Beware this dire warning. Ignore it at your peril!

[Storminator]

I reiterate. Thunderwave.

Only helps if you've got a Wis of 16+ (which he might, I don't know...)

PS

 

[abyssaldeath]

Why would he need a wis of 16+. As far as I can tell, he only needs a 12 wis.



Edit: Never mind. The Purple worm has a reach of 3. Therefore you need a wis mod of at least 3 if you are adjacent.

 

[Syrsuro]

Minor point: Op says he would rather have died than been in that situation.

Also according to the OP, if the DM had played it "by the book" he would have been dead very quickly as the DM bent the rules to allow him to be healed while swallowed.

Sounds like the DM shouldn't have bothered to bend the rules in that case.

The objection is that the creature as written leads to interminable boredom. It doesn't - the creature as written leads to fairly rapid death (if the attack is allowed to succeed). The creature as modified and played by that particular DM leads to boredom.

Otherwise, I don't think that as a DM I would have used the action point to swallow you in the first place. Denying you that opportunity to be healed while bloody and in its mouth is what led directly to this situation, even more so than the creatures (iconic) abilities. If you want to blame something or someone, talk to you DM.

Carl

 

[LostSoul]

Did you try an acrobatic stunt to get out?

Did any of the other players try to cut you out?

Did the Rogue try to jump into the mouth of the worm with a rope tied around him, and have the Fighter pull you back out?

 

[James McMurray]

Lets see first you were in range to be grabbed by a purple worm as the wizard. This in and of itself is probably not a wise idea. Its a stupid monster. A defender should probably have had a decent time at holding it in place and wizard keeping range.

I wasn't surprised, but I did lose initiative. Unless you know how to avoid a burrowing monster (that you don't know the location of) without taking any actions, I don't see how staying out of melee range with it was an option.

Now, forgetting that first point, after it grabbed you, no one was able to force move it away from you to break the grab. Further you could not dimension door or use a magic item or whatever to escape (though these may not have been available).

Right, I said all that already. Our powers in that area had already been used to fight off the grabs of dire stirges.

Finally the cleric did not heal you. This make me assume you did not roll sufficiently on your knowledge rolls for the creature to learn what its powers are.

Yep. Out of character we all assumed purple worm, and at least I assumed that being swallowed was a possibility. It never crossed my mind that once I was swallowed I'd be removed from the combat and forced to watch myself slowly die.

So, to summarize:
1) Your wizard was in a bad situation (up in melee range of a brute)
2) No one was able to help him get away once it attacked (no forced movement after you were grabbed)
3) You could not get away using any escape methods once you were grabbed
4) Your cleric did not heal you, implying your group all failed their knowledge roll to learn the monsters abilities.

Conclusions: Point 1 was an error. Points 2-4 could have simply been bad luck (poor rolls) but you needed bad luck on the part of far too many people to really expect anything different.

Point 2 wasn't bad luck, it was good tactics in a previous battle. Point 3 wasn't bad luck, it was a near impossibility. No wizard who has already used his only teleport can escape the grab of a purple worm 2 levels higher than him without rolling extremely well.

Point 4 was not bad luck, it was good tactics that have never failed us in the past. The damage I'd taken was worrisome, but not incredibly frightening. There was no reason for him to heal me then and there, when he could heal me later and get more out of it. Without the swallowing (and the resulting negation of everything I can do), even two more attacks at that damage wouldn't have dropped me.

If I miss all my attacks in an encounter someone could die. In this case if everything was done to try and save the wizard AND he made the error of being up close and personal with a purple worm, well frankly he deserved to die. Thats the way the dice roll, adventuring is not a "safe" business.

I ask again: how do you avoid a creature who won initiative when you don't know where it is other than "down"? I'm not looking for safety, I'm looking for fun. I've had character deaths galore. Until 4e's swallow whole, I'd never had an encounter that made me wish I'd stayed home.

I reiterate. Thunderwave.

I reiterate.: I used Force Orb, which is better than Thunderwave (for me it;s the same push, but more damage). I didn't roll the 18 I needed to hit. Sure, Thunderwave could work, but it's far from the obvious solution you seem to think it is.

