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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gizzard" data-source="post: 416172" data-attributes="member: 527">Well, doesnt Mr. Roper start with 8 tentacles?  If you have a very large party, I suppose the chop-chop plan might work out; but if you have less players than tentacles, people are quite likely to be pulled into the big, gaping mouth before they can chop themselves free. What happened in our game was that the DM minimized the Roper; 6 tentacles for 6 players.  (Reminiscent of seven brides for seven brothers, no?).  We managed to hack all of his tentacles off and then the Roper pleaded with us to spare him; he cant do anything without any tentacles after all.  Against the better judgement of some of the PCs, we asked, "What can you offer us?" and he vomitted up a handful of gems and coins.  "Mmmm, good, but we greedily want more."  Imagine the sad scene; a tentacle-less abberation forced to vomit up his stomach contents until a bunch of adventurers are satisfied.  (We made him barf until the ring came out; we knew through D-Magic that there was something good in his tummy.)  Anyway, the original point of the encounter (according to a private discussion with the DM later) was to "make people learn to negotiate or run away; not all your problems should be solved with the sword."  But he felt that the encounter wasn't very suited for teaching that; hence he scaled it down so it played as a straight encounter instead of a "lesson". (Another way you can tell the encounter is supposed to be impossible is that the magic ring is just too butt-kicking good.  If you scale down the impossible monster, remember to scale down the far-too-cool treasure.)It was during this discussion that I suggested using a Construct instead of a Roper; it was the first monster I thought of that could TPK a party who insisted on fighting, while still being willing to spare a fleeing party. I think Lesser Rest is only for temporary ability damage.  But you do get a Fort save 24 hours after the level is "taken" to see if you regain it.  Its possible I am wrong here, because I play a Monk and therefore havent read the spell descriptions; I only know what our Cleric tells me.  ;-) I think thats a fair position.  I agree that it doesnt reward good play or punish bad play; its just exists, and that can be annoying -- especially if you are the one who gets Level Drained.OTOH, its a really memorable encounter; and our group had a lot of fun with it, even though we got Drained.  Perhaps the people who got Drained didnt take it badly because they volunteered to give the woman a hug:DM: "She begins crying and says that after all she's been through, being subject to Detect Evil would just break her heart.  Bard, make a save.  Hmmm, you feel strongly that she is right.  You want to protect her from such degradation."Bard: "I go give her a hug and try to comfort her."Barbarian: "So I see two beautiful women hugging in front of me.  Can I make a Hug Of Opportunity?"You cant really argue that the DM screwed you when you do stuff like that.  ;-)</blockquote>

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