Things a DM can put in a dungeon to totally mess with players

[GM DarkLightHitomi]

I heard of a neat one,

Have the players hear a terrified scream in the distance that sounds exactly like one of the party members.

[Tender Tendrils]

A live human baby

[Goth Guru]

A magic rug that isn't a trap.
On another topic someone has come up with a rug that an owner can use to spellstich a horde. A week after emptying it, you can spell stich it again. Now fill it full of rocks and cover the entire floor with it, right up to the walls.

[MER-c]

A perfectly normal high medieval village complete with NPC's, a blacksmith, and farmers.

[Goth Guru]

When someone wants to play a baker or some other NPC, have everyone roll up NPCs and send them through a normal, not nerfed, dungeon. Next gaming session, normal PCs go through the same dungeon and find the bodies.

[DM Lil" Eschie]

another dungeon?

[Goth Guru]

A dungeon with a portal to another dungeon in the middle of it. The artifact they want is in the seventh inner dungeon.

[Tender Tendrils]

Last night in a 5e game I play in, we could all hear each others thoughts because we had been mind linked by an elder brain. That kind of unfiltered honesty created a lot of interesting drama, and it was pretty easy for the brain to cause us to almost come to blows.

To adapt that to a system neutral or pathfinder thing - some kind of magical statue that broadcasts a thought link throughout a section of the dungeon that causes everyone to be able to hear each others thoughts.

(The mechanical effect is that you tell the players they have to speak of whatever would come to mind, as it is practically impossible to not think about a thing that is related to something someone says).

A few other ideas (most of these probably belong in a tomb of horrors style dungeon wherein the players expect and accept that they will be messed with pretty brutally, I wouldn't spring most of these on a party that isn't prepared to be screwed around with)

A room with 5 pedestals - each pedestal manifests a magic item that would be ideal for one of the members of the party (one themed to each party member)- an inscription states that only one treasure may be taken - when an item is moved away from its pedestal, the others start to become insubstantial and fade away - the first item to leave the room causes the others to disappear completely.

A room that contains a puzzle, but a puzzle designed by a creature from outside of our reality, and hence follows a logic completely alien to our own, making it impossible to solve.

A library full of ancient knowledge, but with failing structural integrity so that opening the door causes it to start to slowly collapse - the heroes have 15 minutes before the ceiling will give way completely and all of the knowledge will be lost forever.

[ulgulanoth]

So for any player who decides to make their character an orphan, reunite them with their family! Undead mother and father deep in the dungeon waiting for their son/daughter to come exploring!

[Goth Guru]

Tender Tendrils wrote:

Last night in a 5e game I play in, we could all hear each others thoughts because we had been mind linked by an elder brain. That kind of unfiltered honesty created a lot of interesting drama, and it was pretty easy for the brain to cause us to almost come to blows.

To adapt that to a system neutral or pathfinder thing - some kind of magical statue that broadcasts a thought link throughout a section of the dungeon that causes everyone to be able to hear each others thoughts.

(The mechanical effect is that you tell the players they have to speak of whatever would come to mind, as it is practically impossible to not think about a thing that is related to something someone says).

A few other ideas (most of these probably belong in a tomb of horrors style dungeon wherein the players expect and accept that they will be messed with pretty brutally, I wouldn't spring most of these on a party that isn't prepared to be screwed around with)

A room with 5 pedestals - each pedestal manifests a magic item that would be ideal for one of the members of the party (one themed to each party member)- an inscription states that only one treasure may be taken - when an item is moved away from its pedestal, the others start to become insubstantial and fade away - the first item to leave the room causes the others to disappear completely.

And a sign that says,"This will reset in 10 years"

Tender Tendrils wrote:

A room that contains a puzzle, but a puzzle designed by a creature from outside of our reality, and hence follows a logic completely alien to our own, making it impossible to solve.

A word problem that requires you to divide zero by zero.

The box costs 3 mythos to open.

Tender Tendrils wrote:

A library full of ancient knowledge, but with failing structural integrity so that opening the door causes it to start to slowly collapse - the heroes have 15 minutes before the ceiling will give way completely and all of the knowledge will be lost forever.

Each person can grab 6 random books and get out. If they try to find a specific book, they get out with no books.

[Goth Guru]

They find a cultist's body in a trap. On the body they find a diary telling how the party can free Rovagug(or similar world destroying god). The party has to catch up to the evil party to stop them, and it includes a necromancer who controlled the undead and created more.

