# World's Largest Dungeon in actual play [Spoilers!]



## haiiro

I noticed in the WLD mega-thread that a few people have already started playing through this monster. That thread has been many things over time, and I thought it might be best to start a new one for people to post their experiences with the WLD in actual play.

*Assuming anyone bites, this thread will contain spoilers. Fair warning.* 

So let's hear it: if you've started playing through the WLD, what do you think?

- What's good so far, and what's not-so-good?
- Have you actually read it cover to cover, or did you just dive in?
- How did your expectations reading it match up with your experiences playing it?
- What did you change?

You get the idea.


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## Stalker0

I tried it a little at dragon con this weekend. We started at the 5th level area.

I have to say... way way WAY too many traps. There was practically a trap in every room. I don't mind traps, but we were going so slowly through just because it seemed like every 5 ft was another trap


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## twofalls

One of the first things I noticed about Region A is that the random monster chart is more a list of suggestions than anything else. Region A also is themed on Fiendish templated creatures, but ony four types are used an I like a variety. So I created a six monster enounter chart that I will duplicate here since they are all monsters that a 1st level party of six characters should be able to handle.

1) Abrain pg. 12 Fiend Folio
2) Albadian Battle Dog, Fiendish Template pg. 7 Creature Collection 1
3) Alley Reaper, pg. 8 Creature Collection 1 (be careful with this one, without a priest it can be tough to defeat, it has an ac of 18 and is insubstantial, I had to modifiy its fear power as well, but it was a very entertaining encounter)
4) Death Dog, Fiendish Template, pg. 63 Tome of Horrors 3.0 (or pg. 41 Fiend Folio)
5) Direcorby, Fiendish Template, pg. 104 Tome of Horrors 3.0
6) Mantari, Fiendish Template, pg. 188 Tome of Horrors 3.0


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## haiiro

twofalls said:
			
		

> Region A also is themed on Fiendish templated creatures, but ony four types are used an I like a variety.




This really bugged while reading through the Region, and I think your approach is a good one. By the end of A, I was pretty tired of seeing yet another fiendish rat swarm or fiendish darkmantle -- and when I tallied up the other non-random beasties in the Region, I realized how few there really were.

I was actually kind of underwhelmed by Region A, and I think if I opt to run it I'd wind up swapping in some other creatures.

I'm glad this thread didn't just fizzle -- this is exactly the kind of stuff I want to hear about.


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## Jim Hague

Gah, sorry to hear that!  I'm not too familiar with Region A, having only really given it a passing look as I sped to deal with my own Regions (I&M).  My advice on this is to do a simple percentile chart, since things and people are constantly moving around - Call it, in A, a 40% chance the trap is sprung and hasn't been redone, 60% chance it's active.  Keeps the players on their toes.


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## Stone Dog

Earthdawn had something like that in Parlainth.  I don't recal their names, but they were these horrid little monkey-things that would scamper about the city resetting traps and stealing shiney things from the PCs.

I remember the look on the player's faces as they get past this nasty trap, head down the hall and hear some creaking noise behind them as the little furry gremlin things started in making sure the trap was nice and ready again.  It was priceless!  After that they just started bashing the hell out of any trap they came across.  Which made noise, which attracted more of the little things and they started setting their own traps here and there.

Maybe you could have one of those.  Some impish little NPC that hops about the dungeon resetting some traps, but not others.  Springing some traps before the PCs get to them, and sometimes just making noise like a trap just went off.  That could well be the flavor behind Jim's idea up there.


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## Psion

haiiro said:
			
		

> - What's good so far, and what's not-so-good?




Good -- it's very easy to jump right into. The keyed location text is compact and clearly arranged, so most pertinent facts are at your fingertips.

? -- I'm not sure if this is a huge problem since the book provides plenty of activities for your players, but it seems to me that having every stat block wastes a lot of space. It saves you a little flipping through the MM, though, so depending on how big of a hassle you see that as, it mgiht be an advantage.

Not so good -- Not a whole lot yet. I've just played one night, and so far, it seems decent and accomodating. I'm not especially fond of the summoning guidelines and they don't make a lot of sense to me.



> - Have you actually read it cover to cover, or did you just dive in?




I have a day job, hence have not had a chance to read it from cover to cover. 

However, as stated, the layout of the book seems very accomodating to diving right in.



> - How did your expectations reading it match up with your experiences playing it?




As stated, I found it quite a bit easier than the norm to run it without a thorough read before hand.



> - What did you change?




Nothing, so far.


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## Thanee

I wonder when the first reports will come in of people who have actually played _through_ this monster! 

 Bye
 Thanee


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## jim pinto

Psion said:
			
		

> Not so good -- Not a whole lot yet. I've just played one night, and so far, it seems decent and accomodating. I'm not especially fond of the summoning guidelines and they don't make a lot of sense to me.




you know you can ignore them, right?

[we even say you can ignore them]

btw...

following two threads is going to cause my head to burst

so if anyone needs me to chime in on this board, please
e-mail me or post on the previous thread.

thanks, twofalls, for making this though... it cuts down
on spoilers.

btw (part 2)....

i understand and respect everyone's need to add a variety
of monsters to this region. in hindsight, i wish there had been
more orcs and kobolds in the region, but there is only a limited
number of low-level monsters in the SRD.

and if you read the entire region (specifically A100 through A104),
you'll see the cause of the problem and you can easily justify
adding just about any monster you like to the Region, so long
as its fiendish.

but since people are complaining that Region B is too hard
because of the traps, i'm at a loss as to how we could have
made this Region more challenging without killing PCs.

its my belief that the DMs main job in a dungeon crawl is to
monitor what the PCs can overcome and what they can't.
if the PCs are ready for it, send the fiendish owlbear after
them. or drop in a fiendish harpy, dire animal (so they have
something to eat), cloaker, or perhaps a creature from Region
I that has somehow snuck passed all the wards and creatures
in Region E (ooooo..... foreshadowing).

i think your games are going to go a lot better once you read
what's on the adjacent maps and start placing important
clues or hints of what's to come.

and if you like, drop a lantern archon in the Region (in an empty)
room that is merely there for the PCs to ask questions of.
decide ahead of time what it knows (probably nothing about
the traps and new monsters) and only answer questions it
can answer.

that's enough advice for one day


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## Psion

jim pinto said:
			
		

> you know you can ignore them, right?
> 
> [we even say you can ignore them]




Er, yeah. I'm just saying the recommendations don't make sense.

That I can ignore them is pretty obvious. 

I'm not saying it's a major flaw. Like I said, there's not much I saw as explicitly wrong.


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## twofalls

Hay Jim, just wanted to give credit where credit is due, haiiro started this thread and I agree, his idea to avoid spoilers was well considered.


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## jim pinto

In regards to your post on the other list, check out Room N223.

Feel free to move that anywhere you like.


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## twofalls

Hmmmm. Are there further hints about the nature of this discovery earlier in the Dungeon somewhere? Reading room N223 after only having read Regions A and B leaves me thinking that its unlikely they will undrerstand that the scrolls are anything more than more treasure found, and essenitally adventurers don't arbitrarily destroy treasure. 

I reread the spells and I must say, unless I had other information, I wouldn't connect either spell with the consequences outlined in the text. If there isn't any refrence to this earlier on, I think I'll likely write a poem in stone when the times comes that outlines the choice to be made in riddle form so that they recognize when they find them that they portent something momentous and are to be considerd more than just hidden loot.

Also, in room N222, there is a trap that irrevokably destroys a CE character (the lever). My group isn't prone to playing evil characters (I frown on it but didn't disallow it for the dungeon crawl) but as a GM, wouldn't one of your players cry foul regarding that? Particuarly since 3.0+ is very careful to build in saves for most everything?

Er... what is the World Eater? Why does that name remaind me of a certain old Star Trek episode...?


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## jim pinto

twofalls said:
			
		

> Hmmmm. Are there further hints about the nature of this discovery earlier in the Dungeon somewhere? Reading room N223 after only having read Regions A and B leaves me thinking that its unlikely they will undrerstand that the scrolls are anything more than more treasure found, and essenitally adventurers don't arbitrarily destroy treasure.
> 
> I reread the spells and I must say, unless I had other information, I wouldn't connect either spell with the consequences outlined in the text. If there isn't any refrence to this earlier on, I think I'll likely write a poem in stone when the times comes that outlines the choice to be made in riddle form so that they recognize when they find them that they portent something momentous and are to be considerd more than just hidden loot.
> 
> Also, in room N222, there is a trap that irrevokably destroys a CE character (the lever). My group isn't prone to playing evil characters (I frown on it but didn't disallow it for the dungeon crawl) but as a GM, wouldn't one of your players cry foul regarding that? Particuarly since 3.0+ is very careful to build in saves for most everything?
> 
> Er... what is the World Eater? Why does that name remaind me of a certain old Star Trek episode...?




the world eater is in room N159

there is no clue to the contents of this room

that's left to the DM in this case, based on how the PCs play
PCs that spend the time to find it, should believe it

was hidden for a reason

the levers are designed to destroy undead that would touch them

if you'd like to allow a save, by all means

i HONESTLY expected people to read at least some of the
dungeon before running it, but in hindsight, that was a bad
call since we designed it exactly the opposite.

reading ahead a Region isn't a bad idea and the material in
Region N should not be skimmed because there's SOOO much
there

i've already done my tips for running Region A
when i get to the higher levels, i'll drop some hints about
Region N


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## haiiro

jim pinto said:
			
		

> i HONESTLY expected people to read at least some of the
> dungeon before running it, but in hindsight, that was a bad
> call since we designed it exactly the opposite.




I'd say that's certainly the standard expectation for modules in pretty much any system, and they usually say so right in the front: "read me cover to cover before you start playing." Of course, they're not 840 pages, either. 

My intent is certainly to read the whole thing before I try and run it, but realistically that may not wind up happening. In fact, part of me's a bit worried that by the time I've finished it, I'll have forgotten enough about the first few Regions that I'll have to read them again -- in which case, why not just stay 1 or 2 ahead of the party, and read as I go?

In any case, I'm enjoying the suggestions and feedback thus far, and hopefully I'm not the only one -- keep it up.


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## twofalls

>>Originally Posted by jim pinto
i HONESTLY expected people to read at least some of the
dungeon before running it, but in hindsight, that was a bad
call since we designed it exactly the opposite.<<

I don't understand this statement Jim, are you being incredulous? It rather sounds more like you had expected GM's to read the WHOLE thing rather than "at least some of" it. I've read Regions A and B and have prepped A for gaming. It was you who brought up refrences to Region N.  Between work, family, and sleeping... I have time to squeeze in a little bit of my hobby and it seems unlikly that my situation is atypical for the demographic likely to be able to afford this product. My interest in material like this to save time... 

Section N is just about the end of this huge book, and it's stated in the front that it was designed to be modular... so yeah people aren't likely to think that reading the entire manusript to run it is going to be nessesary, I sure didn't. Plainspeaking, if it were needed then it wouldn't have been worth the investment to me as I'd not have been able to complete it in a reasonable ammount of time. As it is, I'm enjoying the book a great deal and personalizing it to meet my group's expectations. 

I've been running games for a long time (yes that is grey in my beard) and have seen a HUGE ammount of material (my shelves are larger than any of the FLS in my area) and I've recommended this book to other friends of mine who are GM's. There is no higher compliment I can pay to a game designer than that.


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## jim pinto

twofalls said:
			
		

> >>Originally Posted by jim pinto
> i HONESTLY expected people to read at least some of the
> dungeon before running it, but in hindsight, that was a bad
> call since we designed it exactly the opposite.<<
> 
> I don't understand this statement Jim, are you being incredulous? It rather sounds more like you had expected GM's to read the WHOLE thing rather than "at least some of" it. I've read Regions A and B and have prepped A for gaming. It was you who brought up refrences to Region N.  Between work, family, and sleeping... I have time to squeeze in a little bit of my hobby and it seems unlikly that my situation is atypical for the demographic likely to be able to afford this product. My interest in material like this to save time...
> 
> Section N is just about the end of this huge book, and it's stated in the front that it was designed to be modular... so yeah people aren't likely to think that reading the entire manusript to run it is going to be nessesary, I sure didn't. Plainspeaking, if it were needed then it wouldn't have been worth the investment to me as I'd not have been able to complete it in a reasonable ammount of time. As it is, I'm enjoying the book a great deal and personalizing it to meet my group's expectations.
> 
> I've been running games for a long time (yes that is grey in my beard) and have seen a HUGE ammount of material (my shelves are larger than any of the FLS in my area) and I've recommended this book to other friends of mine who are GM's. There is no higher compliment I can pay to a game designer than that.




wow.

you said a mouth full.

let me tackle this, point by point

i'm being a little incredulous, if nothing else, because i'm letting
you see into my psyche. 95% of the pre-design of this book came
out of my head and helped to structure HOW we would tackle it.
making it modular, placing the monsters, designing the template for
each Room, etc.

the introduction (with a few key exceptions) was written BEFORE
a single writer was hired.

during the creation process we tried to stay as close to our design
principles as we could. but good ideas, like Room N223 that develop
during the 11th hour of editing, can't be shuffled away simply because
the DM won't or can't read ahead to see what the dungeon has to offer.

yes, i'm sorry i didn't do a better job of tying that room to the WHOLE
of the dungeon. it was unlikely during design that the PCs would find
it. but i kept thinking of all those really bad RPGA puzzles at conventions
that never made sense, when i made it, and i thought.... here's an instance
where if people are paying attention to the clues in this room, they'll realize
that something is afoot and these scrolls are not what they appear to be.

sadly, this too is illogical and as much as i like the room, its not as
cool now in print as it was when i dreamed it up.

but...

at the end of the day, if the DM doesn't like the puzzle i've presented,
he's free to ignore it.

as i stated, my original concept was for the book to be modular.
however, if the DM wants to surprise the PCs with well-placed
foreshadowing, it wouldn't be a bad idea to read 1 or 2 regions
ahead. foreshadowing needs to be tailored to the style of the
group and we really can't do that for you ahead of time.

a fortune teller that says, "Agar will die at the hands of his own death."
is great if the DM can assure the PCs will enter a room with a mirror
of opposition. AEG, however, can't make sure that happens without
a really big hammer.

the real problem is that there are 5 unique paths through the dungeon
and unless the PCs hit EVERY room, it won't matter what's in Room
N223 and all those clues have gone to waste.

luckily, i'm online every day and i hope i can guide people to some
really, really cool adventures .... with a little help from the DMs, i guess.



thanks for the kind words, twofalls

i hope your game goes well


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## spacecrime.com

jim pinto said:
			
		

> it wouldn't be a bad idea to read 1 or 2 regions
> ahead.




That's more or less what I'm doing. Currently running section A, reading section B in detail, leafing through section C.  May have to look ahead to E if the party keeps heading north, but as long as I'm looking five minutes ahead then I'm good. My players are a low-on-planning high-on-hacking lot anyway...    

cheers,


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## jim pinto

spacecrime.com said:
			
		

> That's more or less what I'm doing. Currently running section A, reading section B in detail, leafing through section C.  May have to look ahead to E if the party keeps heading north, but as long as I'm looking five minutes ahead then I'm good. My players are a low-on-planning high-on-hacking lot anyway...
> 
> cheers,




one of the designers is running a bi-weekly game
and he's just cutting out the doors leading north
into Region E because he WANTS the PCs to go east
into Region B.

pretty shrewed

i'll say this much... Region E is very different from what
people are used to in a dungeon crawl and requires a
thorough read. inevitable stronghold.

Region B is lots of traps, goblins, and bugbears

if nothing else, Rooms B109 through B119 are some of my
favorite in the dungeon.


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## Demon Gnome

> one of the designers is running a bi-weekly game
> and he's just cutting out the doors leading north
> into Region E because he WANTS the PCs to go east
> into Region B.
> 
> pretty shrewed




I am doing the exact same thing. I have remapped most of A by hand so I can make notes and so forth and also because I remvoed some of the rooms and corridors I didn't want (mostly empty rooms that I didn't really want). On my maps there are no routes to Region E as I want the players to go through Region B. Actually there are no routes to Region B either as I don't want them to move on until they are ready. They will just conveniently find a secret door shortly after such time as Region A is finished and they are ready leading to Region B.


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## rowport

Jim-

Hey, there!  I am axiously awaiting the arrival on my copy, so I cannot weigh in on content yet.  But, I am really looking forward to running WLD (or, parts of it, at least) and your input into these threads just make me anticipate it more.  Thanks!

-Tom


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## twofalls

jim pinto said:
			
		

> thanks for the kind words, twofalls
> 
> i hope your game goes well




NP, as I said earlier, credit where credit is due, and thanks in return. It's already going well. 

One week from this Friday begins the Sanguine Sentinels annual Game weekend where we rent a cabin and game for three days straight. One of my players is going to run a small Shadowrun Game to introduce some of the others to what is my all time favorite RPG, as well as give me a rare opportunity to play. Other than that the entire weekend will be devoted to delving the WLD and I hope to finish Regions A and B before we are through. I'll give a report on how it went when I get back.


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## jim pinto

*crickets*

it got quiet fast....

btw, there's a review of the WLD online

http://www.silven.com/adnd.asp?case=show&id=406


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## DaveMage

Nice review.

Congratulations, jim (and to all the contributors) - it looks like you have a winner.


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## Fieari

655-3600?


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## twofalls

Demon Gnome said:
			
		

> I remvoed some of the rooms and corridors I didn't want (mostly empty rooms that I didn't really want). On my maps there are no routes to Region E as I want the players to go through Region B.




I'm not removing rooms, rather I'm repopulating the area with more orcs and kobalds, and a few other creatures that I haven't decided on yet. I want to maintian the "Aliens" movie effect of a place under sige by evil outside forces, but there are too many rooms that are either repeats (black mold storerooms for example) or just empty. I'll be leaving in a number of empties though to help with the effect I'm going for.

I've thought about the coridoors and removing them from the game, however I've deicded upon a different approach. I'm going to describe the regions in slighly different ways and just flat out tell the players that the different areas are designed for different character levels. For example region B is described in its into text as a bit warmer, dryer, and more dusty than region A, so the walls there are going to include a lot of unusually dense sandstone in its construction, and the floors are going to glisten with the twinkling of mica, with loose sand built up in were walls and floors meet...

That way if the PC's want to tackle somthing that is more dangerous than they are ready for they have that option (wince). Vetrans of my games will know better... .


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## jim pinto

twofalls said:
			
		

> I'm not removing rooms, rather I'm repopulating the area with more orcs and kobalds, and a few other creatures that I haven't decided on yet. I want to maintian the "Aliens" movie effect of a place under sige by evil outside forces, but there are too many rooms that are either repeats (black mold storerooms for example) or just empty. I'll be leaving in a number of empties though to help with the effect I'm going for.




empty rooms with dead bodies...



note: Region A has the most empty rooms, because first level characters need places to rest. but if you think the PCs can endure more kobold and orc attacks, then saddle up.



			
				twofalls said:
			
		

> I've thought about the coridoors and removing them from the game, however I've deicded upon a different approach. I'm going to describe the regions in slighly different ways and just flat out tell the players that the different areas are designed for different character levels. For example region B is described in its intro text as a bit warmer, dryer, and more dusty than region A, so the walls there are going to include a lot of unusually dense sandstone in its construction, and the floors are going to glisten with the twinkling of mica, with loose sand built up in were walls and floors meet...




the floor and walls could be sunken as well (perhaps it slid 10 or 20 ft. below where it was originally built (soft earth, etc.), so the passages leading to it slope down and earth now slips between cracks in the walls, littering the floor with dirt.

also, whatever water supply existed in this Region has now dwindled to nothing due to the exorbenant amount of goblins.



			
				twofalls said:
			
		

> That way if the PC's want to tackle somthing that is more dangerous than they are ready for they have that option (wince). Veterans of my games will know better... .




i'll have more ideas for you once people actually reach Regions B and E


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## jim pinto

*reposting for your convenience: region a spoilers*

because of the need to NOT discuss spoilers on the other thread,
i'm reposting my original "other ways to use this product" post.

enjoy

Starting with Region A and posting as I see fit, I'm going to be
giving people SPOILERS AND ALTERNATE ENDINGS to Regions.

If you don't want anything spoiled, do not READ THIS.

These Alternate Endings will provide DMs with a new way to use the Region and finish off the climax in an interesting manner that might befit your storytelling style.

In Region A, Longtail is utilizing a portal, bringing forth Fiendish beasts into the dungeon. This is certainly a place of importance if the PCs go north into Region E and explain to the Inevitables there what is going on. This can have far-reaching implications if the PCs fail to close the portal, because this means that more creatures are coming into the dungeon, creating an influx or cretures (positive population growth) that will be hard to stymie.

Now. Since this is a low-level Region, closing the portal can't be too difficult, but DMs willing to make this part of a longer saga, are welcome to increase the DCs involved with closing the portal or place an object in another Region that can close it off. Such "cliched" ideas are not uncommon in dungeon adventures, but we've kept them to a minimum here. Some of the concepts below fit well, because the regions themselves already have built in "artifacts" that can be changed easily without undermining the campaign.

A ward staff from Region E would be perfect for sealing the gate, if the DM doesn't mind backtracking. A not so "clean" answer is a lost drow Relic from the age of Mahir (see page 432 and page 643) in Region I or M. Region C could also house one of Arum's (see page 128) lost trinkets that also closes the rift. Since his magic can do just about anything the DM needs it to do, there's no reason this can't be slipped in.

The chains from Room C21 also work and the blood of the ethereal filcher in Region C makes for a great plot device as well.... if the PCs think of it. [The blood opens the portal on itself, creating a vortex of energy that sucks everything that touches it into nether, so creatures summoned into the prime material plane immediately disappear and vice versa.]

Another possible conclusion is to remove the portal and replace it with a warped wand of summon monster 3 that the imp has tainted and recharges every night while Longtail sleeps. Longtail is unaware of the imp's true plans and in his maddened and unpredictable state continues to bring creatures into the dungeon.

This is relatively straight-forward, doesn't require too much work to impliment, and makes Longtail less of a victim (or more, depending on your POV).

Idea #3. Replace the imp and Longtail with a (fiendish) Chain Devil with the summoning strength of a Osyluth. Instead of fiendish darkmantles throughout the Region, replace them with Lemures and the occasional Bearded or Bone Devil. Of course, PCs fighting a chain devil better have a few orcs in toe as their allies to bring him down. This works really well for groups with 6 PCs.

Of course, such a shift in ecology is sure to scare the pants off of the PCs, so perhaps 1 in 5 darkmantle encounters is really an insane bearded devil lacking the summon and (silly) beard abilities and instead has the Kyton's chain powers and some improved grab/entangle ability. The insane bearded devil should always be enraged.

If the demon prefers demons over devils, use dretch, babau, and a quasit manipulator.

Idea #4 involves a ruptured egg or demon sac that creatures/spawns foul monsters. This can be tied to Region I and M easily for the aberration angle or Regions C and K, for the tainted dragon egg plot hook.

Idea #5. Rumor has it the portal is also an escape, so creatures from Regions E and F have migrated down to Region A to explore (maybe even an elf deserter from Region H). Region B has its own problems and only a handfull of goblins could really make it this far anyway.

Okay.

That's enough for today and certainly enough to scare off any PCs silly enough to read the book before you run it.


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## twofalls

jim pinto said:
			
		

> Idea #3. Replace the imp and Longtail with a (fiendish) Chain Devil with the summoning strength of a Osyluth. Instead of fiendish darkmantles throughout the Region, replace them with Lemures and the occasional Bearded or Bone Devil. Of course, PCs fighting a chain devil better have a few orcs in toe as their allies to bring him down. This works really well for groups with 6 PCs.




Okay, this is inspired and I'm going to run with it. Looking at a Kyton I can see some insurmountable difficulties for a third level party. Keeping in mind that I play 3.0 (I've paid for the the books already damnit) I see that it has a DR of 20/+2, that gets changed to 10/silver. I further see that it has a SR of 17, that gets changed to a 12. I'm going to reduce its chain damage to 1d6+1, but am going to decorate room A103 with hanging chains that are stained with bits of blood and dried entrails and skin (the remnants of Longtail). The story will go that Achsyyx brought Longtail with his humanoids to the dungeon and then to the chapel as the story is written, however the Kyton was the first to emerge. It slew Longtail immediatly and was going to slay the Imp but telepathically recognized that the Imp had a connection with an ArchDevil. So instead of slaying the Achsyyx it has been tormenting him and recieving instructions from this Archfiend who plans to try to find a way to link the open portal with his realm in Hell and send through enough minions to secure the dungeon and win its way to the surface world. (heh heh, I'm enjoying this)

Now the Lemures... they have resistance 5/silver, not impossible for a 1-2nd level group but still tough in numbers. I will stage a room where the Kobalds have been melting thier usless silver pieces (usless in the WLD anyhow) and hammering the metal around thier weapons. Also, a few of the bodies laying about will have these slivered weapons on them. Then I will start to substitute the Lemures for the Darkmantles increasingly until rooms 88 - 92 where not only will I replace them entirely I will add more (nothing like wading through 15 Devils to put a smile on the face of a fighter).

In room 66 I'm going to place a trapped Hound Archon named Lumiere. When the earthquake hit a ward backfired and trapped the Celestial in that room. Helpless he had to watch his charges escape thier bonds and flee into the Dungeon nearly driving him insane. Long tail and Achsyyx discovered him when they were exploring and now that Longtail has been slain the Imp has been returning to taunt and torment Lumiere with the knowledge of what his ArchDevil master has planned for the portal (gloating in true antagonist fashion). This has broken the Archon and he will have to be carefully questioned by the PC's to uncover what is happening within this Region.

Lastly, I'm going to place the key to closing the portal somewhere else in the dungeon, possibly in region B so that the PC's don't have to wait too long to finish this thread and can feel that they are accomplishing some good. Haven't gotten that far yet. <Rubbing hands together> Good stuff Jim, good stuff.


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## twofalls

*Closing the Portal*

Okay, how does this sound. The Golden Griffon Lock that protects the gate (which is going to become a rune encrusted archway rather than a freestanding swirl of maigc) is not protected by abjurations, but rather visible to all, this will be a big clue. When Joyot (the name I gave the Kyton) slays Longtail the golden Griffon Key (the connection to the Golden Griffon lock) is lost, cast away in the tussle to a corner of the room and forgotten. Later a Lemure that comes through the portal finds it and takes it out of the room with him. The Lemure finds its way to region B (will have to make a doorway to Region B... curious, there are lots of easy halls leading to Region E but B is accessable only through secret doors... maybe I should read Region E, it seems more likely they'd go there next) and gets slain by a goblin patrol after a fierce fight. The Key is uncovered and then handed over to the Doppleganger Goblin King as a princely gift...

There is no question that I'm going to have to read region E and come up with something similar there as well. That means prepping three regions for the game weekend. Sigh.


----------



## jim pinto

twofalls said:
			
		

> Okay, this is inspired and I'm going to run with it. Looking at a Kyton I can see some insurmountable difficulties for a third level party. Keeping in mind that I play 3.0 (I've paid for the the books already damnit) I see that it has a DR of 20/+2, that gets changed to 10/silver. I further see that it has a SR of 17, that gets changed to a 12. I'm going to reduce its chain damage to 1d6+1, but am going to decorate room A103 with hanging chains that are stained with bits of blood and dried entrails and skin (the remnants of Longtail). The story will go that Achsyyx brought Longtail with his humanoids to the dungeon and then to the chapel as the story is written, however the Kyton was the first to emerge. It slew Longtail immediatly and was going to slay the Imp but telepathically recognized that the Imp had a connection with an ArchDevil. So instead of slaying the Achsyyx it has been tormenting him and recieving instructions from this Archfiend who plans to try to find a way to link the open portal with his realm in Hell and send through enough minions to secure the dungeon and win its way to the surface world. (heh heh, I'm enjoying this)




i think you needed a better explanation why he didn't kill Achsyyx,
but this is good



			
				twofalls said:
			
		

> Now the Lemures... they have resistance 5/silver, not impossible for a 1-2nd level group but still tough in numbers. I will stage a room where the Kobalds have been melting thier usless silver pieces (usless in the WLD anyhow) and hammering the metal around thier weapons. Also, a few of the bodies laying about will have these slivered weapons on them. Then I will start to substitute the Lemures for the Darkmantles increasingly until rooms 88 - 92 where not only will I replace them entirely I will add more (nothing like wading through 15 Devils to put a smile on the face of a fighter).




oh crap, that's a lot of fighting

have the kobold's crude silver weapons only last for 2d6 attacks



			
				twofalls said:
			
		

> In room 66 I'm going to place a trapped Hound Archon named Lumiere. When the earthquake hit a ward backfired and trapped the Celestial in that room. Helpless he had to watch his charges escape thier bonds and flee into the Dungeon nearly driving him insane. Long tail and Achsyyx discovered him when they were exploring and now that Longtail has been slain the Imp has been returning to taunt and torment Lumiere with the knowledge of what his ArchDevil master has planned for the portal (gloating in true antagonist fashion). This has broken the Archon and he will have to be carefully questioned by the PC's to uncover what is happening within this Region.




Read about the inevitables in Region E and see if you wouldn't
rather have one of them in there instead. if the PCs have an archon
on their side, the Kyton better be a lot tougher



			
				twofalls said:
			
		

> Lastly, I'm going to place the key to closing the portal somewhere else in the dungeon, possibly in region B so that the PC's don't have to wait too long to finish this thread and can feel that they are accomplishing some good. Haven't gotten that far yet. <Rubbing hands together> Good stuff Jim, good stuff.




see room C103, C104, and C105 (the second one) for a really cool key


----------



## twofalls

jim pinto said:
			
		

> i think you needed a better explanation why he didn't kill Achsyy




Why? If the Kyton needs the Imp to be able to communicate to the ArchDevil that seems reason enough.




			
				 jim pinto said:
			
		

> have the kobold's crude silver weapons only last for 2d6 attacks




This depends on how many I put into the game. I don't think that many of the silvered weapons would have been finished since the creatures from the portal attacked without warning and decimated the ranks of the humanoids. But I have to place enough of that the PC's find at least some of them before being mobbed by Lemures. If they find a lot of them then I agree, if not...



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> if the PCs have an archon
> on their side, the Kyton better be a lot tougher




If by this you mean fighting on thier side, FAT CHANCE. The Archon remains trapped regardless, the PC's wont have the option to free it. Its purpose is vital as a font of info, but its derranged state of mind will make it entertaining to roleplay it out.



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> see room C103, C104, and C105 (both) for a really cool key




For the benefit of those of you following this thread, pp. 168 and 169 feature those rooms with three D20 charts of random keys, and yup, some of them are quite cool.


----------



## twofalls

*A Promise*

I'm burning the midnight oil here and putting to type the personalizing touches for region A going into my next game session. In retrospect I find that I'm making fewer additions to the number of creatures present than I had first thought was needed. The Region isn't as loosely populated as my first impression made it out to be <nod to Jim>. The changes to the story by adding Joyot (the Kyton) and the Lemures have me anticipating the next session a great deal.

In region A rooms 57 - 77 I've decided to make a hunting ground. My take is that the humanoids fled to this region in order to hide in the rubble from the fiends, so that is the one area I've increased the population dramatically. I've worked up an encounter chart for that area and increased the number of random encounters to represent the fiends who are hunting there.

1) 8 Lemures picking through the rubble.
2) 6 orcs searching for a hiding space - they are terrified and run from a fight if possible. If the reason this encounter is rolled due to combat noise they flee and there is no random encounter.
3) 3 Fiendish Albadian Battle Dogs
4) Fiendish Gibbering Mouther (spittle causes Darkness for 10 rds not flare) - make sure your party is strong enough, this is a CR - 5 critter... it might be wounded
5) Fiendish rat swarm... large (22 hp)
6) Stadz the wandering Kobald... Stadz is in shock, he watched his freinds become shredded and partly consumed by Fiends and fled the scene. This has resulted in a loss of his wits. He has wandered into the area randomly and no longer recognizes anyone round him as a threat, having retreated into a moblie coma state. He will follow if led, and will only come to if confronted by Lemures and then will scream loudly and flee. He is a skilled scout (sneak +8) and might make a good ally if brought around (or possible PC).


----------



## Demon Gnome

Game 2: The group initially finds a relatively safe room and spends a few days with bouts of Filth Fever and Devil Chills. After recovering they move on and after a little exploration they encountered the kobolds, which they promptly took down (sleep spell took out half the kobolds to start). After a short rest from that they moved on and after awhile they encountered the main group of orcs. Again the dwarf doesn't compromise and so attacked them on sight. After a large fight, the final two orcs finally surrendered. Tying up their prisonsers and interrogating them a little they find out about their leader OrGhar. They goto the next room to find OrGhar sitting in a corner, apparently catatonic. They try what they can to get him to respond for a while but he doesn't ... until one player goes to one of the orc prisoners and asked them if they would be willing to join them (dwarf was out of the room intentionally so as to avoid "conflict"). Of course OrGhar would have none of that and snapped out of his state and attacked, both ragins and full power attack. He dropped two players (who did survive) quickly before he was finally taken down. They needed a serious rest after that and afterwards moved on spending the rest of the night dealing with fiendish darkmantles after fiendish darkmantles after fiendish darkmantles. Eventually they learned to check the ceilings of the rooms. Now they have adapted and the darkmantles aren't as much as a threat as before. (Will likely replace the few left with some other fiendish type of creature.)

Oh yeah, they encountered the stirge 'nest' and smartly decided to close the door and move on. The dwarf got recruited to check the doors for traps by walking through them since he could take the most punishment. (The rogue couldn't show up this week)


----------



## twofalls

*Daring Dwarf*

He volunteered to be a trap detector? Thats unprecedented in my experience. I'd be torn between punishing him for his foolishness and wanting to reward him for his bravery and sacrifice


----------



## haiiro

jim pinto said:
			
		

> Idea #3. Replace the imp and Longtail with a (fiendish) Chain Devil with the summoning strength of a Osyluth. Instead of fiendish darkmantles throughout the Region, replace them with Lemures and the occasional Bearded or Bone Devil. Of course, PCs fighting a chain devil better have a few orcs in toe as their allies to bring him down. This works really well for groups with 6 PCs.




jim, I really like the devils and demons angle as well -- thanks.  One of the things that appealed to me about WLD is that I've been itching to run a game that's heavy on those two groups, since I've never really used them before in a campaign. With Green Ronin's Book of Fiends on hand, plus the oodles of demons and devils in the MMs and Tome of Horrors II, there's plenty of source material, and the whole dungeon is already steeped in the celestial/infernal struggle thing to begin with.




			
				twofalls said:
			
		

> Now the Lemures... they have resistance 5/silver, not impossible for a 1-2nd level group but still tough in numbers. I will stage a room where the Kobalds have been melting thier usless silver pieces (usless in the WLD anyhow) and hammering the metal around thier weapons. Also, a few of the bodies laying about will have these slivered weapons on them.




As for the silvered weapons, that's a really clever approach, twofalls. I've been thinking about the issue of monetary treasure -- and even mundane treasure with monetary value -- because I don't get the impression that the PCs get a chance to leave the dungeon and go shopping. 

If that's the case, then most of the mundane treasure becomes just so much dungeon dressing, unless it's tied into the plot -- or has alternate uses, like making silvered weapons. Cool.


----------



## twofalls

haiiro said:
			
		

> As for the silvered weapons, that's a really clever approach, twofalls. I've been thinking about the issue of monetary treasure -- and even mundane treasure with monetary value -- because I don't get the impression that the PCs get a chance to leave the dungeon and go shopping.




Thanks haiiro. I've been thinking the same thing regarding the real value of monetary treasures. To a man dying of thirst a golden cup is worthless but he water inside is priceless. I decided to add in a bit more treasure to Region A since I've been adding Devils and such, and for one orc the random generation of treasure came up with a 1000gp diamond. For something found on the body of an already dead Orc I'd typcially toss this... but I decided that since there is no practical use for it I'd keep it and see how the PC's reacted.

If it helps at all, here is my room description for the silvering process...

A39) WEAPONSMITH WORKSHOP – The door is closed and locked with wooden planks on the other side bracing the door closed (cannot be disabled, DC 18 Str. to break down). The forge here isn't ruined as in the original text, rather this is the Kobold armory that is making the makeshift silvered weapons used against the Lumures. The furnace has been stoked up with furniture wood that has been burnt down to coals, and a crucible has been hung to melt silver pieces into liquid. Weapons are then dipped into the molten metal and cooled, then hammered and polished into shape. The results are crude, but effective.

Inside the room are 9 Kobold warriors led by a champion named Sliss.

Sliss – Lvl 4 warrior, HP: 16, Att: +3/+5, (Masterwork silvered Half Spear/Lt. Xbow) AC : 17 (shield) * note: the silvering process has ruined the +1 status of the spear

Warriors – HP: 2 ea, Att: -1/+2, (Half Spear/Lt. Xbow), AC: 15

On the table near the forge is a pile of 282 sp. while the crucible contains 1lb of melted silver worth 50gp. The chest from room A43 has been relocated to here and now only contains the 152 gp.


----------



## twofalls

I have a rave and a couple of rants about section E. I've read the first third of it at this point, and am enjoying the ideas in it a great deal. The Portriat rooms I'm particuarly impressed with (E14 - 16). I understand that it's just dungeon dressing, but its little touches like this that make a setting really come alive and I was very impressed to find that level of detail here. Kudos Jim (or which ever one of your writers did these rooms).

There is a large area of emtpy rooms lacking any description to be found on the map between the Barghest lairs and the Celestrial Formian hive. There is a similar area of empty rooms on the other side of the map though I haven't read that far yet, I can just see that they are unkeyed. I'll have to find somthing to plug in there to detail out those empty rooms or the pacing of the adventure will be destroyed as my group examines empty room after empty room. I'm open to suggestions on what to do with these areas. The other option of course is to simply eliminate the rooms, but I find this option distasteful particuarly since I'll have to modify the map as I draw it out for the players. Also, room E44 is not keyed on the map. Its not difficult to deduce where its supposed to be however.

Also curious, are the Formians who are described as dead in thier cells these past two centuries since the first earthquake. They were attacked by unidentifed assailants, merely described as non-insectoid in room E31. Who were these mystery attackers, are they important in any way to the story (even if they aren't they are... as all the little pieces make the overall story congruent)? Is it going to matter if the attackers are described as demons, devils, orcs, or smurfs?


----------



## jim pinto

Fieari said:
			
		

> 655-3600?




what does this mean?


----------



## twofalls

The reviewer you posted the link to suggested a formula based on 16's to caluclate your phone number...


----------



## Lonely Tylenol

twofalls said:
			
		

> Thanks haiiro. I've been thinking the same thing regarding the real value of monetary treasures. To a man dying of thirst a golden cup is worthless but he water inside is priceless. I decided to add in a bit more treasure to Region A since I've been adding Devils and such, and for one orc the random generation of treasure came up with a 1000gp diamond. For something found on the body of an already dead Orc I'd typcially toss this... but I decided that since there is no practical use for it I'd keep it and see how the PC's reacted.




That's a spell component if I ever saw one...


----------



## jim pinto

twofalls said:
			
		

> I have a rave and a couple of rants about section E. I've read the first third of it at this point, and am enjoying the ideas in it a great deal. The Portriat rooms I'm particuarly impressed with (E14 - 16). I understand that it's just dungeon dressing, but its little touches like this that make a setting really come alive and I was very impressed to find that level of detail here. Kudos Jim (or which ever one of your writers did these rooms).




lee hammock did some wonderful stuff in here.

i'm really pleased about how he brought it all together

i especially like the barghest factions and the level of detail
of the major NPCs. lee strikes me as a full DM who likes to
add details to important characters.

where Region A (written by Michael Hammes) is very much what
a first level adventure is supposed to be, the conditions of Region E
should really surprise the PCs. there's a great deal of internal
consistency there, with creatures only being concerned about
Region I... however, depending on the DM, the inevitables can
be concerned about whatever Region the DM wants the PCs to
go to next.

if Region A is filled with the kyton, lemure, osyluth series discussed
earlier, a lot of garrisons/patrols will take place in the southern
portion of Region E



			
				twofalls said:
			
		

> There is a large area of emtpy rooms lacking any description to be found on the map between the Barghest lairs and the Celestrial Formian hive. There is a similar area of empty rooms on the other side of the map though I haven't read that far yet, I can just see that they are unkeyed. I'll have to find somthing to plug in there to detail out those empty rooms or the pacing of the adventure will be destroyed as my group examines empty room after empty room. I'm open to suggestions on what to do with these areas. The other option of course is to simply eliminate the rooms, but I find this option distasteful particuarly since I'll have to modify the map as I draw it out for the players. Also, room E44 is not keyed on the map. Its not difficult to deduce where its supposed to be however.




the rooms provide a buffer zone for the creatures. while they may lair
here from time to time, the barghests know they can't maintain everything,
especially since the competition for space is so high.

and because the same encounter over and over against with barghests and shadows would have been silly, these are great rooms for the DM to have random encounters, duplicate monster encounters, or some impossible series of creatures that cannot be killed.

consider mujina in japanese folklore.

they still haunt and pester the other creatures, but cannot be harmed by weapons (100% incorporeal miss chance)

they move items around and perplex the very LAWFUL inevitables who cannot grok what these beasts are. the DM can then said the PCs on a mission to get rid of them. especially, if they came through the fiendish portal in Region A



			
				twofalls said:
			
		

> Also curious, are the Formians who are described as dead in thier cells these past two centuries since the first earthquake. They were attacked by unidentifed assailants, merely described as non-insectoid in room E31. Who were these mystery attackers, are they important in any way to the story (even if they aren't they are... as all the little pieces make the overall story congruent)? Is it going to matter if the attackers are described as demons, devils, orcs, or smurfs?




this is an example of us stealing from Ed Greenwood's style... poorly

ed's adventures always have that inexplicable dagger hidden in a pillar
that have nothing to do with anything (like Room N223), but seem to
add SOOO MUCH flavor that you can't help but put it in. the DM is free
to do whatever he likes with these formians, or even change them to
demon prisoners.

because there IS a really large insect contingent in the Region, the
dead formians could have had these creatures "chest-burst" out
of them centuries ago, still feeding off the detritus of the Region,
growing with each decade.

that's just off the top of my head, though, so unless you want me to
go back and read the region (please don't ask me to read it again),
maybe someone who is reading it now can link the concepts together
better than i can.

hope this helps


----------



## twofalls

No, I like the Formians, they are unusual and go a long way in explaining how such a large area could have been held under gaurd for so long. My main concern was story coherance. If I chose an ememy such as demons (which is what I will choose) to have slain the colony only to find out that choosing them screwed a storyline somewhere else in the dungeon I wouldn't have been very happy. The book is so large I'll be running large chunks of it in ignorance of the goings on in other areas of the complex. 

I don't like the idea of each Formian cell containing bodies in the pose of combat on the floor, that doesn't make the defense of the colony flow right to me. Rather I think the front rooms will show signs of the Formians fighting off a suprise attack with lots of overwhelmed dead, and the cells further in indicating that the majority of them were mercilessy slain in thier sleeping holes in the walls of their cells while a handful of guards attempted to defend them. The enemy bodies can be the husks of low end demons, and maybe one or two middling demons.

Thanks for the input. I'll post the ideas I use for the open areas when I figure it out.


----------



## jim pinto

twofalls said:
			
		

> No, I like the Formians, they are unusual and go a long way in explaining how such a large area could have been held under gaurd for so long. My main concern was story coherance. If I chose an ememy such as demons (which is what I will choose) to have slain the colony only to find out that choosing them screwed a storyline somewhere else in the dungeon I wouldn't have been very happy. The book is so large I'll be running large chunks of it in ignorance of the goings on in other areas of the complex.




there are formians in Region D... whether or not they are related
is up to you. the spoiler for Region D is too good to post even on
this site... but they are digging to something important



			
				twofalls said:
			
		

> I don't like the idea of each Formian cell containing bodies in the pose of combat on the floor, that doesn't make the defense of the colony flow right to me. Rather I think the front rooms will show signs of the Formians fighting off a suprise attack with lots of overwhelmed dead, and the cells further in indicating that the majority of them were mercilessy slain in thier sleeping holes in the walls of their cells while a handful of guards attempted to defend them. The enemy bodies can be the husks of low end demons, and maybe one or two middling demons.




if the formians served the celestials (long ago),
then they would have nothing to do with the formians
in Region D



			
				twofalls said:
			
		

> Thanks for the input. I'll post the ideas I use for the open areas when I figure it out.




hope that helps


----------



## Lee Hammock

*Section E*



			
				twofalls said:
			
		

> There is a large area of emtpy rooms lacking any description to be found on the map between the Barghest lairs and the Celestrial Formian hive. There is a similar area of empty rooms on the other side of the map though I haven't read that far yet, I can just see that they are unkeyed. I'll have to find somthing to plug in there to detail out those empty rooms or the pacing of the adventure will be destroyed as my group examines empty room after empty room. I'm open to suggestions on what to do with these areas. The other option of course is to simply eliminate the rooms, but I find this option distasteful particuarly since I'll have to modify the map as I draw it out for the players. Also, room E44 is not keyed on the map. Its not difficult to deduce where its supposed to be however.
> 
> Also curious, are the Formians who are described as dead in thier cells these past two centuries since the first earthquake. They were attacked by unidentifed assailants, merely described as non-insectoid in room E31. Who were these mystery attackers, are they important in any way to the story (even if they aren't they are... as all the little pieces make the overall story congruent)? Is it going to matter if the attackers are described as demons, devils, orcs, or smurfs?




Glad you liked section E!  Jim really let me run wild with that section and I'm glad the results make sense.  

As for the empty rooms I left some wiggle room between factions to give them some space.  If I remember correctly the shadows are actually in control of the formia section due to how the doors fall.  Since there isn't much for the shadows to eat in that region I figured they mostly ignored it, but there could be all kinda of ambushes set up by Seraxes in that region.  Alternately maybe some of the barghests got chased into that region by shadows and are trying to hide out until they can rest up and try to break up.  Or if you want to have one of the celestials out hunting shadows, that would be a good area for the PCs to run into them.  

Intially I wrote up an encounter for EVERY room in section E, but went way over my word count.  If people are interested I could post some of the rooms that got cut for use as general filler rooms.  

The attackers who killed the celestial formians were demons who boiled up from below after the second earthquake.  But hey, it could have been smurfs.  They're crafty.  You try outsmarting Gargamel on a weekly basis when you're three apples high.

Of course the formian queen was stabbed in the back by one of her own formians, but he was mind controlled, so we can't really blame him.  I'm glad the formians came across well; the concept of an army of divinely powered super ants fighting evil was too cool to pass up.


----------



## twofalls

As a matter of fact Lee, I'd really like to see your additional material. As a GM I'm completly unconcerned about your alloted word count.  My problem is that I have four days now to finish completing section A, and prep section E before my groups three day annual game weekend is upon me. I'm lavishing a lot of attention on Region A rewriting it to make sure that my players are caught up and drawn into this setting, and thus other than having read "Region E" I just know I won't have it ready.

Ideas like room E14 and E15 I'd be particuarly interested in... but if you have any of the material you wrote for the other rooms GREAT! Post what you want, and feel free to send me whatever you are comfortable with to jamesbeadle@sanguinesentinels. In return I promise to credit you to my group after they play it out and tell you how things went.


----------



## twofalls

er... thats jamesbeadle@sanguinesentinels.com...


----------



## JoeGKushner

So what are everybodies favorite sections?

I'm thinking N for me. The sheer size of it and the number of cool encounters are way cool.

The other one is, I think, off the top of my head, H. The elves and their tree man. Good stuff and lots of rp potential.


----------



## shadoe

This thread more than anything else has made me decide to pick this book up, even though I don't know when I will take the time to try and use it. It sounds truely wonderfull.


----------



## jim pinto

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> So what are everybodies favorite sections?
> 
> I'm thinking N for me. The sheer size of it and the number of cool encounters are way cool.
> 
> The other one is, I think, off the top of my head, H. The elves and their tree man. Good stuff and lots of rp potential.




john zinser loves the tree

my favorite regions are C, D, G, and N

but don't ask me to pick a favorite



btw... wasn't that crimson fellow from the other list
going to ask some questions about how to get through
Region D ?!?!?!


----------



## Demon Gnome

Took me a bit to find the Tarrasque as well, until I realized it wasn't near the end as many would think. The next problem was that it turned out to be in a region off the route I already had planned for the players. As much as I would love to use it, I can't see a simple way to change routes that way, so will continue with my original plan which was A, B, C or D, G, K, J, N, N, O. Haven't decided between C or D yet as I like C better, but I love the "Ex-Minotaur Elf" part =P.


----------



## twofalls

What about player maps as a second product? Bundle all the edited maps together and sell them as player maps, or as maps that an GM can take and use in thier own games? There are other products like that out there (Wizards Map Folio's come to mind). If the retail price can be contained to $20 - $25 and still be profitable to AEG, might that be an option...?


----------



## jim pinto

Demon Gnome said:
			
		

> Took me a bit to find the Tarrasque as well, until I realized it wasn't near the end as many would think. The next problem was that it turned out to be in a region off the route I already had planned for the players. As much as I would love to use it, I can't see a simple way to change routes that way, so will continue with my original plan which was A, B, C or D, G, K, J, N, N, O. Haven't decided between C or D yet as I like C better, but I love the "Ex-Minotaur Elf" part =P.




holy crap. did you read the whole thing already?

the minotaur/elf thing was one of fred yandt's concept's
that remained after he dropped out of the project and gave
his notes to farrese... it was originally a halfling, but i hate
halflings and elf deserters from region H are common

yes. Region D is hard to get to, because its really a climax
to the dungeon in its own right.

DMs that take a course TO region D are ending the campaign early.

Although A, B, C, G, H, D is a fairly obvious route
that allows DMs to run the dungeon quickly

and run again using the E, F, J, N, O route for a
second campaign

E, F, G, K, L, O is also a possibility

as if E, I, M

its my belief that most groups will go A, E, F, J, K, L, O

but we'll see


----------



## JoeGKushner

Demon Gnome said:
			
		

> Took me a bit to find the Tarrasque as well, until I realized it wasn't near the end as many would think. The next problem was that it turned out to be in a region off the route I already had planned for the players. As much as I would love to use it, I can't see a simple way to change routes that way, so will continue with my original plan which was A, B, C or D, G, K, J, N, N, O. Haven't decided between C or D yet as I like C better, but I love the "Ex-Minotaur Elf" part =P.




Well, one quick giveaway is the level progression. From A to C flows kinda of logically but you see D on the interior map and you're like... "Okay... something odd there.... especially since you can't get there from C...." Then again, I could be wrong, going form memory without the book here. I just remember that one of the maps seemed way off on power level when going from left to right, bottom to top.


----------



## OblivionsLot

Howdy,

I'm getting ready to start running WLD this Wednesday and beyond a little pre-game jitters I've got a question that's been weighing on my mind with no clear answer.

This will be the first time our group is using miniatures for play.  Now we've been gaming for quite a while now, but this will be new for us - minatures have never really been a draw.  But after seeing the layout for WLD on the AEG website, I thought it'd be a good idea.  I already have a bunch of the Wizkids dungeon tiles and tons of figures, so it should work okay.  But then I read the bit about the map scale in WLD.  It says the scale is 1 square = 5 feet, but we recommend doubling it.

So GMs who've started running already, what scale did you end up using and which do you perfer?  I may have to scoop up some more tiles if I go with 1 sq = 10 ft (or buy a mat, but that's not nearly as cool) but I'd like to find out how others feel about it.  My group will have six party members, if that's any influence on the call between 5 and 10.

And jim, the question for you is: Why double?


----------



## jim pinto

OblivionsLot said:
			
		

> Howdy,
> 
> I'm getting ready to start running WLD this Wednesday and beyond a little pre-game jitters I've got a question that's been weighing on my mind with no clear answer.
> 
> This will be the first time our group is using miniatures for play.  Now we've been gaming for quite a while now, but this will be new for us - minatures have never really been a draw.  But after seeing the layout for WLD on the AEG website, I thought it'd be a good idea.  I already have a bunch of the Wizkids dungeon tiles and tons of figures, so it should work okay.  But then I read the bit about the map scale in WLD.  It says the scale is 1 square = 5 feet, but we recommend doubling it.
> 
> So GMs who've started running already, what scale did you end up using and which do you perfer?  I may have to scoop up some more tiles if I go with 1 sq = 10 ft (or buy a mat, but that's not nearly as cool) but I'd like to find out how others feel about it.  My group will have six party members, if that's any influence on the call between 5 and 10.
> 
> And jim, the question for you is: Why double?




for logic only... it gives the monsters more room, and thus makes the environment more livable (why would someone cram himself into a small
room when he doesn't have to)

it also increases the distance between monsters

from a hack n slash perspective, 5 ft. is better, because it forces
people to be a little more tactical and less exploitive of the OPEN
SPACE

two cents and change


----------



## twofalls

We kept the scale at 5' for simple mapping purposes. As long as we have to hand draw the sucker, 5' squares saves room on a pad of grid paper.

I've been in contact with Lee, the author of Region E. He's sent me the notes that he had on all the rooms in that region that were dropped by Jim in the final product due to page limitations. I have permission from him to give them to anyone who wants them, so until I can figure out how to post them in file format to this forum just email me at jamesbeadle@sanguinesentinels.com and I will send them off to you.

I've rewritten them to fit my game, but will send out the originals.


----------



## Lee Hammock

twofalls said:
			
		

> I've been in contact with Lee, the author of Region E. He's sent me the notes that he had on all the rooms in that region that were dropped by Jim in the final product due to page limitations.




Just to be clear most of that material Jim never saw.  I wrote way over my word count (about 28K words over) and cut it down myself before showing it to Jim.  It was my mistake for going way over my assigned wordage.  But hey, now you all get to benefit from my mistake.

Lee


----------



## DaveMage

Lee Hammock said:
			
		

> Just to be clear most of that material Jim never saw.  I wrote way over my word count (about 28K words over) and cut it down myself before showing it to Jim.  It was my mistake for going way over my assigned wordage.  But hey, now you all get to benefit from my mistake.
> 
> Lee




That's very generous of you - THANKS!


----------



## jim pinto

*Region B or E spoilers*

I know everyone is hard at work, digesting this book, but please let me know if you're ready for alternate plots for Regions B and E and I'll post them on here.


----------



## haiiro

jim pinto said:
			
		

> I know everyone is hard at work, digesting this book, but please let me know if you're ready for alternate plots for Regions B and E and I'll post them on here.




I'm most of the way through reading B, so chalk me up for some alternate plots. Seeing some of the comments here has made me want to skip around, so my reading's been a bit less focused lately.


----------



## twofalls

Sure, send the new ideas Jim... but there is no freaking way I'm going to change things after today's seven hour editing session...


----------



## CrimsonScribe

jim pinto said:
			
		

> btw... wasn't that crimson fellow from the other list
> going to ask some questions about how to get through
> Region D ?!?!?!




That I was, but I decided sleep was more important.

So my question was in Region D, I'm assuming the players are required to use their own "talents" to get from D1 to D2 as they are spereated by 40-50 feet of molten lava - not something I want to be "swimming" through even if you do only take 6d6 instead of the usual 20d6.

Also, curiousity got the better of me and I skipped to the end of Region A to find out more about Longtail.  Upon seeing his stat block, I assume players aren't meant to clear Region A before moving onto either Region B or Region E as a CR7 critter seems a tad troublesome for a party that is only meant to level twice in the region.

P.S. If it doesn't show, I'm a very infrequent DM - in fact that last time I DM'ed was under 2e rules so I'm quite rusty, though I have been playing regularly under 3e and 3.5e.


----------



## twofalls

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> Also, curiousity got the better of me and I skipped to the end of Region A to find out more about Longtail.  Upon seeing his stat block, I assume players aren't meant to clear Region A before moving onto either Region B or Region E as a CR7 critter seems a tad troublesome for a party that is only meant to level twice in the region.




If you've GMed a lot under 1/2e you should to fine here. If you have typcial group of 4 PC's comprising the party and they are in relativly good health then they stand a fair chance against Longtail due to the spells he has availible to him. Also, smart PC's are going to have missilers of thier own holding action to fire on Longtail when he casts spells to try to spoil them (hence his reliance on the sheild spell).

His two dangerous combat spells are sleep and magic missile, if the party is really unlucky they might succumb to those. The MM is particuarly dangerous to low level spellcasters as they have few hit points and as a 7th level caster Longtail gets three missiles. Since he is a sorcerer he can cast them both over and over again. You can counter this by the way you play Longtail. If you notice his others spells are defensive in nature and the text itself points out that he isn't excited about fighting for this real estate since things havn't gone his way. If the PC's get one or two good hits (and they should) on him then he will cloak in invisibility and leave... to haunt them later?

The spoiler is Achyyx, invisible flying poision is nothing to scoff at when you are third level. If you have a minimal party you may want to reconsider if the Imp wants to fight this fight. Maybe he holds off and lurks to see how his master fares, his orders are to keep the portal open at all costs. If Longtail wipes out the party without him having to risk his red hide then great... If the party drives Longtail away then he can attack and your group is only dealing with thier opponents one at a time.

Just some ideas...


----------



## Demon Gnome

> Originally Posted by CrimsonScribe
> 
> Also, curiousity got the better of me and I skipped to the end of Region A to find out more about Longtail. Upon seeing his stat block, I assume players aren't meant to clear Region A before moving onto either Region B or Region E as a CR7 critter seems a tad troublesome for a party that is only meant to level twice in the region.




Just because something's CR is a ways above the group, doesn't mean it isn't doable. A lvl 3 group vs a EL 3 basically means they expend like 1/4(?) of their resources .... something a ways higher means they have to expend a lot more of their resources all at once.

Example: Our group recently encountered the main group of orcs at level 2. Though the EL was like 5 or 6, they were pretty rested at the time,and managed to handle the orcs well. Unfortunately the next encounter was the orc leader of a similiar EL, maybe 5 or so, don't have book handy. Because they were weakened from the previous fight, the one orc nearly wiped them out. (Raging orc with power attacks +5 hurts =P)


----------



## jim pinto

Demon Gnome said:
			
		

> Just because something's CR is a ways above the group, doesn't mean it isn't doable. A lvl 3 group vs a EL 3 basically means they expend like 1/4(?) of their resources .... something a ways higher means they have to expend a lot more of their resources all at once.
> 
> Example: Our group recently encountered the main group of orcs at level 2. Though the EL was like 5 or 6, they were pretty rested at the time,and managed to handle the orcs well. Unfortunately the next encounter was the orc leader of a similiar EL, maybe 5 or so, don't have book handy. Because they were weakened from the previous fight, the one orc nearly wiped them out. (Raging orc with power attacks +5 hurts =P)




which is precisely what's supposed to happen



that's a good challenge in my opinion... and an excellently written encounter

haha

thanks, twofalls for the post

and crimson... getting from D1 to D2 is as simple as a fly spell,
something i suspect a group of 12th level PCs might have handy

just a guess.


----------



## Mouseferatu

Lee Hammock said:
			
		

> Just to be clear most of that material Jim never saw.  I wrote way over my word count (about 28K words over) and cut it down myself before showing it to Jim.  It was my mistake for going way over my assigned wordage.  But hey, now you all get to benefit from my mistake.
> 
> Lee




_28K over word count?!?!?!?!?!_    

Jumpin' Jethro on a jet ski, man! People said _I_ was insane for going 12K over on the WotC project I'm just now wrapping up!

(To say nothing of the fact that I was able to shuffle around much of that to be useful elsewhere, meaning I may only have to cut a few K...)

How on earth... Jeez, I can't even imagine.   

If you don't mind my asking, what was your official count on the book? What does 28K over come to in terms of percentages?


----------



## CrimsonScribe

jim pinto said:
			
		

> and crimson... getting from D1 to D2 is as simple as a fly spell, something i suspect a group of 12th level PCs might have handy
> 
> just a guess.




It's been a VERY long time since I was in control of a 12th level character - most of them have major problems living past 5th or 6th - but I thought as much.

I have other questions pertaining to this section, but there's no need to ask them yet as I'm many months from playing the region out.


----------



## jim pinto

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> _28K over word count?!?!?!?!?!_
> 
> Jumpin' Jethro on a jet ski, man! People said _I_ was insane for going 12K over on the WotC project I'm just now wrapping up!
> 
> (To say nothing of the fact that I was able to shuffle around much of that to be useful elsewhere, meaning I may only have to cut a few K...)
> 
> How on earth... Jeez, I can't even imagine.
> 
> If you don't mind my asking, what was your official count on the book? What does 28K over come to in terms of percentages?




lee wrote 42k, 69k with stat blocks the 28k would have put it at 97k
of the 920k in the book, that's over 10%... which is why we had to trim it down

as it stands 69k was too long, but luckily, some of the other regions
(K, L, M) are shorter and took up some of the slack

and ari... you are mad


----------



## Mouseferatu

jim pinto said:
			
		

> lee wrote 42k, 69k with stat blocks the 28k would have put it at 97k
> of the 920k in the book, that's over 10%... which is why we had to trim it down
> 
> as it stands 69k was too long, but luckily, some of the other regions
> (K, L, M) are shorter and took up some of the slack
> 
> and ari... you are mad




I'm not mad. I'm just insufficiently medicated. 

So he wrote an extra 28K of what was essentially a 42K assignment? Holy Hana...

In either case, though I'm looking to forward to seeing this book once I get my own copy. I want to see how you folks finished up the section I began--but more to the point, I just want to see how it all hangs together.


----------



## Lee Hammock

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> I'm not mad. I'm just insufficiently medicated.
> 
> So he wrote an extra 28K of what was essentially a 42K assignment? Holy Hana...
> 
> In either case, though I'm looking to forward to seeing this book once I get my own copy. I want to see how you folks finished up the section I began--but more to the point, I just want to see how it all hangs together.




Yeah, I tend to overwrite stuff by quite a bit.  Since I'm working as a freelancer ful time now I've been trying to do that less.  No sense in writing what's never going to get me pizza or rent money.


----------



## twofalls

You blokes tryin to hijack this thread?!?  ...


----------



## jmucchiello

twofalls said:
			
		

> Thanks haiiro. I've been thinking the same thing regarding the real value of monetary treasures. To a man dying of thirst a golden cup is worthless but he water inside is priceless. I decided to add in a bit more treasure to Region A since I've been adding Devils and such, and for one orc the random generation of treasure came up with a 1000gp diamond. For something found on the body of an already dead Orc I'd typcially toss this... but I decided that since there is no practical use for it I'd keep it and see how the PC's reacted.



Man, this thread makes me want to buy this silly book even though I know I'll never play it. But this post made me curious: How many Wizards with spellbooks can be found in the dungeons? If the party is not supposed to leave and come back, how often does the Wizard find a stash of spells so he can add more than just his standard 2 spells to his spellbooks each level? Is this handled at all?


----------



## DaveMage

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> Man, this thread makes me want to buy this silly book even though I know I'll never play it.




Buy it!  BUY IT!

Conform!  Conform!


----------



## jim pinto

*spellbooks*



			
				jmucchiello said:
			
		

> Man, this thread makes me want to buy this silly book even though I know I'll never play it. But this post made me curious: How many Wizards with spellbooks can be found in the dungeons? If the party is not supposed to leave and come back, how often does the Wizard find a stash of spells so he can add more than just his standard 2 spells to his spellbooks each level? Is this handled at all?




there's an entire sidebar on page 12 dedicated to just this topic
with suggestions for the DM, as well as hints on how to make it
work.

some people have noticed the lack of treasure in Region A
and this is intentional. DMs should feel free to drop a few scrolls
for wizards (if there are any in the group), somewhere in the
Region, and let the dungeon self correct this problem as the PCs
advance. there's a spellbook in Region E, another in Region F,
an incredibly powerful one in Region C, two more in Region D,
at least one in Region G... and by this point, the PCs should have
more spells then they can ever use.

Region I and M also have some twisted spells and Region N has the most obnoxious list of magic in the dungeon.

once again, i've over answered a question

sorry about that


----------



## Demon Gnome

Actually in Region A alone I know of one spellbook and a few of scrolls scattered here and there. getting more spells for wizards isn't as nearly complicated as trying item creation while adventuring without a source of raw materials.


----------



## jim pinto

*important errata, region A*

on page 46, boyikt (the kobold wizard) has a spellbook with web in it.

replace web with cat's grace
and have him cast web at the beginning of combat from a scroll of web

or get rid of it all together

sorry for the confusion

this one slipped past us in editing.


----------



## twofalls

Your only limitation is your imagination. Add what you want, remove what you don't like, the same 'ol line that has been put into the front of countless modules and rpg books since the late 1970's. Much to the amusement of a certain line editor I've rewritten A almost entirely for my group, and have added a lot of treasure bits here and there that are little more then dungeon dressing, with a few notable exceptons.

Region A is lackluster when it comes to PC rewards, however when viewed in the metagame the designers had no way of anticipating what type of magical gear or treasure items would most benefit your specific party of adventurers. So they wisely left that up to the fool who plans to run his group through this entire monster...  Trust me when I say that if you go into region E from A, you will need to gear up your group by adding appropriate PC pumps into A. That is if you intend for them to survive for very long. I particuarly suggest healing potions for post Trap trauma.


----------



## jim pinto

*Region B, spoilers and new concepts*

If you don't want anything spoiled, do not READ THIS.

In Region B, the goblins are engaged in a holy war with rebel goblins and the goblin king is harranged at every turn by renegade bugbears. All the while, traps in every corner of the Region have forced various races to live in a smaller portion of the dungeon. A maze to the south, and the killing zone in the east central portion of the region, have become home to some very nasty undead. Vargouilles, ghouls, ghasts, and blink dogs are part of the stragglers.

While straightforward, the details behind this situation are complex.

First, the goblin king is really a doppleganger. The holy war is actually being fought over the statue of a goblin and not a "gift from the gods", and hobgoblin contingent, if left to their own devices, could wipe out all the goblins themselves.

The tension in this Region should be obvious.

If the PCs don't sense it, apply a few –2 circumstance penalty to fear saves.

On to the alternatives. Firstly, you can replace the goblins and hobgoblins
with gnols very easily, making the gnolls in Region C, off shoots of this tribe.
Second, replace the doppleganger goblin king with a low-level illithid who
is mind-controlling the entire lot of them. Remove the statue and replace it
with a hallucinatory shrine that helps to solidify the illithid's cause.

And his cause is simple, wipe out the bugbears, claim the region and then
turn his sites on Region C and the outcast gnolls there.

The howlers, blink dogs, vargouilles, and ghouls now become persecuted
creatures in the region. Add a few umber hulks to these encounters to
take advantage of the PCs weakened wisdom or to add some color to the
"misfit" bands, on the verge of being wiped out.

Of course, since the illithid is not OGL, we can't help you make stats for it,
but perhaps you can find information on it, somewhere.



Idea #2. Keep the rebel goblins, replace the Holy Goblin Empire with hobgoblin imperialists, and have the bugbears continue their raiding principles. Remove the blink dogs and howlers and add a small enclave of babau who have been unable to corrupt the gnolls, but are also immune to mind control.

This makes them a wild card.

Idea #2a. Lose the blink dogs, but give the howlers black orc riders (see Monsters by AEG) or some other race from your home campaign. Anything that can benefit from the howler's ability to reduce Wisdom is a plus.

Idea #3. Remove the rebel goblins and blink dogs. Replace them with spellstitch ghouls (from MM2), remnants of Azum's (see Region C) madness.
The holy goblin empire is then under a constant siege from enemy creatures and is more prey than predator. The doppleganger goblin king can be sympathetic OR perhaps he's already taken another form like a bugbear or the halfling bartlby. The throne would presently be empty and the goblins, all eager to prove their worth to take the throne, killing an elf or human to prove their prowess.

Idea #3a. Alternately a hobgoblin rules the goblins in some hegemonic fashion with the absense of their king.

Idea #4. Keep everything the same, but have the PCs arrive in the goblin empire (Room B75), just as the king is being assassinated, casting 

Also note, the trapped rooms are good hidding places for kobolds and bugbears, both creatures with a natural tendency toward making/repairing traps.

More on Region E next time.


----------



## twofalls

*Map Ruined*

I don't know what I'm going to do. I've had the Region E map and the WLD book out becouse I've been working on it for my game this weekend. I looked around for the map everywhere today and couldn't find it. Eventually I did find it in the backyard when I was doing the daily dog doo duty, torn to bits by my daughter's dog Kaos (he is aptly named). I have no idea how it got outside in the first place, nothing like this has ever happened before. I'm really upset and don't have any idea how I'm ever going to run this region without simply making a hand drawing of a new map.

Anyone know of any way I can purchase a region map seperatly?


----------



## alex_jurkat

*Map E questions*

Hey all,

As jim mentioned on the other thread, I worked through Map E recently and came up with some questions.  Some jim answered and some he was unable to.  I've posted both so everyone can benefit from jim's responses.  For the missing ones, if Lee would please respond, it would be greatly appreciated.

The first thing I noticed was the serious ELs of the place. The front macro-map key sets this area as levels 4-6, but the encounters are mostly in the 7-9 level, particularly in the early going.  Leaving out the traps, which are primarily triggered by evil types (none of those in my group), here's the rundown:

EL 2: E2
EL 4: E88, E89, E91
EL 5: E60, E90
EL 6: E17, E50, E98
EL 7: E7, E12, E22, E33, E45, E47, E48, E57, E58, E92, E93, E95, E97, 
E99 
EL 8: E21, E49 
EL 9: E7, E100
EL 10: E87

jim response: it was intentionally set up this way to provide a solid challange for 4-6 level characters.  

Q: Are all the glyph traps in this region only activated by evil?  Most specifically say that, but others (such as the one in the random encounter chart on page 236) don't.  That makes me think that I need to pay careful attention to whether a trap is only for evil folks, but it could just be a typo.

jim response: some are trigger by everything so you do have to pay attention to the conditional text for each trap.

Q: There are two rooms marked E5 on the map.  Which one is the real one? Should the other one have a different marking?

jim response: the ghost can be found in that entire area, but the one on the left is the room described in the read aloud text.

Q: Will the ghost accompany the characters on their adventure or is 
it tied to this room?

jim response: He can leave. He's not the kind of ghost that's tied to a room, but rather the kind that is tied to a cause. He won't chase the PCs beyond E5, because he won't let himself get lured into a trap

Q: Also, the entry states that the ghost does not chase the characters beyond E5, "but pursues them unrelentingly until then."  Since E5 is only one room, I'm not sure what the latter phrase means.  Unless E5 is all the rooms between the two E5s, and that's the area the ghost will travel into.

jim response: Correct.

Q: E8 on the map contains doors.  But the description makes it sound like it's only accessible via the all-door (cool concept by the way).  Is the map marked wrong?

jim response: Correct; those doors should not be there.

Q: There are two trap entries in the text of E10.  Both are the same.  What's going on here?

jim response: One is for the door, one is for the staff, both are against evil.

Q: In E11, the text discusses doors on the east and west sides of the room. The map shows no doors in room E11.

jim response: post this question to the spoiler thread for lee hammock to address (looks like a mistake)

Q: E13 seems very far from E12.  Shouldn't Phinadar's quarters be closer to his workshop?  Is the map mislabeled here?

jim response: E13 has a built in forge. Feel free to move E12 if you like, but he probably chose it for its size again . . . ask lee hammock on the spoiler thread.

Q: On E19, there's a false door in the corridor to the south-east of this room. It looks much like the designation in E18 for the all-door.  Does that false door mean something?

jim response: It means the writer didn't do anything with it when I designed the map. Feel free to use it as you like.

Q: No E44 is marked on the map.  Where should it be?

jim response: Just north of E35.

Q: E46 room description is of closet accessible only by all-door.  On map, a hallway is designated E46.

jim response: Ask online.

Q: In the tactics section of E57, the text talks about Menerr "running around the long way through E57".  Since this is room E57, I assume that means Menerr runs through E58 to get to the members of the pack in E60 etc.  But E58 is heavily trapped so I can't image Menerr would pick that route for seeking help.

jim response: He knows how to bypass the traps, which means PCs that chase him are in for a surprise.

Q: E63 room description suggests it's only accessible by all-door.  On map, there's a corridor and door into this room.

jim response: Ask online.

Q: Farggalaan's lab and quarters (E86, E87) are a fair distance from each other but they are along the same hallway.  His disposal room (E88) is through a secret door and across a large room, seemingly part of the huge insect grouping.  Is E88 mislabeled?

jim response: Ask online.

Q: E92 text describes it as a sparring room.  Map designation is on a complex corridor area.

jim response: Ask online.

Q: E99 text states that baying draws Leirkos from E100.  According to the map, E100 is a long, long way from E99, through numerous winding corridors. Indeed, E100 is very close to E101-103, home chambers of the celestials.  It would seem that the celestials and the head of the shadow mastiffs would run into each other just exiting their front doors.  Should E100 be located closer to the E93-E99 area?

jim response: Ask online.

Thanks for the help and congrats to all on getting this puppy produced. Looking forward to many long sessions running it.

Alex Jurkat
Eden Studios
www.edenstudios.net


----------



## jim pinto

twofalls said:
			
		

> I don't know what I'm going to do. I've had the Region E map and the WLD book out becouse I've been working on it for my game this weekend. I looked around for the map everywhere today and couldn't find it. Eventually I did find it in the backyard when I was doing the daily dog doo duty, torn to bits by my daughter's dog Kaos (he is aptly named). I have no idea how it got outside in the first place, nothing like this has ever happened before. I'm really upset and don't have any idea how I'm ever going to run this region without simply making a hand drawing of a new map.
> 
> Anyone know of any way I can purchase a region map seperatly?




i know you're lying and just want a free jpg of the map

where do i send it?



seriously... i made jpg for you... where do you want it?


----------



## Lee Hammock

alex_jurkat said:
			
		

> Hey all,
> 
> As jim mentioned on the other thread, I worked through Map E recently and came up with some questions.  Some jim answered and some he was unable to.  I've posted both so everyone can benefit from jim's responses.  For the missing ones, if Lee would please respond, it would be greatly appreciated.




No problem, glad to help!  I am answering using my files and such since I do not have my copy, so hopefully everything will jive.  



> The first thing I noticed was the serious ELs of the place. The front macro-map key sets this area as levels 4-6, but the encounters are mostly in the 7-9 level, particularly in the early going.  Leaving out the traps, which are primarily triggered by evil types (none of those in my group), here's the rundown:
> 
> EL 2: E2
> EL 4: E88, E89, E91
> EL 5: E60, E90
> EL 6: E17, E50, E98
> EL 7: E7, E12, E22, E33, E45, E47, E48, E57, E58, E92, E93, E95, E97,
> E99
> EL 8: E21, E49
> EL 9: E7, E100
> EL 10: E87
> 
> jim response: it was intentionally set up this way to provide a solid challange for 4-6 level characters.




What Jim said.  It is skewed a bit higher than normal, but I think the spacing of the combat encounters with other helpful encoutners (the celestial garrison, even Fargalan the goblin necromancer could be friendly) and the "anti-evil" nature of many of the traps ameliorates this somewhat.  The PCs have several places to go for aid once they make contact and they have numerous rooms they can retreat too if need be.  



> Q: Are all the glyph traps in this region only activated by evil?  Most specifically say that, but others (such as the one in the random encounter chart on page 236) don't.  That makes me think that I need to pay careful attention to whether a trap is only for evil folks, but it could just be a typo.
> 
> jim response: some are trigger by everything so you do have to pay attention to the conditional text for each trap.




Lots are evil only, but not all.  The celestials who built the place were mainly worried about evil creatures stomping around the garrison, but a neutral creature in a bad mood can still cause a lot of damage in the right place



> Q: There are two rooms marked E5 on the map.  Which one is the real one? Should the other one have a different marking?
> 
> jim response: the ghost can be found in that entire area, but the one on the left is the room described in the read aloud text.




Uhhh, yeah.  This project has taught me I am sooooooo not a cartographer.  My carto-fu is weak indeed.  



> Q: Will the ghost accompany the characters on their adventure or is
> it tied to this room?
> 
> jim response: He can leave. He's not the kind of ghost that's tied to a room, but rather the kind that is tied to a cause. He won't chase the PCs beyond E5, because he won't let himself get lured into a trap
> 
> Q: Also, the entry states that the ghost does not chase the characters beyond E5, "but pursues them unrelentingly until then."  Since E5 is only one room, I'm not sure what the latter phrase means.  Unless E5 is all the rooms between the two E5s, and that's the area the ghost will travel into.
> 
> jim response: Correct.




Actually, not quite correct, but hey, it works just as well.

The original intention was that the ghost would appear in E5 and can go from E5 to the dead end at E4.  He's stuck in those rooms as that's the general area he died in (thus presenting an area the PCs could retreat too if they befriend him).  Sorry for confusing that up.  The to E5 it seems will haunt me until the end of my days.  

If the party needs some extra oomph, having him accompany them is definitely a good idea and introduces a really interesting NPC for the party to have around with them.  Not many D&D PCs get to hang out with their resident friendly ghost.  



> Q: E8 on the map contains doors.  But the description makes it sound like it's only accessible via the all-door (cool concept by the way).  Is the map marked wrong?
> 
> jim response: Correct; those doors should not be there.




Yeah, no doors there.  



> Q: There are two trap entries in the text of E10.  Both are the same.  What's going on here?
> 
> jim response: One is for the door, one is for the staff, both are against evil.




Yep.  



> Q: In E11, the text discusses doors on the east and west sides of the room. The map shows no doors in room E11.
> 
> jim response: post this question to the spoiler thread for lee hammock to address (looks like a mistake)




E11 should be the cross shaped room to the northeast of E10.  Two secret doors on either side should be marked on the map.  Again, my carto-fu weak and no copy to double check.  



> Q: E13 seems very far from E12.  Shouldn't Phinadar's quarters be closer to his workshop?  Is the map mislabeled here?
> 
> jim response: E13 has a built in forge. Feel free to move E12 if you like, but he probably chose it for its size again . . . ask lee hammock on the spoiler thread.




Originally I had several rooms between E12 and E13 which got cut for space, so moving them closer together is an easy solution.  Alternately here are the unedited, unstatted rooms that were inbetween originally.   

E29. Phinadar’s Storeroom
This room appears to have been ransacked at some point in the past, but someone later made a concerted effort to tidy it up.  Several shelves have been crudely mended into a rickety tower of poorly nailed together wood, giving the impression that its structure will fail at any minute.  These shelves are filled with a large numbered of labeled bags, bottles and boxes, most of which seem to hold a wide variety of mundane goods.  A single torch in the north end of the ceiling lights this room.  

Initial Attitude: Hostile

Encounter: This room serves as Phinadar’s personal store room for his non-magical supplies, such as extra clothes, shoes, or whatever else he has been able to scrounge up in the dungeon.  Few items in this room are in good repair, but most are serviceable, at least in the short term.  A single shadow hides amongst the goods at the south end of the room charged with keeping anyone other than Phinadar from taking goods from this room.  

One shadow hides in this room and will attack anyone that enters that is not Phinadar, but if the party accompanies Phinadar he can convince the shadow that they are okay.  

Tactics: The shadow will try to hide amongst the shelving, gaining cover, while striking out at the PCs.  Spotting the shadow before it attacks requires a Spot check, DC 22.  It will not flee and will fight until destroyed.  

Treasure: This room contains at least 1 of every item listed in core rulebook I under adventuring gear, special substances and items, tools and skill kits, simple weapons, light armor, and clothing except there are no spyglasses or alchemist’s labs. More than one of each item may be present at the DM’s discretion.  Most of these items have suffered a few hit points worth of damage and none are in prime condition.

EL: 4

Scaling: NA

Mooks: One shadow (18 hp)

E32. Phinadar’s Alchemical Workshop
This room has been scared black by numerous fires and most of the ramshackle furniture has burn marks on it.  There are several large stone tables spread around the room, each of which has a few blast marks and cracks from abuse.  About the room there are many glass containers and complex contraptions made of steel and glass piping, through which flow a wide variety of colorful and clear liquids.  A startling, and at times revolting, flurry of smells fills this room.  There is a door on the north, south, and eastern walls. The door on the eastern wall is closed has the word “TRAITOR” scrawled across it in crude common capital letters.   Two torches attached to the ceiling provide illumination.  

Initial Attitude: NA

Encounter: Phinadar uses this room for alchemical research, but he hasn’t been doing much since he decided that alchemy was not going to help him against the celestial wards or against his shadow masters.  He occasionally experiments when he gets bored, but more often uses his lab for brewing alcohol than anything else.  

Tactics: NA

Treasure: All the tools in this room comprise a fully functional alchemy lab.  A Search check (DC 10) finds 2 thunderstones, 2 tanglefoot bags, 10 sunrods, 3 tindertwigs, 1 smokestick, 3 flasks of acid, and 4 flasks of alchemist’s fire.  

EL: NA

Scaling: NA

E33. Fargalan’s Old Workshop
Across the door to this room “TRAITOR” has been carved in large letters in common.  The room beyond appears to have seen little use recently.  Dust has settled on nearly ever surface, but it also has been the site of great violence.  Most of the furniture in this room has been overturned or broken and amongst the wreckage there seems to be little of value.  There is a door in the eastern, western, northern, and southern walls.  

Initial Attitude: NA

Encounter: This room was Fargalan’s workshop before he fled.  When Fargalan escaped Seraxes had Phinadar remove everything of value and destroy the remaining furniture.  Nothing of value remains.  

Through the north door a passage lies that ends in a secret door.  The secret door is hidden on both sides, requiring a Search check (DC 30) to find.  The door slides up into the ceiling after a small cable hidden in a spider web in a corner next to the wall is pulled.  There is a similar trigger on the other side as well.  

Tactics: NA

Treasure: NA

EL: NA

Scaling: NA

E34. Fargalan’s Old Quarters
In crude capital letters “TRAITOR” has been carved in this door.  The door itself has been crudely barred shut.

Breaking the bar requires a Strength check (DC 15).  Once the PCs break the bar read the following.

This room seems to have once been someone’s living quarters, but now all that remains is a scattered and broken selection of furniture.  All the debris has been left about the room without concern and the untouched dust makes it evident no one has been here for some time.  It is illuminated by a single torch mounted in the ceiling.  

Initial Attitude: NA

Encounter: This room was once Fargalan’s living quarters and he took most everything of value when he fled.  Everything else was taken by Phinadar, who then destroyed all the furniture and barred the door at Seraxes direction.  

Tactics: NA

Treasure: NA

EL: NA

Scaling: NA




> Q: On E19, there's a false door in the corridor to the south-east of this room. It looks much like the designation in E18 for the all-door.  Does that false door mean something?
> 
> jim response: It means the writer didn't do anything with it when I designed the map. Feel free to use it as you like.




Ran out of All-Door stuff, so it should just be a collapsed room or some such.  Or if anyone else has All-Door ideas...



> Q: No E44 is marked on the map.  Where should it be?
> 
> jim response: Just north of E35.




Yep.  



> Q: E46 room description is of closet accessible only by all-door.  On map, a hallway is designated E46.
> 
> jim response: Ask online.




Granted, this is from my map not the final.  It is a hallway shaped room, but there are no doors into the room.  I since it is the hidden robe room I pictured it being sort of like a long walk-in closet filled with robes.  



> Q: In the tactics section of E57, the text talks about Menerr "running around the long way through E57".  Since this is room E57, I assume that means Menerr runs through E58 to get to the members of the pack in E60 etc.  But E58 is heavily trapped so I can't image Menerr would pick that route for seeking help.
> 
> jim response: He knows how to bypass the traps, which means PCs that chase him are in for a surprise.




Yep.  



> Q: E63 room description suggests it's only accessible by all-door.  On map, there's a corridor and door into this room.
> 
> jim response: Ask online.




There are two E62s listed.  The one to the right of the big central garden room is the one accessed by the All-Door.  



> Q: Farggalaan's lab and quarters (E86, E87) are a fair distance from each other but they are along the same hallway.  His disposal room (E88) is through a secret door and across a large room, seemingly part of the huge insect grouping.  Is E88 mislabeled?
> 
> jim response: Ask online.




I figured Fargalan wouldn't want his waste close to his home for fear of a) alchemical acicdents and b) attracting bugs, but moving to the small room directly above E6 would work as well.  Or maybe he started dumping his stuff in the Lost Garden, getting all the plants in there pissed at him.  




> Q: E92 text describes it as a sparring room.  Map designation is on a complex corridor area.
> 
> jim response: Ask online.




Originally I was thinking a sparring room wiht lots of little wings, one for each discipline (one little hallway with fighting mats for wrestling, one with wooden swords, etc.) but with all the doors I realize that really doesn't mesh.  So as an alternative I'd say the square room north of E89 would work just as well.  



> Q: E99 text states that baying draws Leirkos from E100.  According to the map, E100 is a long, long way from E99, through numerous winding corridors. Indeed, E100 is very close to E101-103, home chambers of the celestials.  It would seem that the celestials and the head of the shadow mastiffs would run into each other just exiting their front doors.  Should E100 be located closer to the E93-E99 area?




Err, yeah.  That's a bit more complicated.  E100 should be closer to E99.  In my original design I had all of E93-E100 in the eight small square rooms in that region, but removed one of them and left it blank for a reason I cannot now remember.  Basically putting E100 anywhere closer to E99 would work, or if you don't like any of the options, switching E93-E100 around to fit in those rooms as well works.  

Gah, this is me flabbergasted at my lack of map-fu.


----------



## twofalls

*Prsion Encounter Area A66/A68*

Lee sent me his test copy, and that will do Jim. If you want to send the jpg my address is jamesbeadle@sanguinesentinels.com. I appreciate both of you for your help. I've put a lot of work into getting section E up and going and finding that torn up map was wrenching.

For those of you who enjoy content, I've worked up A with one of Jim's alternate themes. Here is a sample of one of two of the encounters I've created.

A66) PRISON – HOUND ARCHON LUMIERE  - Lumiere was in charge of maintaining the cells that held the minor fiends in areas 60 – 65 and watching over them. Over two centuries ago when the first earthquake wracked the Dungeon the cells were weakened and Lumiere was trapped by a warding that went awry. Over time the fiends escaped their bonds and fled their prison gleefully tormenting the Archon as they left. Watching as he failed his sacred duty one fiend at a time nearly broke Lumiere’s sanity.
  The ward that holds him is divinely wrought and cannot be dispelled or even affected by magic at the disposal of low level PC’s (the negation wand from Region E would dispel it). It prevents him from taking any magical or physcial action beyond its 5' radius. Lumiere’s mind has cracked a bit further due to the length of his confinement, he feels the gods of light have abandoned him because his charges escaped on his watch. The fact that it was the entrapment of the darmaged Ward that caused him to fail his duty has been lost in the twisted pathways of his mind and he wont acknowledge it even if the PC’s point this out to him. Recently his righteous rage has been further fueled by the Imp Achsyyx who has been coming here to torment him. Archsyyx has told him stories of how his ArchDevil master is going to flood the world with the armies of Hell. 
      Unless they give him cause not to, Lumiere will believe the PC’s are pure of heart and spirit because he is so desperate for aid he is willing to convince himself of nearly anything. He will tell the PC’s that this section used to be a testing area and holding pen for the lesser Fiends of the in the prison. Here also were the forges of the garrison where armaments, magical items, and all manner of items necessary for the maintenance of the Dungeon were manufactured. He’s been told that Longtail has been slain by a Kyton by Achsyyx but doesn’t trust the information. He can further tell the PC’s about the plans the ArchDevil has for the world of Muerta, and this he believes as truth due to his mania, finding no inconsistency in believing only parts of the Imp’s story. He does know correctly that the humanoids that have infested the area recently are being hunted by fiends that had once been imprisoned here in Region A. He believes that the gods have ordained that it is his duty to thwart the Imp and its master’s plan to invade the world and tells the PC’s that they must find a means to free him so he can do their will. He tells them to contact Lord High Commander Saerius Lorsenahll in the Garrison north of here and tell him of this divine mission. He is certain that the Lord Commander will either come himself or give the PC’s the means to free him from the warding. The Hound Archon has no sense of time, his mind being unable to cope with the centuries that he has been trapped here.

He knows little else about the Dungeon other than its history, why it was built, that it’s many thousands of years old, and that the fiends have broken free and are running rampant but shouldn’t be able to leave the prison itself. He is reluctant to waste time on such matters and thus doesn’t mention the orc who has recently passed this way fleeing to room A68 north of here. He puts what pressure he can on getting the PC’s to leave immediately to find the Lord High Commander.

Hound Archon – pg. 29 MM 3.0

A68) GUARD POST – The orc that fled to this room had been assaulted by Lemure Devils and barely escaped with his life. Bleeding to death he fled into the prison blindly not knowing where he was going, barely able to see through the ruin of his face. He came across Lumiere in A67 and was further terrified by the trapped Archon, so he fled up the hall and into the open doorway there. Closing the heavy door against the horrors behind him he crawled to the center of the room where his strength gave out. That is where he was found by the spirit of an Osyluth named Ga’brutru several hours ago. The Devil is currently attempting to finish possessing the body of the dying Orc before its life force expires.

Though severely weakened the orc contains a fierce spirit that refuses to give up and for the past several hours it has been fighting a loosing battle with Ga’brutru for control of its own fading body. The Orc has become emaciated and is growing a dull grey white carapace over its thin limbs. Its head is becoming skull like and its eyes have sunk into their sockets and are now glowing with a faint evil red light. The Devil currently controls nothing more than the Orcs head, and can speak through its mouth. It sits upright in a lotus position in the center of the room, a trail of its own blood leading to its location. Ga’brutru has access to only a few of its fiendish abilities which are Charm Person, Animate Dead, and Fear (all at a weakened DC 10). It will attempt to deal with the PC’s to prevent them from slaying its form before it has completed taking control of its host and finished its transformation. It will offer long life, power, magic, gold, whatever the PC’s seem to desire to keep them from attacking it, and if that fails it will attempt to charm anyone who tries to harm it.


----------



## alex_jurkat

Lee Hammock said:
			
		

> Originally I had several rooms between E12 and E13 which got cut for space, so moving them closer together is an easy solution.  Alternately here are the unedited, unstatted rooms that were inbetween originally.




Those are great.  I'm calling them E12A through E12D.  Post more, post more!



			
				Lee Hammock said:
			
		

> Granted, this is from my map not the final.  It is a hallway shaped room, but there are no doors into the room.  I since it is the hidden robe room I pictured it being sort of like a long walk-in closet filled with robes.




There are no hallways with no doors as far as I can see.  I'm going to close off the door in the room to the left of E48 and call that E46.  



			
				Lee Hammock said:
			
		

> I figured Fargalan wouldn't want his waste close to his home for fear of a) alchemical acicdents and b) attracting bugs, but moving to the small room directly above E6 would work as well.  Or maybe he started dumping his stuff in the Lost Garden, getting all the plants in there pissed at him.




Sounds good.  I'm going to designate the small room above E6 as E88 (still means he needs to know about the secret door tho).



			
				Lee Hammock said:
			
		

> Originally I was thinking a sparring room wiht lots of little wings, one for each discipline (one little hallway with fighting mats for wrestling, one with wooden swords, etc.) but with all the doors I realize that really doesn't mesh.  So as an alternative I'd say the square room north of E89 would work just as well.




I'm going with the recently vacated E88 as the new E92.  Looks like an exercise hall to me.  



			
				Lee Hammock said:
			
		

> Err, yeah.  That's a bit more complicated.  E100 should be closer to E99.  In my original design I had all of E93-E100 in the eight small square rooms in that region, but removed one of them and left it blank for a reason I cannot now remember.  Basically putting E100 anywhere closer to E99 would work, or if you don't like any of the options, switching E93-E100 around to fit in those rooms as well works.




I'm going to designate the small room above what was previously E92.  Far enough from the rabble for a little privacy but still near enough.

Thanks for all your help,
Alex Jurkat
Eden Studios
www.edenstudios.net


----------



## DaveMage

jim & Lee: Thanks for all of the input!  This will be a great thread to reference in the future.


----------



## Lee Hammock

alex_jurkat said:
			
		

> Those are great.  I'm calling them E12A through E12D.  Post more, post more!




Ask ,and you shall receive.

This first group is should be scattered around the central territory of the shadows.

E16. Seraxes’s Snack Vault
The smell that strikes you as soon as you open the door of this small, pitch black room is that of a charnel house.  The room is filled almost to knee depth with the bodies of a wide variety of creatures, from rats to humanoids.  Some have clearly been dead for years, while others seem to have only been here a few months.  The entire room reeks of death and decay.

Initial Attitude: NA

Encounter: This is the room where Seraxes stores his meals before and after eating them.  The poor souls who suffered such torment eventually ended up the victims of Seraxes or his minions and the remains are carried in here by Phinadar, who searches the bodies beforehand.  Nothing of value remains in the room, but PCs who enter the room must make a Fortitude save, DC 12, or become nauseas for 10 minutes.    

Tactics: NA

Treasure: NA

EL: NA

Scaling: NA

E17. Ruined Artificer's Library
This darkened room is covered wall to wall and floor to ceiling with collapsed shelves and books, few of which remain in food condition.  At some point in the past this room was damaged by both fire and violence and there are several piles of ashes were books were burned in mass.  Now the books lay unused and untouched.

Also there are two shadows hiding in this room that attack anyone who enters.  

Initial Attitude: Hostile

Encounter: This room served as one of the many libraries that made up the garrison.  Its books specifically covered facets of magic item creation and information on the spells used to create the wards of the dungeon.  If a character spends six hours researching using the books in this room the character receives a +4 competence bonus to a single Bardic Lore, Spellcraft, or Knowledge check involving magic items, but the character must be able to read celestial to use the books.  

The two shadows are supposed to guard this room from interlopers and attack anyone who enters other than Phinadar.  

Tactics: The shadows hide amongst the books and shelving, attacking when the PCs investigate the books.  Detecting the shadows before they strike requires a Spot check (DC 22).

Treasure: Several of the surviving books would be valuable to collectors in the outside world.  There are five such books, each of which can be sold for 500 gp, but each book weighs 20 pounds.

EL: 5

Scaling: To increase the difficulty of this encounter, add 1 shadow.  

Mooks: 2 shadows (18 hp x2)

E18. Ruined Library of the Planes
This room is partially illuminated by a single torch in the north end of the ceiling, but several large bookshelves have been pushed to block much of the light, casting the room in a shadowy twilight.  The rest of the room is dominated by badly balanced piles of books.  Most of the books have escaped serious damage, but the ones of the floor have suffered water damage from a small pool of water that has formed from a drip in the ceiling.

Initial Attitude: Hostile

Encounter: This room was a library that stored information specifically about the outer planes and it survived the worst of the damages due to the fact both Ezrael and Fargalan tried to keep the books intact.  Both hoped to learn of the history of the various prisoners of the dungeon to see if any of them may be worth freeing.  If a character spends six hours researching using the books in this room receives a +4 competence bonus to a single Bardic Lore or Knowledge check involving the outer planes, but the character must be able to read celestial to use the books.  

There are two shadows stationed here by Seraxes to defend the books.    

Tactics: The shadows attack separate targets as soon as they enter the room, but the shadows avoid the northern end of the room, disliking the light.  

Treasure: Several of the surviving books would be valuable to collectors in the outside world.  There are five such books, each of which can be sold for 500 gp, but each book weighs 20 pounds.

EL: 5

Scaling: To increase the difficulty of this encounter, add 1 shadow.  

Mooks: two shadows (20, 19 hp)

E20. Ruined Magical Workshop
This room as been thoroughly ransacked several times at least.  None of its many shelves and tables stand up right and a bewildering array of torn papers, strange powders, and metal fragments are splayed across the floor.  There are numerous tools, such as tongs, hammers, and cauldrons, present amongst the wreckage, giving the room the appearance of having been a workshop of some type in the past.  There is no light source in this room.

Initial Attitude: NA

Encounter: Any character passing a Spellcraft or Knowledge (Arcana) check (DC 15) can recognize this room has formerly having been a magical workshop.  The door on the western wall has written in large letters across it “Danger” in both common and celestial.  

Tactics: NA

Treasure: A Search check (DC 20) will find the following in the room: a 100 gp pearl, 5 silver bars worth 5 gp each, 100 gp of gold dust, 2 scrolls of detect magic, and a masterwork warhammer.  

EL: NA

Scaling: NA

E21. Magic Supply Room
This unlit room seems to have been ground zero for a large explosion at some point in the past.  All the shelving that once probably dominated the room has been blown to splinters and hundreds of broken glass vials litter the floor.  This seems to have been a store room of some sort, but its contents were destroyed long ago.  

Initial Attitude: NA

Encounter: This room served as a storage room for the magic workshop in E20.  Unfortunately at one point during the battle following the second earthquake several rampaging monsters knocked over the wrong combination of containers and created a large explosion, destroying most of the contents of this room.  The materials that remain on the floor are still dangerously volatile.  Any PC who enters this room must make a Balance check (DC 10) each round or step in one of the volatile compounds, which inflicts 2d6 points of fire or acid damage at the DM discretion, Reflex save DC 12 for half damage.  

Tactics: NA

Treasure: With a Search check (DC 20) the following can be found in this room: 100 gp of powdered jade and an exquisitely carved jar depicting a sleeping dragon worth 100 gp.  

EL: NA

Scaling: NA

E22. Supply Room
The room appears half wreckage, half order, all covered in darkness.  Obviously a store room of some type, half of its shelves have been pulled down and destroyed while the other half stand stacked with a large number of bags and boxes.  The room stinks of rotting food dust lies think on almost every surface.  

Initial Attitude: Hostile

Encounter: This room served as a store room for some of the more mundane supplies needed by the garrison.  While it has suffered some damage, Ezrael new some of these supplies would be useful in the future so he kept it in good repair.  Seraxes has kept up the practice, more out of tradition than any feeling that he’ll actually need the supplies.  Three shadows guard this room and attack any one who enters that they do not recognize.

Three shadows wait in this room and attack anyone who enters that they do not recognize.  

Tactics: The shadows lurk in the racks on the north and south walls, hiding in amongst the shadows and piles of goods.  They will seek to surprise characters that come to inspect what’s on the shelves, leaping out when the characters get within arm’s reach.  Spotting the shadows before they attack requires a Spot check (DC 22).  Due to the misplaced importance Seraxes places on this room one of the shadows will flee to Seraxes throne room (E15) to get help after one of the shadows is destroyed.

Treasure: A Search check (DC 5) will fine at least 1 of every item listed in core rulebook I under adventuring gear and clothing.  There may be more of each item at the DM’s discretion.  

EL: 6

Scaling: To increase the challenge of this encounter, add 2 shadows. To decrease the challenge, remove 1 shadow.

Mooks: 3 shadows (21, 20x2 hp)

E24. Waste Disposal Room
This unlit room stinks of waste and sewage so much so that all other smells are imperceptible.  The center of the room is dominated a large round pit that seems to be the source of the smell, but much of the floor around the edge is covered in an unidentifiable mess of feces and garbage.  

Initial Attitude: NA

Encounter: This room originally served as a garbage disposal and outhouse for the garrison using a disintegration spell that activated whenever refuse was thrown into the pit.  Unfortunately eventually the magic on the disintegrate spell ran out due to lack of upkeep and now the dungeon residents simply throw their waste into the pit and let it pile up on the bottom.  The pit is fifty feet deep, but the bottom twenty feet are filled with a disgusting mess of garbage, feces, corpses and similar unpleasant materials.  Any character that enters this disgusting stew must make a Fortitude save, DC 18, or take 1d4 points of temporary Constitution damage and become nauseas.  

Tactics: NA

Treasure: NA

EL: NA

Scaling: NA

E27. Arming Room for Lord High Marshal Serenneth
This quiet and musky room is filled with empty armor and sword racks.  It once held dozens of weapons and several suits of armor, but now these are all but empty.  A thick layer of dust permeates everything and more than a few rusted blades lay on the floor of the room.  A banner hangs near the ceiling on the south wall of an eye over a flaming sun.  

Initial Attitude: NA

Encounter: Once serving as the personal arming room of Lord Serenneth, housing his personal collection of weapons and armor, it was opened to the other members of the garrison during the battle after the first earthquake.  Most of the weapons contained here are now scattered amongst the lower levels of the dungeon or lost completely.  

Tactics: NA

Treasure: Except for one sword all the weapons left in here are non-magical weapons that the Lord High Marshal kept for sentimental value.  These blades have all rusted away due to lack of care and are now worthless.  The one magical blade that remains is +1 rapier that is hidden under several other rusted weapons and requires a Search check (DC 20) to find.  

EL: NA

Scaling: NA

E42. Map Room
This room once contained a number of tables and desks made of wood and stone, but all the desks of wood lie in shambles around the room.  There are stone shelves built into the walls of the room, all scarred black by flame.  Ashes cover the floor nearly an inch deep and all the shelves hold the burnt remains of book binding and scroll cases.  On the eastern wall of the room a large undamaged map hangs.  The entirety of the room is without light.  

Initial Attitude: Hostile

Encounter: This room served as a map repository for the garrison.  Unfortunately it was ravaged by flame and most of the maps were destroyed, and many of those that survived later succumbed to rot after the delicate environment of this room was destroyed.  

The map on the eastern wall of the room is a map of section E, though it does not detail what any of the rooms are.  The map is enchanted to be damage resistant and has a hardness of 20 and 30 hit points; it also cannot be removed from the wall without cutting it free or knocking part of the wall apart.  Behind the map is a secret door that can be found with a Search check (DC 25) that is opened by pressing a small discolored stone in the center of the door.  The door is opened in the same fashion from the other side.  

Seraxes has placed three shadows in this room to guard it and prevent anyone from getting access to the maps.

Tactics: The shadows have nowhere to hide so they will attack immediately and will not flee.  

Treasure: A Search check (DC 20) reveals the following under the layers of ash: 1 map of section A, a map of section B, and a scroll of read magic.

EL: 6

Scaling: To increase the challenge of this encounter, add 2 shadows. To decrease the challenge, remove 1 shadow.

Mooks: Three shadows (21, 20x2 hp)

E43. Guard Room
The door to this room contains many holes drilled through its surface, most not larger than an inch across but two larger holes are located at waist height.  Inside the remains of a complex piece of engineer lays in pieces.  Obviously some manner of crossbow or ballista, this device appears to have fired a large volley of arrows and two spears simultaneously, probably through the holes on the door, wrecking havoc on any who got in its path.  Unfortunately the device seems to have been savagely attacked in the past and is no longer functional.  Four corpses also lay in the back the room, all impaled on spikes wedged into the floor.  There is no light in this room.  

Initial Attitude: NA

Encounter: This room served as a guard post to stop creatures from section A from entering section E.  Eventually it was overrun and its defenders slain, along with their ballista.  Fixing the ballista would require many finely made small parts that cannot be created within the confines of the dungeon.  

Tactics: NA

Treasure: 143 arrows and 6 spears can be found with a cursory inspection of this room.  

EL: NA

Scaling: NA

Hope y'all find it useful!


----------



## jim pinto

*maps in jpg format*

since i was kind enough to send twofalls a jpg of map E,
i guess i should share it with the group. in all fairness, 
i should make one for A and B as well, since most people
are going to be entering those regions, too.

so.

since posting to our own website can sometimes take longer
that i would like, does anyone know of a good place to "host"
these maps so people can download them at will.

let me know.


----------



## twofalls

If you want to send them to me Jim, I'll have my webmaster post them at www.sanguinesentinels.com. The webpage is just going up, but we can make a section for them. He wont get to it until next week as he will be gaming with us this weekend and that starts tomorrow at noon.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

First off, the a--kissing.
     From the little I've read (skimming and 50% of A), the WLD is possibly the best laid out "module" I've seen in my 2 decades of gaming. Excellent job on the sensible setup in the book. It has supplanted "Skarda's Mirror" as my opinion of the best D&D module ever published.

     Now what I would like to know from everyone who is running it, how are you all going about keeping track of EVERYTHING that is going on? I know I'm going to have to delegate a few tasks to players and take a hefty amount of notes. But I think even then it won't be enough. I'm not about to tell the players that they can't enter section B until they've cleared section A 100%. So that means keeping track of everything is that much harder.
     We won't be starting the WLD for a couple of weeks, so that gives me the chance to find out what the other people who are running it are doing. So please, let me know what you have done (or are intending to do) that has worked for you, or what you've done that hasn't worked.

Thanks,
BBR


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> First off, the a--kissing.
> From the little I've read (skimming and 50% of A), the WLD is possibly the best laid out "module" I've seen in my 2 decades of gaming. Excellent job on the sensible setup in the book. It has supplanted "Skarda's Mirror" as my opinion of the best D&D module ever published.
> 
> Now what I would like to know from everyone who is running it, how are you all going about keeping track of EVERYTHING that is going on? I know I'm going to have to delegate a few tasks to players and take a hefty amount of notes. But I think even then it won't be enough. I'm not about to tell the players that they can't enter section B until they've cleared section A 100%. So that means keeping track of everything is that much harder.
> We won't be starting the WLD for a couple of weeks, so that gives me the chance to find out what the other people who are running it are doing. So please, let me know what you have done (or are intending to do) that has worked for you, or what you've done that hasn't worked.
> 
> Thanks,
> BBR




anyone who knows me, knows i don't respond well to compliments

however, in this case i will at the very least say, we went for a clean
layout and easy to use format for each encounter. so if that's what you
like, i thank you for noticing.

moving on to the meat of your post....

if you don't mind writing in your book, the obvious bookkeeping method
is to circle the room number of rooms that have been cleared. or, make
a photocopy of the map (4 8.5 x 11 b/w photocopies are about 5 cents each)
and circle the room number when a room is complete

you can also use a soft lead pencil to strike through the treasure in
a given room, to indicate that its gone.

also, you can make yourself a sheet for each room with monsters,
so you can "mark them off" as you go. you can also add a column
listing all the "wandering" darkmantles, orcs, etc. so you know
exactly how many remain, even after all the rooms have been cleared

i don't recommend this last method, because its a lot of extra work
and the book ISN'T supposed to be work. but, i'm finding there's a 
myriad of DMing styles out there and some people really do want to
know what's under EVERY ROCK.

lastly, appoint one PC to write down everything they found in every
room.

A16... killed two liches. found magical sandwich.
A22... smote dragon. ate heart. left carcass for the stirges.
A55... kicked longtails ass (second time). drank orc beer.

and so on.

that way when they enter a room, you can look at the sheet
and see if they've been there before.

hope this helps.

if i've missed the point of your questions, let me know


----------



## twofalls

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> First off, the a--kissing.
> We won't be starting the WLD for a couple of weeks, so that gives me the chance to find out what the other people who are running it are doing. So please, let me know what you have done (or are intending to do) that has worked for you, or what you've done that hasn't worked.




I've only run one session so far, I'm leaving in two hours to begin a weekend long foray into the Delve and hope to finish A and get a hefty ammount of E tracked. (BTW Jim, thanks for the map, I was able to make a color print and remark my rooms.) My method so far has been to keep a notebook and simply make notes on important events it the dungeon. On the map itself I place a dot on every room entered, and if anything noteworthy happens there I make notes after session on what it was in the notebook I've created. In that notebook is a revised descripton of every room and its occupants.

As a campaign the dugneon can be highly interactive it you decide to take on the addtional work. I happend to be the kind of GM who has to put his personal touches on most everything, so this adventure has been a lot more work for me that is nessesary. I have patrols from section E going into section A becouse of a Demonic influcence there for example. I don't like olayer mapping, so I'm switching out section F with a different area to avoid the maze.. etc. Basically copious notes and taking the dungeon one peice at a time rather than digesting it all is the only way I can think of to run it comfortably... from my vantage point.


----------



## jim pinto

twofalls said:
			
		

> I've only run one session so far, I'm leaving in two hours to begin a weekend long foray into the Delve and hope to finish A and get a hefty ammount of E tracked. (BTW Jim, thanks for the map, I was able to make a color print and remark my rooms.) My method so far has been to keep a notebook and simply make notes on important events it the dungeon. On the map itself I place a dot on every room entered, and if anything noteworthy happens there I make notes after session on what it was in the notebook I've created. In that notebook is a revised descripton of every room and its occupants.
> 
> As a campaign the dugneon can be highly interactive it you decide to take on the addtional work. I happend to be the kind of GM who has to put his personal touches on most everything, so this adventure has been a lot more work for me that is nessesary. I have patrols from section E going into section A becouse of a Demonic influcence there for example. I don't like olayer mapping, so I'm switching out section F with a different area to avoid the maze.. etc. Basically copious notes and taking the dungeon one peice at a time rather than digesting it all is the only way I can think of to run it comfortably... from my vantage point.




excellent point... this is something we couldn't cover in the book,
because it wouldn't have been useful to people who are "cutting it"
into sections, but patrols from region to region should be semi-common

i think region e and f have random encounters that are referential


----------



## jim pinto

*a mighty crawl indeed*

the gang at wiz kids are playing the world's largest dungeon
and posting their weblog at

http://www.worldslargestdungeon.blogspot.com/

its very interesting to see different groups starting the adventure
and their interpretation of the important elements of the dungeon

these guys glazed over the dead titan at the front door, while
another group spent 1/2 hour arguing over what the pages
meant.


----------



## Jim Hague

Interesting stuff indeed - that's, what, at least 3 blogs we're aware of that concern the WLD?  I don't think it qualifies as phenomenon yet, but it just might end up that way.

I wonder...if you dropped folks into different Regions and had their parties occasionally cross each others' path, what would the campaign blog look like?

Hmm.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Thanks for the assistance.

I'll be using some combinations of your suggestions mixed with some of my own techniques.
...I can't write in the book though...just because it's the size of a college book doesn't mean I'm going to be highlighting everything in it   

I think I'll be combining the room note-taking with the mapmaking and letting a player do that at my direction. We use the magnetic floor tiles made by Skeletonkey Games, so I just have to set it up and they can map it, or vice-versa.

I'll also be letting a player take care of the timeline and food consumption (1 days food = 7 days food, but water is 1:1).

As for special items and magic items, I will keeping track of who has them, what they really are, and the page from the book they were gotten. Yes, it will be a pain, but the PC's will have to Identify their own items...at least until I'm tired of dealing with it.

But hey, I have a few weeks before we jump into it and I'm constantly scouring the net for new opinions, notices, warnings, reviews, and ideas.

Oh and I'll definitely be using the ideas given to prevent the excessive use of "Take 20".

Now to decide what is the fair number of points to allow for character creation...


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Thanks for the assistance.
> 
> I'll be using some combinations of your suggestions mixed with some of my own techniques.
> ...I can't write in the book though...just because it's the size of a college book doesn't mean I'm going to be highlighting everything in it
> 
> I think I'll be combining the room note-taking with the mapmaking and letting a player do that at my direction. We use the magnetic floor tiles made by Skeletonkey Games, so I just have to set it up and they can map it, or vice-versa.
> 
> I'll also be letting a player take care of the timeline and food consumption (1 days food = 7 days food, but water is 1:1).
> 
> As for special items and magic items, I will keeping track of who has them, what they really are, and the page from the book they were gotten. Yes, it will be a pain, but the PC's will have to Identify their own items...at least until I'm tired of dealing with it.
> 
> But hey, I have a few weeks before we jump into it and I'm constantly scouring the net for new opinions, notices, warnings, reviews, and ideas.
> 
> Oh and I'll definitely be using the ideas given to prevent the excessive use of "Take 20".
> 
> Now to decide what is the fair number of points to allow for character creation...




if the PCs are running low on water, don't be afraid to place a well
somewhere we didn't think of. especially in a well guarded room, as
humanoids will consider this a most valuable treasure.

as for character creation... i like 25 to 30 points.
if you're running a bigger group, 25 is ideal. but if the party is really small
and the PCs need to multitask, increase it to the 32 ceiling in the DMG

sounds like a good game.


----------



## Soul

Hey Jim, you'll be happy to know (or atleast I'd like to think that =P), the guy in the green flanel from gen con, that you atleast seemed to midly enjoy heckling about buying the book, finally has a copy. I'll be running my first session monday, so i'll be spending a lot of time preping. It'll probably be around a 10 hour session or so.  Excellent work all of you who have contributed to this work. I'll probably be posting more in this thread here on out.


----------



## jim pinto

Soul said:
			
		

> Hey Jim, you'll be happy to know (or atleast I'd like to think that =P), the guy in the green flanel from gen con, that you atleast seemed to midly enjoy heckling about buying the book, finally has a copy. I'll be running my first session monday, so i'll be spending a lot of time preping. It'll probably be around a 10 hour session or so.  Excellent work all of you who have contributed to this work. I'll probably be posting more in this thread here on out.




the guy who came back to the booth three times,
eyeing the book like a christmas ham?

or the guy who said, "shuh... $100... whatever... buh."


----------



## SpikeKeeper

*A journal of the Great Delve.*

My character is journaling his experiences in the dungeon from his own somewhat unique perspective. 

http://spikesjournal.blogspot.com/

Available for your amusement or disdain.


----------



## jim pinto

SpikeKeeper said:
			
		

> My character is journaling his experiences in the dungeon from his own somewhat unique perspective.
> 
> http://spikesjournal.blogspot.com/
> 
> Available for your amusement or disdain.




i thought it was great. i really like the personality of the
character and the "fun" is shinning through in your post.

the bit about the poker deck was great.

i really liked the blog posted by the whizkids too

those of you running should encourage your PCs to post
as well.


----------



## Timely Drought

SpikeKeeper said:
			
		

> My character is journaling his experiences in the dungeon from his own somewhat unique perspective.
> 
> http://spikesjournal.blogspot.com/
> 
> Available for your amusement or disdain.



Great posts, I liked insight from your character's perspective. 

Though I'm afraid I don't like the site design. I'm annoyed by the reverse order, and the fact the logs don't have unique identifiers (different logs from the same setting date have the same title in the menu). I would have suggested writing "Entry 1, [setting date]", etc.

If you're interested in feedback, I'd suggest posting your logs in the Story Hour forum. This also lets people subscribe to the thread so they know when there's new posts.


----------



## Soul

The one who eyed it like a christmas ham of course. Though admitedly I wasn't just comming by the booth just for the Dungeon, I was also checking out the excellent Warlord ccg which I had never tried before.


----------



## twofalls

*Gaming Weekend*

Wow... what a weekend that was. We gamed the WLD the entire weekend (typically we play many different games). So much was done if I attempted to post it this would be an absurdly long posting.

I will say this, I strongly suggest that you take color photocopies of the map, get a black felt tip marker and mark your group's progress through the dungeon. It would have been difficult for me to keep track of where the PC's had been just after sleeping one night... but trying to do it after a week or two would be very difficult. Also, having the GM map the dungeon as the player’s explore it (updating it when they ask) worked out very well for us. The players received a sense of both exploration and accomplishment by slowly uncovering the map, the GM can map it much faster than the players can, and frankly if you spend a great deal of time explaining room and hall dimensions it dilutes the rest of your oral descriptions of the surroundings and damages the ambiance (this experienced running Under Mountain a year ago). 

The encounter with the holed up Kobalds in the ruined section of the dungeon was great fun. Two PC's were caught in the entrance by the web (conveniently cast from a scroll and thus not available once it was over for the eager hands of PC wizards). Two other PC's attempted to push through the web which was very slow going, and between missile fire and color spray/sleep they were all taken down. Finally the PC's still in the hall burned the web... causing two PC's to spiral into neg hit points and everyone to scramble to save their lives and survive the Kobolds and Krenshar attacking them. The Kobold wizard and warriors were eventually cornered and fought with no quarter offered. There is an evil PC in the mix and the byplay between him and the rest of the group is precious. Eventually the Kobold wizard escapes by using Jump to clear the PC's and fled the room, the other PC spellcasters on his heels. He runs east then north up the nearby passage and opens the door there to reveal a wandering encounter attracted by the noise, two Death Dogs! They finish the Kobold and then go after the PC's who are fleeing for their lives.  The dogs take down the Cleric and there is a scramble to engage them before he is finished off. The party rouge runs to the scene in the same round that the last Death Dog is defeated, potion in hand. In a relay hand off he gives it to another PC who moves just before the Cleric who has failed to stabilize and has one hit point remaining before final death. The closest I’ve ever seen a PC get to death and still survive. It was a really fun moment for everyone.

So much more happened, but again, it would take too much to even scratch the surface.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

> I will say this, I strongly suggest that you take color photocopies of the map, get a black felt tip marker and mark your group's progress through the dungeon. It would have been difficult for me to keep track of where the PC's had been just after sleeping one night... but trying to do it after a week or two would be very difficult. Also, having the GM map the dungeon as the player’s explore it (updating it when they ask) worked out very well for us. The players received a sense of both exploration and accomplishment by slowly uncovering the map, the GM can map it much faster than the players can, and frankly if you spend a great deal of time explaining room and hall dimensions it dilutes the rest of your oral descriptions of the surroundings and damages the ambiance (this experienced running Under Mountain a year ago).




I love it when DM's and module designers work together   

Thanks for the tip. I'll be taking my maps to an office supply store to photocopy them.

We'll be starting in 2 weeks probably. I'd blog the party's progress, but I don't have the time or webspace for it. So I'd probably give a quick highlight here of their progress, assuming I'm just not repeating what everyone else had said.


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I love it when DM's and module designers work together
> 
> Thanks for the tip. I'll be taking my maps to an office supply store to photocopy them.
> 
> We'll be starting in 2 weeks probably. I'd blog the party's progress, but I don't have the time or webspace for it. So I'd probably give a quick highlight here of their progress, assuming I'm just not repeating what everyone else had said.




blogger has free weblogging

and twofalls, you should do the same



now i want to run this thing... oh wait... no i don't


----------



## nekrolog

SpikeKeeper... loved your journal baby. Loved it.

I'm doing the same with our group, but as DM I'm writing a synopsis that's kind of an overview of events.  It sucks compared to yours.  Just thought I'd say that out loud.     (but my website is better   )

I wish I could get one of my players to do the same, to get the first person perspective going.  Nice work.

As for mapping, I bought a spiral-notebook of graph paper and am mapping each room for them as they go.  It saves time on the room dimension explanations.  I realized in the first hour of reading region A that to DM this campaign really well, you'd have to be the Martha Stewart of DM's.  I'm keeping a notebook that tracks the PC's actions room by room, detailing in shorthand everything they say and do in the room.  I also use a DM sheet like this: http://mysite.verizon.net/res8j9i7/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/dmsheet.doc
to make tracking Spot checks, saves, check current HP's, etc. really quick.  I use dice that match the character's column color to roll everything at once, and move on.

edit:  add me to your list of web loggers: http://mysite.verizon.net/res8j9i7/


----------



## twofalls

*Another BLog*

http://sanguinesentinels.blogspot.com/

At this point the first BLog is up, however its just an introduction and an explanation of how I will be running the game. I will be adding more content all week. It's an interesting way to keep track of the game, I've not used BLogging before, thanks for the idea.


----------



## jim pinto

twofalls said:
			
		

> http://sanguinesentinels.blogspot.com/
> 
> At this point the first BLog is up, however its just an introduction and an explanation of how I will be running the game. I will be adding more content all week. It's an interesting way to keep track of the game, I've not used BLogging before, thanks for the idea.




spikes journal and whiz kids are already linking to one another

you guys could create a cadre of links, so people can easily read
everyone's journals.

i'm done for the day. peace, guys.


----------



## nekrolog

jim pinto said:
			
		

> spikes journal and whiz kids are already linking to one another
> 
> you guys could create a cadre of links, so people can easily read
> everyone's journals.
> 
> i'm done for the day. peace, guys.





Done... spikes, twofalls and wiz kids all link from my site now (as long as everyone is ok with that


----------



## twofalls

nekrolog said:
			
		

> Done... spikes, twofalls and wiz kids all link from my site now (as long as everyone is ok with that



NP nekrolog, and thanks. Makes it easier for me to link just to your site.


----------



## SpikeKeeper

*10 more and we'll need a webring.*

Fun stuff guys. Spike has added links to your records as well.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Following Twofalls lead and jim pinto's suggestion, I've created a blog as well.

http://cincidnd.blogspot.com/ 

It will be less of a role-playing blog and more of a smart<bleep> blog.

I guess we'll find out.


BBR


----------



## Leopold

I've already got a blog up for myself. I will just add another page to it for my PC's kill counter and Area counter chart. 

Here it is:

http://wldkill.blogspot.com

Basically just saying that the PC's have killed A,B,C and have <list of all SRD monsters left> to go.

This way My pc's can say they have killed every friggin thing out there ...after all they are all evil so they prolly will kill the celestials as well as the devils just to escape. Evil is good that way!


----------



## jim pinto

Leopold said:
			
		

> I've already got a blog up for myself. I will just add another page to it for my PC's kill counter and Area counter chart.
> 
> Here it is:
> 
> http://wldkill.blogspot.com
> 
> Basically just saying that the PC's have killed A,B,C and have <list of all SRD monsters left> to go.
> 
> This way My pc's can say they have killed every friggin thing out there ...after all they are all evil so they prolly will kill the celestials as well as the devils just to escape. Evil is good that way!




<shaking head>

oh leopold. and here i thought your campaign would be different



by my records, there are six blogs

http://cincidnd.blogspot.com/

http://wldkill.blogspot.com/

http://mysite.verizon.net/res8j9i7/

http://sanguinesentinels.blogspot.com/

http://www.worldslargestdungeon.blogspot.com/

http://spikesjournal.blogspot.com/

plus two yahoo groups

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/wld-memphis/

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/wldfc/


----------



## spacecrime.com

*Oh, I have to share this one.*

I'm running a play-by-post game on Live Journal. http://www.livejournal.com/community/spacecrime_wlg/ should anyone want to check it out or add it to the blog lists.

The party hits A113, plays with the fire pillar for awhile. They mostly figure out that good characters get bennies, the lawful good characters get more bennies, the lawful evil guy gets hosed. They move on.

At A105, the sorcerer tries to open the door and gets blasted down to -4. The barbarian kicks open the door, making his save but neglecting to move the sorcerer out of the way first. Sorcerer's down to -8, and a blown Heal roll leaves him at -9 by the time somebody can stabilize him. 

The only good news the sorcerer has is so far that surviving the trap gave him enough xp to level up. It doesn't do him much good, though, because...

After getting loot, the party returns to the fire pillar to rest... and the barbarian, whose player is convinced this is going to help, throws the chaotic neutral sorcerer into the fire. The sorcerer gets slammed for 15 more points of damage and *dies*.

Whoops!

cheers,


----------



## twofalls

spacecrime.com said:
			
		

> ... and the barbarian, whose player is convinced this is going to help, throws the chaotic neutral sorcerer into the fire. The sorcerer gets slammed for 15 more points of damage and *dies*.




Inner party kill... um do these guys expect to play through this whole thing?



			
				spacecrime.com said:
			
		

> Whoops!




You encourage this kind of play? Different strokes I guess...


----------



## BlueBlackRed

> Inner party kill... um do these guys expect to play through this whole thing?






> You encourage this kind of play? Different strokes I guess...




I've been in groups that this stuff would happen all the time (back in high school). Amazingly we finished the original Temple of Elemental and the Slavelords.

I also have a theory that every month, half the groups playing the WLD will drop off because TPK (total party kill), lack of focus, or just stop for a little hiatus and then never restart.
But that's generally par for course for most gaming groups it seems.
That's why I'm trying to find as many ways as possible to make playing the game as easy on everyone as possible for the group I'm in.


----------



## twofalls

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I also have a theory that every month, half the groups playing the WLD will drop off because TPK (total party kill), lack of focus, or just stop for a little hiatus and then never restart.
> But that's generally par for course for most gaming groups it seems.




 Really? :\  Man, I must be living under a rock. I've been running games for 26 years and my campiagns always last for at least a year. I've run a lot of individual games, one nighters that kind of thing, but campaigns always last. My current group the Sanguine Sentinels have played three campaigns, Earthdawn (3.5 year game), GRIFTS (homespun Rifts with the GURPS engine 2 yrs), and now 3.0 (2 years). I'm still running our 3.0 game and am using the WLD to play as I work on it. I have guys in my group that I've been gaming with since I first started playing all those years ago. 

Jim threatened to revoke my geek status a while back... maybe I outta let him


----------



## Soul

How are people handling the passage of time?


----------



## twofalls

Soul said:
			
		

> How are people handling the passage of time?




Insofar as how long a day is, I just wing it. When the group is tired enough that they need to rest, a day passes. I've also made them feel like there is a
time limit to finishing the Dungeon (though I haven't really decided there is one) by making them track the number of days they have been in the dungeon and making the whole place experience small tremors. That has added a bit of spice to the game.  So far they have been in the dungeon 13 days, and they haven't completed Region A yet.


----------



## Soul

My group after about 10 hours, of real time have passed about 4 days in the dungeon. Hacing completed a 4th of region A. So, I'm trying to take more pretime as i have a few more days until next session, to try and get everything figured out on how I want to handle the details. Thanks for the reply, as thats pretty much what I've been doing now.


----------



## twofalls

Have you added much of anything of your own to region A Soul? My group spent one game session (about 6 hours for us) and our entire game weekend (at least 28 hours of actual play time) and have completed about 2/3 of A. I've heavily modified the entire area however, adding in some roleplaying encouters as it was almost all combat prior to that.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

For me, I'll be letting one of the players handle the passage of time.
I'll use Excel or something to setup a sheet with checkboxes and notes. Nothing too exact or detailed, just enough to get a rough idea of time gone by and food/water usage.



> Really?  Man, I must be living under a rock. I've been running games for 26 years and my campiagns always last for at least a year. I've run a lot of individual games, one nighters that kind of thing, but campaigns always last. My current group the Sanguine Sentinels have played three campaigns, Earthdawn (3.5 year game), GRIFTS (homespun Rifts with the GURPS engine 2 yrs), and now 3.0 (2 years). I'm still running our 3.0 game and am using the WLD to play as I work on it. I have guys in my group that I've been gaming with since I first started playing all those years ago.




Well in previous groups I've been in, especially early on, they've had the attention span of a hummingbird. Games would last up until someone felt like they wanted to run something. At one point a group I knew had 8 players and 7 different games.
In our current group I've more or less been a big bully when it comes to playing D&D. "On Fridays we play D&D. If you want to run a game of [enter game here], there are 6 other days of the week to choose from." It's a jerk thing to do, but it helps keep us focused on just one game at a time. But since I've been playing with this group (for around 7 years now), it's had its fair share of nice & long games lasting over a year.

Oh and to bring us back to the general topic; I think it would be cheaper for me to buy a new scanner than to have the maps color copied. And it will hopefully allow me to show the group's progess in our WLD blog.


----------



## Soul

No, I havn't really changed much ahead of time yet... just stuff on the fly. Primarily I'm just letting them get the feel for things, not throwing tons of traps or random encounters in. I think there is a good deal of roleplay oppertunity in there as is, though I may add more. The scenes with the orcs in the begining and later the orger have given me a great deal of fun in that regard. I only wish they would have let the orger live, but he did drop one of their party in negatives on his initial suprise attack.


----------



## Leopold

jim pinto said:
			
		

> <shaking head>
> 
> oh leopold. and here i thought your campaign would be different





pwhwhahahahahhahahah! My PC's are diehard power gamers. All of them are Warhammer/D20 Mini's gamers. They thrive on combat and once I told them that they have the potential to kill every monster from Aboleth to Zombie including the Tarrasque they started salivating. 

I already dished out the following info to them per the books request:

1. No spells that cause entaglement: web, black tentacles, etc.
2. No druids or wizards: They get screwed.
3. When they die, they can't play the same race or PC that they had before. Creates variety.


Now when reading the book I came up with a BRILLIANT! idea. At the  beginning of the book I saw mention of the Lantern Archons. They are supposed to be at the beginning and end of the regions. I thought "Hmm how can I use these things." and came up with my idea after watching Tron on DVD!

The Lantern Archons are recorders of all that has gone on in the WLD. They are the security cameras that were asigned to monitor and report back what happens to their superiors. Since the WLD has been 'broken' per se, they have had their 'programming' change to record all those who enter each area and their success and failure on what they accomplish. They can and do follow around the PC's and provide basic light source, so that solves the lighting problem, and can answer basic questions on the area as the PC's explore and provide a holographic map for the area. This solves both light problems and mapping problems. 

Furthermore, since I am counting on PC's dying. I can have the Lantern go retrieve the new PC's that are created and bring them back to the party. This solves why new PC's appear and how to integrate them. The celestials are counting on keeping the parties as cohesive as possible to rid themselves of the rampaging demons.

 They are also pretty damn weak so I figure allot of them would die keeping track of things as they follow each party around. 

So I named them: <type> <number of current unit> <region>

Ex: L129A
Lantern Archon 129th one that has existed for Region A

Now I use a laptop in my game, it makes keeping track of things easier, while watching Tron I saw the Bit program that talks to the guy trapped in the game. I immediately thought of the Lantern Archons as those same lil programs and how they talk. I downloaded a Text To Speech program that will speak what I type on the computer so it will sound like a neutral tone voice similar to a computer, which is what these things are.

Example:

Pc's enter the WLD.

PC: Where the @!%#@!%! are we?
Lantern Archon: <synthesized voice> Welcome to Demonium Carcer (latin for Demon prison), This unit is desginated L481A and will be your guide while you are in Region A subsection A1.
PC: What the @%#@% are you?
LA: I am L481A.
PC: USELESS!!! <attacks thing>
LA dies
LA: <new one appears> Welcome to the Demonium Carcer. This unit is L482A and will be your guide while you are in Region A subsection A1. 
PC: Well, ok.

All the voices will be done by me typing and having the computer say it. I'm not going to give these things much more than the basic information on the Region that they are supposed to know. 

Example:

PC: What's ahead?
LA: Unknown
PC: I thought you know this place?
LA: This unit does not know what is behind every door.
PC: What use are you?
LA: This unit provides light source for you to see. Do you wish to deactivate the light source?
PC: <looking for torches> guess not.

Also, with the light source being shown all the time, suprise will be on the enemies which works well for me. I wonder how long it will be before the PC's figure that out.


----------



## jim pinto

*tron*

you know the lantern archons in the book are based on the little guy from HALO, right? the fact that you derived them from Tron is awesome.

perfect use of the lantern archons.

btw... i'm not sure if this is clear in the product or not, but the cornerstone philosophical tenet of the dungeon is that evil cannot be destroyed. good can. but evil cannot.

hence the prison.

that means, if lantern archons keep dying and showing up again and again, cyrlebrai (room G5) is going to get weaker and weaker.

just a head's up


----------



## twofalls

jim pinto said:
			
		

> btw... i'm not sure if this is clear in the product or not, but the cornerstone philosophical tenet of the dungeon is that evil cannot be destroyed. good can. but evil cannot.




Hmm, I didn't really get this from the dungeon... but then I've only read A,B,and E.

I think that Lantern Archons as Bits are a neat idea, and I think I will borrow it from you on a scaled down level. I want to maintian the flavor of a fantasy world so when they meet a Lantern I think I will give it more of a personality. Yet, I like your idea... so yeah, I'm going to borrow it. 

My group has stuggled with light ever since entering the dungeon. One Ever Burning Torch was brought along (20 feet of light, 20 feet of shadow), as well as a few torches, scattering of sunrods, and two lanterns that soon expired thier fuel oil. Its been a great theme that has really streched thier nerves, particuarly with the darkness generating Darkmantles. However that theme can get old after a while and a Lantern Archon might be just the thing to end it.


----------



## jim pinto

*Region E, alternatives*

First off, if i were running this region, I would get rid of the Barghests (and just keep the greater barghests as roaming scrounger/predators. Second, for every three days the PCs spent in Region A, i would remove one Inevitable and one Celestial from Region E. Having died in a major invasion from Region I.

The wards to the north would be down.

The shadows and shadow mastiffs would be all OVER the region, adding in whatever shadow creatures you like from your favorite 3rd party books. 

In fighting would be rampant among the Redeemed and perhaps Ackersan would have been murdered about the time the PCs reach Room E61.

Because of the number of "empty" rooms, there's all kinds of places for inexplicable ooze and walls of flesh-type horror like in Region I. In fact, I would just start bringing them both together into on massive playground of carnage. The PCs should feel as though they've stepped into something very wrong.

Surviving inevitables would have a hard time parsing all of this, of course. And the Redeemed would receive conflicting orders all the time.

And, of course, all the bugs in the Region become fiendish. Duh.

The escape routes into Region F and J would be sealed by the creatures within those Regions, making advancement more difficult.

***

However, i've also included a few things that don't require so much rewriting.

One. Steal a random encounter chart from Region I and use it when the PCs enter an empty room.

Two. Give the barghests overlords. To continue the demon/devil theme, add a retreiver to the bad guy barghests and add a hellcat and/or erinyes to the rebel barghests.

Three. Give the insects a beblith leader (that the PCs don't face until they are 6th level).

Four. The shadows (and there should be more of them) need to be under the control of 

Five. The jungle doesn't need much change, but adding a few more bugs isn't bad either.

Six. Finally, there isn't much need to play around with the guard stations (inevitables, etc.), although failed wards all over the Region are a great way to have more beasts sneak in.

If anyone else has suggestions, feel free to post.


----------



## Leopold

jim pinto said:
			
		

> you know the lantern archons in the book are based on the little guy from HALO, right? the fact that you derived them from Tron is awesome.
> 
> perfect use of the lantern archons.




I blame it on the fact that I see this glowing ball and immediately thought of something saying "Yes!" or "No!" I forgot about halo! Curse you for reminding me of the Novemeber release date!!! 



> btw... i'm not sure if this is clear in the product or not, but the cornerstone philosophical tenet of the dungeon is that evil cannot be destroyed. good can. but evil cannot.
> 
> hence the prison.
> 
> that means, if lantern archons keep dying and showing up again and again, cyrlebrai (room G5) is going to get weaker and weaker.
> 
> just a head's up




It is? I JUST finished A and reading into B. I didn't see that in the preface that the more good dies the weaker it gets. I think I'll just disclude the latern archons from that pool and just say that Good souls that die in the prison goto lanter archons and after a while get promoted. That's it 




> I think that Lantern Archons as Bits are a neat idea, and I think I will borrow it from you on a scaled down level. I want to maintian the flavor of a fantasy world so when they meet a Lantern I think I will give it more of a personality. Yet, I like your idea... so yeah, I'm going to borrow it




Well they will have personality. A very bland, blunt, precise, and cold personality.

Here's a thought to make it interesting:

Roll 1d100. On a roll of 00 they get an archon with a 'bug' in it. What's a bug give you? Well it could give you:

1. Hostile Personality:  Lantern is more hostile and bitter toward the party
2. Happy Personality: Cheerful, more talkative, joking,etc.
3. Inquisitive Personality: Asks lots of questions about PC's "where did you come from? What are you about? Why are you here?"
4. Sad PErsonality: "I've seen guys like you a thousand times, you're gonna die"
5. Has a bit more info on another area: "This unit has been asigned from Area D. I would avoid the tarrasque there"
6. Silent Personality: Doesn't talk, doesn't act, just hovers and produces on command, whatever they want.
7. Maximized Archon: Has full stats and full hit points and is advanced to the pinnacle of a Lantern Archon.
8. Roll twice.

Something like that. I remember watching Stargate: SG-1 and that episode with Dom Delouise and him being a bug and would talk and jabber on to SG-1 and he was a 'bug' or a 'fluke' I'm open to ideas on howto exploit it more


----------



## twofalls

Its a flavor thing. I like the old 2nd Ed AD&D cosmology and use it in my D&D 3.0 games (I collected almost all the Planescape material). A petitioner who makes it into Celestial form is, in that cosmology, the very embodiment of goodness. Though a low form, a Lantern Archon is a Celestial. I've already used the crazed Celestial theme in an encounter in A, and its partly revisted in the Inevitables of E, so I don't want to overdo it.

But I like the idea of a Lantern Archon of limited scope be availible to help the PC's and will run with it.


----------



## Neumannium

*Any word?*

Originally posted by Jim Pinto:


> since i was kind enough to send twofalls a jpg of map E,
> i guess i should share it with the group. in all fairness,
> i should make one for A and B as well, since most people
> are going to be entering those regions, too.
> 
> so.
> 
> since posting to our own website can sometimes take longer
> that i would like, does anyone know of a good place to "host"
> these maps so people can download them at will.
> 
> let me know.




Any progress on this?

I'm reallllly bored at work, and working on my modifications to my WLD campaign would make the time fly by.   

Thanks,


----------



## twofalls

Neumannium said:
			
		

> I'm reallllly bored at work, and working on my modifications to my WLD campaign would make the time fly by.




What is it you do that would allow you to work on the Dungeon while sitting around?? I need to find a job like that.


----------



## Neumannium

Normally I write firmware, but now I'm stuck doing documentation...

I figure as long as I have Word open, it might as well be something interesting....


----------



## OblivionsLot

Neumannium, you gave me a scare.  One of my players in the WLD that I'm running in Milwaukee has a last name of Neumann.  But he's not a firmware writer, so I'm okay. 

Meanwhile, the group themselves haven't gotten very far.  But they did discover that an acid arrow trap can take out the group's only healer - and that with knowledge that the trap was there! 

And the concept of the Lantern Archons as a Bit from Tron is excellent.  So I'm going to have use it myself.

Since this is my first 3/3.5 game that I've run, I'm not making too many changes, but the stuff about map E sounds really wicked.


----------



## Jim Hague

Wait'll your group gets to I...or M...or decides that H is safe.


----------



## Neumannium

OblivionsLot said:
			
		

> Neumannium, you gave me a scare.  One of my players in the WLD that I'm running in Milwaukee has a last name of Neumann.  But he's not a firmware writer, so I'm okay.




Nope, I'm DMing it (or preparing to) myself.  Seeing as how I'm the only one in my group who's actually READ all the books. :\  

Good to know there are other D&Ders in Milwaukee, though.  I thought I was a dying breed...


----------



## jim pinto

Neumannium said:
			
		

> Originally posted by Jim Pinto:
> 
> 
> Any progress on this?
> 
> I'm reallllly bored at work, and working on my modifications to my WLD campaign would make the time fly by.
> 
> Thanks,




i'm converting maps A, B, C, E, and F right now

that oughta give people something to chew on

sadly, i don't have time to fix the map E errors

(unless lee can give me a template of what should go where)

i'm going to e-mail them to twofalls and he can post them

(being sure to cite AEG's trademark and copyright on these)



thanks for being patient, guys


----------



## Neumannium

jim pinto said:
			
		

> i'm converting maps A, B, C, E, and F right now
> 
> that oughta give people something to chew on
> 
> sadly, i don't have time to fix the map E errors
> 
> (unless lee can give me a template of what should go where)
> 
> i'm going to e-mail them to twofalls and he can post them
> 
> (being sure to cite AEG's trademark and copyright on these)
> 
> 
> 
> thanks for being patient, guys




Thanks for the quick response.

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to do some real work (and keep lurking the boards) for the rest of the day...


----------



## jim pinto

Neumannium said:
			
		

> Thanks for the quick response.
> 
> Oh well, I guess I'll just have to do some real work (and keep lurking the boards) for the rest of the day...




send me your e-mail address, and i'll e-mail you now


----------



## Leopold

twofalls said:
			
		

> What is it you do that would allow you to work on the Dungeon while sitting around?? I need to find a job like that.




IT....


----------



## twofalls

jim pinto said:
			
		

> (being sure to cite AEG's trademark and copyright on these)




Damn, there goes our idea to turn that page into a paysite and fund next years game weekend with the proceeds...


----------



## Neumannium

jim pinto said:
			
		

> send me your e-mail address, and i'll e-mail you now




I can be reached at dave@carriesbaby.com

Thanks, Jim.  You've saved me from an afternoon of tedious avionics documentation.  

Whew!


----------



## Leopold

Neumannium said:
			
		

> I can be reached at dave@carriesbaby.com
> 
> Thanks, Jim.  You've saved me from an afternoon of tedious avionics documentation.
> 
> Whew!





sign me up for this too!

bigdady@gmail.com ! I really could use those maps!


----------



## Lee Hammock

jim pinto said:
			
		

> i'm converting maps A, B, C, E, and F right now
> 
> that oughta give people something to chew on
> 
> sadly, i don't have time to fix the map E errors
> 
> (unless lee can give me a template of what should go where)




Email sent with new map version attached and a list of the changes.

Lee


----------



## BlueBlackRed

It would be silly for me not to jump on this bandwagon.
bbrscn@cinci.rr.com
or on AOL IM I'm BBR SCN (that's BBR[space]SCN).


----------



## jim pinto

*and an unrelated question*



			
				BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> It would be silly for me not to jump on this bandwagon.
> bbrscn@cinci.rr.com
> or on AOL IM I'm BBR SCN (that's BBR[space]SCN).




two falls? can you post those soon, so i'm not sending files all weekend long

(region E will have an update soon and we're making pdfs as i type this)

fyi

*****

i have an unrelated favor to ask, but since i'm not the webmeister i could be, i have no idea where to looks for this sort of thing...

does anyone know of a "good" generator/program that will give you the contents of a modern office building/home/college/library/etc

so i can design a modern adventure smoothly and quickly

any help would be appreciated

that is all.


----------



## twofalls

*Maps*

Hey folks... I have some of the maps, A, B, C, E. They wont be posted for at least a week, but if you email me I will email them back to you.

jamesbeadle@sanguinesentinels.com

I have broadband and check my email often. I must have emailed out Lee's notes to at least a score of folks already. I will post a link to the Sanguine Sentinels web page when my webmaster gets them posted. Jim is working on pdf's of the maps.


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

Well, I posted this info in the other WLD thread, but this may be a more appropriate place. Our group is perhaps taking a different approach to recording the journey/doing a review: audio

World's Largest Dungeon audio session 1 over at www.rpgmp3.com

That's pimped enough for now I think.

Paul


----------



## spacecrime.com

twofalls said:
			
		

> Inner party kill... um do these guys expect to play through this whole thing?




Best estimate is that they'll go through 6 characters each if they go directly to the exit, and around 11 characters each if they try to see every room.



> You encourage this kind of play?




"Moderate it" would be a better description. The tone of the campaign is best summed up by the fact that the paladin is named Twinky McRighteouspants.

You probably don't want to know how they won over the lizardfolk by offering up the mostly-fresh corpse of the gnome bard for dinner.

(BTW, Jim Pinto, I ran across the various listings of poisons, traps, conditions etc in the back of the book by accident. It's been very handy since, so thanks!)


----------



## spacecrime.com

PaulofCthulhu said:
			
		

> Our group is perhaps taking a different approach to recording the journey/doing a review: audio




The best part is that you guys are British, so your adventures sound all cultured to stupid Americans like me. 

Seriously, sounds like you all are having fun!

cheers,

Chris Aylott


----------



## doseyclwn

Hey all, I posted this in one of the yahoo groups, but I figured I'd post it over here as well (hopefully reach more folks as well).

First off, Kudos to an awesome product. I swore after RTTTOEE that I wouldn't run another big ass dungeon crawl, but this made me change my mind. Secondly, I run several bi-weekly groups in the Richmond, VA area and am about to start running WLD this comind Wed. I have a slight problem, though... the party I'm gonna start on it is level 4 already, and I don't wanna skip some of the area A goodness. Any suggestions as to how to proceed would be MOST appreciated.

Also, how do you introduce new characters into the dungeon (like if new players join or old players have their characters die)?


----------



## CrimsonScribe

PaulofCthulhu said:
			
		

> Well, I posted this info in the other WLD thread, but this may be a more appropriate place. Our group is perhaps taking a different approach to recording the journey/doing a review: audio
> 
> World's Largest Dungeon audio session 1 over at www.rpgmp3.com
> 
> That's pimped enough for now I think.
> 
> Paul




I'd just like to say that I spent my afternoon listening to both recordings and I couldn't turn it off.  I hope it doesn't take you much longer to get more installments hosted, as it is a refreshing change.


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

Glad you like it. Session #2 has already been recorded and should be up within the week, and session #3 is due for recording October 4th. There's also photos, PDFs and maybe some video too. It's a lot of fun to do. 

Paul


----------



## Leopold

doseyclwn said:
			
		

> 1. I have a slight problem, though... the party I'm gonna start on it is level 4 already, and I don't wanna skip some of the area A goodness. Any suggestions as to how to proceed would be MOST appreciated.
> 
> 2.  Also, how do you introduce new characters into the dungeon (like if new
> players join or old players have their characters die)?





1. The scaling up of monsters is in the room description. Follow that. I plan on doing that as my PC's are level 3/4 and will prolly smoke through it if I don't. Just follow the advice in the room.

2. Why the Lantern Archons of course! When one PC dies and then the player builds another one, I plan on having the LA say: "Incoming gate traveler, uniting with current forces" and then disapear and in 1d6 rounds later appear with the PC in tow. I kill 2 birds with one stone. When they ask "Why is he here? Why do we need him" the LA just responds: "To defeat the demonic forces one must have all available assets at ones disposal." I force the party together, whether they stay together is a whole nother option.

Another recourse is to find them as prisoners. This whole place is a prison, what's one more person captured and bound and then found. Granted they won't have their stuff so that will suck, but them's the breaks.


----------



## twofalls

I personally dislike the prisoner theme, but only because its so overdone. I've made provisions for each of my players to have a backup character that can be brought in through a sorcerous link when thier primary dies. After that... they play monsters! The Savage Species book makes this a simple matter and it encourages interaction with unlikley denziens of the dungeon when any encounter is a potential recriutment opportunity! I have six players, each with two characters, and when all twelve of those characters die, the game ends and the players loose (yes, this is an rpg you can actually loose). Its generated a level of play that they haven't experienced before and they are clamoring for more. 

We have a very intense Forgotten Realms game that we established and have been running for two years now. The characters have just reached 12th level and the amount of prep time needed for sessions has increased for me a great deal, so we picked up the WLD to act as filler for when I haven't had time to get the next session fully prepped. Well, I have a session ready to go next game but more than half the group voted to play in the WLD rather than the regular game at our next meet. That says a lot.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

I started my preparations this afternoon by redrawing the maps for the players using 25mm grids on 250gsm cardstock (keeping the 5ft scale because at 10ft I would be lucky to get a single room from a sheet of cardstock).  Even at 25mm per 5ft I only got 5 rooms out of an A2 sheet of card stock (yes, A1 is huge by comparison but it still had to be done).

I'm planning on not using the dead Titan and there not being a fissure in A1.  Instead my players will literally fall through the ceiling as a result of an earthquake.  This means that they will be the first new entrants into the dungeon for possibly hundreds of years.  Now I either have to change the backstory for Longtail or develop whole new encounters, as technically the kobolds, Orcs and Troglodytes never entered the dungeon.  Seeing as I want to keep the whole fiendish look and feel (it is a demonic prison after all), I'm going to need new encounters.  

I intend to run with the Kyton idea as put forward by Jim, so I spent yesterday looking through my monster books (MM1, MM2, MM3, FF, MoF, ToH, CC1) for appropriate low level demonic nasties that would be of weak enough will to fall for Achsyyx's covert ploy, but I came up blank (or should I say I ended up with so many posibilities I couldn't decide what to use).

I think I will replace the orcs with Deurgar tribe led by a Durzagon.  A "natural enemy" of the Deurgar would be ideal to replace the troglodytes, but I'm not sure of what yet.  Seperating them will be the "neutral" race that acts as a natural buffer, though their ranks will be decimated because it was their leader that opened the portal and promptly fell before the Kyton and his demoinc brethren that now roam the halls.

So what I'm after is two appropriately low level races of intelligent beings (not just wondering monsters), one of chaotic evil alignment and the other of neutral evil.  If anyone wants to make some suggestions, please don't hesitate.


----------



## nerfherder

spacecrime.com said:
			
		

> The best part is that you guys are British, so your adventures sound all cultured to stupid Americans like me.



Cultured?  With all those softy-southerner Yorkshire accents?    

Hehe!  Seriously though, I'm going to try & convert them to WAV so I can burn them to CD to listen to on the way to work.

Each of the two files are too long to fit onto CD.  Also, it would be nice to split each file into Tracks, so I know where I'm up to.  Do you have any suggestions of where to split each file up (preferably times)?

[Edit] OK, I've compiled the 1st CD, breaking it up into the following tracks.  I've hidden them with spoiler tags, for obvious reasons:


Spoiler



00:00:00 Pre-game rambling
00:06:33 Introducing PCs
00:11:20 Adventure begins
00:24:18 The cave
00:34:44 Door into darkness
00:42:54 Large room and a cough...
00:56:32 Heavy smell of stale air
01:08:58 Dead Orc



Cheers,
Liam


----------



## twofalls

*Kyton/Imp/Portal Encounter*

I designed the Kyton to replace Longtail by doing several things. I lowered his SR to 12, made him vulnerable to silver weapons, made his control chains ability a move equivalent action, and then allowed him to control as many chains as he could see in a darkened room (60'R). I gave his control chain ability a +1 to hit bonus and 1d3 pts of damage per chain, then in every 5' square of the room I sunk 2 chains into the ceiling which hung down to within 3' of the floor. He had fast healing 5 which is strong against a low level group and prolonged the battle. With that I imposed a -2 to hit modifier upon every large weapon or missile weapon used in the room becouse of interferance with the chains. I was careful to describe the many razors and spikes set throughout the chains, and that the room stunk of carrion. Small bits of rotting flesh and wet blood caked the chains and from one was suspended RatTail's head, torn from his shoulders and pierced top to bottom with a spiked chain... goggles still on his head.  The floors all about were stained with wet blood and unreconizable chunks of flesh from many flayed victims.

Then I made the portal active. When the Kyton entered the room from RatTail's lair I made it pulse to the Devil's heartbeat, this was a clue to the players that it would stop being active if they could kill the devil. Then every d3 rounds it disgorged a menace. I varied the menace strength depending upon the fortunes of the players who were close to the portal. The first was a Darkmantle that gave those fighting near it severe headaches... then a rat swarm, then a Lemure, and finally a giant fiendish rat as the fighters there were being worn down.

Keep in mind that the party that fought this battle was 6 PC's strong and all were at level 2 (and they hit the room early, I had intended them to all be level 3). The biggest danger was the chain control. An unlucky PC, who didn't pay close attention to where he was fighting could be hit by 18 chain attacks (the square he was in, plus 2 in each surrounding squares). They figured out that by using a wall, and standing close together they minimized the number of these attacks they suffered. Even so, the wizard died to them. The Kyton had to keep moving to avoid being flanked, and even at 2nd level the PC's were inflicting serious harm upon it. 

In the end they dropped the Kyton, finished off the last portal creature and had exhausted the Priests heal spells and all thier healing potions save one. I'd kept Achsyyx out of the battle for two reasons. One, because he would have tipped the scales and the party may all have died, and two because the Imp had direct orders to keep the portal open and so he stayed hidden (and thus alive) to watch over his charge.

I was later told that the fight recalled to some of the players a movie called Hellrazor. I don't watch horror flicks, and I was dissapointed a bit that the creativity of my encounter which I'd thought of as rather original and cool was used in a movie... but it was an intense and enjoyable fight regardless.


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

nerfherder said:
			
		

> Cultured?  With all those softy-southerner Yorkshire accents?
> 
> Hehe!  Seriously though, I'm going to try & convert them to WAV so I can burn them to CD to listen to on the way to work.
> 
> Each of the two files are too long to fit onto CD.  Also, it would be nice to split each file into Tracks, so I know where I'm up to.  Do you have any suggestions of where to split each file up (preferably times)?
> 
> [Edit] OK, I've compiled the 1st CD, breaking it up into the following tracks.  I've hidden them with spoiler tags, for obvious reasons:
> 
> Cheers,
> Liam




Neato!

Hey, most of us are Northern. I married a roleplayer from Guisborough and the Half Orc is from Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Hal is uploading session #2 this week, with a few more photos to boot.

Paul

Paul


----------



## nerfherder

PaulofCthulhu said:
			
		

> Neato!
> 
> Hey, most of us are Northern. I married a roleplayer from Guisborough and the Half Orc is from Berwick-upon-Tweed.
> 
> Hal is uploading session #2 this week, with a few more photos to boot.
> 
> Paul



Well, my ex-wife is from Bradford, so I'm sure you'll understand any bad feelings I have about the place - lol!

Cheers,
Liam

P.S. this reminds me of when I was about 13 and we used to record our roleplaying sessions - not for posterity, but because one of the players was a compulsive liar!  He would say "I open the door", the DM would describe the trap he'd triggered and he would say "No, I didn't actually *open* it, I just examined it".  After much "Oh yes you did", "Oh no I didn't", we would rewind the tape and prove it to him.  And this would happen several times each session.  Every session.  I believe he has a job in sales now...


----------



## doseyclwn

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but what does the "T" on the map in room A5 stand for?


----------



## doseyclwn

Duhhhhhhh, never mind. Just read the room description for room A6. I'm going to hide now.


----------



## Arholly

Just wanted to drop a line and say I'm also going to be running WLD very soon.  I just got it and have read through Region A and skimmed through the other regions.  Man, some dang good ideas in this book.

Anyway, I'm going to be running the game with 3-4 players and I like the one persons suggestion about having them each create 2 characters and when they all die, it's done.  The only catch I may have with that is if they befriend any of the monsters, they can draw on them as characters, but then they have to be that race.  I.E.  If they befriend the orcs and one of them dies, they can draw on up to 6 orcs or so before they run out (seeing a party of all orcs adventure around would be interesting).  It would also call for liberal use of Savage Species.

I think someone really needs to start compiling the ideas from here and putting together a best of WLD.  That would really rock (things like copying the maps and drawing out the PC's route with marker, the kryton, etc...)

Arholly


----------



## Arholly

You know, going back to the ideas for Region A, I know one complaint (if that is even the proper phrase) has been not a lot of variance in the fiendish encounters.  So I got to thinking, besides what twofalls and some others have been suggesting, why not go with the rare fiendish orc, kobold or like.  Maybe one of the humanoids here got corrupted by the portal and became fiendish or maybe just stepped out.  Something for a little more variety.

Incidentally, I'm going to start skimming this thread and pulling out things that should probably go in a "Best of..." document and compiling it.

Arholly


----------



## BlueBlackRed

> You know, going back to the ideas for Region A, I know one complaint (if that is even the proper phrase) has been not a lot of variance in the fiendish encounters. So I got to thinking, besides what twofalls and some others have been suggesting, why not go with the rare fiendish orc, kobold or like. Maybe one of the humanoids here got corrupted by the portal and became fiendish or maybe just stepped out. Something for a little more variety.




The shear number of darkmantles and rats in section A have been a compaint I've heard about other campaigns going through this.
So what I'm doing is having a few of them slain here and there and tossing a few low level brigand types into the mix. They thought they had found a good hideout only to realize how hosed they were once they realized they couldn't leave. I figure they'll be there to try to sponge off the PC's for as long as the PC's let them (general lazy neutral evil types).


----------



## jim pinto

Arholly said:
			
		

> You know, going back to the ideas for Region A, I know one complaint (if that is even the proper phrase) has been not a lot of variance in the fiendish encounters.  So I got to thinking, besides what twofalls and some others have been suggesting, why not go with the rare fiendish orc, kobold or like.  Maybe one of the humanoids here got corrupted by the portal and became fiendish or maybe just stepped out.  Something for a little more variety.
> 
> Incidentally, I'm going to start skimming this thread and pulling out things that should probably go in a "Best of..." document and compiling it.
> 
> Arholly




i would agree the region can be repetitive at time. i blame sloppy editing (oh wait. that's me). and of course, the fact that the story is slender. however, i believe its an easy fix. a rare fiendish orc is a great idea. perhaps the draw to chase longtail was also fueled by a draw to something else.... inexplicable.

an elf, goblin, or kobold also works

(for more on elf deserters, read Region H)


----------



## Arholly

Yeah, I'm planning on throwing in an Elven Deserter now and then, maybe a dead one for variety.  Really make them wonder what is going on.


----------



## Neumannium

*Thanks, Jim*

Jim,

I received the map .jpgs you sent me and they're excellent.  

Thank you for doing that!

When that e-mail popped up in my Inbox, it was like getting an e-mail from Elvis.  Too cool.


----------



## Arholly

I'd love a copy of the maps too.
brandon_morrison [at] earthlink.net

Thanks.


----------



## Azurecrusader

I just started running WLD for my group (3 players) with some of the suggestoins on this board.  First, I'm using Gestalt characters, which has been a blast so far, although my players are breezing through encounters so I've upped the challenge just a bit.  Second, I've thrown in all kinds of new fiendish creatures, especially other vermin (Centepides, Spiders, etc).  Finally, I threw them in there with nothing but the clothes on their backs.  That's been quite fun thus far. . . at least for me 

Now, about these maps that people are emailing about. . . I've only skimmed most of the posts, but are these corrected maps?  I haven't noticed a ton of mistakes, but there do seem to be a few here and there.  If these are corrected maps, could I possibly get a copy?  (azurecrusader AT gmail.com)  

I'm pretty interested in making notes on the maps, so if these are print sized maps (unlike those in the PDF that is publically available) I would love them.  

Thanks
~Azurecrusader


----------



## Leopold

Just started the WLD and I used my idea for the Bit/Halo gimmick. My PC's loved it and kept asking it silly questions and it came back with answers like: "Unknown" "This unit is not equipped with the medic skill set" and "Diseases can kill you, this unit removed all wounds to optimize your survival rate" They got a kick out of her/it and the voice synthesiser.

Yes the fiendish darkmantles and rats is tedius, that and the lack of a PC map is one of the complaints I'm hearing from them. They stomped the living snot out of everything that they came through but since they are all fighters (no cleric or rogues) they are going through healing potions allot. Stirges are nasty, I have new found respect for their CON damage.

I'm probably going to have a few wandering half-fiend kobolds or half-fiend orcs. I think I'll replace Longtail with the kyton idea. I liked that idea.


----------



## twofalls

*Maps and Lee's Notes*

If you want the maps and/or Lee's notes you will have to email me directly at jamesbeadle@sanguinesentinels.com so that I can hit reply and send them out. I've recieved something along the lines of 40 requests for them so far and I'm not going to patrol the boards for email addresses to send them out to. It's my hope (evovling into ardent insistance) that my webmaster will have the jpgs up and posted this week and I will post a link here when that is done.


----------



## jim pinto

Arholly said:
			
		

> I'd love a copy of the maps too.
> brandon_morrison [at] earthlink.net
> 
> Thanks.




since i'm working on making pretty pdfs for everyone,
i deleted the jpgs from my computer. could someone
who has a copy be kind enough to send them on to
arholly here?

thanks


----------



## Neumannium

jim pinto said:
			
		

> since i'm working on making pretty pdfs for everyone,
> i deleted the jpgs from my computer. could someone
> who has a copy be kind enough to send them on to
> arholly here?
> 
> thanks




I just sent them...

Arholly, they should be in your inbox.


----------



## Arholly

Thanks, and BTW, I can host whatever we want for the WLD if your webmaster is being slow.  I've got my own space and server I can host stuff on.


----------



## twofalls

That would be great Arholly. Having more than once source would be a good thing. I think my site allows for 100gigs of bandwidth a month and I doubt that we would use that up with map downloads, but share the wealth is my philosophy... and as soon as I have some...


----------



## haiiro

jim pinto said:
			
		

> since i'm working on making pretty pdfs for everyone,
> i deleted the jpgs from my computer. could someone
> who has a copy be kind enough to send them on to
> arholly here?




jim, would these be player versions of the maps (bo secret doors, etc.), by chance?

If so, you rock on toast. 

Also, I'll be running this puppy starting sometime in October. I cannot freaking wait -- it's going to be a blast.

I may have to sneak a fire breathing phase doppelganger giant space hamster in there somewhere, just so I can kill someone with it. The room would be called "The Ultimate Humiliation."


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Azurecrusader said:
			
		

> First, I'm using Gestalt characters, which has been a blast so far, although my players are breezing through encounters so I've upped the challenge just a bit.




After reading through Region A I coulnd't imagine a group of 4 PC's making it through that place with out having 4 days rest for every day of adventure.  My initial plan was to allow the player to use up to EL+2 races as their base with no penalty - just to give them the extra toughness required.  However the distinct lack of appropriate EL+2 classes led to the suggestion by another player of Gestalt characters - this fits in much nicer though I will be imposing limitations on just which classes can be taken in combination - I don't want a party full of Barbarian/X's after all.

I'm curious to see just how much of an effect Gestalts have on the adventure as printed, so I know how much I have to turn up the difficulty of my ideas.


----------



## Leopold

haiiro said:
			
		

> I may have to sneak a fire breathing phase doppelganger giant space hamster in there somewhere, just so I can kill someone with it. The room would be called "The Ultimate Humiliation."




Got to have levels in monk...


----------



## twofalls

Rather than Gestalt characters you can just adjust the power of the encounters a little. I don't think four 1st level characters will have a hard time with this adventure, particuarly if they attain level 2 at the appropriate time and 3rd before hitting room 103. If they charge into the Stirge room after the glowing ring... then they deserve a TPK. But if they are your tyical cautious dungeon delvers who utilize thier search and trap skills I think that in play you may well find that the region is well balanced as written.


----------



## twofalls

*Another Idea*

For those of you worried about survivability in Region A, I have another idea that I used in my game. I changed A22 - A23 a bit.

In A22 I placed 4 orcs with the Ogre and then made the waters heal 1d4pts of damage per day if someone drinks from them. Naturally I made the magic not work outside the room to avoid endless minor Potions of Healing from being taken from it. The PC's secured the room at night by tying a rope to the handle of the doors between A22 and A23. I further hid 4 cure mod potions in secret compartments within the walls, each resting upon a small silver platter engraved with the holy emblem of the sun with an eye above it. This saved them when they hit room 103 later.

I loved the theme from A23 and in my game when the players entered they found themselves in an arboreal forest. After searching they found a delirious orc who was dying from wounds and an infection caused by severe Lemure wounds. It was delirious and feverish, dreaming about its home as it was dying, thus the scenery. They healed it and then when it became aware the illusion faded, unable to communicate with it the orc fled from them into room A22... thus reinforcing the orcs already there. 

Room A25 lost the silence but instead was a level up room with a softly glowing sphere in the center of the room. When good or neutral characters approached and supplicated the gods with a simple prayer they were enveloped in a warm glow and were healed as well as leveled. When the one evil player approached the room grew dim and the glob took on a dangerous grey cast. Thunder rolled and the character was infused with energy... he wasn't healed but he leveled and walked away pale and with steam rising from him as the globe regained its usual color.

The group used A22 as their base of operations for exploring the entire level. 1d4 might not sound like a lot, but being able to sip both before and after resting makes that 2d4, and for low level characters that’s huge.


----------



## spacecrime.com

*Maybe they shouldn't have messed with the idol.*

Well, looks like my PCs found out the hard way that 4th level characters have a tough time with 10d6+10 lightning traps.

All hail Room B45, for it done smoketh three PCs tonight! 

cheers,


----------



## doseyclwn

Is it just me, or is the lightning bolt trap in room a87 just a little too harsh? I dunno, anyone run folks through there yet?


----------



## spacecrime.com

*My gang didn't make it to that room, but I think it's okay.*

It's 6d6 damage, so an average of 21 hp, reduced to 10 if you make the save. Most 2nd or 3rd level PCs can handle that. You're also only hitting one PC at a time, so after the first one gets crisped they have a chance of rethinking their actions.

One thing you could do to give them more choice is to hint at the trap in your doorway description. You could point out a series of metal bits embedded into the lintel. That might make them suspicious enough to test it and see that lightning springs from the metal bits. They're still challenged to figure out how to get around the trap, but they don't have to find out the hard way what it does.

cheers,

Chris Aylott


----------



## jim pinto

spacecrime.com said:
			
		

> Well, looks like my PCs found out the hard way that 4th level characters have a tough time with 10d6+10 lightning traps.
> 
> All hail Room B45, for it done smoketh three PCs tonight!
> 
> cheers,




you know there's a line at the end of each encounter called, "scaling:"

right???

and yes, this is a particularly gruesome trap.

chris burns made the walls metal and i added all the stray damage.

but anyone careless enough to grab an idol of a pedestal, knowing that
other creatures live in the region... jeesh

wait. spacecrime? are you the one killing people off like cabbage with your online game?


----------



## Azurecrusader

What is the deal with DM's wanting to kill their players so much???  Am I the only one running this dungeon for the players?  It's easy to kill your players if that's you goal, I don't understand why so many people are bragging about how many characters they've killed or plan on killing. . . 

I'm not trying to troll or anything, this whole "KILL THE PLAYERS!!! ROAR!!! DIE!!!" attitude seems a bit ridiculous.


----------



## twofalls

Everyone approaches the game in their own way and so long as everyone involved agrees and is having a good time then each approach is as valid as any other.

I met a group a couple of years ago that take on opposing roles. The GM creates a scenario and balances it according to the rules, then the players "run the gauntlet" and attempt to use the rules to survive. He who knows the rules best and can outsmart the other with thier application wins. I can't imagine having fun in that type of game, but after spending half an hour describing how my group roleplays (method acting according to Robin Laws model) they thought I was a crackpot. 

Everyone has thier idea of how to game, and with limited exposure to other ideas that becomes the way the game is played to each of them. That can be applied easily to the WLD, it can support any number of different ideas on how to game.


----------



## Arholly

*Prestige Classes*

Okay, time for some more questions about how people are thinking of running it.  This has to do with Prestige Classes.  What ones are people allowing/disallowing off the bat?  I'm obviously thinking anything that has a "guild" or "organization" requirement is probably a no-go.

I'm using the SRD for my Prestige class list at this point:

Allowed:  Arcane Archer (could easily be allowed if you make a mentor from the elves), Archmage, Blackguard (plenty of monsters to try and be peaceful with), Dragon Discipline, Duelist, Dwarven Defender (again, a few dwarves they could learn from maybe), Eldritch Knight, Hierophant, Loremaster, Mystic Theurge, Shadowdancer, Thaumaturgist.

Maybe's: Arcane Trickster, Horizon Walker

Disallowed: Assassin (no guild to join).


----------



## Arholly

*Psionics*

And what are people's takes (especially Jim's), on the use of Psionics in the WLD?


----------



## Leopold

Arholly said:
			
		

> And what are people's takes (especially Jim's), on the use of Psionics in the WLD?





I've limited it to a very few classes. 

Psion: out
Psychic warrior: In
Soul Knife: In

I don't want to mess with psionics and the fewer the better.


----------



## Psion

Arholly said:
			
		

> And what are people's takes (especially Jim's), on the use of Psionics in the WLD?




One of my players had a PC Psion (Shaper) in it. No problems.

I have no specific thoughts about adding psionic opposition, if that's what you are after. But no ultimate dungeon is complete without mind flayers.


----------



## Azurecrusader

Arholly,

Here are a few of my thoughts. . .

Prestige Classes:  Why the Loremaster?  There isn't a terribly large amount of lore to be found in the dungeon. . .  Why not the assassin?  Couldn't you just knock off the part about being in a guild?  It seems to me that the class itself is still perfectly viable.  My suggestion would be to see what your players are interested in and go from there.  It's seems to me that you could make pretty much any PrC work with a little modification.

Psionics:  I'm not a big fan of Psionics in general, but if you liked them I don't really see any reason to axe one or more of the psionic classes and keep the others.  They don't really suffer like a wizard does, so as long as you like Psionics it seems like all of them would work pretty well.  Besides, there are monsters in the dungeon that use psionics.

As a side note, why is it that Druid's are feeling everyone's wrath?  I realize that a good half of their spells aren't very useful, but as a whole they don't become useless.  Maybe it's because I look at a Druid as a servant of nature, not just forests.  There is nature in the dungeon, it's just different than what a "normal" druid would be used to.  Their shape shift ability is still fully functional, especially if you allow your players to come up with a back story for themselves that allows them some exposure to various animals. . .


----------



## Arholly

Azurecrusader said:
			
		

> Prestige Classes:  Why the Loremaster?  There isn't a terribly large amount of lore to be found in the dungeon. . .  Why not the assassin?  Couldn't you just knock off the part about being in a guild?  It seems to me that the class itself is still perfectly viable.  My suggestion would be to see what your players are interested in and go from there.  It's seems to me that you could make pretty much any PrC work with a little modification.



  Seems like a place that has served as a prison for the worst of evils is a good place to pick up lots of information.  Plus, you have numerous good creatures to help you expand that lore (as well as lots of evil ones too).  I agree with your analyist of the Assassin, I was just curious what others were doing/thinking.



			
				Azurecrusader said:
			
		

> Psionics:  I'm not a big fan of Psionics in general, but if you liked them I don't really see any reason to axe one or more of the psionic classes and keep the others.  They don't really suffer like a wizard does, so as long as you like Psionics it seems like all of them would work pretty well.  Besides, there are monsters in the dungeon that use psionics.



Me neither (not a big fan).



			
				Azurecrusader said:
			
		

> As a side note, why is it that Druid's are feeling everyone's wrath?  I realize that a good half of their spells aren't very useful, but as a whole they don't become useless.  Maybe it's because I look at a Druid as a servant of nature, not just forests.  There is nature in the dungeon, it's just different than what a "normal" druid would be used to.  Their shape shift ability is still fully functional, especially if you allow your players to come up with a back story for themselves that allows them some exposure to various animals. . .



  No idea.  I thought they'd be a decent class to play, especially if your PC's go to the water area.  Their shifter ability is a good one and I think a good druid will more than compensate for their lack of certain powers with other ones.  I mean, think of their compagnion by the time they leave the dungeon if they manage to keep it around.  Plus, if they make it to the elves and the druid's lost his, there is a good place to pick up a new one.  I think a druid will have a difficult time, but would be a good experience for them.


----------



## Azurecrusader

So here's a question for everyone:

How are you handling mapping?

I must admit, I'm having some difficulty.  I don't want my players to have to map, because we've gone through that before and we all found it pretty boring (I'd describe the same room 3 or 4 times and eventually end up drawing it for them ).  Right now, I've redrawn map A onto standard graph paper, this way I can take notes on it, and when I go to draw the rooms for the players I know exactly how to draw it on their piece of graph paper, but even this seems kind of slow. . . What is everyone else doing?  Am I just not used to dungeon crawls (which could very well be the case, considering I've run about 2 before in 13 years of gaming)?


----------



## spacecrime.com

jim pinto said:
			
		

> you know there's a line at the end of each encounter called, "scaling:" right???




Yeah, but I just didn't feel right kicking it up another notch. 

Slightly more seriously, the scaling has been useful. There have been a couple of spots where I've scaled it down (usually because there were only a couple of people on that night) and a couple of spots where I've scaled up (when the party's abilities made the trap as-is almost pointless.) It's a nice balancing tool.



> but anyone careless enough to grab an idol of a pedestal, knowing that
> other creatures live in the region... jeesh




Exactly. Only a moron would do that -- but for most of the game my players have been cheerfully playing experience-point-crazed Int 8 (or dumber) morons. Which means they're not only setting off every trap they can find, they're shouldering each other aside for the chance to set it off first.

Mind you, the latest batch is a little smarter if not necessarily wiser. I think they've decided they'd like to survive the next few hopeless deathtraps, just for variety's sake.  



> wait. spacecrime? are you the one killing people off like cabbage with your online game?




I don't like to think of it as killing them off. It's more a "help them kill themselves off" kind of thing.

What can I say, we're old friends and sick sick puppies. 7 characters down, 168 or so backup characters to go...

cheers,


----------



## Arholly

Hey Guys,
  I'm busy building a site for the WLD so we can host all the stuff we want on it. Right now, I'm busy putting the Region maps I've got (A,B,C, & E) up there and getting a few other things set up on it.  Hopefully we can use it to keep track of everything concerning the WLD there (or anything we want).
  Likewise, I'm willing to host any and all downloads people want for it as well.

Jim, what do you want me to put concerning the images of the regions.  Copyright of AEG?  If you want some specific lingo, let me know.


----------



## doseyclwn

As far as prestige classes, I'm not sure yet. I guess I would let the players have what they wanted as long as it could be explained logically.

One thing I have thought about doing. As the dungeon is likely to take a LOT of game time, I thought about gradually giving the players low-light vision or possibly even some limited darkvision. What do y'all think?


----------



## Lee Hammock

Arholly said:
			
		

> Okay, time for some more questions about how people are thinking of running it.  This has to do with Prestige Classes.  What ones are people allowing/disallowing off the bat?  I'm obviously thinking anything that has a "guild" or "organization" requirement is probably a no-go.




I've actually been thinking that writing up a prestige class for heroes who join the celestial garrison in E, sort of a Divine Dungeon Keeper thing (a lawful paladin-esque super jailor).  But ignoring that, training from the celestials could be a route to some of the clerical or paladin prestige classes.

Also you could change some of the levels around for the "friendly" NPCs to give them prestige class levels, like giving Fargalan the goblin wizard in E some levels in a wizardly prestige class.  This would open up some training opportunities for the PCs.


----------



## johnnyc

doseyclwn said:
			
		

> As far as prestige classes, I'm not sure yet. I guess I would let the players have what they wanted as long as it could be explained logically.




Well if your talking about Prestige Classes that logically fit then you cannot get much more logical, in this instance, than "Dungeon Delver".

Source - Song and Silence
Special requirement - To become a Dungeon Delver a character must first survive a great trial underground. One way of fulfilling this is "Living for a year underground without seeing the light of the sun, usually among underground denizens such as the deep dwarves or drow."

Frankly most Rogues are gonna have to come up with an explanation as to why they "don't" automatically slip into this one   

However that being said I am playing as a rogue in our game and won't be taking this one  But then again the character is an out and out criminal rogue, none of that adventuring garbage. He only came with the rest of the party because it seemed a good way to get out of town to escape the people trying to arrest him .. Can you believe it, all that effort to stay away from the bloomin' police and he ends up trapped in the world's largest bloody prison!! How ironic is that 

ps. It gives you Darkvision and Blindsight, how could you cope without it!!!!

he he he

JohnnyC


----------



## jim pinto

*21 questions*

any prestige classes from that list are fine

i agree about the assassin.

as for psionics, i hate them. but, i can't tell you how to run your game. i think their DCs are ridiculous and at higher levels, DMs can't contain them anymore, without targetting them with all the monsters.

plus, magic and psionics don't belong in a game world together. it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

there are NO creatures in the dungeon with psionics, unless you add them.

there's been a lot of talk on the thread about mapping. check out pages 4 through 8. i think you'll see some ideas.

lee? i like your idea for a prestige class from the inevitables in region E, but GOOD by AEG has plenty of classes and prestige classes. alternately, DMs can just give everyone that qualifies a level of paladin.

sorry to hear about the Int 8 players/characters



arholly, i will have pdfs by the end of the week for you. they are 5 megs each (full color, full size, 100 dpi) and yes, i'll require specific text for copyright. e-mail me offlist and we'll deal with it then. i'm correcting the map for Region E right now and everything else is done.

if you post Lee's text, that too needs to be copyright AEG, if only because it references our product. sorry, lee. (give him a credit though)



if you post any art from the book, also copyright it. again, i'll give you text for that. you should make links for blogs, though. and anything else i give you for free from enworld is public domain.

you guys rock


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Going back a page here, but I havne't had the time to post so....



			
				twofalls said:
			
		

> But if they are your tyical cautious dungeon delvers who utilize thier search and trap skills I think that in play you may well find that the region is well balanced as written.




I'm guessing my skills as a DM (and even a player) are rusty - I haven't DM'ed since 2e and I haven't had the pleasure of playing a rogue in 3e/3.5e so I'm just not sure how Disable Device works.

Most of the Search DC's to locate the traps are in the "take 20" range for PC's of level 1-3 (mid to high 20's) so unless the party spends literally minutes at each doorway they won't even notice the traps, and even then they have to disable them.

Considering most of the traps in Region A (and the WLD as a whole) are of a magic nature that makes the Disable Device DC's remarkably high for levels 1-3 (DC 26-28).  Now because there is a potential penalty for failing to properly diable said devices doesn't that mean you can't take 20 on the check?  

So, not being able to take 20 when you would actually require a 19-20 in order to succeed is kind of harsh.  Yes most (all? I don't have my copy here at work) have saves for half damage but when even that is enough to down a PC I'm thinking something is wrong.

Like I said, I'm very rusty with some of the rules interactions, but at a glance the dungeon is very dangerous (well hello, it's meant to be).  I'm just trying to find a way for my players to make it through without having to spend every other day just casting cure spells and making healing checks.  I do really like Twofalls use of water columns in room A22 and he can consider it *yoinked* for my own run through - after all this Dungeon is definitely the kind of place where I can see the party maintaining a base of operations.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Oops, double post.


----------



## twofalls

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> Most of the Search DC's to locate the traps are in the "take 20" range for PC's of level 1-3 (mid to high 20's) so unless the party spends literally minutes at each doorway they won't even notice the traps, and even then they have to disable them.




Well, allow me to illustrate using my group (of extremly experienced players) as an example. I informed them beforehand that a rouge and a cleric were going to be nessesary for them to include in thier party if they wished to survive for any reasonable period of time (followed by a wink wink). They all groaned becouse I am rather infamous in our group for loving traps... and they asked me if that meant there were a lot of them in the Dungeon. I replied that there was a region (B though I didn't say that much) that contained more traps than I would consider putting into a single game. That got thier attention but good.

The rouge player ended up with a 16 Int (+3 bonus). He maxed both Search and Disarm Traps, then took a feat which gave him a +2 to his search skill (I forget the name of it off hand). That means he started out with a +9 search skill... very respectable. He has missed a few traps but has found quite a few as well. Now when a trap is discovered, depending upon how well the roll went I give info on how the trap works. This means that even if a disable device roll misses (and it does fairly often at level 1), that enterprising delvers can still take precautions to avoid its ill effects. Example: Oh, it fires some kind of missile down the hall? Lets up the Fighters Tower Shield in front of it just in case you didn't really disable it... Oh, its a scythe blade trap? Lets tie a rope to the handle and open the door from 20' away... etc, etc.




> So, not being able to take 20 when you would actually require a 19-20 in order to succeed is kind of harsh.  Yes most (all? I don't have my copy here at work) have saves for half damage but when even that is enough to down a PC I'm thinking something is wrong.




Not so hard at all... +9 means an average of a 19 on the roll...



> Like I said, I'm very rusty with some of the rules interactions, but at a glance the dungeon is very dangerous (well hello, it's meant to be).  I'm just trying to find a way for my players to make it through without having to spend every other day just casting cure spells and making healing checks.




Can't help you there, the dungeon is dangerous and at low levels they will be resting a lot until they can absorb more punishment. My group has explored 2/3 of region A and its taken them 13 days to do so, and that is with the healing water from room A23.



> I do really like Twofalls use of water columns in room A22 and he can consider it *yoinked* for my own run through - after all this Dungeon is definitely the kind of place where I can see the party maintaining a base of operations.




Rock on Brother, thats why I posted it.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Now that I've read through my post and your answers I've realised that I may have actually forgotten to ask my original question.  That being:

"Can you take 20 on a Disable Device check when the device is a trap (magical or otherwise)?"


----------



## twofalls

Yes and no. According to page 61 of the PH 3.0 you may not take 20 when the skill being attempted carries penalties for failure. So searching for a trap would allow a take 20 attempt, but disarming that same trap would not allow a take 20 attempt. However, the DC for disarming a trap doesn't take into account the idea that the player may come up with some clever ideas to protect himself in case that trap is sprung. Sometimes you just can't really protect yourself, if a fireball is going to go off if you fail you disable attempt, there is little you can do save cast resist elements fire or don a ring of fire resistance... wheras a dart trap you could block with a Shield or a convienent Half Orc fighter you might have standing around...


----------



## doseyclwn

*5' squares or 10' squares????*

I'm starting to run tomorrow, and I still haven't decided what to do about the 5; or 10' thing. My first inclination is to keep it at 5' squares, as I have seen on here a few of you doing. My question is this: for those of you who have actually started running this, what do you use and how has it worked?


----------



## CrimsonScribe

While I haven't started to run it yet, I have started to prepare purpose built "player" maps.  I originally planned on doubling the scale from 5' to 10', but when I saw just how big that would make the map pieces I chose the much more feasable 5' option.


----------



## twofalls

*I suggest 5' squares*



			
				doseyclwn said:
			
		

> I'm starting to run tomorrow, and I still haven't decided what to do about the 5; or 10' thing. My first inclination is to keep it at 5' squares, as I have seen on here a few of you doing. My question is this: for those of you who have actually started running this, what do you use and how has it worked?




For three reasons. I have been creating a players map as we go for the group. Its much easier for me to map it for them and disrupts the game far less than trying to decribe room dimensions and such to them. Second we use a comination of dungeon tiles and wet erase pens on a vinyl grid map. My hallway tiles are set to 10' so its much more convienent to use 5' squares to match my tiles. And last, if the spaces are a bit more confined, it poses interesting tactical prolbems fo the group during combat. Larger space leaves more room for manuvering, smaller space means that flanking and other manuvers require a great deal more thought and finesse to pull off.


----------



## Hawk764

I am one up on him, i am running the dungeon for 2 different groups, and my wife is in both of them. the first group went north, i am cutting off access in that direction so the other group must go East. (mostly so my wife won't have any preconcieved notion of what is going on.)


----------



## jim pinto

*twofalls is my proxy*

it seems i wasn't needed yesterday, which is good, because i was busy all afternoon.

okay. everyone back to work.


----------



## spacecrime.com

jim pinto said:
			
		

> sorry to hear about the Int 8 players/characters




Oh, Int 8 characters are lots of fun, at least for a while (especially when they're played by Very Smart People, which my players are). 

Besides, all those smarty-pants characters pass up on the obvious deathtraps. Where's the fun in coming up with deathtraps if at least some characters don't get caught in them? 

cheers,


----------



## twofalls

johnnyc said:
			
		

> However that being said I am playing as a rogue in our game and won't be taking this one  But then again the character is an out and out criminal rogue, none of that adventuring garbage. He only came with the rest of the party because it seemed a good way to get out of town to escape the people trying to arrest him .. Can you believe it, all that effort to stay away from the bloomin' police and he ends up trapped in the world's largest bloody prison!! How ironic is that




Mr. Johnny C... sir... yes that is rather ironic, but if you are playing in this game why are you foiling your GM by following this spoilers thread? I'd consider removing a player in my campaign if I knew they were purposely trying to gather non-playaer info about a game I was running... perhaps your GM is less stringent? Or maybe he isn't using this info? Or perhaps he is completly rewriting the entire module so that his players don't do what you appear to be doing?


----------



## twofalls

That last post came out sounding harsher than I intended it too, no offense meant.


----------



## Arholly

Hey guys, working with Jim on getting some stuff up on the site I'm building.  So far, he's liking it.      I'm waiting till probably tomorrow to announce the site and clean it up a bit more (and maybe have some more stuff to put up there).  Onward...

I'm going with the original 5' squares going to a previous discussion.  Makes it easier to map I think.

I'm looking forward to running this in the next week or two.  Should be "devilishly" fun.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Ok, I know this a little off-topic, but it has to do with my blog for WLD.
How do I add pictures to the blog on Blogspot?
It has instructions, but I'm having trouble following them or something.

If someone could contact me via e-mail or AIM, I'd be appreciative.


Thanks,
BBR


----------



## johnnyc

twofalls said:
			
		

> Mr. Johnny C... sir... yes that is rather ironic, but if you are playing in this game why are you foiling your GM by following this spoilers thread? I'd consider removing a player in my campaign if I knew they were purposely trying to gather non-playaer info about a game I was running... perhaps your GM is less stringent? Or maybe he isn't using this info? Or perhaps he is completly rewriting the entire module so that his players don't do what you appear to be doing?




Or maybe due to the fact the GM is my Girlfriend I don't need any other help ... Nah, we work on the premise there is basically no way to remember anything from an adventure this big anyway. Also I have "co-run" a section of the Dungeon for the rest of the group already anyway.. Damn bad timing getting that dream job so soon after the adventure started 

On top of that if she needs to change anything she just will.. no warning. So even if I was trying to gather info (which I'm not he he) it wouldn't help anyway..

JohnnyC


----------



## twofalls

johnnyc said:
			
		

> Also I have "co-run" a section of the Dungeon for the rest of the group already anyway.. Damn bad timing getting that dream job so soon after the adventure started




Well that explains it all. Thanks for taking my post in the spirit in which I meant it and not as an attack, as I didn't mean it to be one.


----------



## Arholly

Alright, check out World's Largest Dungeon Fansite.

Anything anyone wants to post up there, they can.  If you want me to host files and such, let me know.  I've already PDF'd some of Lee Hammocks cut material up there as well as the maps for the regions we have so far.  Jim said he's going to email the PDF's sometime soon and when he does, I'll post them up there.  I've also posted 4 more fiendish encounters (uh...Orcs, hyena, gnolls and monsterous spider I think) up there for people who want a little more variety.

Enjoy and have at it.

Arholly


----------



## Arholly

Oh yeah, and any comments and such are welcome as well.  It's still obviously a work in progress.


----------



## DaveMage

Arholly said:
			
		

> Oh yeah, and any comments and such are welcome as well.  It's still obviously a work in progress.




As long as it's blessed by jim pinto and AEG - it looks like a great foundation!


----------



## Neumannium

Nice job, Arholly.   

I'll look around a bit more when I leave work.


----------



## Arholly

DaveMage said:
			
		

> As long as it's blessed by jim pinto and AEG - it looks like a great foundation!




Jim's been the one giving me the copyright information and stuff like that.


----------



## DaveMage

I didn't notice it as one of the sidebars, but I would also suggest a place where users can post errata - perhaps the messageboards - and then a file could be created with all of the errata in one place.

Just a thought.


----------



## Arholly

DaveMage said:
			
		

> I didn't notice it as one of the sidebars, but I would also suggest a place where users can post errata - perhaps the messageboards - and then a file could be created with all of the errata in one place.
> 
> Just a thought.




No problem.  I am doing two things.  One, I added an erratra forum to the message boards and sub-dividing it by Region.  The second thing I did was create a section in the downloads section where any erratra files can be downloaded from if and when they are made into documents.


----------



## Neumannium

> Originally posted by DaveMage:
> 
> I would also suggest a place where users can post errata - perhaps the messageboards




Great idea!

Also, I don't know how many forums you can have, but maybe a monster/ideas/changes forum for each region (Region A Ideas, Region B Ideas, etc.) would make things easier to find and organize.

Of course, I should probably be giving this idea in those forums...


----------



## Azurecrusader

Ug. . . I hate PHPNuke 

Looks like a good start though, I look forward to seeing what else you do with it.  One suggestion I have is to turn off some of the "garbage" modules that you don't really need to have, but that's up to you.


----------



## Arholly

Azurecrusader, honestly, not that fond of PHP nuke myself, but it works for what I want and didn't feel like creating something entirely from scratch.  I'm actually going through some of the modules and turning them off or deleting useless blocks.

Neumannium, I can make as many forums as I want.  I can easily do it by Region.  <ponder> Might be better that way actually...  I like that better.


----------



## twofalls

This is great Arholly. My webmaster was going to post the files this week (he has yet to get off his duff and do it) but I don't see any reason to push him on it anymore as you have filled the bill. Thanks!


----------



## jim pinto

Neumannium said:
			
		

> Great idea!
> 
> Also, I don't know how many forums you can have, but maybe a monster/ideas/changes forum for each region (Region A Ideas, Region B Ideas, etc.) would make things easier to find and organize.
> 
> Of course, I should probably be giving this idea in those forums...




oh man. i cannot keep up on anymore threads. gah.

i'll assume you can handle monitoring your own questions.



you should have maps A, B, C, and D as pdfs now

peace


----------



## doseyclwn

Just started running folks through WLD yesterday. It was a party of 6 including...

Elven Fighter (going to be a Samurai)
Dwarven Fighter
Human Cleric of Pelor
Human Rogue
Human Soulknife
Human Sorceror

It went fairly well. The character creation took too long, but we got a bit of playing in. They had fun with the orcs in A2, though they didn't get anywhere with them. The cleric got tired of waiting for the Elf and the Dwarf to finish arguing with the orcs and set off the door with the burning hands trap. The orcs found it VERY amusing.

The rogue got filth fever, though he doesn't know it yet. He got it when he and the Dwarf got the bright idea of using one of the bodies in the corpse room to set off traps. They were severely affected by traps. The Dwarf got taken down to negatives with the Acid Arrow trap on the door by the hallway above A6, and the Scything blade trap on the eastern door in room A72 (a critical hit from that one). They met some Lemures in the hallway outside that room, and finally ended up taking a rest in Area A71. The Lemures were the only combat so far. I think they believe this section is sparsely populated!! HEHEHEEHEHEHEHE.


----------



## twofalls

Sounds good dosey, they are going to be in for a suprise next session.  Don't forget that Lemures are resistant to non-silver weapons and best used in mass, its thier only asset really. I had kobolds melting their silver to pour over weapons (making them -1 to hit) to combat them... so the party kept finding the odd "ruined" weapon here and there to combat the devils with. Also keep in mind that heavily tarnished silver appears black. And you might litter the halls liberally with rotting Orc/Kobold/Trog/Lemure/Fiendish bodies depending upon the area... I have my group spooked to a crawl with all the carnage in the place


----------



## Arholly

jim pinto said:
			
		

> oh man. i cannot keep up on anymore threads. gah.
> 
> i'll assume you can handle monitoring your own questions.
> 
> 
> 
> you should have maps A, B, C, and D as pdfs now
> 
> peace



Yup.  Got 'em and awaiting the rest.


----------



## Leopold

Arholly said:
			
		

> Yup.  Got 'em and awaiting the rest.





Map A PDF does not work. 

Few suggestions for insanity sake:

1. Create a listing of all monsters in this book and reference them to the SRD. include templates and such and pages or room reference. 

2. Create a kill chart off 1. That way PC's can say they killed one of everything!

3. Place something up there for misc ideas on howto use the WLD, garnish the ideas on here, i.e. make stuff harder, my Bit idea, a chained devil in Region A. etc. Something for others to learn from and use for ideas.


----------



## Leopold

Aren't fiendish things supposed to be resistant to some stuff? Some DR? Or is only that Half-fiend or rather full blown devils and demons?

also what is the basic equipment of orcs? They never have a listing of what they have on them. I'd be nice to have a listing of total equipment: i.e. leather armor, shield, battle axe, etc.

I've been winging it so far on that stuff.


----------



## Arholly

Map A has been fixed.  My fault.  Put it in the wrong place.

The orcs do have it and it's listed.  Cold/Fire Resistance: 5.
They don't get DR because they aren't high enough HD.
As for the equipment, it's kind of hidden on there, but I can do better for it, I'll give you that.  The Orcs have studded leather armor, Falchion, and 2 javelins.  The Gnolls have leather armor, heavy steel shield, Battleaxe, Shortbow and 20 arrows.


----------



## jim pinto

Leopold said:
			
		

> Aren't fiendish things supposed to be resistant to some stuff? Some DR? Or is only that Half-fiend or rather full blown devils and demons?
> 
> also what is the basic equipment of orcs? They never have a listing of what they have on them. I'd be nice to have a listing of total equipment: i.e. leather armor, shield, battle axe, etc.
> 
> I've been winging it so far on that stuff.




if you read the introduction, we address this

creatures with no possessions merely carry the weapon
in their stat block and the armor listed in the MM

and yes, believe it or not, it actually saves a line, sometimes two
from every stat block


----------



## Leopold

jim pinto said:
			
		

> if you read the introduction, we address this
> 
> creatures with no possessions merely carry the weapon
> in their stat block and the armor listed in the MM
> 
> and yes, believe it or not, it actually saves a line, sometimes two
> from every stat block





Yes I know that part and read that, but it's at the beginning and I hate flipping to the MM for stats and crap and equipment. sigh. nitpicking here.


----------



## Arholly

More maps posted.


----------



## twofalls

Leopold said:
			
		

> Aren't fiendish things supposed to be resistant to some stuff? Some DR?




MM 3.0 pp. 211-212, Fiendish Template

Resistances are based on the HD of the creature the template is being applied to. At 1-3 HD the only resistances gained are 5 to cold/fire.

At higher levels damage reduction is gained and the resistances increase in effectivness.

Also gained at any level are Darkvision 60', adn SR equal to double the creatures HD (a whole 2-6 for creatures of 1-3 HD).


----------



## MadSquirlie

*New Campaign*

Just wanted to thank everyone for the ideas. All this has and will be useful for me in running the WLD. The gaming group I have is relatively small (only 3 steady players) and none of them like playing Clerics. So I let everyone create 2 characters each and had to make one run a cleric. They have not gotten far right now having only explored about 8 rooms. I like using the devils and have kept with it. I plan on running them into region E just because I know that the part will self destruct and I think the inevitables will be a great way to kill...err.. help the PC's along.

PS again thanks for the ideas.


----------



## jim pinto

MadSquirlie said:
			
		

> Just wanted to thank everyone for the ideas. All this has and will be useful for me in running the WLD. The gaming group I have is relatively small (only 3 steady players) and none of them like playing Clerics. So I let everyone create 2 characters each and had to make one run a cleric. They have not gotten far right now having only explored about 8 rooms. I like using the devils and have kept with it. I plan on running them into region E just because I know that the part will self destruct and I think the inevitables will be a great way to kill...err.. help the PC's along.
> 
> PS again thanks for the ideas.




i hate to sound like a used car salesman, but in secrets (by aeg)
there's a class called the chaplain, which is a religionless healer/
fighter.

perhaps that's more your group's speed?


----------



## Azurecrusader

Arholly, thanks for getting those maps posted.  It seems that Region N1 does not work however, might want to take a look at that.


----------



## Arholly

Region N1 map is now working.  Really fixed this time.


----------



## Azurecrusader

Cool.  Thanks again!

On to another topic:

I'm interested in taking my players through the whole Dungeon, but there is obviously no single "correct" path.  This is specifically for the Jims, but anyone who wants to comment is more than welcome to:  What path would you suggest to take players through the entire dungeon with as little backtracking as possible?


----------



## twofalls

Azurecrusader said:
			
		

> What path would you suggest to take players through the entire dungeon with as little backtracking as possible?




I wouldn't suggest planning it out more than one region ahead. Things are going to change region to region, and there may be some interesting themes that open up and make one region more attractive than another. There is no reason you can't break the dungeon apart and move it around like a picture puzzel, putting region K were region M is for example... making passages longer and skipping entire areas... The geography of the dungeon might have to be played with a little bit (ie. cutting up the mephit "lava" river) but its not so difficult to do.

Characters are going to become killed, party compostion is going to change, and with a game this long the players you have might even change, all of which means the game focus will vary. If you spend a lot of prep work on a certain path through the dungeon you may later find yourself reluctant to use a different part of the complex that would immediatly suite your needs better. There are some areas you may decided ahead of time that you just don't like. I'm not wild about F becouse I don't like underground mazes... to each their own.

I reworked A, then I reworked E and decided that once they get there and deal with a couple of major themes I will know if I should send them on to I, or use G, or possibly even M.


----------



## OblivionsLot

*First Full Session or Why Darkmantles are Evil and the DM doesn't pull the Trigger*

Howdy all.  This past Wednesday I just finished the second session (and first full session) with the group.  I was considering a blog, but since we only get together twice a week updates would be very infrequent.

The party just had a Human Paladin join them when they walked through A2 to investigate beyond the first few rooms.  (Last time they wrapped up after having "fun" playing with the Acid Arrow trap.)  Bringing the total party to:

Halfling Ranger
Human Rogue
Human Cleric
Human Monk
Elven Wizard
Human Paladin (new this session)

I had given the entire party 200 gold each to spend on potions, as it seemed like a good idea to encourage survival.

For the set-up I did go with 5'/square, mainly because we're using the dungeon tiles from Wizkids, which have really added to the game play.  Except for the minor factor that I've had to have each square be 10' x 10' or else we would have run out of room really quickly. [grin]

Anyway, this session really reinforced the concept that 1st level characters are egg shells with hammers.  After investigating the orc punctured with holes, they walked into the next room.  I put the first darkmantle directly over the door but let several of them enter the room before attacking.  Somehow it was still the new Paladin who got hit and then successfully grappled by fiendish flying squid.  He hit the negatives rather quickly, but the rest of the group closed in and dealt with the problem.

[Question on the grapple - would the Darkmantle get a -4 due to size difference?]

Next came the rat swarm.  And this time, the Halfling Ranger managed to hear the swarm coming - but instead of closing the door, he just moved alongside the opening.  Bad idea.  Both he and the Monk got covered in the odd rats and contracted the Devil Chills.  Which they'll feel the effects of later.  

They did get the effect of a minor tremor early in the session, so they're now aware that this is an unstable area.  The first thoughts they had were - "What direction did it come from?"  As if a really large creature was heading their way. [grin]

Upon entering the Orc Captain's room they spent a bit of time trying to figure out what was up with the pile of dirt.  I didn't leave the East secret door open, as I didn't want them heading that direction quite yet.  This was aided by the fact that they didn't search in that spot.  But they did find the southern secret door and entered the first safe room.

While the thief was getting attacked by the scythe blade on the trapped door, the Wizard found the deck of cards.  This became the source of jokes for the evening.  "Hey, where's Frank with the cards."  "Give us back our cards - now!"  Etc.  Fun stuff.  However the first reaction was - it's a deck of many things!  Yeah, right guys, sure. [chuckle]

After establishing that it was a safe room to rest in, they decided to keep going up the hall North of A11.  Having all the doors be open was really getting on their nerves.  It reached the point where the Paladin kept closing the doors behind them, just to establish some order in the place.

The first two rooms are normally empty, but in this case they ended up fighting two Troglodytes who were - guess what - playing cards.  The battle wasn't too serious, the monk got dropped to zero, but the ranger - using the size bonus to his advantage - managed to finish them off.

More rats, but this time of the dire variety, came next.  While the battle was quick (only one of the three got away) they did learn an important lesson.  When everyone went into the room, one of the players just picked up everyone's miniature and placed them slightly randomly around the room.  So when I placed the rats down, they happened to be at the back of the room - next to the Wizard and Cleric.  No problems here, but there was a little "discussion" about how they need to be careful since where they place the miniatures is where they are on the map.

The night wrapped up after entering the final room of quad - with the two darkmantles.  The halfling was the first one in - and he went down in the darkness after a slam and a grapple as my d20 started to run hot.  Next the monk got hit by a leather version of the Flying Guillotine as he and the paladin walked in.  He avoided the grapple, while the wizard attempted to deal with the darkness issue by casting light, and the cleric cast cure minor wounds to stabilize the halfling ranger.  Oh, and it was his last cure spell.

The situation went from bad to worse when the paladin got another darkmantle to sit on his head and tell him that it loves him.  Did I mention that my dice were running hot?  And 5-8 + 5-8 damage is incredibly nasty for first level characters.  The dice told me that the paladin was dead.  I told the paladin that he was at neg. nine.  I didn't want to pull the trigger that quickly.  Then I realized that the cleric was out of spells.  Oops.  So conveniently skipping the paladin's action this turn (he followed the darkmantles) I gave everyone a final action to try and save him.

Foolishly, I had ruled earlier that you couldn't pour a potion down someone's throat during combat - you'd probably just end up drowning them in haste.  So the cleric ran over to attempt a heal skill roll to stabilize the paladin.  And thanks to a healing kit given to him (in hindsight) by the town when they left, just managed to stop Richard Trueblood, Human Paladin, from becoming our first casualty in the WLD.  (Like I said at the beginning, I couldn't pull the trigger.  At least not this early.)

Meanwhile, the Monk goes down, but only after one of the darkmantles are defeated.  Then a color spray from the wizard and a coup-de-grace from the rogue finished the other one off.  And then back to the safe room for some much needed rest and healing. 

It was a very exciting full session.  And it brought home the concept that this is a dangerous place.  Very dangerous place.

Coming up in two weeks - Stirges, an Ogre, and the ground will move again.

Jon
A World's Largest Dungeon DM.
"TWLD - I love this place!"
(Holy cats, this was a long post.   )


----------



## jim pinto

Azurecrusader said:
			
		

> Cool.  Thanks again!
> 
> On to another topic:
> 
> I'm interested in taking my players through the whole Dungeon, but there is obviously no single "correct" path.  This is specifically for the Jims, but anyone who wants to comment is more than welcome to:  What path would you suggest to take players through the entire dungeon with as little backtracking as possible?




fast path

A, B, C, G, H, D... out

challenging path

A, B, C, G, K, J, N, N, O

creepy path

A, E, I, M, N... out through ceiling (see room N159)


----------



## jim pinto

OblivionsLot said:
			
		

> [Question on the grapple - would the Darkmantle get a -4 due to size difference?]
> 
> Coming up in two weeks - Stirges, an Ogre, and the ground will move again.
> 
> Jon
> A World's Largest Dungeon DM.
> "TWLD - I love this place!"
> (Holy cats, this was a long post.   )




the –4 is already taken into account in the Grp bonus in the darkmantle's stat block +1 base attack, +3 strength, –4 size = +0

nice post. thanks for sharing.

those damn poker cards are great. every group loves them.

i can't remember if michael hammes put them in there, or i did...

i'll say it was michael.... he deserves a nod for an excellent region that has
led to so many posts.


----------



## Azurecrusader

Twofalls,  

First, thanks for your input.  I had this big old shpeel pointing out some problems with your post, but I think I'll boil it down to this:  Every group plays differently as you yourself have said.  My group will either finish the dungeon together or we will not finish it, and in all likelyhood they will all survive.  

I'm not trying to pre-plan the entire dungeon, what I'm trying to do is create a path that will take my group through everything (that is after all why I bought a 100 dollar book).  The difference may seem small, but it is there and it is important.  Truthfully I had already planned on adusting the layout of the maps, I just wanted to see what others thought was a good path through.  I'm not real fond of the rectangular layout and already have plans to offset E-H and probably more.

Anyway, I hope that didn't sound rude, it wasn't meant to be.  Please keep in mind though, that while I may be new to these forums, I am certainly not new to RPG's or my gaming group.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Thanks a lot to Jim for the pdf maps and to Arholly for hosting them.  Of course having such splendid maps available raises another question: "When can we expect some "player" maps - if at all?"


----------



## twofalls

Azurecrusader said:
			
		

> Anyway, I hope that didn't sound rude, it wasn't meant to be.  Please keep in mind though, that while I may be new to these forums, I am certainly not new to RPG's or my gaming group.





No offense taken and none intended. I responded to the question with no inkling of the experience of the poster, so I answered it from the ground up. In so far as running every region in one campaign goes, I respectfully submit that you are insane.


----------



## Ashran

I've done it, I started dming my wld campaign today. I just finished half an hour ago in fact. All in all it went pretty well even if I feel rusty (i didn't master anything for one full year...)

But WLD is great for that with all the tactics added for encounters... It all run very smoothly, even if my players were quite lucky... I don't have a death to report yet, even a group of wandering stirges almost killed one of the players. They avenged themselves with room A80 were the sorcerer of the group casted a sleep spell for 16 hit dices.... After that they were easy picking... (I awarded less xp for that encounter... but still a large amount for three level 1 players)

I didn't have a level up yet, but they are very near. Next session I supose. We had fun, and the players are convinced that nothing humanoid survived the dungeon except for the two orcs at the entrance... They didn't manage to get the word on the situation out of them... Ho well maybe later 

They also managed to be hit by almost all the traps on doors and checking traps for doors without one... And survive, barely...especially the falling wall one... It's nasty for level one player....

All in all it was a great evening.


----------



## doseyclwn

*Problems with the fansite*

Hey Arholly,

     First thanks for putting up the website. I am unable to access the forums and I am unable to access my private messages for some reason. My email is dosey69@comcast.net. If you could let me know how to access those, that would be awesome!!


----------



## CrimsonScribe

You aren't the only one that is unable to access the forums on Arholly's site unfortunately and the Private Messaging function is tied to the forums (at least it is in every other piece of forum software I've seen).

I'm sure it will be working again as soon as possible.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

*Oh the horror*

Well my players are definitely afraid of the WLD.

I'll post more details on the CinciDnD blog sometime today, but the very first fight left them in bad shape.

They ignored the sickly orcs. But when half the group had entered room A9 and it all went dark and a Darkmantle got the drop on them, it was a nightmare. Of the 6 adventurers in the group, 4 of them had hit negative hp at least once in the combat (one did twice).

The first to drop was the cleric (scary for us all), but since he was a cleric of Lathander with the Renewal domain, he was ok.

The group had poor tactics and even worse rolls. _Eventually_ they left the darkness area and the thing became much easier to take down.

After that they stressed the point on their tactics to get out of the darkness next time.

Yeah, they're spooked now. Makes them a little more cautious and smarter.

That's when my fun begins.


----------



## haiiro

I put up a webpage for my WLD campaign. At the moment, it's got the hook we'll be using to enter the dungeon, character creation guidelines and house rules, and a couple of suggestions.

In a few days, it should include the whole party, and down the road I may wind up posting some of the highlights. I don't have the energy to make it into a Story Hour or a blog, but sharing some of the high and low points seems like a fun middle ground. 

On Monday I'll be ordering a set of Tact-Tiles -- I can't see any more efficient way to run combat in this sucker. For macro-level mapping (where the party has been), I'll be giving them graph paper maps on the fly, including room numbers for easy reference later.

First game should be next weekend. Everyone's making two PCs (one in reserve, so they can jump right back in if the first one croaks), and we'll see how it goes.


----------



## Arholly

I'm looking into the problem.  I sent you an email this morning.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

I have a question for the WLD makers and the DM's running the campaign.

When using the Darkness ability of the Darkmantles, do you treat the darkness as the 20% chance to miss darkness (as the spell in the 3.5PHB) or do you treat is as the original darkness that effectively gives total blindness?


Thanks,
BBR


----------



## Jim Hague

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I have a question for the WLD makers and the DM's running the campaign.
> 
> When using the Darkness ability of the Darkmantles, do you treat the darkness as the 20% chance to miss darkness (as the spell in the 3.5PHB) or do you treat is as the original darkness that effectively gives total blindness?
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> BBR




Go with the 3.5 version.


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I have a question for the WLD makers and the DM's running the campaign.
> 
> When using the Darkness ability of the Darkmantles, do you treat the darkness as the 20% chance to miss darkness (as the spell in the 3.5PHB) or do you treat is as the original darkness that effectively gives total blindness?
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> BBR




i guess that depends on if you're running 3.0 or 3.5

the CR is obviously scaled against the 3.5 version, but if your
PCs are wimps... (that's right... i said wimps) ...you can tone it
down for them.



but, seriously, i think the total blindness (at least the first 1d4 times)
works to scare the crap out of the PCs. later, reduce the miss chance
to 35% and then 20% if you want


----------



## twofalls

I use total darkness, but then I play 3.0. 20% miss chance is pathetic IMHO, the encounter doesn't carry the same impact if they aren't thrown into total disarray and scramble by the plunge into inkly blackness. I also removed a lot of the Darkmantles from my game and put in Devils... but thats covered earlier in this thread.


----------



## Hawk764

consedering the concept of level gaining at progress intervals,(instead of by encounter) i started both my groups at second level to try to help the survivability of the party. as it is, the darkmantles are still a beating.


----------



## Hatchling Dragon

While I haven't picked this up yet, this thread is certainly inspiring me to do so.

One thing I'd been wondering about, what with all the Map discussion going on, is if anyone had though of (or even started on) inputting these maps into one or another of the various mapping programs on the market today?  I'm a bit suprised that one of thsoe software makers didn't approach AEG to make a downloadable map-pack for thier software, mabye even with exclusive type rights to it (ie: only they can do it, to up sales of course).

Oh yah, when do you think we'll see the first Neverwinter Knights version of this beast?  

Hatchling Dragon


----------



## CrimsonScribe

> Oh yah, when do you think we'll see the first Neverwinter Knights version of this beast?




I get the feeling that by the time people have finished programing this into the NWN Toolset, NWN2 would be upon us.


----------



## jim pinto

Hatchling Dragon said:
			
		

> While I haven't picked this up yet, this thread is certainly inspiring me to do so.
> 
> One thing I'd been wondering about, what with all the Map discussion going on, is if anyone had though of (or even started on) inputting these maps into one or another of the various mapping programs on the market today?  I'm a bit suprised that one of thsoe software makers didn't approach AEG to make a downloadable map-pack for thier software, mabye even with exclusive type rights to it (ie: only they can do it, to up sales of course).
> 
> Oh yah, when do you think we'll see the first Neverwinter Knights version of this beast?
> 
> Hatchling Dragon




that's a lot of speculation about things i can't address....

um.... yes?!?!

i hope someone approaches us about the maps, though

it would make a few people on here very happy.

right, twofalls?



as for NWN... any takers?


----------



## CrimsonScribe

It's something I'd love to see - running through the WLD with your mates in NWN would be an something else.

I'll wait and see how I go with the new group before I start putting my hand up for things like this.  Though if we get several people interested, I'll do what I can to help.


----------



## spacecrime.com

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> It's something I'd love to see - running through the WLD with your mates in NWN would be an something else.



I've gotta say, there is a part of me that envies the players and longs to be in there hacking through the dungeon with them.

But then the part of me that enjoys watching player characters suffer beats the part of me that wants to play senseless. Such is the lot of the conflicted GM...

cheers,


----------



## twofalls

I'd name my next born child after the person who makes decent players maps for the entire WLD and makes them availible.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Do you just mean a players map - as in one that they can have to scribble on (if necessary) and that isn't to any particular scale?  Because I can probably handle that - if it's alright with AEG of course.

If you mean a player's map that uses a 25mm/5ft scale for actually playing with, I'm not even going to try - I'm doing it at the moment, and the further I go, the more I'm interested in using something like Tact-Tiles.


----------



## twofalls

*Player Maps*

No, when the maps first came out and I examined them it occured to me that having a players map with all map symbols removed (IE. secret doors, teleports, etc) that could be shown to the players would be extremely valuable. I sen't an email to Jim, who forwarded it to the president of AEG and I've not recieved a response... so I assume it was canned. A scale map for minatures is rediculous... it would be huge. Just storing it would be an issue. At this time I've taped 4 sheets of 8.5x11 graph paper together and am drawing the map for the players as they explore the complex. It seems to be working well, then are getting a feel of having explored a large complex.


----------



## twofalls

*Secret Rooms*

Of course the secret rooms themselves would have to be removed as well...


----------



## Bestopheles

Hey Guys and Gals,

First of all, thanks to everyone (especially Big Jim Pinto) for posting all of these fun extras to the WLD. They actually helped sweaten the pot enough for me to go from "Maybe I can afford it..." to "I must have it NOW!" That said, I have a few questions:

1) Going on the advice of someone early in this thread (DaveMage, I think), I ordered from www.stiggybaby.com. (And before I'm flamed, I DO support my FLGS, but saving $30 on this one book will allow me to spend an extra thirty there). I was just wondering if anyone has ordered the WLD from this company before and had it delivered yet. 
2) Hmm. I'm thinking about setting the WLD in Eberron. Now obviously, I don't own the book yet, but from what spoilers I've seen and what I've heard on this thread, it sounds like the dead titan near the entrance has an enchanted halbred and enchanted scale mail on. Artificers in Eberron can ritually destroy a magic item and harvest the xp from it to put in a craft pool, which they can later use to make other items. Do you guys think it would be over balancing to allow a player to destroy those items early in the game, to give them a boost to their craft pool? Frankly, I think an artificer could work very well in a game with few magic stores, but with a few forges. He adds an insane amount to his craft pool by destroying all of the items the party can't immediately use, and doesn't want to carry, then funnels all of that xp and gp they've amassed into making custom made items for the party during the first big break they get. 

Jason


----------



## Tenser42

Hi all, long-time lurker, first time poster.  I was also convinced by the WLD threads here at ENWorld to bite the bullet and buy this book.  And boy am I glad I did, I'm just about finished reading Region A, and even if I never get to run this puppy (which I will), it's an awesome read!  This dungeon seems so full of life and character and I've even convinced my wife to go through it as a solo campaign (though she'll have a cohort).

We're going to be using gestalt characters and I'm erring on the side of giving her more power to start (ie, high point buy, using the action points option from UA, couple of healing potions to start, etc) to help her survive, then as we get used to the dungeon and her characters, I'll start pulling the power level back if needed.  As a sidenote, I love the Scaling section for each Room, I'll be making heavy use of that.

Bestopheles - Like you, I went by advice earlier in the thread to order from stiggybaby.  I even emailed them ahead of time to make sure they had the book in stock.  They answered me almost immediately, and I ordered it on Wednesday (US priority mail) and received it that Saturday afternoon.  So if you want to/have to order on line, I highly recommend stiggybaby.  I ordered online to save the $30 and because my FLGS didn't even stock this book!

Again, kudos to Jim and AEG, this book made me feel like I was having Christmas in October 

John


----------



## Soul

If you like Region A that much, then you'll probably really like the rest, so far A is probably my least favorite. Not that its bad, its been a lot of fun.. its pacing is somewhat skewed imo, and with the repeative nature of the darkmantles/rats it I think takes some of the coolness out of it. If you have some other monster books to pull some additional low level badies, or drag some elven deserters in, I think that'll help, or even just pulling more Orcs/Kobolds out with random encounters. A really does have some fine moments though, from the Oger (his name escapes me at the moment), to Turag the cowardly orc, etc... 

As for stiggybaby, I'll add in my .02 cents and say they are an excellent online store.


----------



## jim pinto

Bestopheles said:
			
		

> Hey Guys and Gals,
> 
> First of all, thanks to everyone (especially Big Jim Pinto) for posting all of these fun extras to the WLD. They actually helped sweaten the pot enough for me to go from "Maybe I can afford it..." to "I must have it NOW!" That said, I have a few questions:
> 
> 1) Going on the advice of someone early in this thread (DaveMage, I think), I ordered from www.stiggybaby.com. (And before I'm flamed, I DO support my FLGS, but saving $30 on this one book will allow me to spend an extra thirty there). I was just wondering if anyone has ordered the WLD from this company before and had it delivered yet.
> 2) Hmm. I'm thinking about setting the WLD in Eberron. Now obviously, I don't own the book yet, but from what spoilers I've seen and what I've heard on this thread, it sounds like the dead titan near the entrance has an enchanted halbred and enchanted scale mail on. Artificers in Eberron can ritually destroy a magic item and harvest the xp from it to put in a craft pool, which they can later use to make other items. Do you guys think it would be over balancing to allow a player to destroy those items early in the game, to give them a boost to their craft pool? Frankly, I think an artificer could work very well in a game with few magic stores, but with a few forges. He adds an insane amount to his craft pool by destroying all of the items the party can't immediately use, and doesn't want to carry, then funnels all of that xp and gp they've amassed into making custom made items for the party during the first big break they get.
> 
> Jason




its a suit of +4 chain and a +4 halberd (both too big for the party)

that's a lot of free points for artificers.... of course, who says they can contain ALL of that magic.

is it unbalanced? probably

is it a good idea? absolutely. you're the DM. tell your story, man.

and if you have to step in and make sure the magic can only be used for good... well....


----------



## DaveMage

I'm glad to hear that stiggybaby is working out for everyone (and welcome to the posting world, tenser42!).

They've been great on the few orders I have made with them.  

(And, once again I must thank EN World user Treebore for pointing them out to me.)


----------



## Bestopheles

Tenser42 said:
			
		

> Hi all, long-time lurker, first time poster.
> 
> *Snip*
> 
> Bestopheles - Like you, I went by advice earlier in the thread to order from stiggybaby.  I even emailed them ahead of time to make sure they had the book in stock.  They answered me almost immediately, and I ordered it on Wednesday (US priority mail) and received it that Saturday afternoon.  So if you want to/have to order on line, I highly recommend stiggybaby.  I ordered online to save the $30 and because my FLGS didn't even stock this book!
> 
> Again, kudos to Jim and AEG, this book made me feel like I was having Christmas in October
> 
> John




Cool John! Welcome to the world of posting. Just after posting this earlier, I got an e-mail confirming that it was in stock, and that they were shipping it out today. SO, with luck I'll have it by Saturday (or early next week). I'm pretty exicted about this sucker...I'm making the pitch to my gaming group tonite, and I'm hoping I can start running the campaign soon. 

Jason


----------



## Bestopheles

jim pinto said:
			
		

> its a suit of +4 chain and a +4 halberd (both too big for the party)
> 
> that's a lot of free points for artificers.... of course, who says they can contain ALL of that magic.
> 
> is it unbalanced? probably
> 
> is it a good idea? absolutely. you're the DM. tell your story, man.
> 
> and if you have to step in and make sure the magic can only be used for good... well....




Thanks Jim...good points all. Since the standard treasure for this WLD is a bit lagging behind average (at least intially) this could be a really nice way to boost them up. And if becomes a problem, I just give a few fighter types in the adventure later on the Sunder feat, or I have a few spellcasters target disentegrate on staffs or items, etc....



Jason


----------



## KerPow

*Re: Eberon*



			
				Bestopheles said:
			
		

> ...
> 2) Hmm. I'm thinking about setting the WLD in Eberron... ...Artificers in Eberron can ritually destroy a magic item and harvest the xp from it to put in a craft pool, which they can later use to make other items. Do you guys think it would be over balancing to allow a player to destroy those items early in the game, to give them a boost to their craft pool? Frankly, I think an artificer could work very well in a game with few magic stores, but with a few forges...
> Jason




I just started running WLD and I allowed ebberon races and classes.  

The addition of an artificer will really help the party due to the lack of stores, but I believe that deconstructing magic items is a 7th level artificer ability.


----------



## Bestopheles

I don't have my books with me, but I'm pretty sure that your right...the deconstructing an item is an ability they get after 1st level (I actually though it was around 3rd or 4th level, but may be as high as 7th). That said, I think I may allow access to that ability from first level...especially if there are no clerics in the party, and those xp are going for wands of cure light, scrolls of restoration, etc. However, I may ad caveats as to what can be made with those bonus xp until he hits seventh (only healing items, for example), or even just say they're "banked" and unusuable till he hits seventh. I think with some management it wouldn't be game breaking.

Jason


----------



## Tenser42

Thanks for the kind welcome everyone 




			
				Soul said:
			
		

> If you like Region A that much, then you'll probably really like the rest, so far A is probably my least favorite. Not that its bad, its been a lot of fun.. its pacing is somewhat skewed imo, and with the repeative nature of the darkmantles/rats it I think takes some of the coolness out of it. If you have some other monster books to pull some additional low level badies, or drag some elven deserters in, I think that'll help, or even just pulling more Orcs/Kobolds out with random encounters. A really does have some fine moments though, from the Oger (his name escapes me at the moment), to Turag the cowardly orc, etc...




Soul, if Region A is your least favorite, I'm looking forward even more to reading the rest .  As for the pacing in Region A, I did notice the monsters get kind of repetitive (especially all the darkmantles in the eastern rooms).  I think I will play that by ear, possibly using the optional random encounter charts folks have already posted elsewhere (ie, fiendish orcs, kobolds, etc.)

If I feel motivated enough, another possibility (since there will only be two characters in the party to start) is to change things slightly such that more of the orcs and kobolds survived the initial assault by the fiends and currently have the upperhand in a pitched battle against the darkmantles in the eastern rooms.  The battle began in A49 and has slowly moved east to the darkmantles lairs.

This would accomplish a reduction in foes for the PC(s) to combat, and it would allow the humanoids to survive a bit longer (I like orcs, hehe).  And if the PC(s) decided to help the humanoids, this would greatly increase the odds of an alliance.  Although once the battle was complete, it should be fun working out the tension between the remaining kobolds and orcs.

We're playing in the Forgotten Realms and my wife has chosen to play a drow elf who loosely follows Ellistrae (sp?), so having a drow elf suddenly appear and help the kobolds and orcs adds a bit of a twist (if she plays it that way).

Anyway, just thinking out loud, thanks for reading .

John


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

For those interested, there's now a dedicated forum for AEG's *World's Largest Dungeon* over at www.rpgmp3.com

RPGMP3 WLD forum

The 2nd audio session is available, the 3rd is in the can and the 4th will be recorded next week.

Paul


----------



## CrimsonScribe

twofalls said:
			
		

> No, when the maps first came out and I examined them it occured to me that having a players map with all map symbols removed (IE. secret doors, teleports, etc) that could be shown to the players would be extremely valuable. I sen't an email to Jim, who forwarded it to the president of AEG and I've not recieved a response... so I assume it was canned. A scale map for minatures is rediculous... it would be huge. Just storing it would be an issue. At this time I've taped 4 sheets of 8.5x11 graph paper together and am drawing the map for the players as they explore the complex. It seems to be working well, then are getting a feel of having explored a large complex.




I'm in the process of photoshoping Region A right now and I got to wondering, do you want Room Numbers to be shown?  Leaving them on would give away any nearby secret rooms because of the gaps in the numbers and may or may not let the players know if they are heading the "right" way (depends on th region).

So far I'm taking out all secret doors, trap symbols and "unique markers" - like the red and green "markers" in rooms A48 & A80 respectively.  I'm also colouring all the "true secret rooms" (those with no non-secret doors) the same colour as the dungeon walls.


----------



## Soul

I'd say leave the numbers. Having clues about secret doors isn't so bad really. Whats the fun if the PCs miss all the secret doors? Plus, the players might not realize it, atleast not right away.


----------



## haiiro

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> I'm in the process of photoshoping Region A right now and I got to wondering, do you want Room Numbers to be shown?




First off, if you see this project through, you will have my thanks -- it's a major undertaking, and player-friendly maps will be a great tool no matter which way you fall on this issue.

Personally, I favor leaving the numbers in for one reason: my experience playing through large dungeons is that it gets hard to remember where you've been, even with a map. After the fifteenth mostly empty room that has some fiendish darkmantles in it, I'm going to _need_ numbers -- as a player or as a DM.

This is especially true in the case of unidentified magical treasure, and to a lesser extent, treasure in general. For example: "Okay, I stab the orc with that weird dagger we found." Which weird dagger? "Oh, the one from A27, where the pile of dead bodies was." From note-taking to ease of play, that's a great tool to have.

I think the immense utility of that shorthand -- of being able to say, "That's room A15" -- outweighs the fact that players will be able to make informed guesses about their progress and the presence of secret doors, etc. A group that doesn't want their PCs to act on that player knowledge will play accordingly, numbers or no.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

It's really not that hard to do when you have the right tools.  It's taking me a couple of hours to complete a region.  In fact I've completed Region A already (with the room numbers) and I'm going to email Jim to see if I need to do anything regarding copyright before submitting them to Arholly's fan site.


----------



## haiiro

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> In fact I've completed Region A already (with the room numbers) and I'm going to email Jim to see if I need to do anything regarding copyright before submitting them to Arholly's fan site.




Sweet. You might even finish it in time for my first session. 

Don't forget to post here when you upload it to Arholly's site!


----------



## CrimsonScribe

haiiro said:
			
		

> Sweet. You might even finish it in time for my first session.
> 
> Don't forget to post here when you upload it to Arholly's site!




Oh, I'll be doing that.  Though this is contingent on AEG's approval etc.


----------



## Bestopheles

sweet. User friendly player maps would be very nice.

Jason


----------



## Bestopheles

*How I plan to start.*

Okay guys, 

I'm starting the campaign on this thursday. Of course, my book hasn't yet materialized in the mail yet, which means it will probably be here on Tuesday (curse you Christopher Columbus!), so I'm having to set some things up based on what spoilers I've read here as well as what I've been able to glean from leafing through it at my FLGS. I'm planning on the characters coming in at first level with a 32 point buy. So far the players are 1 wizard, 1 cleric, 1 barb, 1 fighter, 1 monk. So heavy on muscle, decent on spells, not so heavy on trapfinding. Several players are making back up characters, and I've let them know that without a rogue there will be a high attrition rate, so when somebodies dies, we'll get our rogue. I'm setting the campaign in Eberron, near the Xendrik mountains ( a land of darkness and evil, don't ya know.) I'm including a few rules from unearthed arcana, like craft pool point. (each character gets 100 craft points per level, and can spend 1/10 of an objects gp cost in craft points to make it "instantly". They still have to spend all normal costs, like gp and xp, and they have to be ABLE to create the item having appropriate feats needed, etc, but they don't have to take any time to do it (key if you're going to be making things in a dungeon). 
I'm using some of Arholly's Random Encounter table, and adding the Carcass Eater, from Libris Mortis, pg 91, A dire maggot or two from LM page95, and maybe a bone rat swarm from LM pg 89 (which could be especially fun if they're attacked by a living rat swarm earlier, then have to fight their remains later...)

Any thoughts/advice will certainly be appreciated. I'm very much looking forward to getting things started!

Jason


----------



## twofalls

I wonder how my wife Katy is going to feel about knitting booties for a little CrimsonScribe in a few years...


----------



## Bestopheles

As an aside, I'm trying to come up with a World's Largest Dungeon sound track. Anyone have any suggestions?

Jason


----------



## enrious

Bestopheles said:
			
		

> Of course, my book hasn't yet materialized in the mail yet, which means it will probably be here on Tuesday (curse you Christopher Columbus!), so I'm having to set some things up based on what spoilers I've read here as well as what I've been able to glean from leafing through it at my FLGS.




Heh, I'm in exactly the same boat.   

I'm going to be setting the WLD as Undermountain, under Waterdeep.   I'm going to have a 28 point buy and the party will be 1st level.

I'm going to be running it somewhat tongue-in-cheek (the PC's will have to fill out hold-harmless waivers before entering) and will have it set as an annual dungeon spellunking event.  

My premise is that there's a lottery for 1 person to recieve permission to enter with a party; one of the pc's will have won the lottery and basically randomly selected the party.  Should the party leave the dungeon within 180 days, they will recieve land, title, money, fame, etc.

The lantern archons will be able to keep those above ground informed as to the party's progress and usher in a randomly selected replacement as pc's die.  Replacement characters will be 2 less than the party average.

I also am going to be using DMGenie to keep track of things (jim, thanks a lot for providing electronic versions of the maps - anyone who uses an electronic aid will find them very useful).

As I won't be starting for a few weeks, hopefully the player maps will be out.  I intend to spread bookeeping out among 4 players - 1 Cartographer - basically this person will have to look at the map section I show and copy it into the player's map pack.  2 Monster death scribe - this person is responsible for keeping track of monsters encountered and the results.  3 Treasure scribe - This person will be responsible for recording treasure found and the location where it was found.   4  General scribe - this person is responsible for keeping track of time passage, player deaths/serious injury, ration useage, and anything else I designate.

I'm also going to run with the Lantern Archons as Tron Bits (thanks to the above who suggested this), even to the point of using a text-to-speech program.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Well I just got my modified copy of Region A printed at the local PrintWorks in Colour A3 on glossy paper (not film) and I must say it came up well.  It's a good size and everything is readable (as compressing A2 to A4 makes text a nightmare).  As an added bonus the slight "smudge marks" from my photoshoping aren't even noticable - especially if you don't know where to look.


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

For those who are following the RPGMP3 story and don't want to miss anything, I've posted an update thread in the Story Hour forum.

Hal has promised session #3 online soon. Session #4 is due to be recorded tomorrow.

Paul


----------



## toddbanister

Also a longtime lurker but just had to chime in on this one. 

Let me get this out of the way first - Thank you Jim Pinto for creating such a wonderful book! We haven't played DND in years but after running across this book in the gamestore, I just *knew* I had to give it a shot. The price did make me initially balk but after reading this thread and the wonderful reviews, I plopped down my $100 and I couldn't be happier.

I'm currently reading up on region A and I think I've run across an error. It might have been already covered in another thread but I haven't run across it. Also checked Arholly's site but didn't see anything listed.

On page 34 (room A33) it mentions that there are 2x troglodytes in each alcove (marked as area B) but also one each in the doorways to rooms A31 and A32 (as well as providing listening checks for A31 and A32). Shouldn't this be A33 and A34 (or at least something else) instead as A31 is the room with the feindish Stirges and A32 is the hidden torture chamber. 

Again, can't say thanks enough for creating such an excellent product.

Todd B.


----------



## Soul

Yes, thats correct. Also, A33 is listed twice once as the room and once as the encounter.. which I thought was somewhat confusing when I first came upon it.


----------



## jim pinto

Bestopheles said:
			
		

> As an aside, I'm trying to come up with a World's Largest Dungeon sound track. Anyone have any suggestions?
> 
> Jason




i thought you'd never ask.

Region A. Anything from the Smith, or Cure. Depressing 80s british rock.
During climatic scenes, switch up with Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force.
The soundtrack to Last of the Mohicans also works well during the later parts and of course, the Midnight Syndicate makes great mood music. I also love a perfect circle's second album while writing, so it might be ideal when gaming.

Region B. Raiders of the Lost Ark. Duh.

Region C. Switch it up from Peter Gabriel to Black Eyed Peas to Slayer (their more recent material) to Garbage to the Aliens soundtrack to Skunk Anasie. 

Region D. Heavy metal and anything with a slow, heavy beat. Trent reznor also works. Judas Priest British Steel is a must.

Region E. Industrial music. Ministry, KMFDM, NIN, and a host of others. People with more knowledge of industrial music can help on this. The soundtrack to Strange Days was okay. Tank Girl was good as well.

Region F. This is a tough one. Anything discordant and confusing works best. Tori Amos, Bjork, Fugazi's later work, Dilinger Escape Plan, Fake Train, and Queens of the Stone Age's R album. Hindu music and chinese folk songs are really distracting as well.

Region G. Classical music, chants, operas, and so on. The sound track to Lord of the Rings works. I'm especially partial to Rimsky-Korsikov, Liszt, Schubert, Tchiakovsky, Dvorak, Vivaldi, and Biset. Ludwig's work when he was deaf is perfect here too.

Region H. Nature music, with hints of dark undertones. Anything by Danny Elfman. Vivald's four seasons works here.

Region I and M. Soundtrack to Halloween. Also gothic music. There are about 800+ bands that want to wallow in their own self-pity. Pick one.

Region J. Again. Heavy metal (real metal, pre-83) and sounds of hammers and anvils are great. Grindcore and thrash metal are good here as the PCs should always be afraid. Husker Du's landspeed record.

Region K. Eiree sounds here. Because the region is built around the dragon, there should be moments of sheer panic. Danny Elfman's slower songs. Perhaps soem grunge. Alice in Chains has some darker pieces as does Soundgarden and Tad. Mudhoney's less humorous songs might work. The cranberries, pixies, frank black, bob mould, firehose (not firehouse), primus, a perfect circle, iron maiden's seventh son of a seventh son, tears of the sun soundtrack, plattoon soundtrack, miracle mile soundtrack, kill bill soundtrack (the final fight scene) and anything by rush are also good additions. 

Region L. The soundstrack to Patrick Stewart's version of Moby Dick, the score to titanic, abyss, and movies where isolation and mood outweigh action. I didn't see the movie, but perhaps Master and Commander had a good score.

Region N. Punk. Black flag (w/ Rollins), the exploited, husker du (new day rising), minutemen, tool, boltthrower (if you can find it), old bad religion, old fugazi, old pennywise, minor threat, rage against the machine, bad brains, and anything from the DC hardcore scene.

Region O. I wouldn't play much music in Region O, except perhaps something scary during key moments. Black Sabbath's Mob Rules is a good album here, though.

you may notice the lack of emo, pop, rap, r&b, country, adult contemporary, and hip-hop.

with the exception of jazz and marvin gaye, i don't know much about these genres. i really don't see nelly or blink 182 as good mood music, anyway.

as i understand it, hal mangold (at green ronin) is the most knowledgable music fan in gaming and he might create a better list of bands that none of us has ever heard of.


----------



## Arholly

*Nwn*

To those who asked, I've already started a NWN module for the WLD.  I've got a basic starting point for the players (ye ol' inn or something like that) and then they go to the dungeon.  Once there, no turning back.  I'm hopeful to have Region A done and playtested by the 1st week in November, if things allow.

There are some serious things to change for the module though and that's been the hard part (death & dying, darkmantles [ugh!], equipment, etc...).


----------



## twofalls

Listen to a little music Jim?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

My group is thinking about setting up a live webcam viewing of our WLD sessions.
We have a few questions about it though.

1) Would anyone even watch? I figure a few will watch it for a larf, but probably just for a few minutes.

2) Right now we only know how to do it through Yahoo Messenger, but that has no sound. Is there a free service out there? Right now the only such services out there...aren't for D&D.

3) Has anyone tried this before?


Thanks,
BBR


----------



## jim pinto

twofalls said:
			
		

> Listen to a little music Jim?




haha. not that much, actually.

i listen while i work. and i know a little here and there from people. but i know people that are absolute geeks about music.

in truth, i'd been thinking about the WLD soundtrack for some time and i was eager to post about it. with someone asking for a list, i was sort of compeled to type it up... really no excuse not to.

i grew up with classical music, so everything else is just what you're exposed to during your teenage angst and college "know it all" years.

so i guess, most of what i listed is a little dated.


----------



## jim pinto

*more spoilers?*

is anyone nearing I, F, or C, yet?


----------



## kvehmane

Is there any errata for WLD yet? In this thread a couple of mistakes has been pointed out, but is there anything compiled? Not at the WLD fan site...
And for soundtrack (classical) I would like to recommend any Mahler symphony, R.Strauss (or Scriabin!) tone poems, or even some Sibelius...
For industrial etc. some Einstürzende Neubauten or Bauhaus!


----------



## Demon Gnome

> is anyone nearing I, F, or C, yet?




The group I am DMing is currently in region B and will be getting to C in probably   few weeks or so.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

My group just made it into A1 last night, and we aren't playing for another 2 weeks, so it might be "some time" before we hit any of those regions


----------



## Bestopheles

jim pinto said:
			
		

> in truth, i'd been thinking about the WLD soundtrack for some time and i was eager to post about it. with someone asking for a list, i was sort of compeled to type it up... really no excuse not to.
> 
> i grew up with classical music, so everything else is just what you're exposed to during your teenage angst and college "know it all" years.
> 
> so i guess, most of what i listed is a little dated.





Cool! Well, I'm glad to give you an excuse. I checked out some of Midnight Syndicates stuff, and I was impressed (I'd seen them at Cons before, but never really took the time to stop by and listen...my mistake). I'll definitely be using some of their stuff. 

BTW>>>The eagle landed today. I too can now leaf through the million words in this book with sweet, sweet love. mmmm

Jason


----------



## twofalls

*With Respect*

I love to roleplay. My friends and family, and the thousands of rpg books on my shelves can testify to that. Telling stories, joking with my friends, sweeping quests, great villians and greater heroes, I love it all. However I just don't understand the allure to watching (or listening) to others roleplay. I mean absolutly no disprespect to those posters on this thread who are making efforts to present this material to others... if you have an audience (or even if you don't) then thats great, I hope you have fun. However perhaps someone here who does find this appealing can explain to me the allure of watching X number of gamers roll dice... or listen to a group discuss how they are going to exlore the WLD?

Where did this idea come from and how has it survived?


----------



## Sulaya

*Question about dealing with Experience Points*

I'm a first time poster to these boards, so I hope you'll bear with me.  I've been DMing for about 8-9 years, ever since my (now) husband talked me into it so he could play D&D, instead of just GM.   

We've just purchased the World's Largest Dungeon, and I have a few questions.  I'm sorry if the answers are obvious and I've just missed them, but I appreciate any help.

I'm wondering how exactly to deal with experience.  In the Introduction, it suggests not handling it the "standard" way, and that PCs should level up twice during each region.  We are then directed to the "chart" on pg. 9, which seems to just list what levels each region is designed for.

My question is, how exactly are people who are running this dealing with experience?  Are you just picking certain points and telling PCs to level up?  If so, how do you deal with PCs using spells that burn experience, which would then leave them a bit lower level than their comrades?  Or, are you using the suggestion to stop awarding XP after a certain number of the same monster are killed?  Something else?

I could really use just some practical, straightforward suggestions.

Also, I want to say how incredibly neat this adventure looks so far.  I'm very excited to get started.  This thread has been very helpful so far, and I anticipate it will continue to be as we delve in.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

I'd be interested in seeing exactly how other people are handling the XP situation as well.  I know at least one poster here has just picked 2 rooms within the region that act as "leveling chambers", but are the rest doing.

So far, I'm dishing out XP as per the standard fashion, but my players haven't killed a creautre within the confines of the dungeon itself yet, so things are likely to change.  If the characters get a little tougher (no more than 1 level higher than the goal of the region) it won't phase me, but if they achieve said point in a stupidly ridiculous amount of time, I'll be forced to find an alternate method.


----------



## spacecrime.com

Sulaya said:
			
		

> My question is, how exactly are people who are running this dealing with experience?




I've been handing out xp based on the listed encounter levels, occasionally nudging the EL up or down a notch if I thought there was a mismatch between the encounter and the party's specific abilities.

Seems to be working fine so far, and the players are just about where they're supposed to be on the power curve. (It doesn't hurt that the group size varies between 4 and 8, so they sometimes go a little hungry when the xp gets split up.)

cheers,


----------



## Soul

I've been using half-standard xp, and throwing in bonus rewards. I'm not quite happy with this, as it seems like the leveling is a little slow, but its not 'too' bad. Its been about 3-4 sessions a level. I might just add more bonus rewards.


----------



## The Goblin King

I had a crazy idea.  I don't have the book yet but I am working on getting it.  Is it impossible to finish TWLD without casters?  A wizards and a cleric?


----------



## CrimsonScribe

I'm pretty confident it would be impossible to finish without a traditional cleric.  Maybe "impossible" isn't the word, but it sure as hell would be a pain to attempt it and would take a lot longer than the 2 years quoted in this thread.


----------



## Demon Gnome

> Originally Posted by Sulaya
> My question is, how exactly are people who are running this dealing with experience?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I've been handing out xp based on the listed encounter levels, occasionally nudging the EL up or down a notch if I thought there was a mismatch between the encounter and the party's specific abilities.
> 
> Seems to be working fine so far, and the players are just about where they're supposed to be on the power curve. (It doesn't hurt that the group size varies between 4 and 8, so they sometimes go a little hungry when the xp gets split up.)
Click to expand...


I've been doing the exact same thing and it's been working good so far.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

> My question is, how exactly are people who are running this dealing with experience? Are you just picking certain points and telling PCs to level up? If so, how do you deal with PCs using spells that burn experience, which would then leave them a bit lower level than their comrades? Or, are you using the suggestion to stop awarding XP after a certain number of the same monster are killed? Something else?




I'm running a group of 5 through the WLD and I'm also using the CR=EL system. It appears to be just about right for Region A so far. The group has cleared about 25-30% of the region and have just leveled. So, if everything stays steady, they group will have made level 3 at around 90%. Hopefully this will happen before they get to Longtail.

For wandering encounters I'll probably 50% XP.

Another guy I know who is running it is doing it a little differently. He keeps loose track of XP and just levels the group when he feels it's appropriate. So far it seems to be working.

Once PC's start to bite it, we may have to change our way of thinking. The group's rogue has nearly bit it about 4 times now. Twice from not thinking before acting and twice from the dice hating him (they hate him sooo much).


----------



## BlueBlackRed

> I love to roleplay. My friends and family, and the thousands of rpg books on my shelves can testify to that. Telling stories, joking with my friends, sweeping quests, great villians and greater heroes, I love it all. However I just don't understand the allure to watching (or listening) to others roleplay. I mean absolutly no disprespect to those posters on this thread who are making efforts to present this material to others... if you have an audience (or even if you don't) then thats great, I hope you have fun. However perhaps someone here who does find this appealing can explain to me the allure of watching X number of gamers roll dice... or listen to a group discuss how they are going to exlore the WLD?




Not been watching TV much recently have ya?   

Our group is thinking about doing it for a larf. And it will allow a couple of our previous members who have moved away to see us again. If other people want to watch us, well that's cool too.

I read every WLD blog I've found and have listened to the RPGMP3 group's first audio session (while cleaning up my computer area and painting figures). I'm trying to learn from other groups mistakes, successes, and general role-playing style.

I've played D&D for 2 decades, and I'm not about to say I know everything there is to know about D&D and its players.


----------



## jim pinto

kvehmane said:
			
		

> Is there any errata for WLD yet? In this thread a couple of mistakes has been pointed out, but is there anything compiled? Not at the WLD fan site...
> And for soundtrack (classical) I would like to recommend any Mahler symphony, R.Strauss (or Scriabin!) tone poems, or even some Sibelius...
> For industrial etc. some Einstürzende Neubauten or Bauhaus!




holy... i can't believe i forgot Einstrurzende Neubauten

i have a tat of their cave painting on my leg

as for errata... arholly was compiling it on his site, last i heard

so far, there's been very little.... except for some errors on the maps
(A and E)


----------



## jim pinto

*Xp*

there is no hard and fast rule about XP in this dungeon, but my favorite method is the CR = EL method, followed by the free leveling up method at equidistant points through the region (with another level up after defeating a "boss"..... longtail in Region A).

as for the XP for spells, and items, just give the wizard a pool of points equal to 40 times his level, using the artificer rules from Eberron as a guide for how to spend or not spend your points.

at 1st level he has 0, but when he levels to second he gets 80 points and so on.

i never liked the XP cost system for potions anyway.

but i like the alternate systems everyone has posted on here.


----------



## jim pinto

*excellent WLD forum/blog*

http://www.alphastationimaging.com/asgc/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=17

i can't believe how much work this DM is doing.

he rewrote the intro, is running two groups through the dungeon, and has enough energy to post a report of the dungeon.

brilliant.

thanks for the link, donny


----------



## Sulaya

*XP, etc.*

Thanks for all the input on XP.  I'm glad I wasn't the only one with questions about how to handle it.  I've decided to just have them level up when it seems like they need to.  We started this morning, and so far it seems to be working.

This campaign is probably a little different than most, as I'm running it as a solo adventure for my husband (he's playing 4 PCs - a party of drow).  We live in a very rural area, so we have 3 different gaming groups that get together about every 6 weeks at our place for a 12 hour session.  Unfortunately, that's not enough gaming to keep us satisfied, especially as my husband GMs two of those sessions, so he doesn't get to play as much.  This way he gets to play a little more often.

Are other DMs finding that players are skipping quite a bit of the map?  It might be just his playing style, but at least in region A my husband has pretty much made a beeline straight east and then north, and is about ready to fight Longtail and enter map E.  Is that typical?  I'm guessing he'll be more interested in exploring many more rooms once the treasure rewards are better, but for now he isn't.  Are you having similar experiences?  Should I be "gently" encouraging him to explore more of region A?  Right now it looks like he'll be heading to map E by the end of this session.

Oh, and from the both of us - we are REALLY enjoying this adventure.  Lots of dungeon crawls get so repetitive in room description, but that's not the case here.  Personally, I also love how everything you need to know about each room is laid out right in the text, even the monster stats.  That's one of the conveniences I missed most when 3rd edition came out.  Old 2nd edition adventures always had monster stats right in the text (and for a somewhat lazy DM, that's really helpful!  ).


----------



## Leopold

The Goblin King said:
			
		

> I had a crazy idea.  I don't have the book yet but I am working on getting it.  Is it impossible to finish TWLD without casters?  A wizards and a cleric?




My group is purely fighters, no rogues, no bards, no wizards, no clerics. It's glorious.

And those rat swarms getting old? check out this new swarm from GR:

http://64.17.155.164/gr_files/ab_pre.pdf

time to upgrade those rat swarms a bit! They do very very nicely for a change.


----------



## twofalls

*Battlebox*

Hey folks, we are still playing but my group only meets twice a month, and we are missing a meeting this weekend so I haven't had anything new to say. We will be playing through the adventure for years to come and I plan on leading them out of the other end, but it will be two weeks before the next session.

Keep an eye out for a new product by Fiery Dragon games called the Battlebox (no I'm not affiliated with them in any way, I just like their stuff). 

http://www.fierydragon.com/Products/prod-bbox.htm

Its a cool new produt that provides templates for spells and are really useful for gamers who use minatures (like most of us WLD spelunkers). It has templates for fireball, burning hands, lightning bolt, spiritual weapons, mount, a number of other cone templates, etc. It has a number of other items including cards that contain all the rules for one specific combat manuver. So charge, bull rush, grapple, disarm, etc. all have thier own card with the rules explained on them. Saves you from fumbling around the books to find the rules for the five orc grapple happening in the middle of the room... or those pesky Darkmantles... I'm looking forward to using it the next game session.

I picked it up at my FLS for 20 bucks and it was worth every penny (particuarly since my group paid for it out of the treasury  ).


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

twofalls said:
			
		

> ...However perhaps someone here who does find this appealing can explain to me the allure of watching X number of gamers roll dice... or listen to a group discuss how they are going to exlore the WLD?
> 
> Where did this idea come from and how has it survived?




Well, it's an interesting phenomenon. The first recording that the RPGMP3 group did was simply by accident, testing a Mini-Disc recorder with a new microphone just before an RPG Society session of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. We were testing it and forgot we left it recording, I found it on the Mini Disc afterward, thought it sounded novel and later put it online. It's been downloaded thousands of times since then, so people seem to like it.

It's difficult to tell why it's popular, others may be able to answer that, I personally listen to them, (not because I like the sound of my own voice) as it's like having the radio/TV/Fire in the background, something to listen to while doing other things. Some people may find it difficult to play regularly due to time or location and it's an easy way of keeping in touch with gaming. Some may even just find it entertaining (Our Half-Orc "Gerout" seems to be forming his own Fan Club already)? DMs can have fun following the Dungeon with a copy of their own WLD to hand to see how the players handle the rooms.

We did a recording of Chaosium's "The Haunting" scenario and it caused people to dig it out and play again. The current WLD recording already seems to have been responsible for shifting an additional $1000+ of WLD.

But our recordings are not about commercialism, we're just having a good time and thought some people might like to share in that (listen/listen not - the choice is yours). Also having 4/5 members being trained as Archaeologists always gives you that bent for recording stuff for future historical curiosity. 

Paul


----------



## Arholly

Well, the initial feedback I've gotten from people is that I seem to have fixed the forum problem on the fan site, as of this morning.


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

I did a quick Google search on RPGMP3, and here's one person's view at least:



> Reviews for *RPGMP3.com* :
> 5 Stars   Inspired Idea! Superb!   I have been out of the roleplaying scene for a little while now and I thought I would have a search around to see what was happening and I stumbled across RPGMP3.com I had not realised how much I actually missed playing RPGs until I listened to some of the MP3s on the site. Absolutely worth a visit. Brilliant. As well as quaintly English  ( MortgageMan )




Source: http://www.rpgreviews.com/Detail/147113/


----------



## twofalls

*RPGing by proxy*

Hmmm, perhaps I do forget about what a lucky bubble I live in. I run two groups alternating weeks (so I get to game every week) and my amazing wife is very accepting of my hobby and hasn't ever hassled me over it. I have a two car garage that I've carpeted, heated, lit, and converted into my Study/Game room (complete with three couches and walls of bookcases brimming with rpgs). I have 10 friends who game in my groups and easy access to many more players, and so I think I tend to forget that life isn't this good for all GM's. 

I think its great that you guys are providing the audio of your games to everyone online, and I particuarly think its grand that its attracting folks back into the fold. It does make sense that if you love the hobby and don't have the setup to play at the moment why listening to others game could be entertaining. There can't ever be enough role players out there. 

Cheers!


----------



## haiiro

Gah! I just combed through this thread again from start to finish, pulling out my favorite ideas and tips for my first WLD session tomorrow night. There's loads of good stuff here -- thanks, everyone!

My Tact-Tiles are in, I've photocopied the maps, my oodles of Fiery Dragon counters are sorted, fiendish (no pun intended) plotting is well underway...I'm really looking forward to this.


----------



## Bestopheles

Hey Guys,

I had my first session on Thursday. It was a hoot. The guys loved it. Several people even broke out their very first set of dice (in some case 20+ years old) to play...I was honored. That said, I came up with a new way to help with the mapping problem. I bought a few pages of "transperencies." You know, blank pages of plastic that you can write on with dry erase markers, then easily erase...teachers typically use them for overhead projectors. Anyway, I bought a few pages of these guys from kinkos at a buck a page, then as the guys zoomed through the dungeon, I just slapped the transparency over the map and quickly traced the rooms, then handed the players the transperance as a map. At the end of the night, I handed off the transparency to one of the players, who copied it onto graph paper for next time. I also messed around with the map downloads in MS paint, and I plan to occassionally give the players copies of the map with rooms that they missed blacked out, just so that we can be sure that the maps are accurate.

Everyone had a blast. Thanks again for all the hard work Jim and sundry writers!  

Jason


----------



## twofalls

Bump.


