Sorry, yeah I can see how it's not clear. Tira is telling the men that they'll take care of it, while simultaneously hiding behind them. So I'm definitely using them.
You know, I'd have no problem allowing you to use Prime Shot to get a +1 to hit in this instance. I was using the Defense of these things as the DC, and a 14 vs. Reflex hits.
But the NPCs did their part as well...
Crackling bolts of dark energy explode from Tira's wand and lance into the shadows. The spectral creatures writhe in pain as the eldritch blast vapourizes chunks of darkness.
And just like that, they are gone.
"Beware!" cries Skamos. "They still lurk among us!" He holds his wand high, shouts an incantation, and a ball of bright light appears above your heads. It burns away the dark, revealing the frescoed vault ceiling, covered in images of the dead - and the two shadows, lurking behind the shield wall.
They pounce on Tal, ebon claws of darkness tearing through his mail jerkin, and he cries out in pain. He slumps to the ground, shivering, dropping his spear and shield.
Another man shreiks in terror and turns to run. Erias grabs him by the shoulder and throws him back into the fight. "Amaunator watch over you! Hold the line!"
The men wheel round, forming a line with their shields. Kathra steps past it, challenging the creatures with her heavy hammer gripped in two knotted hands. The shadows press forward. She swings, connecting heavily. It dissolves.
The other shadow slips past Kathra. It crashes against the shield wall. From behind the line, Tira can feel the cold of the crypt coming from the creature. She raises her wand again. Fey energies pour forth. The shadow writhes in pain as its dark form is vapourized.
Borden turns to Tal. "Are you okay?" he asks. Tal looks at the warden. Tal's face is pale, his eyes are sunken and bloodshot, and he shivers; but he props himself up on his spear and nods.
You head down the winding stair. Your lantern flickers from winds rising from below, but Skamos' arcane light does not waver. It lights up the stair, revealing many side passages into unknown tombs, but the trail does not lead into any of them. Further down it goes.
The air grows colder. The crypt moss, which was once everywhere, now has died out. You press forward. The stair becomes slick - black, smooth, polished to a sheen, almost oily like the shadows you fought. You suppress an involuntary shudder.
Finally the stair ends at a wide landing. A large doorway, carved to look like a devil's open mouth, stands before you. Beyond, it is pitch-black, a gloom that not even Skamos' light can penetrate.
A voice speaks from the devil's mouth:
<Here rest the damned of Bael Turath. Uneasily they sleep, consumed by envy for the living. You who yet draw breath, turn back now, lest you wake the bane of the Bael Turath.>1
Borden turns to you, his hale face now ashen white. "The trail must go through here. I saw no signs of it above. But I admit, this is beyond my ken. What should we do?"
1 - Translated from the ancient Bael Turathian by Skamos.
This is a classic D&D trap - a "sphere" of annihilation that blocks the way. The other hitch is that, beyond the barrier, the dead will wake in the presence of the living.
Other than that, I have no idea what else is going on. Feel free to narrate some way to get past it, whatever you think would be cool.
Failure won't mean death, so don't worry about that.
edit: Oh yeah: you can use the NPCs as "trap fodder" to help the difficulty of the roll.
Tira pushes a worried expression onto her face as she checks on Tal. You're alright?
Damn, don't need him breaking on us now; his men won't stay if he doesn't make it. She thinks to herself.
***************************
Once Skamos has finished translating, Tira frowns. Charming friend you've got there, Skamos. Don't suppose you could talk us into letting him through? Or maybe he only partial to shapechanging undead.
She looks around. Probably just a scam to scare people. Come on Teifling.
She walks up to the door, OH GUARDIAN! She puts on her most impressive voice. Translate! She hisses to Skamos. We are here to inspect the wards around the guardian! Do not fail in your duty; let us pass unharmed!
