nifty things to put in a difficult dungeon

[illiteratebarb]

So anyone have any fun and interesting concepts for traps and enviroments? Im thinking about making an ice cavern where my players will have to take extreme cold into thought.

[Tarlek Flamehai]

So anyone have any fun and interesting concepts for traps and enviroments? Im thinking about making an ice cavern where my players will have to take extreme cold into thought.

Thin ice over an underground river, that the party has to cross on foot....or that looks just like the ice covered floor so they fail to take precautions The old "unstable icicle roof" trick. A glowing whats-it sealed in a block of ice, once removed undoes the SEAL on the terrible abominable nasty-nasty. A beautiful princess sealed in ice, actually a Yuki-onna taking her century long beauty sleep. Lots of stuff in Frostburn.

[illiteratebarb]

Thin ice over an underground river, that the party has to cross on foot....or that looks just like the ice covered floor so they fail to take precautions The old "unstable icicle roof" trick. A glowing whats-it sealed in a block of ice, once removed undoes the SEAL on the terrible abominable nasty-nasty. A beautiful princess sealed in ice, actually a Yuki-onna taking her century long beauty sleep. Lots of stuff in Frostburn.

I love it! They'll never know what hit them!!

[Strigon]

If you've ever played Metroid Prime, look at some stuff in the Phendrana Drifts.
If not, ice creatures disguised as boulders, White Dragons, and long-sleeping horrors beneath the ice are always a nice addition!

[Milodiah]

Keep in mind that any time someone uses a fire spell of any sort, they're fundamentally altering the architecture of the dungeon, and respond to it as such. Melting ice bridges, exposing patches of freezing water below the ice, weakening structural integrity of walls and ceilings, etc.

[killianh]

my fav for a icy cave, walkway, temple, etc. is to have motion sensitive scorching ray traps under the ice with fast moving currents underneath. Thin icy+fire ray=cooked pcs that are now freezing in the water and drowning :smallbiggrin:

[illiteratebarb]

All of these ideas are awesome I can't to unleash the havoc on the pcs. They definitely deaerve it

[ZamielVanWeber]

2 words. Tucker's Kobolds. Here's a helpful link too. (http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/) It doesn't have to be kobolds either. Once they are deep in a dungeon without teleport/other easy escape method throwing small and clever encounters will be a lot scarier.

Also sentry ooze snow pudding (I think I got that right) because I love my oozes and they blend nicely in an icy themed dungeon.

[sakuuya]

my fav for a icy cave, walkway, temple, etc. is to have motion sensitive scorching ray traps under the ice with fast moving currents underneath. Thin icy+fire ray=cooked pcs that are now freezing in the water and drowning :smallbiggrin:

Ooh, you could also use a(n amphibious, I guess) remorhaz for this!

[lytokk]

Don't forget everyone is going to constantly have to make balance checks to not fall. Also, a slightly upward or downward sloping hallway would be awesome. Better have a climbers pick.

Anything that has fun with the low friction environment. Momentum for movement, can't really stop on a dime. I'm sure there's gotta be something in frostburn for this.

[killianh]

for higher level PCs you can also have the ice walls be reflective and throw a beholder(kin) at them. being able to unleash all of the rays per round

[Flickerdart]

An ogre mage with a suit and glasses is sitting behind an oak desk. He shuffles a stack of papers as the party enders - to their horror, they recognize their character sheets. "Have a seat," the ogre says, gesturing to a chair in front of the desk. "Tell me - why do you think you are the most qualified candidates for this dungeon?"

[Milodiah]

An ogre mage with a suit and glasses is sitting behind an oak desk. He shuffles a stack of papers as the party enders - to their horror, they recognize their character sheets. "Have a seat," the ogre says, gesturing to a chair in front of the desk. "Tell me - why do you think you are the most qualified candidates for this dungeon?"

Now I want to run a game where all the monsters are dungeon security, all the puzzles are complex bureaucratic paperwork-mazes, and the boss monster is actually the dungeon's chief executive officer.

Reminds me of the World of Darkness game where I pretty much tipped the session in our favor by rolling nine successes on a Bureaucracy check.