----------



## Bestopheles

Hey Guys,

I've been pondering how to handle items for players joining late (or replacement charcters as people fail saves, get eaten by fiendish critters, etc.) The standard responde, IMO, is to say that all of the deceased's items are destroyed by whatever causes their death. However, after reading about the celestial seals starting in room A108, i had a different idea. What if instead of giving the various resistance bonuses, each seal blessed imbued an item of a champion of good with certain mysterious abilities. (So mysterious that they would intially just know how to access one or two...for example, a level two character could shove a sword into the pool of water in room a108, and would find it blessed with great power. However, initially, he's only really able to take advantage of it's fine balance...so it gives him a +1 to attack rolls. At level 4, he's master a few more of it's abilities, maybe giving him a +1 or 2 to attack rolls, and he can also use it to cast bless a few times a day...etc, etc. Or perhaps the clerics gloves initillay give a +1 resistance bonus, and later gives bonuses to heal checks, or allows him to "lay on hands" 1 per day. Of course, if this option is used, perhaps future treasure should be curtailed....hmm. Just putting it out there...

Jason


----------



## twofalls

*Legendary Weapons*

Check out Unearthed Arcana pg. 162 for Legendary Weapons.


----------



## Bestopheles

Good Catch! Will do twofalls!

Jason


----------



## BlueBlackRed

As players die, let the group decide what happens to the items.
The whole party faught hard for the equipment, no reason to add insult to injury when a party member falls by turning the PC to ash.

When a new player joins or a PC gets replaced, let him have the bare minimum equipment for a PC of that level. Keep permanent magic items to a minimum and you can use it as an excuse to throw in someething the party may need. (How many times has a simple wand of cure light wounds saved the day?)


----------



## Bestopheles

Sorry to spam post, but I have a bit of a conundrum, and I want to make sure the question is at the end to get an answer. Here's the deal. Last week, my players battled it out with the kobold in room A69. We ended the night with them capturing two of the kobolds (2 warriors) with a sleep spell, and slaughtering everyone else, with questioning to begin next session (this Thursday). My problem is that it says the kobolds know about the secret door to room 108, but room A108 has no secret doors. There are a few secret doors you can use to get to the section of the dungeon where A108 is, but  I'm not at all clear which door is being referred too (especially since all of those rooms are a fair distance away from these kobolds). Also, it refers in the text to the fact that the kobolds "don't understand that the door is one way, and just assume that the haven't been able to open it", and I have no idea what this means. Perhaps I'm just slow... (it was a long day at the hospital today), eitherway I would appreciate it if someone could explain this one too me before Thursday. 

On the topic of equipment, my only concern with equipment is that with PC deaths we'll get a big item creep ... (as in a glut of magic items brought in with new characters) and that new built characters will have advantage in that they will be able to customize all their magic items, while normal pcs will have to make do with what they find. I've been in campaigns where players would spend their wad on magic armor, knowing that their last pc just died with a magic axe, for example.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

> On the topic of equipment, my only concern with equipment is that with PC deaths we'll get a big item creep ... (as in a glut of magic items brought in with new characters) and that new built characters will have advantage in that they will be able to customize all their magic items, while normal pcs will have to make do with what they find. I've been in campaigns where players would spend their wad on magic armor, knowing that their last pc just died with a magic axe, for example.




Don't let them do that. The party, without the input of the new player or now-deceased PC, decides what happens to the equipment on the deceased PC.

The player should be making characters without using any knowledge they already have from inside the game.

You are the DM. If you believe that they are incapable of acting without using information they should not be using, then hose them over. Teach them a lesson. Heck, with my players, the threat of screwing them over keeps them honest (it helps that they're generally pretty honest though   .

If they make a character that is specialized in axes conveniently after the party just found a sweet magical axe...then suddenly that axe turns into a backbiter axe, or better yet, a berserker axe.

An idea someone is using (can't remember who though). If a player loses his PC, then he can't make another PC of that type for the remainder of the module.



> When a new player joins or a PC gets replaced, let him have the bare minimum equipment for a PC of that level.




I meant that. At level 1, give them the least amount of gold the PHB suggests.
At level 2, give them the avg gp for level 1 + a healing potion.
Level 4, a masterwork medium armor and 50 gp.

Now if your players are totally incapable of self control...then freely blast the daylights out of them. Something to the tune of a 50hp darkmantle with an XP value of ZERO.

They're your players. You know them best. And I'm just trying to give ya some ideas.


----------



## twofalls

Bestopheles said:
			
		

> My problem is that it says the kobolds know about the secret door to room 108, but room A108 has no secret doors.




The Door being reffered to is actually on the northwest wall of room 103. It opens into the passageway only (can be used from room 103 to get into the passage beyond, not the other way around). This is the room in which the PC's battle Longtail and his familiar if you are using the book as is.


----------



## doseyclwn

Leopold said:
			
		

> My group is purely fighters, no rogues, no bards, no wizards, no clerics. It's glorious.
> 
> And those rat swarms getting old? check out this new swarm from GR:
> 
> http://64.17.155.164/gr_files/ab_pre.pdf
> 
> time to upgrade those rat swarms a bit! They do very very nicely for a change.




Oooooooooooooooh, that's nasty! I gotta try that!


----------



## Bestopheles

twofalls said:
			
		

> The Door being reffered to is actually on the northwest wall of room 103. It opens into the passageway only (can be used from room 103 to get into the passage beyond, not the other way around). This is the room in which the PC's battle Longtail and his familiar if you are using the book as is.




Thanks for the quick response twofalls! That was backed up in an e-mail from Jim.  

BlueBlackRed: This group really isn't that abusive, it's just that I've had problems with this issue in other long dungeon crawls. I think that severely limiting future player wealth is probably the ticket. I gave them a portable hole, so as long as they're looting the dungeon nice and proper, pc's that stumble into the party in the future should be able to be well equipped. It should all be good.

On a side note, I thought it was weird that after all the build up in the beginning of the book about not allowing players to have web, that a room in the beginning of the first section (A69) has a wizard with web in his spellbook.  I changed that spell to melf's acid arrow. 

Jason


----------



## jim pinto

Bestopheles said:
			
		

> Thanks for the quick response twofalls! That was backed up in an e-mail from Jim.
> 
> BlueBlackRed: This group really isn't that abusive, it's just that I've had problems with this issue in other long dungeon crawls. I think that severely limiting future player wealth is probably the ticket. I gave them a portable hole, so as long as they're looting the dungeon nice and proper, pc's that stumble into the party in the future should be able to be well equipped. It should all be good.
> 
> On a side note, I thought it was weird that after all the build up in the beginning of the book about not allowing players to have web, that a room in the beginning of the first section (A69) has a wizard with web in his spellbook.  I changed that spell to melf's acid arrow.
> 
> Jason




yes. sadly we missed that before the book went to press, but we did address it on this list a little while ago. i recommend changing it.... and scorching ray or acid arrow are great alternatives.

so is invisibility, as low level PCs aren't prepared to deal with this spell, yet and Boyikt is sure to get away then.


----------



## OblivionsLot

*A name for the WLD*

Curious question for everyone:

Has anyone else given the WLD a name?

Unless I missed it (which is entirely possible as I haven't read it all the way through yet, sorry jim) I haven't spotted a name for this incredibly large and complex dungeon.*

So, while I was working on a good name for the place (right now Zartacla is the lead name, although I could call it The Dungeon, both are weak) I began to wonder if naming it is the right thing to do.  Thankfully, the party hasn't reached anyone who could possibly know the name beyond a brief visit from a Lantren Archon.  But later on it would be kind of odd to have the Celestials refer to the it as the World's Largest Dungeon.

"When we sealed the World's Largest Dungeon away from-"
"Hold on a second.  What did you call this place?"
"The World's Largest Dungeon."
"Um, okay...."

But not giving it a name would be a resonable concept too....

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Jon
* My players are commenting on how expensive it would have been to build this place.  Once they find out it should be even cooler for them.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

We just call it the WLD.

We're going through just so we can say we did it.
(Notice I didn't say anything about surviving the WLD.)
The WLD is one of 2 campaigns we're going through. The WLD is our hack-n-slash campaign(90% hack, 10% rp), where the other game is the more involved world (40/60).

The whole WLD campaign is built around it so throwing extras on top of it is not as needed in the WLD game as it is my homebrew game.


----------



## Tenser42

OblivionsLot said:
			
		

> Curious question for everyone:
> 
> Has anyone else given the WLD a name?
> 
> Unless I missed it (which is entirely possible as I haven't read it all the way through yet, sorry jim) I haven't spotted a name for this incredibly large and complex dungeon.*
> 
> So, while I was working on a good name for the place (right now Zartacla is the lead name, although I could call it The Dungeon, both are weak) I began to wonder if naming it is the right thing to do.  Thankfully, the party hasn't reached anyone who could possibly know the name beyond a brief visit from a Lantren Archon.  But later on it would be kind of odd to have the Celestials refer to the it as the World's Largest Dungeon.
> 
> "When we sealed the World's Largest Dungeon away from-"
> "Hold on a second.  What did you call this place?"
> "The World's Largest Dungeon."
> "Um, okay...."
> 
> But not giving it a name would be a resonable concept too....
> 
> Any thoughts or suggestions?
> 
> Jon
> * My players are commenting on how expensive it would have been to build this place.  Once they find out it should be even cooler for them.





I've been thinking about this too.  I'm also not at the point where I need a name, but I'd like to have one before I do need it (ie, it'll be one of the first things my first lantern archon will say, "Welcome to <insert WLD name>").

Maybe something latin?

My favorite so far is Infernus Carcer.  I think that means Infernal prison, any latin experts out there?


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Does anyone remember the movie "The Fortress"?  If you do, can you remember if the prison had an official name (assuming it wasn't "The Fortress")?


----------



## DaveMage

Some call it...Tim?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

English Word:Latin Word
World: Mundus
Large: Amplus / Magnus / Maior / Maximus
Prison: Carcer / Claustrum (closest I could find)

So "Mundus Maximus Carcer"?

I have a Latin teacher in my group, so hopefully tomorrow I'll have a better translation.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

This is the reply from the player in our group who teaches Latin:



> World's= Mundi
> Largest= Maximus-a-um
> Dungeon is hard, since that is an Anglicized version
> of a French word (donjon).  If you want to use it as
> "prison" then dungeon= carcer.  If you want to use it
> as underarea of a castle, then "locus sub castris."  I
> will look it up on the internet and see if they have a
> better idea.  But, the easiest way I can think of is:
> 
> Carcer Maximus Mundi (literally "World's Largest
> Prison").


----------



## Bestopheles

jim pinto said:
			
		

> yes. sadly we missed that before the book went to press, but we did address it on this list a little while ago. i recommend changing it.... and scorching ray or acid arrow are great alternatives.
> 
> so is invisibility, as low level PCs aren't prepared to deal with this spell, yet and Boyikt is sure to get away then.




Yes, I scanned quickly through this thread earlier looking for the answers, but I didn't see them. Truth be told, when I was reading through this thread carefully the first time I didn't have the book yet. *sigh.* I'll just have to read through it again. 


BTW, the second game was tonight. It was pretty fun...the Ogre in room A22 dropped the wizard on the first hit, killed the kobold guide, and damn near took out the cleric and the warforged fighter before the took him down. The party also had it's first encounter with a Lantern Archon (he delivered two other "champions" to assist them in their duties [aka 2 new pcs]), and a few characters are still sleeping off con damage from stirges and mold. Good times. No one has devil fever yet. The Warforged's immunities to disease has definitely stood it in good stead for the molds and the rat bites so far. My only problem with the party so far is that they are being TOO thurough. They're insisting on checking every room. I'm dropping them hints both subtle and not that they really WON't be able to do this for the entire dungeon as it's just too damn big, but I have some very anal retentive players, so they're a bit resistant. We'll see how long they keep it up.

By the way, as to the equipment issue BlueBlackRed, after thinking about it a lot this afternoon, I think I have a solution. Each section of the dungeon has a subplot, obviously. Well, when the group completes a subplot, I'll give them beanies...either an xp pool for mages/psions to make stuff and use xp costing spells (we're currently playing without xp...they level when I say they do.  ), or +4 ability points which they can put where ever they'd like, with a max of +2 in any one stat (so +2 strength and +2 constitution would be ok, but not +4 strength). If stats start to get crazy high, I may switch to giving them bonus feats or something else cool. Basically, it's a beanie to encourage them to complete the subplots, but not to force them too. Now replacement characters for dead pc's will start with almost no magical items (maybe one or two masterwork), but for every 2 subplots they've completed that can come back with an extra +1 el adjustment race (round up, so 1 counts as 2, 3 counts as four, etc). SO, if a pc dies in section E, after vanquishing Longtail, the next pc of that player could come back as a tiefling or assimar of the same level, but with no magic items. If a player defeated longtail, got the inevitable garrison back on track, and  defeated lord Kraveshk and then died, he or she could come back as a drow or some other el +2 race. The rational being that the archons are searching for progressively more powerful champions to aid in the fight (but now always allowing them time to grab their stuff).

Anyway, that's my thoughts for tonite.

Jason


----------



## enrious

Does anyone have an estimate of how long in campaign time it'd take for a party to enter and then exit the WLD?

I'm going to be setting a time-limit that the PCs have but don't want to make it so short as to be impossible, or too long so that it's meaningless.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

> Does anyone have an estimate of how long in campaign time it'd take for a party to enter and then exit the WLD?
> 
> I'm going to be setting a time-limit that the PCs have but don't want to make it so short as to be impossible, or too long so that it's meaningless.




I believe it's listed somewhere in the WLD book as 2 years game time.


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I believe it's listed somewhere in the WLD book as 2 years game time.




its easily 100 sessions if you hit all the maps

its easily 40 to 60 sessions if you take the shortest route
through the dungeon (A, B, C, G (edge), H (edge), L, O)

i can't calculate other variables because who knows how
long Region F will take.

as for a name to the dungeon, the celestial would just call
it, "the dungeon". for them, its the only one that was ever
built.

pulling a few names of out of his bag of tricks....

"Cremetoria"
"Apocolyptica"
"Infernicus"
"Betelgese"
"Google-plex"

no?

well... what rpg world would be complete without the "Shadowlands"



oh... i know... how about "Twinkle" because that sounds pretty tough.

right?


----------



## Keska

*My WLD Campaign*

I bought my copy of the WLD at DragonCon, read sections A, B and E, then jumped right in. My players are a dwarven rogue/cleric, an elven rogue/wizard, a human monk with the Vow of Poverty, and the guy who can't play anything "normal", who has a Tiny construct based off of one of his Warhammer mechs. The whole party is of neutral to goodly alignment and started at 2nd level. All four of the players have been gamers for many years, and are wise to the ways of dungeon crawls.

So far I've run 6 sessions, encompassing 4 days of game time. The group has covered about 2/3 of Reigon A, recruiting a sullen Turag (the cowardly orc) and the two lizardfolk. (A word of warning on those two: there are considerable errors in their stat block - most notably, the druid's attack bonus is higher than it should be, both of them have incorrect saves, and soem of the ranger's skill points migrated over to the druid. I myself didn't notice this until I went to put them on their own character sheets, with the MM and PHB as references.) They have made a noninterference pact with the kobolds (over the dwarf's grumbling), and are totally avoiding the troglodites, at Turag's hysterical insistance.

I won't go into too much detail, but here were a few things I thought were significant:

-- The elf sunk much ofher starting cash into a pendant of continual flame, which has saved the party's ass on many occasions.
-- The construct has a machine gun - and while providing him with ammo has literally *eaten* much of the party's metallic resources, it turns rat swarms into something less than a CR1 encounter. I have compensated, however, as the noise of his gun draws anything nearby to see what's making the racket.
-- The group met it's first lantern archon when the dwarf decided to haul down the skeletons from the walls and bless themthat they might find eternal rest. The archon promised to take them to the celestial garrison if they find out where the feindish animals are coming from and stop it.
-- Mapping is a BIG pain in the rear. I started out on our battlemap, but constantly erasing and redrawing got to be too irritating and introduced too many errors, so I have taken to simply adding to the graph paper map the PCs have been making. I feel like it takes out a lot of the suspense, tho.
-- I haven't needed to name the dungeon. No one in the party has ever asked it's "real" name, but they have dubbed it "the Hell of Endless Hallways" half in jest....
When I last left off, the party was just outside the room with the green glowy ring and the swarm of stirges (don't have the book on me, so I don't remember the room nuber offhand). It will be their biggest battle yet, and I'm looking forward to it as the monk's chance to shine inthis overly rogue-heavy group.


----------



## The Goblin King

Keska said:
			
		

> -- I haven't needed to name the dungeon. No one in the party has ever asked it's "real" name, but they have dubbed it "the Hell of Endless Hallways" half in jest....




Heh, I was thinking the exact same thing.


----------



## Demonix

http://www.rpgmp3.com now has session 5 for download - the players are now 3rd level.  Well worth a listen.


----------



## doseyclwn

I may be in for a Total Party Kill on Wednesday, folks. 

So I used Twofalls suggestion about having a trapped hound archon in one of the rooms. It went over really well. The party decided to chill and wait for achsyxx to come and taunt him again, then the party killed him. Here's where the problem is: They have decided to head straight to the garrison in section E to help get him out, and they are only 2nd level. Well, I did warn them. Anyone else get a TPK yet?

I also had some fun with player bickering. That was fun. Maybe this will teach them a little humility. I'm toying with the idea of having a Lantern Archon pop in and warn them, but maybe I should just let them find out (hehehehehehehehehe)


----------



## Gilladian

*dividing up the dungeon*

I'm seriously thinking about pulling section B out and using it as a standalone adventure. If so, what changes would you suggest I make? What are the loose plot threads, how much access to the surface, by what groups and where? Are there any sections that could/should be omitted?

I'm thinking that it will be in an area of cold, rugged mountains in a cold/temperate part of the world. Orc or other demihuman races mayl be dominant on the surface, but I'm not sure.

Gilladian


----------



## jim pinto

Gilladian said:
			
		

> I'm seriously thinking about pulling section B out and using it as a standalone adventure. If so, what changes would you suggest I make? What are the loose plot threads, how much access to the surface, by what groups and where? Are there any sections that could/should be omitted?
> 
> I'm thinking that it will be in an area of cold, rugged mountains in a cold/temperate part of the world. Orc or other demihuman races mayl be dominant on the surface, but I'm not sure.
> 
> Gilladian




since the most important plot point of the region is the goblin war, i would use all the traps and goblinoid encounters. i would remove the northern and eastern hallways and have the dungeon be some place the goblins moved into.

i would remove the extraneous monsters like the vargouilles and maybe use the ghouls as creatures that live at the "depths" of the dungeon and require appeasement.

otherwise, have the goblin war spill out into the surface world and add a few more bugbears and rebel goblins.

i'm not close to a copy of the book or maps, so i can't give much more advice than that at this point, but if you need more information, let me know.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

> I may be in for a Total Party Kill on Wednesday, folks.
> 
> So I used Twofalls suggestion about having a trapped hound archon in one of the rooms. It went over really well. The party decided to chill and wait for achsyxx to come and taunt him again, then the party killed him. Here's where the problem is: They have decided to head straight to the garrison in section E to help get him out, and they are only 2nd level. Well, I did warn them. Anyone else get a TPK yet?




Nope, no TPK's yet. Almost though.
The group, while early in their 2nd level and still pretty pathetic in their teamwork skills, went from the western end of Region A's giant hallway (Room A49???) to the eastern end. Then they went into the room with the 6 oversized fiendish darkmantles. Well between their learning to look up, and me saying "You see the largest <bleep>ing octopus thing yet...and then another one...and another one...", they got their act together.
Somehow out of their usual chaotic actions, they did the best teamwork I'd seen them do in a long time. A potential TPK had turned into a meat grinder in the party's favor

But, as a DM, you have many tools at your disposal to prevent a TPK.
Just a few: (because I'm a nosey, know-it-all shmuck)
- Let them try. For as many times as my group has done something um... Forrest Gumpish, they've also done some amazing teamwork and tricks. Some groups just tend to work better when they know they're in a tough spot.
- Redirect them w/o forcing them. This may allow them to get some much needed equipment and experience before they get to their destination.
- Throw a minor, but nasty fight in their way as a "Taste of things to come." With a lot of emphasis on the idea that this was just a fraction of what they're in for. Not a good idea for pure role-playing groups though.
- Earthquakes. The tunnels to the region they're heading had recently collapsed in one of the WLD's frequent earthquakes. If you have done enough foreshadowing of the earthquakes, then this could be your best option.


----------



## doseyclwn

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> But, as a DM, you have many tools at your disposal to prevent a TPK.
> Just a few: (because I'm a nosey, know-it-all shmuck)
> - Let them try. For as many times as my group has done something um... Forrest Gumpish, they've also done some amazing teamwork and tricks. Some groups just tend to work better when they know they're in a tough spot.




I'm definitely gonna do that. Some of the players have proven on other occasions that they can come up with some great stuff. This is a chance for them to show it. I'm looking forward to see what they do.



			
				BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> - Redirect them w/o forcing them. This may allow them to get some much needed equipment and experience before they get to their destination.
> - Throw a minor, but nasty fight in their way as a "Taste of things to come." With a lot of emphasis on the idea that this was just a fraction of what they're in for. Not a good idea for pure role-playing groups though.
> - Earthquakes. The tunnels to the region they're heading had recently collapsed in one of the WLD's frequent earthquakes. If you have done enough foreshadowing of the earthquakes, then this could be your best option.




Sort of a combo of all these things, I was gonna throw a bearded devil in to guard all exits from Section A. At 2nd level, that might make them think twice. Although since I'm only gonna put one there, it might not.


----------



## jim pinto

some things to remember:

hallways on the map do NOT always have to exist

not every door needs to be unlocked

not every passage needs to be easy to traverse

not every dungeon must have the same 16 maps

okay

enough preaching

enjoy

btw... are people finding the random encounters useful
in Regions A, B, or E?


----------



## OblivionsLot

> btw... are people finding the random encounters useful
> in Regions A, B, or E?




With my group still in Region A I've found the random encounters rather helpful.  At first I was useing them a bit more randomly - I'd roll my random encounters in advance and when it was close to the check time I'd make it happen.  Now I still roll them up in advance, but then insert them when appropriate.  In fact, there's a pack of darkmantles waiting for them after they finish recovering from a near TPK.

When they found the Krenshar stables there were six of them plus Turag.  I had tossed in the extra rat swarm and had them both in the upper corners and one in the lower corner.  When the Rogue and the Paladin spotted the rats feeding on one of the dead cats the Rogue called back in a loud voice, "Rats!"

And with a single squeek, the rats stopped feasting in favor of fresh meat.

Suddenly, the rats were all over them while Lady Luck left to powder her nose.

Turag was gone, people were getting knocked down to zero hit points, cracking open potions of healing and whiffing attacks like nobody's businnes.  Fortunately the Wizard (who is an elf) decided to watch for an ambush, so they were not completely taken out when the other two swarms came down.

But it's really hard to run when you're grossed out by the mountain of rats on top of you.

The Rogue went down, everyone else maded it out the south door except for one - the Cleric.  He was caught on the other side of the swarms, took one out, and proceeded to run West.  He also was the only one with the map.

After wandering corridors and checking into rooms to find a place to possibly hole up, he made it back to the party intact and just in time to help with the healing process.

And now three of them (all the fighters) have a case of the Devil Chills.

But for their efforts, I let them gain a level, so the group is not level two and a little more hardy.

Which is good, because the rat swarms are still around.   

Jon


----------



## BlueBlackRed

> btw... are people finding the random encounters useful




Absolutely.
Only had 2 actual combat encounters, but neither resulted in real combat.

I do seem to be rolling the "distant scream" random encounter a lot. Like 5 times so far. I'll probably have to throw something in to explain that...hopefully something more climactic than a krenshar.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

I go tmy first opportunity to use the random encounter tables last night and the only one I rolled that was of use was the tremor.  Everything else just didn't fit the current sotuation (like a dead kobold turning up in the room while everyone is sleeping).

I'm sure I'll get luckier on the roles soon enough though and those trogs playing cards will be a surprise for the party.


----------



## twofalls

Why bother rolling, consider it a list of ideas and just plug in what looks interesting for at the time...


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

It's an interesting matter whether you subscribe to:

1) Dungeon Master controls the dungeon, not the dice.

2) Dice allow improved impartiality in the game.

Our DM is using open rolling (no screen) - not that it matters much - we don't know the numbers he needs...

I once heard tell that Gary Gygax just chucked random dice behind his DM screen for the sound, and then made the results up for whatever seemed most entertaining.


----------



## jim pinto

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> I go tmy first opportunity to use the random encounter tables last night and the only one I rolled that was of use was the tremor.  Everything else just didn't fit the current sotuation (like a dead kobold turning up in the room while everyone is sleeping).
> 
> I'm sure I'll get luckier on the roles soon enough though and those trogs playing cards will be a surprise for the party.




waking up to find a dead kobold in your bed is like the opener to every godfather movie, isn't it?


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Not when you have a warforged fighter sitting against the only door in the room all night long.


----------



## Bestopheles

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> Not when you have a warforged fighter sitting against the only door in the room all night long.




Yeah, we have a good sized party and a few war forged, so there are 3 people on watch during every shift. I've tried to lure them out of the room with screams, sounds of fighting etc, but so far they've wisely decided to rest it out.

Jason


----------



## twofalls

PaulofCthulhu said:
			
		

> It's an interesting matter whether you subscribe to:
> 
> 1) Dungeon Master controls the dungeon, not the dice.
> 
> 2) Dice allow improved impartiality in the game.
> 
> Our DM is using open rolling (no screen) - not that it matters much - we don't know the numbers he needs...
> 
> I once heard tell that Gary Gygax just chucked random dice behind his DM screen for the sound, and then made the results up for whatever seemed most entertaining.




I use a combination. I roll my dice openly, and soon (almost immediatly) my players stop paying any attention to my rolls what so ever. So its nothing if I roll the dice then choose whatever is most interesting at the time, or fudge my combat numbers to make a particular combat go the direction I want it to (be that hurting or helping the group) because no one looks at my dice, not really. What this does is reinforce the feeling that anything can happen in theminds of  the players becouse they think I never fudge (which keeps that edge going) and allows me to controll all the action in order to weave the story in what I feel is the most entertaining fashion.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

I roll in front of and behind the DM screen. Depends on where I'm standing and where the dice are.
If a PC is dying and the player is just getting a bad series of rolls, then I fudge a little in the player's favor. (I fudge in the monsters favor by giving it more hp.)

I roll behind the screen, sometimes just to roll.
Sometimes I make the players roll, then write down the numbers (or pretend to) and the rolls mean nothing.
Sometimes I make them roll, and then say "Just kidding".
Sometimes I make them roll and actually mean it.
There's always one of them that doesn't trust me (for some odd reason). "So you're choosing to fail the save?"
It just keeps them guessing.

The combat with Longtail should be coming soon. Lots of extra save rolls there.

Man I'm ready to play tonight. I have no clue what the players are going to do either.

Also, is it me, or has everyone just stopped updating their WLD blogs?


----------



## DaveMage

DaveMage (finally) received his copy of the WLD today.

DaveMage looked at page 837, smiled, then raised his drinking glass in a salute to jim pinto.

DaveMage will now disappear for a few days into a quiet corner of the house, with a very large book....


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Also, is it me, or has everyone just stopped updating their WLD blogs?




I noticed that too, some are, a lot aren't. Maybe holiday season???


----------



## Bestopheles

Hey Guys and Gals,

Just had my 3rd session. Everyone seems to be having quite a bit of fun. I've incorporated the Archon as PC teleporter idea from earlier in the thread, and the pc's had their first conversation with him today. I'm giving each Archon a celestial name starting with the same letter as their section for shits and giggle (Section A's Archon is Arun, Section B is Baldrin, etc...).  I'm also playing up the savants idiot savant status...saying that they are sparks of greater celestial spirits which were bound into each region as a guardian spirit, who because of the intense amount of energy they're funneling into the dungeon to keep "the wards active" aren't really able to focus enough to have conversations with the PC's for very long.

Jason


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Well I'd just like to say thanks to whoever it was who posted that they were using Lantern Archons as similar to the "bits" from Tron.

It worked nicely and was picked up on immediately by one of my players.



> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by BlueBlackRed
> Also, is it me, or has everyone just stopped updating their WLD blogs?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I noticed that too, some are, a lot aren't. Maybe holiday season???
Click to expand...



Holiday Season?
Well I'm trying to keep mine updated when I get the time. I probably won't be able to update it next session. Gotta prep for my Vegas trip


----------



## doseyclwn

I have been thinking about stopping running this for my regular bi-weekly Wed. group, mostly because we only have 2.5 hours to play every week. I am running it for 2 play by post games, one at Rpol.net and one at Rondak's Portal (look under available worlds>Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Ed for the game called "Dungeon without End). I'm thinking it will work better in that setting than if we do it for 2.5 hours at a time.


----------



## jim pinto

*too quiet*

i always get nervous when its this quiet... as if peoeple were planning to sneak attack with 20 questions at once...



hope all is well and everyone is enjoying the dungeon.

psion gave it a 5 out of 5


----------



## CrimsonScribe

My group has been down there for 3 sessions now, and are up to 5 people in the party.
HAving all just reached 2nd level last night I think their confidence is rising, which can only be a good thing, though I still think they have a crazy idea that there is a quick way out.


----------



## gypsy__dance

*staggering versatility*

"hi" I`m new to EN World, though I have been lurking here for quite some time. Just want to say how impressive this place is... and especially the WLD (thanks Jim). 

I just wanted to share a few words with everyone and point out (probably the obvious... lol) how amazingly versatile the dungeon is. As well as playing it straight and running a `crawl` for my two young daughters to enjoy, my personal enjoyment comes from having adapted the setting for use with WotC Star Wars & D&D Miniatures Game.

Basically, I run my miniatures through bits of the dungeon, creating linked cameos and continuing tale threads (which I write up into short stories, battle reports and campaign jounals for my friends to read). I take huge liberties with both the d20 rules and the Miniatures rules, converting here and there as I see fit, to better suit my purposes and gaming aims. Just out of interest, and hopefully to display exactly how awesome this game is, I`ll quickly explain the campaign premise I am running with.

I have mixed Dungeons & Dragons into the Star Wars universe and have placed the WLD on a backwater (quasi-medieval) planet with only a small  imperial Garrison present. The main `big bad` is a particually nasty Hutt who has, basically, set up a gladitorial type arena and dungeon - complete with hidden cameras, teleporters, one way doors etc... all designed to shepherd people and monsters into desired sections of the complex. 

Spectators flock, gamblers place huge currency bets, bounty hunters lurk and seedy deals thrive like lice on a stray dog`s back within this Crime Lord's Pleasure Complex. Quaffug the Hutt buys, steals bribes and coerces adventurers into her bizarre spectacle arena... where the promise of untold riches provides the incentive to delve deep. But The temperamental and Precocious Crime Lord herself has the final say exactly when she will open the (numerous but hidden) exit gates.... and always for one half of acquired wealth.

The dungeon is frequently re-stocked with treasures, exotic monsters, creatures and alien races that `come into` her possesion. The local Imperial Governor even provides criminals for the Hutt`s arena from time to time... for a small percentage of the profits, of course 

 well, thats just a simplified rundown of my version of the WLD.


Gypsy__dance


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Time for me to ask a favour.

I'm currently trying to create "player" versions of the maps supplied with the WLD (missing secret doors and any rooms accessible only via secret doors).  

I'm in the middle of Region C and I'm not sure if I'm seeing things correctly.  Basically I want to know if the the only way to access rooms C69-C105 is through rooms C61-C68, which in turn are behind a secret door in C60?

I'm getting confused trying to run my fingers along all the corridors....


----------



## Tenser42

Hi everyone, well I've started running my wife through the WLD, and we are having an absolute blast!  We managed to play 4 nights in a single week and we have finished about 33% of region A, ahhh, marital bliss.  She's playing two gestalt characters with insanely high stats, a cleric/sorcerer, and a rogue/barbarian.  I have taken some liberties in making her characters a bit more powerful as I wanted to make sure her characters can live through her first few fights without me having to fudge every single roll.  The major things I did:

1) Gestalt characters (this was more for party flexibility than for survival).
2) Insane stat rolling method - two sets of 5d6 drop lowest two, pick the best set. (I think this is the one thing I *slightly* regret doing.  I think what I should have done was just give her a high point buy in the 30s or 40 at the most.)
3) No arcane spell failure for armor (the NPCs will be using this rule as well, subject to change if it becomes unbalancing).
4) No ECL penalties on race selection (although only up to +2 ECL races, she chose a drow and an aasimar, don't ask, hehe).
5) Maximum hit points at every level (I'm not doing this for NPCs *yet*, although I will if things need rebalancing later).

Other than those minor (hahahaha) changes, everything else is being run as written in the dungeon.  I have explained my reasoning to her, and told her if the changes later reveal some horrible balance problems, we'll re-evaluate.

I tried to only make changes that would help her characters survive, not necessarily be overpowering, so far I think I have succeeded.  She is having no trouble with the one-sie and two-sie encounters with darkmantles and rat swarms, but she became overconfident against Orghar's clan and had to flee after killing 4 of the orcs.  Fortunately, the room description says that they will not pursue past the hallway north of their room.  Also fortunate that Orghar himself didn't come to help his fellows, that would have hurt.

I'm starting to think a little about the higher levels when characters can more easily be taken out of fights, because for her, losing one character, even to just a stun or unconsciousness, is a major blow to the party.  I'm loathe to control an NPC party member myself or give her a third PC, so if anyone has any experience with high level, small parties, any advice would be useful.  I will say that my wife does NOT care if I fudge rolls or change rules, she's very heavily into her characters and character development, and doesn't mind sacrificing game mechanics for storytelling (I'm the same way).

Also, does anyone else keep forgetting to use the encounter conditions in the rooms?  It's one of things I love about this dungeon, but I just keep forgetting to check that entry in the room description!!

Woops, sorry about the long rambling post, I'm done now ...

Wait ... more kudos to AEG for this great product!!  Ok now I'm done.


----------



## OblivionsLot

For those of you who are considering additional monsters for Region A, the latest set of D&D Minatures has a common figure that may just work for you - the Fiendish Dire Weasel!

Seeing as all the Dire Rats are running around, the Dire Weasels would be a nice addition.  Sadly, they too would fall to the Rat Swarms, so they'd be a little careful in there running around.  But it would be kind of neat to have the party stumble on a few feeding Weasels.

It's a common figure in the Aberrations set, so you should be able to find them rather easily - especially if you find someone willing to sell extras.

Jon


----------



## jim pinto

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> Time for me to ask a favour.
> 
> I'm currently trying to create "player" versions of the maps supplied with the WLD (missing secret doors and any rooms accessible only via secret doors).
> 
> I'm in the middle of Region C and I'm not sure if I'm seeing things correctly.  Basically I want to know if the the only way to access rooms C69-C105 is through rooms C61-C68, which in turn are behind a secret door in C60?
> 
> I'm getting confused trying to run my fingers along all the corridors....




you are correct, sir

and that gap near C97 is supposed to be solid stone (30% gray, different from the rest of the dungeon)

see the room description for more


----------



## jim pinto

OblivionsLot said:
			
		

> For those of you who are considering additional monsters for Region A, the latest set of D&D Minatures has a common figure that may just work for you - the Fiendish Dire Weasel!
> 
> Seeing as all the Dire Rats are running around, the Dire Weasels would be a nice addition.  Sadly, they too would fall to the Rat Swarms, so they'd be a little careful in there running around.  But it would be kind of neat to have the party stumble on a few feeding Weasels.
> 
> It's a common figure in the Aberrations set, so you should be able to find them rather easily - especially if you find someone willing to sell extras.
> 
> Jon




the dire weasel fig rocks

i tend to switch up monsters a lot based on my figs

its a good policy


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Thanks for that Jim.

I'm not sure what you mean about the gap near C97, but that's more because I don't have the maps or book in front of me right now, I'll check it again tonight.


----------



## gypsy__dance

Yes, I tend to mix the creatures up a bit, replacing a lot of encounters with alternatives that better reflect my miniatures collection  I have nearly all of Harbenger, Dragon Eye, Archfiends, and over half the GoL range... but I don`t have any of the new Fiendish Dire Weasels: the new Aberrations aren`t available in the shops here yet 

By the way, I`m probably being r-e-a-l-l-y stupid... but I keep coming across the term`fiendish`in WLD. What exactly is the difference between one of these and a normal creature???

Gypsy__Dance


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Blatantly copied from the SRD:

FIENDISH CREATURE
Fiendish creatures dwell on the lower planes, the realms of evil, although they resemble beings found on the Material Plane. They are more fearsome in appearance than their earthly counterparts.

CREATING A FIENDISH CREATURE
“Fiendish” is an inherited template that can be added to any corporeal aberration, animal, dragon, fey, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, ooze, plant, or vermin of nongood alignment (referred to hereafter as the base creature).

A fiendish creature uses all the base creature’s statistics and abilities except as noted here. Do not recalculate the creature’s Hit Dice, base attack bonus, saves, or skill points if its type changes.

*Size and Type:* Animals or vermin with this template become magical beasts, but otherwise the creature type is unchanged. Size is unchanged. Fiendish creatures encountered on the Material Plane have the extraplanar subtype.
*Special Attacks:* A fiendish creature retains all the special attacks of the base creature and also gains the following special attack.
*Smite Good (Su):* Once per day the creature can make a normal melee attack to deal extra damage equal to its HD total (maximum of +20) against a good foe.
Special Qualities: A fiendish creature retains all the special qualities of the base creature and also gains the following.
—Darkvision out to 60 feet.
—Damage reduction (see the table below). 
—Resistance to cold and fire (see the table below).
—Spell resistance equal to the creature’s HD + 5 (maximum 25).
If the base creature already has one or more of these special qualities, use the better value.
If a fiendish creature gains damage reduction, its natural weapons are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Abilities: Same as the base creature, but Intelligence is at least 3.
Environment: Any evil-aligned plane.
Challenge Rating: HD 3 or less, as base creature; HD 4 to 7, as
base creature +1; HD 8 or more, as base creature +2.
Alignment: Always evil (any).
Level Adjustment: Same as the base creature +2.
Hit Dice	Resistance to Cold and Fire	Damage Reduction
  1–3	             5	                         —
  4–7	             5                        	5/magic
  8–11	            10                        	5/magic
12 or more           10	                        10/magic


----------



## gypsy__dance

Oh kewl... thanks CrimsonScribe, that`s much appreciated


----------



## twofalls

Hello everyone, I haven't been posting so often lately but the Sanguine Sentinels are certainly still exploring the WLD. Last session we nearly completed A... every single damn room of A. My players are being anal about searching out every crevice, corner, and closet. They are now at third level and I expect to level them one more time before moving them into region E. The enounters in E are just a tad bit too rough for a low level party to handle and I've repopulated the region using Lee Hammocks notes and quite a bit of personal liberty. 

At this point two starting characters have died, and so those players are on their second and final PCs while in the dungeon (explained earlier in this thread). It was inveitable that some of the low level types would die, unfortunatly one of the deceased was the only rouge in the group and so they are being plauged by the traps I've liberally spread about (hehe). I suspect that at least one of the players who has lost a character may well be without a PC somewhere in the next region... then things will get interesting. BTW, I strongly recommend Traps I and Traps II by Fantasy Flight games for this dungeon. If anyone here is familiar with the old 1st Ed AD&D Grimtooth's Traps books you will be glad to know that these books are nothing like them! Well, slightly like them, but the traps in the FFG series are useable and not just slapstick examples of how to horribly maim and humiliate your friends in a RPG...

I've been considering recruiting PCless players to run sections of the dungeon, and major NPC's. In essence I would present them with a NPC (or more probably a group of NPCs) and allow him to guide that faction as he sees fit within the constraints of that factions location and politics. Has anyone taken an approach like this before in a game and if so how did it work out? Obviously it would only work with certain players... if it will work at all.



			
				OblivionsLot said:
			
		

> For those of you who are considering additional monsters for Region A, the latest set of D&D Minatures has a common figure that may just work for you - the Fiendish Dire Weasel!
> 
> Seeing as all the Dire Rats are running around, the Dire Weasels would be a nice addition.  Sadly, they too would fall to the Rat Swarms, so they'd be a little careful in there running around.  But it would be kind of neat to have the party stumble on a few feeding Weasels.
> 
> It's a common figure in the Aberrations set, so you should be able to find them rather easily - especially if you find someone willing to sell extras.
> 
> Jon




Fair warning about giant weasles and low level parties. They suck blood which translates into con loss in the game mechanic. If you think Stirges are dangerous try taking on three weasles that can take a couple of heafty sword thrusts each and are sucking down characters con scores and dont have maximum limits to how much they will take....


----------



## BlueBlackRed

So many blogs, so little updating...
Is it that much of a task to do?
Oh well. </semirant>

The fiendish weasel may make it into the game tonight simply to throw in something new.

Last week the level 2 group avoided the massive stirge room (a gimme on my part).
But now they're level 3 and are thinking about going back there.

Plus I've changed Longtail around. Well actually I've leaked around my FLGS that he was changed around. And of course someone leaked it to a group member. Never trust a powergamer, but feel free to use him to your own devious ends.


----------



## Heroditis

*Jim, is there any chance of a set of players maps*

being developed, maybe as a web enhancement?  I apologize if this has been asked already.


----------



## jim pinto

Heroditis said:
			
		

> being developed, maybe as a web enhancement?  I apologize if this has been asked already.




arholly set up a website to hold these kinds of files

someone was working on one, but i don't have the link in front of me

anyone with a better memory... thoughts?


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> So many blogs, so little updating...
> Is it that much of a task to do?
> Oh well. </semirant>




It's not always easy, real-life (tm) can get in the way. RPGMP3.com carries on, we've just put up the audio for WLD Session #7, made the recordings available as a Podcast and are currently surviving being slashdotted.


----------



## twofalls

jim pinto said:
			
		

> arholly set up a website to hold these kinds of files
> 
> someone was working on one, but i don't have the link in front of me
> 
> anyone with a better memory... thoughts?





Arholly's web page address is http://www.brandonsplace.net/wld/ but the forums and even the user log in's still aren't working (ahem... Arholly?  ). The players maps are in development by Crimsonscribe. But currently only the PDF's of the unmodified maps are posted.

BTW, if you are still having bandwidth problems Arholly I can take over hosting the PDF's for you on the Sentinels site. We have over 100 gigs of bandwidth a month on our host.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

There's a problem with Arholly's website?  I'm there at least once a day checking the forums, but there are very few people actually posting content at present.

And yes, I'm working on the "Player's Maps" - I've finished A & B and sent to Arholly for hosting, I'm half way through C right now and should have that and D forwarded to him by the end of the weekend.


----------



## twofalls

I stand corrected, there isn't a problem with Arholly's web page. For some reason there was a glitch with my first attempt to register an account, I didn't ever recieve a confirmation email. Its possible that I misstyped my email into the field or some such... I'm registered now as Twofalls2 since my first nick is in the system and tagged as being used already...(mutter grumble)   ...


----------



## gypsy__dance

PaulofCthulhu...  Is it you who runs the WLD audio sessions?

They are AWESOME. I listen to them over and over again because they seem to inspire me so much, and because they get me in the mood between (my own) games.

Trouble is, I have not got broadband and it`s a reall pain having to listen to them on line all the time. I tried copying them to disc but they are too big to fit on a recordable disc and I don`t know any other way of copying them.

I really REALLY want to own them all so I can enjoy them for ever... can you advise me please????

gypsy__dance.


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

gypsy__dance said:
			
		

> PaulofCthulhu...  Is it you who runs the WLD audio sessions?
> 
> They are AWESOME. I listen to them over and over again because they seem to inspire me so much, and because they get me in the mood between (my own) games.
> 
> Trouble is, I have not got broadband and it`s a reall pain having to listen to them on line all the time. I tried copying them to disc but they are too big to fit on a recordable disc and I don`t know any other way of copying them.
> 
> I really REALLY want to own them all so I can enjoy them for ever... can you advise me please????
> 
> gypsy__dance.




Hi gypsy__dance, why thank you!  Glad you like them

I'm involved with the WLD recordings, I play 'Balazaar the Wizard'. Hal owns the RPGMP3 site and is the DM.

The MP3s can obviously be saved offline (the full URLs are given, simply use "Save Target as...") - but they do come in at c. 80+ ->90+ minutes a piece which is too big to save in audio CD format. However if you write the files as MP3s to a CD-R in computer (Data) format you can fit lots of the sessions on for archiving purposes. Some of the new portable CD players can play MP3s directly. Also, if you have a cheap Flash MP3 player or iPod it's another way to play on the move (and you could try our Podcast setup for that as well).

We're looking at doing something about this situation after session #10, so keep a lookout.  

Cheers!

Paul


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Another possible "dilemma" with the player's maps.

As most people are aware, I've decided to remove all secret doors and distinguishing features and to fill in any areas that are only accessible via secret doors with the default wall texture.  

I've just loaded up Region D and seen all the "features" in the large central chamber and I'm like WTF!  I've looked back at the other regions and realised that I haven't been removing ALL the distinguishing features (wells, pits, coloured floor tiles, chains, etc).

So, once again, I'm asking the community to what level of detail do you want these maps?  So far I've been doing them to a level I'd be happy with, but I'm realising that even now they are possibly to detailed to give to players.


----------



## twofalls

I'd be happy just having the secret doors and secret rooms removed... the features on the map are less important to me. I'd really like to actually see these files Crimson... they aren't posted anywhere yet. Would you be willing to email them to me at jamesbeadle@sanguinesentinels.com so I can look them over?


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Region A is on the way.


----------



## gypsy__dance

Thank you Paul, thats a great help... I`ll look into doing what you suggest.

So you`re 'Balazaar the Wizard' hahaha, oh how kewl  hehehe, I laugh so much at the antics you guys (and lass) get up to: not to forget those periodic stops for food and drink lol.

Well! you have one player here who is hooked to your sessions, and who will hang about (like a gamer adict waiting outside the store all night when he hears there`s a sale on next day) waiting for new stuff from you.

All the best Paul,

gypsy__dance    (Stevie)


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

Cheers!   

If anyone just wants to try a sample of the recording, the link below leads to a 1MB MP3 (c. 5 minutes) taken from the current (#7) session.

RPGMP3 WLD audio sample

Paul


----------



## twofalls

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> Region A is on the way.




This looks great! I deeply regret not having a copy of this to use for the players while exploring this level. They are headed to level E in three weeks... what are the chances that map will be ready then?!?

If anyone would like the Players Map for region A send me a note to jamesbeadle@sanguinesentinels.com and I will freely disseminate.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Well let's see...  I "finished" Region D yesterday so that would make Region E next on the list.  I only have tonight and Wedensday night available this week but I'll see what I can do, though 3 weeks will be plenty of time.

Speaking of the maps, and Region D in particular, what do those red arrows on it represent?  I couldn't find any mention of them in the text of the rooms they are near or in the introduction to the region.

Also, I've asked this question on Arholly's site, but how do people intend to grant the party access to Region G.  I believe the intended entrance directions are from C & F respectively.  Region F give you a 5-ft path next to the lava flow for entry, while Region C only give you an un-named passage that just happens to come out right in front of a demons lair - not the type of welcoming party many players would be expecting.


----------



## jim pinto

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> Well let's see...  I "finished" Region D yesterday so that would make Region E next on the list.  I only have tonight and Wedensday night available this week but I'll see what I can do, though 3 weeks will be plenty of time.
> 
> Speaking of the maps, and Region D in particular, what do those red arrows on it represent?  I couldn't find any mention of them in the text of the rooms they are near or in the introduction to the region.
> 
> Also, I've asked this question on Arholly's site, but how do people intend to grant the party access to Region G.  I believe the intended entrance directions are from C & F respectively.  Region F give you a 5-ft path next to the lava flow for entry, while Region C only give you an un-named passage that just happens to come out right in front of a demons lair - not the type of welcoming party many players would be expecting.




the arrows are a sharp downward grade

and Region G is pretty dang important to the overall story
of the dungeon.... should it be hospitable?


----------



## CrimsonScribe

So you are saying that the lava flow and that "un-named corridor" are the only ways into the region?

I'm fine with that, really (after all I'm the DM I don't have to survive it).  

I just got the feeling from most of the other maps that the regions tend to "start" at room #1, and seeing as G1 doesn't match up to an entrance, I was just wondering if I'd missed something.


----------



## TheGreatYogurt

*So I heard something about Player maps?*

So...i've been looking....and I can't seem to find the maps without traps and secrets to have on the table in front of my players.  Anyone have the link and/or can someone send me the link or maps to patrickballou@yahoo.com?  I would greatly appreciate it!  I'm about to start up a newb campain in the student org I run at Wichita State University.  Time to get some more customers for the gaming industry.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

The "Player Maps" are a work in progress.

So far I've managed to complete Regions A, B, C, & D, and I'll be working on E tonight so there is progress being made.

While the intent was to get these hosted on the WLD Fan site, there seems to have been some delay in the uploads, so we've taken to distributing them via email - though they are large files (2Mb+ each) so not everyone can receive them.  Hopefully the hosting problems will be sorted soon enough and things can be the way they were went to be.


----------



## DaveMage

I'm having a major problem with the WLD - it's made all of my other d20 products seem, well, lame.

I was looking at my collection of d20 stuff and none of the other products were very inspiring...

I'm sure I'll get over it, but the new releases coming out now seem paltry.

*sigh*


----------



## dagger

Does anyone have a list of the monsters and how many you potentially can fight in Region A? I have bought Fiery Dragons Counter Collection Digital and am going to make counters for each and every one ahead of time.

If this is copyright violation then never mind. I don’t need stats or anything special. Just the name of the base creature, like if it’s a fiendish dire rat, just dire rat is fine.

Thank you a lot!


----------



## jim pinto

DaveMage said:
			
		

> I'm having a major problem with the WLD - it's made all of my other d20 products seem, well, lame.
> 
> I was looking at my collection of d20 stuff and none of the other products were very inspiring...
> 
> I'm sure I'll get over it, but the new releases coming out now seem paltry.
> 
> *sigh*




greatest review ever


----------



## jim pinto

DaveMage said:
			
		

> I'm having a major problem with the WLD - it's made all of my other d20 products seem, well, lame.
> 
> I was looking at my collection of d20 stuff and none of the other products were very inspiring...
> 
> I'm sure I'll get over it, but the new releases coming out now seem paltry.
> 
> *sigh*




greatest review ever


----------



## DaveMage

It's true though.

As you know, when the WLD was first announced, I was thrilled.  It seemed like the type of product I've wanted, well, forever.  As the weeks went by, and there were naysayers on various boards, a part of me was thinking, "man, I hope this thing doesn't suck" because I had spent a bunch of energy being excited about it (and telling others how much I was looking forward to it).

Now that I have it, and read a little bit of it, it's even better than I had hoped.  The encounter conditions are a fantastic addition, and the amount of time the text takes to point out NPC reactions (such as how the orcs in the first room react should PCs set off a nearby door trap) is awesome.  You (AEG) could have easily just said, "oh, there are 3 orcs in the room, here are their stats" and left it at that.  But you didn't.  You made it better, and you made it complete (at least, what I've read so far   ).  I have some issues with the XP situation, and I'm still deciding how I want to handle the _Summon Monster_ spells, but all-in-all it's the best d20 product I've purchased hands down (presuming the rest of the book is as good as the parts I've read up to this point).  

Just after reading the introduction and the first 2 or 3 rooms, I wanted to run this thing IMMEDIATELY.


----------



## TheGreatYogurt

*could I get them sent to me then?*



			
				CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> The "Player Maps" are a work in progress.
> 
> So far I've managed to complete Regions A, B, C, & D, and I'll be working on E tonight so there is progress being made.
> 
> While the intent was to get these hosted on the WLD Fan site, there seems to have been some delay in the uploads, so we've taken to distributing them via email - though they are large files (2Mb+ each) so not everyone can receive them.  Hopefully the hosting problems will be sorted soon enough and things can be the way they were went to be.




Could I please get some copies of the maps then?  I can recieve 10megs at a time.  Also I may be able to post a couple at a time on my club's website.  www.wsugaming.info.  So maybe 3 for a month.  Since it takes longer then that to actually finish each map.  I started running it tonight and had my party of 10 people, I know lots but fun, almost die from the first fiendish Darkmantle .  FUN!  THough I wish it was 3.5 not 3.0.  So I have the main books sitting there ready for the new stats.


----------



## JamesL85

OK....I live in western Kansas (shout out to Yogurt, since I'm not the only Kansas person here on ENWorld) and just found out about this module today.  I was actually going back trying to find my post about Greyhawk help and saw this thread.

Since then, I've been amazed.  I LOVE Undermountain, except that I'm not creative enough to flesh everything out coherently.  There's no "rhyme or reason" or "method to my madness" when fleshing out that monstrosity.  Ecology was never something I cared about.....That monster was there because the DM said so!!!!    

I have to say that this thread (which took me SEVERAL hours to read, due to MULTIPLE interruptions) has more than convinced me to buy.

I just have to make some observations......

SpaceCrime (I think) is the funniest poster I've read.  I just about spit Bud Light all over the monitor when I read your reply to the post about changing the difficulty of traps...."I thought about ratcheting things up" or something similar.....I had a good hard belly laugh about that.....Keep up the good work (posts).

PaulOfCthulhu....Your mention of Gygax rolling dice behind the screen reminds me of something I do frequently.  I have some ball bearings (I call them one-sided dice) that I occasionally roll (on the snooker table we use as a gaming table, so you don't hear them rolling around).  Amazingly enough, they always come up with the side that I want.....The OUTSIDE!!!!

Someone made mention of a Text to Speech program.  The Amiga 500 (am I the only one that knows about Amigas?) I had came with this, and I REALLY miss it.  Can someone supply me with the link to a Windoze version of this????

TwoFalls.....You asked something about if anyone has run this with evil characters (or something like that....Read the part about Bud Light above....).  I was running our group (6 players, of which all but one DMs) through Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil as a "filler."  We played that when none of the others had anything ready, or one of the players couldn't make it.  I broached the subject with the players about possibly trying something "a little different" when/if they finished the module.  I really thought it would be interesting to have the players be mercenaries in one of the four Temple groups in the Crater Ridge Mines....Even possibly not being in the same group.  It was met with mixed opinions, and we STILL haven't finished the module.  Not sure why I threw that in there......Can you say "thread hijack????"    

Anyway.....Even if the masses hadn't met this product with the incredible accolades that I've read here, Jim Pinto's presence has more than swayed my convictions.....

I'll be ordering this product on Monday, and look forward to blogging the board with the parties escapades.....

James

P.S.
I have a ton of monthly bandwith left and can set up a temp web page with the maps and player maps until the other site can get back in operation (assuming it's still having problems.....).  If that's what you'd like, post a message here and I'll get the page set up.....

P.S.S.
Will be downloading the mp3's from the site tomorrow.....Someone posted about how anyone could be interested in listening (I believe it originally was watching) someone else game.  Can you believe the popularity of "Reality TV?"  I think it's more of a question about "How bad do you want to be on TV?"


----------



## KerPow

Try http://www.brandonsplace.net/wld/index.php
It is a nice site and has the maps available for download.


----------



## JamesL85

Thanks KerPow, I do have the link, and I'm not trying to usurp any responsibilities.....

I just thought that there might be problems with the primary site and was offering to host the files.....

Hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes here.....

James


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Just a quick note, the maps that KerPow is talking about are the original pdf/jpg versions from AEG.  The ones that I am working on will be "player maps" - that is with everything removed.

Now, if you've been reading the thread closely, you'll notice I just said "everything" which is different to my usual comment.  Basically after playign with the "basic" version for a couple of weeks, I have determined that the maps really do need to have absolutely every identifying feature removed from them.  So I'm now in the process of updating them, because of this we aren't currently forwarding the maps on to people - sorry for the inconvience.


----------



## twofalls

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> So I'm now in the process of updating them, because of this we aren't currently forwarding the maps on to people - sorry for the inconvience.




I've not sent out a single players map since we talked about this. 

The Sanguine Sentinels just completed Region A a few hours ago, and entered Region E via the secret doorway in the SW by room E1. By developing their search skills (due to extreme paranoia regarding traps) they uncoverd and searched EVERY SINGLE ROOM in area A. It took us exactly 10 sessions to complete the region with an average of 6 hours of play time per session. I placed two power up regions in the area, and altered the elemental rooms in the east of the Region to also be power ups so that players could gain a total of 3 levels in this region. I decided that to survive region E they needed to be able to attain 4th level. Every other region will have only two power ups.

I decided on the fly today that each power up elemental room was aligned. The fire room was aligned to good, the cold room to evil, and I changed the Floating Spheres in area A110 to an electrical room aligned to Neutrality. To gain a level a character must stand on the bronze plate in the center of the room alone, and the door must be closed. Then the fireworks would go off and the character would level and gain the appropriate lvl 5 resistance. Anyone else in the room not standing directly on the plate (which fits exactly and only one M creature) would take 3d8 pts of damage. Attempting more than one power up room would cause 5d8 pts of damage and cause a vulerability to that element (perm -2 save) and gain a neg level in every room after the first (divine punishment for greed). The paladin tried both the fire and cold rooms and suffered thus, though he made his save the next day and didn't loose a perm level. Interestingly the party tossed out several theories about the rooms, including looking for a total of five rooms (tied to chromatic dragon elements). Finally they suspected that the rooms were aligned but in the final analysis they were just lucky that only one person was hurt do to being in the wrong aligned room. Though one person was fried for not standing on the plate.  It worked well and was an interesting challenge for the group to ponder.

The Paladin is a Giant from Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed. He has taken 3 levels of Giant to become a Giant sized character in spite of numerous warnings from me that he would have problems fitting through the many secret doors in the region if he did. He bribed the Mageblade into learning Reduce and planned to have that worthy shrink him each time a secret door was passed through. If you notice, going to E1 from Region A you enter into an area hemmed in by secret doors. So the giant is now trapped there while the rest of the group waits for the Mageblade (who refuses to devote more than one slot to that spell) to once again memorize reduce. Needless to say there are a lot of annoyed players glaring at the Giant from beneath rimmed hats and pot helms...

Talk to you all later.


----------



## DaveMage

As an FYI to everyone (although this is kind of like preaching to the choir), the World's Largest Dungeon received a 10/10 in a review on gamingreport.com.


----------



## jim pinto

DaveMage said:
			
		

> As an FYI to everyone (although this is kind of like preaching to the choir), the World's Largest Dungeon received a 10/10 in a review on gamingreport.com.




and for those of you who think direct links are useful

http://www.gamingreport.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Reviews&file=index&req=showcontent&id=1339



thanks davemage


----------



## Wulf Ratbane

haiiro said:
			
		

> I've been thinking about the issue of monetary treasure -- and even mundane treasure with monetary value -- because I don't get the impression that the PCs get a chance to leave the dungeon and go shopping.
> 
> If that's the case, then most of the mundane treasure becomes just so much dungeon dressing, unless it's tied into the plot -- or has alternate uses, like making silvered weapons. Cool.




Folks, I'm very late to this thread, but I just got WLD for my birthday so I'm rushing to catch up.

The comment above got me thinking about a nice shameless plug opportunity. If you don't already own the print version of The Book of Unusual Treasures or any of Phil Reed's PDFs, you might strongly consider picking them up. The treasures within beat coins any day, and they are _very_ descriptive.

One nice advantage of the print version is that the index contains all of the treasures sorted by gp value. It's a snap to run your finger down the list of treasures and come up with a replacement for "50 gp."

Link:
http://www.badaxegames.com/html/products/unusual_treasures.html

The link above also has a link to a PDF of the item list index. 

Wulf


----------



## DaveMage

I have no ties with Bad Axe games, so this isn't a shameless plug, but I do think that the Book of Unusual Treasures is a neat book and would certainly be appropriate in this case - especially the special arcane spell components that non-wizard PCs (and the Dungeon NPCs) may think is part of dungeon "trash" and debris.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Okay, the "player's maps" for Regions A through E are freshly updated and can be sent to anyone who wants them.  Just send an email to thecrimsonscribe @ gmail dot com or jamesbeadle @ sanguinesentinels dot com (I hope you don't mind me listing you Twofalls) and we will forward them on.  Please be aware that each map weighs in at a hefty 2.5Mb and will be an email by itself.  I find that for printing A3 or "Poster" sized paper works best.  Single sheet is next to unreadable and "full size" (same as the originals) is more hassle than most people want.


----------



## twofalls

No problem Crimson, more than happy to help send out maps. 

As for the finished product, all I can say is tres magnifique!


----------



## Barendd Nobeard

Hey, if anyone's had a permanent character death in WLD, add 'em to the graveyard.  I can't believe only 1 or 2 PCs have met their demise in this massive dungeon!  

World's Largest Graveyard


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Despite my best efforts (well they have been restrained by reason) none of my players have died yet.  2 have gone negative, but they haven't died a permanent death yet.

I'm sure that's coming up later in Region A.


----------



## dagger

I know its a pain for you, but could I get the maps also? Anytime by Friday night would be good for me. (I sent an email)Thank you!


----------



## twofalls

*Instant Insanity*

Hello everyone. I've finally decided on the path I will use through this monster. A,E,I,M,N, and then O. I try to stay one region ahead in prep, and my group has just entered region E in the very SW corner through the secret door in the NW of A. E is completely prepped, so its time to turn an eye on I.

It’s... slimy. It’s all about flesh halls, twisted experiments and insanity. So to honor the theme, as soon as the PC's step foot into Region I, I'm going to introduce the sanity rules on pg. 194 of the UA. This ought to give them pause. Also, the players should be level 6 by the time they hit this area. Since the region is rated at levels 7-9 for 4 characters, 6 6th level characters should be perfect. They will leave level 8 if their habit of hitting every single room in a region holds, and knowing these anal adventurers, it will.

At that level I need to start adding in some heavier artillery magic wise. Some decent magical items and armors. Also, I worry about them being able to vanquish either of the Twins in the area at the low power levels they are at. It's very possible for them to hit one of the twins within the first two rooms of the level (that being Anguish in I98), and it would make mince meat out of the party at 6th level. So I need to pump them with some decent stuff in region E, or early in I. I was thinking about putting in a minor artifact of some kind in this region, but was wondering if there were any artifacts currently in the game. Jim?

Also, I haven't read regions M-O yet. Anything I should know about them while messing with I? We wont be running any WLD sessions before the turn of the year. The WLD was really supposed to be a game we only used when I needed a break from our campaign, and its been so much fun we have focused on it for months now. But the guys are making noise about wanting to get back to their characters in the Dreams of Glory campaign, so we are going to head that way for a couple months.


----------



## dagger

How do you guys plan to use the players maps while at the table (thank your for sending them btw)?


----------



## twofalls

I've been thinking about that. I think I'm going to use it differently in different areas. For example in area A, I would make a copy of the map, and then cut it up. Then I'd have the players discover it piece by piece as maps of areas that others have explored (Orcs, Kobolds, Longtail, etc). In area E there will be a full map in the Library  behind the All Door, and in the room where the PC's sign onto the garrison. In the other areas I will have to think of other ways to introduce it. But the players just have to copy it and then I can give them the players map to use.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

dagger said:
			
		

> How do you guys plan to use the players maps while at the table (thank your for sending them btw)?




At the moment, my players have a copy of a beta map that has way to much information on it for them.  They were given it by a "Bit" Celestial (Yes, I'm using them as well) and have been holding on to it fairly tightly ever since.

As for the actual use of the map, they just fold it out when they want to refer to something than put it away and revert to the battle mat for everything else.


----------



## dagger

page 2 bump


----------



## jim pinto

twofalls said:
			
		

> Hello everyone. I've finally decided on the path I will use through this monster. A,E,I,M,N, and then O. I try to stay one region ahead in prep, and my group has just entered region E in the very SW corner through the secret door in the NW of A. E is completely prepped, so its time to turn an eye on I.
> 
> It’s... slimy. It’s all about flesh halls, twisted experiments and insanity. So to honor the theme, as soon as the PC's step foot into Region I, I'm going to introduce the sanity rules on pg. 194 of the UA. This ought to give them pause. Also, the players should be level 6 by the time they hit this area. Since the region is rated at levels 7-9 for 4 characters, 6 6th level characters should be perfect. They will leave level 8 if their habit of hitting every single room in a region holds, and knowing these anal adventurers, it will.
> 
> At that level I need to start adding in some heavier artillery magic wise. Some decent magical items and armors. Also, I worry about them being able to vanquish either of the Twins in the area at the low power levels they are at. It's very possible for them to hit one of the twins within the first two rooms of the level (that being Anguish in I98), and it would make mince meat out of the party at 6th level. So I need to pump them with some decent stuff in region E, or early in I. I was thinking about putting in a minor artifact of some kind in this region, but was wondering if there were any artifacts currently in the game. Jim?




one of the things you could do, is take room c93 and wedge it somewhere in Region I. there's also a giant book in room I42 that might be useful.

due to the nature of region I, there isn't a lot of magic-using opponents,
but you can certainly take some driders from region M and have them
visit region I.

one of the hurdles of your "path" (AEIMNO) is that region M is a bit
of a downer in the "story path", which is okay, because region N is going
to kick them in the teeth.

M is a good place for an important PC to die, saving the party
(perhaps at the hands of an invisible stalker or drider leader),
giving it that chapter 6 of band of brothers feel.

once the PCs get to region N, the true depths of depravity
of the dungeon will reveal themselves. the PCs are now going
to see the darkest underbelly of the dungeon and have to make
some real choices, because i can be, they will be 2 to 3 levels
lower than the minimum height to ride this roller coaster

which is a good problem to have, because it forces them to
work with the lich, instead of fight it. and so on.

which leads us to Region O.

if you follow the AMINO path through the dungeon, region O
needs to have a slightly different finale. instead of the frost
giants rulling the region, an ice devil prince should be the
finale to this dungeon. in fact, something from dante's inferno
with three mouths would be some great symbolism.

also, you can take the dragon tyrus, from region J and put
him in the tomb in region O, instead of the titan.

the ice devil prince in fact should probably send some scouts
to find the PCs between regions M and N... just as a little
foreshadowing of things to come.

replace the bugbears in region M with frost giant slaves
and now you've got a finale that is going to force the PCs
to really rethink their strategy and understanding of the
dungeon. of course, missing out on region G really hurts
some of the more demonic story threads, but making the
ice devil price an orcus level encounter resets the clock
in my opinion.



			
				twofalls said:
			
		

> Also, I haven't read regions M-O yet. Anything I should know about them while messing with I? We wont be running any WLD sessions before the turn of the year. The WLD was really supposed to be a game we only used when I needed a break from our campaign, and its been so much fun we have focused on it for months now. But the guys are making noise about wanting to get back to their characters in the Dreams of Glory campaign, so we are going to head that way for a couple months.




and the circle of life continues...


----------



## Bestopheles

Hey Guys,

Well, we're hitting a marathon session tomorrow, and we'll be finally leaving A...I'm not sure whether they'll hit E or B next, though I suspect it will be E. (I've even considering running 
A, I believe went really well. Since it's the section of the dungeon where most of the annoyances were held, I've really played up the vermin aspect, and stated that some of the worst spirits of pestilence and vermin were held here. I added a few of the undead rat swarm types and dire magots from the Lirbris Mortis, the Ethereal Rat swarms from  MM3, and the Feral Spirits (a nasty spirit ratswarm), Rancid Beatle Swarms, Rancid Beatle Zombies, and the Roach Thrall from Sharn, City of Towers. And subtracted a few of the endless darkmantles. It's really freaked my players out...and then when they stumpled onto the refuse room in A86...it was on. 

I'm not sure which path they'll take, but I really appreciate the thoughts for the AMINO path alterations Jim. Especially the ideas for making the ending suitably infernal.   

Jason



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> if you follow the AMINO path through the dungeon, region O
> needs to have a slightly different finale. instead of the frost
> giants rulling the region, an ice devil prince should be the
> finale to this dungeon. in fact, something from dante's inferno
> with three mouths would be some great symbolism.
> 
> also, you can take the dragon tyrus, from region J and put
> him in the tomb in region O, instead of the titan.
> 
> the ice devil prince in fact should probably send some scouts
> to find the PCs between regions M and N... just as a little
> foreshadowing of things to come.
> 
> replace the bugbears in region M with frost giant slaves
> and now you've got a finale that is going to force the PCs
> to really rethink their strategy and understanding of the
> dungeon. of course, missing out on region G really hurts
> some of the more demonic story threads, but making the
> ice devil price an orcus level encounter resets the clock
> in my opinion.


----------



## Bestopheles

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> Despite my best efforts (well they have been restrained by reason) none of my players have died yet.  2 have gone negative, but they haven't died a permanent death yet.
> 
> I'm sure that's coming up later in Region A.





Ditto that brother. I've had 4 pcs so far (out of a rotating 8 person group) down to -9, and only one player hasn't been in negatives so far. But no deaths. It's freaking amazing. (Plus, I'm playing with Eberron Action points, so that automatic stabalize has helped quite a bit.)

However, I'm sure death is coming... either by Mister Longtail or by a certain fiendish owlbear. 

Jason


----------



## thundershot

The book finally came yesterday. I've read through the introduction and most of the first region. My players characters are almost complete.

And I can't frelling wait.... 



Chris


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Bestopheles said:
			
		

> (Plus, I'm playing with Eberron Action points, so that automatic stabalize has helped quite a bit.)




I'm using Eberron and Action Points as well, however I (and therefore my players) missed the bit where it says you can spend an action point to stabilize. I wonder their reaction will be when I tell them they can do that?


----------



## DaveMage

thundershot said:
			
		

> The book finally came yesterday. I've read through the introduction and most of the first region. My players characters are almost complete.
> 
> And I can't frelling wait....
> 
> Chris




Did you check out page 837?


----------



## thundershot

Yes... I did.  What are the chances they'd let us write a few entries for the World's Largest City? I'd be honored to do a few places for free.  *hint hint jim*

The first session just ended tonight. We have a Warmage, a Psion, a Rogue, and a Ranger. They also have a Healer as an NPC assistant.

There were postings all over Hommlet looking for adventurers. Those selected would be guaranteed 500 gp to outfit for an expedition. Naturally, the four PC's ended up being the ones that win the drawing. The wealthy man gives them a huge banquet, and introduces them to small egg shaped furry animals called Chowpuffs (I stole them from Gamma World). They're a rare adorable species that he discovered years ago in a secret location. They're also very tasty, and reproduce asexually. Unfortunately, none of them have tasted as good as the original one, so he's sending the PC's to the secret grotto where he found his first Chowpuff to bring back more. He offers 500 gp for EACH Chowpuff they return to him. It turns out that whatever the Chowpuffs eat in their natural habitat makes them MUCH tastier than the ones that are spawned from other Chowpuffs. He sends his daughter (the healer) with them to aid them. They end up finding the place, and start digging to where the Chowpuffs live, and end up collapsing the ground like an old mine shaft, and end up far far underground. Enter room A1 of the World's Largest Dungeon. Naturally, after going to room A2, there's no going back... so they go in search of a way out, hoping to find as many Chowpuffs as they can. Fortunately, Chowpuffs are very nutritious and tasty, and provide a wonderful source of food for the group, as they're found randomly in the dungeon halls.

So... they ended up making their way to the place with the Kobold Wizard and the ... can't remember its name. The one thats lips peel back and scare the hell out of them. Well, that worked, and the wizard put two of them to sleep. The ranger ran in and killed the wizard before it cast another spell, and if coup de grace wasn't a full round action, my little sister's character (the rogue) would be dead. But my wife's character (the psion) managed to take the Kobold out before it did that.

All in all, they did pretty good. I really enjoy characters at first level. They're young, fresh, and don't have pre-determined attacks. They weren't sure what the others were capable of, and had a lot of uncertain moments. My sister (who never played before, and is 20) was scared to death of the traps after being pelted by the burning hands trap a few times. It was great! We're doing the second session on Wednesday, so hopefully it's just as fun.

Funny thing is, unlike the more experienced characters, these guys went in and went on the offensive, rather than trying to parley. They were worried that they'd be turned on and get killed... 


WHEE!



Chris


----------



## DaveMage

thundershot said:
			
		

> Funny thing is, unlike the more experienced characters, these guys went in and went on the offensive, rather than trying to parley. They were worried that they'd be turned on and get killed...
> 
> Chris




Gotta love player paranoia.  You should play it up though - after they killed the kobold wizard, you should have had the other one yell "You fools!  He was the only one who knew the way out!"

...But maybe that's being too evil....


----------



## Jim Hague

twofalls said:
			
		

> Hello everyone. I've finally decided on the path I will use through this monster. A,E,I,M,N, and then O. I try to stay one region ahead in prep, and my group has just entered region E in the very SW corner through the secret door in the NW of A. E is completely prepped, so its time to turn an eye on I.
> 
> It’s... slimy. It’s all about flesh halls, twisted experiments and insanity. So to honor the theme, as soon as the PC's step foot into Region I, I'm going to introduce the sanity rules on pg. 194 of the UA. This ought to give them pause. Also, the players should be level 6 by the time they hit this area. Since the region is rated at levels 7-9 for 4 characters, 6 6th level characters should be perfect. They will leave level 8 if their habit of hitting every single room in a region holds, and knowing these anal adventurers, it will.
> 
> At that level I need to start adding in some heavier artillery magic wise. Some decent magical items and armors. Also, I worry about them being able to vanquish either of the Twins in the area at the low power levels they are at. It's very possible for them to hit one of the twins within the first two rooms of the level (that being Anguish in I98), and it would make mince meat out of the party at 6th level. So I need to pump them with some decent stuff in region E, or early in I. I was thinking about putting in a minor artifact of some kind in this region, but was wondering if there were any artifacts currently in the game. Jim?
> 
> Also, I haven't read regions M-O yet. Anything I should know about them while messing with I? We wont be running any WLD sessions before the turn of the year. The WLD was really supposed to be a game we only used when I needed a break from our campaign, and its been so much fun we have focused on it for months now. But the guys are making noise about wanting to get back to their characters in the Dreams of Glory campaign, so we are going to head that way for a couple months.




Take a good look at the cache down near the southern end of I - there's a nice bit there that's meant to help parties out against the Twins.  

I took a very Howard/Lovecraft tone when I was writing I; it's all about the ancient arcane secrets and the consequences thereof.  So, no reason _not_ to have something useful and arcane left simply lying around - the chokers might have it, the gricks may have killed some unfortunate Drow trying to take it north.  If all else fails, you can have one of Siglinde's cloakers contact the PCs early on, and _she_ can see the PCs haring off into the southern Halls in search of an artifact, or pay them in kind for services rendered.


----------



## spacecrime.com

Been reading through I the last few nights. Don't think either of my parties are going to get there -- they've been bearing east -- but MAN! You're a sick puppy, JimHague. 

I would have loved to see how the party monk with a cleanliness obsession (yes, his name is Adrian) would have reacted to that section...

cheers,


----------



## twofalls

*Jim Hague*

Jim, I attempted to contact you via email and PM through ENworld, and wasn't able to. I don't know if that is intentional on your part or an issue with the board, however I'd like to ask you a question about I and hesistate to do so in a public form without your permission. Is there another way I can reach you to discuss it? My email is jamesbeadle@sanguinesentinels.com if you would care to try to reach me.

Thank you.


----------



## BOAZ

I've been lurking for a while now, reading through all of the posts, getting pretty excited to run that bad boy.
Thanks everybody for inspiring me! Every page on this thread has great ideas.
I'm planning to start the WLD Campaign fairly soon, and thought about dropping the dungeon into the Blackmoore setting. Anybody else done this?
(Not that the setting matters much anyway).

But I have a question for the poster 'twofalls': Since I love the idea of the "level-up rooms", could you tell me a little more about them?
I was hoping I could steal this idea, but would like to know the mechanics of the rooms.

Thanks in advance!


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Okay, It is getting to that time when my players look like they could be leaving Region A at any moment.  Seeing as I don't know exaclty where they are going to go next (and I'm not forcing them in a certain direction) I need to prepare both Region B and Region E as precautionary measures.

Upon reading the introductions to both regions, I must say that I really like the concept behind Region E (that and the celestial theme suits my campaign to a tee) and with documents that detail all the "cut" material I'll have no problem making this region work.  

My problem exists in Region B if my players go there.  While the over all theme is brilliant, I'm trying to make the dungeon "really evil" and much more ancient than AEG says (at least 10,000 years with its creation tied to the end of "The Age of Demons" in my campaign world), and frankly Goblins, Bugbears, and Gnolls just don't aren't "evil" enough.

So my quandry, can anyone suggest a trio of monster "tribes" that would be fighting like this - at the moment I'm leaning towards Daemons, Demons, & Devils.  I'll still use an artifact, but I'll have something other than a halfling looking for it on behalf of the "weakest" tribe.


----------



## twofalls

*Level Up Rooms*

Okay, here is the arcane wisdom behind level up rooms. We as GM's of the WLD are all aware of the problems with xp. If you award it as it is described in the base rules to players in the WLD they will be eighth level by the time they get out of Region A. That’s a problem. To resolve it, I have rooms in each region that the players may find that are filled with powerful energy. When the players find those rooms, and interact with the energies within, they gain levels and sometimes other benefits as well. I'm using the premise that this is a dungeon for all the evil in the world save that which man brought with him. So the level up rooms are a way for the players to interact with the power of the gods.

In Region A, I placed 3 level up areas, because I wanted the players to be 4th level when they entered their next Region. In every other Region I'm placing 2 areas in which they can gain their levels. The “secret” about them is that there is no secret! I don't actually physically place the rooms at all, I ad lib them during play.  I intentionally told the players of the number of power ups in the Region they are playing in, and then I let them to go about and eagerly search for them. This has many advantages. One, I can level them up whenever I want to. To the player’s perceptions when they discover a power up room, they feel that they’ve  just managed to finally find one of the rooms they have been seeking in this vast plex. So I can control the power of the party to maximize their chances in the dungeon and equalize the parity of the encounters they are experiencing. Also, players being who they are, I can hold off on placing a power up room to essentially force the party to explore every nook and cranny because they simply aren't going to leave an area until they have found all their levels! So I maximize the likelihood that I will get the most bang for my buck with the WLD by getting to play out all the encounters in a given Region. In order to make this work however, you have to be clear about the structure of the Regions.

What I mean by that is you need to have some clear way for the party to delineate between where one region ends and another begins. I've done this by varying the stonework between the different areas. In Region A, the stonework is of dark grey limestone blocks perfectly fitted together. Region B to the east is all dense sandstone, so as soon as the players see the stonework change they immediately know they are in a new area. I made Region E to the north be composed of white marble with veins of gold and silver flecks to go hand in hand with the Celestial theme there. I also TOLD the PC's that each region has different level ratings... all the more incentive to find all the power up rooms!

I'll handle the power up's different for each region. In Region A I had two rooms contain a floating light, much like a stationary Lantern Archon in the center of the chamber. Holy light radiated about the area bathing the onlookers in a peaceful warm glow. When a good or neutral character approached they experienced a vision and were blessed with a stronger body and more talents, and harp music filled the room. I do however have one evil character in the group, and when he approached the light became muddy, and then dark like a yellow moon. That character was wracked with pain, and a thunderclap split the air, but the end result was the same. They don't realize it yet, but this evil character represents the god's agreement that evil shall receive its due, and the lords of darkness are every bit as influential in the dungeon as the lords of light.

The third power up was actually the rooms in the far east, that if used properly gave characters various elemental resistances as well as levels, and were based on the book rooms that were already set there. I rewrote the rooms so that there were three of them and each was aligned, good/neutral/evil. If a character of the correct ethos stood upon the symbol in the center of the room and the door was closed, he was bathed in elemental energy, unharmed, raised a level, healed of all wounds, and was granted an elemental resistance of 5 appropriate to the room. I used Fire for good, Electricity for neutral, and Cold for evil. If more than one person was in the room, the person on the symbol gained the benefits, while the extra person took 4d6 pts of elemental damage, NO SAVE! If the extra person was of the wrong ethos the damage was 4d8. <evil laugh> The symbol is large enough for one person to stand upon, and if two attempt to stand there at the same time neither fits correctly and neither are considered to be upon it when the door is closed.

If you stand in the room of the wrong alignment (even if you are alone and upon the symbol) while the door is closed, you take 4d8 pts elemental damage, NO SAVE. Keep in mind, this is very hard on Mages and Rouges, and you may want to vary the damage to avoid killing off your group. My group just happened to get lucky. Only a few characters were zapped. 

Now to be fair, you need to give some hints. Celestial writing in the good room, Demonic writings in the evil, and some of each in the neutral is a good start. Going out of your way to describe the symbols on the floor as being dead center in the room will cause your players to think that is somehow important. Make the good symbol the Celestial symbol of Fire... etc. Now the last thing, greed! If a player attempts a room twice, or tries a different room after gaining a level, he suffers 4d8, and gains a negative level! Our Paladin did this, and fortunately his Fort save is quite good and the next day he made his save and the neg level wasn't permanent. But that did discourage anyone else from trying it themselves!

I explain all of this to point out that if you use level up rooms, its important to use them in interesting fashions. It's destructive to the story if the PC's "find" such a place and say, "oh, ho hum, its another holy wafer of level up... gee wiz the place is lousy with them..."

Happy Spelunkering!


----------



## thundershot

I'm testing.. using the rules the way they are in the PHB in regards to XP, because my players whined too much. Feh..

But tonight was the second session. By the end of the night, the party was IN ROOM A2!! LOL! "What? You mean we went in a CIRCLE?!" Yes, they went through the bottom door in A2, and found the secret passage that went east, and came up and  all the way around through the water pillar room, the fiendish stirges, the fiendish rat swarm, and the dead orc... it was hilarious, but we ended up stopping there for the night.


Chris


----------



## DaveMage

I'm thinking of doing XP for region A like this:

Allow them to progress normally to 2nd level, then have all XP awards divided by 3.

What do all of you think?


----------



## Anand

I've just read the World's Largest Post  and I'm very inclined to buy this product. It's a little expensive to buy here in Brazil, but for all I've heard here, it will worth it.

It's very nice that the authors post here too!


----------



## twofalls

DaveMage said:
			
		

> I'm thinking of doing XP for region A like this:
> 
> Allow them to progress normally to 2nd level, then have all XP awards divided by 3.
> 
> What do all of you think?




I think thats likely to work fine Dave, I'd just be careful about your PC's feeling under rewarded for their efforts. Also, it becomes more tricky to fine tune the PC's power levels to make sure they fit with the power of the Region they are in, so you do more dancing with adjusting encounters than you do with the power up concept. But I can't think of any reason why your system wouldn't work.


----------



## thundershot

After the first session, they were upset that they were 7 XP short of going to 2nd level. I said "good"  I want them to go slowly, but they want to go up at the normal rate. Heck, what's the best XP calculator to use? I still use the old 3.0 one that someone did using html...


Chris


----------



## BOAZ

Thanks Twofalls, 

I really like the whole concept of the "level up rooms". I think it will work really well in my campaign, since we are using 'gestalt characters', and the "normal" XP handout would make them too powerful too fast.


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

*A Day of Play*

We done some totalling up of the RPGMP3.com audio review sessions and realised we now have over 24 hours recorded in the _World's Largest Dungeon_ - the new sessions will be going up soon, we had to do a server move as we're trafficking well in excess of 5GB/day, and it just keeps growing.  

Paul


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

Oh yes, and our glorious Dungeon Master has come up with a cunning way to reduce our party's XP haul, the swine! More of that in session #10

Paul


----------



## 9lives

One thing we are doing that is wacked is that you can play any type of D20 character from any rulebook; D20 WoTC, D20 Modern, D20 Future, D20 Star Wars, Eberron, D20 Sidewinder Recoiled, etc.  Some have made up some PC classes from Star Trek.

First let me say that our group knew that this crawl would get boring after some time and to spice things up we decided to have the plance of shadow counterminus at many different areas of the dungeon.

Basically the rule is this.  You can play any PC you want that is D20 compatible.  We have 3 D20 modern guys, 1 Sidewinder Recoiled Sheriff (which happens to be a succubus from savage species @3rd level.  She just got her wings), 1 Star Wars D20 Jedi, 1 Star Wars D20 Strom Trooper, 1 D20 Modern WWII Nazi fighter pilot, 1 D20 Future Dralazite and 1 Star Trek crew member with his phazer.

Basically we started the adventure by having everyone phase in at random times from their respective planes via the Plane of Shadow.  Once they were in they had to aclimate to the environment (taking all proficiency negatives) by grabbing whatever weapons they could to survive.  No one can even understand each other due to the language barriers.  Everyone beemed in with firearm's, cell phones, computers, flashlights, cigarettes, etc.  We still use action pts but only the D20 modern or Eberron guys can use them. 

NPC's and baddies also phase in and out at random times bringing in whatever weapons they have on them.  Sometimes the monsters of the dungeon aquire  weapons from the dead D20 future or modern NPCs that warp in.

For instance I threw in an encounter with 6 orcs, 1 ogre and 1 hobgoblin.

1 orc had riot gear on (shield and all) he was the front man.
4 other orcs had flak jackets on but still used thier scimatars, axes etc.
the Ogre came out with a M2HB with a tri-pod and started laying down lead.
The hobgoblin carried the bullet belts for the M2HB

Lucky for the players the M2HB jammed (fumbled bad) and they killed everybody but the last orc the tossed a Frag Grenade into the party and ran to warn the rest of the orc's in the area.

It has been fun because you get to mix all the genre's together and see what happens.

I have had to up some CR's but overall people have been loving it and it has been pretty goofy.

When people die, the dungeon spits them back into the mix, completely naked loosing all their equipment.  They loose 1 CON Score pt and some XP in addition to the loss of their stuff.  That really makes it hard on the D20 Modern and Future guys.  Suffice to say one of the 3rd level guys is a 1st level Fast/ 1st level Strong/ 1st level wizard.   He got his spell book from the room with the dead skeleton at the table (My own addition to the scrolls and potions already in the room).

That is the sum of it.


----------



## twofalls

Well, thats definatly a new concept for the WLD. Hope it works out all the way through, though I disagree heartily that it would get boring...


----------



## BlueBlackRed

twofalls said:
			
		

> Well, thats definatly a new concept for the WLD. Hope it works out all the way through, though I disagree heartily that it would get boring...




Well my players have gotten a little bored with it.
But I fixed it a little.
I asked them "Hey, are you all tired of fighting fiendish darkmantles, fiendish dire rats, fiendish stirges, and fiendish rat swarms?"
In unison, "Yes!"
My reply, "Ok then, as the paladin opens the door a fiendish dire wolverine jumps at his throat."

I also had to change a few things because one player was playing it in another group for about 4 weeks. So he was really bored when I didn't change the chump-change rooms much.
But I did change Longtail around. He still looked like Longtail until the PCs got into melee with him. He was really a half-orc sorcerer/barbarian with haste from a scroll who had an ally in the party from the beginning. And if that wasn't enough, I threw in a fiendish rust monster in the middle of combat. (I like E-tools now that CMP is running it.)

Man, I never thought I'd see a dwarven cleric run the length of that room so fast...twice!


----------



## The Cardinal

well, I'll be running the WLD after Xmas (background: Wilderlands + CSIO [+ maybe Blackmoor]) 
- so, after reading about various PC deaths within the first area, I'm wondering:

How do you handle the introduction of replacement characters in the WLD? Prisoners? Survivors of other parties? No explanation at all? Or what?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

The Cardinal said:
			
		

> well, I'll be running the WLD after Xmas (background: Wilderlands + CSIO [+ maybe Blackmoor])
> - so, after reading about various PC deaths within the first area, I'm wondering:
> 
> How do you handle the introduction of replacement characters in the WLD? Prisoners? Survivors of other parties? No explanation at all? Or what?




Our group's explaination: Whatever works best at the time.
Sometimes that's simply telling the players to ignore certain glaring problems. Other times that involves a minor revision of the ongoing story. Or maybe it could be the lame, and over-used, long-lost sibling character.


----------



## Bigwilly

*And they're off...*

First session on Friday night with a goliath barbarian, human fighter/rogue, elf rogue and halfling barbarian. My whiny players have been playing 12th level characters and didn't want to start out at 1st level as they felt they could get killed too easily, so I have allowed them to start at 2nd level, except the goliath who is ECL+1. 

They are not a particularly nice group of people and are likely to die trying to save themselves rather than help their fellow party members. They will be joined next session by an elven necromancer - although still trying to work out how they will meet up with him. 

Headed east from the first room, slaughtered the orcs in A2 for no real reason beyond laughing at them - the halfling is a psycho and the fighter/rogue a bit trigger happy. 

Then they ran into the first of the darkmantles (A8 I think) and if I hadn't been a little generous on grapple checks it would have killed the goliath. 

This was followed by a rat swarm which nibbled on the other three party members before they killed it with alchemist's fire and a flask of acid. 

Made their way to Orgoth's room, where they decided to rest up. A couple of darkmantles tried to pay a visit during the night but a bit of fancy spearwork took them out of the picture. 

Bigwilly


----------



## DaveMage

Bigwilly said:
			
		

> They are not a particularly nice group of people and are likely to die trying to save themselves rather than help their fellow party members. They will be joined next session by an elven necromancer - although still trying to work out how they will meet up with him.




If they enjoy killing this much, then they may naturally attract a necromancer who wants to go along for the ride - maybe have the necromancer simply shadowing them, reveling in the death they've caused.


----------



## Bigwilly

*Not evil enough*



			
				DaveMage said:
			
		

> If they enjoy killing this much, then they may naturally attract a necromancer who wants to go along for the ride - maybe have the necromancer simply shadowing them, reveling in the death they've caused.




I think they are going to find the necomancer bound and gagged with an orc tearing the pages out of his spellbook one by one. I'm sure the necromancer's player won't be too happy about this, but the rest of the party will love it.

Bigwilly


----------



## DaveMage

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before, but the WotC book Libris Mortis lists optional rules for haunted places (on page 6 I think), including ways to remove a haunted presence.

These rules would be an excellent way to introduce unique undead into the WLD in areas listed as "haunted" in the encounter conditions.  It may also provide a means to change a "haunted" area into a "safe" area - which could save a PCs life.


----------



## jim pinto

*boring!?!?*



			
				DaveMage said:
			
		

> I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before, but the WotC book Libris Mortis lists optional rules for haunted places (on page 6 I think), including ways to remove a haunted presence.
> 
> These rules would be an excellent way to introduce unique undead into the WLD in areas listed as "haunted" in the encounter conditions.  It may also provide a means to change a "haunted" area into a "safe" area - which could save a PCs life.




one of the obstacles of the book, is making the dungeon interesting, yet only drawing from the Monster Manual, something everyone had read and re-read.

DMs that need to spice up their games for jaded PCs, should consider drawing monsters from other sources. so long as the region A creature is fiendish, it really doesn't matter what it is.

change up the rooms once in a while and replace the darkmantles with fiendish kobolds (that died at the hands of the stirges), or whatever else you can find in the proper CR range.

or steal an encounter from a region you know they'll never visit.



peace


----------



## DaveMage

I take it you were referring to BlueBlackRed's comment above, and not the suggestions about purging the haunted areas.    

Actually, though, I like the fact that only the SRD was used.  That way, it can be advertised that with the core books and the WLD, you really won't need anything else for years of gameplay - and the DM doesn't have to create a single thing!  (Although they may want to modify a thing here or there.)

On a related note, is AEG doing anything with the WLD for Gen Con SoCal, or is the promotional focus going to be on the Accordlands?   I won't be attending, but I'd love to hear how the WLD is received there.

(I still think there should be WLD T-shirts.      )


----------



## JamesL85

*World's Largest City....*

I'm hoping that Mr. Pinto can give some basic info about this product:  is it a REAL product, or just a joke; and if it's real, is it another "take your character from 1st to epic level thing, or what???

Just curious.....


----------



## CrimsonScribe

I've been told that the add was placed by marketing without consulting the design/development team and that work hadn't yet begun on such a product.

Of course, if it was made, I'd be 99% likely to purchase it.  In order to make it 100% it would have to include material for both an epic level continuation from the WLD and also be playable as a 1st-20th game.  (I know that's a big ask, but it is only 1%).


----------



## jim pinto

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> I've been told that the add was placed by marketing without consulting the design/development team and that work hadn't yet begun on such a product.




i love rumors that start with my mom's gardner's neighbor knows a guy who...

fyi... i wrote the advertisement

i commissioned the art

i placed the text on the page

i may have been involved at some level, but i'm not sure...



			
				CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> Of course, if it is made, I'd be 99% likely to purchase it.  In order to make it 100% it would have to include material for both an epic level continuation from the WLD and also be playable as a 1st-20th game.  (I know that's a big ask, but it is only 1%).




it'll be a generic city, usable by all levels of gamers.

and that's all i can say about it


----------



## CrimsonScribe

jim pinto said:
			
		

> I love rumors that start with my mom's gardner's neighbor knows a guy who...
> 
> fyi... I wrote the advertisement
> I commissioned the art
> I placed the text on the page
> I may have been involved at some level, but i'm not sure...




Hmmm, I guess you would know a little something about the project then.   



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> it'll be a generic city, usable by all levels of gamers.
> and that's all i can say about it




Well, if anything like the effort put into WLD is being put into WLC (and I have no reason to believe AEG wouldn't) it will rock.


----------



## Hitokiri

*My game, so far*

Let me start this post by sating that in 18 years of playing D&D, and thousands of dollars spent not only by myself, but also friends, this is the single best product I have seen.  My hat is off to all the developers for such a wonderous game.

I've been running WLD for about 10 weeks now (started within a week or so of its release).  Gaming session run for about 6 hours every week, and party size has luctuated from 4 to 6 members.  Costom rules are that HP rolls must be above average or the PC rerolls (this helps ensure survivability) and charater death results in a new character being rolled at 1 level lowwer than lowest member of the party subject to GM discretion (this means a 1-2 level dropp if you die, but I raise the minimum level as they progress, so the party remains capable of handling enemies).  For the most part, I'm running this as an old fashioned crawl, without too much worry about adding any plot elements myself (although I have left in the plots already included).  Here's how things have gone so far:

The PCs were seeking treasure in the montains when they stumble across the remains of the titan.  Exploring the cavern near his body, they quickly become trapped within the dungeon itself.  They proceed to make a beeline to room A20 where they discover the secret door to the south.  Progressing through the rubble filled rooms, they quickly encountered the kobolds holed up in A69.    The kobolds, alerted to their presence by the noise made by the PCs, are ready for them and begin sliging as soon as the PCs step through the door.  The PCs charge the fort and the end result is a near TPK (2 of 5 PCs are left standing to haul the other three back to another room, total party HP was at something like -7 due to several PCs being very near dead!).  The PCs retreated, healed, and planned another attack.  This went only marginally better, with the PCs retreating with only 2 unconsious members.  They then proceeded to avoid this room until the party was around level 3 (and had serious doubts about going back even at that time ).  Retracing their steps,  they swept through the dungeon up to room A22.  The ogre proceeded to floor the theif, but was quickly convinced to retreat when the dwarven fighter landed a punishing blow with his great axe.  They now start to uncover the story of the factions (although I had the ogre be a little vague about exactly what longtail was).  The PCs proceeded north, avoiding the trogs (the stench was too much for them, and they agreed to ignore the area) and finding the forges in rooms A37-A40.  They wored their way through to the main hall via A45 and A50, then proceeded to go straight to room A91.  Despite having fought several darkmantles before, they had no one watching the ceiling, and the result was horrendous.  Ambushed inside the room, 3 of the 5 PCs were killed by the darkmantles, and a fourth dropped to -9 as he retreated to A49.  Only the thief managed to come out with some HP left, and he makes a critical roll to stabalize the other PC, then drags him back to heal (I was feeling generous, so no random encounters).  The players   create new PCs and the game continued.  Deciding they needed more exp before continuing east, they now swing south through the old prison areaA59-A68.  They then proceed east along the south part of the dungeon until they reach the stirge nest.  Realizing the situation in the room, they put the fighters in front and use missle weapons to draw the stirges to them in managable packs and effeciently clean out the room with only moderate difficulty.  Now a mix of level 2 and 3, the party decides to try the kobolds again, this time with much more success (a couple of lucky rolls with the dice and the fact that they HAD managed to kill 2 of them earlier made it much easier this time around).  They return to the stirges nest and then strike out north east, and quickly find themselves back in the room with the darkmantles.  Forewarned of their existance, the PCs handle the encounter easily.  They now wandered their way into the forgotten portion of the dungeon.  Things went smoothly until they found the portal in room A110.  Reasoning it was a way out, the party's theif walked through the portal, which promptly closed sealing him in another dimension (declared dead).  The players now backtrack to make sure they have cleaned out the souther portion of the dungeon.  Another thief dies when he mistakenly believes he has disarmed the fireball trap at A83 and is roasted seconds later.  Only hours later, the PCs stumble upon the remaining orcs, and a terrific battle ensues.  Over half the PCs go down (they number 6 at this point), including the party sorcerer who is slaughtered by the berserker.  The PCs pull back and heal once again.

At this point, most of the PCs are level 3, with a few level two characters and a single level 4 PC (the only surviving member of the original team that entered the dungeon).  They proceed north and into section E, where they are met by shadows.  A breif fight ensues and startled by the loss of str., the PCs retreat back to section A.  They now do a more thourogh search of the northeastern quadrent of A and find and befriend the two lizardmen.  The section culminates with their discovery of Longtails portal and a fight with an owlbear that comes through moments before Longtail shows up.  Longtail uses the few rounds the PCs are distracted to put invisibility on himself along with fly, then begins to use MM to rain havock down on the PCs once he is above them.  They retreat to room A101 and Longtail, thinking he has them trapped, dropps down to continue peppering them with spells.  Things looked bad until the party monk suceeds in grapling him and pinning him to the ground (He had him pinned for 4 or five rounds, and won every single grapple check, I think the lowest he rolled was 16   ).  

They now advanced to section E via the easternmost hallway connecting the two.  They worked their way up to the old formian quarters where the thief is killed by shadows (theives have a remarkably low survival rate I've noticed).  Trying to get out of the area the shadows control, they run afoul of a group of barghests in a rondom encounter in a narrow hallway, and both lizardmen are slain.  However, they press on through the empty rooms, and are met by yet more barghests.  Once again, fighting in the narrow halls proves difficult, so they try to retreat to a room.  Unfortunately, one of the beasts blinks through a wall and charms the paladin, who decideds t try to protect his new  friends by attacking the party until we stop (hey, half orcs aren't too bright).  He eventually runs off, and the rest of the party is wiped out (4 PCs in total).  The players retreat and decide to leave E and explore east into B.

They enter B through the stables in the south and proceed to kill the goblins mounts.  Needless to say, this doesn't help possible relations between them and the goblin empire.  They leave the stables and proceed to room B74, where they are repulsed by the goblins and forced once again to retreat.  A series of raids from section A throws the goblins into disarray and leads to the eventual killing of the king (who they still have not figured out was a doppleganger despite ample evidence).  They travesre north and have learned how to open the rooms in B89, but are too afraid to do so.  They raise more havock with the bugbears, spend nearly two hours in the riddle room trying to puzzle it out (they still haven't taken the bloody tapestry yet!!).  The trap in B43 nearly killed one of the group fighters, and BArtleby has them completely confused (they want to know why he is here, what the item of power ithat they've overheard others talking of is, and what he knows about the region, but he continues to elude them).  When we last left off, they were headed back west through B15-17.

I swear, my group has the most random method of traveling I've seen.  Still, it is entertaining to watch them bumble around.

Oh yeah, I should mention that the current cleric is a CN gnome, who insists on using the rod of wonder as his primary weapon.  It's only a matter of time before one of the fighters gets sick of being lightninged or FBed in the back and kills him.  Anyways, wish i had a blog space and the time to flesh out all the adventures they've gone through, but I bought the module to save me time   Despite my being quite vicious with the monsters in combat and high lethality of the game, my players have so far really enjoyed themselves.  Once again, Kudos for such a great product.


----------



## ShadowDenizen

Just got my copy this week ($70 from Amazon), and my players are rolling up characters: hoping to get started sometime in January. I'm already reading/prepping Region A.

So, kudos to everyone involved. Great job, Jim! (And everyone else at AEG, of course.)  AND, thanks for the great advice on these boards: I'm incorporating many of the suggestions (expanded role of Lantern Archons, different stonework for various levels, the "Level Up" room placements, additonal random enounters, etc.)

I also have Bitmap version of Regions A, B + C, which allows me to make notes right on the map itself without harming the originals. (I've put the Template stats, Random Encoutner tables, etc., all right onto the map for easy reference.)   Does anyone have the rest of the Regions in .bmp format?

Only problem is, I'm not your "typical" (AFAIK) 3rd Edition D+D player: I believe that the story comes first, so I'm not as conversant with the rules (esp. combat rules) as some of my players: I already warned them that it will be trial-and-error (at least at first.)

Looks like the party will be:
--Healer (NPC)
--Human Barbarian
--Halfling Rogue/Dog-Rider
--2 others undecided (likely a Spell-Caster of some kind and monk.)

Wish me luck, and I'll keep everyone updated on our progress (or lack thereof!)


----------



## The Cardinal

so, my party will not really take off before Xmas, but these are the starting PCs (all L1, some races and classes are from the Wilderlands):

half-ogre barbarian
human (amazonian) amazon warrior
human (avalonian) warmage
human favored soul (still undecided about his patron deity)
half-elf ranger (FE evil outsider, will go for the TWF shtick)

...this leaves one player who is still not sure about his PC's class:
druid (maybe druidic avenger from UA)
rogue
cleric
cleric/rogue

What would you recommend - and why?


----------



## Cedric

Question...would someone who took Item Creation Feats have a chance to use them at some point in the WLD?

We're about to start playing (I've been careful to not read spoilers) and I am not sure if I want to play a Dwarven Rogue/Cleric explorer...or a Dwarven Cleric Smith (with item creation feats). 

Thoughts?


----------



## The Cardinal

...well, one of my players wants an alchemist (core class from Wilderlands) as her backup PC - so I'll use Crafting Points (from UA)...


----------



## jim pinto

The Cardinal said:
			
		

> so, my party will not really take off before Xmas, but these are the starting PCs (all L1, some races and classes are from the Wilderlands):
> 
> half-ogre barbarian
> human (amazonian) amazon warrior
> human (avalonian) warmage
> human favored soul (still undecided about his patron deity)
> half-elf ranger (FE evil outsider, will go for the TWF shtick)
> 
> ...this leaves one player who is still not sure about his PC's class:
> druid (maybe druidic avenger from UA)
> rogue
> cleric
> cleric/rogue
> 
> What would you recommend - and why?




cleric.

because you don't have one.


----------



## jim pinto

Cedric said:
			
		

> Question...would someone who took Item Creation Feats have a chance to use them at some point in the WLD?
> 
> We're about to start playing (I've been careful to not read spoilers) and I am not sure if I want to play a Dwarven Rogue/Cleric explorer...or a Dwarven Cleric Smith (with item creation feats).
> 
> Thoughts?




yes, there are places to use them, but it will be limited

to balance it, i recommend ignoring the XP cost and trippling the gp cost

(these are sterile environments, so there's some loss of raw materials).

it requires some bending of logic, but not enough that you'd notice


----------



## twofalls

jim pinto said:
			
		

> i love rumors that start with my mom's gardner's neighbor knows a guy who...
> 
> fyi... i wrote the advertisement
> 
> i commissioned the art
> 
> i placed the text on the page
> 
> i may have been involved at some level, but i'm not sure...




I was the one who started this rumor, without intending for it to be a rumor at all. Nor did I think that it was hush hush. I'd thought I was passing on info that I'd recived from you at one point Jim. Obviously one of our conversations went awry at some point.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

MY group is going into "overtime" tonight.  They've demanded an extra session, and I'm more than willing to oblige.  Maybe I can finally drag them out of Region A tonight...


----------



## BlueBlackRed

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> MY group is going into "overtime" tonight.  They've demanded an extra session, and I'm more than willing to oblige.  Maybe I can finally drag them out of Region A tonight...




Our group will be going into OT as well.
Not because of extra time.
But because the most distracting player at the table won't be there.

Just a little left of Region A, maybe 1/3   
Hmmm...maybe I should order the pizza ahead of time.


----------



## hitomikitage

Well, my group is nearly done with Region B (and should finish it up tonight.)  This leads me to ask what kind of attrition rate other GM's have seen amongst their party.  I have had the following casualties:
Human Favored Soul (class from the Complete Divine) to the multi-colored Sphere room at the end of Region A.
Human Paladin to the Lightning Trapped water room toward sthe beginning of Region B.
Lizardman Ranger NPC (from region A) to Shadows in Region F (due to two non-rogue pc's being trapped in the mirror trap room in Region B.)
Human Cleric of Palor to the Ghoul Paladins in Region B.

Also, since the party I am running through is relatively large (8 pcs, with a ninth that shows occasionally) the standard XP system out of the 3.5 DMG seems to work just fine.  However, I don't give XP for random encounters or for situations where I have to bump or modify the difficulty of an encounter to handle the added people.  As it stands, so far they have only taken casualties from unmodified encounters, and have not seemed to notice much difference in results between the higher challenge stuff and the regularly written stuff.  Go figure.

I deal with backup characters coming in by placing them in convenient spots for discovery by the party.  We had a player join who's character was found in the room in Region A with the shackled skeletons.  The backup for the Favored Soul was a half-Orc that abandoned the rest of the Orcs that were waiting for their depressed leader, he was found in the supply room at the end of Region A.  The backup for the paladin turned out to be the goblin that was imprisoned in the Gaol in the Goblin King's territory, and the Cleric's backup was found bound and unconscious in the empty room of the four that are attached to the circular room.  It has been fairly easy to introduce new characters so far.

Thanks,
Howard Hooven


----------



## slaunt

I have been drooling over this book ever since i got it, and i am eagerly looking forward to running it. I am currently trying to get a group together for this mega-crawl.

All the suggestions i found here have been helpful, i am going to go with the Level/Power up room idea, wich i think will work really well.
I do plan on spicing up Region A, and throw in some weird monsters(Fiendish Gelatinous Kobold anyone?) to keep my players on their toes.

As i posted on Alderac board, i have an interesting idea on how to get the PCs into the dungeon. They wake up, no memory of who they are, and no info on how they got to the dungeon, why they are here. A robe figure in the room tells them that they are here by choice and that to leave they must find the exit wich is at the very end. They start off with no EQ, save that wich will be placed in a treasure chest, wich will have simple basic EQ leather armor, some daggers, a spellbook for a wizards, holy symbol for cleric, and what not. Everything else they must find.
Now here is the kicker.
If by the gods willing, this group ever makes it through to the end, and did the whole crawl and what not. They find themselves travelling up a long corridor, supposedly taking them to the surface. When they get to the end, they find themselves back at The Entrance room, where they are told that the Dungeon is a prison for them, and that they are doomed to travel through its trials for all eternity. They are then stripped of everything, memories, levels, and wake up once more with no recollection of why they are and why they are here, and start over.

May or may not go with that, but i do like the opening and will go with that, but the ending, not sure just yet  

ZA


----------



## CrimsonScribe

If I pulled an ending like that with my group, I can pretty much predict that I'd be found dead in a ditch somewhere the very next morning.


----------



## The Cardinal

...with an ending like this and players like me they'd never find your body...


----------



## twofalls

Considering the effort it will take to play out this whole thing (10 sessions for my group just to make it through Region A), I'd be careful about robbing the victory from them in the end. I assume you would want them to play other games with you in the future, or even just be willing to speak to you.

Besides, I think that once you've run the whole thing, you are going to be looking forward to playing something else and wont want to go back into it a second time.

On the other hand, if you are up to doing a LOT of work, you can write up elaborate criminal backgrounds for your characters, and have them discover pieces of it as they adventure. Hints about what terrible people they were on the outside. Their crimes need to be abominable enough to justify this particularly cruel form of eternal punishment. That way as they adventure they will develop the feeling that there is more to this than meets the eye and the race to the finish line also becomes a quest to find themselves. Discovering at the end that they are eternal prisoners at that point brings closure to the quest and the players are given a sense of completion in the campaign (and you won’t have to hire a bodyguard to protect yourself from your wrathful players).

The major insurmountable issue with this concept is that in order for it to work and be interesting in the end, the characters need to survive to see it completed... and without an absurd (and game damaging) amount of fudging on your part, they AREN'T going to survive to the end of this with their original characters.


----------



## thundershot

And therein lies the problem. I KNOW there's no way they could all survive. No way... especially since my campaign world disallows resurrections. My wife started out hating her Psion character, saying she was weak and useless. Now she's starting to get into it... and went from wanting her to die so she can try something else, to being very adamant that her character must not die. Oy!

My sister, who is new to D&D, put all of her energy into her Rogue, and the poor thing has been the closest to death... twice! She sniffs out the traps, and isn't that good at it because they have high DC's, and ends up tripping them. With her, she'll personally blame ME if her character dies (but then don't most players?). I keep telling them to have backup characters IN MIND ... JUST IN CASE one of them dies. And what do I get? "You're out to kill us! See!"

*rolls eyes*

*gets a natural 20*


Chris


----------



## DaveMage

thundershot said:
			
		

> And therein lies the problem. I KNOW there's no way they could all survive. No way... especially since my campaign world disallows resurrections. My wife started out hating her Psion character, saying she was weak and useless. Now she's starting to get into it... and went from wanting her to die so she can try something else, to being very adamant that her character must not die. Oy!
> 
> My sister, who is new to D&D, put all of her energy into her Rogue, and the poor thing has been the closest to death... twice! She sniffs out the traps, and isn't that good at it because they have high DC's, and ends up tripping them. With her, she'll personally blame ME if her character dies (but then don't most players?). I keep telling them to have backup characters IN MIND ... JUST IN CASE one of them dies. And what do I get? "You're out to kill us! See!"
> 
> *rolls eyes*
> 
> *gets a natural 20*
> 
> 
> Chris




You can always apply the recommendation that I've seen on the Necro boards for their modules: have the PCs be 1 or 2 levels higher than the recommended base level for each area.  That should help their survivial chances.


----------



## DaveMage

Alternatively, what I may do is start PCs at level 2 in power, but with 0 XPs.  It will still take them until 3,000 XP to get to level 3, but that extra boost may help get them through the early encounters unscathed...


----------



## jim pinto

hitomikitage said:
			
		

> Well, my group is nearly done with Region B (and should finish it up tonight.)  This leads me to ask what kind of attrition rate other GM's have seen amongst their party.  I have had the following casualties:
> Human Favored Soul (class from the Complete Divine) to the multi-colored Sphere room at the end of Region A.
> Human Paladin to the Lightning Trapped water room toward sthe beginning of Region B.
> Lizardman Ranger NPC (from region A) to Shadows in Region F (due to two non-rogue pc's being trapped in the mirror trap room in Region B.)
> Human Cleric of Palor to the Ghoul Paladins in Region B.




oh man. that's easily one of my favorite encounters in the book
and definately the best in the region. its nice to see it worked
the way we'd hoped.





			
				hitomikitage said:
			
		

> Also, since the party I am running through is relatively large (8 pcs, with a ninth that shows occasionally) the standard XP system out of the 3.5 DMG seems to work just fine.  However, I don't give XP for random encounters or for situations where I have to bump or modify the difficulty of an encounter to handle the added people.  As it stands, so far they have only taken casualties from unmodified encounters, and have not seemed to notice much difference in results between the higher challenge stuff and the regularly written stuff.  Go figure.




well, 8 PCs is twice the recommended daily allowance



			
				hitomikitage said:
			
		

> I deal with backup characters coming in by placing them in convenient spots for discovery by the party.  We had a player join who's character was found in the room in Region A with the shackled skeletons.  The backup for the Favored Soul was a half-Orc that abandoned the rest of the Orcs that were waiting for their depressed leader, he was found in the supply room at the end of Region A.  The backup for the paladin turned out to be the goblin that was imprisoned in the Gaol in the Goblin King's territory, and the Cleric's backup was found bound and unconscious in the empty room of the four that are attached to the circular room.  It has been fairly easy to introduce new characters so far.




that's the best news i could ever hear

thanks


----------



## Demon Gnome

My group I am running through since WLD came out will be finishing up with region C this week and after a chance to sell & restock (my WLD is a series of dungeons in different places, and they can't change their mind and not go back to the dungeon even if they wanted to as the Mark of the Righteousnous will mysteriously pull them back.) will be moving on to Region I. Now's the time to really make them worried about whats going on.

Btw, current group is:
Elf Rogue 7
Human Bonded Summoner 7
Half Elf Wererat _(thanx to longtail)_ Rogue/Sorcerer 2/2
Dwarf Fighter 7
Human Warlock 7


----------



## hitomikitage

Well, my players didn't get through region B like I thought they would.  After Friday's session, they had to spend a sizable chunk of time trying to figure out how to get out of the secret room beyond the blink dogs (the stalagmite room with the quarterstaff in it) in region B.  It was particularly interesting because the Goblin Rogue set off the trap trying to disarm it, so it increased the open locks check beyond what they were capable of hitting.  That made for some interesting attempts to get the guys that were trapped in the room out.  

The Saturday session saw them exploring the Holy Goblin area.  This was particularly crazy, since they decided that they would just try locking the goblins in their respective rooms while they explored the rest of the area.  Little did they realize that the hobgoblins had a key to their door, and let everyone else out and waited in ambush on them in the dark corridors.  Then, part way through the fight, one hobgoblin ran off and let the dire wolves out of their room.  So the party was throwing down with 15 goblins, 3 goblins riding worgs, 3 hobgoblins, and 3 dire wolves.  That took most of the rest of the session.  At the end, they managed to save everyone and finish off the goblin religious types, and even clean out the vargoulle room (although the human thief acrobat did get hit with the dragon bile contact poison, losing all but 3 of his strength, and falling off the wall because he could no longer hold his own weight.)

The games have been a blast so far and everyone is having a good time, (as far as I can tell) even if they do get frustrated by high DC checks for opening locks on doors and by animals that trip as part of their attack.  I am currently having them feel a pulse of negative energy about the same time each "night" (tough to tell night from day in this dungeon) when they rest, coming somewhere from the north.  Hopefully they will take my hint, and start going north, since I am pretty psyched to run the undead region (region N) when my players get there.

I will try and keep a running update after each weekend I run (currently running every other weekend on Friday and Saturday) and letting you know any pitfalls I come across in the dungeon as well as any my players come across.

Thanks,
Howard


----------



## Jim Hague

Demon Gnome said:
			
		

> My group I am running through since WLD came out will be finishing up with region C this week and after a chance to sell & restock (my WLD is a series of dungeons in different places, and they can't change their mind and not go back to the dungeon even if they wanted to as the Mark of the Righteousnous will mysteriously pull them back.) will be moving on to Region I. Now's the time to really make them worried about whats going on.
> 
> Btw, current group is:
> Elf Rogue 7
> Human Bonded Summoner 7
> Half Elf Wererat _(thanx to longtail)_ Rogue/Sorcerer 2/2
> Dwarf Fighter 7
> Human Warlock 7




Ooh, the first group to reach I.  Let me know how that goes, DG...as always, I'm happy to help out if needed.


----------



## BOAZ

So, I finally pitched my campaign idea to the group and they are pretty psyched to start the dungeon crawl.
They will be using 'gestalt' characters with the requirement to select one of the following classes as their secondary class: Cleric, Monk, Paladin, Favored Soul or Healer; the concept behind this is that they all belong to the same secretive holy order, which is charged with protecting the land from the evil below.
I still haven't decided on the world, but obviously it won't be that important.
Since the characters will be much more powerful, and can venture much further into the dungeon than your average group, did anybody start the WLD in a different location? Maybe H?


----------



## Soul

Are there any links to CrimsonScribes player maps yet, or are they still just being passed around via e-mail?


----------



## Demon Gnome

> Ooh, the first group to reach I. Let me know how that goes, DG...as always, I'm happy to help out if needed.




My original plan was to run the PC's through A, B, C, M, N, but they have been through much of C and haven't leveled as far or as fast As I planned, and so I decided to slip in an extra lvl 7-9 region, namely I as it ties in with M. Not to mention I just looks so freaky it'll be fun. They are going to regret their lack of a healer once they start becoming diseased. Unlike region A when they were last diseased they can't just rest somewhere and wait it out as many rooms in I will simply aflict you with thre same or new diseases again =P.


----------



## Demon Gnome

Also what would you suggest about how to handle the bonded summoner in the group? He has a medium earth elemental (class feature) and often uses its ability to simply move through any stone/earth freely to simply have the elemental look through a wall to see whats in a room in advance ( granted with a 4 intelligence it is usually VERY vague on descriptions =P). I know some regions of I have walls covered/encased in flesh which will prevent it from traveling through.


----------



## jim pinto

Demon Gnome said:
			
		

> Also what would you suggest about how to handle the bonded summoner in the group? He has a medium earth elemental (class feature) and often uses its ability to simply move through any stone/earth freely to simply have the elemental look through a wall to see whats in a room in advance ( granted with a 4 intelligence it is usually VERY vague on descriptions =P). I know some regions of I have walls covered/encased in flesh which will prevent it from traveling through.




this question seems to answer itself. the walls are fleshy in places.

the southern halls should be 0% chance to pass wall through
the central halls should be 50% chance to pass wall through
the northern halls should be 90% chance to pass wall through


----------



## Jim Hague

Demon Gnome said:
			
		

> My original plan was to run the PC's through A, B, C, M, N, but they have been through much of C and haven't leveled as far or as fast As I planned, and so I decided to slip in an extra lvl 7-9 region, namely I as it ties in with M. Not to mention I just looks so freaky it'll be fun. They are going to regret their lack of a healer once they start becoming diseased. Unlike region A when they were last diseased they can't just rest somewhere and wait it out as many rooms in I will simply aflict you with thre same or new diseases again =P.




jim's got some good percentages going there - the Southern Halls are covered in all forms of noxious goop, living and otherwise, that could conceivably prevent the passing through walls bit.  

As for the lack of a healer...look through the intro to I _carefully_ - they're going to regret getting injured at all.  Healing won't be a problem, no sir.  Just, y'know, ignore that weird skin color...or the scales...or the slime.

On the GMing front, I very much reccommend emphasizing the sheer _wrongness_ of I - Mahir and his cronies were experimenting with Magic Mortals Were Not Meant to Know, and it shows here.  The enemies, tactically, don't have to be relentless - have them retreat at half HP, only to reappear later, changed by the trapped magic/positive energy in the Halls.  Things there drip, they spurt, the dribble and run.  Everything is wet, hot and close.  

The contamination in I seeps into everything, in little ways.  Got leather goods?  Have them bloat up, grow pale, warm...is the leather alive, or is it just magic?  The PCs' belongings won't attack them (probably), but there's a ton of nice touches that can be used.  Follow the tryptych of good horror - terrify, horrify, then gross out, in that order.  By the time the PCs get to Siglinde or the drow, they should seem a relief by comparison to something like Madness or Anguish.


----------



## EricNoah

Just got a copy for christmas.  Holy cow, it's huge!  I'm enjoying reading it and looking forward to reading the advice in this thread.  Not sure if I'll get to run it any time soon but who knows?


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Soul said:
			
		

> Are there any links to CrimsonScribes player maps yet, or are they still just being passed around via e-mail?




Unfortunately, they are still only being passed around via email.  Arholly seems to have all but disappeared and as such the fansite appears to be suffering as well (yes, it still works, but no one is posting).

I've been a fair bit busier than normal lately, so I've kind of stopped at Region E, however I have a couple of weeks off over christmas so I will do my best to get as much done as possible then.


----------



## Soul

Well, if anyone wants to send them to NBrown at outhouse-productions dot com, I'd appreciate it. Thanks in advance.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Consider it done.


----------



## JamesL85

Hey Crimson....Send the files to me and I'll try to come up with something extremely crude on my site.....

Mail to ffslug *at* st-tel *dot* net


----------



## JamesL85

Thanks Crimson, I have the files.....

Although you said:


> James (I assume),
> 
> Here is the map for Region A.  If you do intend to host these, the
> only thing I ask is that you put AEG's "copyright" statement clearly
> on the page that offers the downloads - that appears to be their only
> request as far as hosting the images goes.




I went to the website that hosts the other downloads and found the following:



> All maps and game text related to the World's Largest Dungeon are TM and Copyright AEG, 2004. All rights reserved. Brandon Morrison has written permission from AEG to host this information on his site. Republishing of this material without written authorization from Alderac Entertainment Group, is a violation of our copyright. In other words, feel free to share the information with friends, but don't post it everywhere and for goodness sake don't publish it at Kinko's(tm).




Mr. Pinto, can I use the same text on my website (of course, change the name), or do I need to contact AEG and get their blessing?

FWIW, my site won't have any links to that page, the only link coming from this thread (and, of course, word of mouth)......

Let me know....

Respectfully,
James


----------



## hitomikitage

The way i do walls is to not allow them to be shaped, moved through, cut/broken, or in any way manipulated.  I had to think of something quick in order to keep my players from just trying to dig their way out of the dungeon when they were first trapped inside.  This kind of caused me to go back to the whole idea that was presented in the book that the only way to bring down walls and chunks of the dungeon is via massive structural damage via the earthquakes.  I can't remember if this was strictly addressed in the book or if I just came up with that myself, but it seemed like a good idea.  It seems to work so far, as the room traps can't be circumvented by a cleric using stone shape style spells or anything like that.  I find that this is the easiest way to also promote original thinking and slightly more creative methods of doing just about everything in the dungeon, which is usually much more rewarding for the players when they succeed at a task.

Thanks,
Howard


----------



## twofalls

*All Doors*

When I next run the WLD, which may be some months from now, it will be to explore Region E. Inside E there are three or four secret chambers with access only possible through an all door room, which you need a codeword in order to access. The codewords are located in only one area and aren't really indexed in such a way as to make it apparent as to what they are.

How would you, when running this section, introduce the All Door rooms in a useable fashion? Not make them player accessable and only allow the garrison to access them?


----------



## Keska

> Originally Posted by *Twofalls*
> When I next run the WLD, which may be some months from now, it will be to explore Region E. Inside E there are three or four secret chambers with access only possible through an all door room, which you need a codeword in order to access. The codewords are located in only one area and aren't really indexed in such a way as to make it apparent as to what they are.
> 
> How would you, when running this section, introduce the All Door rooms in a useable fashion? Not make them player accessable and only allow the garrison to access them?




I'm running my group through Region E right now. Here's the way I'm handling the All-Door situation:

The PCs are working with the "celestial" half of the garrison. Resources are low, but the celestials can't spare the manpower to go get the All-Door (even though they know where it should be), especially since the last person that tried to retreive one of their missing magic items didn't come back. However, they don't really just want the PCs to go get it either without some guarantee that the Door will be brought back to the garrison. So they've asked the PCs to first join the garrison by completing the trial rooms and signing the charter.

Both the celestials and the inevitables hae the code words, but it's possible they could be lying around elsewhere as well. You might have your PCs find the list in the pocket of the dead trumpet archon.


----------



## Soul

Thanks CrimsonScribe these are excellent!!


----------



## jim pinto

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> Thanks Crimson, I have the files.....
> 
> Although you said:
> 
> 
> I went to the website that hosts the other downloads and found the following:
> 
> 
> 
> Mr. Pinto, can I use the same text on my website (of course, change the name), or do I need to contact AEG and get their blessing?
> 
> FWIW, my site won't have any links to that page, the only link coming from this thread (and, of course, word of mouth)......
> 
> Let me know....
> 
> Respectfully,
> James




please e-mail me (aegartguy@alderac.com), so i can get you the correct boilerplate for your site

fair?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

This was odd at the game last night. And I can't really put it into the blog because the players read it. So you guys are stuck with it.   

The players have effectively "defeated" region A. But they didn't clear it. Which was fine because due to some metagaming by a player, I made the portal bigger and made it sound like the thing was about to burst open. So the players hightailed it outta there. So now region A has been mostly whiped out. There may be a few rooms left, but only if I like them (like the 22 stirges room).

So the group heads to region B after a vote. I told them that I had not read much into region B or E, just the intro really. I told them that region B had a lot of goblins and the region E was kind of "different". They put it up to a vote and it was 3 to 2 in favor of B.

But the only entry they had found into region B was northern-most one. And if you look at the map, that area is mostly cut off from the rest of the region. I thought it was funny, but the group got quickly bored and irritated with the region (and avoided the fight with the dire wolves). "Hey where are the goblins?" they asked.

So they went back and moved to region E. The first room they enter is the 3 shadows room that is right next door to the fireball hallway.

Now here's where it gets half funny, because the PC's don't know what they're messing with. They check out the fireball hallway, but figure that most of the party won't be able to make it through there, so they head to the room with the all-door. Well they find it odd to see an unhinged door that seems really well made. They make note of that and move on. They then find the secret door that leads to the hallway that connects to room E20, which has a ward staff. After much investigation (and about 80 points of damage spread out over 5 minutes to one character), they determine that this staff has a big purpose, but they don't know what.

So now they have found a ward staff and then begin discussing going back to get the all-door (or whatever it's called) and puting it on the ground of the fireball room so the party can just walk over the trap's trigger. Now to me that's just going to get funnier when the group realizes what they have done.

Of course, since I haven't thoroughly read region E, I could be wrong about what they're doing and then it won't be funny.

So just sit back and relax, and read some Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey.


----------



## primarchone

Hi!

Crimsonscribe. I would like to recieve those map files if possible.

Send them to primarch@centennialpr.net

Primarchone


----------



## thundershot

I honestly don't know how I missed the whole "WLD player maps" part of this... I could definitely use this...


cld at thundershot dot net


Thanks
Chris


----------



## twofalls

*Player Maps*

I don't know about Crimsonscribe, but I'm getting tired of emailing the maps, its quickly gotten out of hand. I'm going to post them to our web page at www.sanguinesentinels.com, and will let you know the exact link when they are up there.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Well, emailing was only meant to be temporary until the maps could get a more permanent home somewhere.  When this finally happens, you won't be the only person that is celebrating.


----------



## JamesL85

I e-mailed Jim about hosting them on my site, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet.....I'll get them up as soon as I get his permission.....

Sorry guys....

James


----------



## CrimsonScribe

I've sent the maps to Thundershot and Primarchone, hopefully they will be hosted shortly and things will just get a lot easier.


----------



## jim pinto

*posting the maps*

guys

if you intend to post the maps on your websites, its a good idea to get permission from me

e-mail me so i can give you the legal text that needs to go on your site

thanks


----------



## JamesL85

Jim,

Did you get my e-mail about the boilerplate?

James


----------



## CrimsonScribe

My players finally managed clear out Region A in last nights session.  It took them an extra hour of play time but we did it.

Last nights session started in A91 and contained a Bar'luga (which they managed to idspose of last week), then they were surprised by a pair of advanced Manes from A92.  Moving on they entered A100 in which I had planted a Jovoc which turned out to be quite interesting when the thief used their Bane (Evil Outsider) shortsword to inflict sneak attack damage.  

Next up on the roster, I replaced the lizardfolk with 2 drow (a fighter & a warmage) - the parties first real encounter with another serious spellcaster (equipped with a rod of metamagic - lesser maximise) proved very interesting as maximised scorching rays with a warmage's edge do 28 points of damage with no save.  When the warmage finally got cornered she literally "brought the house down" with a maximized hail of stones on herself and 3 of the party members.

After resting up and learning how to use the rod they had recovered the party thought they were ready to face the BBEG that they had seen in a vision - an Arrow Demon.  Moving around the pillars in A103 and the ability to dimension door at will cuased a lot of head aches for the melee warriors in the party (everyone but the wizard) as the room is 115ft long.  Eventually the demon got a little cocky and over stayed his position by 1 round and then could no longer make the checks to defensivley dimension door to another position so had to go toe to toe with a cleric, paladin and rogue.

The paladin managed to sunder both of it's bows so in an act of revenge the arrow demon laid in to him with all 4 claw attacks - 1 rolled a natural 20, so I confirmed it with another natural 20, then rolled a 19!  The demon's +13 attack modifier meant an instant kill.  The warforged fighter took up the paladin's place in combat the next round after he'd finally made it back down the length of the room - he'd been wiaitng for the demon to dimension door again and in 2 more rounds of wailing on the thief and cleric the demon was finally taken down.

I finished the session with on of the archon "bits" reappearing to thank the party for accomplishing what the celestial host was unable to do (due to the many different offensives they are fighting through out the dungeon) and offered the party the choice to bring the paladin back (he's an NPC after all).  The party will be moving onto Region E from here in an effort to meat up with the celestial host and learn more about this ancient dungeon.


----------



## JamesL85

Thanks to Jim Pinto and CrimsonScribe, there is now a place to download Player Maps of Regions A through E.

http://www.james.neetersoft.com/wld/wld.htm 

There is also a link at the bottom of the page that takes you to the Fan Site for The World's Largest Dungeon (is that still being updated?).  If anyone would like to see other links there, let me know.....

Thanks again to Jim and Crimson    

James


----------



## ShadowDenizen

Well, we ran a "playtest" the other night of the first few rooms of Region A.  (Two of our 5 players were sick, but everyone was still revving to go, so I just scaled down the challenges some.)  It was more to mesh our style of play together, as I'm a "rules-lite" kind of DM, and some of my players are more "rules-oriented."

The two things that stood out to the players (in a positive way): 
A)the weary Orcs in Room A2: the party immediately attacked, and proceeded to take a hefty beating in return. They also almost killed the Lantern Archon that traveled with them.

B) the trapped door leading to A4.  The thief (who was supremely confident about finding traps: he even took the "Nimble Fingers" feat!!) proceeded to detect no traps and opened the door, only to find himself in the middle of a conflagration! Obviously, he wasn't REALLY expecting a trap so early in the Dungeon. More fool him!

I expect them to fare (slightly) better with the two other party members when we reconvene.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

ShadowDenizen said:
			
		

> B) the trapped door leading to A4.  The thief (who was supremely confident about finding traps: he even took the "Nimble Fingers" feat!!) proceeded to detect no traps and opened the door, only to find himself in the middle of a conflagration! Obviously, he wasn't REALLY expecting a trap so early in the Dungeon. More fool him!




This passage sounds very familiar, even down to the rogue who took "Nimble Fingers" to help in detecting traps etc.  The rogue amongst my players didn't manage to find a trap until A21(?) - the scything blade trap into A72 if I remember correctly.  Even then, he thought he'd disabled it when he actually hadn't.


----------



## hitomikitage

I seem to be having a problem with my players playing alignments.  They continually play all over the place, deciding that they want to just be however they feel like being at the time.  They were doing things that seemed to violate alignments all the time, and then got upset when I was going to shift the alignments of some of them because they were lawful and/or good and they were taking chaotic and/or evil actions.  I have noticed there are definite mechanical benefits and/or penalties for being of a particular alignment, and I was wondering how other people enforced alignments in their game.  I would hate to have to add additional accounting into the game by forcing an infraction point system, just to keep the players honest, but it looks like it is moving in that direction.  Let me know what you guys do, I am looking forward to hearing it.

Thanks,
Howard


----------



## twofalls

*Alignments*

I thought for a long time about simply abolishing the alignment system. However it is an intristic part of the D&D experience and offers a role playing challenge for the players. What you have to do though is be very clear about waht constitutes a violation of alignment and make sure that your players completly understand how you view each different alignment type, as well as be a bit open minded about it all.

I resolved this by purchasing both the Book of Exaulted Deeds and the Book of Vile Darkness. The rules within are rather straightforward and that way boththe players and myself as a GM have very clear boundaries written.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

hitomikitage said:
			
		

> I seem to be having a problem with my players playing alignments.  They continually play all over the place, deciding that they want to just be however they feel like being at the time.  They were doing things that seemed to violate alignments all the time, and then got upset when I was going to shift the alignments of some of them because they were lawful and/or good and they were taking chaotic and/or evil actions.  I have noticed there are definite mechanical benefits and/or penalties for being of a particular alignment, and I was wondering how other people enforced alignments in their game.  I would hate to have to add additional accounting into the game by forcing an infraction point system, just to keep the players honest, but it looks like it is moving in that direction.  Let me know what you guys do, I am looking forward to hearing it.




You haven't seen poor alignment play until you've seen someone playing a paladin pull the fingernails off a kobold to get some information.

As a reward system you can follow Twofall's suggestion.
As a penalty & reward system you can follow the concept of "you'll get yours" (aka karma). If the players are all over the alignment system, they're not going to be friends of the celestials or the prisoners. Suddenly every room's attitude is "Hostile".


----------



## BlueBlackRed

(semi-bump)

Well the party did it.
They used the "all door" from room E18 as a trap triggering prevention device in room E16 by laying down on the ground where the trap gets triggered.

Now I have to decide whether or not to have the trap continuously blast thus either weakening or destroying the door, or just let the trap never reset itself.

Any opinions?


----------



## CrimsonScribe

I guess the real question should be "How important are you making the All-Door to the region?"

My players ventured into Region E the other night, arriving in the T-Junction with the 3 shadows and then headed west straight through the Halls of Portraits and ended the night in Phinidar's Workshop (where they proptly slew the poor guy).


----------



## BlueBlackRed

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> I guess the real question should be "How important are you making the All-Door to the region?"




They don't know what it is. They think it's a standard door.

I read them the description from room E18, but they never cast Detect Magic or even examined it after the fireball trap.

At some point they'll find out I guess.
I guess the results of what will happen with the door will depend on how much meta-gaming is done.

Sometimes they do it alot (and think I don't notice) and sometimes they're good (or I'm being fooled and don't know it).


----------



## twofalls

*Death of a Thread*

This thread is slowing to the point of near death. I fear it will be dead and gone by the time I get back to the WLD campaign with my group.


----------



## The Horror

Ok, so I'm going to start running the WLD this Sunday night. 

Three of the group members are dead set on going paladins. One other is a half-orc vampire hunter (cleric). Another is a necromancer. Another wants to go an evil version of a paladin (likely an evil cleric or fighter). Finally player number 7 has not yet stated what type of character he wants, but he always plays characters that are out for themselves and always characters who border on evil. 

So right now I am worried about group cohesiveness. The six players I've talked to so far are very eager to play, and are very enthused about their own character concepts. Paladins will not associate with evil characters. So what happens when 43%-57% of the group is evil (or close to it)? 

I know this topic has come up before, but unfortunately I have not the access to a search function as of yet.  So how do I handle this, especially in the context of the WLD? 


The Horror


----------



## spacecrime.com

The Horror said:
			
		

> Paladins will not associate with evil characters. So what happens when 43%-57% of the group is evil (or close to it)?




Unfortunately, that sounds like a situation where you're going to have to at least bend the "Paladins will not associate" rule. 

If you want a minimal bend, though, you could always have the Paladins be escorting the evil PCs back to the order as prisoners. They're under orders to get the bad guys back to the home office alive. They get stuck in the dungeon and have to Work Together if they have any hope of accomplishing their mission.

It's cheezy as hell, but it at least gives lip service to the rule.

cheers,

Chris Aylott
The Space-Crime Continuum
http://www.spacecrime.com/


----------



## hitomikitage

You basically have two options here:

First, you can bring out the old tried-and-true no evil characters rule.  I use this because PC's will try to kill other PC's if the other has something they want.  So to avoid a big mess, I always say no evil characters.  This allows for the narrowing of alignment ranges and you can (or at least should) be able to gauge the common reaction to certain situations.  This will help you plan better and make the dungeon more fun for you and the players.

Your second option would be to come up with a reason why all of the characters would need to stick and work together.  This could be because they wake up in the dungeon and don't know how they got there and need to get out, or they are captives to be used by Longtail as sacrifices to summon the daemons, and then some darkmantles/stirges/dire rats kill off the guards and the PC's can pick up their equipment and start working together to find a way out.  This works especially well if the evil people are lawful evil and can generally be trusted to hold to the letter of an agreement (if not the spirit of it) or neutral evil and you as a DM can trust them as a player to stick with the group.

Each method has it's advantages.  Method 1 provides for a more cohesive game, while method 2 provides for a more interesting role-playing experience by your players.

Hope this helps.

Thank you,
Howard


----------



## hitomikitage

You basically have two options here:

First, you can bring out the old tried-and-true no evil characters rule.  I use this because PC's will try to kill other PC's if the other has something they want.  So to avoid a big mess, I always say no evil characters.  This allows for the narrowing of alignment ranges and you can (or at least should) be able to gauge the common reaction to certain situations.  This will help you plan better and make the dungeon more fun for you and the players.

Your second option would be to come up with a reason why all of the characters would need to stick and work together.  This could be because they wake up in the dungeon and don't know how they got there and need to get out, or they are captives to be used by Longtail as sacrifices to summon the daemons, and then some darkmantles/stirges/dire rats kill off the guards and the PC's can pick up their equipment and start working together to find a way out.  This works especially well if the evil people are lawful evil and can generally be trusted to hold to the letter of an agreement (if not the spirit of it) or neutral evil and you as a DM can trust them as a player to stick with the group.

Each method has it's advantages.  Method 1 provides for a more cohesive game, while method 2 provides for a more interesting role-playing experience by your players.

Hope this helps.

Thank you,
Howard


----------



## BlueBlackRed

The Horror said:
			
		

> Three of the group members are dead set on going paladins. One other is a half-orc vampire hunter (cleric). Another is a necromancer. Another wants to go an evil version of a paladin (likely an evil cleric or fighter). Finally player number 7 has not yet stated what type of character he wants, but he always plays characters that are out for themselves and always characters who border on evil.
> 
> So right now I am worried about group cohesiveness. The six players I've talked to so far are very eager to play, and are very enthused about their own character concepts. Paladins will not associate with evil characters. So what happens when 43%-57% of the group is evil (or close to it)?




Evil PCs in groups rarely make it fun for the rest.
So add 2 rules.
#1) No evil PCs. If your group has no cohesiveness, then they won't even care about the dungeon. Eventually the party will implode in some way, and you would have wasted $100.
#2) If someone turns evil, they become an NPC. The person who previously controlled that NPC now has to create a level 1 PC as a form of punishment (If alread level 1 - then makem nekked too).

Make it clear to your players that an evil group will not do so well in the WLD. Especially in Region E.

Also tell them to check their munchkin attitudes at the door.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

twofalls said:
			
		

> This thread is slowing to the point of near death. I fear it will be dead and gone by the time I get back to the WLD campaign with my group.




I wish could argue this point with you, but I am maintaining hope that this thread is not yet history.

I know of several groups playing the WLD actively. They just don't post on these forums.

I also put a post on my WLD blog to ask people to let me know they were still reading it and that I wasn't wasting my time. I got a dozen e-mails (not an internet shattering number, but enough for me    ). Most of the people who replied were about to start their own WLD once the new year began.

Some of the my own group has done some grumblings about the WLD, but now that they're in region E, they've stopped grumbling for the time being.

So I'd say, just wait a couple of weeks. Maybe it's just the holidays.

And if it does die, then I'll just go to the Alderac forums and chat some there.


----------



## The Horror

Well, our first session went quite well.  The seven player party progressed north from the entrance until they reached the ogre in the room with the columns and water.  They butchered the five orcs at the beginning, struggled a bit against some darkmantles, and struggled a fair bit against a rat swarm.  The fiendish stirges they dispatched without any troubles.  

The paladin was all for killing the ogre straight off the bat, or for slitting his throat in his sleep.      The rest of the group managed to stay his hand though, and they learned about the central hallway where the main battle took place before all hell broke loose.  So they headed in that general direction through endless empty hallways until they stumbled right into A49.  After that, frustrated from the wandering they entered the Darkmantle nest east of A49 and managed to kill them all, though the bard almost died in the process.  

Next session they level up.  I am going to throw in a lantern archon to guide them towards Longtail and then to Region B.  That's going to be their ticket, since I've made the cleric, monk and paladin all be members of the Order of Myruun, 50 years after the order was practically destroyed by the pilgrimage of paladins into the dungeon.  Their mission here is to find out what happened to their fellow paladins all those years back, and to bring their tale out to the world at large.  The bard is there to compose an epic poem of their triumphs (both the groups and the paladins of old).

All and all it's going well.  They are getting a bit frustrated with all the empty rooms and endless hallways, but really they have just been plain lucky in managing to avoid every trap so far (as in not even encountering them).  All for the best really, since the party has no Rogue in it despite all of my recommendations....



The Horror


----------



## The Horror

Does anyone have a picture of the entire dungeon, with all the maps together?  I would like to send out by email to my players a weekly update of their progress, including a small picture of the entire dungeon with the places they've already explored highlighted.  It should give them a nice sense of achievement as well as help keeping things in perspective.



The Horror


----------



## haiiro

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I wish could argue this point with you, but I am maintaining hope that this thread is not yet history.




Well, after starting it and following it with intense interest for awhile, I stopped posting to it because I stopped running the dungeon. The amount of work I would have needed to do to retrofit Region A to my tastes, coupled with the metric crapload of other stuff going on in my life, meant it wasn't worth continuing.

Sorry to be part of the whole slow death thing. :\


----------



## BlueBlackRed

The Horror said:
			
		

> Does anyone have a picture of the entire dungeon, with all the maps together?  I would like to send out by email to my players a weekly update of their progress, including a small picture of the entire dungeon with the places they've already explored highlighted.  It should give them a nice sense of achievement as well as help keeping things in perspective.
> 
> The Horror




I believe there is one at www.worldslargestdungeon.com
A giant PDF.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

*Hoody Freakin Hoo!*

I strongly suggest that everyone go buy the most recent Knights of the Dinner Table (#98).

Check out the Web Scryer portion of it. It has web addresses to several of the blogs.
RPGMP3, Spike's Journal (my favorite), Twofalls's Sanguine Sentinels, The Arcane Army, A Mighty Crawl, The Gits, and mine.

And I got my "Tales from the Table" posted in the same magazine.

So I'm doing a little happy dance right now.


----------



## The Cardinal

After some prelude gaming on wednesday, yesterday I've *really* started my WLD game.


These are the rules:
Anything from the 3 core books, Savage Species, the Complete books, the Expanded Psionics book, the BoVD, or the BoED, or the PG to the Wilderlands goes – some things from UA are available.
Ability creation: either 6x3d6 *plus* 14 points to add directly to the ability scores, or 3x4d6(best3) and 3x5d6(best3).
At the start of the campaign each player has to present 3 leve1-1 PCs, one of them must be the PC he starts the campaign with, the other two are replacements. Whenever a PC dies the player may choose to activate one of his remaining replacement PCs *or* to build a "monster" PC appropriate to the current region of the dungeon – the level and XP-total of replacement PCs is equal to the beginning of the average party level; he may also choose one of the 4 pre-generated NPC "emergency replacements". However, should at any one point in time the party contain only dead or "monster" members, then the campaign stops and the game is considered "lost".


So far, they did pretty well. All 7 starting party members are still alive, and they have explored about 1/3 to 1/2 of A (the western half). I've set many encounters on "difficult" and by mistake send double the prescribed amount of trogs against them in the northwest – but they left the ogre and the coward orc alive (they even forced them to become roomies in the water room!), and the Charisma 20 Hexblade even managed to keep the trog cleric from his "death in combat" plan. Now they've encountered their first pair of death dogs (from FF), learned about the importance of silver, and have yet to encounter the first lemures...
(yes, I've stolen the Kyton/lemures idea and added some death dogs to the mix of section A)
However, they're in there for 2-3 days now, their rations are running low, and they *really* feel the lack of a rogue in their group... 



Starting PCs
  Replacements

*Human(Avalonian)                            Warmage*
  Half-Fey/Half-Woodgnome                     Paladin of Justice
  Half-Ogre                                   Rogue

*Half-Ogre                                   Barbarian*
  Human (Amazonian)                           Rogue/Paladin of Freedom               
  Fey-touched Human                           Warlock

*Half-Elf                                    Ranger*
  Mountain Dwarf                              Fighter (Tank)
  Human                                       Fighter/Sorcerer

*Dark Elf                                    Psychic Warrior (Archer)*
  Half-Orc                                    Cleric (Shaman)
  Half-Giant                                  Soulknife

*Centaur                                     Centaur*
  Human (Amazonian)                           Amazon Warrior
  Gnome                                       Alchemist

*Mountain Dwarf                              Cleric*
  Kobold                                      Warlock
  Half-Orc                                    Monk 

*Human (Amazonian male)                      Hexblade*
  Human (Altanian)                            Barbarian
  Human                                          Warlock                


EMERGENCY REPLACEMENTS
 Human (Avalonian)   Cleric
 Halfling                  Rogue
 Half-Orc                Bard
 Dwarf                   Wizard


----------



## The Horror

He he he.  Just completed the second session.  They hit room A87 and were completely done over.  The barbarian was first through screaming as usual.  The three blades hit him severely hurting him.  The rest of them saw the weapons in the room and were lured in.  The paladin was the first to step through the threshold into the lighting bolt trap.  He made the Reflex save and almost died.  

That's when I got nasty.  The book didn't specifically say the trap reset, so I made it so that the trap fired off at anything and everything crossing the threshold after the scythe trap has been sprung.  The paladin was trapped in the room, with the rest of the party outside.  All of them are too scared to cross the threshold, and they have no Rogue in their group.  They eventually settled on waiting for 3 days to recuperate.  The party pulled back to their safe room and are hudling in the dark for 3 days to conserve their latern oil.  The paladin is alone in a trapped room in absolute darkness trying to meditate for 3 days.  

We left it at that.  I'll start at day 1 next time we play.  

They really miss that Rogue right now.  


The Horror

edit:  Oh yes.  The party as it stands is: 1 paladin, 1 bard, 1 dwarf barbarian, 1 halfling monk, 1 half orc cleric.  There is another barbarian but the player was only there for the first session so that's a backup character atm.


----------



## twofalls

*Blogs*

I hadn't posted to my blog in over two months. Learning that the links were printed in KODT made me feel very negligent and I immediatly posted another entry. My new year's resolution is to place one post a week to the blog until the story is told.

Glad the see the thread hasn't died yet.


----------



## hitomikitage

Well, just had another 2 sessions this past weekend.  My PC's seem to have this nasty habit of dying due to their own mistakes.  This past weekend saw the Hexblade die because he entered the shadow room in region F alongside the guys in Ghost Touch armor (one of which has cleric levels and the anti-stat and level damage feat from Libre Mortis) and getting killed.  One of the half-orc fighters died to the cryo-hydra after failing his save to avoid the icy breath blast (due to an excessive use of the forge in region E that permanantly saps hit points.)  Finally, the other half-orc fighter died when they went into the room in region F with the Minotaur janitors (minotaurs speak Giant, which none of the pc's speak, so there was no parley for them this time around) when one called his buddies from the room to the north.  The half-orc used spring attack to hit one, and then move into combat with another (the first time he has used spring attack after a kill to move into combat with another creature), but due to reach, suffered an attack of opportunity (a critical hit) that did massive damage for which he failed his save.  This brings the death toll of the dungeon (so far) to 8 PC's (Human Favored Soul, Human Paladin, 2 Human Clerics, Human Mystic Theurge, Human Hexblade, and 2 Half-Orc Fighters) and 1 NPC (Lizardman Ranger.)

It was also very interesting to see the group scrambling to find a safe location after a random Minotaur patrol nearly killed one of the other fighters in the group.  It actually took a random encounter with one of the celestial garrison before they realized they had wandered back to region E from region F.  That warp gate is good stuff.  It should be interesting to see how they handle the Maze.

Thanks,
Howard Hooven


----------



## jim pinto

*Put me in coach*

Hey gang

I'm back in the office after a short holiday break.

What's everyone so gloomy about?

Get your dice and go out there and game!!!


----------



## BlueBlackRed

That was some vacation!

Soooo...did you buy Knights of the Dinner Table #98 yet?
Didja didja didja??

My group hasn't played the past few weeks. Stupid holidays!
We're going to get back into it this Friday & I'm ready.
We may even have a new member added to our group.

Maybe even soon I'll have a post in the "World's Largest Graveyard" thread.
Assuming my dice don't fail me again.

...I mean seriously, out of like 20+ rolls, only a single double-digit appeared on that d20.


----------



## fridge

*Spell components*

About to start my group through the WLD.

How are other GM's handling spell components for their spellcasters?

Being stuck in the dungeon, spell components are going to become hard to come by!!!

I considered adding spell components are part of the treasure, eg swapping out some of the cash for the expensive components, but then the spellcasters would have to recognise that they may be components for a spell they may have in 10 levels time but don't need now.

Any thoughts?


----------



## The Horror

fridge said:
			
		

> How are other GM's handling spell components for their spellcasters?




I think your idea sounds fine.  Make sure to liberally throw in entire shelves full of components in all the mage rooms in the dungeon.

As for my group, all they have is a necromancer.  I ruled that he needs a body part appropriate for each spell he wants to cast, and that the body part is expended when the spell is fired off.  So for example, any detect spells require eyeballs and so on.


----------



## Ozymandias

*Finally heading to the WLD!!*

Hello all!

Long time reader, but first post.
I have been waiting forever for my copy of the WLD to get here from my FLGS (which isn't local to me here in Germany).  Now that I have it, I kind of placed it with my books at one of my game sessions a month ago.  Everyone wants in...
Only problem is that they are really attached to their 10th/11th level characters we have been playing for 15 months.  I am scheduled to move again in 6 months so I don't really want to start them over....

So... I am looking at doing the sci-fi like "beam in" of the existing party into a region.  I have "scanned thru" the entire book but have thoroughly read region G and its surrounding regions.  I got this idea from an earlier post about using the lantern archons for bringing in replacement characters.
Does anybody have any other suggestions or any caution towards this type of action?  

Oz


----------



## The Horror

Ozymandias said:
			
		

> Only problem is that they are really attached to their 10th/11th level characters we have been playing for 15 months.  I am scheduled to move again in 6 months so I don't really want to start them over....
> 
> So... I am looking at doing the sci-fi like "beam in" of the existing party into a region.  I have "scanned thru" the entire book but have thoroughly read region G and its surrounding regions.




Well, if they are that attached to their characters I would probably advise against sending them into any region of the WLD...


----------



## Ozymandias

Maybe "attached" was not the right word.  

They like their characters.  They would also like to see how well their characters would handle the rigors of the prison.  
What I meant was, if we are only together as a group for 6 more months, they don't want to start new characters and only get through 2 low level regions.  
Several of the players have been in groups that always seem to "restart" after a certain time and never get the chance to hone their skills in a moderate to high level campaign.

Oz


----------



## Gilladian

Oz, I think it's a great idea. I've actually got a group of characters running through region I right now. They're now 8th level. I caved a hole in the wall of room 9, and in they went!

They are aware it is the "WLD" but not that this is only one region. In fact, I've blocked off all the other regions except M, with either dead ends or collapsed passages. And M is going to be set a few miles away, down long tunnels. I suspect when they get that far, they'll decide discretion is the better part of valor and leave the drow/drider city alone.

Gilladian


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Hah! I knew this thread wasn't dead!
I was hoping that with the holiday vacations being over (hence the return of Mr. pinto and company) and I bet quite a chunk of people getting the WLD for xmas that this thread would find new life.

I'm so ready to get back to the game Friday. The party just entered the hive area of region E and still don't know that they have found the all-door and are using it as a trap mat.


----------



## enrious

I'm running a campaign for 6 players and have turned it into a semi-journal over at Mortality.net (http://mortality.net/board/board.php?FID=188).

I'm enjoying it a lot as I get to use monsters that I likely would never otherwise have introduced.  Plus, due to the inherent lethality, I'm seeing races and classes that I haven't seen before.

CrimsonScribe, any chance you've made any more of your excellent player maps?


----------



## Drakonus

*Just Started! - Dundjinni?*

My group just started prior to the holidays.  Here is the format:

Gestalt Characters, 5d6 (keep 3) on attributes.  The lineup:

Fighter/Cleric
Barbarian/Rogue
Monk/Wizard
Fighter/Rogue
Warmage/Cleric

The house rules:

1) PCs enter dungeon unarmed and unarmored
2) PCs each had 1 or 2 items of mundane equipment to bring in (including spellbooks!)
3) No web or entangle (as per WLD introduction)
4) PCs cannot leave dungeon (by spell or natural exit) except by getting all the way through.  They either finish or die trying!
5) Action points (Unearthed Arcana) are used.
6) All PCs are human (to make light sources a priority)

The stakes: Rulership of the entire realm of Greyhawk (if they survive)   

BTW, has anyone given any thought to replicating the WLD (or sections) on a battlemat format using Dundjinni?  This would be a monumental task, obviously, but would be pretty impressive looking if implemented.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

Just got this shipped in the mail, thanks to a gift card.  My first thought was: _ "That's no moon, it's a space station ..."_.  It's frickin' huge!  It's almost a shame our campaign is at a busy spot right now, 'cause I'd love to start a WLD campaign.

The other thing I'd love to see is the entire thing made into a CRPG.  Can you imagine how many hours of play WLD might provide? I wanna play in it too!


----------



## DaveMage

Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> Just got this shipped in the mail, thanks to a gift card.  My first thought was: _ "That's no moon, it's a space station ..."_.  It's frickin' huge!  It's almost a shame our campaign is at a busy spot right now, 'cause I'd love to start a WLD campaign.
> 
> The other thing I'd love to see is the entire thing made into a CRPG.  Can you imagine how many hours of play WLD might provide? I wanna play in it too!




It is impressive, ain't it?  One could buy the core rule books and this adventure and never need another product to have years and years of gameplay...


----------



## BlueBlackRed

*Ok, now what?*

My players are digging themselves a hole.
A big one.
All but one of the party *Signed the bleeping charter!* 

Now what do I do?
Can they leave region E now?


----------



## Lee Hammock

If they sign the charter they can still leave section E, but they're considered part of the garrison know.  They get a candle in the candle room (sorry, don't have copy on hand) and I'm betting Kelara and the other celestials will expect a bit more cooperation from the PCs considering they are fellow garrison members now.  Also the celestials are more likely to help the PCs since they are fellow garrison members.  Any additional flavor effects (maybe a penalty to will saves against the celestials in the garrison) would be cool.

In the extra text I wrote for section E that ended up getting cut there were brooches that were given to everyone in the garrison that had a few minor abilities.  I believe the file can be found at http://www.brandonsplace.net/wld/


----------



## twofalls

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> My players are digging themselves a hole.
> A big one.
> All but one of the party *Signed the bleeping charter!*
> 
> Now what do I do?
> Can they leave region E now?





No, no, no! This is a great opportunity! I'm hoping that all my players end up signing the charter, though I know that one of them can't (Lawful Evil). Don't you see? The Dungeon adventure takes on a whole new story dimension this way. First the players solve the schism between the Celestials and the Inevitables by having the Inevitables touch the Charter. Once they agree to return to their plane of origin to be reprogrammed the gods must replace them with some Celestials or the wards will fail. Replace them with exactly the same number of Celestials as the number of Inevitables who leave. That still leaves the Garrison drastically weakened from its original state.

Now that the players are part of the Garrison they have a whole new stake in this adventure! Kelara will consider them under her command and will use them to first clean up region E (and any trouble still in region A...ie. the portal if its not closed), and then will use them to locate and rescue other Celestials from other areas of the prison! I mean think about it... you could add in Celestials into nearly any other region of the Dungeon, and then instead of a Dungeon Crawl with traditional hacking and exploration themes, you have a rescue adventure along with all the other plots built into the game! The Garrison needs Celestials to charge the wards, once that is accomplished, certainly Kelara will want to send a powerful force into region I to deal with the fleshy horrors there, or into Region F to clear out the Shadows and Minotaurs... the possibilities for adventure here compliment the various region themes perfectly!

They signed the Charter... eeeeeeexcellent!

One of my key players will be missing for our January 22 playing session, so the other five have decided to play a WLD session rather than our Dreams of Glory campaign. We will start exploring region E that day. I’m looking forward to using your material Lee. 

Oh, one other thing, if your conern was that you were planning on using the WLD exactly as written without adding or changing anything, I'd abandon that idea immediatly. In order to run this thing well, you will HAVE to change things in order for the story to make sense. I've met a lot of GM's who play adventures exactly as written, and those GM's inevtiably find themselves scrambling to keep their players invested in the game... (I'm not accusing you here, this is really more of a general warning to anyone reading this thread).


----------



## BlueBlackRed

twofalls said:
			
		

> No, no, no! This is a great opportunity!
> 
> (snip)
> 
> Now that the players are part of the Garrison they have a whole new stake in this adventure! Kelara will consider them under her command and will use them to first clean up region E (and any trouble still in region A...ie. the portal if its not closed), and then will use them to locate and rescue other Celestials from other areas of the prison! I mean think about it... you could add in Celestials into nearly any other region of the Dungeon, and then instead of a Dungeon Crawl with traditional hacking and exploration themes, you have a rescue adventure along with all the other plots built into the game! The Garrison needs Celestials to charge the wards, once that is accomplished, certainly Kelara will want to send a powerful force into region I to deal with the fleshy horrors there, or into Region F to clear out the Shadows and Minotaurs... the possibilities for adventure here compliment the various region themes perfectly!






			
				twofalls said:
			
		

> They signed the Charter... eeeeeeexcellent!




Oh I understand the potential they have. But you and I have a different DMing style. I tend to see bad things coming. Here's the quick of it:
- They took the Holy Greatsword +2 from room E33 (I believe). The barbarian is the only who didn't sign the charter and he's the one using the sword. If I were a celestial, I'd want it back.
- They took the Ghosttouch bastard sword from room E31. Luckily the paladin (who did sign the charter) is using, but only when needed.
- They found the all-door and are using it as a trap mat.
- They found a ward staff and do not know what it is.
- And they signed the charter without any of the real background knowledge of the charter.
- I even think they took the ancient sword and book from the charter/test area.

You see, it's just a list of very important things the group has done, and it just keeps building. This is going to end really really good, or really really bad.

On the bright side (for them), they took out Morat in 3 rounds!
Round 1: A buffed up, raging, level 5 barbarian does 33 points of damage using his +2 holy greatsword with the power attack feat.
Round 2: That same barbarian does 37 more damage. Morat charms the barbarian.
Round 3: Paladin smites Morat.
This was supposed to be a TPK, but the party is playing it smart. Detect Evil let them know there were 3 moderate evils, and 1 big evil in the room. Party retreats back and casts a variety of buff spells in addition to what the "Knowledge" test room gave them.

I guess the other barghest pack leader just received a few new recruits...



			
				twofalls said:
			
		

> Oh, one other thing, if your conern was that you were planning on using the WLD exactly as written without adding or changing anything, I'd abandon that idea immediatly. In order to run this thing well, you will HAVE to change things in order for the story to make sense. I've met a lot of GM's who play adventures exactly as written, and those GM's inevtiably find themselves scrambling to keep their players invested in the game... (I'm not accusing you here, this is really more of a general warning to anyone reading this thread).




You're preaching to the choir on this one. I may not be changing it as much as you have, but I have made several intentional changes & tweaks, and many on the fly. And if that causes some story incontinuity in some way, my players are pretty forgiving. Mosst have been DMs before.   

The best thing that could come out of the "Charter Debacle" is that it will give me a chance to throw some more role-playing into this.


----------



## ShadowDenizen

Well, our "official" foray into the WLD begins tonight, and I'm eagerly awaiting it!     

We have:
A Halfling Fighter/ Dog-Rider (One player wanted to try the "Mounted Combat" rules.)
A rogue
A ranger
A (NPC) cleric

I ran an "playtest" just prior to the Holidays, and it went over pretty well, so with the full group present, hopefully it will go just as well!  

I'll try to post about it tomorrow.


----------



## twofalls

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> ... it's just a list of very important things the group has done, and it just keeps building. This is going to end really really good, or really really bad.




I only see good here. Basically if they are strong enough to take out Morat so easily make the Celestials tougher, too tough to want to take on, and play them up to the Paladin so that he refuses to war against them anyhow. Give the charter some teeth... bad things happen if the signatories don't play by the rules (and have the Celestials explain that to them). In essence, make them pay for thoughtless actions like signing the Charter without understanding the parameters of thier actions. The stolen swords can be a real fun scene between the Celestials and the party, either they are relics that they want back, or are valued tools that can be given to the Garrison members in order to continue their quests for the Garrison. The Barb... IMHO shouldn't be allowed to keep his blade unless he signs... and is of the appropriate alginment.



			
				BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> The best thing that could come out of the "Charter Debacle" is that it will give me a chance to throw some more role-playing into this.




Agreed! And that indeed is the best thing in a RPG!


----------



## hitomikitage

My party didn't sign the charter, but they are working for the garrison anyways.  What I did was had one of the end of the world plots (in my case, the one from Region N) as their mission from the garrison.  I like the Pyrefaust, so I told them (in the guise of the celestial commander) that it was their mission to stop the followers of Tyrus from waking him, and then proceed into Region N to verify that none of his followers made it to N to try and free the world eater (Tyrus' ultimate plan once he was freed.)  This kinda forces them into the regions I most would like to see run, as well as allows me to subtly introduce the feel of destiny and an epic scope to the adventure beyond what is already present.

My idea is to modify (slightly) a few items that they will pick up along the way (already seeded magic items) and have them be destiny's chosen warriors against the world eater.  I am going to introduce elements gradually throughout the regions they will go through on their way (F, J, and N) that will start to slowly reveal to them that they are the chosen ones for this task, and are fated to confront this creature.  I haven't worked out the exact details yet, but I like that direction.

Thanks,
Howard Hooven


----------



## ShadowDenizen

Well, Session 1 went off sucessfully. 

The party racked up a whopping kill-total of 3 Orcs (from A2), but it was still an enjoyable session.  The party made a beeline towards the rubble-strewn area (the "70's"): en route, they fell prey to the fiendish Darkmantle in A9 (though it couldn't actually finish anyone off before the PC's fled in terror), but they managed to avoid the fiendish ratswarm. Of course, they also fell prey to many of the traps, despite the thieves excellent search/disable device score.

I tried to give a feeling of terror and isolation, so I added orcish bodies fairly liberally along the way, trying to reinforce the impression that the Orc's were beaten down and routed by a stronger force, though the party doesn't know about Longtail yet, however. The music selecions (again, thanks for the inspiration, everyone!!) worked pretty well: we used a mix of depressing rock (most notably "The Cure"), and some old soundtrack tracks I thought heightened the creepiness.

The Lantern Archon joined the party almost immediately, though he is (of course) more of a bystander than anything else.  Of course, it was Interesting how different members of the party reacted to it. (Thanks to all the previous posters for the advice on using the Archons, BTW: I've incorporated many of those ideas into my version of the Archons.)

I anticipate _at least_ another 3-4 sessions in Region A.


----------



## jim pinto

Lee Hammock said:
			
		

> If they sign the charter they can still leave section E, but they're considered part of the garrison know.  They get a candle in the candle room (sorry, don't have copy on hand) and I'm betting Kelara and the other celestials will expect a bit more cooperation from the PCs considering they are fellow garrison members now.  Also the celestials are more likely to help the PCs since they are fellow garrison members.  Any additional flavor effects (maybe a penalty to will saves against the celestials in the garrison) would be cool.
> 
> In the extra text I wrote for section E that ended up getting cut there were brooches that were given to everyone in the garrison that had a few minor abilities.  I believe the file can be found at http://www.brandonsplace.net/wld/




i would also add, that its important the PCs adhere to the charter

the garrison should call in a favor, perhaps, when the PCs reach region G
or call them back from region I or M... for an important event. perhaps when
the PCs reach 11th level, the garrison can ask them to stop the horror of
rooms G99 and G100 after an event cracked the "wall"


----------



## jim pinto

hitomikitage said:
			
		

> My party didn't sign the charter, but they are working for the garrison anyways.  What I did was had one of the end of the world plots (in my case, the one from Region N) as their mission from the garrison.  I like the Pyrefaust, so I told them (in the guise of the celestial commander) that it was their mission to stop the followers of Tyrus from waking him, and then proceed into Region N to verify that none of his followers made it to N to try and free the world eater (Tyrus' ultimate plan once he was freed.)  This kinda forces them into the regions I most would like to see run, as well as allows me to subtly introduce the feel of destiny and an epic scope to the adventure beyond what is already present.
> 
> My idea is to modify (slightly) a few items that they will pick up along the way (already seeded magic items) and have them be destiny's chosen warriors against the world eater.  I am going to introduce elements gradually throughout the regions they will go through on their way (F, J, and N) that will start to slowly reveal to them that they are the chosen ones for this task, and are fated to confront this creature.  I haven't worked out the exact details yet, but I like that direction.
> 
> Thanks,
> Howard Hooven




have you read room N223....?

since its a potential finale to the dungeon, some DMs have complained that there isn't any evidence to "forewarn" about this room

i highly recommend that you build in some plot hooks to hint to this room's use.

i was really just trying to write a fun alternative to another "TOMB" room, but instead i just confused and confounded a few people.

anyway. its among the top 10 most interesting rooms (hey someone should start a list of those) and deserves a pre-read.


----------



## twistedoliver

Hello All,

 First off, I want to say that I hate you all with real hate on for Jim. After making me read this entire thread though while sitting in bed with my laptop, I now have to go out and find a copy to put some players from my club through this....

 Seriously though, Besides all the good reviews, it is the interaction with all the designers, the extra goodies that were made and the allowance of reproducing player maps for distribution is what is really making me get this product. 

  Jim,

 Some companies would hold on to their property very tight, you did it in such a way as to keep it yours and allowed the people use the product in a way that made it very flexible. I think that is very smart business wise. This makes me as a consumer to think of your company as primary pick when selecting from all the products out there.

  As a side note, I foung the WLD while looking for new stuff for Spycraft...

 I also appreciate the notes on play GM's have posted, not as much how players did, but what problems they encountered by their particular style of play.

  I little long winded for my first post..

  Scott


----------



## hitomikitage

Jim,

I have read region N in its entirety, so I know of which you speak.  I find the coolest thing that happened related to this so far was the random encounter (I think in region B) where a pulse of negative energy animates the skeletons of a few animals for a couple of seconds and then they crumble back into dust.  I have been adding pulses of negative energy doing funky things ever since region B, in order to set up that the world eater was starting to wake from it's slumber.  Then, when the celestial garrison assigned them the task of stopping Tyrus, I let on that the world eater was starting to come about on it's own, and that Tyrus wanted to be the one to fully wake it and take control of it.  Once they get to region N, then they are going to realize that there are more sides trying to wake and control the world eater than just Tyrus.

Thanks,
Howard Hooven


----------



## The Horror

*Main plot overview?*

- SPOILERS EVERYWHERE



Ok, I think I require some quick assistance.

Right now I have two groups going through the WLD.  One group has entered the dungeon in an attempt to find out what happened to the missing paladins of the Order of Myruun.  They have moved through Region A without solving any of the major plot points, gotten wind from a Lantern Archon that the paladins moved East and proceeded into Region B.  They have so far spent 11 days in the dungeon and are camping out in the angelic golden idol room worshiping its glory.

The second group moved in on day 2 to rescue one of the characters from the other group (the player wanted to play with a different group).  They dealt with the gateway and Longtail, befriended the Kobolds and killed the Orcs.  Right now they are at day 4 and are ready to move North to make contact with the Celestial Garrison (the player that switched groups heard from the lantern Archon that a large Celestial Garrison was located to the North, but that it had not relieved it of its information regarding region A for several hundred years).  They want to contact the garrison and report on the situation in region A.

The plan as it stands is that I will keep on running both groups through the same dungeon, and that even though they will likely not go through the same regions as the other group that the ramifications of their actions will still be felt by both parties.

Unfortunately, I am having problems keeping up with the reading of all the different regions to put in the nescessary buildup for each group.  I would thusly appreciate some hints and suggestions.  

So far I have read regions A, B, C, E and F.  I have just started on region I, and read the introduction of regions M, N and O.  

The plan for group 2 is to have them contact the garrison and find out the following:

- the celestials were pushed back to region E when a large group of Driders moved in from region M into region I.  Their hordes of magically experimented creations caused many casualties unto the celestial forces, so they pulled back to E.
- since the second earthquake the garrison was decimated, ward staves and all door lost etc.  More importantly, since the destruction of the garrison they have lost touch with another garrison located in G.  They thus have no news from the rest of the dungeon, and are worried that Tyrus' prison may not be entirely intact since the damage of the second earthquake.
- they are also extremely concerned about the World Eater breaking free, but assume that it is still imprisoned since they have not all perished horribly.
- they cannot leave the region because they must keep the wards going, however they may be able to regroup their strength if: a) more ward staves are recovered.  b)  the driders who are creating monstrosities in region I and M (actually M, but players won't know that) are prevented from creating further abominations. 

The plan is to get group 2 to head into I, M, then J to check up on Tyrus, followed by N to check up on the World Eater, and finally out through O.


Meanwhile for group 1 things are a bit more hazy.  They will progress into C and find out what happened to the paladins tale.  To make sure they go north into G I'll get the lantern archons in C to mention the celestials there, and will make sure they find easy access into the eastern part of C.  I have no idea as of yet as to what it is that they will find on their way, though I plan to contain them to regions G, K, L, H and D, with maybe O at the end if they really want to go that way (with a possible fudging of time and final climatic reunion with the other group).  

So far the key plot element I have been building to with group 1 has been this:  51 paladins entered into the dungeon, but only 50 perished (they will find this out).  The last paladin refused Myruuns order to give his life and was instead cursed for all eternity.  The paladin in the group has just last session dreamt visions (poison and fever induced) of a blackened hand grasping for a scepter on a throne of bone.  They have no idea what it was, but are dying to find out what the true evil is.  

So somewhere I have to throw in an undying evil paladin on a throne of bone, and hopefully get the group to deal with him.  Since I have not read G, K, L, H or D (though I know roughly what D is about), I have no idea where to put him in and how quickly the build up should be.


Can anybody offer some interesting suggestions and comments regarding both of these groups?  Any comments will do really, and a suggested reading order would be appreciated.  Is the region progression I have planned for both groups ok?  Any other things I really need to build up towards right now to have it make sense later?  Any suggestions on where to put the evil cursed paladin?  Anything at all?



The Horror


----------



## jim pinto

The Horror said:
			
		

> - SPOILERS EVERYWHERE
> 
> So far I have read regions A, B, C, E and F.  I have just started on region I, and read the introduction of regions M, N and O.




But not G? I highly recommend ignoring D and L for your campaign, although J and K may have some juicy tidbits.



			
				The Horror said:
			
		

> The plan for group 2 is to have them contact the garrison and find out the following:
> 
> - the celestials were pushed back to region E when a large group of Driders moved in from region M into region I.  Their hordes of magically experimented creations caused many casualties unto the celestial forces, so they pulled back to E.
> - since the second earthquake the garrison was decimated, ward staves and all door lost etc.  More importantly, since the destruction of the garrison they have lost touch with another garrison located in G.  They thus have no news from the rest of the dungeon, and are worried that Tyrus' prison may not be entirely intact since the damage of the second earthquake.
> - they are also extremely concerned about the World Eater breaking free, but assume that it is still imprisoned since they have not all perished horribly.
> - they cannot leave the region because they must keep the wards going, however they may be able to regroup their strength if: a) more ward staves are recovered.  b)  the driders who are creating monstrosities in region I and M (actually M, but players won't know that) are prevented from creating further abominations.
> 
> The plan is to get group 2 to head into I, M, then J to check up on Tyrus, followed by N to check up on the World Eater, and finally out through O.




Very cool. Where were you when I was editing this thing?



			
				The Horror said:
			
		

> Meanwhile for group 1 things are a bit more hazy.  They will progress into C and find out what happened to the paladins tale.  To make sure they go north into G I'll get the lantern archons in C to mention the celestials there, and will make sure they find easy access into the eastern part of C.  I have no idea as of yet as to what it is that they will find on their way, though I plan to contain them to regions G, K, L, H and D, with maybe O at the end if they really want to go that way (with a possible fudging of time and final climatic reunion with the other group).
> 
> Since they are on "a mission for god" I'd allow them to pass from C21 to C110 at will. Especially if they've been "annoited" by the Garrison already.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Horror said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So far the key plot element I have been building to with group 1 has been this:  51 paladins entered into the dungeon, but only 50 perished (they will find this out).  The last paladin refused Myruuns order to give his life and was instead cursed for all eternity.  The paladin in the group has just last session dreamt visions (poison and fever induced) of a blackened hand grasping for a scepter on a throne of bone.  They have no idea what it was, but are dying to find out what the true evil is.
> 
> So somewhere I have to throw in an undying evil paladin on a throne of bone, and hopefully get the group to deal with him.  Since I have not read G, K, L, H or D (though I know roughly what D is about), I have no idea where to put him in and how quickly the build up should be.
> 
> The Horror
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> G59, G75, G78, H12, H38, N29, N30, N31, N67, N74, N77, N178 (requires some rewriting, but worth it), 038 (or 050 if you want to be funny), 060 (requires some rewriting, but worth it), or V8 (page 539) to name a few.
> 
> If this isn't enough ideas, we can look for an abomination in Region I, a deserter elf from Region H, or use the Hags from Region K.
Click to expand...


----------



## The Horror

jim pinto said:
			
		

> G59, G75, G78, H12, H38, N29, N30, N31, N67, N74, N77, N178 (requires some rewriting, but worth it), 038 (or 050 if you want to be funny), 060 (requires some rewriting, but worth it), or V8 (page 539) to name a few.
> 
> If this isn't enough ideas, we can look for an abomination in Region I, a deserter elf from Region H, or use the Hags from Region K.




Thanks for the suggestions.  That should be plenty of material to work with.  I will get onto region G asap, and make sure to read all those listed encounters.  

Last nights session for the group entering region E was yet another success.  They entered through the E2 area, and after stumbling around against some insects and mastiffs wound up in Seraxes throne room!  Four shadows arrived from Ezraels throne area and sealed off their exits.  The encounter ended in a desperate run for the safety of a ward, and almost resulted in a TPK.  The sheer desperation was just hilarious.  The necromancer in the group ended up cutting off his own finger to use as a spell component.  

The kicker was at the end.  They realised after resting for a couple of days that they had left the secret door into region A open.  The shadows had two days to ransack region A.  Meanwhile the other group has left doors open behind them also (I have been specifically asking).  Next session for the group in region B is going to be an interesting one.  Shadows will sneak into region B and begin killing Bugbears.  When the PCs intervene they'll realise that at least 10 shadows have made their way into the areas controlled by the goblin empire...  And so the carnage and the exodus will begin.  Will they allow the droves of fleeing goblins to seek sanctuary in region C?  Will they leave them to their terrible deaths?  Will they merely attempt to flee?

I don't think Seraxes will leave region E just yet.  Its a good foothold for eventual movement deeper into the dungeon.  Maybe I'll put some of his chief lieutenants in charge of the conquest of regions B and C.



The Horror


----------



## Lee Hammock

The Horror said:
			
		

> Thanks for the suggestions.  That should be plenty of material to work with.  I will get onto region G asap, and make sure to read all those listed encounters.
> 
> Last nights session for the group entering region E was yet another success.  They entered through the E2 area, and after stumbling around against some insects and mastiffs wound up in Seraxes throne room!  Four shadows arrived from Ezraels throne area and sealed off their exits.  The encounter ended in a desperate run for the safety of a ward, and almost resulted in a TPK.  The sheer desperation was just hilarious.  The necromancer in the group ended up cutting off his own finger to use as a spell component.
> 
> The kicker was at the end.  They realised after resting for a couple of days that they had left the secret door into region A open.  The shadows had two days to ransack region A.  Meanwhile the other group has left doors open behind them also (I have been specifically asking).  Next session for the group in region B is going to be an interesting one.  Shadows will sneak into region B and begin killing Bugbears.  When the PCs intervene they'll realise that at least 10 shadows have made their way into the areas controlled by the goblin empire...  And so the carnage and the exodus will begin.  Will they allow the droves of fleeing goblins to seek sanctuary in region C?  Will they leave them to their terrible deaths?  Will they merely attempt to flee?
> 
> I don't think Seraxes will leave region E just yet.  Its a good foothold for eventual movement deeper into the dungeon.  Maybe I'll put some of his chief lieutenants in charge of the conquest of regions B and C.
> 
> The Horror





Oh man, that is awesome.  Glad to know they're "enjoying" section E, and great use of the shadows invading A and B.


----------



## jim pinto

The Horror said:
			
		

> Thanks for the suggestions.  That should be plenty of material to work with.  I will get onto region G asap, and make sure to read all those listed encounters.
> 
> Last nights session for the group entering region E was yet another success.  They entered through the E2 area, and after stumbling around against some insects and mastiffs wound up in Seraxes throne room!  Four shadows arrived from Ezraels throne area and sealed off their exits.  The encounter ended in a desperate run for the safety of a ward, and almost resulted in a TPK.  The sheer desperation was just hilarious.  The necromancer in the group ended up cutting off his own finger to use as a spell component.
> 
> The kicker was at the end.  They realised after resting for a couple of days that they had left the secret door into region A open.  The shadows had two days to ransack region A.  Meanwhile the other group has left doors open behind them also (I have been specifically asking).  Next session for the group in region B is going to be an interesting one.  Shadows will sneak into region B and begin killing Bugbears.  When the PCs intervene they'll realise that at least 10 shadows have made their way into the areas controlled by the goblin empire...  And so the carnage and the exodus will begin.  Will they allow the droves of fleeing goblins to seek sanctuary in region C?  Will they leave them to their terrible deaths?  Will they merely attempt to flee?
> 
> I don't think Seraxes will leave region E just yet.  Its a good foothold for eventual movement deeper into the dungeon.  Maybe I'll put some of his chief lieutenants in charge of the conquest of regions B and C.
> 
> The Horror




very impressive. better than we could have written, i'd say.

good DMing, sir.

bugbear shadows in region b, huh?

check out Room C93 (read the whole thing carefully) and see if that doesn't help you build a better story for the shadows and where they might be headed.


----------



## The Horror

jim pinto said:
			
		

> check out Room C93 (read the whole thing carefully) and see if that doesn't help you build a better story for the shadows and where they might be headed.




That is so beautiful.  Seraxes can gain an ally, and unlock the most powerful necromantic tome in existence.  With it he could bring back Ezrael and hand unto him, in death, more power than he ever had in life.  And who better to be coerced into breaking the locks than the PCs themselves?

You sir are a genius.  This is going to be quite spectacular.    


The Horror


----------



## NPC

*Website down?*

Is this website up and running?  

http://www.brandonsplace.net/wld/

 My browser times out whenever I try to connect.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

I think Arholly let it go.
It's dead and gone.


----------



## JamesL85

I still have plenty of bandwith left to host other files (as well as Jim's permission to do so), if you'd like.....Just let me know what you'd like to see....

http://www.james.neetersoft.com/wld/wld.htm  

James


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Well I have, I believe, all of the map files from Arholly's site.
I didn't download anything else from there though.


Oh, and I finally killed one of them last night. Region E. They enter a room that had 6 barghests (4 + I added 2) in the room that was really a hallway that split into 2. The combat goes easily and 4 are slain with little effort. The last 2 barghests run down the hallway and split off to go into the north room.
Since the party is totally unfamiliar with the area, they give a slow chase while they still have their buffs.
This gives the 2 old barghests and the 5 new ones 2 rounds to prepare. The first round is to warn, the 2nd is to use their rage ability.
The party heads down the left fork of the hallway and partially enter the room. After I put down 7 figurines on the table for the barghests, they pull back into the hallway.
Now its the turn for the barghests. They split up as well and pincer the party.
The fighters deal with one end of them, the rogue and a cleric deal with the other. Their second cleric spends the entire combat running back and forth healing people.
Because the barghests want to feed and are intelligent, the relentlessly attack the most damaged person. Finally the paladin is knocked down to -9. Then in it his turn before anyone has a chance to heal him. He fails to stabilize.
A barghests takes a round to feed...

The worst thing about that loss is the Detect Evil ability.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> I still have plenty of bandwith left to host other files (as well as Jim's permission to do so), if you'd like.....Just let me know what you'd like to see....




I sent you a map for Region F just after New Year's, but haven't seen it on the site yet.  Did you receive it?


----------



## mich23

Need to know what the ring of warmth does in region A


----------



## CrimsonScribe

The "Ring of Warmth" isn't actually in the 3.5 Dungeon Masters guide.  The most recent place I can find it is the 3.0 DMG.  It has a continual effect of _Endure Elements (Cold)_ - that is negating 5 points of cold damage to the wearer per round.


----------



## jim pinto

mich23 said:
			
		

> Need to know what the ring of warmth does in region A




anything you want there, big guy



but, yes this should have been a minor ring of endure elements (cold)
which the PCs won't realize doesn't pay off until Region O

however, you could have it do a number of different things,
because the ring is not working "perfectly".... as i a DM, i like to 
change things up a little and give the PCs something they
normally wouldn't expect from their traditional magic items.

enjoy


----------



## twistedoliver

*Sigh...bought the book*

Double-Post


----------



## twistedoliver

*Sigh...bought the book*

Hello Jim,

 I finally looked around in my area and found 2 copies.  Although in Canada it's a little more expensive then what I can see from what people have posted here.  I did look into buying it online but after the shipping charges and then converting to CDN, it worked out to the same price or cheaper to buy it locally.  And since the price is so close, I like to support the local guy.

 But that's not why I am posting.  I wanted to say that I have just started reading area A and trying read it with the thought of how I would change it, based upon what other people have said (Like Two Falls) etc.  I think I will have to separate these as my players don't have the attention span for something like this, but even so. it's a great product soo far..

 I was going to go the the fan site to get all the minor errors, but since it doesn't seem to be there anymore, is there anybody else who has compiled a spreadsheet, etc of the errors?

 Also Lee, you had an extra 22K (I think ) worth of work that you did.  I know you emailed it out, is there anyway I can get a copy?

 Scott


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

Session #12 of the RPGMP3 sessions is now online:

http://www.rpgmp3.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=38

We're putting them up about every other week now so people can catch up/keep up!

Very nice of _Knights of the Dinner Table_ to include us in their review article.   

We also have a dedicted forum just for *WLD:*

http://www.rpgmp3.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=3


- and for those interested, well a good title for session #13 would simply be:

*killer*


----------



## mich23

jim pinto said:
			
		

> anything you want there, big guy
> 
> 
> 
> but, yes this should have been a minor ring of endure elements (cold)
> which the PCs won't realize doesn't pay off until Region O
> 
> however, you could have it do a number of different things,
> because the ring is not working "perfectly".... as i a DM, i like to
> change things up a little and give the PCs something they
> normally wouldn't expect from their traditional magic items.
> 
> enjoy



Thanks for the help but not a guy. and have to say not a very experienced dm and have run 2 games of the dungeon so far the guys I run for love it and i love the ideas behind it thanks again for the help.


----------



## jim pinto

mich23 said:
			
		

> Thanks for the help but not a guy. and have to say not a very experienced dm and have run 2 games of the dungeon so far the guys I run for love it and i love the ideas behind it thanks again for the help.




a girl?

girls don't dm.... fooey



i'm glad you like the book. i've only gamed with one female DM, in all my years

but i hope everyone is enjoying your rendition of the book.

let's see ... are we do for some alternate plots for the dungeon again?

which region should i tackle... hmm....


----------



## Lee Hammock

twistedoliver said:
			
		

> Hello Jim,
> 
> I finally looked around in my area and found 2 copies.  Although in Canada it's a little more expensive then what I can see from what people have posted here.  I did look into buying it online but after the shipping charges and then converting to CDN, it worked out to the same price or cheaper to buy it locally.  And since the price is so close, I like to support the local guy.
> 
> But that's not why I am posting.  I wanted to say that I have just started reading area A and trying read it with the thought of how I would change it, based upon what other people have said (Like Two Falls) etc.  I think I will have to separate these as my players don't have the attention span for something like this, but even so. it's a great product soo far..
> 
> I was going to go the the fan site to get all the minor errors, but since it doesn't seem to be there anymore, is there anybody else who has compiled a spreadsheet, etc of the errors?
> 
> Also Lee, you had an extra 22K (I think ) worth of work that you did.  I know you emailed it out, is there anyway I can get a copy?
> 
> Scott





Sure I can email it over no problem, just send your email address to lhammoc at attglobal.net


----------



## Ozymandias

*New region info*

SPOILERS...

Hello Jim.

I posted a couple of weeks ago that I was going to drop my characters into the dungeon via the celestials need into Region G.  Due to the successful end of the campaign last week, almost all the characters are 12th level.  So I may drop them into Region H and have the elvish paladin or the Half-Elf enlist their aid to assist with the undead coming from Region G.  Then eventually I will have the drow and the demon make their move against the High Druid and/or Jacan in their attempt to frame the PCs.

Could I persuade you to post some Region Info for these 2 regions?

Oz


----------



## mich23

Sent them in via a message from a trumpet archon. so far set of every trap because they went in with out a rogue even though I told them they should have one. Add clues with a lentern arcon and they know the dungeon has a great evil they have to stop. have read all sections introduction and about to read region n any other sections i should read before i go to far, read a and b so far.


----------



## hitomikitage

Read region E.  Trust me, if you only read one of the regions adjacent to region A, your players will go the other way (and they will complain loudly if you try and force them otherwise.)  My suggestion is read the regions you plan on running, that way you have an idea of how to get the players interested in the over-plot of the dungeon (which can be one of many different things.)  I love the idea of the 3 faction undead war in region N, thus I have ensured that my players will be going to region N by using the celestial garrison to assign them the task of stopping anyone from waking the world eater.  The presence of Tyrus the ancient red dragon in a region adjacent to N (region J) just makes it that much easier, since I can send them to the Pyrefaust (a region which I absolutely love) from region I (another region I love) since they decided F would be too difficult to map with all the warp gates.

Hope that helps.

Thanks,
Howard


----------



## Jim Hague

Ozymandias said:
			
		

> SPOILERS...
> 
> Hello Jim.
> 
> I posted a couple of weeks ago that I was going to drop my characters into the dungeon via the celestials need into Region G.  Due to the successful end of the campaign last week, almost all the characters are 12th level.  So I may drop them into Region H and have the elvish paladin or the Half-Elf enlist their aid to assist with the undead coming from Region G.  Then eventually I will have the drow and the demon make their move against the High Druid and/or Jacan in their attempt to frame the PCs.
> 
> Could I persuade you to post some Region Info for these 2 regions?
> 
> Oz




Different Jim here, but I'll let the author of H know you're interested.    What sort of information are you looking for, specifically?  I helped out a bit on H (Gutless and Spineless, specifically, with some other small bits), as well as writing I and M1, so feel free to ask away.

As an aside, there was a request sent to me some time back regarding the I/M1 'director's cut' material; I've had an email crash, so could the person who sent the request (I _think_ it was Twofalls, but I'm not sure) send me another request on that?


----------



## twistedoliver

*Levling ins WLD*

Hello All,

 I have been trying to think of a way to level the PC's and llike the 2 per region that was suggested in the book and the leveling rooms suggest by Twofalls.  I like it but I know my players will feel like they are getting a raw deal because of all the things they are fighting.   

 Any suggestions on how to keep it 2 to a region  and make it seem a little less like a room hunt?  Does using the EL of the enounter work for giving xp?  meaning that if they do try to clear an area (Like A ) would they still be level 3 using the encounter level and not the CR of the monters? 

 The main problem is that since it is a club sometimes I have players that don't show regularly and other players whine if they get the same amount of XP as characters who have been to every session?


 The second question I have is how alive is everybodies, dungeon?  Does a goblin scouting party from Region B wander into Region A?  I would think that it would be smart for the bugbears to slip into region A slide down to the bottom and hit the Goblins.   It mentions that the goblinods seem to replish thenselves thoughout the centuries though tunnells, etc.  Where is a logical place for them to get into this region? 

 Also once an area is cleared out, will you slowly fill it back up with overflow from other reagions?

 These are things I am thinking of as I read.  Maybe this stuff is explained by how they intereact (like the locked doors from B to F).

 Scott


----------



## jim pinto

Ozymandias said:
			
		

> SPOILERS...
> 
> Hello Jim.
> 
> I posted a couple of weeks ago that I was going to drop my characters into the dungeon via the celestials need into Region G.  Due to the successful end of the campaign last week, almost all the characters are 12th level.  So I may drop them into Region H and have the elvish paladin or the Half-Elf enlist their aid to assist with the undead coming from Region G.  Then eventually I will have the drow and the demon make their move against the High Druid and/or Jacan in their attempt to frame the PCs.
> 
> Could I persuade you to post some Region Info for these 2 regions?
> 
> Oz




the finale to Region G is like a CR 18 encounter if i recall, so 12th level PCs will have
an easy go, up until the finish. since you are just dropping them in, i would use
the erinyes from Region H as a foil. she has stolen one of Jacan's artifacts and is
going to use it to kill the trumpet archon in G99 and open the dome.

this creates a timeline for the adventure, forcing the PCs to weave through the region.

i would also consider trimming down the number of celestials and moving the
ettins and night hag out of the region... saving her for another adventure. replace
the low end demonic encounters with vrock hordes

also, to create a two front war, increase the tension in region H and have a few demons from Region D escape north into G (from some fissure the duergar opened, etc.) .... after the PCs finish with Room G100, have them face the machinations of Region D

does that help? do i need to do more of your homework?


----------



## jim pinto

hitomikitage said:
			
		

> Read region E.  Trust me, if you only read one of the regions adjacent to region A, your players will go the other way (and they will complain loudly if you try and force them otherwise.)  My suggestion is read the regions you plan on running, that way you have an idea of how to get the players interested in the over-plot of the dungeon (which can be one of many different things.)  I love the idea of the 3 faction undead war in region N, thus I have ensured that my players will be going to region N by using the celestial garrison to assign them the task of stopping anyone from waking the world eater.  The presence of Tyrus the ancient red dragon in a region adjacent to N (region J) just makes it that much easier, since I can send them to the Pyrefaust (a region which I absolutely love) from region I (another region I love) since they decided F would be too difficult to map with all the warp gates.
> 
> Hope that helps.
> 
> Thanks,
> Howard




one of the ideas i posted (or someone posted and i agreed with), was the idea of choosing the seven maps you like the most and running those - end to end

it requires a little bit of fudging, but in many cases (DMs with noisy PCs) allows for a campaign to run without a lot of hiccups.

or a lot LESS of them.

i especially like the A, E, I, M, N, O thread (also known as Amino)

A, B, C, G, K, N (shift the maps to the right), O is also good

F, J, G, D is a great combo for people who liked the Giants series from WAY back.

it can also be run as F, G, J, D or F, G, D, J

H and L make great fillers to other campaigns as well, and stand alone nicely

if you like moving the maps around, these themes are excellent

A, B, C, F, I, K, J, N

that's a lot of adventuring, but the meatiest "crawl"

E, G, D, N has lots of epic story potential (maybe with H in the middle as a rest point)

A, B/C, I, M, K is a great haunted house style adventure

G, K, J, O is just a mean, tiresome trek that DMs can foist on high-level PCs
with sort of a rescue and guard video game mentality to it.

M, J, N, O is a good high-level crawl that starts in hot lava and ends in magical ice
with an undead tomb in between. this one fits well is the PCs know they are stopping
the world eater AND if they know about the all-important scroll (or carry the replacement
scroll)

B, E, C, F, J is a good tough fight for people who like orc-like monsters, but requires a little beefing up of the 3rd and 4th regions.

um...

that's all for now

if i think of more crawl-threads, i'll post them


----------



## jim pinto

twistedoliver said:
			
		

> Hello All,
> 
> I have been trying to think of a way to level the PC's and llike the 2 per region that was suggested in the book and the leveling rooms suggest by Twofalls.  I like it but I know my players will feel like they are getting a raw deal because of all the things they are fighting.
> 
> Any suggestions on how to keep it 2 to a region  and make it seem a little less like a room hunt?  Does using the EL of the enounter work for giving xp?  meaning that if they do try to clear an area (Like A ) would they still be level 3 using the encounter level and not the CR of the monters?
> 
> The main problem is that since it is a club sometimes I have players that don't show regularly and other players whine if they get the same amount of XP as characters who have been to every session?
> 
> 
> The second question I have is how alive is everybodies, dungeon?  Does a goblin scouting party from Region B wander into Region A?  I would think that it would be smart for the bugbears to slip into region A slide down to the bottom and hit the Goblins.   It mentions that the goblinods seem to replish thenselves thoughout the centuries though tunnells, etc.  Where is a logical place for them to get into this region?
> 
> Also once an area is cleared out, will you slowly fill it back up with overflow from other reagions?
> 
> These are things I am thinking of as I read.  Maybe this stuff is explained by how they intereact (like the locked doors from B to F).
> 
> Scott




these are all good questions, scott and if you read through this thread you'll see people have had results with almost every different type of XP allotment.

that said, your group would most likely benefit from the EL/CR XP ratio

your other questions are great too... they imply a "living" dungeon, something that an adventure can't do well, but a DM can, with a little work.

yes, its possible the bugbears have  travelled through region A to get to the lower doors of B, but that would explain why the locks are so good now. and yes, something should "move in", if the PCs kill everything, but this could take weeks or months. most creatures are used to the goblins being there. how often to the gnolls send scouts from C to check for goblins?

and how far do they progress each day when they don't see any? certainly the gnolls expect an ambush and don't move in immediately.

and some rooms imply that they occupants have been there for a long time, giving the dungeon history as well as a "living" component.

i hope this helps. i'm sure twofalls, thundershot, and hitomi have some ideas they can add


----------



## hitomikitage

twistedoliver said:
			
		

> Hello All,
> 
> I have been trying to think of a way to level the PC's and llike the 2 per region that was suggested in the book and the leveling rooms suggest by Twofalls.  I like it but I know my players will feel like they are getting a raw deal because of all the things they are fighting.
> 
> Any suggestions on how to keep it 2 to a region  and make it seem a little less like a room hunt?  Does using the EL of the enounter work for giving xp?  meaning that if they do try to clear an area (Like A ) would they still be level 3 using the encounter level and not the CR of the monters?
> 
> The main problem is that since it is a club sometimes I have players that don't show regularly and other players whine if they get the same amount of XP as characters who have been to every session?
> 
> 
> The second question I have is how alive is everybodies, dungeon?  Does a goblin scouting party from Region B wander into Region A?  I would think that it would be smart for the bugbears to slip into region A slide down to the bottom and hit the Goblins.   It mentions that the goblinods seem to replish thenselves thoughout the centuries though tunnells, etc.  Where is a logical place for them to get into this region?
> 
> Also once an area is cleared out, will you slowly fill it back up with overflow from other reagions?
> 
> These are things I am thinking of as I read.  Maybe this stuff is explained by how they intereact (like the locked doors from B to F).
> 
> Scott




I prefer the experience system, but the problem with it is that it will quickly cause your PCs to outstrip the monster challenge ratings/encounter levels.  I have slightly over twice the number of PCs in my game as the D20 suggested party size (of 4) with 9 players.  This means that the experience points that the party gets winds up being pretty close to the correct amount, and if charcters die, their backup characters will quickly be near the level of the remaining PCs.  Without the experience system, it is possible to cramp the style of players that are interested in the item creation feats, or that are interested in moving into the Kensai prestige class out of complete warrior.

My dungeon is starting to get alive.  Back when they were still in the relatively early stages of the dungeon, the PCs talked with the leader of the Goblin Rebels in region B.  Since they had already cleared out the Goblin King and most of the rest of the region, the goblin rebels were more than ready to deal in order to be able to take the region completely when the PCs had moved on.  Now with an entire region, plus the ability to expand into A, the rebel goblins, along with the one surviving goblin from the holy goblin area, are ready to rebuild from the fragments of their shattered society.  Coupled with a couple of missed rooms, and helpful clues left behind by the PCs (such as the yellow mold trap, marked in chalk, as a yellow mold trap) the goblins will be able to secure region B then A in a relatively short period of time.  If the PCs should ever get back there, they will find the region to be alot different than the one they left behind.

Thanks,
Howard


----------



## BlueBlackRed

I've used the EL=XP method. But for my group that might a bit too much so I've started to shave a little off for the time being (mostly rounding down on the hundreds).

And with 2 clerics in the party, I have had to throw in a couple extra critters or 2 for the normal encounters, just to keep it challenging.

And as for the "living dungeon" (something I usually do in my own games, but haven't really tried in the WLD), I'll be implementing a few changes.

#1) The party easily whiped out Morat, and a good chunk of his pack. This made Saraas's days a little easier when the remainder of Morat's pack had to join in with her. But she is now very wary of the PCs and has instructed her pack to strike a bargain with the PCs. I haven't worked out the details, but it will something along the lines of leave us alone and we'll give you information or we'll hunt you down en masse. But I have to work a few other details first.

#2) Taking an idea I read last week on here. The shadows are recruiting from region A now. If they aren't stopped soon, region B will my farmed by them as well. I'm hoping the PCs will meet up with the Garrison soon so I can implement that.

And to fill in a few other tidbits:
- The barbarian in the group with the holy greatsword +2 did go back and sign the charter.
- The group now has 3 ward staves.
- They've forgotten about the all-door but have "found" it
- One player is playing an exalted cleric, almost forcing the players to stay on the straight & narrow. There were 2, but one lucky barghest had a nice meal, a nice *last* meal.


----------



## Ozymandias

Jim Hague and Jim Pinto,

Thanks for the replies..
The two daggers Gutless and Spineless are pretty nice.  I like the celestial touch to the true evil of the blades.  The misdirection on Jolinaar is pretty sweet too.  The return of alignment of whatever type of people he is in the midst of can make for excellent confusion among those casting detection spells.

What I was asking for was additional information that Jim Pinto had supplied similar to the alternate ideas he had done for Regions A, B and E earlier in this thread.
Or any additional information like Lee had provided for section E when he went over his word count.

I will probably do something similar to what Jim Pinto just suggested with the Erinyes.  I don't want the party to have to deal with the Wall coming down before they are ready, BUT I do want the impending doom of what is to happen to build to a crescendo.  I did plan on having visitors from D leaking into H and trying to make contact with their brethren in G.  The PCs will need to either go deeper into D to find the source or sete up a defense in G to prevent their access.  I don't know if my guys will make as far as the Ettins and the nighthag but if I don't prepare for that event you can be sure it will come to pass.
Obviously if they head into D they will have to deal with the big guy digging his way through the rock there (although that could be a lot of fun too).  
I don't want to end the WLD too soon.  I know I am dropping them in near the "heart" of the WLD but I didn't want to only play the one region.  
I was also planning on bringing Belatu in with his 3rd prophecy to shake things up once the PCs get comfortable assisting the elves (depending on when and if I can complete the betrayal of Jolinaar).  Once Belatu speaks again, all hell literally breaks loose in H when the "doom" is announced.  

I'm sorry if I gave the impression I was looking for someone to do my work for me.  I was really just looking for alternate ideas like you provided to replace Longtail with a Chain Devil in Region A or replacing the GoblinKing with a low level illithid in Region B.  
I have enjoyed this thread as it has been an immense help in stimulating the flow of ideas in my old DM brain.  I just hadn't seen much posted for G and H yet, and was open to suggestions or alternates that I could "steal".

Thanks for "listening".

Oz


----------



## The Horror

Ok, I have made some player maps for regions F, G, I, J, D and N.  If anybody wants to host them just drop me a PM with your email address.  I'll send you everything I have, which includes some photoshopped versions of other peoples player maps.  

I've attached an example of one of the maps.  I should also have the colour ones without the labels somewhere as well.


The Horror

edit: removed map.  Probably shouldn't be posting that stuff here.


----------



## Foxheart

Hi there,

I have just started hosting the WLD maps over at RPGMP3, where we are still in the process of the audio blog. 12 complete sessions now up and running happily! Have also just added the map of Region F from Crimson Scribe!

The Horror - assuming that it is OK with the fine Mr Pinto (and AEG) I would be happy to host the maps you have made. Once he has given the nod, if you send me the files (or a link to them online so I can download them) and I will get it all set up for you!

Cheers
Hal


----------



## Jim Hague

Ozymandias said:
			
		

> Thanks for the replies..
> The two daggers Gutless and Spineless are pretty nice.  I like the celestial touch to the true evil of the blades.  The misdirection on Jolinaar is pretty sweet too.  The return of alignment of whatever type of people he is in the midst of can make for excellent confusion among those casting detection spells.




You can thank Jennifer Baughman, the writer of H, for the alignment misdirection on Jolinaar.  That's a nasty bit of work.



> I will probably do something similar to what Jim Pinto just suggested with the Erinyes.  I don't want the party to have to deal with the Wall coming down before they are ready, BUT I do want the impending doom of what is to happen to build to a crescendo.  I did plan on having visitors from D leaking into H and trying to make contact with their brethren in G.  The PCs will need to either go deeper into D to find the source or sete up a defense in G to prevent their access.  I don't know if my guys will make as far as the Ettins and the nighthag but if I don't prepare for that event you can be sure it will come to pass.
> Obviously if they head into D they will have to deal with the big guy digging his way through the rock there (although that could be a lot of fun too).
> 
> I don't want to end the WLD too soon.  I know I am dropping them in near the "heart" of the WLD but I didn't want to only play the one region.
> 
> I was also planning on bringing Belatu in with his 3rd prophecy to shake things up once the PCs get comfortable assisting the elves (depending on when and if I can complete the betrayal of Jolinaar).  Once Belatu speaks again, all hell literally breaks loose in H when the "doom" is announced.




I'll see if we can find anything else relating to Belatu Cadros in the mess of files that lurk in the home office.  I know Jen had some ideas regarding the tree, but with a memory like a steel sieve, heck if I can remember what they were.   One excellent way to get the PCs working with the elves right away is to have them befriend Aligheri - despite his ineffectual-seeming demeanor, the clerk of the garrison is absolutely vital to its function, and a sharp customer to boot.  His friend Randahl, on the other hand...



> I'm sorry if I gave the impression I was looking for someone to do my work for me.  I was really just looking for alternate ideas like you provided to replace Longtail with a Chain Devil in Region A or replacing the GoblinKing with a low level illithid in Region B.
> I have enjoyed this thread as it has been an immense help in stimulating the flow of ideas in my old DM brain.  I just hadn't seen much posted for G and H yet, and was open to suggestions or alternates that I could "steal".
> 
> Thanks for "listening".
> 
> Oz




Bah, what else's a message board for?  Always glad to help in whatever small way I can.


----------



## twistedoliver

*WLD Timeline*

Hello,

  I am trying to get a timeline of the WLD to help with me digesting the overall
feel and mood of the dungeon. It helps me make it feel alive. I only have Regions A-C done so far. I made some guesses on some dates or whatever made sense for my campaign.

Maybe others will find this useful or want to add to it. I will add to it over time to try and create an overriding timeline. After this I am going to then start to put a timeline in for after the PC's arrive, so that things will evolve around them.

If others have things I should put in the timeline, please let me know.

http://wldfansite.blogspot.com/

  Scott

Jan 26, 2005 - Updated Timeline.
Jan 27, 2005 - Changed Text file to Link.


----------



## jim pinto

Ozymandias said:
			
		

> Jim Hague and Jim Pinto,
> 
> Thanks for the replies..
> The two daggers Gutless and Spineless are pretty nice.  I like the celestial touch to the true evil of the blades.  The misdirection on Jolinaar is pretty sweet too.  The return of alignment of whatever type of people he is in the midst of can make for excellent confusion among those casting detection spells.
> 
> I'm sorry if I gave the impression I was looking for someone to do my work for me.  I was really just looking for alternate ideas like you provided to replace Longtail with a Chain Devil in Region A or replacing the GoblinKing with a low level illithid in Region B.
> I have enjoyed this thread as it has been an immense help in stimulating the flow of ideas in my old DM brain.  I just hadn't seen much posted for G and H yet, and was open to suggestions or alternates that I could "steal".
> 
> Thanks for "listening".
> 
> Oz




i understand now what you're looking for and i'm doing some of it here in these posts, but since its 30 minutes until lunch and i don't want to start a new project, let me try a few things.

one, i would seriously reduce the number of celestials in region G and take away any magic or healing they might have because they need this to fuel the dome, no matter how you change it. second, region G is already pretty tight, so this isn't going to be easy.

okay.

consider adding lots of little mephit helpers to the region. homunculi as well. these servants can roam the halls, bringing messages from celestial to celestial. if the war is going poorly enough, that means that doors will be barred and getting in and out of rooms is going to be difficult.

fix the random encounter tables to reflect that there are dretch scouts everywhere and maybe a vrock or two. certainly these won't be a match for the PCs, but their presence shows a complete disregard for the celestial defenses.

think of region G as stalingrad, with the germans not only fighting block to block, but house to house and room to room. a key stronghold can make all the difference.

considering replacing all the undead with immortal serial killers or something heinouse. mohrgs are good too. but a "jack the ripper" like character held in a tomb that even the demons won't open has some cool to it.

replace the zombies serving lord tarnaticus (room G55) with a hose of manticore and magical beast thralls. anything he could mind control. give him 6 or 7 levels of cleric and make his domains animal and death. give him some undead (but not zombie) beast companions. or a hellhound. or a winter wolf. or an ettin.

have the nighthag (grelka, room G44) secretly trying to destroy the demon lord and take his heart to make a new heartstone with different powers. have narla (room G59) already be dead, her heart missing and turned into another item of power for grelka.

give her ettin slaves the fiendish, half-fiend, or feral templates. allow them to have a sample of power that she's robbed from other beasts and put into them. i would add a wicked witch-like lab filled with beakers and fetishes where she's conducted experiments, to give the PCs a hint that someone has done some nasty s**t here. perhaps, even add a desicated corpse, emptied of course, that was exhumed from region N. perhaps she found something from rooms N18 through N44 and brought it back, using her "heartstone of the tiefling" to phase through the walls, of course using an ettin to transport the bodies for her.

or maybe she struck a deal with the hags in region K. so long as they share the spoils, the two also sha. oh man, that's wicked. i can't believe i thought that up.... new spells that only the four of them can cast together... maybe the nighthag helped with the egg/brass dragon situation there.... talk about your macbeth tragedies.

also, you can replace the zombies throughout the region with any of your favorite non-SRD undead, and say there are from region N or creatures that died in region F, G, J, K, and L and rose again because of the "pulse" from region N.

undead elf deserters are good too. so are duergar.

remember, if you have stragglers from region D make their way to region H, they are going to inform the dwarves there of what is going on in D. and i can't imagine dwarves are going to stand for that... dark dwarves or no.

sending home for reinforcements could be a great plot twist, with Jolan (or whomever is in charge at the time) saying "No! You can't use our hippogriffs," so they have to ascend through Region O to get home.

okay. i think that's enough for now. let me know if this helps.

btw

i like the idea of gutless and spineless being foils for anguish and madness in region I

mostly because mark carroll (jim hague) paired a few things together in his regions a lot and i see patterns in concepts that go together nicely. heck, anguish and madness making it to region H isn't completely out of left field.


----------



## jim pinto

*sweet zombie jesus*

holy cripes

607 posts?!?!

you guys roxxor on french toast


----------



## slaunt

*Another band of suckers.....*

I mean adventurers, have decended into the depths of WLD.
Here is the link.

www.uuld.blogspot.com

Make this post 608

and shouldnt it be American toast...just kidding, i know its an old joke.

heh

Slaunt


----------



## JamesL85

Crimson Scribe said:


> I sent you a map for Region F just after New Year's, but haven't seen it on the site yet. Did you receive it?




Sorry.....Real life has been taking a toll on me recently, but I just looked through past e-mails and didn't see your mail.....Can you resend????  Let me know if you receive a "bounce" from me, although I'm 99% sure you're on my "friend" list.......

Sorry.....

James

P.S.
Would be more than happy to post any other files on my site......Nothing fancy (although I'm studying that part), but would be more than happy to help out where I can......


----------



## DaveMage

jim pinto said:
			
		

> holy cripes
> 
> 607 posts?!?!
> 
> you guys roxxor on french toast




Actually, Jim, it's your 230 posts (and those of others who worked on it) on EN World that helps keep it energized...so kudos.

...But since I know you don't like compliments...

When the hell are we going to start having previews for the World's Largest City?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

DaveMage said:
			
		

> Actually, Jim, it's your 230 posts (and those of others who worked on it) on EN World that helps keep it energized...so kudos.
> 
> ...But since I know you don't like compliments...
> 
> When the hell are we going to start having previews for the World's Largest City?




I'll agree with that. During Xmas vacation this thread almost died.
Only the presence of the senor pinto and friends brought it back from the brink.

And I don't care if you like compliments or not. You're going to accept all of them and like it.

Now to sober your up, I do have one beef with the WLD (backed up by a friend who doesn't come to these threads). Several of the maps don't "line up" with the grid. Nothing big...but it drives my almost-ocd mind crazy!
I know it's more realistic...but I get enough realism the rest of the week.


----------



## CrimsonScribe

Possibly a stupid question, but my players are asking for more history on the celestial garrison in Region E.  I know I've read quite a bit on this in the past, but I can't seem to find it referenced within Region E.  Can anyone point me in the right direction?


----------



## The Horror

Foxheart said:
			
		

> The Horror - assuming that it is OK with the fine Mr Pinto (and AEG) I would be happy to host the maps you have made. Once he has given the nod, if you send me the files (or a link to them online so I can download them) and I will get it all set up for you!




How do I go about doing this via your site?  I couldn't find a contact email on the site, and it seems I can't even send PMs here.  Any hints?


----------



## twofalls

CrimsonScribe said:
			
		

> Possibly a stupid question, but my players are asking for more history on the celestial garrison in Region E.  I know I've read quite a bit on this in the past, but I can't seem to find it referenced within Region E.  Can anyone point me in the right direction?




The only history you are going to find Crimson (unless I’ve missed a big piece of the dungeon text somewhere) is in the front of the book (minimal), the front of region E, and bits and pieces in the region such as the hall of Portraits, or the room where rests the Garrison Charter. I've added a couple of salvaged libraries in the region still controlled by the Celestials and used info from the Planes of Law in my old Planescape campaign setting to fill in some particulars that are skipped in the adventure (due to space saving issues I'm sure). 

Due to various personal issues I've had to cancel the last two sessions of the Sanguine Sentinels (one death in a players family, one major surgery, etc), so we haven't been meeting much on the heels of our holiday break. I hope to be able to delve into Region E soon, it’s been too long. 

I won’t get into it here, but I've been sidetracked by my Shadowrun game and a renewed passion and interest in Star Fleet Battles... guess I'm a diverse gamer type and not a true royal blood RPGer. 

With regards to TwistedOliver's concerns about leveling folks properly, the game I'm running has absolutely developed into a room hunt, but this has some great advantages. The primary one being that since I don't fix the level room in advance but rather let it float about and decide in game where the best place for it is according to the needs of the party I get more out of the region. A lot of decisions I make about running any RPG are following up on intuition and evaluation of the way the players are feeling and what is needed at that time. This means that basically I can get the PC's to explore the entire region, experiencing all it has to offer before they move on by holding off on when I level them and keeping them hunting. Perhaps this matters little to you or doesn’t fit your GM style, but for me if I put the effort into working on a room I darn well want them to go there and play in it! This makes certain they do that.

If you have different players coming in and out of the dungeon, the easiest way to deal with it is that you keep all the PC’s at the level the party has managed to attain at that point, and just fiat players in and out as needed. If they don't like this solution they are certainly not being forced to sit at your table, and it’s a lot less of a headache for you.

I'd certainly suggest a living dungeon, but within reason. This place is huge. Don't spend time repopulating empty areas unless its vital for the story, otherwise you won’t get very far in the WLD. Use the living dungeon idea only as a way of making the place feel alive in the area they are playing, not filling up what they have already explored. Don't encourage backtracking, rather push them forward and give them reasons to enter area's they haven't been to yet.

By way of example, use abominations from region I to enter into region E if the PC's do something to down a ward while they are STILL ADVENTURING in region E... use patrols from the Celestials into region A if the players are STILL EXPLORING region A. Don't put a tribe of Ogres into Region A to repopulate it if the players have nearly just finished exploring B... or E. That just returns them to areas already delved to explore once again. It’s a heck of a lot more work for you to backtrack that way, when instead they could be going into already detailed regions of the complex yet unexplored.

Make sense?


----------



## Ozymandias

*And they're in..*

Dropped the PCs into region H via the Lantern archons.  Cyrlebrai tasked the archons to bring in  a group of heroes to each region.  They talked to the Archon via a TTS synthesizer (I think Leopold suggested it).  Nice feel for the situation.  They questioned him on why, who, what, where is the exit (O of course, petition the Titan to leave).  He gave them a rundown on who he was (Designate H127a), on total number of dead within the prison, # of heroes summoned to celestials aid, and then bid them good luck.
They then began to feel out the sylvan paradise.  They hit a wandering encounter quick and were soon escorted to meet Silmarien.  She tasked them to find deserters and to assist in protection from undead and demons from the west.  She directed them to find the paladin if they had any further questions in defense of the area.  
When they found him, they were able to succeed in pulling him out of his sullen mood but could definitely tell he had issues with the council.  They decided to join his cause and he told them of his desires to be offensive in nature and they jumped at that.  So off to the west to kill some demons and undead.
The party makeup is:
12th level human monk
7th level moon elf rogue/5th level shadow dancer 
12th level human Paladin of Tyr (tank 1)
11th level moon elf ranger
12th level human fighter
9th level gnome cleric/3rd level fighter (tank 2)
11th level Elan psion

So they are a frontal assault group anyway.
They head west past the teeth of the dragon and the shadowdancer sends his shadow into the dragon mouth.  The evoker sees an undead creature coming in and blasts it nearly killing it.  The shadow runs back to the rogue and the shadow is now a companion instead of a scout.  Woohoo.  After investigation, they talk to the evoker but gain very little from him (his lack of interest since they had no arcane spellcasters).  
They move on into G and contemplate crossing the lava to the island but rethink it and head north along the wall.  The elemental was wandering the opposite way so they miss him for now.  After decimating the 3 groups of hellhounds (I think one guy took a few points of fire damage--the group's frontline fighters have minor fire resistance), they head on towards the north of the hellhound pen.  The rogue hears footsteps ahead (wandering Sir Ranveed falls back hearing the approach of several heavily armored troops).  Rogue spots retreating bodak and calls party forward.  Spear trap hits several members and Sir Ranveed gets away.  Rogue gets distracted by runed pillars and sets off Negative energy trap (search of 36 not enough) nearly losing 7 levels (made save by 1).  Realization now sets in that it could be harder than they thought (were proud of hell hound ease of destruction).  The other pillar is avoided and they move on.  At the next intersection, I put a symbol of weakness on the floor and a pair of them lost 13 points of strength.   The cleric uses his two memorized restoration spells and they move on still confident.  At the end of the corridor, one of the elves "accidently" spots the secret door.  They move in and get to the egg shaped room.  The rogue whips out his glasses that grant arcane sight 3 times per day and he sees the trap on the floor.  The monk leaps across.  The tanks sit back and figure out how hard it is to jump that gap.  Meanwhile, the Erinyes comes out and gets the monk with her rope and chaos starts.  Before they can fully cross and engage the Erinyes, they have eaten 3 unholy blights.  The monk has escaped and abundant stepped away.  The tanks finally jump across and begin to pound on her.  She flies overhead and makes to escape.  She finally gets some separation and then teleports ahead (using line of sight rule).  They begin to give chase when the elder elemental comes down the passage.  The sight of this 60000 pound of earth moving through the corridor was enough to deter them from chasing any farther.  They head back to her abode and hole up with watches set.

So day one in the WLD.  0 deaths.  0 unconscious.  But 7 very afraid.

Depending on where they decide to go from here....
They will meet the dead heroes summoned to Region G, the ettins (with the fiendish template suggested by Jim) serving Grelka, a few dead celestials, and have their first encounter with those serving Lord Tarnaticus.

Thanks to all those that have provided ideas to this forum and keeping it going.

Oz


----------



## Foxheart

The Horror said:
			
		

> How do I go about doing this via your site?  I couldn't find a contact email on the site, and it seems I can't even send PMs here.  Any hints?




I also seem not to be able to send PMs either 

If the pictures are up online, send me a link to richard.halpin  blueyonder.co.uk

Alternatively, you can send the files as Zipped format to the same address  Then I can get them up.

As an aside, RPGMP3 are now hosting all of the official AEG PDFs for the World's Largest Dungeon maps. (Cheers Jim!).

Hal


----------



## Demonix

jim pinto said:
			
		

> holy cripes
> 
> 607 posts?!?!
> 
> you guys roxxor on french toast




I guess the same will happen when the Worlds Biggest City comes out!


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

Session #13 of RPGMP3 audio, see the Story Hour thread:

WLD Story Hour


----------



## jim pinto

*bump*

i'm just posting... to post

yep

just bored

yep

its 6pm on wednesday and i've got NOTHING to do...

nope

nothing

so

how are you guys?


----------



## JamesL85

Is it just me, or has the number of pages on this thread dropped to about half......

James


----------



## BlueBlackRed

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> Is it just me, or has the number of pages on this thread dropped to about half......
> 
> James




Check the # of posts per page you have on your forum settings.

And I'm bored a little too. I should read the WLD some more, but I'm so sick of reading.
And watching TV.
And my PC games are not fun to play much anymore.
And the in-laws are visiting this weekend.
I'm watching Anchorman and it's a lot lamer than I expected.

*But at least I'm running the WLD this Friday!*


----------



## DaveMage

jim pinto said:
			
		

> i'm just posting... to post
> 
> yep
> 
> just bored
> 
> yep
> 
> its 6pm on wednesday and i've got NOTHING to do...
> 
> nope
> 
> nothing
> 
> so
> 
> how are you guys?




Well, let me ask you this - if you had to do the WLD all over again, what would you do differently?


----------



## CrimsonScribe

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> And my PC games are not fun to play much anymore.
> [/B]




Three words:

World of Warcraft

It's the single reason why I haven't finished the player maps yet


----------



## jim pinto

DaveMage said:
			
		

> Well, let me ask you this - if you had to do the WLD all over again, what would you do differently?




oooh

good question

um.... most importantly, i would have chosen different monsters for region a
or at the very least, mixed up what we did have

i love B, C, and D... so no changes there

region E needed scarier insects with a better reason for being there

i would have removed one tribe of minotaurs from region F and replaced them with ettins
that the minotaurs were warring with. that would make the two major factions in the maze creatures with two heads and creatures that can find their way through any maze

region G would have had fewer celestials and i would have designed the layout of the southern hallways differently

region H would have had more things to fight

regions I and J would have had better organization and more movement to and from

region K would have had some no-SRD monsters serving the green dragon

region L would NOT have had an island of aquatic elves (not a fan of that)

region M would have been tighter... better conceived. i think this and L are my least favorite regions.... they have potential, but i need about 40 more hours of editing to get them where i want.

i don't like the first 60 rooms in region N, but the rest of the region is perfect. the first 60 rooms have a lot of potential, but them seem slapdash. the section needed a two-page write up explaining why these "things" were buried here and what significance that has on the game world. there's a sidebar that explains this a little, but its not enough in my opinion.

region O would have had ONE writer, instead of three (four if you include me)



in all, though, these are editing concerns that i would have no matter how perfect the book was.... you always want more time to make things better.

holistically, i wish we could have done a LONG dungeon, rather than a square one

and i would rather we didn't have to do the SRD thing, but those are the only two marketing restraints that made design difficult. i also wish there had just been fewer writers. meshing voices is hard work and i'd rather spend my time improving ideas. not toning down banter and colloquialisms.

i also wish we'd done a contest, allowing people to submit room ideas

and i probably wouldn't have done encounter conditions, because from the sound of it, no one uses them anyway

(damn fine idea, though, if you ask me)


----------



## DaveMage

jim pinto said:
			
		

> and i probably wouldn't have done encounter conditions, because from the sound of it, no one uses them anyway
> 
> (damn fine idea, though, if you ask me)




It surprises me that no one is using them since I consider the "encounter conditions" to be a great innovation.  

For those of you who are running the WLD, please post your experiences with using the encounter conditions (or if you are not using them and why).


----------



## BlueBlackRed

jim pinto said:
			
		

> and i probably wouldn't have done encounter conditions, because from the sound of it, no one uses them anyway
> 
> (damn fine idea, though, if you ask me)




?!?

I use them. (Well most of them.)
I just don't talk too much about it in the blog.

The greater shadow (king?) in region E would have bit it on turn 1 had it not been for the unhallowed & other conditions in that room.

...dang exalted cleric of Lathander...

Heck the encounter conditions schewed the combat so much that the holy greatsword wielder ran like a little girl on round 3 (raging barbarian with a 21 strength drops to 9). Had it not been for the sorcerer having just learned fireball the party would have lost at least one more character.


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> ?!?
> 
> I use them. (Well most of them.)
> I just don't talk too much about it in the blog.
> 
> The greater shadow (king?) in region E would have bit it on turn 1 had it not been for the unhallowed & other conditions in that room.
> 
> ...dang exalted cleric of Lathander...
> 
> Heck the encounter conditions schewed the combat so much that the holy greatsword wielder ran like a little girl on round 3 (raging barbarian with a 21 strength drops to 9). Had it not been for the sorcerer having just learned fireball the party would have lost at least one more character.




the were meant to be the great equalizer, especially against PCs that find combos
that DMs can't possibly predict (and to provide flavor elements for the dungeon... echoes, visions, lights, whatever)

glad you guys like them

and your exalted cleric is going to HATE region N


----------



## Keska

> Originally Posted by *jim pinto*
> and i probably wouldn't have done encounter conditions, because from the sound of it, no one uses them anyway
> 
> (damn fine idea, though, if you ask me)




Oh man, I love the encounter conditions. Every time my PCs find a room that's uncomfortable feeling, or has unexplained echoes, they think that undead are going to jump out of the walls at them. And on the _single_ occasion that the rogue/wizard decided to actually use her magic in combat, it bounced off the room's spell resistance, making her freak out. They just finished clearing out the shadow mastiffs in Region E and the craziness of the rooms they laired in added a lot to those fights.


----------



## twistedoliver

*Traps & hidden Things*

This is more of a general question, but with all the traps and hidden areas, automatic door shutting in WLD. How do you handle that with your parties?

Traps...

Does the rogue get trapped behind doors that close and suffer the traps themselves, do you make it so that they close after the last PC enters (unless one specifically says they stay behind).

I will have a hard time with my PC's as they treat dungeon crawls like they were commandos...  with spotters, and artilery ready most of the time, taking 20 on seach checks, etc.

*Player A:*  I am ahead 10' and peer around the corner
*DM:*  As you look around the corner you see an empty room (describes room)
*Player A:* I move into the room 
*DM*: ok
*Players B-F:* we move in..
*DM:* Ok the doors shut and the room starts filling with water...
*Players*: Hey why didn't it go off with Player A?

*Player A:*  I am ahead 10' and peer around the corner
*DM:*  As you look around the corner you see an empty room with monsters (describe)
*Player A:* I move into the room and backstab one, 
*DM*: ok
*Players B-F:* we move in..and rain carnage on them
*DM:* Ok carnage rained down...they have blabh blahb...
*Players*: ok great
*Player A:* I am ahead 10' and peer around the corner..
*DM:* sigh...as you look around...

Searching...

Do you make them pick the area that they are searching, the exact 5' spot.  Or do you ask for a general search check of the room?  If so, do you let everybody have a roll? And if you do, how long to you say it takes .. a few rounds, a minute, or 1 round * size of room.  

Region F...

Has any GM split up the party by only having part of the party go through a warp gate?  If so what was the ending, and how much of a headache was it for you?

TwoFalls, 

Thanks for the response on the XP question.

Scott


----------



## Chef

Hello everybody. I started DMing a new campaign using the World's Largest Dungeon and I thought I'd share what I did with it so far. I was reading this thread before starting the campaign so I used some ideas I got from here.

Before the first session, I told everyone to make a character using a 32-point buy. I told them to pick skills appropriate for a long journey underground and that equipment would be handled during the first session.  When the game started, I told the 6 players that they had been accused of various crimes (some falsely) and had been sentenced to be thrown "into the hole" without any equipment. 

That worked out to be fun. I have been pretty liberal with letting them improvise clubs and things so they could survive the early encounters. The players didn't fight the orcs in the first room right away but ended up finding them dead later on. It was amusing to see the players get quite excited when they acquired an ordinarily mundane item such as studded leather armor.

Before the first session, I went through region A and printed out each piece of equipment on business cards. I have the name, weight, description and stats for armor/weapons on the cards. So whenever they find an item, I just toss the appropriate card down on the table and say "you find this under the rubble" or whatever. The cards for equipment idea works out pretty well, the players don't have to write things down on their character sheets and can easily give items to each other by trading the cards. I also keep a bunch of blank cards beside me for when the players pick things up that I didn't expect.

I have pretty much running the encounters as written in the WLD. I planted an extra everburning torch near the beginning so the characters without darkvision don't totally get screwed over since they don't have equipment. I'll probably just let them find a set of thieves' tools soon for the rogue. 

I'm using the XP=EL system. There was only one session so far so the players have explored some of region A and made it to level 2. No fatalities so far. The hardest fight they had so far was against the ogre which I scaled down to compensate for the lack of equipment. We are having the next session on the weekend. 

Some players won't be able to make the next meet. I don't like it when players who aren't there have their characters die so I'm planning to have a lantern archon appear at the start of the next meet and explain the disappearance of certain characters as space-time distortions in the area.

They don't have access to the identify spell so I'm planning to make it easy to figure out which items are magical and how they work. For stuff like sword+1, I'll just have the stats written on the card and see if they notice when I hand the card to them. I won't say what a potion will do but there may be clues in the appearance. For wands, I plan tell them which classes can use it and then they can experiment with it to see what it does. For other miscellaneous items, I'll either give a clue to what it does or just tell them the get a feeling about it when they pick it up and give them the card with the abilities described on it.

As stolen from someone else here, I'm also toying with giving the lantern archons limited abilities to summon items into the dungeon for the chosen ones. The players need to have the appropriate craft skill or feat and must sacrifice 3x the listed price of the item worth of goods or coins. Functional items like longswords can’t be used as a sacrifice but a 50gp gold ring could be (basically anything with a value listed in the WLD book can be used as a sacrifice).

So if a player wants the archon to summon a dwarven waraxe, then he needs place at least 90gp worth of stuff before the lantern archon and make a craft(weaponsmithing) check. If he fails the check then one of the sacrificial items might be destroyed and he can try again. If he succeeds then all of the sacrificial items are gone and he gets the weapon. I’m not sure how to rationalize this exactly in the game world but it seemed like a fun idea since it lets the players use crafting skills and gives a use to all the items they find.

I let them take 20 on skill checks once per character per session.


----------



## Chef

twistedoliver said:
			
		

> Searching...
> 
> Do you make them pick the area that they are searching, the exact 5' spot. Or do you ask for a general search check of the room? If so, do you let everybody have a roll? And if you do, how long to you say it takes .. a few rounds, a minute, or 1 round * size of room.




I let all my players make a general search check for the whole room. Every player who is searching gets to roll and it takes 1 round per square in the room unlesss room is full of debris or somethhing then it takes longer. If a player makes a specific statement like "I look for loose stones in the wall under the bed" and there actually is a loose stone in the wall under the bed then I give a big bonus to the search check or just let them automatically find whatever it is.


----------



## jim pinto

Chef said:
			
		

> So if a player wants the archon to summon a dwarven waraxe, then he needs place at least 90 gp worth of stuff before the lantern archon and make a craft (weaponsmithing) check. If he fails the check then one of the sacrificial items might be destroyed and he can try again. If he succeeds then all of the sacrificial items are gone and he gets the weapon. I’m not sure how to rationalize this exactly in the game world but it seemed like a fun idea since it lets the players use crafting skills and gives a use to all the items they find.
> 
> I let them take 20 on skill checks once per character per session.




the justification can be this simple

the have to be able to visualize how the sword/axe/mace is made in order for the lantern archon to replicate it, which it does by reading their mind.... hence the craft check. this has a lot of cool. and the gold just fuels the process of making it. so if they fail the check, 10% of the gold is consumed in the "starting up" of the archon's internal whatever.

take 20 once per session is good.

peace


----------



## Qwillion

*Prep for the long hall*

I was given World's Largest Dungeon for Christmass, I have been reading it over, I have printed up individual map sections (thank you jim for making that possible) and writing on thesse B&W top give me a quick overview. 

I am replacing a number of monsters with monsters from other books because as has been said before there are too many darkmantles, rat swarms and dire rats, I felt there was good use of the monsters but it felt like a forced contraint not to include some fiendish weasels, baboons or monsters from other books, i am keeping everything fiendish however.  I am also going to be dropping more clues as to what the fook is going on. I feel it was a major flaw of section A to only include the GM on the story, and provide no motivation for the players to find out what is going on. 

I am finding that for the sake of being modular there is very little in the way of over arching story. My players are finishing banewarrens while I read WLD and it had the basic idea that you cannot destroy evil as you only beget more evil so you must imprision it. (I also feel that banewarrens did a better job of presenting that idea)  I have chosen to set the WLD in FR since it is the setting my players are most familiar with it and It will be a return for me after a 4 year hiatis in my own homebrew world.  I have set the dungeeon far to the north of the moon sea regeion between the anaroch desert and the great glaciar near a place called the tortured lands and the nameless mountains. 

I have decided to replace the nameless celestials  of imprisonment with the ancient old empires diety Hoar (Assuran) the god of Vengence, Retribution and Potetic Justice.  This god has much declined, and made me think that death was to easy for the things locked away in the WLD. 

My players have chosen to all be human and be evil, they are starting out in a dirty dozen fashion being prisoners in the dungeons of the Citadel of the Raven.  They are all busy currently creating backgrounds so I can tie their characters to the dungeon so that we can have some character driven stories in the dungeon itself. 

Is there anything that I am missing that would disrupt the idea of actually trying to create and arch that would tie the modular dungeons together since I run campaigns and not adventures. (I have run 6 campagains that each have run 2-5 years)


----------



## hitomikitage

Personally, I just roll a random encounter each time anyone in the group takes a 20.  This has the added effect of adding traps that are triggered by taking a 20 to disarm a trap.  I think it makes it a little more interesting.

As far as search checks go, I tell my players how many people they can get to search an area.  This has caused them to creat "Search Teams" in order to more effectively aid each other in a search check.

I decide on a timing mechanic for automatically shutting doors.  The mirror room in B I had shut behind the first group of guys that went in.  I basically asked everyone who was going in and who was staying out.  All who went in were trapped inside, and those that said they stayed out were trapped outside.  Other rooms had longer delays, or specific triggering mechanisms either in place already (such as the alcove with the defending quarterstaff in B) or I just made one up that seemed appropriate.

To Jim, regarding what you would change:

Encounter conditions are good, but things like noises and minor tremors, especially in rooms where there is nothing else, makes it hard to convey those things to players.  I use them to the best of my ability, but since I run in a game store where there are distractions, it makes it tough to set a mood sometimes.  I also find some of the room descriptions to be unwieldy.  This is mainly due to the fact that there were room descriptions written as if the PCs were at one of the doors, when it was very possible for them to come into the room from a different door.

I agree that the dungeon should have been long instead of square.  That would have made it easier for me and the group to go from start to finish.  Especially if you start ramping encounters into the epic range at the end.  Like the Kraken in L being a psionicist or something crazy like that.  I think it would have given it a more Ghouls and Ghosts or Castlevania feel (one of my favorite all-time video games.)  Especially if you have sections of the dungeon go up or down in elevation changes.  That could have accounted for the inclusion of submerged regions as well as high elevation regions.

Having something on the order of 8 regions of the dungeon (I'm lettering alphabetically, not necessarily by the regions that would be included) where A, B, and C are on the same level, then the PCs go further underground (either a hole created in the floor of the dungeon, or a gradual sloping further underground) where D could be shallows and swamps and E could be the deeps.  Then an ascent back up to F and G (which could be the climax, creating a hole in the roof of the dungeon) and then a climb up steep mountains with Giants and flying creatures and such to actually escape the dungeon.  This would even allow you to have different climate conditions in some of the regions.  A, B, and C could be standard fare dungeon (with C similar to I, just to keep with all of the different bizarre themes with some of the regions in the dungeon) while D is swamps and shallows, E is deeps, F could bring the PCs up through a volcano for a fire-oriented region, followed by a surreal kind of region that would be either the equivalent of N, D, or G (depending on your preference for a climactic region) for region G, and then H could cover your cold weather and aerial encounters.

Damn, makes me wish I could go back and start again (almost.)

Thanks,
Howard Hooven


----------



## The Horror

Ok, tell me of region G.

I see a lot of potential in this region.  A lot.  Unfortunately I also envision some problems.

Firstly, how do the PCs cross the river of fire?  

Secondly, my players will be entering from the South approach (there is only one).  They will encounter the demon forces first, then probably wonder the banks of the river for a while until they come across the Children of the Inner Light.  Since the artifact the Celestials want is in those first few rooms, they will pick it up and deliver it without too many hassles.  What then?  Most of the conflict in the rest of the region should be building up to the force wall coming down.  

Thus I have concocted up a plan.  The crystal they will need has a small crack on it.  The demons guarding it will put up only token resistance to the group, and run away very quickly - they want them to get the crystal.  When they approach the Children of the Inner Light they will first have to kill the Basilisk, then find out they have the crystal the forces of good so sorely need.  The crystal is put in place to release the Celestial battery guy (Cylerbai sp?).  When this is done the crystal is revealed to be unstable and in danger of imminent collapse.  Meanwhile the only one who could power the field has lapsed into a coma.  

The PCs are thus informed that the great demon will surely break free, and that the forces of good are simply not numerous enough to triumph over the demon forces.  It is of vital importance that the PCs move to the northern end of the region and gather allies for the final battle.  The Celestials cannot go with them since they will be attacked on sight.  The PCs are also informed that they should avoid contacting the demon forces at all costs.

Thusly the PCs get to explore the rest of the region, hopefully finishing off on the little island before the force walls come down for the end battle.  The fallen angel should be able to redeem herself in the final engagement, and the undead lord I plan to replace with the cursed paladin from the Order of Myruun, thus giving them another potential ally that will be willing to help given the right stimulus.  The guy on the island with his Nightmare mount would also be willing to help if the Celestials promise to leave him alone, and he in turn could bring in a nasty Earth elemental into the fray (if the PCs recover the item that summoned it from the rubble).

Does this seem reasonable?  I had to rush it and didn't have access to the book but that should cover the basics anyhow.  

Still don't know how the PCs are meant to cross that river of fire though....

Ok, rushing off for now.


The Horror


----------



## spacecrime.com

Having just finished Region G a few days ago, your plan sounds pretty good to me. I particularly like the "crystal is cracked" idea; it's a great twist.

I will note that the party might not end up with the crystal; the demon triumvirate is a bad-ass set of bosses, and the party may well end up fleeing for their lives. 

My victims players went into that subsection with a party of 6 ranging from levels 8-11; the hezrou defeated the party, captured half of it, and handed them over to the glabrezu to throw in his slave cell. This moved the plot along nicely -- they promptly tricked the quasit and escaped, finding the crystal in the process -- but half the party died getting the crystal past the demons and back to the angels. (Most of the rest of the party would have died too, except for the still-very-weak Cyrlebrai coming to their aid with enough buffing mojo so that the party was able to turn the tide.) I didn't even need the big-big finish to the Region, since taking out the triumvirate pushed the PCs to their absolute limit. We had a ball. 

Anyway, war story over. Just don't be too surprised is the PCs don't get to the crystal. It'll be that much more fun if they have to go back, and the "find allies" storyline should be fun either way.

_Oh, I forgot. The River of Fire._ Assuming your PCs are in the appropriate range, at least one of them should be able to get access to a _fly_ spell. My party used that to shuttle across as needed, except for early on where they crossed the narrow section on the northeast corner with ropes affixed to the walls. I was pretty liberal on this one; it's a minor obstacle on the way to the bigger encounters. However, they did get well and truly screwed when they lost their flyers at G75; pinned down on a small island with an angry nightmare, not a pretty sight!

cheers,


----------



## Qwillion

Question: How did the Titan Breysus Die? 


HANDOUTS
One thing the world's largest dungeon is lacking is handouts.  Since I am spending a lot of time making the WLD less modular and more specific to my campaign, I will try to leave out specific proper names from my handouts so that they can be used by all.

My first handout is a bit of estoic research into the legends and myths of Carcer Maximus Mundi (I am such a thief)

Quillion's WLD GM Chapbook
http://www.callofthehorn.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1345#post1345


----------



## Sieobahn

Are other DM's out there killing off PC's as fast as I am?

So far we have had four sessions, about 20 hours gaming time all up. They can covered about two thirds of region A, and a few rooms in B after 15 days of campaign time.

And I have killed off 12 characters! This is strange for my group, there are 7 players, most of which have been showing up (I charged them AU$10 each to cover some of the costs of buying the adventure, they must want to get their money's worth), and they tend to min/max the characters to the nth degree.

I have to admit on the third session the dice were running really hot, I was dealing out criticals all over the place. I killed bout six characters in that session alone!

The last session I decided to go easy on them and fudge a few rolls so they wouldn't die as readily, but I still managed to kill off two PC's by accident.

They are still mostly 2nd level, nearing third. I decided to hand out XP at the normal rate because the large group is diluting it, plus I want them up a few levels where they won't get killed off as easily on a single hit.

Now if they would only learn the value of tactics and surprise. Most monsters hear and see them coming a mile off!

I have been posting write-ups of the adventure here if you would like to read them.


----------



## spacecrime.com

_Are other DM's out there killing off PC's as fast as I am?_

Hm. I think you're doing better than I am on that front.  We're on Game Day 37, the average party level is around 10, and I've only smoked 19 player characters. (Okay, plus another 4 that were raised or resurrected.)

FWIW, our PC deaths tend to clump -- most of the time things go well and they can back each other up, but when they get in over their heads a lot characters can die all at once.

cheers,


----------



## jim pinto

Qwillion said:
			
		

> Question: How did the Titan Breysus Die?




honestly?

old age

however, the more dramatic answer is...

...it was his time
...the gods willed it
...the age of man was coming
...(big spolier) when his brother (region o) was encased in ice, he died
...insert reason here


----------



## Hitokiri

spacecrime.com said:
			
		

> _Are other DM's out there killing off PC's as fast as I am?_
> 
> Hm. I think you're doing better than I am on that front.  We're on Game Day 37, the average party level is around 10, and I've only smoked 19 player characters. (Okay, plus another 4 that were raised or resurrected.)
> 
> FWIW, our PC deaths tend to clump -- most of the time things go well and they can back each other up, but when they get in over their heads a lot characters can die all at once.
> 
> cheers,




Yeah, I've found the same thing to be true.  Several sessions where no one dies, followed by a near TPK seems to be standard.  My guys are about half way through section C right now and I've knocked off 16 or 17 PCs (most of them are listed in the worlds largest graveyard on the forums here).  Some of it has been them wandering into encounters they weren't ready for and other times it's been bad tactics.  

Of course, since they lose a level every time they have to roll a new PC, it also means my PCs are a little weak for their current position.  They also lost a bunch of magical items when they had to retreat from section E after a near TPK and refused to return to the area, so they are underequipped as well.  Probably going to have to start seeding in a few more magical items and maybe bolster their xp a little to get them back on track.


----------



## jim pinto

Qwillion said:
			
		

> I am also going to be dropping more clues as to what the fook is going on. I feel it was a major flaw of section A to only include the GM on the story, and provide no motivation for the players to find out what is going on.




i've been thinking about this comment for a couple of day now... trying to find a way to address what you're saying without being negative

first, this is one of the first real complaints i've heard about the book

yes, we all admit on here its failings and limitations because of the scope of the work

and i'm amazed actually at how little anger has come out of this group, considering the internet's love of flames.

that said, the major flaw of A is the repetitiveness of the monsters, something endemic of a large region made for 1st to 3rd level PCs.

not letting the PCs in on it? well, i don't know how to break it to you, but published adventures can't replace the DM. so, how much you clue them into the adventure's details is up to you.

its always been my opinion that published adventures save DMs from doing the busy work... plotting rooms, writing up stats, and thinking up details like stools, iron maidens, and chandeliers (sadly the WLD has little or none of these, but...). so, the book really was made with a top down approach.

i'm sorry if i'm sounding defensive now. i'm not trying to be. i'm hopefully, just coalescing what you do like about the product into the arena of why it works. reading the whole book isn't an easy task, but the more familiar DMs are with the entire plot, the more likely they are to be able to morph things to their own style and whim. which does away with worry about things like... why aren't the PCs more involved with this plot?

and the short answer is... because we as designers don't know which path you're going to take through the dungeon, so creating elements that link regions together thematically is a near impossibility... especially with about a dozen different paths through this mamma-jamba.

lastly, i think the true strength of this product lies in five things.

1. tight templating of rooms. you always know what to look for and where to find it.
2. tactics and encounter conditions. without information like this, you've just got a list of monsters and dungeon dressings... in my opinion
3. plots. some of these plot points are just amazing. some of writers took the ideas they were given and really expanded them into great concepts
4. flexibility. there's almost nothing that can't be changed to suit your style. we didn't a trap or clue so important in region F that you couldn't escape without it.
5. value. $.06 per encounter. enough said?

anyway

i hope you like the book

i hope you have some memorable adventures with it

and i hope someone finishes it soon, so we can hear all the stories about their epic struggle to reach the final rooms of region O

peace


----------



## twistedoliver

*XP Level*

Hello all,

I have been doing a litttle thinking.  With all the character deaths, giving XP the normal way might be ok.  Since they lose about 20% each time they die.  and if that isn't enough, I can just kill them some more...

Just some thoughts,

Scott

Oh in Region G82, can you go south into C?  And can they get from Region C to G?


----------



## DaveMage

jim pinto said:
			
		

> and i'm amazed actually at how little anger has come out of this group, considering the internet's love of flames.




EN World prides itself on (and enforces) a certain level of civility.  We don't always maintain such a level, but this policy is (IMO) part of the reason why many people come here.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Sieobahn said:
			
		

> Are other DM's out there killing off PC's as fast as I am?




So far I've only fragged a single PC.
And it wasn't even the guy who goes into negatives in 2/3 of the sessions.
He actually dropped into negatives 4 times in a single combat!

But then again, my group does have 2 clerics.
And until my frag counter hit 1, they had an exalted paladin.


----------



## jim pinto

twistedoliver said:
			
		

> Hello all,
> 
> I have been doing a litttle thinking.  With all the character deaths, giving XP the normal way might be ok.  Since they lose about 20% each time they die.  and if that isn't enough, I can just kill them some more...
> 
> Just some thoughts,
> 
> Scott
> 
> Oh in Region G82, can you go south into C?  And can they get from Region C to G?




um....

yes?!?!

i'm not sure why this is in question... did we put something in the book
that i'm not aware of?


----------



## slaunt

So when is the sequel to the Worlds Largest Dungeon coming out?(and i dont mean Worlds largest city)

  

heheheh


----------



## DaveMage

slaunt said:
			
		

> So when is the sequel to the Worlds Largest Dungeon coming out?(and i dont mean Worlds largest city)
> 
> 
> 
> heheheh




I believe the answer I got when I asked this question was: "As soon as you write it."


----------



## twistedoliver

twistedoliver said:
			
		

> Oh in Region G82, can you go south into C?  And can they get from Region C to G?






			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> um....
> 
> yes?!?!
> 
> i'm not sure why this is in question... did we put something in the book
> that i'm not aware of?




Well It states in the book that Region C is a deadend. But when looking at the maps I can see that you can move from Region C to G....Also the door in the hallway south of room G82 isn't described. So I'm not sure if you made it passible or not. that's all.

Scott


----------



## jim pinto

twistedoliver said:
			
		

> Well It states in the book that Region C is a deadend. But when looking at the maps I can see that you can move from Region C to G....Also the door in the hallway south of room G82 isn't described. So I'm not sure if you made it passible or not. that's all.
> 
> Scott




well

its certainly possible to move from G to C

once you're inside C, however, you might not be able to get into C21
and therefore into the heart of region

the eastern portion can be moved through, though

i recommend reading the northernmost rooms of C


----------



## rjs

*Section D*

So, out of curiosity (and not willing to search through 640+ posts), anyone get to section D?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

rjs said:
			
		

> So, out of curiosity (and not willing to search through 640+ posts), anyone get to section D?




Not my group. Not even close. They're just about to enter region I.
I guess I need to start reading...

There needs to be some kind of brain cramming machine like in The Matrix.
Instead of "I know Kung Fu!", it'd be "I know what and where the world eater is!"


----------



## Qwillion

Jim Pinto,

Sorry If I came off negative. I really am enjoying reading the book, I am really looking forward too the game. 

A. I may just be venting my frustration at having to replace so many monsters in region A.

B. I am also trying to drop clues so that players feel like they are actually imerssed in the dungeon to help with thier suspension of disbelief.  I want to make them feel like their is a grand story to be told. Helping to create a character driven story is a bit more difficult with a dungeon but It's looking like the best solution is to have sub-plot follow the players into the dungeon. 

1. tight templating of rooms. you always know what to look for and where to find it.

Yes I love the fact that I can look at the summary of a room and it summeries its theme and how the room works.  What you don't do Is template the region with what is going on. There is a minor summary but if it had been as "tight" as the templating of rooms then it would have been much better. It also could have used the same "tight" template for a summary of the dungeon, its themes and an over all story arch as a whole.  A summary of a story arch that could take you through the "obvious" paths that you have talked about would have been really cool. 

2. tactics and encounter conditions. without information like this, you've just got a list of monsters and dungeon dressings... in my opinion

The encoutner conditions are the best, I really enjoy them, as I believe they will make everything more dramatic.   Some times I think the tactics could be a bit more dramatic but I am only just begining to get into the meat of it as I am summerizing room by room. Again this might be the fact that I am in Region A and there are only so many good tactics with a fendish darkmantle one can take before you get frustrated. 

3. plots. some of these plot points are just amazing. some of writers took the ideas they were given and really expanded them into great concepts

yes and I agree but these are all plot points by region with few regions interacting with each other. Example the plot of Region E gives no nevermind to the plot of Region A.  And thier is no plot for the dungeon as a whole.  You have stated that you had this theme: you cannot kill evil but good can die off. Yet it seems everyone missed it completely, I can see it when I look really hard, and I actually get to read all the behind the scenes stuff.   If so many readers did not see how hard is it going to be for a player to percieve it. 

4. flexibility. there's almost nothing that can't be changed to suit your style. we didn't a trap or clue so important in region F that you couldn't escape without it.

Yes beign modular is an excellent selling point but most of the people I see are attempting to play this all the way though.  I have just started in region A and the only "clue" at all is that there are tremors. Not a single npc knows what's really going on or why in the region much less of even a clue too the dungeon as a whole. 

I can use lantern archons to fill people in but part of the joy of using proffesional off the shelf adventures is not having to do the work myself.  

5. value. $.06 per encounter. enough said?

Yes, it is an excellent value.  I still think it is the second best adventure I have ever puchased. (sorry I have run Return to the Tomb of Horrors, and untill I run this that will still be my favorite) 

I do have to question that 5% of those encounters are exaclty the same,  be they fiendish darkmantles or horde skeletons.  Would a fiendish baboon rather than a darkmantle have been so much worse? 


Again, thanks for an excellent book. 

Jim Pinto, 

Is there a list of monsters that were not used in the book? (excluding displacer beasts, beholders, sahaugin, githyanki, githzari, slaad, Illitiad, Yaun-ti etc..)


----------



## Jim Hague

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Not my group. Not even close. They're just about to enter region I.
> I guess I need to start reading...
> 
> There needs to be some kind of brain cramming machine like in The Matrix.
> Instead of "I know Kung Fu!", it'd be "I know what and where the world eater is!"




*cackles*

BBR, let me know if you have any questions.  I have some 'cut' material (not much, mind) from I I keep meaning to send out for posting, but the fellow who originally asked hasn't dropped me a line.  In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing accounts of the first group to reach the Halls of Flesh...


----------



## Hitokiri

I was kind of upset when my group decided to make a beeline for section C.  I wanted them to see them in section I.  Ah well, I've got some friends comeing to visit for a few days in about a week, maybe I'll run an all night marathon for I.


----------



## jim pinto

Qwillion said:
			
		

> 3. plots. some of these plot points are just amazing. some of writers took the ideas they were given and really expanded them into great concepts
> 
> yes and I agree but these are all plot points by region with few regions interacting with each other. Example the plot of Region E gives no nevermind to the plot of Region A.  And thier is no plot for the dungeon as a whole.  You have stated that you had this theme: you cannot kill evil but good can die off. Yet it seems everyone missed it completely, I can see it when I look really hard, and I actually get to read all the behind the scenes stuff.   If so many readers did not see how hard is it going to be for a player to percieve it.




i think its more obvious that you might believe, but more importantly, it shouldn't really affect the PCs until you want it to.... have something really vile, like longtail or his imp come back to life a few days later as a wight if you really want to drive home the point.



