I am playing with the idea of putting together an encounter/dungeon based off of the idea of shrinking the adventuring party. The concept starts as follows:
The party goes to investigate the tower of a mysterious wizard on the outskirts of town. Once they get inside, a mysterious crystal begins to glow and the party falls unconscious. As they come to, they find they have been reduced to a Tiny size. Now they must explore the wizard's home for clues on how to undo the shrinking.
Possible encounters would include things like small beasts or insects which have had their stat blocks' HP, AC, and damage boosted to reflect their larger relative size compared to the party (I figure this would be easier than trying to impose a shrinkage "debuff" on the party members). Other creatures that would be more difficult could be things like animated objects, the wizard's familiar, etc.
I am looking to brainstorm whimsical ways one could transform fairly mundane items (such as furniture, food, etc) into interesting dungeon-esque areas/encounters for the party now that they are smaller. I imagine most areas would turn into puzzle solving sessions like: "ok, now that we are small, how can we get up these stairs?"
I am of course not looking for anyone to come up with full rules or encounters for me in this thread, but if you have any fun ideas on what a party of shrunken adventurers would be up against, I'd love to hear them
I am playing with the idea of putting together an encounter/dungeon based off of the idea of shrinking the adventuring party. The concept starts as follows:
The party goes to investigate the tower of a mysterious wizard on the outskirts of town. Once they get inside, a mysterious crystal begins to glow and the party falls unconscious. As they come to, they find they have been reduced to a Tiny size. Now they must explore the wizard's home for clues on how to undo the shrinking.
Possible encounters would include things like small beasts or insects which have had their stat blocks' HP, AC, and damage boosted to reflect their larger relative size compared to the party (I figure this would be easier than trying to impose a shrinkage "debuff" on the party members). Other creatures that would be more difficult could be things like animated objects, the wizard's familiar, etc.
I am looking to brainstorm whimsical ways one could transform fairly mundane items (such as furniture, food, etc) into interesting dungeon-esque areas/encounters for the party now that they are smaller. I imagine most areas would turn into puzzle solving sessions like: "ok, now that we are small, how can we get up these stairs?"
I am of course not looking for anyone to explicitly come up with full rules or encounters for me in this thread, but if you have any fun ideas on what a party of shrunken adventurers would be up against, I'd love to hear them
one quick question would it be like enlarge/reduce or something else and would equipment shrink if not then it becomes that much more challenging
I was planning on having their equipment shrink with them. In other words, the party and its abilities/equipment stay effectively the same, but everything else is much bigger now.
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For some reason the first thing that popped in my head is a a swiss cheese wheel where they have to navigate the tunnels (holes) almost like a dungeon. Idk why THAT was my first thought, but I thought I'd share lol
ah so unique effect but will it where off after a time if no cool idea but there will have to change statistics a bit
The goal of the "dungeon" is that the party has to find a way to undo the shrinking. There will be another crystal inside the house which has to be found and "activated" to undo it. The entrance to the tower would have an arcane lock on it and be a heavy door to begin with, so that after shrinking the party realistically cannot leave the tower without completing it (kind of a railroading approach, I know).
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Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews!Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
For some reason the first thing that popped in my head is a a swiss cheese wheel where they have to navigate the tunnels (holes) almost like a dungeon. Idk why THAT was my first thought, but I thought I'd share lol
Or a room with a large shag-pile carpet - a forest of cloth ;-)
ah so unique effect but will it where off after a time if no cool idea but there will have to change statistics a bit
The goal of the "dungeon" is that the party has to find a way to undo the shrinking. There will be another crystal inside the house which has to be found and "activated" to undo it. The entrance to the tower would have an arcane lock on it and be a heavy door to begin with, so that after shrinking the party realistically cannot leave the tower without completing it (kind of a railroading approach, I know).
or maybe it has a poor lock on it that would be near impossible to pick when tiny but sounds good
I thought I'd resurrect this thread as I was about to make one of my own to this ilk anyway!
My first question was whether anyone's seen any published material for this sort of thing?
Next question is what's a good size for a party to be shrunk to such that everyday thing become scalable? I'm thinking an inch tall for medium characters. That way:
Ants and such become tiny creatures Beetles become Small Cockroaches & large spiders become medium Mice become large Rats become Huge cats, small dogs etc. become gargantuan
Anything larger is basically insurmountable in this form.
