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Message: <blockquote data-quote="twofalls" data-source="post: 1874145" data-attributes="member: 23718">Level Up RoomsOkay, here is the arcane wisdom behind level up rooms. We as GM's of the WLD are all aware of the problems with xp. If you award it as it is described in the base rules to players in the WLD they will be eighth level by the time they get out of Region A. That’s a problem. To resolve it, I have rooms in each region that the players may find that are filled with powerful energy. When the players find those rooms, and interact with the energies within, they gain levels and sometimes other benefits as well. I'm using the premise that this is a dungeon for all the evil in the world save that which man brought with him. So the level up rooms are a way for the players to interact with the power of the gods.In Region A, I placed 3 level up areas, because I wanted the players to be 4th level when they entered their next Region. In every other Region I'm placing 2 areas in which they can gain their levels. The “secret” about them is that there is no secret! I don't actually physically place the rooms at all, I ad lib them during play.  I intentionally told the players of the number of power ups in the Region they are playing in, and then I let them to go about and eagerly search for them. This has many advantages. One, I can level them up whenever I want to. To the player’s perceptions when they discover a power up room, they feel that they’ve  just managed to finally find one of the rooms they have been seeking in this vast plex. So I can control the power of the party to maximize their chances in the dungeon and equalize the parity of the encounters they are experiencing. Also, players being who they are, I can hold off on placing a power up room to essentially force the party to explore every nook and cranny because they simply aren't going to leave an area until they have found all their levels! So I maximize the likelihood that I will get the most bang for my buck with the WLD by getting to play out all the encounters in a given Region. In order to make this work however, you have to be clear about the structure of the Regions.What I mean by that is you need to have some clear way for the party to delineate between where one region ends and another begins. I've done this by varying the stonework between the different areas. In Region A, the stonework is of dark grey limestone blocks perfectly fitted together. Region B to the east is all dense sandstone, so as soon as the players see the stonework change they immediately know they are in a new area. I made Region E to the north be composed of white marble with veins of gold and silver flecks to go hand in hand with the Celestial theme there. I also TOLD the PC's that each region has different level ratings... all the more incentive to find all the power up rooms!I'll handle the power up's different for each region. In Region A I had two rooms contain a floating light, much like a stationary Lantern Archon in the center of the chamber. Holy light radiated about the area bathing the onlookers in a peaceful warm glow. When a good or neutral character approached they experienced a vision and were blessed with a stronger body and more talents, and harp music filled the room. I do however have one evil character in the group, and when he approached the light became muddy, and then dark like a yellow moon. That character was wracked with pain, and a thunderclap split the air, but the end result was the same. They don't realize it yet, but this evil character represents the god's agreement that evil shall receive its due, and the lords of darkness are every bit as influential in the dungeon as the lords of light.The third power up was actually the rooms in the far east, that if used properly gave characters various elemental resistances as well as levels, and were based on the book rooms that were already set there. I rewrote the rooms so that there were three of them and each was aligned, good/neutral/evil. If a character of the correct ethos stood upon the symbol in the center of the room and the door was closed, he was bathed in elemental energy, unharmed, raised a level, healed of all wounds, and was granted an elemental resistance of 5 appropriate to the room. I used Fire for good, Electricity for neutral, and Cold for evil. If more than one person was in the room, the person on the symbol gained the benefits, while the extra person took 4d6 pts of elemental damage, NO SAVE! If the extra person was of the wrong ethos the damage was 4d8. <evil laugh> The symbol is large enough for one person to stand upon, and if two attempt to stand there at the same time neither fits correctly and neither are considered to be upon it when the door is closed.If you stand in the room of the wrong alignment (even if you are alone and upon the symbol) while the door is closed, you take 4d8 pts elemental damage, NO SAVE. Keep in mind, this is very hard on Mages and Rouges, and you may want to vary the damage to avoid killing off your group. My group just happened to get lucky. Only a few characters were zapped. Now to be fair, you need to give some hints. Celestial writing in the good room, Demonic writings in the evil, and some of each in the neutral is a good start. Going out of your way to describe the symbols on the floor as being dead center in the room will cause your players to think that is somehow important. Make the good symbol the Celestial symbol of Fire... etc. Now the last thing, greed! If a player attempts a room twice, or tries a different room after gaining a level, he suffers 4d8, and gains a negative level! Our Paladin did this, and fortunately his Fort save is quite good and the next day he made his save and the neg level wasn't permanent. But that did discourage anyone else from trying it themselves!I explain all of this to point out that if you use level up rooms, its important to use them in interesting fashions. It's destructive to the story if the PC's "find" such a place and say, "oh, ho hum, its another holy wafer of level up... gee wiz the place is lousy with them..."Happy Spelunkering!</blockquote>

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