[3.x] Anyone feel like helping me fill a dungeon?

[Avoraciopoctules]

In one of my D&D campaigns, I've run into a gap in prepared material. There's a few concepts lurking ahead, but they need a few more PC levels and the party would rather stretch out their level 7 game. So this is a pretty cool time to throw a classic dungeon at them. I floated the idea of some evil wizard with a macguffin cackling from his doom tower, and the reception was pretty positive. Now I just need to come up with the details.

First, party makeup:

4 level 7 characters, basically no full casters. Pathfinder rules as a default, but other stuff can be integrated.

- Fighter who has split feats between falchion and bow fighting, pretty decent with both. Can reliably damage for at least 40+ HP a round against enemies without stratospheric AC. Needs to find an artifact with some utility powers to contribute to non-fighty stuff with.
- Sahuagin Druid (3rd level spells at character level 7) with fairly good saves and HP. Claw/claw/bite combo is pretty decent when buffed, otherwise is more of a meat wall. Has a wand of Summon Nature's Ally III.
- Rogue who fights with a single rapier. Has an artifact sword that makes him hard to kill in melee, decent mods for stealth and trapfinding. Also has a custom feat, which lets him use Dex instead of Strength for rapier damage.
- Monk/Paladin multiclass. Kind of sucks, since she was an NPC originally. May get rebuilt into something better. Might get an artifact that lets her use some blasting magic if it looks like the party needs more AoE power.

I'm thinking I'll grab a map or two off of the Paratime Cartography website and then just fill in the details. But most of the ones that stand out have a lot of rooms, and crowdsourcing might help make things excitingly diverse.

http://www.paratime.ca/images/fantasy/dungeon-055.jpg

So here's a dungeon around 150 rooms with what looks like a big rotating bridge in a pit as a centerpiece. All I've got right now is a vague concept of some nefarious boss monster using it as base while they enact Evil Plans. If anyone has ideas, I'd love to hear them. Otherwise, I'll probably just start posting room contents as ideas occur to me.

[ubernoob]

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[Orca]

The rotating bit in the center is the interesting part. Either it rotates on a schedule, or continuously, or it's controlled from somewhere. Probably room 59 if the last, it's close and the circular shape could make it work for some massive turnstile. Maybe the Druid could have some summons work it, or they could talk some mooks into helping. Or they could use ropes and pitons to bypass the bridge once they've offed the guardian.

Otherwise you have 4 wings of the dungeon to detail. You could theme them by d&d elements, or with one type of monster in each, but in any case they should be themed IMO.

[OgreBattle]

Have a giant horned tiger that's really a transformed minotaur and when you kill it the Monk can get the tiger transformation amulet.

[shadzar]

When the door closes behind you the walkway begins to turn clockwise one quarter turn. You can not go back the way you came.

so each time the door closes the "room" wlll turn leaving any stragglers behind. this means it tkes several passes to get to all four sections, and either you can complete one section at a time, or go back and forth between them.

leaving one section gives the option of visiting two others, etc...

want to be REALLY tricky? it takes two parties to complete the dungeon as when the room is in the E-W position rooms beyond 70 on the West section are flooded unless Area 60 is in the N-S position.

when in N-S position room 95 actually slide 1 grid square worth south so the door cannot be opened.

so the only way to get to these areas is having room 60 in position so that it is impossible for everyone to actually get into that section.

also those sections that "lock" themselves trap anyone inside either under water or barred from exit while room 60 is in the counter position.

gives the druid and rogue things they could do to "shine" as the druid scouts the underwater areas, and with that information and the doors that wont open, the rogue can deduce how to get into room 95.

the door leading south of room 70 actually has a hint inscribed on it a large N to show that path in room 60 should be pointing North to make it safe beyond,a nd room 70 itself should have water stains and such where after so many years of having trapped water in it that it has leaked a bit.

i could do a LOT more with this map for AD&D, but not knowing ECL/LA/ECL etc for 3rd, i can only trap rooms and such without having actually critters, but it would be more like a ToEE if only filled with death traps.

[radthemad4]

Go through the characters' skill lists and contrive situations to give them reasons to use them.

Put an over CR'd monster in a room, but provide tons (so players don't feel like they have to guess 'the right method') of indirect methods to help kill it in that room, or you feel that doesn't make enough sense, then in nearby rooms. If you want to give players some time to think, have it initially sleeping in a cage, and if it notices the players, have it start breaking it from inside to give players a few rounds to prepare for it that way, or if they roll high on perception, stealth, etc. not wake the monster, and possibly use it to handle some other part of the dungeon.

