If you're looking for some inspiration, consider reading the Dungeon of the Mad Mage module. It is basically a million levels of a dungeon crawler. Tons of sick mazes, puzzles, chases, traps, etc...
If you're looking for some inspiration, consider reading the Dungeon of the Mad Mage module. It is basically a million levels of a dungeon crawler. Tons of sick mazes, puzzles, chases, traps, etc...
Ya dude... I play with some hardcore gamers usually and they wanted me to run this to just PURELY dungeon crawl and smash. Still getting through it, but I'm sure the chase scene and some of the...
Ya dude... I play with some hardcore gamers usually and they wanted me to run this to just PURELY dungeon crawl and smash. Still getting through it, but I'm sure the chase scene and some of the traps in the first level alone will be sufficient for your immediate plans.
My favourite kinds of puzzles are the ones that don't look like puzzles, but rather, just challenges to overcome in-world with no fixed solution. Gets a little tougher to do at high levels...
My favourite kinds of puzzles are the ones that don't look like puzzles, but rather, just challenges to overcome in-world with no fixed solution. Gets a little tougher to do at high levels assuming you have magic users in your party, but at low levels, something like "how do you all cross the fast-moving river safely" or "how will you get all that heavy equipment up to the top of this narrow tower" can lead to some really creative problem solving with the same kind of "time to put our thinking caps on here" energy. As a bonus, it also doesn't feel like a marked departure from the normal game into "ope, okay, I guess we hit pause on the action and enter Puzzle Solving Mode now until we crack this riddle" kind of territory, which I find can really mess with the vibe at a lot of tables.
There's a fun trap in the adventure "Odyssey of the Dragonlords". Its an elevator with a brass dragon head in each corner. If you don't speak the password ("Dragon" in Dwarvish) when you enter the...
There's a fun trap in the adventure "Odyssey of the Dragonlords".
Its an elevator with a brass dragon head in each corner. If you don't speak the password ("Dragon" in Dwarvish) when you enter the elevator and then turn the elevator on the doors will close, lock and initiative needs to be rolled.
On initiative count 20 of round one the dragon heads will start to gurgle and make noise (if the players look into the dragon heads they'll see pipes and hear a sloshing).
On initiative count 20 of round two oil begins violently pouring out of the dragon mouths, quickly filling up the lift until its roughly up to the heroes waists.
On initiative count 20 of round three the heads spark and ignite the oil. Anyone above the oil takes a ton of fire damage.
The same damage is applied in round four and in round five I believe. Finally, the oil drains in round six, the doors unlock and the heroes are free to leave.
The heroes could've gotten the password if they hadn't killed an NPC earlier in the dungeon but they enjoyed the trap nonetheless, it was amped up during the session using the Encounter theme from Metal Gear Solid.
Two of the players ducked under the oil before it ignited and held their breath avoiding the majority of the fire damage. One of the players used the decanter of endless water they had to try put out the fire but...you know what happens when you put water on an oil fire!
This resulted in even more fire damage, almost outright killing one of the players! All of the players had ducked under the oil by the time round five had started. By the time the doors opened at the end of round six and they could leave they were dragging themselves out half burned, nearly dead or coated in oil slipping all over the floor. The players immediately holed up in an old room in the dungeon to have a short rest.
They could've also clogged the dragon heads to stop the flow of oil during round two but if they simply knew the password and had spoken it before triggering the elevator the trap wouldn't have tripped in the first place.
I like this puzzle, and I'm glad you linked the video (awareness is always good), but the scenario in the video wouldn't really occur in this instance. If the oil in the elevator was hot enough to...
I like this puzzle, and I'm glad you linked the video (awareness is always good), but the scenario in the video wouldn't really occur in this instance. If the oil in the elevator was hot enough to flash the water into steam it wouldn't really matter if you had your head above or below the surface :)
Thanks for letting me know, I'm not incredibly well versed on the matter outside of a number of 90's and early 00's UK adverts about not putting water on a chip pan fire (as in french fries). But...
Thanks for letting me know, I'm not incredibly well versed on the matter outside of a number of 90's and early 00's UK adverts about not putting water on a chip pan fire (as in french fries).
But I'm not too worried about the realism, it is a game about dragons abd magic and I didn't want to punish the players who were chilling under the oil too much (they did take damage from the flash fire but not as much as the other two players above the oil).
When I ran Starfinder I was a huge fan of gimmick encounters. encounter where the party was trying to stop an assassin who specialized in long distance engagements. That game has sniper rifles...
