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In the middle of designing a dungeon for a game I'm soon running and am currently running into some design issues. I'm looking for some ideas for "passive" rooms where my party can rest and recuperate from skirmishes with the kobold inhabitants that are both interesting and make sense within a dungeon that is being inhabited by a group of kobolds. To help out with this I'll give a little background. The Dungeon is one part sewer complex and one part mine beneath a large city that has been taken over by a tribe of kobolds. It was originally a little used section of sewer system that the kobold tribe had begun to inhabit, hollowing out walls and building mine shafts and living areas in and around the sewer canals and surrounding earth. Currently the tribe has been divided into two factions, the brownskins lead by a slightly senile old kobold trapsmith and the upstart redscales who have sided with a powerful kobold sorcerer who recently came to power and wrested major control of the tribe away from the trapsmith after the death of the last leader. Currently the brownskins have been relegated to grunt work like food collection, sewage clean up, trap repair, and front line shock troops & scouts. Meanwhile the redscales have begun to enjoy a life of relative opulence with many of them working either as the sorcerers honor guards, mining coordinators, and new trapsmiths (though none of them match the brownskins leader much to their annoyance). So anyone have any ideas?
Kobolds, you'd think, would use every nook and cranny.
First thing that leaps to mind - a good or curious monster that's too powerful for the Kobolds but not interested in eating the party having a lair somewhere in the complex.
Back in the good ole days, PC's rested in rooms that they had cleared out and could readily defend for the hours it takes to rest up. Preferably in some part that was out of the way where they were less likely to be discovered. I don't know that I would build in certain rooms, especially in the scenario you have described (old sewer system expanded by kobolds). Just let them rest as they can in secure rooms they have cleared out. Failing that, could they leave and come back?
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Don't know about that one jeff I'm kind of at a loss for a good creature to fill that role that would be both interesting and not break the vibe i'm going for. As for Dos my big issue is that I have a bad habit of building flowing encounters that feed from one to another which means their isn't as much time to rest and though it can be cool it has the bad habit of tiring out pc's who would rather press on then heal and they get stomped on. This is part of the reason why I like "quiet rooms" where a party can enter and learn more about a dungeon and its denizens but not have to fight anything and those who aren't poking around the cub bards and cranny holes now have the time to heal party members, prep weapons, and what not. It's also nice to have some room that could be considered well defended or a low priority room so that the kobolds will either not know where to look for them or would be as dead set on redoubling their efforts to attack them. As for leaving the dungeon I'm not really sure. On the one hand I would think it would be close enough to return home in a day but on the other I always hate building that into a dungeon as it feels like it breaks flow and makes it too easy to gear up and handle the dungeon. Also it means that most of the dungeon would get reset with the kobolds discovering that a.) the PC's are not there and b.) they now have time to reset their traps.
Well, Azruverda from Bestiary 3 are CG and live in filth and their fungal gardens. They are clearly powerful enough to drive off kobolds and yet seem mostly interested in their own affairs. I seem to remember a Couatl serving the same purpose in some adventure I read - something that creates a sanctuary in a otherwise dangerous dungeon.
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Cool idea but a lot more powerful then I'm looking for. The dungeon is for 1st lvl players so and a cr 13 creature in a dungeon focused on kobold would waaay throw off the focus on them. Though will say the idea of foreign creatures now has me thinking of a captured alligator in one room that the tribe leader keeps as a pet. But still back to the point looking for rooms that any compound would need that wouldn't necessarily be riddled with people or armed & trained combatants (like armories or sleeping quarters). I'm thinking of a kitchen or maybe even a latrine area but I'm king of trying to figure out what that would look like for kobolds.
You might consider something bizarre like a self-replicating rope trick spell that has scared off the kobolds because of a magic ward set to keep out evil (but harmless to good or neutral PC's) that was left by a former visitor to the dungeon.
