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I thought we could start a general thread where people could share their ideas for rooms or encounters that can be inflicted upon innocent gamers. I've already thrown a couple of ideas onto a different thread, but that one was a Wind Duke related theme. This will be more general. If this has already been done elsewhere, then oh well.
For my first contribution, I thought I would throw out something really simple. Let's say the party walks into a room and is immediately set upon by a group of goblins. Only these aren't really goblins, they're wights disguised as goblins via illusion. The wights should be able to inflict a few negative levels before the PCs figure it out and try to turn them. You could do the same thing with a mummies or ghouls.
The party enters a room where the humanoid or human opponents are barricaded behind a thick wood wall with arrow slits and a rampart on top. Even though the room is only 30'x30', sixteen bad guys are able to fire upon them at once with their missile weapons. The rampart crew has four large barrels of sand to put out oil fires and also has several dozen large rocks to throw at party members who try to break down the wooden wall.
The ceiling of the room is 15' high and the wall is 10' high. Two large ladders are kept behind the wall to help creatures friendly to the opponents climb over the wall.
If the PC's stay and fight for a few rounds, the bad guys use a secret tunnel to put a squad behind the PC's, emerging 2d4 rds later.
Good idea Aberzombie, a good DM could probably turn this thread into an adventure.
This thread's a little odd to me. Most of my encounter ideas flow from the scenario ideas, what has to be fit in for the story to make sense, and such. Thinking up an encounter to highlight a tactical twist in the absence of a storyline doesn't come naturally to me, but here are the ideas that bubbled up when I thought about it:
The encounter takes place in the belly of a titanic animal. (A fish, to be classical about things, but really whatever.) In combat, any sufficiently bad miss hits the fish's flesh, causing it to flail about and throwing everyone inside around. DC20 balance checks for all.
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The party needs to ascend a cliff face, but finds that this is where their goblinoid antagonists have chosen to take a stand. There is one series of switchbacks that ascend the face. The goblinoids rain attacks down on the characters, rolling pre-placed boulders down in addition to more conventional attacks. The cliff face provides cover from below, but not from above. The goblinoids run up as the party ascends, keeping the cliff face between them and the party. They trail caltrops to slow the party.
Climbers can scale the rest of the wall at a mere DC15, but will be more helpless and slow. The cliff face is rumpled enough to allow for hide checks while climbing, but movement while doing so will be so slow that this is only really useful for setting up an ambush if the party gets the drop on the encounter before it happens. Flight or other magical means would also work, so this needs to be an encounter at a level low enough where "pick the entire party up and whisk them to the top" isn't a trivial option. Setting the encounter at level 5 or 6 such that the wizard could do some limited flying might be interesting. If the encounter is set at a level where flight is a likely option, then the goblinoids should have access to Dispel Magic, and have it ready.
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This thread's a little odd to me. Most of my encounter ideas flow from the scenario ideas, what has to be fit in for the story to make sense, and such. Thinking up an encounter to highlight a tactical twist in the absence of a storyline doesn't come naturally to me..
To tell the truth, it doesn't always come naturally to me either. For example, my first contribution was actually one of many from an entire dungeon I've been working on for years. Its called the Crypt of Illusions and, as you can probably guess, it has alot to do with illusion magic. It was going to be the tomb of a hero-gone-bad gnome. I was going to fill it with traps, puzzles, and monsters all disguised by or making some use of the theme of illusion. Not just magic either, but secret doors, cleverly hidden traps, misdirection, and opitcal illusions.
What's more, the whole thing was going to fit into an overall campaign plot which, in part, would focus on why the good gnome had later turned to evil.
So, feel free to insert campaign ideas and things that fit into an overall story. If anything, you may inspire someone else.
By the way, I like the whole "belly of the beast" thing.
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I am a fan of mazes and such so i came up with a one room maze concept. It can also be a dungeon all itself.
