DM's, What are your favorite dungeons you've designed? #2
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- čas přidán 14. 01. 2024
- DM's, What are your favorite dungeons you've designed?
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Party bursts through the dungeon entrance barbarian cuts two goblins in two the rest skeddaddle. Barbarian runs after the others rolling low on perception. The floor gives way and he falls into a pit full of punji sticks. Everyone else scrambles for cover as slots in the wall open up and darts and arrows start firing out. We decide to make a tactical retreat with barbarian, and spend the next session combing through the fantasy equivalent of a Viet Cong tunnel system. Thank god for fireball and dwarven ingenuity.
I've wanted to make a dungeon like this for a while, but haven't gotten around to it. Have any tips?
I don't play tabletop rpgs, but Ive always had an idea of a dungeon where one of the first things the party runs into is a large time-telling mechanism, and the whole dungeon is themed around the time of day. Passages open and close, enemies shift from weaker intangible hazards to tangible enemies to fight, etc
Brilliant idea. You should try designing some Dungeons and selling them. They could be adopted for planescape, Pathfinder or any other tabletop RPG
Reminds me of the maze in maze runner with the whole shifting depending on the time of day thing
My favorite I've designed so far was a steampunk kobold lair, with gears, conveyor belts, and, of course, steam everywhere. The noise of the machinery was so loud that the PCs couldn't hear each other unless they were legitimately right next to one another, making communication difficult. The kobolds themselves abused catwalks, conveyor belts, and hidey-holes to constantly harass the PCs. And steam jets, if one wasn't careful, would damage and push PCs around if they were caught in them. To say nothing of actually getting caught in any exposed machinery.
The final boss was more of a breath of fresh air for the party, because after an entire dungeon of traps and guerilla combat, a straightforward fight was something up their alley.
My favorite dungeon is the one I had the players design as monster characters and then ran adventuring parties through as NPC's. They used the money they earned to expand the dungeon and place more traps. The best part is Pathfinder has all the rules you would need to do that in the downtime section of Ultimate Campaign for creating buildings. It even says how long something would take to build.
It can get out of hand with how big things can get at a certain point, but it was still a fun campaign.
I recall seeing a TTRPG designed entirely around this concept. It looked neat, but I can't remember what it was called.
My group has discussed doing something similar, albeit with less emphasis on the actual dungeon and more emphasis on the monsters trying to run the place (and probably failing at it). I think this would be really fun.
Have yet to spring this on my party, but I'm fully excited for when I do. I wound up recreating Olmec's temple from Legends of the Hidden Temple (a Nickelodeon game show back in the 90s). Each room is based off a room within its associated layout from the show, with a few minor adjustments made to fit D&D more (as well as not make it entirely puzzle-based so that the combat lovers will have something fun to do as well).
I also included a small pendant for the party to find and hid 3 temple guardian spirits throughout the dungeon that will attack the player but leave them alone if given the pendant. For those unaware, that was how the kids in the show progressed when caught during their run at the end of the show.
At the end of the temple is a room with a magic item to retrieve, and once they get it, the entirety of the temple will unlock, but any monsters I placed in the rooms will still be there. So they'll be incentivized to return the way they came in. And yes, one of the rooms will be dedicated to that blasted Silver Monkey Statue that so many kids couldn't figure out; it wouldn't be right to go without it.
Absolutely favorite was for an Elder Scrolls ttrpg I ran where I made the laboratory of the Dwemer high tonal architect Kagrenac.
It was a 4000 mile hyperloop built under the entirety of Tamriel with increasingly dangerous isolated labs with different experiments that have been deteriorating for millenia. Some of the monsters were also built up over the campaign as being rumors and names that were dropped months before they got to the lab.
ah, yes, the Larger Hadron Collider
@@paigeepler It DID in fact have a chamber dedicated to collecting anti-creatia particles that would act like anti-matter but for the song-dream physics of TES.
@@unamericano The magic quantum physics stuff in Elder Scrolls is absolutely delightful.
Best dungeon? While hosting I stopped everyone from entering the house. They had recently made spyglasses that revealed warring eldric horrors that controlled and manipulated fate. I had prepped the whole house with string and cords. They had to get through house to several stations that were to represent clues from different towns/cities (it was late game where they were up to globe hopping) and found out what the fates been manipulating. They could also find other fated items places (like a literal sword in stone, Jewish golem, or Bermuda Triangle).
They had gotten through all of it that lead to a boss fight against piñata spider monster for Ariadne (also surprise silly string).
Guy with the New Century Dungeon is really out here like "This can be adapted to any setting!" and then proceeds to give us an idea that would be very hard to adapt into the vast majority of official D&D settings. (It's a cool idea, it's just way more specific than they think it is.)
It’s super cool. A hunger games style dungeon crawler game. Sounds so exciting to watch
@@shebibscreations8544Thank my creativity I run 99% impure homebrew campaigns every single campaign. You'd be pleased to hear what I made.
I mean, I could plop that dungeon into *literally any fantasy setting* with minimal effort. The setup, a.k.a. *why* it's there, is all that changes.
