u/raven_guy

UPDATE: It seems like I’m dealing with a frustrated player rather than a fully frustrated table.

So I had conversations with two other players other than the one who complained to me in messages. One player (sorcerer) was actively trying strategize in his head how to send up AoE attacks (he said he had a total of 5 fireballs ready to go, lol) but once everyone started scattering he just went along with the group.

The other player I spoke to was the paladin warlock who actually called for them to run in the first place. He told me he had a lot of fun in the chaos and the panicky run around was very on brand for the party (he’s not wrong). I asked his to provide a rousing “back-against-the-wall-Captain-America” speech at some point during the next session but it can’t sound like it came from me, and he agreed.

Last night, the party encountered Auril inside the glacier. I used a statblock from the subreddit rather than the book one and played her as a flying hit and run enemy rather than a “stay there and take it” enemy.

The fighter in the group can do 50 points of damage in a turn to her, the casters have spells like fly and call lightning, and the warlock/paladin’s familiar was able to stay up around her to call out where she was in the sky.

Thing is, the group flat-out panicked and tried to run, I kept telegraphing that she was faster than them by having her attack the lead edge of the party, but they weren’t taking the hint that they need to deal with her. The wizard finally trapped her in a wall of force, but that only lets them escape for so long. She’s going to chase them down.

Just venting a little because there was no discussion of tactics or what they should do, one player panicked and ran, which led to a lot of confusion for the group.

Now they’re entering the Spire and she’s about 5 minutes from escaping the wall of force and she’ll catch up in about 30 seconds after that.

Just needed to vent.

Edit: Thanks for the help. I managed to keep it in Home mode and the lights never turned on. There are definitely bugs in the system because the away mode was given no control over any lights, I disabled through individual light settings and in the away master setting. I’ve made sure to change any of routines that have the word “leave” or “away” in it. I get what they’re trying to do, but honestly who turns on lights randomly in the middle of the night multiple times?

I’m not sure what to do anymore about this. Every smart light in my house is turning on at (seemingly) random times. This morning they all came on at like 5:32am, they were on when I came home for lunch and after work. Came on twice at random this evening. Every time I asked Alexa why my lights are coming on she told me it’s from the Home or Away mode, except I have deleted or disabled this settings multiple times now.

It actually looks like they’re just being created within the app without my knowledge. Has anyone dealt with this?

For those of you who ran the Octad as written, I have two questions:

Step 4: “Compel a Secret” how seriously did you take the “Compel” part? I’m guessing my players are just going to spill whatever in order to complete that step, which is fine, but it seems to me like they should be casting Zone of Truth or some other spell that would force a secret out.

The section reads “Any creature who performs the rite can pass through the force field” so everyone in the party has to perform the Rite? Or did you all hand wave it? I’m morbidly curious on how some of my non-spellcasters would handle the Rite.

Thanks for the help.

I just started this chapter and the dungeon felt underwhelming. First the archaeologists warn them about the first traps and then tip them off about the secret entrance in the pit spike chamber.

We ended our first session with the party having teleported into one of the two sphere of annihilation rooms and as I was prepping for it, I just thought 4d10 on a Dex 13 save is level 5 or 6 danger, not level 16. So I upped the ante on the sphere:

First - I entered them into initiative order. At the top of each round, I rolled a 1d4 and whoever was standing in the square that got rolled up had to make the Dex save.

Second - I kept the Dex 13/4d10 damage but changed it to “if they succeed they take the damage. If they fail roll a 1d100.”

Third - I created a table: Head, Torso, Upper L/R arm, Lower L/R arm, L/R hand, Upper L/R leg, Lower L/R leg, L/R foot. Each section was assigned a group of numbers based on its probability to get hit (i.e. Torso had a 30% chance, hands, feet, and head were 3%).

Fourth - if hands or feet were rolled, they were instantly lost. If head was rolled, they were instantly killed. Torso resulted in 10d10 damage, all limbs were 8d10 damage.

Fifth - for any limb, they had to make a DC 18 Con save or lose the limb at the point of contact.

My players really haven’t panicked much during this campaign, many of the challenges and fights end up being cakewalks for them. When they found themselves in this room, the first round the warlock succeeded on his save and took like 22 points of damage. No panicking, they didn’t even start looking for a way out. On the second round, the wizard failed and got hit in the torso for 64 points of damage, and that’s when they realized if they don’t solve this soon, they will die trapped in this closet. They are now taking this tomb much more seriously.