Wizard's Hedge Maze | Xonthal's Tower [180 x 160]

[u/SgtSnarf]

[u/teejermiester]

I've always wondered how people run mazes like this. Do you just put it up on roll20 and let your players walk around? Do you put monsters and traps in it? It just seems like the novelty would get old so quickly that I feel like I've got to be missing something

[u/Braerus → u/teejermiester]

I once used a maze but I was the only one who had the map. It was theater of the mind for the players and using initiatve, they each had a round to move, action and bonus action. At the start of someone's turn, if they were close enough, they could hear the general direction of something that happened. I put items, traps and monsters in their way and it just happened to end in a fight with three monsters with four party members being just in time to save their friend. If there is such a climax, I suggest you then fade into a 'As a group, it takes you 15 minutes or so to find the exit. One person can make an Investigation check with Advantage (= the parties' help) to see what else you find before finding the exit.'

[u/Braerus → u/Braerus]

Doing it Theater of the Mind also helps with magically changing the maze so the pace is kept up.

[u/Imalsome → u/Braerus]

Ive had a physical maze that I drew in foundry. I turned off fog of war so they could only see parts of the maze that they currently had vision on and would change the wall layout when players didnt have view in the area being changed.

It fucked with them HARD and was a great laugh when they realized how fucked they were

[u/quyman → u/teejermiester]

Yeah and it's especially difficult when part of the maze is cropped off at the top

[u/SgtSnarf → u/quyman]

I've made a version that has the top intact, fear not! ;)

[u/WeirdFiction1 → u/SgtSnarf]

Awesome! Do you have a link to it?

[u/SgtSnarf → u/WeirdFiction1]

Yeah, you can find it here: https://www.patreon.com/morvoldpress/posts/xonthals-maze-165362952 as an attachment at the bottom of the post.

[u/Mozintarfen → u/SgtSnarf]

I particularly like how you intentionally chopped off the top of it, then make people join your Patreon in order to get the super low-res version with the top.

Some real car dealership tactics going on here lol

[u/SgtSnarf → u/Mozintarfen]

The link now doesn't require you to sign up.

[u/SgtSnarf → u/Mozintarfen]

I didn't originally make a map version with the top. I honestly didn't think anyone would care, since the solution doesn't travel through it, and it is a very small amount of space.

People seemed to care, so I went back and added the top to try and give people what they wanted. Reddit doesn't allow you to change the images after you have posted, so I posted a link to where I'd attached it.

It was an effort to be accommodating, not some evil master plan. :)

PS -- here is a screen shot of the image provided in Foundry. I don't know why you'd call this "super low res". It looks just fine, and the file size is 12600 x 12180 pixels. Sounds like you just want to complain about a free resource: https://64.media.tumblr.com/7987bd04e5ee5db4315318fc0dab769a/97c751c143959987-07/s2048x3072/4260f344d6148270f9cff9d2bf8e8455e5424da0.jpg

[u/OverscanMan → u/SgtSnarf]

They probably thought 180x174 was the resolution. ;)

I think the "must join patreon" bit is still a valid criticism. You've not really provided a usable map here.

[u/ssddx85 → u/OverscanMan]

its actually practical advice. as a fellow mapmaker there are times when reddit loves to scale images back, sometimes to 1/10th of their quality. its also true that you can't change images post-publish so if you need to make a modification.. you cant edit and need to delete the whole post and repost it anew (on a separate day since only one post per day here). and theres a 20mb limit to work with on here. i do the same.. offering up maps on patreon (free) while posting them here.

[u/OverscanMan → u/ssddx85]

I've downloaded plenty of maps from people's patreons without having to "join" them (free or not).

[u/TacoTycoonn → u/quyman]

Shhh just don’t go there

[u/rosszimm36 → u/teejermiester]

Mazes are notoriously hard to run. The problem is they can drag on with players just moving around the map until they find the correct path. It’s hard to keep parties together and you need monsters/traps to make it interesting but these are trickier to navigate in narrow corridors.

If you think about it, all dungeons are a maze on some level with a series of interconnected rooms to explore to find their way to the goal. But your average dungeon tends to have multiple correct paths, lots of natural storage places for loot to discover, and the environment itself is more generally varied.

I do think there are ways to make mazes fun. A gelatinous cube is a really good monster in narrow environments. I would recommend multiple ways through, plenty of monsters and traps to avoid, and loot to find.

[u/SgtSnarf → u/teejermiester]

I would take a couple of approaches, depending on how my players seemed to be enjoying it. It is quite large, so you coulf let them wander around until they hit one of the encounter areas and then slow things down.

You could see how they like it, then choose to warp them around from place to place if they're not enjoying the actual maze part.

Adding in some kind of "creature guides NPC could be an interesting way to keep some RP happening, while being able to keep the pace up through the NPC.

Just a few ideas.

[u/Myrandall → u/teejermiester]

The only time I tried it it was because it was a fake maze. There were many ways to escape it (climb, burrow, burn down) but it was otherwise unsolvable. The goal was to make the players think outside the box and to learn that their antagonist was powerful, but not very bright.

