*initial sketches for this dungeon level*
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I’ve written a dungeon level for the *Fight On!* megadungeon. It’s for level 13. Maybe it’ll be in issue #13. I tried to adhere to a number of principles that would hopefully produce a better product.
As far as I’m concerned, high level play suggests the following deviation from the usual:
There is *no map with exact distances*. In fact, like the other dungeon levels at a similar depths, my entry feels like a little *underworld wilderness*.
I assume that many party members will be able to *fly* or *dimension door* or have *flying mounts* or *flying carpets*. Thus, there are several *vertical drops* that would make life very difficult for a low-level party.
Since I don’t have a traditional map, encounters are presented as *simple lists of locations and creatures*. You can treat these as a wandering monster table, except that every entry in the list comes with monster stats and an environment and a little extra info. Personally, I prefer to get a little more information than just a monster name and their numbers appearing.
In order to further aid *improvisation* every location starts with a sentence or two setting the mood, a list of impressions (sounds, sights), a list of names to use—little things that I’d appreciate as a referee.
Enemies will have access to magic. I still remember hating spellcasters and devils and demons as a kid because picking the right spells and all that was tricky to do in the heat of combat. This is why important foes will often have two or three *at will magic abilities*. It’s simply easier to manage.
Since I was going to publish in *Fight On!* magazine without the Open Gaming License, I decided to not copy any stats from monster manuals or existing rule books. I *made up the stats of all the monsters*. I’m sure this will result in strange discrepancies. I used the following *rules of thumb*: mooks 1 HD, squad leaders 3 HD, local leaders 5 HD, important people 7-9HD, boss enemies 12-15 HD, some monsters that you can fight but that you’re better off avoiding 17+ HD. AC 9 for no armor, AC 7 for tough hides, AC 5 for chain and equivalent, AC 0-3 for superbly armored enemies. Damage is usually 1d6, 2d6 for magical two handed weapons or large creatures with a huge jaw, 3d6 for the strongest natural enemies.
In order to reflect the changing dynamics of high-level play, there are *a lot of save-or-die* effects. At this point, hit-points aren’t so important anymore. Save vs. paralysis or be dragged under water; when under water, save vs. death every round or drown. This is what makes fighting the monsters dangerous, and this is why there are a lot of monsters with few hit dice down on level 13 of this dungeon.
A while ago, I had written a blog post called Quality Dungeons. I wanted to apply some of the lessons I had learned from reading 200+ One Page Dungeons.
Every location has an *interesting non-player character* or two. There are *factions* at war. You can make *allies*. (In fact, all the dungeon levels I can think of for the *Fight On!* megadungeon had this. I love it.)
I tried to loosely tie all the locations together. If you’re using the entire level, that’s cool and there’s a lot of interaction. At the same time, it’s possible to *reuse every single location outside of the dungeon* in your own games. It’s modular because I like to reuse other people’s stuff.
I use *bold* to highlight monsters and important names in the descriptions such that it’s easy to skim.
I tried to keep it *short*. Unfortunately, it’s still nearly 30 pages long. I asked Claudia for editing suggestions but she says she likes it all and she wouldn’t change it. We’ll see whether I managed to condense it down to the most awesome per word I can deliver! It was certainly my goal.
A little trick I used: I forced myself to write many things as bullet point lists. Every encounter is one item, one paragraph. In addition to that, I don’t use periods in my list items; I use semicolons to structure it; this forces me to keep a certain *flow* while writing; I realize it’s not a great way to write a blog post, however. 🙂
I also tried to provide foes to fight, non-player characters to talk to, befriend, learn from and barter with. These last elements supports my wife’s favorite play style: discovering new things. You can *exchange spells* with magic users, there are *rituals* to learn (in campaigns, that is how I explain all the magic that is unexplained by the spells provided by the rule book) and there are things to *learn about the environment*.
There are opportunities for *long term change*. I’m not just talking about loosing limbs (although that may happen as well), I’m talking about divine effects following you around if a god notices your actions, infernal pacts you can make, that kind of thing.
There are also *safe zones* (although when I ran a play test the players burned down one of the safe zones) for players to rest and recover without needing to return to the surface. I just like to imagine that trips to the underworld are long and arduous, much like Jule Verne’s *Journey to the Center of the Earth*.
I also tried to provide *some links to the other dungeon levels* in this megadungeon, but perhaps that is the one aspect where I could have tried to do better and add more tie-ins. To my chagrin I must confess that I haven’t read all of them in as much detail as I would have liked.
Another thing that I have failed to do for now is to calculate how much experience points I would want the party to gain on this level and *distribute appropriate treasure hoards*. Maybe I should do that now that I’m done and do it. Assuming that a fighter needs about 120’000 to move from level 13 to 14, that would mean that I’d need about 120’000×4×3 (providing triple treasure since they’ll probably miss a lot as well). I’m not sure... At the same time, I feel that once you’ve reached name level and beyond, the actual numbers don’t really mean that much anyway. I could be wrong. All I know is that I probably haven’t distributed 1.5 million gold pieces on this dungeon. Should I?
#RPG #Old School #Caverns of Slime
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Sorry for the spoilers, but: IT WAS SPIDERS! Of COURSE we BURNED THEM DOWN!
– Harald 2012-02-09 11:13 UTC
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Maybe I was under the influence of A Deepness in the Sky when I wrote that part.
I also like the Aranea a lot.
– Alex Schroeder 2012-02-09 13:23 UTC
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Update: 2012-11-17 How To Build A Dungeon.
2012-11-17 How To Build A Dungeon
– Alex Schroeder 2012-11-17 18:54 UTC
