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Yeah nothing like pulling a train on your players......
I did once-- years ago. I think this was back in the 2nd ed. AD&D days.
The PCs were exploring an abandoned mine. They got to one passageway that was very long and very straight-- about half a mile long. The mineshaft sloped slightly upward, and had mine car tracks along the center. After following the passage about a quarter-mile, they heard a loud, low, horn sound, and saw a distant light approach. The sound of clickity-clack! Clickety-clack! accompanied the light, as it rushed closer and closer, seemingly at breakneck speed!
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One I plan to use that my fiance just told me about.
An Animal of Holding. While alive, it's stomach functions as an extradimensional space that houses a metropolis of inter-dimensional traders. When it's dead, the space fills with acid that nigh-instantaneously digests organic things such as flesh and plant-matter (killing the entire city). However, it has an infinite amount of space and weight with which you can store your items. Command word to retrieve as a move action. It weighs about 100 lbs as a corpse.
Do you try and tame the beast to get a ye olde magick shoppe? or do you kill it to store infinite amount of loot in?
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A gym, complete with bubbling concoctions with the words "protein shake" on them and strange (torture?) implements. If the PCs decide to make a habit of returning to use the facilities at least once a week for 1d4 months, they'll be rewarded with Toughness as a bonus feat.
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In said gym, the main thing for working out is wrestling. Plenty of weight pushing and grappling.
The opponent..... a succubus.
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Honestly, I was just thinking there's a buff humanoid standing outside requiring a somewhat steep lifetime membership fee (and don't bother trying to "murderhobo" your way in - the door has a wall of force embedded in it, and only the doorman knows the password that will let it down).
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Riffing on the potions thing earlier...
The PCs encounter a cupboard filled with unlabeled potions. Scratched into the inside of the door are vague instructions that the owner uses to keep track of what is what.
-"The Poison What Kills Instantly 'Pon Drinking is two down from the potion of Healing. Or maybe the other way around."
-"The Potion of Invisibility is furthest left on its shelf."
-"Below the Potion To Deflect Arrows is one that makes you clever as an owl, or summuch like that."
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The PCs meet turn down the corridor and find a hideous monster that is likely to kill them all in a single blow. The first time it is struck in combat, it flashes and sparks and goes tumbling backwards. It runs into the wall and then wall falls down, collapsing the rest of the dungeon around them like a cascade of cardboard thin scenery. After the dust settles, the characters find themselves in a funny room with all sorts of weird gadgets pointing at them. A harried mob of humans scurry around, trying to pick up the mess.
A strange man in a funny hat yells through some kind of voice-magnifying tube, "CUT, CUT! It's not your scene yet! We're gonna have to do another take!" He proceeds to verbally accost "the amateurs" for not following the script. "NO MORE ADLIBBING!"
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I stole this from an adventure from a Dragon from the early 1980s...
A river of blood flows through several rooms of the dungeon, out the dungeon opening, and into a local waterway. The PCs discover the source is a decanter of endless blood.
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A river of an amber coloured liquid coming from somewhere in the dungeon. They follow it to a very large, very ancient skeletal dragon, with patches of rotten red flesh hanging off. Stuck within it's teeth, is a silver bottle with the liquid flowing out.
It's a decanter of endless booze, and it happens to be the only thing that's keeping the Ancient Red Dracolich asleep in a drunken stupor.
Can you imagine an ancient red dracolich with thousand year binge hangover?
Not sure that works at all for an undead dragon, since they can't get drunk.
Not sure that works at all for an undead dragon, since they can't get drunk.
I direct thee to the drunk skeleton from Last Unicorn.
From which I drew the inspiration.
Not sure that works at all for an undead dragon, since they can't get drunk.I direct thee to the drunk skeleton from Last Unicorn.
From which I drew the inspiration.
I have never heard of the Last Unicorn? Is it that 1982 film I looked up on Rotten Tomatoes site? If so I was 4 when it aired... so I missed it.
I suppose anything can happen in fiction, but how do you reconcile that with a game's rules where it can't?
