RangerWickett
Legend
Last night my players broke my game's graphics engine.
The party, a group of 12th level PCs going undercover in the Dragonslaying World Tour in order to assassinate the tour's patron, were given a task to prove their worth to the expedition: slay the dragon Ugra Vyakti, the serpentine leader of a group of primal terrorists. Ugra Vyakti had orchestrated dozens of terrible attacks with the aid of his fey, elemental, and plant followers, all of whom were pledged to destroy civilization, as is the will of the great slumbering god Adveja.
In short, the dragon (a tweaked reskinned fire-breathing green dragon who had stonewalk and a climb speed instead of wings, with his damage and hp modified a la the new MM2 solos) laired in a cavern which was the burial place of a primordial entity known as Adveja. Adveja was imprisoned millennia ago, and lore says that when he awakens he will destroy civilization and end the age of mankind.
Even though I wanted the dragon to be a threat, I just used a level 12, because the cave itself was intended to be hazardous. Inside the cavern, you notice that if you are standing in light you feel like something is watching you, and as you get closer to the final chamber, you start to get a headache, and then as your light arouses the interest of the inhuman sleeping god, you begin taking psychic damage.
In the chamber where they fought the dragon, whenever you start your turn in light, you take 5 psychic damage. Each consecutive turn you stay in light ramps up the damage 5 more, so if you stay in light for four rounds in a row, you'd take a total of 5+10+15+20 = 50 damage. All of the monsters in Ugra Vyakti's terrorist cell have darkvision, so they don't normally need light.
So it was going to be damaging, but I thought it would make for a dynamic combat, where the PCs would move in and out of their light sources, and hopefully they'd figure out that they can use light as a weapon.
I envisioned this dramatic battle in the shadows, with the dragon having tricks like using his breath weapon to set the PCs on fire, then spiderclimbing up to the ceiling, so they'd be taking both fire and psychic damage; or ordering his minions to light torches and charge the PCs as a sort of suicide bomb attack. There was a mildly acidic river so you could jump into it to douse the flames, and I had plenty of stalagmites and columns to provide cover for a mobile battle.
Now, the PCs did do some clever stuff.
Floating lantern? Cool magic item, and also a psychic area attack. The dragon wanted them blind, though, so he bite it and swallowed it.
The barbarian tossed sunrods at the mouth of Ugra Vyakti's chamber so the dragon would be hesitant to come out and interfere with the fight against the dragon's minions? Nice idea, but the dragon knocked them into the acid river, dropping the fight into darkness again as the acid dissolved the sunrods' alchemical glowy compounds.
Once they actually went into the dragon's chamber, the crazy-high Perception elf warden pointed out the dragon on the ceiling, and the wizard used light to both injure the dragon and give the other PCs clear shots against him.
Their use of at least 6 different powers that immobilized, slowed, or knocked the dragon prone was a little frustrating, but I was eager to have the dragon wade into melee, where it would be hard for the PCs to use light as precisely, and people would start taking psychic damage, or else they'd be fighting blind.
That's when the wizard cast mass resist energy, so even if the dragon used his breath weapon, the fire wouldn't cling to the PCs, and thus there'd be no light source. *shakes fist*
Still, they needed light, or else the dragon was going to tear them to pieces. Right?
Nope. See, there's this innocuous magic item, I think it's called the hunter's flint. It lets you create a campfire as a standard action once a day, and the light from that campfire is only visible to those within the radius. You step more than 10 squares from the campfire? You can't even see the campfire.
I ruled that since the psychic damage was due to the light drawing the god Adveja's attention to you, a campfire that could only be seen inside this small radius would be imperceptible to the sleeping god. So voila, reliable light source that didn't harm the PCs at all.
The fight was still fun, with the dragon attacking from odd angles on walls, and the rogue riding on its back with Close Quarters, and the warden plucking the dragon off the ceiling with his grasping trident, and the bard making everything wonky with unluck and various other supreme multiclass jankiness.
After they killed the dragon and cut off its head, they returned to town and the eager groupies following the Dragonslaying World Tour, and the bard regaled the crowds with their heroics. And he made sure to include in the awesome song he composed an entire stanza about how:
If you're ever in the cave of Adveja
You're gonna wanna bring you some light,
But torches and sunrods are dein-ja (danger)
So get hunter's flint and make an instant campsite!
