so i used donjon (link below) to help generate the rooms for this scout tower dungeon where there was secretly a magic item called the chime of opening, which can open any locked door but i think the dungeon might be too small for such an item. if some other DM's would look at it and help me balance it more i would really appreciate it
That level is the party that’s going to be traversing the dungeon?
Something that might help with balancing encounters would be looking at the adventure day mechanics, and break the encounters down to match that. Some DMs like to have the map and encounters separated that way the encounters can be dropped into the dungeon as needed or where it makes sense. The players went left instead of right, no problem take the preprepared encounter and move it to the left and so on.
So, looking at what you've got the only real encounter you have here is the skeletons. The rats will be hit more than 50% of the time even with a 0 modifier to hit, and so to be honest they probably don't even warrant an initiative roll. They're a one hit kill from the player characters.
For a magic item as Rare and valuable as the chime of opening this is too low level a dungeon and challenge in my opinion. That chime is massively powerful, and frankly is not really appropriate for a level 2 party. Though different DMs will give different advice on granting magic items...perhaps they need it for a quest, that's cool but it really ought to be a challenge. This location...is not.
Forgive what might sound patronising...I genuinely don't mean it to...but from the description and the location itself it doesn't feel like you have much experience. So, i'd like to suggest that your process might be a little too much like running before you can walk. Tools like DonJon are great if you have a process for creating adventures and have understood the Dungeon Masters Guides. Not so much if you're on the less experienced side of things. When constructing a location, the Dungeon Master's Guide is poorly written in fairness but does contain information that would be helpful. When I was brand new I started with this process:
Who built the dungeon? Roll on the table on page 100 to find out.
What happened to the people who built it? Roll on the table Dungeon History on page 101 to find out.
It is at this point you should be using a tool like Donjon or your own creativity. Make up the layout of the location.
Now, we need to stock it with enemies...so to yet another section of the DMG...see what I mean about it being poorly written? - Pages 81-88 of the DMG cover creating encounters...you'd be looking to drop in between four and six medium difficulty encounters in my opinion. So set aside four to six of the rooms in your dungeon for encounters and follow the guidelines in this section: Creating Adventures - Dungeon Master’s Guide - Sources - D&D Beyond (dndbeyond.com)
Throwing out the donjon link and the basic comment you have doesn't really feel like there's much process of this type involved. As I say the DMG is dreadfully written and poorly thought out. At the very least though I highly suggest you develop a process that works for you based upon the info in the DMG. Asking if something like this is balanced kinda reveals that you haven't really read or been taught the basics of encounter balance. Which again, is where the DMG is poorly written. Your skeleton encounter (5 skeletons against say 4 level 2 players) is according to the book a Medium difficulty encounter. The rats...even if they were a group of 3 rats each are easy encounters by the book as written. Fact is though, the skeletons will be hit a minimum of 40% of the time...likely more by the time we add in spells and modifiers. On average you're looking at three hits per skeleton before they are dead. Realistically, they'll be down between two and four rounds in depending on the size of the party. This is basically a run of the mill encounter. It's not special, it's not a great achievement. It pretty workaday.
Given that you're giving player characters the chance to get the equivelent of a key that would open any lock...thus allow looting of a major treasure room, bank vault, nuclear silo...that's a powerful object to be giving away for an unremarkable day's work.
Which is why I'd say, go back to the DMG, take the time to read the sections I highlighted. It's not an easy read I know, but if you can wrap your head around it, get advice from experienced DMs...it can give you a structure to work off of in future.
A standard dungeon should consume the daily budget for the party. For a party of 4 at level 2 that's 2400 xp. You have 500 adjusted xp in skeletons and 130 in rats, which is nowhere close (in fact, I wouldn't even bother counting the rats). The encounter builder may be useful.
The other problem is that six rat encounters is... boring. Keeping a bit in theme, I'd suggest something like
Room 10: 1xshrieker (10 adj xp) (running total: 1560). Harmless, but will draw attention from any encounters the PCs avoided.
Room 12: I'd leave this one empty, the right side of the map needs threats.
Room 13: We haven't had any traps, so time for trap fun. Put in some yellow mold, including a patch next to the entrance, and having primed them, a brown mold near the exit (unless someone makes a nature check, just describe them as 'mold'). Not a combat encounter, but medium difficulty.
Room 14: if the PCs decide to go around the brown mold, they can, but there are 4x violet fungus in here (400 adjusted; running total 1960)
Room 15: spilled potions have combined into 2x gray ooze (300 adjusted, running total 2260).
Edit: if you have 2 PCs, you'll need to weaken things by a lot.
ty all i will take this into account and revise the dungeon the chime of opening is homebrew and i am still working out the kinks but ty for your advice
ok ty for the advice but it is only a duo that enter the dungeon and the chime only works if the lock doesn"t involve magic
Pantagruel has some great advice there, but, yeah even for a duo...it's still sort of baby's first dungeon.
