“J…”

Introduction: A disintegrating floor keeps combatants on their toes.

Setting/System: A little re-fluffing of the precise nature of the room could see this work in any setting. System-wise, it ideally needs to be a grid based system (though I’m sure the mechanics could probably be adapted to a less strict floorplan).

Description: The room is appropriate to the setting; rocky arena, futuristic gameshow, giant fantasy chessboard… whatever.

Mechanics: Each round, roll a d8 and consult the map (don’t let the players see the numbers). The entire row or column indicated (start with rows and alternate each round) collapses away, leaving a deep trench/bottomless pit/acid bath/etc…
Any combatants occupying a square that disappears must make a saving throw/dex check; success means they can move to any adjacent square they desire, while failure means they land prone in a randomly determined adjacent square. If there is no adjacent square to move into, they go down with the floor and suffer any appropriate consequences (massive acid damage as they swim to safety, massive falling damage and having to climb back up).

Encounter: In the first couple of rounds, this will run like a fairly normal encounter, but as more of the floor disappears, it will become harder for combatants to get around. Melee characters must work hard to ensure that they don’t get trapped on a tiny island, while ranged characters might even try to engineer this (though they risk their island disappearing under them).
If the setup is some sort of futuristic death match, it might be that the floor returns once one side wins. In a different scenario, it might be that the players need to worry about both winning the combat and making it to the exit afterwards.

Organs – Room Four – The Stomach

Introduction: Last organ (though definitely the most important)… my stomach… I mean, the stomach.

Setting/System: This could be made to work in most settings. A system with miniature based combat might make it easier to run, though it doesn’t need to be tied to a grid necessarily.

Description: A real stomach is (presumably) spongy, dark and moist. Equally, this could easily be a radioactive dump site with minimal re-fluffing (bonus points if the exit leads to the sewer).

Mechanics: The sections marked as (1) are acid pools. These are shallow enough to wade through, but will cause acid damage on the way. The protrusions marked as (2) are ulcers that will occasionally spew acid at all creatures in the adjacent squares (number the ulcers 1 to 4 and roll a d4 each round, or they could equally be proximity triggered).

Encounter: This is a pretty straightforward combat scenario. The creatures who inhabit the stomach are unaffected by the acid pools, though they can still be hurt by the ulcers. They may also know how to set the ulcers off deliberately as a more targeted attack.

Wizard Pinball

Introduction: A silly encounter, though potentially a rough one if the characters are unlucky.

Setting/System: This one is pure fantasy… you could fake it in a sci fi setting, but really it makes no physical sense. System-wise, it needs to be run with a map and miniatures; it doesn’t need the tactical complexity of D&D or anything, but you do need to know where all the combatants are standing.

Description: The area is well lit, gaudily painted, with some sort of annoying music playing. Here and there are doors that appear to be un-openable, but occasionally will spit out gigantic metal balls at high speeds. The entry point is a long corridor that terminates in a one way door that can’t be re-opened from the other side; the only exit is a large archway on the south side of the room.

Mechanics: At the end of every round, roll randomly to determine which door a ball appears from. The ball rolls along the indicated path; any combatants in squares that the path goes through must make a saving throw (or other system relevant check) to dodge aside or they take a hefty amount of damage from the ball hitting them as it passes.

Encounter: You can run pretty much any standard encounter in here, with the balls as a general hazard. Enemies who know the area are smart enough not to stand in front of doorways and such like. However, those in melee combat probably can’t judge things with precision, so should be just as likely to be standing in the wrong place as the players. (My suggestion is not to memorise the paths too closely and only refer to them at the end of each round. In this way, you won’t be sure yourself whether the enemies are bad positions.)
For variety, you could have one or two balls each round (randomly determined), which increases the odds of people getting hit.
Another variant in a system with longer combats (it wouldn’t work if combats were only a couple of rounds) would be to determine the number of balls at the start of the round and have a chime or something that sounds out the number of balls expected at the end of the round. Once the players cotton on (which should be very quickly), have one round where the chime sounds several times and all combatants must scramble for safe looking locations before every doorway triggers at once.

Up close and personal

Introduction: A room designed to chop up a combat into smaller groups. This could just be for variety, but it might also be an interesting challenge to groups with a heavy synergy between characters.

Setting/System: Probably sci-fi or fantasy – nothing inherently prevents it existing in other settings, but it’s hard to imagine its purpose in the real world. System-wise, tactical miniature-based combat is probably a must. If you use my final suggestion at the bottom, a system with relatively quick turn resolution mechanics would be a bonus. Also, this will certainly work best with larger parties… if there are only 2 or 3 PCs, they are likely to stick together and miss out on half the fun of the setup.