The party, a group of 12th level PCs going undercover in the Dragonslaying World Tour in order to assassinate the tour's patron, were given a task to prove their worth to the expedition: slay the dragon Ugra Vyakti, the serpentine leader of a group of primal terrorists. Ugra Vyakti had orchestrated dozens of terrible attacks with the aid of his fey, elemental, and plant followers, all of whom were pledged to destroy civilization, as is the will of the great slumbering god Adveja.
In short, the dragon (a tweaked reskinned fire-breathing green dragon who had stonewalk and a climb speed instead of wings, with his damage and hp modified a la the new MM2 solos) laired in a cavern which was the burial place of a primordial entity known as Adveja. Adveja was imprisoned millennia ago, and lore says that when he awakens he will destroy civilization and end the age of mankind.
Even though I wanted the dragon to be a threat, I just used a level 12, because the cave itself was intended to be hazardous. Inside the cavern, you notice that if you are standing in light you feel like something is watching you, and as you get closer to the final chamber, you start to get a headache, and then as your light arouses the interest of the inhuman sleeping god, you begin taking psychic damage.
In the chamber where they fought the dragon, whenever you start your turn in light, you take 5 psychic damage. Each consecutive turn you stay in light ramps up the damage 5 more, so if you stay in light for four rounds in a row, you'd take a total of 5+10+15+20 = 50 damage. All of the monsters in Ugra Vyakti's terrorist cell have darkvision, so they don't normally need light.
So it was going to be damaging, but I thought it would make for a dynamic combat, where the PCs would move in and out of their light sources, and hopefully they'd figure out that they can use light as a weapon.
I envisioned this dramatic battle in the shadows, with the dragon having tricks like using his breath weapon to set the PCs on fire, then spiderclimbing up to the ceiling, so they'd be taking both fire and psychic damage; or ordering his minions to light torches and charge the PCs as a sort of suicide bomb attack. There was a mildly acidic river so you could jump into it to douse the flames, and I had plenty of stalagmites and columns to provide cover for a mobile battle.
Now, the PCs did do some clever stuff.
Floating lantern? Cool magic item, and also a psychic area attack. The dragon wanted them blind, though, so he bite it and swallowed it.
The barbarian tossed sunrods at the mouth of Ugra Vyakti's chamber so the dragon would be hesitant to come out and interfere with the fight against the dragon's minions? Nice idea, but the dragon knocked them into the acid river, dropping the fight into darkness again as the acid dissolved the sunrods' alchemical glowy compounds.
Once they actually went into the dragon's chamber, the crazy-high Perception elf warden pointed out the dragon on the ceiling, and the wizard used light to both injure the dragon and give the other PCs clear shots against him.
Their use of at least 6 different powers that immobilized, slowed, or knocked the dragon prone was a little frustrating, but I was eager to have the dragon wade into melee, where it would be hard for the PCs to use light as precisely, and people would start taking psychic damage, or else they'd be fighting blind.
That's when the wizard cast mass resist energy, so even if the dragon used his breath weapon, the fire wouldn't cling to the PCs, and thus there'd be no light source. *shakes fist*
Still, they needed light, or else the dragon was going to tear them to pieces. Right?
Nope. See, there's this innocuous magic item, I think it's called the hunter's flint. It lets you create a campfire as a standard action once a day, and the light from that campfire is only visible to those within the radius. You step more than 10 squares from the campfire? You can't even see the campfire.
I ruled that since the psychic damage was due to the light drawing the god Adveja's attention to you, a campfire that could only be seen inside this small radius would be imperceptible to the sleeping god. So voila, reliable light source that didn't harm the PCs at all.
The fight was still fun, with the dragon attacking from odd angles on walls, and the rogue riding on its back with Close Quarters, and the warden plucking the dragon off the ceiling with his grasping trident, and the bard making everything wonky with unluck and various other supreme multiclass jankiness.
After they killed the dragon and cut off its head, they returned to town and the eager groupies following the Dragonslaying World Tour, and the bard regaled the crowds with their heroics. And he made sure to include in the awesome song he composed an entire stanza about how:
If you're ever in the cave of Adveja
You're gonna wanna bring you some light,
But torches and sunrods are dein-ja (danger)
So get hunter's flint and make an instant campsite!
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