# Megadungeon Sandbox and 4E



## crash_beedo (Oct 29, 2008)

*4E Sandbox, Megadungeon Style*
I want to try a sandbox approach in an upcoming campaign.  I like the idea of putting a megadungeon out there, provide a half-dozen hooks or opportunities for adventure, and then let the game unfold.  I have a compelling idea for a 4E/FR-based megadungeon that I'm developing; it will take place in Narfell on the frozen shores of Icelace Lake, the ruins of an ancient monastery used by an order of wizards, right on the lake shore.  What I want to get from the community are ideas on the theories lined out below.

*What is a Megadungeon?*
Megadungeons go back to the root of the hobby (1E AD&D and the OD&D little books).  The idea is that an entire campaign can be built around a dungeon, and plots emerge through play that keep the party moving forward so it doesn't devolve into hacking and looting.  But the key is, the party controls the pace and determines the risk-vs-reward ratio.  Not many have been printed, *Temple of Elemental Evil *, *Caverns of Thracia*, *Tegel Manor*.  I loved *Castle Whiterock *in 3.5, too.  I had great hopes all of *Castle Zagyg *would see print.  There are lots of places to go learn about them on some of the grognard hangouts; run a search over on *Dragonsfoot*, *Knights and Knaves Alehouse*, etc and you'll find some great posts on Megadungeon Theory by fellas like TFoster, Evereaux, map analysis by Melan, etc (those posters stand out to me, but there have been many great contributors).

My goal here is not to rehash megadungeon design but discuss how to modify the theories to work with 4E adventure building models.

*Sandbox Theory and Dungeons*
I guess I consider Sandbox theory the opposite of railroading.  The DM puts 'just enough' of the setting out there, with some adventure hooks, and the players make of it what they will.  The DM builds on the players choices and the campaign emerges in a more collaberative manner than if the DM started with a Cool Epic Plot™®.  JG's *Wilderlands* is my archetypical sandbox - its just a ton of mapped hexes with a guide and the players are free to wander; if they go north instead of south, there's no story they're ruining, the story will emerge.

Mike Mearls' blog post on *Keep on the Borderlands *got me thinking why B2 is still so charming; a unique story emerges each time you play it, through a mixture of rumors, hooks, and the player's choices.  There's no linear plot to it.  I DM plenty of Adventure Paths, and once in a while you just want to punt the baggage, the McGuffins, the Mary Sues, the railroads.

*Sandbox and Risk-Reward*
Players control the level of risk-reward through their choices; if the DM presents them a staircase that goes from level 1 to 2,3 and 4, and they decide to jump to level 4, a TPK is likely.  Similar to Keep on the Borderlands B2, where an unwise group could blunder into the Minotaur maze, the Shunned Cave, or visit the Bugbear before they're ready.

*The Five Room Dungeon*
A modern theory I like is the five-room dungeon - it's a compartmentalized approach to design (like the 'Delve') - here's a typical 5-Room Dungeon style:


Room One: Entrance And Guardian
Room Two: Puzzle Or Roleplaying Challenge
Room Three: Trick or Setback
Room Four: Climax, Big Battle or Conflict
Room Five: Reward, Revelation, Plot Twist

Okay, so what's a 5-Room Dungeon doing in my Megadungeon?!  Keep on the Borderlands is a good example of how a dozen independent lairs, loosely connected in a sandbox, can be assembled to form something larger.  I'm keeping the 5-Room dungeon option open as a design model, assembling the megadungeon from a series of lairs or delves.  It means you don't sit down and design 20 rooms... you sit down and design a handful of loosely connected delves or lairs.

You may note that assembling a larger dungeon from a series of delves or lairs appears to be the model for the 4E published adventures - it's present in H1 where you see the dungeon level 1 broken into areas like 'Goblin Encampment', 'The Tombs', and 'The Caves'; level 2 has 'Hobgoblin Borough' and 'Dungeon Chambers'.  H2 and H3 are similar.

*Wandering Monsters and Rival NPC's*
I think Wandering Monsters add an interesting dynamic to an otherwise static setting.  My favorite kinds are when more powerful monsters (maybe from the next level down) are up looking for a snack.  (Obviously these aren't all meant to be fights - players need to know when they're overmatched!).  The other kind I miss are the wandering NPC parties.  Setting up adventurers or other intelligent delvers as rivals can lead to those emergent storylines that develop from the sandbox.  Who doesn't remember Gutboy Barrelhouse and Balto throwing down with Arkayn and Abner from the 1E DMG combat example?

*Experience Points and Treasure Parcels*
This is a tough one for megadungeon design, and I welcome ideas.  Here is the issue:  you don't want to over-create your levels, and you also need to assume the players won't uncover everything.  How big do you make any given dungeon level so it feels 'large' but you don't create an extra thousand rooms, say?  How do you employ the 4E guidelines for parcels and items to ensure the group gets the right wealth per level?

On the one hand, 4E might make the treasure parcel piece super easy; maybe you just key it "in pencil" just like you were building B1 (In Search of the Unknown) - first 10 treasure-bearing encounters lead to the first 10 parcels.

*Moving the Game Forward*
My theory is that through a combination of emergent stories, seeded plot hooks and mysteries, and similar concepts, there will be incentive for the players to delve deeper into the megadungeon as they progress up in level.  Keeping the players going vertical and not too horizontoal is an area of concern (highlighted below in problems).

*Bringing it All Together*
I've developed an overarching plot and framework for the megadungeon (I like the top-down approach, 'Rational Dungeon Design / Let there be a method to your madness' is a great Dragon Article on megadungeon design from way back in the day - Dragon #10 in fact).  Once I have a theme for each level, I plan on outlining something like 3-4 delves or lairs to plug in, with room for expandability.

For instance, here is a practical example from the megadungeon I'm currently working on.

I have two potential delves in the upper works (one in the lakeside south part of the ruined monastery, one in the north).  The lakeside delive includes a vermin encounter and a human bandit encampment; the encounters on the other side of the ruins include goblins from the Blood Mountain Tribe and their bugbear allies.  There are at least 3 ways into the first level of the dungeon from the upper works.  (There are also a series of caves in the nearby ravine, and one of the caves leads to level 1 as well...)

Delves planned out for the 1st level include the dragon worshippers (a kobold tribe very similar to the Kobold Hall delve in the DMG with a solo white dragon), a vermin delve (dire rats, fire beetles, stirges, etc), mutant goblins inspired by the roll vs role article on goblins, and finally a delve built around elves, halflings and their guard drake companions (exploring the ruins, these agents from The Good Lands™ have set up a temporary redoubt).

Wandering encounters for level 1 include orc raiders up from level 4, hobgoblins, vermin, and an NPC party.  The orcs, the toughest wandering monster, aim to capture/subdue opponents (so there will be no TPK).  They sell captured humanoids to the level 6 Shadar-Kai, who remove their captives to the Shadowfell to fight in a Shadar-Kai arena.

There are a handful of plot hooks to get the characters into the dungeon; the biggest one (that launches the game) goes like this:  The ruins have existed for centuries as a haven for monsters and bandits, and they've drawn low-level adventurers from time to time to challenge their skills there.  But the deeper levels have always held a mystery - the Iron Portals that seal the upper levels from those below.  Last year, the famous explorer (haha, I'll call him Arne Saknussem for now...) deciphered  the secret of the portals and discovered a large dungeon complex beneath the known levels, leading to the very Underdark itself and the secret laboratories and halls of knowledge for the ancient order.  Saknussem returned to the surface with magical trinkets, ancient coins, and items of power; word spread to the lands of Damara, Impiltur, the Dalelands, and even darkened lands like Netheril and Vaasa, and now adventurers of many stripes have traveled to the remote outposts of Narfell to plan their own expeditions into the ruins.

For a more focused plot hook, consider the information from the Orc wandering encounter; there are Shadar-Kai slavers in the ruins that capture humanoids and sell them to fight in the arena.  Local barbarian tribes from the tundra use the ruins as proving grounds for young warriors coming of age; warriors sneak into the upper works, descend ropes down a shaft into the great hall on the first dungeon level, and are expected to spend a night in the ruins, returning the next day with some token proving they spent the night.  More and more of these groups of young warriors are failing to return; they're targeted specifically by the slavers and taken to the Shadowfell where the barbarians make prized gladiators.  Characters investigating this hook would follow a series of trails and ultimately get a chance to enter the Shadowfell, fight in the arena, lead a slave revolt, or otherwise win freedom for the prisoners.  (Of course there has to be an arena in the megadungeon after Dragon had those macho Gladiator articles!)


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## crash_beedo (Oct 29, 2008)

*Problems*

Okay - so I think there are some problems with megadungeons... some 4E specific, some not.

*1.  Overdesign:*
You want the place to feel "big" - so it makes sense that multiple NPC parties could be exploring at once, and there are multiple ways into and out of the place. However, I also realize that a group will only need 8 or so encounters before they level up (which is probably 2-3 delve areas, 1-2 quests, and a skill challenge).  I'm thinking of going with the tried and true approach - barebones notes, barely sketched out for the first pass, and then winging it.  If know where the party is going, I'll be able to create a lot more detail.

Anyone else tackle this type of problem - your characters will only likely encounter 50% of your areas, so how do you balance enough detail vs too much?

*2.  Leaving Room for Expansion:*
Haha, I guess there have been a few creative solutions out there - the *Greyhawk Construction Company* comes to mind, as does 'The Fog' I heard was used in Castle Zagyg.  I'm not sure yet... one idea might be to sketch out some large major hallways - "Roads" like in Moria... provide slots for where certain Delve encounters could take place... and place my pre-designed Delves in the slots the characters actually choose to explore.  The less detailed Delves get pushed off and I wing-it if necessary.  Or I constrain where the players go and use some 'Greyhawk Construction Company' device to limit their options.  Even B2 had the rubble leading to the *Cave of the Unknown*...

*3.  What if they don't descend?:*
So what do you do if the party levels up, they realize they only scratched the surface of level 1, and rather than descend to level 2 they decide "No matter how long it takes, let's clear this sucker first!"?  Megadungeons aren't meant to be exhaustively mapped and stocked, it ruins the aura of 'it's too big to be known entirely'.  And besides, after a certain point the challenges will be downright boring.

The brute force approach goes like this - once you've advanced, you've 'exhausted' the experience you'll get on this level and you need to go down to level 2.  I've seen some of the grognards propose fractioning the experience so the party gets the hint - once you're level is higher than the current dungeon level, you get 50% xp or something like that.  Do you invoke the 'Bag of Rats' rule?  Ostensibly level 1 fights are still in the range for level 2 characters, they're just considered "easy".

Note:  I'm assuming that one way or the other the DM is ensuring the characters have received the necessary info they need to descend, easy access to up/down access points, they've received the correct amount of parcels and items, etc.  Therefore the only pragmatic reason the players would stay on level 1 is grinding...


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## Chainsaw (Oct 29, 2008)

Awesome thoughts. I'm considering adapting Ruins of the Undermountain (read: plagiarizing what I need) for a mostly dungeon oriented homebrew campaign I want to start, but I hadn't thought of alot of the points you raise. 

My player in this campaign has a good imagination and is a good sport, but is relatively new to RPG's. I'm afraid if I don't use a fairly structured setting (traditional dungeon) I might lose him! He's a good guy, but I don't want to provoke a "Oh, so you're just making it all up as you go along" response. A good Wizardry style dungeon romp ought to work. As he gets familiar with the mechanics and narrative dynamic, we can layer in more and more role playing and shift away from pure hack-and-slash. 

Anyway, the point is that I think your commentary's very relevant to what I'm doing at the moment.


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## Korgoth (Oct 29, 2008)

I like where you're going with this.

The "5 Room Dungeon" principle works. I used it in designing my Tekumel megadungeon (the Jakalla underworld) for my EPT (1975) game. Each level is really just a collection of small, self-contained dungeons.

For example, the party started at the first entrance I showed them. They went down into some catacombs (a complete mini-dungeon) and before completely exploring them started to deal with a functioning underworld temple (The Black Abode of Putrescence Triumphant, to Durritlamish). Even though they beat the roughest encounter, they didn't seal the deal (lost their nerve I guess)! Then they moved in another direction and plundered a mini-dungeon called The Tomb of Kalvar the Cruel. It remains to be seen where they're headed next. There was a pit-shaft out of Kalvar's tomb down to the Tomb of Jirek the Relentless (buddies to the very end!) but they were too scared to go down it. 

In my own game, each session is designed as a single foray. Theoretically, characters who remain in the underworld at the end of the session have to roll on the Table of Despair ("Your flesh is consumed by underworld denizens!", etc.), which has no positive results. So the game is for whoever shows up, and there's no problem of "Bob's character is here, but Bob is in Seattle" or whatever.

On the question of trying to "clear level 1", I see the point of just reducing or removing XP. You could also make it so darn big that they'll never do it, or just leave enough room for expansion that previously unknown areas open up later. But what you're doing could work.


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## LostSoul (Oct 29, 2008)

crash_beedo said:


> *Experience Points and Treasure Parcels*
> This is a tough one for megadungeon design, and I welcome ideas.  Here is the issue:  you don't want to over-create your levels, and you also need to assume the players won't uncover everything.  How big do you make any given dungeon level so it feels 'large' but you don't create an extra thousand rooms, say?  How do you employ the 4E guidelines for parcels and items to ensure the group gets the right wealth per level?




You give the appropriate treasure to monsters.  It's part of the risk-reward thing.

If the encounter is level 4, give it a level 4 treasure parcel.  You could roll randomly (hoping things even out over time) or make sure all parcels have been handed out - i.e. you have 10 level 4 encounters, so you can cover all the level 4 treasures.

Mix it up, too: Hide some treasures, make some encounters treasure-poor, some encounters treasure-rich.

If you do this, then the players know that they will get more rewards for punching above their weight.


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## Haffrung Helleyes (Oct 29, 2008)

Hey, this is a great thread!  I haven't signed onto 4E yet, but if I do it will definitely be sandbox style.

I think you have to throw out the idea that characters end up with a certain amount of wealth at each level.  Like LostSoul said, monsters have wealth according to their challenge, and the characters are entitled to whatever they can get!

PCs in a sandbox game who get to purchase magic need to make different choices than in a standard D&D game.  They need to assume that they will end up overmatched at some point, and invest in 'escape magic' or other means of not ending up a snack.  I don't know enough about 4E to know how they would go about this.

anyway, I look forward to reading more on this subject!

Ken


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## malraux (Oct 29, 2008)

I'm not entirely sure yet, as I haven't played the system enough yet, but so far, I think 4e is a bit less dependent on specific wealth levels, at least the way 3e was.  I'd think that its a bit easier for the party to miss a treasure parcel or two, especially the ones that just contain gp.  But with the transfer enhancement ritual, its pretty easy for everything that the party finds to be useful.


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## crash_beedo (Oct 29, 2008)

I guess here is why I'm drawing attention to the wealth problems with the Parcel system...

Game balance expects PC's to have a certain amount of magic items (and money to spend on more, or potions and rituals) - and in 4E, this aspect of the game is managed by the Parcel system.  From that perspective, the DM can create treasure and magic items for a series of encounters, literally in minutes.

BUT - in an old school megadungeon, you'd go by things like the % in lair, the treasure types and charts (haha, remember treasure type "Q", stuff like that!)

If you built a level 1 dungeon with 50 encounters, you literally could give every monster an appropriate treasure.  And one reason players might not spend time on level 1 any longer is the XP and Treasure rewards they're getting no longer keep them moving forward at an acceptable rate.

In the 4E paradigm, I don't believe XP is exponential any longer... it's a more gradual curve... raising the issue that a level 2 party could still be advancing at a decent pace while whomping on level 1 monsters.

I guess I see the Parcel and Encounter level, XP per encounter, and Dungeon level issues are a bit intertwined.  In a normal dungeon - guess what - you've beaten all the encounters, time to go down to the next level.  Harder to do in a megadungeon where there are more areas of the current level that could be explored.

Not ready to say 4E is a mess (yet) because we love the game play and I love the behind the screen aspects of it, but the gentler XP curve may cause some problems in the megadungeon environment.


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## crash_beedo (Oct 29, 2008)

Korgoth said:


> I like where you're going with this.
> 
> The "5 Room Dungeon" principle works. I used it in designing my Tekumel megadungeon (the Jakalla underworld) for my EPT (1975) game. Each level is really just a collection of small, self-contained dungeons.




Cool - I'm glad to see the modular approach has worked.

Even if the players "cleared" an area, I'm thinking there could be ways to open up new areas - for instance, their rivals from town (The Black Hats) find a secret door to one of those tombs, but only one of the Black Hats makes it back to town alive to tell the tale.  Voila, new "wing" of the dungeon is ready to go, replete with atmosphere and intrigue.


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## Badwe (Oct 29, 2008)

A single monster increase in XP value by 25 from levels 1 through 4.  So a level 1 monster is 100 xp, a level 2 is 125 xp.

Take this to the next logical conclusion, a party of 5 monsters goes from being worth 500 to 625 XP.

One step farther, 8-10 encounters of this type would require 4,000 to 5,000 XP (total among 5 players), and for level 2 would require 5,000 to 6,250 XP.

Finally, if players were facing average level 1 encounters despite being level 2, we could surmise 5,000/500 - 6,250/500 means approximately 10-12.5 encounters required to go from level 2 to 3.

Just for posterity, consider going from 3 to 4 with level 1 encounters:
750 (XP for level 3 encounter) * 10 = 7,500; 7,500 / 500 = 15 encounters, 5 extra.  This seems to be something of a predicament, so I might advise against dipping them directly into the mega dungeon from 1.  at around level 4 or 5, it should be less of an issue.



For treasure parcels I recomend the following:  Plan out treasure parcels independant of monsters.  Plan them out for every level you plan to let the players progress through.  For each encounter that would drop treasure, start with the appropriate parcel for it's level, then find other parcels of equal value and create a "back up" list.  This is easiest for magic items since over the course of going from level 1 to level 4, there will be 4 level 4 magic items.  After you have created enough of a back up list, use this list multiple times whenever it's appropriate for that encounter.  If the first choice is taken, move on to the next until you come to a parcel you haven't given and check it off.  If there are no parcels left to give out, the monsters drop either nothing or a cursory amount of gold.

