Fun with Anti-Magic Fields

[goken04]

Do you have any fun/interesting traps or puzzles to put in a room of a dungeon crawl filled with an anti-magic field? I ask because I'm putting such a room in a dungeon for (intelligent, high-powered) level 3 PCs. Although, if you have a good story, feel free to share it even if it wouldn't be appropriate for my party!!

[Pharaoh's Fist]

A set of ten buttons and ten levers that do nothing.

See how long it takes the PCs to figure it out.

[Leewei]

1. Create a Sudoku puzzle substituting Norse runes for numbers.

2. Have complicated locks that can be picked. Scribe riddles in various languages over the locks which provide clues on how to find the keys. Make it clear to PCs that there's a timing mechanism -- if they have to pick too many locks, they lose.

3. A game of tic tac toe or the like against a construct. PCs could attack it, but DR 10/adamantine at level 3 is pretty brutal.

[Hat-Trick]

Play a few platforming video games for inspiration. Devil May Cry has a few puzzles and things that work (although most of them are jumping and timing).

[PId6]

They come across a construct that guards a gate. It will only let them pass if they defeat the construct in an elaborate combat simulator. Then pull out the Wii and start Brawling for the rest of the session.

Or, alternatively, chess.

[Johel]

For a party which relly a little too much on teleportation : a room which door closes itself and automatically lock itself (mecanically doable).

Then, the floor and the ceiling lower themselves. On the walls, down, are holes that were previously blocked by the "floor". Now, they aren't. Something poors out of them.

Water, Mud, Sand, Insects, Acid, Lava, you decide.
Fun comes when you provide the hourglasse and say "top !!".
Enjoy the shouting of potential solutions.

=--------=
I--------I
I--------D
I--------D
=-------=
I--------I
O--------O
I--------I
========

= : fixed floor or ceiling
- :moving floor or ceiling
I : fixed walls
D : door
O : holes

[Hat-Trick]

ZELDA! another good one for inspiration. Can't believe I forgot that one.

Here's one I've wanted to use:

The Trap Room. Not even YOU know if a tile is trapped or not. Basically, you decide what traps you want in it and then roll to see if anyone of them is trapped. This is best done by placing either an item or an opening mechanism somewhere in the room, probably under a tile so they have to search everywhere, yet again rolled randomly.

[Curmudgeon]

If you want lots of fun, try running a game where the entire setting is one big Antimagic Field. It was a blast preparing for and running a character in a place where there was zero magic. Suddenly Heal checks and weak alchemical remedies were extremely important.

[Heliomance]

Why is a level 3 party encountering an AMF? Who put it there? The big bad of the dungeon? If he can cast AMF, he's way above their level. If he can afford to pay someone else to cast AMF, he's still way above their level. Basically, you have a choice: the dungeon makes no logical sense, or the party is utterly screwed.

[Irreverent Fool]

Why is a level 3 party encountering an AMF? Who put it there? The big bad of the dungeon? If he can cast AMF, he's way above their level. If he can afford to pay someone else to cast AMF, he's still way above their level. Basically, you have a choice: the dungeon makes no logical sense, or the party is utterly screwed.

Dungeons making logical sense has never been a part of D&D. Why? Logic is not fun. Giant mushrooms and lava are.

obnoxious
sig

[goken04]

Why is a level 3 party encountering an AMF? Who put it there? The big bad of the dungeon? If he can cast AMF, he's way above their level. If he can afford to pay someone else to cast AMF, he's still way above their level. Basically, you have a choice: the dungeon makes no logical sense, or the party is utterly screwed.

The majority of the dungeon IS way above their level. They are not on a dungeon crawl and are, instead, looking for a creature that inhabits a very small part of the dungeon. This part just so happens to be mostly filled with puzzles; not traps or monsters.

My characters are intimately familiar that I don't play a D&D where the world is custom-built to their character's level. They will understand not to venture unnecessarily deep into the dungeon.

ANYways...

[Heliomance]

Dungeons making logical sense has never been a part of D&D. Why? Logic is not fun. Giant mushrooms and lava are.

obnoxious
sig

EE is no longer around; you can stop doing that obnoxious sig thing now.

[Bouregard]

Why is a level 3 party encountering an AMF? Who put it there? The big bad of the dungeon? If he can cast AMF, he's way above their level. If he can afford to pay someone else to cast AMF, he's still way above their level. Basically, you have a choice: the dungeon makes no logical sense, or the party is utterly screwed.

