OOTS #1222 - The Discussion Thread

[ben-zayb]

The OOtS definitely is on the same plane as Blackwing, because that's the stated limit of Telepathic Bond. (Interplanar Telepathic Bond is the upgraded spell that allows cross-planar communication).

As for the dungeons and teleportation traps, for all we know there could've been more traps ahead. When I think of a dungeon that would thematically be for rogues and barbarians, I think of a monster-filled labyrinth. While each of the doors may lead to the same labyrinth, you would still need to avoid all the teleportation traps in addition to finding the right route.

Same! Evidently I've played too much WoW.

Rich went straight from pen-and-paper to MMORPG. But nah, instanced dungeon is old news. This is clearly a phased area and Team Evil is just further ahead of the questline.

[RblDiver]

Multiple people have commented on loving Belkar's last line.

...I for one loved Oona's "Like a little tiny foot is dragging across all of them," particularly because it seems like she thinks it looks like that, but doesn't believe that to be the case!

[locksmith of lo]

I think I know where the Order currently are.

Spoiler: Diagram

Show

I think they're in the long hidden bit of the corridor between the door and the dungeon.

We know the doors are weirdly packed together, I think the tunnels actually go a long distance and spread out before opening into dungeon levels. The line's function is to teleport people past this. The bit the Order are in is a different colour because no dust usually gets to this part of the corridor.

I think there's a two-way teleportation effect, and Roy's sword appeared at the other end of this hidden space. There may be access tunnels or side doors along this corridor, allowing Serini to move easily between any door and the Gate.

If Haley needs access to the line's blue sides (Per diagram) to meddle with it, it gives them a real problem. They'll be trapped in this looping space unless there's an exit somewhere along it. And Blackwing will be trapped outside.

i think this is a brilliant answer! so OOTS is not teleported anywhere, they just stepped over it while it was disabled. i bet they are now going to find a bunch of hidden doors for side tunnels and such, so they could conceivably search a ton of dungeons quickly and in relative safety.

[Lemarc]

Yeah, the idea is that the gate is not in the second dungeon. The gate is only in a third place you get to by disarming the trap, crossing over it, arming it again, and walking into the trap which you just armed from the other side. How is that inevitable?

It would make little sense to put this shortcut behind every door. That's just unnecessarily weakening your defences. You'd put it behind ONE door so Serini or her assistants can access the gate while everyone else still has to play roulette with the dungeons. It's very unlikely the OotS just happened to pick the one door with a shortcut behind it.

[danielxcutter]

Now that I think about it, actually... did we ever hear "Serini put lots of strong monsters to honor Kraagor" besides Shojo's narrative? The Sapphire Guard knew next to nothing about the other Gates, and even if Soon heard what Serini was planning straight from her it could have gotten a bit inaccurate since Shojo didn't even hear it from Soon - at the most direct, from his father who likely heard it from Soon. Anyone who's played Telephone knows how much stuff can get changed in just two steps.

[Fincher]

I see your point. The problems I have with that are

1) If the Order is in the "real" long straight corridor behind the door, instead of being teleported elsewhere, then why did the floor change color?

It could be that Serini altered the floor of the entryways somehow to make them line up with wherever she was teleporting them. The color where the Order is now seems more natural to me than that putrid green, so maybe the entry color is meant to reflect them being led toward an alternate dimension.

[Metastachydium]

Now that I think about it, actually... did we ever hear "Serini put lots of strong monsters to honor Kraagor" besides Shojo's narrative? The Sapphire Guard knew next to nothing about the other Gates, and even if Soon heard what Serini was planning straight from her it could have gotten a bit inaccurate since Shojo didn't even hear it from Soon - at the most direct, from his father who likely heard it from Soon. Anyone who's played Telephone knows how much stuff can get changed in just two steps.

Well, we do know the Tomb is choke full of strong monsters and we do know she wanted to honor Kraagor: she named the Tomb after him.
That being said, we also know Shojo's account missed some details about practically each Gate: he did not mention the Virus, Girard's trick column or the oathspirits, so…

[Rogan]

It would make little sense to put this shortcut behind every door. That's just unnecessarily weakening your defences. You'd put it behind ONE door so Serini or her assistants can access the gate while everyone else still has to play roulette with the dungeons. It's very unlikely the OotS just happened to pick the one door with a shortcut behind it.

It would little sense to put a shortcut behind one of many doors. This would make finding the right door a simple matter of 'pick door, check for trap, repeat until you find it'.
Basically, take 20, but with doors instead of sides on a die. (Okay, you would need to know about the trap and have the means to find it, so it's not as bad as I made it sound)

Now, what would make a strong defense?
Every door will lead you to a dungeon full of monsters if you don't defeat the trap.
Every door but one will lead you to some other place, as long as you disable the trap. Maybe some service-tunnel?
There is only one door to the gate. You have to pick the right one AND disable the trap in order to get there.

