In their use, many kaostech items may appear similar to magical items, but they are not. Kaostech items do not have caster levels, cannot be dispelled, and are not affected by areas of antimagic.
When a spell or ability is described as affecting spells or magic, it does not apply to kaostech. For example, a nondetection spell (which provides protection against divination spells) does not work against a bonded tracer. On the other hand, a potion from protection from acid would still provide protection against acid damage dealt by a kaostech device (since the potion does not specify protection only from magical acid) and a ring of protection still offers a bonus to AC against an attack made with a kaostech weapon.
CHAOS SPELLS
Although kaostech is not magical, some magical spells have been developed to help those who use or work with kaostech. There are also spells with interface directly with the same chaotic forces and primal laws that are tapped by kaostech.
ADVENT OF CHANGE
Transmutation [Chaotic]
Level: Clr 9 Components: V, S, M, DF Casting Time: Standard action Range: 10 miles/level Area: One mile/two levels emanation Duration: One day/level Saving Throw: None Spell Resistance: No
You alter the way reality works in the area, making things more random and the improbable more probable. Whenever someone makes an attack roll, saving throw, or other d20 check in the area, toss a d6 as well. On a roll of 2 on the d6, subtract 10 from the d20 roll. On a roll of 1, subtract 20 from the d20 roll. On a roll of 5, add 10 to the d20 roll. On a roll of 6, add 20.
For anything with a d% chance of taking place—such as spell failure, miss chances, random encounters, and so on—double the listed chance of the event’s happening if the chance is less than 50 percent. When it is 50 percent or greater, cut the listed chance in half. These effects are accompanied by all manner of other changes: The sky becomes red, the moon turns dark, babies are born with strange appearances, outsiders appear, fresh milk turns sour, animals die, crops wither, or any other sorts of random events the DM wishes (the caster has no effect on these changes). Many people look upon these occurrences as the beginning of the end of the world.
Material Component: A lawfully-aligned artifact. However, this material component is not needed if the spell is cast within the area of a previously cast advent of change spell. If the material component is used and the spell is cast within the area of a previously cast advent of change spell, the emanation spreads another mile for every two levels and lasts as long as the duration of the more recently cast advent of change spell.
KAOSTECH ENSLAVEMENT
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Chaotic, Mind-Affecting] Level: Clr 5 Components: V, S, F Casting Time: Standard action Range: Close (25 feet + 5 feet/two levels) Target: One humanoid with kaostech Duration: 24 hours Saving Throw: Will negates Spell Resistance: Yes
You draw upon the energies within the kaostech wielded by the target to make the target a slave to the Gods of Chaos. You have no particular control over the target, but the Gods of Chaos become immediately aware of her (if they were not already) and can exert control over the target as though she were affected by a dominate person spell.
The target’s actions are up to the discretion of the DM; any Gods of Chaos aware of the target can control her actions. If two Gods of Chaos attempt to control a single target for different purposes, the one with the most Hit Dice wins. (Should a tie occur, use opposed Charisma checks.) The spell can be ended prematurely if someone strips the target of all kaostech gear. However, the controlling God of Chaos will do whatever it can to prevent that from happening. The Gods of Chaos themselves frequently use this spell when they need a mortal to do something: They search for a kaostech user and cast this spell upon her. As long as no more powerful God of Chaos wrests control, the caster can exert influence from any distance thereafter, seeing and hearing everything the target does.
KAOSTECH ENSLAVEMENT, GREATER
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Chaotic, Mind-Affecting]
Level: Clr 8 Target: One creature with kaostech
As kaostech enslavement, except it affects any creature (not just humanoids).
DETECT KAOSTECH
Divination Level: Brd 0, Clr 0, Sor/Wiz 0 Components: V, S Casting Time: Standard action Range: 60 feet Area of Effect: A quarter-circle, radius 60 feet, emanating from you Duration: Concentration, up to one minute/level (D) Saving Throw: None Spell Resistance: No
You detect kaostech devices. The amount of information this spell reveals depends on how long you study a particular area or subject:
1st Round: Presence or absence of kaostech devices
2nd Round: Number of different kaostech auras and the strength of the strongest aura
3rd Round: The strength of each aura, indicating the power of the device
Note: From each round to another, a caster can turn to detect things in a new area. Detect spells can penetrate barriers, but 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or a yard of wood or dirt blocks them.
IDENTIFY DEVICE Divination
Level: Brd 1, Clr 0, Sor/Wiz 1 Components: V, S,M Casting Time: One hour Range: Touch Targets: Up to one object/level Duration: Instantaneous Saving Throw: None Spell Resistance: No
The spell determines the single most basic function of each nonmagical item, including but not limited to kaostech. This includes how to activate that function (if appropriate) and how many uses remain (if any). For example, a chain blade† would register as a “weapon,” while a long distance viewer would register as a “device for seeing faraway things.”
If a device has different functions that are equally basic, identify device determines the lowest-level function. If these functions are also of equal level, decide randomly which is identified.
Material Component: A small metal spring
SIPHON CHAOS
Transmutation [Chaotic]
Level: Clr 2, Sor/Wis 2 Components: V, S Casting Time: Standard action Range: Touch Target: One chaos storage cube† Duration: Instantaneous Saving Throw: None Spell Resistance: No
You transfer raw chaos within a chaos storage cube into a kaostech device, refueling and restoring it. You safely touch both the cube and the device when you cast the spell. After the casting, the device is fully charged. The cube has a 10 percent chance of being empty, at which point it collapses into a corrosive puddle (like a pool of acid). The collapse of a cube creates a 25 percent chance of summoning a chaos beast to the spot of collapse. The beast is predisposed to be neither hostile nor friendly.
