Just some misc ideas from the past few sessions...
-a pit with a metal ladder attached to the side. At the bottom, a Secret Door was detected, but no one could figure out how to open it, even though the entire party eventually descended and examined the circular walls and the entire floor surface. As every character repeated the same actions as the last, I repeatedly said, "There appears to be nothing in this pit except the faint outline of a Secret Door, and of course the ladder." ...The mechanism for opening the door was located on the underside of the lowest ladder rung!
-a series of Continual Light "nodules" spaced every 10' along the corridor walls soon became commonplace. One of these was apparently "burned out", and did not glow, and although I mentioned it in passing each time the party trekked up and down this corridor, no one bothered to mess with it and discover that it was the mechanism for opening yet another Secret Door!
-although a character used Psychometry (Object Reading) to reveal that a peculiar metal door could only be opened by the sound of a particular tuning fork, no one realized that the protruding tongue of a serpent idol (a "forked tongue", mind you) was detachable! (It was also trapped to deliver an electric shock)
-two magical mirrors in a certain chamber were determined to be Teleportational doorways, each connected to an identical counterpart, one in a nondescript cavern, the other in some sort of cellar or basement. Fearing that a fleeing enemy had used one of these to escape and might return with reinforcements, an ingenious player suggested detaching one from the wall and propping it up facing the other, so that anyone attempting to enter the chamber from either the cave or the cellar area would pass through both mirrors, and find themselves emerging in the wrong area! This one really screwed with me!
-the floor of a dungeon corridor abruptly dropped down five feet, but then continued onward from there. After puzzling over this odd design feature, the lead character decided to hop down to the lower part of the corridor, triggering the concealed pit trap which lay immediately after the drop-off, and his five foot drop abruptly became a 25 foot drop!
-no one could find the key to a certain locked chest, because it wasn't on the person of any of the dungeon inhabitants, nor was it in any of their private quarters. It was hidden inside the skull of the "prisoner" who had apparently died within the (oddly) unlocked holding cell!
-knowing that an evil Wizard was likely to repeat his use a Wall of Fire spell in order to escape from the party once again, a Resist Fire was cast on the Fighters so that they could possibly pursue him when he was again encountered. However, the Wizard instead chose to cast the Wall of Fire to split the party, casting it on the entrance to his chamber, and had his minions engage the leading Fighters while the party's Magic User fumed outside in the corridor, unwilling to risk the life of his 15 HP PC by braving the flames!
-the evil Wizard mentioned above, after barely escaping the initial encounter with the party, had become quite aware of a certain PCs "secret weapon", a cloak made from an Owlbear hide (complete with a beaked hood that made him look like Hawkman!) which allowed him to Polymorph into a death-dealing Owlbear (1/day), and so chose Charm Monster in preparation for his second encounter. The party's table-turning Polymorph maneuver was nearly turned back upon them with what would surely have been disastrous results, but of course the lucky PC/Owlbear managed to make his Save... by one pip of the d20!
-a pit with a metal ladder attached to the side. At the bottom, a Secret Door was detected, but no one could figure out how to open it, even though the entire party eventually descended and examined the circular walls and the entire floor surface. As every character repeated the same actions as the last, I repeatedly said, "There appears to be nothing in this pit except the faint outline of a Secret Door, and of course the ladder." ...The mechanism for opening the door was located on the underside of the lowest ladder rung!
-a series of Continual Light "nodules" spaced every 10' along the corridor walls soon became commonplace. One of these was apparently "burned out", and did not glow, and although I mentioned it in passing each time the party trekked up and down this corridor, no one bothered to mess with it and discover that it was the mechanism for opening yet another Secret Door!
-although a character used Psychometry (Object Reading) to reveal that a peculiar metal door could only be opened by the sound of a particular tuning fork, no one realized that the protruding tongue of a serpent idol (a "forked tongue", mind you) was detachable! (It was also trapped to deliver an electric shock)
-two magical mirrors in a certain chamber were determined to be Teleportational doorways, each connected to an identical counterpart, one in a nondescript cavern, the other in some sort of cellar or basement. Fearing that a fleeing enemy had used one of these to escape and might return with reinforcements, an ingenious player suggested detaching one from the wall and propping it up facing the other, so that anyone attempting to enter the chamber from either the cave or the cellar area would pass through both mirrors, and find themselves emerging in the wrong area! This one really screwed with me!
-the floor of a dungeon corridor abruptly dropped down five feet, but then continued onward from there. After puzzling over this odd design feature, the lead character decided to hop down to the lower part of the corridor, triggering the concealed pit trap which lay immediately after the drop-off, and his five foot drop abruptly became a 25 foot drop!
-no one could find the key to a certain locked chest, because it wasn't on the person of any of the dungeon inhabitants, nor was it in any of their private quarters. It was hidden inside the skull of the "prisoner" who had apparently died within the (oddly) unlocked holding cell!
-knowing that an evil Wizard was likely to repeat his use a Wall of Fire spell in order to escape from the party once again, a Resist Fire was cast on the Fighters so that they could possibly pursue him when he was again encountered. However, the Wizard instead chose to cast the Wall of Fire to split the party, casting it on the entrance to his chamber, and had his minions engage the leading Fighters while the party's Magic User fumed outside in the corridor, unwilling to risk the life of his 15 HP PC by braving the flames!
-the evil Wizard mentioned above, after barely escaping the initial encounter with the party, had become quite aware of a certain PCs "secret weapon", a cloak made from an Owlbear hide (complete with a beaked hood that made him look like Hawkman!) which allowed him to Polymorph into a death-dealing Owlbear (1/day), and so chose Charm Monster in preparation for his second encounter. The party's table-turning Polymorph maneuver was nearly turned back upon them with what would surely have been disastrous results, but of course the lucky PC/Owlbear managed to make his Save... by one pip of the d20!
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