Alt-Version Preview - The Great Stair
Added 2023-05-30 16:26:15 +0000 UTCHey everyone,
It's a little late - been busy, but here's a preview of the Alt-version you'll be getting next week.
The winning idea for 'what's inside the entrance? poll was a great stair that goes up and down. We've made two versions - one intact, and one abandoned, so you can decide what's best for your game :)
Comments
Awesome for you. The top of the stair is at the right. You can check the map in detail. So if you're descending only, you'd enter from the right and go down. If you have the players entering the map on the left... well, you could go up (exiting right) or down (exiting down), but this does limit and shorten the path to either exit.
Dave Lindsay
2023-06-02 09:02:35 +0000 UTCMaybe I'm missing something, but why would you make the entrance be on the right? It seems to me that is meant to be the exit, since with either of the other two entrances you have two different obstacles to deal with in order to reach that point. The break in the stairs along the top is far easier to cross than if you are coming down them (ie from the right). A 10 foot long jump that falls away 5 feet is MUCH easier to make than a 10 foot long jump that is climbing UP 5 feet. I would rule DC 5 vs. DC 15. I would also likely add an acrobatics check which, if failed, results in falling prone, and if failed badly (5 or more) results in tumbling off. And, they have to do it *twice*, once for each jump. Wheeee! :-) When I use this map, I'll modify it to remove the entrance./exit on the left, and they'll enter from the top. That gives the players two obvious ways to proceed: they can try to go UP those broken stairs (think LotR Stairs of Khazad Dum...but in the OTHER direction), which can be very fast, but high degree of difficulty. Or, they can go the other direction, winding all the way down, the climb up the rockface. Much longer, but lower degree of difficulty with proper climbing gear. Of course, I would put baddies along the bottom. Classic risk vs. reward. They can bypass a potential encounter by going the short, dangerous route. Or, they can take the long, apparently safer route, only to run into an unexpected danger. Or better yet...they split the party. :-P Regarding flying, make the entire area a anti-magic dead zone, so only natural flyers can traverse. Or, perhaps old magic has it warded from flying, for obvious reasons. 'Tis fantasy after all. :-) I already know exactly how this will pan out with my primary group. They will bypass the stairs, They'll send the strong and nimble monk jumping up, and from there he'll anchor and throw a rope down to the rest, who will tie off and jump 1 at a time. If any fall, the rope will limit them to 1d6 bludgeoning damage, and the monk (and any others) will pull them up. Then rinse/repeat for the second jump. If monk falls, which with 2 jumps is a non-trivial chance, he'll just safe fall (and run afoul of the fun below...all alone!) Great little map!
Ryan Rogers
2023-05-31 15:25:21 +0000 UTCHmm... but I can see the shadow caused by the ambient occlusion of the stair, and it shows the stairs descending anti-clockwise. Flipping hte map wouldn't solve it. It'd just make it a clockwise descent. Of course... if you're playing a game with flying spells... nothing matters, but many won't be.
Dave Lindsay
2023-05-31 08:02:19 +0000 UTCGood point. Perhaps we can just flip the map opposite.. with maps with too many exits I usually just say the end in collapsed tunnels og blind. It could be a fun thing if the group fought their way trough and over the collapsed hallways all around just to discover the exit is collapsed further down the way :-).
René Bargisen
2023-05-31 07:29:44 +0000 UTCFrom the entrance on the right, they can just drop a rope to avoid almost all of the stairs. If you don't add jumpscare giant spiders to this map, it's almost a waste... would be better if the exit (bottom of the stairs) wasn't so easily accessible from the entrance
Dave Lindsay
2023-05-31 01:25:32 +0000 UTCI really love these maps....great sense of awe and dread...not sure how else to describe it. Anyway, looking at them gave me an idea I wanted to toss your way. I think it would be really cool to have some 10x10 tiles (in Geomorphs style very similar to The Great Dungeon) of stairs (kinda like what you did with these 2 maps) that we could use to create an "infinite staircase" like the magical one described in the Planescape adventure anthology "Tales from the Infinite Staircase". You could do different versions of the tiles (e.g. normal, ruined, magical, etc.) that we can mix/match (and perhaps connect to tiles from The Great Dungeon). Anyway, just an idea. Cheers! :)
Rob Leonard
2023-05-30 22:13:16 +0000 UTC