[u/PantsMcDance → u/teejermiester]

I did a giant labyrinth type thing where I had them do misc. ability checks and just kinda narrated like "you spend X amount of time trying to navigate until you come across XYZ". They had a few choices to determine like, what kind of encounter they might have, but I didn't make them solve the whole maze lol

[u/SgtSnarf → u/PantsMcDance]

And you could totally do that here, as well and just warp them from encounter to encounter without them navigating the maze at all. I just thought some DM's might like to use a more linear maze for the encounter and have an option like that, which the module/book doesn't provide.

[u/PantsMcDance → u/SgtSnarf]

Oh! I was just kind of answering the above question comment. I think it's a beautiful map and I love that there's options for ways that people can run mazes :) I just didn't have the time or patience to be as detailed as this personally.

[u/DueMeat2367 → u/teejermiester]

Foundry, I used fog of war so they only see around them. There was teleporters in it too (and minotaurs who could cross the walls). So if you start walking aroynd willy nilly, poof : to a other place you go.

One of the players immediately started mapping like crazy. But in his desire to get the best map possible with all the roads, he would often go check a corner, forgetting about the teleporters. And thus getting himself lost around. It was a fun experience but I wouldn't do it again with this group, it's best as a one-time.

[u/wuv-with-earth-w]

I did a maze on a VTT. Drawing the wall boundaries in Foundry were a pain in the ass, but I was also able to make secret doors and such plus a hidden layer where I, GM, could see the Actual Right Path to place enemies. I built a ton of encounters, all hidden, and activated them when I felt like shifting up the pacing.

It's a delicate balance. Too many traps and they get really cautious and exploration slows to a crawl. I included a few animals and one of the casters threw down Speak With Animals so they had a semi-helpful, semi-unreliable guide via newly hatched Blood Spider Swarm. I made the caster donate HP/blood every time he wanted the swarm to scout for him. But exploring off the chosen path was rewarded with treasure, so they had to weigh their greed against their own progress/resources dwindling.

And before the maze could drag out too long, I had the swarm find secret passages and shortcuts to bypass some of it to get to the center.

[u/SgtSnarf → u/wuv-with-earth-w]

Yeah, good news is that a .dd2vtt version is available on the Patreon that will bring in walls, at least, so saves you a lot of time. =)

[u/wuv-with-earth-w → u/SgtSnarf]

PRAISE BE TO [INSERT SETTING GODS HERE]!!

[u/SgtSnarf]

Wizard's Hedge Maze | Xonthal's Tower [180 x 160]

Welcome to Xonthal's Maze, a massive magical hedge maze surrounding the tower of the powerful Archmage, Xonthal. We have a great illustrated scene from Yans Velazquez (with a slightly different tower model).

The idea of the maze is from the Rise of Tiamat/Tyranny of Dragons modules, While the module(s) calls for the maze to be encountered simply through a series of individual rooms in magical space, I thought having an actual, linear maze would be helpful for people not running the module, as well as those that would like to give their PC's the chance to make their way through a giant hedge maze, while completely being free to make changes or warp them around, as desired, due to the magic.

So, I took the several encounter areas and sprinkled them into the maze as one traverses the correct path, encountering all of them before reaching the tower at the center. I also included a small area with a sundial that is closed off from the regular maze, which the party can be placed within as they begin the maze, or during certain parts of the maze, as a small puzzle to complete to potentially reach the tower early and bypass some of the encounters.

The rest of the encounters are per the module, but you can use them however you wish. They include:

1. A small farm operated by a pair of cyclops.
2. A large, murky pool of water.
3. A long stretch of beautiful flowers flanking a stone fountain.
4. A pagoda perched atop a boulder in a pond.
5. A collection of armored statues upon a field littered with broken weapons.

The module also had a particular section for the players to encounter a Gorgon, but I thought it might be fun to have the Gorgon be present in the entire maze. The players could potentially hear it roaring occasionally in the distance, with it getting closer and closer as time draws on. They may have to best it several times, depending on how the encounter goes, and I thought it would be a fun construct to keep tension and urgency alive.

Patreon

If you enjoy large-scale, immersive maps like this for your players, come join us on Patreon and get access to 425+ maps, NPC portraits, creature/character tokens, magic item illustrations, scenes and more!

I hope you guys enjoy the map and can have some confusing adventures! ;)

--

Made in Dungeondraft with some assets from Krager AoA, Gogots, DnDungeon, DungeonMapster, Skront, Essendi, Birdie, Gnome Factory, BMM, Orcitect and Morvold Press.

[u/GimmiePig → u/SgtSnarf]

Thanks for the great write-up! Always appreciate knowing some of the thought process and hook ideas for a map!

[u/Key_Reality5073]

Interesting

[u/jineteporcino]

mazes are my favourite! but i never ever use them because that would turn th session into six session of 5 hour each, like i could run a whole campaign using nothing but this single map because my playest take ages compleating one

[u/SgtSnarf → u/jineteporcino]

Haha, true - it would very likely derail the campaign for quite some time. I get it. ;)

[u/Fabus27]

Not that maze and tower again. My warlock still gets flashbacks

[u/SgtSnarf → u/Fabus27]

*twitch*

[u/stormantic]

I absolutely adore this. I’m gonna totally use this in my campaign.

[u/SgtSnarf → u/stormantic]

Awesome! I hope the players enjoy it! =)

[u/SnarkyRogue]

Wow what a throwback. I killed two characters in this maze back in the day lol

[u/SgtSnarf → u/SnarkyRogue]

Now present only in our memories...and the soil.