Collaborative Cave!

[Tonguez]

Hmm... I guess we could put a gate somewhere, but that would change the nature of this cave complex significantly. And you'd have to make sure it doesn't interfere with the ideas planned for the rooms behind that gate.

Alternatively, I guess we could be cheesy and put in a sphinx or some other riddlemaster...

Instead of a puzzle, maybe more traps and/or natural hazards? A cave-in or rapidly changing water levels perhaps?

Maybe area 5 is filled with crystalline, narrowly spaced columns - eerily beautiful, but dangerous to navigate if you are Medium size or larger. Break too many of them, and the roof collapses...

Or maybe the pool in #12 is really a hot spring. Every now and then, it erupts and fills all of #12 up to the higher platform with boiling water, which then drains off into #11.

Yeah I put a tentative cave-in at Cavern 5. I like the crystal columns idea so will edit to include that too (what skill do you use for darting around columns? - escape artist? Reflex?)

The Hot spring at 12 helps expalin all the acid too

 

[der_kluge]

Another suggestion I made earlier was that perhaps the same underground river which flows from #6 to #10 to #8 eventually winds up at the bottom of the chasm. You could even have a navigable passage from #8 down to the bottom of the chasm. Given the drop in height, it's probably a one-way passage though...

Do we want to get all crazy and add in a sub-level of submerged water that's accessible via that chasm?

Sounds like a cool premise for Collaborative Cave #2.

 

[Conaill]

Yeah I put a tentative cave-in at Cavern 5. I like the crystal columns idea so will edit to include that too (what skill do you use for darting around columns? - escape artist? Reflex?)

To squeeze through or into a space less than half your space’s width, you must use the Escape Artist skill. You can’t attack while using Escape Artist to squeeze through or into a narrow space, you take a -4 penalty to AC, and you lose any Dexterity bonus to AC.


Tight Space: Escape Artist DC 30
The DC noted on the table is for getting through a space where your head fits but your shoulders don’t. If the space is long you may need to make multiple checks. You can’t get through a space that your head does not fit through.

Action
Squeezing through a tight space takes at least 1 minute, maybe longer, depending on how long the space is.

Try Again
Varies. You can make another check after a failed check if you’re squeezing your way through a tight space, making multiple checks. If the situation permits, you can make additional checks, or even take 20, as long as you’re not being actively opposed.

Any Small PCs would be able to move through the columns at 1/2 move. Medium or Larger creatures are going to have a hard time, unless they dumped a lot of points into Escape Artist.

Here's an idea: The columns are under pressure, because they're essentially holding up a weak ceiling. Breaking a column sends shards flying, doing some amount of piercing damage (even a badly failed Escape Artist check could cause this). After the first shattered column, I would have the ceiling groan and a second column shatter because of the shift in weight. That should give the players plenty of warning what might happen. After that, roll a d20 modified by the number of shattered columns to see if they collapse the whole thing. Stonecunning, Knowledge(Engineering), spells or bracing can all help to keep the ceiling from coming down. Or they could decide to trigger the collapse from a distance and dig through afterwards...


Hmm... This does interfere with tying room #12 into the "painted bridge" theme from #2 though...

 

[Tonguez]

I like that DC 30! should be fun mwahahaha

If the columns are natural #2 and #12 can still be linked - kobolds are small enough to get through and the crystals may have had significance to the 'painters'.

There is also a ledge/upper level-platform in 12 that might be some kind of link too

 

[Conaill]

If the columns are natural #2 and #12 can still be linked - kobolds are small enough to get through and the crystals may have had significance to the 'painters'.

Just wondering how the painters got through - unless they were Small sized as well, of course...

 

[Raven Crowking]

Do we want to get all crazy and add in a sub-level of submerged water that's accessible via that chasm?

Sounds like a cool premise for Collaborative Cave #2.

I very much doubt that anyone will actually explore such a sub-level. I think we say "DM's discretion" and let it fuel the imagination of (or be ignored by) whosoever uses our work.

 

[der_kluge]

I very much doubt that anyone will actually explore such a sub-level. I think we say "DM's discretion" and let it fuel the imagination of (or be ignored by) whosoever uses our work.

I'd love to do an underwater cavern. It would make a great high level dungeon. Like I said - maybe a #2.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'd love to do an underwater cavern. It would make a great high level dungeon. Like I said - maybe a #2.

Okay, but it would be deadly with a capital DEAD.

One aquatic spellcaster with dispel magic deep in the cave.....

 

[Abe.ebA]

If I might offer a suggestion to both take care of the difficulty linking the bridge builders to room 12 and getting PCs to explore a potential underwater sub-cave:

In room 12 (with whatever ancient leftovers) place a shaft with worked ladder rungs leading straight down. A large piece of carved rune-script has been reduced to only a few legible phrases by time and corrosion, something about 'holy crystals' and maybe a phrase foreshadowing a main leftover baddy or a potential treasure for the sub-cave. Twenty feet further down the shaft the ladder ends just below a heavily dust-covered, stagnant water surface. The ancients used room 12 (whatever it ends up being) as a worship place to observe the crystalline growths back before the ceiling was unstable. Their main lair/home/temple was in the caverns below and the bridge was a first foray into engineering the caves above. Presumably they were a deep-dwelling race, or the lower caverns have an exit elsewhere on the surface world.

 

[Conaill]

Eh... I'd rather not build in an underwater sub-cave. Any DM worth his salt can connect this cave complex with a lower one if he wants to. But we probably shouldn't hardwire that into this one.

Another option is simply that the part of #5 that used to be wide enough for the medium sized "painters" to pass (maybe the area just below and to the right of the number 5) caved in long ago, leaving only the forest of crystalline columns as a passage.