			
				Qwillion said:
			
		

> 4. flexibility. there's almost nothing that can't be changed to suit your style. we didn't make a trap or clue so important in region F that you couldn't escape without it.
> 
> Yes beign modular is an excellent selling point but most of the people I see are attempting to play this all the way though.  I have just started in region A and the only "clue" at all is that there are tremors. Not a single npc knows what's really going on or why in the region much less of even a clue too the dungeon as a whole.




yeah. well. we couldn't have predicted that so many people were going to play it end to end

john zinser and i earnestly believed about 5% of the people would use this way
and the rest would pillage the book for ideas.

lastly, the book is modular, so you can move regions around, skip some, or do whatever you want. if you're having trouble with an over-arching plot, or a character driven story, there's plenty of advice on this thread and i'm about to write another post about the plot, so sit back and get comfy



			
				Qwillion said:
			
		

> I can use lantern archons to fill people in but part of the joy of using proffesional off the shelf adventures is not having to do the work myself.




sure... if you want a game that is in no way tailored to your style or the player's style

this is why published modules don't sell well. the hook is bad, or the themes don't fit your campaign, or the writer made a "pull by the nose" adventure and your PCs are vehemently opposed to those kinds of tricks.

i've never purchased an adventure that i didn't have to tweak, but if an adventure has solid combat tactics, there's no reason to change those... hence my comment about what is solid about the book.

okay, now i'm just soap-boxing and i hate doing that.

let me finish with this... i took everything bad i'd ever seen in dungeon crawl books and threw them away.

i read undermountain, dragon mountain, temple of elemental evil, and ruins of myth drannor

i looked at all the bad... the lack of organization, the failure to template anything, the inability of the writers to make even the smallest rooms interesting unless they were inspired, and in the case of dragon mountain, the inability to even fill the rooms.

i looked at all the good... lots of flavor, great villains, room after room of monsters, etc.

yes... combat in 3.5 is slow, but we wanted to capture that keep on the borderlands feeling of killing orcs in one room and going next door to kill more orcs.

without ignoring the fact that monsters next door to one another might be able to hear through the walls.





			
				Qwillion said:
			
		

> 5. value. $.06 per encounter. enough said?
> 
> Yes, it is an excellent value.  I still think it is the second best adventure I have ever puchased. (sorry I have run Return to the Tomb of Horrors, and untill I run this that will still be my favorite)




haven't read it... is it that good? did you ever read my rant in shadis magazine about the original? oh man did it stink... i can't believe its a classic.



			
				Qwillion said:
			
		

> I do have to question that 5% of those encounters are exaclty the same,  be they fiendish darkmantles or horde skeletons.  Would a fiendish baboon rather than a darkmantle have been so much worse?




no .. just silly 

much like a dire badger... 



			
				Qwillion said:
			
		

> Is there a list of monsters that were not used in the book? (excluding displacer beasts, beholders, sahaugin, githyanki, githzari, slaad, Illithid, Yuan-ti etc..)




we used every MONSTER from the SRD... since those creatures you mentioned are not in the SRD, we did not use them... i think you meant to type kuo-toa... sahuagin ARE in the SRD

carrion crawlers, umber hulks, and your list are product identity copyright to wizards of the coast.

we didn't touch those.

ick.


----------



## Demonix

Just to go off on a tangent - I've just started a comedy thread over at the www.rpgmp3.com forums called "101 Uses For The Worlds Largest Dungeon Book".  Please join in and help us get to 101 uses!


----------



## Qwillion

I finished handout #2 based on Jim Pinto's kind answer to the question of how the titan Breyes died. 

http://www.callofthehorn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=166
post #2

Yes a fiendish baboon may be silly, but a baboon can be put to very good use, A excellent example is the movie The Ghost and the Darkness.

"we used every MONSTER from the SRD... since those creatures you mentioned are not in the SRD, we did not use them... i think you meant to type kuo-toa... sahuagin ARE in the SRD"

Very true ment kuo-toa. 

However, you weasle worded it that one dinosaur covers all dinos.  I am just trying to get a list of the sub catagory monsters you did not use. What Dinosaurs, Celestials, Giants, Dragons, Devils, Demons, Fiends, Animals and Vermin did not make the cut.

I am going to try to find a place in the dungeon for the non-licenced creatures in the dungeon and the sub catagory monsters. (I have the book of templetes and the advanced bestiary so I am sure I can shrink some down to size to fit in the dungeon some place)

Return to the Tomb of Horrors. 
The return is Bruce R Cordell's masterpiece. It has story, action, role-play, puzzles, themes, hooks, leads and it just goes on.  The only weakness I have found is that players can ignore the initial plot hook if they wish, but Bruce makes the hook a mystery, drawing the players in with natural curiosity. It's subtle and methodical, pick up a used copy and read it.

"sure... if you want a game that is in no way tailored to your style or the player's style"

Tweaking a adventure is one thing, but rewriting is another.  I understand the idea of making something cool first but then you are supposed to go back and make sense of it.

-Having to rewrite what an average intellegent creature knows as to why he is marching out to the middle of nowhere?  Even if he gets it completely wrong he should have some idea. 
-Why there is no logical reason for a one way opaque wall of force is in an obscure section of the dungeon but the doors work fine for no reason other than playability. (oh wait it's magic, well then who created the magic and for what purpose) it's cool but again no one bothered to make sense of it.
-Having to rewrite how xp is awarded rather than the adventure being written with the rules in mind (It goes without saying that if the xp awarded in a section by CR is wrong then the tresure awarded by CR is going to be wrong too but this is not addressed and I can only hope the amount of treasure per section is correct for the suggested wealth of character at level x)
-Being told that druids only work in forests rather than sugessting the idea of using Gray Druids. 
-Being told to not allow basic spells rather than actually having the monsters in the dungeons, rather than adapting monsters to their use or even adapting the dungeon to thier use.  Heck I would rather have seen sections of the dungeon where certain spells failed to work than being told as a GM to tell a sorcerer he can't have the spell. (yes a gm's job is to say no, but it's designers job to design with the rules of the game in mind. )
-Dealing with the prescense of wizards by saying they get hosed and suggesting a core class not be used , rather than having the dungeon provide caches of scrolls, a reclusive wizard mentor who just wants to do his resarch but loves to trade spells, providing a single new spell (I mean you could have refrenced a AEG book and stated a subsitute if you don't have that book. heck the suggested spell could have been in a web enchancement.)
-I agree with the idea of not having children around to slaughter, it's cool, but again you fail to address the logic of it. We dont' want children! Ok, so the dungeon prevents breeding makes sense. but we have poplulation problem then.  The dungeon does not let a  creature die of old age, disease and minor injury can be dealt with by a few low to medium level clerics in a single section.  And the major population that revitalizes it when it dwindles can come from outside sources like the derro and the elves.  It may not be perfect but you at least attempt to have some suspension of disbelief.

I tweak adventures without thinking about it, I am an opinonated fellow.  My style is probably radically different from others. If I have a bad day, or I don't have time to do the extra work I want to be able to run it as is and make those changes on the fly. 

Looking back at this I feel like I am going all negative again. 

So I will talk about some things it does well.

-Encounter conditions: this section inspireed me to come up with encoutner conditions of my own. 
-Room layouts: I like it so much I will probably write any room I ever create in this format and wish the industry as a whole would follow it.
-Scaling: what is really excellent about this is that the scaling is always some thing that you can do on the fly, it's not add a template or advance the creature to HD X.
-Story by region: Other than Region A every story in the dungeon is original and very dramaitc.  
-Role-play: I love that monsters will sit down and have a chat with you, they are treated with having the intelligence they possess. 
-Action: not all of the action in the dungeon comes down to combat, I like the idea of chase sceens and leaping over rivers of lava etc...
-3 years of gaming: I will have a ready to play game for the next three years that I can spend my time tweaking, cheering, and complaining about 

I would not be complaining if i did not care so much


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> *cackles*
> 
> BBR, let me know if you have any questions.  I have some 'cut' material (not much, mind) from I I keep meaning to send out for posting, but the fellow who originally asked hasn't dropped me a line.  In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing accounts of the first group to reach the Halls of Flesh...




I'll take whatever extra info you're willing to throw at me (figuratively or literally - your choice).

From the little I've read, It's going to be a slimy & nasty place. A place where dried out Jello flops off the wall if disturbed & the floors are coated with a variety of bubbling muck, slime, and that stuff my wife made for dinner yesterday. A constant stream of disgusting creatures lurk in the passages waiting for a convenient meal.

...I think it had lemon & chicken in it...


----------



## blindrage

I'm starting this monster in a few weeks set in Eberron.  Any advice?  I'm changing very little as possible.  Just fixing so make sense in Eberron. Help!


----------



## JamesL85

Jim Hague said:


> I have some 'cut' material (not much, mind) from I I keep meaning to send out for posting, but the fellow who originally asked hasn't dropped me a line.




I'd LOVE to see the "cut" material, and would be more than happy to post it on my site with the additional WLD material I've collected.....

The link to the page is here for those that are new here.

You can e-mail the file(s) to the address linked at the bottom of the page, and I DO appreciate it.....

James


----------



## CrimsonScribe

I just had it pointed out to me tonight by a friend, but Region N is missing the encounter text for rooms N50-N53 (I think).

Has this been brought up before?


----------



## twistedoliver

*Errate*

CS,

I think that you are correct in that the encounters are missing from rooms N5--N53. I will  put this in the errata forum that is on the AEG forums..

http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=57

I am starting to list the errata that I and others find.


----------



## Jim Hague

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I'll take whatever extra info you're willing to throw at me (figuratively or literally - your choice).
> 
> From the little I've read, It's going to be a slimy & nasty place. A place where dried out Jello flops off the wall if disturbed & the floors are coated with a variety of bubbling muck, slime, and that stuff my wife made for dinner yesterday. A constant stream of disgusting creatures lurk in the passages waiting for a convenient meal.
> 
> ...I think it had lemon & chicken in it...




Partially, but I took more than a few pages from Lovecraft and Howard when writing up I - specifically, the themes of magic corrupts and disease.  Unnatural vigor.

Region I is a sick place; it is diseased.  From the random bits of flesh that scream or crawl along the walls, to the existence of Madness and Anguish, everything in I is hideously, unnaturally _alive_.  As a Region, it doesn't consciously hate, but malevolence powered by some very nasty sorcery has transformed the Region into what could almost be a living thing; the literal belly of the beast.  Aside from the obvious physical dangers involved, there's a very good reason that undead don't venture into I - the positive energy coursing through the place is anathema...and unlike the positive energy PCs are likely to be used to, it's entirely out of control, dangerous at its best and deadly at its worst.

Just as importantly, I is a Region in absolute chaos, in decay even as it constantly regenerates itself.  Insanity is the order of the day -  a particularly nasty GM could, for example, twist the corridors around a bit, as the Halls of Flesh reshape themselves.  Say, during the PCs' flight from some threat or another.

I'll do some digging, and see if I can find a creature I cut myself from the write-up - a sort of anti-undead, a corpse animated purely by the rampant positive energy of the Halls, akin to the 'runner' zombies of the new _Dawn of the Dead_.

Another suggestion, since I'm thinking on it - when Arioch appears, just have him seem to have two arms.  It helps maintain the fun and mystery a bit better.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Partially, but I took more than a few pages from Lovecraft and Howard when writing up I - specifically, the themes of magic corrupts and disease.  Unnatural vigor.
> 
> Region I is a sick place; it is diseased.  From the random bits of flesh that scream or crawl along the walls, to the existence of Madness and Anguish, everything in I is hideously, unnaturally _alive_.  As a Region, it doesn't consciously hate, but malevolence powered by some very nasty sorcery has transformed the Region into what could almost be a living thing; the literal belly of the beast.  Aside from the obvious physical dangers involved, there's a very good reason that undead don't venture into I - the positive energy coursing through the place is anathema...and unlike the positive energy PCs are likely to be used to, it's entirely out of control, dangerous at its best and deadly at its worst.
> 
> Just as importantly, I is a Region in absolute chaos, in decay even as it constantly regenerates itself.  Insanity is the order of the day -  a particularly nasty GM could, for example, twist the corridors around a bit, as the Halls of Flesh reshape themselves.  Say, during the PCs' flight from some threat or another.




Ok, so I take the life giving bits from the Positive Plane, the evil auras remaining in the place from the original prisoners, a huge chunk of sorcerous based chaos, and a hefty helping of 1980's gore movies and you got Region I.

Oh yeah, this is gonna be deliciously fun.   

I've got to do this just right. This group will have no problem with backtracking and exploring region F instead.


----------



## primarchone

*Question regarding level B*

Hi!

Look at the map from level B it seems that rooms B109 through B136 are only accessible by exiting to map C and then re-entering Map B, since the gate close to room B37 effectively block direct access. I assume this gate opens as the one down the corridor south from room B 118?

Is this perception correct?

Are there other map areas like this?

Any help appreciated.

Primarchone


----------



## jim pinto

primarchone said:
			
		

> Hi!
> 
> Look at the map from level B it seems that rooms B109 through B136 are only accessible by exiting to map C and then re-entering Map B, since the gate close to room B37 effectively block direct access. I assume this gate opens as the one down the corridor south from room B 118?
> 
> Is this perception correct?
> 
> Are there other map areas like this?
> 
> Any help appreciated.
> 
> Primarchone




there are dozens of ways for the DM to allow those gates to open

spells that will move the levers? goblin guards on duty? or passing through?

or just ignore them completely and/or have them slam down BEHIND the PCs as they pass


----------



## primarchone

jim pinto said:
			
		

> there are dozens of ways for the DM to allow those gates to open
> 
> spells that will move the levers? goblin guards on duty? or passing through?
> 
> or just ignore them completely and/or have them slam down BEHIND the PCs as they pass




While I understand I can modify such area, but I was wondering what was the intention of such obstacles originally? Were they originally intended to cutoff such areas and make them hard to access?

Just curious.

Primarchone


----------



## hitomikitage

It is a great way to keep your players from getting in over their heads.  If they aren't ready to face the ghoul paladins in the large circular room (especially considering they will probably be ambushed by them) then these gates should stay closed.  One of my players had their character killed in that region, and another 2 hit negative numbers.  And this was a group that was 4th-5th level and comprised 9 people.  On top of that, it is an area patrolled by the rebel goblin faction.  These gates are good ways to keep the goblin king's minions out of their territory.

Thanks,
Howard


----------



## twofalls

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> *cackles*
> 
> BBR, let me know if you have any questions.  I have some 'cut' material (not much, mind) from I I keep meaning to send out for posting, but the fellow who originally asked hasn't dropped me a line.  In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing accounts of the first group to reach the Halls of Flesh...





As a matter of fact I've emailed you for the material twice. Huh. You haven't recieved either obviously. Please email me at jamesbeadle@sanguinesentinels.com so I can request the material back to the correct email address.

Strange, our first set of communications went through correctly...


----------



## The Horror

primarchone said:
			
		

> Look at the map from level B it seems that rooms B109 through B136 are only accessible by exiting to map C and then re-entering Map B, since the gate close to room B37 effectively block direct access. I assume this gate opens as the one down the corridor south from room B 118?




I actually wasn't so worried about the gates but more the fact that all goblins on a pilgramage would have to travel through B111.  Makes absolutely no sense as they would get carved up by the undead paladins, and they can't go around since the rebels occupy the southermost rooms leading to region C.  

To fix that little problem I added in a secret passage from the corridor outside B28 leading into B124, though I still made sure my players went through B111 for the big encounter.

There have been a few other maps where things just didn't seem to make sense either.  Can't remember which ones right now, but I'm sure it will come to me.  


The Horror


----------



## The Horror

Ok, here is a quick update on the first session of my player group in region I.  

They moved north from region E through the westernmost ward.  Their mission is to disrupt the Drider control over the drow and ensure the Celestials to the south will have an easy time cleaning up the Halls.  The flesh walls freaked them out a bit, but they steadily pushed on north along the far western edge of the map.  Lo and behold, they walk into the lair of Anguish.  

Thankfully, the ranger was wielding a +2 holy greatsword they had found in the previous region, and managed with it to avoid a complete disaster.  Anguish was put down and burned.  From there they moved desperately through a corridor with burning hands vents, and made contact with a group of four scared drow.  They told the drow they were there to free them from slavery, so Lorath was promptly fetched from around the corner and gladly acceted their help.  From him they found out what they had to do in the region:

1) Kill Lorath's brother.
2) Locate Mahir's lost cache and uncover the Ritual of the Unmaking.
3) Possibly recover the Seven Strikes Fang.
4) Contact Sighlinde.
5) Avoid the Green Death (though the PCs plan to deal with it).

They were very happy with all this information, and backed off into region E.  From there they moved up another entrance to I making straight for Sighlinde's lair.  That's when they stumbled into the room with 10 cloakers in it and almost got completely wiped out.  The thief went down into negatives, and the wizards were only saved by a cure light wounds wand and desperate moves by the fighters (including many AOO).  The necromancer had to resort to cutting off another two fingers in that encounter...  

So overall they are loving this region.  They are enjoying it a lot more than the shadows they encountered at the beginning of the last region, though that may come to pass when they have to face Madness itself.  


The Horror


----------



## ShadowDenizen

Session 2 last night.  The group is still in Region A, and will be for at least a few more sessions.

This session really went well: we added a new PC (via the Lantern Archon), a 1st Level Monk.
The party was hit hard by the various traps and ability losses. (They got especially nailed by the finedish stirges in Room A18, and by various diseases from the Orcs storage area, as well as falling prey to the Burning Hands and Acid Arrow trap.)

The highlight was the confronation with Bragdor the Ogre.  Bragdor got the drop on the Dwarven Cleric as he bent over by the pool, but completely whiffed wiht his great-club.  The Monk was not so lucky, as she got _pasted_ by Bragdor in the next round.  The tables turned when the Halfling Dog-Rider tagged Bragdor hard with his lance...  I was a little concerned at that point, because the battle could have gone either way, and I didn't want to kill anyone this early...

Fortunately, the thief of all people decided to parlay.  Bragdor, being wounded, was amenable to that, and so any casualties were avoided.  I played Bragdor off as a bit of a bully: when he has the advantage, he's cruel and vicious, and when he doesn't, he comes off as a bit more of a lovable puppy-dog type.

So, I'm pleased that the PC's are beginning to grasp the implications of this region now: they realize there's a schism between the species, they realize that someone was orchestrating the tribes' cohesion, but now that someone is MIA, and they realize that many of the monsters are being summoned via some sort of gate-mechanism.

Additionally, I think I may insert the first "Level Up Room" within the next session or two.


----------



## Demonix

Just a heads up...

The guys over at RPGmp3.com have just released Session 14 of their WLD review.  I've started to create Session notes with sound bites and other interesting stuff .  You can access these from the main page. 

Enjoy.


----------



## DemonGnome

*Region N*

I have a couple questions about Region N, which we just started last week:

1. Is it possible to get the room descriptions for rooms N50, N51 & N52 online somewhere as they are missing entirely from the book. (See Pages 700-701)

2. As for the new Horde subtype, were the stats generated using a particular method? or simply numbers chosen to fit a basic guideline? As it stands the subtype description has a few issues with it as do a few of the hordes themselves. For example, the table for Horde Attack Damage is based off horde hitdice, but as a horde has a minimum of 30 creatures in it and a minimum of 1 hit die per creature, then the minimum horde has 30 hit dice. So why the table entries for 1-10 and 11-20?  I have more questions about hordes, but just thought I'd astart there.


----------



## jtone

*Region J Question*

I dropped my group straight into Region J (they weren't interested in a protracted dungeon crawl, so I'll be using the WLD piecemeal).  A fair number of the encounters in the Third Ring take place with Extreme Heat as the condition.  Is this Extreme Heat as per the SRD/DMG or is it very hot or severe heat?  If it's Extreme Heat they're going to have to run through this region at top speed (with the party tank dragging his armor or something).  I assume that after three rounds, he would continue to take damage as from round 3-5 of the Heat Metal spell until he takes his armor off or gets to someplace cool?  

I haven't done much with environmental conditions, so this will be something new for my party.  If it goes well, I may grab some more of the encounter conditions for use here and there in other places.

FROM SRD: Extreme heat (air temperature over 140° F, fire, boiling water, lava) deals lethal damage. Breathing air in these temperatures deals 1d6 points of damage per minute (no save). In addition, a character must make a Fortitude save every 5 minutes (DC 15, +1 per previous check) or take 1d4 points of nonlethal damage. Those wearing heavy clothing or any sort of armor take a –4 penalty on their saves. In addition, those wearing metal armor or coming into contact with very hot metal are affected as if by a heat metal spell.

Heat Metal Spell effects:
Rnd      Temp.         Dmg.
1  	  Warm  	None
2         Hot 	         1d4 points
3–5 	 Searing       2d4 points​


----------



## jtone

*Another Region J Question - J72*

The descriptive text for J72 seems to imply 2 passages into Tyrus' cell.  However, the map only shows 1 (via region N).  Where is the tunnel described in the text?  I'm thinking of running it from the lava, though other possibilities would be J71, J25, and north of J24.  Any suggestions?


----------



## Jim Hague

twofalls said:
			
		

> As a matter of fact I've emailed you for the material twice. Huh. You haven't recieved either obviously. Please email me at jamesbeadle@sanguinesentinels.com so I can request the material back to the correct email address.
> 
> Strange, our first set of communications went through correctly...




I'll be sending you what info I've got later on today.  Apologies for losing the original mails - got to love those system crashes.

The Horror - Glad to hear your players are enjoying I!  That gives me the warm squishies.  Let us all know how that turns out...


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> The Horror - Glad to hear your players are enjoying I!  That gives me the warm squishies.  Let us all know how that turns out...




To see some more of the ickiness of region I, goto http://cincidnd.blogspot.com/  and check out Session #14.

So far the party is slightly grossed out. But then again, I started off a little light.
I think I did the region justice with room I7. And I'm not done yet.


----------



## subrosas

*Just started up*

Hi, I started running WLD just after the new year with a party of four: Dwarven Fighter, Dwarven Wizard, Tiefling Rogue, and Half Orc Cleric. I've been using power ups in place of experience, as well as some other house rules:

1. Since levels come from exploring, not accomplishing things, I reward great deeds with "Fate Points" - a fate point can be substituted for any die roll and equals the best roll possible. 

2. Also, in order to raise dead, the party must spend one fate point per level of the deceased in addition to a spell being cast and the raised character loses no level. Fate points are rewarded for things like closing the portal in section A, or finding the lost charter in section E.

3. Gold can be substituted for experience spent to create magic items.

4. The first round of replacement characters are made by the players per the ordinary rules. After that they must find allies and any replacements must come from those allies.

Until last session things went well. They were eager to explore, and generally played smart. Then they reached the dogs in Section E. For whatver reason, they refused to leave well enough alone, and assaulted the dogs four times, each time nearly ending in disaster and a close shave with death. The final assault actually did leave the cleric dead. Plus we're actually using food rules, and the party has finally run out of rations as of their last assault on the dogs, and are planning on shadow mastiff for dinner, should they escape their current predicament.

If you're interested, we're blogging our sessions at http://infimicarceri.blogspot.com/


----------



## Old_Man_Fish

*Just Strarted.*

Just started this one on sunday....got about 4 hours of game time in (we didn't get to play as long as normal as we were waiting on some of the players to show up).  Got through A1, 2, 7, 21, 8, 9, 10, 11, 20, 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 14, 13, 15, 19, 16, 17 and 18.  Not to bad, but the players did seem a bit daunted when they examined the players map and then did some meta game thinking to try to figure out how much time it might take them to get through the dungeon.  I tried to explain that we would probably not go through every room but maybe that's not the case as they are taking care to go through as much of the first section as they can- Room by Room.  Who knows, maybe we'll be the first group to actually get through every room in the entire dungeon.

Only problem the group has had so far really was getting hit by the acid arrow trap (without moving off of the presure plate) and getting jumped by the two darkmantles from 15 while sitting outside of 13 arguing with each other.

Greatly enjoyed the adventure so far.  Next session I think I'll begin using the encounter conditions every other encounter or so and see how that works. The only alteration I'm planning on makeing thus far is that I'm almost certainly going to replace some of the darkmantles, rats and rat swarms as they are already getting repetitive.  And I also added the Lantern archon as a source of information (Infernal incursion...and handed out the player map).

Thanks for the great material ...


----------



## terrainmonkey

Okay, so i got this last year, and have been running a party through it since. 8 hours a week and we're still only in area F. This has got to be the longest dungeon in the world, but my players are having a ball with it. When i told them i got it, they were excited. Thanks Mr. Pinto, for a year's worth of adventure and excitement. You guys did a good job!      I haven't had to take time prepping an adventure since i picked this thing up (yes, i used a forklift) lol. anyway, just thought i would let you know, if you were keeping an eye on the forums here.


----------



## Jim Hague

Good news, everyone!

Pelvo, one of the good guys over at RPG.net has completed the Herculean task of compiling an index of the WLD, at least as far as monsters and NPCs go.  It's an awesome piece of work, and I'm encouraging him to make it freely available - it's an incredible resource for everyone running the WLD.

As an aside (before he posts here), what Pelvo's done is easily equal to the contribution that the many writers and editiors of the WLD contributed to the project.  Pelvo deserves more than kudos, he deserves a reward...any ideas from folks?


----------



## jtone

What would Pelvo like?  For a good index, I'd happily pay $5-10 through Paypal or some such.  If he wants recognition, I'd be more than willing to post links to his site, or help host the file, or just say thanks.


----------



## Jim Hague

I have no idea what Pelvo'd like.   This is more a recognition of the hard work that's gone into the WLD Index.  I've also referred him to The Other jim (pinto), but I think a nice huzzah and something keen would be neat.


----------



## DaveMage

Maybe *he* gets to have a World's Largest Dungeon t-shirt.


----------



## jim pinto

*pelvo? really?*



			
				DaveMage said:
			
		

> Maybe *he* gets to have a World's Largest Dungeon t-shirt.




yeah

we can get him a shirt

and maybe even make the index pretty and pdf it

can someone send me the text?

also... is his name really, pelvo?

because we could name a thief in the WLC, pelvo


----------



## jtone

Here's the link to the WLD index Pevlo WLD Index


----------



## Qwillion

Ok now that I have an index.... 

I am going to see about going through it and finding which of the subtypes of mosnters the book does not contain.  Example dinosaur covers all dinos. I am just trying to get a list of the sub catagory monsters you did not use. I should be able to determine which Dinosaurs, Celestials, Giants, Dragons, Devils, Demons, Fiends, Animals and Vermin did not make the cut.  

I know of a template or three that actually lower the CR of a creature (bygone from legends of avendu, Feral Dragon from Advanced Bestiary, I am at work I will have to look for more), once I start replacing creature in section A, I will try to post them someplace. 

Unless someone already has a list like this


----------



## BlueBlackRed

> AEG should also be aware that if they are unhappy with anything here, I will happilly fold like a paper cup if they so much as breathe at me.




Can't help but think he's half-serious with that comment. Ah, the litigious society and the fear it generates.


----------



## pelvo

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Can't help but think he's half-serious with that comment. Ah, the litigious society and the fear it generates.




Fear?  Not really, I live in Australia and am well aware that doing anything beyond sending me cease and desists and getting me kicked off my ISP is far too much trouble.  It was more a nod to AEG that I was trying to help and was open to changes and not some dirty treacher flinging thier IP onto computer screens like a monkey flings poo at a zoo keeper.

Jim Pinto: I sent the docs to you as well, the only other format I have it in is the raw spreadsheet I used if that'll help, also my name is not pelvo, but seeing a rogue named pelvo would ensure I bought the WLC... especially if he was kobold.


----------



## pheaver

My group is almost done with Region A, and is level 2-3.  When they started, they were working their way east.  Once they found the "stirge room" and the orc lair fight, they decided that the dungeon level gets harder as they go east.  So they went back to the beginning and started north.  They wandered a little too far north, entering Region E.  After killing a bunch of the vermin, and thinking maybe it gets harder as you go north too, they run into Doj's room.  He takes them to the garrison, introduces them around, and the garrison explains some of their threats and how the PCs can help.  They also explain there are no stairs down: the entire dungeon is one level.

At the mention of shadows, barghests, and shadow mastiffs, they are sure they've gone too far north.  "So uh, we'll just help you out by finding the source of all the fiendish animals to the south, and keep them off of your southern flank.  Then once we're sure that's done, we might come back."

The celestials also showed them Region I through the north doors.  At the description of the flesh walls, they decided their foray into section E was over, and ran back to A.  It was funny, although I'm really happy they didn't just wander into any of the tough fights before hitting the garrison.

I was totally unprepared for them just opening doors and moving out of Region.  But it turned out for the best, as I got to introduce the plot of E (eladrin vs inevitables, Redeemed) and some backstory.

Paul


----------



## The Horror

pheaver said:
			
		

> I was totally unprepared for them just opening doors and moving out of Region.  But it turned out for the best, as I got to introduce the plot of E (eladrin vs inevitables, Redeemed) and some backstory.




That does sound ok.  Extra buildup is always good.  Sooner or later they are going to have to embrace the horror though, and charge headlong into danger.  That should be quite amusing.



The Horror


----------



## Firebird

*Decrepit Encounter Condition*

Hello All,

Just a quick question. In area A32, it lists one of the encounter conditions as Decrepit. I have been unable to discover what this condition means as it is not on the list of said conditions. Any help would be appreciated greatly as we are officially kicking off the WLD this weekend and I get to DM this monster.


----------



## spectre72

*World's LArgest Dungeon In Blackmoor*

My WLD Campaign set in Blackmoor is oficially starting March 6th.

Wish me luck...

Scott


----------



## BlueBlackRed

spectre72 said:
			
		

> My WLD Campaign set in Blackmoor is oficially starting March 6th.
> 
> Wish me luck...
> 
> Scott




Good luck!


----------



## Slayden

I've Been Gm'ing the WLD  since it came out    I've really enjoyed it thus far 'ive digitized every map and  revamped them for player use.     I've found that with photoshop and a projector navigating the maps is quite easy and and very little hassle for the GM.   My players have so far gone on a very interesting trip from A to E to F to B to C.    My best advice take what the book gives you with a grain of salt and be inventive.


----------



## pelvo

pheaver said:
			
		

> I was totally unprepared for them just opening doors and moving out of Region. But it turned out for the best, as I got to introduce the plot of E (eladrin vs inevitables, Redeemed) and some backstory.
> 
> Paul




Yeah, my group decided they couldnt take on a wererat, went North instead, ran into four shadows, lost a whole lot of strength (I've never seen so many sixes), and almost died in a nearby fire trap (one character did die, but at the cost of all the parties healing potions and one point of wisdom (trauma induced brain damage) she was allowed to continue (I told the players they had one very expensive life if they got killed for no good reason, she's used hers now).

The fireball trap put them up a level though, so they were happy....


----------



## Firebird

*First Session Under Our Belts*

After roughly 9 hours of play, the south western corner of Area A has been mastered and the party has just reached level 2. The kobold wizard and his pet krenshar proved to be a tough challenge, as did some of the groups of fiendish darkmantles and the fiendish rat swarms. What makes things even more interesting is the parties make up and the selection of traits and flaws they took (Coward, Timid, Pathetic) Even a group of 4 kobold warriors was an 8 round fight (Except for the Warforged, Bastion), who gleefully ignored all of the black mold encounters and filth fever and nausea checks in the first few rooms of the dungeon and is the party powerhouse for now. The party consists of:

Halfling Spirit Shaman
Elven Warmage
Warforged Soulknife
Anthropomorphic Lizard Rogue


----------



## Old_Man_Fish

Second Session in the books.  Got about 7 hours of game time in.  
Party consists of:
Korim, Aasimir Paladin 1
Sharulf Dwarvern Rouge 2
Timbull (aka Shield) Dwarvern Fighter 2  
Mendell (aka Poker) Dwarvern Fighter 2  
Andvari Dwarvern Cleric 2
Maxim Gnomish Sorceror 2
Vikadin Dwarvern Barbarian 1/ Cleric 1 (Joined in E1)

One of the players just learned something about fighting phalanx style and is playing two characters...the first "shield" uses a tower shield and lends aid to the fighter behind him, poker stands behind "shield" and pokes around him with polearm

The party continued on from room A18 where they left off a few sundays ago.  Went directly to A22 and made quick work of the Ogre....One sleep spell was all it took.  Damned low saving throws.  When did sleep start affecting non medium humanoids anyway?  3.5 or 3.0?  Not only did they kill him off fairly quickly but the roasted him up, ate him and salted what was left for later.  

While they were preparing the food they had a random encounter with a Fiendish Giant Preying Mantis.  I thought this would be much tougher than it really was, but they handled him without TOO much trouble.

Anyway, they like the bath room and have gone back there a few times now.  next they moved on to A23 and did not do anything with the illusions at all.  They went to A24 and one of the dwarvern fighters decided he didn't like the silence so he broke down on of the pillars causing the spell to fail.  The loud crash of the pillar breaking and falling to the ground brought on another random encounter.... 3 Fiendish Dire Weasles.  Sleep took one out of the fight before it started.  Man, that bloodsucking ability is neat.  got a few of the party members down a few con anyway.  

Next they moved up the passageway to the north and quickly took out rooms A25, 26, 27 and 28.  Turag held the door for a second.  The party stepped back and the sorceror cast another sleep spell heard a thump of body hitting the ground, opened the door and took out the filthy EVIL orc.  

Anyone else having an issue with PALADINS detect evil?  well, not really a problem par se, but they sure just kick the door open and the paladin can tell if anyone is waiting in the room to jump them.  

From A28 they move onwards to the northwestern most hallway of region A and find the secret door.  The party moves on to region E (I hadn't read ahead) and since none of the party is evil E1 doesn't really effect them (matter of fact they found the trap. failed at disarming it but didn't blow up and one of the players mentioned maybe it only worked against evil...the other players laughed).  next they hit up E2 without to terribly much trouble (biggest thing was taking off their armor to make climb checks) and then to E90 where the fight took about an hour of real time.  Those bugs were nasty.  Didn't drop or kill anyone although a few people got hurt semi-seriously....only two of them took ability damage though.  they next moved to E92 and were about to turn back when they saw the fallen angel...which didn't interest them so much but they also saw the spear....  Which is one of the dwarves weapons of choice.  they detected it as magic and went in even though they suspected a trap of some sort.  They still probably would have done ok except for the cleric/barbarian lost his damn mind and decided that he was all powerful and charged in between three of the scorpions and was quickly ripped to shreds.  the rest of the party continued on methodically and grabbed the spear.  

At this point they decided that the first region was safer and they made their way back down to the long hall and headed into A30, and up to A31.  At this point one of the players wanted to just gloss over this fight saying that drawing up every battle was slowing us down too much....well, after I drew it up anyway they are now much more fearful of the stirges.  Every one of them took con Damage with a few people taking 8 points and the rest averaging about 3.  They holed up in the stirge room for a few days, not enough to heal all the con damage though because they are running low on food.  Afterwards they made quick work of rooms A37, 38, 39, 40 (found the shortsword), 41, 42, 43 and 44.

I've been doing experience by EL instead of the CR of each creature and they have still managed to get to Level 3 now.  Not really a problem, but all of the fights in the first region are now going to be a bit underpowered....Hopefully they continue on their current path and are able to deal with longtail and the portal in the next encounter or two so that they can make their way up and on to one of the other regions....of course I would like them to find the healing/permanent resistance rooms but I don't think that that will happen at this point. Ah well.

Thanks again for the great material...


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Old_Man_Fish said:
			
		

> Anyone else having an issue with PALADINS detect evil?  well, not really a problem par se, but they sure just kick the door open and the paladin can tell if anyone is waiting in the room to jump them.




I hated the Detect Evil ability for awhile. But after a few sessions I realized it saved the group from more than one TPK.

Eventually the paladin fell to the barghests in region E, but Detect Evil is also a 1st level cleric spell. So now each of the two clerics in the party take one per day.

I've nerfed Detect Evil in region I. I'm having all the fleshy walls project faint evil. Now Detect Evil shows faint evil everywhere so basically it only works for more powerful evils.


----------



## soggybag

*Ring of Warmth and other magic*

I have been running the WLD for a few months now. Things are going well. THe players have only made it to area B. But there was a huge battle with the goblins that went on for two sessions. 

On the way the players found a Ring Of Warmth. I can not find this in the DMG. Is there a description of this item some where? Should I just make it up?

In general there seems to be a low level of magic items, and some of the magic is not useful to the party in the setting. For example the Headband of Intellect is useful for Wizards but wizards are not recommended for the Dungeon for lack of spell books. How are the rest of you treating magic items? I had been going by the book so far. Though I am considering converting the Headband to +2 charisma so as to make it useful.


----------



## Old_Man_Fish

[SIZE=-1]
"I hated the Detect Evil ability for awhile. But after a few sessions I realized it saved the group from more than one TPK.

Eventually the paladin fell to the barghests in region E, but Detect Evil is also a 1st level cleric spell. So now each of the two clerics in the party take one per day.

I've nerfed Detect Evil in region I. I'm having all the fleshy walls project faint evil. Now Detect Evil shows faint evil everywhere so basically it only works for more powerful evils."
[/SIZE]

Yeah, I'd have to say that I don't really mind it par se.  It is just taking awhile to get used to.  Especially since the group I play with usually will have nothing to do with paladins.  It has ended up saving them much heartache, and, in reality I always try to convince them to do things the smart way.  So I shouldn't be at all aggitated by their method of check door for traps, kick door open, scan for evil, bombard said evil with thrown items and/or sleep spells until it trys to charge them or run away, Kill the evil. 


[SIZE=-1]"I have been running the WLD for a few months now. Things are going well. THe players have only made it to area B. But there was a huge battle with the goblins that went on for two sessions.

On the way the players found a Ring Of Warmth. I can not find this in the DMG. Is there a description of this item some where? Should I just make it up?

In general there seems to be a low level of magic items, and some of the magic is not useful to the party in the setting. For example the Headband of Intellect is useful for Wizards but wizards are not recommended for the Dungeon for lack of spell books. How are the rest of you treating magic items? I had been going by the book so far. Though I am considering converting the Headband to +2 charisma so as to make it useful"
[/SIZE]

I've noticed the somewhat low amount of magic in the first area.  This would be made up for in the two resistance rooms....However, my party has managed to avoid every magic item except for the shortsword in A40 and the Feather Token in A25.  They did, however, venture up to E92 just long enough to grab the +1 holy spear.

Ring of warmth is explained earlier in this thread by CrimsonScribe -- The "Ring of Warmth" isn't actually in the 3.5 Dungeon Masters guide. The most recent place I can find it is the 3.0 DMG. It has a continual effect of Endure Elements (Cold) - that is negating 5 points of cold damage to the wearer per round.

i don't think i would convert the headband to charisma....the headband does help out in a number of skill checks and whatnot.  Besides, The party will get more magic as they continue onwards.


----------



## jim pinto

*swamped*



			
				soggybag said:
			
		

> I have been running the WLD for a few months now. Things are going well. THe players have only made it to area B. But there was a huge battle with the goblins that went on for two sessions.
> 
> On the way the players found a Ring Of Warmth. I can not find this in the DMG. Is there a description of this item some where? Should I just make it up?
> 
> In general there seems to be a low level of magic items, and some of the magic is not useful to the party in the setting. For example the Headband of Intellect is useful for Wizards but wizards are not recommended for the Dungeon for lack of spell books. How are the rest of you treating magic items? I had been going by the book so far. Though I am considering converting the Headband to +2 charisma so as to make it useful.




my apologizes for my silence. i've been swamped and it won't be ending soon. but its after hours and i thought i'd stick my head in.

ring of warmth = ring of minor energy resistence (cold).... boring new name, but hey

decrepit = haunted... sorry... last minute name change. must have missed one.

pretty index in pdf format in about 2 weeks... sorry for the delay

any other questions i'm missing?


----------



## pelvo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> my apologizes for my silence. i've been swamped and it won't be ending soon. but its after hours and i thought i'd stick my head in.
> 
> ring of warmth = ring of minor energy resistence (cold).... boring new name, but hey
> 
> decrepit = haunted... sorry... last minute name change. must have missed one.
> 
> pretty index in pdf format in about 2 weeks... sorry for the delay
> 
> any other questions i'm missing?




Provided you got my e-mail about the error check revision of the index, no.


----------



## jtone

jim pinto said:
			
		

> any other questions i'm missing?




The descriptive text in J72 seems to imply that there are two tunnels.  The map only shows one (via Region N).  Where is the second tunnel?


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## jim pinto

jtone said:
			
		

> The descriptive text in J72 seems to imply that there are two tunnels.  The map only shows one (via Region N).  Where is the second tunnel?




the text is wrong

there is only one

sorry for the confusion... although if the ogre mage leader of the azers completes his journey, there is one in the floor.


----------



## DemonGnome

Just an update on my current campaign. The current group has so far made it thru Regions A, B, C, I, and part of M and are now well into Region N. For the most part their primary tanks (Dwarven Defender and Huge Earth Elemental) have managed to handle most fights without too much serious risk. That is until they encountered Pure Vice (which they set loose even after 5 rounds of warning signs) which proceeded to pound the hell out of them. both the dwarf and elemental have well over 100 hp (the elemental has about 200 actually) and after a couple rounds they were almost dead. The Defender lasted one round before needing a heal from the cleric cast (which didn't even repair all the damage done) and after a couple blade barriers spent the next few rounds downing potions. One nasty tactic Pure Vice used (essentially a marilith in stats) was to remain in the room it spawned in, while the adventurers were in the next room out of sight, and to project image into their room and use its linked sight to throw blade barriers aorund. Also one of the players who was killed in Region N two weeks ago has returned, albeit now undead (Necropolitan Template from Libris Mortis. Essentially all the pros and cons of being undead without a bunch of unusual special abilities and no ECL adjustment as it replaces the level lost due to death). Which will be the result of most who are killed while in region N.



As for my previous post on horde issues, I found a solution for the skeletal hordes at least. The skeletal hordes dont measure up to their challenge ratings as they are listed IMO and so I replaced the multiple hordes with one Bone Pile, a 23-Headed Hydra Skeleton (essentially a 12 headed Hydra with the Multi-Headed & Skeleton Templates Added)

For those interested, replace the encounters with multiple skeleton hordes with one:

*Bone Pile:* 23-Headed Hydra Skeleton; CR 12; Huge Undead; HD 34d12; hp 221; Init +6; Spd 20 ft.; AC 37 (-2 size, 2 dex, 27 natural), touch 10, flat-footed 34; Base Atk +17; Grp +23; Atk +23 melee (1d10+6, bite); Full Atk +23 melee (1d10+6, 23 bites); Space/Reach: 15’/10’; SA ; SQ DR 5/Bludgeoning, Undead Traits, Immune to Cold; AL NE; SV Fort +11, Ref +13, Will +19; Str 23, Dex 14, Con --, Int --, Wis 10, Cha 1 
Skills and Feats: None; Improved Initiative


----------



## DemonGnome

Oh, if you want another creation, I am trying to come up with similiar CR undead repalcements for the other hordes and this was one of my attempts:

*Advanced Four-Headed Gargoyle Mummy:* CR 15; Large Undead (Augmented); HD 18d12+21; hp 138 Init +5; Spd 30 ft, Fly 60 ft ; AC 20 (-1 size, 1 dex, 10 natural), touch 10, flat-footed 19; Base Atk +18; Grp +32; Atk +27 melee (1d8+10 plus mummy rot, claw); Full Atk +27 melee (1d8+10 plus mummy rot, 2 claws) and +27 melee (2d6+5 plus mummy rot, 4 bites) and +27 melee (2d6+5 plus mummy rot, 4 gores); Space/Reach: 10’/10’; SA Despair (Will DC 19), Mummy Rot (1min, 1d6 con & 1d6 cha, Fort DC 19); SQ DR 10/Magic, DR 5/--, DV 90’, Freeze, Vulnerable fire (+50% Fire Damage); AL CE; SV Fort +6, Ref +14, Will +13; Str 31, Dex 12, Con --, Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 11 
Skills and Feats: hide 15, listen 22, spot 22; Improved Multiattack, Toughness, Improved Natural Attack (Claw), Improved Natural Attack (Bite), Improved Natural Attack (Gore), Improved Toughness, Lightning Reflexes, Improved Initiative, Combat Reflexes


----------



## just__al

*Jumping in*

I'm going to start running this once a month on a saturday for an extended session.  I'm going to start the PC's in Region A but what I'm going to do is let them start at second level but with only 10xp (in case anyone with scribe scroll would like to scribe a few scrolls during chargen).  Then when they hit 3000xp they can level to 3rd level.  I figure it will give them a little survivability.

The other thing I'm considering doing is if any PC gets brought to -10 hp or less I'll set them at "death's door" where they will die in one round unless they are stabilized and they cannot stabalize on their own, they need outside intervention.  It will present extra drama as SOMEBODY has to get to their fallen comrade in the nick of time to save them.  

I cannot wait, one of the players is a good friend who got me into the hobby way back when by running me though the keep on the borderlands.  He hasn't played D&D since early, early, second edition.


----------



## just__al

*Starting Idea...*

I just figured out how I'm going to introduce my players into the dungeon.

I'll tell them when they build their characters to equip themselves for a wilderness trip to a goblin lair.  Then I'm going to have the following happen.

A rogue and his 2 companions will be fighting some feindish gnolls in region A (haven't decided the room yet) and his two companions have fallen to the gnolls and their poisoned blades.  He's also been poisoned but he's still alive, he takes out his summon monster 2 scroll and attempts to summon monsters but botches his UMD.  The players get summoned instead and the rogue looks all confused, upset and frightened, but points at the gnolls and says "get them" the party is compelled to comply and the next round if the gnolls haven't killed the rogue, the secondary damage from the poison takes him.  The gnolls have used all their poison in the battle already so it's a mostly straight up fight.  

This will allow them to jump right in and very quickly establish anything they summon will only remain under their controll for the duration of the spell and doesn't go back from where it came from. Especially since 3 rounds later, if the battle is still going, the compulsion vanishes but they don't.  In fact, I'll actually tell them if the battle ends early, that they still feel like they should be fighting the gnolls for another round or two.


----------



## DemonGnome

That's a cool way to do it. My group found out the hard way about summoning when they used the Bowl of Commanding Water Elementals (which they found earlier) during a fight and found that once it wore off that the elemental was free and not necessarily pleased with being summoned and left behind. They have never used it again since.


----------



## DemonGnome

> The other thing I'm considering doing is if any PC gets brought to -10 hp or less I'll set them at "death's door" where they will die in one round unless they are stabilized and they cannot stabalize on their own, they need outside intervention. It will present extra drama as SOMEBODY has to get to their fallen comrade in the nick of time to save them.




I do the same thing, when someone drops to like -10 or so hp I give the other players 1 round to reach the victim before he dies. The last death we had unfortunately was because the rogue was checking a brazier for traps and while the rest of the group was outside the room for safety he was attacked and killed by a Dread Wraith and died before anyone could reach him in time.


----------



## twofalls

*Index?*

Damn... I step away for a couple of weeks and look what happens... all sorts of gold gets dribbled over the boards. 

Whats the latest on this Index project, is it posted somewhere?

Pelvo, I will place a small wooden Kobald token on my D&D altar right next to CrimsonScribe's (for his wonderful maps) as acknowledgement to you for your contribution to the WLD (just as soon as I get a hold of it).


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## Lasher Dragon

After months of noticing the "World's Largest Dungeon" threads, I finally checked one out (this one) about a week and a half ago. After reading it thoroughly while at work one day I decided I hadda have this. Wow it's nice when you get older and have a decent paying job to be able to throw $100 down and get gaming stuff at the drop of a hat.   

More like at the drop of an anvil - this thing is HUUUUUGE!!!!! I love it. I haven't DM'ed for probably 5 years and to mark my glorious return to the head of the table, I am running this thing start-to-finish, every room, every encounter. My players are so psyched they are all (6 or so of them at the moment) throwing $10-$20 in to help cover the expense. (I'm an impulse buyer, bad habit - as soon as I read this thread I called my FLGS and ordered it for $100).

I do not regret not getting it for $70 or whatever it is though... gotta support my local gaming. Besides as has been said in this thread multiple times, this thing has enough pure material to never run outta things to do for a loooooong time.

I'll be playing it a bit different than most, however. 40 point buy, 1st level, standard starting gold + $4500 gold + a ring of sustenance each. I don't want the tedium of making sure everyone has food & water. I am also designing magic items for each character. They will be sent on a quest to solve this dungeon, and each will be given a specific magic item that only they can use. These magic items take up a slot, which varies by character. Example - the cleric's item is a special holy symbol that takes up a necklace slot. The item will grow in power as the PCs do - every 3 levels their item will increase in power, until it reaches it's pinnacle at 15th level. I haven't set that in stone yet, I may give them some boost at 20th level as well. Everyone's item at 1st  & 2nd levels will give a +1 bonus to AC. (Ranging from Luck bonuses, to Sacred and even Profane) At later levels the magic item will start evincing more character-specific enhancements. I have asked each player what they want their PC to be at 15th level, so I can pre-plan the magic items as much as possible. I'm thinking goggles for the whisper gnome rogue (going for rogue/swashbuckler) that will eventually work as a lens of detection and even low-range blindsight, like 5 or 10 ft. The orc barbarian (going for Eye of Gruumsh) gets a tribal-looking necklace that may eventually boost their movement rate, or allow extra rages/round per rage. For the half-elf fighter (aiming for Spellsword) I gave him a pair of gauntlets... I'm thinking eventually they will perhaps boost his caster level, or act as spell-storing, or increase the # of spells he can put in his sword... not really sure about this one yet. Anyways, if anyone has any advice I'd love to hear it. Whew this is a long post, shows how excited I am to get this ball rolling!!!


----------



## DemonGnome

> I'll be playing it a bit different than most, however. 40 point buy, 1st level, standard starting gold + $4500 gold + a ring of sustenance each. I don't want the tedium of making sure everyone has food & water....




When we first started I used an unusual method for stat generation that essentially gave them stats in the 36-40 point buy range. Then as they died I assigned them stat pools worth less and less points until the last death is down to the final and standard 28 point buy. Of the original characters, only one remains (and even he has died, see above). As for food water I took a hint out of the book. In my game the lack of any need for food & water is a trait of the dungeon itself.


----------



## Sieobahn

So far I have run five sessions, and only a single character of the original group survives. But he has been cursed by the throne in room A52, so the group has decided he is too dangerous (twice he has attacked the healer), and banished him from the group, along with another character that was also cursed.

That throne was great, in the middle of a battle and one character runs away, and the other (a warlock) uses his eldritch blast on the nearest character, who happens to be the healer. Two more battles later, and the cursed pair are tied up, shoved in a room, and had the door spiked shut on them. The warlock is going to murder the other character, and then join up with Longtail. That will be a fun encounter! The couldn't bring themselves to kill him then... will they be able to now...  <evil DM laughter>


----------



## pelvo

twofalls said:
			
		

> Damn... I step away for a couple of weeks and look what happens... all sorts of gold gets dribbled over the boards.
> 
> Whats the latest on this Index project, is it posted somewhere?
> 
> Pelvo, I will place a small wooden Kobald token on my D&D altar right next to CrimsonScribe's (for his wonderful maps) as acknowledgement to you for your contribution to the WLD (just as soon as I get a hold of it).




Errr... thankyou?

My rough (though recently revised) version of the index is available HERE 

But Jim Pinto is working on a pretty, better version.


----------



## spectre72

*World's Largest Dungeon in Blackmoor*

Yesterday was the first session of my campaign.

At the beginning of the session we had a party of 14 Characters enter the dungeon (2 for each player).  This diluted the XP, but the main idea is if a character dies (only one is active each session) then the players replacement is immediately available.  The area around the entrance was explored and base camp was set up in the room hidden by secret doors and just to the east of A2.  

The characters have found a lantern Archon who is there to provide info and they have figured out they are trapped with the exit far away with a ton of evil creatures between them and any chance of escape.  Boy were they a little miffed at that and they were questioning why I was making sure they were keeping track of food and water until they realized they were trapped.

After the setting up of camp we have a swashbuckler, a mage, and 4 fighters exploring the area.

Only one of them has gone negative so far but two of them are diseased.

Battles with Rat swarms and Darkmantles have been the norm, and the rogues in the group do not seem to be able to find any of the traps   

In total we played for 5 hours which included travel from Blackmoor city to the Stoneheart mountains, finding the titan and the cavern, and entering the dungeon and starting to explore.

The party has explored all of the rooms around A2 and have gone a little north toward A15.

Next session in a month...

Scott


----------



## DaveMage

spectre72 said:
			
		

> Yesterday was the first session of my campaign.
> 
> At the beginning of the session we had a party of 14 Characters enter the dungeon (2 for each player).




 

My god...14 characters.  Combat must take an eternity...

Heck, with 14 characters, if I'm the DM, I'd kill of half of them in the first combat for convenience sake!


----------



## spectre72

The extra characters were only really active in the overland trip, and don't worry they will soon be trimmed down a little bit.

I have modified the stirge nest to be a stirge swarm, and the rogues were left behind at camp and we are now using the dwarf trap detection method (stomp everywhere setting off traps)   so one or two of them will get it soon...

And two of the PC's are already diseased.

Yes it was a pain for the first hour or so of the game, but I think they will soon be trimmed down to a good manageable size.

The biggest reason each of them has 2 characters is to allow one of them to get back into play quickly when their character dies.  We only pay once every month or two so down time while waiting for a new PC to show up is a drag.  

And just to be clear each player will now only have 1 active PC per session with the rest in camp resting, healing, ...etc.  If said PC dies then the other one can come out of camp to continue the session.

Scott


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## Old_Man_Fish

*Third Session 03/06/2005* Party Consists of: 
Korim, Aasimir Paladin 2 
Sharulf Dwarvern Rouge 3 
Timbull (aka Shield) Dwarvern Fighter 3   
Mendell (aka Poker) Dwarvern Fighter 3   
Andvari Dwarvern Cleric 3 
Maxim Gnomish Sorcerer 3 
Perkiset Dwarvern Fighter 2/Barbarian 1  (Joined in A80)  

Day 14:  The party started out resting in room A41.  They had been there for one day after looting everything from rooms A42 and A43 with no real ill effects from fighting the rats and fiendish rat swarms.  They decide to go ahead and search A44, finding nothing of interest. they move down around through A45 to A46 where they accidently set off the burning hands trap. (Sharulf changes chalk mark from "safe" to "unsafe").  They go up to the laboratory in A47 and  take their time searching the room and find all of the items (scrolls, wand and diamond)  as well the traps which were easily taken care of.  They decide to take the time to identify the wand, and, a few hours into the process hear some creatures approaching the doorway.   They set up to jump the creatures should they enter the door.  (Random Encounter) They  quickly defeat the 8 kobold warriors.  Unfortunately, 3 escape but they do take 4 captive whom fell asleep.  They take the time to question these creatures and find out the approximate  area of where the kobolds are located on this map.  The kobolds are all killed during  questioning or when they were released. (Paladin will be reading the Book of Exalted deeds this weekend, as after I questioned him on allowing this he said "I Thought I was supposed to  give evil no quarter")  After the fight with the kobolds the party finishes identifying the wand and moves on towards  the large (Unmarked) rectangular rooms and finds the secret door at the bottom of the hallway near A51.  They enter the room among much confusion (What, down here?  but that is black on our map...)  They felt some evil presence (the throne) and didn't understand it so they ended  up smashing the throne with the mining tools that they had found earlier.  The party decides  that the hallway outside of A51 is safe and sleeps here.  

Day 15:  The party goes into the room at the other end of the hall and looking at their map  decides that there is a hallway they would like to go to on the other side of the wall.  They try to tear the wall down but after a few futile hours decide that it would be faster to just walk around.  The party makes it into A48 where the sorcerer decides to play with the pretty floating ruby after ignoring the warning on the door. BOOM! Next the party moves into  A49 where they provoke a random encounter with 2 Fiendish Dire Weasels, 3 Fiendish Dire Rats  and a Fiendish Darkmantle.  They have no real problem taking these creatures out although  one of the fighters does take some Con damage and the paladin contracts devil chills again.  The party then moves down to A78 and A79  where they play with many of the crates and barrels but manage to avoid any ill effects of the trap or mold.  Finally they move to A80 where they  have an epic battle with the 22 stirges.  Once again they employ their tactic of tower shield  in the door with multiple people using reach weapons behind him and the sorcerer and thief  using ranged weapons to provoke the creatures into attacking.  Timbul ("shield") takes 14 points  of Con damage.  

Day 16 - 18: The party finds the ring of warmth and rests here for 3 days.  

Day 19: The party moves onward into rooms A75 and 76 where they take their time searching and  discover the secret door which is sealed shut with the many spikes.  They decide that whatever is behind this door must be really important and rest so as to let the cleric memorize bull's str.  

Day 20: The party enters A74 (disabling the trap), A73, A72, A70 and A71 before coming to A69. This battle was TOUGH.  It took about 2 and a half hours real time.  I don't think that the  party would have had any chance at all if they had come straight here instead of going the round about way that they did allowing them to reach third level beforehand.  On the other  hand, this was one of the most enjoyable encounters I have run in some time, as Boyikt was  taunting them constantly from behind his wall and continually picking on the gnomish sorcerer. Towards the end of the battle, Boyikt would scream out "all right, that's it, I give up." and then laugh maniacally as he sent the flaming sphere onto the sorcerer one more time or attacked  again with color spray or magic missile.  Maxim, the gnome sorcerer had previously stated that  he HATED kobolds with a passion and that it was one of his missions in life to kill as many  kobolds as possible.  He often referred to Boyikt as the anti-Maxim during the fight.  

The koblods had heard the party coming and subsequently set up shop behind the small wall  for cover.  Boyikt, who had already cast mage armor, now casts Mirror Image.  Maxim casts sleep knocking out two of the kobold warriors.  The fighters, paladin and barbarian all move up through  the rough terrain to try to get in range and over the wall to fight the kobolds in hand to  hand combat.  Andvari, the cleric, blesses the group and Sharulf moves in to the room to trade  missile fire.  At this point the Krenshar moves out from behind the wall and uses its Scare  effect.  Korim, Poker and Perkiset all fail their save and run leaving the party with only one  fighter, and that fighter being the one who doesn't usually fight. Over the next several rounds  Maxim and Boyikt trade many insults and spells.  The fighters are essentially useless as they have  all run away or are cowering in the far corner of the room.  When they finally do make it back they try to fight over the wall or climb it (in full armor) and fail horribly for a few rounds.  Finally  they decide to try to break it and are successful after another few rounds.  Meanwhile Maxim has  gone unconscious from the second casting of the flaming sphere (replacing the web spell).  The cleric is able to bring him back up over 0 hp for the second time in the fight as Sharulf finally finishes  Boyikt.  

During the battle with the kobolds, Perkiset, the barbarian, who had run out of the room made  it up to A54, and got into a wrestling match with the darkmantle.  They ended up knocking each other  down to 0 hp at the same time and in one last move of desperation, they both attacked and knocked  each other down into the low negatives where they both bled to death.  

All in all the battle lasted about 14 rounds and the party felt both ineffective and unstoppable. One of the kobold warriors survived and is now trying to be converted by the paladin and the cleric. The party found the bracers, cloak and mw dagger.  This is where we finished for the week.  

Once again, thanks for the great material.


----------



## Lasher Dragon

Can someone please help me with doing XP for the WLD? I read that doing it by EL is one way to go, but I cannot figure out how that makes much of a difference - most of the encounters I read have the exact same EL as CR. I am starting it Saturday and I still haven't figured out how I am going to do the XP. Also, my players plan on trying to go through everything, so I'm thinking about just giving 2 levels per map, ignoring XP, and having a point pool as said earlier for item creation. Suggestions, advice, comments?


----------



## DemonGnome

Anytime you have only 1 trap or monster the EL will usually be the same as the CR (barring situational modifiers). Later on when the groups run into encounters with multiple enemies then the EL will be different then the CR. For the first 6 regions I ran them through I used the "Exp based on EL" method, but having recently jumped them into Region N a lil earlier then expected I am going back to "Exp based on CR" until they catch up then switching back again. One note of warning is that there are many places where I believe assumptions must have been made about the encounter (sometimes I haven't a clue what they were) which caused the EL to be listed significantly lower then it should have.

As for the "How"? Take an example encounter of a group of four level 4 characters (Average group level 4). They run into a room with a Ghast (CR 3) and 3 Ghouls (CR 1 each). The EL of this encounter would be 5. The group rushes in and vanquishes the undead menace. Now, awarding experience according to CR, the group would receive 1700 experience (800, 300, 300, 300) whereas awarding the experience based on EL, the group would receive 1600 experience. As you can see at lower levels it isn't much of a difference in experience, though you may want to verify the EL's of each room as they can often be off. Higher up the difference between CR & EL Exp methods can be more dramatic. Basically if the group is advancing to fast use the EL method, if too slow use the CR method, or just arbitraily do whatever the want.


----------



## TroyXavier

I got the book Monday and I'll be running it for the first time this Sunday.  Hopefully it will be as fun as it looks.


----------



## Lasher Dragon

LMAO @ Troy's quote


----------



## Firebird

*calculating xp for the WLD*

What I did was figure out how many xp would raise the party 2-3 levels and divide it by the CR (using the lowest found in the area asa common denominator) of the encounters in the area. Once I had the final xp per CR 1, it was easy to list any encounter just by multiplying this total by the actual encounter toughness. While I know this underpays for the tougher encounters, the WLD says to underpay these anyway in artificailly limiting level advancement. 

As a result, a CR 1 encounter in Area A worked out to be 21 xp using a total of halfway between levels 3 and 4 for the area endpoint if the party is comprehensive and also allowing for skipped rooms. DM's can raise or lower this as they wish to dictate pc advancement. works for us so far.

Anyone else have a better idea of how to do it?


----------



## BMHadoken

*It's a labrynth!*

I ran my group of four friends through some of the WLD but after they progressed further into the dungeon I found a quick problem that I had never really thought about before.  My problem was mapping.  At first there wasn't much required from them as there weren't multitudes of doors to keep track of and so many different hallways and such.  The thing was that I could go into detail so that my group would know exactly where everything was but that made the game run at a snails pace.  I tried speeding things up by being brief in my explanation of room dimensions but that just served to confuse my group, and by the end of the session things went from a wondrous start to dissapointing finish.  I'm looking now for ways to combat this problem before trying to continue into the WLD with my group.  Any suggestions are much appreciated.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

*Message to Jim Hague from my players*

They don't like you.

They had their second battle with Madness last night.

The first battle, last week, they were ready for and he still gave them a run for their money.

The second battle last night he was able to get the drop on them and they were able to win, but almost lost 1/2 the party in the process. After that fight the sorcerer dropped 2 fireballs on him and followed it up with 2 scorching ray spells (for 4 rays).

Later, after they returned to rest in region E, they came back to check to see if he was still dead. Nope - so they ran for it.

On the way back, the only true fighter in the group contracted the healing curse that gives a +2 to int & wis, but -6 to charisma. He's a dwarf barbarian with a charisma that is normally. So that left him an inredibly smart vegetable.

And that is just a brief glimpse of the last 2 sessions.

So accordingly, their opinion of you is not that high.


----------



## Sieobahn

BMHadoken said:
			
		

> My problem was mapping.




I have this problem with most campaigns (though I tend to run dungeon style adventures).
Getting the players to do the mapping is difficult, unless you go into extreme detail describing everything. So what I started doing was draw the map myself on graph paper, and clip it onto the DM screen with a bulldog clip so they can see it.

Recently I have moved high tech and now use the Klooge Werks software on my laptop, with the client software running on an old PC with an LCD screen on the table. I have loaded the maps into the program (someone in this thread editted the maps to remove all the secret doors and other revealing marks), and with the program I can reveal areas as they explore. So when they zoom out they can see the entire map and know where they have been.

Yesterday I have my first session with a projector shining down on the table, with the right level of zoom and I don't have to draw stuff on the whiteboard for minitures combat anymore! It worked great.

I have been tempted to make them map anyway, and refuse to zoom out to show large area's of the dungeon. However I feel that will take away the enjoyment of the game.


I had a lot of fun in yesterday's game. One of the players had to bring in a new PC (his old one was cursed by the throne in room A52, so they kicked him out of the group). I took him aside and asked him to create his new PC as an ally of Longtail. I had thought taking him aside like that would arouse some suspicion, but they just shrugged it off. The long moment of silence and the look on thier faces when he started the battle with Longtail by attacking another PC was priceless! Having his old PC they had abbandoned join in the battle also on Longtail's side didn't help either.   
That battle ended with two PC's dead (one of them the traitor), one captured, and the others run away as fast as they could. I have done a write-up here if you are interested.


----------



## Old_Man_Fish

*Fiendish Owlbear's Rampage*

Fourth Session in the books.  
Fourth Session 03/13/2005 Party Consists of: 
Korim, Aasimir Paladin 2 
Sharulf Dwarvern Rouge 3 
Timbull (aka Shield) Dwarvern Fighter 3   
Mendell (aka Poker) Dwarvern Fighter 3   
Andvari Dwarvern Cleric 3 
Maxim Gnomish Sorcerer 3 
NPC - Laristh Kobold Warrior 2  
NPC - Khaliss Lizardfolk Ranger 3  
NPC - Slithss Lizardfolk Druid 3  
Day 21: Resting after fight with kobold.  Still have a few days worth of food which they found in the kobold lair so they are feeling a bit better about taking some time off.  

Day 22: The party ran through A62, A61, A60 and into A58 where they had a battle with the darkmantles.  They dealt with these without much problem although the poor footing was irritating as they kept  missing by 1 or 2 after failing the balance / reflex save to avoid the penalty.  They also missed the trap going into A59 and the paladin and shield got caught underneath the lintel.  From here they went to A57, A63, A64, A65, A66, and A68 before going into A67.  They spent a large amount  of time digging out enough room to go through the opening and found the continual light batons. (Not that  they needed these as they made sure everyone in the party had darkvision) 

Day 23: Party heads back to check out a region they had missed in the north and goes through A49 and into  A97 where they were caught in the trap...however, there was no real ill effect from this.  Same with A95  and the trap in A97.  For once, the party was able to parlay with the "enemy" and they quickly made peace  with Khaliss and Slithss who filled them in on a bit of the background of the first level.  They learned  that the factions had been here for a few months, that Orghar, Yrkak and Boyikt lead their respective  factions and that they were all at war with each other.  They also learned the name Longtail, and that  longtail was a sorceror.  The group was slightly impressed with the civilty of Khaliss and Slithss and  asked if they would like to travel with them after both had expressed their dislike for the dungeon and  their intentions of escape.  

The party, now including Slithss and Khaliss, venture onward into A98 and then down through A49 where they encounter 3 fiendish dire weasels.  The lizardfolk are impressed with the efficiency with which the party deals with these creatures.  The party then moves up and through the hall going up toward A100 and around  to A104 and A103.  They decide not to stop and check room A100 and continue to go past it (I had changed it so that the door was closed, since I did not remember that it had said it was open).  

At this point I had the owlbear burst out of the room and surprise the party.  He grabbed ahold of the cleric (who was in the back) clawed him twice, smitting him, and bit him.  It got ugly pretty quick as everyone in the party who was good at fighting was in the front, and those who were a bit weaker where in the back, between the fighters and the beast.    

To top it off, the screaming and sounds of battle alerted the Imp who the next round alerted Longtail who began preparing for the battle...more on this later.  Over the next few rounds the party had trouble getting the right people up into position to attack the owlbear. The druid was hurt pretty bad, the kobold was dropped into the negatives and dwarvern fighters each took a  few hits.  Luckily they killed off the beast just in time to heal the cleric, who was at -9.  At this point I gave them three rounds (they didn't know there was a time limit) to do what they would in which  they healed the cleric a bit more and the rest of the party just kind of sat around doing nothing.  

Here they were hit by a lightning bolt (I gave Longtail lightining bolt instead of fly, and I also used the old 5' for 120' or 10' for 60' method....he chose 10').  Unfortunately, I roled well... The first lightining bolt did 37 points of damage and effectively dropped the theif, the cleric, the paladin, the druid, and the kobold.  The only party members standing were Sheild, Poker, Khaliss and Maxim.    

They turned around to see both Longtail and the Imp.  Maxim roled well on intiative and took out the whip feather token (I was hoping they would remember to use this) but proceeded to miss on his attack role.  Longtail cast  the lightining bolt again, this time for a measely 17 points, but still enough to outright KILL the paladin, druid, cleric, theif and kobold.  It also took the ranger down to 2 hp and knocked Sheild out. The imp charged Khaliss and  stung him, fortunately he made the save.  Khaliss and Poker then squared off with the imp managing to do a minor  amount of damage. At this time the party got fortunate as Maxim hit with the whip, and won the grapple check.  He also started to bombard the imp with Magic Missles.  Longtail tried futily to escape the grapple and the imp struck  the ranger once again, knocking him unconcious.  Poker moved forward and started striking into Longtail with his Holy Longspear and the imp struck out at him, missing.  Longtail tried one more time to break free and Maxim hit the imp with more magic missiles.  The imp decided it was time to flee right as the dwarf finished off Longtail with  another blow (a critical).    

This fight took surprisingly little time, but unfortunately the character creation process took the rest of the day.  What was left of the party did gain enough experience to level, although they did not venture forward to Room 103 to  find and shut down the portal yet.  

Sheild and Poker both bumped their con up, Sheild took Sheild Mate (Miniatures handbook) and Poker Took weapon specialization.  Maxim's player was not present for this session so did not level up yet and one of the players will be taking over Khaliss as a PC.  

And the players didn't even get that angry at me.  they loved the room title for A100 "FIENDISH OWLBEAR'S RAMPAGE".

Thanks again.


----------



## Old_Man_Fish

Quote:
Originally Posted by BMHadoken
My problem was mapping.

Well, there are some great players maps which have the secret doors and special symbols removed which are available.  They were mentioned many times earlier in the thread and are available at www.rpgmp3.com  While you are there you might want to give their audio files a listen....It is pretty entertaining stuff.  

The bit about projecting the maps to scale for mini's is brilliant....now how am I going to do this?  more money down the drain in the near future  :\


----------



## ShadowDenizen

Session 4 ended.  Still in Region A, (about a quarter of the way through), and on Game Day 9.
The party is going about as fast as I thought through Region A: running through "The Maze" was pretty time-consuming, though. That, and they were hit hard by just about every trap in the place so far, not to mention being infected with all sorts of nasty diseases. 

The PC's did get a chuckle out of the "reunion" between Turag the Whimperer and Bragdor the Ogre, however. 

The most rewarding thing for me is watching the PC's slowly puzzle out what is going on, and whose "side" they want to be on, especially since they have just now heard the name "Longtail".   Right now, they're leaning towards the Orcs, especially since Bragdor the Ogre is realtively kindly disposed towards them for the moment. 

Of course, the session ended with the PC's beginning combat with the rat horde.. I warned them that everyone should make up new characters for next session, just in case....


----------



## DemonGnome

> The bit about projecting the maps to scale for mini's is brilliant....now how am I going to do this? more money down the drain in the near future




http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/15/2146215&from=rss


----------



## jim pinto

*quiet...*

... almost too quiet

c'mon guys

i can't address concerns if you don't drum up some drama

<shaking fist>


----------



## BlueBlackRed

I've been sending out doomsday e-mails to my group recently in the hopes of messing with their heads.

They've ignored me.

It's a shame too. Because this sessions and next, I'll be ripping them a new one!


----------



## beldar1215

Hello All,
  I'm going to start this bad boy in about two weeks. I just read the entire thread over the past few days and I'm planning on stealing many of the cool ideas I found.

For Jim

I know that someone asked about missing text for some room in area J. I think it was rooms j50-53. I never saw an answer to that question. I won't be to J for sometime, but I have been putting together a notes doc from things I pulled from the thread and would like to add this info. Thanks in advance.

I can't wait to get this started.

One other thing. My group will only have three players. There will be no cleric at this time. Any ideas of what I need to do or any changes with only three PC's. I would rather not run an NPC cleric if I don't have to. I'm still a new GM and really want to focus on the game.

Thanks
Beldar


----------



## Lasher Dragon

Wow... no cleric in the WLD is gonna be interesting. Is it possible that one of your players could play a cleric in addition to whatever they are going to play already?


----------



## beldar1215

I thought about that right after I posted. I think I'll have to try to talk one of them into doing that. Hopefully it will work.

Beldar


----------



## BlueBlackRed

The DM could play a walking band-aid.
He takes no offensive action, and heals all the time.
I don't like that idea, but it's something I've seen before.

Another option is the overpowered gestalt characters from unearthed arcana.

And finally, screw'em.
Let them accept what they've done to themselves.

My group still has 2 pure clerics out of 6 PC's.
It makes it so bleeping really hurt the group without being spiteful.


----------



## Nyarlathotep

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> The DM could play a walking band-aid.
> He takes no offensive action, and heals all the time.
> I don't like that idea, but it's something I've seen before.




Or, as DM, you could try the healer class from the Minatures Handbook. They seem very weak offensively but excel at healing. I'm DMing a group that doesn't have a cleric and an NPC healer is working out not too badly. (I don't like having to run a band-aid, but my DMing style is definately not conducive to healer-light parties and it would detract from the players fun to have to run a cleric.)



			
				BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Another option is the overpowered gestalt characters from unearthed arcana.




I'm Dming another group through the WLD right now (finally on the threshold of exploring region B) and I've been thinking that I should have tried the gestalt characters from the start. This group does have a cleric, but I can see how it's not fun to be playing him especially at lower levels because all he has time to do is heal his allies. I imagine that at higher levels it will be even worse. It might work well for some groups though.

The one rule I'm trying from Unearthed Arcana that seems to work pretty well is the Vitality/wound points system. For groups without a cleric, this is especially beneficial as vitality points are recovered (relatively) quickly. The downside seems to be that fights last an extra 3 - 6 rounds per combat depending on the enemy mix. 



			
				BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> And finally, screw'em.
> Let them accept what they've done to themselves.




Heh, I would normally agree to this, but I find it just leads to this: 



			
				My Group said:
			
		

> Player: _Ooohhh! I've taken 8 points of damage, let's rest and get this healed up before we go any further._
> 
> DM: _Are you sure, you just struck camp not 40 minutes ago?_
> 
> Players: _ Yep, the stack of bodies from yesterday's wandering monsters scattered around the door ought to disuade any more attackers. Have 2 days passed yet?_




Once you factor spell use in there it's even worse  YMMV


----------



## Qwillion

beldar1215

with only 3 players you might consider letting them play gesalt characters. 

If not then I recomend a mute cleric npc.


----------



## der_kluge

This is kind of an off the wall question, but I wanted to get some thoughts on this. We just started playing WLD, and my DM has decided that he wants to use Castles and Crusades rules for this bad boy.

Now, I suppose that, theoretically, it should work, and indeed, we haven't had too many difficulties, other than we get confused when trying to figure out how to roll initiative from one game to the next.  But I have noticed that the save DCs for things like fireball are impossible.  For example, 4 out of 6 of us died when two of the party members decided to attack an orc mage early on in area A. The save DCs for those of us who did not have Dex as a primary stat (a C&C concept) was something like 23. We were 1st level. Needless to say, only the toughest fighter walked away from that one, and drug the only still breathing person back to safety. 

Then last night, we got toasted by another fireball from a trapped door. The save DC for this one was 24, and the GM "rolled" 12 points of damage. I put quotes around that, because as a 6 die fireball, he'd had to have rolled 6 2s in order to generate 12 points of damage. Again, we're 1st level.

Now, in the d20 world, the save DC for that fireball would have been around 15, and 1 out of 4 of us would have saved. As it was, only a single rogue made the save.

So, my question is, are we screwed?


----------



## pheaver

I use the Reserve Points variant from UA.  My group has a cleric, but I've found that using that means the cleric generally uses his healing spells in combat to keep people up, rather than using them after combat to fill up wounded people.  First of all, it means lower level parties can explore more in a day, which I like.  However, they aren't any more capable of dealing with threats with Reserve Points, unlike with some of the other options.  Also, it helps the cleric player, because he feels a little more useful: his spells are always being cast on unconscious / almost down players in combat, or using spells for buffing the party, rather than being a walking CLW wand.

My group's almost done with Section A (they retreated after Mr. Owlbear) and they've explored little parts of B (killing a bunch of bugbears after diplomacy failed) and E (met the garrison).  They love it!  Using EL as CR, they're mostly 4th level.

Paul


----------



## just__al

We had our first session saturday, we started creating characters at noon and we stopped playing at 11:30 with only about a 45 minute break to order & retrieve sushi takeout.

Group consists of
Human Cleric of Boccob with the knowlege and magic domains
Hafling rogue
Human Warmage
Human fighter (spiked chain monkey)

Next session they will also have a TWF style ranger.

I started the group at second level but with 0xp and 250gp of equipment. They misunderstood an offhanded comment I made about gear and decided to track encumberance down to the single dagger.  I was only planning on using the "don't go crazy" rule, but I think I kinda like it, it really makes sense for this setting so I'm keeping it.

They actually started out having been hired to investigate a goblin lair but they got summoned by a rogue who botched his UMD check trying to use a scroll of summon monster because he was fighting fiendish gnolls and all his compatriots had already subcummed to the poison from the gnolls weapons. The secondary poison killed him before the battle ended and the players felt themselves being "put back" but then they hit a metaphysical wall and were stuck there. It helped establish that if they summon anything it's staying, I even told them right after they didn't get put back, that they weren't compelled to fight the gnolls (they did anyway since the gnolls were still hostile) which should clue them in on what happens when their summoning spells finally end.

They didn't fight the 3 depressed orcs, they eventually came back and found them dead. They had a few battles with darkmantles, set off a few traps, and gained the ogre's respect. They also encountered one of the lantern archons that gave them a map, which greatly sped up play since my wife needed to exactly map every square they crossed.

They took the back scratcher from oghnars room, decided that the only thing they hate more than fiendish stirges is fiendish rat swarms and then finally had a big showdown with the kobolds.

The party rogue decided to check out the room the kobolds were all held up in. The kobold wizard cast a flaming sphere in the doorway and was intending to talk, but the rogue thinking he set off a trap decided to jump over the sphere and INTO the room.

Battle was on! The krenshar really helped the kobolds much more than I thought it would, but that had to do with the fact that everybody wound up scared during the fight at differing times. By the time the battle was clearly over, one kobold tried to surrender and the Krenshar was actually heeling next to him and only two people in the party spoke Draconic and the warmage decided to cast a hail of stone on the krenshar before the rest of the party could accept the kobolds surrender (he was very upset he ran away). So, we ended with the party having a kobold guide and sleeping in the room with the fort.

They set off a few traps over the day and actually managed to disable one or two. I'll have to figure XP before the next session but I'm betting they didn't level.


----------



## just__al

Is there any chance of seeing more of the "players" maps?  I'd really like to have them for my players.  The lantern archons will be giving them to the group from time to time.


----------



## ShadowDenizen

Another session in the can.
And a sucessful one, if I may say.

When last we left our intrepid heroes, they had finished about a quarter of Region A, and were about to fight the fiendish rat swarm. (Starting off with an encounter worked remarkably well, since it allowed the group to build their suspense/ whet their appetite prior to actually beginning play!!)  Prior to this session, I warned everyone that they may want to roll up back-up characters in case of a TPK.  

The combat was very tense on both sides: I have opted to run the Dungeon "as written" for the most part, and rolled the dice in the open, in front of everybody: "Let the dice fall where they may", essentially.   The party made a couple of tactical errors, but (primarily due to my low ratio of hits!!) we avoided a TPK, even though the few hits the swarm did make _really_ hurt.  The fight ended with the swarm disposed of, five of the six party members bleeding out, and Beatrice (the Halfling's war-dog) pulling Greyhunt the (unconscious) Halfling to safety.  Forutnately, the cleric was the last man standing, and managed to save most of the party.  

That was also an interesting experience, what with the cleric being an NPC.  During this fight, I opted not to keep track of the party's HP, so while the party was bleeding out, I (as DM) did not know how badly injured everyone was. It worked out that the Mordigan the Dwarf was saved at -9 HP, Jackie the Monk was saved at -3, and Greyhunt was saved at -6, while the thief was sent to the Great Beyond: our first character kill in WLD.  (RIP, Sir Roderick of Miggsville.)

Lessons learned? 
A) Against swarms and other creatures that take half-damage from slashing and piercing weapons, the mace-wielding cleric and Monk are your MVP all-stars.  
B) "Smite Good" is a really, _really_ powerful ability.
C) The party will really, _really_ miss the thief.
D) Ability damage also really, _really_ hurts.   

So, we currently have:
Mordigan the Dwarf (Level 1 Cleric, Level 1 Rogue)
Jacqueline Chan (Level 2 Monk)-- Yeah, I have some practical jokers in the group.
Greyhunt Baskerville (Level 2 Warrior/ Dog-Rider) -- See above.
Beltan  (Level 2 NPC Cleric of Kord)
Thomas McGregor, Hill Dwarf (though he seems more like a Gully Dwarf) (Level 2 Fighter)

Interestingly, they have no true thief (since Roderick died), and, somewhat surprisingly, IMO, no arcane caster.


----------



## Jim Hague

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> They don't like you.
> 
> They had their second battle with Madness last night.
> 
> The first battle, last week, they were ready for and he still gave them a run for their money.
> 
> The second battle last night he was able to get the drop on them and they were able to win, but almost lost 1/2 the party in the process. After that fight the sorcerer dropped 2 fireballs on him and followed it up with 2 scorching ray spells (for 4 rays).
> 
> Later, after they returned to rest in region E, they came back to check to see if he was still dead. Nope - so they ran for it.
> 
> On the way back, the only true fighter in the group contracted the healing curse that gives a +2 to int & wis, but -6 to charisma. He's a dwarf barbarian with a charisma that is normally. So that left him an inredibly smart vegetable.
> 
> And that is just a brief glimpse of the last 2 sessions.
> 
> So accordingly, their opinion of you is not that high.





I'm not sure whether I should be hurt or amused.  I didn't _design_ I to be a meat grinder, but taking the direct route against Anguish and Madness can certainly lead to that.  Of course, as I've mentioned before, I took Lovecraft and Howard as inspiration, with a nice splash of Cronenberg for flavor.   Hey, Conan was never afraid to run away from a threat he couldn't tackle directly...


----------



## BlueBlackRed

just__al said:
			
		

> Is there any chance of seeing more of the "players" maps?  I'd really like to have them for my players.  The lantern archons will be giving them to the group from time to time.




I don't think so.
The guy who worked on the maps got addicted to an MMORPG and stopped at map F.

Dern shame too.

I also kind of wish that AEG made all the maps as jpgs rather than just some. Editing PDF's requires much more work.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> I'm not sure whether I should be hurt or amused.  I didn't _design_ I to be a meat grinder, but taking the direct route against Anguish and Madness can certainly lead to that.  Of course, as I've mentioned before, I took Lovecraft and Howard as inspiration, with a nice splash of Cronenberg for flavor.   Hey, Conan was never afraid to run away from a threat he couldn't tackle directly...




Be amused. The whole region has them on their toes. The lair of Madness with its moving rooms got to more than one player. And the swarm of the gricks in room I17 was too reminiscent of the movie Aliens just prior to the marines being swarmed through the roof. My games usually run more like 1990's Japanese-RPG kinds of games, not the dark and evil kind as shown in the WLD.

(Don't mention any of this to my players.)

Now that they've defeated Anguish and Madness, the fallout of the region should be interesting. Lareth and the drow are going to want Eight Strikes Fang back. Arioch and his driders are going to want revenge, if they determine exactly what happened. And with their level of magic, I think they will.

Now they are also going to have to deal with the inevitables back in region E. The inevitable leader Dubar will have finally lost his last bit of sanity and will be recruiting the barghests as new entrants into The Redeemed and will be attempting to use some twisted logic to replace Kelara.

Hopefully my players will be able to fix things the intelligent and easy way and fix it all. But they have the amazing ability to do the opposite of what I expect.

But we shall see.


----------



## JamesL85

Sorry....I haven't been keeping up with this thread as I should have been.....

I didn't realize that CrimsonScribe had quit working on "player maps" as was posted before....I took a new job that gave me every weekend off, but I seem to put more time into work now....LOL.  I'll do some checking to see if I can imitate what CrimsonScribe has been doing in the past.

I'll be out of town for the next two days but I'm taking my laptop with me so I might be able to do some work on things.  I think I may have robbed enough ideas from the boards that I can actually make WLD work for my group.  They have all been a little apprehensive about the whole thing, especially when I told them that they will be going into a dungeon that pretty much scraps XP, and they don't have to train for levels, learn new spells, etc.

I liked the idea about having them placed in the dungeon as prisoners, but I didn't like the idea that some places are rough on characters with the evil alignment.  I thought I'd probably place them there by a corrupt law official, so that they are in the dungeon, but not of evil alignment.....Unless of course, they choose to be.....Then the lantern archon can bring in new players as they are "convicted" of doing something wrong.....

Not sure if it'll happen this weekend, but I'll keep everyone posted.....

Just in case there are people here that haven't gone through all of the thread, here's an interesting link.

James


----------



## Lord Igor

*Whoo boy....*

Here's another lucky DM who gets to run his players through the monster commonly  referred to as the ‘World’s Largest Dungeon’. Since it’s Easter this weekend we all have two extra days off, which we’re going to invest in playing the WLD. That’s four days of dungeon crawling goodness!

Just for this occasion the size of my group has grown from five players to no less then *eight*. Which is leaving me feeling a bit overwhelmed really. Eight players is 160% the madness and mayhem we usually produce.

For the campaign I’ve smacked the WLD down in the Eberron setting, on the Continent of Adventure: Xen’drik (where else?). This for one means the PC’s have access to action points so they should live longer and I don’t think that placing the WLD on Eberron is going to cause any major problems. Anyone tried running the WLD on Eberron?

The player group consists of:
- Warforged Barbarian (soon to be Juggernaut)
- Elf Rogue (soon to be Shadowdancer)
- Kender Scout (the only Kender on Eberron)
- Human Psion (AKA Sphinx, ‘cause he’s mute)
- Half-Orc Barbarian (soon to be Frenzied Berserker)
- Human Fighter (soon to be Order of the Bow Initiate)
- Human Artificer (to keep the Warforged in one piece)
- Human Cleric (soon to be Radiant Servant of Pelor)

So the group has pretty good stomping power, but is lacking an arcane spellcaster and is low on healing power. I wonder how big a problem these last two items will pose to be.

Well, I guess we'll see this friday


----------



## pheaver

I placed the WLD in Eberron as well.  Action points really help in making the party live longer.

I changed a lot of encounters to add Eberron flavor.  The rebel goblins are going to be Dolgrims and Dolgaunts (the aberrant goblinoids).  A lot of the encounters with fiendish darkmantles in region A were replaced with Aberrations in non-SRD books that I own.  I plan on changing region D's big bad guy to a daelkyr and have aberrations instead of demonic underlings.

Basically, I just went through and tried to add aberrations to the mostly infernal prisoners, since Eberron has a big plot point of locking both underneath the earth.

Paul


----------



## DemonGnome

My group also went through the region with Anguish & Madness. One of the players in particular loved the feel of the area with the moving/living walls and such (even if it spooked the hell out of his character).

Right now they have found out that the only thing worse then reading that the Prime Lich is imprisoned in the region they are in now is finding his cell and finding that it has been broken out of. Now after reading some more history on the walls and of who else is in here, for the first time since starting WLD they have decided "I don't wanna be here. I wanna go home." They have been confident and now are starting to worry. 

Class Composition (levels are estimated, don't remember exact off top of my head):
15 Dwarven Defender
15 Bonded Summoner (w/ his Elder Earth Elemental Companion)
12 Paladin / 2 Shining Blade of Tyr
13 Warlock / 1 Rogue
14 Cleric

*They used to have a pure rogue who left a couple weeks ago.


----------



## just__al

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I don't think so.
> The guy who worked on the maps got addicted to an MMORPG and stopped at map F.
> 
> Dern shame too.
> 
> I also kind of wish that AEG made all the maps as jpgs rather than just some. Editing PDF's requires much more work.




You can actually save PDF's as jpegs if you have adobe stanard or pro.  It helped me out a lot because I bought counter collection gold and it only had one darkmantle counter.  I saved the page with the darkmantle as a jpeg and then brought it into photoshop where I was able to copy/paste a darkmantle counter over other counters I don't need right now and I wasn't forced to printout the same page a bunch of times for the same one counter.  It also helped for the stirges since I'll eventually need 22 of them.

What I did was extract the one page and then save the extracted page as a jpeg.


----------



## just__al

The Horror said:
			
		

> Ok, I have made some player maps for regions F, G, I, J, D and N. If anybody wants to host them just drop me a PM with your email address. I'll send you everything I have, which includes some photoshopped versions of other peoples player maps.
> 
> I've attached an example of one of the maps.  I should also have the colour ones without the labels somewhere as well.
> 
> 
> The Horror
> 
> edit: removed map.  Probably shouldn't be posting that stuff here.




You should go to http://www.james.neetersoft.com/wld/wld.htm and use the "email me" link, I'm sure he'd love to host the maps.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

just__al said:
			
		

> You can actually save PDF's as jpegs if you have adobe stanard or pro.  It helped me out a lot because I bought counter collection gold and it only had one darkmantle counter.  I saved the page with the darkmantle as a jpeg and then brought it into photoshop where I was able to copy/paste a darkmantle counter over other counters I don't need right now and I wasn't forced to printout the same page a bunch of times for the same one counter.  It also helped for the stirges since I'll eventually need 22 of them.
> 
> What I did was extract the one page and then save the extracted page as a jpeg.




I've got adobe photo shop. But I'm an amateur at using it. I've converted pdf's to jpg's but they don't work when I put them on the web.

I have to go through the system of editing the file as a pdf, then taking a screen shot pic and making a jpg. Nothing horrible, just 1 more step to putting a map on the blog.


----------



## just__al

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I've got adobe photo shop. But I'm an amateur at using it. I've converted pdf's to jpg's but they don't work when I put them on the web.
> 
> I have to go through the system of editing the file as a pdf, then taking a screen shot pic and making a jpg. Nothing horrible, just 1 more step to putting a map on the blog.




Bummer, I hate extra work.

Well, I'd just like to say "good luck, we're all counting on you"


----------



## KaosDevice

Just wanted to note that Pyramid over at SJGames finally got around to reviewing WLD and were pretty disparaging. Unfortunately they are subscription only and I don't know what their policy is towards cutting and pasting quotes soooo..just wanted to give the AEG guys a heads up. :\


----------



## JamesL85

Attn The Horror:  As Just Al said, I'd love to host the files.

Just go to the page and click on the e-mail me link and send away....

James


----------



## primarchone

Originally Posted by The Horror
Ok, I have made some player maps for regions F, G, I, J, D and N. If anybody wants to host them just drop me a PM with your email address. I'll send you everything I have, which includes some photoshopped versions of other peoples player maps. 

I've attached an example of one of the maps. I should also have the colour ones without the labels somewhere as well.


The Horror

edit: removed map. Probably shouldn't be posting that stuff here.

Hi!

The horror

Could you please send tose files to me at:

primarch@caribe.net

Many thanks!

Primarchone


----------



## Old_Man_Fish

You should also get ahold of HAL over at rpgmp3.com  He's hosting most of the other maps on his site as well.....


----------



## hitomikitage

jim pinto said:
			
		

> the text is wrong
> 
> there is only one
> 
> sorry for the confusion... although if the ogre mage leader of the azers completes his journey, there is one in the floor.




I let my guys dig through the rubble at the end of the hallway just north of the Fire Giant's lair.  This made for some interesting events when Tyrus was able to see them through the tunnel they had made.  Mass suggest got three of them to start to try and widen the tunnel while they rest of the group tried to stop them.  Then the dwarf barbarian got hit with feeblemind and insanity.  A good day for the Tyrus... up until they used the ring of wishes to put him back to sleep for 10,000 years.  Oh well.  And before you ask, the party wrote down what the guy was going to say, exactly, for the wish.  At that point, I was unable to quickly come up with any holes in their logic I could exploit, so I abide by my rule that if I can't screw the players on a wish within a reasonable time without delaying the game session itself, I let it fly.

They also used the last wish on the Dwarf to get him back to "normal."

My guys are now headed into N, where they got pummeled by an Iron Golem, fooled by the brazier trap through the central door, and beaten even worse by the 2 Shield Guardians at the northern door (to the tune of a dead Sorcerer/Elemental Savant and a dead Warmage/Blade Singer.)  However, they do have the ability to drop a couple of raise deads on the poor guys.  Should get interesting from here on out.

Thanks,
Howard


----------



## Nyarlathotep

Bump so I can reply with some questions for Jim later tonight.


----------



## MoonZar

*WLD - Do you draw the map for your players*

Hello,

I'm another DM who try to play this module to the very end...

I have include the WLD in my own campaign setting.

*Question : Do you draw the map for your players ????*

We have 5 sessions done and my group is compose of these class. We are just starting region B and they had done almost all room of region A. 

Elf (F), Ex Barbarian 1 / Ranger 1 / Paladin 1
Human (F), Cleric 3 
Human (M), Paladin 3
Human (M), Necromancer 3
Human (M), Rogue 3

Human (F), Cleric 2 (NPC)
Human (F), Rogue 2 / Bard 2 (NPC)
Human (F), Fighter 3 (NPC)


----------



## MoonZar

Cedric said:
			
		

> Question...would someone who took Item Creation Feats have a chance to use them at some point in the WLD?
> 
> We're about to start playing (I've been careful to not read spoilers) and I am not sure if I want to play a Dwarven Rogue/Cleric explorer...or a Dwarven Cleric Smith (with item creation feats).
> 
> Thoughts?




Hello,

I Know you posted this message a while ago, but i think people with item creation feat will find a couple of place in Region A where they could build item. They have a labatory, a alchemy labatory and a couple of working Smith Area.

You could simply add the stuff they need at these area for conveniance...

MoonZar


----------



## BlueBlackRed

MoonZar said:
			
		

> *Question : Do you draw the map for your players ????*




Yes. It's just plain faster.


----------



## just__al

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> MoonZar said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Question : Do you draw the map for your players ????
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes. It's just plain faster.
Click to expand...



I've been using the player's maps that have been posted. I don't have the SKILLZ that others have in making them so I hope they get completed by the time I need them.

The lantern archons give them to the group once they've been in a reigon for a day or two.


----------



## MoonZar

just__al said:
			
		

> I've been using the player's maps that have been posted. I don't have the SKILLZ that others have in making them so I hope they get completed by the time I need them.
> 
> The lantern archons give them to the group once they've been in a reigon for a day or two.




Not a bad idea


----------



## DemonGnome

> Question...would someone who took Item Creation Feats have a chance to use them at some point in the WLD?




I've been allowing the players to create items along the way during rest time using uneeded magic items as raw materials.


----------



## spectre72

Well we finished the second session of WLD in Blackmoor and the group has explored about a third of Region A, North of the entrance.

We had 2 character deaths....

The Halfling Rogue died fighting stirges while scouting a room, the worst part was that the raging barbarian finished him off with his axe while attacking a stirge that was attached to the Halfling (The Barbarian was in a rage and attacked even after being told there was a chance he would hit the Halfling - The hit was a critical).   

The Half-Elven Swashbuckler died when he ran into a room to loot orc bodies and ran into a Fiendish Rat Swarm.  After the first round the Swashbuckler was down and someone threw a flask of oil over the swarm and the elf.  As soon as it was apparent that the swarm was coming after the rest of the party they threw a torch onto the oil finishing off the Swashbuckler and pissing off the rats (the party also realized the fire did not seriously injure the swarm and they were very afraid).  The party then tried to close the door to keep the rats in the room but they managed to escape and critically injured two other party members before they were destroyed.  

The Swashbuckler had already done this two times before this and found Fiendish Rats, but maybe this time he learned that rushing ahead like this was a bad idea.  

In addition we have several characters down severly on CON from stirges and a few people who are diseased.

So we ended the session with the party finding one of the doors to region E which I have locked with a magical key in my game, the key to be located in Region B.

So with 2 less characters and people sick and out of spells the party returned to their base camp to rest, recover, and wait for the effects of their diseases to take hold.

This is where we ended the session.

For those who read my introduction to the game after session 1 you now know why each player started off with 2 characters.

After 2 sessions most of the group have at least one character out of the game or incapacitated for a while (CON loss or Diseased).

I love it when a plan comes together   

Scott


----------



## jim pinto

*keep them coming*

I know I've been quiet lately (and I don't really have time to even write this), but I wanted to say that I like what I'm reading and I wish I could be chiming in with more ideas.

I'd like to hear more stories of people running through Region N. I spent nearly a month editing and writing on this Region and I would love to read what your teams have accomplished.

As for magic items, burn gp worth of items in place of XP at a rate of 2 or 3 to 1. Especially if you're not using an XP system, but just bumping people. And if you are using magic items to fuel the creation of other magic items, the exchange rate should be on the side of the PCs.

I just started playing Knight of the Old Republic II and I can see they have all sorts of work stations for you to build stuff. DMs should drop in forges in places if the PCs aren't finding the 700 in the dungeon already.



Mappings a tough call and I'm not sure I've heard any bad ideas on here, but every group has a different style. I'm not sure what to tell you, but I find that drawing simple lines works really well until the PCs enter a room where fighting is about to take place.

Enough the book guys. I'll be back in a few weeks.

Peace


----------



## BlueBlackRed

jim pinto said:
			
		

> I'd like to hear more stories of people running through Region N. I spent nearly a month editing and writing on this Region and I would love to read what your teams have accomplished.




My group will be entering Region J for the first time this Friday. So if everything goes as steadily as it currently does, Region N will be a possibility in 2 months. That assumes they want to take on Tyrus.


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> My group will be entering Region J for the first time this Friday. So if everything goes as steadily as it currently does, Region N will be a possibility in 2 months. That assumes they want to take on Tyrus.




Oh... dear sweet Region J... so much good... and so much bad...

I really wish I could have spent more time editing this one.

sigh

Ping me if you want to brainstorm better story threads.


----------



## burnrate

I just launched a new group last week. We have:

Half-elf Paladin 
Human Cleric
Halfling Rogue 
Half-Orc Druid (no - we didn't ban them) 
Gnome Warlock 

I like the party. We didn't plan it, but came to the table with 5 different races and classes! 

We've only managed one session, exploring perhaps as much as 20% of region A in the first outing and ending the session with level two. The group did manage to find the secret room, so have a relatively safe place to camp out. Although it's drafty they are illuminating through the use of three continual flame items the church gave them to help track longtail. 

They are doing surprisingly well so far, with only one dropping under 0 so far and no dead. I think the two healers (three now that the paladin is level 2) help out a great deal. They have been far more effective against the swarms than I expected them to be, and they haven't seen too much ability drain so far, although I've no doubt that will change. 

We're trying out the transparency mapping idea, and it's working so far.


----------



## Qwillion

*Region E ticks me off.*

ok, my group is playing in banewarrens right now, when the get done with that I am launching WLD,

For now I am reading through the book making notes of what I want to change, tweaking little things here and there. So far my only complaints have been the introduction (playabiltiy vs. cool vs. making sense), overuse of specific cretures in region A, region B was wonderful though I think you could have done something more with the blink dogs (I am adding in new good aligned dogs and hounds to replace some overuse of them), Now I am reading Region E and I come to a line that straight ticked me off. 

The writer of region E, has no regard for what will happen when the party does X, he treats the entire section as a site based adventure with no worry for the consequenses of the characters actions on the events that can occur. The introduction to the chapter even states that as the GM you will have to do a lot of work if you run the WLD as a campaign.

Now I have heard Jim state before that he did not plan to have anyone run this whole book as a campaign, but I would have expected that some one might use a section of dungeon as a campaign piece. Region E could have been a brilliant piece of desgin leaps and bounds above A and B, but the lack of follow up "what will happen to the region when X happens" just ticks me off. 

So now I get to do a major piece of work that has nothing to do with my style of play, I just get to play "What if?" with the outcomes of the events presented. This is work the book should have done, not left for a gm to do.    

So far region B has required the least amount of work, and is my fav. Region E could of and should have been my fav though (and may be again once I do the bloody work).


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Qwillion said:
			
		

> Region E could of and should have been my fav though (and may be again once I do the bloody work).




My group loved our final session of Region E. Yes it involved some work on my part, but it turned out quite well. My only irritation with the region turned out to be a good adventure resolution idea. The factions within factions and so on bogged me down a bit, but once I got through it all, the pieces of what was set up in the region and what my players had done just seemed to fit perfectly.

The party had kill Morat and several of his barghests. That forced the rest of the barghests to side with Saraas.
The party had also sided with Kelara, and thusly against Dubar and his Inevitables. Dubar's programming finally snaps.
Dubar meet Saraas. Saraas meet Dubar. With the help of the barghests, Dubar became head of the Garrison and the barghests become the newest members of The Redeemed. (The previous members of The Redeemed "abandoned their posts" or otherwise disappeared.)

This all happened while the party was off adventuring in region I. So one time they return for rest and find barghests patrolling the area. The party was too afraid to kill off the barghests for fear of retaliation of the inevitables. It all turned out good in the end.

So I would say, if you're worried about "what if", figure it out yourself in a way that makes sense to you. If the group has not entered region XYZ yet, then don't worry about "what if" until it becomes an issue or something you can use.

So long as you and your group are having fun, fuhgetaboutit.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

jim pinto said:
			
		

> Oh... dear sweet Region J... so much good... and so much bad...
> 
> I really wish I could have spent more time editing this one.
> 
> sigh
> 
> Ping me if you want to brainstorm better story threads.




So far I like Region J as written...though I'm wondering where all the wood the fire giants are using came from...but eh.

But hey, any help you're willing to give, I'm willing to listen.


----------



## Qwillion

"So I would say, if you're worried about "what if", figure it out yourself in a way that makes sense to you. If the group has not entered region XYZ yet, then don't worry about "what if" until it becomes an issue or something you can use."

I know it falls between two of my dm rules.

1. Never create more than you will use

2. Be Prepared (for the stupid things your players will do)

Plus my players are evil humans, I am at least glad he gave an idea that players who run through this could be evil, most do not.  So what happens here is a big deal, my players are going to side with the Barghests and the Shadows. It is possible one of them will even try to free the redeemed from the tyranny of the inevitables. 

the Factions to me were great but just saying that "If you plan to run section E as a campaign, The GM needs to do a lot of work once the players leave the section"  Just screams bad design to me.  The statement that you realize that you did not do a good enough job, does not excuse you from not doing a better job.


----------



## DemonGnome

> I'd like to hear more stories of people running through Region N. I spent nearly a month editing and writing on this Region and I would love to read what your teams have accomplished.




The group I am running has gotten quite far into Region N, having taken down Kasteoficiss, the Great Death, and the Wraith King. Unfortunately the group also ran into the sigil near the wraith king. The 'brains' of the group tried to examine it (Big mistake) and failed all 3 saves and so alignment changed from NG to LN and he is now under a geas/quest to 'champion the banner of the martyr Wraith King'. So first thing he does after the 'change' ... "Hey Guys, come take a look at this.". 

So now after all but the cleric has examined it we have aslignments gone from LG to NN, LN to LE, NN to LE. Fortunately only the initial player failed the 3rd save and has to champion the banner of his dead king. Feel kinda sorry (well, not really  ) for what the player who was absent last night will run into when he comes back. 

As for the other leaders, the group has negotiated with Vinnarra (largely because they were concerned about being able to even defeat her) and one player has managed to use Sense the Void (Void Disciple from Complete Divine) to spy upon Invistis. Currently they have just entered his region and almost got ripped a new one by the alloy golem.

On a side note, (don't take this the wrong way) but there were a quite a few editing errors (like much of the book), but the funniest was the table for the sigil of the Wraith King.  Was like (off of memory) 

17 - PC suffers 1d4 Wis Drain

18 - PC suffers 1d8 Con Drain

19 - PC suffers


----------



## Qwillion

*Errors in Region E*

E 44

Scaling
There are no glyphs of warding in this room only barghests but the scaling says to change it's trigger. It should probably increase the # of Barghests or have them wounded.

E 88

Edgar: Monstrous Spider

States that Edgar is charmed, but edgar has vermin traits, so it cannot be charmed. 
You probably need a new spell to control vermin like edgar or a feat that allows you to charm them.


----------



## MoonZar

*Building a forteress of good in WLD ?*

Hello,

I have something very special to tell you about my group.

They have free some prisonner that i added in region A and now they have decide to train them and build some kind of defense in region A to live here.

They have build a shrine and some bedroom. So the NPC they have free are gonna live here while they are exploring the dungeon. They even ask the NPC to dig a couple of more room in the area they are and seal some wall.

This starting to look like a forteress of good in this area.

What do you think ?


----------



## Qwillion

*Fortresses of Good and Section A's problem*

On the fortress of good note, In my game, the players are not the only ones to discover the dead titian. There are at least a number of groups equal to my number of players following them in, (these are character driven sub-plots.)  It would be great for some villian from thier background to come in and take over the whole fortress of good. This does not even have to be a villian. Your could simply make it a paladin who has different ideas of how things can be done, or it could be a copper dragon who thinks the fortress would make a good lair.

Let them have a good idea, let them build it up support it and make it cool, then steal thier good idea right out from under them.




Section A :Too many darkmantles, Dire Rats, Rat swarms and Stirges. This is my attempt to replace some of those creatures so as to make for a more entertaining encounter.


*Room A15*
Initial Attitude, Encounter Conditions, Treasure, Encounter level and Scaling all remain unchanged. 

*Encounter:* Replace 2 fiendish darkmantles with 7 fiendish fluttering oozes.

*Tactics:* 4 oozes on the ceiling (DC 30 to spot), 3 on the floor (DC 15).  The three on the floor use Aid another (AC 10) to grant +2 Bonuses to attack rolls while also granting the +2 flanking bonus. (Total +4 to the upper oozes, attack rolls), The upper oozes attempt to wrap itself around a target’s head in an effort to suffocate it’s prey (see suffocation) , except for one ooze on the ceiling who attempts to smother any light source wrapping itself around the light source (see fire resistance), extinguishing any flame and blocking any light source
If reduced to less than one-half their hit points  (or 1/2 are killed) they flee using their confounding appearance to hide once they move around a corner


_*Fiendish Fluttering Ooze (Cave Moth) * _ 
Tiny Ooze (Extraplanar)
*Hit Dice: * 1d10+0 (5hp)
*Initiative:* +0
*Speed:* fly 30ft. (Poor)
*Armor Class: * 12 (+2 size), touch 12, flat-footed 12
*Base Attack/Grapple:* +0/-6
*Attack: * Slam +0 melee +2 ranged 
*Full Attack: * Slam 1d6-2
*Face/Reach: * 2-1/2 ft./0
*Special Attacks:* Smite Good, Smother
*Special Qualities: * Blindsight 60 ft., confounding appearance, ooze traits, Resistance fire and cold 5, Spell Resistance 6 
*Saves: * Fort +0, Ref +0, Will -5
*Abilities: * Str 6, Dex 11, Con 10, Int 3, Wis 1, Cha 1
*Skills: * Hide+10
*Feats: * Ability Focus (Smother), Improved Grapple (B)
*Environment: * Underground
*Organization:* Flurry (5-10), swarm (11-30)
*Challenge Rating:* 1/4
*Treasure: * None
*Alignment:* Neutral Evil
*Advancement:* 2 HD (tiny); 3HD (Small)
*Level Adjustment:* -

_“A glistening wet patch of stone burst forth fluttering like some hellish moth.  It’s translucent form and silent motions combine with the dungeons darkness to confound the sense and make it quite difficult to follow.” _ 

*Smother (Ex): * fluttering ooze that hits with its slam attack attempts to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity.  If the ooze succeeds at this grapple check, it wraps itself around it’s opponent’s head.  On the following round, the opponent must hold its breath or begin taking suffocation damage.  The victim may attempt to peel that attached cave moth away with a successful DC 12 strength or Escape artist check: an ally may also attempt a DC 14 Strength check to pull away the creature. 
Damage dealt to fluttering ooze in the process of smothering a victim is split between cave moth and victim (round odd numbers to the ooze.)  The save DC is Constitution-based.

*Confounding Appearance (Ex): * Fluttering Oozes are difficult to see, requiring a DC 15 Spot check to notice one.  Even if a creature sees the cave moth, it must then make a second DC 15 Spot check to notice that it is something other than a simple patch of wet stone (if it is resting on a wall or ceiling) or a large moth (if it is flying).  

*Fiendish Fluttering Ooze (Cave Moth) * CR ¼; Tiny Ooze (Extraplanar); HD: 1d10+0; hp: 7, 7, 6, 5, 5, 5, 4; Init: +0; Spd: fly 30ft poor.; AC: 12 (+2 size), touch 12, flat-footed 12; Base Atk+0; Grp-6; Atk: Slam +0 melee (1d3-2); Full Atk: Slam 1d3-2; Sp/Rch: 2-1/2 ft./0; SA: Smite Good, Smother; SQ: Blindsight 60 ft., confounding appearance, ooze traits, Resistance fire and cold 5; SR 6; AL: NE SV: Fort +0, Ref +0, Will –5 Str 6, Dex 11, Con 10, Int 3, Wis 1, Cha 1; 
_Skills and Feats:_ hide +10; Ability Focus (Smother), Improved Grapple (B); nge Rating: 0.5
_Smother (Ex): _ fluttering ooze that hits with its slam attack attempts to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity.  If the ooze succeeds at this grapple check, it wraps itself around it’s opponent’s head.  On the following round, the opponent must hold its breath or begin taking suffocation damage.  The victim may attempt to peel that attached cave moth away with a successful DC 12 strength or Escape artist check: an ally may also attempt a DC 14 Strength check to pull away the creature. 
Damage dealt to fluttering ooze in the process of smothering a victim is split between cave moth and victim (round odd numbers to the ooze.)  The save DC is Constitution-based.
_Confounding Appearance (Ex): _ Fluttering Oozes are difficult to see, requiring a DC 15 Spot check to notice one.  Even if a creature sees the cave moth, it must then make a second DC 15 Spot check to notice that it is something other than a simple patch of wet stone (if it is resting on a wall or ceiling) or a large moth (if it is flying).

*Designer notes: * This creature gained an Int 3 when it gained the fiendish template so I gave it skills in hide and a feat, I also took the liberty to add Improved Grapple as a bonus feat. 

*Section 15 Copyright notice. * 
System Reference Document Copyright 2000, Authors Johnathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. 
Creature Collection Copyright 2000, Clark Peterson
Monster Geographica: Underground Copyright 2004, Expeditious Retreat Press


----------



## MoonZar

Hello,

this a good idea to replace some monster from region A. But my group already killed everything in the region A and close the gate and killed Longtail.

BTW I don't think i'll give them more trouble they already have by stealing their idea, but maybe instead i'll send some good people to join the place who will start to attract people who want protection.


----------



## twofalls

*Data Drive Crashed*

My 120 gig Western Digital data drive just died. I lost five years worth of data. Some of it was backed up but not nearly enough. One of the things that hadn't been backed up were the electronic copies of the WLD maps (both AEG and players). Would someone please be kind enough to list the latest link where these maps can be obtained?

Thank you.


----------



## spectre72

www.rpgmp3.com in the downloads section


----------



## Qwillion

*Replacing monsters in Region A*

Yea I am a bit behind the curve because I like to fix things before I play them, I have been reading the book working on an over arching story, I have settled into a more character driven story arch. I have all these replacements on post-it notes in the book but I thought it might be fun to post them here I might make a pdf out of all of them later. 

*
Room A25*
Initial Attitude, Encounter Conditions, Tactics,and Encounter level all remain unchanged. 
*Encounter: * Replace 6 fiendish dire rats with 6 fiendish skinflinters (miser jackels).
*Treasure: * the Skinflintershave gathered all the listed treasure and have placed it in the leather sack which was then hidden behind the open door and covered with a tatered and chewed up cloak. (Search DC 18)
*Scaling:* add an additional two fiendish skinflinters (miser jackels), have two skinflinter’s flee upon sighting the party.

*Fiendish Skinflinter (Miser Jackel) * 
Small Magical Beast (Augmented animal, Extraplanar) 
*Hit Dice: * 1d8 (4 hp)  
*Initiative: * +3 (+3 Dex)  
*Speed: * 50 ft. (10 squares)  
*Armor Class: * 14 (+1 size, +3 Dex), touch 14, flat-footed 11  
*Base Attack/Grapple:* +0/-4  
*Attack:* Bite +4 melee (1d4 -2)  
*Full Attack: * Bite +4 melee (1d4 -2)  
*Space/Reach:* 5 ft./0 ft.  
*Special Attacks: * Posion, smite good  
*Special Qualities: * Darkvision 60ft., filching, low-light vision, Resistance cold and fire 5, scent, Spell Resistance 6  
*Saves:* Fort +2, Ref +5, Will +1  
*Abilities:* Str 6, Dex 17, Con 11, Int 3, Wis 13, Cha 13  
*Skills: * Hide +9, Jump +2, Listen +7, Move Silently +5, Sleight of Hand +7, Spot +3  
*Feats:* Alertness, Weapon Finesse (B)  
*Environment:* Warm plains  
*Organization:* Solitary, Pair, or Pack (5-20)  
*Challenge Rating:* 1/3
*Treasure:* None 
*Alignment:* Always neutral evil  
*Advancement:* 2 HD (Small); 3 HD (Medium)  
*Level Adjustment:* -  

_“A red and black jackal with small horns curling just before its large tall ears”_

*Poison (Ex):* Injury, Fortitude DC 14, initial and secondary damage 2 points Dex and Int. The save DC is Constitution-based including a +4 racial bonus.

*Filching (Ex):* The miser jackal uses it’s gift for stealth to seal metallic objects, they have an uncanny nack for filching items that  a group is going to need, granting a +4 insight bonus to slight of hand. The creature can remain hiding and still make use of its slight of hand skill. 

*Skills: * Skinflinters have a +4 racial bonus on Jump, and Listen checks. *Dogs have a +4 racial bonus on Survival checks when tracking by scent.


_Fiendish Skinflinter (Miser Jackel); _ Small Magical Beast (Augmented animal, Extraplanar); CR: 1/3; HD: 1d8 (4 hp) Init: +3 (+3 Dex); Spd: 50 ft.; AC: 14 (+1 size, +3 Dex), touch 14, flat-footed 11; Base atk: +0  Grp: -4; Atk: Bite +4 melee (1d4 -2); Full Atk: Bite +4 melee (1d4 -2); Sp/Rch: 5 ft./0 ft.; SA: poison, smite good ; SQ: Darkvision 60ft., filching, low-light vision, Resistance cold and fire 5, scent, Spell Resistance 6 AL: NE, SV: Fort +2, Ref +5, Will +1 ; Str 6, Dex 17, Con 11, Int 3, Wis 13, Cha 13  
*Skills and Feats:* Hide +9, Jump +2, Listen +7, Move Silently +5, Sleight of Hand +7, Spot +3; Alertness, Weapon Finesse (B)  
*Poison (Ex):* Injury, Fortitude DC 14, initial and secondary damage 2 points Dex and Int. The save DC is Constitution-based including a +4 racial bonus.
*Filching (Ex): * The miser jackal uses it’s gift for stealth to seal metallic objects, they have an uncanny nack for filching items that  a group is going to need, granting a +4 insight bonus to slight of hand. The creature can remain hiding and still make use of its slight of hand skill. 
Skills: Skinflinters have a +4 racial bonus on Jump, and Listen checks. *Dogs have a +4 racial bonus on Survival checks when tracking by scent.

*Section 15 Copyright notice. * 
System Reference Document Copyright 2000, Authors Johnathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. 
Creature Collection Copyright 2000, Clark Peterson


----------



## twofalls

spectre72 said:
			
		

> www.rpgmp3.com in the downloads section




Thank you!


----------



## Qwillion

*Region N?; Requests?;Too many fiendish rat swarms.*

I am busy writing the hook for my parties entrance into the WLD, but I thought I would post the replacement of another creature in Region A, if you have seen jurrasic park the lost world you will love this.   I also want these to be usefull, if anyone wants to make a request for a room to be changed out for a different creature let me know.

I do have a Question about Region N: what racial traits did you give them? They appear to be just completly generic humanoid with no racial traits. If so, what racial traits do you recomend or dream of using against the players? 

*Room A29*
Initial Attitude, Encounter Conditions, Tactics, Treasure and Encounter level all remain unchanged. 
*Encounter:* Replace the fiendish rat swarm with a fiendish razerswarm.
*Scaling:* scaling up remains the same, scaling down the razerswarm is injured and only has 4 hit points.

*Fiendish Razorswarm* 
Tiny Magical Beast (Augmented Animal, Extraplaner) 
*Hit Dice:* 4d8+8 (26 hp)  
*Initiative:* +4 (+4 Dex)  
*Speed:* 35 ft. (7 squares), Climb 10 ft  
*Armor Class:* 18 (+2 size, +4 Dex, +2 natural), touch 16, flat-footed 14  
*Base Attack/Grapple:* +3/-9  
*Attack:* Swarm (1d8)  
*Full Attack:* Swarm (1d8)  
*Space/Reach:* 10ft/0 ft.  
*Special Attacks:* Distraction , wounding, smite good,  
*Special Qualities:* DR 5/magic, Darkvision, half damage slashing and piercing, low-light vision, resistance to cold and fire 5, scent, swarm traits spell resitance 9,  
*Saves:* Fort +6, Ref +8, Will +2  
*Abilities:* Str 3, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 3, Wis 12, Cha 2  
*Skills:* Climb +12, Hide +20, Jump +16, Listen +9, Spot +9, Survival +9  
*Feats:* Improved Natural Attack,Ability Focus (Distraction)  
*Environment:* Warm forests  
*Organization:* Solitary, or Hoard (2-5)  
*Challenge Rating:* 3  
*Treasure:* None 
*Alignment:* Always neutral  
*Advancement:* 5-8 HD (Tiny); 9-12 HD (Small)  
*Level Adjustment:* - 

_“These two legged reptiles are each only about the size of a chicken. Individually you would hardly be frightened of them, but there are dozens of them, their scales red with black stribes, tiny black horns curling off their heads and a even  hunger lights up their red gem-like eyes.”_ 

*Distraction (Ex):* Any living creature that begins its turn with a swarm in its square must succeed on a DC 14 Fortitude save or be nauseated for 1 round. The save DC is Constitution-based.

*Wounding (Ex):*creatures wounded by a razorswarms attack, takes an addition hit point of damage per round (non-cumulative) until a heal DC 15 or a conjuration (healing) spell is cast, creatures with fast healing, regeneration and immunity to critcal hits are immune to this effect. 

*Skills:* A razorswarm has a +8 racial bonus on Climb, Hide, Jump, Listen, Spot and Survival checks. A razorswarm can always choose to take 10 on all Climb and Jump checks, even if rushed or threatened. A razorswarm uses its Dexterity modifier instead of its Strength modifier for Climb and Jump checks. It can always choose to take 10 on a Climb or Jump check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while climbing, provided it climbs in a straight line


*Fiendish Razorswarm;* CR 3, Tiny Magical Beast; HD: 4d8+8 ; HP: 26 hp; Init: +4 ; Spd: 35 ft., Climb 10 ft; AC: 18 , touch 16, flat-footed 14 ; Base Atk: +3; Grp:-9;  Atk: Swarm (1d8); Full Atk: Swarm (1d8) Sp/Rch: 10ft/0 ft;. SA: Distraction , wounding, smite good; SQ: DR 5/magic, Darkvision, half damage slashing and piercing, low-light vision, resistance to cold and fire 5, scent, swarm traits; SR 9;  SV: Fort +6, Ref +8, Will +2; Str 3, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 3, Wis 12, Cha 2  
*Skills and Feats:* Climb +12, Hide +20, Jump +16, Listen +9, Spot +9, Survival +9; Improved Natural Attack, Ability Focus (Distraction)  
*Distraction (Ex):* Any living creature that begins its turn with a swarm in its square must succeed on a DC 14 Fortitude save or be nauseated for 1 round. The save DC is Constitution-based.
*Wounding (Ex):*creatures wounded by a razorswarms attack, takes an addition hit point of damage per round (non-cumulative) until a heal DC 15 or a conjuration (healing) spell is cast, creatures with fast healing, regeneration and immunity to critcal hits are immune to this effect.
*Skills:* A razorswarm has a +8 racial bonus on Climb, Hide, Jump, Listen, Spot and Survival checks. A razorswarm can always choose to take 10 on all Climb and Jump checks, even if rushed or threatened. A razorswarm uses its Dexterity modifier instead of its Strength modifier for Climb and Jump checks. It can always choose to take 10 on a Climb or Jump check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while climbing, provided it climbs in a straight line

*Section 15 Copyright notice.* 
System Reference Document Copyright 2000, Authors Johnathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. 
Creatures of Freeport Copyright 2004, Green Ronin Publishing, Authors Keith Baker and Graeme Davis


----------



## burnrate

Thanks for the additional region A monsters - I've added a couple of those and a half-dozen others to diversify things in the region a bit. Our second session through region A was a bit slower than the first as we wondered many rather endless hallways. My players were very adept at avoiding any rooms with anything interesting, so I worked in several random encounters. These additional monster types will help that out a great deal.


----------



## Joyce Jun'r

*New Campaign & Wiki*

[If you are a player in _Severall Felons, _then do not read ANY FURTHER. Thank you.]

Gentlemen, ladies.

On May 3 another group of reluctant adventurers enters into the World's Largest Dungeon. I've set up a wiki for the campaign (http://www.innocence.com/games/etc/WLD/SeverallFelons), which details the setting and premise behind the characters' descent into the Dungeon. In sum, however, I'm setting the Dungeon in the Outer Planes (on the forth layer of Carceri, specifically), where it is being used by the Sigil court system as a place to exile, or "transport," criminals. The characters are all felons who have been convicted of various crimes, and are being dumped off in the Dungeon as punishment. If they can escape and get back to Sigil, they are, in the eyes of the law, considered free men (and women, and things).

At present I am customizing Region A to my tastes and the circumstances of the game. In my reimagined version of the Region, the story goes like this:

Longtail was transported to the Dungeon like so many other criminals, and it was there that he stumbled upon Achsyyx, who was still trapped in one of the Celestials' warded rooms (it does not really matter where; any of the now-empty rooms in the Region will do). Achsyyx, in return for Longtail releasing him, promised to assist Longtail in escaping the Dungeon. He claimed he knew of a portal hidden in Region A that would permit their escape, and furthermore claimed he knew where Longtail could find the portal's key. 

Longtail did not trust Achsyyx, wisely, but given the circumstances found himself with few alternatives. Thus, he freed Achsyyx, and the two set out in search of the portal and the key. The key, I should note, is a page stolen from TwoFalls (I believe; if I'm mistaken feel free to correct me). Eventually the two villains found the key and opened the portal, which, much to Longtail's surprise, was a strictly one-way affair -- creatures could enter the Dungeon, but not leave. 

Worse still, the portal led to a mining cavern on the first layer of Baator, which was inhabited not only by countless fiendish darkmantles, bats, rats, giant cockroaches and oozes, but also by a group of lemures that were being employed to dig up ore for use in the baatezu's foundries. These manifold creatures began stumbling through the portal, forcing Longtail and Achsyyx to flee to safer quarters (i.e., the same rooms they are listed as occupying in the World's Largest Dungeon book).

Meanwhile, the army of infernal creatures, which trickle through the portal at a fairly consistent rate (another one [i.e., lemure] or group [i.e., rat-swarm] arriving every 1d4 rounds), spread out through Region A, making quick work of those hapless convicts that they found.

Now, as a tangent, I've customized the inhabitants of Region A to better suit my "place of exile" theme. For instance, I replaced the orcs in their entirety with felons of various races (humans, half-elves, tielfings, halfings, et cetera). The kobold "tribe" was not brought into the Dungeon by Longtail; they were instead a troublesome gang called the Shadowtown Buggers that was eventually rounded up by the Harmonium. Their leader and his lieutenants were all executed, but the rest of the group was sent off to the Dungeon, where the two brothers described in the book eventually rose to power. The troglodytes, lastly, are actually the remnants of a fairly disgusting cult that made enough of a nuisance of themselves to get themselves transported (in my deep-history background, they were abducting the pets and, occasionally, servants of wealthy citizens and using them in sacrificial rites to their nameless lizard-god). 

Because most of the criminals that are dispatched to the Dungeon are just run-of-the-mill street criminals, Region A contains the largest concentration of transportees. Only the strongest, bravest or most foolish of those sent to the Dungeon by Sigil's courts attempt to delve further into its depths (so the PCs will be bumping into fewer and fewer convicts as they go deeper; though those they do encounter will be more powerful). Thus, when the fiendish creatures starting pouring through Longtail's portal, a great many of the felons that populated Region A were quickly butchered. I've filled the Region with the corpses of other felons, and have opted to make those still alive much more paranoid and hostile (the PCs may not be fiendish, granted, but food and water is in short supply, so other convicts may view them as a "poachers" of their hard-won goods).

Stealing another page from TwoFalls, I'm including a working foundry Room A39, where the kobolds are melting down silver coins so as to make their weapons more effective against the lemures. Because they're just thugs, they have no skill at blacksmithing. So, they have kidnapped a gnomish convict who arrived a few weeks ago, since, in the kobold mindset, all gnomes and dwarves equal blacksmiths. The gnome in question, Elo Thimble, does indeed possess blacksmithing skills, so the kobolds were fortunate in this regard. They keep Elo in Room A39, under constant surveillance, and have him work around 10 hours a day silvering their weapons. 

Elo, though a felon, is a decent sort of gnome. In Sigil, he was the apprentice to a human blacksmith, but racked up such gambling debts that he began stealing from his mentor in order to repay his creditors. When his mentor discovered this months later, he pressed charges, and Elo was sent off to the Dungeon. If the PCs opt to rescue Elo (as opposed to killing him with the rest of the kobolds in A39), he'll accompany them, and will be of assistance (perhaps becoming a PC should one of the others die). 

The rest of my adaptations are taken from TwoFalls, so much thanks to him. I'll be replacing most of the darkmantle encounters in the higher-numbered rooms with lemures, and will be substituting out a handful of the ratswarm encounters with fiendish dire bats, a fiend dire cockroach and some fiendish oozes.

Anyhow, thought I'd spill all that out here, in case anyone who is about to run the Dungeon wants to use it. Thanks to everyone on this thread for their brilliant ideas -- I spent an entire afternoon reading through all the suggestions, and everything I've found here as been invaluable!


----------



## MoonZar

Hello Joyce,

I really like your Exile theme, this a very original idea you got there.

Good luck !


----------



## jim pinto

*brilliant*



			
				Joyce Jun'r said:
			
		

> [If you are a player in _Severall Felons, _then do not read ANY FURTHER. Thank you.]
> 
> The rest of my adaptations are taken from TwoFalls, so much thanks to him. I'll be replacing most of the darkmantle encounters in the higher-numbered rooms with lemures, and will be substituting out a handful of the ratswarm encounters with fiendish dire bats, a fiend dire cockroach and some fiendish oozes.
> 
> Anyhow, thought I'd spill all that out here, in case anyone who is about to run the Dungeon wants to use it. Thanks to everyone on this thread for their brilliant ideas -- I spent an entire afternoon reading through all the suggestions, and everything I've found here as been invaluable!




wow. brilliant. i recommend glancing over Room D53 and seeing if that gnome (shudder) is useful at all to your story. he doesn't have to be a level 16 wizard, but the two could be involved with one another. especially since their stories are very similar.

also, someone asked about the race of creatures in region N... page 677 tells you exactly what they are/were.

[weird... page 666 has no demons on it.]


----------



## Qwillion

I asked.

I know role playing wise you left that up to the GM.

I was curious as to how it was handled ROLL playing wise, did you just not add any racial traits and make generic humuniods.

and I was wondering what other players were doing or thinking of doing.

Room A31
Initial Attitude, Encounter Conditions, Treasure, and Encounter level all remain unchanged. 

*Encounter:* Replace 8 fiendish stirges with 1 fiendish pelepos.

*Tactics:* The only one of the pelopos heads is destracted (-4 to it’s listen and spot), the other heads is feeding upon troglodyte corpses in this room. 

It casts obscuring mist upon itself the other moves it to the farside of the room, It will then wait with a readied action to attack the first two creatures creature to enter the doorway, both heads will use spell-like abilities: command (die) and soundburst; then roll initiative. The pelopos then uses magic missile on the next available target, while flying in to finish off the creature with physical attacks. Though it is subject to the troglodyte must (-2 to attacks, weapon damage, saves, and checks)   

The pelopos is very confident that it can flee too A30 if reduced to 2 hp or less. 

*Scaling:* To increase the challenge of this encounter change this pelopos’ constitution score to 16 and do not make it subject to the troglodyte musk; to decrease the challenge ratting have the pelopos be surprised by the pcs.  

_*Fiendish Pelopos (female)  *_ 
Small Magical Beast (Extraplanar) 
*Hit Dice:* 1d10 (5 hp)  
*Initiative:* +5 (+5 Dex)  
*Speed:* 10 ft. (2 squares), fly 60 ft. (average)  
*Armor Class:* 19 (+1 size, +5 Dex, +3 natural), touch 16, flat-footed 14  
*Base Attack/Grapple:* +1/-4  
*Attack:* 2 Bites +7 melee (1d6 -1)  
*Full Attack:* 2 Bites +7 melee (1d6 -1) and 2 claws +7 melee (1d3 -1)  
*Space/Reach:* 5 ft./5 ft.  
*Special Attacks:* Spell-like abilties, smite good,  superior multiattack  
*Special Qualities:* Darkvision 60ft., low-light vision, reistance fire and cold 5, spell resistance 10  
*Saves:* Fort +2, Ref +7, Will +2  
*Abilities:* Str 8, Dex 21, Con 10, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 16  
*Skills:* Hide +13, Listen +10, Spot +10  
*Feats:* Weapon Finesse  
*Environment:* Any plains,forests,hills,mountains  
*Organization:* Solitary, Pair, or Wing (2-5)  
*Challenge Rating:* 3 
*Treasure:* None 
*Alignment:* Always neutral  
*Advancement:* 2 HD (Small); 3 HD (Medium)  
*Level Adjustment:* -  

_“A two headed bird about the size of a halfling child. Covered in vivid red and black plumage the tips brightening to gold, their heads are vulture-like; bald, except for a two small horns and a crest of feather-shaped cartilage shooting downward from the center of both heads.  Their eyes glow a bright red and on the bottom of their beaks, they have a bone-spike”_

speak infernal, abyssal and auran 

A pelopos is sometimes called a wyrd raptor or ettin vultures (knowledge arcana, bardic knowledge DC 11) 

Combat:

*Superior multiattack(Ex):* An pelopos fights with two claws and two bites. Because each of its two heads controls an claw and bite, the pelopos does not take a penalty on attack or damage rolls for attacking multiple times. Pelopos can attack with both their bite attacks at no penalty, even if they move or charge during the round. Each head can also use a separate attack or spell-like ability at the same time.

*Spell-like abilities:* 1/ day- _command_ (DC 14); _featherfall, obscuring mist, magic missile; death knell_ (DC 15), _soundburst_ (DC 15);

*Skills:* Because of its two heads, a pelopos gains a +4 racial bonus to listen and spot checks. 

*Fiendish Pelops (female);* CR 3; Small Magical Beast (Extraplanar) HD: 1d10 ; HP: 5; Init: +5; Spd: 10 ft,. fly 60 ft. (average); AC: 19, touch 16, flat-footed 14;Base Atk: +1; Grp: -4; Atk: 2 Bites +7 melee (1d6 -1); Full Attk: 2 Bites +7 melee (1d6 -1) and 2 claws +7 melee (1d3 -1); SA: Spell-like abilities, smite good, superior multiattack; SQ: Darkvision 60ft., low-light vision, resistance fire and cold 5, spell resistance 10; SV: Fort +2, Ref +7, Will +2; Str 8, Dex 21, Con 10, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 16  
*Skills and Feats:* Hide +13, Listen +10, Spot +10; Weapon Finesse  
*Superior multiattack(Ex):* An pelopos fights with two claws and two bites. Because each of its two heads controls an claw and bite, the pelopos does not take a penalty on attack or damage rolls for attacking multiple times. Pelopos can attack with both their bite attacks at no penalty, even if they move or charge during the round. Each head can also use a separate attack or spell-like ability at the same time.
*Spell-like abilities:* 1/ day- _command_ (DC 14); _featherfall, obscuring mist, magic missile; death knell_ (DC 15), _soundburst_ (DC 15);
*Skills:* Because of its two heads, a pelopos gains a +4 racial bonus to listen and spot checks.

*Section 15 Copyright notice.* 
System Reference Document Copyright 2000, Authors Johnathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. 
Bestiary of Loerem Copyright  2002, Sovereign Press, Inc.; Authors Timothy Brown, Christopher Coyle, and Jamie Chambers; based upon original material by Larry Elmore, Margaret Weis, and Tracy Hickman.


----------



## jim pinto

*redistribute as you see fit*

Dear Person Who is Reading this Right Now:

It is with a heavy sigh that I have announced my resignation from Alderac Entertainment Group. After 8 and a half years of game design, writing, editing, and art direction, it is time for me to move on. I am finishing off the month of April and then I'm off to do other things.

I've formed more friendships than I care to admit, and I will very much miss this place, the industry, and the people I've grown to care about. I have every intention of being at GenCon Indy 2005, but this year as a civilian.

I've art directed over 11,000 pieces of art, edited and written over 2,000,000 words, worked nearly 20,000 hours, and put together an impressive resume of books, card sets, and marketing material that I hope will endure for a few more weeks after I'm gone. My voice has been heard plenty by now. So there's not much more to say.

My new job sounds insanely cool. I wouldn't leave AEG for just anything, after all. I'll be working 2 miles from my old stomping grounds (Whittier, CA) and I'm moving to the beach where I'll have my own place for the first time... ever.

If anyone would like to enjoy future correspondence with me, wants to fill my mailbox with junk, or wants to say things that probably can't be sent through the alderac webserver, drop me a line....

I check longbowx@juno.com pretty regularly.

That's all for now. I may or may not be doing some freelance for AEG and hopefully I can sneak onto the boards to chat with some of you in the future. But don't be upset if I'm quiet for a while. I have much to do in the coming weeks.

I will miss the camaraderie, the creative work, and the lack of respect from all of you. But I hope to stay friends with most. Take care of yourselves.

All my best.

Piggy is done with the conch-shell.


----------



## Nyarlathotep

jim pinto said:
			
		

> Dear Person Who is Reading this Right Now:
> 
> It is with a heavy sigh that I have announced my resignation from Alderac Entertainment Group. After 8 and a half years of game design, writing, editing, and art direction, it is time for me to move on. I am finishing off the month of April and then I'm off to do other things.




So does this put the kibosh on World's Largest City?


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## DaveMage

jim pinto said:
			
		

> Dear Person Who is Reading this Right Now:
> 
> It is with a heavy sigh that I have announced my resignation from Alderac Entertainment Group. After 8 and a half years of game design, writing, editing, and art direction, it is time for me to move on. I am finishing off the month of April and then I'm off to do other things.




Best of luck to you, jim!

Thanks for making EN World more enjoyable by answering our questions and comments.


However, even though you won't be working for AEG anymore, you're still very welcome here and I hope you'll stop in from time to time.


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## pelvo

Congratulations and all the best in your new job.

Does this mean there will never be a prettified index?


----------



## Qwillion

Congragulations, 

Sad to see you go, glad to know it's for a "crazy cool" new job. 

you will be missed.


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## BlueBlackRed

jim pinto said:
			
		

> It is with a heavy sigh that I have announced my resignation from Alderac Entertainment Group. After 8 and a half years of game design, writing, editing, and art direction, it is time for me to move on. I am finishing off the month of April and then I'm off to do other things.




Oh great, I go on vacation for 1 week and look at what happens...

Good luck man. Let us all know what you've created.


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## JamesL85

I know how you feel BlueBlackRed.....

I wish you the best in whatever you do, Jim, but there's a ton of us here who'll sorely miss you.....

I updated my download page with a couple of new maps donated by Neil.  The link is here.


----------



## just__al

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> I updated my download page with a couple of new maps donated by Neil.  The link is here.




I'm about 95% done with a players map for region G. Maybe by Monday, my time is a little bit taken up by the fact that we are playing all day saturday. Maybe they can make it out of Region A.  I figrued out that I can photoshop the PDF and still save it as a PDF so even I with my paltry skills can slowly make one of the player's maps.

Oh and that whole mother's day thing...


----------



## n3dst4

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> I updated my download page with a couple of new maps donated by Neil.  The link is here.




I forgot about this thread, but thanks to James for posting this here.
I offer no apologies for the ropey Photoshopping - I had half an hour to do both before my game started :-D


----------



## kenc

*Starting this monster this weekend. How did you handle...*

I am not a big fan of players not having access to shops or craftsmen but for this dungeon it is the way it is. 

I have not read through the whole book yet but here are some of my concerns so far. 

Equipment:  

Here are a few ways I plan on accounting for not being able to shop. How have other DM's been suppling the pc's? or have you found that the basics are provided.

Raw materials for crafting/scribing. My thought is to let the players break down unused stuff for "raw materials" with the appropriat craft skill of coarse. The raw material they have will be assigned a gp value and used as normal. 

Has anyone dumped in the "old merchant who can go anywhere and has anything"? Did that unbalance things?


----------



## JamesL85

Just_Al said


> I'm about 95% done with a players map for region G. Maybe by Monday, my time is a little bit taken up by the fact that we are playing all day saturday




I too will be playing tomorrow, but any game map you wish to send to me would be greatly appreciatied.........

James


----------



## Sieobahn

kenc said:
			
		

> How have other DM's been suppling the pc's? or have you found that the basics are provided.




This hasn't been too much of a problem in my game, there has been a high character turn over, so except in a few cases, they get the dead characters equipment, plus the new PC's arrive with equipment up to the standard starting gold. None of the PC's have any crafting skills or feats.

With the high turnover, to get new characters into the game so the players are waiting around bored, I have had teleport traps scattered around the world, so one minute they are examining a valuable gem, next they are in a prison (minus the gem of course!).

Today's session was deadly. They are 5th / 6th level and in region I. A dark naga gave them a good fight, but a badly placed fireball took out one PC. She  nearly killed several others (they were no threat after strength dropped to 4!). And then because of the warped healing in this region, the next day one PC raged, another was confused, and another just went insane! Another PC died in that little fight while the confused one spent the battle alternativly running away and gibbering.


Thanks for creating and posting the players maps, I run the game with the aid of a projector and it makes a great tool. Is there any chance of creating them as images instead of PDF files? I lose a bit of quality exporting to a jpg file for use with the projector.


----------



## n3dst4

Sieobahn said:
			
		

> Is there any chance of creating them as images instead of PDF files? I lose a bit of quality exporting to a jpg file for use with the projector.




No problem - which regions do you need?


----------



## Sieobahn

n3dst4 said:
			
		

> No problem - which regions do you need?




Thanks n3dst4

Region I and E would be great, but I would love to get them all. My e-mail is sieobahn @ evoker.net

This image gives you an idea of how they are appearing on the board.

But even the maps don't help, twice now members of the party has been accidently fireballed through poorly placed spells.


----------



## just__al

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> Just_Al said
> Quote:
> I'm about 95% done with a players map for region G. Maybe by Monday, my time is a little bit taken up by the fact that we are playing all day saturday
> 
> 
> 
> I too will be playing tomorrow, but any game map you wish to send to me would be greatly appreciatied.........
> 
> James




Hey, I just emailed you my players only version of the region G map.  Check your email and please credit just__al on the downloads page


----------



## JamesL85

It's posted....Thanks for the map!!!!

James


----------



## Joyce Jun'r

*Even More Region A Customization*

So, as you may recall, I'm editing the plotline and content of Region A to better suit my <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/showpost.php?p=2195533&postcount=791">campaign prospectus</a>. I ran our first session last Tuesday, and it went swimmingly, but afterwards I realized that my players -- all long-time D&D players, and hardboiled dungeon-crawlers -- would be difficult to scare and impress. I mean, they've killed a thousand darkmantles before in prior campaigns -- what's a few dozen more?

Clearly, then, I needed some rare or unexpected monsters. My narrative skills are pretty good, I fancy (one player did compliment me by describing a darkmantle in the "most chillingly alien way" he's yet heard), but nothing surprises and scares players more than an unknown monster. 

Before I even went to the bookstore to delve through all the additional Monster Manuals, Fiend Folios and whatnot, however, one of the players (while speaking in-character), gave me the perfect idea. While combating a swarm of fiendish rats, she said that they were "too smart" for vermin, and were probably being controlled "by a sinister wizard" somewhere in the dungeon. Of course, this was not the case -- I was just playing the rats as being particularly intelligent -- but she didn't need to know that.

I've decided that Room A55 still contains one of the Dungeon's original prisoners -- Lucent, a psionic Brain in a Jar (the concept taken from _Libris Mortis_, but modified heavily). The door to this room, I've decided, is a made of stone, and is circular in shape with a brass gryphon head sticking out of the center. It originally could only be opened with a key, inserted into the gryphon's mouth, which than rolled the stone door to the side. The door also had a stream of engraved Celestial runes around its edge, which was effectively a ward against psionics that prevented Lucent from using his mental powers behind the confines of his cell.

During one of the many earthquakes that racked the Dungeon decades or centuries ago, the circular door cracked. Subsequent tremors and quakes only exacerbated the damage, until eventually the circular door cracked in half entirely, and one side collapsed to the floor. Thus the ward was broken.

But Lucent was not able to escape, for he is, after all, only a brain possessing no mode of transportation or movement. The Celestials were smart enough not to put him in a free-standing jar, but instead in a floor-to-ceiling length column made of adamantine (to hinge it in place) and a special material that is similar to glass (i.e., it is transparent) but is a hundred times stronger, able to withstand much stronger blows (effectively, I'm saying it has a hardness of 10, and an attacker must deal 30 points of damage to one targeted section before breaking a hole into it). Lucent, the brain, floats in yellowish liquid which itself fills the glass column.

With the arrival of the fiendish creatures, Lucent has used his modified _dominate animal _ability to assume control over any vermin that stumble nearby. He then sees through the eyes and ears of these creatures to scout out the Region, hoping to find individuals talented and powerful enough to get him the hell out. His primary goal is merely escape -- if he can find someone (or a group) who seems capable of fleeing the Dungeon, he intends on luring them to his cell using his dominated fiendish creatures (and when they close enough, telepathy). Once there, he hopes to initiate terms of parley, during which time he can use his _suggestion_ and _dominate person _abilities to "convince" whoever arrives to somehow free him, put him in a container and take him along with them during their travels.

Of course, because he is evil, he will have no moral problem turning his rescuers into mindless slaves.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Praise? Death threats?


----------



## n3dst4

just__al said:
			
		

> Hey, I just emailed you my players only version of the region G map. Check your email and please credit just__al on the downloads page




That's not fair! You actually took care on yours, the grid lines up and everything!
*sulks*


----------



## CZHorse

*Long Read First Post*

I have been reading this thread since post one, and have finally reached the end....



What a read!!!



I have been running WLD for about 6 sessions (36 hours of play/10 gametime days). The campaign that I am running plans on going from start to finish of this monster, but we will see how they actually make it. The group is comprised of my two boys, and three of their friends - all of which pretty much first time players. What a way to introduce them to the best RPG ever.



Myself a DM, for about 27 years, has to do some degree of character preservation, but don't believe in holding to many punches. The game is pretty much 3.5 with a couple of house rules. One of which may be useful if you are worried about high mortality rates. Here it is:



*Luck*



Luck is determined like any other score and it represents accidental fortune both good and bad. Luck is not pertinent to any class but can be beneficial to all.



_Racial Modifiers_: _Dwarves, elves, and half-orcs –1, half-elves 0, humans and halflings +1_





*Ability Score /**Modifier/ **Luck Points/ **Fate Points /**Divine Intervention*
1 /-5 /0 /0 /0%
2 /-4 /0 /0 /0%
3 /-4 /1 /0 /0%
4 /-3 /1 /0 /0%
5 /-3 /1 /0 /0%
6 /-2 /2 /0 /0%
7 /-2 /2 /0 /0%
8 /-1 /2 /1 /0%
9 /-1 /3 /1 /0%
10 /0 /3 /1 /0%
11 /0 /3 /2 /0%
12 /1 /3 /2 /1%
13 /1 /4 /2 /2%
14 /2 /4 /3 /3%
15 /2 /4 /3 /4%
16 /3 /5 /3 /5%
17 /3 /5 /3 /6%
18 /4 /5 /3 /7%
19 /4 /6 /3 /8%
20 /5 /6 /3 /9%
21 /5 /7 /4 /10%
22 /6 /7 /4 /11%
23 /6 /8 /4 /12%
24 /7 /9 /4 /13%
25 /7 /10 /5 /14%

_Luck Point Usage_: Each game session a character may expend their luck points on any personal attack, damage, saving throw, or skill check (_Any dice thrown by player – excluding character building...example adding new hit points_.) They may chose to spend the points after the roll is made, but before any other game action is determined. Each point expended is equal to a +1 bonus or 5%, and no more than 5 points maybe spent ant any one time.



_Fate Points Usage_: Each time a character is brought to below –10 hit points, they may spend a fate point to stay alive. This usage puts them out of action, but stabilized at -1 hit points (_This stabilization will continue until the PC is helped_.) These can also be used to negate the effects of a _special critical wound_.



_Divine Intervention_: Divine Intervention is just what it sounds like, and will only have any effect in a hopeless situation.



_Additional Note_: The DM will occasionally ask for a luck ability check, and it is made by rolling a d20 + modifier like any other ability check. Be careful as these can be asked for at the most inopportune moments, as trying to determine which way a body falls – on the thin ledge or over the side into a bottomless crevasse. To low of Luck score can doom a PC. Only named villains and NPCs have a Luck score. 


So far (75% of the way through A) - 2 fate points gone. By the time they run out they should have enought experience to make it on their own. Then I will work on replacements for the ones no so lucky.


Will post party dynamics and log later........

CZHorse


----------



## just__al

n3dst4 said:
			
		

> That's not fair! You actually took care on yours, the grid lines up and everything!
> *sulks*




Only where I needed to so I could absolutely hide something like a secret door.  My players could tell "something" was there on the region A map and assumed it was poorly hidden on purpose.  It was at the end of a dead end hallway anyway so they would probably have searched till they found it but I don't want that happening again.

I don't even know if they'll ever reach region G but I decided to stop waiting on someone else to finish the maps and contribute to the cause since I am taking advantage of the maps.

I'm also happy for the complete maps because they allow me to read the book and have them open on my computer screen instead of spreading them all around my desk.

Besides, if you look closely enough, you'll see where I cheated.


----------



## Sieobahn

just__al said:
			
		

> Only where I needed to so I could absolutely hide something like a secret door.  My players could tell "something" was there on the region A map and assumed it was poorly hidden on purpose.




I have had this happen a few times, but I explain away any editted looking areas by saying that is where the room number was removed, or where the background was changed.

Besides if there search once and fail, I am not going to let them re-roll search checks until they get a high enough roll to succeed. Unless I want them through the secret door of course!


----------



## just__al

Sieobahn said:
			
		

> I have had this happen a few times, but I explain away any editted looking areas by saying that is where the room number was removed, or where the background was changed.
> 
> Besides if there search once and fail, I am not going to let them re-roll search checks until they get a high enough roll to succeed. Unless I want them through the secret door of course!




It's a little tough when the cleric of the group has the knowlege domain and takes detect secret doors as her domain spell.


----------



## CZHorse

*Equipment*



			
				kenc said:
			
		

> Equipment:
> 
> Here are a few ways I plan on accounting for not being able to shop. How have other DM's been suppling the pc's? or have you found that the basics are provided.
> 
> Raw materials for crafting/scribing. My thought is to let the players break down unused stuff for "raw materials" with the appropriat craft skill of coarse. The raw material they have will be assigned a gp value and used as normal.
> 
> Has anyone dumped in the "old merchant who can go anywhere and has anything"? Did that unbalance things?




This should not be much of an issue with the numerous supply rooms in E and other areas.  However, if the group needs something you can always include it somewhere.

You don't always need to include items that are new and in good repair.  Make those arcane casters useful, and use the Mending spell.

Having the party needing things, puts extra need for them to continue exploring.  I like having the cleric need to take spells like Purify Food an Water and Create Water, and you would be surprised at how many creative ways you can prepare Rat and Darkmantle.


----------



## CZHorse

*Maps*

Anyone know if someone has taken the time to map any of the regions with Dundjinni?  It would be a huge undertaking, but....


----------



## Qwillion

*Room A37*

Looks like my WLD game will get started sooner than I expected, the players in the banewarrens have been using "find the path" (other wise known as "Ruin the Adventure"), so looks like I will be speeding up my replacements. 

Oh and as always if there is a creature you would like me to change in a particular room, tell me the room and I will find a creature in my library of d20 books, because nothing is as scary as a unknown monster. 

ROOM A37
Initial Attitude, Encounter Conditions, Treasure, and Encounter level all remain unchanged. 

*Encounter:* Replace 6 fiendish stirges with 2 fiendish adult wyrmspawn.

*Tactics:* The wyrmspawn have just molted into their adult stage (penalties remain the same)  It takes two rounds before these wyrmspawn can use their larval cloud ability. Other than this, the encounter remains the same. 

*Scaling:* To increase the challenge of this encounter, make these wyrmspawn full adults and ready with a larval cloud. To decrease the challenge it takes four rounds before the wyrmspawn can use their larval cloud attack. 

_*FIENDISH ADULT WYRMSPAWN*_ 
*Small Magical Beast* 
*Hit Dice:* 3d10+3 (19 hp) 
*Initiative:* +9 (+5 Dex, +4 Improved Initiative) 
*Speed:* 20 ft. (4 squares), fly 80 ft. (good), climb 20 ft. (4 squares) 
*Armor Class:* 19 (+1 size, +5 Dex, +3 natural), touch 16, flat-footed 14 
*Base Attack/Grapple:* +3/-1 
*Attack:* Bite +4 melee (1d4 +0 plus poison) 
*Full Attack:* Bite +4 melee (1d4 +0 plus poison) and 2 claw -1 melee (1d3 ++0) 
*Space/Reach:* 5 ft./0 ft. 
*Special Attacks:* Larval cloud, poison, smite good, superior fly-by-attack: 
*Special Qualities:* Darkvision 60ft., low-light vision, resistance 5 fire and cold
*Saves:* Fort +4, Ref +8, Will +1 
*Abilities:* Str 11, Dex 21, Con 12, Int 3, Wis 10, Cha 6 
*Skills:* Hide +12, Move Silently +8, 
*Feats:* Flyby Attack, Improved Initiative 
*Environment:* Any land 
*Organization:* Solitary, Pair, or Flock (3-7) 
*Challenge Rating:* 2 
*Treasure:* Standard 
Alignment: Always chaotic evil 
*Advancement:* 4-6 HD (Small); 7-9 HD (Medium) 
*Level Adjustment:* - 

_You see a wyvern-like creature about the size of a dog. It has a long crimson serpentine body, small black horns and four narrow limbs. A wing membrane black as night stretches from it’s forelegs to the rear, like some insidious bat._ 

COMBAT:  
The wyrmspawn prefers to attack weak and exposed targets from the air.  It will often attack and then flee, letting it’s poison and cloud do it’s work, then return to attack again. 

*Larval Cloud (Ex):* 1/day; 10’ cloud; 1 minute; Fort save (DC 13 or be blinded and sickened for 1d6+2 rounds. Those that fail the save must make a second fort save (DC 13) to avoid ingesting gut wyrm larvae. 
Larvae attach themselves to the inside of the host’s lungs and hatch 1d4+2 days later they chew their way out, Victims suffer 2d4 points of con damage when the spawn emerge, a successful fortitude save (DC 15) reduces the damage by half.  Both disease or poison curing magic affect larvae, poisonous gas inhaled by the victim also kills the larvae. . Save DC is constitution based with a +1 racial bonus and a +2 circumstance bonus for the larvae
*Poison (Ex):* Injury, Fortitude DC 13 initial and secondary paralysis 1d6+2 minutes The save DC is Constitution-based  with a +1 racial bonus.
*Superior Flyby Attack (Ex):*  When flying a wymspawn does not provoke an attack of opportunity for leaving a threatened square. 


*FIENDISH ADULT WYRMSPAWN;* CR 2; Small Magical Beast (Extraplaner); HD: 3d10+3; HP 19; Init: +9; Spd: 20 ft, fly 80 ft. (good), climb 20 ft.; AC: 19, tch 16, ff 14 Base Atk: +3,  Grp: -1; Atk: Bite +4 melee (1d4 +0); Full Atk: Bite +4 melee (1d4 +0) and 2 claws -1 melee (1d3 ++0); Sp/Rch: 5 ft./0 ft; SA: Larval cloud, poison, superior fly-by-attack: SQ: Darkvision 60ft., low-light vision, resistance 5 fire and cold; SV: Fort +4, Ref +8, Will +1; Str 11, Dex 21, Con 12, Int 3, Wis 10, Cha 6 
*Skills and Feats:* Hide +12, Move Silently +8;  Flyby Attack, ,Improved Initiative 

*Larval Cloud (Ex):* 1/day; 10’ cloud; 1 minute; Fort save (DC 13 or be blinded and sickened for 1d6+2 rounds. Those that fail the save must make a second fort save (DC 13) to avoid ingesting gut wyrm larvae. 
Larvae attach themselves to the inside of the host’s lungs and hatch 1d4+2 days later they chew their way out, Victims suffer 2d4 points of con damage when the spawn emerge, a successful fortitude save (DC 15) reduces the damage by half.  Both disease or poison curing magic affect larvae, poisonous gas inhaled by the victim also kills the larvae. . Save DC is constitution based with a +1 racial bonus and a +2 circumstance bonus for the larvae
*Poison (Ex):* Injury, Fortitude DC 13 initial and secondary paralysis 1d6+2 minutes The save DC is Constitution-based  with a +1 racial bonus.
*Superior Flyby Attack (Ex): * When flying a wymspawn does not provoke an attack of opportunity for leaving a threatened square. 
*
Section 15 Copyright notice.* 
System Reference Document Copyright 2000, Authors Johnathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. 
Creature Collection Copyright 2000, Clark Peterson


----------



## CZHorse

Qwillion said:
			
		

> Looks like my WLD game will get started sooner than I expected, the players in the banewarrens have been using "find the path" (other wise known as "Ruin the Adventure"), so looks like I will be speeding up my replacements.




How much of A are you going to replace, and what does the final encounter list look like?  My group is all basically begining players, and I don't need to worry about them having killed hundreds of these creatures in past adventures.  The region as written will work for us, but my players will sure be pros on darkmantles, rats, and stirges by the time they exit the region.


----------



## Qwillion

"How much of A are you going to replace, and what does the final encounter list look like? "

85% of my group are 15+ year vetrens of the game, my players complain that darkmantles are not piercers.  So I am replacing the encounters in region A so as there is only one of each type of encounter as far extraplaner beasts are concerned.  I am trying to stay with the same encounter levels. 

In region B I am looking at something other than blink dogs. Yet you would be suprized how few Good cannine monsters there are.


----------



## entropysoda

*'cut' material for region I - wanted!*

Jim Hague mentioned 'cut' material  for “region I” here….

but I can’t find this material anywhere…Is it possible to post it….I am especially interested in the “28 days later” positive energy zombies that Jim mentioned...

I tried to email Jim Hague, but as I can't find his email address anywhere, I had to guess at it (and probably got it wrong)...does anyone know his email?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

entropysoda said:
			
		

> Jim Hague mentioned 'cut' material  for “region I” here….
> 
> but I can’t find this material anywhere…Is it possible to post it….I am especially interested in the “28 days later” positive energy zombies that Jim mentioned...
> 
> I tried to email Jim Hague, but as I can't find his email address anywhere, I had to guess at it (and probably got it wrong)...does anyone know his email?




Just wait about a week.
He checks this thread often enough and will probably say something to you.

Not sure why you want more of I. That region is messed up enough already.


----------



## Raven Crowking

*Starting Tuesday*

Hi there.

I just got this monster, and I have been reading through Region A.  I plan on starting the game Tuesday.  The PCs are summoned from all over the multiverse (I am allowing Star Wars d20, This d20, and That d20 characters into the WLD).  Since this is not part of my regular campaign, I'm adopting a "everything goes, what happens in the WLD stays in the WLD" attitude.  Wookies, Wizards, and Mutants, oh my!

For those who follow the Marvel comic, _Exiles_, I plan to use something like the Talus -- a magical bracelet that replaces the fallen at the end of every "episode".  I would also like to make the bracelet able to display the player versions of the Region maps once "attuned" by the section's Lantern Archon.  Could someone link me to the download site?

I also decided to make this the _second_ expedition sent by a powerful being, as the first group never returned.  This is to allow me to inject a bit of multidimensional mayhem of my own into the WLD.

I'll be happy to let you know how it goes!

Thanks.


----------



## JamesL85

I don't have the cut information for area I, but would love to have (and host) the info.

I have some of the player maps available here.  If someone (even Jim Hague) can e-mail me that info, I'll be more than happy to post it.  The e-mail is availabe at the bottom of the linked page.....

Thanks,
James


----------



## Jim Hague

entropysoda said:
			
		

> Jim Hague mentioned 'cut' material  for “region I” here….
> 
> but I can’t find this material anywhere…Is it possible to post it….I am especially interested in the “28 days later” positive energy zombies that Jim mentioned...
> 
> I tried to email Jim Hague, but as I can't find his email address anywhere, I had to guess at it (and probably got it wrong)...does anyone know his email?




Once a week?  I'm wounded, truly I am. 

Ok, after three HD crashes, RL intruding vociferously and me leaving poor James wondering when the hell he was going to get the cut material, I present to you all:

Thralls of the Flesh
*Medium-Size Undead Humanoid(Special)*
Hit Dice:4d12 (26 hp)
Initiative: +9
Speed: 40 ft.
AC: 19 (+5 Dex, +4 natural)
Base Attack/Grapple: +2/+7
Attack: Claw +7 melee
Full Attack: 2 Claws +7 melee, Bite +2 melee
Damage: Claw 1d6+5, Bite 1d6+2, plus energy damage
Face/Reach: 5ft./5ft.
Special Attacks: Frenzied Attack, Positive Energy Damage
Special Qualities: Undead Traits,  Turning Immunity, Evasion, Fast Healing/2, Positive Energy Surge
Saves: Fort +1, Ref +8, Will +4
Abilities: Str 20, Dex 20, Con - , Int 5, Wis 10, Cha 10
Skills: Listen +4, Spot +3
Feats: Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes
Climate/Terrain: Underground (special)
Organization: Solitary, mob (2-4), pack (5-10)
Challenge Rating: 4
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (always)
Advancement: 5-10 HD

Description:
There are worse things than death within the walls of the World's Largest Dungeon, and the Thralls of the Flesh prove it.  The corpses of drow warriors, unlucky slaves and even the occasional adventurer swell the ranks of these bizarre undead.  Unlike the foul creatures found outside the Dungeon, the Thralls are not animated by the power of the Negative Material Plane, but by the trapped positive energy within the Halls of Flesh.  Their unusual condition lends the Thralls speed unmatched by nearly any creature, and allow them to keep the Halls of Flesh scoured clean of any normal undead unfortunate enough to wander into their domain.

The Thralls are barely intelligent, and writhe in constant agony from the energies animating their bodies.  A Thrall will vary in appearance, depending on its form before it died.  None carry weapons, and only a few wear any sort of armor.  When spying prey within the Halls, a Thrall (or worse, a pack of them) will unleash an unearthly howl as they close in on their victims.  Often, the screams of a pack of Thralls is enough to attract the attention of the chokers or gricks within the Halls of Flesh...and for some particularly unfortunate creatures, the attention of Anguish or Madness.

Combat:
The Thralls of the Flesh attack without regard to superior numbers, tactics or care for their own safety.  Upon spotting a creature, the Thralls drive themselves into a frenzy and immediately attempt to close to melee range.  Due to the nature of the energies animating them, the Thralls are immune to turning attempts; indeed, trying to turn the Thralls makes that individual a primary target.

Evasion: The positive energy animating Thralls of the Flesh grants them almost supernatual alacrity.  The Evasion ability of thralls is the same as that of a 2nd level Rogue.

Fast Healing 2: Thralls of the Flesh recover 2 Hit Points per round unless destroyed.

Frenzied Attack: Thralls of the Flesh enter a berserk rage when they spot a potential victim.  Their frenzy is identitcal to a Barbarian's Rage ability of the same level.  Thralls can maintain this state for up to 4 rounds.  thralls do not suffer exhaustion after the rage passes, but cannot use this ability again for 1 hour afterwards.

Positive Energy Damage: The positive energy animating the Thralls surges forth when they attack their victims, tearing through their bodies.  A successful claw or bite attack by a Thrall inflicts +1d6 positive energy damage on the target.  With living creatures, this 'damage' will actually heal wounds inflicted by the Thralls in combat.  However, if the creature in question exceeds its normal Hit Points, they must immediately make a Fortitude save (DC 15 + the amount of damage inflicted that round) or suffer 1d6 Intelligence damage.  Creatures reduced to 0 Int by the Thralls die, rising as Thralls within 1d3 rounds.  Alternately, the DM may elect to roll on the Random Mutation Table for Region I.

Positive Energy Surge: Instead of making a full attack against a target, the Thralls may unleash a burst of positive energy in a 10' radius, inflicting 4d6 positive energy damage (DC 15 for 1/2 damage).  This damage functions the same as the normal positive energy damage of the Thralls' attack, including the random mutations spawned by the influx of positive energy.

Turning Immunity: Thralls of the Flesh are animated by energy trapped by the Halls of Flesh, and cannot be turned.  Due to the nature of the energy commanding them, attempts to command the Thralls also fail.  Thralls can be rebuked.

Undead Traits (special): A Thrall of the Flesh is immune to mind-affecting effects, poison, _sleep_, paralysis, stunning and disease.  Unlike most undead, Thralls of the Flesh are affected normally by death and necromantic effects, but are not subject to effects requiring a Fortitude save, unless that effect also works on objects.  Thralls are immune to nonlethal damage, but can be affected by ability damage and ability drain.  Thralls of the Flesh are subject to death by massive damage; however, a Thrall failing its massive damage save releases its remaining positive energy in a single burst inflicting 8d6 positive energy damage in a 20' radius (DC 15 Reflex for 1/2).  A Thrall of the Flesh cannot be raised or resurrected.  Thralls of the Flesh possess Darkvision (60 ft. range).

OPEN GAME LICENSE Version 1.0a

The following text is the property of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. and is Copyright 2000 Wizards of the Coast, Inc ("Wizards"). All Rights Reserved.

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----------



## Qwillion

*Picking the nit*

3.5 corrections since WLD is a 3.5 product

what is the augmented creature type for this undead
why is the creatues speed 40
why is it's claw damage so good
Base Attack/Grapple: is wrong should be +2/+7
Attack: is wrong should be +7 
Full Attack: 2 Claw +7 melee (1d6 +5) and bite +2 melee (1d6 +2) 
Saves: wrong Fort +1, Ref +8, Will +4 
Skills: wrong only 7 skill points, Listen +4, Spot +3 
Alignment: usually, always often?

 Frienzied attack: thralls do not suffer exhaustion after the rage passes, but cannot use this ability again for 1 hour afterwards.


Its undead it never suffers exhaustion

Turning Immunity: Thralls of the Flesh are animated by energy trapped by the Halls of Flesh, and cannot be turned. 

Can they be rebuked and commanded? Immunity makes no sense, why are you ignoring the standard mechanic of resistance. 

it's undead, undead traits is redundent


----------



## Raven Crowking

*Questions*

Okay, reading through A I have some questions:

1)  What is the "Decrepit" condition that appears in Room A 32?  I know that I can just ignore the word, but I'd like to know what it was originally intended to represent. 

2)  Why is is that the Condition Summary lists some conditions as Condition Name X, where X is the value given to that condition, but several room descriptions lack the number represented by X?  For example, Room A 25 has the Distracting Visions condition, but there is no value for it.  Similarly, A31 has Distracting Noises with no value.  Is there an errata somewhere that addresses this?


RC


----------



## DaveMage

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Okay, reading through A I have some questions:
> 
> 2)  Why is is that the Condition Summary lists some conditions as Condition Name X, where X is the value given to that condition, but several room descriptions lack the number represented by X?  For example, Room A 25 has the Distracting Visions condition, but there is no value for it.  Similarly, A31 has Distracting Noises with no value.  Is there an errata somewhere that addresses this?
> 
> 
> RC




Well, if you're gonna post in both threads, so am I.    

I would suggest using the recommendation in the core rulebooks, which (speaking about DCs) says that if something would make things more difficult, raise the DC by 2. So, in the example above, make it Distracting Visions/Noises 2. If you would like it to be severe, make it Distracting Visions/Noises 4.


----------



## Jim Hague

Qwillion said:
			
		

> 3.5 corrections since WLD is a 3.5 product




It's raw stuff, drawn from the murky depths of the hard drive and posted here, sadly.  I don't have Savage Species handy, so anyone wishing to make corrections, feel free to do so.



> what is the augmented creature type for this undead



Humanoid, by default.  Thinking on it, I ought to write up a template as well...



> why is the creatues speed 40



The power of positive energy.



> why is it's claw damage so good



See above. 



> Base Attack/Grapple: is wrong should be +2/+7



Again, my bad - no Savage Species at hand.



> Attack: is wrong should be +7
> Full Attack: 2 Claw +7 melee (1d6 +5) and bite +2 melee (1d6 +2)
> Saves: wrong Fort +1, Ref +8, Will +4
> Skills: wrong only 7 skill points, Listen +4, Spot +3
> Alignment: usually, always often?
> 
> Frienzied attack: thralls do not suffer exhaustion after the rage passes, but cannot use this ability again for 1 hour afterwards.
> 
> 
> Its undead it never suffers exhaustion
> 
> Turning Immunity: Thralls of the Flesh are animated by energy trapped by the Halls of Flesh, and cannot be turned.
> 
> Can they be rebuked and commanded? Immunity makes no sense, why are you ignoring the standard mechanic of resistance.
> 
> it's undead, undead traits is redundent




The standard resistance mechanic doesn't apply here, IMO, because these creatures are animated by positive instead of negative energy.  But, all the above's been corrected in the post.  If anyone else spots errors, please post 'em.


----------



## Qwillion

*Template*

Yea a template would work much better, (I personally think all undead should be templates by default)

I would think since it is animated by postive energy, turning would work like rebuking and rebuking would work like turning.

oh and listen and spot are still wrong

I agree with the unlisted Xs being the #2


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Qwillion said:
			
		

> I would think since it is animated by postive energy, turning would work like rebuking and rebuking would work like turning.




I'm half with you on that.

The creatures are still undead, so evil clerics should be able to turn them instead of rebuke them.

But good clerics should not be able to rebuke or turn them, since that seems to be more of an evil act.


----------



## just__al

Hey JamesL85..

I just emailed you a region H players map.  Feel free to post it on your site and credit just__al


----------



## JamesL85

I got it Al.....And it's posted....Thanks a bunch.

Are you going to make a template for these Jim?  If not, is someone going to???  That is one mean mother!!!

James


----------



## just__al

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> I got it Al.....And it's posted....Thanks a bunch.
> 
> Are you going to make a template for these Jim?  If not, is someone going to???  That is one mean mother!!!
> 
> James





Oh, and I'm currently working on Region K.  I got all the easily dealt with editing done fairly quickly last night.  Maybe I'll have it done by the weekend.


----------



## hitomikitage

*Wind Walk*

I had this situation arise over the last couple of weeks:  A Cleric in the party I am running through the dungeon cast Wind Walk on a guy who then flew around a large chunk of region N, mapping it for the rest of the party.  He counts as incorporeal for purposes of attack, but he can move at 600 feet per round (which means attacks are going to be ineffective if the guy isn't dumb about where he goes and what he does.)  Also, the spell allows the guy who has this cast on him the ability to move through even the smallest cracks in walls and doors due to the gaseous/incorporeal nature of the spell.  Any help or suggestions would be good, since this could break the adventure.  I have got them to a point right now where we won't have another game until the first weekend of June.  They have so far only used the spell twice, and once was to bypass some Golems to get an audience with Invistiss.  The other, however, came close to breaking the game entirely, and I would like to know a way to stop this kind of nonsense without just arbitrarily saying they can't use it.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Howard


----------



## Qwillion

*Insubstantial Not Incoporeal*

Now this is important, they are INSUBSTANTIAL NOT INCOPOREAL, all attacks still hit them they just have damage reduction, this means all undead touch Special attacks work (energy drain and ability drain) as long as you get through the damage reduction.  Also spells have full effect.  So let a few undead bypass the damage reduction, heck the armored fighter and clerics ac got worse. 

"Wind walkers are not invisible but rather appear misty and translucent. If fully clothed in white, they are 80% likely to be mistaken for clouds, fog, vapors, or the like."

I don't think in region N they are going to be mistaken for clouds, they would more likely be mistaken for a vampire in gaseous form. 

"Each change to and from vaporous form takes 5 rounds" and  "It can’t attack or cast spells with verbal, somatic, material, or focus components while in gaseous form. " 

So kick the hell out of them for 5 rounds because at 10 feet per round and no running a speed of 30 feet can chase them and hit them (they can dismiss the spell). 

Dispel magic or greater dispel magic a scout, a glyph can do this, and you don't get feather fall like fly does. A creature can use dispel magic, magical traps still treat you as a creature. 

Now a few traps to deal with this

Glyph of Control Vapor: origional designed to Hold a vampire, this goes off and summons a nearby mosnter who can hit magical creatures. All of your players will be held (no save) and it will take five rounds for them to change while the monster brings the beat down (unless they dismiss the spell). 

Pit trap glyph: designed to trap flyers, this is a large pit with two glyphs of greater dispel magic, going off one after another, dropping the flyer into the pit, if your fealing evil put a monster at the bottom. 

Whirlwind as the Djinn, as mist they get no save against it and they take full damage each round no damage reduction (takes 5 rounds to transform unless they dismiss the spell)

A hallway has a continous gust of wind. 
A room has a magicly warded air tight door.
A bellows sucks the party into a small container (dismiss it now, venture boy!)
Anti magic shell, with any mechanical trap. 
A few changes to the breathstealer undead from MMII and I think you could own the vaporous party. 


But do not be a scrouge, make andencounter that requires that they be in gaseous form. Also create an encounter that requries them to be in physical form (they cannot manipulate an object, especially a antimagic object.) 


If you are looking for something more or different let me know.


----------



## CZHorse

hitomikitage said:
			
		

> I had this situation arise over the last couple of weeks: A Cleric in the party I am running through the dungeon cast Wind Walk on a guy who then flew around a large chunk of region N, mapping it for the rest of the party. He counts as incorporeal for purposes of attack, but he can move at 600 feet per round (which means attacks are going to be ineffective if the guy isn't dumb about where he goes and what he does.) Also, the spell allows the guy who has this cast on him the ability to move through even the smallest cracks in walls and doors due to the gaseous/incorporeal nature of the spell. Any help or suggestions would be good, since this could break the adventure. I have got them to a point right now where we won't have another game until the first weekend of June. They have so far only used the spell twice, and once was to bypass some Golems to get an audience with Invistiss. The other, however, came close to breaking the game entirely, and I would like to know a way to stop this kind of nonsense without just arbitrarily saying they can't use it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.




I don't know if you should stop the use of it, as it is a good use of the spell.  I once had a group that did something very similar with the Mystic in a 2nd Ed game.  It does let them get past some things, and gives them a way to map out an area.  However, they really can not search for details or effect material things in that state.  Additionally, they can still be attacked, but do get reduction 10/magic.

Don't penalize they players for the use of the spell, as that is what we a DM's ask for when we run games.  There are many ways around problems, and players are bound to come up with solutions that we have not thought of, given all the resources that they have.  What we, as DMs, can do is to limit the effectiveness of these solutions.  Example - How would the character who is using Wind Walk actually map the area, they can not hold paper or quill.  They could mentally communicate with another (if they had telepathy), but this would require them to explain to another the dirrections that you gave them, and when this happens they are bound to make errors.  If they can not do this then you pull the ones using the spell aside and make them try to memorize their path, and do not allow mapping.  As they can not effect material objects in this area, then they have to come through this area in solid form anyway to further investigate it.

On the otherhand you could alway just say that the deity refused to grant them that spell on that day.  Good luck if yo go with this idea, as they will revolt if it is done to much.

CZHorse


----------



## Qwillion

*Stab at Template*

Thralls of the Flesh


CREATING A Thrall of the Flesh

"Thralls of the Flesh" is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature other than an undead (referred to hereafter as the base creature).
Size and Type: The creature's type changes to undead. It retains any subtype except for alignment subtypes (such as good) and subtypes that indicate kind. It also gains the augmented subtype of the base creature. It uses all the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.
Hit Dice: Drop any Hit Dice gained from class levels (to a minimum of 1) and raise remaining Hit Dice to d12s. 
Speed: increase all base speeds by 10 feet due to influx of positive energy
Armor Class: Natural armor bonus changes to a number based on the Thrall of the Flesh's size:
Tiny or smalleer------+2	   
Small----------------+3	   
Medium or Large-----+4	   
Huge----------------+5	   
Gargantuan---------+10	   
Colossal-------------+20	 
Attacks: A Thrall of the Flesh retains all the natural weapons, manufactured weapon attacks, and weapon proficiencies of the base creature. A creature with hands gains one claw attack per hand;  and one bite attack if it has a mouth, the skeleton can strike with each of its claw attacks at its full attack bonus. A Thrall of the Flesh's base attack bonus is equal to 1/2 its Hit Dice.
Damage: Natural and manufactured weapons deal damage normally. All claw and bite attacks deal positive energy damage (see special attacks) depending on the Thrall of the Flesh's size. (If the base creature already had claw attacks with its hands and bite attack with a mouth, use the Thralls of the Flesh claw damage or bite damage only if it's better.)
Size, claw bite 
Diminutive or Fine---1d2 	   
Tiny----------------1d3	   
Small---------------1d4	   
Medium-------------1d6	   
Large---------------1d8	   
Huge----------------2d6	   
Gargantuan----------2d8	   
Colossal-------------3d6	 
Special Attacks: A Thralls of the Flesh retains none of the base creature's special attacks but gains the following special attacks:
Frenzied Attack (Ex): Thralls of the Flesh enter a berserk rage when they spot a potential victim. Their frenzy is identitcal to a Barbarian's Rage ability of the same level. Thralls can maintain this state for up to 4 rounds. thralls do not suffer exhaustion after the rage passes, but cannot use this ability again for 1 hour afterwards.
Positive Energy Damage (Su): The positive energy animating the Thralls surges forth when they attack their victims, tearing through their bodies. A successful claw or bite attack by a Thrall inflicts additional positive energy damage equal to the creatures claw attack (medium +1d6, large +1d8, etc.) on the target. With living creatures, this 'damage' will actually heal wounds inflicted by the Thralls in combat. However, if the creature in question exceeds its normal Hit Points, they must immediately make a Fortitude save (DC 15 + the amount of damage inflicted that round) or suffer 1d6 Intelligence damage. Creatures reduced to 0 Int by the Thralls die, rising as Thralls within 1d3 rounds. Alternately, the DM may elect to roll on the Random Mutation Table for Region I.
Positive Energy Surge (Su): Instead of making a full attack against a target, the Thralls may unleash a burst of positive energy in a 10' radius, inflicting 4d6 positive energy damage (DC 15 for 1/2 damage). This damage functions the same as the normal positive energy damage of the Thralls' attack, including the random mutations spawned by the influx of positive energy.
Special Qualities: A Thrall of flesh loses most special qualities of the base creature. It retains any extraordinary special qualities that improve its melee or ranged attacks. A thrall of flesh gains the following special qualities.
Evasion (Ex): The positive energy animating Thralls of the Flesh grants them almost supernatual alacrity. The Evasion ability of thralls is the same as that of a 2nd level Rogue.
Fast Healing (Ex): Thralls of the Flesh recover 2 Hit Points per round unless destroyed.
Saves: Base save bonuses are Fort +1/3 HD, Ref +1/3 HD, and Will +1/2 HD + 2.
Abilities: A thrall of the flesh's Strenght Dexterity increases by +4, it has no Constitution score, its Int changes to 5 , and its Wisdom and Charisma changes to 10.
Skills: recalculate the creatures skill points, the creature has spot and listen as class skills.
Feats: reassign all feat choices.
Environment: Any Underground, usually same as base creature.
Organization: Solitary, mob (2-4), pack (5-10)
Challenge Rating: Depends on Hit Dice, as follows:
Hit Dice	Challenge Rating	   
1/2------1	   
1--------2	   
2–3------3	   
4–5------4	   
6–7------5	   
8–9------6	   
10–11----7	   
12–14----8	   
15–17----9	   
18–20---10
Treasure: None.
Alignment: Always chaotic neutral.
Advancement: As base creature (or — if the base creature advances by character class).
Level Adjustment: —.

-- 
Steve "Quillion" Russell
www.callofthehorn.com


----------



## JamesL85

Looks good to me.  Anyone have anything they'd like changed or adjusted???

I'll get started putting it into a PDF that can be downloaded on the site.

Thanks for your help Qwillion.

James

Edit:  The preview is up on the page, under Section I.


----------



## CZHorse

*A to B or A to E*

Question to the DMs of WLD out there.  Which way did your party go, from A to B or from A to E?  Did you allow the group to pick there own way, or did you control it.  However the choice was made, has it turned out ok, or do you wish you went the other way?


----------



## Jim Hague

Swanky!  Qwillion, James, you guys're the best.


----------



## JamesL85

Jim Hague said:


> Swanky! Qwillion, James, you guys're the best.




That is truly an honor......Thank you for the idea, and for your kind words.....

A question????  Is this monster open source????  I'm working on a campaign for our group, and I have an idea for that monster that I'd like to use.....But I'm also thinking of posting the adventure on one of the sub-domain's of my website and don't want to get my "-in-the-wringer," so to speak.....

If it isn't OGC, it's not a problem......Just asking.....

James


----------



## BlueBlackRed

CZHorse said:
			
		

> Question to the DMs of WLD out there.  Which way did your party go, from A to B or from A to E?  Did you allow the group to pick there own way, or did you control it.  However the choice was made, has it turned out ok, or do you wish you went the other way?




My group went to both.
They checked out the northwestern corner of region B, but didn't like it.
So they moved on to region E and didn't return.


----------



## Qwillion

Thanks Jim

I was a little lerry of taking your work and making a template out of it, I really tried to make it functional at any size, I based most of it on the skeleton template. 

and you still need to fix the listen and spot lol


----------



## pheaver

My group also went to both B and E from A.

They determined who they could help at either location (goblins or celestials), and decided that it was more palatable to help the celestials.  They'd prefer to be fighting the bugbears and rogue goblins instead of shadows and barghests, but they've been doing ok so far.

Paul


----------



## DemonGnome

> Question to the DMs of WLD out there. Which way did your party go, from A to B or from A to E? Did you allow the group to pick there own way, or did you control it. However the choice was made, has it turned out ok, or do you wish you went the other way?




I controlled the direction they went behind the scenes. They went A, B, I, part of M, and now almost done with the double region N, soon to be moving on to O (assuming they survive the World Eater tonight)


----------



## Jim Hague

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> Jim Hague said:
> 
> 
> That is truly an honor......Thank you for the idea, and for your kind words.....
> 
> A question????  Is this monster open source????  I'm working on a campaign for our group, and I have an idea for that monster that I'd like to use.....But I'm also thinking of posting the adventure on one of the sub-domain's of my website and don't want to get my "-in-the-wringer," so to speak.....
> 
> If it isn't OGC, it's not a problem......Just asking.....
> 
> James




Well, here in a minute, I'll go and fix the Spot and Listen scores (thanks, Q), and add the usual license.  It never made the cut, so it's not official WLD material - which makes it OGC.  Steal This Monster.  Or, better yet, that template.


----------



## weinerdog

A to E Now in F.


----------



## Jim Hague

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> Jim Hague said:
> 
> 
> That is truly an honor......Thank you for the idea, and for your kind words.....
> 
> A question????  Is this monster open source????  I'm working on a campaign for our group, and I have an idea for that monster that I'd like to use.....But I'm also thinking of posting the adventure on one of the sub-domain's of my website and don't want to get my "-in-the-wringer," so to speak.....
> 
> If it isn't OGC, it's not a problem......Just asking.....
> 
> James




Only well-deserved words.  The folks here on ENWorld and the other fans of the WLD are really what makes it great.    I make it a habit to cruise the various sites and blogs detailing folks' adventures in the dungeons, and even occasionally comment (as BBR and his players will attest).  It's a great thing to see so many people so enthusiastic about the beast that's the WLD.  

As for the Thralls...as I said in my last post, the License has been added, and the Thralls are Open Conent.  Steal away.


----------



## Qwillion

*Questions about Positive Energy damage for thralls*

"Positive Energy Damage (Su): The positive energy animating the Thralls surges forth when they attack their victims, tearing through their bodies. A successful full attack by a Thrall inflicts additional positive energy damage equal to the creatures claw attack (medium +1d6, large +1d8, etc.) on the target. With living creatures, this 'damage' will actually heal wounds inflicted by the Thralls in combat. However, if the creature in question exceeds its normal Hit Points, they must immediately make a Fortitude save (DC 15 + the amount of damage inflicted that round) or suffer 1d6 Intelligence damage. Creatures reduced to 0 Int by the Thralls die, rising as Thralls within 1d3 rounds. Alternately, the DM may elect to roll on the Random Mutation Table for Region I."


Is all the thralls damage considred positive energy damage when it makes a full attack?  If not then unless the creature only gets one attack per round there is almost no chance of this ability being used.   if I deal 1d6 damage and then 1d6 positive and the creature is a full health there is only a 50% chance that this will work assuming you did not move and hit him the round before. 

A successful full attack? does that mean if I have two attacks I have to hit with both? If this is so then how am I to ever use the positive energy damage

Rise in 1d3 rounds boy that is a short time!


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Only well-deserved words.  The folks here on ENWorld and the other fans of the WLD are really what makes it great.    I make it a habit to cruise the various sites and blogs detailing folks' adventures in the dungeons, and even occasionally comment (as BBR and his players will attest).  It's a great thing to see so many people so enthusiastic about the beast that's the WLD.




Yes, Jim Hague here has left some comments while my guys were stirring up region I.

If there are any more blogs out there, I want to know about them so I can list them.

They just keep disappearing. Right now the list of inactive blogs outnumbers the active ones by like 3 to 1. Hopefully a few more will pop up.

That's why I appreciate the comments that people leave. And when people who had their hands in the design of the WLD leave a comment, it helps keep me going. Kind a circular thing I guess.


----------



## Jim Hague

Qwillion said:
			
		

> "Positive Energy Damage (Su): The positive energy animating the Thralls surges forth when they attack their victims, tearing through their bodies. A successful full attack by a Thrall inflicts additional positive energy damage equal to the creatures claw attack (medium +1d6, large +1d8, etc.) on the target. With living creatures, this 'damage' will actually heal wounds inflicted by the Thralls in combat. However, if the creature in question exceeds its normal Hit Points, they must immediately make a Fortitude save (DC 15 + the amount of damage inflicted that round) or suffer 1d6 Intelligence damage. Creatures reduced to 0 Int by the Thralls die, rising as Thralls within 1d3 rounds. Alternately, the DM may elect to roll on the Random Mutation Table for Region I."
> 
> 
> Is all the thralls damage considred positive energy damage when it makes a full attack?  If not then unless the creature only gets one attack per round there is almost no chance of this ability being used.   if I deal 1d6 damage and then 1d6 positive and the creature is a full health there is only a 50% chance that this will work assuming you did not move and hit him the round before.
> 
> A successful full attack? does that mean if I have two attacks I have to hit with both? If this is so then how am I to ever use the positive energy damage
> 
> Rise in 1d3 rounds boy that is a short time!





Sorry, my bad writing on that - when the Thralls hit, the damage is considered positive energy.  It should read *"a successful claw or bite attack by the Thrall inflicts an additional +1d6 Positive Energy damage"*.  I'll go back and correct this here shortly after I post.  Man, Q, you're brutal - ever considered becoming an editor?


----------



## Qwillion

Lol

I am working on my own mosnter book, "The Adversary's Bestiary" so I know monsters (by the way everyone should read two great books: Monster's Handbook by FFG and Beast Builder by XRP), I have most of the monster books in print right now and a large amount of the pdf stuff.  Like I said I know monsters 

I really just used one of my monster stat calculators on the first creature, iIthink I used either the one frome the realm of geeking or the one from the kencyclopedia. 

I have done some minor rules maven assistance for Behemoth 3 on Rage of the Rehmorhaz.  Well my break is over I will fix the template on my break


Hey can someone post the link to the index


----------



## Nyarlathotep

Qwillion said:
			
		

> ... for Behemoth 3 on Rage of the Rehmorhaz ...




Is this out yet?


----------



## Qwillion

nope, they are working on the foramting, thier next book about a certain french sounding mosnter should come out sooner but don't let me high jack the thread


----------



## Demonknight

Hi people, I started a WLD campaign , going almost at the end of Region A, and... there´s something that puzzles me, In the beggining the DM is advised to maintain party level at 2, tops 3 in this area, but Longtail is a CR10? How come?


----------



## Qwillion

Because a equal CR is designed to deplete only 20% of a party's resources.  Now this is only a party of 4 iconic characters.  Now this only works in a vacuum, Encounter conditions change this dramaticly and that is what scaling is for. 

Now let us say you have a Level 3 party at CR 7 everyone lives but are basicly spent, and it's a 50% chance some one will die. Each CR above that increases the chance that someone will die. 

Basicly a +7 CR encounter is the Uber tough live or die challenge, some people will be CARE BEARS and some will be GRIMM.  Personally I think it's tough, it could be a TPK, but this is only for a group of 4 players.  My group has 8 players, so for this encounter I will be scaling up.


----------



## CZHorse

Qwillion said:
			
		

> Basicly a +7 CR encounter is the Uber tough live or die challenge, some people will be CARE BEARS and some will be GRIMM. Personally I think it's tough, it could be a TPK, but this is only for a group of 4 players. My group has 8 players, so for this encounter I will be scaling up.




This worked out for my party, though it was tough going and could have ended badly for them.  They hit Longtail at 2nd Level, as a party of seven with about 60% of total resources.  The only thing that save their skins was the use of the Quall's Whip Feather Token.  They had a lot of fun trying to damage him and the imp, but with the whip they were able to get their fighters into melee with them.  Owillion is correct though, the encounter could very well end as a TPK, if they party does not play it smart.  As it was, three of my players were in the negatives, and another was damn close, but nobody died.


----------



## Demonknight

Hmm, i presently have 7 players in my WLD... but... only three of them are not newbies, but still, is their first run with 3.5 or anything since 2nd for that matter...
Oh well, they only live once....


----------



## Qwillion

"Oh well, they only live once...."

If your really worried about it you could be nice and put a scroll of raise dead, ressurection, true ressurection, or reincarnation in Chapel.  So they only live twice.


----------



## JamesL85

Qwillion said:


> Hey can someone post the link to the index




Which index are you talking about???

James


----------



## zeist

*New Group*

I started back in April. My group is playing by post on Yahoo. It is going very slow. They are stuck in A2.
THe party consists of :
Wild Elf Rogue 1
Human Bard 1
Human Sorcerer 1
Human monk 1

They provoked the orcs in A2 and the rogue whipped out his bow and shot one. The three orcs promptly attacked and knocked out the bard and sent the rogue reeling.
I had a lantern archon appear to bring them back to consciousness. The orcs sat back down to rest more.


----------



## dnabre

My group started through 4 weeks (sessions) ago. 

We started with:

Imp   
Hound Archon   
Dwarven Priet   
Rakshasa   
Human Wizard (from France) 
 (We use Savage Species, the monsters are extremely few initially). At this point they've cleared all Region A (expect 3 rooms, which they'll certainly hit). The Rakshasa, and his Dwarven fighter replacement have died (to be replaced by a much needed elvin rogue), to Bargdor and a half-fiend dire badger (two replaced a room of dark mantles) respectively. 

I think most leveled up to 4th last time, after fighting Longtail. (An interesting fight, considering the fiends that talked Longtail's Imp into openning the portal promised the party's imp power and money to keep it open.) They are systematically searching everything single room, though admittedly going very quickly. I'm concerned they're going to out-level the dungeon.

So far we've had 2 diseased characters, many poisons, 2 cursed characters (from the throne), and now the Imp going to turn into a wererat


----------



## CZHorse

dnabre said:
			
		

> I'm concerned they're going to out-level the dungeon.




Don't give out XP the normal way.  I am sticking with the ideas given in the begining of the book, and considering using the level up rooms given ealier in the thread.  If I had decided to use the standard  XP awards, my group would be about 5 level leaving region A, but this is only because there are seven of them.  I am keeping track of the standard XP in addition to how I am awarding it.


----------



## dnabre

CZHorse said:
			
		

> Don't give out XP the normal way. I am sticking with the ideas given in the begining of the book, and considering using the level up rooms given ealier in the thread. If I had decided to use the standard XP awards, my group would be about 5 level leaving region A, but this is only because there are seven of them. I am keeping track of the standard XP in addition to how I am awarding it.




Well, the level up room is an interesting idea, but enough of mechanics change to bug my players. Not to mention XP burning spells get complicated.

I've been giving them XP by the EL of the room or the normal CR-way of creatures in it, which ever is lower, and not giving anything for really minor fights or traps. It's mainly a matter of them exploring every square inch of the place. Also they've got better tactics than I do, so I beef up the monsters/add more to make the fights interesting, which just gives them more XP.


----------



## Nyarlathotep

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> Qwillion said:
> 
> 
> Which index are you talking about???
> 
> James




These ones I believe 

http://www.geocities.com/ducktreader/WLD.html

Since the support from AEG on their site is *extremely* limited (or non-existent if you prefer), RPGMP3.com has opened a forum to discuss errata/FAQ/plot ideas a la Monte's RtToEE boards. It's like this thread... but more organized (hopefully). Come by and check it out! (I'm getting lonely over there).

http://www.rpgmp3.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=22


----------



## Qwillion

Thanks for the uber link (yes that is the one.)
Thanks to those who made the index.

I just registered over there, compiling my room replacements. 
My last game of banewarrens was tonight, I am working on the missing creatures from the index. 

I am working on my lead in story line,  they start off in prison and can work for one of three people who will let them out.  

Fzoul Chyembral will geas them being the ultimate tyrant. 
Manshoon will clone them, causing thier death if they disobay him, with the clone having no memory of the mistake
Count-Paltine Daven will use hypnosis, memory adjustments, and brain washing.

The party is human and evil. 

Right now my party is 
Wizard (will become an ur-priest)
Rogue (will become an arcane trickster)
Fighter (unique convict prestige class)
Cleric (wants to be a true necromancer)
Cleric (wants to be a master of geas)
Warlock (wants to be a mind bender)
Scout (wants to be a dervish/dualist)
Rogue (wants to be a master thrower)
And one guy will decide the day of the game. 

I am leaning toward my own personal NPC as I am making him the appointed (by Fzoul) ruller of the north.  People think of it as a folly but Daven plans to use the PC's to gain control of the WLD and all the creatures in it.  First he must deal with the renegade zentarium agent Longtail though. 

Daven is an Akashic from Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved, his mastery over memory will allow for interesting communications that the party remembers having. 

Oh and has anyone come close to creating a Timeline for the WLD from 5,000 years ago when it was built to today.


----------



## pelvo

Qwillion said:
			
		

> Thanks to those who made the index.




You're welcome.  A quick note that the NPC index hasn't been updated like the monster one.  It's a matter of five minutes and being at the right computer at the same time I think about it, and I'll probably get it done some time in the next few weeks.


----------



## Qwillion

Ok using Pelvo's index I have created a list of monsters found in the monster manual that do not appear in the World's Largest Dungeon. 

http://www.rpgmp3.com/modules.php?n...8&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

One creature I was suprized not to find was the Phase spider. Am I just nuts or is this creature actually missing?

I would like to know if any GM has added these creatures to their adventrues and if so to post them in  that thread in WLD room format. 

I have decided I am going to use them as Event or Random Encoutners rather than in specific rooms within my game but if you do have a room it would be cool. Though I may add the animals to my Region A encoutners


----------



## just__al

I just sent the Region K pdf to James.  I would expect it to be posted shortly.  Guess I'll start on Region L next.


----------



## JamesL85

I was just getting ready to go to bed......Happened to check my mail, and found your e-mail.....Thanks for the maps.....

James


----------



## zeist

*Wanted: Clerics or Fighters*

I'm looking to add a player or two...
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/occcgce/



			
				zeist said:
			
		

> I started back in April. My group is playing by post on Yahoo. It is going very slow. They are stuck in A2.
> THe party consists of :
> Wild Elf Rogue 1
> Human Bard 1
> Human Sorcerer 1
> Human monk 1
> 
> They provoked the orcs in A2 and the rogue whipped out his bow and shot one. The three orcs promptly attacked and knocked out the bard and sent the rogue reeling.
> I had a lantern archon appear to bring them back to consciousness. The orcs sat back down to rest more.


----------



## weinerdog

How have you guys been handling replacing dead p.c's? Ive been using the dungeons inhabitants, "hey every one wants to get out." currently one player is running the two lizard men from region a. and one is running a goblin necromancer, and  a duregar thief/ expert from region e.   neither one of these  players is satisfied with these characters. in fact they are going as far as making a bee line for region g to solicit aid from cyrebri the solar. Knowing full well that this means that their ressurected second and fourth level characters would be continuing on the adventure with their presumably by then tenth level party. now keep in mind that, im not a D.M. who will just throw in a rod or scroll of ressurect in just to help out.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

weinerdog said:
			
		

> How have you guys been handling replacing dead p.c's? Ive been using the dungeons inhabitants, "hey every one wants to get out." currently one player is running the two lizard men from region a. and one is running a goblin necromancer, and  a duregar thief/ expert from region e.   neither one of these  players is satisfied with these characters. in fact they are going as far as making a bee line for region g to solicit aid from cyrebri the solar. Knowing full well that this means that their ressurected second and fourth level characters would be continuing on the adventure with their presumably by then tenth level party. now keep in mind that, im not a D.M. who will just throw in a rod or scroll of ressurect in just to help out.




Well let's see...
When a new guy joined, I said that there had been a second party that went into the WLD after the first. But due to the actions of the 1st party, the 2nd one got obliterated. So the new PC came in as a straggler from that one.
When a PC died shortly thereafter, he was also from that same party and played dead rather than ran.

Just recently another PC died and a replacement coming in is a new member of the garrison. So he's playing an aasimar.

If someone else bites it, I'm not sure what I can come up with to fit a new guy in.


----------



## Sieobahn

weinerdog said:
			
		

> How have you guys been handling replacing dead p.c's?




I didn't like the idea of using dungeon inhabitents. Aside from the fact that the group rarely leaves anything alive, there is the issue of character knowledge. I don't want to give the players the easy way out to learn things when they don't try any other way to gain information about this place. The only time they talked instead of fighting was when meeting up with the inevitables garrison in region E. Though one PC did fire a mundane crossbow at one of the constructs.

Initially new PC's came in through the enterance in region A. Now new PC's in my game are teleported in. Scattered around the world are a number of ancient talisman's, originally designed to send new prisoners in. They are now long forgotten until picked up by greedy adventurers who are teleported to a random location, that just happens to be near the PC's.

This way they are no restrictions on the character creation process, which makes the players happy. Plus I can bring in new characters whenever I want, eliminating waiting around to join the game.


----------



## weinerdog

Thank you both for the help.  I like the talisman idea.


----------



## Qwillion

I changed the nature of the dungeon so that you cannot teleport out so getting in a prison is easy, though i think I will adopt the talisman idea too.


----------



## Hussar

I hope this has not been covered before.  I've been reading this thread casually for a while, but not every page.  I just got my copy of the WLD from Amazon today and i've been diving through it.  Something that caught my eye immedietely was the bit about Monster Summoning.  I can understand why MS has been nerfed, but, I think I have a reasonable way of adding it back in.

The Dungeon, of course, does not allow extra planar beings to leave.  That's the whole point.  So, it can be assumed that, over the aeons, extra planar beings of all types have been brought in and many have died.  Normally, when an extra planar being dies, it simply returns to its home plane.  However, that isn't true here.  They cannot leave.  So, what happens?

Here's my idea. 

The extra planar beings are trapped in a bodiless state after they are killed.  They cannot affect their surroundings in any way, and they cannot escape.  When a caster casts Summon Monster, one or more of these bodiless spirits are made corporeal for a short period of time (the duration of the spell or until they are killed again, whichever comes first).  Since extra planar creatures of all types have been trapped in the Dungeon, it can be assumed that any summoning spell is simply calling upon existing spirits.  That way, we can still use summoning spells, without worrying about the party creating hordes.

What do other people think?


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

I posted this information over in our story hour thread, but thought it may also be of interest to people who don't visit our thread there regularly:

For those who also read our forums over at RPGMP3 you'll know that for the recording of session #20 we also broadcast by webcam.

Well, it  looks like the forthcoming session #21 of the *World's Largest Dungeon* will feature live audio casting to a small group of experimentalists. If you're interested, see: Wonders of Technology

It may or may not work, but we always like to play with technology to see what we can do!

Of course it would be jolly handy if we put up session #20 first.  Quite an eventful one in Region C.

Paul


----------



## Zenodotus of Ephesus

Any truth to the rumor that additional levels are being released to double the size of the WLD?


----------



## hitomikitage

I have not heard such.  However, I do understand that World's Largest City was on the slate.  Is there any update in the status of this product?

Thanks,
Howard


----------



## DaveMage

AEG has been extremely quiet with regards to d20 projects, such as the WLC or the Accordlands.  

Jim Pinto had said that WLC contributions could come in until late July, so I'm guessing the WLC is slated for a Fall or Winter release.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Zenodotus of Ephesus said:
			
		

> Any truth to the rumor that additional levels are being released to double the size of the WLD?




I've heard that any sequals to the WLD will completed "whenever you finish them."
Meaning, not likely to be done anytime soon.

Of course, I could easily be wrong...


----------



## Qwillion

Was talking to Sean "Knight of Roses" Holland

Here is what he said

What I know I can tell you:
-Same scale and scope as the WLD
-16 poster-sized maps for the city, each detailing a different district of
the city.  With each district having at least 40 named and described
locations and probably more.
-Designed to fit into most fantasy worlds with a minimum of problems.

The man to contact for more details is Rob Vaux at AEG, he is in chage of
this wonderful project.


----------



## beldar1215

*Missing info for region N or Maybe J*

I know at one point someone had said that there was missing info for a group of rooms in either section J or N. Has that information ever been posted anywhere? I'm starting the dungeon for a group tomorrow. It should be fun. I know we won't get to either J or N anytime soon, but it would be nice to have the information just the same!

Beldar


----------



## beldar1215

*bump*


----------



## Qwillion

There is no missing info, there was a post by jim asking if anyone had questions about N


----------



## Soarjubs

*Thanks!*

I went ahead and purchased WLD because of this tremendous thread.
Thank you so much everyone, from the original poster, to the creators themselves, all the way to the guys doing the work on the player maps (plus everyone else with their awesome ideas!)

Can't wait to get my copy!


----------



## DaveMage

Soarjubs said:
			
		

> I went ahead and purchased WLD because of this tremendous thread.
> Thank you so much everyone, from the original poster, to the creators themselves, all the way to the guys doing the work on the player maps (plus everyone else with their awesome ideas!)
> 
> Can't wait to get my copy!




Welcome to the boards!

As for the WLD, if nothing else, there is certainly support available from the hundreds of your closest friends here...


----------



## Demon Gnome

> There is no missing info, there was a post by jim asking if anyone had questions about N




Actually there are 3 rooms on the first map of Region N that are missing entirely from the book.


----------



## Qwillion

Ah that would be why I missed them.  Me Stupid!


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Alright, time for me to ask for some information.

How in the world can a group of 6 level 12 PCs possible defeat Tyrus in region J?

He's a CR23, in his lair, waiting invisibly...

Am I missing something that may even the score?


----------



## Soarjubs

DaveMage said:
			
		

> Welcome to the boards!
> 
> As for the WLD, if nothing else, there is certainly support available from the hundreds of your closest friends here...




Thanks! I was overjoyed to see in my package tracking link that the WLD is actually shipping from one state away. Woo Hoo!

Has there been a comprehensive listing of all the questions answered by Jim and the gang?
I think a F.A.Q. might be in order.


----------



## hitomikitage

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Alright, time for me to ask for some information.
> 
> How in the world can a group of 6 level 12 PCs possible defeat Tyrus in region J?
> 
> He's a CR23, in his lair, waiting invisibly...
> 
> Am I missing something that may even the score?




My group used the Ring of Wishes from the Celestial Vampire Sorceress' lair to put the dragon to sleep, then coordinated their efforts into successive Coup de Grace attempts, which ultimately did enough damage to kill Tyrus before he even had to try and make a save versus the damage or die.  I thought that was some pretty good thinking on the part of the group (especially since I wanted them to use the ring BEFORE region N and the World Eater, so that they would actually have to face it.)  Besides, I would hope that the group actually goes through region J before they encounter Tyrus.

Thanks,
Howard


----------



## KeithM

Hello There. I was reading through this lovely messageboard and found a subject on the WLD.  I was wondering, slightly lazily on my part, if anyone had finished this dungeon yet.  I would search but I do not know how to do it on these boards.


Despite my MessageBoard Newbiness, I am a decent DM for the WLD.  

My Group went to A, B, E, F, G, H, D, K, N1, N2 and We are now in Region O. 

Also, if anyone needs hlep with any of those regions, or DM'ing the WLD in general, feel free to PM me for extra information. I would be happy to help.

Again, Glad to find more WLD supporters, and I hope I posted this in the correct place!


----------



## haiiro

KeithM said:
			
		

> I would search but I do not know how to do it on these boards.
> 
> Again, Glad to find more WLD supporters, and I hope I posted this in the correct place!




Welcome to the boards. 

You posted this in the right place, and you can't find the search feature because it's only available to Community Supporters (pay a small fee, get access to search and other features). A common question.


----------



## KeithM

Fantastic, and thanks for the Info.


----------



## Qwillion

CR is funny it only works in a empty space.

Do they know about Tyrus? (one of the big problems with WLD is there is not disemination of information guidelines for a DM to follow). 

Second how much cold damage can the party dish out, and does it know it needs to dish out the cold damage? what is the precentage chance fo your party's primary spellcasters overcoming the dragon's SR with cold dealing spells.  

The magic items the party has dramaticly effect this fight from the afforementioned ring of wishes to a party who took the time to make dragon bane weapons and if the invisible rogue can sneak attack the dragon. 

Just by the Math your party is not level 12 because you have 2 more players than the formula is set up for. They are considered to be level 13-14 (by the formula if they fought them selves they would be a Encounter level  17-18)  by the enworld calculator a CR 21 is a deadly encounter for this group and at CR 22 it becomes obscene. Yet remeber this is in a empty space of #, level for a party is all relative to the equpiment, available spells and tactics the party uses. 

Oh, your concern over the invisiblity I find unfounded. At 12th level if you enter a lair like this and you have not cast true seeing, you deserve to be jelly for the dragons toast.


----------



## DaveMage

KeithM said:
			
		

> Hello There. I was reading through this lovely messageboard and found a subject on the WLD.  I was wondering, slightly lazily on my part, if anyone had finished this dungeon yet.  I would search but I do not know how to do it on these boards.
> 
> 
> Despite my MessageBoard Newbiness, I am a decent DM for the WLD.
> 
> My Group went to A, B, E, F, G, H, D, K, N1, N2 and We are now in Region O.
> 
> Also, if anyone needs hlep with any of those regions, or DM'ing the WLD in general, feel free to PM me for extra information. I would be happy to help.
> 
> Again, Glad to find more WLD supporters, and I hope I posted this in the correct place!




Keith - you have progressed more than any other group that I have seen!  Congrats!


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Qwillion said:
			
		

> CR is funny it only works in a empty space.
> 
> Do they know about Tyrus? (one of the big problems with WLD is there is not disemination of information guidelines for a DM to follow).
> 
> Second how much cold damage can the party dish out, and does it know it needs to dish out the cold damage? what is the precentage chance fo your party's primary spellcasters overcoming the dragon's SR with cold dealing spells.
> 
> The magic items the party has dramaticly effect this fight from the afforementioned ring of wishes to a party who took the time to make dragon bane weapons and if the invisible rogue can sneak attack the dragon.
> 
> Just by the Math your party is not level 12 because you have 2 more players than the formula is set up for. They are considered to be level 13-14 (by the formula if they fought them selves they would be a Encounter level  17-18)  by the enworld calculator a CR 21 is a deadly encounter for this group and at CR 22 it becomes obscene. Yet remeber this is in a empty space of #, level for a party is all relative to the equpiment, available spells and tactics the party uses.
> 
> Oh, your concern over the invisiblity I find unfounded. At 12th level if you enter a lair like this and you have not cast true seeing, you deserve to be jelly for the dragons toast.




They only know the basics of Tyrus. He's an ancient red who is currently in an ice prison. They believe him to be frozen, but they were not told that.

They have a single sorcerer with Cone of Cold & Ice Storm for ice spells. Otherwise they have no cold damage.

The magic items are either true to the module, or minor ones thrown in by me. Crafting magic items is not an option.

By the time I expect the party to reach Tyrus, they will be 2 @ level 12, 3 @ level 11, & 1 @ level 10.

The only help they will get from NPCs is the 3 bralanis and the 1 hound archon from region E. And that is only if they PCs ask for help.

True Seeing is not an option. They have no access to the proper material components.

I also am unsure of whether they get the Ring of Wishes. They will eventually have free reign of the region, except near the river of lava.

They ticked off the mephits there. The only way they can return to the garrison is through the use of Wind Walk. (Their sorcerer cast Cone of Cold at the river of lava while fighting magmin. The mephits want justice.)

I think the party is looking at a TPK.

Not fighting the dragon may not be a viable option. All but 1 of them have signed the Charter. Two of them of exhalted characters, and so the concept of leaving a great evil alone is not too easy.

The only thing I see them doing that would help is the wise use of Augury type spells and finding the Ring of Wishes.

But hey...it's all for the fun of it.


----------



## Hussar

While they might not want to leave the great evil alone, do they absolutely need to kill it now?  Why can they not do as is suggested in the module itself and come back later?  Sure, they have to deal with the mephits, but, as you pointed out, they can do that.  If they're 12th (ish) level and they know there's an elder wyrm dragon out there, and they STILL decide to go face it, they don't really deserve to live anyway.  Darwin in action.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

That's an option I've thought of.
Have an NPC or the answer to an Augury type spell be that there is a key to his defeat in region N.

But that hovers too close to railroading for me to just drop it on them.
They will need to give me an excuse to do so.

And if I need a last minute desperate act on the DMs part, I can always use Fyrsil.


----------



## Qwillion

Ok I need to sit down with my book tonight to have a look at this. But lets break this down. 

How often can the warrior hit the AC of Tyrus? (What # does he have to roll to hit it)

How often can Tyrus hit the warrior (read speed bump)? (You can make this easier by use of power attack, though this could be good and bad for the party)

"They have a single sorcerer with Cone of Cold & Ice Storm for ice spells. Otherwise they have no cold damage."

Ok a single sorcerer can cast a cold spell per round of the fight so the dragon is taking +50% damage each round (of course after the first round of cold damage the sorscerer becomes the target. 

But how often can the spellcasters overcome the SR of Tyrus? (What # does he have to roll)
You could introduce a cold based spell for the cleric to help out.  And the cleric better give them all pro fire.

Can the rogue hit tyrus at all?  With a fient and a touch attack?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

They will have all the time they need for buffs. That's one plus.

The barb/fighter will be level 11, using a +2 holy greatsword w/ the standard fighter weapon feat selection (including impr. crit). He will be Enlarged, raging, Bull's Strength, plus the group buffs of Prayer and Bless.

The Paladin will be level 10, using a +3 holy longsword w/ impr crit. Has some exalted feats that will add a little to damage. Two or 3 smites.

2 clerics, one will be 12 and is exhaulted and the other 11 and is a combat cleric. The exhaulted cleric is the walking-bandaid. The combat cleric will have Divine Power and Righteous Might.

The sorcerer's main job is Haste, Invisibilities, and nukes. He will be level 12. I believe he just took Hold Monster. He has the feat Spell Penetration as well.

The "rogue" will be a level 11 character (4 ftr, 3 rog, 4 ranger). He will be either be dead 1st or run away first. His only real use is as a scout.

Fire protection will not be a problem. Their main problem will be the lack of melee damage absorbtion and ranged attacks.

If the dragon can fly up and stay away from melee, it will be easy for him to win.

But for now, I'm not betting on them fighting him. I'll attempt to guide them, but not directly, to region N.


----------



## Qwillion

you could be really nice to the party if they go that way just kill the combat cleric, fully buffed in the suprise round, and then Tyrus can say!

"You are unworthy of my wrath, run away now!"


----------



## DemonGnome

> Quote:
> Originally Posted by KeithM
> Hello There. I was reading through this lovely messageboard and found a subject on the WLD. I was wondering, slightly lazily on my part, if anyone had finished this dungeon yet. I would search but I do not know how to do it on these boards.
> 
> 
> Despite my MessageBoard Newbiness, I am a decent DM for the WLD.
> 
> My Group went to A, B, E, F, G, H, D, K, N1, N2 and We are now in Region O.
> 
> Also, if anyone needs hlep with any of those regions, or DM'ing the WLD in general, feel free to PM me for extra information. I would be happy to help.
> 
> Again, Glad to find more WLD supporters, and I hope I posted this in the correct place!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Keith - you have progressed more than any other group that I have seen! Congrats!
Click to expand...



Actually our group has made it to Region O as well, but the game has been put on pause for now as we have lost players due to attrition (real life) over the past couple months.


----------



## Shard Avenguard

Our adventures are BLOG'ed. To see them as well as incite, stats, and pictures, check out our website at www.twilightavengers.org/wld


----------



## BlueBlackRed

I saw your table on your website a couple weeks.
I want it.
No room for it though   
Did you make it yourselves or buy it?

And assuming you don't mind, I'll put a link to your site from my group's WLD blog.
(Does anyone every mind that?)


...let's see, we need 1 big cool table and 1 overpriced PC projector...


----------



## jim pinto

*back from the dead*

hi group

while i'm not an aeg anymore, i decided to take a short break from my current job to step in here and say hi.


"hi!"

okay.

back to killing tyrus


----------



## BlueBlackRed

jim pinto said:
			
		

> hi group
> 
> while i'm not an aeg anymore, i decided to take a short break from my current job to step in here and say hi.
> 
> "hi!"
> 
> okay.
> 
> back to killing tyrus




THERE you are.

Oh I don't think Tyrus is going to be killed anytime soon unless they find that ring of wishes.

And I'm starting to feel the burnout too.

So are you going to peek back in here every now and then and keep an eye on us?


----------



## DaveMage

Hey jim - you may want to change your signature - it still lists your AEG job and e-mail addy...


----------



## Shard Avenguard

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I saw your table on your website a couple weeks.
> I want it.
> No room for it though
> Did you make it yourselves or buy it?
> 
> And assuming you don't mind, I'll put a link to your site from my group's WLD blog.
> (Does anyone every mind that?)
> 
> 
> ...let's see, we need 1 big cool table and 1 overpriced PC projector...




thanks...
I built it myself.
And feel free to link it anywhere.
As soon as I get some time, i'll be putting up building instructions as well.


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

To keep those following up to date, we've just put session #21 online and #22 is in the can and available for patrons as a raw download.

Session #21
*Against the Giants*
(with added homemade fairy cakes)

One of the most epic episodes recorded!

Featuring hot blind dwarf action, rogue magic and the odd Rhinoceros or two...

Paul


----------



## KeithM

Just to inform the rest of the World.  My group Defeated and Exited the World's Largest Dungeon at 9:08 PM.  June 22nd, 2005. 

WHOOOOOO...


----------



## DaveMage

KeithM said:
			
		

> Just to inform the rest of the World.  My group Defeated and Exited the World's Largest Dungeon at 9:08 PM.  June 22nd, 2005.
> 
> WHOOOOOO...




Congrats!!!!


----------



## BlueBlackRed

KeithM said:
			
		

> Just to inform the rest of the World.  My group Defeated and Exited the World's Largest Dungeon at 9:08 PM.  June 22nd, 2005.
> 
> WHOOOOOO...




Congrats man!


----------



## KeithM

Thank you, Thank you!


----------



## Bigwilly

KeithM said:
			
		

> Just to inform the rest of the World.  My group Defeated and Exited the World's Largest Dungeon at 9:08 PM.  June 22nd, 2005.




Holy dungeon bashing! My group might just exit section A next session. 

Bigwilly


----------



## Hussar

How long did it take your group to get to the end?


----------



## zeist

Bigwilly said:
			
		

> Holy dungeon bashing! My group might just exit section A next session.
> 
> Bigwilly




We started in April and my group has gon through rooms A1-A6.


----------



## KeithM

Hussar said:
			
		

> How long did it take your group to get to the end?





Starting: January 7th, 2005
Ending: June 22nd, 2005
Total Days: 167 Days from Start to Finish
Total Hours Spent (Average): 216 Hours
Total Days Spent (Average): 9 Days
Sessions: 54


PC's Survived form Start to Finish: 1 (Brottor Baldurk)
Total PC's In Dungeon: 11
Total PC Deaths: 5 (12*)
PC's at End: Golurz Snarbog (Half Orc, Brb20), Brottor Baldurk (Dwarf, Cl7/Ftr3/JHoM10*), Rosco (Halfling, Rogue 20), Geech (Warforged, Ftr 20).
NPC's At End: Herbie, Blue-Red Hybrid Dragon, and Fargalaan (Goblin Wizard from Region E)

*Several of the PC's deaths were not permanent because of Raise Dead/Ressurection/True Ressurection.
**Justice Hammer of Moradin, Prestige Class from Dragon Magazine.

^^Just figured I'd bombard you all with Stats


Edit:  For the Record, we didn't just scream through this Dungeon. My players thouroughly explored regions A, E, F, G, H, D, K, N, and O.  We had limited interactions with Regions B and L.  We did not do any of C, I, M or J.


----------



## Hunter0441

*Getting ready to take the plunge...*

I've been following this thread for awhile and I'd like to thank you all for the good ideas and advice I've seen thus far.

  I'm about to start with my group and I'd like a few pointers,

    I'm thinking of starting the group as part of a large expedition to the WLD. The PC's will be hired on as, basically, camp site guards by a group of much higher level NPCs. At the entrance a Pit Fiend will burst free and an Angel will follow doing battle (I lifted this from an earlier post). During the confusion and the battle the higher lvl NPCs will be killed and most of the groups gear will be lost in a massive cave in. A number of the expediton will survive the cave in, but will be critically injured (broken legs, ribs etc. things that only natural healing can deal with at the PC's lvl) The PCs will be the only fit members, and with supplies low they are tasked with scouting the area. Other adventure hooks from this set up are rife. The camp could be attacked and hostages taken by X group of monsters, pulling the PCs in that direction etc.
  I'm planning to pull an idea from the old Darksun set and allow the players a character 'tree' with four slots. Each player has 1 active character and 3 reserve. The player can shift the primary character between sessions(in most cases) and get a replacment in case of death. The reserve characters will be back at base camp healing from the cave-in and trying to pick up the pieces, guard the other injured, etc. I was planning to give the total XP from the Dungeon and have the player divide the XP among his 'tree' as he sees fit. I'm concerned that this may lead to abuses and wondering if a ratio might be better. I'm newer to 3.5 and does anyone have any ideas on what might be appropriate? Also what about items, should I allow trading between PCs in a tree? If a character is made 'active' for the first time at say 5th lvl, I'd like to give them equipment appropriate but I'm not sure if this would be unbalancing (I could justify the higher lvl character as having just healed up from his injuries and is now ready for active duty).

   How has everyone dealt with the lack of a functioning economy? What good is gold if you can't spend it, and how are you coing to carry it all? I'd like to have a few areas where trading is allowed but I haven't read the whole WLD, just skimmed it. Are there good places for this that are logical? The Elves are a good source but I'd like more, just in case the relations with the Elves dont go so well.

   How is item creation and spell components being handled? I think wizards get a pretty raw deal to start with (not as bad as pervious editions but..) but I don't want them total screwed. Any ideas welcome.

 I have plenty more but this should do for now. If any of these has been covered before I apologize, I haven't read ALL the posts (yet).

Thanks again

Jeff


----------



## jim pinto

*am i reading that right?*



			
				KeithM said:
			
		

> Starting: January 7th, 2005
> Ending: June 22nd, 2005
> Total Days: 167 Days from Start to Finish
> Total Hours Spent (Average): 216 Hours
> Total Days Spent (Average): 9 Days
> Sessions: 54
> 
> 
> PC's Survived form Start to Finish: 1 (Brottor Baldurk)
> Total PC's In Dungeon: 11
> Total PC Deaths: 5 (12*)
> PC's at End: Golurz Snarbog (Half Orc, Brb20), Brottor Baldurk (Dwarf, Cl7/Ftr3/JHoM10*), Rosco (Halfling, Rogue 20), Geech (Warforged, Ftr 20).
> NPC's At End: Herbie, Blue-Red Hybrid Dragon, and Fargalaan (Goblin Wizard from Region E)
> 
> *Several of the PC's deaths were not permanent because of Raise Dead/Ressurection/True Ressurection.
> **Justice Hammer of Moradin, Prestige Class from Dragon Magazine.
> 
> ^^Just figured I'd bombard you all with Stats
> 
> 
> Edit:  For the Record, we didn't just scream through this Dungeon. My players thouroughly explored regions A, E, F, G, H, D, K, N, and O.  We had limited interactions with Regions B and L.  We did not do any of C, I, M or J.





nine days?!?! as in nine days of the characters lives?

or as in 216 hours of game time = roughly 9 full days of gaming


----------



## DaveMage

I wish I could have an average of 9 sessions/month to play.

I'm lucky to have 2...


----------



## KeithM

jim pinto said:
			
		

> nine days?!?! as in nine days of the characters lives?
> 
> or as in 216 hours of game time = roughly 9 full days of gaming






The Latter, as in, in Total we played the WLD for a combineded time of 9 Days.

The Craacters were in the Dungeon for roughly 6Mo-1Year on Average, 3 Years for one character.


----------



## just__al

Hey, just thinking ahead a bit...

Where does everbody think a good place to work in...


a beholder?   
some mind flayers?   
other random non-srd monsters from the monster manual? 
 I'm currently running a group through for a longish (about 7-9 hours) session every month and the DM of my bi-weekly game wants a break so I'm going to run that group through this too so I get my money's worth from the 60 bucks I plonked down.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

just__al said:
			
		

> Hey, just thinking ahead a bit...
> 
> Where does everbody think a good place to work in...
> 
> 
> a beholder?
> some mind flayers?
> other random non-srd monsters from the monster manual?
> I'm currently running a group through for a longish (about 7-9 hours) session every month and the DM of my bi-weekly game wants a break so I'm going to run that group through this too so I get my money's worth from the 60 bucks I plonked down.




I think you could fit a beholder or illithid into region J just fine.
Replace the phasm in the time-frozen room with one of them and that will explain why it hasn't conquered the region.


----------



## beldar1215

*Missing info for Rooms in aera N*

Hello,
  I'm going to ask this question again, sorry. There are some rooms in area N that are missing thier discriptions(SP). Is there somewhere to get this info. 

Jim- If you happen to see this, do you have that info?

I think everyone who put out thier money for this monster would like this info.

Also, I'm running this for a group of 9-16 year olds and they seem to having a blast. I'm really enjoying running it for them!!!  

Thanks 
Beldar


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

We've just put up session #22 of our WLD podcast, as the party open the magic box...

Also your last chance (today, 30th June) to vote for us in the podcast awards!

Podcast Awards info


----------



## zimbel42

Tenser42 said:
			
		

> I'm starting to think a little about the higher levels when characters can more easily be taken out of fights, because for her, losing one character, even to just a stun or unconsciousness, is a major blow to the party.  I'm loathe to control an NPC party member myself or give her a third PC, so if anyone has any experience with high level, small parties, any advice would be useful.  I will say that my wife does NOT care if I fudge rolls or change rules, she's very heavily into her characters and character development, and doesn't mind sacrificing game mechanics for storytelling (I'm the same way).




I often use 1 player or GM to bounce off rules.
Suggestions for 1 PCs:
Use an average ECL of 4 less than the mean level.
Avoid, change, or dramatically reduce the saves for any effect that can take a single PC out for a significant period of time.

Suggestions for 2 PCs:
Use an average ECL of 2 less than the mean level (note that this changes to about 1 less with gestalt PCs).
Reduce the number of times that an effect will take out a single PC. In the case that such an effect occurs, make certain that you give a method for that PC to recover.

Simplest suggestion: Make most "death" effects temporary or less effective. examples:
Death = goes to -1 HP.
Stone (is temporary; you'll change back to your "normal form" in some set duration)
Paralysis (reduce the duration)
Baneful Polymorph (also temporary; giving a more interesting, but harmless form may be nice - ex: hummingbird or swallow).


----------



## weinerdog

Has any one out there come up with any cool names for the dungeon?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

weinerdog said:
			
		

> Has any one out there come up with any cool names for the dungeon?




"Carcerus Maximus Mundi" is what our Latin teacher member said was a close Latin translation.


----------



## Jim Hague

beldar1215 said:
			
		

> Hello,
> I'm going to ask this question again, sorry. There are some rooms in area N that are missing thier discriptions(SP). Is there somewhere to get this info.
> 
> Jim- If you happen to see this, do you have that info?
> 
> I think everyone who put out thier money for this monster would like this info.
> 
> Also, I'm running this for a group of 9-16 year olds and they seem to having a blast. I'm really enjoying running it for them!!!
> 
> Thanks
> Beldar




The Other Jim (pinto) has, unfortunately, left our hobby for fairer climes, but I'll help where I can.  My Google-fu isn't the greatest, but while I've not turned up the missing rooms, I did discover a very, very descriptive and good review that should help fill in the gaps.  Meanwhile, perhaps one of the registered users with Search enabled could find the descriptions in this thread?  I'm fairly sure they're here _somewhere_...

http://www.chirographum.com/tolenmar/


----------



## jim pinto

just__al said:
			
		

> Hey, just thinking ahead a bit...
> 
> Where does everbody think a good place to work in...
> 
> 
> a beholder?
> some mind flayers?
> other random non-srd monsters from the monster manual?
> I'm currently running a group through for a longish (about 7-9 hours) session every month and the DM of my bi-weekly game wants a break so I'm going to run that group through this too so I get my money's worth from the 60 bucks I plonked down.




beholder .... region j or k... fits the creepy motif... in fact, the green dragon in k could be swapped with a beholder, easily

mind flayer (singular)... region f most definately... add it to the confused story about the mind-trading halfling

carrion crawlers everywhere.... umber hulks in region f, g, j, and o... displacer beasts in c, m, and o ... yuan-ti in j, l, and h.... slaad in i, m, and j.... what races am i missing?

githyanki and githzerai should go in region g to help supplement the demon/angel war

not that i've given any thought to this


----------



## Qwillion

Your missing kou-toa or whatever they are called.

and great to see you checking in jim
How goes the new job?  Hope it is everything you dreamed of.

My players like to play epic level, I am slowly (very slowly) working on a Epic level region of the WLD I plan to make it Levels 21-23 with 100 rooms. 

My current thought is a section that is much more difficult to reach. 
You have to travel under the river of lava to a section off the map, the area does not have the mephits so it is filled with toxic gases. 

This section is a true dungeon and was designed by the god of vengance and the goddess of torment, I am working from a prospect that this area is still in use. 

These two gods activlly support this region and that there is an active relgious order that guards this section (expect one ior two abominations to be imprissioned here).  

I am now thinking this group might be good as a proactive force that actively hunts down those that have escaped the World's Largest Dungeon.


----------



## JamesL85

That sounds pretty awesome Qwillion!

Are you going to post that adventure anywhere?  If you'd like, I can create a pdf for you.  Not sure how the legalities of that would be, as far as posting it somewhere, but it would definitely make an interesting addition to my downloads page.....

James


----------



## Qwillion

I am working on I can create a pdf no problem but I will need a plcae to host it. The problem will be cartography, as I don't have any cartography software.

Right now I am trying to find my copy of legends of avadnu, it's on my computer somewhere (I need to use the bygone template on a couple of creatures)


----------



## JamesL85

Can't help you with the cartography (my mapper is no where near ready), but I can definitely help you with the hosting aspect.....

Can't wait to see it.....

James


----------



## BlueBlackRed

High probability for a Tyrus dragon fight tonight.

The party has 1 wish, and will probably be levels 12-13 by the time they get there.

If they ask nicely (diplomacy check), they will get some help from a few celestials they helped way back when. Possibly Kelara and Morkor (on a nat 20 of course).

I've got some clever players...but Tyrus isn't exactly a speedbump on their way to level 20.


----------



## Hussar

The World's Largest Dungeon needs the world's largest adventuring group!  Picture it - group after adventuring group each challenging the WLD at the same time, possibly interacting with each other, competing and co-operating, all seeking the same goal:  ESCAPE!

The idea is simple. Groups will run over OpenRPG sharing forums on Shadows of the Dragon.  Dungeon Masters will have a dedicated forum which is only available and accessable to DM's.  Each DM will also have a forum to run a game.  A final forum is also available for DM's and players to share ideas, stories and comments and as a place for potential players and DM's to meet.

To be completely honest, right now the call is more for DM's.  Players are usually fairly easy to come by, but DM's are more of a rare breed.  My goal is to have five DM's plus myself up and running by the end of the summer.  More is better of course, but this is my personal goal.

If you are interested, either PM me at Shadows of the Dragon or email me at WLDDMHussar at Hotmail dot com.  Check out the site and introduce yourself.  We will be adding to it constantly, and there should be lots to see.  

May your torches never go out.

Hussar


----------



## JoeBlank

I've just started running WLD for may group on Fantasy Grounds, and I wanted to thank everyone for sharing your ideas in this thread and elsewhere. 

BlueBlackRed, your blog has been fun. I'll have to go back and reread portions when my group gets to each Region.

The players' versions of the maps have been great. I had to edit each into fourths to actually use them on screen while playing in FG, but then using the fog feature I can reveal the map as the players progress.

I started a thread in the Rules forum about food and water rationing, and whether I should make it an issue in the WLD. Got some great responses.
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=139433


----------



## BlueBlackRed

JoeBlank said:
			
		

> I've just started running WLD for may group on Fantasy Grounds, and I wanted to thank everyone for sharing your ideas in this thread and elsewhere.
> 
> BlueBlackRed, your blog has been fun. I'll have to go back and reread portions when my group gets to each Region.




Thanks & you're welcome.

Try to avoid the burn out.
We're starting a new region tonight, and that usually gets rid of the burnout feeling I get.


----------



## jim pinto

*what the?*

i just read the ENnie nominations

no WLD huh?

wow. i knew morrus hated me... but ... wow.


----------



## Qwillion

yea I mean you can debate the adventures and introductiont to death but Cartography i mean look at all the maps!


----------



## DaveMage

jim pinto said:
			
		

> i just read the ENnie nominations
> 
> no WLD huh?
> 
> wow. i knew morrus hated me... but ... wow.




AEG did not submit the WLD for consideration.  In order for a product to be considered, a publisher had to submit it (and provide a copy) to the judges.

AEG did not submit any products this year according to the ENnies thread.


----------



## JoeBlank

DaveMage said:
			
		

> AEG did not submit the WLD for consideration. In order for a product to be considered, a publisher had to submit it (and provide a copy) to the judges.
> 
> AEG did not submit any products this year according to the ENnies thread.




I was surprised myself, but that is what Dextra indicated in post #72 of ENNies Nominations thread (stickied in General Discussion).


----------



## Qwillion

well if they did not submit then it's there choice, but Its too bad, I wish the ennies were less about publisher and more about the artists behind the products


----------



## DaveMage

Qwillion said:
			
		

> well if they did not submit then it's there choice, but Its too bad, I wish the ennies were less about publisher and more about the artists behind the products




Don't get me started on the ENnies...  

However, the only RPG awards that I know of which are completely open are the pen-and-paper awards.  (http://www.pen-paper.net/awards.php)

As you'll see from that link, though, the 2005 awards have not yet been posted.


----------



## JoeBlank

I'm curious to hear if failing to submit WLD to the ENnies was just an oversight, or a conscious decision not to enter. Either way, it is too bad. WLD had a good shot at a few categories, including adventure and writing.

If I understand correctly, Jim Pinto is no longer with AEG, and from the looks of his post he was not aware that WLD had not been submitted.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

JoeBlank said:
			
		

> If I understand correctly, Jim Pinto is no longer with AEG, and from the looks of his post he was not aware that WLD had not been submitted.




And I'm guessing that AEG hasn't sent a replacment spokesperson to ENWorld to assist us with our questions and such with the WLD.

So thank you Jim for spending some of your your post-AEG free time here.


----------



## DaveMage

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> And I'm guessing that AEG hasn't sent a replacment spokesperson to ENWorld to assist us with our questions and such with the WLD.
> 
> So thank you Jim for spending some of your your post-AEG free time here.




I think it was awsome for jim pinto and some of the WLD authors to spend time here.

AEG has turned out wome wonderful products, IMO, but, unfortunately, thier promotional ability leaves a bit to be desired.

They have one of the least-updated websites of any of the popular d20 companies, and don't do any advertising of their new products on the EN World forums.  Granted, EN World isn't the be-all and end-all of RPGs, but it's certainly the most popular D&D/d20 fansite around.

I wish they'd tell us more about what was coming.  I've heard rumors that the Accordlands books will be out in the Fall, but who knows?  We know the World's Largest City is in production, but as to release date, no one's talking.

I guess it's mostly disappointing since the products are generally so good.  (If they sucked, who'd care?      )


----------



## jim pinto

yeah

that makes sense.

because without copies of that book in front of them, i'm sure the enworld "academy" couldn't remember it was released.

<rolls eyes>

i'll tell you what, i've never heard of any of those adventures on the nominees list.

it doesn't matter.

largest gaming book ever... city won't top it.

no one is going to get close for years... nearly a million words.

ennie or no... the tome rocks!

so there!!


----------



## Blustar

Hey Guys,
     Great thread and I finally broke down and bought the WLD....cool. I haven't read through the entire thread, I'm on page 10 right now, but are there any Dungeon towns or cities where the PC's can spend hard earned cash and sell/buy stuff? I know the whole premise of the prison and they can't leave but it's one aspect of the game that my players have always enjoyed. Has anyone addressed this in the thread? 
      I was thinking of having them find a magic item that allowed them to gate out of the Dungeon twice per map region. (Is this too lenient?) I haven't read through the whole book yet so maybe there is a town in the Dungeon somewhere? A place where because of prevailing circumstances opposing forces see as "neutral grounds" and violence is met with swift reprisals. Like Sigil maybe? Anyways hopefully you guys see where I'm going with this. Any help would be appreciated.

thanks,

Alex


----------



## DaveMage

Blustar said:
			
		

> Hey Guys,
> Great thread and I finally broke down and bought the WLD....cool. I haven't read through the entire thread, I'm on page 10 right now, but are there any Dungeon towns or cities where the PC's can spend hard earned cash and sell/buy stuff? I know the whole premise of the prison and they can't leave but it's one aspect of the game that my players have always enjoyed. Has anyone addressed this in the thread?
> I was thinking of having them find a magic item that allowed them to gate out of the Dungeon twice per map region. (Is this too lenient?) I haven't read through the whole book yet so maybe there is a town in the Dungeon somewhere? A place where because of prevailing circumstances opposing forces see as "neutral grounds" and violence is met with swift reprisals. Like Sigil maybe? Anyways hopefully you guys see where I'm going with this. Any help would be appreciated.
> 
> thanks,
> 
> Alex




Welcome to the boards!

It goes against some of the metaplot, but one possibility I would suggest is using the Lantern Archons to transport the group out now and again.  However, make the party pay a price.  Something as mundane as gems or as different as, perhaps, the head of a fiend.

Also, not every Lantern Archon will do it.  PCs will have to negotiate and may even be laughed at, depending on the archon.


----------



## JoeBlank

jim pinto said:
			
		

> yeah
> 
> that makes sense.
> 
> because without copies of that book in front of them, i'm sure the enworld "academy" couldn't remember it was released.
> 
> <rolls eyes>
> 
> i'll tell you what, i've never heard of any of those adventures on the nominees list.
> 
> it doesn't matter.
> 
> largest gaming book ever... city won't top it.
> 
> no one is going to get close for years... nearly a million words.
> 
> ennie or no... the tome rocks!
> 
> so there!!




Jim, I certainly agree with you that WLD rocks, and is one of the greatest undertakings in D&D history. I honestly bought it as a novelty, and was thrilled to discover that it is a great adventure, well-written and well-organized. Now I'm running it, and having a blast.

It sounds like there is some bad blood between yourself and EN World, of which I am unaware. That aside, you can't blame the ENnies judges for not considering a product that was not submitted. If I understand the process, 5 judges (who live in 5 different locations) each review the submitted products and then confer to come up with the nominations. So each judge would need a copy of WLD to consider. 

Some publishers choose not to participate, for reasons of their own. WotC does not submit anything for consideration, for example. The judges work hard enough without being required to double check and be certain that every worthy product in every category was submitted. 

If AEG made a decision not to submit, then I was just wondering why the did so. I suspect it was actually an oversight on their part. As others have mentioned, AEG puts out some great products, but they do not seem overly active at promoting them. Especially not on EN World. Again, perhaps this comes from whatever issues you seem to have with EN World.

Anyway, thanks for a great book, and for your help and additional information on this thread and elsewhere. You have gone above and beyond the call to make WLD an even better experience.


----------



## jim pinto

JoeBlank said:
			
		

> Anyway, thanks for a great book, and for your help and additional information on this thread and elsewhere. You have gone above and beyond the call to make WLD an even better experience.




Please do not misinterpret my tone.

AEG is in charge of AEG. For whatever reason AEG wasn't up for any Origins awards, either. This may be for a number of reason, but its a sign that organizers of 3rd party activities in this industry aren't very attentive.

While I worked for AEG, there were many times I did not express my opinion about a decision in the industry because that comment, would in turn, reflect on AEG.

This is no longer the case.

Those who know me, know I'm opinionated AND I have the ability to back up my point of view. I am not some 14-year old flamer, ranting about how six-sided dice are unfair against eight-siders.

Role-playing is a fan's hobby. In the last 5 years it has grown to a size it has not seen since the early 80s (it will actually never be that big again). Fans and their wallets and dedication determine the course of this industry. Not elitists who don't game anymore.

There are too many choices, too many distractions, and too many other things to spend our money and time on. The level d20 has sunk too in the last 2 years is pretty much where its going to stay (until 4th edition recessitates it or buries it).

Okay. That being said, I find it a little convenient, that neither the origins academy or the ennies gave a nod to the LARGEST BOOK IN GAMING HISTORY.

I'm not asking for a free victory for myself and the other writers. If it's not the best, it's not the best. 

This is not sour grapes.

Hell. What if it WERE nominated and someone BEAT it. How good would that guy feel?

This is like forgetting to put "Russian Ark" on the best Foreign Films list for the academy awards, because the didn't fill out their paperwork properly. Everyone that knows foreign films, knows Russian Ark. You don't get to be a wet t-shirt judge if you don't know boobies.

Head in the sand thinking is endemic of an industry that is passive aggressive and scared of ruffling feathers. Morrus and crew "forgetting" about an 840-page adventure that sold (quantity deleted) copies, which I guarantee is more than all five of those listed combined, is rather... well inebriated.

It takes an enormous set of blinders to throw a dart at that big of a target and still miss.

Am I upset?

Actually, no.

Am I suprised?

Most certainly.

Am I really surprised?

Ha. Well. No. Not when measured against game industry antics, no.

Am I sorry I wasted everyone's time on this board talking about it?

Most certainly.

This is not the creative jim pinto that worked so hard on this book, forgetting to eat or sleep. This isn't the gamer jim pinto that would love to sit down at gencon and game with everyone of you guys and talk about our best "adventures." This isn't the martyr jim pinto that worked in gaming for 8 1/2 years, killing himself for a wage that you could make at starbucks. This isn't the fun-loving jim pinto that wishes gaming were an independent pursuit and not a commodity.

This is the jim pinto that just can't stand watching people wag their tails and expect the dog to wag with it. Morrus' and Psion's and the rest of the team's opinions of my book are just that... opinions. I'll debate the strengths and weaknesses of this product all week, if they want.

But the fans say otherwise.

And for the record, Joe, and everyone else who bought the book. It thrills my broken hand to know that everyone is enjoying this product. And I hope the other writers and team members that contributed understand that this thread and the previous WLD thread are the two most viewed discussion threads in the history of enworld.


----------



## jim pinto

DaveMage said:
			
		

> Welcome to the boards!
> 
> It goes against some of the metaplot, but one possibility I would suggest is using the Lantern Archons to transport the group out now and again.  However, make the party pay a price.  Something as mundane as gems or as different as, perhaps, the head of a fiend.
> 
> Also, not every Lantern Archon will do it.  PCs will have to negotiate and may even be laughed at, depending on the archon.




there's room to make traders out of the minotaurs, elves, and duegar in regions F, H, and D respectively.

this requires some leaps in logic and/or creation of runners who carry the goods to be traded from one place to the next. this would also allow elves to escape from H more easily.

but an action "market" where goods can be purchased seems unrealistic except in H

otherwise, the lantern archons COULD, but probably would only allow one at a time to leave... holding the rest as "collateral"


----------



## Blustar

jim pinto said:
			
		

> there's room to make traders out of the minotaurs, elves, and duegar in regions F, H, and D respectively.
> 
> this requires some leaps in logic and/or creation of runners who carry the goods to be traded from one place to the next. this would also allow elves to escape from H more easily.
> 
> but an action "market" where goods can be purchased seems unrealistic except in H
> 
> otherwise, the lantern archons COULD, but probably would only allow one at a time to leave... holding the rest as "collateral"




Hey thanks for the response and I think I have this under control now but I've been trying to figure out the meta-plot and I have some questions...

1. Did Longtail know that he would be trapped in the Celestial's prison (WLD) ? Or did he figure after he raised his army he would win his way out?

2. The dungeon was originally built before Orcs,Minotaurs, goblins, etc.  even existed right?
So, how did so many humanoids get in? Was there a mad rush after the first tear in the dungeon to plunder riches or gain nefarious allies? After a wave of invasion was it warded a second time by Celestials?

3. Was the Dungeon deep in the earth and "raised" closer to the surface because of the earthquakes? I don't understand why the Derro are digging(because of the Xill). Did the Derro digging cause the massive landslide effectively close off portions of the Dungeon that were open to escape?

4. It states that there is an entrance and an exit. Why is there an exit?(if its a prison of eternity)

5. It says that while the Angels looked the other way creatures migrated to Region B. I thought the Celestials/Angels were active eons ago before the existance of creatures like minotaurs, orcs, goblins, etc...is there a timeline of activity between celestials and earthquakes and such. 

6. I dont understand how the wards can still be active in some sections if the dungeon is broken open? 

7.Is the whole idea that the "good" races must finish what the celestials started and somehow repair the dungeon or are they suppsoed to defeat the World Eater and defeat "evil"?

I guess my main concern/confusion is how did all these humanoids of relatively low power get into the dungeon and why? It doesn't sound like a good place even for them!!

sorry for all the questions but before I start I would like to get a firm grip on the meta-plot so I can wing-it when I have to.

thanks,

Alex


----------



## Qwillion

This has been something that has been running around in the back of my head, a timeline for the dungeon and the major events of the dungeon.

I started working on it and then got sidetraked with making an epic section of the dungeon.  Maybe with some help I can post what I have here latter and other people can add to it.


----------



## jim pinto

Blustar said:
			
		

> Hey thanks for the response and I think I have this under control now but I've been trying to figure out the meta-plot and I have some questions...
> 
> 1. Did Longtail know that he would be trapped in the Celestial's prison (WLD) ? Or did he figure after he raised his army he would win his way out?
> 
> 2. The dungeon was originally built before Orcs,Minotaurs, goblins, etc.  even existed right?
> So, how did so many humanoids get in? Was there a mad rush after the first tear in the dungeon to plunder riches or gain nefarious allies? After a wave of invasion was it warded a second time by Celestials?
> 
> 3. Was the Dungeon deep in the earth and "raised" closer to the surface because of the earthquakes? I don't understand why the Derro are digging(because of the Xill). Did the Derro digging cause the massive landslide effectively close off portions of the Dungeon that were open to escape?
> 
> 4. It states that there is an entrance and an exit. Why is there an exit?(if its a prison of eternity)
> 
> 5. It says that while the Angels looked the other way creatures migrated to Region B. I thought the Celestials/Angels were active eons ago before the existance of creatures like minotaurs, orcs, goblins, etc...is there a timeline of activity between celestials and earthquakes and such.
> 
> 6. I dont understand how the wards can still be active in some sections if the dungeon is broken open?
> 
> 7.Is the whole idea that the "good" races must finish what the celestials started and somehow repair the dungeon or are they suppsoed to defeat the World Eater and defeat "evil"?
> 
> I guess my main concern/confusion is how did all these humanoids of relatively low power get into the dungeon and why? It doesn't sound like a good place even for them!!
> 
> sorry for all the questions but before I start I would like to get a firm grip on the meta-plot so I can wing-it when I have to.
> 
> thanks,
> 
> Alex




let me do my best here...

1. this was subtly hinted at... and i think you're the first person to ask...

the answer is up to you... what part do you want him to play in the dungeon?
major role? then yes, he knew. if not, he was just making the best of a bad situation.

2. they all got in the same way the pcs did. except the derro and drow, who came
in from the northwest. and yes, there was sort of a mad dash. the climate is hospitable.
and one could say the level of magic, certainly attracts supernatural beasts.

that and curiousity killed the kobold.

3. the derro themselves do not understand what they are digging for. but they are looking
for something buried after the first earthquake.

and no... the dungeon was always that far "below" the surface.

4. its a metaphorical exit.

5. the angels have been there since day 1. when their numbers dwindled, creatures slipped in. again, a metaphor.

6. you don't under how magic can work where the stone crumbles? what sort of degree in magic do you have? (insert smarm)

7. there is no WHOLE idea... there are 1,000 possible ideas and the DM uses the one he likes.

one of them, and my favorite, is that the pcs defeating the evil in the dungeon are the final proof that mankind is ready to manage itself, without the will of the gods. once completed, the heavens open, everything goes back to normal for the pcs, and the world outside slowly begins to develop technology and self-sufficiency...

an end to magic, if you will.

To be honest, it seems like you're searching for a literal interpretation here, when in fact, we've specifically designed the product to be just flexible enough that literalism is the one ingredient the DM could add himself.

You decide the function of the dungeon, which maps you'll actually use, what the climax will be, and what role each monster plays. Take out the nighthag story in Region G if you don't like it, add firebreathing toads to Region H for the elf calvary to ride, put a store in the middle of Region J where the azer's trade anything and everything for gems, remove the entire maps E and D because they don't fit your version of the game, and put the final map on the elemental plane of ice... its all up to you.

Hope that helps.


----------



## Hussar

Heh, I guess I'm a little boring.  I'm not making huge adjustments to the Dungeon just yet.  We've just entered it (completed a grand total of 3 rooms heh - bloody computer problems) and I'm waiting a bit to see how things play out before I get too energetic about making changes.

That being said, I had thought that maybe a dream plane, similar to Xorlat could make some sort of an appearance.  Because everything in the Dungeon dreams (by and large) there could be a sort of dream plane that permeates every region.  The PC's could possibly enter this dream plane once in a while and interact with the beings trapped there.  Since this piece of the dream plane is cut off from the rest, the dream beings cannot escape any more than anyone else can.  Perhaps by cutting a deal with some of these beings, they can enter the dream plane, trade with whatever is there, and gain access to items not necessarily found in the WLD.  My thought was to use the Diaboli from Dragon 327 and give him the Shaper of Form PrC from Dragon 326.  That way he could take items and turn them into similar items - good for creating spell components and the like.  Add in some Far Realms critters and maybe some Scarred Lands goodies to discourage the PC's from taking too much advantage of things, and I think it might work.

Any opinions?


----------



## Barak

Alright, first a little background to explain my question(s), and explain why I'm bringing back a thread from page 7. 

Our group's problem, for a long time, has been the lack of someone who likes DMing.  As the one who dislike it the least, I've pretty much been saddled with it for a couple months now.  Now, my main problem with DMing has always been the prep work.  I don't mind DMing on game night, and I do have good ideas for plots/villains/whatever, but I hate making statblocks, writing things down, etc, especially since as a busy parent, I have little time for it.  That led to quite a few gaming sessions spent on board games, etc.  Anyway, With Amazon's great 40$ special, I broke down and bought this, and I have to say, I've been pretty hyped since, especially reading this thread.  

Now for the question.  Our group's next gaming session is wednesday, and the book should get to me on thursday.  Now, I plan on "finishing" up the current campaign on that night, so that's fine.  But we play again friday after that, and I would like to come to it with my players at least knowing what they'll want to play, so character creation can take a minimum amount of time.  Here's what I gleaned I should tell them on wednesday (in fact, if I get enough info before wednesday, I might just go ahead and make them make characters on that night, which would reduce the amount of time I have to run that boring campaign of mine).  So here is what I plan on telling them, based on what I've read on here and all.  Any additions, or anything I got wrong?

-Druids and Wizards, while allowed, somehow end up somewhat screwed, so play at your own risk.
-Obviously, it's a dungeon.  Keep that in mind (IE. This might not be the best time to play that mounted character you've been eyeing.)
-While not absolutely essential, a rogue and a cleric would be a great help.

As for character creation, here's what I'm thinking.  Any comments/suggestions?

-We're playing 3.0.  Is WLD done for 3.0 or 3.5?
-PHB races and classes.  -Perhaps- AU race and classes, but they'd need alignments, and I'm still doubtful I'd allow all of them
-32 point-buy
-Max starting GPs, strongly suggested to spend all your starting cash.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Barak said:
			
		

> So here is what I plan on telling them, based on what I've read on here and all.  Any additions, or anything I got wrong?
> 
> -Druids and Wizards, while allowed, somehow end up somewhat screwed, so play at your own risk.
> -Obviously, it's a dungeon.  Keep that in mind (IE. This might not be the best time to play that mounted character you've been eyeing.)
> -While not absolutely essential, a rogue and a cleric would be a great help.
> 
> As for character creation, here's what I'm thinking.  Any comments/suggestions?
> 
> -We're playing 3.0.  Is WLD done for 3.0 or 3.5?
> -PHB races and classes.  -Perhaps- AU race and classes, but they'd need alignments, and I'm still doubtful I'd allow all of them
> -32 point-buy
> -Max starting GPs, strongly suggested to spend all your starting cash.




Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork.
What we've found out is that a point-buy forces PCs to be more specialized in their main areas. You may want to sprinkle a few stat magic items out there after a while.

What I did for our group was to take their expected max starting money, and combine it all to buy all kinds of things they might need. Then let them grab what they needed.

I limited the PCs to classes, races, prestige classes, etc. to PHB, DMG, FRPH, & BoED. I figured since the monsters in the WLD were pretty much limited to the SRD (and it appears a few borrowed ideas from BoVD) that it may be unbalancing for the players to get to use all of the books out there.

Strongly suggest to them that they play good PCs, especially if they go into region E. Region E will kill anyone with an evil alignment if they aren't careful.

And expect to play a boardgame on Friday.


----------



## Barak

Thanks for the quick response!  I guess it's a sign of how hyped I am that I check this thread for responses every 20 minutes now. 



> Strongly suggest to them that they play good PCs, especially if they go into region E. Region E will kill anyone with an evil alignment if they aren't careful.
> 
> And expect to play a boardgame on Friday.




The first is not a problem.  While I personally have no problem with evil PCs, my players, at "worse", make neutral ones.  I think that has to do with previous DMs being very, very against evil PCs.

And..  Any specific reason to expect playing a boardgame on friday?  I do plan on spending 2-4 hours reading the book as soon as I get it.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Barak said:
			
		

> Any specific reason to expect playing a boardgame on friday?  I do plan on spending 2-4 hours reading the book as soon as I get it.




2-4 hours is a good start. And you will probably be able to make characters and start playing. But you need to remember; nearly 1,000,000 words within 840 pages.

Overwhelmed is a good word for it.


----------



## Barak

Well..  I don't plan on reading the whole thing through before playing.  Region A should get read easily in 4 hours, and I can skim the others in that time too, I'm pretty darn sure.


----------



## Qwillion

*Scaled Owlbear (no Not That Kind Of Scales)*

ROOM A100

The scaling for room A100 says 
"To increase the challenge of the encounter, increase the fiendish owlbear's HD to 8."

