Pathfinder 1E Looking fora Good Pathfinder Dungeon Crawl
- Thread starter LexStarwalker
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Thanael
Explorer
Then buy the Rappan Athuk PDF for only $40.
Indeed. Note that it's not a dungeon, it's a megadungeon. To compare it's price to a module is skewed.
So +1 for Rappan Athuk. Frog God Games also has the Black Monastery which is a bit smaller and cheaper and gets rave reviews. (Awesome old-schoolish anything-goes horror dungeon)
More megadungeons: The Grande Temple of Jing, Dungeonlands: Tomb of the Lich Queen
For a smaller but all time favorite dungeon - albeit in 3.5 rules - check out the The Mud Sorcerer's Tomb which is still available HERE in print from Paizo. ( free web enhancement here).
After you run it, go to THIS thread where the author of the original would love to hear about your experiences. Many posters in that thread ran it for PFRPG.
Here's a thread on paizo seeking the best dungeon there is. Aside from RAR and MST, Tomb of Horrors is mentioned (free 3.5 version), and The Pact Stone Pyramid (again 3.5).
Crypt of the Everflame is a PFRPG low level dungeon crawl.
AAW's Sininster Secrets of Silvermote is a crawl and has a fantastic review.
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Thanael
Explorer
the 3.5 version of white plume mountain is also available for free.
Olgar Shiverstone
Legend
MegaDungeon with ecology? You could try the Crater Ridge Mines from Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (3.0, but minimal conversion to work w/Pathfinder.
Another megadungeon that fits well within an evolving story, particular within an urban setting, is Monte Cooke's Banewarrens. The superdungeon itself (which is in a spire, but can be inverted to work "upside down" in a more traditional sense) makes logical sense for what it is, but lacks natural "ecology" as such.
I'm pretty sure Banewarrens can still be purchased as a pdf. RttToEE will be harder to find.
Another megadungeon that fits well within an evolving story, particular within an urban setting, is Monte Cooke's Banewarrens. The superdungeon itself (which is in a spire, but can be inverted to work "upside down" in a more traditional sense) makes logical sense for what it is, but lacks natural "ecology" as such.
I'm pretty sure Banewarrens can still be purchased as a pdf. RttToEE will be harder to find.
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Kinak
First Post
Good suggestion. The Banewarrens take dungeoneering in a really different direction and have a lot of good ideas.
Cheers!
Kinak
For pure dungeon crawl, trap-riddled goodness I highly reccommend The Tomb of the Iron Medusa by Mike Shel, I have copy/pasted my review for you here:
There's an old adage that goes "what's old is new" and Tomb of the Iron Medusa fits that like a glove. I'll be honest: I'm an old-school gamer and a sucker for dungeon crawls, but having played them so many times for so many years has made me somewhat fickle. There are many dungeon crawls out there, both good and bad, but only a few that are truly great. Unless its great, I usually wont GM it. See what I mean? Fickle.
Mike Shel's Tomb of the Iron Medusa is a great dungeon crawl. It takes an old-fashioned setting (a trap-laden tomb) and makes it fresh,exciting, and fun again. It breathes a lot of new life into old ideas without relying on convoluted plots, mandatory events/encounters or tons of filler. Mike Shel is an excellent writer who keeps it simple. Unlike some writers that try to shoehorn too much story/adventure around the game mechanics, he lets game crunch work around his ideas and his writing style has a certain sophistication that is rarely seen, making the adventure both more believable and immersive.
The backstory, which involves a disgraced aristocratic family under a curse,is intriguing and sets the stage for the PCs to investigate the tomb. As the party progresses, they will have to deal with an assortment of challenging puzzles, traps, and monsters while unraveling important pieces of story that could affect an entire kingdom (which can easily be placed in any fantasy game world.) Some of the monster encounters are quite tough, but not overly so. Personally, I prefer a module where certain encounters are a little tougher, rather than easier, on a high level party. Also, while the tomb itself is self-contained, there are various ways to explore it so the PCs are not necessarily on a set linear path. Indeed, they may even encounter the "final boss" near the beginning - depending where they go. As the party continues, more of the story behind the fate of the cursed family is weaved into the adventure and the transitions between narrative and active playing are seamless. Some may balk at some of the story moments, but I thought they were really well done. More importantly, the story is kept interesting from start to finish and ultimately gives the players the freedom to decide their destiny, which is always a sign of good adventure design.
The module presentation is good, but not great. Compared to other adventures of the Pathfinder Module line its about the same, although the artwork has improved lately. I thought the illustrations really helped capture the mood and atmoshere of the adventure. The maps are nicely done too, clear and easy to read - nothing too complicated.
