World's largest dungeon party setup

[Warrnan]

Hi everybody. Long time lurker, first time poster here. Thanks for 2 years worth of insight already! Tried posting in "new member hello thread 6" but
it is currently closed.

I am currently in year 2 of a WLD campaign. We are level 16 and probably 2 or so zones from finishing up. Party make up is as follows: beguiler16, wildshape ranger6 /master of many forms10, rogue15, clc3/wiz3/mystic theurge10, glaive warlock11/rogue5. My character is a bard8/crusader1/sublime chord1/virtuoso6 who has focused on inspire courage, melee and buffing.

Two questions:
1) If my bard happened to meet and untimely death what would be a great class to supplement this set up? Basically it is a party heavy on arcane and skills. My knee jerk reaction is to go for a Druid, except the WLD specifically says "Druids will not have fun" in this non-natural environment.
2) what would be your favorite setup for tackling the WLD?

WLD has some specifics that stink too. No teleporting more than line of sight, no summoning, no magic mart, and a interesting dimensional anchor spell which disallows things like shadow walk etc.

[panaikhan]

Best option for Druid in the WLD is the 'shapeshifter' variant in PHB2 with the 'spontaneous rejuvenation' option. No companion to worry about, no "you can't change into that, you haven't seen it" problems, and in-combat healing that doesn't suck quite so bad.

[Abaddon87]

I will second panaikhan's input and supplement it with my own...

Having recently played WLD I ran this exact build but with some tweaks. My character was a Druid 4 / Monk 4 / Warshaper 4 with the shapeshifter variant and the spontaneous healing alternate. I took some feats to get the crusader stance that heals on melee hits (party had no other healer but me). On top of all this I had the Mineral Warrior template. All in all this character was a beast!

Just make sure you have someone who can save you from enchantments and curses... Did my fair share of killing as many party members as I did enemies :smallfrown:

[Warrnan]

Those are some great ideas. I don't want to step on the Mystic Theurge's toes too much but I do feel we need more divine characters since we are so heavy on arcane and our only "divine character" is basically playing stunted wizard with access to cleric spells instead of clericzilla. Healing and blasting. Non-divine ideas are appreciated too as even our melee ranger guy is pretty squishy.

Btw our campaign has limited access to TOB (dm is not a fan), no incarnium or psionics mainly for flavor (classic fantasy) but all other 3.5 wizards material.

Wildshape crusader monk sounds like a blast. Lol. I'll have to try that at some point. Any other classes that could fill the spot?

[Abaddon87]

Oh I didnt have any levels in Crusader but just the feats that allows use of Stances and Maneuvers.

Its an extra 2hp every time I punched something so it was cool like that. Added to DR 8/Ada, Fast Healing 2 (10 with check) and Spontanious Rejuvination and immunity to Crits and Stunning it practically turned me into Wolverine...

[Warrnan]

Oh. I see that now. Silly me. That is really cool. Wolverine is one of my favorites. Self-healing blender ftw!

[Rubik]

Actually, druids are amazing in WLD. Everything you summon is permanent, so just summon stuff and use them for animal companions, wild shape forms, and food/meat shields.

[Warrnan]

Hmm. I am dumb founded. Perhaps it's just a dm houserule then. We were under the impression that summoning did not function due to a major dimensional lock, intended to prevent the demons imprisoned from escaping or summoning enough demonic reinforcements to break loose. To me. Dimensional travel is the same whether because of summoning or teleporting.

I see what you are saying though. If summoning IN is different than teleporting OUT, summoned creatures would have no way of returning home. Can anyone validate this?

[Rubik]

Hmm. I am dumb founded. Perhaps it's just a dm houserule then. We were under the impression that summoning did not function due to a major dimensional lock, intended to prevent the demons imprisoned from escaping or summoning enough demonic reinforcements to break loose. To me. Dimensional travel is the same whether because of summoning or teleporting.

I see what you are saying though. If summoning IN is different than teleporting OUT, summoned creatures would have no way of returning home. Can anyone validate this?I don't have the book on hand, so I can't quote anything, but I recall from reading it some time ago that things can be summoned in but can't be summoned or teleported out. And many summons would attack everyone around once the spell durations run out, though if you can Charm, Dominate, or Diplomacy/Handle Animal, you won't have to worry about it.

