*** If you're in my campaign, don't read this post because of spoilers ***
Now that I've got that disclaimer out of the way...
I have a dungeon I built that I am using as the finale of my story arc. It involves a cult of Baphomet and an ancient relic that the party found out the cult was trying to recover. So, the party is here to kick ass and maybe capture the relic and certainly to thwart the plans of this cult which we’ve established as the antagonists of the story arc.
If you take a glance at the dungeon, you’ll see the final boss fight takes place in the room at the bottom of the map. Just in case the players find the room too quickly, the walls should keep them out and there’s a big door with a pentagonal inset where something needs to be inserted for it to be opened. No lock picking on this door since there is no lock (in the traditional sense), no hinges, and no handle.
To find the item to set into the door, the party is going to have to go all the way to the far side of the dungeon (follow the map clockwise until it ends) and get the key there. This is where I’m asking for some help. I have a basic idea of what I think I want to do, but I’d love to hear some what other folks might tweak or add to the situation. Here’s what I have so far for that last room:
On the far side of the underground stream, the evidence of an old mining operation is more obvious. An overturned cart has spilled its cargo of rocks and ore all over the ground. Piles of rubble lie about amid larger rocks. Discarded mining equipment lies around on the ground. In the middle of the chamber, a narrow pit drops off abruptly into darkness below. The pit is 150’ deep and opens into a small featureless chamber filled with deep water at the bottom. <<A dropped stone takes about 3 seconds to hit the water>>
If the party tries to cross the stream to the chamber, they bump into a shimmering magic barrier that they can see through but cannot pass through by normal means. The pentagonal “key” to unlock the door to the big bad lies in the flooded chamber at the bottom of the pit. I’d like to leave it up to the party to figure out how to get through the barrier and down into the pit to get the key.
But that just seems a little boring. I feel like it needs some polish to make it compelling. I was thinking of adding a minotaur cleric of Baphomet hanging out there for ages like the Templar Knight in the chamber of the Holy Grail from Indiana Jones. He might work against the party to prevent them from breaking the barrier and then when they do, they could have to fight him. The combat isn’t the point of the encounter, but it could be there for flavor and because the party likes fighting.
What do you think? How could I put a little polish into this encounter to make the struggle to find the key more interesting and meaningful? Also, I feel like I may need to make it more obvious that the party needs to get in there and get down that hole to get the key. Perhaps have a small shrine to Baphomet right by the pit to indicate its importance? A sacrificial pit maybe?
The party consists of five players and they will just have hit level five when this gaming session starts. Cleric, Bard, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Blood Hunter. The Blood Hunter is a minotaur, so there could be a Baphomet connection there as well since he’s associated with minotaurs.
If combat is not the purpose of this then make the combat meaningless if it's present.
There may be a Minotaur Cleric, however make it decrepit and feeble. Give it half it's movement speed, make it look frail physically, however the magic will be just as potent. That should make it a fairly easy fight. During the fight make sure this cleric's everlasting devotion is a prominent thing, making comments over and over about protection and servitude.
The rest of this is about the group's ingenuity, so think of obstacles that could be present for the players to overcome. 150' drop, how are they getting down? Do they have Feather Fall or Slow fall? Will jumping be suicide? Is there enough rope to make the decent? If the party doesn't have those things, how can you provide them help without it being obvious? If you do provide them help, what kind of obstacles lay in wait? Are there traps that they may have to clear? Is there something special about the water that once they enter it they have a new problem? I work a lot of my "puzzles" as a sequence of problem solving and I try to take away the obvious solutions away so they are forced to think outside the box.
They will see the enemy in the room and assume their goal is to defeat it. I like the idea of making it obvious that their challenge was not to defeat the enemy, but that he was just there to add flavor to the puzzle.
Leaving aside any combat, there's the issue of overcoming the force field that keeps them from walking into the room. Then they have to investigate the pit, determine the depth (I'll nudge them into dropping a stone to hear the splash), getting down there, investigating what's at the bottom, locating and retrieving the key, and then getting back out. If I feel like the party isn't getting the hint and if it's not too late, I could make the priest lament dropping the key into the pit.
