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I doubt there's any more traps - anybody clever enough to find this one will be too careful for more traps to work. Misdirection is probably the next obstacle, unless these are the "service tunnels" where mysterious voice people live.
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Jan 22, 2021 23:34
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NihilCredo posted:Good think he isn't a wizard or cared enough to acquire wizard scrolls, since IIRC casting Permanency -> Detect Magic / Arcane Sight was super cheap and a very effective use of XP in 3.5. In that Redcloak still has True Sight going and still walked into it without pause, I think it may be magically undetectable from outside, and only the fact that V is inside lets them get any data at all.
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Jan 22, 2021 23:45
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There's also a big difference in Can He and Would He. Xykon is not the kind of guy to waste time on scouting or anything, especially when the hobgoblins in the area have been using the tunnels for who knows how long already
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Jan 22, 2021 23:48
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Brainamp posted:There's also a big difference in Can He and Would He. Xykon is not the kind of guy to waste time on scouting or anything, especially when the hobgoblins in the area have been using the tunnels for who knows how long already Bugbears, not hobgoblin
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Jan 23, 2021 00:04
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SuperKlaus posted:I'm not sure Xykon even has Detect Magic. Does he? As a Sorcerer, it's entirely possible that he doesn't have it. Sorcerers can know at most 9 different 0th level spells, and there are 19 of them. Additionally, it's established that Xykon is generally weak at divination in general; his build is more nuke/anti-caster. That being said, Redcloak definitely has access to Detect Magic, as it's also a 0th level Cleric spell. Additionally, Redcloak is a planner, so I would highly expect him to have it prepared for general-purpose dungeoneering, or simply to compensate for Xykon's weaknesses in general. jng2058 posted:In that Redcloak still has True Sight going and still walked into it without pause, I think it may be magically undetectable from outside, and only the fact that V is inside lets them get any data at all. I thought this too, so I went to the SRD to look at True Seeing. Turns out, without further need of as-yet-unexplained baffling mechanics, True Seeing doesn't actually help Redcloak detect the trap at all! The component of the trap that shows the other end of the fool's chamber of each doorway is a divination effect, not illusory (per V,) which means it's likely a permanent clairvoyance spell. And, according to the description of True Seeing, it very specifically does not aid someone with detection through clairvoyance. True Seeing also has no magic detection properties; it simply assists with negating visual impairments like darkness, illusion, and invisibility. The only way that True Seeing could assist Redcloak is if, say, there was a cloud of magical darkness right as one entered the fool's chamber, and he paced it out and saw that it ended prematurely at the trap line. Or if, like, there was an invisible creature just as one entered the fool's chamber. Contrived situations like this seem pretty easy to avoid when designing the various fool's chambers; just put a bend in the tunnel right after the trap, or a normal door, or any number of simple visual blocks.
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Jan 23, 2021 00:08
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Aw, this is fun. Nice and nostalgic. The gang, all together, standing around in an undecorated corridor, trying to figure stuff out. Very old school dungeon crawl. I have this weird obsession with reader reception of serialized fiction, which means that I've read a lot of threads like this one from their beginnings--including most of the individual strip threads on the GITP forums. (Pity me!) Sometime around the beginning of the War and XPs arc, there was this uprising of discontented (and really annoying, IMO) readers on the GITP forum. They were all upset because they wanted the story to get back to good old dungeon crawl material. You know, none of this heavy emotion stuff or complicated hard-to-remember uber-plot, and stop breaking the party up, will ya? We wanna see all six members of the Order, all on panel at the same time, walking down a corridor all in a line, cracking jokes and doing stuff! Needless to say, those people did not get their wish. Eventually, they got so frustrated that they wandered off. But I did find myself thinking of them today.
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Jan 23, 2021 02:20
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Shugojin posted:Also this is fun because even seeing the trap doesn't help you, only actually disarming it somehow would get you past. Not just an issue, a whole entire book! Right-Eye used to be their party's rogue.
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Jan 23, 2021 06:32
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ikanreed posted:Bugbears, not hobgoblin In my defense it's been 4-5 years since they were introduced so I forgot which goblinoid they were
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Jan 23, 2021 06:36
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mmkay posted:I think in the second picture there should be no mark at all - since we see Blackwing, his half should be clear. I can't get past this either - I would expect the sixth-to-last panel to have no scorch marks on either side
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Jan 23, 2021 08:28
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NihilCredo posted:Good think he isn't a wizard or cared enough to acquire wizard scrolls, since IIRC casting Permanency -> Detect Magic / Arcane Sight was super cheap and a very effective use of XP in 3.5. Ah, but you see, power is power,
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Jan 23, 2021 08:42
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Cup Runneth Over posted:Ah, but you see, power is power, Lol indeed
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Jan 23, 2021 09:58
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Gnoman posted:I doubt there's any more traps - anybody clever enough to find this one will be too careful for more traps to work. Misdirection is probably the next obstacle, unless these are the "service tunnels" where mysterious voice people live. At some point I'd expect some of the actual super-hard monster fights the gate has in the fakes, too. After all, if you've got all these monsters in the fake distraction tunnels, it'd be silly not to put them in the real thing. Challenge on multiple levels, so you can't just get past by being canny, you need to be canny and strong.