Doing that affects hp, base attack, grapple, attack, full attack,  DR, SR, energy resistances, saves, one ability point (if you award them every 4 HD, if you do that can change other stuff), one feat which can change other stuff, and it effects CR (by two becase it effects the template as well as just advancement) 

Now doing all this on the fly and being 100% accurate is beyond me so I took the time to write it up this evening.   

I took some liberties and changed the feat selection to be more challenging in combat and I made the skills more useful for the owlbear to track down food in the dungeon.  I also awarded the owlbear a stat point upon gaining monster level 8, putting it in strength. 

I hope this will make it more useful for for DM's whose PC's come back through region A and did not fight the Owlbear, for those DM's who are Bastiches use a pair or a pack of these. 


Advanced Fiendish Owlbear 
Large Magical Beast (Extraplanar) 

Hit Dice: 8d10+40 (84 hp) 
Initiative: +1 (+1 Dex) 
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares) 
Armor Class: 15 (-1 size, +1 Dex, +5 natural), touch 10, flat-footed 14 
Base Attack/Grapple: +8/+18 
Attack: Claw +14 melee (1d6 +6) 
Full Attack: 2 Claw +14 melee (1d6 +6) and bite +8 melee (1d8 +3) 
Space/Reach: 10 ft./5 ft. 
Special Attacks: Improved grab, smite good 
Special Qualities: Damage reduction 10/magic, darkvision 60ft., low-light vision, resistance to fire and cold 10, scent, spell resistance 13 
Saves: Fort +11, Ref +7, Will +5 
Abilities: Str 22, Dex 12, Con 21, Int 3, Wis 12, Cha 10 
Skills: Hide -3, Listen +1, Spot +1, Survival +12 
Feats: Iron Will, Track, Weapon Focus (Claw) 
Environment: Region A
Organization: Solitary, pair, or pack (3-8)
Challenge Rating: 7 
Treasure: None 
Alignment: Always neutral evil


----------



## Hussar

Hey, here's a question.  What would you do to PC's that decide to eat fiendish creatures?


----------



## DaveMage

Hussar said:
			
		

> Hey, here's a question.  What would you do to PC's that decide to eat fiendish creatures?




Make sure they have the right wine to compliment it?


----------



## JoeBlank

Hussar said:
			
		

> Hey, here's a question.  What would you do to PC's that decide to eat fiendish creatures?




I will likely be faced with that situation as well, as I am making my group keep track of food and water. I'll make it easier after a little while, but at first I want them to get the feel of being trapped in the WLD, finding a way to survive. 

Are you concerned with the morality of eating the fiendish creatures, or with whether they make for a healthy meal? Or both?

Not wanting to deal with the moral issue, and knowing that my players know little about templates, I'm figuring it is okay from an alignment standpoint for them to eat the fiendish creatures, thinking of them only as animals. And I figure they make good eating too.


----------



## Hussar

Well, I'm thinking fiendish calimar... I mean Darkmantles are not morally wrong to consider food.  Cooking is kind of difficult since fiendish creatures have fire resistance 5.  You are going to need one heck of a fire.  But, I was more concerned about the health affects.  Is eating a fiendish creature going to cause some serious heartburn?  

Although, I suppose, purify food and drink solves that problem well enough.

My players were perhaps less than well prepared when they realized that they had enterted the Dungeon, knowing they would not be able to leave, with about 4 days of food between them.


----------



## Barak

Well..  I'm starting the game tonight, due to a confluence of happy events leading me to be ready much earlier than thought at first.

The previous post did touch upon something I've been wondering about.  The one part of the whole thing some of my players -might- be disgruntled about is the "you aren't getting out of here" thing.  Any players of people running the game got mad at that?


----------



## Schmoe

Hussar said:
			
		

> Hey, here's a question.  What would you do to PC's that decide to eat fiendish creatures?




In the Book of Vile Darkness, there is a horrible disease (Soul Rot, IIRC) that affects those who consume the flesh of evil outsiders.  I would use that or, barring access to BoVD, another similar curse or disease of my choosing.

_Edit: "effect", "affect", let's call the whole thing off._


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Barak said:
			
		

> The previous post did touch upon something I've been wondering about.  The one part of the whole thing some of my players -might- be disgruntled about is the "you aren't getting out of here" thing.  Any players of people running the game got mad at that?




My players were told that "once you enter, you cannot leave".
Nothing was elaborated beyond that, but at least they understood prior to entry and were able to prepare for it.

They accepted it just fine. But then again, my group's average age is 30, and I don't game with whiners.
Oh and they're used to me screwing them over...


----------



## Barak

Well, I didn't -really- expect them to seriously whine, but who knows.

Well, we started last night.  I have..

-A Dwarven Barbarian (CN)
-An Elven Rogue (CN)
-A Human Cleric (CN)
-A Human Monk (LN)

I was a bit surprised by their alignement choice, but oh well, they're the ones who'll regret it somewhat.   While they are now aware that they cannot leave, I don't think they really realize yet that it'll be like that for a loooooong time.  They were -somewhat- prepared, but there was a few things they had talked of going back to town once they learned more that, well, obviously won't happen now (mostly hire hirelings).  They are trying to make good use of whatever spare resource they find, including "pickling" meat in the barrels of vinegar.  Orc meat, and fiendish rat meat, that is. 

I've had two PCs fall to negative at the first darkmantle attack (Death from Above), mostly because it took them by surprise, and it took them a while to realize what was going on.  In a funny twist of fate, they had mentioned looking at the ceiling in -all- previous rooms, but didn't in that one.  We didn't get to play that long on that night, since we started pretty late, and I had to actually -get- them there, so they only got to interact with the 3 despondent orcs.  Things are gonna get more..  Interesting when they get a bit further. 

They did try to use oil to burn the fiendish rat swarm, which was pretty.. amusing.  And the dwarf is now nicknamed "Doombelly", for killing both the darkmantle (in a grapple) and part of the swarm (using a shield in a somewhat.. Different shield bash) with Belly Flops.  All in all, fun times.  We play again tomorrow night, yay!


----------



## CZHorse

JoeBlank said:
			
		

> I will likely be faced with that situation as well, as I am making my group keep track of food and water. I'll make it easier after a little while, but at first I want them to get the feel of being trapped in the WLD, finding a way to survive.
> 
> Are you concerned with the morality of eating the fiendish creatures, or with whether they make for a healthy meal? Or both?
> 
> Not wanting to deal with the moral issue, and knowing that my players know little about templates, I'm figuring it is okay from an alignment standpoint for them to eat the fiendish creatures, thinking of them only as animals. And I figure they make good eating too.




There is nothing wrong with this approach, as it puts the pressure on the PCs to find food and drink, and with usage of Purify F@D it is not a problem.  I did this to start, and let them find that in region E, they did not feel the need to eat or drink.  If they get on the good side of the celestials, they will each get a ring of substenance.


----------



## JoeBlank

CZHorse, I like the ring of sustenance idea, and coming from the celestials it makes sense. If my players go that route then it would make sense at that time too, as the PCs will be getting a sense of greater importance and bigger goals, so it will be a good time to stop worrying about the mundane.


----------



## Hussar

Thanks for the heads up on the disease thing.  I gave my players fair warning on that one.  That is one NASTY disease.

For now, until I finalize the reasons, I'm just adding areas of food along the way.  Last session, there were fish in the pools in Region A.  They've managed to gather about three more days food, so starvation is a bit more remote.  Heh.  I'll seed a few other pools and other areas of food here and there.  Perhaps one of the positive energy rooms could act as a greenhouse.  

I do have an idea formulating in the back of my mind.

When the Dungeon was first constructed, there was no real reason to curtail any sort of reproduction.  Extra planar creatures can't reproduce, so it wasn't a problem.  However, with the earthquakes, mortals broke into the dungeon and the inmates immedietely started breeding with the mortals.  The celestials realized that they would soon be overrun by these half breeds so the came upon a plan.  Crafting powerful magic, a number of the celestials froze all reproduction for larger creatures.  They knew that if they ended all reproduction completely, the mortals would die.  Not willing to commit genocide, even to hold back the infernal inmates, they limited reproduction to anything tiny or smaller.  This allowed the mortal creatures to still live, and created a stunted but functional ecosystem throughout the Dungeon.  The creatures that need to eat, eat fungi and small animals and vermin and the bacteria within them still functions, allowing them to digest.  However, the outsiders could no longer create half breed armies to overwhelm the celestials.

How does that sound?


----------



## JamesL85

I have a new addition to my WLD page.  Richard Valle sent me a jpg map that has where monsters are located and broken into the different sections that are in the book.  He's looking for feedback, so let's here what you guys think....

The aforementioned page can be found here.

James


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Heh. I wish I had that a year ago.
The giant maps and 100+ rooms per region can really put a strain on ya after a while.


----------



## JoeBlank

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> I have a new addition to my WLD page. Richard Valle sent me a jpg map that has where monsters are located and broken into the different sections that are in the book. He's looking for feedback, so let's here what you guys think....
> 
> The aforementioned page can be found here.
> 
> James




Very nice, handy to see the areas broken down visually like that. This might help me do a better job of indicating to my players when they have gone from one area to another within the region. 

I'm making use of the player versions of the maps on your site, as we are playing online using FantasyGrounds. I've downloaded the maps and had to break them into fourths and enlarge them a bit so that we can use them as our actual in-game map. FG has the "fog of war" function so I can reveal the map as the players progress. We are only 3 sessions in, but are having a blast so far.


----------



## DaveMage

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> I have a new addition to my WLD page.  Richard Valle sent me a jpg map that has where monsters are located and broken into the different sections that are in the book.  He's looking for feedback, so let's here what you guys think....
> 
> The aforementioned page can be found here.
> 
> James




That is a very awesome web page.


----------



## Hussar

That's excellent.  Good work.

Just a bit of an update on my World's Largest Adventuring Group.  We now have 3 DM's including myself.  My game is entering it's fourth session, one group has its players but has yet to get started and we have a third DM who is in the embryonic stage.  If you want in, click the link in my sig.  We play over OpenRPG.  If you'd like to DM a group, that would be great too.  The more DM's we get, the wider we can spread the work and the better the experience will be for everyone.  Either PM me here or at the site in my sig and I'll set you up with your own forum and give you access to the hidden DM's forum as well.


----------



## Hussar

Just got a very cool offer.  TheLe Games is offering 17 Magic Weapons and 17 Magic Armors free for every DM that signs up to the World's Largest Adventuring Group.  Now how's that for a bit o' swag and incentive?  

Click on the link in my sig and sign on up.


----------



## rvalle

JoeBlank said:
			
		

> Very nice, handy to see the areas broken down visually like that. This might help me do a better job of indicating to my players when they have gone from one area to another within the region.
> 
> I'm making use of the player versions of the maps on your site, as we are playing online using FantasyGrounds. I've downloaded the maps and had to break them into fourths and enlarge them a bit so that we can use them as our actual in-game map. FG has the "fog of war" function so I can reveal the map as the players progress. We are only 3 sessions in, but are having a blast so far.




I'm hoping to use FG for WLD as well. I'm thinking of using the players map as is and just use one of FG's small colored tokens to mark the parties location. Then when a fight breaks out use either a blank FG map and draw it in or use a blank Dundjinni map and draw in the map for combat using FG's line drawing tool. I thought blowing up the map big enough to do combats it would get too fuzzy.

Though I also want to use Dundjinni sized tokens for the fight (50 pixles) so that is a factor.

I have one more map to post... its basicly the same but without all the sections drawn in. I'll use that as the DM map and let the players move on the blank one.

I'm a visual person too.  

rv


----------



## JoeBlank

rvalle said:
			
		

> I'm hoping to use FG for WLD as well. I'm thinking of using the players map as is and just use one of FG's small colored tokens to mark the parties location. Then when a fight breaks out use either a blank FG map and draw it in or use a blank Dundjinni map and draw in the map for combat using FG's line drawing tool. I thought blowing up the map big enough to do combats it would get too fuzzy.
> 
> Though I also want to use Dundjinni sized tokens for the fight (50 pixles) so that is a factor.
> 
> I have one more map to post... its basicly the same but without all the sections drawn in. I'll use that as the DM map and let the players move on the blank one.
> 
> I'm a visual person too.
> 
> rv




Your method should work well, as long as you don't have crashing problems. When I tried to share the larger maps with the players the program crashed on us and we had to reboot. Could be something unique to us, but I have read on the FG forums about similar problems. So when I cut up the maps I also had to decrease their clarity, so if you are too much of a "visual person" that this will bother you then you should certainly experiment some to find the set up that works for you.

I would get your players online for a test run and be sure that sharing the maps and such does not cause problems. Do this before you put a lot of work into the setup, and figure our what the upper limits are for the size of files you can share without problems.

Good luck. I'm loving FG and WLD. Both make DMing fun and easier.


----------



## Hussar

I'm not familiar with Fantasy Grounds, so I can't really comment on that.  But, I do use OpenRPG all the time.  With Open, I use a 30 pixel=5 feet scale for all my game maps.  Scanning in the WLD maps, fiddling a bit with PShop to remove the secret doors and numbers and then resizing gives me a jpeg of about 500k per 1/4 map.  4 maps to a region.  Had my first map crossover today as the party moves continuously eastward in Region A.  Took about a minute to change maps over and reset the minis and the fog of war.  YMMV.

rvalle, if you are really going to start a new game online, take a look at the link in my sig.  We're always looking for new DM's.


----------



## Bigwilly

Qwillion said:
			
		

> The scaling for room A100 says
> "To increase the challenge of the encounter, increase the fiendish owlbear's HD to 8."




Don't think it was A100, but in the room with the floating lights that form into a gate I ended up throwing about 5 owlbears at my party. One every two rounds until they shut it down and even then only one PC went seriously into the negatives. Mind you, they are a pretty tough bunch of PCs and most of the players are pretty experienced to boot. Hoping to finish section A this weekend.

Bigwilly


----------



## JamesL85

Thanks to the positive responses, rvalle has sent me the second map to section A (without the boundary lines) as well as both maps to section B.  They're up on the site now.

James


----------



## ShadowAdept

I'd also like to say I really appreciate your site JamesL85. Thanks! Keep up the good work, you and your map providers.


----------



## Qwillion

Richard Valle
Please, please please could we have a region E Valle map?


James:  
I love the site keep it up makes for a great reference.  

About your Region I section though. 
It is Steve "Quillion" Russell not Steve "Quillion" Russel 

two Ls man two Ls (you have it right on the pdf but not on the site, my fathers father is turning in his grave


----------



## rvalle

I think I sent E without the sections... I'll work on getting the one with the sections done. 

I'll resend the one with the critters listed again in case it got lost.

rv


----------



## rvalle

I emailed it.

I'm not quite as happy with it... the text is harder to read on this map for some reason. But... its done.

BTW, I'm probably not going to be working on maps as much... my group has not started in Region A yet so I'm not sure which way they are going to go (B or E). 

rv


----------



## Hussar

Excellent work.  This stuff is REALLY handy.


----------



## JamesL85

Boy is my face red!!!!    

I fixed the typo so that your father's father can rest.....LOL

I added the map to section E without the boundaries, and will add the others as I get them.  Richard said something about taking a break after finishing section E, so everyone needs to rally around him and keep him going!!!!    

A big "you're welcome" to everyone who's stopped by and offered thanks and comments, and a HUGE "thank you" to everyone who's contributed.  An even bigger thanks to Jim for actually letting me host these files for everyone's enjoyment....Not many publishers would allow this to happen....

James

P.S.
I may be a little scarce up until September 3rd (my wedding day) with all the preparations, but I generally have an hour or so to kill after getting ready for work and actually going there, so please be patient.


----------



## rvalle

Map E with Sections is done and emailed. I found some missing critters from the first E map and have updated it and emailed it as well (room E91 for those keeping score).

rv


----------



## JamesL85

The updated section E is there, along with the section E with sections....

James


----------



## Qwillion

I am having a problem printing the Region E Valle map,  it only wants to print the top left hand corner what am I doing wrong?


----------



## JamesL85

I'll do some playing with it....Maybe I can find out the problem.....

I just REALLY wanted to have post number 1000 on this thread....LOL

James


----------



## DaveMage

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> I'll do some playing with it....Maybe I can find out the problem.....
> 
> I just REALLY wanted to have post number 1000 on this thread....LOL
> 
> James




Then I'll take the 1000th reply.


----------



## rvalle

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> I'll do some playing with it....Maybe I can find out the problem.....
> 
> I just REALLY wanted to have post number 1000 on this thread....LOL
> 
> James




Let me know if you need something from me. It should just be a .jpg... I have the .pdf file as well.

rv


----------



## Blustar

Hey,

      I've been using the maps too and I think they're great so thanks!!!! 

I was wondering if anyone has made use of the Book of Righteousness, Unholy Warrior, Avatar's book and The Book of Fiends (by Green Ronin) in their WLD? It would seem that these works would compliment each other greatly (with WLD).


Could you please share your experiences, good or bad, if you have?

Me and my Son have been having a great time with this Dungeon and  as the game continues I want to try and add a little more meat to the bones of the Celestial/Fiend contention. Hence the prior question...thanks

Alex


----------



## rvalle

Did anyone figure out what is going on with the printing thing? Qwillion, James?


----------



## Qwillion

*Gen Con*

Sorry I was at Gencon so I have not had a chance to mess with the printing of them. 


I think because it's in a jpg format and not in a pdf my computer is only printing the left had side of the page it's really weird as I have never had tis type of issue before.



oh about gen con. I only got to go to the AEG booth on sunday, and I did not see any copies of the WLD at thier booth and they had all the d20 products regualted to one side little corner of the table. 

I guess when a product is a year old you just don't get any support.


----------



## Hussar

Ah, man, that sucks.  I had hoped that threads like this would show AEG that there is still a fair interest in the WLD.  Then again, the sound of crickets chirping in the WLD forum at the AEG site doesn't really help.


----------



## JamesL85

Sorry Quillion, we're installing a new central air/central heat unit in the basement and my computer is across the room from the printers until we get evewrything back together.....

I'll check it out in the next couple of days.....

James


----------



## Qwillion

Dont' worry about it, I dont' run a game till next tuesday. 

Maybe we can start posting a few links to this message board when whe have something of great intrest


----------



## rvalle

Qwillion, do you want me to send you the pdf? Its on the large size... my memory says 8 megs but it could be faulty.

rv


----------



## Qwillion

*Pdf*

Yeah that would be cool, I have a cable modem(i work for the cable company, free cable is uber) and a gmail account so that is not an issue.

Worldsmith at gmail dot com

thank you


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Just thought I'd cast Resurrect on this thread by announcing that I have taken up the mantle of GMing this monster. For nine college freshmen, no less.  Ought to be fun indeed.

I'll tell you, though, I'm incredibly glad for all the ideas and suggestions I got from this thread, down to the Text-to-speech program for the Lantern Archons. I can't wait for the party to run into one of those... But I digress. Sadly, the party is a bit unbalanced. It runs as follows:

Xeph Soulknife - Cyrus
Halfling Rogue - Sirius (pronounced Serious)
Dwarven Barbarian - Oskar (Took an oath to die in the biggest way possible)
Human Barbarian - Hoji (Who ever heard of a japanese pirate?)
Human Cleric - Zhalon
Gnome Sorcerer - Formock
Gnome Paladin of Garl Glittergold - Stumbleduck
Human Monk - Xoth
Dwarven Fighter - Thorin

1 mage, 1 rogue, 1 cleric, and six fighter-types. Granted, the paladin's already useful because he's discovered the magic of 'paladar' (sweeps with Detect Evil in a 60-foot radius! Complete with 'ping' sound effects!) and the 'small people' have formed their own little warband - the rogue, the paladin, and the sorceror.

Now, granted, I'm probably going to split the party into two because GMing for nine people is bad enough to start, but when you add in that I'm still sort of a novice at this thing and hard-of-hearing (wear hearing aids, talk with what sounds like a bit of an accent, and rely a good deal on lipreading) AND dealing with all sorts of accents and mumblers, it's bad. So, yeah.

If you're interested, one of my players is blogging about the experience. I intend to poke him into keeping it updated, so you can find the blog at: http://wldweil.blogspot.com/ (start from the bottom!)

Thanks again for all the help - I almost broke down in happy tears when I found a site that actually worked and had nearly all the WLD maps hosted. Sadly, I'm not sure what other information (especially the 'cut') was on the now-defunct WLD fansite, and I would certainly like to have access to whatever was handed around back in the day.  If you're feeling generous, feel free to forward anything on to me, at weilc[swirly a]rpi.edu.

Have a good one!


----------



## DaveMage

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Now, granted, I'm probably going to split the party into two because GMing for nine people is bad enough to start, but when you add in that I'm still sort of a novice at this thing and hard-of-hearing (wear hearing aids, talk with what sounds like a bit of an accent, and rely a good deal on lipreading) AND dealing with all sorts of accents and mumblers, it's bad.




If there's only 1 rogue and you split up the party, the group without the rogue will be most...unhappy.


----------



## just__al

DaveMage said:
			
		

> If there's only 1 rogue and you split up the party, the group without the rogue will be most...unhappy.




I'm running two different groups through this.  In the second group the elven rogue is a bit of a selfish scumbag and keeps letting the dwarf go first.  The dwarf is making quite the "polish mine detector".  They've just started so maybe the group will wise up.


----------



## rvalle

The group I'm going to be taking though is:

Dwarven Barbarian
Gnome Bard
Elven Ranger
Half Elf Druid/Rogue
Human Monk (maybe)

I'm worried by their lack of a cleric or dedicated rogue but I don't want to tack on a zombie npc bandaid cleric either.

rv


----------



## Hussar

I'd be worried too.  A lack of any primary spellcasters, other than the druid who is going to be strongly handicapped in the WLD, is going to really, really hurt this party.  Plus, a lack of dedicated rogue is going to hurt as well.  This is perhaps a less than optimal party composition IMHO.


----------



## rvalle

Hussar said:
			
		

> I'd be worried too.  A lack of any primary spellcasters, other than the druid who is going to be strongly handicapped in the WLD, is going to really, really hurt this party.  Plus, a lack of dedicated rogue is going to hurt as well.  This is perhaps a less than optimal party composition IMHO.




Sigh... mine too. But I don't want to force them to play a class. Those are the characters they desided they wanted to play. They are all old time players and smart people so they'll have to figure out a way to play around their handicaps.

rv


----------



## Hussar

Or, start balancing the party a tad after you whack half of them with the bloody demonic octopi in region A.  Those things can be death on wheels if you do it right.  Sixteen points of damage in a single round with a couple of lucky rolls (and not all that lucky either) and you're looking for some new PC's fairly often.  My bunch recruited the orcs after a brillian critical hit on the chieftain from the half orc barbarian pumped 50ish points of damage into him in the first (and only) hit.  Of the 9 they started with, only 2 remain after they met the darkmantles.  Those blighters are TOUGH!


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Wait, wait, wait. I've been reading the darkmantles as that if they hit with the Slam attack, they attach and can constrict the NEXT round. Did I read that wrong? Can they constrict the round they grapple via Improved Grab?

If so... damn. Party death possibilities just jumped drastically.

(Also another request for clarification. Successful grapple check as per Constrict means successful grapple check used like an attack roll vs opponent's flatfooted AC, or succesful opposed grapple check?)


----------



## Hussar

When you grapple, upon a successful grapple check, you get a hold.  Darkmantles make a grapple check whenever they hit, they do not need to make grapple attacks.  They do need to make a successful grapple check to get a hold.  Grapple checks are an opposed grapple roll.  Check your PHB under the grapple section for the rules.  They are a little different from straight attack rules, so, brushing up before the game is a must.

From the SRD:



> Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, a darkmantle must hit a Large or smaller creature with its slam attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity.
> 
> If it wins the grapple check, it attaches to the opponent’s head and can constrict.
> 
> Constrict (Ex): A darkmantle deals 1d4+4 points of damage with a successful grapple check.




So, yup, hit, grapple, squeeze.  Bloody nasty critter.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Holy monkeys. Thanks - the party is not going to be happy tomorrow if they end up running into one of those.


----------



## Hussar

Heh.  Like I said, my bunch recruited those orcs.  Three rooms later, they're down to 2.  Considering those were 3rd level warrior orcs and a 3rd level barbarian orc, that's bloody nasty.   Word of advice.  With the room with the very big darkmantles, all the doors are open.  Draw the party in one of the doors and send a couple of the darkmantles out and around from another door.  Bagged me the party cleric, mage and rogue with that one.  Unfortunately, didn't get to kill any of them due to timely intervention from the party barbarian and the two remaining orcs.  Almost had them.  Did drop them down to about -7 hp each though.  Way too much fun.


----------



## rvalle

Hussar said:
			
		

> When you grapple, upon a successful grapple check, you get a hold.  Darkmantles make a grapple check whenever they hit, they do not need to make grapple attacks.  They do need to make a successful grapple check to get a hold.  Grapple checks are an opposed grapple roll.  Check your PHB under the grapple section for the rules.  They are a little different from straight attack rules, so, brushing up before the game is a must.
> 
> From the SRD:
> 
> 
> 
> So, yup, hit, grapple, squeeze.  Bloody nasty critter.




Hmmm, I was till reading this as they start to grapple next round and do auto damage. I ran a small group though the first couple of rooms and they didn't have any problems with the 3 Darkmantles they ran into. The first one hit but failed its grapple. The 2nd time (a battle with 2) on hit, grappled but was pulled off before its turn came around again.

rv


----------



## rvalle

Hussar said:
			
		

> Or, start balancing the party a tad after you whack half of them with the bloody demonic octopi in region A.  Those things can be death on wheels if you do it right.  Sixteen points of damage in a single round with a couple of lucky rolls (and not all that lucky either) and you're looking for some new PC's fairly often.  My bunch recruited the orcs after a brillian critical hit on the chieftain from the half orc barbarian pumped 50ish points of damage into him in the first (and only) hit.  Of the 9 they started with, only 2 remain after they met the darkmantles.  Those blighters are TOUGH!




Party comp has changed a bit...

Dwarven Barbarian
Gnome Bard (by far the funnest character so far)
Elven Ranger
Dwarven Cleric
Human Monk (for sure and with a name like Wang Chung who can't like him?)
Dwarven Cleric or Fighter or Cleric/Fighter

So now we are totaly rogueless. At least there are some clerics to pick up the pieces afterwards.


----------



## Oates

My group is going through this with an interesting beginning...

All pc's had to begin as a Racial Paragon class from UA.

Begins 4 human paragons, 1 gnome paragon -- no memories/no equipment!!!!

We recruit/are recruited by the Kobolds (yes we were very poor off)

A couple of levels later the party is (no deaths yet... we are very creative)

Human Paragon2/Cleric1 (trying to work to prestige paly) War/Strenght Dom
Human Paragon2/Cleric1 (trying to work to prestige Ranger) Animal/Travel Dom
Human Paragon1/Thief2 
Human Paragon1/Monk2 (Currently the major beat stick)
Gnome Paragon1/Sorc2 (An illusion/buffer Sorc???)

Our last battle we fought the big collection of DarkMantles...nearly dying.

It has been the funnest yet poorest (gear wise) I have ever played in. The most magical thngs we have found thus far: Some feather token and a dagger of venom (currently used by the monk!)


----------



## rvalle

rvalle said:
			
		

> Hmmm, I was till reading this as they start to grapple next round and do auto damage. I ran a small group though the first couple of rooms and they didn't have any problems with the 3 Darkmantles they ran into. The first one hit but failed its grapple. The 2nd time (a battle with 2) on hit, grappled but was pulled off before its turn came around again.
> 
> rv




Checked a bit. This comes down to the grapple rules:

Step 3
Hold. Make an opposed grapple check as a free action. 

If you succeed, you and your target are now grappling, and you deal damage to the target as if with an unarmed strike. 

It does not say anything about waiting till next round. 

Yikes... those guys did just get a lot more deadly.

rv


----------



## pokedigimaniac

I run in 1 hour.   The first darkmantle encounter scared them enough as it was. This is going to be _fun._


----------



## Hussar

Oates said:
			
		

> Our last battle we fought the big collection of DarkMantles...nearly dying.
> 
> It has been the funnest yet poorest (gear wise) I have ever played in. The most magical thngs we have found thus far: Some feather token and a dagger of venom (currently used by the monk!)




I'd actually love an opportunity to be a player in this, but, I guess I'll have to be satisfied with stomping on PC's from time to time.    I know what you're saying though.  THere is very little loot to be had in the WLD.  Particularly Region A.  My guys currently have an intelligent magical dagger I tossed in to be a bit of comic relief and guide, a +1 battleaxe, and a +1 Javelin (Paladin's Remorse) that I tossed into the weapons room on a very lucky die roll for magical items.  On a side note, thanks to The Le Games for their 17 Magic Weapons pdf.  It has already seen daylight in the WLD.  Funny thing is, no one has any way of casting identify, so while they know the javelin is magical, they don't bother using it.  Heh.  

I added a touch in the trapped jail room with the teleport pad.  I put a Simurg from Dragon 334 in it.   It has to be freed by touching the red gem (collapsing field room) to the chain around its neck.  Once freed, I'm going to keep it around in Region A to act as a source of info and identifying.  At least for a while.  Cool critter.

Speaking of Dragon 334, my players will curse the day I got that subscription.  The alchemical weapons are EXACTLY what the goblins in Region B need to give them that little bit of oomph.  Add in a couple of fire siphons and my players are REALLY going to hate Erik Mona.  )  Thankees sah, if you happen to read this.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Updates on a few things. There are now a total of three blogs/journals for my group - unfortunately, one is mine, and so is locked so that one group doesn't see another's adventures and so on. In any case, the other two blogs are:

http://wldsiriusrogue.blogspot.com/

http://wldweil.blogspot.com/

(Blogspot = start from the bottom.)

I'm also heartily amused, because I've now run for both groups two times each. One group, made up almost exclusively of Small characters (they call themselves the Nutbusterz!) has allied with the kobolds, while the other group, which includes two barbarians (one dwarf, one human), a dwarven fighter, a human monk, and a human cleric, (dubbed the Brawn group) is attempting to gain the aid of the orcs.

This makes me laugh hysterically at the very different directions the parties are taking.  I can't wait to see who finds the lizardfolk first. 

For those of you who ran beforehand, which faction(s) did your parties ally with in Region A - the orcs, the kobolds, the lizardfolk, or none?*


*This assumes you ran it as written, and didn't use any of jim pinto's excellent modification suggestions.


----------



## Hussar

Speaking of updates, I've finally done one as well.  Check it out Here

BTW, as I mentioned before, we had orc cannon fodder.  Or I guess it should be octopus chow.


----------



## Hussar

Heh, just discovered the joys that is a Crypt Thing.  I've always wanted to use this critter ever since I first saw him in the old Fiend Folio.  Well, I stuck him in the red gemstone room in Region A.  Poof, I've got PC's all over the region now.  Mwahahahahaha!


----------



## ShadowAdept

Just a quick question for anyone. I read through the thread (yeah, quick as possible) and also checked the errata forum at AEG.

Was the descriptive text for Rooms N50, N51 and N52 ever posted?

Just curious. Thought I might have missed it somewhere in this long thread.


----------



## Qwillion

not that I am aware of. 

Jim you stil out there for this one?

For those who care here is a corrected version of Persal Slayer of the Unliving from the Inevitable Garrison (Room E69), Persal can be encountered by the PC's slaying shadows (this is where my party Is likely to encounter him.)

The version below is edited and errata' for the Marut wearing full plate armor (which is not even done in the MM or SRD), that knowledge religion is knowledge undead (pokes Sean Holland  oh knight of roses and maven of rules), that the marut's wisdom increased by one point (inceasing certain skills), that an increase in HD increases Spell Resitance and Caster levels of spell like abilites  (pokes Sean Holland  oh knight of roses and maven of rules, again). 

If you find an error in this please let me know. 

on a personal note if you going to let a CR 16 take on a party of 4-6th level characters I recomend you have them use subdual dmage and take prisoners back to join The Redeemed.  


*Persal, Slayer of the Unliving (Marut)*
*Large Construct *(Extraplaner, Lawful) 
*Hit Dice: *19d10+30 (134 hp) 
*Initiative: *+1 (+1 Dex) 
*Speed:* 30 ft. (6 squares)in full Plate armor; base speed 40 ft. (can't run) 
*Armor Class:* 34 (-1 size, +1 Dex, +16 natural, +8 full Plate armor), touch 10, flat-footed 33 
*Base Attack/Grapple:* +14/+30 
*Attack:* Slam +25 melee (2d6 +12 3d6 electricity) 
*Full Attack:* 2 Slam +25 melee (2d6 +12 3d6 sonic or 3d6 electricity) 
*Space/Reach:* 10 ft./10 ft. 
*Special Attacks:* Fists of thunder and lightning, spell-like abilities 
*Special Qualities:* Construct traits, Damage reduction 15/chaotic, darkvision 60ft., fast healing 10, low-light vision, spell resistance 29 
*Saves:* Fort +8, Ref +7, Will +12 
*Abilities:* Str 35, Dex 13, Con -, Int 12, Wis 18, Cha 18 
*Skills: *Balance -5, Climb +6, Concentration +12, Diplomacy +6, Escape Artist -5, Hide -9, Jump +6, Knowledge (religion) +23, Listen +20, Move Silently -5, Search +9, Sense Motive +10, Sleight of Hand -5, Spot +20, Swim +6, Tumble -5 
*Feats:* Ability focus (fists), Awesome Blow (+21 DC 2d6+12 plus 3d6 electricity or sonic),Cleave, Great Fortitude, Improved Bull Rush (+20, +22 charge), Iron Will, Power Attack  (Slam +15 melee (2d6 +22 3d6 electricity or sonic) 
*Environment:* a lawful alighned plane 
*Organization:* Solitary 
*Challenge Rating:* 16 
*Treasure:* None 
*Alignment:* Always lawful neutral 
*Advancement: *
*Level Adjustment:* - 
A marut’s natural weapons, as well as any weapons it wields, are treated as lawful-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
*Fists of Thunder and Lightning (Su): *A marut’s left fist delivers a loud thunderclap whenever it hits something, dealing an extra 3d6 points of sonic damage and causing the target to be deafened for 2d6 rounds (Fortitude DC 33 negates the deafness). Its right fist delivers a shock for an extra 3d6 points of electricity damage, and the flash of lightning causes the target to be blinded for 2d6 rounds (Fortitude DC 33 negates the blindness). The save DCs are Strength-based and include the marut’s Ability Focus feat.
*Fast Healing (Ex):* An inevitable heals a certain amount of damage each round (specified in each variety’s description) as long as it has at least 1 hit point. However, damage dealt by chaotic weapons heals at the normal rate.
*Spell-Like Abilities:* At will-_air walk_, _dimension door_, _fear _(DC 18), _greater command _(DC 19), _greater dispel magic, mass inflict light wounds _(DC 19), _locate creature, true seeing_; 1/day-_chain lightning _(DC 20), _circle of death _(DC 20), _mark of justice, wall of force_; 1/week- _earthquake _(DC 22), _geas/quest, plane shift_ (DC 21). Caster level 18th. The save DCs are Charisma-based.
*Skills:* A marut has a +4 racial bonus on Concentration, Listen, and Spot checks.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

ShadowAdept said:
			
		

> Just a quick question for anyone. I read through the thread (yeah, quick as possible) and also checked the errata forum at AEG.
> 
> Was the descriptive text for Rooms N50, N51 and N52 ever posted?
> 
> Just curious. Thought I might have missed it somewhere in this long thread.




I think that those rooms may be covered somewhere in this giant thread. They sound familiar in a year-ago kind of way.

My group recently went through those rooms and I just used some of the region W spare rooms. I tried to make them creepy, but nothing more than a footnote to party. I think I used rooms W1, W2, & W4.

But the rooms are mentioned shortly later in region N in "The Judge's" domain. All it says is that he wants this room to be a test like the ones in N50-N52, but he doesn't have the power that the garrison had when they created the tests in rooms N50-N52.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

When I reread this thread, that was one of the things I was looking for. I don't recall finding it, sadly, although it was mentioned a few times.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> When I reread this thread, that was one of the things I was looking for. I don't recall finding it, sadly, although it was mentioned a few times.




Well then...

I could talk with Twofalls. He got a lot of information about region E from jim pinto, he may have a little about region N.

I'm wouldn't bet on it though. His hard drive crashed not too long ago...and he hasn't even looked at the WLD book in 6 months. (Like many groups, his group stopped playing the WLD after a few months of playing.)

If he has something I'll post it here.

But hey, if that falls through, that gives you the perfect opportunity to throw in some critters from outside the SRD.


----------



## JamesL85

I just posted a new map by Peter Ramos on the WLD page.  It's a player's map of Region A that has all of the secret rooms added in, for those that use some type of "fog of war" when revealing the map.

Just thought I'd share.....

James

P.S.
Suppose I ought to put in the link.


----------



## timbannock

*New Blog and Group!*

My group has just begun the prologue I've created to get them into the World's Largest Dungeon!  You can read of our exploits (so far, only one session) at:

http://dungeon-crawl.blogspot.com

We're doing things a little different as far as setting goes: we're using Earthdawn.  I've basically just ported over the races, and allowed some of the base classes from the Complete series.  Beyond that, little has changed for characters.  However, on my side of the table, I've decided to go pretty hardcore with Weapons of Legacy for a lot of the more powerful/permanent magic items--any enchanted weapons, staves, rods, and some wondrous items will likely be items of legacy.  Seems as how you need to be 5th level to start upping the power level of legacy items, I've got plenty of time to consider how this will affect the dungeon crawl.

I loved the Bit idea for the Lantern Archons, but may use it a bit more sparringly.  I'm also starting the group out with the need to track food and water and such, but will probably do away with that afterward, just to make them sweat at the beginning.

One question: what have people done for player handouts?  I saw a couple posts about that a while ago while lurking, but it seems like certain rooms lend very well to it, especially rooms that have loads of history written on the walls or what have you (rooms in N and J spring to mind).  Curious what others have done...and how much people detailed the walls or other sources of history that are more or less up to the DM to define.


----------



## Qwillion

History, Yeah I really need to break down and do the Timeline, I keep meaning too but the akashic in my party is an Npc now so not as much need as before but I still love timelines so I will probably get back to it.  

I have recently let my players have a city that they can get back to by use of creature known as a slarcien gatekeepr (Creature Collection II) and have introduced a 100% OGL city that I designed, because I could see my players were chaffing at the lock down dungeon crawl. So I might work the dungeon timeline in as I work on my cities timeline. 

To give you a heads up on why I am doing all these breakdowns the party is coming back into the dungeon and back tracking out of Region E back to Region A and then planning to go to Region B as they think region B will not be as tough.  I have decided to let them but to make the way tougher than they thought.  

 I am going to use Persal, Slayer of the Unliving (updated previously) on the far eastern entrance from region A to E, and then Beslar Rabblerouser (see below) on the Western End,  The middle entrance, the one the party ussed to enter region E will have collapsed in one of Region A's quakes, I have also added a collection of Wymling (Tiny), Very Young (small) and Juvenile (medium) Fiendish Brass Dragons that were only encountered as flavor for Region A earilier.  

 If they take the longer western route they should do well if they take the shorter eastern route then likely Persal will make the party members of the redeemed and they will be in the heart of Region E and likly end up in Region I ahead of schedule (as the whole party is evil)


This Bralani was originaly Modified from standard SRD for the WLD They added 4 fighter levels decreased the int (1 pnt no effect) and added two points cha (which then they did not use the new modifer) , I have corrected the following things:

 The Cha was increased by 2 points but they did not make the changes such as all spell-like ability modifiers by +1 and increased diplomacy by +1, Reflex save was one point two high (+5 outsider hd, +1 fighter, +4 dex), nonsensical use of feats, why do I have two weapon fighting but only one weapon? Spell-resistance, caster level of spell like abilities and Whirlwind blast dc not adjusted for increased Hit Dice. 

_*Besar Rabblerouser of the Celestial Garrison*_ (e102) 
*Medium Outsider *(Chaotic, Extraplanar, Good) *Fighter 4th level*
*Hit Dice:* 6d8+ 4d10+30 (86 hp)    [79 average]
*Initiative:* +8
*Speed:* 40 ft. (8 squares), fly 100 ft. (perfect)
*Armor Class:* 20 (+4 Dex, +6 natural), touch 14, flat-footed 16
*Base Attack/Grapple:* +10/+14
*Attack:* +1 holy battleaxe +16 melee (1d8+7 plus 2d6 holy /x3) or or slam +10 melee (1d6+4)
*Full Attack:* +1 holy battleaxe +14/+9 melee (1d8+7 plus 2d6 holy /x3) and  +1 holy handaxe +13 /+8 melee (1d6+3 plus 2d6 holy damage/x3) or slam +10 melee (1d6+4)
*Space/Reach:* 5 ft./5 ft.
*Special Attacks:* Spell-like abilities, whirlwind blast
*Special Qualities:* Alternate form, damage reduction 10/cold iron or evil, darkvision 60 ft., immunity to electricity and petrification, low-light vision, resistance to cold 10 and fire 10, spell resistance 21, tongues
*Saves:* Fort +12, Ref +10, Will +10
*Abilities:* Str 18, Dex 18, Con 17, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 16
*Skills:* Concentration +12, Diplomacy +5, Escape Artist +13, Handle Animal +11, Hide +13, Jump +10, Listen +14, Move Silently +13, Ride +6, Sense Motive +13, Spot +14, Tumble +14, Use Rope +4 (+6 with bindings)
*Feats:* Alertness, Blind-Fight, Improved Initiative, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Iron Will, Two Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (Battleaxe), Weapon Specialization (Battleaxe)
*Environment:* A chaotic good-aligned plane
*Organization:* Solitary, pair, or squad (3-5)
*Challenge Rating:* 10
*Treasure:* No coins; double goods; standard items
*Alignment:* Always chaotic good
*Advancement:*	7-12 HD (Medium); 13-18 HD (Large)
*Level Adjustment:* +5

In addition to their natural form, bralanis can assume the shape of a whirlwind or zephyr of dust, snow, or sand.
Bralanis speak Celestial, Infernal, and Draconic, but can communicate with almost any creature, thanks to their tongues ability.
Combat
Bralanis prefer the scimitar and bow, the weapons of the desert nomads they most closely resemble.
A bralani’s natural weapons, as well as any weapons it wields, are treated as chaotic-aligned and good-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
*Spell-Like Abilities: *At will- _blur, charm person _(DC 14), _gust of wind_ (DC 15), _mirror image, wind wall;_ 2/day-_lightning bolt_ (DC 16), _cure serious wounds _(DC 16). Caster level 10th. The save DCs are Charisma-based.
*Whirlwind Blast (Su): *When in whirlwind form, a bralani can attack with a scouring blast of wind, dealing 3d6 points of damage in a 20-foot line (Reflex DC 18 half ). The save DC is Constitution-based.
*Alternate Form (Su):* A bralani can shift between its humanoid and whirlwind forms as a standard action. In humanoid form, it cannot fly or use its whirlwind blast, but it can use its spell-like abilities and its weapons. In whirlwind form, it can fly, make slam attacks and whirlwind blast attacks, and use spell-like abilities. 
A bralani remains in one form until it chooses to assume a new one. A change in form cannot be dispelled, nor does the bralani revert to any particular form when killed. A true seeing spell, however, reveals both forms simultaneously.
*Tongues (Su):* Bralanis can speak with any creature that has a language, as though using a tongues spell (caster level 18th). This ability is always active.


POINT TO BE MADE
you know I have only picked out two monsters to really go over, I did not make any real changes but I am a little disappointed here as to the accuracy of these two stat blocks.


----------



## timbannock

*Experience*

Just a quickie: I told the PCs that I wouldn't be handing out experience in the usual fashion, just tailoring it a bit more to the dungeon, and the overwhelming response was:

"You won't be handing out experience!???!"

Good thing my players didn't hear the other 13 words in that sentence...yeesh.

Anyway, this board seems to be slowing up a lot.  Any ideas on how we can liven things up around here?

Anyone?  Anyone?

Bueller?


----------



## DaveMage

neuronphaser said:
			
		

> Anyway, this board seems to be slowing up a lot.  Any ideas on how we can liven things up around here?
> 
> Anyone?  Anyone?
> 
> Bueller?




Well, since the thread has been going for over a year, I think a slowdown is a little expected.    

What I'd love to see is a version of the WLD that, instead of allowing different paths through the dungeon, would provide only one path that took characters well into epic levels.

It's one thing to get through the thing, but another to get through all 15 regions.

I wonder if this could be done simply by advancing the monsters that are in each section to higher hit dice/CRs.  (Although even this "simple" solution would be massive amounts of work.)


----------



## BlueBlackRed

neuronphaser said:
			
		

> Anyway, this board seems to be slowing up a lot.  Any ideas on how we can liven things up around here?
> 
> Anyone?  Anyone?
> 
> Bueller?




Jim Pinto's presence on this thread gets it more attention.

And since he has not been around for a bit, and the thread (and module) is more than a year old, the existance other forums (like AEG's and RPGMP3's), and the attention span of gamers isn't exactly measurable in large increments...well a slowing down of the thread isn't that much of a surprise.

But so long as people come here to ask questions and/or to let us know that their group is starting in the WLD, this thread won't die.


----------



## Qwillion

yeah it would be possible simply by advancement

you would simply take the best route, but you have to look at how regions relate to the book

Like E to H would not be a good idea as the storyline for region e Require region I to be there.


----------



## Hussar

DaveMage said:
			
		

> Well, since the thread has been going for over a year, I think a slowdown is a little expected.
> 
> What I'd love to see is a version of the WLD that, instead of allowing different paths through the dungeon, would provide only one path that took characters well into epic levels.
> 
> It's one thing to get through the thing, but another to get through all 15 regions.
> 
> I wonder if this could be done simply by advancing the monsters that are in each section to higher hit dice/CRs.  (Although even this "simple" solution would be massive amounts of work.)




Well, to get to epic levels, I think the easiest solution would be to award xp exactly by the book.  You'd be epic after three or four regions.  Might be fun to go that way.  Struggle your way for half the module then go to Gawd mode and kick some tail.


----------



## Qwillion

DAVE MAGE SAID

"What I'd love to see is a version of the WLD that, instead of allowing different paths through the dungeon, would provide only one path that took characters well into epic levels.

It's one thing to get through the thing, but another to get through all 15 regions.

I wonder if this could be done simply by advancing the monsters that are in each section to higher hit dice/CRs. (Although even this "simple" solution would be massive amounts of work.)"


this sounds like a cool project and I would love to do some work on it here is my proposal.


*THE SAGA WLD ADVENTURE PATH 1ST -45TH LEVEL*

Laid out in a path these sections would remain unchanged
A E I M J N O

Laid out the remaining order would require an increase to all encounter levels
 D, H, K, L, G, F, B, C 

Region D level 21-23
Region H level 24-26
Region K level 27-29
Region L level 30-33
Region G level 34-36
Region F level 37-39
Region B level 40-42
Region C level 43-45


These changes count on efficiency (Region N covers the larges part of the maps)  and  storytelling (E must be linked with I, J must be linked with N etc.)

I have also started with Region D because if the project goes no further than it’s first region it will still be modular enough for those who do not follow the path to be able to use the region when characters do pass beyond level 21.  

I propose starting with region D, going section-by-section room-by-room with each submission taking up a singled #room one at a time until complete. A place to post what room your working on would need to be selected (ala AEG’s website or some such,) so as not to choke this thread with updates posted the main thread. (such as a compilation pdf etc…) This project would demand full compliance with the OGL so that you still have to own the WLD to use these updated states.  

Example:  Region D by this method would require all Encounter Levels increase 3-4 levels 

_*Region D; Section D1-D6; Room D1*_

*Increases*-Spot DC for the scorch marks increased to DC 30.  The derro clean the area from time to time.
-Caster level of all Tower Spells increased too 15th level, 
-DC’s of the tower spells are all increased by +2, because the savants have become more powerful. 
-All the spells on the tower are Empowered (+50%). 

*Advanced Wailing Stone Golem*
*Huge Construct * 
*Hit Dice:* 24d10+40 (172 hp) 
*Initiative:* -2 (-2 Dex) 
*Speed:* 20 ft. (4 squares) (can't run) 
*Armor Class:* 27 (-2 size, -2 Dex, +21 natural), touch 6, flat-footed 27
*Base Attack/Grapple:* +18/+39 
*Attack:* Slam +29 melee (4d8 +13) 
*Full Attack:* 2 Slams +29 melee (4d8 +13) 
*Space/Reach:* 15 ft./15 ft. 
*Special Attacks:* Slow, spell like abilities 
*Special Qualities:* Construct traits, Damage reduction 20/-, darkvision 60ft., low-light vision, magic immunity 
*Saves: * Fort +8, Ref +6, Will +8 
*Abilities:* Str 37, Dex 7, Con -, Int -, Wis 11, Cha 1 
*Skills:* -
*Feats: * -
*Environment: * Any land 
*Organization:* Solitary 
*Challenge Rating:* 15 
*Treasure:* None 
*Alignment:* Always neutral 
*Advancement:* 25-48 HD (Huge); 49-72 HD (Gargantuan) 
*Level Adjustment:* - 
*Slow (Su):* A stone golem can use a slow effect, as the spell, as a free action once every 2 rounds. The effect has a range of 10 feet and a duration of 7 rounds, requiring a DC 22 Will save to negate. The save DC is Constitution-based.
*Spell-like abilities*-at will feather fall, caster level 15th.
*Wail (Su): * Whenever the golem engages in melee combat, it lets out a tremendous wail lasting until the melee ends. Like a shrieker, the sound attracts nearby creatures disposed to investigating it. 
*Immunity to Magic (Ex): * A stone golem is immune to any spell or spell-like ability that allows spell resistance. In addition, certain spells and effects function differently against the creature, as noted below.
A transmute rock to mud spell slows a stone golem (as the slow spell) for 2d6 rounds, with no saving throw, while transmute mud to rock heals all of its lost hit points.
A stone to flesh spell does not actually change the golem’s structure but negates its damage reduction and immunity to magic for 1 full round.



I propose to do d2 next.


----------



## Oates

neuronphaser said:
			
		

> Just a quickie: I told the PCs that I wouldn't be handing out experience in the usual fashion, just tailoring it a bit more to the dungeon, and the overwhelming response was:
> 
> "You won't be handing out experience!???!"




My WLD DM is doing the exact same thing. We players get visions from our patro diety and in character have to decide which class we are taking.

Update: We have finished defeating the darkmantles, and orc in region A, were betrayed by the kobolds (damn you Boykit...he survived but sans spell book) and are currently looking for longtail

Party--
Human HumPar1/Monk3 --  Monk.
Human HumPar1/Rog3 --Dagger specialist
Human HumPar3/Clr1(3) <ME> almost to Prestige Pally    
Human HumPar3/Clr1(3) almost Prestige Ranger
Gnome GnoPar3/Sor1(3) DM allowed Paragon level to count for Sorc levels
NPC Ork War3 -- Survivor of the orc clan

We found a cache of arms...some of which we could actually use....we still have no one who has martial weapon prof. (my char can use a long sword via war domain). Our little gnome sorc finally got a combat spell (sleep).

Magic items 
 magic battle axe <from Orc chief>
magic cloak, bracers <from Boykit>
magic ring <from stirge room>
feather token?
Poisonous dagger

funnest campaign ever....


----------



## timbannock

You know, I'd love to get my players to Epic levels at some point too...we've gone through 2 3.X campaigns and both of them have fallen apart or come to a hiatus around level 11-ish.  My problem is that I'm more story-oriented, and my (some of my) players more rules-oriented, and high levels just become a real pain to write for.  I either don't challenge them at all or obliterate them, and finding the middle ground is something I haven't been able to do yet.

For one, I"m hoping WLD will help me with that, being pregenerated and all.  For another, are epic levels really difficult to handle?  Anyone use them yet and have a blast with them?  

I'm hesitant to run anything where players have 5 attacks around and have a boatload of spells to sift through in order to pick the right one to cast at any given time.  I've still got players who have to reference the books for every single move they make (their newbies, not really their fault), so going epic just sounds like an exercise in boredom.  But please, tell of your experiences (especially if they relate to WLD) and prove me wrong!


----------



## DaveMage

neuronphaser said:
			
		

> For another, are epic levels really difficult to handle?  Anyone use them yet and have a blast with them?
> 
> I'm hesitant to run anything where players have 5 attacks around and have a boatload of spells to sift through in order to pick the right one to cast at any given time.  I've still got players who have to reference the books for every single move they make (their newbies, not really their fault), so going epic just sounds like an exercise in boredom.  But please, tell of your experiences (especially if they relate to WLD) and prove me wrong!




I'm playing in an epic campaign right now and having a blast.  (Though it's not a WLD campaign.)  It's nice to actually be able to use all of the spells in the player's handbook.   It's hard to DM, as the challenges take some effort to put together, but it's also pretty cool doing 24d6 damage with a polar ray.   

Qwillion: Wow!  That's what I call taking an idea and running.      I wish I had more time to help with the effort, since this is exactly what I'd love to see.


----------



## Hussar

While this is aside from the Epic idea, I just thought I'd toss this in for anyone who's going through region B.  Some goodies for the Holy Goblin Empire, drawn from Dragon.

*Goblin Piker* Fighter 1: CR 1: Small humanoid (goblinoid): HD 1d10+1: hp 6: Init +1: Spd 30 ft: AC 15, touch 12, Flat Footed 14: Base Att +1: Grp -2: Atk +4 Melee (1d6+1 (x3)Awl Pike) or +3 Melee (1d4+1 19-20x2 Shortsword): SA - :SQ Darkvision 60 Feet: AL NE: Fort +3 Ref +1 Will +0: S 12 D 13 C 12 I 10 W 10 C 6.

Skills and Feats: Hide +5, Listen +1 Move silently +5 Ride +4, Spot +1, Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Awl Pike, Weapon Focus: Awl Pike

*Awl Pike* Two handed Exotic polearm.  Cost:  10 gp Dam: (s)1d6 (m) 1d8 Critical: x3 Weight: 10 pounds Type: Piercign

Built similar to a longspear, the awl pike is almost 15 feet long.  You can strike opponents 15 feet away with it, but you can't use it against foes closer than that.  If you use a ready action to set an awl pike against a charge, you deal double damage against a charging character.

*Goblin Grenadier* Fighter 1: CR 1: Small humanoid (goblinoid): HD 1d10+1: hp 6: Init +1: Spd 30 ft: AC 15, touch 12, Flat Footed 14: Base Att +1: Grp -2: Atk +3 Melee (1d4+1 19-20x2 Shortsword) or +2 Sling (1d3+1d4 Fire) or +4 sling (1d3) or +3 Ranged Touch Alchemists fire (1d6 fire) : SA - :SQ Darkvision 60 Feet: AL NE: Fort +3 Ref +1 Will +0: S 12 D 13 C 12 I 10 W 10 C 6.

Skills and Feats: Hide +5, Listen +1 Move silently +5 Ride +4, Spot +1,  Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot

Equipment:  Sling, 6 Alchemist's Fire Bullets, 1 Alchemist Fire, 3 Tanglefoot Bags.

*Alchemists fire Bullet*  This small glass sphere contains alchemist's fire and can be used as a sling missile.  When striking a target, the sphere bursts, dealing an additional d4 fire damage as well as sling bullet damage.  The target takes an additional d4 damage on the next round unless the fire is extinguished.  These bullets are larger than normal, imposing a -2 penalty on attack rolls made using them.

Standard tactics for goblin patrols and units is to have 2/3's of troops armed as Pikemen and 1/3 grenadiers. Pike units line up in two ranks with the grenadiers as a third rank. After engaging opponents, the front rank drops its pikes and draws its shortswords. The second rank falls back and continues to attack with their pikes, ensuring that any who break through the front rank are subject to AOO's. The grenadiers typically start with a volley of Alchemist's Fire Bullets, followed by a volley of tanglefoot bags, then either Alchemist's Fire or Bullets depending on the strength of the opponent. Note, Grenadiers will not use Alchemists Fire if the splash will likely harm goblins.

Units will stay in formation as long as possible. If the front rank is killed, the second rank will typically withdraw with the grenadiers to a chokepoint where their pikes can be used together against a single target. A common tactic is to flee out a door, with half the goblins heading left and the other half right. Pikemen attack any who come out the door, while Grenadiers alternate between Alchemist Fire Bullets and Tanglefoot bags to make the choke point unpassable.

Any hobgoblins with goblin units will typically remain in the back to direct actions, using ranged weapons to target spellcasters.

Note, any obvious spellcaster becomes automatically targetted by Grenadiers after a spell has been cast. Grenadiers will not hesitate to pile alchemists fire on top of a spellcaster to ensure that he or she cannot cast spells.

Add the following to rooms B70, B74, 10 feet south of the southernmost of the 3 four way intersections south of the Crypts (facing north) and just outside the door, in the hallway, outside B77 (facing north).

Goblin Fire Siphon

_ You see three goblins climbing over a small wagon.  On the wagon is a sort of pot with a nozzle pointed outwards.  Two of the goblins are behind the wagon, positioning it, while the third operates a pump in the back._

_ The pump goblin heaves downward on the lever and a blast of flame engulfs you._

*Goblin Fire Siphon Team*    Warrior 1: CR 1/3: Small humanoid (goblinoid): HD 1d8+1: hp 5: Init +1: Spd 30 ft: AC 15, touch 12, Flat Footed 14: Base Att +1: Grp -2: Atk +3 Melee (1d4+1 19-20x2 Shortsword): SA - :SQ Darkvision 60 Feet: AL NE: Fort +3 Ref +1 Will +0: S 12 D 13 C 12 I 10 W 10 C 6.

Skills and Feats: Hide +5, Listen +1 Move silently +5 Ride +4, Spot +1, Alertness

*Small Fire Siphon*  Cost:  1000 gp: Weight:  200 lbs

This smaller, more portable weapon relies on a syringe device mounted atop a cart with a plunger at the rear.

Alchemists fire may be projected in either a 40 foot line or 20 foot cone depending upon a setting near the nozzle.  Chnage the setting is a full round action.  Any creature within the cone or line takes 2d6 fire damage (Reflex DC 15 for 1/2) and a d6 fire damage the following round unless the fire is extinguished (DC 15 Ref save).  A full tube contains enough liquid for three uses.  Refueling the weapon is a full round action.  

The small siphon projector is not as vulnerable to fire damage as the large projector.  A fire attack might destroy the siphon tube, but it results only in a small explosion, dealing 2d6 fire damage to all within a 10 foot burst (Ref DC 13 for 1/2).  

A small siphon projector takes up a space 5*5 feet and is usually stationary.  It takes 5 rounds to reset a moved fire siphon.  

Note, the goblins have been well trained and can move the projector to face a new direction as a full round action.  However, moving the projector still takes 5 rounds of setup after moving.

Typically, the setting will be a line, pointed down corridors or obvious features.  The goblins have decent fire discipline and will not fire on their own troops normally, although, if desperate enough, they might.  Each emplacement has three barrels of siphon fire (enough for 9 reloads)

*Worg Riders*

Note:  There is an error in the text.  The text states that the worg riders are hobgoblins.  Unfortunately, hobgobs are medium creatures and cannot ride worgs.  All worg riders are now changed to the following:

*Worg Rider* Fighter 2: CR 2: Small humanoid (goblinoid): HD 2d10+2: hp 12: Init +1: Spd 30 ft/50 ft: AC 15, touch 12, Flat Footed 14: Base Att +2: Grp -1: Atk Lance +4 (1d6+1) : SA - :SQ Darkvision 60 Feet: AL NE: Fort +4 Ref +1 Will +0: S 12 D 13 C 12 I 10 W 10 C 6.

Skills and Feats: Hide +5, Listen +1 Move silently +5 Ride +4, Spot +1, Mounted Combat, Ride by Attack, Spirited charge

Worg:  As per the Text.

Worg riders try to engage opponents in the longest corridors if possible.  Because of the limited space, ride by attack is perhaps less useful, but, a spirited charge is devastating.  Typically, riders will charge, make their attack and then gain a possible attack of opportunity as the opponent closes, resulting in a possible 4d6+4 points of damage.  The next round is typically spent withdrawing and a second rider will charge.  They will keep up this rotation, making a spirited charge every round, until the foe dies.  Note, because of their great speed, it is quite possible for one rider to engage while the other swings around to attack from the rear or the flank.    The long wide corridors are almost tailor made for this approach.


----------



## Qwillion

Oh I don't know I could have advanced them to 40 th level so that it would be an epic encounter , I really don't expect to get that far unless a lot of people helped but my game will be running for the next two years at least so I will still be putting out rooms I image we shall see, though I don't think I could use these as they are from Dragon so they would violate my 100 OGC rule. 

Davemage: oh come now I think you could find time for one room in Region D  

CHALLENGE!
I here by challange all Ye who post to this board. Do one room in region D (though you may want to say your working on it ahead of time so as not to duplicate any work.) 

Requested as follows, Advance the Encoutner level by 3 to 4, remeber to increase DCs and Encounter conditions by this level as well.  DO NOT CHANGE THE ENCOUNTER. 

Here follows rooms d2 and d2


*Region D; Section D1-D6; Room D2*

*Encounter Conditions:* Fear increases to DC 20
*Wailing stone golem * see room D1

*Region D; Section D1-D6; Room D3*

Increase search DC to find a hollow stone to DC 30
*Encounter Conditions:* Fear increases to DC 20

*10 DERRO GUARDS*
*Small Monstrous Humanoid, 4th level warrior*
*Hit Dice:* 7d8+14 (45 hp)
*Initiative:* +6
*Speed:* 20 ft. (4 squares)
*Armor Class:* 19 [ (+1 size, +2 Dex, +2 natural, +3 studded leather armor, +1 buckler), touch 13, flat-footed 17
**27  (+1 size, +2 Dex, +2 natural, +3 studded leather armor, +1 buckler), touch 21, flat-footed 25
*Base Attack/Grapple:* +7/+3
*Attack:* Short sword +8 melee (1d4/19-20) or repeating light crossbow +12 ranged (1d6/19-20 plus poison)
*Full Attack:* Short sword +8/+3 melee (1d4/19-20) or repeating light crossbow +12/+7 ranged (1d6/19-20 plus poison)
*Space/Reach:*	5 ft./5 ft.
*Special Attacks:* Poison use, spell-like abilities, sneak attack +1d6
*Special Qualities:* ** Improved evasion, madness, spell resistance 19 vulnerability to sunlight, 
*Saves:* Fort +7, Ref +6 (**+14), Will +7
*Abilities:* Str 11, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 5*, Cha 16*
*Skills:* Bluff +5, Hide +14 (**+24), Listen +1, Move Silently +8, 
*Feats:* Weapon Focus (repeating light crossbow), Improved Initiative, point Blank Shot, 
*Challenge Rating:* 6
*Alignment:* Usually chaotic evil
COMBAT
*Madness (Ex):* Derro use their Charisma modifier on Will saves instead of their Wisdom modifier, and have immunity to confusion and insanity effects. A derro cannot be restored to sanity by any means short of a miracle or wish spell.
*The racial madness of the derro provides a +6 bonus to their Charisma scores and a -6 penalty to their Wisdom scores. A derro restored to sanity gains 6 points of Wisdom and loses 6 points of Charisma.
*Poison Use (Ex):* Focused black adder venom  Injury DC 13 initial 1d6 con secondary 1d6 con, . Derro are not at risk of poisoning themselves when handling poison.
*Sneak Attack (Ex):* Any time a derro’s opponent is denied his Dexterity bonus to AC, or if a derro flanks his opponent, he deals an extra 1d6 points of damage. This ability is just like the rogue’s sneak attack and subject to the same limitations.
*Spell-Like Abilities:* At will-darkness, ghost sound; 1/day- daze (DC 13), sound burst (DC 15). Caster level 7th. The save DCs are Charisma-based.
*Vulnerability to Sunlight (Ex):* A derro takes 1 point of Constitution damage for every hour it is exposed to sunlight, and it dies if its Constitution score reaches 0. Lost Constitution points are recovered at the rate of 1 per every 24-hour period spent underground or otherwise sheltered from the sun.
*** Improved Cover (Ex):* as long as the derro are within able to take advantage of the towers defenses they gain the benefits of Improved cover. 

*Skills:* Derro have a +4 racial bonus on Hide and Move Silently 
Equipment: 20 Masterwork bolts

I will be working on D4-6 next


----------



## rvalle

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> I just posted a new map by Peter Ramos on the WLD page.  It's a player's map of Region A that has all of the secret rooms added in, for those that use some type of "fog of war" when revealing the map.
> 
> Just thought I'd share.....
> 
> James
> 
> P.S.
> Suppose I ought to put in the link.




These are perfect for using in Fantasy Grounds. Thanks!

rv


----------



## JoeBlank

rvalle said:
			
		

> These are perfect for using in Fantasy Grounds. Thanks!
> 
> rv




I've been using the Crimsonscribe player versions on FG, and will take a look at these too. Thanks!


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## JamesL85

Glad everyone is getting some use out of the page I'm hosting....I've updated my signature so that I don't have to keep posting links to "here" for the WLD page......I'd been somewhat hesitant since I'm not sure how many of the players in my group make it here.....

I'm relatively certain that I won't be DM'ing this monster (getting ready to DM the first Drow War module tomorrow morning) so I figure it's safe to add to the signature......I'll occasionally voice my opinion somewhere so that the link is still visited......

Thanks again to all of those who've sent me stuff to post and to all of those who appreciated those posts!!!!

I hope that Jim still stops by occasionally.....He's the main reason this thing is WAY up over 1,000 posts.....

James


----------



## rvalle

Thanks for the hosting James!

I'll make more maps once I figure out which way my party is going to go from A.

rv


----------



## BJP

Just saying hello.

This thread is largely responsible for me getting back into D&D after a long time out (I especially appreciate BlueBlackRed's blog). I'm hoping to DM at least one campaign based in the WLD, hopefully one in the real world, and one over the 'net.

Am having great fun chopping and changing a few things around - my solution to the endless flow of dire rats and darkmantles in area A has been the Advanced Bestiary - there's nothing quite like a Marilith-possessed fiendish darkmantle and Balor-possessed fiendish dire rat to put a smile on your face (not the mention the gigantean fiendish dire rat, which is far too high a CR for area A, but was a nice idea). Basic premise is that the Longtails portal is actually being used by the demons as a (failed) escape route.

So - just saying hi to y'all, and letting you know there are still others out there who are reading this thread. Will try and contribute as much as possible - although the epic stuff I'm unlikely to make much contribution to.

Jim.


----------



## DaveMage

BJP said:
			
		

> Just saying hello.
> 
> This thread is largely responsible for me getting back into D&D after a long time out (I especially appreciate BlueBlackRed's blog).




That's awesome.

Glad we could bring you back into the fold!


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Jim Pinto's presence on this thread gets it more attention.
> 
> And since he has not been around for a bit, and the thread (and module) is more than a year old, the existance other forums (like AEG's and RPGMP3's), and the attention span of gamers isn't exactly measurable in large increments...well a slowing down of the thread isn't that much of a surprise.
> 
> But so long as people come here to ask questions and/or to let us know that their group is starting in the WLD, this thread won't die.




and here i am!


----------



## JamesL85

Another Jim has sent me a document that has all the different types of encounter conditions on it.  It's now posted on the site.....

James


----------



## BlueBlackRed

BJP said:
			
		

> This thread is largely responsible for me getting back into D&D after a long time out (I especially appreciate BlueBlackRed's blog).




Welcome back!
Glad I could help.




			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> and here i am!




Hiya Jim.
Any idea what was in rooms N50, N51, & N52?


----------



## JamesL85

I'm curious what happened to my signature......

Strange......

James


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## BlueBlackRed

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> I'm curious what happened to my signature......
> 
> Strange......
> 
> James




I think they just let you show it once per page.


----------



## JediSoth

I've been running WLD since January and my group is in section I right now. They've just fought Madness (they haven't been referring back to their notes, so it's not Dead Dead; it'll reform in 1 day) and I was frankly a little suprised how easy they had it. I've been making it more challenging with the notes provided, but I still have a group that's way bigger than it was written for. I have 7 PCs total, and several of them are totally mix-maxed (Like the Goliath Barbarian/Cleric)

I read through this entire thread once, though I haven't kept up on it, and it seems to me that it's unusual for a group to get this far with NO deaths. They've almost had a few deaths, but no one has actually died yet and their levels range from 7-9. Some of my players are good enough that I can believe they've survived, but some are only alive because they let other players take their lumps for them. As a group, they're not really a cohesive whole; there's almost two factions in the party. One faction plays FOR the party. The other plays to get kills and glory for themselves.

My question is, do I have so many PCs that nothing I can do by following the book will make it more challenging for them, or am I just being too soft? They had more problems with the darkmantles when I was taking it easy on them than they've been having with Madness and the driders after I decided to "let the dice fall where they may," as it were.

Perhaps I've become a victim of power creep.

JediSoth


----------



## Xombie Master

Hey *JediSoth*, just curious I've begun running WLD for a group of 7.  Sadly they lost one of two barbarians to Bragdor in section A (critical hit!).  I'm also running the dungeon for a small group (Bragdor killed their barbarian as well coincidentally).  I was wondering, a few things (with regards to managing a 7 pc group).
*How much do you find yourself scaling encounters up?  As I've said in a different thread, I like using kobolds so I've inserted a few extra here and there mostly to annoy the party.
*How do you award XP?  I have a system but since this dungeon equates to something like a "life's pursuit" I'm curious how you've dealt with that snag.  Especially since you are pretty far through the book.


----------



## JediSoth

Since I've been getting all 7 players to show up with regularity now, I've been scaling up pretty much every encounter where it would make a difference. I've been scaling them up per the book, though I may need to start going beyond that. One encounter that stands out is the trendriculi(?) in the Room of Green Death in region I. I didn't see how scaling up that encounter could possibly make it more challenging for the PCs, so I didn't do it.

As far as XP goes, I've been awarding it based on the encounter level shown in the book. I don't give extra when I scale it up. I have given extra for particularly good ideas (there was 1 or 2) I generally award it at the end of each session, though I've been known to award it mid-session if several people are within 100 XP or so of levelling. Due to absences, we have a range of levels 7 - 9 and they're about 1/2 finished with region I (assuming they finish the region, lately they've taken to trying to move through areas with the idea of heading towards the exit of the dungeon). So far, the average party level has been spot on with the book's idea of what levels are appropriate for a region.

JediSoth


----------



## BlueBlackRed

JediSoth said:
			
		

> I read through this entire thread once, though I haven't kept up on it, and it seems to me that it's unusual for a group to get this far with NO deaths. They've almost had a few deaths, but no one has actually died yet and their levels range from 7-9. Some of my players are good enough that I can believe they've survived, but some are only alive because they let other players take their lumps for them. As a group, they're not really a cohesive whole; there's almost two factions in the party. One faction plays FOR the party. The other plays to get kills and glory for themselves.
> 
> My question is, do I have so many PCs that nothing I can do by following the book will make it more challenging for them, or am I just being too soft? They had more problems with the darkmantles when I was taking it easy on them than they've been having with Madness and the driders after I decided to "let the dice fall where they may," as it were.




Region I was the last of the "easy" regions. ("Easy" as in, creatures don't have the potential to deal 100 points of damage on average.)
My group had it easy for combat, so I gave the monsters extra abilities.
The biggest one was to allow certain creatures (gricks and Madness) to travel through the slime for some temporary tactical advantages.
That really added to the freaky/creepiness of the region.
(I think the party liked region I the most so far.)

I had no deaths in region A or I.
1 death in region E & N.
3 deaths in region J.

And every single death was not because of the power of the dungeon. It was because the party or PC did something foolish, so they paid the price.

So I wouldn't worry about them not losing anyone.
What I would worry about is what happens to them when they start losing PCs.


----------



## just__al

JediSoth said:
			
		

> I've been running WLD since January and my group is in section I right now. They've just fought Madness (they haven't been referring back to their notes, so it's not Dead Dead; it'll reform in 1 day) and I was frankly a little suprised how easy they had it. I've been making it more challenging with the notes provided, but I still have a group that's way bigger than it was written for. I have 7 PCs total, and several of them are totally mix-maxed (Like the Goliath Barbarian/Cleric)
> 
> I read through this entire thread once, though I haven't kept up on it, and it seems to me that it's unusual for a group to get this far with NO deaths. They've almost had a few deaths, but no one has actually died yet and their levels range from 7-9. Some of my players are good enough that I can believe they've survived, but some are only alive because they let other players take their lumps for them. As a group, they're not really a cohesive whole; there's almost two factions in the party. One faction plays FOR the party. The other plays to get kills and glory for themselves.
> 
> My question is, do I have so many PCs that nothing I can do by following the book will make it more challenging for them, or am I just being too soft? They had more problems with the darkmantles when I was taking it easy on them than they've been having with Madness and the driders after I decided to "let the dice fall where they may," as it were.
> 
> Perhaps I've become a victim of power creep.
> 
> JediSoth





With a group that big, I'd be using the scaled encounters at least 50% of the time if not 75 or 90%

That should help.  Also increasing the frequency of random encounters should help just a little bit...


----------



## just__al

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Region I was the last of the "easy" regions. ("Easy" as in, creatures don't have the potential to deal 100 points of damage on average.)
> My group had it easy for combat, so I gave the monsters extra abilities.
> The biggest one was to allow certain creatures (gricks and Madness) to travel through the slime for some temporary tactical advantages.
> That really added to the freaky/creepiness of the region.
> (I think the party liked region I the most so far.)
> 
> I had no deaths in region A or I.
> 1 death in region E & N.
> 3 deaths in region J.
> 
> And every single death was not because of the power of the dungeon. It was because the party or PC did something foolish, so they paid the price.
> 
> So I wouldn't worry about them not losing anyone.
> What I would worry about is what happens to them when they start losing PCs.





Personally, I found that PC's were in much more danger of dying when I started rolling in front of the screen.  I always have to fight the urge to fudge in the players favor.

If I suddenly find myself in <u>need</u> of fudging, monsters start getting extra stupid or suddenly don't have as many hitpoints...


----------



## BlueBlackRed

just__al said:
			
		

> Personally, I found that PC's were in much more danger of dying when I started rolling in front of the screen.  I always have to fight the urge to fudge in the players favor.
> 
> If I suddenly find myself in <u>need</u> of fudging, monsters start getting extra stupid or suddenly don't have as many hitpoints...




I warned the players that the moment they left region A, I would no longer do anything in their favor unless I thought there was something imbalancing in the dungeon.

I roll in front of them whenever I can. On nights where I roll tons of 1's they love it. On nights where I roll crit after crit, they know I'm not being vindictive or anything.

But I did give them a single re-roll usable once per PC level that was only usable in situations that were obviously life-or-death. (I also can be bribed for rerolls with bags of Gummi-savers.) I did this because at higher levels there are a lot more save-or-die situations, and it's no fun to play a character for a year and then lose it to a single d20 roll.

And even with all of that, I've killed 2 PC's with save-or-die type traps in region N.
A Wail of the Banshee trap killed the sorcerer, that's with 2 rolls.
A maximized clerical fire trap that did 108 points of damage would have killed 2 clerics in one shot. But the Gummi-saver re-roll saved one of them.
The other cleric failed his first roll, then failed his life-or-death re-roll, and since he's a cleric of luck, he got another re-roll, and failed that too.

If that's not a testimonial to the dangers of higher-level dungeons, I don't know what is.

I'm not about to fudge anything I consider acceptable danger. It cheapens the players accomplishments, and they can get addicted to it and start expecting the DM to tone the danger down. Then after a while they start blaming you for making things too hard when things aren't a cake-walk anymore.


----------



## just__al

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I warned the players that the moment they left region A, I would no longer do anything in their favor unless I thought there was something imbalancing in the dungeon.
> 
> I roll in front of them whenever I can. On nights where I roll tons of 1's they love it. On nights where I roll crit after crit, they know I'm not being vindictive or anything.
> 
> But I did give them a single re-roll usable once per PC level that was only usable in situations that were obviously life-or-death. (I also can be bribed for rerolls with bags of Gummi-savers.) I did this because at higher levels there are a lot more save-or-die situations, and it's no fun to play a character for a year and then lose it to a single d20 roll.
> 
> And even with all of that, I've killed 2 PC's with save-or-die type traps in region N.
> A Wail of the Banshee trap killed the sorcerer, that's with 2 rolls.
> A maximized clerical fire trap that did 108 points of damage would have killed 2 clerics in one shot. But the Gummi-saver re-roll saved one of them.
> The other cleric failed his first roll, then failed his life-or-death re-roll, and since he's a cleric of luck, he got another re-roll, and failed that too.
> 
> If that's not a testimonial to the dangers of higher-level dungeons, I don't know what is.
> 
> I'm not about to fudge anything I consider acceptable danger. It cheapens the players accomplishments, and they can get addicted to it and start expecting the DM to tone the danger down. Then after a while they start blaming you for making things too hard when things aren't a cake-walk anymore.





I'm running two different groups through this now (a monthly game and a 1st,3rd & 5th wednesday game)

I've been reading your blog for a while now, it's excellent and it's nice to see what the players have faced.


----------



## Qwillion

*Increasing the mosnters.*

I have a group of minmaxers myself and you have to remeber that the wld is not min-maxed

if your dealing with a group of min maxers you best bet is sup up the encounters by min maxing the monsters. 

the easiest ways are to get ahold of three books
The Deluxe Book of Templates  (silverthrone and goodman games print)
The Advanced Besitary (Green Ronin)
Beast Builder (expeditious retreat press)

if you want to do it the hard way find an online monster stat calculator and rebuild the monster by increasing stats and adding hit dice. 


another simple reminder is trap lurkers, monsters lair near traps becasue they provide ready food. anytime the pc trips a trap a monster should show up right away.


----------



## Hussar

It will be interesting to see how my guys fare once the leave region A.  They've been taking their time, although the addition of a Crypt Thing was a nice touch, if I do say so myself.  Split the party into two.  One group got lucky and got bounced into a relatively empty area, the others got bounced into the trog lair.  Lots of fun.  So far, I've had 1 casualty from the trap in the armor, and several near casualties.

The best answer to increasing lethality I've found is to simply do what others are doing - roll EVERYTHING in front of the party.  Makes life so much fun.

Just a question about those who are min/maxers.  How?  Since the party can't actually buy anything, the only thing they can tweak is their own characters.  I really don't see how class combo's (other than some of the truly silly ones) can make that much of a difference.

One other idea is, when you have multiple creatures with more than one door, always send a couple out the other door to attack the party from the rear.  Nothing like munched wizzie to make the party nervous.  

((Oh, btw, I now have FOUR Dm's on the go in my WLD project.  Anyone who is looking for a game, check it out.  Yay me.))

One other thing I thought of to increase lethality:

*Improved Sunder*

Any creature with a DR of X/Magic should be making a sunder attack whenever possible.  Since a number of the bigger critters have Power Attack, swapping in improved sunder isn't that big of a change.  But it makes a huge difference.  A critter that pumps out 15 points of damage in a single attack, breaks that fighter's lovely longsword into useless little pieces.  Now the fighter is unarmed and in the reach of the critter.  The critter then uses the fighter for a pinjata.  A large creature with improved sunder vs a medium creature gets a +8 on his opposed rolls.  That's a pretty decent advantage that's going to result in a lot of success.  So long as you do 20 points of damage, you'll destroy pretty much any weapon.  Not only do you take the fighter out of the fight, but, now your DR steps up to the plate when the fighter yanks out his non-magical other weapon that he's been carrying and never using.

You don't even need to do this all that often to have a huge impact on the party.  Losing weapons, shields or other items to sunders is going to really change the balance of power very quickly.  

It's what I plan on doing when the party starts facing some of the bigger stuff.


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## JediSoth

I took away my DM screen many moons ago when I realized that I couldn't see the maps they were drawing on the Tact-Tiles. Maybe they've just gotten lucky so far; I have gotten several of them in the negatives more than once.

It's not like I'm TRYING to kill them off, I'm just getting a little annoyed at some of the min-maxing and power gaming that a couple of my players keep doing. I can see that sort of thing wrecking future campaigns. Plus, I don't want them to get the idea that I'm pulling punches for them and they'll be able to skate through scath-free.

JediSoth


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## Qwillion

I understand the problem with min-maxing from powergaing players who have a excellent grasp fo the system. one thing I have enforced is a weakness to their character.

example i have a powergamed healing cleric.  I noticed that his lowest stat was Dex sohe ended up getting cursed item that helped his healling (he could not resist it) but it also gave him a negative to his dex and negated all magic that enhanced dexterity.

Yeah he can heal every member of the party twice over but he is deathly afraid of area affect spells. 

This way he still gets to be what he wants and there is an actual price for power.


----------



## Qwillion

I was wondering if anyone had run into a problem with fast leveling, my party of seven.

warlock
cleric
cleric/sorcerer (true necromancer)
fighter
rogue/wizard (arcane trickster)
rogue/swashbuckler
monk (ur-priest)

Is now an average level of 6.  They are just into the shadow section of region E.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Qwillion said:
			
		

> I was wondering if anyone had run into a problem with fast leveling, my party of seven.
> 
> Is now an average level of 6.  They are just into the shadow section of region E.




My guys started levelling a little too quick for my tastes at some points. (But not to your extent.)
My quickest and easiest solution was to shave a little XP. Round their XP down to increments of 25, then later on 50, and then 100. It made the math easier too.

But I'm guessing that since you are allowing them to use alot of the d20 books, they can overpower their opponents pretty quickly.
So it's time to up the monsters but not the XP until you're ready for normal XP progression to resume.


----------



## jim pinto

*high DCs, min-maxing, and a visit from uncle slappy*

hey gang,

wow... the spoiler list now has more hits than the original list....

holy monkey!!!

first, whoever wrote the nice review. thank you.

second, the DCs in this book are high because the majority of people playing 3rd edition (or so i've encountered), play powerful campaigns with characters maxing out their primary attribute. my groups rarely rolls dice, so trust me when i say... this was not made for me.

third, i want to say thanks to everyone who keeps posting and playing and breathing life into this book that is now over a year old.

anyway.

talk with soon. drop a line if you have a query.


----------



## Qwillion

"So it's time to up the monsters but not the XP until you're ready for normal XP progression to resume."

yeah I hate that, it was one of the reasons I think shackled city is better than WLD. the Xp is right.  The reason I got the WLD was so I don't have to do the additional work.  I mean there are regions that are just spot on wonderful but this whole XP problem just gets on my nerves. 

So I end up having to shave xp for the region so that they don't make level 8 before they enter a 7-9 region. 

It really annoys me when we cannot just design a super-adventure that actually follows the rules.


----------



## Hussar

I can see your point, but, then again, is it really that big of a deal?  Eyeball the xp, don't give too much (or too little), and you're good to go.  Conveniently forget to add in this or that and it's not a huge problem.  My guys are just finishing Region A (FINALLY) and are going to be 3rd level with a short jump to 4th (with a couple a ways behind due to deaths).  Exactly where they should be.  Sure, it's not RAW, but, meh, it's close enough.  I made it very clear at the outset that my WLD game would not follow RAW for xp, and the players have accepted that.

The next question on my mind is whether they are going to head into region E or B.  

Actually, I do have a question.  One of the PC's is a goblin rogue.  How do you think the gobbies in Region B would react to a party which includes a goblin?  The other characters are three humans, a half orc, an Assaathi (the gibbled one without the ECL) snake man, an orc and an elf.

With such a mixed bag, I'm not sure how they might react.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Qwillion said:
			
		

> yeah I hate that, it was one of the reasons I think shackled city is better than WLD. the Xp is right.  The reason I got the WLD was so I don't have to do the additional work.  I mean there are regions that are just spot on wonderful but this whole XP problem just gets on my nerves.
> 
> So I end up having to shave xp for the region so that they don't make level 8 before they enter a 7-9 region.
> 
> It really annoys me when we cannot just design a super-adventure that actually follows the rules.




The dungeon was designed with the limitations of using the SRD only. You can argue that some of the encounter conditions can give the monsters some bonuses, but nothing ultra powerful.

You have allowed your party to have access to abilities that are non in the SRD. This allows your PCs to have some pretty focused powers because they have more options that their opponents do not.

This makes the combats that much easier for the party, possibly to the point where their levels could be considered higher than what they actually are.

Therefore you power-up the monsters, power-down the XP, or give your monsters some options that they wouldn't have within the SRD.

I know it's not the kind of answer you were hoping for, but pre-made modules rarely can stand up to the cleverness and variety of players.

Earlier this year Barrent Nobeard and his party were having an easy time of region I, to the point where their DM upped the hit points of Anguish to 600hp (around 4x normal). I believe that one of the main reasons for this was that they had more character options.

They dropped the campaign shortly after that, because nothing challenged them.

But this is just my opinion. If it doesn't work for you, maybe someone else can think of something that more suits your needs.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Hussar said:
			
		

> Actually, I do have a question.  One of the PC's is a goblin rogue.  How do you think the gobbies in Region B would react to a party which includes a goblin?  The other characters are three humans, a half orc, an Assaathi (the gibbled one without the ECL) snake man, an orc and an elf.
> 
> With such a mixed bag, I'm not sure how they might react.




Goblins will just as much kill each other when there's not a better target.
Go with what's appropriate for the encounter.
Some won't care about who they attack.
Some will aim for the traitor first.
And some might even be unwilling to strike one of their own kind...but I'm betting those guys don't make it out of goblin middle school alive.


----------



## JediSoth

I haven't really encountered the XP problem. Maybe I've been calculating it wrong all these years. I just use an encounter calculator I found here at EN World. Of course, the fact that I have more than the requisite 4 PCs might make a difference. I am beginning to see my problem though: letting "anything goes" as far as characters has obviously made it easier for the players. It didn't occur to me that it might be balanced to just use characters from the SRD, but in retrospect, that makes perfect sense.

Oh well, hindsight is 20-20, and I've learned not to allow Goliath Barbarian/Clerics (it's not like he goes out of the way to heal the rest of the party anyway).

And Jim, I posted my same positive review of WLD on Amazon.com, so I'm trying to get the word out!

JediSoth


----------



## Qwillion

"The dungeon was designed with the limitations of using the SRD only." 

But ignored the SRD when it came to awarding xp. 

"You have allowed your party to have access to abilities that are non in the SRD. This allows your PCs to have some pretty focused powers because they have more options that their opponents do not."

I am not having a problem with the encounters being too easy, I have a concern that FAIR xp awarded for an encounter will out pace the adventure. I have always expressed this opinion and that I found it offensive that the editors did not make the designers follow the rules for both XP and treasure. 

"This makes the combats that much easier for the party, possibly to the point where their levels could be considered higher than what they actually are."

At the appropraite level ythey are have just a tough time as everyone else (I have had one player's character die from a shadow's strength drain). 

"power-down the XP," 
Yes of course this is what I HAVE to do in order to play the game. My point was I SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD TO DO THIS IF WLD WAS WRITTEN AND DESIGNENED WITHOUT THIS FLAW. Jim Pinto has stated that this is so, the flaw exists and a # of fixes have been offered.   I Followed this EL guideline, I still have a party that is 6th level and not even halfway through region E.


" some options that they wouldn't have within the SRD."
I do I make liberal use of the Advanced Beastiary, the Deluxe book of templates and the Beast builder. 


"I know it's not the kind of answer you were hoping for, but pre-made modules rarely can stand up to the cleverness and variety of players."

I would tend to agree, my main issue is that by not following and using the rules that I am playing by (the rules the WLD was supposed to be designed for.)  the designer's and editors created more work for me, something that say Shackeled city or Banewarrens did not.  


"They dropped the campaign shortly after that, because nothing challenged them."
while I can agree on the having options the designer could not account but I think the problem is that I can make it challenging by adding templates, upping stats and encoutner conditions. 


Now I am having to go into the book and calculate XP with encounters so that no more than 3 and a half levels will be gained in the region even if you clear it. I handle this by awarding xp straight out per character. 

here is the reall issue though assuming a region has 100 encounters (I am rounding of easy math here) and no more than 25,000xp should be awarded in this region that mens if you awarding xp per encounter tha no more than 250 xp should be awarded per encounter per character on average. 

I hope you can see the problem 

This is quick and a bad example but I will put up more later.


----------



## pheaver

The way I've been doing XP is by EL, like it was suggested.  I have a larger party, but the XP was still a little high.  Then I told the PCs that if they were higher than the level range for an area, then I would cut their XP gains in half.  So once they hit level 4, they got half as much XP in Region A.  I call it the "finish the plot in that region and move on already" rule.

So far, it's worked well, and it's simple to do.  The party just finished E, and is a mix of 7th and 6th levels.  There's still encounters left in the region, but the plot of the celestial garrison is done, and the PCs aren't interested in "mopping up" since the XP rewards will be low.

Paul


----------



## Hussar

Pheaver brings up a good point.  The purpose of the adventure in the WLD is not to search and destroy every critter.  The purpose that should drive every group is escape.  Yes, they get entangled in side plots throughout the adventure, but, ultimately, escape is the driving motivation.  If your groups are staying in a region to make sure they've found every secret door and killed every mook, they aren't moving forward to escape.  

Me, I'd start punishing groups that did that.  If the PC's are actively depopulating areas, start having organized resistence crop up.  Word of their power starts to spread and suddenly every chokepoint is an ambush as groups stop fighting eachother and gang up on the offending PC's.  If you look at each map and divide it roughly into quarters, you'll see that there are only a couple of passages between each quarter.  Nice, sweet little chokepoints that the inhabitants of the WLD KNOW the party has to pass through.  Until the party starts to pick up the pace, beat them like a drum.  Start actively hunting the party with the bad guys.  Either the party gets croaked, or they smarten up and get in gear.


----------



## Qwillion

"The way I've been doing XP is by EL, like it was suggested. I have a larger party, but the XP was still a little high. Then I told the PCs that if they were higher than the level range for an area, then I would cut their XP gains in half. So once they hit level 4, they got half as much XP in Region A. I call it the "finish the plot in that region and move on already" rule.

So far, it's worked well, and it's simple to do. The party just finished E, and is a mix of 7th and 6th levels. There's still encounters left in the region, but the plot of the celestial garrison is done, and the PCs aren't interested in "mopping up" since the XP rewards will be low."

Paul that is great I like that system and it is easily explainable to my players so that they can understand that it is thier choice to stay in the region or not. 

Thnaks Paul this was a tremendous help.


----------



## Traevanon

*Introducing*

Hello!  Nice to see that there are still folks out there running the WLD.

I have a year long campaign still going now, we once had 12+ players but we are now down to around sevenish.

Currently the group has just entered the Pyrefaust (Map J).

Roster
1) Human Paladin 11th of Tyr / Charge on mount
2) Drow Paladin 11th / Defensive Fighting
3) Dwarf Fighter 11th / Hold the Line
4) Human Master Thrower, Swashbuckler 11th / 5 Daggers, all trip attacks
5) Human Thaumaturgist 11th of Hieroneous / Summon or Incapacitation spells (stun)
6) Human Druid 10th, Bard 1st / Heal others
7) Goblin Mystic Theurge 12th of Zeus / Sudden Widened Fireball (substituion lightning) or incapacitation spells (tasha's and the like)

The theme of my version of the WLD is that the dungeon is the place people go to when Imprisonment is cast upon them.  The prison is growing weaker however and it may be possible to escape on your own.

_Summary

Over some 40 sessions the characters nearly cleared Map A before experiencing the fireball traps in the painting rooms in Map E's eastern entrance.  This caused them to head toward Map B.  After encountering the Goblins there and beating the tribe into surrender the party once again returned to Map E.

Several near deaths occurred (I keep a roster of all deaths) against the Shadows and eventually the party (which had at the time many more evil members) encountered the Celestial Garrison and were captured.  The celestial's leader, a somewhat more merciful lady than the one who captured them promptly Mark of Justiced the entire party and banished them to Map I (Halls of Flesh).

A bit low level for Map I and now without their item merchant (Boyikt the Kobold from Map A was turned into an impromptu store), the party proceeded carefully, but soon encountered a new base of operations amongst the Drow and Driders.  Working outward from there they eventually were able to discover Mahir's spellbook and complete the Ritual of Undoing, destroying Anguish and Madness.

This was two sessions ago.

Last session the party began to search for their old friend Boyikt who has been captured and brought deeper into the dungeon, forced to construct magic items for his demonic captors.  All they have to go on is a long string of Message Spells of Boyikt's memorized path as he was led away blindfolded.  The best clue they had was that "Hot Bridge" was among the list and was nearly the only landmark that could prevent them from beginning all the way back at Map A.

Fortune smiled upon them, they chose to take the middle exit on the east side of Map I, and after about 100 feet of hallway were practically standing in front of the "Hot Bridge".

And then the Fire Giants began to toss rocks at them.

After killing three seperate encounters of Fire Giants they camped for the night back in region I, the next session will start with them probably being forced to negotiate with the Fire Giant Queen Grehennox after she finds the dead giants._

So, I'll go over the back posts in this thread over the next couple days and hopefully hear back on how your own campaigns are going.


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> Pheaver brings up a good point.  The purpose of the adventure in the WLD is not to search and destroy every critter.  The purpose that should drive every group is escape.  Yes, they get entangled in side plots throughout the adventure, but, ultimately, escape is the driving motivation.  If your groups are staying in a region to make sure they've found every secret door and killed every mook, they aren't moving forward to escape.
> 
> Me, I'd start punishing groups that did that.  If the PC's are actively depopulating areas, start having organized resistence crop up.  Word of their power starts to spread and suddenly every chokepoint is an ambush as groups stop fighting eachother and gang up on the offending PC's.  If you look at each map and divide it roughly into quarters, you'll see that there are only a couple of passages between each quarter.  Nice, sweet little chokepoints that the inhabitants of the WLD KNOW the party has to pass through.  Until the party starts to pick up the pace, beat them like a drum.  Start actively hunting the party with the bad guys.  Either the party gets croaked, or they smarten up and get in gear.




wow. hussar, this is an amazing observation. not a lot of people caught this and its one of the main reasons i laugh at people who bitch about the XP situation. we wrote 1600+ encounters.

1,600!!!!

we cannot and should not as writers and designers be held accountable for what you do with those encounters.

if you make the PCs run through ALL of them and hand out candy XP for each room, you deserve what you get.

every DM is going to run this thing differently and the GUIDELINES at the beginning of the book are there to help you have more fun with the product.

at the end of the day, you get encounters for 6 cents each!

that's what you're buying. that and a story that links them together.

i think the XP topic has been talked to death on this thread, personally.

i thought it out well in advance. i wrote 3 different guidelines on how to handle it in the book. and your post is the first to really grok what i was saying.

thank you.

(oh... and traevenon... great idea with the imprisionment spell. i like what you've done with the dungeon).

peace


----------



## Hussar

*Gets all warm and fuzzy*  

Since Traevanon posted an update on his game, I guess it might be time to do one for mine.  

My backstory is a little different.  I envisioned the Dungeon as a great game between various dieties and other Unspeakable Beings (tm) who are playing in a contest where the playing pieces have know idea what each player's goals are.  The PC's are the playing pieces of a couple of minor dieties of luck named Oponn (blatant steal from Stephen Erikson).  I'm seeing Oponn's goal as escape from the Dungeon and to cause as much havoc as possible in the process.  Enter the PC's.  

So far, they've (finally) just about wrapped up region A.  They still have to throw down with Longtail in the next session, but, considering the party of seven PC's is all 3rd and 2nd level, it's a pretty forgone conclusion.  It will be interesting to see what way they head afterwards.  I added an additional little quest into Region A.  I placed a Simurg from Dragon 335 in the prison with the teleporter, chained to the wall.  They had to retrieve the red gem from the broken trap room and use it to free the angel.  However, I also added a Crypt Thing protecting the red gem.  After the party got split into two groups, teleported into the former Kobold's lair and into the Forgotten Rooms, they spent two or three sessions figuring out where the heck they were and then finding eachother again.  It was really fun, but, something that should be done sparingly.  They went back, killed the Crypt Thing (in a really spectacular battle too) and then freed the Simurg.  The Simurg has given them a fair bit of information and will remain in Region A as an advisor and guardian.


----------



## JediSoth

My group didn't finish map I. They fought Madness once, but fled when it was regenerated an hour later. And where did they eventually flee, you ask? Map J. At an average party level of about 8. So far, they've only fought the Flamebrothers and the Salamanders, so they've been able to hold their own. But one of them almost got pureed by a fire giant boulder while they were climbing on the ziggurat trying to figure out how to open it.

They've gotten hints that there's something to dread up on the plateau, and normally if I hint that something big and bad is somewhere, they cannot resist trying to find it. It'll be fun when their little group encounters that....well, if you haven't got that far, I'm not going to ruin the surprise.

JediSoth


----------



## Traevanon

Reading back through I found that there was a mixup in Region A in my game and Ikriit in my game is actually Boyikt in the book, sorry for the confusion.  So my party is off looking for Boyikt, as you understand it.  I will edit my previous post to reflect the proper name.

I made sure that there were NPCs capable and willing to sell custom magic items and buy tradable goods in every region so far actually, though the PC assassin killed the Hobgoblin Hammerfist (unaware that he was their next source of goods) from Region B during a break in the negotiations for the Goblin tribe's surrender.  They did however claim his magic hammer and anvil (my own addition) as terms of the surrender for Boyikt, making Boyikt capable of creating +1 items.

Region E's crafters were the celestials, who dont actually make many items but have a decent store of them.  The PCs didnt get to use it however, since they were evil.

Region I the Drow and Drider have access to fewer weapons and armor but more spells, scrolls and potions.  Which the party's Theurge has enjoyed.


----------



## rvalle

*WLD Exp*

I'm taking the lazy way and just telling them to level up at certain points. They started at 2nd level. When they started to hit the middle of Region A I had them bump up to 3rd where they will stay until they move out of the region.

I'm also having everyone level up as a group regardless of how much they have actually played. I have some people that can only make an occational game. I don't want to have to deal with a 3rd level guy trying to hang with 7th level party members.

Seems to be working so far but we'll see as time goes on.

rv


----------



## rvalle

*Darkmantels*

I have a question... what the heck do Darkmantels eat?

They don't seem to be eating what they kill. In room 91 (I think it is) there are strangled bodies in the rubble but the Darkmantles are still attacking the party to get more.

That long room next to 91 (49) has pleanty of bodies to feed off of but the Darkmantels are still hunting. 

I guess you can say they like freash kills but they don't seem to eat what they kill.

Just wondering.

rv


----------



## pokedigimaniac

The way I interpreted them is that they're _fiendish_ - they want to kill more warm meat and all that. Same with the stirges in that region.


----------



## rvalle

Yeah... but the stirges are feeding. Some get caught while feeding on dead trogs. Some are partialy full from other things. Some are full and don't mess with the party unless they mess with the stirges.

The Darkmantles just seem to be killing without feeding.

I ran some folks though the first part of wld as a test (using Fantasy Grounds software) and I first described the Darkmantle has having a circular mouth with gnashing teeth inside the tenticle area... where it would be on an squid or octipuss. And described it as trying to eat the players head. When I started to run my players though I dropped that description out.


----------



## Traevanon

*Traevanon's World's Largest Dungeon Register*

I thought it might be useful and entertaining to begin telling you about our group by seeing who has died in my campaign and the short stories of their deaths

*Ielenia Amastacia - Bard 1st
Jirka the Roman - Human Fighter 1st*
Died after splitting off from the rest of the party due to ideological differences.  They also had a Druid with them who died as well, but apparently did not enter his name.  The three of them encountered a Fiendish Rat Swarm and made the fatal mistake of thinking that the druid could communicate with it and persuade it to leave them alone.​
*Brunhilda - Barbarian 3rd*
Died during the first fight with Longtail.​
*Smudge - Half-Orc Monk 4th*
Killed during an encounter with the Ogre Barbarian (4th) from the Monster Manual (p.199).  This was a bonus encounter thrown in while they were clearing out the south-east caves of Map A after completing the plot.  At this time (and all the way up until about last month) there were an average of 12 characters in the party.​
*Quazit - Kobold Fighter 4th*
Killed by the party for actions against the party interests.  I believe he objected to the party necromancer wanting to animate Smudge as a zombie but I'm not positive.  The necromancer (retired) was a dominant force in the party at this time.​
*Khathong - Minotaur Fighter 7th
Elais Mountainsplitter - Human Frenzied Berzerker 7th
Rhyssa - Rakshasa 7th (savage species)*
Killed by the Green Death in the center of the Halls of Flesh.  In my version there were several Tendriculos attached by vines from a central plant mass on the ceiling 50 feet up.  When killed the tendriculos would be pulled back up to the central mass to regenerate (takes about a day).  I wanted to make this location someplace worthy of the name Green Death against my large party and it certainly was.  The green death still lives on.​
*Boyikt (named after what Ikriit was SUPPOSED to be named)* - 7th level Kobold sorcerer and apprentice to Ikriit
Killed by the party for repeated violent acts against allies during combat.​
*Hassan - Human Ranger, Swashbuckler and Kensai*
I plucked Siglinde from her lair and gave her a special new home beginning with the "closet" room at I3.  Siglinde became a sub-boss here and the boss of this mini dungeon was a plain, unenhanced Bone Naga.  On the way down this 4 level snake pit however, Hassan, during his first day of adventuring with the group, succumbed to the repeated lightning bolts and fireballs the plentiful Nagas in this area were dealing out.​
*Trelenial - Drow Paladin 8th*
Died during the final boss fight with the Bone Naga.  One of the originals and the first character to be raised (the cleric got 9th level with the XP from the boss fight), she continues to fight with the group.​


----------



## Hussar

You could always submit that for the World's Largest Graveyard Trav

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=106925


----------



## jim pinto

rvalle said:
			
		

> I have a question... what the heck do Darkmantels eat?
> 
> They don't seem to be eating what they kill. In room 91 (I think it is) there are strangled bodies in the rubble but the Darkmantles are still attacking the party to get more.
> 
> That long room next to 91 (49) has pleanty of bodies to feed off of but the Darkmantels are still hunting.
> 
> I guess you can say they like freash kills but they don't seem to eat what they kill.
> 
> Just wondering.
> 
> rv




i was always under the impression that darkmantles, stirges, and the like ate warm blood... they don't like it once the creature is dead for too long, so they feed quickly and drain PCs and other "meat"

just my two cents.


----------



## ShadowAdept

Was the text for Rooms N50, N51 and N52 ever given (Room N56 says that they are the Halls of Ages and that the Great Death survived them)?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

I'll say darkmantles feed off the fear they create.

Rooms N50 through N52 seem to be a mystery that only Mr. Pinto can answer...and yet he hasn't.


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I'll say darkmantles feed off the fear they create.
> 
> Rooms N50 through N52 seem to be a mystery that only Mr. Pinto can answer...and yet he hasn't.




sadly, i don't have the text anymore

and the writer who did the first 80 rooms, left a lot of material incomplete

sigh

let me dig up my book...


----------



## pokedigimaniac

That'd be very helpful, thanks - I've been wondering about that one for quite a while, as the reference to them in later rooms' text seems to portray them as challenging trials.


----------



## Hussar

Heh, I FINALLY finished region A with my guys.  A NINETEEN round grudge match with Longtail and his familiar.  Gack.  Only one PC had silver weapons, the guy with magic weapons failed his will save and launched himself into the portal after being Suggested that it was the means of escape.  So here was the ranger with a pair of silvered daggers doing a d3 points of damage per hit.  I actually burned out ALL of Longtails spells and then went after the party with his own dagger.  Dropped characters left right and center only to have the two party clerics bring them back.  A lucky shot with a vial of oil followed by a lucky shot with a tindertwig lit up Longtail and a very lucky crit from the spear wielding orc finished him off.

Whew.  Nineteen rounds of combat, six PC's, one NPC, two bad guys.  All in two hours.  Not too shabby.


----------



## Crothian

I just finished section A myself with my World's Largest Solo.  It goes a bit faster and with the character starting at a bit higher level has made for some fun.  Longtail was a battle, but he was able to escape into section B where she is going to be going herself.


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I'll say darkmantles feed off the fear they create.
> 
> Rooms N50 through N52 seem to be a mystery that only Mr. Pinto can answer...and yet he hasn't.




okay.

i've thumbed through the text, looked at the maps, and pondered your question and thoroughly

....

and i'm stumped

but

never fear, i have an idea and its quite easy to implement

Each Room is filled with brilliant, almost blinding light. The walls glow with an unexplainable energy (choose a bright color). An unholy hum fills the otherwise empty room. The walls, covered in gore, ichor, blood, and offal depict scenes of graphic depravity beyond anything the PCs have ever witnessed.

Don't describe it. Let their own imaginations take over here. For once, let the PCs come up with the horror for themselves. By now they've seen a lot. And if you tell them the walls are BEYOND imagination, they will conjure up much worse than you will.

Upon entering the Room, they immediately become nauseated for 1d4 days, in addition, each Room produces a more powerful and deadly result.

Room N50 = causes the PCs to become frightened. DC 25 Willpower save.
Room N51 = causes the PCs to become frightened or panicked if already frightened. DC 27 Willpower save.
Room N52 = causes the PCs to become frightened or panicked if already frightened or helpless if already panicked. DC 30 Willpower save.

After 1d6 hours, the helpless effect wears off. After 2d6 hours the panicked effect wears off. After 3d6 hours, the frightened effect wears off. Afterwards, the PCs suffer a -2, -4,, or -6 morale penalty to all future Willpower saves will in Region N. The penalty is equal to the number of failed saves, times two.

Yeah.

Sorry, not my best writing. But its almost midnight and its been over two years since I began work on this project. I honestly can't remember what was supposed to be here.

If you don't like any of these ideas, make the walls transparent walls of force, with vile, inhuman, demonic beasts slamming against them over and over again. That should merit the same effects above.

Any thoughts? Should I turn in my dice?


----------



## rvalle

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I'll say darkmantles feed off the fear they create.
> QUOTE]
> 
> I've had the same thought as they don't seem to leave any wounds other then the neck marks.
> 
> I think I'll go with that.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> rv


----------



## ShadowAdept

Sounds good to me on the N50-N52 area. I'll be using it when my players get to Region N. Just started the campaign Saturday.


----------



## Traevanon

Last session, October 15th - Region J, Third Ring

*The Fire Giant's Defense*

The party returned after camping with the Drow to find the lava bridge seemingly open.  One Fire Giant sitting on the other side spotted them and immediately retreated into the caves to warn his brothers.  The party upon seeing this began to sprint for the bridge at top speed.

Initiative

Three fire giants came forth from the cave a round later and began pelting the party with rocks.  

At the other side of the bridge the mounted Paladin (and soon after everyone else) found a 10 foot high pile of rocks with a net planted on top blocking his path.  Unable to jump it the Paladin began retreating back toward the other side of the bridge.  The Rogue began to climb it.

With the Dwarf and the Cleric lagging behind and the Theurge and Druid (in bat form) flying across, a second volley of rocks did some damage to the party.

The Theurge cast Confusion (with +2 to the DC of the save from components in region I).  Two of the Giants became confused.

The Cleric cast Flame Strike on the pile of rocks, bringing down the net.

As soon as all but the cleric were on the bridge the real trap was sprung however and two more giants who had been sitting in the Lava River under the bridge surfaced and tried to trap the party on the bridge.

Hours later (real time) the Rogue is perched on top of the rock pile throwing daggers at the rock throwing giants, tripping one up occasionally.  The Dwarf and Paladin are fighting one giant on the retreating side of the bridge, the Theurge is providing support from the air while the Druid is waiting to heal anyone who needs it.  The party is slowly winning the battle.

This is where things turn ugly for the Cleric.  Having never made it to the bridge the Cleric is faced off against the last of the 5 giants.  They trade blows for a while but as things turn bad for the giants this one decides to take a more drastic tactic.  Grappling the Cleric easily the giant quickly establishes a Pin, then on his next round he moves at half his rate, carrying the Cleric into the lava river.

20d6 damage even with 20 points of Fire Resistance on is hard to take.  The cleric will not survive a second round of immersion.  Fortunately the party manages to kill the giant during the ensuing round and the Cleric frees himself from becoming the next member of the World's Largest Graveyard.

----------------------------------------------------

Having won the combat, though the two confused giants are still occasionally throwing rocks at them, the Giant Queen emerges from the caves with another escort of giants to parley.  Only really wishing to pass through this area to find Ikriit (Boyikt) the party agrees to halt agression and to hunt Baltazaar the Troll in the fourth ring for a sizable reward.

*Next week:  Trolls in the Fourth Ring*


----------



## Crothian

C 105 Test of Charity 

We are still in B and won't be here for a while, but I read ahead and was wondering how people handle this room.  THe players make their choice as they are instructed but how will they know to explain their action?  AS a DM I could just ask them why but  I'm hoping for a more in character way to get them to explain their action.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

You could always go with "As you pick up the item, the sounds you hear quiet, and the lights seem to dim expectantly." Atmosphere. If the PCs just don't get it (very likely - those tests are vague) then you could have the character 'get a feeling' of what needs to be done as he/she/it picks up the item.


----------



## Qwillion

*Region A Timeline*

I said I would get around to this eventually

REGION A TIMELINE

These timelines are absolute guesswork, if you find evidence within the Maximus Carcer Mundi (WLD), of errors or additional material please post such information or forward it to worldsmith at gmail dot com and this sage will correct his erroneous assumptions. 

- 5,000 BD (Before Death) Founding of Maximus Carcer Mundi (WLD)
	-Pillar rooms are built for the private meditations of the celestials.
	-The Golden Age of Imprisonment 
	- a horde of fiendish beasts are imprisoned within a extradimensional prison connected to a celestial chapel (why they imprison nearly mindless beasts, is a subject of much debate)

-300 BD The First Great Earthquake
	-The first of a massive number of escapes occur including room A109 unknown creature
	-Magma fills parts of the dungeon
	-The Chapel room A103 is abandoned
	-Holding Pens room A106/107 used for the last time  
	-First Arrival of the Derro
	-Wizard in room A105 dies
	-The Cursed Throne Room A52 is built and used during this time
	-The Torture Chambers room A32, 52 54 and 98 are used by escaped prisoners


-100 BD The Second Great Earthquake
	-The second mass escapes occur including , A48 minor demon, 
	-Driders and Drow arrive
	-Second arrival of the Derro
	-Due to extensive over excavation by the derro a great lake floods a two sections of the dungeon
	-Drow slave dies in room A108


0 TD (Titan Death) one of the titan doorwardens dies allowing many new creatures through the southern 	entrance. 
	-Longtail a gifted were-rat sorcerer gains the Imp  Achysux as his familiar who communes with a 	evil power that was once imprisoned in the dungeon and arranges from Longtail to gain the 	knowledge of a fiendish horde still held within a extradimensional prison within a chapel close to 	the southern entrance. 
-Longtail Gathers a large # of humanoids including orcs, troglodytes, lizardmen and even kobolds  	to his cause, telling them a great treasure is hidden in the dungeon, 
-War erupts between the Gunters (Orcs) and Scalys (reptilians) over paranoia that the others are 	keeping secret treasures for themselves. 
-Longtail is able to open the portal in the ancient chapel but a horde of  fiendish darkmantles that 	he cannot control along with other fiendish beasts invade the dungeon decimating the warring 	tribes.
-PC’s Arrive

Next time region E timeline and more Region D EPIC ADVANCEMENT


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Status update on my group - they have a veritable _army._ They managed to ally with the kobolds (and ended up finding/rescuing two more from the orcs, bringing the total kobold numbers up to seven, plus the krenshar makes eight) and the lizardfolk, meaning that the 4 PC's are travelling with 11 NPCs! (This includes a porter that one of the PCs brought along with him. I haven't managed to kill the porter yet... >=D) So, yeah, insanity. It's been fun developing all the personalities, though... the lizardfolk have taken a real shine to the party's halfling rogue, for example, and Boyikt is having SO much fun screwing with the party's gnomish paladin... Literally, in order to convince the gnome paladin to travel with the party, the gnome sorceror and the halfling rogue BLUFFED him into thinking that the kobolds were polymorphed silver dragons! Tons of fun... and then, of course, next session, the halfling rogue screwed it up when he was translating what some orcs in the hallway were saying, and translated directly "I smell kobolds around here!" Whoops. 

I'm pleased, though - the party's been bulking up to fight Longtail and everything. I fully intend to use the suggestion posted several pages, though, in switching Longtail for a kyton.  Great suggestion, and it'll be a real surprise for the players. That, and the nasty ton-o' chains thing will most likely reduce the army's ranks.  Always a bonus.

It was funny to see, though - today, the party cleared the Lair (the darkmantle-filled rooms on the east side of Region A) fully, and found out just how useful Flaming Sphere is...

WLD has been great fun, and beyond a few complaints about inexactitude of stat blocks, (No spell resistance for the fiendish swarms! No damage reduction for the 4 HD fiendish swarms! Improperly figured spell resistance for those who have it!) I'm very happy with the product, and am more than willing to check over the stat blocks and fix errors as I go. Good job on this product, you guys. High fives for all of you.


----------



## jim pinto

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> I'm pleased, though - the party's been bulking up to fight Longtail and everything. I fully intend to use the suggestion posted several pages, though, in switching Longtail for a kyton.  Great suggestion, and it'll be a real surprise for the players. That, and the nasty ton-o' chains thing will most likely reduce the army's ranks.  Always a bonus.




This is particularly interesting if the creatures remember longtail as a wererat. And then find out he's a chain demon now (because of the portal's power... or the imp's)



			
				pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> It was funny to see, though - today, the party cleared the Lair (the darkmantle-filled rooms on the east side of Region A) fully, and found out just how useful Flaming Sphere is...




If the PC's are going to mop up all the encounters with flaming sphere, its time to up the monster's resistances.

Hint. Hint.



			
				pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> WLD has been great fun, and beyond a few complaints about inexactitude of stat blocks, (No spell resistance for the fiendish swarms! No damage reduction for the 4 HD fiendish swarms! Improperly figured spell resistance for those who have it!) I'm very happy with the product, and am more than willing to check over the stat blocks and fix errors as I go. Good job on this product, you guys. High fives for all of you.




You just made sean holland cry.

Actually, I think the fiendish stats were done by the writer of that region. Nonetheless, this is the first time I've heard about the inaccuracy of a stat block.

Interesting....


----------



## Crothian

Does Arum of section C show up anywhere else?  The players enjoed following his story and have really started to find people asking about the guy.  He's the most popular NPC I've seen that hasn't ever actually appeared in a game.  If he doesn't appear else where I may have to find a way to add him in.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Jim, thanks for the feedback - I will definitely be thinking about upping the SR. The players have nearly cleaned out almost all of the fiendish creatures that are in the region as it stands, though - they've taken out the darkmantle lair and the stirge lair, and just have some rat swarms and other fiendish things left.  Of course, it would be best if I started remembering to apply SR...   

Sadly, the stat blocks have been one of the most-criticized things I've seen about the WLD, especially in terms of skill points and the like and monsters/NPCs with class levels. I don't know if you guys did them by hand or used programs such as eTools, but I'm finding it wiser (and easier) to run everything through eTools when I prepare, and fixing errors in pencil. But, yeah, the fiendish templates are messed up for Region A. Oh well. It could be just a special type of fiendish?  No worries. I can understand the difficulties in doing 1000+ stat blocks perfectly, especially given time/space constraints and complexity. IMO, it's a small price to pay for the high-quality encounters.

The PCs definitely know Longtail was a wererat, and that combined with my GM-cackling about how lycanthropy can be transferred has truly got them on edge for that fight. I'm very pleased about this. And plus, since I'm running two groups through, I get the best of both worlds - screw with one group by switching the encounter, and inflict lycanthropy on the other group!  I love GMing so very much.

In response to Crothian's question, Arum's possible fates are mentioned on page 146, at the introduction to the "The Wizard's Domain" area. (I have to say, I like the idea of him becoming a lich... hmm. Maybe he could end up being the lich in the random encounter in Area N that comes around asking for diamond dust?  )

Region C looks like a lot of fun. I'm thinking of working up paper props to represent the different pieces of journals and the like that the PCs can find in the Region - that might make things more fun and realistic.

A question for Jim, though - if everything was entering through the same entrance as the PCs, why/how is the titan's body still undisturbed? (The PCs asked the lizardfolk this question - I improvised with the idea that the lizardfolk demanded that Longtail order the orcs and kobolds to treat the body with respect.) Also, this same question goes for the gnolls and anything else that has entered through the same point - the gnolls from Region C, in particular, seem to have entered just after Longtail and his army did, as their introductory GM text describes them fighting their way through the humanoids and fiendish creatures in Region A. Interesting. I may change that some, though. Ideas on how to fix that so as to not put in too many more entry points while still keeping it roughly believable? (as in, so they don't all enter at the same time!)

Thanks! 

Edit: Oh, and the WLD claimed another victim today. The party rogue got hit with 10 points of CON drain from cleaning out the stirge room (A80), and then the party made a beeline for the nasty box trap (A84). 1d6 CON initial, 2d6 CON secondary. Ouch. What really hurts is that he missed the Search DC to find the trap by one, missed his first Fort save by one, and finally couldn't make the second Fort save despite burning three action dice on it. RIP.


----------



## JediSoth

Well, after seventeen sessions and 10 months of playing, we finally had our first character death. The PCs were in Region J, The Pyrefaust, and had set into motion a chain of events that culminated in the Ogre Mage undergoing the ritual to transform himself into a Divine Elder Fire Elemental.

I spent 10 minutes explaining why no one got a saving throw from the 15d6 damage that occured when the violent wave of fire engulfed the region. ("But, there's a statue, can't I take cover behind that?"  No...it covers the whole region. "Right, but there's a door...it's not open all the way.") Grrr. I had to stop the game and explain that all of Region J...all of it was affected. It was as though ALL the air combusted.

I don't really feel sorry for them. The average character level is 8, and the Pyrefaust is for levels 12-15 or something like that.

JediSoth


----------



## Traevanon

The characters in my campaign are going through Region J with everyone in the party having Fire Resistance on.  It makes sense to have it, seeing as you take a point of fire damage per minute while there.  My party is mostly level 12 though.  Still, you probably shouldnt be hanging around a river of lava without at least some kind of fire protection.

By the way fire resistant armor is available from the Drow in region I (Halls of Flesh) if your characters wander that direction.

Sorry about the death.  I understand that sort of thing can be traumatizing to players who grow attached to a long running character.  Perhaps they can save the remains (assuming there are some) until the cleric (assuming there is one) gets to 9th level.  Anyhow, what do you plan to do about a replacement?


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Hmm, yeah. Thanks for the tip about the drow fire-resistant armor - I was a bit curious as to how other people's players got around that nasty 1 fire damage per minute thingy.


----------



## jim pinto

Crothian said:
			
		

> Does Arum of section C show up anywhere else?  The players enjoed following his story and have really started to find people asking about the guy.  He's the most popular NPC I've seen that hasn't ever actually appeared in a game.  If he doesn't appear else where I may have to find a way to add him in.




he does not

but you can easily add his story to D, H, and K


----------



## jim pinto

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> In response to Crothian's question, Arum's possible fates are mentioned on page 146, at the introduction to the "The Wizard's Domain" area. (I have to say, I like the idea of him becoming a lich... hmm. Maybe he could end up being the lich in the random encounter in Area N that comes around asking for diamond dust?  )




Arum can be a lot of things and can show up in a lot of places.




			
				pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Region C looks like a lot of fun. I'm thinking of working up paper props to represent the different pieces of journals and the like that the PCs can find in the Region - that might make things more fun and realistic.




Sweet



			
				pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> A question for Jim, though - if everything was entering through the same entrance as the PCs, why/how is the titan's body still undisturbed? (The PCs asked the lizardfolk this question - I improvised with the idea that the lizardfolk demanded that Longtail order the orcs and kobolds to treat the body with respect.) Also, this same question goes for the gnolls and anything else that has entered through the same point - the gnolls from Region C, in particular, seem to have entered just after Longtail and his army did, as their introductory GM text describes them fighting their way through the humanoids and fiendish creatures in Region A. Interesting. I may change that some, though. Ideas on how to fix that so as to not put in too many more entry points while still keeping it roughly believable? (as in, so they don't all enter at the same time!)
> 
> Thanks!




the titan died as long ago as you'd like.... (in my head it was 50 years ago). he was put here by the celestials or the gods and his body didn't rot... and if you're a stupid creature and you see a giant dead body that doesn't rot... you stay away from it.

but, everyone probably had a good reason to avoid it. if nothing else, it does (or did) radiate a powerful level of magic and good.

and to the person who wrote the chronology... excellent work, but it doesn't take into account regions B, C, I, or M

just a head's up


----------



## JediSoth

> By the way fire resistant armor is available from the Drow in region I (Halls of Flesh) if your characters wander that direction.
> 
> Sorry about the death. I understand that sort of thing can be traumatizing to players who grow attached to a long running character. Perhaps they can save the remains (assuming there are some) until the cleric (assuming there is one) gets to 9th level. Anyhow, what do you plan to do about a replacement?




My player's got to J via the Halls of Flesh. Unfortunately, no one has a search skill high enough to find any of the clues to really destroy Madness or Anguish (the highest search roll they can get by taking 20 is 28). They don't have a dedicated rogue and no one has been pumping skill points into Search. I decided about 5 sessions ago to quit giving them freebies. I told them they needed a rogue, but no one listened. The explored about 25% of I before fleeing to J when Madness regenerated an hour after the "killed" him.

As for a replacement, the dead character was a sorcerer/monk. The player wants to make a pseudodragon rogue this time (they FINALLY got my hint about the DCs of traps and secret doors when I told them that they would never find a secret door or a trap in the rest of the dungeon because they long ago exited the areas where a 28 was high enough). Since the theme of my WLD is pretty much "anything goes" I'm allowing it. It certainly won't be as overpowered as the Goliath Barbarian/Cleric (who is reluctant to heal anyone else these days, so it's like not having a cleric).

Frankly, I'm surprised I haven't had a TPK yet. For a long time they had no arcane or divine magic. If I wasn't so lazy about random encounters (plus cutting them out is a way to control XP) and some of the environmental conditions (I keep forgetting about a lot of them), they would've been dead long ago. 

I will freely admit, I ignored the damaging effects of the Pyrefaust in most of the areas because I was really, really sick of the Halls of Flesh and I wanted them to move on. It was getting frustrating for me to have to keep telling them they don't find anything because they weren't good enough to find it.

In retrospect, I wouldn't have said "anything goes" if I had to start over. I would make them stick to the PHB and AE (which no one is using anyway), and maybe Complete [Class]. I have learned that Goliaths have NO place in my campaigns...particularly since we have a min-maxer power gamer behind him.

JediSoth


----------



## just__al

Question for everybody..  How are you handling Summon Monster/Natures Ally?

I'm running 2 different groups through this (gotta get my 60 bucks worth).

The first group was actually summoned themselves into the dungeon by a very desperate rogue who had a mishap with a summon monster scroll.  He was poisoned and the rest of his party was alreay dead.  The group got summoned, had to help the rogue and still felt a need to "get them" right up until he died.  Then they felt themselves being "put back" but they didn't go anywhere.

Later they summoned a celestial badger.  When the fight was over, the badger didn't go home either.  The party ranger cast speak w/animal and the badger (who are prone to rage) had an ATTITUDE about not going home.  He ran off and if the players ever get to region E they find him there or maybe with the elves.


The second group actually wandered into the dungeon.  They are after the bounty on "The man called Longtail".  They just summoned a celestial riding dog into a room with an unsafe doorway but a chest they wanted to get into.  The dog fetched the bundle in the chest (continual flame batons) but then the spell expired and the dog went and slept in the corner of the room.

Half the party thinks the dungeon must be in Celestia.  The other group thinks nothing gets out of the prision.  NOTHING.

I think if either group starts abusing the fact the animals don't go away I'll have them slowly fade.  As it is, they loose control after the spell expires and they don't know it yet, but if they cast it again and there's a monster/ally they've summoned in line of sight, they'll summon it


----------



## Hussar

Just as a question, what books are people using?

Like JediSoth, I've been pretty openminded about whatever the Players want to play.  So long as the ECL is kosher, I've pretty much said yes to everything.  The only thing I recall saying no to was the Vow of Poverty Monk.  VoP makes pretty much all of the disadvantages of the WLD go away.  Not going to happen.  My current party looks like this:

Asaathi Fighter/Ranger (the gibbled Asaathi race with no ECL from Scarred Lands)
Human Evoker
Human Favoured Soul (Complete Divine)
Elven Ninja (Complete Adventurer)
Orc warrior/fighter (last of Orghar's crew - has been taken over by a player)
Human Cleric

So, my players are all pretty tame when it comes to making new stuff.  One thing I've found is that the variant classes are specialized to a higher degree than the core classes.  This places them at a significant disadvantage.  It's the generalists, the classes that can do a little bit of everything, that shine in the WLD.  Being a demon hunter is great, except for the fact that there are lots of things in the WLD that aren't demons.  I'm a little surprised that my players haven't twigged on that yet.  They keep trying different variant classes, trying to find the "best" class, when, IMHO, the core classes are the way to go.

For myself, I've found my subscription to Dragon to be invaluable.  There's stuff in there that slots into the WLD just nicely.  Also, Sandstorm works well since so many regions are waste areas.  Plus some of the Sandstorm critters just fit.  Nothing like opening a crypt full of undead scarab beetles that swarm over you in true The Mummy fashion.    I've borrowed a few critters from here and there, but, not too much else.

How about everyone else?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Hmm, yeah. Thanks for the tip about the drow fire-resistant armor - I was a bit curious as to how other people's players got around that nasty 1 fire damage per minute thingy.




Try having 2 clerics in your party.
They ruin everything!
The fireblast in the Pyrefaust did nothing to the party because they have double the divine protection from fire sources.
Healing certainly isn't a problem. You don't have just one guy who has to stand behind the party's tank and heal him all the time. You have 2 guys saying, "Hey, how about you heal him this time so I can drop a blade barrier on them?".

Plus they spend an hour at the beginning of every session planning out and coordinating what spells they are going to memorize.

And to make things even worse, region N is not even scratching them. If it weren't for the traps, there would be no real damage at all.
Nothing neutralizes undead faster than 2 clerics, each with all of their 4th level spells filled with Death Wards. And one of them memorizes a quickened Death Ward.

Oh well, at least my players are clever.
I guess I'll have to increase the difficulty of the remainder of the dungeon.

Invistis is going to be bumped up 3 levels. Oh yeah, two quickened spells a round for him.   
Kasteoficiss...well I might leave her as is, but her and old Invistis might call a truce. Maybe she'll wake up some of the sleeping ones.
Vinarra...dead. Party killed her in a nice big fight. I'd kept track of all of the wraiths (dread and normal) that fled from the party and put them all in this fight. I even doubled her hp and the party still had no losses.
The Judge...never had a chance. I even reduced his insanity to just the first round.

And they still have the Tyrus the dragon.
Let's do some math here, ancient dragon that was imprisoned in this dungeon 1000+ years ago. Ancient dragons max out at 1000years. Hmmm...


----------



## BlueBlackRed

just__al said:
			
		

> Question for everybody..  How are you handling Summon Monster/Natures Ally?




Like the option in the book says (at least I think it says...), you summon it and it works for you until the duration is over. After that, if it was a simple summoning and not a gating, it goes berzerk and tries to "get" its summoner.

Gating something in is another can of worms.


----------



## just__al

Hussar said:
			
		

> Just as a question, what books are people using?
> 
> How about everyone else?





The books "in play" for both of my campaigns are PHB, DMG, MM1 (little bits of MM3), and the "complete" books.

The first campaign has a Ranger (twf), cleric of Bocob, halfling fighter/rogue, warmage, and did have a spiked chain wielding human fighter who's now dead.

The second campaign has an illusionist, a rogue who's working towards dungeon delver, cleric of pelor, elf figher (archer) and a dwarf fighter that uses a spiked chain.

The first group is in region b, the second group is still in region a.  and no, they aren't in the same "universe"


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Hussar said:
			
		

> Just as a question, what books are people using?
> 
> Like JediSoth, I've been pretty openminded about whatever the Players want to play.  So long as the ECL is kosher, I've pretty much said yes to everything.  The only thing I recall saying no to was the Vow of Poverty Monk.  VoP makes pretty much all of the disadvantages of the WLD go away.  Not going to happen.  My current party looks like this:
> 
> Asaathi Fighter/Ranger (the gibbled Asaathi race with no ECL from Scarred Lands)
> Human Evoker
> Human Favoured Soul (Complete Divine)
> Elven Ninja (Complete Adventurer)
> Orc warrior/fighter (last of Orghar's crew - has been taken over by a player)
> Human Cleric
> 
> ...snip...
> 
> How about everyone else?




Shield dwarf fighter/barbarian
Gold dwarf cleric
Gold dwarf cleric
Elf sorcerer
Aasimar paladin

Dead PCs:
Wild elf rogue
Human fighter/ranger/rogue
Human sorcerer
Gold dwarf paladin

(I've said no more dwarves until 2 of the current ones die. And no more gold dwarves until they all die.)

Books allowed:
PHB 3.5
DMG 3.5
FR Races of Faerun
Book of Exalted Deeds
Book of Vile Darkness (DM only)
FR Player's Handbook
DR Campaign Guide
Magic of Faerun
All stuff from non-core books must be approved by DM first.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Running two parties through this monster as well.

Party 1:
Gnome Paladin
Gnome Sorceror
Halfling Rogue
Xeph Soulknife

Dead:
None yet...

Party 2:
Orc Cleric
Human Monk
Dwarf Fighter
Human Sorceror

Dead:
Dwarf Barbarian
Half-Elf Rogue

Books used:
PHB 3.5
DMG 3.5
Complete Warrior
Complete Divine
Complete Adventurer
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Dungeon Master's Guide II

All subject to approval, of course.


----------



## Qwillion

"and to the person who wrote the chronology... excellent work, but it doesn't take into account regions B, C, I, or M"

I know it only covers the information supplied in region A and the intro of course, I will make sure to include the other regions as I go to them, it's really to help me keep track of stuff for the Akashic  (from arcan evolved) in my group. Since there is no bardic lore supplied in the dungeon. 


"Summoning"
I follow the path of least resistance rule, the summoning tries to find a path out cannot so it will try and get as close as it can to getting out, so the only way to keep a summoned creatrue close by is to shut all the doors and then cast the spell. So far this has worked well.


----------



## Jim Hague

Qwillion said:
			
		

> "and to the person who wrote the chronology... excellent work, but it doesn't take into account regions B, C, I, or M"
> 
> I know it only covers the information supplied in region A and the intro of course, I will make sure to include the other regions as I go to them, it's really to help me keep track of stuff for the Akashic  (from arcan evolved) in my group. Since there is no bardic lore supplied in the dungeon.




Here's where I diverge from the 'official' take on the WLD - Bardic Lore and the Akashic Memory have much higher DCs to recall information regarding the structure and denizens, and certainly don't cover what's happened _since_ its construction, but there's some information there...all to chivvy players along with Yet More Plot Hooks.  Alternately, with the Akashic Memory, you can give the PC access to the memory structure _within the dungeon_...which, given its residents, could lead to some, ahem, very interesting experiences.


----------



## Qwillion

I have really tried to use the akashic 

For those of you not in the know. 
Akashics
Filling the role of the skill-user, the akashic is probably the strangest class in the book. The name comes from the "akashic memory," an actual concept from the real world. The idea is that all knowledge and experience of all conscious beings is collectively stored together somewhere. In Arcana Evolved, then, the akashic is able to tap into this collective memory to gain knowledge. While he has many skills of his own, he can use this ability to improve his own skills or use skills he's never had any training in. He can also use it to improve his combat abilities, or gain general knowledge about topics. He can even use it to investigate other people's specific memories so fully that he becomes a master of impersonation. This character is so flexible and customizable that no two akashics will ever be alike -- each can even choose his or her own class skills.

The akashic is in the game for the person who wants to play a character who's a little different. Interestingly, you can design an akashic to be a specialist, taking all related skills and using the special abilities to augment them, or to be a generalist, taking a lot of different skills and using abilities to do even more different things.



to help pass along the story, I don't like to keep players in the dark unless it is necessary to a specific mystery, which the WLD is too huge to make an effective mystery adventure without the GM making sure that the players have a chance to find all the clues.  The DC's I have made relative to how long ago it was I mean according to jim a good # of the creatures here arrived only 50 years ago.   I have had a great deal of fun with this. 

Akashic's in the WLD rule.


----------



## Traevanon

Okay here goes:

Regarding Books allowed
The basics, MM2, MM3, Complete, Divine, Evil, Planar, XPH, pretty much all the WotC stuff except Unearthed Arcana.  No Vow of Poverty, no Monkey Grip, no Animate Dead, LA is limited to +2 except in cases where I let the players take over NPCs from the region.

Starting Equipment is based on the NPC wealth chart in the DMG.  I figure the average PC wealth chart should be something the players should shoot for, rather than be the baseline.  At 11th level (the current entry level) this is 21,000gp, or enough for +1 equipment all around or a +3 item and a few other bits and pieces.

Summoning works as designed in most of the dungeon.  I figure the devastation of the earthquake allows summon spells to kind of snake their way through less warded areas so that they work.  In region N however, summon will be prohibited as described in the book.

I generally remember to use the encounter conditions, except I do forget some of the minor items from non-combat rooms like echoes and visions.  

We try to keep the game as dead-on to the Rules as Written as possible while still maintaining balance and reasonable play.

I have always had to boost encounter numbers and/or levels because of the high numbers in my group so I keep a Monster Boosting Cheat Sheet handy.  

Random encounters have come from a mix of the ones provided in the book and from the tables in the DMG.

Rewards - To this point the characters have been provided with one Wish each.  Two players used it for magic items, one used it for knowledge (a Lantern Archon was provided to dispense it), two players used it to escape the dungeon, one used it for a minor permanent effect.  It may seem that I'm going easy on them but only 2 original characters have survived so far.  +3 items are the standard "good" reward at this point with +2 and lesser items generally going to the Drow to trade (at horrible rates) for custom goods.

Last session the players "killed" Baltezzar and a few of his trolls.  It was an odd encounter because the two groups were separated by a giant sized pit trap 100 feet deep that had already been sprung.  Still they managed, despite the Efreet commanding his minions to Wish one of the characters dead.  At the end of the session they returned to the Fire Giant Queen only to find that her Rogue nature has lead her to betray them.  So, a third straight week of major combat is coming up.  After that the players will need to have at least one session of Roleplaying or puzzle solving before moving on.  They can only take so much hack 'n slash before it starts to get tiresome.  I'm thinking this time it will be puzzle solving in region V.


----------



## Hussar

*Alternative Rules for Summoning*

This is how I handle summoning in my campaign.  On a side note, no one has summoned anything yet, which is kind of funny.    I figure that the Dungeon was created in such a way that NOTHING extraplanar can escape.  If that's true, then there must be a whole heck of a lot of spirits in each region, twiddling their thumbs, waiting for the wards to come down.  I allow those spirits to power monster summoning spells so that they work as per spec.  Caster summons, critter comes, spell ends, critter goes back to languishing in purgatory.  And, since it works for the goose, it works for the gander.  Bad guys can summon as well.  

On another note, I use this same background story to introduce new characters.  Since the party has been touched by a diety as part of the "Game of the Gods" concept I'm using for my campaign, when they die, their body get's reanimated by one of these spirits whose morphic resonance changes the physical body of the dead PC and alters his equipment to stay in keeping  with the rest of the party.  The new PC retains a few memories of the dead PC, who his allies were, why he's here, what the general plot is at the moment.  This has drastically cut down on introduction problems and made bringing in new PC's very, very simple.  Players have the option of losing one level and coming back with a new PC or taking over one of the NPC's.  It's worked rather well considering I've had three PC deaths in 17 sessions.  Almost had two more this week in the snake pit in Region B.  Heh, two on the bridge was just too funny.  An unbelievably lucky stabilization roll saved the Favoured Soul.


----------



## Hussar

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Try having 2 clerics in your party.
> They ruin everything!
> The fireblast in the Pyrefaust did nothing to the party because they have double the divine protection from fire sources.
> Healing certainly isn't a problem. You don't have just one guy who has to stand behind the party's tank and heal him all the time. You have 2 guys saying, "Hey, how about you heal him this time so I can drop a blade barrier on them?".
> 
> Plus they spend an hour at the beginning of every session planning out and coordinating what spells they are going to memorize.
> 
> And to make things even worse, region N is not even scratching them. If it weren't for the traps, there would be no real damage at all.
> Nothing neutralizes undead faster than 2 clerics, each with all of their 4th level spells filled with Death Wards. And one of them memorizes a quickened Death Ward.
> 
> Oh well, at least my players are clever.
> I guess I'll have to increase the difficulty of the remainder of the dungeon.
> 
> Invistis is going to be bumped up 3 levels. Oh yeah, two quickened spells a round for him.
> Kasteoficiss...well I might leave her as is, but her and old Invistis might call a truce. Maybe she'll wake up some of the sleeping ones.
> Vinarra...dead. Party killed her in a nice big fight. I'd kept track of all of the wraiths (dread and normal) that fled from the party and put them all in this fight. I even doubled her hp and the party still had no losses.
> The Judge...never had a chance. I even reduced his insanity to just the first round.
> 
> And they still have the Tyrus the dragon.
> Let's do some math here, ancient dragon that was imprisoned in this dungeon 1000+ years ago. Ancient dragons max out at 1000years. Hmmm...




If you don't mind a bit of tactical advice BBR, here's an idea for region N.  Note, that while creatures cannot step into other planes, they are still incorporeal while in the region, meaning they can still walk through walls, floor and ceilings, they just cannot escape.  With that in mind, here's what you do:

1.  Take about ten spectres and give them a couple of levels of fighter.
2.  For one of their feats, add in Fly By Attack
3.  Using one or two spectres at a time, make a single fly by attack on the party one to three times per hour, no matter where they are.  The spectres rise out of the floor, wall or ceiling, make a single attack and then head through the nearest wall/floor/ceiling.  
4.  Repeat number 3 while they travel.
5.  If they stop to rest, make single attack runs every twenty minutes or so with 3-6 of the spectres.  Target any sleeping PC.  Never stand and fight.  Always travel through the nearest surface at the end of your move.

This should make your party's life pretty difficult while traveling in the region.  Their defensive buffs will run out sooner or later and then the spectres specifically target clerics.  Whacking a cleric with a couple of negative levels every so often makes life VERY difficult.  This is a tactic I've used in the past to great effect.  

Just a helpful thought.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Hussar said:
			
		

> If you don't mind a bit of tactical advice BBR, here's an idea for region N.  Note, that while creatures cannot step into other planes, they are still incorporeal while in the region, meaning they can still walk through walls, floor and ceilings, they just cannot escape.  With that in mind, here's what you do:
> 
> 1.  Take about ten spectres and give them a couple of levels of fighter.
> 2.  For one of their feats, add in Fly By Attack
> 3.  Using one or two spectres at a time, make a single fly by attack on the party one to three times per hour, no matter where they are.  The spectres rise out of the floor, wall or ceiling, make a single attack and then head through the nearest wall/floor/ceiling.
> 4.  Repeat number 3 while they travel.
> 5.  If they stop to rest, make single attack runs every twenty minutes or so with 3-6 of the spectres.  Target any sleeping PC.  Never stand and fight.  Always travel through the nearest surface at the end of your move.
> 
> This should make your party's life pretty difficult while traveling in the region.  Their defensive buffs will run out sooner or later and then the spectres specifically target clerics.  Whacking a cleric with a couple of negative levels every so often makes life VERY difficult.  This is a tactic I've used in the past to great effect.
> 
> Just a helpful thought.




Thanks for the help, but it won't work.
I've had fights where there were dread wraiths, each with spring attack, who attack the party by springing out of then back in to a wall.
It's a good tactic, but the party simply does not stay in region N without their spells. And spell number one is always Death Ward.
And they don't rest in region N. They return to the garrison in region E, whom they are close friends with.
Their tactic is:
Wind Walk from the garrison to a neutral room in region N. If I block their way, they go around the blockage somehow, or stop and remove it.
When they solifidy in that room, they immediately get to work casting hour per level spells and Death Ward. If there is something in the room, they just flee at high speed away.
When they are exploring they have a constant Detect Evil on from either a paladin or a cleric.
When getting ready to bust down a door, minute per level spells are cast. If they are guaranteed a fight, or are paranoid, round per level spells are cast.
If there is a fight, they win. If there isn't a fight, or the fight was short, they begin a "charge through the dungeon".

Eventuall that last part will catch up to them.
I can't nerf Death Ward, and I won't give every monster out there a way past it. So I'm going with my last option; waiting for them to get complacent with it.

Remember I'm not trying to kill them, just give them a worthy challenge.


----------



## Jim Hague

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Thanks for the help, but it won't work.
> I've had fights where there were dread wraiths, each with spring attack, who attack the party by springing out of then back in to a wall.
> It's a good tactic, but the party simply does not stay in region N without their spells. And spell number one is always Death Ward.
> And they don't rest in region N. They return to the garrison in region E, whom they are close friends with.
> Their tactic is:
> Wind Walk from the garrison to a neutral room in region N. If I block their way, they go around the blockage somehow, or stop and remove it.
> When they solifidy in that room, they immediately get to work casting hour per level spells and Death Ward. If there is something in the room, they just flee at high speed away.
> When they are exploring they have a constant Detect Evil on from either a paladin or a cleric.
> When getting ready to bust down a door, minute per level spells are cast. If they are guaranteed a fight, or are paranoid, round per level spells are cast.
> If there is a fight, they win. If there isn't a fight, or the fight was short, they begin a "charge through the dungeon".
> 
> Eventuall that last part will catch up to them.
> I can't nerf Death Ward, and I won't give every monster out there a way past it. So I'm going with my last option; waiting for them to get complacent with it.
> 
> Remember I'm not trying to kill them, just give them a worthy challenge.




Hm.  I'm thinking to myself - 'self, BBR has a serious problem.  He's got sneaky, thoughtful players who're moshing their way through the dungeon willy nilly, and that'll get boring.'  Well, we can't have that, so let me think...

I'm thinking it's time for a golem.  Yup, a golem.  They're all buffed and prepared for the undead, who can't be trusted not to eat any living compatriots, so a golem's a good, solid solution.  Grab a flesh golem or six and throw 'em in there.  Why?  The creatures in power in Region N did a nice deal with Mahir in I - in exchange for the golemized slaves, valuable magical components were traded off.  Or, if you want something more recent, the Spider Kings could have brokered the same sort of deal...


----------



## zeist

Hussar said:
			
		

> Just as a question, what books are people using?
> 
> I am just using the SRD. It makes things very simple.
> 
> Zeist


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Hm.  I'm thinking to myself - 'self, BBR has a serious problem.  He's got sneaky, thoughtful players who're moshing their way through the dungeon willy nilly, and that'll get boring.'  Well, we can't have that, so let me think...
> 
> I'm thinking it's time for a golem.  Yup, a golem.  They're all buffed and prepared for the undead, who can't be trusted not to eat any living compatriots, so a golem's a good, solid solution.  Grab a flesh golem or six and throw 'em in there.  Why?  The creatures in power in Region N did a nice deal with Mahir in I - in exchange for the golemized slaves, valuable magical components were traded off.  Or, if you want something more recent, the Spider Kings could have brokered the same sort of deal...




Yeah curses for me finally having some players around that thing before acting.
It finally allows me to throw some real danger at the players and not get "Killer DM!" whining.

Golems are a good idea. But a flesh golem isn't...not for these guys. There's been some recent talk from one of the players who has it in his head to cast Simulacrum and copy an iron golem. I shot that down because I believe the intent of the spell is to copy living or once living creatures. A flesh golem might give him another idea.

The best weapon I have against my players is psychological. Mum-rah...I mean Kasteoficiss and Invistis have called a temporary truce because the party has destabilized the region. The forces of the 2 warlords may be able to harass the party, but they can't do much to them. But if Kasteoficiss's forces are augmented by the spells of Invistis...like a one-shot Dispel Magic, that might be a challenge.

Now I just need to guide the party away from Invistis for now. I want the fight with him to be fitting for a fight with the very first lich ever. I've upped him to level 21 and given him the epic feat that allows him to cast 2 quickened spells a round. And that's just one alteration.

So I want the party to hunt Kasteoficiss first. Thanks to your suggestion Jim, she may now have a couple of Shield Guardians on loan from Invistis. That should help even things up for her. And maybe even a Projected Image of him that pops in to throw a spell at the start of combat at the party...but the range on the spell may make that a little hard. (And if you're thinking that no self-respecting lich would loan his own protector forces to his arch-rival...it's ok...Invistis has prepared for that possibility.)

So instead of having several fights against the party that are one-sided and boring, I'm going to give them a handful of fights that will take hours to resolve.

And of course, Invistis is going to torture them with his projected images. Goad them on and such...

Thanks for the help all. I may not use your ideas explicitly as you gave them, but they did trigger some other ideas. Like instead of spectres jumping out of the walls Invistis says "Hi" and then follows it up with Mordenkainen's Disjuntion  

And if you think that it rough, wait until the World Eater fight and after that the Tyrus fight.


----------



## Jim Hague

Y'know there was an upgraded Shield Guardian type construct in either MM2, the Fiend Folio or MM3...or you could build one that's utilizing a 'spell battery', absorbing and relaunching spells that're cast at it.


----------



## rvalle

zeist said:
			
		

> Hussar said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Just as a question, what books are people using?
> 
> I am just using the SRD. It makes things very simple.
> 
> Zeist
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yep. First time DM here... so just the 3 Core books for me. Well, mostly. I did pull some critters out of Complete Minions to add to Region A to spice it up a bit.
> 
> And to give them some survivability, they started at 2nd level with max HP's and whatever equipment they could buy from PHB with max starting gold + 1000 GP's.
> 
> We've had 8 games now (about 3 hours a game). They are level 3 now and about 1/2 - 3/4 of the way though region A. I expect the fight with long tail to happen soon and them exiting the region to happen soon after that. The characters have been in for about 5 days now.
> 
> Once they leave A they'll make 4th level.
> 
> rv
Click to expand...


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Y'know there was an upgraded Shield Guardian type construct in either MM2, the Fiend Folio or MM3...or you could build one that's utilizing a 'spell battery', absorbing and relaunching spells that're cast at it.




Ya know, I haven't looked at any of those books in so long it's sad.
Dang giant modules...

Thanks once again Jim.
I've got some homework to do before the guys show up tonight.


----------



## Qwillion

"Wind Walk from the garrison to a neutral room in region N. If I block their way, they go around the blockage somehow, or stop and remove it.
When they solifidy in that room, they immediately get to work casting hour per level spells and Death Ward. If there is something in the room, they just flee at high speed away.
When they are exploring they have a constant Detect Evil on from either a paladin or a cleric.
When getting ready to bust down a door, minute per level spells are cast. If they are guaranteed a fight, or are paranoid, round per level spells are cast.
If there is a fight, they win. If there isn't a fight, or the fight was short, they begin a "charge through the dungeon"."

How about a targeted greater dispel magic
or a mord's disjunction.
or a ott's greater dispelling screen

I also have an undead that is going to be published that might be right up your ally it uses fear and a necromatic curse effect rather than a level drain or death attack. I think it might be right up your ally. I would post it here but it is part of a publication and the artwork is not completly ready if you want it email me at worldsmith at gmail dot com


----------



## Qwillion

oh and it will save you the homework


----------



## Hussar

Try checking out SSS, Creature Collection 3 (1 isn't bad either).  There's some truly brutal undead in there.  The Love Scorned Soul IIRC is a nasty one.  Gaze attack that causes the victim to see an ally as a most hated enemy.  It was fun to watch the party fighter blat the party wizard when I tossed that one in.  That gets around most of those pesky defensive spells.  And, again, incorporeal, so popping in and out and using the gaze attack is a possibility.

Hang on, how are your PC's wind walking into region N?  Are they leaving the portals open?  Otherwise, they can't get through.  And, if they're leaving the portals open, the undead should be spreading pretty quickly.  Simplest answer would be dispelling screens on the entrances to Region N.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Hussar said:
			
		

> Hang on, how are your PC's wind walking into region N?  Are they leaving the portals open?  Otherwise, they can't get through.  And, if they're leaving the portals open, the undead should be spreading pretty quickly.  Simplest answer would be dispelling screens on the entrances to Region N.




They've left left the puzzle doors open. The undead still can't make it past the barrier. If I were to have the undead close the doors, it would just be an irritation for the party. And I'm not into making things difficult just because I can unless it adds to the story.

The undead aren't spreading out. They are in hiding. They know what is coming   

The party met an image of Invistis. He tried to be nice to them. They, being exalted types, weren't nice back. So his response was a dysjunction. I even gave them a chance to hit his image and make it go away. But oh well.

They lost 75% of their items to the spell. But it ended up being temporary as one of the clerics paid the 5000XP cost to cast Miracle and undo it.

But he got his point accross. "Leave me be. Get Kasteoficiss."

And I'll find a couple nice constructs to give her.


----------



## Qwillion

good to hear it went better. 

my evil party just left region E and are now entering "The Halls of Flesh"  thier last fight was with Persal, slayer of the unliving CR 16 vs. 5 level 6 characters. They ran into the region fleeing the Marut who let them go considering the region a fitting punishment. 


Looking at Madness and Anguish for a party of 8th level characters (they gained Xp at the end of a very long session)  I am betting they kill them as listed with ease. 

I love this region as it is my personal favorite (thanks jim). so I was thinking what if I increased the CR of the Madness and Anguish each and every time you destory them.  This would give the idea of evolution and the unter unending evolving chaos of the region. 

so if I add 2 HD to anguish he gains one CR 
and I have to add 4 HD to madness to gain a CR. 

What do you think Jim Hague?


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Thanks for the help, but it won't work.
> I've had fights where there were dread wraiths, each with spring attack, who attack the party by springing out of then back in to a wall.
> It's a good tactic, but the party simply does not stay in region N without their spells. And spell number one is always Death Ward.
> And they don't rest in region N. They return to the garrison in region E, whom they are close friends with.
> Their tactic is:
> Wind Walk from the garrison to a neutral room in region N. If I block their way, they go around the blockage somehow, or stop and remove it.
> When they solifidy in that room, they immediately get to work casting hour per level spells and Death Ward. If there is something in the room, they just flee at high speed away.
> When they are exploring they have a constant Detect Evil on from either a paladin or a cleric.
> When getting ready to bust down a door, minute per level spells are cast. If they are guaranteed a fight, or are paranoid, round per level spells are cast.
> If there is a fight, they win. If there isn't a fight, or the fight was short, they begin a "charge through the dungeon".
> 
> Eventuall that last part will catch up to them.
> I can't nerf Death Ward, and I won't give every monster out there a way past it. So I'm going with my last option; waiting for them to get complacent with it.
> 
> Remember I'm not trying to kill them, just give them a worthy challenge.




um...

why are you letting them IN and OUT of N?

once you get in, you can't get out


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> They've left left the puzzle doors open. The undead still can't make it past the barrier. If I were to have the undead close the doors, it would just be an irritation for the party. And I'm not into making things difficult just because I can unless it adds to the story.
> 
> The undead aren't spreading out. They are in hiding. They know what is coming
> 
> The party met an image of Invistis. He tried to be nice to them. They, being exalted types, weren't nice back. So his response was a dysjunction. I even gave them a chance to hit his image and make it go away. But oh well.
> 
> They lost 75% of their items to the spell. But it ended up being temporary as one of the clerics paid the 5000XP cost to cast Miracle and undo it.
> 
> But he got his point accross. "Leave me be. Get Kasteoficiss."
> 
> And I'll find a couple nice constructs to give her.




invistis isn't stupid... if he believes the PCs a threat... he would join forces with kasteoficiss and ambush the pcs when they think they've got her.

oh... and start giving all your coporeal undead unholy might or some other "buff" power.

have them walk into a room that casts dispel magic on them. and then have the dread wraiths ambush them....

this is the tightest region in the book and the PCs are walking all over it.

its not about killing pcs, its about challenging them... and you took away the big challenge by letting them leave the doors open?!?!

<blink blink>

fill each room with unholy dread that deals a point of damage each round, that can't be negated... create a sickness or disease that drains attribute points... drains... not damages....

have the world eater waking up... and its very thoughts creating cthulhian nightmares for the pcs, while they are awake

cast confusion on them

have invisibile arcane eyes floating around following them, so invisitis knows when they are leaving... and has a golem or two ambush the PCs.

drop a forcecage on a pc and trap him in a one-on-one fight with something horrendous... and force the pcs to watch.

close the doors to a room and suck all the oxygen out of it (undead don't need to breathe) and just as the pcs are about to fall unconscious, have some mohrgs come in with some poisonous bites

jeesh

and that was off the top of my head in 10 minutes

back to work

(designer weeps)


----------



## BlueBlackRed

jim pinto said:
			
		

> um...
> 
> why are you letting them IN and OUT of N?
> 
> once you get in, you can't get out




I don't remeber reading that.


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I don't remeber reading that.




um...

its like... um... a prison... 

you know... to ... um... keep undead inside...

what did you think the locked doors were for?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

jim pinto said:
			
		

> um...
> 
> its like... um... a prison...
> 
> you know... to ... um... keep undead inside...
> 
> what did you think the locked doors were for?




And to me, it was to keep the undead in.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

jim pinto said:
			
		

> invistis isn't stupid... if he believes the PCs a threat... he would join forces with kasteoficiss and ambush the pcs when they think they've got her.



Oh the deal has already been struck. But in true evil form, he's going to let the PC's wipe out Kasteoficiss and then take the keys from a weakened party so he can be the one to free the great one.

Kasteoficiss has become blinded by her fear and her zealotry. I will probably give her a couple of levels and change her spell selection minorly.

Invistis has changed his spells drastically to account for the party's known abilities.



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> oh... and start giving all your coporeal undead unholy might or some other "buff" power.
> 
> have them walk into a room that casts dispel magic on them. and then have the dread wraiths ambush them....
> 
> this is the tightest region in the book and the PCs are walking all over it.



Undead who have a source for buffs will get them.
I do not give every monster Dispel Magic just because the party is smart. Both clerics have memorized enough Death Wards to cover the party once. Dispels from chump creatures will only create a minor nuisance and simply make it look like the DM is out to screw them over.



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> its not about killing pcs, its about challenging them... and you took away the big challenge by letting them leave the doors open?!?!



Closing the doors automatically will end up being a time consuming nuisance that they'd learn to get past pretty quickly. Repeating the 2 hours, not counting golem/guardian combats, it took them the first time to get past the traps is not something I'd care to repeat on a weekly basis.

I am very into challenging the PCs. But the doors would have become a time sink.



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> fill each room with unholy dread that deals a point of damage each round, that can't be negated... create a sickness or disease that drains attribute points... drains... not damages....
> 
> have the world eater waking up... and its very thoughts creating cthulhian nightmares for the pcs, while they are awake
> 
> cast confusion on them



Not my style. Not a big Cthulu fan.



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> have invisibile arcane eyes floating around following them, so invisitis knows when they are leaving... and has a golem or two ambush the PCs.



I've basically decided that Invistis knows everything that goes on in his area. He will be prepared in the event the PCs decide to visit him.



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> drop a forcecage on a pc and trap him in a one-on-one fight with something horrendous... and force the pcs to watch.



Did that, kind of, with the giant mouth and summon trap room.
The party and their main fighter couldn't see each other. Even with a Dispel Magic on the fighter he was fine. But the kicker was that the party didn't know what was going on. So I had the player make an easily audible sound of paper being ripped up so the rest of the group would think it was his character sheet.
It was pretty interesting to watch the rest of the party cast a series of Dispels (regular and greater), Disintegrates, and Knocks to get to him.



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> (designer weeps)



You'll get over it.

I think you're misunderstanding the level of the problem.
Region N is deadly with the traps.
Traps alone have killed 2 party members, almost 4.
The maximized arch of fire killed one cleric, and almost the other.
The first Wail of the Banshee trap killed their first sorcerer.
The 2nd Wail of the Banshee trap would have killed their 2nd sorcerer had they not had Death Ward on all.
But that is the price the party paid for having no rogue.

Combat has claimed only 1 life, and that was from the player not thinking before acting(which is the cause of most of their deaths).
Vinnara almost got their big fighter. He was at 0hp, healed, and then back to 0hp.

After a few combats the party adapted to their situation. I was just looking to find something new because the party can now drop a mohrg and its mount in record speed.

So I've upped Invistis to level 21 and will let him have a few Vrocks in addition to his current retinue, given Kasteoficiss some powered up shield guardians, and every single undead in the area that the party has not killed will be there in the final fight.

My solution, so far, was to reduce the minor fights that really are nothing more than a fight for a fights sake. If a boss is gone, then that boss's minions have gone into hiding.


----------



## jim pinto

its obvious your PCs are smart... but power-gaming, min-max, buffing like death ward are boring loopholes designed to avoid "thinking" through problems.

if they rely on daddy's credit card to bail them out of a jam, then you need to either, cut off their allowance (the room casts dispel magic on them), or charge them so much, they can never pay off the debt.

but, that's just my DMing style... i would never allow someone to have a medallion of magic missile eating... its lame... it serves on purpose only... and if the PCs did get one, i'd hit them with acid damage...

or a slow spell

or confusion

or maximized color spray

or a cone of cold that drains dexterity

i'm sure the final battle is going to rock, but if the pcs beat down the last two undead lords with death ward, well .... that's like playing street fighter against a twitch player that knows ryu special monkey death punch

anyway... i would like to hear how this one ends... and its not cheating to bring undead back to life in the prison, fyi

and if you couldn't tell... its a really slow work day


----------



## Qwillion

BlueBlackRed

I have an undead monster I think will fill your nich.

I can email too you if you like, It has been playtested by 7 groups including my own.  It's a template (as all undead should be) I have a Npc that has the template applied to her that should make combat intersting email me at worldsmith at gmail dot com I  will send it.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

jim pinto said:
			
		

> its obvious your PCs are smart... but power-gaming, min-max, buffing like death ward are boring loopholes designed to avoid "thinking" through problems.



I'll get them for their constant buffing and charging actions eventually. I thought I had them with the Vinnara fight (she talked with them until their 1 round/level spells wore off). Awesome fight that night.



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> if they rely on daddy's credit card to bail them out of a jam, then you need to either, cut off their allowance (the room casts dispel magic on them), or charge them so much, they can never pay off the debt.
> 
> but, that's just my DMing style... i would never allow someone to have a medallion of magic missile eating... its lame... it serves on purpose only... and if the PCs did get one, i'd hit them with acid damage...
> 
> or a slow spell
> 
> or confusion
> 
> or maximized color spray
> 
> or a cone of cold that drains dexterity



I generally avoid magic items like that. The party's access to buying items is limited. For a short time they had 2 Scarabs of Protection and I solved that by ruling that the scarab's magic is used prior to Death Ward because the 2 effects stack and the more powerful one, the scarab, was used first. They currently have 1 scarab of protection with 2 charges left that they don't wear anymore.



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> i'm sure the final battle is going to rock, but if the pcs beat down the last two undead lords with death ward, well .... that's like playing street fighter against a twitch player that knows ryu special monkey death punch



They'll probably take down Kasteoficiss with difficulty, but no major loss. As only some of her minions have drains, Death Ward means only so much. And since she has spells...

Invistis has no real problem with Death Ward. His spells that are thwarted by it have been changed for the most part. And it's not like he doesn't have Dispels and Dysjunctions at hand.



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> and if you couldn't tell... its a really slow work day



Heh, where do you think I've found the time to upgrade the bosses?



			
				Qwillion said:
			
		

> I have an undead monster I think will fill your nich.
> 
> I can email too you if you like, It has been playtested by 7 groups including my own. It's a template (as all undead should be) I have a Npc that has the template applied to her that should make combat intersting email me at worldsmith at gmail dot com I will send it.



My e-mail address is on my blog page.


----------



## Hussar

Another option is from a recent Dragon Magazine, October's.  It has a series of "Hauntings" templates that you can add to any area.  The "Bad Place" haunting would absolutely rock in Region N.  Think of Ammityville Horror.  Not only are the nasty bad guys trying to get them, but the entire region is as well.  This is something I think I will add to the region when the time comes.

Something to remember is that all the undead in the region regenerate every day or so.  If the party is taking their time, picking through a few encounters until their buffs run out, then running home to rest, it won't work very well.  The priests only get their spells back every 24 hours.  By that time, or perhaps a little while later, everything they've killed has come back again.  This could lead to the party coming in, killing, leaving, coming back and then being cut off as they try to leave again.  

Just a thought.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Hussar said:
			
		

> Something to remember is that all the undead in the region regenerate every day or so.  If the party is taking their time, picking through a few encounters until their buffs run out, then running home to rest, it won't work very well.  The priests only get their spells back every 24 hours.  By that time, or perhaps a little while later, everything they've killed has come back again.  This could lead to the party coming in, killing, leaving, coming back and then being cut off as they try to leave again.



I got rid of the undead coming back. Too much of an irritation to fight the same thing over and over and over again. Especially once you've grown beyond the power of a monster to the point where it's a nuisance.
Now certain ones may come back in the final fight.

As for clerics only getting spells once every 24 hours, I've written that rule off for this particular campaign.


----------



## rvalle

Sorry to drag this back down to Region B...

Did anyone deside how to handle the Barghest's Blink ability? I've desided to run the D-door as the weak version (100 foot range). I was thinking of running Blink the same way. Instead of 50% miss drop it to 20% as the critter spends much more time on the Material plane. Drop the 20%'s to 0.

Any other ideas people have used?

rv


----------



## primarchone

rvalle said:
			
		

> Sorry to drag this back down to Region B...
> 
> Did anyone deside how to handle the Barghest's Blink ability? I've desided to run the D-door as the weak version (100 foot range). I was thinking of running Blink the same way. Instead of 50% miss drop it to 20% as the critter spends much more time on the Material plane. Drop the 20%'s to 0.
> 
> Any other ideas people have used?
> 
> rv




Hi!

My solution for all types of teleportation, blink, etc is that it works normally within the confines of ONE region. That is, you could use a teleport spell to zip from one section within a region to another, but not to another region (and of course not outside the dungeon).

I do the same thing with blink and dimension door. I find that it keeps the threat of such creatures, but does not violate the overall purpose of the dungeon.

Primarchone


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Blink, Dimension Door, Teleport, Bags of Holding, and the like do not work in my version.
Yeah it nerfs some of the monsters abilities, but it hurts the party just as much if not more when their non-melee types are suddenly in the thick of it.


----------



## Traevanon

Okay, its custom Lair time!  In region N, room 1 there are a series of tunnels leading to a central area featuring a Devourer.  This is where I will place The Tower of Galenus, the Demonologist.  The Devourer will remain in his lair below the tower, which is built on top of the 80ft hill of black stone.  Unsturdy construction of the devourer's tunnels will be removed, along with the Tremor and Poor Footing effect.  Instead Deep Darkness and Stagnant Air will be in effect in the Devourer's lair.

The map can be downloaded or viewed at:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mwa/archive2003

It will use the Wizard's Tower Map from the WotC Map a Week project July 2003.

Designed for a six to eight player level 13-14 party, the tower will be populated mostly by constructs, demons and will be heavy on arcane spell users and magical traps.

Box Text:
Overlooking both the lava river and the smooth carved face of the Crypt, the Tower of Galenus rises over 100 feet above the tall mound of black rock into a maelstrom of fire and lightning which obscures the upper levels.  A twisting path leads up the hill to massive doors guarded by two large statues in plate mail.  A light too bright for torchlight emanates from windows high up near the clouds.  There is a smaller, human sized rough tunnel down at your level, which slopes downward into darkness under the black rock mound.

DM Info:
The upper reaches of the tower are obscured by a 36HD Tempest CR19 (MM2 pg 193) which acts to prevent the PCs from entering through the top of the tower and also casts lightning bolts and drenching rain (also steaming up and concealing the entire area) if the PCs attempt to enter the tower anywhere but through the first floor.  

The Tempest can be boosted as high as Colossal (49HD) or reduced to normal (24HD) to balance the encounter.  If you have no access to MM2 just use Cloudkill for being within the actual tempest and Call Lightning and Control Weather Effects available for use against intruders.

Do you think this is an appropriate area for such a sub-dungeon?


----------



## rvalle

Well, between the 3 of us we have all 3 options covered: it don't work at all, it works as normal (in one region), it works but in a lessor fashion.



rv


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Heh.
Can't say I'm surprised.
Just goes with what works best for you.


----------



## Traevanon

BTW in my version Teleport and the like does not work through any of the original construction.  New construction and destroyed portions can be teleported through normally.  Basically assume that you can only teleport to Line Of Sight unless you are teleporting into some goblin's shack or somesuch.


----------



## jim pinto

*teleportation*



			
				Traevanon said:
			
		

> BTW in my version Teleport and the like does not work through any of the original construction.  New construction and destroyed portions can be teleported through normally.  Basically assume that you can only teleport to Line Of Sight unless you are teleporting into some goblin's shack or somesuch.




its actually covered in the book. if you read the blink dog entry, i believe it says LOS for teleportation and explain which regions where the wards have failed; in such cases, the PCs can teleport through the region ... just not out of it

(except the highest altitude in Region H)

...

in an unrelated thread, i started a discussion about players

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=154560&page=1&pp=40


----------



## Qwillion

Ok sent that email. I hope that truly challenges them. 


You know the more I think about it, the players are being intelligent. I would think though that word would get around Region N about these undead slayers.  

In my world of building a better mouse trap. The only mice left are the ones who can defeat the better mouse trap.  So the designer goes back to the board and builds a better mouse trap.  

Ok so the real issue is death ward. The undead are complaining to thier Master who remebers a ritual from 5,000 years ago to deal with this paltry nuscience. It might require some things, that the players could see the undead gathering.  It might require a specific action that the pc's could be tricked into doing.  Then a fundamental shift in the nature of Death Ward. 

Possible Effects
Death Ward only grants a Fort save (or will) vs. the negative energy (fair and balance approach)
Death ward durations are reduced by 50%. (a reverse on meta magic)
Death ward now only makes you immune to a # of effect equal to your caster level. (suprise your spell is overloaded and collapses)
Death Ward doubles all negative energy attacks and the spell cannot be dismissed. (evil bastich dms only)
A curse now affects anyone who casts Death Ward.  (Pick a curse any curse)
Undead can now sense the prescence of anyone guarded by death ward (act appropriately)
Undead can now absorb all necromatic spells gaining a 1d8+1 temp hp per level  of the spell. (death ward is necromatic not abjuration)
X castings of death ward unleash the World Eater. (lets move along shall we)
Casting death ward now consumes the casters divine focus. (power has a cost)
All castings of Death Ward are transmuted into Slay Living.  (the really evil bastich dm) 


Hmmm.... I like this so much I am going to use this when my players get to Region N.
I think I will use the rules for a magical event from DMG II

LORE: One of the Big 3 knows all about this, the others might have bits and pieces. Most of the undead have been around long enough to know about it but have no idea how to use it the players might start hearing the undead talking about the event. This should give it the sound of myth and legend with a little false lore thrown in (like one of the evil bastich ideas).

POWER: Ok a # of possible power souces for the event are in region N. The necromatic magic of the region, The negative energry of the region, the wards that guard the region, the evil of the region, and the power of the world eater.  


CATALYST: a small object, portable, mundane but rare here.  It should be of the highest craftmanship but pure in it's simplicity.  I am thinking a simple golden orb. 

TRIGGER: Ok, I am thinking that only a living creature can pull this off, otherwise the undead would be doing it all the time. I think the should have to place the special object in a special place. I don't think time should be a factor other than perhaps a duration of the effect, I think the effect will only last for a year and a day.  Nothing to the undead that live here.  


With these thoughts in mind perhaps I can trick my PC's into creating the magical event for me.  I can lay down disinformation though the undead  ala "I hope they don't activate the celestial failsafe, the whole region would be engulfed by sunlight and the positive energy plane" 

I think I can set it up to look like the classic old rpg way to defeat the an entire region.  If  they are lucky I will leave some very subtle clues to one player that this might be wrong.  hehehhehe if they are really lucky I won't make it the most unobsurvent memeber of thier group.  

If it goes off then this will be the effects (I am combining)

Casting death ward now consumes the casters divine focus. (power has a cost)
A curse now affects anyone who casts Death Ward. (Pick a curse any curse)
Undead can now sense the prescence of anyone guarded by death ward (act appropriately)
Death Ward doubles all negative energy attacks and the spell cannot be dismissed. (evil bastich dms only)

I think this will put a big red flag that death ward is bad, the player will not cast it again right away and only one character is going to be chased down for having death ward on him. 


ENDING EVENT: I think I will even give the players a chance to end the event if they gather all the pieces together that release the world eater but then again I am a bastich dm. 


What do you guys think. 

Just a note, death ward is pretty basic spell it makes me wonder how well this region was playtested.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Qwillion said:
			
		

> Ok sent that email. I hope that truly challenges them.
> 
> You know the more I think about it, the players are being intelligent. I would think though that word would get around Region N about these undead slayers.
> 
> Ok so the real issue is death ward...
> 
> ...snip...
> 
> Just a note, death ward is pretty basic spell it makes me wonder how well this region was playtested.



Thanks for the creature. I definitely like the honorable undead knight kind of thing. Though it probably won't make it into the region until the final fight. Makes for a more dramatic ending.

As for removing Death Ward simply because they're using it or punishing them because they're using it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Now punishing them for relying on it is another thing. Dispel Magics and spells that get around Death Ward at key points is what I will have when dealing with the party.

Never punish players for being clever, but freely punish them for thinking they are too clever and getting lazy because of it.

In the final fight, the undead waves from the world eater will have a chance to blast away any protection the party may have (Death Wards, Protection from X, Antimagic Shell, etc.). I just have to pick the appropriate DC.

Yes Death Ward can shut down big chunks of region N, but without it, the party would have died long ago.
I'm interested to hear how parties with only one cleric are dealing with N.


----------



## Qwillion

"Thanks for the creature. I definitely like the honorable undead knight kind of thing. Though it probably won't make it into the region until the final fight. Makes for a more dramatic ending."


Your welcome, I am glad you enjoyed it. Sorry it was just the playtest pdf, when we get the final formating done I will send that along.  I really did try to fold the idea of honor in with it's abilites.

I don't want to punish my players, but I do want it to remain a challenge, if they figure out that completing the magical event is a bad idea then they can overcome it.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Hmm. I've run into a bit of a dilemma.

Earlier in the thread, I really liked the idea of replacing Longtail (Region A) with a Kyton, as well as the other details of that encounter. I'm running two groups through the WLD, so I figured I would use the Kyton for one and Longtail for the other.

One of my groups has been doing fine, save a high attrition rate - three out of the four original party members are now dead, and have been replaced by both new characters and orcs from the remainder of the orc clan that has allied with them. This is the one that I was thinking of running Longtail for.

The other group is far more balanced than the first one, and has managed to ally with the kobolds and the lizardmen (the alliance is tenuous, though...) and has cleaned out most of the region with no casualties. I had intended to run the kyton encounter for them, both as a change of pace (they've fought a bearded devil in this region before, so it won't be a complete shock) and as a way to thin the ranks of their army a little bit... get rid of some kobolds, probably, if nothing else.

The problem with this setup is that the second group ran into a really bad RPing snag last week, where I had to cut the session short because people were cranky and tired OOC, which was bleeding into their characters. One of the characters' greatest desires for the last two or three sessions has been "to ballsap Longtail." Yes, he's that nasty.  Another  character, the paladin, wants to cleanse the evil from the region. The final two members could care less, to be honest - they're more interested in their own things, which include escaping and collecting gems.

Anyways, this RPing snag blew up into a bit of unpleasantness between the players and myself, which I've spent most of the week reconciling. One of my players had this to say just a moment ago:

Player: Oh, just another thing, I think the whole D&D slump will go away once we actually finish our encounter with Longtail.
Player: I think we're all looking forward to that in and out of character, so the sooner we get to it the better.
Me: That was my thinking as well.
Me: Believe me, I've been looking forward to that encounter as well. ^^
Me: Hmm.
Me: I just have to do some thinking now. X_X
Me: But, anyhow, thanks for dropping me the IM.
Player: No prob.

So here's my dilemma. I think that as they are, the group will crush Longtail readily - they have the numbers and the inclination, (the kobolds REALLY want to kill Longtail at this point) and could just charge him with all hands and grapple/sneak attack him into nothing. (Granted, he has some ways for getting around this, but even so... Fly doesn't save him, as nearly all of the party is equipped with ranged weapons and can do some serious damage with them)

I guess what I'm looking for here are two things. First, opinions on whether I should switch the encounters so that the second party goes against Longtail and the first goes against the kyton, or leave it as I had originally planned. (The trouble is that I've already laid foreshadowed hints that something's not quite right up where they believe Longtail to be...) Second, suggestions on how to run Longtail effectively to present a good challenge to a Level 4 party (gnome paladin, gnome sorceror, halfling rogue, xeph soulknife), along with 7 kobolds (includes one Level 4 kobold wizard, one Level 2 kobold rogue, five Level 3 kobold warriors, and one Level 2 kobold expert) and 2 lizardfolk (one Level 3 druid and one Level 3 ranger). [Yeah, it's a ridiculous army, I know. Another reason to run the kyton, as it will thin the ranks of the kobolds considerably.)

I'm not sure how much of Longtail's stats I can copy here (copyright reasons and all that jazz), but I'll at least copy some of the basic things:

Longtail, Wererat Sor 7
Spells known:
0 - acid splash, daze, detect magic, light, mage hand, ray of frost, read magic
1 - detect secret doors, expeditious retreat, magic missile, shield, sleep
2 - blur, eagle's splendor, invisibility
3 - dispel magic, fly

As written, he enters having expeditious retreat, shield, and eagle's splendor all cast already on him. Fly is one possibility, but I already mentioned the ranged weapons previously. Invisibility is another, but they have the paladin's Detect Evil at will. Of course, they'll also have to contend with the constantly-invisible imp familiar that keeps stinging them, so there's THAT, at least.

Anyhow, I've written enough. Any and all thoughts and tips would be appreciated, as I run tomorrow at 4:30 EST. Thanks in advance!


----------



## Qwillion

Well I ran the longtail encounter, 

I gave him a scroll of improved invisibility.

replaced dispel magic with fireball

Had fly and invisiblity cast before they entered the room, (they made plenty of noise)
Use the scroll of invisibility
Thier little army died to the fireballs. (Including thier donkey) 
a few rounds into the combat the improved invis wore off. 

Then the fight went, 
cast magic missle 
next round cast invisibilty move as far away as possible
cast magic missle

repeat untill really hurt 
cast invisibility run away.

The just entered Region E hunting longtail with a weasl familiar tracking by scent.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Longtail, Wererat Sor 7
> Spells known:
> 0 - acid splash, daze, detect magic, light, mage hand, ray of frost, read magic
> 1 - detect secret doors, expeditious retreat, magic missile, shield, sleep
> 2 - blur, eagle's splendor, invisibility
> 3 - dispel magic, fly
> 
> As written, he enters having expeditious retreat, shield, and eagle's splendor all cast already on him. Fly is one possibility, but I already mentioned the ranged weapons previously. Invisibility is another, but they have the paladin's Detect Evil at will. Of course, they'll also have to contend with the constantly-invisible imp familiar that keeps stinging them, so there's THAT, at least.



Replace Blur with Protection from Arrows and keep Longtail aloft with Fly for as long as possible.
Don't let him get too powerful by giving him Fireball unless your PCs can handle that kind of firepower.
The goal is to make him just tough enough to force your PCs to use every resource they have to bring him down.
To me, an awesome fight is where the party is about out of options when they bring down the boss.


----------



## jim pinto

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Longtail, Wererat Sor 7
> Spells known:
> 0 - acid splash, daze, detect magic, light, mage hand, ray of frost, read magic
> 1 - detect secret doors, expeditious retreat, magic missile, shield, sleep
> 2 - blur, eagle's splendor, invisibility
> 3 - dispel magic, fly
> 
> As written, he enters having expeditious retreat, shield, and eagle's splendor all cast already on him. Fly is one possibility, but I already mentioned the ranged weapons previously. Invisibility is another, but they have the paladin's Detect Evil at will. Of course, they'll also have to contend with the constantly-invisible imp familiar that keeps stinging them, so there's THAT, at least.
> 
> Anyhow, I've written enough. Any and all thoughts and tips would be appreciated, as I run tomorrow at 4:30 EST. Thanks in advance!




one the best weapons in longtail's arsenal is invisibility, and his ability to cast it over and over

his damage reduction 5/silver is great too

if you're going with kyton, neither of those abilities are as important, but a single boss fighting ANY group is going to suffer more hits in a round than he can dish out. the only cure for this is a lot of hit points or damage reduction... the pcs should NOT be able to squash longtail in under 10 rounds.

this needs to be a good hardy challenge so the pcs understand the threat potential of the dungeon. and to put a nice cap on this region.

and fireball is perfect for cleaning up the kobold army.

beyond that, i have no idea which version of longtail is going to work best for your group... if they don't like LONG challenges, don't use the kyton.


----------



## just__al

jim pinto said:
			
		

> one the best weapons in longtail's arsenal is invisibility, and his ability to cast it over and over
> 
> his damage reduction 5/silver is great too
> 
> if you're going with kyton, neither of those abilities are as important, but a single boss fighting ANY group is going to suffer more hits in a round than he can dish out. the only cure for this is a lot of hit points or damage reduction... the pcs should NOT be able to squash longtail in under 10 rounds.
> 
> this needs to be a good hardy challenge so the pcs understand the threat potential of the dungeon. and to put a nice cap on this region.
> 
> and fireball is perfect for cleaning up the kobold army.
> 
> beyond that, i have no idea which version of longtail is going to work best for your group... if they don't like LONG challenges, don't use the kyton.




Wait, isn't longtail a NATURAL (not inflicted) warerat?  That gives him DR 10/Silver

I just ran my second group up against him and they had a wicked, wicked bad time.

Also his wand of color spray is NASTY against 3rd-4th level pcs


----------



## Hussar

Yeah, I was going to say that too.  Longtail has a 10/silver DR in his stats, not 5/silver.  Which meant that my party actually had to kill him with a dagger and the other players aiding another on the fighter.  ROTF.  I made a mistake and stayed one more round than I should have and a lucky crit from the dagger dropped him.  But, with a 10/silver DR, he ignores arrows entirely.  It's highly unlikely your guys have strength bows.  I ran him out of spells, but the two party clerics managed to keep everyone on their feet.  So, I just let Longtail wade in and stand toe to toe with the party.  The fight lastes seventeen rounds!  

One of the high points of the campaign.


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> Yeah, I was going to say that too.  Longtail has a 10/silver DR in his stats, not 5/silver.  Which meant that my party actually had to kill him with a dagger and the other players aiding another on the fighter.  ROTF.  I made a mistake and stayed one more round than I should have and a lucky crit from the dagger dropped him.  But, with a 10/silver DR, he ignores arrows entirely.  It's highly unlikely your guys have strength bows.  I ran him out of spells, but the two party clerics managed to keep everyone on their feet.  So, I just let Longtail wade in and stand toe to toe with the party.  The fight lastes seventeen rounds!
> 
> One of the high points of the campaign.




sorry... didn't have my book in front of me... 10/silver it is


----------



## Qwillion

Yeah in my game the rogue was doing silver as her "theme" everything had to be silvered.

So the rogue was Longtails most challenging opponent but there is no evasion for magic missle


----------



## Barak

Yeah, normally bows wouldn't hurt longtail much, if at all.  But then they hit a crit, and x3 will huirt anyone, damage reduction or not.  And it was a +2 str bow, too.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

For reasons I can't fathom, I never liked lycanthropes.

So I took Longtail out, turned him into a 1/2 orc Zhent sorcerer, and put a Zhent agent in with the party.
The agent worked with the party (barely) until this fight, where he backstabbed the group's sorcerer while the rest of the group was over 60' away, leaving the sorcerer all alone with the agent.

Ah, good times, good times.


----------



## JoeBlank

BlueBlackRed, you got a stat block you could share on your half-orc sorc? I like lycanthropes, but I've already run a wererat adventure. My group is in region A, and I would love to do something else with Longtail.

However, the group already knows he his name is Longtail. Maybe I should make him a lizardfolk or some such. Any other suggestions?


----------



## DaveMage

JoeBlank said:
			
		

> BlueBlackRed, you got a stat block you could share on your half-orc sorc? I like lycanthropes, but I've already run a wererat adventure. My group is in region A, and I would love to do something else with Longtail.
> 
> However, the group already knows he his name is Longtail. Maybe I should make him a lizardfolk or some such. Any other suggestions?




Yuan-ti?


----------



## jim pinto

DaveMage said:
			
		

> Yuan-ti?




yeah.. that would kick... a fiendish yuan-ti.... or worse... a half-fiend yuan-ti

oh man... that would certainly challenge the pcs... he was a lizard man once, but now he's a snake-thing

curse you, dave mage... you are too wise in the ways of evil


----------



## Qwillion

Yeah I am pretty burnt on the lycanthrope thing. Yet then Mathew Sernett did the Advanced Bestiary and the Monstrous Lycanthrope Creature Template just begs to be used.  I keep looking a some really nasty combos like, the Tarrasque.

Seriously I have been looking for a way to make Longtail more relevent and I have stuck by the idea of his familiar having a larger role.  I keep thinking that his familiar is a much more powerful creature than people realize.  I am struck by the idea from Raymond Feist's Wrath of a Demon King, an apparently minor demon who has access to great magic, wisdom, knowledge and power but keeps a very low profile because he does not want to be the target. 

Generally I hate most demons that are out there because alot of times they end up being nothing more than a long list of spell-like abilites, with nothing to make them stand out from the crowd. 

I am currently contemplating a plot of Longtail's Familiar being the remaining essence of Ash the Deciever. 

Anyone have an opinion.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Thanks for the help, guys. I'll be using your suggestions for how to run Longtail when my second group gets there.

For today's session, I used the kyton encounter in place of Longtail. Let me tell you, it went VERY well.  Everyone said their favorite part of the battle was when Boyikt managed to nail the kyton with a Cause Fear, and got lucky enough to roll a 4 on the d4. So, the kyton goes pelting out of the room...

... I'll just tell the whole battle, I think. It deserves to be told. 

The party enters the room, and is quite surprised to find it full of blood and gore-caked chains - 2 to every five feet, roughly. Achsyyx pops out of invisibility and takes a shot at the gnome sorceror when he starts casting Detect Magic, and hits him for a couple of HP before slipping back into invisibility and retreating. The sorceror makes his first Fort save, but the clock starts ticking for that second one...

Initiative is entered, and the party begins attempting to track Achsyyx south through the room, moving slowly through the chains and fanning out. The xeph soulknife sees a strange shape on one of the chains - about the size of a humanoid head, but misshapen somehow... He approaches it slowly, and is shocked to realize when he comes face to face with it that it is Longtail's severed head, locked in a death snarl and pierced through from top to bottom with a chain - with goggles still on. (Thereby making the prophecy [previously came from the region's lantern archon] come true that they would 'face Longtail, but not kill him.' )

Now, Achsyyx had already heard these folks coming, and so had already alerted the kyton, Ka'narliss. Ka'narliss entered the main room and climbed up the chains into the shadows near the ceiling, and moved silently (an incredible roll on both Move Silently and Hide served him well here) up the east side of the room, attempting to get close enough to see the whole  party before he cut loose with his Control Chains ability. (This kyton was changed slightly - most of it comes from an earlier post:



> I designed the Kyton to replace Longtail by doing several things. I lowered his SR to 12, made him vulnerable to silver weapons, made his control chains ability a move equivalent action, and then allowed him to control as many chains as he could see in a darkened room (60'R). I gave his control chain ability a +1 to hit bonus and 1d3 pts of damage per chain, then in every 5' square of the room I sunk 2 chains into the ceiling which hung down to within 3' of the floor. He had fast healing 5 which is strong against a low level group and prolonged the battle. With that I imposed a -2 to hit modifier upon every large weapon or missile weapon used in the room becouse of interferance with the chains.




So, it ended up being a lot of fun.)

The kobolds had moved carefully down the east side of the room as well, from the north, remaining bunched together. This is probably what saved them, amazingly. One of them managed to spot the kyton, and raised the alarm. A hail of ineffectual slingstones followed, and then the kyton set the chains in motion... that was a shock for the party.   

"So, let's see. With all the spiky chains flailing at you... that's 18 attacks. I don't think I have that many d20s. Wow."

The kyton moved through the chains, staying out of melee reach and leading the party back to the portal, hoping to exploit the portal to inundate the party with reinforcements. When the party saw the portal, they recognized it as similar to the one they had seen in a previous room, and attempted to close it while being harassed with chain attacks by the kyton. They failed, as I had decided that due to the kyton interrupting Longtail during part of his ceremony to attempt to control the portal, the portal was now partially tied to his life force - as long as he lived, the portal was much harder to close. (DC 25 Concentration check - for 4th level characters, even with exploding action dice, this is very challenging.)

No casualties were taken, and the battle raged as the party frantically tried to figure out some way to hurt the thing as it stayed out of reach and basically swung around the room in sheer glee while turning the room itself against the interlopers. Achsyyx would pop up every turn or two as well, distracting spellcasters and generally being a frighteningly random prescence. The gnome sorceror Color Sprayed it, but it managed to maintain its hold on the chains while still stunned, and an amusing episode ensued where the gnome sorceror yelled for one of the lizardfolk to pick him up so he could attempt to coup de grace it. The kyton made the Fort save against the CDG, luckily, and nearly took him down with a chain attack before moving a bit north again.

The second lizardfolk climbed up the chain underneath it and began hacking away with his sword, while the gnome sorceror dashed underneath and let loose another Color Spray. Naturally, the spell didn't get through the kyton's spell resistance, but the lizardman fell victim to it and crashed down on top of the gnome sorceror, stunned.

While this was happening, the portal (which was active, and was spitting out a creature every d10 rounds) disgorged its first creature of the battle - a fiendish rust monster, which created some major headaches for the party. It didn't eat any metal before dying, sadly... However, it did result in some funny interplay. When it came out, it headed straight for the rogue/cleric who was standing in front of the portal, and went for his chain belt. It missed, which led us to determine that its antennae had smacked the area around his crotch. (This halfling rogue/cleric of Olidimarra is quite the womanizer, so we decided that either the rust monster was a female checking him out, or a male attempting to remove the competition.) The rogue, intelligently, fled - letting the rust monster get an attack of opportunity. This one missed as well... meaning the rust monster's antenna slapped the rogue's ass as he turned tail and fled.  Mind-scarring ensued. The gnome paladin then charged it (with all the players yelling "NO," as the paladin's continually flaming greatsword was one of the few available light sources/damage dealers) and missed, before backing up while the lizardman cleric beat on it with a Flame Blade.

In sheer frustration, Boyikt shot off a Cause Fear spell, and as previously mentioned, managed to beat its spell resistance and Will save, and cause it to become frightened for 4 rounds! The thing fled north and east out of the room, with the gnome sorceror and lizardman ranger in hot pursuit. This is where the party said the battle became extremely enjoyable, as it became a two-front battle when the portal disgorged yet another creature - an Apocalypse Swarm of fiendish rats (yet another idea borrowed from earlier in this thread...) that did some major damage before a Flaming Sphere and the paladin's blessed greatsword managed to break it up. Most of the party began following the sorceror and kyton, while the other lizardman stayed behind with the kobolds to attempt to close the portal and kill anything else that came out of it.

Let me just say that Mirror Image was a great spell in this battle.  It was the sorceror's first session as Level 4, so he had just picked it up. Twice in the chain-filled room, the chain attacks had entirely eliminated his mirror images, but the spell saved his life completely as he went toe-to-toe with the kyton... Surrounded by NINE images of the sorceror (he burned an Action die on the roll to see how many images were produced, and managed to max out the roll), the kyton was reduced to furiously attempting to smash the images until it found the true sorceror, as his escape back to the chain room was blocked by first the lizardman ranger, and then the rest of the party. Finally, after about five tries, the sorceror finally managed to get through the kyton's SR and will saves to Color Spray him, and then the lizardman promptly coup de graced him, leaving him to fail at a DC 24 Fortitude save.

The party dashed back to the portal, over 200 feet away. When they got there, they got there just in time to see one of the kobolds and the krenshar fall to two nasty darkmantles' attacks, while Boyikt (the kobold wizard) was left barely conscious with another darkmantle attached to his head. In the end, one kobold and the krenshar died, while another was barely saved at -9 HP. Much woe was had, as the paladin had truly liked the kobold that had died. (Actually, I managed to kill the paladin's two favorite NPCs - the kobold and the krenshar. Go me!) Finally, the portal was closed, and just in time, as the party saw the clawed paw of an owlbear stick out and grope around for something to kill before the portal closed on it.

Whew. Great battle today - that took about 8 hours to resolve. Thanks again to everyone in this thread for your help and suggestions. I'm looking forward to seeing where the party goes from here!


----------



## rvalle

Wow, that is an amazing battle.

Whats the story with the Apocalypse Swarm of fiendish rats? I missed that post.

rv


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Since it was posted here originally, I've rehosted it on my  little temporary Angelfire website in all its glory. Enjoy! Just be sure that you target a weak person first, so the swarm can truly strike with all its power... 

http://www.angelfire.com/ult/wld/apocalypse_swarm.pdf

Copyright to wherever it came from - I don't even know, and the original post didn't say either.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

JoeBlank said:
			
		

> BlueBlackRed, you got a stat block you could share on your half-orc sorc? I like lycanthropes, but I've already run a wererat adventure. My group is in region A, and I would love to do something else with Longtail.
> 
> However, the group already knows he his name is Longtail. Maybe I should make him a lizardfolk or some such. Any other suggestions?



Unfortunately I can't find the stats for him or his buddy.
I kept his name as Longtail, mostly to throw off one of the group who was playing the WLD in another group (and irritatingly couldn't separate the 2 memories).

But it was just an illusion.
He was a 5th level sorcerer and 2nd level barbarian with his spell selection meant to augment his fighting.
I named him Pwok, which is really just an electrical input at work that is named PWOK meaning "power ok". I thought it was a cool name for an NPC.

His buddy was a 2nd level rogue and 2nd level ranger (humans) who wore an alignment masking amulet.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> They'll probably take down Kasteoficiss with difficulty, but no major loss. As only some of her minions have drains, Death Ward means only so much. And since she has spells...



Well I was wrong there.

They found Kasteoficiss and the fight started with no witty banter.
I added 2 "loaned" shield guardians to the fight. Their stored Dispel Magic spells were just a minor 
All they did was to delay the party from attacking Kasty...which was perfect.

The 3 casters of the party grouped close together and paid the price.
One maximized (rod) empowere Flame Strike turned the sorcerer into a char-grilled adventurer.

Was the encounter too hard? Nope.
Were the players kinda dumb for grouping together like that? Yup.


----------



## rvalle

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Since it was posted here originally, I've rehosted it on my  little temporary Angelfire website in all its glory. Enjoy! Just be sure that you target a weak person first, so the swarm can truly strike with all its power...
> 
> http://www.angelfire.com/ult/wld/apocalypse_swarm.pdf
> 
> Copyright to wherever it came from - I don't even know, and the original post didn't say either.




Thanks for posting that! I think its a bit much for my group of 4 3rd level guys.  

I'll save it for later though.

rv


----------



## JoeBlank

DaveMage said:
			
		

> Yuan-ti?




Sold! Great idea.



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> yeah.. that would kick... a fiendish yuan-ti.... or worse... a half-fiend yuan-ti
> 
> oh man... that would certainly challenge the pcs... he was a lizard man once, but now he's a snake-thing
> 
> curse you, dave mage... you are too wise in the ways of evil




The fiendish idea is good too. Now I can't wait for my group to find the new, improved Longtail.


----------



## Qwillion

hmmm.  I think I am going to use this idea but I am going to take it even father and let Longtail get cooler.  A yaun-ti Longtail will go well and let me take adavantage of my Serpent Kingdoms and Slayer's Guide to Yaunti. 

Now I hate the fiendish and half fiend templates, I think I am going to use the Demon Possesed template from The Advanced Bestiary.  I mean come on their is no Balor in the dungeon so it will fit right in.


----------



## JediSoth

So this is what happened today on Session 18 of my WLD Campaign:

Ovak is a half-orc barbarian (7), Kuaka is a goliath barbarian/cleric (9), Merck is a ranger/order of the bow initiate (9), and Pyiro is a pseudo-dragon rogue (8, replacing a sorcerer killed in the Pyrefaust when the ogre-mage turned into a divine elder fire elemental and immolated all of Region J. 3 players didn't show up, robbing the party of a rogue/warlock, a sorcerer, and a fighter. They had just entered Region K, and hadn't had a chance to heal up.

Ovak, Kuaka, and Merck started exploring the area around the underground lake searching for a place to hole up and rest. They were ambushed by a couple of thoqquas which they dispatched quickly. They noticed what appeared to be a sleeping dragon in a swamp area on the far side of the lake. It didn't notice them, so they explored some and took some pot shots at a small house-cat sized dragon-like creature that was flying towards them. This creature turned out to be Pyiro, a potential new ally. He tried to help them find a safe area once they stopped attacking him.

About this time, the dragon noticed them and started to fly lazily towards them. The group fled to the southeast and they went into a room covered in copper plates. There were doors on each of the four sides of the room. 

This is where things got crazy and went downhill, so I'll just sum up. Through the south door of that room there was a short hallway ending in a locked door (this actually led to Region G, G43). Pyiro found the trap easily but failed the disarm roll by 10, setting off the trap. Ovak, Pyiro, and Merck failed their saving throws and were striken permanently insane. Between the rounds of acting normal and babbling incoherently, this is what transpired: Pyiro stung Kuaka, knocking him out. Ovak cut Merck down. She started to chop up Kuaka, but he eventually came to. Merck never stabilized and Ovak wasn't able to stabilize him with heal checks during the few rounds when she wasn't aggressively insane. Merck bled to death. Ovak and Pyiro spent a lot of time alternating between fleeing the caster (the trap) and attacking the nearest creature. All the coming and going aroused the suspicion of the dragon again and he came to put an end to the noisy intruders in his domain.

At some point Pyiro attacked the dragon and eventually was crushed and devoured by him. The dragon breathed in the the rooms, melting the flesh off of Kuaka's bones. Ovak, though severly injured attacked the dragon, but was bitten in half and devoured. The dragon's toadies recovered Merck's and Kuaka's bodies and devoured them as well. He added all the trinkets and treasure to his own hoards and lives fat and happy and still the master of his domain.


It was the first time I'd ever had a 3rd edition dragon attack a group, and it was immensely satisfying to have him kill a character I haven't liked for the last 6 months (it was WAY over powered, the player immediately produced a Saint Dwarf replacement from the BoED). There's really only one regular player left, so here endeth my WLD campaign.

It was worth the money, especially this last session. 

JediSoth


----------



## pokedigimaniac

It's never fun to hear about a campaign ending, but at least it went out with a bang, right?


----------



## jim pinto

JediSoth said:
			
		

> It was the first time I'd ever had a 3rd edition dragon attack a group, and it was immensely satisfying to have him kill a character I haven't liked for the last 6 months (it was WAY over powered, the player immediately produced a Saint Dwarf replacement from the BoED). There's really only one regular player left, so here endeth my WLD campaign.
> 
> It was worth the money, especially this last session.
> 
> JediSoth




that was hilarious

not at all like i would have suspected, but its nice to see a good trap go to use


----------



## JediSoth

Redux:

I'm probably going to reboot my WLD game after I restructure my group. 7 players is too much and a couple of them don't fit the group dynamic very well. I'll start everyone off at 9th level. People whose characters didn't die can keep their existing ones, or roll up new ones. I'll also be smart this time and put restrictions on races and classes.

If they have a well-rounded party, I'll put them in Region G. If they're like they are before (i.e. no divine magic), they'll go to Region C. This way, they start in an area they haven't been before that's appropriate for their level. The path they followed last time took them to regions above their party level. They weren't big backtrackers, so they just sped through the regions avoiding the encounters when possible.

The fact that I kept forgetting about the extreme heat in the Pyrefaust didn't help. But, oh well, it's all been immolated now anyway. I'll keep prior events, so maybe they'll run into the remains of their former comrades once they get back to Region K (if they go that way).

JediSoth


----------



## jim pinto

JediSoth said:
			
		

> Redux:
> 
> I'm probably going to reboot my WLD game after I restructure my group. 7 players is too much and a couple of them don't fit the group dynamic very well. I'll start everyone off at 9th level. People whose characters didn't die can keep their existing ones, or roll up new ones. I'll also be smart this time and put restrictions on races and classes.
> 
> If they have a well-rounded party, I'll put them in Region G. If they're like they are before (i.e. no divine magic), they'll go to Region C. This way, they start in an area they haven't been before that's appropriate for their level. The path they followed last time took them to regions above their party level. They weren't big backtrackers, so they just sped through the regions avoiding the encounters when possible.
> 
> The fact that I kept forgetting about the extreme heat in the Pyrefaust didn't help. But, oh well, it's all been immolated now anyway. I'll keep prior events, so maybe they'll run into the remains of their former comrades once they get back to Region K (if they go that way).
> 
> JediSoth




the book gives some good advice on how the dragon tears through the dungeon, but since you intend to run through AFTER the fact, i recommend having him decimate region M and then bust out through the "ceiling."

that should have some interesting impact on your game environment and allow you to bring more adventurers later.

just an idea

.....

you know what i hate about the WLD?

i'll never get to play in it

(yes... everyone pity me... in increments of 10s and 20s)


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Didn't you play in it in an AEG game at one point, Jim? I remember the Adventure Logs saying you actually got killed in there...


----------



## jim pinto

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Didn't you play in it in an AEG game at one point, Jim? I remember the Adventure Logs saying you actually got killed in there...




haha

i played in two sessions... i started recognizing everything... even missing a week in between... it was frustrating... so my character ran into a trap to end the horror of watching my own movie.

my character was great too . . . he was a total shyster. . . had an answer for everything, none of them right

anyway

i just turned into that old man at the end of the street... whose stories go nowhere


----------



## Traevanon

Oh boy, I screwed up.  I didnt realize that Tyrus ice prison was VISIBLE from the river of lava.  I think I can salvage this situation however.

I'll change the Ogre Mage's ritual into a two part operation.  The first part will blast away the rock and reveal Tyrus' prison as was supposed to be in the first place.  The second part will be the wave of fire as in the book.  This will also give the players a bit of a warning that something is happening and that they may need to move quickly or else they will be facing Tyrus before they are ready.

Oops!  Everything seems to make more sense now...  hehe


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Traevanon said:
			
		

> Oh boy, I screwed up.  I didnt realize that Tyrus ice prison was VISIBLE from the river of lava.  I think I can salvage this situation however.




Yeah, I goofed that one up too. And I was able to improvise as well.
Not something I'm all that proud of, but eh, "region fatigue" was hitting me, so it was time to move on.


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Yeah, I goofed that one up too. And I was able to improvise as well.
> Not something I'm all that proud of, but eh, "region fatigue" was hitting me, so it was time to move on.




well

the map and region were designed to be used EITHER way. i'm a bigger fan of NOT being able to see it.

but, the writer prefered a visible prison.

so, i compromised.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

jim pinto said:
			
		

> well
> 
> the map and region were designed to be used EITHER way. i'm a bigger fan of NOT being able to see it.
> 
> but, the writer prefered a visible prison.
> 
> so, i compromised.



That's the way I ran with it.
It's still ice, but it's all covered in soot and such, and can't melt...yet.

I wouldn't have wanted it visible anyway.
It's like putting a big sign saying "Bid baddie right this way!"


----------



## jim pinto

*post 1200*

i mean really

1200


----------



## just__al

jim pinto said:
			
		

> i mean really
> 
> 1200




That's the clearest indication that you've helped to compile a quality product.

That and the fact I have two groups calling for your demise.  In the future you might not want to put your name so prominently displayed on gaming products as rat bastardly as this.


----------



## DaveMage

Other than perhaps the core D&D rules, The WLD is the *only* product that I know of that's generated as many postings both BEFORE and AFTER its release.  

Very impressive.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

DaveMage said:
			
		

> Other than perhaps the core D&D rules, The WLD is the *only* product that I know of that's generated as many postings both BEFORE and AFTER its release.
> 
> Very impressive.



I'm telling ya, the presence of the guy whose name is on the book does a lot more to attract people to the WLD thread on ENWorld than any other WLD thread out there.
This includes the forums on AEG's own site.

Whenever jim pinto leaves for a month, activity here drops by 50%.


----------



## Traevanon

Sidetrack alert!

So I was thumbing through old books trying to come up with a name for a new character.  He was a lizardman so I thought I'd go through a book called "Dragons"...  lo and behold who was the Project Manager?

Small world.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Traevenon, the same exact thing happened when I started leafing through my newly acquired copy of the "GM's Survival Guide" for the _Legend of the Five Rings_ RPG.


----------



## jim pinto

*flattery*

i'm flattered that people think my prescene here merits more attention.

frankly, i just enjoy chatting with the group. everyone seems to understand the product's intention, and i've yet to have one flame war in the two massive threads this book has produced.

for me, the real joy is talking about a book i spent 11 months in a vaccuum writing, editing, producing, re-writing, and so on. certain people kicked ass on the project and made my job easier. their regions don't always get a lot of discussion on here (and i'm not sure why), but they deserve to be rewarded for their hard work.

while others ... well.... let's just say i had to re-type about half the book.



again.

thanks for having me.

and let that be an end to the sappy good feelings on this thread... lets get back to killing stuff.


----------



## jim pinto

*not ashamed*



			
				pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Traevenon, the same exact thing happened when I started leafing through my newly acquired copy of the "GM's Survival Guide" for the _Legend of the Five Rings_ RPG.




okay.

while i would never beg for accolades, and would probably rebuff them anyway, i will take a moment to toot my own horn here. the L5R GM's Survival Guide was my first book in gaming. it would be my first experience with writing for 12 hours a day and i should have known then that i was destined for BIG projects.

ha

i wrote so much material that 80 pages were cut from it.

and it was nominated for an origins award.

a fact, i'm very proud of.

but when people meet me at cons, to this day, they still don't know who i am.

in various capacities i've worked on over 50 books for gaming (including the one word title books which i was the project lead on), and 48 adventure keep adventures. while few people know it, i've also art directed 11,500 pieces of art for various games at aeg. i don't go around listing my achievements, marketing myself, or otherwise "getting my name out there."

in fact, i'm not very good at those things.

steve long, ken hite, matt forbeck, chris pramas have all done amazing jobs of becoming household names in gaming by putting out great product and letting the work speak for itself.

it doesn't hurt that they are uber prolific either.

i have a lot of respect for them and the work they've done. and while making millions would be nice, i really never wanted anything more than to be the guy behind the screen, asking everyone to roll for initiative.

i see my prescene here as a honor. and i look forward to my two or three visits a day.

leaving the industry was NOT an easy decision and i hope in some capacity i can continue to create, even if its from the outside looking in.

thanks again for having me, and i promise.... this is the last sappy post.


----------



## dorentir

Hello;
Long time listener, first time poster here...
Jim Pinto, I am so glad you take the time to continue to offer support and suggestions to all the people out there playing your WLD.  I think its great you continue to be involved in supporting the product even though you are no longer with AEG and thank you for giving your time and creativity to the players and fans.
I bought a copy but haven't had much time to do more than marvel at it's size but I'd like to run it some time in the near future.  To that end, I have been reading Blueblackred's weblog, listening to RPGMP3's recordings when I can and am reading this thread... since I came to the WLD about a year plus after it hit the shelves I've had a lot of catching up to do...

I'm thinking of making a few changes to the rules in regards to this adventure and try them out and see how they work.  One of the ideas I'd steal from Hal from RPGMP3 in England is allowing magic users to scribe scrolls in the dungeon using improvised materials, thus building their spellbooks as they go.  I'd also let them access captured spellbooks.
One of the things that kind of bugs me about the skills rules in 3e is that thieves have access to "use magic device" but magic users do not.  I'm thinking of allowing magic users and clerics to take "use magic device" as a class skill.  If it is a device based upon an arcane spell, the cleric would have a hefty penalty to try to "use" it and vice-versa for magic users.  I guess I'm showing my age since I call them "magic users" and "thieves" but this would allow a magic user without an identify spell handy at least the chance to try to use a wand in order to hopefully find out what it does.  Of course, the misfire and mishap rules of Use Magic Device would apply.  If the magic user cast identify upon the item, he could activate it without a skill check or risk of a misfire.  I might create a misfire table with possibly fatal effects.

I'm wondering about how to start the adventure.  My thought was as follows --- the players are hired by a wizard/merchant who deals in books and scrolls and asked to track down an shop assistant who went awol with a few items that the merchant hadn't yet identified --- one of them might be an old scroll that describes the Carcerus Maximus in vague terms and possibly a rough map to its location, another might be the spell scroll that allowed the fiendish portal to open -- perhaps something else.  The assistant is, of course, Longtail in his human form... I'd give him a human name but the players would have a description of him and know that lots of folks called him "longtail" presumably because he wore his long hair in a braid down his back --- (they wouldn't know the nickname had another meaning).
Anyway, I've got to run -- these are the first of just a few ideas I wanted to kick around and see what others are thinking.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Jim, for what it's worth, the reason I even acquired the GM's Survival Guide (which took some doing, given how long it's been out of print!) was because when I asked, several groups of people affirmed that it was the single most useful and informative book in all of the L5R sourcebooks, period. Now that I've read it, I have no argument with this whatsoever.

For the WLD, I can't imagine what sort of work must be involved in order to put together a project of that magnitude - believe me, when you think about it in perspective, the few clerical errors are largely forgivable.

In short, your work has been consistently awesome, from what I've seen of it, and that coupled with your willingness and enthusiasm about providing support for the product, even when it's more than a year old and you've since left the gaming industry, makes a great experience for anyone who's interested in partaking of your work.

Sorry for the extensive back-patting, but good show, Jim. 

Now let's get back to killin' those PC's, eh?


----------



## jim pinto

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Now let's get back to killin' those PC's, eh?




oh god

i hope you mean the C

and not the P


----------



## Hussar

Heh, speaking of killing PC's, I just whacked the third PC in as many sessions... all by the same player.  I actually feel bad about this.  I mean, come on, sure death is a constant companion in the Dungeon, but the dice just REALLY hate this guy.  The last one wasn't even really his fault.  They are in Region B going through the Abandoned Halls of the Celestials.  After finding the flooded room with the gem, they decide to rest and get some spells back.  Instead of sending the trapfinder forward, because he's too chicken, they decide to send the half orc fighter into the icy water with a resistance to cold spell on him.  Fine, he swims to the other side, grabs the gem and ZOT!  40 points of damage from the lightning bolt and a failed saving throw and it was one crispy character.  They disposed of the body by taking it to the nearby hot room with the fireball trap and, while standing far back, tripping the fireball trap six or seven times until the corpse was cremated.  Effective I suppose.

Am I a bad DM for giggling the entire time this was happening?  

On another note, my World's Largest Adventuring Group has gotten off the ground.  Besides my group, there are two others running adventures.  We've been sharing resources, so, now, the entire of Region A is completely noded for OpenRPG, including room descriptions.  Any new DM will only have to cut and paste his way through the entire region, no prep work required.  Region B is mostly done, with a few tidbits to clear up.  I'm also working on a DM's master map of Region B which includes all the mobs, regions, traps and encounter conditions, all on one jpeg.  I'll send it to the repository when I'm finished.  We've also started giving out some map treasures for the party.  We figured that the creatures in the WLD would be making maps of the area fairly frequently, so, dropping annotated maps here and there would make things more realistic.  Here's an example of my very poor artistic skills:

http://shadowdragon.kelticmoose.com/WLD-DMPics/pics/Maps/BBearMap.jpg

If anyone is interested in running a game over OpenRPG, we're always looking for more DM's.  Getting players is easy.  Getting DM's is a trick.


----------



## Traevanon

The last three sessions have been a combat filled riot.  As you might recall at the end of last month the group had taken the task of killing Baltezzar the "troll" in trade for treasure from the giant queen.  

In the following session they encountered Baltezzar, who is just across the way, and defeated him in a massive battle taking most of the entire night.  The next week they returned to the Giant Queen to claim their reward, but unable to produce the head of Baltezzar (he dissipated of course) the Queen accused the party of trying to cheat her and attacked along with most of the remaining Fire Giants.  Another mighty battle was joined and the party eventually slew the Queen and her escort.  

They proceeded deeper into the Rings of the Pyrefaust, slew an Elder Fire Elemental who was killing Wyverns, and eventually freed an Ice Demon who after a short battle retreated via teleportation chaining out of reach of the party.  They camped at this point.

Last session when they returned to the Pyrefaust they found the rock face surrounding Tyrus' prison had collapsed revealing the sleeping dragon in his prison within a prison.  Invesigating slightly to the north in that area they saw the tower Sub-Dungeon that I had placed above N-1.  They slaughtered the devourer before hearing the information he had to trade.  The entire party has taken a Lawful Good turn now and prefers to slay evil rather than talk to it.

Then they proceeded up to the tower, which was guarded by two Iron Golems, then some traps, which werent meant to be encountered both at one time, but that's what happened.  This medium difficulty battle took quite some time due to the Iron Golem's resistances but eventually the PCs destroyed them.  Inside, in the first room a pack of Erinyes (fallen angels) normally lounge around, unable to leave the tower, but because of all the battle noise were prepared for the party when they broke down the door.  

Battle was joined, quickly turned dire when the party's AoE spells failed to penetrate the devil's spell resistance, then eventually turned around as the Astral Deva that's walking around with the party could barely be hit by any of the devil's arrows.  The Cleric of the party is a Thaumaturgist and has been waiting for the ability to summon something better than a Hound Archon for quite some time.

One character, the party's lockpicker and trap monkey died tonight to a repeated barrage of Unholy Blights.  He has been replaced by another rogue type who is a little more combat oriented.  Hopefully the player will stick with this one, he's known to swap characters quite often.

Anyhow the party camped in the tower's first room, fearing to set off the traps again on their way out.  The first night should be an interesting one, I'll let you know how it went in the next update in about another month.


----------



## Hussar

Been doing a bit of work on Region B and I've made a jpeg with all the areas, creatures, conditions and doors (locked/open) on it.  I've sent it off to the Downloads site, so hopefully it will be up there soon.  If not, here's a peak:





Hope this helps people.


----------



## DaveMage

Nice!


----------



## Jim Hague

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Jim, for what it's worth, the reason I even acquired the GM's Survival Guide (which took some doing, given how long it's been out of print!) was because when I asked, several groups of people affirmed that it was the single most useful and informative book in all of the L5R sourcebooks, period. Now that I've read it, I have no argument with this whatsoever.
> 
> For the WLD, I can't imagine what sort of work must be involved in order to put together a project of that magnitude - believe me, when you think about it in perspective, the few clerical errors are largely forgivable.
> 
> In short, your work has been consistently awesome, from what I've seen of it, and that coupled with your willingness and enthusiasm about providing support for the product, even when it's more than a year old and you've since left the gaming industry, makes a great experience for anyone who's interested in partaking of your work.
> 
> Sorry for the extensive back-patting, but good show, Jim.
> 
> Now let's get back to killin' those PC's, eh?




Along with Jim as contributing writer and project coordinator/line developer, there were a _ton_ of folks working on the WLD.  We all hate pinto, 'cause he got his name on the cover.   (Kidding, of course).  If it'd been one person writing...yeesh.  Scary thought.


----------



## JamesL85

Hussar's stuff is now posted.....

The stuff looks good, and is a welcome addition to the page....Thanks.

James


----------



## rvalle

Wow, thats nicer then the one I made. Very well done. I like the conditions at the bottom and the way the sections are colored.

Think you can have the rest of the regions done by this weekend?

 

Thanks,

rv


----------



## Hussar

^ smacks rvalle with a dead fish.

Heh.  Figure the boys (and girl!) will be heading into region C after this.  I'll get that one done when they start getting a little closer.  They've decided that they want to clear out every room and they started in the Celestial Halls.  I've already killed one PC and one NPC and given them lots of warnings, but, no, they feel that nothing should be left behind.  Sigh.  I wonder how many PC's I'm going to have to kill to get them to get going?  They must really enjoy making new characters.


----------



## rvalle

Drat. I'm pretty sure my group will be heading to E as they have already found an entrance to that region. Though after their first run in with the Shadows there they may turn back. One of the players HATES anything that messes with his stats or gives him any sort of minus. He's going to be SO unhappy.  

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to use my barely adequate maps. 

BTW, I just wanted to take a moment to add some praise to the book's layout. I love the fact that each encounter gives the full listing for each critter encountered, the conditions, tactics used, how to scale up or down, ect. The book is fantastic in this regard. 

rv


----------



## JamesL85

Hussar sent me another image of his map.  It's bigger (around 1 meg) because he didn't like the way the text pixellated when he shrunk it.  If there's a public outcry for it, I can create a pdf of that image....

Let me know....

James


----------



## Hussar

Thanks James.

I know, that's a brute of an image, but, if you download it straight to your 'puter and use it from there, you'll find that it's pretty easy to read.


----------



## Qwillion

I am always happy to see both jims around

Ok Mr. Hague my party starts into region E next session (this comming tuesday)

I went and modified and corrected some states and made some modifications (half-drow template to the creatures that were originally drow) those changes are to numerous to take up space here so I put them here
http://www.rpgmp3.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=7719#7719

I plan to have Maddness do a walk through on the party, returning to it's lair as it has just finished hunting and is tired. 

I have a read-aloud section for it's description based on it's type
_This Unwholesome creature has a body with the form and fluidity of an amoeba. Its surface has the color, but not the constancy, of dark bronze dragon scales, Countless horns, glowing red eyes, toothy mouths and bat-like wings constantly form and disappear all over the creature, often retreating into its body even as they become apparent. 
(It smells like spoiled meat)_

I have pregenerated the combat as I know that Maddness has ALOT of die rolls with the idea that the party will hear Maddness' Gibbering before they see Maddness. and taking into acount it's slow movement (this is using my updated movement from the link above as maddness normally only moves at 10, I increased his speed by 10 as a normal mouther is Medium and Maddness is Large, if you use the maddness in the book you will have to update distances.)

I am trying to be fair, but I want to be sure, but I believe maddness can make a full attack, improved grab, blood drain and attempt to engulf all on it's action, is this correct?

- 1st round (60ft) move 20ft and gibbering
60ft  gibbering: DC 20 Will save or be affected as though by a confusion spell for 1d2 rounds, immune if save 
d%------Behavior
01-10----Attack caster with melee or ranged weapons (or close with caster if attack is not possible).
11-20----Act normally.
21-5-----Do nothing but babble incoherently.
51-70----Flee away from caster at top possible speed.
71-100---Attack nearest creature (for this purpose, a familiar counts as part of the subject’s self).

A confused character who can’t carry out the indicated action does nothing but babble incoherently. Attackers are not at any special advantage when attacking a confused character. Any confused character who is attacked automatically attacks its attackers on its next turn, as long as it is still confused when its turn comes. Note that a confused character will not make attacks of opportunity against any creature that it is not already devoted to attacking (either because of its most recent action or because it has just been attacked).

-2nd round  (40 ft) move 20ft breath lightening and gibbering
60ft: Breath weapon line of lighting two creatures in the line
(8+5+4+1+4+8)=30  Ref save (DC 25) for half damage  

-3rd round  (20ft) move 20ft, spittle attack or bite attack, and gibbering
30ft spittle
Attack: Bite (11)+17=28 melee (1+1)+8=10) or spittle +8 ranged touch ((3)=3
acid plus DC 25 Fortitude save or be blinded for 1d4 rounds.  )

-4th round  (0ft) 5 ft step, Full Attack, improved grab, blood drain and gibbering
Full Attack: 6 Bites (19)+17=36, (14)+17=31, (3)+17=20, (11)+17=28, (3)+17=20, (6)+17=23
melee ((4+6)+8=18, (3+1)+8=12, (1+6)+8=15, (1+6)+8=15, (4+4)+8=16, (4+1)+8=13),  
6 grapples (9)+21=30, (2)+21=23, (5)+21=26, (6)+21=27, (1)+21=22, (14)+21=35
2 claws (15)+14=29, (7)+14=21 melee ((6)+1=7, (1)+1=2) 
and spittle (3)+6=9 ranged touch ((2)=2acid plus DC 25 Fortitude save or be blinded for 1d4 rounds. )

-5th  5ft step 5-ft Grabbed with 3 or more engulf 12 attacks on engulfed
Engulf DC 26 Reflex and 12 attacks
3 grapples (12)+21=33, (1)+21=22, (16)+21=37, (8)+21=29 and 3 points of Con
8 attacks (11)+21=32, (13)+21=34, (7)+21=28, (17)+21=38, (2)+21=23, (15)+21=36
(6)+21=27   damage: (4+5)+8=17, (6+5)+8=19, (2+4)+8=14,  (2+2)+8=12, (4+1)+8=13
(5+5)+8=18, (6+4)+8=18, (2+4)+8=14
8 grapples: (20)+21=41, (9)+21=30, (1)+21=22, (3)+21=24, (13)+21=34, (10)+21=31, (13)+21=34
(18)+21=39  and 7 points of Con damage

 6th round double move retreat

I have also done this for the Battle with 10 cloakers to help speed up that combat.


----------



## dorentir

*Player maps of WLD*

Does everyone use the print out player maps of the wld?  Has anyone done it "the old fashioned way" with graph paper?  I just don't like the idea of handing them a big map with every room marked -- even if the secret doors are not marked, they will easily find their way in as well as have access to info the really should not have.  I think it would be hilarious to have the players have no idea how big the dungeon really is... I could almost see clearing off a wall in my basement and tacking the maps up as they go --- hee hee --- if they kept going eventually they'd fill the wall from floor to ceiling.


----------



## Crothian

dorentir said:
			
		

> Does everyone use the print out player maps of the wld?  Has anyone done it "the old fashioned way" with graph paper?




I'm not though I was tempted.  But I've moved away from making mapping a challenge a while ago as we moved the focus of our campaigns from that type of thing to other parts of the RPG.    With the right group though it could be fun and challenging.


----------



## JediSoth

I don't give them the player's maps, per se. After each session, I'll give them a portion of it that corresponds to what they've explored so far. Once, to speed things along, I had one of the characters see the map in a drug-induced vision (I don't remember the exact room that was in) and gave them the whole player's map. I also had the Celestials in Region E provide maps of all the adjacent regions.

It really sped things up. At the beginning, I would spend an awful lot of time describing empty corridors. With the map, it makes it much easier 'cause we don't have to map out every inch of thousands of feet of empty corridors. But, they still have to find/earn the maps, I just don't hand them out willy-nilly.

JediSoth


----------



## BlueBlackRed

dorentir said:
			
		

> Does everyone use the print out player maps of the wld?  Has anyone done it "the old fashioned way" with graph paper?



I draw it on 11"x17" graph paper, then the players draw it on our lexan grid.
The drawback to that is that the map doesn't match up to grid lines in most of the regions.
Makes for some sad looking maps when 2 areas join together...


----------



## rvalle

Mapping in WLD is one area that using a program like Fantasy Grounds really shines. I drop the player's map from James's web site in, then zoom all the way down and drop the players tokens onto the map, then unmask the map as they move their tokens around in 'real' time. As they come to open doors I show a V pattern into the room to show their line of sight. When combat happens I drop tokens for the bad guys on the same map and we duke it out. When a trap goes off there is no question about where the characters are so you can see who gets hit. No need to ask for the marching order as they move their tokens down the hallway in the order they want to.  Very cool.

One of the players has already said how great doing the map is like this and how doing a map during a face to face game is going to seem painfull now.

rv


----------



## Traevanon

I draw the map out on a white board as they go.  I have a large enough board that I can leave it up from game to game.  Depending on how large I draw rooms I can get quite a bit of the map on there before I have to erase.  Down on the player's table we have a small board marked out to be a 60 foot section of 10 foot wide hallway they can set their figures on between encounters to indicate marching order, and then there is the battle board.


----------



## Traevanon

Qwillion said:
			
		

> Ok Mr. Hague my party starts into region E next session (this comming tuesday)




Of course you must mean Region I (Halls of Flesh).


----------



## JoeBlank

rvalle said:
			
		

> Mapping in WLD is one area that using a program like Fantasy Grounds really shines. I drop the player's map from James's web site in, then zoom all the way down and drop the players tokens onto the map, then unmask the map as they move their tokens around in 'real' time. As they come to open doors I show a V pattern into the room to show their line of sight. When combat happens I drop tokens for the bad guys on the same map and we duke it out. When a trap goes off there is no question about where the characters are so you can see who gets hit. No need to ask for the marching order as they move their tokens down the hallway in the order they want to.  Very cool.
> 
> One of the players has already said how great doing the map is like this and how doing a map during a face to face game is going to seem painfull now.
> 
> rv





Me too.

I hate "me too" posts, but rvalle said it so well. Without the players' maps I don't know that I would be running WLD on Fantasy Grounds. Any future modules that I run on FG will also need players' versions of all maps.


----------



## Qwillion

Yes region I (smacks the letter e around)


----------



## jim pinto

Traevanon said:
			
		

> Of course you must mean Region I (Halls of Flesh).




lee hammock wrote region e

(which incidentily required little to no editing... wink)


----------



## Hussar

While I use OpenRPG, not Fantasy Grounds, I couldn't imagine trying to do this tabletop and making the players map as they go.  In Region B, they found the Celestial map and I used Crimson Scibes map that removed the numbers and covered over the secret doors and rooms.  Makes for an interesting experience as they realize they can't entirely rely on the maps they have.

From now on, I plan to drop maps as part of treasure by most of the intelligent inhabitants of the Dungeon.  It makes sense after all to have maps, or at least map fragments.  After all, how many times do you want to blunder into that fireball trap before you tell your buddies "Hey!  Look!  Here's a map!  Don't go HERE!"

It's going to really help exploration I think.


----------



## jtone

My OpenRPG game continues.  The party is about a third of the way through Region A.  So far I have a core group of players who show up pretty much every week, and a couple that have shown up for one session or two.    The player maps are a huge help.  I'm looking forward to some of the higher-level regions.


----------



## Jim Hague

> Originally Posted by Qwillion
> 
> Ok Mr. Hague my party starts into region E next session (this comming tuesday)




Hoohah!  I loved writing I, even if Jim and I went around and around on the editing for it.   Hell, Q, you don't need any advice from me - you've already got it all worked out.  Though I'd advise picking up a couple of David Cronenberg movies before running, just for inspiration.


----------



## Soul

BlueBlackRed, no blog updates? =(


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Soul said:
			
		

> BlueBlackRed, no blog updates? =(



I'll get to it when I get the opportunity. Both work and home were hectic this week.
Sorry about it. In Toledo right now.

A little teaser, the entire party didn't die.
Invistis lived.


----------



## Soul

Ahh, that pesky real life stuff.


----------



## Qwillion

"Jim and I went around and around on the editing"

Yes I gathered you were one of those frustrating bastiches that Jim Pinto rants about (j/k), after I had to edit the Thrall of Flesh (heheheh)

Seriously, I find the Halls of Flesh really entertaining, I made up my soundtrack (I am currently using mydnight syndicate, dracula soundtrack, sleepy hallow, and constantine,)

I am trying to use some ravenloft dming techniques for this level, to enhance the terror, horror and grossness of the Halls, I have added the affect of blood flowing within the walls creating the sound of a heartbeat and the occasional quiver.

What do the walls taste like? (I have this bizarre idea that curing a disease will mean eating a piece of the wall)
What does region i smell like?

I have also changed the mundane appreance of every monster within the halls moreso, adding things here and there so they will be familiar, yet with a horrific stangeness

Another question for the Jim H, Jim P and the board: one member of my party, is a True Necromancer (priest sorcerer) he took a feat that means he is only healed by negative energy (from the libris mortis), and takes damage from positive energy, now there is also a legacy item he posseses that makes him takes +50% from positive energy, I have been trying to think of effects the halls would have on him.

 a few of the more nasty diseases that I can come up with.

1. I have been thinking that every hour up to his level per day he takes one point of damage. 
I think I will describe this as a flesh eating disease. 

2. I think I am going to have a bizarre disease affect the fighter, I am thinking he will not be able to sleep, nor gain the benifits of sleep. (It will probably make him immune to sleep as well)

3. The next disease I am thinking of would not allow a player to gain any benifits from food, the character would constantly be emptying her belly. 

I am not a big fan of diseases that just attack ability points and I want something that kills slowly and hinders the player but does not out right debilitate.  I will have to see how these play out right now I am thinking it takes a caster level check DC 25 for a remove disease to affect these diseases. 

Ok more next time.


----------



## Jim Hague

Flesh-eating disease?  No, no, my man - tumors is what you want.  Play it up to warn the PCs of the dangers of being damaged here.  Growth and mutation that quickly necrotizes thanks to the negative energy coursing through him...

Plague the fighter with horrific dreams, as he picks up on the sheer insanity of this place.  Maybe use a few dream visions to prod the party along...or perhaps they're sent by the naga in this Region to get the party working for her...

Unfortunately, I'm not much help with the diseases - ability point loss is a real pisser, but it's how D&D reflects the debilitating effects.  Perhaps some penalties to attack and damage instead?  Hmm...


----------



## jim pinto

Qwillion said:
			
		

> What do the walls taste like? (I have this bizarre idea that curing a disease will mean eating a piece of the wall)
> What does region i smell like?




the walls would taste like amneotic fluid (sweet salt water)
but probably smell like body order or a dirty neck



			
				Qwillion said:
			
		

> Another question for the Jim H, Jim P and the board: one member of my party, is a True Necromancer (priest sorcerer) he took a feat that means he is only healed by negative energy (from the libris mortis), and takes damage from positive energy, now there is also a legacy item he posseses that makes him takes +50% from positive energy, I have been trying to think of effects the halls would have on him.




nice



			
				Qwillion said:
			
		

> 1. I have been thinking that every hour up to his level per day he takes one point of damage.
> I think I will describe this as a flesh eating disease.




more a tumor or cyst... check out the cancer mage stuff in book of vile darkness



			
				Qwillion said:
			
		

> 2. I think I am going to have a bizarre disease affect the fighter, I am thinking he will not be able to sleep, nor gain the benifits of sleep. (It will probably make him immune to sleep as well)




i would require willpower saves from time to time because of how tired he is... and implement the effects of the nightmare spell... perhaps confusion for a minute or two a day

as someone who has gone 60 hours without sleep before, i can tell you that weird things start to happen... your teeth start hurting at hour 30 and you start hearing and seeing things better... but almost through a very thin fishbowl



			
				Qwillion said:
			
		

> 3. The next disease I am thinking of would not allow a player to gain any benifits from food, the character would constantly be emptying her belly.
> 
> I am not a big fan of diseases that just attack ability points and I want something that kills slowly and hinders the player but does not out right debilitate.  I will have to see how these play out right now I am thinking it takes a caster level check DC 25 for a remove disease to affect these diseases.
> 
> Ok more next time.




i would lower the DC check, but it only deadens the effect for 1d4 hours

and i agree with you about "personalizing" the diseases... but that needs to be done on a DM by DM basis... you have to know what your PCs will put up with

anyway

i'm off to gencon socal

peace


----------



## jim pinto

*non-WLD related question*

does anyone know of a good (random) NPC generation program for d20 (fantasy) that allows you to print out on index-card sized labels?!?!

or do i have to make something in filemaker pro?

thanks in advance


----------



## dorentir

jim pinto said:
			
		

> does anyone know of a good (random) NPC generation program for d20 (fantasy) that allows you to print out on index-card sized labels?!?!




I've used e-tools for this function.  It has a random npc generator where you can completely randomize everything (level, race, alignment, class, etc.), or you can choose to specify some or more elements.  With etools you are given the choice of stat output --- for my npcs I cut and paste the stat block into a word document, size the page for 4x6 index cards and print them out like that.
I usually generate the random NPC and then use the character editor to change it a little in order to make it a little less generic.  The NPCs generated usually have more magic than I like NPCs to have in my game.  The completely random NPCs that e-tools generates don't seem to be that different from one another --- if you ask it to generate 2 half orc fighters it will generate 2 that are very similar (or they may be exactly alike -- I'm not sure).
I've done this a fair bit and now have a little card file full of NPCs as well as commonly used monsters --- I don't like having to manage too many books when I DM and the index cards are just about right for low level NPCs and monsters.  Upper level spellcasters, though, seem to need 8x10 pages at least.
I like e-tools but normally use a Mac, so I have to use my wife's PC to run my etools so it isn't terribly practical for me.  My one criticism is that the random creatures aren't random enough -- all of the random 3rd level human sorcerors seem pretty much the same --- usually choosing the most logical and obvious feats and skills.  I've heard some people complain about the accuracy of e-tools --- but I've found the characters generated are far more accurate in terms of skill points, encumberance, etc., than my players tend to generate by hand so I guess we all have degrees of desire for pure accuracy and mine isn't that high.  I have a hard enough time getting the players with divergent schedules together for a game.


----------



## rvalle

jim pinto said:
			
		

> its actually covered in the book. if you read the blink dog entry, i believe it says LOS for teleportation and explain which regions where the wards have failed; in such cases, the PCs can teleport through the region ... just not out of it
> 
> (except the highest altitude in Region H)
> 
> ...
> 
> in an unrelated thread, i started a discussion about players
> 
> http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=154560&page=1&pp=40




I'm not seeing this. I've looked though Region B and I see the blink dogs but nothing extra about how their ability works (or doesn't) in the WLD. I've read the first part and looked for side bars as well.

This is what I see:

Blink (Su): A blink dog can use blink as the spell (caster level 8th), and can evoke or end the effect as a free action.

Dimension Door (su): A blink dog can teleport, as dimension door (caster level 8th), once per round as a free action. The ability affects only the blink dog, which never appears within a solid object and can act immediatly after teleporting.

Am I missing it somewhere else?

rv


----------



## jim pinto

rvalle said:
			
		

> I'm not seeing this. I've looked though Region B and I see the blink dogs but nothing extra about how their ability works (or doesn't) in the WLD. I've read the first part and looked for side bars as well.
> 
> This is what I see:
> 
> Blink (Su): A blink dog can use blink as the spell (caster level 8th), and can evoke or end the effect as a free action.
> 
> Dimension Door (su): A blink dog can teleport, as dimension door (caster level 8th), once per round as a free action. The ability affects only the blink dog, which never appears within a solid object and can act immediatly after teleporting.
> 
> Am I missing it somewhere else?
> 
> rv




ah

my apologizes then

i know we fixed it on the lantern archon and creatures of this nature

apparently some of the stat blocks slipped through the cracks

the onus rest entirely on me

sorry


----------



## rvalle

No problem. I guess the onus for how this works in my game rests entirely on me.



rv


----------



## jtone

Jim if you want to generate random NPCs you could look at RPGAttitude's NPC Designer.  The Game Ready Card gives you an index card with NPC information on it.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Soul said:
			
		

> BlueBlackRed, no blog updates? =(



Ok I've finally got it updated.
I typed it all at work. So tomorrow I actually have to work.
Tomorrow's going to suck.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Whew. I think the party is starting to realize that the game has shifted towards slightly more deadly. They're about to head for the Maze in Region B next session. I'm anticipating that that'll take one or two sessions to navigate.

It's been interesting to watch them try to deal with the intricacies of Region B. They headed straight into the Holy Goblin Empire's northern outpost, and managed to decimate most of them except Haglar (the hobgoblin jailer) who promptly dashed south to raise the alarm at the king's room. There, they exchanged insults with the goblin forces in the room before the king called a stop to it and asked for parley.

The long and short of it is that the party/players think that the king has an ungodly Sense Motive score, as he apparently saw through the sorceror's Bluff of 29.  (For those of you playing along at home, the 'goblin king' is a doppelganger. Remember, those guys get Detect Thoughts at will.  They're the ultimate lie detectors!) They don't necessarily trust him, but they're working with him for the time being. I have a feeling they're going to end up siding with the rebels and turning it into a real pitched war - especially since the king was smart enough to demand some extra security on the deal after the sorceror tried to bluff him into thinking they'd come right back with the rebels' heads, so now he's got a magic wand (not very valuable) and a gold bracelet from the dwarven cleric (very important to the character) as collateral.

They still have yet to find the bugbears. They have no rogue now, though. Oops.


----------



## dorentir

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Ok I've finally got it updated.
> I typed it all at work. So tomorrow I actually have to work.
> Tomorrow's going to suck.




I've been following your blog and am quite impressed at the level of detail of the combats you get in there.  I've been writing up session diaries from my own campaigns for a while now and unless I take a few notes and write up a rough draft fairly soon after the session, I have trouble remembering who did what to whom and how and when...
I'll say it again --- you do a really good job on the wld blog.  It makes me wish my player's characters were of higher level so I could toss some Liches and Mohrgs at them.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

dorentir said:
			
		

> I've been following your blog and am quite impressed at the level of detail of the combats you get in there.  I've been writing up session diaries from my own campaigns for a while now and unless I take a few notes and write up a rough draft fairly soon after the session, I have trouble remembering who did what to whom and how and when...
> I'll say it again --- you do a really good job on the wld blog.  It makes me wish my player's characters were of higher level so I could toss some Liches and Mohrgs at them.



Thanks!
My recall isn't quite perfect, but I get the best of it in there.
Like you, I forget more and more after a while. The combat with the lich probably had a couple more rounds in it than I remembered, but nothing of interest happened in those rounds.

I've got an MP3 player with recording ability. I figure with what I'm doing with the World Eater, Tyrus, and the upcoming Invistis fight, I'm going to need it to help keep things straight.


----------



## John Gaunt

*OT: Hastings = WLD in Clearance Racks*

This post is off-topic, but if anyone running the WLD needs a second copy of it, visit a Hastings near you ASAP.  The WLD is in their clearance racks for $9.99.  The remainder mark is on the shrinkwrap and not the book itself.  I hope my wife doesn't kill me when she sees the SRP of it.

I suspect that most Hastings have it, because two years ago I saw the same general selection of clearance books in both Greenvile, Texas and Billings, Montana.  Granted, that's only a sample of two, but Hastings is a chain.

Get to the Greenville, TX, location before I snag the remaining 4 or 5 copies for eBay.  

(Hastings is a chain CD/DVD/Software/Videogame/Bookstore located in the United States.)


----------



## Hussar

Well, my guys found the three elven corpses past the masher room in Region B.  I figured that they somehow came into the region from F.  With that in mind, I whipped up another map fragment for the party with some warnings.  I hope that this will entice them to better organize their movement.  Considering the map fragment actually has a pretty direct route through F into G, it might actually work.

On a side note, despite a warning from an ally and the evidence of several sessions, my guys set off EVERY TRAP in the Celestial region of B.  Three dead PC's, all by the same player.  Sigh.

Take a look at this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v79/Fuiche/dungeondressing/Elvenmapfragment.gif

and tell me what you think.


----------



## Qwillion

*Nature's wrath*

I was having such a fit about bland posions and diseases in the d20 system, well I just got a product to reveiw for d20 magazine rack called Nature's Wrath (the 3.5 version), If you plan to run region i, you should buy this book. It has additional rules for symptoms and conditions rather than just plain old ability damage. 

when I finish the review I will post the appropriate links here.


----------



## jim pinto

Qwillion said:
			
		

> I was having such a fit about bland posions and diseases in the d20 system, well I just got a product to reveiw for d20 magazine rack called Nature's Wrath (the 3.5 version), If you plan to run region i, you should buy this book. It has additional rules for symptoms and conditions rather than just plain old ability damage.
> 
> when I finish the review I will post the appropriate links here.




i was just about to say, the board has been awfully quiet...

this product sounds perfect for region i

yeah. one of my complaints was that d20 couldn't really capture what this region was about. all it does it zap your stats over and over again. and the region needs to feel opppressive and scary in a different way....

cancerous legions and foot fungus and crotch rot

..... hey! there's a great new book. d20 crotch rot.


----------



## Traevanon

I dont have any developments at the moment because the party is going through the sub-dungeon I added.  Its kinda funny, the party always knows they have left the regular WLD when the dungeon turns vertical instead of horizontal.  The last one was a snake pit with downward levels, this one is a tower.

The party is just getting into the meat of the plot.  It will probably be about 3-4 more sessions before they leave the tower and start into region N.  The tower is run by Athor Defiers (manual of the planes) who are attempting to escape the dungeon by creating and expanding their own pocket dimension beyond the boundaries of the wards.

They have enslaved many outsiders (mostly devils so far) to study.  So on the off chance that the Celestial Garrison discovers and attempts to stop their plot (rather than the PCs) the hordes will be loosed to battle them.

Of course we will never see the result of their experiment, but the final battle inside a custom pocket dimension should be interesting.


----------



## Hussar

I'm also not going to be adding too much for a while.  Heading home for the holidays (YAY!) and not going to be playing for a while.  

I would be very interested in that book though Quillion.  Look forward to the review.


----------



## JediSoth

My "reboot" went extraordinarily well. For the first time in 19 sessions, we had a truely balanced party. There was a pseudodragon rogue, a dwarven fighter/deep rift defender, a halfling warmage, and a gnome favored soul (a NPC to make up for an illness-related absence of the player who said she was making a cleric).

I told everyone to either bump their existing character up to level 9 or make a new character at level 9 (if they'd died or were just tired of their old character). I started them off in Region G. I had them wake up with the hound archons in G1. Since the only surviving character there was last played during the session when Region I was totally immolated, it was an easy transition. His last memory was narrowly escaping a fiery death and now he woke up surrounded by intimidating celestials.

The hound archons told them in no uncertain terms that they were not welcome here; they had too much to do to coddle a bunch of mortals. If they wanted to do something useful, they could take care of that pesky basilisk to the west. So, the PCs were reunited with the NPC they lost in Region A (he was knocked through the portal in Longtail's room by an Ogre) and they set off to kill the basilisk. Naturally, they didn't know it was an Abyssal Greater Basilisk, but that didn't stop them. They all took precautions to ensure they wouldn't be subject to its gaze attack and the fight ensued. It was shaping up to be an epic battle, but the pseudodragon stung the basilisk and I rolled a 1 on its save. The tiny character took out the huge monster and they coup de graced it to death.

So, after two rounds of combat, they sauntered back to the hound archons with the head of the basilisk. The hound archons were so impressed they asked them to recover that Flame of Aranel thingie. So they headed east along the river of lava and encounter the Vrocks in the magical darkness. Technically, an easier encounter than the basilisk, but it took them the rest of the gaming session to kill the Vrocks because of all their immunities. The PCs used up approximately 80% of their resources before emerging victorious.

It was the first session where I felt the PCs were actually challenged in the last dozen or so games. Sure, Madness was tough, but only one PC came close to death in that encounter, and they had no clue how to truely kill it. But since I've restructured the group to take out the disruptive power-gaming hack'n'slashers, the WLD is a challenge once again, rather than being just a huge depository of easy XP (and I was increasing the encounter difficulty prior to the reboot).

Proof that a balanced party (or an unbalanced one) can make all the difference between a repository of fun and a suppository of anguish for both the DM and the players.

JediSoth


----------



## rvalle

We just finished Region A. Took 12 game sessions run about one a week... so 3 months. In game time was about 5 days.

Most notable encounters:

The battle with the kobolds. I messed it up by forgetting about all the rubble and beds in the room. Still turned out to be a great fight.

Battle with the Owlbear. This was great fun (for me  ). The Owlbear ended up going early in the init order and closed with the party so the fight took place in the doorway. At first they thought it was a tough fight with an Owlbear. Once they realized it had SR and 5 points of DR they were pretty freaked out. They were on the verge of running when the beast finally went below 50% Hp's and retreated back into the room. One only player had gone down and Owlbear didn't bother killing her as she had done no damage. She was just in the way as he was trying to get to the ranger that was hitting him with arrows.

Not an encounter you would think of as being memorable... but one of the random encounters was interesting because it caused the only party death so far and for the RL issues it brought to a head. Mostly my fault really but I'm not too broken up over it.

The party was in the Long Hall where the big battle had taken place. I rolled an encounter and it was 4 orks. I had them enter the room from a side door just as the party was passing it by.

Now, one of the players and I have issues with each other's playing style. He is a " I'm here to do damage" kind of player where most of his characters are basically him with different weapons. In this case, he as playing a dwarven Cleric. To give an example of his idea of 'role' playing he did this at the start of the encounter: Rolls a d20 "I made my will save so I don't attack them on sight". 

So some dialog starts up... a 'who are you' 'Well, who are YOU' sort of thing. After about 10 seconds of this the player has hit is limit... "All right... enough of this. Lets get this over with. I walk up to the Orks and attack them."

I was taken aback by this as I had not planned on them fighting... So I start to flip though the book knowing there was the Ork section in there. Orks... Orks... There they are. Whats the stats? The first stat block is for Ork Barbs. Ok, fine. They are 4 Ork barbs.

The fight starts and during the orks turn they all rage and go to town. The party knows this has taken a turn for the worse.  

Now, one of the players is playing a dwarf who is the brother of the above dwarf. During the last adventure he had touched the red gem in the hidden throne and was cursed. He knew about the curse and was going to cast 'Pro from evil' on himself if fighting started (I allowed this to negate the curse effects while the Pro was up and running). I make a on-line log of what happened during each adventure but none of the players had bothered to read it... so the 'problem' player had no idea his 'brother' had been inflicted with said curse.

So... once the fight started he had to start rolling for the curse effects. Spent most of the time cowering. This leaves 3 other party members (all 3rd level) to deal with the 4 raging barbarians. Two of the orks take out their rage on the dwarf that started the whole thing and end up dropping him to -9.

Only two players left and they are getting scared. They have managed to drop one ork and wound another 2 pretty bad. The gnome bard gets a sleep off and sleeps the one uninjured ork. The other two, pretty banged up, decide to run for it. One gets cut off and is dropped. The other runs... and drops as his rage wears off and he loses his extra Hp's!

While this is going on the player rolls his 10 and does not stabilize - so he dies. 

He tried to give me flack about it later. "What were 4th level creatures doing there so early in the dungeon? You could have taken out the whole party with that fight".

My response to him was that he made an assumption that 'They were only orks' and just wanted to kill them and move on as they were a nuisance to him. We had a pretty heated discussion where I pretty much told him he shouldn't play with me running any more.  A couple of days later we decided to give him one more chance and he's doing better. Him and his girl-friend are now running the two Lizardmen that the party has rescued.

After that night I looked though the ork section in detail and realized my mistake... there was only one barb in the room. Having 4 of them wandering around was a stretch. Hmmm...

If they had made it to the orks I was going to have to bump that number up a bit and write the 4 off as having been a strike team that was cut off during the chaos of the region. Works for me.  

The players are now entering region E. I'm taking a couple of weeks off to get the map and region ready. Main problem so far is where to move the Shadow Hound leader as his current location makes no sense. Moving him down to the block of rooms with the rest might be a problem though as any encounter will turn into a situation where all the hounds run to the fight and overwhelm the party. Still... this is probably where he will end up.

rv


----------



## Veldan Rath

*Thank God for Ebay*

After all of the thread reading...I got up the gumption to go crusing on ebay for the WLD.

I just won it for $32.66, including shipping!

I will be springing this on my group for the next campaign

Till then, happy hunting!


----------



## DaveMage

Veldan Rath said:
			
		

> After all of the thread reading...I got up the gumption to go crusing on ebay for the WLD.
> 
> I just won it for $32.66, including shipping!
> 
> I will be springing this on my group for the next campaign
> 
> Till then, happy hunting!




Welcome to the fold, Veldan - and good luck with the WLD!


----------



## rvalle

jim pinto said:
			
		

> ah
> 
> my apologizes then
> 
> i know we fixed it on the lantern archon and creatures of this nature
> 
> apparently some of the stat blocks slipped through the cracks
> 
> the onus rest entirely on me
> 
> sorry




Hey Jim,

I think I've found what you were thinking about. The entry for one of the Garrison members has a bit in there about their Teleport ability. It says they can only do it to line of sight. Just letting you know you have not completely lost it. 

And now a couple of questions... Region E at the front says something about how the Glyph traps always damage evil creatures. I'm taking that to mean that most of the traps will not go off when non-evil creatures hit them. This should be the vast majority of the traps in this section.

Some of the text in E makes reference to creatures trying to escape from below. Was this a left over from WLD starting to be a typical vertical dungeon? I reread the front part and the history of E and neither one says anything about other levels.

I don't have to book but from memory it was the Shadow Hounds that have this bit and one of the Garrison members makes reference to it as well.

Thanks,

rv


----------



## Max Rebo

Hey everybody!
Long time lurker.  Finally decided to throw up a post.  With the thread dying down as of late, I figured I'd try and get something going.
(now lets see if I can figure this out...)
First of all, I play with 3 other people ( I DM, obviously ) and we're up to 10th level.  So far the path we have taken has been A to E then to A (shadows are tough at 1st level!) then to B, C, back to B and up into F.
They're currently wandering about the maze and just killed Grauki ( actually that darn elf wizard, Durtenian Vaielle in Grauki's body) because they reasoned they would have to fight him eventually.
The party's dwarf barbarian critical hit him and ended his life before he got to do anything all that cool.  (Same thing happened with the much hyped Longtail, but thats another post ). I figured they would find the real Grauki and switch bodies but that idea has gone out the window.  They handled "Grauki" no problem, but the minotaurs that stormed in right as he died were another story ( I rolled my first ever WLD instant-kill on the dwarf! )

So, anyways, I was wondering how you guys have incorporated the non-SRD monsters into the book and where.  I was thinking of making Mahir in region I a beholder, since it fit the theme of aberratons.  I was also thinking that he could be a mind flayer.  
Any suggestions?  

Have you used any monsters from other WOTC books with cool results?  I've been trying to find a cool thri-kreen spot as I really like their look.  My idea has been to try and throw in all of my favorite monsters by the end of the game.  
After about 25 games, Im half way there!


----------



## jtone

We're still in region A and we had my party's first character death last night.  The dice gods were frowning upon my party last night - fighters couldn't hit the side of a barn due to crappy rolls (one rolled 6 or 7 rolls below 5 in a row).  The rogues spotted a metal box on a pedestal.  The elven rogue missed his disble device check by 2, then really blew it on his retry and triggered the trap.  After the trap was triggered (yellow mold pouring out of the box), he flipped the box open again.  This time the yellow mold sucked the rest of his constitution out and left him dead and covered in yellow mold.  The dwarven rogue who was also searching the room was less than impressed at his fellow rogue's clumsiness.


----------



## rvalle

Max Rebo said:
			
		

> Hey everybody!
> Long time lurker.  Finally decided to throw up a post.  With the thread dying down as of late, I figured I'd try and get something going.
> (now lets see if I can figure this out...)
> First of all, I play with 3 other people ( I DM, obviously ) and we're up to 10th level.  So far the path we have taken has been A to E then to A (shadows are tough at 1st level!) then to B, C, back to B and up into F.
> They're currently wandering about the maze and just killed Grauki ( actually that darn elf wizard, Durtenian Vaielle in Grauki's body) because they reasoned they would have to fight him eventually.
> The party's dwarf barbarian critical hit him and ended his life before he got to do anything all that cool.  (Same thing happened with the much hyped Longtail, but thats another post ). I figured they would find the real Grauki and switch bodies but that idea has gone out the window.  They handled "Grauki" no problem, but the minotaurs that stormed in right as he died were another story ( I rolled my first ever WLD instant-kill on the dwarf! )
> 
> So, anyways, I was wondering how you guys have incorporated the non-SRD monsters into the book and where.  I was thinking of making Mahir in region I a beholder, since it fit the theme of aberratons.  I was also thinking that he could be a mind flayer.
> Any suggestions?




Wow, how the heck did the players survive all the way to E at 1st level? I started my players at 2nd level an max hp's. It took us 3 months of real time and 5 days of game time to make it to E. I've made the charactres 4th level now (I'm just giving levels based on where they are in the dungeon: 3 per region).

I tried to add some critters to A. I added some fiendish wolfs which the players found. I addes some giant fiendish scorpions (eating some of the Darkmantels near that string of Darkmantle rooms).  I have Bastion Press's Complete Minions  as a PDF and a Fantasy Grounds add in so I added some 'shock beetles' to one of the rubble rooms but they were never found. I also contimplated swapping out the Ogre for a 'Boarclops' but when they found that room there was only two characters there. I was a bit worried about them even taking an Ogre but he couldn't hit the dwarf and called for a truce.

I don't think I'll make any changes to E as all the groups are pretty clanish and tight. I do really like the idea of adding a Beholder somewhere though.

rv


----------



## Max Rebo

Actually, by the time they reached Region E they had all died at least once.  The ogre killed half the party by itself.  I rolled a critcal. 
I think this happened around the 3rd or 4th session.  They wandered around a bit and decided that this was too tough.  smart call, actually.
The party's cleric got roasted by that hallway with the fireball trap in E.  By the time they left, their strength was in shambles.  The barbarian was racked up badly by the shadows. They had to hole themselves up in a room while he recovered.  

