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Tanuki Tales
2010-07-20, 01:44 PM
Just a few curiosities I'd like to push forth over this beast of a campaign book.

1. What is your opinion on the book as a campaign setting that runs from level 1 to level 20?

2. Which section of the dungeon was your favorite to run or to play with in?

3. Do you have any stories (positive or otherwise) that you would like to share concerning this Dungeon?


I'd give my answers but I've only really skimmed and slightly played Section A, so I won't have much to share until my hard copy arrives and my new group starts up.

Tyndmyr
2010-07-20, 01:53 PM
I own it, but have never more than skimmed it...dont want to spoil it if I play it.

I like the idea, though. Megadungeons appeal to me.

Beelzebub1111
2010-07-20, 01:56 PM
I would LOVE to play through this one. the most epic dungeon crawl of all time...spending the entire campaign in one dungeon crawl seems pretty cool.

Saint GoH
2010-07-20, 02:34 PM
Alright... Time to be a horrible stick in the mud.

I hate that place. Its a horrible, horrible dungeon. Sure its well made, but I swear it feeds off the broken crying PC's it devours in its wake.

Just my experience with it of course.

Bayar
2010-07-20, 02:36 PM
Although the B-C zones are preety awesome, I'd go with M-N for overall badassitude.

Tyndmyr
2010-07-20, 02:40 PM
Alright... Time to be a horrible stick in the mud.

I hate that place. Its a horrible, horrible dungeon. Sure its well made, but I swear it feeds off the broken crying PC's it devours in its wake.

Just my experience with it of course.

So it's well made AND tough, eh? All the better.

Tanuki Tales
2010-07-20, 02:46 PM
So it's well made AND tough, eh? All the better.

Oh yeah and then some. It is nothing if not an endurance run that can break PCs like a tooth pick if they aren't quick thinkers and resourceful, even with severe DM aide.

Tyndmyr
2010-07-20, 02:49 PM
DM....aid? Mwahahahaha. Oh no. No indeed.

Coplantor
2010-07-20, 02:52 PM
Question here, how much preparation is needed? Should each encounter be carfully read before playing it or you can just open the thing and start playing?

Tanuki Tales
2010-07-20, 02:59 PM
Question here, how much preparation is needed? Should each encounter be carfully read before playing it or you can just open the thing and start playing?

You need to read from cover to cover because the team made some terrible referencing and topology errors that they apparently never went back to fix. No errata has ever been released and a second printing probably won't happen.

On top of that there are special conditions for certain rooms and you need to decide what size spaces you use (with the rooms usually assuming 10 foot squares instead of 5 foot.)

And then you either need to toughen certain bits up, water certain bits down and limit leveling to 4 per dungeon section or you'll end up having to rewrite a lot of stuff.

Coplantor
2010-07-20, 03:00 PM
You need to read from cover to cover because the team made some terrible referencing and topology errors that they apparently never went back to fix. No errata has ever been released and a second printing probably won't happen.

On top of that there are special conditions for certain rooms and you need to decide what size spaces you use (with the rooms usually assuming 10 foot squares instead of 5 foot.)

And then you either need to toughen certain bits up, water certain bits down and limit leveling to 4 per dungeon section or you'll end up having to rewrite a lot of stuff.

My desire to DM this thing has just been defenestrated.

Tanuki Tales
2010-07-20, 03:02 PM
My desire to DM this thing has just been defenestrated.

It's a very good game to run. But it's not some idiot proof clap trap that a newbie DM can just coast along with.

Tyndmyr
2010-07-20, 03:04 PM
Sounds like the perfect dungeon for E6.

Let's see how far they can survive.

Coplantor
2010-07-20, 03:06 PM
Sounds like the perfect dungeon for E6.

Let's see how far they can survive.

ws actually planning to run it on an E6 game :smallbiggrin:

Also, why is it that E6 is such a hot topic these last few days? I've never seen so many E6 threads here EVER, well... at least in the last two years.

maddmatt
2010-07-20, 03:07 PM
When my group ran through WLD it seemed really repetitive and a grind for a large portion of it.

Tanuki Tales
2010-07-20, 03:08 PM
Sounds like the perfect dungeon for E6.

Let's see how far they can survive.

You won't be disappointed. Some of the traps in it are pretty damn nasty and I've only read Section A in its entirety. Probably not ToH nasty, but still pretty bad.

Especially since almost all of them automatically reset.

Lord Vampyre
2010-07-20, 03:15 PM
Last time I ran through the dungeon, I lost a party member per session. Fortunately, my character never died, but as self-appointed party leader, I felt responsible to keep everyone else alive as well. Fortunately, everyone else just followed my lead.

Actually, the only reason we had so many party deaths was due to reckless actions of one of the players in particular. We never did finish the dungeon, unfortunatel RL got in the way.

Btw - Where are the rules for E6 at? I never heard the term before joining the forums.

