I've ran this a couple of times, and always got thrown off by the way some traps are described:
Spoilers ahead...
At the Kubazan shrine, lifting the cube without putting something in exchange will trigger the following trap:
The gas fills the shrine for 1 minute, then dissipates. Any creature that starts its turn inside the shrine while the gas is present must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or take 10 (3d6) poison damage. Creatures are affected even if they hold their breath or don’t need to breathe.
This section doesn't specify to roll initiative, but it does mention that the door to the area is closed and it'll a last a minute. Then it says that any creature that starts its turn inside while the gas is present must succeed on a DC 12 CON save.
So my interpretation at the heat of the moment was to roll 10 CON saves : each turn lasts 6 seconds, trap lasts 1 minute. I still feel that it is the right call but it also feels a bit weird to ask for several rolls of CON Save...
There's another instance with something similar occurs, at the tomb of the nine gods there's a chamber filled with corpses and two levers. If the character pulls the correct one they are free, if the character fails a void opens and try to suck the characters to their dead.
Any creature that starts its turn in the room and isn’t secured in some fashion must succeed on a DC 11 Dexterity saving throw or be pulled into the gullet and destroyed. If a character fails the saving throw, another character within reach, or any character bound to the first character by a rope, can use his or her reaction to grab on and grant the first character a reroll. After 1 minute, the lever resets with an audible clunk. The gullet remains open until the lever resets. Magic has no effect on the gullet or the darkness within.
This time the book does instructs you to roll initative, the tomb will negate any teleportation spell, so there is no way that I can think of right now that a creature starts its turn somewhere else. That means that the characters will need to roll once again DEX ST DC 11 ten times.
So yesterday I ran this encounter, players were all new players, the bard was left alone and tried to pick up the cube with mage hand. Door closed behind and got stuck for 10 turns inhaling the gas. Only missed 4 but that was enough to take him to 0 HP... then some turns left to roll some death saving throws. Which he missed by getting a nat 1. It was an impactful moment because it was the first death of the group and for the players in general (Artus Cimber was with them and used flesh to ice to keep the body posing in a cool way at the shrine and promised to get back for their friend). But it reminded me of the second example where an more experienced player didn't accept the way that I interpreted the trap and even took the book to read the trap.
I don't remeber how he determined that I was wrong, it doesn't even matter, was a long time and I don't really care haha.
But the question here is. Do you feel that I'm way off with my interpretation? I know that as a DM it's my call, I feel that many things justify this interpretation:
1.- Shrine traps are supposed to be deadly, they were built by corrupted omuans to satisfy false gods, these shrines even got the attention of Acerererak. 2.- Specifying that turns will occur and a trap bound by time does require many rolls. 3.- 12 DC is not that high 4.- Some characters could heal per turn, so they won't drop to 0 or delay that fate. 5.- also many features and traits will provide some re rolls, like luck, tides of chaos, etc.
so in the end I ran this the way I ran it, don't even fell bad but wanted to hear more opinions. Since just getting a 3d6 poison damage at level 5 from a deadly trap doesn't quite add up.
Personally, I wouldn't run the shrines with anywhere near the same lethality as a Tomb trap. The shrines are, in my opinion, kind of a teaser for the gauntlet that is the Tomb of the Nine Gods; unlike the tomb, the shrines weren't built by Acererak. Once the door closes behind the party in the tomb, the adventure gets deadlier by orders of magnitude by virtue of the fact that they are stuck in a carefully maintained torture house ruled by a psychotic lich. So 3d6 poison damage from one of the two traps that protects the cube is perfectly reasonable to me, particularly since you're comparing it to one of the few insta-kill traps in the whole adventure.
I also probably wouldn't ask for ten identical saves in a row outside of a true combat scenario, especially if there is nothing the player can do to fix the actual problem. The lack of agency on the player side would be frustrating, and it can be really boring to roll the same thing over and over if all you're doing is seeing whether the dice gods screw you this time.
As for Kubazan's shrine in particular, I interpret the turns as a way to account for any characters that may somehow go in after the trap is triggered. The book specifies a gate that drops at the shrine entrance, not a door, so presumably people outside would be able to see if their companions need help. Anyone with a teleportation or shapechange ability might be able to get in - and once they do, they'd be subject to the CON save for the gas.
As with anything, though, the only interpretation that matters is the one the DM runs with - and players have no place pulling out a sourcebook to argue with it. I'm sorry that happened to you, and I'm glad your current players aren't that disrespectful.