I love the idea of a shagpile carpet becoming something of a forest, or maybe even a swamp-like affair if it were saturated in water EG from a leaking roof.
- have books on a table, requiring the adventurers to improvise some kind of climbing rig to get up there (not a lot of handholds/footholds on a table leg!), or possibly climbing up a nearby bookshelf and making a large jump with an improvised hang-glider (paper plane.) The books then need to be read, requiring an Intelligence check to figure out a way to "down-scale" the writing so it's read-able, or possibly getting a high vantage on the table to read it from "far off." Said books would either be spellbooks, diaries, or some other similar clue that helps the party understand how the spell works and points them towards the existence of an unshrinking crystal
- needing a open a pickle jar. Normally this can be a great gag challenge; but when the adventurers are tiny it takes on a whole new dimension! Inside the jar might be magical reagents for some useful spell (Feather Fall?), or possibly food used to bribe/lure some large animal like a guard dog.
- using an Everfull Urn or similar to overflow a sink with water, allowing the adventurers to "ride the rapids" in a mug/bowl/really big spoon to get from a kitchen benchtop down to the floor
- have a locked door, tell them what kind of lock and latch it has and try to subtly put the focus on what they might do to open it. Sit back and wait for the party to figure out that they can probably just walk/crawl under the gap underneath. If they get too hung up on trying to open the door and don't have any good ideas, give them a perception check to see the change of light through the gap underneath (e.g. morning settling into early afternoon, or afternoon to evening) as a big hint.
- have a crow/raven/similarly intelligent bird sitting on a windowsill outside. If the party can 1) open the window; 2) organise a way to communicate (I'd assume they can get Speak with Animals going; if they don't have that within the party then maybe there's a spell scroll/spell book and required ingredients to cast as a ritual for it), and 3) convince the bird to carry them (may involve bargaining, intimidation, deception... whatever the party wants to go with) then they have a great way to get up to higher areas. However, this may attract attention from the familiar/guard animals/magic security.
- have books on a table, requiring the adventurers to improvise some kind of climbing rig to get up there (not a lot of handholds/footholds on a table leg!), or possibly climbing up a nearby bookshelf and making a large jump with an improvised hang-glider (paper plane.) The books then need to be read, requiring an Intelligence check to figure out a way to "down-scale" the writing so it's read-able, or possibly getting a high vantage on the table to read it from "far off." Said books would either be spellbooks, diaries, or some other similar clue that helps the party understand how the spell works and points them towards the existence of an unshrinking crystal
- needing a open a pickle jar. Normally this can be a great gag challenge; but when the adventurers are tiny it takes on a whole new dimension! Inside the jar might be magical reagents for some useful spell (Feather Fall?), or possibly food used to bribe/lure some large animal like a guard dog.
- using an Everfull Urn or similar to overflow a sink with water, allowing the adventurers to "ride the rapids" in a mug/bowl/really big spoon to get from a kitchen benchtop down to the floor
- have a locked door, tell them what kind of lock and latch it has and try to subtly put the focus on what they might do to open it. Sit back and wait for the party to figure out that they can probably just walk/crawl under the gap underneath. If they get too hung up on trying to open the door and don't have any good ideas, give them a perception check to see the change of light through the gap underneath (e.g. morning settling into early afternoon, or afternoon to evening) as a big hint.
- have a crow/raven/similarly intelligent bird sitting on a windowsill outside. If the party can 1) open the window; 2) organise a way to communicate (I'd assume they can get Speak with Animals going; if they don't have that within the party then maybe there's a spell scroll/spell book and required ingredients to cast as a ritual for it), and 3) convince the bird to carry them (may involve bargaining, intimidation, deception... whatever the party wants to go with) then they have a great way to get up to higher areas. However, this may attract attention from the familiar/guard animals/magic security.
A lot of birds are omnivorous, and will catch and eat any small creature that moves. Chickens, for example, will happily eat mice. I often took dead mice away from my cats and threw them to my chickens, and all the chickens would chase each other around and fight over it until one of them managed to swallow it. I’ll never forget the day that I tossed a dead vole to a hen who had just hatched a brood of chicks, and I got to watch six 24 hour-old chicks tear a rodent to pieces and eat it!
