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The air elemental on the bridge outside the castle in the second module SLAUGHTERED our party. How is anyone supposed to not get killed by this thing?
It flies in from total cover, bull rushes a character off the bridge, then flies behind total cover--or worse, it turns into a tornado, sucks everyone up, moves off the bridge, and drops them into the river 200 feet below to their certain doom!
We couldn't hit his normal AC OR his touch AC and finally resorted to our measly 3d4+3 magic missiles. The party archer/inquisitor and druid couldn't do anything due to its DR.
Once the air elemental determined that only the party spellcasters (the magus and wizard, lesser extent the druid) were able to hurt it, it quickly tossed us off the bridge, and even with feather fall, the air elemental would just suck us up, take the run action to fly straight up 1,000 feet, then drop us. By the time feather fall ran out, we were still so high up that we would die anyways.
I honestly don't see how someone could survive this encounter.
My wizard and the magus were beaten to a pulp in the tornado than tossed down to our deaths while unconscious. The inquisitor and druid fled in terror. Luckily the monster didn't pursue.
What the heck were the encounter writers thinking? This is a TPK waiting to happen for most groups.
It almost killed my party also. It is a hard encounter, but not a TPK. Had everyone been optimized it would not have been that hard. There is a later fight nearby that is more difficult, IMHO.
My players were level 6, and they had a little better than a 50% chance to hit it, IIRC. That is without buffs. The idea to fly up 1000 feet and then drop the party is something I did not think of though. It is tactically should, but still a rough tactics for a level 6 party.
I guess had I gone into "lethal GM" mode my party would have been in trouble also, mostly because of the way treasure is done in CC. Normally they get one or two fly potions by that time*. I don't think anyone had them that time.
Personally I feel like if the GM is going to run the game like that then he should replace those consumables(an experiment by Paizo) with more traditional loot and gp.
The party consisted of a magus, priest(3rd party, weak class IMHO), paladin, monk/rogue, and barbarian.
The magus did decent damage. The barbarian hit really hard. The monk/rogue might as well had stayed home, but that is more an issue with that player's build. The paladin was having a bad dice day.
*As for the fly thing only the player(s) with a high ACP normally bother with it at lower levels so they can quickly deal with climbing if it comes up, and they don't have time to actually climb. In this party, nobody other than the monk really invested in climbing so they all would have had the potion otherwise,
Wraithstrike, how did any of your group's melee characters hit at all, between the air elemental's 15-foot reach and flyby attack?
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My party had the good luck of having two arcane full casters in the group, with the Wizard being well prepared. That solved most of the problem. Also a Gunslinger, who did most of the damage to the thing and had a good enough reflex save to avoid being picked up by the Whirlwind. Which, btw., only has a 5 foot base, so it can pick up only one person per round.
But, yes, it's a tough encounter. There will be a tougher one up very shortly.
Wraithstrike, how did any of your group's melee characters hit at all, between the air elemental's 15-foot reach and flyby attack?
The barbarian was enlarged, and had lunge. IIRC they went back the other way to the towers. I think only the pally, and the barbarian were exposed. The priest and paladin kept healing the barbarian at first. I played up the elementals lack of intelligence and frustration to get it to be with pally attack range. IIRC the he went after the priest also, and that may also have put him into attack range. Yeah I played him down, but had CC given out normal wealth they would have beaten him anyway.
-------------------------------------------------------------------More than likely the priest would have been thrown in the water. I would assume it would think it was some type of caster since it had light are armor and no weapon in hand. The others would have retreated off the bridge. The priest had the copycat ability so that should let it avoid one attack while it used the run action to get back to the party once it got back on the bridge. The paladin might have drowned due to his full plate, which he almost did later in the game, but if the elemental did not think to throw him in the water he keeps the barbarian up with lay on hands.
Fly-by attack would have forced him to choose between the barbarian or the pally so he more than likely would have full attacked which is what I did do in the actual game. The barbarian did roll really well, and had a high constitution. He had around 80 hit points. The most dangerous thing to me was the possibility of drowning for the paladin, and the priest low AC and HP. The magus was using spells to hurt it, but it would not have been the first target until the barbarian died.
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edit:I just remembered they did not kill it. The duration for the spell ran out. At the point though it was a really close fight.