Tanuki Tales
2010-07-20, 03:18 PM
Last time I ran through the dungeon, I lost a party member per session. Fortunately, my character never died, but as self-appointed party leader, I felt responsible to keep everyone else alive as well. Fortunately, everyone else just followed my lead.

Actually, the only reason we had so many party deaths was due to reckless actions of one of the players in particular. We never did finish the dungeon, unfortunatel RL got in the way.

Btw - Where are the rules for E6 at? I never heard the term before joining the forums.


Yeah... It does seem this dungeon has a pretty heavy punishment bat when it comes to reckless, short sighted planning.

Morph Bark
2010-07-20, 03:24 PM
ws actually planning to run it on an E6 game :smallbiggrin:

Also, why is it that E6 is such a hot topic these last few days? I've never seen so many E6 threads here EVER, well... at least in the last two years.

I don't know either. My group had decided to do Gestalt E6 and two weeks later (still before we started the campaign though) all those threads popped up about E6 and Gestalt. And I am the only group member who is on this board.

Another_Poet
2010-07-20, 03:26 PM
Last time I ran through the dungeon, I lost a party member per session. Fortunately, my character never died, but as self-appointed party leader, I felt responsible to keep everyone else alive as well. Fortunately, everyone else just followed my lead.

I think that statement just earned a Zapp Brannigan Award. :smallsmile:

to the OP: I have heard the encounters are very repetitive, lots of the same over and over. I would be prepared to add unique NPC enemies and rivals and custom sidequests to try to break it up a bit more. For instance in the area where the PCs will run into rats basically every other room you should probably have a reason why, either a pied piper character they can meet or something they can find/do to get the rats to leave them alone.

ap

Tanuki Tales
2010-07-20, 03:33 PM
I think that statement just earned a Zapp Brannigan Award. :smallsmile:

to the OP: I have heard the encounters are very repetitive, lots of the same over and over. I would be prepared to add unique NPC enemies and rivals and custom sidequests to try to break it up a bit more. For instance in the area where the PCs will run into rats basically every other room you should probably have a reason why, either a pied piper character they can meet or something they can find/do to get the rats to leave them alone.

ap

They're Fiendish Rats though. They're intelligent and evil and in most cases are just advance scouts for the larger swarms that roam that section.

Malakar
2010-07-20, 04:18 PM
1) Very Very Samey.

The first section from level 1-3 has a well done section of Troglodytes, a couple Orc encounters, Some small Kobold encounters, 6 Fiendish Rat Swarms, 32 Darkmantles, 22 Fiendish Dire Rats, and 40 Stirges.

They could use some variety. But where they put enough thought into it, like the Trogs, it's actually pretty good.

2) As for being hard... not really.

It's just dumb.

They set up arbitrary DM fiat rules to punish players for sensible actions like resting in obviously safe rooms, and then crazy death encounters that are easily bypassed.

There is seriously an encounter for level 3 PCs at the highest that involves 22 Stirges vs PCs, but with the stirges taking a few rounds to get started.

If for any reason your party doesn't just start AoE deathing those stirges right as you see them, you will get owned hard.

Other levels have similar issues, and of course, any attempt to E6 will have to be a joke, because e6 characters can't actually do anything against Balors.

3) Work! I recommend you burn XP as a concept before even pretending to play this dungeon.

If you play it by the rules, they'll be level 5 before they leave the first area. If you cut XP gain down enough, it will just piss them off and force them to XP scrounge. And the second your PCs start trying to explore every single room even after they've finished the main area quest just to grind XP so they don't die in the next area, your game will suck.

So just off the bat, decide on specific goals to level them, or specific encounters.

"Hey, you beat the Ogre, you level to level 2." is better than "You hunted down every Dire Rat and Darkmantle, and killed the Ogre, so you are know level 2, but if you had missed even a single Dire Rat, you'd be only level 1 still!"

Bayar
2010-07-20, 06:16 PM
Section A sucks because of the 2d6 earthquake that has a chance to occur. And people being level 1 at the time...

Tanuki Tales
2010-07-20, 06:23 PM
For number 1: That's one of the most said problems with the dungeon; that the enemies get repetitive. They picked a theme for each section and ran with it, trying to populate the dungeon as they saw fit (with sparse life making sense since there's no natural source of sustenance in the dungeon other than other creatures. That and outsiders don't need to eat). The dungeon is also trying to keep some form of verisimilitude; you're not going to find treasure behind every door and a monster lurking in every hall in an "actual" dungeon.

But nothing stops you from populating the dungeon with more beasties.


Number 2: I don't see a Crapsack environment as being stupid. Some people like their fantasy lighthearted and easy going while others like it gritty and rough. YMMV.