Whether run as a quick dungeon crawl or fitted into a much larger campaign, Tomb of the Iron Medusa is an excellent adventure. Its great to see Mike Shel back and I look forward to more from him in the future.
Its for high level play (14th level) and not a megadungeon, but could easily be inserted into a piecemeal dungeon crawl campaign. I also really enjoyed The Black Monastery, but I suspect its not what you're looking for as it is more of a sandbox, Disneyland-style dungeon where anything goes and does not have any real coherent eco-structure. That said, the random nature of the monastery does have a rhyme and reason to it (with an intriguing background story) and offers a lot of fun, unexpected encounters.
The Shattered Star AP is, like most of Paizo's AP lines, very good but about two books too long. I found books 3 and 4 to be the unecessary culprits in this series, but it starts off well with the first two modules and the final two books are amazing. YMMV.
There's an old adage that goes "what's old is new" and Tomb of the Iron Medusa fits that like a glove. I'll be honest: I'm an old-school gamer and a sucker for dungeon crawls, but having played them so many times for so many years has made me somewhat fickle. There are many dungeon crawls out there, both good and bad, but only a few that are truly great. Unless its great, I usually wont GM it. See what I mean? Fickle.
Mike Shel's Tomb of the Iron Medusa is a great dungeon crawl. It takes an old-fashioned setting (a trap-laden tomb) and makes it fresh,exciting, and fun again. It breathes a lot of new life into old ideas without relying on convoluted plots, mandatory events/encounters or tons of filler. Mike Shel is an excellent writer who keeps it simple. Unlike some writers that try to shoehorn too much story/adventure around the game mechanics, he lets game crunch work around his ideas and his writing style has a certain sophistication that is rarely seen, making the adventure both more believable and immersive.
The backstory, which involves a disgraced aristocratic family under a curse,is intriguing and sets the stage for the PCs to investigate the tomb. As the party progresses, they will have to deal with an assortment of challenging puzzles, traps, and monsters while unraveling important pieces of story that could affect an entire kingdom (which can easily be placed in any fantasy game world.) Some of the monster encounters are quite tough, but not overly so. Personally, I prefer a module where certain encounters are a little tougher, rather than easier, on a high level party. Also, while the tomb itself is self-contained, there are various ways to explore it so the PCs are not necessarily on a set linear path. Indeed, they may even encounter the "final boss" near the beginning - depending where they go. As the party continues, more of the story behind the fate of the cursed family is weaved into the adventure and the transitions between narrative and active playing are seamless. Some may balk at some of the story moments, but I thought they were really well done. More importantly, the story is kept interesting from start to finish and ultimately gives the players the freedom to decide their destiny, which is always a sign of good adventure design.
The module presentation is good, but not great. Compared to other adventures of the Pathfinder Module line its about the same, although the artwork has improved lately. I thought the illustrations really helped capture the mood and atmoshere of the adventure. The maps are nicely done too, clear and easy to read - nothing too complicated.
Whether run as a quick dungeon crawl or fitted into a much larger campaign, Tomb of the Iron Medusa is an excellent adventure. Its great to see Mike Shel back and I look forward to more from him in the future.
Its for high level play (14th level) and not a megadungeon, but could easily be inserted into a piecemeal dungeon crawl campaign. I also really enjoyed The Black Monastery, but I suspect its not what you're looking for as it is more of a sandbox, Disneyland-style dungeon where anything goes and does not have any real coherent eco-structure. That said, the random nature of the monastery does have a rhyme and reason to it (with an intriguing background story) and offers a lot of fun, unexpected encounters.
The Shattered Star AP is, like most of Paizo's AP lines, very good but about two books too long. I found books 3 and 4 to be the unecessary culprits in this series, but it starts off well with the first two modules and the final two books are amazing. YMMV.
Rappan Athuk and Slumbering Tsar are far from a mere adventure. They are huge mega dungeons that guarantee years of play each. RA has 50 levels alone and more on the way. Do you want something to play once or something you can play again and again and not the same twice for years on end? I have been running RA for over 10 years now through 3 incarnations and its latest form is what it has become.
And if you bought an entire Paizo Adventure Path you would pay more of around $120. I don't see the difference.Thanks for the suggestions. Rappan Athuk and Slumbering Tsar both look interesting, but I'm not willing to pay $100 for an adventure. If anyone has recomendations that are more reasonably priced, I'd love to hear them.
Has anyone run or played the Shattered Star AP? That one looks intersting as well.
Thanael
Explorer
Here's a free adventure in the style of TOEE.
