AJ
Room Planner
Posts: 315
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Post by AJ on May 24, 2013 5:48:49 GMT -5
Hi all, I got inspired by the floating rocks video posted earlier and wanted to set up an encounter involving a nasty chasm, treacherous rope bridge, floating rocks and the rocky entrance to a cave system. This encounter will feature spider swarms and some opportunistic stirges, as well as a puzzle challenge involving wriggling web cocoons. Just finished the first stage of the project, using bits of reject garden gnomes broken up and carved a little bit, old pizza box cardboard and a glue gun. The players approach from the bottom left, climb the rough carved steps to the outcrop, where a rope bridge stretches across to the other outcrop on the other side, there are also floating rocks which will be used to access web cocoons suspended in the air above the chasm. Better view of the carved steps. More of a perspective view of the path ahead of the players, with the cave entrance in the distance. As you can see, the floating rocks are just bits of rubble glued to a little cardboard base.
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argiope
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 138
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Post by argiope on May 24, 2013 7:18:50 GMT -5
Looks great. The floating rocks look awesome, I say drop the rope bridge and make the only way across is using the floating rocks. That would make it a puzzle as well.
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AJ
Room Planner
Posts: 315
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Post by AJ on May 24, 2013 8:27:16 GMT -5
Hmm, that could work. I was just going to have the bridge be so rickety that the moment more than one person got half way the thing snapped off and swung toward the other side, a desperate leap to one of the floating rocks would save from a hearty slam into the rock face and tricky climb while being beset by thirsty Stirges. Course I could just leave it up to the players to figure out how to get to the floating rocks.. hmm.. perhaps the stream at the bottom of the chasm is well known to be stocked with Rabies infected dire leeches? I just whipped up some level 1 lurker Cliff Spiders.. let me post the stats for the 4th ed players.. Nasty little blighters.. relatively weak, but players get severe heebie jeebies when the prospect of being injected with parasitic spiders is on the cards *evil grin*
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AJ
Room Planner
Posts: 315
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Post by AJ on May 28, 2013 6:49:11 GMT -5
The players have fought off the surprise attack of the Cliff Spiders and started to move across the chasm using a rope tied to one of the rocks, they pulled it over to the outcrop. One of the web cocoons has been investigated and discovered to contain baby spiders, so it was cut free and thrown down the chasm. As two of the characters move out onto the unstable rocks, the trio of opportunistic Stirges have flown up to attack them. An arrow fired into the dead (but twitchy) Cave spider corpse across the other side has released swarms of baby spiders, and the players realise that setting the area on fire is sure to kill the cocooned halfling captives in one or more of the cocoons over there.. so, they have to do it the hard way. Not using the rope bridge worked out perfectly thanks Agriope, the challenge of getting across has been fairly tricky so far, prompting lots of team work. The Cliff spiders were very ineffective against the party, who wiped them out in about four rounds of combat, yet despite taking almost no damage so far, they are very reluctant to jump over into a carpet of hungry spider babies. Also, local Lizard Folk have warned them the area is taboo ("Hak'tsss'), it contains spiders ("Rik'tee") and something they call "Old dead".. the cave entrance is the way into an ancient Lizard man tomb, which is a lair of the undead. So yeah, we will carry on where we left off, next week, having ended on a good cliff hanger.. where the Stirges swarm up from below to attack. As for gridless game play, the players made no comment on it really, they just naturally picked up the measuring stick and moved around freely.. I consider that to be a roaring success! You know you role played a Lizard man tribe well, when the players start using the native words.. so now, they are using "Rik'tee" instead of the word Spider, lol.
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luciano
Paint Manipulator
Posts: 202
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Post by luciano on Jul 16, 2013 22:31:23 GMT -5
Great idea! The cocoons were great! The stones are real? If they are, great idea! :-)
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