Number 3: The party only will get pissed off if the DM fails to balance the XP routine. So what if the party isn't leveling at a speed they want to level at? You can't just cater to everything a PC wants unless its some kind of joke sandbox game or if you're being the parent to a group of children. You need to DM with both an open palm and a closed fist; providing enough of what the players want (and you want) to keep everyone happy and enjoying themselves but not too much that they get spoiled or the game is ruined.

Malakar
2010-07-20, 07:41 PM
For number 1: That's one of the most said problems with the dungeon; that the enemies get repetitive. They picked a theme for each section and ran with it, trying to populate the dungeon as they saw fit (with sparse life making sense since there's no natural source of sustenance in the dungeon other than other creatures. That and outsiders don't need to eat). The dungeon is also trying to keep some form of verisimilitude; you're not going to find treasure behind every door and a monster lurking in every hall in an "actual" dungeon.

But nothing stops you from populating the dungeon with more beasties.

Not more, different. The fluff of that section is literaly: Random creatures being teleported from another plane

So why are only three creatures being teleported out of the all the billions they could have chosen from. It wouldn't kill anyone to face an occasional pit of Fiendish Scorpions (well it might kill some PCs, but you know what I mean).

It's not that it's thematic, it's that it's boring. You could easily play to a theme that isn't boring, like the well done Trog nest, or the Kobold encounters, or you could just make the theme you choose not suck, by having the random planar invaders actually be more than three monsters repeated 100 times, and actually have randomness.


Number 2: I don't see a Crapsack environment as being stupid. Some people like their fantasy lighthearted and easy going while others like it gritty and rough. YMMV.

I... don't even know what you are talking about. I like my fantasy relative gritty. Something I don't consider gritty is "DM FIAT: PCs can't use this spell because it's too good, not that it stops us from giving it to NPCs!" or "You come across a door, search it for traps, open the door, inside is a gem on a pedestal, since your character all looked at the gem, you are all no save confused, go die!" or "That room with no doors that everyone in the entire complex knows about is totally safe and if you sleep there, you will never be interrupted, but if you sleep in the secret room that no one but you knows about, orcs will break down the door every five minutes, or you'll randomly take 8 damage, or a darkmantle or eight will be waiting outside when you finish" or any of the other crappy things that they pull out for no reason.


Number 3: The party only will get pissed off if the DM fails to balance the XP routine. So what if the party isn't leveling at a speed they want to level at? You can't just cater to everything a PC wants unless its some kind of joke sandbox game or if you're being the parent to a group of children. You need to DM with both an open palm and a closed fist; providing enough of what the players want (and you want) to keep everyone happy and enjoying themselves but not too much that they get spoiled or the game is ruined.

Once again, the party will get pissed off no matter what.

You can either set the XP gain such that if they kill every monster, they are too powerful, or you can set it such that if they don't kill every monster, they are too weak.

Those are the only options, because you seriously, as level 1 -3 character fight over 150 monsters. So if you get normal XP, you will be level 6 when you are supposed to be level 3. And if you reduce XP such that killing 150 monsters makes you level 3, then killing only 75 of them, something you can do and still finish the section, results in you being level 2.

Tanuki Tales
2010-07-20, 08:08 PM
Not more, different. The fluff of that section is literaly: Random creatures being teleported from another plane

So why are only three creatures being teleported out of the all the billions they could have chosen from. It wouldn't kill anyone to face an occasional pit of Fiendish Scorpions (well it might kill some PCs, but you know what I mean).

It's not that it's thematic, it's that it's boring. You could easily play to a theme that isn't boring, like the well done Trog nest, or the Kobold encounters, or you could just make the theme you choose not suck, by having the random planar invaders actually be more than three monsters repeated 100 times, and actually have randomness.

They had 16 sections to do and we don't know what kind of time constraints that had on making this book. They probably found what they put sufficient for players to go up against. Or they could have left open room for the DM to add their own spin to it. Again, we're not the developers so we have no way of knowing.

It's better that they left plenty of room to add in your own things instead of the other way.




I... don't even know what you are talking about. I like my fantasy relative gritty. Something I don't consider gritty is "DM FIAT: PCs can't use this spell because it's too good, not that it stops us from giving it to NPCs!" or "You come across a door, search it for traps, open the door, inside is a gem on a pedestal, since your character all looked at the gem, you are all no save confused, go die!" or "That room with no doors that everyone in the entire complex knows about is totally safe and if you sleep there, you will never be interrupted, but if you sleep in the secret room that no one but you knows about, orcs will break down the door every five minutes, or you'll randomly take 8 damage, or a darkmantle or eight will be waiting outside when you finish" or any of the other crappy things that they pull out for no reason.

I see that you've probably never played in dungeon crawls like ToH if you're going to complain about tough traps. Sometimes things just aren't fair towards the PCs; if every encounter and threat has a good measured chance of the PCs always coming out on top than its not much of a challenge and makes the game really boring for people who aren't just there to exercise some hack n slash power trip or fetish. They have MMOs for that.

