Getting around tons of radiant damage

[DE5PA1R]

I'm planning on making a temple. Entrance into the building needs to be obstructed up until level 9ish.

The way I plan to do this is to have some kind of magical supersunlight in the entry room deal a ton of radiant damage that's only survivable to someone who possesses a certain Macguffin.

Alternatively, someone that could cast a very high-level darkness spell could suppress the damage long enough to bypass the entrance.

Alternatively alternatively, players could get creative. This is where you come in. How would you break my room?

The room is 30 feet wide by 150 feet long. There is one entrance and one exit opposite one another. The sunlight emanates from every 5x5 section of the room. Direct exposure to the supersunlight deals 8d8 radiant damage every round. For all intents and purposes the spell is treated as though the spell was cast by a 20th-level wizard. Being anywhere in the room also deals 4d6 fire (heat) damage every round.

Go!

[HoarsHalberd]

Well, a monk could cover that distance in a round so, hold breath and jump into bag of holding, monk sprints through corridor so fast he only gets hurt once. Rogue works too with a decent amount of speed boosts. (need to get 50ft movement to be able to do it in a turn.) Assuming the place is protected against teleport, true polymorph into a radiant immune creature and walk through.

[RickAllison]

At 7th level, a caster could use Polymorph (or a Druid could summon a pixie to do the same) to turn into a Great Ape. Especially if someone else can Haste the new beast, he can easily tank the damage while carrying the party in a Bag of Holding or Portable Hole.

[pwykersotz]

Resilient Sphere would pretty much take care of all of that.

[Malifice]

An aasimar is resistant to radiant damage.

[Kane0]

- Bear totem gets resistance to radiant damage
- shifted druid has a lot of HP youd have to burn through
- Is there a dex save for half? Evasion significantly reduces damage taken
- monks can spend a ki point to double dash, death monks can spend a ki to not get knocked to 0
- paladin of ancients gets magic resistance
- fiend warlocks can designate one damage type to be resistant to
- theres most likely a spell or two that will help, such as misty step or expedious retreat

- Aasimar and tieflings/dragonborn are reaistant to radiant/fire
- half orcs can not get knocked to 0 once per day
- goliath can reduce damage taken once per rest

A really big mirror? Collapsing the room? Making a tunnel or alternate route? Fog or smoke spells/effects? Shrink party members so they can be put into protected containers and ferried by those that can take the damage?

Edit: when i read the threat title i thought you were having troubles with a paladin dealing a lot of smite damage

[SVamp]

Weird random thoughts that may or may not work:

- Would the light be coming from the ceiling? If so, couldn't someone(s) strong enough (/polymorph/whatever else high str) carry a stone over their heads to shield themselves from this?

- For that matter, couldn't they just dig a tunnel under the floor? Even easier if you change shape into something that burrows..

- or use the door, or a wall segment they break off, to create a sort of umbrella, since the materials would need to be immune to the damage?

- would a mirror reflect the light beams towards another target?

- would flooding the room refract the light rendering it useless?

- if this is amplified sunlight, how does it work at night? Or through very cloudy periods?

- could a passageway of some kind (likely stone and such) be slowly constructed by lots of minions (aka paid peasants) ?

- what happens to corpses? Could you run in carrying a corpse over your head to shield yourself? If they do get destroyed, how long until the corpse poofs.

[RulesJD]

Dimension Door at level 7.

[pwykersotz]

A slightly unorthodox solution, Wall of Sand. Its basically a semi-permeable barrier that can be placed longways down the hall and take the brunt of the energy while only slowing your movement. Though it might become glass in fairly short order depending on the physics of the world.

[Talamare]

... I pull my cloak over my head

[Kane0]

... I pull my cloak over my head

Dont forget to douse it with water just in case.

[Lines]

I'm planning on making a temple. Entrance into the building needs to be obstructed up until level 9ish.

The way I plan to do this is to have some kind of magical supersunlight in the entry room deal a ton of radiant damage that's only survivable to someone who possesses a certain Macguffin.