As to the Chime of Opening even non-magical, that's a lot of locks that can be opened. If you're going to homebrew it, I would highly recommend a single-use scroll of Knock instead. If you're going to reduce down the charges of the chime, you may as well just give that many scrolls instead. It's both more powerful in it's single use, but also more balanced. And if you're at this stage with developing a dungeon or location, getting into homebrew is a recipe for headaches...it'd be really easy to unbalance things without realising. Granted scrolls aren't as cool as a special magic item, but in all seriousness they are valuable as loot quite often.
I love donjon! I use it on the regular to get ideas started. My end result is completely unrecognizable from what donjon starts things with but that's the point.
In terms of balance, having used donjon for the better part of a decade, it's about as reliable as anything - and that means flawed and worthy of a breakdown like what Pantagruel666 did!
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so i used donjon (link below) to help generate the rooms for this scout tower dungeon where there was secretly a magic item called the chime of opening, which can open any locked door but i think the dungeon might be too small for such an item. if some other DM's would look at it and help me balance it more i would really appreciate it
donjon: https://donjon.bin.sh/
dungeon: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nh13b3FlunBgMvC1Yrx2qfUIfF1EVSV-q4-DCDu00Y4/edit
That level is the party that’s going to be traversing the dungeon?
Something that might help with balancing encounters would be looking at the adventure day mechanics, and break the encounters down to match that. Some DMs like to have the map and encounters separated that way the encounters can be dropped into the dungeon as needed or where it makes sense. The players went left instead of right, no problem take the preprepared encounter and move it to the left and so on.
ty for the advice this is a mission they will take on around lvl 2
So, looking at what you've got the only real encounter you have here is the skeletons. The rats will be hit more than 50% of the time even with a 0 modifier to hit, and so to be honest they probably don't even warrant an initiative roll. They're a one hit kill from the player characters.
For a magic item as Rare and valuable as the chime of opening this is too low level a dungeon and challenge in my opinion. That chime is massively powerful, and frankly is not really appropriate for a level 2 party. Though different DMs will give different advice on granting magic items...perhaps they need it for a quest, that's cool but it really ought to be a challenge. This location...is not.
Forgive what might sound patronising...I genuinely don't mean it to...but from the description and the location itself it doesn't feel like you have much experience. So, i'd like to suggest that your process might be a little too much like running before you can walk. Tools like DonJon are great if you have a process for creating adventures and have understood the Dungeon Masters Guides. Not so much if you're on the less experienced side of things. When constructing a location, the Dungeon Master's Guide is poorly written in fairness but does contain information that would be helpful. When I was brand new I started with this process:
Throwing out the donjon link and the basic comment you have doesn't really feel like there's much process of this type involved. As I say the DMG is dreadfully written and poorly thought out. At the very least though I highly suggest you develop a process that works for you based upon the info in the DMG. Asking if something like this is balanced kinda reveals that you haven't really read or been taught the basics of encounter balance. Which again, is where the DMG is poorly written. Your skeleton encounter (5 skeletons against say 4 level 2 players) is according to the book a Medium difficulty encounter. The rats...even if they were a group of 3 rats each are easy encounters by the book as written. Fact is though, the skeletons will be hit a minimum of 40% of the time...likely more by the time we add in spells and modifiers. On average you're looking at three hits per skeleton before they are dead. Realistically, they'll be down between two and four rounds in depending on the size of the party. This is basically a run of the mill encounter. It's not special, it's not a great achievement. It pretty workaday.
Given that you're giving player characters the chance to get the equivelent of a key that would open any lock...thus allow looting of a major treasure room, bank vault, nuclear silo...that's a powerful object to be giving away for an unremarkable day's work.
Which is why I'd say, go back to the DMG, take the time to read the sections I highlighted. It's not an easy read I know, but if you can wrap your head around it, get advice from experienced DMs...it can give you a structure to work off of in future.
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
ok ty for the advice but it is only a duo that enter the dungeon and the chime only works if the lock doesn"t involve magic
A standard dungeon should consume the daily budget for the party. For a party of 4 at level 2 that's 2400 xp. You have 500 adjusted xp in skeletons and 130 in rats, which is nowhere close (in fact, I wouldn't even bother counting the rats). The encounter builder may be useful.
The other problem is that six rat encounters is... boring. Keeping a bit in theme, I'd suggest something like
Edit: if you have 2 PCs, you'll need to weaken things by a lot.
ty all i will take this into account and revise the dungeon the chime of opening is homebrew and i am still working out the kinks but ty for your advice
Pantagruel has some great advice there, but, yeah even for a duo...it's still sort of baby's first dungeon.
As to the Chime of Opening even non-magical, that's a lot of locks that can be opened. If you're going to homebrew it, I would highly recommend a single-use scroll of Knock instead. If you're going to reduce down the charges of the chime, you may as well just give that many scrolls instead. It's both more powerful in it's single use, but also more balanced. And if you're at this stage with developing a dungeon or location, getting into homebrew is a recipe for headaches...it'd be really easy to unbalance things without realising. Granted scrolls aren't as cool as a special magic item, but in all seriousness they are valuable as loot quite often.
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
I love donjon! I use it on the regular to get ideas started. My end result is completely unrecognizable from what donjon starts things with but that's the point.
In terms of balance, having used donjon for the better part of a decade, it's about as reliable as anything - and that means flawed and worthy of a breakdown like what Pantagruel666 did!