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View Full Version : Help Building a Cave



Burley
2008-12-03, 09:57 AM
One of my group members asked for a cave to explore. They're in the middle of a desert, on the outskirt of a huge quarry, so, I thought "Why not?"

The problem: I suck so bad at designing 'dungeons'.

Help? The party just hit 3rd level, and they are trying to regain their former glory at this point. Plot events can be added in wherever I feel necessary, so, ignore them.

Monsters, traps, and dead ends are welcome.

daggaz
2008-12-03, 10:56 AM
Ohh fun fun fun. SO there's a cave out in the desert. Start with the easy part, it is probably been used as a shelter before, so you start with the main entrance..

Lets make it an obvious cave, fairly large opening (enough for maybe two or three to enter at same time) which then opens out into a rather large, semi-circular chamber. Here the party will find a used fire pit, some broken mundane items, maybe a potion of CLW if they search good enough. A good spot check will show what looks to be a drag trail towards the back of the cave, sand and ash, small stones strewn towards the back as if somebody had been dragged away from the fire pit.

In the back of the cave, a somewhat narrow tunnel extends into the depths. Some twenty or thirty feet down this tunnel, the party finds a dessicated corpse. The victim is fully clothed, and covered in sticky silk. Two large bite wounds ooze a thick black fluid, still somewhat sticky. Searching the corpse will reward a CLW potion, some cheap leather armor, a dagger and a shortsword, still sheathed, A backpack full of mundane adventuring gear, and a bit of gold.

Continuing in, the party enters another chamber similiar in size to the first. Spot checks to avoid being surprised by the monstrous hunting spider hiding in ambush here. Should they survive, a search of the chamber reveals two or three more tunnels heading in various directions, as well as the well rotted remains of other victims. Maybe a few gold pieces strewn about, a few daggers or shortswords, but everything else is aged beyond use.

A careful listen check will give a high pitched sound coming from one of the tunnels, a sound that comes and goes, perhaps like somebody calling for help in the distance. Following this path, the sound gets louder and louder. The tunnel takes a sharp turn to the right, where some strange mushrooms can be seen, and now the noise is almost deafening. They are growing near the corpse of a humanoid. If the party enters the room, they are attacked by two violent fungus growing to each side of the entrance, tucked back into the wall somewhat. The fungus can sense its approaching prey, and has readied an action to attack anything that steps in that opening space with their tendrils. If the party survives the encounter, the corpse turns out to be a kobold, and it has some various equipment as well.

Taking the second tunnel, which is only five feet square, leads the party into the kobold den. Make this a mish-mash of narrow tunnels and interconnected chambers. Have a large central chamber full of garbage, bones, and most of the tribe. The adults guard the warren viciously, launching hit and run attacks, and making prodigious use of traps. They have a shaman dressed out in the skin of a monstrous spider who will use his magic to protect the tribe.

Killing all the kobolds rewards a bunch of bone spears, darts, etc..all small sized. Some of them are tipped with the venemous bulbous stings from scorpion tails. The shaman has the cool spider headdress and a bone necklace, both of which may or may not be magical. Searching the warren shows the kobolds have been eating all sorts of vermin, scorpion must taste like lobster!

A small pit has a rope and a bucket, and deep down below is a large pool of water! The opening in the stone is long and narrow, tho, and without magic there is no way for the party to get down into that larger chamber below. The kobolds have a second exit as well, small and hidden, which overlooks the quarry.

The third tunnel is wider, and there is a lot of spider web. A couple more spiders, smaller than the first, will attack the party. After a short while, it opens up into a very large chamber. Here there are half eaten spider corpses, as well as a well chewed on kobold. Spot check to notice the monstrous scorpion lurking in the rubble! Make this guy pretty big, enough to threaten your party with death. Surviving this encounter is nice, but there are no rewards to be found, everything has been well chewed in the monster's mandibles.

Another tunnel continues down, curving around. A dwarf in the party can sense that is drops down below the area of the kobold warren. As the party decends, they pass a small room with a couple kobold corpses, smaller bite marks this time. A choker hides in the ceiling, and will attempt to attack anybody who lags behind. Otherwise, it will follow the party from well behind, sticking to the ceiling and hiding, waiting for a chance to make an opportunistic kill.

Dropping further still, the tunnel opens out into a vast chamber, lots of stalagmites and stalactites. Here they are ambushed by two darkmantles, who make prodigious use of their darkness ability to snuff any light sources before attacking. Defeating them, and the party finds nothing, but the cavern comes down to a large underground lake.