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"Not all those who wander are lost"
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*** If you're in my campaign, don't read this post because of spoilers ***
Now that I've got that disclaimer out of the way...
I have a dungeon I built that I am using as the finale of my story arc. It involves a cult of Baphomet and an ancient relic that the party found out the cult was trying to recover. So, the party is here to kick ass and maybe capture the relic and certainly to thwart the plans of this cult which we’ve established as the antagonists of the story arc.
If you take a glance at the dungeon, you’ll see the final boss fight takes place in the room at the bottom of the map. Just in case the players find the room too quickly, the walls should keep them out and there’s a big door with a pentagonal inset where something needs to be inserted for it to be opened. No lock picking on this door since there is no lock (in the traditional sense), no hinges, and no handle.
To find the item to set into the door, the party is going to have to go all the way to the far side of the dungeon (follow the map clockwise until it ends) and get the key there. This is where I’m asking for some help. I have a basic idea of what I think I want to do, but I’d love to hear some what other folks might tweak or add to the situation. Here’s what I have so far for that last room:
On the far side of the underground stream, the evidence of an old mining operation is more obvious. An overturned cart has spilled its cargo of rocks and ore all over the ground. Piles of rubble lie about amid larger rocks. Discarded mining equipment lies around on the ground. In the middle of the chamber, a narrow pit drops off abruptly into darkness below. The pit is 150’ deep and opens into a small featureless chamber filled with deep water at the bottom. <<A dropped stone takes about 3 seconds to hit the water>>
If the party tries to cross the stream to the chamber, they bump into a shimmering magic barrier that they can see through but cannot pass through by normal means. The pentagonal “key” to unlock the door to the big bad lies in the flooded chamber at the bottom of the pit. I’d like to leave it up to the party to figure out how to get through the barrier and down into the pit to get the key.
But that just seems a little boring. I feel like it needs some polish to make it compelling. I was thinking of adding a minotaur cleric of Baphomet hanging out there for ages like the Templar Knight in the chamber of the Holy Grail from Indiana Jones. He might work against the party to prevent them from breaking the barrier and then when they do, they could have to fight him. The combat isn’t the point of the encounter, but it could be there for flavor and because the party likes fighting.
What do you think? How could I put a little polish into this encounter to make the struggle to find the key more interesting and meaningful? Also, I feel like I may need to make it more obvious that the party needs to get in there and get down that hole to get the key. Perhaps have a small shrine to Baphomet right by the pit to indicate its importance? A sacrificial pit maybe?
The party consists of five players and they will just have hit level five when this gaming session starts. Cleric, Bard, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Blood Hunter. The Blood Hunter is a minotaur, so there could be a Baphomet connection there as well since he’s associated with minotaurs.
Here's the dungeon map.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
If combat is not the purpose of this then make the combat meaningless if it's present.
There may be a Minotaur Cleric, however make it decrepit and feeble. Give it half it's movement speed, make it look frail physically, however the magic will be just as potent. That should make it a fairly easy fight. During the fight make sure this cleric's everlasting devotion is a prominent thing, making comments over and over about protection and servitude.
The rest of this is about the group's ingenuity, so think of obstacles that could be present for the players to overcome. 150' drop, how are they getting down? Do they have Feather Fall or Slow fall? Will jumping be suicide? Is there enough rope to make the decent? If the party doesn't have those things, how can you provide them help without it being obvious? If you do provide them help, what kind of obstacles lay in wait? Are there traps that they may have to clear? Is there something special about the water that once they enter it they have a new problem? I work a lot of my "puzzles" as a sequence of problem solving and I try to take away the obvious solutions away so they are forced to think outside the box.
They will see the enemy in the room and assume their goal is to defeat it. I like the idea of making it obvious that their challenge was not to defeat the enemy, but that he was just there to add flavor to the puzzle.
Leaving aside any combat, there's the issue of overcoming the force field that keeps them from walking into the room. Then they have to investigate the pit, determine the depth (I'll nudge them into dropping a stone to hear the splash), getting down there, investigating what's at the bottom, locating and retrieving the key, and then getting back out. If I feel like the party isn't getting the hint and if it's not too late, I could make the priest lament dropping the key into the pit.
"Not all those who wander are lost"