obryn
2013-02-21, 11:11 AM
So have any of you folks ever prepared something that - completely by accident - makes you look like a terrible DM and/or human being?
Here's the situation... Dark Sun*. 4e. The party is investigating rumors of an ancient goddess reawakening. The priests in the temple above sent them looking in the catacombs for her "heart" to help her awaken further. Turns out, the priests are a bunch of psurlons who've been tapping into her divine powers via an intricate ritual, and the Heart is an ancient primal artifact they intend to use as a bludgeon to prevent her from waking fully. They don't want to lose the source of their powers.
The party tipped off the psurlons that they knew their nature before venturing into the catacombs and grabbing the Heart. It took about an hour of in-game time to get it, so the "priests" had an hour to prepare. In that hour, they put their contingency plans into place...
(1) They bound a captive Angel of Vengeance to guard the temple
(2) Put 2 psurlons and 2 non-psurlon mind-clouded believers with the angel to guard outside the catacombs and slow down/defeat the party (hopefully ending in the deaths of the 2 non-psurlons who might otherwise ally against the slugs).
(3) Retreated to the seat of their power, the heart of the ritual, where they are at their strongest,
(4) Readied their traps and wards on the tunnels leading in and out of their secret hiding place, and
(5) Began plans to hunt down the party if they escape - involving mobilizing a few giant Psurlon Warworms in the city.
After the party (violently) dealt with the guards, they decided to descend into the depths of the Shrine to finish off the slugs once and for all. There was a brief parley, and the party said, "heck with it, we're outta here."
So that's where the trapped and warded tunnel comes in. The tunnel behind them started collapsing; I'm picturing a rather dangerous escape sequence with later follow-up from vengeful slugs. You know, the classic "run out of a collapsing building and try not to die" scene.
It was a pretty simple skill challenge (I thought); the DC was reasonable for the task at hand. Basically, the party would make Acrobatics or Athletics checks (their choice) to succeed and dodge falling rocks from the collapsing tunnels; Dungeoneering checks could be used to get the party a bonus. If half the party succeeds, they make progress towards getting out. Anyone who fails a check takes a decent amount of damage, but if half succeed, they can pull their companions along. It's a short one - only 4 successes were needed before 3 failures.
The problem is ... 4 out of the 6 PCs are really, really bad at Athletics and Acrobatics. Even the party's Fighter is weighed down by his armor/shield and needed a 12 to succeed on the Athletics check. So what I thought would be a fairly easy - though hopefully kind of tense - escape ... didn't turn out that way. At all. The party failed abysmally twice, took some damage, and turned back to fight the psurlons.
So it basically looks like I'm a huge railroady DM saying, "Go fight these dudes or ... ROCKS FALL, EVERYONE DIES." :smalleek:
And now I'm looking for other stories of other DMs' sessions that have gone pear-shaped so I don't feel so bad. :smallsmile:
* In my version of the campaign setting, there were once gods on Athas, but they were arguably just as bad as sorcerer kings, with less "defile the world" and more "destroy all heretics." Distant ancestors of the beast-headed giants, they drew on divine energies but were fully on this world and mostly spent time warring with one another. Working together with Rajaat, the sorcerer-kings vanquished them (though they had trouble actually killing them) before turning to the Cleansing Wars. The party inadvertently released a god quite a while ago because I have a player who can't resist pushing every metaphorical button he sees. And they also paved the way for Dregoth's Coruscation - his ascendancy into godhood - which I'm saying opened up the gates to divine power, causing the gods to reawaken ... slowly. My players wanted to pursue a "bring the gods back" campaign, and this is where it's led.
Here's the situation... Dark Sun*. 4e. The party is investigating rumors of an ancient goddess reawakening. The priests in the temple above sent them looking in the catacombs for her "heart" to help her awaken further. Turns out, the priests are a bunch of psurlons who've been tapping into her divine powers via an intricate ritual, and the Heart is an ancient primal artifact they intend to use as a bludgeon to prevent her from waking fully. They don't want to lose the source of their powers.
The party tipped off the psurlons that they knew their nature before venturing into the catacombs and grabbing the Heart. It took about an hour of in-game time to get it, so the "priests" had an hour to prepare. In that hour, they put their contingency plans into place...
(1) They bound a captive Angel of Vengeance to guard the temple
(2) Put 2 psurlons and 2 non-psurlon mind-clouded believers with the angel to guard outside the catacombs and slow down/defeat the party (hopefully ending in the deaths of the 2 non-psurlons who might otherwise ally against the slugs).
(3) Retreated to the seat of their power, the heart of the ritual, where they are at their strongest,
(4) Readied their traps and wards on the tunnels leading in and out of their secret hiding place, and
(5) Began plans to hunt down the party if they escape - involving mobilizing a few giant Psurlon Warworms in the city.
After the party (violently) dealt with the guards, they decided to descend into the depths of the Shrine to finish off the slugs once and for all. There was a brief parley, and the party said, "heck with it, we're outta here."
So that's where the trapped and warded tunnel comes in. The tunnel behind them started collapsing; I'm picturing a rather dangerous escape sequence with later follow-up from vengeful slugs. You know, the classic "run out of a collapsing building and try not to die" scene.
It was a pretty simple skill challenge (I thought); the DC was reasonable for the task at hand. Basically, the party would make Acrobatics or Athletics checks (their choice) to succeed and dodge falling rocks from the collapsing tunnels; Dungeoneering checks could be used to get the party a bonus. If half the party succeeds, they make progress towards getting out. Anyone who fails a check takes a decent amount of damage, but if half succeed, they can pull their companions along. It's a short one - only 4 successes were needed before 3 failures.
The problem is ... 4 out of the 6 PCs are really, really bad at Athletics and Acrobatics. Even the party's Fighter is weighed down by his armor/shield and needed a 12 to succeed on the Athletics check. So what I thought would be a fairly easy - though hopefully kind of tense - escape ... didn't turn out that way. At all. The party failed abysmally twice, took some damage, and turned back to fight the psurlons.
So it basically looks like I'm a huge railroady DM saying, "Go fight these dudes or ... ROCKS FALL, EVERYONE DIES." :smalleek:
And now I'm looking for other stories of other DMs' sessions that have gone pear-shaped so I don't feel so bad. :smallsmile:
* In my version of the campaign setting, there were once gods on Athas, but they were arguably just as bad as sorcerer kings, with less "defile the world" and more "destroy all heretics." Distant ancestors of the beast-headed giants, they drew on divine energies but were fully on this world and mostly spent time warring with one another. Working together with Rajaat, the sorcerer-kings vanquished them (though they had trouble actually killing them) before turning to the Cleansing Wars. The party inadvertently released a god quite a while ago because I have a player who can't resist pushing every metaphorical button he sees. And they also paved the way for Dregoth's Coruscation - his ascendancy into godhood - which I'm saying opened up the gates to divine power, causing the gods to reawaken ... slowly. My players wanted to pursue a "bring the gods back" campaign, and this is where it's led.