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Alyri wrote:

Your right. I was looking at my notes on that encounter and not the actual encounter in the book

Wow. Everything really does come back to the Rule 0 Fallacy for you.

Okay just how can I be completely wrong with what I am saying,(because I changed the encounter),

Because you claimed that the encounter said something that it doesn't say. I, on the other hand, was specifically talking about how the encounter can be changed. How is it even possible that you can't understand that?

See I can admit when I am wrong.

You honestly believe that saying, "How can I be wrong?" constitutes an admission that you're wrong? How is it even possible that you could believe that?

But you didn't even comment on my interpretation of the Chamber of Statues. All you have done is belittle my mistake,

So I didn't discuss it except insofar as I discussed it?

AFAICT, you are posting from Bizarro World.

wyrdwalker wrote:

My impression is that a wall is created between the two North cherubs, blocking access to the North room, and containing the water which is being poured. The only possible connection the cherubs have to the trap created by the other three statues, is that when this trap is destroyed, the flow of water out of the suddenly missing cage knocks the PCs to within two squares of the titan statue, well within range of its attack.

Huh.

Okay, looks like there is a serious problem with the cherub section of the encounter. I think we have now had four mutually incompatible interpretations of what the arcane cage does. And, AFAICT, they're all legitimate interpretations of the text describing the actual arcane cage.

Here's the original text:

Keep on the Shadowfell]Arcane Cage (immediate interrupt, when a creature walks past the northern two statues wrote:

Arcane Cage (immediate interrupt, when a creature walks past the northern two statues; encounter)
The statues create a wall of arcane magic to enclose the area between the four statues. The wall lasts as long as at least three statues remain intact. The wall cannot be damaged and is affected only through the destruction or disabling of the cherub statues.

And I believe these are the four proposals for what that might look like:

To that we can also add some confusion from the phrase "when a creature walks past the northern two statues". There seem to be two meaningful possibilities:



Of course, if you go with the second possibility for the force cage, the answer to this question is pretty obvious (it'll be the one that traps the triggering character inside the force cage).

Okay, thinking about this a bit, I think we can narrow down the possibilities by taking two facts into consideration:

(1) Barrier effects "run along the edge of a specified number of squares". Since each statue is entirely within one square, the statues either have to be inside the barrier or they have to be outside the barrier -- they can't be both.

(2) The dragon statues are supposed to be able to use their force shot ability against characters outside the barrier making attacks the statues. Therefore, the statues have to be outside the barrier. (And even if this wasn't true, you wouldn't want a scenario where only the character trapped inside the cage can lower the cage: If they get killed by the whirlpool effect, not only are they unretrievable, but the location of the cage effectively prevents the rest of the group from reaching the end of the adventure.)

Thus we can conclude it must be one of these two scenarios:



And we can further conclude that it can't be the latter because, in that case, you would never be able to destroy 3 of the statues and, thus, escape the arcane cage.

So the correct pairing is:



OTOH, this doesn't make any sense: First, because the cherubs have to be inside the cage (they're pouring water and the trapped character is slammed against them for damage). Second, because under this interpretation the guy inside the cage is effectively taken out of the game: There's nothing they can do to escape. All they can do is hang tight, soak up the damage, and hope somebody gets them out.

Hmm... I dunno. The encounter doesn't seem to work (or work well) with the RAW. I think you pretty much have to use the last pairing and then ad hoc it. Or redesign it so that the cherub statues each take up 2-squares (and thus you can have them half-in and half-out of the arcane cage without breaking the RAW.)

wyrdwalker wrote:

The fact that there is no mention of drowning damage, however, means that it is expected that the trap will be dismantled long before the water reaches such a level, or swimming is an assumed skill (much like reading for non barbarians in 3.5)

FYI, the water stops at a height of 5 feet. That's stated in the water trap section of the cherub statue's stat block.

And reading for non-barbarians is stated in the Speak Language skill description in 3.5: "A literate character (anyone but a barbarian who has not spent skill points to become literate) can read and write any language she speaks."

The fact that the Athletics skill doesn't help with the trap is probably because there's absolutely no way to avoid the whirlpool damage, so there's nothing to help with.