[gorfnab]

Artificer (ECS) can be quite handy in WLD since they can eat useless magic items and create needed magic items.

My favorite WLD build is a VoP Easy Bake Wizard.

[Gavinfoxx]

Which houserules do you or do you not enforce for WLD? We would need to know that before giving advice!

FYI, here are some questions I give everyone who is thinking of playing in the game to ask the DMs. As DM, you should consider the possible answers to them, and tell us!

1.) For characters that can invest resources in 'burrowing', 'earthgliding', and 'burrowing through stone' (there are several ways to do this, including Wild Shaping into a Thoqqua, for example, which specifically also leaves a usable tunnnel...), are the use of their abilities nerfed? IE, are inner room walls impervious as *well as* the obviously impervious outer walls? IE, will player characters sometimes be able to scout or bypass rooms in this way?

2.) For characters who invest in being able to do things with crafting materials, will the DM be using the standard lack of crafting supplies in this dungeon? Or will supplies be found, or will you be able to convert GP value in items to generic crafting supplies at a particular ratio with a particular amount of time?

3.) For characters who can replace animal companions or such things via summoning them, either a few times a day or via a 24 hour ritual, will those abilities work as advertised? What if characters want to release your existing animal companion and summon a new one? What about the magical paladin pokeball-mounts? Do those work normally?

4.) For characters that invest in short range teleports, or becoming etherial or intangible, or things like that, do those work as advertised? At least for interior areas?

5.) For characters that expect to be able to Take 10 or Take 20 on skills, do those work as in the PHB? Or is that nerfed, as the dungeon suggests? If you can't search things reliably, after all, you don't end up at the more interesting rooms...

6.) For characters that invest in having access to, say, an Extended Rope Trick at level 5, does that work as advertised, to get access to a safe space? What are your rulings on Extradimensional or nondimensional spaces working in the dungeon? What if a Wizard wants to actually scribe scrolls, will the DM be hand-waving the exotic inks necessary to do so? Maybe just subtract a GP worth of value of loot to do this? What if an Easy Bake Wizard (it's a named build using a few combinations of techniques) wants to spend some time scribing scrolls to his brain by burning incenses, will those be placed as treasure?

7.) Will the DM be making intelligent adjustments to the 'security' of rooms or wandering monster based issues based on intelligent barricading techniques? Will the DM be enforcing the 'most locations are very dangerous and have hourly wandering monster rolls' rule? What if the party attempts to barricade themselves in one of the rooms that is NOT specifically marked as an obvious saferoom?

8.) Will the DM be changing the treasure of the module? Most of the treasure of the module is supposedly completely useless -- ie, 'art', or 'not equipment' sorts of things, or things that doesn't actually HELP, or things too large to be taken, and thus doesn't actually help the party. Alternately, is the DM relaxing the restrictions on the feat 'Ancestral Relic', ie, it's the only real way to appropriately sacrifice the crappy treasure (like a huge amount of material you can't change to useful gear because it's too big) to make useful equipment, maybe give it out as a bonus feat or not make it 'good aligned only'? Is this feat suggested or appropriate for this particular campaign of World's Largest Dungeon? For example, have everyone start out with an Ancestral Relic of an item that takes up one of their item slots, and let them upgrade that item as a custom wondrous item, including the ability to combine with other like-slotted wondrous items and to cast spells as a custom wondrous item?

9.) The module suggests completely banning the entire category of 'battlefield control' spells from the game, and mentions that they will not be placed in the game. Typically, a few pages later, a Web scroll is given out as treasure. Are there any house rules on battlefield control spells?

10.) For characters that want to do summons in general, with 'summoning' spells not actually acting like calling spells (ie, summoning spells don't summon an actual creature from somewhere, they instead summon a mystical 'genericized' example of the creature type in question), will those summoning spells work as normal, or will they be nerfed as the module says?

[Warrnan]

I don't have the book on hand, so I can't quote anything, but I recall from reading it some time ago that things can be summoned in but can't be summoned or teleported out. And many summons would attack everyone around once the spell durations run out, though if you can Charm, Dominate, or Diplomacy/Handle Animal, you won't have to worry about it.

That is cool. I wish my dm would let us do it that way.

