5e characters faced an AD&D enemy last night...

[samcifer]

We're playing 5e for my Wednesday group and are running an old module from AD&D (I think that's the edition it's from) where there's a kingdom where the throne room has a portal to one of the hell-planes in it. The old king was deposed by a new one who isn't doing anything to stop the portal and there's a painting one of the old king's subjects has that bears an image of the former king wearing a gold crown with 4 colored gemstones on it, but the crown and jewels disappeared from the painting when the portal opened. Before the campaign began, someone had found the real-life crown in the painting that had mysteriously vanished from the king's head. When it vanished in the real world, it had vanished from the painting of the old king as well.

A servant had thrown the crown into the portal and it had vanished, but reappeared on the king's head in the painting, as did a green emerald jewel we had retrieved and a servant snatched it when we presented it and threw it into the portal (it reappeared on the crown in the painting, I mean)

Now we're at a ruined lake resort and are trying to locate the second jewel of the 4. There was a cabin and we entered the basement to find it full of a 3-foot deep layer of mud. Then men made of mud rose up and attacked us. ((party comp. was a female elf rogue (the one with psychic daggers), a leonine vengeance pally, a shifter moon druid, an elf life cleric, and my satyr sorlock – hexblade/divine soul))

They took a fair bit to put down, but when defeated simply sank back down into the mud. Their attacks did no damage, but slowed anyone they hit by the mud staying on them and their attacks bypassed our armor like it wasn't there. We found an interactible there that was key to the resort quest (I won't spoilt that part), but when our paladin and druid tried to leave, the true nastiness of the mudmen was revealed. Their attacks didn’t do any damage, but they reduced our movement speed and the druid had taken 4 attacks that ended up paralyzing him at the base of the stair leading back up out of the basement. We’re all at lv. 5 and Lesser Restoration had no effect on helping to free the druid, who was beginning to suffocate inside of the mud that covered him. There were no water sources nearby expect for the lake itself that was 100 ft. away.

The druid tried changing into a black bear to keep from ending up on death saves while we tied a rope around him and 3 of us,(then all 4 others after the cleric fixed the rope, poured water on the druid to try to wash away the mud without success) then it took us 3 turns of hauling the druid up to ground level by dragging him with the rope (the changed back to his normal shifter form on the second turn when he ran out of HP from the crushing and smothering force of the mud, then ran him to the lake to wash the mud off in order to save him.

I never want to face off against mudmen again. Sadly, the solution to the mud trap was rather easy…

We just had to physically wipe it off as a standard action. :P

[thorr-kan]

2E FTW!

Lack of knowledge of foes can be killer.

[Hellpyre]

Sadly, the solution to the mud trap was rather easy…

We just had to physically wipe it off as a standard action. :P

Honestly, I'm amazed that "try to wipe the mud off" wasn't one of the first responses the suffocating character tried. It seems like a saner response than trying to transform to avoid dying from loss of breath.

[samcifer]

Honestly, I'm amazed that "try to wipe the mud off" wasn't one of the first responses the suffocating character tried. It seems like a saner response than trying to transform to avoid dying from loss of breath.

I've only played 4e and 5e, so my in-game experience is rather low. We were assuming that there was a magical solution as they're magical beings.

[MrStabby]

Honestly, I'm amazed that "try to wipe the mud off" wasn't one of the first responses the suffocating character tried. It seems like a saner response than trying to transform to avoid dying from loss of breath.

Honestly I am more surprised that trying to wash the mud off with water was something the DM didn't count as using an action to wipe the mud off.

[Kane0]

Depending on your DM that might also be a learning experience for them, there is always a disconnect between what the characters know and are experiencing versus what the players are. Killer DMs tend to get that sort of reputation by never providing that sort of simple information (among other quirks).

[Hellpyre]

Honestly I am more surprised that trying to wash the mud off with water was something the DM didn't count as using an action to wipe the mud off.
Fair point! Really, that is the point where as a DM I would think "Good enough, removing a physical obstruction" even though it could be theoretically justifiable (dense, clay-like mud or some such nonsense). If I have to justify making a choice to myself, and that choice isn't making the game more fun to the party, I've probably made a bad choice.

Depending on your DM that might also be a learning experience for them, there is always a disconnect between what the characters know and are experiencing versus what the players are. Killer DMs tend to get that sort of reputation by never providing that sort of simple information (among other quirks).

Yeah, if you run up against something where you start bashing your head against the wall looking for a solution, ask the DM if your character might have some common-sense insight into fixing the problem. If a solution is supposed to be simple to come up with, but you don't have the right baseline to reach that solution, the DM should be willing to help you out (and in many circumstances may want to volunteer something obvious you-the-player have overlooked that you-the-adventurer has staring you in the face).