ACTIVATION: Using a kaostech device is rarely easy or straightforward: Strange switches, levers, dials, or even more obtuse mechanisms are involved. Sometimes one lever must be positioned in precisely the right orientation before another switch will function (or even appear). Or perhaps two switches must be activated at the same time. Or a dial turned only once the device has been oriented in a particular way. There is no internal logic to it, and even two devices with the same function might have different appearances and different means of activation.
Activating a Kaostech Device: Some kaostech devices, particularly those which are worn, are simply use-activated, but many require the use of a lever or switch. Using a lever to activate a kaostech device is a standard action. Using a switch is a free action.
Some kaostech devices must be controlled (or can be controlled) through the use of a headclamp (see item descriptions).
Determining Activation: In order to figure out how to use a particular kaostech device, a character must make a Craft Kaostech check (DC 20). Success means that the character can activate the item, although they may still not know what it does (unless its function is obvious).
Intrinsic Devices: An intrinsic kaostech device must be grafted or implanted into a host before it can be used. (A non-intrinsic device, on the other hand, can be used like any other piece of equipment.) Creatures without a Constitution score cannot use intrinsic kaostech items, although a demonic converter allows corporeal undead to use them. Incorporeal creatures and constructs can never use intrinsic kaostech.
ACTIVATION METHODS
Headclamp: Some kaostech devices can be controlled through the use of a headclamp.
Lever: A lever refers to an activation device that must be positioned precisely or is otherwise complex. For example, a metal handle with multiple positions; a cord that must be pulled to a specific length; or a liquid-filled bag that one must squeeze. Activating a device with a lever is a standard action.
Switches: A switch refers to an activation device with a simple on-off position or a similarly easy-to-use mechanism. For example, a glass panel that the user taps; a rotating ball that must be spun; or a cord that must be sharply pulled. Activating a device with a switch is a free action.
Use-Activated: Some kaostech items are activated simply by wearing them or wielding them. However, this may not always be obvious. For example, a pair of clarity goggles might initially have the appearance of a small metal box which must be twisted and turned in a specific sequence in order to unfold the goggles into a wearable form.
CHAOTIC FAILURE
CHAOTIC FAILURE: It is not necessary to keep track of uses or charges when using kaostech devices. The user simply waits until it fails. Such is the unpredictable nature of chaos.
Failure Check: When a character makes a check to use a kaostech device, a natural die roll of 1 indicates that the item is drained of power and can no longer be used, not matter how many uses it has been since it was last refueled.
If a device has no roll associated with its use, roll 1d20 when activating it. If it has no set activation, or if it goes for a long time between activations, make at least one check daily to determine whether the device fails when used.
Unused items require no checks. Some item descriptions specify how often checks should be made.
Backlash or Necrosis Check: If a device suffers a chaotic failure, immediately make another check by rolling 1d20. In the case of another roll of 1, a bone of steel has suffered chaotic backlash and a betrayal of the flesh has suffered chaos necrosis (see below).
Reactivation: If a device suffers chaotic failure but does not suffer chaotic backlash or chaotic necrosis, it can be reactivated. A bone of steel can be reactivated by infusing it with raw chaos (see below). A betrayal of the flesh can be reactivated by treating it with a dose of nutrient solution (see item descriptions).
CHAOTIC BACKLASH: When a bone of steel fails, make another check by rolling 1d20. In the case of another roll of 1, the device overloads, explodes, or melts down in a dramatic and dangerous way, inflicting 3d6 points of damage to anyone within 10 feet (Reflex saving throw, DC 18, for half; no saving throw allowed for characters touching the item). The device is utterly destroyed in the case of such a backlash.
CHAOTIC NECROSIS: When a betrayal of the flesh fails, make another check by rolling 1d20. In the case of another roll of 1, the device immediately begins dying and enters a state of chaotic necrosis. A device suffering from chaotic necrosis dies after 1 hour unless they have been successfully treated by a chaos surgeon. This treatment requires 10 minutes, a successful Chaos Surgery check (DC 25), and materials worth 1/10th the creation cost of the device.
If an intrinsic device dies for any reason, it becomes a rotting mass of cancerous flesh. Its host suffers 1 point of Constitution drain every day until the device is removed.
RAW CHAOS
Raw chaos is a viscous fluid that appears at once to be dull gray and a gleaming mass of every scintillating color that exists. Raw chaos is perhaps one of the most dangerous substances in the universe, destroying everything it touches if not handled properly.
USING RAW CHAOS: Raw chaos can only be safely stored in a chaos storage cube. These small gray boxes are about 3 feet to a side and perfectly featureless. A chaos siphon allows one to remove a splash of raw chaos from the cube (see item description).
A splash of raw chaos can be used to reactivate a kaostech device that has suffered chaotic failure. A splash of raw chaos is also required whenever a kaostech device is created.
EFFECTS AND DAMAGE: Raw chaos ignores hardness and damage reduction, treating all matter and flesh the same. A splash of raw chaos inflicts 10d6 damage on anything it touches — the matter simply burns away in a cloud of steamy vapor.
Puncturing or destroying a chaos storage cube (hardness 10, 50 hp, Break DC 30) releases the chaos in one burst, inflicting 20d6 points of damage in a 100-foot spread.
Immersion in raw chaos inflicts 20d6 points of damage per round.
Raw chaos spilled on the floor may eat through the floor. If it inflicts damage in excess of the floor’s hit points, it continues down to the level below (if any) and burns whatever is there.
