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I am in the midst of planning my first session with a new group. It will be a party of 4 level 1's. An oracle, two barbarians (in universe reasons) and a rogue.
The basic premise of this dungeon is that the four PC's have been imprisoned and have to escape. They all start in an oubliette, but are broken out by an NPC who goes around breaking all of the prisoners free and starting a prison riot.
My main gimmick here is that apart from regular dungeon crawling, there will be a psuedo time limit. The prisoners will all assault the main gate of the prison complex, but eventually lose. While the prisoners are all fighting the guards, those guards will all be concentrated at the front of the dungeon, after the main riot is quelled, they will all start rounding out the stragglers, such as the PC's
I say psuedo time limit, as I will be moving the main melee along by however many buildings the PC's explore. There are the following buildings.
main cells: this is where the PC's start, mostly empty after they are broken out. Includes kitchen that can supply knives for quick weapons before regular weapons are attained.
Luxury cells: These are the cells for noblemen. Four cells in total, each has minor luxuries in them, including a 1000gp bottle of wine should they succeed in appraising it.
guard house: This has four sections in it. A vault for bail money, with 1500 gp in it, but has a CR 1 arrow trap protecting it. Prisoner's effects, which has their starting items and a few additional odds and ends. Going there too late will mean they have to fight two village idiots to get their items back. Barracks, which will be empty but has some simple weapons should they want them. And the warden's office, which contains a master key to the compound. A very high perception score will note a secret passage to a hidden room, which can allow the PC's to hide from guards if they are too slow. It also has 600 gp.
Special Prisoner's Jail Here is where an old section of overflow cells used to be. They were torn down to make room for a special prisoner. the area has a good deal of yet to be cleaned up rubble from the old building. In the center is a platform with two poles with chains and manacles attached to them. The poles and chains are curse so that anyone placed in them is drained of their strength, but they have been rendered unusable after being melted through. There are the corpses of three elite guardsmen who used to watch over the prisoner at all times.
Mage's quarters: Here the PC's will encounter a high level Wizard, but he will flee immediately after they appear, but will summon several zombies as well. This room contains a few simple healing potions.
The goal is to escape the prison complex before the guards quell the riot and recapture the PC's. This will happen after 7 'visits.' Entering a building equals 1 visit, and entering the guard house equals 2.
After 2 visits, they will be attacked by a guard and two dogs.
After 4 visits a grappling hook will appear attached to the back wall of the prison, allowing easy escape should they see it. Along with allowing them to meet the special prisoner.
After 5 visits the riot will be losing terribly, and some guards will start patrolling again, likely leading to a battle against 3 lvl 1 warriors.
They may attempt to escape via the front gate as well, but doing so will be very hard. They will start the fight by going against 4+visits lvl 1 warriors. If they manage to beat this, then the tide of battle will swing in the prisoners favor eventually breaking them all out.
So that's my current plan for the dungeon. Do you guys like this, anything else I should add or remove?
Way of the Wicked Module has a Prison you can look at: it is also a prison break.
I appreciate the suggestion. I'll read over it for any neat things. One problem I've gotten so far is that it is primarily stealthy, at least for the first few acts, whereas my scenario is much more violent.
You can keep the maps and some enemies as a base and make them face more opponents and change a few things. I think it can give you ideas even if you change a few things.