Level 20 Gestalt Tomb of Horrors

[Splodge]

I'm about to run a level 20 gestalt tomb of horrors / temple of elemental evil -style dungeon crawl for a party made up of batman wizards, CoDzillas, and a Lucky Pseudodragon with insane saves.


Story - Epic Wizard died. Grab his stuff. Avoid the death.


Ideas for traps // set-ups // encounters // etc?


{It's 3.5-ed, but I'm prepared to throw anything in as long as it is good enough}

[huttj509]

Every attempt to scry the area returns an image or results of gruesome death, with annoyingly little context (rocks falling, everyone dying, slowly dissolving in an acid pit that's on fire and electrified, being pulled through wire screens by ghostly strong hands).

These should not necessarily be actual traps (and if they are, it's featureless enough to not help with detection/avoidance). It's a customised scry prevention routine, as the mage figured a result of "can't scry here" would just make folks curious, but useless images of the caster's delise might scare folks away.

[kestrel404]

Did something similar recently for a group of level 12s. Here are some of the things I used:

The entire area was warded against teleportation with Dimensional Anchor. This included an area of a mile around the target. This 'interdiction zone' is important to prevent the players from teleporting equipment to the immediate area around the dungeon.

Anti-scrying features, as suggested above, are an absolute must.

Regular patrols by the undead (cheaper than constructs and easier to replace). Generally in small of low-CR enemies whose primary purpose is to ward off the common folk while still draining resources from actual threats.

Indeed, the entire area was designed for 'tuckers kobold' style enemies to take pot shots and waste enemy resources. I had a large contingent of level 1 duskblade archers whose spells known were Obscuring Mist and True Shot. They were lead by a level 3 kobold bard whose feats were Dragonfire Inspiration and Song of the Heart. He also had a Badge of Valor and cast Inspirational Boost - for a total of +4d6 fire damage to every arrow fired. About 1/4 of them would take an action to obscuring mist, then they all take another action to cast true shot, and take a third action to shoot someone several hundred meters away who didn't have line of sight on them. Then they retreat. They could do this three or four times a day, thanks to bonus spells. Equipping the lot of them with a limited assortment of magic arrows makes this tactic a serious threat even to level 20 gestalts. But only on the open ground surrounding the wizard's tower/dungeon.

For added nastyness, have the entire dungeon (or perhaps some portion of it) filled with invisible obscuring mist. If someone can see invisible or has true seeing, they're suddenly stuck in the mist, and they have to waste 'gust' spells everywhere they go to get rid of it. Even then, it's self replenishing over the course of a few rounds.

Another favorite tactic was the invisible web spells - just have a 3rd level+ caster with the "Invisible Spell" feat cast web all over corridors you don't want your opponents to advance down. It lasts 10 min/level, so that's 1/2 an hour minimum! Then give everyone penalties to their rolls while trying to get throught he webs because they can't see them. If they cast see invisible? All they see is the obscuring mist!

For mechanical traps, I've always been a fan of the pit trap - but for high level opponents you need to up the ante. Have 'ceiling pits' with in zones of reversed gravity - any flyer who has less than perfect maneuverability will need to make an unreasonably high balance test (or flight for Pathfinder) to keep from getting 'sucked up' into the trap.

As protection for the mage's "Inner Sanctum", have a portion of dungeon (or even an entire level) walled off by an antechamber with impressive metal doors on at both sides - you cannot open both sets of doors at the same time, and when they're both closed all of the air gets sucked out of the room in a giant cyclone. Both sets of doors locks and neither will open for a full minute while all the air cycles out of the room. After the party gets through the inner set of doors (by either overcoming their own need to breathe, or else by picking the lock on the far door/blasting it open), they get into the final level of the dungon. Of course, this room wasn't really a trap, but rather a means for preventing the poison gas from escaping that the epic mage's inner sanctum. Every round of exposure to this contact poison/acid causes 1d6 acid damage (no save) and paralysis if you don't make a DC 25 fort save. The mage himself was of course immune to the effects of this gas, and he's got a magic rock on his corpse that offers immunity to the bearer - if the PCs can find his corpse. The entire inner sanctum is staffed by golems with acid resistence and incorporeal undead.