Spoiler Alert : Dungeon Delve : Encounter 5-2

[Shin Okada]

I am not sure if this is an error, a poorly designed encounter, or maybe I am just missing something.

But the 3rd Blazing Skeleton is within the auras of 2 Chillborn Zombies. And one of the Chillborn Zombie is within the aura of a Blazing Skeleton. Shouldn't they destroy each other by now?

 

[the Jester]

Ahhh, editing.

 

[Mr. Wilson]

I just ran that Delve on Sunday when one of our regulars couldn't make it for our normal Star Wars D6 game.

I noted the aura troubles and decided the BBEG of 5-3 modified the monsters so that they were immune to other undead auras.

 

[Aegeri]

I just ran that Delve on Sunday when one of our regulars couldn't make it for our normal Star Wars D6 game.

I noted the aura troubles and decided the BBEG of 5-3 modified the monsters so that they were immune to other undead auras.

Creatures can choose to have their auras inactive and activate them as they please as a minor action. It can be assumed extremely easily that they don't have their auras active at the start of the combat and do so once they have dispersed. Deactivating an aura is also a minor action, but that's not something that is relevant outside of combat to be honest.

 

[Mr. Wilson]

That would be a great work around, except I can't imagine that int 4 (IIRC) zombies probably wouldn't be bothered to turn off their auras. ;p

 

[Jhaelen]

I am not sure if this is an error, a poorly designed encounter, or maybe I am just missing something.

But the 3rd Blazing Skeleton is within the auras of 2 Chillborn Zombies. And one of the Chillborn Zombie is within the aura of a Blazing Skeleton. Shouldn't they destroy each other by now?

Unfortunately, that's hardly the first time I've seen something like this in an encounter.

I think it was in E1 that had one of those Storm Gorgons in a tiny room with two 'allies' that weren't immune to its aura.

In E3 there was an Immolith with a bunch of minions that would have been immediately incinerated _and_ a bunch of harzardous terrain features that would have exploded in a nice chain-reaction the moment the Immolith appeared.

There have also been quite a few tactics sections that would never work, e.g. recommendations to spam encounter abilities or minions that would have had to be immune to auto-damage. Even MM3 has a bunch of these kinds of mistakes.

 

[Klaus]

For those running these delves, it's great to tie the blazing skeletons, chillborn zombies, the necromancer and the vampires in the level 10 delve into the history of Vor Krugal. In that Dragon article we learned of different tiefling houses, including a necromantic, a vampiric and an elemental-powered one.

If you do so, the skeletons and zombies are from the elemental house and should be immune to each other's elemental powers.