It may put domino to the test, but how about a survival dungeon that revolves around many of the unused skills? Have it start off on a beach with a wrecked ship, and make your way across a jungle, through a cave, and find yourself on the other side of a forest to a small town. Camping, forensics, anatomy, arms lore, evaluating intelligence, begging, cartography, cooking, detect hidden, fishing, herding, hiding, item identification, lock-picking, stealing, remove trap, taste identification, and tracking.
What I'm proposing is this is more than a dungeon run, this is real survival. There will be wild animals, various indigenous monsters, other stranded npc's, natives, traps, and a bit of mystery.
Scroll to bottom to see the application of skills in this scenario.
My vision is for the dungeon to have a story attached to it. You are a hired bodyguard aboard a merchant ship carrying precious cargo when you hit rocks and are forced to unload cargo and head for the unknown island. You start off on a beach with a few survivors from the crew who are all vying for leadership and loot. At the start is a hunt and gather stage, where you must select which crew member, a quest giver, you want to become the leader based on various buffs and bonus' they each have. Once you have gathered yourself and team, you make your way through a dangerous jungle with death at every new foot-step. Having braved the muggy jungle temperatures and poisons, you are faced with a mountain. You notice several large caves leading inward. With no other option but to continue onward, you embark on the next perilous step of your journey. You are quick to discover the cave is not nearly as welcoming as the jungle though. Inside lurks dangerous spiders and creatures from the deep. Troglodytes, trolls, spiders, and the occasional shadow clan is lurking around every stalagmite and stalactite. You must use your rationed resources wisely here, and take advantage of the various abilities and perks from your crew. You will appreciate your wisdom in helping those in need, or those who rub shoulders with greed, to find light at the end of this quest. Having finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel, you are given a brief moment of relief, finding yourself in a forest with game and a much more bearable atmosphere than the harsh jungle and cool, damp, cave. With your surviving team assembled out side of the cave, you embark through the rich forest land. Bears and wolves call this territory home, and the locals call it home. The locals you are quick to discover are a wily bunch of cunning orcs. You must now combat the wild-life for food, and the orcs to keep that food. You will have to use your arsenal of equipment, team-work, and wit to continue on-wards. Further in this immense forest, you discover a war taking place between the dwindling orc settlements, and the entrepreneurial savages that have advanced in technology as well as territory. Pick sides in this war for forest land and determine your fate for fortune or righteousness. After making your decision to aid the dwindling orc population, or pave the way for the revolutionary savages, you will be greeted with a way home. The orcs that held on to the ways of old will provide you with a dark focus which lets you transverse the void to your home destination, and the technologically advanced savages have harnessed the power of teleportation through arcane empowerment to twist space-time, allowing you a much deserved easy portal home.
The four stages will go as follows:
The Beach) This will have various quests from npcs, and utilize several skills to acquire RNG quality loot. There will be four candidates for expedition leader, each determining a different difficulty setting for the dungeon. There will be a grand mage, with the power to summon various elementals for tanking,damaging, and healing support, this will be the new player route. The second difficulty up from that is an adventurer-for-hire that joined the merchant vessel in hopes of making a name for himself defeating pirates at sea. He will be equipped with gear typical of a player out of the NEW guild, such as astro-daemon armor and a leech weapon. He will act as all three elementals in one, just slightly less buffed and capable of dieing if pushed too hard in the fights. The third difficulty is for those who have a mirror shield and their 1h double axe at the ready. The npc for this group of players will be the former captain. He has low health and armor, however, he is a skilled swordsman with his cutlass. He will warn you of potential traps and dangers as well as help navigate you to hidden treasure only revealed by him in this difficulty. The highest level of difficulty will be a glass sculpture with a communication crystal to a royal family. You have to escort this glass sculpture through the dungeon to receive the royal reward for it's safe transport. This sculpture will die almost instantly if hit with melee, but has a magic barrier protecting it from arrows and spells. Monsters lured by the shimmer of the glass will target it before targeting the players. Once you have accepted your expedition leader, they will all give you the option to explore the beach for valuables from the ship. This will start a ten minute timer, during which time the cargo will begin to sink into the sea. You only have this limited time to fish up food and equipment from the ship. You can check the cargo-hold of the vessel much like you would use a gold pan, looking for gold and gems for a quick personal reward. There will be crates floating at sea with armor and weapons in them that you will need to fish out, as well as barrels of food and water. These items will be laid on the shore for those taking the easiest level difficulty.
The Jungle) In this section you are forced to pay close attention to your surroundings. The trees are fully of carnivorous insects, and the ground is full of snake holes hidden in the leaves. The swarming patrol of army ants will eat anything in their path, and the feared jaguars and tigers won't go down with out a fight. Don't forget about the heat-stroke de-buff and to collect enough kindling to make camp for your journey!
