World's Largest Dungeon

[BlueBlackRed]

Get the WLD.

15 decent sized modules rolled into 1.

Even if you attempt to run it from beginning to end, the players will most likely only use 7 of the regions. That leaves 8 that can be re-used at another time.

The whole thing is written openly enough that you can make your changes relatively easily.

The group I'm running through it has been playing 6 months (3 out of 4 weeks played) and they're currently finishing up their 3rd region. So using that math, 6-9 months from now and we'll be done! A full year of gaming for $70-100.

I'm cheaper than you are I bet, and I saw the cost savings potential in this baby the day I heard about it.

Not to mention that you can say you did "The World's Largest Dungeon" from beginning to end. There's got to be some level prestige there.

 

[Trance Fiend]

I might pick it up once I move back to the big city(Milwaukee) and can get more then 2 players. More then 2 players would be nice indeed.

 

[eris404]

OK, as someone who is currently playing in it, I have to say that parts of it can be really deadly. Our party has been moving through the first section pretty quickly. We started at 1st level and are now 3rd level. We bypassed a couple of big enounters by sneaking past and after last night's game, the DM admitted we are in a section meant for characters higher than 3rd level and that he had to adjust some things on the fly. To make matters more difficult, we don't have a rogue character or any character that can find/disable traps right now. Last night, we (spoiler below)

Spoiler

found a trap that cast lightning bolt for 10d6 points of damage. In an area meant for 4th characters!

So, even though I think it isn't perfect by far, it's still a fun dungeon-crawl and we've been enjoying it a lot. I think if you're prepared to suspend your disbelief over certain things, you'll have a good time with it.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

What are "encounter conditions"?

 

[Qwillion]

an encounter condition is something that can change the nature of the encounter

In the world's largest dungeon jim pinto created 30+ conditions that you can plug and play into an encounter.

I don't have my book with me to give you an example exactly, but here is one I remember, excuse any inaccuacy.

Spell Resitance X: The magical wards of this room/area grant Spell Resitance equal to X, to all creature and objects in this room/area. Creatures native to this room/area have learned how to bypass these wards, so that creatures they attack do not gain the benifits of this condition.

This is not cool per say, but the idea of a room with multiple encounter conditions makes many of the preconceptions of the players useless and encouters have a higher EL than they would normally.

 

[smootrk]

I appreciate all your inputs. I definitely wanted to hear criticisms, not just fanboy fanfair about the WLD. I still think I will buy the product, as the positives seem to outway the negatives so far.

I have not bought it yet, as I am still looking for better deals, or collecting schemes from my players (you know how cheap they can be).

 

[JoeGKushner]

I've been tinkering with it a bit but decided that after my FR game ends, I may run this using Arcana Evolved. Figure it'll be different.

 

[apesamongus]

Note, these comments are based entirely on areas A and B

#1 Nothing in the dungeon makes the slightest bit of sense. Places that should be connected aren't. Secret doors are placed randomly and without any usefulness whatsoever. Traps are pointlessly placed.

For example, there is an encampment of goblins and a shrine where they worship. Between these two places there is but a single path. That path requires passing through a room full of undead paladins. Somehow there are <6 hp goblins that regularly make it through that room alive.

#2 Things get repetative fast. Area A involves fighting the same thing over and over again. Area B involves multiple traps that don't accomplish anything. We ended up skipping over 1/3 of area B - and that's not counting the entire goblin political conflict that we handled with diplomacy instead of the dozens of "kill these 12 goblins - again" fights that we thankfully avoided.

#3 Lots of fights are stupid. Creatures that are really only effective when combined with other creatures and not a threat alone are included by themselves. Large creatures with no ranged attacks or magic are put into rooms with 5' doors so that the PCs can easily bottleneck them. It seems that for most of the fights so far, the combat is assumed to start after the PCs have rushed blindly into a room unprepared.

#4 No NPC has anything resembling a believable motivation for doing anything, and some (mid-level) NPCs are given no more personality than "fight to the death". A couple of cases convice me that the designers don't know about hold person and non-lethal damage, because they state that the PCs will never be able to capture/question certain NPCs, and consequently, don't give any help whatsoever in handling those situations. NPCs enter the dungeon to get something even though they can't leave with it, and not a single NPC so far seems the least bit bothered that they are trapped in a dungeon that they can't leave.

#5 Several places include instructions for NPC behavior that are not supported by the rules. Example #1 "NPC easily runs away and avoids PCs because he knows the layout of the dungeon better than them" Except, that he has 20' movement and always encounters the PCs in small rooms where they can easily catch him if they win initiative. And opening most of the secret doors require more than a free action, so running through them isn't fast. Example #2 "NPC grabs random PC and threatens to snap his neck if the PCs don't do what he says". Wha? I don't know where to even begin with something that stupid. If you can do that with a 16 strength, our 22 strength guy has a new strategy.

#6 Encounters don't have victory conditions, so somethimes it's hard to know if you overcame the challenge. Seriously, do you get XP from an "encounter" where nothing happens if you don't attack? What about getting XP from a trap that you avoid because it's not in your way and isn't guarding anything you want?

#7 After the first area, the players were alreay joking (and metagaming to a certain degree) about the fact that monsters/traps and treasure were never found in the same room. Untrapped secret door = magic item. Almost impossible to disarm trap that can insta-kill rogue = sack of rotted food and barrels of vinegar IDENTICAL to the stuff in the room before the trap. Why guard one and not the other? Hell, I don't even know how the stuff got into the room in the first place, because the people with the food and vinegar weren't the same people as those that set the trap. So, in theory, someone managed to bypass the trap long enough to store the goods there, but there were no NPCs with the skills necessarty to do that.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Note, these comments are based entirely on areas A and B

I've been running one of my groups through this and I have to agree with all of these complaints (especially the path to the goblin shrine, which really bugs me). The prolific useage of encounter conditions is another thing I have issues with. For example, the aforementioned room (with the undead paladins blocking the goblin's path to their shrine) has 11 encounter conditions associated with it! This just exasperates the goblins problems (And mine as DM, that's way too much to keep track of... fortunately I forget them most of the time and it hasn't been a huge issue). There are also a lot of discrepencies between player and DM descriptions of the rooms (B12 in particular) that have been troublesome.

All that said, I still love the product. There are some sections that are absolutely inspired, and later Regions seem pretty detailed for the scope of the dungeon and many present some very cool environments. I can't wait to run my group through the Halls of Flesh. From my browsing of later sections, it seems there really is a lot of detail in there of NPC motivations and Region descriptions. (Region A is the definate anomaly in this regard. It just stinks, and it's the first impression most people get of the dungeon, so I'm not sure why it was left till last ). Plus any sections of the dungeon my one group doesn't use, I'll end up reusing for my other campaign. The only thing missing to make this the perfect adventure, is a message board and fans like Return to Temple of Elemental Evil.

As to the original question. It's a great dungeon crawl, with all that that entails. If your group likes to kill monsters and take their treasure, it's a good buy. If you have a "RP intensive group" you might want to invest your RPG money elsewhere.

 

[smootrk]

bump... looking for more input