Also a Gunslinger, who did most of the damage to the thing and had a good enough reflex save to avoid being picked up by the Whirlwind. Which, btw., only has a 5 foot base, so it can pick up only one person per round.
I had it pick up more than one per round by moving through their spaces.
Another creature might be caught in the whirlwind if it touches or enters the whirlwind, or if the whirlwind moves into or through a creature's space.
Did I do it wrong?
What I wasn't sure about are if non-flyers can even attempt to escape the whirlwind.
Hm, you probably did it right. I'm not too keen as a GM to TPK my party and it still would have outright killed two plate wearing PC's by dropping them in the river, if the party Wizard wouldn't have been very impressively on his toes that day.
Not sure if RD's GM hates his players or the campaign. ;)
IIRC the door to the house was locked. I would have to check my book to be sure. I doubt the party would have fought in those situations if another choice was given.
Locked and trapped. ^^
I think someone said the key to the house door was on the construct dog guardian--that my wizard bull rushed off the bridge with true strike...
Druid tried to warn me, but apparently I couldn't hear him over the roaring waterfall.
The air elemental appeared between us and the guard house, so we couldn't effectively go back the way we came.
While stuck in the whirlwind I told the GM that I would use my Shift ability to teleport out, but he ruled that I couldn't because I didn't have line of sight out of the whirlwind. I asked him if it was a funnel with an open top and bottom, he said yes. I asked him if I had line of sight through said openings, he said yes, but that my 15-fot range teleport would only take me to the edge of the whirlwind and would not allow me to escape.
So maybe the GM does hate us, or the campaign.
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You're not really supposed to fight it.
If you do accidentally end up tripping it, run away as fast as you can and wait for it to dissipate.
I gave my players an alternate way around it, since they would certainly have had no chance against it (three PCs, Monk, Witch, and Rogue).
You know, by the number of people who have died to this encounter, I think not many people understood the way around it.
Also, there's no key on the golem dog. ^^
My party avoided the bridge entirely due to the golem dog. If you look there is a balcony on the second floor of the manor (g11a) with a door into a bedroom. Party Druid shape changed into a tiger and after getting fly from alchemist then ferried everyone across. They did double back and open the door from the other side to fight the dog and ended up fighting the elemental as well, but being indoors negated the environmental danger for the most part.
That golem dog surely elicited some pretty unreasonable fears, it seems. It was quite a pushover, especially since groups probably had encountered one before and so should have known the correct tactics to deal with it.
My party avoided the bridge entirely due to the golem dog. If you look there is a balcony on the second floor of the manor (g11a) with a door into a bedroom. Party Druid shape changed into a tiger and after getting fly from alchemist then ferried everyone across. They did double back and open the door from the other side to fight the dog and ended up fighting the elemental as well, but being indoors negated the environmental danger for the most part.
Love it. Not sure if I can count on my PCs thinking so far outside the box...
That golem dog surely elicited some pretty unreasonable fears, it seems. It was quite a pushover, especially since groups probably had encountered one before and so should have known the correct tactics to deal with it.
Yeah I think the picture I showed them of the dog had them a bit wary of it. They avoided the one outside the Chymic works as well.
If you have a rogue, you can of course disarm the trap. It's only DC31 to spot, which means you only need a +11 perception to find it* - very easy. The disarm roll is a bit harder, but very do-able at this level.
(* assuming you take-20 on doors that are highly suspicious for traps, which this one surely counts as).
I think someone said the key to the house door was on the construct dog guardian--that my wizard bull rushed off the bridge with true strike...
Druid tried to warn me, but apparently I couldn't hear him over the roaring waterfall.
The air elemental appeared between us and the guard house, so we couldn't effectively go back the way we came.
While stuck in the whirlwind I told the GM that I would use my Shift ability to teleport out, but he ruled that I couldn't because I didn't have line of sight out of the whirlwind. I asked him if it was a funnel with an open top and bottom, he said yes. I asked him if I had line of sight through said openings, he said yes, but that my 15-fot range teleport would only take me to the edge of the whirlwind and would not allow me to escape.
So maybe the GM does hate us, or the campaign.