Jaquay the dungeon up a bit.

[Josh_Kablack]

So that giant rotating bridge begs a few questions.

Firstly, what is it a bridge over? The answer here should be something more interesting than just "a deeper hole". Possible answers include: An elemental maelstrom, a gate to a hostile plane, a geothermal tap that goes all the way to the magma beneath the mantle, or the maw of the world serpent.

Secondly, why is the entire compound structured so that each quadrant can only be accessed from other quadrants via the bridge? Did the complex previously serve as some sort of prison where access had to be tightly controlled (rooms 75-84 really do look like a cellblock)?Was the compound occupied by nearly incompatible, but allied racial/religious factions who needed to be kept seperate? Or were there other reasons?
If this separation was (or remains) so essential then how is burrowing between quadrants discouraged and what prevents occupants from flying across the bridge chamber?


Mulling this over my own answers would be:

The compound is a combination prison and laboratory, with the prisoners who are housed in the the west quadrant cellblock area of 74-84 being periodically hauled across the bridge to serve as subjects for cruel fantasy magic experimentation in the east quadrant of rooms 128-145. The "sensitive data" or other fruits of this experimentation are further studied and kept secure in the southern quadrant.

The prisoners and lower-level magical research technicians are kept from burrowing out by the simple expedients of denying picks and shovels in those areas, and a combination of declawing and manacling prisoners with racial burrowing abilities. Although some of the guards should have tremorsense to be able to attempt any rescue mission that tries to burrow in.
Flight across the chasm is discouraged by making sure the guards on all four entry points are quite skilled with crossbows (or other ranged attacks) and probably having a ballista or fancy-pants-blasty staff in the central rotating platform.
The pit itself is a disturbingly deep hole, with the edges coated with permenancied grease, and it contains the remains of prior experimentation subjects - who have either become monsterous themselves or are food for some sort of nasty carrion beast or undead horror.
The adventure is that the PCs are hired to save one of the prisoners who comes from nobility, and the adventure is to get him out before the experimentation has gone to far. They can save the other prisoners if they want, and may gain additional rewards and acclaim for doing so, but some of the prisoners have already been corrupted in some way by the experimentation.

The dungeon will have guards for the prisoners and the enemy will co-ordinate a response if they realize that the PC team is assualting, but the dungeon also has a fair number of support staff and arcane studies types, whose action are limited to: flee, surrender, sound alarm, or ask to be rescued themselves.

For a 7th level adventure, this sort of dungeon would most likely be run by one of the following as the "boss monster", and that will color the majority of the rest of the inhabitants:

• A Drow arcanist trying to advance their standing within their house. (lotsa drow, spiders, driders, constructs, undead and bugs)
• A cult of Yuan-Ti (yuan-ti, other monstrous humanoids and anything even vaguely snakelike)
• One or more Mind Flayers (a motly assortment of charmed minions, with Umber Hulks as heavies, grimlock slave labor and some of the odder abberations in dark corners)
• A nest of Spirt Nagas (a tribe of evil humanoids and their pets whose chieftains are enthralled via Charming Gaze.)

[deaddmwalking]

It appears the expectation is for the party to approach through Room 1. I like the idea of the 'dungeon' being the 3 sections beyond bridge (room 60). I like the idea of prisoners in the West Wing and experiments in the East Wing. That would make the South wing the 'residential' section for the guards.

The Northern Wing, where the PCs are expected to approach from, could be the 'camouflage'. A gnome town that tries to look normal in every way. The gnome leader is hiding the monstrous presence to protect his people (think Lando in Empire Strikes Back). Having 'friendlies' that don't know anything about the horrors that are being hidden nearby could make the PCs a little paranoid. And then figuring out how to bypass several layers of illusion to find the secret prison without starting a major incident could be interesting.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Some really awesome ideas here, thanks a lot! I think I've got the beginnings of something pretty cool.

Overall concept: The Backwards Room is an alliance of Kytons and Nerra. They want to kidnap people for horrifying expriments, and also replace some of their victims with shapeshifting spies. One of the important military officers that gives the party quests is going to get stolen away, and when they uncover the faceless mirror-thing that took his place, it will have a clue to where the real person disappeared to.

