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Kilvan
Senior Scribe
Canada
894 Posts |
 Posted - 03 Feb 2011 : 16:26:28
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I've got some questions regarding plane-travel in the lower planes, especially to and from Baator.
1- Can it be done safely (the actual casting)? Do you get trapped by the plane, unable to plane-shift back the the material plane?
2- Can all layers be accessed by plane-shift, or do you need to travel to Avernus then move down at your own risk?
For the next one, I'm just curious about how you would handle it.
3- How much time would a party of 5 15th-level adventurers have, while breaking in the Jangling Hiter in Minauros, before being overrun by an army of devils (pit fiends included)? Or Mammon himself?
The party are trying to free someone from the clutches of the kytons, his soul being tormented in the suspended city. I'm not really sure how to handle it. I want the quest to be challenging, but not impossible, and I want them to feel how dangerous Hell is, even for high-level adventurers. Maybe they could handle a single Pit fiend, but probably not without casualties.
Twilight War Spoilers
IIRC, in the Twilight war Trilogy, Mephistopheles could block plane-traveling by the protagonists. I wonder how frequent it is for an archdevil to greet planar visitors that way, and how aware he is of their presence.
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_Jarlaxle_
Senior Scribe
Germany
584 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2011 : 16:47:56
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| Mephistopheles was interested in them because of Masks essence. I doubt that an archdevil normaly would care for a group of 15th level characters. But his minions would and as soon as they would get detected more and more minions would teleport there and overrun them. |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7989 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2011 : 17:23:03
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Which D&D edition do you play? Which D&D cosmology/model and rulebooks about the planes? Do you use Planescape lore at all? What method(s) of planar travel are accessible to your group?
Read the spell/item/adventure descriptions most carefully, you might have missed some detail.
Perhaps just fudge a little and simply give your group some item/spell/place with the undocumented special property of travelling to whatever destination(s) you choose — exactly how it works is unimportant. Better yet, provide a planar native who can operate a similar plot device or who can simply function as a guide.
The River Styx winds through all the lower planes, though not always where you want to go. Remember to bring payment for the boatman.
There are also all sorts of portals, conduits, overlaps, wormholes, and other localized metadimensional weirdness. Planescape describes such stuff and how it works; or, again, you can just improvise whatever "terrain features" you like to move the players along. Note that planars/natives can instinctively "sense" all sorts of planar features to which primes are blind. Also note that natives tend to be well aware of the entry/exit/transfer points in their plane ... in the lower planes this means fiends setting up ambushes, fortifications, and other problems, it also means travellers and the Blood War are more likely to bump into each other.
As to the difficulty ... that's up to the DM. Planescape allows (sorta encourages) even 1st-level characters to wander the planes, and many of these poor berks end up role-playing in hell. So it's obviously less about "realism" and more about "balance", a party of weaklings will (somehow) only encounter a handful of stupid talkative spinagons, while the party of buffed up paladins will battle through wave after wave of pit fiends. Your party will encounter whatever they can handle — though you can of course be evil and chase them around ...  |
[/Ayrik] |
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jordanz
Senior Scribe
556 Posts |
Posted - 04 Feb 2011 : 04:45:17
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quote:
Originally posted by Kilvan
I've got some questions regarding plane-travel in the lower planes, especially to and from Baator.
1- Can it be done safely (the actual casting)? Do you get trapped by the plane, unable to plane-shift back the the material plane?
"Safety" and Hell don't go together too well...
quote:
2- Can all layers be accessed by plane-shift, or do you need to travel to Avernus then move down at your own risk?
Dont know
quote:
For the next one, I'm just curious about how you would handle it.
3- How much time would a party of 5 15th-level adventurers have, while breaking in the Jangling Hiter in Minauros, before being overrun by an army of devils (pit fiends included)? Or Mammon himself?
Using stealth, bargaining, cross dealing, are the only ways IMO. Greater Gods have had issues storming Hell. More power could very well attract more attention. As it stands a 15th level character is not all that impressive to a denizen of the hells.
