Whispering Cairn idea (MY PLAYERS STAY OUT!)

[TracerBullet42]

I've recently started to run the Age of Worms adventure path from Dungeon Magazine. This is my first attempt at running a campaign, so be gentle...

First off, I'd love to just say to anyone wondering whether the AoW is any good, this first leg, called "The Whispering Cairn," is very good, and I hope that the quality continues throughout...

But now, onto my query:

The group has come up with an interesting way to get by the wind trap attached to the room with the spinning sarcophogas. They wish to hang one of the party's lanterns from the chain with the missing lantern and use a prestidigitation spell to "color" the lantern red so that it might undo the trap.

You see, the way to get past the trap is to have a lantern hanging from each of seven different chains in seven different corridors. Each of the lanterns is a different color that corresponds with a mural on a wall that they have discovered. They've gathered six of the seven lanterns, and the seventh is further on in the dungeon. They know, however, the color of the missing lantern because of the mural. Should I allow this creative answer to suffice for the traps sake?

Prestidigitations are minor tricks that novice spellcasters use for practice. Once cast, a prestidigitation spell enables you to perform simple magical effects for 1 hour. The effects are minor and have severe limitations. A prestidigitation can slowly lift 1 pound of material. It can color, clean, or soil items in a 1-foot cube each round. It can chill, warm, or flavor 1 pound of nonliving material. It cannot deal damage or affect the concentration of spellcasters. Prestidigitation can create small objects, but they look crude and artificial. The materials created by a prestidigitation spell are extremely fragile, and they cannot be used as tools, weapons, or spell components. Finally, a prestidigitation lacks the power to duplicate any other spell effects. Any actual change to an object (beyond just moving, cleaning, or soiling it) persists only 1 hour.

Should I allow such a trick to work? Personally, I like that they're using different resources to get by the trap. Plus, it can have an interesting effect for when the spell duration expires and they're already on the other side of the trap...hehehe.

Being pretty new to this, though, are there consequences that I'm not seeing to be expected from allowing this creative bypassing of a trap?

And if we could stay away from the "it's your game, do what you want" type of answers, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

 

[Ravenknight]

Of course You should allow it to work. That kind of thinking and making up their own sollutions is part of what makes the game fun. Or if You don´t want it to go all the way at least let it affect the power of the trap in some way.

And no, there is nothing later in the cave that will be greatly affected by this.

 

[TracerBullet42]

Of course You should allow it to work. That kind of thinking and making up their own sollutions is part of what makes the game fun. Or if You don´t want it to go all the way at least let it affect the power of the trap in some way.

And no, there is nothing later in the cave that will be greatly affected by this.

That's pretty much what I was thinking, but I figured I'd bounce the idea around the wonderful ENWorld community since I'm new to the DM gig...

I'd love to hear more thoughts!

 

[Ruined]

Yeah, I'd tend to agree. Given the path of the adventure, they can't get much farther as they need to deal with Alastor Land. And it's likely that they'll check out the remaining section just to be thorough. Overall, I see no harm in letting their creativity win the day in this case.