To Prove D&D Exists for Echolon

Just another glitch in the Matrix.

Quote from MidnightPlat >>

OOC METAGAMING (this just got published in my YouTube feed):

OOC:  I will neither confirm nor deny these accusations!

Quote from Halfastbracegirdle >>

Oethe shoots at the thing again.

Attack: 22 Damage: 7

 It is no longer in the same location and even if you could see, it would be out of line of sight.

You hear the snap of bones breaking and the splash of thick liquid coming from the right of the room. It is followed by the a scraping on gravel noise.

Hawksley launches two more shafts into the darkness to no effect.

Everybody GOGO! 

Yes, that means you too Hawksley.

Tommary has a few choice words about the party's predicament directed toward the earshot of creature via vicious mockery WIS save DC 13 damage 3.

OOC: yeah, I know, though I don't know if Sazarac knows.  Besides I think it's better odds for me than shots in the dark, and I'm not going to waste my bomb when I'm not sure which part of the room I should toss it.

Quote from MidnightPlat >>

Tommary has a few choice words about the party's predicament directed toward the earshot of creature via vicious mockery WIS save DC 13 damage 3.

OOC: yeah, I know, though I don't know if Sazarac knows.  Besides I think it's better odds for me than shots in the dark, and I'm not going to waste my bomb when I'm not sure which part of the room I should toss it.

 OOC: You have to try something else. You can't see it.

OOC: my bad, I thought it was earshot not line of sight (guess my Bard's have a homebrew buff in my game ;).  

"Time to dare to be stupid, see you on the other side of the visual spectrum," Tommary says as he casts invisibility on himself.  Then he is going to move and cunning action move through the darkness in a disengage manner until he blind man's bluffs his sabre's way into the dais, he hopes.

Stealth 12

Perception to soft touch his way to the dais blindman's bluff following his sword point in a straight line style (presumably disadvantage because of the darkness 12.

OOC: this is my last 2nd level spell, slot unless I really need to get my blade on, I'm likely going to keep it up but I think I should be able to message some of you if I get any input that may be of help next round.

I know it's a skill check but bragging the nat 20 on stealth, I mean, I am invisible.

“Screw it, wish me luck.” Toots runs through the barrier into the next room, turns on her heel and attempts to hit the creature with another chill touch

Attack: 17 Damage: 5

For her bonus action she has her Uncommon Glamerweave create flames leaping from her outfit in an alternative attempt to provide illumination.

Quote from MidnightPlat >>

OOC: my bad, I thought it was earshot not line of sight (guess my Bard's have a homebrew buff in my game ;).  

"Time to dare to be stupid, see you on the other side of the visual spectrum," Tommary says as he casts invisibility on himself.  Then he is going to move and cunning action move through the darkness in a disengage manner until he blind man's bluffs his sabre's way into the dais, he hopes.

Stealth 30

Perception to soft touch his way to the dais blindman's bluff following his sword point in a straight line style (presumably disadvantage because of the darkness 24.

OOC: this is my last 2nd level spell, slot unless I really need to get my blade on, I'm likely going to keep it up but I think I should be able to message some of you if I get any input that may be of help next round.

 Tommary disappears into the darkness, he manages to slide over to the dais, it's about a foot high and has a 6 inch lip before forming a bowl filled with liquid. Tommary pirouettes to avoid falling in.

Quote from IamSposta >>

“Screw it, wish me luck.” Toots runs through the barrier into the next room, turns on her heel and attempts to hit the creature with another chill touch

Attack: 9 Damage: 10

 

For her bonus action she has her Uncommon Glamerweave create flames leaping from her outfit in an alternative attempt to provide illumination.

 Everybody sees Toots light herself on fire and dash into the room. You see her turn to the side and do some kind of magical stuff.

It takes a moment to realize that the flames are not hurting her.

OOC:  Do the flames around Toots wink out when she enters the darkness?

Quote from ArwensDaughter >>

OOC:  Do the flames around Toots wink out when she enters the darkness?