I assume you're talking about the Summon Monster spell line? They didn't say its too good, they just said that it would provide too large a problem given the setting's physical and metaphysical make up. They didn't want the party to either:

A) Have an easy EXP farm.

or

B) Have to be under constant threat from one of their best spells.

Like with most of any game, the DM can always edit and add things to suit the game better and they do leave it up to the DM to decide how this should work.


Erm, I think you read the Safe rooms wrong. You aren't totally safe from any kind of assault or random encounter when you're sleeping in them, just the rate of those encounters are less while in them. And that seems like a really silly thing to complain about and rag on the setting for; that's the kind of thing a lot of DMs would arbitrarily declare.




Once again, the party will get pissed off no matter what.

You can either set the XP gain such that if they kill every monster, they are too powerful, or you can set it such that if they don't kill every monster, they are too weak.

Those are the only options, because you seriously, as level 1 -3 character fight over 150 monsters. So if you get normal XP, you will be level 6 when you are supposed to be level 3. And if you reduce XP such that killing 150 monsters makes you level 3, then killing only 75 of them, something you can do and still finish the section, results in you being level 2.

No, those aren't the only options, not in the least bit. You can always dictate how much XP a certain encounter gives or just decided when the party levels instead of tracking the XP for each person. This makes sure they don't level too soon or too late. And XP isn't only granted for combat situations, which seems to be your assumption on this matter.

Also, if your parties get so annoyed over such trivial things, maybe you should play with different people? :smallconfused:

Maeglin_Dubh
2010-07-20, 08:19 PM
We always did level by necessity in WLD.

Much easier.

Another_Poet
2010-07-20, 08:21 PM
of course, any attempt to E6 will have to be a joke, because e6 characters can't actually do anything against Balors.

Sounds like a challenge!! I will have a thread up for this soon, and link it here.

:smallwink:

edit: here it be! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=160998)

Saph
2010-07-20, 08:24 PM
We played through almost the whole thing - level 1 to level 18-19 by the end. Missed several of the sections by necessity (there's no way you could explore all of it).

It was pretty cool, all told. Can get a bit repetitive, but if you want a hardcore dungeon crawl, it's a good choice. Has some epic battles, too (the Tombs of the Unliving were very memorable).

Malakar
2010-07-20, 08:41 PM
They had 16 sections to do and we don't know what kind of time constraints that had on making this book. They probably found what they put sufficient for players to go up against. Or they could have left open room for the DM to add their own spin to it. Again, we're not the developers so we have no way of knowing.

It's better that they left plenty of room to add in your own things instead of the other way.

Once again, not complaining about empty space, complaining about too much of the same thing. We actually do know what time constraints they were under, because they talk about the design process. I'm not saying that the designers are terrible people who are need to die in a fire, I'm saying that the game is boring as written, and as a DM running it, your first priority should be fixing that.


I see that you've probably never played in dungeon crawls like ToH if you're going to complain about tough traps. Sometimes things just aren't fair towards the PCs; if every encounter and threat has a good measured chance of the PCs always coming out on top than its not much of a challenge and makes the game really boring for people who aren't just there to exercise some hack n slash power trip or fetish. They have MMOs for that.

This... Is not true. If every threat has a good measured chance of killing the PCs, then the PCs are guaranteed to die. If you have a serious of death traps with a 50% chance of a PC dieing one each one, then the PCs are all destined to die as that series stretches to infinity.

That fact alone makes the institution of no save just death traps completely unacceptable.

As to your wider claim that having a solid chance of success is just a boring hack n slash power trip, you are just attempting slander with no actual point at all. A level 1 Fighter has a 50% chance against a level 1 Fighter. If he faces 4 in a row, he is not indulging in a boring hack n slash fest, he is facing opposition that could kill him or not every day.

Claiming it's a boring hack n slash power trip to demand to not fight a level 10 fighter at level 1 is clearly you resorting to rhetorical insults where you have no argument.


I assume you're talking about the Summon Monster spell line?

No, I'm talking about web, which they said is too good, then game to their NPCs. Like I just said they did.


Erm, I think you read the Safe rooms wrong. You aren't totally safe from any kind of assault or random encounter when you're sleeping in them, just the rate of those encounters are less while in them. And that seems like a really silly thing to complain about and rag on the setting for; that's the kind of thing a lot of DMs would arbitrarily declare.

No, I'm not complaining about the safe rooms existing and reducing the encounter rate. I am complaining about the fact that the which rooms are safe and which rooms arbitrarily kill you in your sleep is based on nothing more than whimsy.

The Captains room where he sleeps, with no doors is more safe than a small out of the way chamber encased by two secret doors. Similar strangeness repeats itself. This effectively punishes parties who think about where they want to rest and attempt to rest in areas that would be the most safe if safe rest was determined by anything besides a floating meta tag.


