Defeated by puzzle - campaign over: Here is the offending puzzle!

[Kae'Yoss]

Roman, I agree that the name calling is too far, but you must agree that he did a major faux-pas with this one. As several of us have pointed out, the think tank that is EN World hasn't come up with an answer, so this is either impossible, far too difficult to ask normal people (as supposed to savants, geniuses, and deities), or there's an error in there.

Frankly, if you hadn't been around these boards for so long, I'd have written you off as a troll before page one of this thread.

I said neither so don't act like I did.

Come now, you must agree that this is the next best thing. You basically said you'd call him a troll if not for his postcount, so don't act now as if you never brought up the matter. And the rest of your post sounded pretty hostile, too, at least to me.

 

[jerichothebard]

There was one demon and two undead of some sort in the room when we entered and once every several rounds (I am not sure how many exactly - perhaps 5-10 rounds) each of the portals spewed forth a new monster. The one on the right wall spewed forth the big demon monster and the two on the left wall spewed forth the two undead.

Question - did each portal spew forth a monster on the same round?

 

[tarchon]

I'd say your main tactical fault was in not clearing the escape route. I would have done whatever it took to reduce the earlier rooms to functionless rubble. If it takes everything you've got to do it, obliterate one room a day. I don't think you need potions to shut down portals too. Walls of stone can do that pretty well, or picks and shovels. Gust of wind away the the stat-drain vapors too. Worst case with the vapor is that you all have to dash down the corridor in oil-skin suits or something. I do think the puzzle was poorly conceived, but I think y'all were doomed anyway.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Besides, this campaing did tend to be rather deadly beforehand, so its not as if we were treated in kids gloves before - hence the mists did not ring alarm bells to the same degree they may have for other parties.

??
The campaign is more deadly so the players are less cautious? I can't imagine any party that wouldn't have retreated once they got to the second draining mist and prepared something that made them immune to it.

Or is it one of those "nothing makes you immune to it" scenarios?

 

[Roman]

Question - did each portal spew forth a monster on the same round?

No, it was somewhat random - perhaps something like 1d6+4 rounds I would guess.

 

[Roman]

??
The campaign is more deadly so the players are less cautious?

What I mean to say is that if the level of deadliness is not as out of the ordinary as it would be in other campaigns, it rings fewer alarm bells. Perhaps we should have gone in better prepared - but we really thought we were about as prepared as we were going to get.

I can't imagine any party that wouldn't have retreated once they got to the second draining mist and prepared something that made them immune to it.

Or is it one of those "nothing makes you immune to it" scenarios?

Well, we did not just venture in completely blindly to the second and further mists after we found out what the first one does. Although we failed to find anything that would make us immune to the mists per se, we did pump the saving throws using various means.

 

[3catcircus]

My vote so far is the 5-sided mirror-squares, but with some intentional errors...not mistakes, some non-mirror squares that equal out to zero mathematically. Still working on that. But if someone else solves it first I won't be heart-broken.


Aaron Blair
Foren Star

Anyone try doing some linear algebra on the thing - after all - it *could* be considered a matrix of sorts...

 

[T. Foster]

So, I gotta ask. When your PCs came to the second mist-filled hallway, why did you proceed?

Sometimes, you have to retreat and live to fight another day.

I'm afraid I have to agree with this -- by knowingly continuing past the point where retreat was possible and reducing your options to total victory or campaign-ending TPK with no middle ground you were pretty much begging for the latter and got just what you deserved. I mean, even if you had solved this puzzle, who's to say whatever was waiting in the next 3 rooms wouldn't have caused the exact same result? You seem to have been proceeding on the assumption that once you 'beat' the final encounter in room 13 that you'd then be able to make it back to the surface without having to pass back through the previous 12 rooms & corridors, but what made you assume this? Did your research suggest it? Is this the pattern of previous adventures designed by this DM? Because I'd never wager the life of my own high-level character (not to mention the future of the entire campaign) on such an assumption.

The DM deserves perhaps a bit of blame for (apparently -- assuming he honestly expected/intended for you to complete this dungeon) overestimating the ability of his party (but what challenge-oriented DM hasn't been guilty of this on occasion? I know I certainly have...), but even so a big part of expert play is recognizing when you're in a no-win situation and cutting your losses, and you guys definitely failed the test in that regard. When you realized the characteristics of the dungeon and that past a certain point there would be no way to retreat you should've immediately (or at very least before you got to that point) fled and either not returned at all (going on to other, easier adventures instead and making your DM choke on all his wasted effort ) or at least not returned until you found some more effective way of countering the stat-draining mist and the auto-restocking monster portals.

(This isn't so much directed at you, Roman, since I'm sure you realize this already, hindsight being 20/20 and all that, but more at all of those posters in this thread who've been pointing fingers of blame at the DM -- yes this puzzle is too hard (and maybe even impossible) but since the party never should've been in this room in the first place that's really beside the point...)

 

[DonTadow]

I agree with your opinion T Foster. After reading further into it, your party really should have cleared an escape route. A PC in my game is currently upset with the party because they went half assed into a hidden tomb to gather ore in the caveryns beneath it without securing an escape route nor coming up with an ulterior solution.

However, I still say that a dm should avoid a TPK campaign ending session if he can and this could very well be one of those situations. I go back to my earlier comments and I question what was the purpose of your campaign? This puzzle was the equivelent of an encounter that had a cr that was way too high for hte party. IN my campaign once two people go down, i'm going to have to fudge as it is never fun to have a tpk for any side. 2 or 3 people a session is good enough for the party to learn their lesson but if everyone in the party dies theres no lesson to be learned and you have to start a different campaign.

Roman you never answered my earlier questions about what type of campaign was this? WAs this just a few sesson camaign or a lenghty yearly campaign?

 

[Lhorgrim]

DonTadow

He said earlier in the thread that the campaign had been going for around a year.