You don't need line of sight, only line of effect. As long as you can visualise the area it should not have been an issue. IIRC the whirlwind is only as big as the monster so teleporting out should have been feasible. I think the GM was going out of his way to be difficult.
You don't need line of sight, only line of effect. As long as you can visualise the area it should not have been an issue. IIRC the whirlwind is only as big as the monster so teleporting out should have been feasible. I think the GM was going out of his way to be difficult.
Yeah, I think the same. I wouldn't expect this campaign to continue for long, if the GM is being this difficult. Unless you like Turin the Mads campaign style, where players just asssign a new number to their next PC after getting killed off again. ;)
And it's a shame. As far as AP's go, Carrion Crown definitely is one of the best ones, IMHO.
I have run Turin or Allen(Killer GM) style games before, but I often leave it up to the group if they want to play a game like that. It seems RD is not enjoying it though. If the group is not happy he should definitely dial it back some.
I do need to find out where RD is. He seems to have an abundance of groups to play with. I am in the middle of nowhere, and I am struggling to field a group.
My party wizard rolled in and cast dispel magic on it mid-way through the first round.
Done and done.
even with feather fall, the air elemental would just suck us up, take the run action to fly straight up 1,000 feet, then drop us. By the time feather fall ran out, we were still so high up that we would die anyways.
You were falling, got feather fall, and it intercepted and ran you into the air to counter it?
That's just absurd tactics from an Int 6 creature. It's like having a sabertooth tiger get in a fight with an archer for three rounds until the archer draws an animal-slaying arrow and then it starts trying to disarm him.
"run action to fly straight up 1,000 feet"
Run action = 4x speed in a straight line
Fly the spell states "It can ascend at half speed and descend at double speed" which means that flying creatures follow similar rules.
It can fly 200ft in one round as a run, so 5 rounds to fly straight up.
"Whirlwind (Su) Some creatures can transform
themselves into whirlwinds and remain in that form for
up to 1 round for every 2 HD they have."
10HD Huge air elemental = 5 rounds of whirlwind per use, so that's legal-ish. It can max out at 800ft.
That's all I can really contribute. :P
You don't need line of sight, only line of effect. As long as you can visualise the area it should not have been an issue. IIRC the whirlwind is only as big as the monster so teleporting out should have been feasible. I think the GM was going out of his way to be difficult.Yeah, I think the same. I wouldn't expect this campaign to continue for long, if the GM is being this difficult. Unless you like Turin the Mads campaign style, where players just asssign a new number to their next PC after getting killed off again. ;)
And it's a shame. As far as AP's go, Carrion Crown definitely is one of the best ones, IMHO.
So the Dm is being Passive-Agressive in ending things instead of saying 'I don't enjoy this anymore'?
Ask the DM right out if he wants to just end things. Better for things to stop before people get really riled and not game anymore with that DM.
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Remember that Air Elementals have an Int of 4. FOUR.
They are NOT tacticians. They see stuff, they fly at it and do crap, none of this systematic feather-fall attrition.
With solid melee fighters and good casters, it's a very dangerous but doable fight.
When the PCs walk across that bridge, they accept that if crap happens, they will be on a rail-less piece of stone high in the air, and if they dont' take precautions, they are accepting their fate.
Summary: Air Elementals are stupid and don't really have tactics. You are free to have them do stupid things so that the party can maximize damage output while it still poses a threat.
A note on spoilers: You don't need to use spoiler tags since there is a clear and visible warning in the thread title. That being said, please don't mention anything inside the castle or beyond, as my group has not yet played beyond that point.
You don't need line of sight, only line of effect. As long as you can visualize the area it should not have been an issue. IIRC the whirlwind is only as big as the monster so teleporting out should have been feasible. I think the GM was going out of his way to be difficult.
You might be right about dimension door, but not about shift, which functions like dimension door, but also has the caveat that "you must be able to see the space that you are moving into."
Get the guard's uniform from the gatehouse, put it on, and the Invisible Servant will open the door for you.
What uniform?
We encountered a troll and troll hounds who attacked us in front of the gatehouse. Then we entered the guardhouse and got messed up by several more trolls waiting to ambush us in an enclosed space. To my knowledge, the GM never once mentioned anything about uniforms. They were just generic trolls. We thought that maybe they had taken over the place and that the castle's master (whom the Beast of Lestat invited us to visit) was in trouble and in need of saving. My super smart wizard had a hat of disguise, and used it regularly, I would have created an illusion of a uniform had I seen one (to distract/confuse/enrage other trolls we might encounter).
