Problem Solving Fun: Pillar 3 (Exploration)

[mgshamster]

This is supposed to he just a fun thought exercise to figure out ways to solve a problem as if you were a PC. I've decided to start with the 3rd Pillar - Exploration - because we all have tons of experience with the first two (Combat and Social).

The idea is for you to interpret an image however you like and try to find a way for your PC to overcome the challenge. Thinking outside the box is encouraged. Character limitations will be noted.

You can interpret the image however you like, try not to get bogged down in specifics, as your PC wouldn't have that information. All your PC has is their own abilities and what they can see.

The challenge:
Race: Any without flight
Class: Any
Background: Any
Level: 1
Equipment: Starting Equipment plus one stop at a general store with your starting cash.

Caveats: This cannot be solved with a single die roll. This cannot be solved with a single spell. Your solution should include something beyond "I roll an athletics check." Come on, be creative.

Your goal is to get inside this:

http://i65.tinypic.com/15f1vmu.png

You are viewing this from the ground level.

[Specter]

I don't know if this falls under equipment, but at level 1 I'd probably scavenge some heavy rocks and start basketballing them up there, in hopes of slowing the water flow, then finding a way around it that's easier to climb. Requires good Strenght, obviously.

[stoutstien]

befriend local giant apes and ride up the side Doug Mcclure style. honestly as I dm i use a non combat encounter at least once a session. be it a trap or climbing inside a long lost titan warforged chamberpot like above

[Laserlight]

I'd probably scavenge some heavy rocks and start basketballing them up there

I don't think a L1 character would be able to get rocks up to the water without a catapult. You should be able to get some sense of scale from the birds, although it's easy to overlook them at first (and particularly if you're on a small screen).

If the whole thing is as tilted as the pic shows it, I'd look around the base first and see if I could find an entrance. If not, there's some sort of protusion or buttress going up the side, eg between the two flying buttresses on the left; that looks like a promising place for an ascent.

[mephnick]

I mean, there are lots of single spells that can solve this. Perhaps you should set a level limit instead of banning spells? Or should we just assume level 1? The Exploration "pillar" basically ceases to exist pretty early in the game.

Otherwise, I'd probably say a judicious use of climber's kit and grappling hooks. Looks like there's enough plant life to climb up with a series of jumps/climbing. Good place for a skill challenge.

EDIT: I'm dumb you said level 1.

[mgshamster]

I mean, there are lots of single spells that can solve this. Perhaps you should set a level limit instead of banning spells? Or should we just assume level 1? The Exploration "pillar" basically ceases to exist pretty early in the game.

Otherwise, I'd probably say a judicious use of climber's kit and grappling hooks. Looks like there's enough plant life to climb up with a series of jumps/climbing. Good place for a skill challenge.

EDIT: I'm dumb you said level 1.

Haha! No worries!

For clarification purposes, what I meant was that you can't use one spell. It may take two! Or a spell and some checks. Or a spell and equipment!

The idea is you need more than one thing to solve the problem. :)

[Unoriginal]

Get on top of the mountain from a more practical side, then get down in the big hole where water's pouring out with ropes. It'd probably take a few days and several checks overall, not to mention random encounters.

I would also capture a few small animals like birds or rats or ask other adventurers to do so, put them in cages and see if anything in the water or the air we breath kills them. If there is a druid in the group I'd ask them to ask the local animals what they can tell about this structure.

[mephnick]

See the interesting thing for something like this isn't getting my character up, it's getting every character up.

How do those DEX GODS that dumped Strength get up that thing. :smallwink: Toss their high initiative at it?

[Honest Tiefling]

How do those DEX GODS that dumped Strength get up that thing. :smallwink: Toss their high initiative at it?

Well, if they're a halfing, Mr. Burly McThunderpecs tosses them up with a rope. That also allows others with sub-par strength to get up.

I miss the ally throwing rules of third edition.

[mgshamster]

Get on top of the mountain from a more practical side, then get down in the big hole where water's pouring out with ropes. It'd probably take a few days and several checks overall, not to mention random encounters.

I would also capture a few small animals like birds or rats or ask other adventurers to do so, put them in cages and see if anything in the water or the air we breath kills them. If there is a druid in the group I'd ask them to ask the local animals what they can tell about this structure.

Excellent ideas!

Also, if you have a forest gnome, then you don't need a druid. :)

[Laurefindel]

I would also propose to take a few days to climb-up the mountain and tackle our way down. This will require food, 1gp for 2 days per person. This thing looks huge; lets plan 2 weeks of rations for the whole trip, including dungeon. Assuming a party of four, that's 28gp right there. That's two or three characters' worth of starting money right there! A character proficient in Survival would help. A druid with goodberry, or a character with the outlander background would solve that altogether. Water does not seem to be an issue in that environment.

