Segev
2020-09-04, 10:37 AM
I know at least one of my players hangs out here sometimes, so I'll go ahead and give him (and anybody else who wants to play Tomb of Annihilation) a Spoiler Warning. This thread discusses some details of Tomb of Annihilation that would be spoilers for it!
All
that
said
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The first thing I'd like to discuss is the Oubliette. This little chamber has magic specifically designed to replenish its corpse pile as it gets diminished. Presumably, this is how the otyugh living there stays fed. Just how long to otyughs live? The module says that, if it's killed, it's not replaced. So it must have been put there way back in the beginning, when it was built, and left there, all alone, all this time. (The chamber also must not be air-tight, now that I think of it.)
Furthermore, this is a trap that must never have had either aspect of it triggered. The otyugh is not stated to be firmly anchored, nor is it unliving. If either lever were pulled it would be gone from this chamber. Has the Tomb really seen so little business that this particular trap has never been tripped?
And then, there is a Slaad that is "bound by wards" that are ridiculously easy to release. I suppose it can be put back in place by Withers, but you'd think it'd have some idea who has its control stone, if so. And we know that the Company of the Yellow Banner, at the very least, made it past this level. Maybe they never explored this part, though.
The Slaad and the Dao both are likely to eventually end up in the oubliette, too. The Dao in particular, if the party doesn't make any demands of her. The module seems to think that, even in that event, the PCs might encounter her again and she might demand help getting out of the Tomb. But even if she's dumb about using her powers, finding herself in the oubliette gives her a near 50/50 chance to die or be placed at the top level of the Tomb. She's got gasseous form 1/day, and the top floor has those gaps and cracks in the ceiling that a "tiny creature" can exit or enter through, which create the sun-dappled effect on level 1. All she'd have to do upon pulling the correct lever is turn to a dust cloud and ascend.
Now, one of the things I really want to run by the forum for a sanity check is how to run her. My party released her at the end of last session. They had been respectful, so she preened a bit, complimented them on knowing their place, and plane shifted away. They'd done no negotiation with her at all before releasing her. So, obviously, she winds up in the oubliette. My thoughts are this: the otyugh is not dumb enough to pick a fight with a genie, so there's no fight likely to break out. She does a bit of exploring, tries to burrow or earth-glide but finds the walls impervious to this (since they're worked stone and even passwall and similar effects specifically magically fail to penetrate them), and eventually carefully examines the gaping gargoyle-maw. Two levers, and she's been a prisoner of Acererak for centuries, so she knows the sadistic jerk traps EVERYTHING. She doesn't trust being in eye-sight of this when she pulls a lever, so she backs up to the far wall and puts up a wall of stone that happens to also block off the area the otyugh is in, because she hasn't even noticed it's there and it's far from the gargoyle mask.
Then, she uses conjure elemental to get an Earth Elemental to pull the levers for her. I flipped a coin; she has it pull the wrong one, first. Unless there's a reason the forumites can think of that it or she would have it "secure" itself against being sucked in when she has no notion of what the nature of the trap is (she was giving herself cover for some sort of cone of energy being projected, or something, and half-expected it to destroy her elemental minion), it fails its save (I rolled a 7 on the die, -1 for 6) and is destroyed. She now has to wait one day to be able to conjure another one and have it try the other one. So she's stuck there for a day, at least. Or is she? If the room isn't air-tight (since the otyugh hasn't suffocated), can she gasseous form her way out? That would likely put her in one of the nearby rooms on the same floor or above or below, which at least has her wandering the tomb. If not, she'll get out the next day as follows:
Assuming my PCs don't wind up in there before the day is out, the next day, she repeats this, and this time the lever causes the gargoyle face's eyes to glow red and sends her and the otyugh and her elemental minion to the first floor. She leaves, and isn't heard from again, at least not in this adventure. Now, though, there's an otyugh wandering around on the top floor. Does it fall afoul of traps and die? Get captured by Tomb Dwarves and put somewhere else by Withers (and, if so, where)?
Since they just freed the Dao and found the second secret door at the end of last session, they're almost certainly going to run into the Slaad this session. I'm struggling to think of how to enact what the module says it does. It says it "vents its rage" against them because it "thirsts for carnage," but then it wanders off in search of its control stone, having no idea where it is other than "in the Tomb." Most of its cool abilities are Concentration, so mutually exclusive; it can't use a major image or even detect thoughts while invisible, and its Shapechange is neat but restricted to humanoids. I'm open to ideas what humanoid shapes it might assume to fool the party.