Well, assuming the party has +14 to hit defenses, and +16 to hit other defenses... They'd need 15s or better to hit it unless they're hitting Will. Regardless, if your only possible out was a well placed thunderwave (and it is an out) then your cleric could have gotten in a to-hit buff, action points spent, etc. Wizard is grabbed, wizard uses thunderwave, stuns, things that negate the hold through -some- means. It's a tough situation, admittedly, but wizard gets in melee, wizard gets eaten. Hold some actions, open that can up, and start stacking attack bonuses in your favor. Get some flanking happening. That sort of thing. Make it so that you've got as many hit-buffs as you can get.

I won't lay the fight out round by round, but we did everything we possibly could have done that didn't require OOC knowledge we didn't have. The problem wasn't the party's or GM's tactics, it was the existence of a monster who can push the off button on a PC.

And the cleric -could- have healed you when the bite took you below your healing surge value and you were grabbed. It was reasonable to assume the next round would go the same. Grabbing opponents generally have a predictable next turn, which is usually do bad things to the grabbed enemy.

Yes, he could have healed me. I even asked if he would, but he didn't because I wasn't bloodied, and we tend not to heal each other unless we're in dire straits. Since nobody knew that the monster would turn me off if I became bloodied, nobody knew that me having taken a few (20ish) points of damage was dire. Without that unknown off button in place, we've been in much worse positions.

That said, the DM should have looked at the dice needed to hit the damn thing and thought 'You know, this isn't really a decent challenge for this party yet.' When enemies cross over the thresholds of levels 5, 10, 15, 20, etc, the math goes slightly off in encounters.

We'd have slapped it silly if I hadn't been completely negated after taking one ineffectual action. As a 12th level Blood Mage, I can add all sorts of damage capability and other fun stuff to a fight.

The objection is that the creature as written leads to interminable boredom. It doesn't - the creature as written leads to fairly rapid death (if the attack is allowed to succeed). The creature as modified and played by that particular DM leads to boredom.

If you wish to run monsters that create unavoidable off switches for 90+% of a PC's abilities, that's your choice. I have no problems with any of the decisions the DM made. He took a monster that made sense for the setting, followed the DMG's rules to bring it down to what should be a hard fight, and then played it according to its writeup in the MM.

Otherwise, I don't think that as a DM I would have used the action point to swallow you in the first place. Denying you that opportunity to be healed while bloody and in its mouth is what led directly to this situation, even more so than the creatures (iconic) abilities. If you want to blame something or someone, talk to you DM.

I did. I also came here. In any case though, one of the stated design goals of 4e is to not create situations that completely (or almost completely) negate a PC. That's why most things are now save ends, and it's why there are no effects that are save or die. Swallow Whole fails completely in this regard, as it shuts down characters with no hope of escape once it hits.

If you use it, great. If your players don't mind being taken out of the combat with little to no chance of escape, and they enjoy sitting there rolling a d20 every round hoping to get lucky enough to do next to nothing, that's great too. I know I'll never use anything with that ability when I'm running. I prefer for the players to be able to play. That's kinda why we're sitting around the table.

 

[James McMurray]

Did you try an acrobatic stunt to get out?

Hmm... untrained, +3 dex mod, +6 from level. Nope. It never crossed my mind.

Did any of the other players try to cut you out?

Yep. When the purple worm is dead, a swallowed creature escapes as a move action. They pounded the hell out of that thing, and even managed to get it down to ~150hp.

Did the Rogue try to jump into the mouth of the worm with a rope tied around him, and have the Fighter pull you back out?

Of course not. Teeth that do 25+ damage tend to slice through rope with no problems. Then we'd have had two party members almost completely negated.

 

[LostSoul]

Hmm... untrained, +3 dex mod, +6 from level. Nope. It never crossed my mind.

The DC for basic Acrobatic stunts is 15. The DC for a hard level 12 check is 21.

+9 isn't so bad.

Yep. When the purple worm is dead, a swallowed creature escapes as a move action. They pounded the hell out of that thing, and even managed to get it down to ~150hp.

So your DM said that it was impossible for you to slice a hole in the creature and somehow pull you out? Oh well.

(I would have allowed a basic attack vs. AC or Fort to open a small hole, and then some kind of check to get out - the check dependant on what the PC is doing to get you out, or what you were trying to do. If I thought this was too awesome, then I'd have someone take a standard action to identify where you need to cut - Nature or Dungeoneering.)

Of course not. Teeth that do 25+ damage tend to slice through rope with no problems. Then we'd have had two party members almost completely negated.