As I said, this thing looks seriously huge. We'll need rope. Lots of it. We may also want to hoist down the heavy, non-proficient character down form time to time. That or large amount of loot later on. Luckily, a block and tackle, and a coil or rope are cheap at 1gp each. But for the block and tackle to work, we need 3 or 4 times more rope than the distance to go. Also, we may need to double down the rope as we go down, otherwise the last character has to detach the rope and climb down un-aided. Assuming each character starts with a 50ft. coil of rope; let's buy four more for a total of 400ft of rope. More might be better, but that's already 800lbs 80lbs (can't do maths) to split among the four of us. Perhaps there's a noble among us, in which case we might be able to afford a climber's kit at 25gp. +30gp

Vegetation looks abundant on the structure to attach ropes, but lets throw a grappling hook and 10 iron spikes in just in case. +3 gp.

Lets also bring along a bunch of torches, in case our caster gets disabled. A few baskets and bags to carry our food and eventual loot. Those are cheap, lets say +2gp for all the sundries...

That puts us at 35gp, which means we have 5gp-25gp to spare depending on backgrounds. If we have to purchase food, that tallies up to 62gp (likely too much for four lvl 1 characters), in which case we have to forget the climber's kit.

That only get's us to the central hole where the water is pouring out...

[2D8HP]

...Otherwise, I'd probably say a judicious use of climber's kit and grappling hooks....


Oh boy, um other than the grappling hooks and rope that have already been suggested, and going Adam West and Burt Ward up the side of the thing, I'm clueless.

[JbeJ275]

I would also propose to take a few days to climb-up the mountain and tackle our way down. This will require food, 1gp for 2 days per person. This thing looks huge; lets plan 2 weeks of rations for the whole trip, including dungeon. Assuming a party of four, that's 28gp right there. That's two or three characters' worth of starting money right there! A character proficient in Survival would help. A druid with goodberry, or a character with the outlander background would solve that altogether. Water does not seem to be an issue in that environment.

As I said, this thing looks seriously huge. We'll need rope. Lots of it. We may also want to hoist down the heavy, non-proficient character down form time to time. That or large amount of loot later on. Luckily, a block and tackle, and a coil or rope are cheap at 1gp each. But for the block and tackle to work, we need 3 or 4 times more rope than the distance to go. Also, we may need to double down the rope as we go down, otherwise the last character has to detach the rope and climb down un-aided. Assuming each character starts with a 50ft. coil of rope; let's buy four more for a total of 400ft of rope. More might be better, but that's already 800lbs 80lbs (can't do maths) to split among the four of us. Perhaps there's a noble among us, in which case we might be able to afford a climber's kit at 25gp. +30gp

Vegetation looks abundant on the structure to attach ropes, but lets throw a grappling hook and 10 iron spikes in just in case. +3 gp.

Lets also bring along a bunch of torches, in case our caster gets disabled. A few baskets and bags to carry our food and eventual loot. Those are cheap, lets say +2gp for all the sundries...

That puts us at 35gp, which means we have 5gp-25gp to spare depending on backgrounds. If we have to purchase food, that tallies up to 62gp (likely too much for four lvl 1 characters), in which case we have to forget the climber's kit.

That only get's us to the central hole where the water is pouring out...


I mean if you have a rouge with good of sleight of hand and someone with high charisma capable of distracting whoever you get these off you may not need to pay. The "every problem is a nail approach" is to stab, shoot or cast spells at the cliff until you have adequate handholds.

[Laurefindel]

I mean if you have a rouge with good of sleight of hand and someone with high charisma capable of distracting whoever you get these off you may not need to pay. The "every problem is a nail approach" is to stab, shoot or cast spells at the cliff until you have adequate handholds.

So very true!

[Emay Ecks]

Seeing as there is water coming out from inside a mountain, I'd figure the water had to get there somehow. I'd try to scale the mountain (probably from the opposite side) and look for a lake/stream. From there I'd search for a much easier and less vertical entrance to whatever it was I was trying to get inside.

Worst comes to worst, I'd enter the body of water and try to swim through a pipe to make it inside. Or if I had any reason to think there were still living things in this hole in a mountain, I'd try to disrupt the water from heading into the mountain (damaging a pipe, building a dam, using the destroy water spell a lot) to get the occupants to come outside to fix it, and then they could show me the proper way in.

[Unoriginal]

Finding a rich backer to pay for the expedition would be good.

[8wGremlin]

Knowledge and history checks. What do we know about it.

Should it be trickling water or should there actually be loads.

What’s its purpose?

What’s the geography like.

Who built it.

Etc

[Galadhrim]

Knowledge and history checks. What do we know about it.

