Let's make the next Tomb of Horrors.

[Shinizak]

I posted this on the role playing forum, but now that I think about it the more I think it should probably be on this board instead.

We all know how horrible and sadistic the Tomb of Horrors was, I propose we go about creating our own dungeon JUST as sadistic and impossible (if not more).:smallamused:

The theme of the dungeon is Hidden Menace/Lethal Environment.

So here's what we have:

THE OVERALL DUNGEON

Overall Dungeon:
A Greater Curse is in effect that causes anything teleported within the dungeon to age 1 year per 5 feet

Summoning and calling creatures is allowed, however all summoned creatures are under no compulsion to serve the caster as it normally would.

Scrying, etherealness, and any other ways to bypass or obtain information through magical means is impossible.

1ST LEVEL



Room 1

The entrance to the dungeon is a large archway with a statue of a Gothic shaped like a gargoyle looming over it, it's mouth gaping open with an unnerving realistic black razor sharp teeth. Should the characters decide to inspect the gargoyle, a variety of effects take place.

Detect Magic/(Evil/Good/Law/Chaos): A Detection doesn't reveal any magic on the gargoyle, however it does activate a contingency that releases 1D4+1 specters from the gargoyles maw.

Smashed: If the gargoyle is damaged in any way the attacker will be instantly affected by the spell Demise Unseen (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/demiseUnseen.htm) except there is no save, and the character turns into a vampire instead.

Those that reach into it's mouth will find a small gold key with a large diamond marble set into it has been slipped there (the diamond grants a %20 miss chance) however the mouth also acts as a Bag of Devouring (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/cursedItems.htm#bagofDevouring) that automatically attempts to grapple and eat a creature that reaches inside it.

Hallway between Room 1 and Room 2


The corridor is a 5 feet wide and 60 feet down, the ground is layered with still wet blood. A balance check is required to see if they slip. Those that fail will instantly fall prone. The DM is required to write something (anything) on a note book in an attempt to make the players paranoid.

Room 7

A 40 foot drop disguised as a stairway downwards. at the bottom a spiked pit treated with Con poison and a dispel magic trap.


2ND LEVEL



The 2nd level is primarily made up of Tucker's Kobalds. (http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/)

TREASURE


(Optional) Head of Vecna (powers and effect debatable)

[Shinizak]

I'm thinking about a "final boss" monster right now, and what I've settled on is a Death Knight (because of all that turn immunity) at the end of the dungeon I personally think it should be at least a gestalt character, but with what I don't know. maybe sorcerer?

[Kornaki]

I'd put Tucker's kobolds on the second level. In fact, I'd start everything on the second level. The first level:

You open a door. Six goblins
*easy uninspired fight*

Door out the other side of the room. You open it. You see a fire elemental
*easy uninspired fight*

There's a door out the other side of the room. You open it, find *1 fire elemental + six goblins worth of treasure*

There's a staircase down. *easy spot check* you notice a tripwire at the top of the stairs. (Alternatively, first person trips down the stairs, but make the spot check really easy)

Players: This dungeon sucks! It's so easy! C'mon, let's go down.

Stairs: Illusion. There are no stairs, it's a forty foot drop onto a pit of spikes. Spikes have Con damaging poison This is the only way down. The protruding objects in the room at the top of the stairs are covered with slippery salve; the players find it impossible to tie a rope to anything. The rope may happen to take a couple of rounds to untie itself.. just enough for a player or two to be hanging over the pit of spikes. There's also an antimagic field ten feet below the top of the stairs (so it's not breaking the illusion) so if you try to fly/levitate your way down, you end up falling anyway. And heaven forbid they try to teleport down (curse is in effect of course).

This should leave the party dazed, confused, pissed off, and ripe for targeting by 100 kobolds

[Haven]

I think Tucker's Kobolds should be on one of the lower levels. Like:

Levels 1-4: *Killdeathgoresplattersmashunfairtraps* "Argh!"

Level 5: "...kobolds, huh? This can't be that b-ohgod"

Level 6: "So! Spikes, with DC 60 contact poison, lining the floor, ceiling, walls and air? And invisible oozes that climb down our throats whenever we speak? Whew, that's a relief."

Or maybe level 1 can be people who made it inside, but can't get out again and don't dare go any further. It can be the size of a small village, and full of political wheeling and dealing and crap. Actually, that could be like level three, filled with people who were kidnapped there after all that: after all that, they have to deal with social challenges and a Thirty Xanatos Pileup too--and look, mind-affecting magic just doesn't work on this level...

[Shinizak]

I personally believe that the dungeon should reward those who think outside the box, just as a suggestion (that's what makes the tomb of horrors memorable).

[Shinizak]

Perhaps a few mermaids in a pool of perpetual Heal spells.

[SurlySeraph]

The entrance is a nine-mile-long tunnel. The tunnel is on fire. Every square of it, up to the ceiling, is filled with flame, dealing 1d6 points of fire damage per round. If any of the party members have fire resistance or fire immunity, the tunnel is immediately flooded with acid from drains in the floor, dealing 1d6 points of acid damage per round. If any member of the party has acid resistance or acid immunity at any point after the tunnel floods, the acid immediately freezes solid, causing every square to deal 1d6 points of cold damage per round and trapping anyone who was walking in the acid at the time. If any member of the party has cold resistance or cold immunity at any point after the acid freezes, the tunnel begins vibrating rapidly with a defeaning sound. Everyone in the tunnel takes 1d6 points of sonic damage per round. If any member of the party has sonic resistance or sonic immunity at any point after the tunnel begins to vibrate, the ceiling collapses.
Also, there are poisoned spiked pit traps every 10 feet.

And that's the real entrance. There are also nine fake entrances.
The first fake entrance appears to be a perfectly normal gate. As soon as someone steps into it, an enormous guillotine blade falls down to cut him in half and block off the entrance (DC 25 Reflex save or die). If he makes his save, he is now trapped in the chamber beyond the guillotine, which is full of trolls.
The second fake entrance is the muzzle of a cannon. Any party members who enter, and all those in a 10-foot-wide line of infinite length behind it, take 10d6 fire damage from the blast, plus 20d6 bludgeoning damage from the cannonball.
The third fake entrance is an illusory floor over a half-mile drop into a pool full of pseudonatural fiendish octopi.
The fourth fake entrance is an illusory floor over a half-mile drop onto a Paragon Gelatinous Cube Swordsage.
The fifth fake entrance appears to be a normal stone door; however, it has a symbol of death and explosive runes on it. If the party manages to open the door, it reveals another identical door, which also has a symbol of death and explosive runes on it. There are 93 doors in total.
The sixth fake entrance is a teleportation circle. It sends the party into the stomach of the Tarrasque.
The seventh fake entrance is exactly like the real entrance, except that there is no door at the end of the nine-mile-long tunnel.
The eighth fake entrance is exactly like the real entrance, except that the door at the end of the nine-mile-long tunnel is actually a trap. It is unbreakably locked, and every inch of it is covered in contact poison. If the party attempts to force the door open, it explodes, blasting them back to the beginning of the tunnel. If they make it back through the tunnel to the door, they will find a small chamber containing an awakened fleshraker dinosaur Druid and his animal companion, which is also an awakened fleshraker dinosaur Druid. Both of them have readied actions to cast Summon Animal to summon fleshraker dinosaurs behind the party.
The ninth fake entrance appears to be a stylized gate, with a carved design resembling the jaws of a great creature. As soon as the party enters, it is revealed to be the mouth of the Tarrasque.

[Kornaki]

I personally believe that the dungeon should reward those who think outside the box, just as a suggestion (that's what makes the tomb of horrors memorable).


Ok... so whenever coming up with a trap, there should be an outside the box way of dealing with it. For my entrance: disintegrate the floor and levitate your way down to the floor below (instead of trying the pre-made hole that's trapped up the wazoo)

Obviously this tactic should never be allowed to work again, even though it should always appear to be viable :smallamused

Also, something should turn all diamonds into coal to prevent in-dungeon ressurection. This could be circumvented by some sort of extradimensional pocket like a bag of holding (which comes rife with its own problems, like suffocating to death as you finish casting the spell, but the players can find a way around that)

[Zeta Kai]

Don't forget the Sphere of Annihilation! This time, to be different from ToH & also even more cruel, let's put it at the bottom of a pit trap. If you fall in the pit, to hit the SoA & are unmade. Roll up a new character. :smallamused:

[Kornaki]

No, you put it at the top of a reverse gravity well. With an illusion cast to avoid any detect magic. The players carefully walk under the sphere, careful to dodge it if it falls

DM: -2 circumstance penalty to your reflex save. You're not paying attention to which way gravity is flowing

[Haven]

No, you put it at the top of a reverse gravity well. With an illusion cast to avoid any detect magic. The players carefully walk under the sphere, careful to dodge it if it falls

DM: -2 circumstance penalty to your reflex save. You're not paying attention to which way gravity is flowing

Oh, even better, you could have the sphere of annihilation positioned below them, with a localized reverse gravity that causes it to come up at them after they step over it!

And when they tell you, "WORMHOLES DON'T FALL UP!" you can say "It's really more of a miniature black hole..."

[Kornaki]

Even better. An eight foot pit. Trivial right? Just need a good jump check... the latter half is under the influence of reverse gravity. So you jump, hit the reverse gravity well, and you don't get a save to avoid being pulled up. Into the sphere of annihilation

[Maerok]

I'm thinking about a "final boss" monster right now, and what I've settled on is a Death Knight (because of all that turn immunity) at the end of the dungeon I personally think it should be at least a gestalt character, but with what I don't know. maybe sorcerer?

Scion of the Void. Death Knight monk in armor carved from a Sphere of Annihilation by the forgotten god of oblivion.

Iron maiden helmet mixed in with treasure.

Contingent create undead effect on some pieces of armor so that if a PC is killed, they come back as undead.

[Pronounceable]

I'd planned something like this for a while. It's fun to think of nasty things.

I'd decided the place would finally turn out to be a Necron monolith (collosal construct, CR: you lose). Obviously, it happens after defeating the "final boss", (a Necron Lord with an instakiller gauss flayer) which appears to also be a "load bearing" one. A final FU to the players who manage to run madly back to the entrance (going thru all other assorted nastiness of the place AGAIN, this time with a time limit) after defeating the "final boss".

"You barely manage to get out as the place is shaking even more violently. Suddenly, instead of the ceiling collapsing as you'd expect, you see the entrance rise up with an ear shattering noise (Fort save or be deafened, it's the little touches like this that matters). You fall down as the ground below you starts to rise as well. As you skid along with the crumbling stones (take 3d6 crushing damage), you vaguely realize that the entrance is actually into some sort of pyramidal structure made of the same strange black metal you saw inside. It's gigantic and is slowly rising out of the ground. There are strange, veinlike gouges that pulse with the same sickly green light that the hulking skeletal monstrosities you barely defeated inside shot at you.

When the noise stops, the enormous metal pyramid is hovering in the air as if it has no weight. You notice a number of spires larger than trolls protruding from the structure. As you watch, one of them swivels to point at you with a startling speed and lets loose another of those accursed green rays. Only this one has a much bigger radius, and you don't even have time to open your mouths to scream as you're flayed layer by molecular layer down to your bones. Nothing is left of you but a smoking crater. The End.

[Trizap]

nah, that is all too easy. start over. do better.

[Trizap]

heck, why not have fake exits as well?

fake exit no.1: teleportation circle that just sends you back to the beginning of the dungeon, while simultaneously resetting everything.

fake exit no 2: teleports you to one of the Lower planes.

fake exit no 3: teleports you right next to a bomb that will unleash super-sphere of annihilation, with only 23 seconds on the clock.

fake exit no 4: fake doorway out, an illusionary pathway covering a pit that leads them to a pit of Vorpal spikes

the real exit: teleports you to an uncharted island filled with treasure, unfortunately there is no food there, there is a permanent anti-magic field
on the island and no one knows your there, have a fun time with your useless treasure :smallamused:

[Shinizak]

I've been working on it all night and I think I've finally got some good back story to go behind it:

Several years ago the arch mage (insert name here) was looking for a way to achieve lichdom, realizing that there was only one shot at actually changing into a lich he researched the subject as much as he was able. He finally figured out that the best place to do so was on the negative energy plane, but also realized his frail form couldn't withstand it's harsh environment. He decided to submerge his tower under a swamp, and convert it into a demi plane, one that linked the material world and the negative energy plane together.

