Relatively new GM questions on this.
Ok, I am stuck, how do the PCs get out of this room? Without the water breathing potions or something of water breathing, I think they are all dead. Even if they are breathing underwater, how do you fight the Dread Cyclops? How do they fight in the water? Seems that it would be basically grappling? You can cast spells underwater, but not with a verbal component, and then can a magic missile travel under water?
If this has been asked before, I apologize ahead of time. When I search the archives, nothing comes up on this topic, well, nothing at all comes up?! That is another issue.
Thanks for the time to look at this!
James
Greetings, fellow traveller.
Well, the room is described as a deadly trap. But, it takes 10 rounds to fill the whole room with water during which the players can act including spellcasting: dimension door being the most obvious choice, but note that stone shape and wall of stone is also mentioned for blocking the iris doors in the ceiling - point one.
Point two, the portcullises can be lifted with a DC 25 STR-check (no information is provided for the northern portcullis, so I assume they are both the same).
Point three - the cyclopses will suffer similar problems during the fight as the PCs (except the breathing/ drowning problems, obviously).
Point four - the PCs will have been visiting Varnhold before most likely, if they did a thorough search in the fort, they should have found the potions in the secret escape tunnel (if not, you might fudge that and have Agai carry those as treasure).
Ruyan.
Note that it is only a DC20 Perception check to notice the the floodgates and DC28 Perception to notice the raised portcullis.
Disclaimer: In the following suggestions, I'm making some assumptions on you and your players behavior in role playing games in general. If you feel I'm wrong or you're offended by these assumptions, rest assured that I do not care at all, but still only wish you and every GM out there the best.
As is written, any PC entering the room wouldn't understand the purpose of the room until triggering the trap and suffer from it. However, if you take time to add some flavor to the room description, this could trigger a thought sequence in your players' minds, easily mitigating the potential hazards of the trap while (and this is important imho) not taking away any of the danger, preserving the feeling of accomplishment afterwards.
Some examples;
- Have characters investigating the floodgates notice an increased weathering of the stone on the edges where parts of the stone doors interlock, (as water has been slowly seeping through these slits over the centuries, suggesting a body of water is on the other side) or some encrusted traces of algae.
- When the PC's do not notice the portcullis, make sure to mention the corridor is filled with bits of chipped stone (the portcullis comes crashing down! It probably has closed once before somewhere in the past)
- If you use a battlegrid/dungeonmap, draw the statues on it. Also, have one of the statues fallen of its small pedestal. Make sure the players understand the statues are not so much part of the static shape of the dungeon, but more there as furniture. This encourages interaction with the environment and could perhaps suggest the idea to block the portcullis before triggering the trap with some objects found in the tomb.
- Add a little dust covered skeleton of a lobster or fish. (From a previous time the chamber was filled with water)
- Change the lay-out of the room so the alcoves are at the south end of the room. This way the the emerging monsters are not between the PC's and the exit door should they want to turn around and lift the gate. Alternatively, have the monsters spend 1 or 2 rounds after the trap has triggered busting down their secret doors (which we'll change to be thin walls instead).
- Describe the water rushing in. It's vividly in motion, creating foam and turbulent whirls as it passes through the bars of the portcullis and making the gate emanate loud noises of metal scratching the surrounding rock from the shaking of the portcullis in the strong current of the water. This also suggests the players the portcullis is not static and can be interacted with (lifted!). Or perhaps the Giant River Eel that comes down with the water crashes in this gate and deforms it with its impact.
- When all else fails 1: Make the room higher. Add ledges to the side of it and place some ornaments on it (suggesting the ledges are purely aesthetic upon first entering the room). This gives some leeway when flooding the room. Perhaps after 4 rounds or so the water has risen to the level of these ledges, postponing complicated under water fighting rules for some rounds (and hopefully altogether).
- When all else fails 2: The southern portcullis system has actually weathered quite a bit throughout the centuries and this caused the portcullis to not come down completely. Describe it as somewhat deformed. Parts of the bars had been thoroughly rusted and crumble to a paste as the portcullis crashes down. It's still slightly ajar and although only the tiniest of creatures would fit underneath, it makes the lifting of this gate slightly easier (DC21 Strength Check). Of course, this 'escape' would only allow the PC's to venture further into the dungeon *evil GM laughter*
Once you've shown some doors in the minds of your players, they can take the next steps and open each door, exploring possibilities they wouldn't come up with beforehand. This is an extremely rewarding experience for your players.
Final thoughts:
In the current world, where all players have experience with adventuring and RPG games on computers, it can sometimes be difficult for the players to transfer to a traditional pen and paper RPG without imposing themselves the same limitations these computer games have. Therefor out-of-the-box thinking is unfortunately less and less common in my experience.
A way to alleviate these problems is add description, add flavor and most importantly, add purpose to the places and objects they explore.
