I thought Telv had a limited number of times he could switch back from "elf" form to "ooze" form?
Connor was planning on making a rope-pull up to the platform on the right, above the chilling water. He doesn't have a block-and-tackle, or any hemp rope left, so I was going to have him use multiple pitons with some created rope via ectoplasmic creation. Telv could have used the bag of storage again, and once he was up near the ceiling, one of us winged folk could have retrieved him.
His 'default' form is a pile of ooze. He can no longer look like an elf or human today. But he can take on a humanoid ooze form. Just harder to climb as a humanoid ooze than it is as a pile of goop.
One thing to remember, these rooms are designed to slow down people breaking in or out, and the deeper you get, the harder they should be. So... you might not be able to skip parts...
Connor's down to a dozen psionic power points. We might have to make a bucket of ice or three from the deadly freezing water to make all these statues. Which didn't turn out well for Flann last time.
Anybody got a cheap bucket and some hemp rope? Connor's got a couple of clay jugs, but shattering the clay after the ice is formed out of water would probably shatter the ice too.
Our Illustrious GM has the right of it. Telv is an ooze that takes elven form occasionally.
Well the hawk statue didn't work. We have 2 more choices, the vase-with-flowers, and the woman-with flowers. Any ideas?
If we don't do any statues, we can just walk up North on the left-hand side that Adran scouted. Or walk directly North with Flann.
I think we need a panorama of reliefs to make a statue correctly.
Has anyone touched the single relief or the paintings?
The reliefs where there are dozens of the same statue all move the way you saw before.
The one single relief of the vase and flowers do not however move.
I don't think Connor was tricked putting the wrong statue in the wrong place - he just guessed wrong.
Touching the reliefs just make them rotate between themselves, Flann.
There's a hint somewhere that the single relief of the vase-and-flowers just sits there.
I say just explore North up the stairs, and West-to-North up the stairs.
A small white tiled round pedestal with a miniature statue on it also sits in the center of the [ExNE] room, surrounded by a miniature moat of cold water.
Do we know what the mini statue looks like?
It's a miniature of the eagle statue.
That being the case, I agree that the platform sank for reasons other than the hawk being wrong for that platform. Either the wrong order, or it didn't like Connor standing on it, or it was correct, and "got out of the way" like the locking pots on the earth floor.
What happened to the statue when the platform sank?
The ectoplasm froze solid the second it touched the water, and the sudden freezing shattered it into a zillion pieces, which then got washed away by the water.
Aaarrrgghh. Connor may have an INT of 21, but in RL I've only got an INT of 12 (college-educated) and most of that was Computer Science and Army ROTC. I can't see the pattern here for the Let's Freeze Them To Death rooms. I'm going to have to put a point into Linguistics so we can decipher text next time. That obelisk probably had the key here. Connor doesn't have enough psionic power points to do all the statues in a hit-or-miss fashion.
Given the space on the Ice map, we maybe have a hidden room/passageway on the right side, a probable exit in the middle, and one last unknown staircase to the middle-left.
If we just want to get out of here quickest, I'm inclined to do the woman-with-flowers statue and put it on top of the blocked stairs. The vase-with-flowers all by itself doesn't make any sense, Connor was wrong about the hawk statue, and now we have more platforms than statues. I don't think the warrior-with-sword should go into the cathedral room, even thought it probably does. The warrior-with-sword probably leads to a treasure chest in the four-square-pools room.
Let's call for a huddle here! Gotta think this one out!
Glad to see you like the homemade riddle rooms. :)
Kudos to the artwork, but I'd like to rip the "trapped vs. riddles" pages in half. Personal opinion.
And this place is not just clean - it's spotless. There's hints the guards are dead, and nobody wandering around outside the cells. How'd people get back to the door and not leave things "in place"? Just curious.
Hey gang I'm back. Will be catching up on work emails and stuff today and will try and get caught up on all the post and start to contribute again tomorrow. :)
Okay, here's what I'm thinking.
1: We still have stairs, so we might still have an incomplete image of the challenge.
2: I really don't think the hawk was wrong. The platform sank, and didn't return the puzzle to a "try again" state. (unless it did, and we just didn't see it) Putting the wrong statue down next might mess that up, but that's just a reason to pay close attention to the rest of the puzzle.
3: The flower vase is on a portrait, which is unique. We might try touching it or taking it off the wall, as well as checking those stairs.
4: the platforms each have unique water features. Might just be a way to identify the miniatures.