This kind of defense would have two parts. One, knowledge (or luck/brute force) in picking the right door. You will only know you got the right door after spending some time (disable trap, search corridor, ..?).
Two, skill to find and disable the trap.

[KorvinStarmast]

The behavior of the "trap" portal implies *three* separate dimensions.

1) Original where Xykon was on the other side of the runes.

2) "Different floor color" where Roy and the OOTS are standing.

3) Wherever Roy's sword went when he tried to attack Xykon. It didn't show up in D1, so where is that exactly?

I am thinking locations rather than dimensions, but that makes sense.

Personally, it makes more sense to me that Team Evil is the ones being teleported

And I suspect that there's a range on the WONNNNHing membrane: 5 or 10 feet (basically, from the membrane to the doorway). That way, if one member of the party hits it they all go in. That's what seems to happen to Redcloack, Oona, and Greyview. I also suspect that they see Xykon ahead of them, so the idea that this membrane/wormhole/portal thing leap frogs those entering {X} distance down the hall would carry with it the visual continuity of the non skipped space. The Order are now in the 'in between' zone. If they walk through the membrane from the side that they are on, they may end up in 'location 3' from weimerrj's post.

The floor that gets walked on by a generation of bugbear hunters gets dirty. The floor that's hidden behind a teleport curtain doesn't get dirty.

Unless, like in a lot of old school dungeons, gelatinous cubes periodically wander through and clean everything up. Why would this be an old school dungeon? Ian is "a first edition thief" and the Scribblers are older than Ian. That would make them something closer to Original D&D age, or at least 1e age ...

Long and straight doesn't mean empty.

Agreed.

OOTS is not teleported anywhere, they just stepped over it while it was disabled.

Yes, that makes the most sense, but if they try to walk through from their current side they go "where the tip of the sword went" apparently. Or maybe not.

This kind of defense would have two parts. One, knowledge (or luck/brute force) in picking the right door. You will only know you got the right door after spending some time (disable trap, search corridor, ..?).
Two, skill to find and disable the trap.

Yep. Girard used traps and illusions, didn't he?

[danielxcutter]

Girard's traps mostly only work reliably with illusions to cover them up and more mid-high level sorcerers backing them up than the memes that died when Geno became a Mii Fighter skin.

[Lerianis]

It is looking like yes, it’s a portal and OOTS has bypassed that

You know, it would be a real trip if ALL the doors had portal traps like those and ALL the doors lead to the Gate, you just have to have a rogue in your party to find the portal trap, disarm it, and saunter down the real hallway with absolutely no opposition.

[bunsen_h]

It would make little sense to put this shortcut behind every door. That's just unnecessarily weakening your defences. You'd put it behind ONE door so Serini or her assistants can access the gate while everyone else still has to play roulette with the dungeons. It's very unlikely the OotS just happened to pick the one door with a shortcut behind it.

It's more likely that this is the equivalent of the "service tunnels" in Girard's setup: a way for "the right people" to access and monitor the real dungeon.

[Wysper]

"the Dark One's luck"...
Was that a nod to Wheel of Time? I don't think I've seen that phrase used here before.

[Corian]

(I am assuming that it’s the Order that is teleported, rather than Team Evil, because of the floor color change.

Thank you, I know I'm not alone in my unorthodox opinion, and even more for supporting it with even better arguments!

[Metastachydium]

Thank you, I know I'm not alone in my unorthodox opinion, and even more for supporting it with even better arguments!

A trap that triggers when disarmed and dormant while active makes little sense to me. The light show's likely just a portal or whatever switching off – that's not exactly a far-fetched idea: even magic being dispelled is accompanied by certain visual and sound effects, after all.

[Alesso]

Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyup, half the forum's been suggesting that for weeks.

Ekhm, "The most metashellgame-satisfying solution for me would be the gate being behind every door, just in the way nobody expects." - for months

[Crusher]

Agreed. Yes, that makes the most sense, but if they try to walk through from their current side they go "where the tip of the sword went" apparently.

Right. I'm sure someone mentioned this a couple pages ago, but the traps pretty much HAVE to teleport people (Team Evil, various bugbears, etc) elsewhere and the Order has remained in the actual passage via bypassing it. Because, as lots of folks have noted, there's no physical way all those complicated dungeons with entry doors so close together.