If you do accidentally end up tripping it, run away as fast as you can and wait for it to dissipate.
It was a summoned creature? Why the hell are 6th-level characters dealing with 6th-level spell effects!?
We never saw where the thing came from. I figured the GM just had it come out from total cover, or that it had flown up on us from four hundred feet away (where we wouldn't be able to see it) while our attentions were focused on the door below and the balcony above.
Had the GM described it magically appearing, you can bet your butt that my super-smart wizard, or perhaps the magus, would have identified it as a summon effect and moved to dispel it (something we are readily capable of doing).
In the case of my group, they thought that using the uniform ( I gave them ample clues for its function ) on the golem dog would be too risky. Hence they killed that one ( after it came after them through the wooden door and then said "Well, I guess we didn't need the uniform after all". Little did they know... ^^
We never saw the construct dog meld out of the door either. When we approached the bridge, the GM told us that the bridge was arced, and that we could not see the other side of it unless we were halfway across at its apex. The dog was already there, waiting for us. The break in line of sight really served to divide the party during the fight. Those that dared venture across couldn't even yell back their findings due to the noise of the waterfall.
Due to having fought one construct dog before, it did not prove to be too much trouble, however.
We did see the balcony, half the party was on it when the air elemental attacked, in fact. The GM told us that it had the same kind of door as below, and that it was similarly locked and impassible.
That's when the air elemental attacked us.
Also, there's no key on the golem dog. ^^
The more I read, the more I'm beginning to believe the GM is intentionally manipulating us into much harder encounters via his visual descriptions, or lack there of. If the GM is changing things up to deliberately make things much harder on us, than maybe he really does hate us.
My party wizard rolled in and cast dispel magic on it mid-way through the first round.
Done and done.
Um...what exactly did you dispel? Doesn't work on creatures unless they are summoned or have buffs on them. EDIT: Never mind. Apparently it is an [overpowered for our level] summon of some kind.
You were falling, got feather fall, and it intercepted and ran you into the air to counter it?
That's just absurd tactics from an Int 6 creature. It's like having a sabertooth tiger get in a fight with an archer for three rounds until the archer draws an animal-slaying arrow and then it starts trying to disarm him.
"run action to fly straight up 1,000 feet"
Run action = 4x speed in a straight line
Fly the spell states "It can ascend at half speed and descend at double speed" which means that flying creatures follow similar rules.
It can fly 200ft in one round as a run, so 5 rounds to fly straight up.
"Whirlwind (Su) Some creatures can transform
themselves into whirlwinds and remain in that form for
up to 1 round for every 2 HD they have."10HD Huge air elemental = 5 rounds of whirlwind per use, so that's legal-ish. It can max out at 800ft.
That's all I can really contribute. :P
The air elemental did not fly up 1,000 feet in a single action. He did it over the course of a few rounds.
Also, the fly spell has many exceptions to the normal fly rules. A creature with perfect maneuverability can ascend at its full speed. Looking back on it, I honestly don't believe the air elemental spent more than five rounds in its whirlwind form.
Remember that Air Elementals have an Int of 4. FOUR.
They are NOT tacticians. They see stuff, they fly at it and do crap, none of this systematic feather-fall attrition.
With solid melee fighters and good casters, it's a very dangerous but doable fight.
When the PCs walk across that bridge, they accept that if crap happens, they will be on a rail-less piece of stone high in the air, and if they dont' take precautions, they are accepting their fate.Summary: Air Elementals are stupid and don't really have tactics. You are free to have them do stupid things so that the party can maximize damage output while it still poses a threat.
Stupid or not, I see no reason a creature wouldn't use its natural abilities to its best. A wold only has two-intelligence, but is still cunning enough to flank and use its trip abilities. It makes sense that an air elemental would suck up non-flyers and drop them from great heights.
It might not recognize feather fall, or know how to deal with it, but then again, it doesn't have to. It could have flown up to drop us from a higher height due to confusion (being too stupid to understand why it didn't work the first time) or perhaps it flew away to get itself some distance from the hard hitting meleeists in the party.
