Depends on the Dungeon design.

If the dungeon is designed around finding a way into that area, that's fine.  Check The Ghost Tower of Inverness.

If it's not really integral to the plot, then that's bad design.  If you can't expect your players to accomplish this task reasonably in the course of the adventure then it should not be mandatory.

Quote from: Blackhand;674952Depends on the Dungeon design.

If the dungeon is designed around finding a way into that area, that's fine.  Check The Ghost Tower of Inverness.

Not quite the same situation. Ghost tower is kind of railroady about getting in to the central tower as it forces the players to explore all 4 corner towers to get a key part from each of them.

Whats different is that the players will figure out what needs to be done and cannot by any means make it to the final room of the adventure without finding all the key parts.

The situation Pundit is describing as it pertains to the Ghost Tower would be if in one of the 4 corner towers was an extra secret chamber containing a well hidden plushy doll of the Seer, without which obtaining the soul gem is literally impossible.

Quote from: RPGPundit;674829What would you think about a dungeon with a big-bad, where the key to defeating said menace was found in a single room with a secret door?

Is that kosher to you? or is it too problematic that a simple missed roll could theoretically make the Major Evil of the adventure unbeatable?

RPGPundit

It's not a problem if there are ways to discover the existence of the weakness and its general location. If I know the mcguffin needed to kill the whatsit is located inside the temple, its up to me to find it. If I can't locate it through normal means, that's what research and possibly magic is for.

Pete

What do you all think of something like the Barrowmaze, where the pit of chaos can only really be closed using the Fount of Law, which is hidden away in a labyrinth of tiny caverns?  That is generally assuming that characters at the recommended character levels for the Barrowmaze aren't going to be likely to have any other kind of ultrapowerful artifact meant to cork a gate into hell?

RPGPundit

Quote from: Black Vulmea;674937Like if the essence of the big bad is locked in a magic ring, and the only way to destroy that ring is to melt it in the volcano where it was forged, but the ring is lost from the memory of men deep in a cavern under a mountain range?

Tolkien was a railroady DM!

Quote from: Ratman_tf;675430Tolkien was a railroady DM!

I dunno. He was more a case of a DM who decides that the ring of invisibility the PCs discovered the last adventure is now actually a super-duper magical artifact, so he ret-cons the campaign setting around the discovery.

He could easily have picked one of the magic swords they found in The Hobbit instead.

So maybe a little railroady, since the PCs have to get rid of the object. But he gives it to them in the first place by arbitrarily saying one of their magic items is more than just a simple magic item...

Quote from: Ratman_tf;675430Tolkien was a railroady DM!

Pixel-bitching motherfucker.

Then again, it was found by a low-level thief on his first adventure . . .

Quote from: RPGPundit;675426What do you all think of something like the Barrowmaze, where the pit of chaos can only really be closed using the Fount of Law, which is hidden away in a labyrinth of tiny caverns?  That is generally assuming that characters at the recommended character levels for the Barrowmaze aren't going to be likely to have any other kind of ultrapowerful artifact meant to cork a gate into hell?

RPGPundit

Can't check my copy of Barrowmaze (it's buried under my box minis right now). What really matters is whether the PCs can accomplish this in multiple ways. Are there multiple ways to find out about the connection between the Pit of Chaos and the Fount of Law? Is there only one way to get to the Fount of Law? Can they negotiate a way through, sneak past the opposition, or do they HAVE to defeat a particular enemy to get there? Etc etc.

Quote from: RPGPundit;674829is it too problematic that a simple missed roll could theoretically make the Major Evil of the adventure unbeatable?

There's a load of assumption implied in the definition of a site as "the adventure." Granting that for the sake of addressing the question on its own terms:

First, I think you would have to go to considerable lengths to rig it so that making a single roll was indeed the only solution that you yourself could conceive, and that's no guarantee that someone else can't think of some other way. I assume you're talking about a GM'd game, not an automated one.

