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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7201071" data-attributes="member: 20323">Hope you have fun with it! DMing can be really rewarding, and rotating is a great way to let others enjoy and take a load off the main DM <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Some thoughts based on actual experience with actual groups (of course, YMMV!):Cleric: I cast cure wounds and/or spare the dying and/or greater restoration on the dying cleric!Rogue with Alertness feat: I search the area for signs of secret doors or hidden monsters.Fighter (who is also rules lawyer): Wait! The mage just gets to kill him? Were we surprised? We should be on high alert coming through a mountain pass! Doubly so finding this wounded cleric.Rogue: Why I didn't notice the mage?Wizard: I would totally counterspell that s#!^.Cleric: But I just healed him up a bunch of hit points! That must be a *really* powerful spell the undead mage used.EDIT: I'll add that the trope of the dying character whispering last words to the protagonist before expiring works GREAT in the movies and in literature. At the game table? I have hardly ever see it go smoothly. This stems from the DM misunderstanding his or her players. When you present a "dying friendly NPC", the players don't see a STORY DEVICE, they see a PROBLEM-TO-BE-SOLVED. Which spell or treatment option do we use to make the NPC better? How do we save them? That's what a DM unconsciously sets up by starting with "you meet a dying friendly NPC." And it's not at all what you want. Because if they go into rescue mode (esp. the cleric), chances are the 7th-level PCs *have* what it takes to save the NPC. But you don't want the NPC to live apparently.Here's one option I recommend (and there still could be issues with this kind of scene framing depending on the player at your table):(1) Frame the opening scene very strongly, starting right with the NPC cleric dispensing information and getting head-explored. Don't beat around the bush. For example: While crossing the mountain pass you come across the entrance to an ancient shrine carved into the mountainside. Clutching the stairs is a dying man wearing the vestments of a priest of ##insert a deity##. Upon seeing you, he speaks quickly, "Please, take these scrolls. ##insert brief adventure relevant details##." It's clear the man's wounds are grave, but even before you are able to reach him to apply spells and poultices, suddenly his face grows swollen and his eyes and crackles with necrotic purple energy before his head bursts like a balloon, showering blood across the stairs. Emerging from around the corner of a rock face, you see a mage of deathly pallor, hand glowing with fell purple light.Wizard: I cast stone shape and drop an overhanging ledge on him from 100 feet above. How much damage do you think that does? Enough to kill him? (very likely)Rogue: No! Wait! We should parlay with him and try to learn what he knows. Maybe we can even pretend to be mercenary reinforcements for his evil order?Cleric: That is an awesome idea. Maybe I can tweak my Turn Undead to make it seem like I'm controlling undead instead of turning them to convince him we're on his side?Fighter: Well, we have this other big quest we're working on, and it's kind of time sensitive. Do we have a good reason to go into this shrine? I mean, besides gold & glory?Cleric: *rolls* 8 History?Wizard: *rolls* Shoot! A 9?DM: Ummmm... OK, well, it was a DC 10 but does anyone else want to roll?Fighter & Rogue: Nah, History isn't really our thing. We just want to adventure!DM: Um... OK, so I'll just tell you. This might be an inscription somewhere or maybe the cleric knows this from his Acolyte background training?Wizard: So I guess the roll didn't really matter?DM: Um... I guess not.Nice map for a small dungeon! What software did you use?You have two points here where the party *might* not discover something very important to your adventure: (1) chamber with Bonecrusher hidden behind statue, and (2) door to rest of dungeon concealed behind mural. Personally, I like #1 especially if you leave Bonecrusher as a strictly optional thing. It's a great inversion of the usual "you find a sword of dragon slaying in the dragon's hoard" trope (wherein players barely get to use the sword of dragon slaying. Not sure from your description if there's some mechanism in the Cathedral (Area 3) that is supposed to open/move the statue revealing the chamber with Bonecrusher? IF that's the case, you might want to introduce some event when that mechanism is triggered – perhaps it makes grinding noise that attracts roaming undead guards to the Main Hall (Area 1) and nearby passages?