You know, Ashiel, I thought you were a cool guy. You always seemed friendly enough, after all.
Then, you stay out of the forums for weeks, no problem, everyone can use a break. But when you finally return you create this thread.
Don't get me wrong, it's a delightful thread. But DID YOU HAVE TO DO IT IN THE WEEK WHEN I'M PLAYING, NOT GMING???
Couldn't you wait another 7 days? My GM reads these forums! Man, now I have to read all these, try and memorize the most dangerous and think about how to survive them!
If my Paladin dies, he'll fall and become a ghost Anti-Paladin just so he gets to haunt you!!! ^^
Seriously, though. Nice thread. Lots of fun stuff in here!
But really... 7 days. Was it too much? You could entertain youself with a "Cool custom loot to give your party and how to make sure they find it!" thread for the time being... -.-'
Gods of Dice, don't fail me now!!!
Ashiel hasn't posted in over a month, he made this thread over 6 months ago.
Ashiel hasn't posted in over a month, he made this thread over 6 months ago.
Ah, so it's thread necromancy, then!
Okay, so who should my fallen Paladin haunt, when my GM uses this stuff to screw him?
This is a variant of a Grimtooth trap that I came up with. Basically the Upsey Downsey Daisy with a twist.
Ideally placed in a hallway, with the trigger being at the end of a pit trap, so it hopefully catches the whole party. When triggered, a 40 ft long pit trap opens, dropping the party down a number of feet (this depends on the overall appropriate CR for the party). Once at the bottom, trap number two is triggered, opening a second pit trap on the ceiling with a reverse gravity effect causing anyone in the pit to "fall" up to the ceiling, where they trigger trap number 3, deactivating the reverse gravity and beginning summoning a number of gravity elementals (from the Tome of Horrors). By the time the party has hit the bottom of the pit again, the gravity elementals are summoned, pulling the party back up to the top of the trap, where they deactivate their gravity field, dropping the party to the bottom of the pit trap for a third time, and call for initiative.
This can scale for a party of any level, higher levels allowing you to use larger gravity elementals and increasing the distance between the bottom of the floor pit trap and the "bottom" of the ceiling pit trap.
Because of the several iterations of falling damage, the combat on it's heels, this has a large potential to TPK lower level groups, so should probably be used no lower than 7-8. My favorite party is that, even with a party using a pole to prod for traps, they will still get hit, as the trigger switch causes the trap to open beneath and behind them, rather than ahead of them.
Oh do I have stories to tell!
The Watery Dip
Double Jeopardy
The Cage Match
A Finger Plucked
Heated Beds
Slimy Door of Doom
The Swarm Pit
Fecal Matters
Door Knobbers
Room of Blades
A Muddy Situation
Split Decisions
And also, my Troll Myrmidons make for NASTY melee combatants.
Not All Are Created Equal
It's a pretty widely accepted that that certain NPCs just get way more love from certain feats than PCs can ever hope for. The vital stike feats kind of suck, unless you happy to be a Tyrannosaurus; in which case they rock. Diehard can more than double the effective HP of low level minions. Combat Defense Training is pretty awesome on any enemy with lots of HD. It's not hard to see that some options are really nice for enemies.But some are just plain nasty. Which leads me to the next post. Your players may abandon your table for good after this. Good! Who needs 'em! The bums! σ_σ
Er, actually, I mean this is a very good way to scare the crap out of your players and push them onto the retreat with really minor foes by just making use of certain combat tactics you probably wouldn't have previously thought of.
I'd like to mention two game mechanics that you may not have considered before. Spring Attack (yes the feat everyone whines about because it's kinda sucky and doesn't work with Vital Strike) and Burrow speed. Now let that sink in for a moment. Yep, you got it. Rush up, attack, retreat back into the ground. Retaliation is a b&&~&.
That's not bad enough though. Oh no. σ_σ
Spring Attack + Incorporeal foes...
Yes dear readers. Imagine the horror as your party is beset by creatures like wraiths or advanced shadows whose feats include Dodge, Mobility, and Spring attack. They phase through a solid object, slap some poor fool for ability damage, then phase away; leaving your party dazed and confused...
How about an Advanced Bulette with Spring Attack. That's a burrow speed and one big bad land shark.
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a pretty simple one that was quite effective in 3.5
the set: the BBEG use a teleport circle on the groung to go "somewhere" else. The players run after him.