No, those aren't the only options, not in the least bit. You can always dictate how much XP a certain encounter gives or just decided when the party levels instead of tracking the XP for each person. This makes sure they don't level too soon or too late. And XP isn't only granted for combat situations, which seems to be your assumption on this matter.

Yes, the things I already said you should do instead of using the actual rules for XP gain are things you can do instead of using the rules for XP gain.

That was why I said from the beginning that you need to not use the standard of gain Y XP per encounter system, and instead use something else, because something else works, where the standard system does not.

Thank you for agreeing with me that you need to decide not to use the standard XP system before playing WLD.


Also, if your parties get so annoyed over such trivial things, maybe you should play with different people? :smallconfused:

Yeah, I mean what total losers would get annoyed by having to choose between:

1) Being too high level for an area, and therefore not having much fun.
2) Being too low level, and instantly dieing.
3) Having to go out of their way to boringly grind Darkmantles to get to the point where they can actually move to the next area, because they already solved the plot, but are too low level to progress without dieing.

Malakar
2010-07-20, 08:42 PM
Sounds like a challenge!! I will have a thread up for this soon, and link it here.

:smallwink:

If you mean e6 WLD, whatever, follow standard XP rules, and you'll curbstomp the first two sections, and then die.

If you mean e6 vs a Balor, I'll run the Balor.

Tanuki Tales
2010-07-20, 09:15 PM
This... Is not true. If every threat has a good measured chance of killing the PCs, then the PCs are guaranteed to die. If you have a serious of death traps with a 50% chance of a PC dieing one each one, then the PCs are all destined to die as that series stretches to infinity.

That fact alone makes the institution of no save just death traps completely unacceptable.

As to your wider claim that having a solid chance of success is just a boring hack n slash power trip, you are just attempting slander with no actual point at all. A level 1 Fighter has a 50% chance against a level 1 Fighter. If he faces 4 in a row, he is not indulging in a boring hack n slash fest, he is facing opposition that could kill him or not every day.

Claiming it's a boring hack n slash power trip to demand to not fight a level 10 fighter at level 1 is clearly you resorting to rhetorical insults where you have no argument.

The general idea is that an something of an equal CR to the party will have a 50% of having the party spend a good amount if not most of their resources to over come it. (If I remember that right). If you instead have less than a full party taking on one trap or one encounter than chances are that they could totally end up dead. Most things in DnD take into account a somewhat properly geared and built party of 4 with a tank, main damage dealer, magic user and healer. If the party does not meet these qualities or split up and then go get themselves killed, they have no one to blame but themselves.

Erm, that's not unacceptable at all. Sometimes things just flat out kill a character. If a PC jumps off something REALLY high (or heaven forbid, gets affected by Nailed to the Sky) or goes swimming around in a lake of acid or lava without any form of resistance, do you honestly expect them to have a chance to survive?

No.

So if there are countless mundane or natural ways for a character to die with either no save or barely a save (i.e. a situation where they get saves but it doesn't matter if they roll good since they'll roll a 1 eventually), why should it matter if there's a trap that can kill you flat dead in a prision built to contain the worst demonic and infernal scum the celestials had to deal with?


Sorry, what's this now? Clarifying what you meant but only so you can use it to get some form of high ground on me in this?

You were complaining about the high levels of difficulty in some parts of the dungeon compared to other parts and then compared to the PCs themselves.
Life and fictional life aren't fair, not in the least bit. If you honestly expect for every single fight you go into, every single trap you come up against and every puzzle you're expected to solve to be totally with in the scope of your character's ability to complete, then you shouldn't be playing a game that is supposed to have some verisimilitude, even with an omnipotent, omnipresent arbitrator trying to grease things over for the players.

MMOs have marked, level appropriate areas always. Table top games that are based in a "real" fantasy world? Not so much.

When you play DnD you're telling an epic fantasy stories with the players being characters in the story. Characters suffer misfortune and characters die. Characters who always come out on top and never fail and never die because of false "fairness" that really only ends up with the odds being mostly in their favor? We call those Mary-Sues.



No, I'm talking about web, which they said is too good, then game to their NPCs. Like I just said they did.

I'll need to thumb through it again to see where it says that, but it's not like that's really anything important. Yes, Web is a good spell, but there are more tricks in the game on both sides than that.




No, I'm not complaining about the safe rooms existing and reducing the encounter rate. I am complaining about the fact that the which rooms are safe and which rooms arbitrarily kill you in your sleep is based on nothing more than whimsy.

The Captains room where he sleeps, with no doors is more safe than a small out of the way chamber encased by two secret doors. Similar strangeness repeats itself. This effectively punishes parties who think about where they want to rest and attempt to rest in areas that would be the most safe if safe rest was determined by anything besides a floating meta tag.


