I will meet up with my friends from home for a weekend of DnD and prepared Fiendish Footprints (Dungeon #122). While reading I saw several severe inconsitencies:
Berwim and his gang: it says since the cave-in they cannot leave the dungeon (and are thus starving), BUT they are vampires they can use gaseous form to escape.
Needle folk and the curse of the orc druid:
The elves claim that they will not enter the woods as it is cursed by the orc druid, but what about Neperchil? He lived there and had hunting parties and also Kenewor went there, they did not have problems with these hundreds of needlefolk, did they?
Berewim and his traps (this is not essential for the adventure and the players won't mind):
It says, that Berewim built the traps in room 7 and 8 in his "spare time". But on Kenewors map these traps are evaded by the map on the wooden map, so how could he know about these traps which were created years after his last visit?
Long story short: did you make changes to make the story more convincing? Which ones? Thanks for your ideas.
Gaseous Form does not allow a vampire to go through a solid wall.I will meet up with my friends from home for a weekend of DnD and prepared Fiendish Footprints (Dungeon #122). While reading I saw several severe inconsitencies:
Berwim and his gang: it says since the cave-in they cannot leave the dungeon (and are thus starving), BUT they are vampires they can use gaseous form to escape.
It can pass through small holes or narrow openings, even mere cracks, with all it was wearing or holding in its hands, as long as the spell persists.
Needle folk and the curse of the orc druid:
The elves claim that they will not enter the woods as it is cursed by the orc druid, but what about Neperchil? He lived there and had hunting parties and also Kenewor went there, they did not have problems with these hundreds of needlefolk, did they?
Note in the tactics section for the needlefolk: "...focusing attacks on elves and half-elves if they can." It probably could have been emphasized more: Needlefolk have an intense hatred of elves, and will seek them out to cause harm if they can. Also, Nepenchil was "renowned for his prowess as an archer and hunter." Likely it was a live and let live scenario. Nepenchil often invited nobles to his tower to go on week-long hunts. After a while, the needlefolk probably took the hint to steer clear of the tower and any roving non-elven hunters. But it's been a long time now, and the needlefolk have realized that the owner of the tower is no more...
Berewim and his traps (this is not essential for the adventure and the players won't mind):
It says, that Berewim built the traps in room 7 and 8 in his "spare time". But on Kenewors map these traps are evaded by the map on the wooden map, so how could he know about these traps which were created years after his last visit?
Good point, though moot since in all likelyhood the PCs will never find out who constructed the traps. If it were to somehow become relevant, I suppose I would change that description. The entry for 6 says that Nepenchil found these crypts when constructing lower levels for his tower. I would say that either Nepenchil himself set the trap rooms, or that the original builder did, whomever that would be. Or perhaps rooms 7 and 8 didn't exist until Berewim moved in, just dead-end corridors - it's not much less implausible than the actual entry... after all, one vampire with a 13 Int digging a 20-foot-deep spiked pit? Doable, but... o.O?
TK
Gaseous Form does not allow a vampire to go through a solid wall.It can pass through small holes or narrow openings, even mere cracks, with all it was wearing or holding in its hands, as long as the spell persists.
Yes, I know, I just figured that a cave-in would leave such wholes.
What do you think of this solution:Kenewor also wove a spell which hinders undead and anyone carrying the fiendish foot from exiting the crypt, so the thiefs could not leave and killed Berwim for retribution. The good thing if there is no wall of stone in room 5 (or at least no longer), one of the goblins could stumble through it out of riosity, break the silver circle on the floor and thus the PCs arrive just at the moment when the first vampire spawn sucks him dry, drops him and goes after the PCs for more blood. Additionally the vampires are free now and the PCs have to kill them (maybe ally with some hobgoblins, if there are still some alive). I have to add, that my players only know the basic rules of D&D, so they probably will not question this arbitrary spell.
The needlefolk are kind of weak, but maybe I leave them out and just say, the elves were surprised by the Hobgoblins and suffered much more casualties and now wait for reinforcement. But as they want revenge now, they will hire the PCs who are conveniently there.
By the way: where do the vampires and spawns flee to, when they are at 0hp, where is their burial site?
I would assume they use the coffins that are in the same rooms they are in. Which makes it really easy for them to be destroyed permanently, doesn't it?
Yes, I know, I just figured that a cave-in would leave such holes.
...but at the end of the week the crudely constructed tunnel gave out. It collapsed, sealing the vampire and his spawn inside the crypts below the ruin.
So, nope, they're trapped in there until someone opens the place up again. You are, of course, free to run the adventure however you want. :-)
TK
Thanks for your help. It will be great!
I'd say you're correct, Belfur--an oversite in the module design IMHO. No tunnel collapse would seal up so solidly as to prevent a gaseous form creature from passing. Even barring that, with years of time and infinite gaseous form, they'd eventually find another way out--heck, they could easily float up the chimney in area 4--it's big enough that a Medium creature could even make it up, though with difficulty, in solid form. My recommendation is actually to ignore the problems unless you think the players will ring it up. In that case, I'd say make the chimney too small for Medium creatures and remove gaseous form as an ability for the vampires. You could replace it with a user/day 3rd level spell or some such that thematically ties to the fiendish foot.