Alternatively, someone that could cast a very high-level darkness spell could suppress the damage long enough to bypass the entrance.

Alternatively alternatively, players could get creative. This is where you come in. How would you break my room?

The room is 30 feet wide by 150 feet long. There is one entrance and one exit opposite one another. The sunlight emanates from every 5x5 section of the room. Direct exposure to the supersunlight deals 8d8 radiant damage every round. For all intents and purposes the spell is treated as though the spell was cast by a 20th-level wizard. Being anywhere in the room also deals 4d6 fire (heat) damage every round.

Go!

I'd go in through somewhere else. Break through the ceiling or walls right next to where they need to go.

[Kurt Kurageous]

My question is, "What is your intent?" My assumption is you are trying to do something to advance the story.

You want the party to possess a MacGuffin.

And if they don't, are you wanting to punish them by making them trigger an unavoidable trap that does possibly fatal damage? Somehow I don't think so, and certainly hope not.

You want a tough but breakable room that leaves them hurt/forced to use resources? You have it as you have it.

Or are you asking us to suggest breaks it so you can fix it to make it unbreakable?

If so, I must say there is no problem that will stop a determined party from trying to solve it. They will try, or they aren't a very fun group to DM for.

So...if they try and someone dies, will that help the story? If they try and spend an entire session in frustration, will that help the story? If they try and nearly die, does that help the story?

Have you decided how you will describe it? Something like:
"You approach the ornately carved entrance at the base of the sun-drenched mesa. Oddly out of place, a pair of legs unattached to a body lay across the threshold with no blood in sight. As you approach, a brilliant light appears suddenly from beyond the threshold. The light stops right at the edge of the legs, where a wisp of smoke begins to arise. The light and heat is intense, and feels angry and protective. You realize it could probably damage you a lot. The whole room seems like one big trap. What do you do?"

If I was the DM, I'd make the whole thing an illusion because it doesn't matter if the damage is real or not. Intelligent and unintelligent things will know to keep out, which is what the builder probably wanted. Only the very foolish would enter, right? Level has nothing to do with it, only the amount of HP they can take.

My point is, "Everything in service to the story."

[coredump]

Do they take the damage once per turn, or once per turn for every 5'.

IOW, if they run 60' on their turn, do they take damage once or 12 times.

[Oramac]

A Wood Elf Barbarian with the Mobile Feat has 55 feet of base movement. He can damn near Dash action across the whole room in one turn.

[DE5PA1R]

Thanks for all the answers and ideas.

Tisk tisk to the people who didn't read that the radiant damage emanates from everywhere in the room.

The temple walls are made of 2-foot-thick stone. Local intelligent monsters will stop at nothing to ensure the PCs do not get into the temple. Strategies that rely on more than 8 hours of labor are highly unlikely to work; by then the bad guys will have sent 60+ goons ranging from CR 1/2 to CR 9 to deal with the PCs.


My question is, "What is your intent?"

I appreciate the well-thought-out question.

Room 2, let's call it (the one right past the entrance) houses an encounter that is extremely likely to TPK a lower-level party. I know the MacGuffin is obtained at level 9 or 10, but I also know players are creative. The temple is the final dungeon in a 1st through 11th level campaign, and the entrance is discoverable at level 3 or so, basically sitting right out in the open. Menacingly.

What I want to avoid is amateur PCs stumbling on the site and believing they are meant to open it immediately. Warning signs will be obvious. This is not a trap; it is an obstacle.

I'm also including a speedrun route through the campaign as a design exercise, so I want the room to be surmountable at level 7 with clever off-the-cuff thinking (polymorph, dimension door) and maybe surmountable as low as level 5 with dedicated metagaming (veteran players playing characters built for the specific purpose of tackling the campaign).

[CantigThimble]

Lets see, there's an average of 50 damage per round coming at them. Give a monk or rogue haste and warding bond and they can get at least one person through by level 5.