I know... I'm the guy who wrote it. XD
@@Scorpious187 I disagree. It's a setup that requires two things that I notice in particular: 1) a VERY high-magic setting, where someone is willing and able to pour resources into creating a magical system this complex -- to the point that it either duplicates itself or splits timelines (depending on how the "instance" system is supposed to be interpreted) -- for a relatively non-serious purpose, and 2) a setting that is lighthearted enough to take a cavalier attitude towards death with the "eh, we'll just revive them, no problem".
That said, removing one or both of these stipulations (either it's a much more serious dungeon for a much more serious purpose, or people can't easily be brought back when they die) does expand your options a bit, especially in the former case. But each of those, while still somewhat of an adaptation, still radically differentiates it from your original concept.
Once again, I do think it's cool! I just think it's not as easy to adapt as expected.
@@paigeepler so... literally every official D&D setting, because this kind of thing already exists in D&D. Granted, you have to look at it through an older-edition lens, but the lore about ancient Elven magic is far strong enough to make this a reality and that's part of official D&D lore. Also, Halaster Blackcloak and Karsus exist.
Even so, my point was the overall *concept* is easily adaptable to any setting, maybe not the exact particulars. But I suppose you're right that it's not quite as easy to adapt as I thought if you're going to apply a very strict adaptation of D&D lore, or if your setting is low-magic fantasy.
I made a mega dungeon by combining the FNAF 1-6 maps. It runs like this: the players enter on the FNAF 6 map. There's a few prisoners to rescue (DMNPC) that can help in the boss fight that's triggered by a "Special Music" trap triggered in another room. There's three stairs leading to the FNAF 1, 2, and 3 respectively from the main floor. A teleport is available from the FNAF 3 (Spring trap start location) that will take them to the FNAF: SL after a certain point in the story/exploration. Using the map from the SL breaker room I connect SL to FNAF 4 as originally depicted. I can't wait for them to run this.
PANR has tuned in.
I had the idea of having a haunted mansion as a dungeon filled with ghosts based off characters from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The main enemies are the characters based off the Red Queen and her executioner. The Mad Hatter and March Hare are in the kitchen and may attack you if they notice you. There's also a porcelain doll containing the soul of a young girl (Alice) who died in the mansion.
Getting ready to run this campaign but it's a tower crawl, every floor has multiple doors colored to a theme, puzzle, combat, skill. Choosing a door takes you up a floor. I have multiple rng based scenarios that get harder as you go up. Reaching the top has its own secrets.
I once ran a dungeon that was a very large ghost ship. At the deepest point, there was what was essentially the ship's "phylactery". Once the party broke it, the dungeon essentially entered a "phase two" where more monsters appeared to try and stop the party from escaping the now-sinking ship.
Highlight of the adventure was definitely the party starting to feel bad for the mimics that latched onto them. After the party had decided to rescue them, the end result ended up being the mimics choosing to stay behind to buy the party time.
The whole thing was hugely underestimated by me on time. Even with the boss fight being skipped out on, the whole thing took 12 hours.
Another dungeon I quite liked designing (but never actually ran) is one that so far has just been lore for a citystate in my setting. The whole thing is a massive set of leaks from the elemental planes, drawing in elementals of all kinds. However, adventurers eventually managed to establish a fortified settlement about halfway into what's currently explored, just beyond a massive hotspring that doubles as a boss arena when the leaks pull the "boss" of that area back in.
The whole thing was, obviously, inspired by my love of megadungeon settings. Realistically, I probably won't run it because elementals are just kind of a mess to base an entire campaign around -- and the dungeon would be extensive enough to be a campaign on its own. Regardless, the lore is fun, and basically the setting's main source of elemental-aligned races.
Okay, that "New Century Dungeon" sounds like it would be an awesome anime
Long ago a friend of mine made a small city as a dungeon. Zombie outbreak occurred because of some bad meat. The party had to escape alive. What made it awesome was that it was a circular design. No corners to hide in or defend.
Keep moving. Stay together. Stay quiet.
I had a reversed dungeon. the party was in a cave, when the entrance caved in, causing them to be cut off from the rest of their crew. they would need weeks of digging to get out, so they went deeper into the cave system, reaching what was the back entrance of a dungeon, and they had to fight their way up through the entire complex before they could get out.
there was a section where they saw a bunch of bad guys they incorrectly identified as casters, so they cast Silence on a party member and ran in. turns out, the bad guys were all alchemists, and didn't need to talk to throw bombs, drink elixirs, and stab with spears. meanwhile, most of the party were casters and were fighting a close quarter battle without being able to cast any spells. good times.
oh, and they found an underground lake, which they made a point to stay far away from, adventurers being allergic to water, which steered them right through a fungus forest with ape-like fungus creatures. the lake was completely harmless. there was a regular level 1 orc doing some fishing at the shore. the party was level 4 at the start, I think.
Love the idea of the reversed dungeon for the start of an adventure.
Wait, why would they cast Silence on their own party member? Wouldn't they be unable to cast spells themselves?
I designed a Wizard's keep that led to a demiplane where the Wizard actually stayed. The entrance was at the top of the tower, which the wizard reached via a reverse gravity enchantment on one section of the floor, combined with a Feather Fall when near the top.
