D&D 5e One Shot Ideas - Breaking into a Wizard's House

[Tresan]

Hello!

Recently I've moved into my college dorms and with so I've already been wrapped up into running a one shot for some D&D players. After doing a session zero we've all decided that we want to do a one shot where the characters are essentially paid to try to reach a vault in a wizard's house by the wizard himself, in a sort of way to "test his defenses". I just wanted to ask if anyone had any ideas for how this could be done? Any encounter ideas or maybe how the house itself is set up? I'm a little stumped so I appreciate all the help I can get.

Thanks!

[Bobthewizard]

It's been a long time, so I don't remember how much I changed it, but I ran my players through this once and they enjoyed it. It sounds like it might be like what you are looking for. At the very least, it's got some simple maps and a few trap ideas.

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/211718/The-Blind-Mansion

[animorte]

Breaking into a Wizard’s house.

I… wouldn’t recommend it.

[Psyren]

"House?" Not a tower?

[J-H]

Sure, much easier to buy an existing house than to get a lot, demolish the house, get dirty looks from the rich neighbors, then have your plans to build a 10-story tower tied up in magistrate's court for the next twelve years.

-You don't have to use just RAW spells when describing long-term wards that a wizard may have set up. There's a set of wardstones (suitably inaccessible) that prevent scrying and teleportation in the house unless someone's magical whatever signature is keyed in.
-Check out the Guards and Wards spell for a few ideas, although it's more meant for a castle or lair than a house.
-Adapt Warforged statblocks for golems that can actually fit in a house with ceilings and doorways sized for Medium creatures.
-Rug of Smothering.
-Animated objects
-The wizard leaves his familiar behind. The familiar can telepathically call the master if alerted. You have to either instantly disable the familiar or stealth around it.
-Use of Arcane Lock requiring co-operation between the rogue and the spellcaster. Locks warded against Knock so that the spellcaster can't bypass the need for the rogue.
-Enforce neighbors and sound. Knock and Thunderwave are going to attract attention.
-The wizard is at a ball. You have 4 hours. No long rests. No taking 4 hours to crack the safe.
-There's a perfectly innocent housekeeper or cook who needs to be incapacitated unless you want a murder charge added to the theft charges.
-The floor in the basement has a few trapped tiles that set off lightning bolts of moderate power. Investigation gets you the tiles that have extra wear on them. The trap mechanism (lightning gem) can be stolen and is worth some money.
-He's training a tame mimic. It's near the vault and disguised as a treasure chest. Its name is Larry. The party can convince Larry that they are not food. Larry is bored. The party can convince Larry that he should come with them, and Larry can tell them how to bypass the lightning trap.
-There's a spare key to the vault hidden in the wizard's bedroom, on top of the door frame, covered by a permanent illusion that makes it functionally invisible.

[Person_Man]

Sounds like a fun game.

Though if they’re playing Good characters, you should add some plot on top to give them a good reason to do so. Otherwise its just straight up murder hobo home invasion.

[Sorinth]

Did you talk about puzzles in your session 0? This is a perfect situation for a series of puzzles. So the house is a tower where you have to solve the puzzle to get to the next level. But not every group enjoys puzzles so it's worth talking about beforehand.


In terms of puzzles some examples:
A maze with teleporting portals, the maze is essentially 4 identical looking small mazes. At the center of these sections is a portal and a lever. There's a trap in a specific location that deals a different type of magical damage (This can be used to identify which section they are in). Depending on the position of the levers the portal might take you to a new section, a section you did already or back to the start with the maze resetting.

A logic puzzle where they have to put things in a specific order. There are clues/statements like "The Elf is not next to the Dwarf", "The Orc is before the Human" but each one is in a different language. So depending on what languages the party knows they might only get part of the logical statements they need to figure it out (Comprehend Languages would be helpful but not an automatic solve). Putting a wrong order triggers a minor trap of some kind, so in the worst case they can try until they find the right solution but will potentially be taking damage doing so.

[rel]

Since the wizard has brought the PC's in to test the setup, the defenses should be non-lethal. Either by design or by modification. After all the wizard doesn't want to kill their new employees.
Unless they do. The wizard wanting something from the party and double crossing them and trying to kill them is a good twist.

A heist works well with some legwork and planning, tracking down the architect, former owner or ex butler and getting floor plans and clues about the defenses is a good way to make it feel like an infiltration.

Since the party is being hired to test the defenses some arbitrary conditions could be thrown in to make things more interesting; Don't disturb the neighbors, I have to live next to them. Don't hurt my servants. stay out of the sub basement, it isn't part of the test. etc.