dungeon room ideas

cyberoplasma2003

Hello all,

 

I am new to all of this and I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on unique rooms to a massive dungeon it could be fighting or non 

 

Note it is for a 3.5 campaign based on the d20 besm handbook 

Comments

  • twiggyleaf
    twiggyleaf
    Posts: 2,006

    I'll suggest magical antigravity room.  Everything the players need is on the ceiling, which will become the floor when the magic device (well hidden) is switched.

    "I met a traveller from an antique land....."

    CotM May 2016: Mysteria: set in Wolfgang Baur’s MIDGARD.

    Previous CotM Aug 2012: Shimring: High Level Multiplanar Campaign

    Inner Council Member

  • cgregory
    cgregory
    Posts: 780

    Minesweeper room. Each step they take they are telepathically told a number. That number corresponds to how many of the surrounding steps have magical traps. Figure out the safe path.

    They are among us!

    image

                       XCom: Defiance - Campaign of the Month November 2016

     

     

  • Jim_Mount
    Jim_Mount
    Posts: 162

    My players love / hate me because nearly every encounter has elevation elements, terrain, and cover. I try to think of Bethesda "dungeons" like in Elder Scrolls or Fallout -- only rarely is a room just a flat plane. There are always ledges, overhead walkways and the like. Always have something for cover, pillars, statues, furnishings... the key is to make encounter areas interesting and to reward stealthy scouting so PCs can assume agency in planning their attack ahead of time, or be forced to take full advantage of their resources if they are surprised.

    I would do an image search for video game encounter rooms and design rooms from any you find interesting.

  • Johnprime
    Johnprime
    Posts: 252

    Friend of mine years ago made the 'living room'. It was a room in a dungeon that looked like a normal living room, like you would have in your house, but with a fantasy theme. Couches, recliners, candle sconces, etc. But once the PCs were in the room, the animated furniture attacked them, hence, the other meaning of the 'living room'!

    Johnprime

    Deadwood Deacon Banner

    Where the west is really wild!

    The Valley of Life Banner

    The Valley of Life

  • twiggyleaf
    twiggyleaf
    Posts: 2,006

    "Living Room"  LOL!

    "I met a traveller from an antique land....."

    CotM May 2016: Mysteria: set in Wolfgang Baur’s MIDGARD.

    Previous CotM Aug 2012: Shimring: High Level Multiplanar Campaign

    Inner Council Member

  • weasel0
    weasel0
    Posts: 435

    Yes? *the goblin scribe barely looks up* Oh I suppose you want to see our boss. He's busy at the moment. Could you go wait over there in the living room? oh, try not to stain the upholstry, we just had it Cubed(TM).

    *adventurers wander in slightly puzzled at the well-mannered yet slightly gruff greeting and directions they had just received.*

  • ketherian
    ketherian
    Posts: 203

    The floor is covered with a white coating, seemingly somewhat slippery. The coating is actually a flesh-eating fungus whose spores escape when you break the fragile white coating.

    There's a giant spider on the ceiling! Low magic: Actually it's a much smaller spider on the far side of a large magnifying glass. Behind the mundane illusion is a small treasure or a trap. High magic: It's not just one. As the party enters, the spiders are multiplied by the lense to make a midling danger into a great one. Ecology of the place: some other set of monsters throw their refuse to the spider who will (quite literally) eat anything.

    Very realistic statues fill the room. The statues are in militarily organized groups, including horses and their chariots, archers, and lancemen. Their armour is archaic, but depicted as high quality with a surprising amount of detail. Beyond them, on a dias, sits a large box with perfectly smooth sides. There seems to be no way to get into the box at first glance. Eventually, the party can puzzle through the Japaneese style-puzzle box to open up a door in to this 6x9' room. In the center of that room is an ancient corpse, now long decayed beneath funeral robes of spun silver and gold. Lapus Lazuili decorate the cuffs and hems. The corpse wears large rings each holding a beautiful gem. On the inside of the smaller room is the story of this man's life and a warning: steal from this man (once a great and powerful warlord) and the statues will come alive to defend him. High magic campaign: he is a litch and he has spells on the rings that animate the statues outside. Low magic campaign: the ceiling is rigged, the rings are stuck to the decayed flesh somehow, a good tug will move the body from the pressure plate which will drop the ceiling not just of this room, but of the stone above it. Either way the traps can be bypassed with some careful planning. The writing on the walls could also lead to future quests or provide information for the party about the rest of the dungeon or some other goal of theirs.

    Pig & mushroom room. The monsters have to grow some of their food someplace. THe pigs don't seem to mind the dark and mushrooms grow well in this ... erm... environment. There are always farmers present either (high magic) living plant creatures or (low magic) monster of choice.

  • cgregory
    cgregory
    Posts: 780

    You could also look up Dungeon Magazine's old Challenge of Champions adventures.  Each Challenge of Champions involved 10 puzzle based rooms.  I think there has been 5 different Challenge of Champions over the years.

    They are among us!

    image

                       XCom: Defiance - Campaign of the Month November 2016

     

     

  • UselessTriviaMan
    UselessTriviaMan
    Posts: 546

    An open 50x50 room with a 30' ceiling, filled with a forest of metal pillars, ten feet tall and 3-4 inches in diameter, evenly spaced every five feet in a grid pattern. If PCs move into the room, from above they hear a series of gut-wrenching, clanging booms. Walking atop the pillars toward them is a Huge mechanical (golem or construct) spider. It is programmed to place its feet on the grid of pillars, which it does easily, and its 10' reach can easily hit anything on the floor below. The adventurers will probably have a tough time reaching it with melee weapons to return attacks though...


    Ptolus, City by the Spire - 2016 Campaign of the Year

    "Please pay attention very carefully, because this is the truest thing a stranger will ever say to you: In the face of such hopelessness as our eventual, unavoidable death, there is little sense in not at least TRYING to accomplish all your wildest dreams in life."  - - Kevin Smith

  • ketherian
    ketherian
    Posts: 203

    There's also a history of one-page dungeons. Typically they have one or two rooms that could be used in a dungeon (and certainly key characters).

  • Majmilt88
    Majmilt88
    Posts: 1

    Look for Grimtooth's Trap if your players need a challenging trap or you just want to kill a few PCs. 

    I have always enjoyed [as the GM] dungeons that change and present new challenges to the PC.  For example PCs in a half sunken city when the tide come in.  Poorly equipped PCs would be at least inconvenienced.  Tidal changes in such an environment also easily explain why new creature have quickly populated a 'cleared' area. 

  • Keryth987
    Keryth987
    Posts: 1,047

    As the spamBot overran the fornt page, moving some topics back to the front

Sign In or Register to comment.

March 2024
Wrath of the Highborn

Read the feature post on the blog
Return to Obsidian Portal

Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Discussions