[DM Lil" Eschie]

A Shrodinger dragon, which may or may not be alive when the heroes open the dungeon.

[Goth Guru]

If you create a time loop, add a totally normal ground hog just wandering around.

[Interesting Character]

Actual traps that can't be defeated by a simple dd check, such as a rotating section of hallway that when the players move past the fulcrum, it goes vertical.

Add spikes at the bottom to be nasty.

[Interesting Character]

A real puzzle. Take inspiration from a Myst like game.

[Haladir]

Wow! This thread was a trip down Memory Lane! I made a bunch of posts on this thread back in 2014-15!

I really don't like to use "GOTCHAS" against PCs anymore, but I do still like to throw weird or unexpected situations at them.

I've stolen this trick from video games, but I like the boss fight where, after the players think they've won the Boss Battle, the defeated Boss suddenly changes into a new and stronger form... and a new fight starts immediately!

Spoiler for Curse of the Crimson Throne:

An example of this happeing in a Paizo product is from Seven Days to the Grave: After the defeat of the high-level cleric Lady Andisin, she transforms into a Daughter of Urgathoa, and a new fight immediately begins... after the players had meta-gamed that this was a boss fight and already pulled out and fired their big guns!

[Mark Hoover 330]

Multi-stage boss fights are fun. I also enjoy environment-fueled fights. Ever play the old Gauntlet game? Remember, the one where wave after wave of monster came out of a little icon on the screen and if you didn't destroy the spawner the monsters would keep coming? That's what I mean by environment-fueled.

In other words, fight scenes where just slaying monsters or defeating bad guys won't end the battle. You can do this with a boss fight - perhaps a dragon that's seemingly immune to any possible attack, however if you can lead the monster to certain Strontium metal portcullises and then drop the gate on the creature, it will suffer a wound and if you do that 4 times (there are 4 gates), the fight is won!

Or monster spawners. Or a volcanic crack in the floor that keeps re-igniting a fire elemental. Or whatever is going on in the scene AROUND the fight that perpetuates said fight. Players need to engage with the environment, make some change there first before they can claim victory.

The Swarmlord:

Used in a PF1 game I ran years ago. PCs enter a room in which the humming, droning sound of insects are overwhelming and all around. The chamber is large and open, several old pillars supporting a vaulted ceiling, peeling plaster throughout.

Towards the rear of the room several insect swarms mass together to form a Medium sized humanoid shape. The creature appears sentient, speaking of itself in the third person and referring to itself as the Swarmlord. A portcullis falls, sealing the party into the room as the monster forms.

Defeating the creature the first time is somewhat easy. Unlike the swarms that make it up the form is fairly solid and it has an underwhelming AC and number of HP. "Slaying" the Swarmlord causes the form to discorporate, insects scattering towards the walls. PCs have a couple rounds to do whatever they wish. Suddenly the swarms begin to reassemble, this time into a more powerful form of the Swarmlord.

Now the creature is less affected by damage (gave it DR 5) and it is Size Large. It can belch forth a portion of itself as a swarm to menace the PCs even as it's primary, humanoid form continues to batter the characters. Slaying the Swarmlord now is an actual challenge but still manageable.

However, after destroying that second form, PCs should start to notice that the swarms that make up the Swarmlord come from and go to the walls. Beneath the peeling plaster there are several enormous nests or hives, fused into the internal structure of the chamber. PCs can slay the Swarmlord over and over, but eventually the creature will be too powerful for them to defeat. However, if the hives and nests are uncovered and destroyed, the creature cannot be reformed.

There's a catch though. Each hive or nest destroyed weakens the room. Obliterating all of them will collapse the chamber as some of these complexes are even embedded in 2 of the pillars. In order to truly BEAT this chamber, this encounter, PCs must 1. find a means of escape, either through the portcullis or another way, 2. destroy all of the nests and hives, and 3. escape the room before it collapses on them, all while keeping an ever-strengthening Swarmlord at bay!

[Interesting Character]

Quests like The Pit from DDO, where the fighting is not the goal, just an obstacle.

[Goth Guru]

I placed an undead room in The Cleaves. Anything dead rises as an undead of -1 hit dice. 2 destroyed skeletons reform into one skeleton.

Then there's the locked book. Pick the lock and open the book and a small green ball pops out and becomes a troll. You have to close and relock the book or these trolls keep coming.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Skeletons have DR 5/Bludgeoning. Put them in a room where the floor is absolutely covered in broken glass, rusty shards of metal or sharp pottery shards; treat these littered squares as caltrops. Caltrops deal 1 damage if they're successful but if they ARE, a creature's movement is also slowed; the skeletons will NEVER slow.

