Me and my friends are playing the new legend of Zelda and are in love with the idea of the shrine being incorporated into dnd. So I have made a new world and reason to have shrines in the world. Now i have made a few but I feel like my players will be breezing through them one after another if they can. So I need to come up with some ideas for mini dungeons.
The world I have created is after a huge catastrophic meteors have hit the world and sent the wold back into the dinosaur age everywhere has giant creatures and not as much civilization the shrines are made to hold the knowledge of flora and fauna of the world before the devastation. Each win will get you one 6th of A stat point. And i would like them to be related to some animal (or any monster in any book I have them all.) And some plant you can use any real or fake world plants.
So any ideas for mini dungeons would be awesome.
I would suggest either relating the dungeon to the stat
STR - Combat
DEX - Traps
CON - Toxic hazards (gases, acid floors, poisons, filth, etc)
WIS - Knowing when to attack, not to attack, when to attempt diplomacy
INT - Puzzles, riddles, KNOW questions
CHA - Teamwork and timing to open doors/beat foes, deceit and diplomacy
or, having each "dungeon" a two part event, one skill/KNOW/Trap/Puzzle to actually enter the main dungeon, and then face the enemies inside for combat after. Anything on the summon monster list could be used as a regenerating "trap" to provide instant monsters in an arena designed for them.
Some general set pieces.
A putrid room filled with 15ft of muck, pillars form a walkway to leap to the end door and the shrine, Oozes float within the muck striking and attempting to consume drowning PC's.
Constructs (Guardians?) crawl along the walls protecting three winches powered by a waterfall behind the dungeon. After each one is destroyed, a second appears a round later. Opening one winch locks the other, forcing them to be opened simultaneously, and each must be held open for 1 minute to open and lock the main door and silence the guardian assembly. If one is released, the other locks and the door slams down.
Orbs rotate on mechanical arms above, either crystal or solid metal across openings. This creates moving areas of normal darkness, dim light, normal light, dazzling light, and focused burning light. A vampire resides here, long since having mastered the patterns, and very, very, hungry.
An extremely confined set of switchback hallways, forcing normal sized PC's to squeeze single file, every move they make grinds dust from the walls, and causes many scampering feet to be heard on the other side (Swarms gather).
The room of poisons, half the room is poison plants, half the room is the antidotes to them. PC's need to gather both and pair them in presented ceremonial bowls, then consume the poison and the antidote to continue.
A Treant has cracked the front door of a dungeon and the defender inside is being digested by another plant that has grown large from feeding, too large to escape once more. the Treant must be dispatched before the plant inside can be dealt with.
This is exactly the kinda thing I am looking for.
Please keep the ideas flowing!
This is exactly the kinda thing I am looking for.Please keep the ideas flowing!
You could have a build a monster dungeon. The party assembles runes/parts/descriptions/etc and when sufficient correct parts are collected the door opens and a construct equivalent beast is ready behind the door. If they are clever or have sufficient KNOW/INT/WIS etc then they can engineer a weak monster, if not then it might be something much stronger. Constructs, animated objects, or some combination might be useful.
The doors puzzle. The area is filled with many many doors that lead to elemental planescapes that must be crossed to open the next door. Simple environmental hazards with no enemies. But terrains of acid, slashing stones, electricity, open air, fire and lava, gravity distortions, shadow, light, etc. All or a certain number of doors must be opened to access the main door.
A timeless monk stands as the guardian. the monk is at the peak of physical and spiritual perfection, and seeks to only allow the most worthy entry to the shrine. Proof may be granted through diplomacy/bluff, through KNOW and INT, or through physical challenge (Non-lethal in a prepared multi level arena with moving pillars). The party succeeds or fails as one, but may return to try again later.
The mimic dungeon - is literally just a mimic disguised as these somewhat common dungeons to capture prey.
The illusion shrine. This is a trap based dungeon, with a few pit traps, roof spike drops, and tripwires, with small magical/fey creatures (attracted to illusion magic) as the annoyance pests. Some traps are false, some are disguised as other traps. (Rickety bridge over a 5ft drop disguised as a 500ft drop) (A combat field with real and illusion pits, and hidden pits) (tight passages with trip traps that is much roomier than they believe). Finally the shrine appears shattered and lost, but is actually whole and hidden by illusion.