 OOC: No, they are illusions so are unaffected by darkness. You see the flames in your mind. 

Quote from Wysperra >>

Quote from ArwensDaughter >>

OOC:  Do the flames around Toots wink out when she enters the darkness?

 OOC: No, they are illusions so are unaffected by darkness. You see the flames in your mind. 

 OOC: Again, disagreeing on that, that’s not what the descriptions state at all. If your ruling is that all illusion magic is purely in the minds of the observers and not actually images in space then I request to swap out my illusion spells and my magic item because I was unaware of your very peculiar houserule on the matter when I chose them.

Quote from IamSposta >>

Quote from Wysperra >>

Quote from ArwensDaughter >>

OOC:  Do the flames around Toots wink out when she enters the darkness?

 OOC: No, they are illusions so are unaffected by darkness. You see the flames in your mind. 

 OOC: Again, disagreeing on that, that’s not what the descriptions state at all. If your ruling is that all illusion magic is purely in the minds of the observers and not actually images in space then I request to swap out my illusion spells and my magic item because I was unaware of your very peculiar houserule on the matter when I chose them.

 OOC: OK PAUSE: I made a ruling and you don't like it. I'm pausing the game to open discussion for everybody. You mean you want the flames to be extinguished like every other magical light source? You want the party to not be able to see you? The flames on glamerweave are illusions. I'm being consistent in telling you that illusions are visible, real flame is much reduced, and magical light is dispelled. 

I apologize to everyone, no snark at all seriously. I was not aware that this challenge in the dungeon would create so much tension. All of you aside from Echolon are GMs. In your dungeon you place a room with darkness. Would it be foiled by a torch? A light spell? Give the party easy mode when they are level 7? I want you all to have fun. Trying to puzzle this out was supposed to be mentally challenge fun. Sorry about that.

OOC:  I guess it comes down to what level the darkness is, it looks like Darkness defeats light magic from 2nd level down.  I think one can have an argument over whether illusion magic is or isn't light (vs. simply a mind trick etc).  It could be one of those things where the illusion of illumination could actually make things worse.  But the DM ultimately calls what illusion magic actually is including its effectiveness.  My instinct would be to not have illusions provide light necessarily since illusion based magic IMHO seems to require some knowledge of the environment in which the environment is deployed.  If you're senses are deprived in the space you want to paint, can you?

OOC further: I'll also say I'm finding this room/space as a fun challenge, I'm enjoying "attacking the darkness" and now "exploring the darkness" and debating whether I should sniff the liquid or just put my hand in it.   I can't find a "mechanical" or "character feature" fix to the scenario yet, so am literally groping blind for a solution, but that's fun to me, especially since the disadvantage system gives you a fighting chance against the adversary, not leaving anyone completely helpless.  But yeah, Marco Polo with a Displacer Beast is fun frustration IMHO.

I apologize.

As a DM I rule that any illusion which states that it creates images in an area does exactly that, and illusions which state they are created in a creature’s mind do exactly that, but that those are two separate types of illusions. I mean, if Major Image cannot replicate the effects of light by creating an image of a torch then that’s some weaksauce for a 3rd-level spell. Likewise if the illusory flames on Katness Everdeen’s dress were only in the mind’s of the beholders and not actual illusions of flames leaping from the cloth, then how would the TV cameras have picked it up to send the images to the viewers watching in their home districts? Ne?

As I said, if the magical darkness consumes the magical light, that makes sense, and if that’s what happens then that’s what happens. In this case I was attempting to see if a magic item would have any different outcome than spells have had. If the outcome is the same then it is what it is. (Heck, I have even expressed that I am okay with character death.) But I was specifically banking on major image for the utility applications of being able to put holographic sounds, smells, and images out into the world. I’m not asking that you change your ruling that all illusion magic is purely in the mind of the observer, it’s your world, things work however you want. I however was unaware that you ruled illusion magic works that way and made choices based on the understanding that it worked differently.

