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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 6072732" data-attributes="member: 2011">I started putting together a megadungeon earlier this year and one idea I had was to prevent the encounters from being too close to one another. That seems to be a bit of a problem with WotC designed 4E encounters as is. Is a single door or 50 feet going to prevent other foes from hearing a battle? I also prefer groups of related monsters somewhat close (close enough to be encountered, but not so close that they come to each other's rescue every time when combat is started) to each other separated by some distance to the next unrelated group of monsters (i.e. points of darkness in a large setting). The idea is of an ecology of different "kingdoms of monsters". This creates a certain amount of plausibility as to why the Orcs have not killed off the Troglodytes (the Trogs are too far away and have ambush points set up), but it also allows the DM to add in other game elements later on without having to modify the layout of his dungeon (i.e. I can put a magical statue between the Orcs and Trogs 6 months from now that I never thought up today without having to redraw my dungeon). In this same vein, many monsters should have early warning stations or ambush areas set up that the PCs should encounter, and many monsters should be in areas of food and water sources (shy of undead or constructs or such). The dungeon should feel real.Another idea I was using is to create most of the dungeon ahead of time (with some details not added right away to make it quicker to design) where the encounters closer to the entrance are both fleshed in better, and also closer in difficulty to PC level, whereas encounters further away are more difficult (although a few encounters could be much easier), but not totally fleshed out. That way, the players can chose almost any direction to go in and the difficulty increases, eventually to the point that it becomes so difficult that they should turn around and try for easier paths. I don't prefer a game where the players know that every encounter is going to be within N-2 to N+2 difficulty. If the PCs head straight north, eventually they will get into N+6 territory (and they should have figured this out while fighting through N+2, N+3, N+4, N+5 territories). The idea is to make the dungeon more organic and less predictable with regard to resource management and player decision making made primarily because they are playing 4E. There should be hints that a tough dragon (or a tribe or Ogres or whatever) is ahead (bones of victims, scratch and scorch marks, etc.), but the idea is to have the players think about what direction they want to go in based on the environment and creatures they encounter and the info/clues they find rather than on "oh well, we're playing 4E, we should be able to get 5 not too tough encounters in today".And I agree that cool settings are the real key to a megadungeon. About 30% of all encounters (and even some percentage of exploration areas) should have something really cool and/or different about them. Not 100% because that to me is too fantastical and also a lot of work for the DM to come up with so many cool or awesome encounter ideas. Many encounters should just be a group of foes in some area and the distinguishing characteristics are what type of foes they are. But, about a third of encounters should be unique with regard to setting.Oh, and many monsters should use the magic items that the PCs will eventually acquire. You rarely see that in WotC modules.</blockquote>

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