In doing so he created a place that could easily study small parts of the negative energy plane without any lasting damage. He spent many years in study and attracted the attention of Kurtulmak, Nerull, Wee-Jas, and several lords from the lower planes. Lending him the knowledge and power they held he was able to discover an entirely new and better form of lichdom besides your everyday lich and demi-lich.

Word of this spread and soon everything from necromancers to paladins were at his door. Needing time to complete his ritual, he asked the gods for the time he needed. Not wanting their time and effort to go to waste, they reformed the first 8 floors of his tower into deadly traps, and filled them with hateful monsters in an effort to keep his ritual from being interrupted.

Years after his success the tower was lost to the ages, but it is said that his great fortune and powerful knowledge remained awaiting those who would come for it.

---

What do you think?

[Kornaki]

I don't think they should get so much warning

[Shinizak]

True, that might scare them away.

[Shinizak]

As for the boss, I've been also thinking about a REALLY tough challenge. The idea is a medium sized gestalt monk/sorcerer(?) Kobald with the Wight template (Savage Species) and the Death Knight template(MM2). The Death Knight has a Cloaker with the Wraith template (savage species) that is pretending to be it's cape. In the shadows is a shade steel golem.

DK Kobald Round 1: Use haste and abyssal blast to disperse crowded foes.
Cloaker Round 1: Ready an attack.
SS Golem Round 1: Use shadows to move around behind enemies.

Cloaker round 1 1/2: use readied action against those that get within striking distance with Con draining powers.

DK Kobald round 2: Use flurry of blows to make use of level draining powers and spell effects.
Cloaker round 2: Use Moan:Stupor.
SS Golem 2:flank party with DK Kobald or Cloaker(whoever is closer) and use negative energy pulse to hurt foes and heal Cloaker or DK Kobald.

DK Kobald round 3: repeat round 2
Cloaker round 3: attack
SS Golem round 3: attack

[Flickerdart]

Shinizak, what about having the tower growing from the Material to the Negative? As the mage completed another stage of his study, he built a level "closer" to the Negative. The monsters that the gods sent in are obviously weaker away from the Negative, where the adventurers are also lower level. The mage also left all his junk on the floors, as new research required new tools. And they are not the kind of tools that Good researchers use...perhaps some of the tools capture visitors for experiments? Surviving players would have to face "improved" versions of their predecessors on the later levels.

[Shinizak]

Shinizak, what about having the tower growing from the Material to the Negative? As the mage completed another stage of his study, he built a level "closer" to the Negative. The monsters that the gods sent in are obviously weaker away from the Negative, where the adventurers are also lower level. The mage also left all his junk on the floors, as new research required new tools. And they are not the kind of tools that Good researchers use...perhaps some of the tools capture visitors for experiments? Surviving players would have to face "improved" versions of their predecessors on the later levels.

So in other words there should be about 2-3 levels with negative energy traits?

Then on those same levels there should be feindish or ghoulish characters? (or otherwise evil/undead).

[Trizap]

they shouldn't get such warnings at all.

instead the rumors should say its an abandoned, sacred castle some hero died defending at in some battle that no one goes to because they don't want to disturb the dead, and that there is no traps in there at all, but there might be some cool stuff lying around there on fallen soldiers.

all lies spread by the devil dwelling there of course.

[Shinizak]

Well obviously, but we still want to know why it's there in the first place. What the PCs know and what actually happened are two entirely different things.

[Flickerdart]

So in other words there should be about 2-3 levels with negative energy traits?

Then on those same levels there should be feindish or ghoulish characters? (or otherwise evil/undead).
Nah, it's just a convenient way to explain why the monsters get tougher, and to leave clues as to the reason for the tower to exist. Though yes, the latter floors might start getting Negative traits, and more powerful undead. The firs of such floors should be Desecrated.
Unless, of course, we want to make this thing a simple bloodbath and not actually have compelling story traits.

[Rutskarn]

Stairs: Illusion. There are no stairs, it's a forty foot drop onto a pit of spikes. Spikes have Con damaging poison This is the only way down. The protruding objects in the room at the top of the stairs are covered with slippery salve; the players find it impossible to tie a rope to anything. The rope may happen to take a couple of rounds to untie itself.. just enough for a player or two to be hanging over the pit of spikes. There's also an antimagic field ten feet below the top of the stairs (so it's not breaking the illusion) so if you try to fly/levitate your way down, you end up falling anyway. And heaven forbid they try to teleport down (curse is in effect of course).

This should leave the party dazed, confused, pissed off, and ripe for targeting by 100 kobolds

I actually think, instead of being illusory, they should retract when the party is halfway down an 80-foot stairwell. That gives them a.) a slim chance to not drop, which heightens the suspense, and b.) no ability to realize, hey, the first guy down dropped, let's suss this out.

Just having no levitates isn't really a good solution, IMO. There's a fine line between preparing against eventualities and just jerking the players around, and just saying, "This doesn't work" doesn't make the players feel like they're in the hands of a master trapmaker that's outsmarted them, they feel like the DM is uncreative and is just not letting them use their powers.

What if when they levitate, after a while, some sort of aerial creature is released?

[Flickerdart]

Levitation is grossly exaggerated by the screwy currents of air and magic that happen naturally in a place connected to the Material on one side and the Negative on the other. If they try to fly, their control is wild and erratic: the only way to stop going in a direction is to hit the wall and take appropriate fall damage (Ref half?).

[SurlySeraph]

heck, why not have fake exits as well?
...
fake exit no 4: fake doorway out, an illusionary pathway covering a pit that leads them to a pit of Vorpal spikes

Vorpal spikes? Brilliant! And fake exits are obviously a good idea.


Shinizak, what about having the tower growing from the Material to the Negative? As the mage completed another stage of his study, he built a level "closer" to the Negative. The monsters that the gods sent in are obviously weaker away from the Negative, where the adventurers are also lower level. The mage also left all his junk on the floors, as new research required new tools. And they are not the kind of tools that Good researchers use...perhaps some of the tools capture visitors for experiments? Surviving players would have to face "improved" versions of their predecessors on the later levels.

And improved versions of themselves, of course. With the Fiendish and Entropic templates, for example.

[Shinizak]

I actually think, instead of being illusory, they should retract when the party is halfway down an 80-foot stairwell. That gives them a.) a slim chance to not drop, which heightens the suspense, and b.) no ability to realize, hey, the first guy down dropped, let's suss this out.

Just having no levitates isn't really a good solution, IMO. There's a fine line between preparing against eventualities and just jerking the players around, and just saying, "This doesn't work" doesn't make the players feel like they're in the hands of a master trapmaker that's outsmarted them, they feel like the DM is uncreative and is just not letting them use their powers.

What if when they levitate, after a while, some sort of aerial creature is released?

So how about this, about a few steps down a contingency is activated that causes the stairs to disappear (maybe transmuted into the wall?) the PC's are given an opportunity to make a reflex save. Passing the reflex allows them a partial action (grab the wall, cast a spell, etc) however, those that don't make it fall upon the spikes coated in wyvern poison.

Sound fair?

[Shinizak]

I've got one, on one of the upper floors the Arch mage had a shop for repairing his tower , however when the gods stepped in and reformed his tower they created a powerful trap. large vats of acid were animated into acidic defenses, anyone inspecting the the vats will be attacked immediately. These are not actual monsters though, just a telekinesis spell that moves it in the way a creature would.

Down the hall there is a large pool of "corpse liqueur" that has been prevented from fully decaying. the pool it's self has been hung from the ceiling by chains to make full use of the space. Seems the Arch mage wanted to study the difference of decay between a cadaver and an undead monster.

Now here is the trick to defeating the acid "monster." because it has rotted so slowly, the corpse liqueur has over populated it's self with Cadaverine which is a base. to defeat the monster/trap, the characters must lure it under the pool and cut the two chains. the Cadaverine will drown and destroy the acid leaving a simple telekinesis spell not intelligent enough to do any damage on it's own.

Thoughts?

[Kornaki]

I don't like solutions (pun very, very intended) that require chemistry to work like it does on earth

[Shinizak]

I could see that...

[Shinizak]

How about this then, in one room there is a brain in a jar (libris mortis) that has the ability to charm creatures and cast suggestion at will.

*see read dragon tactic*

[Jogi]

Hey, althought it's fun (at least for us DM's :D) to have a deadly dungeon, I still belive that it would be LOTS of fun if one single character survives all the mischiefs. I mean, instead of dying in a island full of treasures of being desintegrated by green rays, maybe one of them could survive. This doesn't mean he didn't got scared ****less nor that he didn't became a little bit insane, and would surely create a nice "legend" in your group :P

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Evil tricks:

--Mirrors of Opposition: hidden immediately behind doors (secret or otherwise).

--A fight against ghost spellcasters (with access to dispel magic to deal with pesky applications of true seeing) that occurs in a room over a deep spiked pit. The room is built like a maze, and the floor is dotted with the occasional hole, so that a single wrong step in a fall of almost a hundred feet onto spikes. The catch? Well, both the floor and the walls of the maze are invisible. The ghosts, of course, are not hindered by this in the slightest.

--A trap that triggers when the PCs enter a room: the door closes, and then a Teleport Without Error effect instantly transports the PCs to an identical looking room elsewhere in the dungeon. For added hilarity, immediately outside the door is an illusion of what was outside the first room, only in reality it leads to a pit of acid or some similiar trap.

[Shinizak]

Hey, althought it's fun (at least for us DM's :D) to have a deadly dungeon, I still belive that it would be LOTS of fun if one single character survives all the mischiefs. I mean, instead of dying in a island full of treasures of being desintegrated by green rays, maybe one of them could survive. This doesn't mean he didn't got scared ****less nor that he didn't became a little bit insane, and would surely create a nice "legend" in your group :P

Exactly!:smallbiggrin:

[Shinizak]

Evil tricks:

--Mirrors of Opposition: hidden immediately behind doors (secret or otherwise).

--A fight against ghost spellcasters (with access to dispel magic to deal with pesky applications of true seeing) that occurs in a room over a deep spiked pit. The room is built like a maze, and the floor is dotted with the occasional hole, so that a single wrong step in a fall of almost a hundred feet onto spikes. The catch? Well, both the floor and the walls of the maze are invisible. The ghosts, of course, are not hindered by this in the slightest.


Like these two... which level should they go on?

[Jogi]

I just made up this one, it's really simple but should do the trick:

Fake Entrance I:

Stairs head into the subterran, leading the characters to a 3x3 (squares) room. The only obvious thing in this room is a door made of metal, which is located in the wall oposing the stairs.

DM: the door leads nowhere, and it probably doesn't even open. Anyone who tries to open the door activates a trap of Poisoned Floor-Spikes.

~~

The thing about this entrace is: in a low-lv group you can make it affect only one square, as to really damage or kill a single character. Now, if you wanna really kick some player's-ass you can make it affect the whole room with and add a deadly poison to the spikes.

[Shinizak]

I like the Idea, but I have a suggestion. The fake entrance bit was done to death by the first tomb, so what if there was only one entrance however in order to open it up "correctly" you had to do a variety of things (push a rock, kill a monster, sacrifice someone, etc) to deactivate the trap and open it up the "right" way.

[Flickerdart]

Ooh, ooh. At the end of the Tomb? Head of Vecna.

[Dogmantra]

Ooh, ooh. At the end of the Tomb? Head of Vecna.

And for savvy players who actually know about the Head of Vecna, have it be the real Head of Vecna, that actually will grant bonuses.

[Shinizak]

So here's the question, what does it grant?

[Dogmantra]

Twice the bonuses and penalties of the Eye of Vecna, plus... shout 3/day or something?

It doesn't really matter, because if they try it, they obviously haven't heard the stories.

[Jogi]

What about that door leading to a room where the players get a part of what they need to open the real entrance?

Beetwen, I like the Head of Vecna idea.

[Kornaki]

I like the Idea, but I have a suggestion. The fake entrance bit was done to death by the first tomb, so what if there was only one entrance however in order to open it up "correctly" you had to do a variety of things (push a rock, kill a monster, sacrifice someone, etc) to deactivate the trap and open it up the "right" way.

The door doesn't open unless a person is slain near it. The door also has a symbol of insanity scribed in the instructions on how to open it... person reading door "To open this door, you must kill one of your party mem...." *turn around and attack*

If you're good about Dming it, they might not know he read a symbol of insanity. This way you might even get a second person to check the text to see what it actually says :smallsmile:

If someone dies, the door opens. Alternatively, they can just use some sort of dispel magic or break enchantment to crack the spell holding the door shut, allowing them to enter

[Shinizak]

What about that door leading to a room where the players get a part of what they need to open the real entrance?