I wouldn't recommend any character even sniffing Hell's uppermost levels unless they had a well balanced party with more than decent numbers and balance. 15th level characters? Try a party of atleast eight,with an additional 6-12 Henchmen, cause more than likely there are gonna be some casualties... and you better have some potent mages and priests.
quote:
The party are trying to free someone from the clutches of the kytons, his soul being tormented in the suspended city. I'm not really sure how to handle it. I want the quest to be challenging, but not impossible, and I want them to feel how dangerous Hell is, even for high-level adventurers. Maybe they could handle a single Pit fiend, but probably not without casualties.
Stealth and KEEP on the MOVE or get some powerful fiend to back them...
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Edited by - jordanz on 04 Feb 2011 04:47:06 |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7989 Posts |
Posted - 04 Feb 2011 : 07:13:22
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The biggest gutshot to the party is to their magic. Their items "lose" a plus and a little power every time they bump across a planar boundary. Their arcane magics are subject to quirky local conditions, most often to their disadvantage. Their divine magics diminish with each step as they move further away from the domains of their gods. The physical conditions and "terrain" on the planes is often harsh and inimical to normal life, while of course the natives are perfectly adapted to these same conditions and may even draw strength from them, being more difficult to defeat and impossible to banish.
Rather than detail all the properties and special rules for planestuff, I'll direct you to Wikipedia —
Plane, Outer Plane, Manual of the Planes, Planescape, Sigil, River Styx, Charon,
Major Planar Races, Fiend, Blood War, Baatezu (Devil), Yugoloth (Daemon), Gehreleth (Demodand), Tanar'ri (Demon), Obyrith (Demon),
Acheron, Baator (Nine Hells), Gehenna, Gray Wastes (Hades), Carceri (Tarterus), The Infinite Abyss, Pandemonium
Planar lore (in rough order of importance) —
Planewalker, Candlekeep forums (of course!), WotC D&D forums, EN World D&D forum, Dragonsfoot
Finally, rules for magic/etc on the planes (again in rough order of importance) —
anything Planescape (2E), Manual of the Planes (1E/2E/3E/3.5E/4E), DMG (1E/2E/3E/3.5E/4E), PHBR4: Complete Wizard's Handbook (2E), Tome of Magic (2E/3E/3.5E/4E)
You'll find the nature (and game rules) of the D&D planes have been revised and even completely restructured several times, and the shifting canon presents a lot of inconsistencies and contradictions. Pick any system that makes you happy and stay consistent. |
[/Ayrik] |
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Kilvan
Senior Scribe
Canada
894 Posts |
Posted - 04 Feb 2011 : 13:28:57
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quote:
Originally posted by Arik
Which D&D edition do you play? Which D&D cosmology/model and rulebooks about the planes? Do you use Planescape lore at all? What method(s) of planar travel are accessible to your group?
I use 3.5 edition, for rules and cosmology. I don't own anything about planescape, so I don't know much about it. Our only method of planar traveling is a simple Plane-shift spell.
I'm pretty sure the PCs are gonna employ a group of high level devil-slayers (8 level 15+, with 2 Epic characters) both a guides and as a diversion while breaking into the Jangling Hiter. |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7989 Posts |
Posted - 04 Feb 2011 : 15:58:20
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The planeshift spell requires different components for each planar destination (which typically require research to discover). The priest version also requires implicit approval by the granting deity. So it's not hard for you to control where the PCs can go.
Planescape: Planes of Law describes rules and conditions on Baator in great detail, if you can access a copy or find relevant snippets quoted on the message boards. The other Planescape books are great to have, but you can get by quite fine with "standard" monster entries and such (I did it for several years, not as rich but still workable). |
[/Ayrik] |
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Quale
Master of Realmslore
1757 Posts |
Posted - 07 Feb 2011 : 11:26:44
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I recommend Tales from the Infinite Staircase adventure. Most of what you need to know about Jangling Hiter is in the last chapter. Mammon and the pit fiends are not involved in the internal affairs of the city, even baatezu have to watch their back there. Everything is run by kytons. It's much safer not to break into the city, but to blend with the other visitors (tieflings, yugoloths, hags, humans ...).
About the plane shift spell, you can reach any layer if you have the right frequency. But finding the lore to attune the spell component to Avernus is relatively simple comparing to the key needed for Nessus. |
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Kilvan
Senior Scribe
Canada
894 Posts |
Posted - 08 Feb 2011 : 20:43:44
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| Wow, that's exactly what I needed! Thanks alot Quale! |
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Plane-travel in the lower planes
