World's Largest Dungeon in actual play [Spoilers!]

[thundershot]

Yes... I did. What are the chances they'd let us write a few entries for the World's Largest City? I'd be honored to do a few places for free. *hint hint jim*

The first session just ended tonight. We have a Warmage, a Psion, a Rogue, and a Ranger. They also have a Healer as an NPC assistant.

There were postings all over Hommlet looking for adventurers. Those selected would be guaranteed 500 gp to outfit for an expedition. Naturally, the four PC's ended up being the ones that win the drawing. The wealthy man gives them a huge banquet, and introduces them to small egg shaped furry animals called Chowpuffs (I stole them from Gamma World). They're a rare adorable species that he discovered years ago in a secret location. They're also very tasty, and reproduce asexually. Unfortunately, none of them have tasted as good as the original one, so he's sending the PC's to the secret grotto where he found his first Chowpuff to bring back more. He offers 500 gp for EACH Chowpuff they return to him. It turns out that whatever the Chowpuffs eat in their natural habitat makes them MUCH tastier than the ones that are spawned from other Chowpuffs. He sends his daughter (the healer) with them to aid them. They end up finding the place, and start digging to where the Chowpuffs live, and end up collapsing the ground like an old mine shaft, and end up far far underground. Enter room A1 of the World's Largest Dungeon. Naturally, after going to room A2, there's no going back... so they go in search of a way out, hoping to find as many Chowpuffs as they can. Fortunately, Chowpuffs are very nutritious and tasty, and provide a wonderful source of food for the group, as they're found randomly in the dungeon halls.

So... they ended up making their way to the place with the Kobold Wizard and the ... can't remember its name. The one thats lips peel back and scare the hell out of them. Well, that worked, and the wizard put two of them to sleep. The ranger ran in and killed the wizard before it cast another spell, and if coup de grace wasn't a full round action, my little sister's character (the rogue) would be dead. But my wife's character (the psion) managed to take the Kobold out before it did that.

All in all, they did pretty good. I really enjoy characters at first level. They're young, fresh, and don't have pre-determined attacks. They weren't sure what the others were capable of, and had a lot of uncertain moments. My sister (who never played before, and is 20) was scared to death of the traps after being pelted by the burning hands trap a few times. It was great! We're doing the second session on Wednesday, so hopefully it's just as fun.

Funny thing is, unlike the more experienced characters, these guys went in and went on the offensive, rather than trying to parley. They were worried that they'd be turned on and get killed...


WHEE!



Chris

 

[DaveMage]

Funny thing is, unlike the more experienced characters, these guys went in and went on the offensive, rather than trying to parley. They were worried that they'd be turned on and get killed...

Chris

Gotta love player paranoia. You should play it up though - after they killed the kobold wizard, you should have had the other one yell "You fools! He was the only one who knew the way out!"

...But maybe that's being too evil....

 

[Jim Hague]

Hello everyone. I've finally decided on the path I will use through this monster. A,E,I,M,N, and then O. I try to stay one region ahead in prep, and my group has just entered region E in the very SW corner through the secret door in the NW of A. E is completely prepped, so its time to turn an eye on I.

It’s... slimy. It’s all about flesh halls, twisted experiments and insanity. So to honor the theme, as soon as the PC's step foot into Region I, I'm going to introduce the sanity rules on pg. 194 of the UA. This ought to give them pause. Also, the players should be level 6 by the time they hit this area. Since the region is rated at levels 7-9 for 4 characters, 6 6th level characters should be perfect. They will leave level 8 if their habit of hitting every single room in a region holds, and knowing these anal adventurers, it will.

At that level I need to start adding in some heavier artillery magic wise. Some decent magical items and armors. Also, I worry about them being able to vanquish either of the Twins in the area at the low power levels they are at. It's very possible for them to hit one of the twins within the first two rooms of the level (that being Anguish in I98), and it would make mince meat out of the party at 6th level. So I need to pump them with some decent stuff in region E, or early in I. I was thinking about putting in a minor artifact of some kind in this region, but was wondering if there were any artifacts currently in the game. Jim?