Beetwen, I like the Head of Vecna idea.

How about a small maze on the top and a big one that makes up an entire floor in the actual dungeon?


Twice the bonuses and penalties of the Eye of Vecna, plus... shout 3/day or something?

It doesn't really matter, because if they try it, they obviously haven't heard the stories.

Very true, we'll leave that open to the DM to homebrew.

[Shinizak]

The door doesn't open unless a person is slain near it. The door also has a symbol of insanity scribed in the instructions on how to open it... person reading door "To open this door, you must kill one of your party mem...." *turn around and attack*

If you're good about Dming it, they might not know he read a symbol of insanity. This way you might even get a second person to check the text to see what it actually says :smallsmile:

If someone dies, the door opens. Alternatively, they can just use some sort of dispel magic or break enchantment to crack the spell holding the door shut, allowing them to enter

What's funny about this is that really all you need to do is word it to sound like a person has to die, we could make it so that as long as it's alive and it dies the door opens. Suddenly we'll have adventurers carrying around bags of mice and bugs.

[Kornaki]

Ok, but you need to do that twice. Even if they figure it out the first time, they'll assume it's never going to happen again

[Jogi]

Nice ideas. I really liked the Insanity Symbol one (also lol'd at mices and bugs).
I myself am going to create a deadly dungeon for low-lv's, and insert this dungeon in my campaign. But as for us, I think we should decide about:

- Fake entrances that can/will kill one/all party member(s)?
- Fake exits?
- What's in the first level?

So far we had many ideas :D maybe it's time to perfect them into rooms.

Oh, also did this:

http://paulomtts.wordpress.com/files/2009/05/poisoned-floor-spikes.jpg

[Shinizak]

Okay, but we should probably settle on how many rooms there are. (so that we can have a finite number of options to work with)

[Jogi]

Im in favor of making the first level a labirynth, using labirynth-like map design added to some places teleporting the players to another part of the labirynth.
For this I think something beetwen 10-15 rooms should do the trick if we put enough corridors beetwen them.

This way, on second level we could put something evil *grins* and the players won't be able to succesfully turn away.

[Shinizak]

I like the idea of a labyrinth, but I dislike 10-15 rooms, that gets difficult to coordinate after a while.

[Jogi]

Hmm, true. So, what about 5-8 rooms? I think these are not hard to handle and plus the corridors will still make the player's get lost :P

Also, maybe we could make a Trap Table; that is: as the players walk the corridors you make a roll in the Trap Table, to see if there's a trap, a if there is one, which one it is. This could add a spark of randomness to the dungeon.

[Shinizak]

Hmm, true. So, what about 5-8 rooms? I think these are not hard to handle and plus the corridors will still make the player's get lost :P

Also, maybe we could make a Trap Table; that is: as the players walk the corridors you make a roll in the Trap Table, to see if there's a trap, a if there is one, which one it is. This could add a spark of randomness to the dungeon.

So in other words the 1st floor dungeon is moving around traps through the halls for the players? And in the rooms there are odd traps/puzzles for the players to solve just to make a door to the second level not kill them. After which they'll fall 40 ft down a pit that used to be a flight of stairs into poisoned spikes?

That's one hell of a 1st floor.

[Jogi]

So in other words the 1st floor dungeon is moving around traps through the halls for the players? And in the rooms there are odd traps/puzzles for the players to solve just to make a door to the second level not kill them. After which they'll fall 40 ft down a pit that used to be a flight of stairs into poisoned spikes?

That's one hell of a 1st floor.

Oh well, lol, it's the next Tomb of Horrors :P
But then we should do it like this: these traps/puzzles, as you said, should not kill them. Just weaken them to a point that falling from 40 feet doesn't need the spikes nor poison to kill them. Yet, 40 ft pit thing, there should be a racional way for them to overpass that, so that on the 1st room of the second floor we could make a puzzle that will kill or heal them, depending on the answer.

:D

[Shinizak]

Keep in mind that while the ToH isn't just a dungeon of DM power abuse, it also doesn't show mercy. So a trap that heals the party would be unwise.

Besides, If you were going to try to stop someone from stealing your hard earned money would you hand them your bank account number?

[Jogi]

Uhm, you're right :D

I thought of that as a mean to keep the game runing. I myself never played nor have read the original ToH, but I have heard the stories.

But oh well, so we'll leave it to the player's about having acess to heal or whatever they need. Also, should they be able to rest somewhere inside the dungeon? I mean, it could take days for them to get out...if they ever do.

So far the 1st floor focus on weakening them and tries to kill them in the passage to the second floor.

1st Floor - traps in the corridors, puzzles in the rooms and labirynth-like shape, as well as teleporting traps, in order to make the player's completely lost.

Other questions:
- Should we, at any time, split up the party? Like teleporting a single player to somewhere?
- Should we make aditional ways into the second level?

[dentrag2]

The Killer room of Death needs to be somewhere on the second level:

A Lurker Below, Four Stun-jellies, and a False Ceiling monster (Can't remember what it's called.)

As the PC's enter the room, the floor and ceiling start fighting over which one gets to eat them. They sneak along the walls, only to be stunned and eaten by the gelatinous cube filling the entire room.

[dentrag2]

Ooh, forgot this one.

Five traps layered over each other... Auto reset, DC 30 disarm on some door on the second level.

Hold Person
Fireball
Deep Slumber
Bestow Curse
And then the ceiling falls on them.

[Jogi]

Ooh, forgot this one.

Five traps layered over each other... Auto reset, DC 30 disarm on some door on the second level.

Hold Person
Fireball
Deep Slumber
Bestow Curse
And then the ceiling falls on them.

I don't know...I get the feeling that ToH was DM abuse power + no mercy, but a not non-sense dungeon. If we wanted to immediately kill all PC's we could use that spell called DM's Finger of Death. Lol jokes apart, what I mean is: we shouldn't kill everyone in one room and specially not with a huge combo like that.
If they're dying, we should make sure they do so slowly, one by one, no mercy. If they survive, it's luck in dice and good playing. These spells together wouldn't let them have none of these.

[RS14]

I think one thing that the Tomb of Horrors had going for it was that unlike most other dungeons, there was nothing to fight. It wasn't just a dungeon with the danger turned up to 11, but a dungeon clearly and explicitly designed to kill the party. I would retain this aspect. No kobolds. No stun jellies. Just brutal traps, and all the time in the world to trap yourself.

------

Major issues to deal with:
-Flight
-Summoned monsters being used to set off all traps.
-Detect Magic.
-Sunder-tunneling.
-Teleportation

[Trizap]

how about a room with a chest in it......but there are no traps in it, you just walk in open the chest to find the biggest diamond you have ever seen, you reach down to pick it up........and soon as you touch it, you go completely insane and start trying to kill your comrades!

how about doors, that when you try to open them......explode right in your face! muahahahahhhhaa! exploding doors!

or another room, where there is this cute little kitty........so cute that you get hypnotized by its cuteness you want to hug the kitty, rush towards said kitty to hug it......and fall through the illusionary floor and into a room filled with vorpal arrow traps that automatically shoot anyone who falls in

also a forking path with two signs: the one sign says "death" the other says "safety" when you go down the safety path, a vorpal spike suddenly thrusts up from the floor, killing you.

when you go down the death path, the same thing happens.
(you have to move on by touching a differently colored torch that opens up a secret third passage way that is actually safe)

and how about illusions? fill the entire place with illusionary treasure that are actually traps, and just to mess with the players, mix in actual treasure that is not illusionary which is not trapped at all to put them off guard and make them unsure.

and just for kicks just have this big room where there is nothing but this sleeping super-tarrasque, filled with stuff that could wake him up if they aren't really careful where they stepped.

and how about all the gear that drops from monsters are nothing but cursed items, weapons and armor?

and to make it really twisted there should be this old man guy they meet in the middle of the dungeon who claims he wants to help them through for mutual survival, but sabotages things as he goes along, leading the other members to their deaths until only one person of the party is left, and when they are at the end of the dungeon, he reveals that he is some evil wizard and tries to kill the last character standing to suck the youth out them so the old man can become young again and lead more people to their deaths.

[Trizap]

I think one thing that the Tomb of Horrors had going for it was that unlike most other dungeons, there was nothing to fight. It wasn't just a dungeon with the danger turned up to 11, but a dungeon clearly and explicitly designed to kill the party. I would retain this aspect. No kobolds. No stun jellies. Just brutal traps, and all the time in the world to trap yourself.

------

Major issues to deal with:
-Flight
-Summoned monsters being used to set off all traps.
-Detect Magic.
-Sunder-tunneling.
-Teleportation

-anti-flight field
-traps instead make monsters turn on masters instead and tries to attack them.
-there is some enchantment that simply does not make it work.
-don't know what that is.
-special enchantment on dungeon that redirects all teleportation destinations to a pit of lava.

[Kornaki]

I think one thing that the Tomb of Horrors had going for it was that unlike most other dungeons, there was nothing to fight. It wasn't just a dungeon with the danger turned up to 11, but a dungeon clearly and explicitly designed to kill the party. I would retain this aspect. No kobolds. No stun jellies. Just brutal traps, and all the time in the world to trap yourself.

But then half the party is useless. One of the ways of adapting ToH is to adapt it to the new way that certain classes simply don't deal with certain things

[Shinizak]

I think one thing that the Tomb of Horrors had going for it was that unlike most other dungeons, there was nothing to fight. It wasn't just a dungeon with the danger turned up to 11, but a dungeon clearly and explicitly designed to kill the party. I would retain this aspect. No kobolds. No stun jellies. Just brutal traps, and all the time in the world to trap yourself.

------

Major issues to deal with:
-Flight
-Summoned monsters being used to set off all traps.
-Detect Magic.
-Sunder-tunneling.
-Teleportation

I've played the tomb of horrors before, and you're right, it is a bitch and a half. There are fights in it, but they're all against new and memorable enemies that they fit in flawlessly. If anything that's what we should be doing, creating new almost alien monsters (even on D&D's standards).

P.S. we already have summoning and teleporting taken care of, We do need to get rid of sunder tunneling, flight, and detect magic. However we're in no rush...

[Trizap]

I've played the tomb of horrors before, and you're right, it is a bitch and a half. There are fights in it, but they're all against new and memorable enemies that they fit in flawlessly. If anything that's what we should be doing, creating new almost alien monsters (even on D&D's standards).

P.S. we already have summoning and teleporting taken care of, We do need to get rid of sunder tunneling, flight, and detect magic. However we're in no rush...

just took care of flight and detect magic, see my last post.

edit: oh and to take care of any people using 10 ft poles, they should turn into animated neutral evil vorpal spears when you use them to poke a trap.

[Asheram]

How about making a floor with a labyrinth and the entrances are about in the middle of it (leading up and downwards) and there are very few "dead-end" hallways. So we have passages connecting into other passages and it's impossible to find the exit by the old trick of "keep turning left or right".
As there are no references to go by, it's almost impossible to solve without attempting to draw a map.
Then add some summoned monsters that appear about... say... twice an hour?

Muhahahahaha....

[TSED]

Here's what I suggest for the first floor:

Traps that only hurt / kill you if you REACT to them.


Use copious amounts of illusions to make doom seem imminent and then... it was a trap!


An example:

You enter a room. It is obviously carpeted with magical darkness, as you can see nothing (even with dark vision).


(Roll a dice behind the screen. It doesn't actually do anything, but it makes the players think you're checking something.)

Some one steps on a pressure plate and feels it shift down. An audible scraping of stone is heard.

Followed by a deep rumbling behind you. It sounds similar to a large stone coming from the corridor behind you...

Put on the music from when Indiana Jones enacted that famous, parodyable scene.


10' out from when they start running, they hit a ledge. 1d3 bludgeoning damage + reflex save to trip head first.

Into a 10' drop with a very large, very hungry gelatinous cube.


Defend against true seeing, etc. with "you see huge streams of anguished and tormented spirits. They block out all else in your field of vision; you see naught but angry faces."

Pull out a couple of these stunts on the first level. Things like "the ceiling begins to inch towards you, its large spikes gleaming meticulously." The ceiling? Yeah, it's just an illusion. You pushing on the door? Mordenkainen's dysjunction on your FACE.

Optimally, by the time you get to the end of the first floor, the PCs are now triggering a trap and going "ok let's figure out what is going on." There are NO exceptions to the "reacting to it screws you over" on the first floor, and the FIRST and ONLY first trap on the second floor will also be like this.

