D&D General Barrowmaze, Stonehell, Arden Vul, Rappan Athuk and other Megadungeons

[Reynard]

Not even something like spellcasters suffering horrible nightmares, so they can't get restful sleep and recharge?

I don't think so but because I am.so focused on using the adventure to learn PF2E and, honestly, Paizo walls of prose put me to sleep, it is entirely possible I missed it.

What I want is some reason for them to take their rests in town. If I was running D&D (any edition) I would make up some reason or leverage random encounters etc. But I am trying to legitimately play as completely RAW as possible because my intent is to learn the game well enough that I can confidently do that GM fiat stuff, if that makes any sense.

Don't get me wrong: I like PF2E. I like it's precision and it's complexity. But I'm starting to think maybe I don't like AV so much.

 

[Jahydin]

I really want C&C to work and I admit that anything can be converted with work but as I mentioned in a post, I tried converting a 2E adventure to Shadowdark and that was work. Not only converting monsters that weren't standard to the SR book but also how much treasure the group would find and thus XP.

My issue is I don't want to figure out the treasure/coin amount differences to adjust to a different system. If a 1E adventure has a treasure of say 5000 gold, is that the same for C&C's system? Is it to much? To little? How does this effect XP gain if at all?

From what Ive read C&C is best used for 3rd ed stuff as it requires minimal conversion. I really don't know though. Shadowdark I also want to just work but again requires a lot of conversion. Maybe less so for a 5E adventure? IDK. I'd kill for a fully published megadungeon for Shadowdark.

I guess Im saying I want minimal conversion for the DM. And almost any OSR like Basic Fantasy or OSE etc seem to be the easiest for Basic/1E/2E adventures.

Or maybe I'm wrong. I'd love someone to hold my hand and tell me how to easily converert a 1E adventure to C&C or SD.

For me, C&C is AD&D redesigned with 3E lessons learned. I think you could play any module as is without fussing too much about XP or treasure.

That said, C&C is a system I turn to when I want to write my own adventures (along with WWN). When using published OSR modules, I go with:
OSE for short, deadly, and whimsical campaigns.
Draonslayer or Hyperborea for long, "serious" campaigns.

 

[Jahydin]

Druids, which I just looked up, require 2,001 xp in both to get to level 2, but in C&C they need 400,001 xp to get to 10th versus 1e's 125,001 xp, for example.

That is a crazy detail I've never noticed before...

 

[Retreater]

I realize this thread is D&D General, but I have been running PF2E Abomination Vault and I just realized today that there is no random.encounter mechanism. There is no reason for the PCs to not just rest in the dungeon. I don't like it.

Also the dungeon is 15 minutes from town, there's zero time crunch provided (at least for the first several levels), some of the rooms are too small for the creatures therein, and the dungeon levels are so small they can pretty much fit on a flip mat - which stretches verisimilitude.
It would take some work for me to run AV the way I'd prefer.

 

[Mannahnin]

I don't think so but because I am.so focused on using the adventure to learn PF2E and, honestly, Paizo walls of prose put me to sleep, it is entirely possible I missed it.

What I want is some reason for them to take their rests in town. If I was running D&D (any edition) I would make up some reason or leverage random encounters etc. But I am trying to legitimately play as completely RAW as possible because my intent is to learn the game well enough that I can confidently do that GM fiat stuff, if that makes any sense.

Don't get me wrong: I like PF2E. I like it's precision and it's complexity. But I'm starting to think maybe I don't like AV so much.

A group I'm in is approaching the end of Dungeons of Drakkenheim, and while it's a ruined city rather than a megadungeon, it functions in a similar way. And it provides such a reason. The city is full of a magical mist/radiation from a fallen comet that struck and ruined it, which makes taking Long Rests in the city impossible (except in a few rare spots which are hard to find/at the end of difficult dungeons), and every hour you have to take a Constitution save or take a level of Corruption. Corruption starts having mutating effects with the second level, and will kill you or turn you permanently into a monster after five. There are magical ways to mitigate the risk of corruption and to get levels of it purified/restored, but the spell to do it is 3rd level and transfers ALL your Corruption into Exhaustion levels on the caster. The mist/radiation is also stronger/worse at night (higher save DCs, lots more wandering monsters).

So you are strongly incentivized to enter and leave the city in planned short expeditions where possible, and forced to take rest time well outside the walls.

 

[Reynard]

I searched the PDF and there is one brief sidebar that tells the GM to make up their own tables if they want to do that thing.

Anyway, I might move them out of the dungeon for a while.

 

[Retreater]

I searched the PDF and there is one brief sidebar that tells the GM to make up their own tables if they want to do that thing.

Anyway, I might move them out of the dungeon for a while.

I've heard some GMs have had success pairing AV with the Troubles in Otari adventure collection. It lets them explore the town for a variety and gets them invested in the people there.
I haven't found random encounters to work that well in PF2. If the group gets a chance to fully heal after every encounter, then there's little challenge and it doesn't really give a sense of attrition of resources. If they don't heal - the encounters can become way over powered.
How I'm currently using random encounters in Kingmaker's overland exploration, it's to build character in the setting, drop hints about other sites to explore, and to give them XP. That adventure does provide charts though

 

[Reynard]

I've heard some GMs have had success pairing AV with the Troubles in Otari adventure collection. It lets them explore the town for a variety and gets them invested in the people there.
I haven't found random encounters to work that well in PF2. If the group gets a chance to fully heal after every encounter, then there's little challenge and it doesn't really give a sense of attrition of resources. If they don't heal - the encounters can become way over powered.
How I'm currently using random encounters in Kingmaker's overland exploration, it's to build character in the setting, drop hints about other sites to explore, and to give them XP. That adventure does provide charts though

I bought Troubles in Otari for that reason but they just haven't left the dungeon yet (because they haven't had to). I might have them get Belcorra's "attention" the first time they kill one of her mini-bosses and she will use her magic (aka GM fiat) to make sleep in the dungeon difficult.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Been reading Stonehell, I really like it so far. Better than Barrowmaze IMO but I havent fully read that one yet.

Arden Vul is neat but I only have the PDF which means it mostly unplayable. That would be a lot of printing. Fun to read though.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Been reading Stonehell, I really like it so far. Better than Barrowmaze IMO but I havent fully read that one yet.

Where did you get Stonehell? Lulu? I used to read his blog before he went to work for Goodman and remember him writing about it there.