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Give them something nice and irresistible with no strings attached but make it seem shady. Throughout the campaign throw out several circumstances where their boon will seem to finally bite them in the butt. Always hint that maybe something more is going on, but never act directly on it. The curse will be the players forever looking over their shoulders for a threat that doesn't exist.
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Not sure that works at all for an undead dragon, since they can't get drunk.I direct thee to the drunk skeleton from Last Unicorn.
From which I drew the inspiration.
I have never heard of the Last Unicorn? Is it that 1982 film I looked up on Rotten Tomatoes site? If so I was 4 when it aired... so I missed it.
I suppose anything can happen in fiction, but how do you reconcile that with a game's rules where it can't?
1: It's a really good movie, you should check it out.
2: What Kthulhu said, when in terms of narrative and plot. Example, rules don't spell out what kind of penalties and such for rogues wanting to use a chandelier to leap from one balcony to the next, but by damn it it's cool, so I allow it. As I detest the fact that things that should be DM Fiat as described in the rule books (adjudicating things not in the books) getting turned into FEATS and thus hard-codifies. But that's an issue for another thread.
3: If you want to get technical, the undead dragon thinks it's drunk, and believes it's got a thousand-year-binge hangover. Do we really need to hash out mechanics for this? Just enjoy the ride. Besides, even APs ignore mechanics at times, if you go with Vancaskerkin in Rise of the Rune Lords and his 30 foot movement speed when he should not have it yet.
Ok I can get behind #3. But my concern was mostly over violating your players suspension of disbelief. An incorrect move value will only be noticed by a rules lawyer, a drunk undead will be noticed by everyone. But if some level of explanation is involved (the players discover clues before their encounter that reveals that the dragon is delusional and acts like it is still alive) then most everyone will ignore the situation. In fact at that point it may make role play easier.
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. . . I suppose anything can happen in fiction, but how do you reconcile that with a game's rules where it can't?
I was going to go with a , or possibly magic alcohol, but delusional works, too.
I would also consider adding a Tankard of the Drunken Hero to the treasure, and consider making the dragon a one time friend of Cayden Cailean or possibly failed in a drinking contest with said individual post-ascension.
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In the Last Unicorn movie, Schmendrick was bluffing. His "magic" to turn water into wine was almost certainly a fake. The skeleton could not taste nor smell wine - Schmendrick said so explicitly. And furthermore, the bottle was clearly empty by the time Schmendrick handed it to the skeleton. Somehow, Schmendrick knew the skeleton wouldn't even realize THAT, let alone tell the difference between liquids! The "intoxication" was clearly the placebo effect.
So this clearly could work in a game. As Artemis Moonstar said, the skeleton thinks it's drunk.
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And here I am thinking it was a riff on Yamata no Orochi.
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...aaand they need to make a Reflex save or slip on the booze all over the floor that passed right through the skeletons' ribcages...and a Fortitude save to avoid taking substantial Wisdom damage from the collective fumes...
...and a special appearance in this scene by Baron Samedi, ladies and gentelmen!!! *crowd goes wild*
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Not sure that works at all for an undead dragon, since they can't get drunk.I direct thee to the drunk skeleton from Last Unicorn.
From which I drew the inspiration.
Awesome movie. I met the Author in person once. He is one of the most incredibly interesting people you will ever meet.
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Red Bull Gives You Wings And Takes Your Unicorns. Fair Trade? Discuss.
So you put a philosopher in your dungeon who hounds the PCs with ridiculous questions? That actually sounds amusing...
I will have to use this someday. LOL
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Every stone and brick in the dungeon has a living, staring eye on it, following the PCs' every move, naturally - they're not monsters, they're not reporting to the BBEG or anything like that, and nothing special happens if you try to mess with them (if you poke one, it blinks before resuming staring at you, if you cast blindness on it, congratulations, you've blinded the poor thing, for all the good it will do you), but it makes for a more bizarre dungeon.
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You should especially do that if the PCs' goal is to find the magic-wielding BBEG who is the master of that dungeon.
