Crossing a Bridge

[Raven Crowking]

As the characters try to cross the rope bridge, thuggee cultists come up from behind them. Unfortunately, though, there are cultists on the other side of the bridge as well. The head of the cult wants the Sankara Stone one of the characters has in his belt pouch. There are crocodiles in the river 100 feet or more below.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Some of the wooden planks break when a character steps on them, forcing the player to make balance checks.

Someone comes across the other side and tries to bull rush them off the bridge.

People start attacking them with ranged weapons once they step on the bridge.

One section of the bridge has been made magically slippery, making it difficult to cross.

Some sort of dangerous creature (crocodile, shark, insert monster here) lurks in the water below, waiting for someone to fall - this would increase the tension since there is visible danger in falling.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

rope bridge

Here is a picture I took of the scariest/coolest bridge I ever crossed, in the Hunza region of the Karakorum Himalaya, in Pakistan:

It's not evident from the photo, but that bridge is at least a couple of hundred feet long. It took several minutes to cross it.

Ken

 

[falcarrion]

an air elemental keeps pushing them back when they try to cross.
The trick is to cross it walikng backwards.

when the party is half way accross a zorn apears behind them and starts chewing the stone around the poles where the bridge is tied. They could try barganing with him or attack him or just run and hope they make it.

as the party tries to cross the bridge mid day they are suddenly besiged by a flock of bats. The party can make a check to realize these are night creatures and some thing must have scared them. They have one round after the bats leave before the bridge starts swaying. then the rumbleing starts as the earthquake hits. Rocks start falling the bridge is swaying , the ground is shaking. I feel sorry for them.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Nothing.

My DM did this.

There is Nothing on the bridge. Players expect there is something just because it is a bridge.





ORRR.....


I had players pushing a cart back to town across a bridge. Ogres on either side started chopping it down with threats of "give us treasure". Both ogres were tied to trees by crude rope...they were not afraid to fall.

 

[jmucchiello]

Portal: There's a portal in the middle.

I love this. But make it parallel to the bridge. You can walk across the bridge and never encounter the portal. But there's a spot in the middle of the bridge where the guide cables on one side attach to the support cable forming a 5 foot span with no guide cable on that side. Stepping off the bridge through that gap sends you through the portal.

Or something steps onto the bridge from the other side of the portal....

 

[On Puget Sound]

Whoever heard of a bridge without a troll under it?

 

[On Puget Sound]

a wizened man stands at the beginning of the bridge and imperiously commands them to stop. "You must answer questions three, ere the other side you see! What is your name? What is your quest?..."

 

[LostSoul]

I love this. But make it parallel to the bridge. You can walk across the bridge and never encounter the portal. But there's a spot in the middle of the bridge where the guide cables on one side attach to the support cable forming a 5 foot span with no guide cable on that side. Stepping off the bridge through that gap sends you through the portal.

Or something steps onto the bridge from the other side of the portal....

Pretty cool. I was thinking there was a teleportation circle in the middle, invisible to the untrained eye, that sends you someplace nearby - in a "killing zone" where someone collects a toll for crossing. It's close enough so they can keep an eye on the bridge. There's another portal that sends you back on the other side so you can continue on your perilous journey.

Maybe this lair that's been taken up by bandits/highwaymen was once the lair of a dragon/magical flying creatures (who created the portal), so the architecture of the place is not meant for humans.

The portal was inactive for a long time until the leader of the bandits - a wizard - found it and turned it on. Since then he's been sitting pretty but one of his lieutenants is getting restless; their "leader" never does anything but count gold coins. (To tie it together, maybe the wizard is a cultist of Tiamat.)

Here is what my random bandit generation chart came up with:
Level 5 bandit lair
28 human bandits
7 human guards
7 human berserkers
28 human crossbowmen
3 human nobles
2 half-elf bandit captains
1 human cavalier + 2 riding horses
1 human slaver
1 human knife fighter (Lieutenant) + 6 human guards (bodyguards)
1 gnome entropist (Leader, cultist of Tiamat)