I'm thinking it might do a major image of a hissing wind filled with salt to create a "fog cloud like" effect (that it can see through, knowing it's illusory) so it can position itself to get a few easy hits in, or even drop a fireball on the party without them being able to see where it came from (since invisibility would drop when it cast fireball). It has no backup nor support, so I know that if it tries anything head-on, my party will slaughter it. And while it's only Int 13, that's smart enough to recognize that it's outnumbered by adventurers that don't look desperate or on their last legs. I'm thinking it inflicts some damage and tries to avoid being found or attacked at all, because it isn't stupid enough to think it can take them on and knows they might slaughter it if given six seconds to do so. It then shows up from time to time as it wanders the halls, looking for its control stone. Not sure if it's malicious or indifferent to the party later on. Maybe Withers uses the control stone to maneuver it against them. The death of Lord Brixton shows that Withers is willing and able to move about the dungeon and use its aparati against the party.
In the immediate case, the Slaad might also try to trigger the traps in Papazotl's tomb against the party. Not sure how well that'll work; one (and only one) of the PCs has bowed to the faceless statue. The module says the skeletons start coming out if the treasure is touched, but stop if emerging if the statue is bowed before. They hadn't yet STARTED a stream of skeletons, though, so does that mean that they won't stream out at all, or that they'll stream out anyway and the statue has to be bowed to again to stop them? I know the spearman will throw spears at everybody but the one PC who bowed, but will skeletons come out and go for those who haven't bowed? (Yes, they had one player bow, then thoroughly investigated before touching anything, finding the secret door to the Dao area and then to the Slaad area, so they haven't triggered the defenses yet, and haven't even opened the Slaad door yet.)
It is entirely possible that the Slaad and the Dao or the Slaad and the otyugh will be active in the dungeon going forward, though whether the Dao does more than wait a day in the oubliette before exiting successfully through level 1's ceiling depends heavily on whether gasseous form can get one out of the oubliette. I'm trying to make sure I'm not missing any tricks, or doing anything obviously foolish, or forgetting anything important that would impact what they do, can do, and where they might go going forward.
Any help, advice, or just discussion is appreciated!
In fact, if any alterations to make things like the irreplaceable otyugh make more sense would also be welcome.
All
that
said
.
.
.
The first thing I'd like to discuss is the Oubliette. This little chamber has magic specifically designed to replenish its corpse pile as it gets diminished. Presumably, this is how the otyugh living there stays fed. Just how long to otyughs live? The module says that, if it's killed, it's not replaced. So it must have been put there way back in the beginning, when it was built, and left there, all alone, all this time. (The chamber also must not be air-tight, now that I think of it.)
Furthermore, this is a trap that must never have had either aspect of it triggered. The otyugh is not stated to be firmly anchored, nor is it unliving. If either lever were pulled it would be gone from this chamber. Has the Tomb really seen so little business that this particular trap has never been tripped?
And then, there is a Slaad that is "bound by wards" that are ridiculously easy to release. I suppose it can be put back in place by Withers, but you'd think it'd have some idea who has its control stone, if so. And we know that the Company of the Yellow Banner, at the very least, made it past this level. Maybe they never explored this part, though.
The Slaad and the Dao both are likely to eventually end up in the oubliette, too. The Dao in particular, if the party doesn't make any demands of her. The module seems to think that, even in that event, the PCs might encounter her again and she might demand help getting out of the Tomb. But even if she's dumb about using her powers, finding herself in the oubliette gives her a near 50/50 chance to die or be placed at the top level of the Tomb. She's got gasseous form 1/day, and the top floor has those gaps and cracks in the ceiling that a "tiny creature" can exit or enter through, which create the sun-dappled effect on level 1. All she'd have to do upon pulling the correct lever is turn to a dust cloud and ascend.
Now, one of the things I really want to run by the forum for a sanity check is how to run her. My party released her at the end of last session. They had been respectful, so she preened a bit, complimented them on knowing their place, and plane shifted away. They'd done no negotiation with her at all before releasing her. So, obviously, she winds up in the oubliette. My thoughts are this: the otyugh is not dumb enough to pick a fight with a genie, so there's no fight likely to break out. She does a bit of exploring, tries to burrow or earth-glide but finds the walls impervious to this (since they're worked stone and even passwall and similar effects specifically magically fail to penetrate them), and eventually carefully examines the gaping gargoyle-maw. Two levers, and she's been a prisoner of Acererak for centuries, so she knows the sadistic jerk traps EVERYTHING. She doesn't trust being in eye-sight of this when she pulls a lever, so she backs up to the far wall and puts up a wall of stone that happens to also block off the area the otyugh is in, because she hasn't even noticed it's there and it's far from the gargoyle mask.