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Every stone and brick in the dungeon has a living, staring eye on it, following the PCs' every move, naturally - they're not monsters, they're not reporting to the BBEG or anything like that, and nothing special happens if you try to mess with them (if you poke one, it blinks before resuming staring at you, if you cast blindness on it, congratulations, you've blinded the poor thing, for all the good it will do you), but it makes for a more bizarre dungeon.
Want to make it even funnier, have one of them latch itself onto the PC or something the PC is holding that isn't easy to see, stick a bit perception check on it and only tell them if someone makes it. The eyes are actually just little eyeball creatures that don't do anything but look at things. :) See if someone makes the check and what the reaction is ;) Could be amusing.
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Once again, I wanted to refer to the movie Labyrinth. I can't find just that clip, so here's a link to the whole movie. Just watch 18:22 through 18:30.
Eye fungus!... Or moss.... I still can't tell which.
I can't seem to find the link, but there's also the things in Quest for Camelot in the beginnings of the Dark Forest section...
Which actually look mysteriously a lot like the ones from Labyrinth... hmmmmm....
Edit: Oh, yeah, forgot about this one. Vancaskerkin would be noticed by anyone who plays fighters a lot. 10 extra feet of movement for someone in 20ft spd armor, is rather noticeable.... Also, any DM who reverse-engineers NPCs that the party somehow manages to convince to fight on their side (that was an odd game. Wound up with Tsuto Philter of Love'd and found he had something wrong with his acrobatics; and Vancaskerkin got seduced with some epic rolling by a noble scion (feat) from the area he wanted to get back to, and a promise to help him with his troubles.)
Every stone and brick in the dungeon has a living, staring eye on it, following the PCs' every move, naturally - they're not monsters, they're not reporting to the BBEG or anything like that, and nothing special happens if you try to mess with them (if you poke one, it blinks before resuming staring at you, if you cast blindness on it, congratulations, you've blinded the poor thing, for all the good it will do you), but it makes for a more bizarre dungeon.
This reminds me of the Mana Symbiote from Legends & Lairs: Twisted Lore. I loved those little things. I also used the Mind Steed out of the same book once. The aberration galloped through, grappled one of the party and shoved the member into it's back, and then fled. The creature figured it needed to talk to somebody one on one for a bit before bringing others into the situation... his herd had been kidnapped.
It... was kind of weird, but it worked.
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From the books of a notable trapsmith in my campaign setting...
Krez's Stupid Adventurer Tricks.
1.) Heavy important things: He'd have trapped chests that contained huge, 100lb at least, oddly shaped, color-coded objects that seemed designed to fit together, knowing the adventurers would carry these millstones around with them, or fill up space in their bags of holding with them. Also they are designed to almost fit together, first three chests give pie-piece shaped pieces, only for the fourth to be a rhombus.
2.) Making an easy trap so the bypass is easy to find, and then trapping the bypass.
3.) Not so clever now. Heroes see a lever or device that fills a chamber, obviously filled with baddies with something unpleasant. The heroes then discover they have to go through the room they just rendered dangerous.
4.) The chessboard is safe. There's a large chess board in the center of the room, with a safe looking rim of stone around it. The rim is illusory, the chessboard is safe.
5.) The demoralizing trap. Krez likes to pepper dungeon complexes with empty or 'pre-looted' chests to make the heroes think they're getting wrecked by traps for nothing.
On more simple DM things to mess with the players...
1.) We don't believe in gold. We believe in goods! (When the heroes find that their 6,000gp treasure is entirely in wheat (something like 60 tons of it.)
2.) Doors to nowhere. or the classic 'door opens to a wall with symbol of ____ on it.'
3.) Hallways. One set of baddies would occasionally put huge impressive double doors in their facility that just opened up to a ten foot wide blank hallway, resulting in people blowing buffs.
Evil. I like it.
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From good old Might & Magic, provided the players can handle such, a refreshing fountain/well to drink from.
A half faded sign says Selam Eraweb.
Any woman who drinks from it is safe.....the guys however fall upon a sex-change curse. Cue side quest to find the solution.
Alternatively, user friendly version, it just places a permanent high DC illusion on them, making them and all who interact with them perceive them as the opposite gender, while they're not.
