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

[twilko]

You know what we have to do now? Make the doorway out only work when you pull a lever.



rv

Oh that is evil and I love it!

My group found the room in E , near NE corner, that was the pit trap and managed to avoid. Then they came to a similar room to the south of that one and spent half and hour real time trying to find and disable the pit trap they thought was there. Mind you I had placed a trap sword in one of the empty rooms near by which they fell for without checking...three times in a row! Man I'm having fun!

 

[rvalle]

So after I think my group is heading to F they keep going to "I". Though there are mutterings about oozes and icky walls.

The Snake Lady in I is arranging for a Drow Rogue to show up to help the party get into Mahir's study. She told them to come back in a few days.

They try to find it on their own but, as the parties one rogue type character had died and the player made a Rogue 1/Monk 4/Sorc 1/Dragon Disciple 2 they have NO chance of finding those DC 30+ secret doors.

The Dragon Disciple player is the one most wanting to leave "I". He is 'done with Oozes. Lets go play with the Minotaur ." Since they are waiting for the Rogue to show up the party, led by Dragon Boy, decide to look into F a bit and then head back to "I". Oh boy thinks I...

Even though I'm using Fantasy Grounds and mapping is going to be an issue I want to try this. I tell the group that I didn't have time to get a map ready for them and so I will be hand drawing one. They take this in stride.

I had pre-rolled the two Gate doors in the N hallways. The party gets to the S one and open the door. It leads to... F62? N side on the E side of the Broken Axe area. First guy walks though... he's LG (and a Garrison member) so nothing happens. Dragon Boy walks though... Gets Confusion and Rage dropped on him. Fails his save, rolls for action, attacks the LG party member. Rolls a 20, confirms the crit and does 46 points of damage with a long spear.

The gnome bard on the outside of the room sees what is going on and casts a Calm Emotion spell. Dang bard... it automatically drops the Rage AND the confusion effect for as long as the CE spell is up (8 rounds).

Dragon Boy apologizes... so sorry, ect, ect. LG fighter is none too happy. I'm still doing things round by round. LG fighter moves back though the door keeping an eye on the back stabbing party member.

Dragon Boy moves E though the room and into a hallway. LG fighter follows. Gnome Bard moves though but I don't make him make a save as he is a Garrison member. Lizardman Druid (from A) moves though the doorway... makes a Fort save vs Paralization and makes it but tells the party something weird happened when he went though the door. Halfling Sorc moves though... same save but fails. Dragon Boy moves back into the room and that is when the Bards Calm Emotion wears off. Dragon Boy attacks the helpless halfling with a bite and a claw (other claw missing). Bard casts another Calm Emotion spell.

Dragon Boy quits. Says that's it... he's heading back to the Garrison, he's had enough. Moves back though the doorway and is blinded. Lizard man moves back though and is deafened.

Everyone moves out. As the Bard starts to head to the door it starts to close (I didn't like the text in the book about it closing when all the party members have moved though. How does it know? I figured it would close after 1 min.). Bard hops though the door and it closes.

LG fighter ponders... and opens the door again. It now opens up to a new room! He moves though and looks around and then heads back out.


I was so close to getting them trapped in there! So close...

I bet I don't hear any more mutters about 'going to play with the Minotaurs' .

rv

 

[Hussar]

I chickened out of running F. Too hard to do on OpenRPG. If you want to run F though, check out Dragon's Demonomicon article on Baphomet. Would fit the setting to a T. If I were to run F, I would make the teleport rooms actually open up into a seperate dungeon sort of thing with tests. The crazy group of minotaurs would be Baphomet worshippers and the others just straight up minotaurs. Stuff some powerful artifact to Baphomet in the teleport test maze and it could be loads of fun.

Ah well, not going to happen.

Actually that idea somewhat morphed into my idea for Region J where Serphine or whatever her name is, has used the portals from A to open a portal to the Far Realm. Opening her crypt will allow the Far Realm to invade the Dungeon. Killing her will close the portal.

 

[twilko]

I chickened out of running F. Too hard to do on OpenRPG. If you want to run F though, check out Dragon's Demonomicon article on Baphomet. Would fit the setting to a T. If I were to run F, I would make the teleport rooms actually open up into a seperate dungeon sort of thing with tests. The crazy group of minotaurs would be Baphomet worshippers and the others just straight up minotaurs. Stuff some powerful artifact to Baphomet in the teleport test maze and it could be loads of fun.

That's exactly what I'm doing, sort of. I have the minotaurs as one tribe, Marulki (spelling?) the Broken Axe chief locked in the prison area, the possesed Grauki (Drennean?) in Marulki's old quaters and an aspect of Baphomet instead of Grauki in the throne room.

The minotaurs have in the last few months released one of the inmates, an aspect of Baphomet, and have taken to worshipping Baphomet at it's command, led by Grauki, and imprisoning or killing those who oppose. The Aspect has taken to torturing Marulki until he submits to the worshuip of Baphomet. He'll be in a very bad way when the party finds him. The Elf Drennean who now possses Grauki's body is in a dilemma, he can't expose himself by denying the demon, by knows that if the whole thing goes on much longer then the minotaurs will control the whole region. Already they have begun forays against the Inevitbles.