I'm really failing to see the problem you're having here. One room is "safe", one room isn't. The doors are secret to your characters but this isn't necessarily true for other denizens of the dungeon who have, ya know, been here longer than the party. But as I've said, just Rule 0 it if you have such a beef with it in your opinion.




Yes, the things I already said you should do instead of using the actual rules for XP gain are things you can do instead of using the rules for XP gain.

That was why I said from the beginning that you need to not use the standard of gain Y XP per encounter system, and instead use something else, because something else works, where the standard system does not.

Thank you for agreeing with me that you need to decide not to use the standard XP system before playing WLD.

Erm, no. At the beginning you were saying how WLD is at fault because it tells you to not use the standard XP scale per encounter for your PCs and then you said that not using the standard scale wasn't the right way because then they wouldn't get enough XP without hunting down every living thing in Section A (which I find very unlikely, but when my hard copy arrives I'll do the math with that).

So don't blame the book if you don't think any form of normal XP scale should be used for this setting. That's not the setting's fault.




Yeah, I mean what total losers would get annoyed by having to choose between:

1) Being too high level for an area, and therefore not having much fun.
2) Being too low level, and instantly dieing.
3) Having to go out of their way to boringly grind Darkmantles to get to the point where they can actually move to the next area, because they already solved the plot, but are too low level to progress without dieing.

Number one is only a problem if they only expect to kill the monsters for XP and get the treasure. Both of those quantities are going to get smaller and smaller as the areas get easier and easier and if they have a problem for being rewarded equally to their effort put forth, than maybe they're playing the wrong game.

Number two is a real problem. But in this case I doubt anyone would complain if they metagame and make their newly rolled up characters (because, ya know, Characters do die for good) steer clear of that area until they think they're ready for it. (Because, chances are they died the first time because they rushed in without thinking, not because the DM twistedly decided to let them fry with no forewarning. Though that does happen.)

Number 3 is only a problem because, again, I think you only think you can get XP from combat.

Another_Poet
2010-07-20, 09:38 PM
E6 party v. Balor is now live (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=160998).

If you think you can do it, put up your party. Malakar's ego and my tantalizing prize package await!!

Malakar
2010-07-20, 10:20 PM
The general idea is that an something of an equal CR to the party will have a 50% of having the party spend a good amount if not most of their resources to over come it. (If I remember that right). If you instead have less than a full party taking on one trap or one encounter than chances are that they could totally end up dead. Most things in DnD take into account a somewhat properly geared and built party of 4 with a tank, main damage dealer, magic user and healer. If the party does not meet these qualities or split up and then go get themselves killed, they have no one to blame but themselves.

Once again. Why are you saying things that make no sense. None of that has anything to do with anything.


Erm, that's not unacceptable at all. Sometimes things just flat out kill a character. If a PC jumps off something REALLY high (or heaven forbid, gets affected by Nailed to the Sky) or goes swimming around in a lake of acid or lava without any form of resistance, do you honestly expect them to have a chance to survive?

No.

So if there are countless mundane or natural ways for a character to die with either no save or barely a save (i.e. a situation where they get saves but it doesn't matter if they roll good since they'll roll a 1 eventually), why should it matter if there's a trap that can kill you flat dead in a prision built to contain the worst demonic and infernal scum the celestials had to deal with?

I see your strategy is to claim that because X is acceptable, then anything in the universe is acceptable. If they PCs decided to swim in Acid for no reason, maybe they should die. Generally speaking, opening a door is not something I consider a dieable offense.

Acid baths are not on sight no save insanity traps. Acid Baths are not random 20 stirge death rays.

It should matter if there is a trap that kill you flat dead in the dungeon because that completely defeats the purpose of playing the game (Not to mention that no save death traps make the whole concept of imprisoning things you could kill).


Sorry, what's this now? Clarifying what you meant but only so you can use it to get some form of high ground on me in this?

You were complaining about the high levels of difficulty in some parts of the dungeon compared to other parts and then compared to the PCs themselves.
Life and fictional life aren't fair, not in the least bit. If you honestly expect for every single fight you go into, every single trap you come up against and every puzzle you're expected to solve to be totally with in the scope of your character's ability to complete, then you shouldn't be playing a game that is supposed to have some verisimilitude, even with an omnipotent, omnipresent arbitrator trying to grease things over for the players.

Once again. This is not about being a cake walk. If literally every single fight has a 50% chance of a TPK, that is within the realm of acceptable CR ranges. What I expect, is for their to be no arbitrary DM fiat TPKs, and no random Balors fighting level 1 PCs. This is something you accept too, I know this because you still play D&D, and no human being could continue playing D&D if they thought that PCs are supposed to fight things that curbstomp them without trying.


I'm really failing to see the problem you're having here. One room is "safe", one room isn't. The doors are secret to your characters but this isn't necessarily true for other denizens of the dungeon who have, ya know, been here longer than the party. But as I've said, just Rule 0 it if you have such a beef with it in your opinion.