5: Connor rolled really high when he found the miniature hawk statue, but the first tiny statue was visible from a distance. Also, I'm slightly paranoid about rolling perception too much and wasting time versus not rolling perception often enough and missing details.
6: The hawk room is mainly accessible through a windy stairwell. That might be something a different statue is meant to unlock.
7: What languages do we know which Connor would not know? Maybe one of the rest of us can read the obelisk.
8: I put a blue circle on the map to show the central platform was sunk, and it's gone now. I think maybe the platform rose again.
9: I mean, how bad would a 25-year time-skip be, really? Plus, we can wish our way out if we're clever about the wish.
10: I think each floor has six puzzles. Six urn rooms, six colors of orbs, six statues in the entry hall.... That would mean we're missing one image. Cat, bird, man, woman, flowers, _____?
You found skeletons on the first level, by the door. The library had blood stains remember? However, the fire and ice levels reset when the earth floor is opened (remember the traps vs riddles).
Basically, the gods left a hole in the security in case things went south on them and somebody locked one of them in the prison. :P
@8 - Yes, I stated in the original post that it sank, the statue froze and shattered, and then it rose back up, washed clean. Perhaps there's a clue in that statement... (?)
Dang, I swear I read that post four times and missed that line each time.
@4: Which is why I thought the circular platform was for the hawk. I was wrong, or else we need an ice statue, not an ectoplasm statue, so the platform can sink into the water and not shatter the ice statue. The circular area looks like a plug to me, to the lower all-tile-with-a-waterhole room. Which hopefully doesn't make all the water rise when we plug it.
@3. I'm ready to do the vase-with-flowers with ectoplasmic creation to see what happens. Then the woman-with-flowers either in the Southernmost room, or on top of the marble blocking the stairs. It does say "standing in a semi-circle room with a tiled floor". Isn't that the Southernmost circle-room?
Remember, we just want to get out of here quickest, not "solve" the rooms for maximum treasure.
@10. I must be reading the order of the statues wrong. I'm reading cat, hawk, woman-with-flowers, warrior. I still read the vase-with-flowers as being separate. The description makes it seem to be made for just that room and no other.
@3 - None of the rooms you've seen thus far seem to match the 'semi-circle room with a tiled floor' in the relief.
mdt, where you said "A small white tiled round pedestal with a miniature statue on it also sits in the center of the room, surrounded by a miniature moat of cold water.", that was a miniature hawk, right?
Yes. A miniature (3 inch high) replica of the statue in the relief's, perfectly detailed, but too small to work from as a model, more just to get the dimensions right (IE: because it's on a mock up of the pedestal, you can get the dimensions right).
Flann, I've worked out the math to share powers (by touch): it's really dependent upon your Psicraft skill
[dice=Psicraft check (DC 20) to "see"]]1d20+14[/dice]
[dice=Psicraft check (DC 15 + power's level) to "understand"]1d20+14[/dice]
Cleanse body is a 2nd level power, so you'd have to roll DC 20, DC 17, DC 17 successfully in that order.
Good news: Network gets rid of the touch requirement
Bad News: Flann does not have Psicraft.
Good News: Any of us (who are Psionic) can manifest any of our known powers in this way.
Let's see, Adran has a Fly of +19, +16 when tracking...check.
Is he strong enough to lift a water-filled bucket...checking...what the? STR of 20? Dex 18? Con 14? Adran's picture does not do him justice! He's not a halfling with wings, he's a miniature gorilla!
Adran should have no problem lifting whatever bucket o' water Connor makes, then. Heck, let's go for the bathtub-sized bucket here, and save a trip or two!
He was a little assassin :)
Sorry emergency travel for work. Be back to normal monday.
Sorry emergency travel for work. Be back to normal monday.
No problem, Adran! Not with those Ref & Fly checks.
Whattdya think? Should Connor make an empty vase in the smaller circle, or stand in the circle, or make a vase with flowers in the circle?
Additional option: existing ice vase with death-water in it.
The dicegods want Connor to stand in the circle.
I dunno. None of this has been intuitive yet.
I think most of the answers that have worked ended up being intuitive once we saw all the clues. I think maybe we need to collect stuff from each statue, so if we want to play it safe, and we think the shining circle isn't going anywhere, we might get started on the warrior...
Good enough.
Sorry Eye Surgery yesterday. Went well, healing up, vision is a bit blurry but will be improving :)
Basically, Connor made this harder by getting impatient and starting on making statues before you'd fully explored the floor. Otherwise, it would have been more intuitive.
@Adran - Good to hear. Lasik? Or did you have something removed like a cataract?
