Adventure 2: Swimming in Lake Seela

[pneumatik]

Is there some way in the adventure that I'm missing to let the PCs go swimming in Lake Seela and pull the Living Blade out of Indomitability? Water breathing is a third level spell. The only other option is to swim a few hundred feet into the lake, dive down twenty feet, fight two CR3 aquatic creatures (I'd put the encounter at ECL6), and then pull the blade out of Indomitability. And at that point the fight actually starts. It's a very bad place to not be able to breathe underwater.

 

[RangerWickett]

Yeah, that's pretty much what we had in mind. And fighting in water sucks. But Indomitability isn't interested in the PCs. He wants to silence the Seela, so he makes a beeline for shore. It's unlikely you'll have to fight him in the water, I think.

 

[Daern]

In my game Indo never made it too shore. The party took him out in the water. Swimming rules are weird.

 

[Morrus]

Is there some way in the adventure that I'm missing to let the PCs go swimming in Lake Seela and pull the Living Blade out of Indomitability? Water breathing is a third level spell. The only other option is to swim a few hundred feet into the lake, dive down twenty feet, fight two CR3 aquatic creatures (I'd put the encounter at ECL6), and then pull the blade out of Indomitability. And at that point the fight actually starts. It's a very bad place to not be able to breathe underwater.

The D&D swimming rules are weird - in every iteration of the game (including 4E) you can hold your breath for three times as long as the encounter's likely to last.

In 4E it's, what, a number of rounds equal to your CON score? For some players that could be up to 20 rounds.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Yeah, the combination of being able to hold your breath basically forever (even after you're "out of air," you can continue to make saves to fight anyway, and just re-surfacing for a round or two will bring you back into the thing for another 10 minutes or so. ), and Indomitability's bigger interest in the Seela should make it pretty smooth sailing. The scrags should be the only things the PCs need to fight in the water.

Which should be a tough encounter, still. It's the penultimate encounter in the adventure! But if you're a little worried, you might also let the party lure the scrags out of the water (especially if they've done anything with their BFF the hag), at least for the first half of their HP. Being in the water, especially muddy as it is, does kind of handicap those characters who rely on ranged abilities, and if your party is a party of rangers and wizards with 8 CON or something, developing a strategy in which you can get these beasts out of the muck instead of fighting them in there might behoove the party.

And keep in mind Indomitability's spirit, too. "Dying" is difficult here.

 

[OnlineDM]

Here's how I handled it with my 4e party:

First, I decided that for flavor reasons I didn't want the party worrying about drowning, so I had Papuvin go into his cave and harvest a few precious leaves from a mysterious plant to give to the party. He wrapped his fiery hands in a wet towel in order not to burn the leaves. Each one of these Magus Leaves, when chewed and swallowed, would let a creature breathe underwater for 30 minutes.

Next, I allowed the PCs the use of rowboats if they wanted them (three to a boat). Three of the PCs decided to row while the others swam.

Finally, I ignored the movement rule under Athletics that says a non-aquatic creature moves at half speed underwater with a successful Athletics check. If the PC made the check, I let them move at full speed. I had also earlier given the party a custom pair of magic boots that let the wearer walk across water for a turn, and I ruled on the fly that they would also let the wearer walk at normal speed with no Athletics check on the bottom of a body of water.

The battle with Indomitability started in the water, with the Wizard trying to trap the beast in a Web, but eventually moved to shore. They probably did about 1/3 of the damage to Indomitability in the water and the rest on land.

 

[trkdrvr183]

Ha

I ran into this when I first took over the DM position. Basically, everyone was sick to death of the Fire Forest, and noone really wanted to play nice with seela diplomacy (despite Vuhl sending 2 messengers and a flowery postcard), so the found out where the Song of Forms was coming from, climbed a conveniently placed tower (25 Athletics, since the stairs had collapsed long ago and the seela used it as a roost/choir hall), and cast silence spells while the monk bluffed and danced and faked a seizure near the caves. Eventually, the Shardmind (who could not climb or dance ) walked straight into Lake Seela and sank without bubbles, and the chaos unfolding in the Seela Village was interrupted as the water boiled and a bright red light flared under the whole lake. ENTER INDOMITABILITY. The dwarven hammer runepriest pulled the Living Blade loose and Bonded with it as the swordmage looked on in total jealous angst. Easily one my favorite sessions.

 

[Jdvn1]

I also had the players swim out there, and then swim back when Indomitability made his way towards the town. We traded a few good whacks before he ran, though. That was probably one of the top three encounters of the adventure.

It wasn't that bad a swim, especially considering you're likely to have a couple characters with convenient powers/abilities to make the movement a little easier. Not everyone has to swim the whole way.