[sblock=OOC]Is this feasable? Really not sure. Was going to look for a lock, but with a Perception of -1 that seems unlikely. Maybe bluff, if successful the guardian responds and Skamos gets an easy history check?[/sblock]
[sblock=OOC]You know what? At first I thought, "Naw, this is just a magic mouth," but I like your idea. I'll roll with it.[/sblock]
Graf said:
She walks up to the door, OH GUARDIAN! She puts on her most impressive voice. Translate! She hisses to Skamos. We are here to inspect the wards around the guardian! Do not fail in your duty; let us pass unharmed!
The voice speaks again in the ancient alien language:
<Silently I have waited through countless ages. Now two Renders of the Veil have come this day? What proof of holy blood have you?>
That's your prompt for a Bluff check to help out Skamos. He can do something with History; Religion or Arcana might work, too. I have only a vague idea of what "Renders of the Veil" means - I'm thinking the ancient Bael Turath priests who compacted with devils - so you can play into that however you want!
Initially I thought the same thing. But then I figured that you'd invited out of the box thinking so....
Skamos, need the name of the leaders of the Bael Turath and their enemies. Quick now! Tira hisses presumptuously. And keep translating!
Putting on her most horrified and worried tone she calls out, Oh no! You have waiting the countless ages only to fail so spectacularly. That was not a Render but an agent of our enemies! BLUFF=27(!)
Fill in the details Skamos!
Tira glances around, holy blood, holy blood. She looks at Erias. No. They definitely don't share any gods in common... She looks over at Skamos'. Hmm.... she eyes his arm.
She takes hold of the teifling's arm gently as he finishes translating, fingering her dagger. Skamos, I don't suppose their holy blood would involve something fiendish?
PS Been meaning to say. Liking the world, is this a homebrew?
I was inviting out-of-the-box thinking, pretty explicitly, too!
I've never been one for coming up with creative traps. I found a random "break your creative block" thing that said "Use a cliche" and the first thing that jumped to mind was a sphere of annihilation. So I figured, a Magic Mouth to set the scene, and we'll see if you guys try to look for a secret door or even try to walk through it and pass through the veil of death.
I had never even considered bluffing the door, or the fact that it might be sentient. That makes it so much cooler - maybe this door is some kind of guardian devil the tieflings bound here, or a really devout slave-priest. Very cool!
The world that we're playing in is pretty much coming to me as I go along - with some stuff I remember from the old fluff previews from Wizards. Feel free to add to it![/sblock]
I was going to write up some stuff for Skamos since the player hasn't shown up for a while; but he's a PC, so you guys can do that if you want.
If you do want me to post the fluff for his roll, I'd like you to make the roll. Not that it matters, really... but still I'd rather not.
Current tally is 7 successes (counting that last Bluff as one), 2 failures.
Skamos stammers as he tries to fill in all the blanks in Tira's little speech. I know what they're called now, but what they were called then? Skamos History: 16
He manages to get most of it out swallowing and staring up at the door. Yes, of course Tira, consorting with demons was common he says distractedly. Teiflings are descended from the fell city, after all.
He barely notices her taking his arm.
Hey, offer a chance for me to post for someone else and do I take shameless advantage? Yes. Yes I do....
[sblock=LS]Not sure if I have the mental space to add anything right now.
I like the feel of the world, how it comes off in your writing; sort of old world and gritty.
I don't know if it's in my head because of your statement but it's got a bit of the Conan feel, no?[/sblock]
Skamos scowls and takes Tira's knife from her. He draws a thin line across his arm. Dark blood wells up and wets the dagger.
He casts his arms wide over his head and makes a sign with his free hand. Raising his head back, he shouts:
<By the Legate Akmenos and his matriarch Nemeria, we come to step beyond the Veil! Honour the Pact of Meloch the Render, and let us pass!>
Tendrils of darkness reach out from the doorway and lick the dagger clean. The devil lets out a groaning sigh, and speaks:
<Ahh, long have I waited for this day.
