I'm running this tonight, and I can't understand what is meant by the instructions in the mod. I've retyped them below.
Any help provided is *most* appreciated.
If you don't want to post on the forum, you can PM or e-mail me.
Thank you again!
---Lisa Ann
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Encounter 5 is the skill challenge "Breaching the Vault" (level 8/10, complexity 2 - 6 successes before 3 failures). The primary skill is Thievery, with supporting skills of Arcana, Dungeoneering, Heal, History, Nature, and Religion.
This is essentially a puzzle lock the party has to figure out how to open. The supporting skills allow a character to pick up a clue about the puzzle.
I'm confused over the Thievery and Arcana checks. This is the text for the Thievery check:
[INDENT]Thievery DC 20/21 (trained only; 6 maximum)
The character can disable the lock. Each Thievery check sets one ring to the correct answer so the party can use this as a way to get hints to open the lock without a Thievery check.[/INDENT]
HUH?!?
Didn't someone just MAKE a thievery check?!?
It's pretty much the same thing for Arcana:
[INDENT]Arcana DC 25/26 (trained only; 6 maximum)
The character can disable the lock. Each Arcana check sets one ring to the correct answer so the party can use this as a way to get hints to open the lock without an Arcana or Thievery check.[/INDENT]
I think I understand the difference between this Arcana check and the other one, which is like all the other supporting skill checks:
[INDENT]Arcana 20/21 (0 successes, 1 maximum)
The character recognizes the selections on [x] as [foo]. They seem to be in [blah] order.[/INDENT]
Thanks for reading this far.
Encounter 5 is the skill challenge "Breaching the Vault" (level 8/10, complexity 2 - 6 successes before 3 failures). The primary skill is Thievery, with supporting skills of Arcana, Dungeoneering, Heal, History, Nature, and Religion.
This is essentially a puzzle lock the party has to figure out how to open. The supporting skills allow a character to pick up a clue about the puzzle.
I'm confused over the Thievery and Arcana checks. This is the text for the Thievery check:
[INDENT]Thievery DC 20/21 (trained only; 6 maximum)
The character can disable the lock. Each Thievery check sets one ring to the correct answer so the party can use this as a way to get hints to open the lock without a Thievery check.[/INDENT]
HUH?!?
Didn't someone just MAKE a thievery check?!?It's pretty much the same thing for Arcana:
[INDENT]Arcana DC 25/26 (trained only; 6 maximum)
The character can disable the lock. Each Arcana check sets one ring to the correct answer so the party can use this as a way to get hints to open the lock without an Arcana or Thievery check.[/INDENT]
I think I understand the difference between this Arcana check and the other one, which is like all the other supporting skill checks:
[INDENT]Arcana 20/21 (0 successes, 1 maximum)
The character recognizes the selections on [x] as [foo]. They seem to be in [blah] order.[/INDENT]
Thanks for reading this far.
Show
As I understand it, it means that the characters can use either Thievery or Arcana to figure out which setting one ring needs to go to in order to advance the progress toward opening the lock. I'm guessing that Thievery would be used like a 'safecracker' (character listening to the lock to determine when to stop rotating the specific dial they're working on), while Arcana would allow arcane senses to determine something similar (kind of like using Arcana as an 'x-ray' on the specific dial they're working on).
Other listed uses of Arcana and Thievery cover other things the players might try to do with their skills, but they don't necessarily have anything specific to do with picking the lock.
Of course, if the players understand the code used in the lock mechanism, they can set some of the dials without using skill checks at all.
As I understand it, it means that the characters can use either Thievery or Arcana to figure out which setting one ring needs to go to in order to advance the progress toward opening the lock. I'm guessing that Thievery would be used like a 'safecracker' (character listening to the lock to determine when to stop rotating the specific dial they're working on), while Arcana would allow arcane senses to determine something similar (kind of like using Arcana as an 'x-ray' on the specific dial they're working on).
Other listed uses of Arcana and Thievery cover other things the players might try to do with their skills, but they don't necessarily have anything specific to do with picking the lock.
Of course, if the players understand the code used in the lock mechanism, they can set some of the dials without using skill checks at all.
