First time posting here, and have no idea if im posting in the right spot so, sorry for anything.
I have a question. Im running a homebrew campaign for level one characters. Right now, after cleaning a mineshaft full of giant rats they found the entrance for an ancient crypt. To open the door for this crypt they would need a key and a sentence, used together. If someone uses only the key without saying the sentence, they would trigger the "security measures" of the crypt. Undeads would rise, attack the characters and the door wouldn't open.
They already have the key and already shove it inside the lock (that's where we left of) The undead will rise and they will fight. If there's no TPK, I need tips on how i could allow the characters to open the door without the sentence. There are runes written on the door, but they are in "ancient common" and the characters don't understand.
Lorewise, there's a magic item the quest giver wants inside the crypt and only him have the ways to open the door safely. But i want to give the characters a chance open the door and steal it.
Maybe its not a sentence. Maybe is something hidden in the crypt. Maybe the undead they kill have the sentence (yet in ancient common). i dont know... please, help!
You might want to let you players make some kind of knowledge check to figure out the runes and discover the phrase they need to speak.
Some possibilities would be: Arcanato figure out what magics make up the "security measures" and how to circumvent them. History to recall information about the crypt itself, its builder and who or what may be inside. Investigation to figure out if there is a way to disarm the protections on the crypt. Religion to understand the nature of the undead guardians and what binds them there.
Meh, just have the door open. They don’t know the rules.
key and sentence: door opens, no undead
just key: door opens, all the undead.
youve made a common error which is creating a challenge that the players don’t have multiple ways around. How were they meant to find the sentence? What if they’d killed the one who could have given it to them? What if they forgot it? Just let the door open.
Circumvent the rising dead is not a option anymore! hahahah! But i guess it will be a easy combat.
My problem with the "figure the ancient language out" solution is that the password wouldn't be written on the door itself. It would be a riddle at best. Figure out a ancient language inside a cave, understand the words, understand that it is a riddle, find the answer for this riddle with the exactly right words, for a party with no characters with linguist background, sounds a bit forced to me. They're no lara croft!
Your "arcana" and "investigation" suggestions gave me an idea. Maybe instead of a sentence, this could be a puzzle they could brute force. Everytime they miss the undead guard could rise again. But this sounds a bit silly. Still don't know.
They were never supposed to open the door on they own. The original idea was: they find the crypt, go back to the quest giver, then go back to the crypt with the qv. But... Im figuring the the world as i go, and i had an idea that would have some interesting unfolds in the future if they take the A or B path.
The "key and sentence: door opens, no undead just key: door opens, all the undead." solution was my original idea, but, due to a series of shit rolls, i almost TPK then with only giant rats!
Im not creating a story. Just a world that reacts to the characters. If they killed the quest giver, (What would be very difficult since they are all level 1) They would never know what is inside this crypt. I would be sealed forever.
When homebrewing you'll quickly come to see the need to allow things to fail upwards. When coming up with your adventure you'll have in your mind the 'correct' way they'll handle the obstacles, but it's important to realise when you're making those assumptions, and plan for a way around it when they inadvertently fail to follow your logic. In this case, the key should open the door, and the phrase should 'de-trap it' - regardless on if they failed your puzzle, the adventure still progresses (though at a cost to the players with having to burn resources in fighting). If you don't allow them to succeed in their failures, all you've done is written in a dead end, which'll frustrate everyone.
As far as your problem goes, I'd be careful on how you punish them for not knowing there is a second counterpart to the opening of the door. Is it reasonable for them to know that they are missing an element of the puzzle, or had you thrown opportunities for them to suspect there could be a trap? Unless they've missed those fair opportunities, I might recommend you just skip the trap/puzzle, and let them in. That isn't to say you can't spring the undead on them anyway, if you'd like a combat encounter here. Most people can agree that the dead really hate having their tombs robbed, so it makes sense. 'Does this make sense?' is pretty much my mantra when I'm writing new content for my game, and I think that helps a lot in preventing frustration and confusion among players (which in turn prevents you having to deal with dead-ends when they might come up).
Edit: Just one more thought; personally, as much as I wish otherwise, I've never had giving my players a puzzle go well. It mostly just takes up a lot of time, and when they get stuck they'll start asking you if they can roll the dice for the solution. Puzzles test the player, not the character.. which isn't bad, exactly. But keep that in mind.