Exposed raw chaos consumes even the air given enough time. Left in a perfectly sealed 10-foot cubic chamber, a small bit of raw chaos would destroy all the air in the room in about five hours, leaving nothing but vacuum.
SUSTENANCE
Because they are organic devices, betrayals of the flesh are creatures unto themselves, at least from a limited perspective, and require sustenance.
PARASITE: When an intrinsic betrayal of the flesh becomes a part of a host, it lives like a parasite, gaining its nutrition and energy from the host. Every other day, the host suffers 1d2 points of Constitution damage. (However, a nutrient salve can be used to alleviate this damage.)
If an intrinsic device dies for any reason, it becomes a rotting mass of cancerous flesh. Its host suffers 1 point of Constitution drain every day until the device is removed.
NUTRIENT SOLUTION: When not attached to a host, betrayals of the flesh must be treated with a dose of nutrient solution once per week or they die, becoming useless. (Betrayals of the flesh which need to be stored for long periods of time are often immersed in baths of nutrient solution, allowing them to consume it slowly without the need for attendants.)
TAINT OF KAOSTECH
All kaostech items are at least faintly tainted, although some kaostech items suffer from full taint, as noted in their descriptions. An area which has been used to create more than 1d6 kaostech items becomes a faintly tainted place. A faintly tainted place that has been used to create an additional 10d10 items becomes a fully tainted place.
INTRINSIC DEVICES: Each intrinsic device the character has implanted or attached to their body increases the DC of the Fortitude save required to resist the taint by 1. If any of the intrinsic devices are fully tainted objects, this increased DC stacks with the normal increase for carrying multiple tainted objects.
IDEOLOGICAL CHANGE: When a character suffers a point of taint from kaostech they must immediately make a Will save (DC 20). Failure means that the character’s alignment shifts one step towards chaos. Thus, if they are lawful, they become neutral. If they are neutral, they become chaotic. A chaotic neutral or chaotic evil creature is immune to ideological change, but a chaotic good character must continue making saving throws to avoid becoming chaotic neutral.
Kaostech is one of the many forms of technomancy. Like the other technomantic arts, it is not truly technological or magical. It does not function according to the pure rules and logic of natural science nor the transmutative animism and sympathetic laws of alchemy. Its existence is no dependent upon the power of magic or the whim of the gods.
Kaostech is something different. It is a harnessing of primal chaos, but it is also an embodiment and an expression of that primal chaos. It is corruption and destruction given form. It is something that could not exist without a perversion of the natural order — and the creation of that perversion is at the very heart o the kaostech device’s function.
Kaostech is also known as the technology of the taint. Its devices have been called chaos machines, demon devices, and artifacts of the taint.
FORMS OF KAOSTECH
Kaostech devices can be roughly divided into two categories: bones of steel and betrayals of the flesh.
BONES OF STEEL: These are mechanical devices designed to harness and use the powers of chaos. Although their intimate connection to chaos, and their manipulation of chaotic forces, often make the construction of bones of steel seem illogical or incomprehensible, they are fundamentally machines. They are built of metal and glass and cloth. Inside they maybe filled with a baffling array of wires and gears and tubes, but their function is still easily comprehended once it has been demonstrated.
BETRAYALS OF THE FLESH: Betrayals of the flesh, rather than being mechanical devices, are living organisms. They are grown in alchemical vats, harvested from corpses, or perverted from natural creatures. Some betrayals of the flesh are independent creatures of a sort — they eat and breathe and grow. A few of them are even capable of movement.
Other betrayals of the flesh, however, are designed to be used in a parasitic symbiosis with another creature: They are grafted on as replacement parts or created through the manipulation and surgical alteration of the host creature itself.
Check: A character can make a Craft Kaostech check to build, repair, or modify a kaostech device. It can also be used to identify and activate newly encountered kaostech safely. The DC of the check depends on what the kaostechnician is attempting to accomplish.
Create Kaostech Device (Weekly Progress): The DC required to create a kaostech item is listed in the item’s description. The DC of the check, the skill check result, and the item’s price determine how long it takes to make a particular item.
Find the item’s price in silver pieces (1 gp = 10 sp).
Find the DC listed with each kaostech item.
Pay one-third of the item’s price for the cost of raw materials and expend a splash of raw chaos.
Make a Craft Kaostech check representing one week’s work.
If the check succeeds, multiply the check result by the DC of the item. If the result is at least equal to the price of the item in silver pieces, then the kaostechnician has completed the item.
If the result doesn’t equal the price, then it represents the progress the kaostechnician has made this week. Record the result and make a new Craft Kaostech check for the next week. Each week the kaostechnician makes more progress until their total reaches at least the price of the item.
If the check is failed by 4 points or less, the kaostechnician makes no progress. If the check is failed by 5 points or more, the kaostechnician ruins half the raw materials (and the cost of those materials must be paid again).
Create Kaostech Device (Daily Progress): Checks can be made by the day instead of by the week. In this case, evaluate the kaotechnician’s progress (check result times DC) in copper pieces instead of silver pieces.
Determine Activation Method: A kaostechnician can identify the activation method of a kaostech device by make a Craft Kaostech check (DC 20).
Identify Kaostech Device: A kaostechnician can attempt to identify a kaostech device by making a Craft Kaostech check. The DC is equal to the item’s original craft DC + 5.
Repair Kaostech Device: Generally, a kaostechnician can repair an item by making checks against the DC required to originally make the item. The cost of repairing an item is one-fifth its price. Due to the unstable nature of kaostech, if the repair check fails, the kaostechnician completely destroys the item; no further attempts are possible.