The result when one of the players stepped on it and were flung straight up was hilarious... and crunchy.
second dungeon: was based on Doctor Who, sort of. the library was dimensionally expanded, with many rooms, and they were searching for research materials to fix their time machine. there was a magic item vending machine, where they could deposit money and gems and select items to buy. there were barriers between the rooms, or the rooms and corridors, where no magic would cross the threshold, but you could walk through fine. kept them from just standing outside and pelting every room's occupants from cover and a nearly impenetrable picket line in the hallway. there was a room with a display that was an orc guarding a chest. the party spent an absurd amount of time and resources, only to find out it was a wax orc and a plywood facade of a chest.
I created a dungeon with a series of identical rooms (oval, albeit with a curved bulge in the south wall; with a pool of water in the centre, flanked by a column of amethyst and a matching one of beryl, and obsidian orbs set in the chamber walls at the cardinal points) linked by teleportation spells on each of those named features. Each room got a few distinctive bits of flavour decoration, and was populated with whatever monsters seemed appropriate (or, if the players take a while to figure out the gimmick, with rolls on a random encounter table whenever they activate a teleporter).
The only way into the dungeon was via magic (I'd set it up as a teleport trap from elsewhere, using this dungeon as an oubliette, but other options are available), and the only way out was to activate and pass through rooms in a particular order, which would turn the pool in the last room into a portal out. I give clues (mostly muttering that they've just hit room k, room a, room i, or whatever) combined with a fake roll to make it seem that they're being randomly teleported until they start getting on the correct path (at which point they'll be travelling through rooms k, o, n, a, m, i, c, back to o, then finally through rooms d and e). The correct path (or password, really, as if they stray from it they need to start the sequence again) is to use the north teleporter twice, then the south teleporter twice, then the west, the east, the west, the east, the beryl, and finally the amber before diving into the pool of water in the final room.
It's hilarious how long it takes players to realise the room is shaped like an old games console controller and they need to input the konami code...
Time-travel dungeon:
I once designed a dungeon that was just a manor, but the players are each given a timepiece, which can allow them to swap between two separate time periods every round. I had two maps, one for the past and one for the present. Each were identical, except the past had guards, and the present was in ruin. There was treasure in both manors, but it was better in the past, where it was in pristine condition. There were a couple puzzles that required the players to travel between two time periods to solve, such as seeing a safe combination in the present, then entering the same combination into the safe in the past. There was a room with wolves in the present manor, but the present was far safer than the past, which had guards in it.
With a click of the timepiece, the players would swap between the time periods, allowing the players to go between both maps, and sometimes surprise enemies.
It was super cool.
One I'm currently working on is my favorite. It was made by a wizard who found ways to turn dreams into reality. The wizard's wife died and he wanted to live forever in his dreams where he cluld still be with her. He locked himself in a massive dungeon as a way of keeping his dreams from infecting the outside world while he got lost in them. The adventurers get an opportunity to find it when they attacked by nightmare creatures that morph into their own fears when they get close. Some other adventures have already delved in and released the nightmares.
The real gimmick happens once they get inside. Its a seemingly normal dungeon where i whittle down their resources. Then I provide enough safety to get a long rest. They roll a wisdom save. Those who succeed procede as normal. Those who fail are trapped in sleep and must proceed through a dream version of the dungeon. Each side provides different challenges and both put together provide the full story of the wizard and how to help/defeat him.
One of the Nine Dungeons in my homebrew campaign starts in a hallway that goes in an oval with a portal at the end. After passing through, it leads to the end of a hallway, but a sliding wall forces them ahead before what is known as the Dungeon Roller.
As it follows them only at 20 feet per round and beeping down several turns until reaching a sharp turn where it hits a wall, but continues going until it straightens up to the turn.
After that, it stops beeping and follows after them at 40 feet per round, meaning it was only in reverse at first. It will keep following them until reaching another sharp turn to hit the wall at until it straightens out.
However, instead of going in reverse, it goes to neutral and goes after them in a downhill oval hallway with a portal at the top end and bottom end that it'll keep using, picking up speed the longer it goes.
Once they reach the safe zone, it leads them down to the boss room where a Rock Golem lies. Note that I don't mean Stone Golem, but a Golem that uses an "axe" and uses Rock Music to attack.
Another fun note about the dungeon design is the hallways consist of numbers, starting at the 0 of 10, warping to the 1 of 10, then going to 9, 8, 7, etc. until reaching the 0 where it goes to neutral.
This is my first dungeon, but I had an entrance hall, leading to a grand main room. There were 2 doors on the west side, 2 on the east, the one on the south where the entrance hall was, and on the other side of the room, there was a door that had a fiery seal on it. My players immediately picked the right door, where 2 pillars rose from the floor. There were crystals on top, one shattered if you cast firebolt at it, and the other broke from a strike. We have a fighter and an artificer, so they figured it out, which granted them 10 gold each. The button on the other side of a lake of poisonous water deactivated the fiery seal on the door, and released a few starved troglodytes. The players will soon venture past the door, and find the man who sent them on the quest, a powerful necromancer. He will explain stuff, cast dimension door, and animate a suit of armor to fight them. (they're all level 1.) The entire room is ringed with water that damages anything that it touches, unless it's inanimate or dead. I'm new to DMing, so it wasn't executed that well, but it's okay.
edit: also 17th comment lol
Now in the DnD campaign one of my friends in high school was planning out (CURSE YOU 2021 LOCKDOWN, CURSE YOUUUUU!) A DnD campaign, and he asked me to make the lore on the first dungeon. To make a shorter version as I went into a fair amount of detail, the gist was that it was an abandoned mine swarming with a strange, accursed, almost undead. The mine was originally used for the excavation of large tracts of crystals which were found to be helpful in brewing healing potions. However, one of the common workers found a cursed treasure hidden behind an old dungeon wall hidden inside the mountain. The treasures curse enslaved him, and it spread to those which he attacked. The owners son, who was in the mine at the time, searching for a weapon, would open a chest only to find it was a particularly hungry mimic. After a few years, the ability for the curse to spread was diminished, and all that remained were the mindless and bloodlust driven bodies of the people who worked there, and a rather starved mimic.