Basically, you are in a large chamber. In the center is a solitary room. you can actually walk all the way around it, almost like a small building. The room has one door on the outside, but when you enter there is a door in each wall. Each door leads to another identical room. the only way to get back to the main chamber is to retrace your steps backwards through the rooms exactly as you entered them. From there, you can add all sorts of things to make it interesting- random encounters, lost adventureres etc.
A warning though. This room can really ruin things if the entire party gets lost and doesn't catch on quickly, especially with blank rooms that have no identifying marks. I have found that the discription of the building in the main chamber helps give it away so this doesn't happen.
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I am a fan of mazes and such so i came up with a one room maze concept. It can also be a dungeon all itself.
I tried DMing a maze once. My players got frustrated pretty quickly. Still, if done right, they can be cool. An idea I had once (and in keeping with the theme from my last post) was to have a maze filling a large chamber. However, all the inner walls that make up the maze would be illusions, and only the outer room walls would be real. I would then just sit back and wait for the party to waste spells and what-not until they figured it out.
However, all the inner walls that make up the maze would be illusions, and only the outer room walls would be real. I would then just sit back and wait for the party to waste spells and what-not until they figured it out.
I did that. It was an additional test I added to Nicholas Logue's sublime "The Winding Way" (Dungeon #117). The trick was to get to the end of the maze quickly or face teleportation back to the beginning -a pretty much impossible task if you follow the path layed out by the maze. A real monk would know that the toughest barriers to any goal lie in ourselves rather than our surroundings.
Until next time grasshopper,
::bows::
The Great Green Guru
PS Oreo cookie anyone?
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I tried DMing a maze once. My players got frustrated pretty quickly. Still, if done right, they can be cool.
the frustration is what makes them cool. Especially if there is a big nasty chasing them around, sorta like the classic Miniotaur legend combined with a haunted house. Something they know to run from but won't kill them outright-- some sort of stalker monster. You have them make listen checks followed by the thudding steps of the unseen monster. As they stop and wait anxiously, the massive dragon's head comes around the corner and roars and preparesto breath.(Can anyone say "Jurrasic Park"?) the look on the player's faces= classic!
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The encounter takes place in the belly of a titanic animal. (A fish, to be classical about things, but really whatever.) In combat, any sufficiently bad miss hits the fish's flesh, causing it to flail about and throwing everyone inside around. DC20 balance checks for all.
This seems like a great encounter to throw at an old school group that thinks they have seen it all. Nice!
I once used an encounter that has forever been called the tannarukk stealth-squad. I had three tannarukk fighter/rouges with potions of featherfall and shadowcloaks who hid high up on a platform in a dark room. When the PCs entered the room, the tannarukks drank their potions and jump down, surrounding the PCs and started to sneak-attack them without delay. My PCs were shocked and almost lost their cleric in the first round of combat.
They've been terrified of tannarukks since then.
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I'll never forget when my old DM inflicted the party with rot grubs (which I don't think made it into 3.5). We tried healing potions, cure disease spells, and even burning the entry points with fire (thus taking damage). Nothing worked! It was only after that when we thought to disbelieve the illusion.
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Here is something that just popped into my head. Let me know if anyone has ever used something similar.
Have a privy in a dungeon or abandoned castle. If one of the PCs gets the humorous idea to use it, surprise them with the Mimic that has taken the place of the seat. That could provide a lot of laughs.
Here is something that just popped into my head. Let me know if anyone has ever used something similar.
Have a privy in a dungeon or abandoned castle. If one of the PCs gets the humorous idea to use it, surprise them with the Mimic that has taken the place of the seat. That could provide a lot of laughs.
The disturbing thing about this concept is that it's actually very easy to justify from an ecological standpoint. If you have a mimic on the loose in a dungeon where the other monsters know that their comrades sometimes "go missing" but haven't gotten spooked enough to leave yet, there you have it. Presumably, the mimic wanders from room to room taking different guises to lure victims in, it just happens to be a toilet seat this time. You get to give the players the clue that a second toilet seat is off to the side. (Where the mimic had moved it out of the way.) Mimic, food source until the party arrives, reason to pose as a toilet seat. No loose ends. If it's a big enough dungeon, the food source could go on for a while, and the party might be in need of a garderobe by the time they find it.