Then, she uses conjure elemental to get an Earth Elemental to pull the levers for her. I flipped a coin; she has it pull the wrong one, first. Unless there's a reason the forumites can think of that it or she would have it "secure" itself against being sucked in when she has no notion of what the nature of the trap is (she was giving herself cover for some sort of cone of energy being projected, or something, and half-expected it to destroy her elemental minion), it fails its save (I rolled a 7 on the die, -1 for 6) and is destroyed. She now has to wait one day to be able to conjure another one and have it try the other one. So she's stuck there for a day, at least. Or is she? If the room isn't air-tight (since the otyugh hasn't suffocated), can she gasseous form her way out? That would likely put her in one of the nearby rooms on the same floor or above or below, which at least has her wandering the tomb. If not, she'll get out the next day as follows:
Assuming my PCs don't wind up in there before the day is out, the next day, she repeats this, and this time the lever causes the gargoyle face's eyes to glow red and sends her and the otyugh and her elemental minion to the first floor. She leaves, and isn't heard from again, at least not in this adventure. Now, though, there's an otyugh wandering around on the top floor. Does it fall afoul of traps and die? Get captured by Tomb Dwarves and put somewhere else by Withers (and, if so, where)?
Since they just freed the Dao and found the second secret door at the end of last session, they're almost certainly going to run into the Slaad this session. I'm struggling to think of how to enact what the module says it does. It says it "vents its rage" against them because it "thirsts for carnage," but then it wanders off in search of its control stone, having no idea where it is other than "in the Tomb." Most of its cool abilities are Concentration, so mutually exclusive; it can't use a major image or even detect thoughts while invisible, and its Shapechange is neat but restricted to humanoids. I'm open to ideas what humanoid shapes it might assume to fool the party.
I'm thinking it might do a major image of a hissing wind filled with salt to create a "fog cloud like" effect (that it can see through, knowing it's illusory) so it can position itself to get a few easy hits in, or even drop a fireball on the party without them being able to see where it came from (since invisibility would drop when it cast fireball). It has no backup nor support, so I know that if it tries anything head-on, my party will slaughter it. And while it's only Int 13, that's smart enough to recognize that it's outnumbered by adventurers that don't look desperate or on their last legs. I'm thinking it inflicts some damage and tries to avoid being found or attacked at all, because it isn't stupid enough to think it can take them on and knows they might slaughter it if given six seconds to do so. It then shows up from time to time as it wanders the halls, looking for its control stone. Not sure if it's malicious or indifferent to the party later on. Maybe Withers uses the control stone to maneuver it against them. The death of Lord Brixton shows that Withers is willing and able to move about the dungeon and use its aparati against the party.
In the immediate case, the Slaad might also try to trigger the traps in Papazotl's tomb against the party. Not sure how well that'll work; one (and only one) of the PCs has bowed to the faceless statue. The module says the skeletons start coming out if the treasure is touched, but stop if emerging if the statue is bowed before. They hadn't yet STARTED a stream of skeletons, though, so does that mean that they won't stream out at all, or that they'll stream out anyway and the statue has to be bowed to again to stop them? I know the spearman will throw spears at everybody but the one PC who bowed, but will skeletons come out and go for those who haven't bowed? (Yes, they had one player bow, then thoroughly investigated before touching anything, finding the secret door to the Dao area and then to the Slaad area, so they haven't triggered the defenses yet, and haven't even opened the Slaad door yet.)
It is entirely possible that the Slaad and the Dao or the Slaad and the otyugh will be active in the dungeon going forward, though whether the Dao does more than wait a day in the oubliette before exiting successfully through level 1's ceiling depends heavily on whether gasseous form can get one out of the oubliette. I'm trying to make sure I'm not missing any tricks, or doing anything obviously foolish, or forgetting anything important that would impact what they do, can do, and where they might go going forward.
Any help, advice, or just discussion is appreciated!
In fact, if any alterations to make things like the irreplaceable otyugh make more sense would also be welcome.