I'm starting to wonder if "without" should have been "with" in the instructions...
*shrug* Maybe I'm just reading it incorrectly still.
Ah, well.
Wish me (and the party) luck! ;)
---Lisa Ann
I'm starting to wonder if "without" should have been "with" in the instructions...
Actually, I think the reference to 'without a
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Thievery
Don't worry, I didn't read the spoiler texts. :D
---
(The Great) Aradran Ormulogun
Infinite Monkey Wednesday gamers, keep out!
When we left our intrepid heroes, they were in the middle of decoding the lock. They'd figured out each of the rings and found the note. However, they were taking a blind guess (and guessing wrong) as to which one was the first ring - there's nothing anywhere there that tells them which is ring 1 and which is ring 6 without a thievery or arcana check (which they haven't made and I haven't suggested). If they continue on that path and just punch in the wrong combination, does that immediately set the alarm off and fail them, even though they got no skill failures? My thinking as a GM is yes, since they were silly enough to make what basically amounts to a 50/50 guess without even attempting a skill check to verify it... however, my real life as a bank supervisor tells me that punching in the wrong combination once rarely causes much trouble - you have to screw it up repeatedly to bring down problems.
I'm running this tonight, and I can't understand what is meant by the instructions in the mod. I've retyped them below.
I have only played in this, not DMed it... But the puzzle was cute.
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There are 6 concentric rings.
The rings have items around them.
The items are in an order (most powerful to least powerful, tallest to shortest, oldest to youngest, etc..)
Technically you can solve the puzzle without a single skill check if you are a big D&D geek and happen to know the books like the back of your hand. Line up all the items and you are done. That is meta gaming the puzzle away however..
Back to your question:
The "secondary" skill checks allow you to line up a single ring of the corresponding type.
For example: a success on the Heal, will give you the order of the diseases from worst disease to mildest disease.
If you don't have someone with the secondary skill, you can use the 'arcana' or the 'thievery' skills instead.
For example: no one in the party has heal.. So to understand which way to place the ring with the diseases, you make a thievery or arcana check. You now know how the ring should be oriented do it by understanding the magical nature / mechanical operation of the lock rather than solving the puzzle.
The way my party did it was to make one arcana check upon finding the lock, one perception check to find the note, 6 different skill checks, to get the position of each ring, and one arcana check to make sure we got the whole set of the rings in the proper layout (most dangerous down vs up)
It's possible to just make a ton of thievery checks and solve the puzzle as well.
There are 6 concentric rings.
The rings have items around them.
The items are in an order (most powerful to least powerful, tallest to shortest, oldest to youngest, etc..)
Technically you can solve the puzzle without a single skill check if you are a big D&D geek and happen to know the books like the back of your hand. Line up all the items and you are done. That is meta gaming the puzzle away however..
Back to your question:
The "secondary" skill checks allow you to line up a single ring of the corresponding type.
For example: a success on the Heal, will give you the order of the diseases from worst disease to mildest disease.
If you don't have someone with the secondary skill, you can use the 'arcana' or the 'thievery' skills instead.
For example: no one in the party has heal.. So to understand which way to place the ring with the diseases, you make a thievery or arcana check. You now know how the ring should be oriented do it by understanding the magical nature / mechanical operation of the lock rather than solving the puzzle.
The way my party did it was to make one arcana check upon finding the lock, one perception check to find the note, 6 different skill checks, to get the position of each ring, and one arcana check to make sure we got the whole set of the rings in the proper layout (most dangerous down vs up)
It's possible to just make a ton of thievery checks and solve the puzzle as well.
On the subject of encounter 5, I have another question. I've actually got this in progress for my group right now (same group, splitting the mod over two weeks).
Opinions welcomed and appreciated!
I'd say just let the regular skill challenge rules handle this: a total of three failures results in failing the skill challenge. Of course, not all of these failures need to be in the same portion of the skill challenge...
--
Pauper
For the person who has a group of people RPing through it - remember the players are not the characters, ask for an Arcana check and let them get the right 1st Ring from it (or not depending on the result).