So I've got this dungeon that story wise - has been designed to generally keep 7th level characters out. The party is aware that the two 5th level NPCs that live in the town above - a cleric and a fighter, will not go into the tomb. The party was actually sent to the town by a 7th level caster and told to get something from it for him.
Now that they are there, the cleric told them that getting something from the tomb for the wizard is a bad idea, but instead, they would help against the wizard and the problems he caused in other ways.
The party, all 1st level, basically have the authority to order the two 5th level characters and a bunch of town guards around during this crisis (PC Paladin's have a lot of sway in this world and he nat 20ed the Diplomacy check to get their help).
I am almost certain the PC group is going to go into the dungeon.
It is a wizard dungeon, so I'm trying to make riddles and traps / ways of bypassing the monsters - but slipping up once in a place that can keep out a 7th level wizard is suicide for a 1st level party. On the other hand, getting 7th level treasure at first level is pretty sweet.
Any opinions on how I should handle this?
Side note: the 5th level NPC fighter is geared out for mounted combat and the 5th level cleric has like a 6 strength and doesn't wear armor. Neither have any magic items. It isn't like they would be big help in a dungeon and they have no intention of going in there themselves. Worse still, them dying would be really bad for the town.
you might want to try and approach the problem for a less meta way.
No one in your world can design a place to keep "7th level" anythings out, because they shouldn't have an awareness of what that means. It could be designed to keep everyone out, who is not brave of heart, stout of mind, and nimble of feet, and you know what that means in purely mechanical terms, but there isn't any reason to set it up to be a dungeon that is automatically deadly for first level characters.
people in town will stay out, if they are afraid of it, no matter what it really is.
And maybe the 7th level threshold is actually in your mind becuase there is a certain kind of spell you think is needed to overcome some feature of the dungeon, or because you want to use monsters of a particular hit die and attack profile, but only you can decide if these things are important to the game as an adventure.
If the dungeon is able to ward off 7th level characters, it can ward off 1st level characters.
The fact that they want to go in doesn't mean you should turn down the difficult and introduce flaws in every defense that a 1st level character should get through.
If the players know the dungeon is geared against 7th level characters and goes in at 1st level then they're accepting a certain amount of risk. Frankly, it's suicide.
However, if it was me running it, I'd make the first couple rooms non-lethal warning zones with obstacles the part may not even be able to get through.
How about an entrance hallway a series of doors, each arcane locked. That itself might stop the party for a few days unless the cleric gets lucky with a dispel. If the dungeon owner could teleport at all, have a permanent wall of force blocking further progress. On the other side, have a warning sign,
Quote: LAST WARNING. NO TRESPASSING. INTRUDERS WILL BE BLASTED.
(cast detect magic if you don't believe the sign)
If they case detect magic, they see the passage is lined with glyphs of warding.
Then again, I'm of the mindset that fortress-type areas are meant to keep people out or kill them when they try to come in, not provide Adventurer IQ tests to pull levers in the right pattern or reflect sunbeams off the right crystals.
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Have the first room or the 2nd room feature a dangerous (but not quite deadly) trap.
1st or 2nd room has a few statues that come to life and de-animate when no threat is present (i.e. when players are unconscious or dead).
This should be sufficient for them to turn tail and flee (and try to get their members resurrected) until they are strong enough to get past them.
Terquem wrote: you might want to try and approach the problem for a less meta way.
No one in your world can design a place to keep "7th level" anythings out, because they shouldn't have an awareness of what that means.
No, but they'd have the idea of keeping out the kinds of wizards who can teleport via dimension door, summon medium elementals, and attack with ice storms.
Which amounts to the same thing.
Ximen Bao wrote: Terquem wrote: you might want to try and approach the problem for a less meta way.
No one in your world can design a place to keep "7th level" anythings out, because they shouldn't have an awareness of what that means.
No, but they'd have the idea of keeping out the kinds of wizards who can teleport via dimension door, summon medium elementals, and attack with ice storms.
Which amounts to the same thing. That's sort of how I see it.
The D&D World, so to speak, is a warrior culture. People would know that Sir Frank can kill 20 men in one sitting, but if Sir Frank and 20 guys like him got together, they couldn't take down the black blob of the swamp - but Sir Conan can kill the black blob of the swamp.
So someone making a dungeon might think they have to keep out Sir Frank or Sir Conan, and put in the right amount of work to do so. Considering how much harder it is to keep out Sir Conan, they aren't going to build it that way unless they really believe they have to.
Put another way - the game world looks like the game rules and I embrace that to a certain extent.
Ximen Bao wrote: If the dungeon is able to ward off 7th level characters, it can ward off 1st level characters.
The fact that they want to go in doesn't mean you should turn down the difficult and introduce flaws in every defense that a 1st level character should get through.
If the players know the dungeon is geared against 7th level characters and goes in at 1st level then they're accepting a certain amount of risk. Frankly, it's suicide.
However, if it was me running it, I'd make the first couple rooms non-lethal warning zones with obstacles the part may not even be able to get through.
How about an entrance hallway a series of doors, each arcane locked. That itself might stop the party for a few days unless the cleric gets lucky with a dispel. If the dungeon owner could teleport at all, have a permanent wall of force blocking further progress. On the other side, have a warning sign,
Quote: LAST WARNING. NO TRESPASSING. INTRUDERS WILL BE BLASTED.
(cast detect magic if you don't believe the sign)
If they case detect magic, they see the passage is lined with glyphs of warding.
Then again, I'm of the mindset that fortress-type areas are meant to keep people out or kill them when they try to come in, not provide Adventurer IQ tests to pull levers in the right pattern or reflect sunbeams off the right crystals.
I think it is hard to build a puzzle trap dungeon that makes sense. The first part is coming up with solvable puzzles. The second part is figuring out why it was made that way in the first place.
If the place is built by a wizard or god, like this dungeon was, it gives you a lot of leeway because the designer has magic, and is crazy.
You are right though, in that their probably be some sort of defense that you can't just trick your way past. For a sandbox, it does amount to a bit of an invisible rail.
What I'm a bit afraid of is that these guys (none of whom I really know) are the kind of gamers that knowing it is a sandbox, will still not take a step back (they asked for a sandbox). I guess if it kills them, it kills them.
I'd still like to think of ways they can get through this.
I suppose they could just try to take the 5th level characters in with them, but that would probably lead to fighting even faster and get them killed.
Pendin Fust wrote: 1st or 2nd room has a few statues that come to life and de-animate when no threat is present (i.e. when players are unconscious or dead). Oooh, reverse weeping angels. I like it.
Have you considered reminding your players that 'Sandbox' means you can attempt to do anything, not that you can expect to be able to succeed at anything?
Wouldn't the obvious way to keep characters of less than 7th level out to simply have no entrances. After all, the *things* living there would have access to /dimension door/ or similar... (which a wizard gets at 7th)
A couple of things...
1) What is the background of the dungeon? Who built it? What purpose? Who now inhabits it? What is the item? If you could share those thing we might be able to give some ides.
2) Something I might do is let the PCs go into the dungeon and find all trap beaten, all monsters killed, the item they are looking for gone, etc. Someone else wanted the item, hire a group of adventures to wipe it out. (Personaly my favorite adversary to run against PCs is another adventuring group.) But you can turn this into a mystery instead of a dungeon crawl.
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