Repairing a kaostech item requires a splash of raw chaos.
Modifiers – Determining Activation & Identification: Craft Kaostech checks made to determine the activation method of a kaostech device or identifying a kaostech device are made easier or more difficult depending on the kaostechnician’s familiarity with the item in question.
Extremely Chaotic: If the character is extremely chaotic or maybe even a little made (a determination made at the DM’s discretion) they gain a +2 bonus on their check.
Extremely Lawful: If the character is extremely lawful or logical (a determination made by the DM) they suffer a -2 penalty to their check.
Familiar with Similar Item: If the character has used or dealt with a kaostech item similar to the one currently being examined they gain a +4 bonus to their check.
Obvious Use: If the device’s use is straightforward or obvious (goggles, for example) the character gains a +10 bonus on their check to determine the item’s method of activation. (They do not, however, gain any bonus for identifying the item’s function.)
Unfamiliar with Kaostech: If the character is unfamiliar with kaostech or believes the item to be magical, they suffer a -4 penalty to their check.
Try Again: No, except for creating a new kaostech device (although a failure by 5 or more points results in losing half the raw materials from the attempt).
Special: In addition to their Intelligence modifier, a kaostechnician’s Wisdom modifier also applies to Craft Kaostech checks. However, you must invert the Wisdom modifier so that a bonus acts as a penalty and vice versa.
Example: A character with a -2 Wisdom penalty gains a +2 bonus on their Craft Kaostech checks. On the other hand, a character with a +3 Wisdom bonus suffers a -3 penalty on their Craft Kaostech checks.
To create, repair, or identify a kaostech device the kaostechnician must have the right tools. Outfitting a kaostech creation laboratory costs 10,000 gp. One suitable only for repairs and identification costs 1,000 gp.
Untrained: If you have no ranks in Craft Kaostech, you can make an Intelligence test modified by your inverted Wisdom modifier to determine the activation method of a kaostech device.
CHAOS SURGERY (Intelligence + Special) (Trained Only)
Check: A chaos surgeon can perform surgical procedures to implant intrinsic kaostech devices into the body of a living creature or replace portions of a living body with kaostech.
Attach Intrinsic Device: Each type of intrinsic device has its own Chaos Surgery DC and requires a specific amount of time to perform the procedure, as specified in the item’s description.
If the Chaos Surgery test is successful, the intrinsic kaostech device has been successfully grafted, implanted, or otherwise attached. The subject must enter a recovery period, the length of which is specified in the item’s description. During this time the subject requires complete bed rest. If the subject undertakes any strenuous activity or suffer any damage during the recovery period, they must make a Fortitude save with a DC equal to the original Chaos Surgery DC required to attach the device. If they fail the saving throw, the kaostech device fails and does not function.
If the Chaos Surgery test is failed, the intrinsic device automatically suffers chaotic failure (and has the standard 1 in 20 chance of suffering chaotic backlash or chaotic necrosis). In addition, the subject suffers 5d10 damage and 2d6 points of Constitution damage. The subject must still wait through the recovery period. If the subject undertakes any strenuous activity or suffers any damage during the recovery period, they must immediately make a Fortitude save (DC 15 + damage taken) or suffer 1d10 points of damage and 1 point of Constitution damage. (They do not need to make a second save as a result of damage taken from this failed saving throw.)
A chaos surgeon cannot attach an intrinsic device to themselves.
Treat Chaotic Necrosis: A chaos surgeon can revitalize a betrayal of the flesh that has suffered chaotic necrosis. This treatment requires 10 minutes, a successful Chaos Surgery check (DC 25), and materials worth 1/10th the original creation cost of the device.
Modifiers:
Distractions: If the chaos surgeon is distracted (by loud noises or nearby combat, for example) while using the Chaos Surgery skill, they suffer a -2 penalty to their check.
Filth Environment: Making a Chaos Surgery check in a non-hygienic environment imposes a -2 penalty to the check. (A filthy area may also force the subject to make a Fortitude save to resist disease, as the DM’s discretion.)
Try Again: Yes
Special: In addition to their Intelligence modifier, a chaos surgeon’s Wisdom modifier also applies to Chaos Surgery checks. However, you must invert the Wisdom modifier so that a bonus acts as a penalty and vice versa.
To make a Chaos Surgery check, the chaos surgeon must have the proper tools (a scalpel, grips, cutters, forceps, rags to soak up the blood, and so forth). This surgical kit costs 1,000 gp.
Untrained: Chaos Surgery cannot be used untrained.
As I mentioned in Part 6C: The Vault of the Alexandrian Remix of Dragon Heist, you can basically run the main vault at the end of the campaign unaltered: The PCs get the vault doors open, journey down to the lower level, find the golden dragon Aurinax hanging out down there disguised as a dwarf with the dragonstaff ofAhghairon, and then somehow get the gold from him.
In practice, there are a few problems with this:
Aurinax and his relationship with Lord Neverember is not previously established in the campaign. So at the very end of your epic story, the big conclusion hinges around this dude you’ve never heard of before. It’s very confusing and probably anticlimactic.
If the scene ends in a fight, the low level PCs will almost certainly be brutally murdered by the CR 17 dragon.
So the scene seems pretty heavily weighted towards social negotiation, but the way it’s designed makes this incredibly unlikely to succeed. (Multiple checks, with the designers actually telling the DM to ignore the rules to make failure more likely with stuff like “if even one character loses the contest, Aurinax senses that the group is lying to him.”)
So what you have is a confusing encounter which likely ends with the PCs either being forced to leave without the gold or being brutally murdered.
