Need Help Making Dungeon Gimmicks

[Tyinyk]

Hey, so I'm running a lighthearted game about dungeon delving and loot getting. The players are currently participating in a tournament style dungeon-run, where they need to complete 10 dungeons before the other parties.

For this tournament, I want all the dungeons to have fun gimmicks or mechanics, but I'm having a hard time thinking of enough. The first dungeon they've done had the going into carvings on the walls and moving around a 2-d environment, like an old Mario game.

I'd appreciate any suggestions I can get, and don't be afraid to make it as game-y as you want. That's kind of the vibe of the setting.

[Nohwear]

Would a teleportation maze be fun for them? What about having all of the monsters start with a certain letter?

[Tyinyk]

A teleportation maze sounds great. The same-letter monsters also sounds good, but I don't think they'd appreciate it as much as I would, since they usually don't bother figuring out what the monsters are. That gave me another great idea, though.

[Mathius]

Slowly flooding dungeon. The whole thing will be under water 30 min after they enter.

All young or giant monsters.

They shrink down and fight bugs. Just use the stats for the big ones. Make sure to include unshrunk loot.

Chess, card, dice based like Alice in wonderland.

[Ed Girallon Poe]

A shrunken party dungeon.

All the threats are normal stuff, just big. They could be fighting a regular house cat, but depending on how small they are you could use stats for a big cat, dire tiger, or something else (like owl-bear; just to mix it up). Judicious use of the giant template. The final challenge could be a "normal commoner" speced as a giant or titan.

*ninja'd

[Mathius]

Play with gravity

[Snowlilly]

Kobolds - lots of kobolds, and traps.

[Lemmy]

How about monsters with abilities and/or behavior completely opposite to their nature?

e.g.: A water elemental breathing fire, a mimic clearly and politely announcing itself before attacking, a vampire powered by sunlight, a troll that can't stop bleeding... XD

to make things easier, you could use the stats of creatures with the abilities/behavior you want and just describe them as something completely opposite... Possibly changing the resistances/vulnerabilities to match their physical description...

[Claxon]

What about rather than 10 dungeons, it's a dungeon with 10 levels, and every level has a McGuffin they need to acquire and return with to the person hosting the competition.

Each level could have it's own theme or problem they need to deal with.

For such a thing, I would like to recommend something along the lines of Jacob's Tower.

[Broken Zenith]

Claxon wrote:

For such a thing, I would like to recommend something along the lines of Jacob's Tower.

I would also recommend Jacob's Tower, but in a more self-promotional way!

[Claxon]

Broken Zenith wrote:

Claxon wrote:

For such a thing, I would like to recommend something along the lines of Jacob's Tower.

I would also recommend Jacob's Tower, but in a more self-promotional way!

I do so love your website

[alair223]

Snowlilly wrote:

Kobolds - lots of kobolds, and traps.

Friend of mine did that. My recommendation for him to inflict on the party was the acid splash bidets since the kobolds didn't care about the acid damage and it gets those scales smooth and clean.

Also for the OP might I suggest using the internet to look up some Japanese tv shows. Takeshi's castle for one would offer you some lovely (horrible) ideas for your people.

[SmiloDan]

How about a haunted house?

My New Campaign will have:

A haunted house. I made the outside look like a regular manor, but the rooms and corridors on the inside are kind of crazy. Lots of irregular-shaped rooms, but all right angles, like a giant version of Tetris, so it will still be easy to map.

I plan on having incorporeal undead doing hit and run tactics, with the PCs running around through lots of different rooms like an episode of Scoobie Doo. Most of the rooms have at least 3 doors, and many have 5 or 6, so there is lots of player agency, and lots of ways for the PCs to get separated, but stay within shouting distance, so the party won't be totally separated in a bad way.

Some of the rooms will have puzzles and/or traps. And hopefully lots of fun, non-combat encounters. And lots of secrets to be discovered.

How about a Labyrinth, racing the competitors and dealing with THE Minotaur?

King of the Hill?

A clockwork dungeon with lots of moving parts?

An evil circus with evil clowns and evil animal trainers and evil trapeze artists.

Masquerade Ball with lots of social challenges.

Alchemist Lab with lots of things brewing, jars full of homonculi, other constructs, and all sorts of alchemists, like mad bomb throwers, master chymists, and vile poisoners.