The one problem? Anachronisms. A toilet with a seperate seat is a sanitation level unheard of in your average D&D setting, meaning a character shouldn't know what one is on looking at it and their player should have no reason to assume the character wouldn't find the existence of such a thing unusual and worthy of comment. Eberron would be a good place to put such a thing, though: I can see nobles, The Inspired, and dragonmarked lords having such niceties there. Maybe a dungeon crawl in the abandoned estate of a vanished member of The 12 whose menagerie has broken loose and is now roaming the grounds?
Mist Forest
Towering pines with a cloud sodden canopy. The mist and condensation make it hard to see (+5 Spot DC per 10 ft.) and hear (+2 every 10 ft.) as the mist seems to swallow everything up.
The mist clings and condenses on everyone and everything leaving characters more susceptable to cold based attacks. Any failed saving throw against a cold based attack in this environment leads one to take 1.5 times the damage from cold based attacks.
The wood elf rangers on giant flying squirrel mounts take advantage of the cover and use guerrilla tactics against the party from the trees. They fire sleep and frost arrows as they climb and leap from tree to tree. Any flying or levitating pc's are grappled mid-air by a giant flying squirrel.
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Mist Forest
Towering pines with a cloud sodden canopy. The mist and condensation make it hard to see (+5 Spot DC per 10 ft.) and hear (+2 every 10 ft.) as the mist seems to swallow everything up.The mist clings and condenses on everyone and everything leaving characters more susceptable to cold based attacks. Any failed saving throw against a cold based attack in this environment leads one to take 1.5 times the damage from cold based attacks.
The wood elf rangers on giant flying squirrel mounts take advantage of the cover and use guerrilla tactics against the party from the trees. They fire sleep and frost arrows as they climb and leap from tree to tree. Any flying or levitating pc's are grappled mid-air by a giant flying squirrel.
Nice! I like the giant flying squirrels. Very creative.
Speaking of elves, I once had the idea to have a forest on one of my home-brew worlds that would be home to dark elves. Not Drow - Dark Elves. These would be some of the few who did not start worshipping that man-hating, twitchy-legged, lunatic lolth. They were going to be very isolationist and fond of music and illusions. As such, they would have as many bards and illusionists as the did rangers. There were also going to be some of them who were VERY dedicated to Corellon Larethian and serve him as warrior/clerics who specialized in hunting drow and infiltrating their fortresses.
Thanks for the praise, Aberzombie.
As for the "dark" elves I always thought that the ebony skin was part of the punishment. I've always played equatorial "Variations" of all the races that have darker skin - even demihumans have melanin.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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I created an "impossible" situation for the openning encounter of a sort of reverse dungeon set in Eberron's Mournland. My PCs' were high enough level to not normally worry about zombies but...
While traversing the Mournland the PC's cross frequent battlefields. As they cross one such field, a small band of zombies rises and attacks. The first twist is that the magic of the mournland "regenerates" each zombie (something normally impossible for the undead) and what is worse a quick easy spot check shows that now the entire battlefield is coming to life hundreds of zombies and they are surrounded. Now my veteran PC's are a little worried.
The second twist came with another spot check: The PC's see a nearby shimmer and a zombie winks out of existance. . . then another vanishes. Each has been "attacked" by a living teleport spell (okay it's a stretch). If the PC's don't take the bait on their own it is close enough that in a round or two it can grab them as well.
The teleport spell was cast at the time of the mourning by a wizard retreating back to his sanctum so every thing the teleport grabs goes back into the sanctum. When my PC's arrived the place was in ruins half sunk with loads of debris, cramped space, and enemies waiting although many were fused into the debris and limited in range of attack. To add insult to injury the door was locked and of course more zombies materialized making lock picking a hazard.