Do the same for things like dragon hoards which contain multiple parcels, but create an independant list of equivalence for each parcel you would use.  Then, go through the list for each parcel, and complete as many as you are able to.  If some are already fully cleaned, the dragon simply drops less treasure.  Naturally, flavoring such as these opposing delver's teams getting to it first (since your party was so busy dawdling around stomping level 1 encounters) will help to add to the sense of the dungeon being "bigger than the party".

Hope these suggestions help.


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## S'mon (Oct 29, 2008)

I think you need to let go a bit and not worry about controlling the campaign as much as 3e and 4e assume.  In a megadungeon sandbox, it is not the GM's job to ensure balanced encounters or wealth-by-level.  Skillful or lucky play should get the PCs over-standard wealth, for instance (traditional XP-for-gold ensured that poor PCs were not high level, but gold didn't translate to magic items - I'm really talking about item wealth, here).   Monsters should, on average, possess average wealth, but insert plenty of variation - either use random tables or pseudo-random distribution.

Edit:  It's very important though that if you are assigning treasure, you MUST do it before the monster is defeated.  You absolutely must not be ticking off treasure packets in a pre-determined order.

Always remember that the players have a great deal of choice how deep they wish to delve - they set their own risk/reward ratio.  This means you need lots of stairs to lower levels; it is NOT sandbox design to have just 1 way down, only findable after defeating the Level Boss.  Don't worry if after going up to say 4th level they still insist on seeking out all the easy 1st level encounters - *don't *convert these into level-appropriate challenges.  Easy victories mean less XP and slow advancement.  If the players don't like it, there are those stairs downward...


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## timbannock (Oct 29, 2008)

Chainsaw said:


> Anyway, the point is that I think your commentary's very relevant to what I'm doing at the moment.




Agreed!  I actually have been flip flopping on whether to do this kind of setup or just convert over an early edition module or two wholecloth.  Either way, I'm going for an old school style in 4E rules, so there's a lot here worthwhile to think about.

I'm keeping my eye on this thread, and when I have more time to think about it, I'll try to add something more intelligent to it


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## crash_beedo (Oct 29, 2008)

S'mon said:


> Always remember that the players have a great deal of choice how deep they wish to delve - they set their own risk/reward ratio.  This means you need lots of stairs to lower levels; it is NOT sandbox design to have just 1 way down, only findable after defeating the Level Boss.  Don't worry if after going up to say 4th level they still insist on seeking out all the easy 1st level encounters - *don't *convert these into level-appropriate challenges.  Easy victories mean less XP and slow advancement.  If the players don't like it, there are those stairs downward...




I completely agree about the access to lower levels... stairs down need to be early and often (especially for deeper levels, so it's not painful for your high level guys to get to the fun area).

In 1E, a 3rd level fighter would need 8,000 XP to go from 3rd to 4th - double - and that's 4x what it took to get level 2.  Beating up kobolds for coppers in AD&D really wasn't much fun.

It's a tougher argument in 4E, where it takes 1,000xp to get to level 2, and only 3750 to get to level 4, but the difference between a level 1 standard fight is 500xp and level 4 is only 875xp.  Players *might* still be leveling at an acceptable (albeit unchallenging) pace if given access to enough encounters below their character level.

I see your point about parceling ahead of time - specifically if you're going to reward players for old school tactics like stealing, tricking monsters out of treasure, etc.  Since the paradigm for rewarding XP has shifted from 1gp = 1xp to 'defeating encounters', you need to be willing to redefine what it means to defeat an encounter...


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## Badwe (Oct 29, 2008)

Keep in mind those conversion ratios though:  At no point does the 4th ed DMG advocate 1 floor = 1 PC level, but it does advocate that 8-10 encounters at PC Level X = enough XP to go to PC level X+1 and 10 treasure parcels of item Levels equal to X+4 through X+1 and some gold/gems/art/etc.  If I had the DMG handy I might do some more elaborate analysis, but for now let me speak generally.

So you have this first floor.  The PCs walk into it when they're level 1.  It's big, really big, bigger than 8-10 encounters.  You don't know what order the PCs will clear it, you don't even know how much they'll clear before stepping down to the second floor.  You could assume second floor = level 2, but you already know that's not your intent.  
What you DO know is the following: after the PCs do roughly 8-10 encounters of their level, they will go up by 1. In the course of that, they'll get 10 treasure parcels.  They also will go up another level if afterwards they manage to do enough encounters to equal 8-10 of their new level.  This, too, will yield 10 parcels. If you took the two PC levels as a whole, they're close enough that doing a certain order may speed up or slow down the process, but they should still hit 20 parcels total.  

This is the logic behind the treasure parcel backup list: combine enough of the different groups of 10 item parcels, and you can seamlessly go from encounter to encounter.  It doesn't really matter if they do all the EL 1 (to borrow a 3.x term) encounters and then move on to all the EL 2 and then move on to the EL 3 etc. etc.  They'll get their either by taking down big baddies or by stomping lowbies, or a mix of both.  Creating lists of equivalence between multiple tiers of items gives you the flexibility to adapt to whichever strategy they employ, ensure you're giving out level appropriate rewards, and creates a subtle nudge to delve deeper when the treasure dries up that isn't so heavy handed.

When I have some free time I may try to post an actual example to clarify what I mean.

Edit: this works in reverse as well: If your players are bold and quickly skip down below, equivalence tables ensure that those low level parcels find their way into their hands.


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## crash_beedo (Oct 29, 2008)

Badwe, maybe I'm not understanding where you're going and will need to wait for the example...

In an old-school throwback model, dungeon level *does* equal encounter level... yes yes, it may seem illogical, but it's part of the players being able to make good choices about their level risk/reward (part of challenging the players).

One of my (minor) quibbles with 4e is the idea that challenges will always scale... when you go into the woods at level 1, you fight level 1 orcs.  4E philosophy says , suddenly the woods are full of level 10 threats when the guys are level 10!  My approach would be to have two sets of woods, and they pick where to go...


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## LostSoul (Oct 29, 2008)

crash_beedo said:


> If you built a level 1 dungeon with 50 encounters, you literally could give every monster an appropriate treasure.  And one reason players might not spend time on level 1 any longer is the XP and Treasure rewards they're getting no longer keep them moving forward at an acceptable rate.
> 
> In the 4E paradigm, I don't believe XP is exponential any longer... it's a more gradual curve... raising the issue that a level 2 party could still be advancing at a decent pace while whomping on level 1 monsters.




I see what you're saying.

What you want to do is lower the reward for low-risk encounters and up the reward for high-risk encounters, right?

I wonder if you could use wandering monsters for this.  Wandering monsters, as everyone knows, don't carry any treasure.  As the dungeon is cleared out, the less-rewarding wandering monsters start to move in.  They still carry XP, but wandering monsters are more dangerous because they might jump at you when you don't want them to.


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## malraux (Oct 29, 2008)

One alternative, especially given the shallowness of the XP curve, would be to have each floor of the dungeon equate to about 2-3 levels worth of xp.  So when the party enters the dungeon at level 1, the first floor contains 25-30 encounters some of which at level 1, some at 2 and some at 3, but not necessarily in order.  Since XP is fixed, by the time they get through the level, they'll be 3rd-4th level, and ready to take on the 2nd floor, which has encounters of 4th-6th.  Just because tradition has one floor per level doesn't mean it has to stay that way.


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## S'mon (Oct 29, 2008)

I think the OD&D rule of dividing dungeon level by PC level (to a maximum of 1) to get the XP multiplier that a poster above mentioned may work well for 4e and prevent rapid levelling from 'grinding' easy fights.  

So eg, on the 1st dungeon level the average encounter level and treasure packet are 1.  A 2nd level party on the 1st dungeon level gets 1/2 XP for encounters, because of the reduced risk.  When they go to 2nd (or deeper) dungeon level they get full XP.

I'm not sure this is necessary for 3e, where XP needed to level initially escalates rapidly, but might be necessary from 4th level onwards since CR 1 encounters are still giving full XP per RAW 3e while no longer being much threat.


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## S'mon (Oct 29, 2008)

malraux said:


> One alternative, especially given the shallowness of the XP curve, would be to have each floor of the dungeon equate to about 2-3 levels worth of xp.  So when the party enters the dungeon at level 1, the first floor contains 25-30 encounters some of which at level 1, some at 2 and some at 3, but not necessarily in order.  Since XP is fixed, by the time they get through the level, they'll be 3rd-4th level, and ready to take on the 2nd floor, which has encounters of 4th-6th.  Just because tradition has one floor per level doesn't mean it has to stay that way.




That's reasonable, and emulates the typical level spreads of traditional modules, which were usually "for level" 1-3, 4-6, 7-9 etc, meaning your PCs could start the scenario at any level within the listed range (whereas 3e '7-9' means you start at 7th and finish at 9th).

1e megadungeons were classically 10 levels, to fit the 10 'monster levels' I-X.  With 30 PC levels to get through, you could definitely do a 10 level 4e megadungeon with each level covering 3 PC levels.


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## crash_beedo (Oct 29, 2008)

S'mon said:


> I think the OD&D rule of dividing dungeon level by PC level (to a maximum of 1) to get the XP multiplier that a poster above mentioned may work well for 4e and prevent rapid levelling from 'grinding' easy fights.
> 
> So eg, on the 1st dungeon level the average encounter level and treasure packet are 1.  A 2nd level party on the 1st dungeon level gets 1/2 XP for encounters, because of the reduced risk.  When they go to 2nd (or deeper) dungeon level they get full XP.




Yep - I think a rule like that is what I'm looking for, and could be easy to implement - divide the party level by the dungeon level if the group is higher than the dungeon level.  (Apologies to Badwe if that's what you were saying and I missed it).  Thanks for the ideas!

Alternatively I was going to consider something like the post here - 
Adventures with an XP Budget - "Strategic" Play in D&D 4E ?  but I think players should still be able to earn experience if they insist on some grinding (it's their sandbox too after all) - just not able to motor up as much.


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## Badwe (Oct 29, 2008)

crash_beedo said:


> Badwe, maybe I'm not understanding where you're going and will need to wait for the example...
> 
> In an old-school throwback model, dungeon level *does* equal encounter level... yes yes, it may seem illogical, but it's part of the players being able to make good choices about their level risk/reward (part of challenging the players).




This may be an issue of nomenclature.  You might say that the first floor is assuming a level 1 party, and thus averaged around it.  This is not the same as saying "clearing the first floor nets you 1 level".  If it did, you would HAVE to create 8-10 encounters averaging level 1.  So Floor is not necessarily equal to level, but floor may have an average level.

The parcel example.  If your PCs face 10 level 1 encounters, they go up to level 2.  At this point, they have many options in this megadungeon but we will classify them generally as either "move on to a placewhere the average level is 2 and do 8-10 more encounters" or "go do 10-12 more level 1 encounters".  Now, how much treasure would you give them?  In previous editions you would simply roll out from a random table and assume the average works out.  

You can't do this in 4th ed because there are no table to roll from.  You, as the DM, must choose what each group holds.  To come out correct, the players must collect 10 parcels in the course of gaining a level.  How do you account for when the players choose to move on to "floor 2" where there are monsters averaging level 2?  And what do you do if they stay on floor one to stomp more level 1 groups? What if they do _both_ ?

To give you an example of my solution.  Let's say your dungeon is limited in scope, and is only meant to handle levels 1 and 2.  You can extrapolate this example to as many levels as you want.  So, of the 10 first level parcels, and of the 10 second level parcels, 2 of them call for a level 3 magic item.  Where do you put these 2?  What happens if the PCs skip one of the encounters?  Now they're underpowered.  What if you put 3 level 3 items in the dungeon assuming they'll miss 1 and they end up clearing the whole place.  Now they're overpowered.  Instead, let's assume you create some amount of encounters in this dungeon worthy of a level 3 magic item.  The first one they defeat, they get the first item on your list.  When they defeat another, they get the other.  If they do anymore, they get nothing, or a small amount of gold to keep the idea of a reward present.


Long story short: this is meant to be a way to adhere to the 4th edition treasure parcels, keeping player power relatively on par, without having to resort to random treasure tables.


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## crash_beedo (Oct 29, 2008)

Badwe said:


> Long story short: this is meant to be a way to adhere to the 4th edition treasure parcels, keeping player power relatively on par, without having to resort to random treasure tables.




Ah, okay - I see what you're saying now.  (It's maybe freaking me out a little bit, I'll have to wrap my head around it).

Yes, dungeon level could/should equal average encounter level.  So if you're on the level 1 of the dungeon, and you enter a typical delve or lair, the encounters would range from level 1 to level 4 (easy, standard, hard) just like in the encounter guidelines, and the potential for some level 1 treasure parcels would be there.

I see how stocking everything is problematic - you could over-wealth the group if they clean a level; it's the corollary to the XP problem I've indicated with clearing a level as well.  On the other hand, I don't know if treasure should be completely dynamic, either.  Maybe employ a similar strategy - stock it up, but once the group has hit their 8-10 parcels, it stops appearing, or treasure gets fractioned as well?  The other approach (once they get their first 8-10 parcels, no more monsters have treasure) seems heavy handed - but I guess it works if we assume the stragglers are 'wandering monsters'.  And maybe no more heavy-handed than fractioning XP.

Maybe it won't be a problem and my group will be eager to stay on the curve... I guess I'll find out shortly (scheduled to start the sandbox game in Jan).


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## S'mon (Oct 29, 2008)

I've never seen a problem with PCs having say half or twice of standard wealth-by-level, and for a megadungeon especially I don't think you should worry about it.


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## malraux (Oct 29, 2008)

S'mon said:


> I've never seen a problem with PCs having say half or twice of standard wealth-by-level, and for a megadungeon especially I don't think you should worry about it.




3e made it kinda a problem as wealth could give access to really high powered stuff.  For 4e, additional wealth is more likely to lead to flexibility in items, not excessive power, but because of the caps on per day usage and the exponential growth in the wealth curve, its hard to gain access to more powerful items that way.

That said, what might work best for a mega dungeon would be to have essential items keyed to the areas the party is likely to go, with extra wealth available if they hunt through the level.


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## Badwe (Oct 29, 2008)

crash_beedo said:


> The other approach (once they get their first 8-10 parcels, no more monsters have treasure) seems heavy handed - but I guess it works if we assume the stragglers are 'wandering monsters'.  And maybe no more heavy-handed than fractioning XP.




This is sort of like one of those mind-bending excercises where I try to convince you to "Think outside the dungeon" 

In all seriousness, the idea of the parcel handouts is that even after those 8-10 encounters you continue to hand out treasure.  The difference is you are now (or perhaps already were) pulling from items set aside for the 10 level 2 parcels.  This is sort of an existential idea, in that as soon as the PCs go up to level 2, they are "on" level 2.  The fact that they are choosing to either take on more easy encounters or fewer difficult encounters is irrelevant, what has happened is merely you as the DM have put that choice in the player's hands rather than making a concious decision of "I will give my PCs lots of easy encounters" vs. "I will give my PCs a few difficult encounters".  

Eventually though, you'll run out of treasure to give the PCs.  A Level 5 item doesn't fit into any level 10 treasure parcel, and therefore probably shouldn't be dropped by an encounter balanced for level 1 (level 2 would be ok, of course).  At about the point that you've given out all the treasure from all the parcels, levels 1 2 and 3 for example, that could be given from level 1 monsters, is about the point that treasure SHOULD start drying up completely.

Summary:  Whatever level your PCs are, that is what "floor" they are experiencing.  The megadungeon merely gives them the choice between taking it easy or making it hard.  Whatever they choose, they should still get treasure to keep from being underpowered.  However, no encounter should drop an item 5 levels higher than their EL.

I hope this all makes sense, I know it is something of an abstraction of the dungeon.


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## crash_beedo (Oct 29, 2008)

malraux said:


> 3e made it kinda a problem as wealth could give access to really high powered stuff.  For 4e, additional wealth is more likely to lead to flexibility in items, not excessive power, but because of the caps on per day usage and the exponential growth in the wealth curve, its hard to gain access to more powerful items that way.
> 
> That said, what might work best for a mega dungeon would be to have essential items keyed to the areas the party is likely to go, with extra wealth available if they hunt through the level.




Yeah - you're completely right.  The players are going to care, first and foremost, that they're getting their most important gear / magic item wishes in the important parcels.

It won't be imbalancing if they eventually get a +1 version of a secondary or tertiary weapon or item, and the 4E economics (items are worth 1/5th their value if sold) reigns in abuses.  I think you guys have talked me down.


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## Raven Crowking (Oct 29, 2008)

crash_beedo said:


> Game balance expects PC's to have a certain amount of magic items (and money to spend on more, or potions and rituals) - and in 4E, this aspect of the game is managed by the Parcel system.  From that perspective, the DM can create treasure and magic items for a series of encounters, literally in minutes.




My advice?

Ignore game balance.

Seriously.

Balance the encounters on any given level as though it were for a given level (or level range) of characters, and then give treasure as you feel appropriate.  Let the _*players*_ worry about "game balance".  If you really want that Old School feeling, the primary difference between OS & NS is that in OS, it is incumbant upon the _*players*_ to decide what they can handle.

If the PCs don't have enough OOMPH to survive on level 3, they don't go to level 3.  Or they don't survive.  Easy.

(But let your players know what you are doing.....WotC-D&D players are unlikely to be expecting this!  Unlike the 1e PHB, the 3e and 4e PHBs have scanty or no advice for the _*players*_ in terms of how to judge a challenge and survive it.  I would suggest having them read the player advice section from the 1e PHB.  Lots of good stuff there.)



> If you built a level 1 dungeon with 50 encounters, you literally could give every monster an appropriate treasure.  And one reason players might not spend time on level 1 any longer is the XP and Treasure rewards they're getting no longer keep them moving forward at an acceptable rate.
> 
> In the 4E paradigm, I don't believe XP is exponential any longer... it's a more gradual curve... raising the issue that a level 2 party could still be advancing at a decent pace while whomping on level 1 monsters.




That's what happens when you change things without understanding why they were designed in a particular way in the first place.  The easiest thing to do here is to simply 'port in another XP paradigm.  Use the Fighter XP progression from the 1e PHB, and determine XP with the 1e DMG....without giving XP for hit points, because hit points are crazy in 4e.  

