Need advice for a lethal prison style dungeon module

[nightspaladin]

For this year's, "getting the band back together" I'm looking to run a 5e game where all the pre-gens are prisoners of an explanar prison. I'm thinking either modron ran or carceri. All the pcs are evil scumbags but they have to work together to escape, possibly steal the macguffin etc etc.....

What I am in desperate need of is your thoughts on good megadungeons/prison crawl style modules. The more lethal the better, though I can adjust that of course. Can anyone recommend any of the mega dungeons for this? I'd like some reviews before I look at buying PDFs.

Thanks.

 

[DeanP]

Dungeon Magazine Issue 94 Sept/October 2002 has a Mindflayer prison. It's 3.5 but conversion shouldn't be too time consuming, and you can probably complete it in two sessions. It's called the Spirals of Manzessine and has some advice for running it as a prison break. Note: It's default setting was Forgotten Realms but I used it in my Greyhawk campaign, easily portable.

 

[jgsugden]

If they're pregens, give them each secret agendas to achieve while in the prison. They want to escape, but only after they've done what they were seeking to do....

 

[GlassJaw]

One of my favorite adventures of all time - prison or otherwise - is called Granite Mountain Prison from Dungeon #36. It's a very unique prison to say the least. It would require some tweaking if you want to run it as a prison breakout (it's written as a rescue mission) but it should be well-suited for that.

Spirals of Manzessine is also good as I recall.

Monte Cook wrote an adventure for Goodman Games called Vault of the Iron Overlord. It's not a prison per se but could be adapted and serve as another option for a unique prison.

As far as extraplanar prisons go, you would also do well to check out Ex Libris from Dungeon #29. Again, it's not written as a prison but the "twist" would be great for an extraplanar prison.

 

[KenNYC]

I think it was A1 or A2 of the slaver series that had it set up as prisoners in a cell, all naked, no tools, no spell books, no nothing. Then they had to fight with their fists until they could find a tool (like a jailor's key in your case) to pry out a brick. From there you would have an extended jail break, maybe they would find their stuff, or someone else's. I recommend at least looking into the slaver series A1-A4 for that installment to get at least some inspiration about what prisoners would might have to go through before they even find clothing.

 

[Raith5]

I think it was A1 or A2 of the slaver series that had it set up as prisoners in a cell, all naked, no tools, no spell books, no nothing. Then they had to fight with their fists until they could find a tool (like a jailor's key in your case) to pry out a brick. From there you would have an extended jail break, maybe they would find their stuff, or someone else's. I recommend at least looking into the slaver series A1-A4 for that installment to get at least some inspiration about what prisoners would might have to go through before they even find clothing.

I think that is A4, the last of A series. I remember playing it back in the day, it was very hard.

 

[KenNYC]

It really gives the fighters a chance to shine since the spellcasters have nothing. I wouldn't even allow cantrips in 5e under that scenario. And then lets see if the players can think to take the key to carve out a brick to smash another guy's skull in, to break into an office where all they find are clubs, and make the slow crawl back to power. And the monsters don't care you have no clothes or weapons, they have HD anyway.

 

[Coroc]

A good prison is in the greyhawk module City of skulls, although it does not qualify asa megadungeon it is quite large and you can take the Basic principles.

Think about things like doors which are sealed magically, some doors in the prison could be Portals instead.

Think about morale of the staff, are they taking their work seriously, can they be bribed etc.

What about the other inmates are they thrustworthy, can they make allies, are some of them snitches?

What is the General purpose of the prison? Shemeska had one in his planescape Story hour which was run as a "Service" for anyone who pays to lock up the most dangerous Mobs far of from the rest of the multiverse and with very tight tailored security.

The modrons as prison guards can be fun but it requires a lot of work to e.g. construct some flaw with them which the Party can find out to "game the (Modron-) System (in game !) " to escape.