Once he arrive, he put a wooden tripod just above the arrival circle, taking care of not touching it with any legg.
the first character that walk on the teleport, impale himseft on the tripod. instant death. portal blocked (as the arrival circle is no more empty)
if you are good with the players, the dead body and the tripod are teleported back after one round.
I like HURTING my PCs. Outright murder railroad however (as per The Forced Dismount) is just too cruel for my blood.
I like using terrain effects or just outright invent them because I enjoy weakening the PCs while still giving the illusion of success.
I have a game this weekend and I'm thinking of using a haunt that doesn't kill them all at once but gets worse and worse until its either deactivated in some way or fled from.
Round 2 of the haunt it inflicts a Shaken effect; Round 3 hits 'em with Fatigued. Then after all that, THEN they get to the actual meat of the haunt.
Have the character(s) fall into a deep pit trap with a rot grub swarm at the bottom. Have said pit's walls covered with easily accessible vines that allow the character(s) to climb out.
Said vines are actually naturally growing terinav roots that poisons the character(s) with one dose of poison for every round spent climbing. Heck, make one of them an assassin vine, just to slow them down and force them into further exposure.
By the time they get out of the pit, they've likely suffered so much ability damage that it won't really matter what they face next.
Have the character(s) fall into a deep pit trap with a rot grub swarm at the bottom. Have said pit's walls covered with easily accessible vines that allow the character(s) to climb out.
Said vines are actually naturally growing terinav roots that poisons the character(s) with one dose of poison for every round spent climbing. Heck, make one of them an assassin vine, just to slow them down and force them into further exposure.
Wow. That's just plain mean. And inspired. Consider that one yoinked.
I planned something similar but never got to inflict it on my last group of players. Enter a lift area above a shaft of poisonous gasses and heat from the magma vent far below. The lift was an elaborate puzzle which, if solved fans down all the bad air while the heat is harnessed to raise the lift.
If the party tried to climb it there'd be non-lethal every round from the heat and checks against the poison gasses or loss of Wis. My hope was that they would try the climb, suffer too much damage before the top, then fall back down to take the lethal falling damage.
Make sure you implement it before they get access to flight, Mr. Hoover.
I have an issue with pits; they can easily be vehicles for railroading. Case in point; years ago we entered a goblin cave that the GM did explain was warmed by magma or whatever. So we're walking along and my rogue fails his percentile to detect the trap; the GM says "you fall into boiling hot magma. You're dead."
Really? One pit trap and instant death? Turned out the magma was bubbling a scant 20' from the surface at that point. Wouldn't that cause some environmental issues or have been a TAD more noticeable?
Anyway that could've been poor GMing but pits have that inherent risk. Fall freely into a pit and it could: go on for miles, have reverse gravity, have a ceramic false floor which shatters releasing buckets of acid, be filled with living walls, have smashing walls because its actually a trash compactor; the list goes on I'm sure.
Somehow I'm ok with Ravingdork's, though the rot grubs are debatable. But still, the rest of it is really cool; you fall in and get hurt, ow. Then you have to get out; no one SAYS you have to climb the vines on the walls but you CAN. If you choose to do so there are consequences but at least the character is a little in charge of things...
I remember reading through 3.5's Draconomicon, thumbing through the monsters section and seeing the Rust Dragon. My heart literally sank at just the thought of fighting one...unless I was a monk/druid. By the time you are fighting monsters with that high of a CR, you typically aren't worried about your shinies being melted away by a mutated roach.
Lucklily their homes is in one of the outer planes (can't remember which at the moment)!
here is something from one of my threads
presenting Mighty Mite the Mortal Micronaut of Mayhem or big M for short(fifth level)
take one human fighter and add the advanced/young template 4 times, resulting in +32 dex, +16Mental scores, now add racial bonus to dex for 34, add the 15 points to dex for point buy (or highest rolled ability score), resulting in 59 dex, then spend ability on dex for 60. now spend your bonus feats on two weapon fighting and weapon finesse,and pick two daggers (everything is about 1 point of damage at that size anyway). your to hit will be 34(25 ability, 1BAB, 8 size). your ac will be 43, flat foot 18, touch 43. now just spend normal feats on ironwill to shore up saves also getting the two weapon chain to maximize damage per turn,buy an amulet of NA, and enchanting the daggers for agile when you can to get that crazy dex for damage, weapon training light weapons (mostly for the handy early on static damage bonus), and invest ability advancement to dex for even more insane to hit and damage. i really cant condone this things even existence … but tom thumb here did kick one of my uppity players asses
all this with +0 CR template combo so the CR for this encounter was...4