Then, let the fun stuff start.

I'd save the stair drop for 2nd to 3rd floors.

[Mewtarthio]

A maze should be more than a simple maze:

The players come upon a door with several markings on it. A simple Arcana check reveals that the door can only be opened if the players touch ten different symbols in the vicinity. The symbols are scattered throughout a maze. The maze is filled with an invisible gas that does one point of damage to every attribute every five minutes. The symbols all reset after an hour, so no leaving the maze and resting. There are also poisoned spikes on the ceiling, the walls are greased, and they might at some point run into a homebrew monster with a reverse gravity effect (but the spikes and grease are everywhere, so they don't know when it's coming).

The symbols themselves are completely untrapped and do nothing except glow when directly touched by a living, sapient, native creature (and opening their corresponding lock on the door). That is, all except for the seventh one the players track down (seventh because its late enough that the players will be lulled into a false sense of security, but not so late that they won't be expecting you to pull the rug out from under them). When activated, this symbol triggers a falling block trap onto the sap who touched the symbol. The poor fool will quickly notice the following side-effects:

The ceiling is, as always, covered in poison spikes.
The floor in this area is far thinner than it appears. The illusion of a true floor is maintained thanks to a silence effect that muffles all echoes.
Thus, when the block lands, the floor breaks apart (but not before the victim takes damage from being crushed by a falling block).
There is a hundred-foot-deep pit beneath the floor. The walls are, unfortunately, still greased.
The pit is full of acid.

[Knaight]

This isn't cruel enough at all. You people need to play DROD, the amazingly evil puzzle game from hell. Your a guy with a sword, in a statless, turn based system with short turns. But if you haven't, and don't want to download the demo, here is the stuff that needs to be imported.

1. Force arrows. Highly visible arrows on the floor, pointing in certain directions. Going further than 90 degrees off of the way they face doesn't work. This includes jumping.

2. Trap doors. Stand on these too long, they fall from under you. Most enemies are exempt from this.

3. Mud, Tar, Gel, and their respective mothers. These are monsters that are basically huge amalgamations of ooze. They get absurd damage reduction to attacks on certain places (Mud everywhere but corners, Tar corners, and Gel everywhere but inside corners.). Every couple of rounds, they grow out one square each direction. If terrain prevents this, it spawns a small ooze monster. This can quite possibly mean a lot of small ooze monster.

4. Oremite. Swarms of bug like creatures that are on the floor, but almost microbial. Draw any weapon, and it will start dissolving while the rust monster watches in awe.

5. No save eye beams. If you can't keep a weapon or object between you and these things(this means keeping track of facing), then you are immobilized, and can get hit with a coup de gras. Sucks to be you. With a party, these can be broken by other people.

6. Complex orb door systems. Hit an orb, and 3 doors open, 3 close, some of the opened and closed ones are only open and close, others switch between when an orb hits, and there are about twenty orbs scattered around per room. With the monsters knowing them better than the players.

On another note, battles are always more fun when there are several whirling deathtraps in 3 dimensional movement in complex patterns whirling about. Always. This has nothing to do with DROD, but should just be procedure.

On sunder tunneling. The entire thing is inside a volcano. Lots of subtle teleportation traps. Antimagic lava, with monsters inside it. Problem solved.

[cha0s4a11]

Potions Room:

One of the rooms should be filled with a large number of healing potions. Once drunk, the potion will heal the drinker as indicated.... but 5 minutes later anyone who drinks the potions explodes/turns into an infernal/something else bad happens to them.

Summons:

Anyone who attempts to summon a creature must make a high DC will save or be compelled to obey whatever creature they just summoned.

[Pronounceable]

Here's some other stuff I'd made back in the day.

Maze of Doors:
A relatively small and simple maze that'd be quite easy to navigate, if not for the identical wooden doors located every 10 feet on every wall. They're locked, magically trapped with fireballs and 99% all are fake with no corridors behind them. The %1 that are actually doors aren't trapped, but still locked. Behind every fake door is an explosive runes with invisible writing BEHIND it that can be detected by a detect magic or similar spell (only after runes've exploded of course) which tells the secret of getting out in a suitably cryptic manner.

The exit is one huge iron door hidden behind one of the hundreds of wooden ones. Which is of course a golem made in the shape of a door.


Evil Bridge of Doom:
A big room where a narrow, irregular and twisting strip of emptiness runs over a deep, dark pit. Obviously, it's all an illusion, the floor is fake and the strip is an invisible bridge (that goes all the way down to the pit floor). If someone falls, there are (invisible but regular) handholds on the (invisible) bridge they can use to climb back up (can be found very easily with a search check). Illusionary floor isn't visible from below. Alas, most of those handholds suddenly stop about 10 ft below the top where it's still too far for a PC to reach the top of the bridge. And those above can't see below the floor so they can't help much (the layer of 10ft thick magical silence just below the illusion floor also contributes to this fact). Not to mention, the highest ones of such invisible handhold sets are trapped and will cause (invisible) spikes to sprout from the floor of the TOP of the bridge, which might cause some of those above to fall down as well (ref save to avoid).

There are some handholds that go all the way up to the top with no traps, but they're placed randomly.

For further fun, add swarms of small, flying but mostly harmless enemies that keep coming to keep the PCs who didn't fall a little occupied.


Room of Silver Pillars:
A room filled with pillars made of a strange glass that seems unbreakable and be filled with a flowing, shining liquid. The exit is behind such a glass wall, and there's a large gong in the middle of the room. Banging the gong with a special maul that's just been conveniently acquired from the previous room will cause a massive sonic boom (everyone it the room takes some sonic damage, no save) and the strange glass wall will shatter. Of course, the glass pillars will shatter as well to spray a 10ft radius around each with the molten mercury inside them (treat as lava). Further, puddles molten mercury will gather themselves together to form one mercury elemental per broken pillar (homebrew a combination of water and fire elementals with stat drains for mercury poisoning).

Or alternately, a sonic damage spell can destroy the glass wall and avoid the nasty elementals altogether. Maybe a scroll or something was hidden in a secret niche in the previous room as well (whereas the maul was in plain sight)...

[Chiron]

The House of Flying Daggers:
Was a great trap used on me once in a campaign full of drunken dwarves. A room that is essentially a giant geode with a sonic trap in the middle. Speak too loudly in the middle of the room and the sonic trap is triggered, shattering all the crystals into a million flying shards. Fort save to avoid being stunned by the initial shockwave (1D4+1 rounds) and 10d6 Damage (reflex for half) for all the flying shards.

A Dud Spell:
Waiting for a chance to use this one myself :smallbiggrin:. A staff, wand, or scroll, that is in actuallity, a small mimic (MM I pg 186) and is awakened only when an attempt is made to use it, at which point it latches on to the face of the wielder (facehugger-style) attempting to suffocate them.

A Deathly Price:
A mound of gold pieces that are in actual fact a swarm of hoard scarabs (draconomicon pg 167) Spot / perception 20 to recognise them for what they are but the party has to consciously stop to look. If they burrow into any of the party then they're looking at 1d2 con damage per round until they can be removed/cured by a spell. FUN!

[Jogi]

Potions Room:

One of the rooms should be filled with a large number of healing potions. Once drunk, the potion will heal the drinker as indicated.... but 5 minutes later anyone who drinks the potions explodes/turns into an infernal/something else bad happens to them.

Summons:

Anyone who attempts to summon a creature must make a high DC will save or be compelled to obey whatever creature they just summoned.

Now that's a great one. *taking notes on this*
Also, I liked the symbols ideas, but think they should be 7, not 10, just becaye 7 is more like it (lol).
So, anyone think the Trap Table idea is valid?

[dentrag2]

Sorry, didn't understand what we were supposed to be doing.

Here's another idea;
A perfectly empty room.

About halfway through the dungeon, there should be a room that's perfectly empty. There is literally nothing inside it. No traps, no monsters.

But because of their previous experiences, they will go crazy trying to find the trap inside the room.

Or, you know, a room where they think they can rest that's full of animated objects.

[Jogi]

Sorry, didn't understand what we were supposed to be doing.

Here's another idea;
A perfectly empty room.

About halfway through the dungeon, there should be a room that's perfectly empty. There is literally nothing inside it. No traps, no monsters.

But because of their previous experiences, they will go crazy trying to find the trap inside the room.

Or, you know, a room where they think they can rest that's full of animated objects.

I like the idea of it appearing to be completely empty, but not it atually being empty. I say this becuase eventually the player's will belive it's emptyness and rest there. :P the Animated Objects should help solving this hehe.

So far, my suggestion:

2 Fake Entrances - these entraces will try to kill one single character. They do this as a warning to other creatures, so that they'll flee whithout getting to the real entrance.

Real Entrance - this is a 80ft-deep pit, full of water and no lights. Somewhere in 70ft-deep there's a passage, which leads to a pit next by, which is 70ft deep (and you'll be on the bottom of it). If the player head up, he will end up in the stairs that head down to the 1st room. The thing with this entrace is that most player's carry heavy items, which is not a problem when you're going down, but will be a small problem when heading up the 70ft-deep pit. It will also require a search check while under water, to find the passage.

1st Floor - this floor consists of a maze with only one way out and one way to the second level. Most of it's corridors are trapped and sometimes player's will encounter teleporting traps which will teleport them to another part of the maze, thus making them feel lost. To get to the center of the maze the player's must cross a bridge (as the center of the maze is surrounded by a deep, dark pit) and the bridge could be used as the first major trap. To open the "door" (it's more of a ceiling door) to the second level, the player's must touch 7 symbols scattered through the dungeon. The seventh symbol they touch, there should be some danger involved, but not the killing kind.
Note that the traps in the corridors should be the weakening kind of trap. They won't kill the player's, but slowly but surely will harm them. This way they should die at a trap on the bridge or on the passge to the second floor. If they don't die...well, this was the first floor :P, we've got the second still.

Passage to the 2nd Floor - this can be as we discussed before. 40ft pit with whatever killing thing we can think of lol.

[Kornaki]

The labyrinth... a winding, weaving collection of wall of forces. The only good part about it is that the players can see what's on the other side of the wall.

Or so they think.

In reality there's an illusion cast on the wall of forces to make enemies appear where they're not, and to make where enemies are look like empty spaces. (cast an illusion on the wall of force that looks like there's nothing behind it, when in fact there's an enemy standing behind the illusion. The party thinks they have perfect information of when and were the encounters are, when in fact they'll be slogging through a series of ambushes

And imagine when they first touch one of the walls... POOF! A balor appears in front of you!

See how much ammunition they chuck at the wall of force that's still in between them

[Jogi]

The labyrinth... a winding, weaving collection of wall of forces. The only good part about it is that the players can see what's on the other side of the wall.

Or so they think.

In reality there's an illusion cast on the wall of forces to make enemies appear where they're not, and to make where enemies are look like empty spaces. (cast an illusion on the wall of force that looks like there's nothing behind it, when in fact there's an enemy standing behind the illusion. The party thinks they have perfect information of when and were the encounters are, when in fact they'll be slogging through a series of ambushes

And imagine when they first touch one of the walls... POOF! A balor appears in front of you!

See how much ammunition they chuck at the wall of force that's still in between them

Very nice ideas. But should we make encounters in the maze? I myself would prefer making it full of traps. Yet, I'll be using the wall of forces :P

[Dogmantra]

One of the most fearsome things you can do in a labyrinth is illusions of walls, and real walls made to look invisible. This will absolutely confuse them.

Just make sure to get rid of detect magic.

[Flickerdart]

One of the most fearsome things you can do in a labyrinth is illusions of walls, and real walls made to look invisible. This will absolutely confuse them.

Just make sure to get rid of detect magic.
I thought we axed Divination magic? Hm, how about this...every attempt to use magic to return information (scrying, magically enhanced senses) returns horrific aberrations (Will save DC20 or shaken for 1 minute). When trying to use Detect Thoughts or Mindsight they always get the maximum INT result possible, Detect Magic gives artifact-level power everywhere you look...
Actually, if we made the entire tomb an Artifact, the aura would probably dwarf anything else in there. But the horrible visions would still be a nice touch.

