Hello everyone

I run a campaign that occurs on the material plane as well as a plane of dreaming. In the dreamscape, the characters are able to manifest whatever they have the mental faculties to bring into existance. This requires a number of dream points spent as well as a skill check. In order to quantify the difficulty of the manifestation, I ask the players to come up with an effect and then tell which spell in the system they are casting to represent this effect. The higher the spell level, the more costly is the action and the higher is the DC for the check.

The group is level 9 and consist of a barbarian, rogue, cleric, bard and shaman.

The group has now reached a point where they have to prove for the native good guys in the dreamworld that they are talented in doing this dreamshaping. And the group does not know this. So I am luring them into a set location where they are trapped and bombarded with various effects that I want them to manifest solutions to. I am thinking effects like a combined forcecage and cloudkill which prompts some kind of teleportation, magic dispelling or poison immunity. What else could be fun to toss at them? I imagine it has to be quick paced so they don't start coming up with solutions to how to escape the killing area.

The barbarian is tough but has very few dream points. So I need to bring his skill set into play in a different way. I consider bringing in some monsters that does crowd controlling and needs to be bashed.

I also consider letting them figure out the system to use the best strategy. For example, if these effects manifests from coloured crystals above them, they could perhaps see what element they are associated with as well as see where on the ground they are pointing a round before being activated. Perhaps leave in a few safe spots but not enough for everyone to be unaffected.

Have anyone of you run something similar? Or perhaps have any ideas or thoughts to make this memorable.