Also, I haven't read regions M-O yet. Anything I should know about them while messing with I? We wont be running any WLD sessions before the turn of the year. The WLD was really supposed to be a game we only used when I needed a break from our campaign, and its been so much fun we have focused on it for months now. But the guys are making noise about wanting to get back to their characters in the Dreams of Glory campaign, so we are going to head that way for a couple months.

Take a good look at the cache down near the southern end of I - there's a nice bit there that's meant to help parties out against the Twins.

I took a very Howard/Lovecraft tone when I was writing I; it's all about the ancient arcane secrets and the consequences thereof. So, no reason not to have something useful and arcane left simply lying around - the chokers might have it, the gricks may have killed some unfortunate Drow trying to take it north. If all else fails, you can have one of Siglinde's cloakers contact the PCs early on, and she can see the PCs haring off into the southern Halls in search of an artifact, or pay them in kind for services rendered.

 

[spacecrime.com]

Been reading through I the last few nights. Don't think either of my parties are going to get there -- they've been bearing east -- but MAN! You're a sick puppy, JimHague.

I would have loved to see how the party monk with a cleanliness obsession (yes, his name is Adrian) would have reacted to that section...

cheers,

 

[twofalls]

Jim Hague

Jim, I attempted to contact you via email and PM through ENworld, and wasn't able to. I don't know if that is intentional on your part or an issue with the board, however I'd like to ask you a question about I and hesistate to do so in a public form without your permission. Is there another way I can reach you to discuss it? My email is jamesbeadle@sanguinesentinels.com if you would care to try to reach me.

Thank you.

 

[BOAZ]

I've been lurking for a while now, reading through all of the posts, getting pretty excited to run that bad boy.
Thanks everybody for inspiring me! Every page on this thread has great ideas.
I'm planning to start the WLD Campaign fairly soon, and thought about dropping the dungeon into the Blackmoore setting. Anybody else done this?
(Not that the setting matters much anyway).

But I have a question for the poster 'twofalls': Since I love the idea of the "level-up rooms", could you tell me a little more about them?
I was hoping I could steal this idea, but would like to know the mechanics of the rooms.

Thanks in advance!

 

[CrimsonScribe]

Okay, It is getting to that time when my players look like they could be leaving Region A at any moment. Seeing as I don't know exaclty where they are going to go next (and I'm not forcing them in a certain direction) I need to prepare both Region B and Region E as precautionary measures.

Upon reading the introductions to both regions, I must say that I really like the concept behind Region E (that and the celestial theme suits my campaign to a tee) and with documents that detail all the "cut" material I'll have no problem making this region work.

My problem exists in Region B if my players go there. While the over all theme is brilliant, I'm trying to make the dungeon "really evil" and much more ancient than AEG says (at least 10,000 years with its creation tied to the end of "The Age of Demons" in my campaign world), and frankly Goblins, Bugbears, and Gnolls just don't aren't "evil" enough.

So my quandry, can anyone suggest a trio of monster "tribes" that would be fighting like this - at the moment I'm leaning towards Daemons, Demons, & Devils. I'll still use an artifact, but I'll have something other than a halfling looking for it on behalf of the "weakest" tribe.

 

[twofalls]

Level Up Rooms

Okay, here is the arcane wisdom behind level up rooms. We as GM's of the WLD are all aware of the problems with xp. If you award it as it is described in the base rules to players in the WLD they will be eighth level by the time they get out of Region A. That’s a problem. To resolve it, I have rooms in each region that the players may find that are filled with powerful energy. When the players find those rooms, and interact with the energies within, they gain levels and sometimes other benefits as well. I'm using the premise that this is a dungeon for all the evil in the world save that which man brought with him. So the level up rooms are a way for the players to interact with the power of the gods.

In Region A, I placed 3 level up areas, because I wanted the players to be 4th level when they entered their next Region. In every other Region I'm placing 2 areas in which they can gain their levels. The “secret” about them is that there is no secret! I don't actually physically place the rooms at all, I ad lib them during play.  I intentionally told the players of the number of power ups in the Region they are playing in, and then I let them to go about and eagerly search for them. This has many advantages. One, I can level them up whenever I want to. To the player’s perceptions when they discover a power up room, they feel that they’ve just managed to finally find one of the rooms they have been seeking in this vast plex. So I can control the power of the party to maximize their chances in the dungeon and equalize the parity of the encounters they are experiencing. Also, players being who they are, I can hold off on placing a power up room to essentially force the party to explore every nook and cranny because they simply aren't going to leave an area until they have found all their levels! So I maximize the likelihood that I will get the most bang for my buck with the WLD by getting to play out all the encounters in a given Region. In order to make this work however, you have to be clear about the structure of the Regions.