[Jogi]

Nice. Then, so far we've got a maze whose true walls are invisible and everywhere there are illusions of walls.
And I really liked the horrific visions thing :p

[HoundDog]

How about some form of mind-control placed on the PCs? During a castles and crusades game I ended up with my character (a rouge) mind controlled twice (once by a mystical gem, once by a ghost) which was immensely fun (and deadly, I can honestly say that I had the best hit rolls ever when I was attacking my own party). It would also be fun to make the treasure the PCs pick up dangerous too (In the same game as the one I already mentioned the fighter in our group picked up a sword that made him believe that the rest of the party was out to get him)

[Aergoth]

I'd actually disguise the entrance to the dungeon as a trap. Make it really easy to find the "trap" (an illusion of a pit filled with spikes perhaps) but make the entrance harder than hell to find.

[Jogi]

I'd actually disguise the entrance to the dungeon as a trap. Make it really easy to find the "trap" (an illusion of a pit filled with spikes perhaps) but make the entrance harder than hell to find.

I dunno...some player's will just think they got mislead and will give up the search.

[GreatWyrmGold]

My dad and his friends, when they played D&D, had put together a bunch of traps to kill PCs, like a log that swung out, hit you, and "teleported" you to a fraction of a second before you got hit...getting hit an infinite number of times...

[Xuincherguixe]

True, that might scare them away.

Eh, if they're adventurers, they should come running TOWARDS a place of such shear malevolence. Adventurers are crazy.

As far as the treasure not being of use to good PCs... I kind of liked Diablo IIs approach to the Necromancer. Not necessarily evil, but still dark. While they created undead, they also knew how to fight them. I think the same kind of applies here. With so much information on undeath, there's a wealth of knowledge on how to fight these things.

That, and there's all those terrible monsters that should be destroyed.

Furthermore, what about when some would be evil overlord comes along, trying to duplicate the results? Best to destroy this thing, and the research materials inside.

Or, alternatively... there could be some important good artifact of goodlly good good goodness. Like a very effective waffle maker.



As to some suggestions...

There's a room the PCs run into, and the ceiling slowly starts to descend. There's a heart beating visibly in the middle of the room. In order to stop the ceiling, they need to stop it from beating. Stabbing it or the likes accomplishes this. You might have a few of these things scattered about. Maybe even some when there are no traps. And a few before traps are to be activated.

Eventually they will come to one heart, and will most likely shoot it.

Unfortunately this one is a little bit different. Because it's really a very localizned spatial warping. That heart is really one of the PCs.

There are two ways for the real solution to be. One, there's a switch or lever or something that's hidden which will disable that particular death trap. The other is that they merely need to move the jar.


For added fun, the PCs might later encounter a prison cell filled with a lot of dead bodies. One per heart. Or, some monster that gets stronger with every heart killed. Or both.

"Remove the jar with the heart" is a solution that might apply here too.


Or, if you're cruel, death and sacrifice might be the only to progress. There might even be points where the PCs have to sacrifice other people just to survive. There would be convenient prisoners provided for this purpose. I would suggest some puzzles must be solved with cannibalism, but really, once you cross the "murder to live" line, Cannibalism is just making things more icky, not really all that more "evil".


If I ever were to make a hideously evil dungeon, chances are I wouldn't be so completely arbitrary as Tomb of Horrors was. Reading through the description, it didn't seem like it was hard so much as just stupid. Not how I'd make my manifestation of hell on earth.

The "The Heart is really the player's" trick I got while thinking about how I would make the tomb of horrors. But yeah, the tricky part is making things cruel and hideous, without being arbitrary. With that in mind, there really shouldn't be very many instant death traps.

[Pronounceable]

I'd say constructs, undead, elementals and bound outsiders fit best (in that order) to the Tomb of Horrors concept.

The completely empty and safe room would work well. As a very hard to find secret sanctuary that can be found by heeding whatever cryptic clues are placed on every level. Say, till level 5 where the (again very hard to find) empty room turns out to be made of living walls and the floor and ceiling monsters (forgot the names of these two).


Nice. Then, so far we've got a maze whose true walls are invisible and everywhere there are illusions of walls.
And I really liked the horrific visions thing :p

Although the idea is nice, actual making of it will take a lot of time. Be warned.

And don't forget the incorporeal monsters of the invisible walls maze.


As for the end boss (or maybe a secret boss), it could be a demilich claiming to be the Head of Vecna.

EDIT:

If I ever were to make a hideously evil dungeon, chances are I wouldn't be so completely arbitrary as Tomb of Horrors was.
The problem with that is the difference between evil and arbitrary are kinda academic in this instance.

[Gauntlet]

Rather than illusions of walls and real walls, have a room which seems at first sight to be a small room, but all the walls are illusions. Of mirrors. When you disbelieve an illusion you can still see a translucent outline. So you have say 12 layers of illusionary mirror, each one turning into a translucent mirror if you make a save- and with a mirror at the real walls of the room. Put the door in the ceiling.

[HoundDog]

I'd say constructs, undead, elementals and bound outsiders fit best (in that order) to the Tomb of Horrors concept.

Bound outsiders... How do these concepts sound:

Several iron flasks, disguised as potions. These contain demon assassins and are given to the PCs at the start of the game. When the PCs open them, the demons leap out... and then... Assassin Death Attack...

An iron flask, built into the floor, with a single gold piece coin as the stopper. When the PCs pick up the coin, they release the very angry (insert suitable outsider here) from within. Or, instead of releasing a clearly evil outsider, the iron flask releases a fallen celestrial, who will offer to "guide" them through what it knows of the dungeon... before either leading the PCs into a death trap or a legion of Tucker's kobolds.

As for a completely different idea, how about a treasure chest. The PCs open it, and the trap is unleashed: the entire room is part of a portal to the lower planes...

[Shinizak]

In the end we have to put our foot down somewhere.

The first floor will have 7 rooms.

Now how about we go and vote on what Room 1 will contain. Okay?

[Xuincherguixe]

The problem with that is the difference between evil and arbitrary are kinda academic in this instance.

Yeah, if this is in the spirit of Tomb of Horrors, it should be arbitrary. But... I just really don't like that dungeon. There's not a whole lot of thinking in that. The clues just aren't that informative frankly.


That being said, here's another room. I came up with the idea for one of the play by post god threads.

The PCs enter into a room, built like a tower. There are three exits. The one they came in from, one in front of them, and one up towards the ceiling In the original version they would be informed that they could always turn back. This is important for reasons that will become apparent shortly. Part of the test was a willingness to commit to the task. But some people wouldn't be likely to get past this. As such probably quite appropriate here. And there's a sword

If the PCs head back out the exit, they will return to the room this tower connects to. If they head forward, they arrive... exactly in the same room. The same also happens if they just fly out the room at the top, or otherwise don't get there the right way.

What is the right way? Well remember that sword? It's there so the PCs can kill themselves. What will happen is, after the last one of them commits suicide with the thing, they'll mysteriously wake up, to find their corpses. If they do this again, there will be yet more corpses. But, a third time and they all vanish. The goal here, is to build a mountain of their own bodies up to the top of the tower.

It turns out that at certain points, they're supposed to walk back into the room through the exit that was directly in front of them. In a fashion obeying a Fibonacci sequence. So suicide, suicide, come back into the room, and suicide again three more times, then exit 8 times.

What's more this also means that they can't just randomly pile up bodies. They have to be able to get through the entrance and exits.

This is why I told the PCs that any time they could leave :P

An appropriate riddle hint here would be, "Although you can leave any time from entrance you came in from, death leads to the only real exit."

This was originally designed for one person. And so you're left with the question of, does the process apply per person, or for the whole party.



I'm kind of proud of this one.




Also. The dungeon should have REAL guides, because if they have any sense at all they'll suspect anyone inside. Naturally, the guides would get killed off after they lead the party safely through one encounter, or it would be too easy. But honestly helpful guides would be the way to shake them up frankly. Though, the two should probably be mixed for the best results.

[Gauntlet]

My vote is an armor rack containing various well-used armors of powerful magic qualities (Fortification Full Plate, Twilight Chain Shirt, Mithral Breastplate etc.) with Contingent Create Greater Undead on them all. Possibly also a few Dread Guards among them to keep the PCs on their toes. Advance them and give them Greataxes.

[Flickerdart]

As for a completely different idea, how about a treasure chest. The PCs open it, and the trap is unleashed: the entire room is part of a portal to the lower planes...
Pah, you want them to escape?

[Shinizak]

For the first level: First Room I think there should probably something that in a way sums up the amount pain we are about to inflict upon them. (much as the green devil face did for the Tomb of Horrors)

So the first room should probably be a focal point for the Tomb. and the trap should be simple enough that it will cause the players to wonder what it does.

My idea: The entrance to the dungeon is actually a large archway with a statue shaped like a gargoyle looming over it, it's mouth gaping open with black razor sharp teeth. Obviously the characters will be wary of the gargoyle(in the DnD universe, who wouldn't be?) and attempt to either see if it's just alive, see if it's magic, or smash it "just in case." however the statue has a variety of devastating effects:

Detect Magic: Detect magic doesn't reveal any magic on the gargoyle, however it does activate a contingency that releases 1D4+1 specters.

Smashed: if the gargoyle is damaged in any way the attacker will be instantly affected by the spell Demise Unseen (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/demiseUnseen.htm) except there is no save, and the character turns into a vampire instead.

Those that reach into it's mouth will find a small gold key with a large diamond marble set into it has been slipped there (the diamond grants a %20 miss chance) however the mouth also acts as a Bag of Devouring (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/cursedItems.htm#bagofDevouring) that automatically attempts to grapple and eat a creature that reaches inside it.

[Almn]

Just have a small, tight corridor filled with blood. If they go through ask them to make a balance check to see if they slip. Nothing bad will happen, except that they fall prone. Scribble while they are in the corridor to drive them crazy.

[TSED]

I think a bunch of people are just shouting out ideas without reading anything suggested prior.


I mean, I suggested how to get rid of divination magic and then some one else suggests it in a different manner and THAT guy gets "oh good idea" whilst I am going "hey my ego demands compensation!"



EDIT:: Hurrya i r tyep godo.

[Shinizak]

Sorry, didn't mean to over look you like that.:smallfrown:

[Jogi]

I think a bunch of people are just shouting out ideas without reading anything suggested prior.
EDIT:: Hurrya i r tyep godo.

I haven't really read the posts not concerning the 1st floor, but I can say that this is true. Some people are just shooting ideas randomly.

So, 7 rooms. We still have the Trap Table for the corridors?

I really liked the gorgoyle archway idea. The only thing I'd do is: there should be something they do to the statue that won't make it's mouth try to rip off their hands when they reach for the key. I mean, the owner of the place would either have another key (thus wouldn't make sense leaving one here) or have a way to get this one whithout any trouble, right?

Also, I think the gorgoyle archway should lead into the corridor suggested by Almn, since after all the trouble with the gorgoyle, slidding into an empty corridor might make them desperate.

And maybe, we should make it so that the golden key somewhat gives them acess to one of the symbols in the maze (if we're going to use that).

Oh, just remembered this: after some thought I gave up on the wall of force & illusionary walls thing. Not because I think it's a bad idea, but it will surely require LOTS of work.

[Shinizak]

A: the 1st page list has been updated.

B: I believe room 2 should probably hold the first fight, I was thinking a mix & matched dragon? (as in a green dragon that breaths lighting, is immune to fire, and can fog cloud 3/day or something)

[Shinizak]

Also, to stop the players from tunneling trough the walls, I came up with a plausible solution:

The dungeon is set in a swamp at the base of a volcano. The grime that built up in the swamp was super heated by the volcano and turned to acid. If the tomb walls are breached in any way, nasty smelling swamp goop begins to spew out onto the characters at a rate of 30 feet per second dealing 10d6 acid damage per round. And since the "acid" is super heated, it deals an additional 5d6 fire damage. Because of the nature of the swamp goop you can't defend against the acid or fire damage unless you defend against them both at the same time.

[Kornaki]

A mixed and matched dragon will only waste a spell or two while they try to figure out its real weakness

I think a balor that commits ritual suicide before it's defeated in order to take down the party wizard would be a pretty good way of showing how hardcore things are going to be

[Shinizak]

Don't you think that's over kill? (I realize that's what the tomb is about, but still)

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Nah...those are both only half-decent ideas, and here's why:

Any single opponent without insane protection stands a chance of going down in a single round, especially at high levels. One Balor looks imposing, but enough Chain Devils can be worse, if played creatively. What makes things difficult and memorable are the ways they're played...Tucker's Kobolds, for example.