The nerra rule the south wing where powerful mirror gates and long-term plans are made, and the kytons rule the east, where prisoners are surgically transformed in accordance with their twisted sense of art. The west wing is where most fresher prisoners are kept, overseen by a brutal minotaur jailer and a monk who is unsurprisingly garbage in a fight when not using his tiger-form bracers. North wing is both a facade and a business, presenting itself as a subterranean gnome town that specializes in selling trained monsters, some common, some chimeras the party has never seen before. Perhaps the PCs are escorting the commander on a mission to investigate the place or buy a few magical beasts, and the bodysnatchers are tempted into recklessness by the rank piping on the commander's uniform. Only a few gnomes know the truth, but they are either concerned for the safety of the rest if they squeal or willing collaborators in the Backwards Room's experiments.

I can use Dominions 4 foul spawn sprites when I want to throw down a few dozen trash mobs. Security alarms could open cages, animate grasping chains, or uncover a mirror that some nerra warriors immediately step through. I've already statted a minotaur with a few fighter levels and a double crossbow in my NPC folder, so that could make a pretty decent bridge boss monster who will retreat West for a final stand if not decisively defeated.

[radthemad4]

The spinning bridge could also be an elevator.

[Josh_Kablack]

If you go with the Gnomes town as a front you have the issue / hook of the Gnomish ability to speak with burrowing animals. More than a few of the Gnomes are starting to get suspicious due to what the moles and voles are telling them, but the Gnome officials are trying to keep things hushed up to appease the Kyton / Verra alliance The Gnome higher-ups realize that the Gnomes are only useful to the monsters in that they hide the true nature of the horrific activities nearby - if word of those activities gets out, then there is nothing stopping the Kytons from experimenting on the Gnomes and destroying the entire town.

[JonSetanta]

A room full of homonculi. Basically a horde fight.

Animated statue. Classic.

Imps and a vat of lava.

A naga within a treasure room and small fountain.

Pitfall into a pool of fiendish piranhas.

Mimic treasure chest. Every dungeon must have at least 1 mimic!


I feel sorry for the Monk/Paladin. What a bad combination. Maybe you could consider the noncaster classes going "gestalt".

[Kaelik]

I cannot advocate strongly enough for a CR 8 Dybbuk from Fiendish Codex II. Put it in with a Hydra of some kind as a pair to fight the party.

Basically, if it hears the party coming, they walking to an Obscuring Mist that is also a Mind Fog (It lives in the Obscuring Mist regardless) and then they fight a Hydra while the Dybbuk uses Fear from somewhere they can't see (and they may assume was just a fear aura on the Hydra), while he sits inside the floor or walls most of the time.

Then when they kill the Hydra, he possesses it and they kill it all over. Then, after that, he comes out and goes right back into the Hydra if he can.

Some of the reasons I prefer Hydra is because the Dybbuk specifically cannot possess headless corpses, so 1) It makes sense for him to use Hydras because he wants lots of heads but 2) in fairness to the party, they are much more likely to, when a Hyrda dies and then gets up the first time, to just start cutting off heads, and if they do that, well good, because they they sort of accidentally prevent future Dybbuk resurrections, so it isn't likely to result in the party deciding the hyrda is immortal and fuck life.

[Wiseman]

I cannot advocate strongly enough for a CR 8 Dybbuk from Fiendish Codex II. Put it in with a Hydra of some kind as a pair to fight the party.

Basically, if it hears the party coming, they walking to an Obscuring Mist that is also a Mind Fog (It lives in the Obscuring Mist regardless) and then they fight a Hydra while the Dybbuk uses Fear from somewhere they can't see (and they may assume was just a fear aura on the Hydra), while he sits inside the floor or walls most of the time.

Then when they kill the Hydra, he possesses it and they kill it all over. Then, after that, he comes out and goes right back into the Hydra if he can.

Some of the reasons I prefer Hydra is because the Dybbuk specifically cannot possess headless corpses, so 1) It makes sense for him to use Hydras because he wants lots of heads but 2) in fairness to the party, they are much more likely to, when a Hyrda dies and then gets up the first time, to just start cutting off heads, and if they do that, well good, because they they sort of accidentally prevent future Dybbuk resurrections, so it isn't likely to result in the party deciding the hyrda is immortal and fuck life.

Huh, I'll have to try something like that at some vague undefined point in the future.