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View Full Version : DM Help The Bad Guys were here first!



Mada
2019-01-25, 01:11 AM
So I want to run a dungeon, this party hasn't been on a dungeon crawl yet so it should be fun.

The problem I'm encountering is a "well this doesn't make sense" situation.

There's an antagonist group who got to the dungeon first, all the defences for the dungeon have been left there by those who built it ages ago.

How do I keep this interesting? If I create a "the dungeon resets" scenario then the party has to do it all again when they leave.

My party are very much the "wait a second, if you guys got here first why did it look like the dungeon hadn't been touched? how did you get past everything without touching it?" kind of people.

There's probably a simple answer to this but I'm great at overthinking.

Koo Rehtorb
2019-01-25, 01:32 AM
They knew of a secret entrance and took a different path through the dungeon.

Florian
2019-01-25, 01:50 AM
There's probably a simple answer to this but I'm great at overthinking.

The simple answer can be, that the bad guys are simply on good terms with whoever inhabits the dungeon right now.

Bohandas
2019-01-25, 02:44 AM
They have a map. A map that details where the traps are, locations of secret doors, passwords for safe passage, etc.

Kaptin Keen
2019-01-25, 03:05 AM
Or they're different somehow. Like, they're a party of adventuring creatures who can all fly or levitate (which only bypasses floor based traps, but still).

Draconi Redfir
2019-01-25, 03:38 AM
the dungeon has multiple entrances that some people might not know about. the baddies took one route, the goodies took another.

jayem
2019-01-25, 04:49 AM
Or they're different somehow. Like, they're a party of adventuring creatures who can all fly or levitate (which only bypasses floor based traps, but still).

That has the nice feature of:
a) Disarmed trap, disarmed trap, still armed trap
b) Being able to deduce aspects of the foe (ideally with some opportunity to take advantage of it)

Kaptin Keen
2019-01-25, 04:57 AM
Or maybe the very first trap teleports victims into the heart of the dungeon, to be eaten by .. grues I suppose. But point being, the bad guys lived, and now have additional xp and loot! =)

Misereor
2019-01-25, 05:15 AM
They used potions of gaseous form and invisibility.
However, one of them got dispelled and killed by the traps in room XYZ, which haven't been reset
GM's note: Mention how the disturbed dust and prodigous bloodstains make for an odd discrepancy with the rest of the dungeon.

Willie the Duck
2019-01-25, 08:13 AM
Dungeons are, at their root, heist capers. The PCs are trying to rob a bank, and thus they have to crawl through the air ducts and jimmy the locks to the loading dock and evade the security cameras. The best reason why party #2 doesn't have to is because they could go through the front door. So basically what Florian said, the other party is in the good graces of the current occupants.

Knaight
2019-01-25, 08:13 AM
A trap that's been disarmed and then rearmed doesn't necessarily look that different from one that was never messed with, apart from significantly less dust involved on exterior mechanisms; that can probably take you pretty far. So can the opposite where on close inspection it's clear the trap has been both disabled and then repaired, with the patch job being pretty obvious if you investigate.

Yet another option is that the traps were inactive when the first group came, probably just from long disuse. They slipped in fast, before they were able to switch back to an active mode - or maybe they had to be deliberately reactivated from inside. If the dungeon reset option is even on the table it suggests some pretty impressive sophistication, so you could definitely have a central control room for the traps, preferably with a nice huge lever with a label to the effect of "armed", clearly moved recently.

Aetis
2019-01-25, 08:20 AM
Your group probably would appreciate it a lot if you put in the effort to make an obvious path of beaten monsters and disarmed traps in your dungeon.

johnbragg
2019-01-25, 08:52 AM
Your group probably would appreciate it a lot if you put in the effort to make an obvious path of beaten monsters and disarmed traps in your dungeon.

Or a mix of the two approaches--cut a swath of dead monsters, disarmed and sprung traps through part of the dungeon, leading to some sort of library room that has clearly been looted.

Then the party discovers, in the main treasure room, the secret entrance/exit that the Bad Guys used, having found the map in the library.

