D&D Plants vs Zombies part 5

[There's part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4]

This is the final encounter of my D&D Plants vs Zombies game. It was dinner time at this point, and one of the players had to leave (the 2 scimitar wielding half orc ranger). The first 2 encounters took the better part of 3 hours to complete. So I wanted the last encounter to be shorter. I didn’t really make anything absurd, or have a grand battle happening. It was to finish up the story, so I just made sure there was some break in terrain monotony, and that the monsters weren’t completely unchallenging…

This is the map:

The pink coloured squares denote the deployment area. Brown coloured squares are slopes, and are difficult terrain going in the direction of the arrow, but normal movement when going otherwise (taking a leaf from a DM friend in the whirlwind encounter). Green coloured squares denote the cave entrance leading into the secret hideout of the druids (Fillian is a druid, remember?). Blue coloured squares denote moving water, flowing in the direction of the arrow (actually it wasn’t originally planned to be moving… read on to find out).

Legend:

• Sun – Sunflowers
• 3P – Threepeashooter. It’s the Peashooter, but able to shoot 3 peas at once.
• Mel – Melon plant.
• Umb – Umbrella plant
• RIP / HRIP – tombstone. I can’t remember what HRIP is… I think it was “hyper”, as in “I’m gonna spawn zombies like crazy” hyper.
• Cor – corruption corpse
• ZH – zombie hulk
• Alt – altar
• Ari – Arianna (Fillian’s sister, yay!)
• Fil – Fillian

A golden green haze hovers around the cave entrance. Near the entrance, is an altar. And a robed and hooded figure. The figure raises a delicate hand, and starts tapping on the altar. Tap, tap, tap… and starts singing in a female voice.

And here, I actually sung the ending credit song of Plants vs Zombies (the things I do as a storyteller DM…)

There are zombies on the lawn. There are zombies on the lawn.
There are zombies on the lawn. We don’t want zombies on the lawn.
HUH?!

No, the song don’t have the “HUH?!” part. That’s because Arianna saw Fillian and was surprised.

The figure brushes back the hood, revealing a young female. She shakes her head, fingers on her temples.

“Arianna?”

“Fillian? No Fillian! Run! Ruu… argh” *fade to deep throated evil laughter*

“Mahaha… Muahahaha… You have returned, little boy. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Arianna grabs something from the altar, and flicks it at Fillian. Something purplish black flies through the air. Fillian gives a cry and falls, a dart over his heart, with a purplish black glow surrounding him.

Yes, I really did a simulation of pain and agony, then changed my moan to a groan then to a deep throated evil laughter (I should’ve won an Oscar or something for that performance). I practised dozens of times at home on this voice/tone change just so I could pull it off at the game. And it was done in a public place. Luckily, I was facing the wall, so I didn’t know if anyone in passing found it strange that a grown man was writhing in pain one second, and then shoulders heaving in evil laughter the next.

The dart over Fillian’s heart started a skill challenge. I used 3 red crystals to signify the severity of Fillian’s injury. Any power that grants a healing surge to Fillian removes 1 red crystal. But I ruled that the healing surge thing could only be done 1 more time (because Fillian doesn’t have the constitution to be healed this way).

However,

You noticed that the sunflowers seemed to react to Fillian’s injury

I should’ve written this down. I think I set that 2 sunlight crystals would remove 1 red crystal.

Getting Fillian back on his feet would allow him to distract Arianna. My story goes that Arianna was possessed by an evil being (never mind what, I didn’t plan that far ahead…). Before this, Fillian said Arianna was better than him at druidic magic, and was studying life. This suggests that Arianna was an intelligent woman. The unusual singing at the start of the encounter suggests she’s not really in her right mind. The sudden realisation that Fillian was there shook Arianna enough out of her stupor to utter a warning, before the evil being regained control of her mind.

Yes, that’s a lot of story plot with just a few lines of dialogue and actions. I’m not sure if any of my players appreciated it… oh well…

Having Fillian to distract Arianna would allow me to shortcut the encounter. Because Arianna was to spawn another zombie hulk after she’s defeated (I planned that Arianna changed into one, but changed my mind when playing).