[chuffster]

You could do the dungeons as being run by a themed villain. My initial inspiration was Batman's rogues gallery, and you could actually just steal straight from there. For example, a dungeon filled with deadly plants and poison traps, and a BBEG with a custom standard action "summon plant ally" spell. Or an entire dungeon covered in ice (difficult terrain and environmental fortitude saves), fighting a bunch of high tech style traps and cold creatures.

[The Sideromancer]

chuffster wrote:

You could do the dungeons as being run by a themed villain. My initial inspiration was Batman's rogues gallery, and you could actually just steal straight from there. For example, a dungeon filled with deadly plants and poison traps, and a BBEG with a custom standard action "summon plant ally" spell. Or an entire dungeon covered in ice (difficult terrain and environmental fortitude saves), fighting a bunch of high tech style traps and cold creatures.

If you think batman has some strange villains, you should see The Flash's rivals (e.g. time travelling nanite magician)

[Mark Carlson 255]

Tyinyk wrote:

A teleportation maze sounds great. The same-letter monsters also sounds good, but I don't think they'd appreciate it as much as I would, since they usually don't bother figuring out what the monsters are. That gave me another great idea, though.

What I thought of after reading this was that monsters had to be killed in a specific order in a dungeon for them to stay dead. If you killed one out of order then it just respawned in a random room (or in a small number of rooms) and the party gathered clues to find out which ones to kill in which order ... or they could just stick with the brute force approach and keep killing them all until they get out. A fun feature might also be that when a "new" entrant to the dungeon is killed the oldest or a random creature/NPC/PC is freed from the dungeon. But there are problems with this approach unless you provide for the ending of the effect.

There are lots of stuff out there that have been used in the past, mirrors, teleports, book based themes, figure out what dungeon you are in from a number of large dungeon maps, sphinx riddles, sinking ship (like flooding building), etc.

MDC

[SmiloDan]

Speaking of mirrors, a magic mirror that makes evil clones and forces the PCs to fight themselves--and run their evil twins. It can be a real test of roleplaying fortitude. Do you use kid gloves, or unleash that maximized, empowered disintegrate at your favorite bard or cleric?

[Mark Carlson 255]

The problem in the past I have seen with some adventures and the evil clone idea is that most of them create the evil/opposite clones at full strength (and or full buff) even if the current PC is at 1/2 strength. This can be a huge problem if the GM does not recognize it the other problem is that the clones can go all out where as the PC's have to think about the battle that is coming up and the one after that, until they get a chance to rest.

MDC

[SmiloDan]

RotRL Mirror:

We ran RotRL and fought mirror images of ourselves, but only the front rank. So it was 3 evils vs. 6 good guys. Well, us. And we did this twice, because if you give an eldritch knight a Helm of Int 19, it doesn't give the player an Int of 19... ;-)

[Goth Guru]

The game show dungeon I was posting about with someone had a room based on each major game show. To get in, you had to get a pendant from a goblin. Each pendant gives a minor power. The pendants are also amulets of inescapable location keyed to crystal balls with video cameras trained on them in another dimension. In your game, these crystal balls are being used by audience members.

Now imagine making them play FNAF tag. The animatronic bear is it. The fist team member who gets out untouched wins for their team. The players have flashlights, that Freddy homes in on. Yes, one of the pendants grants darkvision. There are some tripping hazards that don't show up using darkvision. :)

[Ectar]

As someone who DM'd levels 2-13 of Jacob's tower, it was a fantastic time. The players loved it, I loved it, and if you pay the 10 bucks for the full suite of PDFs, Zenith really took all the work out of it. Each monster is fully statted in the PDF, so you don't have to look anything up except rewards.
Easier to run than any paizo canned adventure.

[Broken Zenith]

Ectar wrote:

As someone who DM'd levels 2-13 of Jacob's Tower, it was a fantastic time. The players loved it, I loved it, and if you pay the 10 bucks for the full suite of PDFs, Zenith really took all the work out of it. Each monster is fully statted in the PDF, so you don't have to look anything up except rewards.

Easier to run than any paizo canned adventure.

Wow! Thank you!

[My Self]

A house-dungeon, where you are attacked by the furniture, plants, rats, cats, dogs, and grumpy giant homeowner.

