2.07.2012

E3M2: TOWER OF BABEL

by Sersa Victory & C. Steven Ross

Walls: Blocking terrain.

Cyberdemon: Blocking terrain. The Cyberdemon sits atop the infinitely spiraling Tower of Babel and punishes those outside of its hellfire courtyard. It activates on the Dungeon Master's turn, attacking each creature outside of the fiery courtyard.

CYBERDEMON Terrain Hazard
Attack: Ranged -- (one creature); +8 vs. AC
Hit: 20 fire and thunder damage and each adjacent creature takes 10 fire damage.
Critical Hit: On a critical hit the target and one random dungeoneer at a table of the target’s choice are instantly killed.

Respawn  Terrain Power
At-Will + teleportation
Trigger: You start your turn dead, dying or begin your first turn of the encounter.
Effect (No Action): If you are dying, you die. You regain all hit points and healing surges, refresh all encounter powers, remove all conditions, and teleport to a random teleport square. If the destination teleport square is occupied, that creature dies.

Killing Spree  Terrain Power
At-Will (1/turn)
Trigger: During your turn you reduce 2 or more enemies with at least 1 hit point to 0 hit points or fewer.
Effect (Free Action): Gain an action point. You may spend more than one action point per encounter, but only one per round.


Teleportation Archway  Terrain Power
At-Will + teleportation (1/turn)
Trigger: You move onto a teleport square.
Effect (No Action): You teleport to a random teleport square. If the destination teleport square is occupied, that creature dies.

Forced Teleportation  Terrain Power
At-Will + teleportation
Trigger: You push, pull, or slide a creature onto a teleport square.
Target: The creature that you pushed, pulled, or slid.
Effect (No Action): You teleport the target to a random teleport. If the destination teleport square is occupied, that creature dies.

Humiliation: A creature that rolls a natural 1 on an attack roll is immediately knocked prone and attacked by the Cyberdemon.


Fiery Courtyard: Creatures ending their turn in a square of fiery courtyard take 10 fire damage.

PowerUps: The interior fiery courtyard holds four different mystical PowerUps. A dungeoneer moving into or starting his or her turn on a PowerUp gains its indicated benefits (see below). A dungeoneer may only benefit from PowerUps once per turn.

Pentagram: Each creature with line of sight to a random teleport square takes 20 fire damage.

Silver Key: All allies gain a teleport speed equal to their speed while you are on this location.

Diamond: Each time a dungeoneer moves into or starts a turn on this powerup, choose one open archway.  A razor-sharp portcullis made of Unstoppable Spears (Fourthcore Armory) drops down over that archway, killing all creatures in that archway. Portcullises are blocking terrain that grant cover, but do not block line of sight or line of effect. Only one portcullis may be closed at a time.

Crosshairs: Gain one random Match Weapon, listed below. Unless described otherwise on the card, all Match Weapons are 5 lb. objects that do not require free hands to use. There are only one of each Match Weapon available per match (total of six items).

r Plasma Rifle                                    Magic Item
Wondrous Item
At-Will + fire, lightning
Standard Action
Attack: Ranged 10 (one creature); +6 vs. Reflex; Make this attack up to 5 times.
Hit: 5 fire and lightning damage.

a BFG 9000                                    Magic Item
Wondrous Item
Encounter + radiant
Minor Action
Effect: If you are alive and still holding the BFG 9000, make the following attack  at the start of your next turn:
   Attack: Area burst 2 within 10 (creatures in burst); +6 vs. Fortitude
   Hit: 2d12 + 25 radiant damage.
   Miss: Half damage.
   Aftereffect: Recharge this power at the start of your next turn.

a Rocket Launcher                                    Magic Item
Wondrous Item
Encounter + fire, thunder
Standard Action
Attack: Area burst 1 within 10 (creatures in burst); +8 vs. Armor Class
Hit: 6d6 fire and thunder damage
Miss: Half damage
Minor Action: Recharge this power.

