Quasqueton
First Post
My game: Core Rules Only – PHB, DMG, MM.
I’ve come up with a strange/wild idea that I need advice on.
The rough, “first draft” idea:
The party, while in town, during downtime, is invited to investigate a dungeon under a nobleman’s home. He’ll pay them [level x10]gp for “probably just an hour’s work”.
The party is shown the stairs down. The stairs go down 60’ to a corridor that extends 120’. At the far end of the corridor is a dark chamber. The chamber is 60’ wide (left and right from the entryway) and 40’ high. The other side of the chamber, 30’ from the entryway, is a full-wall mirror, in which the characters can see themselves standing in the entryway.
One round after the characters all enter the chamber, the room fills with light, and the entryway disappears. One round after that, the physical mirror fades, revealing a room 60’ long, with the characters’ reflections real, standing at the other side. The “reflections” attack.
When a character or a reflection is killed, the character disappears from that room. They reappear in an identical, though only dimly-lit room, facing the entryway, with a dull black, non-reflective wall behind them, where the mirror would be. The character so released has the hit points and other such data equal to his surviving self. That is, if the reflection was killed, the character is released from the chamber as he survived; if the character was killed, the character is released from the chamber as the reflection survived. (This may prompt some wonder on whether the character released is actually his real self or a reflection.) This prevents the need to back track things like arrows fired, wand chargers used, potions drunk.
The reflections faced in the chamber have all the memories and knowledge of the real character. In fact, if captured and questioned, a reflection thinks it is the real character and the real character is the reflection. (To the reflections point of view, the real characters are the ones who started the fight.) If the character and reflection got to wrestling, and were pulled apart, it would be impossible to tell which was the real character, even by the real character.
The reflections don’t have to stick to just attacking their real character opposite. It will be a normal group situation. Since the reflections have all the knowledge of the real characters, they will fight with that knowledge. (Maybe the wizard is the most first-round deadly, and so would pull most of the immediate attacks from all the reflection party.)
What prompted this idea was that I haven’t been able to plan any adventure for the coming game session. (The Players have not decided on what they are going to do to wrap up the last adventure, and so this game session will probably be spent mostly dealing with downtime stuff.) This idea came to me as a possible way of just throwing in something quick and simple. I don’t even need to pick monsters – I can just use copies of the PC sheets.
Also, this concept might give me an in-game explanation for missing PCs. (Our group has been having a problem recently with one Player not being able to make the game -- different Player each time.) I could say that having gone into “The Room”, a PC may magically be “sucked back into it” on occasion, like when the PC’s Player can’t make the game.
I could just implement such a disappearance as a completely metagame function, but I don’t want my Players to start accepting such strange occurrences just in case something weird really does happen in game, and they just wave it off as a metagame gimmick. This is a fine line to walk, but I prefer to keep away from out-of-game situations affecting in-game adventuring.
I want the first encounter with “The Room” to be interesting, maybe frightening (as a real character may well die in the battle). Of course, no character will actually die, since they will be released afterwards, but they won’t know that until after the battle. And even then, is the released character the real or the reflection – which one survived?
I’d thereafter work in the occasional disappearance in the game so the Players understand that I’m using it as an in-game gimmick for an out-of-game situation. Then, when a Players is absent for a game session, the PCs can accept that the missing PC has just been sucked into “The Room” and will return.
Now, the reason I’m posting this in the Rules forum:
Knowing that my game is Core Rules Only, what do I need to consider in constructing this gimmick? Right now, the PCs are 11th level. I may use this for future campaigns, with lower level or higher level PCs. So I need this gimmick to be “air tight” for any level up to 20.
Some things I’ve got to consider:
Is the room alterable? Or should the chamber be completely inert to mundane and magical affects? Will rock to mud work? Will meld into stone work? Can adamantine weapons chip away at the walls?
How to keep the PCs from teleporting out, but let them use summoning spells and such?
I can, of course, just come up with unknown effects to work these things (like “teleporting out just doesn’t work”), but I’d prefer to use the written rules to handle it, and I will need to consider what such “DM fiat” ruling may affect otherwise. Does saying “teleporting out just doesn’t work” screw up some other spell/rule?
Is the room a different plane?
Other things I need to look out for?
Most of you guys here are good at pointing out unintended consequences of rulings. I don’t want to screw over any character (like by disallowing certain spells the spellcasters may have prepared), but I also don’t want the characters to have an easy out (or any out at all, really – would be anticlimactic, and would essentially destroy the purpose of this gimmick).
Also, is this concept likely to be entertaining for the Players, or is it likely to be completely stupid, annoying, and counterproductive? My Players trust me, so they wouldn’t rebel over this.
Please help me work this concept out to be playable, or warn me off it before I perpetrated it on my Players.
