Post by Tesla Ranger on Jun 19, 2015 15:58:18 GMT
A long time ago, in a setting far, far way I managed to truly, gloriously traumatize my players. I'd only been DMing for a few months at that point and the party was on an adventure to free a man from a prison. One the character's had a father who'd been imprisoned for a very Les Miserable sort of situation (which was amusing since I wasn't familiar with the production at that point) and they'd gotten word that he was going to be executed. Not personally, but executed as part of a block of prisoners really just because the prison was running out of space. The whole party mounted a rescue attempt and some mistakes were made (some of them mine). They did rescue Dear Dad but they wound up demolishing the prison and half the armory, killing four guards, significantly wounding a whole lot more, and the Sheriff saw them doing it. To make matters worse, the Sheriff survived and the party had timed their attempt to coincide with a revolt/uprising so they got lumped in with that. Naturally, there were some consequences...
The party fled the city and thought they'd left all that behind for a fair while. A couple weeks (in-game at least) later they were resting in an inn and they wake up to find this Van Hellsing-ish character sitting in their room. He politely explained that his name was Gunnolf and he was talking them back to Dale. They protested, with swords, but wound up in his cart rolling down the highway towards Dale anyway. They (the characters) grumbled about their bad luck and the druid shapeshifted into a bird to fly out of the cage. The bounty hunter didn't do anything to stop her and all she could really do was fly around and crap on his hat (which is still a running gag).
A day or two down the road, a Young Adult White Dragon just happened to land near the road and attack them. This wasn't as random as it appeared at the time but the party didn't find out why for quite awhile. In either case, Gunnolf had to let them out of the cage to help him fight off the Dragon. He essentially tanked the thing while they helped out and then the dragon fell on him when it died. The party had the option to kill him, help him, or leave him. They choose the latter.
Flip to a fair bit later on down the road and they're practically on the other end of the continent. They're dealing with a group of, essentially, refugee beast folk and Gunnolf rides up yet again. The party threw everything they could at him but he still reels them in and tosses him in his case. Most of us can still remember the events of that encounter, right down to one of the characters abandoning everyone else and trying to ride off to make his own escape. Gunnolf just shot the horse out from under him before he could get terribly far. This time he even clapped the druid in iron manacles, robbing her of her druid powers (which I still hear about). He never had the opportunity to get on the road though since a "greater power" intervened. The party could just watch while Gunnolf tried fighting off this thing much larger than he was. It was a cinematic fight that I'd rolled out ahead of time so I could just read off my notes to describe the fight to them, which made it pretty cool. Gunnolf had a kooky arsenal and he finally got to use it on something for that fight. He wound up being overwhelmed (by numbers more than anything else) and the big critters picked up the cage with the party in it and ran off with it.
That campaign stopped just shy of Gunnolf's third (and probably final appearance) but Gunnolf's proved to be a pretty memorable NPC. Mechanically he was a Ranger/Bloodhound who specialized in tracking down and capturing adventurers. As such he had a variety of homebrew devices that he used to keep an edge over his bounties. It also didn't hurt that he started out 5 levels above the party and continued to gain xp at the same rate they did. In that last fight I think the party were level 8 or 9 and Gunnolf was 13 or so.
* Rod of Rope - I don't have the exact mechanics for this but it was essentially a rod that emitted a "prehensile" rope. Gunnolf could point it at things, the rope would shoot out and wrap around whatever, and then he could press a button to retract the thing, pulling the target to him (or him to the target).
* Goggles of True Sight - I don't remember the exact details but I don't think it was exactly True Sight. The goggles let him see through concealment and mystical illusions. In combination with his Bloodhound abilities it was basically true sight. This only came in handy when the Druid cast Obscurring Mist and wound up hindering the party more than Gunnolf.
* Pistols - I'd included firearms as a technology in another nation and Gunnolf happened to have one of them. In this setting the ammo could be either mundane or it could be enchanted to deliver spell effects (which was a trick I copied later for an Artificer character). Bullets of Fireball pack a pretty good whallop.
* Neutralizer - I don't think Gunnolf -ever- used this but it erected an Anti Magic field around him. That would reduce any fight down to basic melee but I didn't want to have to jumble the math so it was it was more of a last resort.
