Dragon Encounters

 

How to Use a Glowing Ally

The flumph is one of D&D’s all-time weirdest creatures. It looks like a jellyfish that floats in the air, lives underground, and glows. Oh, and it lives off psychic energy, which it siphons from evil monsters.

It has to be careful doing so, since not only are evil monsters not known to be generous, but they also have reason to hate the flumphs, as flumphs will do what they can to bring evil creatures down. Did I mention that flumphs glow?

I think that a possible solution could be as follows. Both Mind Flayers and Aboleths, the main psychic creatures of the Underdark, keep large amounts of mind-enthralled slaves. What if the flumphs feed, not on the evil monsters directly, but on the psychic impressions coming off their slaves? The slaves’ tethers, so to speak, responsible for keeping them bound to their masters.

This not only makes [some] sense of the flumphs, it also creates a rare opportunity: a stealth dungeon that makes sense.

The Stealth Dungeon

A stealth dungeon, as opposed to a single stealth situation, is where the players are expected to make their way carefully through a dungeon, trying to minimize fights as much as possible in order to reach their goal in a careful, tactical way.

Normally, DMs trying to set up a stealth dungeon in D&D will quickly run into two major problems.

1. Attempting to scout out rooms will often end with the enemies finding them, and forcing a battle. If a single PC is scouting, this is a disaster for him, and if not the chances of discovery are so high as to be almost inevitable. In short, the dangers of scouting are generally greater than the dangers of blazing straight through.
2. Even if scouting would make sense, D&D players are used to fighting. They expect it. Attempts to suggest anything else is often met with a response of “Why bother?”.

Over here, both problems are solved.

1. The flumphs will have seen many of the tunnels in the time they’ve spent feeding on the psychic energies. They won’t necessarily have a perfect map (see below), but they’ll be able to describe most of the dungeon*, letting the players find a path in a sensible manner.
2. Even if the players feel that it’s easier to just go straight through, you have excuse to dissuade them. If they do, they’re going to be fighting their way through slaves, and killing many of those you want to save. In the person of the flumphs, you even have an NPC available to point this out to them

*Design Note: Does Advance Knowledge Hurt Exploration?

A number of DMs will protest the idea of letting the players know beforehand what’s coming, as they feel that takes away from the excitement and removes exploration and choice. Here is my take.

1. Excitement is brought about by what is new and unusual. “New and exciting” is even a phrase. In most dungeons, discovering things as you come across them is the norm. Advance knowledge, being unusual, can therefore be exciting in its own right. Also, I’m not suggesting telling them everything (see below). Having 90% knowledge lets the remaining 10% hit a lot harder.
2. Exploration works better when the players have partial information. If they know that something in the cavern sometimes makes weird knocking noises, they can decide whether they want to find out what it is. If they do, they’re already interested in what they’ll find. By contrast, just checking out room after room quickly gets dull.
3. Choice, like exploration, is served by the players having at least some knowledge to base that choice on. Choosing between two corridors that look the same isn’t really a choice at all.

The Limits of Foreknowledge

Just because the flumphs give them a map doesn’t mean that they should know everything in the tunnels, and it definitely shouldn’t mean that they can just walk through a bunch of predicted fights. That can make the dungeon boring. There are all types of ways to keep the fights exciting and unpredictable even with player knowledge.

Here are three categories where information is only of limited help, and can possibly hinder.

Strategic Information

This is where the information is true and complete, but the players still need to use it properly in order to win. Examples:

• The enemies have a strategic point, such as a protected outcropping for archers to shoot from or a narrow passage that only one person can exit at a time, where he’ll immediately be surrounded. They have to use their knowledge to prevent the enemies from having a huge advantage.
• The enemies are within earshot of a second group. If the players just charge in, they’ll end up fighting both at once. Can they send a rogue to block the passage, or lure the first group out of range?
• An enemy that is simply too strong to fight normally, whether because of high CR or high numbers. Foreknowledge gives them the chance to plan.

Partial Information

The players have information about the area, but they don’t know everything. They have to plan around different possibilities.

