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View Full Version : DM Help Need help filling a dungeon cube



AustontheGreat1
2015-02-17, 10:53 AM
So I have the unoriginal idea of throwing my players into a Dungeon Cube. The cube is 45 x 45 x 45 ft. the walls are made of stone and the doors are made of wood. The doors are breakable but regenerate instantly if unobserved for any amount of time. The walls are 6ft thick and anything moving beyond them finds itself adrift in the astral plane.

What I'm looking for is some ideas of what to put in some of the rooms. The dimensions of the rooms and the properties of the room are constant, but what is inside the rooms vary widely. Encounters, traps, puzzles, and even beneficial things. I'm looking for at least 25 different room ideas, but any and all of anyone can give would be really appreciated.

CR level is 6 or 7 for a frame of reference, but don't let that limit your ideas, I can always adjust the specific details.

I'm sorry If I posted this in the wrong place. Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

Karl Aegis
2015-02-17, 11:35 AM
Let's start with a classic:
There is a room with a chest in it guarded by an orc. The chest is empty. 1d4+1 rounds after an orc is slain a new orc shows up from a door and starts guarding the chest.

sakuuya
2015-02-17, 12:06 PM
You'll probably get more answers if you move this from the general section to the specific one for whatever version of D&D you're using. I'm assuming 3.5/PF. Anyhow...

A Nasty One: The PCs enter this room through the ceiling. The walls are slick with slime, and the only egress in the floor, which is covered by a black pudding. The PCs will probably try to pick it off from the ceiling door, but keep in mind that it has a climb speed...

A Nice One: This room contains a glowing statue of a god one of the PCs worships. If the PCs offer an acceptable sacrifice/prayer/etc., the statue blesses them with healing or something else beneficial. If they piss it off somehow, each PC is targeted with a Scorching Ray (or similar spell appropriate to the deity). Either way, the glow around the statue fades and it becomes nonmagical.

Elusivemike
2015-02-17, 12:25 PM
I always like a room that contains a "zone of silence" sort of deal. The party can't hear anything from the outside so the big fight waiting for them within is usually quite a surprise. Also, the silence will render all spells with verbal components useless. Plus, the players can't communicate with words so it's handy two throw the party into if you want to get them thinking outside of the box or to stop meta-gaming.

Dire Moose
2015-02-17, 03:25 PM
The classic big red button labeled "DO NOT PUSH."

The PCs may initially swear off pushing it, but after enough time trapped in the dungeon cube, someone is going to do it after trying everything else. Then you can hit them with whatever you want.

TeChameleon
2015-02-17, 09:02 PM
:smallamused:

If you want to really want to make the players paranoid, have absolutely nothing happen when the button is pushed. Or rather 'you can't tell if anything happens'.

etrpgb
2015-02-18, 04:30 AM
Some ideas assume flying is forbidden...


A gelatinous cube inside.

A diorama of the cube itself in the bottom center of the cube (with small characters moving around), but with an extra thing like a monster that is not in the room. You touch the small monster a real annoyed big one appears (possibly telefragging a character that was in its position).

A set of buttons without any label that do stuff like: summon a monster; give a shock; ect. But also give a sound, you are in the right direction if the new sound is with higher pitcher of the previous and it restarts on a mistake. To open the door the characters have to press, three to five buttons in the correct order and do the relative challenges. As mentioned a single button should do nothing a part of the sound for paranoia. A variant of this one if you want to drive your players insane. There is no rule, when they press the buttons there is simply a 1/20 (or 1/10) chance that the door opens.

A hole in the bottom that is actually a portal to the hole in the top for infinite fall fun.

Spiked walls are also always fun, an interesting solution can be: summon the spiked wall and climb it FAST to reach the exit that is in the top. For example a button is there, if you keep pressed the spikes slowly enter the room risking to squish everyone, if you leave it the spikes slowly leave too. So put a weight on the button and climb fast, too slow? Sorry.

Simple, simple. There is a Balor inside. (Or the biggest monster that makes sense for the characters level). Of course in this case you should describe the room with excruciating detail and casually add at the end... Am I forgetting something? Oh yes! There is also a big red daemon with a flaming sword and a whip on the center.

Technetium
2015-02-18, 06:47 AM
Loads and loads of gelatinous cubes crawling inside. Your PCs, after entering from the ceiling, will have to battle all the way down to the floor or get swallowed up, at which point something nasty happens:
If anyone lands on the floor, more and more cubes erupt out of mysterious cracks in the floor until they get off the ground! The walls will have quite a lot of little protrusions (odd and loose bricks), and after a while your PCs will probably end up hanging on the wall, clinging on for dear life, and being loose, someone will inevitably fall and spawn more cubes. But after a while the only odd bricks left are simply a bit long, and you can unleash something really horrid; perhaps these bricks will collapse and out of the holes in the wall come any monsters appropriate for your party's level.

Or you could have something 'nice':

Ornate, big chest of red, black and gold lies in the middle of the room, but obviously someone's taken the care to arm it with a massive lock and it's nearly splitting at its edges. Gold is scattered all around it. Inevitably, someone will make an advance after everyone gets bored out of their mind in this otherwise empty room, but whoever touches the chest or the gold first will simply make it burst into flames and a glabrezu will come out. It's up to your noble PCs to resist its lures of power and wealth and those penetrating violet eyes; and fight. But before the glabrezu has been defeated, it will try to summon dretches or vrocks, and if it succeeds the extra demons will come wheeling for the person who touched the chest. After that, your call. :smalltongue:

Sorry if the ideas aren't very good.