My players have reached today the Eye of Serenity and I have some issues with the access to it.
It is some kind of portal that allows a character to pass through the walls as if incorporeal and cannot be perceived unless the character is blinded.
In order to enter the Eye, a supplicant must purposefully blind himself, either with magic (such as blindness/deafness) or by using the irthaval incense kept in the storeroom to the east. Thus blinded to the real world, a character can perceive doorways in the irises of the giant eyes and pass through them as if they were incorporeal, entering the Eye of Serenity.Wearing a blindfold or closing the eyes is not enough. To enter, one's eyes must remain open and uncovered.
But, could this somewhat be bypassed with an UMD check? Could a character who is looking for secret doors find the place that has to be crossed even though it cannot be perceived by common sight?
My GM has allowed me to read this thread and share my point of view, so let's start:
Thus blinded to the real world, a character can perceive doorways in the irises of the giant eyes...
This seems to imply that the doors are already there, so they should be able to be perceived with Detect Magic and/or a high Perception check.
...and pass through them as if they were incorporeal, entering the Eye of Serenity. Wearing a blindfold or closing the eyes is not enough. To enter, one's eyes must remain open and uncovered
This looks like an activation condition to be able to open the portals and/or enter the Eye: "To look with blinded eyes".
Activate Blindly: Some magic items are activated by special words, thoughts, or actions. You can activate such an item as if you were using the activation word, thought, or action, even when you're not and even if you don't know it. You do have to perform some equivalent activity in order to make the check. That is, you must speak, wave the item around, or otherwise attempt to get it to activate.
So, my idea is to Use Magic Device to emulate the action of "Look with blinded eyes" without being really blinded.
My opinion is that it should work, but I am not sure about that. What do you think?
I don't see perception working, as there is clearly powerful magic involved. It is not just a door you have trouble to find, the door doesn't exist until you meet the requirements.
Faking the requirements using UMD might work, but thats the GMs call. Personally I ruled the eye to be artifact level magic and that the UMD check to fool that would be out of reach (not that my players tried), but there is no right or wrong answer how to handle it.
Thanks for the answer!
As the wording here is more fluff than specific ruling I guess making it work as I think it should work is the better option.
As it's written, I think it's thought to be made that way and only that way, but I like to be open to other solutions my players might bring to the table.
At this time my best take on it is allowing the UMD roll to be made. Kiani has a +24 on her UMD check (thanks to versatile performance), and she's able to stack many bonuses on her skill rolls. So I think that even if I set a CD of 50 for the check she might have a very low chance of succeeding. With such a high roll, I think I should give her a chance to try.
Of course I'm not posting what CD I'll be actually giving to it, as it could affect the decission of the PCs on trying/not trying.
They are also talking about blinding a cyclops and forcing him to lead the way xD
I never expect my players to do things in the way they are meant to be done and they don't dissapoint me. I love it when they come up with alternative solutions.
Given the description in the OP, I think UMD will not work.
UMD is about tricking magic into thinking you have something you really don't.
Blinding yourself with a blindfold does not work, since you still have working eyes. UMD to emulate the blinded condition (not sure if possible, but for the sake of argument, ok) will not remove the ability you have to see, and thus it fails to trigger.
As a GM, however, you can modify the activating conditions to allow UMD to work.
/cevah
PS: In English, it is "DC" for "Difficulty Class". I suspect your native language reverses the order of the words.
Either that, or you mistyped twice in the same post. :-)
Difficulty Class vs. Clase de Dificultad in Spanish.
I guess the DC for linguistics was too high and I failed my roll ;-P
And it gets worse. When I write the stats of a character by hand I use indistinctly the terms in English and Spanish. I have spell lists written with both spells in English and Spanish, as I sometimes use spells that have not been translated and if I give them a name in Spanish I forget what the original name was when I want to check it at the original source. So it gets more and more confusing.
Back on topic, I see the point on what you are saying and I suspect you could be right.
Anyway, I think my better option is choosing how I want it to work and go on with it, as I find the description to be open to different interpretations.
Just for curiosity: do you believe you'd have to have actual eyes that have been blinded to make it work or an eyeless creature will meet the requisites to activate it?
Thanks for your answers!
Language can be so fun. I know a little Spanish, German, and Hebrew. I don't really speak any, so at best I can recognize which one it is when I see it.
As to creatures without eyes to blind, I think they would not trigger the effect since they did not get blinded. However, I think UMD would work to fake having eyes, which you cannot currently use.
Rather interesting flipping of the problem.
Another possible way for the creature without eyes would be to count "blinded" as "normal sensory access to the world denied". So Silence on something that sees by sound (echolocation), and flying for something with tremmorsense.
I think my better option is choosing how I want it to work and go on with it
+1
/cevah
Hebrew looks like a great language to learn. So much mysticism in it.
I already GMed this part.
Kiani tried using UMD but didn't beat the DC I set, so they decided to blind a captured cyclops and forcing him to walk through the entry.
But they couldn't speak cyclops and the cyclops wouldn't want to walk through the portals, so they kept pushing the poor blinded and tied cyclops against the walls.
He finally understood what they wanted him to do, but he still didn't want to colaborate.
After they pushed him for a while, harming him, I allowed an intimidate roll, even though they didn't speak the same language, to see if the pain they were inflicting on him could make him enter.
They made the roll and the cyclops entered. With only 2 remaining HP.
Before the walls were made incorporeal the cyclops was killed by the stone and next round the cleric (Sandara) received 4 negative levels!
The swashbuckler picked the stone with bare hands and almost got trapped in the stone!
They did well in the end and it was fun to roleplay.
Sandara finally smashed the stone. She was so angry because it had her lose some connection with her goddess (she lost 2 levels of spells due to negative levels).
Kiani tried using UMD but didn't beat the DC I set, so they decided to blind a captured cyclops and forcing him to walk through the entry.
But they couldn't speak cyclops and the cyclops wouldn't want to walk through the portals, so they kept pushing the poor blinded and tied cyclops against the walls.
He finally understood what they wanted him to do, but he still didn't want to colaborate.
After they pushed him for a while, harming him, I allowed an intimidate roll, even though they didn't speak the same language, to see if the pain they were inflicting on him could make him enter.
They made the roll and the cyclops entered.
I just can't believe he didn't catch it after that little thing with a white hot dagger and his eye. We even gave him a CLW potion! However, nettles can be very convincing when applied in the proper... ehm... places.
As for the stone, I am sure the swashbuckler is very happy of me having learned Dimension Door last level!
Nasty PCs. :-)
We used the incense, but could have used the Blindness spell my cohort usually carried. As that is (D), it makes it easy to get rid of later.
/cevah
The incense is very cool.
I am sure we'll smoke it!
Nasty PCs indeed! XD
You think your players are serious people who take things seriously.
Then you put them in a pirate adventure and watch all the mayhem begin!
I'm having such a great time GMing this adventure!