I had established beforehand that other groups had entered WLD and never came back.  That way their new PC's would just be members of the old groups that had become separated from one another. 

I also added some fiendish scorpions in Region A and it went over well.  The wolf idea isnt bad, though.  Wish I wouldve went with that.  It just sounds vicious.  I also put in a few abyssal maws (from Chainmail) since I went through the hassle of painting the lil' bugger.
And a fiendish baby dragon (white or blue, i cant remember) and a fiendish bladeling because I'm weird.


----------



## jim pinto

Max Rebo said:
			
		

> Hey everybody!
> Long time lurker.  Finally decided to throw up a post.  With the thread dying down as of late, I figured I'd try and get something going.
> (now lets see if I can figure this out...)
> First of all, I play with 3 other people ( I DM, obviously ) and we're up to 10th level.  So far the path we have taken has been A to E then to A (shadows are tough at 1st level!) then to B, C, back to B and up into F.
> They're currently wandering about the maze and just killed Grauki ( actually that darn elf wizard, Durtenian Vaielle in Grauki's body) because they reasoned they would have to fight him eventually.
> The party's dwarf barbarian critical hit him and ended his life before he got to do anything all that cool.  (Same thing happened with the much hyped Longtail, but thats another post ). I figured they would find the real Grauki and switch bodies but that idea has gone out the window.  They handled "Grauki" no problem, but the minotaurs that stormed in right as he died were another story ( I rolled my first ever WLD instant-kill on the dwarf! )
> 
> So, anyways, I was wondering how you guys have incorporated the non-SRD monsters into the book and where.  I was thinking of making Mahir in region I a beholder, since it fit the theme of aberratons.  I was also thinking that he could be a mind flayer.
> Any suggestions?
> 
> Have you used any monsters from other WOTC books with cool results?  I've been trying to find a cool thri-kreen spot as I really like their look.  My idea has been to try and throw in all of my favorite monsters by the end of the game.
> After about 25 games, Im half way there!




ha.

great post.

i think this is the first ever post about region F.

i worried that the design of this region was self-indulgent and didn't suit the needs of DMs and PCs. but NOT having a maze would have been suspect.

feh

50/50 i guess

and i want more details about that dwarf getting it. haha.

as for the beholder and mindflayer... they are perfect for I and M (where i wanted to put them originally, anyway).

the two would make excellent puppet masters behind the scenes of the drow mage pupper masters... layers upon layers.... although that would take some work to pull off.

lots of rewriting.

as for a thrikreen...region d... working with the formians and xill

perhaps as a taskmaster


----------



## jim pinto

Veldan Rath said:
			
		

> After all of the thread reading...I got up the gumption to go crusing on ebay for the WLD.
> 
> I just won it for $32.66, including shipping!
> 
> I will be springing this on my group for the next campaign
> 
> Till then, happy hunting!




woohoo!

and it only took 1250 posts to convince you it was worth it

now that's grassroots marketing

enjoy


----------



## twofalls

Still showing up about this post eh Jim? I have to admit I haven't dived into this post in months and months, but I saw your name on the last post list so thought I'd wander in. 

I'm glad to see that folks are still getting excited about picking this phone book of a module up. We had a lot of fun with it, and still talk about going back in and doing some more adventuring.

Chat with you later.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

My two groups are still going strong - they've actually met up right now. They started together (all 9 people!) and then split up once I realized there was no way I could GM for 9 at once. Well, they've met back up again temporarily, transcending time and space. (Whoever made up 'The Box' on the WLD resources website, thank you. That thing's been awesome. My players _fear_ the Door now.)

Anyhow, the players were getting mildly cranky at the lack of RP interaction, so I brought them together, one group who was on their way to kick Longtail's ass in Region A after falling prey to a very NASTY kobold ambush which decimated their group (bringing it from 10 [5 PCs and 5 orc NPCs, all Level 3] to 3 [3 PCs]) and another group who was in the middle of the Maze in Region B. They had a little fun inside the extradimensional space that is the Box itself, before being spat out into...

Caergoth!

An extradimensional city that floats in the middle of swirling nothingness, people find their way in and out. Run by a triad, which includes a member of the landed aristocracy, a church leader (Heironeous, if you're interested), and a mysterious mage who lives in the tower that sits at the top of the city, Caergoth has provided a lot of much-needed interaction and selling of swag.

Of the party of 9 that went in, a total of 3 remain alive. The makeup looks like this:

Group 1 - The Nutbusterz (Party level 4)

Zoolfik Turen - Gnome Paladin (Original) - This paladin of Garl Glittergold knows he's one of only a few who are willing to juggle the mantle of law and Garl's chaos, but he holds it with pride while striving to stick to his own code.

Formock Silversong - Gnome Sorceror (Original) - Part of a family that owns and operates a chain of taverns, he ventured in to make a name for himself. Now that he's in Caergoth, his dream is within his reach once again. Specializing in illusion magic, he's been a great boon to the party's offenses with his trademark Color Spray.

Mara Pakuri - Human Expert/Fighter (New) - A dungeon delver and student of the planes, Mara has been manipulated by outside forces for as long as she can remember. She has just woken up, dripping salt water, in a strange sewer, and found herself surrounded by a bunch of strange adventurers....

Duntuchmi - Thri-Kreen Monk (New) - Leaving the tribe for his travels and for reasons only known to himself, Duntuchmi, who took his name from the first thing a human ever said to him, carries an unique burden as he takes up travel with a certain group of destiny.

The Nutbusterz, when inside the Prison, are also aided by a small group of kobolds led by Boyikt, a kobold wizard, and a pair of lizardmen, Slissth and Kalhiss. For some reason, they were left behind when the Door sucked in the rest of the party.

Group 2 - Brawn over Brains (Party level 3)

Xoth Greycloud - Human Monk (Original) - The last survivor of the original adventuring party in this group, Xoth attemps to reconcile his monastery's teachings with the debauchery and carnage he sees in the world around him.

Wuril Balderk - Dwarf Cleric (New) - The brother of the now-deceased Thorin Balderk, a dwarven fighter who entered the Prison with the group, Wuril fights on in his brother's name, attempting to become powerful enough to bring Thorin back from the dead and tell him that he has been pardoned for his crimes back home.

Zak Skitterfeet - Halfling Rogue (New) - On the run from the law, Zak is simply trying to stay alive and keep his back to the wall. Granted, he doesn't like it too much when walls turn into doors that try to suck him in.

Feredir Mithrandir - Elf Ranger (New) - Poisoner by trade, Feredir is a master of the bow. His motives remain unclear, but his skill is unquestioned, and he seems to know what he is about.

Tarrin Waywocket - Gnome Chaos Mage (New) - Unsatisfied with the restrictions of typical magic, Tarrin has decided to harness a new sort of power. He is beginning to realize, however, as strange voices whisper in his ears, that he may actually be in over his head for the first time in his life...

After cleaning up a little bug problem in the sewers, Group 2 will most likely be heading back to the Prison, whether they like it or not, while Group 1 will remain for a few more days... Maybe long enough to pick up those Rings of Sustenance they ordered, or maybe not. 

Most amusing bit of inter-group advice: "Stay the HELL away from any doors with Draconic writing. We're serious!"

Other inter-group snippets: "Wait, you have the orc chieftain's axe? So do we... Weird!"

"What, so we BOTH lost our clerics?"

"Told you the kobolds were the best way to go."


----------



## Max Rebo

Thanks for the thri-kreen suggestion, Jim.  I havent read Region D yet but I should.  My group is dying to know where the tarrassque will show up at but I dont quite know if they'll get to it.  
Has anyone got to Region D?  I have yet to hear of any exploits there or under the sea in K or L.  I think it may be just too tempting to go though Region N.  
Region F to G to H to D would get em there I suppose.  But Ive been letting the group choose their own fate, so I'll entice them but if they dont bite, so be it.  I find it more fun to DM if I can be surprised, too.

Garmin Slit-Throat, dwarven barbarian, was the ass-kickin-est fighter-type I ever seen.  To be honest, I was bummed that he died.   He was just one of those pure damage machines that balanced out the rogue and cleric.  I always roll my critical hit rolls in front of the players for a more dramatic effect.   That way they know Im not fudging the dice.

There was also Mogar, the minotaur, who travelled with the group for a while (we used the Savage Species monster advancement rules) all the way until they met Saraas the medusa.  She turned him to stone.  While not dead, he might as well be.
He died right before he met up with any of the members of the Broken Axe or Red Horn tribes.  He was a member of the Broken Axe and it was going to be all role-playing encounters with those guys.  But now its straight up brawling.  Surprise.

My all time favorite death was in Region C, after the party had hunted down the hill giants as a favor to the Gnashing Fang tribe, they decided to hunt down Nardarik.  They killed the dragon with no casualties (except for the goblin lackey that used to be the Norendithas Stoneshaper statue) but then went into the room with the mimic bookshelf.  After celebrating how easy the dragon was (damn Garmin with his criticals) they were decimated by a bookshelf.  It killed the groups wilder with a gluey tongue beatdown.  Heh.

I found Region F works if the combat breaks down into swarms of minotaur reinforcements that hear the battles ensuing.  Kind of like the goblin scenerio in B but WAY scarier.
Especially at my groups level 10. 
I think next session they'll encounter the gyrosphinx.  Anyone know any D&D-ish riddles I could use?  It seems that the sphinx encounter demands one.  

And one last question.  Wheres the ideal spot for some slaad?  I'm trying to squeeze all of my groups favorite beasties in and they like themselves those chaos frogs.  

And thanks for checkin in on us WLD nerds, Jim.  You made a very cool book.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Google tends to have some good riddles - it's come in handy for the encounters where I've needed them.

My first take on slaad would be to stick them in the mine region - the one that has the formians and the xill, and oh yeah, the tarrasque. That way you can keep the chestburster idea going in there by having the derro be implanted by red slaad. Wouldn't be a bad idea to have a whole slaad colony running there.  They might even replace the formians, although I really like the idea of the formians and their captive queen in there.

Oh, and I forgot to mention - the group that's met Argliss is cursing his apparent '+20 sense motive modifier.'  A doppelganger's Detect Thoughts ability is so much fun.



> We're still in region A and we had my party's first character death last night. The dice gods were frowning upon my party last night - fighters couldn't hit the side of a barn due to crappy rolls (one rolled 6 or 7 rolls below 5 in a row). The rogues spotted a metal box on a pedestal. The elven rogue missed his disble device check by 2, then really blew it on his retry and triggered the trap. After the trap was triggered (yellow mold pouring out of the box), he flipped the box open again. This time the yellow mold sucked the rest of his constitution out and left him dead and covered in yellow mold. The dwarven rogue who was also searching the room was less than impressed at his fellow rogue's clumsiness.




The Box claims another victim! That one killed one rogue in one group of mine (they headed there RIGHT after cleaning out the stirge nest, so he was already down like five CON) and damn near killed another rogue in the second group (down to 2 CON).


----------



## DaveMage

twofalls said:
			
		

> I'm glad to see that folks are still getting excited about picking this phone book of a module up. We had a lot of fun with it, and still talk about going back in and doing some more adventuring.




I think the WLD is one of those products that, if you like the basic premise of Dungeons & Dragons (go into the maze, fight monsters, take their stuff), you just have to try.

It's just so...cool!


----------



## Crothian

DaveMage said:
			
		

> I think the WLD is one of those products that, if you like the basic premise of Dungeons & Dragons (go into the maze, fight monsters, take their stuff), you just have to try.
> 
> It's just so...cool!




I agree.  Heck, my one player who dispises dungeon crawls even wanted to go in this sucker.  There is something fun and challenging to make this work, keepo the interest, and eventually get through it all.


----------



## jim pinto

Max Rebo said:
			
		

> I found Region F works if the combat breaks down into swarms of minotaur reinforcements that hear the battles ensuing.  Kind of like the goblin scenerio in B but WAY scarier.
> Especially at my groups level 10.  I think next session they'll encounter the gyrosphinx.  Anyone know any D&D-ish riddles I could use?  It seems that the sphinx encounter demands one.
> 
> And one last question.  Wheres the ideal spot for some slaad?  I'm trying to squeeze all of my groups favorite beasties in and they like themselves those chaos frogs.
> 
> And thanks for checkin in on us WLD nerds, Jim.  You made a very cool book.




i told you, the worst thing about this project is i'll never get to play it. so, your nerdie posts are my way of vicariously joining your adventures.



even if i've read the same story about region A 600 times, now.

but, despite the work, i'm really glad everyone likes this dungeon.

hats off (again) to all the people i thanked in the designer notes.

slaad ... region k. no doubt. toadie underlings to the dragon.

gith... region g. trapped with the glabrezu.

umber hulk... region f.... working with the medusa... or region k... as the leader of the salamanders.

carrion crawler.... anywhere but n. but i think A would be perfect (to mix it up), eating some squidies or orcs or kobolds or something.

displacer beast... region c or f.

yuan ti... also servants to the dragon j.

or enemies of the elves in h... fighting to take the tower. they worship the tree, and believe it to be THEIR god.

kuo-toa... j or l... preferably not in the dungeon at all, but its your game.

did i miss a creature?

riddle... didn't the sphinx offer a riddle on the legion of super heroes cartoon?


----------



## DaveMage

jim pinto said:
			
		

> did i miss a creature?




None that I can see.


----------



## Max Rebo

jim, whats your beef with kuo-toa?  its like one stole your prom date or something!
I like your ideas of where to put the slaad and yuan-ti.  
I think the yuan-ti would add a combat element to H that would really change things up.  
And giving Thorodin the slaad toadies make him a much more memorable encounter in K.
And the umber hulk in F does work well.  Way ahead of you on that one.

I've been using carrion crawlers whenever the heroes stumble back into a room where complete carnage broke out.
They, for example, bartered a deal with Guk and the rebels, safely passing through their area unscathed.  They, then, battered a deal with Gahrr'k, leader of the Gnashing Fang, to go and kill his hill giant enemies.  When they returned to the Gnashing Fang grounds they found out that Guk only let them pass thinking they would kill off his hated enemies: the gnolls.  The Gnashing Fang and rebel goblins were in a huge battle in C38 and they both thought the PC's had betrayed them.  They had traded Gahrr'k Argliss' rod of wonder.  When he tried to use it on them, he turned himself a foot tall!  Kind of anti-climatic, but i rolled it, damn it.
Anyway, they stayed in one of the prison cells and awoke to carrion crawlers devouring the flesh on all the bodies.  (Kind of a long winded story, I know, I know)


----------



## CZHorse

*Riddles*



			
				Max Rebo said:
			
		

> I think next session they'll encounter the gyrosphinx.  Anyone know any D&D-ish riddles I could use?  It seems that the sphinx encounter demands one.




For riddles try http://riddles.cloudkingdom.com/Riddles/Archive.aspx.  They usually have some good ones, that are easy to use.


----------



## jim pinto

Max Rebo said:
			
		

> jim, whats your beef with kuo-toa?  its like one stole your prom date or something!




more like... prom date was the fish-on-top kind of mermaid.

hope everyone has a great holiday

let's see if the new year brings more WLD posts

peace

btw...

i'd love to read stories from people that DIDN'T start in A


----------



## Qwillion

Ok I am still waiting on d20zines to post my review (personal delays)

So in the last game, the fighter has a non-sleeping disease using some ravenloft rules, it is wonderful to watch him roleplay being dead tired. (exhasution + nightmare) he has the occasional hallucination, when it does not distract from game play, the best was the halls of flesh growing a face that was watching him.

The uber healing positive energy cleric has been gaining temporary hit points and strange warts and cysts he has a deep seeded fear that he will explode if he ever reaches double his hit points.  He looked like a cornered rat when I double the amount of temporary hit points he gained from the day before and double that again the next day. 

the true necromancer just takes hp damage but if he does not heal (with negative energy) it by the end of the day it becomes permanent hp loss, so that has weaked his (spell casting) a bit, so he has been relying on his undead cloaker he created.

In the middle of all this they fought Maddness.  Maddnes pounded them until the arcane trickster started tossing sonic fireballs (rolling to twentys in a row for SR check) and the cleric stone shaped a mace from the wall (after cutting away the flesh)  and then they cast magic weapon on the maces, which was then given to the fighter.  

the uber healing cleric would have died the next round but alas the defeated it (after much role play and discussion with the dark naga they know it will come back.)

The party is currently in search of Longtail in the region using the true necromancer's weasal familar's scent abiltiy. 

I am using this to lead them toward anguish.   

The party is currently walking on egg shells as other players are waiting to hear about thier disease, and are concered about anguish have learned that it is a Chimera. 

I plan to take a moment or three and write up a modifed Anguish, plus my advanced Maddness.


----------



## Qwillion

*Nature’s Wrath: A Guide to Poisonous Plants and Infectious Diseases*

http://www.d20zines.com/html/module...=article&sid=1739&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

here is the reveiw of nature's wrath, it finaly got posted.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Alright.
The most recent gaming session did not go quite the direction I had expected.
But it wasn't a bad session. Not in the least.
Because the party has obliterated much of the region's BBEGs, this gave them and Invistis free reign of region N.
I was able to use that to push the story along. Since the party had so conveniently defeated the other warlords, Invistis had made a deal with the Shadow King. During the last session, each of the levers keeping the Walls of Force to the World Eater's lair were turned off one by one by an Iron Golem.

The session ended with the defeat of Invistis's minions and the fleeing of Invistis. He has placed all 3 of his keys into the bronze doors.

Now all that's left to do is for the party to place their only key, the ruby star, into the last bronze door (I think it's the western door).

On January 6, unless they go and do something way out there (which is not a rare occurance for them), they will be fighting the World Eater.

This is not a final listing of what there will be to fight, but it's probably pretty close:
- 10 skeleton hordes, with each individual skeleton getting the HD bonus for a total of 1800hp per horde.
- 4 of Quillions Knights of Ruin's Wrath with mounts.
- 50 Dread Wraiths (yes that many have fled from the party or not been discovered by them).
- The 5 skeletal pyrohydras
- Several small groups of minor undead that are more fodder than anything else.
- Invistis, who will receive from the World Eater a level of Archmage (in addition to the 3 levels of wizard I gave him).

I have several little tricks up my sleeve that I'd rather not go in to as of yet. My players may be reading this thread and I want to keep them off-balance.

I expect the combat to last at least 5 hours once it is started.

The only potential wild card would be the 2 scrolls (Freedom & Imprisonment).
I'm still considering how I want to handle them.
But the party definitely knows that they mean something.
Come on, how many scrolls have you found that are written on flash-paper that refuse to leave the region and can't enter and Antimagic Field?


----------



## pokedigimaniac

BlueBlackRed, I've been looking forward to seeing you run that battle since your group entered that region. Best of luck to you!


----------



## Qwillion

"4 of Quillions Knights of Ruin's Wrath with mounts."

technically Kavilljor Ur-wrathi is a template are you just using the example?

If you are I hope their is some one who is immune to fear, I the playtests that have been run it was funny to watch everyone just run away for the first round. 

I am looking forward to hearing how it goes.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Qwillion said:
			
		

> "4 of Quillions Knights of Ruin's Wrath with mounts."
> 
> technically Kavilljor Ur-wrathi is a template are you just using the example?
> 
> If you are I hope their is some one who is immune to fear, I the playtests that have been run it was funny to watch everyone just run away for the first round.
> 
> I am looking forward to hearing how it goes.



I'll have to reread the Fear rules, but I don't consider it a problem.
Whenever a spell is cast for buffing or whatnot, the group has a notecard for each spell, it makes things that much simpler for everyone.
For the biggest of battles, everyone usually has a dozen cards in front of them.

I said Knights of Ruin's Wrath because it was easier to remember and spell.
And yes, I basically took the template and maxxed the hp.

I do a large portion of the planning at work. So that limits time and since the PDF you gave me has plentiful artwork, I took the easy route   

Man I would love for the other books I own to put in the SRD format. No pictures, editable, and searchable.


----------



## Qwillion

from the playtesters notes:  

remember fear effects stack 

If you make your save against a _fear_ spell effect you are shaken for one round.
So against the Kavilljor Ur-wrathi (Knight of Ruin's Wrath) it is a given people will be frighted or panicked for at least one round.

Encourge players after the first round to use spells that make them immune to fear or just fight the creature from a distance.


----------



## Max Rebo

We just played a great game.
My group is still in Region F and were entering F62, where they were ambushed by the minotaur rogue.  The ensuing noisy battle drew the attention of Gartuk, who got three of her Red Horn cronies to assist in seeing what was going on.
The party killed all the minotaurs except Gartuk, who they knocked out and tied up.  The party's shadowdancer had his shadow companion drain all of Gartuks strength and they drug her to F75.  There they bargained with those 3 minotaurs for safe passage out of this region.  (They had gone through a teleport door a LONG time ago and now they're confused about which direction is the way out.)
The minotaurs agreed they would tell the group if they let Gartuk free.  The minotaurs told them to head into F77 without telling them Rashmarik the rakshasa was in there.  Rashmarik had time to summon Evards black tentacles and cast invisibilty on himself.

A LONG battle ensued between Rashmarik and the party.  The minotaurs joined in and a 19 round battle began!  Probably the longest battle I can remember running.
The groups fighter ended up running from F77 to F74 to F64 and back again (he got lost!) and denied the group their dual-scimitar wielding damage machine.

They couldnt get past the rakshasa's DR or SR.  Finally they got him flanked and were able to kill him with all the sneak attack damage from the rogue.  One round later, the fighter FINALLY got back (after like 11 rounds of running around!) having backtracked his progress to where he made the wrong turn.

Anyways, this ended up being my favorite fight so far, although the goblin fights in B had me laughing pretty hard, too.

F79 proved interesting since two of my goofball players now had a rod of wonder (one from C and the other was Rashmarik's).  The dragon disciple sorcerer (who now rides on that damned flying carpet he found) managed to turn himself 5 inches tall and on the next round he summoned an elephant!  The rogue managed to summon a patch of grass and then a pointless rainbow (they all made their saves.)  The combat with the remaining Red Horns made the elephant scared and it attacked evryone it saw!  It was promptly slaughtered.

( I decided the 5 inches tall thing would be temporary since it made it really time consuming to figure out his new AC due to size and all that crap.  The rogue is STILL purple, however, caused by the same rod like 4 games ago.)

They made their way to F99 and finally F100.  It was here that the half-orc cleric decided to summon a hound archon.  On the spur of the moment I decided to have him be from Region G.  I realize that fudges the rules a bit but it was cool and that wins out in my games.  It seemd like a novel way to spread info about another region.

Ive been handling summon spells by having the creatures stay in the dungeon after the duration wears off, with the caster losing control of said creature.  Celestials tend to be non-aggressive and the fiendish go balistic.

I had the hound archon befriend them after the cleric healed him.  I thought this was a good way to learn about Region G since it was looking like they wont go there.  We stopped at that point, with the hound archon insisting he return to his guard duties since his post was under attack by a horde of demons.  That got their attention.

I may put a teleport door in F96 to avoid the inevitable backtracking.  Or maybe in that intersection of dead ends to the left of F100.  They still havent realized that they went through one in F90.


----------



## jim pinto

Qwillion said:
			
		

> from the playtesters notes:
> 
> remember fear effects stack
> 
> If you make your save against a _fear_ spell effect you are shaken for one round.
> So against the Kavilljor Ur-wrathi (Knight of Ruin's Wrath) it is a given people will be frighted or panicked for at least one round.
> 
> Encourge players after the first round to use spells that make them immune to fear or just fight the creature from a distance.




remember that living creatures in region n are always in a "shaken" state


----------



## BlueBlackRed

So many things that I've forgotten...
Well I guess this will be the paladin's time to shine.


----------



## jim pinto

*sweet*

max!! black!!

i want to play in your games...

especially in black's before the big sh*t happens in N.

damn!

that sounds awesome

and max... we need a round by round account of that battle.... what level is the party?

was the combat a challenge? anyone go down? get hurt?

sneak attack on a rakshasa, huh?

<looks sideways>

alright. so it's a slow work day.

enjoy your games


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> So many things that I've forgotten...
> Well I guess this will be the paladin's time to shine.




then i guess its time for panic, when the doors swing open


----------



## Max Rebo

The party has a 10th level rogue shadowdancer, a 9th level human fighter with a double scimitar and the improved critical feat, a 9th level human sorcerer dragon disciple and a 10th level half-orc cleric of Pelor.  They are high level for this region so Ive been using some of the encounter adjustment options in the book.
i leave some the same, however, so they feel like they're really gaining power.

The first round they walked into F77 where the rakshasa had already boosted himself up with mage armor and invisibility.  They bartered with the minotaurs in F75 for several rounds and Rashmarik heard them.  
The room (F77) was crawling with evards black tentacles.  The party never encountered this spell before so they thought they could hack their way through.  I ruled that the fighter could take 5 ft adjustments each round to try and pass through the tentacle area but that it provoked a LOT of AoO.  It made the whole thing cool and cinematic.  The rakshasa (which I "voiced" in a calm and sinister tone) was taunting the party while the minotaurs were helping Gartuk.  I also fudged the idea that these minotaurs propped her up and she could talk, ordering them to attack.
Of course, by the rules, this was impossible with her having a strength of 0, but it made the encounter even crazier and fun, so that won out over the rules.

Rashmarik cast around 4 or 5 lightning bolts during the course of the encounter which would arc out and blast everyone in their path.  His backwards paws crackling with electricity helped him to stand out as a memorable villian.  

He also summoned a fiendish crocodile for the party to fight.

The fighter, Zynn Battlereach, tried to make his way through the tentacles trying to get to Rashmarik.  The shadowdancers shadow companion went through the wall to try and find the rakshasa but Rashmarik blasted him with a lightning bolt and killed him!  
The dragon disciple had a fire elemental familiar that was killed by one of the minotaurs.  So BOTH of their companions were slaughtered during the course of this fight!

Eventually the rakshasa fled the room when Zynn got close enough to him (I had changed up spells to give him fly).  Recasting invisibility he flew down the tunnels and into the northern corridor of F75 (right behind the strengthless Gartuk).

Zynn got through the room EVENTUALLY only to find the creature gone.  So he chased after him not quite having the area figured out.  He went right instead of left going to F74 then to F66 then F64 trying to find his way back.  I think he wasted like 9 or 10 rounds doing this alone.

Gartuk stood up as the last of her minotaurs were killed (again, fudging rules in sake of the cinematic).  She started to speak but fell over dead as the rakshasa stood behind her, having just killed his worthless "ally."

The rogue moved into the hallway with the cleric. The half orc was trying to summon a fiendish wolf on the following round, so the rogue could sneak attack.  However, Rashmarik _compelled _ the rogue to leave him alone and the plan was foiled.  When the rakshasa tried to blast the cleric and rogue with the last of his lightning bolts two rounds later, the rogue got to make another save and realized he was duped.
(As all this happened, the fighter was running around trying to get back.  Heh!)
The cleric also attempted to dismiss rashmarik but he made his save.
She summoned the wolf again 2 rounds later.  ( She like summoning crap!)

The sorcerer couldnt overcome the tigerman's SR, so he went into F77 (right after the tentacles spell finally wore off) looking for anything to help.  He was still zipping around on his flying carpet, looking about for any magical items.  He found the chest but not the key so he was screwed.  He had no way to open it!
No fighter and the sorcerer couldnt do anything!

By this point, its time to stop.  But we cant.  Not until this is FINISHED, by gum!  The real world will have to wait.  You cant stop mid-encounter!  Theres an unwritten law, damn it!

The rakshasa's DR was too much for the group without Zynn so the rogue came up with a plan:  his rod of wonder.  The chaos this thing brings to the game is always great.  Elephants.  Rainbows.  Purple skin.  Its always a good time.  
The first attempt was a fireball which was used when the minotaurs were still kicking.  This time brought about the slow spell and it couldnt of come at a better time.  The rogue grappled Rashmakik and tried to shove his flask of poison down its throat.  The vial shattered.  Rashmarik bit the rogue.  The plan had failed.

Eventually the rogue got the rakshasa flanked and gave him the ol' sneak attack like 3 rounds in a row.  The fiendish wolf tripped him after it bit him.
The fighter ran in a round later to kill the fiendish wolf that the cleric summoned and lost control of (since they dont unsummon in my game.  They stay there like everything else.)

Thats about as "round-by-round" as I can remember.  It was 19 rounds afterall!

The dice rolls in conjunction with what the book said and what the PC's did, made the encounter great.  The stars aligned.  Great stuff.
And thanks for checking in, Jim.  Have a great new year!

(We might play tomorrow.  I'll post if anything cool went down!)


----------



## jim pinto

*19 rounds, eh?*

you da man, max!

that was great. personally, i love it when the PCs are really challenged by an encounter.

have a good new year, gang (i might be back on friday to chat)


----------



## Xiag

Ouch... lost a few pages here.

Well, welcome back guys.


----------



## Crothian

Well, it took a while but a sinlge PC made it out of the WLD.  Jim, thanks for a lot of fun and weekends of great gaiming material.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

I'd say 600 posts (1/3 of this thread), is a tad more than a few.


----------



## Hussar

Lost quite a few pages actually.  Ouchies.  I have a copy of the fantastic file that Pokedigimaniac did compiling the ideas for the Dungeon. I'll post it back up when I get home.  That should help.

I am in need of a bit of inspiration.  I've got the beginning and the end of a plot, but I need something in the middle.  Let me 'splain.

The party is about to enter Region G.  In addition to this, the party will also be in possession of a fairly powerful weapon known as Blackrazor.  Blackrazor has the ability to "eat" those it kills, sucking them into the weapon and making them unresurectable.

As G stands, there is really no point in trying to assassinate Cylerbrai.  Evalyn has the abilities of a 17th level cleric, meaning she can True Res.  Even if someone did manage to off Cylerbrai, they'd have to do in the planetar as well.  Not too likely.

However, now there is a weapon floating around that can do the job.  Blackrazor is just what the demons need.  Get the weapon, send in a Babau assassination squad and do the deed.  The trick is, how do I get the weapon away from the party and into the demon's hands without simply offing the party (no fun), DM's fiat (again, no fun) and in a fun and realistic way.

I'm thinking the demons could send a succubus or two to try to charm Blackrazor away from the party.  Failing that, perhaps enlisting Narla the tiefling assassin to off Blackrazor's wielder and steal it.  

Maybe an idea is just to randomly toss theft attempts at the party as a means of keeping them going.  Babau hit squads, succubi, that sort of thing.  Eventually, they are going to get very tired of things and go to the heart of the matter. 

This sounds so lame though.  What can I do to jazz it up?


----------



## Max Rebo

Wow.  This sucks.  Lotsa valuable info gone.    

Well, we played this past Sunday after an extremely lengthy absence.  The ENTIRE session involved M65 and then M64.  It was just two massive brawls of drider and golem goodness.  Nothing makes me smile more than a player rolling a crit against a golem, get really happy, and then remember its a construct!  
In M65 they were sucking hard but finally managed to open a cage for some assistance.  They chose the lamia who I roleplayed quite sinister.  They finally decided to do it and the lamia, furious at his captors, lept out attacking a flesh golem.  Long story short, the lamia died as did the driders, it was as near a TPK as can be rolled without fudging, and they allied themselves with Melody and Windshadow.  
M64 they fought more driders and more golems.  A cool moment was when I decided Windshadow would let a PC ride him in battle.  The combat needed a little something special and that seemed to work (rules be damned!).  Plus, when else can you have mounted combat in a dungeon crawl?  Not very often.  
We never even finished the fight in M64.  These encounters turned out to be really fun.  I didnt know what to expect.  Kudos, WLD writers!

The other thing is I plan on taking Jim's suggestion he made many posts ago (probably now deleted.  *sigh*) of having a beholder controlling the Spider Kings.  I'm going to have that off-tunnel to the left lead to a vertical cavern system for something different.  Im even thinking about it leading to an exit!  I'm still debating that one, though!  I thought it would be cool to lead to a cliffside high above Region M with the "true" leader of this region revealed.  I likes me beholders!

Anywho, lets all retype all those posts we made these past 5 months!!!!  Anybody?  hello...?  oh...


----------



## Xiag

Hussar said:
			
		

> ...
> 
> However, now there is a weapon floating around that can do the job.  Blackrazor is just what the demons need.  Get the weapon, send in a Babau assassination squad and do the deed.  The trick is, how do I get the weapon away from the party and into the demon's hands without simply offing the party (no fun), DM's fiat (again, no fun) and in a fun and realistic way.
> 
> ...
> 
> What can I do to jazz it up?




Don't have the Demons take Blackrazor... have the demons take something else to TRADE for Blackrazor.  Power, fame, .... a way home, a chance to put the whole dungeon behind them,... and it can be theirs, if they only turn over the sword...

Short of that, find an ally the party likes.  Perferbly someone weak, who couldn't defend themselves, and hold them for ransom.  And if they flinch and don't give the sword, have the demon kill the friend, and offer to release the victim's soul for the sword.  Make sure the demon reminds them that he won't be offering more over time... but less...

There's always the "have the demon show a vision of the PC's home town" reminding them that he can't leave, but he has friends on the outside, and with the PC's here, who will protect their families...?

A little over the top, but come on... they're DEMONS!


----------



## Hussar

As promised, here is the compilation thread for the past while.  Lots of just unbelievably way cool goodies in there.

Xiag - not a bad idea.  My guys are into the rp well enough that they might go for it.  Maybe.  Although, really, they're going to smell a trap a long ways off.    Paranoia is a good thing sometimes.

Was thinking of this:  a shapeshifted succubus with non-detection sets up a mock ambush with a pair of babau, maybe a vrock, something dangerous, but not too much so.  The party swoops in to rescue the fair maiden and she insinuates herself into the party.  This might even be good enough to get her taken into the Celestial camp as well.  She snaches the axe while they are sleeping, and makes the attempt on Cylerbrai.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Well, if folks want to put the work into it, the thread IS cached on Google. I've found at least the last page - other pages might be more challenging, but I'll leave it up to the Google-fu of those who know more about it than I do.

And I find it amusing just how useful my little copy-paste document has turned out to be in the last few months.


----------



## Hussar

*bows before PDM's skillz!*

Seriously dude, that file is just jammy.


----------



## Xiag

Hussar said:
			
		

> As promised, here is the compilation thread for the past while.  Lots of just unbelievably way cool goodies in there.
> 
> Xiag - not a bad idea.  My guys are into the rp well enough that they might go for it.  Maybe.  Although, really, they're going to smell a trap a long ways off.    Paranoia is a good thing sometimes.
> 
> Was thinking of this:  a shapeshifted succubus with non-detection sets up a mock ambush with a pair of babau, maybe a vrock, something dangerous, but not too much so.  The party swoops in to rescue the fair maiden and she insinuates herself into the party.  This might even be good enough to get her taken into the Celestial camp as well.  She snaches the axe while they are sleeping, and makes the attempt on Cylerbrai.




That's not bad either.  If you'd like to go for the double whammy, have the demon latter "kidnap" the maiden and go with previous trade for her life... the party will be steaming when they find out what really happened, but depending on your group, might enjoy it as a 'plot twist'.

As for your players being paranoid, I've found the only way to hide a trap is with another trap.  Have them so worried about trap A, that they walk right into trap B.  The best part of this is they blame themselves when they're done because if they had been paying attention they wouldn't have walked into it.

Or just go with warring demons.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.  They may side with a weaker demon just to avoid the full wrath of the more powerful one.  And that aliance may cost them the sword, they probably won't know the full cost up front "I require a magic item to help you, do you agree?" (I just didn't say WHICH item).


----------



## Hussar

Oooh, I like the kidnap the chippy.  That could tie in quite nicely.  Since she can't really afford to go into the celestial base - planetar's have true seeing after all - she could get yoinked just before they get in.  Baddies teleport in, grab the chick, drop a bomb of some sort and teleport out.

Nice twist.  I am liking it lots.  Thanks.


----------



## rvalle

Oh no! This doesn't mean I have to restart my game to where it was back in Dec does it!?




Hussar. Do the demons even know about the sword yet? I guess they would find out pretty soon once it was used against them. 

You might have to leave the 'girl' with the party for a while in order to build up any kind of relationship with them. Maybe she can help fight off some demon attacks.

rv


----------



## Dracorat

Ouch this thread got hit hard by the forum crash.

Jim, you had asked about a PDF with random names. I know of no such thing, but I can recommend a program that does a wonderful job. It is call "The Everchanging Book of Names."

Linkage:

http://ebon.pyorre.net/


----------



## jim pinto

Crothian said:
			
		

> Well, it took a while but a sinlge PC made it out of the WLD.  Jim, thanks for a lot of fun and weekends of great gaiming material.




you are welcome, mon ami


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> As G stands, there is really no point in trying to assassinate Cylerbrai.  Evalyn has the abilities of a 17th level cleric, meaning she can True Res.  Even if someone did manage to off Cylerbrai, they'd have to do in the planetar as well.  Not too likely.




Demons have sooo many tricks up their sleeves. Sending him into a state of catatonia, insane, or perhaps scattering his ashes into the lava should stop the true res. Especially if the demons kill Evalyn.



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> I'm thinking the demons could send a succubus or two to try to charm Blackrazor away from the party.  Failing that, perhaps enlisting Narla the tiefling assassin to off Blackrazor's wielder and steal it.
> 
> Maybe an idea is just to randomly toss theft attempts at the party as a means of keeping them going.  Babau hit squads, succubi, that sort of thing.  Eventually, they are going to get very tired of things and go to the heart of the matter.
> 
> This sounds so lame though.  What can I do to jazz it up?




since demons don't work well together, i recommend sending four different waves of demons against the PCs, each with a different way of trying to get the weapon. eventually it is determined that the PCs must destroy the weapon, because nothing will stop the demons from trying OVER and OVER again to get the blade.

does that help?

p.s. sorry we lost 600 posts

everyone still got their fingers and toes?


----------



## jim pinto

Dracorat said:
			
		

> Ouch this thread got hit hard by the forum crash.
> 
> Jim, you had asked about a PDF with random names. I know of no such thing, but I can recommend a program that does a wonderful job. It is call "The Everchanging Book of Names."
> 
> Linkage:
> 
> http://ebon.pyorre.net/




got it

and yes

this thing rocks on toast

sadly, no eastern euro or turkish names for raavnia.

new post for blog, btw


----------



## Hussar

Well, there is one way to stop the demons from coming - kill all the demons.  

I'm figuring it will work something like this:  Piddle around in the region for a while and have some fun with the demons trying to nick the axe.  Then, someone is going to have the brainwave to go back into C, and attack the demons from behind in order to get the flame thingie back.  If successful, the demons are going to launch an all out offensive because they know that once the flame is restored, the game is over for them.  I figure on running it similar to a Heroes of Battle type scenario with four or five consecutive fights culminating in a big blowout with probably the Marilith, just because I want to use her.  Each fight will feature various elements of the region and different locations.


----------



## Hussar

Jim, while there is a problem with scattering Cylerbrai's ashes - True Res doesn't need a body and I'm sure Evalan would know his pedigree well enough to cast the spell - your other idea is great.  There are, AFAIK, three factions of demons all trying to free the big whatsit.  While they are all working together, the one that actually frees K will certainly win all sorts of bennies.  I could see the three groups working at cross purposes, even making "mistakes" to make sure the other two don't get the axe first.  

Could make for some serious fun.  Gleb sends in a Succubus to try to charm the axe away, but Gwar, seeing that it might work, sends in Vrocks to snatch the Succubus and lead the party to him.  Nasherbiz, not to be outdone, wastes the Vrocks and the Succubus and then lays his own trap.  Cool.  I'm liking it a lot.

Question though.  Area G88 talks about the Infested Stream.  Does that mean that the entire lava river is filled with Dretches or just the area near the demon's base?  I kinda like the latter actually - lets me make random assaults on the party easier as bands of dretches pop out of the lava only to get slaughtered.  Makes keeping tabs on the party pretty simple though.


----------



## Kafkonia

I just got the WLD in the post (inspired by reading page after page of this thread, and finding it on the cheap.) This thing looks monstrous -- and I haven't even gotten it out of the shrinkwrap yet! 

It looks like it will be well into the summer before I even have a chance at running this, since we're about to start up a short homebrew game, but that just means I'll have more time to read it over and prep it.

If anyone's familiar with the gruesome anime _Gantz_, I'll be using a similar conceit to kick off the WLD. The characters have all died, or are pretty sure they died, and now they're being put through the ringer for the amusement of some preternatural being. I'm thinking I'll start them at level one, but if they have their hearts set on playing an LA+1 character I'll let them take one with a single NPC class level. Thoughts?


----------



## rvalle

Kafkonia said:
			
		

> I just got the WLD in the post (inspired by reading page after page of this thread, and finding it on the cheap.) This thing looks monstrous -- and I haven't even gotten it out of the shrinkwrap yet!
> 
> It looks like it will be well into the summer before I even have a chance at running this, since we're about to start up a short homebrew game, but that just means I'll have more time to read it over and prep it.
> 
> If anyone's familiar with the gruesome anime _Gantz_, I'll be using a similar conceit to kick off the WLD. The characters have all died, or are pretty sure they died, and now they're being put through the ringer for the amusement of some preternatural being. I'm thinking I'll start them at level one, but if they have their hearts set on playing an LA+1 character I'll let them take one with a single NPC class level. Thoughts?




Cool idea! Mess with players minds right from the start. Brilliant!

I started my players at 2nd level and am glad I did. The first part is pretty deadly. I remember seeing some posts about dm's who killed 12 or so characters in Region A alone!!

Ummm, whats going to happen to your players that do 'die'?

rv


----------



## Traevanon

True res cannot res the truly sick or aged, so you can have Evalan tell the party that Cerlebrai is too weak to be True Rezzed.

Or you can have the Demons Soul Bind him or something, that is what I did.  I have Glabshayy (a rogue type IMC) a scroll of Soul Bind and huge UMD.

By the way, the Glabshayy battle occurred in the 4-way intersection between rooms G78, G79 and G82.  The party was rushing to attack while the bulk of the demons were distracted by the Children of the Light and the Celestial Garrison, and were down many spells.

It wound up with a sort of pre-battle against several vrocks and a succubus, about the time that battle subsided, Glabshayy arrived with two Marilith overlords and things turned grim for the party.  Glabshayy was somewhat ineffective, due to most of the party being immune to his sneak attacks (Kelvezu MM2), but he did constantly greater dispel them so that the Mariliths could be more effective.

Blade Barrier at will is grim.  Especially in a long 4-way corridor.  Mariliths have this power which, when combined with high spell resistance and confined quarters, produces a bad state of affairs for the party.

Ultimately the party members had to retreat toward Glabshayy's throne room where the Flame of Aranas was being kept.  Then everything turned upside down as the Anti-gravity trap went off.  I made this a bit grimmer by having built in 5d6 spikes on the cieling.  A lucky crit from the Orc took down Glabshayy on an opportunity attack...

All in all it was a great battle.  I think that the Orc's player Joe will remember it for a long time.

Now the party is heading into Region N, though I'm still a bit confused over who has what pieces of the puzzle to lock down the World Eater.

I've told the party that they have to enter the World Eater's chamber and discharge four ward staves (they only have three) on the forcefield to recharge it (an on the fly call, I didnt know they were headed to N today).  Hopefully that doesnt screw things up too bad storywise.  The world eater will probably already be broken free by the time they get there anyhow.


----------



## Kafkonia

rvalle said:
			
		

> Ummm, whats going to happen to your players that do 'die'?
> 
> rv




If they die in the WLD, you mean, since they (think they've) already died outside? I'll be treating it as a normal death -- raise dead and reincarnate possibilites, *if* they have the appropriate spells/allies.

If they want to bring in a new character instead, they can do so -- following the guidelines in the DMG (ie one level behind the avg party level.) I'll be handling the introduction of the new characters fairly simply -- the Gantz-knockoff brought a new "player" into the "game" for his entertainment.

(If you don't know Gantz, the closest comparison might be Saw.)

My players know in advance this can be something of a meatgrinder, and I'm going to be making them roll up their characters.*eg*


----------



## Xiag

Not wanting to be left out, here's my groups accounting for their first night in the WLD:

The party entered the dungeon and carefully scouted the first room.  After finding nothing of interest, they opened the door to the north and heard a cough come from their right.  The fighter threw caution to the wind and charged straight at the source of the noise.  The rest of the party followed close behind.

Before the orcs could react, the bard shot one (critical hit), and dropped him.  The others, now outnumbered 3 to 1, dropped their weapons and accepted whatever fate was to befall them.  The wizard and druid both chastised the party for attacking something that couldn’t harm us, and began trying to talk to the remaining orcs.  They got some basic info out of the orcs, and left some food for them.  They then headed directly to the trapped door to push deeper into the dungeon.

With no rogue in the party (yeah, I’m a bit worried about that to), they got caught in the trap.  The orcs chuckled, but most of the party pushed on.  The fighter who originally led the charge stayed behind to make sure the orcs didn’t follow.  Which he did…by killing them, no one else in the party knew this.

They found the secret door to the room full of dead lizards and kobolds.  The fighter was able to withstand the stench, but the gnome wizard who went in with him rolled a 1 on the check.  So, I had him retching from the stench, and had to make a second fort check to regain composure and get out of the room.

They went through the north door, (not having found the other secret door yet), and found the moldy crates, etc.  Immediately they marched up to them and started ripping them open, releasing the black mold.  Everyone made their saves, but they became a bit more cautious with the rest.  They tied an iron spike to a rope, and began tossing it at the sacks and crates breaking them open and releasing the spores from a distance, planning to search the crates after it was safe.

And then everything went black.  All the noise had attracted two dark mantles.  Here’s where we came up with an inventive way to handle the darkness.  I have a rather large cylinder, about exactly the same area as a darkness spell.  We put it down over the area, everyone in the darkness tells me what they’re doing, and then we lift the cylinder up and see if they run into each other, or if they’re attacking their friends, etc.  Amazingly, all accidental damage occurred outside the darkness.

The dwarf fighter took 6 points of damage from the first attack, and managed to pull it off his face.  He lost control of it the next round and it flew back into the darkness.  The other fighter caught the second one full in the face (5 pts), and stumbled backwards out of the darkness.

The druid tried to help the fighter by stabbing it with her dagger.  She rolled a 2, (I ruled 1 or 2 would hit him instead), so she nicked him for 2 pts.

The one in the darkness had now glommed on to the bard, and dropped him (took him down to -1).  The druid went to help, and …. rolled a 1 again.  So, now he’s down to -6.  The mage tried to kick it (also rolled a 1, but only 1 damage) -7.  The fighter who had just pulled the squid of his face had it fly back into the darkness, took his chance to remove the one from the now unconscious bard.  (It took 6 pts of damage).  The wounded mantle began fleeing down the hall, and the other one flew at the dwarf, which rolled a critical hit with his axe.  The darkness dropped, and the human fighter charged the fleeing darkmantle and managed to take it out with out any more damage.  The druid healed the bard, and  the wizard decided to finish mapping the room. He poked his head around a corner, and found the acid arrow trap.  Thankfully some people made their listen check, and managed to pull him back.

With everyone taking so much of a beating from an encounter and trap, they decided to rest here.  During which time they experienced two tremors, and heard the acid arrow trap go off again.

When they went to investigate, they found the body of one of the orcs from the first room.  (Started going with the zombie scenario, but they haven’t figured that out yet).  The acid trap finished him off.  The staked a board from the crates to the wall to block any more arrows coming down the hall at them, and made their way towards the south door.  They found the stone working tools and took a couple, just in case.  They then found the secret door (since the knew the orc had to get here somehow), and thanks to some chalk marks the druid had been leaving, figured out that they had made a circle (even though the map wasn’t quite to scale originally).

Deciding it isn’t worth facing the firetrap again, they decide to brave the morgue again.  Most of the party makes it through with little problem.  The mage starts retching, again (I might give him a disorder because he rolled a 1 both times).  Since the bard wasn’t having a problem with the smell, he decided to search the bodies, and found a lovely case of filth fever.

Making their way back into the second room, they find another orc dead at the firetrap with a squid around his head.

Continuing on to the door to the east (north of the two) they head in.  Search the room and the corpse within, then push into the next room.  At this point they’ve started checking the ceilings.    A search from the door way had the wizard spot the darkmantle.  The bard and dwarf take up positions in the door planning to drop it with their bows.

Initiative went Dwarf, Darkmantle, Bard.  The dwarf forgot to load his crossbow (rolled a 1), the darkmantle darkened the doorway, and the bard missed with his shot.  

The dwarf charged in to push through the darkness, the darkmantle missed him, and hit the floor where he was standing.  The human fighter, missed with his attacks.  The mantle flew up at the human fighter and missed, but the fighter took another attack next round, and missed himself.  The darkmantle flew back at the human, missed, and as it came by, he swung and critically hit it.  With the way clear, they took a breather, since it wasn’t as bad as last time, then pushed on.

They listened at the next door, and heard the rats scurrying about.  They prepared some flaming oil and peeked in.  They saw the large rat watching them from the door across the room.  Lobbing some flaming oil at it, it turned and ran.  The fighter tried to leap the flames and… failed.  Horribly.  Luckily the only damage was some minor burns, a singed bed roll, and a little less pride.

The fire burnt out and they rounded the corner.  This time, the lob was a critical hit, and it did enough damage to everything to kill the large rat, and scatter the remaining swarm.  The continued mapping up to the orc latrine, and there’s where we finished for the night.


----------



## erucsbo

*Region E under flux*

Looks like my first post disappeared in the crash. C'est la vie.

Party of 8 characters, now level 7, currently in Region E (I started the WLD partway through a campaign, so everything is scaled up and levels are harder to come by until they hit equilibrium in a later section).

Anyway - the party has encountered and now wiped out Morat's pack (after many hard battles), encountered the Inevitables (after one of the party shot and killed the region's nominal lantern archon after mistaking it for a Will-o-wisp), encountered and spent time with the Celestials recovering between fights, recovered 3 of the 4 ward staves plus the All-door, and have had the odd encounter with the Shadow Mastiffs and Shadows.

I'm trying to get them to think seriously before assuming that "kill all the bad guys" is the best solution (they killed Farggalaan before trying to talk to him, as well as the barghests [who initiated negotiations after some brutal encounters]). They have now killed Phinadar as well, so the Shadows are without a door opener (or so they think).

I told them through multiple encounters (Morat's dying words, Besar, Iridinhael and now Seraxes) that their actions had consequences.

And I hope that none of my players are lurking in the background (too bad if they are).

Morat's pack, plus the wandering celestial patrols had been keeping doors shut.
Morat's pack had also been keeping Sarraas' pack bottled up.
The party had a big battle where they finished off Morat then upon seeing 6 more barghests in another room and being down on spells / hit points, decided to high-tail it back to the Celestials' area to rest for  8 hours. A side adventure by 4 characters (only had half show up for a session) investigating Serenneth's area had them find Iridinhael, recover a ward staff, but have the secret door in to E11 discovered by shadows, so they killed Phinadar and some shadows then closed the door (not before Seraxes found them) thinking that the shadows would now be powerless to open it.

However - during the 8 hour downtime Sarraas' pack have been able to explore Morat's area and "feed" on the corpses left there [before anyone quibbles about them needing to slay their opponents and those opponents needing to the humaniod, I'm the DM, the barghests are only to be found in this area, I want to creep the party out a bit, and reinforce the "their actions have consequences" angle - plus it will help scaling up the encounters]. They also left doors open (not being cognisant of the shadow threat).

This let the shadows roam and encounter the barghests.
Now Seraxes will have some barghests (lesser) separated from the rest of their pack and closely guarded and force them to be door openers.
Sarraas' pack - now being mostly greater barghests, feel that they are strong enough to take it to the Inevitables (and possibly the neighbouring minotaurs) and the party will probably be going for the garrison charter next (enough blatant hints have been given) which will put them right in the middle of the two.

My only quandry is whether to have any "shadow barghests" as a result of the shadows having encountered the barghests (and has anyone worked out what the resultant creature would be?)

nb - I am not as bloodthirsty and adversarial as some DMs that I've seen post on the boards and generally don't try and kill off PCs. I want the game to be enjoyable for the players, but not a walk in the park either, so any other suggestions people want to offer will be duly considered.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

If you really want to be rules-picky, there's a template somewhere called "Shadow Creature." It's not incorporeal, so I feel that it's not really a good amalgam of a shadow. If you went ahead and made 'shadow barghests,' I'm sure nobody would call foul. If you want, give them two 'claw' attacks, dealing 1d4 STR damage each, rather than the one 1d6 STR drain. You're the DM, after all. Shame your players are on a 'kill stuff and loot their corpses' crusade. You seem to be doing a good job of showing them that their actions have consequences. Another possible idea, if they decide to go hare off and try to smack the inevitables, they can always get pressganged into the Redeemed. 

Remember, there's no need to be defensive - nobody here is going to say 'no, you did that wrong.' Improvise and make stuff interesting. That's key. For example, when my party fought Seraxes for the final time (he was a major foe for my party), I decided to tweak a few things, and put two additions into the encounter - an ogre shadow (not really by the rules either, huh? I just made it a large shadow and had it do 1d6+1 STR damage) that scared the bejeezus out of them when it squeezed through the southern door, and Sensil herself (the dead ghaele, Doj's mate) as an advanced shadow with a few more hit dice. Definitely not rules as written, but it made the encounter more memorable. So I say, if you think it'll make the game more fun/interesting, go for it.

Good luck!


----------



## erucsbo

interesting concept on making Sensil a shadow.
Would a shadow be able to be recognised as their pre-shadow self?
I think I'll play on that one a bit.

I don't really want them fighting the Inevitables, 1 - because it is possible (unless I Deus Ex Machina) that they might win, or at least do significant damage to the garrison, and 2 - because interaction with the Redeemed isn't likely to add to the object lesson (they'd see it as an opportunity for some quick kills and loot any items they may have). There is only 1 player who I regard as having a strong moral slant to their gaming style and he will be returning to the gaming group next session (fingers crossed) after having been interstate for a number of years, so I'm hoping that he can start to sway party choices away from being purely pragmatic (he is playing the cleric, and the player has previously quit another gaming group I was DMing more than 10 years ago because of character alignment issues [and I stopped with them soon after] - off topic from here as it isn't WLD, but if enough people want the details of how badly a party can deal with a moral dilemma I'll post it).


----------



## Hussar

Interesting stuff.

Had a bit of a thought on how to deal with a TPK in the WLD.  Inspired by an article in Dragon as well as one of my favourite games - Bloodbowl.

If the time comes when the party buys it, they will find themselves in a large arena facing X number of previously slain baddies.  (Probably enough on both sides to make a decent football team, or at least a soccer team.  )  In the middle will be a ball.  The first team to make 3 goals wins.  The ball moves 1 square for every 5 (or maybe 10) damage done to it.  Cross into the other end's goal line and score.  Other than that, no real rules.  

Anyone killed during a "play" is brought back to full health in the next one.  A play constitutes a placing of the ball at the center to whenever someone scores.  So, if one team decimates another team during one drive, it doesn't really matter since they will all be back to full in the next drive.  Give a one minute prep time for the team before each play to allow for buffing and whatnot.

In game justification is this:  The Dungeon allows no extra planar travel.  I have interpreted this to mean that the Dungeon is chockablock with ghosts.  The Dungeon itself is somewhat sentient and has set this up to test potential inmates.  The winners of games are reincarnated somewhere else in the Dungeon (appropriate to their level).  This is why the Dungeon remains so static.  Even if you completely kill everything in there, a couple of weeks later, everything is back to where it started.

So, every time the party loses a game, it loses a level.  When it wins, the party is res'd somewhere in the Dungeon appropriate to its new level.  Maybe the level they just left, or maybe another region.  Advance the time line a couple of weeks, have the players extrude from the walls and they are good to go.  If people want to play something new, that's cool, just change characters - maybe something funky happened during the rebuilding by the Dungeon.  

Whatcha think?


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## pokedigimaniac

That's a fun concept. I've always thought Blood Bowl was a funny type of game.

Man, I hope I can get my OpenRPG woes sorted out soon so I can start running WLD again. =\ Region C calls!


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## Mr Samedi

Ouch, there go my sessions. Oh well, nothing to do but keep on building the thread up.


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## Kafkonia

Hussar said:
			
		

> So, every time the party loses a game, it loses a level.  When it wins, the party is res'd somewhere in the Dungeon appropriate to its new level.  Maybe the level they just left, or maybe another region.  Advance the time line a couple of weeks, have the players extrude from the walls and they are good to go.  If people want to play something new, that's cool, just change characters - maybe something funky happened during the rebuilding by the Dungeon.
> 
> Whatcha think?




Me likey.

If they play a new character, it also opens the door to the possibility that they were one of the "baddies" killed and reincarnated without realizing it... that'd be an interesting twist to throw at someone.


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## rvalle

Ahh, Bloodbowl! What a great idea. I wonder what other games could be incorporated into the WLD.

Having Baghrest Shadows is a cool idea. The post saying 2 x 1d4 is good. Or just give them their one primary bite and the 1d6 str drain. 

If you want to have more fun give them some kind of special ability(s) as well. Maybe the Shadow Hound's ability to blend into the Shadows so they can go invisible. And more HP then the run of the mill shadow as well. Maybe they could still shape change into a wolf shadow, a goblin shadow and their hybrid shape. 

For the Ogre shadow I said he still looked like an Ogre and, in fact, the party was able to recognized him as the Ogre from the 'water room' in the first dungeon area they were in. I figured a Shadow would start off looking like his original shape but over time lose it and become the plain humanoid shapes that normal shadows look like. So Doj's wife would still look like herself... which would cause some problems for Doj if they meet. 

rv


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## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> If you want to have more fun give them some kind of special ability(s) as well. Maybe the Shadow Hound's ability to blend into the Shadows so they can go invisible. And more HP then the run of the mill shadow as well. Maybe they could still shape change into a wolf shadow, a goblin shadow and their hybrid shape.
> *snip*
> I figured a Shadow would start off looking like his original shape but over time lose it and become the plain humanoid shapes that normal shadows look like. So Doj's wife would still look like herself... which would cause some problems for Doj if they meet.
> rv




nice.
I'll have the shadow barghests "flicker" (rather than blink - but same effect) with the description having all 3 forms superimposed. d6 Str from a single bite attack since that is their primary attack.
so. Shadow Barghest (amalgamated shadow and barghest d20 entries - please let me know if you think something should be different)
Medium Undead (Incorporeal, Evil) [loses outsider/extraplanar, lawful and shapechanger]
HD 6d12 (39hp); Init+6; Speed Fly 40ft (good); AC 13 touch 13, flat-footed 11; Base Atk +3; Grp -; Atk +6 melee (1d6 Str, incorporeal touch); Full Atk +6 melee (1d6 Str, incorporeal touch); SA strength damage [no ability to create spawn], feed [as per Barghest but +1HD only], flicker* [as per blink]; SQ Darkvision 60', incorporeal traits, +2 turn resistance, undead traits; AL CE; SV F+3, R+6, W+6;  Str -, Dex 15, Con -, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 14; Skills & Feats Hide+15, Listen+11, Search+11, Spot+11, Intimidate +13, Move Silently +10, Sense Motive +11, Alertness, Dodge, Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative

explanatory notes:
Grapple goes as it is harder for an incorporeal creature to grapple
Create Spawn goes as the Barghest feed ability seemed a better match here.
Lose most spell-like abilities, shapechanging, damage reduction/magic and scent as I see these mostly due to physical form and/or extraplanar origins.
Likewise Bluff, Diplomacy and Disguise depend upon the ability to communicate and as Shadows cannot speak intelligibly I've dropped these. [I still allow Seraxes (greater shadow) to communicate intelligibly for dramatic effect.]
Survival and track have been dropped because it doesn't gel with being a shadow.
Jump isn't needed as it can now fly.
Alignment now CE
Saving Throws are a compromise between barghest and shadow.
AC as per shadow.
Attack bonus (and full attack) a compromise as well, plus bite and x2 claw doing strength damage would be murderous so scaled back to just bite.
*Flicker is the Barghest Blink effect but is on all the time rather than at will.
bonuses and penalties on hide as per shadow (+4 in shadowy, -4 in bright lit)


----------



## erucsbo

followup as I didn't comment on the second part of rvalle's message that I had quoted.

I like the idea of shadows becoming more generic (particularly as they drain strength from multiple foes and thus strengthen their ties with the negative plane and lose touch with the physical).
The Shadow barghests would likewise fade, but if they ever manage to "feed" on enough victims to advance to what would have been a greater barghest (9HD) it instead becomes a generic greater shadow, losing the stats/skills/abilities it had as a barghest and gaining the greater shadow abilities etc instead. I'd work out a sliding scale for each HD advancement, but I can't be bothered and doubt very much whether I'd ever use it.


----------



## twilko

*The trouble with Celestials*

Gday All,

I'd like some advice and help. I am DMing WLD for my group of 7 players. THis is my first time as DM. They have entered area E found ward staff and teleported into the Garrison. I played the Garrison as a bit wary and they took the staff off the party. That has created some bad blood. Futher the party has concluded that the Celestials are just plain lazy for not having done more to find others of their kind in the Dungeon. I added a trapped Hound Archon to region A as somebody on this thread suggested, whom the party rescued and then concluded that the Garrison just didn't care for their own. The party has done some scouting for the Garrison and is now collecting the All Door to which I added extra rooms. As luck would have the party has entered rooms stocked with evil items which the Garrison isn't going to like much, but have not entered the rooms with all the Holy stuff, wouldn't you know.  :\  

What I want to do is stage an encounter when the party returns to the Garrison that shows just how important maintaining the Door Wards is. But what sort of encounter? I had kind of figured on having the Garrison overrun by something but what? What could I use that would beat up the Garrison but not eat the party (3rd/4th level) for breakfast?  

Any Suggestions greatly appreciated.

twilko.


----------



## erucsbo

twilko said:
			
		

> Gday All,
> 
> I'd like some advice and help. I am DMing WLD for my group of 7 players. THis is my first time as DM. They have entered area E found ward staff and teleported into the Garrison. I played the Garrison as a bit wary and they took the staff off the party. That has created some bad blood. Futher the party has concluded that the Celestials are just plain lazy for not having done more to find others of their kind in the Dungeon. I added a trapped Hound Archon to region A as somebody on this thread suggested, whom the party rescued and then concluded that the Garrison just didn't care for their own. The party has done some scouting for the Garrison and is now collecting the All Door to which I added extra rooms. As luck would have the party has entered rooms stocked with evil items which the Garrison isn't going to like much, but have not entered the rooms with all the Holy stuff, wouldn't you know.  :\
> 
> What I want to do is stage an encounter when the party returns to the Garrison that shows just how important maintaining the Door Wards is. But what sort of encounter? I had kind of figured on having the Garrison overrun by something but what? What could I use that would beat up the Garrison but not eat the party (3rd/4th level) for breakfast?
> 
> Any Suggestions greatly appreciated.
> 
> twilko.




Why not have them witness the aftermath of an encounter that *would* have eaten the party.  Show some badly wounded Celestials, a pile of drow bodies from Region I being burned, and if you want to include the conflict between the Celestials and the Inevitables, have one of the Inevitables telling off the Celestials for not using the Redeemed in the battle, or not checking to see if any of the Drow could have been "rehabilitated" before killing them all. Have the Celestials explain that if it hadn't been for the restored ward staff that Sanjid would have had to be spending time maintaining a door ward instead of being available to heal the damaged Celestials (or party members if they need healing on their return to the garrison). Then have the howls of some Shadow Mastiffs echo through the hallways. If the party is not powerful enough to tackle them by themselves then have Besar go to deal with the doggies and ask the party for help, but limit Besar's powers if you want due to him having expended them in the battle with the Drow. This would also provide you with an opportunity for Besar to tell the party about the split with the Inevitables and the need for the Garrison Charter, and of his duty to protect his Celestial brethren.

ie - talk up the work that the Garrison has been doing in the party's absence. Just because the party members aren't there doesn't mean that things aren't occurring.


----------



## ENZav

*Errata Region A*

Hi there!

Not sure if this is the place for errata... if not, please let me know.

Since it's difficult to tell if monster statistics differences are intentional or not, I'd like to know if these are:


Fiendish Rat Swarms (first encountered in A10)

Hit points should be 18, not 13. This is actually an error in the MM. 4d8 HD = 18 hp.

Because the swarm has 4 HD, SR should be 9 and the swarm should have DR 5/magic. 

The description of Smite Good reads "... deal extra damage equal to its HD total (+2) ..." This should be (+4).


Advanced Darkmantles (first encountered in A58)

The HD 2 Darkmantles found throughout the Region only have their hit points altered. In reality they should also have +1 Base Atk, +1 Grapple, +1 SR, +1 Fort, +1 Ref, +1 skill point and +1 Smite Good damage.

Also, their CR is stated as 2, which should be 1, since according to the MM (p 294), the CR of a magical beast increases by +1 per 3 HD added.

The HD 3 Darkmantles (A91) strangely enough have correct Base Atk, Grapple and Saves, however their SR and Smite Good damage is still 2 too low.

Technically, they should also be CR 1, but I'd leave it at 2 due to the increased hit points and all.

Any corrections will be much appreciated.


Cheers,

Chris


----------



## Hussar

If you hop on over to the AEG forums, you'll see a fairly lengthy errata for many of the regions.  

Good catch though.


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## rvalle

erucsbo said:
			
		

> followup as I didn't comment on the second part of rvalle's message that I had quoted.
> 
> I like the idea of shadows becoming more generic (particularly as they drain strength from multiple foes and thus strengthen their ties with the negative plane and lose touch with the physical).
> The Shadow barghests would likewise fade, but if they ever manage to "feed" on enough victims to advance to what would have been a greater barghest (9HD) it instead becomes a generic greater shadow, losing the stats/skills/abilities it had as a barghest and gaining the greater shadow abilities etc instead. I'd work out a sliding scale for each HD advancement, but I can't be bothered and doubt very much whether I'd ever use it.




Nice, I like it!

One last thing. Not sure if it will be an issue in your game but I let the Gnome in our party still get the AC bonus when fighting the Ogre Shadow. I figured the Ogre was still 'fighting like an Ogre' instead of like a Shadow so the ac bonus would still apply. 

rv


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## rvalle

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Why not have them witness the aftermath of an encounter that *would* have eaten the party.  Show some badly wounded Celestials, a pile of drow bodies from Region I being burned, and if you want to include the conflict between the Celestials and the Inevitables, have one of the Inevitables telling off the Celestials for not using the Redeemed in the battle, or not checking to see if any of the Drow could have been "rehabilitated" before killing them all. Have the Celestials explain that if it hadn't been for the restored ward staff that Sanjid would have had to be spending time maintaining a door ward instead of being available to heal the damaged Celestials (or party members if they need healing on their return to the garrison). Then have the howls of some Shadow Mastiffs echo through the hallways. If the party is not powerful enough to tackle them by themselves then have Besar go to deal with the doggies and ask the party for help, but limit Besar's powers if you want due to him having expended them in the battle with the Drow. This would also provide you with an opportunity for Besar to tell the party about the split with the Inevitables and the need for the Garrison Charter, and of his duty to protect his Celestial brethren.
> 
> ie - talk up the work that the Garrison has been doing in the party's absence. Just because the party members aren't there doesn't mean that things aren't occurring.




Would the Drow be able to make it though that dc 40 will save ward though?

Have they seen the wards yet? Try to get them up there either as part of a 'here is what we are doing' tour or to talk to one of the Garrison members on duty. While there, have one of the major I beasties try to attack though the ward. One of the two 'brothers' would be good. It can charge out of the darkness (you might have to remove a door for them to be able to see this) and then hit the ward. You can have lots of bright lights flaring ect as the beast tries to break though the ward and eat the party. 

Also have them see the after effects of what a Garrison memeber is like after the 2nd ward charge... the one where they have to use their own power to charge up the ward. (BTW, I tried to work out the numbers as they are given in the book (-1 or 2 levels) and it didn't really work out. I set it at -4 or 5 levels. They should probably be 'fatigued' or 'exausted' as well.)

Stress how with the loss of Doj's wife they were going to be on a slide down from which they could not recover as the Garrison members would not be back to full strength by the time they had to use their power to charge up a ward again. 

The garrison has been so busy just trying to survive they have not been able to do much about the rest of the region. As long as the creatures there did not bother the garrison much, the garrison left them alone (except for the few that would go to hunt shadows).

rv


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## Dracorat

Well, I did my first game last Saturday.

We had 6 players signed up. 3 actually showed....

The party was a Wizard, a Sorcerer and a Rogue. IE, squishie.

I added an NPC cleric to the mix.

The session was scheduled for ten hours. It went sixteen because the players didn't want to stop. I finally had to tell them I needed to stop because I had to be up early for Mother's Day.

They met in town, where the townsfolk had great tales of a wererat and hit cohorts passing through to some previously-undiscovered cave.

They got to the first room. Instead of the doors the adventure describes, I sometimes change things up some. They had an orb hovering on a pedestal and emitting light. So, naturally, the sorcerer had to run up and touch it. *POP* sorc gone. So the rogue decides to touch it with his weapon instead of his hand. *POP* rogue gone. The NPC cleric starts crying, the wizard says 'what the hell, in for a penny...' and *POP*, followed by the cleric *POP*ing in as well. Yes, the were all teleported just over the wall.

At this point I should probably point out that were were playing on GameTable and I must say that my first run using that program was awesome and we will continue to use it down the road. It is a God-send. Moving right along.

Dark room, rogue uncovers his hooded lantern he has with him. Lo and behold there are three orcs in the corner, resting there, minding their own business. So what does the sorcerer do? "Let's kill them". I had the orcs all start flat-footed and take a full round just to stand up and get their weapons ready. The party almost wiped on that fight, and yes, the orcs were fatigued as well.

Good times. =)

At this point I should probably get everyone aquanted with my house rules: 
http://keithratliff.com/CS/forums/thread/26.aspx

You will see that resting and death have large changes, one of which is that resting is not something the players can simply elect to do at any time. So, resting now was not in the picture.

Rogue checks all four doors. Top left one reeks something awful, so everyone decides to skip. Two closed doors, both uninteresting and one open door leading to a large room with dried grass everywhere. Players are naturally paranoid and decide to avoid it. They go to the door beside it, open the door. They find a dead orc, spear in the corner, orc outstretched toward door. Walking around in this room causes major echos to echo back from the room just beyond it. The PCs are again paranoid and close the door again.

They go to the other 'uninteresting' door. Open it up, sacks, mold, door on far end. Rogue checks for traps. Nada. Performs a listen check. Gets hit by a burning hands trap, goes to negative HPs. The cleric runs in, grabs him, runs out and does her last cure light on him. Cleric is now out of mana and the party is no better for xp. And the room is on fire now. Close the door and ignore it for now.

They decide it is time to explore the grass room. They do so. Because the grass had been obviously swept out from center and there was blood in the room, they were naturally, very cautious. Poke here, prod there. Aha! A body! Yuck! A trogg! Pile the grasses up in the corner and get a night's rest (I allowed it at that time). Tremors in the dark, a dead kobold outside the door in the morning.

So following that, they decide to try the burning hands door again. "It already went off. You don't think it would have reset do you?" Silly adventurers... So a few HPs lower, the rogue decides this door is not worth his time, at least, for now.

Back to the echo-y room. Walk in, shadows are moving around unnaturally. It is hard to see. Oh wait! Even harder now with a tentacle wrapped around your neck! A few rounds later, add a dead octopus to the board. They spot the rat. The rat sees they spotted them. In my dungeon, I have a small gap underneath the doors. The rats and stirges can use these gaps to travel. (The stirges just dive bomb the ground basically and then bounce out the other end of the door)

So they open the door, can't see the rat. So now which way? They go right. Couple skeletons and what is that? A bedroom??

So they sneak in to the bedroom, if a cleric wearing breastplate and a rogue weilding a hooded lanters could be considered 'sneaking'. And they are sure the rat is here. It has to be. Search under the desk, don't see any red glowie eyes. But the bed.... They couldn't see under it; the covers were draping on to the ground. It was at this time that the sorcerer burst out with perhaps the funniest line of the whole evening. "There is only one logic course of action. Burn it down." Luckily the rogue was able to convince him that flipping the mattress up was probably a better choice of action. So they did. And nothing. Check the closet. Nothing there either. Drat. The rat got away.

So they go back to the hall and open the first door they come to. Never mind that. They didn't open it. They went for the dramatic entrance. Have the cleric kick it down!! (She has a ten strength btw). First roll was a 3. WHAM. Lots of noise. Door is still standing. So much for a dramatic entrance. So naturally, they decide to try again. WHAM. This time, a roll of 19 and the door goes down. And RAWR! The hallway beyond was quite afraid I am sure. So they enter the hall. Four doors, two left side, two right side. And what is that! We can hear rats, somewhere!! Following the sound, they reach the end of the hallway. Rats behind the door to the left, and an open door to the right. But they can't see in to that room. It is so dark...

So they go left. Throw the door open and they succeed their spot checks as the rats attempted, but failed, to surprise them. (The rats knew they were coming) Few combat rounds later, the rogue took some damage until they realized the cleric should tank it. Cleric starts tanking it, they do better, rats go down. Nothing in the room. Search the other two rooms also, which was also, fairly uninteresting.

Leave the shadow'y room alone. That one is scary.

Back to the hall, move over and there is a room here. Wow the door is cold! And underneath the door, cold air is spilling out. Brrr. They throw open the door and the room beyond is cold. So the sorcerer wraps herself in a winter blanket (which the DM rules as having the same effect as being "heavily" encumbered while worn). She trudges through the room. The next room has more shifty shadows and the echos, and the air is being blown out of it fairly forcefully. But she enters it without incident. The other party members run in. Step in to the next room and the fight is on. Stirges! Cleric loses 4 Con on this battle but otherwise they do OK.

Spill out of that room in to the hallway beyond and they see a door up ahead. They listen and don't hear anything, so they open it up. To their pleasure, the door emits no sound as it opens. A moment later, pleasure turns to disappointment as they realize that no matter what they do, neither do they.

They enter the room and check it out. Nothing special. Go to the next room and casually inspect it and the pillars, then enter the third room.

Now in the final room, the DM messed up a bit (thats me, whoops!). I started the battle with an orc, but when we realized the damage that he was doing with a lance, we looked closer. Whoops, that 5' orc is really a 10' ogre. And those people who went down already, there is no way to tell if that was appropriate or not. So I undid the last person's damage and continued combat. 

They barely survived. So then, the DM allowed them to rest again (least he could do). And they did. To their surprise, rather peacefully (extra 1 HP gained on rest).

Get up the next day, continue to explore northward. Long hallway. A door. Listen. Rats.

They throw the door open and discover a host of rats feasting on orc bodies. Red glowie eyes. The rats hiss, but do not attack. They slam the door shut again.

Then, they hatch a plan. They are going to throw the door open and unload arrows! They do so and the first group loops around a large column and comes at them. The other group runs out underneath the OTHER south doorway. They ignore that set and continue to fight the first set. Four combat rounds later, the ignored set appears behind them in the hallway. The wizard curses aloud and then pops a grease spell. All the rats saved, somehow. He takes a 5 foot step away. More combat, next round, and to the wizard's benefit, none of the rats make their balance check and thus cannot move. His round comes back up, fire off a spell and get the hell out. 

Few combat rounds later, all the rats are dead and the party is close to spent. But they still have a lot of EXP to go till they can rest again. So they explore east.

They discover a dead orc with a darkmantle currently feeding on it. Wizard runs in and unleashes his last spell. A well-executed burning hands. The rogue pops the mantle with an arrow. It flops over. The party smacks their collective foreheads as they realize that they just killed something that was already dead.

Finish searching that room and the one beside it. 

They track back west and find a door that is shut. Someone is obviously pushing it shut. After a few uneventful tries at shoving the door open, they finally manage to. And they discover an orc who runs to the back of the room, holding his battleaxe, but shaking uncontrollably. 

For the first time, "burn it down" was not the automagic response. =)

They talk to him. He pleads for his life. They question him about the events of the dungeon. He reveals some of what is going on but refuses to assist the party. They close him back in to his room.

Rest is sounding good but not any more forthcoming.

So they go back to the very beginning and check out the room that smells really bad. Aha, kobold corpses. Makes sense. So back to the room with the burning-hands-trapped door. Another door with no locking mechanism so this time instead of trying to find the trap and risking it going off again, the rogue decides he is just gonna take it as he throws the door open.

He throws the door open and rolls well on his reflex. DM rolls poorly on damage and he takes only one point of damage. Whew!

Advancing in to the room beyond, they largely ignore the barrels as there is a fungus among them. Loop around a bit, small corridor. A dead orc! Let's go check it out! *click* dart shoots out at rogue. Rogue avoids. Sorcerer runs up to rogue. *click* Sorcerer does not avoid. Ouch that hurts. (And smarts). Rogue uses the cleric's shield, a large steel for a medium character - the rogue is a small character - as a tower shield to push the orc on to the newly-discovered pressure plate. Two more darts shoot out but the sheild blocks them. Testing the plate, the body is holding it down and so now everyone else advances past safely, making sure not to disturb the body so as not to reset the trap.

They discover a room fairly undisturbed and with a nice cache of mundane tools. They get some rope and a pick.

They go back to one of the previous halls (the one with the skeletons) and then up the other end to find a refuse pit and a note in it. They grab the note.

In Draconic: "Thoz ork theevs thay steelz ower tweazure but we smart we chozn wons we getz thoz orks back thay die soon"

With the discovery of the note, the party gets a sense of completion that allows them to rest once more. They do so in the silent room again.

After an uneventful rest, they go north again, past the sissy orc room. They discover a secret door at the end of a long hallway and open it. Rats. Lots of them. Two swarms of them in fact.

Well, the rogue apparently fails his morale check and shouts out to the party "Save yourselves, I will shut myself in." (The player thought the DM was just going overboard and was going to reroll another character as a screw-you to the DM). The rest of the party helped him to make his follow up morale check.

They find the the first swarm, while deadly, was also quite weak. Within two rounds, the swarm is down and only one remains. They group up on the cleric who casts a split-Longstrider on the party (Cleric has Travel as a domain). Using their new-found speed, the party manages to pick off the remaining swarm (but not until the sorcerer discovers that burning hands has minimal effect on feindish creatures and then further discovers that magic missile has no effect on swarms).

Search the room, nothing of interest, and continue onward.

Another hallway. So let's go left. Hrmm. Long hall, no doors. Rogue whips out the BS card and starts searching for secret doors. And lo! There is one at the end. Just then, they get a feeling of foreboding "I should not be here yet." They take the feeling seriously, close the door and then backtrack down the hall to the opposite direction.

Though a little more twisty than they expected, they come to a series of four workshops. Two are desecrated, but two are intact. A daring fight with some stirges and some more rats and they claim the shops as their own. Grab a few tools, do some searching and what's this! A sword! And a magical one too!!!

Finish off with one more stirge battle in another room and then BAM 1000 exp and time to rest baby! Make it back to the silence room and finish off the night.

End of session.

I must say that they got so much more done than I expected they would. The session was awesome. Indeed, the players wanted to keep going, but I had to get up early for Mother's Day so I had to stop it. - at six hours over the originally scheduled ten hours. =)

I do need an additional player, but I am quite satisfied with how things went.


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> Would the Drow be able to make it though that dc 40 will save ward though?




No, but the point is that without the ward staves or draining positive energy from a celestial/divine spell caster the DC continues to drop until creatures can get through. Having all the ward staves back means that the garrison can have the wards stable without draining the garrison members. At the moment they are in a catch-22. If they keep draining themselves to keep the wards DC high then they are in no condition to go looking for the remaining staves. If they go looking for the staves then they need to be in good enough condition to do so (they can't afford any more members to be lost from the garrison), and if they go after the missing ward staves then they are not around to supplement the wards and the door DCs go down. There should be a real sense of frustration evident. The degeneration of the Inevitables is just adding to this.


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## rvalle

erucsbo said:
			
		

> No, but the point is that without the ward staves or draining positive energy from a celestial/divine spell caster the DC continues to drop until creatures can get through. Having all the ward staves back means that the garrison can have the wards stable without draining the garrison members. At the moment they are in a catch-22. If they keep draining themselves to keep the wards DC high then they are in no condition to go looking for the remaining staves. If they go looking for the staves then they need to be in good enough condition to do so (they can't afford any more members to be lost from the garrison), and if they go after the missing ward staves then they are not around to supplement the wards and the door DCs go down. There should be a real sense of frustration evident. The degeneration of the Inevitables is just adding to this.




Oh I agree! I was questioning if the encounter with the Drow would happen if the wards are still up.

There is a room on the N end that is a big trap. The floor falls out and the rooms to the side are full of equipment and magic wands to blast the creatures. The description of the room says there is a chance of seeing some of the Garrison members working on the trap to keep it working. That sort of thing would help with the idea that they ARE doing stuff but not going out looking for trouble.

rv


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## Hussar

Was just statting up Region G and noticed something.  

Grelka, the head night hag, uses a ring of shooting stars.  The text mentions her relying on it in combat.  Only one problem.  Underground, a ring of shooting stars is mostly useless.  50000 gp for a one use spark fan for a couple of d6 damage.

I've fudged a bit and replaced it with a staff from Dragon 336 (p 72)- Staff of Nightmares.  Allows her to cast Scare(1), Fear (2), Nightmare (2) Phantasmal Killer (2), Symbol of Fear (3) and Weird (4) as a 17th level sorc (51 000 gp).  Gave her a level of sorc just cause.

Just a thought.  BTW, I LOVE the bracers of defenselessness.  The monk/paladin is going to HATE me.


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## jtone

I've lost a couple players due to schedule conflicts so I'm looking for one or two more.  We are looking for arcane or divine magic users.

We have been playing weekly via OpenRPG since October 19, 2005 on Wednesday nights at 8PM Central Time.   Currently we are about 1/3 of the way through the dungeon.

If you're interested, please email me for character creation details. The game forum is http://shadowdragon.kelticmoose.com/Forum/viewforum.php?f=66

Hope to see you there!

Joel Tone
wld@jjtone.com


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## tbug

I'm running the WLD for the University of Victoria's games club. This means that I knew up front that I'd have a rotating player base, particularly during exams, as well as significant changes in the line-ups at the end of each school year.

My solution to this was to create the _pill-bug brand_. Anyone branded with it can, as a move action, transform into what basically amounts to a marble (though the players prefer the word "pearl"). They can't control when they emerge from marble form, and sometimes they're forced into marble form against their will.

Each PC was hired by a dubaer with some whacked out motivation. (At least three of them were hiring, each with their own dementia involved.) PCs are created on thirty-two points and must be first-level, but depending on how far the party has advanced I'm allowed higher ECL races. The _Advanced Bestiary_ from Green Ronin has been seeing a lot of use. 

They whipped up the western wall of Region A, bummed around a little in Region E, wandered into Region F (where they had a lot of problems and several of them were turned to stone), peeked into Region J, ended up in Region B, and are now back in Region A. They knew that some seriously nasty stuff has been emerging from the portal in the room with the multi-coloured lights, and in fact have just teamed up with three half-fiend flesh harrowers. There's a winged grey render around, which they're assuming is a half-fiend (but is actually a fiendish half-dragon--grey renders don't qualify for the half-fiend template), a fiendish dire bear, and a fiendish digestor. Additionally, there are *lots* of fiendish corpses. 

At the end of last session they managed to close the portal, but they left a situation that's just going to result in it opening up again before too long.

Obviously, they've had lots of adventures in the WLD, but I don't want to make my first post to the thread too long to read.


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## erucsbo

*Fast Healing*

Not specific to WLD, but thought I'd ask here anyway.

Anyone else allow the Sacred Healing feat?
This feat is from the Complete Divine book:
Sacred Healing [Divine]
 You can channel positive energy to grant nearby living creatures the ability to recover from their wounds quickly.
Prerequisites: Heal 8 ranks, ability to turn undead
Benefit: You can spend a turn attempt as a full-round action to grant fast healing 3 to all living creatures within a 60-ft. burst. The fast healing lasts for a number of rounds equal to 1+your Cha modifier (minimum 1 round).

We found this a no-brainer pickup for clerics (or anyone else with the prerequisite), so have toned it down. As long as the cleric (or at least their level for turning) is the same as the maximum character level in the party it works most of the time. Also means that it can buff the mooks, but not the boss monster when used in combat.

When using Sacred Healing you make a turn check (but not turn damage) as normal.
The turn check indicates the maximum HD of affected creatures. ie. If the turn check indicates "Level - 2" then only living creatures with a HD total (or for the PCs - number of levels) 2 below your own (or less) are affected (which will normally mean that none of the party members will gain any benefit).
Example: Jasmina - a 6th level cleric with a Cha modifier of +2, uses Sacred Healing. She rolls a 12, which with the +2 gives a turn check of "Cleric's Level + 1". All living creatures within a 60 foot burst who have 7 or less HD, or 7 or less levels gain fast healing 3 for 3 rounds.


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## tbug

Not us. We're part of a shared campaign here in the Pacific Northwest, so we're only using stuff that's OGC.

I agree that it sounds like a no-brainer for a cleric, though. The automatic feat for spellcasters so far seems to be Eschew Materials.


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## erucsbo

tbug said:
			
		

> The automatic feat for spellcasters so far seems to be Eschew Materials.




I've always hated the material components requirement for spellcasting. Adds to bookkeepping without adding significantly to roleplaying IMHO, so I basically give them this for free. I don't believe I've ever even played in a game where having material components have been enforced, and especially in WLD, finding material components and/or trucking them around with you (live spiders, bat guano etc) seems not only unhygenic, but socially irresponsible as well. ("Man - you smell like sh*t!" "Yeah - sorry about that - but if you want me to be able to cast fireball you're going to have to put up with it!")


----------



## tbug

erucsbo said:
			
		

> I've always hated the material components requirement for spellcasting. Adds to bookkeepping without adding significantly to roleplaying IMHO, so I basically give them this for free.




One of the strictures placed on me is that I have to adhere closely to the core rules (as presented in the SRD). This being the case, I'm making sure that it cuts both ways. Spell materials (and spellbook inks, and magic item creation ingredients, and so forth) are therefore required as per the core rules. It's mean, but it's part of the "core rules" experience (and what the players wanted).

(PC character creation can be from other (non-SRD) sources as long as they're OGC, but any denizens of the dungeon have to be from the SRD.)


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## Hussar

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Not specific to WLD, but thought I'd ask here anyway.
> 
> Anyone else allow the Sacred Healing feat?
> This feat is from the Complete Divine book:
> Sacred Healing [Divine]
> You can channel positive energy to grant nearby living creatures the ability to recover from their wounds quickly.
> Prerequisites: Heal 8 ranks, ability to turn undead
> Benefit: You can spend a turn attempt as a full-round action to grant fast healing 3 to all living creatures within a 60-ft. burst. The fast healing lasts for a number of rounds equal to 1+your Cha modifier (minimum 1 round).
> 
> We found this a no-brainer pickup for clerics (or anyone else with the prerequisite), so have toned it down. As long as the cleric (or at least their level for turning) is the same as the maximum character level in the party it works most of the time. Also means that it can buff the mooks, but not the boss monster when used in combat.
> 
> *snip*




Doesn't seem to big of a deal to me.  Given an 18 Cha, you heal everyone 15 hp over 5 rounds.  It's not going to save anyone if they're being pummelled by something large, so, it's a nice heal.  Gives the cleric something do to in those regions that don't have a whole lot of undead.  It's not even all that useful in combat since the bad guys will likely benefit as well.

I wouldn't have a problem with it.  No one ever dies between combats anyway, and this lets people keep going without having to rest all the time.  

As far as spell components, I don't worry about them if they are under 1 gp.  The party is assumed to have them.  It will matter if someone is grappled, but, then again, if the wizzie in the party is grappled, he's cooked anyway.    The cleric has his holy symbol, so, no biggie.


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## tbug

Hussar said:
			
		

> As far as spell components, I don't worry about them if they are under 1 gp.  The party is assumed to have them.  It will matter if someone is grappled, but, then again, if the wizzie in the party is grappled, he's cooked anyway.    The cleric has his holy symbol, so, no biggie.




So basically you give all spellcasters the Eschew Materials feat for free? I agree that it doesn't usually matter, but the WLD seemed like that one time that it would be hard to cast spells without the feat.

I always try to run games whatever way will be the most fun for the players. If yours want to ignore spell components then this is obviously the way to go.


----------



## Dracorat

I give my casters a spell pouch which summons up all items that are less than a GP in value.

That way I can still sometimes do the traditional plot line of "you have been kidnapped and your stuff taken" and the spell casters without Eschew are screwed.


----------



## tbug

My PCs have been wandering in and out of Region E a fair bit. They've met both barghest packs, but haven't identified either of them. My players don't know what barghests are and so the PCs don't either. They know what blink dogs are, at least vaguely, and have assumed that this is what Morat's pack is.  They encountered Sarraas and her pack only in goblin form, and have assumed that they really are just goblins. They've even brokered a peace treaty between them and the Holy Goblin Empire. 

For various reasons, several of the celestials (Besar, Sanjid, and Spers) are being held by Morat. The PCs know this but have been told that they're sequestered in a meeting. Lilig is already dead. I've been playing that Morat basically just wants to be left alone, but people keep imposing themselves on him. I'm trying to decide if he'll just kill the celestials or try to bargain for something. He can't hold them for very long.

It would be nice if they survived, so I might just have Sarraas rescue them, return them to the Inevitables (who, as far as she knows, are part of the same group), and hope to negotiate a treaty as a result.

Any better ideas?


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## rvalle

tbug said:
			
		

> For various reasons, several of the celestials (Besar, Sanjid, and Spers) are being held by Morat. The PCs know this but have been told that they're sequestered in a meeting. Lilig is already dead. I've been playing that Morat basically just wants to be left alone, but people keep imposing themselves on him. I'm trying to decide if he'll just kill the celestials or try to bargain for something. He can't hold them for very long.
> 
> It would be nice if they survived, so I might just have Sarraas rescue them, return them to the Inevitables (who, as far as she knows, are part of the same group), and hope to negotiate a treaty as a result.
> 
> Any better ideas?




Wow, did you tone down the Celestrials? Besar and company are quite the tough characters (at will mirror image, lighting bolt 2x/day, turn into a whirlwind and move ...100?, Holy weapons that do +2d6 damage and Besar gets 2 attacks a around at +8 damage.

I had the Garrison and Morat's pack basicly ignore each other. The baghersts didn't want to mess with the Holy weapons and there were too many of the baghersts for the Garrison to take out easily. If a Garrison member got close to the Baghersts they wolf-guys would run away and the Garrison member would go on his way.

Anywho... can the party and Sarra's pack plan a rescue together? If Morat can get the Garrison members to swear that they and their co-workers will leave him alone that should be a good deal (for Morat). That would put the party in an intersting spot... are they co-members' of the Garrison? They could have free reign to attack the Pack.

rv


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## tbug

rvalle said:
			
		

> Wow, did you tone down the Celestrials? Besar and company are quite the tough characters (at will mirror image, lighting bolt 2x/day, turn into a whirlwind and move ...100?, Holy weapons that do +2d6 damage and Besar gets 2 attacks a around at +8 damage.




They were tricked (in part because of the actions of the PCs, in part because of the _in_action of the PCs), disarmed, and charmed (that was quite a trick, but with enough barghests trying it they managed it). They *know* that they can't keep the celestials on ice for long, and basically I need to decide nowish what they're going to do. Even a coup de grace isn't likely to slay one of these guys, but a pack could take them out.



			
				rvalle said:
			
		

> I had the Garrison and Morat's pack basicly ignore each other. The baghersts didn't want to mess with the Holy weapons and there were too many of the baghersts for the Garrison to take out easily. If a Garrison member got close to the Baghersts they wolf-guys would run away and the Garrison member would go on his way.




This is how things were in my game at the point where the PCs arrived. A lot has happened since then, and the celestials thought that they were going into a meeting with some mutated blink dogs.



			
				rvalle said:
			
		

> Anywho... can the party and Sarra's pack plan a rescue together? If Morat can get the Garrison members to swear that they and their co-workers will leave him alone that should be a good deal (for Morat). That would put the party in an intersting spot... are they co-members' of the Garrison? They could have free reign to attack the Pack.




The PCs aren't members of the garrison, so they wouldn't be bound by the celestials' word. They already have an alliance with Sarraas (though they think she's a regular goblin). The problem is that they've been tricked into thinking that Morat is a good guy, and they've ignored hints that this isn't true. I think that the PCs are content to leave the celestials in Morat's company, and I'm loathe to take the freedom to make that mistake away from them.

I suspect that the PCs are going to spend most of their time in Region A tonight, finally dealing with a portal that's been left alone for far too long. That would give me a bit more time to ponder.

If I need them to survive and the PCs do nothing, I'll have Sarraas rescue them and get an uncomfortable deal out of them. If I don't need them to survive and the PCs do nothing then the garrison will lose three more members.

I would have liked to have left the garrison strong and in charge of its region when the PCs finally left, if only so that they'd _know_ that there was a stronghold behind them if necessary. Sadly, this is only going to happen if they take steps to *make* it happen.

I suppose one of the bralani could escape as the lone survivor, or something. That would definitely blow the whole "blink dogs are really barghests" story I've been stringing along for the last couple months, but maybe this is the best climax to that story I'm likely to get.


----------



## Hussar

tbug said:
			
		

> So basically you give all spellcasters the Eschew Materials feat for free? I agree that it doesn't usually matter, but the WLD seemed like that one time that it would be hard to cast spells without the feat.
> 
> I always try to run games whatever way will be the most fun for the players. If yours want to ignore spell components then this is obviously the way to go.




They don't have Eschew Materials for free.  If they get grappled, they are still hosed.  But, I figured that wizzied get boned enough without having them do too much bookkeeping.  Besides, it doesn't help them with the more expensive spells anyway.  I basically have handwaved away spell components simply because I just didn't want to be bothered.  

Heh, I have enough problems keeping PC's alive without making it more difficult.  Just had fatality 12 last week.  Failed save against the Abyssal Basilisk in G.  Stone rogue.    Although, I think that this will be short lived since they've already made contact with Raverna and she can cast Break Enchantment.  Evalan can do so as well, so, it probably won't be the end of this PC.  

I love it when people's metagaming bites them in the posterior.  My two metagamers both thought that gaze attacks required activation.    Charge the basilisk!  Only to get forced a fort save at the beginning of each turn.  The basy is about half dead, when we had to end the session.  We'll see if I can nick a few more PC's as well.  I doubt it.  The barbarian and the paladin/monk just have insane fort saves.  Then again, the barbarian failed a fort save vs the Dretch's stinking cloud when they first arrived.  Great fight.  9 Dretch made for a really fun little festivity.  

BTW, how's this for a plotsy?  There is a secret door between C and G.  The celestials obviously know about it since they built it.  However, they aren't entirely sure where it is.  THere is a nice little library in the Morgh's lair.  I figure that there could be a book of maps or clues to the entrance in that library and the Garrison could send the party to go retrieve it.  

Assuming the party does, they will head back through C (through the prison) and enter the Horde's home from the back.  The angels lead an attack on the front to draw away the demons (at least some of them) buying the party time to get in and get the Flame.  

This lets me use a couple of the minor lairs, a big running battle and then end the region with a big climax battle as the demons launch an all out offensive to get the Flame back.  I'll have Cylerbrai die just as the flame is returned to take him out of the fight since the Solar could likely take on the entire Demon horde by himself and win.  Run a serious of four or five fights, Heroes of Battle style, EL -2, -2, par, par and +2, and finish up the region.

Whatcha think?


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Best of luck! For one of the best takes I've seen on the Region G 'climactic battle,' you can check out the longest-running LJ PbP WLD game:

http://spacecrime_wlg.livejournal.com/

The Region G stuff specifically starts at:

http://community.livejournal.com/spacecrime_wlg/59872.html

The BIG FINAL BATTLE HOO HAH really needs you to read the whole section on Region G to 'get it,' as it's a conglomeration of a lot of stuff. Teaser: The party ends up having to take on Glebshayy and Gwarny'z at the same time, while the ghost PC rushes the Flame of Aranas back into the celestials' area as fast as he can, hoping to bring the aid of Cyrlebrai.

Because, quite frankly, at full power, sure, Cyrlebrai might be able to take on all the demons at once. Maybe. Very doubtful - don't forget the mariliths and more. But remember, he's been powering the whole darn region for quite some time. He's not going to recover instantly - even when he's given the Flame, he's going to be quite drained, only having access to a very few of his powers. Think of it as DM fiat - he has what he needs to save the party's ass if they need it, but not much more than that. Read the spacecrime_wlg area for a GREAT usage of Cyrlebrai in the final battle.

Man, I can't wait till my group hits Region G.  Good luck!

P.S. Another reason to read the Region G bit - you get to see their encounter with the blackguard, where the lil' kobold flies up towards a spark high up in the air, thinking it's a spying quasit - and ends up running for his miserable life from a diving nightmare! Classic D&D, I tell you. Classic.

Oh, and as for your plan to run 5 fights, Heroes of Battle style, make sure they have a little aid between fights - a hound archon cleric throws a Mass Cure Moderate Wounds or something their way, perhaps. That punishing of a run of battles, no matter what the ECLs, will drain the hell out of them.

An interesting side note. In my campaign (the currently continuing WLD campaign - the other one is leaving WLD for now, as the players are sick and tired of it) the party joined the garrison, and saw the history of The Prison - that's honestly what it is, and the celestials saw no need to make up a fancy name for it. In my case, Cyrlebrai is the _oldest_ celestial in there, as he's been in there since the beginning - he was the one who called for it to be built in the first place when the gods would not intervene. The party also 'saw' the capture of Lord Kraveshk, and bits and pieces of the other celestial garrisons and bits of history. It's all leading in together - it should be quite enjoyable. An epic fight, for sure. 

And, honestly, I'm going to have lots of FUN with Region C, thanks to Hussar's hard work on the region and adapting it for OpenRPG. Region C is just fun overall, with all the different things in it. I'm looking forward to deciding what role Arum plays - I'd love for him to be a recurring character that turns up all over the place, or at least leaves a trail behind. After all, he left Region C, the way I see it. He certainly didn't leave the dungeon, though. So, whereever the party goes - Arum's been there first. Perhaps he's still around! Who says that Invistis is the only lich in the dungeon? Not all liches have to be evil. After all, there's definite potential for a mad lich who lives on, racked with guilt over his part in the destruction of the way of Merunda. Personally, I just want a chance to run that darned random encounter from N where the lich comes up asking for diamond dust. Really. 

So, yeah. Going to run C very very soon. I just need to play with Open some more, and decide what sort of spin I'm going to put on the region. I may just have to steal Hussar's incredible idea of Nardarik thinking he's Arum. Or not. We'll see! So many possibilities...


----------



## Hussar

Yeah, going to have to dump lots of goodies onto the party between fights.  Fortunately, between the angels in the Garrison and Raverna, there's more than enough cleric power to keep them going.  Heal them up, buff them a touch and send them out.  Have each "encounter" occur in different locations around the map.  Haven't worked out all the details yet.  It really depends on how much the party does beforehand.  Probably work something like this:

Fight 1:  Zombies and Ettins, possibly with a night hag in there, if any are left.  Probably on the beach in front of the Ettin's lair.  

Fight 2:  The party spots a strike team trying to sneak in.  Babau and Dretch.  Somewhere in the garrison itself.

Fight 3:  Vrock assault on a weak point.  The party must shore up the defenses along with some of the Garrison.  Likely around area G9.

Fight 4:  Party leads an assault on Aramnan's fortress in an attempt to establish a control point.  Aided by the Garrison.  Will likely feature one of the demon lords - I like Nasherbiz at the moment.

Fight 5:  Climax battle.  The party, along with a team of celestials, breaks into the Horde's base and has it out with the biggest and the baddest - I wanna use the Marilith here.  Maybe in area G91.  Nice big room, difficult terrain.  

The only real malfunction that I'm having at the moment is the fact that there aren't a lot of open areas for set battles.  I'm thinking the garrison can transport the party around where ever, but, I need some elbow room to play with things.  Maybe some wall of stone spells over the lava river to make bridges.  The bigger celestials can create some pretty big bridges I'm thinking.


----------



## tbug

This sounds really fun!

I recommend that you keep people in initiative rounds the entire time, even if they're back inside the garrison getting healed up. That will keep up the tension nicely.

Good plan, regardless. I hope your players love it!


----------



## twilko

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Why not have them witness the aftermath of an encounter that *would* have eaten the party.  Show some badly wounded Celestials, a pile of drow bodies from Region I being burned, and if you want to include the conflict between the Celestials and the Inevitables, have one of the Inevitables telling off the Celestials for not using the Redeemed in the battle, or not checking to see if any of the Drow could have been "rehabilitated" before killing them all. Have the Celestials explain that if it hadn't been for the restored ward staff that Sanjid would have had to be spending time maintaining a door ward instead of being available to heal the damaged Celestials (or party members if they need healing on their return to the garrison). Then have the howls of some Shadow Mastiffs echo through the hallways. If the party is not powerful enough to tackle them by themselves then have Besar go to deal with the doggies and ask the party for help, but limit Besar's powers if you want due to him having expended them in the battle with the Drow. This would also provide you with an opportunity for Besar to tell the party about the split with the Inevitables and the need for the Garrison Charter, and of his duty to protect his Celestial brethren.
> 
> ie - talk up the work that the Garrison has been doing in the party's absence. Just because the party members aren't there doesn't mean that things aren't occurring.




COOL!   Big nastinest without having to think up a nasty to do it. If I leave enough Drow around to give the party something to do, then drag them off with say Morkor to re-instate the door wards then that would all work. Thanks. 
Thanks also to rvalle. Great ideas guys.


----------



## erucsbo

*off camera action.*

How do you approach your role as DM and does WLD make a difference? D&D is an exercise in collarborative story-telling, so a DM could be Author and/or Editor (where prose is the example medium), Composer and/or Conductor (music), Scriptwriter and/or Director (theatre), or Coach and/or Referree (sport) or any other analogy you might come up with. I try and adopt more of the latter role than the former as I don't want to be prescriptive in what happens (and if I was the players would find ways to deviate from the desired plot-line), but that doesn't mean I can't borrow from techniques used by the different roles.
One of the greatest directors was Alfred Hitchcock who established great tension by putting things off-screen. Audiences would imagine far more then ever would have been the case if everything had been 'in camera', and all the extra information/plots/intricacies contained in WLD should be allowed to peek through from time to time to play upon the imaginations of the players. It is a pity that so many pages got lost in the crash, but hearing about things that other DMs have done in other sections (and considering how the ripples might spill over in to other sections) helps give the illusion of the Dungeon as a whole rather than a patchwork of barely connected sections. Keep it simple enough (and don't correct the players wrong assumptions) and you should be able to adapt to whatever you want when the players finally do arrive in a different section and they start to see where the snippets of information/news that they got from other sections fit in to the jigsaw (and where they were right and wrong).
My players are about 75% the way through E now and they may end up skipping N altogether, but next session I think I will have my first wave of negative energy pulse through the entire complex, signalling the World Eater's awakening. It may even occur partway through an expected fight against Seraxes and the shadows  
I'd be interested in what other "signs and portents" I can throw in from other later sections, especially from those that have had parties go through later sections and in hind-sight wished that there had been some foreshadowing.
Taking my suggestion about the aftermath of the celestial/drow battle a bit further, one could have the celestials say how atypical it was of the drow to attack like that, and that they kept calling out "Madness is coming" (which is easy to misinterpret!) [truth might be that they were trying to flee from Madness after he had decimated a drider leader and that they were the slaves running away].
Other things from movies/books that might work:
 - repeated wall markings from previous adventurers like AS (Arne Saknussemm) from Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
 - increase of rat swarms fleeing from something (can be small enough to not do any damage and rush straight past the party) from just about any number of disaster movies.
 - foreshadowing of stuff from other sections/plot lines (Babylon5)
 - change the colour saturation/hues of the landscape as evil ebbs and flows, or temperature changes up/down from the lava flow felt in the non-lava flow areas of the dungeon (most VR type movies have something like this happening, including parts of the Matrix trilogy).
You don't have to act on any of these - all they do is indicate that change is occurring, and the party's actions might well be the small events that precipitate other things (Jurassic Park - read the book, not the poor interpretation that was the movie).

enough rambling - I'll get back in my box now


----------



## Traevanon

My players may want to skip N altogether as well now that they have been in it for a day.  

They will be probably be forced to go through it however, due to this debate:
- They know that all the undead regenerate daily.
- They have trouble with the Dread Wraiths, if not for Death Ward they would be toast.
- We have a Thaumaturgist (summoner) in the party who is nerfed by the region, the fighters are also nerfed in the high ceiling areas fighting wraiths with fly by attack.

- They know that the World Eater may struggle out of his bonds soon.
- They know that the World Eater can turn entire races (four negative levels over the entire world, and possibly entire plane) into zombie movie fodder.
- Two of the party have signed the Garrison charter.


----------



## Hussar

Eww, you let a player take a summoner without warning him?  Ouch.    Evil, but ouch.  

If you are feeling a bit more generous, you might let him summon.  Perhaps the variant in the DMG where you summon the same creature, over and over again.  The summoning draws on a spirit in the region and gives it form for a short period of time.

Just a thought.  Then again, I didn't nerf summoning.

Erucsbo - Excellent idea.  I occassionally throw in dream sequences as well.  My backstory is a game of the gods, so, once in a while, they get a peek at how the gods are reacting to their actions.  The players seem to like it.  I also added in a separate idea that the Dungeon itself was taking an interest in the party.  Not sure if they picked up on that one or not.


----------



## Traevanon

He's a clerical summoner.  Summoning is only nerfed in Region N in my version.  He is able to summon from the outside and bring something in.  Overall its just something he has to deal with.

He (and the druid) were able to shine against the demons, the flying wizard and warlock rocked against the driders, the fighters rocked against the giants, now he has rely on others.  Its all a part of being 15th level.  Sometimes your specialty is going to rock and sometimes its not.

He is buffing / healing / meleeing, and he is the only one in the party with Mass Death Ward.
He gets to do his part.


----------



## Xiag

erucsbo said:
			
		

> How do you approach your role as DM and does WLD make a difference? D&D is an exercise in collarborative story-telling, so a DM could be Author and/or Editor (where prose is the example medium), Composer and/or Conductor (music), Scriptwriter and/or Director (theatre), or Coach and/or Referree (sport) or any other analogy you might come up with.




None of the above, I'm more of an opponent / referee.

Before the game, I have the villians do everything they can to stop the party.  If they know they're comming, then they really step up the preperations, if not, I might tone it down a bit.  But the villians don't stop being villians for the sake of the game.

I consider it like a game of chess, where I'm trying to beat the players, but I don't know what they're going to do.  I have to have all of my moves written down before they enter the dungeon, with the end game of toppling the players.

Once they start playing, I take my script and move my pieces.  They may figure it out, and play off that.  They may not.  But I had my chance to plan, and now I have to live with the outcome, just like they do.  It's not to say their isn't flexibility.  It's just that I've gone through all the scenerios I can think of before hand.  And if I didn't figure this one out, the villian always goes with plan B.  Run.

The only change WLD makes is that I have someone else who's decided a lot of the moves.  It makes my life easier, and I just have to have the pieces react, rather than invent them in the first place.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Traevanon said:
			
		

> - They know that all the undead regenerate daily.



I would strongly suggest you dump this idea.
The region has enough of the monsters (hordes, dread wraiths, morhgs, etc.) repeated throughout the region that it gets monotonous already. Repeating the same extact encounters over and over just makes it worse.


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> Was just statting up Region G and noticed something.
> 
> Grelka, the head night hag, uses a ring of shooting stars.  The text mentions her relying on it in combat.  Only one problem.  Underground, a ring of shooting stars is mostly useless.  50000 gp for a one use spark fan for a couple of d6 damage.
> 
> I've fudged a bit and replaced it with a staff from Dragon 336 (p 72)- Staff of Nightmares.  Allows her to cast Scare(1), Fear (2), Nightmare (2) Phantasmal Killer (2), Symbol of Fear (3) and Weird (4) as a 17th level sorc (51 000 gp).  Gave her a level of sorc just cause.
> 
> Just a thought.  BTW, I LOVE the bracers of defenselessness.  The monk/paladin is going to HATE me.




sorry. the logic here was that she's a NIGHT hag... allowing her to use the power of the ring as though she were outdoors... more of a theme... sort of


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I would strongly suggest you dump this idea.
> The region has enough of the monsters (hordes, dread wraiths, morhgs, etc.) repeated throughout the region that it gets monotonous already. Repeating the same extact encounters over and over just makes it worse.




Ha.

You crack me up, Sean.

It depends on your DMing and the PCs play style, but yeah.

That can get monotonous.

If the don't want to do it, you can save the region for a different campaign.


----------



## twilko

erucsbo said:
			
		

> ..... (much cut)...
> 
> Other things from movies/books that might work:
> - repeated wall markings from previous adventurers like AS (Arne Saknussemm) from Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
> - increase of rat swarms fleeing from something (can be small enough to not do any damage and rush straight past the party) from just about any number of disaster movies.
> - foreshadowing of stuff from other sections/plot lines (Babylon5)
> - change the colour saturation/hues of the landscape as evil ebbs and flows, or temperature changes up/down from the lava flow felt in the non-lava flow areas of the dungeon (most VR type movies have something like this happening, including parts of the Matrix trilogy).
> You don't have to act on any of these - all they do is indicate that change is occurring, and the party's actions might well be the small events that precipitate other things (Jurassic Park - read the book, not the poor interpretation that was the movie).
> 
> enough rambling - I'll get back in my box now




-Maybe have creatures they have just killed come back as Zombies in a day or even a few rounds. Don't this every time but as it becomes more frequent it might start to worry the party.


----------



## erucsbo

twilko said:
			
		

> -Maybe have creatures they have just killed come back as Zombies in a day or even a few rounds. Don't this every time but as it becomes more frequent it might start to worry the party.



sweet.
My players are in E at the moment and in discussion with the Celestials it has been revealed to them that the Dungeon is meant to trap evil, because if you kill it, it reappears elsewhere. I've said this to try and get them to not just kill everything they encounter (and I've already mentioned how their actions have already destabilised Region E in my game).
While I like the idea I might extend it, and couple it with the waves of negative energy that will emerge from N. After a pulse out of negative energy corpses come back to (un)life, but then there is a reverse wave (maybe harder to detect) that summons the new undead back towards N. As the reverse wave washes over the creatures their *souls/spirits* depart (surf the wave back) to feed the negative energy buildup in N. Players that can detect evil, or perhaps are just really in tune with the spiritual side of things might be able to see these departing spirits -either way, the bodies that had reanimated then collapse again - ie. the evil that had been dispersed through the dungeon is now coalescing with the World Eater. This would only happen for the spirits of evil creatures as "evil feeds on evil". Thus - now - every time the characters kill evil creatures they are contributing to the release of the World Eater, and the more they do so, the faster it happens and the more concerned the remaining celestials/garrison members become.


----------



## Hussar

OOo, nasty.  I like it.  You could really freak the players out by having the zombies ignore them.  Just let the zombies start walking in the most direct straight line towards N.  Let them get trapped in rooms, bumping against walls, pounding on doors, whatever, for twenty or thirty minutes and then have them fall down again.

Ohh, I likies that idea.

Me, I'm not going to do N.  I wanna use the Tarasque.  In all the years I've played DnD, I've NEVER used one.  I want to let my players have the bragging rights that they legitimately got up to 18th level (or so) and whacked the big guy.  While the World Eater is just a great critter, I want Godzilla.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

I dunno. Which one I use depends on the direction my players go. Frankly, I'm not sure how they'll miss N, as it's so very distinctive. Hrm. I want to run ALL of it!


----------



## Hussar

My thought is something like this.  After G, a brief stop in K to whack a dragon and free the Lilend "scout" for the Celestial Garrison.  The scout sends them off into J to hunt down an efreeti who might be able to get them out with a wish.  Wander around J and kill stuff.  Come back to G for R&R and hear that the elves in H might be able to help them by building a boat so they can sail out of L.  But, before the boat is complete, somebody comes up from D and burns it to the ground.  Ticked off, the party heads down into D for the final showdown.

Or something like that.  It's still pretty fuzzy and depends a lot on what the party does.  One nice thing about the Garrison is that I have a nice source of hooks to go trolling for PC's.    I figure I can start feeding information to the players and let the little puppets dance to my every whim.  MWAHAHAHAHAHA!  Ahem.  Erm... :O


----------



## erucsbo

Hussar said:
			
		

> Me, I'm not going to do N.  I wanna use the Tarasque.  In all the years I've played DnD, I've NEVER used one.  I want to let my players have the bragging rights that they legitimately got up to 18th level (or so) and whacked the big guy.  While the World Eater is just a great critter, I want Godzilla.




No reason why you need to place D in the SE corner.
Looks like it would be pretty easy to push O to the east and rotate D by 180 degrees and place it between N and O, with the digging heading towards N - oh - and you'd ditch the lava, D15, and make slight changes to D14, D16 and D89.

That way no matter which way they go they end up with the big T. (and if they head south after already having headed north then just have the lava split as usual in D, but with no passages in to the rockface)


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> OOo, nasty.  I like it.  You could really freak the players out by having the zombies ignore them.  Just let the zombies start walking in the most direct straight line towards N.  Let them get trapped in rooms, bumping against walls, pounding on doors, whatever, for twenty or thirty minutes and then have them fall down again.
> 
> Ohh, I likies that idea.
> 
> Me, I'm not going to do N.  I wanna use the Tarasque.  In all the years I've played DnD, I've NEVER used one.  I want to let my players have the bragging rights that they legitimately got up to 18th level (or so) and whacked the big guy.  While the World Eater is just a great critter, I want Godzilla.




if the PCs get to level 18 before they fight godzirra... make sure you take some of the restraints off of its tactics (fyi)

that's how we kept the CR so low for that encounter

good luck. no one has posted a fight with the terrasque yet, i don't think


----------



## tbug

twilko said:
			
		

> -Maybe have creatures they have just killed come back as Zombies in a day or even a few rounds. Don't this every time but as it becomes more frequent it might start to worry the party.




I've got my PCs in F41 (the room with the portal to the plane of shadow) and I think that there's going to be a lot of this. They're accompanied by a bunch of NPCs, and I suspect that by the time they're done with F41 there's going to be a lot fewer of them.

As far as I can tell, non-humanoids killed by shadows become wights, and almost anyone killed by the room's negative energy becomes a wraith. That's how I'm playing it, at least. (I've even made handouts with the rules for converting one's character to each type of undead.)

For now this is only happening in the one room, but if it starts just happening generally then I'll have some pretty scared PCs.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

jim pinto said:
			
		

> if the PCs get to level 18 before they fight godzirra... make sure you take some of the restraints off of its tactics (fyi)
> 
> that's how we kept the CR so low for that encounter
> 
> good luck. no one has posted a fight with the terrasque yet, i don't think




Uhh, the spacecrime_wlg group posted a 'fight' with the tarrasque, if you call ". We're running NOW." a fight. (Granted, they did take out Rroliq and THEN run away.)


----------



## Dracorat

Small update.

My group banded together and pleaded with their DM for a game this past weekend even though one wasn't scheduled. So, their DM (me) agreed. All players and the one more player I needed showed up.

They conquered much more of region A. On this session, however, they got cocky. 

They decided to fight the kobolds who were staked out because they wanted exp. They had just parlayed with the kobolds and their attack was unprovoked. (Room with 4 warriors, one sorc and a krenshar). When the kobold sorc cast Web and half the party was entangled by it, they realized how bad of a choice that was.

The sorc was taken to unconscious four times and only because the cleric had the 'travel' domain ability of free action, he was saved from death because she activated it, walked over and cast her cures on him round after round. (He was entangled and thus a prime target for most of the kobolds).

The fighter in the party broke free relatively easily, of the web, and then forced his way in. The cleric went also and the two of them alone were enough to take down all but two kobolds. (They eventually went down themselves). The cleric died on that battle from failing to stabilize. The rogue was webbed but not entangled and picked off the last two kobolds just barely. (He had 1 HP remaining and was the only party member left conscious and able to do anything)

They got no exp from the battle, but did take away some loot. After receiving no exp, the party was much more apt not to pick fights for no reason.

They attempted to take out the room with 6 mean fiendish darkmantles - twice - and ended up running both times.

They are still a level 2 party btw.

I play rooms with their encounter conditions and one thing the party has come to realize is that rooms with shifty shadows (how I describe the CONCEALMENT encounter condition) usually mean darkmantles. Add in that the darkmantles themselves can cast "darkness" and they have come to really despise darkmantles.

But that still didn't stop them from attempting the mantles. And when six mantles started hitting their fighter (whom they had sent ahead) and the fighter was taking massive damage, they still faught on until the fighter finally hit the floor.

Good times. =)

The fighter did die at one point and the party took the appropriate exp loss for his death.

So once they wisened up and decided to skip the darkmantle room, they went the back way in to the chapel (the secret door you are not supposed to be able to open from the reverse side - I let them open it).

The fight with the Owlbear netted another fighter death. No crits and he still took 26 HP damage in a single round. Don't forget this is a level 2 fighter.

But they emerged victorious and with more exp. But not by a huge margin. They almost bit it there too.

Another rest and then they find Longtail's room. 

Longtail knew they were coming by a mile. The party is neither stealthy nor quiet.

So he was prepared. They opened the door, saw nothing, a mage stepped in and got hit with a magic missile spell. Then, they saw their opponent, flying above them.

The party was persistent and the cleric was a HP battery for the sorc again until Longtail ran out of spells and cast invisibility and flew away. The party did all told, five damage to Longtail.

They were counting spell points and someone kept saying "OK, he is at least a level 3 sorcerer" (then a level 4, then a 5...)

It was quite amusing. And the party hasn't seen the last of Longtail. =)


----------



## tbug

*Longtail Fun*

Unbeknownst to them, the PCs entered the WLD in the company of a first-level thrallherd. She was abandoned back in Region A while the party went off and did their own thing. At this point she has Longtail as a thrall and a whole whack of the remaining humanoids as believers. I'm quite looking forward to the point where they figure out what's happened.


----------



## Hussar

In all honesty, its been a while since I read the Big T's encounter, so I'll have to cross that bridge later.  Thanks for the heads up.


----------



## Traevanon

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I would strongly suggest you dump this idea.
> The region has enough of the monsters (hordes, dread wraiths, morhgs, etc.) repeated throughout the region that it gets monotonous already. Repeating the same extact encounters over and over just makes it worse.




The PCs are 16+ level.  The Dread Wraiths have been a pain, but most of the early prison inhabitants are locked up.  They almost penetrated to N2 the first time in, with only one mass death ward (they will have two or more next time).  They were also without their main spellcaster (17th level mystic theurge).

So, I see what you mean, but its the encounter conditions in this place that make it challenging.  Remember that I have had several custom lairs and dropped in a few places where they could buy/sell loot.  So they may be better equipped than your average WLD party.  They also got a good point buy (about a 32 point equivalent) at the beginning.

They will figure out some way to pass previous encounters more efficiently (especially when I award them less or no XP the second time around).

I think they can do it.


----------



## Xiag

*Nwn2*

With NWN2 due out in September is anyone planning a WLD mod for it?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Xiag said:
			
		

> With NWN2 due out in September is anyone planning a WLD mod for it?



Unless it's 100x easier to set up, not a chance in Baator.


----------



## Xiag

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Unless it's 100x easier to set up, not a chance in Baator.




Easier to set up than..... a ghoul on a date with a paladin?  Help me out here.

I'm considering making a go at it, but I also want to do a couple other mods (Ultima 3, and Module B2), so this might be something I could help with, but I don't see me doing on my own.

Of course I keep saying that, and I keep thinking; "but it's right there..."


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Xiag said:
			
		

> Easier to set up than..... a ghoul on a date with a paladin?  Help me out here.



Than setting up a module in the first NWN.


----------



## Xiag

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Than setting up a module in the first NWN.




Well, not exactly sure what you had problems with, but if anyone else is considering it, I'd love to help.


----------



## erucsbo

*N223 scrolls*

Back in the dim dark ages when I started playing D&D ('81), the first dungeon I made and ran a party through had a very well hidden secret trapdoor under which was a Ring of Gaxx (check the Artifacts in the 1ed DMG). Why? Because I wanted to have something I considered way cool in the dungeon, but hidden enough that it was unlikely that the party would ever find it (and they didn't). Stupid in hindsight and thankfully it didn't ruin the game.
I got a similar feeling from N223. Has anyone actually had a party find the scrolls? It is so far out of left field that I really struggle with its purpose except perhaps as a panic button or a way to violently shift the game flow in to a new direction. (ok - it states its purpose but it reads like a kludge).
Having said that, I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing, but would like to have the players able to reach it not completely blind to what is going on.

How have others of you who have had parties go through N handled it (if there are any of you still reading)?

I'm inclined to add it to the foreshadowing events that can be thrown in to other regions (certainly wouldn't give clues in N where the named undead might encounter them).
Maybe clues could be garnered in the Hidden Library in E, and from Cyrlebrai in G about the existance of the scrolls and where they may be found.

thoughts? comments?


----------



## Hussar

Heh, I believe BBR should be fielding that one E. 

BTW, I just had the group meet Cylerbrai.  Now, I know he's meant to be weak, but, I figured he was just that - weak.  I had him do most of the exposition for the region and the Dungeon in general.  Since I'm likely going to kill him off soon, either through assassination or the Flame thing, I figured he should be on stage at least a little.

What did other people dow with him?

On a side note, the abyssal basilisk disappeared in a red mist after the raging, buffed, orcish barbarian scored a crit with his great axe and blew about 130 points of damage into it.  I think it scared everyone at the table.    Great moment.


----------



## erucsbo

*Region F questions*

okay - so I'm not sure if my players are going to head north to I or east to F from E (expect they'll probably head F unless I railroad them), so I have some questions.

Warp Gate Keys: "If a PC possesses two warp gate keys, he passes through the gate as if it weren't there."
I don't get this. It talks about using the warp gate keys by inserting them in the keyhole to 'unlock' it. How does possession of multiple keys render a gate ineffective and does this supercede the 'unlocking' option?

and Warp Gate Side effects. Have any of you actually used these? I can't really see any benefit to gameplay from having these affect anyone not of LG alignment (which is all bar 1 character in my party).


----------



## pokedigimaniac

erucsbo said:
			
		

> okay - so I'm not sure if my players are going to head north to I or east to F from E (expect they'll probably head F unless I railroad them), so I have some questions.
> 
> Warp Gate Keys: "If a PC possesses two warp gate keys, he passes through the gate as if it weren't there."
> I don't get this. It talks about using the warp gate keys by inserting them in the keyhole to 'unlock' it. How does possession of multiple keys render a gate ineffective and does this supercede the 'unlocking' option?
> 
> and Warp Gate Side effects. Have any of you actually used these? I can't really see any benefit to gameplay from having these affect anyone not of LG alignment (which is all bar 1 character in my party).




You know, this is a good question. I hadn't thought of this before. At first, I had just interpreted this to mean that if you held a certain warp key, it would automatically set the door to send you to that location. But, now that I think about it, that wouldn't work at all... hmm. Good thing I'm most likely not running that region, eh? Whew!


----------



## BlueBlackRed

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Back in the dim dark ages when I started playing D&D ('81), the first dungeon I made and ran a party through had a very well hidden secret trapdoor under which was a Ring of Gaxx (check the Artifacts in the 1ed DMG). Why? Because I wanted to have something I considered way cool in the dungeon, but hidden enough that it was unlikely that the party would ever find it (and they didn't). Stupid in hindsight and thankfully it didn't ruin the game.
> I got a similar feeling from N223. Has anyone actually had a party find the scrolls? It is so far out of left field that I really struggle with its purpose except perhaps as a panic button or a way to violently shift the game flow in to a new direction. (ok - it states its purpose but it reads like a kludge).
> Having said that, I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing, but would like to have the players able to reach it not completely blind to what is going on.
> 
> How have others of you who have had parties go through N handled it (if there are any of you still reading)?
> 
> I'm inclined to add it to the foreshadowing events that can be thrown in to other regions (certainly wouldn't give clues in N where the named undead might encounter them).
> Maybe clues could be garnered in the Hidden Library in E, and from Cyrlebrai in G about the existance of the scrolls and where they may be found.
> 
> thoughts? comments?



My guys found the scrolls.
The way the region is designed, you almost have to search every room to do the job you need to do (find the keys, pull the levers).
In fact, they totally misunderstood my intention of the scrolls.
I had changed the scrolls to flashpaper so that they would light up at the slightest flame, but the spells on the scrolls would do absolutely nothing.

I left what would happen had they burned the scrolls open so I could wing it as I didn't want to end the WLD in an anticlimactic manner.
But to them "flashpaper" meant that they had to protect the scrolls at all costs.

And it wasn't until possibly the most crucial moment, about 8 combat rounds into it with the World Eater, that they wondered again outloud what the scrolls did and I reminded them "the 2 scrolls made of _flashpaper_".

Then something clicked, and the tide of the battle almost turned, but they had already blown many of their spells and they just simply weren't thinking that night.


----------



## Hussar

DM Magic said:
			
		

> Some of you might remember that, before the server crashed, I mentioned that I would be turing the entire dungeon into custom tiles. Well, I finally posted a bunch of pictures from that endeavour. (The campaign is called the "Endless Dungeon" -- ignore the other campaigns, unless you like that sort of thing). All pictures are in-game shots.
> 
> Of particular interest would be the following:
> 
> Session 14
> Session 15
> Session 16
> 
> Oh, I suppose it would help to add that these pictures all take place in Region A. You might recognize the pillar rooms.




Dude, that's cool.  You have SO much work ahead of you.


----------



## tbug

erucsbo said:
			
		

> okay - so I'm not sure if my players are going to head north to I or east to F from E (expect they'll probably head F unless I railroad them), so I have some questions.
> 
> Warp Gate Keys: "If a PC possesses two warp gate keys, he passes through the gate as if it weren't there."
> I don't get this. It talks about using the warp gate keys by inserting them in the keyhole to 'unlock' it. How does possession of multiple keys render a gate ineffective and does this supercede the 'unlocking' option?




Yeah, I ignored that.



			
				erucsbo said:
			
		

> and Warp Gate Side effects. Have any of you actually used these? I can't really see any benefit to gameplay from having these affect anyone not of LG alignment (which is all bar 1 character in my party).




I used them. Basically, the net effect is that the players are avoiding Region F. I'm going to make them pay (there's a rakshasa in there, for crying out loud!) but they're just not willing to risk the doors.

One idea might be to make the keys deactivate the side effects. It's too late for my game, but that could help yours. Also, I'd add some keys. There are only three total out of a possible ten, and I think that having some scattered about (possibly in other regions) could really help.


----------



## erucsbo

tbug said:
			
		

> One idea might be to make the keys deactivate the side effects. It's too late for my game, but that could help yours. Also, I'd add some keys. There are only three total out of a possible ten, and I think that having some scattered about (possibly in other regions) could really help.




good idea. I might seed a couple of keys in E.
If the party decides to go north I might hint that they may want to leave them with the Garrison so that once all the cleanups are done the garrison members can head east to help the celestials in G (if the party doesn't go that way) - I have a paladin NPC going through B and C to G as a separate (out of game) storyline [and has already been used to get two other characters joining the party].


----------



## erucsbo

*Changes to Region E to include other regions*

My party went for (and retrieved) the garrison charter last night.

In the Chamber of Ends there are candles for every garrison member. I read this to mean that the garrison was the entire WLD not just Region E as it states that there were hundreds and hundreds of alcoves and thousands of candles (which would be far too many for just region E). Only 19 remain lit - though by my (albeit quick and dirty) calculations it should probably have been 21. Now I had previously mentioned the garrison in Region G and had to explain the absence of candles for them saying that they predated the charter and thus hadn't had candles lit for them. You may also need to adjust the number if you have other celestials seeded about the place, and this neglects the lantern archons in other areas as well. 3 of the party signed the charter 

Also - following the dispersal of keys from F. I've made quite a bit of use of the W rooms in an unnumbered rooms in E. One I picked was of the demon corpse that is slowly regenerating but is being consumed by bugs at the same rate. The party didn't search it, but I think did pour holy water on it to hopefully tip the balance towards decaying it further (they have spent more time in some of the W description rooms than most of the normal ones, particularly the W rooms with machinery). Now that they have been informed by the celestials in E of the breakout of demons in F and that keys were used, they might end up going back to search the body - and I'll have one of the blue keys from F there.


----------



## twilko

erucsbo said:
			
		

> My party went for (and retrieved) the garrison charter last night.
> 
> In the Chamber of Ends there are candles for every garrison member. I read this to mean that the garrison was the entire WLD not just Region E as it states that there were hundreds and hundreds of alcoves and thousands of candles (which would be far too many for just region E). Only 19 remain lit - though by my (albeit quick and dirty) calculations it should probably have been 21. Now I had previously mentioned the garrison in Region G and had to explain the absence of candles for them saying that they predated the charter and thus hadn't had candles lit for them. You may also need to adjust the number if you have other celestials seeded about the place, and this neglects the lantern archons in other areas as well. 3 of the party signed the charter .




When my group reached that room they just couldn't help themselves. They got out their candles and started replacing the missing ones and relighting the dead ones. By my count (and I could be wrong) the garrison has 19 members including inevitables and region G has 53 celestials of one sort or another. So in the end the party ended up with 75 candles burning (a few will have gone out by the next time they visit). So the party knows there are other celestials about and are rather annoyed with the Garrison for not having gone out and found them. Only one of the party is Good by the way and the rest (6) are neutral.


----------



## erucsbo

*Garrison count*

If there are celestials in other regions (and I suppose we could count 15 lantern archons from regions A-O if they should be considered garrison members - _the one in Region N probably should at least_) that I have missed could people please add them.
This would be used if you want to have lit candles for all garrison members in E42.
This does not include extra creatures added to scale up encounters.

*Region E = 21* (22 if you include a token lantern archon beyond Lilig, Spark and Sorjin)
Inevitables:Dorsam	(E78)
Dubar	(E75)
Fastur	(E68)
Astol	(E68)
Toras	(E68)
Morsaq	(E72)
Persal	(E69)
Presin	(E71)
Senar	(E65)
Smeras	(E70)
Tekarus	(E64)
Wetoq	(E67)​Celestials:Besar	(E102)
Doj	(E101)
Kelara	(E109)
Lilig	(E108)
Morkor	(E109)
Sanjid	(E107)
Sorjin	(E108)
Spark	(E108)
Spers	(E103)​I haven't included Iridinhael (E5) as he is dead (well - technically undead)

*Region G = 57* + 3 (petrified) = 35 Hound Archons + 3 petrified Hound Archons + 7 Trumpet Archons + 12 Astral Deva angels + 1 Planetar + 1 Solar + 1 Couatl
_(and you could add another for the token lantern archon as well)_
patrol	x2 Hound Archons (listed in G3)
patrol	x2 Hound Archons (listed in G7)
patrol	Trumpet Archon (listed in G13)
(G1)	x6 Hound Archons
(G3)	x6 Hound Archons
(G5)	Cyrlebrai [Solar Angel] + Celestial Couatl
(G7)	x9 Hound Archons
(G9)	Labarus [Hound Archon] + x3 Hound Archons + x3 petrified Hound Archons
(G10)	x2 Astral Deva Angels
(G11)	x2 Trumpet Archons
(G15)	x2 Astral Deva Angels
(G16)	x2 Astral Deva Angels
(G18)	Evalan [Planetar Angel]
(G21)	x2 Astral Deva Angels
(G23)	Farnas [Astral Deva Angel]
(G25)	x3 Astral Deva Angels
(G28)	x2 Hound Archon + Trumpet Archon
(G32)	x4 Hound Archons
(G35)	Raverna [Ghaele] ???
(G67)	Sarnikyan [Erinyes] ???
(G77)	x2 Trumpet Archons
(G99)	Mavian [Trumpet Archon]

I have ??? by Raverna and Sarnikyan as it is not clear (at least in my quick scan) if they are/were members of the garrison. It might be interesting if Sarnikyan had a candle flame that burned black (or purple or some other colour), and if the 3 petrified Hound Archons had flames that were rock solid. Not sure if the Couatl should be counted as a garrison member either (comments welcome).

That makes a possible total of  88 = 68 + 3 steady + 1 black + 1 (Raverna) + 15 lanterns.


----------



## Dracorat

My party just reached level 3 and so far have managed to *increase* the number of shadows in section E due to the fact that the shadows there are really tearing them up. Aside from Longtail himself, they cleared out area A.

They kill a few shadows but then end up dying. I still reward exp for the ones they kill and slowly, they are still at a net-gain for exp for the shadows in that area, but the shadows are getting stronger in number.

What I am about to do is have an event in E. Some of the political landscape is about to change I think.

By the way, section E is so many times more fun than secton A was. =)


----------



## pokedigimaniac

> By the way, section E is so many times more fun than secton A was. =)




Agreed. The fact that there's so many different factions in the region means that you can really play around with the delicate balance of power tipping.


----------



## rvalle

Dracorat said:
			
		

> My party just reached level 3 and so far have managed to *increase* the number of shadows in section E due to the fact that the shadows there are really tearing them up. Aside from Longtail himself, they cleared out area A.
> 
> They kill a few shadows but then end up dying. I still reward exp for the ones they kill and slowly, they are still at a net-gain for exp for the shadows in that area, but the shadows are getting stronger in number.




My group didn't die to the Shadows but had to run several times. Once they knew they were going to be fighting Shadows every time they went out they were able to prepare themselves (magic weapons, Magic Stones, Mage Armor) and develop tactics to fight them.

The usually being the high dex/high touch ac people up front. When the Shadows attack they go full defensive and crank their AC into the 20's. The rest of the party pelts the Shadows with Magic Missles, Spirictual Weapons, Turn Undeads and Magic Stones.

This worked great... till the high touch ac gnome bard walked into a room with 3 Bagherst waiting in it.

rv


----------



## Dracorat

I am perhaps a little more evil as a DM =P

I have the shadows attempt to sneak around the party and then assault from all sides. Usually they roll their hide checks well enough (and being incorporeal, they emit no sound, so there is no move silent check). And then when the party gets to a spot where they can trap them, they trap them.

Running has not once been an option for them. Not with the shadows. They got close once. They spotted a shadow before it was in position, but rather than fortify their positioning, the fighter charge attacked it.

Right now, the shadow count is plus-seven.


----------



## twilko

Dracorat said:
			
		

> What I am about to do is have an event in E. Some of the political landscape is about to change I think.
> 
> By the way, section E is so many times more fun than secton A was. =)




So what were you planning to have happen in E? I am running E at the moment and always looking for new angles on the region.


----------



## Dracorat

I think they are going to move in on sections E36 to E44. Right now, the large obstacles are the door, which can kill the weaker shadows outright, the lighting, which is removable with the rod of nullification and the barghests.

The barghests have so far kept their territorry, but with additional shadows now, chances are not likely that they can.

With the taking of E44, Morat is next in line. Morat is no pushover however, so many of the shadows will probably be lost if it goes that far, and then with his defeat, that is quite a powerful shadow to be added to the shadow numbers.

Then, extrapolating outward, Morat was a large threat to Sarraas' pack of Barghests. Without that pressure anymore and with the newly weakened shadow numbers, and has managed to contact the celestials.

Sarraas will gain the native outsider template as a result (having committed to them, but only for the power it gives) and 1 additional level. The barghests in the region will gain a 50% increase in numbers as a few defected from the Morat pack and a few have been added to the number through dealings with the celestials. But, with the new power, and the reduced threat from Morat, Sarrass is no longer willing to work with the PCs, seeing their gear as opportunity and their power as a threat.


----------



## erucsbo

*Major Mojo and Bling*

IIRC during one of the early rpgmp3 WLD review recordings Hal (DM) mentions that there is a Deck of Many Things in WLD. I haven't been able to find it. Does one actually exist in it?
And has anyone compiled a list of the really powerful magical items in the dungeon?
(and ones that the party could reasonably take and use - unlike the ward staves, garrison charter and All Door in Region E).
I have a couple of 'magpies'* in my party and spreading rumours of major treasures - particularly magical - would provide good lures for getting party members from one area to another.

*magpie = in Australia, the magpie (which is a different bird from the American/European magpie, is attracted to (and known to steal) shiny objects. Someone who takes shiny stuff (particularly jewellry) regardless of how valuable it really is colloquially called a "magpie"


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Region L, if I recall correctly, has the _watrazor_. However, that's an all-underwater region.

Other powerful items include a _ring of wishes_ that is held by Serratine in the crypt in Region J. Region I has the _Eight Strike Fang._  That's all I can remember off the top of my head. Good luck with that!


----------



## Hussar

There is a bowl of Commanding Water Elementals in C.  Depending on how you handle summoning, this could be fairly powerful.

There is the artifact in B.  It's not detailed, so, you can pretty much toss in whatever you like.

BTW, I'm wondering, how much crossover do people have between regions?  I don't have particularly any.  The regions are considered static until the party enters them IMC.  While this may be somewhat unrealistic, I'm far too lazy to start tracking what's going on in all the regions while the party is elsewhere.  I did release the the cockatrice from C into B, but, that was more just color commentary than anything.  

I'm thinking though, once I finish G and the celestials gain the upper hand (assuming they do), that may change.  To prod the party in given directions, I think I'll have the garrison send them to scout here or there while they deal with other sections.  First they'll head east to talk to the elves then west to obliterate the minotaurs and free the celestials in E.  

While the garrison's numbers aren't all that great, even a small group of hound archons led by a deva would be able to depopulate any of the lesser lettered regions in pretty short order.  It might take some time, but, I'm thinking that as the party continues on into the more dangerous higher lettered regions, the lower lettered regions will become more hospitable and possibly a source of aid for the party.


----------



## erucsbo

Hussar said:
			
		

> There is a bowl of Commanding Water Elementals in C.  Depending on how you handle summoning, this could be fairly powerful.
> 
> There is the artifact in B.  It's not detailed, so, you can pretty much toss in whatever you like.




good call - while my party has gone A->E I do have an NPC paladin heading through B and C so I may be able to introduce items from there if the party crosses her path.

And thanks pokedigimaniac - yes there is the watrazor in L and Eight-Strike-Fang in I (which might be the bait I need to send them north).

As an aside - there is a ridiculously powerful evil sword and evil spellbook in C. I know that if my party had gone that way, at least one of the party would have been very tempted to change alignment just to use the things. I can't think of any reason why such items would be included in WLD unless you wanted to punish people playing good characters.
What have others done with these items?



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> BTW, I'm wondering, how much crossover do people have between regions?  I don't have particularly any.  The regions are considered static until the party enters them IMC.  While this may be somewhat unrealistic, I'm far too lazy to start tracking what's going on in all the regions while the party is elsewhere.  I did release the the cockatrice from C into B, but, that was more just color commentary than anything.
> 
> I'm thinking though, once I finish G and the celestials gain the upper hand (assuming they do), that may change.  To prod the party in given directions, I think I'll have the garrison send them to scout here or there while they deal with other sections.  First they'll head east to talk to the elves then west to obliterate the minotaurs and free the celestials in E.
> 
> While the garrison's numbers aren't all that great, even a small group of hound archons led by a deva would be able to depopulate any of the lesser lettered regions in pretty short order.  It might take some time, but, I'm thinking that as the party continues on into the more dangerous higher lettered regions, the lower lettered regions will become more hospitable and possibly a source of aid for the party.




Once they are freed up to do that, then it becomes a sensible thing to do.
The incursion of the lesser creatures through region A, while previously ignored, should now be dealt with, especially as the party arrived that way and they have proven themselves powerful enough to deal with things that the Celestials are holding at bay. They wouldn't want an evil party hitting them from behind - especially one that has recruited all the other creatures in A-C, and neither would they want the shadows in E to be able to run rampant through A then B and perhaps C.

It also keeps the celestials from providing the party with more support for the harder sections (at least until the easier sections have all been secured).

As for the garrison sending the party scouting - this has come up just recently in my game. Scouting would normally entail getting information back to the garrisons. I'm going to drop in a variant* Crystal Hypnosis Ball (clairaudience) and have the Celestials in E give it to one of the party who has signed the garrison charter. They can use the crystal ball to make reports back to the Celestials (probably Sanjid in E), and I may even allow clairvoyance through the crystal ball for the celestials so that the scout can show visual elements in the report back. If the celestials need to get a message back to the party they can relay it through the lantern archons.
* variant would be that the person using the crystal ball isn't being _fascinated_ or under compulsion of a _telepathic suggestion_ from the "power or being from another plane".


----------



## Elephant

erucsbo said:
			
		

> good call - while my party has gone A->E I do have an NPC paladin heading through B and C so I may be able to introduce items from there if the party crosses her path.
> 
> And thanks pokedigimaniac - yes there is the watrazor in L and Eight-Strike-Fang in I (which might be the bait I need to send them north).
> 
> As an aside - there is a ridiculously powerful evil sword and evil spellbook in C. I know that if my party had gone that way, at least one of the party would have been very tempted to change alignment just to use the things. I can't think of any reason why such items would be included in WLD unless you wanted to punish people playing good characters.
> What have others done with these items?




On the other side of the coin, there are some very strong benefits to playing good characters.  The elemental rooms in region A, the possible alliance with the celestials in E, etc.


----------



## twilko

erucsbo said:
			
		

> As an aside - there is a ridiculously powerful evil sword and evil spellbook in C. I know that if my party had gone that way, at least one of the party would have been very tempted to change alignment just to use the things. I can't think of any reason why such items would be included in WLD unless you wanted to punish people playing good characters.
> What have others done with these items?.




I don't know about that. Big evil items should be there. Afterall if the purpose of the dungeon is to trap evil then that applies to evil items as well as evil creatures. You may have to create rewards for Good characters but the evil stuff should be there to temp the weak.    

My party hasn't gone through C and probably won't (touch wood, they do the damnedest things). I did add 3 extra rooms to the All Door loaded with evil books, evil weapons and armour and just cool evil items. They party has some of these things and are begining to learn the nature of them. I don't won't to destroy the party by forcing them all to be evil but I do want them to make a choice about which way they go. The party started out neutral but has shown a deffinate evil bent.


----------



## Hussar

> As an aside - there is a ridiculously powerful evil sword and evil spellbook in C. I know that if my party had gone that way, at least one of the party would have been very tempted to change alignment just to use the things. I can't think of any reason why such items would be included in WLD unless you wanted to punish people playing good characters.
> What have others done with these items?




Sword?  Don't recall that one.  The book though, yeah, it's bad assed.  Granted, if you can actually get to the book at that level, without any help, I'd be impressed.  Never mind that if you're an evil party, the only way to get there is through the Celestial halls, which are just going to do so many bad things to you.  

Really, it does make sense that in a prison like this, they're also going to house a number of evil artifacts.  G has several within the Celestial garrison as well.  It's not punishing good parties, but rather providing a bit of flavour, IMO.

An evil party in the WLD would get it's butt handed to it pretty hard in many regions.  Maybe it's just because I'm doing G at the moment, but, sheesh, there's a bloody Planetar in there!  Evalan by herself could wipe out a 10th level party without breaking a sweat.  Never mind the Ghael Raverna that's sauntering around as well that has no problems slaughtering evils on sight.  

I would definitely NOT want to play anything other than a good PC in here.


----------



## erucsbo

Hussar said:
			
		

> Never mind the Ghael Raverna that's sauntering around as well that has no problems slaughtering evils on sight.




Do you consider Raverna to be a garrison member or not?
I don't recall any other Ghaeles in G, and off the top of my head, can't remember if there are any living Ghaeles left in E either.
It didn't really make it clear to me on my preread of the section (there are a lot of things that come to light in gameplay that are obscured in a beginning to end read of the section).


----------



## Hussar

Raverna isn't listed as one of the Garrison members, so I treat her as a free agent/ ally.  It's not like she's going to help the demons.  OTOH, the lawful garrison would likely be a problem as well.  So, she stays outside the garrison, splatting demons and others from time to time.  She has already met my party and sent them forward to the garrison, armed for bear against the basilisk.  Worked pretty well.

I think she's an excellent card for the DM to play if the party gets in over their heads in the region.  Just as the bad guys are about to lay the slippers to the party, she can show up and drive things off.  Not often, but, maybe once or twice in the region.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

I think Raverna is more of a lone wolf. How she got there is unclear, and pretty much up to the DM, but what the book has to say in the obvious areas about her:

"Though she has not officially allied herself with the Children of the Inner Light, Raverna met their leader and took it upon herself to rid the REgion of the evil fiends haunting it. Unless the PCs are evil, she views them as potential allies."

Mind you, that's from her Random Encounter text on page 350. Most of her other Random Encounter texts are fairly similar. And, frankly, that's pretty much all the information that the book gives on her. I get the feeling she's there as a bit of a DM's tool - much like the random encounters which can bring either Besar (bralani Ftr3, I believe) or one of the inevitables down to the south end of Region E to pull a party out of bad shadow fights if needed.

So, Raverna could be there for whatever reason you desire, but she's not connected to the garrison. Think of it as 'the enemy of the enemy is my friend.'

In terms of powerful artifacts, there's a +3 dragonbane dagger in C72 under a big pile of rubble that could easily have more fluff attached to it, but I haven't been able to find info about a powerful evil sword in C in my scan through the region. However, I did remember other interesting artifacts...

Region D has Truesilver, which is interesting enough on its own. (Page 175)

Region E has a _nine lives stealer_, but it's been discharged.

Region F, I haven't reread recently, and can't tell you much about.

Region G has some pretty vile stuff that's being kept locked up by the celestials, such as a _talisman of ultimate evil_, and the _spear of Ternius_ (a cool weapon - +4 humanbane longspear of wounding, with purple worm venom attached. Shame the celestials won't let anyone use/touch it.). Lord Tarnaticus has an interesting weapon with a story to go along with it. (Page 361) And I almost forgot - a very powerful item with a very powerful guardian, the _rod of tainted earth_, with a fiendish elder earth elemental (24 HD!) guarding it.

P.S., Hussar, if you don't use this against your party, I'll be sad. 

Region H has _Lyonatar's Eye_ (page 395), which is pretty much damn impossible to use/activate with things as they are in there. Jolinaar has some cool stuff, though. (page 427)

Region I, as previously mentioned, has Eight Strike Fang (page 435), among other things. It's also got the Ritual of Unmaking, but don't expect your spellcasters to start tossing that one around.

Region J has the _chaos diamond_ in the possession of some behirs (page 508). There's also _Baltazzar's Lantern_ (a variant djinni's lamp) (page 516). On the same page is a gem that acts as a _brazier of commanding fire elementals_ with some advantages and drawbacks. The gem radiates evil, though, as it summons an evil elemental. Shame. There is, of course, Tyrus' hoard, but good luck getting that stuff.

Region K has the _crystal of vile attraction_ (page 543), a cursed item. There's all the tanaa'ryl items (page 557), which have a couple of drawbacks. There's a _gem of lightning_, well hidden. (page 583) 

Region L has the watrazor. Enough said. The whole region's effectively built around that - completing it will be an epic challenge. (And whoever built Mahg'Gog has succeeded in impressing me. Giving a kraken wings? Awesome!)

Region M I haven't read in forever. No idea here. Didn't impress me that much.

Region N... now we get interesting. This is where that powerful evil sword resides... _Varnarul_, a CE +5 celestialbane keen bastard sword. (page 767) Besides that, there's so much STUFF in this region that I can't cover it all. Let's put it this way - it's the old lost treasures of the ages.

Region O... geez, you won't get here for a while.

That's pretty much all of the major treasures and artifacts. Feel free to add more.

*Edit:* Clearly Hussar and I agree on the usage of Raverna.  And I can't believe I just went through the whole WLD book and spat out all that information. Pretty amusing.


----------



## erucsbo

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> And I can't believe I just went through the whole WLD book and spat out all that information. Pretty amusing.




thanks pokedigimaniac - very much appreciated!

Hussar - the sword was in C21.
PCs who search the room for at least 1 hour are allowed a DC30 search check to find a single loose stone protected by a DC28 search/disable glyph and a DC50 open lock check to find a box with another DC28 search/disable glyph and another DC50 open lock check (and both stone and box are indestructible). In the box is a longsword - Strong Evocation [chaotic, evil] and moderate transmutation. _+3 anarchic flaming keen mighty cleaving unholy longsword_!


----------



## pokedigimaniac

I gotta tell you, if your PCs have the capability to make DC 50 Open Lock checks when in C, there's something weird going on. But good catch - I had missed that one.


----------



## Dracorat

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> I gotta tell you, if your PCs have the capability to make DC 50 Open Lock checks when in C, there's something weird going on. But good catch - I had missed that one.




Let's assume 6th level and a rogue who absolutely wants to have the highest check possible.

Level + 3 for straight ranks: +9
Masterworked tools: +2
Nimblefingers feat: +2
Dex base of 20: +5
Cat's Grace: +2
Skill Focus [Open Lock]: +3
Rolls a 20 on the check: 20

43, just off the top of my head. Im sure more situations might apply.

Other possible bonuses:
Circumstance: (knowing the lock from previous experience, for example) +2
Synergy: More than one lock picker assisting (+ 2)
Bardic: +2

Finally, if the wizard or sorcerer knows _knock_ then a locked chest is laughable at best.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Fair point, in a theoretical situation. However, with all the feats available, the probability of a rogue taking Nimble Fingers and Skill Focus: Open Locks doesn't seem that high.

And as for _knock_, I'm guessing that this particular lock should be immune to _knock_ - it's an ancient evil relic that was locked away by celestials, after all!


----------



## Dracorat

I do submit they have to be obsessed with open lock, but the point was only that its not quite as out of reach as it initially appears =)


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Regardless, region C has some pretty cool stuff behind some pretty nasty locks. For example, Aslur'thyn, the spectre, is behind 4 locks (DC 30, 35, 35, 40) which each have some fairly nasty traps and a mass reset if one of the Open Lock checks is failed by 10 or more. Shame. I liked how Hussar rewrote this a bit so that his party could actually FIGHT Aslur'thyn. After all, spectres are just too nasty and deadly to not use.


----------



## Hussar

Heh, I'll probably use the elemental during the final battle.  Not sure, but, maybe.  Then again, maybe the party will be tempted to go deal with it beforehand.  

I know, it's a big friggin' earth elemental, but, in all honesty, I wanna use the demons more.


----------



## chrisheff

*new campaign started*

Hello everyone. I recently started a new campaign set entirely in the WLD. We've played 4 sessions so far and you can read about it here:

http://www.geocities.com/cptzaphod/wld.htm

Thanks. I've enjoyed this thread!

Chris


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Looks like you guys are off to a great start! Best of luck with your WLD adventures!


----------



## erucsbo

Just wanted to post something on 06-06-06 
pity I missed doing so at 06:06, but displayed time is dependant on timezones anyway.
Good luck Chris on starting this "beast" of a dungeon ;-)
I like the "Seeing Pool" room - good idea.


----------



## rvalle

Quick update:

My group is just about 'done' with E. They know the location of the last staff (the one behind the secret door in the SE corner) and have been told about using the Charter against the Inevitables. 2 of the party members took up the offer to become Garrison members.

So far they group is talking about going to I as it would help the Garrison more then going to F. I'm not sure they will still feel that way after they venture in.  

rv


----------



## BlueBlackRed

06/06/06
To me they're just numbers.
To others they are more than that...which creates self-fulfilling prophecy.
Lots of bad wrecks on the road this morning around here. Including a highway being shutdown thanks to a wreck that happened when I would normally be in that location.

But eh, anyway...

I need more WLD links as I've not updated the WLD ones recently.
I've already added Chrisheff, anyone else?


----------



## chrisheff

> Looks like you guys are off to a great start! Best of luck with your WLD adventures!




Thanks! We're hoping to add a third night/month every other month or so as we're having such a great time.



			
				erucsbo said:
			
		

> Good luck Chris on starting this "beast" of a dungeon ;-)
> I like the "Seeing Pool" room - good idea.




Thanks again! I've dropped in a journal (with some small maps and notes) and another piece of map, but the Seeing Pool was the first bit of clue to let the characters deduce what the dungeon might be used for (and seeing their varrying reactions to what they saw was quite fun/exciting). 

Chris


----------



## Soarjubs

*Neat ending for Longtail*

Just thought you guys might think this was funny. The group I run has just sort of completed Region A, and are probably ready to move on. They were all 2nd level when they ran into Longtail (a Psychic Warrior, Enchanter, Sorcerer, Barbarian, Thief and Cleric of War).
The randomly rolled height of the portal room was 20 feet, so when the Enchanter started closing the portal and Aeschyxx called Longtail, he came out invisibly flying. He then shot a set of four MM's at the Enchanter, thinking to stop any chances the PCs had to close his precious portal.

The PW and the Barbarian both proceeded to become Large (PW with Expansion and Barbarian thanks to the Cleric's domain spell (Strength I think)). They both survived a Color Spray with amazing saves when Longtails turn game around. Once he was  grappled, they repeatedly fought to keep him pinned (with some intimidate checks by the Enchanter to make his rolls even worse) while the others eventually grappled and pinned the Imp, who was slowly stinging the Barbarian to death as he grappled his master. It was an amazingly desperate, anxious, exciting battle where they all knew (from the first round Magic Missiles and his were-rat form) that they were tremendously outgunned. It wasn't until they realized they had the hunk of hacksilver from early on in region A that they really turned the tide. A nordic war cleric beating the pinned villain (by two Large warriors) with a hunk of hacksilver (used as an improvised weapon doing d3 + STR damage) took Longtail out in the end.

It was amazing. I was so proud of them.


----------



## Hussar

Y'know, so many people have complained about Region A being boring or whatever.  But, from the number of excellent climax battles I've read on here with Longtail, I would say that A is fine.  It's a great shakedown region to get people into the groove of actually doing such long dungeon crawling.

I give Region A a thumb up.


----------



## rvalle

There were some posts that we lost about the 'path' in Region I. Did anyone copy those or remember what they said?

I'm having a hard time picturing what that path is. I THINK its a ribbon of webs that hangs in the air but is hard to see because of the vegitation, webs or other things in the rooms.

rv


----------



## Dracorat

Hussar said:
			
		

> Y'know, so many people have complained about Region A being boring or whatever.  But, from the number of excellent climax battles I've read on here with Longtail, I would say that A is fine.  It's a great shakedown region to get people into the groove of actually doing such long dungeon crawling.
> 
> I give Region A a thumb up.



 A single battle doesn't make the region. It means a single battle was cool. Really, the region is all that it has been hailed to be. Lacklustre at best.


----------



## Soarjubs

Dracorat said:
			
		

> A single battle doesn't make the region. It means a single battle was cool. Really, the region is all that it has been hailed to be. Lacklustre at best.





I guess to me a Region is what a DM makes it.
I made up countless phantom images, hauntings and strange sound effects and such to keep them all on their toes the entire Region. There have been hints that something went very wrong here, and its really kept them excited.


----------



## Dracorat

I did fine with my group as well, but I still stand by the region being lacklustre.

Especially once you get out of Region A, you will appreciate what that means.


----------



## twilko

Dracorat said:
			
		

> I did fine with my group as well, but I still stand by the region being lacklustre.
> 
> Especially once you get out of Region A, you will appreciate what that means.




Gotta agree, region A was a lot of work to make interesting. E I think needs a little tweaking and the extra stuff that got posted here by the author really goes a long way to fix it. F and M will need little to nothing to run while I looks like it could stand as is. 

Jim Pinto himself has said that some rooms and encounters got cut for space which may have made things better. Still my group is having fun with it.


----------



## Hussar

My players are so bloody lucky.

They have just invaded Lord Tarnaticus' lair in G.  They went through the zombie elves.  Well, I upped the zombie elves considerably by using the Cauldron Spawn template from Dragon.  Heh.  Nothing like bombing them with an EL 13 encounter right off the shot.  Not really a true EL 13 though, too many small critters.  But, anyway, they got through it, heavily damaged and have pulled into a small corner to rest.  For 8 hours.

So, I roll 8 hours worth of random encounters.  I roll 7 times between 2 and 12, no encounter, and one 20 - Raverna.  

SHEESH!  I wanna punish them a bit more and keep them on the ragged edge, and up pops the Ghael Eladrin to save the day.  Sigh.  Ah well, I'll buff them up, heal them and send them on their way.  I'll get them next time my cullies.

Oh, and here's the statblock for the Cauldron Spawn elves:



> From Dragon 340. I changed the zombie elves in Lord T's Lair to the following:
> 
> Cauldron Spawn Elf Warrior 6
> 
> LE Medium Undead CR 7
> 
> Init: +5 Senses: Listen: +5 Spot +5
> --------------------------------------------
> AC: 24 Touch 15 FF: 19 (+3 MW Studded Leather, +5 Dex, +6 Natural)
> HP: 36 (6d12 HD) DR 5/-
> SR: 14
> Immune: Undead Traits
> Fort: +5 Reflex: +7 Will:+1
> --------------------------------------------
> Speed: 30 ft
> Melee: Longsword (19-20) +8 (1d8+2)
> Full Attack: Longsword +8/+3 (19-20) (1d8+2)
> Ranged Attack: MW Longbow +10 (1d8)(19-20 x3)
> Full Ranged Attack: MW Longbow +10/+5 (1d8)(19-20 x3)
> base Atk: +6 Grp: +8
> Special Atk: Unnerving Presence (DC: 13) (Will save or be shaken for 1d4+1 rounds – 30 foot radius)
> ---------------------------------------------
> Abilities: Str: 15 Dex: 20 Con: -- Int: 8 Wis: 9 Cha: 12
> SQ: Born of the cauldron, Mindless
> Feats: Point blank shot, Precise Shot, Weapon Focus Longbow
> Skills: Climb 3, Hide 3, Listen 5 Search 2 Spot 5
> Possessions: Uniform Cloak (+2 to hide in forested regions), bronze cloak clasp, longsword, masterwork longbow, 15 obsidian tipped arrows (treated as keen), masterwork studded leather,




Fun encounter.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Hmm. This brings up another question - how often do you roll for random encounters when sleeping? I guess it depends on the area - for a heavily trafficked area like Region G, I can understand rolling hourly, but thus far, I've just rolled once per rest period, and a d8 to see what hour of the resting period it occurs during. *shrug*


----------



## erucsbo

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Hmm. This brings up another question - how often do you roll for random encounters when sleeping? I guess it depends on the area - for a heavily trafficked area like Region G, I can understand rolling hourly, but thus far, I've just rolled once per rest period, and a d8 to see what hour of the resting period it occurs during. *shrug*




I don't tend to roll for random encounters. I treat the game as a story and use the random encounters if and when I think they'll add to the story, as often as necessary.


----------



## Hussar

Meh, I like the randomness.  I would NEVER have brought in the Ghael at this point if I was writing the story.  But, from the player's point of view, it fits perfectly.  They know she's wandering around hunting demons and such, they've already interacted with her and having a 14th level cleric pop up out of the blue is nothing to be sneezed at.  

This time around, they got lucky.

I believe random encounters are to be rolled every hour.  The safe rooms reduce the rate considerably.  Ah crap, that reminds me that there are random room effects in G.  Have to remember that for next time.  I do roll random encounters fairly often.  Since about 1/2 are duds anyway, they don't come up that often and even when they do, I ignore the ones that don't make sense.  Such as a trip wire trap while they are sleeping.  That sort of thing.

Generally, I roll it whenever I think of it.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Hmm. This brings up another question - how often do you roll for random encounters when sleeping? I guess it depends on the area - for a heavily trafficked area like Region G, I can understand rolling hourly, but thus far, I've just rolled once per rest period, and a d8 to see what hour of the resting period it occurs during. *shrug*



I rolled for random encounters every now and then early on, but usually had no result.
After a couple of times the party just made sure to rest in a secure area (Region E after helping the garrison or in an evil-warded room).


----------



## chrisheff

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I rolled for random encounters every now and then early on, but usually had no result.
> After a couple of times the party just made sure to rest in a secure area (Region E after helping the garrison or in an evil-warded room).




I basically have been rolling whenever it would be dramatic for the party to encounter something, or when they start to feel a little too comfortable. Since we're still very early on in the campaign, it's only happened twice so far, but both made for exciting encounters.

I do throw in sounds/effects every now and then as I think of them too (without rolling).

Chris


----------



## Xiag

*Random*

I roll on every guard shift of sleeping for an encounter.  It gives each person a chance to have something happen during their shift.  Usually it's just a noise, or something, but it keeps them on their toes.


----------



## Dracorat

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Hmm. This brings up another question - how often do you roll for random encounters when sleeping? I guess it depends on the area - for a heavily trafficked area like Region G, I can understand rolling hourly, but thus far, I've just rolled once per rest period, and a d8 to see what hour of the resting period it occurs during. *shrug*




When in an area at first, I have them declare their watch shifts. Then I roll and then roll to determine which shift an encounter occurs in.

If an encounter doesnt occur on the first roll, they rested fine.

If an encounter did (even an innocuous one) then I handle it and then roll again when it is over to see if another one occurs. I keep going like this until I roll no encounter.

In each area, I have one room that once they find it, I let them know that the room "feels unnaturally safe" and as long as they don't have an army on their tail, they can rest in that room safely until they clear the area. Then, mystically, that room no longer gives them the level of comfort they used to get from it.


----------



## twilko

*Random Factors*



			
				pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Hmm. This brings up another question - how often do you roll for random encounters when sleeping? I guess it depends on the area - for a heavily trafficked area like Region G, I can understand rolling hourly, but thus far, I've just rolled once per rest period, and a d8 to see what hour of the resting period it occurs during. *shrug*




Me I roll every watch and every hour of actual playing time. This has the effect of them bumbing into almost as much stuff when the party is just standing around argueing as when they are walking around. Sometimes they only hear something moving around, sometimes they get an encounter. Its only when they are in a room that is described as safe that I don't roll.

Doing it this way made region A (I made up a new random encounters table) far more interesting and more heavily populated. The party also got the idea of creatures moving through the dungeon from the sounds they heard outside the locked/barred doors of the rooms they were resting in.  

Randomness is good.


----------



## Hussar

Heh, I know that the random encounters in B were nasty.  The Howlers in B howl for a couple of hours in one of the random encounters, doing wisdom damage every hour.  My guys were seriously hurt in that one when the clerics both started losing spells.    They used the noise to track down the howlers.

I find the random encounters make the dungeon feel more "alive" than if you don't.  Since the are no scripted encounters outside of any of the rooms (more or less), it helps to keep them on their toes.  I remember having the party scout watch a hobgoblin in B set up a trap and then move away.  Freaked him right out.


----------



## rvalle

BTW, I'm almost done with a 'DM' version of the map for I. It has the regions mapped out and the monsters listed in the rooms. I tried to put the traps on the map as well but I had a hard time finding a color that will show through very well.

I'm not sure if the guy from Worlds Largest Dungeons Downloads is still keeping it up but I'll send it to him when I'm done. Hopefully this weekend.

I'm really looking forward to moving on from E. My one worry is that the party will be so freaked out by I that they day 'no' and go to F instead. 

Of course I'll post it on Hussar's site as well.

rv


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Region I freaked out my players good and proper. I really outdid myself on the descriptions there, too. They only got as far as the insane chokers living in little flesh houses before they said 'screw this' and turned around. It's all right, though - I had wanted them to go to C anyhow, since I happen to like that region.


----------



## rvalle

How much information did the Garrison give the players about I before they went? I'm having some trouble with that. I dont' want to give away too much but the Garrions would probably have a good idea of what is in the early parts and a description of the twins.

rv


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Basically, my PCs are provisional members of the garrison - they've almost all signed the charter, and are gaining trust. Kelara essentially said "Here are some supplies. It's time for you to see why we need to get those ward staves - this is what we're protecting against. *opens warded door* Go and see for yourselves. Come back when you understand what we're up against."


----------



## Hussar

Might be an idea to give them lots of information but make some of it wrong.  After all, the Garrison hasn't been through the wards in some time.  Sure, they might know about this or that, but, the other thing they are just flat out wrong about.  Or, perhaps they have dire warnings about some critter that's already been turned into kibble.  That sort of thing.

My players have surprised me yet again.  Random encounter turns up Raverna, the Ghael.  Despite the fact that the party is massively wounded, and desperately in need of healing, the rogue on watch decides that he can't trust the angel and lets her leave without saying anything to her.  Apparently, when I played Raverna, I mentioned that she liked killing things a lot.  So, he just let her go.

Wonder how the rest of the party feels about letting a 14th level priest leave without helping them.    Ah, the joys of random encounters.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Yeah, I was watching that and going 'WTF' all the time. Seems like that player is used to campaigns where things are NOT black and white - angels are NOT always good and demons are NOT always evil. *shrug*


----------



## twilko

*What the Garrison tells?*



			
				rvalle said:
			
		

> How much information did the Garrison give the players about I before they went? I'm having some trouble with that. I dont' want to give away too much but the Garrions would probably have a good idea of what is in the early parts and a description of the twins.
> 
> rv




My Party doesn't trust the Garrison much, so they haven't asked the Garrison much. The garrison has told the party that no one else "good" survives in the dungeon and that the rest of the garrison has been killed. The party has played around with the candle room and knows that this is wrong. The Garrison has given them a whole series of maps of the dungeon, but the dungeon as it was after the first quake. So where there is lava on the offical maps, I've put cleared areas or rubble. D, O and M maps have been/will be replaced with flipped maps of A and much of the open areas appearing on the N maps will get replaced with rock and some simple corridors. I am thinking I just leave the flooded areas as is but I am still thinking about it. Got about five maps to do which includes both N's of which I want player versions of anyway. My map making has simply been cutting and pasting so the quailty is ok but not great. Anyone fancy making some new maps for me? Anyone want what I've done?


----------



## erucsbo

twilko said:
			
		

> The Garrison has given them a whole series of maps of the dungeon, but the dungeon as it was after the first quake. So where there is lava on the offical maps, I've put cleared areas or rubble. D, O and M maps have been/will be replaced with flipped maps of A and much of the open areas appearing on the N maps will get replaced with rock and some simple corridors. I am thinking I just leave the flooded areas as is but I am still thinking about it. Got about five maps to do which includes both N's of which I want player versions of anyway. My map making has simply been cutting and pasting so the quailty is ok but not great. Anyone fancy making some new maps for me? Anyone want what I've done?




I've done up a big map of the whole dungeon pre first quake. I've cut off the right hand side maps and shifted the Devil Vault from D to a blank area where M will end up. Anyone want to proof it before I find somewhere to put it up?
Big Jim - are you still reading this thread and can let me know what I need to comply with legally?


----------



## JediSoth

*Region K*

Well, Thorodin is dead. A party of 4 10th levels and a 9th level killed him inside of 5 rounds...including his toadies. I tell ya, a War Mage with those orb spells can deal a heck of a lot of damage. Those things bypass SR, allow no saving throw to avoid damage, and only need a touch attack to hit. Even a wizard can hit a touch attack on something the size of a small building.

You should have seen the look on their faces when I said in the next campaign, I'm only allowing the CORE rules. When I expounded and said that anything WotC put out that wasn't the PHB, DMG, or MM wasn't core, they looked like I had just called their mothers whores.

With all the options they have, since I unwisely allowed this feature creep, I'm pretty sure they could escape from the WLD even at level 10-11. At any rate, I think they're going to try it.

JediSoth


----------



## Hussar

Just as a question, why didn't you obliterate the warmage?  

My first target with any dragon is the spellcasters.  The first time the warmage opened up with an orb spell, he would become ground zero for draconic wrath.  What happened with your bunch?


----------



## Mr Samedi

Hye everybody!

I'm not going to go through all of the details of my last session, but a few major developments:

1) The PCs met the trogs. After a short skirmiosh, they managed to settle things down and send them to the water pillar room. It's getting a little crowded there.
2) In one of the forge rooms I added an encounter involving some fiendish dire cats (servals from Sandstorm) led by an awakened cat hexblade I nicknamed "the bad cat" the PCs took out half the pack before the druid grabbed the bad cat and forced it to call the others off. The druid has now adopted the cat, which has rudimentary intelligence and the ability to speak broken common. The druid called it Mr. Mestopholes, his "animal companion" in an unofficial sense.
3) When we got to the room with all of the stirges and the ring of warmth, I prepared myself for a big fight. However, the Pcs used this tactic: the main body walked away from the room, well away. The ghost floated into the room while the warforged took up a position at the door. The ghost then used poltergeist rage to splatter the stirges, while the warforged smacked any that went for the door. Because neither of them had any blood, the striges couldn't fight back. A lot of xp for almost no work...

I've been thinking, howabout the garrison (or later, the children of light, or something else) as an affiliation per the PHB2 rules?


----------



## Hussar

Actually, Jedisoth, I'm about to run K next, so, do you have any advice for the region?  Any snags when running it?  What should I be on the watch for?

My hook for the region is likely that the Children of Light will send them up to look for the Lilend who was sent out to scout some time ago.  The Lillend is intended to give them a nudge towards J, which I want to run after K.


----------



## rvalle

I've seen other threads on Enworld about those Orb spells. It sounded like quite a few dm's removed them from their game.

I have the Spell Compendium but I don't remember if they were changed or not.

rv


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Don't quote me as being 100% correct, but this is how I run the orb line of spells - If they bypass magic resistance due to being conjured(created), it's because they aren't magical once the orb is thrown, and are then subject to damage resistance as if not being magical.

And don't forget to tailor some of the monsters and all of the BBEGs to counter your group while still remaining realistic. If you're going to allow non-SRD PCs, you need to add some of it to the WLD itself.

Can you imagine the Longtail combat if he had access to spells beyond the core rules?


----------



## pokedigimaniac

That's the biggest thing that I'm needing to do - tweak stuff so it's non-core and non-standard and will still give my players a fun time. Longtail with new spells would have been fun and insane.

Glad to hear your players are having fun in Region A, Mr Samedi.

erucsbo, when you finish that map, I would like VERY MUCH to have a copy of it. Map editing is crazy!


----------



## JediSoth

> Just as a question, why didn't you obliterate the warmage?
> 
> My first target with any dragon is the spellcasters. The first time the warmage opened up with an orb spell, he would become ground zero for draconic wrath. What happened with your bunch?




The PCs had a cold-type fire shield on, so Thorodin took damage with every melee attack he landed (including attacks of opportunity). They also had elemental-resistance (acid) from a resist spell that absorbed the first 180 damage. Poor rolling meant he was only able to breathe twice during the whole combat (I suppose I could have fudged that roll). They were also fairly spread out, so it was hard to damage all of them. I did manage to use the crush attack on the third round of combat and got the warmage in that. But, by then the dragon was already in the double-digits, hit point wise.

One of the PCs is a pseudodragon rogue. He has an immovable rod and held an action so that he could go as soon as the dragon appeared. When the dragon appear, he flew straight for the dragon's mouth. He accepted the first blast of the breath weapon, though since he made his save and had evasion, it didn't do any damage. He flew right into the dragon's wide open mouth and jammed his immovable rod right down the dragon's throat. Very ingenious and it forced me to take a full round to figure out how to undo that. By the time the dragon got within melee range of any of the casters, he was already down about 75%.

The PCs took a lot of damage, but I still feel they dispatched the dragon far too easily. But, maybe with everyone being about 10th level, the combats just aren't supposed to last as long as they did back when everybody was 1st level.

I can't really offer much advise. If you have more than 4 PCs and some of them use classes/races from the splatbooks, they're probably going to be more powerful than their level would indicate. I've found using the guidelines for increasing the challenge still doesn't add much to the challenge. I'd recommend updating the creatures' spell lists to reflect the resources the players are using.

JediSoth


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:
			
		

> I've done up a big map of the whole dungeon pre first quake. I've cut off the right hand side maps and shifted the Devil Vault from D to a blank area where M will end up. Anyone want to proof it before I find somewhere to put it up?
> Big Jim - are you still reading this thread and can let me know what I need to comply with legally?




as far as i know, you can post whatever you like, so long as you don't sell it

when i was at aeg, we gave a handful of people permission to post the maps, with a caveat boilerplate that went with the maps.

blackbluered or two falls may still have the boilerplate

as far as i'm concerned, post whatever you like

i'm not going to sue you


----------



## jim pinto

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Don't quote me as being 100% correct, but this is how I run the orb line of spells - If they bypass magic resistance due to being conjured(created), it's because they aren't magical once the orb is thrown, and are then subject to damage resistance as if not being magical.
> 
> And don't forget to tailor some of the monsters and all of the BBEGs to counter your group while still remaining realistic. If you're going to allow non-SRD PCs, you need to add some of it to the WLD itself.
> 
> Can you imagine the Longtail combat if he had access to spells beyond the core rules?




dear god.

can you imagine how brutal just 1/2 this dungeon would have been, if i'd stepped outside the SRD for anything?

just making the feral ghouls for region c felt like i was breaking PCs over my knee. DMs that allow PCs access to material outside the SRD should feel completely vindicated in using the same level of power.

to mirror an argument about ethics, twofalls posted a question about a year ago about murder in his forgotten realms campaign, and i chimed in that the PCs represent the pathos of the game world.

if they behave in one way, then certainly they draw their belief system from something inherent in the structure of "civilization." one could argue, then, that PCs who have access to orbs will meet someone who uses them and are bound to face someone else who has perfected the "science" of orbs.

the WLD is just a template for your campaigns. treat it like a cell that breathes in and out through osmosis. if the pcs bring it in, someone, somewhere can reverse engineer it and make it better.

am i making sense? or is this 2 am posting way too wordy?


----------



## jim pinto

JediSoth said:
			
		

> I can't really offer much advise. If you have more than 4 PCs and some of them use classes/races from the splatbooks, they're probably going to be more powerful than their level would indicate. I've found using the guidelines for increasing the challenge still doesn't add much to the challenge. I'd recommend updating the creatures' spell lists to reflect the resources the players are using.
> 
> JediSoth




this is precisely my complaint about initiative in rpgs.

no single monster should face off against 5 pcs. the numbers are against the monster, every time. unless the monster can cast horrid wilting, there are few options of damaging every, at once, at the same level that the monster "suffered" damage.

this goes for all rpgs.

my blog had an alternative initiative system that addressed this problem precisely.

allow the monster an additional "partial" action each round.

this evens the playing field (a little), allowing the "dragon" to mete out what the pcs can deliver.

the orbs are powerful, but the dragon lost in 5 rounds because he can't possible deal as much damage in one round as five PCs (of nearly any level).

sounds like the pcs didn't fight the real thorodin, but rather a mirror image?!?!

i don't know, just trying to help.

enjoy.


----------



## Hussar

Ahh, they won by using an item in a wonky way that I personally would not have allowed.  The "I fly into its mouth" bit just wouldn't work in my game.  Nor would evasion if you are actualy IN its mouth.  I'm not knocking your game, and it's certainly a creative use of an item, just not one that I would allow.  Plus, I would have simply swallowed the pseudodragon as a free action.   Never mind that a breath weapon going off while you are in somethings mouth would certainly, IMO, count as being pinned, and thus negated evasion and even a saving throw.

I disagree that supplemental material is overpowered.  I've been allowing all sorts of stuff in my game and still killing PC's left, right and center.

Player:  I fly into its mouth as my readied action.
DM:  Ok, you get swallowed.  Take lots of damage.
Player:  I activate my rod.
DM:  Sorry, you are inside this things gut, you can't talk.  Next.


----------



## JediSoth

> Ahh, they won by using an item in a wonky way that I personally would not have allowed. The "I fly into its mouth" bit just wouldn't work in my game. Nor would evasion if you are actualy IN its mouth. I'm not knocking your game, and it's certainly a creative use of an item, just not one that I would allow. Plus, I would have simply swallowed the pseudodragon as a free action. Never mind that a breath weapon going off while you are in somethings mouth would certainly, IMO, count as being pinned, and thus negated evasion and even a saving throw.
> 
> I disagree that supplemental material is overpowered. I've been allowing all sorts of stuff in my game and still killing PC's left, right and center.





Unfortunately, I'm not very quick thinking on my feet somedays, and this past game was one of those days. This particular tactic surprised me and I was at a loss trying to figure out exactly how big a huge dragon's mouth was compared to a pseudodragon. His justification for avoiding the breath weapon damage is that he skirted the edges of it and didn't enter the mouth until it was just ending, before the dragon snapped its mouth closed. I did get a free bite attack on him. I'm sure by the next session (2 weeks hence) I will have thought of a ton of alternatives. 

I could be really mean and have Thorodin's "mate" show up having been under water all this time. But, I'll let them have their victory here. I did tell them from now on, unorthodox tactics that aren't expressly covered in the rules have to be discussed with me first--this isn't KoDT and they aren't Brian van Hoose--I would never allow that kind of crap. At least I had the sense to rule that the dragon's immunity to sleep effects rendered it immune to the pseudodragon's sleep poison. I've had WAY too many combats end the first round due to poor saving throws.

JediSoth


----------



## Hussar

Just as a question.  Someone upthread mentioned fighting the marilith in G.  I just finished doing the die rollers for her for my OpenRPG game.  How the heck did they survive this thing?  For a lark I ran the die roller and pumped out 177 points of damage in straight melee with no single roll below 24.  O.O

This would obliterate any of my PC's and take a really big bite out of a second one.  And that's without any magic enhancement or using power attack.

Needless to say, I won't be using her.  I might have her run north during the final battle and escape into K and then on into J.  Might be fun to use her for a recurring enemy.


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> Just as a question.  Someone upthread mentioned fighting the marilith in G.  I just finished doing the die rollers for her for my OpenRPG game.  How the heck did they survive this thing?  For a lark I ran the die roller and pumped out 177 points of damage in straight melee with no single roll below 24.  O.O
> 
> This would obliterate any of my PC's and take a really big bite out of a second one.  And that's without any magic enhancement or using power attack.
> 
> Needless to say, I won't be using her.  I might have her run north during the final battle and escape into K and then on into J.  Might be fun to use her for a recurring enemy.




If you go that route, I recommend giving her a motivation to either harrange the PCs OR unlock something else in the dungeon. Perhaps she wants to free the vampire in J or Tyrus or Thorodin...

Maybe she wants revenge?

Maybe she sees another way to free the Glabrezu?

Anyway.

Something to think on.


----------



## Hussar

Hey Jim, good to see you back.  Been a while.  

Thanks for the idea.  Adding her to J might work.  Having her team up with the vampire would be an excellent way to finish the region.  How the party reacts to this could make for a really interesting interaction.  Do they help the Marilith free the vampire?  Do they stop her?  Maybe the Marilith could try to make it look like she's trying to stop the party, but is really helping them to free the vampire.  Since it pretty much requires a LG person to do so, maybe she could start taunting the paladin to goad him into doing what she wants.

Not a bad idea.  Have to mull this over for a while.  No hurry, I'm still in the early stages of G.  

I've never used a marilith in a game before, so it's kinda groovy.  Thanks Jim, for the WLD.  I'm using all sorts of stuff that I've never had a chance to use before.  The group is about to celebrate its 1 year anniversary in a month or so.  Still have 4 of the original 6 players.  Damn good for an online game.  My current bunch seems pretty keen on finishing things and, even after one year, I'm still nowhere near bored of it.

Two thumbs up.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Yeah, mariliths are combat monsters- that CR 17 isn't there for show. But, yeah, that's one thing I'm liking about the WLD - it's letting me use stuff that I'd never get to normally. Thanks a lot for that!


----------



## Mr Samedi

Hey, I'm in a bit of a pickle here.

See, the players should find Longtail by next session. Now, here's the problem. The wizard used his xp pool to upgrade his elf fighter familiar using the sourcebook Familiars. It is one of the most powerful members of the party. One of the abilities he gave it was blindsight. I want to be able to have Longtail and Aschyxx present a challenge to the PCs, but with blindsight, I'm not sure how that will work. One possible strategy is to have the two lizardfolk betray the party and help Longtail fight them, allowing a spilt of resources. Any other suggestions?


----------



## rvalle

Mr Samedi said:
			
		

> Hey, I'm in a bit of a pickle here.
> 
> See, the players should find Longtail by next session. Now, here's the problem. The wizard used his xp pool to upgrade his elf fighter familiar using the sourcebook Familiars. It is one of the most powerful members of the party. One of the abilities he gave it was blindsight. I want to be able to have Longtail and Aschyxx present a challenge to the PCs, but with blindsight, I'm not sure how that will work. One possible strategy is to have the two lizardfolk betray the party and help Longtail fight them, allowing a spilt of resources. Any other suggestions?




Have the portal pump out fiendish creatures. One every 1d4 rounds and make the first one one of those nasty Owlbears. Someone else had a fiendish Rust Monster come though. That should put fear into any fighter. 

Longtail flying above the party's head is another way to change things up a bit.

Give Longtail another level. If your player can upgrade his familiar can't Longtail upgrade his?

rv


----------



## BlueBlackRed

rvalle said:
			
		

> Have the portal pump out fiendish creatures. One every 1d4 rounds and make the first one one of those nasty Owlbears. Someone else had a fiendish Rust Monster come though. That should put fear into any fighter.
> 
> Longtail flying above the party's head is another way to change things up a bit.



Yeah, Thunderclease did not like that fiendish rust monster.

Have the lizardfolk betray the party. If they know about the familiar's abilities, then he should be taken out first.


----------



## Kafkonia

Dracorat said:
			
		

> I did fine with my group as well, but I still stand by the region being lacklustre.
> 
> Especially once you get out of Region A, you will appreciate what that means.




Heck, just reading it I found it lacklustre. You fight rats! And rats! And a darkmantle. And some rats!

I'm going to be running it on Saturday (which we just decided today!  ) so I'm looking to spice it up a bit. For starters, I'll be throwing in some templated cats. After all, what better to follow fiendish rats than some fiendish ratcatchers, neh?

ETI:

I think I'll add the pseudonatural template to the imp (which may require scaling him down a bit) and replace some of the rat swarms with diminished summoning oozes. What will they summon? Why, rats of course!  But including plague rats, cranium rats, etc. The far realm taint on the imp caused the portal to go haywire. Rather than having a portal spitting out rates, there will be a big goopy mess periodically spawning off these oozes as well as some other nasties.

A single fiendish cat will be good for a laugh amongst my players (who are still amused by the commoner vs. cat conundrum.) But when they stumble across a Crazy Cat Lady in a room absolutely *filled* with them...?


----------



## Kafkonia

Are the player oriented maps still available anywhere?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Kafkonia said:
			
		

> Are the player oriented maps still available anywhere?



http://www.james.neetersoft.com/wld/wld.htm


----------



## Kafkonia

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> http://www.james.neetersoft.com/wld/wld.htm




Perfect! Bookmarked.


----------



## jim pinto

Mr Samedi said:
			
		

> Hey, I'm in a bit of a pickle here.
> 
> See, the players should find Longtail by next session. Now, here's the problem. The wizard used his xp pool to upgrade his elf fighter familiar using the sourcebook Familiars. It is one of the most powerful members of the party. One of the abilities he gave it was blindsight. I want to be able to have Longtail and Aschyxx present a challenge to the PCs, but with blindsight, I'm not sure how that will work. One possible strategy is to have the two lizardfolk betray the party and help Longtail fight them, allowing a spilt of resources. Any other suggestions?




betrayal is good... luring the pcs into a trap is good too... they know where the trap around the door is, but don't point it out, sort of thing

this of course, requires you to add a trap... even if its just alarm

aschyxx is invisible, yes? not sure blindsight spots invisibility.

i would have the pcs come upon the scene, just as longtail is summoning something the portal has never summoned before... like a fiendish displacer beast or some other non-srd monster

subtle joke that

that should give the bad guys an edge in the fight

and the betrayal could be something as simple as them closing a portculis behind the pcs so they can't escape... they don't even have to fight the pcs, just switch sides and take a piece out of their morale

then the lizards can become hunted enemies of the pcs, and their stat blocks can shift to something a little more adversarial (CR 6 each).

so when the pcs chase them into E or B (whichever way you want them to go), they have a real fight on their hands.

just a thought


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> Hey Jim, good to see you back.  Been a while.
> 
> Two thumbs up.




thanks

good to be back

been swamped with personal writing projects

(i'm not just a game writer)

and now i'm getting ready for comiccon and gencon

anyone going to be at either one?

it would be nice to meet a few people from the board

maybe we could have a drink thursday night of gencon?!?

great... now i sound like a guy looking for an internet date

just swell


----------



## BlueBlackRed

jim pinto said:
			
		

> and now i'm getting ready for comiccon and gencon
> 
> anyone going to be at either one?
> 
> it would be nice to meet a few people from the board
> 
> maybe we could have a drink thursday night of gencon?!?



Not I, and I probably live closer to GenCon & Origins than anyone else on the boards.
But if you're in the Cincinnati area, give me a yell.


----------



## Traevanon

The battle with the TWO Marilith Overlords in Region G was my party who went through most of that zone at level ~15.  They nearly wiped even though their armor classes and abilities made it so that the Mariliths didnt hit every time.  They fought in a four-way intersection and the Mariliths rolled so perfectly on their Caster Level checks for Blade Barrier that they were immune to the effects while the party's characters with Spell Resistance would take damage.

Ultimately the party won by killing the boss demon (I forget his name at the moment) and recovering the Flame of Aranas while the Mariliths were still alive.  Lucky Crit.  The Mariliths teleported away to reform the ranks and take control of the remaining demons.

I would rank it as the fifth most difficult battle of the campaign.  First was the battle against Tyrus (which the party ran from after two deaths).  Second was the Green Death (enhanced, 3 deaths in that battle).  Third was the Bone Naga at the end of the Naga Lair that I added to region I (at least two deaths in that battle).  Fourth was way back in Region A, room 91 Fiendish Darkmantle ambush (party was rescued by allies).  And the fifth was this battle (one person went into the deep negatives twice).

-------------------------------------------------------------

The last couple of sessions going into Region N the party has felt that multiple Death Wards were absolutely neccessary (probably rightly so).  So with key members out we have fought a could of major random encounters instead.

- A CR18 Black Dragon in the wide open spaces over the lava river was fun.  It also had Quickened Breath Weapon available.  It ultimately died when it landed to fight the party in melee.

- An NPC party consisting of three regular character types and a Frost Giant Jarl.  They died when the rest of the players showed up late and were plopped into the battle.

Region N still remains a very scary place for the PCs.

*OH!!!  NEWS!  The last remaining original character that has never died (a 17th level Goblin Mystic Theurge) has died!  Polymorphed into a War Troll from a recent battle, he decided it would be a good idea to smash the chest in room N39.  He was ressurected from bits of him splattered on the walls of that room.  After rolling up the 333x5d6 damage himself later he took something like 3500hp of damage from the blast.* 

We have (all ECL 16):
Goblin Mystic Theurge
Dark Elf Paladin
Orc Fighter
Dark Elf Warlock
Dwarf Fighter
Human Cleric
Gnome Druid


----------



## Traevanon

Oh, and I'm going to miss GenCon for the second year in a row.


----------



## rvalle

Sigh... after making something like 15 Gencons in a row I've had to miss it since it moved to Indy. Just too far for a day trip and I don't have the time/$$ to say the night.

I do miss it though.

Nice to have you back Jim! I thought we lost you.  

rv


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> aschyxx is invisible, yes? not sure blindsight spots invisibility.




yes it does - to a point (or rather a range)

from the SRD:
Some creatures have blindsight, the extraordinary ability to use a nonvisual sense (or a combination of such senses) to operate effectively without vision. Such sense may include sensitivity to vibrations, acute scent, keen hearing, or echolocation. This ability makes invisibility and concealment (even magical darkness) irrelevant to the creature (though it still can’t see ethereal creatures). This ability operates out to a range specified in the creature description.

- Blindsight never allows a creature to distinguish color or visual contrast. A creature cannot read with blindsight.
- Blindsight does not subject a creature to gaze attacks (even though darkvision does).
- Blinding attacks do not penalize creatures using blindsight.
- Deafening attacks thwart blindsight if it relies on hearing.
- Blindsight works underwater but not in a vacuum.
- Blindsight negates displacement and blur effects.

compare with Blindsense:
Other creatures have blindsense, a lesser ability that lets the creature notice things it cannot see, but without the precision of blindsight. The creature with blindsense usually does not need to make Spot or Listen checks to notice and locate creatures within range of its blindsense ability, provided that it has line of effect to that creature. Any opponent the creature cannot see has total concealment (50% miss chance) against the creature with blindsense, and the blindsensing creature still has the normal miss chance when attacking foes that have concealment. Visibility still affects the movement of a creature with blindsense. A creature with blindsense is still denied its Dexterity bonus to Armor Class against attacks from creatures it cannot see.

IMHO - Blindsight totally nerfs some encounters.
To assist Mr Samedi I'd work out *how* the blindsight works for the familiar, then adjust the conditions in the room to work against the blindsight (without unfairly making things difficult for everyone else) - for example:
sensitivity to vibrations? - the portal pulses sending vibrations through the whole room
acute scent? - the stench of hell escapes from the portal
keen hearing? - a cacophony of sounds of the damned escapes from the portal, making conversation difficult (but not impossible - think of a 'nightclub')
echolocation? - either adjust the sounds to match the frequency of the echolocation (like whistling to bats to screw them up) or have bugs flying around the room - not necessarily attacking, but blocks echolocation beyond 5'.
And remember that blindsight has a range limit.

Don't do it too often or it looks like a cadge and unfairly penalises the mage who has spent XP.


----------



## Hussar

Then again, all he's doing is seeing the imp.  THis is not a big deal.  No one else can see him.  Let the fighter chase the imp all over the place.  That takes him out of the fight while Longtail lays a smackdown on the rest of the party.

I think that the imp is not the main part of the encounter.  Heck, let the imp hide behind pillars and snipe.  If the blindsight guy ignores him, make him suffer.


----------



## Mr Samedi

ah, but it also means Longtail's escape plan is not so useful anymore. 

Thanks for the suggestions. I like the trap idea Jim.


----------



## jim pinto

*blog*

off topic, but i've been updating my game blog a lot lately

expect more posts while i'm at this very boring temp job



greatcleave.blogspot.com


----------



## twilko

*Ideas for Longtail fight.*



			
				Mr Samedi said:
			
		

> Hey, I'm in a bit of a pickle here.
> 
> See, the players should find Longtail by next session. Now, here's the problem. The wizard used his xp pool to upgrade his elf fighter familiar using the sourcebook Familiars. It is one of the most powerful members of the party. One of the abilities he gave it was blindsight. I want to be able to have Longtail and Aschyxx present a challenge to the PCs, but with blindsight, I'm not sure how that will work. One possible strategy is to have the two lizardfolk betray the party and help Longtail fight them, allowing a spilt of resources. Any other suggestions?





1) Blindsight should not allow you to see the invisible.

2) The Imp has "Alter Self". Normally this allows to change into forms of other rather small things but what the guys at RPGMP3 did, and I stole, is let it alter to a Pit Fiend. The "Oh @#*&" you get from at least some of the players is just great! This is not cheating or messing to much with CR's as the Imp has had it's summon ability nerfed.

3) Throw in extra creatures. I put a Chain Devil in the room which worked quite well weakening the party just before Longtail struck. Also almost anything can come out of the portal.

4) The Chapel was to gods of good, at least once. Maybe make it so that any area effect spells that do damage do some of that damage right back at the party, particularly if they are good aligned.

5) Following on from the portal idea what about having each column in the room act as a portal randomly, that way monsters can pop out behind the party. Anything, even stirges, coming up from an area previously thought of as safe can upset a party.

Thats all I can think of for the moment.


----------



## Kafkonia

So I finally ran my first session today. My concerns about monster repetition didn't come into play, as they only ran into one rat swarm and two sets of darkmantles. If we run again (this was a fill-in game because some players couldn't make it) then I may have to start using some of my monster variants.

I started them at 2nd level, and had the players roll up their characters PHB-style. They all had class and race ideas, and tried to arrange their rolls to fit those. We wound up with a full-blooded orc barbarian with a CHA of 3 (because it couldn't go lower), a warforged monk, a human favoured soul of Selune, and a dwarven cleric of *mumblemumble*  god of healing and caverns.

The barbarian player played Gront to the hilt -- since the characters were thrown together and equipped by a mysterious force, he decided to christen his new greatsword in blood. The dwarf's blood.  So they were off to a great start already.

When they encountered the three orcs in the second room, I made it clear that they looked haggard and sick, trying to look menacing but only doing it half-heartedly. The human, dwarf, and warforged considered their options... the barbarian attacked. He dropped two of them before any of them got to go. But when the surviving orc warrior went -- he criticalled Gront. Dropped him to -2 hit points with one blow. And after the favoured soul healed him (the cleric refused on moral grounds), he got dropped to negative 2 *again* before the monk finished off the warrior.

The "meat shield" then spent the rest of the day limping about in single-digit HP. It was quite amusing to see the big bad orc barbarian with a STR of 22 making sure he was always at the back of the party.... 

I hope I can fit in a bit more rp'ing in the next session, should it occur. Of course, having a full-blooded orc in the party will make it all but impossible to have any meaningful parley with the kobolds...


----------



## Mr Samedi

twilko said:
			
		

> 1) Blindsight should not allow you to see the invisible.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It does, relying on non-visual sight to pick up a creature, like echo-location
> 
> Besides, that problem has passed. The PCs walked out of the region, which is fine with me, means I can buff up Longtail for a future encounter. The PCs are now in Region B. Already, the stone block trap almost killed the barbarian and artificer.
Click to expand...


----------



## Foxheart

*RPGMP3 Complete The World's Largest Dungeon*

2 years ago RPGMP3 began the monumental task of conquering AEG's World's Largest Dungeon. Unlike other groups who may have travelled through the dungeon and documented or blogged the process, we recorded the whole thing and podcasted it.

It has been a long arduous journey and one that has been filled with problems, but after 40 sessions of play and over 5 days of solid audio live on the net we have finally managed to complete the whole thing. The party did not pass through every single area but they did make it out in the end (well most of them did).

The site has gathered friends from all over the world during the project and there are many more who listen to the podcast who are not members of the site. We are just in the process of beginning another exciting podcast game project and wanted to share the success of the World's Largest Dungeon with you all as well as thanking those who have contributed through the site during the process.

You can access the podcast by dropping the following URL into your podcatcher - http://www.rpgmp3.com/downloads/data/wld/rss.xml or you can search for the feed in iTunes. Failing that just visit the site and download the files manually or stream them live.

Drop by and take a look and let us know what you think

Hal


----------



## erucsbo

Foxheart said:
			
		

> 2 years ago
> [...]
> Drop by and take a look and let us know what you think
> 
> Hal




Hi Hal, just finished listening to episode 40.
Paul posted when you finished (I think the post got lost in the EnWorld crash). Well done from starting 9/9/04.

I'm curious about the thing with Balazaar and Shar. Seemed to go nowhere. Was there something more behind that?


----------



## Hussar

I listened to a couple of sessions.  Must go back and listen to more.  When I find the time.  Someday...

Anyway.  I just finished up the scenarios for the final battle in Region G.  Four fights after the Flame has been returned by the party.  See what you all think:

*Fight 1 - Beachhead EL 11*

The main battle is on the southern shore, near the entrance to the Garrison.  Evalan sends the party out to the north west edge of the garrison to guard the flank.  Building a bridge from the Nighthag lair to the other side is a group of 8 ogre zombies.  Each round, they advance the bridge 5 feet.  As the party engages, a pack of 6 hell hounds swims across from the island and engages the party, while the ogre zombies continue to build the bridge.  

Map  Note, the maps have been slightly edited to give me a bit more room to move around.

*Fight 2 - The Elemental Scepter EL 15 (sort of)*

After being healed from fight one, the party is sent around to the rubble on the east side of the map.  Scouts have reported dretch digging in the area and Evalan wans to know why.  The party is buffed with some long term buffs for this one so they arrive in somewhat stronger than normal fashion. 

As they arrive, they find smashed dretch all over the place.  As they investigate, Aramnan and his mount come in and have a chat.  He offers to let the party leave if they retrieve the artifact.  If the party fights, the fiendish elemental will arrive in 10 rounds.  3 rounds after the elemental shows, Raverna pops in as well, attracted by the fight.  If the party doesn't fight Aramnan, he takes the artifact and buggers off.  Raverna will be killed by the elemental in this case and Aramnan will escape the final battle into another region.

map

*Fight 3 - Death squad EL 13*

After returning to the garrison to be healed and to rest a bit, the party hears something break through the wards from the basilisk lair.  A group of 4 babau plus Narla has snuck through the lines and is trying to steal the flame.  They search for the secret door into the Flame room, breaking up into three teams of 2 babau, 1 babau and 1 babau and Narla.  The death squad is also not above offing any wounded celestials that might be lying around as well.  One of the teams will find the secret door in 8 rounds.  The party has that long to kill all three teams.  3 rounds after finding the secret door, the team will make a break for the exit, bearing the Flame.  If they escape through the main door of the exit, they will teleport to the Horde's lair.

Map 3

*Fight 4 - Showdown on the Island CR Lots *

Final battle for the party.  Features Nasherbiz, three vrock and 4 minotaur zombies scattered through the area.  The map has been modified to allow Nasherbiz more mobility.  No help will come for this fight.  The party will be buffed to the teeth though.

Map 4

So, whatcha think?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Hussar said:
			
		

> So, whatcha think?



What do I think?
I wish I had access to Photobucket 2 years ago.
It could have saved me from so many headaches...(sniff).


----------



## chrisheff

Our webpage has just been updated to include the fifth session:

http://www.geocities.com/cptzaphod/wld.htm

Chris


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Hussar, those fights look great! And all I can say about that final fight... if there's three vrocks, I foresee some dancing going on...


----------



## Hussar

Yeah, not too sure about that.  If they dance, I'll TPK the party.  20d6 damage in addition to all the assorted other nastyness is brutal.  Of course, it also gives the party three free rounds to beat on the vrocks as well.  Hrm, I'm not sure which is worse come to think of it.


----------



## JediSoth

My PCs have just beaten Thorodin the Pillager in Region K and while they're resting and dividing loot, I thought I'd have the hags harass them a bit. But rather than confront the PCs directly, I've decided to throw 3 - 4 Abyssal Ghouls (from the Fiend Folio) at them. According to the CR comparison, they should be a bigger challenge than Thorodin was.

Hopefully they won't think it's a grudge monster for beating Thorodin in less than 5 rounds.

JediSoth


----------



## erucsbo

Foxheart said:
			
		

> Drop by and take a look and let us know what you think




Oh - another thing Hal, you mentioned in one of the early (perhaps the first) recording that there was a Deck of Many Things in the WLD. Where?


----------



## pokedigimaniac

From my readings, I've never seen one - I think it's up to the DM to add one somewhere. I know I will be.


----------



## rvalle

Not I. In fact if I find one I'll take it out.

There is no penalty in my game if a character dies. You just create another one at the same level. 

Some of my players would be able to 'role' play a Deck ok but at least one player would take as many cards as he could knowing if it goes bad he'll just make another character.

Yes, there are probably things I could do to mess with him, but I don't feel like dealing (ha!) with a Deck.

rv


----------



## Kafkonia

I might add in a powerful magic item deck, but not the DoMT as written. I have these nifty anime-themed decks of cards that might be fun to use as the basis for a new deck, though.


----------



## Foxheart

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Hi Hal, just finished listening to episode 40.
> Paul posted when you finished (I think the post got lost in the EnWorld crash). Well done from starting 9/9/04.
> 
> I'm curious about the thing with Balazaar and Shar. Seemed to go nowhere. Was there something more behind that?




Hi there,

Yeah, I was hoping that he might go for it and become and Shadow Adept but he did not want to take that path in the end. It was more of a character option for him than anything else. He shunned her and she left him to it. It only seemed fair. One of the problems with the Dungeon is the lack of external options so where possible I tried to provide them!

Hal


----------



## Foxheart

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Oh - another thing Hal, you mentioned in one of the early (perhaps the first) recording that there was a Deck of Many Things in the WLD. Where?




Yeah! That one was my bad! I do not think there is one but there should have been  If I had had a chance I might have dropped one it there in an obscure room somewhere  As it turned out we had a lot of fun with the Wand of Wonder instead 

Hal


----------



## erucsbo

Foxheart said:
			
		

> Yeah, I was hoping that he might go for it and become and Shadow Adept but he did not want to take that path in the end. It was more of a character option for him than anything else. He shunned her and she left him to it. It only seemed fair. One of the problems with the Dungeon is the lack of external options so where possible I tried to provide them!




very true. The baldness and the nubbins seemed a little excessive imho (and those in my party who played dwarfs would have been devastated), plus the spell restrictions placed on him, but Paul seems to have rolled with it [even if he did try to remake dwarvenkind in his image].


----------



## erucsbo

Foxheart said:
			
		

> Yeah! That one was my bad! I do not think there is one but there should have been  If I had had a chance I might have dropped one it there in an obscure room somewhere  As it turned out we had a lot of fun with the Wand of Wonder instead




Based on Lindsay's RPing of Feylin - especially wrt the rod of wonder, halflings are the new Kendar.
I might put in a DoMT as I have the one that came with Dragon #148 and it's fun watching people draw cards for real. Plus it makes more sense (to me) for the Celestials to have tried to imprison the deck in the dungeon (as when it has been used it disappears - 'to torment and tempt other weak willed mortals') than some of the ridiculous magic weapons that can only be used by evil and can't escape on their own.


----------



## erucsbo

*Map of the whole dungeon*

btw - my pre-earthquake map is up on James' site:
http://www.james.neetersoft.com/wld/wld-big-old.jpg

If you have suggestions for changes then please let me know.
Some explanatory notes:
resolution is limited because

I don't want players being able to drill down to detail if they get their hands on an electronic copy
It was an edit of a copy and paste of the whole dungeon pdf from AEG
It meant I didn't have to wipe out individual room numbers - especially when I copied rooms from other sections
It made it easier to remove the blue that indicates secret doors
The entire eastern side has been removed as has M

the Devil Vault has been placed in the space where M was. This is because the Vault was never meant to be reached physically.
dungeon elements from L have been shifted to K - they would have slid to L after the collapse mentioned in the intro to H
H was a collapse from above so I didn't feel that it belonged in the original plan anyway
I probably should have closed off the cavern to the east of N, but that is easy enough to do, and could conceivably been a dead-end tunnel anyway (to a Celestial hospice or Inevitable reprogramming centre perhaps)
The breach in region A has been removed as has the earthquake and lava damage through the centre of the dungeon.
Areas that looked like tunnels that had been made after construction (I, C, N1) have been removed where I have found them.
Please let me know if I've missed any.


----------



## Hussar

Damn, that's fantastic.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Wow, how much time did that take you to edit?


----------



## erucsbo

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Wow, how much time did that take you to edit?




A few hours. More than 2 but less than 5. I was distracted by my kids for some of that time, plus doing the washing at home. Most of the time was spent reading through the various sections to see what bits I could leave out. Once you get to know how to use the clone tool in the GIMP it is fairly easy.


----------



## rvalle

Man, your kids must be less distracting then mine! It would take me 2 to 5 DAYS to do something like that.

Very nice.

rv


----------



## Hussar

Only one problem though.

Now that I have this map, I gotta go back and redo the map fragments I just did for my guys.  Ten bloody maps down the tubes because these ones are just SO much better.

I hate you.


----------



## erucsbo

Hussar said:
			
		

> Only one problem though.
> 
> Now that I have this map, I gotta go back and redo the map fragments I just did for my guys.  Ten bloody maps down the tubes because these ones are just SO much better.
> 
> I hate you.




 
why should you need to redo yours? Mine are pre first earthquake. No reason why yours can't be post then. Or just apply burns/smudges to the map to obscure the areas that are vastly different.


----------



## erucsbo

besides - reserve your hate for when I upload the player handout maps I did for A, B and E


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:
			
		

> besides - reserve your hate for when I upload the player handout maps I did for A, B and E




bravo!

where were you when i was editing this book?

add me to the list of people hating you


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> bravo!
> 
> where were you when i was editing this book?
> 
> add me to the list of people hating you




gee! how to win friends and influence people. 
Maybe I should email James again and tell him to not put up the player maps from E that I sent to him this morning!

Still don't know which way my players will go next (F or I), but should be interesting either way. In the meantime I may tackle the later maps (L to O) and produce some player versions so more of you can hate me.


----------



## Hussar

Heck, if you're looking for something to do, my lot are heading to K and then J.  Player maps would be groovy.  

I'll be doing the DM Master maps for those two regions anon.  Probably within the next month or so.  Just got all my ducks in a row for G, so, I'm resting on my laurels at the moment.

Actually, that's a bald faced lie.  The wifie just had a baby three weeks ago, so I'm busier than a one armed paper hanger right now.


----------



## grimblade

Hi,

Let me start by saying that I have enjoyed reading the post here.

I have been thinking of buying the WLD and want to know is it worth it?

The group that I play with is a hack and slash group, will they enjoy the WLD?

Also, are the stats for the monsters in the book or will I need other books for the stats?

Thanks,
Grimblade


----------



## BlueBlackRed

If your group enjoys hack and slash, and can play in a module for a year, then yes they will enjoy this baby.


----------



## erucsbo

Hussar said:
			
		

> Heck, if you're looking for something to do, my lot are heading to K and then J.  Player maps would be groovy.




The Player map for K on James' site looks ok. J sucks though, so I've knocked up two maps for J - one with secret doors and room numbers removed, the other with areas completely behind secret doors removed. Email me and I'll get you to proof them for me before I send them to James.



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Actually, that's a bald faced lie.  The wifie just had a baby three weeks ago, so I'm busier than a one armed paper hanger right now.




Congrats - know the feeling (though was a few years ago now).


----------



## Hussar

One of the nicest things about the WLD, which some have complained about but that's another issue, is that the ONLY book you need at your table is the WLD.  The entire statblock for every creature is there and it's on the same page.  You don't have to flip pages, nor do you have to tote around a bookbag full of books.

Makes me a very happy DM.

And, while the monsters are all entirely SRD, that doesn'T mean that they are stock.  Heck, as was mentioned recently, there's a bloody Kraken with WINGS!  Now that's cool.

I really want to run Region L, but, I'm so leery of doing a waterbourne adventure.


----------



## erucsbo

grimblade said:
			
		

> Also, are the stats for the monsters in the book or will I need other books for the stats?




the stats are in the book under each room description. More details can be found in the SRD. Otherwise, if you have the Monster Manual you can use the flavour text from the descriptions to add to the descriptions you give instead of just using pictures or stating the name of the creatures.


----------



## rvalle

grimblade said:
			
		

> Hi,
> 
> Let me start by saying that I have enjoyed reading the post here.
> 
> I have been thinking of buying the WLD and want to know is it worth it?
> 
> The group that I play with is a hack and slash group, will they enjoy the WLD?
> 
> Also, are the stats for the monsters in the book or will I need other books for the stats?
> 
> Thanks,
> Grimblade




Definatly worth it. We've been playing every week for almost  year and are not even half way though the book. Even after you are done there are going to be parts of the book that were not used that you can mine for other adventures.

rv


----------



## jim pinto

grimblade said:
			
		

> Hi,
> 
> Let me start by saying that I have enjoyed reading the post here.
> 
> I have been thinking of buying the WLD and want to know is it worth it?
> 
> The group that I play with is a hack and slash group, will they enjoy the WLD?
> 
> Also, are the stats for the monsters in the book or will I need other books for the stats?
> 
> Thanks,
> Grimblade




after 1,500 posts you're still not sure?!?

jesus. do i have to come over and run it personally?

i'm sure someone already answered this, so i'll just stick to the sarcasm


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> And, while the monsters are all entirely SRD, that doesn'T mean that they are stock.  Heck, as was mentioned recently, there's a bloody Kraken with WINGS!  Now that's cool.




not to mention all the ghoul variants... huh? huh?

okay... it's really just a kraken with wings

sigh



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> I really want to run Region L, but, I'm so leery of doing a waterbourne adventure.




tell me about it

this is my least favorite region and i didn't even want to put it here, but the whole marketing plan to include everything meant putting a tojanda (rolls eyes) in a big pool of water

a kraken in a well just wouldn't have worked

i really think this only works as a seperate adventure (unless you're really using the timeline from region K/L) or as some weird semi-finale with the PCs finding an exit under the lake or to the east


----------



## Dracorat

Quick question. Are we allowed to post stats for Longtail after having him gain a couple levels, and then a couple more and then a template as well? Id love to write up what Im doing with him and if I can include the stats too that would be awesome, but I don't want to step on anyone's toes.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Dracorat said:
			
		

> Quick question. Are we allowed to post stats for Longtail after having him gain a couple levels, and then a couple more and then a template as well? Id love to write up what Im doing with him and if I can include the stats too that would be awesome, but I don't want to step on anyone's toes.



Why wouldn't you be?
I would doubt AEG would complain about copyright infringement for it. Especially on a thread that has probably sold a few dozen copies of the module.
Now if you did it with every boss in the module...


----------



## pokedigimaniac

I posted a Longtail variant that got wiped in the Crash, and nobody bit my head off, so I'm guessing it's just fine.

And I completely endorse WLD. The stat blocks being RIGHT THERE is the best part. Granted, I  have to proofread the stat blocks sometimes, or at least jam it into eTools to make sure the math checks out, but that's much easier than flipping through multiple books.


----------



## jim pinto

Dracorat said:
			
		

> Quick question. Are we allowed to post stats for Longtail after having him gain a couple levels, and then a couple more and then a template as well? Id love to write up what Im doing with him and if I can include the stats too that would be awesome, but I don't want to step on anyone's toes.




technically, that's SRD material... not sure i could stop you, really

as for incorrect stat blocks, even if the numbers are off here and there, i think just using the stat blocks as is has a nominal impact on game play, but an immense impact on how much time you spend prepping and checking stats.

who is going to notice is the AC of an orc is off by 1?

no one.

who is going to notice if the DM takes 15 minutes getting ready for each round of combat?


----------



## Hussar

Hey, I like Tojanida.  They're actually not a bad critter.  THey just look weird.  Nasty as all get out if you use them right.  

There's a writeup in Dragon about a submarine sort of dealie.  I'm thinking, upon seeing it, I might have the elves in H be developing it to deal with things.  Maybe.  Underwater is just so bloody hard to do, but, the creatures there just look so much fun.

As far as stat blocks go, I'm not terribly fussed if something is off by a point or two either way.  I do pick up if the stat-blocks are unclear though.  Narla in Region G has a couple of mistakes in the block that make things very unclear.  Either she has a very magic dagger and a minor dagger, or two moderately magical daggers.  

On a side note though, G has proven to be the single tightest region I've statted up so far.  I've found maybe three errors in the whole region, and, none of them are game breaking.  G has been smooth as silk.

Although, now that my party is squaring off with Lord Tarnaticus, I might be in for a TPK.  It's going to be VERY iffy.  I had Lord T pull the grey renders and the hobbies back to his throne room and the party has gone in full tilt.  I think they can win, but, it's going to be very, very close.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Lord T is a fun battle. The fact that he's got all the zombies there with him may tip the scales a bit. DON'T forget his 'spell resistance' tweak - that will make him more manageable. If nothing else, he can have a breakdown, and go try to grab his sword from the room to the north.

If all else fails... Raverna + fighting retreat. It would suck, but it's better than a TPK. Or, bear in mind, Lord T and the demons are not exactly aligned. The demons probably don't appreciate the zombies all that much, and a squad of dretches could bust in to cut up a few zombies, perhaps. If nothing else, they draw attention off of the party.


----------



## rvalle

jim pinto said:
			
		

> as for incorrect stat blocks, even if the numbers are off here and there, i think just using the stat blocks as is has a nominal impact on game play, but an immense impact on how much time you spend prepping and checking stats.
> 
> who is going to notice is the AC of an orc is off by 1?
> 
> no one.
> 
> who is going to notice if the DM takes 15 minutes getting ready for each round of combat?




Thats my view too. I just use things as they are in the book and don't double check the numbers unless, as Hussar says, things are confusing.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

*more maps in the pipeline*

I've now completed maps for I, J, L-O which are just removing secret doors and room numbers and have emailed them to James. I'll post again when he has updated his site. Oh, and to up the hate me stats - is there any call for a version of N that joins the two halves in to one big map?


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:
			
		

> I've now completed maps for I, J, L-O which are just removing secret doors and room numbers and have emailed them to James. I'll post again when he has updated his site. Oh, and to up the hate me stats - is there any call for a version of N that joins the two halves in to one big map?




i would definately think so

a single REGION N would make a lot of people very happy


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> a single REGION N would make a lot of people very happy




ok, done and sent to James. 2 versions - one without room numbers and secret doors (the other with). Have to wait for him to update the site now.

Had to increase the jpeg file compression a tad to keep the file size down (blew out to around 3MB per image originally - now down to ~1MB)


----------



## Max Rebo

My group is about to trek past Region M following the lava to the northwest.  I'm viewing this as an opportunity to put some non-SRD baddies in the dungeon (yugoloths, if I can find a logical reason).
I was curious if anyone else added to this part of the dungeon and, if they did, what did they do exactly?  I'm all about stealing good ideas for my own!


----------



## jim pinto

Max Rebo said:
			
		

> My group is about to trek past Region M following the lava to the northwest.  I'm viewing this as an opportunity to put some non-SRD baddies in the dungeon (yugoloths, if I can find a logical reason).
> I was curious if anyone else added to this part of the dungeon and, if they did, what did they do exactly?  I'm all about stealing good ideas for my own!




there could be dark elf holdouts, there could be more primative experiments, creatures that the driders fled from or fear, githyanki, perhaps even a beholder and a slew of dark elf and drider (any race, really) slaves

it just depends on what angle you're going for

i'm not the biggest fan of the stuff on the north side of the lava flow. ignore it if you wish.

put some dire beasts and maybe a lake with some of the region L stuff

or move region D up there


----------



## Max Rebo

I already used a beholder as the true leader of the Spider Kings in Region M.  Very cool encounter as I had the beholder on a level overlooking M65.  You actually suggested this a long time ago, Jim, and it was quite cool.

The drow outposts idea makes so much sense that I didnt even think of it (my brain never thinks logically).  I like that one, actually.

I would like to use the githyanki but I cant think of a logical reason they would be there.

I thought maybe the yugoloths could be there as like mercenaries that were helping the demons in G until the "money" ran out.  Now they're trying to find a way out of this place.  

Primitive expirements could also be fun.  Good idea.

Right now they're all 11th or 12th level.  I'm just trying to get them about 13th before they venture to either Region N or down into Region G (which they really want to go to).

Thanks for the suggestions.


----------



## rvalle

I looked though MMIII for some things to add to I (not that it needs it...)


Things that caught my eye were:Harpoon Spider, swapping out the otyugh in I for a Lifeleech Otyugh, a buffed up Lurking Strangler  becuase it just looks like it belongs in I, a Shrieking Terror because its just so messed up and a Stoneslinger just to keep in the spider-like motiff.

rv


----------



## Kafkonia

You could use the lhosks from MM3 -- visually, they're basically driders made with gorillas instead of drow. That could be something the drow and driders want to stay away from.

Also, check out some of the web enhancements for the Advanced Bestiary -- there's a template for drider-ifying other creatures, so you could have derro-driders, duergar-driders, and more.


----------



## Kafkonia

*World's Largest Dungeon*
_Session 2_ 

My PCs have made it through Region A, and in only two sessions, by completely bypassing the Longtail portion. They heard talk of him from some of the orcs they temporarily allied with, but through miscommunication and an insistence on going North until they ran out of hallway, they wound up in the Northeast corner and found a secret door to E.

What does this mean? Well, for one thing, it means that I'll be making him a bigger baddy later on in the dungeon -- give him a few levels, maybe a PrC (I'm thinking fiend-blooded or diabolist, depending on my mood) or third-party template and some fiendish rat-lackies. I'll drop hints by having mention of him. There's also the teensy-tiny matter of the portal still being open, so more fiendish beasties may overwhelm what's left of the humanoids in A, especially since the PCs killed Boyikt. Having an orc in the party made the kobolds less inclined to talk than they might otherwise have been. :/

I'm kind of relieved they're out of this section, at least for now, because they had really gotten the hang of things and what was a dangerous section at first -- putting the orc barbarian into negative hitpoints twice in the first encounter -- became a simple matter of tactics when the favoured soul bought it (critical hit on a burning hands trap = sad player   ) and was replaced with a warlock, and the monk crossclassed into rogue so they could actually find traps without triggering them.

They're currently carrying the petrified elf head, intent on finding a way to get it to explain what they're doing in this place, and the orc is wearing a ring that, as written, is just a ring, but that I'm going to do something tricksy with... I'm thinking of making it something that's beneficial to good-aligned characters, has no effect on neutral characters (like the orc), and has a negative but addictive effect on evil characters. Then I can have a previous evil owner come looking to take it back... maybe a gollum -- er, _golem_.


----------



## Xiag

*Beefing up Longtail*

Anyone looking to beef up longtail may want to consider some of the handouts from Goodman Games free download section:

http://www.goodman-games.com/freematerial.php

They have a couple PDF's about half way down on Were-rats that could be useful.  Along with some other free goodies (tiles, Complete Guides to, etc).

Oh, yeah, and it's free.  I know I already said that, but it seemed important enough to mention again.  Goblin Wererats and Half-rats are definately going to make it in if my group bypasses Longtail and comes back later.


----------



## Kafkonia

Xiag said:
			
		

> Anyone looking to beef up longtail may want to consider some of the handouts from Goodman Games free download section:
> <snip>




I'll be sure to check that out.

I think I'm going to use the Ebon Servitor template from the Book of Templates to represent Longtail after he's made a deal with the fiendish powers on the other side of the portal he opened. And maybe throw in the devil-bound template from Advanced Bestiary.

From that book, I'm also thinking of upping Seraxes to a Dread Shadow.

I picked up Heroes of Horror on the weekend, and combined with the reaction my players had to the room-that-was-an-adventurer, I think I'm going to make the WLD more and more horrific as the game progresses.


----------



## Traevanon

Max Rebo said:
			
		

> My group is about to trek past Region M following the lava to the northwest.  I'm viewing this as an opportunity to put some non-SRD baddies in the dungeon (yugoloths, if I can find a logical reason).
> I was curious if anyone else added to this part of the dungeon and, if they did, what did they do exactly?  I'm all about stealing good ideas for my own!




My group made extensive explorations to the NorthWest of region M.

This is how I imagined the area...

The Lava river continues on in a roughly straight path for five miles to the NW, though the ledges on either side taper into nothing a mere hundred yards off the map.  The cieling is uneven, but averages out to a hundred feet above the lava.  Characters within 10 feet of the lava take 2d6 fire damage per round, within 20 feet 1d6, within 40 feet 1 point, and further up 1 point per minute.

There isnt much to see as they fly, swim or paddle upstream but roughly each mile or so (4 possibilities) there are small caves for the party to find (spot 10).  One was filled with various vermin so thick that I created a vermin swarm type terrain feature for the cave, another was completely filled with various oozes, the third was abandoned with a few leftover traps from goblins and dwarves in ancient times and the last was left undefined.

At the end of the lava river, instead of finding a way up the party will be disappointed to find the lava bubbling up from below and the cieling getting lower as it widens out into sort of a lava-swamp.  There is no way to proceed through here without being actually able to move through the lava, and the whole area is filled with mephits besides, but if the party can overcome those difficulties there is a tangled web of under-lava passageways which will be almost impossible to navigate blind and swimming.  Most passages are so thin that medium sized creatures have to squeeze to get through, and most are dead ends, but a few lead out to volcanos on the surface while a few others lead to either the Elemental Plane of Fire or the Abyss.

Overall this area is designed to frighten away the 10th to 12th level characters that generally encounter it.  It would be more safe for characters of 16th to 18th level.

Let me know what your group encounters over there!


----------



## Max Rebo

I just wanted to thank everyone for their suggestions.

We played today and, well, things were definately different than I had planned.  I placed a series of caves along the one wall that the PC's explored.  The first had drow refugees (thanks Jim!).  The shadowdancer kidnapped one and got information out of him.  
The second was the home of a shrieking terror.  I figured this may have been a creature that was one of Mahir's expirements that got away.   This one ended up being pretty cool (thanks rvalle!) since they didnt know what to make of the thing!  It almost turned the dragon disciple into a varguille with its kiss ability.
They also fought a conflagoration ooze from MM3 as a random encounter.  It made sense and was actually pretty neat quicky battle.

I came up with a completely different idea for the lava river.  I did it this way mainly because it served my campaign's story so well.  I doubt it would work well for many other people.
I had the river flow northwest into a great lava lake, complete with a great lavafall.  The lava lake, however, held no bizarre beasties or climatic encounters.  It was the home of a fire weird that foretold impending doom.  It set up the Tomb of the Unliving part and, if they paid attention, gave them clues on how to beat the World Eater.
So successful at giving them a sense of doom, the players decided to stop exploring the area and head straight for the tomb.  I'm not too upset but I did have a cool illithid/yugoloth battle that has now been scrapped!  Oh well.

Funny aside note: The group heard about the World Eater and also about Tyrus in a very short period of time.  They heard about the great undead WORM and assumed that it was an undead WYRM and that it was Tyrus.  They now expect to fight a dracolich instead of a nightcrawler in the tomb.


----------



## thecelticking

*Help!! Death in the WLD??*

If you are not allowed to leave the WLD with convential spells or otherwise where does one's soul go when it "dies"???


----------



## BlueBlackRed

thecelticking said:
			
		

> If you are not allowed to leave the WLD with convential spells or otherwise where does one's soul go when it "dies"???



DM's choice.
Good luck!

Actually that topic has been discussed off and on with this thread.
Some have said it didn't matter, others say you get reincarnated, and there are probably more and scarier suggestions.


----------



## thecelticking

*Keeping PC's Dead*

My characters are playing on Map N & they are high level & what I am wondering w/o searching through 39 pages of posts is that if the undead can't leave wahty happens to one's soul say as in regard to a Ressurrection spell or a Raise Dead Spell.  I am just looking for a way to make dead characters stay dead with a good reason for it.  Otherwise IMO there is no real danger of dying if you can just be raised or resurectted.


----------



## Kafkonia

thecelticking said:
			
		

> If you are not allowed to leave the WLD with convential spells or otherwise where does one's soul go when it "dies"???




I was just considering this. I see a few options:

1) It goes to another part of the dungeon, perhaps one populated by the undead, or perhaps I, where it is changed strangely.

2) It is irrevocably destroyed.

3) It hangs around, being spooooooky.


----------



## Kafkonia

thecelticking said:
			
		

> My characters are playing on Map N & they are high level & what I am wondering w/o searching through 39 pages of posts is that if the undead can't leave wahty happens to one's soul say as in regard to a Ressurrection spell or a Raise Dead Spell.  I am just looking for a way to make dead characters stay dead with a good reason for it.  Otherwise IMO there is no real danger of dying if you can just be raised or resurectted.




Other than the loss of level inherent in anything short of a True Resurrection? Losing a level can be dangerous in a closed environment like this.

And remember, if the PCs can be resurrected or raised with ease, heck, so can some of the NPCs, right? 

But to expand on some of my above suggestions, the necromantic and fiendish energy permeating large sections of the dungeon could warp souls -- either making it impossible for them to come back, or making them not _want_ to come back. Alternately they could be coopted into service of dark powers as shadows, wraiths, wights, or any other form of incoporeal undead.

Alternately, you could rule that the same barrier that prevents people from physically leaving the dungeon destroys souls outright -- or after a short period if you'd rather give your PCs a chance to raise or resurrect. Or the souls could be trapped in limbo -- perhaps the barrier is layered -- one layer lets souls through in one direction (out) but a later layer doesn't, and the first layer is one-way, trapping the souls in a lower-case limbo. Then the PCs would have to choose -- leave their fallen comrades, and the souls of all others who have passed in the dungeon, in this bleak unending landscape, or free them, and the vile entities the dungeon was built to contain?


----------



## jim pinto

Max Rebo said:
			
		

> I already used a beholder as the true leader of the Spider Kings in Region M.  Very cool encounter as I had the beholder on a level overlooking M65.  You actually suggested this a long time ago, Jim, and it was quite cool.
> 
> The drow outposts idea makes so much sense that I didnt even think of it (my brain never thinks logically).  I like that one, actually.
> 
> I would like to use the githyanki but I cant think of a logical reason they would be there.
> 
> I thought maybe the yugoloths could be there as like mercenaries that were helping the demons in G until the "money" ran out.  Now they're trying to find a way out of this place.
> 
> Primitive expirements could also be fun.  Good idea.
> 
> Right now they're all 11th or 12th level.  I'm just trying to get them about 13th before they venture to either Region N or down into Region G (which they really want to go to).
> 
> Thanks for the suggestions.




the githyanki could be in a prison, just like the one in region d

since they are non-srd, i couldn't make them enemies of the gods, but you certainly can

and even though, they can planar-shift, the dungeon would shut that sort of thing down


----------



## jim pinto

*back from the dead*

some thoughts:

the dungeon isn't there to house the dead. it's there to house evil

good PCs go away and can't return
evil PCs are imprisoned somewhere

region N would certainly prohibit the use of things like resurrection. the level of evil and spell resistance nearly everywhere (alone) makes the process almost impossible

even so, the gods wouldn't want people bringing anything from N back, so i can't imagine a god bestowing that sort of power onto a PC, unless he/she were evil


----------



## Xiag

*Quick thought on the dead*

If you die your soul is SUPPOSED to go to the astral plane, etc.  Since it can't leave the dungeon, resurection spells opening a gate to that plane to bring back the soul simply come back empty...

or worse...

someone else comes through.

Which is a good reason to have a different dead person in the body of your ex-partymember (giving new level, skills, etc.  Tailored to your campaign).


----------



## jim pinto

Xiag said:
			
		

> If you die your soul is SUPPOSED to go to the astral plane, etc.  Since it can't leave the dungeon, resurection spells opening a gate to that plane to bring back the soul simply come back empty...
> 
> or worse...
> 
> someone else comes through.
> 
> Which is a good reason to have a different dead person in the body of your ex-partymember (giving new level, skills, etc.  Tailored to your campaign).




um

yeah... what xiag said...

(damn that's a brilliant idea.)

how come it took you 1,800 posts to come up with that?

(whew. saved some face.)


----------



## Xiag

jim pinto said:
			
		

> (damn that's a brilliant idea.)




Thanks.  That actually means a lot to someone aspiring to do game design.



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> how come it took you 1,800 posts to come up with that?




No one ever asked   

But if anyone is looking for other ways to stick it to their players, I'm always willing to help.


----------



## Hussar

Me, I'm in the reincarnation camp.  When PC's die, they can bring in new characters by reincarnating their corpse automatically.

If you want to keep PC's dead, then simply say that the Dungeon eats their souls.  There's all those haunted rooms with funky sounds and sights.  Well, that's the souls of stuff that died in the WLD trying to escape.  Anything that dies in the WLD get's absorbed straight into the rock and cannot be freed.

Most of the time.


----------



## thecelticking

*Raising PCs*

Thanks for all the input guys.  I think I'll go with the souls being utterly destroyed upon exit to it's home plane. Muhahahaaa!!  This Paladin has got a pesky overpowered unicorn he has had fo the longest time & it's time for old one horn to go.  A foolish DM allowed him to have a Celestial Unicorn as his mount & his Circle of Prot. from Evil just keeps getting in the way; not to mention its AC of 35 w/o using buff spells.  I liked Xiag's twist of having another soul enter it's body but it's a little too complicated for me.


----------



## Dracorat

Only ~ 1000 views to the 65 535 view mark.

Will the thread break? Stay tuned....


----------



## jim pinto

Dracorat said:
			
		

> Only ~ 1000 views to the 65 535 view mark.
> 
> Will the thread break? Stay tuned....




i think we lost some "views" when the site went down

we lost about 300 posts... didn't we?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

try 600


----------



## erucsbo

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> try 600




yep - we were well over the 1800 mark in total posts and on to page 40 (or maybe just over).


----------



## erucsbo

*delay in uploading maps*

btw - seems that James it taking a long time to upload to his site the maps that I sent him.
If anyone is in need of player maps (removed secret doors and room numbers) for J, L-O or a combined map for N (both DM version with secret doors and room numbers, and one without), or a map for J that has all the areas only reachable by secret doors removed as well then let me know.


----------



## twilko

thecelticking said:
			
		

> Thanks for all the input guys.  I think I'll go with the souls being utterly destroyed upon exit to it's home plane. Muhahahaaa!!  This Paladin has got a pesky overpowered unicorn he has had fo the longest time & it's time for old one horn to go.  A foolish DM allowed him to have a Celestial Unicorn as his mount & his Circle of Prot. from Evil just keeps getting in the way; not to mention its AC of 35 w/o using buff spells.  I liked Xiag's twist of having another soul enter it's body but it's a little too complicated for me.




Or if you want a bit of fun, go with Xiag's idea and have it come back as a Nightmare. Give it a Nightmare's stat's but it looks like a Unicorn. Damn, why aren't any of my players Paladins?


----------



## Xiag

twilko said:
			
		

> Or if you want a bit of fun, go with Xiag's idea and have it come back as a Nightmare. Give it a Nightmare's stat's but it looks like a Unicorn. Damn, why aren't any of my players Paladins?




Actually, I was going to suggest that.

But really any demon or anyone looking for a host body would be able to slip in once you open the door with a resurection spell.  Even other evil creatures within the dungeon who might be near by, and have a knowledge of evil magic, or some such.

SSSSAAAAAYYYYYY.....

Have a rival that the party beat, but you weren't quite ready to let go of yet?

Just saying, open vessel, evil creature, 1+1...


----------



## JediSoth

What have those of you who have group in region O done about the small passage in O41 that appears to lead off the map and out of the dungeon?

JediSoth


----------



## Hussar

BTW, on a side note, I just had player number 3 hit their 25th session without dying.  Not too bad.  Granted, another PC bought it in the same fight, but, hey, them's the breaks.  Lord Tarnaticus was a bloody brilliant fight.  Back and forth, people dropping and getting back up.  The 10th level Favoured Soul actually blew her entire list of spells.  Every spell.  By the time the dust settled, all she had left was a pair of cure lights which got spent keeping the raging barbarian alive as his rage ended.  

Now THAT was fun.


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:
			
		

> btw - seems that James it taking a long time to upload to his site the maps that I sent him.
> If anyone is in need of player maps (removed secret doors and room numbers) for J, L-O or a combined map for N (both DM version with secret doors and room numbers, and one without), or a map for J that has all the areas only reachable by secret doors removed as well then let me know.




I was afraid of that. I was waiting to send him my map till I saw what happened with yours. Maybe you can send them to Hussar and he can put them on his site. I, for one, would love a combined N map!

rv


----------



## Kafkonia

Xiag said:
			
		

> Have a rival that the party beat, but you weren't quite ready to let go of yet?
> 
> Just saying, open vessel, evil creature, 1+1...




I may steal that idea, if there's ever anything left of the PCs after they die. I don't think a pile of ash or a warforged without arms is that intimidating.


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> I was afraid of that. I was waiting to send him my map till I saw what happened with yours. Maybe you can send them to Hussar and he can put them on his site. I, for one, would love a combined N map!
> 
> rv




ok - temp solution until James gets the maps uploaded. You can get them from here.
The "smaller" Ns are about 1/3 the size but otherwise the same as the other Ns (saved with greater jpeg compression).
PlayerX is the normal map with room numbers and secret doors removed.
PlayerJb also has removed areas only reached by secret doors.
Kelara-PlayerE is a "fuzzied" map that I used as a handout for my players - being the map on Kelara's wall.
The 2 serenneth maps are those from the extra room that Lee Hammock added (E42 Maproom - for A and B) - also handed out to my players.
Please don't hammer my bandwidth.
Share (with the standard boilerplate provisos) and enjoy (and don't hate me too much)


----------



## jim pinto

Xiag said:
			
		

> Thanks.  That actually means a lot to someone aspiring to do game design.




do you read my blog?


----------



## Xiag

jim pinto said:
			
		

> do you read my blog?




I can definately say.... not as much as I should....  

But, as of today, I will be better about it.  Anything that gives more info is always welcome.


----------



## jim pinto

Xiag said:
			
		

> I can definately say.... not as much as I should....
> 
> But, as of today, I will be better about it.  Anything that gives more info is always welcome.




i'm also looking for people to work on a few indie games that i'm making

so

you should get involved with THAT


----------



## Max Rebo

So the party, hellbent on trying to get to the tomb of the unliving, crossed the lava river and basically followed the necromantic pulses of energy that the tomb keeps releasing eastward (phew!).  
They found the abandoned watchtower (M15) and then went north to M17 where they angered a flock of achaierai.  This made us laugh since I had a WotC achaierai mini that we always use as a substitute mini for whatever I dont have.  So they actually retreated to the watchtower with those stupid things in hot pursuit!  (I wish I was making this up..)

After that weird encounter, they searched around and found N1. They agreed to help the devourer get inside and get some tasty souls to eat!  They tried to enter through N4 and the shield guardians utterly spanked the group.  Both the sorcerer/dragon disciple and the half-orc ranger were killed and the shadowdancer and cleric BARELY got away.  It was almost the dreaded TPK.  So, so close...

So the session was a big achaierai fight and the world's largest ass-whoopin.  Weird but strangely fun.  

Anyone put anything cool and/or unusual north of Region M/N?  Just curious...


----------



## Traevanon

Regarding death within the dungeon:

I allow my players to use the ethereal and astral planes, but the dungeon is solid within them and they are unable to open doors or manipulate objects, so ressurection is allowed in my game.  Its accepted that 99.5% of deaths will just be a gold / xp sink rather than an actual loss of the character.  However, now that the characters have reached the point where high level ressurections are possible (the kind requiring only a smidgeon of the original) and 5000 to 10000gp isnt breaking the bank for them, I have made sure that if they ever *do* actually lose a character completely or get wiped, that it matters.

They have one backup character each, already made up, to use if their original becomes unrecoverable.  Once the orignal and the backup is gone, that's it for them.  They are spectators until the end.  Since they are current investigating the World Eater they are near the end anyhow so it only makes sense.

So to summarize the whole process, from 1st to 8th level if they died they were just dead, nobody could rez yet.  From 9th to 12th level found them unable to afford many Raises at first, then later the problem became making sure bodies were Raise-able.  13th to 16th level similarly began with them unable to afford Ressurections and ending with them having limited backup characters (increasing risk).  17+ should find them going through another time when True Res is effective at first, then less so when the enemies get so tough that True Ressurection becomes a combat spell.


----------



## Traevanon

Max Rebo said:
			
		

> Anyone put anything cool and/or unusual north of Region M/N?  Just curious...




North of region M/N I didnt put anything, but I did add a big wizard's tower above N1 that I really dont recommend, I regret it now because the PCs are using it as a base now that it's cleared.

I should have put the thing to the north where you describe.  It would have fit there better.  It was the base of a particularly crafty pair of prisoners who were trying to escape by manipulating their own Planar Seed (Planar Handbook) to expand beyond the borders of the dungeon.

The final battle was really cool because it involved a Planar Swap that put all the PCs in the wizard's custom pocket dimension, where divine magic didnt work at all and all arcane magic was considered maximized.

That was the backup plan for the two, assuming that the borders of the dungeon wouldnt allow the pocket dimension to pass through them, to capture one of the primary leaders of the Celestial Garrison (like Cerlebrai for example) where his and the rest of the garrison's powers were useless and hold them hostage until they were freed.

It was a fun side-adventure.


----------



## erucsbo

how come it's so quiet here?
Or am I the only one not seeing any new posts.

Anyway - my players are about to start I this coming weekend. (and look like progressing from E without any rogues - should be interesting)
Any advice from those that have done it before to make it memorable, yet survivable?
Any gotchas or other problems I should be aware of?


----------



## Hussar

Didn't run E, so can't really comment on that.

Did just open the floor up for my players to get a bit creative though.  They wiped out Lord Tarnaticus and searched his library for the map fragments.  On the website, I told them that they can add in stories that they found for small rewards - trinket magic items, xp, whatever.  We'll see what they come up with.  I'll post them here if they actually give it a go.

I think it's the long weekend that has things runnign slow.  The Americans and the Canadians are both on holiday.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Anyway - my players are about to start I this coming weekend. (and look like progressing from E without any rogues - should be interesting)
> Any advice from those that have done it before to make it memorable, yet survivable?
> Any gotchas or other problems I should be aware of?



No rogues in I? Good luck.
Region I pretty much requires a rogue to perform his standard duties and to find key items to push the plot along.
Might be time for a drow NPC with his own agenda.

As for making it memorable, watch some gore movies before-hand.


----------



## Gilladian

Well, Sunday morning I ran my first WLD session for my parents. 2 players, 1st level gestalt characters. My father is playing a fighter/wizard and my mother a cleric/rogue.

They went through A1 -A4 and then doubled back to A10. They were in A20 when we stopped. They've already used up their alchemist's fire and are beginning to understand that resources are a problem. I'm going to have to plant some random bits of stuff to refresh them once in a while (alchemist's fire, other potions besides healing, etc...) to help make up for the limited characters. I'm also tempted to have them "rescue" a good NPC fighter pretty quickly.

I'm going to use "level up" rooms rather than experience points in this campaign. Anybody else doing that? What rooms in A would be good level-up points? 

Any other advice welcome!


----------



## chrisheff

erucsbo said:
			
		

> how come it's so quiet here?
> Or am I the only one not seeing any new posts.




We had to take this weekend off as it was a long weekend and not many of us were available. I hope to run our 6th session on July 9 and the 7th session on July 16.

Chris


----------



## Jim Hague

erucsbo said:
			
		

> how come it's so quiet here?
> Or am I the only one not seeing any new posts.
> 
> Anyway - my players are about to start I this coming weekend. (and look like progressing from E without any rogues - should be interesting)
> Any advice from those that have done it before to make it memorable, yet survivable?
> Any gotchas or other problems I should be aware of?




I'd definitely throw a treacherous Drow rogue in there - maybe someone the Spider Kings have sent to suss out I.  Sans a rogue, the players're likely to miss out on a lot of the content, and there's some extremely nasty traps that could catch them off-guard.  

As for movies, I'd say watching the original Conan the Barbarian along with some nice body horror movies by David Cronenberg should help you get the feel down.

Ah, always good to see someone else venturing into Region I.


----------



## thecelticking

*Needs More Monsters*

The WLD needs more monsters/foes & it lacks a lot of depth as far as the lay of the land goes.  There should be towers and Castles and motes with drawbridges and deep gorges that the PCs could explore.  It gets prtetty monotous fighting the same old monsters again and again within the same old confines of a box.  You need to spice up the dungeon.


----------



## Max Rebo

Actually, most people here would probably agree with most of that.  I dont think a castle really belongs in a dungeon, but I did manage to put a small tower northwest of Region M to change things up a bit.  
And I added a series of caverns over Region M to house the beholder overlord I added.
Switching monsters is easy and most of the people here do it on a regular basis.  Region A in particular is rather repetitive but easy to fix.
And there is a canyon in Region M so theres your gorge (sorta).
I've never encountered an adventure I didnt have to tweek somewhat.  That goes with the territory when you DM someone else's idea of fun.  Everyones different.  
Change away...


----------



## Kafkonia

thecelticking said:
			
		

> The WLD needs more monsters/foes & it lacks a lot of depth as far as the lay of the land goes.  There should be towers and Castles and motes with drawbridges and deep gorges that the PCs could explore.  It gets prtetty monotous fighting the same old monsters again and again within the same old confines of a box.  You need to spice up the dungeon.




A castle... _in_ a dungeon?

Well, I guess if an owl can crossbreed with a bear, there are crazier things out there. 

The designers made a point of limiting themselves to the SRD, which is naturally a constraint. But I think it was a great decision, because it provides plenty of jumping-off points to modify the dungeon yourself and doesn't require you to go digging through all sorts of products you don't have.

The best part of the dungeon, I think, is its customizability. For instance, I intend to incorporate a broken-down, subtly mad Hound Archon chained up in one of the unsafe sections of Region E; I'm also going to incorporate some puzzles of my own devising, and Region I will feature all manner of just-plain-wrong beasties and occurences. If the WLD had been tightened up, I wouldn't have room for those things.

There are a lot of hallways, though.


----------



## erucsbo

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> I'd definitely throw a treacherous Drow rogue in there - maybe someone the Spider Kings have sent to suss out I.  Sans a rogue, the players're likely to miss out on a lot of the content, and there's some extremely nasty traps that could catch them off-guard.
> 
> As for movies, I'd say watching the original Conan the Barbarian along with some nice body horror movies by David Cronenberg should help you get the feel down.
> 
> Ah, always good to see someone else venturing into Region I.




Thanks Jim. Guess I better read up on M for my prep-work as well.

Our regular rogue (who had turned to the dark-side - taking levels in Assassin) is going on hiatus (too much work commitments and something had to give), and the ranger/rogue/horizon walker got nerfed by the shadows in E, so not only do they not have any rogue levels in the party, neither do they have anyone with much in the way of spot or search (having lost a monk and a bard as well). The treacherous rogue seems like the way to go - perhaps one who has been sent to find Jolinaar (the drow from H). I really want to avoid giving a boxy feeling to the dungeon. I want the players to be aware of things happening in other areas and that things that they do might affect more than just the area that they are in.

BTW - I sold the party on going north rather than east by saying the choice was between CoC to the north and the movie "The Cube" plus monsters to the east


----------



## Hussar

thecelticking said:
			
		

> The WLD needs more monsters/foes & it lacks a lot of depth as far as the lay of the land goes.  There should be towers and Castles and motes with drawbridges and deep gorges that the PCs could explore.  It gets prtetty monotous fighting the same old monsters again and again within the same old confines of a box.  You need to spice up the dungeon.




Umm, considering the rather large number of terrains after the initial couple of regions, I'm not sure what the problem is.  Regions G, H, I, J, K, L and M are all pretty unique terrains.  Granted, some of the regions are pretty much straight up dungeon crawls, ok, well, half of them, but, there's still lots of other stuff as well.  I will completely grant you that there could be some verticality added to the WLD.  Towers and the like.  YMMV and all that.

As far as monster variety - well, I always thought that there was more than enough.  Region A needs more, that's true.  Endless battles with darkmantles and rats gets old pretty quick.  It really depends on the region.

Oh, and Gilladian, welcome to the party.  Yeah, a couple of NPC's wouldn't be amiss.  There's some serious nastiness in there.


----------



## jim pinto

thecelticking said:
			
		

> The WLD needs more monsters/foes & it lacks a lot of depth as far as the lay of the land goes.  There should be towers and Castles and motes with drawbridges and deep gorges that the PCs could explore.  It gets prtetty monotous fighting the same old monsters again and again within the same old confines of a box.  You need to spice up the dungeon.




it would have been nice to have more monsters to draw from, in some regards

but i think the moats and towers and castles angle has been covered in so many other products, i'm not sure how we could have thematically worked it into the story

BUT

essentially the lava is a moat
essentially the elves live in a tower-like citadel
essentially the island in region L is defensible like a tower
essentially regions D, J and K are nothing but crags and gorges
essentially the center of region G can be sieged like a castle

there's no hard and fast western european features/equivalents of which you speak, but the themes are there.

or were you just trolling for a heated debate?


----------



## jim pinto

*region a*

I do what to reiterate this one last time, because I'm not sure if it's gotten lost since the crash or its been so long (nearly 2 years since this book published) since I've said this.

But

Region A has to be boring in a lot of ways.

1. The SRD has a short range of low-level monsters.
2. Low-level characters cannot survive complicated encounters.
3. We could not predict at what point people would be reaching what parts of the Region.
4. Therefore, if 2 and 3 are true, the encounters must remain within a narrow range of possibilities.
5. Otherwise, everyone would complain that Region A was TPK-infested.
6. Someone already said it, but the dungeon is easily customized. I templated the book specifically to accomodate changes to any one single room without upsetting the balance of the entire book.
7. Even if you don't like Region A, there are 15 other places to start.
8. Okay 14.
9. I've run out of things to say.

Could the tactics have been varied to accomodate this? Absolutely.
Could I have predicted the level of commentary about this Region? No.

I've posted a considerable number of times trying to help and address this issues, because I think it's important enough to mention. And I don't want people getting stuck with a $100 paperweight.

Anyway.

Most everyone has been great on this thread, but I just wanted to post this and refresh this idea for new readers, so no one thinks they got shanked in the shower.


----------



## Hussar

> Most everyone has been great on this thread, but I just wanted to post this and refresh this idea for new readers, so no one things they got shanked in the shower.




Y'know I've been reading too much internet when I misread "shanked" for "spanked".   

To be honest Jim, I didn't mind A all that much.  It was a nice starting region to work out all the kinks in the party to gear them up for such a massive dungeon crawl.  Allowed us to work out the bugs in the party without dying all the time.  I have no major complaints.  And, the nicest thing about the region is that it is repetitive, which makes varying it up very, very easy.

I think the major problem comes when it sinks in just how big the WLD is and that there needs to be some adjustments in how people approach it.  Some people get frustrated and stop and then blame Region A for the whole thing.  I really don't think its fair to judge the whole product from one small part of it.

BTW, on a side note, if anyone reads 8-Bit Theater, the writer and his buddies are going through the WLD right now and he's plugging it on his site.


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:
			
		

> how come it's so quiet here?
> Or am I the only one not seeing any new posts.
> 
> Anyway - my players are about to start I this coming weekend. (and look like progressing from E without any rogues - should be interesting)
> Any advice from those that have done it before to make it memorable, yet survivable?
> Any gotchas or other problems I should be aware of?




My group is ALMOST ready to start I. I have a 'dm' version of the map if you are interested. Its not as good as I would have hoped but its something.

I'm also a bit worried about the rogue thing. My group sorta has one... a rogue/druid but the player is pushing the druid bit and wants the wild shape thing next level. I'm curious to see how things go when they start to hit the traps. Region E was pretty trap free as long as you were not evil. Thats about to change in a  big way.

Right now I'm going to leave things as they are and see what happens. I can adjust later.

rv


----------



## rvalle

Gilladian said:
			
		

> Well, Sunday morning I ran my first WLD session for my parents. 2 players, 1st level gestalt characters. My father is playing a fighter/wizard and my mother a cleric/rogue.
> 
> They went through A1 -A4 and then doubled back to A10. They were in A20 when we stopped. They've already used up their alchemist's fire and are beginning to understand that resources are a problem. I'm going to have to plant some random bits of stuff to refresh them once in a while (alchemist's fire, other potions besides healing, etc...) to help make up for the limited characters. I'm also tempted to have them "rescue" a good NPC fighter pretty quickly.
> 
> I'm going to use "level up" rooms rather than experience points in this campaign. Anybody else doing that? What rooms in A would be good level-up points?
> 
> Any other advice welcome!




Running your parents though?!  Too funny!  

I'm just leveling up the characters 3 times per region. No special rooms, no exp... I just judge when I think they should bump up: once early in the region, once in the middle and once towards the end.

We've finished 2 regions and so far its working well. 2 regions is still pretty early in something like this though.  

rv


----------



## Jim Hague

rvalle said:
			
		

> My group is ALMOST ready to start I. I have a 'dm' version of the map if you are interested. Its not as good as I would have hoped but its something.
> 
> I'm also a bit worried about the rogue thing. My group sorta has one... a rogue/druid but the player is pushing the druid bit and wants the wild shape thing next level. I'm curious to see how things go when they start to hit the traps. Region E was pretty trap free as long as you were not evil. Thats about to change in a  big way.
> 
> Right now I'm going to leave things as they are and see what happens. I can adjust later.
> 
> rv




Well, if they avoid looking for the lab, the traps are less of a problem.  Mind, that loses a swell plotline, but...

I'd say if they have serious urgings in that direction, their _dear pal_ the dark naga can _supply_ them with an 'individual of those particular skills'...for a price.


----------



## Gilladian

rvalle said:
			
		

> Running your parents though?!  Too funny!
> 
> I'm just leveling up the characters 3 times per region. No special rooms, no exp... I just judge when I think they should bump up: once early in the region, once in the middle and once towards the end.
> 
> We've finished 2 regions and so far its working well. 2 regions is still pretty early in something like this though.
> 
> rv




I've been playing DND off and on with my parents since I was 11 (that's over 30 years, now!). When we moved to Texas when I was 13, the first thing he told us was "There's a game shop in town!". My dad is 73 and gaming is still one of his favorite things to do. I doubt we do more than 2-3 regions before we get tired and quit, though. 

I'm also going to post a map somewhere in a store-room - just a partial thing, with sections missing and maybe a big burn in the middle, so we don't have to spend too much time mapping. 

Thanks for the reassurance on the XP thing - I think I'm going to do exactly what you've done.


----------



## erucsbo

Gilladian said:
			
		

> I'm also going to post a map somewhere in a store-room - just a partial thing, with sections missing and maybe a big burn in the middle, so we don't have to spend too much time mapping.