NEVEREMBER’S DRAGON
Spoilers: This is not how I ended my Dragon Heist campaign.
First, let’s identify what’s actually cool about this encounter:
A huge pile of gold. Not only are these inherently awesome, but this huge pile of gold has been literally the goal of the entire campaign.
Dragon fight. Dragons on top of golden hoards? Awesome. Dragon slaying? Epic.
This is largely all you need: Epic dragon fight. If you win, you claim the dragon’s hoard. Perfect note to end the campaign on.
What do we need for this to happen?
First, it shouldn’t be a gold dragon. Gold dragons are Lawful Good and explaining why one is down here guarding stolen gold inevitably leads to some sort of weird, convoluted continuity that the players aren’t going to care about at this point. (It’s the end of the adventure; it’s the time to be wrapping stuff up, not adding more back story.) It’s really easy to simplify this: There’s a red dragon. Neverember put the dragon here to guard his gold. How? I dunno. Dragon owed him a favor. He enslaved him with an artifact. It was a young dragon who just really wanted to sleep on a big pile of gold, and Neverember’s offer was irresistable.
Second, emphasize the big pile of gold. In the adventure as published, this is what the vault looks like:
Sort of a weird, complicated space with the gold tucked away in the back corner. Compare that to the epic painting of the dragon perched atop the hoard above! We don’t need all this distraction. Want a nice, simple dynamic here: Big pile of gold. Dragon.
So what I did was just have a large staircase leading down to the arched entrance of the lower vault. The vault itself was one big chamber with four pillars in the shape of dwarven hammers in the middle of the room (matching the architecture above). In the square space between these pillars was heaped the huge pile of gold.
When the PCs arrived, I had the dragon behind the pile of gold. This gives you TWO big moments:
Players see the gold and have a moment to really focus on and process that image.
Dragon crawls up over the top of the pile! Oh shit!
Third, it will probably be rewarding to reduce the chance of horrible death by not having the dragon pursue the PCs if they flee. If Neverember enslaved the dragon and bound it to the vault, then this takes care of itself. Smart PCs who feel overwhelmed by the dragon will now be able to retreat, regroup, and potentially call on the powerful allies they’ve made throughout the campaign (which would make this big finale fit thematically with the rest of the campaign).
(Tangent: If you wanted to, you could hypothesize that this is a modified orb of dragonkind or a similar artifact which is suspended from the roof the vault and keeps the dragon from leaving. PCs who intuit what’s happening could use that to find an alternative solution to the dragon problem. But it’s probably an unnecessary complication.)
REALITY CHECK – HOW BIG IS THAT PILE?! If you do the math, it turns out that 500,000 coins don’t actually make for that big a pile. If you’re being generous in your assumptions, it’s probably about the size of a big pile of leaves. And why is it all in one big pile in the first place?! Wouldn’t Neverember have his stolen hoard conveniently stored in coffers or bags or something? Why would he bring it all down here and then just pour it out on the floor?
First: Honestly, this is probably a place where you just need to care a little less. If the players do the math later and hit a fridge logic moment where they’re like, “Hey! That pile of gold shouldn’t have been that big!” it’s fine. It’s not going to detract from this big, awesome moment you had or the dragon fight that ensued.
Second: They’re in a big pile because dragons like sleeping on big piles of treasure. Stop kink-shaming. (If you want to add a bunch of leather satchels or coin coffers that have been ripped open by dragon claws and tossed in the back corner of the vault, that could be a cool touch, though.)
Third: Okay, you still care. Maybe the players have already done the math because they’ve been trying to figure out how they’re going to get all those gold coins out of the vault, so they’re already expecting a leaf pile of gold. Fair enough. Two things you can do:
Who said the whole hoard was made up strictly of gold coins? Add a bunch of silver and even more copper to bulk things up. The gold is a thin layer on top, because dragons like the feel of gold on their scales.
Look at that picture again. Notice the stone plinths sticking out from the corner of the hoard pile? Yup. Middle of the vault is actually a big stone pyramid and the dragon has piled all the gold and silver and copper on top of it, greatly increasing the perceived size of the pile. (Why? Dragons like big hoard piles. Again: Stop kink-shaming!)
Oh! Better yet, it’s actually a stone replica of Mt. Waterdeep. (If the PCs have been paying attention to the Dumathoin imagery throughout the rest of the vault, they might realize the Melairkyn dwarves have placed a huge sapphire worth 25,000 gold pieces in the center of this replica to echo the Heart of the Mountain. Up to them whether they desecrate the ancient holy place to dig it out. This can be a nice reward for groups that have ethically agreed to return the money to the city, however, because the sapphire wasn’t stolen from Waterdeep and the city has no claim to it.)
(Damn. That’s really cool. Wish I’d thought of this last night when I ran that final encounter.)
DESIGNING THE DRAGON
A brief digression on encounter design in 5th Edition.
With the remix of Dragon Heist I was worried, coming to 5th Edition for basically the first time, that the heists built around the villains’ lairs would be too fragile/difficult. This concern was primarily based on the number of times the book says any of the PCs going to these lairs will almost certainly die.
Not only was I taking stuff that was supposed to be too hard, I was also writing them up with adversary rosters so that the NPCs would dynamically respond to the PCs if the PCs were detected. Using this technique with encounters that are already extremely difficult can easily lead to TPKs, as I discussed long ago in Revisiting Encounter Design. (You can also read an example of this happening in actual play in my Playtest Report on Gamma World.) In actual practice, though, there was nothing to worry about for Dragon Heist: The NPCs rarely get a chance to respond dynamically because they’re generally dead before they can raise any sort of alarm.