I've ran this a couple of times, and always got thrown off by the way some traps are described:
Spoilers ahead...
At the Kubazan shrine, lifting the cube without putting something in exchange will trigger the following trap:
The gas fills the shrine for 1 minute, then dissipates. Any creature that starts its turn inside the shrine while the gas is present must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or take 10 (3d6) poison damage. Creatures are affected even if they hold their breath or don’t need to breathe.
This section doesn't specify to roll initiative, but it does mention that the door to the area is closed and it'll a last a minute. Then it says that any creature that starts its turn inside while the gas is present must succeed on a DC 12 CON save.
So my interpretation at the heat of the moment was to roll 10 CON saves : each turn lasts 6 seconds, trap lasts 1 minute. I still feel that it is the right call but it also feels a bit weird to ask for several rolls of CON Save...
There's another instance with something similar occurs, at the tomb of the nine gods there's a chamber filled with corpses and two levers. If the character pulls the correct one they are free, if the character fails a void opens and try to suck the characters to their dead.
As soon as the text says something is acting each turn - roll initiative. Using turns implies initiative order.
In this case the door is closed but the character might well have some way out so let them take their turns to see if they can escape the room before the 10 rounds have run their course. Each turn the character rolls a con save to see if they take damage. Also, keep in mind that if they make their save they take no damage so it is only really deadly if the characters are low level and fail a lot of the saves.
In terms of ways out ...
1) A character could dimension door out with a party member
2) A druid might be able to wildshape into a form that can escape since although the gas fills the room, the room is likely not air tight.
3) If the party found the Nolzur's Marvelous Pigments in one of the other quests in the adventure they could paint a hole in the door in a round or two and everyone could escape. (Those pigments are awesome :) ).
4) A character with an ability to become ethereal or with stone shape or meld with stone could probably just pass through the walls.
5) Several strong characters might be able to lift the door.
So although it could be 10 con saves - it usually isn't since the characters have a minute to do things.
However, there is also a question of how the DM runs the lead up to this encounter. There are hints of what a character should do and if the players aren't that experienced the DM should probably offer a bit of a hint. IF Artus is with the group then he can read Old Omuan. He can read the inscription outside the tomb "Kubazan urges us to tread without fear and to give back as much as we take." and then Artus can say to the party that these inscriptions are usually significant in some way. "A character who heeds the words gains some insight into the trial that awaits in area 3C." If the players aren't experienced enough to pick up on the hint then the DM should use the NPC to hint a bit more strongly.
In addition, the "door" is actually a gate. It can be opened from the outside with the key if the party has it or it's lock can be picked either from inside or outside. "Checks made to pick the gate lock from within the shrine have disadvantage". The character's are expected to try to open the gate to escape the gas. Also, since it is a gate, a character with a gust of wind spell or similar could blow the poison gas away from the gate and since you can see through a gate, misty step, thunderstep and other forms of teleportation would also work. Very few parties are going to have no resources at all to either escape the Chamber of Bravery or help a trapped group member to escape.
Any creature that starts its turn in the room and isn’t secured in some fashion must succeed on a DC 11 Dexterity saving throw or be pulled into the gullet and destroyed. If a character fails the saving throw, another character within reach, or any character bound to the first character by a rope, can use his or her reaction to grab on and grant the first character a reroll. After 1 minute, the lever resets with an audible clunk. The gullet remains open until the lever resets. Magic has no effect on the gullet or the darkness within.
This time the book does instructs you to roll initative, the tomb will negate any teleportation spell, so there is no way that I can think of right now that a creature starts its turn somewhere else. That means that the characters will need to roll once again DEX ST DC 11 ten times.
Again. It could turn into 10 dex saves but the characters get 10 actions and the first thing the character is likely to do is secure themselves to something. If they are secured they don't have to roll.
The room is filled to a depth of 6' with rotting corpses. There is also an Otuygh in the room. The gullet pulls in "everything" in the room. Note also that the nostrils are above the level of the corpses so the gullet/mouth is actually below the level of the corpses. There is also a sconce above the devil's face.
A character could grab hold of the lever in the nostril to secure themselves - I would probably give them advantage on the save for doing so rather than not having to save. A character could secure themselves to the sconce above the devils face with some rope. A character could drive a piton into the wall one round and attach a rope to it the next. If there are multiple characters then they could try to rope themselves into one large group so that their reactions will stack if someone fails a save.