(You might need to do a bit more tweaking than this to make 4e work in megadungeon mode, but that's the way I would handle this particular problem.)


RC


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## S'mon (Oct 29, 2008)

malraux said:


> 3e made it kinda a problem as wealth could give access to really high powered stuff.




Only if the GM doesn't set a suitable gp limit. I'm using 3,000 gp - small town - which works great.


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## Lacyon (Oct 29, 2008)

Things to keep in mind:

The 4E XP system is exponential (at least until you reach the part of the XP table where they smoothed out the numbers), it just doubles every four levels instead of every level. Squashing two Level 1 encounters together gives you a level 5 encounter. This means that any given level of a dungeon can have a wide variety of encounter levels on it without changing much in the way of _individual_ monster strength, and if players get too overconfident about staying on one level to clean it out, the beseiged monsters can cooperate against them and still provide them with a reasonable challenge for the characters' level. Even if you don't, once characters hit ~5th level, they'll be gaining levels half as fast by seeking out level 1 encounters as they would be if they pursued level 5 encounters.

The GP system in 4E is also exponential. An item of level _x+5_ costs five times as much as an item of level _x_. Also, selling a magic item yields only 1/5 of it's nominal value (or the value of an item of level _x-5_). However, each 5x increase in cost doesn't bring with it 5x more power - that's how much it costs just to go up a single +1. Assuming you managed to get all your items to 5 levels above what you should have, you've essentially got an extra two levels worth of attack and defense bonus, and maybe enough extra powers/static bonuses/healing from those levels to match 2 more levels worth of hp, powers, and feats that you'd otherwise be bringing to the table. In order to get there, you'll have to sell _twenty-five_ items of the level you're supposed to have. I don't think you'll have too many problems with wealth by level - once players start to see that they're being left behind, they'll move to fix that by taking on harder challenges.


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## gizmo33 (Oct 29, 2008)

crash_beedo said:


> It's a tougher argument in 4E, where it takes 1,000xp to get to level 2, and only 3750 to get to level 4, but the difference between a level 1 standard fight is 500xp and level 4 is only 875xp. Players *might* still be leveling at an acceptable (albeit unchallenging) pace if given access to enough encounters below their character level.




The difference in XP, hopefully, is proportional to the difference in difficulty (at least in theory). And turning a 1st level encounter into a second level encounter means adding 125 xp worth of monster. I don't think that players who kick down a door and see 6 orcs instead of 5 are going to cry foul. Plus you can use alliances between monsters, tricks and traps, etc. to boost the encounter difficulty on short notice. 

IME people that ran old-school megadungeons would have to have plenty of tricks up their sleeves to balance encounters, which I think is far more difficult in earlier editions. I don't think the basic principles have changed (and as much as it might seem otherwise, the rules don't prevent the PCs from running away). People interested in megadungeons IMO should consult the 1E DMG and Dragon Mags from that time period, although the advice is of mixed usefulness IME. Unfortunately, IMO, the 4E DMG lectures pretty much run contrary to what a DM wants to do in a sandbox game.

The world/environment (which, in this case, is the dungeon), should adapt to the presence of the PCs, and the DM can see to it that it does so on a way that suits his interests in terms of balance. For example, I think the monsters living on level 2 would get curious about all the crashing and banging they hear going on upstairs. IMC they would investigate sooner or later. Meaning if the PCs don't go to the dungeon, the dungeon will go to the PCs. Probably while they are camping. Things that are good for game balance are often good for versimiltude as well.

I don't take the treasure parcels thing seriously either. I don't think it's necessary for 4E. I don't think it takes a DMing genius to get a sufficient sense of the PCs power. IME you can't balance challenges on a razor's edge no matter what, unless you fudge. That's due to random chance as well as tactical decisions by the PCs (which often appear as random chance due to the fact that two smart people often see the same thing two different ways). Bottom line is, place the treasure however you want, require the PCs find it, and expect the encounters to adjust to the PCs power level (which will just simply not be the same as character level). The adjustments don't have to be heavy-handed, the in-game rationale for them is basically that the more successful the party is, the more powerful creatures become aware of them and the weaker creatures band together for their survival.

If it takes a DM more than one or two encounters to figure out how powerful a 1st level party is with a bunch of +5 weapons, then that DM should stick to treasure parcels. 

Also, when it comes to too much stuff, don't forget rust monsters, disenchanters, thieves, former owners, etc. Certainly, "taking away the PCs stuff" is something that is increasingly unfamiliar to DnD players but it's not prevented by the rules. Done badly, many of the tactics suggested by 1E for dealing with these issues can be obnoxious and heavy-handed, which is probably why 4E steers away from this gaming style. But IMO a DM has so many options for dealing with this issue that with some thoughtfulness, subtlety, and experience a DM make this into a good game.


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## Croesus (Oct 30, 2008)

crash_beedo said:


> My goal here is not to rehash megadungeon design but discuss how to modify the theories to work with 4E adventure building models.




I understand you want to focus on 4E impacts to this method of play, but I can't resist making one suggestion that should greatly simplify your work - don't map out the dungeon.

By this I don't mean that you don't have encounter areas mapped out, as needed. I mean don't try to map out the entire Undermountain, 5' square by 5' square. Instead, use a flow chart to show how things connect. The flow chart is easier, less time-consuming, and much more flexible.

Take a 5-room dungeon and piece of paper.
Draw a circle - that's the entrance.
Draw a line from circle 1 to circle 2 - add whatever description you want to explain how the two connect (a well, a pit, a hallway, stairs, teleporter, genie grants a wish, etc).
Draw a line from circle 2 to circle 3. 
Draw a line from circle 3 to 4.
Draw a line from circle 4 to 5. 

Maybe you also want a line from 3 to 5 - if the party avoids the trick or setback, they can slip past the guards directly to the treasure, or rescue the princess while the guards are distracted.

The point is that it's extremely easy to add (or subtract) connections this way. You don't have redraw your intricate map, you simply redefine the connections between the individual areas. Just remember that connections show options the players have, once they've overcome the challenge - they're not encounters themselves. If a the hallway connecting two rooms is a trap, it's not a connection, it's a circle. In a way, you can think of connections as cut scenes.

I believe there's at least one good thread (from a couple years ago?) on using flow charts instead of maps - if anyone can find it, a link would be great. 

Hope this helps. Good luck with your project.


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## S'mon (Oct 30, 2008)

I used a flow chart for the _Ruins of Old El-Lay _in a Mutant Future PBEM I ran, but I don't see much benefit with a dungeon.  It would work well for Underdark 'wilderness' though.


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## crash_beedo (Oct 30, 2008)

Croesus said:


> By this I don't mean that you don't have encounter areas mapped out, as needed. I mean don't try to map out the entire Undermountain, 5' square by 5' square. Instead, use a flow chart to show how things connect. The flow chart is easier, less time-consuming, and much more flexible.



I see what you're saying Croesus - and I was thinking of taking that approach.  Here is an old thread on Dragonsfoot (I'm highlighting Melan's post) - Megadungeon Mapping - where he analyzes certain dungeon layouts as flowcharts.  I think it's a valuable technique to make sure you've provided enough access points and avoided a railroaded experience.  Plus - you can set up some "pinch points" for those areas that are crucial.

But taking it a step further, I'm considering the scope of the place large enough to use the flowchart as part of the actual map - much like the current *H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth *map.  So we agree!

It seems much less daunting creating a flowchart approach and then spending the time building the interesting delves/lairs.


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## Grimstaff (Oct 30, 2008)

crash_beedo said:


> *The Five Room Dungeon*
> A modern theory I like is the five-room dungeon - it's a compartmentalized approach to design (like the 'Delve') - here's a typical 5-Room Dungeon style:
> 
> 
> ...




Good stuff, keep it coming~


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## Tav_Behemoth (Oct 30, 2008)

I think y'all are on to some important issues here. If your group is willing, my inclination would be to approach them by houseruling 4E to bring it more in line with the old-school rules that gave rise to the megadungeon style of play. In particular:

- Experience points are awarded primarily for finding treasure and surviving long enough to bring it out of the dungeon.

- Wandering monsters are a constant hazard with a fixed and more-or-less known to the players rate of occurence, so that the decision to search every cranny is balanced against the risk of an unplanned encounter.

- Magic items are mysterious (there's no easy recourse to the _identify_ spell) and as likely to be a bane as a boon (e.g. cursed items, intelligent swords with conflicting agendas, etc.).

The reason that these are important to the megadungeon is that the dungeon is supposed to be an intrinsically dangerous environment, at best a constant impersonal hazard and at worst an enemy in itself. Mapping is essential because nothing is worse than losing your way back to the surface. Your initial focus isn't clearing out every room for experience like in a CRPG (although that may happen over time); the megadungeon should be about going in, exploring, and making strategic choices (do we open the door with the spooky noises, or push on further; at what point will the depletion of our resources, from HP to torches, force us to turn back given that we're likely to face a number of wandering monsters just trying to return to safety) balanced against the certain knowledge that the megadungeon is full of things that will eat you for lunch if you're not both careful and lucky.

If killing monsters is the main source of experience as per the 4E RAW, there's going to be a strong incentive for the players to treat each encounter as the next step towards leveling up - not a potentially much-more-lethal-than-expected hazard that's better negotiated using brains rather than brawn. I'd eliminate or sharply reduce the XP award from monsters, replacing it with XP from treasure awarded (or quests if you want to be a little less old-school).

This ties into the wandering monster issue - if the PCs are noisily bashing down doors, you want the resultant increased risk of a wandering monster to be a punishment, not a gift of XP. This is especially true because the random factor might make the gift a trivial gimme - fire beetles! - or a Trojan horse - trolls! - so again it's important for the players not to have a system-reinforced expectation that monsters are there to be killed. The other 4E problem with wandering monsters is that combat takes so much longer than in the old-school. You want the fire beetle encounter to be a punishment for foolhardy play in that it dings the PCs by a few hit points, not in that it forces the players to wade through an hour of dull (because ultimately unchallenging) melee. Mike Mearls has a blog post about using skill challenges to handle wandering monsters - I think at his Keep on the Gaming Lands blog, although there's also a related idea in his discussion of converting the G series at the Wizards site.

Finally, magic items are a problem, as you've noted, because one virtue of the megadungeon is that it's entirely up to the players which direction to head, making it hard for the DM to parcel out the items 4E expects. And that expectation is counter to the old-school feel; a cursed item should be like "well, I invaded someone's house and caught athlete's foot from the shoes I stole, I guess that's what I deserve" instead of "these shoes I got for my birthday have a fungus?!?" What I'd do is to abstract out magic item enhancement bonuses, similar to how it's done for NPCs. When you hit second level, choose one item (armor, weapon, implement, etc) to receive a +1 enchantment bonus, which is conceptualized as just another benefit of increased experience; it's that you're better with your sword, not that your sword started to glow. At third through fifth levels, choose another item; at sixth level, one item gets bumped to +2; and so on. The wondrous items you find in the dungeon will contribute the other aspects of 4E items (e.g. item powers), and since players are reassured that the PCs will keep up with the expectations built into the system, they ought to be a lot more open to items that have unknowable / undesirable / unreliable "special" effects.


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## Badwe (Oct 30, 2008)

You can only house-rule out so many concept of 4e before it becomes you essentially only using the combat system.  Then again, that alone would be a good reason, but there's plenty more technology to take advantage of.

Regarding the incentive to mindlessly charge into any encounter for XP: this has always been problematic for RPGs, at least as far back as I know.  My solution has always been that if you overcome or effectively neutralize the encounter, you get the XP.  If you talk your way out of a fight, sneak by them, or even manage to run past ambushers on your way to your main goal, you get the XP.  Of course, if later you encounter that same group... you get to kill them for no bonus.

I think the treasure parcel system is too integral to balance to throw out.  Weather you get it perfectly delineated over a single level is probably not as important as assuring that they eventually make it to the PCs.  To give you an example, in my non-megadungeon adventure, I handed out treasure parcels from both level 5 and level 6 at the same time, until by the end of 6 I had exhausted both lists.

If  you are adamant about cursed items, don't count them in the treasure parcels.  Traps & Hazards, "disease" tracks if flavor modified, or some of the more malicious artifacts (think eye/hand of vecna) can fulfill the duty of cursed items.  Perhaps as a reward for overcoming the curse somehow, the player is THEN rewarded with a magic item.

4th edition is not designed for inter-combat attrition.  The fact that, given only a few minutes to rest, the party can reheal to full, you can't plink away at HP totals as easily as in earlier editions.  This is to say nothing of the fact that a night's rest will restore all resources to the party, standing in stark contrast to older editions where a night's rest would provide, at best, a few hitpoints and of course the spells to heal some more of it back.  The only resources that can be reliably drained over the course of a day are daily powers and healing surges, and those only force a rest.  Of course, getting caught while trying to rest for the night when you pushed yourself to the limit could put the fear of death back into your party, but doesn't quite attain the feel you mentioned of being a penalty for wandering around.

Think of it this way: in old CRPGs you had the choice to wander around aimlessly and just kill easy fights until you were stronger and could take on the final challenges more easily, or you could rush to the end and, being at a lower level, experience a very harrowing fight.  Why not let the players choose?  Let them decide weather they want to stomp low level monsters or dig deep and bite off more than they can chew.  Either can be fun, and like another poster pointed out, if things get out of control you can have two encounters crunch together to make something very scary.


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## Umbran (Oct 30, 2008)

crash_beedo said:


> *Sandbox Theory and Dungeons*
> I guess I consider Sandbox theory the opposite of railroading.




An aside:

I finally figured out what my problem with the term "sandbox" for this is.  In software development, and several other more experimental professional realms, a "sandbox" is the place you go to play with stuff that's segregated off from other things, so you can't break anything important.  You go off to the sandbox rather than playing with all the other kids.

This is rather different from how folks use the term for RPGs - the sadbox is still a place for play, but nobody is saying it is for safety of anything.  There's no risk of breakage.

Every time "sandbox" gets used int eh RPG sense like this, I get cognitive dissonance, as I understood the software development version first.


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## Lacyon (Oct 30, 2008)

Badwe said:


> I think the treasure parcel system is too integral to balance to throw out..




In a game environment where the PCs have power to choose (directly or indirectly) the level of threat they face, it's simply not true.

To put it another way: the balance point that WotC suggests and endorses is not the only possible balance point. If the players are aloud to do so, they will over time naturally gravitate towards a balance point that suits them. This may mean "overlevelled" and "undertreasured", the reverse, or something in between, but that doesn't matter, because they'll learn to gauge their actual strength (and that of their foes) and adjust accordingly.



Badwe said:


> 4th edition is not designed for inter-combat attrition. The fact that, given only a few minutes to rest, the party can reheal to full, you can't plink away at HP totals as easily as in earlier editions. This is to say nothing of the fact that a night's rest will restore all resources to the party, standing in stark contrast to older editions where a night's rest would provide, at best, a few hitpoints and of course the spells to heal some more of it back. The only resources that can be reliably drained over the course of a day are daily powers and healing surges, and those only force a rest. Of course, getting caught while trying to rest for the night when you pushed yourself to the limit could put the fear of death back into your party, but doesn't quite attain the feel you mentioned of being a penalty for wandering around.




In general, this shouldn't be terribly hard to deal with - it's part of the game to locate and secure safe rest areas (starting with "outside the dungeon" at first). You just have to make sure the "safe" areas are far enough apart (and sometimes not as safe as they initially appear), so that 
the party has some encouragement to try to avoid less rewarding encounters (or at least avoid spending limited resources on them) on their way to and from safe areas so they can push further before having to turn back.

Someone above mentioned that Wandering Monsters have very little treasure - if you go that route, you might consider having them also be worth very little XP (that would have happened automatically under the old XP for GP systems, now you'll have to adjust it yourself).


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## crash_beedo (Oct 30, 2008)

Badwe said:


> Regarding the incentive to mindlessly charge into any encounter for XP: this has always been problematic for RPGs, at least as far back as I know.  My solution has always been that if you overcome or effectively neutralize the encounter, you get the XP.  If you talk your way out of a fight, sneak by them, or even manage to run past ambushers on your way to your main goal, you get the XP.  Of course, if later you encounter that same group... you get to kill them for no bonus...
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...4th edition is not designed for inter-combat attrition...




I agree that redefining the term "defeating an encounter" goes a long way to rewarding styles of play beyond just combat... AND it means the players can do those actions, like steal, trick, form alliances, etc and still gain experience points for it, without reverting to the 1gp = 1xp model of OD&D.  The XP budget system and encounter system is too integral.

Regarding the other point, Wandering Monsters... wow, I had a bit of an epiphany after reading your bit.  If you consider Wandering Monsters primarily as sources of attrition, they're not too useful in 4E.  (Haha, who remembers 'Wandering Damage' from an old Dragon April Fool's Article?)  I like the idea of wandering monsters helping to simulate a dynamic environment, but I'm also rethinking they need to be accounted for in both the XP budget, parcel system, and design goals of the area - I think I'm going to have to track down that bit about Wandering Monsters as Skill Challenges, too.  Good stuff man!


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## Tav_Behemoth (Oct 30, 2008)

Badwe said:


> 4th edition is not designed for inter-combat attrition.




Excellent point. One of the defining moments of megadungeon play IMO is the fear of not being able to make it out (often because you fell down a one-way shaft / teleporter trap / elevator room / whatever). The importance of this factor is what underlies the necessity of mapping and drives some of the scariness of finding that your map doesn't match the territory any more. Having a single night of rest bring you back to full resources means that "camping out" in the dungeon can be a valid option, undercutting this fear of getting trapped. 

Unlike the other things I mentioned, I think that houseruling healing surges and extended rests is more trouble than it's worth. (Magic items are explicitly designed to allow stripping out the way I describe; Mearls has described the ease of doing so as one of the advantages of 4E over 3.) 

I think that adventure design can address this instead. I've thought about a "solar labyrinth" dungeon that becomes exponentially more deadly when the sun sets, to recreate those moments of racing back to the surface. You don't even need anything special; if the frequency of wandering monster checks is OD&D standard (1 in 6 every 10 minutes), it becomes very unlikely you'll get eight hours' worth uninterrupted rest.

