I have spent the last few weeks trying to think of ideas for making my first dungeon. Up to this point I have only had to make single buildings with one encounter and some random puzzle and some loot. Besides that I have run some pre-built things. I have always struggled with this type of thing but I never had to make anything this complex before. I am running Eberron for my world. Premise for the dungeon is the party needs to go find out what has been causing changes in the state of the mournland. It has been traced to the ruins of house Cannith. I want this to be a big focus on Constructs and failed experiments tainted by the mourning. I have decided that the mourning was caused by the Canniths experiments going wrong for reasons. Depending on how things go I wanted the Lord of Blades as my final boss or possibly one of the Warforged Collosi. The expectations I had for this dungeon was very much secret underground facility like Nest from RE2 run by the constructs left behind in the facility after the event. But being a few years in to running the place the constructs have set traps as needed. I have a party of 6 with a mix of new and experienced players. Being Eberron they have a lot of magic items and are generally pretty strong so I want this to be a challenge without frustrating the newer players too much. I was even considering ending this campaign after the events of this dungeon. I kind of figured that they would reach level 13-14 by the end of the dungeon depending on how big this is. I am prepared to extend my 2 week hiatus to make this more if needed but would prefer to get back to it so my players don't forget too many details. If someone has made something like this before and has some ideas I would love to hear them. Or even just general advice I would take at this point I wont lie feeling kind of discouraged after this long and all I have is how the party gets to the secret facility.
I don't do much in eberron, but here is my advice.
1: Use traps and puzzles. There should be some in the DM's guide, Xanathar's, and Tasha's. There are also spells like symbol and glyph of warding that can add danger and creativity.
2: Use environment & lore. In addition to the chart in the DM's guide, think about using magic zones from Tasha's. Know why it was built, and add deeper meanings or forshadowing with the art.
3: Use creative monsters in creative ways. Think about tactical advantages. Why are these monsters in the dungeon?
Making a dungeon is an opportunity to be creative. Dungeon crawls can feel boring, but there are infinite possibilities for you to use!
Hm. Level 11 has a large amount of difficult to DM for abilities, so it depends a bit on what mix of classes you have.
If you want to surprise anyone, you'll have to block out the easy options for safe reconnaissance. A Private Sanctum will block out Arcane Eye, Clairvoyance, Scrying, etc. Using Forbiddance or Hallow will block out using familiars or other summons for the most part, though they can still use Create Homunculus if they think of it. Don't put these at the outer layer, though. First, it's always good to let the PCs have some fun with their toys. Secondly, if you put it at the edge they'll just Dispel Magic them. Instead, have an outer layer that you assume they'll have decent information about if they think about it, and then an inner area that's a mystery.
PCs can fairly easily spam Detect Magic; Arcanist's Magic Aura will deal with that. Or put your traps immediately behind doors, or use Arcane Lock liberally and figure they won't know which abjuration spell is actually present. Or just put them next to monsters.
Defenses that can be peeled back slowly, taking a long rest as needed, are boring. Once they try to engage the defenses, put them on a time limit of some sort. Some possibilities include defenses that reset or adapt after a time period, or a triggered countdown, or active patrols that make taking a long rest impractical (if you want more than one long rest worth of dungeon, make it so these things can be shut down if the PCs get far enough).
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I have spent the last few weeks trying to think of ideas for making my first dungeon. Up to this point I have only had to make single buildings with one encounter and some random puzzle and some loot. Besides that I have run some pre-built things. I have always struggled with this type of thing but I never had to make anything this complex before. I am running Eberron for my world. Premise for the dungeon is the party needs to go find out what has been causing changes in the state of the mournland. It has been traced to the ruins of house Cannith. I want this to be a big focus on Constructs and failed experiments tainted by the mourning. I have decided that the mourning was caused by the Canniths experiments going wrong for reasons. Depending on how things go I wanted the Lord of Blades as my final boss or possibly one of the Warforged Collosi. The expectations I had for this dungeon was very much secret underground facility like Nest from RE2 run by the constructs left behind in the facility after the event. But being a few years in to running the place the constructs have set traps as needed. I have a party of 6 with a mix of new and experienced players. Being Eberron they have a lot of magic items and are generally pretty strong so I want this to be a challenge without frustrating the newer players too much. I was even considering ending this campaign after the events of this dungeon. I kind of figured that they would reach level 13-14 by the end of the dungeon depending on how big this is. I am prepared to extend my 2 week hiatus to make this more if needed but would prefer to get back to it so my players don't forget too many details. If someone has made something like this before and has some ideas I would love to hear them. Or even just general advice I would take at this point I wont lie feeling kind of discouraged after this long and all I have is how the party gets to the secret facility.
I don't do much in eberron, but here is my advice.
1: Use traps and puzzles. There should be some in the DM's guide, Xanathar's, and Tasha's. There are also spells like symbol and glyph of warding that can add danger and creativity.
2: Use environment & lore. In addition to the chart in the DM's guide, think about using magic zones from Tasha's. Know why it was built, and add deeper meanings or forshadowing with the art.
3: Use creative monsters in creative ways. Think about tactical advantages. Why are these monsters in the dungeon?
Making a dungeon is an opportunity to be creative. Dungeon crawls can feel boring, but there are infinite possibilities for you to use!
My only good homebrews: Races, Subclasses.
An aspiring DM and Homebrewer. Ask me if you need anything.
Hm. Level 11 has a large amount of difficult to DM for abilities, so it depends a bit on what mix of classes you have.
If you want to surprise anyone, you'll have to block out the easy options for safe reconnaissance. A Private Sanctum will block out Arcane Eye, Clairvoyance, Scrying, etc. Using Forbiddance or Hallow will block out using familiars or other summons for the most part, though they can still use Create Homunculus if they think of it. Don't put these at the outer layer, though. First, it's always good to let the PCs have some fun with their toys. Secondly, if you put it at the edge they'll just Dispel Magic them. Instead, have an outer layer that you assume they'll have decent information about if they think about it, and then an inner area that's a mystery.
PCs can fairly easily spam Detect Magic; Arcanist's Magic Aura will deal with that. Or put your traps immediately behind doors, or use Arcane Lock liberally and figure they won't know which abjuration spell is actually present. Or just put them next to monsters.
Defenses that can be peeled back slowly, taking a long rest as needed, are boring. Once they try to engage the defenses, put them on a time limit of some sort. Some possibilities include defenses that reset or adapt after a time period, or a triggered countdown, or active patrols that make taking a long rest impractical (if you want more than one long rest worth of dungeon, make it so these things can be shut down if the PCs get far enough).