Stealing, By the Numbers (II)

Map of Warcraft's Shadowfang Keep

With the outline for my new players’ excursion to Shadowfang Keep complete, I next moved to what we used to call “stocking” the dungeon:  placing monsters, treasure, and other elements inside and developing a map key.

To begin with, I needed to decide how long I wanted to make the dungeon.  That seems a bit odd, given that I already had a map, but as experienced gamemasters will know, the size of the adventure area has little to do with how long it takes the players to explore it.  That’s mostly determined by the number of encounters — a large map with very few encounters can be cleared in relatively little out-of-game time, while a small map with many encounters can take multiple game sessions.

I find a good rule of thumb is an hour per encounter.  Some will take more, some will take less, but it tends to work out.  Furthermore, in fourth edition, a character will gain a level after about ten encounters.  I decided that Shadowfang Keep should be about ten encounters long, to allow each character to level up.  That gave me a rule-of-thumb of ten hours “clear time,” or two to three sessions.

In this case, I also knew that I wanted to hook them in the first session (or there might not be a second or third to finish up).  That meant demonstrating many facets of the game during the first few encounters.

I started with the entrance area, naturally.  In a longer campaign, I would have developed the village of Pyrewood and the surrounding area more, but I wanted to jump right into the action.  In Warcraft, this area features a short switchback stairway and a large room with a balcony and a couple of crannies.  I turned it into a large, flat, square room with very little terrain.  Normally this is not what you want to do for an encounter — it’s very boring terrain.  However, since most of the players were entirely new, I intentionally minimized the complications so that I could teach the basics of combat.

Encounter One (level 6 encounter, 1350 XP): The first room the party enters is home to several wolves, pets of the worgen.  Eight Dire Wolf Minions (Dire Wolf stats but 1 hp, 50 XP, lacks Pack Hunter ability) are present, and three Whitescalp Worgen (Longtooth Hunter Shifter stats, but with Resist Frost 10 and no Longtooth Shifting, 250 XP) are feeding them.  If they notice the party, one of the worgen will attempt to flee to warn Rethilgore (following orders); the rest will fight to the death.  Treasure: None.

This is an easy encounter for a group of five 8th-level heroes.  I wanted the group to pick up the flow of combat without worrying too much about getting themselves killed.  There are plenty of minions, to allow the players to describe their amazing kills and to keep the encounter fairly quick.  The only real “twist” here is the fleeing worgen — if the group manages to stop it, the next fight gets easier.

The area marked 1 on the map of the keep is a prison area, where the first boss Rethilgore is encountered.  For the game, I decided that he and his band had been tasked with feeding the prisoners; the worgen in the entrance room are the lowest-ranking members of this band, assigned to feed the “pets.”  Rethilgore is among the more intelligent of the worgen, enough to control his bloodlust when he wishes to; unlike most of the worgen, he can speak Common.  He answers directly to Arugal.

One problem I faced was that Rethilgore needs to pass through the undead-heavy area in order to reach the prison.  Since I’d established that the undead hate Arugal and the worgen, Rethilgore needed some means of safely making the trip.  I decided on a combination of enhancement and reputation; Arugal had granted Rethilgore innate necrotic resistance and radiant damage.  The combination gave him a major advantage in combat against the undead, and eventually they learned that it took huge numbers to test him.  The more lucid leaders of the undead remain unwilling to risk so many of their own, when the threat of Arugal lingers over them.

The second room is another two-level room, which I left intact.  The upper area has some pillars scattered around for cover, and a stairway choke point.  I decided the lower level was ten feet below the upper level — not difficult to jump at all, but high enough for a little damage.

Encounter Two (level 8 encounter, 1850 XP): Rethilgore (Werewolf Lycanthrope stats, but with Resist Necrotic 10, and his attacks cause radiant damage; effectively higher level because of his amulet, so 500 XP) and three Whitescalps (250 XP) are here, along with three Dire Wolves (200 XP — not minions this time).  If the Whitescalp from the first encounter successfully fled, it is also present.  If this is the case, all of the Whitescalps will be hiding behind the pillars, and Rethilgore himself will be lurking just inside the room, with the wolves merely awaiting his call.  If not, only one worgen will be on the top platform initially; Rethilgore, the other worgen, and the wolves will all be downstairs near the prisoners’ cells.  They will all fight to the death.  Treasure: Rethilgore wears (and will use, given the opportunity) an Amulet of False Life +2.  (Remember the extra +2 to his Fortitude, Reflex, and Will Defenses.)

A second combat encounter, to reinforce the basics of combat while adding in more complicated situations.  With Rethilgore barking orders, these worgen would fight a bit more intelligently, making use of cover and flanking.  This would also be their first “real” fight, being a level 8 encounter.  I may have been too generous in making Rethilgore count as level 10, but the XP difference wasn’t huge, so I decided to err on the side of caution.

Also complicating matters in this encounter were the prisoners.  Two of the three cells were occupied.  (In Warcraft, all three are, but two of the prisoners serve the same function for the two player factions, so I only needed one.  I could have gone with just a single prisoner, but I wanted to convey the sense that Arugal often experimented on innocents caught in the area.  Two prisoners also provided more roleplaying opportunity.

One of the prisoners was evidently well — a minor priest, I decided, who originally came to the keep to deal with “the undead problem” and was surprised to find (and be found by) the worgen.  If the players released him from his cell, he would help them fight Rethilgore and would heal them afterward.  He also knew the code word Rethilgore used to open the magically-sealed door to the inner keep, and would tell it to the party.  If they hadn’t released him by the time Rethilgore died, he would try to talk them into doing so, using that knowledge as a bargaining chip.  He would not venture further into the keep.

The other cell was occupied by a man obviously suffering from moon frenzy — and less obviously from an unusual strain of lycanthropy inflicted by a worgen bite.  Arugal was keeping him to observe the effects of the transformation, and it’s about to overtake him — if the players spend ten or fifteen minutes in the area, he’ll transform and lash out in bloodthirsty rage.  In his weakened state, he would have only 1 hp.  The characters would earn 75 XP by either killing the transformed monster or releasing the man (who would transform before he could reach the nearest village for aid, and could reappear later in the campaign as a villain).  If the players managed to heal him of the lycanthropy, though (and the other prisoner had no magic that would help in this regard — it’s all up to the players), then they would also receive a bonus reward for a minor quest (70 XP, plus a small monetary reward if they later visited the man at the village).

After that, the party would need to get through a locked door to enter the courtyard and move on to the keep proper.  A key word opens the door; the party could get this key word from either Rethilgore (a difficult task, and only if they’d kept him alive) or his priest prisoner.  Someone skilled enough in Arcane could deduce enough of its workings to allow a Thievery-trained individual to attempt to finesse it.  Failing that, they could take the brute-force approach by kicking it in or hacking it apart.

I decided to eliminate the many foes in the courtyard, replacing them with a pair of ghostly archers (Wight stats, but armed with light crossbows) up on the battlements.  However, these archers were particularly lazy; the party wouldn’t attract their attention as long as they refrained from making much noise (like brute-forcing the door) and didn’t spend too much time in the courtyard.  They were mainly a plot device.

The courtyard marked the entrance to the undead-controlled portion of the keep — which I’ll detail next time.

Related posts:

1. Stealing, By the Numbers (IV)
2. Stealing, By the Numbers (III)
3. Stealing, By the Numbers
4. Wrapping Up Warcraft
5. Hanging in the Balance