Need Ideas for an Elemental Dungeon

[randomnickname]

I'm plotting out a multi-layered dungeon for my party; an old school dungeon crawl with an elemental theme that's part of a larger quest. I'm looking at about 5-7 encounters per level with a mix of fights, obstacles, traps and puzzles.

The party will start the dungeon as a well balanced party of 5 7th level characters, 3.5 edition core rules. One very experienced player, two moderately experienced, and two relative novices.

I'm about 2/3 through filling in the various encounters, and I need some inspiration to finish it off. The levels are

Fire
Earth
Air
Water
Ice
Dark
Light
Chaos

Any ideas for interesting encounters that fit these themes?

So far I've got things like a room with scalding hot geysers, lava pits, various elemental monsters, rockfall traps, fire traps, a garden that comes to life and tries to strangle the party, underwater combat, a teleporter that splits the party into two groups for a while, an invisible floor maze, combat with invisible creatures, undead, curses, and a handful of puzzles.

[Werephilosopher]

The Chaos-themed segments could involve elements interacting with one another in strange ways. Perhaps the ash cloud from a volcanic rift could drop snowflakes; a black-and-white room is perfectly visible, except things like torches that normally exude light give off darkness; etc.

Where is this "dungeon" located? If it's underground, maybe have it be split in two by a canyon- it's a good open location for an Air-themed section.

[Trickquestion]

How about, to get past the ice section, you have to melt it, turning it into the water section? Could be a good atmospheric moment, moving through this frozen space, and seeing all kinds of aquatic monsters frozen in the ice.

[Platymus Pus]

I'm plotting out a multi-layered dungeon for my party; an old school dungeon crawl with an elemental theme that's part of a larger quest. I'm looking at about 5-7 encounters per level with a mix of fights, obstacles, traps and puzzles.

The party will start the dungeon as a well balanced party of 5 7th level characters, 3.5 edition core rules. One very experienced player, two moderately experienced, and two relative novices.

I'm about 2/3 through filling in the various encounters, and I need some inspiration to finish it off. The levels are

Fire
Earth
Air
Water
Ice
Dark
Light
Chaos

Any ideas for interesting encounters that fit these themes?

So far I've got things like a room with scalding hot geysers, lava pits, various elemental monsters, rockfall traps, fire traps, a garden that comes to life and tries to strangle the party, underwater combat, a teleporter that splits the party into two groups for a while, an invisible floor maze, combat with invisible creatures, undead, curses, and a handful of puzzles.
I think chaos should be last.
Throw some kind of chaotic boss at them.
A Hecatoncheires
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Hecatoncheires:smallyuk:
But no really how strong is your party?
Well balanced doesn't tell me much.

[randomnickname]

Oh, I like the Ice -> Water idea. I want to keep the underwater part fairly simple, given the complication of underwater movement and combat, so I could combine the two to a single larger dungeon.

The party has a classic cleric and rogue, a wizard that's optimized for spellcasting only, a druid and a monk - so they cover healing/buffing, traps and sneaking, offensive magic and fighting without any gaps. It's core rules only, no prestige classes or supplements or splat books. The wizard is the strongest character overall, as he's run by the most experienced player. Equipment matches the level fairly well - +1 weapons and armour with one or two +2, a few stat enhancing items.

I had planned on Chaos last, leading to the big boss that's the goal of this part of the quest.

The dungeon is underground, inside a mountain.

[Waker]

How about you setup the dungeon with transition elements between the broad ones. So for instance on the border of Air/Ice/Water/Steam/Fire... You might also consider having the arrangement of elements be Stable to Unstable, Earth/Water/Air/Fire as you try and portray Entropy.

[Platymus Pus]

Oh, I like the Ice -> Water idea. I want to keep the underwater part fairly simple, given the complication of underwater movement and combat, so I could combine the two to a single larger dungeon.