Approaching the water's edge results in a Chuul (you can make it a bit weaker than normal, but it should be a high risk deadly encounter) exploding out onto the beach and seizing whoever was dumb enough to venture so close. Unfortunately, spotting the Chuul is nigh impossible, as a lamp or torch will cause too much reflection and they wont see it emerging until its already too late. Tossing an item into the water will result in the normal splash. Spot checks (dc15) to notice the surface swells with an unknow current below as well. Tossing a large enough item on the beach, or right in the water's edge, will cause the Chuul to emerge out of attacking reach to the party.

If the party can defeat the Chuul, they will find a +1 sword of some sort (match the party) in the water right near the beach, wedged upright in some rocks as if it were thrown or dropped accidentally. Searching the bottom of the lake (its twenty feet deep, but the water is surprisingly clear) and there is a sizeable pile of kobold buckets tied to broken vines, as well as the remains of an adventurer, decked out in some nice masterwork armor, as well as a mundane magic item or two.

A final tunnel, underwater, leads deep into the underdark. Your party shouldn't be able to make it this far (they will have to be really creative and careful to kill that chuul, even if its weakened) but if they do, it should be almost certain death for such low level adventuerers. The underdark is full of things far worse than vermin.

evil-frosty
2008-12-04, 11:47 PM
very nice mind if i use this in my game?

Nerd-o-rama
2008-12-04, 11:50 PM
Just don't put a box of scraps in there. No telling what they'll do with it.

daggaz
2008-12-05, 09:47 AM
Hahhaha! No kidding nerd-o-rama! But thats exactly why i put it in there! =)

And sure, no problem of course you can use it, evil-man. Anybody can, just tossed it out there for the playground.

Burley
2008-12-05, 10:37 AM
Thanks, Daggaz. I appreciate it. Any other suggestions. (I'm changing the magic weapon to armor, since I'm trying to get them to focus on keeping their starting weapons.)

Coplantor
2008-12-05, 10:40 AM
I have a few ideas, but it depends on wether you want them to die or if you want them to survive.

Burley
2008-12-05, 10:45 AM
They'll survive... Trust me. At second level, they managed to take out a CR5 swarm, that was supposed to teach them that it's okay to run away. They also 'defeated' a CR8 Pixie Warlock, by grappling it...

My group has a way of... winning too much.

Coplantor
2008-12-05, 10:51 AM
My best trap so far is this:
They are trapped in a metal room with water at knee level, the water is mixed with inhale posiom, they dont know it. The rooms temperature starts to go up, due to a hughe fire under it, water starts to boil and poison gets in their lungs. Make it really hard to escape, but let them do so in the end. That way, they will feel like they were close to their deaths. Also, dont make it obvious to them that you just letted them escape, make them feel it was because of whatever they did.

In my version of the trap though, they die.

Burley
2008-12-05, 11:39 AM
Hmm... I think I can mix the two things together.

The Chuul is weakened/crippled because of the poisonous water, but is able to survive in it. The water is heated by underground gasses and junk. The kobolds use it as torture/sacrifice/fun.

Genious.

What should the poison do? I'm thinking Wisdom damage? The fumes impair their abilities to think straight.

Coplantor
2008-12-05, 11:48 AM
Con damage will really make them dessperate. Wis damage will probably hurt skill like spot and listen, wich they should be using trying to find their way out of there. Though, Con damage not only implies less hp but also lowering their Fort save, so they should think quick, the poison is in the air and theyll be inhaling it round after round untill they get out of there.

Also, have you thought of a trap hiding another trap? Put a pit in the middle of a corridor, between the pit and themselves there's a squad of kobolds or other kind of enemies. Have them fighting defensively, so the party will be pushing them towards the pit, once they are there, the kobolds jump down the pit (wich actually turned out to be not really deep) and activate a trap from the bottom of it, say, a cage falls from the cieling above the party. After that, have enemioes from the other side of the walls shooting arrows (or molotov cocktails, why not?) towards the guys trapped in the cage.

If they see the holes in the walls before they push the enemies into the pit they might suspect something's wrong, specially if they got out of the boiling room before that.

daggaz
2008-12-05, 11:52 AM
Well its not so much a trap then, than just more poison. And remember, they are fighting spiders, scorpions, and kobolds using scorpion poison, oh my! So by now, I would be surprised if your group can still hack it, as all that dex and (i think its str) damage is going to seriously tax their little bodies. Especially since they dont have access to hold poison or restoration yet (great plot hook there).

Wisdom damage would be pretty vicious, at least to any clerics, but not much effect on the other guys. And Chuul are freaking mean at low levels already.

Traps if you need them are pretty simple... at least for the kobolds, just use darts, spikes, pitfalls, etc.. I would think in a cave full of spiders, they are mostly afraid of incoming vermin, so most of the traps would be piercing damage things..

The mushroom room is a natural trap in itself, as well.