Additionally, I was having fun attempting to mentally solve the challenge. First I tried to solve it with a cascading array of light sources (instead of a single one) in an attempt to overcome the challenge. Then I attempted to use Fairy Fire to overcome the challenge. Then I was testing to see if light from a magic item of Uncommon rarity would have a different outcome than spells had. Those were all experiments in attempts to overcome the challenge. If all experiments failed, oh well, thems the breaks. (It took Edison, like, 1,000 tries to defeat darkness after all.)

What I didn’t find fun was learning mid-experiment that the tools Toots has at her disposal had suddenly turned out to be even more limited than I thought because I was unaware that illusions work differently in your world than I expected when I chose those tools.

PS- And frankly, if lighting myself up like a PC sized beacon of Displacer Beast attraction isn’t actually going to shed enough light for at least Toots and Tommary to have dim light in a 5’ radius from Toots, then I would rather the lights go out so at least that Displacer beast has disadvantage to attack me in the darkness too. I mean, ya know what I mean?

OOC: If I ran it like Kotath or numerous other folks on the forums, you all would be blind like bats with no hope of seeing in the dark. It is a dungeon feature so nothing short of Sunburst will dispell it. If I allowed it to be eliminated by any whichever kind of light, then the encounter would be boring. LIGHT! oh look, the monster, kill it! Lame.

I am allowing flashes of sight from Daylight and such to confirm that 1 - there is a creature 2- where it is located currently. But not to get rid of the darkness. If I took Sposta's interpretation of illusions, then you wouldn't see anything, because the darkness would blot it out. Currently, you can see Toot's illusions because they are in your mind. You can see her flaming garments because the flames are in your mind. Kat Everdeen used Continual Flame.

To sum up:

Magic light will flash but be dispelled, real fire light only extends about a foot (if you are father than a foot, you can't see the torch), illusions are visible but do not illuminate. You can make illusionary fire on Elyona's cloak, and can see the illusionary fire on the cloak, but you wouldn't be able to read by the illusionary fire.

Without knowing where the creature is, you can't target its location so auto-miss.

The creature has reach with tentacles otherwise you would have seen its body.

When the creature is close, the ground becomes sticky and dough-like. The effect is difficult ground.

The creature has not been attacking at disadvantage.

Quote from Wysperra >>

OOC: If I ran it like Kotath or numerous other folks on the forums, you all would be blind like bats with no hope of seeing in the dark. It is a dungeon feature so nothing short of Sunburst will dispell it. If I allowed it to be eliminated by any whichever kind of light, then the encounter would be boring. LIGHT! oh look, the monster, kill it! Lame.

I am allowing flashes of sight from Daylight and such to confirm that 1 - there is a creature 2- where it is located currently. But not to get rid of the darkness. If I took Sposta's interpretation of illusions, then you wouldn't see anything, because the darkness would blot it out. Currently, you can see Toot's illusions because they are in your mind. You can see her flaming garments because the flames are in your mind. Kat Everdeen used Continual Flame.

To sum up:

Magic light will flash but be dispelled, real fire light only extends about a foot (if you are father than a foot, you can't see the torch), illusions are visible but do not illuminate. You can make illusionary fire on Elyona's cloak, and can see the illusionary fire on the cloak, but you wouldn't be able to read by the illusionary fire.

Without knowing where the creature is, you can't target its location so auto-miss.

The creature has reach with tentacles otherwise you would have seen its body.

When the creature is close, the ground becomes sticky and dough-like. The effect is difficult ground.

The creature has not been attacking at disadvantage.

 

 

OOC: Katniss was wearing fire retardant. I've actually seen people wearing it light themselves on fire. I'm avoiding the argument and just going with whatever side wins, but I think it's a bad comparison.

Who's got the best animal handling, maybe we corral it and ride it out of here?  Other idea, we basically hold hands or do the shoulder squeeze stacking technique and ready actions for when someone's hit, when someone's attacked the rest pigpile it grappling wise, and once grappled those not holding it get a few licks in before it "does what it does."  It will be an ugly scene, but we were hired to be fools to do some dirty work, oh yeah.