It was an exciting encounter and good for fast role-play as one of my PCs thought the living teleport was a sphere of anhilation and another correctly identified it as the way out of the mess. . . and into another.
They were now inside a dungeon and the real treasure was finding the way out.
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Thanks for the praise, Aberzombie.
As for the "dark" elves I always thought that the ebony skin was part of the punishment. I've always played equatorial "Variations" of all the races that have darker skin - even demihumans have melanin.
I used to think the same thing, but in the 2e FR book Demihuman Deities they said that Lolth, back when she was Aurushnee (spelling?), was patron of the dark elves because they shared her looks. I assumed from that that they were dark skinned and that the curse just made sunlight painfull (or at least very irritating) to them. That is when I came up with my idea.
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I created an "impossible" situation for the openning encounter of a sort of reverse dungeon set in Eberron's Mournland. My PCs' were high enough level to not normally worry about zombies but...
While traversing the Mournland the PC's cross frequent battlefields. As they cross one such field, a small band of zombies rises and attacks. The first twist is that the magic of the mournland "regenerates" each zombie (something normally impossible for the undead) and what is worse a quick easy spot check shows that now the entire battlefield is coming to life hundreds of zombies and they are surrounded. Now my veteran PC's are a little worried.
The second twist came with another spot check: The PC's see a nearby shimmer and a zombie winks out of existance. . . then another vanishes. Each has been "attacked" by a living teleport spell (okay it's a stretch). If the PC's don't take the bait on their own it is close enough that in a round or two it can grab them as well.
The teleport spell was cast at the time of the mourning by a wizard retreating back to his sanctum so every thing the teleport grabs goes back into the sanctum. When my PC's arrived the place was in ruins half sunk with loads of debris, cramped space, and enemies waiting although many were fused into the debris and limited in range of attack. To add insult to injury the door was locked and of course more zombies materialized making lock picking a hazard.
It was an exciting encounter and good for fast role-play as one of my PCs thought the living teleport was a sphere of anhilation and another correctly identified it as the way out of the mess. . . and into another.
They were now inside a dungeon and the real treasure was finding the way out.
I'm not big on Eberron, but that sounds pretty cool. Speaking of 'reverse dungeons', however, does anyone own the Reverse Dungeon book/module they put out a few years ago. I think that was still 2e. I own it, and I always thought it was one of the more interesting modules that they ever came out with.
I always thought it would be pretty nefarious to have a gelatinous cube in a pit trap. And even more nefarious to have an illusion of the pit floor above that cube. A failed reflex save would lead to the automatic engulfing of a pc.
"Where did Timault go?"
"He fell in that pit."
"I don't see him or hear him."
"Let's keep looking."
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I always thought it would be pretty nefarious to have a gelatinous cube in a pit trap. And even more nefarious to have an illusion of the pit floor above that cube. A failed reflex save would lead to the automatic engulfing of a pc.
"Where did Timault go?"
"He fell in that pit."
"I don't see him or hear him."
"Let's keep looking."
Expanding on that idea, you could also have any of the various oozes, slimes, etc in the pit as well. Put green slime down there and a PC falling in can just consider himself a goner. He He
OK so I heard of a really nasty trap, which could incoporate any kind of ooze.
A big camouflaged pit trap. The PC fails and falls down 10-100 feet, landing at the bottom triggers a pressure plate and a reverse gravity spell that sends the PC 20-200 feet back up and into a spiked pit trap. The reverse gravity spell expires and the PC falls 20-200 feet onto the bottom of the original pit trap. If you wanted you could keep this up forever.
Another high-level encounter I heard about was to have a big bad villain in a throne room and have braziers spaced around the room. The magically enhanced PCs bust open the door and step in, hopefully triggering a mechanical trap that slams the doors shut behind them. Then they notice that all their magic items don't work and they cann't cast any spells, yes the braziers emit an antimagic field. At this point the villain (and some trolls?) wade in with their masterwork weapons and tear into the PCs. After a round or two the PCs figure out the location of the antimagic and break braziers and get back control of the situation.