Forgot to say "hoping for fast healing", Adran/Ashe!
As for the rooms, bah-humbug. Haste makes waste, in this case. I didn't expect to have to search the entire floor before understanding the statues. I'll take the hit for the waste of time, I know Connor has paid for it in damage.
But nothing I've seen so far would lead to the shield or a set of scales.
Edit: If you notice the Prison of the Elements map, mdt has made two grey marble platforms blue: the hawk and the warrior. Not the pool-room to the South, nor the woman-with-flowers room to the NorthEast - even after we "solved" the room.
Maybe we use that room a 2nd time? Put flowers in the vase?
I made those blue because the pedestals sank down and are now covered with deadly water.
If we get trapped in here for 25 years, Flann's next level is 100% cleric. What are his odds otherwise? He is genuinely intrigued by the whole divine magic deal. What's the fictional positioning requirement for subbing cleric? Originally it was going to be psionic sniper, but I really think these punishments would make him a firm believer once he has a chance to study them.
In another six months, when we encounter a living enemy within 30 feet, everyone's going to freak out when Flann makes their head explode with a combination of spontaneous anurysm and bullets. Other than implying he wasn't a healing specialist, he hasn't really done any soul thief stuff.
Since I've never seen you fight, my head will be fine!
Back on your islands, worshipping of gods is considered nuts.
Casting magic is grounds for prison at best, and execution at worse (assuming you survive it). Magic is wild on the islands, it can range from not working to working 100x the way it should, or just detonating into a giant explosion.
Doesn't mean you can't multiclass into magic, there are those who do, they're just a bit ostracized and you have to be careful not to cast there.
Staying in character, Flann, Connor is at best a "criminal" who has been "tainted" by god-level divine magic. He's quite repentant to his roots, treating most Surface magic like a live hand grenade with the pin pulled. But Tenfa has broken his personal rules that Connor grew up with on the islands, and he thinks he's walking a tightrope between divine-magic acceptance and his old psionic-only beliefs.
Flann and Adran both should have a similar background, albeit with the Halvavian happy-go-lucky attitude. For Flann to go cleric would be a profound mental and culture experience for him, in my personal opinion. Granted, Connor was at the end of Tenfa's wrath/prankster punishments quite a bit before coming around (or accepting another character's obligations, take your pick).
Just consider all magic back on the islands to be like the Wild Magic Bad Times of Forgotten Realms novels/RPG. Have that last several generations and you can see why magic is treated like hard radiation by 99% of the population.
But it's your character. Apparently I got into a lot of trouble having Connor making this kind of warning speech to Volita when she was seduced by another godling at the opening of the Prison of the Elements. Maybe it's time for a paradigm shift to happen to Atalantia. I personally think it's more like the eye of the hurricane, peaceful now, with more trouble later.
Vitalists are just as powerful as clerics when it comes to healing, in my opinion. We found out the hard way that preventative vigor was much, much easier at 1st Level than healing psionics, often which is unattainable until Level 5 with body adjustment. If it wasn't for the tattoos of natural healing we bought, we'd be dead by now.
Soul Thief is a hard path to tread for Vitalists. You need a lot of fodder enemies to drain & abuse. Not impossible, but you also come with class features none of us have, like telepathy. Lean on those and your other powers and skills until you get a feel for Soul Thief. Or go for cleric. Dreamscarred Press' Ultimate Psionics has cleric options in the book.
Just to clarify, you got in trouble with the player, not the GM. :P
I know, mdt. Thanks.
Had a cornea transplant in my left eye. An ulcer and degenerative eye issues left scar tissue that wouldn't heal. So far so good :)
Flann was only on the airship to get away from his mother, and is in a socioeconomic bracket full of folks who have little or no respect for law or tradition if it gets in the way of good stuff. I would imagine being an adventurer at all makes him a very strange hobbit halfling. I see his story arc right now as a transition from fan-of-adventurers to adventurer, and that originally suggested a path of picking up Marksman once he levels.
While he is talented at vitalism, it's really not his passion. He likes guns, but only as a foil to his healing talent.
If he dabbles in thaumaturgy, it wouldn't be to heal. He would be much more interested in utility effects.
I'm not set on taking cleric, mostly because I have no idea what Tenfa stands for, but I do think hillarious body modification would be something that would both make him believe very firmly in the potency of divine power, and make him interested in applying that power to challenges he can't approach with vitalism or guns.
My metagame is still pointed toward Marksman, because I think that's what he's out here to learn, but the God stuff is a disruptive element.
Also, Adran, that's cool and scary. I hope it heals up well.