The Unliving Room

[Tharen the Damned]

In the campaign I am currently running, my PCs are on theri way to encounter a high Priest of Orcus. In honor to his master, he created a special Temple: The Unliving Room. This temple is build from hundreds of creatures, all sacrificed and now undead. Arms, temtacles, pincer Claws and stingers reach into the room and try to grapple intruders. Dessicated mouths are wailing, moaning and crying continually. And in the rear of the temple is the altar of bone, the artifact that holds it all together. This altar looks like a ripcage and deep within is a pulsing heart that pumps the blood of undeath, pure neagtive energy through the veins who, like tendrills connect every body of the temple with the heart.

That is what my Players (Dwarf Fighter 8th/Ranger 5th, Human Sorcerer 12th, Human Rogue 5th/ Fighter 8th (ranged specialist), Cleric 12th) will see –not that I will give away the part with the heart without them searching the altar.

But now comes the complicated part: The game mechanics. First, I wanted the arms of the creatures act like the “Black Tentacles” Spell. So the room will grapple with +20 (Base +15, Str. 20) and do 1d6 +5 damag, it has an initiative of +4. As there are so many different appendages I will roll a d10 and consult this table: 1-4: no additional damage, 5: tentacle attack 2d6 +5 constrict damage, 6: pincer claw 1d10 +5 piercing damage, 7: stinger 1d4 + poison (DC 20 1d6 Con, 2d6Con), 8: negative energy suffused claw 1 level energy drain, 9: Ooze touch 2d6 acid damage, 0: gravechill 2d6 cold damage. The grappling appendages hinder movement: Movement is halved. If grapple succeeds, movement is impossible.
The temple is of course unhallowed. Furthermore it has some more qualities: DR 20/good , Regeneration 5 (good or holy damage prevents regeneration), Fire, Cold and Electricity resistance 30, 500hp. The temple should be impossible to “kill”. The only way to destroy it, is to destroy the heart. The ribcage which encloses the heart acts like a stoneskin spell with caster level 15. The heart has a 150hp. If the PCs finally kill the heart. The blood sprays them as it bursts. Negative energy gives the 2 negative levels.

So what do you think of it?

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I think that you stole my name!

My "unliving room" is a very large skeleton (mastodon or bigger), whose ribcage has been furnished so the classy necromancer can travel in cormfort and macabre style.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

I think that you stole my name!

Well, great Necromancers think alike

 

[Vorput]

So what do you think of it?

Sounds pretty cool... I don't think I'd penalize the party is instead of destroying the heart though, they decide to deal 500 points of holy/good damage to the thing- that should probably destroy it too.

But very cool.

Vorp

 

[Jubilee]

That room sounds totally brutal, especially if they don't have any warning about it. If they don't know to enlarge/giant strength/freedom of movement, they don't really stand much of a chance against the grapple checks, unless they're all super strong already.

I think it's going to be really challenging to thoroughly check the altar while the room is grabbing at them, so I'd be generous with the clues, so they even THINK to look. You have to be careful about having only one way to defeat a challenge, because the PCs will inevitably go left when you think they'll go right.

Somethings to consider: What will happen if the cleric turns undead in the room? What will happen if the cleric casts consecret/hallow? Will a sanctuary spell affect the grabby hands? If so, what is its will save? Should also know its will save in case the cleric decides to start healing/cure critical wounds-ing the room.

All that extra damage could kill off your sorcerer pretty quickly, especially if he is unprepared and depending on how the dice go.

And hitting them with two negative levels as a reward for defeating it is just mean!

/ali

 

[AuraSeer]

Sounds like you've gone a bit overboard. The flavor text is pretty cool, but unless your intent is to force a TPK, the game mechanics are in serious need of an overhaul.

Have you thought about how the battle will play out? Facing a grapple bonus of +20, it looks like only the fighter has much chance of staying free. Since you can't use ranged weapons or cast most spells while grappled, the evil cleric probably won't even need to defend himself. He can stand still and laugh while the PCs get tentacled to death.

