Worlds largest dungeon

[Calintares]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_Largest_Dungeon

has anyone ever completed this monstrosity?

[Scipio]

That is crazy big. I ran a party through the entire Crater Ridge Mines, and that was sufficiently large.

[Yorrin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_Largest_Dungeon

has anyone ever completed this monster?

No, but now that you've brought my attention to it is my goal to do so with my current players. 3:)

[IonDragon]

This is relevant to my interests. I think I'll see if my group wants to try to tackle this mother. I think one of my guys who doesn't GM because he can't may be able to handle a pre made setting....

[littlebottom]

well, a friend of mine owns it and was thinking of running it for us. also, ive tried to get several groups to attempt to run it on these very forums, they often die before too long... i would enjoy doing it from start to finish though... it would have to be documented from a characters point of view to make an epic adventure story afterwards

[Saintjebus]

Speaking of such things, does anyone know if there is an online version of it?

[IonDragon]

I'm an avid poster, since my job is mostly just watching the counter and making sure no one steals the fake plants. Are you looking to run?

I'd love to play in a PBP of this if you want to move over to the LFG board.

[Pink]

It has been done by the folks at www.rpgmp3.com

[Saintjebus]

I was actually asking if there is an online .pdf, etc. of the dungeon itself. I want to run my RL through it, but I haven't been able to find a copy.

That being said, if you have a copy, I wouldn't mind playing in a pbp in it.

[Zeta Kai]

I've heard the there are some editing issues with the text, & that the designers went for quantity over quality. But I've never run it myself, so I can't say for sure how good it is. The maps look great, though; my hat's off to the cartographer.

[Moriato]

I have not finished it, but I've played it. It's more like "World's emptiest dungeon". Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of stuff, but you can tell that, since the dungeon is so HUEG, they had trouble trying to fill the space, so what you get is a lot of rooms with nothing in them, or random stuff that has nothing to do with the rest of the dungeon.

After a couple levels of this monstrosity we all just really wanted to go back to town, sell our stuff and go on a different adventure.

[Pink]

I have not finished it, but I've played it. It's more like "World's emptiest dungeon". Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of stuff, but you can tell that, since the dungeon is so HUEG, they had trouble trying to fill the space, so what you get is a lot of rooms with nothing in them, or random stuff that has nothing to do with the rest of the dungeon.

After a couple levels of this monstrosity we all just really wanted to go back to town, sell our stuff and go on a different adventure.

Yes, this is rather true. One of the intentions of the WLD was more-so it's usage as several seperate dungeons as opposed to one long crawl, though it could be used either way.

I think a more interesting dungeon crawl experience would be Monte Cook's latest project www.dungeonaday.com/

It's planned to go from 1 to 20, and each day there is a new area added with a new encounter. Even better is that almost each area has a revisit encounter of some sort to help demonstrate that the dungeon still functions while the PCs are in it.

[Irreverent Fool]

I don't believe it was ever released for sale as a .pdf. Even if it was, I can't imagine trying to navigate it that way. The thing is as thick as an encyclopedia volume.

I've tried to play a game in it before, but there are few hints to tell players which direction they should go and we ended up running into shadows at about level 3. Combine that with being rather dull in general and we gave up.

You'll need a very good DM to handle this monstrosity and I highly recommend alternating sessions with some other game just to keep your mind sharp.

obnoxious
sig

[Kaun]

Stupid questions but....


..... What Eddition is it written for?

[IonDragon]

Definitely 3.x though which x is difficult to discern. I'm rapidly losing interest after attempting to navigate their site. If a bunch of nerds can't even build a solid site I doubt their ability to build a solid dungeon.

[Edge of Dreams]

The biggest problem with World's Largest Dungeon my group encountered is that there's very little indication to the players of which direction then should go. It's very easy for a level 1 or 2 party to wander into the area full of CR 4/5/6 encounters and wipe.

[IonDragon]

I'm going to take a look at it. What I'm thinking is running it for my IRL group and having them start at ~3 gestalt. Should give them enough cash for a Travel Cloak so they don't have to worry too much about food, curbstomp the first few rooms and keep out of that "Whooops. We're SO dead now."

[BobVosh]

I've played through level 10 or 11 in it.

It is 3.5, and over all I'm unimpressed. Especially for the price, at least when it came out.

If you like dungeon crawls...like REALLY like them then it should be fine. Note that classes that require items or downtime tend to struggle. This does make the druid more balance if you enforce the "you gotta study/see it to turn into it" rule.
Sorcerers are even further nerfed as scrolls are few, so its hard for them to get the occasional spells to supplement their limited selection.
Wizards that like having lots of choices will pretty much be required to take collegiate wizard.
The first few levels can be quite vicious. A disease in the first level, 4 or 5 striges also easily in reach for level one. Overall its kinda boring, and lacks any form of direction.

[Lord Vampyre]

The biggest problem with World's Largest Dungeon my group encountered is that there's very little indication to the players of which direction then should go. It's very easy for a level 1 or 2 party to wander into the area full of CR 4/5/6 encounters and wipe.

Remember, running is always an option. My understanding from when a DM tried to run a party I was in through it, is that most of the creatures are unable to leave their portion of the dungeon. This made running one of the more effective tactics, especially when we ran into the cryohydra.

I think the group dynamic was the only thing keeping the game interesting though. There really wasn't much of a plot.

