SO, my players finally managed to get past the howling face to get to the Grick/Sphere Trap chamber. The decided they wanted to use candles to light all the lanterns instead of the sunrods they had with them, or torches. Even though the text says to light with torches I allowed it.
However, it took them quite a while in the Sphere room, and though it didn't come up, it occurred to me, what if one or more of the light sources in the lantern room is extinguished while the PCs are still on teh other side? Does the Howling Face reappear? How would the PCs escape? SHort of finding some way to dig through the spheres to get to the Grick tunnnel (assuming they know about it) are they screwed? Can Allistor (sp?) use his manifestation ability to go to the Lantern room and relight the lanterns?
Has anyone else had this problem?
nope. I completely waived the issue - I didn't want to bog down gameplay in potential "I'm the dm, so i'm just gonna annoy the piss out of you" issues.
Once the Face is opened for a set of PCs, It's always opened for them.
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SO, my players finally managed to get past the howling face to get to the Grick/Sphere Trap chamber. The decided they wanted to use candles to light all the lanterns instead of the sunrods they had with them, or torches. Even though the text says to light with torches I allowed it.
However, it took them quite a while in the Sphere room, and though it didn't come up, it occurred to me, what if one or more of the light sources in the lantern room is extinguished while the PCs are still on teh other side? Does the Howling Face reappear? How would the PCs escape? SHort of finding some way to dig through the spheres to get to the Grick tunnnel (assuming they know about it) are they screwed? Can Allistor (sp?) use his manifestation ability to go to the Lantern room and relight the lanterns?
Has anyone else had this problem?
There are a few inferred elements here. A torch is typically good for an hour of decent light while a candle tends to burn for much longer with inferior lighting quality. For effect I had the lit lantern's light radiate out towards the psuedo-crypt as separate colours until they mixed and became white light again at the sarcophagus. At this time a white beam of light shot out towards the Howling Face causing its mouth to open and reveal the sphere's hall beyond. You can claim the magic of the lanterns magnifies the candle light sufficiently to do the same. With the long duration of a candle, the PCs should have enough time to explore the areas beyond.
If you want to have a "time is of the essence" feel to this part, have some sort of warning for the PCs that nudges them to hurry up or get out. Perhaps a slight gust of wind passes through the sphere hall at regular intervals and begins to increase as the lantern light source nears the end of its duration, becoming a strong wind in the last minute. This should be sufficient to get PCs out the hall and out to the lanterns again. If they insist on staying...well, Mr. Land has some company for a time at least!
The same idea occurred to me, and being a very new DM, I was stuck on trying to make things realistic. The party not only took a while in there behind the face, but they decided to rest. I had them make listen checks to hear the stone slide back into place to seal their fate. Being sensible folk, they decided to rest anyway, since you might as well be healed up before pounding through walls. I used this whole experience to keep the party firmly on my DM railroad.
The other adventuring group (Auric, Khellek, and Tirra) had finally found the Whispering Cairn, and they re-lit all the lanterns, not knowing what would happen. Our party climbed down and met them all. In the Age of Worms Overload each character has a "hook" phrase. I don't remember what Auric's was supposed to be, but I confused it with someone else's which was "Don't you know who I am?" This seemed to work well for the fame-hungry Auric, who stood there grinning like a model asking the party "Don't you know who I am?" They haven't met him again (though we're almost at the Champion Games) but they still talk about him.
Khellek was only really interested in the body of Uluvant, the lost Seeker, so the party directed him toward the corpse and then beat it out of there. I got that idea of these boards, I believe from Rexx. (Thanks Rexx!) All in all, it worked very well to trap the party because I was stuck on how things should work.
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Khellek was only really interested in the body of Uluvant, the lost Seeker, so the party directed him toward the corpse and then beat it out of there. I got that idea of these boards, I believe from Rexx. (Thanks Rexx!) All in all, it worked very well to trap the party because I was stuck on how things should work.
As so many things on these boards, it was a group effort of ideas. Regardless, I appreciate the kudo, Eltanin. Having Khellek focused on Uluvant, and thus the Rod of Seven Parts, facilitated my overall story flow for the Free City Trio and my PCs.
I do like what you did with the trio in extricating your PCs from their predicament. That should pay off for you down the road for some heightened roleplaying opportunities.