(Credit for these ideas goes to DMs much more imaginative and nasty than me)
I once had a party that was adept at using burning hands against the kobold zombies they encountered. That is until the kobold zombies were covered in brown mold...
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I once had a party that was adept at using burning hands against the kobold zombies they encountered. That is until the kobold zombies were covered in brown mold...
Oooohhh... that inspires me...The PCs enter a large, earthen chamber brightly lit by magical torches that give off light, but no heat. The temperature in the room is pretty cold, owing to a very small patch of brown mold growing on the ceiling high above (where the PCs might not see it). The only item in the room is a small chest or bottle from which issues a voice pleading for help. If the PCs respond to the voice, they will learn that it belongs to a huge fire elemental that was trapped in the container by a wizard centuries ago. The elemental is so desperate to get out that he will offer to serve the PCs for 5 years or so if they free him. The elemental does not know about the brown mold. Once the PCs free the elemental, it causes the brown mold to grow.
If the brown mold's growth then hurts the fire elemental (would that happen?), it could think the PCs are betraying it and then attack them in an insane rage.
I always thought it would be pretty nefarious to have a gelatinous cube in a pit trap. And even more nefarious to have an illusion of the pit floor above that cube. A failed reflex save would lead to the automatic engulfing of a pc.
"Where did Timault go?"
"He fell in that pit."
"I don't see him or hear him."
"Let's keep looking."
See Hall of Harsh Reflections in Dungeon 127 for a small variant of that one: pit trap, Illusory Wall half way down to imitate the floor, with a silence effect beneath it.
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Seeing the True Ghoul entry in one of the recent AoW adventures got me thinking about undead. Then I watched George Romero's Land of the Dead the other night and thought some more. The undead in those movies are more like ghouls than zombies, escpecially in 'Land', when they start thinking more. Has anyone ever had that kind of situation, where the PCs are trapped somewhere and surrounded by a horde of undead, where they would find it almost impossible to fight their way out. I just think that would be cool if the PCs were trapped like that, with no one to turn undead, and it would be easier to use their "superior" reasoning skills to outwit the undead instead of just bashing them to pieces. You could even have a horde of mostly zombies with a good smattering of ghouls throughout.
Seeing the True Ghoul entry in one of the recent AoW adventures got me thinking about undead. Then I watched George Romero's Land of the Dead the other night and thought some more. The undead in those movies are more like ghouls than zombies, escpecially in 'Land', when they start thinking more. Has anyone ever had that kind of situation, where the PCs are trapped somewhere and surrounded by a horde of undead, where they would find it almost impossible to fight their way out. I just think that would be cool if the PCs were trapped like that, with no one to turn undead, and it would be easier to use their "superior" reasoning skills to outwit the undead instead of just bashing them to pieces. You could even have a horde of mostly zombies with a good smattering of ghouls throughout.
You could come up with a series of rooms in a dungeon or maze where opposing doors are attached by very sturdy chain and counter-weight systems that go across the roof, only allowing one of them to be open at any time. Ie: a series of rooms where opposing doors cannot be open at the same time, but that in order to close the north door, you must leave the south door open. You could, of course, break the chains, but then the doors become relatively easy to open with strength checks (the counterweights and chains make the DC for busting open the doors very high).
Then, add zombies. If they players are clever, they can "herd" zombies into rooms, closing the doors behind them - only to reveal other zombies in the freshly opened doors... some they could fight, of course, but since Zombies move so slowly, it might be worth it to leave a character in a room as "bait," only to run out (with a readied action) when the zombies get into the room and close the door...
...revealing more... and more... and more...
Just saw Land of the Dead like 5 minutes ago. Always liked Romero's work - especially the social commentary.
But I wonder if you can work out some similar social commentary with a zombie/ghoul encounter.