Ydars
Explorer
How do we make the Mega-dungeon viable in 4E?
Resource management is no longer such a source of tension, so how to stop the PCs thinking like a group of CRPGers; that every room is there to be cleared? I want to put the tension back into situations where the PCs must manage sustained RISK. This is what makes an MD great IMHO and is what 4E currently does very poorly for mechanical reasons. Sure it is not for every group, but then you have fun your way…………..
I think the solution to this is to just make the dungeon more realistic; there are a number of ways to do this;
1) A time-limit! The PCs only have a certain time to get to a certain place in the dungeon. If you dislike the idea of a tightly focussed plot, it could be something like a slowly toxic effect of the dungeon that increases with time spent there. Perhaps the PCs lose a healing surge permanently every day until they leave the dungeon. This makes long dungeon trips (longer than 3.5E) possible but keeps the PCs wanting to press on and not hang around.
Another take on this is that every battle the PCs fight carries with it a set cumulative penalty; perhaps all the monsters in the dungeon carry a nasty disease and exposure to their blood through battle causes an increasing chance of the PCs contracting the disease. This should have players choosing battles carefully because if they kill everything, they will all be weakened to the point where they are sitting ducks.
2) There is an over-arching intelligence that has the dungeon under constant patrol by Guardian WMs. These guardians should be there, not to fight the PCs directly, but to raise the alarm if the PCs are discovered; and this shifts that area of the dungeon into a much higher threat level than normal. The key point is that if the threat levels shifts, the monsters become much more difficult to defeat (guards reinforced, traps are activated, doors locked etc) and yet the XP rewards stay the same because the PCs are supposed to pass through these areas without being discovered. This can also later be used to rationalise why a first level area suddenly morphs into a second level area once the PCs have levelled up; because the threat level has shifted and the same dungeon is now transformed. If you don’t want to consciously control this because of sand-box style play, there could just be a chance that for every hour the PCs spend in an area, there is a fixed chance of the threat level increasing because of patrols discovering evidence of the players past battles.
I say intelligence, not BBEG, because the intelligence could be a magical book that controls things in a pre-programmed and not truly intelligent fashion via magical alarms, or the dungeon itself could be partially sentient. The key thing is that the dungeon should REACT.
The main point is to get the PCs thinking; every time we open a door, we risk discovery and this is VERY BAD. Obviously, the threat level will go down again over time but this type of risk/reward management is what made the old mega-dungeons fun, for me at least.
The other point is that if the Mega-dungeons have some very obvious reasons built in (apart from treasure gathering etc) why adventurers might want to venture into them, then this also changes entering the dungeon from “lets kills everything” to “we have to get to the oracle quickly and without losing anyone”.
Such reasons could include magical Oracles that can answer questions aka divination, or sources of healing, or just a very quick way (or the only way) of passing over the mountains in winter etc etc.
I think dungeon-bashing has often been most fun in my games when the bashing has been part of a push towards a higher goal and not just random killing.
Resource management is no longer such a source of tension, so how to stop the PCs thinking like a group of CRPGers; that every room is there to be cleared? I want to put the tension back into situations where the PCs must manage sustained RISK. This is what makes an MD great IMHO and is what 4E currently does very poorly for mechanical reasons. Sure it is not for every group, but then you have fun your way…………..
I think the solution to this is to just make the dungeon more realistic; there are a number of ways to do this;
1) A time-limit! The PCs only have a certain time to get to a certain place in the dungeon. If you dislike the idea of a tightly focussed plot, it could be something like a slowly toxic effect of the dungeon that increases with time spent there. Perhaps the PCs lose a healing surge permanently every day until they leave the dungeon. This makes long dungeon trips (longer than 3.5E) possible but keeps the PCs wanting to press on and not hang around.
Another take on this is that every battle the PCs fight carries with it a set cumulative penalty; perhaps all the monsters in the dungeon carry a nasty disease and exposure to their blood through battle causes an increasing chance of the PCs contracting the disease. This should have players choosing battles carefully because if they kill everything, they will all be weakened to the point where they are sitting ducks.
2) There is an over-arching intelligence that has the dungeon under constant patrol by Guardian WMs. These guardians should be there, not to fight the PCs directly, but to raise the alarm if the PCs are discovered; and this shifts that area of the dungeon into a much higher threat level than normal. The key point is that if the threat levels shifts, the monsters become much more difficult to defeat (guards reinforced, traps are activated, doors locked etc) and yet the XP rewards stay the same because the PCs are supposed to pass through these areas without being discovered. This can also later be used to rationalise why a first level area suddenly morphs into a second level area once the PCs have levelled up; because the threat level has shifted and the same dungeon is now transformed. If you don’t want to consciously control this because of sand-box style play, there could just be a chance that for every hour the PCs spend in an area, there is a fixed chance of the threat level increasing because of patrols discovering evidence of the players past battles.
I say intelligence, not BBEG, because the intelligence could be a magical book that controls things in a pre-programmed and not truly intelligent fashion via magical alarms, or the dungeon itself could be partially sentient. The key thing is that the dungeon should REACT.
The main point is to get the PCs thinking; every time we open a door, we risk discovery and this is VERY BAD. Obviously, the threat level will go down again over time but this type of risk/reward management is what made the old mega-dungeons fun, for me at least.
The other point is that if the Mega-dungeons have some very obvious reasons built in (apart from treasure gathering etc) why adventurers might want to venture into them, then this also changes entering the dungeon from “lets kills everything” to “we have to get to the oracle quickly and without losing anyone”.
Such reasons could include magical Oracles that can answer questions aka divination, or sources of healing, or just a very quick way (or the only way) of passing over the mountains in winter etc etc.
I think dungeon-bashing has often been most fun in my games when the bashing has been part of a push towards a higher goal and not just random killing.
