Help me work this out -- my Players stay away
- Thread starter Quasqueton
- Start date
Nail
First Post
The OP specifically asked how to prevent Teleport without also preventing Summoning spells.Wolfwood2 said:
Dimension Lock does both.
Moreover, putting a Dimension Lock on the room would probably prevent the trap from working properly, as there was some talk of it pulling the PCs into an alternate plane.
occam
Hero
Quasqueton said:
I think it would be tied in with however the reflections are different from the PCs. Figure out what that difference is, when it might come into play, and why, and figure out what kind of antagonist might desire that result. Toss in a cryptic poem or prophecy for the PCs to discover, and you have an engaging mystery. The details are left as an exercise for the reader.
OK, here are a couple of ideas. Not necessarily good ones, mind you, but maybe they'll help get the juices flowing. Also note that you don't need to have it all figured out yet. You could have this event happen now, throw out a vague clue or two, and challenge yourself to figuring out how to make it all fit later.
1) A demon prince wishes to exert his will upon the world. However, he's under surveillance from other powerful beings due to past indiscretions, so he can't act openly. By drawing the PCs into a place outside the normal world, he hides his activities. The result is that he (hopefully) replaces some of the PCs with (near-)duplicates, with the change being unnoticeable, even to the PCs at first. Subtle differences show up later; in moments of crisis, the replacements take actions that swing outcomes to favor the demon prince's master plan....
2) The reflections are sent by future/alternate versions of the PCs themselves, who set up the combat and the clues essentially as attention-getters. The very mystery of the situation leads the PCs to question its meaning and origin, searching for further clues, thus (seemingly inadvertently) placing them on a path to avert some terrible future catastrophe. The surviving reflections possess some essential knowledge buried in their subconscious, which is revealed when needed most....
Hope that helps. Let us know what happens!
Quasqueton
First Post
Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions and advice. I ran the scenario last night, and it was a hit. Everyone had fun, and each Player said it was an interesting encounter. They seemed to honestly enjoy the scene.
Here’s what I finally decided on:
*************************************
The chamber:
To clearly view the fresco, the viewer and light source must be inside the chamber.
The whole of the fresco scene suggests the figures are spectators at an event. The figures are all human-like, but each has a subtle hint of “something else”. A Knowledge Planes check, DC 20 can identify the “something else” as various outsider touches (good, evil, lawful, chaotic, elemental, etc.). They all seem to stare into the mirror with a variety of expressions, from fearful to humored, concerned to entertained. The craftsmanship is masterful, and the surface is in perfect condition.
If detect magic is used, the whole of this chamber radiates a lingering (dim) magical aura of indeterminate school, but the mirror radiates an overwhelming conjuration, transmutation, and illusion aura. There is no alignment aura here.
The mirror is impervious to harm, physical, magical, or other. If struck with an instrument intended to break it, a crystal ping will be heard.
One round after all characters are in the chamber:
After one more round:
Roll initiative.
The duplicate characters have all the same stats and equipment as the real characters do at the moment of the mirror disappearing. Any spells in effect on the real character are also in effect on the duplicate character. The duplicates think they are the real characters and that the real characters are starting the fight. The duplicates have all the same knowledge and memories as the real characters, and they will fight as the real characters would.
Notes on the environment:
The chamber is made of solid stone, of infinite depth.
Magical teleportation (or similar escape attempts) will fail to take the targets out of the room, but will let the caster choose to relocate within the chamber. Even planeshifting or gating will fail to give exit, but merely allows movement within the chamber.
Summoning into the room works as normal, and once a spell’s duration ends, any summoned creatures disappear as normal.
When a character, real or duplicate, is killed, both real and duplicate will disappear from the chamber. The single character will then appear in an identical room, facing the corridor they entered through, with a black, non-reflective wall behind them, instead of a mirror. The character can leave immediately or wait for the other characters to be released from the battle.
*************************************
Here’s what I finally decided on:
*************************************
The chamber:
The mirror seems to slightly magnify the light in the room, extending flame or magic light enough to barely show the extent of the chamber. If a character steps into, or leans into the room to see the other two exits, they will discover that they only exist in the reflection.
To clearly view the fresco, the viewer and light source must be inside the chamber.
The whole of the fresco scene suggests the figures are spectators at an event. The figures are all human-like, but each has a subtle hint of “something else”. A Knowledge Planes check, DC 20 can identify the “something else” as various outsider touches (good, evil, lawful, chaotic, elemental, etc.). They all seem to stare into the mirror with a variety of expressions, from fearful to humored, concerned to entertained. The craftsmanship is masterful, and the surface is in perfect condition.
