Just keep moving…

Introduction: Possibly a trap room in a dungeon or maybe some sort of arena that the big bad makes his enemies fight in, this room requires the characters to constantly be moving.

Setting/System: Practically, this could exist in near enough any setting; it will probably be most appropriate in fantasy or sci-fi, but could exist in a modern game if someone had a good reason to build it (Bond villain, maybe?). In terms of system, this room is going to work best in a system with square-based tactical combat, opportunity attacks and so on (I had D&D in mind, but similar systems would work fine). It also needs to be a system where characters are hurt by small hits that build up, rather than a few large hits that clear a threshold.

Description: The room is empty of furnishings or anything like that. However, the floor of the room is covered in clearly delineated areas, each marked with one of three different colours. If this is some sort of fight arena, ditch the second corridor and add a viewing gallery.

Mechanics: Each round, a different coloured area is electrified. Anyone standing on those areas at the start of the round or entering the area during the round takes electrical damage (of course, characters can jump or fly over active tiles without taking damage). The amount of damage will depend on the system, but should be small, yet noticeable – a shock or two shouldn’t take down a character, but repeated shocks should add up quickly. The sequence of colours being electrified is cyclic, rather than random; the players may know what it is ahead of time, there may be an indicator on the wall of the next colour in sequence, or the players may just have to figure it out through trial and error.

Encounter: This room really requires melee combatants; if both sides are heavily range-based, they will have no issues moving between areas while shooting at each other. This should play out as a tactical exercise in always staying off the electrified tiles, while trying to avoid opportunity attacks from moving and also manoeuvring enemies onto the tiles… lots of pushes, knocking prone and such like will work well.

Water Room

Please check out the ReadMe page for general principles…

Introduction: This flooded room could be inserted into any adventure as an interesting combat location.

Setting/System: The loose physics of the room, as well as its lack of obvious purpose, suggest this would be best used in a high fantasy or soft sci-fi setting. System-wise, it could be used in any system that has at least a small element of tactical combat.

Description: Each of the four double doors (1) opens about six inches above the water, which covers the entire room. The water is about 2 feet deep and is relatively calm in the alcove with each door, but has a strong current once the characters step out into the main room. The current flows towards a large whirlpool in the centre of the room (2) where the water disappears; it is replenished by 4 waterfalls that fall from the ceiling in each corner of the room (3).

Mechanics: The current is strong and hard to move against; depending on the system, this could mean extra squares of movement required to cross each dotted line or a strength check to cross more than one in a round. Anyone knocked prone is immediately swept 2 squares towards the centre of the room. Anyone who enters the whirlpool in the middle is immediately carried, via plumbing or magic, to a random corner and takes appropriate falling damage.

Encounter: Many different encounters could be run in this room. My own approach would be to have several flying creatures roosting in alcoves near the ceiling. These creatures attack the characters and try to push them towards the centre, so that they can pluck the bodies from the water once everyone is dead. The flying creatures obviously have the advantage of mobility, but they are also fragile and are easily killed if they can be knocked into the water themselves.