[Duff]

There's been a change in how the game seems to be presented, starting in 3e and getting a lot stronger in 4th ed. I'm not sure how much that has carried over to 5e
If there's not a rule for it you can't do it. I think it's partly because there are rules for so many of the things you might want to do and, especially in 4e, a disconnect between descriptions and game effects.

[Yakk]

Physically transforming from a human size to a large bear had no impact on mud that could be wiped off in under 5 seconds, nor did dragging the body up stairs, or wrapping a rope around the body.

That isn't "we didn't try something", it is text adventure logic "you didn't use the right noun".

[Xervous]

Finger points at the GM who played ‘guess what I’m thinking’. Bonus points: guess which finger.

Ranks about the same as using a riddle (not a logic puzzle) to gate plot progress.

[Telok]

Finger points at the GM who played ‘guess what I’m thinking’. Bonus points: guess which finger.

Ranks about the same as using a riddle (not a logic puzzle) to gate plot progress.

What I'm weirded out about is what sorts of communication and assumptions were in play that mud could be solved by Lesser Restoration. But honestly just not engaging in fights to the death in confined areas should work too.

[samcifer]

The DM is a player with decades of experience, but he's a bit of a sticker on raw, so there's that. He was envisioning a thick layer of mud that the trickle of water from a canteen wouldn't really be able to affect, so I get his reasoning.

It's better than the last session where our monk, who was based on the character Tike Myson, a characture of Mike Tyson on the Mike Tyson Mysteries series, who decided he wanted to lure out some crocodiles we knew were in a lake by diving into the lake, then swimming 75ft out and 25ft down (he had planned to go 50ft deep, but it was only half that distance deep) and no one saw or heard him dive in, so we didn't know where he had gone. Spoiler alert... It ended badly. He got jumped by 2 gators who killed him. We ruled that since we had no idea where he was or even roughly where, he got to make a single death save, which he failed. I pointed out that he would've still been unconscious 25ft underwater even if he had managed to successfully save, so he was dead outright. He missed this week's session due to work hours, so we'll have to see what his new character will be next time, I guess.

We (except for the paladin and the cleric), ruled that we forgot that Tike had ever even existed to avoid continuity errors in the campaign.

[micahaphone]

So your DM envisioned you just pouring a little bit of water from a canteen onto hardening mud, and because you didn't specify trying to use that to wipe away mud or do anything other than dribble water onto it, that didn't work. Did he say any sort of hint or further description to help you better understand what to do? I feel like a quick "the water from your canteen loosens up a tiny bit of the mud, you could maybe peel away the mud surrounding the face" would have helped player comprehension a lot. Letting people know this isn't a "you need special resource x to save their life from y" (in this case the players thought x=large body of water, y=magic suffocating mud) would have done a lot here.

Was there any way to have researched these monsters ahead of time?


Challenge and adversity shouldn't come from miscommunication.

[HolyDraconus]

Reminds me of the time I thru a Living Wall at my players in Strahd in 5e. I told them up front that 1000 men have died near it, and its hatred of Strahd was so strong that it would ignore everything but direct attacks made against it..... then the rogue decided to try to sneak attack it thinking it was easy exp.

[Hellpyre]

Reminds me of the time I thru a Living Wall at my players in Strahd in 5e. I told them up front that 1000 men have died near it, and its hatred of Strahd was so strong that it would ignore everything but direct attacks made against it..... then the rogue decided to try to sneak attack it thinking it was easy exp.

How many rounds from 'bad decision' to 'TPK'? 1? Or did it kill the Rogue with a few dozen reactions and return to navel-gazing?

[HolyDraconus]

3 actually. Round 1 the rogue was pasted. Round 2 the players readied actions to attempt to pull the corpse of the rogue away from the wall by distracting it for one of their own to grab the body, to start when the last got ready. Round 3, their attempt, the Wall went through 14 attacks before the rest of the party save a cleric, was dead. Cleric was the only one that didn't want ANY part of that and left the group. When everyone ELSE died, they became part of the Procession that haunts the streets. The cleric was the only one that had heard of it, but wasn't certain till I explicitly said that 1000 people died near the wall. And before someone asks, the Wall did nothing wrong here. The players attacked it. If I wanted a TPK I would of let the Oblex, Spectre, and Hag that they didn't kill ambush the Cleric.