For example, the books says that, “Lord and Lady Cassalanter are formidable spellcasters and devoted to one another. If one is assailed (…) the other arrives as quickly as possible. A direct confrontation with the Cassalanters will likely result in defeat for the characters…” But in practice the PCs can dish out so much damage that the “formidable” spellcasters will be dead before they can cast more than one spell.
In my game, for example, the PCs snuck up on Victoro, got a surprise round, and then all beat his initiative check. Two full rounds of unleashing damage on him and he was dead before he was able to take a single action.
This was not an isolated incident.
My experience with 5th Edition is still mostly limited to this single group, so it’s possible that my players are just really good. But the fact that I’m routinely seeing “Deadly” encounters (or stuff that’s even more difficult) getting curb-stomped by the PCs does leave me scratching my head on what effective encounter design actually looks like in this game. Because the point where the curb-stompings by PCs become mechanically unlikely seems to ALSO be the point where the bad guys have such outsized offensive capability that if the PC’s DON’T successfully curb-stomp them, they’re going to one-shot kill the PCs.
So right now it seems to have a real “choose your glass cannon” problem going on.
With that being said, my experience is still limited to a very specific campaign and I can already see that there are a number of other play dynamics that I need to actually run at the table. This notably includes:
Really huge mobs of bad guys. (These are comparatively rare in urban adventures like Dragon Heist.)
Long dungeon crawls or similar scenarios where long-term strategic play has a potential impact. (Also not really part of the Dragon Heist experience.)
Higher level adventuring. (With the remix, Dragon Heist tops out at 7th level.)
In any case, this influenced my design of the final encounter: I knew the dragon would be alone down there. But I wanted the encounter to be meaningful and challenging. It was, after all, the big finale of the campaign.
TARGET LEVEL: One other thing to discuss here is the expected level of the PCs for this finale. This is discussed elsewhere in my notes for my remix, but basically I have the PCs level up:
After Chapter 1 (when they rescue Floon).
After the Gralhund raid.
After each of the heists.
There are four available heists, although the PCs may only need to do three of them. So the PCs will either be 6th or 7th level going into the Vault. (In the case of my campaign, the PCs did all four heists, but we were on a race to the end and I forgot to have them level up. So they were 6th level heading into the Vault.)
THE DRAGON: The first thing I did was to just pull up the list of available dragons. I’d decided a classic, fire-breathing red was the way to go, so:
Ancient Red Dragon (CR 24)
Adult Red Dragon (CR 17)
Young Red Dragon (CR 10)
Red Dragon Wyrmling (CR 4)
The Ancient and Adult Red Dragons are obviously too deadly. If you want to build an encounter strictly by the book, then I might suggest throwing a pair of Red Dragon Wyrmlings in there. A double dragon fight sounds cool. (You might even bump it up to a triad of wyrmlings for larger 7th level parties.)
But what I really wanted was that really iconic dragon-on-its-hoard encounter. So I decided to grab the Young Red Dragon at CR 10.
However, I’d already seen my PCs mop the floor with “deadly” CR 10 encounters. (Victoro Cassalanter, for example, is a CR 10 opponent and they’d rolled right over the top of him.) Having the dragon go, “ROAR!” and then do nothing while they turned it into a thin, red paste felt like an anti-climactic way to wrap things up.
(If it happens, that’s fine. Awesome even. The players will probably love telling the story of how they blew a dragon away. I’m just not going to deliberately design it that way, since that would be the opposite of awesome.)
What I concluded was that the plausible solution to this problem was to give the dragon some legendary actions. Generally only much more powerful monsters are given legendary actions, but they almost instantly solve the problem of the bad guy not getting to do very much before being wiped out.
Long story short, this is the dragon I designed. Feel free to plug it into your Dragon Heist finales:
YOUNG RED DRAGON Large dragon, chaotic evil
Armor Class 18 (natural armor) Hit Points 178 (17d10+85) Speed 40 ft., climb 40 ft., fly 80 ft.
STR 23 (+6), DEX 10 (+0), CON 21 (+5), INT 14 (+2), WIS 11 (+0), CHA 19 (+4)
Saving Throws Dex +4, Con +9, Wis +4, Cha +8 Skills Perception +8, Stealth +4 Damage Immunities fire Senses blindsight 30 ft., darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 18 Languages Common, Draconic Challenge 10 (5,900 XP)
Multiattack.The dragon makes three attacks: one with its bite and two with its claws.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d10+6) piercing damage plus 3 (1d6) fire damage.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d6+6) slashing damage.
Fire Breath (Recharge 5-6). The dragon exhales fire in a 30-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw, taking 56 (16d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
LEGENDARY ACTIONS
The dragon gets 3 legendary actions. These actions can only be taken at the end of an opponent’s turn. They refresh at the end of the dragon’s turn.
Detect. Make a Wisdom (Perception) test.
Bite Attack. Make a bite attack.
Wing Attack (2 actions). Creatures within 10 ft. make DC 18 Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6+8 bludgeoning damage and are knocked prone. The dragon can then fly up to half its flying speed.
The cinematic technique of the montage is vaguely defined and multifaceted. In the French tradition “montage” refers to all editing. In Soviet montage theory, it is specifically the juxtaposition of non-sequential imagery in order to create specific meaning. The basic definition provided by Wikipedia, however, is, “A film editing technique in which a series of short shots are sequenced to condense space, time, and information.” It is in this sense that one has the “montage sequence” which is specifically designed to show the passage of time, and is what is most often referred to by the shorthand of “montage” in English.
