@Hypersapien so she started off in captivity?

No, she was captured during the first combat

@Hypersapien oh. I see now

I need to get out of here. I'll be back tomorrow. Thanks for the opinions.

yeah, I'd keep a close eye on this for a few sessions -- if it doesn't get drastically better soon, I'd advise you and your GF dropping from this campaign

Yeah. Next session is sunday. We'll see what happens.

See you guys

cya

ttfn

I feel that pain. About a month ago, our DM swapped duties with a player after a big turning point in the campaign. We expected that the new character would quickly be introduced and move into the fold. Instead, the new character was left out for a solid hour and a half, including the first combat, and then made the captain of an enemy force, making it hard for us to find a way to justify being so cool with him.

We were all pretty unhappy that he really didn't get to do anything for the longest time that game, and the player and I ended up coming up with a list of pro and cons for the session to give to the DM.

@Adam yeah, that sounds like one of the many ways not to intro a new char

To be fair, the new DM had never hadn't run a game before. I think he just go so excited about planning the game as the DM, he forgot to look at things as if he was a PC.

Hopefully a similar thing is happening here too, and everybody can just put this behind them as an accident.

@Hypersapien btw -- D'born are resistant to their breath weapon's type, not immune to it

A London exhibition about science fiction starts next month.

so yeah -- trying to figure out how to lay out the various crypt-clusters? that make up the burial level, if you will, of my catacomb

and how many of them to toss in for that matter

so far, I'm wondering if each of them should basically be a different 5 room dungeon, with the first few directly connected to each other and the rest only accessible through the canal network

wb @Pixie

@Shalvenay Thanks!

wb as well @WeirdFrog

as well as how many to toss in (my first thought is 9, one for each of the 5-room-dungeon archetypes IDed in that Gnome Stew post, but that could be too many)

@Shalvenay First two questions to answer, why are the PCs going to the crypt, and why was the crypt originally built?

alrighty -- for those who haven't had the background :) the PCs are there to fix a zombie problem that the crypt has been suffering from lately, and it was built as a communal burial crypt because the conditions in the area make coffins do undesirable things when buried in the ground (like come floating back up from 6' under)

@Shalvenay I think I saw one of your questions on WorldBuilding about that.

@GreySage yeah -- I asked because I wanted it to be a matter of necessity, not just convenience or rite -- something that could be justified as an ongoing public works

the WB question worked out OK I think, and we've pretty much established how things work overall

@Shalvenay Have you looked at real-world catacomb complexes?

@BESW not in detail

[rummages]

Odessa catacombs; Parisian catacombs.

hrm...

it seems that in Paris, many of the "room" spaces are the product of quarrying while the rest are more like galleries if you will (i.e. wide hallways with room for stuff on each side)

while Odessa is primarily galleries with some stub tunnels

and the whole gallery-based thing isn't much use for dungeon design I suspect (the net effect is a dungeon with no defined rooms or corridors, just a short walk down a long hall...)

Since you're dealing with water too, check out the Paris sewer network. (maps on pp 7, 8)

Now that you mention it... :p

@BESW yeah -- I tend to think of sewers as more...non-navigable than most fantasy work assumes (i.e. most sewer segments save perhaps for very large storm drains are round pipes that you can't really go walking around in, never mind the confined space hazards!)

Hence, Paris.

@BESW and a mere map of the system doesn't really convey the difference I'm talking about here

The Paris sewer system was designed with walkways, most areas tall enough to walk upright in. Heck, they used to take boat tours through it.

(Paris sewer boat tour, 1896)

@BESW ...yeah. only the main storm drainage trunks in my hometown are big enough for that

apparently you can get a lot of crud down an 8" sanitary pipe.

well, that and the occasional jumbo-sized interceptor, maybe

don't think anyone would want to take a boat down a sanitary-only interceptor though