illusion adventure

[Mahar]

I am running an adventure for some friends and wanted to run them through an adventure or dungeon that was based off of illusions and or tricks something to add something new to the story that isn't just hack and slash and was wondering if anyone knew of any good adventures or dungeons out there that would fit that description that isn't the tomb of horrors (that's for later in the story :smallbiggrin:) even if it isn't from d&d 5e I can just convert it over. I would try to make one my self but I really suck at making fun adventures.

[Segev]

It's not exactly what you're asking for in terms of illusions or tricks, but Sunless Citadel out of Tales From the Yawning Portal can be approached with diplomacy, as the first level of the dungeon has an active war for control over it between kobolds and goblins. You can, of course, just kill them all, but that's a lot more fighting than trying to make friends with one side or the other. It also has a side-part that has more traps and tricks in it (but it's small). Think hard about quasit combat tactics; I screwed up when I did that part with my game, and the PCs killed the annoying little twerp long before they should have. He should've been harrying them for half the dungeon and made killing him far more of a cathartic experience.

Tomb of Annihilation has a number of encounter sites that don't lend themselves to simply murdering your way through, but I will warn that several of the billed-as-puzzle-room bits of the Omuan shrines wind up being most easily solved via brute force methods, as they just lack any sting for doing them "wrong" if you're of a level that the module says you should be when you get there. It's a full 1-11 campaign, so may be of interest there.

[Aett_Thorn]

So one thing to worry about is the cheap and easy use of Detect Magic for some characters, who could easily see that something was magical and illusion-based. So just something that you need to consider when doing something like this is that unless you create a counter to this, your players might easily detect some of the things you don’t want them to.


However, back in the spirit of the thread, I once built a house for my players to go through. In one of the rooms there were three paintings - one of an expansive garden, one of a ship adrift in a storm, and one of a desert oasis. If a player investigated any of the paintings, their investigation check doubled as a saving throw, and failing it brought them INTO the painting. Players could choose to fail their saving throws if they wanted.

For the garden painting, the players found themselves in a hedge maze complete with Minotaur hunting them. At any t-junction, choosing right or left would allow the Minotaur to catch up, while going straight ahead through the hedge would reveal that the hedge was an illusion and allow the players to gain a lead. At the center of the maze was a crystal rose that the players needed for another room.

For the ship, players brought into that pairing found themselves alone on a ship in the middle of a storm. They needed to bring the ship safely into harbor near a lighthouse. Alone, this was almost impossible, but the more players there the easier it got. At the top of the lighthouse was a code word that the players needed for another room.

In the oasis painting, the players found themselves in a desert with the oasis fairly far off. Depending on how long they took to get there caused some skill challenges and maybe a bit of exhaustion, but nothing major. Once at the oasis, they notice the pool in the middle has something shiny at the bottom, but the pool looks way too deep to be able to breathe and get the item. However, anyone brave enough to try found that they could breathe the water and it was an easy get.

Each pairing had some allowable cheats. For instance, in the maze painting, flying above the hedge maze instantly took you back to the start of the maze, but in the ship painting, you could fly directly to the lighthouse if you wanted.

[smrvl]

I don't have a specific adventure to point you to, but I would look at anything involving a carnival (especially fey carnivals) ... I feel like whether it's Heckna or traveling circus caravans from the Feywild or whatever, most of them have a lot of illusion magic and trickery built in, and you go into that experience expecting to be tricked and endangered as a PC.

[Ettina]

I remember quite a bit of trickery in Strahd's castle.

Dungeon of the Mad Mage could also give you some inspiration.

Both of those I've only experienced parts of as a PC, so I can't say for sure how well they'd fit what you want, but they might be worth checking out.

[Darth Credence]

So one thing to worry about is the cheap and easy use of Detect Magic for some characters, who could easily see that something was magical and illusion-based. So just something that you need to consider when doing something like this is that unless you create a counter to this, your players might easily detect some of the things you don’t want them to.


I had an illusionist who basically spent all of his free time casting Nystul's Magic Aura on everything in his keep. Do that daily for 30 days and it becomes permanent until dispelled, so he had everything in the place lighting up as being magical. No way anyone coming in has the spell slots necessary to dispel even 1% of the things in there, so detect magic basically meant that if they were in the keep, they could sense magic around them. If they used an action to see what was magical, they became surrounded by a rainbow.