[JNAProductions]

Room 2, let's call it (the one right past the entrance) houses an encounter that is extremely likely to TPK a lower-level party. I know the MacGuffin is obtained at level 9 or 10, but I also know players are creative. The temple is the final dungeon in a 1st through 11th level campaign, and the entrance is discoverable at level 3 or so, basically sitting right out in the open. Menacingly.

Okay. You know your players better than we do. But, for a lot of players, THEY WILL STOP AT NOTHING TO GET IN THERE. It doesn't matter that it's supposed to be too high-level. It doesn't matter they're breaking all the rails. THEY WILL GO IN.

So unless you're sure your players are the cautious type who will heed warnings, I'd advise against letting them find it at all.

[DE5PA1R]

For a lot of players, THEY WILL STOP AT NOTHING TO GET IN THERE. It doesn't matter that it's supposed to be too high-level. It doesn't matter they're breaking all the rails. THEY WILL GO IN.

Good point, which is why I'll need to make sure the warning signs ("It's uncomfortably warm when you get 10' within the door to the temple") become holysh*tdanger! signs ("You approach the door. Take 1d6 heat damage... You open the door. Take 2d6 heat damage and 1d8 radiant damage. The room is blindingly bright and you can feel tremendous radiant energy sizzling your arm hairs.")

EDIT: This plus a combination of the temple not having any interesting or appealing trappings one would associate with treasure, bosses, et al.

[tieren]

fog cloud?

[DE5PA1R]

fog cloud?

Dissipates due to brilliant radiance unless cast by someone very high level. A bit heavy handed, but it is a supernatural demideity-level effect.

[swrider]

Well from the description it seems the damage would not affect objects.

With that assumption my plan would be to use a bow to shoot a rope to the far side of the room. Have the party climb inside a box with a small hole in it big enough for the rope to be pulled through. Cast levitate on the box and pull the whole party through. This can be accomplished at level 3. IF the damage does not affect objects.

Oh and I would have the archer receive guidance and bless and have someone aid them on when they make their shot to ensure it gets a good hold.

[JeenLeen]

Maybe let them do a skill check to realize it's not a trap. A normal investigation like searching for traps could reveal it's not one, and a Knowledge Arcana check could reveal that due to <insert magical gibberish/metaphysics> you can tell that some item would negate the field or possibly high-level magic would counteract it; otherwise, frying time.


Good point, which is why I'll need to make sure the warning signs ("It's uncomfortably warm when you get 10' within the door to the temple") become holysh*tdanger! signs ("You approach the door. Take 1d6 heat damage... You open the door. Take 2d6 heat damage and 1d8 radiant damage. The room is blindingly bright and you can feel tremendous radiant energy sizzling your arm hairs.")

EDIT: This plus a combination of the temple not having any interesting or appealing trappings one would associate with treasure, bosses, et al.

When running this in a campaign, you might need to tell them OOC that it's not a trap and to come back later.
Otherwise, to me and some players, all those warnings will look like "We need to out-think this thing", not "Come back later when strong enough." It sounds like you are okay with the out-thinking aspect, but if it takes too much time without results, it may be worth saying it OOC.

[Theodoxus]

Maybe let them do a skill check to realize it's not a trap. A normal investigation like searching for traps could reveal it's not one, and a Knowledge Arcana check could reveal that due to <insert magical gibberish/metaphysics> you can tell that some item would negate the field or possibly high-level magic would counteract it; otherwise, frying time.



When running this in a campaign, you might need to tell them OOC that it's not a trap and to come back later.
Otherwise, to me and some players, all those warnings will look like "We need to out-think this thing", not "Come back later when strong enough." It sounds like you are okay with the out-thinking aspect, but if it takes too much time without results, it may be worth saying it OOC.

LOL - my players are the opposite. They get burned at a too low level, even if they get the mcguffin and are explicitly told that it will protect them from the radiant fire, they will balk at ever going inside again. I've encountered this type of PTSD avoidance far too often to even think of designing an encounter like the OP.