'Does this make sense?' is somewhat my mindset when i am DMing. As i said, i had one idea one they entered the crypt and this evolved to something different after. A more interesting consequence for what they do here than just a tomb raid. But I guess you guys are right. Just let then open the damn thing and deal with the undead.
Maybe i can give then the opportunity to give the magic item (a serpentine owl figurine) to the guy and diverge the storyline here. I really want the to know that whatever happen next is on then.
lol yeah, worst case scenario I find making something too easy is better than too hard. But you know your players.
maybe like...the undead speak “ancient common”. I think they can know the language they knew in life. Perhaps the moans and groans they are making sound similar to common but they can’t quite understand and they can try to piece it together as they are fighting them.
or maybe they are ghosts of past adventurers and they have another quest, if they RP well enough, they can get a quest from them instead of fighting and the ghost(s) will tell them the password.
I get so mad thinking about that "speak friend and enter" riddle, because damn.. it's so simple and elegant, I wish I could use it. Though.. if everyone at the table could excuse 'metagaming' a bit for the sake of a good 'fetch quest', you could set the language they need to know the word 'friend' to be translated into be something no one in the party speaks. Could be fun to have them need to search for an NPC that knows an ancient forgotten language.
The party is all about RP. During the first session they took pretty much 20 minutes only in the breakfast at the inn trying to figure out each other. (and got free booze in the process)
The ghost idea is actually pretty good! A ghost can talk better than a zombie and the players will be less inclined to attack it if it don't attack first.
One of the player is a LotR superfan, so i KNOW speak "friend" will be the FIRST thing they will try! hahahah. Leaving the crypt would make then (maybe) follow the original idea and fetch the quest giver so i dont think they would search for someone to translate it. They are in the middle of nowhere right now. And, honestly, i don't want to stretch this part very much.
Maybe I could use the "friend" idea with the name of the family buried in this crypt. As a family name could be relatively unaltered over centuries. Maybe an heraldic check to figure out the family crest that could remember a modern version of itself? Well... if not, i will just raise the dead and open the door!
Game will be this wednesday, via Discord. I will remember to tell you guys what happens!
Hello fowks.
First time posting here, and have no idea if im posting in the right spot so, sorry for anything.
I have a question. Im running a homebrew campaign for level one characters. Right now, after cleaning a mineshaft full of giant rats they found the entrance for an ancient crypt. To open the door for this crypt they would need a key and a sentence, used together. If someone uses only the key without saying the sentence, they would trigger the "security measures" of the crypt. Undeads would rise, attack the characters and the door wouldn't open.
They already have the key and already shove it inside the lock (that's where we left of) The undead will rise and they will fight. If there's no TPK, I need tips on how i could allow the characters to open the door without the sentence. There are runes written on the door, but they are in "ancient common" and the characters don't understand.
Lorewise, there's a magic item the quest giver wants inside the crypt and only him have the ways to open the door safely. But i want to give the characters a chance open the door and steal it.
Maybe its not a sentence. Maybe is something hidden in the crypt. Maybe the undead they kill have the sentence (yet in ancient common). i dont know... please, help!
You might want to let you players make some kind of knowledge check to figure out the runes and discover the phrase they need to speak.
Some possibilities would be:
Arcana to figure out what magics make up the "security measures" and how to circumvent them.
History to recall information about the crypt itself, its builder and who or what may be inside.
Investigation to figure out if there is a way to disarm the protections on the crypt.
Religion to understand the nature of the undead guardians and what binds them there.
Just some random ideas. I hope it helps.
Meh, just have the door open. They don’t know the rules.
key and sentence: door opens, no undead
just key: door opens, all the undead.
youve made a common error which is creating a challenge that the players don’t have multiple ways around. How were they meant to find the sentence? What if they’d killed the one who could have given it to them? What if they forgot it? Just let the door open.
Hey, thank you Erinel!
Circumvent the rising dead is not a option anymore! hahahah! But i guess it will be a easy combat.
My problem with the "figure the ancient language out" solution is that the password wouldn't be written on the door itself. It would be a riddle at best. Figure out a ancient language inside a cave, understand the words, understand that it is a riddle, find the answer for this riddle with the exactly right words, for a party with no characters with linguist background, sounds a bit forced to me. They're no lara croft!
Your "arcana" and "investigation" suggestions gave me an idea. Maybe instead of a sentence, this could be a puzzle they could brute force. Everytime they miss the undead guard could rise again. But this sounds a bit silly. Still don't know.