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Jan 23, 2021 12:06
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Brainamp posted:In my defense it's been 4-5 years since they were introduced so I forgot which goblinoid they were Brainamp, he is only caring about skinny litle goblins and hobgoblins anyway. So lttle love for bugbears!
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Jan 23, 2021 12:41
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goblin week posted:Brainamp, he is only caring about skinny litle goblins and hobgoblins anyway. So lttle love for bugbears! that line of Oona was very good.
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Jan 23, 2021 14:14
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Can I say that I'm honestly impressed at the lateral thinking in setting up a divination spell as effectively an illusion? As per Gwyneth Palpate's post a few posts ago, True Seeing and other illusion detection magic don't work through visual divination spells; however, the spell description basically states that it also doesn't hinder divinations, so get hosed spellcasters, bring the skillmonkey. I'm trying to think of a way for a spellcaster to beat this setup and I honestly got nothing. The only failure point I can see is that the divination disables true seeing (and similar) between the two destinations of the teleport trap, so maybe a party entering a dungeon with both invisibility and true seeing active would notice the frontline disappearing for a couple meters.
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Jan 23, 2021 15:54
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The Order of the Scribble failed because they couldn't work together, so Serini protected the gate with a series of obstacles that no single high-level adventurer would be able to overcome. The Order of the Stick is actually a functioning team, so they'll be able to get to the gate.
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Jan 23, 2021 18:06
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I'm wondering how Team Evil gets past this if (when) they figure out what's up. My moneys on Meter Swarm powered mass-excavation.
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Jan 23, 2021 18:48
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ultrafilter posted:The Order of the Scribble failed because they couldn't work together, so Serini protected the gate with a series of obstacles that no single high-level adventurer would be able to overcome. The Order of the Stick is actually a functioning team, so they'll be able to get to the gate. Getting to the gate might actually be bad, though. If there's a delicate object and if it goes boom the world ends, next to it would be a bad place for a fight. Way better to ambush team evil as they're coming back out from a false path. Obviously it the best place for the fight dramatically, it's just not the place to plan for the fight.
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Jan 23, 2021 19:46
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Yeah I'm expecting some sort of secret order (same folks that took the paladins?) in the real tunnels that will help the Order set up their final stand.
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Jan 23, 2021 19:54
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The good guys circumvent the impossible defenses with the power of friendship but the bad guy follows them in then they have the exciting climax this is classic fantasy dungeon logic.
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Jan 23, 2021 20:20
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Well the best tactic might be to just wait and see when they go back to fighting through dungeons and then attack Xykon when he's tired and burnt through most of his spells. Eliminate Xykon, and they've won (for the meantime). But you gotta see what's down that hole.
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Jan 23, 2021 20:40
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It's interesting to consider that we're back to the rogue shellgame where none of the passageways were correct, and what this means for the MitD's scheme; since I assume it will still have an narrative effect just not the one we were thinking. I think as alluded, this could give the order a tactical advantage. A safe place to rest up and plan from, hitting Xykon and Team Evil with hit and run attacks, especially if it provides service tunnels to get to the dungeons they are in. Right now it seems safe that Team Evil still has no idea, so the initiative is in the Order's court.
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Jan 23, 2021 22:06
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ultrafilter posted:The Order of the Scribble failed because they couldn't work together, so Serini protected the gate with a series of obstacles that no single high-level adventurer would be able to overcome. The Order of the Stick is actually a functioning team, so they'll be able to get to the gate. 
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Jan 23, 2021 22:18
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What was written on the dwarfs statue?
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Jan 23, 2021 22:19
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MikeJF posted:At some point I'd expect some of the actual super-hard monster fights the gate has in the fakes, too. After all, if you've got all these monsters in the fake distraction tunnels, it'd be silly not to put them in the real thing. Challenge on multiple levels, so you can't just get past by being canny, you need to be canny and strong. I would be highly surprised if there wasn't an epic level monster guarding the gate. The ones Redcloak and Xykon have been fighting are strong, but don't seem to be Prismatic Dragons and stuff.
