This may sound like a stupid question but... how deep is the water in WC chambers 19-22? By submerged do they mean completely underwater (20 feet according to general room descriptions) or is there some space between the top of the water and the ceiling? Am I missing something in the description or just having a brain cramp here? I'm having a really hard time motivating my PCs to explore a dark,watery chamber without compounding the problem by forcing them to swim back and forth to the stairs to get air. I'd be interested to hear how others have handled this scenario.
BTW, my gaming group meets tonight so I need a response ASAP.
I'm running this as if the water goes right up to the ceiling. The characters have to swim back and forth. I think it adds alot of tension in the sense that they don't know how far they can go and they must exercise restrait so they don't use up too much of thier oxygen supply.
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I'm running this as if the water goes right up to the ceiling. The characters have to swim back and forth.
Yep, that's how we ran this encounter. The map does not justly indicate the water level. Neither does the encounter text give any details. There is an old thread HERE, where most of us agreed that you should assume the water is to the ceiling, and PCs walk into it as they descend the stairs. The need to actually swim and fight is one of the reason Mr. Erik Mona bumped up the EL to 2.
Happy gaming.
Don Kenneth Brown
Salt Lake City, Utah
Well, it's too late now, but I put the water level at the cieling. The party got around the air problem by sending in the dwarven barbarian with 18 Con and Str. This added the black and white of darkvision, and really made the players interested. When he saw the ghoul (I changed it to a lacedon), he freaked, since the thing was so much faster (with the lacedon's swim speed), and could paralyze him (not good underwater). He managed to get back out without being paralyzed, luckily, and then the whole party dove in and had a rather fun underwater hide-and-seek.
It was really tense when they all tried to fan out, and everyone was wondering if the thing would pop out from behind a pillar and paralyze them. Luckily, that didn't happen, and they eventually destroyed the undead with no casualties.
My group just played this last Friday. I had the water all the way to the ceiling. The group elected the warforged (Eberron) wizard to explore since he doesn't breathe. Unfortunately, this particular wizard can't hit the broad side of a barn, so the LG fighter decieded to accompany him for protection. They tied rope around their waists and had others holding onto the ends to reel them back in. The fighter got caught in the vortex and the people on the other end starting going in to help. Everyone was underwater by the time the elemental was toast. The ghoul was fun. The nearest two people got paralyzed, which freaked them out, and others couldn't get through to hit at him without going around the others. People got scared, but they all made it out a live. It was a blast.
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