If you're determined to do that, then -- considering the implication of terming this "the adventure" -- it may be better to have clear, conclusive failure than to leave the players uncertain whether they can still "solve the adventure."

EDIT: This kind of thing is common enough in scenarios meant for replay. Even those, however, must have enough other variations in store to make it worthwhile to keep exploring the scenario until the lucky win comes up (or else why bother?).

I think its too much, unless the entire purpose of the dungeon is to be one big maze-trap. And even then, what's the real purpose? Does it have a glass roof for entertainment purposes?

Quote from: RPGPundit;674829What would you think about a dungeon with a big-bad, where the key to defeating said menace was found in a single room with a secret door?

Is that kosher to you? or is it too problematic that a simple missed roll could theoretically make the Major Evil of the adventure unbeatable?

RPGPundit

I'm not a fan of puzzles.  Your example almost is a puzzle.  If the PCs know what is needed to kill the thing, and they just don't know where in the place it is, I don't mind that at all.  I'm assuming one of the PCs can sense where it is, while another PC is the only one capable of retrieving it with the help of another PC kind of deal.

Quote from: Benoist;675481Can't check my copy of Barrowmaze (it's buried under my box minis right now). What really matters is whether the PCs can accomplish this in multiple ways. Are there multiple ways to find out about the connection between the Pit of Chaos and the Fount of Law? Is there only one way to get to the Fount of Law? Can they negotiate a way through, sneak past the opposition, or do they HAVE to defeat a particular enemy to get there? Etc etc.

From what I've seen, there is, as-written (rather than thinking up something clever), one room in a labyrinth of small caves where hte Fount is; then one room, hidden behind a secret door, where they'd meet Sir Guy, but Sir Guy apparently can only tell them the fount exists, not how to find it.

And there really seems to be no other way to stop the pit of chaos.

1. In one D&D 3e campaign we chased a fleeing mind flayer into an apparently empty room.  Clearly he'd escaped somehow, and we were pretty sure it was through a secret door.

Our initial attempts to search for secret doors failed, but not wanting to miss out on anything good, we decided to make camp and "Take 20" with the whole party helping our elf on every goddamned 10' section of wall in the room.  I think it took about 20 hours.

At the time it felt a little ridiculous, but it worked, so for a short time I felt like an explorer who had just cracked open a pharaoh's tomb.  (That feeling ended when the mind flayer TPK'd us.  In hindsight, the secret door might have been some sort of difficulty filter designed to keep out weaker parties.)

2. There's a Legends of the Flame Princess module with a similarly appalling structure, or so it seems.  A dungeon you can plunder with no resistance whatsoever, other than a sprinkling of deadly traps (like, power word kill sorts of deadly).  If you progress beyond a certain point, however, you're trapped and attacked by thousands of zombies (I think the module specifies something like 11,000).

In a way, though, this design works because the whole module is a sort of foray into insanity.  Everyone along the way tells you not to go there, so it's a bit like picking gold coins off a steaming lava field.  How much can you take?  Leaving without 'completing' the dungeon is satisfying because it's a fucking good idea.

You don't go into the jungle to clear cut it, you go to get in and get out before you die.

3. So, is a Big Bad who's only weakness is behind a secret door the party won't find a good design?

In a linear adventure where the rest of the module sets up an expectation that the point of the foray is to kill the big bad, it strikes me as a poor design choice, likely to lead to unsatisfied players.  This is an adventure with a "solution" that's poorly calibrated.  I mean, why not just make the penultimate encounter a 90% chance of being killed by falling rocks?

Modules like the old Q1 are like this, but then it's a tournament module.  There's no real expectation of players going, "Okay, that's all we can take, time to head to the surface."  (For one thing, there's no way to get to the surface!)

On the other hand, if the rest of the dungeon is what I think of as a "toy" - an interactive thing that you can stimulate and it reacts in interesting ways (like the old B2), then an unkillable big bad is just fine.