RedMage125
2019-01-25, 09:09 AM
Your group probably would appreciate it a lot if you put in the effort to make an obvious path of beaten monsters and disarmed traps in your dungeon.

I was going to suggest this in combination with the "alternate path" and "bad guys know ways around some of the traps/wards/etc.

The heroes should find some traps still armed and ready, but maybe a few others that got sprung. For example, maybe the bad guys have a small tribe of goblins they're using as arrow fodder, and the party finds a bloody goblin corpse, impaled on some spikes in the walls. The spikes are trying to retract back into the walls (and reset the trap), but the goblin's corpse is stuck on them.

Other rooms should have guardians (like golems or summoned creatures) that the bad guys were able to bypass with knowing the pass phrases and whatnot. Others should have the scene of a battle, with some dead defenders and dead goblins strewn about. Also, don't forget, if the bad guys know they're being followed, they can leave their own minions behind to slow the PCs (that room with all the corpses, also has a chain devil in it, looking for a fight).

Bohandas
2019-01-25, 11:26 AM
They don't even need to know how to go around the traps (etc), they just need to know how to shut them off (which in a non-tomb dungeon there realistically ought to be a way to do; I don't know if this one's a tomb, but if it isn't the traps realistically ought to have some kind of deactivation method so that whoever workd for the villain or whatever can pass. And bear in mind, the rivals don't actually need to work for the villain, that's just the deactivation procedute's intent, there's no reason someone unaffiliated couldn't find it out with sufficient spying)

Which actually gives me another idea. They followed a mini0n in while under the effects of Improved Invisibility

dspeyer
2019-01-25, 12:04 PM
I like the idea that they did leave a trail. A few traps are sprung, some are reset, most were avoided...

And anywhere there would have been a living monster, there are now lots of bloodstains and a zombie of that monster.

LibraryOgre
2019-01-25, 01:16 PM
I like the idea that they did leave a trail. A few traps are sprung, some are reset, most were avoided...

And anywhere there would have been a living monster, there are now lots of bloodstains and a zombie of that monster.

Or reinforcement monsters from other parts of the dungeon.

Willie the Duck
2019-01-25, 01:17 PM
Or reinforcement monsters from other parts of the dungeon.

/New immigrants who noticed the vacant space and/or tasty corpses.

Zhorn
2019-01-25, 09:31 PM
The enemy party has a 'key'
Whoever built the traps in the first place would want a way to bypass them, and this lot happened to track down that method before coming here.

Son of A Lich!
2019-01-25, 10:04 PM
Alright Gang, we're going into an ancient temple to a forgotten god; Let's stock up on defenses against Aberrants!

...

Alright Gang, the ancient temple to a forgotten god was taken over by our recurring enemy and his gang of thugs! We've already prepared against aberrants, but I think we can take these guys on again!




Seriously, if it was a good trap, why not reset it and use it against the party? Was it a race to the site? What are we working with here?

Mendicant
2019-01-25, 10:40 PM
I'm a big fan of the dungeon being big enough to permit multiple routes--this is a place where secret doors really shine. I've done a few dungeons where the bad guys have a sizeable number of screaming mooks who primarily demonstrate how dangerous the site's defences are, give gruesome hints about traps and puzzles, and injure monsters I want to preview before the party is ready to take on full versions. They can also be the ones who made the mistake of waking whatever should have been left undisturbed, or did the work of excavating the site, or tracked down the artifact that opens the thing up.

It gives a fun, Raiders of the Lost Ark/The Mummy-style pulp adventure feel.

Mada
2019-01-25, 11:51 PM
Thanks everybody, my internet is very limited at the moment, sorry for the late reply back.

The dungeon is in fact a tomb housing four heroes and supposedly their mythical weapons.

The tomb was created by dwarven artificers so magic can be a part of the mechanics.

I like the idea of a secret passage, or a few, so that certain rooms still have to be bypassed to move from secret hallway A to secret Tunnel B.

The baddies don't know they're being followed, but they are open to the idea since they're breaking in. They have dwarves with them who might know what they're looking for as far as architecture goes, or they might have a map.

Recently moved house so my mind has been a bit dull lately, so I really appreciate all the ideas.