Once again, I'm failing to see how you can purposefully ignore the problem. The problem is that one of those rooms is not safe, and yet it is arbitrarily declared safe, and the other room is safe but is declared not safe. That means that the PCs actions have no affect on anything. The smarter the PCs act, the more likely they are to be punished. Even granted total omnipotence, the PCs would still be incapable of making a smart decision, because there is no reason whatsoever behind the meta tags.


Erm, no. At the beginning you were saying how WLD is at fault because it tells you to not use the standard XP scale per encounter for your PCs and then you said that not using the standard scale wasn't the right way because then they wouldn't get enough XP without hunting down every living thing in Section A (which I find very unlikely, but when my hard copy arrives I'll do the math with that).

So don't blame the book if you don't think any form of normal XP scale should be used for this setting. That's not the setting's fault.

Erm, no. In the Beginning I was saying how before someone engages in WLD they should discard all normal conceptions of XP, because if you use the standard rules for XP, you end up with players too high level who curbstomp everything. And that if you tried to scale back XP, as the suggest you will either not solve the problem, or you will end up leaving them XP starved unless they grind everything in the dungeon.

Which is why instead of saying "Grr, punish those mean WLD designers" or "Hey, don't play WLD" I said "Before playing WLD you should use a different system of leveling, like picking specific points at which they level, or leveling based on accomplishing goals, instead of granting XP based on encounters."


Number one is only a problem if they only expect to kill the monsters for XP and get the treasure. Both of those quantities are going to get smaller and smaller as the areas get easier and easier and if they have a problem for being rewarded equally to their effort put forth, than maybe they're playing the wrong game.

Number one is a problem if they want to be challenged. It also somewhat undermines the whole "Prison for the great unmentionables" theme if you can rickroll your way through every encounter laughing all the way.

Yes, some people have fun never being challenged, but I think it's fair to say that wanting to be challenged every once in a while is something enough people want that it might bore them to have all easy fights all the time.

Hey, wheren't you just complaining about how stupid all those meanies who want it easy are? What changed?


Number two is a real problem. But in this case I doubt anyone would complain if they metagame and make their newly rolled up characters (because, ya know, Characters do die for good) steer clear of that area until they think they're ready for it. (Because, chances are they died the first time because they rushed in without thinking, not because the DM twistedly decided to let them fry with no forewarning. Though that does happen.)

Once again, you are not paying attention, if you set the bar too low, they have a choice between two options:

1) Kill every single monster in the area.
2) Before they have killed them all, move on to the next area, but be two low level, and die.

That's not rushing forward without thinking, once you Defeat and stop the Imp and Longtooth, and unite the humanoid factions under your new mastery Why should you hang around murdering Darkmantles till you level.

And yet, if you do push on, you get killed, because you are not high enough level.


Number 3 is only a problem because, again, I think you only think you can get XP from combat.

No, Number 3 is a problem because according to the actual game rules, you only get XP from encounters, and so if you ignore half the encounters, you don't get that XP.

It's a flaw in the XP system that needs correcting in general, but it's also one that exists, and needs fixing before you play WLD even more than usual.

Tanuki Tales
2010-07-20, 10:48 PM
And, I'm done. I don't see how continuing that thread of discussion will do any good other than possibly discouraging folks from posting. If you want to continue holding your opinions, that's your prerogative and I'll just agree to disagree.

Escheton
2010-07-21, 10:27 AM
I am tackling this thing soon with a gestalt group.
Lvl when it seems appropriate and adding themebased critters from the other 5000 monstermanuals as we go along.
Should be fun.

Psyx
2010-07-21, 10:43 AM
Just a few curiosities I'd like to push forth over this beast of a campaign book.

1. What is your opinion on the book as a campaign setting that runs from level 1 to level 20?

2. Which section of the dungeon was your favorite to run or to play with in?

3. Do you have any stories (positive or otherwise) that you would like to share concerning this Dungeon?



1) Festering
2) Only skimmed it. Enough to never want to experience either.
3) From a read... Stuff is shoehorned in. The plan was apparently to fit in every monster in the MM (a trite and pointless exercise), which is not the best of inspirations. The whole thing seems to be scribed by someone I would never want to play under, as many encounters seem to be there just to be dickish (look at all these great titan-sized magic items. You can't use them HAHAHA!).

The notes at the beginning recommend that players not be allowed access to the 'Web' spell, essentially because it's 'too good'. I think that says it all, really.

Tyndmyr
2010-07-21, 01:01 PM
The notes at the beginning recommend that players not be allowed access to the 'Web' spell, essentially because it's 'too good'. I think that says it all, really.

And, I believe it's in the first spellbook you find.

Good work there, chaps.

Paul H
2010-07-22, 08:10 PM
Hi

Tonight's session was going quite well, until we met a Sybol of Insanity. Our party are only 10th level (I should make 11th after resting), but 2 of our characters are Insane!

