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[DnD] 1-room Dungeon Challenges
Dortmunder
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm currently building a dungeon for my players. They will be plundering the crypt of the dead primordial Horar.
I call it The Tomb of Horar.
Anyways, I found a pre-made dungeon map here and am currently going through it room-by-room, filling it with interesting traps, puzzles, monsters, etc.
I thought it would be interesting to share some "1-room dungeon challenges" that could be dropped into any dungeon as-is (or with little modification) to give your players something to chew over. I also need help to finish populating the dungeon :P
Once my dungeon is complete I plan on publishing it for free under a CC license.
So I'll start:
8 Queens
A 8x8 room is set up like a chess board with 8 life-sized statues of regal queens grouped around the center of the board. An inscription on the base of each statue reads:
The queen statues must be placed into a position (on the board) where none of them is threatening another. For example:
When this is done, the center of the board will open up into a spiral staircase that descends in to the darkness.
So what are some of your ideas?
I call it The Tomb of Horar.
Anyways, I found a pre-made dungeon map here and am currently going through it room-by-room, filling it with interesting traps, puzzles, monsters, etc.
I thought it would be interesting to share some "1-room dungeon challenges" that could be dropped into any dungeon as-is (or with little modification) to give your players something to chew over. I also need help to finish populating the dungeon :P
Once my dungeon is complete I plan on publishing it for free under a CC license.
So I'll start:
8 Queens
A 8x8 room is set up like a chess board with 8 life-sized statues of regal queens grouped around the center of the board. An inscription on the base of each statue reads:
“A sister of eight I did plot and scheme
To murder my kin that they may dream
In darkness eternal while I reign
Little did I know, they did the same.
Our treacherous ways have sealed our fate,
Only a truce will open the gate.”
The queen statues must be placed into a position (on the board) where none of them is threatening another. For example:
When this is done, the center of the board will open up into a spiral staircase that descends in to the darkness.
So what are some of your ideas?
Dortmunder on
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My favorite room involved a bunch of zombie minions that would "regenerate" a turn after being destroyed (story-wise they were proto-liches that an individual had been using in experiments) and 4 "holding cells" in the corners of the room that the players had to herd them into. Except those "cells" were magical and turning one on turned the two adjacent to it off, and vice versa. So they would have to deal with pushing zombies into cages and then figure out the combination to get all the force cages shut at once (it was a pretty simple penny-corners puzzle, actually).
I really wanted to see them try that one.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Are they all combat challenges? Or puzzles and stuff too?
An 8x8 room which starts to fill with water when the party enters. A good way to have this room entered is from above (meaning you don't have to close it off with an obscure trap trigger to make the room actually work).
The room is bare at a first glance except for the vents where water pours in and a set of doors on the opposite side of the room. In reality the room is a maze of invisible walls making the double doors a lot harder to reach, especially with the rising water. Opening the doors empties the room of water and deactivates the walls. Make sure the doors out are locked so a Wizard can't break the trap with mage hand.
Each player acts on their initiative as if this was a combat encounter. They may do the following actions plus whatever creativity they can come up with. I find it best not to disclose most of this until they try things:
Move (Move Action) - Move up to their speed (minus speed restrictions due to water levels). If a player attempts to move through an invisible wall they are immediately stunned until the start of their next turn.
Arcana (Minor Action) - Anyone trained in arcana can make an active arcana check to see all the walls as solid walls from their current position. This gives most casters a very important role since they're usually rubbish at swimming.
Feel for an adjacent wall (Minor Action) - The player takes their time and checks an adjacent square to see if there's a wall intersecting. They are not stunned if there is a wall.
Perception (Free Action) - A player can make a high DC perception check once per turn to see if they can tell where walls adjacent to their square are simply because of how the water is acting/parsed/flowing.
Nature (Minor Action) - Take a moment to study water flow and depending on the check can tell how water is flowing burst X from their current position.
Water fills the room at a default rate of 1 foot per round, the room is 10 feet high. The following is a chart of what happens as the water gets higher.
2 feet - Everyone loses 1 speed per move action.
3 feet - Everyone moves at half speed per move action.
4 feet - Everyone can only move 2 squares per move action.
5 feet - You can now swim more freely, you may swim at 1/2 speed but still only wade at 2 square pace.
6 feet - You must swim to be able to make any movement progress.
Small characters are affected 2 feet sooner than everyone else.
Players will have to start holding their breaths as the room gets full and someone will need to pick/blow open the door.
Off: 0
On: X
00
0x
Then, when you flip one of the tiles (toggle it on or off) the two tiles immediately next to (NOT DIAGONAL) it flip states as well.
So we flip the X to an 0 and it becomes;
0X
X0
And so on. The goal being to toggle all of the tiles to the "on" position at the same time.
In this case, they also had to manage the dozen or so zombie minions into the cages and then deal with them if they shut one off in the process of restarting everything.
Finishing the puzzle flooded the room with radiant energy, killing all the minions.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
You have a room of any size. At the entrance is a landing big enough for the party and some depictions on the wall. The room then opens up into a larger area filled with fire except for a narrow path that goes straight from one end to the other. Fire is spewing out of the tiles. Inspection will reveal the 'safe' tiles are also able to spout fire and are pressure sensitive.
On the wall is a sequence of drawings of the room with different fire patterns on them and numbers between each pattern. The current pattern (straight line) is at the start of the sequence.
The numbers actually represent the number of movement spaces before the pattern of the room changes.
The goal is for the party to make it across the room without getting horribly burned. Involves a lot of communication from those who stay behind vs those who venture into the trap.