Undermountain Begins! (And DMGII Tidbit...)

[DaveMage]

Well, they've done 1 room.

At this rate, the dungeon should be finished by the year 5005.

 

[Mystery Man]

Go here and type in "RoUM" in the search field. RoUM is Rooms of Under Mountain. Many many pages of second edition stuff if that's your bag baby. He's finished with the first level and working on the second, slowed down by the fact that he's fighting in war. But really that's no excuse.....

I like this new article, I hope they detail more than one room at a time.

 

[megamania]

Back when I was all about dungeon crawls, I placed Under Mountain under the ruins of Celik in Darksun. The maze was a test for possible Champions.

Kinda 2-D but fun at the time.

Still, I'll look forward to the next room or space regularly if only to steal the trap / room and place it elsewhere.



Countdown begins for Death Knell

 

[VirgilCaine]

Here are some other possibilities for Halaster's influence that might make adventures in Undermountain unique.

Spells that alter the dungeon, such as passwall or stoneshape, fail or go wild.

Divination magic of various types, such as scrying and magic that locates objects or creatures, fails or goes wild.

The whole dungeon might radiate powerful obscuring magic, making detect magic useless as a means of discovering magic traps.

Traps reset after a designated a period of time.

Portals open at random, sometimes depositing monsters in rooms thought to be empty.

Thank you, and good night! There goes the idea of "clearing" this dungeon. Smacks of very bad previous edition things.

 

[Ron]

Dungeon Master's Guide II: Chapters in this book include advice about running a game and designing adventures. Ready-made game elements include instant traps, pregenerated locations, and treasures.

A book with advice about running a game and designing adventures! I wonder if they are finally admiting that the current DMG is rather weak about helping the DM to do his job.

 

[Mercule]

I really do understand why it would be tempting to counter teleportation, and I do understand that's a feature of Undermountain that goes back a long time, but it's still smacks of the easy way out.

Particularly when you start considering some of the other suggestions in that article: divination spells might not work, passwall and stoneshape (and other, similar spells) might not work, detect magic might not work for finding traps ....

Those were all bad ideas in previous editions, too. It's the reason I'll never do Dragon Mountain again. The dungeon is interesting, and I can even accept the plane-shifting bit. Dungeons that globally block teleport, passwall, stone shape, etc. are just poorly developed. Either that, or they speak to the game itself being poorly developed. If those spells aren't unbalanced, then they aren't and a module design should be able to work around them. If the only way to build a decent large dungeon is to negate those spells, then they need to be removed from the game.

Personally, I'm in the camp of the module writers being hacks for blanket dis-allowing the spells. Those modules shouldn't make it through WotC quality control.

 

[VirgilCaine]

A book with advice about running a game and designing adventures! I wonder if they are finally admiting that the current DMG is rather weak about helping the DM to do his job.

If you don't read the first few chapters and skip straight to the dungeon and magic items and adventure chapters, then yes it is. But theres a whole lot of DMs that would be better if they read the first chapters of the DMG again.

 

[Mystery Man]

Personally, I'm in the camp of the module writers being hacks for blanket dis-allowing the spells. Those modules shouldn't make it through WotC quality control.

I'm in the "who gives a crap I can change it to fit my needs any time I want to", camp.

That would also put me in the "is it really worth getting all that worked up over?" camp.

 

[Henry]

Well, they've done 1 room.

At this rate, the dungeon should be finished by the year 5005.

In the yeeeear.. 2525
Halaster is still alive
And if the party can survive
they may find

In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to spring no trap
kill no monster
Everything you loot, smash and slay
Was what halaster put there today

Now it's been 10,000 years
The party's looted Laeral's tears
But what they never knew
is that Halaster is not through
But through the teleporters
The next crop of critters do reconnoiter
The exit's so far away
Wish I'd left here yesterday...

 

[DaveMage]

Those were all bad ideas in previous editions, too. It's the reason I'll never do Dragon Mountain again. The dungeon is interesting, and I can even accept the plane-shifting bit. Dungeons that globally block teleport, passwall, stone shape, etc. are just poorly developed. Either that, or they speak to the game itself being poorly developed. If those spells aren't unbalanced, then they aren't and a module design should be able to work around them. If the only way to build a decent large dungeon is to negate those spells, then they need to be removed from the game.

Personally, I'm in the camp of the module writers being hacks for blanket dis-allowing the spells. Those modules shouldn't make it through WotC quality control.

For Undermountain, I'd say let all those spells work, but with consequences - such as attracting a particular monster. Using passwall? Guess what - something ethereal has just noticed you and wants to...chat. Using stone shape? What if that stone turns into an elemental before your eyes? In both cases, the spells still work, there's just added fun with it. I agree though, that nothing should be negated unless there is a very good reason (that the players will buy into).