(no subject)
So where was I? Right, the party had just thrashed a few Astral Stalkers. They proceeded down the walkway, finding that it connected to a floating Roman style dome in the sky. On entering it, they found that while the roof protected against everything but the wind, there were no lightning rods about. No problem for the lightning, as said roof helped. But the noise? The PCs got pounded by it like a hammer versus an anvil.
That makes the intent of this dungeon clear, or so I believe. Anyhow, the idea is that different areas protect against different parts of the storm, while possibly making their own difficulties. Most of the monsters have some form of sonic attack, which makes them more deadly outside of the lightning rods, too. In essence, you have something that really puts a constant, low grade pressure on the heroes.
Anyhow, they find there is a large statue in the center of the dome, as well as three lightning shielded treasure boxes. Alicia tries to dispel the lightning and it doesn't work out; the feeling she gets from it gets her to not press her luck any more. There are paths to the north and west; the western one lacks lightning rods. It looks like a noisy, lightning stricken death zone in the making. Being logical heroes, the party takes the safe northern passage.
They come to a four way intersection, with a path north again, and east/west passages. It's starting to lightly hail, and the western path has no lightning rods. Using Antenora to pass messages psychically, the party decided to head north. Being a prudent sort, Demedais scans for chaos ahead. He's rewarded by noticing overwhelming chaos ahead. As he does, the party heads north for a round. The hail picks up, doing 1d6 of DR penetrating damage. Between that and the chaos, they retreat back. They do notice the painful hail stops as they fall back; the PCs quickly figured out it was keyed to areas and not to time.
As a note here, there were a few Storm Elementals(See below) and Astral Stalkers here. Most any others would've followed, but this set was glued in place to defend the path to the Lord of the Storms. Funny how that works out. I'd hoped they'd find at least one case of the PCs needing to flee enemies to get to better terrain, but it never quite came together.
Anyway, the heroes try the western path now. They find it leads to a stone cubby at the end of the path. Inside is a small shrine, down to burning candles. This little cubby somewhat protects from the rain, and resting amid the candles is a staff. It radiates notable magic, so the party searches the place before messing with it. As Demedais keeps watch behind the party, Seira finds a little false panel in the back wall. Since Marie can go ethereal, she gets the duty of peeking in. There are more trigger runes that give a hint, which are dutifully set off. As this happens, Alicia decides to grab the staff.
Trap time! Just behind the party two Astral Stalkers appear, while off to each side two Storm Elementals blink in. Storm Elementals are basically storm clouds created to kick your ass, if that helps your mental images at all. To this the battle starts. It's nothing too interesting at first - Deme gets into position to shield the party while they react and advance, while the stalkers return the favor. As this settles in, the first storm elemental acts. There's a lightning rod between him and the pathway, so he simply punches it out of the way. This breaks the silence in the area, as well as putting the PCs at risk. The second elemental manages to repeat the feat on it's go.
Now this exposed the PCs to a certain danger. Namely, lightning strikes. I'd concocted a d100 chart for them. Another round in, I rolled a 1d100 to see if anything came of it.
100.
Oh shit. Yep, I made 100 a 'incredibly unlikely but extremely vicious thing to happen', as any evil GM is tempted to do. This was a 10d6 lightning+10d6 sonic overdose of thunder'n'lightning, as well as forcing everyone to make fort saves or go deaf. The party got lucky in that I rolled Alicia on the 'who did it hit' roll and it got one of her Mirror Images instead. Still, the blast deafened half the party, and left a nice big, shaking, cracking hole right near the cubby.
From there, the party basically manages to quickly drive off the elementals and fled, just before the cubby broke off and plummeted into the abyss. Now that was an awesome, edge of the seat fight - just barely avoiding the worst, getting away with the loot, and somehow managing to not die during it. Epic. At this point the soaked, beaten and deafened party members retreated to the one safe place they had - the dome.
As the party healed up and tried to function with half the group deaf and the other half worn out, Alicia came on a good way to circumvent a lot of the ongoing risks of the remaining paths.
Continue later.
That makes the intent of this dungeon clear, or so I believe. Anyhow, the idea is that different areas protect against different parts of the storm, while possibly making their own difficulties. Most of the monsters have some form of sonic attack, which makes them more deadly outside of the lightning rods, too. In essence, you have something that really puts a constant, low grade pressure on the heroes.
Anyhow, they find there is a large statue in the center of the dome, as well as three lightning shielded treasure boxes. Alicia tries to dispel the lightning and it doesn't work out; the feeling she gets from it gets her to not press her luck any more. There are paths to the north and west; the western one lacks lightning rods. It looks like a noisy, lightning stricken death zone in the making. Being logical heroes, the party takes the safe northern passage.
They come to a four way intersection, with a path north again, and east/west passages. It's starting to lightly hail, and the western path has no lightning rods. Using Antenora to pass messages psychically, the party decided to head north. Being a prudent sort, Demedais scans for chaos ahead. He's rewarded by noticing overwhelming chaos ahead. As he does, the party heads north for a round. The hail picks up, doing 1d6 of DR penetrating damage. Between that and the chaos, they retreat back. They do notice the painful hail stops as they fall back; the PCs quickly figured out it was keyed to areas and not to time.
As a note here, there were a few Storm Elementals(See below) and Astral Stalkers here. Most any others would've followed, but this set was glued in place to defend the path to the Lord of the Storms. Funny how that works out. I'd hoped they'd find at least one case of the PCs needing to flee enemies to get to better terrain, but it never quite came together.
Anyway, the heroes try the western path now. They find it leads to a stone cubby at the end of the path. Inside is a small shrine, down to burning candles. This little cubby somewhat protects from the rain, and resting amid the candles is a staff. It radiates notable magic, so the party searches the place before messing with it. As Demedais keeps watch behind the party, Seira finds a little false panel in the back wall. Since Marie can go ethereal, she gets the duty of peeking in. There are more trigger runes that give a hint, which are dutifully set off. As this happens, Alicia decides to grab the staff.
Trap time! Just behind the party two Astral Stalkers appear, while off to each side two Storm Elementals blink in. Storm Elementals are basically storm clouds created to kick your ass, if that helps your mental images at all. To this the battle starts. It's nothing too interesting at first - Deme gets into position to shield the party while they react and advance, while the stalkers return the favor. As this settles in, the first storm elemental acts. There's a lightning rod between him and the pathway, so he simply punches it out of the way. This breaks the silence in the area, as well as putting the PCs at risk. The second elemental manages to repeat the feat on it's go.
Now this exposed the PCs to a certain danger. Namely, lightning strikes. I'd concocted a d100 chart for them. Another round in, I rolled a 1d100 to see if anything came of it.
100.
Oh shit. Yep, I made 100 a 'incredibly unlikely but extremely vicious thing to happen', as any evil GM is tempted to do. This was a 10d6 lightning+10d6 sonic overdose of thunder'n'lightning, as well as forcing everyone to make fort saves or go deaf. The party got lucky in that I rolled Alicia on the 'who did it hit' roll and it got one of her Mirror Images instead. Still, the blast deafened half the party, and left a nice big, shaking, cracking hole right near the cubby.
From there, the party basically manages to quickly drive off the elementals and fled, just before the cubby broke off and plummeted into the abyss. Now that was an awesome, edge of the seat fight - just barely avoiding the worst, getting away with the loot, and somehow managing to not die during it. Epic. At this point the soaked, beaten and deafened party members retreated to the one safe place they had - the dome.
As the party healed up and tried to function with half the group deaf and the other half worn out, Alicia came on a good way to circumvent a lot of the ongoing risks of the remaining paths.
Continue later.