use orks, make them organized, and make them intelligent. Say they come accross a party of six orcs. Three have rather large shields and swords two have pole arms and one has a bow. when they come across them, have the orcs with shields lock them together. Then have the guys with polearms stand right behind them and the archer behind them. I had a party of 4th level characters spend three hours in that situation, because they couldnt get through the shield line, and they kept getting beaten by the spearmen. And when the players began to fall back at one point, the orcs advanced against them. They werent stupid, they had been attacked and were going to kill their assailants.
Open a meta-planar rift that punches through the Astral to Limbo. Then you can bring in Illithid, Githyanki, Githzerai, and Slaadi. This opens lots of sub-plot possibilities as each of the groups will be working against all of the others, and the players can actually make deals to play one off the other. There can be both magic and psionics in order to mix things up, and low level Gith can be appropriate challenges for low- to mid-level groups, working up later to the Illithid and the minor slaadi.
_Whoever invented that brush that goes next to the toilet is an idiot, cuz that thing hurts.
This would be an ideal time to use some of those wonderful 'garbage collector' monsters like Carrion Crawlers, Gelatinous Cubes, and the rest. With all of the dead bodies about, there'd be a wealth of goodies for slimes, oozes and all the others.
Cazmonster ponders an oozemaster and then ponders if they taste anything like lime jell-O.
<a href="http://heftywrenches.wordpress.com">Agent Zero Speaks!</a>
5 months? Damn, I don't think the place would wait that long to complete their plans.
I have the same module, if you're going to give them that time, it does make mention it goes low enough to be near the Underdark. So have them encounter drow scouting parties who are thinking of expanding their territory, or duergar, or just a random nasty monster come up to see if there's anything that makes Good Eats.
Fortunately, the group teleported into the Earth Temple area (they cleared out the Human cleric and 4 Kobold Monk replacements the other night) and went in a direction that they hadn't been in before. *whew*
I also have an 8th level Gnoll Ranger and his Dire Wolverine companion ready for them. *evil grin*
Also, sticking in the Kobold Monk leader (7th level) and a *bunch* of vanilla Kobolds the group's Average CL is 9 so they wouldn't get experience from offing 1/6th CR creatures. :evil
A Drow Wizard and his Grimlock Minions. *Drow slaps darkness on one of the Grimlocks and sends it/them wading into combat.
<font color=#5c7898>A high I.Q. is like a jeep. You'll still get stuck; you'll just be farther from help when you do.
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Well, since your players are getting that level, I toyed with the idea of inflicting a half-fiend aboleth on my players, maybe it'll work on yours... :evil
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