Maybe some highlevel NPC's had a fight here before you/ someone more powerfull owned that dungeon but didn't survive the last wave of adventurers?
Mages, advenuters and evil masterminds are not known to tidy up if they leave.

[Random832]

Maybe some highlevel NPC's had a fight here before you/ someone more powerfull owned that dungeon but didn't survive the last wave of adventurers?
Mages, advenuters and evil masterminds are not known to tidy up if they leave.

That's not really consistent with having a set of traps/puzzles specifically designed around being in an antimagic environment.

The only really coherent way to make this work is to have it be more along the lines of testing the adventurers, set up by a high-level owner without much care to what level the people who pass the tests are (see e.g. Dorukan's dungeon, where the main concern was that they are pure of heart), and any CR3-ish monsters that are around moved in afterwards.

[Lysander]

What if instead of the antimagic field being a bad thing it was a good thing?

For example, have them notice the antimagic room early on. Later have them encounter some kind of magical monster that can kick their butt. If they're smart they'll realize that if they can lure the thing to that room they can fight it without it using its supernatural abilities. Once it realizes the trap it'll try to escape, so the party wizard needs to create obstacles outside the field to keep the creature from leaving while the fighters kill it.

[Darcand]

What if instead of the antimagic field being a bad thing it was a good thing?

For example, have them notice the antimagic room early on. Later have them encounter some kind of magical monster that can kick their butt. If they're smart they'll realize that if they can lure the thing to that room they can fight it without it using its supernatural abilities. Once it realizes the trap it'll try to escape, so the party wizard needs to create obstacles outside the field to keep the creature from leaving while the fighters kill it.

Like a trap that summons something big slow and hungry. The PCs can out run it, but not get past. However should the summoned creature be lured into an AMF....

[Hat-Trick]

POP, not summoned monster.

[goken04]

Actually the creature their supposed to catch can teleport as a swift action. The reason I'm putting the AMF there is so that the PCs can lure the creature there in their attempts to catch it. The puzzle/trap is why the dungeon's designers put the anti-magic field there. I still don't know why that is though...

(Of particular note is that the reason a wizard asked the party to find this particular creature is that his blood makes him immune to Dispel Magics and Anti-Magic Fields. The party is unaware of this. I'm a terrible person :D)

[NPCMook]

Play a few platforming video games for inspiration. Devil May Cry has a few puzzles and things that work (although most of them are jumping and timing).

Devil May Cry 4, The mission with the Dice... Someone should be hung for that...

Have the players play a Random board game against a construct, they have to beat the construct in order to pass.

[Hat-Trick]

Make it so that only one has to play, then if one loses, someone else can try. If everyone fails, they're going to have to find a way to get the construct to forget them, or something.

[Tokiko Mima]

I recommend calling it a null magic area. The rules on AMF are such that they often don't work in the way you would expect them to work.

One of my favorite is a lava tube in dungeon that decends downward into darkness, and some dozens of meters down it's length, someone has set an area to be null magic. The party must get down by non-magical means or risk falling. If they descend carelessly (without climbing gear, etc.) they might not have a way of getting back up!

[Mando Knight]

What if instead of the antimagic field being a bad thing it was a good thing?

For example, have them notice the antimagic room early on. Later have them encounter some kind of magical monster that can kick their butt. If they're smart they'll realize that if they can lure the thing to that room they can fight it without it using its supernatural abilities. Once it realizes the trap it'll try to escape, so the party wizard needs to create obstacles outside the field to keep the creature from leaving while the fighters kill it.

...So kinda similar to being the opposite of "Dragon casts AMF on itself. You're dead, RIP." then, right?

[Forbiddenwar]

A set of ten buttons and ten levers that do nothing.

See how long it takes the PCs to figure it out.

LOL! I like the way you think, I'll have to try this. I'm afraid if I do, then it will be end of my DM career though. Have you done this?

[goken04]

I ended up going with a room where the next door is locked (mechanically) and the only solution is to step on the floor tiles in the correct order (each one turning a different tumbler in the lock mechanism). Of course, some tiles (correct OR incorrect) are trapped; some trigger jet flames from the ceiling, others trigger a long-spear. Mechanical, intricate enough to take some time, and moderately dangerous; hopefully this will give them the opportunity to figure out the room is AMF'd!

[deuxhero]

Reverse Gravity rooms with some anti magic areas in them.

The gravity won't be reversed in the AMFs, so it could procude some intresting puzzles, praticularlly if there is a way to prevent falling damage.