An Negative Energy Themed Dungeon...

[SetArk]

Well! Hi guys i'm back!
Do anyone have good ideas for an dungeon themed for the Negative Energy?
My game have had so far all elemental dungeons , and now they're entering the "Dark" dungeon.
My guys are Cr 12 in the moment, <All level 11 with +1 level ajustment>
Do u guys have any good ideas for this one? I've allready got some good ideas but i think i'm toooooo good and not preparing something REALLY deadly and evil....
Ohh.. And i'm using an mid boss / End boss on the dungeon, any good ideas?

[Baldin]

eey,

It sounds cool i only forsee 1 problem and that is that your players simply keep up a deathward and are immune to all negative energy u throw at them.

For a mid boss i once used a necromancer witch a lot of undead under her control with the feat destruction retribution(libris Mortis) and tomb-tainted soul (libris mortis) which makes each of her undead explode on death dealing negative dmg in an AOE healer the necromancer and her other undeads. Her strongest undead that was with her was an entropic reaper. Was a nice encounter=]

Also, if their will saves arent to high, a funny thing to do might be to bestow a lifeward on them (making them unable to recieve positive energy)

cheers
baldin

[Lonely Tylenol]

A room full of wights is one way to do it. About 12 of them would be about CR 10-11, but I would give a few of them (but not all of them) Hit Dice advancement or some advanced tactics to make them a meaningful challenge.

Vampires and vampire spawn (also in considerable quantity, or using the Children of the Night special attack if you have a Vampire) are also good ways to incorporate the level drain tactic. Vampires with class levels make good end bosses, or mid-bosses, even if they are a bit predictable.

Casters with Enervation are another solid option.

As far as other combat encounters go... Beyond the obvious energy drain options, I would go with monsters that do some form of ability drain or poison as a part of their natural abilities. Run them through the gauntlet of drain and damage! It also adds some variety (while remaining thematic), although if you wanted variety for something like this, something tells me you wouldn't switch from "energy drain" to "ability drain".

As far as non-combat encounters go, one that you might do is a trigger-activated trap that causes a statue at the end of the hall to shoot Enervation rays out of its eyes... Or, a switch puzzle/invisible maze/some other puzzle-solving mechanic where the consequence of failure (say, flipping a switch or pulling a lever out of order, or taking a wrong turn/making a dead end) is that the object or area becomes filled with negative energy, resulting in a negative level. This introduces an immediate consequence for failure to comply with the riddle or rule set that makes the switch puzzle easy, or whatever.

[SetArk]

Ohh nice idea this guy u said there... Maybe an good mid boss for them...
For the deathward, i've gotten an idea, to make the dungeon protected from certain spells.
Like every spells that uses Positive Energy, the player must sucessed on an Spellcraft CD 25, or something like that.
I've thought of using the same rule of using fire spells underwater <My players got the rule allready... They passed throught an underwater dungeon some time ago..>
And for the spells that will be "block" there will be an warning on the entrance advising then that some spells will not work.. Or just let then take it by surprise ,P
But loved the necromancer idea!

[Kogak]

May I suggest "unholy" weapons from MiC (con drain if used by living, no penalty to undead)? Also give your undead the effects from "destructive retribution" feat from LM. This will do 1d6 negative energy burst per 2 HD in a 10 ft radius (ref. 15 for half) if I recall. Nearby undead are healed.

Shadesteel golem (sp?) from the... MM II? MM III? I cannot recall. It is a regular golem that does a negative energy burst out to 60 feet every few rounds. Pretty nasty if you do not see it coming.

If you toss that on a few random undead (or most) your party will need to keep death ward up for most of the time to avoid being drained quickly. Give a few "spell stitched" and toss in a couple mindless that can cast "blood wind" to use their claws to attack at a range.

I know you didn't ask about "undead theme" but rather "negative energy", but the two tend to mesh well.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Tucker's Shadows? Incorporeal undead + tight quarters + hit and run tactics with things like Spring Attack = high-level threat.

Dread Necromancer from Heroes of Horror is tailor-made for this.

Look up Libris Mortis for some nice feats to apply to the creation of undead. There's one that makes them explode in area-effect negative energy (which happens to heal undead), Fell Drain is always lulzworthy since it's no save negative levels.

I suggest against saying 'that spell flat doesn't work here'. That's arbitrary, and crude. However, saying something like "This place has been steeped in negative energy for quite some time. You may spend a Turn Attempt to temporarily alleviate this problem in your immediate area for (character level) rounds, or you may try to just cast these spells, but must succeed a Spellcraft check DC (obnoxious) to overcome the ambient energy.

