How should I creatively punish my players for trying to melt through the ice dungeon?

You melt the ice, the water has to go somewhere. It'll pool and refreeze. Turn it to steam and it'll only go so far before it starts condensing again. The players are gonna need a long logistical train to melt their way through the dungeon, and then their challenge becomes defending that train and making it work.

Getting there is half the fun, as they say.

> Help, I made an Ice dungeon but my players have created a plan to melt through it. How do I keep the dungeon challenging short of randomly being an asshole and dropping high CR monsters on them!

user, the problem is your context.

Ice tunneling is a win-win scenario. You could bust through plenty of ice with a reasonable amount of thermite, and if you accidentally cause the cave to collapse in on you just switch your fantasy game to a sci-fi game and have your players revived in the future from their ice prisons.

>Rocks fall, you die.

Well,op, first off dont fuck em too hard, they are being clever.

Secondly, defrost the lost vikings eric, baelog, and olaf, and have them ransom the pc's if they dont supply them with a lasagna.

> Help, I made an Ice dungeon but my players have created a plan to melt through it.
How's that a problem?

> How do I keep the dungeon challenging short of randomly being an asshole and dropping high CR monsters on them!
You don't.

If you really want to, encase the main room in blue-tinted fireproof glass.

If they use it to bypass all encounters, halve the XP

>The ice-walls are filled with ice-lava

Tidal wave, motherfucker

Hey, Ragnar, you're from the north so you ought to know... Is water from melted ice supposed to be moving?

An underwater dungeon is much worse than an ice dungeon anyway.

Its Easy

So the dungeon is on Europa?

>It is also thought that the ocean beneath the surface sometimes erupts through the surface (much like lava erupts from a volcano) and then freezes. Icebergs observed on the surface of the moon may support this theory.

It's now a water dungeon.

'Dis

angry captain frozen in the ice

You drown them. Are you dense?

This OP

Ice dungeon is magically too cold to melt through

But user, water is the only material that gets less dense when frozen.

Don't punish them, but make melting their way throuh the dungeon a real challenge to do safely.

>The ice pops, squeaks and groans worryingly as the fearsome, wintry labyrinth shifts and moves, almost imperceptibly slowly all around you.

>Melting your way to your objective would be most expedient, but you get the distinct impression that careless de-icing will bring the glacier down on your heads.

Demand rolls! Incorporate it as a feature of the dungeon encounter!

Definitely not the only one, other examples include, but are not limited to: acetic acid, silicon, gallium, germanium, antimony, bismuth, plutonium, etc.

Let them melt through a few walls only to find that a good portion of the dungeon formed around rock.
Or have it be magic ice that requires a more focused effort to melt, like needing sustained heat, nut just holding a torch to it, and not-so-slowly refreezes afterwords. It's open long enough to step through, but it freezes right after they get through. Make it not really worth the effort more then one or twice.

By only having part of the dungeon be made of ice, the rest of it is in the Bedrock below the ice. And all that melting has caused water to flow into it and the resident monsters are not happy about that.

That's small time.

MacDonnel says he needs the rod of fireballs!

The Ice is alive. If they're empathetic, make it a benevolent spirit or whatever, so they'll feel bad about it. If they aren't, make it a vengeful slumbering ice giant/wyrm/demon/other enemy.

I read this as pirates in the ice and I must say I like that idea better

Any goods they may have gained by going through the dungeon normally are now lost because they are DESTROYING PARTS OF THE DUNGEON.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist.

First, how was the dungeon created?
If the answer to this question is "magic", then it should hold up against mundane fire without problems, and magical fire can melt it only with difficulty. The ice may regenerate behind them, trapping them underground.

If they can melt it more easily, then introduce hazards as the dungeon starts to collapse.
* Falling ceilings deal a few dice worth of damage if they fail reflex saves.
* Floors collapse into chasms.
* Rooms that would have opened into treasure collapse, and what treasure they should have had by going through the dungeon normally has been crushed/fallen into oblivion.

They can take shortcuts if they want, but if they don't want to go through the dungeon, then they shouldn't reap the rewards of doing so.

>not systematically melting it from the top down
>not using diving equipment/spells to bring up the loot
Do even PC?

>How can I punish my players for thinking outside the box when I can't imagine why their plan wouldn't work?

You shouldn't.

whoops. meant to quote OP

>everything in the dungeon knows you're coming because they can hear you blowtorching shit for hours
>they all sneak up on your party because stop burning our fucking house down oh my god where are your manners

One of the ice blocks they melt is the Prince of Ice and the party finds themselves at war with all ice everywhere.

>the thinning ice wall reveals a sleeping ice dragon/demon/cthulhu

This is genius.

The entire dungeon is a frozen gelatinous cube.

>gelatinous glacier
I'm using this.

This
This guy is a fag

I like this idea, the opposite of rocks fall yall die

But also this, where they have an awesome mode of transport but they have to build sub tunnels to divert the water, and maybe have contingency plans for if the bad guys figure them out

WE HAD TRAPPED IT, YOU FOOLS

By playing Russian roulette with an autoloader, faggot.

So has anyone actually used the Thing in their games?

I might throw it in one of these days.

I used it once, but not to its full potential as I was pressed for time. I would recommend using it over several sessions not just 1 so that you can build up the fear and mystery, make sure to start it small

Yeti frozen in the ice.

youtube.com/watch?v=Rx4Z-DJOOA0

Out from the ice comes the YE-TAY! And he will hump your party to death.

Flood and freeze over the lower levels of the dungeon.