Cooperative Dungeon IV: Update

[Conaill]

The version I'm seeing still has the 26 x 10 gp gems. Do you mean you added that DC 20 climb check to make them harder to get to? I thought that you would be removing them altogether, but I guess you didn't say *how* you were going to modify the description...

Actually, if this tomb is really more than a thousand years old, the statues may be heavily eroded. A "magnificent stone structure" like this would probably have been raided a long a time ago, unless this is an extremely remote area and/or there was some sort of magical protection (hmm... maybe some scorch marks and gnoll corpses outside the tomb might be approriate )

 

[Elephant]

Rooms 3 & 4:
Some of the ELs (Daytime ELs of 6-8) at the beginning of a dungeon for 3rd level characters is kind of like an awaiting meat grinder. Should those encounters be toned down?

What is the final-ish back story for the tomb that we're going with? That'll help cement alot of the flavor for the tomb. Alot of us can go clean up our rooms with the same history binding them together.

And 6: Definitely. However, I'm caught up in this idea of a dynamic room status, and I'm not sure how to avoid having a large number of sleeping troops in the barracks. For this dungeon, I may have to drop the dynamic aspect and set it up as 1d4+1 Gnolls dicing or something like that. I'll think about ways to balance the room better.

 

[Trainz]

The version I'm seeing still has the 26 x 10 gp gems. Do you mean you added that DC 20 climb check to make them harder to get to? I thought that you would be removing them altogether, but I guess you didn't say *how* you were going to modify the description...

Actually, if this tomb is really more than a thousand years old, the statues may be heavily eroded. A "magnificent stone structure" like this would probably have been raided a long a time ago, unless this is an extremely remote area and/or there was some sort of magical protection (hmm... maybe some scorch marks and gnoll corpses outside the tomb might be approriate )

No... I've added the following: " Standing from the ground, it is hard to see that there are gems in the sculptures and statues eyes (spot check DC 16) but close examination (if climbing) will make them very obvious. ".

Someone walking on the ground will probably miss them, unless it's a critter with a big spot skill. This room assumes that none saw it so far. I know, a DC 16 check ain't THAT hard. Still, who's to say it's impossible that no-one saw 'em so far ? Could be any number of reasons. They might be very dusty. They might be very small and they're high above ground. That face of the mountain might be in the shade most of the time.

It's good to justify stuff in dungeons, but one does not need to go overboard on such things.

 

[ikazuchi]

Actually, steal a page from AEG's World's Largest Dungeon; add in EL reduction notes, such as:

To reduce the EL from 6 to 4, remove 3 Gnolls.
(this is off the top of my head, so don't take those numbers as being correct for EL reduction)

I thought that was a great way to easy the DM's burden of modifing encounters for their own playgroup power level and/or size. If we do that to all the encounters, we could make the dungeon a 3rd-5th level adventure easy.

This still doesn't fix the OGL issues with the Elhorian(sp?) encounter.

 

[Conaill]

Here's another vote for changing the randomized room. The main problem I see is with #6 pulling together opponents from a whole bunch of other rooms, which screws up *those* encounters. It's like saying "we designed a whole bunch of really cool encounters for you ... or if you're unlucky, we'll just dump them all on you all at the same time".

You could definitely still have a time schedule to decide how many gnolls are where and doing what, but I wouldn't reuse any NPCs from elsewhere in the dungeon. I would also try to stick to acceptable ELs for a 3rd level party. That means probably no more than 6 gnolls (EL 6) at a time. (Your listed ELs for #4 seem to be off: 4 CR1's is EL 5, 8 gnolls is EL 7, 12 gnolls is EL 8)

How about 2-4 awake gnolls at night (EL 3-5), 6 *deeply* sleeping gnolls during the day (i.e. assume the party can get the jump on them, that should make it EL 5 or so).

 

[tarchon]

Actually, if this tomb is really more than a thousand years old, the statues may be heavily eroded. A "magnificent stone structure" like this would probably have been raided a long a time ago, unless this is an extremely remote area and/or there was some sort of magical protection (hmm... maybe some scorch marks and gnoll corpses outside the tomb might be approriate )

Depends on the stone - granite statues would hardly weather at all in a thousand years.

 

[tarchon]

And 6: Definitely. However, I'm caught up in this idea of a dynamic room status, and I'm not sure how to avoid having a large number of sleeping troops in the barracks. For this dungeon, I may have to drop the dynamic aspect and set it up as 1d4+1 Gnolls dicing or something like that. I'll think about ways to balance the room better.

Dynamic rooms work better when they cover a whole system of rooms, like a group of cells or bedrooms. Given that they currently have a dire badger running amok in 14 with a pile of dead gnolls, I'd guess the troops might be a bit busy. I know if I had a 500 pound badger running loose and killing everyone, I wouldn't be taking a snooze.

 

[tarchon]

For example, I would make the +2 bonus in #15 a non-stackable insight bonus (seems to fit better).

Yeah, I suppose insight works better.

BTW, in the spelling & grammar domain, "over a millenia" in room #21 should be "over a millennium." And in #20, "It's eyes and ears are outlined in gold" should have "its" for "it's".

 

[Elephant]

You could definitely still have a time schedule to decide how many gnolls are where and doing what, but I wouldn't reuse any NPCs from elsewhere in the dungeon. I would also try to stick to acceptable ELs for a 3rd level party. That means probably no more than 6 gnolls (EL 6) at a time. (Your listed ELs for #4 seem to be off: 4 CR1's is EL 5, 8 gnolls is EL 7, 12 gnolls is EL 8)

How about 2-4 awake gnolls at night (EL 3-5), 6 *deeply* sleeping gnolls during the day (i.e. assume the party can get the jump on them, that should make it EL 5 or so).

According to the EL chart, 4 CR1s offers an EL of 3, 4, OR 5. Likewise, 8 CR1s is EL 6 OR 7. Given that they're sleeping or dicing and therefore much easier to take by surprise, I thought that the lower ELs were justified.

Either way, I agree that the difficulty is just too high, given the way these rooms interact with Rooms 2 and 5. I'll ratchet down the numbers and forget about trying to make a coherent Gnoll force function in the background framework


Edit: Rooms 4 and 6 updated to reflect the above discussion. Party survival is a GOOD thing!

 

[Conaill]

2) I can slide a rosetta stone into Rm.12 or Ferret can slide it into rm 13. Since those are the libraries, not a big surprise.

I think #12 would be the perfect location for a hieroglyphic to hieratic translating dictionary. Considering that #13 is *all* in hieroglyphics.

I like the idea of having the hieroglyphic DC linked to the hieratic DC, so if your hieratic Decipher Script improves, your hieroglyphic D.S. automatically improves as well if you have the dictionary on hand. Not sure how to phrase it consicely and unambiguously though. Maybe we should just give a bonus on hieroglyphics alone (circumstance bonus this time, because you have to have the dictionary at hand).

Thullgrim: Could you give Fang Karak in #3 a few points in Decipher Script, plus a booklet with notes on how to decipher these inscriptions? Your guy seems the only one with enough brains to do that... (Alternatively, the human wizard captive isthe only NPC so far (I think) who has Decipher Script as a class skill. Maybe the gnolls forced him into deciphering them? Less likely, since they were sent here to stop the gnolls.)