I made a map of A like that and put it in region E. Still waiting for James to upload them to his site, but I have put them up on a temp website in the meantime (check #1562 above (post 2918906) for the link).
I may have another copy of a map of A somewhere that I also doctored if that doesn't suffice. Let me know and I'll put it up on the same site.


----------



## rvalle

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Well, if they avoid looking for the lab, the traps are less of a problem.  Mind, that loses a swell plotline, but...
> 
> I'd say if they have serious urgings in that direction, their _dear pal_ the dark naga can _supply_ them with an 'individual of those particular skills'...for a price.




Hmm, I like that. 

Though... I suspect the encounter with the Naga won't last long. Several of the characters are now Garrison members and they are taking their 'anti-evil' bit seriously.  I think it will go something like this

Dm spends hours planning conversation threads, plots, and plans.

Characters find the Naga.

Naga: "Well hello, I've been expecting..."
Players: "I cast a lightning bolt!" "I charge!" "I throw a spear!"

DM: "Sigh, darn players...."



rv


----------



## rvalle

Gilladian said:
			
		

> I've been playing DND off and on with my parents since I was 11 (that's over 30 years, now!). When we moved to Texas when I was 13, the first thing he told us was "There's a game shop in town!". My dad is 73 and gaming is still one of his favorite things to do. I doubt we do more than 2-3 regions before we get tired and quit, though.




Thats cool. Maybe I can get my kids to run games for me when they get older.  

rv


----------



## Hussar

Gilladian said:
			
		

> I've been playing DND off and on with my parents since I was 11 (that's over 30 years, now!). When we moved to Texas when I was 13, the first thing he told us was "There's a game shop in town!". My dad is 73 and gaming is still one of his favorite things to do. I doubt we do more than 2-3 regions before we get tired and quit, though.
> 
> I'm also going to post a map somewhere in a store-room - just a partial thing, with sections missing and maybe a big burn in the middle, so we don't have to spend too much time mapping.
> 
> Thanks for the reassurance on the XP thing - I think I'm going to do exactly what you've done.





That is just bloody way cool.  Bravo.

Yeah, the idea of dropping maps and map fragments from time to time is a good one.  Heck, the humanoids would likely have something like that on them.  At least a map of their area and markings for the really obvious and deadly traps.  Like the door to the armory in Region A.  10d6 lightning bolt incinerated our party cleric.  My first kill.  Ahh, the memories.


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> Though... I suspect the encounter with the Naga won't last long. Several of the characters are now Garrison members and they are taking their 'anti-evil' bit seriously.




I've played quite heavily on the fact that evil is trapped within the dungeon while it is alive (or undead). If evil is killed the soul is not lost and probably is being used by more powerful evil trapped in the dungeon (ie. the WorldEater) to make themselves stronger.

I had the party members who were garrison members get the mental warning that a ward had been breached. By the time the party got there there was a pile of drow bodies (and some damaged inevitables and celestials). Then one of the pulses of negative energy that I have emanating from N swept through animating the bodies, which started shuffling towards the NE. When the ebb pulse occurred the bodies collapsed and I allowed those with high enough spellcraft or knowledge:religion to roll to see the souls being dragged from the bodies and pulled to the north east through the walls.

The party now knows that killing evil destabilises regions, stopping evil from keeping itself in check and individually weak enough for the wards and garrision members to deal with them. Killing evil in fact is feeding the more powerful evil beings, shortening the time and effort they require to break their bonds and endangering the few remaining guardians of the dungeon.


----------



## Odhanan

> I'm also going to post a map somewhere in a store-room - just a partial thing, with sections missing and maybe a big burn in the middle, so we don't have to spend too much time mapping.
> 
> Thanks for the reassurance on the XP thing - I think I'm going to do exactly what you've done.



Maps as player's handouts? Denizens of the Dungeon having some partial area maps on them? Way cool indeed!


----------



## Xiag

Gilladian said:
			
		

> I've been playing DND off and on with my parents since I was 11 (that's over 30 years, now!). When we moved to Texas when I was 13, the first thing he told us was "There's a game shop in town!". My dad is 73 and gaming is still one of his favorite things to do. I doubt we do more than 2-3 regions before we get tired and quit, though.
> 
> I'm also going to post a map somewhere in a store-room - just a partial thing, with sections missing and maybe a big burn in the middle, so we don't have to spend too much time mapping.
> 
> Thanks for the reassurance on the XP thing - I think I'm going to do exactly what you've done.




If you know you're only going to hit 2 or 3 regions, you should possibly consider hand picking the 3 you really want and layering them with stairs instead of east/west north/south exits.  It will help get to the storys you want and not have them half doing parts of areas you're not really interested in.

As for XP, I just award 25 xp per CR of a creature or EL of a trap to each player.  It pushes them comfortablly past the level bumps in most areas, and doesn't feel as arbitrary to me.  With bonus xp if they do something creative, something that adds to the fun of the game, or if they achieve a milestone.

There are some thin areas where this doesn't quite hold up, but there are some areas where it's more than enough.

I also start cutting that down if there's more than 4/5 players in a party.


----------



## alienvampire

I've been trying to come up with a solution to the resource problem.  I did not want to tailor the magic items to fit the party needs - I feel that it breaks the fourth wall.  I've come up with a solution that not only fixes the problem, it makes for great role-playing.

I have introduced an NPC Artificer that roams around the dungeon.  He offers to purchase unwanted items from the party and also offers his services in item creation.  He is sort of a "Q" to the party's "James Bond", if you will.  In case the party has an inclination to shake him down,  I gave him a Warforged bodyguard to act as a peacekeeper.

This has worked out wonderfully.  Not only does this enable the party to custom order magic items, it gives them an outlet to sell off the loot that they acquire.  Making him a recurring NPC also adds some role-playing opportunities.

Just thought that I would share this little tidbit.  This has truly enriched our WLD camaign.

- Jonathan


----------



## Max Rebo

We played again, this time the entire game took place in the upper part of Region M and just outside Region N.  I changed some stuff around, mainly adding  some roaming dinosaurs since my players dig that sort of thing.  

Anyway, after getting their butts kicked by the giant shield guardians, they have decided to roam around and kill stuff to level up before going back.  Heh.  

The party's newest member (a gnome mystic theurge) killed the devourer from N1 with a critical hit from a searing light spell.  108 damage.  Ouch.
They fought two t-rexes.  I had them from the wotc giants of legend set so I used em.  The cleric was eaten twice but somehow survived.

They fought the three advanced belkers,which to be honest, was kind of lame.  I've never used belkers before and probably never will after this one.  Boring.

They then found a vampire's crypt that I added to the region.  I've added yuan-ti to Region J as followerers of Tyrus so I came up with a backstory for this vampire.  He was a yuan-ti that was lured into the vampires crypt in J and was essentially chased away by the repulsed yuan-ti tribe after they learned he was undead.  He took up residence north of the lava flow.
(Hey, good enough, right?)
I added this area since my one player has been anxiously awaiting where the yuan-ti would show up at.  Since it looks like they'll be skipping Region J altogether, I slipped one in here.

That was it.  Overall, a fun session.


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:
			
		

> I've played quite heavily on the fact that evil is trapped within the dungeon while it is alive (or undead). If evil is killed the soul is not lost and probably is being used by more powerful evil trapped in the dungeon (ie. the WorldEater) to make themselves stronger.
> 
> I had the party members who were garrison members get the mental warning that a ward had been breached. By the time the party got there there was a pile of drow bodies (and some damaged inevitables and celestials). Then one of the pulses of negative energy that I have emanating from N swept through animating the bodies, which started shuffling towards the NE. When the ebb pulse occurred the bodies collapsed and I allowed those with high enough spellcraft or knowledge:religion to roll to see the souls being dragged from the bodies and pulled to the north east through the walls.
> 
> The party now knows that killing evil destabilises regions, stopping evil from keeping itself in check and individually weak enough for the wards and garrision members to deal with them. Killing evil in fact is feeding the more powerful evil beings, shortening the time and effort they require to break their bonds and endangering the few remaining guardians of the dungeon.




****!!

i wish i'd thought of that

brilliant

****ing brilliant


----------



## Traevanon

I wish I'd thought of it too...  wow.  That would change things.

The quick 2 cent suggestion I'd offer to people starting the WLD would be to print out the map of the current (or near future) region, grab a set of 4 highlighters of different colors, go though the section in the text and color the map in according to the divisions given in the text.

As for alienvampire's wandering Artificer...

I did a similar thing.  As you probably know the dungeon is divided into diagonal layers for suggested levels.  Region A, then B and E, then C, F and I and so on.  For each section according to its layer I made one of the NPCs into someone the party could convince to make magic items for them.  There were limits however.  In region A, Boyikt the Kobold could make Masterwork and silver items.  In region B, Hammerfist (I think that's his name) the Hobgoblin could make +1.  In Region I there is a Drider who actually resides in M, but deals through the Drow in I that will make +2 items.  And so it goes.

Coming from experience, if you are going to allow free spending of money I'd suggest going one step further and making a list of items that each vendor specializes in.  The Drider in the example above could make Ghost Touch, Unholy, Flaming and Fiery Burst weapons.  Also, limit the amount of 5000/10000gp diamonds that are available for use ressurecting people (if you are allowing that option).

Good luck!


----------



## Hussar

> The quick 2 cent suggestion I'd offer to people starting the WLD would be to print out the map of the current (or near future) region, grab a set of 4 highlighters of different colors, go though the section in the text and color the map in according to the divisions given in the text.




If you go here I've done a number of the maps in pretty much this exact way.  Can't remember which ones I've done, just look for the DM's Master Maps.  I'll be doing K probably this week, and hopefully J as well.  Got me some free time, so I'm trying frantically to get as ahead as I can.

Ok, that's a lie since I'm frittering time away here.  But, that's my intention anyway.


----------



## rvalle

Hussar said:
			
		

> If you go here I've done a number of the maps in pretty much this exact way.  Can't remember which ones I've done, just look for the DM's Master Maps.  I'll be doing K probably this week, and hopefully J as well.  Got me some free time, so I'm trying frantically to get as ahead as I can.
> 
> Ok, that's a lie since I'm frittering time away here.  But, that's my intention anyway.




And I've done I as well. It looks like James isn't keeping the site up to date though...  

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> And I've done I as well. It looks like James isn't keeping the site up to date though...




I'll serve them if you all are happy for me to host the files until James get's his site updated (at which point I'll make mine unavailable again).


----------



## JediSoth

*Wish my players luck*

I have a WLD game coming up this Sunday...wish my players luck. They're around level 12 and are just about to engage one of the cryohydras in Region O. Granted, they've got classes and abilities that aren't in the SRD (along with those no save, no SR, ranged touch attack orb spells), so they're a little tougher than typical CR12 characters, but still...we could have TPK on our hands this Sunday if they press on into Region O.

JediSoth


----------



## rvalle

And another character falls...

In what was to be the last battle of E, the players went after the remaining Baghests (Sarras' pack). Then went because the Baghest have some magic items gleaned from a fallen party member, because the Baghest are evil and because the party made 7th level and thinks they are tough.

Game before this they attacked the Baghest guard posts and killed/drove off 15 or so in scattered small fights. We stopped that game just as they approached the big room where Sarras was waiting.

Fight was:
5 characters of 7th level (Bard, Fighter, Cleric, Cleric, Druid/Rogue) plus an NPC fighter of 6th level.

VS

13 'normal' Baghest
Sarras and Menarr (Greater Baghest)
Phil-something (7th level Wizard)

While the party had fought the Baghest several times there were some things they didn't know.

1. The mass-bulls strength ability
2. The mass-enlarge ability
3. The fact that Menarr even existed (he started the fight invisible along with 4 small Baghests)

The fight started off well for the party. The fighter can crank his AC up to 30 (+2 full plate, +2 shield, Combat Exp). He can also Enlarge AND has Whirlwind. The Baghest held back and he entered the room, enlarged and went to town. 

Then one of the Clerics dropped a Holy Smite into the room. Since the Baghest are Evil Outsiders a good portion of them took 7d6 damage. Ouch.

That along with the fighter taking swings at just about everything in the room dropped several of the small Baghest early and it looked like it was going to be a route.

Then Sarras called in the Mage (whom the party had left crying in the dark a while back after they killed all the Shadows) and he cast Haste on Sarras and the smalls near her. She does a mass bulls str. Mennar pops in (surprise!) and he does mass bulls str on his group.

Now the party has a fight on their hands...

Sarras starts to howl and does so for a full round....

At end she and all the rest of the pack start to grow... and grow... all the 'smalls' become large and she and Mennar become Huge. 

And now the party talks about running.

Before they can get everyone to the door Sarras shreds the druid/rogue down to -9 with one bite and then does a bite/claw/claw (2 bites because of Haste) on the NPC fighter for 30 some points of damage.

The NPC fighter is trapped in the room. He can either move and take 3 or so AoO's or take a 5 foot step and face the brunt next round. He tries to do a fighting withdraw and moves the 5'. Sarras drops him next round.

Everyone else makes it to the hallway. The Baghest were more interested in driving the PC's off then killing them all so they just shadowed the party out of their area.

While the Baghest were able to fight to a draw I figure they are not interested in a round 2. I'm thinking they turn into Goblins and move enmass to B.

rv


----------



## Hussar

Just an update in case anyone cares.

My lot went in the back door into the Horde's lair.  For the very first time, they went through a section of the WLD without messing with every single door and room.  I was so proud.  They went through the trap section of C without disturbing so much as a mouse.  They did, on the other hand, rest in the Halls of the Celestials to buff up before braving the Horde.

This meant that all the PC's weapons are now holy.  The halfling paladin/monk/Pious Templar now has holy/axiomatic weapons and a +3 to hit and damage from the buffs in the halls.  The halfling is now death on toast.

He's having a ball.

The party got spotted at the crossroads of the Horde's main hall.  I sent out one vrock to investigate and the party obliterated it, but not before it spored them.  A round later, the second vrock and Gwarny'z arrive.  More sporey goodness and Vrock number two buys it.  Gwar, on the other hand, uses his stenchyness to nauseate every PC except for the aforementioned halfling.

The halfling proceeds to rip off his head.  Took a fair beating doing it, but, he did it.

So, now the path is clear to go deal with Glebshayy after a bit of healing time.  

Gleb is going to be buffed to the gills.  I still think the party is going to make mincemeat out of him with all their buffs, but, we'll see.  I'm not all that interested in making this bit a really titanic battle.  The PC's have the upper hand, they have the element of surprise, and, dammit, they have the higher ground... whoops went a little too far there.  I think it's going to be a quickish fight, grab the flame, free the prisoners and hot foot it out of there.  

Then comes the real fun.


----------



## erucsbo

*Siglinde question (Region I)*

Jim Hague (or anyone else who knows) - is Siglinde really a drider (as per I36) or a drow (as per I31), or a former drider who wants to return to being a drow? I'm getting mixed messages from the different Encounter explanations.

thnx


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Jim Hague (or anyone else who knows) - is Siglinde really a drider (as per I36) or a drow (as per I31), or a former drider who wants to return to being a drow? I'm getting mixed messages from the different Encounter explanations.
> 
> thnx




her stats should tell the truth

not sure why the encounters are conflicting (don't have my book in front of me, sorry)


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> her stats should tell the truth
> 
> not sure why the encounters are conflicting (don't have my book in front of me, sorry)




her stats are those of a Dark Naga (or closer to that than Drider or Drow).

I31 says that she was once part of Mahir's trusted circle of casters, but that vile arcane energies and the attacks of Madness stripped away her natural form.

oh - and why would Mahir have had a spellbook when he was a sorcerer?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

erucsbo said:
			
		

> oh - and why would Mahir have had a spellbook when he was a sorcerer?



Change it to a book of evil rituals instead.
According to one of the non-core sourcebooks, anyone can cast/perform rituals if they put in enough effort.


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:
			
		

> her stats are those of a Dark Naga (or closer to that than Drider or Drow).
> 
> I31 says that she was once part of Mahir's trusted circle of casters, but that vile arcane energies and the attacks of Madness stripped away her natural form.
> 
> oh - and why would Mahir have had a spellbook when he was a sorcerer?




it's a "spellbook" in flavor only... he's a ritualist and the book represents all sorts of arcane magic and experiments

lots of room to expand on that for the right campaign

she should have been a drow before then, who was experimented on and turned into a "naga" instead of a drider... not sure why there's confusion in the text

so that's MY answer, until Hague comes on here and says otherwise

hope that helps


----------



## Jim Hague

erucsbo said:
			
		

> her stats are those of a Dark Naga (or closer to that than Drider or Drow).
> 
> I31 says that she was once part of Mahir's trusted circle of casters, but that vile arcane energies and the attacks of Madness stripped away her natural form.
> 
> oh - and why would Mahir have had a spellbook when he was a sorcerer?




Pinto (the other jim there) has the right of it - Mahir's book is meant to be one used for arcane rituals, instead of a standard spellbook.  You could also take a page from Mongoose's excellent _Scrolls of Seklos_ supplement for the _Conan_ RPG, which has a nifty feat (Craft Abomination) and set of rules for doing exactly what Mahir was up to, complete with consequences.  

Ironically, given the intended Howardian/Lovecraftian feel of I, I picked up _Scrolls of Skelos_ about a week after I submitted the final draft of I to Alderac.  I cussed.  A lot.

Going into slightly more depth on Region I - while writing it, I was very much going for the REH feel of powerful, corrupt magic and pacts with unspeakable powers, and the fallout from those acts.  Hence you've got Siglinde transformed into a Dark Naga (a nod to the Drow in my home game, which are serpent-themed instead of spider-themed) and the weird regenerative/mutating energies that suffuse I, along with the double-ugly tag team of Anguish and Madness.  

When I ran my playtest group through it, they didn't twig right away to the humanoid and semi-humanoid inhabitants being Drider and Drow, thanks to even the lowliest slave having minor mutations from healed injuries; the Driders are quite quick with the lash and torture, knowing that only massive injury or immediately fatal wounds will end a slave's life.

Just a little color to add in there.  As always, I'm glad to see folks out there and enjoying the hard work everyone put into the WLD - the writers, artists and fans all.


----------



## jim pinto

*italy*

italy!!! world cup baby!!!

er

um

this isn't espn.com

what's going on?


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> italy!!! world cup baby!!!
> 
> er
> 
> um
> 
> this isn't espn.com
> 
> what's going on?




As an Australian it is nice to see that a side can win the world cup based on fantastic dramatic performances in fooling the referees to award them penalties.  
Seriously - congrats to Italy. It's some reassurance to know that the toughest match the Azzuri had in the knock-out phase (except for the final) was against the Socceroos, and that it took the eventual champions (and a dodgy umpiring decision) to knock the Australians out of their first World Cup finals campaign in over 30 years.


----------



## erucsbo

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Pinto (the other jim there) has the right of it - Mahir's book is meant to be one used for arcane rituals, instead of a standard spellbook.  You could also take a page from Mongoose's excellent _Scrolls of Seklos_ supplement for the _Conan_ RPG, which has a nifty feat (Craft Abomination) and set of rules for doing exactly what Mahir was up to, complete with consequences.




thanks Jim. As the party has picked up a few spellbooks now (Boyikt's from A and the 2 necromancers from E) I'll redesign it to make it obviously something that a sorcerer was using rather than looking like a wizard's spellbook with a ritual at the end.



			
				Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Going into slightly more depth on Region I - while writing it, I was very much going for the REH feel of powerful, corrupt magic and pacts with unspeakable powers, and the fallout from those acts.  Hence you've got Siglinde transformed into a Dark Naga (a nod to the Drow in my home game, which are serpent-themed instead of spider-themed) and the weird regenerative/mutating energies that suffuse I, along with the double-ugly tag team of Anguish and Madness.
> 
> When I ran my playtest group through it, they didn't twig right away to the humanoid and semi-humanoid inhabitants being Drider and Drow, thanks to even the lowliest slave having minor mutations from healed injuries; the Driders are quite quick with the lash and torture, knowing that only massive injury or immediately fatal wounds will end a slave's life.




cool. Conan the Barbarian was on TV last night after I got home from the party's first foray in to I, so I taped it and will watch it before the next session.

I'll make Siglinde a transformed drow rather than drider - thanks for the clarification.


adventure-wise. only had 4 out of 8 players show up (so we actually got something done).
The party started without any "rogue" skills, and headed north. The initial descriptions of pustules bursting underfoot and shreds of flesh hanging from the walls like bad wallpaper made them seriously think about abandonning the idea of heading north and going east instead. They easily dispatched the scuts and Disciples of Madness by lobbing fireballs in the rooms. The Gricks in the ready room caused a little more panic (and the guy playing the sorcerer wants me to allow the Purify Spell feat from Book of Exalted Cheese (er, Deeds) so that he can bomb the party without causing too much damage to PCs), but they still went through mostly unscathed. Then the cleric (Mystic Theurge) ended up curing everyone back to full hitpoints (so I am yet to have the PCs experience the 'healing effect' of the region).

And they have picked up a drow! Dressed in rags, whip scars on his face, arms and legs and looking for Jolinaar the party said that he should come with them so that they can protect him from the Spider Kings and other nasties and he can find the hidden stuff and open traps and doors. Asking him how he managed to get so good at disabling traps etc - he said that one had to if they wanted to survive. They asked him how he learned the skills - he said that his friends taught him - by dying when they didn't do things properly. This looks like being quite interesting - especially as he appears to be totally inept at combat  

btw - the mirror/scrying room (I12) - has anyone used that for scrying on particular rooms?
I said that they were all dark except for one that they had recently fireballed (where embers gave enough light for them to identify the room). I'd like to have them see stuff that piques the curiosity, allows them to get some (perhaps misleading) intel on what is happening, and is dangerous viewing on a full stomach.


----------



## Hussar

> As an Australian it is nice to see that a side can win the world cup based on fantastic dramatic performances in fooling the referees to award them penalties.




I was living in Korea during the last World Cup.  Y'know it's pretty bad when they specifically bring in new referees due to the volume of complaints leveled by other teams.


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> I was living in Korea during the last World Cup.  Y'know it's pretty bad when they specifically bring in new referees due to the volume of complaints leveled by other teams.




threadjack coming

rumors has it that the world cup refs do not like the NON-TRADITIONAL world cup teams

togo, korea, etc.


----------



## Hussar

jim pinto said:
			
		

> threadjack coming
> 
> rumors has it that the world cup refs do not like the NON-TRADITIONAL world cup teams
> 
> togo, korea, etc.




Well, if that was true, it certainly wasn't then.  I was at many of those games.  I'm not a huge soccer fan, but, when the Korean player clips (as in hits from behind) the other teams player, drills him to the ground and no foul is called, it was pretty brutal.  The reffing was so unbelievably biased in favour of Korea it wasn't even funny.

Truly funny was when the Korea got banned from the UEFA website this year for so many denial of service attacks after a questionable call during their last game.  Of course, the fact that the Korean PLAYERS said the call was fair didn't matter.  :/  

Sorry for the threadjack.


----------



## Traevanon

My guys finally gained their first key!

Vinarra had her Dread Wraiths meet the party at the entrance to N and invited them to talk.  The discussion didnt last long however, because the party isnt looking to escape, they are looking to renew the wards on the World Eater.

So, the battle began WITHOUT the party having Death Ward (or any of their minute/level buffs) up.

One 16th level character and five 17th level characters vs 4 Dread Wraiths, 2 standard Liches and one Vinnara (with two extra Rogue levels).

Anyhow, she'll be back and she'll be angry.  All the undead come back each day.  But she'll be without her sword, maps and documents.

Stay tuned.


----------



## Xiag

*Familiar question...*

No, the question isn't familiar, it's a question about familiars...

Two things are starting to dovetail nicely for me, but I wan't some input on what could happen, should, happen and why before I just jump into all of this.

The mage in our party has suddenly decided it might be time for a familiar.

Now for a seemingly unrelated story...

The party recently fought the kobold wizard, his guard, and krenshar.  They managed to take one of the weak kobolds alive, and began pumping him for information.  Some wanted to use torture, others took pitty.

Some wanted to kill him out right, lock him in the room and stake the door shut, or just turn him back into the dungeon without equipment.

The mage and the druid talked the rest of the party into keeping him alive as long as he served as a useful guide.  He's drawn a rough map back to the kobolds old hide out (through the maze, but not telling exactly how to get through the maze).  But some in the party still think they're safer if he just dies.

Most of you should see where I'm going with this.

The party dynamic is finally starting to get some depth through stress of how do you handle evil, and what is, and isn't ok.  (the torture debate alone took 45 minutes at the table, and resulted in one alignment shift).

Having the mage get his wish of a familiar, and haveing it be the kobold, would really be a great source of tension without breaking the party.  The hint of claustriphobia from a long roadtrip with people you like, but have just had enough of would eventually set it, and it would be real interesting to see how it plays out.

But I'm concerned about what a kobold familiar would mean rules wise, and if I'm missing a better option for story.

Thanks for your ideas,


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Personally, I would disallow any sentient being becoming a familiar w/o using the Improved Familiar feat, and even then a kobold is ill-suited for that.

Now if someone were to take the leadership feat, that's different.

To get a familiar in the WLD, I would say it would have to come from outside the WLD or find a suitable one in the WLD that is not monstrous - like a normal animal in the big green room of region E.

If they're still in region A, then the familiar can be called in through the entry room.


----------



## Hussar

Did they off the kobold sorcerer?  There's a possible familiar right there.  And a nice source of information.  Sure, the sorc didn't have one in the book, doesn't matter.  Add one in now that constantly reminds the PC how he murdered his last master and how he looks forward to someone else doing the same.


----------



## twilko

*Questions on Familiars*

Gday Xiag,

I am not sure that I would allow a Kobold familiar, follower yes, familiar no.

However if you want to keep the "how you treat evil" thing going then when your wizard does his summoning have an imp, quasit or something similar turn up. I'm at work so I don't have all my Monster Manuals or Creature Collections here to give more suggestions but I'm sure you can find something.

Maybe a "lost puppy" dretch that treats the wizard like its mum just occasionaly eats party members, a normal looking animal that just happens to be possed by a demon/devil, a pseudodragon that happens to be a half fiend (hey I like that, looks all cute and cuddly, wins over the party and then starts creating minor mischief which is constantly escalating. Do the party kill the familiar once they konw what it really is?).


----------



## Vanuslux

twilko said:
			
		

> Gday Xiag,
> 
> I am not sure that I would allow a Kobold familiar, follower yes, familiar no.




I think Hussar meant the kobold sorcerors familiar could become the familiar.


----------



## Hussar

Wut Vanuslux said.


----------



## Traevanon

Boyikt is no human's familiar!  Boyikt is him own person!  Fireballs and Curses on you!!

Just kidding.

Sorry to see that the Kobold Sorcerer, his bodyguards and the Krenshars got beat so bad.  That was a favorite encounter of mine.  

I hope you used cover and poor footing.  That's what turned the possible battle into a parley for us.

Water under the bridge.

So, regarding Kobold Familiars, I would say no.  There are plenty of rats around though.


----------



## Hussar

Sigh, I'm doing up the die rollers for Region K and it's a bit of a grind.

I think I got spoiled.  G was a breeze.  I found almost no mistakes in the entire region.  It was as tight as a drum as far as I could see.  I think the most serious thing I saw was there were no stats for the Trumpet Archons trapped in the Horde's lair.  Meh, that just means I gotta stumble over a couple of pages.  No biggie.

K, so far, has been a shock to the system.  Even on first time through, I spotted half a dozen fairly serious errors, like not listing the number of creatures in an encounter.  Getting the SR wrong for Lightspear (No, you cannot voluntarily fail your SR check, you have to spend an action lowering it) and now, as I'm doing the Hag Covey, the tactics section takes a big hit.  Mahe is supposed to cast darkness and invisiblity.  That's a bit tricky for a first level sorcerer.  Never mind that darkness is not the impenetrable black sphere it used to be, but, just a shadowy area.  So, now I have two choices.  Either jack him up to a 5th level sorc, or give him a couple of scrolls.

I just might break out my Tome of Magic and make him a shadowcaster instead, but, since he's supposed to be a throw away, I'm not sure he's worth it.  Maybe I'll just hand him a couple of scrolls.  

That and the fact that a number of the locations on the map are well described, but don't appear on the map.  It's one thing when it takes place on the lake floor, but, when it's a series of rooms that the party might just pick a fight in, that sort of thing would be nice to see.

Phew.  I feel better now that I've ranted.  On the plus side, I now have room descriptions done for Regions K and J, so, I can pretty much run the WLD until Christmas without doing any more work.  The die rollers just make things go smoother, but, they aren't required.


----------



## Kafkonia

Hussar said:
			
		

> Did they off the kobold sorcerer?  There's a possible familiar right there.  And a nice source of information.  Sure, the sorc didn't have one in the book, doesn't matter.




Actually, he had a lizard.

I like that idea, though.


----------



## Xiag

Yeah... the lizard... well, the lizard didn't make it.

I've got an ex-marine playing, knowing he's in enemy territory, and doesn't want to leave anyone behind who may follow them.

On the other hand the druid (I know, I know), is uber compasionate to everything, and doesn't want to kill anything if she doesn't have to.

As for the battle, here's the recap I emailed to our group:

But, as they passed the other door, and recovered the human's shortsword.   The mage said he'd like to map the other side quickly, because he thinks that's where the kobold went.  Rather than risk the party the druid asked her bat, Stryx, to scout the other side of the door.

Stryx went through the crack the dwarf had opened for him.  THe party immediately heard four bow strings twang.  cracking the door again, the druid called to stryx that came screaming out of there like... um... a bat out of... ummm... somewhere.  I'll think of it...

Anyway, Stryx told them he saw 5 little dog/lizard men and a big cat/wolf/thing, and no hallways.

With no other options, the dwarf gave the party warning, then threw open the door and prepared for battle.

The gnome fired a magic missle at the cat as it charged, and the bard matched him with an arrow that struck the beast right in the the throat as it landed.

The dwarf fired his crossbow, but again, had forgot to load it.  So began switching to shield and waraxe.

The druid lit the room with a light spell, disrupting the kobold mages spell.

The dwarf kept his shield wall going as the bard kept firing arrows into the mage.  Disrupting him just enough to not get a spell off, while the mage set prepared to counterspell incase the bard missed.

The dwarf's shield was doing well to protect the bard, but it wasn't quite enough to keep him safe, as the many different angles seemed to always leave an opening for one side of him or the other to get a shot through.

So the dwarf charged a kobold, the kobold managed to push him to the side with a well placed swing.  It missed the dwarf, but slowed him from his charge.

The druid began casting create water to douse the kobold mage with and disrupt his spells (hopefully).

The human, seeing his oportunity now that the dwarf was out of the way, charged the mage, and succeeded it taking him down with a solid decapitation (crit and solid hit with 2nd weapon).  As he pulled the swords out of the body, he was doused with the druids water spell.

The kobolds the dwarf charged had begun backing up to get away from him, so he charged the other side of the room to take out the kobolds there.  As he ran at them he brought his waraxe down on the kobold with a broken bow, killing it, but not before the kobold got one last shot, digging into his side.

The druid had been trying to get her bat to fly interfearence or atleast attack the kobolds, while she fired at them with her sling.  The bat, however, was still shaken from the initial volley, and not going to do that again.

The human rose up from having killed the mage, and turned to help the dwarf.  He climbed the rocks the mage had used for cover and lept at the kobold with the bow... but triped during his leap and came down on the ground infront of them.

The dwarf moved quickly, however, and cleaved through the kobolds bow, and then again, into the kobold.

The kobold initially charged by the dwarf had broken his string as well, and began to charge the druid.  The elf fired a shot that skinned him, but it was the Stryx the bat, who flew down to finish him off biting into his previous wounds.

Everyone now turned their attention to the final kobold, which fell unconcious from a well placed sling stone the druid shot (took him to exactly 0).

All this while the gnome was guarding the hall.

Tying him up, the waited for him to regain conciousness.
​
long winded interigation....


Then the human, having had enough, grabbed him, held a knife to his throat, and asked the druid (the unofficial leader) what to do.  She said he could live for now, and that they'd take him with.  The mage was told to get him to draw a map to the old kobold fort, and to be acurate, because he was comming with, and he couldn't promise his safety from the fighter who just attacked him.

The kobold began drawing a map as the party rested for the day.​
Ok, I gave the kobolds bows, not slings.  My bad, but the party lived anyway.

So, here's what I have from the kobold's eyes:

A bunch of people, bust in the room, killed his pet, his leader and his friends.  They're still there, but this gnome (who he didn't see take part in things because the gnome was in the hall), is keeping people from killing him, and is able of speaking his language.  

I may have a Gollum situation later if the kobold ever decides the gnome is more the parties friend than his, but until then, he's the last one alive (that he knows of), the gnome is protecting him from people who will kill him, and he really doesn't have any other options.

The map he gave them takes them through the maze so that the party will either kill the trogs, or the trogs will kill the party, either way the kobold wins, but he's already starting to attach to the wiz.  He may not be thrilled with a gnome as his friend, but he doesn't exactly have a lot of options at the moment.  He hasn't told them the orcs were in his lair, and has only mentioned that the flying squid have been seen, but not numbers, etc.

The human fighter and the bard see this as a threat to the party, need it put down, and move on.

The dwarf fighter hates seeing it here, but has this nagging sense of fair play, and the defenselessness of it tears him between the two camps.  He was actually going to offer it a duel for freedom (since he was down to 2 hp, he thought it would be fair).

The druid sees it as a living thing with as much right to live as the party, but isn't assertive enough to really push the point.

The wizard suffers the same pangs as the dwarf, but also trusts the info it'll give (why I don't know).

As for the leadership skill/feat/thing.... I don't use it for one on one encounters.  In those situations role-playing should dole out the results.  If it was for a squad of men you don't know, or something like that, leadership would be handy, but this will depend on the actions of the wiz.

As for the kobold, I know you're not supposed to allow things like that as familiars right off the bat, but, in this case... why?

Familiars raise the int up to avg human of an animal, kobolds already there.
He doesn't have any more HP.
Sure he can use weapons, etc, but not exactly well, and doesn't have a lot of the natural bonuses other familiars have.

So, without towing the line of the PHB and DMG, is there any reason I shouldn't bend the rules in this case to make for a better story?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Xiag said:
			
		

> So, without towing the line of the PHB and DMG, is there any reason I shouldn't bend the rules in this case to make for a better story?



Do whatever works best for you and your group and everyone's fun.
My only concern beyond that would be if any of the players would use this as an opportunity to break the game in some way.
But if you trust your players, it's not an issue.


----------



## lukelightning

If you somehow get a kobold wizard as a familiar, then he can get you as a familiar!  Woo hoo! Natural armor bonus! Evasion!  Spell resistance!  Ability to speak with creatures of your type!


----------



## Xiag

lukelightning said:
			
		

> If you somehow get a kobold wizard as a familiar, then he can get you as a familiar!  Woo hoo! Natural armor bonus! Evasion!  Spell resistance!  Ability to speak with creatures of your type!




There was a great story in a dragon magazine a long time ago about a young wizard who tried to make a dragon his familiar, and instead, the dragon got a new familiar.  It was really well done, can't think of the name of the story now, I'll have to look it up.

I think the point about sentient familiars would be that you can't 'force' them into service unless you can dominate them.

If they were to do so willingly, however, that's a different story.


----------



## chrisheff

*latest session updated*

Journal entry 6 can be found here:

http://www.geocities.com/cptzaphod/wld.htm

The group will be moving on to region B.


----------



## Max Rebo

So we played today with my group making its way BACK across the plain of Region M.  There they fought a roc during a random encounter and dispatched the thing.

Next they made their way to N4 where they had once gotten their butts kicked.  Using the previous time as an example of what not to do, the buffed up the paladin with stoneskin, displacement and aid.  The gnome cast fly on himself and levitate on the cleric.  The shadowdancer went invisible using greater invisibility.

Long story short, the battle with the two shield guardians and five gargoyles took 16 rounds with no PC dying (although the paladin did get down to -7 once).  The group (two 12th level PC's, two 13th level PC's) used nearly all of their spells so they camped out in front of the tomb.  
During the night they encountered two wandering skeletons that they turned.  They woke up, the cleric used one of her incense sticks of meditation, and they went in.

But, man, was that fight in N4 awesome!  Great stuff!

Region N is shaping up to be pretty cool indeed...


----------



## Hussar

I suppose a kobold could be used as a familiar.  However, I would be drastically changing some rules.  No advancement for Mr Kobold as per the PHB advancement.  Maybe 1/2 level.  Something like that.

Really, making Mr Kobold a cohort with the leadership feat would make a lot more sense.

I'm thinking that maybe Mr. Kobold could prove to be an actual benefit and thus be kept alive.  Maybe lead the party to something beneficial in an attempt to gain some trust.  Sure, he's not liking his position, but, maybe if he's servile and useful enough, the party won't cut off his head and who knows?

As an idea, have him lead them to the armory in Region A.  And let him warn them about the lightning bolt trap.  The Armory isn't that big of a deal, it's sweet, but not overpowering.  He gets to prove that he's useful, the party starts to like him.  

THEN he can betray them.


----------



## jim pinto

instead of making him a familiar, i would have them slowly form an empathic bond between one another...

create a feat they both have to take that gives them the empathic bond to one another... and if they want additional "familiar" abilities, each of those is also a feat

(although only one of them has to take that feat)

so, as they go up in level, they can begin sharing abilities... neither is subservient to the other, but they eventually become symbiotic and can help each other grow as casters.

hey

that's a really cool idea for any campaign. someone should write that up as a prestige class or something.


----------



## jim pinto

*something borrowed, something blue*

and since i understand that you meant the kobold's familiar now becoming the PC's familiar, here's my advice on that

allow it

and slowly allow the PC to gain knowledge from the familiar that the familiar would have gained from the kobold.


----------



## Mr Samedi

I've been thinking of spicing up the goblins in region B a bit by adding some... extra firepower.

Namely, I want to add 5 fiendishesque creatures, reffered to collectively as "the court". These creatures were prisoners who were freed by the Goblin king. They serve him out of gratitude (read: waiting to backstab him at the best possible moment). Needless to say, the five of them have been a major contributor to Argliss' rise to power.

I have two definites:
The Vizier: A shadow demon (from BoVD). He is the most powerful of the court and the other four follow his direction. I plan to use this guy as the boss of the region

The Jester: A grey jester from Heroes of Horror. He's already procured some bleak goblins as "assistants".

Anyway, I need some suggestions as to who the other three should be. Thye should have CRs no less than 4 and no greater than 6 or 7. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Give them some muscle with a Kython.
Those things are nasty in melee and can make a front line fighter cry.


----------



## Hussar

I beefed up the goblins with additional weaponry.  Couple of articles from Dragon.  They're in here somewhere, I'll go digging...



			
				me said:
			
		

> Using articles from Dragon, I've devised some nastier goblins for the Holy Goblin Empire.
> 
> Goblin Piker Fighter 1: CR 1: Small humanoid (goblinoid): HD 1d10+1: hp 6: Init +1: Spd 30 ft: AC 15, touch 12, Flat Footed 14: Base Att +1: Grp -2: Atk +4 Melee (1d6+1 (x3)Awl Pike) or +3 Melee (1d4+1 19-20x2 Shortsword): SA - :SQ Darkvision 60 Feet: AL NE: Fort +3 Ref +1 Will +0: S 12 D 13 C 12 I 10 W 10 C 6.
> 
> Skills and Feats: Hide +5, Listen +1 Move silently +5 Ride +4, Spot +1, Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Awl Pike, Weapon Focus: Awl Pike
> 
> Awl Pike Two handed Exotic polearm. Cost: 10 gp Dam: (s)1d6 (m) 1d8 Critical: x3 Weight: 10 pounds Type: Piercign
> 
> Built similar to a longspear, the awl pike is almost 15 feet long. You can strike opponents 15 feet away with it, but you can't use it against foes closer than that. If you use a ready action to set an awl pike against a charge, you deal double damage against a charging character.
> 
> Goblin Grenadier Fighter 1: CR 1: Small humanoid (goblinoid): HD 1d10+1: hp 6: Init +1: Spd 30 ft: AC 15, touch 12, Flat Footed 14: Base Att +1: Grp -2: Atk +3 Melee (1d4+1 19-20x2 Shortsword) or +2 Sling (1d3+1d4 Fire) or +4 sling (1d3) or +3 Ranged Touch Alchemists fire (1d6 fire) : SA - :SQ Darkvision 60 Feet: AL NE: Fort +3 Ref +1 Will +0: S 12 D 13 C 12 I 10 W 10 C 6.
> 
> Skills and Feats: Hide +5, Listen +1 Move silently +5 Ride +4, Spot +1, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot
> 
> Equipment: Sling, 6 Alchemist's Fire Bullets, 1 Alchemist Fire, 3 Tanglefoot Bags.
> 
> Alchemists fire Bullet This small glass sphere contains alchemist's fire and can be used as a sling missile. When striking a target, the sphere bursts, dealing an additional d4 fire damage as well as sling bullet damage. The target takes an additional d4 damage on the next round unless the fire is extinguished. These bullets are larger than normal, imposing a -2 penalty on attack rolls made using them.




and



			
				me said:
			
		

> Add the following to rooms B70, B74, 10 feet south of the southernmost of the 3 four way intersections south of the Crypts (facing north) and just outside the door, in the hallway, outside B77 (facing north).
> 
> Goblin Fire Siphon
> 
> _You see three goblins climbing over a small wagon. On the wagon is a sort of pot with a nozzle pointed outwards. Two of the goblins are behind the wagon, positioning it, while the third operates a pump in the back.
> 
> The pump goblin heaves downward on the lever and a blast of flame engulfs you._
> 
> Goblin Fire Siphon Team Warrior 1: CR 1/3: Small humanoid (goblinoid): HD 1d8+1: hp 5: Init +1: Spd 30 ft: AC 15, touch 12, Flat Footed 14: Base Att +1: Grp -2: Atk +3 Melee (1d4+1 19-20x2 Shortsword): SA - :SQ Darkvision 60 Feet: AL NE: Fort +3 Ref +1 Will +0: S 12 D 13 C 12 I 10 W 10 C 6.
> 
> Skills and Feats: Hide +5, Listen +1 Move silently +5 Ride +4, Spot +1, Alertness
> 
> Small Fire Siphon Cost: 1000 gp: Weight: 200 lbs
> 
> This smaller, more portable weapon relies on a syringe device mounted atop a cart with a plunger at the rear.
> 
> Alchemists fire may be projected in either a 40 foot line or 20 foot cone depending upon a setting near the nozzle. Chnage the setting is a full round action. Any creature within the cone or line takes 2d6 fire damage (Reflex DC 15 for 1/2) and a d6 fire damage the following round unless the fire is extinguished (DC 15 Ref save). A full tube contains enough liquid for three uses. Refueling the weapon is a full round action.
> 
> The small siphon projector is not as vulnerable to fire damage as the large projector. A fire attack might destroy the siphon tube, but it results only in a small explosion, dealing 2d6 fire damage to all within a 10 foot burst (Ref DC 13 for 1/2).
> 
> A small siphon projector takes up a space 5*5 feet and is usually stationary. It takes 5 rounds to reset a moved fire siphon.
> 
> Note, the goblins have been well trained and can move the projector to face a new direction as a full round action. However, moving the projector still takes 5 rounds of setup after moving.
> 
> Typically, the setting will be a line, pointed down corridors or obvious features. The goblins have decent fire discipline and will not fire on their own troops normally, although, if desperate enough, they might. Each emplacement has three barrels of siphon fire (enough for 9 reloads)




also



> Worg Rider Fighter 2: CR 2: Small humanoid (goblinoid): HD 2d10+2: hp 12: Init +1: Spd 30 ft/50 ft: AC 15, touch 12, Flat Footed 14: Base Att +2: Grp -1: Atk Lance +4 (1d6+1) : SA - :SQ Darkvision 60 Feet: AL NE: Fort +4 Ref +1 Will +0: S 12 D 13 C 12 I 10 W 10 C 6.
> 
> Skills and Feats: Hide +5, Listen +1 Move silently +5 Ride +4, Spot +1, Mounted Combat, Ride by Attack, Spirited charge
> 
> Worg: As per the Text.
> 
> Worg riders try to engage opponents in the longest corridors if possible. Because of the limited space, ride by attack is perhaps less useful, but, a spirited charge is devastating. Typically, riders will charge, make their attack and then gain a possible attack of opportunity as the opponent closes, resulting in a possible 4d6+4 points of damage. The next round is typically spent withdrawing and a second rider will charge. They will keep up this rotation, making a spirited charge every round, until the foe dies. Note, because of their great speed, it is quite possible for one rider to engage while the other swings around to attack from the rear or the flank. The long wide corridors are almost tailor made for this approach.




Hope that helps.


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo was nice enought to host the newer WLD maps. 

You can find them here: http://150.101.101.161/wld/

rv


----------



## Xiag

jim pinto said:
			
		

> and since i understand that you meant the kobold's familiar now becoming the PC's familiar, here's my advice on that
> 
> allow it
> 
> and slowly allow the PC to gain knowledge from the familiar that the familiar would have gained from the kobold.




Oh no, I meant the kobold.  The kobold's familiar was, put to sleep, with a large axe, during the interigation.

At this point the wizard isn't thinking about the kobold as a familiar... but I was going to start dropping hints about it being a possibility.  Though I may go with the empathic bond Jim suggested.

Ultimately what I'm looking for is that the death of the kobold will hurt the Wiz in ways beyond emotional.  In the short term, emotional is prety much it.  But as time goes on and the bond grows, it will be too late for the party to extricate him without actually hurting the wiz, which hurts them, and they have a tough call to make.

The human fighter (ex marine) is actually one of my best role-players, and supposedly playing a very pragmatic fighter.  I'd be very interested to see how he reconciles a threat with him being the one who does the damage.  He may go for it, planning to help the mage later, he may not hoping things resolve themselves and the conflict continues to build until something happens.

This little encounter has taken an effective team and really stressed the differences in character.  I want to run with that because it's how the group likes to play.


----------



## jim pinto

Xiag said:
			
		

> Oh no, I meant the kobold.  The kobold's familiar was, put to sleep, with a large axe, during the interigation.
> 
> At this point the wizard isn't thinking about the kobold as a familiar... but I was going to start dropping hints about it being a possibility.  Though I may go with the empathic bond Jim suggested.
> 
> Ultimately what I'm looking for is that the death of the kobold will hurt the Wiz in ways beyond emotional.  In the short term, emotional is prety much it.  But as time goes on and the bond grows, it will be too late for the party to extricate him without actually hurting the wiz, which hurts them, and they have a tough call to make.
> 
> The human fighter (ex marine) is actually one of my best role-players, and supposedly playing a very pragmatic fighter.  I'd be very interested to see how he reconciles a threat with him being the one who does the damage.  He may go for it, planning to help the mage later, he may not hoping things resolve themselves and the conflict continues to build until something happens.
> 
> This little encounter has taken an effective team and really stressed the differences in character.  I want to run with that because it's how the group likes to play.




so... i have to move to wisconsin if i want to game with your group?

what i wouldn't do for a group that likes "conflict" and character drama (as opposed to inner party yelling and gamer drama)



and yes... i understood what you mean about the familiar, but the idea of a kobold familiar swept through the thread, so i wanted to put a cherry on that sundae

and the familiar animal that bonds with the PC wizard should offer a great deal of opportunities as well


----------



## Xiag

jim pinto said:
			
		

> so... i have to move to wisconsin if i want to game with your group?




That or wait till I put my NWN2 servers up.  Of course most of my group wont' be on there, but I work with what I have.

I have this urge to put the WLD in, but we'll see what models and stuff ship with it, and how it goes from there.


----------



## Mr Samedi

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Give them some muscle with a Kython.
> Those things are nasty in melee and can make a front line fighter cry.




Nice idea.

I'm trying to come up with different roles of the court. Thus we have the vizier and the jester, two classic members. I guess I could have the kython and another burly monster as "the bodyguards".


----------



## jim pinto

Mr Samedi said:
			
		

> Nice idea.
> 
> I'm trying to come up with different roles of the court. Thus we have the vizier and the jester, two classic members. I guess I could have the kython and another burly monster as "the bodyguards".




i would make the kyton a seargent at arms and make another demon type the bailiff

or vice versa

you need a harpy or siren for a court recorder

an DEVIL for arbiter

and some low-level slaad as a chequer

see region N for the court of the damned for more ideas


----------



## Mr Samedi

whoops, when I meant court, I meant the king's court sort of thing. Sorry for the confusion.

Anyway, the other four (I've decided to make it bigger)

The agent: A Jovoc from MM2. This guy should be really nasty due to his retributive aura.

The courtesan: A succubus. I'm using savage species and Rangers and Rogues to turn her into a silk-clad dual wielder with a rediculously high AC.

The herald: A fallen trumpet archon, suing the savage species rules. He will be the first the PCs encounter.

The chamberlain: A chain devil. I'll give him a few extra chains.

I'm planning on having them face the PCs all at once at one point, aiming on subduing them rather than killing them. Then the plot thickens...


----------



## jim pinto

*cricket*

comic-con coming soon

who is going?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Not I.
I go to no cons that require more than a 2 hour drive or has a high percentage chance of having too many "gamey" gamers.
And yes, this means I've never been to Gencon or Origins in spite of only being 2 hours away from either.


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> comic-con coming soon
> 
> who is going?




nor me. But Australia is a bit more than 2 hours away.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Not I, unfortunately. Despite living 30 minutes away, work and finances prevent it this year, sadly.


----------



## Hussar

If someone pays for my plane ticket.  Coming from Japan might be a tad tricky.


----------



## Mr Samedi

erucsbo said:
			
		

> nor me. But Australia is a bit more than 2 hours away.




Yeah, even Melbourne is a stretch for me.


----------



## Max Rebo

We played again Friday and the group FINALLY made it into the Tomb of the Unliving.

I just wanted to say that the puzzle involving the braziers and the three aspects of death was quite cool and possibly my favorite puzzle ever in d&d (although I cant remember seeing a puzzle in d&d that I actually liked until now).  
Anyway, they are all level 13 and made their way to just outside room 101 and we stopped.  Considering their level and the room has an EL of 19, i smell a TPK coming! 

Anyone else have their entire party wiped out in Region N?  It's looking quite vicious.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Max Rebo said:
			
		

> Anyone else have their entire party wiped out in Region N?  It's looking quite vicious.



Um, yeah...I had a TPK for my group in room N159.


----------



## Qwillion

*Finally to region N as well*

My party was more annoyed by the puzzle and called it  zelada action.

but they are creeped out by the atmosphere and detailed descriptions of region N.   Right now they are following the scent of longtail so I can actually guide them to the rooms I want to goto which is cool. I have decieded to hedge my bet for region N though.  I have set up a curese that explains why the lich the mummy and the ghost are not all 300+ level.  I took that curse and created a template so that my players can keep playing even when it is a TPK (and because no one likes to watch other people play dnd).  It also makes them REALLY want to be alive again, nothing motivates a party like someone else gaining more XP than you for doing the same thing. 

Accursed Unliving
Accursed unliving are corpses animated via the energies of the Tomb of the Unliving, any creature that dies it tomb is subject to ths curse.  The cursed to remain exactly as they are for all eternity

CREATING AN ACCURSED UNLIVING 

“Accursed unliving ” is an acquired template that can be added to any creature.

Size and Type: The creature’s type changes to undead.  It retains any subtypes.  It gains the appropriate augmented subtype. It uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Hit Dice: Change all Hit Dice to d12s. 

Special Qualities: A accursed unliving retains all special qualities of the base creature A accursed unliving  gains all the following special qualities.

Cursed experience (Ex): Accursed unliving gain no experience from any encounter that they face as accursed unliving. 

Rejuvenation (ex): Accursed unliving are rejuvenated 2d4+4 rounds after being destroyed.  If the creature makes a character level check DC 15.

Undead Traits (Ex):
—Darkvision out to 60 feet.
—Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
—Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, and death effects.
—Not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain. Immune to damage to its physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution), as well as to fatigue and exhaustion effects.
— Negative energy (such as an inflict spell) can heal undead creatures. 
—Immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless).
—Not at risk of death from massive damage, but when reduced to 0 hit points or less, it is immediately destroyed.
—Not affected by raise dead and reincarnate spells or abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead creatures. These spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures they were before becoming undead.
—Undead do not breathe, eat, or sleep.

	Vulnerability to Positive Energy (Ex): Accursed unliving take +50% damage from 
positive energy effects. 

Abilities: A accursed unliving has no Constitution or if an ability goes off of Charisma, it now goes off of Charisma.  An accursed unliving can boost it’s charisma to equal it’s former Constitution score, all spells and effects that enhance constitution enhance a accursed unliving’s Charisma instead.  

Advancement: none.

Level Adjustment: NA


----------



## Qwillion

How does an incoporeal undead creature fight and defeat a coporeal undead creature or a construct?  You can't touch me, you can't deal damage to me, I am not subject to energy drain or ability drain.  Even if you do kill me how did you remove the body?

Hell you can't pass through the walls or doors in this dungeon so how did you open any single door? (this was talked about back with the shadows in another region.


----------



## rvalle

Well, if they have magic weapons they can swing them with a 50% miss chance. Magic spells will still work. 

They would need to have some one corpreal around to open doors for them or only be able to travel though areas with open/no doors.

rv


----------



## Qwillion

Unless the weapon is ghost touch they could not pick it up!

So the undead region that has removed all coporeal undead is ridiculous, because after the other undead sunder thier ghost touch weapons, the are can just fly around and be annoying!


----------



## BlueBlackRed

If I recall correctly, the incorporeal general has set up quite a few traps that only affect corporeal creatures (including the party) and has created many ghost touch weapons.


----------



## Kafkonia

Has anyone else thought about tying the dungeon to, or placing it on, the Tarterian Depths of Carceri? They seem a natural fit for one another.

At the very least, I think I may put some demodands in.


----------



## rvalle

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Um, yeah...I had a TPK for my group in room N159.




I'd just like to say 'thanks' for keeping your WLD Blog arcived. Its great to be able to go though and read what someone else did with the region. As my group is about to hit 'I' I'm going back though and rereading it.

rv


----------



## BlueBlackRed

rvalle said:
			
		

> I'd just like to say 'thanks' for keeping your WLD Blog arcived. Its great to be able to go though and read what someone else did with the region. As my group is about to hit 'I' I'm going back though and rereading it.
> 
> rv



You're welcome.


----------



## Traevanon

Re: Incorporeal Undead vs Corporeal

It might be a stretch but I allow the Wraiths to do their 2d6 slam damage with a 50% miss chance.  At least they can be annoying then with Fly-by-attack and all that.  I dont let Incorporeal undead move through the walls though, so it balances out a bit.


----------



## Hussar

Incorporeal undead actually can't fly through walls.  Incorporeal can enter a surface, but they cannot pass through.  Incorporeal =/= ethereal.


----------



## rvalle

Shoot, I meant to check on this last night. Wouldn't any equipment they had on them when they turned incorpreal go with them?


----------



## Hussar

I don't believe so.  A character that is killed by a spectre, for example, turns into a spectre, but, his body and stuff is left behind.


----------



## Qwillion

*Incopreality and passing through objects*

Hussar your wrong:

Per the SRD special abilites
Incoporeality
"They can pass through solid objects at will, although they cannot see when their eyes are within solid matter. "

And BlueBlackRed

how does a incoporeal non-spellcaster create traps?


----------



## lukelightning

The incorporeal trait has been expounded on (I believe on WotC's website, and in books such as Tome of Magic).

Incorporal creatures basically have to stay in contact with the surface of whatever they pass through; most DMs interpret this to mean that they can't pass all the way through walls that are thicker than the creature is...so a shadow or wraith can't just go all the way through the earth or through 10' thick walls.  

I say Small creatures can go through 3' walls, Medium through 5', Large through 10' etc.


----------



## Firebird

Since when is that the case? Incorporeal creatures can move through solid objects at will, they just can't see through them.


----------



## rvalle

Per www.d20srd.org

"An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object’s exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of creatures or objects within a square adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment (50% miss chance) from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see farther from the object it is in and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect. "


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Qwillion said:
			
		

> And BlueBlackRed
> 
> how does a incoporeal non-spellcaster create traps?



Don't know, I didn't worry about it.
Having fun seemed to be more important that wondering about the physics of everything nor did I worry too much about how beings older than most nations were able to deal with one another.

Just assume they figured something out that out mortal minds couldn't comprehend.


----------



## rvalle

Ok, this is what I was thinking of:

Libris Mortis Page 141
"Any equiment worn or carried byu an incorporeal creature is also incorporeal as long as it remains in the creature's possession. An object that the creature relinquishes loses its incorporeal quality (and the creature loses the ability to manipulate the object)." 

Not sure how they would gain control of that object in the first place unless they take it with them. Maybe some spell or other can turn something/someone incorpreal.

rv


----------



## Firebird

rvalle said:
			
		

> Per www.d20srd.org
> 
> "An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object’s exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of creatures or objects within a square adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment (50% miss chance) from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see farther from the object it is in and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect. "




Wow, is that ever ridiculous. So a ghost can pass through the front of a wall as easy as pie but can't go out the back of it? I don't know of any DM's who actually run incorporeal creatures that way. Very nonsensical to me. Any rational as to why they can't pass through?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Yeah, I don't agree with it either.
I believe they designed it that way to prevent incorporeal undead from hiding in 60' of rock where the party can't get at them.


----------



## Firebird

Taken literally the way the SRD has this written, any incorporeal creature that attempted to pass through a wall would then be eternally trapped in it, as they can not pass fully out of it again. The back of the wall would be their new front as they try to retreat, a surface they can't move from adjacent to. Just the same as the front was this way to them on the first pass through. The way the SRD nerfs incorporeality is beyond dumb.

Does anyone actually rule incorporeality this way and what have been your experiences with it if so?


----------



## erucsbo

Firebird said:
			
		

> Wow, is that ever ridiculous. So a ghost can pass through the front of a wall as easy as pie but can't go out the back of it? I don't know of any DM's who actually run incorporeal creatures that way. Very nonsensical to me. Any rational as to why they can't pass through?




I don't read it that way.

The SRD said that it can't pass through "an object with a space is larger than its own".
"Space" has a special meaning in d20.
An incorporeal being could pass through a 5' wall, but not a 10' one (unless it was a Large incorporeal being).
Also it "must remain adjacent to the object’s exterior" which means that as long as any space that they wish to move to contains or borders a point external to the object that is in contiguous contact to an external point in the space that they are moving from then they are OK.

In case the above is not clear - a medium incorporeal creature could not pass diagonally through a 10' by 10' object even though the space they are moving from and the space they are moving to are adjacent to the exterior of the object because those external interfaces are not contiguous. They could however go up one side then turn 90 degrees and go along another edge even if it was impossible to corporeally go around the object, as the mid point would enable it to "swap" which exterior surface it was adjacent to.

I've attached an image showing OK paths (in green) and not OK path (in red). The red path won't work because the creature can't reach the other surface without "letting go" of the first. Both green routes enable the other external surface to be "reached" without forgoing the original surface. (the grey squares are solid, the white background is open space)

ps - note that in WLD that the walls (and doors - at least in region E) prevent passage through them, otherwise it would be a pretty ineffective prison for incorporeal creatures (unless all walls AND DOORS were 10' thick for medium size captives and bigger for larger creatures).


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:
			
		

> I don't read it that way.
> 
> snip
> 
> ps - note that in WLD that the walls (and doors - at least in region E) prevent passage through them, otherwise it would be a pretty ineffective prison for incorporeal creatures (unless all walls AND DOORS were 10' thick for medium size captives and bigger for larger creatures).




oh dear god

i've been away for a few days

and look what the SRD did to all of you?

sigh

you've got erucsbo drawing diagrams

next he's going to have to explain AOO as it pertains to kraken's reaching tentacles


----------



## Hussar

Firebird said:
			
		

> Wow, is that ever ridiculous. So a ghost can pass through the front of a wall as easy as pie but can't go out the back of it? I don't know of any DM's who actually run incorporeal creatures that way. Very nonsensical to me. Any rational as to why they can't pass through?




A ghost is ethereal and can pass through anything it likes.

A _manifesting_ ghost is incorporeal and must remain adjacent to the empty space.

Incorporeal is not ethereal.  

I have to admit, it wasn't until this was pointed out to me that I realized that I was running it wrong.  However, the fact that incorporeal isn't considered a massively powerful ability is probably the reason for it.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

I'm just glad that Region E's walls prevent incorporeal travel... can you imagine how brutal it'd be to have all 40+ shadows going through the walls? They might have even been able to take out the celestials to the north!

Although, I don't know quite why the maruts didn't just wade in and clean out the shadows... being constructs and immune to STR drain and all. *shrug* I know the story says they really don't think the shadows are a threat, but there's Persal the Slayer, who the random encounters say shows up down there every so often. (My players are meeting him next session.)


----------



## rvalle

Per the book I was reading the rule was, in part, to stop incorpreal creatures from just traveling though the 'earth' willy-nilly. 

As erucsbo says, medium sized incorpreal creatures can go though doors, thin walls, into creatures larger then themselves and though smaller ones. They can go into a wall and then fly up to the ceiling and down the other side or travel anywhere though the walls that they can trace a path though. Since they have a perfect sense for where they are at they can do this while inside the walls.

pokedigimaniac: once the Shadows were aware of the party operating out of A I had the Shadows launch an attack on them. Since they were now in A and not E they could then travel though doors and into walls.  The Shadows also attacked and 'converted' the orks and trogs that the party had not found yet. 

Per the book some of the Inevitables did go down and attack the Shadows from time to time.
You could even get them as a random encounter while in the Shadow area.
rv


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> you've got erucsbo drawing diagrams
> 
> next he's going to have to explain AOO as it pertains to kraken's reaching tentacles




Doesn't look like my players are going to hit L, so I'll leave that to someone else


----------



## grimblade

I just received my WLD book and I'm almost done reading section A.

This will be my first official DM.

I was wondering how every body is doing the XP?

In the front of the WLD it says go by EL instead of CR.

In the DM guide it does not explain how to do XP from the EL.


Thanks,
Grimblade


----------



## Xiag

grimblade said:
			
		

> I just received my WLD book and I'm almost done reading section A.
> 
> This will be my first official DM.
> 
> I was wondering how every body is doing the XP?
> 
> In the front of the WLD it says go by EL instead of CR.
> 
> In the DM guide it does not explain how to do XP from the EL.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Grimblade




I'm doing 25 xp per CR of the creature, trap, etc for each player (5 total).  If they start increasing group size, the 125 xp will be divided between all of them.  With small bonus XP for Role-playing, problem solving, etc. This has people leveling up every 3-4 adventures with my group and puts enough xp in sections A & B to do the three level jump without traps or bonus XP.

Area C is a different matter, and it was way low on total CR compared to the other two.

Good luck with WLD.  Here's some other tips for it that might have been lost when 6 months of posts vanished in a crash:

Depending on your group, you may want to 'punch up' area A, as it's a bit slow in places.  

You can really add to the creepy feeling of 'A' by playing up that the whole area was recently a war zone, and now you're just looking at the empty rooms of battle.  Best examples are Alien, where she's walking around knowing something killed everybody but doesn't quite know where it is.  The ship seems empty, but it's there, just beyond her sight.  Everywhere there's evidence of something going horribly wrong, but it's not lashing out.  I played up the emptiness of the first room to the point that when they heard the orcs cough in A2 one was dropped before it could respond, and the other two were at sword point before they could raise their weapons.  The druid was unamused.

Also, read ahead to see which doors are open, since the map doesn't really show that.  I've had lots of rooms with 'closed' doors that shouldn't have been.

Darkmantles can be brutal.  Be sure you really understand the grapple and darkness rules before they face their first one.  There are a few prety quick inside.

** Side note ** Goodman Games now has a darkmantle mini for all those who use them.

I'm sure I'm forgetting somethings, but it's a start.


----------



## Kafkonia

grimblade said:
			
		

> I was wondering how every body is doing the XP?
> 
> In the front of the WLD it says go by EL instead of CR.
> 
> In the DM guide it does not explain how to do XP from the EL.




I _think_ what is intended there is that, rather than awarding XP for every baddy based on its CR, you award XP as though it were one baddy whose CR was equal to the EL of the encounter. But I haven't actually looked into it, so for all I know that might result in higher, not lower, XP awards; one of the Jims around here might be able to shed some light on that.


----------



## rvalle

I don't do either and just bump them up 3 levels per region. Except region A where I started them at 2nd level. 

I suspect this will bite me when they get to spells that cost exp to cast. 

rv


----------



## Kafkonia

rvalle said:
			
		

> I don't do either and just bump them up 3 levels per region. Except region A where I started them at 2nd level.
> 
> I suspect this will bite me when they get to spells that cost exp to cast.
> 
> rv




For the PbP version I'm running elsewhere on the forums, I'm just tracking XP myself. You could probably get a rough idea of how much XP they should have by looking at how long its been since they last levelled. Nothing says you have to be exact, eh?


----------



## Hussar

I started out doing the EL=CR for the encounter.  It works pretty well.  My lot were all about 3rd or 4th by the time they left Region A.

After A, I guestimated that it would take about the same number of sessions for the next region and started awarding xp based on that.  If they go to B, say, I guessed that it would take 12 sessions to finish the region.  To go from 3rd level to 6th level takes 16000 xp, so, I gave out 1500 xp per session.  To my surprise, this was almost exactly the same as if I had been doing xp by the book.  Since it worked, I do the same thing for each region now.  If they are a little low at the end of a region, I give a region bonus to bring them up and if they are a bit high, which a couple of my survivors are now, I put a lid on the xp to let the others catch up.

Don't be too fussed about it.


----------



## Hussar

Oh bugger, I forgot.  Check the maps site (I'll link when I get home).  I've put up DM's Master maps which mark the open doors on them.  Really helps.


----------



## Max Rebo

We played today and things went about as bad as they could get.

The group wandered into room N101 and the paladin of Pelor was killed by a dread wraith and turned into a wraith himself.  They battled the wraiths until the fight was stopped by Vinnara.  She probed the PC's and asked them to spy on Invistis for her.  They all agreed but as they slept to regain hp's they came up with a plan.

They awoke and decided to ambush the wraiths again with dire consequences.  They started off strong but eventually the Con drain caught up with them.  The cleric of Pelor (and the longest running party member.  Since 2nd level!) was killed and turned into a wraith as well.

The two remaining members fled while Vinara grew closer.  They eventually met the ghost in a hallway as the rogue struggled getting a door open.  The rogue shadowdancer was killed by Vinara's brilliant energy scythe and the gnome mystic theurge ran down the hallway into all of the room 100 alcoves lighting himself on fire numerous times and finally dying!

TPK!

Im thinking about having them restart in Region J since they've never actually been there yet.  It'll throw them off a bit!  Anyone else ever try this?  Sounds kinda fun...


----------



## twilko

*XP as EL*



			
				grimblade said:
			
		

> I just received my WLD book and I'm almost done reading section A.
> 
> This will be my first official DM.
> 
> I was wondering how every body is doing the XP?
> 
> In the front of the WLD it says go by EL instead of CR.
> 
> In the DM guide it does not explain how to do XP from the EL.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Grimblade




Welcome to WLD and the WLT (World's Largest Thread, maybe not but it seems like it).

Each room should have the EL listed at the bottom. Use that as the CR for working out experience. With 6-8 people that will give you a good progression at the right pace for WLD areas. With 5 people or less you should halve it. After 15 sessions (13 actually in the dungeon) my party of 7 is about half done with area E and are 4/5th level.


----------



## Hussar

Max Rebo - J might work.  They've died and been sent to Hell.  

Or, send them to I and have them be "reborn" out of the walls of the region.  Makes for a nice icky rebirth scene.


----------



## grimblade

Hussar said:
			
		

> Oh bugger, I forgot.  Check the maps site (I'll link when I get home).  I've put up DM's Master maps which mark the open doors on them.  Really helps.





What map site?


----------



## Traevanon

Max - Unfortuntely according to the story they are stuck in N for all eternity.  That is a terrible place to die.  However, if you really want to bring them back there are a few ways to do so with a bit of creativity.  

For example, you can say that since they arent on the "list" (see the entrance rooms N6 and N9) that their souls get spit out of the tomb once they are no longer Undead.  Then, just wait a few days for their wandering Wraith selves to get killed fighting some of the rest of the undead and viola, they are free to come back someplace else.

Alternately, or in addition, they could encounter the REAL Guide, Judge and Executioner with only the ones who's sins are worthy of the Tomb being held.

If you use DM fiat and let them come back as a whole elsewhere that might establish a precedent that not only removes the danger factor of the dungeon, but creates a pathway for undead to escape and summon spells to work within the tomb.

I'm just trying to help you establish a believable method for you to continue the campaign.  I am probably completely off from how you have run the Wards in the Tomb, but at least these things are put forth for you to consider in helping you maintain the versimilitude of your adventure.


----------



## Hussar

Oh, right, the map site.  My bad.

The World's Largest Dungeon Map Site

I've submitted a DM's Master Map for K, although James is a tad slow in updating of late.  He'll pick it up when he gets around to it.

Y'know, it really does behoove DM's in this thing to plan for the TPK.  Given the huge number of combats the party will face, it is more than likely that it will happen.  Establishing an out early is a good idea.  I use the Box from the map site for missing players, so, my backside is nicely covered for replacement characters as well.


----------



## Dracorat

Hussar said:
			
		

> A ghost is ethereal and can pass through anything it likes.
> 
> A _manifesting_ ghost is incorporeal and must remain adjacent to the empty space.
> 
> Incorporeal is not ethereal.
> 
> I have to admit, it wasn't until this was pointed out to me that I realized that I was running it wrong.  However, the fact that incorporeal isn't considered a massively powerful ability is probably the reason for it.




Actually, in DnD, they are always incorporeal, they aren't ethereal at all. The only variable is whether they have manifested or not.


----------



## Gansk

Dracorat said:
			
		

> Actually, in DnD, they are always incorporeal, they aren't ethereal at all. The only variable is whether they have manifested or not.




Not exactly.

When a ghost has not manifested on the prime material, it is on the ethereal plane and has ethereal properties.

When it decides to manifest on the prime material, it is incorporeal.

It is not incorporeal on the ethereal plane.


----------



## Max Rebo

I started my campaign knowing full well that no one would make it to 20th level on their first character.  What I did was establish an "adventurer's guild" in town that had already sent several groups into the dungeon before the current group.  All of their back up characters have been people that got lost from their group and who the PC's knew from the guild.

This was great for several reasons.  It made the dungeon seem dangerous since no one had yet to return.  It gave me a reason to throw down dead adventurers (with magic items still on most of em) that the PC's would stumble upon whenever they needed healing potions or a weird magic item.  It gave me some jerk rival NPC bad guys that show up to annoy the group.

My idea about starting over in a different region wasn't with their same characters who had just died in Region N, but with different ones from one of these other "lost" groups.  Sorry for the confusion.

Actually its kind of energized the group again since they can all switch roles  The party's rogue now gets to be the paladin, etc., etc.  

I like the idea of them having just come up through Region F and not knowing where they are at.  They will realize it when they see the great red dragon in the ice cube who they have seen from the other side a couple game's back.

Nobody ever tried this?  Just curious is all...


----------



## Jim Hague

Hussar said:
			
		

> Max Rebo - J might work.  They've died and been sent to Hell.
> 
> Or, send them to I and have them be "reborn" out of the walls of the region.  Makes for a nice icky rebirth scene.




I love you guys, I really do.  I hadn't thought of that.  It makes perfect sense, too.


----------



## Kafkonia

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> I love you guys, I really do.  I hadn't thought of that.  It makes perfect sense, too.




And it works quite well with the ideas tossed around for where the souls of the dead go. Some go to I to be reborn, some go to N for eternal undeath.


----------



## erucsbo

Hussar said:
			
		

> I've submitted a DM's Master Map for K, although James is a tad slow in updating of late.  He'll pick it up when he gets around to it.




If you want me to put it up on my temp site in the meantime, drop me a line. He still hasn't updated it with the maps I and rvalle sent ages ago.


----------



## Hussar

Heh, I might do that.  I suppose hosting it here might be an idea too.  One of those "when I get around to it things".  

On a side note, I'm doing up region J now.  WAHOO!  I finally get to break out my Sandstorm book again.  Necrotic Flaywinds here we come.  The rules in Sandstorm for high temperatures and dehydration are going to be really groovy.  Hehehehehe.  

Now I gotta go digging back through the thread to find Erucsbo's map links.  :/


----------



## erucsbo

Hussar said:
			
		

> Now I gotta go digging back through the thread to find Erucsbo's map links.  :/




here it is


----------



## erucsbo

Update on James Lorimor's WLD Downloads site.
James has just started a new job which has been keeping him very busy, plus there are a whole heap of other things going on in his life at the moment that have sucked up the rest of his time. He hopes to have some time this weekend to get the site updated, and is more than happy to keep hosting and updating it.
His work commitments are likely to be even busier over the next few weeks as well, and then hopefully things will start to settle down for him.
So - in a nutshell - "We apologise for this break in transmission. Normal programming will be resumed as soon as the problem has been rectified." In the meantime you should be able to grab any of the updates that haven't filtered through to James' site from mine (link in previous post), and I am more than happy to make the newer stuff available until James' life gets back to some semblance of normalcy and is therefore able to update his site more regularly.


----------



## rvalle

Thanks erucsbo!

My players had their first game in I last week. When I described the living walls oozing fluids onto the floor there was stunned silence and then "Are you kidding me!?" To my surprise the party kept going though.

They fought the small group of Gricks in that collapsed room. The roamed around and found the room with the dinner table all setup. One player went to check out the 'cloak hanging on the wall" and the 2nd fight took place. 

The cloaker flew above their heads and hit them with moans. 2 characters (I only had 3 players that night plus one npc) failed their save vs fear and ran in random directions. One headed West into the room that, by the book, has 10 cloakers in it. I dropped it down to 3. Since the running character had no light source with him I let him know that he hears flapping sounds around him...

He got a light spell over saw the cloakers and ran back into the dinning room. It was looking grim as the npc Druid fell to nausea but the gnome Bard (hiding under the table... the same character that ran into the 3 and brought them back to the party) got off a Calm Emotion spell and all 3 failed their save. The party decided that was enough of their scouting mission and left for the comforts of E and the Garrison.

rv


----------



## Xiag

*The kobold familiar...*

First, a little side note, my character's can leave the dungeon until they close Longtail's portal.  Once that hapens they'll restrengthen the wards of the area, trapping them inside.

Evil creatures are still trapped inside, as that was the original intent of the magic.

Ok, so my characters, bloody and beaten make their way back to town after fighting the kobolds.  Several of the characters want to kill the last kobold after he drew a crued map back to their old lair.  Others wanted him to march up front as trap bait incase he lied.  Others just had a soft spot for any living thing, regaurdless of good or evil, and tried to keep him alive.

As they were deciding what to do with him since he was trapped in the dungeon, and they didn't want him running back to warn his friends (which they're sure are there, even though he said he's the last one), a mist formed in the room, and possessed one of the bodies.  They killed it quickly, and dismembered the body.  It explained to them how bodies seemed to be in places other than where they left them.  A couple of them nearly freaked as they remembered the room they found stacked with lizard bodies, and what would happen if the mist found that room.

So, they decide to make for town quickly, resuply, rest, and head back.  Until they get back they lock the kobold in and stake the door to his room shut.  Most are expecting his 'friends' to come break him out.

Town visit....

They come back, pass by the body room, and torch it.

They get back to the kobold.  Who's hudled in a corner, shaking, crying, holding a bloody rock, and the bodies of his friends who the staked in the room with him bashed and dismembered around him.  They immediately realised what happened.  Those who felt responsible for him in the first place felt awful.  Those who were on the fence, now also felt awful.  Those who didn't want him in the first place were upset that he lived through it. 

They gave him a weapon, some food, and told him to do what he can, then started to leave him there.

They made it about 50' away before the wiz went back for him.  Now has sworn to protect the kobold.  The fighter most interested in his death hasn't made it back to the party yet.  We're waiting to see what will happen when he gets back there.

At the end of the night he looks at me and says... "say... I know that I was going to take a mouse as a familiar...how would I go about getting a kobold familiar."  Then he laughs thinking I'd say 'not a chance'.  

"I think the advanced familar feat next level should do it...Keep him alive until then, and we'll talk."


----------



## jim pinto

*News*

Next week is GenCon 2006, the two year anniversary of the WLD and the three year mark of when I started working on this book.

I think this occassion marks the moment when I need to step away from this project and let it be whatever it is.

I don't think "hanging out" like a stoner hitting on high school seniors is really the right course of action for me anymore (I hope someone got the reference).

It's been an amazingly fun time posting and reading and being involved gents (I don't think we had any girls here, did we?).

Truly, this is more than the $5 reward I got for writing the damn thing, so... thank you.

The time to cut the imbelicial cord came about 15 months ago, but I didn't do it.

So. Thank you for not ousting me from the room and making fun of my height.



To BBR, Dave Mage, Shazbot7000, and all rest, thanks for ... this.

I grant you all darkness once/day.

Peace.


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> I don't think "hanging out" like a stoner hitting on high school seniors is really the right course of action for me anymore (I hope someone got the reference).



feeling a bit Dazes and Confused perhaps?



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> It's been an amazingly fun time posting and reading and being involved gents (I don't think we had any girls here, did we?).



I think there might have been a couple.



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> So. Thank you for not ousting me from the room and making fun of my height.



You are always welcome here Jim. As folks traipse, stagger, crawl and die on their way through WLD they will, of necessity enter and leave this forum, bringing with them new ideas, interpretations and questions, and hopefully have deposited some goodness for others to find and share before they leave. For you, the continuing development and metamorphosis of WLD will have much greater meaning than for those of us who are just passing through, so don't deny yourself the opportunity to bask a little for however long it lasts.


----------



## Hussar

Let me second Erucsbo's comments.  Thanks for your input Jim.  You've really helped a lot of people with this thing.  I don't know if there is any other single adventure that has generated this much back and forth over the years that it's been out.  That's something to be very proud of.

I may be a pretty strong critic of this or that, but, my hats off to you and everyone else who put this Frankenstein's monster together.  Next week will be my 52nd session - a full year of gaming and I figure I've got about another six-eight months left to go.

Barring anything unforseen, this will be my longest running campaign and certainly the highest level one.  Thank you for this.


----------



## Bigwilly

Unlurking for a moment just to give my thanks to Jim for this book and all the time he's spent here on the boards. My party have just made it into region C and at the rate we play we're going to be in the retirement home before we finish. Some of the PCs may even outlast the players - although I did manage to kill the minotaur last session. 

All the best,

Bigwilly


----------



## DaveMage

Jim, as others have said, thanks for creating such a special product.

And thanks very much for being here offering comments, suggestions, and good advice.

You've helped to make a great product even better.


----------



## JoeBlank

Adding my thanks. Jim, you have gone above and beyond the call of duty. The help and advice you, and others, have given in this thread convinced me to buy WLD, and my enjoyment of the book has been exponentially increased by this ongoing conversation.

We hope you still pop in from time to time, but I do understand the need to take a step back. Best of luck to you in all that you do.


----------



## Kafkonia

Yes, jim, many thanks.


----------



## rvalle

Ok, how have people handled the 'lighting effects' in room I34?

When the party gets to the room there is blocked text that descibes the room. Including these balls of light that are bouncing around the room.

The rest of the text says "The balls of arcane light that illuminate the room are deceptive - while they appear to light the room, they instead cast continual darkness, maked by a minor image in the form of balls of light."

How do you think the above would work?


----------



## Hussar

IDHTIFOM, so take this with a grain of salt.  Deeper darkness isn't completely black.  Just very shadowy.  I'm thinking that the glowing balls would look like lights in a dance bar.  Sure, they're bright, but the rest of the room is very dark and shadowy.  Almost like a very bright ping pong ball on a black background.  Think Pong.

Just a thought.


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> Ok, how have people handled the 'lighting effects' in room I34?
> 
> When the party gets to the room there is blocked text that descibes the room. Including these balls of light that are bouncing around the room.
> 
> The rest of the text says "The balls of arcane light that illuminate the room are deceptive - while they appear to light the room, they instead cast continual darkness, maked by a minor image in the form of balls of light."
> 
> How do you think the above would work?




I haven't tackled it yet, so thanks for bringing it up   

They cast continual _darkness_ - ie. _darkness_ ignoring the duration of 10 min/level.
****
SRD description for _darkness_:
 This spell causes an object to radiate shadowy illumination out to a 20-foot radius. All creatures in the area gain concealment (20% miss chance). Even creatures that can normally see in such conditions (such as with darkvision or low-light vision) have the miss chance in an area shrouded in magical darkness.

Normal lights (torches, candles, lanterns, and so forth) are incapable of brightening the area, as are light spells of lower level. Higher level light spells are not affected by darkness.

If darkness is cast on a small object that is then placed inside or under a lightproof covering, the spell’s effect is blocked until the covering is removed.

Darkness counters or dispels any light spell of equal or lower spell level. 
*****
So - it's like being in a nightclub without the loud music, people, smoke and alcohol.

Everything is affected by darkness as per the spell. As it doesn't say how many balls there are I would rule it ineffective to cast light (and ongoing light spells are dispelled). Continual flame might be interesting, as it could be used to counter one of the 'darkness balls' - but once again as it doesn't say how many there are the total effect of casting continual flame, or carrying a continual flame in to the room might be to make one of the 'glowing balls' to wink out.

If the PCs can trap all the balls (make up an appropriate DC) in a sack or somesuch then they could stop the darkness effect (but as it doesn't say how many there are it is left up to you to decide), or a dispel magic targeted at the area might suppress the effect for a while. Your call.

What I plan to do if/when my party gets there, is basically have it as an undispellable darkness effect which will gradually lessen if the door is left open as the glowing balls bounce out the door.

From then on glowing balls of light could pop up at anytime (counterable by continual flame) causing darkness effects as they pass.  

HTH


----------



## rvalle

It wasn't what the Darkness did that throws me, its that they do Darkness but have the Illusion of light.

So you think they light up the room but they don't. You think you are able to see things but can't?

Maybe I'll just drop that part and go with what you guys are saying... the WLD disco.  

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> It wasn't what the Darkness did that throws me, its that they do Darkness but have the Illusion of light.
> 
> So you think they light up the room but they don't. You think you are able to see things but can't?




You can see stuff*, but there is a 20% miss chance which normal lights can't counter. Like Hussar said - the room is very shadowy, but you can still see stuff - like in a disco/nightclub/dance bar. The balls of light would actually exacerbate the problem by not allowing eyesight to adjust to the darker conditions. Because the light is illusion, not real, it doesn't remove the shadowy effect even right next to the lights.

Walls, ceiling, floor and such would be detectable by where the balls bounce, so you get an optical illusion type of effect if it is outside your normal illumination / darkvision radius.

*if you have a light source or darkvision.


----------



## Zarnam

I do not know where to look for those two things, but I know they are connected with WLD (and that book is most propably the source ) to which I have, sadly, no access - the Knight of Ruin's Wrath template and something called a horde (??) template. I do not ask by any means for a mechanical spoiler, but would be very grateful if someone could tell me something about them.


----------



## erucsbo

Zarnam said:
			
		

> I do not know where to look for those two things, but I know they are connected with WLD (and that book is most propably the source ) to which I have, sadly, no access - the Knight of Ruin's Wrath template and something called a horde (??) template. I do not ask by any means for a mechanical spoiler, but would be very grateful if someone could tell me something about them.




Can I ask why you need them? If you don't want the mechanics (ie. spoiler) and don't have WLD then I don't see how much use any info about them will be.


----------



## Zarnam

I'm simply being curious, that's all


----------



## Hussar

I replaced the Horde rules with the Mob rules from the DMG II.  Pretty similar anyway.


----------



## erucsbo

Zarnam said:
			
		

> I'm simply being curious, that's all




A Horde is essentially treating lots of low CR creatures as a single creature with a higher CR. Definitely makes bookkeeping easier. I haven't come across the Knights of Ruin's Wrath (yet).


----------



## BlueBlackRed

The Knight of Ruin's Wrath was supplied by Quillion and was to be put in a game-supplement but it was not in the WLD.
He did supply it to me and I added it to the final fight of my WLD game. But I would not feel comfortable supplying the creature's information w/o permission from Quillion.


----------



## Zarnam

Oh, ok 

Quillion , since you frequent these boards and will propably see this message sooner or later, do you permit BlueBlackRed to supply me with Knight of Ruin's Wrath info ??

Thanks in advance


----------



## Qwillion

The Kavilljor Ur-rathi (Knight of Ruin's Wrath) Template is from Here There Be Monsters series of PDF monster supplements (written by me), BlueBlackRed was kind enough to playtest in his campaign, he was having an issue with death ward and the Knight deals with this by using curses and fear as an undead rather than using the massivly overused ability drain and energy drain abilties. 

On that note my party just started using Death Ward after thier uber tank (AC 44 people) died to a wraith hoard (rolled a 1 on his fort save and took 20 con damage, he had a 20 con)

Yet later on they did defeat Vinnara The First Champion of Hell, when the cleric blasted her with a Sudden Maximized Bolt of Glory! (the tank started the fight, he was annoyed by the lack of loot.)


P. S.
Really sad to see Jim go. Your always welcome to stay, stop in and hit on some highschool girls (they stay the same age, while we get older)


----------



## chrisheff

Session 7 updated:

http://www.geocities.com/cptzaphod/wld.htm


----------



## Qwillion

Sorry, the playtesting phase of HTBM is over it is part of a publication at this point, that will be going on sale (soon) 

I have wanted to make the Knight, part of a preview as it is one of my favorites.  It is a very appropriate creature for Region N. If it becomes a preview I will post it here, it is likely that the book will be sold as small pdfs and I will also post the link to the pdf product later.

I personally would give it too anyone who asks but I have to respect the work of others and them getting paid for it. (like the publisher, who are guys just like me.) 

Now taking you back to your regularly scheduled  WLD thread.


----------



## Qwillion

*Sorry a day late for the knight*

Sorry, the play-testing phase of HTBM is over it is part of a publication at this point, that will be going on sale (soon) 

I have wanted to make the Knight, part of a preview, as it is one of my favorites.  It is a very appropriate creature for Region N. If it becomes a preview I will post it here, it is likely that the book will be sold as small pdfs and I will post the link to the pdf product later.

I personally would give it too anyone who asks but I have to respect the work of others and them being paid for it. (Like the publisher, who are guys just like me.) 

Now taking you back to your regularly scheduled WLD thread.


----------



## Hussar

My bunch have been getting rather creative of late.  I'm pretty proud of them.  I figure that mixed in with Lord Tarnaticus' library were many bits and pieces of stories and whatnot and have challenged them to write stories.

Check them out here


----------



## jim pinto

*hey*

Not that I expect anyone to care too much about this, because it has nothing to do with THIS book. BUT, I won an ENnie ...

...

although not for writing.

Sorry to interrupt. Go back to your darkmantle slaying.


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> Not that I expect anyone to care too much about this, because it has nothing to do with THIS book. BUT, I won an ENnie ...
> 
> ...
> 
> although not for writing.
> 
> Sorry to interrupt. Go back to your darkmantle slaying.




Congratulations Jim! And for herding cats as well!

Notice how quiet things went here after you said you were opting out?
I was just about to post wondering where the hordes had migrated to.


----------



## Hussar

Congrats on the nod Jim.  I did see that. 

Why did this thread suddenly get so quiet?

I think I need to put up another add for the WLD project.  

On the plus side, I am now entirely prepped until Christmas!  YaY for the easiest DMing job in the world.

My lot might start taking the leadership feat.  Should be interesting to see what kind of followers they are going to get.  I did beef up the pseudodragon in J and gave him 10 levels in truenamer.  Would make for a really cool cohort.


----------



## Qwillion

It got quite, because the whole board gets' quiet the three weeks around gen con (before during and after).  

I did pester aeg about WLCity not much info other than it's out there I think they missed the boat though with Potolus already out.


----------



## erucsbo

Qwillion said:
			
		

> It got quite, because the whole board gets' quiet the three weeks around gen con (before during and after).




Is GenCon *really* that big that it would cause a messageboard with people from all around the world to go silent for over a week?

btw - been having a look through Book of Exalted Cheese (er. Deeds) and the bits on redeeming evil. Has anyone considered doing that in WLD (eg. Sarnikyan in G, the drow in I/M etc)?


----------



## chrisheff

Session 8 updated:

http://www.geocities.com/cptzaphod/wld.htm


----------



## Hussar

A question to all you DM's out there.

I promised gifts to the players who managed to not die the longest.  A minor magic item at 25 sessions and a fairly big benny at 50.  Well, the 12th level favoured soul is about to hit her golden anniversary, so I gotta put my money where my mouth is.

What the heck can I give her?  Could be an item, or a free feat, or pretty much anything.  At 25, she got some attack bonuses with her bow.  The halfling paladin/monk/Pious Templar got the massive build trait so now he's treated as medium.  That sort of thing.

At 50 it should be a pretty sweet goodie, but, I'm at a bit of a loss to tell the truth.  I really didn't think I'd have to.  Since they're about to square off with Thorodin, I may very well not have to, but... I shouldn't be planning that way.


----------



## Yare

Slightly off topic:

Has anybody found a great deal on this book yet? It's hard to justify $100 (on a book) to my better half.


----------



## Hussar

Amazon was flogging these things for sixty bucks for a while.  I don't know if they are still or not.  There's most likely used copies out there  as well.


----------



## DaveMage

Hussar said:
			
		

> Amazon was flogging these things for sixty bucks for a while.  I don't know if they are still or not.  There's most likely used copies out there  as well.




When I last checked, it was $100 at amazon.


----------



## chrisheff

Yare said:
			
		

> Slightly off topic:
> 
> Has anybody found a great deal on this book yet? It's hard to justify $100 (on a book) to my better half.




I've seen it on ebay for $30-$60 (the lower end is probably for used copies). I got mine at stiggybaby.com for about $65, but I think they're sold out.

Chris


----------



## Xiag

chrisheff said:
			
		

> I've seen it on ebay for $30-$60 (the lower end is probably for used copies). I got mine at stiggybaby.com for about $65, but I think they're sold out.
> 
> Chris




I got mine for 55 in the New and Used on Amazon... New btw.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Hussar said:
			
		

> A question to all you DM's out there.
> 
> I promised gifts to the players who managed to not die the longest.  A minor magic item at 25 sessions and a fairly big benny at 50.  Well, the 12th level favoured soul is about to hit her golden anniversary, so I gotta put my money where my mouth is.
> 
> What the heck can I give her?  Could be an item, or a free feat, or pretty much anything.  At 25, she got some attack bonuses with her bow.  The halfling paladin/monk/Pious Templar got the massive build trait so now he's treated as medium.  That sort of thing.
> 
> At 50 it should be a pretty sweet goodie, but, I'm at a bit of a loss to tell the truth.  I really didn't think I'd have to.  Since they're about to square off with Thorodin, I may very well not have to, but... I shouldn't be planning that way.




Well, what sort of thing does she do? From what I've seen of reading your logs, she provides a lot of magical backup - healing and the like.

One suggestion is to give her a 'Greater Status' at will (or 3/day, or something) - one that will cover all of the party members. Fairly sweet, and it seems to fit the character. I'm a fan of innate abilities versus items, since items can be disjoined. :/

ETA: Also, your forums seem to be down at the time of this writing.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> At 50 it should be a pretty sweet goodie, but, I'm at a bit of a loss to tell the truth.  I really didn't think I'd have to.  Since they're about to square off with Thorodin, I may very well not have to, but... I shouldn't be planning that way.





You might let her choose an epic feat early.  You could make a shortlist of epic feats that are available.

RC


----------



## Hussar

Thanks for the input guys.  Hrm, she took Greater Status as a spell and has been using it to great effect.

Hadn't looked at the epic stuff.  Hrm, if I'm careful, it might not break the bank.  Will have a gander.

Bonus spell or somesuch.  She's drawn from Scarred Lands, so I guess I should break out my Relics and Rituals.  

Thanks.  BTW, forums back up.


----------



## zeist

*Golden*



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> A question to all you DM's out there.
> 
> I promised gifts to the players who managed to not die the longest.  A minor magic item at 25 sessions and a fairly big benny at 50.  Well, the 12th level favoured soul is about to hit her golden anniversary, so I gotta put my money where my mouth is.
> 
> What the heck can I give her?  Could be an item, or a free feat, or pretty much anything.  At 25, she got some attack bonuses with her bow.  The halfling paladin/monk/Pious Templar got the massive build trait so now he's treated as medium.  That sort of thing.
> 
> At 50 it should be a pretty sweet goodie, but, I'm at a bit of a loss to tell the truth.  I really didn't think I'd have to.  Since they're about to square off with Thorodin, I may very well not have to, but... I shouldn't be planning that way.



Have you thought about giving an enhancement to her weapon? Or maybe she finds an Arrow of Slaying.
Perhaps two feats
Zeist


----------



## BlueBlackRed

For a favored soul, I'm not sure what I'd hand out as they're quite well-rounded.

Give her smite evil as a paladin of about half her level.
True Strike 3/day or quickened True Strike 1/day?
Throw an intelligent weapon in the treasure pile that just happens to fit her perfectly and no one else.


----------



## Hussar

Heh, already have one intelligent weapon.  The 6 int 6 wis barbarian has picked up Blackrazor (I side trekked through White Plume Mountain), so adding a second one is perhaps difficult.  

Hrm... the thoughts continue.

Y'know, the holy strike feat could work.  All her attacks become holy.  Would be nice in case she switches bows or stuff like that and it's not like it's ruinously powerful.  Nice power up that isn't an item.

Thanks for the help guys.


----------



## Hussar

Wow, got quiet in here.

I posted a proto review of the sections of the WLD I've played in.  Thought I'd share:

*Overview*

This is, as advertised a honking big dungeon crawl.  The WLD is split into 15 regions, each self contained, each with its own storyline and "feel".  The basic premise is the party will enter in Region A and cannot leave until they find an exit, many, many levels later.  This, of course, brings with it a host of issues - supplying is difficult, food, water, survival, character replacement - are all problems the party must face.

My group has travelled through Regions A, B, C, G and now K.  You will not actually hit every region during play.  At least, you're not really meant to.  Each region has a level range, usually 3 character levels, so, once you've progressed to a certain point, it would be kinda pointless to backtrack.

I play 3 hour sessions and it has taken me about 10-15 sessions per region.  Some people are obviously faster.  One of the other DM's is most of the way through C after 20 sessions.  YMMV and all that.

*Region A* 

This is the introduction region.  It has some strong bits and some very weak bits unfortunately.  On the strong side, there are several groups with which the party can interact rather than simply kill - a group of orcs, kobolds or troglodytes.  Allying with any one group will make the other two enemies.  The layout of the region is very nice with very few mistakes.

On the down side, the region is VERY repetitive.  There are room after room of darkmantles and rat swarms.  This can lead to a really grinding experience of "We open the door, kill the critter go to the next door".  

I found that adding a few creatures and changing a few bits really made a big difference.  I added a trapped angel in one area for the party to interact with and a crypt thing in another area which split the party and teleported them to random areas of the region.  That went over quite well.

*Region B*

I have very mixed feelings about this region.  It has some very cool ideas - a goblin empire that worships a bizarre statue, numerous traps and goodies, and some really fantastic set battles.  On the downside, the map for this region needs work and there is some truly piss poor editing.  In my view, fantastic idea and can certainly work, but, needs a fair bit of handling to keep running smoothly.

*Region C*

My favourite region so far.  An insane dragon, dead wizard, the remains of titanic battles and all sorts of other goodies.  There were almost no mistakes that I could find in this region and the storyline here is really attention grabbing.  Entering a massive chamber with chains the size of a bus lying broken on the ground is just a great memory.  And I think the battle with Nardarik the Black is something my players will remember.  I know I will.

*Region G*

This region ties for favourite for me.  A massive battle between angels and demons with all sorts of evil chewy goodness mixed in.  This region is sweet because it has just so many things in it.  The party can interact with the creators of the Dungeon, and they can likely talk to the demons as well as both sides try to recruit.  Bloody great battles too.  

*Region K*

The party has just entered here.  Honestly, doing the prep work for this region, I was left feeling rather cold.  One nice set piece battle and some rather poncy encounters.  However, I think this might be one of those "Looks bad/plays good" type things.  The party has rescued a lizard folk tribesman and returned him to his tribe.  This has led to lots of interaction and role play.  Nicely different from dealing with the angels since the lizardfolk and the party are so much more on equal footing.  We've just scratched the surface here, but, I'm thinking that this region, although likely considerably shorter than others, might be a whole lot of fun.

And hey, any time you get to go toe to toe with a dragon, it's gotta be not bad right?


----------



## rvalle

Hussar said:
			
		

> And hey, any time you get to go toe to toe with a dragon, it's gotta be not bad right?




Depends on which side of the DM screen you are on.  


Nice review.

rv


----------



## tRANIS

*Forgoing xp system*

I decided to forgo the xp system since I play alot of epic and would like to just do it to see what happens.

So far region B they are about ecl 8 and thats fine. Been using etools to advance and create monsters for 3.5 and updating traps on the fly. Modifying and changing things where I think they should be and we have been having a blast with it so far.

Anyone else turning this to a epic dungeon?

I am not advancing the whole thing to epic levels, just allowing xp to progress normally from level 1-3.


Game Log http://groups.myspace.com/campaignheadquarters


----------



## DaveMage

tRANIS said:
			
		

> I decided to forgo the xp system since I play alot of epic and would like to just do it to see what happens.
> 
> So far region B they are about ecl 8 and thats fine. Been using etools to advance and create monsters for 3.5 and updating traps on the fly. Modifying and changing things where I think they should be and we have been having a blast with it so far.
> 
> Anyone else turning this to a epic dungeon?
> 
> I am not advancing the whole thing to epic levels, just allowing xp to progress normally from level 1-3.
> 
> 
> Game Log http://groups.myspace.com/campaignheadquarters




When all is said and done, if you are able to continue this method into epic levels, please share the modified stat blocks you've come up with.  I think your idea is a good one, but will require a LOT of DM work.


----------



## Hussar

Cool.  Epic WLD.  Could you imagine what some of the critters in here would look like after going epic.    I mean, a fiendish kraken is pretty buff, but wow.

Far more work than I want to do.

Sigh, I posted ads for new DM's but no luck.  If anyone knows anyone who wants to run the WLD online, tell them to give me a kick.  I'd hate for all the work we've done to just go to waste.


----------



## Traevanon

I have allowed normal Experience since the beginnning, and now my players are 17th and 18th levels in region N.

In the beginning I used the "Add 2" method to boost monsters which just pretty much meant +2 to everything.

Then I began modifying the creatures using the back of the monster manual.

Lately I have been making more and more use of templates and character levels.

The basic creatures of the dungeon mostly stay the same, though sometimes I promote them to the next higher creature (wraiths to dread wraiths for example).  Its the "bosses" that get most of the detailed upgrades.

Also you have to remember to boost the treasure a bit.

Here are a few examples:
*Vinnara* region N got 4 more Blackguard levels and two standard Lich cronies to help her out.
*The Great Death* (N67) got the Legendary template (MM2).
*Glebshayy* (region g) got upgraded from a Glabrezu demon to a Kelvezu (MM2 again).


I try not to use the Monster Manual 2 now so much because its stat blocks are 3.0 material.  The Legendary template is just about the only thing I kept.  Used sparingly, its a good way to make something (of 15+ CR) more fearsome, resistant to magic and stronger.


----------



## rvalle

Time for an update.

My group has gone into 'I' 4 or 5 times now. So far its been working well. I like how the 'icky' factor ramps up. When I first described the walls ect they were pretty grossed out but kept going. Then they came to a room total covered in oozing flesh... so much so that they had to rip the door open. They took one look in that room and said 'No' and went another way.

After a while they came back to that room from a different direction and ventured in. It was gross but nothing major happened to them so they were ok with it (Note: first case of disease is about to rear its ugly head and I need some saves for Demon Fever next game... thats nasty!). 

Then they game to a room that was pulsating and with every pulse black fluid oozed out the flesh and ran down the wall. It forms a stream running down a hallway. Again the party refused to have anything to do with it and want another way.

The party had several fights with the Cloakers in the area and a few Gricks. At the end of the last game they found the Dark Naga (S' something). I had fun with this one. The kids had been watching one of the Rescuers cartoons and I gave her the speech characteristics of the white female mouse in the those movies. She called everyone 'Darling' and was just as friendly as can be. The party refused to enter her home and eventually moved off (it was getting late). The Naga let them know she is willing to work with the party... she'll give them information and advice and she'll ask them to do tasks for her.

I'm thinking she is going to try and get them to raid the old Magic Lab for the spell books ect telling them there is a spell in there to help defeat the Twins. If they succeed she'll betray the Drow Captain so she can take over. What happens then I'm not sure. 

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> The party had several fights with the Cloakers in the area and a few Gricks. At the end of the last game they found the Dark Naga (S' something). I had fun with this one. The kids had been watching one of the Rescuers cartoons and I gave her the speech characteristics of the white female mouse in the those movies. She called everyone 'Darling' and was just as friendly as can be. The party refused to enter her home and eventually moved off (it was getting late). The Naga let them know she is willing to work with the party... she'll give them information and advice and she'll ask them to do tasks for her.
> 
> rv




Ah - yes - Eva Gabor - better known for her role as Lisa Douglas in Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. Can just imagine her deploring the atrocious conditions that she has to live in with all the icky things about, and it does absolutely *nothing* for her complexion, plus the opportunities to shop are virtually non-existant.


----------



## rvalle

Hah, yes. The party offered her gold.

"I have no need for gold Darling, where would I spend it?".

Man, that is just a great voice. 

At least I was able to get her though one encounter without the party just attacking her outright.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

*Region I, room descriptions and random encounters*

Had a 6 week break from playing (we normally play 1/fortnight, but lack of numbers one time and me being away for Tech Ed Oz the other has restricted when we could play).

Party is in Region I and we resume after having had a tough encounter with chokers (I10 and I3) - including draining quite a bit of strength from one of the fighers and consequently running the clerics out of lesser restorations.

They decide that they are still OK and are trying to make their way east so that they are aware of all the escape routes back to Region E when I read out the room description for I16. The mention of 'purple slime' seems to freak them out and after the sorcerer lobs a fireball into to the room and I say that the slime is still there but now steaming they decide to back away and try a different tack. ?!?!?!?!

Next stop - I5 and the Disciple of Madness. This ended up easier than I thought it might, though the Exotic Fighter lost a +1 adamantine spiked chain on her first strike at it   
Lots of arrows split it and eventually there were 6 puddings, but copius firespells that managed to beat SR eventually did it in, with the last one being killed with a pummel from the aforementioned Exotic Fighter (who had Resist Energy - Acid active). One of the characters did succumb to the chanting so I will be dredging up visions in the future and at inappropriate times.  

They discovered the secret door to I4, but had the random encounter of the iron door clanging shut, so there was a mad race around trying to find where it came from, then paranoia set in and they were thinking about bugging back to the Celestials. I have a drow NPC with the party now (for search checks as the only other rogue with the party ran off) and he refused to go to E, so they didn't head back to Celestial Central and instead holed up in I12 before tackling the door to I4.

They were brown trousering themselves with misassumptions about the glyph on the door, but eventually made it through and also eventually found Eight Strike Fang. All of the fighters in the party are Chaotic in alignment. The only Lawful character is the sorcerer, and 3 Neutrals are a Mystic Theurge and 2 clerics, so an axiomatic weapon is a bit of a mixed blessing to them. There was serious discussion between those with item creation feats (including Craft Magical Arms and Armour) that they 'melt the sucker down' to use it to create other magic items <sigh>

This is where we broke for the evening, and there is a distinct possibility that it will be 2 months before we get to game again (once again due to people being away).

I am seriously thinking about having a rebel drow group enter I4 at the beginning of the next session - 1 - to speed up the pace of the game, 2 - to provide some intel as to major plot hooks in the region (the drow NPC is playing cards very close to his chest), and 3 - to take the focus off the special effects (room descriptions and sounds) which seem to just freak the party out and send them haring off after red herrings.

Thought or comments anyone? Especially from those of you who have been through here before - what made Region I memorable?


----------



## Hussar

Sounds pretty groovy as it is Eruc.  Reading your guys' descriptions of I makes me wish I had picked a different route through things.  Almost.    Two, maybe three more sessions to the Pyrfaust.  Woot!


----------



## rvalle

Wow, I think that Deciple of Madness fight is going to be seriously hard for my group. 

I think the region descriptions ARE what is making I memoriable so far. I love the players getting freaked out by the envionment. Its better then them going "Are we taking damage from it? Eh, whatever... keep going."

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> Wow, I think that Deciple of Madness fight is going to be seriously hard for my group.
> 
> I think the region descriptions ARE what is making I memoriable so far. I love the players getting freaked out by the envionment. Its better then them going "Are we taking damage from it? Eh, whatever... keep going."
> 
> rv




tips on Disciple of Madness.

I had the deeper darkness already going, and sprinkled some motes of light floating about the room. They didn't know it was a pudding. It was just an amorphous black blob from which the low sonorous chanting came with shadows being cast along the back wall. I actually used the chant of making from the movie Excalibur in a low gutteral (which from memory was sorta like "Annal Na'thrak, Ootvan bethood, Dockian Denvray" or something like that - over and over again). Requesting will saves from those that ended up within 30' helped up the tension. The mystic theurge threw in a Dispel Magic - which I had disrupt the chanting for a round, clear the deeper darkness, and make some of the motes of light disappear. At that point they could see the features of a drow moving through the rippling surface (a face, fingers, etc). Also  up to this point I had kept it stationery. When its turn came around again it started up the chanting again and started moving. With its size and reach it started causing problems. I allowed a Knowledge Dungeoneering check or Knowledge Arcana after it had destroyed the first weapon, and now that they could see it clearly in order to identify it as a black pudding (though not a normal one). The first split (I tracked slash/pierce separately from bludgeoning) in to 2 large puddings freaked them out a bit too, but the splitting worked in their favour as the fireball and other multiple target firespells effectively did more damage (because the HP were now spread over multiple targets) - the ones that beat the pudding SR at any rate.

Afterwards they wanted to check for treasure  
I reread the room description about the floor being spotless, and reminded them that puddings dissolve metal and wood.


----------



## Dracorat

One of my players kept an adventure log of last session.

Enter section C...

Party: 
Jigger - Door listener and Backstabber Extraordinnaire!
Silinu - Webs and Fireballs. What else is there?
Rodash - You haven't FELT pain until you've felt my greataxe!
Amy - If you need healing and you know it, clap your hands!

********************************************************************************

September 2nd Gaming Session (Online)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We started this session by advancing into section C and almost immediately found a room with 4 undead creatures of which three of them *seemed* to be gnolls, one of which put a negative level on Rodash. After defeating them, we found a circlet on one of them that radiated magic and we also found 15 GP as well.

The circlet is a Minor Circlet of Persuasion (+2) to charisma-based checks (but doesn't help a sorceror with better spell casting).

Level 5 : 560 XP        So far this session: 560 XP
Level 6 : 490 XP                                          490 XP

Next we fought a Gnoll leader and his 6 gnoll warriors. The leader was *very* adept with his longbow and from the party's point of view, he rolled crits a bit too often in our opinion.  ;-)  We defeated them after taking quite a bit of damage, (Jigger went negative TWICE!).  After the battle, we found the following left behind:

6 sets of studded leather armor
6 heavy steel shields
6 battle axes
6 shortbows
2 quivers
6 masterworked arrows
1 great axe
1 masterwork comp longbow
1 set of masterwork studded leather

Level 5 : 340 XP        So far this session: 900 XP
Level 6 : 250 XP                                          740 XP

We had one more battle with a few more gnolls to the north where we found a group of four rooms.  The first of the four rooms (SW) seemed to be almost a barracks and apparently was the source of the 6 gnoll warriors whom we fought in our last battle.  The next room (NW) had a couple gnolls that were no contest for us. After taking them out we searched the room.  There was a fireplace in the SE corner and the table near it had some jars on it.  Additionally, we also found:

A Dagger, (which turned out not to be magical) but it was very decorative (and worth about 100 gp).
 29 gp in loose coins
154 cp in loose coins
6 dice (valued at 5 gp each)
1 Masterwork Warhammer

Next we checked out the other 2 rooms of the 4-room arrangement and found no other foes.  We did find 9 gp more though.

Finally, we decided to head west. After passing thru a large room whose walls and floors were literally painted in blood, we worked our way south through a twisty maze of passages and found a secret door that revealed a trail of blood leading to 3 badly pulped bodies that seemed to have been beaten against the stone or else with stone.  Additionally, we found a dead body much like the unique undead creature from the first room in this session.

We worked our way back to the start of the blood trail to a small room with two doors.  Behind one of them Jigger heard some breathing and when Rodash knocked the door open we found a small goblin called Ratul.  After befriending Ratul we let him go and found out where the "Dog King" resides.  We questioned him about the surroundings (he seemed to be a sneaky goblin scout) and he was able to fill in a few gaps on our maps.  In fact, he told us about how he was hiding out from the Goblin King and also from the Dog King (Gnoll leader).  He also mentioned the fact the the Dog King had some stone statues fighting for him, too.  At any rate, we gave him instructions on how to get back home.  For doing so we received:

Level 5 : 150 XP        So far this session: 1,050 XP
Level 6 : 150 XP                                             890 XP

We then went directly there to where the Dog King was and confronted them. --- And got our butts handed to us.  The Dog King had a bunch of warriors including some crossbow-men (crossbow-dogs?) and they peppered us until we were well-seasoned and low on hitpoints.  Silinu first tried Fireballs and amazingly it hardly hurt them at all. He also mouthed the words and Web spells appeared to try to slow the gnoll warriors down. Though some were immobilized, others were still able to move slowly towards us.  All during this, the Gnoll King move about and he turned one and then another statue into a living (?) engine of destruction that moved towards us intending to make adventurer meatballs out of us.

We tried to keep them at bay and let only a couple attack at any one time, and with this strategy we DID inflict some casualties on them. Unfortunately, the Gnoll King came up on Rodash and with the previous damage Rodash had taken, the Gnoll King was able to knock him out.  Thus, Rodash went down in combat and shortly thereafter Jigger went down while trying to run from combat. (Doing damage is apparently not his forte ..).  Silinu and Amy were lucky enough to get away to lick their wounds.  They rested up that night intending to make an assault the very next day.

For this partial battle, we each got the following:

Level 5 : 600         So far this session: 1,650 XP
Level 6 : 525                                           1,415 XP

In the meantime, Jigger and Rodash were taken and thrown into cells with none of their possessions at all (except for a hidden lock-pick set that Jigger had probably kept hidden someplace that would be unmentionable in a typical family conversation).  He used them to get the door open but it appeared that they were being guarded by at least two other gnolls who seemed to be nearby and watching to closely. At that point, Jigger decided that discretion was the better part of valor and chose to wait until after a bit of healing rest.  The next morning things weren't looking any better so he did his best to sneak out and see what was what.  There were the same two gnolls but they were busy just talking and watching the fire. That gave Jigger a chance to sneak down the hall and check the other cell doors.

Also that morning, Silinu and Amy readied their spells for an attack designed to help find Rodash and Jigger. With a fierce array of Fireball, Web, and Magic Missles they went back to the Dog King to beard him in his den. Their hope was to find their companions and take them back so that all could be healed up.

After a false alarm, Jigger seemed to find Rodash's cell.  He quietly opened it.  Fortunately Jigger is short so the round-house punch that came thru the opening went flying over his head.  (Half-Orcs are pretty big and tall and strong, especially with no Right-Guard that morning!)  They knew that Silinu and Amy would be looking for them so they had to defeat these gnolls and find their way out of here.  Rodash and Jigger then decided on a plan to try to get one or both of those gnoll's weapons away from them but today just wasn't Jigger's day.  One of the gnoll's caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye and grabbed his weapon.  Jigger dove for the other weapon hoping to throw it right to or near to Rodash.  But again the fates (the DM's dice) were against him and the second gnoll grabbed his weapon before Jigger.  Rodash charged the second gnoll but was unable to get close enough to inflict any damage.  In the meantime, the first gnoll stepped around the fire and triple-critted Jigger with his greataxe.  Again, Jigger died.  Rodash then had his turn to make lemon juice out of lemons and was working his way through the slower gnoll.  BUt after a round or two the first gnoll got a big chance to pound on Rodash and critted him.  Rodash fell bleeding to the ground.

Meanwhile the other combat with the spellcasters didn't fare too well either.  Things with Silinu and Amy started out okay, considering it was just two against 5 times their number.  And again, fire didn't seem to do much to them and they soon started taking way too much damage. Even with Amy healing and Silinu's offensive attacks, they died as well this time.  Still, for the attempt, we got:

Level 5 : 500 XP        So far this session: 2,150 XP
Level 6 : 500 XP                                          1,915 XP

********************************************************************************


----------



## Hussar

Sigh.

Shadows of the Dragon, where I host the World's Largest Dungeon Project is having some serious difficulties.  I'm not even sure if it can be salvaged at this time.  Anyone looking for room descriptions or die rollers, give me an email and I'll see what I can pass along.  Most of them are saved as doc's on my compy, so, there is room for salvage.

On that note, if anyone has the room descriptions for Region J, drop me a line please.  I didn't do the writeup for that region and I'll be heading there this week.

Definitely not happy.


----------



## Raven Crowking

That sucks, Hussar.  I wish you the best of luck in restoring your data.

RC


----------



## Jim Hague

erucsbo said:
			
		

> tips on Disciple of Madness.
> 
> I had the deeper darkness already going, and sprinkled some motes of light floating about the room. They didn't know it was a pudding. It was just an amorphous black blob from which the low sonorous chanting came with shadows being cast along the back wall. I actually used the chant of making from the movie Excalibur in a low gutteral (which from memory was sorta like "Annal Na'thrak, Ootvan bethood, Dockian Denvray" or something like that - over and over again). Requesting will saves from those that ended up within 30' helped up the tension. The mystic theurge threw in a Dispel Magic - which I had disrupt the chanting for a round, clear the deeper darkness, and make some of the motes of light disappear. At that point they could see the features of a drow moving through the rippling surface (a face, fingers, etc). Also  up to this point I had kept it stationery. When its turn came around again it started up the chanting again and started moving. With its size and reach it started causing problems. I allowed a Knowledge Dungeoneering check or Knowledge Arcana after it had destroyed the first weapon, and now that they could see it clearly in order to identify it as a black pudding (though not a normal one). The first split (I tracked slash/pierce separately from bludgeoning) in to 2 large puddings freaked them out a bit too, but the splitting worked in their favour as the fireball and other multiple target firespells effectively did more damage (because the HP were now spread over multiple targets) - the ones that beat the pudding SR at any rate.
> 
> Afterwards they wanted to check for treasure
> I reread the room description about the floor being spotless, and reminded them that puddings dissolve metal and wood.




As always, I'm watching the fun in Region I - despite the difficulties, I had a lot of fun writing it, though on retrospect perhaps I should have ramped up the difficulty a bit.  And originally, the description of the Drow champion was of a 'standard' raging demon, sans eight arms.  for the sake of more brown-trousers moments, I'd change it back to that.  

Dig back a bit in the thread, and you'll find a link to the nasty positive-energy undead that I cut from I as well.  Always good to ramp up the difficulty, those.  My players were gibbering in terror after battling the gricks, only to have them 'heal', mutate and come back in hot pursuit later on.

Say, has anyone gone through the region with the Elven garrison?  Haven't seen anything on it, and I'm veddy interested in how it shakes out for folks.


----------



## erucsbo

This one? - post #826 (page 21)



			
				Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Thralls of the Flesh
> *Medium-Size Undead Humanoid(Special)*
> Hit Dice:4d12 (26 hp)
> <snip>




Also available from James Lorimor's WLD Downloads site.


----------



## Hussar

> Say, has anyone gone through the region with the Elven garrison? Haven't seen anything on it, and I'm veddy interested in how it shakes out for folks.




Someone mentioned it WAYYY upthread and it may have gotten lost in the crash.  IIRC, they were very impressed with the level of role play in the region vs hack.  Again, going from memory, they had two or three sessions of nothing but RP and were loving it.  I remember that it stuck out because of the level of interaction.

Me, I decided to skip the garrison in favour of the Pyrefaust followed by D.  The party knows that there is an elven garrison there, but, I steered them in another direction.  G was a very high rp section for me and, surprisingly, so was K.  Pyrfaust looks like way too much fun.

On a side note, I changed Fyrsil to a 10th level Truenamer from Tome of Magic.  I figure he should give just the right amount of info gathering boost that the party desperately needs.  My lot doesn't have any arcane casters.  Actually, they have one favoured soul and 1 rogue and 3 fighter types.  They've been doing well so far.  I have gotten the FS to blow every spell slot she has on more than a few occasions keeping the party alive.


----------



## Hunter0441

Hussar, I'd be very interested in those room discriptions- jhunter9 AT tampabay.rr.com . I'm sorry to hear about your problems, I know you've a lot of time and effort in it.


----------



## JoeBlank

Hussar, the room descriptions would be very helpful for my online WLD game using Fantasy Grounds.

Can you send them to me: jwblankenshipjr AT gmail

Thanks!


----------



## Qwillion

Just and update as it has been a while, my party has defeated the hellchampion and the Prime lich and they are no on thier way too killing the mummy because they have two of the keys, the mummy is just going to give them her key because freeing the worldeater is her goal and the party thinks it is the way out.


----------



## Jim Hague

Hussar said:
			
		

> Someone mentioned it WAYYY upthread and it may have gotten lost in the crash.  IIRC, they were very impressed with the level of role play in the region vs hack.  Again, going from memory, they had two or three sessions of nothing but RP and were loving it.  I remember that it stuck out because of the level of interaction.
> 
> Me, I decided to skip the garrison in favour of the Pyrefaust followed by D.  The party knows that there is an elven garrison there, but, I steered them in another direction.  G was a very high rp section for me and, surprisingly, so was K.  Pyrfaust looks like way too much fun.




Awesome.  Jennifer, the writer that did the elven garrison was also, ironically, the writer that rewrote the Pyrefaust.  She'll be immensely pleased to know that folks're enjoying both.  And good spot, ercsubo, on the Thralls.  Gosh, I haven't looked at those in months.  It took me forever to find 'em on my hard drive initally, too.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Ouch, Hussar, sorry to hear about your host website. What happened to it? Do you plan to continue posting the adventure logs somewhere? I'd certainly hope so - I love reading about your adventures!

A quick update on my group - I only have one group remaining in the WLD, as the other campaign ended due to player disinterest.  The current group is as follows:

Zak Skitterfoot, halfling Rog5/Wiz2, going arcane trickster
Mindorr Khelos, human Shugenja6/Sor1
'Boony', gnome Sor7
Karl Stahl, human Barb1/Clr6

Soon to be joined by a Ninja/Drunken Master, god help us all. Anyhow...

They spent some time in Region E, defeating Seraxes and his shadow horde. They then explored about a bit, heard about the split between inevitables and celestials, and cleaned out the bug-infested area while finding all but one of the remaining ward staves. However, oddly enough, the barghests that were in the area they passed through seem to have withdrawn north, and they're not quite sure what's happening with them. The shadow hounds seem to be a lesser concern, and the celestials can clean them out fairly easily now that all but one of the ward staves are usable again.

[I'm setting things up for a return to the region later - not sure how I'll use the barghests, but I may do something similar to what BBR did]

Their quick exit from the region came by way of orders from Kelara, after a former party member/member of the garrison attacked another garrison member (curse those evil intelligent swords) and fled. Their goal is to find that individual and visit justice upon him, as well as do two things: investigate the reports of a massive bugbear-goblin war, and find out about the resurgence of a wizard by the name of Arum further to the southeast.

Upon entering B, they met little resistance for a while, and it was quiet... too quiet. A bit of background first. When my other group lost interest in the WLD, they were right on the brink of fighting in a massive war in B - they had united the rebel goblins and the bugbears against the Holy Goblin Empire. However, I decided to tie these events into my campaign. Long story short, the war was bloody and drawn-out. However, the disappearance of all but one member of the powerful outsiders at a critical moment turned the tide in the HGE's favor, and they won the war. This was not helped by the actions of the remaining former PC, a Dread Necromancer, who assassinated both of the PC's former kobold allies. She escaped into the region while the HGE took slaves and the like.

Roughly two weeks later, the Dread Necromancer opened the tombs to the north of the HGE, and attacked with a massive horde of raised undead. The HGE was taken completely by surprise, and was eventually defeated and driven back through the Maze into, ironically, the rebels' former hideout. 3/4 of B is controlled by the necromancer and her hordes of skeletons and zombies, and 1/4 of B is barely defended by the remnants of the HGE.

The party essentially proceeded through until the necromancer and her pet skeletal wardogs found them, and were offered a deal - run and rest, and if they won against her the next day, she would let them pass through. If not, they were hers. Drained as they were, they reluctantly agreed, and trekked through the rest of the region the next day. They are currently midfight against the former paladins of Merunda in The Killing Grounds. If they win here, the necromancer will let them go.

Of course, the situation's not all that easy, because the necromancer has two very interesting allies. First, her familiar - a very much despised imp by the name of Achsyyx, Longtail's former familiar. Second, her new companion - the escaped elf and his evil sword, who the party was seeking. So, the party will surely be back.

Next session, they should hopefully beat the ghoul paladins and head into C to gain more power and the like. Of course, someone suggested avoiding B by going north from C. Oh, how I laughed. (That's Region G, the site of the massive demons vs angels war)

So, a bit long-winded, but should be fun for all.


----------



## Hussar

Hopefully the site will be up again before too long.  Sounds like some personal issues are getting resolved.  Hopefully gunplay will not be involved.  

As far as the room descriptions go, I was actually referring to those who are participating in the WLD project as it's been a group effort to type in all those room descriptions, rework maps to be used in Open or FG and create die rollers for Openrpg.  When the site is back up, you guys will be welcome to pitch in and partake in the spoils.  It wouldn't really be fair to hand over everyone's work to the general public though.


----------



## JoeBlank

Hussar said:
			
		

> Hopefully the site will be up again before too long.  Sounds like some personal issues are getting resolved.  Hopefully gunplay will not be involved.
> 
> As far as the room descriptions go, I was actually referring to those who are participating in the WLD project as it's been a group effort to type in all those room descriptions, rework maps to be used in Open or FG and create die rollers for Openrpg.  When the site is back up, you guys will be welcome to pitch in and partake in the spoils.  It wouldn't really be fair to hand over everyone's work to the general public though.




That's cool. Thanks for the offer. I just run the WLD for my online group when we can't get anything else together for our regular campaign. 

Hope you get your site problems worked out.


----------



## Hussar

Great news.  Apparently it's a mechanical failure with the server and the guy is just awaiting delivery of the part.  Yay.  We should be back in business shortly.

On a side note, I've decided to have a bit of fun with Region J.  I've already added desert demons from Sandstorm in place of hte trolls.  I've also added a number of the hazard effects from Sandstorm like Necrotic Flaywinds and other goodies.  In addition, I'm going to use Far Realms material from Dragon 330 to spice up the vampire chick in the crypt.  Once I've got it written up, I'll post it here.


----------



## rvalle

Region 'I' has claimed its first victim!

I feel a little bad about it as the character did nothing wrong... it was just bad luck and more my 'fault' then his.

The characters have been talking the Dark Naga. She is making a deal with them to retrieve Malhir's (sp?) Spell book and notes and she will give them background information and knowledge about what is going on in the Region. The players reluctantly agree and, as the result of a very good Diplomacy roll, she gives them some of the background information right then.

She tells them of the drider, drow and the experiments being done and the magic mishap that took place. She says she wants the book and notes so that she might be able to undo the damage that took place. She also tells them that she will give them something that they will want/need (the Ritual of Undoing) but she doesn't tell them what it is.

The party heads off though the ruined lab. They have been though here once already with no problems. THIS time there is something waiting for them.

A Shrieking Terror (MMIII) (but each of the 5 heads was black and elvish looking) lets loose its shriek and drops on the party, kissing two of them. After a fierce fight they drop the creature but one of the characters fails most of his Fort saves against the poison bites so his HP's don't come back even with Cure spells. The party pushes on and gets the door to the lair open but can't answer the question so they head back to the Dark Naga ( as a side note: the questions asked could only have been setup AFTER the disaster happened! That seems... odd). 

Till now the party has been playing it very safe. Go into I, get into a fight and pull back to E to rest and heal. THIS time I hit them with two back to back very hard encounters... after the Terror they have their first encounter with Madness!

The main reason I wanted them to met Madness is so that the offer of the Ritual has some meaning.

So, on their way back they hear 'bubbling, dragging, popping noises. And they sound... eager." This is just North of the 4 way Burning Hands trap. The party dithers around not sure what to do as the sound comes closer. Finally it enters the range of the dwarves darkvision.

I show them the MM picture of the Gibbering Mouther and say it looks sort of like this. But bigger. And ALL the teeth are big and sharp and pointy. And there is one set of teeth that show up now and then that are 4-5 inches long. And there are these two big claws that from and drag it forward. And spider legs that keep forming and waving about.

The party decides they are going to pull back and let it take some damage from the Burning Hands trap. So they all start to move South... and mostly get lined up in the hallway. One of the characters says "I hope it doesn't have a lighting bolt".   

So Madness moves forward and steps up his gibbering. Everyone in range fails their saves. Then it lets loose a lightning bolt ( I should have said that the big set of teeth appear and open and the bolt shoots out of it. I'll have to do that next time).  Everyone in range fails their save.

I roll for damage... 35 points. Hmm... the halfling sorcerer only has 30 points. "25 points of damage" I tell the party. "Oh man, I only have 5 left" says the Halfling. 

Well... the character that had lost all the HP's from the Terror was standing in the hallway with his 'max' HP's of 15. 25 put him at -10 and he drops to the floor dead. 

In a bit of grim humor the halfling Cleric (of war no less) rolls for confusion and gets 'attack nearest creature'. He's standing right in front of the fallen character. So he turns around and buries is axe into the poor guys head (rolled a 20 but didn't confirm the crit). 

To finish the story the party pulls back. The groups Gnome Bard hits it with a Glitter Dust. One of the few spells that has 'No' next to SR and it fails its save and is blinded. It rolls forward anyway. The Dwarven Fighter hits it with his non-magical axe and does no lasting damage. Every spell the Sorcerer throws at it fizzles. Cleric casts a Holy Smite... fizzles. Madness rolls though the fire trap with no apparent damage.

At this point the party decides its time to run. Madness has moved up a few times (slowly...) and bit the Fighter with those large teeth. Madness somehow seems to know exactly where he is standing even though his eyes are glazed and staring off in all directions (Tremorsense, though I still gave him a 50/50 miss chance). 

They scoop up the fallen body and run back to I chased by Madness the whole way. 

There is once again talk of avoiding this whole area and going to check out the Minitors to the E.  

BTW, Bards are an excellent counter to the Gibbering of Madness. He was able to roll a Perform check and characters could either use it or roll their own save. Since he rolled a 31 there was not much point. Characters already under the influence of the Confusion got another save and so came out if it. Though he had to keep this up for the whole fight as Madness Gibbers the whole time. Once the Bard stopped (to run away) they had 5 rounds till the effect wore off. They made it to I on round 5.  

rv


----------



## Hussar

Yay Bard!  Who knew they could be useful.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Hussar said:
			
		

> Yay Bard!  Who knew they could be useful.



Nah, they're still not useful.
This should be filed under "Blind squirrel vs. nut"


----------



## mentalcaz

Hussar said:
			
		

> Hopefully the site will be up again before too long.  Sounds like some personal issues are getting resolved.  Hopefully gunplay will not be involved.
> 
> As far as the room descriptions go, I was actually referring to those who are participating in the WLD project as it's been a group effort to type in all those room descriptions, rework maps to be used in Open or FG and create die rollers for Openrpg.  When the site is back up, you guys will be welcome to pitch in and partake in the spoils.  It wouldn't really be fair to hand over everyone's work to the general public though.






Great I'm just about to start a campaign and would love to get involved with your project   I'm already playing with the idea of importing the module into DM genie. would you mind shooting me an email to let me know what i can do to help and the url and such kmcorriganjr at google com


----------



## jim pinto

*Emeritus*

hey again,

i was floating around the net and saw this was on the front page of enworld.

almost 1800 posts (again)

for those who care, i'm the new art director for anachronism (part time), i'm working for zietgiest, and i have a few projects in the works.

my blog has some updates.

someone was mocking the WLD to my face the other day, not realizing who i was

it was quite hilarious

i just smiled and moved on

anyway, i just wanted to stop in and say hi.

...

hi

- jim


----------



## Hussar

Hey Jim, good to see you.

I do actually read your blog, even if I don't post often to it.  Some interesting stuff.  Since you're here, how much of what is on your blog do you think influenced design decisions in the WLD?  For example, you've stated more than a few times that you dislike certain effects and spells - web and grease jump to mind here.  Did you come to that decision before the WLD or after?

To all those who've shown interest in the WLD project - I ask that you all be patient just a little while longer.  The problem is apparently being sorted.  I think.  I hope.   Sigh.  But, when things come back up, you are all certainly invited to take part.


----------



## rvalle

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> Nah, they're still not useful.
> This should be filed under "Blind squirrel vs. nut"




I don't quite agree with that. As the figher of the group said once about the Bard (Reck is his name): "Reck has saved the party more times then I care to admit".

It helps that the player is VERY good. He also likes to take 'odd' spells and find uses for them. That +1/+1 adds up and, now that they just made 8th level, its going to be +2/+2.

I think I saw someone else say this, but Bards make a very good 5th character to the party.

rv


----------



## BlueBlackRed

rvalle said:
			
		

> I think I saw someone else say this, but Bards make a very good 5th character to the party.



I'd take a 2nd cleric, fighter, or wizard over a fighter any day.
And any good player can make a bad character work.


----------



## erucsbo

Hussar said:
			
		

> - to JimP - For example, you've stated more than a few times that you dislike certain effects and spells - web and grease jump to mind here.  Did you come to that decision before the WLD or after?




as a side note - my players used Grease on the walls against the Chokers when I had them attacking enmass a few sessions ago. Quite effective.


----------



## erucsbo

another Region I session last night (and it will be 6 weeks until the next one). Missing were the players of F8 and F3/W5. I figured with F7, S8, x2 C8 and W3/C3/MTh2 the party had enough firepower to be able to ignore the missing characters. They had found I4 (and Eight-Strike Fang) in the previous session and were contemplating what to do when I decided to up the tempo. Stumbling in to the secret room came 5 drow. I allowed spot rolls to determine that the weapons were not in the best shape (one of the clerics has Weapon smithing) and their leather armour wasn't fitting properly. The party came to the conclusion that these were escaped slaves and for once didn't decide to fight first and ask questions later. I had one of the drow ask the party first in Undercommon (which of course only the drow NPC understood) and then in elven (which the h/e MTh could speak) what they were doing there and whether or not they were friend or foe. I had Jaxom (the drow NPC) talk a bit to them (in both undercommon and elven before saying to revert to common for the rest of the group). I mentioned on several occasions (and guestured as well) that both the drow and Jaxom seemed nervous or fidgetty - don't think anyone got the hint   
Weapons were stowed and the drow told the party about Siglinde, about their route from Siglinde's area to I4 (and how they had to move quickly and quietly and without going down side-passages through the area with the Gricks), and that Siglinde's was a crossroad to the SpiderKings, Madness area (where once again they raced through), and Mahir's Lab area (which they avoided). They said that they negotiated with Siglinde and did tasks for her for being allowed to go through her area (so the party knows that she can be negotiated with). I hinted about the GreenDeath, and it looks like the party are interested in heading towards Mahir's cache (yay!).
They left I4 and proceeded to I16 (with the purple slime - now that they knew that it wouldn't cause them any major problems apart from being a bit sticky). Instead of taking the direct route through however, they all decided to troop down the dead-end passage to check for secret doors. So of course on their way back through the room to the southern passage was when the Gricks burst out of the rubble right next to the party. They only had themselves to blame and single file in the middle of the group were the two unarmoured arcane spellcasters - can you say brown trousers?
They survived, using up a fair bit of curing and headed to I18. The sorcerer used Shadow Magic to conjure a bear to check out the room. I had it pass out of sight in the rubble before shrieks and rending noises indicated that it had encountered something. They then decided to lob a fireball in the room - note - this is a room "choked" with rubble that "kisses the ceiling" (sigh). Roll d20 (result is a 2) so I had the fireball pea only travel 5' before impacting some rubble and going off, and because it is a spread, not a burst, managed to backblast down the corridor to the rest of the party (most of whom made their saves). More healing of the almost crispy sorcerer (plus the last of the lessor restorations when he failed the fort save for his HP going under his Con) and they decided to not try I18 but head for I17 - where they decided to open every friggin' door (double sigh).
Inside the first they found that the flesh on the walls had been rended and bitten off by something (clue 1). They also heard a door creak further up the corridor (clue 2). Behind the 5th door they found a grick tearing flesh off the wall (clue 3), so they decided to wait until it came out of the rrom before wellying on it - which of course made enough noise to alert the other dozen or so gricks in the area.
Big fight ensued with the party eventually victorious (and me taking great delight in telling the (now non-magical) spiked chain wielding fighter that she couldn't do AoO on many of the Gricks as they moved from 10' to 5' away because they had cover (either from other gricks or walls)). The fighter had dropped below Con in HP and despite being a dwarven fighter still failed the fort save and now has "the Curse of Madness" (+2 Str, +2 Con, -6 Cha and DC20 will to avoid going crazy and attacking nearby creatures) for 4 days.
Next encounter will most likely be Siglinde or her minions, and I'm going to do the Eva Gabor voice (thanks rvalle)


----------



## Hussar

On the Bard:

I disagree BBR.  Bards can really shore up a party.  They may not have the direct firepower of another fighter or cleric, but, those bonuses can turn out to be huge.  The Lillend Sissifiss used her facinate abilities to calm down Lightspar the insane dragon in K which turned a potentially very lethal encounter (the party did NOT expect to face a second dragon) into a friendly information gathering one in a single round.

Never mind that Inspire Confidence basically bumps your rogue by two levels whenever he's looking for traps or disarming one.  Another major saving grace in the WLD.

The major bonus of the bard is that, unlike a fighter, he makes the entire party better, all the time.  Unlimited buffing is nothing to sneeze at, particularly in the WLD where buffing items are so hard to come by.

I could really see a PC taking leadership and trying to get a bard cohort (maybe one of the elves from H) to help the entire party.


----------



## erucsbo

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> And any good player can make a bad character work.






			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> On the Bard:
> 
> I disagree BBR.  Bards can really shore up a party.




imho the core classes are all good - if played the way they are intended.

In many respects the 4 iconic classes (fighter, cleric, wizard, rogue) have a fairly well defined role and thus it is relatively easy to see how they can contribute effectively to a party, and how to make the character work.

The other basic classes (Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Monk, Paladin, Ranger and Sorcerer) vary in how well defined the role is and thus how they can contribute effectively.
Sorcerer - easy - wizard without the book, fewer spells, but spontaneous casting (focus on spells)
Barbarian - easy - follow Conan's example (or Wulfgar from the Drizzt books) (focus on fighting)
Ranger - fairly easy - Aragorn, or fighter with some sideline skills (focus on fighting)
Paladin - harder to play properly but still primarily fighter (knights of the round table - especially Galahad or Lancelot, or Paksennarion from 'The Deed of Paksenarrion') (focus on fighting)
Monk - primarily fighting, including grapple, unarmed etc - martial arts flicks for examples (focus on fighting)
Druid - Divine spellcaster with a nature flavour - treat as a variant cleric without the ubiquitous spontaneous healing in order to get a basic contribution (focus on spells).
Bard - here is where we run in to difficulties of finding a good role-model as the primary focus of a bard is NOT fighting, NOT spellcasting, NOT skills, but a combination of all. The class is extremely versatile and a good player with a bard can actually take the limelight from pretty much any of the other classes (which is not a good thing btw).

They get treated as a support role or a diplomacy specialist or a gap filler - none of which are all that exciting to play in a team environment (ever notice how bored ALL the other characters get when 1 player is doing the diplomacy thing).

The challenge - come up with a bard from books or movies that -
  A - would be fun to play, and
  B - would work in a team environment, while
  C - not dominating or being dominated by other party members for long periods of time.

A bard can be the source of knowledge for a party, or a source of confusion and chaos.
A bard can give the unexpected edge in fights, or just get in the way.
A bard can be a buffer - but that is a boring as a cleric who is a walking medikit.
A bard is the least likely class to be able to be cookie-cut, and due to the huge variability in how bards have been treated from 1st edition, through 2ed, and now in 3ed (with significant changes between 3.0 and 3.5) it is no wonder that even long-time players have trouble getting the concept right.

A bard *should* be the DMs greatest ally insofar as the story-telling aspect of the game is concerned. A well-played bard makes the game sessions memorable. You don't necessarily have to be a good player to make a bard work (though it helps), but you do need to have a clear focus as to what your character's role is, and having a role-model (particularly for the less talented players) makes a HUGE difference here.

At its simplest level - a bard should know what the party's goal is and look for ways towards that goal that might not necessarily involve fighting etc. In that respect ALL OF THE OTHER CLASSES BECOME SUPPORT CHARACTERS FOR THE BARD - gives purpose and direction to the game, and means that non-hack'n'slash/search-disable-sneak/blast-with-spells options are always being considered.


----------



## erucsbo

*foreshadowing*

OK - I'd like some help polishing a dream sequence that I am going to drop on to the clerics in the party (one is a cleric of dwarvenkind, one of Isis {fertility and life} and one of Mystra {the Mystic Theurge}).

They are currently in I, and I have had them do this quiz and the results have been mostly towards Storyteller and Method Actor so I want to encourage the feeling that they are taking part in a large story that is unfolding depending on their actions.

The paragraphs with the {}s at the beginning are cleric specific, otherwise they get the same dream. Please suggest changes, corrections, additions, whatever. I will be emailing this separately to the players in question so it doesn't matter how long it is - or if you think it better to wait until they rest then give each of them a print out I could do that. I'd rather not have to take each of them aside and narrate it to them. I think that the imaginations of the players will be more fully engaged by reading and it will take up less time - thus less time for the other players to twiddle their thumbs. (also - feel free to argue otherwise)
-----
You have a vision/dream the next time you sleep.

Mists swirl and you see a globe suspended in a sea of blackness that would be complete except for a sprinkling of lights, like tiny diamonds strewn across a jewellers piece of black felt. The globe is backlit by a stronger light, hidden from your eyes and casting the surface of the globe that is facing you in to deep shadow.

The globe appears to grow, or perhaps you are falling towards it and a feeling of loss tickles the back of your mind.

THe globe now fills your field of vision and as your eyesight adjusts to the shadows you see that it is a world.

You see the surface world covered in darkness and death. Bones litter the landscape and no plant life exists. The lakes and seas are black and lifeless, creeks and rivers choked with debris and sluggishly moving water.

A Colossal black worm, 100 feet long and surrounded by hordes of shambling undead, gorges itself on the remains of several dragons as an oily drizzle of rain starts to fall. The creatures below pay no heed to your presence.

Your minds eye travels to the horizon where the glimmer of light shows the beckoning of dawn and hope starts to renew within you, but as the rays of sunlight begins to chase away the shadow of night it brings in to stark reality the extent of the destruction you are witnessing. This world now belongs to the undead. Necromancer liches wage battle with armies of tens of thousands of myriad undead creatures. Anything still left alive is hunted down and killed to swell their ranks. Mummies pressgang masses of zombies in to building massive tombs using the rubble of once great cities. And dracoliches raid the now empty lairs of living wyrms, amassing treasures that would appear to no longer have any meaning for this world. And in the centre, a huge hole going leading in to the ground, well over five miles deep through solid bedrock, and with a cold certainty you know that this hole was not dug into the earth, but that something has dug it out from below.

{dwarf} And you see, still living, but huddled within hidden tunnels and secret vaults, those dwarfs still living, those who have escaped the destruction all around them, and you see within their eyes that the spark of hope and defiance has been replaced by the glazed looks of the dying and despairing, knowing that as their numbers dwindle, that their bodies will join the ranks of the new order, twisted in to a mockery of all that was once so dear to the proud drawven race.

{Isis} And you see, still living, but hidden within hidden valleys and on uncharted islands, some plants and people still survive, those who have escaped the destuction all around them, and you see that both appear listless and drained of purpose, no longer bursting with life, but struggling against the waves of negative energy that ceaselessly seek them out. There are no children. No new plants or animals. Life itself appears to have ceased renewing itself.

{Mystra} And you see the magical weave, tattered and frayed, with the shadow weave seeking to replace it. Negative energies flow across ley-lines strengthening the undead that drawn to the places of power while stemming the passage and draining the strength of the magic that was once the lifeblood of this world.

An hourglass forms before your eyes, but the sands are moving from the bottom to the top, inexorably filling the upper chamber. Then they slow, stop, and then start to fall, first slowly, then faster and faster, until you wake in a cold sweat...
----

They will all wake up at the same time, and I will have the environment be absolutely still and silent at that time. (ie - the positive energy flowing through I will not be animating the walls etc at that time). Then noises and the pulsing of the walls will start again.


----------



## twilko

*Dream sequence.*

I like it! I do have a couple of suggestions.



			
				erucsbo said:
			
		

> A Colossal black worm, 100 feet long and surrounded by hordes of shambling undead, gorges itself on the remains of several dragons as an oily drizzle of rain starts to fall. The creatures below pay no heed to your presence..




Maybe "...fall. The creatures seem unaware of your presence. Then one turns. Then another, and another, and another... Soon all except the feasting worm are staring at you. They approach with a keening moan of a thousand corrupted throats. A moan of pain, of anguish, of accusation. They surround you, never coming with arms reach, never taking their eyes of you. Their faces are more animated than undead should ever be. Faces of hatred, of anger. Faces that blame you for their fate."

Now I wouldn't mention the hole until then end...

"Your view races across the now barren, desolate waste that is this world. In the distance a jagged mound breaks the monotonus horizon. Its huge rocks have been thrust up from out of the ground. But there is no volcano or object at the centre of the mound to have done such violence to the earth itself. Your flying apporach reveals the answer. A wide black hole gaps at and then swallows you up. You feel like you are falling but the there is no bottom. You must fall literal miles. Then there appears a light at what must be the bottom. It races towards you at incredible speed. The light grows to fill your vision.

You are in a room. You look around the room from a view point on the ceiling. There is light from a small fire surrounded by sleeping forms. You look directly down. Your own body lies sleeping fitfully below you."

Anyway, just a though for you.


----------



## Hussar

Cool stuff.

GARG!  My site is still down.  For those who actually read the transcripts, check out Hussar's WLD Wiki and you can see the last couple of transcripts there.  Hopefully we'll be back in business before too long.  

I gotta admit, I really like the rasts.  I can see these guys being a REALLY nasty encounter.  I used a different mini for them  - the Evicerator from DDM and a different pic for the queen.  Whatcha think?

Godrast






and Queen


----------



## erucsbo

twilko said:
			
		

> I like it! I do have a couple of suggestions.
> <snip>
> Anyway, just a though for you.




nice - thanks Twilko. I think I'll interpose the hourglass between the looking down the hole and seeing the sleeping forms as I want to emphasise the difference in time and that time is marching on and almost gone, but consider the descriptions added - nice stuff.


----------



## chrisheff

Finally getting back to the campaign after more than 4 weeks off due to end of summer time constraints. Will post the update on my webpage when the next session is done.

Chris

http://www.geocities.com/cptzaphod/wld.htm


----------



## twilko

erucsbo said:
			
		

> nice - thanks Twilko. I think I'll interpose the hourglass between the looking down the hole and seeing the sleeping forms as I want to emphasise the difference in time and that time is marching on and almost gone, but consider the descriptions added - nice stuff.




No problems. It was just such a cool idea. My group are in E heading to F and then bee line for the Elves who they have heard about. Not sure that I want them to go north but if I do can I borrow you deam idea?


----------



## erucsbo

twilko said:
			
		

> No problems. It was just such a cool idea. My group are in E heading to F and then bee line for the Elves who they have heard about. Not sure that I want them to go north but if I do can I borrow you deam idea?




Absolutely.
btw - if they are heading to F and you don't mind giving them one of the keys ahead of time then I'd suggest having one be found on the body of a dead demon (there is a description of one in the empty rooms description fillers at the beginning of the book that has the demon's body regenerating at the same rate as it is being consumed by insects - or something like that). Had my players spend quite a bit of time making sure that the regeneration ended up being less effective than the bugs in order to finally kill it off, but they found one of the keys from F (thus how the demon was able to escape).

Also - you might want to run a trail of crumbs for Jolinaar's movements from I/M through to H in order to foreshadow meeting him, or if you have a druid / cleric of nature in the party then tie in the dream sequence with Belatu-Cadros (the celestial treant). Have the party members who are also garrison members carry either messages or perhaps some form of communication device to the garrison in G so that the two celestial garrisons can reestablish contact.

I'm also planning on having a low rumble from the lava river be audible/felt once the party is getting close to the edge of I, and would have also done so if they had headed through F. Any dwarves in the party should "feel" the stresses beneath their feet (harder to do in I because of Madness and Anguish and the flesh covering the walls) being caused by the lava flow and split where the earthquake had divided the dungeon.

I've told the garrison members in my group that there is a hidden self-destruct within the Tomb (region N), but that the garrison members in E did not know either what it was, nor how it worked. Perhaps if you want the party to go to N after H then some hints could be dropped by the garrison in E and elaborated upon by those in G.

Maybe they could find a elf in F who was trying to reach E from G but had gotten lost in the maze.

While there are good plots within each region I really feel that the whole scope of the place is dimished without having some overarching story threads to tie the whole thing together.
Good luck with region F.


----------



## Zweihänder

I'm about to get a game going, and, I must say, I've been overly kind with character creation.  I allowed any class AT ALL, and any race with a level adjustment of +2 or lower.  The party is as follows:

Atreus, the Human Scout
Malus the Forge, the Warforged Swordsage
Ninarika Shyam, the Aasimar Favored Soul of the Silver Flame
Jatter, the Kalashtar Psion
Donkor Hatmat, the Human Monk (who is taking Vow of Poverty right off the bat...)

We're going to be starting this coming Sunday.  I'll have a report for everyone at that point.

Also, I decided that there would be a Lantern Archon near the entrance to Region A, though a few rooms in, passing out Rings of Sustenance, since I don't want the PCs to die of starvation.  Unfortunately, the Monk screwed himself with VoP, since it forbids magic items.  Until he reaches level 5 (at which point eating becomes unnecessary), I'm gonna have fun giving him diseases.


----------



## erucsbo

Zweihänder said:
			
		

> I'm about to get a game going, and, I must say, I've been overly kind with character creation.  I allowed any class AT ALL, and any race with a level adjustment of +2 or lower.




just a heads up - because the WLD is restricted to SRD-compliant beasties you might find that your party gets through encounters easier than might otherwise be the case.

Oh - and pop in a sustaining spoon instead of the rings of sustenance. The spoon can feed up to 4 people, so they can scrounge for the extra food once the rations give out (and it is easy enough to dump the odd iron ration around - and makes it a valuable find). The rings would also allow them to get 8 hours rest in 2 hours - once again diminishing a little the tension and oppressiveness of the WLD that you can build. And have the Lantern Archon tell the party where they can find the spoon rather than just dish it out. Have fun!


----------



## Zweihänder

I figured they would be a bit overpowered, so I'm going to be scaling up every encounter.  Also, the sustaining spoon feeds four people, and four people are what need to be fed (as Warforged do not eat, sleep, or breathe).  Thanks for the input, though!


----------



## Hussar

Heh, you're nice than me Zweihander.  I let them starve.  They'd been eating whatever they could find for the first three regions.  I specifically nerfed VoP because it pretty much takes away all the disadvantages of the WLD.

The shadows in E are going to rip these guys a new one you realize.  No cleric REALLY hurts.  No arcane caster too is going to make things REALLY interesting.


----------



## Zweihänder

Hussar said:
			
		

> Heh, you're nice than me Zweihander.  I let them starve.  They'd been eating whatever they could find for the first three regions.  I specifically nerfed VoP because it pretty much takes away all the disadvantages of the WLD.
> 
> The shadows in E are going to rip these guys a new one you realize.  No cleric REALLY hurts.  No arcane caster too is going to make things REALLY interesting.




The disadvantages they face in the future are why I don't feel guilty.  Though, you know, the Swordsage can take several maneuvers which are awfully similar to arcane spells (particularly the ones from the Desert Wind discipline).


----------



## Dracorat

erucsbo said:
			
		

> just a heads up - because the WLD is restricted to SRD-compliant beasties you might find that your party gets through encounters easier than might otherwise be the case.
> 
> Oh - and pop in a sustaining spoon instead of the rings of sustenance. The spoon can feed up to 4 people, so they can scrounge for the extra food once the rations give out (and it is easy enough to dump the odd iron ration around - and makes it a valuable find). The rings would also allow them to get 8 hours rest in 2 hours - once again diminishing a little the tension and oppressiveness of the WLD that you can build. And have the Lantern Archon tell the party where they can find the spoon rather than just dish it out. Have fun!




Part of the conversation with the Lantern Archon in my game went like this:

"It was decided that no monster could kill himself. This is a prison and death is too easy an escape. It became obvious that we couldn't let a monster die of neglecting themself either, so part of the magic of the prison is that you are constantly nurished while here. Over time, the magic has broken down and while the nurishment continues to thrive, monsters can kill themselves now. This hasn't turned out to be a large problem as most of the monsters that are here now were born here and do not remember a time when it could be any different. So they hunt because they don't know of anything better to do..."


----------



## Zweihänder

Dracorat said:
			
		

> Part of the conversation with the Lantern Archon in my game went like this:
> 
> "It was decided that no monster could kill himself. This is a prison and death is too easy an escape. It became obvious that we couldn't let a monster die of neglecting themself either, so part of the magic of the prison is that you are constantly nurished while here. Over time, the magic has broken down and while the nurishment continues to thrive, monsters can kill themselves now. This hasn't turned out to be a large problem as most of the monsters that are here now were born here and do not remember a time when it could be any different. So they hunt because they don't know of anything better to do..."




That's the smartest thing I've ever seen anyone type, ever.  Would you mind terribly if I copy-pasted it into my game?


----------



## Dracorat

Go right ahead! And thanks!


----------



## Jim Hague

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Absolutely.
> btw - if they are heading to F and you don't mind giving them one of the keys ahead of time then I'd suggest having one be found on the body of a dead demon (there is a description of one in the empty rooms description fillers at the beginning of the book that has the demon's body regenerating at the same rate as it is being consumed by insects - or something like that). Had my players spend quite a bit of time making sure that the regeneration ended up being less effective than the bugs in order to finally kill it off, but they found one of the keys from F (thus how the demon was able to escape).
> 
> Also - you might want to run a trail of crumbs for Jolinaar's movements from I/M through to H in order to foreshadow meeting him, or if you have a druid / cleric of nature in the party then tie in the dream sequence with Belatu-Cadros (the celestial treant). Have the party members who are also garrison members carry either messages or perhaps some form of communication device to the garrison in G so that the two celestial garrisons can reestablish contact.
> 
> I'm also planning on having a low rumble from the lava river be audible/felt once the party is getting close to the edge of I, and would have also done so if they had headed through F. Any dwarves in the party should "feel" the stresses beneath their feet (harder to do in I because of Madness and Anguish and the flesh covering the walls) being caused by the lava flow and split where the earthquake had divided the dungeon.
> 
> I've told the garrison members in my group that there is a hidden self-destruct within the Tomb (region N), but that the garrison members in E did not know either what it was, nor how it worked. Perhaps if you want the party to go to N after H then some hints could be dropped by the garrison in E and elaborated upon by those in G.
> 
> Maybe they could find a elf in F who was trying to reach E from G but had gotten lost in the maze.
> 
> While there are good plots within each region I really feel that the whole scope of the place is dimished without having some overarching story threads to tie the whole thing together.
> Good luck with region F.




FYI, folks, if you have any questions about the Elves' region, I'll answer what I can (I helped with some character personalities and worked out Gutless and Spineless), and will be more'n happy to relay questions to Jennifer, who wrote that Region up.   If you're looking for a good source of information in F, I'd suggest hitting up Pardek a bit - once the characters can get past him being bitter and curmudgeonly, he's been through a few of the Regions.  Of course, there's always dealing with Sil or the demoness there instead...


----------



## Zweihänder

Dracorat said:
			
		

> Go right ahead! And thanks!




Come to think of it, I'm going to modify it a bit.  The nourishment effect will still be going... but only in areas that are still a) in good repair, or b) still suffused with positive energy.  In other words, not Regions A, D, G, H, J, K, L, M, or O.

Beyond that... I haven't read the book cover-to-cover, but something's bothering me...

How are PCs supposed to do regions K and L?  I mean, some of those events take place in excess of 500 ft below the surface!


----------



## erucsbo

Zweihänder said:
			
		

> Beyond that... I haven't read the book cover-to-cover, but something's bothering me...
> 
> How are PCs supposed to do regions K and L?  I mean, some of those events take place in excess of 500 ft below the surface!




remember that region K is levels 10-12 and L is 12-14.
Water breathing is a 3rd level spell, and alter self 2nd - so potions are an option here.
Necklace of adaption and pearl of the sirenes will also take care of water breathing (not to mention Helm of Underwater action).

By the time the party tackles those regions they should be able to handle them (also provided that you have dropped in the appropriate items for them considering your lack of spellcasters).


----------



## Hussar

Realistically, K is a VERY short region.  There aren't a lot of encounters there, although a honking big dragon is always a blast.

While water breathing and Freedom of Movement spells are great, I wouldn't bet on the party actually going that route.  Any weakness that instantly kills PC's the first time they get whacked with a dispel magic isn't one they are going to be keen on.


----------



## rvalle

Ok... there was a thread on Enworld for a while: "Do you pull a lever in a dungeon?" or something like that. I have the definitive answer... at least for my group.   

After being chased by Madness out of I, the group decides they want to go and retrieve the Holy Bastard Sword (Vronil?) that they lost to the Baghest. 

As a heads up, I let them know (though Keldara) that the ghost down in E is now gone. (After several knock down drag out fights I figured the Baghest have had enough and they left. I figured they went to B as there is some notes about them having contact with them in their Goblin form). 

So the party wanders around the Baghest section checking each room. At the far E side there is a room that has a lever in it. The new guy (Rogue 1/Monk4/Sorc 1/Dragon Disciple 2) says he'll pull the lever. But... shouldn't everyone get into the room first? Oh yeah... good idea. Everyone piles into the room... the lever is pulled and the floor drops out of the room!

I told them "This is why people DM... moments like this!"      

After that the party went back to I and managed to meander right into Madness' home. 

When we left the game for the night the party was running from Madness. Everyone was out in the hallways but for one fighter who was still in the middle of the Vestibule room. He has just been blinded by Madness and is moving towards the door. Madness has just sprouted wings and is lifting off the ground (that got a "Oh my god" from one of the party members). We'll take it up next game with rolling for Init.

I changed the room description just a little. Instead of the ground being soggy I had the floor being super flesh covered like the walls were. As the party walks they sink down to their knees in the flesh. I told them its like trying to walk on a waterbed. So far no one has tried to move > half speed. 

rv


----------



## chrisheff

Session 9 updated:

http://www.geocities.com/cptzaphod/wld.htm


----------



## twilko

Hussar said:
			
		

> Heh, you're nice than me Zweihander.  I let them starve.  They'd been eating whatever they could find for the first three regions.  I specifically nerfed VoP because it pretty much takes away all the disadvantages of the WLD.
> 
> The shadows in E are going to rip these guys a new one you realize.  No cleric REALLY hurts.  No arcane caster too is going to make things REALLY interesting.




Yeah but watch those damn clerics and their purify food and drink. My lot have been living on dire rat and dark mantle jerky for a while now.


----------



## twilko

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Absolutely.
> btw - if they are heading to F and you don't mind giving them one of the keys ahead of time then I'd suggest having one be found on the body of a dead demon (there is a description of ... Large znip.




Thanks for that erucsbo. Good ideas.  

Only one of my party is Lawful Good and none have joined the Garrison. I used the Negative energy wave from Worldeater creating zombies idea that is on this thread, but that just encouraged the party to get out ASAP.

Can't wait till they get to G!


----------



## rvalle

Has anybody still reading this run Madness yet? I'll have to check BBR's postings again...

Here is the thing... Gibbering Mouthers are different in the SRD vs MM and WLD in some significant ways. 

Per MM and WLD if a target is hit by a mouth he is drained 1 con point a round. If hit by 3 or more he can be engulfed and attacked by 12 mouths. Once inside the target can not attack. There are no rules for getting out implying that his friends outside have to kill the Mouther or the target inside will die.

Per the SRD a bite does not do con damage. When hit by one bite the GM can attempt a grapple. If it wins it engulfs the target and then starts to do 1d4 con damage per round. The target can 'cut' its way out (I say 'cut' as Madness has DR 15/Magic and Blunt) for 5 points of damage from the inside.

I'm waffling about which way to go. I like the con damage per bite but I like there to be some way to get out once inside or its going to be a death sentence. It probably will anyway...

rv


----------



## rvalle

*The NEW Madness*

I've desided to mix the two.

Madness will:

Attack as normal and drain 1 con with each bite. The bites can be smashed off with blunt weapons. I'm thinking of letting them be cut off but it causes no damage to Madness. Maybe the cut pieces will crawl back and be absorbed by Madness. 

If 3 or more mouths are on a creature it can be engulfed. Once inside the creature will take 1d4 con damage per round. If he is able to cause 5 points of blunt damage he can escape. If he can cause 5 points of slash damage he can 'cut' a hole in the dough like body of Madness and atempt to escape with another grapple check.

rv


----------



## Dracorat

Zweihänder said:
			
		

> Come to think of it, I'm going to modify it a bit.  The nourishment effect will still be going... but only in areas that are still a) in good repair, or b) still suffused with positive energy.  In other words, not Regions A, D, G, H, J, K, L, M, or O.
> 
> Beyond that... I haven't read the book cover-to-cover, but something's bothering me...
> 
> How are PCs supposed to do regions K and L?  I mean, some of those events take place in excess of 500 ft below the surface!



 That's the bueaty of that writeup - if it happens to not work somewhere, it makes sense!


----------



## Zweihänder

The prep is finally done for my game.  I'm so excited!  Last time I tried to run the dugeon as a whole... well, we just stopped halfway through Region B...

Last time I tried to run a piece of the Dungeon, though, was at Albany Gameday V, in which a group of six rat bastard PCs beat Region A (Longtail and all) while STILL AT LEVEL 1.

...GRRR!!!


----------



## erucsbo

twilko said:
			
		

> Thanks for that erucsbo. Good ideas.
> 
> Only one of my party is Lawful Good and none have joined the Garrison. I used the Negative energy wave from Worldeater creating zombies idea that is on this thread, but that just encouraged the party to get out ASAP.
> 
> Can't wait till they get to G!




Glad you  like the negative energy wave idea. Suggestion: when they get to G and can hear the Trumpet Archon's song through the region, have the tone change (key change or major to minor, or tempo change, or something else musical) when the wave rolls through and then back again when it (and the souls it picked up) ebbs back to N. Will be interesting how that effects F as well, considering the random effects of the doors. You could have souls (I had high Knowledge Religion or Planes rolls I think) to sense the passage of the souls through the area getting lost/disoriented by the doorways - and interesting effects could be caused by lost souls coming across empty bodies    - extending the whole body swap routine being employed by Durtenian Vaielle (the elven mage).


----------



## Zweihänder

Oh, crap, guys...

My game starts in 52 minutes, and I still don't have a backstory for them; i.e.: why are they in the dungeon!

I figured out I want it Eberron-based, specifically centered around Sharn.  Can anyone help?


----------



## rvalle

Sorry, I don't know Eberron at all.

I had them chasing Longtail. The powers that be figured out he was trying to let loose a 'dark army' and sent the characters to stop him.

rv


----------



## harlequinjester

*ideas*

I just had the evil cleric in the party lead them in (laughing wickedly)


----------



## Zweihänder

I ended up saying that Longtail and his Orcish retinue attacked Sharn, before moving on to the WLD.  The account of the first session follows:

(Note: Ninarika's player did not show up until about 2 hours in.  I NPCed her until he did show up.)

The party started their adventure by examining the Titan outside the WLD for a good fifteen minutes, which had me worried about the way the game would progress.  After this, however, they got down and dirty.  There was a slight hang-up in A1, where they were afraid of the 1-way wall of force, but Jattar had his Psicrystal scout ahead, so they knew it was okay.  Upon entering A2, the first thing that Atreus does is poke the trapped door (and subsequently get blasted by Burning Hands for 1).  They then go over to the Orcs, who had laughed, and interrogate them.  They are frustrated because they can get no response.  At one point, Donkor just hauls off and wallops one of them, almost killing him (he doesn't kill the orc, because he minimized his damage).  Atreus tries to improve their mood by making them laugh more, so he goes and pokes the trapped door again (taking another 1).  This doesn't work, and they eventually give up.

After exploring each of the outlying rooms, the party settles on A8.  The encounter with the darkmantle in room A9 was HILARIOUS.  They all ACTIVELY SEARCHED THE CEILING, and still failed to see the Darkmantle.  It ended up dropping on Atreus' head, and attaching itself, almost killing him when it rolled the high Initiative.  The resulting struggle drew the attention of the dire rat in the next room, which ended up biting Jattar (who got a 6 on his Fort save).  After dispatching the threats, they moved on to the four bedrooms (A12-15).  Atreus scouted ahead, and noticed 1 of the 2 darkmantles in A15.  They stealthily dispatched the rats in A13 first, so they wouldn't have to deal with a pincer attack.  When they finally did assault A15, Atreus got latched onto by the first darkmantle, which Donkor then killed with a sling bullet.  The second darkmantle immediately attached itself to Atreus' head, which brought him to 0.  Jattar tried to shoot it off, but... he hit Atreus, bringing him to -6.  It was great.

When they finished that encounter (which is around when Ninarika's player showed up), they headed to A11, and then A20.  This was their introduction to secret doors, which they henceforth searched for OBSESSIVELY (they also did so for darkmantles).  They proceeded to A69 and dealt with Boyikt and his merry men, though Atreus was fairly well reamed by the Krenshar.  Then they went to A72, and A21, and BACK to A20 (due to their obsessive searching for secret doors).  Since I was running out of room on my hex grid (yes I use hex, shut up), they decided to explore further north, via A16.  They saw the stirges from the hallway, and a super-high Knowledge (Arcana) check from Ninarika told them that THEY DID NOT WANT THESE THINGS TO LATCH ON TO THEM.  They ended up moving stealthily enough that the stirges didn't even notice them, so they took out half of the force in a surprise round, and the other half before they could move, due to high Initiative rolls.  They proceeded east, then north, and in the door to A24, a room which, surprisingly, did not even faze them.  They proceeded to A23, and Donkor obsessively checked every single pillar.  On the off-chance that one of them might figure out the room, I had the word "illusion" inscribed into the backside of each pillar in Syranian.  Sadly, Donkor took this to mean the pillars were illusory, and, after failing to disbelieve an illusion that wasn't present, he gave up.  In the next room, they met Bragdor.  Donkor just sort of waltzed in, and Bragdor chased him behind a pillar, and smacked his hp away with a single hit (max hp to disabled with one hit... ;p).  Malus rolled high on the Init, however, and moved to flank.  He then unleashed a Sapphire Nightmare Blade, and criticaled, doing 22 points of damage, and causing the Ogre to surrender (I gave them the XP for this, and Donkor and Atreus leveled up).  I went a different direction with this, and had him go ahead and follow the PCs.  They asked him if he would be willing to turn on Longtail, and he said yes... they didn't ask about Orghar, though... (teehee...)

They then went to A25, and (with the help of Bragdor) destroyed the dire rats handily.  This leveled Jattar up, and he took a level in Soulknife.  He was totally prepared to be a melee fighter... and then the disease hit.  His Str dropped from 10 to 6, and... well, he cursed me out.  ^_^  They explored A26 and A27, and then went ot A28, where they met Turag.  Bragdor helped coax him out of hiding, and the PCs (mostly Atreus, to be honest) convinced him to follow them.  That's where we left off.


----------



## Dracorat

Sounds a lot like how ours went. =) It was fun. Although my party kills everything that twitches. And I do mean everything. Those orcs. Dead. The helpful PCs. Dead.

=) Good times.


----------



## Zweihänder

Yeah, I thought they were gonna totally destroy those Orcs, but... I guess I was wrong.

Ninarika has really been amusing me.  The character is super-timid, and everyone just calls her "heal-bitch".  She pouts a lot.


----------



## Hussar

Sounds cool Zwei.

Just managed to whack my longest living PC last week.  Jiru, the Favoured Soul was not so favoured as she got swarmed by the regular sized Rasts in J.  First time I'd ever used these beasties.  They are NASTY.  I know they're only CR 5, but, lots of attacks and that improved grapple just went to town one her.

Check out the Stupidest things My PC's have Done thread for the _other_ casualty of the evening.  Sigh.


----------



## rvalle

Hey Hussar (or anyone else),

Did your guys end up going though F?

Whats to stop someone from just opening and closing a 'warp gate' door till they get the result they want? i.e. back to where they came from.

The text for F1 is kind of confusing... it says that leaving from F2 is impossible because of the warp gate but then says if F2 is rolled then it opens like a normal door into F1... where the person opening the door can leave. So its NOT impossible.

I'm thinking of putting a 10 min timer on the door. Once linked it stays linked for 10 min before it resets. It would not stop the above but at least make it take some time. Time for some random encounters.  

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> Whats to stop someone from just opening and closing a 'warp gate' door till they get the result they want? i.e. back to where they came from.



I'd make it so that the destination changes after something passes one way through the door.
So - open door, close door, open door - same location no matter how many times.
Open door, someone goes through, close door, open door - 89% chance of being a different location.
Open door, someone goes through, comes back, close door, open door - same location.



			
				rvalle said:
			
		

> The text for F1 is kind of confusing... it says that leaving from F2 is impossible because of the warp gate but then says if F2 is rolled then it opens like a normal door into F1... where the person opening the door can leave. So its NOT impossible.



yeah - that's just stupid.
use the text on the Warp Gate Locations table that says "If the roll of the die indicates the Room in which the PCs are currently standing, ignore the result and roll again".
So - F1 -> F2 works like a normal door.
F2 - roll on the table (and end up with one of 9 possible destinations - none of which are F1).

Side note - there is no direct way to get from F to G (except via the lava river) - so if your players are planning on heading to G via F, they will probably either need to make a side trip back through B and C, or J and K. The Garrison in E should know this (and prossibly not even know about the river of lava route).


----------



## Hussar

Heh, I cheated.  I skipped F because trying to do those warp gates over OpenRPG would be a serious pain.  I ran the Return to White Plume Mountain instead.  

On another note, I will be making an announcement shortly for a new home for the WLD Project.  I've got a few irons in the fire, so it might be possible to find a new home for all that work we all did.  Stay tuned - when I find a spare bit of time, I'll set it up.  To call my idea skeletal at the moment misses out on all those other good words, like emaciated and anorexic.


----------



## rvalle

Thanks guys!

I think 'I' had finally beat my group. After 2 fights with Madness they are ready to head to 'F' and tangle with the Minitors. 

Hussar, I found your map on F (I think its your map). Its a thing of beauty! Though I'm trying to get it to print up on multiple pages so I can see the small text. Thats the same problem I had with my DM maps. 

rv


----------



## Qwillion

Long overdue update

My players have defeated the Hell champion and the Prime Lich (though the lich used a spell to possess one of the player characters so he has the prime lich in his head)

They are going to visit the mummy preistess, next, that will be a pure roleplay encounter she has learned of the parties power and has decided to just give them the keys, she has gained control of the levers taking advantage of the weakend position of the other two warlords, she is going to open the way for the party to reach her.

The party is now considering if they want to go looking for a certain red dragon (I want to use my collossal red dragon icon)

I need to go to "Toys are too expensive"  and see If i can find a good represntative for the Worldeater.  Maybe I can find a .wav file with the sound of the worms roar from Dune too.

The party still thinks that the doors lead to a portal that leads out of section N


----------



## chrisheff

Session 10 updated:

http://www.geocities.com/cptzaphod/wld.htm


----------



## Hussar

Rvalle, I have never tried to actually print those out, so I have no idea if it's even possible.  They are always on my computer, so, I'm no help there.

Well, I think my old host is perhaps mouldering in the grave, so I humbly invite all those who would like to participate in the World's Largest Dungeon Project to check out our new home at Hussar's World's Largest Dungeon Forum  I'm in the process of sticking up my .doc files in the DM's forum, so, if you want access, PM me there and I'll set you up.


----------



## rvalle

Hussar said:
			
		

> Rvalle, I have never tried to actually print those out, so I have no idea if it's even possible.  They are always on my computer, so, I'm no help there.
> 
> Well, I think my old host is perhaps mouldering in the grave, so I humbly invite all those who would like to participate in the World's Largest Dungeon Project to check out our new home at Hussar's World's Largest Dungeon Forum  I'm in the process of sticking up my .doc files in the DM's forum, so, if you want access, PM me there and I'll set you up.




I did print it out... it is possible.    I really like how you have the colors and the list at the bottom.

To bad about the WLDP.  Did we lose all the maps and such then? I should still have most of them on my computer from when we scanned them in (I think).

I'll hop over and join up.

rv


----------



## Hussar

Thanks Rvalle.  Those maps have been an absolute godsend when playing.  My actual maps have been opened once to scan and then carefully stored away again.  I play entirely from those maps.  With the notes, like open doors and locked stuff and whatnot, I find that it's just so time saving.

I really don't know if Shadows of the Dragon is going to rise from the grave or not.  It's been over a month and they are still missing a part.  So, I went ahead and rebuilt what I could.  I have most of the room descriptions in doc files, so, that's not a biggie (although I DON'T have region A.  Gack).  I figure that the new Picasa image hosting would work extremely well for sticking up the maps and minis.  It's on my to do list.  Hop on over to the new board and add what you can.


----------



## Hussar

Well, I did it.  I started up a board to run the WLD project from.  I've been busy putting up the info that I have on my 'puter and would love for others to come and take part.  Check out the spiffy new (well, ok, not so spiffy, sue me) forum here


----------



## Zweihänder

Session 2 of my World's Largest Dungeon game!

(Ninarika's player was absent the whole time)

The PCs began this session in the room in which they met Turag.  They proceeded west, then north, then east, through a lot of empty corridors, until they reached a room in which a troglodyte and a darkmantle killed each other (A30).  Donkor was initially opposed to exploring, because it smelled bad (wussy, for a monk).  Atreus makes a disparaging comment to that effect, and gets smacked.  They then proceed to the area with the four forges, going first to the one inhabited by stirges (A37).  They see the stirges, and back off.  They then go to the one inhabited by rats (A39), which they destroy.  They also explore the intact one (A38) and the 'sploded one (A40), in which Ninarika notices a +1 Short Sword which can still have a spell placed in it.  So she does the logical thing, and uses Divine Power.  The sword is now, for the purposes of dealing damage, a +2 Short Sword (though it still only bypasses damage reduction as a +1 Short Sword).  So they then rest, and go to tackle the Stirges which they previously bypassed, which proves fatal for their good friend Bragdor (I mostly just didn't want him to be with them forever), as all 6 Stirges in the room latch on to him.  This, of course, leaves them unable to attack the other party members, who deal with them handily.  They have a moment (and I do mean a quick moment) of silence for Bragdor, and then move along.  They go east, and then north, and HEY THERE'S A SECRET DOOR!!!  Oh, wait, we can't open it from this side... oh snappu!  Good thing, too, because that would have led them to Longtail's Chapel (A103), and they weren't ready for that yet.  So they go north a bit more, and run into an ornate door (I didn't want them heading to E, so I brought in the thing from B), which is TRAPPED LIEK WOAH with a Glyph of Warding.  In other words, fiddling with it = instant death.  So they then went south through empty passages, and east, until... is that light?  From behind that door?  That door that exploded in their face when it was opened?  Oh happy day!  They met Kahliss and Sliss'th (A96), who also swear vengeance against Longtail.  Before they leave this area, though, the party feels it necessary to explore A95, despite being warned of a Lightning Bolt trap in the lintel (which Atreus eventually eliminates).  They then look around the... empty room.  There are shackles on the wall, and, on a hunch, Jattar locks Turag up in a set.  Nothing happens.  And... uh oh, they aren't opening.  Atreus unlocks one, but fails to get the other, so... Turag was out of luck.  Kahliss hung back, and, as the party left, he shot Turag in the face.  Jattar noticed, but didn't care much.  They go back west, and north, and east, and west, and... wow, there are some odd noises coming from behind that door.  Let's investigate... that looks kind of like a bear.  With owl parts.  Why would somebody make one of those?  Anyway, the party kills the Fiendish Owlbear with surprising ease, though they lose Kahliss in the process.  Sliss'th summons a Flame Blade towards the end of the encounter, but doesn't have a chance to use it.  At least, not yet...

Looking west, they spy an odd, swirly thing.  Looked kind of like a portal.  So, Jattar sent his psicrystal to investigate.  It got pecked at by an imp, though it was impossible for the imp to get through its hardness.  On the downside, the imp alerts Longtail, who walks out, sees the party, and goes invisible.  He rolls high on the initiative, and decides to say "screw invisibility, I want them dead".  FIREBALL.  It hits everyone but Ninarika.  Jattar, actually, is brought to one hit point.  He flees, as does Donkor, as does Ninarika (not wanting to be left behind with the scary rat-thing).  Atreus, Sliss'th, and Malus, on the other hand, want to kill it dead, and so they charge in, melee weapons a-swingin'.  They back Longtail into a corner, and, after much swinging of swords, manage to put him down (though they almost didn't... Atreus got put to sleep, Malus wasn't getting through the DR, and Jattar, when he joined, could only hit on a nat-20, so it was really mostly Slissth).  After his defeat, and some token resistance, Achsyyx (the imp) surrenders.  In exchange for its life, the imp tells how to close the portal... a creature from the Prime Material Plane must be forced through.  It then uses Suggestion telepathically to compel Sliss'th to volunteer for this suicide mission.  It wasn't until afterwards, when the imp left cackling, that the party realized that perhaps there was another way... or perhaps they could have used Longtail's corpse...

Oh well.

They head east, and enter a nondescript room (A113).  However, Atreus steps on a panel which takes him to an airtight room (A114), which is not ideal.  Not at all.  In the process of finding the way back, he also finds three silver daggers (which would have been helpful against Longtail, the party laments).  They then pass through a room with a malfunctioning trap (A111), which they clear away to get through, and a really hot room with a SUSPICIOUS PLATE ON THE GROUND (A112)!!  ...they leave it alone, much to my dismay.  They exit this room, and...

NEW REGION!  And a new DM.  I rolled a d3, and it came up as my girlfriend, who is on this forum as PeerWon.  Seeing as how she has never DMed before, I help her along.

The party enters at, conveniently enough, B1.  And trigger a pit trap.  Oh, Atreus, you and your badly failed Search checks...  They then go north to B2, and investigate some writings on the wall (which end up being graffiti).  Searching around, they discover a secret door to B4, and a dagger.  B4 is an armory, and... well, they don't really take anything.  Donkor replenishes his supply of sling bullets, but that's it.  Onward, and forward... to another trap.  A tripping chain and a portcullis, which nearly trap Atreus (though he is dragged out from underneath by a combined effort).  Then they eplore a room full of... mirrors (B6)?  They enter... and THE DOOR SLAMS CLOSED AND TURNS INVISDABLE!!!  God I love this room...

That's where we left off this session, with the party being stuck in the mirror room.  WHO WILL SURVIVE?  Find out next time!


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## Hussar

Oh Abandoned Halls of the Celestials - how you make my heart warm.  I had a player die four times in this area.  Honestly.  His fifth character is a paladin/monk/Pious templar, so, basically, he can NEVER fail a save anymore.


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## rvalle

I'm mining for ideas again.

It looks like the party is going to get Mahirs books and give them to the snake lady. As a rough idea, this is what I think will happen.

She'll look over the stuff for a few days. After that she gives the party the Ritual of Unmaking. Then she locks her doors and keeps them that way for 2 weeks. During this time she uses the books and notes to reverse her Dark Naga form while keeping her Dark Naga powers (the goal she is trying to obtain). She then takes over the Drider Nation, crushes the Rebellion and continues experiments on the drow.

Ideas: what changes will she have when changing form? I've thought of: Looks like a Drider, looks like a Drider but with snake scales, has the body of a spider but the front part is still snake.

What changes in her powers would there be? I was thinking of adding 2 or 3 levels of Sorc to her.

Oh... just had an idea. Lets see... besides giving them the ritual she lets them know where that double sword is at with the idea they will use that sword and take it with them. Then she locks up, changes, takes over. If she has contact with the party after she makes a deal... leave me alone and you'll have free passage to J with no hinderance from her or hers.

rv


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## twilko

rvalle said:
			
		

> Ideas: what changes will she have when changing form? I've thought of: Looks like a Drider, looks like a Drider but with snake scales, has the body of a spider but the front part is still snake.




Drider like but with the drow half longer and more flexible than normal.



			
				rvalle said:
			
		

> What changes in her powers would there be? I was thinking of adding 2 or 3 levels of Sorc to her.




I can't remember what classes she has, and I don't have WLD here with me, work gets upset about that, but wouldn't wizard or Cleric be more approriate?

Have you looked at prestige classes from BVD?


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## Traevanon

This might be a silly question:  Who besides Invistis, Kasteofiscis and Vinarra has the 4th key to the World Eater?

My group stopped right after encountering Invistis Saturday night and they already have the keys from the Mummy and the Ghost.  They are now all 18th level.  Invistis is getting a boost to 22nd level.  It should be another great fight in the Tomb of the Unliving.


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## rvalle

twilko said:
			
		

> Drider like but with the drow half longer and more flexible than normal.
> 
> 
> 
> I can't remember what classes she has, and I don't have WLD here with me, work gets upset about that, but wouldn't wizard or Cleric be more approriate?
> 
> Have you looked at prestige classes from BVD?




Dark Naga's have 7th Level Sorcerer spells. I think this is the 'power' that she is trying to keep when she switches forms. Though it looks like she would only lose 1 level (Driders have 6th level Sorc.).

I don't currently have BoVD though I might be picking it up soon.

I guess this change really wouldn't cause an increase in power but I like the idea of it doing so.

rv


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## BlueBlackRed

Traevanon said:
			
		

> This might be a silly question:  Who besides Invistis, Kasteofiscis and Vinarra has the 4th key to the World Eater?
> 
> My group stopped right after encountering Invistis Saturday night and they already have the keys from the Mummy and the Ghost.  They are now all 18th level.  Invistis is getting a boost to 22nd level.  It should be another great fight in the Tomb of the Unliving.



Double-check, but I think one of them has 2 keys.
But it has been 10 months since I cracked the book open...

I know I boosted Invistis to 21st level and all it did was get a standstill, twice.


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## Hussar

A snake drider would look a lot like a Neogi.  Not sure where it's been updated to 3.5 though.  Might make for some interesting ideas.

LOL, had a new player today.  He stepped up to one of the GodRasts and promptly died.  First encounter of the evening, his first encounter with the group.  Dead in one full attack.  Those things are death on toast.  I like.  

They've now retreated into the halls with the locked up wyverns.  Shock and surprise, when they saw the suspicious lever, THEY DIDN'T PULL IT!  After those lever threads on here, I was so sure they would.  I guess a year in the WLD has made them fairly paranoid.


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## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> Shock and surprise, when they saw the suspicious lever, THEY DIDN'T PULL IT!  After those lever threads on here, I was so sure they would.  I guess a year in the WLD has made them fairly paranoid.





Nah.  Unless a setting favors recklessness, only a fool pulls an unknown lever.  What people claim in polls, and what people do in game play, are often different animals.


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## rvalle

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> Nah.  Unless a setting favors recklessness, only a fool pulls an unknown lever.  What people claim in polls, and what people do in game play, are often different animals.




Hah! My group did it. All moved into the room and pulled the lever. Then the floor dropped out from under them!

It was one of the best WLD moments ever (for me.    ).

rv


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## rvalle

Hussar said:
			
		

> A snake drider would look a lot like a Neogi.  Not sure where it's been updated to 3.5 though.  Might make for some interesting ideas.




Thanks Hussar!

http://www.angelfire.com/games/Alterniverse/dragonstar/The_Neogi.pdf#search="Neogi"

If I decide to go that route I'll use that picture.

rv


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## Hussar

My lot have pulled more than a few "levers", be they pots on pedastals, gems in strange statues, or what have you.  Now up to 18 PC deaths in 60 sessions.  They've certainly learned caution.


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## rvalle

You know what we have to do now? Make the doorway out only work when you pull a lever.

 

rv


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## twilko

rvalle said:
			
		

> You know what we have to do now? Make the doorway out only work when you pull a lever.
> 
> 
> 
> rv




Oh that is evil and I love it!   

My group found the room in E , near NE corner, that was the pit trap and managed to avoid. Then they came to a similar room to the south of that one and spent half and hour real time trying to find and disable the pit trap they thought was there. Mind you I had placed a trap sword in one of the empty rooms near by which they fell for without checking...three times in a row! Man I'm having fun!


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## rvalle

So after I think my group is heading to F they keep going to "I". Though there are mutterings about oozes and icky walls. 

The Snake Lady in I is arranging for a Drow Rogue to show up to help the party get into Mahir's study. She told them to come back in a few days.

They try to find it on their own but, as the parties one rogue type character had died and the player made a Rogue 1/Monk 4/Sorc 1/Dragon Disciple 2 they have NO chance of finding those DC 30+ secret doors.

The Dragon Disciple player is the one most wanting to leave "I". He is 'done with Oozes. Lets go play with the Minotaur ."  Since they are waiting for the Rogue to show up the party, led by Dragon Boy,  decide to look into F a bit and then head back to "I".   Oh boy thinks I...

Even though I'm using Fantasy Grounds and mapping is going to be an issue I want to try this. I tell the group that I didn't have time to get a map ready for them and so I will be hand drawing one. They take this in stride.

I had pre-rolled the two Gate doors in the N hallways. The party gets to the S one and open the door. It leads to... F62? N side on the E side of the Broken Axe area. First guy walks though... he's LG (and a Garrison member) so nothing happens. Dragon Boy walks though... Gets Confusion and Rage dropped on him. Fails his save, rolls for action, attacks the LG party member. Rolls a 20, confirms the crit and does 46 points of damage with a long spear.

The gnome bard on the outside of the room sees what is going on and casts a Calm Emotion spell. Dang bard... it automatically drops the Rage AND the confusion effect for as long as the CE spell is up (8 rounds). 

Dragon Boy apologizes... so sorry, ect, ect. LG fighter is none too happy. I'm still doing things round by round. LG fighter moves back though the door keeping an eye on the back stabbing party member. 

Dragon Boy moves E though the room and into a hallway. LG fighter follows. Gnome Bard moves though but I don't make him make a save as he is a Garrison member. Lizardman Druid (from A) moves though the doorway... makes a Fort save vs Paralization and makes it but tells the party something weird happened when he went though the door. Halfling Sorc moves though... same save but fails. Dragon Boy moves back into the room and that is when the Bards Calm Emotion wears off. Dragon Boy attacks the helpless halfling with a bite and a claw (other claw missing). Bard casts another Calm Emotion spell.

Dragon Boy quits. Says that's it... he's heading back to the Garrison, he's had enough. Moves back though the doorway and is blinded. Lizard man moves back though and is deafened. 

Everyone moves out. As the Bard starts to head to the door it starts to close (I didn't like the text in the book about it closing when all the party members have moved though. How does it know? I figured it would close after 1 min.). Bard hops though the door and it closes. 

LG fighter ponders... and opens the door again. It now opens up to a new room! He moves though and looks around and then heads back out.


I was so close to getting them trapped in there! So close...

I bet I don't hear any more mutters about 'going to play with the Minotaurs' .  

rv


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## Hussar

I chickened out of running F.  Too hard to do on OpenRPG.  If you want to run F though, check out Dragon's Demonomicon article on Baphomet.  Would fit the setting to a T.  If I were to run F, I would make the teleport rooms actually open up into a seperate dungeon sort of thing with tests.  The crazy group of minotaurs would be Baphomet worshippers and the others just straight up minotaurs.  Stuff some powerful artifact to Baphomet in the teleport test maze and it could be loads of fun.

Ah well, not going to happen.

Actually that idea somewhat morphed into my idea for Region J where Serphine or whatever her name is, has used the portals from A to open a portal to the Far Realm.  Opening her crypt will allow the Far Realm to invade the Dungeon.  Killing her will close the portal.


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## twilko

Hussar said:
			
		

> I chickened out of running F.  Too hard to do on OpenRPG.  If you want to run F though, check out Dragon's Demonomicon article on Baphomet.  Would fit the setting to a T.  If I were to run F, I would make the teleport rooms actually open up into a seperate dungeon sort of thing with tests.  The crazy group of minotaurs would be Baphomet worshippers and the others just straight up minotaurs.  Stuff some powerful artifact to Baphomet in the teleport test maze and it could be loads of fun.




That's exactly what I'm doing, sort of. I have the minotaurs as one tribe, Marulki (spelling?) the Broken Axe chief locked in the prison area, the possesed Grauki (Drennean?) in Marulki's old quaters and an aspect of Baphomet instead of Grauki in the throne room.

The minotaurs have in the last few months released one of the inmates, an aspect of Baphomet, and have taken to worshipping Baphomet at it's command, led by Grauki, and imprisoning or killing those who oppose. The Aspect has taken to torturing Marulki until he submits to the worshuip of Baphomet. He'll be in a very bad way when the party finds him. The Elf Drennean who now possses Grauki's body is in a dilemma, he can't expose himself by denying the demon, by knows that if the whole thing goes on much longer then the minotaurs will control the whole region. Already they have begun forays against the Inevitbles.

I'm going to scale up as WLD seggests so I think the party is going to have enough problems as is without going off and doing extra challenges, but it is a cool idea.


----------



## Bigwilly

*Friday 13th*

Had a very fun session on Friday night. Playing very slowly as we only get together every couple of months. Party is currently in section C. Last session ended after the defeat of a feral ghoul (C49ish), but not before it got a hit in on 4 out of 5 of the party members.

The party (all level 7): 
LN human cleric of St Cuthbert 
CN orc cleric of Gruumsh
NE human master thrower multiclass
N elven necromancer
LE drow blackguard (+ 2 ECL so actually only lvl 5 - important)

The master thrower has been roleplaying a fear of undead (immune to crits) and tends to run away when they appear, hence he was the only one not bitten by the ghoul. 

Any the party rests up and everyone gets to save vs ghoul fever. The drow fails her save. Neither of the clerics has cure disease memorized so they decide to move on anyway. The next section is a maze with fake, trapped doors. The master thrower fails a spot trap roll (I find that a lot of the basic DCs in the book are pretty high and have fudged a fair few just to prevent the PCs getting stuck) and attempts to open one of the fake doors. Possibly for the first time in his entire career he makes the open lock check...and triggers the cloudkill. Goblin NPC slave croaks immediately. Master thrower and the two clerics both save but still take CON damage. The drow fails her save and as she only has 5 HD also croaks. 

The rest of the party pull the drow out of the cloud and attempt to revive her, but it's clear that she's dead. Then her eyes open and she tries to bite one of the party (she is now a ghast). The master thrower wets himself. The cleric of St Cuthbert recovers quickest (makes a knowledge - religion check to work out what's happened) and blasts her with searing light. It doesn't quite kill her and she makes the most of the opportunity and bites the master thrower. He saves vs paralysis but I ask him to make the throw to see if he gets ghoul fever and he rolls a 1. The master thrower soils himself. Hilarity ensues.

Party retreat to safe spot and heal up before continuing. Next section is the trial of just or some such where party members need the Mark of Righteous just to get in. Within seconds of giving the mark to the cleric of St Cuthbert, the rest of the party attack the archon and kill it. Then after most of the party have put their weapons on the rack and can't get them back the orc refuses and heads off into the section with the giants. 

The cleric, wizard and m.thower go through the trial. The cleric is fine only needing one save at the end - which he makes. Both the other end up level drained, blind, deaf and with -6 to their STR scores. In the meantime the orc has dined with the giants and been sent to his doom towards the trapped spectre. He managed to bypass a crushing trap by using stone shape and break the first of 4 locks on one of the doors, but not before he gets cursed (-6 wis is not good for a cleric). Unable to break the other locks and not thinking clearly he goes back and persuades one of the giants to help. Some rolls later they succeed in breaking down the door and freeing the spectre which goes on to kill the orc and the giants and is now roaming that section with his 4 servants. 

2 PC kills + 1 NPC. Motto for the day: 13 is an unlucky number for some.


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## Hussar

Oh dude, that's sweet.  Trying to do C with a semi-evil party would be brutal.  When the paladin went through the trials when I did C, he was death on toast afterwards.  Holy, axiomatic attacks all at +3 to hit and damage.  Gack!

Nice one.


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## Bigwilly

The LN cleric does now have an axiomatic mace (for next 5 game days anyway). Neither of the other characters got anything. Biggest problem for me now will be how to bring in 2-3 new characters next session.


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## Hussar

The Box is your bestest friend.  Take a look at the Neetersoft site and download the pdf.  I don't have the linkie right now, but, it's not too tricky to find.  The Box idea is just the sweetest thing.  Think the Luggage from Discworld and let it work as your Deus Ex Machina du jure.


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## jim pinto

*Magic Item Story*

Just saying hi.

Had a story to share after seeing the post about a BOX.

I made a magic item for a game once that was essentially a malfunctioning bag of holding. It has centuries of stuff stored in it, but you couldn't store anything else in it.

The way it worked is... you closed it, and said... "I need a SANDWICH."

And every sandwich that had ever been stored inside it would be there when you opened it.

If you closed it, the items were "cataloged" again.

If you wanted a sword, chances are it had 30 or more already stored in it.

So, you had to be specific, otherwise, it produced EVERY sword it contained. And then it would take another day before you could ask for any swords again.

You could, of course take an item out of it, but putting one is was rarely successful.

It was a fun gizmo for getting them what they needed. I think I had a chart of sorts for what could be in it, but mostly I just winged it.

Of course, it was full of coins and gems, which would be valueless in the WLD.

And the unreliable nature of the "teleport" would fit certain regions of the dungeon very well.


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## Hussar

As a prezzie to the orc barbarian for surviving 25 sessions without dying, he gets to reach into his pocket/backpack/orifice and draw something from this table.  It's been loads of fun.


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## rvalle

Hi Jim!

That device sounds like fun. Unfortunatly I recently was reminded by a post made by Hussar that things like Bags of Holding don't work in the WLD.

I had a character with a Quiver of Elonar that holds lots of arrows, javelins and spears. After seeing Hussar's post I let him know the quiver stopped working once he entered the dungeon. 

What stops them from working is that they can not access the extra-dimentional space. Maybe some other magical effect could be used to get that item to work.

rv


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## Hussar

Well, a sort of whatchamacallit from Star Trek would work.  Transporter technology to synthesize whatever.  That sort of thing works in the WLD.  Some sort of goody with Major Creation a few times a day.  Set it to random.

Just had a fantastic blow out fight today.  Loads of fun.  The party is in J, traveling from Ring 7 to Ring 3 and have to pass over the big pit trap the fire giants dug.  They travelled to the edge of the pit, 5 feet entirely by chance and sent the halfling to go scout.  Halfling goes out and scouts and comes back telling them about the "big, nasty looking red guys."  That was her exact description.  So, they dither about plans and then finally go forward.  

Halfling first and stops in the middle of the trap.  Kobold second, stops in the middle of the trap.  Orc barbarian third, trap gets triggered (finally), sending the halfling thief 100 feet to the bottom, the kobold and the halfling pally on the north side of the pit and the barbarian to the south.  They begin pulling up the halfling.

Out pops the Giant taskmaster.  Hijinks ensue.

During the fight with the giant, everyone except for the kobold bard heads over the pit in various ways and battles the giant.  Then, out pops the honking big fire elemental that was snacking on the wyvern to the north, which the halfling thief saw but neglected to mention to anyone.  

Hijinks ensue.  

The kobold bard manages to make the jump to safety after getting swatted a few times by the fire elemental.  Fire giant goes down, fire giant number two shows up and attempts to bull rush the halfling paladin into the pit.  

Fails. Sigh.

Fire Elemental attempts to climb around the pit.  Kobold bard drops a grease spell and the fire elemental goes splat into the bottom of the pit.  The paladin and the orc barbarian assist with the halfling thief putting on the kill of the fire giant.

Now the fire elemental is trapped in the bottom of the pit, with the party frantically dumping whatever on top to kill it.  Unbeknownst to them, three more fire giants have heard the commotion and are coming up from the south.

Next week is going to be fun.


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## Dracorat

rvalle said:
			
		

> What stops them from working is that they can not access the extra-dimentional space. Maybe some other magical effect could be used to get that item to work.




While true, my party would kill just to have a bag of holding. They are level 7. And I'm not convinced I'll ever give them one =) I like the inventory management they have had to deal with so far. The look on their faces as they have to decide between the scrawny battle axes or the chainmail coats. The heavy steel shields or the longswords...


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## Hussar

Heh, one of my players, with his replacement character, had his PC appear in the WLD sitting in a small rowboat in the middle of a room.  Nice sight gag and everyone giggled.  Fast forward past Region C and they stumble across those Marvelous Pigments in Nardarik's hoard.  They use the pigments to put wheels and whatnot on the boat and have been towing it around with them ever since.

Although, they recently lost it (again) after the Rast ambush a week or so ago.  Will have to see if they hunt to get it back.


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## Xiag

*Suggestions Needed:  Orc Campaign*

Well, my party finally got to and defeated Longtail.  They had a relatively easy time of it due to good team work and a lucky crit against the Imp (crit from a fighter with a greatsword, and of coruse he rolled 12 for damage... the imp only got 2 rounds before that)  In my game, sealing the portal strengthened the wards on the dungeon, trapping them inside.  Until then, only evil creatures were trapped inside.

So, they decide to double back, and get the mining equipment from one of the rooms near the entrance.  Half the party stays and secures one of the workshops as a new base camp, and the other heads out to get some equipment, hopefully to tunnel up and out.  On the way back, we have our first casualty (if they'd stoped to rest after the Longtail fight, this wouldn't have been a problem).  So, the player wants to replace his character with a half orc barbarian.

I COULD just give him an xp jump and start him with the party.  But I hate doing that.  The first few levels are always formitive for the character, so, I'm thinking this:  Run him through the orc's raids on the kobolds and lizards.  What I'm looking for is suggestions on how to make it more interesting.

Thanks


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## rvalle

I'm keeping all my characters the same level no matter what. New characters start at the same level as the existing ones. If you try to level up each new one that shows up its going to be a problem at high levels. Plus, you have a body count like Hussar does, it will end up taking lots of time.  

Half-orc: Long-tail had some Orcs with him... he could be a survivor or got seperated. Or, as you say, part of the existing group that is still there. Or he was not with Longtail but survived the fights and was seperated from the main group of Orcs.

One thing to consider... this will pretty much stop any chance of the characters having a friendly encounter with the surviving kobolds. 

Hmm... as a half-orc barb maybe the orc leader kicked him out as being too powerfull and a threat to his leadership. Made up some charges (collaberating with the Kolbolds) and booted him.  That would make him hostile to both groups and could be fun to boot.

rv


----------



## Hunter0441

*Mapping*

How is everyone handling mapping in the WLD? I was using tracing paper to map out sections for my players, but this was time consuming and left the players out. Any suggestions?


----------



## rvalle

Hunter0441 said:
			
		

> How is everyone handling mapping in the WLD? I was using tracing paper to map out sections for my players, but this was time consuming and left the players out. Any suggestions?




Ahh, this is one of the BIGGEST reasons I like using Fantasy Grounds to run WLD. Second right behind being able to play from home. 

The one time I ran a face to face game we used a some dungeon tiles (that snap together to and form a surface with a grid on it) and dry erase markers. It was also time comsuming but we used the same mat to move the figures on. As they hit the end of the board we grab the ones off the back end, erase them and put them in front.

rv


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## Dracorat

I use MapTable. It rocks and has the additional benefit of being free.


----------



## Xiag

rvalle said:
			
		

> I'm keeping all my characters the same level no matter what. New characters start at the same level as the existing ones. If you try to level up each new one that shows up its going to be a problem at high levels. Plus, you have a body count like Hussar does, it will end up taking lots of time.




I'm putting some things in play to help have everyone with a backup character in play, so they won't have to come into the dungeon at 1, but they'll still have to cut their teeth somewhere.  If nothing else, I'll do one off adventures that take the players from level 1 to 2, to let them grow into their character before their stats overwhelm who they are.



			
				rvalle said:
			
		

> Half-orc: Long-tail had some Orcs with him... he could be a survivor or got seperated. Or, as you say, part of the existing group that is still there. Or he was not with Longtail but survived the fights and was seperated from the main group of Orcs.
> 
> One thing to consider... this will pretty much stop any chance of the characters having a friendly encounter with the surviving kobolds.




That's the plan.  Found somewhere durring the exploration by the rest of the party, still wounded from the battle.  I completely count on the druid taking mercy and keeping him alive, even though they are travling with the last surviving kobold.  Since they are responsible for his current psychosis (the kobold rolls a will check or freaks at the site of bodies), they're very protective of him.



			
				rvalle said:
			
		

> Hmm... as a half-orc barb maybe the orc leader kicked him out as being too powerfull and a threat to his leadership. Made up some charges (collaberating with the Kolbolds) and booted him.  That would make him hostile to both groups and could be fun to boot.
> 
> rv




What I'm looking for is ideas on interesting adventures the Orc leader may have given his group before the final raid.  At the final raid, I'll be sure he's eventually overwhelmed and wounded somewhere for the players to find and bring into the group.  Questions like:

What would have been in area A BEFORE longtail brought his group in?
What might have caused everyone to snap and faction off?
Did the orcs have any plans on escape?  Or just hang out till they die?


----------



## Xiag

*Mapping*

I'm an evil SOB when it comes to mapping.  For me, that was one of the coolest things about dungeon crawls.  Slowly unveiling the map for yourself, and seeing what clues you can piece out of it.  Circumstance bonuses for when they sustpect a secret door in an area due to map clues are common.

I have a table tile system (1" = 5') I use with mini's.  They have to draw the map by hand, and since they were too cheap to buy the lined paper, they're doing it all on plain, white, paper.

Honestly, for a guy who's never played D&D before, and never EVER had to map anything, he's doing a fantastic job.  I'll be scanning it and putting it on my site.  The only thing he does different from me is that he uses X instead of [] for doors.

The most fun is the couple times they've had chases, and I've given him 6 seconds worth of round to draw on his turn, while trying to keep up with the group.  Or the times people have run off without the map, and I just describe their way around instead... only giving left and rights...


----------



## Dracorat

When I draw doors they look kind of like:

/|


----------



## rvalle

From what the book says, it seems like there wasn't much there before Longtail shows up. Just traps and random death. I guess that could be changed at will. Large bugs (from E even), goblins from B, 1 wandering Shadow to scare the bejjebies out of him. 

The Orcs didn't have a plan for getting out. They were trusting Longtail. Silly Orcs.

So 1 of 2 things. Have him fight random low level things as they (him and other orcs) explore A. Or make up parts of the fights between orcs and kolbolds. From the room discriptions you can get an idea of how the fight went. There were outposts and raids on said outposts. He can be in on one of those. And then when the wave of Fiendish creatures pour though the dungeon...

rv


----------



## erucsbo

Hunter0441 said:
			
		

> How is everyone handling mapping in the WLD? I was using tracing paper to map out sections for my players, but this was time consuming and left the players out. Any suggestions?




RolePlayingMaster with a projecter attached to my laptop and projected against the wall of the room we game in. Works extremely well. I paid for it before Fantasy Grounds and MapTable came on the scene (several years ago) and display the player map on the projection while doing reveals on the DM map on my screen.


----------



## Hussar

I use OpenRPG, pretty much the same as Fantasy Grounds except that it's free.  And, yeah, with the Fog of War option, it's pretty much the easiest way to run the WLD there is.  Projector on the wall would be grass too.

Or, be like some people, hang the projector from the ceiling.  O.O


----------



## twilko

*Mapping*



			
				Hunter0441 said:
			
		

> How is everyone handling mapping in the WLD? I was using tracing paper to map out sections for my players, but this was time consuming and left the players out. Any suggestions?




Not being so up on technology and not having a budget to keep up anyway, we use a Battlemat and I, usually, have all the rooms predrawn on overhead transparency sheets. Only thing is that it is a lot of work to prepare for a session. Then again my group only got through 2 rooms last time around (F20 and F21. Minotaurs are such fun.   )


----------



## Hussar

Something that might work, although it would take a while to prep.

Photocopy the maps and then blow them up.  Or scan them, blow them up and print them, which would likely be easier since you could remove all the stuff the players shouldn't see before printing.  Then print on 1" scale.  If you do print, I'd do a lot of cutting out of the walls and the like to save on ink.

Cut up the maps and store the parts in one of those slip cover things that you use for storing baseball cards.  Label the lot as you go along.  IIRC, you'd have to blow up the maps about 400% to get 1" sized squares, meaning each map would be about 16 A4 sheets.  Not too hard to handle.  Just slap down the bits as they travel along.

Dunno if this would work, but it might speed up play quite a bit.


----------



## Hussar

*An update vis a vis LEVERS*

Three sessions, count em, three session, my players dithered about pulling the lever in the 7th ring of the Pyrefaust.  Finally they did.  Released five of the bloody huge wyvern dragons.  They whacked one barely while the others went elsewhere to let out all the other dragons.    Pyrefaust is about to become very, very inhospitable.

All in all, Region J is now my bestest, most favourite region.  The party is cut off from retreat, scared, low on hit points and lost.  Yeah baby Yeah!

See, players ALWAYS pull the lever.


----------



## Raven Crowking

Hussar said:
			
		

> See, players ALWAYS pull the lever.





And it ALMOST ALWAYS whacks them in the ass!


----------



## Hussar

Oh hell, of course.  It wouldn't be fun without a whack on the ass.


----------



## Traevanon

RE: Levers

What gets my players are fake doors.  They will spend hours pounding at a fake door.  I think they are obsessed with completeness.


----------



## erucsbo

Quick Q - than a game recap.

I29 - _Crossfire_, under tactics, says "... PCs must weigh the damage to determine what is worse. Each of them getting scorched or"
My copy of the book cuts off mid-sentence. Is this the case with everyone's?

Party went through here last night. They managed to just make the spot DC for the blackened walls, and thus managed to avoid the trap. Just prior to passing through here they found I19, got grossed out, but still managed to find the chapel key.

btw - sorcerer was down 20 hitpoints so the cleric cast CSW on him. rolled 8,8,7 which for C8 means 31 hps - so 11 more then his maximum. Time for some fun. I've been playing on the positive energy in the area and they are scared of letting their hp drop below their Con (especially as one of the dwarfs [who wasn't present] picked up the Curse of Anguish [now has Cha = 2]). I said that normally when healing spells channel more positive energy than required to fully heal the character that any excess just spills away. But here there is nowhere for it to go! Too much and bad things can happen. So - roll d20 and try and beat the excess hp that you got. He rolls 10. Doing this on the fly I said that he now has headaches for the next hour that require concentration check to cast. Will have to find something else that makes more sense [suggestions welcome] - but it served its purpose - they are now really panicking about using too much AND too little healing. I also ruled that the clerics can make a healing check to be able to adjust the number of hitpoints given by their healing spells - but ONLY for memorised cure spells (not spontaneous), and only to the extent of the static bonus (so for a CLW the d8 is not adjustable, but the cleric can determine how much of the +5 is added).

From Crossfire they went east - so much for building up to a meeting with Siglinde!

I28 - _The Damned Corridor_ - became more than a description - it became an expression.
NPC drow finds no trap on the door leading from I29 to I28, so door is opened and after the room description I take note of the actions of each character. All present party members (5) move in to the room and stop. - Next round the trap activates. Cleric, sorcerer and Mystic Theurge all slide to the bottom. Fighter/Evoker manages to active a ring of levitation, and straight fighter make a reflex save to grab the corner of the open portal to the south. F/Ev then pulls out a grappling hook and takes 5 rounds to have it catch on the southern portal - pulling himself to the portal during his move action - while the glowing light now moves to being over the pit  
With the waves of exhaustion having taken effect the spellcasters who are at the pit bottom are easily grappled and telekinesed behind the now open porticullis. (I had the porticullis drop down in to the ground with a metal bar running across the top.
The F/Ev casts Fly on the fighter and then the fighter pushes the F/Ev to where the other characters are. The F/Ev unshrinks his 'itemed' chest and puts it on top of the porticullis to try and stop it from raising - as the Wall of Ice starts to form.
He manages to make the reflex save to stop it from forming - so I ruled that it got reduced to its component form - the Mind Fog. Meanwhile the fighter was trying to take out the ball of light, finding his sword just going _swish _ through the air. F/Ev fails the save vs. Mind Fog (so -10 willsaves (now -4) and -10 on will based checks for the time spent in the fog and 4 minutes beyond). The sorcerer uses shadow magic to summon an air elemental, and rolls low enough to make it real! then uses it to keep the mind fog at bay.

Now that the Wall of Ice is no more the porticullis is going to rise, but the chest is slowing it down (cue grinding noises). Party manages to make their way to the passage to I34 with flying fighter ferrying the NPCs across the pit. Next round scraping noises join the grinding. Party is still moving to I34.
Then crash and a slam as the chest gets tipped off the rising porticullis, and now free of the weight of the chest it slams back up - so the chest belonging to the F/Ev is now trapped behind the porticullis.
It is left for now while the party checks out I34. The disco description works well, with the cleric casting Daylight and starts dispelling the motes that emanate deeper darkness.
The sorcerer finds a scroll! - reads it, and thus activates the Baleful Polymorph curse - result a Toad. (made it a Cane Toad as it seemed appropriate for the setting)   
One failed dispel magic later the party decides that with spells running low, and most of them still exhausted from the trap, to hole up in the small opening east of I34.

F/Ev goes to try and retrieve his chest, figuring that he can reach through the bars and cast shrink item again. He asks "Can I reach it through the bars?" He is a dwarf - so short arms   so I say 80% of being in reach - roll percentile. He rolls 19%! It is at this point that he discovers that he can deliver touch based spells with his familiar - so chest rescued.

After turning the toad back in to a sorcerer, they head south, eventually finding the chapel (I25). Due to the negative energy present here I decided that it would be devoid of all the positive enegry growths, and also experience the negative energy wave from the World Eater in N. So the drow bodies twitched and moved slightly when the wave flowed and then ebbed through the room. It reinforced to them the bigger picture and reminded them again of what they are supposed to be aiming for.

So - no combat, no NPC interaction, but a challenging and enjoyable session was still had by all.


----------



## harlequinjester

*Map E*

My players are looking to go to Map E, and I have been reading about the All-Doors, and can't figure out half of them on the map. How did any of you run it, or did you just ingmore the all-door stuff


----------



## rvalle

Before my players go into a new region I always check http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=57&sid=60a780b4a26226a144b51e854fc793e5    for eratta. There were several mapping issues with the All-Door but they are not that hard to figure out using the errata. 

I used the All Door as something the Garrison was interested in getting back along with the Ward Staffs. Once they returned the door the Garrison gave them a bunch of magic items and they had access to other mundaine gear.

rv


----------



## twilko

*All Door Maddness*



			
				harlequinjester said:
			
		

> My players are looking to go to Map E, and I have been reading about the All-Doors, and can't figure out half of them on the map. How did any of you run it, or did you just ingmore the all-door stuff




Check the errata as mentioned. There seem to be a lot of problems with the Map for E, particluarly if you use the extra rooms that are in this thread in a much eariler post. In the end I decided it was easier to ignore non connected rooms on the map and create my own rooms that were connected to the All Door and explained it that they were secret known only to certain garrison members and thus not on the map. This also allowed me to add extra rooms that held all the EVIL stuff taken from the inmates.


----------



## chrisheff

Session 11 updated:

http://www.geocities.com/cptzaphod/wld.htm


----------



## rvalle

Hussar, do you have a 'dm' version of the J map? I don't see one on your WLD page.

Just wondering. If not I'll work on one.

rv


----------



## Hussar

Whoops, yup.  I'll upload it anon.


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> Hussar, do you have a 'dm' version of the J map? I don't see one on your WLD page.
> 
> Just wondering. If not I'll work on one.
> 
> rv




Is Hussar's RegionJMasterMap (http://150.101.101.161/wld/RegionJMasterMap.jpg) the one you were after?


----------



## rvalle

Yes! Thank you. Hussar posted it but at a lesser resolution and I couldn't read the text on my monitor. 

I love these maps!   

When I was reading though the book (without looking at a map) I though it was set up in 'ring' fashion where you work into the center. Now I know better.  

Question... the book says something about the Dragon working his will though the powerfull magic items that each ring has. Has anyone worked that into their game?

rv


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo, do you know what the diff is between the two J player maps you have hosted?

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> erucsbo, do you know what the diff is between the two J player maps you have hosted?
> 
> rv




The maps that I did?

PlayerJ contains all the areas.
PlayerJb contains all the areas except those only reachable by secret doors.

PlayerJ is useful for DMs who use electronic maps to show players where they are.
PlayerJb is in case the DM wants to hand out a map (without giving away the locations that are hidden). I did a similar thing with the Kelara map for E and the Serenneth maps for A and B, but those were doctored more to the final result (which have been given out to my players). PlayerJb hasn't been doctored yet because there is a good chance my players won't go there and I didn't feel like doing the extra changes until I needed to.


----------



## rvalle

Ahh, nice. 

It looks like the main way out of J is K. Or along the lava river into N. I hope my group takes the same way as Hussar's so I can keep using his maps.  

Going back to read BBR's postings of J. I can't remember if they fought the Dragon or not. I think they did but it wasn't that tough a fight...?

rv


----------



## rvalle

Wow... J is going to be interesting.

Reading though BBR's WLD blog he's had 3 character deaths so far (1 from a behir and 2 from giants). I think my group is weaker then his if for no other reason then we don't do the Haste spell the same way his group did. 

AND... they will probably be hitting J at only 9th level as they are tired of I. They are 8th now but I'll bump them to 9th before they go into J.

I'll have to find Hussar's postings (I think he has some) and see how its going for them.

rv


----------



## twofalls

*Wow... this thread is still alive*

I haven't been haunting enworld for nearly two years, the fact that this post is still going strong really is impressive!


----------



## erucsbo

twofalls said:
			
		

> I haven't been haunting enworld for nearly two years, the fact that this post is still going strong really is impressive!




welcome back.

I find this thread one of the most valuable resources available for DMs running WLD, and as I'm still running it, will continue to use it.


----------



## erucsbo

My players have found Mahir's cache.
Detect Secret Doors made fairly short work of the diabolical locks guarding the book of Rituals, and I also threw in a pot with some doses of Halruaan Great Elixir (from the Shining South) as well as the Fountain of Fortune's Folly that was in Dragon magazine a while back. Both seemed appropriate for the forces and magics involved.

They encountered the phasm and didn't fight it - after discussions started getting a bit edgy and they picked that the room was set up to look the way it did, it triggered the gas trap and the party retreated. They have stocked up on the bogus reagents though so may have some fun with that in the future.

Lots of fun with the drider statue that locks the doors to the cache, once they realised that they could talk to it instead of just simply answering the questions. I even threw in the line that it wasn't a simpleton like the ones from "Sirius Cybernetics Corporation" who derive pleasure from opening and have their satisfaction in knowing that they have done a good job. - Not sure where they will head next session, so I better start reading up on Section J just in case they are too scared to head north.


----------



## rvalle

My group also found Mahir's cache... with the help of a Drow rouge supplied by the Snake-lady.

They found the book and I also used this as a chance to give the characters some magic items as they are a bit low. They found a +2 Bastard sword, a +4 Cha cloak, a +1 icy burst sickle, an amulet lf +2 Natural Armor and an Ion Stone that gives +1 AC. 

They gave the Book to Snakey. After a few days she found the Ritual of Unmaking and gave it to the characters and kept the rest of the book. I think I'm going to turn her into one of the Spider Kings and she'll set herself up down in I. 

The group had given up on the Ritual as they heard what was needed in order to use it (those high Spellcraft rolls). They finally had the idea to ask Keldara if any of the Garrison Members could do it... She has a +17 Spellcraft skill as does her 2nd in command. After some thought she said she would be willing to do it but refused to risk both her and her 2nd.

The basic plan was to cast the Ritual onto Madness and then fight Anguish when he showed up. As the group had not met Anguish yet they went off to see what he was all about.

Knowing he was to the W they went straight to his lair. He swooped down, did his lighting bolt and landed to fight. 

3 rounds later he was 'dead' with minimal damage to the party.  

Thinking that was easy and having never really stopped to fight Madness they headed over to 'finish this'. 

I've been giving Madness a 50%-50% chance to be lying in wait for the party since he knows they are around. He was... so he was waiting in a hallway trying to be quiet. The party heard him gibbering anyway... (gobble-gibber-shhhhhh-blork-splirt-sshhhhhhh) and backed off. He came out and moved to engage the party. 

First round he does 50 some damage to the high AC fighter taking none in return. The party realizes that Madness is NOT Anguish.

Round 2 the halfling cleric of war moves up to join the fun. As he did NOT have a Freedom of Movment cast on him (as the main fighter did) he took 40 some points of damage and was grappled by the little mouths.

The main fighter tries to sunder one of the mouths. He does 18 points with his axe... - the 15 points for it not being a Blunt weapon he JUST manages to cut it off as it streaches all the way to the floor before breaking.

One of the other characters hits it with Sendar's Holy Spear. Not only does it NOT flash for extra damage (Madness is N) most the damage closes back up. 

The little hafling gets away as another Freedom of Movement is cast on him by another Cleric. He moves away but this leaves her next to Madness.

57 points of damge and 3 mouths attached to her... the Cleric of War casts a FOM on her (dang that spell!) and everyone runs away.

Net result: about 150 points of damage dealt out by Madness and he took 5 in return. 

The party DID get a chuck of Madness to use for the spell though. 

Next game they try to Ritual. I think I'll take a page out of BBR's book and let them cast it twice. Either that or Angish learns to leave them alone.

Though... I'd like to make Anguish a bit tougher as he was a total push over for the group. Maybe with the idea that each time they 'die' and come back they are tougher (and Madness has had this happen to him more which is why he's tougher). 

Any idea other then just adding some HD to him?


----------



## jim pinto

*quixotic*

for reasons i cannot comprehend, i find myself wanting to a... play in this thing... or b... run it...

i'm not sure why

but perhaps since my gaming in the last year has been reduced to almost nil, i find myself eager to play something "nostalgic", although with my own homebrew adaptations

is anyone running this thing in southern california?

how is everyone doing, by the way

good to see you back, two falls

btw...

anyone know of a better system than meetup for finding gamers in "your area"


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> My group also found Mahir's cache... with the help of a Drow rouge supplied by the Snake-lady.
> 
> They found the book and I also used this as a chance to give the characters some magic items as they are a bit low. They found a +2 Bastard sword, a +4 Cha cloak, a +1 icy burst sickle, an amulet lf +2 Natural Armor and an Ion Stone that gives +1 AC.




I want my group to have to battle a bit before getting more goodies (the elixir and fountain notwithstanding). They are getting used to taking the diplomacy route now, which is extremely encouraging.

Q: Mahir's book of rituals. This is a book of rituals for _sorcerers_. How have people approached this? - specifically? I'm considering allowing the wizards to use it to learn new spells normally, but also allow sorcerers to use the rituals to replace spells they currently know with others in the book. But I'd need to limit this (1/week? 1/level? 1 swap/day?)

thoughts and comments welcome.


----------



## rvalle

Hey Jim, welcome back!

All I can suggest is playing via a virtual table such as openrpg, Fantasy Grounds, or one of the others out there.

I got tired of waiting for our DM to start again... knowing he would drop it once a new computer game came out and that I could only make 1 game in 4 anyway.

Hope you are doing well.

rv


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:
			
		

> I want my group to have to battle a bit before getting more goodies (the elixir and fountain notwithstanding). They are getting used to taking the diplomacy route now, which is extremely encouraging.
> 
> Q: Mahir's book of rituals. This is a book of rituals for _sorcerers_. How have people approached this? - specifically? I'm considering allowing the wizards to use it to learn new spells normally, but also allow sorcerers to use the rituals to replace spells they currently know with others in the book. But I'd need to limit this (1/week? 1/level? 1 swap/day?)
> 
> thoughts and comments welcome.




Err... hmm. I didn't look at it that way. I just said it was a book filled with spells and lab notes. Everyone, me included, just assumed it was for Wizards. What you say makes sense though.

1/level works I'd think. Let them do 2 on those even numbered levels where they would be able to swap one out anyway.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> Err... hmm. I didn't look at it that way. I just said it was a book filled with spells and lab notes. Everyone, me included, just assumed it was for Wizards. What you say makes sense though.
> 
> 1/level works I'd think. Let them do 2 on those even numbered levels where they would be able to swap one out anyway.
> 
> rv




Mahir was a sorcerer and it came up earlier in the thread about it not being a wizard's spellbook per se, but rather a book of rituals that duplicated the spells. IIRC there was a product that was released around that time that covered Rituals that would have dovetailed nicely with it, but I haven't got that product, so my hands are tied in that regard.

Good call re even numbered levels - and I will allow them to use the book to swap a spell that is of higher level than they could do with the normal even level swap.


----------



## JoeBlank

rvalle said:
			
		

> Hey Jim, welcome back!
> 
> All I can suggest is playing via a virtual table such as openrpg, Fantasy Grounds, or one of the others out there.
> 
> I got tired of waiting for our DM to start again... knowing he would drop it once a new computer game came out and that I could only make 1 game in 4 anyway.
> 
> Hope you are doing well.
> 
> rv





Jim, you should create a fake name and try to get into Hussar's OpenRPG game! 

But truthfully, online gaming is not bad, although I prefer tabletop. 

And have you tried the player locator forums here on EN World?


----------



## jim pinto

i am not a fan of online gaming... i need the table top ... so i can do accents



but seriously, i prefer human interaction

and i was not aware of this "locator" thing of which you speak

i wish to know more... how do i subscribe to your newsletter (slightly botched homer quote)


----------



## Qwillion

Always good to see you Jim


I alas have completed the WLD (my party let the worldeater out on the theroy that alll the undead in the dungeon rejuvinate, that as long as the worldeater was in the dungeon that it would as wel, so they let it burrow out then hunted it down and desotryed it. 

I am off to play drow war book III the darkest hour 21st-30th as we are just burnt out on dungeon crawls.

Thanks for two years of yummy goodness.


----------



## JoeBlank

jim pinto said:
			
		

> i am not a fan of online gaming... i need the table top ... so i can do accents
> 
> 
> 
> but seriously, i prefer human interaction
> 
> and i was not aware of this "locator" thing of which you speak
> 
> i wish to know more... how do i subscribe to your newsletter (slightly botched homer quote)





The forum is called Gamers Seeking Gamers: http://www.enworld.org/forumdisplay.php?f=49

I understand about online gaming. It is no substitute for the real thing, but can be very fun in a different way.


----------



## rvalle

JoeBlank said:
			
		

> The forum is called Gamers Seeking Gamers: http://www.enworld.org/forumdisplay.php?f=49
> 
> I understand about online gaming. It is no substitute for the real thing, but can be very fun in a different way.




Yeah... and since we use TS/Skype for voice during the game I get to do accents.  

I am convinced my voice of Snake-lady (Darling!) is the only thing that has kept the party from attacking her.  

rv


----------



## Hussar

As an online gaming convert, I can say that it is a pretty decent way to go.  You just gotta be willing to work with the medium which means that DM prep work is completely different.  I spend the majority of my time googling images for the game and the rest surfing sound sites for background ambiance.

J has claimed a couple of casualties in my group.  One to blinding stupidity and a trap the other to simple bad luck - the favoured soul got mobbed by rasts.

However, J has taken a bit of a twist for me.  The party released all the wyverns and they managed to free the two Deva statues (bloody bard and lots of break enchantments).  I switched up the devas with Trumpet Archons sans trumpets.  The wyverns are currently trying to dig their way into Tyrus' prison and release Tyrus.  There's still 9 of them on the loose, all gathered together.  The party is about to launch an assault on them.  Should be a glorious fight.

I'm thinking they are actually going to be smart, draw off a couple of wyverns to mug first and then withdraw to rest.  Then go after the main bunch.  

On a side note, I would like to say that Truenamers work bloody great as cohorts.  I changed Fyrsil into a 10th level truenamer and he has become the cohort of one of the PC's.  It's worked great.  Healing after fights, buffs, funky movement.  Not stealing anyone's thunder, but just making the whole party better.

The party has gotten rather large of late.  Six PC's of varying levels from 11th to 13th, a Truenamer cohort and a pair of Trumpet Archons.  Against 7 CR 11 Fiendish Wyverns.  Should be interesting.  I figure the Behirs will come out to play if the fight is going to badly for the players.  Maybe a surviving giant or two.


----------



## rvalle

So, my group decides to go exploring instead of waiting around a few days while Keldara gets ready to cast the Ritual of Unmaking. So they head back to the W side of I.

They find the Chokers sitting around chanting. The chanters move a bit so they can see the party in the doorway but don't react in any other way so the party leaves them alone.

The party finds 'the Scuts'. The party starts to walk though the room and the Chokers react by screaching and starting to move to attack. The party backs off and the Choakers stop in the door way hooting and throwing things.

The group works their way aournd to the North and finds the Choker lair. Since the scuts were making so much noise to the S. everyone is in hiding and jumps the party as they cross the room (from W to E).

I know this is going to be a sad, quick fight. 5 8th level party members vs 17 hp Chokers... Instead of hitting the party with 4 and bringing in more each round till there are 3 per party member (per the book) I think the party with 10 and was going to bring in 5 more and the leader next round.

Round 1 lots of the Chokers go. The main high AC fighter/cleric starts to cast Enlarge. Most the party gets a Choker grappled onto them.

Round 2 the now large fighter takes a 5 foot step and kicks off Whirlwind. From where he is at he can hit every bad guy in the room. 9 attacks he hits and kills 8 of the 9. I deem that the rest run away in terror.  

The party talks about heading back and just waiting for the spell as they are, so far, not finding any 'stuff'. They decide to check one more room...

And find the Black Pudding by chucking a spoon with a light cast on it into the room. The high AC fighter turns and runs but the halfling sorc only does a half move and lets loose a lighting bolt. Because he did a half move he is not going to be able to move fast enough to keep away from the Pudding. The fighter moves back up to act as a dwaven shield. 

He hits the Pudding once splitting it. I gave the Axe its Holy damage against the Pudding. The dwarf made a reflex save and pulls the axe back out before the Pudding can grab ahold of it (how I described what the Pudding was doing that caused the Reflex save).

The other fighter in the group had cast Enlage on himself and attacks with a Holy Long Spear... hits and only does Holy damage splitting the creature yet again. He makes a refex save... and rolls a 1. I tell him that the creature grabs ahold of the spear and he starts to tug back. He pulls hard and stumbles back as it gives and he realizes he is now holding a well made staff.  

The dwarven shield was standing his ground. The Pudding needed a 20 to hit him and couldn't pull it off. Several rounds of Lightning Bolts and Holy Smites reduced the Puddings to pulls of steaming black liquid.

After having 3 Holy weapons in the group the party is now down to 1. 

Next game the Ritual and then the party heads to J.

rv


----------



## Hussar

Hehehe.  J is an absolute blast.  The party is currently planning on doing some hit and runs on the 9 Fiendish wyverns (death on wheels) to whittle down the odds a bit.  

This is going to be fun.  I figure if things get too hairy for the party, I'll toss in some of the regions other denizens to even out the fight.  Maybe a couple of the giants want some payback or the behirs who hate dragon, decide to get in on the action.

Hehehehe.  Also in the process of enlarging Serratine's area into a Far Realms incursion.  Will have to see how it goes.


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> Hehehe.  J is an absolute blast.  The party is currently planning on doing some hit and runs on the 9 Fiendish wyverns (death on wheels) to whittle down the odds a bit.
> 
> This is going to be fun.  I figure if things get too hairy for the party, I'll toss in some of the regions other denizens to even out the fight.  Maybe a couple of the giants want some payback or the behirs who hate dragon, decide to get in on the action.
> 
> Hehehehe.  Also in the process of enlarging Serratine's area into a Far Realms incursion.  Will have to see how it goes.




There's so much room to take Region J into an "old school" dungeon of its own. DMs that really want to expand this thing can GROW the map into anything they want and add dozens and dozens of monsters of their choosing.

I always thought it felt cramped and I was rushed on the re-writes, but this region has so much "cool" that it's hard to run it as is in my opinion... break that sucker open and make everything twice as big!

And of course, the fire resistant trolls are my favorite addition to the region.


----------



## Ozymandias

*Region H*

For Jim Hague,
long post...
My group has spent the last 3 sessions in H.
My group started in A as framed prisoners that were banished to the prison.  They went to B and picked up 2 new people (storyline: the two new addins were last remaining part of group lost to ghoul paladins).  Went into C and lost one member(warpriest) to the black dragon. Attempted to go North to G but retreated very quickly when they saw the Hezrou.  They went back to B and north into F.  F was a series of mishaps and we spent several sessions carting members around that had been stoned by the doors ro stricken insane and knocked out.  They met the replacement for the fallen priest, a tinker mage, in F and eventually flew east into G.  They split for recon purposes and had to get help from the Eladrin to avoid the TPK.  After many many skirmishes and retreats the party eventually succeeded and has moved east to H.  They lost 2 members (gnome bard and dwarven fighter) in G and were replaced by an aasimar cleric and a human paladin/fighter/kensai.  The human was dropped into H (pre-party back story) but wandered west into G where he was met by an archon patrol.  He was befriended and asked to go east as ambassador to the elves.  He returned for the final battle against the demon lords.  Upon the parties success (barely), they wanted to go east to possibly exit (paladin had mentioned the hole in the cavern ceiling).
So here they are:  stuck in the intrigue of the elves fortress.  They want to just fly out but have been told there is a powerful forbiddance and weather control magic preventing exit.  If they can prove their honor and the treant feels they deserve to exit, they may.
They have been on a permanent spin since then.  They have met Jolinaar and the elf and 1/2 elves automatically distrust him.  Thanks to the magic, he doesn't detect as evil.  They met Enoriel and thought he was an arrogant, delusional, jerk.  Gurthang was not much help to them since he is not happy with the current situation and they did not really convey much help in rectifying it.  They spent some time trying to understand the prophecy within the temple.  Jacan won't see them due to his sullenness.  
So now they wander the area.  They went to Enoriel's grove and tried to speak with him there.  It didn't go well and someone went so far as to say that Enoriel needs to die.  Of course I used this against them.  Jolinaar was able to steal a dagger from the Kensai and took the opportunity to attack Enoriel but he survived.  The party was asked to come to a council meeting and found it was a trial for them.  Long trial short, Enoriel states guilty and the other council members disagree.  Enoriel is enraged and states that the council is disbanded until a new non-corrupted council can be made and the party quickly retreats.

Now the party is doing their best to find out what the Heck is going on.  The elf tries to speak with Enoriel and ask about new developments and finds that Sharmiana has recently been more amorous.  They have consulted with Sharmiana who states she has rebuffed the druids advances.  She will provide aid if they assist with the pixie problem.  A quick trip tot he pixies and they discover the problem is an enchantment issue.  The pixies claim to have a new friend Dianthe and she always leaves to the south after visiting.  
They eventually get to Dianthe's lair and Dianthe presents herself as Sarah a fallen transformed angel.  The aasimar party member confirms her story (since he was raised in the region G garrison) but states he did not know her personally.  Sarah fingers Malachi as an enraged lammasu that has been assaulting patrols and throwing them into the lava.

So now they seek out the Lammasu to find out what he knows.
Listening to them at the table, it seems like they might have a finger on what is going on and then they lose it.  

Jim Hague, I have never been a big fan of political intrigue, etc., but this has been more fun than I thought.  The leaps (to conclusions) that the party keeps making have been quite fun.

Oz


----------



## erucsbo

Right turn Clyde.

After one of the party (Mystic Theurge) got feebleminded by having a quaff of "great elixir" that they found in Mahir's cache, I had the resident lantern archon appear and took her and two other no-shows back to the Garrison in E while the present party members pressed on. So - where do they go? Through the ignan door in to J.

They manage to retrieve the necklace before the lava swamps them, then they bump in to the Behir. Bloody sorcerers and scorching rays, plus the two fighters using power attack manage to drop it, but not before it managed to deal 30hp to 3 of them.

One of the fighters (F2/W6) has been using 'fly' to avoid most of the pressure plates and picked up the flaming sword - but then used his axe. I've ruled that once you interrupt the attuning process you can no longer be attuned to the sword.

They kept heading south along the corridor and after disarming the angelic statue trap found themselves at the crossroads between the door to F, and the river of lava to the north.

The fighters were happy that they finally got to have a hit at something after 3 sessions without a combat. Will be interesting to see if they decide to keep pushing through J or go back to I and head north.


----------



## Jim Hague

Ozymandias said:
			
		

> For Jim Hague,
> long post...
> My group has spent the last 3 sessions in H.
> My group started in A as framed prisoners that were banished to the prison.  They went to B and picked up 2 new people (storyline: the two new addins were last remaining part of group lost to ghoul paladins).  Went into C and lost one member(warpriest) to the black dragon. Attempted to go North to G but retreated very quickly when they saw the Hezrou.  They went back to B and north into F.  F was a series of mishaps and we spent several sessions carting members around that had been stoned by the doors ro stricken insane and knocked out.  They met the replacement for the fallen priest, a tinker mage, in F and eventually flew east into G.  They split for recon purposes and had to get help from the Eladrin to avoid the TPK.  After many many skirmishes and retreats the party eventually succeeded and has moved east to H.  They lost 2 members (gnome bard and dwarven fighter) in G and were replaced by an aasimar cleric and a human paladin/fighter/kensai.  The human was dropped into H (pre-party back story) but wandered west into G where he was met by an archon patrol.  He was befriended and asked to go east as ambassador to the elves.  He returned for the final battle against the demon lords.  Upon the parties success (barely), they wanted to go east to possibly exit (paladin had mentioned the hole in the cavern ceiling).
> 
> So here they are:  stuck in the intrigue of the elves fortress.  They want to just fly out but have been told there is a powerful forbiddance and weather control magic preventing exit.  If they can prove their honor and the treant feels they deserve to exit, they may.
> They have been on a permanent spin since then.  They have met Jolinaar and the elf and 1/2 elves automatically distrust him.  Thanks to the magic, he doesn't detect as evil.  They met Enoriel and thought he was an arrogant, delusional, jerk.  Gurthang was not much help to them since he is not happy with the current situation and they did not really convey much help in rectifying it.  They spent some time trying to understand the prophecy within the temple.  Jacan won't see them due to his sullenness.
> 
> So now they wander the area.  They went to Enoriel's grove and tried to speak with him there.  It didn't go well and someone went so far as to say that Enoriel needs to die.  Of course I used this against them.  Jolinaar was able to steal a dagger from the Kensai and took the opportunity to attack Enoriel but he survived.  The party was asked to come to a council meeting and found it was a trial for them.  Long trial short, Enoriel states guilty and the other council members disagree.  Enoriel is enraged and states that the council is disbanded until a new non-corrupted council can be made and the party quickly retreats.
> 
> Now the party is doing their best to find out what the Heck is going on.  The elf tries to speak with Enoriel and ask about new developments and finds that Sharmiana has recently been more amorous.  They have consulted with Sharmiana who states she has rebuffed the druids advances.  She will provide aid if they assist with the pixie problem.  A quick trip tot he pixies and they discover the problem is an enchantment issue.  The pixies claim to have a new friend Dianthe and she always leaves to the south after visiting.
> 
> They eventually get to Dianthe's lair and Dianthe presents herself as Sarah a fallen transformed angel.  The aasimar party member confirms her story (since he was raised in the region G garrison) but states he did not know her personally.  Sarah fingers Malachi as an enraged lammasu that has been assaulting patrols and throwing them into the lava.
> 
> So now they seek out the Lammasu to find out what he knows.
> Listening to them at the table, it seems like they might have a finger on what is going on and then they lose it.
> 
> Jim Hague, I have never been a big fan of political intrigue, etc., but this has been more fun than I thought.  The leaps (to conclusions) that the party keeps making have been quite fun.
> 
> Oz





Awesome to hear.  Like I said, I didn't write that Region, but I'm (naturally) in regular contact with the person who did, and she's always happy to hear about people enjoying things.  There's a lot of red herrings and utter nastiness that can rise up out of that Region, I think, especially with Jolinaar and the eriynes who's pulling a lot of the strings.

Political play and intrigue can be rough stuff to play, especially if you have an action-oriented group.   Still, if all else fails, have Pardek throw a _Fireball_ into the mix.  He's impetuous, after all, and explosions are _always_ fun.


----------



## Ozymandias

*Pardek...*

Pardek has been fun to throw into the elven intrigue mix.

The party wizard is a techsmith (from F&P--follower of Gond) and doesn't care for the evoker's ways, but has been trying to 'befriend' the impetuous wizard(especially since he should be leveling up soon to 11th level and would like to gather in some 6th level spells).

It has been fun to watch the powergamers look across the table like I hit them with a power word, stun as we roleplay.  I told them if they wanted out of the prison other than past the 'titan' guarding the exit, they would have to 'roleplay' vs rollplay.

I have considered having the treant speak the 3rd time but have not fully decided what the outcome would be and to what extent it would affect the region/prison.

Any ideas on the best way to 'let doom descend in fire'.
I have been trying to avoid being the RBDM and destroying the group in the process (sometimes it seems a waste to wipe a party and have to spend the time restarting a campaign--but sometimes it is necessary)


----------



## jim pinto

Ozymandias said:
			
		

> Any ideas on the best way to 'let doom descend in fire'.
> I have been trying to avoid being the RBDM and destroying the group in the process (sometimes it seems a waste to wipe a party and have to spend the time restarting a campaign--but sometimes it is necessary)




you could have the treant's words shatter the "dome" in region g...

releasing every demon in the region into the dungeon along with all the devils from region d

that should get some "meat" to the prophecy of the elves


----------



## jim pinto

*volunteers*

new thread popped up about the dungeon

someone sent me this and now i'm sending it to you

http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=1891

and they told two friends...


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> new thread popped up about the dungeon
> 
> someone sent me this and now i'm sending it to you
> 
> http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=1891
> 
> and they told two friends...




thanks Jim

I've posted there and advertised here


----------



## Hussar

Meh, bugger that.  I hate sites like that that require jumping through hoops to join up.  

Maybe I'm just grumpy.  

Jim, sorry to say, but, while I loved the trolls, I yoinked them out and replaced them with Araton devils from Sandstorm.  I've been using Sandstorm quite a bit in this region actually.  Flamewinds, inferno storms, whispering winds, all sorts of goodies.


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> Meh, bugger that.  I hate sites like that that require jumping through hoops to join up.
> 
> Maybe I'm just grumpy.
> 
> Jim, sorry to say, but, while I loved the trolls, I yoinked them out and replaced them with Araton devils from Sandstorm.  I've been using Sandstorm quite a bit in this region actually.  Flamewinds, inferno storms, whispering winds, all sorts of goodies.




sorry?

that's the point of the book... we use monsters from the SRD... you replace them with something newer and "cooler"

altohugh, what's cooler than a troll with fire resistance



seriously, though... we could never have made some of the best combinations of monsters that people are devising for this book, because we couldn't PUBLISH the mixtures that people can easily create on their own

someone should do a list (not me) that replaces each mosnter in the dungeon with something else from a different book

that would be a great tool


----------



## rvalle

Oh wow...

So I'm flipping though the book looking at things to get ready for my group to go from I to J. I was a bit worried as the group just made 9th level and J is for 10-12 so they will be a bit underpowered.

J is not for 10-12... its for 13-15!

Not sure what I'm going to do yet. I'm not going to rework everything as I'm running WLD to minimize my work/time. I'll try running everything with the 'scaled down' setting and run one of the Lizardfolk NPC's with the group to help out and see how it goes.

rv


----------



## Traevanon

The troll/efreet battle in J was pretty epic in my campaign.  I remember the efreet thinking he had everything pretty much under control with a wall of fire and a very deep pit, until the Mystic Theurge came flying over the chasm protected from Fire.

The panic effort from the Efreet was to grab one of his Troll followers and order him to Wish the Theurge dead so that he could grant it.  The Theurge just about soiled himself until he made his save vs Destruction.

Good times...


----------



## BlueBlackRed

The troll/efreet battle was awesome in my game.
Had one of the party not taken a step back at just the right time, they would have been totally taken by surprise by the invisible efreeti who was ready to cut down the party's sorcerer.


----------



## raynbow

Hello again!

My play by post game from earlier this year didn't last out Region A, but I'm finally getting a chance to run the game live starting after Christmas.  I'm really looking forward to it and I'm sure I'll be re-reading this huge thread for all the great info I remember being hidden in here!


----------



## rvalle

Does anyone have a name for WLD besides BBR's Latin teachers 'Carcer Maximus Mundi'? I thought there were some other names tossed out there but they were lost in the great purge we had.

rv


----------



## Traevanon

I call mine:

*Imprisonment*
Abjuration
Level: Sor/Wiz 9
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes

When you cast imprisonment and touch a creature, it is entombed in a state of suspended animation (see the temporal stasis spell) in a small sphere far beneath the surface of the earth. The subject remains there unless a freedom spell is cast at the locale where the imprisonment took place. Magical search by a crystal ball, a locate object spell, or some other similar divination does not reveal the fact that a creature is imprisoned, but discern location does. A wish or miracle spell will not free the recipient, but will reveal where it is entombed. If you know the target’s name and some facts about its life, the target takes a –4 penalty on its save.


----------



## erucsbo

*When Region I is considered *safe*!*

My 100th post on the EnWorld boards.

So - what happens when a party that has been cruisin' through WLD takes the wrong turn? - brown trousers.
My party of 7 8th level characters (plus 1 NPC) (now down to 4+1) headed from Region I to Region J (as per #1906 above). The feebleminded Mystic Theurge had been healed by Kelara in the Garrison, but had to wait for time to catch up with the rest of the group.

After defeating the single behir last time they were pretty cocky, and opened the door with the 3 behirs in it. Then closed the door. Then the sorcerer decided to open the door again and say Hi. Nrangrok (the behir champion) promptly used the chaos diamond - Word of Chaos.
Now - an aside - I don't like no-saving throw - instant kill. The Chaos diamond requires Caster Level 19 to create. Word of Chaos will kill (as well as deafen, stun and confuse) anything that is 10 levels or more below the caster level - no saving throw. If you recall - I said the party were all 8th level.
I let the death bit slide, but the sorcerer was now deaf, stunned and confused, and Nrangrok was going to have a snack next round.
The fighter managed to grapple and drag the sorcerer around the corner, while everyone else ducked for cover as well.
The sorcerer managed to break the grapple on his go and confusion had him flee. Two scorching rays of the other party members later, plus some more fleeing, saw enough subdual damage done to him to knock him out - being brought back to consciousness by the cleric after being bound with ropes.

After assuring the party that he was recovered they continued their merry way along the corridor at the bottom of J. I didn't have the extreme heat or Tyrus' fear effect affect them unless they were at one of the intersections that led to the lava. They were wanting to head back to I, but were very hesitant about going back past the door with the 3 behirs.

Let's see if the door is still open - whereupon the fighter/wizard copped a 25hp lightning bolt. Yes - it is still open.

Why don't we see if we can follow the side of the lava stream to bypass that corridor?
That was when they saw several dozen magmin praying, heard them cheer when an earthquake rocked the region, and saw, above the plateau above the lava the big wall of ice that they knew was where Tyrus had been imprisoned - then felt the fear effect leave them all shaken. Meanwhile their metal armour was getting very hot!

Screw this they said - we are NOT prepared to go through here.
They decided on a plan to try and close and arcane lock the door to the room where the behirs were, then run like mad back to I. Unfortunately it didn't quite go according to plan. They did manage to just beat the behirs sending another lightning bolt down the corridor at them, the dwarven fighter/wizard had removed his plate armour to ensure that arcane spell failure didn't screw up the initial plan. That allowed him to be able to run just fast enough to get past the door at the other end of the corridor, where it was slammed shut and then they cast arcane lock on it.
Battered and bruised they trudged back to Region I to recover, meeting up with the now restored Mystic Theurge.
Some major planning is now in the works before we resume again in the new year.


----------



## rvalle

Are they going to head back to J?


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> Are they going to head back to J?




not in the immediate future. They have even thought of heading south to the Goblin kingdom so that they can practice tactics. (I have had reports given to the Garrison that there is major conflict in the Goblin kingdom with the king being revealed as a doppelganger etc - they haven't pieced together all of the clues yet - but that area has now been "dealt with"). They do want to head north/north-east to eventually deal with the problem being caused by the World-Eater (the waves of negative energy I've got rolling through the dungeon) but know that they have a long way to go before they are ready for that.

Interesting thing though is that I is designed for levels 7-9 while J is 13-15. That is a HUGE jump. So they either need to finish I and head to M, or work their way back through A, B, C, G, K before J. F is a pretty much a dead-end as there is no path from F to G except along the river of lava, and F is only 7-9 as well.

They're tossing around burning some of the magic items they have picked up and aren't using in order to create other magic items, using the forge area in the Garrison.

Oh - and the Fountain of Fortune's Folly that I threw in - most of them went ape over it. One (Professor of Mathematics playing the dwarven fighter/wizard) chose the fortune of the boon to undo one event, then went to town on choosing the follies he could live with, ending up picking up some fortunes at the end with the boon in hand to undo a folly if he didn't like it. Everyone in the party can now cast at least one spell (the pure fighter picked up 2 inate divine spells).


----------



## Hussar

That Fountain is pretty cool.  Nice article from Dragon.

My bunch FINALLY polished off all the fiendish wyverns.  Whew.  Epic battle.  Three waves of these guys with a bit of a rest between number two and three.  They had freed the two angels that were turned into statues (now switched to trumpet archons) and I'll send them forward with their marching orders to open Serratine's tomb and kill her.  Lot's of goodies in stock.

Noticed on the AEG site, yet ANOTHER tale of taking out Longtail by grappling and beating to death with the hacksilver.  

That has to be one of the all time best climax battles in the whole WLD.


----------



## rvalle

Wow. Those wyverns are TOUGH. Thats a nice job they did to beat them all.

I'm pretty sure my group is going to push into J. As they are 9th level this could be... interesting. I've given them a warning to be carefull. 

Since I warned them now I can kill them.  

Oh... and they think they are going to run into a Balrog (or Balor per SRD) in J.  


rv


----------



## BlueBlackRed

How in the world did they kill the wyverns?
Those things were murderously low-CR'd and could deal out 100 damage a round easily.


----------



## chrisheff

Session 13 updated:

http://www.geocities.com/cptzaphod/wld.htm


----------



## Hussar

How did they whack the wyverns.  Well, there's 6 12th level PC's, one 10th level Truenamer cohort (Fyrsil) and two Trumpet Archons which they freed from being statues.  I had the wyverns  attempt to free Tyrus by digging though the walls.  The party got sneaky sneaky, drew a couple away and mugged them.  A couple more came down to check on things and got mugged as well.  The final battle had four wyverns against the party. 

The raging orcish barbarian rolled a critical hit with his greataxe against EVERY ONE OF THEM.  By the time we worked out the buffs and power attacking, he had a +50 damage bonus.  Triple for the crit, he whacked three of the four wyverns in half in single hits.  The two archons and the rest of the party just mopped up afterwards.


----------



## erucsbo

Happy Christmas everyone!


----------



## jim pinto

merry festivus to you


----------



## Crothian

Can someone please tell me what the name of the Red Dragon in the small frozen area is?  I need it for some notes I'm typing up and lent the book out.  I think it started with a T.


----------



## DaveMage

Crothian said:
			
		

> Can someone please tell me what the name of the Red Dragon in the small frozen area is?  I need it for some notes I'm typing up and lent the book out.  I think it started with a T.




Tyrus, the Devourer of Kingdoms


----------



## Crothian

Thank you.


----------



## Ogg

*Howdy*

Been digging thru this thread a lot. Been getting ready to run this. First game will probably be Saturday. 
Background on group. At least the majority, if not all, are being evil. 2 players started this on purpose because they knew a little about the dungeon & wanted to take a rougher route & the rest followed alignment so they'd all have a reason. Yes if they go the wrong direction to start they may end up in a world of hurt.

Anyways, does anyone have a pre-made full conversion to A to add more flava? I've read a lot but am going the lazy route first to see if anyones made one out there already I can download. If not no biggie, I'm a big ad libber. In fact I already have reasons for replacements to come in. (They've all been marked with tattoos that monitor to see if they stay alive by the wizard guild that sent them in as an experiment   )

I've also added a mechanism to allow them to dump treasure for a random roll at magic. (They get to choose the type such as weapon, but it has drawbacks though. Wahaha). Hopefully that works out. 

Thanks


----------



## DaveMage

Ogg said:
			
		

> Anyways, does anyone have a pre-made full conversion to A to add more flava? I've read a lot but am going the lazy route first to see if anyones made one out there already I can download. If not no biggie, I'm a big ad libber. In fact I already have reasons for replacements to come in. (They've all been marked with tattoos that monitor to see if they stay alive by the wizard guild that sent them in as an experiment   )
> 
> Thanks




I can't help you with a conversion, but I think you've just provided my favorite username on EN World.   

All hail Ogg!   


(Oh, and welcome to EN World!)


----------



## Crothian

In A my group established their goal for the WLD and it was not just to escape or explore it.  After the first orc encounter and with them having given up on life, the group choose to unite all the non demon/devils and get them to all work together so everyone could leave.  In A that meant finding the orcs and kobolds and brokering a peace agreement all the while killing the other things preying on both groups.


----------



## jim pinto

*ogg*

ii think blueblackred and twofalls have done a great deal of work augmenting region a to their liking, adding more flavor and story... and there were a great deal of posts about tying the "gate" in a to the gates in either A, F, or the machines in I and M

good luck with your campaign, ogg


----------



## Kafkonia

Ogg said:
			
		

> Anyways, does anyone have a pre-made full conversion to A to add more flava? I've read a lot but am going the lazy route first to see if anyones made one out there already I can download. If not no biggie, I'm a big ad libber. In fact I already have reasons for replacements to come in. (They've all been marked with tattoos that monitor to see if they stay alive by the wizard guild that sent them in as an experiment   )




Some ideas I had, although they never came to fruition as the WLD seems to be cursed where I'm concerned:

-Using the Axiomatic template in addition to, or instead of, the fiendish one. After all, this is a masterpiece of Lawful construction, it stands to reason some of that might spill over to some of the creatures.
-Intelligent swarms, as well as swarms of other creatures such as cranium rats and hellwasps
-Celestial cats -- what creature is better suited to an environment filled with fiendish rats than a heavenly mouser? 

I also changed Boyikt to a sorcerer, because that was more in line with the Kobold worldview, and Longtail to a wizard to explain why he had a spellbook.  You might want to increase or vary some traps as well, depending on how long the inhabitants have been there; Kobolds are notorious trapbuilders, after all.


----------



## Ogg

**

Thanks all!
Not a bad idea. I have the gateways leading to the Abyss which should cause issue since the group is mostly Lawful Evil. Not a bad idea with the template though I'd add the Anarchic one. Kind of reinforces the breaking down of law as well as good in the dungeon.

The groups being sent in to totally take over the dungeon in the name of the Red Wizard's guild. So they're not getting let off easy to just bypass areas unless they plan on going back to them   

I'm going to slap in this altar to balance out lack of merchants: 

http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49950&sid=8992124a079418db177060f6d06187e8

That way they'll get to sacrifice stuff for rolls on charts but first time someone rolls 12 or less I'm sure it will coerce them to not overuse it. Wahaha.

ps I love running dungeon crawls so this module is perfect for me.


----------



## Traevanon

I like the way you have modified the dungeon Ogg.

Very Nice!


----------



## Hussar

I like the altar idea.  That's cool.

I've hit a bit of a lull.  The wyverns are dead and the party is looking for the switches to free whatserface.  By some twist of luck, they have avoided almost every encounter and gone into the more or less empty rooms for two sessions in a row.  I would have planned for this, but, I honestly didn't expect them to simply zig zag through the various areas without bumping anything.  Sigh.  Although, they did pick up a pet behir.  The one that was trapped between the statues.  A quick Charm Monster and they have a new pet.  Cool.  The wizzie finally contributed.


