The Ever Changing Maze
Overview:
In this encounter a PC (or PCs) ends up in a maze that constantly changes. They have to find the McGuffin in order to move on to the next part of their quest. They have enemies, particularly clones of themselves, popping up in the maze as well. The difficulty of this encounter can hinge on how the dice roll, which makes it a bit interesting.
Initial Description:
You go through the shimmering portal and land in a narrow passage way. The hallway is made of smooth stone and seems to have no exits. As you scan the room a door appear (Location is determined by d4 roll. Look at the disappearing doors mechanic below to determine where the doors appear). What do you?
Enemies:
Clones created by the maze's creator. The clones share the same abilities as the PC, however they only have 25% of the PCs Max HP and one spell slot of each level below the maximum (i.e. if your highest spell slot is 3rd, they would have 1 first and 1 second level slot). Their job is to seek out and destroy any intruder.
Objectives:
Main: Get the McGuffin and return to the portal
Side Objectives: Try to avoid too many clones
Map:
Overview:
The only real important things to note is that if players use some type of magic identification the walls are magical. If they have true seeing they can see where doors may appear, but have no idea of how to figure out when doors will appear.
Key:
Blue Dot - Entrance and Exit Portal
Orange X - Where the McGuffin is.
Green lines - where doors appear when a 1 is rolled on the d4.
Red Lines - where the doors appear on a roll of a 2
Yellow Lines - Where the door appears on a roll of a 3.
Purple Line - Where doors appear on a roll of a 4.
Special Mechanics:
Disappearing Doors - Each turn one or more d4s are rolled (see clones! below to determine the number of dice rolled). The numbers that appear on the d4 are the doors that exist for that round. When the numbers are re-rolled the new numbers on the dice are doors that appear, and the previous doors disappear. If a PC is in the door when it disappears they should take whatever a severe amount of damage (5d10 or so for 5E). There is no save, they stood in a doorway that no long exists.
Clones! - After three turns and enemy spawns, that is a clone of the PC, but has 25% of the PCs health. Once that clone has been killed, three more turns go by until two clones appear. If they are killed it continues to three clones, etc. After each set of clones is killed an additional D4 is added to the pool rolling to open the door.
Extras:
How We Used it - Our PC's were seeking the help of a god of crafting in order to find a god that had disappeared. They needed to find special ingredients, including a bone of the god, to prepare the ritual that would help them find the god.
Easy Re-skins - Rather than a magical maze it could be a malfunctioning ship or space station.
Inspirations, Shoutouts, and Thanks - Some serious inspiration for this encounter came from reading the lore in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.
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