I built a dungeon that had most of it submerged, it was a temple dedicated to a lesser God of Planar travel and consisted of a set of monk living quarters, a storage area complete with a secret room filled with magical items, a room that housed a defence system that was sentient and could interact with the players, a small alter that the players could summon a small avatar of the god to communicate with and the boss chamber.
The chamber was a large vaulted room containing a Planar Gate on a set of raised platforms connected by stone steps with the walls and ceiling covered in a mosaic mural depicting each of the different Planes people can travel to. The Gate itself I styled after the Stargate from SG1 and the boss's idle from was that of a large floating ball of abyssal gloom that would periodically open up to reveal a singular eye that would scan the room all the while the Gate was partially open and swarms of abyssal creatures I dubed Abyssal Swarmers would spill through. These guys looked like a squigg from 40k only they were more Angler fish esk with a single eye where the little bolb lure is, had stumpy little arms and a tadpole like tail.
a concept i took from Zelda, skyward sword. The dungeon was a sliding puzzle, each room being a piece of the sliding puzzle. You could move the pieces around only in select rooms, and if 2 adjecent rooms had doors at the connecting sides, you could move between. Players had to collect 3 objects spread accross the dungeon, and there were various combat encounters, puzzles and riddles blocking access through rooms, or the console on which they could move the pieces.
I've also taken ideas from Skyward Sword! Mine being the time-shifting within a limited area thing.
@@knutandersson4606 ah yes, the time-shifting. That inspired me to create a puzzle with an orb that has an anti-magic field centred on it, and a bunch of force walls!
I remade Baldi's Basics, except instead of math problems they had to solve riddles.
They got, SOOOOOOO frustrated!
Rampaging elephant: Ganesha before peace comes
A 'drowned temple' deep beneath a desert. The water was all an illusion to keep people out. The team made multiple supply trips and spent thousands on water breathing potions building up a base camp before even venturing in to see the water for themselves.
The main capital in my setting has a sewer that functions like one big dungeon. It can become a haven for criminals and vagrants. It also a good means of traveling the city undetected, and getting into restricted areas.
My favorite dungeon was an abandoned house that is supposed to be the lair of an evil cult, it didn't had too much, one hidden entrance to the actual lair, a few empty rooms one with just a little treasure and in the top floors I placed a mysterious old man, a very basic and simple thing, only one basic trap and most importantly, no maps.
I put all my efforts in giving an horror atmosphere and even playing sound effects. I knew my players where immersed because they were whispering between each other, I had a lot of fun.
A campaign Im running right now is quite literally just one huge dungeon. It's a town based off of Perhevil from Fear and Hunger: Termina. This entire campaign (meant to be a one-shot but its too long) was based off of the Festival of Termina. My 2 PCs and 10 AI controlled contestants have to find their way through a massively corrupted town toward the central tower to fight the final bosses, all the while a battle royale between the 12 contestants breaks out, with huge incentives for murder to occur. The realistic combat makes it very fun too. Best part? As the entire campaign is inside one singular dungeon, they get slowly cornered towards the centre by a white impenetrable fog that turns anything it touches, dead or alive, into terrifying twisted parodies of what they once were. They get no external help, there are no classes, they're all just regular people in a very messed up circumstance. Of course, I'm not cruel, but bloodlust does sometimes get to the contestants. So far, one has two broken arms and one of my PCs is slowly dying of an infection. Best game I've personally ever ran.
Between campaigns I once made the mistake of asking my players what I should make for a dungeon for they next couple of sessions and one said "Brothel!", another yelling "Gay Bath House!" with a third adding "with a tentacle monster". Being a man of my word, and with a great sigh, I set about trying to make a dungeon that fulfils those requirements without it devolving into pervy nonsense (I don't like running that sort of stuff).
The result was a tense exploration of the buildings in question, filled with disease saving throws, messy corpses and tentacles ambushing the players by smashing through floors, walls and ceilings. I've run it many times now and players love it, and I'm not quite sure why.
I understand why the one on the Thumbnail is a Favorite. It's glorious🙃
Not D&D but for a Transformers RPG campaign I'm planning. For one of the missions, I'm going to have my players investigate a mysterious oil rig that keeps appearing and disappearing in random coastal cities of the Pacific, which coincides with a large energon signature that the Autobots had been tracking. The rig will actually be a massive Decepticon( think Omega Supreme size) who is going around the Pacific to steal gold and jewelry through means of their crew.
Why are they stealing all this precious stuff?
The guy watched Moana once and really vibed with Tamatoa.
