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

[jim pinto]

21 questions

any prestige classes from that list are fine

i agree about the assassin.

as for psionics, i hate them. but, i can't tell you how to run your game. i think their DCs are ridiculous and at higher levels, DMs can't contain them anymore, without targetting them with all the monsters.

plus, magic and psionics don't belong in a game world together. it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

there are NO creatures in the dungeon with psionics, unless you add them.

there's been a lot of talk on the thread about mapping. check out pages 4 through 8. i think you'll see some ideas.

lee? i like your idea for a prestige class from the inevitables in region E, but GOOD by AEG has plenty of classes and prestige classes. alternately, DMs can just give everyone that qualifies a level of paladin.

sorry to hear about the Int 8 players/characters



arholly, i will have pdfs by the end of the week for you. they are 5 megs each (full color, full size, 100 dpi) and yes, i'll require specific text for copyright. e-mail me offlist and we'll deal with it then. i'm correcting the map for Region E right now and everything else is done.

if you post Lee's text, that too needs to be copyright AEG, if only because it references our product. sorry, lee. (give him a credit though)



if you post any art from the book, also copyright it. again, i'll give you text for that. you should make links for blogs, though. and anything else i give you for free from enworld is public domain.

you guys rock

 

[CrimsonScribe]

Going back a page here, but I havne't had the time to post so....

But if they are your tyical cautious dungeon delvers who utilize thier search and trap skills I think that in play you may well find that the region is well balanced as written.

I'm guessing my skills as a DM (and even a player) are rusty - I haven't DM'ed since 2e and I haven't had the pleasure of playing a rogue in 3e/3.5e so I'm just not sure how Disable Device works.

Most of the Search DC's to locate the traps are in the "take 20" range for PC's of level 1-3 (mid to high 20's) so unless the party spends literally minutes at each doorway they won't even notice the traps, and even then they have to disable them.

Considering most of the traps in Region A (and the WLD as a whole) are of a magic nature that makes the Disable Device DC's remarkably high for levels 1-3 (DC 26-28). Now because there is a potential penalty for failing to properly diable said devices doesn't that mean you can't take 20 on the check?

So, not being able to take 20 when you would actually require a 19-20 in order to succeed is kind of harsh. Yes most (all? I don't have my copy here at work) have saves for half damage but when even that is enough to down a PC I'm thinking something is wrong.

Like I said, I'm very rusty with some of the rules interactions, but at a glance the dungeon is very dangerous (well hello, it's meant to be). I'm just trying to find a way for my players to make it through without having to spend every other day just casting cure spells and making healing checks. I do really like Twofalls use of water columns in room A22 and he can consider it *yoinked* for my own run through - after all this Dungeon is definitely the kind of place where I can see the party maintaining a base of operations.

 

[CrimsonScribe]

Oops, double post.

 

[twofalls]

Most of the Search DC's to locate the traps are in the "take 20" range for PC's of level 1-3 (mid to high 20's) so unless the party spends literally minutes at each doorway they won't even notice the traps, and even then they have to disable them.

Well, allow me to illustrate using my group (of extremly experienced players) as an example. I informed them beforehand that a rouge and a cleric were going to be nessesary for them to include in thier party if they wished to survive for any reasonable period of time (followed by a wink wink). They all groaned becouse I am rather infamous in our group for loving traps... and they asked me if that meant there were a lot of them in the Dungeon. I replied that there was a region (B though I didn't say that much) that contained more traps than I would consider putting into a single game. That got thier attention but good.

The rouge player ended up with a 16 Int (+3 bonus). He maxed both Search and Disarm Traps, then took a feat which gave him a +2 to his search skill (I forget the name of it off hand). That means he started out with a +9 search skill... very respectable. He has missed a few traps but has found quite a few as well. Now when a trap is discovered, depending upon how well the roll went I give info on how the trap works. This means that even if a disable device roll misses (and it does fairly often at level 1), that enterprising delvers can still take precautions to avoid its ill effects. Example: Oh, it fires some kind of missile down the hall? Lets up the Fighters Tower Shield in front of it just in case you didn't really disable it... Oh, its a scythe blade trap? Lets tie a rope to the handle and open the door from 20' away... etc, etc.

So, not being able to take 20 when you would actually require a 19-20 in order to succeed is kind of harsh. Yes most (all? I don't have my copy here at work) have saves for half damage but when even that is enough to down a PC I'm thinking something is wrong.

Not so hard at all... +9 means an average of a 19 on the roll...

Like I said, I'm very rusty with some of the rules interactions, but at a glance the dungeon is very dangerous (well hello, it's meant to be). I'm just trying to find a way for my players to make it through without having to spend every other day just casting cure spells and making healing checks.

Can't help you there, the dungeon is dangerous and at low levels they will be resting a lot until they can absorb more punishment. My group has explored 2/3 of region A and its taken them 13 days to do so, and that is with the healing water from room A23.

I do really like Twofalls use of water columns in room A22 and he can consider it *yoinked* for my own run through - after all this Dungeon is definitely the kind of place where I can see the party maintaining a base of operations.

Rock on Brother, thats why I posted it.

 

[CrimsonScribe]

Now that I've read through my post and your answers I've realised that I may have actually forgotten to ask my original question. That being:

"Can you take 20 on a Disable Device check when the device is a trap (magical or otherwise)?"

 

[twofalls]

Yes and no. According to page 61 of the PH 3.0 you may not take 20 when the skill being attempted carries penalties for failure. So searching for a trap would allow a take 20 attempt, but disarming that same trap would not allow a take 20 attempt. However, the DC for disarming a trap doesn't take into account the idea that the player may come up with some clever ideas to protect himself in case that trap is sprung. Sometimes you just can't really protect yourself, if a fireball is going to go off if you fail you disable attempt, there is little you can do save cast resist elements fire or don a ring of fire resistance... wheras a dart trap you could block with a Shield or a convienent Half Orc fighter you might have standing around...

 

[doseyclwn]

5' squares or 10' squares????

I'm starting to run tomorrow, and I still haven't decided what to do about the 5; or 10' thing. My first inclination is to keep it at 5' squares, as I have seen on here a few of you doing. My question is this: for those of you who have actually started running this, what do you use and how has it worked?

 

[CrimsonScribe]

While I haven't started to run it yet, I have started to prepare purpose built "player" maps. I originally planned on doubling the scale from 5' to 10', but when I saw just how big that would make the map pieces I chose the much more feasable 5' option.

 

[twofalls]

I suggest 5' squares

I'm starting to run tomorrow, and I still haven't decided what to do about the 5; or 10' thing. My first inclination is to keep it at 5' squares, as I have seen on here a few of you doing. My question is this: for those of you who have actually started running this, what do you use and how has it worked?

For three reasons. I have been creating a players map as we go for the group. Its much easier for me to map it for them and disrupts the game far less than trying to decribe room dimensions and such to them. Second we use a comination of dungeon tiles and wet erase pens on a vinyl grid map. My hallway tiles are set to 10' so its much more convienent to use 5' squares to match my tiles. And last, if the spaces are a bit more confined, it poses interesting tactical prolbems fo the group during combat. Larger space leaves more room for manuvering, smaller space means that flanking and other manuvers require a great deal more thought and finesse to pull off.

 

[Hawk764]

I am one up on him, i am running the dungeon for 2 different groups, and my wife is in both of them. the first group went north, i am cutting off access in that direction so the other group must go East. (mostly so my wife won't have any preconcieved notion of what is going on.)