All of this combined meant that while Gunnolf was technically beat-able it would've been practically impossible for the party to take him out. And they knew it. Even today if I mention Gunnolf I get groans and "No no no no"s going around the table. I suspect he's a big part of why they've been a might more law-abiding than they used to be. In hindsight I probably violated a few of the "DM Don't"s with how Gunnolf was built and introduced, but I'm glad I did. I'm just waiting for an opportunity to open up so he can cameo in our current campaign, maybe even as an ally. The idea of a bounty hunter that specializes in adventurers seems to me like something that would have to exist in any setting where adventurers are running rampant. And in that context, such an NPC, to my mind, should be nigh invincible as the functional "long arm" of the law. Otherwise the usual grade of NPC law enforcement really won't be enough to give the adventurers a second thought about breaking the law.
The party fled the city and thought they'd left all that behind for a fair while. A couple weeks (in-game at least) later they were resting in an inn and they wake up to find this Van Hellsing-ish character sitting in their room. He politely explained that his name was Gunnolf and he was talking them back to Dale. They protested, with swords, but wound up in his cart rolling down the highway towards Dale anyway. They (the characters) grumbled about their bad luck and the druid shapeshifted into a bird to fly out of the cage. The bounty hunter didn't do anything to stop her and all she could really do was fly around and crap on his hat (which is still a running gag).
A day or two down the road, a Young Adult White Dragon just happened to land near the road and attack them. This wasn't as random as it appeared at the time but the party didn't find out why for quite awhile. In either case, Gunnolf had to let them out of the cage to help him fight off the Dragon. He essentially tanked the thing while they helped out and then the dragon fell on him when it died. The party had the option to kill him, help him, or leave him. They choose the latter.
Flip to a fair bit later on down the road and they're practically on the other end of the continent. They're dealing with a group of, essentially, refugee beast folk and Gunnolf rides up yet again. The party threw everything they could at him but he still reels them in and tosses him in his case. Most of us can still remember the events of that encounter, right down to one of the characters abandoning everyone else and trying to ride off to make his own escape. Gunnolf just shot the horse out from under him before he could get terribly far. This time he even clapped the druid in iron manacles, robbing her of her druid powers (which I still hear about). He never had the opportunity to get on the road though since a "greater power" intervened. The party could just watch while Gunnolf tried fighting off this thing much larger than he was. It was a cinematic fight that I'd rolled out ahead of time so I could just read off my notes to describe the fight to them, which made it pretty cool. Gunnolf had a kooky arsenal and he finally got to use it on something for that fight. He wound up being overwhelmed (by numbers more than anything else) and the big critters picked up the cage with the party in it and ran off with it.
That campaign stopped just shy of Gunnolf's third (and probably final appearance) but Gunnolf's proved to be a pretty memorable NPC. Mechanically he was a Ranger/Bloodhound who specialized in tracking down and capturing adventurers. As such he had a variety of homebrew devices that he used to keep an edge over his bounties. It also didn't hurt that he started out 5 levels above the party and continued to gain xp at the same rate they did. In that last fight I think the party were level 8 or 9 and Gunnolf was 13 or so.
* Rod of Rope - I don't have the exact mechanics for this but it was essentially a rod that emitted a "prehensile" rope. Gunnolf could point it at things, the rope would shoot out and wrap around whatever, and then he could press a button to retract the thing, pulling the target to him (or him to the target).
* Goggles of True Sight - I don't remember the exact details but I don't think it was exactly True Sight. The goggles let him see through concealment and mystical illusions. In combination with his Bloodhound abilities it was basically true sight. This only came in handy when the Druid cast Obscurring Mist and wound up hindering the party more than Gunnolf.
* Pistols - I'd included firearms as a technology in another nation and Gunnolf happened to have one of them. In this setting the ammo could be either mundane or it could be enchanted to deliver spell effects (which was a trick I copied later for an Artificer character). Bullets of Fireball pack a pretty good whallop.
* Neutralizer - I don't think Gunnolf -ever- used this but it erected an Anti Magic field around him. That would reduce any fight down to basic melee but I didn't want to have to jumble the math so it was it was more of a last resort.
All of this combined meant that while Gunnolf was technically beat-able it would've been practically impossible for the party to take him out. And they knew it. Even today if I mention Gunnolf I get groans and "No no no no"s going around the table. I suspect he's a big part of why they've been a might more law-abiding than they used to be. In hindsight I probably violated a few of the "DM Don't"s with how Gunnolf was built and introduced, but I'm glad I did. I'm just waiting for an opportunity to open up so he can cameo in our current campaign, maybe even as an ally. The idea of a bounty hunter that specializes in adventurers seems to me like something that would have to exist in any setting where adventurers are running rampant. And in that context, such an NPC, to my mind, should be nigh invincible as the functional "long arm" of the law. Otherwise the usual grade of NPC law enforcement really won't be enough to give the adventurers a second thought about breaking the law.