FRAMING THE MONTAGE
The basics of a montage, therefore, can be understood as very hard cuts from one sequence of action to the next.
In The Art of Pacing, I discussed at length how we frame, fill, and close scenes. Creating a montage basically consists of framing very hard and very deep into a scene, spending the least amount of time necessary to address the agenda of that scene, and then aggressively cutting to the next scene (which is similarly framed very hard). This effectively creates a sequence of micro-scenes.
The trouble with doing this kind of hard scene framing as a GM is that it becomes increasingly difficult for the players to meaningfully contribute to what’s happening. (This is why, as I noted in The Art of Pacing, the harder the scene framing becomes, the more likely it is that a game or GM will introduce narrative control mechanics in order to return control back to the players.) For example, consider the famous baptismal montage from the end of The Godfather:
To get cuts that tight and that focused, it would seem as if the GM would basically just be saying, “Okay, cut from the church. We’re in your kitchen. You’re cleaning and assembling your gun. We cut back to the church.” There’s no breathing room for a back-and-forth conversation; no space for the players to propose an action.
When you get this tight, though, something interesting happens: The GM can actually invert the players’ part in the conversation of meaningful choices. Instead of framing the scene, the GM can instead prompt the players to frame each micro-scene.
This is the first secret of the RPG montage.
In this example the players have proposed simultaneously assassinating the other New York dons. Michael Corleone’s player, though, says, “I’ll need an alibi. What if we do it while I’m baptizing my kids?”
(“That’s fucking dark,” says Kay’s player. “I love it.”)
So the GM describes the baptism. And then, rather than framing to the next scene, the GM prompts one of the players:
GM: Rocco, how do you prepare for your murder?
Rocco: I’m in my kitchen, disassembling and reassembling my gun.
GM: Outside the window we can see your family relaxing on the beach. Your fingers shove pieces of metal together with the casual precision of familiarity. We cut to—Clemenza, what are you doing?
Clemenza: I’ve got my shotgun packed in a cardboard box. Looks like I’m delivering a package. I pause to polish a bit of dirt off my immaculately detailed car.
GM: Great. We cut back to the church, where the priest does the sign of the cross, gesturing with his hand as if using a cloth to wipe clean Michael’s sin. He grabs a few grains of salt and presses them to Anthony’s mouth. Anthony’s little hands reach up and touch his own chin. What about you Willie?
Willie: I’m getting a shave.
We finish that cycle of declarations and then the GM presents a second prompt by telling each of the players where their assassination is taking place:
GM: Don Barzini is working in his office building. What’s your plan, Al Neri?
Al Neri: Well, I’m dressed as a cop. Does Barzini leave his office at the same time every day?
GM: Sure. He comes out the front door and gets into his limo. Like clockwork.
Al Neri: Okay, then about five minutes before he’s due to leave, I’ll stroll up and tell the limo to move along.
GM: The driver refuses.
Al Neri: I’ll start writing him a ticket just as Barzini comes out of the building. That should distract him and his bodyguards.
And the GM, once again, goes around the table with this prompt and we get the second phase of the montage, with everyone setting up their attacks. The GM continues cutting back to the baptism. Maybe he’s pulled up the Catholic rite on his phone and is reading it out loud through the entire sequence. He reaches the point where the priest says, “Michael, do you renounce Satan?”
Then we hit the final phase of the montage: The GM calls for whatever action checks are necessary to resolve each murder (which in some cases might be attack rolls; in other cases it might be a Stealth or Deception test). It’s a montage, so the GM will probably want to keep these resolutions mechanically tight (rather than, for example, going into full-fledged combat rounds).
The GM’s on his game, so at the end of each murder he continues plugging in the renunciation of sin, pressuring Michael with the hypocrisy of his answers: “And all his works?” “And all his empty promises?” Maybe he calls for Kay to make an Insight check to see if she notices that something is wrong with Michael.
And that’s your basic structure of a mass assassination montage:
Prompt micro-scenes by requesting preparations for the murders
Declare the locations of the murder and prompt declaration of the murder
Resolve the murders
If any of the PCs aren’t directly contributing to the murders, see if you can frame them into a scene that contrasts or thematically comments on the murders and then cut back and forth between that scene and the rest of the montage. (But this isn’t strictly necessary. It’s okay if only some of the PCs are participating in a particular montage.)
This structure points us towards the second secret of the RPG montage: In order to be an effective montage, the micro-scenes which make up the montage must have an overarching agenda — a question that the montage as a whole is seeking to answer. (In this case, the question would be, “Is the Corleone family successful in taking out all of the other dons?”) Without that unifying agenda, the montage will lack focus and purpose. It will just be a bunch of random stuff thrown in a blender (and you’d probably be better off resolving the elements of the montage separately).
This specific structure probably has limited usefulness, though, because how often are your players going to propose simultaneous mass murder in multiple locations?
(Don’t answer that.)
RUNNING THE INVESTIGATIVE MONTAGE
One response to this could be a GM-led montage. Here the GM basically uses the same technique, but instead of waiting for the players to say something like, “We’re going to try to murder all the dons simultaneously,” the GM initiates the montage by saying, “Okay, at this point you’re going to murder all the dons simultaneously.”
Of course, a GM-led montage doesn’t sound like the right decision in this case. The decision to murder a lot of people is obviously a really meaningful choice and skipping past that choice (effectively taking that choice away from the players and making it for them) is almost certainly problematic and very disruptive to the conversation of meaningful choices which is the fundamental principle of the RPG medium.
(In a storytelling game, your mileage might vary depending on how the narrative control mechanics are set up.)