Hey Major Puddles,
They were never supposed to open the door on they own. The original idea was: they find the crypt, go back to the quest giver, then go back to the crypt with the qv. But... Im figuring the the world as i go, and i had an idea that would have some interesting unfolds in the future if they take the A or B path.
The "key and sentence: door opens, no undead just key: door opens, all the undead." solution was my original idea, but, due to a series of shit rolls, i almost TPK then with only giant rats!
Im not creating a story. Just a world that reacts to the characters. If they killed the quest giver, (What would be very difficult since they are all level 1) They would never know what is inside this crypt. I would be sealed forever.
When homebrewing you'll quickly come to see the need to allow things to fail upwards. When coming up with your adventure you'll have in your mind the 'correct' way they'll handle the obstacles, but it's important to realise when you're making those assumptions, and plan for a way around it when they inadvertently fail to follow your logic. In this case, the key should open the door, and the phrase should 'de-trap it' - regardless on if they failed your puzzle, the adventure still progresses (though at a cost to the players with having to burn resources in fighting). If you don't allow them to succeed in their failures, all you've done is written in a dead end, which'll frustrate everyone.
As far as your problem goes, I'd be careful on how you punish them for not knowing there is a second counterpart to the opening of the door. Is it reasonable for them to know that they are missing an element of the puzzle, or had you thrown opportunities for them to suspect there could be a trap? Unless they've missed those fair opportunities, I might recommend you just skip the trap/puzzle, and let them in. That isn't to say you can't spring the undead on them anyway, if you'd like a combat encounter here. Most people can agree that the dead really hate having their tombs robbed, so it makes sense. 'Does this make sense?' is pretty much my mantra when I'm writing new content for my game, and I think that helps a lot in preventing frustration and confusion among players (which in turn prevents you having to deal with dead-ends when they might come up).
Edit: Just one more thought; personally, as much as I wish otherwise, I've never had giving my players a puzzle go well. It mostly just takes up a lot of time, and when they get stuck they'll start asking you if they can roll the dice for the solution. Puzzles test the player, not the character.. which isn't bad, exactly. But keep that in mind.
Thanks for the toughs syzygyeolith!
'Does this make sense?' is somewhat my mindset when i am DMing. As i said, i had one idea one they entered the crypt and this evolved to something different after. A more interesting consequence for what they do here than just a tomb raid. But I guess you guys are right. Just let then open the damn thing and deal with the undead.
Maybe i can give then the opportunity to give the magic item (a serpentine owl figurine) to the guy and diverge the storyline here. I really want the to know that whatever happen next is on then.
Thanks for the tips, guys! Appreciate it!
Remember Lord of the Rings? Speak “friend” and enter.
hahahah! kinda where im coming from! But i wouldn't make it that easy.
lol yeah, worst case scenario I find making something too easy is better than too hard. But you know your players.
maybe like...the undead speak “ancient common”. I think they can know the language they knew in life. Perhaps the moans and groans they are making sound similar to common but they can’t quite understand and they can try to piece it together as they are fighting them.
or maybe they are ghosts of past adventurers and they have another quest, if they RP well enough, they can get a quest from them instead of fighting and the ghost(s) will tell them the password.
I get so mad thinking about that "speak friend and enter" riddle, because damn.. it's so simple and elegant, I wish I could use it. Though.. if everyone at the table could excuse 'metagaming' a bit for the sake of a good 'fetch quest', you could set the language they need to know the word 'friend' to be translated into be something no one in the party speaks. Could be fun to have them need to search for an NPC that knows an ancient forgotten language.
The party is all about RP. During the first session they took pretty much 20 minutes only in the breakfast at the inn trying to figure out each other. (and got free booze in the process)
The ghost idea is actually pretty good! A ghost can talk better than a zombie and the players will be less inclined to attack it if it don't attack first.
One of the player is a LotR superfan, so i KNOW speak "friend" will be the FIRST thing they will try! hahahah. Leaving the crypt would make then (maybe) follow the original idea and fetch the quest giver so i dont think they would search for someone to translate it. They are in the middle of nowhere right now. And, honestly, i don't want to stretch this part very much.
Maybe I could use the "friend" idea with the name of the family buried in this crypt. As a family name could be relatively unaltered over centuries. Maybe an heraldic check to figure out the family crest that could remember a modern version of itself? Well... if not, i will just raise the dead and open the door!
Game will be this wednesday, via Discord. I will remember to tell you guys what happens!
Thanks you very much!!!