When I ran Starfinder I was a huge fan of gimmick encounters.
encounter where the party was trying to stop an assassin who specialized in long distance engagements. That game has sniper rifles with ridiculous ranges that never get used because they're way outside the bounds of a normal battlemap. So I made a huge battlefield where the squares were I think 20x20 feet. Once they arrive, he starts shooting, and every shot they get a perception check to get a rough idea where the shot was coming from. The assassin had mines and ziplines and things scattered around the map to let him relocate and lure them into traps.
Another encounter was a cult that was sacrificing people in the remains of an old factory. An NPC the party needed to talk to was one of the people they kidnapped. They arrived to find that the hostages were on a conveyor belt heading towards a big vat of molten metal. There were controls in an exposed area that could be used to start and stop the belts. The whole map had conveyor belts criss-crossing over it and both sides were fighting over the controls as everyone was getting slid back and forth while trying to find cover.
The favorite trap/puzzle I've ever pulled on a 9th level party is as follows: A 10 foot wide by 30 foot room. Halfway through the room, a mage has permanencied a Shadow Conjuration of the 10 foot...
The favorite trap/puzzle I've ever pulled on a 9th level party is as follows:
A 10 foot wide by 30 foot room. Halfway through the room, a mage has permanencied a Shadow Conjuration of the 10 foot by 10 foot square segment of the floor in the center of the room.
Everyone who steps onto this floor segment makes a will save. If they succeed, the shadow conjuration fails and they fall through the floor into a gelatinous cube, meaning they are immediately engulfed, silenced by the mass, and potentially paralyzed. Those who fail the will save continue to walk over the floor as normal, as shadow spells behave normally so long as you fail the will save.
Watching your cleric and wizard fall through the floor and then trying desperately to pound through the illusion to disbelieve it so you can save them is ridiculously funny in retrospect, and is a really fun way for a level 4 spell and a CR 3 creature to scare a party of level 9 adventurers. It just feels to me like the kind of thing a clever evil wizard would do to scare off intruders.
While reciting this, i did a slide of hand where a D12 turned into two D6. and then placed my palms out with a D6 and a D12 mimicking a statue they were in front of (outside the locked...
*If i lack a D12, why won't 2 D6 work instead?
*Which number's most alive? and which is dead?
While reciting this, i did a slide of hand where a D12 turned into two D6. and then placed my palms out with a D6 and a D12 mimicking a statue they were in front of (outside the locked destination).
(Yes talking about dice in the game is breaking the 4th wall)
Click to view solution
Rolling 2 D6 is not mathematically equivalent to a D12... For one, there is no 1. That number is dead. Place the D6 on the 1 side and place it in the hand.
Rolling 2D6, the #7 is the most common outcome (1&6, 2&5, 3&4, 4&3, 5&2, 6&1), and is the 'most alive'. Place the D12 on the 7 and place it in the hand.
You could give them 2 or 3 chances. A fail could be the statue comes to life and then after defeating it they can escape, or it triggers trap, etc.
If anyone wants details on the slide of hand, i can go into more detail.
My favorite thing I dropped my players into was a furnace. With fire traps. And fire elementals that got healed by the fire traps. Every turn they had to make a constitution check and get a level...
My favorite thing I dropped my players into was a furnace. With fire traps. And fire elementals that got healed by the fire traps.
Every turn they had to make a constitution check and get a level of exhaustion if they didn't pass it due to heat.
I like traps/puzzles that make combat more engaging. Maybe the characters trigger a trap in a room which causes the doors to lock shut, while a pillar in the center of the room begins to rotate...
I like traps/puzzles that make combat more engaging.
Maybe the characters trigger a trap in a room which causes the doors to lock shut, while a pillar in the center of the room begins to rotate and produce jets of flame. Magma mephits fly down from small ducts in the ceiling to ambush the characters. On initiative 20 have the jets rotate a quarter turn so that the characters have to constantly adjust their positions during the fight, otherwise they take damage.
Something more simple could be to have sections of the floor be brittle so they crack and fall away during a fight. Anything could be below the floor, a long fall, a basement full of baddies, a vat of acid, a raging fire, a tear into the Astral Plane, spikes.
