CAGD 270 Simple DnD Map v3

 For the Simple DnD Map v3 assignment, Valerie played the rogue and Kyle played the ranger. Because of the new rulesheet and theme, I designed a completely new level. The theme was an alien prison break, and the new rules changed the stats and replaced skills with items. 

The starting room is the armory of the prison, giving the players three treasure chests right off the bat. One chest will contain one of four possible items used to unlock doors or cross gaps: the lockpick, c4 explosive, photon bridge, or relocator. Another one will give one possible defensive item, either a medkit, shoulderplates, or a gabapentin shot. The third chest has a random assortment of items. 

With this equipment, the players exit into the first encounter: two escaped convicts. They’re simple and easy. From there, there’s a shortcut if players can get through a vent grate. Players can unlock it with the lockpick, or blow it open with the c4, or teleport to the other side with the relocator. If they do not notice it, they head into the next encounter in a big open room. There’s a pit in the middle that can be crossed with the photon bridge. There’s two ranged prison guards, so players will have to use cover as they work their way closer if they can’t cross the pit. There’s also another vent that lets the players sneak into the lower area, past this encounter, if they can open it. The last thing of note in the second encounter is a chest that will provide one of three weapons. 

If the players go down, they can find a chest with armor in it, a chest with another lockpicking item, and another encounter with two escapees and one melee prison guard. If they go right, they can find the medbay, where there’s a ranged guard and a tough melee guard. There’s two chests with an armor set and a healing item. Behind the tough guard is a big locked door and another pit. This indicates where the players are supposed to go next. After getting past it with one of their lockpicking items, the players will encounter the boss.

The boss arena has lots of chasms, which will be to his benefit (or the player’s if they can cross them). The warden boss has two abilities. First, he can dodge up to three times, which negates 1d8 of damage from an attack and then relocates up to seven tiles away. Second, his forcefield gives him three bonus defense against ranged attacks. 

The players in the playtest breezed through the first encounter. They used the c4 to open the vent shortcut and went to the medbay. The prison guards gave them some trouble and they had to use some healing items. They got some more equipment, giving a regenerating armor to the rogue. They then used the photon bridge to cross the gap around the door to reach the boss fight. 

The rogue rushed the warden boss, who dodged two of her attacks. The ranger threw the c4 at the warden for a large amount of damage. The rogue used her armor and the gabapentin to sustain against the damage from the warden’s attacks. Realizing ranged attacks wouldn’t work very well, the ranger finished off the boss with a melee attack. 

The players really liked the variety of items. They also liked getting to use the lockpicking items to interact with the environment. They found the boss fight engaging and challenging. They also found that the vent passages made things pretty fast, although that’s the only way we completed things within the time limit. 

I think it went very successfully. I think the only changes I would make would be some rebalancing on the boss’s defense, since the c4 did a lot of damage to him. While this was resourceful of the players, I think it was just a little too effective, so I would probably count it as a ranged attack and therefore increase the warden’s resistance to it.