I am thinking the barrier is meant to run through the middle of the squares (thus making the squares in question unenterable) with the statues themselves being the corners.

Just to add fuel to this fire, I was looking through my friend's copy of the PHB and discovered something that only serves to deepen the confusion over what the arcane cage is supposed to be doing.

In the Quick Start Rules that came with Keep on the Shadowfell, there were three areas of effect defined: Barriers, Blasts, and Bursts. In the PHB, on the other hand, barriers no longer exist. They've been replaced by walls.

Here are the rules from Keep on the Shadowfell:

Keep on the Shadowfell]Barrier: A barrier runs along the edge of a specified number of squares. A barrier must cross at least one edge of the origin square.

And here are the rules from the PHB:

Barrier: A barrier runs along the edge of a specified number of squares. A barrier must cross at least one edge of the origin square.[/quote]
And here are the rules from the PHB:

PHB]Wall: A wall fills a specified number of contiguous squares within range, starting from an origin square. Each square of the wall must share a side— wrote:

Wall: A wall fills a specified number of contiguous squares within range, starting from an origin square. Each square of the wall must share a side—not just a corner—with at least one other square of the wall, but a square can share no more than two sides with other squares in the wall (this limitation does not apply when stacking squares on top of each other). You can shape the wall however you like within those limitations. A solid wall, such as a wall of ice, cannot be created in occupied squares.

I have two reactions to this:

(1) Why wasn't this fixed in the Quick Start Rules? Yet another example of sloppy editing.
(2) The encounter still doesn't work.

It can't be option #1 because the arcane cage is a solid wall (otherwise you could walk through it and the trap would be pointless), and therefore it can't be formed in the squares occupied by the cherub statues.

It can't be option #2 because walls must fill contiguous squares and each square must share a side -- not just a corner -- with at least one other square of the wall.

It can't be option #3, obviously, because then there's no interior of the cage for someone to be trapped in.

It can't be option #4 because the trigger for the arcane cage would either result in no one being trapped inside or would make it impossible for the wall to form (since the triggering character would be occupying one of the squares the wall has to fill).

wyrdwalker wrote:

# 2 is correct. There are four separate walls, originating from the statues, and connecting to the adjacent statues. Each wall is at least two squares long, thus each square shares one side with an other square.

That's probably the most clear-cut way of fixing the problem (by introducing multiple walls instead of a single wall). Does this allow the character inside the arcane cage to attack the statues? Movement appears to be blocked across that diagonal, but I can't find any rule covering what happens when you have two barriers meeting on a diagonal like that.

JustinA wrote:

Just to add fuel to this fire, I was looking through my friend's copy of the PHB and discovered something that only serves to deepen the confusion over what the arcane cage is supposed to be doing.

Everyone seems to have one of those friends these days, . From the DDM rules melee combatants need to be able to draw clear lines from every corner of one square in their space to every corner in a specific square of the opponents space. Ranged attacks only need one corner of their space to be able to draw lines to each corner of the opponents space.

In 2, 3 & 4 two of the statues are available for attacks from melee or ranged combatants outside the cage. In case 2, only one square is available for melee while in 3 & 4 there are multiple squares available. Anyone inside the trap would not be able to make attacks against the statues as they do not have clear lines of attack across the diagonal.

The DDM rules are free, and were published on the site while a while ago. I've heard from interviews and reviews that the combat rules are mostly, if not entirely, similar making this a pretty good yardstick to use for these situations. I would be sorely disappointed if the published books didn't cover these types of situations however.

JustinA wrote:

I'm trying to figure out what you're trying to say.
The section of the post you were quoting wasn't talking about being able to attack the statues from outside the cage -- ...
In the section of the post you didn't quote, ...

I shortened my quotes to avoid Huge Wall of Text syndrome. All I needed was the illustrations, I left the first sentence in as I referred to it at the top of my post. I suppose I could have been a little more clear, but it's not hard to figure out to which part of the discussion I was referring.

In any of those scenarios the man inside the trap won't be able to attack a statue. From outside the statue only the two at the top are available for attacks depending on how the lines are drawn. It's pretty simple.