Harperfan7
2009-07-02, 12:50 AM
First off, I highly appreciate any help or opinions.
Ok, so I'm in the middle of DMing an adventure I made, but I'm having second thoughts about one section of it and would like some advice and opinions. The party is 1st level and will be 2nd after the adventure.
First off, the party I'm DMing is (all elite array - not optimized at all)-
-Human Paladin
-Half-elf Cleric (Sun, Plant)
-Gnome Rogue (who will be multiclassing to illusionist)
-Half-Drow Bard (who hasn't done much at all so far)
What I'm requesting help for is one section of my dungeon that I'm unsatisfied with. We will start with the door to that section.
1. Door
The door is made of stone, is set in a stone wall, and has no visible means of opening. On its surface are faintly blue glowing letters (a phrase in draconic, followed by the draconic alphabet) that reads "Reverse after you return". To open the door, somebody has to press "n-r-u-t-e-r-u-o-y" in that order. If they press any other letters or in the wrong order, they are affected by a shocking grasp spell (1st).
This door leads to the room which used to belong to a high priest of a now extinct religion (of a beholder-ish CN god), later belonged to a wizard who betrayed the priest, and has been empty for a very long (but undetermined) time.
My problem with this is that its just not a very good idea and is probably too simple. No one in the party can read draconic, but the cleric can just cast comprehend languages. Plus I want the bard to shine.
One idea I'm unsure about, but was considering, was to have the runes on the door represent stars in a certain part of the night sky which would hide a constellation ("the beholder") that could be identified by a bardic knowledge check. To open the door, you need to press all the stars of the constellation. If you press any that aren't, you get shocked. If this sounds good, please propose a DC. If not, let's hear your ideas.
2. High Priests/wizards room
The room is circular, with an everlasting torch for light. It contains a bed on a large rug, a dresser/cabinet, and a table with a chair. There is a vargouille in the dresser/cabinet. There are two secret doors in the wall. One leads to a treasure room, the other to a prison. The vault contains some armory and a trapped treasure chest (ray of enfeeblement + contains 6 crawling claws) I don't have any problems with this room or the treasure room, so on to the prison.
3. Hidden prison room
This room is circular like the last one, but has no illumination and contains nothing but three circular pits evenly spaced in the floor. They are covered with iron grating which has up-opening swing doors built in. The circular pits are 20ft. deep. Two are empty, but one has a stone missing in the wall near the bottom. If the pcs open the door to this pit, a swarm of spiders erupt out of the missing stone and attack (it's a summon swarm trap on the swing door - the missing stone could never hold so many spiders). The missing stone space holds an obsidian-with-a-garnet statuette of the god (worth 800gp).
The statue is wholely unimportant to the adventure, but it popped up during random treasure generation and I didn't want all the treasure to be in one somewhat guarded room, and I had the prison mapped up (but nothing in it), so I put the statue in there and added the swarm trap.
However, the whole adventure so far has had hobgoblins/gnolls/human skeletons/the varguiolle/the crawling claws/and a couple dread guards after this, so there needs to be some encounter variety.
So, any thoughts/opinions/advice/criticism about everything above would be greatly appreciated, as I'm DMing this weekend.
If I had a freaking scanner, I would just put the map on here with the whole dungeon write-up so this wouldn't be just islands in the darkness.
Ok, so I'm in the middle of DMing an adventure I made, but I'm having second thoughts about one section of it and would like some advice and opinions. The party is 1st level and will be 2nd after the adventure.
First off, the party I'm DMing is (all elite array - not optimized at all)-
-Human Paladin
-Half-elf Cleric (Sun, Plant)
-Gnome Rogue (who will be multiclassing to illusionist)
-Half-Drow Bard (who hasn't done much at all so far)
What I'm requesting help for is one section of my dungeon that I'm unsatisfied with. We will start with the door to that section.
1. Door
The door is made of stone, is set in a stone wall, and has no visible means of opening. On its surface are faintly blue glowing letters (a phrase in draconic, followed by the draconic alphabet) that reads "Reverse after you return". To open the door, somebody has to press "n-r-u-t-e-r-u-o-y" in that order. If they press any other letters or in the wrong order, they are affected by a shocking grasp spell (1st).
This door leads to the room which used to belong to a high priest of a now extinct religion (of a beholder-ish CN god), later belonged to a wizard who betrayed the priest, and has been empty for a very long (but undetermined) time.
My problem with this is that its just not a very good idea and is probably too simple. No one in the party can read draconic, but the cleric can just cast comprehend languages. Plus I want the bard to shine.
One idea I'm unsure about, but was considering, was to have the runes on the door represent stars in a certain part of the night sky which would hide a constellation ("the beholder") that could be identified by a bardic knowledge check. To open the door, you need to press all the stars of the constellation. If you press any that aren't, you get shocked. If this sounds good, please propose a DC. If not, let's hear your ideas.
2. High Priests/wizards room
The room is circular, with an everlasting torch for light. It contains a bed on a large rug, a dresser/cabinet, and a table with a chair. There is a vargouille in the dresser/cabinet. There are two secret doors in the wall. One leads to a treasure room, the other to a prison. The vault contains some armory and a trapped treasure chest (ray of enfeeblement + contains 6 crawling claws) I don't have any problems with this room or the treasure room, so on to the prison.
3. Hidden prison room
This room is circular like the last one, but has no illumination and contains nothing but three circular pits evenly spaced in the floor. They are covered with iron grating which has up-opening swing doors built in. The circular pits are 20ft. deep. Two are empty, but one has a stone missing in the wall near the bottom. If the pcs open the door to this pit, a swarm of spiders erupt out of the missing stone and attack (it's a summon swarm trap on the swing door - the missing stone could never hold so many spiders). The missing stone space holds an obsidian-with-a-garnet statuette of the god (worth 800gp).
The statue is wholely unimportant to the adventure, but it popped up during random treasure generation and I didn't want all the treasure to be in one somewhat guarded room, and I had the prison mapped up (but nothing in it), so I put the statue in there and added the swarm trap.
However, the whole adventure so far has had hobgoblins/gnolls/human skeletons/the varguiolle/the crawling claws/and a couple dread guards after this, so there needs to be some encounter variety.
So, any thoughts/opinions/advice/criticism about everything above would be greatly appreciated, as I'm DMing this weekend.
If I had a freaking scanner, I would just put the map on here with the whole dungeon write-up so this wouldn't be just islands in the darkness.