The doppleganger trap. A large number of tubes/cells must be entered in order to access the lower dungeon. Once in the party realizes there are too many of them present. Corpses can be seen scattered about, signs of traps or back stabbings on the remains. It can be one, or everyone that is copied. A simple gauntlet forces only 2-4 individuals to access at a time. (Bonus points if you separate a copied player and have them play as the doppleganger while their character remains trapped elsewhere and no one knows its a foe in disguise).
The mandatory water temple. A simple fully submerged dungeon with a temple with stone tablets with specific scriptures. Players must arrange them in correct order, but with all of the hazards of the ocean floor.
Savanna plains. A herd of aurochs/bulls/camels/horse/other herd animals are grazing peacefully in a relatively small area. Tunnels lead out, and sometimes contain predators. The herd is constantly in a near spooked state and while 1 may be little challenge, a full herds trample could be quite deadly. Long grasses can theoretically provide cover.
This one is stolen from the stargate series, the hypnotic dungeon. A massive room houses several pillars with simple puzzle locks on them. A scintillating pattern has an enchantment effect, several other beings stand enthralled. Corpses litter the area, scavengers among the pieces. Each pillar has a different area effect (Confusion, hypnotize, sleep, hideous laughter, mind fog, idiocy, dominate, geas, etc). The locks are timed and every hour they reset and lock again. Interrupted victims may be happy, confused, or angry at freedom. One pillar may be so full as to require interaction to access the puzzle locks.
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I haven't played the new Zelda yet, but I remember something about 5 room dungeons that have a pretty good design philosophy.
Edit: I suppose it's worth mentioning that not every dungeon takes the shape of an actual dungeon. A dungeon could take the shape of a forest or a city with little effort of the GM. It's just that the rooms don't have walls.
Sounds like a fun campaign!
I would suggest allowing more than one way to solve puzzles and traps. Some players might get really frustrated if they don't find the one correct way.
Use fun terrain hazards and effects. Try to target all 3 types of saving throws. Present skill challenges that play to the PCs' strengths. Especially at lower levels, try targeting CMD to do interesting things like disarming, bull rushing, tripping, grappling, even sundering (especially at low levels before they get all sentimental about their magic swords!).
Here's the link to a random dungeon creator: https://donjon.bin.sh/pathfinder/dungeon/
Not sure it's what you're looking for though.
Here's another few:
https://www.myth-weavers.com/generate_dungeon.php
http://www.gozzys.com/dungeon-maps
http://www.inkwellideas.com/roleplaying_tools/random_dungeon/
Again not sure they're what you are looking for
Edit: I suppose it's worth mentioning that not every dungeon takes the shape of an actual dungeon. A dungeon could take the shape of a forest or a city with little effort of the GM. It's just that the rooms don't have walls.
In the case of this campaign all of the mini dungeons will have walls but will keep this in mind.
I would suggest allowing more than one way to solve puzzles and traps. Some players might get really frustrated if they don't find the one correct way.
I always allow players to solve traps and riddles with the first good answer or action that sounds like it should work.
Cool! :-D
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I don't know how well this idea would translate, but:
Some dungeon challenge thinggies are timed. Perhaps the objective is revealed by activating a magic orb (it's always an orb) that has a timer or an hourglass that starts when the orb is used.
Have the goal readily visible, with the obstacles visible as well. Obstacles can take the form of pits, difficult terrain, hazardous terrain, mindless monsters, walls.
I like hazardous terrain and mindless monsters best for this. You can take the long path around the pool of acid, losing precious time, or you can plunge through it and take an unknown amount of damage.
You can run past the monsters, taking AoOs, you can try and acrobatics past them, possibly moving slower, or you can try to kill/incapacitate them quickly. Each obstacle should be solvable in more than one way.
The pit could be jumped by a dextrous character, flew across by a caster, or hopped down and climbed up by a strong character.
Difficult terrain can be moved around or run through (benefitting characters that took abilities to ignore types of difficult terrain)
The wall can be climbed, flew over, or smashed through.
Stuff like that.
Sounds like American Gladiators!!! In a good way! :-D
I am loving all the ideas I would like to incorporate the 6 main stats and some animals.
If you're looking for lots of small dungeon maps: Dyson's Delves.
He does a version of the dungeon filled in with traps/monsters/etc, and then another version that's blank, so you can print out either one.
Thank you for the link
Dyson's Delves