You can also emphasize attrition of other resources. Running out of arrows or torches can make the prospect of getting stuck a scary one, and wandering monsters could threaten these resources (e.g. giant moths attracted to flame putting out your torches) as well as HP.


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## T. Foster (Oct 30, 2008)

My experience with 4E is extremely limited (about an hour spent reviewing the PHB and DMG before deciding I was happier sticking with OD&D) so I'm probably going to get a lot of terminology and details wrong, but I like to think I have a little more insight on the topic of megadungeons (as one of the guys named in the OP...). 

From my understanding, the way 4E is set up, a party is expected to gain enough XP to level up every 8-10 encounters (which can include combat, traps, and skill challenges), by which time they're expected to have acquired the 10 treasure packets for that level. In a megadungeon-oriented game, I think you'd need to slow that progression down a bit to allow for more encounters and treasure packets per level -- reduce the BTB XP awards across the board by 1/3 (so that 8-10 encounters becomes 12-15) and increase the treasure packets from 10 per level to 15, but make the extra 5 some combination of non-quantified "treasure" (e.g. maps, hints/information, mundane equipment (oil flasks, holy water, extra food, extra arrows, etc.), prisoners who will help the PCs for the duration of the delve if given a weapon) and "booby" treasures (e.g. huge piles of copper pieces that aren't worth carrying out of the dungeon, fake gems and jewelry worth 1% or less of their perceived value, and that old-school favorite, cursed magic items). 

The upper levels of the dungeon (the first 3 or 4) should probably be "double-stocked" -- 24 to 30 encounters and 30 treasure packets, or even triple-stocked if you're feeling really ambitious and anticipate a lot of activity (multiple player-groups exploring the dungeon in the same continuity). This means that, generally speaking, the PCs will level up before they've "cleared" the level. If they choose to continue on rather than move to the appropriate level they should be penalized XP by the ratio of their level to the level they're operating on (i.e. 2nd level characters gain 1/2 XP from encounters on dungeon level 1, 3rd level characters gain 2/3 XP from encounters on dungeon level 2, etc.). There is an issue that, with double the number of treasure packets, characters are likely to end up either a bit too rich or a bit too poor compared to the BTB guidelines. This shouldn't be _too_ big of a problem (and if it is, the DM is of course free to move treasure packets around on the fly to make sure the party is getting the proper stuff).

Another important factor in megadungeons is having lots of empty space. This runs counter to modern design sensibilities (even modern-retro design sensibilities, like _Castle Zagyg_) but is, I think, pretty crucially important to the proper pacing and feel of a megadungeon. If you've got 30 encounters (divided into 6 5-room sub-dungeons) you don't make a 30-room level with each encounter directly adjacent to all the other encounters, you make a 75-room level with empty space separating all of them from each other. The "most obvious paths" should generally lead to empty areas (the idea is that the dungeon is a living environment and that both the monsters within it and other NPC adventuring groups are regularly exploring it, so all the obvious areas will have been previously cleared by adventurers and now avoided by monsters) and the PCs should have to explore around in order to find the actual lair-areas where the monsters are living (and storing their treasures). The players shouldn't just feel a sense of accomplishment when they finish a 5-room dungeon, they should feel a sense of accomplishment when they _find_ one -- "aha! an area that hasn't been explored before!"

It helps, perhaps, to think of the level conceptually as a wheel and spokes -- the "central" area of well-traveled passageways and empty rooms and chambers (the main entrance to the dungeon, and the transitways to lower levels, should generally be located here) and the more remote/hidden lair-areas (5-room dungeons) where all the toughest monsters and traps and best treasures are. When mapping the dungeon you shouldn't follow this pattern literally, the whole thing should be more of a maze where two rooms might be adjacent to one another but (without something like a _passwall_ spell or _armor of ethereality_) you can't get directly from one to the other and instead must wander halway across the level and back. Navigational nuissances like one-way doors, sliding walls, rotating rooms, and teleporters, and minor obstacles like pits and portcullises can help create this dynamic without having to draw your level map as a literal maze (though at least a bit of that is probably warranted too -- just be sure not to overdo it; a big maze that looks great on paper is almost certainly going to be a huge bore at the table unless you've only got 1 player and he's really into mazes).

Wandering monsters are important in a megadungeon, especially in that central "empty" area, representing both actual wandering monsters (patrols from the lair-areas, monsters out looking for food or investigating strange noises or lights (i.e. the PCs), other groups of adventurers) and "minor" lairs of weak or unintelligent nuissance monsters who don't have treasure, aren't key to any theme or plot, and thus aren't worth marking on the actual level key (nests of rats, centipedes, spiders, etc.). The primary point of such encounters is to keep the PCs moving -- to discourage them from being too meticulous or spending too much time resting or arguing/planning out in the open. If the PCs do end up fighting them (either because they were too stubborn to run away or because they got caught by surprise and couldn't) such encounters should net the party *zero XP* but still use up their daily and encounter abilities (some house-ruling regarding how an encounter is defined is probably needed here -- the megadungeon experience is too closely tied to strategic resource management and gradual attrition to really work if the party can simply rest for 5 minutes and regain most of their resources). 

The last issue is the amount of time taken up by combat, especially with wandering or nuissance monsters. You don't want to spend 30-45 minutes resolving something that is, by design, a nuissance and distraction. In OD&D such combats could generally be resolved in 5-10 minutes, and that's probably a good target for 4E as well. Two ways to accomplish would be to treat all wandering and nuissance monsters as minions, and to re-introduce the idea of morale, either systemically or on an ad-hoc basis -- monsters, especially wandering monsters, shouldn't normally fight to the death once it becomes clear they're overmatched. A group of wandering bandits or goblins should generally fire missiles for a couple rounds and then when they get hit by a spell or two and see that the PCs aren't dropping with a single hit (but they are) either run away or surrender. In the former case the PCs can try to chase them down, which is a good way to get lost or led into an ambush. In the latter they can either keep the prisoners (interrogate them, perhaps ransom them or take them back to town and turn them in to the lawful authorities (or sell them into slavery)) or slay them anyway (which can both cause alignment issues and, if evidence of it gets back, cause reaction penalties with other monsters). 

Hope my understanding of 4E isn't so woefully incorrect that there's at least a couple of useful suggestions in here


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## Badwe (Oct 30, 2008)

The closest thing I could find was a link about skill challenges as a way to get demogorgon into level 1:

The Keep on the Gaming Lands: Skill Challenges as Tool for Putting Demogorgon on Dungeon Level 1

edit: found it, http://kotgl.blogspot.com/2008/08/in-praise-of-wandering-monsters.html


The wandering monster issue is a sticky one.  My guess is that there exist several ways to manifest it in 4e that are all suboptimal in one form or the other, and no perfect form exists.  That said, let me take a stab!

*Skill Challenge:*  While navigating the dungeon, the players are attempting to evade drawing the attention of wandering packs using skills like stealth or dungeoneering, possibly bluff if the monsters are listening through a door.  Failures indicate being pounced upon, success is either evasion or the opportunity to set up an ambush.  XP is therefore given out as part of the skill challenge. Pros: creates a system by which the PCs can work to succeed or fail. Cons: doesn't address the issue of XP budgeting, PCs may feel like there is incentive to fail if they think it's worth XP.

*Out of the frying pan:* PCs rarely stumble into wandering monster packs.  Instead, the clever monsters are made aware of the bumbling PCs and use their superior knowledge of the dungeon to stalk them.  The next time the PCs  enter a static encounter, the wandering monsters jump in to join the fray, significantly upping the difficulty!  Alternatively, if enough wandering monster packs start following the PCs to be equal to approximately one normal encounter, they may just jump the PCs normally.  Pros: the penalty for catching wandering monsters becomes larger encounters that, while worth more XP, are more likely to turn deadly and cost more resources.  Cons: may be difficult to convey that these are due to wandering monsters, doesn't have an immediate impact when wandering through rooms.

*It was all part of my plan:*  Simply assume that the party will run into a number of wandering monsters in the course of exploring and count that as part of the 8-10 encounters for a level.  This goes back to an earlier point of broadening your idea of a "level".  In the old days, you might create a floor with 12 encounters with the assumption the PCs will level up by the time they go downstairs to the harder floor.  Instead, just go with it.  As long as the PCs have the option to descend into harder fights, they can determine how difficult a challenge they take.



On to a broader issue: XP.  It's been stated that some of you have a desire to reduce the XP reward for wandering monsters.  I think that would work, but I would generally recommend instead cutting XP for all encounters, based on an average number of wandering monsters you expect the players to run into.  Of course, since it's random it will vary from the average, but that will be ok.  As long as you stick to the 10 parcels per level, the players would merely spend more time being at each level and would be using the 10 items for longer before finally replacing them.  To me, this is easier than trying to figure out an acceptable conversion rate for the special case of wandering monsters.


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## Turtlejay (Oct 30, 2008)

Has anyone here read about the West Marches?

The idea you propose seems pretty much like a dungeon version of the west marches.  I would recommend an earlier poster's advice and throw balance away.  Design your dungeon for theme, with each level being fixed with fixed monsters and wandering monsters, and do not adjust for player level.  I would also strongly suggest eliminating XP awards and moving towards milestone or quest reward leveling.  The PC's level as they accomplish things, not kill things.  This may help stave off the Diablo syndrome, where if you don't clean the entire floor you end up underpowered.  Level them when they solve the puzzle that opens the ancient library, or decend past the catacombs.  They should be aware of this out of game.  Equipment should be plentiful, and give them access to the rituals to disenchant and enchant what they want.  

I like the idea of them staying underground for months, with only their magic sustaining them (everlasting rations and the like).  Have you played/read about the World's Largest Dungeon?  I read an Actual Play here where they went through the top part of it.  It seems sort of like your idea, only in 3e.

We are attempting some sandboxy type ideas in our current game, but it is not an easy thing to go from a mostly module running DM to a sandbox style rotating DM game.  Does your group understand what you are trying to do?  Are they willing to not just chase what they think is the hook you have prepared and truly do what comes naturally?  Our game is not moving in that direction yet, but I still have high hopes.  Good luck to you, it sounds like a fun concept!

Jay


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## Badwe (Oct 31, 2008)

These stories remind me of a humorous, gamist campaign that an old acquantance of mine had planned for his group.  As he described it, the PCs were locked inside a dungeon with 20 floors (3.5e).  At the locked entrance sat a "dungeon master" who could answer basic questions as well as sell them adventuring gear or an inn.  Each floor would be equivalent to a level of the PCs, and would follow the 3.5 DMG exactly in what range of encounters would exist (including a single encounter that was ostensibly impossible for a party of that level).  To add tension, the players only had one in-game month to reach the bottom and rescue the princess or some such.

Certainly a very contrived and surreal (even by D&D standards) setting, but interesting in that with everything laid on the table, the PCs have to use every advantage to make good time.


Re: balance.  You can _always_ throw out balance as it suits you, and of course should.  However, don't have any illusions: when you throw out the balance as written in the book, you are creating MORE work for yourself, not less.  What is written in the DMG, especially by modern design standards, is intended to enable DMing as much as possible.  After all, more DMs means more players and more sales!  You can break from it to suit your need, but then it's up to you to calculate what is, in fact, balanced.

I've run keep on the shadowfell and cooked up adventuring from levels 4-7 following that.  The only problem I ran into, doing things effectively "by the book" is that my PCs are far too crafty and created a very synergistic team, so I have to throw encounters a minimum of 1 level higher than them to have a hope of giving them a real challenge.

My long term goals, somewhere around mid-paragon tier, are a series of elemental temples that are effectively mega-dungeons, where the PCs can delve as deep as they want, even after they've gotten what they quested for, or move on to a different element.


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## King Nate (Oct 31, 2008)

I have a bit to add to this converstion, however I don't have the time at this moment, so I thought I would just ask for one thing and then add my two cents later, I'm a sandbox DM since the day I started playing.



> Mike Mearls' blog post on Keep on the Borderlands got me thinking why B2 is still so charming; a unique story emerges each time you play it, through a mixture of rumors, hooks, and the player's choices. There's no linear plot to it. I DM plenty of Adventure Paths, and once in a while you just want to punt the baggage, the McGuffins, the Mary Sues, the railroads.





I've wasted plenty of time searching wizards, enworld, and google and have not found this blog. I have found many people talking about this blog, but I can't find the blog. Can you help me with a link to this? I'm always looking for more stuff to read when it comes to KotB. Thanks.


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## crash_beedo (Oct 31, 2008)

Ah, here you go... Mike snuck off all stealthy-like, I stumbled across his blog from the RPG Bloggers site:
*
Keep on the Gaming Lands*

It's really the post that got me started thinking about merging megadungeon and sandbox theory into the 4E delve model...


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## Raven Crowking (Oct 31, 2008)

Badwe said:


> Re: balance.  You can _always_ throw out balance as it suits you, and of course should.  However, don't have any illusions: when you throw out the balance as written in the book, you are creating MORE work for yourself, not less.





Let me restate my position, then.

"Balance" is something the players have to worry about.  Does this make more work for the DM?  In some ways:

(1)  The DM has to have sufficient clues in his setting to allow the PCs to make rational choices about balance.

(2)  Actually, there is no (2).


RC


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## crash_beedo (Oct 31, 2008)

T. Foster said:


> Hope my understanding of 4E isn't so woefully incorrect that there's at least a couple of useful suggestions in here




So I want to take a moment and think about how the TFoster suggestions play out in a 4E environment.  If I summarize the key points they involve:


Slowing down the XP progression...
Double-stocked upper levels
Empty Spaces
Wheel and Spokes design
Concern about Wandering Monsters & Combat times

*Slowing down the XP progression...*

In the 4E world, combat is intricate and takes time (way more time than the older editions).  We were playing 1E as late as this past spring and it would be nothing for my players to kick in a door, see a horde of humanoids, and sleep them (a 10-second encounter).  Or, as they called it "Morpheus, we need to hit the EMP button!".  There are no light 4E combats... we average 3 fights per evening (range is usually 2-4) and the group has a chance to level every 4-6 weeks or so - we play weekly.

In an old-school megadungeon, the scope could easily involve 20-30 stocked rooms to clear before leveling; the 4E paradigm cuts that in half or to a third.  I think the issue is to make sure the 4E megadungeon maintains a relative size.

In OD&D if I expected the group to clear 15-20 rooms before leveling, first off that would add an equal number of empty rooms (now we're at a 30-40 room level) and then you increase that by a factor to make it seem even bigger - maybe a 60-80 room level.  I think the 4E equivalent is to plan for the 8-10 encounters + another 10 "empty" rooms, and then increase the size a factor beyond that so the characters never quite feel like they cleared everything when they move on.  Maybe my model will be a 40-room level?

I want to keep the encounter/XP ratio in the 8-10 range per level so it never devolves into a literal grind, while creating that illusion of unknowable size in the rest of the dungeon.

*Double-stocked upper levels*

Hmmm... good point!  Is this necessary in the 4E realm?  Background (for the non-grognards).  OD&D characters die.  Like flies.  They die in droves.  And each time they do, they take a portion of the party's hard-earned experience with them.  So the first-second levels of the dungeon end up being fairly well-traveled terrain, as the new party members join the survivors and delve deeper horizontally to try and season the replacements before heading down.

Wow - so I'm finding 4E is far less lethal.  PC's drop in combat all the time, but I've only had a few "deaths" in the campaign.  And death in 4E can be a speed-bump; the rules assume that PC's are the chosen *Real Ultimate Heroes™*, meaning that the Raise Dead rituals and whatnot that just don't flat out work on 99.997% of the population, actually do work on player characters.  Because of their super-awesome specialness and all.  Does this jive with everyone else's experience of their 4E game?

_Okay, despite my bagging on 4E's Raise Dead approach (tongue in cheek, at least) it has worked well in our current campaign, and one of the PC's brought back has become an unwitting messianic figure, a Lazarus of sorts... it's been very funny..._

In addition, 4E "advice" is not to penalize dead/missing characters via the experience mechanic.  Real life already punishes you when a miss a day of work, gaming should be fun... I think as I get older my personal views have softened on these points too.  My group of 40-year olders have been appreciating the change in mind-set.

So this might be one area where 4E and old-school part ways and sign the divorce papers... 4E characters are certainly fairly easy to roll-up, but we're talking 20-30 minutes vs the 5-10 minutes for the golden age guys.

I still agree the upper levels should be bigger, and even if they don't serve as Darwinian proving grounds for our 4E Real Ultimate Heroes™, that's not to say they won't be littered with the corpses of all the rival NPC groups and wannabes.

*Empty Spaces / Wheel and Spokes design / Wandering Monsters*

I agree with all the points brought up here, timeless advice for any megadungeon setting!

The only thing I'm still mulling is taking a creative approach to wandering monsters... some will be set pieces (part of the expected 8-10 encounters) and some might be handled in alternate manners as skill challenges.  Either way, the investment in time required by combat in 4E, and the fact that attrition isn't usually the same kind of an issue for 4E characters, means you can't throw wandering monsters at the party willy-nilly in the 4E world.

Okay - so this does raise a question about attrition which some of the posters have brought up...  

*What role should resource management and attrition play in a 4E megadungeon? *

How do you reconcile the 4E manifesto that book-keeping things like spellcomponents, encumbrance weights, etc is fairly dull for 99% of gamers and still create some tension around resource management?  (Sure, I have some ideas, but I'll throw the questions out there first).


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## Raven Crowking (Oct 31, 2008)

crash_beedo said:


> I think the 4E equivalent is to plan for the 8-10 encounters + another 10 "empty" rooms, and then increase the size a factor beyond that so the characters never quite feel like they cleared everything when they move on.  Maybe my model will be a 40-room level?




Perhaps.  You are correct in thinking that the combat pace in 4e, as in 3e before it, is the most serious problem you face in trying to avoid making the game a "grind".  

OTOH, not every encounter should lead to combat.  You should give some serious thought to including some areas upfront where the PCs are seriously outclassed and need to negotiate with the monsters.  Or where the monsters want to negotiate with the PCs to their mutual benefit.  These don't need to be "screw the PCs" encounters.....the PCs and the monsters should both get something out of it.  It helps the environment seem real.



