Ok, so I've done plenty of adventure design during my camps, but most of it is off the cuff. After running a Dungeon Crawl Classics module in my last game, I came to understand that dungeons can be a bit more than hack here, slash there. My last big dungeon delve I designed came about 4 years ago, and I'm a bit out of practice. I figured I would chronicle my endeavor here, and offer the finished products from my adventure.
===The Basics===
System: Pathfinder (D&D 3P)
APL: 1
===Premise===
The party has been trapped during an ambush on a caravan between two major cities. They were dragged bound and gagged to the Goblin Barrow Den. The den is a two level dungeon crawl, with the party having to work their way up from the ridiculously secure dungeon out to the surface to escape.
The first problem I ran into was how to keep wizards relevant in this adventure. The duration of captivity is up to the GM, so wizards are now a problem. You can say they never got a spell off during the ambush and held their spells for X number of days, but that's a bit 'eh.' My other solution was to make the cells 'Mage Cages', or cells with a short range anti-magic aura and having the goblins let the wizard keep his spellbook. The problem with this is its even more unbelievable than the wizards holding their spells. So I'm at an impasse at that, and decided to just have them Mage-Cage'd for now and have an earthquake loosen the iron grates.
Deus ex machina's aside, the rest of the Basement level was pretty easy. I even through in what I thought was the most impressive piece of D&D adventure design I've ever encountered: the room full of goblin women and infants. The scene from DCC #1 (with significant GM addition for effect) brought one of my players to tears, and having a room where the goblin women raise the baby goblins is something that's generally absent from many dungeon adventures. It adds in that extra moral dilemma spice that makes a session memorable.
Anyway, attached is the txt I've gotten together so far. Any readers out there, give it a look over and comment. I'll work on the ground floor tomorrow, including a CR2 or 3 boss fight.
===The Basics===
System: Pathfinder (D&D 3P)
APL: 1
===Premise===
The party has been trapped during an ambush on a caravan between two major cities. They were dragged bound and gagged to the Goblin Barrow Den. The den is a two level dungeon crawl, with the party having to work their way up from the ridiculously secure dungeon out to the surface to escape.
The first problem I ran into was how to keep wizards relevant in this adventure. The duration of captivity is up to the GM, so wizards are now a problem. You can say they never got a spell off during the ambush and held their spells for X number of days, but that's a bit 'eh.' My other solution was to make the cells 'Mage Cages', or cells with a short range anti-magic aura and having the goblins let the wizard keep his spellbook. The problem with this is its even more unbelievable than the wizards holding their spells. So I'm at an impasse at that, and decided to just have them Mage-Cage'd for now and have an earthquake loosen the iron grates.
Deus ex machina's aside, the rest of the Basement level was pretty easy. I even through in what I thought was the most impressive piece of D&D adventure design I've ever encountered: the room full of goblin women and infants. The scene from DCC #1 (with significant GM addition for effect) brought one of my players to tears, and having a room where the goblin women raise the baby goblins is something that's generally absent from many dungeon adventures. It adds in that extra moral dilemma spice that makes a session memorable.
Anyway, attached is the txt I've gotten together so far. Any readers out there, give it a look over and comment. I'll work on the ground floor tomorrow, including a CR2 or 3 boss fight.
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