What's the best way to avoid a laser?

[Mistah J]

By having a storm trooper shoot at you.

Seriously,

I'm posting this here since the scenario is taking place using Pathfinder rules.

In the game I am leading, the party is in a maze like dungeon. They are about to enter a 25 ft. x 25 ft. room. Cutting directly down the middle of this room is a powerful beam of magical energy.

Now, in this room the party will have a puzzle to solve and a combat to fight. Both will involve a lot of moving around the room and I'm looking for the best way they can interact with this.. well.. it's a laser.

It has the same height and width as a large fist and it is about chest level off the ground (for a medium sized creature).

Anyone who just walks through the beam gets damaged. That's simple enough. What I need are people's thoughts on the best way to avoid the laser. Here are some of mine:

1. As a Move action, a character can simply "cross the beam" without harm.
2. The squares the beam is in count as difficult terrain. Characters can't run or charge through without being hit and to cross safely, they must go 1/2 speed.
3. An Acrobatics check or Reflex save is needed each time they cross the beam's squares. Failure means they are hit by it and take damage. The DC for this roll could be fixed or variable.
4. Any combination of the above. Ex: It is a Move action to cross, unless an Acrobatics check is made, success means it is just part of the movement.

So, what in your opinion, is the best option here? Why or why not? Is there another option I should use instead? They all have merits and flaws so I guess I'm just overwhelmed by choice at the moment. I'm looking for something that sits in the middle of most fun, easiest to rule, fairest to all, and fastest to adjudicate.

Love to hear ideas on this,
Thanks

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Gaseous form, dim door, passwall, dig, or just a standard full length mirror.

 

[Kaisoku]

The average human (at 5'9"), is just under 2 and a half feet taller than the average small-sized creature (around 3'3" or so for halflings).

A fist sized beam at chest level of the human would be easily cleared by a small creature (with even the tallest needing only barely tip their head down).

I'd say that simply being small lets them get through without problems. Similar to how water in bogs can adversely affect small creatures (forcing swim checks where taller creatures need only move at a slower rate).

Edit: I guess you could always add a second laser close to the ground (at tripwire level) that the smaller creatures are forced to deal with.

 

[coyote6]

I'd go with counting it as difficult terrain to cross safely (maybe even bump it to triple cost?), but you can do it for "free" with an Acrobatics check.

As noted, Small creatures would probably be able to pass automatically.

If you lowered it (to hit Small critters in the head, for example), I'd probably make it a move action to cross for Medium victims creatures; seems like the lower you have to duck, the harder it would be to cross.

The chest-and-ankle level double laser would definitely be harder, I think; worth a move action, and maybe even an easy Dex/Acrobatics/Reflex check/save to avoid accidentally scraping one or the other.

Edit: there will be some trap or creature around to shove people into the laser(s), right?

 

[Glade Riven]

Everybody limbo!

 

[Mistah J]

Edit: there will be some trap or creature around to shove people into the laser(s), right?

That was the original plan yes, using Force Golems from MMV. Now, I am not so sure.

The beam is supposed to be an obstacle. The idea being that the party would have to puzzle out its source, and then turn it off so they can continue.

However, now I have a problem: if the laser is supposed to be impassable, there needs to be deadly consequences for crossing it before its turned off - if not downright lethal. However, in such a case I can't really push the PCs in and out of its path willy-nilly with monsters, that's too much insta-death to be fun.
On the other hand, if the damage is much more reasonable or avoidable. It becomes great combat spice, but as a barrier it fails. The party can simply avoid it like they did during combat or.. since the damage must be lower to handle frequent occurrences, the party can just "take it" and move on.

There were so many good responses to my initial question that I'm hopeful we can figure out a perfect balance here.

Thanks

 

[coyote6]

Hmm. The simple solution would be to have it do different things in combat & out of combat (or at least, different when pushed into it than when you more voluntarily contact it). Then it could do less damage when the golems are shoving people into it, and do "Yikes!" levels of damage or even save or die when they just blithely walk into it.

That might be too gamist (or narrativist, since it serves different purposes in different parts of the narrative? Whatever) for you and/or the players, though. ("Wait, a second ago I only took 3d6 damage, and now it's disintegrated me?!?!")

Maybe if you come up with an excuse/rationalization for the reduced effects. Perhaps the golems draw on the same power source as the laser, so when they are instantiated, the laser is less deadly?

Or the golems are immune to the laser (of course), and when the touch something, it briefly gives the object/creature touched a field that partially shields them from the laser -- so when they shove someone into it, it isn't as effective. But if the PCs stumble into it on their own, watch out.

Then the PCs can use that to their advantage, maybe -- punch a golem, jump through the laser, take less damage, or whatever.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Mirror. (Or other optic solutions, like a focused prism.)

 

[Kaisoku]

Going with the prism idea, you could have the laser being projected into the room as a stronger beam that gets diffused and spread out around the room from a prism at the doorway they intend to go through.

So the main beam that's protecting the goal is extremely strong and insta-death (or really high damage), while the beams being spread around the room are only a portion of the main power, so they deal half/quarter/fixed small damage.

This way you can have things push people around the room harming them, but actually trying to walk through the main one is suicide.

You could even have the trap rooms start off with an object or something near the main beam that gets pushed into it immediately... so they know if they are near the main beam and fail their save for being pushed, they'll get put into that insta-death beam.
Movies tend to do this to showcase how deadly the trap is to the viewers, and to the heroes. In your case, it lets the players know that the main beam is effectively impassable without disarming, while moving through the normal beams are just a hazard.

The prism will really play up the "laser" idea, although it can simply be a magical ray of fire or electrical damage. I'd maybe even go with force damage, so that it even protects against ethereal jaunters.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Maybe if you come up with an excuse/rationalization for the reduced effects. Perhaps the golems draw on the same power source as the laser, so when they are instantiated, the laser is less deadly?

I kinda like this. Without knowing anything about the monster or party levels here, I'm envisioning an encounter set up like:

- The beam starts at at full strength (eg, 20d6) at beginning of encounter,
- then reduces to some minimal strength (eg, 4d6) when (for example) the 4 force golems materialize.
- As each golem is downed (and therefore taken "off the grid") the beam gets a little stronger (+4d6), until it gets back up to max power when all golems are destroyed.

So there's an advantage in keeping the golems around (the beam is weaker), but there's also an advantage to defeating them (because, well, they're golems). If appropriate, this also might allow the golems to "respawn" after a time, putting a little added pressure on the encounter. Additionally, this also opens up an alternative solution to shutting down the beam, by somehow "shorting out" a golem, if they can't figure out the "correct" way to do turn off the beam.

Also, is it possible to make the beam less static? As suggested above, shifting prisms could split it at (predictable!) times, or rotating mirrors could allow it to sweep slowly across the battle field.

In any event, sounds like a neat encounter. Good luck with it.