D&D - Book of Challenges - Dungeon Rooms, Puzzles, and Traps.pdf

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Book of Challenges: Dungeon Rooms, Puzzles, and Traps
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CONTENTS
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
EL 9
A Light in the Dark................54
Dealing with the
Cage Trap.......................55
EL 10
Cave of the Snake .................64
EL 11
Formidable Opposition ........75
EL 12
Just Passing Through ...........82
With a Little Help from
EL 13
Dark Hunt .............................93
EL 14
Safe and Sound.....................96
EL 15
Beholder Dome ...................101
EL 16
Twelve Heads Are Better
than One .........................107
EL 17
Where’s the Party? ..............110
EL 18
Primary Thinking.................113
EL 19
Towering Dead ....................116
EL 20
Thrice Be Damned ..............118
EL 22
Blown Away .........................123
Advice for the DM
Adventuring in Three
Dimensions ..........................30
But I Know the Trap
Is There! ................................32
Fighting in Cramped
Quarters ................................10
High-Level Preparation:
The DM ...............................122
High-Level Preparation:
The Players..........................122
How to Win Friends and
Influence PCs........................92
Incorporeal Creatures in
Combat .................................87
Making a Deceitful Sales
Pitch ......................................49
Mazes and High-Level
Characters ...........................112
Playing Monsters Smarter
Than You ...............................68
Running Multiple-Opponent
Encounters............................95
Underwater Movement and
Combat .................................71
Combat Adjustments
for Water ...........................71
Variant: What Disabling a
Device Means .......................33
The DM’s Dirty Little
Running a Clever Dungeon
Room.......................................3
Running a Clever Puzzle ............4
Encounter Levels of
Concurrent Traps ................5
EL 1
A Familiar Situation ................7
EL 2
Close Quarters ........................9
EL 3
Bugbear Pit Fight ..................15
EL 4
Capstan Water Trap...............21
EL 5
EL 6
All of the Treasure, None
of the Traps .......................32
Grotto of the Shocker
Lizards ...............................36
EL 7
An Object Lesson..................38
EL 8
Chuk’s Magik Shoppe...........47
2
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THE DM’S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET
T HE DM’S
with a little preparation, you can use them in any
adventuring context. These encounters generally
need very little introduction. In most of them, the
PCs walk down a dungeon corridor and see what’s in
the room (or don’t see it, depending on the amount
of invisibility used). They resolve the challenge, lick
their wounds, and then go on to some other part of
the dungeon.
The book is sorted by encounter level (EL). To
choose an encounter for your players, figure out their
characters’ average party level. Pick an encounter with
an EL that matches or comes close to that average.
Of course, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with
the capabilities of the items and creatures mentioned
herein. In most cases, when an average creature is
used, this book only shows the differences between
the Monster Manual description and the description
here. The book provides help in how to use these
aspects of the encounters, but that doesn’t substitute
for research on your part.
This book also contains many sidebars with tips for
Dungeon Masters. You can use them to customize the
encounters in your game or create similar types of
encounters yourself. You’ll find the legend for all the
maps in this product on page 127.
Most encounters have entries for “Scaling the
Challenge.” These allow you to use the encounter at a
higher or lower EL than the one given at the top of
the entry. Even if your characters are all 10th level,
you can use encounters at other ELs when you find
these scaling sections. Don’t forget to change the
treasure awarded if you alter the encounter level.
Treasure appropriate to an EL 5 encounter seems
paltry for an EL 9 encounter, and far too rewarding
for an EL 3 encounter.
SECRET
Picture this situation: The player characters see a ges-
ticulating wizard floating over a dark chasm. As if by
magic, a light goes on in a player’s brain. He declares
that his character charges headlong off the edge of
the cliff, expecting that he’ll continue across the invis-
ible bridge that doubtless spans the chasm.
What do you do in this situation?
Despite your natural inclination to let the player
kill off his character, your reflexes probably kick in.