> In addition, 4E "advice" is not to penalize dead/missing characters via the experience mechanic.  Real life already punishes you when a miss a day of work, gaming should be fun... I think as I get older my personal views have softened on these points too.  My group of 40-year olders have been appreciating the change in mind-set.




Penalize death, and (1) it will become meaningful, and (2) it will increase the total XP needed to gain levels.  Even just a serious XP cost (back to the begining of current level) will do the trick here.



> The only thing I'm still mulling is taking a creative approach to wandering monsters... some will be set pieces (part of the expected 8-10 encounters) and some might be handled in alternate manners as skill challenges.  Either way, the investment in time required by combat in 4E, and the fact that attrition isn't usually the same kind of an issue for 4E characters, means you can't throw wandering monsters at the party willy-nilly in the 4E world.




You are right that not everything that seems like a wandering encounter should be.  Moreover, some wandering encounters can be more signifcant than others.

If you want a lot of little quick-n-dirty skirmishes, you can use minion wanderers, but the party will have little reason to flee from anything unless some of the wanderers are tougher.  That way, every encounter can have some level of tension.

Also, I recommend rolling a wandering monster check at the end of each fight, _and considering the result, if any, as part of the same encounter_.  This will change the "encounter resource" dynamic of 4e to something more in line with an OS Megadungeaon.



> Okay - so this does raise a question about attrition which some of the posters have brought up...
> 
> *What role should resource management and attrition play in a 4E megadungeon? *




This is tough, because 4e excised much of the "resource management" game.  I would suggest that you track food and ammo, at the very least.  You may also want to introduce a houserule that every encounter power has a % chance of being expended for that day when used.  You might also allow a % chance that the dailies are not expended to balance this.  

Check only after the encounter, as part of mop-up.



RC


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## Badwe (Oct 31, 2008)

Raven: It's my belief that, while the PCs are smart enough to choose the challenge level that works best for them, going too far above or below item progression can create strange effects.  Absolutely you can deviate a good deal, you're deviating every time you don't give out a parcel in one encounter and give out 3 the next.  It's just possible that you risk trivializing encounters, and trivial encounters can destroy the illusion of meaningful challenge/danger, which is the key to the fun "tension" that makes a delve exciting.  That being said, I'm willing to bet you can get away with a LOT of deviation. Heck, I usually end up giving away an extra parcel in gold every level by all the small things my PCs do (haggling, pick-pocketing, etc.)

Crash: regarding creating a sense of attrition.  The overarching goal is you must be gradual.  When you are going somewhere with the idea, the PCs need to be able to see that it's escalating so they can make a decision on when the cutoff is.

For resources, nearly all encounter powers will be used as quickly as possible (ie: maxing advantage) each encounter because they recharge.  When those run out, the players will have to decide weather the remaining monsters are easy enough to slam down with at-wills or if they need to dip into their dailies.  Alternatively, when players have decided they will definitely rest, they will usually burn as many dailies as possible to end the combat quickly.  Healing surges will, however, be used periodically as damage is taken.  In many ways, actual healing surges function like the HP of old, in that they run down over the course of the day.  The actual HP, however, is like a threshold, wherein the PCs can refill it many times over, yet need to be cautious not to take too much at once without healing or risk getting knocked out.

So, dailies and healing surges.  If you don't use up any of these (a rare situation except if the group is clever), you've effectively created a speedbump.  In order to force the use of these, a single encounter must become more difficult.  Easy enough encounters can be handled entirely with encounter powers and incidental healing (a warlock's temp-HP, inspiring warlord's giving HP on use of an action point, etc.).  

This goes back to my suggestion earlier in the thread of wandering monsters effectively tacking themselves onto an existing combat (ala munchkin, actually  ).  Mike mearls also suggested that, rather than having monsters show up as an extra encounter, roll 1d20 and on 19+, have the wandering monster group show up while the players are looting the bodies, not enough time to recover encounter powers.  This is a particularly clever implementation because it destroys the illusion that encounter powers are "use-em or lose em" and also can potentially eat up some daily powers until the lesson is learned.  Also, for anyone who has experienced a double encounter like the two wave kobold fight in Keep on the shadowfell, It's interesting in that while it's MORE difficult than facing two encounters cleanly, it tends to be slightly LESS difficult than facing all of the monsters in a single wave, as the XP will indicate a hefty encounter level.

That's all I have for now.  Liking where this discussion is going :-D

Edit: missed raven's most recent response.  Death is already slightly penalized, but it's more like World of Warcraft's "Have to walk back to your corpse" than it is like Diablo's "Lose all of your stuff".  The party already has to pay 5,000 gold per tier, a nontrivial sum, and if I recall correctly the raised person takes a -1 to all rolls he (and the party, really) gains a level.  If that's something that's not in the rules and that I made up (work would not take kindly to me pulling out the PHB when they think i'm doing something useful) I suggest you do that as a way to penalize death.  If you need it to be more severe, raise the penalty to -2, decaying to -1 at the first level up and back to normal after the second.  If you want a stiffer penalty that decays quicker, use gaining of action points from milestones instead of levels as a time for the penalty to shrink.


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## timbannock (Oct 31, 2008)

RE: Resource Management & Random Encounters

This is something I picked up on and put into effect far more in PARANOIA than D&D, but maybe it applies to the point of Random Encounters:

Instead of having random encounters be totally separate -- i.e., having them happen in-between other fights -- add them to already planned encounters.  Not always, but sometimes.

A couple examples:

- just as a pre-planned fight is winding down, toss in a random encounter that is investigating the noise.  It still counts as the same encounter...hope the PCs have resources left!

- add in just 1 or 2 monsters from a random encounter into an alread existing encounter.  Especially if the monsters are very different from the established encounter, forcing the players to rethink all of their tactics when these monsters show up.

- make some random encounters non-combat things, but that might effect a combat.  Maybe an earthquake rolls through, dropping dust and making the terrain difficult while it goes on, or forcing Acrobatics rolls to keep moving.  This changes up the tactics for both sides of the fight.

- String 2 or 3 encounters, one right after the other, as soon as the PCs make camp.  Sure they (might) have their encounter powers recharged each time, but their dailies are gone, and their healing surges are dwindling...

- if the dungeon setting is dangerous in its own right, force skill challenges for survival things like finding food and water and upkeep of gear.  Excessive moisture, heat from lava, steam from vents in the earth, extreme cold, extreme dryness...all of this could affect the players and their gear.  Failured rolls on the challenges cost healing surges, and may mean that extended rest is not possible in some areas or doesn't fully recharge everything each time (you recharge only X% of your healing surges; you don't get your action point for the day until you hit that milestone).  Maybe the environment breaks down the groups equipment, requiring them to leave and requip...but as they're leaving with less equipment, badguys attack!

- magic dead zones and the like could cancel out magic item resources.

- I can't think of anything else at the moment.


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## Raven Crowking (Oct 31, 2008)

Badwe said:


> Raven: It's my belief that, while the PCs are smart enough to choose the challenge level that works best for them, going too far above or below item progression can create strange effects.  Absolutely you can deviate a good deal, you're deviating every time you don't give out a parcel in one encounter and give out 3 the next.  It's just possible that you risk trivializing encounters, and trivial encounters can destroy the illusion of meaningful challenge/danger, which is the key to the fun "tension" that makes a delve exciting.  That being said, I'm willing to bet you can get away with a LOT of deviation. Heck, I usually end up giving away an extra parcel in gold every level by all the small things my PCs do (haggling, pick-pocketing, etc.)





Tension in an Old School Megadungeon, IME, comes from the players trying to push as far as they can (to get greater rewards).  The minute you allow sandbox play, you risk that players will engage only in trivial encounters.  However, since trivial encounters tend to grant trivial rewards, it is my experience that players almost universally find their way out of this trap with little or no input from the DM being required.  YMMV, of course.

4e, like 3e before it, isn't realy designed for sandbox play, and it shows.  The concern with grinding away at encounters which should have been easily resolved is a real problem in both systems.  The biggest problem in both systems, IMHO.  This is very much (again, IMHO) an artifact of grid-reliant combat systems, which in turn (again, IMHO) is the direct result of WotC market research when 3e was being developed, that showed that gamers who buy minis spend many more times the amount that gamers who do not buy minis spend.

If you could speed up combat resolution, it wouldn't matter if the PCs engaged in some trivial encounters.  They would be over quickly.  How you fix this in 4e, without rewriting the whole system, is beyond me.  I could fix it in 3e.  I have recently begun to create RCFG, intended to bridge some of the complexity of 2e/3e with the fast play and sandbox style of OD&D/1e, so needless to say this is the aspect of WotC-D&D that I am least enchanted with.

That said, running a sandbox means that, if the players wish to do nothing, then they do nothing while the world moves around them.  A good world -- or a good megadungeon -- should offer sufficient "hooks" to make the players ever hungry to try their hands at challenges beyond their current means.


RC


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## Badwe (Oct 31, 2008)

I think you somewhat confuse good market practice: using customer feedback to generate products players will want to buy, with greed: finding ways to force people to buy as much as possible.  It should be clear at this point that people uninterested in new, grid-heavy editions would reject the books even if they came free with enough miniatures to plan out basic combat.

Further, I'm personally a fan of tactical grid-based battles.  The alternative is the old Final Fantasy style of one party standing on either side of the screen and simply casting whatever they want.  Grids give manifest to ideas like searching for cover, sneaking around, setting up flanks, and abusing chokepoints.  Opinions will differ, of course, but I am a major fan of grid based combat.

People often ask "why not just play a wargame like WH40K?" but to me it's just not the same.  When two or more people sit down to create an adversarial match, they generate armies with equal points and then only generate terrain that is accepted as neutral.  With a DM creating tactical situations, he has the opportunity to scale up or down the advantage for one side or the other, as well as allow things leading up to the combat to manifest as advantage.  This is far more appealing to me, and even if I am a relatively light roleplayer (out of combat, at least) when I am a PC, to me playing a series of combats in that fashion is more appealing than just playing wargames.


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## crash_beedo (Oct 31, 2008)

Raven Crowking said:


> Tension in an Old School Megadungeon, IME, comes from the players trying to push as far as they can (to get greater rewards).  The minute you allow sandbox play, you risk that players will engage only in trivial encounters.  However, since trivial encounters tend to grant trivial rewards, it is my experience that players almost universally find their way out of this trap with little or no input from the DM being required.  YMMV, of course.
> 
> RC




Yes, I was struggling with this issue a little bit too, with the thought of making the dungeon levels too horizontal - extending the number of encounters and parcels past the 8-10 would encourage "grinding".

I think there are lots of different ways I can handle it...  first, there will be plot hooks / story reasons for the players to keep going deeper when they've hit the appropriate level of XP.

I can ensure that past a certain point, the parcels just aren't that attractive... ie, I can keep giving out magic +1 daggers all day (or the equivalents for that level item).  But if you want a shot at a +2 Flaming Maul, you'll need to take on appropriate challenges.

And the Deus Ex is to have (dangerous) rival NPC groups or whatnot also operating in the same area, or dangerous wandering monsters or some other heavy-handed way to steer the group away from too much horizontal grinding; it needs to be their sandbox too but the dungeon environment is dynamic and other forces will be at work.

I like all of the suggestions around using wandering monsters as ways to string along multiple encounters, or have some guys jump in for the dog pile.

I'd love a situation like this to be able to unfold... as the PC's arrive at the dungeon, they see one of the rival groups they met in town (the Black Hats) also dropping ropes to descend the shaft into the great hall.  Assume a fight doesn't break out, they agree to go separate ways... our Heroes know there are kobolds in the south wing and have decided to take on the kobold "delve".

The Black Hats circle back and attack the group as they're either finishing the kobolds, or at some other opportune time.  It seems like a wandering monster, but it's been planned all along.  (And depending on how the encounter with them went top-side, maybe there are no Black Hats left, or they're too intimidated, or whatever).  It's going to be fun to pull together.


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## Badwe (Oct 31, 2008)

One would wonder the best way to stat out a rival party.  It may be too dangerous to actually roll up 5 PCs, but it should be obvious by now that even a group 3 or 4 levels higher can't really hope to match the PCs perfectly.  I guess if you're planning on using them as a pile-on that's ok, but if you want them to be a persistent threat they need to be tough.

The initial guess at how to build a party would be to take the HP values of a party and try to find the monster level that roughly matches that, but don't forget that the PCs have healing surges to take advantage of.  Perhaps a group of 5 elite "monsters" or 5 regular monsters with templates applied would give a good indication of what a party could be.

Imagine a band of shadar-kai against a level 5-7 party, and each shadar-kai has templates like bodyguard, champion, demagogue, or master of frost applied.  This might be interesting.   A fellow DM proposed this idea to me a while ago and I was somewhat washed by the idea that a party of adventurer's was common enough for them to bump into each other, but this is turning my gears.


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## Raven Crowking (Oct 31, 2008)

Badwe said:


> I think you somewhat confuse good market practice: using customer feedback to generate products players will want to buy, with greed: finding ways to force people to buy as much as possible.




If you remove the word "force" I think that you have 3e on the bare bodkin.  The game was designed to encourage minis use, and the 3.5 version of the game encourages minis use even more.  4e, of course, beats both versions of 3.x in terms of mini-focus.  Not only that, but the focus of WotC adventures changed to an encounter-based setup that is essentially map/mini placement/tactics for the DM to use with minis.  

Do you _*need*_ minis to play any of these games?  No, but if you want to have fun with them, then (once you have invested in the system) minis are strongly encouraged by the system itself.  _*However*_, at the same time, you will be hard pressed to find anything from WotC suggesting that 4e is a "grid-heavy edition".  You might, OTOH, be able to find some suggestions that it is not.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that WotC wants to make a profit, or that selling minis is the route to the largest potential profit.  I want to make the most money I can at work, too.  You might call that greed, but I call that normal.

But there is little doubt that WotC did the market survey.  There is little doubt that the market survey showed that those who buy minis spend many more times on rpg material what those who do not buy minis spend.  And there is little doubt that each successive edition of WotC-D&D is more minicentric than the last.  I don't think that the math is so hard to do here, regardless of whether one personally prefers a grid or not.



crash_beedo said:


> Yes, I was struggling with this issue a little bit too, with the thought of making the dungeon levels too horizontal - extending the number of encounters and parcels past the 8-10 would encourage "grinding".




Your idea with the Black Hats sounds good, and truly Old School.

Not knowing if an encounter will be extended (with more monsters) when it begins helps remove some of the tedious nature of 4e combat as well (use best encounter powers first, then grind, grind, grind for 20 more minutes....or, if there is no reason not to rest, use dailies, followed by best encounter powers first, then grind, grind, grind for 15 more minutes....).


RC


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## King Nate (Oct 31, 2008)

My first game experience was with Keep on the Borderlands and its “sandbox” style. I ran that game like crazy, I can’t remember how many times my players were remaking new characters and playing the “same” game all over again getting a different experience each time.

When I discovered other modules and adventures I couldn’t conform to the strict rules set by them. I couldn’t figure out why anyone would waste time playing the game any other way than the sandbox version. (I might still have this problem today, but it’s nowhere near as bad, oh and it I didn’t have the fancy sandbox name at that time or I might have realized why I was having this problem).

I’m currently working on converting KotB to 4e for my homebrewed campaign. Some of these issues I had encountered while doing so. This is what I have done.

FIRST: The original adventure was set for 6-9 players levels 1-3. My idea was to recreate every encounter as a first level encounter then label them, easy, standard, hard, and Irontooth. The plan is to allow players to go to any “level” of the caves. When the players level up, I modify the encounter for a level 2 party sticking with my easy, standard, etc. 



> One of my (minor) quibbles with 4e is the idea that challenges will always scale... when you go into the woods at level 1, you fight level 1 orcs. 4E philosophy says , suddenly the woods are full of level 10 threats when the guys are level 10! My approach would be to have two sets of woods, and they pick where to go...




4e isn’t the first to come up with scaling encounters to the players, here’s a couple pages from the 1977 Basic game. HERE The second paragraph tells us to keep the dangers appropriate to level. Then the third paragraph says to make sure that knight talk in flowery phrases like “thou” instead of “you” and that characters should swear to Zeus, Crom, or Cthulhu!

SECOND: Forget the parcel thing. I still keep the balance but I’m not tied to parcels. Level one treasure parcel for five characters gives you 4 magic items and a Total Monetary Treasure worth 720gp. In a sandbox game you don’t know where your players are going so instead of throwing 10 parcels out there you don’t use parcels. If the characters pick-pocket someone and gains 20gp, I subtract that from their Total Monetary Treasure. If they kill a goblin and he has 3 cp, I subtract that as well. When building encounters I indicate the places I would like to have magic items. When the players reaches one of those spots I mark off a magic item. If they don’t have any magic items or gold left in their Total Monetary Treasure then they get nothing, but part of my job is to make sure I spread the TMT evenly and realistically throughout their level. By the end of their level they should be getting the last pieces of gold and magic items from their TMT. 

Using the Total Monetary Treasure number instead of parcels. Potion of healing cost 50gp, potion of vitality cost 1000gp, a potion of recovery cost 250pp, and a potion of life cost 1250pp. Just like it is in the player’s handbook, you could also use other consumable items by subtracting their cost from the TMT.   

THIRD: Experience Points: While I still use actual numbers on page 121 of the DMG gives an alternative to handing out experience points. Simpler Experience Points says that you tell the players that they gain a level after they complete eight to ten encounters. Don’t count really easy encounters, count really hard encounters as two, and don’t worry about precise XP totals. If you use this method and the players continue to stay on a weaker level, just lower the difficulty of the encounter a notch (standard becomes easy) in addition on page 123 of the DMG says you are well within your right to tell a player that an encounter doesn’t count towards a milestone. Very easy encounters shouldn’t contribute towards a milestone. These two things could help motivate players to change levels.  

FINALLY: Wandering Monsters: I use two different types of Wandering Monsters. The first is the randomly determined kind. These are either standard or hard premade generic (in some cases not so generic) encounters. You still gain XP and Treasure from them just subtract it from the TMT. The other kind are penalty wandering monsters, characters are not being careful, making bunch of noise, etc. These are easy premade generic encounters that do not count towards milestones, have no treasure, and if you are using the experience suggestion above they won’t count towards gaining levels either. Player’s shouldn’t want these type of encounters and should take steps to avoid them. They just get in the way and use up resources.