[BarakDeathBlade]

I am thinking locations rather than dimensions, but that makes sense.
And I suspect that there's a range on the WONNNNHing membrane: 5 or 10 feet (basically, from the membrane to the doorway). That way, if one member of the party hits it they all go in. That's what seems to happen to Redcloack, Oona, and Greyview. I also suspect that they see Xykon ahead of them, so the idea that this membrane/wormhole/portal thing leap frogs those entering {X} distance down the hall would carry with it the visual continuity of the non skipped space. The Order are now in the 'in between' zone. If they walk through the membrane from the side that they are on, they may end up in 'location 3' from weimerrj's post.

I suspect bypassing the trap puts you in the "real" dungeon, but what that means I will wait to see.

As far as the WONNNHing membrane (nice term!) is concerned, all I would read into the blinding white light is, it's easier to draw than everybody's entrails as they are teleported, molecule by molecule, into the "fake" dungeon to join Xykon. But that's just my two quatloos, based on the Giant not worrying about 3.5 rules much, and the Rule of Cool.

This was very very cool.

Edit to fix the spelling on WONNNH.

[Ashtagon]

The 'trap' works as follows. Imagine the alphabet line below is the corridor, with 'A' as the entrance.


.trap 1 . . . . . . . trap 2
. .V . . . . . . . . . .V
ABC|DEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW|XYZ


When the trap is active, from point C you can see point D, and walking across the trap, you reach point D.

When Haley disabled the trap, the party saw point X from point C, which is why the coridor floor appeared to change colour at the trap line. Stepping across the line while the trap is 'disabled' takes them from point C to point X.

From point X, with the trap active, the party sees point C looking back. Any attempt to cross back across the line from point X will take them to point W. As they can't see point W, it just appears to WONNH out of existence. Similarly, the people at point C, whom the party can see, appear to WONH out of existence when they step across the line to point D.

This does mean that if Team Evil were on the ball and looked towards the splotch, they'd get a clue.

[Ruck]

I am thinking locations rather than dimensions, but that makes sense.
And I suspect that there's a range on the WONNNNHing membrane: 5 or 10 feet (basically, from the membrane to the doorway). That way, if one member of the party hits it they all go in. That's what seems to happen to Redcloack, Oona, and Greyview.

It looks to me like they all teleport as they cross the line, not that the line extends/activates to cover their space.

"the Dark One's luck"...
Was that a nod to Wheel of Time? I don't think I've seen that phrase used here before.

I haven't read it, but I thought Redcloak's "If we have the Dark One's luck with us" was just sort of the OOTS-equivalent (Dark One worshiper edition) of someone saying "God willing" or something like that.

[Silent Wrangler]

Kragoor was a barbarian, and barbarians get trap sense. Of course there should be traps, even if staying purely barbarian-themed.
But I honestly believe that the dungeon requires a full party to overcome. Kragoor's death seems to be the last straw that broke Order of the Sribble cohesion, Kragoor's tomb requires it to pass.

[PattThe]

Kragoor was a barbarian, and barbarians get trap sense. Of course there should be traps, even if staying purely barbarian-themed.
But I honestly believe that the dungeon requires a full party to overcome. Kragoor's death seems to be the last straw that broke Order of the Sribble cohesion, Kragoor's tomb requires it to pass.

I like this.

[Metastachydium]

The 'trap' works as follows. Imagine the alphabet line below is the corridor, with 'A' as the entrance.


.trap 1 . . . . . . . trap 2
. .V . . . . . . . . . .V
ABC|DEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW|XYZ


When the trap is active, from point C you can see point D, and walking across the trap, you reach point D.

When Haley disabled the trap, the party saw point X from point C, which is why the coridor floor appeared to change colour at the trap line. Stepping across the line while the trap is 'disabled' takes them from point C to point X.

From point X, with the trap active, the party sees point C looking back. Any attempt to cross back across the line from point X will take them to point W. As they can't see point W, it just appears to WONNH out of existence. Similarly, the people at point C, whom the party can see, appear to WONH out of existence when they step across the line to point D.

This does mean that if Team Evil were on the ball and looked towards the splotch, they'd get a clue.

What would be the point to that?
That being said, you just gave me a crazy idea: as a high level rogue, Serini was wary of high level rogues, so she created a trap that can remove them from the equation. The trap cannot be truly disarmed, since the „disarmed” trap is still capable of resetting itself. Its purpose is to trap parties with high level rogues in an endless loop until someone disarms the trap form the outside or were that not to happen, until they die.

[locksmith of lo]

What would be the point to that?
That being said, you just gave me a crazy idea: as a high level rogue, Serini was wary of high level rogues, so she created a trap that can remove them from the equation. The trap cannot be truly disarmed, since the „disarmed” trap is still capable of resetting itself. Its purpose is to trap parties with high level rogues in an endless loop until someone disarms the trap form the outside or were that not to happen, until they die.

and they would be trapped unless someone saved them? trapped because they had to make a snap decision under duress of being trapped in a dungeon with high level monsters on one side and an epic level sorcerer on the other. that is not very fair story telling, to get caught in something that absolutely requires outside intervention, through no real fault of their own.

