Old School One Shot Dungeon Crawl

Here's the "catalog entry" for a one shot I will be running in a few weeks:

"No School Like the Old School"
aka "The Transmuter's Terrible Tower"

System: D&D 3.5
Players: 6
Time: Saturday noon to GoD time

Fluff: For two generations, the transmuter Darvath
Drakart terrorized the people of White Vale from his
tower on the slopes of the White Mountain. When his
vile experiments created montrous abominations of
natural animals, however, the druidic Order of Eight
shook the very foundations of the White Mountain and
burried the tower under an avalanche forever. Or so
everyone thought. One hundred years later, a second
(natural?) tremor has exposed the top of the Terrible
Tower. The Order of Eight has promised to destroy the
tower completely. Your band of foolhardy treasure
seekers has decided to explore the tower in search of
lost wealth and artifacts before the opportunity is
lost.

Crunch: 5th level, core rules/srd D&D 3.5 characters
with standard equipment,28 point buy, and 3/4 max hit
points (round up). Bring one if you like, otherwise
pregens will be provided. Note that wizards must
purchase scrolls to add spells to their spellbooks
above and beyond the starting spells and those gained
from level advancement. Please post any additional
questions, but *no* feats, classes, etc... from
outside the core/srd will be allowed (and no psionics
or UA variants).


I am looking for ideas on how to design the dungeon, what to fill it with, how long to make it, etc... Any of you grognards out there -- or any fans of relentless but rewarding play -- who can help, I'd be much obliged.

Some suggestions for achieveing that "old school" feel:

1) environmental hazards -- slippery floors, rooms that flood, narrow ledges over steep drops, rooms that are excessively hot or cold, rooms or corridors filled with poison (or otherwise magical) gasses, etc.

2) combat encounters should generally be with baseline (or near-baseline) monsters with difficulty enhanced by the circumstances of the encounter (i.e. monsters have set up ambushes, monsters forcing the PCs to fight in unfavorable surroundings, teams of similar (or dissimilar) monster-types working together, etc.) rather than through templates or class-leveling

3) at least one encounter that if played as a straight combat will totally overmatch the party, but which can be avoided or circumvented by some clever means

4) at least one puzzle, trick, or obstacle that requires the players to figure it out, rather than being solvable by a die-roll

5) at least one item, location, or creature that causes some kind of significant permanent effect (permanently raise/lower stats or hp, permanently change race, gender, or alignment, permanently grant or take away magic items, etc.) determined by a random roll on a table -- with possibilities for both good and bad effects, depending on the roll

6) at least one item of treasure that is cursed or has other detrimental side-effects on the owner/possessor

7) some sort of "false climax" where inattentive players will think they've won the adventure and either let their guard down or go home, while clever players will realize this couldn't have really been the climax

Reynard said:

I am looking for ideas on how to design the dungeon, what to fill it with, how long to make it, etc... Any of you grognards out there -- or any fans of relentless but rewarding play -- who can help, I'd be much obliged.

Click to expand...

I'm running Goodman Games Transmuter's Last Touch and one thing I did was have the entire place imbued with transmutation magic. The stone walls, floors, and ceiling are smooth, white stone. When touched it turns black and stays that way for a minute or two. When blood is spilled on it, it turns a deep crimson and the blood seems to be slowly absorbed (it actually just dissolves, as part of a cleaning spell). Hopefully this will creep out the players a bit. In addition, I added a creature that is permanently invisible. I'm can't wait to see if the players figure out that they can track it by looking for its footprints on the floor...

For your tower, there was a thread from some time back (over a year) where someone was running an adventure in a tower that had fallen 45 degrees. This created a number of interesting situations that the party would face, such as having to use rope or other methods to climb up the walls, bracing themselves if in combat, and so on. Your tower could have been broken into multiple pieces during the avalanche. You could have the topmost part relatively intact, then a section at an angle (with broken walls showing stone from the mountain), then the lowest section relatively straight, either vertical or horizontal.

Have you run this, Reynard? How did it go?

Reynard said:

System: D&D 3.5
Players: 6
Time: Saturday noon to GoD time
<snip>
I am looking for ideas on how to design the dungeon, what to fill it with, how long to make it, etc... Any of you grognards out there -- or any fans of relentless but rewarding play -- who can help, I'd be much obliged.