Description: This large open room has numerous pistons coming down from the ceiling (the shaded areas on the map), which divide it into a smaller series of rooms for a short time, before retracting back into the ceiling and then descending again. The pistons are massive and essentially indestructible through normal means (though not completely so, if the players happen to come up with an awesome idea), while the room itself appears to be the inside of a much larger machine of some description.

Mechanics: The area has a three turn cycle; one turn completely open, two turns blocked. This timing could be adjusted to alternating turns, but there needs to be sufficient downtime to encourage ranged characters to close in, rather than just accepting that they only shoot every other round.
On the open turn, the pistons are retracted and characters can move around the area freely, while on the blocked turns, they cannot escape the 3×3 area they’re in (unless they can walk through walls or something). Characters must be in a non-shaded area at the end of the “open” round or else they are simply crushed to death; the pistons move slowly enough that ending a turn in the shaded area is basically voluntary suicide. If a combatant is forced into the shaded area before their turn, they must move out of it on their turn. If they are forced into a shaded area after their turn, they get a free movement at the end of the round, to the nearest vacant square. If a combatant is somehow immobilised or pushed under without enough time to escape (though bear in mind, they would likely have to be pushed under while prone for this to be the case) then they are killed outright.

Encounter: This room should be stocked with mostly melee enemies. The intention is that this room will divide the combat into small mini-combats, which then switch up each time the pistons move (the cleric moves over to help the guys who’s hurting; the fighter who cleared his space, moves to engage another group). There are a couple of variations however…
1) Have an infinite supply of enemies joining from the corridors around the edge, which won’t stop until the players perform some series of actions. This will keep the players moving around and stop things becoming static.
2) You could massively increase the speed of the pistons, such that enemies pushed under them have no time to escape at the end of the round. This very much changes the focus of the combat though, from close little mini-combats with no escape, to “how can I push as many enemies as possible under these pistons?”
3) If you’ve got a system that allows for relatively quick combat rounds and some players who don’t mind a bit of faffing, you can send everyone out of the room each time the pistons come down, bring them back in groups to resolve each 3×3 combat (but remove all the figures from the other squares temporarily) and then call them all back in when the pistons go up, to see what happened to everyone else.

2D Dungeon

Introduction: An amusing diversion, rather than a serious combat… it should give old school videogamers a chuckle.

Setting/System: No setting requirements at all. No major system requirements, but there should be some rules for jumping and climbing, at least.

Description: Unlike most maps, this one is oriented vertically. The precise nature of the room could be a variety of things (ledges on an open cliffside, platforms inside a large wall cavity), but the upshot is the same… there is no room for combatants to pass each other, so they must negotiate the room like an old 2D platform game.

Mechanics: There are no special mechanics for this room beyond the peculiar constraints of the room itself; ladders can be climbed and jumping between ledges may or may not be possible, depending on the system/characters. It’s worth refreshing yourself on the rules for jumping, so you have a idea of the PCs’ capabilities in that area. Movement can be dealt with in feet or squares… whatever is normal for the system.

Encounter: There are a few variants that could be run with this…
1) You could run a straight up encounter with a decent mix of melee and ranged enemies.
2) Add the Donkey Kong feel with enemies rolling things down from above as the PCs try to reach the top.
3) If none of the PCs have any great jumping capabilities, you could run an interesting encounter with enemies who can jump between ledges, but not use ladders, while the PCs use ladders, but can’t jump between ledges.
4) As an alternative to a standard “kill all enemies” scenario, the PCs could be trying to capture an extremely mobile enemy. If this is the case, you should not reveal the entire map initially… they should be required to explore it, in order to figure out where it might be possible to corner such an enemy.
5) Combine with my post from a couple of weeks ago and have a water level that rises each round as the PCs fight their way upwards.

Extra Credit Assignment: If you really want to push the boat out, you could actually construct the map properly, with ledges attached to a vertical surface, though this would require some robust ledges or very light miniatures. If anyone goes down this route, send me some pictures.

You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?

Introduction: A room designed to put PCs at a significant disadvantage against an enemy that they can’t simply “engage” as normal.

Setting/System: This one is pure fantasy. I’ve written it with slightly divine elements, but in a setting with no divine magic, the effects could easily be purely arcane. This is heavily inspired by the scene where Harry gets attacked by hobs in the Dresden Files book, Small Favours – if you’re running an actual Dresden Files game, you could run this with hobs and myrk, exactly as the book (for bonus points, the three pillars are linked in some way to the Swords).

Description: The room is pitch black… ‘can’t see your hand in front of your face’ type darkness. The only things visible are three pillars of differing dimness, depending on their distance (the furthest pillar is barely perceptible). The pillars, once characters are close enough to see them properly, are covered in religious texts and blaze with incredibly bright light that quickly gets swallowed by the darkness.

