Buried alive - Need Help

[Tomsdad]

OK assuming the whole cavern floor isn't completely awash with spiders, and they're concentrated on the bit of the cavern floor you sunk into.


You maybe don't need to tunnel the full 500m to get back to the entrance. But only need to tunnel far enough to get either a good enough head start to run or better yet sneak undetected back to the entrance?

But how big's the entrance? Can you seal it up behind you quickly in case you end up with all those spiders hot on your heels.


Sorry I don't have access to the relevant books at the moment so my advice is going to be limited. What are the stats for the spiders, mainly how smart are they? (will they possibly split up and go hunting for you in the cavern as a whole, do they have an idea of what you've done?)


Perhaps more unsettlingly can these spiders use their acid to come through the cavern floor after you?!


EDIT: OK acid spiders are IQ5 and can't project that acid, so yeah I reckon you might be fine with that.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Sam Baughn

Or, you know, just kill all the spiders through setting up a perfect ambush position in your hole and closing it off when you need to rest. A stab to the vitals and barbarian hitting it in the face should be enough to seriously mess even one of those things up.

I was thinking this too.

Otherwise, prepare some underground pit traps, line them with the Grease spell, then use Create Fire to channel the critters into the pit traps. Open the pit lids with Shape Earth when you're ready for action. Use the other PC's for bait, perhaps in sconces next to the pits. Relies a lot on planning and hefty use of the mage's abilities, but it's a start.

[mlangsdorf]

Your wizard can cast Shape Earth and move a cubic yard of stone every minute (Shape Earth is 1 FP/cubic yard, x2 for stone, -1 FP for high skill).

Purify Air, 1 hex radius, is a free casting, and provides 9 minutes of air.

I see a few good options:
1) Modified Sam's ambush: Use Shape Earth/Earth to Air to create a 2 yard wide, 4 yard long safe space. Barbarian and swashbuckler stand at one end, wizard and cleric at the other. Use Shape Earth to open a narrow J-shaped pit from the cavern floor to below the barbarian and swashbuckler. Barbarian and swashbuckler murder spiders as they crawl up the J. The wizard and cleric stay back, cast healing/support spells, and are ready to close up the J-tunnel if something goes wrong.

2a) Kill it with Fire: Use Seek Air to find the distance to the cavern. If it's within 4 yards, start casting Create Fire through the roof. You don't need to see the target to cast an area spell: it's just a -5 penalty. Downside of this is you can't tell where the monsters are or if they're all dead.

2b) Watch it burn: Use Shape Earth to tunnel near the surface. Cast a 1 yard Force Dome over the top of the tunnel. Cast Create Fire on the spiders, now that you can see them, then cast Shape Fire and chase them down. Have the Cleric cast Lend Energy so the wizard can sustain all the spell-casting. You may want to create a small room behind the force dome, in case any of the spiders are magical and pass through it, and the spellcasters need the swashbuckler and barbarian to kill the monsters.

3a) Tunnel out: Use Shape Earth to move 1 cubic yard of stone out of the way every minute. Leave the barbarian behind and shape a partial wall between you and him. Every 15 minutes, cast Purify Air twice: the first to purify the air in the tunnel, the second to purify the air past the partial wall behind the barbarian. Every 10 minutes or so, move the partial wall up so the barbarian isn't left too far behind. Assuming you need to move through 500 yards, you'll cast about 650 spells (over 9 hours) and although you'll get 3 critical failures, they're very unlikely to affect your progress.

3b) Tunnel Faster: If you can trust the barbarian to not kill you for 9 hours, just tunnel through with Shape Earth and Purify Air. Also, the cleric should be casting Lend Energy every 5 minutes to let the wizard get off another casting of Shape Earth. 72 castings of Shape Earth/hour gets you out in roughly 7 hours.

Plans 2b and 3b seem best to me.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by gudmo

There is a big problem with the Barbarian who is infected with some sort of murder addiction....

If it's an actual murder addiction... I have bad news for you*.




* Murder being the unlawful premeditated killing of one human** being by another.

** I'm sure this definition is expanded to include the other races... but most dungeon beasties (like say Acid Spiders) do not fall into this.

[Varyon]

Magic’s not my strong suit, but how about this.

Thin the roof of your chamber to maybe an inch. Create a partition that is thicker than the roof, dividing you from the “bomb chamber.” Optionally, cast and maintain Create Fire in the bomb chamber. Continuously cast Create Air in the bomb chamber until it lives up to its name. Make a hole in your roof and run away.