[Samayu]

The DM is a player with decades of experience, but he's a bit of a sticker on raw, so there's that. He was envisioning a thick layer of mud that the trickle of water from a canteen wouldn't really be able to affect, so I get his reasoning.

One of my problems with games like this is when things are less obvious to us, sitting around the table, than it would be to the people who are living these experiences. But if I was covered with a thick layer of mud, and suffocating, the first thing I would do would be to reach up and wipe it away from my face (or would I lie dying, staring at the sky, willing my divine controller to give me the order?). I mean, I wouldn't even think about it. So as a player, if the DM tells my I'm suffocating, it certainly couldn't have as simple a solution as saying "I'm going to wipe the mud from my face," because in what universe would I not have tried that already? So the second thought is that this was caused by some sort of magical beings, so obviously it needs a magical solution. Or one that requires using resources, at the very least.

Your DM should have described the awful suffocating feeling that you experienced before you were able to wipe the mud off. All in the same couple of sentences. Either that or made it so you had to spend resources to get the mud off.

[Telok]

3 actually. Round 1 the rogue was pasted. Round 2 the players readied actions to attempt to pull the corpse of the rogue away from the wall by distracting it for one of their own to grab the body, to start when the last got ready. Round 3, their attempt, the Wall went through 14 attacks before the rest of the party save a cleric, was dead.

Npc: "Here are written instructions on how to bypass the death trap before the secure vault."
Later...
Pc #3: "I push the lever the wrong way. I want to see what the trap does."
Rest of party: "Run away!"

The warforged artificer didn't get out in time but actually had enough immunities and defenses to survive until he got dug out. Pc #3, not so much. He got a new character.

[Devils_Advocate]

if I was covered with a thick layer of mud, and suffocating, the first thing I would do would be to reach up and wipe it away from my face (or would I lie dying, staring at the sky, willing my divine controller to give me the order?). I mean, I wouldn't even think about it. So as a player, if the DM tells my I'm suffocating, it certainly couldn't have as simple a solution as saying "I'm going to wipe the mud from my face," because in what universe would I not have tried that already?
I remember seeing a game on this forum where the DM warned up front that it was important for players to keep track of what their characters were doing with their hands and report on all of it. Didn't say that you sheathed your sword before climbing the ladder? You left it behind then.

And I get how someone could think that that would increase immersion, but the truth is that it does the opposite. If I'm holding my phone outside and then need to use my hands for something else while walking somewhere, then of course I put my phone in my pocket instead of setting it down or dropping it on the ground. And because that's the obvious thing to do, I don't weigh it against clearly worse alternatives, I just go ahead and do it pretty much on autopilot while I think about other things. Forcing players to be more attentive to their characters' precise actions than the characters themselves are doesn't pull the players into the characters' perspectives; it interferes with that.

The default extremely basic unstated assumption is that the players need to worry about the details that the characters need to worry about because their course of action isn't obvious. Any requirement for specific details beyond those is going to be fundamentally arbitrary, because an essentially infinite number of details will unavoidably still be excluded.

"I open the door."
"You're not near enough to the door to reach it."
"Okay, I move to the door."
"How?"
"I walk there."
"At what speed? Slowly? Briskly?"

Every activity we engage in is of fractal complexity. It is literally impossible to cover all of the details in a description. It's necessary to assume by default that characters behave in obvious ways unless they have reason not to. And does anyone like needing to constantly search for anything that the DM might penalize them for not saying in order to have their character not be dolts? Maybe having to worry about every little thing like that all the time could contribute to a high-adrenaline super-deadly dungeon crawl. (Just entered a new room? "I LOOK AT THE CEILING!!") But if "You don't do what you don't say" is infrequently as well as arbitrarily enforced, then it becomes not worth the trouble to worry about. At that point where being arbitrarily penalized doesn't represent a chance to do better in the future because you're not gonna, it's just an annoyance.

It's like quicktime events in video games. If a game very occasionally interrupts a cutscene with a button prompt that the player has to quickly respond to in order to continue the game, then that's just Press X to dodge. Oh no, you didn't. You incompetent fool. How did you even manage to fail at such a basic task? which is basically just obnoxious, you know?

[Kane0]

Oh yeah, i literally had that kind of situation where we searched the room and the DM said ‘ah but you didnt look up’. That was an hour of gameplay wasted.

[Unoriginal]

There's been a change in how the game seems to be presented, starting in 3e and getting a lot stronger in 4th ed. I'm not sure how much that has carried over to 5e
If there's not a rule for it you can't do it. I think it's partly because there are rules for so many of the things you might want to do and, especially in 4e, a disconnect between descriptions and game effects.