A purely psychic dungeon- your party finds it by finding dozens of catatonic and/or dead people laying or standing in a certain area. Entering the area triggers a shared dreamscape filled with dream-monsters and cthuluesque beasts that culminate in an unwinnable fight that ends when you find the door and/or incantation to get out. Special loot discovered stays with you once you leave the dreamscape. Bonus points if you can enter a psychic dungeon from within a psychic dungeon... within your psychic dungeon.

A puzzle dungeon with sphinxes, riddles, a maze, and no door out. Instead of a door, there is a set of clues that lead the players to realize they could exit from any point within the dungeon (probably by asking nicely or mentally freeing themselves or something). And of course, the most important clue would be in the loot.

A greed dungeon- The dungeon is filled with moderate, but increasingly large and valuable metallic loot. You fight golems made of valuables, xorns, rust monsters, wealthy goblin hoarders, dragons, etc. You cannot complete the dungeon unless you divest yourself of all but one loot item you picked up in the dungeon (how this plays out exactly is your choice- maybe the end boss lich's soul is tied to the gold you're holding, maybe there is a magical barrier that stops money from leaving, etc.)

An undead dungeon. Plain, simple, and not hard to build.

A vampire ball, where you need to pass yourselves off as undead to social-intrigue your way through.

A ghost dungeon. Not all enemies need to be ghosts, but most should have access to incorporeality, invisibility, or shadow-blending of some form (spiritualist phantom would be a good curveball). Throw in a lot of thin walls and perhaps put it in a rather haunted setting.

Tomb of Horrors, without the save(oh wait, you can't)-or-dies.

An endless pit/sky dungeon. No floor except for on a few floating islands, so you need to ride a flying creature or hover under your own power. All enemies fly. Falling for too long means you become forever lost unless you can teleport.

A semi-realistic dungeon, complete with oubliettes, torture chambers, a fortified castle around it, and a king to assassinate.

A rainbows, unicorns, and angels open-air dungeon that shimmers and sparkles like Elvis wearing a disco ball. Add bunnies and puppies and children and whatever else strikes your fancy. Bonus points if it turns out to be an elaborate illusion and there are actually demons or cthulhu-esque monsters gnawing on your grey matter.

[John Kretzer]

Something you can have in all of your dungeons. A enterprising wizard with the personality of a used cars saleperson who sets up shop in the dungeon to sell the PCS potion and the like.

[Pizza Lord]

Trampoline floors
Creatures need an Acrobatics check (Base DC 10 + modifiers like wet or slippery) to maintain balance or fall prone if a creature moves into or out of an adjacent square (once per movement of the same creature.) +2 to their check if within reach of a wall or solid object (and able to reach out and use it for balance.) Creatures can use a standard action to Aid Another and move at half-speed, granting a +2 bonus to each other's Acrobatics check (no roll needed but max +2, a group of people trying move at the same time starts to get even more clumsy.)

Jumping distances and heights are tripled. Any creature landing from a jump or fall of higher than 5 feet makes a CMB check against any adjacent creatures, success indicates the adjacent target is bounced either straight up, or up and away from the landing creature (its choice) with increasing distance based on the success of the CMB (+5 feet per 5 points the CMB overcomes the CMD.) This movement doesn't provoke Attacks of Opportunity). Creatures larger than medium affect an addition 5 feet radius for each size category larger than medium.

A DC 12 Acrobatics check allows the target to land upright or immediately bounce back upright with +2 DC penalty for each additional 5 feet of the bounce. Bonuses to Bullrush maneuvers (such as Improved Bullrush) are not added to the CMB check, though defenses against Bullrush apply to the target's CMD.

Affected targets may be damaged if they strike a ceiling or solid object. If a bounced target strikes another character, they both need to pass an Acrobatics check or fall prone, with the bounced character landing in the nearest free space.

A section of the trampoline floor can be attacked with a slashing weapon (hardness 1, hit points 10) to cause that section to rip and any creature standing there to drop through into apparent nothingness. Larger creatures do not fall through the floor unless three-quarters of their occupied space is destroyed. Ripped and damaged trampoline floors repair and remove damage after one round as though nothing happened. Falling creatures vanish, as though teleported and reappear in a random location nearby after 1d4 rounds (spell durations do not expire and they take no actions during that time), typically falling from a short height onto a trampoline floor and usually adjacent to some random creature. Dropped or falling items also reappear this way.