Something else I do that may not count as a trap or riddle necessarily, but making NPCs that have a way to put the characters at a major disadvantage if they don't find a solution to a problem. As an example I have an NPC in one of my games (pirate setting) who is based on a Triton Beast Master Ranger. He has a custom magic sword that lets him cast Fog Cloud at 5th level twice per day, and he has the Blind Fighter fighting style, with a Giant Crab as his Beast Companion (which also has blindsight). He's going to be for a boss fight, so I gave him a few extra buffs such as a slightly longer range on the blindsight, and he will have multiple Giant Crabs fighting for him. He also arrives with swarms of regular crabs which will fill the ships deck causing it to be difficult terrain and they will do some chip damage each turn to anyone who doesn't avoid them. I've got a similar villain planned that's going to involve a bunch of smoke mephits and the Drow Shadowblade from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. He can teleport amongst the shadows created by the mephits when they explode. You just want to be careful with these kinds of ideas, you want to be sure your players have a few options among them to negate the problem. My players have access to Create or Destroy Water, one can disarm the NPC of his sword (which I've ruled ends the Fog Cloud spell), one can use a grapple hookshot to swing above the fog, and one is a cleric (who laughs with her high AC).
One other idea I've had in my mind for a while is finding a way to have a fight happen in freefall somehow, maybe the players get teleported to the Plane of Air?
This is my first comment on Tildes so if anyone wants to tag me into any future DnD discussions I welcome it. I don't really know anything about versions other than 5e though.
If you're looking for some inspiration, consider reading the Dungeon of the Mad Mage module. It is basically a million levels of a dungeon crawler. Tons of sick mazes, puzzles, chases, traps, etc...
Ya dude... I play with some hardcore gamers usually and they wanted me to run this to just PURELY dungeon crawl and smash. Still getting through it, but I'm sure the chase scene and some of the traps in the first level alone will be sufficient for your immediate plans.
Happy to help :)
This is really cool. Thanks!
My favourite kinds of puzzles are the ones that don't look like puzzles, but rather, just challenges to overcome in-world with no fixed solution. Gets a little tougher to do at high levels assuming you have magic users in your party, but at low levels, something like "how do you all cross the fast-moving river safely" or "how will you get all that heavy equipment up to the top of this narrow tower" can lead to some really creative problem solving with the same kind of "time to put our thinking caps on here" energy. As a bonus, it also doesn't feel like a marked departure from the normal game into "ope, okay, I guess we hit pause on the action and enter Puzzle Solving Mode now until we crack this riddle" kind of territory, which I find can really mess with the vibe at a lot of tables.
Thats what the D&D movie nailed... some of their "solutions" were hilariously on point.
There's a fun trap in the adventure "Odyssey of the Dragonlords".
Its an elevator with a brass dragon head in each corner. If you don't speak the password ("Dragon" in Dwarvish) when you enter the elevator and then turn the elevator on the doors will close, lock and initiative needs to be rolled.
On initiative count 20 of round one the dragon heads will start to gurgle and make noise (if the players look into the dragon heads they'll see pipes and hear a sloshing).
On initiative count 20 of round two oil begins violently pouring out of the dragon mouths, quickly filling up the lift until its roughly up to the heroes waists.
On initiative count 20 of round three the heads spark and ignite the oil. Anyone above the oil takes a ton of fire damage.
The same damage is applied in round four and in round five I believe. Finally, the oil drains in round six, the doors unlock and the heroes are free to leave.
The heroes could've gotten the password if they hadn't killed an NPC earlier in the dungeon but they enjoyed the trap nonetheless, it was amped up during the session using the Encounter theme from Metal Gear Solid.
Two of the players ducked under the oil before it ignited and held their breath avoiding the majority of the fire damage. One of the players used the decanter of endless water they had to try put out the fire but...you know what happens when you put water on an oil fire!
This resulted in even more fire damage, almost outright killing one of the players! All of the players had ducked under the oil by the time round five had started. By the time the doors opened at the end of round six and they could leave they were dragging themselves out half burned, nearly dead or coated in oil slipping all over the floor. The players immediately holed up in an old room in the dungeon to have a short rest.
They could've also clogged the dragon heads to stop the flow of oil during round two but if they simply knew the password and had spoken it before triggering the elevator the trap wouldn't have tripped in the first place.
I like this puzzle, and I'm glad you linked the video (awareness is always good), but the scenario in the video wouldn't really occur in this instance. If the oil in the elevator was hot enough to flash the water into steam it wouldn't really matter if you had your head above or below the surface :)
Thanks for letting me know, I'm not incredibly well versed on the matter outside of a number of 90's and early 00's UK adverts about not putting water on a chip pan fire (as in french fries).
But I'm not too worried about the realism, it is a game about dragons abd magic and I didn't want to punish the players who were chilling under the oil too much (they did take damage from the flash fire but not as much as the other two players above the oil).
When I ran Starfinder I was a huge fan of gimmick encounters.
encounter where the party was trying to stop an assassin who specialized in long distance engagements. That game has sniper rifles with ridiculous ranges that never get used because they're way outside the bounds of a normal battlemap. So I made a huge battlefield where the squares were I think 20x20 feet. Once they arrive, he starts shooting, and every shot they get a perception check to get a rough idea where the shot was coming from. The assassin had mines and ziplines and things scattered around the map to let him relocate and lure them into traps.