Mechanics: The entire room is under a magical effect that causes any illumination to drop off much quicker than it should (a similar effect to thick smoke, but with nothing obvious in the air). Regular light sources (torches, lanterns, etc…) are effectively invisible and cast no light; the light might be visible when held right next to someone’s eye, but that’s about it. Magical light sources have varying effect; a simple light cantrip will likely function no better than a non-magical light source, while the light from a powerful magical weapon might illuminate a radius of a couple of feet.
The three pillars in the room cast such bright light that they illuminate out to around ten feet. In this radius, characters can see fairly normally, though it gets gloomier as they get further from the pillar.
PCs in the dark are unable to see anything except the three pillars. Darkvision, infravision and such like have no effect (the light attentuates so quickly that they have nothing to work off), but vision based on other senses (echolocation, tremorsense) works fine.

Encounter: The room is home to several undead creatures, who are blind and unaffected by the darkness. They will attack any living creatures in the room, but they will not come within 10 feet of the pillars, as the holy light hurts them; if their prey is by a pillar, they simply wait invisibly, just outside the radius of the light.
The creatures are not tough and are likely to go down to a solid hit; hitting them is the tricky part. Reward any vaguely logical plan to attack them in the dark; otherwise they will harry the PCs with quick hit and run attacks.
The easiest way to defeat the creatures, if you wish to allow it, is to dispel the darkness; this will allow the three pillars to blaze holy light through the room and vapourise the undead instantly. This solution shouldn’t trivialise the encounter… if one of the players comes up with it after they’ve already tried fighting the creatures though other methods and had no luck, let them do it with minimal effort; if it’s the first thing the players suggest then make them work for it, by requiring a ritual to be performed at each pillar or something.

Alternate encounter: An alternative worth noting would be to have no encounter as such. Just describe the terrifying journey from pillar to pillar and let the players react accordingly. “Something cracks under your foot… you kick it away into what sounds like a pile of bones.” “As you step into the light of the first pillar, you feel a slight tug on your ankle that instantly disappears” “You hear some footfalls on the other side of the room… probably just an echo.”

The Cube

Introduction: A room with peculiar gravity that allows the PCs to walk on the walls and ceiling… a challenge for groups that don’t mind complicated combats.

Setting/System: Setting is soft sci-fi or fantasy, due to the weird gravity effects. The system probably needs to be one with miniature based combat… it could be run in a more abstract system, but it would lose some of the nuances.

Description: The room is a perfect cube. The floor, walls and ceiling of this cube are made of a strange looking metal; they have four foot high protrusions in certain places, made from a transparent, synthetic material. Most notably, gravity seems to pull downwards through all six faces of the cube, allowing the PCs to stand normally anywhere on the map.

Mechanics: This will take some imagination and spatial awareness on the parts of the players and the GM. The floor plan above shows the “unfolded” cube; the numbers indicate which sides join to which. As the PCs (and their enemies) can walk on any surface, they can step between corresponding sides using normal movement (i.e. a PC can move from the top-most square to the bottom-most square, just by stepping across side 1).
The synthetic protrusions provide cover from ranged attacks made from the same face (and maybe the near side of adjacent faces); however, they provide no cover from ranged attacks made by enemies with sufficient elevation to shoot over the cover. Ranges will require a little bit of guesswork based on geometry, but they are certainly a lot shorter than the map suggests in many cases.
Under normal circumstances, it is impossible to jump from one cube face to the opposite face. However, if a character has extraordinary jumping ability and can clear 20′ height, they can cross the halfway point, gravity will switch and they will land on the other side (taking damage from a 20′ fall).

Encounters: Pure melees will become static and won’t make use of the unique features of the room. Therefore enemies should probably fall into one of the following categories:
1) Ranged enemies who benefit particularly well from using the cover provided.
2) Melee enemies with a jumping ability that allows them to switch sides of the cube easily (maybe as an actual attack from above).
Essentially, you want enemies who have a good reason to keep moving, as this will force the PCs to do the same.

Platforms

Introduction: A single room that could be used for an interesting combat.

Setting/System: I designed this with an old-school D&D dungeon in mind, but it could be adapted to all sorts of settings. It does need to be used in a system that runs combats on a map with miniatures; otherwise it will be tough to track.

Description: The room contains several platforms that move around via rails or magic. The floor is a short drop/a long drop/a pool of acid, as appropriate to the setting and power level of the players.