Either way, it seems to make sense to me.
The GM later bragged to us that we were only two attacks away from defeating the air elemental when we all died/retreated.
I agree with Ulmaxes on the INT point. Lifting and dropping from a higher height seems like a bit too much tactics.
In any event, it does seem like you have a problem with your DM: Unless your party did not search the guard house, you should have found the uniform. You probably should have been able to see the guard dog (although I haven't read that part of the adventure in awhile). And it seems a bit harsh to say the waterfalls blocked all communication (I would give perception checks). It just seems your DM is making all the calls against you, which seems inappropriate for such a challenging AP.
The hat of disguise approach would have been brilliant. My PCs have one and may be planning to make more, so they could really benefit from that approach. I'll have to get the balance right in terms of making sure they notice the uniforms without overly pushing them to realize the significance.
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Surely you could have seen the guard dog at the door from the top of the guard tower? You did go up there, right? It's really not very far away. My players shot arrows at it from the top of the guard tower and killed it that way. And there's definitely supposed to be a guard's uniform in the guardhouse (I actually wrote the uniform out of my game, since I had an alternate method for them to bypass the trap).
And yes, the air elemental as-written is a summoned monster triggered by a trap on the door. It trips when the door is opened, so you theoretically the party could flee inside the manse.
Looks like your GM is making things harder for you than they're written to be. It's up to you to decide whether that's a bad thing. In my opinion, that's his prerogative, so long as everybody's having fun.
I will say that if you're going to be bothered by traps and encounters that are higher than your party level, you've got a lot of being bothered ahead of you.
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The DM bragged? I believe that calls for calling him out on it. If this sort of behavior goes on, no game is better than a bad game.
^^^^ I believe the problem isn't higher level traps and creatures but snap calls against the group. Such as adding in skill rolls where there none before and having monsters display out of character behavior. If the DM changed things beforehand, then there would be less of a problem but this doesn't seem to be the case.
Surely you could have seen the guard dog at the door from the top of the guard tower? You did go up there, right? It's really not very far away. My players shot arrows at it from the top of the guard tower and killed it that way. And there's definitely supposed to be a guard's uniform in the guardhouse (I actually wrote the uniform out of my game, since I had an alternate method for them to bypass the trap).
And yes, the air elemental as-written is a summoned monster triggered by a trap on the door. It trips when the door is opened, so you theoretically the party could flee inside the manse.
Looks like your GM is making things harder for you than they're written to be. It's up to you to decide whether that's a bad thing. In my opinion, that's his prerogative, so long as everybody's having fun.
I will say that if you're going to be bothered by traps and encounters that are higher than your party level, you've got a lot of being bothered ahead of you.
I personally went up into the tower and searched. Others searched as well.
Perhaps, one of the other characters found it, but didn't pay it any heed (I'm hard of hearing so missing a detail like that isn't uncommon).
We did not see a guard dog while in the tower (except for troll hounds), though it is possible it hadn't come out of the door yet.
We never opened the door. It was locked and extremely sturdy, and we lost the (apparently non-existent) key that was placed, illogically, on the guard dog. Before we could find a way in, the air elemental attacked us. Are you now telling me that we never should have fought the air elemental, never should have died at all?
The GM and I are going to have words. It seems the game designers aren't crazy, I just have a bloodthirsty GM. Sadly, it will probably turn on me ("What? You've read the module!?").
Perhaps, one of the other characters found it, but didn't pay it any heed (I'm hard of hearing so missing a detail like that isn't uncommon).
We did not see a guard dog while in the tower (except for troll hounds), though it is possible it hadn't come out of the door yet.
We never opened the door. It was locked and extremely sturdy, and we lost the (apparently non-existent) key that was placed, illogically, on the guard dog. Before we could find a way in, the air elemental attacked us. Are you now telling me that we never should have fought the air elemental, never should have died at all?
The GM and I are going to have words. It seems the game designers aren't crazy, I just have a bloodthirsty GM. Sadly, it will probably turn on me ("What? You've read the module!?").
It seems like you'd have to approach that conversation pretty carefully, being clear you only obtained limited info from the boards. I think most parties will trigger the air elemental, but the uniform and finding the trap are two ways to avoid it. If he forgot to mention the uniform and didn't give you a chance to find and disarm the trap, those would be major omissions that contributed to PC death.