Another encounter was a cult that was sacrificing people in the remains of an old factory. An NPC the party needed to talk to was one of the people they kidnapped. They arrived to find that the hostages were on a conveyor belt heading towards a big vat of molten metal. There were controls in an exposed area that could be used to start and stop the belts. The whole map had conveyor belts criss-crossing over it and both sides were fighting over the controls as everyone was getting slid back and forth while trying to find cover.
The favorite trap/puzzle I've ever pulled on a 9th level party is as follows:
A 10 foot wide by 30 foot room. Halfway through the room, a mage has permanencied a Shadow Conjuration of the 10 foot by 10 foot square segment of the floor in the center of the room.
Everyone who steps onto this floor segment makes a will save. If they succeed, the shadow conjuration fails and they fall through the floor into a gelatinous cube, meaning they are immediately engulfed, silenced by the mass, and potentially paralyzed. Those who fail the will save continue to walk over the floor as normal, as shadow spells behave normally so long as you fail the will save.
Watching your cleric and wizard fall through the floor and then trying desperately to pound through the illusion to disbelieve it so you can save them is ridiculously funny in retrospect, and is a really fun way for a level 4 spell and a CR 3 creature to scare a party of level 9 adventurers. It just feels to me like the kind of thing a clever evil wizard would do to scare off intruders.
So basically Wile E Coyote suddenly falling once he realizes the ground is missing.
I enjoy making situations that play off expectations, a personal favorite is a treant covered in brown slimes.
While reciting this, i did a slide of hand where a D12 turned into two D6. and then placed my palms out with a D6 and a D12 mimicking a statue they were in front of (outside the locked destination).
(Yes talking about dice in the game is breaking the 4th wall)
Click to view solution
Rolling 2 D6 is not mathematically equivalent to a D12... For one, there is no 1. That number is dead. Place the D6 on the 1 side and place it in the hand. Rolling 2D6, the #7 is the most common outcome (1&6, 2&5, 3&4, 4&3, 5&2, 6&1), and is the 'most alive'. Place the D12 on the 7 and place it in the hand.If anyone wants details on the slide of hand, i can go into more detail.
My favorite thing I dropped my players into was a furnace. With fire traps. And fire elementals that got healed by the fire traps.
Every turn they had to make a constitution check and get a level of exhaustion if they didn't pass it due to heat.
I like traps/puzzles that make combat more engaging.
Maybe the characters trigger a trap in a room which causes the doors to lock shut, while a pillar in the center of the room begins to rotate and produce jets of flame. Magma mephits fly down from small ducts in the ceiling to ambush the characters. On initiative 20 have the jets rotate a quarter turn so that the characters have to constantly adjust their positions during the fight, otherwise they take damage.
Something more simple could be to have sections of the floor be brittle so they crack and fall away during a fight. Anything could be below the floor, a long fall, a basement full of baddies, a vat of acid, a raging fire, a tear into the Astral Plane, spikes.
Something else I do that may not count as a trap or riddle necessarily, but making NPCs that have a way to put the characters at a major disadvantage if they don't find a solution to a problem. As an example I have an NPC in one of my games (pirate setting) who is based on a Triton Beast Master Ranger. He has a custom magic sword that lets him cast Fog Cloud at 5th level twice per day, and he has the Blind Fighter fighting style, with a Giant Crab as his Beast Companion (which also has blindsight). He's going to be for a boss fight, so I gave him a few extra buffs such as a slightly longer range on the blindsight, and he will have multiple Giant Crabs fighting for him. He also arrives with swarms of regular crabs which will fill the ships deck causing it to be difficult terrain and they will do some chip damage each turn to anyone who doesn't avoid them. I've got a similar villain planned that's going to involve a bunch of smoke mephits and the Drow Shadowblade from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. He can teleport amongst the shadows created by the mephits when they explode. You just want to be careful with these kinds of ideas, you want to be sure your players have a few options among them to negate the problem. My players have access to Create or Destroy Water, one can disarm the NPC of his sword (which I've ruled ends the Fog Cloud spell), one can use a grapple hookshot to swing above the fog, and one is a cleric (who laughs with her high AC).
One other idea I've had in my mind for a while is finding a way to have a fight happen in freefall somehow, maybe the players get teleported to the Plane of Air?
This is my first comment on Tildes so if anyone wants to tag me into any future DnD discussions I welcome it. I don't really know anything about versions other than 5e though.