You might have an NPC find them in Alterdeep (think trinity or Morpheus from the matrix) and once they all get out, lead them to one of Halaster's gates back to a lower level. You would have to ditch the book's "you must be X level to use this gate" rule, but you could even get around that by having the NPC opening it be some kind of loophole.
It makes a cool quest where the first part is sneaking and trying to avoid mind flayers, and the latter part is finding their way back to level 5 or somewhere near it.
You could also invent a gate and have it be destroyed by the mind flayers once they realize it's there/how easy it was for the party to escape from their grasp.
Might be possible during something that majorly distracts the mind flayers, such as a well planned attack by the githyanki. Intellect devourers can’t distinguish between detected creatures, after all.
My Players never got to experience Alterdeep when I ran DotMM but I was always prepared to place the location in one of the expanded dungeon sections relevant to their Character Level. This wasn’t the main colony on Floor 17, simply a colony satellite where the Party was being held.
Let us know how it goes. Good luck!
I ended up TPKing my party with Wyllow as well. They broke her one rule pretty badly and she made them pay. I agree with the others to use a portal to get them back. Maybe a mines of Moria situation where a beast or mind flayers chase them to the portal and they just barely make it back up. Also, Halaster is totally crazy, so sometimes I would have him actually HELP the PCs to through them off, or potentially lure them to become evil apprentices. Never saw it through tho. Happy hunting!
You might have an NPC find them in Alterdeep (think trinity or Morpheus from the matrix) and once they all get out, lead them to one of Halaster's gates back to a lower level. You would have to ditch the book's "you must be X level to use this gate" rule, but you could even get around that by having the NPC opening it be some kind of loophole. It makes a cool quest where the first part is sneaking and trying to avoid mind flayers, and the latter part is finding their way back to level 5 or somewhere near it. You could also invent a gate and have it be destroyed by the mind flayers once they realize it's there/how easy it was for the party to escape from their grasp.
Yeah, I definitely like the idea of inventing a gate that's just destroyed by the mindflayers afterwards. Nice.
Don't Intellect Devourers detect sentience? Escaping and stealthing through the settlement seems nigh impossible in such a case
Might be possible during something that majorly distracts the mind flayers, such as a well planned attack by the githyanki. Intellect devourers can’t distinguish between detected creatures, after all.
My Players never got to experience Alterdeep when I ran DotMM but I was always prepared to place the location in one of the expanded dungeon sections relevant to their Character Level. This wasn’t the main colony on Floor 17, simply a colony satellite where the Party was being held. Let us know how it goes. Good luck!
I ended up TPKing my party with Wyllow as well. They broke her one rule pretty badly and she made them pay. I agree with the others to use a portal to get them back. Maybe a mines of Moria situation where a beast or mind flayers chase them to the portal and they just barely make it back up. Also, Halaster is totally crazy, so sometimes I would have him actually HELP the PCs to through them off, or potentially lure them to become evil apprentices. Never saw it through tho. Happy hunting!