Talk:Elemental Plane of Death (3.5e Environment)

I used this in my campaign and it turned out pretty well. Rather than treating it as a plane, I simply had my characters die (they fell off an eight story building). I think it would be a nice alternate to Game Over all of the party members happen to die, but I integrated mine into the plot.

They woke up in the center of four hallways. I had them roll to resist insanity (DC 1%). Upon succeeding the roll, I told them their minds were a bit foggy, and they felt kind of bored. I had them roll a knowledge religion check to determine that they were, in fact, dead. After some time passed I also informed them there was no sense of time. They never grew tired, and they never got hungry.

Whenever they went down a hallway, they would of course find themselves back in the same place. In order to solve the puzzle, they were supposed to split up and each go separate ways. However, I neglected to give any kind of hint, and the game quickly screeched to a halt. It also didn't help that I had them roll insanity checks whenever they talked about being bored or wanting to kill themselves (in character, of course, although I did get it jokingly out of character (I hope).), with ever increasing DCs.

Eventually one character failed the check, so I had him sit on the wall and stare blandly at the floor. Shortly after another failed the check, I informed the player to continue attempting to kill himself (he was testing the waters for checks). Unfortunately with two players insane, and the other two focusing on the puzzle and not motivating/talking down their allies, they couldn't solve the puzzle.

Luckily, I realized I could attach a cure for their insanity to the Mcguffin, and did just that. My players solved the other puzzle to activate the Mcguffin and cure their insanity, but still couldn't escape, so one of the players rolled another knowledge check and I revealed that the religion valued teamwork. They promptly figured it out.

Upon going their separate ways the hallways converged into one larger hallway. I thought it interesting to have purgatory linear, rather than giving the illusion of choice, they were dead after all.

The hall had the occasional person sitting up against the wall, looking down and giving a zombie like groan if they were disturbed. (I originally hoped a PC would go insane here, but oh well.) Next, I had a 'sane' person walk up to them, thanking the gods that someone else was here. Upon reaching the first PC he pulled out a knife and attempted to stab said PC. (He was promptly dealt with).

After some walking I replaced the people lining the hallways with chewed up bloody corpses. Then, off in the distance, the PC's saw a person running down the hallway being chased by a monster. The monster caught up with the person, broke him in half, and ate him. Fighting ensued. I used Wraiths (4.0) for the template but told my players it was a quadraped monster with horrifying teeth and meaty arms sticking out the side of its head. The Wraiths abilities (two involving insanity) meshed seamlessly with the environment, but I felt that a beastly monster eating the spirits of the dead in a bloody fashion would be cooler than some scary ghost.

I thought about how the players were supposed to fight Death, but I had just running them through two battles seemed redundant, so I came up with an idea, why not simply talk to Death?

As the PC's finally made it to the seemingly endless hallway, they found themselves facing a simple wooden door. They very cautiously opened it, and walked inside. I played Mozart's Lacrimosa and recited the second half of Benjamin Franklin's Death is a Fisherman changing the the third person references to Death to the first person while having Death walk around the corner.

After a short chat with an emotionless Death about life, death and 42 and what not, Death politely informed the PCs that someone had petitioned for their release (a resurrection), and a door appeared in the middle of the room to which death stood aside and motioned toward. I got compliments for that encounter.

I've realized by now that this is probably the wrong place to post all this, but I just wanted to tell you, oh ambiguous author, that your idea inspired an interesting Dungeon, and I hope that my ideas are of use, as yours were. Thank you.

Insanity Rolls

I suggest that the current way insanity is rolled be changed to be more standard with the D&D rules.

Current

All Evil or Chaotic characters tend to reveal their true desires while in this plane, tending to go off on their own while all Good or Lawful tend to lose their faith, and become hopeless, eventually losing their alignment. (1% per day [day two would be 2% and so on], chance that an evil/chaotic goes berserk OR a good/lawful becomes neutral.

Proposed Change

Once per day, players make a will save of DC1 plus one per each day spent in the Elemental Plane of Death. Upon failure of the save, the following effects occur:

• If the player's alignment is good, the alignment changes to neutral.
• If the player's alignment is neutral, the player loses faith in escaping, and stops wandering around, not defending against attacks against her.
• If the player's alignment is evil, the player goes berserked, stops whatever the player was doing, and starts attacking anything else that is living.