Got a thing where if my players don't stop this guy in time, they will capsize ON PURPOSE and send their ill-gotten shinies to the bottom of the ocean, never to be seen again.
Stitchpunk Style Dungeon - I love the movie 9 and made five dungeons based completely on the movie with some of the big threats of the movie acting as bosses, and lore wise, I just said that a mad Artificer made the dungeons in question. It was hilarious seeing a party struggle to take down the Seamstress.
A large group of mindflayers took over a town right next to a dungeon. They enslaved a bunch of different races like kobolds, ect.
They had the entire dungeon rebuilt so that many rooms of the dungeon would move. The dungeon was constantly being restocked which brought adventurers from all over. The mindflayers feed on them.
The party finds this place, answering the call of mysteries and treasure. They were not prepared.
It was a bit of a climax to the story arc the party was going on where they got revenge on a mercenary group that was out to get them and raided their FOB with the help of a local and a traitor. Afterwards, they tracked down the leader of the mercenaries who turned out to be a member of a more secretive magic order that the party had only heard about in rumors.
They show up to the wizards hideout in a mountain cabin, and discover that most of the entire mountain is a hollowed out labyrinth of a base. The only thing was it wasn’t really a “dungeon” so there weren’t a ton of natural monsters, more so just constructs, traps, and whatever chimera monsters the wizards were cooking up. Lasted about 5 sessions and took about about 23 hours in total. Party had to navigate through rooms with secret and closed of hallways since the wizards could close them and teleport through instead, I put a magic mirror riddle that they got stuck on for about an hour, a good ol fashioned home brewed minor deck of cards, badass designed mini boss construct chimera hybrids, a mechanical dragon, a literal echo monster that hid as the door to the next room and created shadow illusions of the party members, a few random teleporting traps to mess with the party, an end to the story, and a boss made of thousands of magic items like a Frankenstein of wands and whatnot. It was literally just everything I thought was cool or fun pushed into a giant home of an eccentric and evil wizard that they didn’t have to feel bad about killing.
I'm working on a campaign, and one of the dungeons is the "resting place" of a person who is really important to the campaign, but he didn't actually die, instead, he defends his grave from adventurers, but nobody knows it's his grave, he used to use a sword, but now uses a bow, and intimidates people with magic banshee skull that deals 1d4 physic damage, shocking I know but it's magically pitch black, (no dark vision here) they don't know it's a guy that's killed hundreds of banshees. when they finally see the guy, heres what I've got here.
"The large room is pitch black, your dark vision fails you'
"Suddenly, you hear a scream"
1d4 physic damage
"The darkness receeds, if only a little, with your attempts to light a torch"
"You hear another scream"
1d4 psychic damage
"Suddenly, the dark is gone, and you see, a coffin, and one looming over it"
"His robes are pitch black, but his hands look burnt, and his mask, covers his face entirely"
"The figure draws a bow, pulling an arrow out of his quiver, "LEAVE" he commands,"
If they do, he'll appear later, and the story will continue from their, if not, trigger an escape fight, from which they have to get out before they fall in the destroying floor, with the man firing arrows that reduce speed.
My dungeons for my dungeon diving game were all elemental themed but I wanted more than normal dungeons
So instead the players were surprised to walk into full on pocket dimensions, each ran by an elemental spirit determined to keep a magical crystal which the party needed safe
Each had its own theme
It’s own color
And it’s own puzzles and story to it
Even NPCS that the party could find and riddles they could solve
Have not used this dungeon, but I made one that is just a giant hall going out into the distance with only a manhole type square grate as an entrance. The players have to figure out that the dungeon has a sort of seamless teleportation going on making the hall seem endless. The hall also can be a way to time travel. The giant tunnel goes east and west. Going east for 1 "lap" will make the day 1 day in the future while going west puts a player backwards in time. The time travel effects are independent for all players and only come into play upon leaving. The dungeon isn't designed as much of a threat but rather a curiosity.
my ones are ones designed around puzzle bosses. the dungeon acts as a sort of hidden tutorial for how to beat the boss. one that comes to mind was a ruined castle inside the first room was a fiend and a giant mirror. the fiend moves in front of the mirror and turns invisible. but can still be seen in the reflection. smashing the mirror breaks the spell.... queue boss room a literal giant house of mirrors maze. :D
One I am working on is a giant mechanical fortress that gets consumed by the BBEG for him to get enough metal to build up his body. My future players will have to traverse the insides of the BBEG to get to his core. This is for a robot heavy homebrew campaign.
I recreated the Water Temple from Orcarina of Time...
BEAR FACTORY
It was a dungeon that had wild magic item that summoned bears everywhere. We had 3 jars to pull.
Every time they entered a new room they had to pull one from each jar. 1 told what room it was (bathroom, closet, break room, stair case, giant conveyor belt), second was what kind of bear (Fire bears, fairy bears, Care Bears, polar bears, vampire bears), third was how many (or pull again).
Let’s say being jumped by some fairy bears in a bathroom or a stair case with being Care Bears stared were some highlights.