You laugh, or you cock an eyebrow, or you say,
“Ohhh-kay?” after you spit out your drink. With a
flash of insight, the player realizes that there may
be other explanations why the wizard can defy grav-
ity. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll let him halt his charge
before he discovers the exact depth of the chasm
the hard way.
Then you realize you have fallen prey again to the
DM’s Dirty Little Secret: you’re really on the players’
side. You use your omniscience and omnipotence to
keep your PCs alive and happy (at least in the long
term, resurrections being what they are). You don’t tell
your players that, though, because they keep putting
their precious PCs in situations where you have to
pull their fat out of the fireball. After all, you have a
responsibility to keep them coming back.
And some days, that responsibility gets to you. You’re
not a fifth or sixth or seventh PC. You’re the Dungeon
Master. Some days, you get that urge to show them
you’re not on their side, and that you have the power
and cleverness to let them know who’s boss.
Welcome to the book that’s designed for those
bad dice days. The Book of Challenges: Dungeon Rooms,
Puzzles, and Traps is composed of dozens of the
smartest and meanest encounters we could envision.
This is the book of “Oh, man!” and “I can’t believe it!”
and “You have to be kidding me!” Yes, the encounters
are balanced by encounter level, and yes, they can all
be solved with a little thought. Yes, we even provide
hints you can give your players. But fundamentally,
they’re all just a bit nasty. If a player announces that
he’s going over a cliff in one of these encounters, he’s
going over the cliff.
Because sometimes, even we have one of those days.
RUNNING A CLEVER
DUNGEON ROOM
At any time, you can throw six orcs running down a
10-foot-wide corridor at your players’ characters.
That may be a good fight for some parties, but it’s
hardly clever. If the orcs suffer ranged weapon fire,
not all of them will be able to reach the PCs’ front
line, and none of them will be able to reach the PCs’
back line.
A clever encounter takes advantage of the mon-
sters’ or NPCs’ capabilities and tactics. Clever crea-
tures should spend a lot of time thinking about how
they might survive an encounter with well-armed
PCs. Six orcs parked behind nine-tenths cover with
heavy crossbows, and a gaping pit in front of them—
now that might be a challenge. Four orcs in that situa-
tion, plus two on a ledge behind the PCs might be
even better. Four orcs running from a rampaging hill
giant . . . well, you get the idea.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
The Book of Challenges contains encounters you can
plug into your favorite dungeon. Most are set
against the backdrop of a “typical” dungeon, but
3
DIRTY LITTLE
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THE DM’S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET
Here are six general strategies for maximizing
effectiveness of the monsters and NPCs you throw at
your PCs.
Box Them In: Most players think of fights in one
direction, the one where they close to meet the com-
batants. PCs attacked from several sides are automat-
ically at a disadvantage, because they must choose
where their area spells go, worry about being flanked,
and separate to attack multiple foes.
Split Them Up: If you can separate the party
members from each other, they won’t be able to coop-
erate. Trap the scouts behind a barrier, drop the spell-
casters through a trapdoor, or use nets and bull
rushes to drag the PCs kicking and screaming away
from each other. Get flying creatures into the air, so
that flying PCs have to leave their friends to attack
flying enemies with melee weapons. Be careful with
this one, though. Splitting the party neutralizes the
cooperative nature of the group, which won’t be fun
if it happens all the time.
Show Them One Thing, Give Them Another: A
mid-level party seeing three iron golems coming at
it will have a panic attack. But a hill giant sorcerer
could easily cover two cronies and himself with illu-
sions that make them appear as iron golems—and he
may stop the PCs from casting spells on them, since
the PCs will falsely believe they’re useless against the
“constructs.” Deception only needs to last a few rounds
to be meaningful. A self-censoring party is a far less
dangerous one.
Make Them Dig Deep: In a lair of cold creatures,
only the sorcerers will be able to muster enough
fire spells to win. Using many of the same types of
creatures drains a subset of the party’s resources
while never tapping into another subset. The heroes
need to ration resources, and that benefits those on
the receiving end of the PCs’ wrath.
