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Fire and Water: Designing themed dungeons
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<blockquote data-quote="Imaculata" data-source="post: 7190034" data-attributes="member: 6801286"><p>This is something I definitely plan to use for some of the combat encounters. I have some terrifying enemies planned that will be extra scary when suddenly emerging from the steam.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]86898[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is an important point. I never design my dungeons in such a way that one obscure item is required for progression, unless the item itself is the goal of the dungeon. If a door requires a key, then maybe there are also other ways to bypass the door. If a waterbreathing potion is required for a long underwater section, then there had better be alternate roads that don't require it, or there should simply be spots to go for air.</p><p></p><p>For example, I have some gates in this dungeon that are locked by pressurised steam. The players can open the door by finding a valve handle and releasing the pressure. But they can also just smash the pipes, and unleash the steam that way, because they might not be strong enough to turn the valve handle. They can even bypass the door entirely via a secret passage. Lastly, they could do something I haven't anticipated, such as blow up the door with explosives, or use a Knock spell... and I can't think of a reason why that wouldn't work.</p><p></p><p>As a DM it is not my goal to frustrate my players, but to engage them... to provide choices and encourage them to be creative. So if the players come up with something I hadn't thought of, that should be rewarded, not punished. Likewise, if my players choose to completely ignore an obstacle I put in front of them, that should also be fine, as long as this choice carries some weight. Which is why you want to be careful with putting mandatory key items behind locked doors.</p><p></p><p>So if the players don't care about opening the gate in room D, then that's perfectly fine. That is a choice, and the consequence of that choice is that they avoid being ambushed in room F and G, but they'll have to find some other way to deal with the steam in room D and I. I could even compensate for the lack of combat in such a case, by adding an extra combat encounter in room I, and the players would never know that I added some extra enemies. -But this might invalidate their choice to some extent, so I probably won't do that.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Imaculata, post: 7190034, member: 6801286"] This is something I definitely plan to use for some of the combat encounters. I have some terrifying enemies planned that will be extra scary when suddenly emerging from the steam. [ATTACH=CONFIG]86898._xfImport[/ATTACH] This is an important point. I never design my dungeons in such a way that one obscure item is required for progression, unless the item itself is the goal of the dungeon. If a door requires a key, then maybe there are also other ways to bypass the door. If a waterbreathing potion is required for a long underwater section, then there had better be alternate roads that don't require it, or there should simply be spots to go for air. For example, I have some gates in this dungeon that are locked by pressurised steam. The players can open the door by finding a valve handle and releasing the pressure. But they can also just smash the pipes, and unleash the steam that way, because they might not be strong enough to turn the valve handle. They can even bypass the door entirely via a secret passage. Lastly, they could do something I haven't anticipated, such as blow up the door with explosives, or use a Knock spell... and I can't think of a reason why that wouldn't work. As a DM it is not my goal to frustrate my players, but to engage them... to provide choices and encourage them to be creative. So if the players come up with something I hadn't thought of, that should be rewarded, not punished. Likewise, if my players choose to completely ignore an obstacle I put in front of them, that should also be fine, as long as this choice carries some weight. Which is why you want to be careful with putting mandatory key items behind locked doors. So if the players don't care about opening the gate in room D, then that's perfectly fine. That is a choice, and the consequence of that choice is that they avoid being ambushed in room F and G, but they'll have to find some other way to deal with the steam in room D and I. I could even compensate for the lack of combat in such a case, by adding an extra combat encounter in room I, and the players would never know that I added some extra enemies. -But this might invalidate their choice to some extent, so I probably won't do that. [/QUOTE]
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