Kilan Larsen
DnD Map Design 1
What Happened?
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For the playtest of my map “The Crawler Cave”, Valerie and Elliot chose to embark as a rogue and a mage respectively. The scenario started out well, with the players entering the cave and casting light in order to see better. Then as they rounded the corner a rat spotted them and ran forward, only to get instantly killed by a falling creature disguised as a stalactite. This properly informed them of the dangers ahead, and they kept a close eye on the ceiling from then onward (as intended). They then proceeded to the split path, and went down the south side only to backtrack at the first sight of stalactites. They did the same thing on the other path, and eventually walked under the creature on the south path and killed it after it dropped. They grabbed the poison antidotes, and ventured northward to the water. When they realized they couldn’t jump across they decided to throw a corpse in to see the results (nothing happened), and then swam across. This added some good tension and out of the box thinking, but could have been more interesting.
In the final room they saw the bones and decided to walk around the outskirts rather than through the center to avoid a potential boss encounter. Then they looted the gold off of the corpse in the back of the cave, and threw that corpse into the center which triggered the boss to drop from the ceiling. During the fight the rouge got poisoned and used her bottle of antidote. The mage attempted to retreat further into the cave, but didn’t move beyond water’s edge. The boss was killed in about 5-6 rounds and the adventure was completed successfully.
The Map
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The cave is extremely linear and doesn’t allow for much player choice other than the split path which quickly connects back to itself. This made for a really solid critical path and it was very clear for the players to see where they needed to go, but it was a bit dull and did not empower the players. One benefit of this map design is that it is easier to know and control what players will see at any given point in time (ie: the event where the rat is killed by a hidden creature). However, I can definitely find a balance between these scripted events and an open level design that will give my players much more control than they had in this map.
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The Monsters and Environment
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The stalactite disguised creatures (Crawlers) are interesting and I did well to teach my players of their existence. However, the players were not sure of how to deal with these creatures, and ended up just walking underneath one rather than shooting at it from a distance. The boss fight with the Carrion Crawler went rather well though, I think the low damage output and high defense worked well to show that this is a tough enemy to take down, but it’s really the poison damage that’s going to kill you, not so much the monster. The water was a nice addition to the map and it fit the environment of the dark, damp cave; but I think it could be improved by increasing its presence or adding an event when players swim in it (such as a Crawler on the ceiling above or carnivorous fish in the water). The bone piles in the back of the cave were a good indicator of danger and a potential boss fight, so I’ll be keeping that for sure.
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Improvements to Make
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Increase the number of paths in the cave to open it up and give players more choices as to where they want to go
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Teach the players how to deal with the Crawlers on the ceilings, or at least a method of clearly identifying them from regular stalactites so they can be avoided
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Do something more interesting with the water to better integrate it the map design, and give it more purpose within the level