This thread is based off the other one where I ask for advice on how to make dungeons and traps more interesting. You can find it here:
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4868.0 After taking in all the advice I went to work. I asked my friend to make a new character and be a guinea pig as I'm learning how to become a better DM. After the last session where I came up a surprisingly fun dungeon in thirty minutes, he was in. I asked for him to make a level six character with 40k gold (He's be alone so I gave him more than what he should have by the wealth by level chart). Of all things, he decided to make a druid. His last character was an archer and he wanted to try something new, but he didn't know how to make a Druid and asked me for advice. I showed him the Druid's handbook in the handbooks section (great job the way) and he went to town. He probably spent ten hours on his character. Here's a quick summary of what he has going on:
[spoiler]
Level 6 Human Druid
Str: 8
Dex; 10
Con: 16
Int: 14
Wis: 19
Cha: 12
(His character was built with a stat spread I made called the heroic array - It's an 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, and 8 stat spread. It lets MAD classes get some of the stats they need and forces their character to take a dump stat and be bad at something hopefully providing a role play flaw)
Feats (2 flaws)
Natural Spell, Initiate of Nature, Ashbound, Greenbound Creature, Spell Focus (Conjuration), and Augment Summoning
In other words, his army of plant animals rum amok and destroy absolutely everything in their paths. But it doesn't start there, he can transform into a fleshraker dinosaur and cause more mayhem. I allowed all of this because I wanted to see how broken druids can be. To my surprise, not as much as I thought.
[/spoiler]
So after some role play I came up with quickly off the top of my head he entered the tower.
First floor: A large octagonal room with 3 switches and a button on the left side. The three switches are labeled 1 to 3. Below the switches is a large marking that looks like an asterisk. The door is on the opposite side of where the player enters. In the center of the room is an alter that is surrounded by three pillars of different sizes that do not connect with the ceiling. The smallest pillar is about 2ft tall and labeled, "1". The medium sized pillar is about 4ft tall and labeled "2". The last and largest pillar of about 6ft tall is labeled "3".
The alter in the center of the room read,
"High to low
a telling blow.
Low to high
the angels cry.
The neutral
will surely fall.
Careful eyes
surely surmise
the pilings position."
The riddles means that if the player flips the switches from 1 to 3 in order, a trap will spring shocking him for DC 15 2d6 blue lightning. Reflex save halves. If the player flips the switches from 3 to 1, an average swarm of cranium rats will attack (More on this), If he presses the switches starting with two, all the tiles in the floor will give way and he'll fall into the basement where he fights a Boneclaw. However, if he were to search or examine the pillars closely I would give him the next hint, "The pillars are sitting on top of the ground. They are not connected to the floor (Pushable)". It also tells him subtly to move the pillars in front of the switches matching them one for one.
As he went through the puzzle he did something I didn't expect... he had his animal companion and summons throw a single switch then pressed the button. What should I do? So, I shrunk him down to the tiniest size in all of D&D. Confused, he had them climb on top of each pillar. However, nothing happened. So he started throwing all three switches, first was 1 to 3. He's shocked by blue lightning. He rolls his eyes then immediately tries 3 to 1.
A single swarm of rats came out and won initiative. Their first round was to charm person the druid and they won. He obeyed their commands to attack his animal companion, but the combination of a naturally high AC boosted up by tiny size made it impossible to hit. At this time his other animal in the army (a wolf he got through a quick romp in the woods and a command animals check) noticed that there was a tiny button on the other side of the room. The wolf pressed it growing back to medium size.
On the next round, the rats immediately mind blast the wolf. The wolf fails the save with his +2 will save and is stunned. A few turns later that consist of the druid attacking his animals and the animals trying to press the button, everyone gets big and the druid finally breaks the DC 12 charm person. However these rats are ridiculously powerful. Every time the druid would use summon nature's ally, they would stun the new creature. This continued until the battlefield consisted of, a druid wildshaped into a fleshraking dinosaur, two wolves, a dire wolf, and a desmodu hunting bat. Slowly and through alot of effort he was able to overcome the rats mind blasts, but then terror struck. After the rats split apart, he was wide eyed. Two more of them? However, their mind blast was no where near as scary because of its low DC. After this fight he said, "Those rats are evil." Yes they are, very very evil.
