Boom Spiders!
Overview:
This encounter makes for a fun middle room in a dungeon. It is a cave being patrolled by two sets of guards and infested with small explosive red spiders. It makes for a great middle room as it's not clearable, because it has spawn points that continue to spawn spiders regardless of how many they kill or what they do. This makes for a bit of a more interesting objective as combat alone will not help them meet their objective and they are far better off trying to stealth their way through the room.
Initial Description:
You make your way slowly through the winding caves. You the hallway begins to open up and in front of you, you see an opening. There is a rough worn cavern. In the center is a writhing fleshy mass. You can here the chittering of spiders, coming from other rooms along with a set of heavy footsteps that seem to get farther away. As your eyes glance back to the fleshy mass you see small glowing red spiders crawling out. They seem to sense your presnence. Roll Initiative!
Enemies and NPCs:
Enemy Goals:
Patrols - Are looking for any possible intruders. They will fight trying to subdue the enemies. Once it is clear the battle has been lost (there are only 2 patrollers left out of all 8) one of the patrols will sprint towards the other room in order to notify the guard there that enemies are coming.
Baby Red Spiders - They are magically infused and bred spiders. They lack serious intelligence and attack to the death any intruder. They have a tendency to try and clump together on a single target in order to maximize their damage. They will by their nature check out any movement or sound that occurs within their sense range. They do not investigate the patrols as they can sense their spider like nature.
Enemy Stats:
BABY RED SPIDERS
HP 6 AC 14 MOV 40ft
STR +1 DEX +3 CON -2 WIS -2 CHA -2
Blind Sense 40ft - The spiders can detect any living creature within 40ft.
Attack: (+5 to hit) 1d4 damage. When a creature is attacked they must make a DC 12 CON saving throw or take 2d6 fire damage.
Creepy Crawler: If a character is engaged with three or more enemies, the baby spiders can crawl onto an opponent. When spiders have crawled onto an opponent the opponent can use an action to remove all of the spiders. If the spiders explode the character gets disadvantage on their saving throw against the explosion.
Explosive: On death the spider explodes. Each creature in a 20ft radius needs to makes DC 12 DEX saving throw or take 2d6 fire damage (half as much on a success). Any red spider hit by fire damage dies instantly, exploding.
Objectives:
Main:
Get Out - Getting to the other end of the cave to progress further in the dungeon.
Side Objectives:
Buried Treasure - The rooms with a yellow triangle contain useful gear. In our game the PCs were weaponless so they contained basic gear which made combat more viable.
Avoid the Patrols - While the PCs should be capable of fighting off the patrols, it will cost them resources and make them immobile as the baby red spiders and other patrols converge on them.
Map:
Overview: The map has a lot of narrow passages. This gives players the opportunity to hide from the patrols as they make their way through the caves. If you want to add some type of "key" or a some type of puzzle or "extra" room you could put it at the other exit. If you only want one path out then you could eliminate the extra path.
Map Key:
Numbers boxed in Red - Flesh mounds that are the homes of the spiders
Green Circle: Starting point of first patrol
Green Arrows: Path of first patrol
Blue Circle: Starting path of second patrol
Blue Arrow: Path of second Patrol
Purple Triangle: Treasure
Red X - Starting Location
Red O - Exit point
Special Mechanics:
Patrols - Patrols are made of 2 Choldrith and 2 Chitine (found in Volvo’s guide to monsters). Patrols start in their circle. If they are unaware of any enemies they move to the next location and make a perception check. If they become aware of enemies they will immediately move towards them. If the patrols engage an enemy both patrols and the baby red spiders will converge on their location. They will not investigate an spider explosions unless more than one occurs on a single turn (when you work with ferocious combustible baby spiders, explosions happen)
Spider Spawning - Each room begins with 2d6 baby red spiders. At initiative 20 roll 2d8. At each location rolled an additional 2d6 baby red spiders spawn. The spawning points (red squares). Any attack or disturbance of a spawn point results in an immediate 2d6 spider spawn roll.
Bringing down the house - If 100 fire damage is dealt in a large cavern or 50 fire damage in a narrow cavern is dealt during a single round, the ceiling falls, making the area impassable. Any creature in the area makes a DC 15 DEX save. On a failed save the creature takes 6d6 bludgeoning damage and is grappled (DC 15 STR to become un-grappled), on a successful save the creature takes half damage
Extras:
How We Used it - In our game this was part of a long twisting dungeon the PCs had been captured and brought to. They had wrapped in web cocoons and were getting prepared to have digestive juices pumped into them. They woke up, broke themselves out and found they had been relieved of all of their gear. Small things and some of their previous gear was littered throughout the dungeon.
Easy Re-skins - Robot Factory, some type of toxic or corrupted creatures.
Inspirations, Shoutouts, and Thanks - The many video games we've played with exploding enemies.
Share - if you have encounters you want to share on this site go to our share page for guide lines and email you encounters to tabletoprpgencounters@gmail.com. If you liked this encounter feel free to share it with your friends using one of the share buttons above!
