I need some help from you DMs. A dungeon for 14th-level adventurers (longish)

[Shin Okada]

Within 2 or 3 month, I have to prepare a dungeon for a party of 13 to 14th level characters. Even though that is a 3.0 core-rule only campaign, adventurers of that level have a lot of way to "short-cut" a dungeon. Say,

1. Break the Walls and Doors.

They have a Maul of the Titans, which do triple damage onto inanimate objects. Even magically reinforced walls will be broken so easily by a Str 29 barbarian.

2. Stay invisible.
At this level, they can stay invisible as long as they want. They may simply sneak past most of the monsters, as not all the monsters can see invisible.

3. Scry and Teleport.
The main villain of the dungeon is a Lich who have confronted the party once. So the party spell-casters may scry on him and directly teleport into his room.

4. Etherealness
The party loves Ethereal Jaunt and Etherealness. As soon as they see a hard monster, they may simply become ethereal and "pass" the room or that area. Not all the monsters can see ethereal plane nor attack ethereal characters.

Maybe a lot of things to consider.

Anyway, my current plan is like this

a. The dungeon is a vast natural cave, not a man-made structure.
Thus, the PCs cannot simply break a wall and go into the next room. The problem 1 is solved.

b. Fill the dungeon (a kind of unholy temple) with Unhallow attached with Invisibility Purge. That will solve the problem 2.

c. Fill the dungeon with Forbiddance spell. Now they can't teleport into the dungeon nor approach from Ethereal plane.

But there is a problem, Forbiddance spell may keep some PCs completely out of the dungeon and that is not my intention. So I need your ideas. Are there any good way to let PCs go into the area protected by Forbiddance spell, but not by dispelling it nor by extradimensional way? Or, are there any better way to solve those problems?

Thanks in advance.

 

[the Jester]

Let them use their abilities. Instead of trying to counter their abilities, make areas of the dungeon that require them- a sealed off section they have to go ethereal or scry/teleport into, etc. The lich can just cast mind blank to avoid being taken out by scrying, or give him an amulet of proof against detection and location.

Invisible pcs are fine; they're leaving enemies in their wake, and as long as those enemies respond when they hear the big battle break out in the next room it'll all work itself out.

 

[Darklone]

Hallow with Dimensional Anchor is your friend. Or: The lich knows about teleport as well, so why not setting up some traps?
There were some spells somewhere to misguide teleport spells... into a lava filled room perhaps?

 

[Kugar]

Some "Classic" answers.

1) Important walls/floors/ceilings contain permanent wall of force spells.
2) Do not connect all the rooms physically. Make some archways portals to other dimesions/demi-planes
3) Illusion spells can make scry-port very dangerous.
4) The main area the lich is in can be forbiddanced so the party must enter the dungeon and lure him out of the protected area or bring it down.
5) Invisible poison gas. Scryport can lead to a messy end of the heros.
6) Unhallow/Dimensional Anchor.
7) Anything with scent will help neutralize invisibility
8) True-Seeing
9) Mind Blank
10) Ethereal guardians.

 

[Wippit Guud]

How to get around it all in one easy step:

Stick a continous wall of force around every wall, floor, and ceiling. Make sure the lich has sculpt spell which should allow within the rules for a wall of force to not be a vertical plane - or just have him research a 6th level spell which does that.

No they can't hurt the walls, and can't go ethereal around them.

 

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

I know that there's nothing more frustrating than having cool abilities and not being able to use them. That's why I second the Jester's suggestions: Don't build the dungeon so as to block the PC's abilities. Make sure they can use them. Make sure they HAVE to use them.

- The lich could have hired/summoned/bent to his will Ethereal monsters to patrol the place.
- The lich knows what high-level magical opponents can do. He'll prepare accordingly.
- Secret rooms will be totally blocked out. The PC's will have to reach it via teleport or going ethereal.
- There will be "adapted" monsters, ie some that can see invisibility, strike into the ethereal, etc, but also ordinary monsters, that can easily be bypassed. The PC's won't feel cheated when they can use their abilities.
- Lots of mischevious traps.
- A dungeon that's not only "2D"
- etc.