Even getting lucky on the grapple checks won't do much good. In order to turn off the tentacles, the party must first somehow intuit that the altar is the key. (This is not as obvious as you may think.) Then they must: 1) move to the altar 2) search the altar and find the heart 3) dispel or overcome stoneskin 4) do 150 points of holy damage. How do you expect them to do that while being uber-grappled, CON poisoned, and level drained, by an enemy they can neither fight, nor avoid, nor dispel?

Against a 12th-level party, the temple as described would be a sure TPK unless the PCs knew exactly how to prepare for it. Adding a powerful evil cleric is just gratuitously painful.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

Thanks for your input.

I think I have gone to far with this room. It should be a really hard encounter that pushes the PCs and Players to their limit. A fantasy version of "Die hard". But as you pointed out, the room as written is a sure TPK. And I didn´t even include the Cleric and his minions.

I will tone down the grapple bonus to something between +10 - +15 giving only the tentacle a grapple of +19. I will tone down and modify the extra damage from appendages.
The Ribcage will get a modified Stoneskin with DR of +10/piercing or holy.
And I will drop the negative levels when they destroy the heart.

Turning Undead will paralyze the tentacles in a radius around the cleric. As for the other Cleric Spells I have still to come up with a good idea

My Players and their PCs know that they will face a mighty cleric who build a temple callled the unliving temple.

I will post my final modified version.

 

[Jubilee]

It might help to relate an experience our group recently encountered that was somewhat similar to this room -

Our party of 11th level adventurers (dwarf fighter/barbarian, elf fighter, half-elf paladin/paragon/soldier of light, elf wizard/fighter/eldritch knight, human fighter/cleric/master of radiance, & goblin ranger/rogue (lower level NPC, not sure on his class)) encounterd a chthulu-esque hilltop with a dozen cultists at the top with a large circle of tentacles around them. These tentacles were effectively evard's black tentacles, but we couldn't fly over it because it was coming out of the sky over our goal, as well as out of the ground.

Luckily, we had 4 potions of enlarge person, a potion of giant strength, and the wizard could cast, hmm, the spell that makes you ethereal but halves your movement. The dwarf, elf, half elf, and human took the enlarge person potions, and the elf fighter was ethereal'd and drank the giant stregth also. Everyone started at the edge of the circle and the elf went straight to the middle to start fighting.

The wizard got 5 feet into the circle and spent the entire rest of the combat grappled. The only reason he did not get squeezed to death was that he had a stone skin spell on him. The goblin also got grabbed straight off and ended up having to piggy back on the paladin's shoulders.

The human & half elf succeeded on MAYBE 50% of their grapple checks, mostly because the human is very strong and the half-elf usually got a +2 "aid another" bonus from the goblin.

We quickly discovered that the dozen cultists around the center had successive shield other around the circle, so we were effectively doing 1 point of damage to everyone in the circle per round.

There were some odd things going on, which included the tentacles disarming us and attacking us with our own weapons (only the half-elf & dwarf did not get disarmed, because they use 2-handed weapons), and a spacial shift that would move us back, right, or left a couple of squares at random. I believe there was also something that did extra damage and probably something else, but I've forgotten what.

The kicker was when we killed the cultists and the gate to the far realm was closed, causing an explosion of nightmare that left two of our number - the dwarf fighter & elf fighter - confused, and the dwarf fighter nearly killed half the party before it wore off.

We survived, but barely, and only because we had several minutes to study the situation before we got started and we were lucky enough that the goblin 1. had wanted enlarge potions before we left town 2. remembered he had them 3. offered them to us. I don't know how we would have managed it without those enlarge potions, honeslty, as our wizard is not a blaster.

Also, it was a very slow, long fight, and somewhat tedious at times. A combat full of grapple checks quickly gets bogged down.

With regards to your specific room -

Maybe you could have one of the random effects be a disarm, another be a pin followed by getting dragged around the room. Some other non-lethal effects that still inconvenience the party without killing them would be nice. Maybe spell components get filched, or loose clothing gets pulled at. Etc.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm trying to remember what book has the update of the 2E living walls from Ravenloft. It may be the S&S Denizens of Darkness/Dread books. I'd keep the same flavor and just have the whole place act as a single spread-out wall. It'll still be tough, but not impossible.

There are likely other conversions of living walls on the Web.