Except that there's a stone wall blocking off area 5 and beyond, where the vampires are trapped. And a cave in can surely be secure enough not to allow gaseous escape - we're talking at least a 15 ft. deep hole (or however deep it is). However, areas 7 and 8 do contradict their trapped state - if they can dig 2 two foot deep pits, they could surely dig their way out in that time. Which I would almost say to leave in for comedic value. "Wait, why didn't you just dig your way out? It's like, 15 feet up." "Uh.... um... shut up! You die now!"
Except that there's a stone wall blocking off area 5 and beyond, where the vampires are trapped. And a cave in can surely be secure enough not to allow gaseous escape - we're talking at least a 15 ft. deep hole (or however deep it is).
I just don't see how that's possible--depth of the hole is irrelevant if we're talking about a standard "rocks and dirt collapsed to fill in the hole" cave-in. In gaseous form, one can "pass through small holes or narrow openings, even mere cracks." I know of no natural way that a cave-in would create a seal so secure as to have no cracks at all. Just doesn't make any sense. I don't even buy the stone wall in area 5--that thing is so well-placed as to not have a single crack from it to the rest of the area, i.e. the whole place is air-tight? Highly unlikely...
I know the author wrote it that way and so we understand authorial intent, but there needs to be a much more solid barrier than a simple cave-in to keep a vampire pinned up for years...
Well, I'm no geologist, but I think it's pretty feasible. Are you a geologist (or someone with cave-in experience)? Not trying to be confrontational here, mind. Just curious as to the weight of your opinion.
I don't count a large heap of dirt and rocks as being "cracked." Cracks are where air can come through.
If it bothers you, I suppose you could go with some sort of magical ward, or replace the tunnel with a hidden trap door that sealed after they entered or something to that effect. *shrug*
TK
Experience in both caving and construction, as well as some education in physics. Started out my college career oh so long ago with a major in environmental sciences before I figured out that would bore me to death...
Barring some very skilled craftsmanship and superb tools, its pretty much impossible to form an air-tight seal by placing two stones together, even if you pack some dirt in the cracks. Cave-ins don't create air-tight blockages, but rather limit the air-flow that can get to a cave-in victim. This limitation generally results in the victim breathing in more oxygen than can be replenished quickly enough, while also breathing out more carbon dioxide than can dissipate safely. This leads to asphyxiation as the oxygen levels in the air drop too low and the carbon dioxide levels get too high.
Even things we think of as "solid" are not so. A balloon, for instance, deflates over time. This is because the surface of the balloon actually has holes in it, but they are small enough to impeded the rapid escape of something like helium gas. A "perfectly sealed" balloon will deflate over several days because even then helium (at about 1 angstrom/nanometer or 0.000000001 meters wide) is slowly seeping through the pores in the balloon.
Now, I'm not saying this spell is the ultimate escape from anything short of a force field, or that we need to know the specific molecule size to the nearest angstrom. I'd allow, for instance, a mortared stone floor targeted by a wall of stone to make a sphere thereon to sufficiently trap someone in gaseous form, as the spell states the wall of rock "merges into adjoining rock surfaces." But knowledge of gas does tell me that, in general, a cave-in isn't going to stop this spell. Gaseous form doesn't give specifics, but assuming "gaseous" molecules are, say, 1000 times the size of "air" (which is largely nitrogen and oxygen) it could still pass through a crack 1 micrometer wide. That's a little bitty crack. 100,000 times the size of "air" and it could still get through a crack 1 millimeter wide.
I'm at work and do not have the issue in front of me, but I can come up with two reasons why the sealed in vampires would not use their gaseous form to escape:
1. Their underground, so if they tried to leave, they would never know when they are exiting into daylight.
2. Their crypts are in the sealed chambers. Exiting through tiny, tiny, ever shifting cracks is one thing, but re-entering them when you are severely pressed for time, that's another thing.
If you want, you could also put a small stream near the entrance to the cave-in...
Having become a subscriber after issue #122, I only have this to suggest. If the cave-in was a wet collapse (i.e. rocks, dirt, and water). The resulting slurry could definitely have closed off the mouth of a cave to an extent that would prevent the general use of gaseous form to allow travel. As erian_7 pointed out one gets flow out of He balloons or another familiar situation is radon diffusing into houses through bedrock and foundation of buildings. These slow diffusion processes I would consider different than travelling through a crack in a wall or a keyhole. Now if there is a hole in the roof a medium size character can fit through, I don't know how anyone could fix that.
Agreed that a slurry might be better than what's described, but even then a simple natural cave-in is highly unlikely to hold a vampire captive for years. By my reading (matched up with the Sage in this article) even a pinhole is large enough to allow a gaseous creature to pass.
The even bigger difficulty, for me, with the cave-in holding these vamps prisoner is that the adventure notes a mere 20 hours of work will clear the area enough for passage. A Knowledge (arch. & eng.) check is needed to make sure it doesn't collapse again, but the vamps wouldn't care if it collapsed or not--if trapped under falling rubble they'd just turn gaseous and their DR would prevent any serious injury.