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Talakeal
2013-06-24, 05:06 PM
My next adventure is going to be a relatively straightforward dungeon crawl, and I am looking for some ideas for encounters / layout. It is for a homebrew d20 system, but any advice that applies to high level low op 3E will be applicable.

Here is what I know so far:

The dungeon is a temple dedicated to the concept of the Mind and the School of Enchantment / Charm.

It was built by the Titans and has been more or less forgotten since they fell to the gods.

The objective is an artifact which the temple was built to store, a book which holds all knowledge in the world.

The book's guardian is a great wyrm black dragon who is also a high level beguiler.

The temple is located on the ocean floor, and is only accessible at the lowest tide, when the towers are exposed on the surface. Parts of the dungeon are open air and other's flooded, which is which changes based on the tide. I am thinking of something reminiscent of the swamp dungeon in Link to the Past.

I would like to use aquatic monsters and mind controlled servants.

I would like some element of puzzle solving to tie it into the concept of mind, but not so much that my players will get stuck. They have a habit of freezing up if they are presented with a puzzle without a clear cut answer.

Madeiner
2013-06-25, 09:09 AM
My next adventure is going to be a relatively straightforward dungeon crawl, and I am looking for some ideas for encounters / layout. It is for a homebrew d20 system, but any advice that applies to high level low op 3E will be applicable.

Here is what I know so far:

The dungeon is a temple dedicated to the concept of the Mind and the School of Enchantment / Charm.

It was built by the Titans and has been more or less forgotten since they fell to the gods.

The objective is an artifact which the temple was built to store, a book which holds all knowledge in the world.

The book's guardian is a great wyrm black dragon who is also a high level beguiler.

The temple is located on the ocean floor, and is only accessible at the lowest tide, when the towers are exposed on the surface. Parts of the dungeon are open air and other's flooded, which is which changes based on the tide. I am thinking of something reminiscent of the swamp dungeon in Link to the Past.

I would like to use aquatic monsters and mind controlled servants.

I would like some element of puzzle solving to tie it into the concept of mind, but not so much that my players will get stuck. They have a habit of freezing up if they are presented with a puzzle without a clear cut answer.

This reminds me so much of WoW's aquatic temple.

http://www.wowhead.com/zone=1477/sunken-temple

Some of the battles were good, you can research those if you want

rt_tlp
2013-06-25, 09:17 AM
Okay, so you've got a good concept. The only thing I feel I should point out is that "ocean floor" is really, REALLY deep. Like, REALLLLYYYY deep. Even at lowest tide, the temple would have to be relatively close to land for even the tallest of towers to poke its head out of the water. Just a few thoughts...

Depending on the morality of your group, you could do something along the lines of making the mind-controlled servants terrified and generally innocent when broken of the mind control for an interesting moral hurdle.

For puzzles, you could do a classic water switch puzzle. A maze-like room with numerous levers which drain or flood certain sections of the maze.

Be careful of your party's swim ability. I find that water is typically the death of my parties because they unanimously refuse to put any skill points into swimming...

I'll keep this topic in mind and spout of more ideas if they come to mind.

Ozfer
2013-06-25, 10:17 AM
You could have streams of water that affect the characters in different ways, some good, some bad.

Scow2
2013-06-25, 02:21 PM
Depending on the morality of your group, you could do something along the lines of making the mind-controlled servants terrified and generally innocent when broken of the mind control for an interesting moral hurdle.
Given his group's performance with moral hurdles, the servants would get murderized to death by the party, and then someone at the table would whine about it.