D&D 5E can you do a mega-dungeon in 5th Edition?

[JmanTheDM]

[PF][/PF]It comes down to design.

exactly my question. I am not by nature a "mega dungeon" designer - though I've run RA for example. however, me and a friend were talking about what system to play if we were to play a M-D, that wasn't "old schools" D&D.

I think (only opinion), if I were to run RA with a 5th edition party, as-is, and only modifying the monster encounters (using DMG encounter design advice), it would be significantly easier than running RA using S&W rules.

can't wait to see 3pp dungeons to get released to see how they are balancing the new system vs. a very traditional style of play.

Cheers,

J.

 

[Shiroiken]

is it even possible? no, seriously!

of course playing an adventure of walking through a dungeon is of course possible, but running a meg-dungeon (old school style) as it's own self-contained entity. What would need to change in how a dungeon is presented to make it possible? some of the things that I can think of off the top of my head.

- Fast level advancement at low levels vs. old school, slow level advancement and VERY HIGH 1st level mortality
- XP for treasure, vs. milestone and "story" awards based XP. how would encounter design have to change to incorporate milestones and story awards?
- emphasis on "role playing" to earn Inspiration vs. no real way to do that in past editions.
- short and long rests vs. attrition warfare and strategic thinking of "do we enter into 1 more door?" how does a dungeon layout change based on this?
- Easy Player death vs 5th edition where player death is relatively hard (when compared to earlier - pre-4th - editions)
- modern play de-emphasizes Hirelings and torchbearers vs. a ready supply to provide cannon fodder and a HP buffer
- Insta-death traps and deadly encounters (contact poison, save or die) has pretty much gone away.


I wanted to create a "mega-dungeon", that "felt" like RA or ToEE but utilized 5th RAW as the base system, how would one go about doing that?

Cheers,
J.

I'm currently running my party through ToEE, so it's totally possible. I've made a few changes, both to the adventure and to RAW, but none of those should really be a major issue (just customizing my game).

I started at 3rd level, rather than 1st, so it adjusted the difficulty, allowing the party to push further, faster. Player actions kept the deadliness up (push on, or rest), and the Long Rest rules removed the need to take days off of adventuring to recover. Previous instant-death traps are modified to be "deadly" trap damage from the DMG, which may not be quite instant-death, but are pretty darn close! I do have NPCs with the party as well, some of which are helpful, while others need protecting. Hireling are available, if the players choose, but none have done so far.

Advancement is tricky. I'm using a mix of XP and milestones. If the party reaches a Level due to XP, they level as normal. If they reach a milestone without leveling (as they did when the snuck in the back way to Level 3 and found the Orb of Golden Death), then they gain XP to the next level. The keeps them at a minimal amount for the adventure area (more or less), but rewards both exploration and creative thinking.

 

[Jester David]

- Fast level advancement at low levels vs. old school, slow level advancement and VERY HIGH 1st level mortality

1st level characters in 5e can be pretty darn squishy as well. Advancement is faster, but that can mean progress through the dungeon can be slightly faster, as the PCs face tough foes sooner, with a campaign ending slightly more quickly.
Alternatively, it's zero effort to double the xp needed for each level.

- XP for treasure, vs. milestone and "story" awards based XP. how would encounter design have to change to incorporate milestones and story awards?

Story based xp is optional in 5e. So that's not an issue. But it's possible to award story xp for gaining treasure, mirroring 1e nicely.

- emphasis on "role playing" to earn Inspiration vs. no real way to do that in past editions.

There is no parallel. But if players don't roleplay as much in a dungeon and thus do not gain Inspiration, it doesn't matter. Inspiration is such a minor reward, it's easy enough to add and incorporate.

- short and long rests vs. attrition warfare and strategic thinking of "do we enter into 1 more door?" how does a dungeon layout change based on this?

Short rests are handy, and allow a little less attrition. Kinda. They potentially double the length of time spent adventure before stopping to rest overnight. Which can greatly increase the amount of exploration possible. It also allows a party to recover after a bad encounter. So dungeon levels can be larger and routes back to the surface can be spread out a little more.
It gives a DM more tools. It's possible to limit short rests through wandering monsters, or only allow long rests outside of the dungeon. It also means players might be willing to take a short rest and continue rather than opting to return to the surface, which means more fights with slightly fewer resources.

- Easy Player death vs 5th edition where player death is relatively hard (when compared to earlier - pre-4th - editions)

If a monster hits you, there is a damaging terrain effect, or an AoE it is really easy to die in 5e. In 2e/3e you might have as many as 9 rounds of bleeding out. In 5e, you can die in as few as 3. Or as many as 5. It can happen quick if isolated.
Outright death is rarer. Especially at high levels. But not impossible, especially with a lucky crit while at low hit points.

- modern play de-emphasizes Hirelings and torchbearers vs. a ready supply to provide cannon fodder and a HP buffer

It should be easy to bring in a couple torch bearers. This is something that has been de-emphasized, with the players being less likely to treat NPCs as disposable minions. It should be possible to add some hirelings as NPCs.
(Hrm. Hirelings. That'd be a solid blog post. I might have to write that for my blog...)