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From good old Might & Magic, provided the players can handle such, a refreshing fountain/well to drink from.
A half faded sign says Selam Eraweb.
Any woman who drinks from it is safe.....the guys however fall upon a sex-change curse. Cue side quest to find the solution.Alternatively, user friendly version, it just places a permanent high DC illusion on them, making them and all who interact with them perceive them as the opposite gender, while they're not.
Have put armor with a gender-change curse on it. Every time the PC puts it on their gender changes. Nothing happens if they take it off. :)
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Illusion magic is incredibly good at levels before the party gains true seeing. Aboleths come to mind in these situations: The undisputed masters of illusion magic. Manipulating others is their specialty and they have every tool in their arsenal to do it.
I once had an entire party of adventurers attacking an aboleth's projected image for 6 rounds, all while it was casting spells through its image. None of them made the will save to disbelieve it so I wrote down damage values making it look like the party was dealing damage to it, taking notes on spells cast on the illusion. After wasting all of their good spells on it, using up their smites, and in general using up resources to fight the illusion the real aboleth appeared, killed one party member standing next to the illusory wall concealing it, and dominated another. Thankfully it wasn't a TPK and I was given a standing ovation from my party for creativity in the encounter.
Illusion magic is incredibly good at levels before the party gains true seeing. Aboleths come to mind in these situations: The undisputed masters of illusion magic. Manipulating others is their specialty and they have every tool in their arsenal to do it.
I once had an entire party of adventurers attacking an aboleth's projected image for 6 rounds, all while it was casting spells through its image. None of them made the will save to disbelieve it so I wrote down damage values making it look like the party was dealing damage to it, taking notes on spells cast on the illusion. After wasting all of their good spells on it, using up their smites, and in general using up resources to fight the illusion the real aboleth appeared, killed one party member standing next to the illusory wall concealing it, and dominated another. Thankfully it wasn't a TPK and I was given a standing ovation from my party for creativity in the encounter.
Sounds entertaining. I have a few encounters with illusions in one of my modules for the Con I'm attending in November. Looking forward to those. :)
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So, a couple of my friends are into creepypastas. They follow the Slender Man mythos and are devotees of the SCP Wiki. And their DM was getting frustrated because they were so high level that there was nothing he could challenge them with. Hell, there was nothing that they were even afraid of in the monster manual.
So, he decided to step up his game.
The party hears of a dungeon nearby with a lizard monster. Rumor has it that it's an immortal demigod in the shape of a crocodile.
"Sure. Can't be much tougher than the Tarrasque."
A gather information check turns up more rumors, that it regenerates from all attacks and tears into its prey with unmatched ferocity.
"Sounds like it has regeneration. Dale, go buy some alchemist fires and acid flasks."
When they pass through the dungeon, most of the monsters are dead already, turned into piles of carrion and blood splatters.
"Nice of it to save us the trouble."
At the bottom of the dungeon are a set of heavily reinforced adamantium doors.
-The doors were designed to be locked from the outside.
-Whatever was on the inside busted right through them.
-Above the doors is an inscription that simply reads "Keter".
Cue panicked evacuation of the dungeon.
What's a Keter? I don't get this reference :) For that matter, what the heck is a creepypasta?
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Link for those of us not in the know?
For that matter, what the heck is a creepypasta?
Basically an internet horror story/modern Grimm tale.
For that matter, what the heck is a creepypasta?Basically an internet horror story/modern Grimm tale.
Ah. Whenever I see Pasta I usually think Flying Spaghetti Monster or KoL. lol
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Ah. Whenever I see Pasta I usually think Flying Spaghetti Monster or KoL. lolFor that matter, what the heck is a creepypasta?Basically an internet horror story/modern Grimm tale.
It's a riff on "copypasta", an internet-meme-ized rendition of "copy-paste".
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Yeah, the whole slenderman thing was a moment of hillarity for my campaign.
They figured after venturing into a far realm like area they had a slender gentleman folloiwng them.
The response boiled down to 'We're 14th level, if he messes with us, we'll just have really creepy leather throw pillows.'