TS

 

[Pax]

1. Break the Walls and Doors.

Antimagic Field renders that item useless. The ELH lists walls and doors made of force in it's tables. multi-inch-thick Adamantine has a lot of hardnessand hitpoints (for example, a two-inch-thick adamantine door has hardness 20 and 80hp).

2. Stay invisible.

A light, knee-height fog shoudl be suitable for a +5 to +10 circumstance bonus to spot checks against nonflying enemies.

Make the dungeon an ice cave with fresh snow a couple inches deep, and invisibility and moving silently BOTH largely go away.

Then there're tricks like tremorsense and blindsight.

If half the time, invisibility isn't as terribly useful as it might've seemed, that shouldn't be too unfair ... 'cause the other half, it's still a big advantage.

3. Scry and Teleport.

Dimensional Lock throughout the caverns, except in a heavily-trapped-and-defended "Telepad" room. That shuts out the whole "teleport in / whack BBEG / teleport home" schtick, and it's within the Lich's power to do that.

As for scry -- we're talking stuff with darkvision, tremorsense, and blindsight, in most cases. That renders scry less than useful:

Caster: "Darn!"
OtherPC: "What? What do you see?"
Cster: "I see dark places. Everywhere. And they don- er, ah ... sorry, wrong movie ..."

For the few places where light is needed -- Mordenkainens' Private Sanctum.

4. Etherealness[/b]

Dimensional Lock also solves this problem.

Also, give some of the hard monsters spellcasting abilities (even Liches can have apprentices ...). Give them the Transdimensional Spell metamagic. Blast the ethereal fools ANYway.

a. The dungeon is a vast natural cave, not a man-made structure.
Thus, the PCs cannot simply break a wall and go into the next room. The problem 1 is solved.

Leave a few places where they can; natural caversn with aeas of finished stonework are just plain NEAT.

Then, when they DO knock a wall down -- make sure you had some big-bad-nasties nerby, who will come running to respond to the godawful RACKET the party is making. Knockind walls down with a supermagichammer DOES tend to be noisy, after all. 8)

b. Fill the dungeon (a kind of unholy temple) with Unhallow attached with Invisibility Purge. That will solve the problem 2.

Yep, but here's some other things you could tie to that Unhallow:

Dimensional Lock (stops teleportation; if DimAnchor is fine, DimLock should work too); Deeper Darkness (stymies scrying); Dispel Magic (constantly ping their magicstuff, bwa haha!).

c. Fill the dungeon with Forbiddance spell. Now they can't teleport into the dungeon nor approach from Ethereal plane.

Dimensional Lock is what you're looking for. Forbiddance keeps them form entering the area, PERIOD; once in, they can flit back and forth from ethereal to nonethereal, to their hearts' content.

It's in T&B and MoF; 6th or 8th level spell, I forget which. Durations is one day per caster level, so one lich ought to be able to keep a moderately-sized complex closed off quite long term, especially if he's the BBEG for a 14-15 level party! 8)

 

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

How to get around it all in one easy step:

Stick a continous wall of force around every wall, floor, and ceiling. Make sure the lich has sculpt spell which should allow within the rules for a wall of force to not be a vertical plane - or just have him research a 6th level spell which does that.

No they can't hurt the walls, and can't go ethereal around them.

Problem is, the lich will have to make all those walls permanent... It just seems like an awful lot of wasted XP

TS

 

[Wippit Guud]

A wizard becomes a lich to live forever.
What's a few XP to a lich that plans on living that long?

 

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

A wizard becomes a lich to live forever.
What's a few XP to a lich that plans on living that long?

that's true, but at 2500 XP a pop, that's not a very efficient way of protecting your dungeon.

"There, done and done. Hmm. I seem to have forgotten how to cast Glitterdust!"

(yeah yeah I know you can't lose XP as to lose a level)

TS