----------



## Ogg

*!!*

If my party starts to hit more then one empty room, I'll probably throw in some of the W rooms at the very beginning. I try to fight too much stagnatation (within reason, people still need to rest) & some of those rooms are pretty darn groovy & already premade to drop in anywhere. 

I've re-made the altar, less brutal on the xps hits  & a little more variety.  

Just begun the adventure & already almost ran into a fluke. One of the players is playing a cloistered cleric (variation from Unearthed Arcana & open content) & she basically has a ton of languages & knowledge in like everything. Well, she's trying to translate the 500 pounds of giant's notes. Heck she almost tlaked the dwarf fighter into dragging them all the way in. Fortunately, he ended up leaving them at the first cave but she still brought a couple of pounds of notes with her. I am basically giving her knowledge about the brother Titan keeping guard & both their names. Also some rough info on the Order of Myruun from section C.


----------



## rvalle

I've had a couple of sessions in J. So far its been pretty fun. Though scary as the characters are in over their heads.

The fought the behir in the water with no problem. Found the 3 fighting to the South and quietly moved away. Found the magmen chanting along the river and left them alone too.

Moved N and ran into the Fire Salamanders. The Bard kept the encounter from turning into a fight... the Noble's ordered the group out of their area and never to return and sent the party off with 4 guards to be escorted off. Well, the dwarven fighter didn't like that idea so started moving off to the N. A fight quickly happened.

Since the fight happened right outside the door to the Noble's 2 of them showed up in short order. There were soon fireballs and walls of fire going off all over the place. 

The party was holding their own but decided to retreat when 4 more of the small guys showed up. Unfortunately, the dwarven fighter was doing Spring Attacks as a fighting withdraw. This left the Noble he was fighting with the chance to move up and attack. One Spring Attack too many and the dwarf was grappled. The party started to head back to try and free him but were told to "Stop fighting or we throw him into the river of lava". 

The party is told that there is an item the Nobles want recovered. If they do so they will set the dwarf free. Else he gets tossed. They are told to come back tomorrow to hear the details (we were done for the night).

The party is not happy but comply.

On returning they hear of the Azer's stealing of their magic Amulet (what the heck is that thing anyway? I don't see it in the SRD). The party brings in to them and the dwarf goes free.

On the way out the party find the Pseudodragon from room... J5? fleeing to the S being chased by some Salamanders. The party faces off with them when a dwarf walks up from the South (replacement character for the dwarven fighter that was captured so he can play that night). Everyone is trying to figure out what is going on when a rock crashes near by (from a giant across the river). The Salamanders dive into doorways and the party quickly head South. 

They follow the hallway around, fly over the river of lava and quickly find the Azers. The Bard says they are there to talk to their leader. Thinking the Ogre Mage is going to rip them to shreds the Azer agree to take the party to him.

Encounter in the big room with the dragon statue. The azers call to the Ogre and he steps out and smirks at the party as he moves towards them.

The bard steps up and explains how they are there to try and get the Amulet back. "Hoho, little one. That is NOT going to happen". 

The bard explains how the Salamanders really need it and they are very unhappy and couldn't they work something out?

I ask for a Diplomacy check... one natural 20 with a +15 on it takes the encounter from Hostile to Friendly. 

Liking the little guy the Ogre says he can have the amulet in a week when he is done with it (Note: I changed this encounter. Instead of the party walking in JUST as the ritual is taking place the Azers are still collecting gems. In a week they will have enough to do the ritual). 

He takes the party over and shows them the gems and how it is almost full. Much banter back and forth and the party finds out the ritual is going to change the Ogre into a 'creature of holy fire' and he will then go off and free the Dragon Tyrus. 

He invites the party to come back in a week so they can watch the historic event take place.  The party nods and make their way back South. Once out of sight of the Azers they stop to make plans for, as the bard said "That guy is CRAZY".

Fun.  I have no idea what is going to happen.

rv


----------



## Kafkonia

Ogg said:
			
		

> If my party starts to hit more then one empty room, I'll probably throw in some of the W rooms at the very beginning. I try to fight too much stagnatation (within reason, people still need to rest) & some of those rooms are pretty darn groovy & already premade to drop in anywhere.




I had a lot of luck dropping in the broken-elf statue room and the room that was once an adventurer. The PCs actually carried the elf's head around with them briefly.


----------



## bluespire

*New to the thread and EN world*

Hi all!

New to the thread. First, I want to say thanks to all of your great inputs on the behemoth of a module.

I am determined to run this thing, but I am attempting to tie in the dungeon with the world's plight. The story goes as such: There is a lich necromancy trying to gain control of the entire world. Due to the way my world works he is able to aquire an artifact that regulates the world's weather, so everything is slowly going to hell in a handbasket. I have not yet decided how much the players will know when they come across the dungeon. Anyways, I figured the farthest reaches of the dungeon would be a perfect place for the lich's hiding place (he figured it a good place to hide the thing, then realized he couldn't just teleport out. But why bother, he'll just wait for everyone to die on the surface). My question is this: for those of you who have played out the whole dungeon, or at least more familiar than I am with it, where would be the best place to put this lich and artifact?

BTW: I was thinking that the players would eventually realize that this place could be a safe haven for surface folks (that belief coming from legends and rumors). They'll be in for a treat when they get trapp... ahem, I mean start exploring.


----------



## jim pinto

bluespire said:
			
		

> My question is this: for those of you who have played out the whole dungeon, or at least more familiar than I am with it, where would be the best place to put this lich and artifact?
> 
> BTW: I was thinking that the players would eventually realize that this place could be a safe haven for surface folks (that belief coming from legends and rumors). They'll be in for a treat when they get trapp... ahem, I mean start exploring.




region n... replace the lich there with yours
or make the world eater encounter at the center the finale

region l... make the kraken there is a living weather device... and put the lich at the bottom of the lake... they don't have to breath, i suspect

region d... the derro are digging to the tomb where the lich is... but they don't know that's what they are digging to

region h... the treant is a weather device ... corrupted by the elves who serve the lich (knowingly or otherwise)

region g... the dome

region j... the tomb

region k... and the dragon is the lich's guard dog

region m... although it would require a lot of redesign, the region could be a holdout of the lich who needs drow sacrifices to "man" the machine

hope that helps


----------



## Hussar

Question about Region D.

The Truesilver bit says that it "loses its special properties ... if touched by a creature other than an outsider."  What does that mean?  If I use my truesilver sword against anything other than outsiders, it becomes a straight up silver sword?  If any of the PC's pick up these weapons, it will lose the abilities as well.

How exactly is one supposed to use truesilver?


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> Question about Region D.
> 
> The Truesilver bit says that it "loses its special properties ... if touched by a creature other than an outsider."  What does that mean?  If I use my truesilver sword against anything other than outsiders, it becomes a straight up silver sword?  If any of the PC's pick up these weapons, it will lose the abilities as well.
> 
> How exactly is one supposed to use truesilver?




the players aren't supposed to use the truesilver... the bad guys believe they can control the devils in the tomb if they extract enough of it

as soon as a PC touches it, it becomes inert

it's something from my home campaign that i snuck into the book... if you don't like it... ignore it... and allow anyone who has blessed it, to touch it

that might as fit the region thematically

fair?


----------



## erucsbo

After a 6 week break for Christmas and New Year my WLD game restarted.
The characters had rested in Mahir's Cache licking their wounds after the side trip in to J.
Realizing that they weren't powerful enough yet to head east they opted to go north - towards Madness.
Fully healed and ready for action the 5 PCs (and drow NPC) made their way through the disco room (as they call it now) and took the side passage to the four humours. The priestess made her will save against the black bile, but after some exploration by conjured celestial eagles (courtesy of Shadow Magic by the sorcerer) resulted in the one that went south returning in a rage (and therefore being quickly dispelled) the party decided that that was NOT a pleasant place and to leave it well alone.
North again - in to the area of Madness itself, but before reaching heart of his domain I rolled 02 and he showed up early.
The gibbering caught 2, and with a 06 from both of them on confusion, they both closed with the beast.
It then became a slugfest. Their rolls were not good, and Madness hit more often than not, engulfing the main fighter, blinding at various times, the dwarven fighter/wizard, the priestess, the sorcerer, and the mystic theurge, finally engulfing the priestess as well.
All of them were reduced to single digit hit points and multiple healing spells being cast did not keep them in double digits for long.
The lightning bolt caught two by surprise, and the sorcerer was so desparate he even sent his celestial cat familiar to fight (and almost lost it).
I allowed the priestess to convert V only spells to cures that could be cast while within Madness and she used her one spell thus memorized to stop the fighter from dying.
She then used sacred healing to give everyone Fast Healing 3 for 5 rounds. The way we run this is that you do a turning check and the result determines the maximum HD of the creatures that can get the benefit. The party members are all 8th level. Madness is 12HD. She got 10HD - so the party got fast healing and Madness didn't.
I allowed those who were engulfed to make an opposed grapple check to escape, and the fighter eventually managed to roll a 19 when Madness rolled a 1 - enough to get out on 1 hp.
At this stage the dwarf summoned help.
Now - I have a paladin NPC who is also travelling through the WLD and was with the party for a considerable time prior to them entering (quite a long time prior). A bracelet of friends which didn't quite work properly (you had to make a DC15 strength check to break a charm to use it) had a charm which was attuned to the paladin.
The dwarf summoned the paladin and she came to help.
It was enough for her to soak up the damage from Madness that round, deal some damage, enough so that the sorcerer's last fireball pushed Madness in to negatives.
The party then went hack happy, especially when they noticed that the flesh of Madness was very slowly regenerating.
If there had been one less party member. If the priestess hadn't done Sacred Healing. If the fighter hadn't escaped from being engulfed. Party members would have died.
There was a real sense that they scraped by by the skin of their teeth and it could have been the end of at least a couple of them.
They have now gained a level - 9th - and since the Ritual of Unmaking requires a 9th level caster they are now in a position to perform it.
Looks like at least one more big fight is in order for the coming sessions.


----------



## raynbow

My game has finally started.

The players so far are:
A dwarven duskblade (who probably won't be playing for more than a session or two)
A warforged monk
A human fighter
A half elf scout
A kalashtar soulknife
A halfling druid

There are two more players to come, hopefully playing a rogue and a cleric, or there may be problems.  Well, there will be problems anyhow, because the warforged has no one to heal him, but we'll see how it goes....

The group is a bunch of rejects from a mercenary company sent out to 'scout' (read, get lost for a while) for a rumored humanoid army.  This of course led them to the the titan's body and the dungeon entrance.  

The scout in the group immediately put his hand through the door and got stuck, which was good for quite a bit of amusement.  That's a player I can always count on to move the story along without alot of unneccessary thinking 

The group talked to the orcs in A1 for a bit and ended up leaving them alone.  They moved on to A7 where the found the secret door and from there have headed straight east.  


The last time I tried to run this, the group headed north, so this time around has been very different.

Their very first combat encounter was with the Rat swarm in A75, but with all the fighter types in the party, they did fine.

They are resting in A76 now, and I have alot of prep to do for next session because I honestly have no idea where they will go next.  They may go back out to the hallway and head up towards A60/A70.  Although, that's unlikely because of the color spray trap at A74.

I think they are most likely to go out the door from A75, but from there they can easily head in about 5 different directions.


----------



## rvalle

raynbow said:
			
		

> They are resting in A76 now, and I have alot of prep to do for next session because I honestly have no idea where they will go next.  They may go back out to the hallway and head up towards A60/A70.  Although, that's unlikely because of the color spray trap at A74.
> 
> I think they are most likely to go out the door from A75, but from there they can easily head in about 5 different directions.




Yep. I find this to be equal parts interesting and annoying. 

Even something so simple as at T intersection means I don't know which way the party will go that night and so can't prepare as much in advance as I'd like. 

Heck, some times I'm not sure which REGION they are going to play in that night. I try to push the players via email between games to come to an agreement on what they will do, but it always ends up everyone talking for the first 10-15 min of the game on which way they will head.

Ehh, it keeps me on my toes and has become a source of amusment with me saying the group NEVER does what I had planned on them doing.   

rv


----------



## Ogg

**

Yeah it's tough but every game is meant to be played differently. I've found myself adapting slightly. Like I accidentally put the acid arrow trap in the wrong area (the big T should have been a giveaway, whoops). Anyways I realized it right after it fired so I downgraded the search & disable rolls on THAT one & kept the other one. 

My experience so far.

I have a very unusual group running. I let them take flaws from Unearthed Arcana & play unusual races if they wish. Anyways, one is a Jermaline who scouted ahead & came upon the lone fiendish rat scouting ahead for it's group. He tried chatting with it (since Jermaline can naturally speak with rats) & it basically told him off. He followed it out of curiousity, ran into the whole swarm forming up, turned tail & ran back to the group after they all started telling him how they were going to eat him. He realized they were fiendish, not your momma's rats.

I let the Jermaline take the feat to give himself fast healing/1. It's paid off since it makes him cocky   . He already almost died once from the Acid Arrow trap. He told the cleric to go away after the first round of damage. Just about everyone left him when the 2nd round hit & he dropped unconscious.

Having a rogue with a move of 40 & the main tank with a move of 20 is making for some fun scenarios. The usual is the rogue running back full speed with a pack of something right behind him. He's tiny though so half the time some of the not so bright humanoids mistake him for rat.

We have 4 solid players (cleric, fighter, thief, wizard (necromancer)) & 2 alternate off & on players right now. I'm giving fun experience but splitting it with an extra share. The group agreed to it. It will give them a pool later on to assist with leveling players that miss games & for spells & making magic items.  

Oh & 2 players are dwarf brothers. When they came into the first room the orcs basically told them off & they slaughtered them. The necromancer found the room full of corpses & was excitedly happy. It was like he found a treasure trove. When last we left off one of the stirges of the first 4 got away. Hopefully, he'll be a fun returning annoyance.


----------



## Hussar

jim pinto said:
			
		

> the players aren't supposed to use the truesilver... the bad guys believe they can control the devils in the tomb if they extract enough of it
> 
> as soon as a PC touches it, it becomes inert
> 
> it's something from my home campaign that i snuck into the book... if you don't like it... ignore it... and allow anyone who has blessed it, to touch it
> 
> that might as fit the region thematically
> 
> fair?




Ah, now that I understand better.  Otay.  Although, honestly, since the players will likely just pick up any magic they find, they will likely never understand the difference.  Hrm.  

As far as the whole prep thing goes, I think I have a distinct advantage having things online.  Since I type up the region descriptions beforehand, create those DM Master Maps and then do the die rollers ahead of time, I do next to no prep.  Granted, my group doesn't region hop.  They stay in 1 until it's done.  

Just a thought for those just starting the WLD.  Take the time to make DM Master Maps.  I have made several, so you can download them from the James' site, but, really, it makes life SO much easier.  Even doing them by hand with photocopied sheets would be fine.  Mark on what creatures are in each room, shade each section of a region a different color, mark on if rooms have traps and what conditions exist and mark if doors are open or not.  It only takes about half an hour to do actually and it will save you SO much time.


----------



## Hussar

Sigh.

I'm doing my prep work for Region D.  What is it with the regions on the south end of the maps?  A, B and now D are bloody poor for proofing.  Jeez.  The stat blocks are often flat out wrong.  Missing information and the like.  Never mind some very questionable choices for adding classes to some of the bigger critters.  4 levels of sorcerer to the stone giant chief?  Why?  Grrr.

I want to like this region.  I do like the story and the presentation.  I can see this region going any number of ways.  Plus, I want to be able to finally say that I DM'd a group that beat the big T fair and square.  

In all honesty, I think I'm going to use the Horde rules for most of the dwarf types.  I know you are supposed to have 30 of them, but, meh, I'll just chuck in more.  As it stands, they're pretty much zero threat anyway.  I think I'll tweak the horde rules a bit and just have them deal damage automatically, rather than rolling - just like a swarm.  Make my life a lot easier.


----------



## twilko

*Prep work.*



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Sigh.
> 
> I'm doing my prep work for Region D.  What is it with the regions on the south end of the maps?  A, B and now D are bloody poor for proofing.  Jeez.  The stat blocks are often flat out wrong.  Missing information and the like.  Never mind some very questionable choices for adding classes to some of the bigger critters.  4 levels of sorcerer to the stone giant chief?  Why?  Grrr.
> .




I hadn't noticed the problems. My group needs a higher challenge than most of the encounters so I have been copying stat blocks from the SRD and adding classes and levels as needed. The new block gets stuck on a photo copy of the page and goes in its own plastic sleeve with a map of the room (on 25mm grid so I just lay it out for mini's) counters and initativte cards for the monsters. Each room with an encounter gets it's own sleeve. It takes a while to get a region preped but once done I'm usually right for several sessions.


----------



## Dracorat

My group is still progressing nicely. I improv quite a bit of the dungeon as I go and they love it.

I have two big issues I keep running in to but I have been trying to keep them as transparent to my players as I possibly can.

1) A lot of the rooms are empty, especially in Regions C and E. Which is somewhat frustrating to go through "I detect traps, listen on the door and if necessary, unlock it." followed by "The room is empty." Sometimes this happens four times in a row.

Talk about lack-lustre!

But I try to just make stuff up. Of course then a few sessions down the road when my players ask "Where was that room again" then I am trying to recall which empty room I had spiced up with what they are recalling.

2) Some of the rooms are completely in the wrong spots. When on the map there is a room marked with three entrances from two corridors and then you go look it up and the text says "The only entrance in to this room is through the all-door" that is really frustrating!


----------



## DaveMage

DM Magic said:
			
		

> Here's some pictures from our latest World's Largest Dungeon session: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmmagic/sets/72157594503947004/




If you ever start up a game, say, 3000 miles SE of your current position, let me know.


----------



## Hussar

Dracorat - Yeah, I know what you are saying.  To be fair, C was fairly decent as far as errors go.  E had some pretty serious issues though, and B was by far the worst of the bunch.

Go over to the AEG site and add more errors as you find them.  It's really, really helpful.


----------



## raynbow

DM Magic said:
			
		

> Here's some pictures from our latest World's Largest Dungeon session: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmmagic/sets/72157594503947004/




What is that you've made the maps out of and omg how much time does it take you to get that all set up!


----------



## raynbow

Wow, that is a LOT of work!


----------



## Nikroecyst

How do I find the WLD and where can I buy it at? I've checked here on Enworld and on RPG now and can't find it anywhere?


----------



## DaveMage

Nikroecyst said:
			
		

> How do I find the WLD and where can I buy it at? I've checked here on Enworld and on RPG now and can't find it anywhere?




You can buy it from the following:

http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Larges..._bbs_sr_1/104-2774473-6983962?ie=UTF8&s=books

http://www.frpgames.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=12885

There may be other places too, but these are my usual sources.


----------



## Kafkonia

Nikroecyst said:
			
		

> How do I find the WLD and where can I buy it at? I've checked here on Enworld and on RPG now and can't find it anywhere?




AFAIK, there's no PDF version of the book, which would be why you can't find it there. In addition to the links offered above, you might want to try www.bookfinder.com -- it searches multiple bookshops for you.


----------



## Hussar

From what I hear, there's no plans on making it pdf either.  Although, I would almost consider buying it again if they did.  It would make it so much easier to play.

Heh.  Had a fantastic session today.  The party has entered D and met the Derro.  Turned into a lengthy RP session with the insane Derro.  When I get home tonight, I'll post the conversation.  It was bloody hillarious.  God I love the WLD.

/edit - Now at home.

I guess a bit of setup is in order.  The party crossed over to the main island where the wailing golem and hidden Derro were.  The golem didn't spark up until the very last player crossed (six d20 rolls, 5 under 8, the last one an 18).  The golem starts wailing and beating on the party.  Or at least trying to.  Pretty inneffectively, but, fun.  The party whacks the golem and the derro proceed to rain fire down on them from their arrowslits.  The cleric finally makes a spot check and figures out where they are and nukes the hidden area with a flamestrike.  Scratch eleven Derro with only one making his SR check.  Lone Derro, choking from the smoke, exits the tower and is promptly captured by the party, who then toss a Charm Monster on top for good measure.  What follows is something I'm pretty proud of, if I can toot my own horn for a second.  Inspired by Steven Erikson, I modelled the insane derro after the character of Iskarl Pust (if you've read the books).  Take a look at the conversation.


----------



## chrisheff

Session 14 updated:

http://www.geocities.com/cptzaphod/wld.htm


----------



## erucsbo

*Preparing for the jump to M*

first up - any tips from those who have DMd region M would be appreciated. It looks like the party is headed there next.

Recap:
The party had defeated Madness - calling the in the wandering NPC paladin at the end.
The party members had just made level 9, and now had some magical goodies to distribute, including a swag that the paladin had picked up along the way. They were planning on "burning" many of the items to allow them to make items that they could use - I implemented a house rule to allow those with craft item feats to not feel shafted. One of the items that they were intending to "burn" was Eight-Strike-Fang!

Well - after the battle they discovered that the drow NPC rogue had disappeared. They figured that he had just gotten scared and thought that Madness would win, so had taken off. Later they discovered that Eight-Strike-Fang had also gone missing.   

A fair amount of time was spent creating items etc, so the NPC paladin left - heading east to the other garrison - and the party was joined by a new rogue (this one a PC).

Newly equipped they headed north again and discovered that using Arcane Lock on the door behind which Madness had been "killed" did not keep Madness locked away. The door was warped and broken and Madness was gone. (3 weeks while the party creates items in the Garrison is just too long to expect Madness to regenerate and remain in the same place - imho). Fearful of another run-in they kept heading north and ran in to the Drow rebels.

Therein followed a discussion where the party discovered that they had been duped by the NPC drow, had inadvertantly given Eight-Strike-Fang back to the Spider Kings (after all the effort that the rebels had gone to to steal it in the first place), and therefore had tipped the balance of power back to the Spider Kings - who now had a weapon (they believed) that could deal with Anguish and therefore allow them to more fully dedicate themselves to wiping out the rebels and the Green Death.

The rebels told the party that they would provide safe passage through their area to the north to the Spider Kings, but they were not to kill harmless drow, ensure that any drow that did attack them were killed (so as to avoid the punishment for failure - being used for experiments) and were to ensure that in the fights with the Spider Kings that they were not seen to be working with / for / or on behalf of the rebels. They also mentioned the open caverns and possible exit to the north.   

The party seemed quite open to the idea (and I think are anxious to splat some spiders).

So - they'll miss Anguish and the Green Death, but will also no longer be in a position to run back to the Garrison in E for rest. recuperation, creation of items, and help!

Has anyone had a group go from M (levels 9-12) to N (levels 14-18) without hitting J (13-15) in between?
Has anyone had a group seriously try to scale the mountain in M as a way out (I can see my group trying this)?


----------



## Ogg

*A*

My group just faced off the kobolds in A. Worked out well. I rolled the random encounter from A69 just as they approached the door to the hall leading to A69. They chased the rider into the room he ran back into & faced the full kobold force. The groups necromancer's skele & the group's tank dropped in the first round & things were looking fierce. 

The jermaline rogue slipping into enemy lines & the cleric getting gutsy & running into the middle of the room & using her profane life leech (Libris Mortis) ended up swinging the balance & saving the almost party wipeout. Good battle & what I thought was a good lesson in tactics verses kick in the door method.


----------



## erucsbo

I've done up a DM Map for Region M in the same style as rvalle's and Hussar's.
Click here if anyone is interested (last one in the list of my maps) - along with the other images still waiting to be uploaded to James' site.


----------



## Hussar

Hey Erucsbo.  Just sent you a map for Region D.  Man, there are some serious issues with that map vs the text.  About a dozen orphaned rooms, one room completely mislabelled and one 10x15 room with two gorgons in it.  Didn't the writers ever bother to look at the maps before they stocked them with creatures?


----------



## erucsbo

Hussar said:
			
		

> Hey Erucsbo.  Just sent you a map for Region D.  Man, there are some serious issues with that map vs the text.  About a dozen orphaned rooms, one room completely mislabelled and one 10x15 room with two gorgons in it.  Didn't the writers ever bother to look at the maps before they stocked them with creatures?




cheers - up with the others (see link two articles up).

Seems that the "upper level" areas have all suffered.
Region O has references to P throughout, N had the missing rooms, and now D.

Oh - and the 10x15 room - are you using the 5' per square or 10' per square option, as that definitely has some effect on the larger creatures.
I'm using 5' per square just because it makes it that much harder for my players to outflank opponents (large party size - normally 6-8 characters), but there have been several times where doubling the scale would have made sense with the size of the monsters therein.
I get the feeling that some of the writers wrote with 5' squares in mind, while others opted for 10' and no consistency between that and final editting.


----------



## Hussar

Yeah, I can totally see that.  Plus, I'm thinking that there may have been alterations to the maps during adventure writing that wasn't passed on to the adventure writers.  I mean, look at the mess that B is.  The way it is written, the Goblin Empire, despite controlling the southwest and northeast, cannot actually move from one section to the other.  Pretty hard for the rebels to hide when the only way guards can shift from one area to the other passes right through their home.  

C has issues as well.  As written, Nardarik cannot actually leave his area of the map - he'd have to pass through too many nasty areas - including the hall of the Celestials which would pretty much kill him to do so.  Even if he could open the secret doors, which he can't.  I added a couple of passages to the map to fix that when I ran it.


----------



## erucsbo

Hussar said:
			
		

> Yeah, I can totally see that.  Plus, I'm thinking that there may have been alterations to the maps during adventure writing that wasn't passed on to the adventure writers.  I mean, look at the mess that B is.  The way it is written, the Goblin Empire, despite controlling the southwest and northeast, cannot actually move from one section to the other.  Pretty hard for the rebels to hide when the only way guards can shift from one area to the other passes right through their home.
> 
> C has issues as well.  As written, Nardarik cannot actually leave his area of the map - he'd have to pass through too many nasty areas - including the hall of the Celestials which would pretty much kill him to do so.  Even if he could open the secret doors, which he can't.  I added a couple of passages to the map to fix that when I ran it.




do your players actually pick up on these inconsistencies - or is it only the "Huge creature in a 10'x10' room" that they notice? (caveat - I haven't been reading all your game logs - some, but not all)

my group focuses more on the micro-aspects than the macro, except for concepts and vagarities - so if they had been in B (which they haven't) they might have known that the Goblin Empire was both north and south, but not been concerned about how they got from one area to the other.

One thing that does frustrate me with the map, though, is that the ONLY ways in to G are via the single entrance in the NE of C (the expected way I assume - but also _completely_ hidden by secret doors), through the lava from F (yeah right!) or from the north via K or east via H - both of which are areas which really need higher level PCs to get through. Region C seems geared up to finding the Kay in C105 to allow the party to go north from B (though C refers to the key belonging to B21, not B0) in to F, but from there you either have to go north to J, then K, backtrack south, or go in the wrong direction and end up west in E. It's a wonder to me that anyone would ever actually get to G without divine or DM intervention.

It is no wonder that the 2 celestial garrisons (in E and G) have lost contact with each other!


----------



## BlueBlackRed

erucsbo said:
			
		

> do your players actually pick up on these inconsistencies - or is it only the "Huge creature in a 10'x10' room" that they notice? (caveat - I haven't been reading all your game logs - some, but not all)



Aaron in my group likes to sing the "Giant creature in a tiny room" song whenever something like that comes up.

In region N, the large mohrgs have been stuck for who knows how long in a 10'x10' room.

Kind of funny to me as it reminds me of the old 1E random dungeon generator where you could consistantly get 20'x20' rooms with multiple ancient red dragons in the deeper levels.


----------



## Mr Samedi

This week my players will enter Region F from Region B. 

They're probably going to get pissed when they discover the Warp doors (or more likely, realise that they've gone through them).

I was just thinking, how does the warp door realise that the entire party has gone through?   
I was thinking that maybe once half the party has gone though, the door could change and have the party split up, which could make things rather interesting.


----------



## erucsbo

Mr Samedi said:
			
		

> This week my players will enter Region F from Region B.
> 
> They're probably going to get pissed when they discover the Warp doors (or more likely, realise that they've gone through them).
> 
> I was just thinking, how does the warp door realise that the entire party has gone through?
> I was thinking that maybe once half the party has gone though, the door could change and have the party split up, which could make things rather interesting.




If possible, try not to separate the party, especially if the group is small in size. The 'non-diplomatic' encounters CRs may well be beyond them if you do, making it quite lethal.

A suggestion that I think came up earlier in this thread was to keep the warp destinations the same while the door is open and perhaps for an hour (or some other fixed measure of time) afterwards. That stops the "open door - close door - open door" routine.


----------



## Mr Samedi

erucsbo said:
			
		

> If possible, try not to separate the party, especially if the group is small in size. The 'non-diplomatic' encounters CRs may well be beyond them if you do, making it quite lethal.
> 
> A suggestion that I think came up earlier in this thread was to keep the warp destinations the same while the door is open and perhaps for an hour (or some other fixed measure of time) afterwards. That stops the "open door - close door - open door" routine.




The party has eight players in it, some with VERY powerful characters, splitting them up would probably be more of an attention problem (as in having to split my attention between two groups with appropriate pacing).

I think if it takes too long for the warp doors to change, it ruins the whole cofusing element they add to the maze. I think I'll just stick with having the door change whenever the party goes through.


----------



## Hussar

I split the party up in Region A (using a Crypt Thing) and it was fun.  For a short while.  The attention span thing is tricky.  At least in A, there are a lot of empty rooms, meaning a single PC can wander around by himself fairly easily without getting creamed.  In region F, where there is pretty much an encounter behind every door, I would avoid it.  You're going to have some seriously dead PC's PDQ.

Eruc - naw, my PC's generally don't notice it because I fix it before hand.  That's one of the bennies of doing the DM's Master Maps.  I know what is in each room before they get to it and I can adjust accordingly - either with a quick Photoshop of the room to make it bigger, or knocking off a critter or two or simply moving a critter into the next room.

But, it is a seriously annoying problem.


----------



## rvalle

Mr Samedi said:
			
		

> The party has eight players in it, some with VERY powerful characters, splitting them up would probably be more of an attention problem (as in having to split my attention between two groups with appropriate pacing).
> 
> I think if it takes too long for the warp doors to change, it ruins the whole cofusing element they add to the maze. I think I'll just stick with having the door change whenever the party goes through.




I had the door auto close after a few min of being opened. Once closed it reset to another random place when reopened.

BTW, my group never made it much past the first door. Only two characters were immune to the random effects from walking though. Once character got confused/raged and attacked another party member, another was paralized. The raged guy was blinded while trying to leave. 

The party did figure out the doors were doing some weird warping as they opened it up after it auto closed (after they had already left the room) and found it lead to a new place. There was a stunned silence as the party realized how close they were to being totaly screwed.

rv


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> Yeah, I can totally see that.  Plus, I'm thinking that there may have been alterations to the maps during adventure writing that wasn't passed on to the adventure writers.  I mean, look at the mess that B is.  The way it is written, the Goblin Empire, despite controlling the southwest and northeast, cannot actually move from one section to the other.  Pretty hard for the rebels to hide when the only way guards can shift from one area to the other passes right through their home.
> 
> C has issues as well.  As written, Nardarik cannot actually leave his area of the map - he'd have to pass through too many nasty areas - including the hall of the Celestials which would pretty much kill him to do so.  Even if he could open the secret doors, which he can't.  I added a couple of passages to the map to fix that when I ran it.




ah. hussar. how you vex me.

but seriously, map b was an absolute MESS when i got it from the writer. i won't go into it here, but the material was four months late on top of everything else. i've avoided on EVERY FRONT avoiding speaking negatively of anyone's efforts on this book. but region b was completely re-written by me and region c had three authors because of people's inability to hit deadlines.

so much time was spent trying to reconcile everything, time we didn't have.

four years ago, this month, i had two broken fingers in my right hand, and i was editing and typing with my left. insane. region a took all of a week to edit. region b took four weeks. region c three. region d zero.

regions d, f, g, and k might be the best ones in the book, but few people get that far because

a is boring
b has typos

thankfully e is amazing and many people give the book a second chance because of that.

i always feel amazingly bad about the editing errors in this product, but at the same time slighly malign (and i know this isn't intentional), when said errors are brought to my attention.

or in the case, flaunted in front of me like a diabetic watching people eat mounds and mounds of delicious chocolate cake with rum sauce and a mountain of whipped cream while sipping sugar-infused espresso...

er.

where was i?

i am sorry there are 10 x 10 (or 20 x 20... if you change the scale of the map) rooms with monsters too big to fit into the dungeon. but that's great fodder for the "prison" that is the WLD.

editing errors suck. i know. i'm with you. if i saw someone else make this mistakes i'd be the first one posting behind hussar.

sigh.

at least i can be proud a few innovations in the book design, eh?

oh...

if you'd like to hear my rant about the ruins of undermountain, i'd be glad to post it on my blog.


----------



## DaveMage

jim pinto said:
			
		

> if you'd like to hear my rant about the ruins of undermountain, i'd be glad to post it on my blog.




I would.  (Although I have a feeling I'll share many of the same thoughts.)

Post a link if you do it!


But based on your post above, what path would you recommend someone take through the WLD?  (And feel free to start in a region other than "A" - we can just create higher level characters as needed.)


----------



## Kafkonia

jim pinto said:
			
		

> editing errors suck. i know. i'm with you. if i saw someone else make this mistakes i'd be the first one posting behind hussar.




If it's any consolation, Jim, I just wrapped up a DCC in which there is a 25'x20' room with two 20'x20' elder black puddings in it -- not only that, but there's a stairwell located in the middle taking out a 5'x10' chunk of the room. How that's supposed to work, I don't know -- unless puddings are overlapping each other.

I think that the WLD, for all its flaws, is a very impressive piece of work. I doubt I'll ever get to run it as-is, but I hope to pull a couple of the sections out for use as standalones if my group ever gets to the right levels.


----------



## jim pinto

DaveMage said:
			
		

> I would.  (Although I have a feeling I'll share many of the same thoughts.)
> 
> Post a link if you do it!
> 
> 
> But based on your post above, what path would you recommend someone take through the WLD?  (And feel free to start in a region other than "A" - we can just create higher level characters as needed.)




hmm...

i've done this several times before, but let me think on this

perhaps, PCs start in H (PCs fall six miles and somehow survive... who knows) or the center of E... that could be awesome... waking up in E... or the maze of F

after that they learn (somehow) of three great evils... the demons, the devils, and the undead (ce, le, and ne respectively). the pcs must somehow stop these atrocities before the power of the prison is unbalanced and the angel (the big one in G) is overwhelmed by the evil, causing the prison to collapse on itself.

so... in order, the regions are E, F, H, G, K, D, L/O, N

while L is my least favorite of the regions, this places N far away from everything else.

alternately, they must get through small portions of O to get to N... and enter through the opposite side of the region.

this is a supreme EVIL variant on the dungeon

a more relaxing version of the dungeon...

A, C, E, I, J

that feels like a more traditional dungeon to me


----------



## jim pinto

Kafkonia said:
			
		

> If it's any consolation, Jim, I just wrapped up a DCC in which there is a 25'x20' room with two 20'x20' elder black puddings in it -- not only that, but there's a stairwell located in the middle taking out a 5'x10' chunk of the room. How that's supposed to work, I don't know -- unless puddings are overlapping each other.
> 
> I think that the WLD, for all its flaws, is a very impressive piece of work. I doubt I'll ever get to run it as-is, but I hope to pull a couple of the sections out for use as standalones if my group ever gets to the right levels.




thanks, kafka... can i call you kafka?

i wasn't posting to beg for praise... although i appreciate your kind words

if i feel anything, it's pride over finishing an 840-page book in under 1 year. that in and of itself is beyond measure.

i had a conversation on story-games.com recently about artist disclaimers. and technically, all of these excuses that i spew about hard work and designer notes and well... you see... what we meant was... blah blah blah.

is all artist disclaimer nonsense. of which i am opposed.

if the work doesn't say it, then it doesn't get said. dvd commentary, interviews with lucas, and comic-con q&a sessions are all part of this "barf" that i'm really against.

sadly, i really like to talk about this book. it was a huge part of my life for a long time and it pleases me to see people enjoying it. and some debilitating part of my pride forces me to chime in whenever i hear that someone didn't like XYZ and:

a. i know XYZ wasn't great.
b. dang. how did we miss XYZ? that's so important.
c. XYZ rocks. what are you talking about?

anyway.

back to work.

peace


----------



## Kafkonia

jim pinto said:
			
		

> thanks, kafka... can i call you kafka?




Just don't call me late for dinner -- it's hard to fit that on a nametag.


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> sadly, i really like to talk about this book. it was a huge part of my life for a long time and it pleases me to see people enjoying it. and some debilitating part of my pride forces me to chime in whenever i hear that someone didn't like XYZ and:
> 
> a. i know XYZ wasn't great.
> b. dang. how did we miss XYZ? that's so important.
> c. XYZ rocks. what are you talking about?




Ah HA!
we now have the verbal component of the Summon Jim Pinto spell   

But seriously Jim - your book has spawned the largest thread on ENWorld (even discounting the 600 posts lost in the server crash), countless adventure blogs, an audio podcast (rpgmp3) and more hours of roleplaying (at least for my group) than any other three 'adventure' modules combined.
We pick at it because we enjoy it. If we didn't then it would be dropped and we would move on to something else. We post the problems we have with it because we want others to play it as well - and enjoy doing so (otherwise why bother - since our own groups would have moved past the area we are bitching about).

You don't need to defend yourself, nor even the writers who screwed up and caused you such angst (such is the burden of an editor) - but hearing the stories behind its creation, ideas for mixing things up, and explanations for how things are supposed to work are always welcome.


----------



## DaveMage

Well said.


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Ah HA!
> we now have the verbal component of the Summon Jim Pinto spell
> 
> But seriously Jim - your book has spawned the largest thread on ENWorld (even discounting the 600 posts lost in the server crash), countless adventure blogs, an audio podcast (rpgmp3) and more hours of roleplaying (at least for my group) than any other three 'adventure' modules combined.
> We pick at it because we enjoy it. If we didn't then it would be dropped and we would move on to something else. We post the problems we have with it because we want others to play it as well - and enjoy doing so (otherwise why bother - since our own groups would have moved past the area we are bitching about).
> 
> You don't need to defend yourself, nor even the writers who screwed up and caused you such angst (such is the burden of an editor) - but hearing the stories behind its creation, ideas for mixing things up, and explanations for how things are supposed to work are always welcome.




oh. you guys.

if you ever learn to spell my name correctly, i'll be filled with as much pride as this letter was supposed to fill me with.



and to quote today's PVP... "we out, bitches."

edit: cripes 1989 posts. that's a lot. who will get the infamous post #2000? will be colonel mustard? or perhaps the emo boy from final fantasy XII? stay tuned.


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> oh. you guys.
> 
> if you ever learn to spell my name correctly, i'll be filled with as much pride as this letter was supposed to fill me with.




It has to be all the same case?
You are "jim pinto" on these boards and inside WLD, and "JIM PINTO" on your blog and on the front cover of WLD.

Ah - it's a reversible spell!

Summon jim pinto, or SUMMON JIM PINTO gets the happy helpful variant, while the Summon Jim Pinto, or SuMMoN JiM PiNTo version causes a wormhole to open to an alternate dimension where an identical looking but evil version of jim waits to escape from a world of impossible publishing deadlines and overly sensitive writers with connections to the Russian Mafia.


----------



## Hussar

Now I feel bad.  Jim, I most certainly didn't mean to widdle in your corn flakes.  Been having a bit of a bad run with D to be honest and needed to vent.  D is a fantastic region.  I think it's because I went through H, K and J and those three regions are very tight.  Very few errors.  It's been months since I've gotten tripped up by the adventure.  Added to that, I haven't had the the time or energy to do a proper job knocking up the region for play and minor glitches get amplified.

D's turning out to be an interesting region.  To be honest, this is the first time I've had PC's of these levels and I'm pretty shocked how powerful the group is.  They just sauntered into the formian lair, took one look, and let the cleric and wizzie incinerate everything.  Good grief.  A pair of blade barriers and a wall of fire and wall of force later and pretty much everything died before it had a chance to move.  I had changed the mooks into mobs from DMG 2, but, that didn't matter a whole lot.

Honestly, I'm a little worried about this.  I can really see the party continuing to do this.  Walking into the larger areas and just unloading the kitchen sink on everything.  Since the majority of the critters are pretty small, even the xill are around 35 hp, I'm not sure but it shouldn't take them too long to kill everything before it can even react.

Will have to give it some thought.

OTOH.  I am one of the few that thinks Region A is pretty good.  Sure, it's a bit on the repetitive side, but, there's just so many ways the region can fall out.  A group that even the slightest bit interested in talking should be able to find all sorts of allies and whatnot to talk to.  With a bit of work - switching out some of the darkmantle mobs - I think A could be a heck of a lot of fun.  I know that it was pretty high on the popularity list for my bunch.

IMNSHO, if I ever ran the WLD again, I would use the World Serpent Inn from Dragon 351 to tie together all the regions.  Each exit of a region would take you into the Inn which would allow you to rest, recover and whatnot between regions.  The Inn would also have about 100 doors inside that would open into random points within the Dungeon; some one way, some only opening at certain times, that sort of thing.  The main door would just send you back to where ever you had entered from.

I think this would work.  Honestly, the whole, "you can only carry what you find" bit of the WLD was a weakness IMO.  I think allowing a feature where the players can get stuff crafted would help to give the players a bit more feeling of control over their PC's.  Also, the Inn could work as a nice source of information and rumours as well as some spell help and whatnot.  Wizards could get spells for their spellbooks, diseases could get removed, PC's raised, that sort of thing.

What do you guys think?


----------



## Ogg

*!!*

Well...

On characters scaling remember you have 2 factors on your side:
1) Surprise: Monsters that are prepped can be a major difference. 
Are you having the players walk into a room full of monsters. Everyone roll initiative.
Or
As you enter the room you suddenly see eyes peer out at you from around rocks. You've been making enough noise to raise the dead walking around & it appears they heard you coming from a mile away. Your hit by a volley of arrows, javelins, etc.

Have smart monsters can hold fire until they see someone casting. Nothing can change spell as having to make a concentration check modified by damage. It can quickly turn into an impossible roll for even the highest level casters.

And we won't even go into flat footed AC & monsters with levels in rogue.

2)Resistances
Do players keep using the same tactic? Shouldn't word get around. Imagine what happens the first tiem they let loose with firely blast and all the monsters seem to have shimmering blue auras that repel most of the damage. 

Another trick is to put in magic dead zones into areas with monsters that rely on no magic. Remember it's a prison. It's not unrealistic that areas might be covered with wards against magic. Or have dead magic pockets in the same room. You could allow a rogue to learn to find these areas & act as a spotter for the casters. Make players have to use even more tactics & less spray & pray.

---------------------
In my world they players have encountered an alter (I stuck it in the empty spot behind the 3 big pillar rooms) of a god that allows them to convert treasure into magic items to take the place of an inn or shop.


Basically they're allowed rolls on tables they can ask for but must donate a certain amount of treasure based on a prayer roll. Only issue is any roll on the lower side demands even more money & sucks experience from the player while a high roll throws in bonus stuff. 

I posted the altar on another board 
Altar of Sacrifice 

but have already changed it somewhat to make it less mean but the first 2 "prayer rolls" at it have been a 1 & a 11  Been rough at the old prayer alter. I kind of metagamed & let the players know this was an add on to take the place of a shop so they didn't obsess on it too much. 

I also threw in this artifact which they were given to start:
*Manual of the Tutor: Miscellaneous Magic Item. Has 8 uses to train anyone in any class or prestige class after 1d6+1 days of studying. After it is used 8 times the Manual Crumbles to dust.


----------



## Hussar

Ogg, I'm assuming you're directing that bit at me.  D is a giant factory where the monsters are busily and very, very noisily digging a massive mine as well was working a foundry while they smelt silver.  The players could be dragging along a calliope and not get noticed.  

The issue I'm having is that 99% of the creatures in D are very low level mooks - we're talking CR 1-3 dwarves and formians for the most part with some bigger stuff added for seasoning.  Against 15th level PC's, they are so much axle grease for the war machine.  It doesn't matter that some have Resistance 10 - 15 die empowered fireballs kill them even if they make their saves.  Or 15d8 worth of force damage from Blade Barrier.

I'm going to monkey pile them next week with most of the formians to see what happens.  Then adjust tactics from there.


----------



## erucsbo

Hussar said:
			
		

> I'm going to monkey pile them next week with most of the formians to see what happens.  Then adjust tactics from there.




I haven't spent any time going through D (except very briefly well over a year ago), but could you somehow use the mining to destabilise the terrain?
Frequent rockfalls from the ceiling, collapsing ground underfoot, with perhaps some residual celestial magic that tries to heal the damage to the structural integrity of the rock/stone (but not enough to reverse all of the mining damage).

Characters could get trapped in opening and closing crevasses, have to expend spells evading damage from falling rocks, and generally find the environment working against them.
The formians and dwarves - natural miners - would be very cognizant of these dangers and not troubled by them, even moving opponents in combat so that they can take advantage of such occurrences.

Anyway - food for thought - might not work in your game, but if it helps then use it.


----------



## twilko

*New WLD Blog*

Gday All,

It's finally ready...and working.    I have finally got my own web page up which includes (or at this stage is mostly) a summary of my groups WLD sessions. The address is http://home.people.net.au/~twilko/ and you are all invited to take a look.

Feedback and questions are always welcome.   

Tony,


----------



## erucsbo

twilko said:
			
		

> Feedback and questions are always welcome.




looks like things are going fairly well with a nice mix of combat and roleplaying.

just some tips from a long time DM (over 25 years)   

there is a tendency for first time DMs to be a little over-generous with the treasure. My players would be drooling at the goodies that your characters have obtained and they have hit 9th level now. It is harder to take stuff away when you find they are having too easy a time of it. 5/6th level characters up against minotaurs and driders should be greatly outclassed and their successes may tempt them to go in a direction that leads to a TPK (which most new DMs are loathe to do and therefore arrange things so that it doesn't happen - reinforcing the cycle). The players also begin to rely on their "stuff" rather than their skills and abilities - making challenges come down to whether or not they have the right item to do the job.

remember that there is no path from E through F to G. You did mention that they could go via B and C, and with their tendency to set off traps could be a very interesting journey, otherwise they have to go via J and K and that is far beyond their capabilities (even with the extra magical goodies).

the storytelling is good, and I see that you have included quite a few of the suggestions from this thread - play them out and tie them together (which may require a bit of reading of the later sections to see how things may eventually turn out). Would be interested to hear your views on how the players reacted to the negative energy wave that causes bodies to reanimate and head towards the World Eater. I suggested that as a way of having a dungeon-wide effect and it provides a useful prod to my players when they start to get sidetracked - builds the tension, and makes them consider the consequences of their actions (when they resort to sword first questions second, instead of trying diplomacy).

Overall though you are doing a pretty good job, and having WLD as your first "module" is actually to your benefit as it limits the choices that the players have, allowing you to control the environment / introduction of new rules etc - remember that the WLD is SRD only, so if the party gets access to too much non-SRD stuff it can unbalance things in the party's favour and you are either forced to do the same to the monsters (significantly increasing your own workload) or quickly draw lines and limit the "optional extras" to those you feel you can handle.


----------



## twilko

erucsbo said:
			
		

> looks like things are going fairly well with a nice mix of combat and roleplaying.
> 
> just some tips from a long time DM (over 25 years)   .




25 years! I bow to your experience.    



			
				erucsbo said:
			
		

> there is a tendency for first time DMs to be a little over-generous with the treasure. My players would be drooling at the goodies that your characters have obtained and they have hit 9th level now. It is harder to take stuff away when you find they are having too easy a time of it. 5/6th level characters up against minotaurs and driders should be greatly outclassed and their successes may tempt them to go in a direction that leads to a TPK (which most new DMs are loathe to do and therefore arrange things so that it doesn't happen - reinforcing the cycle). The players also begin to rely on their "stuff" rather than their skills and abilities - making challenges come down to whether or not they have the right item to do the job..




So far I don't think the magic items have been a problem. They know a number of the things are evil, and in fact one character has been turned evil by a book they picked up with another on a similar path, and have been mostly reluctant to use them. They gave the +5 Vorpal sword back to the garrison when they found out what it was. (Angelwing Razor from Book of Vile Darkness). Also there was one death last session (number 20) which has decided for them that F is bad.

As for the good vs evil thing it has been interesting to watch this party go from all neutral to good (2), evil (1 with maybe another to follow) and neutral (3 with one wavering). I have spoken to the players about alignment changes well before they happen and have warned them constantly that there are consequences for doing nasty stuff. So far they are all fine with that and I'm trying not to push any line.



			
				erucsbo said:
			
		

> remember that there is no path from E through F to G. You did mention that they could go via B and C, and with their tendency to set off traps could be a very interesting journey, otherwise they have to go via J and K and that is far beyond their capabilities (even with the extra magical goodies)..




I put in a passage from F to G on their maps. They were told that the entrance would be well hidden.



			
				erucsbo said:
			
		

> the storytelling is good, and I see that you have included quite a few of the suggestions from this thread - play them out and tie them together (which may require a bit of reading of the later sections to see how things may eventually turn out). Would be interested to hear your views on how the players reacted to the negative energy wave that causes bodies to reanimate and head towards the World Eater. I suggested that as a way of having a dungeon-wide effect and it provides a useful prod to my players when they start to get sidetracked - builds the tension, and makes them consider the consequences of their actions (when they resort to sword first questions second, instead of trying diplomacy)..




When the players said that they wanted WLD I freaked. I read the whole thing twice before I would run it. 

I have only run the negative energy wave once. The party then went to the library and did some research and found out about World Eater. They then decided that that was just one more reason to get out of the dungeon. Now that one of them has joined the garrison that might change.

This thread has been great and I thank everyone who has contributed. When the manager of my local game store found out that I was running WLD which wanted to run his group through, I told him how to find this thread. He thought it was great and reccomends it to anyone thinking of running WLD.



			
				erucsbo said:
			
		

> looks Overall though you are doing a pretty good job, ...




Thanks erucsbo. I just hope I can keep it up.


----------



## Gilladian

*Chopping up the dungeon*

I've had the WLD from early on, and I've read massive swaths of it, but I'm not interested in running (nor would my players PLAY) such a massive dungeon. 

I know it was designed to be run in chunks, but in my opinion, that would be a complex thing to do because of the interaction between many sections.

Has anybody taken areas out of the whole dungeon and used them? If so, how? Did it work? What areas? I'm especially fond of region B and have done some work on separating it, but never finished.

I'd love to discuss this concept, for various regions, sections of regions, and even just small sets of rooms.


----------



## Kafkonia

Gilladian said:
			
		

> I've had the WLD from early on, and I've read massive swaths of it, but I'm not interested in running (nor would my players PLAY) such a massive dungeon.
> 
> I know it was designed to be run in chunks, but in my opinion, that would be a complex thing to do because of the interaction between many sections.
> 
> Has anybody taken areas out of the whole dungeon and used them? If so, how? Did it work? What areas? I'm especially fond of region B and have done some work on separating it, but never finished.
> 
> I'd love to discuss this concept, for various regions, sections of regions, and even just small sets of rooms.




If all goes according to plan, I'm hoping to pull out I or N (my two favourite sections as far as flavour, at least) for use later in the campaign. B has some potential, but I find it hard to conceptualize using it outside of the "locked in" dungeon environment, and it has less of a reason for the "locked in" feeling on its own than I or N do.


----------



## erucsbo

post 2000 on page 50!   w00t!   

have added a map (http://150.101.101.161/wld/rebelM.jpg) of M that the drow rebels in the north east corner of region I can give to the players. I'm planning on having my group move there this weekend.


----------



## erucsbo

*and in to Region M*

Discussion within the party about whether or not to search for the reagents needed to complete the ritual to destroy one of the twins looked like having the group go backwards, especially with them worried that the Spider Kings would be harder to stop after Eight-Strike Fang had been stolen from the party.
The rebels convinced them that having Madness around gave them the excuse to maintain an outpost and keep the driders away (from their rebel base - but they didn't tell the players that).
A map was provided of Region M (see above post) and the party were ushered through the slave pens and dumped at M36 (just before the side passage to the infirmary - though they weren't told about that).

They knew that the drider key could get them past the wardstone, but not how to use it, so the dwarf who was carrying it got to within 5' of the wardstone (leaving the rest of the party down the corridor), then the party tried to file past - setting off the alarm   

I allowed them to see the cavern beyond - being backlit by the lava.

The mystic theurge cast silence on the ward stone (which really screwed up their ability to make listen checks when the Invisible Stalker arrived!) - the MT said "oops" when this was eventually discovered and dismissed the silence.

The driders and drow stayed back and the sorcerer lobbed a fireball at them - three of the drow failling their saves spectacularly and dying (even with fire resistant leather).

We ended up with the dwarf (wizard/fighter/eldritch knight), and fighter going toe to toe with the stalker (not realizing what it was) and the rest in a spell battle with the driders. I had the drow usher the slaves out. They would have been mown down by the spells (lightning bolts and fireballs) being traded on both sides.

End result - the party killed 2 invisible stalkers and the drow and driders fled, leaving them in the mine area alone. It was funny seeing the dwarf trying to find the invisible dead body that he was sure should have been in front of him somewhere (with the MT eventually suggesting that maybe it was an air elemental and thus left no body behind).

I ended up with the wave of energy from the world eater making the 3 bodies lurch towards the river of lava. The priestess tried to turn them (and destroy them) but I ruled that (after a successful knowledge religion roll) that they weren't undead. They weren't being animated by necromantic energy after the souls had fled. The souls were still there, but being summoned by the world eater.

Oh - and I also made the webbing fire resistant. I figured that with a river of lava bubbling away nearby it wouldn't do to have a stray spark or flame run rampant through the means the driders use to scuttle over the walls and ceilings.

Lessons learned:
large open areas make for very different combats than in corridors and rooms.
mobility is a LOT more important in large open areas.
blind-fighting ROCKS against invisible creatures.
having a sorcerer (lvl9), priestess (lvl9), mystic theurge(C3/W3/MT3), and an eldritch knight (F2/W6/EK1) in the party gives it a LOT of firepower.
I now have a lot of work to do - now that the driders know about the party, their capabilities, and where they are - before the next session. I am going to try and seal the party off from retreating back through I, and have the rebels launch their offensive against the Spider Kings while the party provides the main distraction.
Any suggestions any of you have would be really helpful.

Plus - with a party of this level, how difficult is it really for them to just escape the WLD at the top of Black Mountain? They have access to invisibility, fly, levitate, and could pretty much sneak past the rocs and bypass all the tricky climb checks.


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Plus - with a party of this level, how difficult is it really for them to just escape the WLD at the top of Black Mountain? They have access to invisibility, fly, levitate, and could pretty much sneak past the rocs and bypass all the tricky climb checks.




I thought I saw something either in the book or in this message thread about having an Elven group at the top of the hole. When the characters (or anything else) tries to come up they get pelted by arrows, rocks and spells. 

I'd let the party find 100's of arrows at the bottom along with a mound of rocks and bones. If they try to fly up start small and then work up to bigger and bigger stuff as more and more elves get called in. Having balista mounted at the top would not be out of the question. Elvish mages with detect inviso or gems of true seeing or something of the sort would always be on watch. 

After a few rounds just figure each character has 20 elves firing longbows at them and average the number of hits they would take and average the damage. 1 would be a 20 so just roll the 1 die to confirm. Maybe figure half the arrows would be at least +1 (natural or from a spell). Roll randomly to see who the balista fires at. 

Then start with the fireballs and such.  

Unless you want them to get out that way.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> I thought I saw something either in the book or in this message thread about having an Elven group at the top of the hole. When the characters (or anything else) tries to come up they get pelted by arrows, rocks and spells.
> --snip--
> rv




sounds like a good idea - might change it a little as they might see it as a way of collecting arrows  

I figure that the party will still go after the World Eater - tying the regions together and giving them a sense of the bigger picture with the 2 garrisons (even though they only visited one) has  helped here. If they did find a way out they would want to exit, stock up with other goodies and then come back - something I want to avoid.

I'm tempted to have rarified atmosphere towards the top with some stone, cloud, or storm giants throwing boulders down rather than an elven patrol. Maybe a few crushed roc skeletons at the base of the mountain as well. Storm giants would give me chain lightning and control weather as well, plus the good alignment so that they are tasked with keeping the bad things from getting out of the hole in the mountain top.


----------



## twilko

*On Getting out.*

I had always concieved the black that you entered through as being part of a box, a mile or so on a side and say 500ft top to bottom, which I think encompasses everything. My party have been told by the Garrison that the elves have a means of passing through the barrier. If they can solve the problems of that area I'll have the elves give them an amulet to get out.


----------



## Hussar

Cool Eruc, sounds like things are going well.

I'm still slogging through D.  Ok, I've whinged about this before, but, I'm going to do it again.  This region is shaping up to be a big disappointment.  For one, many of the encounters are WAY underpowered.  In the mad Derro halls, the encounters are all around EL 10-12 even if they do connect up sometimes.  And, most of the EL is made up of masses of EL 2 or 3 mooks.  

Sorry, but, 16 hp mooks against 15th level PC's does not make for an interesting encounter.  The wizzie and the cleric are having a blast obliterating everything in their path.  In a day and a half, the party has wiped out every living enemy in 1/2 of the mines.  The only real threat remaining is the main ore plant and of course, the big T.  

Never mind that I beefed up the encounters considerably by using the Mob template for many of the mooks.  

My suggestion for anyone running D is to go through and whack on a whole pile of character levels onto the mooks.  8 levels of rogue for the Derro would be a start.  As it stands, the region is a turkey shoot and, for the grand finale, it's a bit of a let down.


----------



## Ogg

*Still in A*

I'm having fun with rats as guides for my evil party. The rogue is a Jermaline which can speak with rats so he's got rats scouting for him. They have different personalities with only one being helpful but of course of rat intelligence so not overly useful but it's enough to coerce them into certain directions.

They are more or less bullying the ogre to go with them. He hasn't been too useful yet though. They're trying to use him as a shield but he doesn't move forward unless they talk him into it & mostly hangs back after they kill anything eating it. They only were able to talk him into going by convincing him they were going to kill the orc leader. 

It's funny because they can't find the orcs due to the fact they're behind a secret door. They can hear them sometime because of the wierd acostics of the area but even their rat scouts can't find them & on top of it the noise from the stirge nest is keeping them from pinpointing it.

Good stuff! 

(How many more days until GenCon?)


----------



## erucsbo

Invisible Stalkers rock.
The party are slowly changing their tactics, delaying actions until the ones with good spot rolls are able to pinpoint a location, and the sorcerer keeps casting mirror image to lessen the chances of getting flat-foot wallopped.
Oh - and Blind-fighting, with the not flat footed v insivible, and extra chance to hit against invisible is paying off in spades for the Eldritch Knight. He has nominated it as the best feat he has chosen. I think that he hasn't succeeded on the first v concealment roll yet - but hasn't failed the second - true 50%.
Planning for next session is going to involve something quite huge I think.
The party has gone from the mining area in M heading towards where the spider kings are (bypassing the passage to the slave lords section), so there could be a lot of action on both flanks with the party being surrounded.
I threw some flesh golems at them in the most recent session and the magic immunity was really nice - they fluked slowing them with fireball and ray of frost (and glitterdusted the stalker), but I'll have the driders watching the party actions while invisible and now they can adapt. Lightning bolts through squares with the golems will heal the golems and damage the party - and the golem DR/adamantine means that their attacks bypass stoneskin  

The party has depleted most of their spells, so will be interesting to see how they cope if things get desparate. I'll avoid a TPK because the Spider Kings will want subjects to experiment on, and having them chained up the other unfortunates could make for an interesting session if it comes to that.


----------



## Ogg

*!!*

Sounds groovy. Our necromancer has already chosen See invisibility as one of his 2nd level spells so I forsee them not running into some of the issues your party is erucsbo, of course that's the difference between a blaster party & a non-blaster.

The ogre was waiting to prove himself to the orc leader. When they made it to the last of the orcs in A I decided to make the orcs a lot less willing to talk & more on edge so the orcs ended up charging the party in a 10' wide hall. The ogre used that time to turn on the party. It was quite a mess. Party managed to barely pull thru. I give the players d4+1 fate points & the parties tank chewed up one of those & nearly used another lying KO'd on the ground next to the parties necromancer. Pretty exciting battle with a near total party KO. It was only thru some very lucky rolling that they managed with less casualities. It's going to take them probably 2 days in game to recover. Now they got a ton of loot & an altar just waiting for them to try their luck on.


----------



## rvalle

Hussar or erucsbo, do you have an 'DM Version' of the K map?

If not I'll work on one.

rv


----------



## rvalle

And speaking of K...

Is the region lit somehow? I don't see anything that says so, but all through the region it says how the Grn Dragon can see the players and vice-versa. This is at a range of... 300 feet? Something like that. 

How about how high the ceiling is? There is a definate large cavern feeling to the map.

Hmmm, thought I had a few more. Anyone still reading this run K yet?

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> Hussar or erucsbo, do you have an 'DM Version' of the K map?




Hussar did one - available on my website (holding pen for stuff that never got put on James Lorimor's site).


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> And speaking of K...
> 
> Is the region lit somehow? I don't see anything that says so, but all through the region it says how the Grn Dragon can see the players and vice-versa. This is at a range of... 300 feet? Something like that.
> 
> How about how high the ceiling is? There is a definate large cavern feeling to the map.
> 
> Hmmm, thought I had a few more. Anyone still reading this run K yet?
> 
> rv




It says in the opening paragraphs that the Derro cracked the roof (flooding here and L), and later that the dragon has gotten too large to leave, so perhaps there are fissures in the ceiling allowing reflected light to pass down.

I'd be half tempted to add a degree of phosphorescense to the water (make it pink - I dare you, and see if the players get the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy reference  ) and that that allows normal vision to 120', shadowy to 240' and low-light vision gets twice that, but only over water (make it go shadowy once you hit land, and only extend to 60'/120' high). That should take care of the dragon (low-light vision + keen senses (x4 in shadowy)) being able to see them at 300', even if flying high above.


----------



## Hussar

rvalle said:
			
		

> And speaking of K...
> 
> Is the region lit somehow? I don't see anything that says so, but all through the region it says how the Grn Dragon can see the players and vice-versa. This is at a range of... 300 feet? Something like that.
> 
> How about how high the ceiling is? There is a definate large cavern feeling to the map.
> 
> Hmmm, thought I had a few more. Anyone still reading this run K yet?
> 
> rv




In the room descriptions, it mentions that everything is lit.  IDHTBIFOM, but IIRC, there's something about the entire region lit by dim, foggy conditions.  The whole phosphorescent thing works.

Reading and prepping this region, I admit that I didn't like it too much.  However, playing it, I was pleasantly surprised.  This is a VERY short region.  After the party deals with Thorodin, there really isn't too much else to do.  I got rid of the Hags actually because I just didn't like them, so that made it even shorter.  However, the interaction with the brass dragon (bronze?) was actually quite fun.  The lizard folk also made for some fun interactions as well.

To be honest, I found this region to be one of the higher RP ones that I ran.  Although, IIRC, we only stayed in here about 5 or 6 sessions (other regions last 10-15), I do think it was quite fun.  Plus, any fight with a dragon is always a blast.  

I thought about doing K, but, I chickened out at the end.  I just couldn't figure out a way to do the underwater thing with the resources they had.  I knew they'd be pretty unhappy to go in with just Water Breathing spells.  After all, a simple dispel magic could easily wipe out the entire party.  Not a good thing at all.  I'd love to give it another shot.

On another note, after I finish up with D, I want to write a rather lengthy report on what I liked, disliked and would do differently.  Watch for it in the next couple of weeks.


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> To be honest, I found this region to be one of the higher RP ones that I ran.  Although, IIRC, we only stayed in here about 5 or 6 sessions (other regions last 10-15), I do think it was quite fun.  Plus, any fight with a dragon is always a blast.




Region K is one of my favorite in the book. Patrick did an amazing job with it. I was very impressed when it was done.

As always, things like lighting slipped through the cracks (no pun intended), but the intention was for the ceiling to be very high. An unnatural permanent shadowy light throughout the region could work, but isn't necessarily a deal-breaker, either.

I find it interesting how easy PCs kill Thorodin.


----------



## Hussar

Well, as far as whacking Thorodin goes, it's not really all that much of a surprise.  IIRC, the CR for Thorodin is about 13, only a level or so higher than the party is at the time they meet him.  Because he's easily visible from pretty much anywhere in the region, the PC's can pretty much gear up for the assault.  A couple of simple spells negate the terrain penalties, buffing out the wazoo brings up the effective party level.

Really, an encounter that is only APL+1 or +2 shouldn't be a tough encounter.  Tougher than standard, but, not extreme.  Particularly since the party can pretty much dictate the time of the fight.  

It was a fun fight for my bunch for all that.  Still nice and challenging.  But, certainly not a major blowout.

The black dragon in C, now that was a major blowout.  As well as the fiendish wyverns in J.  Thorodin?  Not so much.  A fun encounter, but, not an edge of the seat one.


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> A fun encounter, but, not an edge of the seat one.




That's what the advice is for... how to INCREASE the difficulty. But, I'm glad it was at least fun, if it sadly wasn't challenging.

EDIT: These sorts of posts are most useful to new DMs, I think. You've already run it and perhaps someone can go into Region K knowing that Thorodin isn't a tough enough fight. Obviously, he needs to be one age older, for starters. After that, perhaps there's a magic nullifying effect around the Center of the Region, placed there by the Hags, to keep the Dragon in check.

And of course, it stymies the PCs as well.

?!?!


----------



## rvalle

jim pinto said:
			
		

> That's what the advice is for... how to INCREASE the difficulty. But, I'm glad it was at least fun, if it sadly wasn't challenging.
> 
> EDIT: These sorts of posts are most useful to new DMs, I think. You've already run it and perhaps someone can go into Region K knowing that Thorodin isn't a tough enough fight. Obviously, he needs to be one age older, for starters. After that, perhaps there's a magic nullifying effect around the Center of the Region, placed there by the Hags, to keep the Dragon in check.
> 
> And of course, it stymies the PCs as well.
> 
> ?!?!




Yep, perfect for me!

BTW Hussaar, thanks for the Errata on the AEG site as well!

I checked erucsbo's site for a K map but must have missed it.

Since K and L are basicly liniked, I'm going to try and push the maps together so they can get the whole effect.  I was also figureing on some sort of 'shadowy light' effect with the max range being from the edge of J/K to the center where Thorodin is. As they move deeper in they will see more and more of the map.

I think I'll keep the hags. I've never run them and want to see what they are like. Though I suspect I'm not going to be very good at them. 

I do like the idea of them hitting the party soon after the Thorodin fight. Thats just perfectly evil. And with a 2nd dragon too!    

Thanks guys,

rv


----------



## jim pinto

rvalle said:
			
		

> I do like the idea of them hitting the party soon after the Thorodin fight. Thats just perfectly evil. And with a 2nd dragon too!
> 
> Thanks guys,
> 
> rv




now that's a great way to impact PCs who don't recon before the fight



at the TOP of REGION L, there's an anit-magic ward (dead center). i recommend adding a source of light there.

(don't have the Encounter # handy)


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> I checked erucsbo's site for a K map but must have missed it.




link here


----------



## twilko

*WLD blog updated*

Gday all,

my website has been updated and session 21 in the dungeon is up. The link is

http://home.people.net.au/~twilko/

Managed to kill another character who thought that because they had turned evil that he could not be healed by any of the party. He didn't say that that was what he was thinking at the time and the dire wolf did a crit. Oh well. They now want to play a Hellbreed.

To echo something that Jim Pinto was saying earlier, as a first time DM this thread has been great. You can avoid all the problems and get advice on how to deal with them. Everyone here has my thanks at least.

twilko.


----------



## Hussar

Ok, I got a bit of spare time, so I'm going to give this a whirl.  I'll be wrapping up my WLD campaign in the next couple of weeks, so, if, I was going to do it again, with the benefit of what I know now and the resources I have now, this is what I think I would do.  I'm going to list my suggestions in the order that I played them.

*Hussar's Suggestion List*

Part 1 - Overall Changes

These are the changes I would make that would affect the entire WLD.  

1.  I would use the World Serpent Inn from Dragon 351.  The WSI is a dimension spanning tavern that connects to all sorts of places.  I would change it so that the entrances (or exits depending on your point of view) from each region would link to the front door of the WSI.  When you leave the WSI, you would return on the other side of the exit you used - thus entering the next region.

While I like the idea of limiting PC resources, it does get a bit stale after a while.  Adding the WSI between regions lets the PC's do a bit of crafting (or have someone else do it for them), get access to some spells and information and add in an easy mechanic for adding new PC's after a fatality.  

I would also add about 100 doors in the WSI, possibly accessable by level (read the article and this would make sense) so the players can attempt to do a bit of random hopping around the WLD if they chose.  The doors could be two way or one way or possibly open only at certain times or under certain conditions to prevent abuse.

2.  I would move about 10% of all encounters, and this includes traps, into the hallways.  While I know there are random encounter tables, I could never remember to roll the bloody things.    So, instead, I'd boot about 15-20 encounters per region into the hallways, and perhaps, depending on the region, make them reactive as well.  This also stops the whole compartmentalized aspect of the WLD where there are almost no encounters outside of a room.  Makes things much more exciting when it isn't, Listen at Door, open door, kill baddy, move to next room.

3.  Add 3 dimensionalism to the WLD.  This place is meant to be wracked by earthquakes, yet, the floors are very flat.  Add in some cracks, chasms, ramps, stairs, whatever, to break up each region.  Coupled with #2 above, this could make for some very exciting encounters.  Note that some regions, like K and L already have 3 dimensional aspects with the water and the air, so, I don't think this needs to be done with every region.  But, certainly the "dungeony" regions could benefit from some verticality.

4.  This is something I twigged on fairly early.  Drop maps frequently as treasure.  It gives the players something of a clue about what to expect.  It really helps.

Region by Region Changes

Region A

Unlike a lot of people, I actually like region A.  I thought it was well done.  The only complaint that really resonates with me is the repetitive nature of the encounters.  There's just too bloody many darkmantles.  That and the region lacks a bit of snap and pop in it.  Difficult to do because of the level of the PC's, but possible. 


First, I would take out most of the Darkmantles.  PCGEN allows you to add on templates and calculates your statblocks for you, so, doing up the stat blocks for critters is only a couple of clicks away.  I personally like the idea of a large gang of fiendish baboons (CR 1/2) roving the halls.  Imagine the first encounter in the WLD - the whining orcs - being interupted by a horde of 30 fiendish baboons barrelling around the corner.  The party flees for their lives as the baboons rip the orcs to pieces.  You can keep the party moving by simply having the band of baboons pop up.  Keeps the tension nice and high.

Adding in some fiendish animals would go a long way to replacing the darkmantles.  

Honestly, I'd lose the Trogs too.  I just didn't like them.  They don't talk, they stink so the party likely won't engage with them.  My guys completely avoided the area because of the penalties due to the stench.  Replacing them with lizard folk would work.  Maybe something from another sourcebook.

Region B

Unfortunately, this region needs a ton of work.  I've complained about this before, so I won't belabour the point, but, it does.  The concept is very, very cool, but the exectution lacks.


Remove most of the traps in the Abandoned Halls.  They are just annoying.
Move the bugbears into the now empty Abandoned Halls and beef up their numbers.  It really doesn't make sense that the hidden band of bugbears is 50 feet from the goblin empire.
The two eastern maps should be flipped so that the Holy Goblin Temple is in the south and the rebels are in the north.  It would take a bit of jiggering with the connecting hallways, but it's doable.  This would make the entire region make MUCH more sense.  As it stands, the Goblin Empire has to march straight through the Rebel main hall on their way to the Temple.  Not a good thing.

Region C

I loved this region.  My personal favourite.  I did a bit of changing when I ran it, so that Nardarik believed that he was Arum and tricked the players into openning Aslurthyn's tomb.  Fantastic battle with the dragon, Aslurthyn, the wights and the giants all involved with the PC's in the middle.  With the buffs from the Halls of the Celestials, it was a bloody fantastic fight.  I honestly wouldn't change much in this region.

Region F

I actually didn't run this region.  I skipped it and ran White Plume Mountain (from the WOTC site) instead.  However, I do have some ideas:


Use the Demonomicon article from Dragon 341 on Baphomet.  The Demon king of Minotaurs needs to be here. 
Replace one of the leaders of the Minotaur tribes with an Aspect of Baphomet.  The other tribe's leader doesn't want to submit to the aspect's leadership, thus the schism.
Replace the teleport doors with entrances to an under layer beneath F.  Inside this layer are several traps and constructs guarding a Brazen Skull (artifact devoted to Baphomet).  Both mino tribes are trying to get at the Skull with whoever gets it getting the right to rule.
Do a bit of alteration to the east side of the map allowing easier access to G.  As it stands, it's pretty much impossible to go from F to G and C to G is suicidal.
This region suffers a lot of Big Monster/Little Room syndrome.  Increase the scale to 1=10 feet for the region.

Region G

Another great region.  We had so much fun.  And since there's lots of stuff to talk to here, there's great opportunities for RP.


Another region with Big Monster/Small Room syndrome.  Increase scale to 1=10 feet.
Possibly remove some of the unaligned to the north.  I'm not sure what to replace them with though.  They do somewhat detract from the feel of the region though IMO.  But, they do make nice bundles of xp to bump the party up a bit to face all those demons.

Region K

The shortest of the regions, with the dragon battle as the highlight.  Lots of stuff to talk to with the crazy dragon and the lizard folk.  My only complaint is that most of the region is underwater and thus the party is unlikely to find it.


Add an alchemical substance (so it can't be dispelled) that grants PC's a swim speed of 30 and the ability to breathe underwater.  Call it gillyweed if you must.  

Region J

Bloody fantastic region.  I had a blast here.  Great set battles, lots of exploration.  My only complaint is perhaps everything in here is too unfriendly.  There's pretty much no talking here.  That makes for a bit of a grind for the region.


Make the Azers and possibly the Giants indifferent to the party at initial encounter.  The PC's are obviously not really part of the fighting here, so, it makes sense that they might be recruited.
Knock off a few of the traps.  They are mostly annoying.
The whole Serratine thing was a bit cliche.  And finding all the triggers is a pain.  Again, if the critters are a bit friendlier, then perhaps it would be a little easier to drop information.

Region D

After three great regions - C, G, and J - D was a let down.  There are a lot of stat block errors here and the encounters are not well done for the level the PC's should be.  Far too easy.  A single Cloudkill spell will wipe out more than half the region if done right and the save DC's for the Formians are a joke against 15th level PC's.  The only reason the region is as high as it is is because of the Tarrasque.  I would go one of two ways with this region.  Either lower down the level expectations and run it right after J or jack it up a whole lot and do it as the finale of the WLD.

*Running D after J*

Remove the Tarrasque.  (heh, duh)
Knock down the caster levels on a few of the BBEG's.
This region also suffers badly from Big Monster Small room, so, use a 1=10 feet scale.

*Running D as the finale*

Add 8 levels of warrior to every deep dwarf and duegar.
Add 8 levels of rogue to every Derro
Every formian warrior would be equal to the 9hd advanced formian warriors in D 60
Advance the formian Myrmarch's and Taskmasters about 8 hd each.
Advance each xill to about 15 hit dice.
This region also suffers badly from Big Monster Small room, so, use a 1=10 feet scale.

That should work nicely for the region actually.  Note, those are rough numbers, but, as it stands, D is a major disappointment.  Adding in more fodder doesn't help since the casters can obliterate pretty much anything with 30 hp or less with a single spell, regardless if it saves or not.  Like I said, salvaging D would take a lot of work, but, worth it in the end IMO.  The concept is great.  But the execution is lacking.

Well, what do you all think?

As a final thought, I would like to thank jim pinto and all the people who worked on this project.  For the very first time I've had a game go right to high double digit levels, I've had the most fun DMing I've ever had, AND I get to use the Tarrasque on my players.  The last almost two years of running the WLD has been fantastic.  Jim and everyone else, thank you very much.


----------



## DaveMage

Thanks for your insights, Hussar!

I like the fiendish baboons idea - a lot.


----------



## rvalle

You MUST post the fight with the Tarrasque here. MUST!

That baboon idea is cool. I idea of them looking over their shoulders as the orks get ripped to shreds is great. 

Your guys went a different way then mine (A, E, I, J, K (so far)) so not much to say about the rest. 

I do dislike how J is misplaced level wise. My group went in at 10th level and have fought all along the outer edges. The lost to the Fire Salamanders and were forced into fighting and beating the Azers and their Ogre Mage leader (in a somewhat modified fight). They beat the Behir's but left the BIG one alone.

They ran into 2 trolls and were losing when 8 more and the Efreeti showed up so they ran. At this point they know they can loop around the south edge and go to K and avoid the center of J so that is the plan since they don't want to 'clear' the place but just get out.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> That baboon idea is cool. I idea of them looking over their shoulders as the orks get ripped to shreds is great.



Wish I'd had that in A now, though my group pretty much went straight north through A and missed 80% of the region (they did enter the dungeon at level 6 though). Might do something similar if they get to N though - maybe with scarab beetles ala The Mummy.



			
				rvalle said:
			
		

> I do dislike how J is misplaced level wise.



Agreed.
My group also went there from I, and at level 8 it means instant kills from the Chaos diamond from the big behir. They skirted along the bottom of J, and realised that they were very much outclassed. The party is forced to either spend overly long in I until they are of a level that they can cope, or be forced up through M (and then J would become a side trek away from N). They have since gone back to I - fought Madness - found the rebels - and headed north to M.


----------



## twilko

Firstly, great idea Hussar. Maybe we should compile all the ideas and post it somewhere.   



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> 1.  I would use the World Serpent Inn from Dragon 351.  The WSI is a dimension spanning tavern that connects to all sorts of places.  I would change it so that the entrances (or exits depending on your point of view) from each region would link to the front door of the WSI.  When you leave the WSI, you would return on the other side of the exit you used - thus entering the next region.




I wouldn't use it personally. I think it would destroy the whole idea of the dungeon as a prison and the garrison being cut off. There are areas that the players can clear out and do item creation, the garrison for one. You could also, as I have done, place around the dungeon more doors connected to the All Door, that can be caches of supplies and weapons.




			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Region A
> 
> First, I would take out most of the Darkmantles.  PCGEN allows you to add on templates and calculates your statblocks for you, so, doing up the stat blocks for critters is only a couple of clicks away.  I personally like the idea of a large gang of fiendish baboons (CR 1/2) roving the halls.  Imagine the first encounter in the WLD - the whining orcs - being interupted by a horde of 30 fiendish baboons barrelling around the corner.  The party flees for their lives as the baboons rip the orcs to pieces.  You can keep the party moving by simply having the band of baboons pop up.  Keeps the tension nice and high.
> 
> Adding in some fiendish animals would go a long way to replacing the darkmantles.
> 
> Honestly, I'd lose the Trogs too.  I just didn't like them.  They don't talk, they stink so the party likely won't engage with them.  My guys completely avoided the area because of the penalties due to the stench.  Replacing them with lizard folk would work.  Maybe something from another sourcebook.




Agree whole heartedly. Throwing in a few fiendish creatues makes the area much more interesting.



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Region F
> I actually didn't run this region.  I skipped it and ran White Plume Mountain (from the WOTC site) instead.  However, I do have some ideas:
> 
> 
> Use the Demonomicon article from Dragon 341 on Baphomet.  The Demon king of Minotaurs needs to be here.
> Replace one of the leaders of the Minotaur tribes with an Aspect of Baphomet.  The other tribe's leader doesn't want to submit to the aspect's leadership, thus the schism.
> Replace the teleport doors with entrances to an under layer beneath F.  Inside this layer are several traps and constructs guarding a Brazen Skull (artifact devoted to Baphomet).  Both mino tribes are trying to get at the Skull with whoever gets it getting the right to rule.
> Do a bit of alteration to the east side of the map allowing easier access to G.  As it stands, it's pretty much impossible to go from F to G and C to G is suicidal.
> This region suffers a lot of Big Monster/Little Room syndrome.  Increase the scale to 1=10 feet for the region.




I added an Aspect of Baphomet to F but my party have chickened out after only a couple of encounters. I also amalgamated both tribes and had the only resistence to the Apsect being the elf possessing one of the mino's (forget the name). I like the Skull idea but I might put another All Door in the region to access it if I were to run it. To get around the small room problem I spread the mino's out abit as so the party would start thinking they are fighting 4 of them and then suddenly find another 4 flanking them from another room.

Thats as far as I have got so far. A 80% done, E 70% done, F maybe 10% and B 10%.

No region E review Hussar?


----------



## jim pinto

These are always my favorite posts.... trading out stuff for the rooms.

There are over 1,600 locations. Plenty of room for changes.

Twofalls did that entire post a long time ago about Region A and changing Longtail into a chain demon, I think.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Hussar's a meanie and won't post session logs. D: I want to read of his group's exploits and woes!

My group's going decently. About to start up another game for Region I, because I want to run that, damn it. But my current group just ran into Nardarik in Region C, and is now probably going to get their way back through the gnolls and head into F. Whee. One of my least favourite regions. Maybe I can sucker them elsewhere...


----------



## Hussar

Sorry PDM.  Been busy at work and the transcripts are on a different computer.  I'll get around to it.  

No opinions for E honestly.  I barely read it and my players went nowhere near it.

On the whole austerity thing.  I dunno.  It was fun for a region or two, but, it got pretty stale IMO.  Plus, with so many PC deaths, the new PC's were coming in with custom equipment anyway.  Every player is on their third or fourth PC, so, effectively, they've gotten to craft anyway.

The problem with crafting in G is that there are no arcane casters.  

Linking things up with the World Serpent Inn would make a lot of life simpler IMHO.

TwoFall's alteration of A was superb.


----------



## erucsbo

*a battle too big for one session*

feeling confident and having healed themselves back to full hitpoints (though now starting to get low on spells) the party decides to go and tackle the spider kings.
They have a map showing the cavern with the machine.
The rogue sneaks off to have a look - sees the cavern, and heads back to tell the party.
Do they discuss tactics? - no
Do they try and capture a drow or drider for intel? - no
Do they seek some strategic advantage from the terrain in the cavern? - no
Do they try and engage in diplomacy? - no
Cast fly on the fighter (F9) and enlarge on the dwarf (F2/W6/EK1) and charge in guns blazing.

Now - I had had the driders that had gone invisible at the end of the last battle warn the rest of their brethren, and watch to see how the party handled the flesh golems - they know what sort of spells the party has available, what sort of tactics they employ etc.
So - despite some of the party members winning initiative, I did not have the driders flat-footed.

The fighter is hell on wheels with a bastard sword and pretty much took out one drider before it could react, but with withdraw and shoot tactics, bringing in flesh golems (the fighter forgot that he had a scarab of golem bane until near the end - but wasn't in use because was wearing amulet of health instead), and poison arrows I now have all the slaves have fled, about 3 drow guards and 1 flesh golem have been dispatched, and the party has 3 unconscious (Sor9, Rog9, Clr3/Wiz3/MT3) with the Clr9, F9 and dwarf (F2/W6/EK1) getting close to being knocked out as well.

I used some of the party's own tactics against them (mirror image, fireball) and it was good to see their reaction when they were on the receiving end   

A couple of invisible stalkers joining in from the rear at the end, and another flesh golem appearing made them think that they were in for a TPK.

My idea was to have them all knocked out rather than killed and waking up chained (or held by silkstone) with Elotor planning on conducting some experiments on them when the slave / rebel revolt began.

But - the dwarf decided that it was time to play the Ace up his sleeve a bit earlier than I would have liked, and used the bracelet of friends to summon the NPC Paladin (who had made it to region G - helping the 2 garrisons join up together again and tipping the battle in G to allow the Children of Light to win).

She has just appeared, and I now have 4 weeks to decide what I am going to do (we aren't gaming over easter and we only play every fortnight). The battle is paused between rounds.

While the fighter is hell on wheels with his bastard sword (dishing out over 100 hitpoints in one round when he managed a cleave) the paladin is death incarnate against evil (smite, holy weapon and has the ability to do a retributive strike [max damage] 1/day if attacked first). I do not want to have an NPC save the day for them so she will probably quaff an invisibility potion and run around to use lay on hands to stop people from dying.

The party knew that this was going to be a big battle.
They knew that fighting first and asking questions afterwards has gotten them in to trouble in the past.
This time I want to make the payment a little more harsh (without resorting to them all having to roll up new characters).


----------



## Hussar

BTW, Session 79's transcript, badly mangled at the end, is up.  Sigh.  Last week was bust, but, we're good to go next week.


----------



## Ogg

*ideas*

I've found the rat scouts I'm using in mine a great way to guide PC's. It would be the same idea as some of the earlier posts with the lantern archons. Basically they lead the PC's in a direction. Got greedy PC's? Have the "guide" tell them they saw a glowing sword to the East if you want them to go East. Have it turn out to be a sword with continual flame on it if there's nothing applicable.   

Anyways I've used the guides to motivate the players to head to the East before going North from A. It's working quite well. Players tend to go in the direction they're getting info from. So if they're told "There's goblins to the east." They're likely to go in that direction.

Erucsbo, if you don't want the NPC to bail them out to teach them a lesson have him just come out of another battle himself & be weak or even worse blinded, "Where art these foul minions?" *swing thump* "Sorry friend." Or have one of the bad guys cast a huge illusion that the paladin fails to make them all look the same so he has to spend a lot more time finding friend from foe. "Standard action: detect evil. Ok he can attack this one. Next round attack evil" If any players drop have him run over & dump a couple points of lay on hands enough to stabilize but not bring above 0 having the paladin explain he needs to save the majority for himself to make sure they don't all fall to evil. Remember just because he's good doesn't mean he won't feel the good guys are incompentent for calling on him. Have them wake up in the situation given above but the paladin mysteriously vanished. (Maybe he ran off chasing a demon that appeared late in the battle) Have their capture explain this in a classic bad guy soliliquey.  "Oh yessss...your friend...well it appears he was rather pre-occupied with a demon ally of mine, a former prisoner of this forsaken tomb, last I saw he was chasing my poor ally down a hall away from here....now where were those lovely spider legs I wanted to see would graft properly to dwarven flesh."


----------



## erucsbo

Ogg said:
			
		

> Erucsbo, if you don't want the NPC to bail them out to teach them a lesson have him just come out of another battle himself & be weak or even worse blinded, "Where art these foul minions?" *swing thump* "Sorry friend." Or have one of the bad guys cast a huge illusion that the paladin fails to make them all look the same so he has to spend a lot more time finding friend from foe. "Standard action: detect evil. Ok he can attack this one. Next round attack evil" If any players drop have him run over & dump a couple points of lay on hands enough to stabilize but not bring above 0 having the paladin explain he needs to save the majority for himself to make sure they don't all fall to evil. Remember just because he's good doesn't mean he won't feel the good guys are incompentent for calling on him. Have them wake up in the situation given above but the paladin mysteriously vanished. (Maybe he ran off chasing a demon that appeared late in the battle) Have their capture explain this in a classic bad guy soliliquey.  "Oh yessss...your friend...well it appears he was rather pre-occupied with a demon ally of mine, a former prisoner of this forsaken tomb, last I saw he was chasing my poor ally down a hall away from here....now where were those lovely spider legs I wanted to see would graft properly to dwarven flesh."




thanks for the suggestions Ogg.
She has in fact just come out of a major battle (in G).
She's not the brightest character (int 12) but her wisdom is 15 and charisma is - well - let's just say that failing a saving throw or having to hold back dispensing LoH is rarely an issue.

She can assess a situation fairly well (unlike - it seems - the party) and will probably opt for the "stop the party from dying" option rather than "smite and all die gloriously". The party has excess anti-toxin - none of which was used prior to the battle (against known poison using creatures) - sunrods (and therefore not dispellable) - also not used (in an area of darkness and with drow who have light sensitivity), and have been mostly casting spells against the drow and driders (knowing that they had spell resistance) instead of concentrating on party buff and terrain modifier spells. Elanor (the paladin) knows better than that.

She will keep out of the fight as much as possible and depending on who shows up next session, she'll try and rescue some of them, while the rest are captured, then the two groups can both work on a solution.

If you have read the Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon, then she is very much like Paks (although the character predates those stories by 7 years [1988 for DoP, 1981 for my paladin]).


----------



## Hussar

I FINISHED IT!

We're done.  They creamed the Tarrasque in three rounds.  THREE ROUNDS.  Flawless victory actually.  The cleric stood in the background and readied heal spells while the barbarian went up with a pair of Trumpet Archons they brought with them.  The chameleon sat in the background the peppered arrows in and the bard sang.

Splatter.  I'll post the log after I've cleaned it up.

I'm currently having mixed feelings.  I'm very happy to have completed this thing.  80 sessions, just shy of 2 years of real time.  Lots, and lots of fun.  It is a bit disappointing that D was incredibly anticlimactic.  But, hey, they whacked the Big T.  First time I've EVER used one.

I'll post some more thoughts later, but, I figured I'd put this up.  

BTW, I'll be doing some housecleaning very shortly, so the work that went into the online versions of the WLD will likely come down, or at least the image files will, sometime soon.


----------



## Hussar

Here is the final transcript of our final session.  2 hours of planning, 45 minutes of me putzing around babysitting my girls, and 30 minutes of the party kicking the Tarrasque's ass all over the place.

Read the Transcript here of the Flawless Victory - Session 80


----------



## DaveMage

Congrats, Hussar!


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Congratulations, Hussar! I can definitely say I've greatly enjoyed reading it all the way through. 

On a side note, you mentioned that you were taking down all the WLD stuff sooner or later? If possible, would you mind if I asked for you to send some or all of it my way, or upload a zipped-up version somewhere where I can grab it before it poofs forever? That was an amazing amount of work, and I would hate to lose access to it for my own games.


----------



## awayfarer

Hoo-ray! We can finally read this thread!   

I was Thugdar in Hussars WLD game. I've been curious as to what you guys have been up to in here and I can finally take a look.


----------



## Hussar

PDM, I'll likely leave all the forum stuff up forever.  I'll probably make it accessable by everyone since it looks like no one is going to add material anymore.  What will likely come down is any hosted images that I've posted since I'm going to have to clean up my Pbucket account sometime.  No hurries though.  Maybe just a honking big zip file that Erucsbo can host with all the text files and die rollers.

Away, you got LOTS of reading ahead of you.  Let's not forget that we lost about 15 pages in the crash last year as well.  Go go longest thread EVAR!


----------



## jim pinto

you rock, sir


----------



## Hussar

And jim, if you scroll up, you'll see that I edited your name to lose the caps.


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:
			
		

> And jim, if you scroll up, you'll see that I edited your name to lose the caps.




sniff. sniff.

i love you, man.


----------



## rvalle

Hussar said:
			
		

> PDM, I'll likely leave all the forum stuff up forever.  I'll probably make it accessable by everyone since it looks like no one is going to add material anymore.  What will likely come down is any hosted images that I've posted since I'm going to have to clean up my Pbucket account sometime.  No hurries though.  Maybe just a honking big zip file that Erucsbo can host with all the text files and die rollers.
> 
> Away, you got LOTS of reading ahead of you.  Let's not forget that we lost about 15 pages in the crash last year as well.  Go go longest thread EVAR!





I still plan on posting the work I do. I have somethings to add to the 'I' section and I'm working on a DM version of N.

rv


----------



## Hussar

rvalle- do you want me to just make the site open.  Or, heck, do you want admin powers?  Since I'm pretty much done, it makes sense to hand it off to someone else.  Maybe put my goodies in a stasis chamber for posterity.

BTW, one of my players, Merkuri, has been kind enough to post her entire collection of raw transcripts right from session 1.  Take a look if you're masochistic enough.


----------



## rvalle

Hmmm, sure I guess. When I'm done I can hand it off to someone else.  

There is a new DM looking for WLD info that I tried to send on to you/those boards. Not sure if he made it or not.

I think you have my email address from when I was sending you the map images...?

rv


----------



## Hussar

Yes, to all of the above.


----------



## just__al

My players are about to face the great death.  His Gavel is listed as being a +2 thundering warhammer, however in his possessions, he has a +2 Shocking burst warhammer.

Since the damage doesn't list an extra d6 of electrical damage I am assuming it's an editing error and that he doesn't ALSO have an additional gavel that's a shocking burst warhammer...

anyone???


----------



## pokedigimaniac

The Great Death is underpowered as written. Make it a thundering shocking burst warhammer.  Or just a shocking burst. I think thundering's completely underpowered, but it would at least fit the idea of the gavel.


----------



## Hussar

Which region is the Great Death in?


----------



## just__al

Hussar said:
			
		

> Which region is the Great Death in?




Region N.  He's the Bodak/mummy/vampire/ghast/allip all rolled into one thing.


----------



## Hussar

Ah, never really did look into N.  DIdn't like undead that much.  Although the World Eater is just fuggin cool.


----------



## rvalle

Hey Hussar... what level were your players when they took out the Green Dragon in K?

My players are 10th and pretty much ran away and refuse to go back. With its SR, Attack bonus and HP's they figure there is no way they can come close to taking it out.


Just had our 2nd character death in 2 games.  

One from the above dragon with a partying shot of Breath Weapon and a failed save. The 2nd was the party getting more diamonds so they could do a Raise Dead in the future. They got them from the Azur/Ogre Magi... having already defeted the Magi and there being a pot full of gems there.

Getting the gems they wandered to the North and ran into 2 of the Rasts. OMG... it was brutal. I didn't realize just how bad those things were and put both of them out there when I should have only put 1. With an attack of +37 and doing 4 attacks at 2d8+10 each they tore though the lead character. The characters grabbed the body and ran off with the Rasts chasing them a short way down the hallway. 

So they ended up having to use the diamonds they had just aquired. 

Now they are afraid to go into J, K or F and are thinking of 'pushing though the Drow'. The players are kinda discuraged as they don't feel like there is any direction they can go.

rv


----------



## just__al

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> The Great Death is underpowered as written. Make it a thundering shocking burst warhammer.  Or just a shocking burst. I think thundering's completely underpowered, but it would at least fit the idea of the gavel.




I like thundering, shocking burst.  Gives it a nice SCARY feel.  Should the party survive the encounter, it would be a good item for the barbarian who's had the same +1 great axe for ever.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Bear in mind, if he's relying on two-handed, he may eschew the warhammer. (Those are one-handed IIRC)


----------



## Hussar

rvalle said:
			
		

> Hey Hussar... what level were your players when they took out the Green Dragon in K?
> 
> My players are 10th and pretty much ran away and refuse to go back. With its SR, Attack bonus and HP's they figure there is no way they can come close to taking it out.
> 
> 
> Just had our 2nd character death in 2 games.
> 
> One from the above dragon with a partying shot of Breath Weapon and a failed save. The 2nd was the party getting more diamonds so they could do a Raise Dead in the future. They got them from the Azur/Ogre Magi... having already defeted the Magi and there being a pot full of gems there.
> 
> Getting the gems they wandered to the North and ran into 2 of the Rasts. OMG... it was brutal. I didn't realize just how bad those things were and put both of them out there when I should have only put 1. With an attack of +37 and doing 4 attacks at 2d8+10 each they tore though the lead character. The characters grabbed the body and ran off with the Rasts chasing them a short way down the hallway.
> 
> So they ended up having to use the diamonds they had just aquired.
> 
> Now they are afraid to go into J, K or F and are thinking of 'pushing though the Drow'. The players are kinda discuraged as they don't feel like there is any direction they can go.
> 
> rv





((On a side note, you can use a one handed weapon two handed and still get the benefits))

My lot were 11th, I think.  The fact that they knew where the dragon was just let them buff to the gills and mop the floor with him.  They made sure they had Freedom of Movement and a couple of other goodies and stomped him.  IIRC, they freed the lillend first, since the spot checks from where he's sitting to where the lillend is are pretty much impossible for him to see.  

It wasn't a terribly tough fight as I recall.  Have to check the transcripts.  Of course, I also have 5 or 6 PC's, which helps a lot too.  And that orc barbarian was death on toast.


----------



## just__al

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Bear in mind, if he's relying on two-handed, he may eschew the warhammer. (Those are one-handed IIRC)




The Great Death is Large and the Barbarian is Medium.  I'd let the Barbarian use it 2-handed without a penalty since it's a large warhammer.


----------



## rvalle

Hussar said:
			
		

> ((On a side note, you can use a one handed weapon two handed and still get the benefits))
> 
> My lot were 11th, I think.  The fact that they knew where the dragon was just let them buff to the gills and mop the floor with him.  They made sure they had Freedom of Movement and a couple of other goodies and stomped him.  IIRC, they freed the lillend first, since the spot checks from where he's sitting to where the lillend is are pretty much impossible for him to see.
> 
> It wasn't a terribly tough fight as I recall.  Have to check the transcripts.  Of course, I also have 5 or 6 PC's, which helps a lot too.  And that orc barbarian was death on toast.




Thanks. I pointed out the 'buff up and fight him' thing but they are still to afraid to try. The Wimps!

The problem is they don't have a true Tank like your Barbarian. There are 2 clerics, a monk/sor/dragon deciple, a bard and a sorcerer. A fighter/barb might be showing up soon and would be a welcome addition. Every spell they tried to case either didn't get though or he was immune too (his immunities are impressive... acid, fire, lightning, magic missle...) so they didn't have a lot of ways to hurt it.

Have you tried to give me more access to the WLD page yet? I've not noticed anything change there.

rv


----------



## Hussar

Whoops, no I haven't.  Will do that now.


----------



## raynbow

Hey Hussar where are these forums you're talking about? I'd like to check it out.

My group is still in Region A!


----------



## Hussar

Sorry, I yoinked the linkie out of my sig.  

http://fuiche.proboards98.com/index.cgi

That's what we got for now.  If you want to get set up or access to the hidden stuff, you'll need to sign up.


----------



## raynbow

Thanks, I signed up!

My group has slimmed down a bit and we only play every 2 weeks or so, and they are all very much 'social gamers'.  So I expect it to take us about 40 years to get through this thing.


----------



## raynbow

nevermind, i found it  duh!


----------



## erucsbo

Two weeks before Easter the game session had ended with half the party unconscious, a freshly summoned paladin, and the Driders and Drow steadily gaining the upper hand.
The continuation of that session happened last night.
Two of the players who had still standing characters last time (Dwarven Eldritch Knight and Human Cleric) were away, and we had another player back who had missed that session (playing a goblin rogue/sorcerer).

so - in the spirit of story-telling I told what happened at the end of the battle.
The paladin disappeared, the dwarf got swarmed and the two invisible stalkers that were fighting the fighter (who was the only still standing character of the present players) grabbed the cleric after orders were shouted out by the driders.
I had the party's light sources go out one by one, and the fighter saw ripples across the walls and ceilings as hundreds of small spiders came his way (the image I was trying to evoke was like the final scene in "The Descent" or other horror movies like it - the player hadn't seen that one - but got the picture nonetheless).

The fighter heard a whisper to grab the unconscious rogue and get out and wisely did so.
The paladin had grabbed the other two unconscious party members (sorcerer and mystic theurge) and dragged them to the entrance. She gave the fighter a potion of Bull's strength and told him to get the rogue to safety then come back and help.
He did so - encountering the returning goblin rogue/sorcerer on the way.

The paladin (while still invisible) checked on what was happening to the dwarf and cleric and noted that they were being subdued and dragged away rather than killed, so figured that she had some time up her sleeve.

Party came to in a small cave. The paladin had a crystal ball which the sorcerer used to check on the dwarf and cleric - finding them alive but in cages in a magical laboratory. The goblin had invisibility and gaseous form cast on him and he went on a recon trip to locate the laboratory, and did so.

The party were trying to work out what to do and noted that there was another entrance to the laboratory to the south. Many bad jokes and lame puns about "back passages" followed for the next 15-20 minutes.

The paladin queried the party on how they had approached the driders previously and discovered that on each occasion the party had always started combat first. She suggested diplomacy might be an alternative. The party were very sceptical about that approach, particularly with little to offer in return for the two captured party members.

The party decided to try and get back in contact with the rebel drow from region I to see if it was possible to get to the lab from the south. They also wanted to test getting past the wardstone, but had guessed incorrectly about the distance that they needed to be away from it.

The rebel drow basically said that there was no way that they could get them through the drider stronghold to the Spider Kings, but could offer a safe place to rest before tackling the Driders again if they agreed to be blindfolded to and from the location.

And this is where the session ended.

They have 2 weeks to try and come up with a sensible rescue plan.


----------



## twilko

*WLD blog update*

Gday all,

I have just updated my site (www.home.people.net.au/~twilko) again. Major update with 2 missing sessions now in and everything renumbered to make it all neat.

As for the last session, the character I had killed off has come back as a Hell Breed (from "Tyrants of the Nine Hells") so most of the session was taken up with introductions and getting to know you sort of things. The next session should be fun.


----------



## jim pinto

*George's Children*

I apologize for the interruption. I release this belongs in press releases, but I thought some of my WLD friends might want to read about this.

http://georgeschildren.blogspot.com/



On a related note, I can never get the hyperlinks to work on here.


----------



## rvalle

What is that bubble thing in the upper right corner of C?  It seems to be centered on the chapel there.  

My group, hemmed in by the Ickyness of I, the jumping/character effecting doorways of J and the Dragon in K have backtracked though B and into C. They are now looking for the key that will let them into G. Since they are 11th level it has been a pretty easy couple of sessions for them.

Hussar, I sent you an email and PM on your site with an idea about how I can take it over. Let me know.

rv


----------



## pokedigimaniac

If you mean upper left hand corner of C, that's the area in which Arum's experimentations made ethereal travel possible. (Until an angel appeared to him in a dream and told him to stop that at once, I believe it was.) This makes the ethereal filcher in that area (C3) actually possible.

My players for one of my groups just entered G and trounced the abyssal basilisk in a rousing fight during which nobody got stoned, amazingly enough. They haven't decided where to go next in terms of searching about, though. The group's currently made up of...

Draka, Gold Dragon9 (using the rules in Dragon Magazine)
Rob, Half-Celestial Human Barbarian5
Karl, Human Barbarian1/Cleric8
Zak, Halfling Rogue4/Wizard5 (Or maybe vice versa, I honestly cannot remember)
Boony, Gnome Sorceror9
NPC Ratul, Goblin Ninja7 (From Area C)

The other group's slogging through Area I. They're actually currently holed up and trying to rest while the dwarven fighter regains all his STR. A combination of some horribly mutated chokers and the choker leader's poisoned dagger knocked his strength from 17 to 0. Fun times! I have no idea where they're going to go next, but they are sufficiently creeped out by I's ickiness. Plus, one of the PCs got hit with a mutation, and their wounds healing and leaving little patches of bristly hair behind are putting them all on edge. Whee!


----------



## erucsbo

still in region M
with the players of the dwarf eldritch knight and human cleric still away I felt justified in having had them captured. The party holed up in the hidden drow infirmary (having been taken there blindfolded by the rebels). The Mystic Theurge helped Umressintra, so she helped heal some party damage and some unsolicited advice. Most of the evening consisted of the party trying to work out a rescue plan, eventually coming down to sneak in, and try and take the driders down and if that doesn't work then negotiate (that despite numerous hints as to the fractious nature of drider politics). Well - they snuck in using invisibility and (on the non-rogues) gaseous form. The invisibility on one of the rogues has just run out and they are in Elotor's lab, and due to a really bad hide check (and Elotor making his spot check) initiative has commenced.
We have had one round of opening dialogue, movement and positioning with me ruling that those without darkvision can only make out the small areas lit by burners and braziers. Elotor has just sent scuttle off for aid - round 2 begins next session - and I've promised them all that they can go up a level if they can rescue the captured party members (nothing like a goal to blinker the party!)


----------



## rvalle

Hussar,

Do you have the whole 1/4's of C and or G done as player maps? On your webpage in the DM's section you have chunks of C... I'd like all 4 whole parts if possible.

Thanks,

rv


----------



## Hussar

Crap, no I don't.  And I've cleaned off my computer with the old images and stuck them on CD.  I'm going to have to email you I think.  Sorry.  All those images were lost when the old site went down.  Gack.


----------



## Hussar

Just realized that you don't have those scans.    Ok, will have to dig out some of the archiving I did.  Gimme a bit, I'm at work currently.  Will likely happen in the next day or so.


----------



## twilko

*Heading into C*

Gday All,

The last Session, number 24, is up on my website (http://home.people.net.au/~twilko and you'll note Jim that without the www it will work. My bad last time.)

The party have traveled across B without allowing themselves to be distracted. They have defeated the ghoulish paladins and are about to enter C in such a way as they should go straight into Ash the Tricksters cell.

Now what if the paladins had only been partially successful? What if they had killed Ash but the Solar imprisoned with him was still on a rampage? What if they and Arum the Wizard were able as a final act to trap the solar back in the cell somehow? What happens if the Solar thinks the party is freeing the Demon he still thinks he is trapped with? There are 6 and rarely 7 players in the party. The rare player is at 4th level with the rest being half 5th and half 6th. I am thinking a CR23 Solar might be a bit much but a CR16 Planetar might be a better bet. Any ideas or suggestions?

I do like the idea posted much earlier of having the black dragon a bit mad and thinking of itself as Arum and I'll use that. I suppose if the party gets into too much trouble with the angel then he could turn up and help.

Just some thoughts if there is any still out there, the thread has gone very quiet of late.


----------



## Hussar

Heh, the insane black dragon was my contribution.  Thx.  

A rampaging Solar is cool, but, I'm not sure how viable.  A solar would sneeze and obliterate the players at this level.  You'd need to put some serious restrictions on him.

On a side note, check out Dragon 355 for the Creature Collection.  There's a spirt critter in there that sets and resets traps.  Absolutely tailor made for the WLD.


----------



## awayfarer

Hussar said:
			
		

> On a side note, check out Dragon 355 for the Creature Collection.  There's a spirt critter in there that sets and resets traps.  Absolutely tailor made for the WLD.




I am very glad that our campaign ended before you got a chance to use that thing. I don't think we needed to experience any more lightning-bolted characters than we already had.


----------



## erucsbo

and the party have finished with the Drow and Driders.

A battle with Elotor started mid-conversation as the party interpreted his defensive casting (displacement) as hostile and threw a silence spell at the table between him and Sinalith - disrupting their spells.
Flesh golems moved forwards and Scuttle had headed out to get reinforcements that would arrive in 3 rounds.
The fighter had remembered after the previous battles that he had been carrying a scarab of golem-bane for the last 5 levels or so (since before entering WLD) and took the fight to one of the golems - rolling 1s for damage for both attacks, but still ended up doing 62 points of damage. He took 27 in reply the next round, but finished it off no problems.
The paladin took out the other flesh golem in two rounds as well, but not doing as much damage as the fighter. Then she stepped up to fight Elotor.
The porticuli had been dropped preventing other driders and drow from entering, and the rogue and paladin managed to make their saves vs the slow and hold that Elotor fired off. Sinalith's magic circle vs good did stop a couple of scorching rays.
The paladin managed to close with Elotor and did a smite as an AoO while Elotor cast a spell (cloudkill) - 56 points of damage with a single blow and Elotor failed his save vs massive damage. I rolled this out on the table in front of everyone - he needed to roll 9 or higher and the die came up 8.
Sinalith climbed to the top of a pillar and cast stinking cloud which made it difficult for the party to see what was going on, and for driders outside the southern porticulus to see in. The fighter eventually took Sinalith down with arrows, and the paladin and rogue finished off Scuttle as he slipped back through the bars and tried to open the porticulus for the driders.
Sinalith did get off a prismatic spray before he died, and the sorcerer failed his save vs insanity so started attacking the party. He was subdued when Melody the centaur grabbed him from behind when he backed up against her cage, and now the party has to work out how to get a heal for him.
After the battle the paladin managed to make a diplomacy roll of 35 to turn the hostile driders outside to friendly (Alith and Radija mainly).
The Spider Kings will allow the party to leave and will be levitated over the lava river, on the condition that they never return. And they must leave behind any of Elotors stuff that is of historical, artistic or religious significance to the Driders. They agreed.
Even though the battle ended up being a bit one-sided in the end, it was a tight contest with resources used and could have been much worse if both gates hadn't been dropped.

They now have 6 weeks before we continue (am going over to the US for 2 weeks!) and have hit level 10, so it was a nice spot to be able to finish the session.


----------



## twilko

*Rampaging Angels*



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> Heh, the insane black dragon was my contribution.  Thx.
> 
> A rampaging Solar is cool, but, I'm not sure how viable.  A solar would sneeze and obliterate the players at this level.  You'd need to put some serious restrictions on him.
> 
> On a side note, check out Dragon 355 for the Creature Collection.  There's a spirt critter in there that sets and resets traps.  Absolutely tailor made for the WLD.




Gday Hussar,

Love the mad dragon. Thanks for the Dragon (Mag) reference which I'll look up as soon as my next assignment is finished.

As for the Raging Solar, I was thinking of making it a Planetar (cr16) or even an Astral Deva (cr14) and having a chain still attached to them thus keeping them in the cell. The party would have to convince the angel that a) they themselves are not evil b) the demon is dead/gone. The Angel would want to keep the party away, killing them if nessesary and escape to find Ash. Or focus some of it's attention on Ash's corpse and only attack the party if interfere or try to stop the Angel.

Just tossing thoughts around at the moment.


----------



## twilko

*Rampaging Angels 2*

Damn, looks like I might have to turn the lights out!   

Found my angel. A Justice Archon (cr6) from MM4. I gave it 5 levels of fighter to give it a bit of omph. Once the party defrosted it and released it, much party butt kicking ensued. Before it could kill anyone though, the cloistered cleric remembered she had a charged ward staff on her, grabbed the beastie, zapped back to the Garrison, and then ran like hell! It's kinda of a neat way of getting the Garrison to deal with the problem, but I am kinda disappointed that I didn't get to kick the party around more. I mean just 4 rounds, that was all, four rounds and then poof!  :\ 

The party is now begining to worry that they have let Ash the Trickster out of his box, or that the angel was telling the truth and that Ash is already loose somewhere. Just wait until they meet the dragon who now has 3 levels of wizard.


----------



## rvalle

Still here. Been meaning to post an update but been pulled off onto other things. Once I had the reply window open and had started typing but never finished and lost the window somewhere.

I'll try to post tomorrow.

rv


----------



## BlueBlackRed

I've been here, waiting.

Nothing new about the WLD from me though, obviously.


----------



## twilko

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I've been here, waiting.
> 
> Nothing new about the WLD from me though, obviously.





I guess thats the thing by now. Most people have run the dungeon, or those sections that they want to and have moved on. With my lot playing once a month and usually missing December, we are going to take quite a while to get through, even if they take the shortest path. The last session (25th) marked over 130 hours playing time and 3 years since we started all this.


----------



## rvalle

Ok... lets try to do this. (Long post)

So, my group has been stymied by I (too icky), F (made it though one of the magic doors and called it quits), and K (too afraid of the dragon) and decided to backtrack.

Now that Madness is dead I isn't so bad (Anguish is pretty wimpy) the Garrison is starting to expand their area of control. They moved though A and began cleaning out B. The party was invited to go with as they wanted to pick up some more magic items (they are at about half where they should be at 11th level).

I hand waved some fighting between the Garrison and the goblins and had the Garrison break N while the party saw an Ogre and some goblins to the S and gave chase.

The bad guys ran and put a group of goblins between the party and themselves. This proved to be a very minor speed bump as the parties sorcerer fireballed the goblins into ash.

The ogre/goblins turn to fight... and shapechanged into Baghest! This is the Baghest that killed a party member, beat up on the party and took their holy bastard sword (Vronil). 

The party exacts their revenge and wipe out the wolf creatures (what a difference 5 levels make). 

On a roll the party pushes on. They punch though B and move into C. I wasn't quite sure what was going on in C and missed some of the details. I picked that there was a magic key and opened a door. I told the party (though the Lantern Archon in the area) that the key activated the doorway in the big prison room between C and G. The party gets excited and goes forth to find the key.

Run into Gnolls but after some tense moments no fighting happens and the party moves on. Find the Giant in the big room by himself and drop him but get hurt enough to rest for the night. 

The next day they find the hole they made to get to the Giant blocked up with rocks. Figuring there were more Giants behind it the head off to look around. 

Not finding much they open it up and crawl though. The 2 remaining Giants were waiting. Mama Giant wasn't happy about the fact that her son was dead but knew he was crazy and saw the mage that probably triggered his rage. She knows nothing about a key but says if anything here has a magical treasure it would be in the treasure room to the North and gives directions to get there (despite the fact that I could find no way for her to have ever seen this room based on the current dungeon setup). 

The party heads off without even asking about what or who's treasure it was.

Party finds the fake treasure room, fall. Get mad and swear revenge on the Giants. Wandering around looking for a place to rest up for the night they find the Gelatinous Cube and a fierce fight breaks out. After several rounds the nearby Black Dragon hears the ruckus and moves out to see what is going on.

He arrives just as the Cube is dispatched and another fight breaks out. This one is sadly short as the party makes quick work of such a young dragon. 

I take this chance to bring the parties magic up to par... and to go out and buy the Magic Item Compendium. I add one good magic item for each character (Crystal Sonic shortsword for the bard, a +1 Shocking Surge Dwarven Axe for the dwarven fighter/cleric, Ring of Mystic Defiance for the sorcerer, +1 Kinetic Burst Longspear for the Dragon Disciple, Armband of Maximized Healing for the half-elf cleric and 'Myruun's Armor' +1 Vigilant Aquan Water Breathing Armor of Swift Passage. Also Belt of one Mighty Blow, Boots of Desperation, Counter Strike Bracers, Bracers of Quick Strike, and some other items).

Party heads back to the Giants, bullies their way past the Giants, finds the key and make their way to G. 


In G they contact the Garrison and hear some of their story. They go out and quickly kill the Abyssal Greater Basilisk (I ran him wrong... I had his gaze attack be something he could turn on or off. As the description says he thinks the party is not much of a threat he has it off. By the time he realizes his mistake he is blinded and I figured he couldn't do a gaze attack while blind. He is dropped before he gets a chance to use the attack. I'm not really sorry about this... half or more of the party would have been killed from this).

Next is to 'kill the demons attacking the dome of power'. Since the party is already 11th level and there are 6 of them I use the 'make encounter harder' option. The party asks if anyone is going to go with them so I send out 2 hound archon and an angel deva. 

So before going out the party each gets a max Aid and... a Holy Aura. Man, what a spell THAT is. +4 ac, 25 Sr from evil casters and +4 on saves. Oh... and if an evil creature hits you it has to make a save or be blinded. Bleh. 

Party heads out and fly/d-door across the river of lava to engage the demons. There is some dancing around as no one wants to get close to the Marilith and her 6 swords. Finally the paladin moves up... takes an AoO on his way in (crit for 30ish points of damage) and attacks hitting ac 28... and misses (she has the evil version of holy aura up). On her turn she makes 10 attacks on the poor human. I tell him to let me know when he drops. 

6 attacks hit for about 100 points of damage. Luckily for him he has a Stoneskin cast on him before heading out and this saves his life. 

When we ended for the night the Marilith is down 1/2 her hp's and is blinded. (100 of 200), a Glabrezu is untouched, a Bebilith has just shown up. Most the Dretch have been dropped. The party is mostly ok... the deva cast a Heal on the Paladin. The party is feeling pretty good.

Next round the Marilith will start attacking the right spots (told via Telepathy), the Glabrezu is going to start Dispelling Magic on the flying really buffed up cleric and move on to the same to the enlarged Dragon Deciple. 9 more Dretch will show up. Then a boss. Then maybe another boss. Hopefully the party will bail soon.


I'm toying with the idea of having the demons launch an immediate counter attack with the Marilith telekinesising the makeshift door to the Garrison down and demons Teleporting into the room though the now open door. Could be fun.

Whew... 

rv


----------



## rvalle

twilko said:
			
		

> I guess thats the thing by now. Most people have run the dungeon, or those sections that they want to and have moved on. With my lot playing once a month and usually missing December, we are going to take quite a while to get through, even if they take the shortest path. The last session (25th) marked over 130 hours playing time and 3 years since we started all this.




And where are they at? 

We will be at 2 years of real time this Aug. Party will proably be 12th or 13th level so just over half way. We play once a week for 3-4 hours a session.

rv


----------



## raynbow

I'm still here!

My group is just about done with Region A.  They've got a few bits left undone, including the chapel, unfortunately, but I think they are going to move on to a new region.

Of course, I thought that last session, and they surprised me.

They started last session just inside Region E, but they decided they had alot left on their map of Region A that wasn't filled in, so they went back there to see what they'd missed.

They ended up working south and then east at a pretty rapid clip and ended that session just inside Region B.

Looking at it, I think I'm gald.  On the one hand, Region E would be much better for them finally getting some plot information (they've had no luck with that in Region A), but, the maps and such for Region E look like a huge mess.  The errata for that section are huge, and I'm not sure it even scratches the surface.  Plus it's that huge mass of empty rooms.  I was working on trying to insert the "bonus" rooms for that Region back in, but trying to figure out where the most logical place to put them was starting to drive me batty.


----------



## rvalle

Unfortunatly, B is a bit of a mess too. The biggest issue (from what I've heard) is that the Rebels have no way to get to their chappel without being slaughtered. You'll have to add a secret door/hallway somewhere. 

I think there are some issues with guard rooms on opposite sides being too close together as well.

Plus I've heard there are too many traps in the N part of the region.

I didn't have too hard a time adding the extra rooms to E. I might still have a map of that around somewhere.  E ended up becoming a very big part of the story with it being the parties base of operations as they explored more.

Good luck!

rv


----------



## erucsbo

I'm still here as well, but have been over in the US for the last few weeks, so it will be a about 3 weeks before we game again. The party has just hit 10th level and is now on the other side of the lava (having been levitated there by the Spider Kings).


----------



## twilko

rvalle said:
			
		

> And where are they at?
> 
> We will be at 2 years of real time this Aug. Party will proably be 12th or 13th level so just over half way. We play once a week for 3-4 hours a session.
> 
> rv





My party has cleared A and about 1/2 of E. They took a look at I and the description I gave of the first corridor was graphic enough they turned around and went to F. They did about 6 rooms but had two party members killed over two sessions and decided against playing with any more minotaurs. They then went to B via A and bee-lined through to C where they have just entered ash the Tricksters cell and are trying to figure out what happened. Most of the party is now 6th level with one just hitting 7th.

Their plan is to find a way north into G and then cross into H to the Elves who, they have been told, might have a way out to the surface. I am assuming this is the case as there are Elves who have joined the guard at Royal orders so it makes sense.

It took two sessions to get to the dungeon and begin. About 10 more sessions in A, 8 in E, 2 in F, 2 in B (all in the north) and 1 in C so far.


----------



## twilko

raynbow said:
			
		

> Looking at it, I think I'm gald.  On the one hand, Region E would be much better for them finally getting some plot information (they've had no luck with that in Region A), but, the maps and such for Region E look like a huge mess.  The errata for that section are huge, and I'm not sure it even scratches the surface.  Plus it's that huge mass of empty rooms.  I was working on trying to insert the "bonus" rooms for that Region back in, but trying to figure out where the most logical place to put them was starting to drive me batty.




I spent a lot of time fixing up E and putting in the extra rooms. I have an assignment for uni to finish over the weekend but after that I can help if you want.


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## Hussar

Rvalle is right.  B really is a terrible mess.  The map doesn't work as it is.  There is no way for the goblins to get from and to the temple in the North East from their lair in the South West.  The abandoned halls are bloody repetitive with far too many traps.  Also, watch some of the bit in the south east of the map - there should be a couple more doors.


----------



## raynbow

Thanks for the heads up about B.  I'll take a closer look at it before our next session.

I'd love any help with E, if anyone has already done the work of adding the extra rooms.

I'm more worried about the empty rooms in E, than extra traps in B.

My party is rogue heavy, so lots of traps are ok.  They are still talking about the fireball trap that leads to an empty room that's in Region A.

They've gotten pretty paranoid of traps based on the ones they ran into in Region A, and since the first thing they did in Region B was fall into a pit, I think they'll continue to be paranoid.


----------



## Hussar

Honestly, I would strip out a number of the traps all over the WLD.  It gets awfully repetitive to have yet again another trap.  Yes, dungeons should have traps, but, jeez, there's a couple of dozen in EVERY region.  It's just in B, they are almost all concentrated in the same place.  And, a number of the traps are pretty lethal as well.  There's a 10d6+10 lightning bolt trap in there.  That's a pretty decent chance of frying 4th level PC's.  I lost a lot of PC's in that part.  Ironically enough, all by the same player.  

B has lots of great potential honestly.  The different factions idea is great.  It just needs some work.  Take a Mark I pencil to your map to make it work, be careful of the BMIASR (Big Monster in a Small Room) issues and have fun.  I would suggest having one of the factions actually move out to meet the PC's.  Perhaps they're observed for a while and then contacted fairly peacefully.  Play up the politics of the region.  

If you feel the need to get really into it, start charting out troop movements.  Have the various groups move around regularly.  That sort of thing.  Move about a quarter of the monster encounters into the hallways.  It will give it a very fluid feel and, especially after the very static feel of A, it might really jazz up the region.


----------



## rvalle

twilko said:
			
		

> My party has cleared A and about 1/2 of E. They took a look at I and the description I gave of the first corridor was graphic enough they turned around and went to F. They did about 6 rooms but had two party members killed over two sessions and decided against playing with any more minotaurs. They then went to B via A and bee-lined through to C where they have just entered ash the Tricksters cell and are trying to figure out what happened. Most of the party is now 6th level with one just hitting 7th.




How did they handle the gate doorways in F? My group quit after hitting the first one and half the party was blind/confused/ect.

rv


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## twilko

rvalle said:
			
		

> How did they handle the gate doorways in F? My group quit after hitting the first one and half the party was blind/confused/ect.
> 
> rv




As luck would have it the first key that my party used opened the door in the same corridor as they were. So I described them stareing at this other partys behinds. After a while they worked out what was going on and proceeded through two more. The first led to an empty room but they could hear minotaurs so back they went. The next key led to a big fight with one party fatality. It was the fatality that decided the party to go elsewhere.   

I had the doors stay connectted for 2 minutes or until closed. My party has the SOP of closing all doors behind them. 2 sessions in A taught them that. The door worked like a normal door and had no other effect on them.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

I'm still here too!

Running two parties through the WLD - one is in G and the other is in I. (The Region G one is an IRL campaign from my college that's shifted to online for the summer, as I'm cross-country, while the Region I one is a purely online one)

Here's quick updates on them.

The Region G group is the longest-running WLD group I've had, with one of the players actually having been there from the start. The other two players joined a bit later, we lost a fourth due to school dropout, and the last two rejoined after a half-year hiatus from D&D. Their route has led them thus far:

Region A, where they warred heavily against Longtail and his hordes, coming up against a wiser Longtail who had discovered how to use the portal to corrupt already-existing creatures.

Region E, where they engaged the shadows in a long, protracted struggle, finally defeating Seraxes without any casualties to themselves. They made contact with the celestials, and joined the garrison. They were then tasked to go investigate the reports of Arum resurfacing in C. So they traveled through...

Region B, which was a shell of its former self, thanks to a powerful dread necromancer halfling by the name of Selena, who had wreaked havoc in the region by opening the Tombs and undeadifying many of the region's inhabitants. The few remaining beings in the region (who have not been found) had to form a hasty truce and hole up behind the Maze... The group encountered Selena, who played cat-and-mouse with them, herding them through the region and finally into the undead paladins' room for a final battle, before letting them flee into...

Region C! It was here that the group spent quite some time, finding the key to F and defeating the giants, as well as encountering Arum's maddened memories (unfolding the story of the region in dreams as they went along) and his journal. They also encountered Nardarik the black dragon, who has taken a fancy to the mantle of Arum - it makes people fear him more. They negotiated a retreat from Nardarik at some cost, and then tried to marshal the gnolls to go defeat Selena. However...

Back in Region C, it was wholly empty  as they went along - with clear tracks of a horde of undead heading out and through A and E, into...

Region F! Here, the group encounted and parleyed with some minotaurs, taking on a task of exterminating the barghests in E for the Broken Axe tribe in return for passage through their territory to follow the undead horde (which had headed north). They returned...

To Region E, dealing death to some barghests. However, an inevitable cantered into the battle, and they realized that the barghests had allied with the inevitables (Thank you for the idea, BBR) and that the celestials were imprisoned. Kelara contacted the group through a return _message_, and told them to seek out help in the other garrisons. To this end, they followed the lava out of Region F, to...

Region G! They had found some scouts from the garrison previously (two new player characters) that decided they were going to try and take on the Demon Triumvirate on their own, and ended up summarily fleeing south. (This also served to prevent the group from going north out of C and into SURE DEATH.) So they followed the lava down to the garrison, reported, went through the standard hoopla, and got the quest to go find the Flame of Aranas to save Cyrlebrai and stuff. They then proceeded to trounce the basilisk, making INCREDIBLE saves against its gaze at all times. Now they're helping with the defense while trying to decide just where to start searching for the Flame. Little do they know that a quasit has snuck into the base...

---
Whew, that was longer than expected.
---

The other group has only run for a few sessions, basically fastforwarding up to Region E, and then getting sent into I on a scouting mission as provisional garrison members. They've poked round I a bit, run into some chokers, and are really, really not liking the region at all.   

Heh. Surprisingly unbalanced descriptions. Ah well - hope that serves to keep the thread moving!


----------



## erucsbo

has anyone DMd the northern part of Region M?
tips, comments and gotchas welcome.
I'm dumping my party across the lava river with a promise that they leave the Spider Kings alone.
They may decide to try and get back to the Garrison in E via J and I.
It just seems that the top half of M is a little, er, boring? compared with the southern section.


----------



## rvalle

twilko said:
			
		

> As luck would have it the first key that my party used opened the door in the same corridor as they were. So I described them stareing at this other partys behinds. After a while they worked out what was going on and proceeded through two more. The first led to an empty room but they could hear minotaurs so back they went. The next key led to a big fight with one party fatality. It was the fatality that decided the party to go elsewhere.
> 
> I had the doors stay connectted for 2 minutes or until closed. My party has the SOP of closing all doors behind them. 2 sessions in A taught them that. The door worked like a normal door and had no other effect on them.




Oh, so you didn't roll on the random effect table if the person going though the door wasn't LG.

I used the table but modified it to either LG or a Garrison Member. 3 of the party members are in the Garrison now, having taken the test in E but only one of those are LG. I figured since some of the Garrison (Besar, Doj...) are CG having something like this doorway that would effect them was kind of silly.


----------



## twilko

rvalle said:
			
		

> Oh, so you didn't roll on the random effect table if the person going though the door wasn't LG.
> 
> I used the table but modified it to either LG or a Garrison Member. 3 of the party members are in the Garrison now, having taken the test in E but only one of those are LG. I figured since some of the Garrison (Besar, Doj...) are CG having something like this doorway that would effect them was kind of silly.




No I left out the random effect. I thought that they would have enough trouble with the minotaurs. I also added seals at the doors between areas same as the ward seals that the Garrison was trying to maintain. Most were pretty weak but I had one party member turn evil by this stage and there was a change that neutral characters might get zapped.   

All in all enough for the party to deal with.


----------



## Xiag

Region E for me was such a mess, I actually ended my campaign early.

The party defeated seraxes, returned with the charter and a staff, used it to push the inevitables into understanding they've broken the charter, then sent them back to their plane for reprograming.  When they returned, the celestials did what any good law abiding society would do when they hear of a high security jail break.  They sent overwhelming force to curtail the rebellion.  The reenforcements escorted the PC's out, and we got on with our campaign.

My honest suggestion is to take out the celestials, leave hints of thier recent occupation.. have the inevitables completely insane and unrecoverable, and all the wards have failed, but could be restored if the PC's work fast.

It basically requires a large rewrite of E.

I may push the other pieces of the dungeon as solo dungeons in my new campaign, but I won't run it again as a full campaign.


----------



## erucsbo

Region E worked really well for me, with the beleagured garrison providing a good base for operations in to the other areas of E. The different tactics needed to fight the shadows, the barghests and the shadow hounds made for good variety, and having the garrison present gave the party a focus for their efforts in trying to repair the damage rather than just doing the hack and slash thing.
The extra rooms and descriptions helped fill out some of the empty areas and the opportunity to reveal a lot of the history of the dungeon really upped the interest level of the players.
The sense of accomplishment from helping the garrison and reinforcing the wards, and tipping the power balance in the region back to the forces of good made for a very satisfying conclusion to the party's adventures in E and has carried over in to them looking at the big picture of trying to further help the Garrison as they move in to other areas of the dungeon.


----------



## rvalle

E worked pretty well for me as well. The fights with the shadows and baghest were some of the best so far. E became the characters base of operations not only for the rest of that region but for I and J as well. 

Finding the 'All-Door' gave me a chance to add some magic items and other equipment for teh characters to pick up as well. 

rv


----------



## erucsbo

Huge Air Elementals rock.
The ones in the northern part of M hammered the party last night. Things were fairly boring - as I expected they would be, and after they talked themselves out of heading to the bottom of Death Canyon (after seeing a group of achaierais on patrol) the got walloped by the 6 elementals to the north west of the canyon.
I gave them a couple of rounds of the wind increasing - then initiative.
DC 25 reflex saves to avoid damage from whirlwinds and again to avoid being picked up meant that it was extremely hard for any of them to make the save.
The elementals picked up characters, then with the remainder of the movement from the spring attack took them, scattered them and dumped them (30' fall). So for most of the party members it was 2d8 from the whirlwind and 3d6 from falling damage each round. The elementals were having fun - until the fighter and paladin managed to get a few hits in. Being NE instead of N the elementals were also subject to the holy damage from the paladin's sword, and she got a smite on one as well.
2 elementals ended up biting the dust before the elementals took to their caves and gave the party a round of respite. We ended the session there, but they will come out again next round to continue the carnage - they aren't too smart (Int 8) so figured they might try and drop the party off the edge of the canyon now instead of just playing with them. I don't think Feather Fall has been on any of the spell caster spell lists yet, so will be interesting to see how they cope.

Oh - question which we couldn't find an explicit ruling on.
Does Stoneskin work against falling damage?
I know that in earlier editions the answer was no, but with it being damage reduction/adamantine now, some of the players are saying that it is bludgeoning damage and therefore subject to damage reduction.


----------



## JohnnFour

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Oh - question which we couldn't find an explicit ruling on.
> Does Stoneskin work against falling damage?
> I know that in earlier editions the answer was no, but with it being damage reduction/adamantine now, some of the players are saying that it is bludgeoning damage and therefore subject to damage reduction.




I would vote no because falling damage is environmental damage, and the Stoneskin spell specifically mentions weapon damage when explaining the DR.


----------



## jim pinto

*hi*

it's been a while since i stopped in and said hi 

and since i'm looking for an excuse at the moment NOT to work, i'm checking in on my old haunt

rumor has it that AEG is stealing selling plenty of copies of this book, btw

which is a pretty good indication that people are enjoying it and that this thread is helping to get people to sell their blood and hair for a chance to play in it.

i recently had an idea for this book where the PCs are sent in to FIX the prison, because the wardens know its not working anymore and instead of killing everything in sight, they have to get everything back into its cages.

not sure how much fun that would be.

but, just an idea.

peace.


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> it's been a while since i stopped in and said hi




hi jim!



			
				jim pinto said:
			
		

> i recently had an idea for this book where the PCs are sent in to FIX the prison, because the wardens know its not working anymore and instead of killing everything in sight, they have to get everything back into its cages.
> 
> not sure how much fun that would be.




trouble is that most of the original prisoners are no longer present, and with perhaps the exception of Region N, neither are most of the cages. Being that it was the work of celestials, it would be a major undertaking to fix it up.

Coupled with this was the original reason that the undeveloped mortals could not handle the evil powers - but a party sucessfully negotiating the dungeon (and perhaps defeating some of the major evil players left there - Tyrus, World Eater, Krasveshk, Tarrasque) would show that mortals are now indeed capable of standing against the greater evil powers. Not to mention the river of lava running through the centre (and the hole in H, and perhaps M) which destroys the integrity of the prison itself.

But a rescue mission, artifact hunt or shifting through various times in the WLD history might be worth exploring.

As an aside - the way I'm running my campaign - with the death of evil beings in the dungeon feeding the escape of the World Eater - is stopping the party from killing everything in sight (they only kill most things now). There is a lot more interplay between PCs and NPCs and deals being made - as the PCs are beginning to realise how much their actions are destabilizing things and potentially hurting the garrison efforts to bring things back under control.


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:
			
		

> But a rescue mission, artifact hunt or shifting through various times in the WLD history might be worth exploring.




yeah.

that's a better call.

the PCs go in KNOWING that the dungeon is a prison. but no one has been inside for 10,000 yeas so know what knows the contents.

and no one has any IDEA where the RELIC might be.


----------



## Hussar

> Oh - question which we couldn't find an explicit ruling on.
> Does Stoneskin work against falling damage?
> I know that in earlier editions the answer was no, but with it being damage reduction/adamantine now, some of the players are saying that it is bludgeoning damage and therefore subject to damage reduction.




There is a sage advice (and I don't remember which issue of Dragon) that said that falling damage is not reduced by damage reduction.  I thought it was kinda wonky, but, there you are.  You can kill werewolves by pitching them off cliffs.


----------



## rvalle

jim pinto said:
			
		

> yeah.
> 
> that's a better call.
> 
> the PCs go in KNOWING that the dungeon is a prison. but no one has been inside for 10,000 yeas so know what knows the contents.
> 
> and no one has any IDEA where the RELIC might be.




This reminds me of that Escape from New York movie.   


rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> This reminds me of that Escape from New York movie.




why not go for a series of movie-type adventures based on what a party who has already been through knows about.

Assuming that they haven't pulled the kill-switch in N which could destroy the entire WLD, and knowing that there would be areas that the characters didn't get to/through ...

The memoirs / stories / debrief reports of those who got through the dungeon are now known - the general condition of the dungeon, its history (both past and recent) and rumours of who or what is left.

Given that the party members who have gotten out are now probably of a level that tackling other untouched regions would be a cakewalk, and that psychologically they probably never want to set foot in there again, a number of tasks remain to be done by groups that can follow in their footsteps (level dependant on what tasks they go for).

1 - recover the remains of characters lost in the dungeon - if possible - so that their souls can move on to their next phase in the great cycle.
2 - word has come via the elves that due to the destabilising actions of the previous characters, one group has gained dominance and is expanding in to other regions - they need to be dealt with while the elves shore up defences or make a withdrawal
3 - ancient records of a relic known to have last been seen with a named demon lord or high celestial can now be tied to that demon lord or celestial having last been in the WLD
4 - a mysterious disease is affecting the mortal world - a component(s) needed for the cure can only be found in the distant past (or somewhere that has been sealed off for 10,000 years) - the characters must find a region within the dungeon that has remained intact
5 - massive geological movements are causing the lava flow to increase and fill what is left of the dungeon - the characters need to help the remaining celestials/garrison and/or elves escape before they suffer a firey end. A race against time ensues, or the party might find themselves suffering the same fate.


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:
			
		

> 1 - recover the remains of characters lost in the dungeon - if possible - so that their souls can move on to their next phase in the great cycle.
> 2 - word has come via the elves that due to the destabilising actions of the previous characters, one group has gained dominance and is expanding in to other regions - they need to be dealt with while the elves shore up defences or make a withdrawal
> 3 - ancient records of a relic known to have last been seen with a named demon lord or high celestial can now be tied to that demon lord or celestial having last been in the WLD
> 4 - a mysterious disease is affecting the mortal world - a component(s) needed for the cure can only be found in the distant past (or somewhere that has been sealed off for 10,000 years) - the characters must find a region within the dungeon that has remained intact
> 5 - massive geological movements are causing the lava flow to increase and fill what is left of the dungeon - the characters need to help the remaining celestials/garrison and/or elves escape before they suffer a firey end. A race against time ensues, or the party might find themselves suffering the same fate.




and of course, there's the issue of cleaning out the regions that the PCs missed the first time

btw... did anyone notice that this thread has been read over 90,000 times?


----------



## DaveMage

jim pinto said:
			
		

> btw... did anyone notice that this thread has been read over 90,000 times?





Yeah, I've really gotta stop reading it 1,000 times a day....


----------



## erucsbo

*Region M to N?*

Region M is levels 9-12
Region N is levels 14-16

The eastern edge of the M map is open floor
The western edge of the N map is mostly rock-wall
so - either there is a very straight wall right on the edge of the M map to N, or I'm half inclined to get rid of the rock on the western side of N.

This may lead the players to try and get in to N before they are ready though.
Just wondering if the rock wall on N's edge might have been put there to try and funnel adventurers from M down to J first.

My characters are at level 10 - well below what is needed to survive in N and still under the lower edge of J.
They have now been kicked out of the Barrows in M so all that is left are the relatively few encounters north of the lava in M.

Anyone else had parties in this situation before?
Any suggestions, comments or advice would be welcome.


----------



## Traevanon

Hi guys!

After a lengthy move to a new house we have resumed the WLD in Lansing, MI.

The campaign is almost over though, the characters are all 18th-20th level, and the World Eater is in the process of escaping its wards.  The World Eater battle will be the final one of the campaign.  I have boosted it all the way up to an astronimical CR-50, but given the party an epic means of disabling it temporarily.  It should be a great fight and a good capper for the campaign.

BTW:  Everything has been boosted in my version of the WLD.  I feel that if you played it exactly as written and the characters were motivated to escape (as mine were) they could have easily done so around level 11 or so.  So, a summary of my campaign might not exactly make sense to some here because large swaths of terrain, characters, encounters and treasure have been magnified and expanded.

However, most recently they recieved a massive preview of the World Eater battle against Chtryx and the Terrasque over in the other corner of the dungeon which killed two of the seven charcters (they were rezzed).  

At this point I can say that it has been a great ride for two and a half years and I am looking forward to letting someone else DM for a while.  

Great job Jim, RValle and the whole crew.  Even if everything wasnt perfect, just the sheer volume of information on the setting helped D&D work properly for us for a change and took a massive portion of the work off of the DM's shoulders.


----------



## raynbow

We had an interesting night last night.

My group of 2nd & 3rd level PC's wandered into the edge of Region B two sessions ago.  There are 7 of them, so I figured they'd be ok, even though the region is a bit on the high side.

There are two rogue types in the group, so I think they are enjoying all the traps so far.

Unfortunately, they took a turn northwards and headed into Region F.  Not only that, but they somehow made a beeline straight for the cryhoydra.

They got the idea that I might be a little concerned about them being where they were, and ended up being a little extra cautious.

Two rogues snuck successfully into the nest, or at least they were successful until they actual spotted the hydra and one of them screamed 'RUN'.

They fled back down the hall into Region B, and at least had the foresight to slam every door they could find behind them.  They remembered where a series of 5 ft corridor was, and ran through that as well.  I figured they deserved to survive for at least showing some thought, and let them outrun the hydra.

After that they headed south through the mirror room.

We had a fun time with the traps in B7 and B8 (I think? sorry don't have the module in front of me).  It's the room that fills with water, followed by the room that fills with poison.

They did some testing by throwing various things into the water room and decided that it probably did fill with water.  Hoping that was true, they sent the Warforged across.  They decided that since he was over there, he should just check out the next door and see if there was anything worth seeing.  He went through into the 'gold' room, and figured he'd save them all some trouble and just bring back the valuables.

It would have been funnier if warforged weren't immune to poison.....

Ok, it was still pretty funny.  While he made his balance check on the way in, he failed it on the way out and ended up submerged in the water room for several minutes.

The impressions of a grumpy warforged, soaking wet, and carrying several bits of 'worthless' gold were very entertaining.

Oh, and then the dwarf made him go back and get him a pick out of the gold room....

All in all, it was a fun night!


----------



## Hussar

Raynbow - I gotta admit, a Warforged in the WLD would have some serious advantages.  Most of the biggest threats at lower levels - disease, poison and food - get ignored.  Have you had any problems with this?  Given the rather large boost he's getting, would you think a +1 LA might be warranted?

Just a question.


----------



## raynbow

It's a pretty casual group, so I don't really see it as an issue.  Most of the 'advantages' he has have been used to benefit the entire party so far.

And he's also a monk.  And being a low level monk is a pretty good counter for just about any advantage


----------



## pokedigimaniac

Well, that was fun. The group I'm running is in Region G right now, just hitting level 10. Some of these players have been playing this game since level 1, and it's fun to see things progress. None of the original characters are still living, sadly, but some of them have been around for 6 levels or more! Anyways, on their quest to find the Holy MacGuffi-erm, sorry, been playing too much KoL lately. On their quest to find the Sacred Flame of Aranas, they decided to take an expedient approach to the problem and storm the Demon Triumvirate's area.

First few rounds, Gwarny'z (the hezrou, who is really a little too weak) used his _blasphemy_ to mess up their days, and then took a few nasty holy longspear hits before 'summoning' a dretch horde (First time using a horde, and it was interesting) that surged up from the southern hallway while he gaseous form'd and retreated over their heads. A Black Tentacles spell served to pretty much solidify the wall of dretches (although it really did hurt them - I amended the 'can't grapple a horde' rule because the tentacles' area was actually big enough to hit the ENTIRE horde) while Gwarny'z retreated into Glebshayy's area, and the vrocks came out to play. With Glebshayy warned, a reverse gravity in the 4-way intersection caused some problems, and the vrocks tore into the PCs some before the PCs decided to retreat, not even having come face-to-face with Glebshayy yet. Granted, they took Gwarny'z down to sub-50 HP, which is a good accomplishment.

Now, here's a question. It seems to me that the demons should have some source of healing for the demon lords, at the very least. But the region doesn't really allow for that, save for the flux of positive and negative energy. Any thoughts? Otherwise, Gwarny'z is going to be very anticlimactic when the group returns.


----------



## Hussar

Cache of potions of healing?


----------



## erucsbo

part 2 from #2099 above.
The one round of respite enabled a little healing to be done, then the whirlwinds came back with a vengence - no longer content to toy with the characters, the idea was to pick them up and drop them the 100-150 feet to the bottom of Death Canyon.
4 elementals, 4 characters in range - 2 who had been along at the previous session were absent, and 1 who had missed the last session had come, so I had his character a bit apart from the others.
The elementals managed to pick up 2 characters, one got killed as it tried, and the other failed to pick up the paladin (Divine Grace and a high Charisma really helps when needing to make DC25 saves).
Two characters were carried over the open canyon while the one that tried to pick up the paladin kept at it.
Thanks to readied actions, a web was cast below a falling character as flame strike took out one of the above-canyon elementals. The other elemental moved away from the web and dropped the fighter, who then managed to catch and activate an immovable rod that had been thrown by the rogue from the edge of the canyon.
The elemental that had been trying (and failing) to pick up the paladin was eventually dispatched and this only left the one that had dropped the fighter. It bore down on the fighter who was hanging by one arm from the rod, with a readied action to attack the elemental. Spells had reduced it to 1 hp and the fighter put nothing in to Power Attack to ensure that he hit it - he did.
The party recovered the fighter and the cleric (who was on the web) and retreated to the elementals' caves to recover.

After recovering they found the giant bones, but avoided (wisely) going in to Death Canyon or the depression with the Xorn, and headed ENE. Eventually hitting the wall of the tomb, tracking north, then when hitting the wall of Black Mountain turning south we finished the session.

I think I'll try and push them in to J for a bit, maybe to stop the release of Tyrus, because at character level 10 I'd guess they would be well out of their depth if they managed to breach the tomb.

any suggestions, and for those who have done J, do parties tend to go north or east?


----------



## rvalle

pokedigimaniac said:
			
		

> Now, here's a question. It seems to me that the demons should have some source of healing for the demon lords, at the very least. But the region doesn't really allow for that, save for the flux of positive and negative energy. Any thoughts? Otherwise, Gwarny'z is going to be very anticlimactic when the group returns.





I've had this problem too as my party stormed the group of demons hacking at the dome. They hurt the 6 armed demon and one of the 4 armed guys with claws but didn't kill them. Right now I have those demons off 'out of bounds' healing up by getting their HP's per day. 

Idea: There used to be a cleric with the anti-paladin on the little island but, per the WLD she died a while back. You can bring her back as a resourse for the demons.

rv


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:
			
		

> I think I'll try and push them in to J for a bit, maybe to stop the release of Tyrus, because at character level 10 I'd guess they would be well out of their depth if they managed to breach the tomb.
> 
> any suggestions, and for those who have done J, do parties tend to go north or east?





My group came from the W and after starting N and hitting the Fire Salamanders went South and avoided the whole middle. The problem with this is that they ended up going to the NE corner and, as 9th level characters in a region made for higher level characters ended up finding things WAY over their head (Rasts). One dead character and a hasty retreat later and the group gave up on this area and headed elsewhere.

Jim Pinto once said that J could use some expanding... spread out the groups to take up more space as they are too confined in the Dungeon Region.  This isn't something I was able to do but its a good idea.  If nothing else it could help explain who the heck the Giants are making those greatswords FOR.

rv


----------



## jim pinto

rvalle said:
			
		

> Jim Pinto once said that J could use some expanding... spread out the groups to take up more space as they are too confined in the Dungeon Region.  This isn't something I was able to do but its a good idea.  If nothing else it could help explain who the heck the Giants are making those greatswords FOR.
> 
> rv




the beauty of the northern regions is that you can make them A LOT taller if you want to (especially J and L) and it merely pushes the cavern maps further away, without disrupting meticulous cartographers


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> My group came from the W and after starting N and hitting the Fire Salamanders went South and avoided the whole middle. The problem with this is that they ended up going to the NE corner and, as 9th level characters in a region made for higher level characters ended up finding things WAY over their head (Rasts). One dead character and a hasty retreat later and the group gave up on this area and headed elsewhere.
> 
> Jim Pinto once said that J could use some expanding... spread out the groups to take up more space as they are too confined in the Dungeon Region.  This isn't something I was able to do but its a good idea.  If nothing else it could help explain who the heck the Giants are making those greatswords FOR.




well - they are heading south to J. They are level 10 though, and a full party has 8 characters so they should be able to handle most things.

I had them encounter the lantern archon in N and they had avoided touching the doors, and wisely realised that they might be in big trouble. The fighter has a scarab of golembane and detected the golems.
They went in to the mound of rock and encountered the devourer.

Now - here is the quandry of having an NPC as the moral compass.
The NPC is a paladin of Tyr and never strikes first unless the situation demands it (ie - to prevent a creature doing damage to others etc). The party members pile in to the room and start going at the devourer, with all of them missing, including spellcasters failing SR rolls. The paladin didn't attack because the devourer was grovelling.
BECAUSE of this the party decided to try negotiation instead, though not before the devourer did Confusion on the party.
The party backed out without continuing the battle, but I am still worried about the philosophy that they carry that if something looks evil then it probably is and therefore should be attacked first before any questions are asked. This sort of attitude is going to get them slaughtered in the diplomacy rich areas of J and eventually N, and while the paladin is not going to play counter-type, I still want to make sure that they don't use her as the only way to know what "good" is supposed to be.

And the quote of the night was "let's go south and release Tyrus". It was a verbal slipup - they meant deal with Tyrus, but it was still pretty funny at the time.

And for the record - the open plain in the north of M (and far west of N) is more boring than an unaltered region A - but thankfully able to be navigated out of far quicker.

Now to read up on J and troll back through the several thousand entries here for tips


----------



## Mark

Will there be some effort for groups to finish the WLD prior to 4E?  Will some groups switch to 4E and continue to play in the WLD?


----------



## BlueBlackRed

I figure there will be no new WLD groups, and those who are currently running and are still playing it in May will finish it.


----------



## rvalle

My current plans are to finish WLD in 3.5 which will probably take another 2 years or so. Then start another massive 1-20 module either in 3.5 again or switch to 4.0 depending on what I think about it at the time.

If 4.0 comes out, is very cool and everyone in my group wants to switch I'd jump to 4.0 at that time.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

goodness knows how long it will take us to finish WLD. We only play once a fortnight and it could well be another couple of years before the end. We will be using 3.5e.
No plans to move to 4e, but we may juryrig some of the rules if they make the game easier - especially in speeding up encounters.


----------



## pokedigimaniac

No plan to convert to 4e, but I'm not above cannibalizing some of it to make stuff faster. (I have some issues with speed in combat.)


----------



## Traevanon

My WLD should be done well before 4e.  I think they have 3-4 weekly sessions left.


----------



## erucsbo

Region J fear effect

I have a paladin in the party. From the SRD
"Beginning at 3rd level, a paladin is immune to fear (magical or otherwise). Each ally within 10 feet of her gains a +4 morale bonus on saving throws against fear effects. 
This ability functions while the paladin is conscious, but not if she is unconscious or dead."
From Region J (re. Tyrus' presence)
"Since this Region's theme is despair the PCs are always shaken while they remain in Region J. If they become shaken again, they become frightened and so on."
The frightful presence of Dragons normally allows a saving throw (will)

Should I allow the paladin to be immune?
Should I allow those within 10' to get a saving throw (even if they need a 20 or something else similarly high) to avoid being shaken?


----------



## erucsbo

oh - and where is the crack in to J72?
It isn't obvious on the map, and the description does not suggest that the entrance is the passage to N that is talked about in the introduction to J.


----------



## DaveMage

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Region J fear effect
> 
> I have a paladin in the party. From the SRD
> "Beginning at 3rd level, a paladin is immune to fear (magical or otherwise). Each ally within 10 feet of her gains a +4 morale bonus on saving throws against fear effects.
> This ability functions while the paladin is conscious, but not if she is unconscious or dead."
> From Region J (re. Tyrus' presence)
> "Since this Region's theme is despair the PCs are always shaken while they remain in Region J. If they become shaken again, they become frightened and so on."
> The frightful presence of Dragons normally allows a saving throw (will)
> 
> Should I allow the paladin to be immune?
> Should I allow those within 10' to get a saving throw (even if they need a 20 or something else similarly high) to avoid being shaken?




Without the book in front of me, I'd rule the paladin is not affected, but the others are since there is no save.


----------



## DItheringFool

Just saw this...I'm playing a Favored Soul/Sorcerer/Mystic Theurge in a group that more or less just started (we're still in the first map).

We're a bunch of diehard old guys that have tons of money and lots of memories.  We're not switching to 4e any time soon.  Especially since we only play once a month!  At our current pace we'll be at this for years and years.


----------



## Hussar

I let the paladin be immune IMC.

To be honest, I chucked the whole fear thing wholesale.  I mean, jeez, J is TOUGH.  Whacking everyone with a Shaken condition on top is just asking for more death and destruction.


----------



## erucsbo

thanks for the feedback.
Given that the party is level 10 (except for 1 character who is level 9), I let the paladin be immune and gave everyone else a Will save DC 27 (which the Mystic Theurge made).
Had the shaken state last for most of the time that the party moved south along the River of Lava while the icewall imprisoning Tyrus towered over them on their left.
Some scouting revealed the giants tossing boulders at the magmin, and the other one stacking iron ore.
The dwarven eldritch knight decided to try and lure the two boulder throwing giants in to an ambush. He headed south, said hello to them and as the encounter conditions indicated Hostile, I had them give each other a nudge and start lobbing rocks at the dwarf - who promptly turned and ran. The dwarf had stoneskin on, as well as expeditious retreat, so felt confident he could survive a few hits if they connected with a thrown boulder.
The giants followed, but still lobbed boulders from a distance - frustrating the party who were waiting for the giants to close. Greater invisibility had been cast on the rogue, and Haste on the party, and the clock was ticking down.
The dwarf finally moved so there wasn't direct line of sight and the giants then rolled in, spotting the other party members and getting ready for some clobbering. Indeed the giants did manage to land a few choice blows, but with the invisible rogue doing sneak attack damage, and the fighter getting a crit on one hit, and the paladin getting a crit with a smite, and the cleric catching both giants with an ice storm, and the sorcerer sucessfully "slow"ing one of them, the giants fell.
Feeling pretty good the party then decided to go for the other giant that they had seen - the one stacking iron ore.
The dwarf rushed ahead, not bothering to try and talk (which might have changed the entire complexion of the encounter).
Smack - the dwarf does a critical with the axe.
Smack - the giant hits back - 6d6+16 with an iron bar, twice - does 69 HP damage to the dwarf after the 20 points had been taken off the stoneskin, and uses his last attack to ring a big iron triangle that I had set up to be used if the giant needed to summon help to shift the ore.
As some of the party were still out in the passage looking out for others they were spotted by an Azer slave who had been sent to see what the giant needed - and the Azer then turned tail and ran back behind cover.
The dwarf and fighter dropped the giant and we finished for the evening.
The players though, know now that they are going to need all the healing that they have and more in order to be able to cope going toe-to-toe with the giants if the fighting continues.
With the boulder throwing giants gone, and the alarm raised it will stir things up a lot, and I'll see if I can crank up the heat on the party with magmin advancing from the lava and Azers getting involved while the giants are distracted.


----------



## raynbow

Hey guys, I'm walking through Area B, and I'm a bit confused by Room B12.

The whole description of the room just doesn't make any sense to me.

I'm especially confused about the whole 'groove' thing?  I can't picture what in the world they mean by a groove with a 6 inch floor?  Six inches thick? Six inches wide?  And why does the trap have to be disabled for them to use the groove?  I just don't understand it at all?  The description makes it sound like the trap has already been set off, but if it has, why does it still have to be disabled?

Also, where does the bridge extend from?  I can't make much sense of that either.  Is it from that little lip by the south door straight across (east/west)?  If so, it doesn't really take them to the other door?  To they have to make the balance check to get to the west door from the bridge?

Or are there supposed to be slightly wider/safer ledges running up the north and south walls? That's sort of how it looks on the map,but there's nothing in the room description that suggests that.

Totally confused here and could really use help visualizing or re-writing the room if anyone can assist.


----------



## erucsbo

raynbow said:
			
		

> Hey guys, I'm walking through Area B, and I'm a bit confused by Room B12.
> 
> The whole description of the room just doesn't make any sense to me.
> 
> I'm especially confused about the whole 'groove' thing?  I can't picture what in the world they mean by a groove with a 6 inch floor?  Six inches thick? Six inches wide?  And why does the trap have to be disabled for them to use the groove?  I just don't understand it at all?  The description makes it sound like the trap has already been set off, but if it has, why does it still have to be disabled?
> 
> Also, where does the bridge extend from?  I can't make much sense of that either.  Is it from that little lip by the south door straight across (east/west)?  If so, it doesn't really take them to the other door?  To they have to make the balance check to get to the west door from the bridge?
> 
> Or are there supposed to be slightly wider/safer ledges running up the north and south walls? That's sort of how it looks on the map,but there's nothing in the room description that suggests that.
> 
> Totally confused here and could really use help visualizing or re-writing the room if anyone can assist.





try this.

The room - if all the traps were working - would have a ledge around the room, then a 5' drop to a floor. Anyone dropping from the ledge down to the floor would trigger the trap, causing the floor to retract, dumping the person in the pit. A mechanism that extends a bridge across the pit allowed people to cross the room without having to jump down to the floor and thus triggering the trap.

But it's broken.

The bridge doesn't work now, and the floor trap is stuck open.

If noticed, the party can fix the floor trap - making the 6" thick floor come out from the groove and cover the pit. Then with a 2nd check the floor trap can be disabled so that it can be walked on without triggering the floor trap to retract back in to the groove.

Otherwise the party can try and trigger the bridge mechanism - which doesn't work properly as it does not extend the bridge all the way across the pit, then "fix" the bridge with a successful disable device check - essentially breaking the mechanism so that the bridge can not be retracted and springs back out to its full length.

Hope that helps


----------



## raynbow

That helps some, I'm still a bit confused as to where the bridge is, and how they get to it from the west side (which is where my party is coming in).

I'll fake it


----------



## raynbow

More Region B confusion!

Can you really only get into the whole upper left part of the map either from another Region or from the secret door in Room 27?

My group is coming from the direction of Room 1, having just come from Region A.

From the way it's written, if they don't find the secret door in Room 27, they can't get into the rest of Region B without backtracking to Region A.  

That just doesn't make any sense to me.

Is there a door missing somewhere?


----------



## JustinM

BlueBlackRed said:
			
		

> I figure there will be no new WLD groups, and those who are currently running and are still playing it in May will finish it.




Incorrect, for better or worse.  I'm starting a group through it on Sunday.  My only hope is that we tend toward long sessions and we play many more weeks than not.  We still won't get it done before 4e shows itself, but that's okay.  The weeks I'm not DMing will be someone else's homebrew, so it won't be just my game that falls behind the times.  Either way, I'm surely not spending the ungodly amount of time necessary to convert this beast to 4e, which would involve fixing all the editing errors as well.

Now, if someone were to start a project _group_ to do it, I'd be more than willing to throw my hat in the ring.


----------



## Hussar

raynbow said:
			
		

> More Region B confusion!
> 
> Can you really only get into the whole upper left part of the map either from another Region or from the secret door in Room 27?
> 
> My group is coming from the direction of Room 1, having just come from Region A.
> 
> From the way it's written, if they don't find the secret door in Room 27, they can't get into the rest of Region B without backtracking to Region A.
> 
> That just doesn't make any sense to me.
> 
> Is there a door missing somewhere?




I don't have my book in front of me.  

Region B's maps are buggered.  Badly.  There are all sorts of nonsensical bits in there.  If you think there is a door missing, add one.  I know I had to add several when I ran B.  This Map I created for the James Lorimor site has all the doors I added.


----------



## jim pinto

There are about a hundred ways for the WLD to destroy your game world, so that you can game in a fresh new 4.0 world after the fact.

If you need such an excuse.

To the people having trouble with Region B map... I can only say I'm sorry so many times.

GAMER: "So say it again."

jim: "Sorry."

GAMER: "That's better."


----------



## erucsbo

raynbow said:
			
		

> That helps some, I'm still a bit confused as to where the bridge is, and how they get to it from the west side (which is where my party is coming in).
> 
> I'll fake it




Yeah - the description sucks.

My group didn't go through B.

I'd have the bridge extend from the east wall directly opposite the door in the west wall since the description says that the bridge stops short, but people can jump to it, and that they have to shuffle along the ledge to reach the SE exit and once there opening the lock also requires a Balance check.
Have a 2ft ledge along the east and west walls and a 1ft ledge along the south wall except for the bit in front of the SE exit. No ledge along the north wall. Have the groove run 5ft below the ledges on the west, south and east walls, and the 6" floor come out of the north wall (running along the grooves in the east and west walls and settling in the groove in the south wall).

That's my suggestion, but do what makes sense to you.


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> To the people having trouble with Region B map... I can only say I'm sorry so many times.
> 
> GAMER: "So say it again."
> 
> jim: "Sorry."
> 
> GAMER: "That's better."




jim - if it was perfect then we'd hardly have spent so much time in this forum throwing ideas around and tweaking things. If it was not worth using WLD then we'd hardly have spent so much time in the forum throwing ideas around and tweaking things.
This forum is testimony to you getting a high credit at least for your work.


----------



## raynbow

Hussar said:
			
		

> I don't have my book in front of me.
> 
> Region B's maps are buggered.  Badly.  There are all sorts of nonsensical bits in there.  If you think there is a door missing, add one.  I know I had to add several when I ran B.  This Map I created for the James Lorimor site has all the doors I added.




Thanks, I'm looking at it now, I still don't see another door.  I'll probably just make it ridiculously easy for them to find the secret door in B27.

Played last night and got up to B16.

Had the same issue in B12 with a bottleneck.  The door there is locked with an obscene Open Locks DC for the level.   Both rogues, botched the roll.  I let them through anyhow, because it was either that or they'd have to backtrack all the way to Region A.

So, really, how did the dead goblins get into the pit in B12 if that door is closed and locked that well?  Also, how did anything from Region B get in this section if the only entrance is though a secret door in B27 that is apparently overgrown with vegetation which suggests it hasn't been opened in ages?

I should have filled this section with Region A critters and just made it like the Region B guys had never even found this section.


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

Wow, I can hardly believe I started playing WLD over two years ago, and our group finished it over a year ago. If we hadn't recorded it all I would hardly have believed we actually did it, as it starts to seem a bit surreal as time goes by.

Paul


----------



## erucsbo

PaulofCthulhu said:
			
		

> Wow, I can hardly believe I started playing WLD over two years ago, and our group finished it over a year ago. If we hadn't recorded it all I would hardly have believed we actually did it, as it starts to seem a bit surreal as time goes by.




Hi Paul.

I listened to the audio podcasts as you went through it.
In hindsight, what stands out? What bits became the good memories that you reminisce over?


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:
			
		

> jim - if it was perfect then we'd hardly have spent so much time in this forum throwing ideas around and tweaking things. If it was not worth using WLD then we'd hardly have spent so much time in the forum throwing ideas around and tweaking things.
> This forum is testimony to you getting a high credit at least for your work.




you know. my post sounded a lot funnier at 3am.


----------



## Hussar

jim pinto said:
			
		

> There are about a hundred ways for the WLD to destroy your game world, so that you can game in a fresh new 4.0 world after the fact.
> 
> If you need such an excuse.
> 
> To the people having trouble with Region B map... I can only say I'm sorry so many times.
> 
> GAMER: "So say it again."
> 
> jim: "Sorry."
> 
> GAMER: "That's better."




Oh, hey jim pinto, I missed this one too and I'm probably one of the biggest whiners about Region B.  I know it's not your fault.  But, I can see anyone coming up to Region B is going to have the same problems.

You don't have to appologise anymore.


----------



## raynbow

Hussar said:
			
		

> Oh, hey jim pinto, I missed this one too and I'm probably one of the biggest whiners about Region B.  I know it's not your fault.  But, I can see anyone coming up to Region B is going to have the same problems.
> 
> You don't have to appologise anymore.




Absolutely! Not blaming anyone (or at least not too much).

I'm just getting to Region B for the first time.  If someone can point me to the page(s) in this thread where people talked about it the first time I'll go look there, but I couldn't really find anything!

I don't mean to throw blame, I just need help getting my group through it now!


----------



## erucsbo

raynbow said:
			
		

> Absolutely! Not blaming anyone (or at least not too much).
> 
> I'm just getting to Region B for the first time.  If someone can point me to the page(s) in this thread where people talked about it the first time I'll go look there, but I couldn't really find anything!
> 
> I don't mean to throw blame, I just need help getting my group through it now!




There were about 600 articles that got lost in the server crash end of last year, so if it was in there then you are out of luck.


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Hi Paul.
> 
> I listened to the audio podcasts as you went through it.
> In hindsight, what stands out? What bits became the good memories that you reminisce over?



The best bits for me were the the very start as we got into the characters and decided not to kill the Orcs in the first rooms, and Balazaar sticking his hands down latrine holes, the UBER Battle in session #29  - my favourite single episode, and of course blowing up Boyikt, just before he turned 5th level... 

I think the later & higher levels became more of a slog, while I've always enjoyed the freedom & quick action that lower level games provide (at least for me).

We missed Gerout the Half-Orc (Played by Fin) so it was good to have him back at the end - thus managing to complete the dungeon, but doing so while being dead for half of it!

Paul


----------



## Cheezehog

I dug the podcast!  Balazaar was awesome.  I agreed with your arguement about alignment and its "reality."


----------



## Kanenfawder

I just picked up WLD recently, and I'm having a meeting with my 4 players tonight to work on character creation.  Everyone's got ideas and roles already, but I'm helping them a little bit -- discouraging the useless skills, encouraging certain things, etc.  I'm having everyone take a template or race with a +1 LA, saying that they were sought out by their benefactor to go into the dungeon.

This is my second time DMing, and the first time was very weak in actual RP.  I've read over many of the suggestions for changes on here, and I'll be trying to implement some of them.  Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of free time to work on the campaign before each session, so I'll be winging a lot of it, using some well taken notes to keep things as plot-hole free as possible.

Three out of the four guys I'm running the campaign for like to play often, and we all like long sessions.  So we'll probably be meeting once each weekend for a 12-hour-ish session with a few shorter weeknight sessions where applicable.

As I said, I don't have the time (nor do I really have the experience) necessary to tweak a lot of the dungeon.  I plan on using butcher paper or something similar for the players create maps and giving them maps of regions as often as I can manage to get it into campaign, simply to speed up the crawl.  Anyway, does anyone have any experience with running the dungeon without a lot of customization beforehand?


----------



## Hussar

Welcome to the Carceri Mundi Kanafawder.

I ran WLD mostly as written.  I changed a few bits (mostly region C) but, other than that, I ran as written.  It works pretty well, with a few rough spots that have been pointed to ad nauseum in this thread.  

I found running things mostly as is to be a blast.  Region A could use a little jazzing up, but, you don't actually have to do much work for that.  The easiest way to spice up Region A (and, as the first region, you want it to be a bang) is to start moving the monsters around from time to time.  Dump an encounter into the hallways and let the PC's have the surprise.  Instead of constantly getting bombed by darkmantles, have the 'mantles flying down the hallway, looking for new hunting grounds.  Sure, the encounter is easier for the players, but, it makes the WLD much more "alive".


----------



## raynbow

I am also running it mostly as written.  I basically skimmed the whole book.  Then when they hit a section, I re-skim that section, and read the intro to the section and all the overall section bits to make sure it all makes sense. Then each week I read in detail any room I think they could possibly come anywhere near that week and make sure I understand those rooms (I also jump around to make sure I understand anything in other regions that the part we're in might refer to).

If I hit anything that doesn't make sense, or that I'm confused about, I come here.

There is also a website with a bunch of suggestions/different versions of the map/etc, that I refer to.

http://www.james.neetersoft.com/wld/wld.htm

For Region A, for example, on that website there's a document with a few pages of additional critters if you get tired of Fiendish darkmantles.

There are also alot of customized maps that show things like where the critters are, or maps that have been edited to remove secret doors etc so you can print them out and give them to players.


----------



## Traevanon

Just wrapped up the World Eater Battle and thus the WLd is done here.  Of course it wasnt exactly as written for our group, as the whole dungeon has had a bit of extra flavor added, so it might be a little bit harder for people to relate to a summary if I were to write it.

Basically all the undead from region N wound up congregated around (but not inside) the World Eater room.  The doors were still closed but the World Eater was digging his path out.  All the lesser undead formed sort of an Undead "Terrain" that the party had to wade through to get around.  All the bosses gathered with Inivstis who had the last two keys on the west side.

Eventually the party beat, blasted, bull rushed and flew their way around until the battle began.  It started well for the Undead with the lead members of the party having to retreat to the main group, but eventually the party on out and gained the remainder of the 4 keys needed to enter the chamber.

Once inside, it was actually much easier, but only because of good luck and planning.  I had issued a special scroll to the party called Innocence just for this battle.  They would need it since the World Eater had been boosted up to astronomical levels and I made his negative energy effects strong enough to go through Death Ward.  They successfully cast the spell, and after 10 rounds of being stunned (and beat on mercilessly), the World Eater had to make a save or revert back to the form he had prior to becoming Evil (human without levels).

He made the save...  but there was "spin" to be reckoned with.  The party forced him to make a second save, which he made also.  So he attacked and swallowed one of the party members on his turn.  The next round, the party broke out its single remaining Wish (I forget where it is in the dungeon, but its there) and used it to make the World eater save a third and final time.  This time it rolled a 1 and the party was victorious.

Yay!  A great time was had by all.  On to the next campaign where I get to play a character.


----------



## rvalle

Running it pretty much 'as is' here. I read each section before the group hits it and read the rooms in the direction they are going to go in more detail.

The problem with this, and one you will face as well, is that the party will end up going in directions you did not anticipate. The rats did that to me last night. I was expecting them to explore some rooms they were near (G upper right corner) so I was ready for a fight with a Bodak and a Erinyes and instead had an encounter with a Blackguard and some Demons. 

As long as you have a decent idea of what is going on in the area you can wing it ok. I am having some problems with trying to wing powerful creatures and all their abilities on the fly. Usually I go over them before the game, make a cheat sheet or spell cards with their abilities so I don't slow the game down looking them up. Else I pull up www.d20srd.org so I can make quick references as needed.

Good luck and have fun!

rv


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

Cheezehog said:
			
		

> I dug the podcast!  Balazaar was awesome.  I agreed with your arguement about alignment and its "reality."



Thank you! It was fun to do, and a little slice of our gaming history, now set in aspic.

I wonder what we (or others) will make of it in 10 years time, or 50?

Our oldest online RPG recordings are now heading towards five years old.

Paul


----------



## Traevanon

I found early on that playing the WLD completely vanilla led to my players being able to predict the dungeon too much and take advantage of weaknesses that shouldnt be there (metagame), and also on the other hand for those that refuse to metagame led to inappropriate challenges and/or lack of interest.

I lowered the XP values to half as suggested in the beginning, but eventually lifted that.  A 1-20 campaign is long enough as is.  So, while still allowing the lesser regions to be lesser in power I adjusted the entire dungeon upwards as the party advanced to account for the number of players and their slightly higher level.  Consequently I also had to add treasure.  

At the end of N the players were somewhere between 18th and 20th level.  A vanilla Invistiis, Vinarra, Kasteoficiss (sp) and even World Eater would have been push-overs at that point.  Its a simple case of 1 vs 6, and the 1 has very little treasure compared to the 6.

Anyhow, as I look forward to the next adventure I will always be able to remember the one campaign that took adventurers from lowly to legendary, and the players that survived will be able to legitimately claim to have built, played and paid the dues for a true epic character.  

This is was really my goal for the WLD in the first place in light of so many previous campaigns that died at 10th level or 5th or 12th with no closure, just a slow death due to lack of interest.

Let these names go down in WLD history:

*Trielinil Balvavrae* - Drow Paladin of Camazotz (19th) and evil cohort Aiesha the Succubi, Blackguard of Vecna (16th)  Survivor of the entire World's Largest Dungeon
*Almirec* - Supreme Thunder Shaman of Death - Goblin Mystic Theurge of Zeus (20th) Survivor of the entire World's Largest Dungeon
*Gurzga* - Orc Eye of Grumsh (20th) Survivor of the World's Largest Dungeon
*Wren * - Drow Master Warlock (19th) and familiar Nimbus the Dragon Survivor of the World's Largest Dungeon 
*Dale of Rome* - Humble Human Thaumaturgist of Heironeous (19th) Survivor of the World's Largest Dungeon
*Bone Shaker* - Half-Ord Grand Druid of Nature (20th) Survivor of the World's Largest Dungeon
*Shakar* - Changeling Warshaper (20th) Survivor of the World's Largest Dungeon
and finally:
Ikriit Grandcaster the Artificer, NPC supplier of Adventuring Arms and Equipment (18th) Survivor of the World's Largest Dungeon

Hail to the Survivors of Lansing's World's Largest Dungeon!!  May Tales Of Their Glory Be Told Throughout The Multiverse!!


----------



## timbannock

I tried starting up WLD as a pickup game, but that was obviously not the best way to run it!

After I'm done with Rappan Athuk, WLD will be my campaign of choice.

One thought I had: how would Neogi work in Region A as the big badguys who "open up" the WLD to the world?  Something like "a few Neogi crash land their spelljammer ship outside of the WLD and head in, sensing the evil they can unleash onto the world."  Neogi could then either (a) be behind the portal and fiendish creatures in Region A, and/or (b) provide a continuous enemy throughout the entire WLD (possibly making some kind of epic level Neogi BBEG once the group navigates through the WLD).

Note: I don't mind a little extra work...and I don't expect my group to hit every single region/room in the WLD.


----------



## Hussar

Congrats Traevanon!  That's fantastic.  Yet another veteran can have bragging rights of completing this bad boy.  You have joined a very select club.

Neuronphaser - you're going from Rappan Athuk to WLD?  Holy crap.  I am in awe of your dungeon crawling fortitude!


----------



## timbannock

Hussar said:
			
		

> Congrats Traevanon!  That's fantastic.  Yet another veteran can have bragging rights of completing this bad boy.  You have joined a very select club.
> 
> Neuronphaser - you're going from Rappan Athuk to WLD?  Holy crap.  I am in awe of your dungeon crawling fortitude!




I did WoD for like 12 years or more, played 2nd edition in a very Planescape-y, free-form kinda way for years.  Jumped on 3E with Scarred Lands.

I've never had a good background in dungeon crawls, so RA and WLD are my first.

Both myself and my players enjoy it...maybe as we get older, we enjoy the idea of "killing it and taking it's phat lootz" more.  I just like not having to work too hard on stories and stuff...thanks to jim pinto and others for doing that work for me (and doing it exceptionally well, might I add)!

P.S. One of my players found out about this post, and is already fired up for WLD!  He heard "800 page dungeon" and said "Awesome!  Let's do it!"


----------



## JustinM

Hoo boy.  My group has a problem.  It's probably already covered earlier in this thread, but I don't have the time before next session to read over 2100 posts.

Let's start with the characters I've had so far so I can use names instead of pronoun:
Lathorian - human scout
Elesse - human cleric of Pelor
Rukia - human ninja, cousin of Lancaster
Toby - spellscale warmage
Lancaster - human fighter, cousin of Rukia (who was played by the same person as...)
Soren - human cleric of Nerule
two as-yet unnamed replacement characters (they haven't seen game time yet)

I as DM made two or three (depending on how you're counting) errors in judgment.  To start off, I used a dream sequence for each PC to get them to the side of the mountain.  Depending on their deity of choice, the message was different.  Elesse got a message about a massive undead problem, Rukia and Lancaster got a message about a rising evil, and so on.  The problem lay with Toby and Lathorian, who weren't religious.  I gave them a vague message of atonement since both had checkered pasts.  It was supposed to be from St. Cuthbert, but he remained hidden to the players' subconsciouses.  Following the dream, they woke, finding themselves summoned to the side of the mountain in the beginning of the campaign.

Elesse immediately began on her mission as it was appointed to her, as well a cleric probably should.  The two cousins were apprehensive and essentially forgot(?) that they were there to quell a threat.  The two non-religious characters, realizing the only way out of the situation was to dive headfirst into it, but only to get themselves out again; they are very exit-oriented PCs who completely ignored that they were sent there to learn a lesson about the nature of evil.

In my defense, I used this opening once before to quite satisfactory results.  I didn't anticipate this from this group at all.

Lancaster got himself killed in the first session.  Rukia went insane with revenge, which allowed Soren (Lancaster's player's new PC) to influence her for ill quite easily.

That, coupled with the fact that the two "lets just find our way out of here" characters are played by the two people with the strongest personalities, has led the group into Region B as first-level characters, now second-level characters.  They instigated a war with the goblin tribe in the southwestern corner (the one led by a doppelganger and Hammerfist--I'm at work or I'd use the actual tribe name); while the goblin groups were pretty easily dispatched, Hammerfist killed Lathorian and Rukia utterly and could have killed Soren as well if I had bothered to use his Cleave and Improved Sunder feats.

So, now we only have two original characters remaining:  Elesse and Toby.

What this comes down to is a) I could have brought the players in better, b) I didn't Rule Zero the doors between regions inoperable until the party completed a certain percentage of the current region, and c) I didn't give them a compelling reason to stay in Region A until they were better equipped to handle the situation.

So, I need ideas.  One idea I had was to revisit the dream sequence for Elesse, where Pelor indicates that he is not happy about her having skipped over the cause of the threat in Region A, and if she doesn't go back and do something about it, her powers will start fading to show her that he means business.  Because the party would then be left without a healer if she went off on her own, and because one of the new PCs is a knight, they may decide that Region A is better than Region B without someone to heal them.  Another idea I had was to bring in the new characters by having them run for refuge to the room the three living PCs are in, followed by a swarm of fiendish monsters now overflowing from Region A (as they never found and closed the portal, and indications that the problem will only get worse until and unless they take care of the situation.  (Where they are on the map, it would be easy enough to have the "flood" come from the east and push them back into Region A.  The problem is, they haven't run as a group from anything I've thrown at them so far.)

Yeah.  Suggestions?  If you need more info, just say the word.


----------



## raynbow

I'm a big fan of keeping things simple.  My group managed to wander into a region that was too high level for them and the combination of my maniacal giggling and the hydra they ran into convinced them they should maybe head back.

I take it your _players_ either aren't smart enough (I mean that in the nicest possible way  ), or refuse to metagame enough to backtrack to an area where they aren't over their head?

If it's the metagaming angle, I'd just point out to them that it's not metagaming for their characters to strategically retreat and build up their strength enough to press onwards.  Even hard headed escape oriented characters should eventually realize that they can't necessarily proceed in a straight line because their may be obstacles in their path that they can't overcome.

Also, how do they even know they are moving towards the exit?  Couldn't the exit be back in Region A for all they know?  My group is pretty escape oriented as well, but they are pretty meticulosly mapping and exploring everywhere because they are afraid of missing the exit.

If you need a GM "voice" to get some of this across, you could use Bartleby the halfling who wanders in Region B.  Have him talk some sense in them.  Hey may even have heard about the weak adventuring group that recently got slaughtered by the goblins.  He also probably knows about alot of the traps in the region that you're group is probably equally unprepared for.


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## timbannock

I agree with the above.  Bartleby's a good start, you could also dump a Lantern Archon in their laps who brings the message straight from Pelor (or insert any other deity here).

A good reason to go back to Region A: the room with the "eternal" source of water (25 or something like that...?  With the Ogre, if I remember right).  If the PCs are low on food and supplies, that's a great place to hole up, and the Lantern Archon and/or Bartleby might know of it.

It might be pushing the issue hard, but making rations/water an issue at low levels increases the "survival horror" feel of Region A and B.  Worrying about your enemies is one thing...but worrying about your next meal PLUS enemies can be a big deal.  Just to make it hit home, have a goblin dump alchemist's fire on [insert PC carrying all the rations/water jugs/etc.] and have those items burn off.  Now that the PCs are sans food, give 'em a few Fort saves using the Starvation/Thirst rules in the DMG.

If the PCs don't get the hint, make goblins eat things that aren't very nutritional or tasty to other humanoids.  Maybe they have to pass a Fort/Will DC 17 check just to put it in their mouths.  A few failed saves later and they'll be scrambling back to find food and water in some place where they don't have goblins with alchemist's fire lobbing grenade-like projectiles at their food stores.


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## rvalle

As much as I hate metagaming, I do it for the transition between regions. In part this is because I'm using Virtual Table software and need to bring up a whole new map when they hit the end of the one they are currently in. The other part is to stop them from getting in over their head.

Now... while I let them know they are getting to a new area I don't refuse to let them in if that is what they want to do. Its their choice at that point. 


Maybe a dream segment showing the portal with the fiendish creatures coming out of it? Oh... and then a pull back showing a top down view of the whole region A with darkness spreading out from the portal and covering the whole region, then pull back further and it covers the whole of the dungeon and then further and it starts to spread out of the dungeon and cover the world. The first part will give them a very good idea of where to look for the portal as well.  Oh!! And as the view pulls back to show the whole dungeon there can be some parts that glow with white light... The North part of Region E and the South part of region G where the remaining Garrison members are. The darkness pauses there before finally overwhelming the light and moving on.

After that nights rest they get hit by the wave of critters.

The needing to run thing might have to be learned over time. My group is now not afraid to run when things look bad. Though they do have issues with successfully disengaging and getting everyone moving. One person always tries to hold the bad guys up for a round or two and the party refuses to leave them there alone to do it.  

Good luck!

rv


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## JustinM

There are some great ideas here, thanks.  This is probably going to get kind of long--three replies to respond to.  



			
				raynbow said:
			
		

> I take it your _players_ either aren't smart enough (I mean that in the nicest possible way  ), or refuse to metagame enough to backtrack to an area where they aren't over their head?




They're the "we don't ever metagame" type of crowd.  I'm perfectly fine with that, but the people know they're in over their heads and can't figure out what to do about it and still stay in character.  Also, they stepped into Region E just long enough to get one of the players negative from that ridiculous 8d6 fireball trap in the hall of portraits (or whatever it's called).  They didn't stick around too long, and Rukia's player calls that the "higher-level area".  That makes me think she doesn't realize that B is just as high as E.  That kind of makes sense if you come from the perspective that E is later in the alphabet, so it's probably higher.

Bartleby is an option, but one I'm a bit reluctant to use so soon because he has a use later.  I'll have to think about it.



			
				neuronphaser said:
			
		

> A good reason to go back to Region A: the room with the "eternal" source of water (25 or something like that...? With the Ogre, if I remember right). If the PCs are low on food and supplies, that's a great place to hole up, and the Lantern Archon and/or Bartleby might know of it.




The party has been to the Bragdor room already.  It's one of the few rooms they did enter in Region A, and actually where the whole mess with Rukia wanting to avenge Lancaster's death came from--she tumbled behind Lancaster and he ended up taking the first blow in battle, which just happened to lay him out, perfectly dead at -10 hp.

Anyway, I hate keeping track of food and water, so I set the dungeon in a celestially-created timeless demiplane.  Time there is stopped, so the party feels no need to eat or drink, and when they get back out, they will appear not to have been gone at all to the people around them.  So, using food and drink as a lever now isn't going to work.  Good idea, though.



			
				rvalle said:
			
		

> As much as I hate metagaming, I do it for the transition between regions. In part this is because I'm using Virtual Table software and need to bring up a whole new map when they hit the end of the one they are currently in. The other part is to stop them from getting in over their head.




They all get player maps for the region they're in.  It saves me the trouble of describing every frelling corner and hallway and keeps them from traveling the same ground 15 times because either they can't find a door or I'm not explaining something well enough.  So the players know full well they're not in Kansas anymore.

The dream sequence you mentioned is really cool.  I'll have to tailor it a bit for each of the remaining characters (especially Soren...would he mind that evil is going to overflow everything?), but it's a great start.


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## raynbow

JustinM said:
			
		

> They're the "we don't ever metagame" type of crowd.  I'm perfectly fine with that, but the people know they're in over their heads and can't figure out what to do about it and still stay in character.  Also, they stepped into Region E just long enough to get one of the players negative from that ridiculous 8d6 fireball trap in the hall of portraits (or whatever it's called).  They didn't stick around too long, and Rukia's player calls that the "higher-level area".  That makes me think she doesn't realize that B is just as high as E.  That kind of makes sense if you come from the perspective that E is later in the alphabet, so it's probably higher.




See, to me, getting almost party wiped by highly aggressive goblins should be enough reason for them to feel justified in having the characters retreat?

Unfortunately I think part of your problem is giving them the player maps, since they can see the fastest way through, they go for it.

I know describing the turns is a bit of a drag, but it might help avoid this problem next time.

We have one girl in our group who took some ranks in craft mapmaking, and the way we play that is that I briefly describe the twists and turns as they pass through them and then when they are deciding where their next move is they can "stop and look at their map", and I tell them generally what direction they need to go to reach a section that hasn't been explored.

I also do occasionally put down the player map when they are close to getting an area done and let them get a sense of what the whole thing looks like.


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## JustinM

Put simply, my group doesn't really have time for that sort of thing.  Maybe your folks are better at visualizing the immediate area and linking it to where they've been, or maybe you're just a lot better at describing things than I am, but it's just not workable for us.  When they first went into Regions E and B, I didn't have a map for them because a) I didn't think they'd get that far, and b) if they did, I figured the lack of a player map would dissuade them from continuing.  It didn't, and the game slowed to a crawl because I'd have to describe and re-describe and answer lots of questions just so they could get a rough idea of their surroundings.

The other option would be to draw it myself as they go or tell them exact dimensions, but now we're talking a whole new level of time consuming.


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## rvalle

This is an area that using VT software excels at... no mapping! And, since you can 'mask' the map and reveal it as the players move they still have to explore the map as they go.  Going back to sitting at the table and having to draw a map would be painful. 

There are some people that are using VT/Mapping software at the table with their group for mapping/fog of war/character management/battle management. Maybe you could implement something like this.

Did I read that right about one of the characters is evil or was that just not caring if evil took over the world? If actively evil, they are going to have a HARD time of it. There are several places where traps only go off if something evil triggers them and the best they could hope from the Garrison is that they toss their evil butts out of their area. And into region I if they are in E which would pretty much be a death sentence for a 4-6th level character.

rv


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## JustinM

Oh, I'm fully aware of the limitations on evil PCs in this campaign.  Unfortunately, given the nature of the campaign, I don't have a good reason to disallow those alignments.

Anyway, I'm not too familiar with VT software.  How does that impact use of a battlemat?  Does everyone need a computer at the table?  That kind of thing really isn't an option for us, either, given that not everyone has a laptop, and I really don't have the dough to shell out for a projector.


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## rvalle

(Ponders...)

I've not used VT software like this yet just seen some posts by others who have and I've not really paid attn to the details of those posts.

What I THINK you could do is use a laptop and slave a 2nd monitor to it (you can do that right?). You bring up the map and have one token on the map showing the party and you can unmask what they see. As they will tell you where they move and what they do and you can move the token and unmask as they move.

When a fight breaks out you can still do it on the battle map. If you want to use the VT software to manage your bad guys during the fight you can do so and turn off the 2nd monitor so their details are not made public. After the fight (assuming the party is still alive  ) you turn the 2nd monitor back on and they continue on their merry way. 

_________________

As for evil characters, I told the players up front that they are the 'good guys' and should create their characters as such. Its my first time running anything and I don't now, nor probably ever will , want to run with evil characters. But thats just me!  

rv


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## JustinM

It's worth a thought.  How do you use it personally?  (Getting off topic, but still...)


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## rvalle

I use it to run the Worlds Largest Dungeon!  

I use Fantasy Grounds to run a game every Thursday night. We run Skype in conjunction with FG for voice communication.

FG allows each person to log in with their character, to roll virtual dice, see the maps and images I share with them and to see what text and dice rolls others do.

I use the built in masking of FG to run the WLD in 'real time'. Each person has their own token on the map and the move them around to where their character is at that exact moment. There is no question about where anyone is when the trap goes off or an ambush is sprung!  It does make for some fun jockeying for position as they move down a hallway into the unknown or get ready to open a door. 

The map can be zoomed in and out so while they are moving around exploring I'll have it zoomed out a bit to give them a wide view, when a fight starts I'll zoom in close to make the fight take up the whole map. If the players are talking about where they want to go next I'll zoom it out all the way so they can see where they have been and which parts are still unknown.

I use the 'combat tracker' to keep tabs on init order, current hp's of bad guys and good guys, to roll attacks for the bad guys (drag and drop all the bad guys attacks as once!) and any funky per round status I need to keep track of. 

Each bad guy gets his own token which I either make from the srd monsters image from the wotc site or use one of the Fiery Dragon token packs I've bought. Or sometimes both so I can have a little variety of tokens on the map.

The players setup hot keys to do their attacks, saves and common battle rolls. They can kick off all their attacks with modifiers in seconds and, as they go up in levels and get more and more attacks (12th level now) is quite nice.

And lastly I'll use the software to share images with everyone. Usually a picture of what the current monster looks like but I've seen it used to show a wide variety of things... blimps flying though the air, what a trail in a forest looks like, some stairs in a castle... whatever you can find an image for.

Edit: trying to add a screenshot. This is with my dual monitor setup:
http://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=123&d=1183826597


rv


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## Hussar

Yeah, a dual monitor setup with something like Fantasy Grounds or OpenRPG would be pretty sweet if you can swing it.  Definitely something the well stocked gaming room should invest in.

Heck, a cheapy monitor isn't all that much money, you could likely get your group to pony up together and get one.  Would save HUGE amounts of time for battlemaps and exploration.  If you can, get a table that splits in the middle, like where you put the leaves for a dining table, and put the monitor face up in the hole.  Sure, it might be upside down for some people, but, meh, not a biggie.


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## raynbow

JustinM said:
			
		

> Put simply, my group doesn't really have time for that sort of thing.  Maybe your folks are better at visualizing the immediate area and linking it to where they've been, or maybe you're just a lot better at describing things than I am, but it's just not workable for us.  When they first went into Regions E and B, I didn't have a map for them because a) I didn't think they'd get that far, and b) if they did, I figured the lack of a player map would dissuade them from continuing.  It didn't, and the game slowed to a crawl because I'd have to describe and re-describe and answer lots of questions just so they could get a rough idea of their surroundings.




My group meets twice a month (max) usually for about 4 hours before one of the working moms starts to fall asleep.  We are the poster child for groups with not enough time, so I don't think that's it 

Your group just sounds much more detail oriented than mine, my group are pretty happy with a general description.  "You open the door, the corridor outside extends to the north and south out of sight, about 10 feet to the north you see a door on the opposite side of the hall, about 20 feet to the south you see another door on the opposite side of the hall."

If they want to go back to an area they've already been, they don't so much visualize it as I remind them.  "Back at the beginning you skipped a couple doors there, and there was that long corridor to the south after that room with the buggedy-boo in it."

They are happy with that level of detail.

It sounds like your players want/need/expect a higher level of detail maybe?

I've seen some of the people in here who made a map and cut it up and then as the players explore they give them the pieces to add to their own map.  (Sort of a low tech "fog of war") I actually thought about doing that but it adds alot to my prep time, which I really don't have alot of.  If you have plenty of prep time available, that might be a solution.


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## erucsbo

JustinM said:
			
		

> Anyway, I'm not too familiar with VT software.  How does that impact use of a battlemat?  Does everyone need a computer at the table?  That kind of thing really isn't an option for us, either, given that not everyone has a laptop, and I really don't have the dough to shell out for a projector.




I hate having lots of laptops around the room. One guy uses it for his character sheet, but with them being able to look up d20srd etc online without me being able to see what they are doing can be a real pain (not that they are doing it - just that the possibility exists).

I use a laptop and borrow a projector from work - I use RolePlayingMaster to project and reveal the map - all in the group agree that it has saved heaps of time and I don't have to provide oral descriptions of turns and dimensions.


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## erucsbo

*Death by massive damage.*

The continuing adventures in J

After the party had picked off 4 of the fire giants and retreated to rest they headed back with the intention of doing the same sort of thing (try and lure a fire giant in to an ambush).

The goblin rogue/sorcerer plunked one with a sling bullet, failed his hide check (as per sniping rules) and almost got squashed by a hurled chunk of iron ore, then he skedaddled back to the party where they cast greater invisibility on the human rogue, haste,etc - and waited for the giant to appear. And waited. And waited. After the giant did not appear as they hoped they headed back as a group (conscious of the clock ticking on the spells) and managed to do heaps of sneak attack damage on the giant near the smelting pot (J23).
The alarm was raised and the giants put their plan in to effect - sending 1 from the forge up to help the giant by the pot, and the other 2 along the river of lava to hopefully trap the party in a pincer.

The invisibility ran out on the rogue and she got hit with boulders - being knocked unconscious, and was dragged back to the relative safety of the tunnel where the iron ore had been excavated.
The dwarven eldrtich knight ran out to smack the smelting pot giant and managed to knock him down (inconscious) just as the haste ran out. He then had to hot foot it past the other giant from the forge before the sorcerer was able to bring up a wall of force.
That was when the giants who had come around the long way were spotted.
The fighter (who had taken a level of barbarian last level), and the dwarf ran down the tunnel towards them, with the fighter managing to cover the entire distance (thanks to haste), raged, and scored a critical on one of the giants - 71HP damage. I rolled the death by massive damage save in the open (only fails on a 1) and of course rolled a 1. Cleave.

We have stopped mid-combat, but thanks to some lucky rolls (on the part of the party), and some unlucky rolls (on the part of the giants).

Comments - for which advice would be appreciated.
Some of the players know the rules better than me - and have great delight in taking advantage of them.

 Giants throwing boulders (ranged weapons) don't threaten for the purpose of AoO when melee fighters close - giving the fighters the ability to get a free swing in before the giant gets their attack sequence.
 Stoneskin, Greater invisibilty (with lots of sneak damage) and Haste are giving the party a serious advantage. I have limited the use of stoneskin (we don't use material components because it bogs the game down too much - so I limit the sorcerer to 2 stoneskins (or any other spell with nominal high material component cost) per day), but don't want to give everything adamantine weapons because a) that is unfair, and b) the party has a smith - is eying off the forge - and has repeatedly been on the lookout for adamantine.


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## Traevanon

First the easy one:

Giants throwing boulders *do* threaten for AoOs and here's why.  Two relevent facts:  Giants' hand to hand damage does threaten.  Drawing a thrown weapon is a (a boulder) is part of a move action.  So on the giant's turn they arm themselves with a boulder (move) and throw it (standard), leaving their hands free for AoOs until the next round.

Secondly, remember the giant's main mode of attack is not crush or weapon, but Sunder, Grapple and Overrun.  Grapple the casters, Sunder the fighters and Overrun to get into position.  

Hopefully this helps, but remember the main thing, ultimately the party is *supposed* to win.  If they are fighting and using up 1/4 of their resources you have found their *real* CR which may or may not be equal to their average level.  Adjust up or down from there appropriately to adjust the encounter's importance in the adventure.

Hopefully it will all go well and a good time will be had by all.


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## rvalle

Can't the Giants use the bolder as a hand weapon and squish people with it? Treat it as an improvised club maybe. 

In my game I've handwaved the no cost material components figuring they can get most of them from either the Garrison or from what ever is around them. 

Ones that cost $$ though, they have to come up with or find. Oddly, they do have some dimond dust but have only used it once. The Sorc. has identify but there is a serious shortage in pearls. Such a shame.


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## rvalle

Been a long time for an update in my game...

Chararcters are 12th level and are basing their adventures out of G.

They think they know where the Sacred Flame is at but so far are unable to reach it.

This was kinda fun. The players hit the demon lair in the SE corner of G. They blow though the first demon easily (not even realizing he was one of the demon lords) and carry on. They move S and then E and find the room with the 2nd demon lord and 2 Vrock. The party comes into the room with weapons waving and the Demon lord just sits there and talks to them. The fighter/cleric moves towards him with axe raised and the demon just looks on. Not willing to attack someone who is not fighting back he stops. 

The party has 'per round' spells up and so are anxious for something to happen. They want to fight the demon but are unable to overcome his willingnes to talk. One of the characters starts to cast a spell while in the room and he just looks on with faint amusument on his face. This freaks out the players and they feel they are in over their head. 

The players start to ask questions. Since they are worried about the time I'm still moving in init order and letting them each ask one thing before I move onto the next character to ask what they want to do.  Then when the demon lord's turn comes up he answers one or two questions and the init order moves on.

It came down the demon lord saying he knew where the Flame was at and he was willing to strike a deal. He will give the party the Flame if they kill the leader of the Garrison!

The party says they will think about it and leaves.


The next day they buff up and head back. Before going in they Clairvoyance the room and, unfortunatly for them, find the Marilith demon as well as 3 Vrock in the room waiting (the demon isn't stupid). In the first room are 20 Dretch's which the party attack. This triggers
them using telepathy with the waiting 'big' demons. While the party cleave their way though the poor Dretches the Marilith does a Project Image at the intersection and starts to lob Blade Barriers down the hallway and into the room catching some Dretches as well as party members. The partys main healer misses a save and takes 50ish points of damage. Then, in a tatical error she doesn't heal herself, spends her turn casting a Dispel Magic on one of the 3 BB's (removing it) and doesn't move herself out of LOS of the Marilith. In fact, she stays in a nice 3 character line which the Marilith promptly slaps with another BB. Another failed Reflex save by the cleric and she hits the ground with her dead eyes stareing at the ceiling. The party beats a hasty retreat back to the Garrison while being chased by the Marilith (who was hung up by her own BB spells).

Figuring there was no good way to take on a creature that can do Blade Barrier spells at will down a hallway the, at the recomendation of the Garrison, press on in other directions to give the demons time to move out from that room.

They head N from G into K, a region they have been in before. This time its full of fog so it takes a while for them to realize they are in the same area. They are very cations in fear of running into the Green Dragon there but pretty much  don't find any creatures there. They do realize the water is evil and leave it alone (I figure the Kraken and Dragon Turtle could take out the Dragon. If they had hit the right spot they would have found really big drag marks in the mud where the dragon was pulled into the water by the Kraken.)

The party moves N and E... and hits the '4 corners' of the map there in which they can move any direciton they want. They had N along the wall and find the fake enterance into N. They take some trap damage but nothing else of note. They push on and find the 'real' enterance into N but correctly figure if they mess with the door the giant statues on either side are going to wack them. So they head E into 0.

Yes, I now have a party of 12th level characters in an area made for 18-20. The first fight they stumble into is with a clan of Bugbears. What these guys are doing there is beyond me as my group is going to be able to take them out without much issue. It would be a speed bump to 18th level characters. 

I think their next encounter will be with 2 Dread Wraiths. That should wisen them up a bit. If not the Snow Worms beyond will. Then there is the Megarapter and Frost Giant combo. Or the pack of 20 Artic Wolfs...

rv


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## erucsbo

Traevanon said:
			
		

> First the easy one:
> 
> Giants throwing boulders *do* threaten for AoOs and here's why.  Two relevent facts:  Giants' hand to hand damage does threaten.  Drawing a thrown weapon is a (a boulder) is part of a move action.  So on the giant's turn they arm themselves with a boulder (move) and throw it (standard), leaving their hands free for AoOs until the next round.



OK - where does it say that Giants' hand to hand damage does threaten? Giants don't have Improved Unarmed Strike.



			
				Traevanon said:
			
		

> Hopefully this helps, but remember the main thing, ultimately the party is *supposed* to win.  If they are fighting and using up 1/4 of their resources you have found their *real* CR which may or may not be equal to their average level.  Adjust up or down from there appropriately to adjust the encounter's importance in the adventure.
> 
> Hopefully it will all go well and a good time will be had by all.




yeah - but the best times, and those that get remembered, are when the situation is tight and stressful and they win their way through. At the moment they are not being majorly challenged.


----------



## erucsbo

Traevanon said:
			
		

> First the easy one:
> 
> Giants throwing boulders *do* threaten for AoOs and here's why.  Two relevent facts:  Giants' hand to hand damage does threaten.  Drawing a thrown weapon is a (a boulder) is part of a move action.  So on the giant's turn they arm themselves with a boulder (move) and throw it (standard), leaving their hands free for AoOs until the next round.



OK - where does it say that Giants' hand to hand damage does threaten? Giants don't have Improved Unarmed Strike.



			
				Traevanon said:
			
		

> Hopefully this helps, but remember the main thing, ultimately the party is *supposed* to win.  If they are fighting and using up 1/4 of their resources you have found their *real* CR which may or may not be equal to their average level.  Adjust up or down from there appropriately to adjust the encounter's importance in the adventure.
> 
> Hopefully it will all go well and a good time will be had by all.




yeah - but the best times, and those that get remembered, are when the situation is tight and stressful and they win their way through. At the moment they are not being majorly challenged.


----------



## Traevanon

Every monster that does lethal damage with HTH threatens with it, they dont need Imp Unarmed Strike when using Crush.  Oh and also its fairly easy (comparatively speaking) to grapple an invisible target and crush it than to hit it repeatedly.  Have you tried having the giants "wade" out into the lava river or block the bridge?  

If all else fails the Giants can try to form an alliance with (or beg for help from) the Efreet.

I guess it didnt really sound from your post like the party was really overruning the giants that badly.  You can always add levels or additional giants if you need the encounters boosted a bit to add interest.


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## erucsbo

Traevanon said:
			
		

> Every monster that does lethal damage with HTH threatens with it, they dont need Imp Unarmed Strike when using Crush.  Oh and also its fairly easy (comparatively speaking) to grapple an invisible target and crush it than to hit it repeatedly.  Have you tried having the giants "wade" out into the lava river or block the bridge?




OH - "slam". I missed it in the attack line! Thanks! Can't see crush mentioned (isn't that just for creatures that can Constrict?)

Just want to confirm though - the giants provoke AoO when starting a grapple? And how do I get the giants to be able to toss/throw someone they have grappled? I can't find anything specific in the rules about it.

I do have some tactics up my sleeve but don't want to mention them here in case any of my players are lurking.


----------



## Traevanon

erucsbo said:
			
		

> OH - "slam". I missed it in the attack line! Thanks! Can't see crush mentioned (isn't that just for creatures that can Constrict?)
> 
> Just want to confirm though - the giants provoke AoO when starting a grapple? And how do I get the giants to be able to toss/throw someone they have grappled? I can't find anything specific in the rules about it.
> 
> I do have some tactics up my sleeve but don't want to mention them here in case any of my players are lurking.




I was just going from memory on their attack line, Slam it is then rather than Crush.

Start your grapple from 10 feet (assuming that is out of reach of the PC) to prevent an AoO.  Back off with a 5' step to do so if you have to.  

If you havent already, check also the conditions for the region.  Everyone PC without protection from fear should be "shaken".  Double shaken is "fear".  I think a properly timed intimidate check can force someone to flee for a round.  I'm not positive on this one though, all my PCs were protected from Fear by this time.  

Isnt within 40' of lava extra heat damage?

Oh and you cant technically toss someone you have grappled, but you can drag someone you have pinned half your movement (into the lava presumably).

Kinda late for all this I know, but maybe you'll find a nugget or two you can use.


----------



## rvalle

Traevanon said:
			
		

> Start your grapple from 10 feet (assuming that is out of reach of the PC) to prevent an AoO.  Back off with a 5' step to do so if you have to.




I don't think that will work. In order to grapple someone you have to reach into their square to grab them. This triggers an AoO even if you are 10' away since your hands/arms are closer. 

So, yes it will trigger an AoO and if the character hits the grapple attempt fails. 

Though it won't work so well for a Fire Giant, he can try to grapple an mage type with -20 (which gives him a +5 total) and end up only grappling him with the one hand he is grabbing with. This way he can move as normal. i.e. walk up to the river of lava and drop what he is holding as a free action.    (I can't find this rule after a quick search of the SRD but I know its out there somewhere).

This is a bit obvious, but make sure to use the Giants Power Attack feat (I always forget!) and to add 2X the PA number as damage as they use 2-handed weapons. Against a 'soft' target this is going to HURT and probably drop or kill someone on a crit. 

rv


----------



## erucsbo

I *do* really appreciate this



			
				Traevanon said:
			
		

> Start your grapple from 10 feet (assuming that is out of reach of the PC) to prevent an AoO.  Back off with a 5' step to do so if you have to.




as rv said - still an AoO  
but the -20 might be worth it if I can get them close enough to the spellcasters.



			
				Traevanon said:
			
		

> If you havent already, check also the conditions for the region.  Everyone PC without protection from fear should be "shaken".  Double shaken is "fear".  I think a properly timed intimidate check can force someone to flee for a round.  I'm not positive on this one though, all my PCs were protected from Fear by this time.
> 
> Isnt within 40' of lava extra heat damage?




they have heat protection up (though if they are in the lava it will still hurt a lot)
and I've pulled the fear back to only when they initially entered in sight of the ice prison of Tyrus. I might put it back in as another check if they venture too far from the paladin though.



			
				Traevanon said:
			
		

> Oh and you cant technically toss someone you have grappled, but you can drag someone you have pinned half your movement (into the lava presumably).
> 
> Kinda late for all this I know, but maybe you'll find a nugget or two you can use.




never too late. The barbarian is raging, so I might use that to have him chase a giant in to an ambush, then use Improved Overrun ... 

Divide and conquer is what they are trying to use on the giants.
The giants are Lawful, so I think I'll play on that and let the chaotic actions of the party reap their own rewards. I really just need to make sure I have as much of the rules nutted out as possible because a few of the players really do know them better than me (and thus have a better bluff check in the metagame!)


----------



## Traevanon

Thanks for the correction RV.  Back to the top its grapple the casters and sunder the fighters.      Good luck!


----------



## erucsbo

broken toys!!!

Last night we used sunder for the very first time.
One of my players said after the game that Improved Sunder is the DM's tactical nuke, with the advice (from his own DMing experience) - do not use it if you don't want the players to go for it. That really helps in retrospect - not.

A single giant used Improved Sunder and managed to break a +2 bastard sword, a +1 bastard sword (replacement for the first one) and a +1 holy merciful great-axe (took 2 goes). Man does this screw the fighters over.

With judicious use of multiple Walls of Force, Fear, Slow, Ice Storm, Haste and blind panic the party managed to bug out after dropping one giant, but they now realise that going toe-to-toe in melee with giants is going to hurt a LOT more than just losing hitpoints.

So - thanks muchly for the advice - the battle took up virtually the entire session (about 4 hours) and will result in the party having to come up with a new strategy.
I just hope that a big can of worms has not been opened due to using Sunder.

I don't want to ruin the game for the fighters by breaking all of their toys, but neither am I going to let the giants be walked over. Wil have to do some meta-game thinking now.


----------



## rvalle

Yeah, we've managed to avoid the whole Sunder, Trip thing. In fact, for some creatures I've replaced the Improved Sunder feat with something else so it is not wasted. 

I just don't feel like going down that road... but if the players ever pull that card out all gloves are off.



Good luck and let us know what happens.

rv


----------



## raynbow

I almost said something when you first mentioned using sunder, sorry!

Yeah sunder is not a road you want to walk down.  It's just as nasty and effective when players use it and it can really ruin a good fight if the PC's sunder your big baddies uber weapon.

On the other hand, PC's don't really want to sunder, because they don't want to break potential loot.

On the other other hand, there are alot more non magical weapons out there than magical ones, and alot of situations where they could use it without much risk of destroying any nice loot.

Most of the games I'm in, as either player or GM, have a sort of  Gentleman's agreement around sunder where the GM promises not to use it if the player's don't use it.

You may have opened a fairly nasty can of worms by introducing them to sunder.


----------



## erucsbo

raynbow said:
			
		

> I almost said something when you first mentioned using sunder, sorry!




And how much snig.gering is really going on now that for me the proverbial has hit the proverbial?

I'm just glad that we haven't introduced legacy weapons or other items that would be very hard to replace.

If nothing else it has been an eye-opener, and may actually force the party to think about their actions before wading in swords and axes flailing.

We've already been through "trip" and "grapple".

Are there any other unopened cans that I need to be wary of?


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## Rabelais

wow... this thread has over 100k views.   Grats y'all.


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## rvalle

erucsbo said:
			
		

> And how much snig.gering is really going on now that for me the proverbial has hit the proverbial?
> 
> I'm just glad that we haven't introduced legacy weapons or other items that would be very hard to replace.
> 
> If nothing else it has been an eye-opener, and may actually force the party to think about their actions before wading in swords and axes flailing.
> 
> We've already been through "trip" and "grapple".
> 
> Are there any other unopened cans that I need to be wary of?




No snickering here!


Thats all I can think of rules wise. There are some spells I think I'm going to be unhappy with. One of the players is building a 'buff/debuff' type caster. He's going to be casting Empowered Ray of Enfebalment on everything. Touch AC and - 1d8*1.5 STR... Great. So the level 15 bad guy with 300 HP's now has a 3 STR and can hardly move. Bleh.

And he has already asked if Waves of Fatigue and Ray of Exhaustion stack. As far as I can tell they do (well, not stack but if they work as 2 seperate spells. So Waves go off, save or be exhasted and save and be fatigued. Hit with a Ray and since you are fatuged already you are auto exhausted). so there is a -6 str and -6 dex.  I'm going to really hate this character.

rv


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## rvalle

Rabelais said:
			
		

> wow... this thread has over 100k views.   Grats y'all.




Thats a lot of views!

rv


----------



## raynbow

Improved Grapple?   That one is monsters only but boy can it slow a game down.

Sunder is about the only thing that's just "not done" in our groups.

Your spellcaster is annoying, but he won't be too awful.   We have one like that in the group I'm a player in, he made more of a debuff wizard than a boom boom wizard.

He's really good against a couple big enemies but if it's a swarm of smaller enemies, or casters, or people with high saving throws or spell resistance, he's not as effective.

I wouldn't get too worried about it if they occasionally cakewalk a fight you thought was going to be tough.  For everytime that happens there will probably be a fight you thought was going to be easy that they have a ton of trouble with.


----------



## Traevanon

I guess I dont see what the huge deal is with Sunder.  The problem as I remember it can be that there are two different explanations of Hardness and Item Hitpoints (one in the PHB and one in the DMG) between them we wound up where items had pretty good hardness / hitpoints.  The +2 sword you mentioned I think would have something like 14 hardness and 30 or 40 hitpoints (cant remember which).

Anyhow Sunder is pretty much the Giant's only trick so I wouldnt worry about it too much.  Not many other creatures have it either.  As long as you arent *adding* it to stuff I dont think it should be an issue.

Fighters also get "screwed over" by disarmers and trippers but that doesnt mean you shouldnt use the feats if your creatures happen to have it.  After all this isnt the World's Largest Dungeon Junior Edition.  Being that you are using a pregenerated adventure that says right in it that they will face *every* creature in the SRD, I think you are well within your rights.


----------



## erucsbo

Traevanon said:
			
		

> I guess I dont see what the huge deal is with Sunder.
> ...
> Anyhow Sunder is pretty much the Giant's only trick so I wouldnt worry about it too much.  Not many other creatures have it either.  As long as you arent *adding* it to stuff I dont think it should be an issue.
> ...
> I think you are well within your rights.



thanks.
Next game session is this coming weekend so I'll play it by ear.
If anything it makes the players stop and rethink, which is always good.
Just need to make sure that there is a pay-off that makes up for the sour taste of losing 3 magical weapons.


----------



## raynbow

Disarm and trip are annoying to use, but they don't permanently rob the party of their magical items.

Magical items, which in the WLD are more difficult than normal to replace.

Destroying all their magic weapons is definately a way to ramp the difficulty up, if you need that, but other than that.....

I stay away from it in a NORMAL game, where the players can easily go to town and replace/repair magic items.  There's no way I'll be using it in WLD.

But obviously, everyone's playstyle differs.


----------



## rvalle

So my 12th level group has wandered into O trying to find the way out (so close!!!).

Got into a fight with the Bugbears right off. I thought this was going to be a push over for the party but when the Leader Bugbear showed up he trashed the already weakened party killing one character and dropping a 2nd to 1 hp. The party barely made it out with the body in tow.

On the return trip I figured I'd scare them off with some of the Frost Giants. They had a tough fight vs. 6 of them but won in the end and they kept going. 

Ok, thinks I... no more holding back...

They finish up the Bugbears in a fairly easy fight (cleric had died during the first fight so no healing up for the Bugbears). The move on to the Frost Worm cave. To my disappointment (and relief) they don't touch the dead Frost Giants in the front of the cave and move back to be attacked by the Worms.

I kind of messed this one up. The first Worm died in 1 round of combat ( I have a Paladin doing about 100 points of damage a round. He did 200+ in one round one time).  I missed the part about the Worm exploding and moved up the 2nd one and used his breath weapon vs. the party. 15d6 of damage later and the Sorc is down and the rest of the party is hurt bad. THAT is when I notice the first one should have exploded for 20d6 of damage. Umm... hmmm.... that will kill the party and should have happened before the breath weapon. Well... I guess these are the non-exploding type of Frost Worms. 1 round later and the 2nd Worm is dead.

Next is a fight with a large number of Winter Wolfs. Thought this fight would go poorly for the group but a few well placed Blade Barrier spells to control the battle field and they were able to drop 13 of the 15 wolfs I threw at them (3 groups of 5. There should have been a 4th group but it was getting late, it had already been a long fight and adding 5 more wolfs wouldn't have changed anything other then taking a few more Fireballs from the group's Sorc.).

It helps that the party is 6-7 characters each night but I thought they were going to have a much harder time with it. I'm reluctant to increase the difficultly of the fights as it would be too easy to get either a character kill or TPK. 

Character death is going to be become a major issue soon. They don't have enough diamonds for a Raise Dead and I've said the Garrison only has enough material components to do one more Reincarnate (they have done 4 already). 

Next fight should beat the party back. The Giants, now aware that 'something is out there' setup a long line of watch fires along the west end of their area and the 16 or so Giants are keeping an eye out for what killed their friends. The party is in the process of chasing the 2 surviving wolfs which will lead them to the 10-15 remaining wolfs and their Druid Frost Giant keeper. The other 15 Frost Giants will hit the party from behind with boulders. I'm pretty sure a hasty retreat will follow.

The party just made 13th level and they are happy about their new found spells. I'm not 100% that the party won't be able to fight their way out of the WLD before hitting 20th level.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

The sundering of the main weapons of the fighter and the eldritch knight proved to make the party very wary of the giants. There was even talk of perhaps negotiating with them - though the dwarf (having lost his holy merciful great-axe) was disinclined to follow any course of action with respect to the giants that did not include killing them. They are still eyeing off the giant's forge though in the hope of fixing their weapons.
Through bad assumptions they think that the giants are responsible for causing the ice to melt around the dragon's prison. While I have not disabused this notion they need only start asking the right questions in order to arrive at the correct answers.
Instead of doing this they opted for scouting out the area containing the wyverns, sending first an arcane eye, then the rogue ventured forth by herself. Evasion proved to be very useful in dodging the effects of the ice-demon prison and with successful disable device and open lock checks found herself trapped alone in the "death of fire" room. Having disabled the fireball traps, she eventually found the box of rings and while a telepathic bond still going with the party determined that lighting the brazier and as many other fire sources as she could it would hopefully "kill" all the air in the room and spring the release of the secret door.
The smoke choked her in to unconsciousness just before the telepathic bond ran out, and perhaps due to luck, she was wearing the ring of regeneration, enabling her to come back to consciousness when the air finally gave out and the door opened.
This was communicated in private - leaving the rest of the party ignorant of her fate.
(they seem to have forgotten that the NPC paladin has a crystal ball (which they have used before)) And then the session ended.

Pretty boring for most of the party except for the rogue, but I can almost guarantee combat will be coming up in the near future - especially if they discover the real force that is trying to free the dragon Tyrus and the gems which can be used to fund the fixing of their weapons.


----------



## Hussar

Guys, the freebie goodies today have a FANTASTIC resourse for the WLD.  Check out Bits of Darkness: Dungeons here.

100 effects to add to a dungeon - sounds, sights, smells, etc.  Very, very cool.  Would jazz up the WLD nicely.


----------



## raynbow

darn, missed a ton of stuff i wanted

i couldn't get it to work this morning, and just figured i'd try again later

i didn't realize they changed it every day at 10 am

ah well.


----------



## Qwillion

I still want to run the whole flooded dungeon since my party got out without going through this area.


----------



## rvalle

I might yank out the huge undead area and run it as a seperate adventure(s). So far it looks like my group is going to miss that area.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

Hussar said:
			
		

> Guys, the freebie goodies today have a FANTASTIC resourse for the WLD.  Check out Bits of Darkness: Dungeons here.
> 
> 100 effects to add to a dungeon - sounds, sights, smells, etc.  Very, very cool.  Would jazz up the WLD nicely.




thanks Hussar - was completely unaware that this was going on. I snagged it in time.


----------



## Hussar

BTW, is anyone still using the stuff I posted on the WLD project page?  If not, I'd love to do some housecleaning.


----------



## JustinM

Maybe.  I don't remember which page is yours, though.  I grabbed a bunch of stuff a long time ago and I don't remember where it all came from.


----------



## Hussar

This would be the one.  It's mostly for those running the game online.


----------



## JustinM

Ah, no, but that would have been useful back when I was trying to run the game by PbP on another forum.  Oh well.

Honestly, I can't get a group to stick through even a significant portion of the book, so I figure I probably wasted the $40 I spent on it, and that kind of cheeses me off.  I _would_ love to play through the thing, too, but finding someone crazy enough to run it is also nearly impossible.  Again, oh well.


----------



## Hussar

Heh, sorry dude.  Running it once was enough I think.  Although, to be honest, I could do it again.  But, not for a long time.    Playing might be a blast, but, I did so much work on it when I ran it, I'd probably have trouble keeping my head.


----------



## JustinM

Oh, no doubt.  I came to the D&D party too late for this one, I think...and, well, all the other modules that might be described as classics of the genre, but I try not to think about that too much or I might start crying myself to sleep at night.    And let's not even mention finding a group that likes to play games with lots of combat.  I'll say it again...oh well.


----------



## rvalle

Hey, I'm crazy enough to run it and have players crazy enough to play it every week. 

They are SO close to getting out as they fight the Frost Giants in Region O. I don't think they have the firepower needed to push past the Frost Giant 19th level Cleric leader though. 

Sorry Hussar, I've not kept up with your webpage as I should have. 

rv


----------



## JustinM

What can I say...you are a very lucky guy.


----------



## erucsbo

the party gets a clue in the Pyrefaust

Beginning of the session and the party is preparing to try and rescue the rogue when they get attacked by magmin. Nothing too hard, but they also notice that the giants help out by knocking out a few magmin from distance with boulders. This is enough to encourage them to try diplomacy.

They cast eagle's splendour on the paladin (NPC - but I let the party dictate what she will say within reason) and her Diplomacy ranks are now up to +28.
With the party rolling a 17 this is enough to make even hostile creatures give you the benefit of the doubt even with a rushed check (which is -10 penalty).
The giants will let the party talk to their queen, but not with weapons, so the only two who go and negotiate are the paladin and the mystic theurge (the paladin leaving her weapons with the fighter). The dwarf has a chat with the other giants outside on the topic of forges, and rolls high enough to convince the giants that not only does he *really* know about forging, but that he is pretty damn good at it.

Meanwhile the paladin and MT learn about the various forces within the pyrefaust and that the Azers have lots of gems, and that the giants will let the party use their forge in return for dealing with Teer'kaal and contributing some gems to the costs involved, and the healing of the giant that the party had almost killed so that he is well enough to go back on active duty. The MT then goes and cures the giant to back over half-way. The giants agree to allow the party safe passage through their area.

The dwarf puts aside his plans of revenge on the giants after hearing about gems.

The deal has been done and now the party goes to rescue the rogue who had been stuck in the hidden area with the angels that had been turned to stone. Using detect secret doors and knock they open the doors and through spiderclimb get the rogue back to the party.

Finishing up for the session the party rested and the dwarf used arcane eye to spy out the Azer area. His first use found the mine and the areas where magma had started to seep through. His second use of the spell ended just after finding the room full of gems.

No sign of the ogre mage, but the course of action has been well and truly established for the next session thanks to greed and a desire to use the forge.


----------



## rvalle

So... the Frost Giant leader will let the party exit in exchange for "their most powerful magic items and an oath of fealty".

I'm a little confused by that last bit as to what it would mean. It seems like they become vassels of him and he becomes their 'lord'. He can then command them to do whatever he wants? (Within a Lord - Vassel relationship anyway). So he could make them stay in the WLD and work for him or go out into the world and bring him back treasure, magic items, supplies?

I'm thinking of making it "your most powerful magic items and serve me for a year". Same idea without the hassle of dealing with interupiting what the oath means. And the party would be sure to say 'no' to another year inside the Dungeon.

I think the party will meet up with him tonight... if a fight breaks out its going to be ugly.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> So... the Frost Giant leader will let the party exit in exchange for "their most powerful magic items and an oath of fealty".
> 
> I'm a little confused by that last bit as to what it would mean. It seems like they become vassels of him and he becomes their 'lord'. He can then command them to do whatever he wants? (Within a Lord - Vassel relationship anyway). So he could make them stay in the WLD and work for him or go out into the world and bring him back treasure, magic items, supplies?
> 
> I'm thinking of making it "your most powerful magic items and serve me for a year". Same idea without the hassle of dealing with interupiting what the oath means. And the party would be sure to say 'no' to another year inside the Dungeon.
> 
> I think the party will meet up with him tonight... if a fight breaks out its going to be ugly.
> 
> rv




seems odd for them to agree to the terms required to "exit" if they don't get to exit.
fealty often means answering a call to arms, paying tribute/taxes, or agreeing to some other terms of service in exchange for protection.

If you are wanting to extend things past WLD for the characters then have the fealty mean delivering a message to some Frost Giant overlord (or may even be an ancient White Dragon), or destroy a Fire Giant King or Red Dragon outside the WLD or some other hook for a higher level adventure that is outside the WLD that would directly benefit the Frost Giants (and may be detrimental to humans and other goodly folk)


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:
			
		

> seems odd for them to agree to the terms required to "exit" if they don't get to exit.
> fealty often means answering a call to arms, paying tribute/taxes, or agreeing to some other terms of service in exchange for protection.
> 
> If you are wanting to extend things past WLD for the characters then have the fealty mean delivering a message to some Frost Giant overlord (or may even be an ancient White Dragon), or destroy a Fire Giant King or Red Dragon outside the WLD or some other hook for a higher level adventure that is outside the WLD that would directly benefit the Frost Giants (and may be detrimental to humans and other goodly folk)





Thanks for the ideas. 

As the party is all 'good' they didn't like the idea of serving an evil Frost Giant very much. I tossed out the 'for a year' bit and it didn't go over so well.

So then the party tried to theaten their way past. The Frost Giant leader has a slave brought out and drops a Power Word Kill onto her as a 'show of power' (i.e Look at me I can cast 9th level spells!' and claims to have more of those where they came from (he does). The party takes the slaying of the slave very badly and an inviso mage drops an Acid Fog onto the leader an some of his minions. The battle restarts (it had paused when the leader ran in from the back of the cave yelling to halt the battle) and the party flees dropping Walls of Force behind them and D-dooring/flying away.

So, the party now knows the way out and that it is guarded by a high level Frost Giant caster (he said he was guarding the exit and they could smell the fresh air coming down the hallway... so close yet so far!). They figure they will stay in and clean up some loss ends while trying to gather enough power to fight their way though.


I doubt I'll run anything else with these characters once they get out of the WLD. I might take the undead region and run it as a stand-alone. I'll probably try to get the group to try Savage Worlds and run their Evernight campaign.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

Pyrefaust

Last session for the year so this ended up a little rushed, but nevertheless climactic.
Had the region's lantern archon appear and tell the party that the leader of the Azers was going to perform a ritual that would result in the dragon being freed. This prompted them to action. Buffed with Heroisms, stoneskins, fire resistance etc, the party headed in to the Azers area, in to the mine. The intention was to try and bypass the Azers as much as possible and find Teer'Kaal.
The paladin was going to do a rushed diplomacy check when it was found out that this was a full-round action, and thus she could not move, and do it, so intimidate was used instead (first time intimidate had been used in the campaign successfully). She followed this up with a rushed Diplomacy the next round and got 25 (after the -10 penalty) and pushed the reaction from unfriendly to friendly, and therefore were able to get from the Azers directions to get to Teer'Kaal. 2 secret doors later and they found themselves in the big room with the dragon statue, the kneeling Azers and Teer'Kaal starting the ritual.
Wall of Force was used to cut off half the Azers, and with Teer'Kaal busy with the ritual the mooks were sword fodder. The party had been hasted, rogues invisible, and prayer was running. The Fighter, Eldritch Knight and paladin used cleave to great effect, mowing down azers and then closed on Teer'Kaal in about 3 rounds - WAY short of the 15 rounds the ritual is supposed to take.
We were about out of time, so I had the ritual start to take effect with flames developing along Teer'Kaal's body, he dropped a delayed blast fireball (with energy resistance and evasion the party suffered very little) and the paladin got a critical on a smite, doing 60hp damage, then another 50hp with her second shot. I had Teer'Kaal explode with the force of another huge fireball - but evasion and fire resistance also limited the damage to the party, and we were done.
Characters will level up (most to 11th) and reforge weapons and deal with the giants offline, but I'm not sure if they will press through to the other areas of the Pyrefaust when we resume again.
We'll probably try and run a single session 1ed game over the Christmas / NY break before once again picking up where we left off.

Advice sought - Wall of Force (from the sorcerer) being used to change combat conditions is now becoming de rigeur, as is haste (for the extra attack as much as the movement benefit). Has anyone encountered these tactics being overly employed, and if so were you able to mitigate them?


----------



## raynbow

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Pyrefaust
> 
> Advice sought - Wall of Force (from the sorcerer) being used to change combat conditions is now becoming de rigeur, as is haste (for the extra attack as much as the movement benefit). Has anyone encountered these tactics being overly employed, and if so were you able to mitigate them?




Wall of Force I don't see that much but haste... I don't know if 'overused' is exactly the right word, more "standard operating procedure".

There are just alot of spells like that on these higher level parties.   I don't have the problem as my GM in my WLD game yet, because my players are still low.  But, I'm a player in another game at higher levels, and I doubt there is a single person in that group that has less than 4 active spells on them at any one time, and that's before we even get into combat.

Using haste, and other great buffing spells is a legitimate tactic, and I don't know if you really want to spend any more time trying to "mitigate" it than you do any other tactic.  The best thing to do is just to be AWARE of it, as well as any other standard operating procedures your group has.

If a fight looks like it's going to be a cakewalk (or impossible) because of their SOP's, you can think about adjusting it.

You might also just think about having your NPC's use similar tactics.  Take away some of their silly/worthless spells and give them buffs as well, or give them counters to the most popular buffs.  Their's no reason, in most cases, to assume the NPC's aren't just as smart and experienced at combat strategies as their PC counterparts.


----------



## rvalle

My group (13th) has been casting Haste about every fight for a while now. There are 2 characters that have the spell.

Wall of Force is new but has started to show up as either being cast or as an option for the last few fights. They used it last game as a 'Oh shoot, we need to run away NOW' sort of thing. WoF between them and the bad guys and run.  I suspect I'll be seeing more and more of this sort of thing as we move forward.

Others that have started to pop up their heads: Blade Barriers as battle field control and their newest trick: Acid Fog with a Blade Barrier around it. Or though it and just how does a Large creature that can only move '5 get out of the way of a Blade Barrier? Bleh.

rv


----------



## Dracorat

I wouldn't worry much about Wall of Force. Remember that the enemies usually know their small part of the dungeon better than the players. Have them run through adjacent rooms to catch the fleeing players. Have them bring those rooms with them...


----------



## rvalle

One thing to remember, the Wall of Force is 10 feet high and, at least Frost Giants, are 15 feet tall.   

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> One thing to remember, the Wall of Force is 10 feet high and, at least Frost Giants, are 15 feet tall.
> 
> rv




unless the mage makes it 20' high (or higher) [Effect = Wall whose area is up to one 10-ft. square/level]
Usually they save it for running away, but the last few times it has been SOP to divide and conquer.

Thanks for the tip on blade barrier.


----------



## erucsbo

Happy New Year everyone.
I wonder if I can squeeze another whole year of gaming out of WLD?


----------



## DaveMage

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Happy New Year everyone.
> I wonder if I can squeeze another whole year of gaming out of WLD?





Happy new year!


(And I'm sure you could get another year's worth out of the WLD.     )


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:
			
		

> Happy New Year everyone.
> I wonder if I can squeeze another whole year of gaming out of WLD?




We're 2 and a half years in and I figure we have 6 months to a year left.

Speaking of which... my players just dipped their toes into N and made a DM version of the map with the sections marked. Can you host it for others to use (those of us left that is).

For anyone else still reading this thread...

Is there somewhere that is says how often the pulse of negitive energy goes out from the tomb and what its effect is when it does so? I've seen it mentioned in text that it happens and its on a few random tables but nothing definitive. 

Happy New Year!

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> We're 2 and a half years in and I figure we have 6 months to a year left.
> 
> Speaking of which... my players just dipped their toes into N and made a DM version of the map with the sections marked. Can you host it for others to use (those of us left that is).




no probs - just email me and I'll put it with the others. Seems that people hit the site and download stuff on a semi-regular basis even when there have been no posts on this thread for days.



			
				rvalle said:
			
		

> Is there somewhere that is says how often the pulse of negitive energy goes out from the tomb and what its effect is when it does so? I've seen it mentioned in text that it happens and its on a few random tables but nothing definitive.




which pulse?
there are the two listed on the initial random encounter table (both visible and invisible) and the one in N159 that occurs once and bestows 4 negative levels on everything in the dungeon, and there is the negative energy wave I suggested in this thread that rolls through the entire dungeon animating the evil dead (until it sucks their souls back to N) which can occur at whatever interval you want. N2 says that the pulses occur randomly. I'd suggest making it happen when you want to put pressure on the party and hurry them along.


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:
			
		

> which pulse?
> there are the two listed on the initial random encounter table (both visible and invisible) and the one in N159 that occurs once and bestows 4 negative levels on everything in the dungeon, and there is the negative energy wave I suggested in this thread that rolls through the entire dungeon animating the evil dead (until it sucks their souls back to N) which can occur at whatever interval you want. N2 says that the pulses occur randomly. I'd suggest making it happen when you want to put pressure on the party and hurry them along.




There is metion of the party going to N to investigate the negitive energy waves coming from the tomb. Some of the random encounter tables have waves moving though the region either doing damage (most of them) or doing strange things (the table for the outside of the tomb brings some bones to live briefly). 

I think the random tables have the waves doing 3d8 damage. There are at least 2 rooms that have waves trapped and they go off if someone moves within 10 feet of them for 20d8 damage. 

But on reading the main tomb area there is nothing that says 'negitive energy waves move out from the tomb for 3d8 damage every 30 min' (which is how I'm thinking of running it).

I'm going to hit the party with at least one of these while they are in N. I'm hoping they'll question the Garrison about them and the Garrison will realize the wards are weakening around the World Eaters tomb and that this is a Bad Thing. 

Re the map... let me try to dig up your email address and send you the map. Thanks again for hosting.

rv


----------



## Hussar

It's so cool that this thing has lived on this long.

Now, who's up for updating it for 4e


----------



## DaveMage

Hussar said:
			
		

> Now, who's up for updating it for 4e




We nominate you.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

DaveMage said:
			
		

> We nominate you.



Seconded!

Probable deadline - 1 year after the 4E SRD is released.
You might want to start prepping up.


----------



## Crothian

I think it wouldn't be that bad to convert.  All we need to do is swap out monster information.


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:
			
		

> Re the map... let me try to dig up your email address and send you the map. Thanks again for hosting.




Map is now up here with the others.


----------



## erucsbo

Advice needed!

First session back and the party used the giant's forge in the Pyrefaust to fix sundered weapons and create some magic items, and we had a quick side adventure in Serratine's area.

The eastern portion of J has subsided, creating a pool of lava where the Azers used to be, with the limit of the lava hitting the water in K, filling that portion with steam.
The party is debating what to do next.
They have just hit 11th level and believe themselves to be at least a couple of levels too low to tackle N (most of the time there are between 6-8 party members active).
They have dealt with most of J.
A, B, C, E, G, I, J and M are done (effectively - not all by the party - I have a dungeon-wide story running of which the party is the major component).
Should I push them to K, or through to the elves in H, before letting them gain a few levels and heading back to N?
(I'm going to drop the NPC paladin from the party and have her summonable via a bracelet of friends - she will stay with the Garrison at G until she is likely needed to help with the undead in N - she did 163 hp against Serratine in 1 round with Power Attacks and Smite Evil - and that was without being able to use the critical she rolled because of Serratine being undead - that takes too much of the limelight away from the PC fighters)


Any advice, please?


----------



## erucsbo

They decided to do a little more exploration in the Pyrefaust but will probably end up spending some time in K.
The paladin has left the party to carry word of Serratine back to Cyrlebrai and the assassin who left the party back in Region E has rejoined, having done some soul searching and is going to tread the path back to redemption (probably going the Arcane Trickster route from here).
They set off the delayed blast fireball where the golden tabards are (there are so many bits that are inconsistent here - it says that the spear and shield are removeable, says the fireball goes off 5 rounds after they or the tabards are removed, then says that the shield, spear and tabards can't be removed - I've run across this multiple times now where the flavour text, the effect text and the rest of the encounter contain mutually exclusive descriptions). I've ruled that they can keep the tabard they removed from the silver rod (but the silver rod was fixed to the wall). Says it is fire-resistant so will probably just give it +2 vs magically produced fire. They burned an identify on it (had it show magic due to the trap), but it is a non-magical item - so identify won't work.


----------



## Hussar

Heh, I remember that trap.  I ruled that the spear was stuck.  One PC decided to rip it out, despite knowing that there was a trap.  The jokes got lewder and lewder as he repeated failed a strength check to pull it out.  Then the fireball went off and toasted the PC.

I think I was pretty much stunned at that point.  Despite the HUGE number of deaths I'd dealt to the party, some players just could never seem to get enough.  

Wonder if I have the transcript from that scene.  It was funny as hell as I recall.


----------



## erucsbo

Rasts - once you ignore the battle tactics in the book and play them sensibly they suddenly become dangerous.
Last time they easily dispatched a handful of normal rasts that I had thrown at them (J57 area), this time the Rasts went the Paralyzing gaze route and at one stage had all but one party member paralyzed or grappled. Mystic Theurge had lost 2 points of Con and the Sorcerer 3, and even the heavily armoured Eldritch Knight dwarf failed his fort save vs Paralyze (rolled a 1) and started to get in to trouble. They eventually managed to kill or severely damage enough of the Rasts for the rest to flee.

Q: - attacking someone in a grapple - looks like there is no downside for someone swinging a sword at an opponent that is grappling a party member. No chance to hit the party member and the grappling opponent is denied dex bonus. And the weight of the characters means that if the rasts paralyze or grapple them then it is extremely unlikely that they can carry them away (can't fly carrying anything more than a light load). I would have thought there might be something about hitting the other person (party member) in the grapple - but no. Am I missing something?


----------



## Hussar

I don't believe so no.  There's nothing about hitting friendlies in a grapple with melee attacks.  This is why rogues LOVE grapplers.

You could always call in a couple of the Godrasts and have them carry out paralyzed PC's.  Or coup de grace.  That's always fun.


----------



## Janaxstrus

We played through up til 14th level, then got TPKed by the Charisma draining Dread Wraiths in the tomb.

Since our DM ruled it was corrosive and not negative energy, we had no defenses against it.

We had been a party of 4 with 1 NPC

Dwarf Clr6\Radiant Servant 8
Dwarf Wiz8\Ftr1\RuneCaster5
Whisper Gnome Scout14
Half-Orc Ftr3\HO Paragon3\Orc Paragon3\Occult Slayer5

And a Wizard 14 as an NPC


----------



## rvalle

Wouldn't Pro Energy (Acid) work?

My group just made 14th level. They've been trying to clear out the Fire Giants and been fighting a battle of attrition. They hit them, kill or perma-blind some and then retreat to rest. After a few battles like this the Giants had 5 members blinded with no way to remove it and several members dead.

I racked my brain over what the giants could do and came up with something suitable evil. 

There is mention of how the Dragon is aware of things happening outside the ice via various magic items each group has. Or that he is trying  to influence things via these items.

So.... I had the Dragon contact the Giant Queen and persuade her into making a deal. The Giants have too dig a hole though the ice where there is a crack. I figure this is where the book says the Efreeti was going to burn a hole though from N to J. Once in they betray and sacrifice the perma-blind Giants to the Dragon. In return each surviving Giant gets a Dragon scale to wear around its neck. This will give the Dragon the ability to cast touch or other spells though that Giant. So they can get things like Spell Resistance, Spell Immunity and other such things. 

They also left one of their Captains behind (whom I had already added a few levels if fighter too). He is going though a metamorphosis and becoming a half-dragon Fire Giant. Maybe a Fiendish half-dragon Fire Giant. 

This should kick the encounter up a notch and provide the Dragon (and me) with much amusement.    

rv


----------



## erucsbo

My party made a deal with the Giants. I figured that the giants had most to lose from Tyrus if he got free, so played on the party fears about if the giants died, then there would be nothing stopping the Ogre-mage from releasing the dragon. Oh - and sundering a few of their weapons helped them make up their minds.
It's all part of trying to get them to think first before resorting to weapons.
Sometimes it works, but they still revert to "see, kill, loot" mode more often than I'd like.


----------



## erucsbo

There is _so_ much that is removed from the Rasts section of the Pyrefaust once Serratine has been dealt with that it becomes essentially a bug hunt. Room descriptions get cut down by 2/3 in some places.
The party hit the Godrasts and dished out enough damage to take them all down.
Rogues with greater invisibility - being able to do scad-loads of sneak attack damage at range - are really getting annoying.
The rasts are excellent when 1 on 1, especially if they can get a paralysing gaze off, then start draining Con, but their low AC and inability to do much when grappling is not helping to keep the tension high.


----------



## jim pinto

*News*

Hi Guys,

I know I've been gone a long time, and I'm about three months late with this announcement, but with the exception of my blog, I have not said this anywhere else. And I wanted you to know first --

(enough preamble jackass; just give them the news)

I am officially back at AEG as the Creative Manager. And while we will have limited exposure in the RPG market, I thought it nice to at least say thank you to everyone on this list who continues to support and play with this product.

I hope everyone's been having fun and I look forward to catching up with everyone soon.

Peace

-


----------



## DaveMage

Best of luck with your new job!


----------



## Hussar

That's great jim pinto.  Any 4e news forthcoming?  *nudge nudge*


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:
			
		

> I am officially back at AEG as the Creative Manager. And while we will have limited exposure in the RPG market, I thought it nice to at least say thank you to everyone on this list who continues to support and play with this product.
> 
> I hope everyone's been having fun and I look forward to catching up with everyone soon.




well done jim.
"Creative Manager" sounds like a really cool job. Hope it lives up to expectations.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Hussar said:
			
		

> That's great jim pinto.  Any 4e news forthcoming?  *nudge nudge*



Yeah and if you need any playtesters for said 4e stuff, you have a big pool of people here to pick from.

And you already know I'll be honest.


----------



## JoeBlank

Congrats, Mr. Pinto. That is good news.


----------



## erucsbo

Killed another PC last night.
The party were investigating the north-eastern-most reaches of the Pyrefaust, trying to move statues and what-not. Really gets boring without the Serratine puzzle needing to be unravelled.
Anyway - the goblin sorcerer/rogue decided to try and go for a wander. He had almost died (-5hp) from the previous battle with the Godrasts and had been healed up to 8hp when he tripped the Angelic Thunder trap (Greater Shout). Fortunately for the rest of the party they were nowhere near the area of effect.
Unfortunately for the goblin he failed his Fort save and I did not roll all 1s on the 16d6 damage. Ended up at about -50 or so hitpoints, so completely destroyed and bits of goblin flesh plastering the walls and ceiling around the trap.
The party spent a few minutes (allowing the trap to reset) stuffing around then decided to get an arcane eye going up the corridor to see if there was anything worthwhile past the trap. 6 more Godrasts and some gems among the remains. Then the Godrasts decided to come out to play.
It ended up being a fairly tight contest, with the Godrasts trying to paralyse as much as the party as they could before moving out to grapple and drag back to their rooms. The sorcerer used telekinesis to trigger the trap again, catching one for some minor damage, but then he was paralyzed and repeated attempts to trigger the trap in subsequent rounds did nothing. The Godrasts did manage to get one paralyzed party member (the rogue) almost around the corner, but was dropped just before it could escape. She was finally rescued at -9 hitpoints.
Massive sneak attack damage from the assassin with greater invisibility cast on him and a rush job with melee weapons towards the close of battle  proved the decider.

The party doesn't want to fight the rasts anymore.


----------



## erucsbo

The party has freed the petrified Angels in the Pyrefaust. Tried to disable the multi-trap on the secret door in the "Fire in the Hole" room and failed - setting it off - fortunately most of them made all the saves. Then went and did what they knew they should have and let off three fireballs to extinguish the air in the room and open the door. Stone salve on one and a Stone to Flesh from a scroll on the other and the Astral Devas were free. Having been appraised of the changes in the dungeon they have proposed to the party that Tyrus needs to be dealt with. They have time to plan but the carrot of a level increase has been dangled before the players if they succeed (with the Angels help) in defeating Tyrus. Has anyone else had the battle with Tyrus? If so - how did it go? Just looking at his armour class and spell resistance makes it tricky for anyone to hit or damage with spells. Advice to help me prepare for this is appreciated.


----------



## erucsbo

The party has freed the petrified Angels in the Pyrefaust. Tried to disable the multi-trap on the secret door in the "Fire in the Hole" room and failed - setting it off - fortunately most of them made all the saves. Then went and did what they knew they should have and let off three fireballs to extinguish the air in the room and open the door. Stone salve on one and a Stone to Flesh from a scroll on the other and the Astral Devas were free. Having been appraised of the changes in the dungeon they have proposed to the party that Tyrus needs to be dealt with. They have time to plan but the carrot of a level increase has been dangled before the players if they succeed (with the Angels help) in defeating Tyrus.

Has anyone else had the battle with Tyrus? If so - how did it go? Just looking at his armour class and spell resistance makes it tricky for anyone to hit or damage with spells. Advice to help me prepare for this is appreciated.


----------



## Hussar

Didn't do Tyrus.  Just too frickin big.  The advanced Wyverns were enough of a fight as it was.  Those things are NASTY.

My bunch freed the Angels too.  Made for a much needed boost in firepower when dealing with the rest of the region.  They made an appearance as well at the end of my campaign when the PC's took on the bit T.  

The nasty thing about those angels is their caster levels.  They can buff the PC's through the roof.  Bring them along for Heal spells and they should be able to handle Tyrus.


----------



## erucsbo

posted about this on Usenet and the consensus is that there is absolutely no way that my party would be able to handle the Tyrus encounter.
Given that the Pyrefaust is set for levels 13-15, but that my party of 8 11th level characters have been able to manage (albeit with some difficulty) all of the encounters, and will have the angels (and should they wish it a paladin) with them, is Tyrus suicide?
If so, what level should a 10 member party (incl the angels) be to handle Tyrus?

note that I think the encounters with a single high CR foe have been easier for the party than ones with a lower EL level but with lots of opponents (they had a harder time with a dozen rasts than 4 Godrasts). The iconic 4 member party would have resulted in encounters being a lot more balanced wrt EL imho.


----------



## erucsbo

well, they decided against Tyrus. Probably a sensible course of action, though they are still interested - maybe with a couple more levels under their belts.
So they decided to hit Thorodin in region K instead.
They buffed themselves through the hilt including fly and haste on the two fighters and fly and greater invisibility on the two rogues, water walking on the rest and water breathing all round just in case. Heroism on everyone as well.
They ran / flew across the water from the northern entrance to Pyrefaust, taking about 3 rounds to get to Thorodin, who saw them coming and started buffing the toadies before flying up to get the option to crush on the flying fighters.
All party members failed their saves versus frightful prescense, but that just cancelled out the heroism.
3 rounds later he was dead. A critical from the axe wielding Eldritch Knight and hits from the fighter, coupled with successful sneak attacks from the rogue and assassin and he couldn't handle the damage. He did get a breath off and had the EK running away right at the end of the fight (saved by stoneskin and energy resistance - acid), but even so it was done and dusted before the Greater Invisibility ran out. The sorcerer torched all the toadies with a single fireball, rolling so well with damage that even if they had made their saves they were still smouldering crisps.


----------



## Hussar

Heh, welcome to high level combat.  Three rounds, four hours.  

Thorodin wasn't much of a challenge for my bunch either.  And, yes, large numbers of smaller creatures can be a much nastier challenge.  The rasts toasted the longest standing PC.  But, then again, those Godrasts are nasty too.  Bloody grapplers.


----------



## rvalle

My group hasn't done Tyrus yet. I'm thinking about forcing it but I'm not sure they can take it on yet (5-6 players at 14th level). They are going to make 15th very soon and I might force it then. 

The Garrison is way to tempting to use. I have most the Garrison off fighting in region D taking care of 'a small Tarrasque problem' leaving just a few Garrisons members left in G (the Demons are now gone).

My group went through a rather dramatic change in character. While going though N they lost one of their main fighters (buffed up Cleric) who had a high ac and could cast D-Door's to get the party out of jams when it was time to run away. He moved into a room with 2 Greater Wraiths hiding. They ambushed him, drained con. Both got init on him and drained con again and he was at -10 hps.  

The party retreated out of N and was heading through J when they were ambushed by the remaining Fire Giants. Without boring you with the changes I made, one of the Giants is now a half-dragon and is able to be buffed by Tyrus. He flew in and laid into the party. He was able to deal out 120 hps of damage a round! Tyrus kept putting up Mirror Images which the party was able to drop most of before he put them up again next round. The party cleric kept casting Heals on the Paladin to keep her up. She was running out of Heals so instead cast Air Walk on her and the Pally. Unfortunately the Giant still got an AoO on the Pally's way out and even with -10 DR for being Gaseous killed the Pally. 

Mind you this Pally was a damage dealing machine and could do 100-200 points of damage a round with improved crits on a longsword, power attacks, ect.

Now the Cleric made a halfing fighter/ranger using daggers to TWF and the Pally is now a Monk. As one of the players said they are now a quick strike recon group. 

In order to 'train' they are going back though I to fight Drider in order to get a feel for how the group will work now.

I'm torn on what to do for the future. We've been playing for about 2.5 years now. I can either level them up and let them fight their way out (they think there is an exit behind the Frost Giants in O but know they are not strong enough to fight though them yet). 

Or, I can force a fight with Tyrus by saying the ice prison is failing and he needs to be taken care of. I can also force them to go though N by having the black negative energy wave start moving further and further from the Prison and the party has to go and take care of it.

Right now I'm tempted to split the diff... have them fight Tyrus as that will mostly be a one or two night fight and then let them work on getting out. Going though N will add 6 months onto the game. Both a good and a bad thing.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

I had my group encounter the Driders at about level 9. They had a big battle with the spider kings before running away and then dealt with Elotor in his lab while on a rescue mission to free some trapped party members. Hardest thing they took on in Region M was the air elementals who would pick them up and dump them from height, including trying to do so over Death Canyon. They negotiated a deal with the Driders after defeating Elotor to leave the caves and cross to the northern side of the lava. I found the top half of M (apart from the air elementals) to be really boring for the party so you might want to spice it up a bit - maybe place an item there that they have to find or have them try and find Norkor for information that might be useful against the Frost Giants (which he will give them if they retrieve an item that was stolen from him by the Driders). - Something that a quick strike recon group might be better suited to.
I think you will need to seriously ramp up the encounters to make it challenging for 14th level characters there.


----------



## rvalle

They are still in I right now. I got interesting in that they made a deal with... the Naga there where the party retrieved the spell books/notes from the wrecked lab and gave it to her. In return she removed the spell needed to kill Anguish and gave it to them.

She used the spell book and notes to change her self back to a Drider... mostly. She's a spider body but a snake head (picture provided by Hussar!). She then went up and took over the Drider area since she's a better caster then any of the Drider. Since she was working with the Drow resistance it was easy for her to crush it as well. The whole of I is now under her power. 

The next time the party went though I she had a messanger waiting there for them. She had them brough to her and made a deal. She would leave the se corner alone so the party can move from E to J and they would leave her alone. They were pretty freaked out by her new look and were just from a fight with the Fire Giants so agreed and went on their way.

______

I'm not too worried about them not having a hard fight here. They pretty much have to take on the whole population of I. I'll bump up a few of the driders in caster level to make a decent 'boss' fight.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

Region I was pretty good for me - halls of flesh and all that (though the fight with Madness was over too quick). I did insert the fountain of fortunes folly that was mentioned way back in this thread in to Mahir's area and the party spent a fair bit of time with it (and still talk of going back).
You could create all sorts of abominations in I as a result of the Naga's experiments.


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:
			
		

> You could create all sorts of abominations in I as a result of the Naga's experiments.




Hmm, I didn't think of that.  Thats.... good!  I did think about trying to give her some funky new spells to show what she learned from the spell book. I like your idea better. 

I think they would tend to be spider/elf like ones though. Hmmm...

_______

The fight with Anguish was a push over for my group. But, they couldn't touch Madness and pretty much ran from him almost every time. When ever they did try to stand and fight 1 character would come close to dying. The only thing that saved them was Madness's very slow movment rate. 

rv


----------



## Kaptain O

*Resources*

Hi, I'm obviously about 4 years late getting on the whole WLD bandwagon but I am starting a game and I was wondering if anyone could tell me where I can get resources for the sourcebook? I read at the beginning of this thread there were corrected and errata'd maps and additional areas not detailed in the original book (particularly region E) but the urls are all defunct.


----------



## erucsbo

Kaptain O said:
			
		

> Hi, I'm obviously about 4 years late getting on the whole WLD bandwagon but I am starting a game and I was wondering if anyone could tell me where I can get resources for the sourcebook? I read at the beginning of this thread there were corrected and errata'd maps and additional areas not detailed in the original book (particularly region E) but the urls are all defunct.




James Lorimor's site is still working though hasn't been updated in ages. I've made available some maps that should have been added to James' site but still haven't been uploaded.

There is quite a lot on Region E on James' site and a fair amount of discussion in this thread (a goodly way back though) and some got lost in the server crash.


----------



## Hussar

Kaptain O said:
			
		

> Hi, I'm obviously about 4 years late getting on the whole WLD bandwagon but I am starting a game and I was wondering if anyone could tell me where I can get resources for the sourcebook? I read at the beginning of this thread there were corrected and errata'd maps and additional areas not detailed in the original book (particularly region E) but the urls are all defunct.




Good God sir.  Did you actually read this entire thread.  O.O  Wow.  That's hardcore dedication.


