Hm, how should I handle this likely scenario?

[tchntm43]

I'm DMing a group that is currently just finished The Sunless Citadel, and will be doing some homebrew content to get them to the start of The Forge of Fury. I had a rough outline of some less-combat-oriented gameplay to balance out the near-relentless dungeon delving and combat of the two printed adventures. Obviously the party's ingenuity means things may not go according to plan so I've gotten into a habit of only planning for one session at a time. We're set to play tonight and I just realized there is a potential, and even likely, situation that could derail everything.

The party acquired a book in The Sunless Citadel that radiated magic when Detect Magic was cast. However, the magic is coming from a Glyph of Warding and the book actually does nothing beneficial. All the pages are blank, and when turned to the 2nd page, it triggers the glyph. Well, the party only looked at the first page, said "huh" and pocketed the item to deal with later.

The party is now planning to go to Neverwinter's library to research about the scroll of Khundrukar that is also found in The Sunless Citadel (it's found in the room Calcryx is imprisoned in). This is the lead-in to the Forge of Fury.

I realized that there is a very good chance they will have someone at the library look at the trapped book, which means a librarian is likely to be getting killed (it's 5d8 cold damage). Which means the party is likely to be getting themselves into legal trouble over causing someone else's death. Which means they may not be going anywhere anytime soon. If you were the DM in this situation, and knowing that you are intending to get the game progressing towards the Forge of Fury adventure, how would you handle this? I don't want to railroad, but at the same time, this campaign is designed to play through the adventures in The Yawning Portal.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Doesn't glyph of warding break (and dissipate harmlessly) if the book is moved more than 10 feet from where it was when it was cast? Doesn't that solve the problem?



If you choose an object, that object must remain in its place, if the object is moved more than 10 feet from where you cast this spell, the glyph is broken and the spell ends without being triggered.

[Skrum]

The players don't know it's a Glyph of Warding, right? So, Glyph of Warding ---> Nystul's Magic Aura. When they show it to the librarian, the librarian identifies it as a joke book created by Mendlefrem the Weird, a prankster that likes to make fake magic items that send greedy adventurers on wild goose chases. The players have a laugh and you all move on to the Forge.

Basically, don't allow this to derail your game if you don't want it to.

[False God]

Doesn't glyph of warding break (and dissipate harmlessly) if the book is moved more than 10 feet from where it was when it was cast? Doesn't that solve the problem?

Depending on how pedantic about "the object" we want to be, the "object" the spell is cast on could be the page itself within the book.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Depending on how pedantic about "the object" we want to be, the "object" the spell is cast on could be the page itself within the book.

Right. But the page itself has moved relative to where it was when it was cast. The frame of reference for the spell is the actual geographic location[1], not the larger object. Otherwise you could cast it on the top of a table, move the table, and claim that it was cast relative to the legs! Or any number of other obviously borked gamification attempts.

[1] not getting into absolute coordinates relative to the sun or anything. Relative to the planet's surface OR whatever very large vehicle-based frame of reference makes sense is probably the best.

[Rynjin]

Even if it does kill the librarian, I don't think it ends the campaign. Honestly could be fun spending a session with the guard investigating your party's culpability and so on before letting them go.

Ultimately, anyone looking at an item sourced from a dungeon is taking their life into their own hands. I would be surprised if there weren't laws on the books governing that. As long as the party didn't hand the book to the librarian under false pretenses, it should be fine.

If they did, adventurers are kinda too useful to lock up and throw away the key. Have them go on a mini-adventure to "pay off their debt to society" with a side adventure or something.

You were looking for content to bridge the gap between books anyway, so I wouldn't even classify this as a derail.

[tchntm43]

Doesn't glyph of warding break (and dissipate harmlessly) if the book is moved more than 10 feet from where it was when it was cast? Doesn't that solve the problem?
I... didn't even realize that. Yes, that solves the problem and makes for a funny way to confuse the players should try having an NPC cast Identify on the book, or Detect Magic again.

Nystul's Magical Aura is an interesting alternative.