BUT. My players didn’t seem to care about saving Fillian… except the ardent. He asked if anyone wants to take a look at Fillian. Nobody cared. So change of plans, I made evil-being-possesed-Arianna come down and let loose another purplish black dart at Fillian, increasing the number of red crystals.

They started worrying. Muahahaha…

The paladin was standing so close to the rear because he’s almost out of healing surges. He had one left, and he’s saving it for one final devastating amazing attack. So he’s using the ice crystal (obtained from the dark tunnel cave encounter from before) to activate a melon to upgrade it to a winter melon. And he’s using the winter melon to launch area attacks at the zombie minions.

I ruled that the melon plant attack is area burst 1, ranged 10, +12 vs. Reflex, 2d6 damage, slow if chilled (hahaha… meaning the ice crystal was used to upgrade it), and immobilised if critical when chilled.

The zombie hulk went down fairly quickly. As did the corruption corpses (they did more damage when they “died” because they explode). I also made the tombstones spawn zombie minions (2 hit minions, in fact) like there’s no tomorrow. That really worried the players, because the wizard’s Flaming Sphere could only take out so many minions at once. The rogue helped with his flame arrows, the paladin used the winter melon, and the warden went after the tombstones.

It was somewhere around this time that a zombie splashed into the waters.

“Is there a current?” asked the wizard.

A light bulb lit somewhere in the back of my head, and I said yes. And at the start of the zombie’s turn, I moved it 1 square to the right of the map. I should get a prize for winging so many things in this session…

And I also made a mistake. Arianna’s stats were modelled after a monster called Crathlorth. The furthest that this worthless excuse of a controller leader could target was 5 squares. 5 SQUARES! Arianna was so far up, how was I going to hit anyone? So I made up a standard action for her, where she could add 2 purple crystals to a tombstone (thereby strengthening it).

It fit the flavour of the story and no one knew what I was planning anyway… including me… *smile* On hindsight, I could’ve made her attacks be ranged up to 10 squares. Oh well…

When Arianna finally moved far enough down and splashed into the waters, the paladin made his move.

The paladin defeated Arianna, and I sprung a tougher zombie hulk into the waters. The paladin was like “Oh #*&!” and then went into masochistic mode. “Come and get me!”

So I did.

Never did I imagine that my bloodthirsty, masochistic, nipple-loving paladin would want to actually and truly KILL my beloved and completely innocent Arianna. After he declared that he’s going to attack the already defeated Arianna, I said she’s just crawling slowly away. Luckily, that curbed my bloodthirsty friend’s impulse…

And that Fillian was calling out to Arianna…

The giant zombie hulk was finally brought down… and there were 2 zombie minions left. I laughed and ruled that the encounter was over. Those 2 zombies were tough! Or lucky.

After the battle, the golden green haze disappears, and a group of druids came out of the cave. One of them brushed back his hood, and you see a wizened face creased with age.

“I want to thank you for vanquishing the evil being. I know of its presence ever since I found the relic” *the druid gives a fleeting glance at Fillian*” and took it here for safety. We are much indebted to you.”

“If you please, we will be honoured to accompany you to Greenheart, where the Great Druid Oalian is certain to want to meet you.”

My story had Fillian being the receptacle of a relic, or is a living relic. That’s why the druids were willing to sacrifice themselves protecting Fillian. And that’s a wrap.

Ending thoughts

It was a one-shot game, so I didn’t want too strong an emotional tie to the NPCs I created. I like the idea of druids (Allanon from the Shannara series, and general protectors of Nature). So I chose the typical bumbling fool of a hero who happened to be the crux of the whole story. My story, that is, but it’s not to interfere with making the players feel awesome.

“What if your players didn’t save Fillian? What if they still went after Arianna?”

Well, my NPCs would die. For this one-shot game, there’s no advantage granted if they saved Fillian in the last encounter. Nor if they completely killed off Arianna.

However, if I do continue the story, then everything changes. The real “damage” is to my players’ morals, to their worldview, to their principles. If they had truly existed in that world I created, would they really do what they did? Would they save Fillian? Would they kill Arianna?

Would they care?

Oh, and nobody used the threepeashooter…