Rules for a backwards D&D session

[Science Paladin]

Hi all.

So, me and my group are planning a special session which we're excited to try, but we need to work out some proper rules for it.

The general idea is the players have been tasked with creating an Evil Lord's dungeon, each of them building one or two rooms with their own traps and enemies in them. I, as the DM, will be designing a party to defeat their group dungeon.

My main question; what's a good way to determine what recourses they each get? Would something as simple as giving set ECLs and a pot of gold for traps and magical items be enough? It'll be different to normal DM making a dungeon, as some of them have zero DM experience, and while a normal dungeon is made as entertaining and beatable, this is a competition between their cunning and my NPC adventures.

Anyone got experience with this? What are people's thoughts?

[ExLibrisMortis]

In Pathfinder, you could give the party an XP budget. In 3.5, you'll have to use a CR budget instead. I wouldn't use an ECL or--especially--gold budget. ECL because it is disadvantageous for HD-bloated beatstick monsters, gold because hirelings are ridiculously cheap.

[denthor]

Why not just run an evil game start them with the design you get take their design and let them try to defeat what they built.

[Eldariel]

This can even occur in a natural campaign as long as the players build their strongholds. It's not that different from anything else: many classes have class features that produce underlings. Perhaps time constraints for preparation are a good addition to gold limits - that way, building traps isn't all that and you have to ratio your time. But yes, it can certainly be a fun setup: wealth, class powers and time are really all the variables the system accounts for.

[Goaty14]

Is this supposed to be a hard thing? My party of 100 100th level wizards can defeat that dungeon, no sweat

[Science Paladin]

Okay, wealth, construction time, and CR seem to be a good set of things to set for them.

As I recall the DMG has something about "a party can face so many encounters of X level before needing to rest." That would probably provide a good guide. Maybe give their gold budget as the expected loot from an encounter of that level?

It's supposed to have a fair challenge to it, them v the DM.. should ask them how optimised we should all be

[bulbaquil]

One question to ask: Who should the evil lord be expecting to (attempt to) raid it? (Assuming they already know.)

The default unoptimized human fighter/elven wizard/dwarven cleric/halfling rogue group from the introductory "how to play" section of the PHB?

A highly optimized party sourcing from multiple books and possibly even some homebrew material?

A mirror-world version of your party?

Does the evil lord really want to have the dungeon be "balanced" and "fair" for the NPC adventurers that will be coming through? I'd imagine the goal is presumably to TPK the enemy adventuring parties.

You might benefit from taking a look at how things are structured in Book 2 of the 3rd party bad-guy Pathfinder adventure path "Way of the Wicked" - building and maintaining a dungeon through various onslaughts of adventurers over the course of completing a 7-month ritual is the major thrust of that installment.