Angry Bob
2011-04-25, 10:55 AM
I got the idea a few months back when we were slogging through a dungeon where we just kept getting killed by the silliest stuff. Between getting ability drained at low levels and ragequitting before level 7("I'm going to insist you roll ability scores, but it won't really matter what you rolled, because you're going to be walking around with a 7! And blind! Problem? (http://i.imgur.com/cxnwm.png)"), and a lot of good classes/feats being disallowed or discouraged.
So I decided, if you're going to keep dying, why not die to stuff you don't feel bad about losing to?
I've talked to my group, and they seem on board with going through a dungeon at level 20 with high optimization encouraged and everything in 3.5 allowed as written except obvious typos, epic spells, and things that generate infinite or arbitrarily high numbers(such as pun-pun and the omniscificer).
Each character gets a certain number of lives, depending on how big I decide the dungeon is. If the party wipes, you proceed to the next encounter down a life each and re-encounter the one you wiped to later.
Because I'm poor at it otherwise, the framing device(you find yourselves in a room) is the only storyline you're going to get. On the other hand, because it'll be mostly combat, it won't actually take too much real-world time. Three or four sessions at most.
For an idea of the lethality of the dungeon:
At a certain time(usually immediately) after all of the threats in an encounter are dealt with, the party is teleported to the next encounter. Every few(3-7) encounters will teleport the party to either an idyll or a depot, where the characters can rest up or get items, respectively. The entire whatever it is the players are in is dimensionally locked, so there's no way to leave.
Sample encounters:
The room fills completely with magma one round after the players enter the room. Somewhere within the magma are two magmaborn(acidborn variant) Kraken Wizard 16s. Defeat them.
Two Kalaraq quori in eye swarm form emerge from the floor. Hiding somewhere in the adamantine walls are two more of them and a Mind Shard of Pandorym. Defeat them.
You come into a large room filled with Fiendish Sentry Living Blade Barrier/Mind Fog Wilder 15s. Do what you do best.
A few questions:
Does this seem doable and/or fun? I ask because I've only briefly discussed it with my players. Are there any design flaws you see that could be fixed to make it more fun for you(within the given constraints of "plotless, seizure-inducingly hard dungeon)?
As the DM, is there anything that should be banned to keep the players(half of whom are adept at optimizing) from steamrolling these encounters? I want to keep the banlist as short as possible, but I also want to disallow stuff that can trivialize *all* encounters.
Finally, suggest encounters that you would correctly call "comically lethal."
So I decided, if you're going to keep dying, why not die to stuff you don't feel bad about losing to?
I've talked to my group, and they seem on board with going through a dungeon at level 20 with high optimization encouraged and everything in 3.5 allowed as written except obvious typos, epic spells, and things that generate infinite or arbitrarily high numbers(such as pun-pun and the omniscificer).
Each character gets a certain number of lives, depending on how big I decide the dungeon is. If the party wipes, you proceed to the next encounter down a life each and re-encounter the one you wiped to later.
Because I'm poor at it otherwise, the framing device(you find yourselves in a room) is the only storyline you're going to get. On the other hand, because it'll be mostly combat, it won't actually take too much real-world time. Three or four sessions at most.
For an idea of the lethality of the dungeon:
At a certain time(usually immediately) after all of the threats in an encounter are dealt with, the party is teleported to the next encounter. Every few(3-7) encounters will teleport the party to either an idyll or a depot, where the characters can rest up or get items, respectively. The entire whatever it is the players are in is dimensionally locked, so there's no way to leave.
Sample encounters:
The room fills completely with magma one round after the players enter the room. Somewhere within the magma are two magmaborn(acidborn variant) Kraken Wizard 16s. Defeat them.
Two Kalaraq quori in eye swarm form emerge from the floor. Hiding somewhere in the adamantine walls are two more of them and a Mind Shard of Pandorym. Defeat them.
You come into a large room filled with Fiendish Sentry Living Blade Barrier/Mind Fog Wilder 15s. Do what you do best.
A few questions:
Does this seem doable and/or fun? I ask because I've only briefly discussed it with my players. Are there any design flaws you see that could be fixed to make it more fun for you(within the given constraints of "plotless, seizure-inducingly hard dungeon)?
As the DM, is there anything that should be banned to keep the players(half of whom are adept at optimizing) from steamrolling these encounters? I want to keep the banlist as short as possible, but I also want to disallow stuff that can trivialize *all* encounters.
Finally, suggest encounters that you would correctly call "comically lethal."