After a little while longer, he examines the pillars and discovers their secret. After a bit of bad narration on my part (I really need to work on this) he figures that he should push the pillars to the asterisks. He matches each one perfectly, but then doesn't press the button. He's a single action away from solving the puzzle and he decides that he should start flipping switches! At this part I was becoming a bit frustrated, he was so close to the answer, just press the damned button! It's not hard! Unfortunately, my reactions sort of gave it away and he didn't flip the switches to knock out the floor and just pressed the damned button. He told me after wards that I shouldn't have done anything. He's right... T.T
Second Floor:The same size octagonal room that is completely barren except three switches on the far wall, the three skeletons that arm them, and the Demon Arrow standing guard by the closed door. On the sides where the enemies are and the players start a bit of trim lines outlines a long 5ft stretch of tiles. All of the tiles are entirely empty.
This fight consists of the three skeletons pulling switches that arm the spread of tile traps that make up the majority of this room. The first switch is the first ten feet of tiles from the player. The second the next ten feet. And the last switch, the final ten feet. Only a single switch can be pulled at a time so only a third of the room is trapped at any given time.
He uses a nature's servant to scout and the demon arrow fires a shot at it, but because of the weird rules about the servant, it takes no damage and reports back to him. During this time the demon arrow uses his summon tana-tri or whatever it is and succeeds in summoning another demon arrow (Only a 35% chance). After some spell casting he rushes his army (consisting of a fire elemental, two wolves, two dire bats, and himself still as a fleshraking dinosaur) up the stairs, past the trimming and onto the armed traps all at the same time. Everyone makes a reflex save of 15 against the pit traps.
I bent the rules of D&D a bit here. Given that so many pit traps were armed at the same time, it would be nearly impossible to quickly jump out of the way in time. Instead of ruling that he avoids the fall, I negated damage of the fall on a successful save. He didn't seem to mind and became extremely interested in the battle.
His bats made hit and run attacks against the skeletons and demon arrows. The greenbound's DR 10/magic and slashing saved him this fight. The arrows would focus fire the bats but even with their +14 to hit they were still missing 60% of the time. If they did manage to hit the DR 10 would reduce their damage down to 2 or 3 damage which the bats would regen the next turn.
In order to buy himself a little time he casts a wall of smoke between the skeletons and the rest of his army. I didn't make any sign or hint that he should have cast it directly on the bone arrows. With this spell, he effectively prolonged the fight and gimped himself. Slowly after a few more turns, a ton more falls through the floor, and some clever play on his part, he manages to beat the ECL 9 encounter (Two Bone Claws and 3 CR 1 Skeletons) winning 6,300 experience points gaining level 7.
However even after killing all of those monsters, the door still wasn't open? Upon closer examination the door read, "Were you born in a barn?"
He promptly replies, "No."
But nothing happened.
"Ok, fine I was."
Nothing happened. He examines the room again. It's completely empty except for the remainder of army that's still around. The door in front of him is closed and the door where he entered is open. He starts repeating, "Was I born in a barn?" to himself again and again. He knows there's something there, but can't quite put his finger on it.
He begins to flip the switches randomly, but nothing happens. He continues to do it. I tell him that if he listens carefully he can hear, "Clank, clunk, clank, clunk" of traps being armed and disarmed. He continues to repeat to himself, "Was I born in a barn?" And then it hits him.
"I have Stiggy (The bat familiar) fly over and close the door on the other side." Success.
After wards when I was talking to him about the session he said that this dungeon's traps felt like traps from a final fantasy game and that the puzzle on the first floor felt like he was playing Myst (I'll take that as a compliment!). Overall he enjoyed this session and now I have more floors to design. I've already got the third floor ready, now I just need to get the 4th and 5th ready to go (I doubt he'll clear all three in one night).
About the Druid: I now understand why Druids are a tier 1 class, but I was surprised how quickly his army was disabled by a single monster (Granted a powerful one). It's also incredible that he beat an ECL 9 encounter at level 6. If his character was in a party with other players, I'm not sure if I would allow him to become this ridiculous. If the other party members were optimized like he was then it would be fine, but I can imagine if his Druid was with let's say, a Paladin, Rogue, and Cleric. Everyone but the cleric would be feeling fairly useless. It's not the individual power that bothers me but the feelings of animosity that might develop in the Paladin and Rogue as the Druid does their job for them and better.
EDIT: I accidently pressed save when I was typing up the post.