Lessons from a one-shot

[nameless]

Very cool traps. I don't really use many traps in high level play, but this inspires me to use more.

I've also found burrowing power to be more useful than at first glance. My current character in a high level game is a Kineticis/Psion Uncarnate, so I get incorporeality. Combo is as follows: Use third eye of sense to put my clairvoyant sight above the battlefield, go underground near the enemies, and manifest a burrowing power from full cover/concealment.

Also, the "sonic damage ignores hardness" isn't a new rule/clarification, AFAIK. It's just that the powers that can do sonic damage can also ignore hardness as a thematic element. Just like the way that fire and cold do +1 damage per die, and electricity gets higher DC and power penetration.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

4. Bestow Curse as a contingent spell on a villain (You touched me? Okay, take -6 Wisdom) is very cool, especially when the villain is a ghoulish Orc in an Egypt-like tomb, and the cursed PC already only had an 8 Wisdom.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought contingency only works with spells which target the caster? If so, then the villain just cast bestow curse on himself, not his opponent. Oops...

 

[Verequus]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought contingency only works with spells which target the caster? If so, then the villain just cast bestow curse on himself, not his opponent. Oops...

RangerWickett uses the Elements of Magic Revised as a substitute for the core magic system. In REoM there isn't such a restriction regarding contingencies.

 

[RangerWickett]

Yeah, I was using shorthand, since Bestow Curse requires less explanation than Drain Water 4/Gen 5. You can have a contingency spell set up that says, "Cast X on the first creature that attacks me." It's fun.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Cool stuff, and it looks like the party was thankful for their mix of PCs.

We had a 1.5 ed DL Minotaur Barbarian in an old campaign, he was useful in exactly the manner you presented. More HP than most gods, and the party had no rogue...

Quite fun.

 

[blargney the second]

Oh yeah, and can't you just stand in the anti-magic field and take no damage from the "magic fire"?

I think the idea here was that the magic fire itself is outside the antimagic field, but the heat that is given off is non-magical. (So unaffected by the antimagic...)

-blarg

 

[Planesdragon]

You can't dispel the wall of fire, but the heat of the fire reaches you even through the antimagic field.

It shouldn't. The heat is a magical effect, and should be blocked by the antimagic field the same as a burning hands spell cast from oustide of the field.

Now, transmuting an inch of the ceiling to lava BEFORE throwing up the antimagic field would have the same effect--not to mention making the PCs panic as lava falls on them. 2d6 damage per round, plus fear/insanity checks if you've got them.

 

[blargney the second]

The heat is a magical effect, and should be blocked by the antimagic field the same as a burning hands spell cast from oustide of the field.

I look at it a little differently - I think the heat is a mundane side-effect of the magic that creates a bloody great bonfire. Use telekinesis to hurl an elephant at an antimagic field and it will continue because of its momentum.

-blarg

 

[jmucchiello]

I look at it a little differently - I think the heat is a mundane side-effect of the magic that creates a bloody great bonfire. Use telekinesis to hurl an elephant at an antimagic field and it will continue because of its momentum.

How can it be a mundane effect if it only effects one side of the wall? Also, you should take the heat damage in an arc around the head and tail of the wall if the heat is just a side-effect. Since the heat is directional in a manner that the laws of thermodynamics go "er, what?" at, I'd say the heat is magical.

Now, the lava, on the other hand....

 

[RangerWickett]

Eh, it was cool, and no one was opposed to it. Anyway, if you're making this trap, of course you'd research a wall of fire that has nonmagical heat, wouldn't you? *grin*

Next week we're going to continue the adventure. The psion's sonic blast ripped a hole in the floor of the final deathtrap, revealing the 'maintenance shafts' underneath the dungeon, where all the gears and such work. A few preliminary investigations showed it led to tunnels that may lead even deeper. They apparently really enjoyed their PCs, so now I've got to come up with underdark adventures.