This doesn’t, however, mean that GM-led montages are never a good idea in RPGs. A common counterexample is the investigative montage, the point in a detective story where there’s a bunch of different leads and legwork to pursue, so we get a montage of the heroes splitting up, investigating the shit out of it, and then coming back together with the insights and conclusions that drive us forward into the next chunk of plot. A GM-led montage (“Okay! It’s time to split up and do the legwork! Farida, how are you working the case?”) can work here because the context has already established that the PCs want to solve the mystery being investigated. The GM is pushing a structure for resolving that desire (and framing hard to do it), but he’s not taking the meaningful choice (“let’s investigate this mystery”) away from the players.
I actually spent a non-trivial amount of time trying to find the perfect cinematic or literary exemplar of an investigative montage for us to work from here, but I have been unsuccessful. (Even as I write this, the back of my brain is trying to sidetrack me by saying, “Wait! What about Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I bet we can track down a scene like this with the Scooby Gang! Let’s go spend the next twelve hours trolling through the DVDs!”)
It’s possible that this is a, “Beam me up, Scotty!” moment, where I’m convinced that scenes like this exist in film or television, but they really don’t. I suspect, though, that the reason I can’t find the exact scene haunting the corner of my mind’s eye is because most detective stories in other mediums feature a sole protagonist, so the typical investigative montage just features one guy doing a bunch of stuff in quick succession. But by the time I started looking for an example of this to reconstruct, the concept had already transmogrified itself in my mind into the group context of an RPG scenario.
Long story short: I’m not going to worry about it. I’m guessing you probably already know the type of scene I’m talking about, and if you don’t, then you’ll still find investigative montages useful.
The first thing you’ll want for an investigative montage is a list of montage revelations. This basically works exactly like the revelation list you create when using the Three Clue Rule, except that you’re not going to prep specific clues for each revelation. You’re just listing the things the PCs need to learn. These revelations should generally be leads (pointing towards more fully developed scenes) and there should be several of them (one for every two PCs seems to be a good amount). For example:
One of the victims of the White Lotus assassins survived the attack. Her name is Lisa Cardo and she’s recuperating in a room at Elkhart General Hospital.
The albino with the Solomonic tattoos the PCs spotted earlier is Vincent Estadio, a personal assistant to the Spanish ambassador.
There’s an arms dealer named Dogmull who’s rumored to supply the White Lotus with their poisoned darts.
The investigative montage is then resolved in three steps:
Each player chooses a line of investigation
Each line of investigation is resolved (probably with a single action check)
The GM uses the context of the PCs’ investigations to provide the montage revelations
The actual methods of investigation chosen by the players don’t specifically matter, as long as they’re logically things that a cop or private detective would do to turn up fresh leads. (This is basically a version of permissive clue-finding on methamphetamines, right?) Examples might include:
Checking the casefile.
Trying to track down that albino they saw earlier.
Roughing up local crooks to make them spill information
Analyzing samples of the White Lotus poison in the crime lab
Putting surveillance on known associates of the White Lotus
Talking to an old friend or other local contact
For each successful line of investigation, choose one of the montage revelations and then present a fast-paced, hard-hitting sequence that provides it. For example, the lab technician analyzes the White Lotus poison, recognizes a combination of rare chemicals and checks shipping records that indicate a suspected arms dealer named Dogmull has been importing the chemicals.
(You can either just cut away from failed lines of investigation, or maybe inflict some kind of consequence or complication from them. These can be mixed freely into the montage of the other results.)
If you have more successful lines of investigation then there are montage revelations, find ways to either split the revelation into separate parts which can be split up across multiple PCs and/or sequenced so that one PC’s investigation enables another’s. (If you just repeat the same revelation for multiple players, it’s disappointing and anti-climactic for the second player who gets the result.)
For example, the PC checking the casefile might see that there’s a victim named Lisa Cardo who survived the attack but has since vanished. Meanwhile, one of the local thugs being roughed up by another PC tells them that he heard a rumor the Lotus were going to axe a witness who’s being cared for over at Elkhart. (This is one revelation being split into separate parts that are discovered independently.)
Or: The lab technician analyzes the White Lotus poison and recognizes the rare chemicals. She sends out a text to the team, which another PC receives in the middle of questioning their local contact. They ask their contact about the chemicals, and he identifies Dogmull. (The lab technician’s discovery of the first part of the revelation enables the other PC’s investigation to complete the revelation.)
I recommend resolving all of the lines of investigation and THEN contextualizing the results. Among other things, this will make it easier to figure how to pace/structure the revelations.
SCALE OF THE MONTAGE
You can use this same basic technique at different scales. For example, you could use an investigative montage to either hunt Carmen Sandiego across an entire globe or run a CSI crew investigating a single crime scene.
At the smallest scales, you may discover that this becomes virtually indistinguishable from how you were previously resolving such scenes (asking each player what their character is doing, resolving those actions, synthesizing the narrative result, etc.). This can be a valuable insight for how you can set up and frame montages at larger scales.
You can also flip this around yet again for those situations where all the players want to jump in and have their character participate in a Search check. Rather than just letting them all roll their dice and taking the best result, slip into a montage technique and ask them to specify what distinct thing each of them is doing to contribute to the search. (Or, if they just roll reflexively, you can simply assume they’ve divided the task in your descriptions of the search’s outcome.) Rulings in Practice: Perception-Type Tests has a broader discussion of related techniques you might find useful here.
These, of course, are just two types of montages out of many. But I suspect the basic techniques of the RPG montage to remain fairly consistent to the principles we’ve established here. We’ll probably come back later and explore a few more varieties as part of the scenario structure challenge, too.