If a character has the immovable rod (another treasure item in the module) they could activate it and use that to secure themselves and their companions with a bit of rope.
Honestly, most parties are only going to wind up with 1-2 saves before they have come up with some way to deal with the situation. The most dangerous time is the first round when they haven't had a chance to try and secure themselves yet.
So yesterday I ran this encounter, players were all new players, the bard was left alone and tried to pick up the cube with mage hand. Door closed behind and got stuck for 10 turns inhaling the gas. Only missed 4 but that was enough to take him to 0 HP... then some turns left to roll some death saving throws. Which he missed by getting a nat 1. It was an impactful moment because it was the first death of the group and for the players in general (Artus Cimber was with them and used flesh to ice to keep the body posing in a cool way at the shrine and promised to get back for their friend). But it reminded me of the second example where an more experienced player didn't accept the way that I interpreted the trap and even took the book to read the trap.
I don't remeber how he determined that I was wrong, it doesn't even matter, was a long time and I don't really care haha.
But the question here is. Do you feel that I'm way off with my interpretation? I know that as a DM it's my call, I feel that many things justify this interpretation:
If you are having the characters roll 10 saves without giving them AND their companions at least a chance to do something then yes, I think you were running them incorrectly.
1) In the bard's case - what level were they? Ideally, they should be at least 6-7 to be in Omu exploring for the cubes (but they could be 5 or 6) which gives them a decent selection of spells and options. The bard should also have healing spells so the tactic of healing every round should work too.
2) What resources did the party outside have that they could use to break into the tomb?
Anyway, as soon as the game mentions "turns" you should be resolving it in initiative and letting players use their actions to try to solve the problem with a time limit. The traps are deadly but the point is to provide tension and suspense by seeing if the party/characters can figure a way out.
1.- Shrine traps are supposed to be deadly, they were built by corrupted omuans to satisfy false gods, these shrines even got the attention of Acerererak. 2.- Specifying that turns will occur and a trap bound by time does require many rolls. 3.- 12 DC is not that high 4.- Some characters could heal per turn, so they won't drop to 0 or delay that fate. 5.- also many features and traits will provide some re rolls, like luck, tides of chaos, etc.
so in the end I ran this the way I ran it, don't even fell bad but wanted to hear more opinions. Since just getting a 3d6 poison damage at level 5 from a deadly trap doesn't quite add up.
What are your thoughts?
It seems they were level 5.
If you ran it as - "Make 10 saves" "you die" - then I think you didn't run it correctly. If the character and party had 10 rounds of actions to come up with a solution/cast spells - then it was running as intended. The DM needs to reward creative solutions - though there are some characters if they are trapped by themselves and don't have the right tools, likely won't make it.
Some of the traps in ToA are brutal - and you haven't hit the worst ones yet. When I played it, my character was a rogue with expertise in perception and investigation and the Observant feat (variant human with Observant at level 1). This made his passive and active perception and investigation really high. By level 9, his passive perception was over 20. This helped the party a lot in the tomb in terms of noticing and figuring out the traps but the party was pretty paranoid after a while. My character also had the Pigments which made solutions for a lot of the traps possible even if we did trigger them.
thanks, surely there was some more I could've added and such feedback was good for me to improve. Unfortunately I can't take it back, and like I said it brought a nice moment where everyone remembered cool stuff the character did, which where in did many fun shenanigans.
Level 5 characters can heal themselves or other party members between "pulses" of the poison damage to keep themselves alive. They could drink an antitoxin potion to ignore the damage for a while. That's why it's useful to go into combat rounds - rolling initiative isn't strictly necessary, since the poison ticks on each person on their turn, rather than on a specific initiative number.
The player who grabbed the book off you should be told that you are the DM and you will run the adventure how you see fit - it is not up to them to say how you should run the game.
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Hello,
I've ran this a couple of times, and always got thrown off by the way some traps are described:
Spoilers ahead...
At the Kubazan shrine, lifting the cube without putting something in exchange will trigger the following trap:
The gas fills the shrine for 1 minute, then dissipates. Any creature that starts its turn inside the shrine while the gas is present must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or take 10 (3d6) poison damage. Creatures are affected even if they hold their breath or don’t need to breathe.
This section doesn't specify to roll initiative, but it does mention that the door to the area is closed and it'll a last a minute. Then it says that any creature that starts its turn inside while the gas is present must succeed on a DC 12 CON save.