[Warrnan]

Which houserules do you or do you not enforce for WLD? We would need to know that before giving advice!

FYI, here are some questions I give everyone who is thinking of playing in the game to ask the DMs. As DM, you should consider the possible answers to them, and tell us!

1.) For characters that can invest resources in 'burrowing', 'earthgliding', and 'burrowing through stone' (there are several ways to do this, including Wild Shaping into a Thoqqua, for example, which specifically also leaves a usable tunnnel...), are the use of their abilities nerfed? IE, are inner room walls impervious as *well as* the obviously impervious outer walls? IE, will player characters sometimes be able to scout or bypass rooms in this way?

2.) For characters who invest in being able to do things with crafting materials, will the DM be using the standard lack of crafting supplies in this dungeon? Or will supplies be found, or will you be able to convert GP value in items to generic crafting supplies at a particular ratio with a particular amount of time?

3.) For characters who can replace animal companions or such things via summoning them, either a few times a day or via a 24 hour ritual, will those abilities work as advertised? What if characters want to release your existing animal companion and summon a new one? What about the magical paladin pokeball-mounts? Do those work normally?

4.) For characters that invest in short range teleports, or becoming etherial or intangible, or things like that, do those work as advertised? At least for interior areas?

5.) For characters that expect to be able to Take 10 or Take 20 on skills, do those work as in the PHB? Or is that nerfed, as the dungeon suggests? If you can't search things reliably, after all, you don't end up at the more interesting rooms...

6.) For characters that invest in having access to, say, an Extended Rope Trick at level 5, does that work as advertised, to get access to a safe space? What are your rulings on Extradimensional or nondimensional spaces working in the dungeon? What if a Wizard wants to actually scribe scrolls, will the DM be hand-waving the exotic inks necessary to do so? Maybe just subtract a GP worth of value of loot to do this? What if an Easy Bake Wizard (it's a named build using a few combinations of techniques) wants to spend some time scribing scrolls to his brain by burning incenses, will those be placed as treasure?

7.) Will the DM be making intelligent adjustments to the 'security' of rooms or wandering monster based issues based on intelligent barricading techniques? Will the DM be enforcing the 'most locations are very dangerous and have hourly wandering monster rolls' rule? What if the party attempts to barricade themselves in one of the rooms that is NOT specifically marked as an obvious saferoom?

8.) Will the DM be changing the treasure of the module? Most of the treasure of the module is supposedly completely useless -- ie, 'art', or 'not equipment' sorts of things, or things that doesn't actually HELP, or things too large to be taken, and thus doesn't actually help the party. Alternately, is the DM relaxing the restrictions on the feat 'Ancestral Relic', ie, it's the only real way to appropriately sacrifice the crappy treasure (like a huge amount of material you can't change to useful gear because it's too big) to make useful equipment, maybe give it out as a bonus feat or not make it 'good aligned only'? Is this feat suggested or appropriate for this particular campaign of World's Largest Dungeon? For example, have everyone start out with an Ancestral Relic of an item that takes up one of their item slots, and let them upgrade that item as a custom wondrous item, including the ability to combine with other like-slotted wondrous items and to cast spells as a custom wondrous item?

9.) The module suggests completely banning the entire category of 'battlefield control' spells from the game, and mentions that they will not be placed in the game. Typically, a few pages later, a Web scroll is given out as treasure. Are there any house rules on battlefield control spells?

10.) For characters that want to do summons in general, with 'summoning' spells not actually acting like calling spells (ie, summoning spells don't summon an actual creature from somewhere, they instead summon a mystical 'genericized' example of the creature type in question), will those summoning spells work as normal, or will they be nerfed as the module says?



1) earth glide and such things function normally. Our wildshape ranger just discovered this and is now is a finer scout.
2) anything costing xp is banned for simplicity sake. Our dm hands out xp for the whole party and wants us to all "ding" at the same time. Materials for anything must be found or conjuration (creation) made.
3) to date all, paladins, druids, wizards, etc. have had no pet. All opting to ACF them away for simplicity sake. Our party has always been rather large.

4) All things such as this function line of effect only.
5) take 10 & 20 per PHB.
6) extra dimensional spaces are non-functional but carry weight is pretty much ignored like most video game RPGs. Scrolls are per PHB and neglected and never created by most folks due to the xp ruling. Treasure is usually per the module but we've been given extras fairly liberally.

