Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Chigaru 08-03-06, 02:26 AM	I'm making a dungeon that I want to be challenging for two level 7-8 characters plus a level 11 and 13 NPC for story purposes. What I have so far is a 4-level dungeon. 1st level is the top of a swampy island roughly 4 miles long and 3 miles wide. 2nd level is a small network of caverns and tunnels with little in the way of underground pools or canals. What I have planned is either for a small sahuagin band clearing the area of monsters for future use. 3rd level is like the 2nd level, only rougher and wetter, possibly even with some areas completely underwater. I've got some sea and green hags planned for this area. 4th level is like the first two, only very small, contaning only one small cavern with some undead and a larger cavern with a gargantuan monstrous crab. I need some advice on how to make this dungeon realistic and challenging for a level 7-8 two-person party, with high-level NPCs tagging along (at least for part of it). Any help will be appreciated.
Lazzmaniandevil 08-03-06, 07:55 AM	At first glance, it seems like an old-fashioned dungeon crawl, where a bunch of different creatures somehow co-exist in the same dungeon. In my opinion, to make your dungeon more realistic, you will need more explanation on why all those creatures co-exist in there. 1st level: I think I would have the island seems inhabited at first and just put a few animals and plants: crocodiles and shambling mounds for example. At the end, have 2-3 sahuagin guard the entrance. And for extra realism, you could add the slained bodies of some ogres (merrows) or giants, that were the guards used by the hags and were killed by sahuagins as they are trying to take over. 2nd level: Bodies of slained sahuagins and giants can be found all over the first half of the level, showing signs of a battle between the two groups. For the second half, I would have a few sahuagin patrols still searching around and some more of the hags' minions (ogres, giants and crocodiles), with the biggest part of them guarding the entrance to the third level. Some of the creatures might be already hurt from previous battles. 3rd level: I wouldn't have any sahuagins here: they haven't gotten this far. I would have three hags form a covey (their animate dead spell-like ability will help explain the undead below). The whole level is occupied by them and their minions, giants and crocodiles, with more undead as they get closer to the hag trio. 4th level: the undead were animated by the hags to protect the crab, who they see as some kind of higher power, simply because of its size, because of some strange power it has, or because of an artefact it guards. And one last thing: having two higher level NPCs help a two character party so they can go through a higher level dungeon isn't a very good idea, in my opinion. Helpful NPCs shouldn't be able to outshine the PCs. It would be better to make the NPC level 6-7 and lower the level of the dungeon to 6-9 instead of 8-12