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  1. - Top - End - #121
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    DigoDragon's Avatar

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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    When I ran Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, one of the paranoia-inducing points was when the party was exploring the castle, knowing full well Count Strahd was somewhere inside. I held back on having him show up for a little while, only hinting at places he had been to recently. So the party was getting on-edge about a high-level vampire in this castle but that they seemed unable to find him... :3

    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    I think the cemetery union is going to come after you for making them insufficiently dangerous a location.
    Uh oh.
    Did I just dig myself in deep? Trying to find a good lawyer to fight this union sounds like a grand undertaker and I'm going to get buried in red-tape, aren't I?
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  2. - Top - End - #122
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by DigoDragon View Post
    Uh oh.
    Did I just dig myself in deep? Trying to find a good lawyer to fight this union sounds like a grand undertaker and I'm going to get buried in red-tape, aren't I?
    Calm down; you'll work yourself to death!
    That's all I can think of, at any rate.

    Quote Originally Posted by remetagross View Post
    All hail the mighty Strigon! One only has to ask, and one shall receive.

  3. - Top - End - #123
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by DigoDragon View Post
    Uh oh.
    Did I just dig myself in deep? Trying to find a good lawyer to fight this union sounds like a grand undertaker and I'm going to get buried in red-tape, aren't I?
    Quote Originally Posted by Strigon View Post
    Calm down; you'll work yourself to death!
    That many unlicensed puns will get you in trouble with the Bards' union.

  4. - Top - End - #124
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by JAL_1138 View Post
    That many unlicensed puns will get you in trouble with the Bards' union.
    (Rubs fingers together)
    Hear that?
    It's the world's smallest lute playing just for you!

    Help me I can't stop
    Last edited by Strigon; 2015-06-10 at 07:54 AM.
    That's all I can think of, at any rate.

    Quote Originally Posted by remetagross View Post
    All hail the mighty Strigon! One only has to ask, and one shall receive.

  5. - Top - End - #125
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    BardGuy

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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by Strigon View Post
    (Rubs fingers together)
    Hear that?
    It's the world's smallest lute playing just for you!

    Help me I can't stop
    That's not how you play that. It's the world's smallest lute, not world's smallest viol. Here, like this: *holds thumb of left hand against first finger thereof in a circle, palm outward, fingers facing downward. Plucks with thumb, first, and ring finger of right hand at point where thumb and forefinger of left hand meet. An extremely high-pitched version of I Saw My Lady Weepe from John Dowland's The Second Booke of Songes or Ayres, of 2.4. and 5. parts: With Tableture for the Lute or Orpherian, with the Violl de Gamba can be heard faintly*

  6. - Top - End - #126
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by Strigon View Post
    I agree wih that general point, although if I'm honest, I think they just don't cremate because they lack the resources to do it for everyone. Cremation would probably be the safest way, but very expensive, so only Lord Moneybags can have Dear Aunt Cindy sitting in an urn on the shelf.

    Back on topic, though; a child in a dungeon. Sure, they might be a helpless orphan, but there's a statistically significant chance they're really an evil spirit or a centuries-old vampire lord.


    That chance increases significantly if it's a young girl.
    If you want to include a small child that actually needs to be rescued in your dungeon, give the poor thing some visible rat bites on its arms and legs, thus showing that its not immune to the denizens of the dungeon, and is not likely to be in cahoots with them (and WOW that's a long sentence! My apologies). Tangle their hair, rip the knees our of their pants, and cover their face with dirt.

    So many great ideas! Now I just need to have a haunted dungeon somewhere so I can use all of them.
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  7. - Top - End - #127
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    The instant the last party member is through a door and nobody's looking at the door, the door is gone, leaving only a blank wall. (It's just an illusion spell, but it'll freak them out at first. Or get you accused of really bad railroading, until they find out it's an illusion. Then they'll start thinking about it and wonder who or what cast the illusion.)