I'm thinking large foes with multiple legs and Viscious Stomp and electrified/spiked ceilings and walls to bounce people into (and keep people from just spider climbing around.

[SmiloDan]

Maybe combine the Trampoline Floor with a ball court game? Like the Aztec Ball Court game, or basketball, and maybe grant bonus points for dunking or multiple bounces or flips or something?

EDIT:

Maybe keep the walls far away from the center of the action? Use levitating or illusory goals or baskets or whatever.

[The Shifty Mongoose]

Something I've wanted to design for a low-level group would be a snooty aristocrat's Death Maze Test Run:

traps that deal non-lethal damage, or a treasure chest full of dead carnivorous bugs (since they forgot to feed them). They're asked not to kill the ooze, the constructs, or the murderous plant, so they'd have to run past them or do non-lethal attacks. There's a poorly-thought-out riddle, but since the door hasn't been locked yet, there's no need to figure it out.

Then, at the end, there's a box containing only a note which says, "I.O.U. One Magically Useful Thing", but it doesn't matter since they got paid just to do a trial run.

[Goddity]

If you have a few free hours, try reading the webcomic Goblins. It has some very clever and unique dungeons.

[My Self]

John Kretzer wrote:

Something you can have in all of your dungeons. A enterprising wizard with the personality of a used cars saleperson who sets up shop in the dungeon to sell the PCS potion and the like.

Extra bonus- the Wizard uses the time in as a salesperson to spy on the PCs and to rig their magic items to malfunction on command. And he's also the end boss.

[dysartes]

Slowly reveal the map for the dungeon until one of the players realises it is the PacMan map...

Bonus points for having four identical BBEGs in the dungeon in four different colours.

Incorporeal undead are entirely optional, I assure you...

[Pizza Lord]

dysartes wrote:

Slowly reveal the map for the dungeon until one of the players realises it is the PacMan map...

Bonus points for having four identical BBEGs in the dungeon in four different colours.

Incorporeal undead are entirely optional, I assure you...

Additional bonus points for placing a single copper piece in every 5-foot section of corridor. If a PC doesn't pick it, the party can't progress in that direction. Great for if ghosts keep coming up behind them and they have to designate 1 guy as the packmuleman. "I pick up a coin! I 5-foot step! I pick up a coin!

[Goth Guru]

"What is a Q-bert dungeon?" for the bonus points. :)

It's finally come together. The entrance to the dungeon is a baller. It is identical to the squisinators in "Odd Squad". It brings the two halves of the clear metal ball from above and below to turn each adventurer into a pinball. Roll the reflex save to steer into the high value targets.

4 characters (in a 5 member party)get to be pinballs while the last member runs the flippers to keep the characters in the game. DC20 to keep characters in the game. DC 10 for a character to stay straight, 15 to swerve left or right, 20 for a right angle. Pinballs always bounce off bumpers, walls, and barriers at the opposite angles, knock outs they go through and the knock out won't reset till the next ball.

The two alleys are called, "Run, it's the Terrask!" and "Haste Potion" because they are lined with excellerators that take you to the top of the game where the dire litch is a knock out worth 1000 points. There are lots of high value bumpers and barriers up there. The lower level hole in the middle of the game leads the character to the launching que which counts as a free game. If the party only has 4 members you will appreciate the 4th pinball all the more. Hitting the treasure chest is worth 50 and treasure pours out the slot at the flipper jockey's feet. There should be a will save to keep from being distracted.

[Quentin Coldwater]

I dearly want to play/GM an adventure that involves Tesseracts, but I'm afraid that halfway through everyone will have ragequit in frustration.

[Artifix]

A mirror dungeon. They fight clones of themselves and/or fallen allies/enemies.

A dungeon in a pocket dimension were all beings choose were gravity pulls them from/to. Make the whole dungeon have multiple islands.

A dungeon with some sort of monster that they have to hunt. However their are certain areas were the monster can get a buff. AKA the Pac-Man dungeon.

A rotating dungeon, every ten or so minutes the rooms rotate 1 to left or right. Most of the rooms will end up being giant circles or force them back in someway or another.

A dungeon where everyone slowly is drugged with mutagen. So everyone's Physical Scores start buffing up, but mental ones go down.

Giant checkers. Walls pop up so they can only move like in checkers.