The Caves) The caves will have hidden treasure buried in it from the orc clans. With reward, comes risk however. The troglodytes will seek your armor and weapons for themselves and disarm/steal from you to get them. The trolls are hoarding piles of gold and treasure as well as a chance at rare items. Fight everything or just try to survive to make it out of the cave, but don't forget about the cave spiders! The cave spiders are hungry, and crave your guts for sustenance. The cave spiders have nests throughout this section and although they have no interest in shiny gold,gems, or gear, they do have a taste for orc. Save the orcs captured from these spider nests to gain information about potential future quests, new allies, or rewards for successful escort (the orc escorts will be targeted the same as the glass sculpture). The shadow orcs will be lurking around hidden keeping tabs on these new intruders and will ambush your camp without any hint of an attack. Don't be surprised if they take this opportunity while fighting trolls and troglodytes!
The Forest) Leaving the caves will now allow you to gather more food from hunting and acquire more kindling for camp fires. The bears will provide the most meat, but it won't be easy. The chance for acquiring their pelt may bring a hefty sum at the end of your journey, as well as clearing out the roaming wolf packs. You will first run into signs of the orc camps here. If you saved any from the caves, their alliance may be different. If you did not save any, they will be hostile, and their loot is yours for the taking. If you are allied, you have the opportunity to gain their favor by completing tasks for them. Venturing deeper into the forest you then are faced with the savage people. Their technology will be the forefront of their operations, and dismantling machines will be no easy task. You will be forced to fight the savages, but like the orcs, you have the chance to ally with them or fight them for their treasures. Earn their trust by bringing them orc scalps at the skull collectors hut, then begin your journey to go back and conquer the orcs. If you allied with the orcs, you pass through their territory without harm. If you then ally with the savages, you pass through their territory without harm. In this scenario, you will lose the chance to gain any orc or savage treasure, but it is easier to complete. You will have to go back and destroy the orcs, but with the technology of the savages at your disposal, it won't provide much of a challenge aside from the orc chieftain, which will disable your savage helpers and leave you to fight the boss with any survivals from the original group you have. If you ally with the orcs, and go to war with the savages, you have access to the savage treasure. Return to the orc village with the power focus from the savage village to win. If you go to war with both orcs and savages, you gain all treasure available. In this scenario, you will have to have picked up quest items from both sides to create your own dark teleporter home. The orcs will reward you with food and supplies like bandages to aid you in your mission for completing tasks, while the savages will reward you with new custom artifact weapons with RNG stats to aid their conquest. Treasure from defeating the orcs will be decoration, while defeating the savages will yield the best RNG %'s and stats on their gear. Easy and medium players will skip the forest section. Level three difficulty players will have to share loot with the captain, because as captain of the ship and your leader, he will demand the best available. Completing on the hardest difficulty will open up the small possibility of obtaining the best gear and the special reward for saving the glass sculpture if you manage to do so, whatever it may be (this reward will be randomly awarded to a member of your party).
The skills explained.
You will have to use many skills through each phase of this dungeon encounter.
Anatomy - Will reveal the weak points on a creature, lowering its maximum health slightly.
Arms Lore - Will enable you to equip the gear found at sea at the start of your journey. You will have to find gear for your gender and race.
Begging - Required to get gold and gems from the ships cargo-hold, as well as have the chance to get rares from the many npc's.
Camping - Keeping enough kindling is crucial. Although very heavy to carry, kindling will enable you to build a fire and regenerate hp rapidly. If raw food is cooked and eaten, you will gain full health. Only usable outside of combat.
Cartography - When used with your ship's map, it will show you the location of snake holes, insect infested trees, sinkholes in the cave, and orc/savage war traps.
Cooking - Allows you to cook raw meat and fish found in the wild for sustenance and health.
Detect Hidden - Used to reveal orc and savage war traps so they may be dismantled. Also helpful for the cave orcs that will attack and steal your rations. Without this, you are at the whim of their undetectable presence.
Evaluating Intelligence - Gives you an idea of how smart your opponent is, revealing openings in their battle tactics and allowing you a damage bonus against that monster.
Fishing - Very important. Used to catch fish for cooking so you don't die of starvation. Also used to acquire gear at the beach.
Forensic Evaluation - Used in the cave and forest for opening and completing of various quests.
Herding - Can be used to herd dangerous wild life into traps.
Item Identification - When used on starting equipment, adds RNG stats to it. Unilateral for difficulties.
Lock Picking - Required to acquire treasure from chests in the cave and forest, as well as the two factions.
Remove Trap - The only way to disable war traps, as well as not die repeatedly from locked treasure chests.
Taste Identification - Required to determine if food is edible. RNG chance that raw meat is and pre-cut fish are poisonous.
Tracking - Required for finding orcs in the cave, as well as completing quests in the forest.
Edit: So multiple groups may run at the same time without interfering with others experience, the faction or CTF system targeting could be used, with monsters that are un-killed being removed when advancing to the next area.