So my interpretation at the heat of the moment was to roll 10 CON saves : each turn lasts 6 seconds, trap lasts 1 minute. I still feel that it is the right call but it also feels a bit weird to ask for several rolls of CON Save...
There's another instance with something similar occurs, at the tomb of the nine gods there's a chamber filled with corpses and two levers. If the character pulls the correct one they are free, if the character fails a void opens and try to suck the characters to their dead.
Any creature that starts its turn in the room and isn’t secured in some fashion must succeed on a DC 11 Dexterity saving throw or be pulled into the gullet and destroyed. If a character fails the saving throw, another character within reach, or any character bound to the first character by a rope, can use his or her reaction to grab on and grant the first character a reroll. After 1 minute, the lever resets with an audible clunk. The gullet remains open until the lever resets. Magic has no effect on the gullet or the darkness within.
This time the book does instructs you to roll initative, the tomb will negate any teleportation spell, so there is no way that I can think of right now that a creature starts its turn somewhere else. That means that the characters will need to roll once again DEX ST DC 11 ten times.
So yesterday I ran this encounter, players were all new players, the bard was left alone and tried to pick up the cube with mage hand. Door closed behind and got stuck for 10 turns inhaling the gas. Only missed 4 but that was enough to take him to 0 HP... then some turns left to roll some death saving throws. Which he missed by getting a nat 1. It was an impactful moment because it was the first death of the group and for the players in general (Artus Cimber was with them and used flesh to ice to keep the body posing in a cool way at the shrine and promised to get back for their friend). But it reminded me of the second example where an more experienced player didn't accept the way that I interpreted the trap and even took the book to read the trap.
I don't remeber how he determined that I was wrong, it doesn't even matter, was a long time and I don't really care haha.
But the question here is. Do you feel that I'm way off with my interpretation? I know that as a DM it's my call, I feel that many things justify this interpretation:
1.- Shrine traps are supposed to be deadly, they were built by corrupted omuans to satisfy false gods, these shrines even got the attention of Acerererak.
2.- Specifying that turns will occur and a trap bound by time does require many rolls.
3.- 12 DC is not that high
4.- Some characters could heal per turn, so they won't drop to 0 or delay that fate.
5.- also many features and traits will provide some re rolls, like luck, tides of chaos, etc.
so in the end I ran this the way I ran it, don't even fell bad but wanted to hear more opinions. Since just getting a 3d6 poison damage at level 5 from a deadly trap doesn't quite add up.
What are your thoughts?
Personally, I wouldn't run the shrines with anywhere near the same lethality as a Tomb trap. The shrines are, in my opinion, kind of a teaser for the gauntlet that is the Tomb of the Nine Gods; unlike the tomb, the shrines weren't built by Acererak. Once the door closes behind the party in the tomb, the adventure gets deadlier by orders of magnitude by virtue of the fact that they are stuck in a carefully maintained torture house ruled by a psychotic lich. So 3d6 poison damage from one of the two traps that protects the cube is perfectly reasonable to me, particularly since you're comparing it to one of the few insta-kill traps in the whole adventure.
I also probably wouldn't ask for ten identical saves in a row outside of a true combat scenario, especially if there is nothing the player can do to fix the actual problem. The lack of agency on the player side would be frustrating, and it can be really boring to roll the same thing over and over if all you're doing is seeing whether the dice gods screw you this time.
As for Kubazan's shrine in particular, I interpret the turns as a way to account for any characters that may somehow go in after the trap is triggered. The book specifies a gate that drops at the shrine entrance, not a door, so presumably people outside would be able to see if their companions need help. Anyone with a teleportation or shapechange ability might be able to get in - and once they do, they'd be subject to the CON save for the gas.
As with anything, though, the only interpretation that matters is the one the DM runs with - and players have no place pulling out a sourcebook to argue with it. I'm sorry that happened to you, and I'm glad your current players aren't that disrespectful.
As soon as the text says something is acting each turn - roll initiative. Using turns implies initiative order.
In this case the door is closed but the character might well have some way out so let them take their turns to see if they can escape the room before the 10 rounds have run their course. Each turn the character rolls a con save to see if they take damage. Also, keep in mind that if they make their save they take no damage so it is only really deadly if the characters are low level and fail a lot of the saves.
In terms of ways out ...
1) A character could dimension door out with a party member
2) A druid might be able to wildshape into a form that can escape since although the gas fills the room, the room is likely not air tight.
3) If the party found the Nolzur's Marvelous Pigments in one of the other quests in the adventure they could paint a hole in the door in a round or two and everyone could escape. (Those pigments are awesome :) ).