[Killer Angel]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_Largest_Dungeon

has anyone ever completed this monstrosity?

If you're the DM it's hard only to read it all.
The idea is good, and some of the levels are really interesting, but it's decisely too big. After a while, you'll be bored.

[Gralamin]

Heres the Trick with the Worlds Largest Dungeon:
You can take one section of it, and use it as a dungeon when you need something quick.

I got it for pretty cheap, and keep it around. It definitely isn't designed to well. If I had a bunch of spare time (Alas, that will never be), I'd probably be willing to work with people on making a 4th edition version, focusing on quality.

[Hida Reju]

Forget the WLD, here is a better choice for a long dungeon crawl with a lot of coolness.

Rappan Athuk Reloaded go from lvl's 1 to 20 easy, oh and its set up to get about a lvl every few lvls of the dungeon and has a god fight at the end.

Oh and it gets more difficult as you go deeper into it.

[Pink]

Forget the WLD, here is a better choice for a long dungeon crawl with a lot of coolness.

Rappan Athuk Reloaded go from lvl's 1 to 20 easy, oh and its set up to get about a lvl every few lvls of the dungeon and has a god fight at the end.

Oh and it gets more difficult as you go deeper into it.

Actually, it's really more of a level 4 to 20 dungeon that's very much designed to kill a party at some part or other if the description does not lie. More of old school hack and slash than coolness in my opinion. And the intention from the book is that the 'god' (Orcus is not really a god to be fair) is still meant to be unbeatable.

Not necessarily a good suggestion if that kinda dungeon isn't your or your groups thing.

I still think that, as far as overall epic dungeons go, Dungeon a day is shaping up to be the best and most interesting that is still survivable.

[Hida Reju]

Well we did do it as a party of 6 starting at lvl 2 and went down all the way.

And nothing is unbeatable if you have a pair of mages and a ubercharger unless the DM makes it immune to all damage. One guy had his mage tricked out with metamagic to dishout like 500+ a spell at lvl 20 and he was barely trying. Let alone the multitude of other things.

It is a bit rough for a standard party of 4 I would think

[Pink]

I suppose it also assumes a core perspective too, which does drastically change the deadliness of things.

The book itself suggests starting level of around 4 for five person group.

[JediSoth]

Technically, my group completed it.

We started at the beginning with 1st level characters and played it for over a year-and-a-half. Just playing through the first section will make you hate Darkmantles with such a passion you'll never want to use them again.

There are some neat ideas in there, but there is a lot of filler. A lot of the rooms assume the PCs will be arriving from a particular direction, and sometime you have to read ahead quite a bit at times to find out the direction they took shouldn't be possible.

We kept a scoreboard that track PC kills (and deaths). Since attendance in my group was spotty, I ruled that Lantern Archons would whisk away PCs of absent players and return them for mysterious reasons no one ever discovered. I had one TPK from an Insanity Trap that I still remember fondly as a DM, since all I had to do was keep track of the combat rounds as the PCs slaughtered each other.

I had another TPK from an entire region exploding. One player insisted he should get a saving throw for half-damage. I asked him where he was going to hide when all the air around him was literally combusting. He said "I dive under a table of something." I replied: ALL. THE. AIR. IN. THE. ENTIRE. REGION. IS. COMBUSTING.

I eventually got burned out DMing it week after week, so I threw in the campaign-wreckingest of artifacts: a Deck of Many Things. Someone drew the wish card and wish the entire party to the exit. Now you couldn't wish yourself out of WLD per RAW, but it didn't saw anything about wishing yourself to the last room (as I recall, or as I ruled as the time, more to the point :p). So, they ran past the guards to freedom and went their separate ways. I think they were about level 12 at the time.

It's possible to go from the entrance to the exit and miss entire regions, so they only explored maybe 50% of it. I kept the book to mine for ideas, or to just lift out sections wholesale if I need a largish dungeon crawl in the future.

For the record, it was written for 3.0. I made the mistake of letting "anything go" and found out that a lot of the 3.5 alternate core classes/races were REALLY unbalanced in it. Basically, it assumes you're going to have a party of a Cleric, a Rogue, a Fighter, a Sorcerer, and maybe 1 or 2 support characters. It also discourages Wizards and Druids.

[Escheton]

So a dwarven cleric, elven tash-tora psychic rogue, human swordsage/crusader, elan psion and halfling bard would wreck the place?

[Gnaeus]

It is also worth noting that WLD has some real rules questions in it that make you wonder a lot about the writers.

For example, the rules state no crowd control spells are allowed, giving very few examples of what they mean (like web) leaving you to puzzle out what is or isn't legit. Then you find a spellbook with web in it in the dungeon???

The rules say no druids, which could make sense from a balance perspective. Then they justify that by saying that druids don't do well in a dungeon environment, which is so crazy you can't take them seriously through the rest of the game.

[Amphetryon]

a lot of the 3.5 alternate core classes/races were REALLY unbalanced in it.

This. The place was not designed, for example, for an Adaptive Style Devoted Spirit focused Crusader, A Warlock, A Dragon Shaman, and a Dungeoncrasher Fighter with Combat Focus.

[Zeta Kai]

This. The place was not designed, for example, for an Adaptive Style Devoted Spirit focused Crusader, A Warlock, A Dragon Shaman, and a Dungeoncrasher Fighter with Combat Focus.

Very, very few published dungeons would be suitable for a party like that.