#2 would work if you had a more convoluted/circuitous/"Jacquayed" dungeon, but for something simple I'm not sure what you gain by having the rest of the dungeon hidden behind a mural. If there's even a chance that the PCs might not notice it, and then the one-shot adventure ends prematurely, I probably wouldn't include the concealed aspect.This may also be a good place to include a roleplaying encounter with a non-hostile undead who could bestow any backstory that the PCs missed previously. For example, a talking skull or even an intact corpse (a skeleton, not a monster) who the Cleric could cast speak with dead upon.Sounds like fun! You could put the head of the maul in the secret room in Area 1, and the haft in another room; I would recommend some clue in each room (maybe wall engravings?) hinting at the separation of the maul into two parts which were interred separately in different parts of Ajantis' tomb.Have you already designed the puzzle you're using? Or are you fishing for ideas?If party sneaks in through the secret tunnel – what is the "rubble" in the tunnel? – it might be nice to give them some kind of vantage point to see any hidden enemies / a sniping position / a giant pillar or statue they can topple over onto some of the undead.A privy might make sense too, but when you're talking about an old structure, it's very possible the undead use the space in such a different way as to make it unrecognizable as a kitchen. Or some sections just might be caved/crumbled in. For example, maybe Area 5 is used to store corpses before they're animated as undead. So you might have "proto-undead" here like crawling claws or half-formed skeletons borrowing the troll's Loathsome Limbs (see optional sidebar in the Monster Manual).Also, why is the store-room trapped? What of value is being kept there?"Same as the first, a little bit worse" works in large dungeons. But for small one-night themed dungeons like yours, I recommend tweaking this. For example, making the opposition much more challenging, or introducing a disgruntled undead lieutenant of Ajantis who might be parlayed with, or including a bundle of letters/messages that were intercepted by a messenger the PCs or their allies sent in a previous adventure.The problem with these areas is that you've "gated" them behind an illusory wall without foreshadowing to the players: THIS BE A PLACE WHERE ILLUSORY WALLS MAY BE FOUND. As far as I can tell, there's no inherent logic as to WHY an illusory wall would be there. It seems to just exist to ensure the players explore the rest of the dungeon before finding your boss monster.Personally, I'd get rid of the illusory wall (unless I'm mistaken about your lack of good reasons for placing it there). And I'd let them "go right" instead of "straight", IOW, I'd let them encounter Ajantis before encountering the War Room (Area 4) and other areas. Now, to make this interesting, I'd seeds some clues very early on (in Areas 1,2,3 and passageways) hinting the nature of the lich's curse allows Ajantis to summon undead. So if the PCs go after him first (and you'd want to put hints in Area 7 that they're getting close to the death knight), then he'd be able to summon the undead from Area 4, making for a harder fight. This gives your players "agency" – they get to choose (to some extent) how they want to approach the dungeon, how hard the dungeon will be for them.IF you insisted on keeping the illusory wall, I'd recommend clueing the PCs into its presence right away – maybe it's one of the last things your dying cleric NPC tells them. And then I'd include some clues within the dungeon that hint at where exactly the illusory wall is located, so it doesn't just become a case of trial-and-error for the PCs – for example, maybe the former knights conceived of the layout of their stronghold as a sword (Area 1 hilt/pommel, Areas 2 & 3 the crossguard, Area 4 tang of the blade, and Area 5 the point). In addition to hinting at what is NEW/modified construction, you might also use this by placing knightly inscriptions that hint at the illusory wall's location: For example, The hidden warrior's way lies not along the crossguard, nor in the hilt or grip. It lies not at the point, but at the perfect balance of the blade.Cool! How do you envision the redemption working? How will the players know it's even an option?These are traps placed by the undead, right? So they should have an undeathly / corrupted knightly order theme? Or maybe a lich's curse theme?Given that you only have 5 traps, at most I'd only create 1 or maybe 2 trap types. This is because part of the fun of traps is not in the "haha, gotcha!" but in the players getting to learn the PATTERN of trap design & placement in a given dungeon.What I notice about the areas you've trapped – 2 passageways, 1 stairs, 2 thresholds – these seem more like traps designed to harm intruders rather than to prevent access to treasure, for example.Given the original occupants – valiant knights – I don't see them much as trap-makers. And given the current occupants – skeletons, wights, ghasts, revenants warriors/spellcasters, death knight – they don't seem like the types to be great trap-makers either. That suggests to me that either these traps were introduced by Xaggyth the Demi-lich, or they are more like ambient hazards connected to the curse on Ajantis. And that means these should probably be MAGICAL traps (not mechanical).One idea is to design the interior like an ossuary with macabre alcoves along the walls lined with skulls, and the skulls would be the source of the traps. There could be subtle variations in skulls hinting at which ones are trapped. Finding ways to "fool" the trapped skulls or become "invisible" to trapped skulls could be interesting...and might play off the presence of an illusory wall too...Even if it's "empty" (meaning there are no monsters, trap/tricks, or treasure), you could still put some clues here.</blockquote>

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