Set Them Up, Knock Them Down: Two crea-
tures with compatible powers can combine to be
much more effective. A wyvern’s poison deals Con-
stitution damage, and an achaierai’s insanity re-
quires a Fortitude save. If the achaierai attacks
immediately after the wyvern drops a PC’s Constitu-
tion into the single digits, that PC probably won’t
make his saving throw against the insanity. Two
near-simultaneous attacks can mean one dead PC.
For these sorts of battles, your monsters probably
act on the same initiative number, though one can
always delay a moment or two.
Hang Them if They Can’t Take a Joke: Make
sure you have a way out for any creature that wants
to get away. A flying creature fighting at the edge of
a cliff has a much better chance to get away than one
in a closed room. The PCs still get the experience,
but they lose any treasure the escaping NPCs are
carrying. That alone gets the heroes to be more
strategic in the future.
RUNNING A CLEVER
PUZZLE
Many DMs are wary of making puzzles. Others are
too comfortable making them, sometimes without
realizing the complexity some puzzles require. To
find the right level of comfort, identify a puzzle type
you can create and then practice until you create a
memorable one.
To set up a puzzle, figure out what you want it to
do. Do you want to deliver a message, provide a clue
to a mystery, or make solving the puzzle the only
way out of a deathtrap? When you have figured that
out, pick a puzzle type. Several puzzles in this book
come with sidebars on how to make others like
them. Mazes, letter-addition puzzles, and codes all
have simple principles you can follow. Of course,
these sidebars can’t provide the cleverness you’ll
need to challenge your players.
Then try making the puzzle. Use the strategies
herein, and keep trying them until you conclude that
you would like to solve the puzzle if another DM pre-
sented it to you.
Try to personalize your puzzles. They need to
make sense in the world your PCs inhabit. Don’t
give them a puzzle about rock music or cars, because
the PCs have never heard of either. Instead, use ref-
erences to NPCs, cities in your world, or monsters
the PCs might face.
Before you give your puzzles to the PCs, write a list
of hints. These should usually be rewards for making
successful skill checks. A puzzle about magic items
could require a Knowledge (arcana) check, for
instance. In all cases, a simple Intelligence check
should give a hint of what type of puzzle the PCs face.
You can also devise hints that require spells or class
features, such as letting a cleric use his turn undead
ability to open a magically locked chest bearing the
visage of a ghoul.
When the PCs solve a puzzle, reward them. Just
solving a puzzle makes them feel smart, but solving a
puzzle that hands them a magic item or opens a secret
door makes them feel smart and accomplished.
4
RUNNING A CLEVER TRAP
When the characters fall prey to a trap, they’re usually
unprepared, unwary, or outclassed. Players take great
pride in getting past traps, because they think that
means they’re smarter than the makers of the dun-
geon. Conversely, they feel great shame when they
walk right into the trap.
To see all the parts of a great dungeon trap, look
to a real-world example: the mousetrap. A mouse-
trap has three parts: the bait, the trigger, and the
illusion of safety. The mouse is attracted by the bait
(some cheese), trips the trigger (a pressure-sensitive
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THE DM’S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET
neck-breaker), and is stunned when it happens (since
the neck-breaker seems far removed from the cheese).
Although your PCs are (hopefully) a bit smarter than
mice, the same principles apply.
The bait should always be something the PCs want.
Before you flip to the treasure chapter in the D UN -
GEON M ASTER ’s Guide , think a little deeper about what
they really want. They want experience. They want to
conserve their resources. Most importantly, they want
to feel comfortable breaking into something’s lair and
killing it. These characters are easy to motivate,
because simply presenting a door plays into the PCs’
expectation that they can walk unimpeded through
a dangerous area.
The trap’s trigger can be magical, mechanical, or
both. Almost any spell or device can become a trap if
given some thought. Even the ultra-benign raise dead
spell can trigger the revival of something the PCs
want to stay dead. If your PCs can shrug off the
damage from a crossbow trap, set up a ballista trap.
The best triggers are ones that create some amusing,
embarrassing, or otherwise memorable victimiza-
tion, such as a hidden catapult that propels a PC
into a freezing cold river.