A Balor that kills itself will be annoying. A fight against Chain Devils while suspended over a pit of acid in a web of Chain spun by an enormous, demonically powered Spider Golem? Much more difficult, and more memorable. :smallbiggrin:

[Kornaki]

Hmm... what if you enter through the side of a mountain... and come upon a chasm with a river of lava flowing through it (the lava's fairly far below you). You have to cross a single filed bridge. 1 or more balors (who all summon another balor before joining combat) open up with flyby whip attacks. Anyone who gets dragged in gets dropped into the lava. Atlernatively, the balor flies into the lava with them and waits for the person to die (especially if they're a spellcaster)

What level are the PCs going to be? This makes a pretty big difference

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Hmm... what if you enter through the side of a mountain... and come upon a chasm with a river of lava flowing through it (the lava's fairly far below you). You have to cross a single filed bridge. 1 or more balors (who all summon another balor before joining combat) open up with flyby whip attacks. Anyone who gets dragged in gets dropped into the lava. Atlernatively, the balor flies into the lava with them and waits for the person to die (especially if they're a spellcaster)

What level are the PCs going to be? This makes a pretty big difference

Now we're cooking with fire! (Pardon the pun). :smallbiggrin:

[Saintheart]

Hi guys--this looks really, really intriguing.

May I make a suggestion for the first fight? Include somebody nasty, sure, but One thought I had ... for this fight, how about throwing in some rust monsters with some serious class levels in rogue or with Greater Invisibility made permanent on them? I know the Rust Monster is only a CR 3 unimproved, but adamantium and mithral are metals, and such items without magic have no saving throw, while magic items have a DC 17 saving throw. People might shrug off outright death of their characters, but if you manage to wipe the main fighter's adamantium armor and (maybe) his main sword, you can giggle in glee as he then has to start fighting balor barehanded.

Magic items get a Reflex save of 2 + half the caster level. An effective +5 weapon, with its requirement that the maker has to be at least twice the level of its bonus, therefore has a Reflex save of +7.

A Rust Monster therefore would (on my theory) only need a CON score of 23 to pretty much wipe any substantial magic weapon in existence.

The DC for the save is apparently Con-based, with a +4 racial bonus ... so just pump the Rust Monsters' CON scores through the roof. Rust Monster's CON score at present is a 13, so give 'em 15 class levels in rogue to allow them +4 for stat increases (all to CON), and then install an Amulet of Health +6 on each one's back. Raises CON to 23. 15th level rogue Rust Monster probably means death to a +5 longsword from rust damage alone.

Oh, and the sneak attack damage is +8d6 ... normal. So the Rust Monsters aren't just hitting for rust damage, they're flaying you alive with their antennae, too. 15th level Rust Monster gets Improved Evasion, can't be flanked, has two special abilities (Slippery Mind and Opportunist, perhaps). And that's before you start throwing in bonus feats at level 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 ...

And lest we forget about the Amulets of Health on their backs ... each one has "I prepared Explosive Runes this morning" carved on them. And if you do manage to put one on, you discover that each Amulet of Health is, in fact, a Scarab of Death with an Amulet of Health effect added to it ... the item was embedded in the Rust Monster's carapace, which counts as a container of bone which deactivates the little bugger.

[Kornaki]

Put four or six of them into the room. The PCs probably won't care about getting flanked until it's too late. If they're invisible the PCs will just say 'wasn't anything we could do about it (except see invisibility) but if they just treat it nonchalantly and all of a sudden they're getting slammed for 40+ damage an attack, it'll be a bit of a shocker. In fact, upon seeing the rust monsters they might retreat and leave all their metal gear in the previous room in order to keep it safe :smallamused:

Hah... just thought of a great idea for a more amusing room. A sorcerer with ten beads of force and a maxed out bluff skill.. The party enters, the sorcerer starts juggling them. Only he's not really juggling them because each one is being held by an unseen servant. The wizard invites them to gather round and enjoy the juggling spectacle. Note that this should only be after meeting some NPCs who are actually friendly; otherwise they probably shoot the guy up before entering the room. The PCs gather close, BAM! All ten beads of force get thrown. With any luck the party is trapped inside an invulnerable sphere with the wizard. Wizard has two choices

1) Cloudkill and go down with the ship.
2) Cloudkill... but he's also a lich with an illusion on him. More likely to fail in this case, since they might make the will save before gathering round, but at least he has an exit strategy

In fact, this guy could be someone who originally entered to do the dungeon crawl, but his party wiped halfway through and he went insane. Hence explaining his willingness to die

With the idea of using this fairly early on (before they hit the point where they're killing off all the friendly NPCs they meet) fairly soon after the rust fight they should find their first friendly NPC(s). It's early enough that they'll still be trusting, and especially if they lost some equipment they'll be glad to not have to fight (and have some free meatshields)

[Saintheart]

Behold, I give you Rusty the 15th level rogue Rust Monster. (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=128631)

Hitpoints calculation: 5d8+5 + 15d6+90. Not rolling right now, but this is a minimum hitpoint total of 115. Four to six of these little buggers ought to be able to survive a Disintegrate spell or two, especially with Fort saves in the +16 realm.

And I even managed to make Rusty's Rust attack +2 better by using the Ability Focus feat for monsters. Rusty now hits three times a round with touch attacks strung out from +17 down. +5 weapons made at CL 10 now can't save unless they get natural 20s. (Although Rusty thereby makes your vorpal mithral scythe a pretty nice unenchanted walking stick).

I'm a little uncertain whether sneak attack would apply to Rusty's rust attack, but I think it can with the following justification: Rusty takes a swing at you with his antennae. You do try to dodge, but Rusty only needs to make a touch attack. His antennae hits dead-on centre of your shield, rusts a path straight through, and then plunges into your side (sneak attack.)

If it doesn't work that way, Rusty can still move to bite attacks, of which he has three. Not fantastic with 1d4 damage, but if he crits, Telling Blow means you also take +8d6 as well. Ouch.

[Pyrusticia]

And for savvy players who actually know about the Head of Vecna, have it be the real Head of Vecna, that actually will grant bonuses.

Hmm...you know how the Hand and the Eye both turn you evil over time?

Assuming we're going to make the Head a real artifact, I'd suggest the following:

The Head is intelligent (it does, after all, contain the mind of Vecna).

Cutting off your head and replacing it with the Head of Vecna changes your type to Living Construct (you're essentially turning yourself into a self-aware flesh golem variant). Acquire all normal attributes of the type.

The Head is constantly fighting with it's current possessor for dominance. Resolve these struggles using normal Ego rules.

Every week, the possessor of the Head of Vecna must make a Will save (DC 30) or lose 1d6 points of Wisdom (permanent damage). Note that this will make Ego battles more and more difficult as time goes by.

If at any point the possessor's Wisdom score is reduced to 0 or below, their spirit is consumed and Vecna is able to take control of the body. This is irreversable, and the construct becomes the new body of Vecna (so it cannot be used as a corpse to raise the character). Only a Wish or similar level of magic can restore the character.

***

Furthermore, I'd suggest that when the Head of Vecna is discovered, it's not merely as an item in a chest somewhere. It's in the animate form, having taken control of its last possessor...so the Head of Vecna is the final boss...

Thoughts?

[Saintheart]

Here's one. The Head of Vecna appears to have fairly significant powers on its own, without having to put it on your own head. Explain it to players as kind of like the head of Medusa a la Clash of the Titans -- even in death, it retains pretty well all of its powers.

Then ... the first rest session following their escape from the Tomb, the Head strikes.

It casts a powerful Still, Quickened illusion (don't know that form of magic too well, pardon me) to convince any sentries that all is well and nothing's going on over next to its target. It can teleport out of a Bag of Holding, Portable Hole, or a Handy Haversack. (Or better yet, make it so it simply can't be put inside one of these items; it resists it. There's an enchanted sack lying around which can contain it.)

The head then casts a powerful Charm Person spell which has the head's carrier cut off their own head and replace it with the Head of Vecna. Means it could be just the thief who gets the Head on, not anyone else. And it doesn't take too kindly to being removed from its current possessor (i.e. ... must attack and kill the Head. Again.)

[Limos]

Here's one for you.

Room One
The players enter through a seemingly innocuous door at the behest of a friendly wizard for some seemingly unrelated quest. They find themselves in a white cube room with a small black hatch in the center of each wall, the floor and the ceiling. As soon as they enter the door they used snaps shut.

If opened again it reveals a completely identical cube except this one is a different color (perhaps blue).

Each door opens on to another cube of a different color. In addition gravity is subjective so that they may stand on any surface of each cube.

One of the doors increments time by 1 day when entered from the white room and leads to the opposite wall. If they try to go back through the door it will not change their time. It will only accept one player at a time and will snap shut after each. It alternates between the time effect and simply leading back into the room.

The second door on the wall simply leads back to the first door and alternates between going back in time one day and just moving the players. It functions just like the first door.

Room 2
The door they came through leads here. A Blue cube, put in a decanter of endless water that is fixed to the wall and a Create Food and Water trap. There is a permanent campsite and everything in the room receives fast healing. This is lull them into a false sense of security.

Room 3
One of the doors on the wall leads here. A Red cube, as soon as the first player enters hidden nozzles fill the room with poison (your choice of what it does). This is to make them leery of red rooms and set up that they associate colors with different effects. None of the doors in here can be opened except for the original portal which will only open to a Knock spell or a sufficiently high Strength check.

Room 4
Another door on the wall leads here. A Green cube, nothing special here. Maybe have some monsters. Doors can lead to the blue room, the white room, and back to the green room. One door will lead to Room 5.

Room 5
Reached by the door on the ceiling or the door in Room 4. This room is black and has an obelisk in the center of one room where the door should be. Put a meaningless clue on this. If they attempt to smash it summon some wraiths.

One of the doors will lead to Room 6, and one to Room 7. The others can lead back to the blue room, white room, or black room.

Room 6
Another blue room, there is another campsite visible on the opposite wall of the one you enter. Except this time the entire room is filled with a gelatinous cube.

Room 7
Another Red room, this time when they enter the ceiling begins to slowly descend on them. The ceiling is illusory and they can pass right through it. Any attack or dispel attempt against the wall causes the floor to disappear resulting into a 40 ft drop into a pit filled with spikes covered in CON poison.

There are tons more doors so you can come up with more room in the same vein.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Colored room thingy...

For added fun (and making the players HATE YOU FOREVER), make the puzzle a Rubik's Cube. Without manipulating the cubes correct (through a series of levers in a central room, perhaps), they can never escape. :smallbiggrin:

[Pyrusticia]

Here's one. The Head of Vecna appears to have fairly significant powers on its own, without having to put it on your own head. Explain it to players as kind of like the head of Medusa a la Clash of the Titans -- even in death, it retains pretty well all of its powers.

Then ... the first rest session following their escape from the Tomb, the Head strikes.

It casts a powerful Still, Quickened illusion (don't know that form of magic too well, pardon me) to convince any sentries that all is well and nothing's going on over next to its target. It can teleport out of a Bag of Holding, Portable Hole, or a Handy Haversack. (Or better yet, make it so it simply can't be put inside one of these items; it resists it. There's an enchanted sack lying around which can contain it.)

The head then casts a powerful Charm Person spell which has the head's carrier cut off their own head and replace it with the Head of Vecna. Means it could be just the thief who gets the Head on, not anyone else. And it doesn't take too kindly to being removed from its current possessor (i.e. ... must attack and kill the Head. Again.)

Mmm, I like it.

[Night-breeze]

For added fun (and making the players HATE YOU FOREVER), make the puzzle a Rubik's Cube. Without manipulating the cubes correct (through a series of levers in a central room, perhaps), they can never escape. :smallbiggrin:

Rubik's cube is not all that difficult to learn, but, granted, if you don't know how to do it, it's horrible :D

[Jogi]

Hmmm...what about:

1) Instead of working out the fight in the second room, first we do the room? I mean, how big is it? What's the scenario? Maybe we should make the second room be a huge natural cave-like place, where a river of lava flows some 200ft below the hanging bridge, which the player's must cross. The only problem will be the Balor(s), trying to use his wip to throw the players in the lava.

2) Maybe there shouldn't be a second room right after that corridor. When's the maze coming up? Since we agreed on 7 rooms and we've got room 1 already, we have 6 rooms left to the maze.

[Shinizak]

Keep in mind that is is a 7-8 level dungeon with many levels below it. We'd have to explain anything like: Lava pits, acid pools, giant caverns of unending torment, etc.