What I mean by that is you need to have some clear way for the party to delineate between where one region ends and another begins. I've done this by varying the stonework between the different areas. In Region A, the stonework is of dark grey limestone blocks perfectly fitted together. Region B to the east is all dense sandstone, so as soon as the players see the stonework change they immediately know they are in a new area. I made Region E to the north be composed of white marble with veins of gold and silver flecks to go hand in hand with the Celestial theme there. I also TOLD the PC's that each region has different level ratings... all the more incentive to find all the power up rooms!

I'll handle the power up's different for each region. In Region A I had two rooms contain a floating light, much like a stationary Lantern Archon in the center of the chamber. Holy light radiated about the area bathing the onlookers in a peaceful warm glow. When a good or neutral character approached they experienced a vision and were blessed with a stronger body and more talents, and harp music filled the room. I do however have one evil character in the group, and when he approached the light became muddy, and then dark like a yellow moon. That character was wracked with pain, and a thunderclap split the air, but the end result was the same. They don't realize it yet, but this evil character represents the god's agreement that evil shall receive its due, and the lords of darkness are every bit as influential in the dungeon as the lords of light.

The third power up was actually the rooms in the far east, that if used properly gave characters various elemental resistances as well as levels, and were based on the book rooms that were already set there. I rewrote the rooms so that there were three of them and each was aligned, good/neutral/evil. If a character of the correct ethos stood upon the symbol in the center of the room and the door was closed, he was bathed in elemental energy, unharmed, raised a level, healed of all wounds, and was granted an elemental resistance of 5 appropriate to the room. I used Fire for good, Electricity for neutral, and Cold for evil. If more than one person was in the room, the person on the symbol gained the benefits, while the extra person took 4d6 pts of elemental damage, NO SAVE! If the extra person was of the wrong ethos the damage was 4d8. <evil laugh> The symbol is large enough for one person to stand upon, and if two attempt to stand there at the same time neither fits correctly and neither are considered to be upon it when the door is closed.

If you stand in the room of the wrong alignment (even if you are alone and upon the symbol) while the door is closed, you take 4d8 pts elemental damage, NO SAVE. Keep in mind, this is very hard on Mages and Rouges, and you may want to vary the damage to avoid killing off your group. My group just happened to get lucky. Only a few characters were zapped.

Now to be fair, you need to give some hints. Celestial writing in the good room, Demonic writings in the evil, and some of each in the neutral is a good start. Going out of your way to describe the symbols on the floor as being dead center in the room will cause your players to think that is somehow important. Make the good symbol the Celestial symbol of Fire... etc. Now the last thing, greed! If a player attempts a room twice, or tries a different room after gaining a level, he suffers 4d8, and gains a negative level! Our Paladin did this, and fortunately his Fort save is quite good and the next day he made his save and the neg level wasn't permanent. But that did discourage anyone else from trying it themselves!

I explain all of this to point out that if you use level up rooms, its important to use them in interesting fashions. It's destructive to the story if the PC's "find" such a place and say, "oh, ho hum, its another holy wafer of level up... gee wiz the place is lousy with them..."

Happy Spelunkering!

 

[thundershot]

I'm testing.. using the rules the way they are in the PHB in regards to XP, because my players whined too much. Feh..

But tonight was the second session. By the end of the night, the party was IN ROOM A2!! LOL! "What? You mean we went in a CIRCLE?!" Yes, they went through the bottom door in A2, and found the secret passage that went east, and came up and all the way around through the water pillar room, the fiendish stirges, the fiendish rat swarm, and the dead orc... it was hilarious, but we ended up stopping there for the night.


Chris

 

[DaveMage]

I'm thinking of doing XP for region A like this:

Allow them to progress normally to 2nd level, then have all XP awards divided by 3.

What do all of you think?