If you (or/and every GM out there of course) can defeat the players attitude of just passively accepting and processing limited input, problems presented to your players will drastically decrease in negativity of the outcomes for them.
Just a little rant of mine. :) In the end, I hope you don't have to think about rules regarding things like underwater spellcasting, grappling etc. at all.
RuyanVe, Bog,
Thanks for the awesome tips! I appreciate your time in answering my questions and helping me become better at something I really enjoy doing.
James
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The group was able to get through the room without triggering it. I added the chipped stone on the ground, and a fish skeleton in the room.
They easily found all three secret doors and sent in a summoned steed to set off any pressure plate type traps. None was found. They then came up with an idea on how the room worked and the psionicist used her dimension door equivalent to get to the other side of the door without setting the trap off. After that, the tapped a dagger into the secret door, tied a rope to it, and triggered it from the stair well area. They watched the eel fall into the room, proceed to attack the terrified summoned steed, and then saw the 2 dread cyclops zombies break out, and kill the eel, then get submerged. They are still down there, even after they defeated Vordakai, whose name they didn't know until he told them, that is another story.
Thanks again for helping create a really cool encounter for my players and myself to go through, lots of tension and creative ability to over come.
Cheers,
James
My group sort of pwned this room last night, although they haven't finished it. They have a high-Perception inquisitor who was able to spot the portcullis and the water holes, and once he spotted the secret door, they more or less figured out how the trap worked. They then moved a couple of statues under the north portcullis in case it dropped, and actually managed to find one of the monster alcove doors and open it. From that point, it was easy for them to dispatch the cyclops, and find/open/kill the other side. Then they headed back out to camp.
All in all, it was nearly farcical (a tone I may have started earlier by substituting Giant Flying/Grabbing Zombie Cyclops Beheadeds for the dread zombies in W7 -- giant zombie heads performing chomping bite-grabs is scary but also kind of silly). The players are already bewildered by the disappearing centaur trail and wondering what the point of the room is.
I am too, a little bit. The alcoves have never opened, so no one has ever triggered the trap (although I did toss in some of the clues mentioned above, the fish bones and such). Does it reset? What was it before it was a trap room? Why is it basically laid out like a chess board, with 16 'pieces', but no other chess motif? At least we're having fun with it, instead of getting frustrated.
|
We had 2 party "deaths" in this room, but not from drowning. 10 rounds is a lot of game time for the players to take action. Mine lifted the portcullis while two of them held off the zombies and fish. However, some nasty GM attack rolls on my part dropped one of the defenders, and another went down trying to rescue him. The other two fled the room, dropping the portcullis so they weren't followed.
When I ran this, everyone missed the rolls to spot anything and they actually triggered the dread cyclopses at the same time they triggered the trap. The druid's tiger animal companion, the paladin, and the paladin's assassin (family obligation by NPC) moved to melee the undead and had the eel land on paladin; the druid and the sorcerer started working on bars, and the ranger (a gnome) got off one shot before realizing that at 2 feet of rise a round, she needed to get to high ground now and climbed the bars. As melee ensues, the druid and sorcerer realize they're ot strong enough to bend the bars, so the druid wildshapes into a giant ape and gets one bar bent in three tries (very bad rolls). By then, the paladin was underwater with her assassin buddy-breathing for her thanks to water breathing, and the tiger was meleeing the last cyclops. The druid (back at normal size), sorcerer, and ranger escape through the one-bar hole, and realize that the room is still filling. One round later, the wounded paladin is shoved out right as the druid's player realizes that his tiger is too big to fit through the hole and has his character enter angst meltdown in horror. The paladin's assassin turns around, swims back, and returns two rounds later to say "She <tiger> didn't drown."
The party all were on a butt-whooping tear for the bad guy at that point.
As always, my party didn't have the same experience the rest did. Maybe a year+ ago. They noticed the trap with their incredible Perception scores, and everybody piled onto the Druid / party's mounts, which had Air Walk active. Having an idea what the trap did, they floated to the ceiling and triggered the trap, stoneshaped the holes shut, handled the zombies and moved on. They might have Wild Empathy'd the eel -- I forget.
In keeping with the design of the dungeon and so that the iris doors in the cieling were not "obviously" out of place. I made the iris' carved bas relief eyes on the cieling (it was the "iris" of the 16 eyes that opened to let in the river). The party spotted the portculis holes so they knew something was up. But they were more concerned with the statues coming to life and a room with 16 large carved eyes looking down on them. It was suitably creepy.
|
I actually added a little drama to this room by stepping out of storyteller mode and, once things were in full swing, I told my players, "I just want you to know that I had to read this room's description about 50 times because I kept thinking I missed this trap's solution. Turns out, I didn't. The author doesn't give one. So its up to you."
Rather than looking for triggers, switches, catches or what-have-you, they went old-school. Jokes were made ("So what's my 'bend bars, lift gates?"), drama was had, all in all, it went better than if there was some built-in solution.