[Silent Wrangler]

and they would be trapped unless someone saved them? trapped because they had to make a snap decision under duress of being trapped in a dungeon with high level monsters on one side and an epic level sorcerer on the other. that is not very fair story telling, to get caught in something that absolutely requires outside intervention, through no real fault of their own.

That's not even about fairness, it's about writing in a deus ex machina (outside intervention) without any narrative necessity aside from stating the situation needs one out of the blue. It's like bricking up a door and then having to break through the wall. I think Rich knows better than to arbitrarily admit he's written himself into a corner when he isn't and then waste effort introducing outside forces he didn't need in the first place.

[Metastachydium]

and they would be trapped unless someone saved them? trapped because they had to make a snap decision under duress of being trapped in a dungeon with high level monsters on one side and an epic level sorcerer on the other. that is not very fair story telling, to get caught in something that absolutely requires outside intervention, through no real fault of their own.

Told you it was a crazy theory. Still, it beats „the Order will walk down the corridor and find the Gate by dumb luck, because this was the right door”, „every dungeon leads to the Gate if you bypass, rather than disarm or activate the trap, and the Order finds the Gate by dumb luck, because they were under duress and Haley had to improvise” and especially „every dungeon leads to the Gate if you have a rogue” as far as I am concerned. It would also help introduce the faction guarding the Gate (if there is one) or the Voices or the mystery ally. (Not to mention such „deus ex machinas” happened before: think of the Mechane saving the Order from certain death at the hands of the Vector Legion.)
At any rate, what I actually think is that finding this „second dungeon” is only important inasmuch as it saved the Order from Team Evil and revealed to them that the Tomb is more tricky than they previously thought it is, and whilst this knowledge will be crucial in actually locating the Gate, that's not yet to happen.

[pendell]

What would be the point to that?
That being said, you just gave me a crazy idea: as a high level rogue, Serini was wary of high level rogues, so she created a trap that can remove them from the equation. The trap cannot be truly disarmed, since the „disarmed” trap is still capable of resetting itself. Its purpose is to trap parties with high level rogues in an endless loop until someone disarms the trap form the outside or were that not to happen, until they die.

I don't believe this. Serini herself was a high-level rogue; naturally , if she wanted to get into the dungeon herself , she wouldn't create a trap that would lock out all high-level rogues. If I were her I'd want a dungeon I could clear myself, if necessary, if one of the traps malfunctioned and I had to go in and fix it. Even so, being a high level rogue can't be enough on its own; if it were no doubt the dungeon would have been broken long ago.

So having a rogue in the party, I believe, is a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition. A rogue by themselves can't be the I-win button this dungeon needs, but it at least got them past the first barrier -- which, I believe, TE never penetrated. If there's anyone here who remembers the Tomb of Horrors, false entrances, false treasures, and false bosses were all a feature of the dungeon. To use that as an analogy, TE never got to the point of finding the real entrance but instead wasted their time on decoy entrances, which may only ever lead to empty corridors filled with monsters.

And, if there's some serious extraplanar or teleportation work put into the dungeon design, Roy's knowledge (architecture) may be useless. The real dungeon may be in a scale far different than is apparent - which you'd expect from a rogue.

Thinking about it, I'm getting a serious TOH vibe from this final dungeon, what with the dimension locked stone and the false entrances. There's even a homage to the

Spoiler

Show

sphere of annihilation trap in the demon's mouth, with the line about the entire TE annihilating themselves by crossing a line -- that didn't happen here, but it was totally possible, back in the day, for that statue trap to TPK a party beyond possibility of resurrection.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[danielxcutter]

Tomb of Horrors was a middle finger to the guys who complained Gygax's meatgrinder dungeons were too hard(despite that being the point since they were for tournaments) or something, wasn't it?

[Ghosty]

...As far as the WONNNHing membrane (nice term!) is concerned, all I would read into the blinding white light is, it's easier to draw than everybody's entrails as they are teleported, molecule by molecule, into the "fake" dungeon to join Xykon. But that's just my two quatloos, based on the Giant not worrying about 3.5 rules much, and the Rule of Cool.

This was very very cool...

Not to mention looking---at least to me---a lot like the old Star Trek TV show transporter looked: odd noise, lots of light, and shimmering chaotic bright light in the middle of the transported figure. All letting the viewer know that these things were now Somewhere Else.

Nice callback, if that was what the Giant intended.

[hungrycrow]

Tomb of Horrors was a middle finger to the guys who complained Gygax's meatgrinder dungeons were too hard(despite that being the point since they were for tournaments) or something, wasn't it?

I thought it was in response to a player saying they were too easy.