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## Badwe (Oct 31, 2008)

your TMT is somewhat similar to something I was proposing earlier, although I recommended still counting by parcel than by individual GP.  It's true that if you have a good handle on how much you want each encounter to be worth then you can simple subtract gold as the PCs gain it.  Similarly, once they increase in level you could add the gold and items from the next level into your pool.  I still think parcels are a time saving device, but your method is easily the best alternative I've heard yet.  Kudos!


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## King Nate (Nov 1, 2008)

Badwe said:


> your TMT is somewhat similar to something I was proposing earlier, although I recommended still counting by parcel than by individual GP.  It's true that if you have a good handle on how much you want each encounter to be worth then you can simple subtract gold as the PCs gain it.  Similarly, once they increase in level you could add the gold and items from the next level into your pool.  I still think parcels are a time saving device, but your method is easily the best alternative I've heard yet.  Kudos!




Thanks. I just want to point out that if you do the TMT correctly you won't have any pool left to add to at the next level. You need to keep an eye on the character's experience to make sure you just don't dump everything on them in their last encounter before gaining a level. I can see it now from an inexperienced DM...That swarm of rats (wandering monster) that you just killed gave you three magic items and 400gp...more than everything you have found in this dungeon so far!


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## King Nate (Nov 1, 2008)

Sorry for double posting but, there's one other thing I forgot to mention. 

If you play player's level = floor level, smart players will realize that after the 10th parcel that there isn't any more treasure on that floor. Too unrealistic for me. 

I also don't like the idea that players will kill something and find nothing, kill something and find nothing, then kill something and find 200 gp, or two 100 gp gems, or two potions of healing + 100 gp. In dungeon design you can use parcels to place items easily but in a sandbox game you don't know exactly who your players will choose to fight and then you find suddenly you must give the players parcels before they level up. This could lead to unrealistic placement of treasure. Using TMT you can slowly hand out teasure without it seeming unrealistic that the last few kobolds you killed didn't carry anything on them yet the next one was loaded with treasure!


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## Badwe (Nov 1, 2008)

Nate, see some of my earlier posts about using treasure parcels equivalently.  Basically, there are a few ways to resolve your concerns while still using parcels (although you can also just as easily use TMT, please don't take this as criticism, merely elaborating on how one can use parcels).

So if you dislike having encounters with no treasure, 10 parcels = 10 encounters in a level.  If you're concerned about players catching on that there is "no more treasure on this floor", then I would say simply don't do that.  This goes back to my equivalence of parcels idea.  You can do it for gold too, but let's stick to magic items for simplicity.  At level 1 you hand out magic items levels 2-5, and at level 2 you hand out magic items levels 3-6.  This means that magic items of level 3, 4, or 5 could potentially show up in either parcel.  

If the players increase to level 2 but remain on floor 1 and fight  challenges averaged around a level 1 party, start handing out the level 2 parcels that could have been level 1 parcels.  you have at least 3 magic items, and some of the gold values should be comperable as well besides the lowest gold from 1 and the highest gold from 2 (possibly more, but you get the idea.).  When you finally run out of things from level 2 parcels, if you absolutely must, move on to level 3, that should be a level 4 and 5 item, plus any gold.  

When you finally run out of options, then you should DEFINITELY stop giving out treasure.  It is likely a good idea to do it sooner than that.


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## Grimstaff (Nov 4, 2008)

*bump!*

This is a fantastic thread, btw.

My MD is coming along nicely...


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## exile (Nov 4, 2008)

I'm new to this trhead and loving it (so much in fcat that I am about to be late for work- good thing I am the boss). It seems a lot of discussion has been spent on what happens when characters level up, but don't descend deeper into the mega dungeon.

I think I would handle this by converting wandering monsters into static encounters in a way that brings level appropriate encounters to the PCs without breaking believability. 

For example as the PCs are working to purge the first level of the dungeon, increasing numbers of monsters from the second level of the dungeon will come up to see what is going on (and why there easy food source is so quickly becoming depleted). Likewise, even larger numbers of those second level monsters might descend to the third level of the dungeon (again, perhaps, in search of food).

This creates a situation in which second level encounters start coming to the PCs on level 1. The PCs then find a level 2 that is mostly deserted (except for nasty traps without treasure) that serves to spur them on to level 3 (which hopefully is level appropriate at this point). Finally, level 3 has been reinforced with a few larger groups from level 2 that, because of their increased size, are hopefully appropriate challenges for the characters.

Chad


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## Badwe (Nov 4, 2008)

Very happy to see this thread bumped.  I wanted to bump it for a long time but I was the last poster so I didn't want to be too overt about it.  In regards to random encounters I'd like to get a little more mathy without biting off too much work for me 

First, it's easy to justify increasing the level of random monsters as the party levels up.  Clearly they're killing off/clearing out part of the dungeon and potentially raising alarms.  Of course, the choice is yours should you decide you would rather let floor = encounter level.  I'm going to use mostly small dice for this as an example of how one might make a decent set of random encounter tables.  These borrow from a concept I read in mike mearls' blog about using wide rather than tall tables.

Ok so to start, pick a level, either based on the party or based on the floor.  Take the result from that roll, and roll from each table it proscribes.  This second layer of tables is based on similar xp values:

*Level tables*
Level 1: 1d6
*1:* roll twice from 200XP (easy)
*2:* roll twice from 200XP, once from 100XP (normal)
*3:* roll once from 300XP, once from 200XP (normal)
*4:* roll twice from 250XP (normal)
*5:* roll once from 200XP, twice from 100XP, once from 125 XP (normal+25)
*6:* roll once from 300XP, once from 200XP, once from 125 XP (hard)

Level 2: 1d6
*1:* 250XP twice (e)
*2:* 375XP and 250XP 
*3:* 375XP and 125XP twice 
*4:* 300XP and 200XP and 125XP 
*5:* 250XP twice and 100XP twice (h-50)
*6:* 375XP twice (h)


*XP tables*

100XP: 1d4

*1:* 1 Goblin Skirmisher
*2:* 1 Kobold Slinger
*3:* 1 Goblin Blackblade
*4:* 4 Goblin Cutter


125XP: 1d4

*1:* 1 Goblin Sharpshooter
*2:* 1 Guard Drake
*3:* 1 Kobold Dragonshield
*4:* 4 Human Rabble

200XP: 1d4
*1:* 2 Stormclaw Scorpion
*2:* 2 Goblin Warrior
*3:* 2 Kobold Skirmisher 
*4:* 8 Decrepit Skeleton

250XP: 1d4
*1:* 2 Zombie
*2:* 2 Gray Wolf
*3:* 1 Elf Archer + 4 Human Rabble
*4:* 8 Kruthik Hatchling

300XP: 1d4
*1:* 2 Zombie + 2 decrepit skeleton
*2:* 2 Goblin Skullcleaver
*3:* 1 Kobold Wyrmpriest + 2 Kobold Minion + 1 Kobold Skirmisher
*4:* 1 Ochre Jelly

375XP: 1d4
*1:* 3 Elf Scout
*2:* 1 Hobgoblin Warcaster + 1 Hobgoblin Mercenary + 1 Goblin Blackblade
*3:* 1 Human Gaurd + 1 Human Bandit + 1 Fire Beetle
*4:* 2 Hobgoblin Grunt + 2 Hobgoblin Archer

End of Tables

Obviously I went with very small die sizes to keep from going overboard, and limited myself to two levels.  Also I picked XP values as the titles for tables to make my intentions clear, but it may be easier to give them generic titles like "1-1" or "1-3" for "Level-NumberOfMonsters".  Naturally you could add another layer by actually dividing out the different races rather than letting them end up mixed up all willy-nilly (might be a bit odd to have elves and kobolds working together) to increase the options, or just use a bigger die than d4.  Near the end I started getting creative with XP totals with some tricks such as 3+2+1 gives you the same total as 3 2s, or combining a pair of 3s with a pair of 3 minions (off by only 1xp).  

There is a lot of flexibility here, allowing you, the DM, to come up with some interesting (and decidedly random) wandering monster encounters.  If you were particularly attached to the "sandbox" mentality, you might even make a large enough table of monsters, then strike out each entry of monsters as the players defeat them, essentially creating a more mobile form of "clearing out the dungeon".  You might even concoct scenarios such as "monsters escape and warn others" or "the great relic has been stolen and the alarm is sounded" to justify rolling additional times or re-introducing previously defeated monsters.

A final note: the tables as written are intended to allow you to generate a complete, level appropriate, encounter for 5 PCs.  Obviously you can mix and match for more or fewer PCs, but if you are subscribing to the "wandering monsters dogpile" method of making wandering monsters more dangerous, just decide how much XP you'll add to an existing encounter and then roll.  Example, if the PCs encounter a level 1 encounter and you want to make it more difficult by a single level, roll from the 125xp table (the difference between 500xp and 625 xp).  Or, if you only have 4 PCs, roll from the 100XP table (to go from 400XP to 500XP).

Hope this gets some more gears turning!


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## Grimstaff (Nov 7, 2008)

How prevalent do you guys think traps should be in a MegaDungeon?

Lots of them, scattered around?
A few, here and there?
A lot in special, trap-focused areas?

etc?


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## T. Foster (Nov 8, 2008)

Grimstaff said:


> How prevalent do you guys think traps should be in a MegaDungeon?
> 
> Lots of them, scattered around?
> A few, here and there?
> ...



IMO "traps" that serve as obstacles (open pits or crevasses, portcullises, chutes, shifting walls or rooms, one-way doors, teleporters, elevator rooms, etc.) should be pretty common, and are a big part of why when you go into a megadungeon you can't always count on just being able to retrace your steps in order to get out. The idea of being lost in the dungeon with no idea how you're going to get out and hoping you can find an exit before you run out of supplies (torches, food & water, hit points) is a very big part of the "megadungeon experience" and shouldn't be discounted.

OTOH, traps intended to injure or kill (spear or arrow traps, spiked pits, deadfalls, poison needles, poison gas, acid jets, flooding rooms, etc.) should be rarer, and usually placed for a specific reason (guarding a particular location or treasure) and not just randomly (except on the lowest levels of the dungeon, where in some sense the entire level counts as a "particular location"). The players should be constantly worried about such traps (because when they spring one chances are pretty good they're going to die) but if they're actually encountering more than, say, 1 for every 3 or 4 monster encounters (which is to say about 1 for every 10 to 12 rooms explored, or about 1 per session) that's probably too much.

I'm speaking generally (edition-neutrally) here -- I have no idea how the specific dynamics of 4E might affect the above.


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## Grimstaff (Nov 8, 2008)

Excellent tips!


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## Badwe (Nov 8, 2008)

4th edition generally uses a trap replacement theory.  The stats and experience rewards are typically balanced around the idea that they should replace a monster of the same level.  So you might, for example, have traps working alongside monsters in a single encounter.  You can also create an encounter that revolves around traps, although you must be careful about this one.  There is an example of an all-trap encounter in Keep on the Shadowfell, and it works fairly well, other than the relative difficulty of disabling the traps being very high and the general danger level of the traps being very low (and easily circumventable).

Hazards and "natural" structures tend to follow the same rules as traps, but also make great opportunities to litter the dungeon with strange diversions.  There's nothing wrong with having a locked door or a crevasse that is easily overcome by the PCs with just a few checks.  Even if it ends up being trivial, it may end up diverting the flow of the game a bit.  Plus you can create some very satisfying moments when the PCs, for example, cook up an idea to "surf" off the edge of a cliff on a tenser's floating disk to get an extra 5 feet of height, holding a rope, with the intent of making the jump and helping everyone else across.

Really, static hazards give PCs who are well-versed in rituals a real opportunity to shine, so don't be afraid to pepper them in.


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## UngainlyTitan (Nov 8, 2008)

On the subject of traps my view is that there should be some routes in that have traps that cut you off from the exit but if there is a safe route in and the party finds it then as they make more and more repeat visits to the dungeon along this route then some of the intelligent tribal inhabitants will start defending the dungeon at the bottlenecks of this route and using traps to assist the defense. 
Also of the party breach that defense and the tribe is still surviving they amy try again with a larger force and more elaborate traps. Esentially the dungeon as the Western Front. This could be what the forces the party to try another route that gets them cut off in the dungeon with no known way back.


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## T. Foster (Nov 8, 2008)

Also/instead, once the dungeon inhabitants come to realize that adventurers almost always follow into and out of the dungeon, the more intelligent ones will begin to avoid that area, making their lairs in the more remote and defensible areas (since they generally don't care about getting to the surface, what serves as an obstacle for the PCs might not necessarily be to them), meaning that if the PCs stick to the "safe" areas they'll find nothing but empty rooms filled with debris, vermin, wandering monsters, fellow surface-dwellers (bandits, NPC adventuring parties), and perhaps some poor/weak monsters that were thrust out of their original lair and have no place else to go (which can be either a boring and unrewarding combat or an interesting role-playing encounter -- perhaps these monsters are looking for revenge and might be willing to team up with the PCs to achieve it, or perhaps they'll pretend that's the case but really they're wanting to deliver the PCs to the boss-monsters as an offering, to prove their value and loyalty). In order to fight the toughest monsters (and even moreso to get the best treasures) the PCs are going to eventually have to depart from the "safe" paths and start doing some real exploration.


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## Ydars (Nov 10, 2008)

How do we make the Mega-dungeon viable in 4E?

Resource management is no longer such a source of tension, so how to stop the PCs thinking like a group of CRPGers; that every room is there to be cleared? I want to put the tension back into situations where the PCs must manage sustained RISK. This is what makes an MD great IMHO and is what 4E currently does very poorly for mechanical reasons. Sure it is not for every group, but then you have fun your way…………..

I think the solution to this is to just make the dungeon more realistic; there are a number of ways to do this;

1) A time-limit! The PCs only have a certain time to get to a certain place in the dungeon. If you dislike the idea of a tightly focussed plot, it could be something like a slowly toxic effect of the dungeon that increases with time spent there. Perhaps the PCs lose a healing surge permanently every day until they leave the dungeon. This makes long dungeon trips (longer than 3.5E) possible but keeps the PCs wanting to press on and not hang around.

Another take on this is that every battle the PCs fight carries with it a set cumulative penalty; perhaps all the monsters in the dungeon carry a nasty disease and exposure to their blood through battle causes an increasing chance of the PCs contracting the disease. This should have players choosing battles carefully because if they kill everything, they will all be weakened to the point where they are sitting ducks.

2) There is an over-arching intelligence that has the dungeon under constant patrol by Guardian WMs. These guardians should be there, not to fight the PCs directly, but to raise the alarm if the PCs are discovered; and this shifts that area of the dungeon into a much higher threat level than normal. The key point is that if the threat levels shifts, the monsters become much more difficult to defeat (guards reinforced, traps are activated, doors locked etc) and yet the XP rewards stay the same because the PCs are supposed to pass through these areas without being discovered. This can also later be used to rationalise why a first level area suddenly morphs into a second level area once the PCs have levelled up; because the threat level has shifted and the same dungeon is now transformed. If you don’t want to consciously control this because of sand-box style play, there could just be a chance that for every hour the PCs spend in an area, there is a fixed chance of the threat level increasing because of patrols discovering evidence of the players past battles.

I say intelligence, not BBEG, because the intelligence could be a magical book that controls things in a pre-programmed and not truly intelligent fashion via magical alarms, or the dungeon itself could be partially sentient. The key thing is that the dungeon should REACT.

The main point is to get the PCs thinking; every time we open a door, we risk discovery and this is VERY BAD. Obviously, the threat level will go down again over time but this type of risk/reward management is what made the old mega-dungeons fun, for me at least.  

The other point is that if the Mega-dungeons have some very obvious reasons built in (apart from treasure gathering etc) why adventurers might want to venture into them, then this also changes entering the dungeon from “lets kills everything” to “we have to get to the oracle quickly and without losing anyone”.

Such reasons could include magical Oracles that can answer questions aka divination, or sources of healing, or just a very quick way (or the only way) of passing over the mountains in winter etc etc.

I think dungeon-bashing has often been most fun in my games when the bashing has been part of a push towards a higher goal and not just random killing.


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## UngainlyTitan (Nov 10, 2008)

Another way is to have a level or multiple levels under the lordship of a dominant creature or tribe. Say the first 3 levels is controlled by gnolls  but level one is populate by a subservient goblin tribe. Once the players demonstrate sufficient threat then the gnolls start reinforcing the goblins.

Also the dungeon should be large enough that resource tracking becomes an issue, (e.g. healing surges left, arrows, torches etc)


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## LostSoul (Nov 10, 2008)

Ydars said:


> Resource management is no longer such a source of tension




As long as the party can't rest safely, resource management is still a source of tension.

Last week I was running Thunderspire Labyrinth and the PCs were getting low on resources (HP, dailies, healing potions).  There is no rest in that module out in the dungeon because you're going to run into a few wandering monsters.  The PCs knew this and had to keep pressing on, making "easy" encounters tense.


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## Grimstaff (Nov 12, 2008)

Ydars said:


> How do we make the Mega-dungeon viable in 4E?
> 
> Resource management is no longer such a source of tension, so how to stop the PCs thinking like a group of CRPGers; that every room is there to be cleared?




One thing I'm doing with my 4E MegaDungeon is establishing some "iconic locations", which will hopefully give the players an alternate goal besides "clear level 3" for instance.

Some places I'm working on:

The Library of Skulls
The Black Gates
Tomb of the Dread Emperor
The Oracles Grotto
The Troll Gardens

My hope is that this will lend some mythic weight to the megadungeon, and give my players something to research aboveground, and target these areas for plunder/exploration.


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## Raven Crowking (Nov 12, 2008)

Grimstaff said:


> One thing I'm doing with my 4E MegaDungeon is establishing some "iconic locations", which will hopefully give the players an alternate goal besides "clear level 3" for instance.
> 
> Some places I'm working on:
> 
> ...




Excellent post!

This sounds like it would be a lot of fun.


RC


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## T. Foster (Nov 12, 2008)

Grimstaff said:


> One thing I'm doing with my 4E MegaDungeon is establishing some "iconic locations", which will hopefully give the players an alternate goal besides "clear level 3" for instance.
> 
> Some places I'm working on:
> 
> ...



