I have the anniversary edition and I'm looking at the guards and wards on the Scribblers lair. How did you guys run this. It says that the hallways are obscured. there is not much in the way of hallways here. Also that each intersection theres a confusion chance of 50% going the wrong way. Again theres like two intersections. Did you roll for every character or just the lead party. How did you handle this via a map tool like err map tool. Lastly it says all doors look like plain walls. I'm assuming they look like walls with scribbling since all of the walls have scribbling on them. Otherwise they'd stand out. Thanks for any input
Hi MB
As no-one else has answered, I thought I would give my views.
The description on page 242 does say 'every time a character comes to an intersection, there is a 50% chance that he will take the route opposite...'
So, the way I read it is that each character has to make the roll. I guess the spell was primarily designed to confuse single thieves etc, rather than parties. Although, having a party arguing about which way to go would cause delays and increase wandering monster chances, so it is still pretty effective.
If you don't like the effect, especially if it causes you hassles in Maptool, change it to something else. Maybe a minor teleport to somewhere else in the complex, or the cells in the level above. Splitting parties causes no end of paranoia!
Yes, I agree with you about the doors. I would rule that they just blend in with the existing wall, whatever texture or colour it may be - even with appropriate scribbles on them.
Hope this helps.
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When we ran this encounter, I wasn't overly fond with the implementation of the environmental effects of the Scribbler's lair, so I made a few changes. The way we handled it was that the walls were covered in writing that seemed to crawl and rearrange itself, to shift from one language to another, seemed at times to speak to the reader directly... the halls remained filled with mist - an Obscuring Mist in effect at all times unless the PC's did something to dissipate it and in those cases it reformed in 1d4 rounds.
Whenever combat was engaged, at the beginning of every round the PC's had to make a Will save at DC 22 or be affected as if by a Confusion spell with one caveat - instead of attacking the nearest creature if indicated by the roll, casters instead cast one random spell. If a PC made his or her save, he would be unaffected by the Confusion effect for the remainder of combat.
This replaced the Webs in area A1, the Fog as written, the Confusion effect and the Lost Doors. The Suggestion, the silent Alarms and Arcane Locks remained in place.
Thanks all I think I'll copy Story Archer
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I'm looking forward to this dungeon. I plan on running it as is. Smart players will take precautions to getting seperated. My party isn't smart. And they're VERY veteran players, with an average of fifteen years of playing under their belts. I can EASILY see my party getting divided up. This could be a very dangerous dungeon.
The change I plan on doing is redrawing the dungeon, to give it some more intersections and doors. The guards and wards as is, is kinda weak and pointless. I'll be making the dungeon less chewed up and cleaner. I figure a couple of empty dusty rooms with just writing, a fountain room or two... should make it more interesting.
A thought I had originally was to try to run it without maps, without miniatures... or at least without any they can see. Going purely off of description should discombobulate them enough to simulate the dungeon's confusion, especially if they're used to having the tabletop to reference.
I plan on using the wards as is, but having there be more hallways like a traditional dungeon, with lots of intersections, and connections, so that the party can get lost, and then find each other, and then get lost again.
My plan is to not give them a map, and have a minimap behind my dm screen with tokens for each player. That way I know exactly where they are, but they have no idea. When they hit the bigger areas with encounters, everyone who didn't make their way there will have to make perception checks to run toward the noise. After every intersection, they will make another one to see if they have turned the right or wrong direction, as the direction the sounds are coming from would change for them.
I'm surprised to read so few parties spamming Dispel Magic to blow down the whole thing -- with a bard and a sorcerer who both had Dispel Magic, and the bard with Greater Dispel Magic, all I got to watch was a Spellcraft roll to determine the nature of the magic, and then Dispel Magic nukery to bring the whole house a-tumbling down.
Yeah, they burned a lot of spell slots (a greater dispel and a handful of lower ones), but they didn't have to deal with any of the effects, making it a far less interesting dungeon...
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I'm surprised to read so few parties spamming Dispel Magic to blow down the whole thing -- with a bard and a sorcerer who both had Dispel Magic, and the bard with Greater Dispel Magic, all I got to watch was a Spellcraft roll to determine the nature of the magic, and then Dispel Magic nukery to bring the whole house a-tumbling down.
Yeah, they burned a lot of spell slots (a greater dispel and a handful of lower ones), but they didn't have to deal with any of the effects, making it a far less interesting dungeon...
Characters that enter an area affected by Guards and Wards without doing anything to bring it down deserve to be eaten by a Grue. An area where visibility is 5 feet and every directional decision has random outcomes should scare the crap out of any sane creature.
If your players aren't confused or angry about it, you're doing it wrong.
(Yep, I'm an old, opinionated dinosaur. Hey! You kids - get off my lawn!)
I'm getting ready to run this tomorrow. I'm wondering how the Scribbler and other monsters are not affected by the mist. There's no exception to not being affected by it. I'm going to run intersections as in any time the party has two or more directions that they can travel -- so every T section or Y section.
This might be too late given when you posted and that today is tomorrow. But I would argue the caster is not affected regardless of written spell description. Sort of nonsensical otherwise. Caster's minions on the other hand are a different story, I think they would be subject to any of the effects per the saving throw and spell resistance entries for each with a couple notable exceptions:
Confusion: the description specifically references "intruders" so minions are not intruders and not affected.
Lost Doors: if the minions know the door is there, I would at a minimum give them a bonus to will save to disbelieve if not let them ignore the door illusions altogether
Dancing Lights: similar to the illusionary doors, the minions know the lights are a magical affect