This is just a quick post with an idea and some assets that worked well for me in my Out of the Abyss campaign. I’ve developed quite a few custom encounters for Underdark Travel and wanted there to be something to discern which of those encounters I throw at the players. Obviously I could just roll on a table and choose one — but instead I’ve kind of mapped out a couple of decision points and what they incur will depend on what they do. This is a very simple encounter that starts with the DM reading the following:

About the middle of the day you reach a split in the tunnel, and it looks new.  Rock and debris all around and you are reminded that the Underdark may be ancient but it is not static.  The ramp of rock that once rose about 30 feet up to continue the tunnel lays in a rubble heap — though the tunnel itself seems to be there above you.  The reason for its collapse is clear as you stare a 20ft hole in the floor of the cavern leading to another tunnel that seems to head in a similar direction. — What do you do?”

At this point I show them following images to give them a real sense of what they’re dealing with. Its not an easy climb to make it up the way they wanted to go — but on the other hand this new tunnel path may not go where they want. Decisions… decisions…

You can make the gap as big or as small as you want, same with the fall if that occurs. I put in a little 3D man to give a sense of the size of it. This isn’t intended to be a difficult encounter, but it is fun and can bring out some creativity and often some humor.

My players chose to have the Owlkocra PC fly up to the higher tunnel and use some pitons to attach ropes. Unfortunately, he didnt roll well to find good deep cracks to wedge them, and the Steel Defender of our Artificer fell almost halfway up as he tried to Monkey Crawl along the rope. Steel Defenders are easily fixed by their creators and so mostly it was just humorous to hear them work through that, and then to WAY overengineer the pitons at the top after that. Several of them came up with creative uses of rope to make safety harnesses or similar and this gave them advantage on any DEX Saving throws in the event they did fall. Finally after a rather large build up, the Druid, who is not known for his strength, just did a wildshape into a Giant Centipede and climbed up the walls — easy peasy.

Feel free to use these image assets. I rendered them from a model of the cave I sculpted in Blender so they are all free to use.