At the moment I've got a Circle of Prot vs Evil up, but that won't last long. Insanity is permanent, and requires at least a Heal spell to clear. We're only 10th lvl, so oops - looks like TPK

Cheers
Paul H

nyjastul69
2010-07-22, 09:58 PM
The general idea is that an something of an equal CR to the party will have a 50% of having the party spend a good amount if not most of their resources to over come it. (If I remember that right).

If you mean a single CR1 beastie against a 1st level party it should consume about 1/4 - 1/5 of the party's resources. An El 1 encounter should do the same. If you're refering to 4 CR 1 beasties, that would be EL 4 encounter, and should indeed be about 50/50 shot for a TPK. i.e. use up all their resources.

In regards to the OP, I DM'd TWLD through level 7 or 8 and found it dreadfully boring, and I actually like dungeon crawls. It's not nearly as modular as they claim and not close to being worth the cover price. There are a few cool sections, but not enough of them.

Sleepingbear
2010-07-23, 01:02 AM
Just a few curiosities I'd like to push forth over this beast of a campaign book.

1. What is your opinion on the book as a campaign setting that runs from level 1 to level 20?

2. Which section of the dungeon was your favorite to run or to play with in?

3. Do you have any stories (positive or otherwise) that you would like to share concerning this Dungeon?


I'd give my answers but I've only really skimmed and slightly played Section A, so I won't have much to share until my hard copy arrives and my new group starts up.

The group I play in completed the WLD three months ago. It took us about four years to complete, playing during the day on Saturdays but with several breaks that were up to three months long each. Possibly we could have finished in two years.

We did not do every section, only about 75% of the whole dungeon (meaning there were four regions we never entered). We actually entered at higher than recommended level (we were level six when we entered region A). Region's A and B were therefore quite easy but after that it levelled off and became more challenging. By the time we were done, we were 21st level and only after killing the biggest boss in the whole dungeon.

Of the four original players that started, only two saw it through to the end (two moved). There were always four players at any given time. Only one original character made it through to the end but no one player had more than a single character death during the whole campaign.

Collectively, we refer to it as the Worlds Brokenest Dungeon. There are serious issues so I would not recommend this for a novice DM. Some of the writers commentary should be ignored out right, especially any part where they try to tell you how to DM. Instead, rely on your own instincts as DM, especially if you have experience. It'll save you from having a table flipped on you.

It's not all bad and we definitely got our money's worth out of it. But it took a lot of work to do so. In the end, you'll get out of it what you put into it.

panaikhan
2010-07-23, 07:32 AM
I bought the WLD when it came out, and ran it for our group. We only got through around 6 sections.
I had to dial the XP ad-hoc, because our group are notorious 'chobblers', and the 'campaign' mode assumes the party pick one path to the exit, instead of doubling back to do every region.

My biggest 'beefs':
1) Supplies. The party can't get 'out', so they need to have everything for the long hawl.
2) Carrying capacity. The party cannot simply lug everything around until they get a chance to sell it (somewhat tied in to item 1).
3) It suffers from what seems to be a recurring encounter problem in published adventures - cakewalk, cakewalk, cakewalk, TPK (or damned close).

FafnerMorell
2010-07-23, 08:44 AM
We've been playing it for about a year now, and we're about to take a break and start a new campaign. As a player, it's been a bit of an uneven dungeon in terms of enjoyment/challenge - our previous campaign had been RHoD, and this is no RHoD (but I'd consider RHoD a very high standard).

The traps are good at first, but often repetitive (room X1 has a fire trap, X2 has the same thing only as an ice trap, X3 is electricity, etc). We don't have a reliable way to "identify" items, so we've got tons and tons of loot being carted around (experiment with new item - oh, you die horribly - the new character is much more paranoid - and has really good search & trap-detecting skills).

There's also a "Oh, the last 5 times we detected magic on a cool looking item and it turned out to be a trap and a fake item- so when we enter the room and see a magic sword sticking out of a stone... could it be a trap??? Which, after we disarm it, will turn out to be fake and not worth the effort?" (a lot of our play session consists of saying "It's a trap" in an Admiral Ackbar voice).

I think part of the big problem is it tends to be reward paranoia and caution, which leads to slow, disciplined grinding, which gets a bit repetitive - especially if large sections are essentially cookie-cutter. When the "level locks" that prevent you from earning XP kick in (and no progression from gear), that further adds to the feeling that you're a rat in a cage running in a hamster wheel. Who occasionally dies and gets reincarnated as a rat in a cage...

Overall, the early levels were good, but the middle part (level 6-8) have been dragging. The concept has some merit, but a lot of the gimmicks (restricted supplies, lots of traps, random-encounters if you backtrack, few safe spots) get old fast once you've adapted to them.