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

[erucsbo]

So tell me fellow DMs, what should I do? Have you had similar problems and how did you handle it? Take the sheet and divy everything myself? Kill the Monk so they lose all the treasure in the group loot pile? Maybe then they won't keep all of their eggs in one basket. I did tell them my wishes, so I won't feel bad if it happens. There are no bags of holding and stuff like that in the Dungeon .. the Wards keep extradimensional spaces from working. Perhaps an alignment chance for wanting to "keep" all of the treasure for himself (LE perhaps?). Perhaps not give out any more treasure until the sheet is divided up? Opinions? Thoughts?

I thought the no bags of holding thing was crap.
The party is going to accumulate stuff they don't need/want/use and there are forges and other groups in the WLD that they could use/trade with, but not so frequently that they can keep the excess baggage down.
Keeping track of encumbrance is annoying so I have allowed Handy Haversacks and bags of holding. - These create non-dimensional spaces.
I have not allowed portable holes (which create extra-dimensional spaces).
Definitely need to keep track of who has what from the group loot, but it makes it a much less painful job for someone to carry it around if it is in a bag or haversack.
If you want to make is a full-round action to pull items in and out of the bag, then do that (make it a special bag that operates within the WLD confines).

 

[rvalle]

I've kept the 'no dimensional spaces' thing in place. Several characters walk around with med encumbrance. They were quite happy when they found a few pairs of Gauntlets of Ogre Power as it dropped a couple of characters from encumbered to unencumbered.

I agree that characters should track what they carry. Note that this will become less of an issue when/if they go though Region E and make friends with the Garrison there. At that point a base camp can be setup in one of their extra rooms and a loot pile can be formed.

 

[timbannock]

After (too) many years of gaming, I still don't know how best to track the "group loot". There's always one player willing to do this chore, but a single missed session by that player and it all gets thrown out of whack.

I think having people track separately is really the best way to go. Hand out bags of holding (or whatever the equivalent is) early and don't be an @$$ about them working/not working. Encumbrance tracking is a lot like work: it sucks. If everyone's got their own bag of holding, there's no need for a true "group loot" list. If you don't own the bag that the item is in, then you don't own the item. Pure and simple.

Not to say you can't go into someone else's bag of holding, of course.

The one variation is that I sometimes choose to track all coin & gems, as the DM. I do this only because it allows me to seed randomly intelligent gems among the group without them knowing. These gems often lead to (a) further adventures, or (b) comedy relief.

 

[erucsbo]

Mohrgs.
I've said before that I have a large party. 9 characters (8 players + 1 NPC) in the party last night. Most are protected against fire. What is scaring them at the moment is the potential to lose CON. This was how they took down Tyrus. Now the tables are turned since the undead don't have CON but the undead wyvern poison does CON damage. And if the Mohrgs or Allips manage to paralyze or fascinate them they make easy targets. They still have enough numbers though to recover fairly easily - so far.
They hit the first two mohrgs (N111) hard enough and managed to win. When they encountered the second pair (on wyverns) they quickly closed the door and then delayed until they were able to "open door" "launch fireballs" "close door".
Of course this gave the mohrgs the opportunity to withdraw before the fireball barrage and set up an ambush further on.
A wall of force across the roof of the delayed blast fireball trap managed to avoid all but the first blast and a wall of stone blocked off a reinforcement mohrg on wyvern approaching part way through the ambush battle, but allowed a couple of allips to sneak up and through the wall and catch the party unaware. The bard managed to counter-song the babble after 2 had failed their saves.
Now that Kasteoficiss' forces have seen the party in action I'm thinking that some dynamic changes to terrain might be in order. As well as buffing her forces.
Time to crank up the terror level a little.

 

[rvalle]

Word of warning: Lich in N

My group went back to fight the lich for the 2nd time in his throne room. They were all geared up for a big fight.

It pretty much went like this:

Round 1: Sorc casts Grasping Hand and grapples the lich.

Round 2: The Druid casts Wall of Thorns on the 2 Iron Golems.

Rounds 3+ The party now pounds on the helpless Lich until he dies.

The lich has just about every Magic feat except for still spell. Once grappled he couldn't cast anything with a S component and he didn't have any of the movement spells like Teleport or D-door memorized.

If I wanted the whole thing to last longer I could have moved Teleport onto his memorized spells and let him move around. I didn't think of this until after the fight but I'm glad I didn't. It was time to move on.

It was nice that the party won but I thought it would be a tougher fight.

Anyway the party now has all 4 keys and have thrown two of the 4 switches. They are hunting for the other 2 now.

 

[erucsbo]

Word of warning: Lich in N

thanks for the heads up.

my group are heading to Kasteoficiss but will be tackling Invistis soon.

 

[rvalle]

Wow, take a look at what is in N223.

My group found them but couldn't make heads or tails out of them. I had the Garrison tell them they suspect its some sort of test and destroying one, other other or both is the key.

I'm curious on what they will do with it and what I'll do with what they do with it.

rv

 

[erucsbo]

Wow, take a look at what is in N223.

My group found them but couldn't make heads or tails out of them. I had the Garrison tell them they suspect its some sort of test and destroying one, other other or both is the key.

I've got my group trapped in the tomb, but back in Region E and Region G the Garrison members in the party were shown a map of the entire dungeon pre-earthquake including the tomb and told that somewhere in the tomb was a "self destruct" option. They were not told where or what it was.

I don't think that the logic behind the scrolls is all that intuitive. A logical argument could be made for the reverse case applying just as easily.

 

[erucsbo]

And the party kept plowing through Region N, running in to 4 wyvern zombies and with Grease and SpikeStones made pretty short work of them.
The Allips are having a bit more fun though. The bard in the party is pretty much neutralizing the babble effect, though now that Kasteoficiss is aware of the party and is cataloging their capabilities I had the Allips use Darkness and Silence and it made things a little more interesting for a while.
The incorporeal nature of the allips is going to lend them more to hit and run tactics the longer things go on, gradually wearing the party down. Should be interesting to see how they go when the easy fall back, rest and recuperate is denied them.

 

[rvalle]

And the party kept plowing through Region N, running in to 4 wyvern zombies and with Grease and SpikeStones made pretty short work of them.
The Allips are having a bit more fun though. The bard in the party is pretty much neutralizing the babble effect, though now that Kasteoficiss is aware of the party and is cataloging their capabilities I had the Allips use Darkness and Silence and it made things a little more interesting for a while.
The incorporeal nature of the allips is going to lend them more to hit and run tactics the longer things go on, gradually wearing the party down. Should be interesting to see how they go when the easy fall back, rest and recuperate is denied them.

Ahh yes. That trapped feeling is fun.

Are you doing the 'black wave of neg energy' rolling though every 30 min? If the party is truly trapped that could make it rough. I had it rolling though and the party was convinced they were all going to die.

As time goes on I've started have it roll though a little quicker (25 min vs 20) with a little more damage and a little bit harder save DC. I'll keep raising it as time goes on.

I didn't like the 'WLD goes away' option for the scrolls. If they do it right (destroy both?) I think I'll go with the idea of all the undead except for the Boss ones go away and +1 level to each character. That should help move things along!

rv
rv