As I recall, the dog is just on the bridge and doesn't need to come out from anywhere, so you should have spotted it from the tower. If he said the arc of the bridge made it impossible to find out (and waterfalls made it impossible to communicate once discovered) information the PCs would have noticed from the tower when they inevitably looked out towards the house, that would be pretty uncool too.
It seems like your DM is being a combination of sloppy and overly aggressive. But if he's prone to defensiveness, it is going to be hard to resolve the issue.
As for the golem dog: I didn't mean that it melded through the door, but that it straight out beat the break DC of it and jumped through it, leaving a nice big hole. ^^
While the summon is a pretty high level effect, the monsters CR ( 7, in the case of this Air Elemental )is appropiate for a party of your level. It's only the environment which made the encounter so difficult.
And, well, considering that your GM didn't tell you about the uniform, he either forgot it or really wanted that encounter to happen.#
What would have been the ideal encounter, if you are interested:
So...the trap was magical in nature? We have a magus, a wizard, and a druid, and an inquisitor. When we're not in combat, we are walking around with detect magic, detect poison, and detect evil up and running.
Our GM knows this. He even ruled it doubles our travel time (since we need to maintain concentration and aren't therefore moving as quickly as we normally would).
Seems he conveniently forgot ALL of that. I should have picked up on the fact that the air elemental was a summon the moment in came within 60 feet of my gaze.
There was a bell on the door wasn't there?
Since we assumed we were there under friendly terms, we knocked first. Nobody came. Discovered the bell. Rang it. Nobody came. Must have been there for several minutes at least.
Couldn't get through the door (no rogue or knock spell), so we checked out the balcony.
Air elemental showed up.
Ironically enough, my wizard wanted to find out more about the golem's creator out of wizardly curiosity. The magus genuinely wanted to continue helping the beast by getting some answers.
Now they are both dead. That just leaves the inquisitor, who thinks that with the end of the trial there is nothing more worth doing, and the druid elixir salesmen, who joined up recently after another character death and has been following us around I guess 'cause we're interesting.'
There literally is no more motivation in this campaign for anyone left alive to keep moving forward. And I'm sorry to say, that's how most of our campaigns end. We've never made it through a second module in any adventure path. The GM keeps killing off the key characters.
And now I'm being pushed by the current GM to start hosting Skull and Shackles. I'm starting to think this whole thing was a sham from the start.
So...the trap was magical in nature? We have a magus, a wizard, and a druid, and an inquisitor. When we're not in combat, we are walking around with detect magic, detect poison, and detect evil up and running.
Our GM knows this. He even ruled it doubles our travel time (since we need to maintain concentration and aren't therefore moving as quickly as we normally would).
Seems he conveniently forgot ALL of that. I should have picked up on the fact that the air elemental was a summon the moment in came within 60 feet of my gaze.
RD I don't how you would not have had line of sight either. ;)
With that aside, the trap is magical in nature. It has a high DC(over 20) which is only possible for magical traps. Not only that, but the trap specifically list the spell needed for it in the book, IIRC.
You might want to ask the GM how a summoner monster trap got activated and nobody picked up on it.
edit:added the word "not"
And now I'm being pushed by the current GM to start hosting Skull and Shackles. I'm starting to think this whole thing was a sham from the start.
It smells like a setup to me.
It smells like a setup to me.
And now I'm being pushed by the current GM to start hosting Skull and Shackles. I'm starting to think this whole thing was a sham from the start.
Yea. However, please resist any temptation to do unto him what was done unto you. No need for this to get any uglier.
Plus the trap should not have gone off if you didn't open the front door! It sounds like you didn't open the door. Seems like you need a new DM.
For clarification, can detect magic detect a magical trap before it goes off, or just while it is going off?
The trap was triggered by the Unseen Servants, who were expecting someone wearing a guard uniform to show up and ring the bell. If that didn't happen, trap triggered.
To be honest, I am not sure how your "Detect Magic on at all times" trick would work out in my game, btw.. If even one of your party members is wearing any magical items, the guy with Detect Magic on at all times better be always up front, because otherwise I'd rule that it is pinging all the time. After all, you need more than one round of standing still and concentrating to even notice that there are multiple auras.