7) barricades are fine defense most of the time.
8) legacy weapons and more liberal treasure. No one has ever selected ancestral relic feat.
9) BFC functions fine.
10) summons never work. Per dm saying module banned it. He's is a really honest guy. Most things he's does to streamline things and not to be malicious.


Artificer (ECS) can be quite handy in WLD since they can eat useless magic items and create needed magic items.

My favorite WLD build is a VoP Easy Bake Wizard.

Artificer is one I have thought would be great. Admittedly, I know very little about them though. I don't have ECS. I only just found out about easy bake wizard, love it.

[docnessuno]

I'd also consider a full/partial ToB build. maybe a RKW to add some more divine support to the mix.

[Warrnan]

Yea. That'd be beast. I really love this archetype. I played a protection paladin in WoWarcraft forever.

[yougi]

I personally never played or ran WLD, and haven't heard much about it to be perfectly honest. However, for a more melee build without the ToB, I'd go either pure Duskblade, or for a Dwarven Barbarian 11/Deepwarden 2/Stonelord 7. Barb 11 gets you Greater Rage, Deepwarden 2 gives you your Con bonus to AC instead of your Dex, Stonelord 7 gives you, amongst many other things, speak with stone, stone shape and meld into stone. All are full BABs, and HD-wise you'd have 13d12+7d8, and you'd only need two stats: Strength and Constitution.

Edit: Deepwarden is Races of Stone, Stonelord is Complete Warrior.

[Rubik]

If your DM disallows anything but what the party finds, then I suggest the entire group commit suicide and everyone pops in with full WBL, because WLD sucks magic items-wise.

[Crasical]

An Elemental Companion is also a good choice for a druid, as they don't eat and it removes Wild Empathy from your abilities list, which you probably won't be able to use much anyway.
The earth elemental in particular can earth glide and weighs a ton so gliding up to the ceiling and then dropping down on the enemy as a goomba stomp actually deals an awful lot of damage.

[Thefurmonger]

I had a lot of fun with a DFA.

[Kemporer]

The rules state that there is no teleporting in or out of the dungeon. It even specifies that you can't summon animals/creatures and to be honest I think that is mostly the reason you don't want to play the a druid. I know the other reasons, but to me that is a major one. But I always liked being able to have a small army of animals to annoy the enemy.

[Gavinfoxx]

The rules state that there is no teleporting in or out of the dungeon. It even specifies that you can't summon animals/creatures and to be honest I think that is mostly the reason you don't want to play the a druid. I know the other reasons, but to me that is a major one. But I always liked being able to have a small army of animals to annoy the enemy.

If you look at my list of questions, that is one of the topics that the players and GMs need to get on the same page on... because the rules written in the dungeon themselves are quite inane and don't think of all possible extrapolations of what it means to summon or call something...

[AuraTwilight]

In my game, it's possible to summon things into the dungeon, but they can't always leave. Meaning at the spell's end you're going to regret having summoned that medium Fire Elemental...

[drakmarl]

About the summoning of creatures in the dungeon, on page 14 of the text it has a box at the bottom titled summon monster x. This is where it explains that the standard rule is that PCs do not get summoning spells at all. It explains why. It also mentions that as an alternate rule summoning spells can be used but once the duration expires that causes the creature(s) to stay and no longer be under control. It is up to the DM of course, but I went with the second option in my campaign and the first time it was used I made sure the monster beat on the summoner a bit.

[Gavinfoxx]

Well, that's really odd because that rule makes no sense. Because summoned creatures aren't really brought from another place. Or if they are, they go through a genericizing process, and that creature that you bring dying doesn't mean a new creature somewhere else actually dies. Look at the difference between summoning and calling, and think on what that means, you know? It's a plausible interpretation that those creatures are created out of whole cloth, right then and there!

[XmonkTad]

Seem like you have skillmonkey, scout, healing, and damage taken care of. Having a game without a magic mart or crafting screams VoP or Incarnum to me. A soulborn (low tier) or a pentafix monolith prestige (plenty of other things, I only mention those two because they're tanky). Is there any interest in using Incarnum or would you want something more standard?