Examples:

• Most guards don’t stay in one place. They also aren’t always the same all the time (despite every D&D map ever saying differently). Tell the players that the guards can be found in one of these locations, with approximately these numbers and units.
• A monster that they’ve heard, smelled, or otherwise seen traces of but haven’t been able to check on in person is the typical example, and is the equivalent of putting a question mark on a map. It also works with enchantments protecting an area.
• The fact is, every spellcaster is a partially known factor. A single spell that the players don’t know about and haven’t properly prepared for can be devastating. See my list of spell tactics for specific ideas.

Incorrect Information

The flumphs’ information turns out to be wrong. You want to be very sparing with this, as one wrong tidbit calls everything else into question, and you definitely don’t want to use the same idea anywhere near the first use. Use it to turn what should have been an easy encounter into one of the hardest.

• The most basic is that the flumphs’ knowledge of the enemy forces turns out to have been wrong. This can happen naturally, simply by having a nearby guard patrol or a visiting high-level threat in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• The information doesn’t have to be about an encounter either. The players could map out a route based on the flumphs’ information, and after passing the first obstacle find out that a door they had planned to get through was locked, or a passage watched. Now they have to choose a different route and figure out how to pass an encounter they didn’t want to face, without the HP and resources that they already used up on the last encounter.
• The flumphs could also get a detail of the encounter area wrong. One way is via an enchantment that they didn’t know about. A simpler way is unexpected terrain details. These can slow melee and block ranged units from gaining line of sight. Flumphs fly, they don’t walk, and so they might overlook various factors about the terrain, such as:
  • Loose or slippery ground. Requires a DEX save to avoid falling, possibly into a pit.
  • A weak area that can only take the weight of 1–2 people at a time. Don’t forget that enemies count as well as PCs.
  • Ground that traps feet, such as mud. This would often be noticed, but not always, especially if covered by water or hidden as a trap.

All of these ideas don’t mean that every encounter should have something special about it. In fact, most of them probably shouldn’t. The way you play the monsters, the mistakes the players make along the way, and random luck all add excitement of their own to the challenge. Throwing them off once is fun; throwing them off repeatedly feels unfair.

Also, the challenge of planning something out and seeing how it unfolds is its own fun.

For a different type of mini-dungeon, see Empyrean Iota (a chase dungeon)

Flumphs and Their Emotions

The Monster Manual tells us that the color flumphs glow changes based on their emotions. Then it gives us a list of 15 different emotion/color combinations.

If you want to make use of this aspect of the flumphs, the first thing you want to do is throw away most of the list. It’s too big and too complicated for anybody to actually notice what color the flumphs are if they change so constantly and between so many colors.

What you want is to choose 1–2, maybe 3, mood/color combos, and give your flumphs the exaggerated personality traits that sometimes get used on kids’ shows. You know, where the character is forever getting scared, angry, or hungry.

Here, you’ll narrate that the flumph suddenly glows bright [name of color] right before having its dialogue show how scared/angry/hungry/other it is. Eventually, the players will notice that the flumph glowing color X is a sign of what’s about to happen.

Then set a scene where the flumph has been captured and threatened into leading the players into a trap. The flumph will be acting casual, but its glow will be the color of fear or anger, and it will be up to the players to work it out and use that information.

Combat Encounter: The Spray and Its Stench (Difficulty 2)

I give at least one encounter for every monster, even the ones that are good and therefore will generally be friendly. The flumph is no different. Here is how to use flumphs to nasty effect against the players.

Setup:

The flumphs will want to lead the PCs into an area that is good for them. If the players already consider the flumphs an enemy, it’s easy. All they have to do is let the players see them and then run.

If not, the best plan would be to look like they’re spraying their stench in an attack on the players, but deliberately aim to miss. Act this out by rolling the dice and announcing a miss.

When running, the flumphs are smart and organized enough that they could prepare a route where, on occasion, the flumph being chased disappears into a hole right after turning a corner or passing a pillar. The players then see a different flumph further down and think it’s the same one.

As a clue, the flumph replacing it might be glowing with a different color/emotion.

[Optional/Collapsible Note: The Chase as an Encounter]

This would be a decent encounter in itself, actually. At some point, make the players roll a CON save against exhaustion, taking a level of exhaustion if they fail their save. Make rolls for the flumphs also, but don’t announce the result. The players wouldn’t know it anyway, so why tell them that the flumph “passed”? Then leave them somewhere nasty.

You might have to actually hit a PC to get them to chase, but otherwise this should work fine. The problem is that a situation where the players don’t end up winning is never ideal.

