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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Qwillion" data-source="post: 2192658" data-attributes="member: 14641">World’s Largest Dungeon Region A 1st-3rd level dungeon adventure by AEGMichael Hamemes (Author of Region E), Jim Pinto (Line Developer and Editor), Katie Yates (Editor), Mark Jelfo (Creative Director), Sean Hollard (d20 Rules Maven), John Zinzer (original concept and CEO), Maureen Yates (COO), Mary Valles (Production Manager) .In a 1st-3rd level adventure a party of 4 characters should be able to start at 1st level and reach 3rd level by the end of the adventure.  To me this means a minimum award of 12,000 XP.  Now we do not all have a nice iconic group, I myself run a group of 8 to 9 players so even at the most the XP awarded should be 53,991.  This would keep even a group of 9 players from reaching level 4. In the World’s Largest Dungeon AEG states that you should award half XP for challenge ratings or award by encounter level rather than using the standard rules for XP.  I was not sure how I felt about AEG’s decision not to use the existing rules to design an adventure.  However, I am a firm believer that you always have a right to create variants as long as those variants are precise and well thought out. Most WLD GMs voicing their opinion have chosen the Encounter Level route.  A few have chosen a “leveling room” that when you discover a certain room you level up, eliminating XP awards.  I find the idea of “leveling room” to be anti-climatic.  It is also against my love of role-playing XP, XP for good ideas and XP for ideas or tactics that do not work because of bad luck. Therefore, I sat down with the Encounter Levels for the listed encounters in Region A of the World’s Largest Dungeon.  I did not include random encounters or one Variant Level Encounter (an automatically generated random encounter) that occurs in a high traffic zone. The total XP: 73,450…this number stunned me.  Even at 9 players that is 8,161 XP that puts them over half way to 5th level in a 1st-3rd level dungeon.  To me this seems wrong on a number of levels and destroys my trust that the XP will be right for other regions.  I had hoped this exercise would stop me from having to do this for all 15 regions.  Now I will have to do the calculations that AEG could (and perhaps should) have done for me.The frustrating thing is what if I did not have nine people begging to play this.  What if what I had was the 4 iconic people and I was an inexperienced DM, the players would be almost 7th level.   An even more annoying issue though is treasure and wealth by level, treasure is supposed to be a reward based on encounter level if the XP per encounter level is off, how much more so is the treasure per encounter.  I am not big on Monte Haul but I am not Dungeonezer Scrooge either.  The point being if XP is off, then treasure is off, then equipment is off, then challenge ratings are off (because they expect players to have certain equipment), and if challenge ratings are off then encounter levels are off.  Welcome to my merry-go round.  “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”  —Darth Vader   I have since decided to award half XP by encounter level after the players reach second level.  (Only a DM could love 1st level.)  I do not expect they will clear every room and go through every encounter (Murphy’s Law says they will if your do not prepare for it.), but I would like to be able to dole out as little XP gravy. IN CONCLUSIONThis is only one region, I could be wrong about the rest.  I like the WLD I am enjoying reading it; its room layouts are the best I have ever read.  I will probably buy the World’s Largest City.  Yet, I cannot express to you how irked I was by the XP being flat wrong.  I hope someone can explain to me why a simple matter of following the rules (even a variant rule you create) was too much for those listed above.Thank You,Steven Russell"Make it cool! Then make it make sense."</blockquote>

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