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Fire and Water: Designing themed dungeons
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<blockquote data-quote="Imaculata" data-source="post: 7194748" data-attributes="member: 6801286"><p><strong>Session 1 has concluded</strong></p><p>We concluded our session, and the players cleared the first two sections of the dungeon. We ended mid boss battle with the avatar of Teehlyian'tara, after one of the players barely succeeded on a save against a terrifying level 9 spell from the Book of Vile Darkness that would have done horrible things to his mind.</p><p></p><p>Lets analyse what choices the players made and if some of our predictions came true...</p><p></p><p><strong><u>Section 1</u></strong></p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]87100[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>I provided an extra incentive to enter the dungeon. An npc-ally called Sophie had been lured into the dungeon by the avatar of Teehlyian'tara, and was now wounded. She was able to call for help through the mysterious powers of the Druids (I won't go too much into this, but suffice to say one of the players was able to warn the rest of the party that Sophie was dying). </p><p></p><p>In the first section the players didn't waste much time in room A and B. The clock was ticking, and their ally was dying. They were in a hurry.</p><p></p><p>They decided to skip room C, because they were trying to quickly get to their wounded ally, which according to a Locate Person spell was elsewhere. Thus they skipped the room filled with steam obscuring an ambush. I kind of liked the idea of monsters emerging from the steam, so I decided to move this idea to room I instead. This way I got to reuse an idea for a room they skipped, and make another room more interesting in the process.</p><p></p><p>The players discovered the secret tunnel in room B, but opted not to go there.</p><p></p><p>The players used a protective spell to shield them from the hot steam in room D, as I predicted. But skipped corridor E initially. They improvised a solution to cover up the steam leaking from the pipe.</p><p></p><p>Once they reached room I they hesistated, because their Locate Person spell was giving them confusing information. They now had to second guess the lay out of the dungeon, and they guessed wrong. They decided to backtrack a bit and investigate corridor E anyway. They used the valve wheel in room H to open the gate to corridor E.</p><p></p><p>They were able to hear enemies in the showers (F) and thus sealed off this room with a spell, to avoid an ambush.</p><p></p><p>They used spells to spy into room G, and once they figured out that their wounded ally wasn't here, they returned to room I.</p><p></p><p>In room I they were ambushed by Leechwalkers dropping from the ceiling. Here I introduced the exploding Leechwalker as well, which added a lot of extra excitement to the battle. In fact, this battle was a good way to measure how the players would fair against these enemies, and it became clear that even in moderate numbers these enemies were a bit on the easy side for the party. But the suicide-Leechwalker (nicknamed the bloater during the session) added a bit of much needed punch into the mix. The damage the bloaters dealt was nothing to sneeze at, which balanced out the encounter. Now I knew that I only needed to adjust the numbers for the boss battle, to make it a proper challenge.</p><p></p><p>The Leechwalkers were able to drop onto the players from the ceiling, but failed to grapple the players due to their Freedom of Movement spells. This meant the players avoided a lot of drain attacks. I may have underestimated their buffing capabilities.</p><p></p><p>They used the Ring of the Ram (there it is again!) to launch one of the bloaters into the two steam clouds in room I, thus dealing a lot of damage. </p><p></p><p><strong><u>Section 2</u></strong></p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]87101[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>As the players entered room A of section 2, they were hesitant where to go next. They discussed the option of using spells to unblock the collapsed passage to the west, but decided not to. They were also hesitant to swim through the underwater tunnel. </p><p></p><p>They used a scrying spell at the top of the staircase in room A, to spy on the upper walkway of room B, where they could see the ranged variant of the Leechwalker lying in wait. </p><p></p><p>They decided to let the druid in the party use a spell to transform his hand into a spider, and spy on the other side of the tunnel. They were able to check out room D and E this way, and see what the boss was up to. They then all swam through the tunnel anyway, and arrived in room D. </p><p></p><p>Much to my surprise the players did not blow up the boiler, or break the pipes to unleash hot steam on their enemies. But they did use the murky water to stealthily approach the boss.</p><p></p><p>They tried to use the desintegrate spell from a trapped chest they were carrying, to hurt the boss. They opened the trapped chest in her direction, but unfortunately she saved against the spell.</p><p></p><p>They used a scrying spell to locate their wounded ally, and then used a teleport spell to move half of their party members into room C, where they found their wounded ally, and saved her life. It turns out that she had already tried to save herself, and managed to wound the boss slightly with a holdout pistol.