A favorite tactic of mine is to put a monster with DR 10 in the middle of a low-level Swarm that can only deal 1d6 damage. Heck, even just taking some zombies and putting them in the middle of a Beheaded Swarm is an encounter I've used. There's something magical about having an unstoppable sea of biting heads and two, lumbering zombies bearing down on a party.

Finally, get creative with your skeletons. One option is giving them an extreme form of Compression; when the skeletons come to a very narrow opening like, say, between the bars of a portcullis, they can disassemble and reassemble themselves through the bars. PCs hiding on the other side think they're save until 2 squares of movement later the skeletons are right there to claw them to ribbons.

[Haladir]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

A favorite tactic of mine is to put a monster with DR 10 in the middle of a low-level Swarm that can only deal 1d6 damage. Heck, even just taking some zombies and putting them in the middle of a Beheaded Swarm is an encounter I've used. There's something magical about having an unstoppable sea of biting heads and two, lumbering zombies bearing down on a party.

I've done something similar putting monsters with fire resistance and a ranged attack in the middle of a big normal fire. I've been known to give such creatures a protection from arrows effect as well, with the description that incoming arrows burst into flames and burn to ash before they can reach their target.

[Goth Guru]

If the natives worship a volcano, there is probably a red dragon or a fire elemental living in it. Maybe both.

[Goth Guru]

A small chest closed with a combination padlock. Inside is a piece of paper with the 4 digit combination written on it.

[Goth Guru]

In jokes can always be fun. Magic mouths that quote shows that some people may not watch.
"Wow, all the networks!","Da Vinci?","Fuzzy bunnies!",ect.

[Goth Guru]

A necklace of fireballs with just one 2D6 fireball left on it.

[Interesting Character]

Black pudding behind a door.

"As you pull the door open, you see nothing but darkness as no light penetrates the room behind the door. Not even darkvision can see inside."

"I'm not afraid of the dark! I've got blind-fight!"

GM grins evilly.

[Mark Hoover 330]

An undead level that somewhere seals behind the PCs after they enter, making it airtight, then all oxygen is sucked out through holes in the ceiling.

[Interesting Character]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

An undead level that somewhere seals behind the PCs after they enter, making it airtight, then all oxygen is sucked out through holes in the ceiling.

Too quick, flood the level. That way they see it happen and when they can't find a way and the water it nearly at the top, then they have time to truly panic before they die.

Then once they are left making con checks to hold their breath, the water drains having "cleansed" them. This way, they look at further levels with apprehension and also don't blame the gm for making a situation that kills them unavoidably. Also, freaks them out with your unpredictability.

[Mark Hoover 330]

A dungeon that continues pressurizing the environment the deeper the PCs go, then at the very bottom a teleportation rune that sends them right back to the entrance, where they suffer decompression sickness.

[dirtypool]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

A dungeon that continues pressurizing the environment the deeper the PCs go, then at the very bottom a teleportation rune that sends them right back to the entrance, where they suffer decompression sickness.

That’s devious and disturbing.

[Mark Hoover 330]

A trap a GM put in a dungeon once, when we were all kids in HS:

PCs fall through a 20' x 20' pit, 30' deep. The bottom is cold, pressurized glass so it shatters easily but inflicts many cuts and wounds as the PCs pass through. Once through this plate, the chute the PCs are falling down starts to narrow, but the walls are lined with razor blades. Once the PCs get to 50' down they are now jammed together, clogging the chute, and impaled on the razor blades. Little do the PCs know that in shattering the glass, they also released a stream of boiling hot saltwater that flows down to them and comes to slowly drain all around the party, scalding them and pouring briny water into their open wounds. Finally, the flood was a flushing mechanism that also released Rot Grubs. Since this was 1e, the final deluge of Rot Grubs meant that eventually one or more of the PCs, if not dead already, would fail a save and have their heart slowly devoured by one of the burrowing worms.

The same GM once ran us through the Tomb of Horrors. He could tell we were getting bored and impatient, so he added an extra chest in one room. Upon opening it he announced (with the ellipsis being a dramatic pause): "You see... A FULL GROWN BENGAL TIGER!"

[Goth Guru]

Give them magic dispelling items and then have them face, a killer robot.

[Goth Guru]

A map of the inside of a totally different dungeon.