Ah, well. Too bad. I would have thought that was a cool move.

edit: I agree that the rules for Swallow Whole can generate results like this - but I think it's only because you weren't using other aspects of the system. Maybe you don't like that part of the game, and that's cool, but you can expect encounters to end up like this if you don't.

I'm not saying that you were doing anything wrong, but it's something to keep in mind if you find your group in this situation again - a possible solution in these types of situations that you might not normally use.

 

[Chen_93]

I wasn't surprised, but I did lose initiative. Unless you know how to avoid a burrowing monster (that you don't know the location of) without taking any actions, I don't see how staying out of melee range with it was an option.

Well assuming the DM chose randomly who it attacked you got unlucky. Most other characters probably have higher AC/Fort and a few more HP to make it harder to swallow.

If the DM attacked you specifically that is pretty big metagaming since the purple worm is both blind and only has tremorsense when it is underground, neither of which would really distinguish a mage from someone else (maybe in terms of heavy armor/weight but I don't recall the details of tremorsense).

Right, I said all that already. Our powers in that area had already been used to fight off the grabs of dire stirges.

Fair enough.

Yep. Out of character we all assumed purple worm, and at least I assumed that being swallowed was a possibility. It never crossed my mind that once I was swallowed I'd be removed from the combat and forced to watch myself slowly die.

Your knowledge roll should give you the information about how the beast could swallow you. Even without directly saying it something like "purple worms tend to swallow severely injured prey even before they are dead" or something would come up if someone in the group rolled moderately on the appropriate knowledge. Again if this did NOT occur that is slightly poor luck, since getting the "powers" from a knowledge roll is not too tough, especially if someone is trained in the skill.

Point 2 wasn't bad luck, it was good tactics in a previous battle. Point 3 wasn't bad luck, it was a near impossibility. No wizard who has already used his only teleport can escape the grab of a purple worm 2 levels higher than him without rolling extremely well.

I granted the first point (though it'd probably be a lesson to keep some sort of power available to move creatures). The second point here is an issue of numbers and possibly a DM misjudging issue.

Point 4 was not bad luck, it was good tactics that have never failed us in the past. The damage I'd taken was worrisome, but not incredibly frightening. There was no reason for him to heal me then and there, when he could heal me later and get more out of it. Without the swallowing (and the resulting negation of everything I can do), even two more attacks at that damage wouldn't have dropped me.

This one is a direct result of the lack of the knowledge roll I mentioned previously. If the information about being bloodied and swallowed was unknown (due to a failed roll or whatever), I do agree the cleric really had no reason to heal you.

I ask again: how do you avoid a creature who won initiative when you don't know where it is other than "down"? I'm not looking for safety, I'm looking for fun. I've had character deaths galore. Until 4e's swallow whole, I'd never had an encounter that made me wish I'd stayed home.

Well I can agree being swallowed whole would be annoying and frustrating. In this case you should probably have even died. There are a combination of factors here though, that I already went through. No available powers to break the grab, no knowledge roll to know the cleric should keep you healed, the purple worm attacking the absolute best target to swallow despite being blind and not really able to differentiate between the people (clearly you hadn't attacked since you said it won initiative). When everything conspires against you whether due to DM intent or random bad luck or even a combination of both, you're going to get screwed. Swallow whole has several protections on it (needing a grab, needing to be bloodied) just like a beholder's petrification or other things that require several saves or end up killing/removing you from combat.

 

[Inari7]

I would not blame the DM, sometimes encounters don't go as planned, and monsters are not as exciting in play as they are in the book. Your DM is only human, and all humans are prone to mistakes and miscalculations. I am sorry you had a dull boring encounter, but sometimes that happens when players and DM’s are learning a new system.

Talk this over with your DM; I am sure he learned something too.
My suggestion to your DM is to let you play the Purple Worm or similar monster, if this happens again. It would give you or another player something for you to do when you are swallowed, turned to stone, or unconscious.

................Doug

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Not to put words in the OP's mouth, but I could totally picture this happening.

DM: Cool, new monster, should be fun to see how he works out.

Hm, hey, he's got somebody in his mouth! Ooh, bloodied, cool, have to Swallow Whole to see how this goes. I mean, it's a purple worm, swallowing people is what they do.

... Crap, he's gonna die, I should at least let them heal him.

... Oh man, wizard's player not having a good time. Bad call.

Thanks for creating the thread, since probably anybody who'd want to run a purple worm encounter could learn something from this. Namely, if you're going to have it swallow someone, pick a Defender.