If detect magic is used, the whole of this chamber radiates a lingering (dim) magical aura of indeterminate school, but the mirror radiates an overwhelming conjuration, transmutation, and illusion aura. There is no alignment aura here.
The mirror is impervious to harm, physical, magical, or other. If struck with an instrument intended to break it, a crystal ping will be heard.
One round after all characters are in the chamber:
After one more round:
Roll initiative.
The duplicate characters have all the same stats and equipment as the real characters do at the moment of the mirror disappearing. Any spells in effect on the real character are also in effect on the duplicate character. The duplicates think they are the real characters and that the real characters are starting the fight. The duplicates have all the same knowledge and memories as the real characters, and they will fight as the real characters would.
Notes on the environment:
The chamber is made of solid stone, of infinite depth.
Magical teleportation (or similar escape attempts) will fail to take the targets out of the room, but will let the caster choose to relocate within the chamber. Even planeshifting or gating will fail to give exit, but merely allows movement within the chamber.
Summoning into the room works as normal, and once a spell’s duration ends, any summoned creatures disappear as normal.
When a character, real or duplicate, is killed, both real and duplicate will disappear from the chamber. The single character will then appear in an identical room, facing the corridor they entered through, with a black, non-reflective wall behind them, instead of a mirror. The character can leave immediately or wait for the other characters to be released from the battle.
*************************************
Quasqueton
First Post
Interestingly, all real characters survived. I really expected some real character deaths, if for no other reason than just the 50/50 odds of fighting themselves.
The reflection characters used tactics that the real characters have used in their adventuring; I played them equally as smart, and equally as determined to win.
The party:
halfling sorcerer 11 with pseudodragon familiar
human ranger 11 (archer)
human paladin 11 with dire wolf special mount
Some highlights:
- The real archer nailed the reflection archer first thing.
- The real paladin tried to dismiss the reflection dire wolf (brilliant idea) but it didn’t work.
- The real dire wolf was all over the reflection archer, keeping her on the floor with trips. This effectively completely shut down the reflection archer.
- The two paladins pretty much battled each other the whole fight, with the reflection dire wolf trying to draw the real dire wolf off the reflection archer.
- The real sorcerer started with a wall of fire, but the reflection sorcerer dispelled it.
- The reflection sorcerer got an evard’s black tentacles up and captured the real sorcerer, the real pseudodragon, and the real archer – I thought this was the beginning of the end.
- The real sorcerer got off a teleport to escape the EBT – he just moved to another place in the room (I didn’t even have to tell him he couldn’t get out of the room).
- When the real pseudodragon and real archer where about to die in the EBT, the real sorcerer dispelled it.
- But before the real archer could do anything out of the EBT, the real dire wolf killed the reflection archer, sending both archers out of the fight.
- The reflection dire wolf was down and dying, but the reflection paladin had had to use his healing to save himself a couple rounds earlier, so the reflection paladin dismissed his reflection dire wolf, and I ruled this removed both dire wolves from the room.
- The real paladin started trying subdual damage on the reflection paladin, but ended up missing every such attack.
- The real dire wolf dropped the reflection sorcerer to unconsciousness.
- The real sorcerer killed the reflection paladin with scorching rays, sending both paladins out of the fight.
- The reflection pseudodragon was attacking the real sorcerer, so the real sorcerer sent his real pseudodragon to kill the unconscious reflection sorcerer.
- The reflection pseudodragon went to his master’s defense, but couldn’t stop his reflection master’s death, so both sorcerer’s left the fight.
- The pseudodragons were the last in the room, and with their attack bonus vs. their AC, and doing just 1 point of damage, the fight was going to be a long one. So I just did some estimating – one had 13 hit points, the other had 10 hit points, so I judged that the real one (with 13 hit points) had a 65% chance of defeating the other. I rolled the secret percentage, and the real dragon won.
- The real sorcerer was asleep, from the reflection pseudodragon’s poison sting, when he popped up in the exit room.
The whole fight lasted 17 rounds (14 rounds till the last PC was removed, plus 3 rounds of pseudodragon on pseudodragon action before I decided on a percentage roll to resolve the dragons’ fight).
Shwew, what a battle! There were a lot of actions in the fight that I didn’t mention here, like healing potions, bullrushes, trips, saving throws, and more.
At one point, when the real sorcerer wanted to target the reflection paladin with a scorching ray, I called for an intelligence check to have been able to keep track of which was which – they had been toe-to-toe, with multiple 5’ steps.
Later, the paladin had to make such a check to apply healing to the sorcerer for the same reason.
And later again, the dire wolf held off attacking the sorcerer because he failed his intelligence check to tell them apart.
It’s really interesting to see two halfling sorcerers blasting each other from point-blank range.