This is a very good idea and (I think) how things were done BITD -- players hear rumors about or find incomplete maps to such locations, which gives them a goal for their explorations (another possibility is that they stumble across the place while lost, and then need to figure out how to get back to it). If you're running multiple groups (not likely nowadays, but very common in the 70s) this can even occur organically -- group A finds the Library of Skulls but are run off before they can explore all of it; group B catches wind of this and decides to try and find the Library themselves before group A can get back to it...

In designing my dungeon levels I've taken to keying them with two different keys -- the "lettered areas" (A, B, C, ...) are the iconic locations (permanent features is what I called them) that are always going to be there and that players can visit multiple times or multiple groups can visit -- there may be monsters or NPCs there, and there may be treasure, but that's secondary to the location itself. There are a handful of these per level (depending on the size of the level, but no more than 1 for every 20 or so rooms) and they're either very easy to find (everyone knows where The Black Gates are on level 7, they just choose not to go there!) or very hard to find (e.g. the Tomb of the Dread Emperor is behind a secret door located 20' down the wall of a 40' deep spiked pit) making it plausible that the PCs could actually be the first set of adventurers to discover the place.

In addition to these areas, which get most of the attention and detail, I've got a second key of "numbered areas," which are the standard monsters and treasures. These are transient -- once one group of adventurers encounters them they'll either be dead or likely have moved to a different lair -- and periodically re-keyed, even if they haven't been encountered yet (monsters move around in "the living dungeon" and adapt to what adventurers are doing elsewhere in the dungeon -- the idea that the monsters are just infinitely sitting around their lairs waiting for someone to come along and kill them is anathema to the "megadungeon" concept -- when the party routs the goblins on level 1 they'd better bet that next time they enter the dungeon the kobolds will have done _something_ to react (moved into the old goblin lair, fortified their own lair, posted more guards and alarms, gone to the hobgoblins on level 2 and asked for help, etc.)). These encounters usually get a minimal write-up of 1 or 2 lines, and any other details that are needed can usually be improvised on the spot.

I think it's important to have both types of encounters, and to recognize the difference between them -- if your dungeon doesn't have the unique and detailed letter areas then the players will get bored exploring it and realize they could just as easily be playing _Diablo_, but OTOH if it's nothing but lettered areas, if even the minor encounters with giant rats and such are fully and uniquely detailed, then you'll never be able to achieve the scale that a megadungeon needs because you'll run out of steam and won't be able to keep up with your players -- they'll be exploring faster than you can create.


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## LostSoul (Nov 12, 2008)

Grimstaff said:


> One thing I'm doing with my 4E MegaDungeon is establishing some "iconic locations", which will hopefully give the players an alternate goal besides "clear level 3" for instance.




Will you use the Goals sub-system for this?


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## Grimstaff (Nov 12, 2008)

LostSoul said:


> Will you use the Goals sub-system for this?




Very possibly. I'm a big fan of quest xp and think that would lend even more weght to using the megadungeon as a "location for expeditions" as opposed to an "unending dungeon crawl". 

Combining this with the "iconic locales" you could get a series of sessions like this:

1. Sage finds out about party's last excursion into the dungeon, seeks them out as he is obsessed with an item sealed into the Tomb of the Dread Emperor.

2. No one knows where the Tomb is, but some library research tips them off to the Library of Skulls, which is located just a short distance from the main processional stair leading to the third level.

3. The Library of Skulls is a hall containing shelves lined with skulls from all eras of history, which are used as a historical resource via rituals of _speak with dead_ and _comprehend languages_.

4. The party must seek out scrolls for these rituals (or learn them themselves) and outfit and provision themselves for the delve to the third level, which they know will take them through a series of ballrooms haunted by the spectres of long-dead courtiers.

5. If successful, the party must find a suitable contemporary skull to get info from.

6. If successful, they will glean the location of the Tomb, and a whole new excursion begins...

7. And so on...

I could award xp along the various steps of this process, or just hold off until the original purpose of recovering the artifact for the sage is met.

Either way, it should hopefully provide a stronger motivation for the players to keep adventuring in the MegaDungeon.


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## Grimstaff (Nov 12, 2008)

T. Foster said:


> In designing my dungeon levels I've taken to keying them with two different keys -- the "lettered areas" (A, B, C, ...) are the iconic locations (permanent features is what I called them) that are always going to be there and that players can visit multiple times or multiple groups can visit -- there may be monsters or NPCs there, and there may be treasure, but that's secondary to the location itself. There are a handful of these per level (depending on the size of the level, but no more than 1 for every 20 or so rooms) and they're either very easy to find (everyone knows where The Black Gates are on level 7, they just choose not to go there!) or very hard to find (e.g. the Tomb of the Dread Emperor is behind a secret door located 20' down the wall of a 40' deep spiked pit) making it plausible that the PCs could actually be the first set of adventurers to discover the place.
> 
> In addition to these areas, which get most of the attention and detail, I've got a second key of "numbered areas," which are the standard monsters and treasures. These are transient -- once one group of adventurers encounters them they'll either be dead or likely have moved to a different lair -- and periodically re-keyed, even if they haven't been encountered yet (monsters move around in "the living dungeon" and adapt to what adventurers are doing elsewhere in the dungeon -- the idea that the monsters are just infinitely sitting around their lairs waiting for someone to come along and kill them is anathema to the "megadungeon" concept -- when the party routs the goblins on level 1 they'd better bet that next time they enter the dungeon the kobolds will have done _something_ to react (moved into the old goblin lair, fortified their own lair, posted more guards and alarms, gone to the hobgoblins on level 2 and asked for help, etc.)). These encounters usually get a minimal write-up of 1 or 2 lines, and any other details that are needed can usually be improvised on the spot.




Quoted for Awesomness. 

Great post, again, T.F. I will most likely be "borrowing" this technique from you.


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## crash_beedo (Nov 13, 2008)

Grimstaff said:


> One thing I'm doing with my 4E MegaDungeon is establishing some "iconic locations", which will hopefully give the players an alternate goal besides "clear level 3" for instance.
> 
> Some places I'm working on:
> 
> ...




Really good ideas, and evocative names.  I was taking a similar approach, but your names are cooler.  

I like the technique of having some areas per level being highly detailed (the lettered areas TFoster talked about) and then doing some cursory details on the 'non-named' areas and using a simple key system to track them.  Leaves more inspiration in the tank.

The Major/Minor Quest system in 4E will work really well for setting up goals and providing alternate motivation for the group to press on vs grinding.


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## LostSoul (Nov 13, 2008)

Grimstaff said:


> Very possibly. I'm a big fan of quest xp and think that would lend even more weght to using the megadungeon as a "location for expeditions" as opposed to an "unending dungeon crawl".
> 
> ...
> 
> Either way, it should hopefully provide a stronger motivation for the players to keep adventuring in the MegaDungeon.




Oh yeah, Quests.    I think you'd want the PCs to have lots of Quests at the same time, so they have to decide which one to pursue.  I'd make some Quests out of their reach, some risky, some easy, etc.

Would you tell the players what level the Quest is?  That would lead to informed choices - "The Library of Skulls Quest is Level 7, and we're only Level 4... it might be out of our reach."


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## timbannock (Nov 13, 2008)

Note sure if it's been mentioned, but Castle Whiterock was an amazing megadungeon for 3.5E, and it also had a VERY in-depth series of "sub-quests" that provided extra XP rewards, magic item rewards if you went back to the person who gave you the quest, or increased power to some of the named magic items when you did certain things.

Basically, it had Milestones, Quests, and so on, and it wasn't even 4E yet!

I think the setup of the dungeon itself takes a lot of cues from what you guys have been talking about, too: a living dungeon with reorganization, random encounters are not a big deal and mostly there just to drain resources, and key locations that are tied to Quests and other historical info.

Worth looking at, as I've been reading it and the 4E-ness of it jumped out immediately.


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## crash_beedo (Nov 13, 2008)

Castle Whiterock was pretty awesome, especially for 3.x era.  I agree completely that Whiterock took the idea of quests, subquests, milestones, etc to a very high art; well worth reading for inspiration.  My group was obsessed with ultimately finding the lost shrine of Justicia.  (But they died...)

Comparing it to a classic megadungeon (let's say Temple of Elemental Evil, something most people are familiar with) - you can see the levels are not as large horizontally, they're fairly linear, there's typically only one access point per level, one exit down per level, few/no major highways in-out of the dungeon, etc.  But the encounters are very well-designed and there's very good details on making the dungeon 'respond' to incursions via 'high alert status' and restocking.

I can say its the only 3.x era adventure I ran (right up until my group's TPK).


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## Grimstaff (Nov 13, 2008)

LostSoul said:


> Would you tell the players what level the Quest is? That would lead to informed choices - "The Library of Skulls Quest is Level 7, and we're only Level 4... it might be out of our reach."





I hadn't considered that, but yeah, it might be a good option. Especially if I can think of a way to convey that information in a more "organic" way, as I don't want to be too metagamey.

Stuff like this makes me miss the "named" levels of B/X, 1E, etc, where a magic-user was a "Sorcerer" instead of "9th level", etc. Not impossible to port something like this to 4E, though, with a little thought...


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## Lacyon (Nov 13, 2008)

Grimstaff said:


> I hadn't considered that, but yeah, it might be a good option. Especially if I can think of a way to convey that information in a more "organic" way, as I don't want to be too metagamey.




The easy way to do this is to say "The Library of Skulls is hidden on the 7th level of the Dungeon".

Let the players come to their own conclusion about the level of the Quest involved


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## Derren (Nov 14, 2008)

I don't really see much of a sandbox here. The only freedom the PCs basically have is that they can choose their railroad (5 room dungeon).

But then, I think dungeons are the worst environment for sandbox games anyway.


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## Grimstaff (Nov 14, 2008)

Derren said:


> I don't really see much of a sandbox here. The only freedom the PCs basically have is that they can choose their railroad (5 room dungeon).
> 
> But then, I think dungeons are the worst environment for sandbox games anyway.




I think you've missed the point of the Megadungeon, which is the antithesis of railroad dungeon design. 

The Megadungeon is basically a campaign setting, that setting being the Underworld. How the players function in and around the Megadungeon is intended to be entirely up to them, whereas the normal dungeon, or "lair" as many megadungeon afficinados call them, is intended to be linear, with one way in, one way out, and one goal to accomplish.

The Megadungeon is a living breathing sandbox that can be the centerpiece of a campaign, without restricting the players to a single course of action. Numerous adventures can be had outside the dungeon, without ever decreasing its importance. PCs may build baronies or even kingdoms of their own in the lands surrounding the MegaDungeons. 

I'm probably not describing this as well or as succinctly as I could, so I'd recommend checking out the wonderful Megadungeon threads on Dragonsfoot and Knights-n-Knaves Alehouse, or researching the many anecdotes about the original MegaDungeons: Greyhawk and Blackmoor.


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## T. Foster (Nov 15, 2008)

Yeah, the megadungeon ("campaign-dungeon" is an alternative term I tried to introduce that didn't gain much traction -- emphasizing that the nature rather than the size of the dungeon is the important distinction) is a way to "sandboxify" the dungeon concept, blowing up the size and scope of the dungeon to the point that it becomes essentially a campaign-setting, serving more or less the same function as the wilderness hex-map serves in a more "traditional" sandbox setup. In a mega/campaign-dungeon there are essentially "points of interest" scattered throughout the dungeon plus lots of "dead space" (empty rooms and miscellaneous tricks, traps, monsters and treasures) in-between. The players have their choice of which points of interest they wish to seek out and explore (with dungeon-levels allowing them to assess likely difficulty and reward), or if they choose to they can grind in the dead space, or they can leave the dungeon entirely and have sandboxy adventures in the wilderness or in town (the idea shouldn't be that the megadungeon is the _only_ place to have adventures, just that it's the best and most convenient, especially for low level characters).

Two important keys are that there are always more points of interest (the party should never feel "stuck" exploring a particular area because there aren't any other options), and that the dead-space is never "cleared" (there will always be at least vermin and wandering monsters there). Certain areas within the dungeon will eventually become familiar -- the players will return to and pass through them again and again on their expeditions, eventually developing detailed maps, and even later not needing those maps because they've got the area memorized -- but around the edges (symbolic, not necessarily literal - depending on how you draw your maps it's entirely possible to have "remote" or hard-to-access areas right in the middle of the map) and deeper down there will always be fresh and unexplored areas.


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## Grimstaff (Nov 20, 2008)

T. Foster said:


> Two important keys are that there are always more points of interest (the party should never feel "stuck" exploring a particular area because there aren't any other options), and that the dead-space is never "cleared" (there will always be at least vermin and wandering monsters there). Certain areas within the dungeon will eventually become familiar -- the players will return to and pass through them again and again on their expeditions, eventually developing detailed maps, and even later not needing those maps because they've got the area memorized -- but around the edges (symbolic, not necessarily literal - depending on how you draw your maps it's entirely possible to have "remote" or hard-to-access areas right in the middle of the map) and deeper down there will always be fresh and unexplored areas.




This "unexplored edges" concept can really keep the setting fresh for a long time. The EX mods and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks were both based on parts of the original Greyhawk dungeon that Gary used as a sort of "break" from the normal Sword-n-Sorcery flavor of his Megadungeon. One area riffed on a deadly Alice in Wonderland theme, and the other was a crashed UFO which offered some sci-fi to the mix. He reported that the players welcomed the "break" both times, and were eager to get back to exploring the dungeon proper afterwards.


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## grodog (Nov 21, 2008)

Grimstaff said:


> This "unexplored edges" concept can really keep the setting fresh for a long time. The EX mods and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks were both based on parts of the original Greyhawk dungeon that Gary used as a sort of "break" from the normal Sword-n-Sorcery flavor of his Megadungeon.




Very true.  This is also where using sub-levels can really shine:  either as additions to previously-explored areas in order to breathe some new life into them, or as obscure/funky/mythic/hard-to-find areas that PCs may be a) elated or b) horrified to discover themselves in after a teleport trap/chute/trick staircase/etc. that drops them into such a location without a simple return.  In order for that horror/elation to be real, the PCs and players need to have heard of these mythic areas before, so that they in fact have some true qualities of legend about them.  Think of some dungeon levels or key encounters as artifacts and relics, and build them up in a similar manner.

Another key to campaign dungeons is breathing life into it, in the sense of layers of history.  Not that you need to design oodles of backstory or anything like that, but that the dungeon will accumulate things:  slain PC groups' equipment and maps will be scavenged by looters and perhaps reappear as part of monster hoards/in town in pawn shops/etc.; dungeon dressing should help bring out whatever distinctness for a level or an area within a level (all lights dim to 1/10th radius on the Crypt of the Vile Saint of Shadows sub-level; streams of water run throughout the top-most four levels after an extended rain, washing away tracks and perhaps flooding some levels below; etc.); layers of filth, dust, debris, mold, slime, and such may cover up paintings on the walls, or make secret doors much more difficult to find than usual; and NPCs and monsters will leave tell-tales all over the place---whether graffiti, cryptic messages ("Turn 5 B2 Fox"), evidence of mining/carbon scoring/lock-picking/door smashing/lightning-bolt-blasting/etc.  These kinds of details help to simulate the idea of multiple parties of simultaneous explorers---definitely one of the highlights of DMing a campaign dungeon if you can pull it off, and even if you can't, you can simulate this layering of rumors/dungeon impacts due to enemy action/etc. by setting up some NPC parties who are rivals to the PCs.

Anyway, great thoughts in the thread!

@ Trent:  you still need to write an essay or four on this for me


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## Grimstaff (Nov 24, 2008)

malraux said:


> One alternative, especially given the shallowness of the XP curve, would be to have each floor of the dungeon equate to about 2-3 levels worth of xp.  So when the party enters the dungeon at level 1, the first floor contains 25-30 encounters some of which at level 1, some at 2 and some at 3, but not necessarily in order.  Since XP is fixed, by the time they get through the level, they'll be 3rd-4th level, and ready to take on the 2nd floor, which has encounters of 4th-6th.  Just because tradition has one floor per level doesn't mean it has to stay that way.




I'm leaning towards this.

Level 1 - PC levels 1-3
Level 2 - PC levels 3-5
Level 3 - PC levels 5-7
Level 4 - PC levels 7-9
Level 5 - PC levels 9-10 - this would be a "milestone" level, in that it should provide an iconic battle/adversary to usher in the next tier...
and so forth...


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## Lacyon (Dec 11, 2008)

Thought some people here might be interested in this blog post by Mike Mearls.

(Also: bump)


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## LostSoul (Dec 11, 2008)

My Thunderspire Labyrinth game is starting to take on the feel of a big ol' dungeon.

There is one safe point (well, maybe not so safe!) and elsewhere in the dungeon there are random encounters.  Lots of random encounters.  If the PCs take an extended rest there will be one.

[sblock=How Random Encounters work in H2]You roll 1d20 each hour.  (I want to change this to include when they fail Dungeoneering checks to find their way around and at the end of a fight.)  If you roll a 20, there's an encounter.  There are a couple of modifiers, the big one being the +2 if there hasn't been an encounter yet.

I'm not sure what the odds are, but you have to rest at least 6 hours.  So it's 5%, 15%, 25%, etc. until there's a 55% chance of an encounter.  Pretty bad odds.  And that's without the other modifiers.[/sblock]

So far the PCs push on for a bit and then are forced to retreat back to town to lick their wounds.  They have made choices to avoid long travel times even though they would gain an advantage in doing so.

There is one problem: they have a lot of XP.  The random encounters give lots of XP, so it's all been a net benefit for them.  They're a little on the light end of treasure, though, because random encounters have no treasure.

I'm not sure how I'd want to handle this problem, if it even is a problem.

Now we aren't using maps, just Dungeoneering checks (it's more like wilderness) so it's not a *true* megadungeon, but it's interesting.


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## Lacyon (Dec 11, 2008)

LostSoul said:


> There is one problem: they have a lot of XP. The random encounters give lots of XP, so it's all been a net benefit for them. They're a little on the light end of treasure, though, because random encounters have no treasure.
> 
> I'm not sure how I'd want to handle this problem, if it even is a problem.




When I run my next 4E game I plan on cutting monster XP down a significant amount and either increasing the XP value of quests or just making sure there are a lot of quests available.