The spells affected would be any Conjuration (Healing), anything using or dealing with positive energy, any spell which specifically targets Undead to do them harm (command/control/create undead still work), and Death Ward.

[Baldin]

I got 1 more question, on what level/ECL do you want the final boss?

[SetArk]

The final boss i were thinking of been around 14/15.
This group of characters have gotten really strong, their tank<monk> has made his AC 41 with all his buffs...

[2xMachina]

Shadow Dragon? Negative Energy breath weapon.

May need to be pretty young tho, for a CR12. (EDIT: Adult is CR13)
IIRC, it's VERY good at hiding. (EDIT: Shadow Blend, Total Concealment in anything other than Daylight)

[Baldin]

Here are a list of non Monster manual 1 undead creatures that i find very interesting to use for this setting:
Vitreous drinker MM 4 page 174
Drowned MM 3 page 46
Dust wight MM 3 page 47
Salt Mummy MM 3 page 146
Bone Nage MM 2 page 35
Blackwing MM 5 page 12
Skull lord MM 5 page 154
Entropic Reaper Libris mortis page 98
Gravetouched Ghoul Libris mortis page 104
voidwraith Libris mortis page 131

As for the boss, there is a vampire named The Red Widow, she is CR 17 though.
The red widow MM 5 page 193

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The final boss i were thinking of been around 14/15.
This group of characters have gotten really strong, their tank<monk> has made his AC 41 with all his buffs...

Heh... Monk eh? Here's how you fix HIM...

Kelgore's Grave Mist is a cute little area-effect spell that offers no saving throw, and does not allow SR. It does a little bit of Cold damage. So far, not too interesting. Here's the important parts:

1) Duration: Rounds/level
2) Guaranteed to deal damage

Why is this important? The feat Fell Drain. Automatically deals a negative level every time target takes damage from the spell. No save, no SR.

Even better, because it's also in the Necromancy college, two things make this very interesting:

1) A 4th level Dread Necro can pick this spell up in their Advanced Learning
2) Slaymate reduces metamagic on it by 1

So, how do we get a normally hyperactive monk to stay put? Well, that's just as easy.

Evard's Black Tentacles. No save, no SR, and monks are surprisingly BAD at grappling. I know, you'd figure they'd be pretty good at it. Well, unless he's taken Improved Grapple, he's pretty bad at it. 3/4 BAB means his grapple modifier isn't really all that good. If his AC is that high, then he's stacked his Dex and Wis... which means his Str score is likely sub-par.

Monks don't get Abundant Step until 12, and even if he did get it, it is only 1/day, which means he's probably already blown it earlier in the day. Set up your dungeon accordingly.

Actually, you'd best be careful with this setup, because it is likely to wipe out the whole party if you aren't careful. 20' radius is pretty darn huge.

Oh, want to do better? Fine. The opponent caster has Lord of Uttercold, so half of the damage is negative energy. And he's some template immune to Cold damage. So if he ends up in the field, he ignores the negative levels, and heals for half the damage he is dishing out.

Who needs to target saves or AC?

[Particle_Man]

The old fashioned appropriately labelled "pool of healing" that actually had "inflict X wounds" magic when drunk. Hey, it heals the undead! :)

Maybe some Shadow Sun Ninja that screwed up their level 10 power and went to the dark side (from Tome of Battle Book of 9 swords)? Or the "bad guys" in Magic of Incarnum that use souls for evil purposes (they have their own crunch, what is it, necrocarnum or something?).

Blackguards that were once paladins?

[Kuulvheysoon]

+1 for the Shadesteel Golem (confirmed as MM3, CR11 for a single one). Toss a pair in a room with some wights/shadow fiends and your players may want to kill you, especially if you give the golems some form of HiPS (they've got surprisingly good Hide/MS).

Actually, MM3 in general would be great resource for this - it's got everything from undead swarms (CR5), to higher level undead (most with Unholy Toughness). The Dust Wight in particular can be downright nasty.

The Corpse Collector (MM3, CR12) could be an interesting 'bonus' fight; after all, SOMETHING needs to collect the bodies of all the dead adventurers for the necromancer to cast Create Greater Undead, right?

[SetArk]

Hmmm
The original boss for the dungeon were an blackguard, but i've changed that, i were thinking of an shadow dragon with some character classes....

And for the slaymate.. What is that xD ?
Just found something about an monster called slaymate.. is that it?

[edit]
Forget that xD Allready found the monster, great idea ^^ Thx!