The illusion of safety is the most important ele-
ment. A trap should go off when the PCs are com-
fortable with their situation. A rickety bridge
spanning a crevasse does not appear safe, but a door
on which the PCs have already disabled a trap with
a low Search DC does. Put them on guard when
their guard is down, and knock them off guard
when their guard is up.
For more on the making of traps, see Chapter 4 of
the D UNGEON M ASTER ’s Guide and the supplement, Song
and Silence: A Guidebook to Bards and Rogues .
players may not be willing to risk the spell’s chance of
failure in a life-or-death situation. (A bat familiar’s
blindsight ability has a similar effect, but a player
who sends his leather-winged pal into every room
may soon be looking for a new familiar.)
Detect Magic: Many of these challenges involve
unexpected uses of magic. Knowing
where the magic is can help charac-
ters immensely. Spellcasters should
always press for more information
about the number, location, schools,
and strengths of the auras they detect,
allowing for educated guesses about
what’s there.
Dispel Magic: Once the characters
know magic is there, their spellcasters
should consider blowing it away, at
least for a time. In some cases where
there are many magical effects, this
can require a lot of dispel checks, some
of which will certainly fail. Again,
detect magic helps here. At higher
levels, greater dispelling, globe of invulner-
ability, and antimagic field can be used to
a similar effect. Mordenkainen’s disjunc-
tion is also a good choice, but it is often
an overreaction.
Fly: In some cases (but definitely not
all), the physical barriers in these
encounters can be skirted by flying.
The impressive speed and versatility of
flight allows characters to meet chal-
lenges in three dimensions rather
than two, something their opponents
may not be able to address. If charac-
ters don’t have access to this spell, levi-
tate, jump, spider climb, and feather fall
are highly recommended.
Freedom of Movement: Many chal-
lenges in here impede the characters’
ability to move freely. Being able to
fight normally underwater, in webs, or
in other difficult surroundings counters
the natural advantages of the creatures
and traps in these encounters.
Gaseous Form: Most challenges in
this book are physical. When the char-
acters simply wish to bypass them, becoming less
physical certainly helps. This spell and the more
powerful wind walk are even more effective in these
cases than polymorph self and polymorph other. After
all, changing into a bird won’t give a PC damage
reduction 20/+1 and the ability to seep through
cracks in walls.
Invisibility: The challenges involving creatures are
less effective if the creatures can’t find the characters.
Invisibility and its more powerful associated spells
TEN INDISPENSABLE
SPELLS
This book requires significant adaptability on the
players’ part. A key component of that is their spell
selection. Walking into these atypical environs
armed with nothing but fireballs and lightning bolts
may make for frequent trips to the local purveyor of
raise dead spells.
Whether prepared or set into magic items, the
spells that follow are must-haves for dealing with the
brain-bending challenges in this book. You shouldn’t
be disappointed when players use these spells to
thwart the challenges herein. Instead, you should
take magnanimous pride that your players are sharp
enough to use resources so efficiently.
Clairaudience/Clairvoyance: Forewarned is fore-
armed, and this is one of the best ways in the game to
be forewarned. At higher levels, players should con-
sider foresight , scrying , and true seeing to get results that
are even more reliable. Augury can be helpful, but
5
Encounter Levels
of Concurrent Traps
Multiple traps of the same
type do not necessarily have
the same additive effect on
Encounter Levels that multi-
ple monsters of the same
type do. If you have a trap of
a certain CR, adding another
such trap nearby raises the
EL by 1. Adding any greater
number of such traps may
raise the EL by an additional
1, but might not even do that.
This is because a single solu-
tion that can beat one trap
can usually beat any number
of similar traps.
For example, imagine a
long line of pit traps. If the
PCs use fly spells to get over
the first one, they can use the
same spells to get over the
rest of them. Thus, the addi-
tional traps don’t really rep-
resent an additional chal-
lenge, nor do they represent
an additional drain on the
PCs’ resources.
In this book, when multiple
traps appear side by side,
they are given a CR rating for
each individual trap, then one
for the entire group. This gives
you the maximum XP the
party gets for dealing with
that group of traps.
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