Should it be trickling water or should there actually be loads.

What’s its purpose?

What’s the geography like.

Who built it.

Etc

Likely someone is asking the party to get inside so I would direct these questions to whatever npc is asking us to get in there. Definitely need information. That hole looks like a death trap for a level 1 pc if I don't know what to expect.

Are there known occupants of this or is it an ancient ruin? What are the local legends surrounding it. What are we looking for inside? Agree with previous posters as far as looking for other entrances with safer approach. If the answer to all of this is nothing known and no other approaches, it would have to be a pretty strong reason for my level 1 character to go there. Perhaps a family member is lost in there or something?

Next up, investigation checks to see if there is some hidden approach. Perhaps the builders carved stairs into the mountain that cannot be seen on initial check. Hopefully someone in the party has a familiar to fly up and see what we are dealing with at the entrance. If not, maybe druid could charm a small animal to go look on our behalf.

If that is the case, I think climbing gear is in order, with a team approach for party members where stronger members can help less strong members (like how the wildlings climb the wall in GoT). Hopefully a cleric or druid for guidance or a bard for inspiration in each group to help the stronger members that are supporting them up the climb. Once up top, attaching pulley system would be nice. It looks like there would need to be some sort of water craft unless there is a walkway when we get up there.

[Honest Tiefling]

Likely someone is asking the party to get inside so I would direct these questions to whatever npc is asking us to get in there. Definitely need information. That hole looks like a death trap for a level 1 pc if I don't know what to expect.

Anyone asking you to get inside a death trap has a 95% chance of being a villain. Prep for the adventure by robbing them because they're definitely holding back on some information that's going to be very important.

[mephnick]

Oh looking at the picture again we missed the obvious first step.

1) Ask the DM why we're playing Numenera when we all agreed on D&D 5e.

[Honest Tiefling]

1) Ask the DM why we're playing Numenera when we all agreed on D&D 5e.

Never played that. My first reaction was honestly 'So do we all get to make jokes on how phallic it is yet'? And stealing artwork from other games and editions is a time honored tradition, Mister Mephnick!

I might have a few pictures of Qunari stashed away for future use...

[willdaBEAST]

Assuming it's possible to scale some of the slope, or approach from the opposite side of the mountain, you could use Floating Disk to bring yourself, a lot of rope and several heavy rocks towards the watery opening (I'm thinking you'd have roughly 300 lb or more of rocks to use out of the 500 lb limit on Floating Disk). You could then anchor the rope on one of the rocks and use the rest to secure it in place in that opening, or somewhere above it on the larger red shaped structure and rappel down. The question would be how sheer is the slope, since Floating Disk can't cross an elevation change of 10 ft or more.

I imagine even if you secured a rope somehow in that opening, the amount of water coming out is significant and climbing through it would be a real challenge.

The most direct approach would be using those angular support structures, they would give you a climbing surface all the way to that inner red portal. There looks to be ample ways to climb around all that and those fin like protrusions off of the portal look like you could either walk or climb across them to the opening where the water is pouring out.

[EvilAnagram]

Well, you're in a jungle, so there is wood around.

And you're adventurers, so there are blades and ropes around.

Catapult!

[Honest Tiefling]

Well, you're in a jungle, so there is wood around.

And you're adventurers, so there are blades and ropes around.

Catapult!

And even a level 1 party could probably wrangle up some animals, rocks, slaves or annoying townsfolk to test the thing. No time limit has been given, after all.

[Kane0]

Plenty of timber around, why not rig up some scaffolding?
It'll take a while but once it's done it'll be much easier to haul all the loot out (and run away), not to mention it works for all the party, even that weakling bookreader.

[Honest Tiefling]

Plenty of timber around, why not rig up some scaffolding?
It'll take a while but once it's done it'll be much easier to haul all the loot out (and run away), not to mention it works for all the party, even that weakling bookreader.

Slaves! The answer to all of life's problems! If you get enough of them, you could probably have them double up as building material.

[Laserlight]

And even a level 1 party could probably wrangle up some animals, rocks, slaves or annoying townsfolk to test the thing.

If your group is anything like either of mine, at least one party member is downright eager to be the test pilot.

[Honest Tiefling]

If your group is anything like either of mine, at least one party member is downright eager to be the test pilot.

My groups tend more to homicidal then suicidal, actually. And there's nothing wrong with being prepared for both.

[Protato]

Personally I'd either try and find a different way in or figure out some sort of scaffolding. Or alternatively, find some local people to help us get inside.

[Unoriginal]

If it's not too far from civilisation you can transform it into a tourist trap for a nice profit.

Otherwise, you can also draw "treasure maps" of the place and sell them on various markets around the territory.