----------



## Kaptain O

Nope, I got through about page 20 and then skipped to the end to make a post while I finish the other 130 pages.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

There's going to be a huge missing section where ENWorld crashed and lost several months of posts.

Unfortunately, that was the most interesting part of this thread (to me).


----------



## erucsbo

Ropers rock.

After basking in their quick defeat of Thorodin (and with several players away) 4 of the party decided to investigate the bog a bit more.
They spied a tree in the distance and the dwarven Eldritch Knight, on seeing a treasure chest wedged in the roots, moved in for a closer look. There was discussion that maybe the chest was a mimic, but preliminary tests (tapping on it) showed it to be real, so the others present (assassin, mystic theurge and fighter) all moved closer. The dwarf had been echoing Durkon from Order of the Stick in that he believed that trees were evil, and there were jokes about the walloping willow from Harry Potter, when the roper sprang (figuratively) in to action and managed to snare the assassin and the eldritch knight. Both failed their saves vs weakness with the knight losing 6 points of strength and the assassin dropping 10.  There was much brown trousering and breaking of strands, and casting Grease on the assassin's armour to allow him to use Escape Artist to get away. The high magic resistance of the roper meant that the few offensive spells they had left from fighting the dragon were ineffective.

They got away and determined that safe distance was 50' and were thinking about resting to regain spells when the roper lurched towards them. This caused major panic and running away.

They explored elsewhere (keeping an eye out for moving trees), running away when they saw the shocker lizards and eventually finding Sissifiss. They freed her and the dwarf managed to drag the cage far enough out of the anti-magic field so that he could shrink item on it, with the intention of melting it down for bullion later.

Sissifiss helped ferry the party across the lake to the west, whereupon they rested and waterwalked back to exact vengence on the roper. Lots of acid arrows and arrows from bows later they managed to topple it. Detect magic found the dagger in the chest to be magical but also revealed the fog behind the roper to be magical as well. Once more extreme fear, uncertainty and doubt entered our heroes minds and they decided that staying away from the fog was the best course of action.

All in all an enjoyable and satisfying evening of gaming.


----------



## erucsbo

Region K is turning out to be quite a bit of fun.
The party has had a frustrating encounter with Lightspar. Haven't been able to convince her to remove the necklace around her neck (with the eye), but they have cast restoration which has improved her abilities a bit. I think they have made the connection between her "stolen eggs" and Mahir's experiments that resulted in Anguish and Madness in Region I.
They rested and regained spells but have now expended quite a bit against the Tendriculous, the zombies and the watching hags also used ForceCage and Summoned some bats against them to see how the party would react. They now have a fairly good idea of their powers thanks to the group keeping the hags eyes found previously (which they still don't know what they are).

Assuming that a showdown with the hags is coming very soon does anyone have any tips? Has anyone else had the battle with the hag covey and how did it go?

thanks


----------



## raynbow

My group is getting ready to head from region B into Region C tonight.

I spent a while re-reading Region C last night, and I'm totally unimpressed with the whole 'key' subplot.

I just dont see any sense for why you need a key to get from Region B to Region F, and why that key would be in Region C.

There's nothing of any excitement in Region F that I can see.  And knowing my group, they are more likely to wiggle through C and end up going up to G.  Also, I'm confused by how the book refers to region C as a "dead end", since you can go from there to G.

I'm thinking of making the key open the door from C to G instead of all the doors from B to F.



I'm just having trouble understanding the whole thing.  The lantern archon is supposed to tell them they need the key for something important, but I just don't see what's important about going from B to F.

If it's the key to G then at least there's an obvious reason the key would have been important in the past, in that you couldn't get to the room with the portal into C21 if you didn't have the key.

Did anyone else mess around with the "key" subplot thing?


----------



## erucsbo

skipped B and C. Party went north to E, I, M then through J to K.
Must admit that the length of the campaign is taking its toll, so I'm thinking of forcing the pace and giving a meta-game way of finishing.
They have dealt with the hags, freed Lightspar (who has gone south to the Garrison to learn what is going on) and are in the southern area of K.
I'll have the garrison get in touch if they don't find the link south themselves quickly then outline a plan of action.
Basically the garrison will ask them to clear out any immediate dangers in the southern part of K (they don't need to explore everything and intact cells should probably be left that way). Once done I'll bump them up a level (to 13) and offer Garrison assistance in dealing with Tyrus. I think it is doable with the right prep.
Getting past Tyrus will give them another level. They should then be well and truly able to handle the Tomb (N).
I'll give them a historical precis of the Tomb and ask them to investigate - with specific focus on the World Eater. Untangling that should get them another level (15) or two with a view to tackling the World Eater.
Depending on assessment of the situation I may turn the battle in to one where the Celestials etc are summoned to deal with all the mooks and buff the party while the party deals with the World Eater to hopefully bring a climactic finish to the WLD.
The scope and extent of the WLD has (in the end) been the biggest problem for our group, too easy to lose focus on the short term goals and it becomes a grind without the feeling of having had a satisfyingly complete victory. Then again - having bypassed G and the portal in A, and not done Tyrus they've probably missed the only other opportunities for such an event.


----------



## DaveMage

erucsbo said:


> The scope and extent of the WLD has (in the end) been the biggest problem for our group, too easy to lose focus on the short term goals and it becomes a grind without the feeling of having had a satisfyingly complete victory. Then again - having bypassed G and the portal in A, and not done Tyrus they've probably missed the only other opportunities for such an event.




When did you start playing (what date)?


----------



## erucsbo

DaveMage said:


> When did you start playing (what date)?




18th September 2005 (as far as I can ascertain and IIRC) - don't have my gaming notes handy


----------



## DaveMage

3+ years on the same adventure is tough, no doubt.

Hopefully your players can stick with it long enough to have that final epic battle, and call it a day (or decade).


----------



## Hussar

Hats off bud.  Three years.  I was happy to wrap things up after two.


----------



## Jürgen Hubert

[blatant plug]

Would anyone be willing to share your story of this adventure on the War Stories Wiki?

It would probably warrant its own category...

[/blatant plug]


----------



## rvalle

We are on about 3 years I think. 

Lets see (looks though old email)... first game was 9/9 2005.

I must admit to getting a bit burned out. Not sure if its running the WLD once a week for 3 years or just the grind of high level 3.5 DnD. What keeps me going is the thought of finishing this and moving on to something else (either Dnd 4th ed or Savage Worlds).

I serously thought about skipping N but in a moment of weekness I played the Lantern Archon by the book and he told them of the World Eater. He opens and closes the door for the party to get into and out of the Region. I'm NOT having the undead spawn every 24 hours but have moved it to a week. 

So far the party has run into the Black Guard ghost. She told them of the keys and about the other warlords in the region trying to get the party to work for her. The party was on the way out the door when the monk charged her and started a melee. I had given her some armor feats and with fighting def her AC was in the 40's which made her hard but not impossible to hit for 2 of the party members. Between them and the spells going off she was reduced to about 1/3 hp's so she ran and found reinforcments. One character died in melee as the party retreated.

Trying to avoid her area (and tired of fighting things incorpreal) the party stuck to the south end of the area and ran into the insane Judge/Bodak. I thought this might be a tough fight but I had no idea it would turn out to be an almost tkp!

The party breezed though the minons up front the skeleton hoards and wights going down easily. 

They open the door to the Judges room and see what there is to see. Not being much on talking and thinking it will be an easy fight the party's fighter and monk charges into the room to close with the Judge while the rest of the party hangs back.

Since he is insane the Judge's actions are random and it comes up as Dominate (he has a bunch of undead like powers... vampire's dominate, his own death gaze, mummies rot, ect.).  His eyes glow as he tells the fighter to stop the others from disrupting his court... and he fails the save. 

He heads back to lay waste to the rest of the party (he's a tweaked out two weapon fighter who can dish out 80 points of damage a round plus -5 or so con points from a dagger of wounding). As the party fights to keep him from killing party members the monk gets into hand to hand combat with the Bodak. After several rounds of each side missing the other with attacks the Bodak gets another Dominate on his random roll. Thinking that this would ruin the party as there is no way they could hold off both him and the fighter I change it to the Death Gaze as the monk has good saves. 

And he rolls a 1. Thump down he goes. The party tries to pour all their damage into the Judge who moved towards them (the fighter having been locked away behind a wall of force) and almost drop him but not before he Dominates the parties Bard who then turn and glitter dusts the partys Sorcerer blinding him.

So, the 'party' now consists of 1 cleric and 1 blind wizard with 2 party members dominated and 1 dead. Oh boy. We stopped there for that week.


Man, this is getting long. Next week the party Druid showed up. He managed to get the fighter in a Wall of Thorns and they pounded him with Dispel Magics till he was free (lots of debat on if this would work or not. WoTC seems to have errated it so it will as per the core books it won't). The Bard had already been killed from lighting bolts from the Sorcerer (who had been Healed by the Cleric). 

The go back in and get the body of the Monk (the Judge wandered off to get more members for his court) and everyone was raised. 


I figure getting though N will take us another 3-4 months or so. After that they need to fight the Red Dragon who is waiting for them. Then out though O and the Frost Giants. 

They are 16th level now. They should be 18th by the time they finish N and maybe 19th after the Dragon. I suspect O will be a cake walk but it should be fun for the party to do a beat down on some bad guys on the way out.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> ...The party was on the way out the door when the monk charged her and started a melee.
> ... I thought this might be a tough fight but I had no idea it would turn out to be an almost tkp!
> ... And he rolls a 1. ...
> They are 16th level now. They should be 18th by the time they finish N and maybe 19th after the Dragon. I suspect O will be a cake walk but it should be fun for the party to do a beat down on some bad guys on the way out.
> 
> rv




How have you fond the monk?
One of my players (currently straight cleric) is thinking about a monk instead. - Especially considering that the party will be heading to N soon I'm worried about how effective they really will be (versus the cleric that will either become NPC or gone).

Funny how the fights can turn out easier or tougher than planned. Swapping a major combatant from one side to the other can certainly turn a battle on its head.

So you plan on having the party go for Tyrus after the World Eater? rather than the other way around?

I had the part make it to the garrison in G - and have given them some goals to accomplish. First one was to find the Inevitable recharge room as that will allow the inevitables from the garrison in E to get back to full strength, freeing up some of the celestials in G so that they can help the party if required.

First use of "Find the Path" spell has occurred and I allowed it because it gave me the opportunity to direct them where I wanted and overcome some of the frustration element. The only other "location" they know about that they might try and use the spell for is the chamber of the World Eater (they know how to get to Tyrus if they want to). Not quite sure how I'll handle that one yet.

We actually had a full house last night - 9 players! Will be losing one (Sorcerer) after next session (moving interstate) and the rogue will follow a few sessions later (partner of the player moving interstate), but that will still leave us with 2 straight clerics, Mystic Theurge, Eldritch Knight, Fighter, Bard/Druid (don't ask) and Assassin (who has alignment shifted away from evil and will be following the Arcane Trickster path).

They rescued the aquatic elves from the merrow, resisted the temptation of the intact cells, but did deviate from the Find the Path to check out the water spider mound and have found the lizardman. The water spider had broken the surface of the water and was approaching the party when we broke for the evening. Will be interesting to see if they go for the battle or retreat to the narrow passages (where it can't follow).

Once they have completed that section I'll give them a level (up to 13th), allow for some restocking at the Garrison, and see if they want to tackle Tyrus or go straight for the tomb.


----------



## erucsbo

erucsbo said:


> The water spider had broken the surface of the water and was approaching the party when we broke for the evening. Will be interesting to see if they go for the battle or retreat to the narrow passages (where it can't follow).




They couldn't resist a battle, though they did back away to the corridor and cast wall of force, with a gap that they could get through.
The spider spraying acid went some way to having them back away.
The Druid/Bard attempted Speak with Animals, but with a negligible int score the spider was getting confused about "food". If you recall the FarSide cartoon where the person is speaking to the dog and all the dog hears are certain familiar words then it was something like that.
The Mystic Theurge cast Baleful Polymorph and turned the spider in to a toad. Spider rolled a 1 on the save. Threat ended.

They found the Inevitables recharge room but kept going and found the chest with the gemsect swam. 1 fireball later the threat (and chest) were gone.

Did have some fun with the greater barghests at the tail end of the session as they were looking for alternate ways back around to the garrison from the recharge room.
The projected images soaked up Blade barrier, enervation, fireballs and lightning bolts until the invisible blinking beasties flanked and attacked the sorcerer at the back of the party.
Just about everyone ended up going invisible and lightning bolts and weapon damage (that managed to get through the blink) eventually brought them down.
Will have to double check the illusion rules again just in case a battle with Tyrus is forthcoming as there were some "disagreements" over whether or not saves should have been made. I would think that unless specifically stated that they are disbelieving, that any such rolls would need to be made in secret, and a player stating "I don't believe it" (when a ranged touch attack failed) isn't necessarily the same as someone stating "I disbelieve it".


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:


> How have you fond the monk?
> One of my players (currently straight cleric) is thinking about a monk instead. - Especially considering that the party will be heading to N soon I'm worried about how effective they really will be (versus the cleric that will either become NPC or gone).
> 
> Funny how the fights can turn out easier or tougher than planned. Swapping a major combatant from one side to the other can certainly turn a battle on its head.
> 
> So you plan on having the party go for Tyrus after the World Eater? rather than the other way around?
> 
> I had the part make it to the garrison in G - and have given them some goals to accomplish. First one was to find the Inevitable recharge room as that will allow the inevitables from the garrison in E to get back to full strength, freeing up some of the celestials in G so that they can help the party if required.
> 
> First use of "Find the Path" spell has occurred and I allowed it because it gave me the opportunity to direct them where I wanted and overcome some of the frustration element. The only other "location" they know about that they might try and use the spell for is the chamber of the World Eater (they know how to get to Tyrus if they want to). Not quite sure how I'll handle that one yet.
> 
> We actually had a full house last night - 9 players! Will be losing one (Sorcerer) after next session (moving interstate) and the rogue will follow a few sessions later (partner of the player moving interstate), but that will still leave us with 2 straight clerics, Mystic Theurge, Eldritch Knight, Fighter, Bard/Druid (don't ask) and Assassin (who has alignment shifted away from evil and will be following the Arcane Trickster path).





The Monk is very effective. I, perhaps mistakenly, added some feats to the game and he's managed to get his AC, including touch, up into the 40's. Plus when he attacks he's getting 5-6 attacks and doing +25 damage on each one. They are able to crush all the 'minor' battles and only the boss fights are a challenge.

Lets see... the current party is the Monk, a Bard, Cleric, Sorc (with 2 levels of Rogue dipping for improved evasion), Fighter (with 2 or so levels of Ranger for 2 weapon fighting), and a Druid all 16th level.

You know... I've checked on how 'bad' the Dragon fight is but not the World Eater one. Using the on-line Encounter Calculator with 6 18th level Characters the Dragon fight came out to something like Overwhelming. Well shoot, now I have to go and check it.

6 18th level characters vs the CR23 Dragon is Very Hard. 18th vs the CR 20 World Eater is Challenging. Though that doesn't take into account anything else that shows up when the World Eater breaks free.

Currently the ice is melting around Tyrus's prison. I can use that to force them to face him whenever I want. I think I'll have them fight the World Eater at 17, level up to 18 and fight Tyrus, level up to 19 and then have them start fighting their way out.

In G the party was able to capture the thingy to power up the region saving the Garrison leader. I didn't run it exactly as written... in the book the demons basically have an unending army out there forcing the party to 'solve the problem instead of a head on attack'. But in order to get to the power up gem they have to travel out in the open and start fighting demons with telepathy who can summon others to the fight quickly. I basically used what was in the book and let the party slowly whittle the demons down and win.  Watch out for that 6 armed demon. She was the cause of several party deaths. She's nasty!!!

Once freed I let the two Garrisons hook up and then they went to D to take care of 'a little Tarrasque problem'. This keeps them busy and stops them from overly helping the party.

I got lucky with Find the Path... the party just figured it wouldn't work and never tried it. My plan was to let it work inside one Region but not let it go from Region to Region.

9 players! Wow. I think our all time max was 8. We're down to 6 now and seem pretty steady there. Thats plenty for me. 

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> The Monk is very effective. I, perhaps mistakenly, added some feats to the game and he's managed to get his AC, including touch, up into the 40's. Plus when he attacks he's getting 5-6 attacks and doing +25 damage on each one. They are able to crush all the 'minor' battles and only the boss fights are a challenge.




thanks - based on that I may allow the monk but will be careful on what feats are allowed.



rvalle said:


> Using the on-line Encounter Calculator with 6 18th level Characters the Dragon fight came out to something like Overwhelming. Well shoot, now I have to go and check it.




If I add in 2 Astral Devas (EL14 - freed from the Pyrefaust) and 2 NPC paladins (level 13) to the party then it makes Tyrus an Overwhelming encounter - but therefore still doable, especially if they have had time to buff and they learn the lesson of illusions from fighting the Greater Barghests last session  They would have to get to level 16 to have it Very Difficult instead.



rvalle said:


> Watch out for that 6 armed demon. She was the cause of several party deaths. She's nasty!!!




I've had G completed off-stage. The Garrisons are now connected and now that the party has found the recharge station for the inevitables they can spare some celestials to assist against Tyrus.

If they get to the World Eater I'll consider whether or not to allow them to be able gate in some celestials to deal with the mooks.


----------



## rvalle

I took a vote on what the players wanted to do.

1. Play by the book and slog it out.

2. Remove some of the mooks from N and keep going doing the big more insteresting fights.

3. Have the Garrison take over clearing out N and the party goes to fight Tyrus. Afterwards they go and help on the final push on the World Eater.


It was close between 2 and 3 but we finallized on 2.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

rvalle said:


> 2. Remove some of the mooks from N and keep going doing the big more insteresting fights.



Something I probably should have done.


----------



## rvalle

BlueBlackRed said:


> Something I probably should have done.




Well, I took a page out of your book and don't have the bad guys respawning every night. They do come back after a week (or as close to a week as my bad book keeping allows for).

rv


----------



## rvalle

Hey erucsbo have you figured out how you are going to do the Dragon's illusion?

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> Hey erucsbo have you figured out how you are going to do the Dragon's illusion?
> 
> rv




pre-rolled will saves are the order of the day I think.
It's a figment so will disappear if struck, unless Tyrus causes it to react otherwise, which he wo'nt. I imagine the party, unless they pick up that it is an illusion beforehand, will try and coordinate a massive strike at once.
I've given hints before that Tyrus had been trapped in a magical sleep and therefore probably isn't tired, so there may be some disbelief attempts, or at least detect magic.
I'll run it pretty much as written after that I think.


----------



## morgue

*Chronology*

Hey folks

I've been flipping through my WLD recently, contemplating a run at it, and I decided I'd really like to get my hands on a chronology of the dungeon - there's lots of references to "two years ago", "ten years ago", "fifty years ago", etc., and it would be useful to pull them together.

I haven't read this whole thread, but I've scanned a lot of it. jim pinto mentioned that someone had made a chronology (in post 1118) but I can't find it. 

Any leads, anyone?


----------



## rvalle

morgue said:


> Hey folks
> 
> I've been flipping through my WLD recently, contemplating a run at it, and I decided I'd really like to get my hands on a chronology of the dungeon - there's lots of references to "two years ago", "ten years ago", "fifty years ago", etc., and it would be useful to pull them together.
> 
> I haven't read this whole thread, but I've scanned a lot of it. jim pinto mentioned that someone had made a chronology (in post 1118) but I can't find it.
> 
> Any leads, anyone?




I remember it being mentioned but I don't have it. Maybe it was in one of the posts lost when the board crashed?

_____

My game:

My group is still slogging though N. They just met up with Isvistis the Lich Lord last night.

I had already figured that if the party talked to Isvy and said the right things that he would hand over his 2 keys and point them in the direction of the 4th (they have the one from the Ghost already). I mean, he wants the vault opened and so do they right? Why fight a group that is going to do what you want and save yourself the trouble.

Things were going well but then the party decided to attack Isv and just take his keys. This was led off by an 'first strike' lightning bolt from the groups Sorc. The casting of which triggered Istvitchs's Globe of Invulnerability and thus had no effect. One Empowered Chain Lighting in return and a failed save by the Sorc and we had one dead party member and rest of the group going 'oh oh...'.

The parties front liners were able to get up to the Lich Lord and put a hurt on him. All I have to say is Time Stop is an awesome spell! He was able to cast it, move out of harms way, cast a quickened Wall of Force and then leave. The party is still scratching their heads about how he left. 


Oh, and the undead Hydra in N180? Stupid nasty. There is a bit of a disconnect in the book where one place says there is 1 there and another says 5. I think I'll stick to the 1.

Its the breath weapons that do it. Each one does a bit of fire and unholy damage which was no big deal but each on also causes 1d4 con damage. And while the Ref save can 1/2 the fire and unholy damage it has no effect on the con damage. Ouch. You get all those heads pointing at one character (which is what happened in my game) and you quickly have a dead character on the ground. 

The party has a general idea where Kasteoficiss the Mummy Lord is at and are going to go and take her on before they roll up their sleeves and take on Isvistis again.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

Bl**dy Wall of Force!

The party battled Tyrus last night. 4 hours of planning and the battle lasted about 100 minutes.

As this was going to be the final time they could upgrade gear before hitting Tyrus and the Tomb I allowed some Garrison help in equipping the party.
This included 5 arrows of slaying (dragon). Note that this would only affect Tyrus if it hit him and he rolled a 1 on the Fort save.

The party entered the Ice prison, everyone flying and invisible (greater), and the clerics had true seeing up (so were able to discern the illusion straight away).
They spotted Tyrus in the alcove and the sorcerer just managed to beat Tyrus' initiatuve and used a Wall of Force to seal it off (with a 5' gap at the bottom).
The mystic theurge cast cloudkill - Tyrus made his save but still lost 2 Con points.
His action was to disperse the cloud, but still couldn't get past the Wall of Force.
The party fighters closed to fight, and the former assassin fired an arrow of slaying after True strike.
The mystic theurge cast cloudkill each round that Tyrus dispersed it.
The only thing that Tyrus managed to do was get a Prismatic Spray off (but with Holy Aura from the Astral Devas some were unaffected due to the granted spell resistance).
In the end, with hits from the fighter and paladin critting and smites aplenty they got him down to about 88hp when another arrow of slaying hit and Tyrus rolled a 1 (I rolled on the table).
Much whooping and hollering by the party, but their tactics were sound and would have been able to do Tyrus in even if they hadn't trapped him. The party was barely scratched (though lots of prep/buff spell casting was used).
Now for the tomb...


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:


> Bl**dy Wall of Force!
> 
> The party battled Tyrus last night. 4 hours of planning and the battle lasted about 100 minutes.
> 
> As this was going to be the final time they could upgrade gear before hitting Tyrus and the Tomb I allowed some Garrison help in equipping the party.
> This included 5 arrows of slaying (dragon). Note that this would only affect Tyrus if it hit him and he rolled a 1 on the Fort save.
> 
> The party entered the Ice prison, everyone flying and invisible (greater), and the clerics had true seeing up (so were able to discern the illusion straight away).
> They spotted Tyrus in the alcove and the sorcerer just managed to beat Tyrus' initiatuve and used a Wall of Force to seal it off (with a 5' gap at the bottom).
> The mystic theurge cast cloudkill - Tyrus made his save but still lost 2 Con points.
> His action was to disperse the cloud, but still couldn't get past the Wall of Force.
> The party fighters closed to fight, and the former assassin fired an arrow of slaying after True strike.
> The mystic theurge cast cloudkill each round that Tyrus dispersed it.
> The only thing that Tyrus managed to do was get a Prismatic Spray off (but with Holy Aura from the Astral Devas some were unaffected due to the granted spell resistance).
> In the end, with hits from the fighter and paladin critting and smites aplenty they got him down to about 88hp when another arrow of slaying hit and Tyrus rolled a 1 (I rolled on the table).
> Much whooping and hollering by the party, but their tactics were sound and would have been able to do Tyrus in even if they hadn't trapped him. The party was barely scratched (though lots of prep/buff spell casting was used).
> Now for the tomb...




Yeah. Kinda anticlimactic way to handle an otherwise fun battle. There are all kinds of "cheats" you could have used to stall this "fish in a barrel of force" but the end result would have been the same… PCs win.

This is the sort of thing that we tried to avoid in writing the adventure in the first place… This just doesn't sound like a found outing for the DM. You know?

Btw… had any group ever uncovered the crypt that lies UNDEAD region J?

Just curious.


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:


> Yeah. Kinda anticlimactic way to handle an otherwise fun battle. There are all kinds of "cheats" you could have used to stall this "fish in a barrel of force" but the end result would have been the same… PCs win.
> 
> This is the sort of thing that we tried to avoid in writing the adventure in the first place… This just doesn't sound like a found outing for the DM. You know?




It's always been my contention that the EL formula breaks down when the number of participants is skewed. The party really struggles when there are low level mooks but lots of them. When they hit the boss monster they tend to have a much easier time of it (imho because of the number of characters). The online encounter calculator said that we'd need that many characters involved to stop it turning in to a TPK, but with forethought, buffs and a tactically sound plan I thought it was always going to turn in the PCs favour. I wanted Tyrus dealt with from a story-line perspective and this is what it took to get the players engaged.
I didn't expect this one to be a fun DM outing, but I did think that Tyrus might have a bit more impact. To be fair, if I had rolled behind the screen I would have played it out a bit more, but I couldn't do much with his size to get out of the box he was in or he would have gotten out of the prison much sooner.
Looking back the battle with Terr'kaal was the same (3 rounds).
Now, maybe I should insert a group of Tucker's Kobolds somewhere instead.


jim pinto said:


> Btw… had any group ever uncovered the crypt that lies UNDEAD region J?
> 
> Just curious.




We didn't do all the precursor bits. I played it as a Christmas Special about 12 months ago with the few players that were available. Turned out reasonably well. That was when I decided that the NPC paladin had to go away for a while (163hp to Serratine in 1 round).


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:


> Looking back the battle with Terr'kaal was the same (3 rounds).




That's too bad. Another fun encounter, maybe not enough followers and hit points, though.



erucsbo said:


> That was when I decided that the NPC paladin had to go away for a while (163hp to Serratine in 1 round).




Some people are playing a very different version of D&D than I am.


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:


> That's too bad. Another fun encounter, maybe not enough followers and hit points, though.




it was a divide and conquer again - well placed walls of force cut down the number of Azers able to acts.
The player playing the sorcerer has moved interstate and he was the principle source of WoFs, so tactics might change a bit in the tomb.



jim pinto said:


> Some people are playing a very different version of D&D than I am.




*shrug* The dice love this paladin. I even had others roll for her in the battle against Tyrus and she still did horrendous amounts of damage without receiving a scratch. Haste with Power Attack with Smite Evil with a Bastard Sword (Holy + Axiomatic), and rolling really high (though didn't use PA against Tyrus).

Haven't you encountered fighters doing mega-damage in your games?


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:


> Haven't you encountered fighters doing mega-damage in your games?




There are a hundred ways for me to answer this, but it all boils down to the most under-described role of the GM in any RPG book you'll ever read… administration. The GM's role in a game is to make things appear seamless, whether or not they actually are.

Keeping challenges just out of range of the exploits of people who are better at math than you is one of the "cheats" of being a GM. Watching the PCs develop, means always knowing that the fighter can hit an AC 50 without trying very hard, which means… oops, this dragon has AC 51. All of a sudden, there's a challenge.

At it's best, the WLD over-planned for the worst kind of min-maxing. At it's worst, the WLD failed to ramp up in regions like J, which were re-written by me in two-weeks. The tactics and logic of the region were thought-through (trolls with fire resistance for instance), but the math could not accommodate every 3.x book that would arrive, skewing the data in unpredictable ways.

The advantage of table-top play vs. MMOs is the human-element, at the table, monitoring the action and knowing when you ebb and when to flow. I'm actually posting soon in my blog about this very thing (hit points and game tempo).

So. While I wrote a mammoth book of dungeon-crawl encounters, I really don't play THIS style of game. And if I did, I would mix 50% more story into the various sections of the dungeon that I really want to emphasize.

I sound like I'm defending myself. And I'm not. Sorry about the tone. I've been doing a lot of blogging and advice-writing lately. Hard to break the habit.

Question back at you. When do players get tired of doing 100+ points of damage in a round, game after game, and never being challenged?


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:


> There are a hundred ways for me to answer this, but it all boils down to the most under-described role of the GM in any RPG book you'll ever read… administration. The GM's role in a game is to make things appear seamless, whether or not they actually are.
> 
> Keeping challenges just out of range of the exploits of people who are better at math than you is one of the "cheats" of being a GM. Watching the PCs develop, means always knowing that the fighter can hit an AC 50 without trying very hard, which means… oops, this dragon has AC 51. All of a sudden, there's a challenge.




Normally I'm pretty good at this, but if you dangle the carrot too far away or don't let them have enough bites then player frustration takes centre stage.

Single monster battles, especially with a large adventuring party, are harder to "cheat" at without it either being obvious or totally dissing intelligent PC play.

We've been going through the WLD for over 3 years now (with the occassional alternate gaming session to keep some variety in the mix), and (imho) due to the age, personality and circumstances of the players it is starting to take its toll. They really just want to get out and Tyrus and the World Eater are the two large story elements that need to be dealt with.



jim pinto said:


> I sound like I'm defending myself. And I'm not. Sorry about the tone. I've been doing a lot of blogging and advice-writing lately. Hard to break the habit.
> 
> Question back at you. When do players get tired of doing 100+ points of damage in a round, game after game, and never being challenged?




No apology necessary. It all comes down to player motivations for gaming. Some like to explore facets of their personality (role-players), some to test themselves (problem solvers), some like building the best character they can (power-gamers / min-maxers / munchkins), some for the creative story-telling experience (story tellers), some just for the socialisation (beer & pretzels) (and there are probably others that I have forgotten). I need to (continue to) provide a gaming experience that fits my players' motivations.

Doesn't happen all that often. Only occurred a few times in my game so far - and they _are_ challenged, though more often by the secondary encounters than the big ones (where they plan a lot more). The times that more than 100hps has been dealt in a round are rare enough that they are still causes for celebration rather than ennui.
Some of the players, too, get bored if they don't have a combat. We avoided the elves because of that - a heavy "role-playing" session is not what the vast majority of my players are after - which means that N is more likely going to be a slog rather than playing the three major undead off against each other.
WLD has definitely been worth it, generating many memorable moments (and those are the things that get recalled years later), and we have pretty much limited ourselves to the SRD (except for a few feats from the PHB2 and a couple of other variants). The players have tailored the characters for the environment though (environment is pretty well defined, no one has taken feats for mounted combat etc) and with the Tomb beckoning there will be heavy prepping for undead and traps.
Once free of the WLD I will still have the frost giants and the Terrasque available as separate adventures (with minor modifications).
As long as the players keep showing up and we can have a good time (we're more beer & pretzels players) then I'll keep doing things pretty much the same.


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## Carpe DM

Interesting.  I find it hard, but not impossible, to challenge my players consistently, given that any one of them can easily top 200 damage a round.  

I find several tools useful in maintaining versimilitude while not taking away their hard-earned powers.

First, there are many immediate actions in the late game that help deal with specific threats.  I like how Friendly Fire, for example, works.  Probably my favorite recently-written spell.  Players get a lot more cautious about handing out the Vile Empowered (Soul-Tick) Orb of Force when they know that there's a chance it's going to hit a buddy.

Swift mirror image is also a boon.  And, of course, buff suites prolong fights because the casters have to open with dispels against the opposing sides.

Terrain is another big one.  We often stop using terrain once fly comes online in a major sense, but this is a mistake.  There are all kinds of terrain-like effects that can make an aerial fight interesting and exciting.  I just ran a fight in a foundry, in which glowing-hot adamantine I-beams were swinging back and forth on chains, suspended from wheel-tracks.   One PC got bull-rushed out of mid-air by one into a furnace.  Mmmm.  Tastes like chicken.


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## erucsbo

*Questions about region N*

p677 - Horde Traits - first paragraph says that Hordes cannot grapple opponents, yet just after the next paragraph it says they have a +4 bonus for grappling others.

which is it?

Also - given the conditions of Desecrated 4 and Unhallowed 6 - that's -10 on turning checks and with the Horde providing an additional -4 circumstance penalty that makes -14 penalty for Turn checks yes?
(unless conditions are specified otherwise) - and given the Fearless condition does this make the journey much more of a slog?

Plus - the edict against extra-dimensional spaces. I've allowed Handy Haversacks and bags of holding to be used up to now (as they are non-dimensional rather than extra-dimensional spaces). I know that BoH etc are not supposed to work in the dungeon but it made bookkeeping and encumberance tracking a nightmare without them. Has anyone else found issues either for or against ignoring this rule - specifically in N?

And am I reading it right that the party will need to go through each of the gates (and therefore defeating all of the guardians) before being able to progress further in to the tomb?

Any other gotchas to look out for?


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## erucsbo

Party has gotten in to region N and I am trying to find the errata for it. The Hall of Ages (N50-52) is missing (update: found jim pinto's suggestions in post #1103), as is a portion of N26 (incl stat block). I can't find the errata thread on the AEG forums any more. Can anyone help?


----------



## erucsbo

oh - another question to ask regarding the flames being lit to gain entrance to the tomb. The party closed all the doors behind them (so the flames are burning in the inner and outer shrines with all doors to the shrines closed). Should the rooms be air-tight? ie - when the air is exhausted the flames go out, thus relocking the doors and trapping them inside the tomb? So far they made a small foray in and then out again before the flames would have been extinguished, but they have set the closing of the doors as SOP for gaining entry to the tomb.


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## Bathnor

*New Party Enters the WLD....*

Greetings everyone. First I wanted to say what a great read the Worlds Largest Dungeon has been. I got myself a great deal on it from amazon.com. This thread has also been a great read, lots of interesting ideas in it. Yes I did read the entire thing . I wish that some of the posts in this thread weren't lost during the crash. 

So I am the DM for a small group of players up here in Maine. The campaign I was previously running was a Forgotten Realms/Spelljammer game using the 3.5 edition rules. The campaign was nearing the end so I started thinking about what to do for the next one. I knew my players were getting bored with Spelljamming and after a campaign spanning 4 years I couldn't blame em. I wanted a massive dungeon crawl, but didn't want to run Undermountain as Halaster was one of my BBEGs in the previous campaign. After doing some homework and reading some reviews I ordered the Worlds Largest Dungeon. So far I am very glad that I did. 

I am running the WLD as a Gesalt adventure because I only have three players. I have been a DM for 18 years now, this is my first gesalt campaign. I decided to limit what books my players could select feats and spells from. They can choose from the PHB, Players Guide to Faerun, Races of Faerun, Magic of Faerun, and Sword and Fist. Yes the WLD is going to be set in the Realms, up in the Spine of the World Mountains. 

My players were very interested in playing Gesalt characters. None of them had ever used them before. I told them they were going on a long journey so they should make sure that their characters are ready. I also told them no web or entangle spells, and that wizards and druids get screwed, but they could play them if they wished. They could pick any race native to the Realms as long as it has a EL of 0 or +1. The party consists of a human Monk/Fighter, a Dwarven Fighter/Ranger, and  Human Sorcerer/Cleric of Mystra.  I'm sure they will regret not taking Rogue as a class, but if they survive the first few really nasty traps I bet someone will take it when they level.

This is my first Gesalt campaign. I know people have said earlier in the thread that they were running the WLD gesalt style but I don't remember them ever speaking about how they changed the encounters so they are gesalt as well. Does anyone have any advice?


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## Bathnor

*My house rules....*

Thought I'd put up my house rules. Wizards get a d6 for hit dice. Rogues get a d8 for hit dice. We use both the Critical hit and Critical Fumble decks. I believe they are made by Pazio. There is also no need to confirm a Critical hit or a Fumble. If you choose one of your races favored classes when you level you get either 1hp or 1Skill Point. NO psionics. You start the game with 2 Action Points, you may use an action point to re roll ony d20 roll you just made before the DM tells you if the previous one was successful. You must accept the result of the second roll even if it is worse than the first. You gain 1 AP every time you level.


----------



## erucsbo

*Turn-nerfing in N*

Party is trying to find the soul of one of the PCs in N (he drew the Void from a DoMT and I ruled that it got stuck in the tomb - bwahaha).
They are therefore perhaps doing a little more exploring than otherwise would be the case, but that is a side-issue.
They have cast Invisibility to Undead - which essentially bypasses the Skeleton Hordes etc, and landed them up against Vinnara's Dread Wraiths as the first test of turning. Poor turning rolls meant that it was a while before they got a success, during which time the fighter (with a ghost touch bastard sword) and paladin (sun blade - when it affected them) duly did the majority of dispatching.
When a high enough roll was made and I responded with - they don't flee, they just take some damage (as per the Fearless Encounter condition), there was a near riot.
The Unhallowed and Desecration aspects we can live with as they are modifiers to the effective DC of the turns, but Fearless *breaks* turning, denying the clerics their major power to deal with undead in an undead infested environment, and messing with a core game mechanic.
I'm considering just having the turn hedge the undead away outside a particular radius and if it would have destroyed the undead, perhaps incapacitate them instead, but want to hear what others have done.
I can't be alone in noting how badly clerics get screwed over in the Tomb wrt to turning - especially considering that Desecration 4, Unhallowed 6 and Fearless are the *default* condition of the entire tomb.

Suggestions readily welcomed.


----------



## erucsbo

*DM Map for N available*

In the style of Hussar's DM maps I have created one for Region N showing regions, monsters and traps, the lever rooms and the "kill switch" room.
And the more I read through Region N the less impressed I am with the traps and encounter conditions etc. A DC38 Fort save for half of 20d8 negative energy damage (Room 87 and others) and for merely standing within 10' of a wall! - I would be lynched and none of the players would return if I used that one. 
I will probably ditch the vast majority of this section and try and recreate the feel of the movie Pitch Black , trap the party in the tomb, have a running war going on between the 3 Lords, throw in increasing tremors and waves of negative energy and find someway to make the lever room locations known so we don't devolve into an "open every door" routine. 
Full list of maps on my site and link to James Lorimor's site here.

And if anyone has some answers to my questions above, I'd love to hear them.


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:


> The Unhallowed and Desecration aspects we can live with as they are modifiers to the effective DC of the turns, but Fearless *breaks* turning, denying the clerics their major power to deal with undead in an undead infested environment, and messing with a core game mechanic.
> I'm considering just having the turn hedge the undead away outside a particular radius and if it would have destroyed the undead, perhaps incapacitate them instead, but want to hear what others have done.
> I can't be alone in noting how badly clerics get screwed over in the Tomb wrt to turning - especially considering that Desecration 4, Unhallowed 6 and Fearless are the *default* condition of the entire tomb.
> 
> Suggestions readily welcomed.




In d20 Secrets, I devised a system of Turning that deals damage instead of casting "hold person" on undead, which turning effectively is. I hate the notion of turning and I purposely NERFED it the TOMB, hoping to elevate the playing field so that major encounters weren't PCs beating up already battered undead.

Turning in the PHB seems tired and uncreative. As the GM, modify it however you like, but the intention was there to stop the undead from being "held."


----------



## erucsbo

jim pinto said:


> In d20 Secrets, I devised a system of Turning that deals damage instead of casting "hold person" on undead, which turning effectively is. I hate the notion of turning and I purposely NERFED it the TOMB, hoping to elevate the playing field so that major encounters weren't PCs beating up already battered undead.
> 
> Turning in the PHB seems tired and uncreative. As the GM, modify it however you like, but the intention was there to stop the undead from being "held."




Glad to see you're still around jim.

turning in the d20 actually makes the undead flee (or cower if they can't), making it an all (destroy) or nothing (flee) success for the cleric in actually "dealing" with the undead. (imho)

What I *would* like to do is nerf the fighters instead of the clerics. I want the clerics to be the ones that the party is relying on to "keep the dark away". I want to be able to build pressure with the odd safe room providing them just enough breathing space before they have to keep going.

I agree with you about turning though - would rather see a mechanism that sends a blast of positive energy out that requires a save from the undead, damaging them if they fail, or forcing them back.


----------



## jim pinto

erucsbo said:


> Glad to see you're still around jim.
> 
> turning in the d20 actually makes the undead flee (or cower if they can't), making it an all (destroy) or nothing (flee) success for the cleric in actually "dealing" with the undead. (imho)
> 
> What I *would* like to do is nerf the fighters instead of the clerics. I want the clerics to be the ones that the party is relying on to "keep the dark away". I want to be able to build pressure with the odd safe room providing them just enough breathing space before they have to keep going.
> 
> I agree with you about turning though - would rather see a mechanism that sends a blast of positive energy out that requires a save from the undead, damaging them if they fail, or forcing them back.




true

again, check out d20 secrets. there's some good turning rules in there.


----------



## Hussar

Hey, it's great to see that I inspired a bit of work.  Yay!

BTW, jim, I have Secrets and it really is a great book.  Never could get my players to test drive it too much, but, it was a pretty solid book.


----------



## jim pinto

Hussar said:


> Hey, it's great to see that I inspired a bit of work.  Yay!
> 
> BTW, jim, I have Secrets and it really is a great book.  Never could get my players to test drive it too much, but, it was a pretty solid book.




thanks, hussar

a totally underrated read in my opinion

sadly it was one of the last we did and it wasn't marketed at all.

when it came out, it should have sent gamers into a tailspin, the amount of "options" we handed out.

sigh.


----------



## erucsbo

*shaking the house*



erucsbo said:


> What I *would* like to do is nerf the fighters instead of the clerics. I want the clerics to be the ones that the party is relying on to "keep the dark away". I want to be able to build pressure with the odd safe room providing them just enough breathing space before they have to keep going.
> 
> I agree with you about turning though - would rather see a mechanism that sends a blast of positive energy out that requires a save from the undead, damaging them if they fail, or forcing them back.




Turning has now been tweaked.
I have removed the "fearless" condition.
A successful turn will hedge undead 60' away, causing them HP damage per cleric level until they get that far away, rather than fleeing. Undead that would have been destroyed are incapacitated for 10 rounds or until a negative energy wave hits, and then they start recovering from 0 HP.

The character who drew the Void from the Deck of Many things is back after the party finally found his soul in one of the stone pillows in the Crypt of the Lustful, and rejoined his soul with his body.

The party dealt with one of the fireball traps in one of the arches that couldn't be disabled by Wall of Stone across the top of the room. This means that the trap is now going off every round, and while it won't break the Wall of Stone, I've made it have other consequences ...

The party had just entered room 51 (which I gave a description of having scenes of judgements of all the sins, Judge aspect of Death being paramount), when there was an earthquake and the ceiling fell in, blocking any further progress and trapping the NPC paladin on the other side (she was stealing the limelight from the party members - under directions from the party - but still I needed to stop the party relying on her). There was then another cavein at the entrance that the party had entered the tomb. Since all the other main entrances were still locked they are effectively sealed in ...

Almost all of the players have seen the movie Pitch Black


----------



## rvalle

jim pinto said:


> Yeah. Kinda anticlimactic way to handle an otherwise fun battle. There are all kinds of "cheats" you could have used to stall this "fish in a barrel of force" but the end result would have been the same… PCs win.
> 
> This is the sort of thing that we tried to avoid in writing the adventure in the first place… This just doesn't sound like a found outing for the DM. You know?
> 
> Btw… had any group ever uncovered the crypt that lies UNDEAD region J?
> 
> Just curious.




Hmmm, thanks for the write up erucsbo. I'll have to watch for the Wall of Force trick by them. There is something that drops those right? Disruption or Disjunction or something? I'll have to make sure Tyrus has it around.

Jim, you mean the one with the Vamp in it? Yeah, my group hit it. They were over powered for it at the time and it was a cake walk for them. 

So far the Boss fights in N have been good each taking more then 1 attempt to finish. I made the Mummy Cleric and Lich tougher via the suggested power up. The Cleric one almost turned into a TKP and I had to fight hard to make sure it didn't. 

The Lich fight is going to be interesting. Since he can cast quickened WoF as well as Time Stop he is going to be hard to pin down and kill. 

rv


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:


> p677 - Horde Traits - first paragraph says that Hordes cannot grapple opponents, yet just after the next paragraph it says they have a +4 bonus for grappling others.
> 
> which is it?
> 
> Also - given the conditions of Desecrated 4 and Unhallowed 6 - that's -10 on turning checks and with the Horde providing an additional -4 circumstance penalty that makes -14 penalty for Turn checks yes?
> (unless conditions are specified otherwise) - and given the Fearless condition does this make the journey much more of a slog?
> 
> Plus - the edict against extra-dimensional spaces. I've allowed Handy Haversacks and bags of holding to be used up to now (as they are non-dimensional rather than extra-dimensional spaces). I know that BoH etc are not supposed to work in the dungeon but it made bookkeeping and encumberance tracking a nightmare without them. Has anyone else found issues either for or against ignoring this rule - specifically in N?
> 
> And am I reading it right that the party will need to go through each of the gates (and therefore defeating all of the guardians) before being able to progress further in to the tomb?
> 
> Any other gotchas to look out for?




Sorry, been away from Enworld for a while. Its not gotten any faster while I've been gone.  

I think hordes can grapple someone but they can't be grappled. 

I think you are right about the -s to turn. My group has mostly given up on even trying. 

I never allowed the extra dimensional spaces items in.

I didn't make the group open each and every door. In fact, they found the Lantern in the... second door up on the West side and he freely lets them in as he needs someone to 'fix' the problem inside.  He also lets them back out again though keeps asking them if they fixed the problem yet. 

As mentioned before, I'm not having the undead spawn every night but every week. 

Once the Ghost was aware of the party entering and leaving 'her' area I let her freely move Wraiths around to ambush the party, circle some around to hit from both sides ect. She is supposed to be 'tactical' so let her go to town. The party quickly hated the Wraiths spring attack. Note: The first round can be BRUTAL if they get to ambush someone. 2 or more Dread Wraiths spring attacking as an ambush and then going again after winning init with +13 to their role can will a character quickly.

Don't forget about the black wave of energy blasting though the area every now and then. I roll 3d10 to see how soon after the party gets there that the next one will go off. Though I'm now thinking its going to be every 20-25 min instead of every 30 and the pulses will get quicker, and quicker...


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:


> In the style of Hussar's DM maps I have created one for Region N showing regions, monsters and traps, the lever rooms and the "kill switch" room.
> And the more I read through Region N the less impressed I am with the traps and encounter conditions etc. A DC38 Fort save for half of 20d8 negative energy damage (Room 87 and others) and for merely standing within 10' of a wall! - I would be lynched and none of the players would return if I used that one.
> I will probably ditch the vast majority of this section and try and recreate the feel of the movie Pitch Black , trap the party in the tomb, have a running war going on between the 3 Lords, throw in increasing tremors and waves of negative energy and find someway to make the lever room locations known so we don't devolve into an "open every door" routine.
> Full list of maps on my site and link to James Lorimor's site here.
> 
> And if anyone has some answers to my questions above, I'd love to hear them.




Wow, that is one awesome map! Thanks for sharing.

You can have the Lever rooms marked on the Ghost's maps since she has some of the region.

Or... just make it so the wall drops when approached by someone carrying the key. If you don't like the idea of the bad guys having access to the door make it so it has to be a Garrison member (if you have some that became honorary members) or by someone that is LG. 

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> Hmmm, thanks for the write up erucsbo. I'll have to watch for the Wall of Force trick by them. There is something that drops those right? Disruption or Disjunction or something? I'll have to make sure Tyrus has it around.




from the srd:

A wall of force spell creates an invisible wall of force. The wall cannot move, it is immune to damage of all kinds, and it is unaffected by most spells, including dispel magic. However, disintegrate immediately destroys it, as does a rod of cancellation, a sphere of annihilation, or a mage’s disjunction spell. Breath weapons and spells cannot pass through the wall in either direction, although dimension door, teleport, and similar effects can bypass the barrier. It blocks ethereal creatures as well as material ones (though ethereal creatures can usually get around the wall by floating under or over it through material floors and ceilings). Gaze attacks can operate through a wall of force. 

I figured that if Tyrus had access to disintegrate he could have escaped from the prison.
Disjunction is a 9th level spell, and having a sphere of annihilation around in Tyrus' control would be insane.
It was the combination of cloudkill (and associated CON loss) with the the WoF that was the major factor in them defeating Tyrus.

One thought I had after the event was to use spiderwebs:
"The caster can form the wall into a flat, vertical plane whose area is up to one 10-foot square per level. The wall must be continuous and unbroken when formed. If its surface is broken by any object or creature, the spell fails. "

If the place was overrun with lots of tiny fiendish spiders (which would keep clear of Tyrus because he could destroy them without thinking) it would nerf WoF unless the intervening spiderwebs were dealt with first.
Or perhaps some gemsect swarms (K74) could be among the scattered gems, getting kicked up to get in the way.


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## twilko

*OMG! Still Going.*

Gday All,  I just going through my browser bookmarks and thought I'd drop in for a trip down memory lane. 'Thought the lane would be empty and a bit overgrown by now. But here the thread is still going, quietly perhaps, but still going with some familiar faces. Hooray!   Tony.


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## Hussar

This thread more than anything else was probably my biggest motivator for playing the WLD.  One of my most successful campaigns ever.  Two years long, we kept 4 out of 5 players for almost the entire time.  For an online game, that's bloody fantastic.

Now, that 5th player turned over more times that I care to count.


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## erucsbo

I'll keep posting here while I am running our group through the WLD and will probably keep an eye on things after that. This group has been helpful to me (and I hope visa versa) and for that I am grateful even though the frequency of postings has dropped right off.


----------



## jim pinto

I want to take time to thank everyone for the years of gaming and posting. It was around this time 5 years ago (or was it 6 years ago) that I was working so hard on the book that I never saw the sun. At this point, many writers had flaked or turned in subpar work and I was doing everything I could to replace it and/or make it work.

Hence certain Regions not as exciting as others.

I'd already been working in publishing for eight years when this project came along, but it was still one of the greatest teaching/learning experiences of my career.

That we even got it to press within a year of starting the project. I just don't know what to say.

The fact that it was a successful experiment… well… I'm still posting here aren't I?

Thank you, everyone.

Maybe if the Ultimate Toolbox is half as successful as this, I can justify spending time writing another book again in the future.


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## DaveMage

No other adventure has even come close to the level of EN World posting that the WLD has seen.  Kudos, jim!


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## erucsbo

another player map - this one for Region N found in room 102.
Covers Vinarra's area plus the western halls as described in the room description but have extended map to include a level room and some of the eastern disputed area as the text for 102 decribes Vinarra knowing about 239 in the east and that she has been searching for a way out. I figured that maps of the eastern area would be confined to trying to go east (and out) rather than back in, especially given the disputed nature of the region, and wanted to include a lever room (as all the other lever rooms are in enemy occupied places).


----------



## Bathnor

*The Campaign so far ....*

Greetings everyone, thought I'd post an update on how my campaign was doing so far. I placed the WLD in the Forgotten Realms. It is located way up in the Spine of the World mountains. The time in the Realms is when Creshenebon(sp) made its appearance up near Ten Towns. 

The players had either heard about the giant magical crystal or the hordes of evil humanoids roaming the area. They were heading up to Ten Towns to either study the CRystal or to help to defeat the masses of humanoids in the area. They met up with each other along the way. By the time they made it to Ten Towns, Creshenebon had already disappeared and most of the humanoids had already been routed. The elders of Ten Towns called the players the chosen ones and asked them for help. They needed help dealing with a Rat Man who had led an army through the area. The party readily agreed. The town elders gave them some basic adventuring supplies, a mule, and gave each of them magical tatoos that only function one time. Should they die, the magic of the tatoo will bring them back to life in 2d6 hours and they lose a point of CON. The party then started heading north which was the direction that the Rat MAn had taken his army. 

When the party encountered the dead Titan they didn't pay much attention to it. They gave it a quick search and found the big pieces of paper. They also wondered what could kill a man as big as a galleon but not leave any marks upon its body. A storm was starting to blow into the area so they took shelter in the cave. They followed the fissure down and came to the room with 2 doors. Opening the eastern door and seeing darkness, they assumed it was a trap, so they opened the northern door and found the same thing. They threw some stones at the darkness and they passed right through. The Monk stuck half of his staff through and let go. His staff just hung there, he was surprised when he couldn't pull it back through. So they decided to investigate and went through the door to the east. They were quite dismayed when they realized that they could not go back the way that they came in. The dwarf even gave the blackness a few smacks with her axe, but it was of no avail. 

They noticed the 3 orcs in the room. The Dwarf was ready to kill them, but the Monk and the Cleric held her back. The orcs taunted them telling them that they had been down here for weeks and that they were doomed!! The cleric asked whatthey meant, but the orcs just chuckled at him. They decided to leave the orcs alone and continue exploring. They checked out the 2 eastern doors first, they opened teh door to the "stinky room" first. They decided to just leave it alone. So they went to the next door. They searched the dead orc in the room and then continued on to the north. That when it all went black and the Monk had a tentacle wraped around his head and neck. After a valient fight they managed to kill the darkmantle. The monk vowed to always look up from now on . In the next room they were ambushed by a Rat Swarm. They were surprised that the rats could enter the spaces that they occupied and that they were so many of the rats in one swarm. The Swarm didn't fair to well and tried to escape, fleeing to the west and into a door to the north. The party followed, hoping to stop it from getting away. The rats fled down the hole in the lavatory. Everyone in the party decided to leave them alone, because the stench was horrible and who knows what has been using the lavatory. 

They went back to the hallway and went through the door to the south. They were attacked by 2 Dire Rats in the bedroom. The cleric was infected by a disease during the battle. Once it was over they gave the room a quick search and didn't find any thing of interest. Since it was getting late they decided to call it a night, with the dwarf muttering about what she wants to  buy when she makes it back to town after they kill the Rat Man. 

They didn't make it very far in the first session, but then again they also made up their characters this night. I'll post some more of our sessions in a bit. This week will be the 10th week that they have spent in the WLD. 

I also wanted to say thanks to Jim for a great adventure. My players are enjoying themselves immensely. I'm also having a blast reading through it and Gesalting the encounters that I can and then throwing them at my party. We will have a new character joining us this week. He'll be playing a Human Fighter/Rogue. He was very surprised that the party had been down there for so long with no way out to get resupplied. He is looking foward to joining, and after 9 weeks in the WLD with no Rogue abilities I'm sure the party will welcome him as well.


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## jim pinto

Bathnor said:


> I also wanted to say thanks to Jim for a great adventure. My players are enjoying themselves immensely. I'm also having a blast reading through it and Gesalting the encounters that I can and then throwing them at my party. We will have a new character joining us this week. He'll be playing a Human Fighter/Rogue. He was very surprised that the party had been down there for so long with no way out to get resupplied. He is looking foward to joining, and after 9 weeks in the WLD with no Rogue abilities I'm sure the party will welcome him as well.




i don't know what it is, but even after all these years, i still love reading about people's FIRST forays into the dungeon. those initial rooms are filled with mystery as the PCs wonder what is in store for them.

do they know they're doing the WLD?


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## Bathnor

*Week 2 ...*

I have a bit of extra time, so I decided to post the second weeks adventure. 

The party decided to go through the eastern door and eventually made it to a long hallway with several doors in it. The first room that they went to was strewn with rubble and had a collapsed archway to the north. The party was wary because there had been some minor tremors while they had been in the dungeon. They decided to leave the door to the north unchecked and continued on. The next room the floor was packed full of rubble and they could see a door that was blocked by rubble at the far end of the room. Again, the party was wary and decided to continue on their way in thier search for the elusive Rat Man. 

In the next room had some rubble in it and a closed door to the north. They decided to try the door and got blasted by a color spray trap that hit the Dwarf. They managed top open the door and came to a small rooom that had a door on the eastern wall that was spiked closed from their side. The Cleric decided that it must be keeping something powerful out so they went back the way they came, where the Dwarf got hit with the color spray trap again. 

They backtracked down the hallway and got jumped buy a bunch of Kobolds in a room. They saw the Krenshar and that some of the Kobolds were hiding behind a wall made of stones. The monk was blasted by 2 magic missles and a couple of sling stones. The Dwarf declared that they were just Kobolds and pressed the attack. The Kobolds won initiative and the Krenshar hit the Monk and the Dwarf with its scare ability. And the Dwarf got hit with more sling stones. They fled as fast as they could down the hallway to the south. The cleric saw the Monk and Dwarf run past him at full speed and decided it would be prudent to run with them. Score one for the Kobolds . I did gesalt the Kobolds in this room. The regular Kobolds are War2/Rgr2, and Boyikt is a Wiz4/Barb4. 

Hurting pretty badly they went back to the room that they came into the dungeon from. There they found the 3 Orcs dead with strange looking wounds all over their body. They decided to camp near the northern door. The night was uneventful, save for another tremor and a strange scream that they couldn't discern the location it was coming form. When they were finished camping they decided to start checking the northern doors in this room. 

They smelled something unpleasent coming from behind the northwestern most door, so they decided to leave it alone. At the next door the dwarf got blasted by a burning hands trap. The room beyond was filled with crates and sacks, with a door in the northern wall. The Dwarf, being the greedy type, decided to check out the crates and sacks. That was when she got hit by the Black Mold. She also noticed that the contents had been rotted beyond recognition. She then carefully opened the door to the north. (She has been dubbed the thief of the party .. even though she has no thief skills.) In the next room theres more crates and sacks which the party wisely avoids. They notice another corridor to the south, so they send the monk down to investigate. He was promptly blasted in the back by an Acid Arrow trap. The Cleric and the Dwarf follow suit and get blasted as well. At the end of the hallway there is a door that leads to a tool room. They don't find anything of interest and head back the way they came, the Dwarf taking damage from the Acid Arrow trap again. They all wonder why they would have 2 traps guarding a room with just tools in it. 

They head back to the hall way where they fought the Rat Swarm and took the northeastern door. There they found a hallway with four doors, 2 to the east and two to the west. They check out the first two doors and discover trashed bedrooms. They then head north, check the west door and see the room full of trash and debris. When the Monk checks out the eastern door, he is attacked and grappled by one of the 2 Darkmantles in the room. While they are battling the beasts, 2 Dire Rats from across the hall hear the sounds of battle and join the attack. The Cleric and Dwarf are Very surprised to be attacked from behind, but then again .. they never checked the room the rats were in. They managed to defeat all of the baddies, but it was a long fight for them. The monk swears that he will always be looking up from now on lol. 

They then checked the next door to the north. It was bvery very cold so they rushed through it, heading to the door in the north. When they entered the door the area they were in went Dark again. The Darkmatle missed the Dwarf and the fight was on. This was a smaller Darkmantle so it went down fairly easily. When they looked through the door to the north they were attacked by 4 stirges. The Dwarf and the Monk both took some CON damage during the battle. Once the stirges were defeated the party went back to the room just to the south to camp and lick their wounds. 

The dwarf was talking again about what she wanted to buy when she finds the exit. (They have no idea how far away thay are from the exit. They also don't know that they are in the WLD, they think that the dungeon is just a small arc in the campaign. I havn't told them differently, I want them to find out in game.)This was the end of our second session in the WLD. It was shorther than usual because the woman who plays the Dwarf had to work late, so we got a late start. 

They have a new found respect for Kobolds now. The players want to avoid that area because of the rubble and structural damage, but i suspect that they may be afraid of running into more of the Kobolds. I'll post week three as soon as I can.


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## twilko

Hussar said:


> This thread more than anything else was probably my biggest motivator for playing the WLD.




 As a first time DM this thread became a life line. My group stuck at it for over 3 years. Ok so we only played once a month but that is still a long time to retain interest. Some of the parts that the party didn't visit will no doubt be used some other time.   Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the thread and those who will contribute in the future.  Tony.


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## Bathnor

*Campaign session #3*

Greetings everyone, thought I'd come back on and post some more of my groups adventures. I asked them a few weeks ago if they minded me posting their adventures. They were all pretty excited about it. One asked me if he could have the link where I would be posting it. I told him he would have to be patient and wait until the campaign was over because the thread contains spoilers. 

So after camping they decided to head up to the north where the encountered the ogre in the water room. The ogre was going to try to ambush them but the dwarf spotted him. The Monk offered to talk with him, but the ogre thinking that they were weak charged in to attack. They party managed to get him down to half of his hit points after a tough fight and the ogre threw up his hands and said he was willing to talk now. 

The party learned that he had come down with the Ratman and his army. They had been down in the dungeon for over 2 weeks with no sign of a way out. The ratman had been gone for awhile but the ogre didn't know why or where he had gone. Once he had left, the orcs, kobolds, and trogs had started to work together but then they fell into their old racial hatreds and started battling each other. That is untill the mantles, rats and bugs started to show up. Then it was a fight for their lives. He also told them that the water in this room was safe to drink, but that it has a lot of visitors. The monk asked him if he would like to join their party, but the ogre refused.

They then proceded to the pillar room where they found two dire rats. The party took them out pretty easily and after a quick search of the room the monk found the Whip Token. 

They found a room with a bunch of dead orcs in it. The dwarf looted some of the orcs weapons that they were carrying, just in case she needed backup ones later on. 

They then found the Orc coward hiding in his little room. After a bit of intimidation from the dwarf he decided that it would be good if he joined with them. At least until he can rejoin the other orcs, or he finds a way out of this hellish dungeon. Torag is a War2/Barb2 in my campaign. I don't know why but apparently the monk and the dwarf thought Torag was stupid as well. The kept calling him "fodder". Especially the dwarf. This really started to get on Torags nerves . 

As they were exploring past Torogs area they came upon a locked door that was traped with a burning hands trap. The dwarf decided to try to break the door open. She rolled a natural 20 and the went flying inward. In there was a winged thing (angel) lying on the floor. The monk went to search the body and was granted +1 wis and +1 con as the body disentegrated into dust. He was also granted a vision of the first room of the dungeon as a massive earthquake hit and tore a fissure into it. The dwark picked up the signet ring that the winged creature carried. 

They next came to a long hallway with a door with a burning hands trap on it. The dwarf though she could knock the door in with her "mighty axe" but after taking damage a couple of times, she thought batter of it. They continued down the halway to the open secret door and found more dead orc bodies. The dwarf was excited when she found the masterwork battleaxe. It made her "mighty axe" even more mighty. When they went back downt he hallway they were attacked by another fiendish rat swarm. With a bit of luck they managed to kill the swarm. I had to have the cleric cast some healing spells on the monk though, he was bitten quite badly. 
(The Cleric wasn't able to make it this session so I didn't run him unless the party needed heals.) They also weren't happy with Torag for not fighting the rats with them. 

They also tried to set up a makeshift barrier out of a couple tables from the room with the dead orcs. They set it up in front of the door with the burning hands trap on it. They though it would allow them to break down the door with out getting hurt. Good idea in theory, but they just managed to set the tables on fire and fill the area with acridic smoke. And the door was still standing. I bet they wished they had a thief in the party.

They next found the long hallway with the dead kobolds and orcs. Finding nothing of interest the continued on to the south. They came upon the workshop from the back end. They did some searching but found nothing of interest. They searched the labratory to the north and the dwarf found the container with the pebbles in it and the monk found the one with the scrolls in it. He gave the scrolls to the cleric the following week. 

They all thought that it would be a good place to set up camp and end the session. During the night they were attacked by two dire rats. They were killed and they party again chastised Torag for not goining them in the fight.


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## erucsbo

Bathnor said:


> One asked me if he could have the link where I would be posting it. I told him he would have to be patient and wait until the campaign was over because the thread contains spoilers.




they'll have to be VERY patient 

After the collapse of room 50 and the southern entrance to N, my group decided that they needed to rest a bit.

Through miscommunication they chose Room 50 
I had a couple of Allips make their way through the rubble to the back of the party. Only one failed the save and one of the Allips was killed by the fighter, the other Allip retreating back through the rubble.
Then the party backed away in to N45 expecting a horde of the incorporeal undead to come through.
They were out in N45 near the door to the south when I had a wall of darkness appear from the eastern end. Thinking this was a horde of undead they managed to scoot through the southern door into N46. The wall of darkness was dimming the daylight spell that had been put up and getting closer and closer and when it passed by the skeletons in N45 the bones started moving.
They soon realised that it was a wave of negative energy and later when it returned the cleric in the party made a high enough check to "notice" some souls in the ebb wave.
I allowed them to unlock the doors to through the FireWard, eventually getting to N49. That really didn't make sense to me - there is an intact undead ward up in N48 - so how did the bones get to N49. Party stuffed around there for a while trying to get past the stone wall and set off the firestorm in N47, dropping one NPC to almost dead.
They eventually headed north and I had them run in to Vrisht. He had entered the tomb since the earth tremors and collapse of the outside doors and wanted to make sure that the inner defences were still holding. He told the party that there was another exit on the other side of the tomb but that the World Eater's barriers were still just holding, but that the longer the party waited before dealing with it, the stronger it would be. (I wanted to impress some urgency and a direction to head to the party)
They are also aware that diplomacy might be an option in some parts of the tomb. We finished with them heading east as directly as possible and having stumbled in to an ambush by 5 Dread Wraiths. I'll try and have them be able to chase the wraiths back to Vinnara so that they can get some context of the plot for the area next session.


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## Bathnor

*A couple quick questions ...*

Greetings fellow WLD delvers. I have a couple of questions. My party is in their 11th gamea session down in the WLD. Last session they defeated the ratman with the help of the two lizardfolk from region A. I'll keep posting their exploits till I get caught up.

Here are my questions, they are all lvl 3 and they have been lvl 3 for awhile. They have pretty much cleared out all of region A, so I'm expecting them to move into B or E this week. Should I level them up to lvl 4 now (they paused before they camped for the night) or sould I let them level when they hit another region? I am a bit confused because the map for A says lvls 1-3 and E and B say 4-6. How did your group work this or do  you think it won't matter?

My other question is that the other day I was gesalting areas of B and E. I know that the doors leading from B to F are locked and they need the key from C to open them.  Are the doors from region E to region F locked with the same key, or are they open? Thanks for the help  .


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## erucsbo

Bathnor - you might want to map out which direction you want the party to take based on what type of gameplay the players like.
Let them level up after they they have completed the major plot point for the region.
If they are the sort of party that wants to open every door and fight every monster then they would get too many experience points according to RAW.

My party hit the dungeon at level 6, but they weren't gestalt characters and pretty much ended up in Region E straight away.
From there they went north through I and M and back through J, had a brief time in K then back to N. I had B, C, G and H get "fixed" off-camera.
Apart from the extremely boring bit in the north of M it kept things reasonably interesting for the players. They would have completely missed the political elements of B and C if they had gone that direction and H would have been a nightmare for them (they like to hit first and ask questions later).

Don't stress too much about the level indicators for the regions. By having gestalt characters you have pretty much nullified that as a guide. Just adjust the encounters up or down according to the notes to make it feel right.
BTW - I found that high EL encounters with single monsters were a walkover for my group (though I tend to have lots of players - usually 6-7) and lower EL encounters with lots of creatures are much more difficult (Tyrus was a walkover compared to the swarm of rasts in the Pyrefaust).

Can't help with the lock question - the players avoided F and it looked like a nightmare to DM.


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## Bathnor

Thanks for the advice Erucsbo. I've been doing experience at a much slower rate. I havn't even given my PCs an experience total, I've been leveling them up when I think they should level. 

So far they have wanted to explore every nook and cranny of the dungeon. At the end of the last session they were talking about going back and trying to search the couple rooms in region A that they passed over.

I decided on the gesalt campaign because i only have 3 players, well 4 now, we had someone start last week. So far even the fights that have had one creature have been challengeing for them. Like their fight with the rat man, its never good when you have 2 NPCs helping you (the 2 lizardfolk), yet both the healers are  on the ground bleeding to death. Granted I made him a sorc7/wizzy7 so I knew they'd be in for a heck of a fight. 

I'll let em level up to 4 tonight and see how it goes. I've been gesalting the encounters a bit before the players get to it. I've done A, and most of E and B. As for the doors going to F from E, I guess I'll figure that out when they players get that far.


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## Bathnor

*Week 4 in the dungeon...*

So at the start of the fourth session I awarded everyone with enough experience to become second level. Now theer classes are Monk2/Fighter2, Fighter2/Ranger2, and finally cleric of Mystra 2/Sor2. 

They decided to head south from the labratory where they had rested. The came upon the old cell with the big red gem floating in the middle of it. The dwarfs eyes lit up and she started to rush in to the room to take some of the gem. The cleric thought better of the idea and put a hand on his shoulder to hold him back. He cast a detect magic and saw that the gem glowed with magic. 

The dwarf didn't think that it would be that big of a deal, but just to be safe she took one of the dead kobolds at the gem. She couldn't throw it very far (she was sick when he was a kid so he doesn't have good str). this led to her getting damaged when the thing exploded. Lol, now the party jokes about holding her back when they go into a new room. 

They checked out a small hallway right near the gem room but decided to leave it alone for the moment. They instead monved to the west and found the room with the dead kobolds and the fiendish dire rats. They fought bravely, exccept for Torag who just stayed in the back not doing a lot. 

The dwarf started calling him fodder again. This time it made him mad. He started attacking her hoping to kill her and flee before the other two could react. He did manage to hit her, but not enough to put her out. This ended up being a one on one fight, the other party members just readied actions and let them fight. Lol then after she had Torog down they started telling her to be nicer to the help. 

The fighting from the two also attracted the attention of the two Rat Swarms in the room down the hall. Now the monk and the dwarf end up getting swarmed by the rats each taking several points of damage. It was a tough fight for them. The cleric even got hit by the smite good ability. I love smite!! They did eventualy kill the swarms. 

The next area they came to is the entrance to the next section of the map to the north. Now I first started maping on one piece of graph paper. One square is 10". As the party moves around I add the pieces of paper as the come across them. I also color code each session on the map. Each week gets a light color, thats coded to the weeks at the bottom of the map. They asked me, when I put up the new piece to the north, " UMMM,how big is this place!!" lol The portion they are in is just north of the Portal Room in A. It's the section between the 2 regions. Its lit by the continual flames in the ceiling. The door is also spiked shut from this side. 

They decided to camp and call it a night here. They took a bit of tiime to level their characters earlier. It was getting pretty late lol. So we stoped for the night. They were talking about heading "back" and checking out more of the section to the south.


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## Bathnor

*Week 5 Lantern Archon and first tatoo is used ...*

Well, after resting (they were attacked by more rats while camping)they decided to head to the west. They came to the different workshops and decided to fight the full stirges. It was a pretty easy fight for them. As they were coming out after the fight they spotted a glowing ball of light about the size of a soccer ball. The monk thought it could be a Will o Wisp. The cleric made a knowledge check and saw it as a Lantern Archon. 

I used a voice program for the Archon. This way I can change the voice for each one. They learned a bit from it though. This was a prison built by celestials and angels for evil of all kinds. It was built before the first Dwarf or Elf ever walked Fearun. To the north lies the celestial garrison, to the east lies the mighty goblin empire. 

The party did ask other questions but the archon didn't have any answers for them. After this they came upon the room with eight stirges. Everyone took come CON drain during the fight. Stirges can be really nasty creatures lol. 

Well they came to the Trog area next. They knew something was up when they got to the stinky area. They didin't know if it was Trogs or trash, so they pressed on. They got to the ambush point and out popped 7 trogs. One ran for the door in the back and the other 6 charged at the players. 

The party thought that they could have an advantage over the Trogs if the pulled back to the other side of the dead darkmantles. As they were retreating to their position the Trogs caught up to them and started attacking them. They also heard chanting coming from the room the Trogs had come from. The Trog Cleric is a cleric2/bard2. The Bard actualy proved to be quite usefull for pumping the other trogs up so they can hurt the party more. They party has taken quite a beating at this point. There are only 2 trogs left and the bard still plays in the other room. Then more trogs come charging up the corridor at them. (the ones that were with the bard). The party tried to stay their ground. The dwarf was the first to fall under the trog assult. This caused the monk to want to fall back up to the cleric. He was his by some of the trogs AoO attacks and he fell into unconsiousness as well. 

The cleric/sorc being the only party member standing decided to grab the monk and get away as fast as he could. So he drags the monk up the passage to the north. The Trogs didn't follow the cleric past their hideout. This left the dwarf laying there bleeding to death. She died and awoke 7 hours later.

 Her body and head hurt like hell (-1 con permant) and he tattoo had used its one charge. She also didn't have any of her gear on her. She was nekid in the dungeon. Trogs close by and her party is gone . She snuck away, found a dead orc in one of the rooms and took his armor and an axe and a dagger. 

She then went down to the water pillar room to wash the scent of trog and orc off of her. There was an earthquake and everyone in the region took damage. 

the Cleric took the Monk up the hallway to the north and was going to camp on the hallway. he noticed the secret door in the northern wall and decided that it'd be best to camp behind a secret door and went through with the monk in tow. It opened up into a bedroom (region B). He left the monk there and went to fill his waterskins. 

He ran into the dwarf in the pillar room and they got more water and went back to the bedroom and gave it a quick search. They found a scroll of lesser restoration here. They didn't find the secret doors in this room. They did notice that the hallway leading to this room was lit up and the room that they were in had the same fixtures on the ceiling but none of them are working. So they camped here and called it a night. 

The Dwarf is saying she wants revengo on the Trogs. Well I think they all do. They also need to heal some CON from the stirges.


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## Bathnor

*Week 6 ..*

I still think that gesalting  the Trog cleric into a cleric/bard was really helpfull. The renforcements helped as well. So after licking their wounds the party decided to go check out some areas near the big gem that exploded. 

They found 2 storage rooms the dwarf almost hit by some black mold in one of them. They also found a bathroom that was pretty stinky. They also found a locked door that they tried to break. They couldn't seem to do it and decided to leave it be. 

They same to the foggy prison room. They didn't even go in, they just peeked in the door and went on their way. Maybe it's because I sent them to Ravenloft for a bit in my last campaign. My players seem to be afraid of foggy places for now!

They checked the door to the north and it was locked. The Dwarf managed to set of a glyth trap that was on the door. She was trying to break down the door, but didn't have any luck.  They decied to continue exploring. 

The two lizardfolk in the room had heard the trap go off and the "knock" at the door. They waited a bit and then checked it out. They saw the backs of the party as they were leaving the area. They decided to follow them at a distance to see why they were in the area. Kalhiss is a Rgr3/Rog3 and Slissth is a Dru3/Ftr3. 

They party didn't notice that they were being followed. They continued on to the long hallway. Lots of open doors leading in every direction. There are dead bodies of kobolds and orcs and darkmantles everywhere. 

They continued on to the east. They were met with Darkness and some darkmantles in the next room. The monk was grappled and the fight was on. This was another tough fight for the party. There's six darkmantles, but their bigger than the others they have fought. The two lizardfolk decided to help them out. The monk got knocked uncounsious a couple of times as was the dwarf. The cleric got hit a few times but was lucky with his grapple rolls. 

When the fight was over they lizardfolk invited the party back to their home so they could rest and talk. They told the same story as the ogre that they had come in as part of the rat mans army, but then he disappeared and the orcs, trogs, and kobolds started fighting again. They figure they came into this place about 2 - 2 1/2 weeks before the party came in. They havn't found an exit but have kind of kept to themselves since the fiendish creatures started coming in. 

They decide to join the party in hopes of finding an exit for this hell. The party camps for the night and we decide to end the session.  The monk wants to take some grapple feat, he wants to use it against those damn darkmantles lol.


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## Bathnor

*Week 7 ...*

After a nights sleep they decided to go back to the long hallway and check out the doors. They fought the darkmantles in the room with the Dagger of Venom. The dwarf also set off both of the traps when she tried to get the dagger after the fight. 

Then then went to the pedastle room that had nothing on it. A fireball traped hallway didn't bother the monk because of evasion. He was disappointed that the room beyone was empty. 

They went back and fought some more darkmantles in a room that was feared. The monk decides that he definatly needs that grapple feat now. 

They came to the orc section of hte dungeon. They managed to impress the orcs in the first room so they were sent in to the chieftan. They managed to kill him after trying to taunt him. The cleric/sorc cast a ray of enfeeblement on him which was a big help. The cheiftain was a Barb5/Fighter5. The remaining orcs hald a contest to see who would be the newest cheiftan. They made a truce with the orcs the party would leave them alone if the orcs left them alone. 

The party decided to camp with the orcs and ogre. I let them level up to 3rd level. Human Monk3/fighter2 cleric of Azuth1; Dwarf Fighter3/Ranger3; Human Cleric of Mystra3/ sorcerer3. By this time the party is out or rations and has resorted to eating darkmantles. They tell me they taste like sushi.


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## erucsbo

*Region N starting to move*

The party survived the ambush by the Dread Wraiths with successful turning driving several of them away. As the party moved north trying to follow them I had them hear noises which they tracked to Vinarra's throneroom.
Wisely they decided not to attack but engaged in diplomacy instead.
Reveal of the existence of lever rooms and copper keys that Vinarra wants from Invistis and Kasteoficiss, in exchange for the way out of the tomb.

The party is now heading towards the south and while passing by the Central Vault many got knocked off their feet from a tremor to the north.
They are looking forward to not having Dread Wraiths to fight


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## rvalle

Wow, the thread is getting popular again. 

Hey erucsbo, thanks again for that Map of N. Very nice. I'm using it for every game right now.

My group:

They FINALLY found Isvistis whom I've bumped up to Level 22 as we usually have 6 players in the party. I dumped the familiar though as I didn't feel like going though the work of leveling it up.

I also swapped out some of his spells for ones in the Spell Compendium. 

The battle took place in the throne room with all the golems in it. Pretty much ran by the book except I had to make one change. I don't quite get how the book ways saying it should work but Isvistis is a projected image at the start of the fight. Per the rules he has to have line of effect to the image. The way the book makes it sound he's in another room at the time. I 'fixed' this by putting some eye holes at the south end of the room where the secret door is and place the lich there. If characters got close to the area I'd roll a spot check for them.

Not ones for talking the two fighters charged up to the throne to take out the lich quickly. They just as quickly learned he wasn't real. Mean while all the golems started moving around. 

The party mage cut the room in two north and south cutting off the line of effect and thus killing the image. The party thinks that he is invisible so the cleric casts True Sight and starts looking around. 

Many Walls of Force later they figure out he has to be in the south east corner. The ranger-rogue starts to move along the wall looking for... something. The battle had gone on for a long time by this point and they were getting frustrated and he had the best spot check in the party... so he sees a pair of glowing eyes in the wall and hears a muttered 'Oh oh...'.   

The sorcerer used a limited wish to cast a stone shape to get though the door (much 'fun' was had with the sorcerer and bard being deaf from the Shout trap further down the hallway. Many spells were stopped by the 20% fail chance including this one the first time it was cast).

The lich had been casting aoe spells left and right doing damage but it was all quickly healed up by the party. Nothing worse was able to get though their saves or hit their AC. 

The two fighters quickly flank the lich and get ready to pound him into little bone shards.

The party cleric pulls out her big gun and casts Mass Heal hitting all but 1 party member and the lich. The lich arcs his back as blue energy plays over him and screams... and then stops and says 'That tickled'. (I had to point out that he wasn't healed from the spell but wasn't harmed by it either. The party started to come up with some weird ideas about how he wasn't actually undead.)

Knowing he was in a bad spot he defensively casts Time Stop getting 2 rounds. He moves back to the intersection and then casts Prismatic Sphere.

One player hates the idea of bad guys getting away so he hops in figuring his good saves will keep him alive. He manages to make every save and stands before the lich unharmed!

He yells back that the lich is there so the Monk follows... and rolls a 4 for the save vs Petrification and turns into a statue.

The lich casts a Disintegrate and only misses the character before him because of the +4 AC he has from a Bard Song. The lich then walks out of the sphere to the East. 

Not to be denied the character follows... and rolls a 1 on the save or die poison effect and slumps to the floor. 

They party has no way to get though the Sphere and no one else wants to jump though (the monk was brought back by a Limited Wish Stone to Flesh).

Someone mentions they need a Rod of Cancellation... and I remind the one character that is left from the very beginning that they found such an item way back at the beginning that would work once a week (I think it was in Region A or maybe E). I wouldn't let it be on them but they could go back and get it.

I let the party auto pound the remaining golems into scrap metal as they could easily do it with minimal damage to themselves and all that damage would be healed up at the Garrison and so it would just be a pointless battle of them trying to pound 300 points of damage into each one.


Even though they left the poisoned character for dead I might do something fun like have Isvistis bring him back to question him. The party can return while this is happening and rescue him.

This battle took 2 gaming sessions.. about half of one and all of another (each one being about 4 hours long).

rv


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:


> The party is now heading towards the south and while passing by the Central Vault many got knocked off their feet from a tremor to the north. They are looking forward to not having Dread Wraiths to fight




My group was quite sick of fighting Dread Wraiths after a while.  The whole Spring Attack from the walls and back in again ticked them off.

It took many sessions and some levels and new spells before they developed tactics to fight them.

rv


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## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> Wow, the thread is getting popular again.
> 
> Hey erucsbo, thanks again for that Map of N. Very nice. I'm using it for every game right now.




glad to help



rvalle said:


> Many Walls of Force later they figure out he has to be in the south east corner.




Note that WoF must be unbroken. All it takes is something to get in the way (wire strung across the room, invisible blocks etc) to defeat it 

Q: since the wall is invisible, does the caster actually know that it has failed due to not being able to be continuous and unbroken? Could be interesting if the characters think that the WoF is up and make decisions based on that.



rvalle said:


> Someone mentions they need a Rod of Cancellation... and I remind the one character that is left from the very beginning that they found such an item way back at the beginning that would work once a week (I think it was in Region A or maybe E). I wouldn't let it be on them but they could go back and get it.




Shadow king in Region E - my party has it but has never used it and doesn't know it only works 1/week.


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## Bathnor

*Group Loot?*

Greetings fellow WLD delvers. I still need to get caught up on my partys exploits through the WLD. I made a post about group loot on the Wizards boards and I thought I'd post it here and get your opinions. 

I am currently running a 3.5E version of the Worlds Largest Dungeon set in the Forgotten Realms. I am running it as a gesalt campaign as I usually only have 3 players and a 4th who will show up sporadicaly. 

This coming week will mark their 14th session down in the dungeon. The party has been in the dungeon a long time (sometimes they need to camp more than once a session).

Here's where my dilemma comes into play. My players (most of them) like having a "group loot pile". If no body wants an item or whatnot then it goes onto a seperate sheet of paper. They can then divy up the gold that they make so they can buy better gear. I don't have a problem with them having a group loot pile. I have a problem with how they implement it. 

I don't think that it should go onto a seperate sheet of paper. I think each PC should have a section of their equipment list be for the group loot stuff that they are carrying. When they get to town they can sell the stuff and take the loot or donate it to the group, it would be the players choice. 

This would help on lots of fronts. It would make my job easier as DM because I would know who was carrying what. It would also make it better for the players who don't want to donate to group loot (the thief in the party). It would also make it so that stuff doesn't get written down more than once. (someone takes something from the group sheet but it never gets erased).

Also because they are going to be in the dungeon for a very long time you have to figure in encumberance as well. You don't want one person carrying everything because it would eventualy slow them up. Also with one person carrying everything what if that person falls into a pit of lava or green slime? What if he gets turned into a Shadow? (I have had 2 PCs so far be turned into shadows). Opps .. there goes all the treasure you guys had been saving .. so sorry. I have told them that I want the group loot sheet broken up among themselves ... it doesn't mean they have to keep it or claim it for themselves. So far I have been ignored 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 !! 

The main person for the seperate sheet style is a LN Monk4 /fighter2 cleric 2. He keeps the sheet with his character. So since he is the main one for it and he keeps it with his character then he is carrying all of the stuff. (101 lbs starts to encumber him so he can't carry much anyways with out losing monk abilities so he's already screwed that way) The other alignments in the party are 2 CN and 1 CG. 

So tell me fellow DMs, what should I do? Have you had similar problems and how did you handle it? Take the sheet and divy everything myself? Kill the Monk so they lose all the treasure in the group loot pile? Maybe then they won't keep all of their eggs in one basket. I did tell them my wishes, so I won't feel bad if it happens. There are no bags of holding and stuff like that in the Dungeon .. the Wards keep extradimensional spaces from working. Perhaps an alignment chance for wanting to "keep" all of the treasure for himself (LE perhaps?). Perhaps not give out any more treasure until the sheet is divided up? Opinions? Thoughts?


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## erucsbo

Bathnor said:


> So tell me fellow DMs, what should I do? Have you had similar problems and how did you handle it? Take the sheet and divy everything myself? Kill the Monk so they lose all the treasure in the group loot pile? Maybe then they won't keep all of their eggs in one basket. I did tell them my wishes, so I won't feel bad if it happens. There are no bags of holding and stuff like that in the Dungeon .. the Wards keep extradimensional spaces from working. Perhaps an alignment chance for wanting to "keep" all of the treasure for himself (LE perhaps?). Perhaps not give out any more treasure until the sheet is divided up? Opinions? Thoughts?




I thought the no bags of holding thing was crap.
The party is going to accumulate stuff they don't need/want/use and there are forges and other groups in the WLD that they could use/trade with, but not so frequently that they can keep the excess baggage down.
Keeping track of encumbrance is annoying so I have allowed Handy Haversacks and bags of holding. - These create non-dimensional spaces.
I have not allowed portable holes (which create extra-dimensional spaces).
Definitely need to keep track of who has what from the group loot, but it makes it a much less painful job for someone to carry it around if it is in a bag or haversack.
If you want to make is a full-round action to pull items in and out of the bag, then do that (make it a special bag that operates within the WLD confines).


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## rvalle

I've kept the 'no dimensional spaces' thing in place. Several characters walk around with med encumbrance. They were quite happy when they found a few pairs of Gauntlets of Ogre Power as it dropped a couple of characters from encumbered to unencumbered.

I agree that characters should track what they carry. Note that this will become less of an issue when/if they go though Region E and make friends with the Garrison there. At that point a base camp can be setup in one of their extra rooms and a loot pile can be formed.


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## timbannock

After (too) many years of gaming, I still don't know how best to track the "group loot".  There's always one player willing to do this chore, but a single missed session by that player and it all gets thrown out of whack.

I think having people track separately is really the best way to go.  Hand out bags of holding (or whatever the equivalent is) early and don't be an @$$ about them working/not working.  Encumbrance tracking is a lot like work: it sucks.  If everyone's got their own bag of holding, there's no need for a true "group loot" list.  If you don't own the bag that the item is in, then you don't own the item.  Pure and simple.

Not to say you can't go into someone else's bag of holding, of course.

The one variation is that I sometimes choose to track all coin & gems, as the DM.  I do this only because it allows me to seed randomly intelligent gems among the group without them knowing.  These gems often lead to (a) further adventures, or (b) comedy relief.


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## erucsbo

Mohrgs.
I've said before that I have a large party. 9 characters (8 players + 1 NPC) in the party last night. Most are protected against fire. What is scaring them at the moment is the potential to lose CON. This was how they took down Tyrus. Now the tables are turned since the undead don't have CON but the undead wyvern poison does CON damage. And if the Mohrgs or Allips manage to paralyze or fascinate them they make easy targets. They still have enough numbers though to recover fairly easily - so far.
They hit the first two mohrgs (N111) hard enough and managed to win. When they encountered the second pair (on wyverns) they quickly closed the door and then delayed until they were able to "open door" "launch fireballs" "close door".
Of course this gave the mohrgs the opportunity to withdraw before the fireball barrage and set up an ambush further on.
A wall of force across the roof of the delayed blast fireball trap managed to avoid all but the first blast and a wall of stone blocked off a reinforcement mohrg on wyvern approaching part way through the ambush battle, but allowed a couple of allips to sneak up and through the wall and catch the party unaware. The bard managed to counter-song the babble after 2 had failed their saves.
Now that Kasteoficiss' forces have seen the party in action I'm thinking that some dynamic changes to terrain might be in order. As well as buffing her forces.
Time to crank up the terror level a little.


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## rvalle

Word of warning: Lich in N

My group went back to fight the lich for the 2nd time in his throne room. They were all geared up for a big fight.

It pretty much went like this:

Round 1: Sorc casts Grasping Hand and grapples the lich.

Round 2: The Druid casts Wall of Thorns on the 2 Iron Golems. 

Rounds 3+  The party now pounds on the helpless Lich until he dies.

The lich has just about every Magic feat except for still spell. Once grappled he couldn't cast anything with a S component and he didn't have any of the movement spells like Teleport or D-door memorized.

If I wanted the whole thing to last longer I could have moved Teleport onto his memorized spells and let him move around. I didn't think of this until after the fight but I'm glad I didn't. It was time to move on.

It was nice that the party won but I thought it would be a tougher fight. 

Anyway the party now has all 4 keys and have thrown two of the 4 switches. They are hunting for the other 2 now.


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## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> Word of warning: Lich in N




thanks for the heads up.

my group are heading to Kasteoficiss but will be tackling Invistis soon.


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## rvalle

Wow, take a look at what is in N223. 

My group found them but couldn't make heads or tails out of them. I had the Garrison tell them they suspect its some sort of test and destroying one, other other or both is the key. 

I'm curious on what they will do with it and what I'll do with what they do with it.  

rv


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## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> Wow, take a look at what is in N223.
> 
> My group found them but couldn't make heads or tails out of them. I had the Garrison tell them they suspect its some sort of test and destroying one, other other or both is the key.




I've got my group trapped in the tomb, but back in Region E and Region G the Garrison members in the party were shown a map of the entire dungeon pre-earthquake including the tomb and told that somewhere in the tomb was a "self destruct" option. They were not told where or what it was.

I don't think that the logic behind the scrolls is all that intuitive. A logical argument could be made for the reverse case applying just as easily.


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## erucsbo

And the party kept plowing through Region N, running in to 4 wyvern zombies and with Grease and SpikeStones made pretty short work of them.
The Allips are having a bit more fun though. The bard in the party is pretty much neutralizing the babble effect, though now that Kasteoficiss is aware of the party and is cataloging their capabilities I had the Allips use Darkness and Silence and it made things a little more interesting for a while.
The incorporeal nature of the allips is going to lend them more to hit and run tactics the longer things go on, gradually wearing the party down. Should be interesting to see how they go when the easy fall back, rest and recuperate is denied them.


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## rvalle

erucsbo said:


> And the party kept plowing through Region N, running in to 4 wyvern zombies and with Grease and SpikeStones made pretty short work of them.
> The Allips are having a bit more fun though. The bard in the party is pretty much neutralizing the babble effect, though now that Kasteoficiss is aware of the party and is cataloging their capabilities I had the Allips use Darkness and Silence and it made things a little more interesting for a while.
> The incorporeal nature of the allips is going to lend them more to hit and run tactics the longer things go on, gradually wearing the party down. Should be interesting to see how they go when the easy fall back, rest and recuperate is denied them.




Ahh yes. That trapped feeling is fun.  

Are you doing the 'black wave of neg energy' rolling though every 30 min? If the party is truly trapped that could make it rough.  I had it rolling though and the party was convinced they were all going to die.

As time goes on I've started have it roll though a little quicker (25 min vs 20) with a little more damage and a little bit harder save DC. I'll keep raising it as time goes on.

I didn't like the 'WLD goes away' option for the scrolls. If they do it right (destroy both?) I think I'll go with the idea of all the undead except for the Boss ones go away and +1 level to each character. That should help move things along!

rv
rv


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## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> Are you doing the 'black wave of neg energy' rolling though every 30 min? If the party is truly trapped that could make it rough. I had it rolling though and the party was convinced they were all going to die.
> 
> As time goes on I've started have it roll though a little quicker (25 min vs 20) with a little more damage and a little bit harder save DC. I'll keep raising it as time goes on.




I'm increasing it in intensity and frequency, but am making the waves still a day or two apart. 30 minutes apart doesn't give me much room to move and they still haven't gotten any keys or pulled any levers yet.


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## rvalle

Is it supposed to be daily? I don't remember where I got the 30 min frequency. I think I just made it up since I didn't see what it should be anywhere else.


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## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> Is it supposed to be daily? I don't remember where I got the 30 min frequency. I think I just made it up since I didn't see what it should be anywhere else.




I don't recall seeing the interval anywhere. I suggested back in this thread about having the wave of negative energy roll through the entire dungeon well before the characters got to N, and I had the bodies of evil creatures killed by the characters rise up and move with the ebb wave, dropping when they reached a wall and their souls continuing the journey to the World Eater. The frequency of waves increasing (slowly) over time.


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## rvalle

erucsbo said:


> I don't recall seeing the interval anywhere. I suggested back in this thread about having the wave of negative energy roll through the entire dungeon well before the characters got to N, and I had the bodies of evil creatures killed by the characters rise up and move with the ebb wave, dropping when they reached a wall and their souls continuing the journey to the World Eater. The frequency of waves increasing (slowly) over time.




You know... in hindsight having the black wave going though the dungeon would have been really cool. By the time they got to N and figured out what was going on it would be pretty personal for them to finally get that thing that had hurt them for so long.

And ramping it up from 1x per day to 2x, then 3, then 4... would but slowly ramping up the pressure.

Dang it erucsbo, why didn't you make me do this sooner!   

rv


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## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> Dang it erucsbo, why didn't you make me do this sooner!






I've started having structural damage occur as well - the collapse of the western door that the party came in through (thus trapping them inside the tomb), and now they make reflex saves when the negative energy wave comes through because the whole dungeon shakes. Nothing too serious but if they fail the save they get knocked to the ground. Hasn't happened during combat yet. I think I'll have the party witness the wave hit some undead first and see them "bask" in it. Maybe I'll do that when they encounter Kasteoficiss


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## rvalle

I need ideas.

My group read both scrolls (more on that later). I went with destroying all the undead except for the big guys, +1 level and each player gets a wish.

With all the undead gone and most the map explored finding the last 2 levers were easy to find and throw. 

At that point they got another +1 level (I figured the one from the scroll was  bonus and I had planned on giving them a level with they threw the last lever). The were then hit the the massive wave of black energy giving them -4 levels (I gave them a fort save dc 41 to resist. One player got a 38 (on a roll of 15) but all failed).  There is also a grinding noise coming from the center.

So... now what? With all the undead ... dead they won't flock to the World Eaters banner to fight for him. I see several options.

1. The 2 big guys that are currently around are the mummy and ghost. They can show up to fight for the Demon.

2. All the undead that were destroyed can come back. The bad guys can now fight on the party's side per the book. This would also make the party have to fight to get to the Center from where they are now at the last lever.

Any other ideas or which one of those are the best one?  The 1st one would be easier to prepare for but somewhat harder to run as I'd have to run both casters.  The 2nd one would be harder to get ready for as I'd have to figure out what undead show up and we'd have to run though the fights getting to the center. But the final fight might be easier as the big bad guys and the other undead would cancel out.

Thoughts?

rv


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## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> I need ideas.
> 
> My group read both scrolls (more on that later). I went with destroying all the undead except for the big guys, +1 level and each player gets a wish.
> <snip>




what was their rationale behind reading both scrolls?
how do you want the adventure to end? - do you want to wrap things up with the last battle, or have them find their way out of the tomb and get past the Frost Giants in Region O?
how much (if anything) do they know about the World Eater?


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## rvalle

erucsbo said:


> what was their rationale behind reading both scrolls?



I still plan on writing a post about that. Basicly I hand held them to the right answer but didn't quite give it to them.




erucsbo said:


> how do you want the adventure to end? - do you want to wrap things up with the last battle, or have them find their way out of the tomb and get past the Frost Giants in Region O?




They are going to fight their way out of O (assuming they live though this fight and then the one with the Red Dragon). I suspect they will have an easy time of it as they will be 20th level but it should be fun for them to beat up on something and flex their power.




erucsbo said:


> how much (if anything) do they know about the World Eater?




A decent amount. They know its a big, bad demon and its trying to get out. I think one player figured out what kind of creature it is.

rv


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## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> I still plan on writing a post about that. Basicly I hand held them to the right answer but didn't quite give it to them.



I'll wait for your post on this then



rvalle said:


> They are going to fight their way out of O (assuming they live though this fight and then the one with the Red Dragon). I suspect they will have an easy time of it as they will be 20th level but it should be fun for them to beat up on something and flex their power.



Perhaps use dynamic terrain to make things interesting - the defeat of the World Eater shakes the structural integrity of the dungeon - freeing Tyrus, where the magical ice from his prison hits the lava and causes the entire Pyrefaust to be one big sauna - steam everywhere obscuring vision, lightning bolts turn in to electrical fireballs, limits effectiveness of cold based spells (but causes sleet and snow), limits effectiveness of fire spells (reduce range perhaps) ... you get the picture
And for Region O perhaps have the roof start collapsing - after all it wasn't part of the original dungeon - you could use that as a way of preventing them from going back / retreating and recovering. 



rvalle said:


> A decent amount. They know its a big, bad demon and its trying to get out. I think one player figured out what kind of creature it is.




I think I'll culminate my campaign with the World Eater battle one way or the other. They could have a smackdown against Frost Giants just as easily in a cave system outside the dungeon as within it.

Mine should be 16th or 17th level when they finish.


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## erucsbo

Party met Kasteoficiss last session. Essentially railroaded them there (at their request) where she gave them the offer of retrieving the 2 keys from Invistis in exchange for knowledge of the exit.
She said she would escort them to the exit if they got all the levers pulled as well.
And she would throw in lots of treasure (not magical though).
This is a bit better deal than Vinnara offered, so they are heading north to Invistis now. They hope to hit him hard and fast and take him down 
Will be interesting to see if I can get them in negotiations with him as well and see what they do.


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:


> Perhaps use dynamic terrain to make things interesting - the defeat of the World Eater shakes the structural integrity of the dungeon - freeing Tyrus, where the magical ice from his prison hits the lava and causes the entire Pyrefaust to be one big sauna - steam everywhere obscuring vision, lightning bolts turn in to electrical fireballs, limits effectiveness of cold based spells (but causes sleet and snow), limits effectiveness of fire spells (reduce range perhaps) ... you get the picture
> And for Region O perhaps have the roof start collapsing - after all it wasn't part of the original dungeon - you could use that as a way of preventing them from going back / retreating and recovering.




Thats a cool idea but more for J then the fight with the World Eater. I'm looking for how to run the World Eater fight. They have been working towards this for months. I'd like it to be a big, knock down, 'who is going to win?', 'use everything we have' fight. 

I'm afraid having them fight the World Eater and the 2 remaining Bosses might be too much but just the Bosses (mostly stripped of their magic items now) will be too easy. 

From what I remember of ... ummm... blueblackred? redblueblack? it didn't really fight. The other Bosses showed up and fought against the party along with masses of undead. The Wraiths flew around the World Eater forming a kind of shield. 

And it all went South when the lich removed the barbarian's sword and characters started dying.



I was thinking... maybe as the party starts moving towards the middle they will see the undead starting to reform. Bones moving back together, shadows pulling together to form wraiths so they know what is coming. A few fights outside the center tomb as they unlock the doors with formed undead and they can see more undead heading to the center.

When they get in the WE (World Eater) starts up and digging and more undead burst though.

After a bit the Bosses show up... too.... fight the undead or help fight the party? 

If vs the party it would defiantly be a 'us against the world' type of fight. If with the party it would be an interesting twist though I might have to add the 300 hp's they suggest to the WE to make it a harder fight. The two fighter types in the party deal out a stupid amount of damage.


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## rvalle

Scrolls.

First... I didn't have the scrolls turn to dust when removed from the room. This gives them some time to figure out what is going on instead of doing it while in the undead region.

With the 2 scrolls they had 4 options:

1. Do nothing with them
2. Destroy 1
3. Destroy 2
4. Destroy both.

The main problem with the scrolls is that the party tries to figure out how to USE them. Even with the hints of it being a test they were thinking of how to best use the scrolls.

What could really help is that story in the room just to the North of the scrolls. Really push the idea that this is a 'coming of age' for all the mortal races. That by 'cleaning/fixing' the WLD they are showing they no longer need as much help from the Gods.

Then allow the Garrison to tell them they think the scrolls are a test from the Gods. That they are symbolic rather then practical.

That should at least get them thinking in the right way about the scrolls and hopefully can work it out from there.

BTW, even though they removed the scrolls from the room with no problems if they decided to 'keep the scrolls' or do nothing with them then they would have turned to dust at that point.


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## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> Scrolls.
> 
> First... I didn't have the scrolls turn to dust when removed from the room. This gives them some time to figure out what is going on instead of doing it while in the undead region.




perhaps I'll have them inscribed on the wall instead of looking like normal scrolls



rvalle said:


> The main problem with the scrolls is that the party tries to figure out how to USE them. Even with the hints of it being a test they were thinking of how to best use the scrolls.




but what was their _rationale_ for using/reading both?



rvalle said:


> What could really help is that story in the room just to the North of the scrolls. Really push the idea that this is a 'coming of age' for all the mortal races. That by 'cleaning/fixing' the WLD they are showing they no longer need as much help from the Gods.
> 
> Then allow the Garrison to tell them they think the scrolls are a test from the Gods. That they are symbolic rather then practical.
> 
> That should at least get them thinking in the right way about the scrolls and hopefully can work it out from there.




thanks for that - will definitely play up that angle if they get there.


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> Thats a cool idea but more for J then the fight with the World Eater. I'm looking for how to run the World Eater fight. They have been working towards this for months. I'd like it to be a big, knock down, 'who is going to win?', 'use everything we have' fight.




I was under the impression that the major undead (Vinnara, Kasteficiss and Invistis) would fight the undead hordes leaving the party to tackle the World Eater.

Trouble with a single massive opponent is that if the party can find a weakness they can end the fight ridiculously easily (like mine did against Tyrus).

Remember that the major undead have different ideas of what is in the centre vault and may well come in with the intention of beating up on the party, but once they realise that there is something in there more powerful than them and it is not their god then they will fight against it (otherwise they move down the pecking order).

You know your party's capabilities, but they don't know what the environment is like in the central vault. Perhaps there is a negative energy burst that regenerates all undead every round (including the World Eater) and the party not only has to finish the World Eater but then stop it coming back. Perhaps have area effect spells from Invistis and Kasteoficiss also hit party members as they deal with the undead hordes (they could shrug and say "sorry" - obviously not all that sorry).
After all - the major undead want the party OUT of the tomb, not dying to perhaps rise as major undead themselves.
If the party is going really well then have collapsing ceilings or cracks in the floor or tremors causing them to make saving throws or limit their movements.
If the party is all flying then use the WE's greater dispel magic to knock them down.
If the party is doing badly then perhaps the major undead can be the focus of the WE for a round - giving the party a little respite or time to regroup.


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:


> but what was their _rationale_ for using/reading both?




Basicly 'screw the Gods, we're doing this on our own'/ 'this is a "self-actuation moment by destroying both scrolls".

Except for the Sorc who wanted to destroy both on general principal.  


rv


----------



## rvalle

erucsbo said:


> I was under the impression that the major undead (Vinnara, Kasteficiss and Invistis) would fight the undead hordes leaving the party to tackle the World Eater.




That is how it is per the book yes. I wasn't sure if I should run it that way or mix it up a little. I'm not sure how the party is going to do against the WE. They can deal out a huge amount of damage in a round from pure melee. That grab and swallow is only going to work once before anyone getting close will have a Freedom of Movement cast on them negating this trick. 

The hordes of undead could be a moot point as well unless the bad guys fight on their side.... 4 walls of force across the door ways will stop them cold leaving the party to fight the WE unmolested. 

If the major bad guys fight for the WE they could disintegrate the walls letting the undead in.

Maybe I'll just wait for a few rounds letting the fight develop and see how it goes. If they are trouncing the WE the bad guys help him, if the party is having a hard time with the fight they join the party. Keep it flexible. 


Thanks for the input.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> The hordes of undead could be a moot point as well unless the bad guys fight on their side.... 4 walls of force across the door ways will stop them cold leaving the party to fight the WE unmolested.




remember that WoF require uninterrupted space.
Having chains or even spiderwebs across the space will stop a WoF going up.
The WE has DR that they might not automatically overcome.
And remember that it has Power Attack. With its + to hit it could potentially knock off a character a round if it uses PA.
That should all reduce the amount of damage that it takes while the party raises or otherwise deals with characters that have been taken out of action.
If you can stop them from being able to focus all of their attention on the WE (other threats, environmental conditions, healing, buffing) then the smackdown could last quite a while.


----------



## rvalle

Hah, I did forget about Power Attack. Want to know what was truly nasty though?  Haste. The WE Hasted himself and was getting two bite attacks and one sting attack per round. At 50ish per bite and 30ish per sting he was close to taking down a character per round.

Once the players saw the size of the WE the first thing they did was cast Freedom of Movement onto the two fighter types. After attacking and trying to grab them and then seeing all the damage he did healed by the cleric she became the new target. One round of attacks dropped her to -5 and she was grappled.  The players were able to d-door her away and the Bard cast a mass Cure Lite Wounds to get her up. She then cast a Mass Cure... Crit or Mod to heal her and everyone else. The bard player suggested she Heal herself but she declined.

And so... The WE attacked her again. With the damage she had left over and the new round of attacks she dropped dead. This time the bard had to use his Wish to bring her back.

We left the fight in round 14 with the WE having the Sorcerer damaged and grappled. He had been casting Chain Lightning spells every round a few of which got though the SR. 

The WE has about 270 points of damage. The other 3 big bad guys showed up and are attacking the 'minor' dead that are roaming around. The players have gotten the idea that they need to concentrate on the Worm and are trying to having to deal with the massive amounts of damage it puts out per round is stopping them from just concentrating on dealing out damage.

rv


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## erucsbo

*and then there were three*

the party had heard Kasteoficiss' proposition and, thinking that it sounded more reasonable than Vinnara's, headed north to tackle the Lich. I gave them another level - so they are now 15th.

after resting they invoked a plan that had been discussed between sessions. Buff up the Arcane Trickster(/Assassin/Sorcerer/Rogue) and he was going to try and locate a way through to find either the lich or one of his golems.

First door to the north - unlock and proceed at haste due to time limitations on the buffing - therefore he neglected to search for traps and set off the Storm of Vengence - 3 party members deafened and bludgeoning damage at the end but due to resistances to acid, fire and electrical, the rest didn't have too much effect.
North heads the Arcane Trickster while the rest fall back behind a door to try and limit the effect of the Storm.
The scouting Arcane Trickster then finds the room with the dead elves.
Notes the glowing ring but as he believes he is pressed for time just tries to unlock the door to the north, and fails, thereby getting caught in the Wail of the Banshee - and rolls a 1 on his save.
The rest of the party know what is going on because of the telepathic link they had up so they head north to get the body (using a silence spell to defeat the wail), and set off the Storm of Vengence again.
Retrieving the body they pull back (taking damage again from the Storm and ressurrect the Trickster, asking him why he didn't search for traps.
Time pressures he responded.
You have minutes, not just rounds they reply.
Oh .... 
More buffing and let's try again but this time we will search for traps and stay closer together.
Through the Wail room and head east whereupon the Scarab of Golembane gives an indication of something close.
A battle with the golem (who is toppled by a Grease) lasts about 3 rounds before they defeat it - and put the plan in to action.
Casting Discern Location to find the owner of the golem (Invistis) and Find the Path (cast on the Arcane Trickster) to get there. I check the character sheet - he can't open DC50 locks, but he does have a single scroll of knock so they are away.
Bypassing a few more traps and heading alone in to the lich's throne room the Arcane Trickster was supposed to note the location and bug back out, but instead gets in to a conversation with Invistis.
End result?
Invistis will provide them with one of his keys in exchange for the party throwing ALL the levers and giving him the advantage in timing to get to the central vault. Or show them the way out plus half his treasure and all of Kasteoficiss' treasure for her dead body 

It will be 6 weeks before the next session.
Plenty of time for them to discuss "options"


----------



## rvalle

Looks like you are getting into more conversations with the major bad guys that I was able to pull off. My group quickly adopted the idea of 'We're going to have to kill you eventually so might as well do it now'. It didn't always work so well like when the Sorc tried to hit Invistis with a lightning bolt as he was talking. It failed to do any damage but the return Chain Lighting dropped the Sorc dead.

6 weeks until the next game! Wow, long break. I'm thinking/hoping in 6 weeks we'll BE DONE WITH THE WLD!

1 more night of fighting the World Eater.
1-2 nights fighting the Red Dragon.
1-3 nights fighting the Frost Giants.

And that will end my first ever campaign. I thought about trying to run one more module at 20th level so that the players could enjoy that level a bit but the few modules I found were all plane hopping things that I didn't have an interest in. A friend (and one of the current players in my game) is going to start up a 4.0 game after this is done so my dm'ing days will be done for a while.

rv


----------



## PaulofCthulhu

I've just been clearing out some stuff and backing up data at home, when I found my copies of the _World's Largest Dungeon_ RPGMP3 recordings. It made me realise that come September they will be five years old!

So I've backed them up properly, along with related files to DVD (2.45 GB) and stuck them in the back of my PHB 3.5 that I used at the time.

Five years, I can amost feel the nostalgia kicking in.


----------



## Hussar

Damn, Paul, I listened to a few of those.  I can't believe it was that long ago.  Yeesh.

Wanna hear something sick?  I'm actually toying with the idea of updating the WLD to 4e and running it again.  I gotta get my head examined.


----------



## Bathnor

*An update on my players exploits down in the dungeon...*



Hussar said:


> Damn, Paul, I listened to a few of those. I can't believe it was that long ago. Yeesh.
> 
> Wanna hear something sick? I'm actually toying with the idea of updating the WLD to 4e and running it again. I gotta get my head examined.




I hear ya on getting your head examined lol. I am running the WLD as a Gesalt campaign. My players and I are enjoying it, but I think I need my head examined as well. 

So anyways, my players have cleared out Region A. The Orc, Kobold, and Trog bases proved to be very difficult for them. They ran away from them and then went back and wiped them out once they hit 3rd level, this was their "Revenge Session". The Dwarf Ranger/Fighter died the first time they fought the Trogs. Her tattoo raised her several hours later and she was naked with neither the Trogs or her party in sight. They found each other again in the water pillar room. 

The other difficult encounter in the Region was definatly the Were Rat himself. He was a Wiz7/Sorc7. This was a very close battle for them. They had joined forces with the lizard folk so there was 5 people in the party. You know the BBEG of the region is putting up a good fight when both the partys healers are bleeding on the floor. 

They never closed the portal in the room with the Were-Rat. So it is still spitting out creatures. 

They took off to the north after gaining 4th level. They ran into the shadows and the shadows made short work of the Dwarven Ranger4/Fighter4 and the Human Sorc4/Cleric of Mystra 4. The Human Fighter4/Thief4 and the Monk4/fighter2/cleric of Azuth 2 made it out alive but the Monk was verry slow because he didn't have much STR left. 

The slain party member were replaced by a pair of Shield Dwarves. A Fighter 4 / Cleric of the Dwarven Pantheon 4, and a Barb4/Fighter4. They had stumbled into the dungeon looking for gems to mine and had been trapped for awhile. 

They decided to change tactics, they weren't expecting undead when they first ventured to the north. So they went better prepared as far as spells go. They made a decent push but were pushed back by the Shadow King and a few of his minions. No body died, but a couple were close to death. 

Now they are thinking that they can't handle shadows so the head east into the Gobbo Empire. They start from the north and get stuck in all kinds of traps. They give up in frustration because rations are low and they don't want to keep getting stuck in rooms for a day. (The Barb/Fighter has been named backup thief, shes good at finding traps cause her character isn't to bright and she's greedy. 

They are actualy almost finished with this region as well. The Goblin King is dead. The Hobgoblins that are training the gobbos are Paladins of Bane. I thought this added a nice twist to the area. I used the Paladin Varients from Unearthed Arcana. These are Paladins of Tyrany. The Fighter/Thief died fighting the goblins. He was brought back by hit tattoo after being dragged away by the cleric. Now the Monk is the only character who hasn't used up his tattoo. 

Bartleby is dead in a most horrible manner. I won't get into details here because I don't want the post to get deleted. Let's just say the Barb/Fighter caught a nasty disease and turned to CE, the Fighter/Cleric also became CE, and the other 2 members in the party shifted closer to CE themselves. They have no idea that he was working for the Gobbo King for the Artifact. It's a Necklace of Adaptation. 

The Corrupted Pallys in the region are Corupted Pallys Of Mystra. They were the last of her Pally/Clerics. They party is working to change their alignment back to what it was before. They are also working for the Rebel Goblins. They are to destroy a statue in the Goblin Temple and rescue a Goblin that hasn't returned from patrol yet. They've already rescued the Goblin and should reach the temple next week. After this I bet they will head to region C to get the key to unlock the doors to the north. They will be in a world of hurt if they keep slipping into evil alignments. They know it is a prison for evil of all kinds .. so it's not like they havn't been warned lol. 

Their current levels are: Human Monk5/Fighter2,Cleric of Azuth3; Human Fighter5/Thief5; Shield Dwarf Fighter5/Cleric of the Dwarven Pantheon 5; Shield Dwarf Barbarian5/Fighter5.

So like I mentioned earlier the portal is still spitting out creatures. I had the doors leading up to region E spiked shut from the region A side. This was so the shadows wouldn't come down and kill everything. When the party fled from the shadows they never closed or spiked the doors closed. 

Wouldn't the working portal be a nice way for the shadows to make more shells? Would the shells made from say a fiendish stirge be a regular shadow or something else? These are just a few questions I've been mulling over.I bet the Shadow King would love to expand his influence even more. Has anyone done this in their campaigns? Have any advice for it?


----------



## Bathnor

*Bags O' Holding*

I did take some advice from here about the group loot situation. Each player had a Small Bag O' Holding. They can carry up to 250 lbs. So far it's made keeping track of who has what a lot easier. If it's not on your sheet or in your bag .. your out of luck. 

I had them hidden in the Goblin Kings private room.


----------



## Hussar

Bathnor said:
			
		

> The Dwarf Ranger/Fighter died the first time they fought the Trogs. Her tattoo raised her several hours later and she was naked with neither the Trogs or her party in sight. They found each other again in the water pillar room.




Tattoo?  What is this tattoo you speak of.  I'm intrigued.  I think I did something similar in having the Dungeon itself use the corpses to spit out trapped spirits.


----------



## Bathnor

*tattoos*

I had the original party mamber receive magical tattoos from the elders of 10 Towns. The tattoos work like a one time rez. The player doesn't lose a level but they do lose a point of CON. This was because the elders called them the chosen ones as they left to follow the were-rat into the dungeon.


----------



## rvalle

Shadows:  My group ended up with a huge on going fight against the Shadows. Fighting them at the level they were at was TOUGH. After several hit and run raids the shadows scouted around and found where they were camping (a room in region A). During the night the were attacked by waves of shadows that could now spring from walls and floors. After fighting off several waves the group ran into Region E where they felt safer as it seemed to them that the Shadows couldn't go into walls here.

Unfortunately for them the Shadows now realized there were many creatures in A and went and made Shadows of them all. Including a large Ogre shadow.

In the end it resulted in a large fight with the party and one of the Garrison members (can't remember which one... his love had been turned into a Shadow... Doj?) went toe to toe with the Shadow King and all his remaining minions.


Back from the dead: Instead of dropping a level or con point we implemented an idea from on-line games and have a 'rez-sickness'. -2 to most dice rolls for a few days. 


We're about 3 games from finishing... World Eater is dead. Next up the Red Dragon whom I'm prepping now (mixing up feats and probably some spells). Then punching out though the Giants.

Wohoo!

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> We're about 3 games from finishing... World Eater is dead. Next up the Red Dragon whom I'm prepping now (mixing up feats and probably some spells). Then punching out though the Giants.
> 
> Wohoo!
> 
> rv




HEY! no fair - tell us how the WE battle finished!


----------



## kitsunealyc

*We are not alone!*

Wow.  I was beginning to think my group was the only one that had played through this monster.

After 3 years and over 75 sessions, we finally downed the WE.  We're hitting Region O, and then our GM has a special finale planned because he felt the finale-as-written fell a little flat (??).  Since we've been very good about not accessing spoilers, I'm not quite sure what that means.

So, two more sessions and we're free (?!).  I'll be interested to go back and read this thread for similarities and differences, but mostly I'm thrilled to find out that we're not alone.

Cheers and grats!


----------



## Hussar

Hrm, I wonder if I'm the only one that ended things after the Big T in Region D.


----------



## Bathnor

*Entering region C*

Well .. my party is looking for the key to get into the maze now. They are going through region C. They decimated the gnolls after the gnolls attacked them. The gnolls attacked them because they had a Goblin rebel from region B with them. 

They were very worried about getting through the Law and Good rooms for one of the Dwarves is CE. They managed to make their saves and the rope that help the CE Dwarf held.

They were also very surprised by the mimic stuck inside the Gel Cube. The Barbarian was stuck inside the cube for most of the combat .... she almost died in there.

Last week the monk became a tasty snack for the black dragon. He stayed behind so the rest of the party could run away and perhaps fight another day. He will be replaced with a Gold Dwarf Sorc/Cleric next week. I'm not sure how I'm going to work in his character. 

So far the party hasn't met any of the celestials besides the lantern archons. They have come close to the entrance to G and necer made it far enough into region E to encounter them. 

They are all level 6 now and next week they will probably see level 7. 

I am curious about how people have done mapping for this beast. I am taping 4 pieces of graph paper together for each region. Then as they play I add where they go to the map. Between sessions I color code the maps so they can see where they go each session .. it also helps me to do experience. I don't tape the regions together. I only ask because a couple sessions ago I had a player survey about what they thought about the campaign so far. One of my players brought up that mapping took some time out of the sessions. I've thought about making permade rooms and cutting them out. When they come to the room I can give them the piece and they can attach it to the map. I think this may be time consuming as well. A player mentioned a "fog of war" where I could use the premade maps and cover up where they havn't been. I'm not sure how to work this because then they could maybe see secret doors and rooms and I don't want to ruin the maps that came with the book. Any sugestions?

In my survey I asked them what they thought the hardest encounter was so far. (this was before they entered region C) One said the fight with the Trogs, one said the fight with  the shadows, and another said the fight with the rat man. 

I also asked what the most memorable encounter was so far. The fight with the shadows, the constant Darkmantles in region A, and the lantern archon in region A (i used a voice program for that one). 

I asked what they didn't like about the campaign so far. One made the comment about mapping (see above) another said that there's no vendors ( she doesn't know that eventually it will be possible to trade with different factions ), and the last said things were fine.


----------



## Hussar

Well, if you want to go the high tech route, I'd use a laptop with an art program.  Just put the map in the bottom layer then add a black layer for fog on top.  Erase the top layer as you go and turn the laptop back around.  Put the map up on a wiki or message board at the end of each session for people to look at.  Label it too.

And, if you really want to draw the players in, give them map fragments often.  Drop them as treasure all over the place, even if they are map fragments of different regions.  Really helps to give a feel to the players.


----------



## erucsbo

Bathnor said:


> I am curious about how people have done mapping for this beast. I am taping 4 pieces of graph paper together for each region. Then as they play I add where they go to the map. Between sessions I color code the maps so they can see where they go each session .. it also helps me to do experience. I don't tape the regions together. I only ask because a couple sessions ago I had a player survey about what they thought about the campaign so far. One of my players brought up that mapping took some time out of the sessions. I've thought about making permade rooms and cutting them out. When they come to the room I can give them the piece and they can attach it to the map. I think this may be time consuming as well. A player mentioned a "fog of war" where I could use the premade maps and cover up where they havn't been. I'm not sure how to work this because then they could maybe see secret doors and rooms and I don't want to ruin the maps that came with the book. Any sugestions?




I've been using RolePlayingMaster on my laptop and by plugging in to a TV or projector extend my desktop and put the player map there for the players. RPM has the DM map with a light shadow overlay that I can hide or reveal and when I refresh the player map the bits that are shadowed on the DM map are solid black on the player map. Definitely improved the game flow by cutting out the mapping exercise. I can zoom in or out of the map as needed and I use the Player version of the maps on James Lorimor's site (or mine for ones that didn't make it there) which has numbers, secret doors etc removed.


----------



## erucsbo

The party decided to have the mystic theurge go and report back to Vinnara on their progress. On her way there she noticed a lot of Dread Wraiths heading south in a hurry. Vinnara isn't too pleased that the party hasn't retrieved Kasteoficiss' key for her but she allows them to rest on the condition that they get back on track.
Vrisht (lantern archon) finds them and informs them that the Great Death has been "killed" (at least until he regenerates) and his court has been thrown in to disarray.
The party surmises that this is why Vinnara has sent her wraiths south - to take advantage of the situation and gain some ground.
The party also thinks that they should tell Kasteoficiss this, so that she will send her troops against Vinnara, and then they can tell Invistis to go after Kasteoficiss' area and while he is sans golems try and take him down.
On their way to Kasteoficiss they set off one of the Chaos traps - killing the Arcane Trickster, and causing the main fighter to go insane - thankfully the cleric had learnt ressurrection and several heals. They enter Kasteoficiss' sanctum and discover that she doesn't have any mohrgs present and only half a dozen allips. She has sent her troops north because she had found out that Invistis had sent his golems west to attack the now under-defended Vinnara (this is called forcing the action) 
The party makes a spur of the moment decision to attack Kasteoficiss even though they had chosen spells for fighting the lich.
The eldritch knight cast anti-magic shell on himself and ran to Kasteoficiss, getting to her before she could get a blade barrier around the party - then it was a toe-to-toe fight. The allips did drain a lot of wisdom from party members but ended up all being turned or dispelled or caught in the area effect of the AM shell.
Kasteoficiss did end up dropping the knight, but that didn't stop the shell and the main fighter ended up dropping her.
They cut up the body before it could start regenerating and stoneshaped the bits in to various parts of the room before the Arcane Trickster killed himself again opening the chest.
I think they still want to fight the lich, but may not do so immediately now that the situation has changed.


----------



## erucsbo

*exit - stage right*

short session last night and missing some players but after having dealt with Kasteoficiss last session and finding her key the group decided to head back to Invistis, huddling inside an Anti-Magic shell to avoid all the nasty magical traps on the way.

Now recall that Invistis had offered to show them the way out of the tomb in exchange for Kasteoficiss' key, or that and extra stuff if they pulled all the levers. The Arcane Trickster decided to accept the first half of the deal.

Accompanied by 4 Iron Golems the party headed north then east and south to the secret door exit. They found the mechanism to open the door and gave the key to the golems - who promptly headed back to Invistis. The party made their way through the chambers to the exit to the tomb and felt the icy winds from Region O on their faces, as the secret door in to the Tomb slid back up and an earthquake shook the tomb. A wall of blackness then rolled out from the tomb and on out on to the icy plain. - this is where we ended for the evening.
Now the party had been here before and fought winter wolves. They realised that they were not out of the dungeon as some had supposed, just out of the tomb - and I'm checking to see if the Garrison members have broken the charter by giving Invistis the means to release the World Eater. If they try and get out via Region O they are likely to find a devastated surface due to the ravages of the World Eater - and it will take them longer to finish the WLD (imho) than the 3 or 4 more sessions to get to the World Eater - will be interesting to see if the party heads back in to the Tomb - now that they have a way out, and now that they realise that Invistis can also pull the levers (via the golems).
If they do head back in they'll likely find Invistis has done a deal with Vinarra and opened the Central Vault.
The party knows that there is a "failsafe" room somewhere in the Tomb as well.
As of now - it becomes a race against time if they want to stop Invistis and the World Eater.


----------



## rikski

We spent about a year real time going through this book and on the whole really enjoyed it, as the DM I really had one problem though, understanding how the different regions meshed together. The main problem was going up levels... the characters were either too low level or too high when they were near an exit to another region. I really wanted it to be a linear adventure because it meant they had to miss certain regions because they were too high level (we used the 2 levels per region rule).
My players really enjoyed it also but the main moan at the end was leaving the dungeon at 20th level left them with feats/ levels in areas they did not want but had to take to survive this dungeon.
There was very few printed mistakes for such a large book (which did impress me), but you could tell different authors created regions which was a shame they didn't collaberate! 
Does anyone know if AEG made a profit with this?
Oh and the full sized maps where wicked but only having a black and white page showing them combined did frustrate me!


----------



## Hussar

rikski - I'd say that's a pretty fair assessment.  

This is not an easy module, although, it's not too difficult either.  Most of the mistakes that I had problems with were due to some discrepancies between the maps and the text.  For example, in Region B, there's parts where the goblins are actually cut off from each other entirely, despite the fact that they are supposed to be able to come and help each other.  

But, there are some fantastic ideas too.  The Room Conditions summaries are bloody fantastic and are something I use in all my adventures now.

Did AEG make a profit with this?  No idea.  But, my gut says not much if they did.


----------



## rvalle

And we are finished!!!

Our last game was this past Thursday when the party fought though the Frost Giants and headed out. 

It took us 4 years almost to the day (the first game write up was Sep 9 of 2005). By rough count of playing every Thursday for the last 4 years (minus about 8 games a year or so from holidays, sickness and Gencon) gives us about 530 hours. So, with the cost of the book about $100 it's about .18 per hour.

Ahhh... my first attempt and dm'ing and we managed to play all the way though. 

Much thanks to Jim P., AEG and everyone here for the book and all the tips. It truly was an epic adventure.

rv


----------



## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> And we are finished!!!
> 
> Our last game was this past Thursday when the party fought though the Frost Giants and headed out.




Congrats!

any tips or gotchas with the Frost Giants?
My group is sitting at the Eastern door of the Tomb, yet to decide whether or not to go back in and take the World Eater, or try and find the exit to the north east.


----------



## Hussar

HOLY CRAP!!! Well done Rvalle.  I gotta admit, after 2 years, I was done and wanted to move on.  FOUR YEARS!! That's fantatstic.


----------



## rvalle

Hussar:  Yeah, I was pretty tired of things by the last 6 months or so. But was determined to get though it.

erucsbo:  NOT fighting the WE wasn't an option. I made sure they knew that if it escaped it would turn into the Worlds Largest Graveyard (per the book.    )


Giants: My group had fought the giants before so the giants were aware of them. Instead of having the fight in the caves I moved it out to the big open area outside the Giants home. I had the 3 clerics cast lots and lots of Glyphs of Warding all over the place with the ones down by the connection to the southern regions and along the lake go off as sonic damage. 

This then turned into a big massive fight with about 30 Winter Wolfs, 40 Frost Giants plus the named ones. It make things easier I gave the saves, and AC to the players and when they cast area effect spells or attacked they took care of the saves or if they hit or not. I just had them give me the number of the bad guy they hit and how much damage it took.

The big open area allowed for spells like Storm of Vengeance, Thornwalls, Blade Barriers, Fireballs and what not. Once the fight started the Big Cleric Guy and the small ones started buffing up themselves and the other named Giants.

The fight lasted for 3 sessions but it was never in doubt. The party cut though them with no problems. The giants and their crappy ranged attack couldn't hit the party and they were not tough enough to stand toe to toe with them.

For fun I had the 3 hydra show up about round 15. One of the party members mass charmed them.   

As for the big guy... lets just say that Irresistible Dance would rapidly become one of my most hated spells if we kept going at high level. 'Do nothing but Dance for 3 Rounds generating AoO's each round'. Great... 

They got the Ramoraz at the end with the same spell. Sigh.

Now I get to PLAY in a game one of the players is going to run. Something Monte Cook is building on line with maps and stuff...? We're doing 4th ed. I can relax and just worry about my guy.   

rv


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## erucsbo

rvalle said:


> erucsbo: NOT fighting the WE wasn't an option. I made sure they knew that if it escaped it would turn into the Worlds Largest Graveyard (per the book.  )




The party decided to rest (and level up) then head back in to the tomb and go for the World Eater (for the same reason).
I had the NPC Cleric and rogue leave before they rested, heading back in to the tomb to find the NPC paladin. Egad the hatred shown to the paladin by a few of the other players. Some went so far as wanting to feed the paladin to the World Eater.

They had to fight the Iron Golems at the eastern entrance to the Tomb to get back in, but after ForceCage on one and managing to knock down the other they headed back in.
Arriving at the (now opened) Central Vault and seeing hordes of undead, Vinnara and Invistis and his golems and the World Eater gnawing at the ceiling they launched in to battle.
Vinnara's troops are now under the control of the WE but Invistis maintains hold over his golems.
We are part-way through the battle, the eldritch knight (dwarf) has been killed (took 114hp damage - shield other with the cleric meant that got cut in half, but failed the massive damage save (rolled 1)) and the rest of the party are thinking it might be easier to get swallowed and fight the WE from the inside (if they can avoid the massive damage from the bite attack).
So far the WE hasn't used Power Attack - that would just be insane.
Nor have I removed 4 levels off everyone (they are level 16) nor applied all the varied environment conditions.


----------



## rvalle

Yeah, I didn't use PA either. I skipped a crit he did on the sorc as well. 

I think I mentioned in the post I did about the WE fight that they biggest problem they had was trying to manage the damage the WE could put out. He was basicly dropping/killing a character per round. The party had to use 2 Wishes to bring people back into the fight. One of them onto the Cleric whom the WE focused on after she did a mass heal/raise dead type thing.

I did do some of the encounter conditions. They were taking the fire/cold damage each min. Most had some energy resistance of some sort so the damage was minimal. 

I did do the -4 levels but let them have a fort save to resist for half. Since it happened before they went into the main chamber they were able to cast Restores to remove the neg. levels before the fight. 

rv


----------



## erucsbo

*Scratch one World Eater*

The party were considering pulling out, but I let the player of the dead dwarven eldritch knight play Vinnara as a cameo. With her incorporeal nature, ability to bypass natural armour, etc, she delivered enough damage to the WE along with the party fighter, and offered a tempting enough target that the WE suffered some real damage without managing to kill anyone else.
Then the LG Sorcerer managed to open the chain lightning sphere and beat the WE's spell resistance.
Result - the WE dropped.
Vinnara then cast inflict critical wounds to make it (the WE) better (she wanted it damaged enough for her to take it out on her terms, but still able to chomp through the roof).
The cleric then did a mass cure critical wounds and dropped it again while the fighter took out Vinnara.
btw - I changed Vinnara's scythe. A brilliant energy weapon is a stupid thing to have in a tomb full of undead and constructs - she would have never been able to use it.
The party's mystic theurge then disintegrated the head of the WE just for good measure before Invistis "advised" them that they might want to leave before the massing undead turned on them.
They took the hint and left the tomb to the east.
Of course this all plays nicely in to Invistis' hands now that Vinnara, Kasteoficiss and the World Eater are out of the picture (until they regenerate) - enough time for him to exert his control as undisputed leader of the tomb ...

Now out on the icy wastes in region O, the mystic theurge has cast prying eyes (and imbued them with Darkvision) to get a lay of the land. Do they head north east to the exit, back in to the tomb to find the "reset" switch, or something completely different? Next session should tell.


----------



## erucsbo

in preparation for Region O I have produced a DM map (credit to Hussar for the original layout). This will most likely be the last map I'll produce as one way or another I expect the party to exit the dungeon (either via the reset switch in the tomb or fighting through O).


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## Hussar

That's a nice DM's map.  Pretty.


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## erucsbo

*Region O*

This is turning out to be a bit anti-climatic for me.
In 2 sessions the party has cut down WinterWolves, the Megaraptor and Korwynne the Frost Giant, then 1 Cryohydra and several more Frost Giants without taking any damage (well, only a few against the temp hitpoint gleaned from False Life and Heroes Feast).
End of last session 2 of them took on a dozen FGs while the rest started to make camp, and took out a few before the others fled deeper in to the caves.
With two of the party members having permanent Arcane Sight I'm assuming that Glyphs of Warding will be easy to spot?
I now have 8 hours (game time) for the Giants to rally and actually put up a defense that works, so any advice would be welcome.
Against a purely physical knockdown fight the giants might be in with a chance, but when you have Acid Fog, Cloud Kill, sneak attacks using scorching ray, characters with Improved Invisibility, and the like, not to mention Chain Lightning, Delay Blast Fireballs and Empowered Fireballs up the wazzoo, it is becoming a bit of a walkover. Throw in Walls of Force and Disintegrate and it doesnt look like 95% of the giants will be able to do much at all. The majority of the party can fly, so have maneouverability on their side, and have lots of energy resistance to cold, fire, etc. Sonic does provide one damage avenue, but the bard can countersong to make that easier to save against.


----------



## Hussar

Heh, I ran into this with Region D.

Region D looks REALLY cool.  But in play?  Blows.  None of the creatures were even remotely a threat until I made them into mobs from DMG2.  And, even then, they were only threats because of the auto-win grapple checks.

My bunch thrashed the big T without losing a hit point.  Cost them a couple of heal spells and that was it.  Sigh.

Your party is at the level where the only viable counter is magic.  Non-magical creatures are just so much fodder.  They can't compete at all.

Heh, would it be an idea to chuck in lots of baddies, let the party go on a mass killing spree and blow their way free?  Let them revel in their bad assitude.  They've made it through the WLD, let them go out as gods.


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## erucsbo

There are captives to be rescued, and I might have other creatures who are trying to get out of the dungeon be made aware of the partys assault on the giants (after all they havent exactly been quiet about it). Hopefully that should complicate things jsut a little. 

I do want them to leave with a major sense of accomplishment, and if they get out too easily they may overlook a certain titan ...


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## alexdesho

*map issues*

Hi there, i'm about to start DMing a WLD campaign and i'm having a little trouble on the interpretation of map symbology.
Blue TMarks
Blue glowing spots
green portal marks
vortex
rings
etc.

I need to link this between the book, the original map and the map i'm doing for the game table online. (especially the blue glowing spots on all maps that i can't seem to get what they are)

some i get, some others i don't, but i wold really appreciate your help on deciphering some or all of this marks.
t.y.


----------



## Hussar

Blue glowing spots?  What blue glowing spots?  Can you list the Region/Rooms?

The only blue I can think of is water.


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## alexdesho

Each and every region as far as i've seen, but first one is between room A3 and A4, second between room A4 and A6, and so on,
my guess is they are either secret doors or magical traps but i'm not really sure, also there are magical traps where there isn't any blue mark, still a long way to read.

also, new question, are there any friendly NPC with prestige class that a PC could learn from?

i'll keep reading as much as i can, but any help like this is great.


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## erucsbo

blue glowing spots are secret doors.
traps are mentioned in the room text in the book, not on the maps.
As for helpful NPCs? Put one in if you want to. Otherwise the closest ones to the entrance are probably the Garrison members in Region E.


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## alexdesho

thank you erucsbo, that'll help me a lot :b

i hope to fix connection issues of my modem before we start playing >.<


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## erucsbo

*whoops*

my group's chances of escaping the WLD this year have taken a setback.
Overconfident in their ability to push the giants back without taking much damage they rushed in, and got hit by two dispel magics (I've upped the 2 clerics to level 10 instead of 9) that got rid of some invisibility, stoneskins, heroism and the like.
There was an obscuring mist in the middle of the entrance chamber. They thought the spell casters might be hiding there so a flame strike hit it - which cleared the mist and allowed 2 Frost Giant fighters to use their readied action to throw boulders at the approaching party before running away.
An Acid Fog was dropped on the retreating giants, slowing them to 10' a round and a Wall of Force was cast within the Acid Fog. The party didn't know if it had worked but they hoped it would trap the giants in the Fog so they could go in and kill them (party being reistant to acid).
It didn't.
By the time the 3 party fighters had made their way through the acid fog the others were hoping to flank the giants by going a different direction (they knew the caves joined up from previous scouting). Leading the way was a cleric who had had Iron Body and was polymorphed to look like a Frost Giant - the dispel magic had removed the Iron Body but he barrelled on regardless.
He got hit by a blade barrier, and a Storm of Vengence went off outside the caves, extending in to the complex to where the party was.
The cleric failed his fort save vs deafness but thought it was fine because they were all talking by telepathic bond.
He dispelled the blade barrier then chased after the Frost Giant cleric, who was running back deeper in the caves, rather than following the original plan to flank the giants who had gone through the acid fog.
He ran into the temple area where the were-polar bear decided to come and have a 1-on-1.
At this time the dwarf had managed to get to the edge of the acid fog, to be met by three giants including the Taskmaster, who has a dwarf-bane warhammer.

Now for some time the party has been reaping the benefits of having fighters being able to dish out HUGE amounts of damage courtesy of Power Attack. I had been saying for quite a while that the monsters could play by the same rules.

Polar bear hit the polymorphed cleric once, easily (given the cleric only had an AC of 18), and for his next round of attacks went to town with Power Attack - 150+ hp dropping the cleric like a stone.

Taskmaster hit the dwarf with Power Attack - 250ish hp dropping the dwarven eldritch knight like a stone.

The rest of the party grabbed the bodies and retreated as fast as they could - back in to the Storm which is now obscuring everything beyond 5'

and this is where we left the session.

1 more for the year - not looking promising on them being able to get out unless they do something special 

Rule #1 broken - don't split the party
Rule #2 - if two high level fighters go toe-to-toe, the first one to attack usually drops the second.
Rule #3 - don't get in to a melee with a high level fighter if you aren't one yourself (or you can't be hit).

In open terrain the party is too deadly against the giants - they can take them down before the giants can close.
Inside the caves, buffed with protection from energy, the giants are deadly.

running count of deaths in the WLD
2 not resurrected
4 (IIRC) resurrected
2 currently in effect


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## erucsbo

*And we are done*

After 4 years and 4 months the party has left the World's Largest Dungeon.
Players were well and truly sick and tired of being stuck there and in retrospect it might have been better to have them escape much sooner and use some of the sections as stand-alone adventures.
After retreating from the giants wth 2 dead characters I forced the pace.
In the distance they heard a trumpet sound, the bard identifying it as the Trumpet Archon from the Garrison in G.
Then the earthquakes started.
(The Garrison had finished its cleanup of the WLD and the NPCs had assisted in hitting activating the Final Solution in the Tomb.
The Elves had heard the 3rd pronouncement from the tree and could leave through the rift in the ceiling.)
The roof started collapsing so the party took shelter within an extra-dimensional space (I allowed this as it was artifact level magic and they were on the periphery of the WLD and the protections were being dismantled.
20 minutes inside the sanctuary saw both the dead cleric and dead eldritch knight resurrected and on leaving the caves had collapsed down to unstable crawlways and passages.
They made their way north and I had a rift open up to the eastern cavern (I wanted them to get to the Titan and if they had gone the normal way then it would have been exit and that's all folks).
Encountering a wall of ice in front of them (within which they could see the titan) they retreated to the extradimensional space and had a blade barrier operate for 12 rounds chipping away at the ice until enough damage had been done to free the titan.
He polymorphed down to medium size and they headed west to an encounter with Jardarir, who was trapped under lots of rock.
He had cast Divine Might to increase his size to get out.
The party went on the offensive and cast acid fog, cloudkill etc while Barcellus used Fire Storm.
A dispel magic by Jardarir failed to get rid of the acid fog and the party eventually dropped him.
Barcellus accompanied them to the exit and they saw the destruction of the WLD from above as the elves could be spied in the distance emerging high in the mountains, a beam of light showing where the garrison celestials were escaping and huge rifts filled with lava showed that the river of lava had expanded and was now filling out the rest of the dungeon.
Word reached them that the drow and driders had the option of escaping back via the source of the river of lava before it expanded.
The residents of the Pyrefaust were not fussed with the lava expansion and could now move away since the roof had collapsed.
Regions B, C, D, F and L were not explored by the party and thus didn't need to explained.
Barcellus would deal with any Frost Giants that managed to escape before going back to find the body of his brother.

I am now taking a break from DMing and will enjoy being a player again  

I'd like to thank the posters on this thread for all the help you have provided over the years and I'll try and stick my head in from time to time to "pay it forward".


----------



## Raven Crowking

I have at least one player in my group who is hungry for another crack at the WLD, using our new ruleset.  One of the problems we had was the combats taking so long in 3e that even really cool ideas, like having to deal with swarms of fiendish darkmantles upfront, were kind of boring.

One of the things I will be doing, though, is changing the nature of the prison so that its wards fell long, long ago.  Characters can come and go as they like, some creatures/encounters will be changed, some added, some deleted.  Definitely adding some sublevels, so the thing isn't so one-level, as well as links to a larger underdark.

Which means I'll be doing a lot of re-writing and expanding.  It's a big job, and I am very thankful that this thread is here to supply some ideas.  A very large "Thank You" to you all!




RC


----------



## Sevlow

*Questions*

I tried to read this entire thread, but gave up after 3 days of reading.  So if these questions have been answered, I apologize.

1) What is the A in the corridor to the north east of B10 supposed to be?  I'm guessing it is one of the region F warp gates, but it is in a different color and such.

2) Room A46 states that "the" door is trapped, and that the room is safe.  However, there are two doors.  I have decided that in order for it to be safe, they must both be trapped.  Otherwise every room with just one door would be safe.  Is there any official word on this, or anyone else do it differently?

3) Is there an official Errata somewhere?  All of the websites I saw at the beginning of this thread from 5 years ago seem to be dead or changed to other topics, and the WorldsLargestDungeon.com doesn't list one.

4) For those that have finished the dungeon, how has using the EL for XP worked out?  Has it seemed to be workable?

5) Finally, I'm real big on the "benefit of the doubt" concept.  I realize that there are a lot of arguments for imbalance between various powers and such, but I always start from the premise that the designers of a module or campaign have balanced that module in regard to the availbable material.  In this case, since the module is using SRD creatures, I have to assume, barring any official notice to the contrary, that the dungeon is balanced for the SRD character races, classes, and prestige classes (with the exception of psionics, which I have already read is not included in the book).  So I have limited my players strictly to the PHB, and later the prestige classes from the DMG.  Has anyone seen any problems I am going to run into with this approach?  I have already denied an artificer request by one of the players, because I don't want to open up the whole eberron suite, on the assumption that then I will have to throw in eberron monsters and npc to balance it.  However, I have also pretty much decided that if they end up with a TPK fairly quickly, I will probably open up the selections.


----------



## Sevlow

*My changes to the dungeon*

I have only recently bought the book and will start running my players through it in late January.  I realize I'm getting to this thread 5 years late, but here are the modifications I have decided to make so far...


 First, I have been calling it Wollarsun (*WO*r*L*ds *LAR*ge*S*t d*U*ngeo*N*).  At least that is the name external NPC's that know of it at all use.  The denizens will most likely call it simply The Prison.

 Second, I hadn't read region O before I found this thread, so the Titan at the entrance never made any sense to me.  If he had been stationed there since the beginning of time, 500lbs was nowhere near enough paper for his journal.  So I gave him a magic pocket that is basically a portable hole, only larger.  The pocket itself is large enough for a medium size creature to enter, and there the pc's find a warehouse worth of additional notes, not that it does them any good.  Of course, the magic of the pocket is part of the clothing, so the pocket itself does them no good either.

 I didn't like having no cause of death for the Titan.  So, the titan died of boredom, after first going insane.  Most of his journal is unreadable, but in his insanity, he occasionally wrote in common in the later entries.  Unfortunately, they still don't help the party any, as they talk about things like flying rainbow monkeys.

I also didn't understand why someone trying to hide a dungeon would stand a permanent guard outside the entrance, especially if the rest of it was buried.  So the titan was originally stationed in room A1.  However, A1 collapsed in the earthquakes, since it wasn't really a part of the dungeon in the first place, and wasn't as well supported by the magics.  The titan survived that (although his death then would probably have been better than dieing of boredom, but I came up with the collapse later, mainly because I misread the description and thought the entrance to A1 was the black barrier and I already had an encounter set up there), but the southernmost barrier entrance into A2 is buried in debris, while the northern one is now exposed.  His guard post is now external, and he dealt with a lot more chance visitors before his death than he used to.

I know my party (although this is the first time I am a DM and not a player), and "save the world" type quests and quests with no rest or escape are very stressful.  So I have added an out.  An ancient order has established an outpost slightly further up the mountain than the current entrance.  The watch is held by a high level mage (chaotic neutral lich, but the party doesn't know this) who is building a tower.  The tower will probably go further down than up, until it breaks into Region A.  I haven't decided where, but I'm thinking the westermost edge, although this plays havoc with where the tower is located above ground (if time is different inside, perhaps space is as well?).  I originally had a hard time deciding how to get around the magic protecting the dungeon.  I was imagining the barrier extending around a goodly portion of the dungeon, so that it would be encountered even when trying to dig in.  The lich is high enough level to dispel it at the front entrance, but doesn't want to risk releasing anything else.  So he has managed to recreate something similar to the all-door.  This way, he can open a doorway across the barrier without actually breaching it or using extradimensional travel.  Of course, having read more, I will probably just make it a mundane basement door, which he will then protect with his own spells.  Perhaps working in something to hold it open so that the dungeon seal it closed as it does the holes of the frost worms in region O.

Anyway, this mage will offer them patronage, supplying them in exchange for first pick on magic items coming out, but mainly for information about the dungeon.  His first instructions to them are to find out what Longtail went looking for, whether he is still alive, and whether he found it or not.

Later, I will add a city.  I haven't decided which city.  Currently, the nearby river is over its banks and impassable, so the PC's can't get to it anyway.  I have been working on my own city off and on for a year now.  I don't know whether to finish it up, get Monte Cook's Ptolus, or get World's Largest City.  A friend has Ptolus, so I have seen it and like it.  My FLGS (the only one still left around here, anyway) doesn't have World's Largest City in stock, though.  Honestly, with the cost of these things, I wouldn't have bought World's Largest Dungeon if I hadn't found a PDF version to look at first.  One of the online retailers (RPG something, I forget the name) has online previews, but the World's Largest City previews really don't show anything useful, and I haven't found a PDF of it online.  So I'm leaning more toward Ptolus at the moment.  But regardless, that will give the PC's a place to truly rest, gain new spells, and sell equipment.  It will also give a place for urban encounters if they really need something above ground.  I've already started working up one involving a Splinterwaif from MM 3.


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## erucsbo

Hi Sevlow

good luck with this monster.
1) - I didn't do region B so can't help you there
2) - my players bypassed most of A (and headed in to E) so can't help with that one either
3) - there is errata, for some sections including stuff in this thread, particularly from jim pinto and Jim Hague, but honestly most of the suggestions in here are worth including.
4) - I ignored XP and just had the party go up a level at appropriate story times
5) - don't assume that things are balanced. Region N is supposed to be a place for the clerics to shine, but the conditions screw them over. Some encounters (boss monsters) were too easy while others (rasts, darkmantle en mass) can be deadly.
This dungeon is a long hard slog and druids and wizards get screwed, characters can get very one-dimensional as there are some skills that are not worth developing (climb, swim etc) and feats that are next to useless (anything involving mounted combat).
Might also be an idea to set some regional goals in addition to the normal plot ones (as most didn't interest my players) - like retrieving an item or spell components.


----------



## Hussar

Welcome to the madhouse Sevlow.

As someone who wrote most of the erratta on the AEG website, I was not so happy to learn that it was buried so deeply.

Take a look over at the AEG forums, through this link here and it will take you to the AEG forum archive for the WLD.  I hope that will cover much of your errata needs.



Sevlow said:


> I tried to read this entire thread, but gave up after 3 days of reading.  So if these questions have been answered, I apologize.
> 
> 1) What is the A in the corridor to the north east of B10 supposed to be?  I'm guessing it is one of the region F warp gates, but it is in a different color and such.
> 
> 2) Room A46 states that "the" door is trapped, and that the room is safe.  However, there are two doors.  I have decided that in order for it to be safe, they must both be trapped.  Otherwise every room with just one door would be safe.  Is there any official word on this, or anyone else do it differently?
> 
> 3) Is there an official Errata somewhere?  All of the websites I saw at the beginning of this thread from 5 years ago seem to be dead or changed to other topics, and the WorldsLargestDungeon.com doesn't list one.
> 
> 4) For those that have finished the dungeon, how has using the EL for XP worked out?  Has it seemed to be workable?




For about the first half of the module I did the EL for XP thing.  Y'know what?  It worked out to about the same as just bumping everyone up from time to time.  My bunch finished a region in about 10-12 sessions.  Whether I did xp for EL or just bumped them every 4 sessions, it worked pretty much the same.  I'd go with just bumping them as it saves recordkeeping.  



> 5) Finally, I'm real big on the "benefit of the doubt" concept.  I realize that there are a lot of arguments for imbalance between various powers and such, but I always start from the premise that the designers of a module or campaign have balanced that module in regard to the availbable material.  In this case, since the module is using SRD creatures, I have to assume, barring any official notice to the contrary, that the dungeon is balanced for the SRD character races, classes, and prestige classes (with the exception of psionics, which I have already read is not included in the book).  So I have limited my players strictly to the PHB, and later the prestige classes from the DMG.  Has anyone seen any problems I am going to run into with this approach?  I have already denied an artificer request by one of the players, because I don't want to open up the whole eberron suite, on the assumption that then I will have to throw in eberron monsters and npc to balance it.  However, I have also pretty much decided that if they end up with a TPK fairly quickly, I will probably open up the selections.




I wouldn't worry about it too much to be honest.  It didn't matter what my bunch brought to the table, I could still kill them.  20+ PC deaths over the course of the campaign.  The SRD monsters are more than nasty enough.

About the only thing  I wouldn't use is Vow of Poverty and warforged.  At least early on.  A lot of the fun of the module is the survival thing and being immune to disease and not having to eat or drink is a HUGE advantage in the early stages.


----------



## Bathnor

*Whew...*

Well I've been running the WLD almost a year now. My party is currently in the maze. The decided to go exploring in the maze because they had enough of the "Uppity Celestials" in The last Stand. 

They had spend a long time doing that region. It was supposed to be a revenge session, where they avenge the deaths of previous party members at  the hands of the shadows. by the time they were finished they had found all of the staves and the All Door. They also healed the rift between the celestuials and the Inevitables. They were asked to try to slay the twins in the Halls of Flesh. They didn't explore much though, they fought Anguish pretty early and one player lost his hand when Anguish tore it off with a crit. 

So after "killing" Anguish, they retreated to The Maze. My party consists of  Shield Dwarf  Barbarian 9/Fighter 9;  Shield Dwarf Cleric 9 / Fighter 8 Barbarian 1 ; Gold Dwarf Cleric 9 / Sorcerer 9; Human Fighter 9 / Thief 8 Spellthief 1. I believe they thought the minataurs would be an easy fight. They have no idea how wrong they were . 

This has been a gesalt campaign. It's been time consuming going over the encounters in the book and adding classes to them. I've aded levels of fighter, or scout to all of the minataurs that already have barbarian. The Barb/ fighter ones are better with their weapons. And the charge attack from a Barb/Scout can be deadly, and 50' movement is always helpful.

 Anyways, they fought past a group of the guards and thought they could continue without resting. The next room has 10 elite guards (barb3/sct3). All hell breaks loose as the Shield Dwarf Barbarian in the door almost dies in the first round of combat. One minataur gets reinforcements which arrive in 3 rounds. After felling a few minotaurs the party starts a tactical retreat knowing that death is way to close. 2 characters are in the 20s for HP, and healing is getting low. We ended the session there (it was really late). We play again tomorrow. There's no way they can outrun them. We'll see what happens.


----------



## Lwaxy

I'm going to combine World's Largest Dungeon with World's Largest City, I just need to find WLD as book first. I only have a bad PDF right now. Seeing that it took over 4 years for some to finish playing, I wonder how often did you meet? Our epic group meets several times a month, often several times in a week, and we hope to be much faster than that.


----------



## Bathnor

Sevlow said:


> 2) Room A46 states that "the" door is trapped, and that the room is safe. However, there are two doors. I have decided that in order for it to be safe, they must both be trapped. Otherwise every room with just one door would be safe. Is there any official word on this, or anyone else do it differently?
> 
> 3) Is there an official Errata somewhere? All of the websites I saw at the beginning of this thread from 5 years ago seem to be dead or changed to other topics, and the WorldsLargestDungeon.com doesn't list one.
> 
> 4) For those that have finished the dungeon, how has using the EL for XP worked out? Has it seemed to be workable?
> 
> 5) Finally, I'm real big on the "benefit of the doubt" concept. I realize that there are a lot of arguments for imbalance between various powers and such, but I always start from the premise that the designers of a module or campaign have balanced that module in regard to the availbable material. In this case, since the module is using SRD creatures, I have to assume, barring any official notice to the contrary, that the dungeon is balanced for the SRD character races, classes, and prestige classes (with the exception of psionics, which I have already read is not included in the book). So I have limited my players strictly to the PHB, and later the prestige classes from the DMG. Has anyone seen any problems I am going to run into with this approach? I have already denied an artificer request by one of the players, because I don't want to open up the whole eberron suite, on the assumption that then I will have to throw in eberron monsters and npc to balance it. However, I have also pretty much decided that if they end up with a TPK fairly quickly, I will probably open up the selections.




2) There are lots of typos in the campaign book. If you pay attention while you get set up you'll catch them and be able to fix em. I thought the minotaurs in region had bad stats, so I made them the same way the PCs do. 3 stat point buy and the other 3 get 4d6 drop the lowest. Now they have str in the high twenties and some can hit 30 str if they rage .

3) A lot of the web sites for errata are gone i guess. This thread is a good place to come and ask questions. I'm sure that people that have finished it and the others still playing it will help you out as best we can. I know i've gotten some good advice here. 

4) I havn't finished the dungeon yet. I have been doing more of an old school style of expreience where it takes a ton of exp to level. The players don't mind because it lets them know their characters better. 

5) My party is level nine. They have finished A,B,C,E, and some of F,G, and I. I have the dungeon in the Forgotten Realms. I only allow certain material from certain books. Sword and Fist, Complete Adventurer, FR:CS, Magic of Faerun, Races of Faerun, Players Handbook, DMG, Unearthed Arcana (Paladin Variants), Complete Warrior. 

I went through every book and chose feats, spells and PrCs that would fit into the setting and not be OP. I even edited the spell lists in the PHB, this makes it easier on players because they know what spells will work down here. I use the same feat/spell/PrC lists that the players do. One of my players has commented that he would like to take down the Null Field that blocks teleportation. 

We also have to have a hard copy of the book we use. no PDFs. It makes finding stuff so much quicker with the book actually in front of you.

Anyways, I have to get reaady for my WLD session of the week. I can't wait to see what happens with the Minotaurs. Hope this was helpful.


----------



## Bathnor

*2 more for the Graveyard...*

Had 2 players die last night fighting minotaurs. The other party members limped back to region E. They wanted some diamonds for a Raise Dead spell. The celestials need theirs to keep the ward doors going. 

I'm not sure what one of my players will be making, hopefully something with thief abilities. The other player brought in a Wild Elf Ranger 9 / Bard 9. 

Theres two more for the worlds largest graveyard. Player deaths added from me = 7. Lol it will be fun to see the look on their faces if they make it to the WE and some upon their old characters among all the undead.


----------



## Hussar

Lwaxy said:


> I'm going to combine World's Largest Dungeon with World's Largest City, I just need to find WLD as book first. I only have a bad PDF right now. Seeing that it took over 4 years for some to finish playing, I wonder how often did you meet? Our epic group meets several times a month, often several times in a week, and we hope to be much faster than that.




It took us 80 sessions to finish things, although, I did change it a bit and let them out after they killed the Tarrasque in Region D.  We did regions A, B, C, D, G, H, J and K, so, not too bad.  Our sessions were 3 hours each.  By the final whistle, IIRC, I had about 27 permanent PC deaths.


----------



## erucsbo

Lwaxy said:


> I'm going to combine World's Largest Dungeon with World's Largest City, I just need to find WLD as book first. I only have a bad PDF right now. Seeing that it took over 4 years for some to finish playing, I wonder how often did you meet? Our epic group meets several times a month, often several times in a week, and we hope to be much faster than that.




4 years, 4 months playing every fortnight (with a few missed). Each session about 5 hours (maybe closer to ~3.5hrs of actual gametime).

let's say about 400 hours of gameplay

2 permanent character deaths, 4 permanent character retirements, and about 6 ressurrections (IIRC)

my players sorta skipped most of A (they entered at about 5th level), then went through E, I, M, J, K, N and O to get out.


----------



## Hussar

I've said this before, but, I just noticed Raven Crowking's comment above, so I'll repeat myself.  I like to hear myself talk.  

Do yourself a favor and move about 1/2 to 1/3 of the encounters about thirty feet to the left.  Put them in the corridors instead of only in the rooms.  One thing I noticed is that almost all the encounters are enclosed within a given room.  Move things into the hallways - even if it's just a couple of the whatevers entering or leaving a particular location and it will make a huge difference.

My plan is to rebuild the maps in 3d, with each level gaining multiple levels and stairs (and possibly some old school chute traps and the like).  However, it also looks liek a metric buttload of work, so, I dunno if this will ever get out of the planning stage.


----------



## 0tt2r

My party is almost through Region B, but we have been playing for about half a year. This is most of their first times playing D&D, and we already have had like 15 deaths:. : x But, they are getting better. 
The cleric was ridiculously dumb and, in the cursed wand room, decided that since he can remove curse, he would try and take all the wands down, and then remove curse to get rid of them all. Lo and behold, 10 wands later, he took a -6 to Con, -4 on all rolls and a -6 to Wis. Now he cannot cast remove curse.
Where did you guys drop Light Archons?


----------



## Hussar

Heh, no system survives player stupidity.  

Honestly, I didn't drop any lantern archons.  I did, however, drop an intelligent dagger in Region A to serve as a guide.  The dagger had been stuck for ages, wedged between flagstones, so it was a bit addled.   Forgot names, things like that.  So, it made for a somewhat unreliable guide which fit perfectly with what I wanted.

Unfortunately, the carrier of the dagger got Suggested by the were-rat in Region A and jumped into the portal, thus being smeared across several dimensions.  Four allied grapple attempts, all failing to stop him.  It was the first and probably the most memorable death in my campaign.


----------



## erucsbo

I had a lantern archon appear in E, which got killed by the assassin in the party who thought it was a Will-o-wisp which led to a big split and lots of in party fighting.
Had Vrisht appear outside the Tomb (Region N) as noted, had another appear in K to lead the party to the Garrison in G and out again.
Had them pop up from time to time requesting reports from the garrison members in the party and letting the party know what the garrison had been doing in other areas of the dungeon (those areas that the party were now too high level to go through) - gave them a sense of the repercussions of them helping the garrison in the first place and how that enabled the garrison to get the upper hand in other areas.


----------



## erucsbo

Now that we have finished the WLD I am able to be a player instead of DM and am playing the paladin NPC that I had in the WLD (at various times with the party and at other times apart from them).
After a battle where she took out 5 very powerful spectres in 1 round all I can say is that Paladin with high Cha + Sun Blade => carnage to evil undead. She might not be quite as good as the straight fighter in normal melee, but she cuts through evil undead like a scythe through ripe wheat 

I'm just glad she was not with the party during the majority of their time in the tomb or I never would have heard the end of "Gandalf" references.
Any doubts I had of a paladin with high Cha, darkvision and a sun blade being able to survive by herself in Region N (and causing a LOT of grief to the locals) is definitely gone. Be warned if you are still going through this monster that should you have a character like this in your party, the only thing that is likely to stop them in the tomb is the other party members.


----------



## erucsbo

anyone still going through this?
Even though my group have finished I'd still be interested to hear what other groups get up to.


----------



## DaveMage

Not at present - but I expect to one day....


----------



## Traevanon

*Moved on*

Our group closed this out quite a while ago and we're now on to Pathfinder, but I wouldnt rule out coming back someday.

Possible Campaign Names?
Return to the WLD
Bride of the WLD
WLD: the prequil

How about this?  

You come upon what appears to be stairs going down.  

"How can this be?  There have never been any stairs before.  Actually there havent even been that many slopes.  Come to think of it it really seems like a law of this place....  one giant dungeon level."

At the bottom of thirty steep stone steps is a heavy black door with a piece of parchment tacked into the wall next to it.  It is written in several languages, and says...

"Worlds Largest Dungeon, Level 2"



Right at that moment you awaken, you are in your bedroll, your companions are all asleep nearby, except for the watch.  Tomorrow you take on what you believe will be your last task in this forsaken place.  Or maybe your nightmare will come true...


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## erucsbo

Traevanon said:


> At the bottom of thirty steep stone steps is a heavy black door with a piece of parchment tacked into the wall next to it. It is written in several languages, and says...
> 
> "Worlds Largest Dungeon, Level 2"



 I would be lynched if I tried that with my group.

I reckon I could probably get by doing F or D as a one-shot (since my players skipped those sections) but any mention of "World's Largest _anything_" would probably see me getting hog-tied and pelted with d4s.

Enjoying being a player for now though, so the temptation isn't there


----------



## Hussar

I gotta admit, I'd love to take a second swipe at this thing.  

I'd REALLY love to be a player, but, I'd like to take a second try.

If I did though, it would be a MASSIVE amount of work.  I'd want to update it to 4e for one.  I wonder if you could do the same premise?   All the monsters in the Monster Manual and nothing else.  Might be fun.  Although, I suspect I'd be reskinning a lot of critters.  Plus, I'd want to do a bit of art training and build my own maps.  

Probably going to remain firmly in the place of dreams for some time to come.


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## gilthan3

Going to be running my guys and gals thru WLD in about a month. Right now I'm working on the prep for the game while they finish up my rehashed Dragon Mountain campaign. 

Erucsbo was nice enough to email me the maps that he did that aren't on the website, thanks again man.

I do have a question. We run our games in 3.0 with a few modified house rulesHaste/heal/harm all work off 3.5 rules, Nat armor is fixed,etc)

Running WLD in 3.0, where do you think this might produce a few problems? That way I can plan ahead for such things. Are there monsters/loot/ traps that might need some serious adjusting? Any input is appreciated.


----------



## erucsbo

no idea about 3.0 - we ran through with straight 3.5.
Some issues we found - Sunder sucks (with the giants) - it can screw your fighters big-time.
A large party (6+) has a much greater chance of taking down a single big monster than the EL would otherwise indicate, likewise swarms and lots of small monsters attacking the party can be more challenging than you might think (Rasts).
Give consideration to wizards being able to find spells - there are very few spell books in the WLD.
Some parts of the dungeon will be boring for players - depending on your group.
Mine liked to hit things, so I made sure they didn't get to H.
Empty rooms became boring as well - if they aren't motivated by the main plot point and instead want to check everything then they are going to get bored and will have more encounters than they should per level.
You should get a good feel for how most of the sections played out from reading through the thread (I know it is  LOOONG read), and use the extra material jim and Jim posted for E and I if your party goes that way.


----------



## Bathnor

*Still Going here...*

I'm still running the WLD as a gesalt campaign set in the Realms. Mainly used 3.5e with some house rules for fun. Players have finished A,B,C,E,G and have done some of F,H,K and I. 

They have vowed never to return to the Maze. They had a couple of nasty fights with some Minotaur Barb/Scouts. They then got hit by the level drain ability by the warp doors. Never again they say ... >

They have killed the Demon General in the force dome. Thay have also killed the hags and the fallen angel. Some Hags have escaped to the shallows to the north. 

They like the idea of the elven fortress underground. That is until they were arrested. They havn't figured out whats going on yet though.

The party consists of a Moon Elf Bard 11/Ranger11, Shield Dwarf Cleric 11/Fighter 6 Dwarf Defender 5, Shield Dwarf Druid 11/Cleric11, Minotaur Barbarian 11/Cleric 11, and finally an Ogre Fighter11/Thief 11. 

There's been plenty of deaths so far but fortunatly no TPK's. The Dwarven Druid and the Minotaur will be new characters this week. There's going to be a lot of clerics now. Did any one else have this happen to their group?Last week they lost their characters to a pair of Bodaks in G. They also lost a character recently when they went looking for the hags in the Shallows and was attacked by the green dragon . 

I'm going to have the Celestials kill the Undead Lord in G as he is the only force left, and they've spent a lot of time on this arc.


----------



## Bathnor

*Player with PDF?*

Greetings everyone I hope you can help with a dilemma I have. I am currently running the WLD as a 3.5e gesalt campaign. My players are a bit over halfway done. 

Now my problem comes from one of my players, and my DM senses tell me he's downloaded the PDF and is using it to help guide the party. He's joked before that he downloaded the PDF. At the time I thought he was just messing with me. 

SInce then though he has called out what 2 of the BBEGs are ... before they received that information from NPC's. (A Kraken and the Tarrasque) They have yet to encounter either of these and only last session learned of the Kraken.

Now I'm not sure how to approach this. Do I kill his character outright via lightning or a small cave in? Do I start having the NPCs metagame against his character? DO I ban him from the group and tell him stfu not on my watch? Or do I change stuff just to mess with him?? 

He's not some random guy either, we've been friends for a lot of years. I understand the WLD is massive .... but there's no need to cheat. So .. what would  you do if this happened to you?


----------



## Ghostwind

Change up the monsters. Apply templates to them that make their tactics different than what he is expecting. In essence, turn his own knowledge against him. After a couple of mistakes, the players won't trust him anymore to guide them.


----------



## Raven Crowking

"Sorry, but you can no longer play in this campaign.  You seem to have information you should not have, and it will destroy the fun for everyone else."


----------



## Hussar

Can't posrep RC at the moment, but, yeah.  That's just lame.

Now, to be fair, considering the amount of spoilers out there (certainly not limited to this thread) for a module that's now, what, five years old? it's not a huge stretch that he might have picked up stuff without actually reading the module.

But, yeah, sit down and have a conversation with him.  If he has read the module, ask him to keep his knowledge to himself or he will be ejected from the group.


----------



## Beginning of the End

I'm afraid you have no choice: You're going to have to kill him.

I suggest poisoning his Cheetos.

.
.
.
.

(Or I suppose you could try that whole "sitting down and talking with him" thing.)


----------



## erucsbo

ask him if he wants to DM, or wants out of WLD.
Killing the character isn't going to help because it is player knowledge.
The level of player knowledge is the problem - does he know about cursed items, specific vulnerabilities, secret rooms etc - in that case you have a real issue and need to confront him with it - especially if he is a friend he should see how his actions spoil your enjoyment of the game and your ability to weave a story.
If it is information he has picked up elsewhere or it is incomplete knowledge then change monster powers, change energy types, make NPC reactions change because the PCs already know stuff and therefore they must be in league with the enemy - with a goal to making trusting his information leading to bad consequences.

It may be a sign of frustration at having been stuck in WLD for so long (as happened with my players). In that case it might be time to break the campaign, use WLD sections as stand alones later if need be but don't let the players enjoyment of the game die because of the size of this beast. Have the dungeon collapse and a way out present itself, or something similar, but get to the source of the problem or it will just reoccur and establish itseld as an adversarial relationship between you and the players.


----------



## thufur

*Mere HOURS away from finishing Map G, Hell on Earth*

Running a bastardized 1st edition version of WLD. Finished up The Maze in March and started this mammoth endeavor.

The biggest changes I made were (for those familiar w. map G) that the Flame had been stolen by Saryikan (sp?) the Eryines and sold to servants of Demogorgon and taken to their temple, the entrance to which I placed on the edge of the lava flow near the EEE and AntiPaladin  
That temple was the Demonwing map from "Paladin in Hell" and the Flame was in the possession of Straoth the Type VI  
So we finished THAT gigantic, titantic struggle this past weekend and now we're moving onto by far the biggest change I made -- I replaced the captive Type IV / Nalfeshnee with... drumroll.... Orcus. 
They JUST returned from the Abyss , thinking they were to be greeted as bad [MENTION=40136]SS[/MENTION] champions of awesomeness by the Children ... instead , 99 % of them had been killed or captured by the escaped Orcus, included Evelan who was psionically mind raped by Orcus and blasted by 4 black dragons ( 1st ed. Orcus can Polymorph ANY object, including babaus into black dragons). The Solar survived but is of absolutely no use, but they did replace the Flame and the wards are re-engaged, now they just have to get the Big Goat back into his cell. 
The knock down drag out end game denouement involves three groups:

Orcus' minions, led by the anti-paladin, include  babaus, retrievers, bebeliths, succubi , dretches, vrocks, a maralith, hezrou, glabrezu, nalfeshnee the aforementioned black dragons, shadows, vampires and titanic sized zombies & skeletons.

The forces of Demogorgon arrayed against Orcus are a balor, nalfeshnee, marilith, chasme, a goristro, merrow and scrags.

The Good guys:
Paladin 16
Cavalier 17
Kensai 18
Cleric/Ranger 14/13
Cleric/Bard 14/17
Ranger/MU 10/12
MU / earth specialist 14
MU / alchemist 14
Cleric 14
F/Thief 10/12
Paladin 12 
In addition, they have as allies a dragonne, baku, couatl , lamassu, ghaele eladrin, leonal guardinal, and herd of blink dogs ( polymorphed Ettins) 

I am so stupidly excited about getting this over & done with an being able to move onto something different that doesnt involve needing the be fully versed and competent at running demons & magic resistance & teleporting away & innate abilities.


----------



## erucsbo

thufur said:


> Running a bastardized 1st edition version of WLD. Finished up The Maze in March and started this mammoth endeavor.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I am so stupidly excited about getting this over & done with an being able to move onto something different that doesnt involve needing the be fully versed and competent at running demons & magic resistance & teleporting away & innate abilities.




you aren't using the WLD prohibition against teleporting?
And you might be able to do a bit of this off-camera with the opposing evil forces and supporting NPCs while just letting the PCs deal with the BBEGs - if it helps reduce your workload.


----------



## thufur

*Well that only took 3 months.*

Well that only took most of a year to plan, most of 3 months to run.

Used the map from the Temple of Orcus from H2, reverse engineered as a prison -- there were two groups of demons fighting throughout: Orcus' trying to free him, Demogorgon's trying to stop them.
Minor demons kept popping in and out -- basically the word had spread quickly throughout the Abyss, and it was understood that if you (as a demon) weren't there supporting either Orcus or Demongorgon, when the dust cleared there would be consequences.

The party waded through numerous skrimishes & ongoing melees to get to their destination:
dretches fighting skraggs and merrow
bebeliths and retrievers fighting skraggs and merrow
Type Is fighting chasme in a pitched aerial battle of demons BWAMPFING in and out - first time paladin & Cavalier EVER got to do mounted aerial combat - pretty badassed.
More Type Is fighting chasme in a pitched aerial battle of demons BWAMPFING in and out
Babaus slinking in & out of shadows , battling a Goristro tossing boulders & a alu-demon with a wand of polymorphing
Type V and chasme vs. Type II and babaus, in the midst of More Type Is fighting chasme in a pitched aerial battle of demons BWAMPFING in and out
Anti-paladin, type IIs and succubus -- the Anti Paladin was wielding Doomgiver.
TITANIC sized Type II standing in the midst of even more Type Is fighting chasme in a pitched aerial battle of demons BWAMPFING in and out
The Hall of the Undead -- dark room full of zombies, skeletons, vampires and shadows.

The main prison room came down to a battle of Orcus, Type V, Type II against Type VI, Type IV -- nearly everything else was eliminated w. Symbols, etc...

Took a while to finish up the fight against Orcus -- just the sheer number of creatures involved made it complicated, and the vast number of innate abilities for the demons makes running them competently and intelligently kind of hard. Mainly, he had to figure out what/who was the biggest threat and eliminate it quickly (usually with a Polymorph or Symbol)
The only thing I changed was that his Teleportation was limited to the top of the pyramid structure ( due to his imprisonment) .
What I found -- anything that gets within 60' of him is just a victim due to Psionics, especially with him sucking PSPs from friendly demons.
30' is pure suicide - Time Stop and then ... whatever. Sheesh. Seeing what would happen to any fiends foolish enough to try flying at him ... priceless -- they'd just stop in midair and then "bad things would happen" and POOF gore-spolsion.
That REALLY made the Paladin with a Hammer of Thunderbolts think twice about getting into range.

So the party stayed at a distance and the only real threat to them was the Polymorph Any Object ( still , thats a MAJOR threat) Anything they did was being shrugged off via MR or healed via Poly Self, so he wasn't seeing them as the REAL threat -- I run Telekinesis as being "g", 10m/s^2 , and that makes demons darn near invulnerable to missiles
He knew that the Type VI and his Symbols would eventually get through his MR and Stun him, then its Psionics would probably be able to knock him on his arse, so that was the main focus of his thoughts & energies.
So it was fun to run demon vs. demon combat ( and getting to see just how crazy Gate can be), and everyone getting to throw around some pretty powerful magic was a good feeling. Next time, I'd prefer a backup DM run any 3rd party.

In the end, 15th level MU used a Truename on himself, Polymorphed into a Type III and teleported near the Big Goat. The reaction he received was positive ( Orcus assumed that another fiend had come to join him). The MU then pulled out the Tome of Time ( shockingly held onto from adventures in Lost Tomb of Martek) and successfully read Timestop. Then he pulled out his Wand of Conjuration, created a Prismatic Sphere, step outside of it and read Permanancy, also from the Tome of Time.

Needless to say, some demon jaws dropped to the floor.
After that it was just a matter of mopping up the remaining demons -- Demogorgon's minions were happy and left.
I've been racking my brains & going through the MM, MMII and FF trying to find the right combination of monsters with innate abilities Orcus could ShapeChange into & get through the Prismatic Sphere -- which I thought was a completely BRILLIANT solution to a rather vexing problem.

So killing Orcus -- probably not possible.
Containing Orcus -- possible in limited circumstances ( no long range teleportation to heal up via polymorph, move out of range , etc...) and probably not long term.

__________


----------



## thufur

*And on to the Tartarean Depths!*

After wrapping up the Children of Inner Light , the party was next manipulated into cleaning out the Tartarean Depths of the Xill Master.
There goal was to find and free any and all Duergar slaves ( i replaced any deep dwarves, etc... with duergar), to capture or kill any derro, to stop the production of TrueSilver and to find out what Chtrax  was up to and stop him. 

They were down a man after "THEE" Paladin disappeared fighting an Anti-Paladin, so the party consisted of :

Cavalier 18
Kensai 19
Cleric / Bard 15/18
Cleric / Ranger 15/14
MU 16 , earth mage
MU 15, alchemist
Ranger / MU 11/13
Fighter / Thief 11/13
Cleric 15
Paladin 13 

After fighting against demons and demon princes, going toe to toe w. derro was a bit of a let down. However, the derro used good tactics ( aiming for unprotected heads) and the Stone Golems Slow proved VERY effective. 

They first scouted the north and south tunnels to the extent of their abilities ( no divination above 2nd level worked) , and then cleared both of those mines out quite easily (freeing duergar, killing derro & Xill )-- they did a meet & greet with the Myrmarch in the northern mines and agreed to clear out any Xill they found in return for the Formians staying out of combat. 

They cleared out Taliq and the Stone Giants after the reaction was "not so positive" , but were able to interrogate any survivors w. ESP and charms. 
Next they cleared the Forge area, where the Formians made themselves scarce prior to their attack. They killed derro, freed duergar. 

The kensai, rangers and thieves scouted out the Great Hall, remaining in the deep shadows to avoid detection. After getting a good idea of what was going on, and locating Chtrax's headquarters, they made a plan to create a diversion by using Rock to Mud on the ballistae positions, and to Disintegrate the support structure of the Bore. 

After gaining access to Chtrax's HQ, they had the hammer drop on them -- Chtrax dropped several pretty powerful spells on them - bypassing their Globes of Invulnerability & even the MR of the Paladin's Holy Avenger. When that didnt kill them, he assessed the situation and fled with the Phylactery. 
After he fled, while the Cleric & Paladin cured disease on the captives and the Cleric/Bard was translating the journal, the Cleric/Ranger summoned an Aerial Servant to retrieve the Phylactery. 
Learning about the Tarrasque, they used Limited Wishes to Commune and Contact Other Planes to figure out what it was and how to defeat it. This garnered the attention of an Argenach Rilmani, who Gated in to discover why Wishes were being used. 

Seeing the Great Hall in disarray, they followed the tunnels to the deeper mines. The kensai, rangers and thieves scouted out the lab and the nexus area, where Chtrax had fled and was organizing his defenses. Staying in the shadows, moving silently , and covered by the noise & dust generated by the Tarrasque, they were able to circuit that area and developed a plan.
They approached Korus, who was generally nice at first, but grew progressively more & more belligerent, eventually exploding and attacking. 
Once he saw his spells weren't killing them, he assessed the situation and fled to the nexus area. 

The party searched the lab, freed the duergar and located the Collar and Shackles, which the Bard Legend Lored. Before moving down the tunnel to an expected "UN-Welcoming Party", the Clerics Conjured Animals and summoned Giant Insects and the Bard cast Animal Summoning II  (I allow insects to be conjured/summoned ) as well as Sticks to Snakes by all the Clerics. 

Chtrax had arrayed his forces behind a wall of Duergar slaves with picks -- Grimlocks and their basiliks & cockatrices / Formians on their Gorgons & Chimeras, the Myrmarch & Task Masters and then Chtrax & Korus. Rroliq was completely mad and ignored any and all entreaties to bring the Tarrasque to bear. 

According to the text, this should be a very complicated and pitched battle. I agree. The party MUs targeted the leadership & spell casters, the clerics targeted spellcasters , and the warrior types did what they do.

Two events changed the battle -- The Myrmarch uttered his DICTUM, which took out the ants, rats, bats, centipedes, etc.. that the party had summoned, but also devastated the derro, grimlocks, chimera & gorgons.
Then the Aerial Servant showed up and forcibly removed the Phylactery from Chtrax, turning the Formians from allies to enemies REALLY quickly.

After that, things went downhill -- Chtrax used a Fireball on the ceiling and Korus unleashed his Greater Shout to attempt a cave-in. Chtrax Plane Shifted away, his plans ruined. Korus died crying.

Dealing with Rroliq and the Tarrasque were quite easy, all things considered. They read a scroll of Temporal Stasis on Rroliq, then the MUs each cast Sepia Snake Symbol until they hit the big brute -- the text says it will ignore EVERYTHING and keep digging. Oh well. Scratch one tango. 

After that, it was just a matter of clean up. They used another Limited Wish to restore the Hive Queen to life. This garnered the attention of an Argenach Rilmani, who Gated in to discover why Wishes were being used. 


So it took nearly a year to go through the Children of Inner Light, mainly because we also included parts of 2nd edition "Paladin in Hell" , including nearly 3 months to finish the fight against Orcus.

The Tartarean Depths took most of a weekend. 

On to the Pyrefaust!!! That should be the last adventures in the WLD for us.


----------



## Bathnor

*Still slugging it out Gesalt style*

Still trudging along in the WLD. Thanks for all the advice from before. I don't think he was cheating. just perhaps got lucky sometimes. 

My party is 15th level so far and are currently wading through the Tomb of the Unliving.  They are a powerful group and had been slaughtering hordes left and right. The  mummy tried to make a deal with them but our bard laughed at her. I don't think she will be pleased when they meet in person. 

Last session they fought the Alloy Golom and pulled one of the false levers. I gave the Alloy Golom power attack just for fun. Two characters almost died. Lol I think they won't rush into things now. 

They havn't encountered any of the BBEGs from this arc yet except for the mummy, and even then it was just a projected image. They havn't even met the "Great Death" yet. I believe that we ended the game session in the Alloy Golom room. Anyone have any advice on how to ... deal with the BBEGs trying to stop the party. 

I think this is going to be my last campaign that I run for awhile. A friend of mine is going to be taking over "The Chair" once they finish the WLD. I think it will be a nice change because the last time I actually made up a Player character that wasn't an NPC or a monster was back in the days of 2E. Yup .. good times.


----------



## BlueBlackRed

Wow!
This thread's still going?

Every now and again I turn around and look at my copy of the WLD and think "That was fun, but never again."

And then I think about how I overpowered the group's final fight, but oh well.


----------



## erucsbo

BlueBlackRed said:


> Wow!
> This thread's still going?
> 
> Every now and again I turn around and look at my copy of the WLD and think "That was fun, but never again."
> 
> And then I think about how I overpowered the group's final fight, but oh well.




ditto - except for the final fight. My group were well and truly sick of WLD and just wanted to get out at the end.

If I had my time over again I think I would have split it up in to separate adventures (among other changes).


----------



## erucsbo

Bathnor said:


> They havn't encountered any of the BBEGs from this arc yet except for the mummy, and even then it was just a projected image. They havn't even met the "Great Death" yet. I believe that we ended the game session in the Alloy Golom room. Anyone have any advice on how to ... deal with the BBEGs trying to stop the party.




you wanting to help the party or the BBEGs?


----------



## Hussar

On a side note, I've (Extremely slowly) begun redoing the WLD in my spare time.  Very, very basic right now.  Gonna get back to it after my turn behind the DM's screen ends in my group in a couple of weeks.  Keep watching.  

Rebooting the World's Largest Dungeon


----------



## chrisheff

I posted my campaign here a few years back, and now I'm finally starting the WLD again fresh with a new batch of players. I'll post updates here if anyone's interested.


----------



## Mark CMG

Go for it!  It'll be fun to read about how it goes and what differences you find running a second time.  Thanks!


----------



## chrisheff

I'm going to start off the campaign using a 3.5 converted "Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" and then get them into the dungeon when the party is around level 2-3. I still have my WLD notes from the first go round, so will be using that as a starting point when I get the party into the dungeon.


----------



## Mark CMG

chrisheff said:


> I'm going to start off the campaign using a 3.5 converted "Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" and then get them into the dungeon when the party is around level 2-3. I still have my WLD notes from the first go round, so will be using that as a starting point when I get the party into the dungeon.





Do you have the 3.5 DMG II with the "fully rendered" town of Saltmarsh?


----------



## chrisheff

I do, but my vision of Saltmarsh from 1E was a very small village, and the 3.5 DMG II made Saltmarsh a little too large for my tastes. I'm going to stick with my 1E vision of it.


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## Mark CMG

chrisheff said:


> I do, but my vision of Saltmarsh from 1E was a very small village, and the 3.5 DMG II made Saltmarsh a little too large for my tastes. I'm going to stick with my 1E vision of it.





You might have some fun, if the PCs are going back and forth between the town and the dungeon, introducing a time shift element somewhere in the dungeon where they go back to town and find the expanded version which could be considered 20, 50 or even 100 years later.  It could be a lot more expensive but have some things that old Saltmarsh does not.  They might panic and simply try to return to their own time or they might find a way to utilize both versions and periodically go back and forth for some benefit.


----------



## chrisheff

Mark CMG said:


> You might have some fun, if the PCs are going back and forth between the town and the dungeon, introducing a time shift element somewhere in the dungeon where they go back to town and find the expanded version which could be considered 20, 50 or even 100 years later. It could be a lot more expensive but have some things that old Saltmarsh does not. They might panic and simply try to return to their own time or they might find a way to utilize both versions and periodically go back and forth for some benefit.




That's a very cool idea and I might use it if I find we need to get out of the dungeon from time to time.


----------



## Mark CMG

chrisheff said:


> That's a very cool idea and I might use it if I find we need to get out of the dungeon from time to time.





You could even have some NPCs and their grandchildren make appearances, or even a young kid in present day Saltmarsh who is a very old man in future Saltmarsh.


----------



## chrisheff

Looks like the first session will be June 11. Report will follow soon after.


----------



## chrisheff

The party:

Avron, human warblade
Zathras, half-elf rogue
Solara, human cleric of Pelor
Lucias, elf ?
Glanrak, dwarf paladin


The party met with Daville Montbect, the son of a minor cloth merchant’s house in Lankhmar, and old friend of Avron. The Montbects have been having problems with their shipments coming from the south. Two sea-faring vessels and some other shipments have disappeared over the last few months on their way from the Hold of the Sea Princes up the coast towards Lankhmar. The shipments all disappeared somewhere in the vicinity of the village of Saltmarsh. The Montbect family hired a government Excise Man, Hollend Pogg, to travel to Saltmarsh to investigate the matter.

Pogg is met with some resistance at Saltmarsh when dealing with the village council. They aren’t exactly uncooperative, but are very slow with their aid and burying Pogg in red tape. The Montbect family asks Avron and his companions to travel to Saltmarsh to begin their own unofficial investigation. Pogg will be on hand to aid the party and the party is to do everything as legally as possible and obey the village council.

The party travels to Saltmarsh, and apart from one incident involving giant ants, they arrive after a quiet journey. Pogg meets with the party and informs them that the only lead he has not investigated is interviewing a local named Tommy “Two Times” who went to investigate some strange lights seen at Edward Grove, an old abandoned (and rumoured to be haunted) estate north of the village on the cliffs. The estate was once owned by alchemist Marcus Du Cormorant who died over 50 years ago. The house is still in his name. Tommy came back raving mad and speaking of demons and devils and that Edward Grove was alive.

Solara visited the temple of Pelor in Saltmarsh to visit Tommy, who was resting comfortably within. Tommy talked of “little demons” and a “huge madman with a gigantic cleaver” running amok in the house. He said nothing of the strange lights, but said he was able to escape after a couple of days lost inside the estate by climbing through a window.

The party decided to investigate Edward Grove themselves since the strange lights were originally seen around the same time period as the disappearing Montbect ships. They first meet with councilman Hargrail. Hargrail insists that his mercenary, Jed Slakescale accompany the party to keep an eye out for the village’s interests.

The party travels to the estate and enters, beginning their investigation. The manor appears deserted as the party only finds giant centipedes and spiders in residence on the first floor. On the second floor however, the party is attacked first by animated puppets, and then by a large cleaver-wielding maniac. At this point Jed turns against the party for unknown reasons and is slain. The maniac is captured and proves to simply be a very large man playing a role to scare away unwanted visitors. He is a pirate, and he confesses that pirates have been operating out of Edward Grove. To keep people away from the estate, the pirates also hired enchantress Bronwyn who has a talent for making animated puppets.

The party leaves the pirate tied up, and investigates the basement of the estate. There they find where the pirates have been living. Investigating further (after a nasty encounter with some rot grubs) the party finds Bronwyn, her gnoll guards, and her prized puppet, Jester. After a long battle, the party rests to lick their wounds.

End of session 1.


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## chrisheff

Having rested briefly after the battle with Bronwyn and the gnolls, the party continued along the passage discovering a cave leading out to the sea. Bolts of cloth and other items were piled near a small boat. This was obviously where the pirates loaded and offloaded their goods. A young boy was found guarding the loot. He explained he was the ship’s helper (slave). He told the party what he could of the ship “The Sea Ghost” and her crew, and he also knew the signal system for calling the ship when it was time to ship out stolen goods.

The party brought the captured boy and previously captured pirate back to Saltmarsh to discuss matters with Hollend Pogg. The boy explained that there were three pirates in the village, drinking and wenching while they waited for the ship to return. While Hollend confronted Councilor Hargrail with evidence that he was in league with the pirates, some of the party confronted the three pirates in the village. One pirate was killed, and two were taken alive.

Hollend and the party devised a plan to dress as pirates and take the small boat to "The Sea Ghost" after signalling all was well. Zathras steered the boat as if getting lost in the fog and was able to approach the ship from the starboard side, avoiding detection. The party then scaled the ship and attacked the pirates who were watching the land for signs of their crew. The party battled fiercely throughout the ship and were able to stop the pirates from scuttling her when they knew they had lost. The captain and ship were taken into custody. It was discovered that the pirates were also selling weapons to the lizard men of the Hool Marsh, but two of the three lizardmen envoys escaped; the third was slain.

Upon returning victorious to Saltmarsh, Solara was informed by the local priests of Pelor that the church in Lankhmar wished her to return as soon as she was able. Some ancient tunnels were found under the old catacombs of the church in Lankhmar, and the priests wanted Solara and her comrades to investigate. The party returned to Lankhmar and took stock of their loot.

End of session 2.


----------



## chrisheff

The party stocked up on general dungeoneering equipment courtesy of the church and was lead deep into the catacombs. At the bottom level was a broken sarcophagi with some old, broken stairs leading even further down. The party’s mission was to explore this unknown area and report back to the church. The party was also joined by their final member, Sharra a halfling warlock.

At the end of the long flight of steps, the party entered a decrepit constructed chamber with a very old statue of a humanoid demon. Glanrak recognized the demon as Dunmaru, a very old demon of death and destruction. Passageways lead west, north and east out of the strange chamber. The party decided to mostly stay left until necessity dictated otherwise in their exploration.

Heading west and then north, the party found a smaller, seemingly empty chamber. While searching the chamber, Zathras was attacked by a ghast that dropped from a small hole near the ceiling. A small skirmish ensued, and the party was able to dispatch the ghast after it was turned by Solara. Zathras examined the hole it came from, but it went on and on and was a very tight, uncomfortable fit, and there was no telling if there were other creatures further along. The party continued through the eastern exit of the room.

They arrived at a T-junction that turned north and continued east. The party turned north and noticed the floor was covered with a light mist. They continued to follow the passage as the mist turned to fog and soon covered the entire corridor top to bottom. Still, they followed the passage and soon stopped as they heard a strange grinding noise. Glanrak’s dwarven senses told him they were now travelling in a different direction than they were before. Soon the mist cleared and the party came upon a room filled with kobolds and their krenshar pet. There was a lengthy battle, but the party prevailed.

The party continued exploring and were faced with numerous corridors and rooms filled with rubble (having partially collapsed ceilings). This place seemed to go on and on. They disarmed and accidentally set off many traps, found a large chamber with dead orcs, kobolds and darkmantles and fought a few darkmantles and rat swarms as well. They also found an old journal and some maps hinting that they were in an ancient prison for demons. They also discovered a room that was in near pristine shape and deduced it was once a guard room. A ledger written in celestial talked of various prisoners, mostly demons, and their comings and goings. There was no indication in the ledgers however of the history of the place or how big it was or how functional it was.

Deciding to rest, the party made their way back to the entrance in order to inform the church of what they had found so far. However, just beyond the first bit of fog was a blank wall! They appeared trapped!

End of session 3.


----------



## chrisheff

The party continued forth through the large and mysterious dungeon. They battled orcs and other creatures (finding a note with the orcs that threatened them and was signed “Longtail”) and found a room with the words “The Seeing Pool” written in Celestial on the door. Entering the room, the party discovered a font with a pool of water still filled. On a flat surface on the top were three indentations beside which lay three coloured crystals; red, white and black. They experimented placing the crystals into the indentations in differing orders and when they did, the pool reflected a scene to them from different areas of the dungeon:

red/white/black: a room with a large ice block in the center; chains from the ceiling hang down frozen into the block; within the block is a frozen shadowy form

red/black/white: a well furnished room with tapestries, desk and a four-poster bed; sitting at the desk is a richly (though in need of repair) dressed man; he turns towards the party, as if sensing them watching him; he is undead

white/red/black: a small room with a man sitting in the center, bound with manacles attached to his thumbs and ankles; it is the white-haired they encountered before

white/black/red: a room with an empty torture chair; spikes and straps line the chair

black/red/white: a large room with a large demonic skeleton lying lifeless in the center

black/white/red: the view pans around a large ice cavern eventually coming to rest on a gigantic red dragon

The party next encountered a fiendish owlbear in combat with some darkmantles. After dispatching the owlbear, they followed its trail of destruction to a large pillared room with some sort of portal within. In a small room to the south, they discovered an ugly little man who warned them to leave “his” area of the dungeon. A battle ensued when the ugly man summoned another owlbear from the portal. After a long battle that included the ugly man’s familiar imp, the party prevailed. The man had some notes with him which Lucias began to study. The first thing he discovered was that this man was Longtail, a wererat.

End of session 4.


----------



## Hussar

Heh, I remember Longtail fondly.  In the fight, the goblin rogue got Suggested into jumping into the portal.  He drew AOO's from every other PC on his way to the portal.  Every single PC missed - like five attacks.  So, failed save and five missed attacks and he jumped into the portal, getting turned into very messy feta cheese in the process.  

Ahh fond memories.


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## chrisheff

The party was able to gather the following information after Lucias spent some time going through Longtail’s notes and journals:

Info on Longtail:

- Longtail is a wererat hailing from a city called Waterdeep

- he discovered a new series of tunnels in Waterdeep’s sewer system, and gathered a group of kobolds and hobgoblins to accompany him to investigate as his divinings told him that there was powerful magic somewhere within

- once inside he quickly discovered that the group could not get back out again; that the dungeon itself was the source of the magic and it was ever-changing and ever-moving

- they made a truce with an orc band the met within the dungeon and for a while explored this large dungeon together

- the partnership did not last long and Longtail’s group and the orcs split up

- Longtail’s party was slowly decimated by the dungeon’s inhabitants, but the wererat was not concerned as he found a portal that he thought would allow him to summon in fiendish creatures to join him

- he plans on taking over the dungeon with his new fiendish army


Info on the dungeon:

- the dungeon is a Celestial prison

- it has many names, the most common of which seems to be Aquelestria which is a Celestial word loosely translated to mean “the light prevails”

- the dungeon housed many powerful evils such as demons, evil humanoids and other monstrosities

- the dungeon is usually never in any one place for long, existing in many places at once inter-dimensionally 

- some time ago now a cataclysmic earthquake struck the dungeon and split it apart, destroying many of the protective measures; not only did many of the evils escape, but creatures from other worlds were able to find their way in as openings to the dungeon randomly appeared in different worlds for a few moments at a time

- apparently some Celestial guardians still survive and attempt to bring order back to the dungeon

- because of the cataclysm, most of the maps Longtail has found are out of date with some areas blocked off or completely missing

Longtail also had a map of the current section of dungeon they were in and the party used it to explore more of the place. Much of the map was out-of-date however. They were able to use the map to find the location of the hidden treasure as hinted to in the journal they had found previously, and the party gathered a magical haversack and some other items including a magical warhammer that Glanrak decided to use.

Spending a few days exploring, and exhausting the possibilities on the current map, the party ventured north into unknown territory. One of the first rooms the encountered was a well-stocked and kept library. The party settled in for a rest while Solara studied the tomes.

End of session 5.


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## Hussar

Argh, dude, that color looks terrible on the black background.


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## chrisheff

? I didn't change anything. I posted as normal. Though the webpage does have a different color scheme suddenly. It's readable to me though. It's black text on white background. Now this one I'm writing is blue text on white background.

I'll try reposting it. For some reason now, this forum is all white background when I come here (I think it used to be grey). And the window for replying is all black by default for some reason. Yet when I post, I see black writing on white background... Anyway, I'll try reposting it and switch the editor mode as I did for this post which seems to make it blue on white. Let me know if that's readable.


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## Asmo

It´s readable now!

Asmo


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## Hussar

Yeah, looks fine now to me too.


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## dzanis

I just wanted to share a thanks to all the wonderful contributors to this thread that has helped me through this monstrous dungeon. 
After ~2 years, my characters are on ~18 lvl and close to ready to tackle the boss of N region. They have spent already 4 sessions there.

We have been through most of the dungeon (not ) yet. Skipped K and M.

Run it in 3rd ed.

i can give more info (but not too long stories) if anyone has questions.

Cheers,
dzanis


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## chrisheff

In the library, the party found a small map showing the entire dungeon and what it looked like following the last earthquake.

Leaving the library to explore further, the group soon came upon a large old room containing a demonic throne. Sitting upon the throne was a large shadow which attacked the party immediately. After a long battle, during which Zathras was drained of some of his strength, the party prevailed. Nearby they discovered a room with a deranged necromancer named Phinadar living inside. Through his ramblings, the party gleaned that Phinadar worked for the large shadow (named Seraxes) and was trying to help the shadow escape the room in which he was imprisoned. The party did not tell Phinadar of Seraxes' death, and left the lunatic to his own devices.

The party encountered a spirit named Iridinhael, who explained to them that he was once part of a group called The Redeemed. The Redeemed were formed by the Inevitables who were named as guardians of this area of the dungeon by the Celestials. The Inevitables were growing short in number and decided to create a group of assistants comprised of “redeemed” creatures found in the dungeons (mostly humans and humanoids). Iridinhael explained that the Inevitables have strayed slightly from their original programming. They were to make sure the northern doors to this region remained warded against the abominations on the other side, but over time they lost some of the ward staves. Iridinhael asked the party to try and steer the Inevitables back onto the proper course, and he stated that if they found any ward staves or the All Door that this would help them in their quest. The All Door is a door that leads to otherwise inaccessible areas of this region of the dungeon. Iridinhael also explained that apart from the Inevitables, this region of the dungeon was contested by a group of shadows and a group of barghests.

The party encountered numerous other lesser shadows on their travels before coming across a hallway with portraits of the celestial guardians of the dungeon, where they learned some information about the old wardens. They also discovered one of the ward staves (Avron nearly being killed by the trap that protected it) and the All Door. They began experimenting with the All Door.

End of session 6.


----------



## Mark CMG

I'm eBaying a copy of World's Largest Dungeon for anyone interested.


----------



## chrisheff

The party explored more of the dungeon, heading towards what looked like a large
indoor forest on the map. They found the forest and had they not known it was
inside a dungeon, they might have thought they had escaped. There was a full
sunny sky above the lush growth of trees and brush. They decided to leave the
forest and come back to it later, wanting to first check the area north-east,
where the barghests supposedly laired.

The found numerous barghests including a very large one which proved to be one
of the leaders of the pack (named Morat). They also discovered a room that had a
sword floating in the middle of it, in stasis. The room caused Sharra to be unable to concentrate, perhaps some sort of magical inhibitor. Zathras grabbed the sword and when he exited the room with it, the sword spoke to him. It explained its named was N'Han Dae and it was imprisoned here by the Celestials as it refused to work with them in their experiments and imprisonment of the demons. The Celestials then labelled the
sword as being an evil-sympathizer, and locked it away. As the long sword was
not Zathras' weapong of choice, he gave it to Lucias. The sword seemed agreeable
to the exchange. N'Han Dae could not remember its past including who owned it
before the Celestials.

Further on, the group found a bralani doing battle with a group of barghests.
The party aided the bralani (though he seemed to be holding his own). When the
battle was done, he introduced himself as Doj, one of the wardens for this area
of the dungeon. The party told him of the ward staff and the all door and he
agreed to take them to what was left of their garrison. He explained that his
leader, Kelara, was more concerned with larger matters such as contacting
the main surviving garrison over worrying about the fact that the Inevitables
had strayed from their original mission. Doj was in disagreement with his leader
on that matter.

End of Session 7.


----------



## chrisheff

Brief report.

Doj lead the party to what remained of the garrison for this area of the dungeon. The garrison leader, Kelara explained to the party that the garrison had its hands full keeping the wards activated in this small section of dungeon. If they were to fail, the abominations from the section to the north would spread further through the dungeon. She hoped the party would be able to deal with the Inevitables and bring them back in line.

The party agreed and left the garrison after getting a good rest. They decided to explore the rest of this immediate area before moving to the area where the Inevitables were headquartered. Along the way, they battled more barghests and shadows. They also discovered a room they had spotted through the Seeing Pool weeks ago; the room with the chains that hung from the ceiling down into a block of ice containing a shadowy figure. They left this room alone and moved on, slowly making their way to the old hive area of the section to see what it was that had taken up residence there.

End of session 8.


----------



## chrisheff

Addendum to 8th session report:

The party found a room with an emaciated humanoid woman chained to a wall. The woman had a sack over her head. She did not respond to questions posed by the party, and when Sharra felt the sack, she could feel snakes writhing beneath. The party dispatched the woman and upon removing the sack, found it to be a medusa who had had her tongue cut out.

The party discovered another room that was infested with a hellwasp swarm. The swarm animated the dead corpse of a humanoid, but the party was able to destroy the swarm using various forms magical and non-magical fire attacks. Some members of the party were poisoned in this foray, but soon recovered.

9th session:

The party entered the small section of rooms known as the hive. They found remains of many of the previous inhabitants, and had to fights some shadows that had found their way within. At the end of the hive, the party was suprised to find a kyton devil, but were able to take it down without too much difficulty.

Done with the hive, the party explored further, making their way back towards the section where the Inevitables would be found. The discovered a second barghest pack, and after battling many of the beasts, struck a deal with the leader of the group. The barghests just wanted to leave the area, and the party took their plea back to the celestials who allowed the barghests to flee to the south.

The party was now ready to deal with the Inevitables.

End of session 9.


----------



## Ratinyourwalls

Do you think they will ever make a 4E version of this? I'd buy it.


----------



## erucsbo

Ratinyourwalls said:


> Do you think they will ever make a 4E version of this? I'd buy it.




I very much doubt it. But as this uses standard monsters it shouldn't be too hard to wing it. Treasure / magical items would likely be the greatest difference (imho).


----------



## chrisheff

The party entered the area patrolled by the Inevitables, and were quickly met by members of the Redeemed; a kobold, duergar, ogre, lizardman and their hobgoblin leader. The Redeemed brought the party to meet with the leader of the Inevitables, a zelekhut named Dorsam. Dorsam explained his situation to the party and nothing the party said could persuade him that the Inevitables had gone off their programming. The Inevitables were still warding the entrances to the Halls of Flesh to the north, but they were also sending the Redeemed on forays into the Halls. The party convinced Dorsam to send his quartermaster (a kolyrut named Wetoq) with the party to give a report to the Celestials. During Dorsam’s explanations, the lizardman member of the Redeemed spoke with Solara and mentioned that the Inevitables had gone rogue and were trying to control the abominations to the north. He said they had killed the Inevitables that did not agree with this new programming. The lizardman just wanted to be free.

Upon returning to the Celestials, Kelara still was not convinced that this required intervention. Doj disagreed, and went with the party to talk with the Inevitables.

The party and Doj returned and were immediately attacked by the Redeemed when Doj demanded answers. After dispatching the Redeemed (who were without their leader and the lizardman), the party and Doj were attacked by a zelekhut. The Inevitable was making short work of the party and almost killed Avron and Glanrak with a draining weapon, before Doj ran interference to allow them to escape.

Upon returning to the Celestials again, Kelara was jolted into action with this latest news. The Celestials went to deal with the Inevitables, with the party right behind them. The Celestials lost their healer in the battle, but were able to destroy the rogue Inevitables. The party discovered the lizardman being held in a cell, and were able to free him. The lizardman, Cul’Tharic, decided to join the party, for the time being.

Pleased with the party’s efforts, the Celestials asked the party if they would head east and ascertain the minotaur problem. The party agreed.

Solara, Avron and Zathras levelled (level 5).

End of session 10.


----------



## chrisheff

The party continued on their quest to find a way out of the dungeon, moving into the minotaur section to scout as requested by the Celestials. Minotaurs in Greyhawk were bestial monsters, with little intelligence and fond of mazes. The party soon discovered that the minotaurs that had taken up residence in the dungeon were also bestial, but were far, far more powerful than their Greyhawk counterparts.

The party immediately met a group of the beasts and defeated them after a long battle. They discovered a key on one of the dead beasts that they discerned could be used on certain doors in the section to lead to various areas of this section of dungeon. It was unknown what would occur if the party attempted to use the magical doors without the key.

The party battled numerous minotaurs, taking heavy damage each time. Indeed, in one battle Lucias fell to a mighty blow from a minotaur’s great axe and took such a grievous injury that not even Solara’s divine magic could save him. The party mourned the loss of their friend, before continuing on and finding a secret treasure room containing urns with thousands of coins and dozens of pieces of jewellery. Perhaps allowing greed to get the better of them, the party returned to retrieve the all-door in order to hide the treasure. When they returned to the room with the treasure, they battled many more minotaurs, barely escaping with their lives. They hid the treasure in the secret room and hid the all-door in an empty sarcophagus in the treasure room.

The party chased down the last of the minotaurs in the immediate area, and decided to rest.

End of session eleven.

DMs NOTES: I messed up xp the last two sessions, and the majority of the party is now level 6. Lucias died, and Jason will probably be bringing in an warforged juggernaut to replace him.


----------



## chrisheff

After the initial battles with the minotaurs, Cul’Tharic decided to leave the group to find his old friends. The party was joined however by Mechanus, a construct created by the Celestials from the blood of their fallen comrades and the remains of the Inevitables.

The party battled many more minotaurs as they explored more and more of the maze-like section of the dungeon. After battling another leader-type, they discovered a map of the section of dungeon and began using it to aid in their exploration. They also rescued an elf-like creature from the minotaurs named Riswan. Riswan was a beautiful, androgynous elf with reddish hair. He explained that he came from a group of elves who protected the First Tree, an ancient marvel that had fallen into the dungeon centuries ago. He agreed to join the party as long as they were making their way generally back towards the Tree.

Riswan also shared his knowledge of what certain areas of the dungeon were originally built to hold. He told of the undead area, where chaos now reigned and how the entire dungeon was built around this area where the original prisoner was kept, the World Eater, and ancient nightcrawler.

He also told of various derro, duergar and dwarf prisoners who were working for an unknown slaver who had them digging for a slumbering tarrasque. And of the titan that originally guarded the main exit of the dungeon; an area that was now taken over by giants.

And he told of the ancient red dragon Tyrus and his icy prison.

Solara asked of prisoners that the party had already come across. Riswan had heard of some of them and said that the white-haired man in thumb shackles was a Chronomancer, bound by those special bonds as he could bend time itself if he was able to weave his magic. The demon bound in the ice block was a cambion of great power from another realm whose named Riswan did not know.

The party continued on, following their new map and adjusting it when necessary as some old pathways and tunnels no longer existed. They came across a powerful rakshasa named Rashmarik who calmly decimated the party with fireballs while they fought his minotaur minion. Riswan cursed Rashmarik and demanded the rakshasa return a gem to him. The party was unsure of what this dialogue was about, but had bigger worries on their mind. Badly wounded, they were finally able to close on Rashmarik and Glanrak delivered a powerful blow that finally had the rakshasa show fear. Eventually they prevailed, and Riswan rifled the body of the monster to find a gem which he quickly crushed under foot. After doing so, Riswan took his true form, that of a young copper dragon and he explained to the party that Rashmarik had captured him when he appeared in this section of dungeon, and he thanked the party for helping him escape Rashmarik’s spell.

The party decided to rest.

End of sessions 12 and 13.

DMs NOTES:

Everyone in the party is now level 7.


----------



## Schmoe

It's pretty cool to read about this in action.  I don't have the book, but from the reports it looks like the dungeon has potential for a lot more than just hack-and-slash dungeon crawling.  I may have to keep this one on my radar to pick up as a collectible.


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## chrisheff

It's actually a pretty fun read too. There are a lot of plots and sub-plots and storylines going on. Granted, I have altered a fair amount here and there, but overall it's a nice, logical, exciting story to play through.


----------



## Hussar

Schmoe said:


> It's pretty cool to read about this in action.  I don't have the book, but from the reports it looks like the dungeon has potential for a lot more than just hack-and-slash dungeon crawling.  I may have to keep this one on my radar to pick up as a collectible.




Schmoe, honestly, I was rather surprised by how much of this module you could do through pure RP rather than hacking your way through it.  The first section tends to be pretty high hack, as there's not a lot you can talk to - but, even there, the different humanoid bands have lots of stuff going on.

I think that if you wanted to treat this more like a setting and less like an adventure, it wouldn't take a large stretch.


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## chrisheff

The party continued exploring the minotaur section of the dungeon. They encountered more manticores and minotaurs and dealt with them without too much difficulty. While exploring a room that had a strange lock on it, Zathras disappeared into thin air. The party was concerned that it might be a trap like they encountered before where Zathras was teleported into a room with no air, and so Avron also explored the room, also disappearing without a trace. The remaining party discussed their options, though Riswan seemed to think the two were gone for good. Riswan wanted no part in travelling to an unknown destination, but he did agree to wait a few hours in case the party should return. Mechanus and Solara then entered the room and were also teleported to an unknown destination, where they found Avron and Zathras waiting.

The new area was massive and at first it appeared they were outside, above ground again, though the stale air and lack of night sky made them realize they were still underground, albeit in a colossal cavern; one complete with small mountains of its own. The party decided to head towards a large black mountain in the distance. Along the way, they explored a series of caves on a lower mountain near the base of the large black one where they fought some huge air elementals.

After searching the caves, the party followed a natural trail up the side of the hill where they came to a plateau. Upon arrival, they were accosted by a booming voice who demanded to know who they were. When Solara explained she was a follower of Pelor, the voice became more friendly, stating he had heard of that god and was a follower of a god of healing as well. The voice proved to belong to Norkor, a cloud giant. Norkor explained that he had been trapped in this place for decades and that he was only safe on his plateau, having battled the "Devil Wind" and a Roc on the black mountain while looking for a way out. He also explained that there were drow to the south-west. Looking at their map of the dungeon, the party decided to continue to make for the Titan’s exit, passing through the undead section in order to see what could be done about ensuring the World Eater remained imprisoned. Norkor agreed to fly the party to the border of the undead section.

Once there, the party found the large gate to the undead section to be closed and they talked with a lantern archon there who said the main gates were still sealed and the undead were still trapped within the large section (although they were free within those confines). The archon stated he thought a passage may have opened up to the undead section from the south. The party decided to follow the lava river to the south to see if they could gain entrance to the undead section, or find some other way around to the Titan’s exit.

End of session 14.


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## chrisheff

The party began to follow the lava river to the south in hopes of eventually finding entrance into the undead section. The huge cavernous tunnels eventually turned east and following it, the party encountered a fire giant sorting some unrefined iron ore. The party did not want to leave the giant behind them, and so approached and a fight ensued. Moving further along, they discovered another fire giant loading a sled with ore. The giant was accosting some azer slaves, and the party attacked, killing the giant and freeing the slaves. An aasimar sorcerer was bound and gagged in the sled, and the party freed him. His name was Killiash of Neverwinter, and he agreed to join the party to pay back their kindness.

The party continued on and found the corridor to the north that they were looking for that would lead them back into the dungeon proper and from there to the undead section. However, to the south was another fire giant loading ore into a makeshift forge. Again, the party did not want to leave a giant so close by in case it was to notice them and attack from the rear, so they attacked the giant. Another giant was nearby but out of sight and also attacked. Victorious, the party decided to continue south for a little ways to perhaps clear out a few more of the giants and try to discover what they were doing with the iron ore they were collecting and refining. 

They dispatched a few more of the giants, before coming upon a throne room with a female giant rogue in attendance. The giant queen was arguing with three other fire giants about how to handle the troll problem to the east. The party attacked, and underestimated the strength of their foes. Zathras was killed by one of the giants, and it looked bleak for the rest of the party. However, they were just able to kill the three giants and the queen decided it was in her best interest to stop the fighting and escape. The party agreed to let her go after she told them of the troll problem and left behind any treasure she was not carrying on her person.

Solara was able to raise Zathras from the dead with her strengthened divine power; Pelor bestowing great blessings on her. The party spent most of the next day resting from their battles with the giants. Both Zathras and Solara had vivid dreams as they rested; Zathras reading his as a sign of his longing for home, but Solara feared hers was a premonition granted her from Pelor. She feared some of the prisoners that they had seen before might be escaping and she sent a magical message to Kelara and the celestials warning them of her visions.

The party moved to the east, again putting off the undead goal for the time being, to see about the trolls. They discovered two magically enhanced trolls guarding a lavish brass room with cushions rugs and tapestries. They dispatched the trolls and Zathras disarmed an extremely tricky and difficult trapped chest to discover a gem of fire elemental control and a djinni’s lamp.

The party continued east to discover a large fiery demon controlling a dozen trolls. The demon sent the trolls forth to fight the party, but as their numbers dwindled, the demon escaped into thin air, leaving the now befuddled trolls to their deaths.


Zathras dream #1:

You are sitting in your favourite tavern, “The Seaworthy Wench”. You are at your favourite table, enjoying good company and good drink. A bard plays a song on a mandolin, but you can’t quite make out the tune. The place is full of patrons, and familiar smells of exotic pipe weed and foods assail your senses. A buxom serving wench approaches your table and replenishes your drinks. She keeps looking back over her shoulder. You ask her what she keeps looking at.

“Someone wants to see you,” she says.


Zathras dream #2:

You are sitting in your favourite tavern, “The Seaworthy Wench”. You are at your favourite table, enjoying good company and good drink. A buxom serving wench approaches your table and replenishes your drinks. She keeps looking back over her shoulder. You ask her what she keeps looking at.

“Someone wants to see you,” she says. She turns and points to the back of the bar. You follow her gaze and spot a hooded figure seated alone at a table in the corner. The face is covered, but underneath the cloak you can see a woman’s body covered with tight black leather. You feel a chill along your spine.


Zathras dream #3:

You are sitting in your favourite tavern, “The Seaworthy Wench”. You are at your favourite table, enjoying good company and good drink. A buxom serving wench approaches your table and replenishes your drinks. She keeps looking back over her shoulder. You ask her what she keeps looking at.

“Someone wants to see you,” she says. She turns and points to the back of the bar. A figure is slipping into a back room through a door. You don’t know why, but you get up to follow. You feel a chill as you enter the back room, and you see a dark female form mostly hidden in the shadows.

“Who are you?” you ask.

“One that can aid you,” she replies. “Find me. Find me and I can help you return to your home…”

The figure dissolves into the shadows and you feel a cold hand touch your shoulder from behind you…


Solara dream #1:

You are in the Church of Pelor. You know you need to see the chief priests, but you cannot remember why and you cannot remember the way. Finally you find yourself in a long hall and you quickly make your way along it. The hall stretches forever, and you seem to be making no progress.

At the end of the hall stand three figures. You sigh with relief as you think the chief priests are there to meet you. But something is wrong. Though you cannot make out their faces, you know it is not the priests. You turn to go back the way you came but you find yourself in a small cell with a block of ice in its centre. Chains hang down from the ceiling and are frozen into the ice. Inside sits a shadowy figure, waiting.

You look down to see you are standing in a thin layer of water. Looking at the block you realize the ice is melting.


Solara dream #2:

You are in the Church of Pelor. The hall you are in stretches forever, and you seem to be making no progress along it.

At the end of the hall stand three figures. Though you cannot make out their faces, you know it is not the priests. You turn to go back the way you came but you find yourself in a small cell with a block of ice in its centre. Inside sits a shadowy figure, moving slightly as the ice around it melts.

You turn to flee and run straight into the three figures at the end of the hall. You look up into their faces and all you can make out are glowing red eyes and the sound of sand falling.


Solara dream #3:

You are in the Church of Pelor. The hall you are in stretches forever, and you seem to be making no progress along it.

At the end of the hall stand four figures. Before them lies a pool of water with chains lying free in the middle of it. You feel an unbelievable sense of dread, and you turn to flee only to come face to face with the four figures.

One has long white hair, dressed in black. He holds an hour glass in his hand.

One stands hunched in a dusty and torn death shroud, its eyes glowing red.

One is impossible to discern.

And the fourth stands in the middle. Grey and red robes flowing from his tall form, a single horn protruding from the left side of his head. Black wings protrude from his back. His mouth is full of sharp teeth behind an evil smile, and his eyes burn with hatred.


DMs NOTE:

Avron is level 10.
Solara is level 10.
Mechanus is level 9.
Zathras is level 9.
Glanrak is level 9.
Shaara is level 9.


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## chrisheff

After resting, the party awoke to find that Avron had disappeared. Mechanus stated that Avron had said he could not sleep and wished to walk the nearby hall, but never returned. Fearing he had gone off to see the imprisoned red dragon (of whom Avron had been continually mentioning) the party went off in pursuit. Back in the tunnels the party was set upon by two wandering fire giants. In the battle, the party was aided by an unknown source. After the battle, the party discovered a tiny sprite hiding in the shadows who had been blasting the giants with lightning bolts.

The spryte’s name was Vaeth and he explained that he was from the same are of the dungeon as the party’s old companion Riswan. Indeed he had been tracking Riswan when he fell through the same portal the young dragon had, but had been teleported to a completely different area of the dungeon. Vaeth agreed to accompany the party, everyone knowing there was strength in numbers. Solara had another dream, this time Kelara and the celestials lay dead in pools of blood.

The party realized the search for Avron was futile, and that if he wanted to be found, he would find the party. The party continued to explore, and found a series of hallways with statues of angels, gods and ogres. Much searching and deduction had the party re-arranging the statues and activating switches found on some of the statues in the hopes of unlocking some sort of puzzle. They seemed to succeed. Zathras had another dream that the final puzzle was to be found on a ziggurat near the lava river. He believed they could free an imprisoned celestial inside, perhaps the woman from his dreams. Upon arrival, some of the party members had doubts that anything good could be imprisoned inside, but they discovered the way in anyway.

Once inside, the door re-sealed, trapping the party within. Exploring the tomb, the party found a beautiful celestial vampire and her minions. Her name was Serratine and she wanted to strike a deal with the party. Other than Zathras, the party would have none of it and attacked. They made quick work of her minions, but she escaped in gaseous form to hide in the cracks in the walls of the tomb. The party tried to find a way out, but could not. They summoned a djinn from their lamp, and he tracked the vampire, but could do nothing to lure her back into the tomb. 

Serratine continued to speak in Zathras’ mind, hoping he would be able to convince the party to work with her. She told Zathras that she left the means to their escape back at the room where the battle took place. Searching there, the party discovered a ring of three wishes with one wish remaining. The party tried to figure out what to wish for, assuming that it wouldn’t be as easy and just wishing they were outside the tomb. Serratine told them they had to wish for the door to open for them, and that she was unable to use the ring; a final taunt from her celestial wardens. The party did not wish the set such a fiend free, but they could see no other way of escaping the ziggurat. They wished for the door to appear and waited for Serratine to leave the tomb. However, the vampire never appeared, presumably escaping through some other method, perhaps the opening of the door allowed her to escape through the cracks in which she hid.

End of session 16.


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## chrisheff

The party decided to make their way back to the Celestial garrison to make sure Kelara got Solara’s magical message about the possible escaping prisoner. They made their way back without too much difficulty only to discover a massacre. Kelara and the other celestials had been torn apart in an apparently one-sided battle. The party studied the area and determined that all the celestials were accounted for except Doj, who was either not present at the time of the battle or who had somehow escaped the carnage. The party found Wetoq, the inevitable quartermaster, in a side room still slightly functional. Vaeth repaired him somewhat and he recounted the tale of how Incantus, the Vengeful (for that was the name of the cambion who was held prisoner in the block of ice), came to the garrison and murdered everyone. The cambion had two companions, the Chronomancer and another being whom Wetoq could not describe as to look on him caused light to bend in strange ways, making it impossible to focus. Wetoq explained that Incantus was looking for something that was valuable to him, but Kelara had hidden it inside Mechanus when he was created. Incantus was able to glean this information through magic before killing Kelara. Wetoq told the party that Incantus was looking for them, or more specifically for Mechanus. The party buried the celestials in the nearby forest, and left Wetoq to maintain the area as best as he could.

The party returned to the section with the fire giants and trolls and began to explore once again. They triggered a huge pit trap and Solara and Killiash fell 140 feet. Unfortunately the fall killed the aasimar sorcerer.

The party found more statues of Serratine, and even heard her voice begging for help again. Though Zathras wanted to investigate further, it was deduced that the voice was a recording, still functional even though she had already escaped.

The party rested, and once again tried to determine the best course of action.

End of session 17.

Updated party list:

Solara, level 12 female human cleric of Pelor.
Vaeth, level 12 male spryte conjurer.
Mechanus, level 12 male warforged Juggernaut.
Zathras, level 11 male half-elf swashbuckler.
Glanrak, level 11 male dwarf paladin of Moradin.
Sharra, level 11 female halfling warlock.


----------



## chrisheff

The party decided to go back and deal with the mining operation that they had noticed. They knew they would be dealing with the azer slaves and their masters, but did not really know the extent of the operation. On their way, they met a wandering behir that looked half-starved. They got the behir to chase them towards the mine, hoping it would add a distraction. It did; the behir began to attack the azer guards. The party also joined the fray while the azer slaves fled. Two fire giants also appeared, and one was blasted down into the mine pit by a combined spell attack from Shaara and Vaeth. The other was caught in one of Solara’s blade barriers.

After dealing with the mine, the party discovered a room filled with gems; cast offs from the mining operation (the giants wanted the ore, not the gems). The party took a few diamonds and left the fortune behind.

The party continued to explore the region, slowly making their way to the icy prison of the ancient red dragon Tyrus, hoping to thwart any plans the giants had of digging the beast free. They found more statues of Serratine as well as a nasty fire cloud trap. They also discovered a series of rooms that contained huge celestial rasts. Normally benign beings, these were insane and attacked the party on sight.

The party decided to rest to recover.

End of session 18


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## chrisheff

The party continued exploring the region, dealing with more demented celestial rasts. They also found a heavily locked room with the word “Lament” written on it in Celestial. Regardless of the many locks, the party had Zathras do his thing and the party soon entered the room. The inside of the room was sheathed in iron. A globe was floating in the center of the room and within it was a fist-sized cube. The cube radiated powerful evil. Vaeth studied the cube and discerned it was a puzzle box that could open portals. Concerned that the box was held in stasis for a reason, the party left it alone and re-sealed the doors.

A terrible earthquake struck, shaking the very foundations of the dungeon. The party feared that the giants and their minions may have released Tyrus the dragon. They came upon a room of huge cages with a gargantuan fiendish wyvern roaming free. The wyvern summoned a bone devil to fight the party while it cast spells. The bone devil didn’t prove much of a challenge, but it did buy time for the wyvern to seriously harm the party with a horrid wilting spell. Shaara was killed by the magic. The party was able to close in on the wyvern finally, and destroy it.

They found more rooms with fiendish wyverns, including one that was half-asleep, coveting a golden coffer. The party snuck in and stole the coffer. They discerned the coffer was cursed with a deep slumber spell, but Zathras hung on to the item, immune to its effects.

Another quake wracked the halls, and the party decided to try to find where the giants were digging without any further delay. After searching some of the likely areas, they found a large room with a tunnel that had been dug through the walls. Three giants were guarding the tunnel, one of them wearing a medallion of Tiamat. The party attacked, and the first two giants fell. The third ran down the tunnel. Zathras pursued but stopped when he saw what was beyond.

The tunnel opened into a huge ice cavern. In the center of the cavern was a colossal red dragon, its’ wings spread as if preparing for flight. All around the ice was breaking and falling and melting. Giants and azers were cowering in adulation to the beast, Tyrus. Zathras fled the cavern in heart stopping fear. He ran back through the tunnel and past the party, babbling about the dragon. Mechanus, immune to fear, entered to observe. Tyrus at last spread his wings fully and flew to the top of the cavern, some 700 feet above. He crashed through the ice and rock, causing the rest of the ice to fall, killing the giants and azers within. Mechanus took shelter inside the tunnel. Above, Tyrus left nothing but a huge gaping whole in the ceiling of the cavern.

The party entered to search the cavern, discovering Tyrus’ treasure of coins and gems. Vaeth and the resurrected Shaara flew to the top of the cavern to see where Tyrus went, and if perhaps it was a way out of the dungeon. What they saw was mostly beyond their comprehension. Outside the hole was a night sky, but not a night sky. Strands of white appeared and disappeared and huge chunks of rock floated by in the darkness. The slightly uneven surface from the hole stretched off as far as they could see. Vaeth discerned that this was the dungeon floating through the astral plane.

The party decided to finally enter the undead region in an attempt to deal with the largest threat of the dungeon, the World Eater. They passed numerous wards and protective measures before encountering numerous rooms filled with undead hordes; skeletons, wraiths, and wights. These undead were not humans, but were some sort of demented humanoid forms, standing nearly eight feet tall. This was the oldest section of the dungeon and its inhabitants may have been interred here ages before the birth of humans.

End of session 19.

The pictures: 1) The gang (clockwise from front - Shaara, Mechanus, Zathras, DM, Vaeth, Solara, missing - Glanrak), 2) Fighting the wyvern (the gargantuan black dragon mini standing in for the wyvern) - with a dead Shaara, 3) Zathras chasing the fire giant and meeting Tyrus


----------



## chrisheff

The party continued to slowly make their way towards the central chamber of the undead region, wanting to ensure the Nightcrawler was still imprisoned. However, they did not want to leave any potential dangers behind them, so they continued to take their time, checking rooms and other areas especially since they knew there were powerful intelligent undead somewhere within.

They fought more hordes of skeletons, wights and zombies as they made their way. Soon, they found themselves in the domain of The Great Death; a giant demented bodak who though he was the God of Death himself. A battle with the beast ensued, but the party was protected against Death magic by Solara, greatly diminishing the dangers posed by the bodak. The battle was still hard fought, with Mechanus taking a fairly severe beating, but the beast was eventually vanquished. Upon his death, his hordes and followers died their final death. The party also dispatched a pair of morghs that the bodak had been keeping prisoner.

The party continued forth, Solara feeling her connection to Pelor and Glanrak feeling his connection to Moradin becoming more and more faint.

End of session 20.

DMs NOTES:

Solara is now level 14.
Everyone else is level 13.


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## Hussar

Wow, 20 sessions in and you're 13-14th level?  How long are your sessions?


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## chrisheff

We usually play 5-6 hours per session. They've really started going up very fast the last six or seven sessions due to the fact they have been adventuring in sections that are a good 4-5 levels above the suggested levels for the party (ie: region J is suggested for levels 13-15 but they were there at level 9) so they are getting huge amounts of xp due to the level of CR they are facing compared to their levels. However, they are surviving since I allowed non-Core options for their characters (which I probably shouldn't have as the WLD advises against it since the adventure itself is Core only). I can see why, because the options I've allowed have perhaps made it a little too "easy" for the party (too many immunities, special attacks, etc). 

The bodak was a CR 18 monster with a few CR 5 minions. The party received no xp for the minions, but approximately 8000-9000xp each for the bodak. That's more than half a level in one encounter. Early on in the game I was using my own xp calculation, which is generally just giving between 2000-3000xp per session, but once the party hit about 6th-7th level this was progressing too slowly, so I decided to give out xp as per the rules in the DMG. Suffice it to say when a party is fighting against encounters that are a good 3-4 levels above their party level, they gain crazy amounts of xp and that is why they are level 13-14 after 20 sessions.

EDIT: At the rate it's progressing, I don't see the game going past May (I'm guessing 6 or 7 more sessions at the most) at which point I'll be starting a new non-dungeon campaign with them.

EDIT 2: Just read a bit at the beginning of the WLD that I completely missed, and/or forgot about. It talks about how a party will progress too quickly if you use the normal xp system, and suggests parties only level up once or twice per region, and how they should only get full xp the first time they defeat a specific monster. So my party would have gotten at least one level less when dealing with the fire giant section for sure if they were only getting 1/2 xp for every encounter after the first fire giant fight.


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## chrisheff

Finding maps of the region with the bodak’s treasure, the party decided to explore the perimeter of the Nightcrawler’s prison to make sure any locks, traps and protections were still in place before deciding what to do from there. On the way, the party had a rough go of it in a room with magical darkness that even Solara’s blessed radiance could barely overcome. In the room were a number of wraiths and dread wraiths. Solara and Shaara both nearly had their life forces completely drained from them. The party was able to win the day however, and leave the dreaded room behind.

They encountered smaller rooms, also containing dread wraiths, albeit in smaller numbers. They dispatched these beings and continued on their way, finally discovering one of the passages leading to the prison of the Nightcrawler. The passage was blocked by a scintillating wall of force as well as a door with a strange lock on it. Satisfied that this passage was still secure, the party continued on to the next. 

After battling some wights on skeletal wyverns, the party discovered a room with a diabolical trap. The walls began closing on the party. They only had a few seconds to decide what to do. Glanrak used his new rock walking ability, and moved through the wall to the hallway they had come from. Vaeth created a magical abode using a spell, and the rest of the party entered it just as the walls closed shut. There they waited wondering if the walls would re-open allowing them to escape, and even if they did, would they have enough time to escape the room before the trap sprung again. Would they be trapped in Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion forever?

End of session 21.


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## TarionzCousin

chrisheff said:


> Would they be trapped in Mordenkainen’s Magnificant Mansion forever?



I vote "Yes" because it would be a memorable way to end a campaign. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





[sblock]Just kidding. If I were a player stuck in a situation like this, I would expect/want/beg for a way to escape.[/sblock]


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## chrisheff

I definitely plan on making them sweat a little.


----------



## chrisheff

Still trapped in the extra-dimensional mansion, the party waited hoping the trap
would reset itself and allow them to escape. Meanwhile Glanrak kept and eye on
the room from the hallway, hoping the trap would reset. Vaeth checked every few
minutes and after about twenty, he was able to see into the room again and not
just see solid rock; the trap had reset.  [NOTE: they were definitely worried for a while there] The party then quickly made their way back to the original hallway, and decided to circumvent the trap room. They fought more undead and finally made their way back to the hall around the main burial chamber.

One of the morghs they fought actually bartered for its unlife when it knew it
was near death. The party was able to get some information from it before
killing it. They discovered that the morghs were underlings of one of the three
contesting factions in this region; lead by the priestess of death,
Kasteoficiss. The morgh would not say what the priestess was or what her plans
were. Her enemies were factions lead by the ghost Vinnara and her wraith
minions, and the lich Invistis and his golem minions.

Shaara began having visions of Incantus the Vengeful. He stated he would be
sending Shadow Demon to speak with them. Shadow Demon appeared as they rested
and told them Incantus wanted what was inside Mechanus. The demon said it could
be taken out without hurting Mechanus and that the party would then be shown the
way out of the undead region. The party asked for the night to think it over.
When Shadow Demon returned in the morning, the party had set a trap for it and
killed it.

They discovered the third hall leading towards the chamber; this one guarded by
a shield guardian that proved extremely difficult to defeat. The portal beyond
was still functional, meaning that at least three of the four portals to the
central chamber were still sealed. The party prepared to move on to check the
fourth.

End of session 22.


----------



## chrisheff

As they prepared to continue, little did the party know that in the next 24 hours, three of them would die and one would be magically imprisoned.

The party decided to leave the final door of the inner chamber, and instead try to find the ghost who was one of the three powerful undead controlling the area. They didn’t have to search long, as after making their way through a trap laden hall, they discovered her lair. Solara and Glanrak felt completely separated from their gods upon entering her domain.

The party entered and Vinnara the ghost greeted them and said she wished to speak with them. She told her tale and answered their questions, stating that she has been imprisoned here for 4,000 years and that she knows she cannot escape. All she wants is to rule the area without competition and that she wants the World Eater to remain imprisoned. She stated that Invistus, the lich only wanted power; whether or not that included releasing the World Eater, she did not know. The Mummy Lord Kasteoficiss however wished to release the World Eater. The priestess of death believed the Nightcrawler to be the avatar of her long lost god. Vinnara told the party that if they were to destroy the mummy, she had a pile of magic items she would give them as they were useless to her. She also promised them she would show them to a portal which would bring them out of the undead area very close to the exit from the dungeon. She also mentioned Kasteoficiss was in league with a cambion demon who had recently entered the undead area. The party assumed this was Incantus, the Vengeful, and it gave them more incentive to deal with the mummy.

They left Vinnara and started out to the mummy’s domain. They battled morghs, two of whom read scrolls, one with a spell that killed Shaara. She was raised by Solara. They also set off traps that become more and more deadly the closer they got to the mummy. One trap killed Zathras, but he was quickly revived by Solara. Another killed Solara, but luckily she and Vaeth had planned ahead and stored a raise dead spell in one of Vaeth’s contructs, allowing Solara to be raised.

Finally they entered the throne room of Kasteoficiss and there found Incantus and the Chronomancer. Zathras entered the room first and engaged the mummy’s alip servants. Incantus came forward and cast an imprisonment spell on the rogue, who was trapped inside an orb and disappeared into the floor. Mechanus rushed forward to confront the cambion who wanted the object within his chest. Before Incantus could cast another spell, Mechanus swung his intelligent sword, N’han Dae downwards, invoking the sword’s powerful retributive strike ability. The sword cut into the cambion and then exploded, taking the powerful demon sorcerer with it in an explosion of light and dark. A faint spirit of light could be seen rising from the explosion, leaving the sword which had held it’s spirit for so long. When normalcy returned, Incantus was gone, and Mechanus held naught but the burnt out hilt of N’han Dae.

With the powerful demon gone, the battle quickly turned to the party’s favour. The Chronomancer stopped time and made his escape, leaving Kasteoficcis alone to deal with the party. She cast a few spells but was thwarted by Mechanus’ immunities and then she was quickly cut down and destroyed.

The party brought word of her demise back to Vinnara who kept her promise and gave the party the magic items. She stated she would show them the portal if they wished, but they had just the one chance. She would not show them later.

The party had to decide what to do. They did not want to leave Zathras to his prison, but they were not powerful enough to cast the spell needed to free him. They considered striking a deal with the one being nearby who was powerful enough - Invistus the lich. They considered their options…

End of session 23.


----------



## chrisheff

Session 24:

Vinnara mentioned to the party that there were three lesser beings in the region that were trying to become more powerful; a ghost named the Forgotten One who was once her companion, a wight named the Black Empress, and a lich who calls himself Saint Azamond and was once Invistis’ apprentice. The party decided to search for these lesser beings while they decided what to do about Zathras.

They found The Black Empress’ original tomb, and upon searching it, discovered Zathras! Or so they thought. The person they found was not the Zathras they knew, but rather Zathras’ brother… also named Zathras. He became lost in the dungeon when he went looking for his brother. The church of Pelor sent him into the crypts where he met the Celestial Doj, who sent him in the direction of the party. Zathras joined the party hoping he could aid them in freeing his brother Zathras.

The party searched the area once controlled by the mummy Kasteoficiss, battling numerous of her remaining allip servants. Throughout the search, Vaeth seemed distracted and quiet.


Session 25:

The party was immediately set upon by the three lesser undead mentioned by Vinnara. The party had trouble at first, but soon dispatched the wight and ghost. The lich escaped however.

Looking for a place to rest, the party met a Lillend and her elf companion. Glanrak sensed the powerful evil emanating from the elf, but the Lillend was known to be a creature of good and she vouched for the elf. She told a tale of sections of the dungeon collapsing in on itself and disappearing. Vaeth mentioned that he had lost contact with The One Tree and that he feared it had disappeared from the dungeon. It seemed the dungeon was slowly collapsing. The party continued, thinking on the matter.

They found a room guarded by four powerful golems. After a long battle, the golems were destroyed and the party found two scrolls hidden within the walls; a scroll of destruction and a scroll of freedom. They had found the means to free Zathras!

The party returned to the mummy’s lair and used the scroll to free their companion. Zathras was very happy to see Zathras. The party decided that with the dungeon collapsing in on itself, it was time they tried to make their way to the exit and escape this foul place. They left the undead area behind and travelled through a bog-like area on the edge of an underground lake. A wall of astral blackness could be seen far in the distance. Though they could not actually see it moving, they sensed it was slowly engulfing all in its wake.

Following the cavern north, the caves turned icy. The party encountered frost giants, but dispatched them without too much difficulty. They found human slaves who said they were fishermen from Purmill, a village the party knew was in the Griff Mountains in the icy north of their world of Greyhawk!

The party freed the slaves and continued their journey, skirting a giant bear and its behir companion. Close to what they hoped was the exit, the party discovered a titan held prisoner in a magical block of ice. They began trying to free the titan.

End of session 25.


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## Remus Lupin

I've seen this thread on the boards for such a long time, it hadn't occurred to me: This thread is about 8 years old! I wonder if that's some kind of record.


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## chrisheff

As the party was still deciding on what to do next to free the titan, they were attacked from both ends of the tunnel. A large group of frost giant warriors was charging in from the north, while the giant polar bear and remorhaz was approaching from the south.

The battle was long, but the giants were ill prepared for the combination of Solara’s blade barrier, and Glanrak after he was made huge-sized by Vaeth.

The bear and remorhaz proved more difficult, but the party was able to deal with them eventually as well. When the bear was killed, it reverted to its human form; that of a large barbarian.

Unfortunately, three of the human slaves were killed during the battle, but the ice imprisoning the titan was also weakened, and the legendary giant was freed. He stated that he was the original guard of the exit to the dungeon, but that the exit had merged with mountains and been cut off from the dungeon whenever it would leave this world. Frost giants from this world invaded and imprisoned him here centuries ago. When the titan learned that this world was home to the slaves and some of the party, he told them to go with a glad heart. Now that the dungeon had collapsed in on itself and finally winked out of existence, he was free to return to his home.

The party escorted the slaves down the final tunnel into the wintery day. They were home! They brought the slaves safely to their village and then Solara used her magic to bring the party back to the church of Pelor in Lankhmar. They had escaped Aquelestria, the World’s Largest Dungeon…

Epilogue:

Shaara returned to her village, and was treated no differently, regardless of her new skills and powers. That is until the village was attacked by a couple of ogres a few years later and Shaara defeated them single-handedly. After that she was hailed as a hero and she lived under their adoration for the rest of her life. 

Vaeth had a new world to explore, spending some time with Solara, some with Mechanus and much on his own. He gathered more power until he was ready to travel the planes in search of The Tree.

Solara eventually made her way back to Greyhawk City to the main Cathedral of Pelor after writing detailed descriptions of her travels for the church of Pelor in Lankhmar. She made a copy of the report for the heads of the Pelor religion. She championed the church to return more to its roots in the protection of the innocent and the destruction of undead/hellish/fiendish creatures and eventually became a High Priestess of Pelor, and the third most powerful person in the entire religion.

With the aid of Vaeth, Mechanus was able to identify the item inside himself that Incantus was after: an artifact called the Jacinth of Inestimable Beauty. While this powerful artifact had the power to do good, it was corrupting to most, and very dangerous if in evil hands. Vaeth's insatiable curiosity was piqued when the item was identified, enough to worry Mechanus. So Mechanus did what he felt was best, and willed his own energies to consume the artifact within him. Now no one could be corrupted by its beauty and power. Mechanus still adjusts to the world of Greyhawk, as are the citizens still adjusting to him. He still stays in touch with his old party, but mostly travels and explores on his own.

Glanrak travelled back to his home with the hammer, Ramnak, and the stories of adventure.  Looking back on his quest, he was more convinced then ever of his purpose in service to Moradin and his people.  He spends his days searching for other lost dwarven artifacts and relics, bolstering the strength of his people.

It didn’t take long for Zathras the swashbuckler to get a ship of his own. To the chagrin of some of his old companions, he raids along the Wild Coast, though mostly plundering orc vessels and pirates. His ship, the Serratine, is romanticized in story and song.

Elsewhere…

The beautiful Devil smiled as she watched the form approach, its head bowed in shame or supplication or embarrassment or perhaps all three. She leaned back in her obsidian throne and waited. The figure went to one knee before her. It lifted its head slowly, its one horn, once a vibrant blood-red, was now blackened and cracked. His face was also badly scarred, but was showing signs of healing.

“Well?” she asked after making him suffer a while longer.

“I failed,” came the reply.

“So I gathered,” she answered, trying to sound angry, when in fact she was close to tears of laughter. “Such a simple task,” she went on. “So very simple. Yet you manage to get yourself captured by Celestials, and imprisoned by them for two centuries. Finally when you escape, you allow yourself to be defeated by a group of mortals! All because of a piece of colored rock!”

“Forgive me, I…” he began.

“Silence!” the chamber rocked with her voice, and her minions trembled and hid. “The gem is destroyed…”

At this, the figure looked fearful. She leaned in close to him.

“As it should have been long ago. Think of what it has cost you!” She let that sink in before continuing. “When you are fully healed, you will return to the Realm, ruling as you still should have been. Go now.”

The figure stood and slowly walked away from Glasya, the Princess of the Nine Hells.

“And Venger…”

Incantus stopped in his tracks, a stinging look on his face at the mention of his True Name.

“Don’t fail me again,“ she finished.

Incantus turned to her and bowed. “Yes, mother,” he said, and left the throne room.


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## chrisheff

So ends my WLD campaign, which lasted I believe just over a year. It was extremely fun, but if I had to do it again, I would allow Core-only rules. I also should have stuck with the rules as written as far as conjuration magic went, and not allowed it, as that magic eventually became very powerful for the party. I started by allowing a few optional rules here and there but they soon got a little out of control, especially with players who really know how to min/max. The party was definitely too powerful for the dungeon as written, but there were still some party deaths and still some tough binds.

So we all had a great time. Now Ray (Vaeth) will be running a Darksun campaign which I will be playing in and we're going to playtest 5th edition D&D starting on Friday.

Thanks for following along!


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## erucsbo

chrisheff said:


> So ends my WLD campaign, which lasted I believe just over a year. ...
> Thanks for following along!




thanks for posting.
Mine last much longer than a year and I think that was what helped things turn sour. The shorter time you took worked in your favour.

All the best with the next campaign - may you roll 20s when you need them and 1s when it doesn't matter.


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## ckelble

I just started reading this forum feed and i have a LOT of pages still to go through.  I am going to run the WLD in Pathfinder for my group shortly but I am hearing a lot of good ideas from other DM's I plan on including into my own game.  I don't suppose anyone here still has the writer's notes from the beginning of the forum? Also, while reading the through the first couple sections of the book are DM's setting a course for their players of allowing them to progress thru as originally intended?  I am just curious what has and hasn't worked for other groups.


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## chrisheff

ckelble said:


> I just started reading this forum feed and i have a LOT of pages still to go through. I am going to run the WLD in Pathfinder for my group shortly but I am hearing a lot of good ideas from other DM's I plan on including into my own game. I don't suppose anyone here still has the writer's notes from the beginning of the forum? Also, while reading the through the first couple sections of the book are DM's setting a course for their players of allowing them to progress thru as originally intended? I am just curious what has and hasn't worked for other groups.




As you'll see when you get to my posts, I had two major "problems" when I ran my campaign and I would do these differently if I were to run the WLD again:

1) I would allow Core rules only. I allowed a bunch of stuff outside of the Core rules and without realizing it, my PCs got very powerful... too powerful for the dungeon really. I don't know Pathfinder, but if it's on par with the Core rules (PHB only for PCs) then you should be alright.

2) The second one is cutting back on XP a little. I don't know if I'd do what the book says to do, but maybe even just cut back 10-20% of the xp earned every session. Otherwise the party will probably level too quickly.

Other than that, the book plays pretty well as written, though there may be some areas you want to tweak or add a personal touch too, and some of the posts here will give you some good ideas.


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## ckelble

chrisheff said:


> As you'll see when you get to my posts, I had two major "problems" when I ran my campaign and I would do these differently if I were to run the WLD again:
> 
> 1) I would allow Core rules only. I allowed a bunch of stuff outside of the Core rules and without realizing it, my PCs got very powerful... too powerful for the dungeon really. I don't know Pathfinder, but if it's on par with the Core rules (PHB only for PCs) then you should be alright.
> 
> 2) The second one is cutting back on XP a little. I don't know if I'd do what the book says to do, but maybe even just cut back 10-20% of the xp earned every session. Otherwise the party will probably level too quickly.
> 
> Other than that, the book plays pretty well as written, though there may be some areas you want to tweak or add a personal touch too, and some of the posts here will give you some good ideas.






Pathfinder is D&D 3.75.

I am mainly sticking to the PHB with limited outside options.  

I have decided not to deliver experience the normal way since I am aware of people character's leveling quickly.  Not only that, I have noticed that when I don't deliver XP in the normal way, the players are less by the numbers and more bout the role-play.


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## Hussar

To be honest, I didn't have the problem with non-core stuff.  I let the players min-max to their hearts content and it didn't really matter.  The monsters are still pretty capable of ganking PC's.

Couple of pointers:

1.  Move about 1/3 of the encounters into hallways to make them more dynamic.

2.  Be careful of the sardine can of monster rooms where you have small rooms filled to the brim with big monsters that actually cannot fight in that room.

3.  Figure out some way to replace dead PC's.  

4.  Take a bit of time to make sure the players can get information.  Let stuff surrender and draw maps for the PC's, tell them the lay of the land, that sort of thing.


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## ckelble

Hussar said:


> To be honest, I didn't have the problem with non-core stuff.  I let the players min-max to their hearts content and it didn't really matter.  The monsters are still pretty capable of ganking PC's.
> 
> Couple of pointers:
> 
> 1.  Move about 1/3 of the encounters into hallways to make them more dynamic.
> 
> 2.  Be careful of the sardine can of monster rooms where you have small rooms filled to the brim with big monsters that actually cannot fight in that room.
> 
> 3.  Figure out some way to replace dead PC's.
> 
> 4.  Take a bit of time to make sure the players can get information.  Let stuff surrender and draw maps for the PC's, tell them the lay of the land, that sort of thing.





I am thinking of changing up some of the monster in case some of them have read some of the campaign in the years since its come out.

I am aware that there are some monsters that don't fit in the room they were designed for.

For #3  and #4  I was thinking of utilizing the Archons in the regions as well as other tidbits for resurrections and information.  

I also have been trying to think of whether or not to have the dungeon with a path for the players or leave it as is for exploration.  My only concern is if the party goes straight north when the enter and then decide to go back south where the challenge rating and experience is lower then the players.  My group is the type to want to explore everywhere not just kill the boss and get out.


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## Hussar

I wouldn't worry too much about the challenge ratings to be honest.  For one, the dungeon is bloody lethal, so, even if they have a bit of an easier time in one place, there's still lots of challenge to be had.  Besides, if they head straight north, they are going to get curb stomped by the creatures in E long before you have to worry about them coming back for easier pickings.


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## ckelble

I have only gotten through the first 50 pages of the forum but does anyone still have the writers notes that he wasn't able to publish in the book?  He has an email address posted but I receive a email error message when I attend to contact him.


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## erucsbo

ckelble said:


> I have only gotten through the first 50 pages of the forum but does anyone still have the writers notes that he wasn't able to publish in the book? He has an email address posted but I receive a email error message when I attend to contact him.




IIRC they were posted in the thread - perhaps you haven't reached them yet?
There was a bundle of pages that got lost in a server crash too, but don't think those posts were in that lot.
I may still have a copy floating around somewhere if you can't find them.


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## erucsbo

Question for those who have played through this, especially if it has been a few years.
What stands out in your memory as iconic moments / scenarios / encounters from WLD? And why?


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## JediSoth

erucsbo said:


> Question for those who have played through this, especially if it has been a few years.
> What stands out in your memory as iconic moments / scenarios / encounters from WLD? And why?




The biggest things that stand out in my memory is Darkmantles in Area A and the chest mimic inside the gelatinous cube (which my players never found, but I wanted them to SO BAD).

Oh, there was the time when an entire area exploded in fire because the PCs weren't fast enough doing something or another. Most of the players took their lumps, but one guy wanted to argue with me about the saving throw he didn't get because there was no was for him to avoid damage (it would be like saying you could survive immersing yourself in lava if you were lucky enough).


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## erucsbo

JediSoth said:


> The biggest things that stand out in my memory is Darkmantles in Area A and the chest mimic inside the gelatinous cube (which my players never found, but I wanted them to SO BAD).
> 
> Oh, there was the time when an entire area exploded in fire because the PCs weren't fast enough doing something or another. Most of the players took their lumps, but one guy wanted to argue with me about the saving throw he didn't get because there was no was for him to avoid damage (it would be like saying you could survive immersing yourself in lava if you were lucky enough).




How far did you get through the dungeon?


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## Hussar

We finished the bad boy - I added an exit to Area D after the defeat of the Tarrasque (which stands out in my mind since the group flawlessed this bad boy).

Memorable moments:

1.  The gobling thief (PC) getting suggestioned by the wererat in A and avoiding THREE grapple attempts by much larger PC's before jumping into the portal, thus getting shredded across several planes.

2.  The four way free for all between the PC's, the black dragon, the giants and the parcel of undead guarding that evil book.  That was fun.

3.  Epic (as in golly wow, not level) battle between the angels and the demons in area K (IIRC - the one with the big angel garrison), with the PC's fighting on the side of the angels.  Best quote - the orc barbarian PC was armed with Blackrazor, an intelligent, soul sucking battleaxe,  and commented that babau demons (being covered in acid) gave him indigestion.


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## erucsbo

Hussar said:


> [snip]
> 3. Epic (as in golly wow, not level) battle between the angels and the demons in area K (IIRC - the one with the big angel garrison), with the PC's fighting on the side of the angels. Best quote - the orc barbarian PC was armed with Blackrazor, an intelligent, soul sucking battleaxe, and commented that babau demons (being covered in acid) gave him indigestion.




I thought that was G. K was the Shallows and had the hags, merfolk, tritons, and Thorodon the green dragon.
We skipped G (would have loved to have done that but I don't think it would have really suited my group).


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## JediSoth

erucsbo said:


> How far did you get through the dungeon?




Oh, probably about 1/4 - 1/3 of the content before I started to get burned out by it. We played for a good 2 years or so (we played every other week). There were a couple of near-TPKs in that time. I think they fully explored only about 3 or 4 of the sections.

I eventually ended the campaign by throwing in a Deck of Many Things (knowing that to be a campaign wrecker). Someone drew the card that granted wishes, and I allowed it to teleport them to the final room. One of the frost giant guards still managed to kill a PC as they ran for the exit.


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## BlueBlackRed

erucsbo said:


> Question for those who have played through this, especially if it has been a few years.
> What stands out in your memory as iconic moments / scenarios / encounters from WLD? And why?




The negatives: at higher levels it highlighted some flaws of 3.5 (over-powered spells, long high-level combats due to so much math and buffs)

The positive: each region could live and breathe (not region N...undead lol) if you were willing to put the extra effort in.


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