Quasqueton
I’ve come up with a strange/wild idea that I need advice on.
The rough, “first draft” idea:
The party, while in town, during downtime, is invited to investigate a dungeon under a nobleman’s home. He’ll pay them [level x10]gp for “probably just an hour’s work”.
The party is shown the stairs down. The stairs go down 60’ to a corridor that extends 120’. At the far end of the corridor is a dark chamber. The chamber is 60’ wide (left and right from the entryway) and 40’ high. The other side of the chamber, 30’ from the entryway, is a full-wall mirror, in which the characters can see themselves standing in the entryway.
One round after the characters all enter the chamber, the room fills with light, and the entryway disappears. One round after that, the physical mirror fades, revealing a room 60’ long, with the characters’ reflections real, standing at the other side. The “reflections” attack.
When a character or a reflection is killed, the character disappears from that room. They reappear in an identical, though only dimly-lit room, facing the entryway, with a dull black, non-reflective wall behind them, where the mirror would be. The character so released has the hit points and other such data equal to his surviving self. That is, if the reflection was killed, the character is released from the chamber as he survived; if the character was killed, the character is released from the chamber as the reflection survived. (This may prompt some wonder on whether the character released is actually his real self or a reflection.) This prevents the need to back track things like arrows fired, wand chargers used, potions drunk.
The reflections faced in the chamber have all the memories and knowledge of the real character. In fact, if captured and questioned, a reflection thinks it is the real character and the real character is the reflection. (To the reflections point of view, the real characters are the ones who started the fight.) If the character and reflection got to wrestling, and were pulled apart, it would be impossible to tell which was the real character, even by the real character.
The reflections don’t have to stick to just attacking their real character opposite. It will be a normal group situation. Since the reflections have all the knowledge of the real characters, they will fight with that knowledge. (Maybe the wizard is the most first-round deadly, and so would pull most of the immediate attacks from all the reflection party.)
What prompted this idea was that I haven’t been able to plan any adventure for the coming game session. (The Players have not decided on what they are going to do to wrap up the last adventure, and so this game session will probably be spent mostly dealing with downtime stuff.) This idea came to me as a possible way of just throwing in something quick and simple. I don’t even need to pick monsters – I can just use copies of the PC sheets.
Also, this concept might give me an in-game explanation for missing PCs. (Our group has been having a problem recently with one Player not being able to make the game -- different Player each time.) I could say that having gone into “The Room”, a PC may magically be “sucked back into it” on occasion, like when the PC’s Player can’t make the game.
I could just implement such a disappearance as a completely metagame function, but I don’t want my Players to start accepting such strange occurrences just in case something weird really does happen in game, and they just wave it off as a metagame gimmick. This is a fine line to walk, but I prefer to keep away from out-of-game situations affecting in-game adventuring.
I want the first encounter with “The Room” to be interesting, maybe frightening (as a real character may well die in the battle). Of course, no character will actually die, since they will be released afterwards, but they won’t know that until after the battle. And even then, is the released character the real or the reflection – which one survived?
I’d thereafter work in the occasional disappearance in the game so the Players understand that I’m using it as an in-game gimmick for an out-of-game situation. Then, when a Players is absent for a game session, the PCs can accept that the missing PC has just been sucked into “The Room” and will return.
Now, the reason I’m posting this in the Rules forum:
Knowing that my game is Core Rules Only, what do I need to consider in constructing this gimmick? Right now, the PCs are 11th level. I may use this for future campaigns, with lower level or higher level PCs. So I need this gimmick to be “air tight” for any level up to 20.
Some things I’ve got to consider:
Is the room alterable? Or should the chamber be completely inert to mundane and magical affects? Will rock to mud work? Will meld into stone work? Can adamantine weapons chip away at the walls?
How to keep the PCs from teleporting out, but let them use summoning spells and such?
I can, of course, just come up with unknown effects to work these things (like “teleporting out just doesn’t work”), but I’d prefer to use the written rules to handle it, and I will need to consider what such “DM fiat” ruling may affect otherwise. Does saying “teleporting out just doesn’t work” screw up some other spell/rule?
Is the room a different plane?
Other things I need to look out for?
Most of you guys here are good at pointing out unintended consequences of rulings. I don’t want to screw over any character (like by disallowing certain spells the spellcasters may have prepared), but I also don’t want the characters to have an easy out (or any out at all, really – would be anticlimactic, and would essentially destroy the purpose of this gimmick).
Also, is this concept likely to be entertaining for the Players, or is it likely to be completely stupid, annoying, and counterproductive? My Players trust me, so they wouldn’t rebel over this.
Please help me work this concept out to be playable, or warn me off it before I perpetrated it on my Players.
Quasqueton