Yea. However, please resist any temptation to do unto him what was done unto you. No need for this to get any uglier.
I disagree. Murder him.
/shake fist/
The trap was triggered by the Unseen Servants, who were expecting someone wearing a guard uniform to show up and ring the bell. If that didn't happen, trap triggered.
I can see your logic, but that's not what the module says: "The door is trapped, and goes off if the door is opened without bypassing the trap with the switch inside, summoning a Huge air elemental to repel intruders." the module doesn't say anything about the servant having instructions to set off the trap. The GM could change that of course, but it would be a deliberate adverse change.
Uh, I am pretty sure that there was something about the servants there. Since I am at work, I don't have access to the module right now, so I cannot check, I fear.
(Really glad I found this thread, as I'm reading through this leg of TotB to run this Friday. Gives me a lot of insight on what NOT to do!)
From the description of area G2: "The pull sounds the bells in areas G8 and G10, alerting an unseen servant that comes to the door... if it sees a guard uniform, or if Caromarc has instructed it to allow visitors in, the unseen servant disarms the trap on the door and opens the door."
So if you find the uniform, the unseen servant will throw that bypass switch for you - all you have to do is ring the bell!
EDIT: Additionally, the trigger for the summon monster VI trap is opening the door without throwing the bypass switch. But the servant is instructed to ignore the bell and door for one hour if visitors are not expected or no uniform is spotted - it doesn't set off the trap, it just waits for intruders to try to break in, and they'll trigger it themselves. (Which probably saves Caromarc some money on restoring that 6th-level spell if the would-be burglars just give up and walk away!)
Thanks PWU, I was sure I was remembering it correctly. :) Well, half-correctly, as it happens. :p
It makes sense that Caromac instructed the servant to disarm the trap but did not tell the servant to set the trap off, since that reduces the chance of accidents. If someone breaks through the door, then you KNOW they are an intruder.
Which raises a question -- since the trap only springs when someone opens the door without disarming the trap, why isn't the best strategy for the PCs always to get into the house? This obviously won't work if the party is split up, but if they are all next to the door when it opens?
Part of this turns on the details of how such a trap works. Where exactly does the air elemental appear? On top of the PCs (who are presumably occupying the squares in front of the door)? Inside the house? Behind the PCs? Also, who acts first when the trap goes off? Does the air elemental get a surprise round or does everyone just roll initiative? Do the PCs need to make a perception check to avoid the air elemental getting a surprise round?
I read a suggestion by someone that the elemental starts off by the waterfalls so that it doesn't get to the bridge and attack on the first turn. This gives players some time to go "HOLY CRAP THAT IS BIG!" and hopefully choose to run instead of die.
Plus the trap should not have gone off if you didn't open the front door! It sounds like you didn't open the door. Seems like you need a new DM.
For clarification, can detect magic detect a magical trap before it goes off, or just while it is going off?
Magical traps have auras because an effect from a spell is in place.
It makes sense that Caromac instructed the servant to disarm the trap but did not tell the servant to set the trap off, since that reduces the chance of accidents. If someone breaks through the door, then you KNOW they are an intruder.
Which raises a question -- since the trap only springs when someone opens the door without disarming the trap, why isn't the best strategy for the PCs always to get into the house? This obviously won't work if the party is split up, but if they are all next to the door when it opens?
Part of this turns on the details of how such a trap works. Where exactly does the air elemental appear? On top of the PCs (who are presumably occupying the squares in front of the door)? Inside the house? Behind the PCs? Also, who acts first when the trap goes off? Does the air elemental get a surprise round or does everyone just roll initiative? Do the PCs need to make a perception check to avoid the air elemental getting a surprise round?
Summon monster spells have ranges so anywhere within that range is good for the monster. It is mostly a GM call. Once it appears it should be initiative.
Thanks. So the PCs can detect the trap if they cast detect magic on the door. And it probably makes sense for the elemental to appear in the closest unoccupied square (presumably it cannot appear in an occupied square), which would probably be outside, behind the PCs gathered at the door. Then any PC who won initiative could run inside, but any who lost initiative to the elemental might be in trouble, as well as any who weren't perched in front of the door.