  8. - Top - End - #128
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by JAL_1138 View Post
    That many unlicensed puns will get you in trouble with the Bards' union.
    Sorry, the union only accepts puns from a fifth level laughomancer. We have to revoke your liscences
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  9. - Top - End - #129
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    DigoDragon's Avatar

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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by JAL_1138 View Post
    The instant the last party member is through a door and nobody's looking at the door, the door is gone, leaving only a blank wall. (It's just an illusion spell, but it'll freak them out at first. Or get you accused of really bad railroading, until they find out it's an illusion. Then they'll start thinking about it and wonder who or what cast the illusion.)
    Better yet, the door was the illusion. How did they walk through it?
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  10. - Top - End - #130
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by DigoDragon View Post
    Better yet, the door was the illusion. How did they walk through it?
    Well, clearly they failed their roll to disbelieve.

    Maybe Passwall or Stone Shape is somehow set to briefly trigger for creatures on one side of the wall that interact with the illusion, but won't work from the other side. So, briefly, there's a real door beneath the illusion of the door, but it doesn't last.

  11. - Top - End - #131
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by JAL_1138 View Post
    Well, clearly they failed their roll to disbelieve.

    Maybe Passwall or Stone Shape is somehow set to briefly trigger for creatures on one side of the wall that interact with the illusion, but won't work from the other side. So, briefly, there's a real door beneath the illusion of the door, but it doesn't last.
    It's posts like this that explain why my 'GM batteries' are powered by the frustrated cries of PCs.
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  12. - Top - End - #132
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by DigoDragon View Post
    It's posts like this that explain why my 'GM batteries' are powered by the frustrated cries of PCs.

  13. - Top - End - #133
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Paranoia-inducing elements: posted signs, written in Gnomish.

    For example, anywhere in the dungeon: "This hallway is not trapped."
    Next to the jail cells: "These prisoners have been condemned for being serial killers and pathological liars. One of them is innocent."
    Anywhere in the dungeon: "One of these signs has Explosive Runes written on it."
    Anywhere in the dungeon: "Did you know that it's hard to swim in armor?"
    Next to a statue anywhere in the dungeon: "There's a very simple way to avoid a Beholder. Simply"
    Last edited by Telonius; 2015-06-10 at 01:45 PM.

  14. - Top - End - #134
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    Goblin

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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Keep giving them potions of fire resistance, and include descriptions of scorch marks in every other room.

  15. - Top - End - #135
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    A lone adult human molar with a bit of blood and gum tissue on it lying in the middle of an otherwise spotless floor.

  16. - Top - End - #136
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    A long, broad hallway with rails and other machinery obviously designed for using heavy equipment. The walls are heavily reinforced both physically with advanced metal and magically with armoring wards. The end of the hallway has a large, extremely heavy reinforced vault door, activated only by two separate keys simultaneously, which has a sign draped on it which reads "DO NOT ENTER". The vault door is surprisingly ajar.

    One custom-built monster with teleportation at the end of each attack, perfect invisibility and silence as a free action, high damage attacks, and the ability to walk through walls.

    An unusually large number of spiders in this one particular room.

    The floor and walls of a room covered in nothing but knee-high mushrooms of many different species.
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  17. - Top - End - #137
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    The most paranoia inducing dungeon I have played was this maze. That was fine. The creepy part was vaaaah.


    We were walking through minding our own buisness, and competing to get out. All of the sudden, frm a couple of rooms over, we hear vvvvvv....Aaahhh! It was some creature, which we called vaaaah. We fought a vampire that got the upper hand, until it flew away and boom. The sound repeats. Middle of second watch: heard again close by. Divinations: it is a demigod, we cannot find out anything else. This repeats and we almost die of fear.

    It turned out to be some idea he had come up with on the spot.
    Last edited by Elandris Kajar; 2015-06-10 at 02:55 PM.

  18. - Top - End - #138
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    In every space-faring adventure I've run, the fastest way I've found to induce paranoia in a party is to have them happen upon an abandoned starship in perfect working order. Bonus points when the ship logs have no entries that explain why they abandoned ship. In one adventure, the PC mechanic that went with the boarding team got so fed up with finding no reason why the crew abandoned their ship, he snapped and purposely damaged a key system just to calm himself down.
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  19. - Top - End - #139
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by Telonius View Post
    Paranoia-inducing elements: posted signs, written in Gnomish.

