Portals

[windman68]

Running my first campaign and I'm unsure how arcana checks with portals work. My party has found a portal they were looking for, and the wizard has stated he wants to make an arcana check the next time we game. Is he looking for basic knowledge pertaining to its function/operation? Or is he looking for basic knowledge pertaining to it's history, or a combination of all. I'm stumped - thanx.

 

[cdrcjsn]

Arcana check allows both history and function to be found out.

Check out page 179-180 of the PHB under Knowledge Checks for DCs.

Basically the higher the check he gets, the more detailed the information.

He won't be able to use it though unless he uses a Linked Portal spell (or similar ritual) and knows the correct sigils of another portal.

The most useful information he can probably glean from the portal is the correct runes needed to link to this portal in the future.

 

[Regicide]

An arcana check won't give much without the analyze portal ritual.

 

[lukelightning]

If your adventure relies on the characters being able to use the portal (i.e. if it's just a "plot device" portal to bring them to the dungeon or something), feel free to DMify it and make it a skill challenge. Applicable skills include arcana (obviously), dungineering (because of its relation to the far-realms), and history (you've heard tales of similar portals), and maybe thievery (to fiddle with the components of the portal)

If they succeed at the challenge, hooray, the portal opens. If not, they still open the portal, but perhaps not to the right place, or perhaps there is a magical mishap that damages them (take away a healing surge), or when they appear at their destination, some interdimensional baddies (foulspawn?) have "latched" on to them and appear at the same location.