Play report: The first four levels

  Currently, I am in the process of testing the Megadungeon  I created, which mostly consists of solo play, but allows me to reasonably discern how other players may tackle the dungeon.

The dungeon sucks. (So far)

Now, this isn't an overreaction to an endeavor being imperfect on the first try, but rather, a simple fact.  I have thus far only gotten up to the end of the second floor, which concluded with the characters chasing after a hobgoblin commander, one of them dying in the process, only managing to kill the monster just as he had opened the gate which led down to the next level.

These first floors are faced with opposite problems.  Floor 1 has too many monsters, or rather that the monsters are of incredible deadliness in comparison to the treasure presented.  This could be fine if seen as a dungeon for high level characters, except that this is not what was intended, which removes the excuse (for me) of "a wizard did it" in relation to the strange variety of monsters on this floor.

Whereas floor 2 has far fewer enemies, yet the 8 hobgoblins occupying the northeast portion of the floor were practically decimated by my now much higher level characters.

As well the second floor has only one route to the next level, this being the aforementioned locked stairwell, which makes the floor 10x worse as it is a veritable choke-point for progress deeper into the dungeon.  There is technically another way down to floor 3, that being a pit in area 2, but since this drops down to a pool of lava magma it doesn't quite count.  Besides these routes, there is a river on floor 1 which leads to floor 3, but due to some interesting interactions with the dragon on the first floor, there is no motivation to explore the rest of floor 1.   

From a pure gameplay perspective these floors just barely cut it, but in terms of making any sense within the world itself, the first floor doesn't and the second floor, again, just barely.  

I'm picking up here at a later date:

The party has now delved into and past floor 3, and now explored ~1/2 of floor 4, as well as having completely explored one sub-floor area.  

Floor 3 is a surprising failure of design, where if the party does not think to investigate up and down the river(as in swimming it if necessary) they will only have access to one exit.  Since I decided against exploiting this aspect of the dungeon, as it is a fast way to end up on floor- I just checked and apparently I'm wrong: it leads out of the dungeon, where is not specified, it may simply fall off the edge of the world.  Of course, checking my map, it does lead to somewhere, specifically to the city of Argesil, but such is not detailed in the dungeon.

The sub-floor, labeled as the Intermediary floor,  was created previously, and though it makes no logical sense, including 7 wandering orcs, it follows the law of jaquay(s?) in that every room is connected, in fact some rooms are just corridors!  This is also the point where I have started to make notable  exceptions to my policy of keeping everything as it was, for play-testing purposes, changing the 1200sp guarded by ten skeletons in a closet to 1200pp.  The main impetus for this comes from a realization brought on by a recent-ish post from the Blue Bard (this link may be dead in a short while) concerning treasure, where the amount of gold necessary to gain a level in AD&D is staggering.  Accordingly, the dungeon should have enough gold in it to accommodate such a need, else adventurers would not go there.

Floor 4 reverts to random generation for room contents and 'a wizard did it' for layout, though with plenty of interconnecting room, and most importantly, encounters that don't suck, mostly.  Of what the party did encounter, it was actually fun, if, again, nonsensical.  Two spiked devils fighting two giant centipedes provides a high amount of danger, either two 4HD or two 3HD creatures depending on who you side with, but most likely the party will be fighting them all.  None is an option as well and could entail waiting until there is a victor instead of the usual running away.

The spelunky encounter:

In the game Spelunky there is a vase which appears (sometimes?) that contains a diamond worth a lot of money, but breaking the vase and taking the diamond summons a ghost which hunts you down and will end your run if it catches you.  This, I think, is an excellent basis for a room in a dungeon.

In room 10, upon a raised section of the floor and sitting on a raised dais, ripe for the taking, is a fine cut, head-size diamond.  Any character with appraisal as a skill can mark the value at 10,000gp, any other character could probably guess the same.  Most players, or characters for that matter, could, most likely, also guess that it is somehow trapped.  Now, the characters tale the logical steps, search for secret doors or dart holes in the wall-none are present, search the dais for traps-nothing there either.  My druid cast detect poison-not poisoned.  A smart player would cast detect magic, I chose to forego this measure, but, if I had, my druid would have found the diamond enchanted with something.

The trigger is a magical one, when a character picks up the diamond and/or places it into his possession, a different kind of possession will take place: that is to say, a ghost (11HD) will be summoned, and let's just say I now know what the magic jar spell does.

The players: ghost(20AC, 42hp), Munro, Dalzell, Falkner, C. C., Holger, Tano, a hapless porter, a Goblin Retainer called Green-Stalker, and (excuse the name) Arsonist A. Murderer

Round 1: Dalzell pockets, as it were, the diamond, the ghost is summoned and immediately frightens the hapless porter, Falkner, Tano, Arsonist and Holger.  Munro, Stalker, and C. C. all succeed on their saving throws, Dalzell doesn't have to roll because he failed against magic jar and his soul is trapped in the diamond.

Round 2: The ghost ages Dalzell from 25 to 52.  Munro attack at +9, twice, misses both.  Stalker misses at +4. C. C. picks up a magic sword from Dalzell's unconscious form and misses (he needs a 20). Holger is wielding Claidhaimh Solais, which is a sword which does not accept cowardice, even magically induced, he turns on the spot and... misses twice(3/2 attacks at +5).

Round 3: The ghost ages Dalzell from 52 to 81.  Stalker hits for 2 damage, runs to Dalzell and picks up the diamond, holding it in one arm and attacking with the other.  Dalzell saves against magic jar and runs away.  Munro misses twice. Holger misses. C. C. misses.

Round 4: Ghost misses against Stalker. All miss except finally Munro, hitting twice for ~27 damage in total(sword is +3 vs undead, +4 dmg from specialization and is starmetal so +1d2 vs undead as well)

Round 5: Ghost misses.  Munro + Holger kill the ghost.

 The purpose of covering this is because it stands as the most engaging solo-RPG experience I have had to date.

XP & Retirement

I use an alternate xp system, one which I 'll probably write up a post on later, long story short, characters advance fairly quickly (if they risk their necks) and gold is highly useful, but not nearly as necessary.

Dalzell is now both 81 years old and a 9th level Thief.  If that isn't qualification for retirement, I don't know what is.