</p><p></p><p>The boss had a bunch of her minions lined up against the west wall of room E, to destroy the ancient Oarsmen runes. This allowed the players to cast a Fire Wall and Wall of Thorns on top of all of them, and do a ton of damage to the mayority of the Leechwalkers.</p><p></p><p>Some of the Leechwalkers made a run for exit F, and started opening the door. At first the players thought that the boss was having them open the exit so that she could flee. But as it turns out, she was calling reinforcements. The players did not stop them from opening the door, and so a whole army of Leechwalkers, Bloater-leechwalkers, and ranged Leechwalkers was ready to pour into the room.</p><p></p><p>Once the players realized just what a dangerous spellcaster the avatar of Teehlyian'tara was, one of the players decided to focus completely on counterspelling her.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile two of the bloaters in the room charged the players, and tried to inflict as much hurt on them. The Druid-PC transformed into a large animal, and willingly took all of the damage from one of the bloaters, to protect a friend from the blast.</p><p></p><p>Fearing that the avatar might try and kill their wounded ally Sophie, they consecrated room C, preventing the avatar from entering. </p><p></p><p>The avatar used her special ability to teleport out of close combat once.</p><p></p><p>The Druid used a repel vermin spell at exit F, which succeeded in repelling half the reinforcements. However, some of the reinforcements made their save and entered anyway, and that included a ranged-leechwalker. The ranged Leechwalker started spitting swarms of leeches, and the players were quite startled by the sheer size of the swarms that these creature could vomit. </p><p></p><p>Next the players tried a bit of roleplaying to distract the avatar of Teehlyian'tara, which was partially successful. The avatar had taken over the body of a powerful elven sorceress, who was a life long friend of one of the PC's. And so they tried to create a magical mindlink with the avatar, to try and reach her true self, and end the avatar's hold of her. Unfortunately, the avatar used this connection to attempt a truly terrifying level 9 mind affecting spell to try and steal and erase all of the memories of one of the PC's. He barely made his save against it, and this is where we'll continue the next session. </p><p></p><p>So now we still have the whole third section of the dungeon to go, with the whole Siegecrab debacle. It seems very likely now that the avatar will attempt to escape into the third section of the dungeon, to even the odds in her favor. And the door to do so is wide open. I think this mid-boss battle has done a good job at depleting their spells a fair bit, and beating them up a bit. I can now raise the difficulty in the third and final section of the dungeon.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Imaculata, post: 7194748, member: 6801286"] [B]Session 1 has concluded[/B] We concluded our session, and the players cleared the first two sections of the dungeon. We ended mid boss battle with the avatar of Teehlyian'tara, after one of the players barely succeeded on a save against a terrifying level 9 spell from the Book of Vile Darkness that would have done horrible things to his mind. Lets analyse what choices the players made and if some of our predictions came true... [B][U]Section 1[/U][/B] [ATTACH=CONFIG]87100._xfImport[/ATTACH] I provided an extra incentive to enter the dungeon. An npc-ally called Sophie had been lured into the dungeon by the avatar of Teehlyian'tara, and was now wounded. She was able to call for help through the mysterious powers of the Druids (I won't go too much into this, but suffice to say one of the players was able to warn the rest of the party that Sophie was dying). In the first section the players didn't waste much time in room A and B. The clock was ticking, and their ally was dying. They were in a hurry. They decided to skip room C, because they were trying to quickly get to their wounded ally, which according to a Locate Person spell was elsewhere. Thus they skipped the room filled with steam obscuring an ambush. I kind of liked the idea of monsters emerging from the steam, so I decided to move this idea to room I instead. This way I got to reuse an idea for a room they skipped, and make another room more interesting in the process. The players discovered the secret tunnel in room B, but opted not to go there. The players used a protective spell to shield them from the hot steam in room D, as I predicted. But skipped corridor E initially. They improvised a solution to cover up the steam leaking from the pipe. Once they reached room I they hesistated, because their Locate Person spell was giving them confusing information. They now had to second guess the lay out of the dungeon, and they guessed wrong. They decided to backtrack a bit and investigate corridor E anyway. They used the valve wheel in room H to open the gate to corridor E. They were able to hear enemies in the showers (F) and thus sealed off this room with a spell, to avoid an ambush. They used spells to spy into room G, and once they figured out that their wounded ally wasn't