I imagine that a local ranger NPC has discovered the opening and recruits the party to help investigate. Possibly this reveals the whereabouts of some monster which has been terrorizing a nearby settlement?
Looking for suggestions on how to populate this with encounters. What sort of creatures, traps, and puzzles would you find here? Hoping to stay away from tropes about orcs/goblins/etc as the baddies.
So you want to avoid orcs, goblins, kobolds, etc? May I ask why? These are fantastic horde creatures for a low level game, especially when it comes to monsters terrorizing a town. There are a variety of different creatures and stats for orcs and goblins (plus some other “basic”) monsters, and they are some of the most readily customizable stat blocks in the game. They are also familiar foes, which does two things for you. One, it gives you the ability to give new players something familiar and recognizable as “Oh! That’s definitely a monster!” and two, it gives old players a surprise when your orcs whip out some new ability you gave them and your goblins sneak up with the nets you gave them and imprison them, creating an unexpected combat encounter with very common and often under-appreciated foes. Orcs and goblins are incredible for short games for these reasons and I highly recommend you use them.
For traps, I recommend looking in the DMG at the trap section. You will find some lower level traps there, and I would use some that low-intellect monsters could set up, like pits, simple poison darts, or even VERY low level monsters as traps (Explained here!) My personal favorites are spear throwing traps and poison needle locks, which are quite self-explanatory. Take the DMG traps and extrapolate things like these from similar traps. Making traps isn’t too hard.
I would recommend one puzzle at max, and maybe none. If you do include one I would say you should try a simple one that most people could solve (most monsters aren’t too bright, and all the smart ones probably aren’t terrorizing a town and hiding out in a dungeon). This puzzle would be something like a small monster in a cage asking questions and punishing wrong answers or perhaps a large object that can only be moved by activating levers or buttons in the right order.
Also, think about roleplaying encounters that could happen. Once again, probably only one of these. But you could have a monster that is sympathetic to the town or the PCs give them some advice and later play on their heartstrings by having the monster killed or have it betray them.
Also limit traps to maybe one or two. Encounters (combat) should be limited to 2 or three and there should be a noncombat way to avoid them if possible.
Thanks for all your thoughts! In general I'm on board with the "no evil races" thing. I won't go on about why I think that's important; but just to say my PCs are orcs, goblins, and kobolds, so if that's who's in this dungeon, then it's just bandits that they're fighting, who happen to be of those races.
In terms of the monster vibe here, I'm looking more for "solitary predatory"... either otherworldly or animalistic or both. Think the Stranger Things demogorgon (first season).
I agree that there are no evil races. In the case of a solitary creature I recommend a sort of modified myconid that has gone rogue. Then you can have lesser myconids and spore servants for simple monsters (they could even be some missing townspeople).
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I'm working on creating a low-level (introductory) one-shot from a map by the always-amazing Dyson Logos, the "Hunter's Descent" five-room dungeon:
https://dysonlogos.blog/2022/10/03/5rd-hunters-descent/
I imagine that a local ranger NPC has discovered the opening and recruits the party to help investigate. Possibly this reveals the whereabouts of some monster which has been terrorizing a nearby settlement?
Looking for suggestions on how to populate this with encounters. What sort of creatures, traps, and puzzles would you find here? Hoping to stay away from tropes about orcs/goblins/etc as the baddies.
Thanks for your thoughts!
So you want to avoid orcs, goblins, kobolds, etc? May I ask why? These are fantastic horde creatures for a low level game, especially when it comes to monsters terrorizing a town. There are a variety of different creatures and stats for orcs and goblins (plus some other “basic”) monsters, and they are some of the most readily customizable stat blocks in the game. They are also familiar foes, which does two things for you. One, it gives you the ability to give new players something familiar and recognizable as “Oh! That’s definitely a monster!” and two, it gives old players a surprise when your orcs whip out some new ability you gave them and your goblins sneak up with the nets you gave them and imprison them, creating an unexpected combat encounter with very common and often under-appreciated foes. Orcs and goblins are incredible for short games for these reasons and I highly recommend you use them.
For traps, I recommend looking in the DMG at the trap section. You will find some lower level traps there, and I would use some that low-intellect monsters could set up, like pits, simple poison darts, or even VERY low level monsters as traps (Explained here!) My personal favorites are spear throwing traps and poison needle locks, which are quite self-explanatory. Take the DMG traps and extrapolate things like these from similar traps. Making traps isn’t too hard.
I would recommend one puzzle at max, and maybe none. If you do include one I would say you should try a simple one that most people could solve (most monsters aren’t too bright, and all the smart ones probably aren’t terrorizing a town and hiding out in a dungeon). This puzzle would be something like a small monster in a cage asking questions and punishing wrong answers or perhaps a large object that can only be moved by activating levers or buttons in the right order.
Also, think about roleplaying encounters that could happen. Once again, probably only one of these. But you could have a monster that is sympathetic to the town or the PCs give them some advice and later play on their heartstrings by having the monster killed or have it betray them.
Also limit traps to maybe one or two. Encounters (combat) should be limited to 2 or three and there should be a noncombat way to avoid them if possible.
Thanks for all your thoughts! In general I'm on board with the "no evil races" thing. I won't go on about why I think that's important; but just to say my PCs are orcs, goblins, and kobolds, so if that's who's in this dungeon, then it's just bandits that they're fighting, who happen to be of those races.
In terms of the monster vibe here, I'm looking more for "solitary predatory"... either otherworldly or animalistic or both. Think the Stranger Things demogorgon (first season).
I agree that there are no evil races. In the case of a solitary creature I recommend a sort of modified myconid that has gone rogue. Then you can have lesser myconids and spore servants for simple monsters (they could even be some missing townspeople).