Ta yuan ti temple. 5 levels of mayhem, 3 floors of rooms for yuan ti and cultist to use for living, one huge cave under the temple with a piramid tomb for the anathema, and the sacred forbidden area for the clerics, priests and slaves of the anathema, all full of traps, yuan ti already waiting for the party (as the yuan ti raise the alarm) secret rooms and passages, the party enter the temple kicking everyone, like its a few snake guys and win, but it was a huge temple, full of yuan-ti, the fought for 10 sessions against horde/swarm type enemies i had to make, burning resources while making bunkers out of small rooms or hidding in secret rooms. Not a single long rest, they released friends and foes from the prison. They missed a ton of treasure, the kil a cobra hydra, entered a forbidden yuanti piramid shaped tomb in a cave under the temple, and killed the anathema, for them to run back up through the few reinforcements.
They still feel the emotion of finally leaving that huge temple alive and with the mission accomplished.
Most of these dungeons were cool ideas in the DM's head that they've never actually run
Nothing as elaborate as these but for a side quest I used donjon to randomly make a two level dungeon. Put in some ice themed enemies and changed a little bit of the maps. Then had it ruled over by a Ice Giant with a level of sorcerer and a Staff of Winter (The PCs had divined where to find a Staff of Winter for other reasons). The staff let the Ice Giant divide the enemies before he came in and hit hard with his axe.
The other idea I want to copy is the Modron Maze/ Dungeon Construct from Planescape: Tormet.
In the Yugioh GX themed our DM who is a konami sanctioned judge for yournaments came up with as a part of the raid on the 7 Co-BBEGs of the campaign's individual HQs or "Dungeons"
... "Duel Puzzles" the card game equivelant of trying to figure out the correct combo of class abilities to get through a puzzle a normal DM would put in your way..... only with actual Yugioh Cards..... and if you failed the puzzle..... some a typical trap like arrows, pitfall, etc would occur where you'd roll dice like normal to determine damage.
For "encounters" where we'd play the actual Yugioh card game our DM would allow the players present but not involved in the duel to pull some out of game shenanignas like in the anime (with few exceptions).... so we could goad the opponent into making a bad play, outright try to help our party member cheat, and or even straight up knock out the opponent with a bat to the head..... but if ya got caught.... then the player dueling would suffer some kind of penalty.
Said penalties/puzzles depended on which particular BBEG's base was being raided.
I once made a dungeon where all the traps were revealed and triggered. The party thinks someone has been here and must’ve triggered all the traps.
Later, they come across the magic Crystal they were looking for and suddenly I reveal how the dungeon springs to life with illusion magic. Covering the traps, making walls disappear and reappear. Then all the traps reset.
Now they party has to navigate from memory the way out. Only now the traps are hidden, the layout of the dungeon seems to have changed, and oh yeah now here’s the dungeon boss coming to kill you since you stole his shiny.
The most creative dungeon ive ever made was a magical almost infinite hedge maze in the fey wild. There was a whole town somewhere in the maze and the party was tasked with spme magical ingredients for an arch fey of the court of cuisine
One of my favorites was a Dungeon inside a Snowglobe I designed aka "The Living Labyrinth". I had an evil cult inside a shed out in the woods. but the shed was completely normal to avoid suspicion. except for a Snowglobe that when touched shrunk that person and brought them inside the globe. The Globe itself was a living organism that the cult used as their base. but the creature had a bit of a will of its own. You had to traverse trough its body to get back out. A Room with it's Eye, A Room with it's Mouth, A Room with it's Stomach and finally a room judging your travels trough its body. If you show The room with the Eye a specific treasure in the room it would allow free passage, avoiding the puzzle of the room. similarly you had to feed the mouth and help create creatures to clean his stomach. the hints where vague but my players figured most of it out. leading into the judgement room. where the creature would judge the players depending on how they treated its body before gaining passage to the cults ritual chamber at the end. this would either result in a buff, nothing or additional enemies to fight before facing off against the cult. (they attacked the eyeball and did the other two chambers as intended. 2/3 So I gave them all 5 temp hp except the guy that attacked the eyeball. which he found completely fair btw.)
My current setting is a scifi/fantasty environment long after the apocalypse of a modern world. Many "ruins" end up being things like old military installations, missile silos or supernaturally preserved haunted toy stores.
But one that stands out is what my players lovinging deemed "Fel Mart". A massive "ancient" mall inhabited by my homebrew zerg/tyranid monsters. Courtesy of CZcams for "x song but in an abandoned mall" Playlist.
*chefs kiss* their terror mixed with finding stores called Blazing Subject(hot topic), Richard's (dick's), etc.
I had a pretty fun one where the players got shrunken down by a fey (think like “honey i shrunk the kids” or “grounded”) and then had to fight their way through hordes of undead mice and bugs through catacomb-like rat tunnels and ventilation style ductwork, eventually coming to the boss of the dungeon: a rat that had achieved lichdom. All for the amusement of the fey that shrank them down in the first place (who would occasionally taunt them or give them hints to puzzles as they progressed)
an upside down mage tower starting at the keel of a big freighter ship in the ocean. underwater levels included. pressure issues arising. intruders just being minor nuisances to the functionality of the systems of the towership so far but always left with a surplus in experience, treasure or equipment.