The party has a classic cleric and rogue, a wizard that's optimized for spellcasting only, a druid and a monk - so they cover healing/buffing, traps and sneaking, offensive magic and fighting without any gaps. It's core rules only, no prestige classes or supplements or splat books. The wizard is the strongest character overall, as he's run by the most experienced player. Equipment matches the level fairly well - +1 weapons and armour with one or two +2, a few stat enhancing items.

I had planned on Chaos last, leading to the big boss that's the goal of this part of the quest.

The dungeon is underground, inside a mountain.
Elementals aren't all that tough what size are you making them all?
are you going to make them small and slowly bigger and bigger as they go further?
For example I don't think a huge fire elemental with max hp is that much trouble for a single character provided they have a ranged attack like say a ranger at level 5. With a wizard who can blind it for a single round the monster becomes trivial. Same for a elder fire elemental.

I suggest you watch out for things like that.

[randomnickname]

Yeah, I've figured out that one large monster is a lot less tough than its challenge rating - too easy to gang up and take it down quickly.

I've got one encounter with a gang of mephits - flying ability, breath weapons, spell like abilities. For others - mixing up one or two tougher monsters with some lower level minions to distract the players, elemental type outsiders who have spell casting or other powers, throwing in some tricky terrain that makes it much harder to fight the monster and so on.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Maybe consider using some paraelement themes to go in between the areas of the primary elements:

Ice: Air + Water; Mephits, Paraelementals (MotP), Frost Salamander (MM2), Snowflake Ooze (MM3), Yetis (FB), Orglash Air Elementals (UE), Elemental Drake (Drac)
Lava: Fire + Earth; Mephits (check Sandstorm for more), Paraelementals (MotP), Obsidian Ooze (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20031123a), Lava Ooze (SS), Conflagraton Ooze (MM3), just about anything with the fire subtype
Ooze: Earth + Water; Mephtis, Paraelementals (MotP), Otyughs, Lifeleech Otyugh (MM3), Necromental (LM), Living Spell: Slow + Stinking Cloud (MM3), possibly incorporeal undead
Smoke: Fire + Air; Mephits, Paraelementals (MotP), Elemental Drake (Drac), Nightmares, Arrowhawks, Invisible Stalker
Dust: Air + Earth; Mephits (check Sandstorm for more), Dust Wight (MM3), Monstrous Scorpions, Dustform Creature (SS), Giant Ant Lion (SS), Arrowhawks, Invisible Stalker
Steam: Fire + Water; Mephits, Water Naga (with Endure Elements), Water Elemental Drake (Draco), Living Spell: Murderous Mist (MM3, SC), Dragon Turtle

[ArcturusV]

There was an old ADnD book on Spellcasting that I used to have, which had the most interesting version of the "Elemental Plane of Fire" I had ever deal with. Instead of just being a place, made of brass, always on fire... it was a forested realm. A flame wave swept across it like the hand on a clock, burning the forest and leaving nothing but ashes. Those ashes would swiftly grow to become a new forest. The entire plane burnt down every 12 hours or so if I remember. It was possible to live on the plane without protection as long as you could keep in front of the flames.

I mention that, because I think that could make for a good version of the "Fire" Level in an Elemental Dungeon. Having a time limit forced upon the party with a Flame wave that chases them around that level. Having thick jungle vegetation to deal with, and possibly flame elemental jungle creatures (I'm just imagining things like flame monkeys now...) could give it a spin as a Fire Elemental level that will stick out in their minds.

EDIT: Bonus points? Put this version of a Fire level before your party runs into an "Earth" level. If they pop into the floor during it's forested period (Which I would do for the first chamber) they may misidentify it. That means they'll be caught by surprise when the flame wave starts coming, and it will give a sense of urgency and even "Oh ****, run away rather than fight" to battles that I seldom see myself.

[avr]

Light should be about optical illusions rather than dazzling glare. Mirrors, maybe a set of them which can be arranged to set something on fire or burn a hole thru a wall to reach the next element. Maybe distorted mirrors which conjure twisted versions of the party.