    For example, anywhere in the dungeon: "This hallway is not trapped."
    Next to the jail cells: "These prisoners have been condemned for being serial killers and pathological liars. One of them is innocent."
    Anywhere in the dungeon: "One of these signs has Explosive Runes written on it."
    Anywhere in the dungeon: "Did you know that it's hard to swim in armor?"
    Next to a statue anywhere in the dungeon: "There's a very simple way to avoid a Beholder. Simply"
    Simply what? I want to know
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    A large circle of runes etched on the floor with one rune scuffed badly. In the centre of the runes an oversized, discarded set of manacles. The room is otherwise empty.

  21. - Top - End - #141
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by Bard1cKnowledge View Post
    Simply what? I want to know
    As far as I can tell, the implication is that the beholder got him right before he finished, so his so-called foolproof method is useless.
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    And besides, it's a ludicrous way of breaking the game by twisting rules beyond all recognition. Kobolds have to be involved in there somewhere.

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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by JAL_1138 View Post
    Well, clearly they failed their roll to disbelieve.
    Well, we have Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration; clearly we need Shadow Transmutation for Passwall and such.

    Of course for a party that can't fly or otherwise faces logistical problems crossing a vast chasm, you could instead have a Shadow Conjuration Wall of Stone act as the bridge they walked to get across the chasm.
    It is inevitable, of course, that persons of epicurean refinement will in the course of eternity engage in dealings with those of... unsavory character. Record well any transactions made, and repay all favors promptly.. (Thanks to Gnomish Wanderer for the Toreador avatar! )

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  23. - Top - End - #143
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by Elandris Kajar View Post
    As far as I can tell, the implication is that the beholder got him right before he finished, so his so-called foolproof method is useless.
    I read it as the gnome being a general jerk. "The simple way to avoid a beholder is to simply avoid it." Sounds like something my dad would say, actually.
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by Elandris Kajar View Post
    As far as I can tell, the implication is that the beholder got him right before he finished, so his so-called foolproof method is useless.
    That's how I read it too. I did the same sentence-ending-suddenly thing in the adventurer's-journal entry; it's a common horror technique and almost always means that the writer died or vanished suddenly.

    Bit like the old meme about a character from Freakazoid! called Candlejack who would make whoever said his name disappe

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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by JAL_1138 View Post
    That's how I read it too. I did the same sentence-ending-suddenly thing in the adventurer's-journal entry; it's a common horror technique and almost always means that the writer died or vanished suddenly.

    Bit like the old meme about a character from Freakazoid! called Candlejack who would make whoever said his name disappe
    Dam it JAL, we all know never to invoke the name Candlejack.

    Remember what happened to poor little timot
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  26. - Top - End - #146
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by JAL_1138 View Post
    That's how I read it too. I did the same sentence-ending-suddenly thing in the adventurer's-journal entry; it's a common horror technique and almost always means that the writer died or vanished suddenly.

    Bit like the old meme about a character from Freakazoid! called Candlejack who would make whoever said his name disappe
    Hmm. Now I am thinking of a command word that when written or spoken within a dungeon causes the speaker or writer to teleport randomly within the dungeon.

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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by Strigon View Post
    Every cemetery wants to be a dungeon when it grows up.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Strigon View Post
    That chance increases significantly if it's a young girl.
    Remember: All female humanoids in dungeons are succubi. No exceptions.
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  28. - Top - End - #148
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCountAlucard View Post
    Well, we have Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration; clearly we need Shadow Transmutation for Passwall and such.
    Shadow Walk etc.?

    Actually Shadow Divination would be very Platonic.
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  29. - Top - End - #149
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by nedz View Post
    Shadow Walk etc.?

    Actually Shadow Divination would be very Platonic.
    Given the way that Augury, Divination and Contact Other Plane all have percentage chances of giving you the wrong information, I wonder if Shadow Divination wasn't right here in front of us the whole time.
    If a tree falls in the forest and the PCs aren't around to hear it... what do I roll to see how loud it is?

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  30. - Top - End - #150
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    Default Re: The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

    Quote Originally Posted by Sith_Happens View Post
    Remember: All female humanoids in dungeons are succubi. No exceptions.
    And if it's an old man, do not let him out of the dungeon. Certainly don't let him out of a cage.
    Nobody has ever imprisoned an old man in a dungeon. Unspeakable evils disguised as old men? They get locked in a dungeon every other Tuesday. Don't let them out.
    That's all I can think of, at any rate.

    Quote Originally Posted by remetagross View Post
    All hail the mighty Strigon! One only has to ask, and one shall receive.

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