My old group really only let me DM a few times due to reservations on what I might do and our forever DM liked to keep his own writing for our group going. That being said, we did one shot side quest style campaigns every so often to break up the story allowing our forever DM to write and map out the next bit as well as do things a bit different for a while. One of the first ones I did was a small campaign that started the group off in a town where they were arrested on trumped up charges. The bit was to effectively draft random nobodies traveling through the region into defending the town/small city from a lich that had set down in the graveyard. The entrance to the graveyard itself was the beginning of the dungeon which was about dug out by the lich's forces using golems and undead to carve out catacombs and a large layout of work spaces. I had mapped it out at the time to be 6-8 layers deep depending on what the party gained access to. Part of the access through the place was via portal enchantments using enchanted mirrors as site to site portal gateways that the lich could distribute forces through as well as escape. I had catered the run as much to plot writing as murder hobo tendencies allowing for an adjustable amount of mobs via the mirrors to cater to the group's fun factor with the run. The bottom floor of the place was the lich's proper work space, library, and otherwise proper looting rooms with a mirror room hub for logistics and emergency exit. All of this culminated in what was effectively the Skeletor mirror meme for the laughs at the end providing the BBEG the escape out. BBEG would bail out through a final mirror while throwing a switch on the way out that would shatter the mirror after a few seconds after he left.
It wasn't a bad start of the campaign and the setting can be used to start new groups or existing groups off on a new plot arc. I actually had about 6 similar scale dungeons done and mapped out for the campaign but we only ended up using 4 of them because I like to let players choose the path they want to go while having options to loop them back around to the main story line.
I think CZcams comments should have TL DR's if they're this long. But a good read nonetheless
The Jester's Manse.
A 4 floor mansion that begins full of jokes, mildly dangerous encounters, and lots of whimsy.
But if the players don't examine the paintings in the foyer they miss the story. A dragon attacked a kingdom that the knights couldn't defeat despite the king offering all his wealth and his daughter's hand. The jester laughs at their folly, and the knights accuse the jester of insulting his highness, so the king has no choice but to slay the dragon himself. By a miracle, he does. but the knights plotted his death so the jester used all his newfound wealth to build this magical trap of a house.
Catapults with pies tied to doors, bed mimics that ask to be fed, a hook horror in the coat closet, a fat famine spirit in the dining room with random-effect food, chocolate pudding...
A teleporter leads down, and with each floor the rooms become less 'ha ha' funny and more death traps with puns. Things get more and more malicious as the party hears the jester laughing at each failed trap. They even find dead knights frozen in place, decaying on the floor, or mashed to pulp.
Finally at the end they must solve puzzles that sound more like the jester is meloncholic, saying they must find 3 hearts, which he lost. his own, that of his lost love, and the joy of his profession.
finally the party finds him on a throne of gold, dead. the jester's long, long dead. too afraid to leave this sanctum, he doesn't even know if the knights even tried to get to him. he died miserable, afraid, and cowering in the dark.
His only message is an apology to his assassins, saying he can't even give them the satisfaction of his own death. The last of the gold was made into his throne which is welded into the rock, impossible to move. The best he can do is offer them his dirty laundry and a last teleporter that takes them out the front door high above them.
the laundry is the last joke. its all magic clothing, each article giving +2 to each attribute.
Peace be upon you. ^w^
Never been this early just saying hello love the videos
Set in 1920s America
In a world that has forgotten real magic and the vestiges of that magic only remain in prepared casters like wizards or ancient historical sites. The party hired by their shady explorer boss delves into an old mansion that was once owned by the greatest elven mage of all time 200 years ago (supposedly) the party encounters haunted broom closets, slime maids, and evil sewer snakes. The party must survive the many floors( 12) to get the true treasure of the mansion( locked up archfey blood). Pathfinder game
Is there a part 1 to this video? The caption says #2 but I can't find the first one
It's part 2, but the original's title is weird so we changed it to make more sense. The first part is here: czcams.com/video/TcKYLN_9T10/video.html
Has anybody used the cantrip Minor Illusion, if so, what was the best or creative way you used it?
As GM: Fake (dead believed captured)female adventurer friend is screaming for help in a room. Use shatter after to collapse the room.
As PC: Make a fake image of a wall over a door, fake a rock over a person as optical concealment, and make a false image of a party member for projectile attack draw.
Use it in conjunction with others generally. Use Major Image to fake a wall or block off a window(which you can still see/shoot through). Minor illusion lacks Verbal components so just use it to fake speaking from inside and attack anyone that enters with Advantage through that window after closing and barring the door behind them.
I once played a bard who used Minor Illusion to create an image of a knight to distract some zombies to buy time for the rest of the party to fortify the building the zombies were attacking. I'm pretty sure she also did it again to get the zombies to attack each other.
Try looking at maps of SD Gundam battle Alliance as examples for Gundam or Mech etc. D&D's.
Not so much a dungeon, more of a trap, that functions as a mini dungeon.
The party, upon exploring a more "high end" dungeon (a known stronghold/safehouse/keep for bbeg for example) come across a large and vast corridoor. Running its entire length is a highly realsitic artisitic depiction of a famous historic battle. Its not art. Its that nanosecond of time, from that battle, stolen, and captured for study or art. Yes. This will involve some time travelling/magic shenanigans. Maybe a party member disrupts one of the wards they've found in this corridoor. And that either causes them or the party to be transported into this moment of time. The longer they're there, they start to notice the tiniest of movements, as a nanosecond can only be stretched so far, or the introduction of them and their active passing of time spills causes whatever ritual responsible to fail. Either way, this causes an event where the member/party has to navigate whats depicted as a mini dungeon to apprehend/barter with the entity responsble for stealing this moment of time, as it's logical they're present in the moment you dind yourselves in, as they had to be there to steal it.
