I'm DMing the STAP, but I ran WC a while back. I had a PC do a funny thing when the swarm came up into the false tomb area......
The party saw the swarm and the slasher coming, and most just ran, but the FTR got caught and was covered by critters. Having discovered the fire trap in the sarcophagus (the hard way) earlier, he ran over to it, covered in swarm, and opened it, again, and again, and again, each time taking burning hands damage, until the swarm died. He nearly bought it as well, but I rolled his damage and the swarms damage separately for each opening, and the swarm got the worst of it..
The whole table was cracking up. It was fun.
Anyone else have PC's do this?
The first time I ran a group through the Whispering Cairn, the party rogue got swarmed and opened the sarcophagus to cleanse himself.
Now, the second time... the party had already explored the first section of Dungeon, and found the wand of shatter. The mad slasher and acid beetle swarm really freaked them out, especially when the slasher nearly took down the party barbarian in a round. By the time the slasher was dead, the swarm was untouched, and the party tried fleeing. The warmage decided to "hold it off" with spells and alchemist's fire but didn't have the hit points. So that's when the cleric pulls out the wand of shatter and calmly points it at the alchemist fire still on his dying comrade's body...
The warmage was brought to -9, but the swarm was killed. And needless to say, the warmage was not happy once he was brought back to conciousness.
It was fun and igenuitive(?) (very intelligent idea, i mean) and dangerous (an ogre...these things are dangerous...sword of ogre decapitation!)
I think in the adventure there is a contradiction. The trap says automatic reset, the text about resetting the whole mechanism claims that the trap is a one-shot. So you played it like it was and it turned out better than good. So, no problem!
I think in the adventure there is a contradiction. The trap says automatic reset, the text about resetting the whole mechanism claims that the trap is a one-shot.
The trap itself is one shot, but there are air elementals that reset the trap, test the lifts, and reset the lamps to the way they were when you 1st entered the room. So, in that way, it is an automatic reset.
Now, the adventure says that happens once a week. But if everybody had fun I say more power to Joshua.
Swarm: my PCs started running around the room trying to stay away, but not always being successful. They tried hucking alchemist's fire and "oil flask bombs" (molotov cocktails) but the swarm's touch AC is extremely hard to hit, so they were only doing splash damage (and getting very frustrated by it). Eventually they pulled out torches and went to town (on the swarm I mean), but not before the halfling wizard was dropped to negs.
Mad Slasher: the players were tres creeped out by the MS. (I printed out a picture of it to show them all) and the dwarven knight and the cleric of St.Cuthbert took it on. Maddeningly for _me_, the Mad Slasher missed with it's whirlwind attack EVERY TIME! Suffice to say they killed it, and took a leg as a trophy (gross!).
Sarcophagus trap: Where does it say it's a one-shot trap? The text says, "The sarcophagus bears a fiery arcane trap set to trigger when the lifted off the stone coffin, and is completely empty." The details of the trap list it as having an automatic reset. So unless there is a line of text I missed (someone have a page, line reference?) it is possible to use the trap multiple times. The text for the "Ghost in the machine" does say that the wind spirits "akso rest the burning hands trap on the sarcophagus". This would obviously be necessary if the lid was opened but _not closed_. It doesn't necessarily mean that the trap is a "one shot" trap.
Belfur: I believe you are thinking of "ingenious" and "intuitive" at the same time. ;-)
My group had a blast here too. I had switched the bettle swarm for a spider swarm and the giant bettles for giant spiders. i put a few huge cracks and creaveses in the lower part of the complex to rationalise where the spiders might have come from in a suposedly sealed dungeon. I also littered the place with dead beetle carpaices and shells and strung up lots of webs. I did this purely for table top effect as i had the spider swarm miniatures and i had also been out to a local hobby store and purchased some large plastic spiders. they looked great on the table and spooked crap out of the players. I had also purchased two mad slashers off ebay and so i was all set up for this encounter.
My group really struggled against the spider swarm and tried all sorts on it. they got the swarm down to one hit point and then fled away to recover. ha ha ha enter fresh spider swarm 'B'
on the second attempt one player opened the sarcophagus and took the trap damage but then he pushed the lid completely off and it cracked in two.(the player who did this is normally very cautious and checks everything twice for traps, but the urgency of the situation overtook him and he forwent the usuall checks and tripped the trap to his complete suprise). The mad slasher appeared and fear set in when they all grabbed for the miniature to read the underside, they were still no better off when they did. and when it whirlwinded the party they all looked at me horrified, they were scared! as a dm i had them all excited and worried for their characters lives. it was sheer joy. The party finally scattered the swarm and defeated the slasher to massive cheers and whoops from the players that woke up my wife and kids, (at about 1am, thanks guys!)but then i got my revenge later....let me tell you of the tale of the party who didnt know anything about brown mould....hah hah
We just had a kamikaze gnome wizard diving into swarm, succeeding in concentration check and casting Shocking grasp...which was ruled to affect the whole swarm covering his body. *ZZAPP*
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We just had a kamikaze gnome wizard diving into swarm, succeeding in concentration check and casting Shocking grasp...which was ruled to affect the whole swarm covering his body. *ZZAPP*
LOL! Leave it to a gnome. "Holy gogandy!" ~~~Fizzlestick
The concept of "swarms" were new to most of my players so it was an interesting encounter. After a few futile attempts to toss oil and torch at the swarm, the rogue unrolled his winter blanket, soaked it in three vials of oil (meanwhile the swarm is chasing the other characters around the room) and directed the cleric to lure the swarm back to the original torch-tossed zone. On his action he ran through the swarm, blanket billowing behind and dropped the wet blanket on the swarm and torch. *poof* That was enough to eliminate the swarm and the few stragglers were squished under boot heel...which promptly required everyone to go barefoot! Silly acid beetles...
Here I was under the impression that the Alchemist Fire targets a particular square with like an AC5 or some such. Now I gotta check those rules.