Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 liquidramen Jul 14, 2008 21:40:21	So, I'm going to be starting a campaign with some relatively new players in a couple of months. From what I've seen from our current campaign that I'm playing in, the groups amount of inexperience has them very wary in combat, and they often tend to need to take an extended rest after every 2 or so combat encounters. So, in order to keep them in the dungeon for longer and make experience a little easier to obtain, I want to use a good deal of puzzles. However, to keep the more intelligent members from upstaging the rest, I'd like to make the puzzles somewhat easy to figure out, but still have the difficulty of requiring skill challenges to actually pass, maybe even focus on them using certain classes of at-will and encounter abilities. Think Legend of Zelda style puzzles. The problem is coming up with both puzzles like these, and making them fit the dragon and kobold themes of the dungeon. (The dungeon is a now long ago raided dragon roost. The dungeon itself will actually have three different legs, depending on which plot hook the party decides to go after: a never disturbed, sealed up section of rooms used by a cult that worshiped the mountain's dragons; a ransacked section of tunnels and rooms wiped clean long before the players where even born; and a section of underground caves and tunnels now inhabited by two clans of kobolds central to the campaign's story. Right now, I plan on implementing an endless decanter of water and a few blue dragon statues, as well as a ritual book with a variety of riddle filled pages to help the players in activating some red dragon themed artifacts. But after that I'm having trouble.
#2 blitzbitz Jul 15, 2008 12:15:26	([Shorthand: Do an obvious puzzle and seems hard to figure out, usually the "smart ones" will spend a long while trying to figure something smart out while average players with probably pull the lever and get on with it, hehehehe.]) Makes sense the kobolds worship dragons, but that there be two diferent colored chromatic dragons within a dungeons' walk of each other, seems a bit unlikely since the tend to large expanses of land as their territories, otherwise seem prone to... basically beat each other to death. (the dragons i mean) ------ that's besides the point Advice, let's see... kay first did you read the new article on Dragonborn Ecology? It might give you some good insight into history of dragonborn and dragon-worshiping culture itself, so migh be good material to shift and morph into your campain. ------ on a lighter note and more specific advice Dragon themed traps like: -Dragonhead staues that when aproached breathe fire or cold. -A pair of enormous dragon statues with a single passage between them, that when passed through the player is blown back and asked (in draconic) to not interfere in the feud between the dragons(statues), but if coaxed(skill challenge using diplomacy and other such skills) they will let you through. -A large cavern with stalagmites that fall from the celing leading up to the dragon's den. Dragon Puzzles: -A dragon statue that asks for a tribute but doesn't specify. It has secretly 3-4 holes in the back that fit gold pieces, but if ignored or incorrectly tributed will not open the huge stone door behind it, or maybe blast the players with a breath weapon. -Tiles on the floor that must be moved to reveal a secret passage, they are in draconic and spell out a secret message or some piece of history after completed. Amongst other things: -Dragon themed tresure. -Dragon themed armor and weapons(as in describe them to the players as for example: a sword in which the hilt is golden that leads to the head of a dragon with its mouth open, it spits out a blade that is shaped like a flame, or something of the sort) Some other specific ideas and items are in the article i mentioned before. -------------------------- Now more specificly... As for stopping some players from upstaging others, you could try separating the players, either forcefully(by way of trap-door/chute) or some other means. And have them face their particular weakness or strengh in a set of short trap/encounter/skill challenges.(empahasis on short, but not easy, so they build a better understanding on why they need each other, but so its not tireing for the DM to have ppl doing diferent things all over the place) If not, dealing with traps that require particular skills, that not everybody has, so they would need each other to complete each challenge.(Social challenges that enforce all the players to speak, those can be a doozy, and somewhat fun; they also give you the chance to vent off on players that have been naughty by having the NPCs not like them because of their attitude or something) Also, encounters with puzzles at the same time, so the enemies dont stop comming(but keep it to minions or relatively weak enemies, so the party can divide focus on both the trap/puzzle and fighting at the same time) that way some fight and some use skills to help everyone get out of the situation quickly. Enjoy~