Party stuck on puzzle. Any ideas?

[Herobizkit]

Heh, at CR 15, most problems are of the "save or die" variety. No matter how he failed the save (DM-finagling or otherwise), he still failed, and the puzzle is still unsolved.

Do you think that someone is supposed to channel positive energy into/at the corpse? I played an adventure that required a cleric to do this in order to open a door, and it's a rarely-used feature of the cleric class so it's not one that comes immediately to mind.

 

[Question]

Nobody will dare to try that, for fear of another insta kill.

 

[shilsen]

DCs for saves follow this pattern:

DC =10 + 1/2 HD + key ability modifer

That means that by the time you get to CR 15 creatures (18 - 20 HD average, with ability scores in the 25 range), the DC you should expect is (10+9+7) 26.

You'll note that's NOT 34.

With your PC's +14 Will save, you would have made a DC 26 save about 45% of the time, which is about right for that challenge level. If your DM is throwing a DC 34 trap at you, that implies (using averages from core monsters in the MM 3.5e) that you are facing a CR 20 - CR 23 threat!

Chew on that for a while......

Vermin (Question referred to a bug) tend to have higher ratios of HD/saves to CR. A colossal monstrous spider, only CR 11, has a DC 28 for its poison. Bump it up to CR 15 and the save would easily be in the mid-30s.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

Nobody will dare to try that, for fear of another insta kill.

That's the real problem here. Now that there's been one insta-kill, there is no longer any reason or desire to interact with the puzzle.

This is definitely one of those situations where I'd respond, "Well, then we sit here until we starve. Game over, and you win, DM. Good bye."

 

[Harmon]

Me- "my character has a 20 Int, 16 Wis, every Knowledge skill at skill of 8 minunum, with most of them being over 12, and more then a couple at above 18. I do not recall the Bible being used in any of the religions on my characters home world. Sorry if I am not getting the puzzle, but it just seems to me that my character is an idiot or you are playing against my weakness. Lets just agree that you have won, I will make up a stupid fighter type and you can start a new campaign."

GM- "but its not that hard-"

Me- "I am not there, my character is, my character is way smarter then I am. Help me out or the character sits down and starves to death."

I hate puzzle traps. Place a puzzle before me and I have a better chance of figuring it out, tell me what it looks like and describe how it all looks and I have no clue.

 

[Herobizkit]

That's the worst part. Of course it's not hard from the DM's perspective... he's the one that set the thing up!

You have nothing to lose, so you might as well try everything. Refuse to solve the puzzle, starve to death, and die. Channel energy, invoke another Wraith, have it kill you all. Either way, your party is doomed, so might as well try something over nothing at all.

Also, there's always the option to make a new party to rescue the old one.

 

[Thaniel]

I have to say I've never played with a DM that didn't bow to pressure once the players were stumped (meaning a full week of thinking about it). I can't imagine otherwise. Sounds like a RBDM to me.

 

[shilsen]

I have to say I've never played with a DM that didn't bow to pressure once the players were stumped (meaning a full week of thinking about it). I can't imagine otherwise. Sounds like a RBDM to me.

A RBDM would have the players going, "We're so screwed! And man, that was fun!" The latter half of the mix seems significantly missing here.

 

[Question]

What is a RBDM?

 

[Tiberius]

Rat Bastard Dungeon Master. I've also seen it as "Right Bastard...".