OOTS #1220 - The Discussion Thread

[KorvinStarmast]

Wait a minute. Maybe the purpose of the line is not to keep people out. Maybe the purpose is to keep monsters in! If that's the case, our analysis is flawed.

I like this line of thinking.

... it's not a trap at all, just an always-on portal that links the door to its associated dungeon crawl, which is located somewhere else.

Dungeons with areas that move you to somewhere else in the dungeon (or even somewhere else) is a great D&D tradition. (There's an example in the three little brown books, Underworld and Wilderness Adventures, in the sample dungeon on page 4; transporters are mentioned in note 5 on page 5)

Perhaps the trap is in two parts. Haley disabled the first one. The second, harder to detect, activates a portal only if the first one is disarmed or disabled.

Not a bad design.

My quatloos are that they're going to run into - maybe literally - the paladin-stealing invisible peoples.

Who were last seen flying/floating up and away from the rift. Not seeing this one.

Panel 7, Haley says "OK, I've got it figured it out". Is that meant to be "I've got it figured out" or "I've got it; I figured it out"?

Ah, so somone else did notice it.

You can't escape a trap if you can never realize you've been trapped in the first place - team evil is being fleeced without even realizing it.

I like where you are headed with this line of inquiry.

"Evil overlord zergs the gate with fodder"

IIRC, someone survived the original Tomb of Horrors by getting a herd of cattle and driving them before the party, triggering traps along the way ... not sure where I heard that, but it sounds like an old school way to deal with that death trap.