D&D 4E Thinking of Running Arden Vul in 4e - looking for tips

[Eyes of Nine]

Thinking about running Arden Vul in 4e. Why? Well, I'm almost done re-reading the 4e PHB1 and after the massive "appreciate 4e on its own terms" I've decided to come back to it again with my two sons. They were the ones who I ran the first half of the first adventure in the Scales of War Adventure Path back in what, must have been 2012? So they've got some "experience" as it were with 4e. The other two - one is my sons' age, but has mostly just played 5e afaik; and the other is my age and played 1 session of 5e with me and some AD&D in high school (early 80's). We're going to try a one-shot of Fiasco first to see if we actually get along. If the answer to that is yes, then I'll pitch them on this along with 3 other games...

Interested in people's experiences with running a megadungeon using 4e

Also specific experiences running Arden Vul regardless of rules set. Don't think I'll be able to read the whole thing before we start in mid February - wonder if it's ok to just start with the 1st level dungeon and then read/catch up along the way?

And if anyone has already run Arden Vul using 4e specifically - I hope you can share what you learned

Please share any tips, tricks, informative blogs and videos and other thoughts

 

[Zeromaru X]

I'm interested to see how this evolves. And I'm also interested in Arden Vul, this is the first time I read about it. Any info dump about that adventure would be appreciated.

 

[Sanglorian]

I haven't run a megadungeon in 4E, but I have adapted a few OSR/DCC adventures for 4E and what has worked best for me is compressing multiple encounters into one encounter.

In 4E, even boss battles often work better with minions being added to the mix, or modelling the BBEG as an elite so there can be standard monsters there too. And because you want variety in the monsters present in a battle, natural groups like a pride of five lions or a mated pair of griffons don't feel like a complete encounter either. And battles need a lot of space.

You can keep the multiple dungeon rooms - it is an in-world reason to have waves of enemies. It also by default adds other things to do in combat: barring doors, incapacitating those running to sound the alarm, casting silence on the sentinel before they can blow their horn, etc.

It also changes the calculus on using a daily power. While by default it's usually better to use it early (if you're going to use it at all in that encounter), if you haven't seen all the enemies in the first round, you have more reason to hold onto it.

And since a trap on its own often isn't a challenge in 4E, combining multiple encounters lets you include those traps in a scenario where they're a key part of the action.

 

[Voadam]

Arden Vul is fairly culture and history specific, from my skimming it is not something to add lightly to an existing setting but something you want to be familiar with the surface culture stuff at least for the start, either to use straight or to modify for your setting/campaign.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Arden Vul is fairly culture and history specific, from my skimming it is not something to add lightly to an existing setting but something you want to be familiar with the surface culture stuff at least for the start, either to use straight or to modify for your setting/campaign.

Enjoying reading the intro section now

Yeah, in the West Marches game of it I played in (using a totally different system), the setting lore came up very often...

I won't have any other setting - it's going to be all this

 

[Joshua Randall]

I'm concerned that 4e is not the correct edition match for a mega-dungeon. 4e is about a handful of fireworks-having set-piece encounters per daily rest, not about a slow war of attrition through a dungeon.

 

[Retreater]

I'm concerned that 4e is not the correct edition match for a mega-dungeon. 4e is about a handful of fireworks-having set-piece encounters per daily rest, not about a slow war of attrition through a dungeon.

I'm running a mega-dungeon in 4e, and we're having an amazing time. We've had moments when the players have to solve puzzles with terrain, getting completely lost through secret passages, stopped by dangerous fights they have to go around, multiple entrances and exits to explore. Down to their last healing surge and desperate to find a safe resting spot. All out of Daily powers. This 4e dungeon crawl is just as effective as any other edition of the game.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I'm running a mega-dungeon in 4e, and we're having an amazing time. We've had moments when the players have to solve puzzles with terrain, getting completely lost through secret passages, stopped by dangerous fights they have to go around, multiple entrances and exits to explore. Down to their last healing surge and desperate to find a safe resting spot. All out of Daily powers. This 4e dungeon crawl is just as effective as any other edition of the game.

This was my imagined play loop as well

At this time, this project has ended up on a longer time scale; as the group decided on a|state instead

But I appreciate the feedback, and it's still on my back burner!

 

[cavalier973]

I'm interested to see how this evolves. And I'm also interested in Arden Vul, this is the first time I read about it. Any info dump about that adventure would be appreciated.

Check out 3d6, Down the Line, on YouTube. They have been playing this for two years now, using houseruled Old School Essentials. Arden Vul is tailored to D&D 1e, as I understand it.

Spoilers, though, since they are playing through the dungeon, and show the maps (both the book maps, and the player-made maps).

There is a lot of faction play, and the “AV Club” (as they call themselves) basically fell into alliance with one faction by accident, as they were pursuing different goals.

The players are clever, too, using mundane equipment, like twine, to get past obstacles.

It also sort of answers the question, “What use is a spell caster without a spell book?”

The answer: it depends on the player.

 

[Mannahnin]

I'll agree with both takes here.

I think "classic" megadungeon play assumes a different resource tracking and risk/reward play structure that isn't a natural fit with 4E (and to a lesser extent 5E, or 3E without some house rules limiting magic item creation). And to the best of my knowledge Arden Vul is written and designed for that kind of play, so it wouldn't really work to play it "as is" in 4E.

That being said, I ran Thunderspire Labyrinth in 4E which was a megadungeon-themed module in that edition, and we had a lot of fun with it. In addition to designed set-piece encounters and areas, the module abstracted most of the Moria-scale megadungeon into a scale of map which kind of sketched out the whole mountain on a page and showed roughly where different areas of interest were in relation to each other, and approximate travel times. Some of these locations were actually detailed in the module; others were brief sketches for the DM to flesh out if desired. Rather than run "real" mapping of an extensive set of level maps, we abstracted travel between zones. If the PCs hit a random encounter when traveling between them, I'd slap down or draw out a random set of passages and corridors and adjacent chambers for the encounter to happen in. So in this way the megadungeon was kind of a zoned sandbox. Complete with the Seven Pillared Hall "safe" zone/trading town controlled by a faction of mages and occupied by various other folks and faction representatives exploring the place.