here, they returned to room I. In room I they were ambushed by Leechwalkers dropping from the ceiling. Here I introduced the exploding Leechwalker as well, which added a lot of extra excitement to the battle. In fact, this battle was a good way to measure how the players would fair against these enemies, and it became clear that even in moderate numbers these enemies were a bit on the easy side for the party. But the suicide-Leechwalker (nicknamed the bloater during the session) added a bit of much needed punch into the mix. The damage the bloaters dealt was nothing to sneeze at, which balanced out the encounter. Now I knew that I only needed to adjust the numbers for the boss battle, to make it a proper challenge. The Leechwalkers were able to drop onto the players from the ceiling, but failed to grapple the players due to their Freedom of Movement spells. This meant the players avoided a lot of drain attacks. I may have underestimated their buffing capabilities. They used the Ring of the Ram (there it is again!) to launch one of the bloaters into the two steam clouds in room I, thus dealing a lot of damage. [B][U]Section 2[/U][/B] [ATTACH=CONFIG]87101._xfImport[/ATTACH] As the players entered room A of section 2, they were hesitant where to go next. They discussed the option of using spells to unblock the collapsed passage to the west, but decided not to. They were also hesitant to swim through the underwater tunnel. They used a scrying spell at the top of the staircase in room A, to spy on the upper walkway of room B, where they could see the ranged variant of the Leechwalker lying in wait. They decided to let the druid in the party use a spell to transform his hand into a spider, and spy on the other side of the tunnel. They were able to check out room D and E this way, and see what the boss was up to. They then all swam through the tunnel anyway, and arrived in room D. Much to my surprise the players did not blow up the boiler, or break the pipes to unleash hot steam on their enemies. But they did use the murky water to stealthily approach the boss. They tried to use the desintegrate spell from a trapped chest they were carrying, to hurt the boss. They opened the trapped chest in her direction, but unfortunately she saved against the spell. They used a scrying spell to locate their wounded ally, and then used a teleport spell to move half of their party members into room C, where they found their wounded ally, and saved her life. It turns out that she had already tried to save herself, and managed to wound the boss slightly with a holdout pistol. The boss had a bunch of her minions lined up against the west wall of room E, to destroy the ancient Oarsmen runes. This allowed the players to cast a Fire Wall and Wall of Thorns on top of all of them, and do a ton of damage to the mayority of the Leechwalkers. Some of the Leechwalkers made a run for exit F, and started opening the door. At first the players thought that the boss was having them open the exit so that she could flee. But as it turns out, she was calling reinforcements. The players did not stop them from opening the door, and so a whole army of Leechwalkers, Bloater-leechwalkers, and ranged Leechwalkers was ready to pour into the room. Once the players realized just what a dangerous spellcaster the avatar of Teehlyian'tara was, one of the players decided to focus completely on counterspelling her. Meanwhile two of the bloaters in the room charged the players, and tried to inflict as much hurt on them. The Druid-PC transformed into a large animal, and willingly took all of the damage from one of the bloaters, to protect a friend from the blast. Fearing that the avatar might try and kill their wounded ally Sophie, they consecrated room C, preventing the avatar from entering. The avatar used her special ability to teleport out of close combat once. The Druid used a repel vermin spell at exit F, which succeeded in repelling half the reinforcements. However, some of the reinforcements made their save and entered anyway, and that included a ranged-leechwalker. The ranged Leechwalker started spitting swarms of leeches, and the players were quite startled by the sheer size of the swarms that these creature could vomit. Next the players tried a bit of roleplaying to distract the avatar of Teehlyian'tara, which was partially successful. The avatar had taken over the body of a powerful elven sorceress, who was a life long friend of one of the PC's. And so they tried to create a magical mindlink with the avatar, to try and reach her true self, and end the avatar's hold of her. Unfortunately, the avatar used this connection to attempt a truly terrifying level 9 mind affecting spell to try and steal and erase all of the memories of one of the PC's. He barely made his save against it, and this is where we'll continue the next session. So now we still have the whole third section of the dungeon to go, with the whole Siegecrab debacle. It seems very likely now that the avatar will attempt to escape into the third section of the dungeon, to even the odds in her favor. And the door to do so is wide open. I think this mid-boss battle has done a good job at depleting their spells a fair bit, and beating them up a bit. I can now raise the difficulty in the third and final section of the dungeon. [/QUOTE]
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