5e has for principles that:

-DM's rulings are more important than any rules

-Characters automatically succeed tasks that are too easy to fail, or when the consequences for failing are not meaningful.

Further more, it doesn't continue 4e's divorce of fluff and crunch, which notably made so 4e's Disintegrate couldn't disintegrate (at least items).



To go back to the situation in the OP, the thing is that if wiping out the mud with your hand is enough to remove it and make the encounter harmless, then there is no reason why rinsing it with water wouldn't also work. Or why you couldn't struggle out of it like any grappling effect (since it's weak enough it can be removed from you by hand).


I understand why the Lesser Restaurations didn't work (apparently the players thought it was some kind of ongoing, curse-like effect?), and I suppose the Dm wanted a "make them panic so they don't think of the mundane/common sense solution" moment. But I have to agree with those saying the DM basically treated that like a death trap that could only be escaped if the player said the right word and wouldn't accept alternative solutions that would be just as much common sense.

Mudmen sounds fun, though. Challenge just needs to be something the characters can do something about, rather than just the players.

[opaopajr]

So you didn't need to press a button or activate a widget on your character sheet, you had the power within to win all along!

/1980s cartoon moral lesson plus jingle :smallcool:

Sounds fun! :smallsmile: Takes time for tables to look up off their character sheets and embrace listening intently to the fiction (and sharing that lifesaving information! :smallmad:). But when it does happen "a whole new world!" ("don't you dare close your eyes," says Aladdin) opens up and things get even more fun! Suddenly everything has more potential than previously assumed.

Good times, good times.

[Yakk]

So you didn't need to press a button or activate a widget on your character sheet, you had the power within to win all along!

/1980s cartoon moral lesson plus jingle :smallcool:

Sounds fun! :smallsmile: Takes time for tables to look up off their character sheets and embrace listening intently to the fiction (and sharing that lifesaving information! :smallmad:). But when it does happen "a whole new world!" ("don't you dare close your eyes," says Aladdin) opens up and things get even more fun! Suddenly everything has more potential than previously assumed.

Good times, good times.

This answer is wrong.

I won't tell you why it is wrong unless you guess the word I am thinking of.

Meanwhile, to emulate this effect, continue guessing words for the next 3 days and don't sleep.

What fun.

[Elbeyon]

Honestly I am more surprised that trying to wash the mud off with water was something the DM didn't count as using an action to wipe the mud off.Exactly, the pcs spent a turn to try to remove the mud which required a turn to remove. This was a communication error or deliberate misunderstand on the gms part. If they did not miscommunication the problem, then they would not have gotten their gotcha moment to such an obvious answer.

[Petrocorus]

OP, what cantrips your sorlock has?
Because it seems to me that Prestidigitation, or Shape Water could have done the tricks. Or maybe Mage Hand if your Druid had turn into a spider.
Would an animal with a swim speed have been able to just get out of it?

[samcifer]

OP, what cantrips your sorlock has?
Because it seems to me that Prestidigitation, or Shape Water could have done the tricks. Or maybe Mage Hand if your Druid had turn into a spider.
Would an animal with a swim speed have been able to just get out of it?

Sadly, Minor Illusion and Spare the Dying (via favored soul) are my non-combat cantrips (the rest are EB as that's what my build is focused around, Acid Splash, Toll the Dead, and Sacred Flame. We have a cleric and druid in the group who refer utility cantrips and I focus on combat, hence my choices.)

[Petrocorus]

Sadly, Minor Illusion and Spare the Dying (via favored soul) are my non-combat cantrips (the rest are EB as that's what my build is focused around, Acid Splash, Toll the Dead, and Sacred Flame. We have a cleric and druid in the group who refer utility cantrips and I focus on combat, hence my choices.)
I see.

If i may, do you really use this 4 combat cantrips regularly?
I'm not sure what Acid Splash and TtD do that EB and SF don't.

[Throne12]

So I had a DM like this and he doesn't run any game now because player after player quite.

1. You said it was thic mud. It doesn't dry out quickly at all. It takes time.
2. Unless the mud was animated and grappling your face. Gravity would kick in and pull most of the mud off your face.
3. Dumping a Canteen of water on your face would wash off any mud.
4. If the DM a stickler for the rules why is he breaking them with this monster. Because you didn't say anything about making saves. Also why could your party just pull the Druid out of the mud?