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## JohnBiles (Dec 12, 2008)

LostSoul said:


> My Thunderspire Labyrinth game is starting to take on the feel of a big ol' dungeon.
> 
> There is one safe point (well, maybe not so safe!) and elsewhere in the dungeon there are random encounters.  Lots of random encounters.  If the PCs take an extended rest there will be one.




Thunderspire Labryinth has a lot of the feeling of a mega-dungeon, yeah.  Really, you could run a very long campaign in it and never leave, as you've got your city for resting and refitting right there (Hall of Seven Pillars).  and it has lots of evocative areas for DM expansion in addition to the described zones.


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## LostSoul (Dec 12, 2008)

Oh yeah.  I just got through an encounter in a lair I designed - 3 rooms, two level 4 encounters, 1 level 5.  It was pretty cool.


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## LostSoul (Feb 7, 2009)

Bumping.

It seems that my campaign is about to move out of the dungeon, but a thread on old-school ways is still interesting.

I have to say: from play experience, in the 4E dungeon, if you remove the ability for the PCs to take an Extended Rest safely, things really change.  Encounters are still the focus, but Healing Surges become much more valuable.

I think this cuts down on the potential for grind as well, since each HP becomes a resource you don't really want to lose.

I'm still wondering about the best way to deal with wandering monster XP - "grinding" (in the WoW sense) through a dungeon is a smart choice, and I don't think it really should be.


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## Ydars (Feb 9, 2009)

I am writing a 4E megadungeon now, and I have come to the conclusion that you can only do it properly and get the right feel if you remove all connection between fighting and XP; after all, that is how it originally was in the Halcyon days of the Megadungeon, as XP were gained exclusively via gold. I plan to do the same thing, or else use a version of the Quest XP system, since I want a system where the PCs can go anywhere.

I am also removing most magical treasure that gives the PCs any advantage in combat, and making all magical treasure something interesting and quirky rather than something you grab simply to bash things with.

I plan to add some extra stuff to the level progression charts for characters to make up for the lack of +1 magic swords etc, so that this side of things is taken care of and the PCs don't end up underpowered.

Hopefully, with those two modifications, I will be free to write a true sandbox megadungeon, free from the constraints of 10 encounters per level, treasure parcels and all the other baggage that makes it difficult to run a true sandbox in 4E. 

Then I can stick in proper wandering monsters and hey presto, I will hopefully have myself a nasty, vicious megadungeon. We shall see, as it is still very much a work in progress and I am still coming to grips with this system.


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## crash_beedo (Feb 9, 2009)

My own 4E design is going pretty well.  My group is just finishing up Thunderspire Labyrinth; my agreement has been to run the heroic tier (H1-H3), and in between there and P1, kick-off the first few levels of the megadungeon game with new characters - PHB2 should be out by then.  I know the 6 players are looking for a chance to swap some roles around and try on some new classes.  1-2 months in the megadungeon should get them close to L3, and then it's back to Paragon tier with the original guys while I go back to building the megadungeon.

I know, bouncing between campaigns isn't great, but I don't want megadungeon building to be a burnout generating hamster wheel, either.  I figure when we exhaust the material, I'll run P1 for the first campaign, and develop the next few megadungeon levels, run it, switch back to P2, etc.

Anyway, I am going with the design model of 'delves' and treating the megadungeon as a location for expeditions rather than an unending dungeon crawl.  It's a modular approach and takes advantage of the improvements in the 4E XP and encounter building system, while not overwhelming me.  To that end, wandering monsters are part of the 8-10 encounters per level and are accounted for in the XP and parcel system.

For instance, the dungeon is beneath a city, and the first level includes the city sewers; it's been very easy to hang the small delve expeditions on the sewer map (one of them is the cellars to the haunted house, another delve is the dungeon beneath an evil temple in the city).  The first delve is the haunted house itself.

There are still problems... what if the PC's find the different ways down to the second dungeon level (the actual "megadungeon" is below the sewers) - but they choose to clear out additional "delves" in the sewers without taking on greater risks?  I plan on giving them compelling plot hooks; clearing out some of those delves naturally - for instance, rival adventurers got there first; making the monetary rewards dwindle.

I can't imagine 'old-school' megadungeons avoided the problem too - in fact, if you had a huge free-form map, the problem might be excaserbated by the completionists!  Your group achieves level 2 experience, has found multiple ways down, but the map has too many open areas that scream 'unexplored'.  And the group reasons, "it'll be easy to sweep through there now that we're 2nd level".  Sounds like the same 'grind' potential to me.  For that reason, I think it's important to have the illusion of size, and the ability to hang additional modular delves onto the map if necessary, but not overcreate...


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## Beginning of the End (Feb 9, 2009)

crash_beedo said:


> Anyone else tackle this type of problem - your characters will only likely encounter 50% of your areas, so how do you balance enough detail vs too much?
> 
> *2.  Leaving Room for Expansion:*
> Haha, I guess there have been a few creative solutions out there - the *Greyhawk Construction Company* comes to mind, as does 'The Fog' I heard was used in Castle Zagyg.




Both of these are somewhat connected and largely depend on how much ground the PCs can cover in a typical session. Once you've got a feeling for that (and it will vary considerably based on the group dynamics), you can detail out about 2 sessions in every direction (horizontally and vertically). That keeps the amount of prep manageable.

Some of this prep will be "wasted" as the PCs don't head in that direction, but there are a couple of mitigating factors:

(1) The PCs are likely to back-track at some point and explore other paths -- either in an attempt to find another route to wherever they're going or just to see what they missed.

(2) If the dungeon is organic and evolving, you'll find opportunities to draw players into this content. They wiped out the goblin clan but didn't move into the ogre-occupied caverns beyond? Well, the next time they head down this way the ogres may have expanded their territory into the freshly-vacated caverns.

Beyond the "two session limit" just keep some rough notes ("here there are shadow-infused orcs led by a banished dark elf prince"; "here there are mindlflayers worshipping the forgotten god-idol of Juntha'thek"; and so forth).



> *3.  What if they don't descend?:*
> So what do you do if the party levels up, they realize they only scratched the surface of level 1, and rather than descend to level 2 they decide "No matter how long it takes, let's clear this sucker first!"?  Megadungeons aren't meant to be exhaustively mapped and stocked, it ruins the aura of 'it's too big to be known entirely'.  And besides, after a certain point the challenges will be downright boring.




You're over-thinking it.

Let me re-phrase the problem you're anticipating: "What if my players take the opportunity to do whatever they want and use it to do whatever they want?"

Congratulations, you're experiencing sandbox play. 

If your players are having fun trying to clear all of levle 1, then they're having fun. You might think that the challenges are "downright boring", but clearly they're not boring enough for them to go and do something else.

If you're really going to embrace sandbox play, then you're going to have ditch the fetishization of balance that got its misbegotten start in 3E and ended up hard-coded into the design of 4E.

Get rid of the notions that encounters are supposed to be "balanced". Get rid of perfectly balanced treasure parcels. Sometimes there are bad choices to be made and sometimes there are hard choices and sometimes there are easy choices. Let the PCs steer their own course.

Now, you may run into a situation where the players believe that they're "supposed" to be clearing the dungeon level. So they'll continue doing it even after they've stopped having fun. What you've got there is a misunderstanding of the style of game you're looking for. And the easiest way to fix that problem isn't to try to mechanically brow-beat them... it's to sit down and say, "Look, if you don't want to do this, then you don't have to do it."


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## LostSoul (Feb 9, 2009)

Beginning of the End said:


> Get rid of the notions that encounters are supposed to be "balanced". Get rid of perfectly balanced treasure parcels. Sometimes there are bad choices to be made and sometimes there are hard choices and sometimes there are easy choices. Let the PCs steer their own course.




This is pretty easy to do.

Figure out how tough you want the level to be, then add monsters to make it that tough.  The best way to do that is to give it a level, then populate it with encounters ranging from -2 to +4.

When it comes to treasure, roll 1d10 to see what package you get; roll randomly, or pick, whatever magic items you want.  (I roll for the magic item slot, open up the AV and PHB, then pick one that I think's cool for the level.)


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## Badwe (Feb 9, 2009)

I take the same issue with the concept of fetishization of balance in this thread as I did in another: There's nothing wrong with balance.

Listen, everything in D&D is a guideline, you get to break it at your discretion.  However, you are creating _more_ work for yourself.  Sometimes guidelines are not "it is required that there be 10 treasure parcels and anything more or less is not D&D".  Sometimes guidelines are "If you want your players to have relatively challenging encounters, they should have +X bonus at Level Y. If you dole out these items you'll get that effect.  You could also dole out a different set of items or ignore the base premise."

The link posted with the text "Fetishization of Balance" mentions that you can't just take away most magic items in a low magic campaign and expect it to work out of the box.  You can make it work, of course, but that requires effort on your part.  To determine what needs to be done, you would need rough guidelines on the effect that removing items has.  

Having a parcel system is like having a multiplication table instead of having to add a number to itself several times.  If you decide you want to multiply 13 and 13, but it's not on your table, you do it by hand.  However, giving someone a multiplication table that only goes up to twelve is not the same as saying you can ONLY multiply up to 12.  Similarly, having a treasure parcel system or an XP system does not force you to use it, but is merely a time-saving device to achieve your original goal: an advancement system that shakes out to be not too challenging or too easy for the PCs.


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## Badwe (Feb 9, 2009)

I take the same issue with the concept of fetishization of balance in this thread as I did in another: There's nothing wrong with balance.

Listen, everything in D&D is a guideline, you get to break it at your discretion.  However, you are creating _more_ work for yourself.  Sometimes guidelines are not "it is required that there be 10 treasure parcels and anything more or less is not D&D".  Sometimes guidelines are "If you want your players to have relatively challenging encounters, they should have +X bonus at Level Y. If you dole out these items you'll get that effect.  You could also dole out a different set of items or ignore the base premise."

The link posted with the text "Fetishization of Balance" mentions that you can't just take away most magic items in a low magic campaign and expect it to work out of the box.  You can make it work, of course, but that requires effort on your part.  To determine what needs to be done, you would need rough guidelines on the effect that removing items has.  

Having a parcel system is like having a multiplication table instead of having to add a number to itself several times.  If you decide you want to multiply 13 and 13, but it's not on your table, you do it by hand.  However, giving someone a multiplication table that only goes up to twelve is not the same as saying you can ONLY multiply up to 12.  Similarly, having a treasure parcel system or an XP system does not force you to use it, but is merely a time-saving device to achieve your original goal: an advancement system that shakes out to be not too challenging or too easy for the PCs.


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## Beginning of the End (Feb 9, 2009)

Badwe said:


> I take the same issue with the concept of fetishization of balance in this thread as I did in another: There's nothing wrong with balance.




The fetishization of balance becomes wrong at precisely the moment when some standardized value of "balance" and "the way you're supposed to play" trumps the ability for individual players to do what they want to do.

And you can see this attitude manifesting itself in this very thread.

"Help! My players are having too much fun clearing out the goblin clans from the Underfen! How can I make my players stop having fun so that they'll go fight some 'level-appropriate' encounters? What should I do?"

What should you do?

Stop worrying about so-called "problems" like "my players having too much fun".


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## LostSoul (Feb 10, 2009)

Beginning of the End said:


> "Help! My players are having too much fun clearing out the goblin clans from the Underfen! How can I make my players stop having fun so that they'll go fight some 'level-appropriate' encounters? What should I do?"




If that's directed at my comments about grinding for XP:

What I worry is that grinding for XP is too attractive a choice for the players to make, so that they'll do it (or feel like they're screwing themselves if they don't), even though they don't really enjoy it.

I haven't seen grinding at the table, but I've done it in computer games and I don't like it.  (Which is bad game design, in my opinion; if you can do something to gain an advantage in a game, it should be fun to do, and not require a choice between advantage + no fun vs. no advantage + fun.)  

It might be fun at the table, so that might not even be an issue.


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## crash_beedo (Feb 10, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> If that's directed at my comments about grinding for XP:
> 
> What I worry is that grinding for XP is too attractive a choice for the players to make, so that they'll do it (or feel like they're screwing themselves if they don't), even though they don't really enjoy it.
> 
> ...




4E introduces this as more of a problem than other editions because it uses an incremental rather than an exponential experience curve... previous editions, it wasn't a judicious use of time to go after encounters that weren't at or above the current power curve.  Although maybe it would still be fun kicking the snot out of kobolds... for a little while.

In 4E, the difference between level appropriate encounters and non isn't so great... it makes grinding profitable, if not challenging.


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## Ydars (Feb 10, 2009)

Let's not turn this thread into the other one as we are not talking about the same thing.

Balance is a good thing when it makes it easier for the DM to challenge the players without killing them. 

Having said this, in true sandbox play, I do not want my megadungeon design to be completely constrained by treasure parcels and XP. Many of the solutions proposed on the other thread show how deep this problem goes.

I don't want a megadungeon where the encounters and treasure magically change depending upon PC level. I want a place where I can site interesting encounters, that make sense, with some treasure, *ahead of time*, and then see how they play out when the PCs try to confront them. I want to truly reward clever play, not by making the monsters harder, but by allowing the PCs to roll monsters over essily if they are capable of doing that. I will also site monsters that are very very difficult challenges for the PCs and see how they take those on.

In short, I want a game where player choice is King, not balance. All I am saying is, if in the course of designing my dungeon, there is a conflict between increasing player choice (and vermisilitude) and between game balance, then I will choose the former every time.

In a more linear and plot focussed game this problem doesn't really rear its head because player choice is not such a priority. I have DMed such games and they are great fun, I just want to try this style of sandbox and it has needs that are totally incompatible with 4E's style of balance.


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## crash_beedo (Feb 10, 2009)

Hey Ydars, what is this "other thread" you are talking about?

Anyway, let's try to address a specific example within the context of 4E.

Let's assume I have a map that allows the PC's free choice of entrance to the dungeon, and multiple ways to get down to the second level from the first.  Furthermore, I have developed the levels to provide a series independent "delves" or "lairs" with sufficient empty space and room to wander so as to support credulity.  Furthermore, the players can gather various rumors in town and choose to follow leads, or just head to the dungeon and explore.

Level 1 is therefore broken down into Lair 1-A, 1-B, 1-C, 1-D, 1-E; level 2 is broken down into 2-A, 2-B, 2-c, etc.  You get the point.  Let's say on level 1, the 5 lairs are The Bandit Hideout, the Kobold Dragon Worshippers, the Mutant Goblin Alchemists, Vermin, and The Hidden Tomb.  Each one of these delves is designed to be 3-4 encounters; if you throw in quest XP and a skill challenge or two, the PC's should be in a position to level up after clearing 3 of the lairs.  Likewise, the encounters would range from 'easy' to 'hard' in 4E terms, meaning they could be anywhere from the same level as the group up to 4 levels higher in XP/encounter design terms.

I would say, so far so good.  The players can choose where to go, what to fight, when to go down to the second level, etc.

However, there are potential problems when you add the parcel system to the mix and when you consider the nature of 4E experience.  With the parcel system, it's expected that you'd spread the level 1 parcels out amongst the first three lairs the players cleared, so they get the requisite wealth at the same time they leveled.

So far I've seen a few "solutions":

1.  It's All Good
Ditch the parcel system and don't sweat the experience grinding; if the players attempt to be completists and clear the whole level (all 5 lairs), so what?  Evenly spread out treasure (even if it's more than the 1st level parcels) and let them beat the snot out of whatever they want.

2.  Scale Accordingly
Some have suggested, once the group levels up, the remaining lairs get adjusted slightly to be level 2 encounters (easy enough to do in 4E) and you start grabbing the level 2 parcels.  Must... maintain... balance...

3.  Remove XP Grinding Options
In this approach, the areas of the dungeon that the players ignored (and are now "easy") change due to other influences; rival NPC's clear them out; dangerous monsters from below come up and lay the smack; the PC's efforts on other parts of the lair have convinced them to leave; etc.  The gentle XP curve in 4E makes it too fun and profitable to wail on weak monsters to keep this option around.

I'm sorely tempted to go with the # 1 option myself; I don't like the heavy-handed approach of # 3 (despite me championing it at times), and I certainly don't like option #2; I hate it when the the town guards are level 3 when the party is level 1, and suddenly they're level 6 when the party is level 3; the group should be able to make progress against other elements of the setting.

Oh, I did go back and read that 'fetishization of balance' article -  it seems completely off the mark.  The main point of the article seems to argue that you should balance the encounters against the current power level of the party, and not against an arbitray CR baseline.  Yeah, that's option #2 above:  if the party is suddenly more powerful, SURPRISE, everything starts scaling!  Level 1 Kobold encounters become tougher all of a sudden!  BLECH.  *That is the complete opposite of making an internally-consistent sandbox...*


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## Ydars (Feb 10, 2009)

The other thread I was talking about was "the problem with balance and how to get rid of it"

Basically, people were arguing about whether balance in a set of rules was desirable, and generally not agreeing (as usual). I think both sides of the argument have a point and the relative merits are determined by what type of game you are playing.


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## howandwhy99 (Feb 14, 2009)

crash_beedo said:
			
		

> There are still problems... what if the PC's find the different ways down to the second dungeon level (the actual "megadungeon" is below the sewers) - but they choose to clear out additional "delves" in the sewers without taking on greater risks? I plan on giving them compelling plot hooks; clearing out some of those delves naturally - for instance, rival adventurers got there first; making the monetary rewards dwindle.




A dynamic dungeon is going to fill up again (I use the word dungeon for any setting element).  Just remember, nature abhors a vacuum.  That means whatever's next door over might fill it in or have it out with any other nearby whatevers to fill it in.  (Or whatever method(s) you choose for monster/NPC groups to return the total space/world back to equilibrium)

For the "too much XP from wandering monsters" problem, I would look at the AD&D XP tables.  They are logarhythmic.  So killing wandering monsters doesn't necessarily help you reach next level.  Especially if you keep WM's to a finite number and include them on the total level monster list.  (WM's might stop wandering too for different reasone).  At some point in an excursion their may be no more WM's.  And by the principle above about vacuums, if you don't go to them, they may come to you.

EDIT: More clearly, with the log-based XP chart they'll want to leave easier monsters behind if advancement is important to them.  Not just sit grinding one level as it won't help.


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