Railgun                                    Magic Item
Wondrous Item
Property: You have line of sight and line of effect to every square on the map.

Invisibility Sphere                                    Magic Item
Wondrous Item
Property: You gain combat advantage against all creatures and do not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Invulnerability                                    Magic Item
Wondrous Item
Property: You are immune to the Cyberdemon.


10 comments:

  1. Sweet Zombie Jesus! Simple, elegant, DEADLY. I love it!

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  2. I have some clarifying questions about the terrain. For the most part, since the map is quadrilaterally symmetrical, these questions should apply equally to multiple positions.

    Is the entire map the same elevation?

    The Fiery Courtyard is not hindering terrain, nor is it difficult terrain, correct?

    C-3 is habitable? Conversely, C-4/D-3/D-4 are all blocking terrain?

    H-3 and I-3 block nothing? (LoS, LoE, movement, etc) That is, F-1 has LoS and LoE to P-11?

    Every hard visual corner is also a hard corner tactically, correct? For example, you cannot walk from G-2 to H-3.

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    Replies
    1. Good questions!

      The entire map is the same elevation, except the blocking terrain which is considered INFINITY HIGH!

      The Fiery Courtyard is neither hindering nor difficult terrain. It is, however, insufferably warm.

      The squares diagonally adjacent to the Respawn Points (that look like grating on the floor) are normal terrain.

      The terrain that looks like gateways/arches are normal terrain and so do not affect with line of sight, line of effect, or movement in any way. In your example, yes, one could shoot diagonally across the map through two arches/entryways, although that kind of looks like there would be cover involved due to those hard corners.

      Speaking of which, all visual hard corners are YES tactical hard corners. One cannot walk from Square G2 to Square H3; one would have to move G2 -> H2 -> H3. DEFENDERS! MEET THEM WHERE THEIR NUMBERS COUNT FOR NOTHING!

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    2. Oh, and one more I just thought of. Do Powerup squares inflict 10 damage, or are they not considered part of the fiery courtyard for that effect?

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    3. The four PowerUp squares are NOT in the Fiery Courtyard. They tend to create little areas of 'king of the hill' as they are the only spaces on the map not dealing automatic fire damage or subject to the Cyberdemon's attacks.

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  3. The map is too large. Creatures can't move from the starting squares to within the courtyard unless they run, and given the hard corners, charging a creature in the courtyard also becomes impossible without running.

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    Replies
    1. (odd... I thought I posted these thoughts already... oh well, type it up again, I s'pose)

      I believe that's actually by design. In a Fourthcore adventure, it makes great sense - the dungeoneers have to overcome the strategic hurdle of spending a whole round to get into the action.

      In Deathmatch, this makes the PowerUp squares obsessively desirable, because without contrived speed builds they're effectively unassailable by freshly respawned attackers. This isn't just a charger problem - the large amounts of blocking terrain make this an issue for ranged attackers too.

      Again, this may well be by design, but the frustration of plodding against an early tactics/luck/strategy shortfall is real.

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    2. Yeah I want to echo James' comments and also add in an unexpected "bonus" that I think will present itself with this map. Many of the guys I regularly game with have (at the time of this posting) a mindset in FTDM to completely ignore the value of their dungeoneer's defenses in favor of damage output. With a map like this, which often forces a player to Run and take a steep -5 penalty to attacks, those types of low-defense characters are still very vulnerable, while dungeoneers with good defenses are pushed into the realm of near-untouchable. For example, run-charging against an AC 20 Paladin requires a weapon attack roll of about (16), give or take, to hit for most characters. And I've always wanted this map to favor Defenders, at least a little bit, so that sits pretty well with me.

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    3. Totally shoulda brought in the "Turtle" for cyberdemon land, and the Diabolic Soul tiefling sorcerer for the courtyard. Hindsight is crit/crit.

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  4. I just read the update to Diamond.

    !?!?!

    It's an "I win" button against a heavily melee team. Maybe that's intentional, but the map is already super-ultra-polarizing against whichever team falls behind first.

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