Lessons learned:
When a character was “ejected” from the battle, I should have had the Player leave the room. I shouldn’t have let them watch the remainder of the fight.
Also, when the battle was over, and the characters popped up in the release room, I should have first taken each Player alone and talked about something, so no one could be metagame-sure that the released character was the real character.
The Players role played their uncertainty, but it would have been better to have real uncertainty.
All in all, a very entertaining, enjoyable, and even enlightening scenario, for all in the game.
Quasqueton
The reflection characters used tactics that the real characters have used in their adventuring; I played them equally as smart, and equally as determined to win.
The party:
halfling sorcerer 11 with pseudodragon familiar
human ranger 11 (archer)
human paladin 11 with dire wolf special mount
Some highlights:
- The real archer nailed the reflection archer first thing.
- The real paladin tried to dismiss the reflection dire wolf (brilliant idea) but it didn’t work.
- The real dire wolf was all over the reflection archer, keeping her on the floor with trips. This effectively completely shut down the reflection archer.
- The two paladins pretty much battled each other the whole fight, with the reflection dire wolf trying to draw the real dire wolf off the reflection archer.
- The real sorcerer started with a wall of fire, but the reflection sorcerer dispelled it.
- The reflection sorcerer got an evard’s black tentacles up and captured the real sorcerer, the real pseudodragon, and the real archer – I thought this was the beginning of the end.
- The real sorcerer got off a teleport to escape the EBT – he just moved to another place in the room (I didn’t even have to tell him he couldn’t get out of the room).
- When the real pseudodragon and real archer where about to die in the EBT, the real sorcerer dispelled it.
- But before the real archer could do anything out of the EBT, the real dire wolf killed the reflection archer, sending both archers out of the fight.
- The reflection dire wolf was down and dying, but the reflection paladin had had to use his healing to save himself a couple rounds earlier, so the reflection paladin dismissed his reflection dire wolf, and I ruled this removed both dire wolves from the room.
- The real paladin started trying subdual damage on the reflection paladin, but ended up missing every such attack.
- The real dire wolf dropped the reflection sorcerer to unconsciousness.
- The real sorcerer killed the reflection paladin with scorching rays, sending both paladins out of the fight.
- The reflection pseudodragon was attacking the real sorcerer, so the real sorcerer sent his real pseudodragon to kill the unconscious reflection sorcerer.
- The reflection pseudodragon went to his master’s defense, but couldn’t stop his reflection master’s death, so both sorcerer’s left the fight.
- The pseudodragons were the last in the room, and with their attack bonus vs. their AC, and doing just 1 point of damage, the fight was going to be a long one. So I just did some estimating – one had 13 hit points, the other had 10 hit points, so I judged that the real one (with 13 hit points) had a 65% chance of defeating the other. I rolled the secret percentage, and the real dragon won.
- The real sorcerer was asleep, from the reflection pseudodragon’s poison sting, when he popped up in the exit room.
The whole fight lasted 17 rounds (14 rounds till the last PC was removed, plus 3 rounds of pseudodragon on pseudodragon action before I decided on a percentage roll to resolve the dragons’ fight).
Shwew, what a battle! There were a lot of actions in the fight that I didn’t mention here, like healing potions, bullrushes, trips, saving throws, and more.
At one point, when the real sorcerer wanted to target the reflection paladin with a scorching ray, I called for an intelligence check to have been able to keep track of which was which – they had been toe-to-toe, with multiple 5’ steps.
Later, the paladin had to make such a check to apply healing to the sorcerer for the same reason.
And later again, the dire wolf held off attacking the sorcerer because he failed his intelligence check to tell them apart.
It’s really interesting to see two halfling sorcerers blasting each other from point-blank range.
Lessons learned:
When a character was “ejected” from the battle, I should have had the Player leave the room. I shouldn’t have let them watch the remainder of the fight.
Also, when the battle was over, and the characters popped up in the release room, I should have first taken each Player alone and talked about something, so no one could be metagame-sure that the released character was the real character.
The Players role played their uncertainty, but it would have been better to have real uncertainty.
All in all, a very entertaining, enjoyable, and even enlightening scenario, for all in the game.
Quasqueton
moritheil
First Post
Very interesting. Thanks for the update.
For future attempts, I suggest randomly assigning one of the two to the player (so the player does not know if he is actually controlling himself, or the duplicate.)
IME, players generally have a better grasp of the nuances of their characters than the DM, so they should have a slight edge when fighting exact copies.
For future attempts, I suggest randomly assigning one of the two to the player (so the player does not know if he is actually controlling himself, or the duplicate.)
IME, players generally have a better grasp of the nuances of their characters than the DM, so they should have a slight edge when fighting exact copies.
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