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Jan 23, 2021 22:26
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Sacrifice
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Jan 23, 2021 22:27
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sebmojo posted:What was written on the dwarfs statue? Sacrifice
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Jan 23, 2021 22:28
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Omobono posted:I'm trying to think of a way for a spellcaster to beat this setup and I honestly got nothing. The only failure point I can see is that the divination disables true seeing (and similar) between the two destinations of the teleport trap, so maybe a party entering a dungeon with both invisibility and true seeing active would notice the frontline disappearing for a couple meters. Could you dispel the trap with an epic dispel blast? I know it's mostly pointless. The other way to beat the setup is to try to tunnel between the doors to explore, and noticing poo poo gets weird.
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Jan 23, 2021 23:00
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Wouldn't Detect Magic be foiled by the fact that the entire place is allegedly magical stone? It would be like looking for a firefly against the sun. Also, Serini definitely can't cast these kinds of spells, so in addition to needing a functioning team to beat, this setup needed a diverse array of people on board to even create.
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Jan 23, 2021 23:02
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MarquiseMindfang posted:Also, Serini definitely can't cast these kinds of spells, so in addition to needing a functioning team to beat, this setup needed a diverse array of people on board to even create. Expensive subcontractors. Epic rogue can afford to hire the best.
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Jan 23, 2021 23:08
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Acerbatus posted:Sacrifice Belkar is gonna have to sacrifice himself, isn't he
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Jan 23, 2021 23:20
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It looks like Serini wasn't duped by lazy contractors at least. I don't think we know how relatively feasible dungeonbuilding is in this world aside from the what the members of the order of the Scribble managed to do. Everybody else seems to have offset construction costs by making their dungeon into their home, but maybe that was also what made them vulnerable.
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Jan 23, 2021 23:22
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SlothfulCobra posted:It looks like Serini wasn't duped by lazy contractors at least. It's a D&D world. Dungeon building is a major industry.
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Jan 23, 2021 23:55
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Omobono posted:Can I say that I'm honestly impressed at the lateral thinking in setting up a divination spell as effectively an illusion? As per Gwyneth Palpate's post a few posts ago, True Seeing and other illusion detection magic don't work through visual divination spells; however, the spell description basically states that it also doesn't hinder divinations, so get hosed spellcasters, bring the skillmonkey. Rich spent the last month devising and researching the mechanical explanation for this trap
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Jan 24, 2021 01:53
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I'm a bit annoyed because the gate spell already lets you see the far side of the gate, is innately permanent, and is a 2d plane you can walk through. There's already a tool in the d&d tool box that does this, but it's not "a trap" so to make it fit the need for roguery to matter, a handspun magical trap that is otherwise identical to gate is what we have here. It's a bit pedantic, but it's always dissonant when a world bends way out of it's way to fit a narrative, especially with no build up.
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Jan 24, 2021 02:54
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It's not out of its way at all, the trap was created by a rogue specifically so you'd need a rogue to get past it. Gate doesn't have that requirement. How is it dissonant if the person who put it there had a legitimate reason not to use the simpler option?
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Jan 24, 2021 03:14
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ikanreed posted:I'm a bit annoyed because the gate spell already lets you see the far side of the gate, is innately permanent, and is a 2d plane you can walk through. I think the fact that it's a trap matters, insofar as it requiring a rogue to circumvent (and, conveniently, Serini was the rogue of her party, meaning that her trap would foil any member of her party.) Aside from Dorukan and Lirian, all of the Order of the Scribble seemed to be primarily worried not about outside intrusion, but each other. Also, Gate is a 9th level spell, and the story's gone to great lengths to assert that casters capable of 9th level spells are incredibly rare. At the time of Serini's heyday, the only casters in the world who could cast at 9th level were probably all in the Order of the Scribble. Since the trap in question didn't need cross-planar travel, nor have a component to compel outsiders to transit the Gate and render aid, I'd actually consider that the spell they use to craft the trap is named something like "Limited Gate," and be a lower level than Gate itself.
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Jan 24, 2021 03:14
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Most dungeon in Dungeon and Dragons designed for a party of a level higher than 8 has some gimmick that only works through fiat.
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Jan 24, 2021 03:41
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It'll be interesting to see where things go from here. Even if the Order beats Team Evil to the Gate, that's not really super useful for them - all they can really do at that point is start casting defenses while they wait for Xykon to show up. So it's likely we're finally gonna see the mysterious third group get involved here.
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Jan 24, 2021 05:45
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I'm hoping for a happy reunion between MitD and his parents.
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Jan 24, 2021 06:25
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