[/Note]

Flumph Stench Tactics

The flumphs’ stench attack has a very interesting element to it. Namely, it not only affects the target, it affects anyone within five feet of the target. Not just that, but the flumphs have no protection against it, and their main attack has a range of 5 feet.

The result of all this? The flumphs don’t want to attack the person hit by their stench; they want to attack someone standing next to that person. This means that they ideally want a place where the PCs have limited room to move, and the flumphs have enough room to surround the target of their attacks from three sides.

Battle Terrain

The location I’m going to choose is as follows. After a chase, the flumph ducks into a crack in the wall. Following, the players discover that the floor takes a steep angle downward. If the players fail their passive Perception, the player following slips and slides to the bottom.

[Collapsible Rules Note: Passive Perception]

I’m of the opinion that passive Perception should be a roll, just made by the DM instead of by the player. This is because, while it might work for people writing rulebooks, the DM always knows the passive Perception of his players, which means he sets every check by deciding in advance whether or not his players will pass it.

[/Note]

If you think your players will pass such a check and won’t fall for it, here are two other ways:

• Loose Rubble. Same result, not vulnerable to being ruined by darkvision, and everyone knows that it makes you slide.
• Have another enemy enter the cavern just as the players reach the crack. Ideally, a big, dumb monster that the players won’t want to fight. (It can be there because another flumph led it there.)

The other side of the crack leads out to a narrow ledge overlooking a river. The ledge gets thinner or more fragile the further down one goes, which will discourage them from going too far.

They do have to go some distance if they don’t want the next players to come down and crash into them. Both going too far out and getting hit by another player will require DEX saves.

Logically, they shouldn’t be able to easily talk to the players still above them, although it’s up to you to decide if you want to enforce it at this level. Also, if you do have a monster in the cavern above, that’s going to add a lot of difficulty.

The flumphs want to hit the second PC to come down with their stench and attack the first. Try to send more than one flumph at a time against him.

Off the Ledge

If they fall into the river, then I would suggest a small island as a simple solution. It groups them up, leaves them open to attacks from multiple sides by a flying enemy, and thereby continues the encounter.

If they choose to leave the island without having a way to reach the far bank, then I suggest they take damage from the rocks or the cold, or alternatively a level of exhaustion from what they have to do to fight the current. If you want to be nice, you can let them avoid the penalty if they make a DEX check to swim well and clear of the rocks, or a CON check to swim strongly and/or resist the cold.

Variant 1: Island

Escaping an island, or making a climb, after being poisoned is itself a challenge. Not only is one player poisoned, but being unable to stand near him makes it hard to help him. You could do an entire encounter where someone gets hit by accident, and then the players need to move, possibly with the flumph’s help, without time to wash off the stench.

Variant 2: Boat

For an easier and simpler form of the combat encounter, put them on a floating platform or magic boat that they need to use to reach somewhere. This keeps the players in a small area. The flumphs shouldn’t use their stench to hit more than one, maybe two PCs.

For more encounters that use underdark terrain well, see Behir and Carrion Crawler. Or click here for all encounters based around terrain.

Summary: Six Ways to Use

1. Flumphs feed off the psychic traces of evil creatures despite the fact that they glow and should be easily caught. I suggest that they feed off the traces coming from enthralled slaves. Use this to give your players a map of the area.
2. Flumphs fly everywhere. As such, they might not be as perceptive to the conditions of the ground as the players would like. Give them information on an encounter that is all valid except that a lot of the ground is weak and can’t be stepped on.
3. The color of a flumph’s glow tells what emotion it’s feeling. Demonstrate this a few times with the same emotion, and then use that emotion when the flumph is being forced to betray the party. See if they notice the clue.
4. It would make sense that the more strongly a flumph is feeling an emotion, the stronger its glow. Put the players in a place where they need to banish darkness (to read something, or for a magical reason) by making the flumph feel scared/happy/sad/etc.
5. Flumphs glow and work together. It’s fairly easy for them to lead players where they want, if needed by ducking behind a pillar and having a different flumph in the distance give the impression that it’s the flumph they were following.
6. The flumphs’ stench attack also poisons everyone within five feet of the target. Flumphs aren’t immune, and their main attack has a five-foot range. Have them poison one PC, then attack the others in a place where it will be hard to spread out.