the Jester
Legend
So I wrote up (what I thought was) a cool dungeon adventure for one of my groups. Honestly, as much as anything, the adventure was an opportunity for me to playtest an encounter trap (from Dungeonscape). The concept of an encounter trap is, essentially, a trap that isn't just "BOOM! Make a save, take some damage"- a trap that needs an initiative. I loved the idea upon reading it in Dungeonscape, and had to try it out. 
So anyway, tonight's adventure was the climax of a 3-game run in the Ashen Palace of Bleak. The palace has it all in its backstory: fratricide, a cool cursed site, mad smack talking, a truly villainous villain and tragic romance (or is it romantic tragedy?). At the end, half of the pcs went into a room while the other half hung back outside in the hallway. The ones who went in triggered the encounter trap and a portcullis fell, separating the party. The two in the room with the trap had to deal with a rain of bone-chillingly cold ash while trying to solve the puzzle of the trap, and meanwhile a ton of skeletons animated and the other two stuck to bracing the door, managing to hold the undead off while the trapped pcs worked out the trap. It was awesome, and several times I thought that the party was going to get tpked. The tension was high; everyone was in real danger every round, and even after the encounter trap was solved, the pcs got ambushed by the dungeon's BBEG and, if he hadn't fumbled badly early on and lost his weapon, he prolly could have killed at least one or two of them.
All in all, a very fun game session, a really cool new type of encounter for me to play with, and a very rewarding evening!
Does anyone else have any cool encounter trap stories to share?
So anyway, tonight's adventure was the climax of a 3-game run in the Ashen Palace of Bleak. The palace has it all in its backstory: fratricide, a cool cursed site, mad smack talking, a truly villainous villain and tragic romance (or is it romantic tragedy?). At the end, half of the pcs went into a room while the other half hung back outside in the hallway. The ones who went in triggered the encounter trap and a portcullis fell, separating the party. The two in the room with the trap had to deal with a rain of bone-chillingly cold ash while trying to solve the puzzle of the trap, and meanwhile a ton of skeletons animated and the other two stuck to bracing the door, managing to hold the undead off while the trapped pcs worked out the trap. It was awesome, and several times I thought that the party was going to get tpked. The tension was high; everyone was in real danger every round, and even after the encounter trap was solved, the pcs got ambushed by the dungeon's BBEG and, if he hadn't fumbled badly early on and lost his weapon, he prolly could have killed at least one or two of them.
All in all, a very fun game session, a really cool new type of encounter for me to play with, and a very rewarding evening!
Does anyone else have any cool encounter trap stories to share?