Personally i like to describe a scene from the final battle between mekkaine and yaoldaboth from scp
you ever seen overlord Yah that the great underground tomb of nazarick would be epic.
but one iv been working on is a massive terrarium in the center of to the pc prisoners are march out naked and shrunk down and the only way out is to get to the middle temple graded by a normal trantula
So I suppose in some way this is a dungeon, but my campaign is still in the prep phase. Still, this is basically a mid-tier storyline I thought up, so I may as well share:
On the continent of Telvyan, there's a expansive caldera, which will act as kinda the 'low-level' area for the campaign, scattered with all sorts of fey and goblinoid adventures. But deep in the lore of the Stormwarden Caldera, there speaks of the Ancient of Black, Apolyc, and his rampage into the caldera that ruined the drwarven hold that has now become the main goblin town of Cobblestone. His fate is mysterious, but notably, the far peak of the mountain, which juts up out of the caldera, is home of even stranger fauna, such as a race of moth-people and giant megafauna using all sorts of dinosaur statblocks. While at first blush this may seem like it's just a Lost World situation, this gets more interesting with the addition of the Storm Guardians- Humanoid creatures that not only are able to channel the power of lightning, but also are able to form themselves into powerful avatar beasts, which they use to defend the four towns from both hostile megafauna and the Tyrants, similar strange aberration megafauna who are seemingly fueled with the urge to destroy. At the peak, legends speak that if one of these guardians was to gain overseer of the caldera and claim the title of Storm Empress, some great power will be granted to her.
In truth, this is where the endgame dungeon for this substory hits, as the idea is that the party helps essentially aid in one of the Storm Guardians overpowering her sister guardians. When they eventually reach the Seat of the Storm Empress, they will find the reverent castle and accommodations one would expect of a divine ruler. However, the structure continues downward. Either bidden by the newly crowned empress later after they go to leave, or upon escorting the Empress there and poking their noses around, they will find something mysterious below- in truth, the arcane science laboratory responsible for all the breeds of megafauna, including the storm guardians and the tyrants, among other attempts to experiment stranger bioweapon-grade creatures. Main capstone fights will include the artificer-lich Pointy Hat created, who takes the role of the original sitemaster ready to experiment on the newly crowned empress, an extremely powerful Tyrant Lizard whose very punches leave slime that explodes, potential rematch-encounters with less-perfected tyrant beasts they fought before, and deep in the facility, the insane and highly mutated remains of what was once Apolyc, Ancient of Black, who now knows nothing but madness and pain.
Extra bonus, each of both the Guardian Beasts and the Tyrants are basically excuses to try and stat up Monster Hunter beasts into engaging minibosses and bosses. From the Storm Guardians of the Wolf, Horse, Monkey and Dragon representing Zinogre, Kirin, Rajang and Lagiacrus, to the Tyrant Lizards basically encompassing most of the major Brute Wyverns like Glavenus, Deviljho and Brachidios, to Apolyc himself, who after centuries of being treated as a labrat, his once sharpened powers as an Ancient Black Dragon has been wormed down to essentially an acid-spitting Fatalis.
So I'm starting my adventure as a DM and I might need tips. I'm going to need them, because my players are insanely creative (and a little chaotic).
-Don't be afraid to accept alternate solutions to puzzles that you didn't think of when you designed them, if the solutions make sense.
-If you create a dungeon, think about why it's there, why the various creatures are present, and what they do when adventurers aren't there. Don't treat it like a video game, where it's just the context for a "boss battle" or something of that sort; that's the biggest trap I see DMs fall into when they develop things like this.
-For social encounters: Charisma skills do not defy logic, unless the person being convinced/intimidated/deceived is very, very stupid.
-If your monsters speak any language that a player character could possibly know, your players will probably try to talk to them. (Or, at least, this is what we keep doing in my group.) So if you have a fight planned with, say, goblins or kobolds, be on the lookout for PCs who speak Goblin or Draconic! Your purported combat encounter might not end up being a combat encounter.
-Keep track of the items you give the characters. Especially utility-based ones.
Why exactly would Vecna try to become a _temporary_ god?
I'm curious, if you had to play two different characters in a campaign, what two classes would you pick? I would go with a path of a bear totem Barbarian and an evocation wizard. I can sculpt evocation spells and protect party members from the effects. Imagine a barbarian running into battle and a fireball goes off between the Barbarian and his opponents and the Barbarian is unharmed.
A cleric and a warlock who both follow the same god, but have extremely different philosophical perspectives on their god and how to carry out the mission they've both been assigned to complete by said god. Bonus points if the god is evil (e.g. Umberlee) and the warlock is actually the more ethical, heroic member of the duo.
@paigeepler now those sound like an interesting pair of characters. I once played a chaotic neutral Tempest cleric who worshiped her. He used to be a pirate
@@billcox8870 Nice! My group has ALSO produced a chaotic neutral former pirate who worships Umberlee, but he's a rogue.
@@paigeepler cool. My cleric was a bit grumpy🤣
Gold Pepe is /getting it/