- Insta-death traps and deadly encounters (contact poison, save or die) has pretty much gone away.

Easy enough to add back. There aren't many sample traps around. It shouldn't be hard to make traps that have very high damage.

 

[Jester David]

Oh, and one way 5e works really nicely is replacement characters. A much lower level character can still contribute and be effective with a higher level group. So if players do die they can start at level 1 and work back up, or lose a few levels. It'll hurt, but not as much as earlier editions.

 

[The_Gneech]

Short Answer: Yes.

Long Answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!

Not Silly Answer: Easy peasy.

First, put a fort, small town, or similar thing "near" the dungeon that can be a source of replacement characters, but not so close that there isn't at least a little overland travel between the two. (A keep, on the borderlands, as it were.)

Create some random encounters for the overland travel that range from 50-200 XP. Put a "guardian(s) at the dungeon gate" encounter at the door worth 200-300 XP. Make these encounters easily escapable– the wilderness critters don't chase far from their nest, the guardian(s) at the gate don't leave the gate. If a character dies, so be it... a new one can be found at the keep! If you're -really- worried about it, let them hire some guards (MM pg. 347) for, say, 5 gp/day.

NOTE: Make sure you have at least one extra discoverable (but hidden) entrance that leads down to, say, the third level of the dungeon. An escape tunnel, caves that lead to the sea, something. This gives wilderness explorers something cool to find, and also provides a bypass for the low-level junk later once the party has levelled up a bit.

Now, stock the dungeon like so:

1st level: 50-400 XP per encounter, average 200
2nd level: 200-700 XP per encounter, average 400
3rd level: 300-1200 XP per encounter, average 600

...and so on.

Make sure to put in the occasional "safe room to camp in" and do lots of Jacquaying the map ( http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/13085/roleplaying-games/jaquaying-the-dungeon ).

Aaaaand you're done! 5E works beautifully for this sort of thing.

-The Gneech

 

[Nebulous]

You should absolutely have no problem at all running a mega-dungeon. I wouldn't even worry about the XP and levels. Just level them up when it feels right or after certain accomplishments, or "cleaning out" a level before they descend to the next one. Cap the campaign at a predetermined level, say 5th -9th.

Edit: but some people do love accumulating XP, so you could go that route too.

 

[the Jester]

is it even possible? no, seriously!

of course playing an adventure of walking through a dungeon is of course possible, but running a meg-dungeon (old school style) as it's own self-contained entity. What would need to change in how a dungeon is presented to make it possible?

It's absolutely possible. The megadungeon just south of the city in my campaign has been a mainstay of 5e play so far.

For the record, I wrote it in a mix of 1e, 4e and 5e, and it works fine in both 1e and 5e (nobody ever got to it during the 4e days). So far, I haven't found that it needs any changes in how it was presented from 1e, at least running it as a part of a sandbox campaign.

- Fast level advancement at low levels vs. old school, slow level advancement and VERY HIGH 1st level mortality
- XP for treasure, vs. milestone and "story" awards based XP. how would encounter design have to change to incorporate milestones and story awards?
- emphasis on "role playing" to earn Inspiration vs. no real way to do that in past editions.
- short and long rests vs. attrition warfare and strategic thinking of "do we enter into 1 more door?" how does a dungeon layout change based on this?
- Easy Player death vs 5th edition where player death is relatively hard (when compared to earlier - pre-4th - editions)
- modern play de-emphasizes Hirelings and torchbearers vs. a ready supply to provide cannon fodder and a HP buffer
- Insta-death traps and deadly encounters (contact poison, save or die) has pretty much gone away.

I don't see how any of these are required for a megadungeon. So far, in my campaign:

• Level advancement has been by-the-book with xp. Early levels are fast and lethal, but mid-levels slow down. I don't see how this would be a problem.
• There's no need to incorporate xp for gold or to change anything if you're using milestone xp; you just have to decide when the "ding!" moment is. But I don't see any reason that this would improve classic style megadungeon play emulation; a big part of classic play was "choose your difficulty and reward level", which mostly fails if you use milestone xps.
• I'm not even sure what your question about inspiration (statement?) means, or why it's a question. Yes, inspiration is a new mechanic, and yes, there are plenty of opportunities for roleplay in a megadungeon.
• Short rests don't change the way the players play, it just speeds up their progress. So does the fact that pcs no longer naturally heal at a rate of 1 hp/day. It's fine.
• Death really isn't that hard, especially if a monster hits a downed pc.
• Hirelings and torchbearers are entirely about playstyle, not system.
• The lack of instant death is fine. You can still have deadly traps that are very meaningful, especially if you mix them with other encounters. 4e did a wonderful job of figuring out the best ways to use traps, as did the 3e book Dungeonscape.

