Collapsing Buildings

[caliga]

I've worked on building a Indian Jones style temple that when the artifact is removed from a set room the whole thing begins collapsing. What I can't decide is how to actually run that part of the encounter.

I'm wondering if anyone else has done something along these lines that may be able to give me ideas on how they ran it or even ideas on things to add in during the escape.

[Some call me Tim]

First thing, don't screw over short races. I've played in adventures where if you didn't have a least a 30 ft. movement the entire mountain would cave in on you, no save. Worst. Trap. Ever.

Read the description of the spell, Earthquake, and the section on Cave-Ins in the Rulebook.

Here's what I would consider. First round, give the players a chance to react. Building shakes, dust and small pieces of plaster fall from ceiling.

Second round treat the area at the center of the temple as slide zone from the Cave-Ins section. Third round it becomes the bury zone. Have these zones expand outward at perhaps 40 ft. a round (depends on layout of temple). You could make more than just the two types if needed. Remember falling rock will start to make terrain difficult, shaking might require balance checks.

You don't give a level for the party so you might have to adjust DC and damage based on the party. You will probably have to tweak it some as there are so many variables, but in the end if a character with a 20 ft move decides to run for the exit in the first round he should have a good chance to make it.

Another thought I just had would be to treat the whole seen as a chase (as detailed in the GMG). Each round the players have to choose between two routes of escape with various checks and DCs. That might even make for a fun series of scenes instead of a flat out foot race to the exit. The more I think about the better I like that.

[caliga]

Some call me Tim wrote:

First thing, don't screw over short races. I've played in adventures where if you didn't have a least a 30 ft. movement the entire mountain would cave in on you, no save. Worst. Trap. Ever.

Fortunately no one is short.

Some call me Tim wrote:

Read the description of the spell, Earthquake, and the section on Cave-Ins in the Rulebook.

I missed the cave-in section in the rulebook, I'll have to double check for it.

Some call me Tim wrote:

Here's what I would consider. First round, give the players a chance to react. Building shakes, dust and small pieces of plaster fall from ceiling.

Second round treat the area at the center of the temple as slide zone from the Cave-Ins section. Third round it becomes the bury zone. Have these zones expand outward at perhaps 40 ft. a round (depends on layout of temple). You could make more than just the two types if needed. Remember falling rock will start to make terrain difficult, shaking might require balance checks.

The round types are exactly what I was looking for. Since if they are too slow it would be boring, too fast and it would be game over. From that example the party would basically stay 1 round ahead of anything too terrible until they started failing checks.

Some call me Tim wrote:

You don't give a level for the party so you might have to adjust DC and damage based on the party. You will probably have to tweak it some as there are so many variables, but in the end if a character with a 20 ft move decides to run for the exit in the first round he should have a good chance to make it.

Should have mentioned that. The party is made up of a druid, rogue, cleric who are 5th, and a ranger whose 4th.

Some call me Tim wrote:

Another thought I just had would be to treat the whole seen as a chase (as detailed in the GMG). Each round the players have to choose between two routes of escape with various checks and DCs. That might even make for a fun series of scenes instead of a flat out foot race to the exit. The more I think about the better I like that.

Hmm chase scenes, I'll have to look into. If it something that can work out well it means I'd be able to expand the Temple to either be largely, or include the ruined town around. Starting with the crumbling temple leading to a giant sink hole forming around it extending to the town outskirts.

Thanks for the ideas, it helped give me some better focus.

[Lobolusk]

I just had great Original idea. you could then have a giant boulder chase them out of the temple?

[Spiralbound]

From a logistics standpoint, I recommend you map out the temple complex, even if it's only in an outline form, and then mark in the zones of collapse with notes on various hazards, both by location and by round. You might also benefit from a per round listing of the sequence of events of the collapse for quick reference. All of the above should make running the collapse event much smoother for you.

This is assuming that for the most part, the PCs will spend all the rounds of the collapse event scrabbling to escape its effects, not performing actions which could radically alter the event. For example, if your magic casters are able to somehow shore up sections of the temple, negate some hazards, or even halt the collapse, then obviously your ability to plan the event will become much more complicated, requiring several contingency branches to the per round sequences along the lines of "if they do X, then Y occurs instead of Z"...