Take care of my wards; they were dangerous fiends in my time, when men still knew the secrets of binding, and the name of Meloch was more than just a curse. Ware that they are not unleashed on this unready world. They rest uneasily. I can feel one of them beginning to stir even now.
But this is no longer my concern; my toil done, my crime paid for, I am free once again.>
You feel the earth groan and the darkness swirls. It gathers into a vaugely human shape and over you, up the stair and out of the crypt. The doorway is cleared, and somewhere beyond you can spot a faint light.
[sblock=Success!]Tally is 8 successes, 2 failures, and success!
This means that you are going to face down Shalmanisar for the stabby-stabby action. Because it wasn't a totally clean win, the actual fight should be slightly different.
This is what I'm thinking:
I was thinking that Shalmanisar should be a solo creature, because the encounter should be fun to play on its own - that is, the skill challenge shouldn't make this encounter easier or harder, because we want it to keep its dramatic importance as the climax.
The NPCs with you we should just write out - give them some other lackies to take care of while you deal with the main threat. That way the encounter is all up to you.
I'm not sure what those 2 failures should mean, then. So we can negotiate it.
My first thought is that there's some kind of hazard/trap set up by Shal that will give him some kind of minor tactical advantage because of his position.
Another option is to say that he's just not surprised, as I would have if you had got 8 successes/0 failures.
Another option would be to have Tal, who was touched by the shadows, leap into combat against you; but that might make the Shal encounter too difficult.
Another option would be to say that the 2 failures means that the NPCs can't aid you.
Another, plot-twisty option, would be to say that Borden is actually Shal, and he used you to open the way to the tombs - but that doesn't really fit with everything else that's happened.
I guess the question is: should the 2 failures have some kind of mechanical impact on the upcoming encounter or not?[/sblock]
[sblock=World stuff]I tend to pick up a lot from what I'm reading at the moment, so I've probably picked up some of Howard's flavour. I also really like the points-of-light fluff and the idea of a society struggling against the darkness. Just keeping with that theme allows me to add some neat colour to the standard stuff.[/sblock]
There are some minor KotS spoilers in the following... I've been circumspect about it and put it in a another spoiler tag... no names of creature types or specific details....
[sblock=Success!]
I agree. He's definitely a solo. I also agree that he shouldn't be "not challenging" because of our success. The point was to get to him vs. having him slip away, no more no less.
As for 2 failures... I don't know. There are a bunch of different ways to look at it.
My instinct is to say that DnD only has binary success and failure. The point of the number of successes required vs. failures allowed is to set the difficulty. If the test is supposed to be harder then the number of allowed failures goes down.
The published skill test in KotS works like this. You get 4 before you fail x and you get a "success result". Fail and you get a "failure" result.
That makes a degree of sense to me.
If you've got, say, a 875 xp 4th level solo brute then that'll be pretty tough for 1st or 2nd level characters.
If, on top of that, each failure adds a trap... then two failures adds two traps. The cheapest traps (False-Floor Pit and Rockslide) are 100xp... so that'd make the whole encounter 1075 xp.
So adding the two traps makes it a 5th level encounter.
You can adjust for the presence of the traps of course, by lowering the solo (so it's say 600 xp and the encounter is still in the 4th level range) but that'd be a bit weird... effectively the more you succeed the stronger the solo creature gets.
At the same time I'm open to having the failures mean something and negotiating it in this case. KotS is obviously an introductory adventure, a staged skill test is a natural sort of progression.
I'm just suggesting that doing that as a matter of policy could put you in a weird situation. (what if we find Shalmanisar after 3 failures? that'd be around 1175 xp, closer to a 6th level encounter).
Just for the record the "it's too dangerous; forced tpk!" encounter everyone is talking about on the 4th ed rules board weights in at a full 1275 xp).
Since wotc put that in for first level characters maybe that's the upper range of what they consider acceptable -- of course, it's got some other stuff going on (if people are careful, it's staged... so you don't fight it all at once).