[Werephilosopher]

I had planned on Chaos last, leading to the big boss that's the goal of this part of the quest.

Who/what is the boss going to be? Does he/she control the entire dungeon, or just the Chaos section? Perhaps as the party ventures deeper into the dungeon, they feel the effects of his/her power grow.

It might also be interesting to have them run into another adventuring party, maybe composed of planetouched looking for pieces of their elemental heritage. They could act as either allies or enemies to the player party.

EDIT: Just as a side note, have you played Legend of Zelda: Windwaker? This concept reminds me of the Ganon's Tower dungeon, which starts out with different elemental rooms that must be completed to access the rest of the dungeon. Might be worth checking out :smallbiggrin:

[atomicwaffle]

Chaos Beast if you feel like being a jerk

[Hyde]

I read the thread title as "Help me with an Elemental Dragon"

And I was like "Just pick one?"

And then no one else's posts made sense in that context.

And now I feel dumb.

[randomnickname]

Thanks for the ideas;

I like the living spell template - I hadn't used that one before: I'm thinking some cold related spell monsters that attack the party, plus later on living spells with mind altering effects for the chaos section (confusion, touch of idiocy, deep slumber, that sort of thing) attacking at random through the dungeon). And in the light section, a mirror that produces dopplegangers.

I also made my own juanshi monster (aka jumping ghost) for the benefit of my non-western players. I find that many of the monsters and types are based off of western mythology, which puts my Chinese and Japanese players at a disadvantage when it comes to guessing what it might be/how to defeat it. I've got an elemental puzzle based off of Japanese symbolism as well.

[Maginomicon]

There's elemental ninja variants in Dragon Magazine #354 page 86-87 for fire/water/earth ninjas (the default ninja is a "air" ninja).

There's also Elemental Mantles (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a) for ardents and other classes that gain mantles (there are mantled variants for most of the other psionic classes).

Then there's the "Warrior of Air/Earth/Fire/Water" elemental fighter variants in Dragon Magazine #355 page 93.

Finally there's the druid ACF "Aspect of Nature" where they can pick up an elemental aspect.

[randomnickname]

This was some time ago, but I thought I'd post an update for the dungeon, which went well. The party gained teleport partway through, and so was able to restock and buy stuff.

Fire: 1) Large room with randomly shooting geysers of hot water. 2) Large room with lava floor 3) long corridor with Heat Metal trap. 4) Gang of six fire related mephits. 5) Burning Hands trap. 6) Fire monsters (Salamander, plus small minions).

Air: 1) Floor maze over spikes, with random gusts of wind. 2) Party is split, half fight a Belker, half a Breathdrinker. 3) Huge cavern with flying monsters, including bird flocks (bird crap ranged attack) 4) Air elementals and bard 5) Chess based puzzle.

Water: 1) Ice area with chilling gas living spells hiding in mist. 2) Huge cavern with ice monsters + crevasses 3) Have to melt ice to trigger the water section. I provided breathing masks for the water section. 4) Giant Sharks and squids 5) Monstrous Crabs 6) Elemental based puzzle.

Earth: 1) Corridor with plant monsters + elementals + entangle spell. 2) Room with Earthquake trap. 3) Gargoyles 4) Stone Singers 5) Metals based puzzles based on bad puns.

Darkness: 1) Gaki. 2) Navigating down a vertical pit to next session 3) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (kappas with monk levels, plus a were rat) 4) Hopping Vampires 5) Series of Trapped doors with curses 6) Oni + minions

Light: 1) Resetting Magic missle based trap 2) Invisible monsters 3) Another elemental based puzzle 4) Mirror room with dopplegangers (1 per party member) 5) Searing light trap 6) A Beholder.

The most fun parts were the Lava room, the wind maze, the chilling gas monsters, and the Beholder, in which 3/4 of the party nobly sacrificed themselves to save the world, and the monk, with a series of good rolls, proceeded to single-handedly punch the Beholder to death.

We had to stop there, as most of the players were moving out of the country.