Click to expand...

grognard here.

first suggestion: make it real old school. OD&D(1974). which means Chainmail (1971) as your combat reference. 3d6 in order str, int, wis, con, dex, cha. d6 for hps. 0hp = dead

diaglo said:

grognard here.

first suggestion: make it real old school. OD&D(1974). which means Chainmail (1971) as your combat reference. 3d6 in order str, int, wis, con, dex, cha. d6 for hps. 0hp = dead

Click to expand...

Since I created this thread, I have decided to go ahead and run it *not* in 3e. I have to choose between RC D&D and AD&D1E. the choice will be made largely due to whether my collection of 1E books arrives from Toad and Troll soon enough.

T. Foster said:

Some suggestions for achieveing that "old school" feel:

1) environmental hazards -- slippery floors, rooms that flood, narrow ledges over steep drops, rooms that are excessively hot or cold, rooms or corridors filled with poison (or otherwise magical) gasses, etc.

2) combat encounters should generally be with baseline (or near-baseline) monsters with difficulty enhanced by the circumstances of the encounter (i.e. monsters have set up ambushes, monsters forcing the PCs to fight in unfavorable surroundings, teams of similar (or dissimilar) monster-types working together, etc.) rather than through templates or class-leveling

3) at least one encounter that if played as a straight combat will totally overmatch the party, but which can be avoided or circumvented by some clever means

4) at least one puzzle, trick, or obstacle that requires the players to figure it out, rather than being solvable by a die-roll

5) at least one item, location, or creature that causes some kind of significant permanent effect (permanently raise/lower stats or hp, permanently change race, gender, or alignment, permanently grant or take away magic items, etc.) determined by a random roll on a table -- with possibilities for both good and bad effects, depending on the roll

6) at least one item of treasure that is cursed or has other detrimental side-effects on the owner/possessor

7) some sort of "false climax" where inattentive players will think they've won the adventure and either let their guard down or go home, while clever players will realize this couldn't have really been the climax

Click to expand...

8) at least one disorienting effect. teleporter, mirror trap, swivelling floor, or maze like monster. up is down too.

9) an area where resources are an issue. wet torches or wind blowing them out. oxygen low or having to hold your breath to swim thru a tunnel.

10) an area that has items of value. but they are too large to transport. or cause someone to have his hands full at an ambush.

diaglo said:

10) an area that has items of value. but they are too large to transport. or cause someone to have his hands full at an ambush.

Click to expand...

This is a good one. It's very "old school D&D" to have a big (in bulk, not necessarily in value -- e.g. chest of copper or silver pieces, tapestries, pile of ingots, etc.) treasure fairly early in the adventure that forces a choice on the players -- do they leave the dungeon with the treasure and risk compromising their goal (the bad guys will get reinforcements or set ambushes, the bad guys will leave, someone else will get the macguffin first, etc.)? do they carry the treasure with them and be burdened and less effective (move slower, make more noise, hands full, etc.)? do they leave it and decide to come back for it later (running the risk that someone else might take it before they can return, or that they might not return by this route at all, etc.)? and so on. These sorts of player-level risk-reward decisions are, at least to me, a big part of what "old school" D&D is all about (as both player and DM).

T. Foster said:

This is a good one. It's very "old school D&D" to have a big (in bulk, not necessarily in value -- e.g. chest of copper or silver pieces, tapestries, pile of ingots, etc.) treasure fairly early in the adventure that forces a choice on the players -- do they leave the dungeon with the treasure and risk compromising their goal (the bad guys will get reinforcements or set ambushes, the bad guys will leave, someone else will get the macguffin first, etc.)? do they carry the treasure with them and be burdened and less effective (move slower, make more noise, hands full, etc.)? do they leave it and decide to come back for it later (running the risk that someone else might take it before they can return, or that they might not return by this route at all, etc.)? and so on. These sorts of player-level risk-reward decisions are, at least to me, a big part of what "old school" D&D is all about (as both player and DM).

Click to expand...

well i'm still refereeing OD&D(1974).
so i'm still using the my notes from the 70's and 80's.

T. Foster said:

4) at least one puzzle, trick, or obstacle that requires the players to figure it out, rather than being solvable by a die-roll

Click to expand...

part of the clues for this can be found in the dungeon. thru rumors they heard before entering the complex. or thru bad guys they fight but don't kill.


another thing is a simple key or way to overcome the trap in a room in the open. some obscure object that just screams this needs to be important somewhere. (this is common in movies. why show a guy smoking a cig in a scene at the beginning of the movie unless his lighter is important at the climax)

the players will try it on every door, chest, lock or trap they find. after the 20th time they give up and toss it or stow it away and forget about it.

and then they hit the room it works in...