Mechanics: Each round the platforms switch positions, according to the arrows on the map (to be clear, there are two separate cycles of three platforms). Treat this movement as instantaneous at the start of the round (or give it an initiative roll if initiative is rolled each round); this will work best if each platform is represented by a tile that can simply be picked up and moved, bringing any miniatures with it. The two adjacent platforms in the centre can simply be stepped between; platforms that are not adjacent may be jumped between (the size of the room can be adjusted to make the distances harder or easier to jump, depending on the system and character abilities). Getting knocked off a platform has penalties appropriate to whatever may be beneath them.
[Practical note: If short on table space, the platforms can be bunched closer together and the distance between them simply described to the players. For the most part, PCs are either going to be on the platforms or off them – there is no need to physically represent the full distances between platforms.]

Encounter: A mix of melee and ranged enemies will keep the players on their toes; ranged enemies will prevent ranged PCs from staying entirely out of harm’s way, while melee enemies should either be flyers or good jumpers, to ensure they can engage. I would recommend not having the platforms move at all until the players step onto the first one, so they don’t have time to study the sequence before the first gets started.
One slight variation would be to have a very tough, but immobile enemy on the platform that starts next to the exit door. This will force the players to figure out a way to switch platforms at least once if they want to avoid engaging it in the middle as they cross the room.

Wind Tunnel

Introduction: A final level of protection for a treasury or other target of interest. The PCs start out at a definite disadvantage and will need to work hard to overrun the guards.

Setting/System: This particular set up is probably fantasy or sci-fi, but the mechanics could be adapted for a straight wind tunnel in a modern game. In terms of system, a map and minis are probably necessary, but the mechanics could be made a little more fuzzy for systems that aren’t as rigidly square based as D&D or similar.

[Note: The map is sized for 4^th ed. D&D, where character movement is in the region of 6 squares… clearly this could be resized for other systems easily enough.]

Description: The tunnel walls are smooth and streamlined, whether by design or due to erosion by the wind that is rushing through the tunnel at high speeds. The airflow is pretty constant round the entire donut – this could be magic or simple engineering.

Mechanics: Anyone in the airflow will find themselves blown along if they don’t make an active effort to resist it. At the end of each round all characters are blown a number of squares anticlockwise equal to about two thirds of the normal movement for their race (small races aren’t blown as far, since they present a smaller surface area; monks or characters with increased movement aren’t blown any further than characters of similar size). Characters can choose to reduce this forced movement by subtracting any squares of movement they may have left at the end of their turn. In this fashion, all characters can make slow progress against the wind by moving about a third of their movement and using the remaining squares to resist being blown at the end of the round. Ranged attacks may be affected if appropriate; the ranges are short enough that guns are probably unaffected, but thrown weapons could have their ranges greatly increased or decreased, depending on the direction of the throw.

Encounter: Characters enter at (1) and are trying to reach the door at (2); guards are positioned in the alcoves (3) and don’t step into the airflow until the PCs are close enough to engage. In the first round that any characters enter the tunnel, they do not get the opportunity to resist the wind, as they are not prepared for it. Describe the curvature of the tunnel, but don’t confirm that it is a complete circle until one of the characters actually investigates. Of course, the guards are well aware of the fact and will circle quickly round, rather than struggle against the wind, if they are knocked too far out of position.

 

Ranged combat arena

Introduction: A single largish room designed to challenge a group that is heavy on ranged characters.

Setting/System: Practically, this could exist in most settings, though realistic modern settings would likely have no reason to build it. In terms of system, it will work best with one that has rules for tactical movement, line of sight, etc… If the combat is too abstract, the moving parts of the room will lose their impact.

Description: The area is spartan, probably designed specifically for the purpose of combat as entertainment (non-lethal for the masses or to the death for the big bad’s enemies). High platforms and deep trenches are randomly placed around the arena; the walls of these have sufficient small indentations to be climbable by a skilled character. At three places in the arena are large and obvious buttons.

Mechanics: The coloured areas on the map can change height to become either trenches (10′ deep) or platforms (20′ high) – the two different colours are at opposite heights at any one time. The change is caused by either using one of the buttons around the arena or occasionally at random (perhaps 1 in 6 chance each round) – whenever a button is pressed, the areas toggle; platforms become trenches and trenches become platforms (they change quickly – treat it as near enough instantaneous for practical purposes). The buttons are large, easily pressed and robust; characters should be allowed to press them as a free action, even in the middle of a movement. Characters can also potentially activate the buttons from a distance, depending on their weapon (guns probably wouldn’t work, but a crossbow or a heavy thrown weapon might).

Encounter: The arena works best with two groups of primarily ranged combatants; melees will quickly become static and the platforms/trenches irrelevant. Line of sight should be ruthlessly enforced for characters on the ground, but interpreted generously for those on platforms; this will encourage players to try and constantly take the high ground. The area around each button is deliberately clear of cover; anyone camping by a button can be quickly put down with ranged attacks.