Assuming Create Air actually generates more gas, you’re basically producing massive over pressure in the bomb chamber, which eventually cracks the thin ceiling. All the air escaping shatters the ceiling in an (optionally firey) explosion, throwing bits of stone as deadly shrapnel and shredding the spiders.

[Sam Baughn]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

2a) Kill it with Fire: Use Seek Air to find the distance to the cavern. If it's within 4 yards, start casting Create Fire through the roof. You don't need to see the target to cast an area spell: it's just a -5 penalty. Downside of this is you can't tell where the monsters are or if they're all dead.

2b) Watch it burn: Use Shape Earth to tunnel near the surface. Cast a 1 yard Force Dome over the top of the tunnel. Cast Create Fire on the spiders, now that you can see them, then cast Shape Fire and chase them down. Have the Cleric cast Lend Energy so the wizard can sustain all the spell-casting. You may want to create a small room behind the force dome, in case any of the spiders are magical and pass through it, and the spellcasters need the swashbuckler and barbarian to kill the monsters.

If the floor of the cavern is solid rock, you can use Shape Earth to make a turret with view-ports in order to get line of sight. Acid spiders are absolutely massive; they won't be able to squeeze through anything less than a yard across. It's probably a good idea to get a look around the cavern with Dark Vision before trying anything else, since there could well be somewhere better to retreat to, other monsters to worry about, etc.

[mlangsdorf]

I just reread the Acid Spider description, and those suckers have DR4 - which means they take an average of 10 injury for every minute they spend in a hex filled with flames. So killing them with fire might be fairly difficult.

Revised plan:
Part 1: Cast Seek Air to get a distance to the floor of the cavern. Make a tunnel almost to that floor with Shape Air, casting Purify Air as necessary. Rest up to full ER and FP. Cast Dark Vision on the Barbarian, then Shape Earth to create a turret with vision slits like Sam suggested. Have the Barbarian observe the situation and kill any monsters that slip through the vision slits.

Part 2: Observe the number of monsters in the cavern. Decide if you can fight them in an ambush fight. You probably can't. Try to spot a location that is less than 500 meters away but is also away from the spiders.

Part 3: Revert to plan 3b. Boring through an estimated 768 cubic yards of stone at the rate of 72 cubic yards per hour should take 11 hours, including time lost to critical failures. With skill-19, the mage should only suffer 3-5 critical failures - and it's probably worth saving his Luck, if any, to reroll the critical spell failure table results. Having the caster get stunned is no big deal, but summoning a demon while crawling through a tunnel or forgetting how to cast Shape Earth are going to fatal problems. That's why you had the Barbarian scout out other locations - if you can find a place to go that's only 200 yards away, your chances of suffering a fatal critical failure are really low. Even going 500 yards is low risk, but everything you can do to avoid killing yourself in your escape attempt helps.

[Culture20]

What are the acid spiders eating that there are so many so large?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Culture20

What are the acid spiders eating that there are so many so large?

Acid?
extra characters

[Refplace]

Some ideas based on the spell list.
This is the Wizards Spell List
Apportation Distract by throwing things
Clouds 2 KM cavern may have its own weather and clouds/Rain could be a widespread nuisance
Create Air Useful for tunneling
Create Fire Any fungus farms you can burn up? Otherwise good for the pit trips already suggested.
Create Water Drinking water
Dark Vision Combined with Keen Vision will allow you to better scope out the area.
Delay Crate Fire spell traps.
Earth to Air Tunneling or building yourself an alcove and pit trap with grease
Flame Jet Good killer of those stuck in your pit traps.
Flight
Force Dome and Force Wall Good wall to cast spells from behind
Grease Slow them down
Ice Sphere Mixed with the rain/water they might not even know where its coming from if you lob it. Not efficient but works with the Berserker idea below.

Itch and Pain Also good to use with the Beserker spell.
Purify Air Tunneling and handy if you start a mushroom fire.
Rain and Rain of Ice Daggers Even better than Ice Sphere for indirect attacks and nuisance.
Seek Air Find those tunnels
Seek Water Also for finding other caves and exits.
Shape Air and Wind Blow the smoke away from you
Shape Earth Tunneling
Shape Fire Pit Trap combo
Shape Water Also Pit Trap combo, just drown them.

Windstorm Mostly a distraction and scattering effect, might work with the Berserker strategy.

And the Cleric

Berserker Cast in ones in back, possibly on Delay you might get them to fight each other.
Continual Light Cast on various arrows and rocks then shoot them around to light up the cavern better.

Terror Another useful one
Thunderclap More distraction. Especially if they rely on Vibration sense