I’m 95% certain that crows and ravens are omnivores. It’s a really cool idea, but it might be better to use a seed-eating bird like a Mourning Dove. It’s a similar size, but it won’t try to eat the PCs! Although it might be a fun (for the DM!) surprise for the party to navigate!
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Yep, you're completely correct re the omnivore thing.
The reason I suggested a corvid like a crow or raven is because it could go either way -- it comes down to how the PCs interact with it.
That said, many birds and especially corvids are also risk-averse; they're used to picking fights they're confident of winning and will back away if given a modicum of challenge (of course there are exceptions!) So, with some appropriate rolling and logic, it should be easy enough to justify a situation where the PCs open up a kind of dialogue (and that's before we get into Speak with Animals or similar, which would make the whole thing much easier once they get past the don't-eat-me phase.) And there's real-world precedent for striking up a deal -- crows and ravens and so on will recognise people who feed them and bring "gifts" in return; or sound the alarm if they think that their "friend" is in danger.
My gut feeling is that a scenario like this one benefits from more "open-ended" puzzles rather than lock-and-key ones. Letting the players decide how to interact with (or avoid) the encounter gives them the choice whether or not to lean into the experience of being shrunk down.
Ooooh, I love this idea! If you have shrunken creatures, you can still match a general CR to it, and roll up some insectoid wasp-like fiends, maybe something like a spider from the feywild that tricks you into wanting to sleep in its web. If there's a fish pond somewhere, you could have a large minnow-sized Aboleth, or even a fish tank in the nearby enchanter's lab with just a trapped mind flayer...baby, I forget their actual name. The thing they implant into people to make more mind flayers https://1921681254.mx/.
I am playing with the idea of putting together an encounter/dungeon based off of the idea of shrinking the adventuring party. The concept starts as follows:
The party goes to investigate the tower of a mysterious wizard on the outskirts of town. Once they get inside, a mysterious crystal begins to glow and the party falls unconscious. As they come to, they find they have been reduced to a Tiny size. Now they must explore the wizard's home for clues on how to undo the shrinking.
Possible encounters would include things like small beasts or insects which have had their stat blocks' HP, AC, and damage boosted to reflect their larger relative size compared to the party (I figure this would be easier than trying to impose a shrinkage "debuff" on the party members). Other creatures that would be more difficult could be things like animated objects, the wizard's familiar, etc.
I am looking to brainstorm whimsical ways one could transform fairly mundane items (such as furniture, food, etc) into interesting dungeon-esque areas/encounters for the party now that they are smaller. I imagine most areas would turn into puzzle solving sessions like: "ok, now that we are small, how can we get up these stairs?"
I am of course not looking for anyone to come up with full rules or encounters for me in this thread, but if you have any fun ideas on what a party of shrunken adventurers would be up against, I'd love to hear them
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
one quick question would it be like enlarge/reduce or something else and would equipment shrink if not then it becomes that much more challenging
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I was planning on having their equipment shrink with them. In other words, the party and its abilities/equipment stay effectively the same, but everything else is much bigger now.
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
ah so unique effect but will it where off after a time if no cool idea but there will have to change statistics a bit
I am leader of the yep cult:https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/adohands-kitchen/82135-yep-cult Pronouns are she/her
For some reason the first thing that popped in my head is a a swiss cheese wheel where they have to navigate the tunnels (holes) almost like a dungeon. Idk why THAT was my first thought, but I thought I'd share lol
The goal of the "dungeon" is that the party has to find a way to undo the shrinking. There will be another crystal inside the house which has to be found and "activated" to undo it. The entrance to the tower would have an arcane lock on it and be a heavy door to begin with, so that after shrinking the party realistically cannot leave the tower without completing it (kind of a railroading approach, I know).
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Or a room with a large shag-pile carpet - a forest of cloth ;-)
or maybe it has a poor lock on it that would be near impossible to pick when tiny but sounds good
I am leader of the yep cult:https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/adohands-kitchen/82135-yep-cult Pronouns are she/her
I thought I'd resurrect this thread as I was about to make one of my own to this ilk anyway!
My first question was whether anyone's seen any published material for this sort of thing?
Next question is what's a good size for a party to be shrunk to such that everyday thing become scalable? I'm thinking an inch tall for medium characters. That way:
Ants and such become tiny creatures
Beetles become Small
Cockroaches & large spiders become medium
Mice become large
Rats become Huge
cats, small dogs etc. become gargantuan
Anything larger is basically insurmountable in this form.