4) A character with an ability to become ethereal or with stone shape or meld with stone could probably just pass through the walls.
5) Several strong characters might be able to lift the door.
So although it could be 10 con saves - it usually isn't since the characters have a minute to do things.
However, there is also a question of how the DM runs the lead up to this encounter. There are hints of what a character should do and if the players aren't that experienced the DM should probably offer a bit of a hint. IF Artus is with the group then he can read Old Omuan. He can read the inscription outside the tomb "Kubazan urges us to tread without fear and to give back as much as we take." and then Artus can say to the party that these inscriptions are usually significant in some way. "A character who heeds the words gains some insight into the trial that awaits in area 3C." If the players aren't experienced enough to pick up on the hint then the DM should use the NPC to hint a bit more strongly.
In addition, the "door" is actually a gate. It can be opened from the outside with the key if the party has it or it's lock can be picked either from inside or outside. "Checks made to pick the gate lock from within the shrine have disadvantage". The character's are expected to try to open the gate to escape the gas. Also, since it is a gate, a character with a gust of wind spell or similar could blow the poison gas away from the gate and since you can see through a gate, misty step, thunderstep and other forms of teleportation would also work. Very few parties are going to have no resources at all to either escape the Chamber of Bravery or help a trapped group member to escape.
Again. It could turn into 10 dex saves but the characters get 10 actions and the first thing the character is likely to do is secure themselves to something. If they are secured they don't have to roll.
The room is filled to a depth of 6' with rotting corpses. There is also an Otuygh in the room. The gullet pulls in "everything" in the room. Note also that the nostrils are above the level of the corpses so the gullet/mouth is actually below the level of the corpses. There is also a sconce above the devil's face.
A character could grab hold of the lever in the nostril to secure themselves - I would probably give them advantage on the save for doing so rather than not having to save. A character could secure themselves to the sconce above the devils face with some rope. A character could drive a piton into the wall one round and attach a rope to it the next. If there are multiple characters then they could try to rope themselves into one large group so that their reactions will stack if someone fails a save.
If a character has the immovable rod (another treasure item in the module) they could activate it and use that to secure themselves and their companions with a bit of rope.
Honestly, most parties are only going to wind up with 1-2 saves before they have come up with some way to deal with the situation. The most dangerous time is the first round when they haven't had a chance to try and secure themselves yet.
If you are having the characters roll 10 saves without giving them AND their companions at least a chance to do something then yes, I think you were running them incorrectly.
1) In the bard's case - what level were they? Ideally, they should be at least 6-7 to be in Omu exploring for the cubes (but they could be 5 or 6) which gives them a decent selection of spells and options. The bard should also have healing spells so the tactic of healing every round should work too.
2) What resources did the party outside have that they could use to break into the tomb?
Anyway, as soon as the game mentions "turns" you should be resolving it in initiative and letting players use their actions to try to solve the problem with a time limit. The traps are deadly but the point is to provide tension and suspense by seeing if the party/characters can figure a way out.
It seems they were level 5.
If you ran it as - "Make 10 saves" "you die" - then I think you didn't run it correctly. If the character and party had 10 rounds of actions to come up with a solution/cast spells - then it was running as intended. The DM needs to reward creative solutions - though there are some characters if they are trapped by themselves and don't have the right tools, likely won't make it.
Some of the traps in ToA are brutal - and you haven't hit the worst ones yet. When I played it, my character was a rogue with expertise in perception and investigation and the Observant feat (variant human with Observant at level 1). This made his passive and active perception and investigation really high. By level 9, his passive perception was over 20. This helped the party a lot in the tomb in terms of noticing and figuring out the traps but the party was pretty paranoid after a while. My character also had the Pigments which made solutions for a lot of the traps possible even if we did trigger them.
thanks, surely there was some more I could've added and such feedback was good for me to improve. Unfortunately I can't take it back, and like I said it brought a nice moment where everyone remembered cool stuff the character did, which where in did many fun shenanigans.
Level 5 characters can heal themselves or other party members between "pulses" of the poison damage to keep themselves alive. They could drink an antitoxin potion to ignore the damage for a while. That's why it's useful to go into combat rounds - rolling initiative isn't strictly necessary, since the poison ticks on each person on their turn, rather than on a specific initiative number.
The player who grabbed the book off you should be told that you are the DM and you will run the adventure how you see fit - it is not up to them to say how you should run the game.