Thanks for the responses, sometimes I really overthink things.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm DMing a group that is currently just finished The Sunless Citadel, and will be doing some homebrew content to get them to the start of The Forge of Fury. I had a rough outline of some less-combat-oriented gameplay to balance out the near-relentless dungeon delving and combat of the two printed adventures.
What I did as a bridge adventure between the two was to establish that the orcs that feature in the entry to the Forge adventure are part of a larger, loose alliance with another orc clan a few days travel north between the Citadel and Forge areas. This clan (I called them Black Spear) is led by a shaman (NPC druid, orc) who has a couple of ogre body guards. Lots of orcs, a few of the Volo's leader types, and plenty of archers.

The party had to deal with them, and as it worked out, they worked out a deal/negotiation.
On the roads traveling through the hills / mountains to Blessingdell (Forge of Fury's base town) I placed an old watch tower near a bridge going over a ravine that had in it a banshee and some other undead.
There were some orc corpses scattered around the area, and the party needed to retrieve the horn and ax from one of the corpses (a war chief) and return it to the shaman in return for safe passage/truce through their territory.

Had the party tried to fight the whole orc tribe I think it would have been a TPK.

They were ambushed along the road by a dryad and some large cats (tigers) and bears as they made the last journey towards Blessingdell.
She was not happy to have people trespassing in her area. They managed to get through that encounter as well.

In Blessingdell, their first encounter was with ... a very friendly dwarf ... who was actually the succubus, in disguise, from inside the Forge's lower level... and who set the hook to get the party to head toward the forge ... and who was up to no good in a variety of ways. She would now and again travel via the ethereal plane between her lair and the town as she slowsly corrupted various towns folk ... I got a lot of mileage out of that NPC/Monster

There was also a side quest to return a few kidnapped humans to their village nearby, but that was after the Forge adventure began in earnest.

[stoutstien]

Even setting aside the fact the glyph would break when they moved the book you'd figure a library dealing in dangerous books would have a set procedure for unknown elements other than just holding their breath.

[False God]

Right. But the page itself has moved relative to where it was when it was cast. The frame of reference for the spell is the actual geographic location[1], not the larger object. Otherwise you could cast it on the top of a table, move the table, and claim that it was cast relative to the legs! Or any number of other obviously borked gamification attempts.

[1] not getting into absolute coordinates relative to the sun or anything. Relative to the planet's surface OR whatever very large vehicle-based frame of reference makes sense is probably the best.

*rereads spell* Wow. That is a gross oversight in the spell design. There's absolutely no point in doing the second explicitly suggested option of putting it inside something if the trigger is "looking at it". All a smart adventurer need do is move everything they find 10 feet and poof, ward gone.

Explosive Runes in 3.5 worked! And it was fun! Way to take something not broken and make it totally pointless. I'd houserule that in 5 seconds flat. Terrible. Just terrible.

[Unoriginal]

Even setting aside the fact the glyph would break when they moved the book you'd figure a library dealing in dangerous books would have a set procedure for unknown elements other than just holding their breath.

This.

Doesn't apply to the Glyph (because it breaks when moved) but anyone who wants to examine an item filled with unidentified magic and who isn't a fool will take a lot of precautions.

[Boci]

*rereads spell* Wow. That is a gross oversight in the spell design. There's absolutely no point in doing the second explicitly suggested option of putting it inside something if the trigger is "looking at it". All a smart adventurer need do is move everything they find 10 feet and poof, ward gone.

To be fair, a smart adventurer being able to bypass a spell with mundane counter measures is not necessarily a bad thing, and some may even argue its a good thing.

[PhoenixPhyre]

*rereads spell* Wow. That is a gross oversight in the spell design. There's absolutely no point in doing the second explicitly suggested option of putting it inside something if the trigger is "looking at it". All a smart adventurer need do is move everything they find 10 feet and poof, ward gone.


That's not necessarily so. Take, for instance, a chest. Usually big and heavy enough that they'll want to open it in place and transfer contents. If not actually bolted to the floor. Put the ward inside the lid--they open the chest and it go boom.

Or (to stick with the books)--put it inside one of those big chained down books.

The point of the "breaks if you move it" clause is to prevent someone from making portable glyph of warding bombs. Yes, it weakens it. Good. But doesn't make it useless.

[Boci]

Or (to stick with the books)--put it inside one of those big chained down books.

Or alternatively don't choose reading the glyph as the trigger for a book. There are plenty of others.