World's Largest Dungeon in actual play [Spoilers!]

[Leopold]

And what are people's takes (especially Jim's), on the use of Psionics in the WLD?

I've limited it to a very few classes.

Psion: out
Psychic warrior: In
Soul Knife: In

I don't want to mess with psionics and the fewer the better.

 

[Psion]

And what are people's takes (especially Jim's), on the use of Psionics in the WLD?

One of my players had a PC Psion (Shaper) in it. No problems.

I have no specific thoughts about adding psionic opposition, if that's what you are after. But no ultimate dungeon is complete without mind flayers.

 

[Azurecrusader]

Arholly,

Here are a few of my thoughts. . .

Prestige Classes: Why the Loremaster? There isn't a terribly large amount of lore to be found in the dungeon. . . Why not the assassin? Couldn't you just knock off the part about being in a guild? It seems to me that the class itself is still perfectly viable. My suggestion would be to see what your players are interested in and go from there. It's seems to me that you could make pretty much any PrC work with a little modification.

Psionics: I'm not a big fan of Psionics in general, but if you liked them I don't really see any reason to axe one or more of the psionic classes and keep the others. They don't really suffer like a wizard does, so as long as you like Psionics it seems like all of them would work pretty well. Besides, there are monsters in the dungeon that use psionics.

As a side note, why is it that Druid's are feeling everyone's wrath? I realize that a good half of their spells aren't very useful, but as a whole they don't become useless. Maybe it's because I look at a Druid as a servant of nature, not just forests. There is nature in the dungeon, it's just different than what a "normal" druid would be used to. Their shape shift ability is still fully functional, especially if you allow your players to come up with a back story for themselves that allows them some exposure to various animals. . .

 

[Arholly]

Prestige Classes: Why the Loremaster? There isn't a terribly large amount of lore to be found in the dungeon. . . Why not the assassin? Couldn't you just knock off the part about being in a guild? It seems to me that the class itself is still perfectly viable. My suggestion would be to see what your players are interested in and go from there. It's seems to me that you could make pretty much any PrC work with a little modification.

Seems like a place that has served as a prison for the worst of evils is a good place to pick up lots of information. Plus, you have numerous good creatures to help you expand that lore (as well as lots of evil ones too). I agree with your analyist of the Assassin, I was just curious what others were doing/thinking.

Psionics: I'm not a big fan of Psionics in general, but if you liked them I don't really see any reason to axe one or more of the psionic classes and keep the others. They don't really suffer like a wizard does, so as long as you like Psionics it seems like all of them would work pretty well. Besides, there are monsters in the dungeon that use psionics.

Me neither (not a big fan).

As a side note, why is it that Druid's are feeling everyone's wrath? I realize that a good half of their spells aren't very useful, but as a whole they don't become useless. Maybe it's because I look at a Druid as a servant of nature, not just forests. There is nature in the dungeon, it's just different than what a "normal" druid would be used to. Their shape shift ability is still fully functional, especially if you allow your players to come up with a back story for themselves that allows them some exposure to various animals. . .

No idea. I thought they'd be a decent class to play, especially if your PC's go to the water area. Their shifter ability is a good one and I think a good druid will more than compensate for their lack of certain powers with other ones. I mean, think of their compagnion by the time they leave the dungeon if they manage to keep it around. Plus, if they make it to the elves and the druid's lost his, there is a good place to pick up a new one. I think a druid will have a difficult time, but would be a good experience for them.

 

[Azurecrusader]

So here's a question for everyone:

How are you handling mapping?

I must admit, I'm having some difficulty. I don't want my players to have to map, because we've gone through that before and we all found it pretty boring (I'd describe the same room 3 or 4 times and eventually end up drawing it for them ). Right now, I've redrawn map A onto standard graph paper, this way I can take notes on it, and when I go to draw the rooms for the players I know exactly how to draw it on their piece of graph paper, but even this seems kind of slow. . . What is everyone else doing? Am I just not used to dungeon crawls (which could very well be the case, considering I've run about 2 before in 13 years of gaming)?

 

[spacecrime.com]

you know there's a line at the end of each encounter called, "scaling:" right???

Yeah, but I just didn't feel right kicking it up another notch.

Slightly more seriously, the scaling has been useful. There have been a couple of spots where I've scaled it down (usually because there were only a couple of people on that night) and a couple of spots where I've scaled up (when the party's abilities made the trap as-is almost pointless.) It's a nice balancing tool.

but anyone careless enough to grab an idol of a pedestal, knowing that
other creatures live in the region... jeesh

Exactly. Only a moron would do that -- but for most of the game my players have been cheerfully playing experience-point-crazed Int 8 (or dumber) morons. Which means they're not only setting off every trap they can find, they're shouldering each other aside for the chance to set it off first.

Mind you, the latest batch is a little smarter if not necessarily wiser. I think they've decided they'd like to survive the next few hopeless deathtraps, just for variety's sake.

wait. spacecrime? are you the one killing people off like cabbage with your online game?

I don't like to think of it as killing them off. It's more a "help them kill themselves off" kind of thing.

What can I say, we're old friends and sick sick puppies. 7 characters down, 168 or so backup characters to go...

cheers,

 

[Arholly]

Hey Guys,
I'm busy building a site for the WLD so we can host all the stuff we want on it. Right now, I'm busy putting the Region maps I've got (A,B,C, & E) up there and getting a few other things set up on it. Hopefully we can use it to keep track of everything concerning the WLD there (or anything we want).
Likewise, I'm willing to host any and all downloads people want for it as well.

Jim, what do you want me to put concerning the images of the regions. Copyright of AEG? If you want some specific lingo, let me know.

 

[doseyclwn]

As far as prestige classes, I'm not sure yet. I guess I would let the players have what they wanted as long as it could be explained logically.

One thing I have thought about doing. As the dungeon is likely to take a LOT of game time, I thought about gradually giving the players low-light vision or possibly even some limited darkvision. What do y'all think?

 

[Lee Hammock]

Okay, time for some more questions about how people are thinking of running it. This has to do with Prestige Classes. What ones are people allowing/disallowing off the bat? I'm obviously thinking anything that has a "guild" or "organization" requirement is probably a no-go.

I've actually been thinking that writing up a prestige class for heroes who join the celestial garrison in E, sort of a Divine Dungeon Keeper thing (a lawful paladin-esque super jailor). But ignoring that, training from the celestials could be a route to some of the clerical or paladin prestige classes.

Also you could change some of the levels around for the "friendly" NPCs to give them prestige class levels, like giving Fargalan the goblin wizard in E some levels in a wizardly prestige class. This would open up some training opportunities for the PCs.

 

[johnnyc]

As far as prestige classes, I'm not sure yet. I guess I would let the players have what they wanted as long as it could be explained logically.

Well if your talking about Prestige Classes that logically fit then you cannot get much more logical, in this instance, than "Dungeon Delver".

Source - Song and Silence
Special requirement - To become a Dungeon Delver a character must first survive a great trial underground. One way of fulfilling this is "Living for a year underground without seeing the light of the sun, usually among underground denizens such as the deep dwarves or drow."

Frankly most Rogues are gonna have to come up with an explanation as to why they "don't" automatically slip into this one

However that being said I am playing as a rogue in our game and won't be taking this one But then again the character is an out and out criminal rogue, none of that adventuring garbage. He only came with the rest of the party because it seemed a good way to get out of town to escape the people trying to arrest him .. Can you believe it, all that effort to stay away from the bloomin' police and he ends up trapped in the world's largest bloody prison!! How ironic is that

ps. It gives you Darkvision and Blindsight, how could you cope without it!!!!

he he he

JohnnyC