Maybe not pertinent to what you are doing, but when I ran the actual maze from chapter two of Age of Worms, I used several dozen 1 inch squares for the walls and then kenku and other creatures hunted the party. Since I had a limited amount of squares, as the party adventured forth, I would remove the earliest squares they encountered to create the new areas. It actually made at least one of the players extremely nervous not being able to see the entire map and having it shift on him.
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D&D 5E A Maze that works in actual play?
- Thread starter Quickleaf
- Start date
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Last time I did a maze-like I didn't bother with actually mapping anything out. Players told me their strategies for dealing with it (skills, magic and other resources expended) and I used that to determine how many hazards they ran into getting into the center.
Closer to the 4e concept of a skill challenge but also allowing other resources expended.
Closer to the 4e concept of a skill challenge but also allowing other resources expended.
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aco175
Legend
This is similar to what I do. The maze moves at the pace of plot. If the purpose of the maze if just to get through, then I have the players roll a d20 for a Survival check and determine of they encounter something or the amount of time it takes if they are up against a clock for something. If the purpose of the maze is to locate something lost within, then I have a few set encounters that the PCs encounter and may still roll for a wandering monster.
I also try to place safe areas and encounters in large dungeons and mazes as well. A helpful NPC living or wandering about, a hidden temple behind a secret door, something like this that allows help or rest if the party needs it.
I generally try to make the dungeon fair but not always deadly.
TheCosmicKid
Hero
Yeah. The last time I ran a maze, I deliberately did not vary hallway size, length, or angles -- it was all 10-foot-wide corridors with orthogonal turns/intersections every 40 feet. Boring? Perhaps, but easier for the players to map. And there were other things to keep the challenge interesting. Like the fact that they jumped into a mirror image of the maze every time they saw their reflection in one of the numerous mirrors.
Yeah, I ran that twice, with two different groups, and the results varied somewhat. Basically, the "maze" effect wasn't the highlight, it was more the misdirection and hit and run tactics of the Kenku, which could force the players to not be sure exactly how to cover their rear, so to speak, because the dungeon had so many junctions, hidden/secret doors, etc.
I'm struggling to see how a Maze could be made especially challenging or exciting for high level play - either the players have chosen spells that will make it super easy, or they have not and it's going to be super boring or frustrating. Maybe you could create time pressure to keep it interesting, but that's not really a Puzzle type scenario.
Saeviomagy
Adventurer
I think to make this work, you need to tune tightly between spells used to overcome challenges and spells used to beat the maze.
As for time pressure: There should always be time pressure. The bad guys should not be sitting on their laurels waiting for the good guys to beat them.
Quickleaf
Legend
Just speaking to your comment about the right spell eliminating the challenge of a maze completely, if you're referring to find the path, I'm not convinced.
[SECTION]This spell allows you to find the shortest, most direct physical route to a specific fixed location that you are familiar with on the same plane of existence. If you name a destination on another plane of existence, a destination that moves (such as a mobile fortress), or a destination that isn't specific (such as "a green dragon's lair"), the spell fails.[/SECTION]
What if a hypothetical maze...
- was on a plane you weren't familiar with?
- had enchantment magic that messed with the familiarity rules, making creatures inside the maze treat things outside of it as unfamiliar?
- offered a short direct physical route that was certain death?
- has walls mortared with gorgon's blood and the direct physical exit is a giant adamantine door that is sealed with an ancient dweomer and melted lead?
- had goblins that stole your 100 gp divinatory tools needed for the material component?
- had monsters that broke the spellcaster's concentration before they found the route out?
Obviously, these are contrivances that don't fit every scenario. After all sometimes find the path should work to overcome a maze. But there are totally scenarios that keep a maze as a relevant challenge in spite of find the path.
Saeviomagy
Adventurer
The ideal situation is to make a maze that find the path helps with but does not overcome without some additional puzzle solving effort. Which is fairly easy to do: most of the suggestions for 'an interesting maze' don't actually lose anything if you know the direct path, because "choosing which way to go" is the bit of maze navigation that is the most boring.
Quickleaf
Legend
Yeah, I can't recall ever running a "choose which way to go" maze...certainly there were choices about navigation (and I've gotten muuuuch better about making those choices meaningful & foreshadowing). The only mazes I've run in the past have all been... trick mazes, I'll call them. There was some trick to escaping the maze, like a mystery/puzzle with clues in the maze to escape one of the Lady of Pain's Mazes, or a going back through the entry portal in the Kobold Proving Grounds.
machineelf
Explorer
I haven't read through all the mechanics of your maze, and they might be awesome. But I thought I'd also throw into the conversation my feelings that the Xonthal's Tower maze in The Rise of Tiamat is awesome, and a clever way to make a magical maze feel like a magical maze without getting bogged down in traditional maze mapping and such.
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