If the PC's get too comfortable using it, a former inhabitant (or its creator possibly) could come back to claim it while the PC's are out.
Why not just have a hidden room or two that the kobolds haven't yet found, or some sort of chamber that the characters can barricade themselves into with relative ease?
Like, for example, a chamber that's only reachable by swimming through a tunnel, or one where they can flood the entrance tunnel? I'd think that kobolds would tend to avoid flooded tunnels.
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I actually really like both of those Dos and Gbone especially the rope trick. They party is actually down in the dungeon searching for a missing detective and his research on a last case so him having a left over rope trick floating around could be really cool. I also like the idea of a secret room, I think I will make one that is a dry access drain that is beneath one of the large sewer creatures the kobolds have been keeping (in this case a large sea anemone that lives in the sewers and the kobolds keep and harvest the tentacles from for food.). Now what about rooms that show up in mining operations? Are there any "standard" rooms that most mines have as part of their operation?
Paizo's Dungeon mags had a section called campaign builder; one of the articles centered around taking 5 in extra-dimensional spaces. Some of suggestions they gave were a Grimm-inspired candy cottage in the woods and a viking feasthall.
Basically they're "quiet rooms" like you suggest with the twist that they don't have to be anything like the dungeon you're running. Some kind of entrance magically appears when the party needs it most and after they're done resting and leave, for some reason they can't go back to it.
I've used this in my games. Other mechanics I've used for such rooms are pseudo-haunts: areas of goodly energies that give a momentary revitalization; time warps: weird area memories that involve the party in a non-life-threatening scene like a ball or what have you and if they pass a test they are not only revitalized as if waking from a dream but gain a handy piece of info; Lyrakian Azata Supercharge: lyrakian azatas have the power to remove fatigue so I gave one a supercharge from the shrine it was helping to guard. If the party suitably impressed it with tales and bardic performance then the combined power of the outsider and her shrine put 8 hours of rest into a single hour of banter.
have a room that has some creatures with a celestial template
They keep to themselves except when the kobolds try to sneak in and see what they are up to. Maybe a couple of kobolds have fallen to a smite evil, and now stay away
Assume the party stumble in, and as long as the party arent aggrssive, the celestials go about their business.
They dont need to be powerful celestials, or intelligent or helpful....just some busy creatures around a lake cavern, old temple, fungal crop etc....that dont mind the parties intrusion, but arent overly of much use to the party either
so 'passive' toward the party, but aggressive in defending against evil.
have a room that has some creatures with a celestial template
They keep to themselves except when the kobolds try to sneak in and see what they are up to. Maybe a couple of kobolds have fallen to a smite evil, and now stay away
Assume the party stumble in, and as long as the party arent aggrssive, the celestials go about their business.
They dont need to be powerful celestials, or intelligent or helpful....just some busy creatures around a lake cavern, old temple, fungal crop etc....that dont mind the parties intrusion, but arent overly of much use to the party either
so 'passive' toward the party, but aggressive in defending against evil.
An axiomite, put in place centuries ago and forgotten about to create inevitables for sewer defense. That explains all those "clockwork cleaners"; small or tiny robotic creatures, all wirebrushes and blades whiling off of a central sphere that truck through the place attempting to avoid the kobolds while keeping mold and mire from building up.
Maybe something unintelligent, but nonetheless celestial like a pair of homonculi that used to guard a minor treasure in a ruined temple on the surface. They had only one purpose upon their creation but now that they've nothing more to do and no need to eat or sleep only their "celestial" template guides them. The party finds a curious niche in a sewer antechamber: a makeshift shrine to (insert god here) and a pair of gargoyle-like statues beside it. As long as the party is inquisitive but passive, the homonculi remain inert. If the party gets agressive the homonculi animate but only to subdue. If the party is respectful and offers a supplication to the deity not only do they befriend the constructs but the combined divine power manifests a wave of positive energy like a CL3 use of Positive Channeling.