I'm going to scale up as WLD seggests so I think the party is going to have enough problems as is without going off and doing extra challenges, but it is a cool idea.

 

[Bigwilly]

Friday 13th

Had a very fun session on Friday night. Playing very slowly as we only get together every couple of months. Party is currently in section C. Last session ended after the defeat of a feral ghoul (C49ish), but not before it got a hit in on 4 out of 5 of the party members.

The party (all level 7):
LN human cleric of St Cuthbert
CN orc cleric of Gruumsh
NE human master thrower multiclass
N elven necromancer
LE drow blackguard (+ 2 ECL so actually only lvl 5 - important)

The master thrower has been roleplaying a fear of undead (immune to crits) and tends to run away when they appear, hence he was the only one not bitten by the ghoul.

Any the party rests up and everyone gets to save vs ghoul fever. The drow fails her save. Neither of the clerics has cure disease memorized so they decide to move on anyway. The next section is a maze with fake, trapped doors. The master thrower fails a spot trap roll (I find that a lot of the basic DCs in the book are pretty high and have fudged a fair few just to prevent the PCs getting stuck) and attempts to open one of the fake doors. Possibly for the first time in his entire career he makes the open lock check...and triggers the cloudkill. Goblin NPC slave croaks immediately. Master thrower and the two clerics both save but still take CON damage. The drow fails her save and as she only has 5 HD also croaks.

The rest of the party pull the drow out of the cloud and attempt to revive her, but it's clear that she's dead. Then her eyes open and she tries to bite one of the party (she is now a ghast). The master thrower wets himself. The cleric of St Cuthbert recovers quickest (makes a knowledge - religion check to work out what's happened) and blasts her with searing light. It doesn't quite kill her and she makes the most of the opportunity and bites the master thrower. He saves vs paralysis but I ask him to make the throw to see if he gets ghoul fever and he rolls a 1. The master thrower soils himself. Hilarity ensues.

Party retreat to safe spot and heal up before continuing. Next section is the trial of just or some such where party members need the Mark of Righteous just to get in. Within seconds of giving the mark to the cleric of St Cuthbert, the rest of the party attack the archon and kill it. Then after most of the party have put their weapons on the rack and can't get them back the orc refuses and heads off into the section with the giants.

The cleric, wizard and m.thower go through the trial. The cleric is fine only needing one save at the end - which he makes. Both the other end up level drained, blind, deaf and with -6 to their STR scores. In the meantime the orc has dined with the giants and been sent to his doom towards the trapped spectre. He managed to bypass a crushing trap by using stone shape and break the first of 4 locks on one of the doors, but not before he gets cursed (-6 wis is not good for a cleric). Unable to break the other locks and not thinking clearly he goes back and persuades one of the giants to help. Some rolls later they succeed in breaking down the door and freeing the spectre which goes on to kill the orc and the giants and is now roaming that section with his 4 servants.

2 PC kills + 1 NPC. Motto for the day: 13 is an unlucky number for some.

 

[Hussar]

Oh dude, that's sweet. Trying to do C with a semi-evil party would be brutal. When the paladin went through the trials when I did C, he was death on toast afterwards. Holy, axiomatic attacks all at +3 to hit and damage. Gack!

Nice one.

 

[Bigwilly]

The LN cleric does now have an axiomatic mace (for next 5 game days anyway). Neither of the other characters got anything. Biggest problem for me now will be how to bring in 2-3 new characters next session.

 

[Hussar]

The Box is your bestest friend. Take a look at the Neetersoft site and download the pdf. I don't have the linkie right now, but, it's not too tricky to find. The Box idea is just the sweetest thing. Think the Luggage from Discworld and let it work as your Deus Ex Machina du jure.

 

[jim pinto]

Magic Item Story

Just saying hi.

Had a story to share after seeing the post about a BOX.

I made a magic item for a game once that was essentially a malfunctioning bag of holding. It has centuries of stuff stored in it, but you couldn't store anything else in it.

The way it worked is... you closed it, and said... "I need a SANDWICH."

And every sandwich that had ever been stored inside it would be there when you opened it.

If you closed it, the items were "cataloged" again.

If you wanted a sword, chances are it had 30 or more already stored in it.

So, you had to be specific, otherwise, it produced EVERY sword it contained. And then it would take another day before you could ask for any swords again.

You could, of course take an item out of it, but putting one is was rarely successful.

It was a fun gizmo for getting them what they needed. I think I had a chart of sorts for what could be in it, but mostly I just winged it.

Of course, it was full of coins and gems, which would be valueless in the WLD.

And the unreliable nature of the "teleport" would fit certain regions of the dungeon very well.

 

[Hussar]

As a prezzie to the orc barbarian for surviving 25 sessions without dying, he gets to reach into his pocket/backpack/orifice and draw something from this table. It's been loads of fun.