TOPIC: Favorite and least favorite puzzles and combat

I really liked all of the puzzles.

Specific comments.
Spider Web
I would recommend using Arabic numerals instead of roman. We were very close to getting this right and misinterpreting the I as an I instead of a 1 hurt us. We figured out that the VI meant 6.

Lava Room
A statement from the DM saying how many times we could fail would have helped and also state that using the boots of lava walking counts as a fail. We figured it out on the fourth pass but that was too late because 2 of used our boots and thought it was OK.

Picc wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote: My party got off lucky, then. I only tried Horn of Blasting.

Ditto, the second time through the room where the DM described the insects burrowing under your skin in graphic detail it made more sense but I'll admit to being a little confused as to why your couldn't just AOE them down the first time.

This was not explained to us. I believe we were told we walked through an insect infestation and now had them attached to us. Our wizard was rather upset when his magic missile attempt killed him, and I was pretty confused with how that went down as well.
Definitely did not care for that room.

Phiswiz wrote: I really liked all of the puzzles.

Specific comments.
Spider Web
I would recommend using Arabic numerals instead of roman. We were very close to getting this right and misinterpreting the I as an I instead of a 1 hurt us. We figured out that the VI meant 6.

I believe Roman numerals were intentional because "one" would look like "i" until you got around to VI which could also be misinterpreted as "four" if you didn't remember that you were looking at it from below.

Phiswiz wrote: Lava Room
A statement from the DM saying how many times we could fail would have helped and also state that using the boots of lava walking counts as a fail. We figured it out on the fourth pass but that was too late because 2 of used our boots and thought it was OK.

I agree, more communication could have been offered on how often you can fail "the treasure is perched precariously above the lava, you get the impression that (one or two or a few) wrong moves and it will fall into the flames", etc.

Jason the Bard wrote:

Picc wrote:

Brad Mortensen wrote: My party got off lucky, then. I only tried Horn of Blasting.

Ditto, the second time through the room where the DM described the insects burrowing under your skin in graphic detail it made more sense but I'll admit to being a little confused as to why your couldn't just AOE them down the first time.

This was not explained to us. I believe we were told we walked through an insect infestation and now had them attached to us. Our wizard was rather upset when his magic missile attempt killed him, and I was pretty confused with how that went down as well.
Definitely did not care for that room.

This was my least favorite room as well. It was nearly a carbon copy of the stirges room from WYC. For those that didn't know/go - one of the rooms there a flock of stirges (a kind of vampire bat-mosquito-bird-thing) attach themselves to the party and any attacks against them damage the person they are attached to). You had to do only 1 point of damage to them to drop them from you, but anything over that was dealt as damage to the player. Sound familiar?

I liked most of the puzzles but the ones that stood out were the elevator puzzle, the spider web puzzle and the soul well puzzle. I'm also curious what would happen to anyone that did not give the drow the 10 gold she asked for to lead us to the elevator since I happened to have a 20 gold piece from one of our packs in my pocket. I really liked the set up of the mushroom puzzle but the frequency and volume of the recording could have been improved like already stated. We also solved the lava step puzzle but too late to get any treasure since we didn't get a clue until the fourth person had already fallen in that he was the fifth to cross. I wonder if in future if they could incorporate the number of attempts into the treasure sign in the room perhaps like a 3-2-1 under the T.

As far as combats go the Drow and egg sack was definitely a hit with my group on sunday afternoon. The salamander fight I did with Mike's group was pretty funny as we were so overpowered that we ended the fight in one combat round so the DM asked if we wanted to fight her "sister" for practice. I'm glad we were so over geared when it came to fighting the final boss in underdark but it did help that the DM was rolling pretty poorly when it came to avoiding our attacks.

Overall it was definitely a very favorable 2nd year of true dungeon for me and my girlfriend as we left wishing we had done sable combat to complete the story and purchasing our first 2 ultra rare tokens.

Graham Smallwood wrote: Isn't Teal == Blue?

Teal is in the middle of the blue-green range of the spectrum. It's just as much green as it is blue. I am quite fond of the color teal. If you saw me in real life, you'd know I'm not lying.

Having said that, the difference between the "teal" lights and the "blue" lights was... let's call it overly subtle.

Druegar wrote:

Graham Smallwood wrote: Isn't Teal == Blue?

Teal is in the middle of the blue-green range of the spectrum. It's just as much green as it is blue. I am quite fond of the color teal. If you saw me in real life, you'd know I'm not lying.

Having said that, the difference between the "teal" lights and the "blue" lights was... let's call it overly subtle.

I like to think my visual acuity is pretty decent, and I found similar issues at times with that and the orange/amber lights. Maybe it was after a few days of constant use or something, or maybe I need to book an appointment with an optician.

While we probably should've noted it in advance, one of the friends I participated with is colour blind, and by the time we found out that colours were vitally important to finishing the final room, we were long past being able to do anything about it. And then got eaten by spiders.

joshua baessler wrote: It was nearly a carbon copy of the stirges room from WYC. For those that didn't know/go - one of the rooms there a flock of stirges (a kind of vampire bat-mosquito-bird-thing) attach themselves to the party and any attacks against them damage the person they are attached to). You had to do only 1 point of damage to them to drop them from you, but anything over that was dealt as damage to the player. Sound familiar?

Though I can certainly see why one would make that comparison, there was something else--another mechanic at play in that room. That's about all I can say right now.

Druegar wrote:

Graham Smallwood wrote: Isn't Teal == Blue?

Teal is in the middle of the blue-green range of the spectrum. It's just as much green as it is blue. I am quite fond of the color teal. If you saw me in real life, you'd know I'm not lying.

Having said that, the difference between the "teal" lights and the "blue" lights was... let's call it overly subtle.

For some of us, there was no difference whatsoever between some of those lights.

joshua baessler wrote:

It was nearly a carbon copy of the stirges room from WYC. For those that didn't know/go - one of the rooms there a flock of stirges (a kind of vampire bat-mosquito-bird-thing) attach themselves to the party and any attacks against them damage the person they are attached to). You had to do only 1 point of damage to them to drop them from you, but anything over that was dealt as damage to the player. Sound familiar?


Uh oh.... repetition. That is not good. It leads to the mundane. It is a sign of a lack of creative risk.

Arthur wrote: joshua baessler wrote:

It was nearly a carbon copy of the stirges room from WYC. For those that didn't know/go - one of the rooms there a flock of stirges (a kind of vampire bat-mosquito-bird-thing) attach themselves to the party and any attacks against them damage the person they are attached to). You had to do only 1 point of damage to them to drop them from you, but anything over that was dealt as damage to the player. Sound familiar?


Uh oh.... repetition. That is not good. It leads to the mundane. It is a sign of a lack of creative risk.

In my recollection the rooms were fairly different. The Stirges could be removed by immersing yourself in a pool of water, or dealing them damage. On normal Burning Hands killed them all in one shot. Or you could just attack them with normal stuff.

The spider infestation was a lot more difficult, depending on when you ran the room there were different solutions, but they were unified in that the monsters resisted a very broad range of attacks (in one version of the room the only way to deal with them was a slide, in another version non-magical fire).

The only similarity that stands out to me is that everyone had been attacked by a monster that attached themselves.

Having seen the modules for both... the Stirges were far easier to deal with.

Sorry that room 4 came off so Clunky (the Spider / grub around the neck) it was a very neat idea in that the negative effect wasn't apparent till the next combat, which would have offered some greater continuity to the rooms.