I love the idea of a shagpile carpet becoming something of a forest, or maybe even a swamp-like affair if it were saturated in water EG from a leaking roof.
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a few ideas for the dungeon:
- have books on a table, requiring the adventurers to improvise some kind of climbing rig to get up there (not a lot of handholds/footholds on a table leg!), or possibly climbing up a nearby bookshelf and making a large jump with an improvised hang-glider (paper plane.) The books then need to be read, requiring an Intelligence check to figure out a way to "down-scale" the writing so it's read-able, or possibly getting a high vantage on the table to read it from "far off." Said books would either be spellbooks, diaries, or some other similar clue that helps the party understand how the spell works and points them towards the existence of an unshrinking crystal
- needing a open a pickle jar. Normally this can be a great gag challenge; but when the adventurers are tiny it takes on a whole new dimension! Inside the jar might be magical reagents for some useful spell (Feather Fall?), or possibly food used to bribe/lure some large animal like a guard dog.
- using an Everfull Urn or similar to overflow a sink with water, allowing the adventurers to "ride the rapids" in a mug/bowl/really big spoon to get from a kitchen benchtop down to the floor
- have a locked door, tell them what kind of lock and latch it has and try to subtly put the focus on what they might do to open it. Sit back and wait for the party to figure out that they can probably just walk/crawl under the gap underneath. If they get too hung up on trying to open the door and don't have any good ideas, give them a perception check to see the change of light through the gap underneath (e.g. morning settling into early afternoon, or afternoon to evening) as a big hint.
- have a crow/raven/similarly intelligent bird sitting on a windowsill outside. If the party can 1) open the window; 2) organise a way to communicate (I'd assume they can get Speak with Animals going; if they don't have that within the party then maybe there's a spell scroll/spell book and required ingredients to cast as a ritual for it), and 3) convince the bird to carry them (may involve bargaining, intimidation, deception... whatever the party wants to go with) then they have a great way to get up to higher areas. However, this may attract attention from the familiar/guard animals/magic security.
A lot of birds are omnivorous, and will catch and eat any small creature that moves. Chickens, for example, will happily eat mice. I often took dead mice away from my cats and threw them to my chickens, and all the chickens would chase each other around and fight over it until one of them managed to swallow it. I’ll never forget the day that I tossed a dead vole to a hen who had just hatched a brood of chicks, and I got to watch six 24 hour-old chicks tear a rodent to pieces and eat it!
I’m 95% certain that crows and ravens are omnivores. It’s a really cool idea, but it might be better to use a seed-eating bird like a Mourning Dove. It’s a similar size, but it won’t try to eat the PCs! Although it might be a fun (for the DM!) surprise for the party to navigate!
I live with several severe autoimmune conditions. If I don’t get back to you right away, it’s probably because I’m not feeling well.
Yep, you're completely correct re the omnivore thing.
The reason I suggested a corvid like a crow or raven is because it could go either way -- it comes down to how the PCs interact with it.
That said, many birds and especially corvids are also risk-averse; they're used to picking fights they're confident of winning and will back away if given a modicum of challenge (of course there are exceptions!) So, with some appropriate rolling and logic, it should be easy enough to justify a situation where the PCs open up a kind of dialogue (and that's before we get into Speak with Animals or similar, which would make the whole thing much easier once they get past the don't-eat-me phase.) And there's real-world precedent for striking up a deal -- crows and ravens and so on will recognise people who feed them and bring "gifts" in return; or sound the alarm if they think that their "friend" is in danger.
My gut feeling is that a scenario like this one benefits from more "open-ended" puzzles rather than lock-and-key ones. Letting the players decide how to interact with (or avoid) the encounter gives them the choice whether or not to lean into the experience of being shrunk down.
How would you take into account distance? Range of spells and weight of objects? For instance some using mage hand to move something ?
Ooooh, I love this idea! If you have shrunken creatures, you can still match a general CR to it, and roll up some insectoid wasp-like fiends, maybe something like a spider from the feywild that tricks you into wanting to sleep in its web. If there's a fish pond somewhere, you could have a large minnow-sized Aboleth, or even a fish tank in the nearby enchanter's lab with just a trapped mind flayer...baby, I forget their actual name. The thing they implant into people to make more mind flayers https://1921681254.mx/.