Time to Shine from the Shadows

Glowing orange and red light pulsing down the next stretch of hallway...what to do, what to do. Theories ranged from "it's a dragon" to "it's definitely a dragon." Perhaps remembering what happened when the plate-clad paladin was sent ahead, Mairwen the rogue was selected to scout out the tunnel, and check on the dragon. She wasn't too happy about facing off with a dragon alone...but she acquiesced. Naturally the group stayed as far away as possible (in the room with the dead zombies) while Mairwen wandered off some 100 feet down the hallway. Mairwen made some stealth and perception checks and passed them with flying colors (amazing what happens when 1. there's no one listening and 2. someone with stealth makes them). No traps...and no one was aware of her presence. As she approached the end of the hall, where it made a turn to the left, the roar grew louder and an oppressive heat began to fill the walls.

Looking around the corner she spotted 8 ornate stone dragon statues, 6 of which were spewing flame into the hallway. Again...this isn't a very original trap (and not really a trap at all, since it had been indicated during and after the zombie fight), and a common fantasy gag, but hey...this was only the second night still, and my first dungeon. It's only natural some tired themes would dominate my creativity process as I grasped for ideas, right?

Anyhow, the party soon huddled in the corridor behind the flames. Beyond the flames was an ornate double door, shut. It was quickly logiced that there must be a hidden switch of some kind to turn off the flames. This was a reasonable guess, and in fact the truth. There was a hidden panel that could control the flames. Perception checks on the near side, naturally, revealed nothing. Despite several kick ass rolls, the party was forced to realize that yes, they would have to cross the fire in order to turn off the fire. Someone, either Peredu or Avyx I can't remember, asked to use a dungeoneering or history check to logic out where the lever was likely to be. One was particularly insistent that by knowing history one would have come across other traps like this. On the one hand I pointed out that no, that's what dungeoneering was for. It combined personal experience with familiarity (be it through stories, an old mentor, or the last dungeon you've been in) to figure that sort of thing out. They persisted, and I relented, and allowed a history check. The resulting roll, not very good, yielded this result:

You remember from various tales of castles, daring heroes, and dastardly villains...that the lever to turn a barrier on and off usually isn't kept on the same side of the trap as those you're keeping out. Yeah, it was smart assed, but it got a chuckle...and illustrated (I hope) that history really isn't going to be useful in this case, at least not beyond what they already "knew." The dungeoneering checks though...yielded nothing of use.

Well, they decided they needed to cross the fire, and finally, it was Mairwen's turn to shine (sort of). She decided she was going to go "all Entrapment" on the fire, and acrobatics her way through the flames. She nailed the roll, natural 20, and proceeded to flip, handspring, and dive her way to safety. She, of course, ended with a Mary Lou Retton flourish. She smugly began to look for the lever to turn off the fire...and failed. And failed some more. From heroic grace to random fumbling and tapping random blocks on the wall looking for the lever...oh the cruel fate of random chance.

Growing weary of the ordeal Norge decided to just bull his way through the fire...rolling a perfunctory acrobatics check (which he did surprisingly not terrible at). Regardless, the dwarf plunged onwards, I imagine just stopping and going trying to time the pulses and not really "dodging" at all. Dwarves, it turns out, are flammable. Norge emerged from the flames a little scorched, missing more than a bit of his beard, and minus a healing surge or two. No biggie, his awesome cleric healing powers fixed that up, and he quickly smashed a false panel in the wall and turned off the fire. Done and done.

I didn't do this little scene as well as I should have. There was no real danger, since Norge could heal any damage anyone took if they just walked through the fire. Sure, it would have used up a couple healing surges, but there was no real "threat" to this...it was an inconvenience, and not a real perilous moment. The fire just was something between them and an arbitrary skill check (perception on the panel). It felt...forced? Artificial? I'm not sure, there had been traps before...and traps are an integral part of the dungeon crawl experience. This one just didn't feel like it should have. I could have thrown a couple archers on the far side, and a spearman pushing anyone attempting to cross back into the fire, in order to force the "time" aspect of the incident...but I did put this in to break the wear and tear of constant combat. At this point there had been 3 rooms of combat back to back to back...which was taking up nearly all the time (once they got into the hill anyhow). Close to 4 hours of gametime had been devoted to smashing things with swords...I've already decided that had to change. If I had my sh*t together I'd have made it a skill challenge probably, but it was too "short" since only two actions were needed to cross the obstacle. 1) dodge the flame 2) find the hidden switch. I suppose it served its purpose...as it took 4 steps to get through the fire (5 if you include them talking about their options beforehand: Mairwen cross(success), Mairwen search (fail), Norge cross (fail), Norge search (success)). A skill challenge is supposed to take something like a half dozen successes (more with a group this large), so it wasn't really appropriate. I suppose it did break the monotony of constant combat, and forced some non-combat oriented strategizing and discussion. The biggest success, one I hadn't anticipated, was I got the final member of the group (Mairwen) into the game in an active role. She was really the only one who posessed the necessary acrobatics to dodge the flame, and should have been able to disarm it. Actually, she would have been able to disarm each trap one by one but shhh, they never tried that option. Regardless of chosen action, Mairwen had joined the group, for reals, despite the "meh" level of the vignette. I'd give it a 7 out of 10...it functioned, but was hardly a spectacular success.

But enough of that self-reflection, and used up trap. There was a door to open...

Mairwen (starting at this point to "feel" her role in the game) put her head against the door and heard some sort of rhythmic murmuring through the thick oak. It was soft, and distant, so with a bit of trepidation she opened the door and stuck her head into the room...