Best Dungeon for a Level 6 Party?

[NOhara24]

Hello All,

I need a canned dungeon that I can re-fluff and place a high-value item at the end of so my party can sell it and get paid. My quandry is this - I often don't run a traditional "dungeon", with all of its traps and puzzles...etc. My sessions are normally much more RP & Combat based, so I wouldn't know what to look for in a dungeon that would make it suitable for a 6th level party. My party is as follows:

Monk 4, Shadow Sun Ninja 2
Hexblade 3 (+3 LA)
Druid 6 (Player is very new and will summon something and attack with her animal companion every turn, that's it.)
Crusader 6

Any assistance would be appreciated!

[ksbsnowowl]

The Forge of Fury would be alright (intended for levels 3 - 5), and would be easy to restock with different monsters to get appropriate EL's.

The Sunless Citadel would work okay. I ran it restocked with Drow for a tutorial set of side-quest sessions for a new player coming in at 8th level a few years back. It worked out alright, but I think Forge of Fury would be better for your stated purpose.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #3 - The Mysterious Tower by Goodman Games is meant for 3rd - 5th level. I ran it for a 6th level party that had no traditional magic users (just psions, incarnum, and Tome of Battle), and it worked out quite well. It would work well for your purposes, I think. I just put an extra magical door in the treasure room with the genie, that led to one additional upper floor I added, to add my own McGuffin to the end of the dungeon crawl.

Edit: Thought of one more... though it is somewhat Eberron specific.

The Grasp of the Emerald Claw is a Giant dungeon crawl, literally. The party is hired by a wealthy noble to go find an ancient piece of a magical schema, before the terrorist organization, The Emerald Claw, gets to it first. They travel to Xen'drik and into the depths of that continent's jungle, to search out the Mayan-style pyramid left behind by the fall of the civilization of Giants millennia ago. The pyramid is MASSIVE, as it was build to house Giants. A large part of the encounters are with the Emerald Claw soldiers who are already on site and trying to find the secret treasure area. It is an adventure for 6th level PC's.

[John Longarrow]

Since you know your party and what you want them to face, I'd suggest just making something with the number of encounters you want.

Easy way is "Hole in the ground with stairs leading down"

Then you have a set of rooms that are pretty linear, toss in a couple traps and your done.

You'd be surprised how easy this is to do if your party isn't normally into crawls. It also lets you decide what monsters SHOULD be encountered, what would prevent them from all dog piling on the party, and give you a chance to do some fun things with indoor terrain.

Think of it as "You come into the tomb of XWPSTX the magnificent. Anti-chamber is three connected rooms (outermost being the "receiving hall", then a small chapel, then the inner vault) that leads to a long passage deeper in. Then you come to the outer defenses (three or four rooms), inner defenses(another three or four rooms), the trapped section, then the inner sanctum (both three to five rooms).

By breaking it up into zones you have six easily ran sessions that can all be pretty short. You know what is in there and how you want it to react, plus you have space between to explain why the inner defenders don't come rushing out to help the outer defenders.

Should work pretty well if you want them to level up as they get in to!

[NOhara24]

The Forge of Fury would be alright (intended for levels 3 - 5), and would be easy to restock with different monsters to get appropriate EL's.

The Sunless Citadel would work okay. I ran it restocked with Drow for a tutorial set of side-quest sessions for a new player coming in at 8th level a few years back. It worked out alright, but I think Forge of Fury would be better for your stated purpose.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #3 - The Mysterious Tower by Goodman Games is meant for 3rd - 5th level. I ran it for a 6th level party that had no traditional magic users (just psions, incarnum, and Tome of Battle), and it worked out quite well. It would work well for your purposes, I think. I just put an extra magical door in the treasure room with the genie, that led to one additional upper floor I added, to add my own McGuffin to the end of the dungeon crawl.

Edit: Thought of one more... though it is somewhat Eberron specific.

The Grasp of the Emerald Claw is a Giant dungeon crawl, literally. The party is hired by a wealthy noble to go find an ancient piece of a magical schema, before the terrorist organization, The Emerald Claw, gets to it first. They travel to Xen'drik and into the depths of that continent's jungle, to search out the Mayan-style pyramid left behind by the fall of the civilization of Giants millennia ago. The pyramid is MASSIVE, as it was build to house Giants. A large part of the encounters are with the Emerald Claw soldiers who are already on site and trying to find the secret treasure area. It is an adventure for 6th level PC's.

Wow! These are crazy in-depth! It's been a long time since I've run a canned module - I forgot how much material they can be. So I suppose if this is something that i'd want my group to burn through in 2 4-hour sessions, that these would be a bit much. :smallbiggrin:

[ksbsnowowl]

Wow! These are crazy in-depth! It's been a long time since I've run a canned module - I forgot how much material they can be. So I suppose if this is something that i'd want my group to burn through in 2 4-hour sessions, that these would be a bit much. :smallbiggrin:

I think the Dungeon Crawl Classics #3 - The Mysterious Tower only took two (possibly three) 3.5-hour sessions. Given your timeframe, I think that one would fill the allotted time the best.

Edit: I did exclude the 2nd (middle) sub level from before they actually enter the tower (the cavern with areas 24, 25, and 26, with ankhegs and owlbears). That would speed things along slightly, as they wouldn't get off-track.