[Almn]

How about a room with a trap door that leads to a portable hole filled with acid. As soon as the PCs fall into it unseen servants fold it up... Bonus points if the PCs have a bag of holding and cause an astral breach, which would have interesting* consequences because of the strange properties of the tomb.

*by interesting I mean fatal.

[Shinizak]

How about a room with a trap door that leads to a portable hole filled with acid. As soon as the PCs fall into it unseen servants fold it up... Bonus points if the PCs have a bag of holding and cause an astral breach, which would have interesting* consequences because of the strange properties of the tomb.

*by interesting I mean fatal.

Instead of causing a rift to the astral plane it causes a sphere of annihilation to appear? cool, but is that the only purpose of the room?

[Pronounceable]

Keep in mind that is is a 7-8 level dungeon with many levels below it. We'd have to explain anything like: Lava pits, acid pools, giant caverns of unending torment, etc.

A wizard did it.

[Almn]

Hmmmm...
When thinking it over, I think that the portable hole should also have an illusion of empty space, spikes coated with poison, and a door to the next level down. This should be after the last trap that was the gateway to the next floor. There should also be a normal bag of holding around nearby, so that players can activate the breach easily. If not, well the traps of unseen servants will still be there.
Have animate dead cast on portable holes filled with acid summon ghosts from the astral plane covered in acid and poison, and have them explode in a burst of con and dex draining poison when (if) slain. Control undead should be needed every hour on them, and they should be able to make secret will saves to break out of the control, without telling the controller. The acid ghosts summoned will then cleverly attempt to mess up the PCs and kill them. Have a chance that they have class levels as well, or that a PC that was killed in the pool comes back with an animate dead. Under the DM's control of course. And evil, wanting to cause a TPK, and an acid spitting ghost with class levels.:smallamused:

[Jogi]

Hey, what about making a corridor-room called The Hall of the Lost Souls? It would be a room shaped like a long corridor, with many deadly traps, but the main thing is: the room is under a magical effect that traps the souls of everyone who dies in there inside a magical trap in the end of the corridor. As soon as they reach the end, if they activate the trap they will release the souls (thus, invoking a random number of ghosts plus the ghosts of characters who died in there).

[Shinizak]

Hey, what about making a corridor-room called The Hall of the Lost Souls? It would be a room shaped like a long corridor, with many deadly traps, but the main thing is: the room is under a magical effect that traps the souls of everyone who dies in there inside a magical trap in the end of the corridor. As soon as they reach the end, if they activate the trap they will release the souls (thus, invoking a random number of ghosts plus the ghosts of characters who died in there).

The thing about ghosts is that killing them is only a temporary solution, I'd go with specters or something. Maybe like this: for every trap they set off (which should be in the double digits) they release 1d3 specters. The thing is, there should be about 2-3 traps set up for each 10 foot space.

[Gerwulf]

Hey, I made my own tome of horrors a while back and thought I'd include a few of my favorites from it.

To prevent the players from just tunneling through the dungeon I place a curse on the walls. Any attack against the wall would be returned with 2X the force. Cast magic missile at the wall, the wall casts 2 magic missiles at you. Attack the wall with a broad sword, the wall attacks you with 2 broad swords. Treat the wall as a 20th level wizard/20th level fighter for purposes of attacks, no stat adjustments. That way the players have a chance of surviving, but they will quickly learn not to attack the walls.

As for dealing with flight, either let them use it and provide flying monsters/traps placed near the ceiling instead of on the ground level. or in addition to the enchantment above the walls could have an enchantment that auto dispels any attempt to cast flight (or any spell at all but that would just be mean) give the players a chance by placing the enchantment on a central item/monster/feature of the dungeon so that they can disable it on each level if they take the time to find it and figure it out.

Deadly trap #1:
The Dual Pit Trap
One 15' pit trap with spikes at the bottom harms whoever falls in it, another pit trap 1' further down the corridor drops you into a net covered in alchemical fire (the nasty stuff from 2e that lights up when it contacts alchemical oil) suspended above a net covered in alchemical oil. Creating an instantaneous inferno that burns through the nets in less than 6 seconds (a reflex save DC 25 allows the character to grab a ledge instead of falling the rest of the way into the pit. Which is a 30' deep pit with 15' full of Greek fire.) The pit has slanted walls / \ making it impossible to climb out without help. The character has to choose between staying below the surface of the oil and drowning or staying above the surface and burning alive. Unless one of the characters carries chain with them at least 20' long (something I have never known PC's to do regularly) they can’t help the poor PC out of the pit either. This trap has an added benefit of hitting anyone with a low dex because they won’t be able to jump over the first pit, land on a 1' wide ledge and then jump over the second pit easily.

Deadly trap #2
The Falling Corridor
Have several long well lit corridors in the dungeon (50' +) let the characters get used to pit traps and ceiling monsters in these corridors. Then spring the falling corridor on them. This trap is a short corridor (10' long or so) with an illusionary teleport at the end of it. The teleport spell sends you to the top of a pit 100' deep; the illusion makes the pit seem like a long flat corridor. The first character to cross the illusion will start to fall, but it will appear as though they have been sucked down the corridor. The reaction is usually to try to grab them, or help them in some way which should net you another character. This trap can be bypassed by securing a rope to the wall and lowering yourself into the corridor, but they won’t try that right away, and you can have fun making them think that the corridor is under the effect of a reverse gravity or some similar spell.

Deadly trap #3
Moving Spike corridor
A long corridor (120' +) with a door on either end, and a pressure plate that triggers the trap 20' down the corridor. Once the trap is triggered spikes shoot out from the wall and stick into the other side of the corridor in the 5' section in front of each door. Every 3 seconds (twice per round) the next 5' section will also fill with spikes (characters struck by the spikes take {character level/2}d6 dmg and are pinned until the spikes retract. Once 10 5' sections are filled, then the first one will retract when the next 5' section fills. So at the end of the 5th round the first 5' section (the one closest to the doors) retracts. 1 round later it fills with spikes again. The best way to deal with this trap is to run into it. The sooner you get across the less damage you will take, but most characters will try to avoid the spikes and end up right in the middle where they will take the most damage getting out.
{Visual representation of the traps effect below}
X= spikes filling square
_=square not filled
D=Door
Before trap is sprung:
D_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _D
When trap is sprung
DX _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ XD
3 seconds later
DXX _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ XXD
6 seconds later {end of 1st round}
DXXX _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ XXXD
9 seconds later
DXXXX _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ XXXXD
12 seconds later {end of 2nd round}
DXXXXX _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ XXXXXD
15 seconds later
DXXXXXX _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ XXXXXXD
18 seconds later {end of 3rd round}
DXXXXXXX _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ XXXXXXXD
21 seconds later
DXXXXXXXX _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ XXXXXXXXD
24 seconds later {end of 4th round}
DXXXXXXXXX _ _ _ _ _ _ XXXXXXXXXD
27 seconds later
DXXXXXXXXXX _ _ _ _ XXXXXXXXXXD
30 seconds later {end of 5th round}
D_ XXXXXXXXXX _ _ XXXXXXXXXX _D
33 seconds later
D_ _ XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX _ _D
36 seconds later {end of 6th round}
DX _ _ XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX_ _ XD
39 seconds later
DXX _ _ XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX _ _ XXD
Etc.


The best part about these traps is that for the un- prepared or un-imaginative group they will spell certain doom, but for the adventurer who is willing and able to think outside the box, they will provide a challenging and exciting test of ability.

[Kornaki]

To prevent the players from just tunneling through the dungeon I place a curse on the walls. Any attack against the wall would be returned with 2X the force. Cast magic missile at the wall, the wall casts 2 magic missiles at you. Attack the wall with a broad sword, the wall attacks you with 2 broad swords. Treat the wall as a 20th level wizard/20th level fighter for purposes of attacks, no stat adjustments. That way the players have a chance of surviving, but they will quickly learn not to attack the walls.

Nice. If they cast a spell at the wall, it just gets bounced back with double force (obviously fireball that has the wall in its radius doesn't count, you need to use discretion when applying this). But if the fighter hits the wall with a broadsword?

A piece of the wall forms up into the shape of an arm holding a broadsword, hits the fighter twice, then melds back into the wall. That should be a pretty big hint

[Almn]

A rod of wonder and a deck of many things should be the first treasures the characters get.

[Pyrusticia]

To prevent the players from just tunneling through the dungeon I place a curse on the walls. Any attack against the wall would be returned with 2X the force. Cast magic missile at the wall, the wall casts 2 magic missiles at you. Attack the wall with a broad sword, the wall attacks you with 2 broad swords. Treat the wall as a 20th level wizard/20th level fighter for purposes of attacks, no stat adjustments. That way the players have a chance of surviving, but they will quickly learn not to attack the walls.

Hmm. Does this apply to any sort of attack?

I'm thinking of casting a healing spell on the wall to get it reflected back at double power.

Or, if you want to be picky and say that only negative energy is reflected, a necromancer using an area effect spell bounced back to heal his minions more efficiently.

There are definitely ways this could be turned to the players' advantage. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, mind you...as a matter of fact, I'd let it work just like that. If they're clever enough to use an existing curse to their own advantage, more power to them...that's the sort of thinking that'll give'em a hope of getting through this dungeon. :smallwink:

[ShinyRocks]

I like the perfectly empty room idea; it was the first thing I thought of when reading the thread.

But let's make it perfectly empty. Walls, floor and ceiling are sloped with geometric precision - you're effectively inside a giant sphere. It's made of, say, flawless marble without veins - perfectly white. The marble is permanently lit from within - like a very bright Light spell (does that still exist?!). The door slams shut once the party is in and leaves no visible sign of its frame. There is another door in there. Somewhere. Similarly well hidden. I hope you've got someone with a good Search skill in your party, Mr Adventurer!

The room is safe. No monsters. No traps. But also no way to get your bearings - no corners! Not even shadows because the light comes from all direction. And good luck trying to rest in a brilliantly lit room with sloping floors. After scrabbling around in a dingy dungeon for ages, a bright white room would be horribly disconcerting. And panic would surely set in once they can't see a door.

But if they stay calm and rational, it's actually perfectly safe.

[Kyouhen]

I like the perfectly empty room idea; it was the first thing I thought of when reading the thread.

But let's make it perfectly empty. Walls, floor and ceiling are sloped with geometric precision - you're effectively inside a giant sphere. It's made of, say, flawless marble without veins - perfectly white. The marble is permanently lit from within - like a very bright Light spell (does that still exist?!). The door slams shut once the party is in and leaves no visible sign of its frame. There is another door in there. Somewhere. Similarly well hidden. I hope you've got someone with a good Search skill in your party, Mr Adventurer!

The room is safe. No monsters. No traps. But also no way to get your bearings - no corners! Not even shadows because the light comes from all direction. And good luck trying to rest in a brilliantly lit room with sloping floors. After scrabbling around in a dingy dungeon for ages, a bright white room would be horribly disconcerting. And panic would surely set in once they can't see a door.

But if they stay calm and rational, it's actually perfectly safe.

Why stop there? Let's apply some sort of gravity trap to the room too so you can walk on all sides. :smallbiggrin:

[Pronounceable]

No. Make them WORK to reach the highest point to search for the exit.

[Kyouhen]

No. Make them WORK to reach the highest point to search for the exit.

I dunno, I think it would be more cruel to have them no longer able to tell where they came in from anymore. In fact, set it up so that after a few minutes the door they came in from becomes slightly visible again (still hard to find, but easier than the real exit). Have it so the door cannot be opened at all, and watch them think that that's actually the exit and stop looking elsewhere. :smalltongue:

[Arakune]

Make the door being exactly in the middle of the sphere and see how many of the players figure it out.

[Leicontis]

Myself, I'm a big fan of deceptive traps. Here are a couple of interesting ones:
-An open gap that has an illusion making the far side look at least five or ten feet closer than it actually is, and thus close enough to jump trivially. Add an Antimagic Field over the pit to prevent flight, levitation, or similar magical means of passing the gap (but positioned so as not to disrupt the illusion)

-Similar to the above, except that the far wall of the pit/gap actually extends all the way to the ceiling, but has an illusion making it look like a corridor. This one has the extra comedy value of the jumping PC think he's about to make it, then faceplant into a solid stone wall before dropping into the pit/gap. Finally, given the anti-teleportation measure already in place, it would add injury to injury for a PC to finally go "screw it!" and attempt to teleport across (aging accordingly), only to materialize inside a solid object, take the damage that entails, then get shunted out over the pit/gap.