 

[the Jester]

resting is not much of an issue, but healing is. if you sit in a barred closet for an hour - many of your PC's can get spells back, much HP back - which changes the entire way dungeon stocking takes place. when building an encounter, do you now assume that the PC's will be fully healed?

I don't build encounters assuming anything about the party- it's composition, state of depletion or level. Especially in a megadungeon, I build encounters based on the resources, goals, personalities and numbers of the creatures within it.

Seriously, most of the first few levels were written in 1e style with humanoids appearing in significant numbers... and the party (in 5e) has done okay with it. I didn't bother adjusting any encounters during conversion- the 1e encounter has eight gnolls? The 4e and 5e versions are the same.

Whether they are in good enough shape to forge ahead isn't my problem. That's completely, entirely on the shoulders of the players. The ability to heal to a certain degree on a short rest is something that gives them more choice points; I think this is good. And, of course, there's no guarantee of successfully finishing a rest. More than one time, they've been interrupted (or brought more enemies on them with loud spells like thunderwave and shatter.)

 

[Agamon]

You should absolutely have no problem at all running a mega-dungeon. I wouldn't even worry about the XP and levels. Just level them up when it feels right or after certain accomplishments, or "cleaning out" a level before they descend to the next one. Cap the campaign at a predetermined level, say 5th -9th.

See, that was originally my go-to answer, but the OP is looking for an old school feel, and "level when it feels right" ain't old school.

 

[Mistwell]

is it even possible? no, seriously!

of course playing an adventure of walking through a dungeon is of course possible, but running a meg-dungeon (old school style) as it's own self-contained entity. What would need to change in how a dungeon is presented to make it possible? some of the things that I can think of off the top of my head.

- Fast level advancement at low levels vs. old school, slow level advancement and VERY HIGH 1st level mortality
- XP for treasure, vs. milestone and "story" awards based XP. how would encounter design have to change to incorporate milestones and story awards?
- emphasis on "role playing" to earn Inspiration vs. no real way to do that in past editions.
- short and long rests vs. attrition warfare and strategic thinking of "do we enter into 1 more door?" how does a dungeon layout change based on this?
- Easy Player death vs 5th edition where player death is relatively hard (when compared to earlier - pre-4th - editions)
- modern play de-emphasizes Hirelings and torchbearers vs. a ready supply to provide cannon fodder and a HP buffer
- Insta-death traps and deadly encounters (contact poison, save or die) has pretty much gone away.


I wanted to create a "mega-dungeon", that "felt" like RA or ToEE but utilized 5th RAW as the base system, how would one go about doing that?

Cheers,
J.

Yes, you can. Yes, we have. Just finished it relatively recently, a home brewed old-school style megadungeon, complete with doors that sitck for PCs (and only PCs), riddles, traps, waterweirds, dragons, hordes of koibolds, carrion crawlers, magic items wielded by intelligent undead foes, cursed items, wells that lead down to lower and more difficult areas, the works. Not only was it easy, but I felt 5e was built to handle this better than 3e or 4e were.

To answer your individual points.

- Fast level advancement at low levels vs. old school, slow level advancement and VERY HIGH 1st level mortality

People always say first level advances fast. We did not find this to be the case. Low CR monsters have low XP, but are more deadly than expected. Leathality is plenty high.


- XP for treasure, vs. milestone and "story" awards based XP. how would encounter design have to change to incorporate milestones and story awards?

Milestones and story awards are, I believe, purely optional. Killing monsters or overcoming them in some other way gets you XP for them. Provided they have appropriate treasures, this works out roughly the same as XP for treasure anyway.

- emphasis on "role playing" to earn Inspiration vs. no real way to do that in past editions.

No idea why this is a barrier to a mega dungeon. If the players do something awesome the DM might, purely at their discretion, give them a bonus d20 as a re-roll. No barrier to megadungeon at all.

- short and long rests vs. attrition warfare and strategic thinking of "do we enter into 1 more door?" how does a dungeon layout change based on this?

Wandering monsters are more encouraged during rest, to interrupt the rests. Players then work harder to establish "secured" areas.

- Easy Player death vs 5th edition where player death is relatively hard (when compared to earlier - pre-4th - editions)

We've found, particularly at lower levels, it's easy to die if that's the kind of game you want. A monster hitting someone who is already down will usually lead to their death, either immediately or one round later. So just decide - if you want it to be a grimmer, grittier game, then monsters hit PCs when they are down. It's as simple as that, and right in the rules.

- modern play de-emphasizes Hirelings and torchbearers vs. a ready supply to provide cannon fodder and a HP buffer

There is nothing in the rules de-emphasizing this. It's just a DM style. You want them, as a DM, to have hirelings? Make them available. I did. Worked fine.

- Insta-death traps and deadly encounters (contact poison, save or die) has pretty much gone away.

No, they have not. They even call the challenge setting for that, "Deadly" to make it clear. Indeed, instant death mechanics made a big come back in this version of the game in my opinion. Why do you think all these 3e/4e players keep complaining about the save or die spells in the game?