[3.5] - Rappan Athuk Reloaded

[CWBush]

Taken from the Necromancer Games website:

This may not be the world's largest dungeon, but its certainly the deadliest!

The granddaddy of all dungeons returns! From the lair of Zelkor to the lair of Orcus, intrepid adventurers have crawled these halls for decades. Treasures and monsters abound, but can you find your way out again? Lost in the red mists, you wonder. The Bloodways await.

Kill them all, Orcus will recognize his own!

Rappan Athuk Reloaded™ contains the entirety of the original Rappan Athuk™ series, along with many new levels and a massive wilderness expansion, all updated for the revised rules. Not just a rework, this expanded version contains tons of new material, detailing 36 dungeon levels and dozens of wilderness areas.

* Endless adventure in the most challenging dungeon ever devised.
* The most difficult puzzles, traps, riddles and quests to solve.
* Years of adventure for your characters.

I'm lucky enough to have to come across a copy of this bad-ass dungen crawl and I am ridiculously keen to run it.

Party Requirements

5-6 Level 4 Characters

Available Sources
Player's Handbook
Book of Exalted Deeds
Book of Vile Darkness
Complete Divine
Complete Arcane
Complete Scoundrel
Complete Warrior
Player's Handbook II
Defenders of the Faith
Sword & Fist
Song & Silence
Tome and Blood
Tome of Magic
Complete Champion

You can also request an additional book be made available, but they're the base you can work with.

This is a tough dungeon, so make a tough character.

 

[Aldern Foxglove]

I request Complete Champion please!

 

[CWBush]

Thought I'd included that. I'll update the initial post.

 

[Lughart]

Interested. Thinking of a sorcerer going on blood magus. Would it be possible to work dying and being raised into my background? Otherwise blood magus is a stupid class to build for.

 

[CWBush]

Entirely feasible that you'd have died by level four at some point, and if you can explain why somebody forked out to resurrect/raise you - I'm fine with it.

 

[Lughart]

Was originally level 5, died, then got reincarnated by a friendly lvl 7 druid. All stat changes and component costs would have been substantial to the character, but it doesn't have to matter if it all happens before we start playing. I'll work it properly into my background.

What setting is this for?

 

[CWBush]

Reincarnated as what race? Please Kobold...

 

[Lughart]

I was thinking one of the standard allowed races to avoid any fuss. If you allow monster characters then maybe.

 

[Zerith]

Hello again, Das newbie is here, again; with questions

When you say make tough characters do you mean min-max as much as possible or just make sure they're competent?

And could I ask for:
Hordes of the Abyss
Unearthed Arcana

and reference the Planar Handbook for Tiefling?
Also, is it ECL 4 or CL 4? and will there be ECL buy in?

Also, may I propose Homebrew Feats/Flaws/Traits?

 

[Myth and Legend]

I already rolled a Druid for your other game which you dropped in favor of this one. Seeing as how you are new here let me give you a bit of insight as to the nature of PbP.

First of all, dungeon crawls are not suitable for this format of gaming. Combat is very, very slow and tedious. You usually wait for a day or two before the player who's turn it is posts his actions. Dungeon crawls are centered on a lot more figthing/puzzle solving and a lot less roleplaying (which is the main focus of PbP).

Second of all, players go MIA for extended periods of time, or just give up, get bored or other such things. You as a DM must show resilience and dedication to your game and concept (and dropping your first game after making people roll characters is the exact opposite of this). Without a stoic DM the game loses value because there must be at least one person who will always be there in order for the others to be certain their efforts and time spent are not for naught.

Third of all, ENWorld has players who have very varying levels of skill as far as DnD mechanics are concerned. You'd best set a bar of character optimization and help the new players learn the ropes. Guys rolling fighters and monks because they are cool will soon feel inadequate next to the wizards and druids. You as a DM might suddenly decide a player is breaking your game simply because they are playing their Tier 1 class to it's full strenght.

As such telling us to "make a tough character" is very arbitrary. A tough character for me is a DMM cleric or a Druid or a Conjurer with Abrupt Jaunt. For a large portion of ENWorld a tough character is a Dwarf fighter with Toughness. When the game commences the much better classes will outshine the lower tier ones by such a wide margin that strife will be inevitable. So when you say "tough", just say what level of optimization and power you envision as adequate for this campaign.