Both of these could be made more nasty by having some sort of blade swinging/rolling/otherwise passing through at regular (and short) intervals. This serves three functions: The first is to potentially injure anyone attempting to jump the pit and ruin their attempt. The second is to make it obviously difficult or impossible to simply attempt to bridge the gap with a ladder or similar (since it would just chop any such bridge in half). The third is to make the PCs think that the danger is posed by the blade, and that the challenge is timing their jump - this makes them less likely to check for the hidden danger posed by the illusion.

Another nice addition to any pit trap, particularly one the PCs are already aware of, is a simple Bigby's Forceful Hand trap pushing the hapless PC inexorably into the pit.

There's another trap I saw described in a magazine once that was touted as near-certain death for any PC that falls into it. It's a pit, followed by a large open space, followed by a second pit (this one full of water). The victim falls through the first pit and into the second. Their passage knocks aside the wedge holding back a massive round boulder that was propped beside the water-filled lower pit, which promptly rolls onto the lower pit, sealing it. The boulder is large enough that spells like Disintegrate, Transmute Rock to Mud, Stone Shape, and the like would take multiple castings to put an adequate hole in it, and it would take truly prodigious strength to move it aside (especially since, ideally, it ends up sealing or nearly sealing the entrance to the open space as well). The victim is trapped underwater and isolated, so unless they have access to silent spells or some other method of not drowning that doesn't require speaking, they've got a couple minutes tops before they drown.

[Melamoto]

There has to be a room from another post included here (Can't find the original post, but i'll try to remember it):

It is a room, 50x50. It is made up of many large floortiles each taking up a square. They are all different colours, including all the colours of the rainbow. There are ropes hanging from the cieling over every red, blue and green square. There are strange, obscure pictures over the wall that depict people on certain squares (Without enough clues to show which ones) being killed horribly, in ways that a decent spot check will see are set up around the room. There is an antimagic field all across it. This looks like one of the hardest traps the PCs will face. The reality? There are no traps in the entire room. It's just there to waste time for the PCs. Bonus if you make it so there is a long, hard and difficult to come to conclusion to solve the problem. Extra bonus if you make it so that the entrance of the corridor at the end of the room has an illusory floor with a spiked pit trap/SoA beneath it.

[brujon]

Dude... I'm so thinking "Cube" (Movie) here. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_(film) )




Long story short... The protagonists of the film are tossed inside this giant Rubik's Cube, who is, in and of itself, a giant deathtrap. There are rooms that shoot bullets from every direction, there are rooms who spill acid whenever they move, rooms with motion sensors that ignite the entire room on fire when they move... And so on, and so forth. But, and here's the catch, the cube is non-stationary. They essentially are in a cube that's in motion (And that is dangerous as well, as the ceiling is some 4, 5 meters high, and the fall is hard.), so, it's not easy to reach the exit. You need to move in all 6 directions. But there is a way, a non-obvious one, to reach the exit. You just need to figure out exactly HOW the cube is moving. And then, you need to figure out what room will be facing the exit when the cube is at the right point. There are also subtle clues that can point out to a player if the room is or isn't trapped. The rooms are color-coded, and each room has long sequence of numbers that correspond to their original position in the cube, and another, smaller sequence of numbers. They can correlate those numbers, then, and figure out what rooms are trapped, and which are not, and so figure out a safe, direct way to the exit. So, after many deaths, they finally reach the exit.



In the second movie, Hypercube, there is an EVEN MORE dangerous deathtrap in the form of a cube, that's in essence, only one room that connects to itself in different orientations in space/time, so time moves differently in one room than in the other, they move faster/slower, etc... Which i think is pretty much consistent with some of the ideas here. In a D&D setting, it could pretty much be a series of Genesis-created planes with different flowing time traits and accordingly deathtraps created by a mad wizard obssessed with discovering truth behind the universe trough numbers. (Something a bit modron-like, but with MADNESS)

So, i think this is pretty much a fantastic jumping point for a second tomb of horrors. There are all the qualities of the original in the movie... Out of the box thinking will solve your problems, so will careful search for clues, and non conventional ways to avoid traps. Also, it makes for a great way to freak out your players, by throwing them inside the cube with little to no memory in regards to HOW they came to be there in the first place. It's just going to be a little hard to draw the map for this thing... but hey, you can't be perfect, right? :D

[Jogi]

Dude... I'm so thinking "Cube" (Movie) here. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_(film) )




Long story short... The protagonists of the film are tossed inside this giant Rubik's Cube, who is, in and of itself, a giant deathtrap. There are rooms that shoot bullets from every direction, there are rooms who spill acid whenever they move, rooms with motion sensors that ignite the entire room on fire when they move... And so on, and so forth. But, and here's the catch, the cube is non-stationary. They essentially are in a cube that's in motion (And that is dangerous as well, as the ceiling is some 4, 5 meters high, and the fall is hard.), so, it's not easy to reach the exit. You need to move in all 6 directions. But there is a way, a non-obvious one, to reach the exit. You just need to figure out exactly HOW the cube is moving. And then, you need to figure out what room will be facing the exit when the cube is at the right point. There are also subtle clues that can point out to a player if the room is or isn't trapped. The rooms are color-coded, and each room has long sequence of numbers that correspond to their original position in the cube, and another, smaller sequence of numbers. They can correlate those numbers, then, and figure out what rooms are trapped, and which are not, and so figure out a safe, direct way to the exit. So, after many deaths, they finally reach the exit.



In the second movie, Hypercube, there is an EVEN MORE dangerous deathtrap in the form of a cube, that's in essence, only one room that connects to itself in different orientations in space/time, so time moves differently in one room than in the other, they move faster/slower, etc... Which i think is pretty much consistent with some of the ideas here. In a D&D setting, it could pretty much be a series of Genesis-created planes with different flowing time traits and accordingly deathtraps created by a mad wizard obssessed with discovering truth behind the universe trough numbers. (Something a bit modron-like, but with MADNESS)

So, i think this is pretty much a fantastic jumping point for a second tomb of horrors. There are all the qualities of the original in the movie... Out of the box thinking will solve your problems, so will careful search for clues, and non conventional ways to avoid traps. Also, it makes for a great way to freak out your players, by throwing them inside the cube with little to no memory in regards to HOW they came to be there in the first place. It's just going to be a little hard to draw the map for this thing... but hey, you can't be perfect, right? :D

Sounds different. I myself would do it, I like to be traditional, even cliche. But yes, that's gonna be hard to draw.

[Stormthorn]

A dunzeon desind to keel? Vy didnt you call me suuner?


1. A pressure plate trap in one series of rooms thats more plate than floor and causes the roof to collapse. Whats up inside the roof (assuming they survive the debris)? A Hellwasp nest. And they are not happy.

2. Also, i think Anyone who tries to Meld Into Stone should trigger an antimagic trap if in the wall more than a single round. Boom! Intombed in stone.

2. They rescue an NPC who turns is like shroedingers character. If they let him join up he is actually a Phasm. If they kill him out of suspicion he turns out to be a Paladin and the any clerics or paladins in the party are in deep crap with their gods. If they save him but dont let him follow them he shakes your hands and leaves. He has contact poison on his gloves.

3. A room full of quicksand.
Which is actually dust.
Ungol Dust.
With a zombified shark swimming in it.

4. Casting Stone To Flesh at any of the doors will turn them into a Flesh Golem.

5. They find a suit of armor. Once its fully donned the curse activated. Hold Person + Constant Heat Metal on self.

6. The thin layer of water flooding the floor of the dungeon just in front of a set of stairs. The stairs look like normal flooded stairs. They are coated in Salve of Slipperiness. At the base of the very slick stairs the salve has formed a thin film over the base of a vat of Sovereign Glue. Better hope the party brought some Universal Solvent.

7. As a biggo TPK trap (to place right before the final room) have a wide-mouth 100ft deep well-camouflagued pit trap with spining poison blade traps set every 20ft on the way down and lava in the bottom. The trap is set so thast no medium sized crature would activiate it by simply walking across it. A storng impact is needed. The walls of the room are trapped to fire Prismatic Sprays (or other suitable traps) and the rooms ceiling (80ft high) is vaugly funnel shaped and has invisible poison spikes sticking out of it. Each of those is set to generate an antimagic field if something strikes them hard enough. The door out of the room has a reverse gravity trap set on it.
If a part triggers that one they fall up 80ft and strike the poison spikes which activates the anti-magic field, causing them to fall down 80ft onto the floor which is actually a pit trap which then activates drops them 100ft through five whirling poisoned blade traps into a pit of lava.

Yes, i am evil.

Also, that last one can be solved a third way (first way: Die, Second Way: Rogue gets lucky and finds and disables everything). Your party needs to have a spell that lets them see invisible things and lets them see magic. Then they need someone stupid enough to fly up to the ceiling and press on the spikes. That party member falls and dies but the gravity trap and the prismatic sprays all fail from the antimagic.
Clues to this method could be included as bloody writting on the walls (dont give away why it would work tho). The room is full of of one-use dominate person items. Let the party decide who gets voted off the dungeon.


A mixed and matched dragon will only waste a spell or two while they try to figure out its real weakness

I think a balor that commits ritual suicide before it's defeated in order to take down the party wizard would be a pretty good way of showing how hardcore things are going to be

What if the Balor was almost dead already and was shapechanged into a vampire against its will. The party finds what they think is a vampire resting in its coffin but is actualy a nearly dead comatose Balor. If they dont stop to check before killing it with the handy dandy stake you gave them earlier then BOOM!
If the leave it be then it rocovers awakens and follows them into the next room and gives them an amulet before gating out with some sort of epic level spell. The amulet is genuinly useful but is the soul-container of a Lich that will one day come looking for it.

[Lord Loss]

if you want to be EVIL, and I MEAN EVIL, place a very obvious trap, like a spiked pit trapped that's so badly hidden it's like DC 12 to find. Here's the catch. By stepping on the trap, you unlock a certain door way later on to the dungeon. If the pcs dont step on the trap, the door locks behind them and they must follow a hidden passage to go back. Stepping on the trap also sets some more traps in the following corridor, so that if they miss it the first time around the way back is even harder.

I got this idea from some creepy dream I had: Five times in a row, there will be a three room conjunction that is exactly the same. It will seem that when they get to room three they are entering room 1 again, but in fact this is a multitude of seperate rooms.

So it will look like this:

Rooms:

1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-4

Now, for those of you have seen cube, this is kind of like the scene near the end when they wind up at the start again. for more dramatic effect, you could make something like this:

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-3-4-5-9

Also, you should definitley make it so that ONLY NONMAGICAL LIGHT WORKS. Yes that's right. The PCs can forget their fancy little everburning torches. Or Even, some rooms require magic light and others Nonmagic light.

The Room of Ouchy Pain and Eeeky blood:

Make a room where each and every 5 foot square has a spike trap in it. When one is triggered, the doors lock and the room begins to flood with blood. Only if all the traps are activated/disarmed can the PCs Leave (the doors will then Unlock).

[Pronounceable]

if you want to be EVIL, and I MEAN EVIL, place a very obvious trap, like a spiked pit trapped that's so badly hidden it's like DC 12 to find. Here's the catch. By stepping on the trap, you unlock a certain door way later on to the dungeon. If the pcs dont step on the trap, the door locks behind them and they must follow a hidden passage to go back. Stepping on the trap also sets some more traps in the following corridor, so that if they miss it the first time around the way back is even harder.


I like this A LOT. It has the arbitrary evil intent of the original ToH behind it. To make things more fun, the trigger trap would be the very first trap of the dungeon right at the start, and the door it opens is the final door to the endboss (actually a portal that leads to some final arena would be better).

But this sort of evil should be done only once, cos players outnumber the DM...

[Kyrthain]

What about a room with 2 slightly modified mirrors of opposition. they create more powerful versions of the person that looks at them. one of the mirrors would be covered, and the other is immediately visible upon entering the room. The trick would be to get the duplicates to look into the second mirror, and have the duplicates fight each other.

Then maybe, just to make it more evil, any duplicate created of a duplicate switches to the original duplicates alignment after a while, so that if the players solve it and keep the allied duplicate around, it eventually betrays them:smallamused:

[Lord Loss]

Instead of Mulling Through five pages of posts, maybe someone should create a complete Tomb so far. Like a map that could be used, with room and encounter descriptions?

[Lord Loss]

Sorry For The DOUBLE POST, but a new trap idea: wither limbs spell from libris mortis and unleashes a scarab swarm.

[Almn]

We need energy transformation fields. Lots of them.