I'm sorry but it was a cool encounter idea and I'm stealing it. But it was executed wrongly. So I had a encounter some what similar. The party are fighting rot grubs like creatures that control the dead bodys they are in to spread more rot grubs by vomiting on to other creatures. So to keep the rot grubs from getting to there skin and burrowing into there skin they can whip off the vomit. So when the first rot grub vomit on the paladin he said I don't care I'm Immune to poisons and Disease. So I said ok and asked what are you doing. So that round he just attacked the body infront of him. Then it come around to the rot grubs turn tell him that he see movement in the vomit and then he feels a jolt of pain on his neck. He see one of the grubs starting too burrowing into this neck. He ask whats going on and what can he do about it so I have his make a nature check he pass. So I told him if he don't act quickly the grub is going to burrow to deep if he don't burn it out or use a spell like restoration. So he spent that turn killing the grub burrowing into him then next turn wiping the remaining vomit.


Also remember it D&D 5e thinking out side of the box.

[samcifer]

I see.

If i may, do you really use this 4 combat cantrips regularly?
I'm not sure what Acid Splash and TtD do that EB and SF don't.

I play mostly homebrewed campaigns where you can never know what to expect. I tend to focus on combat as I, irl, tend to be talked overtop of a lot (both in-game and out) so roleplaying is something I don't get to do often. Also, there are several players in my group who are always barging ahead (sometimes literally in-game barging ahead) and tend to dominate most puzzle-solving and rp scenes. In combat I can at least get my say and can control the action so long as it's my turn, and therefore makes for %99.9% of my rpg experiences and that's not even just in this particular group.

As for having so many battle cantrips, I find that even though I'm primarily focused on EB, I tend to suffer from bad rolls most of the time and regularly roll single digits on my d20s. I've even tried to swap them out from time to time, but I seem to suffer from a curse of frequently rolling bad, so I have save vs cantrips for when my luck is REALLY bad. For example, in occasional weekends (we don't play this campaign regularly) We're running the Icewind module and over 2 turns from 2 battles over 2 different sessions, I rolled 2 1s that resulted in both my kobold rogue's dual-wielding crossbows to break 1 at a time. By that, My last turn of the first battle resulted in a busted hand crossbow, then my only turn of the very next combat (without even a short rest between) I rolled another 1 and broke the other one, then was taken down in a single hit from a bad guy we were forced to fight before we could rest.

I like being able to hit multiple times with EB, but it rarely happens due to poor rolls (even with maxed-out stats I still often miss on attack rolls, hence me never suing leveled spells that require an attack roll to hit), so I have cantrips that require a save so that I'm not the one making the roll, increasing my chances of getting a successful hit.

[Kane0]

I play mostly homebrewed campaigns where you can never know what to expect. I tend to focus on combat as I, irl, tend to be talked overtop of a lot (both in-game and out) so roleplaying is something I don't get to do often. Also, there are several players in my group who are always barging ahead (sometimes literally in-game barging ahead) and tend to dominate most puzzle-solving and rp scenes. In combat I can at least get my say and can control the action so long as it's my turn, and therefore makes for %99.9% of my rpg experiences and that's not even just in this particular group.


One thing the quieter people in my group really like is the little 'raised hand' feature of chat programs, it's been a godsend for them. Maybe get a little flag or sign you can hold up?

[Petrocorus]

I play mostly homebrewed campaigns where.....increasing my chances of getting a successful hit.

I perfectly agree with your analysis. You do need one to-hit cantrip and one save cantrip.
So EB + TtD or EB + SF.
But i'm not sure i see the point of Acid Splash when you already have Ttd and SF.

[samcifer]

I perfectly agree with your analysis. You do need one to-hit cantrip and one save cantrip.
So EB + TtD or EB + SF.
But i'm not sure i see the point of Acid Splash when you already have Ttd and SF.

Sometimes enemies cluster together so having the ability to hit 2 of them is nice, imo.


Edit: As a continuation of the same campaign, we're still at the lake resort and met a new pc, a gnome lore bard based on a character from a youtube series called The Boys (spelling unclear on the name). we got into a fight on the shore with some water-logged zombies and the cleric got inspiration after the battle for asking if any of them had a mike tyson-style face tattoo (thinking of how the bard's last character died 2 sessions ago).

As for my performance, I kept rolling hideously all night. Out of what was around 20 eldritch blasts, only a quarter of them hit and that's with 20 in Charisma. I was rarely rolling above a 6 most the the night with only 1 crit to hit and another crit on a save. The latter was interesting because me, my fiance' playing the druid and the paladin character all had to make the same save at the same time. We all got simultaneous crits on our saves and celebrated by taking a shot of some 150-proof rum (all adults in our play-group) that I'm still queazy from 3 hours later. :P