Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Dreamstryder Jan 17, 2015 21:09:39	Dungeons aren’t usually easy to walk thru, but they usually assume traversal by humanoids that breathe the same atmosphere.   If, instead, a beholder built a dungeon, it might have halls going up and down as well as side-to-side, and mapping it from a side view rather than top-down could give its room design an unusual mentality. Perhaps a crashed spaceship is filled with an alien (read: poisonous or even corrosive) atmosphere.   Magic has ways of forfending such inhospitabilities…for a time, but some parties must break out the climbing tools and hold their breath.   How does changing these normally assumed elements introduce fun changes to the game?   I don’t want to introduce tedious rolling or merely describe the chambers differently with no game-play effect.
#2 Yunru Jan 18, 2015 2:34:25	Well it makes tracking positions even harder, which is bad, and adds a need for skill checks/creative use of abilities/forethought and preparation, which is good. Personally I would keep it 2d just because of the first point. I would have high-up passage-ways though since why build openings at ground level where any Tom, Dick or Harry could just walk in?
#3 BRJN Jan 18, 2015 18:09:52	A few vertical columns (instead of stairs) will give players a reason to buy a Dungeoneering pack and break out that Climbing Kit.  A "hidden" room (because it's in the dark shadows along the ceiling) that can only be reached by a Fly spell can reward the Wizard.  (Or maybe the current occupant has a Magic Carpet stashed near the dungeon entrance?)  The scene from Moria where a shaft of light illuminates the dead Dwarf king's body (LotR: Fellowship) can be used as a hint.  A 55-gallon drum full of sand smashed on the floor can suggest the need to "look up".  An uncamouflaged bottomless-looking "pit trap" in the floor also serves as a clue. The party mapmaker might realize there is a large dead space between several rooms on Second Floor; this contains a vertical shaft between Third Floor and First Floor. The PCs could find the body of a previous (unsuccessful) dungeon-crawler plus his Gloves and Kneepads of Spider Climbing.   I would stay away from poisonous atmospheres until your PCs can cast Breathe Water and do research to alter spells: giving them Breathe Exotic Airs.
#4 Razintarr Jan 19, 2015 7:13:35	Taking a bizarre looking monster, and figuring what its ideal lair would look like can be a fun excercise by itself. If used in play, you have to consider whether it would be add fun or just frustration.   The beholder is a very good example. It can float. It can use vertical corridors, but it also doesn't care about the floors of his horizontal corridors. They can be stacked with spearpoints or be as slippery as a grease spell. Those are only a problem for those lesser creatures with feet. A whole dungeon with only such corridors is just trustrating though, if even crossing a simple corridor takes hacking away loads of spearheads, or takes loads of dex-rolls. Therefor, there should be an alternative. For a beholder lair, he also has corridors that his minions use. The "trapped" corridors are only for his personal use. Of course these minion-corridors are filled with minions.   Now the beholder can join an encounter early in the dungeon (floating high), shoot a few eyebeams, and when things go bad it can float away into his own private corridor. The players have a choice: try and follow the beholder through his own corridors, which will take finding a solution to the spearheads/grease, or take the long way round through more minions. Either way, the beholder probably has time to gobble some healing potions and get ready for another encounter.     The alien atmosphere is less appealing to use. The only way to overcome it is through magic. Either the players have the right spell for it, or they don't. If they don't, going into the dungeon isn't an option. If they do, they cast it and the atmosphere becomes irrelevant.  A nice take on this could be if the aliens have minions that breath the same atmosphere as the players, by use of alien technology (spacehelmets or breathers). When first encountered, the players can't enter the crashed spaceship because of the hostile atmosphere. But the aliens send out their minions to gather resources (or parts of the ship that broke off) and these minions have their breathing equipment with them. The players may have to fight a few of these groups to gather enough helmets/breathers to equip everyone. Or maybe the alien atmosphere isn't lethal, only debilitating. Like giving a level of exhaustion per hour breathing it.
#5 BRJN Jan 19, 2015 14:40:15	If you DO use the floor full of spearpoints, condense "dealing with it" into a skill challenge, UNLESS the PCs are trying to run through it at high speed (because they are being chased?).  And let them collect all the spearpoints to use on somebody else later, if your PCs like to invent ambushes on the fly.  (Hold a door all the way open and when a pursuer from the other side comes through the doorway, SLAM the spike-covered door in his face.)