[Vaz]

Sounds like my work place.

[Rijan_Sai]

An ogre mage with a suit and glasses is sitting behind an oak desk. He shuffles a stack of papers as the party enders - to their horror, they recognize their character sheets. "Have a seat," the ogre says, gesturing to a chair in front of the desk. "Tell me - why do you think you are the most qualified candidates for this dungeon?"

Why does this cause my mind to instantly bring up images of King Yemma from Dragon Ball Z?

edit:
Forgot to add my thoughts for the topic...

One of my personal favorite traps, if not too powerful:

->
[][][]F12W[][]
->=Direction party is traveling
[]=floor space
F=Wall of Force
1=Floor trigger for Wall of Force
2=Floor trigger for second Wall
W=Wall of <insert favorite Wall spell here>

The idea is that as the party crosses the first trigger, a WoF appears behind them; then as they cross the second trigger, the other wall springs into place in front of them. Combine this with other ideas in the thread, and you can put a Wall of Fire aimed inward; the party takes fire damage for being within 10 ft of the wall as the ice below them melts, potentially dropping them into freezing (and probably swift moving!) water. They can't go back due to the Wall of Force, and they only other options are to dispel the Wall of Fire (taking time they may not have...) or jump through, taking even more fire damage in the process!*

Other good options are:
Wall of Ice (Not as imediately perilous, but still annoying anr resourse costing);
Prismatic Wall (For when you really want your players riled up!)**

*There are probably other ways to mitigate this, including but not limited to: prior aplications of magic that give resistance/immunity to fire (but why in a ice dungeon?) and many others I am currently unaware of. It's not supposed to be unavoidably deadly, just something to get their hearts racing a little...
**This one however, while removable, should only be used if you expect some members of the party to die/end up in another plane of existance...with no equipment...naked (IIRC)...

[Vaz]

Wall of Incarnum can be a better one than wall of force. Wall of Force is just 'nope' but Incarnum allows a save to resist the wall of force-like effect, but it suffers wisdom damage in return, dependent on the amount of invested essentia. You can on the fly increase the essentia to a relevant amount if you then want to have some fun with a will save based creature.

[Nibbens]

An ogre mage with a suit and glasses is sitting behind an oak desk. He shuffles a stack of papers as the party enders - to their horror, they recognize their character sheets. "Have a seat," the ogre says, gesturing to a chair in front of the desk. "Tell me - why do you think you are the most qualified candidates for this dungeon?"

Can I sig this? This is awesome!


So anyone have any fun and interesting concepts for traps and enviroments? Im thinking about making an ice cavern where my players will have to take extreme cold into thought.

Okay, if we're doing high level stuff, I have a few suggestions. A few sessions ago my players went into a high level mage's laboratory. Of course it was trapped out the wazoo. Being this is a PF game (and I'm not sure what type you're using) in PF magical traps can be "sight activated" - another words when the trap "sees" a player, it goes off.

So, The trap would always be a spectral hand (the spell) materializing and trying to touch the player with a 9th level baddy. The wizard who trapped his dungeon wasn't looking to "kill" intruders - as he was a Good character, so the imprisonment spell was his spell of choice. Aaaaand i put about 6 of them in the lab.

Now, as soon as someone fell to the trap, they had to spend the majority of the session devising some way to get him out. I made sure to alert the PC's during their first successful save what the spell was (as they succeeded in their spell craft checks), so they would know that this guy was not playing around - and it worked. It totally made them go on a mini-sidequest to get scrolls of freedom so they could get the guy who dell into the next one out.

It took them a little while to get back on track, but the rest of the dungeon was a mess, trying to magically scout for traps while teleporting short distances and Rock to Mudding entire walls just to avoid some of the trap shenanigans. The best part was that they knew where all the traps were and it still made them squirm. lol. The scroll of freedom was pretty costly too, so it's good for draining resources. :)

For other traps, i'd suggest transmute blood to acid. Even it's name raises the hair on the back of players necks. :)

[Flickerdart]

Can I sig this? This is awesome!
Thanks! Go right ahead.