What needs to be removed to make high level dungeons work?

[Swordslinger]

You don't have to plan out elaborate counters to all of the player's possible tricks. You have to make encounters part of the adventure so that they can't be skipped and still complete the adventure. I mean, if you kill the BBEG and don't save the princess, that a fail condition that impacts rewards and has story consequences, meaning players are not going to skip the "saving the princess" part of the adventure.

And in so doing that, you take away any real meaningful player choice.

At least in a low level dungeon crawl you get to choose going left or right, or if you want to proceed down the corridor that looks unstable. You can choose to try to get in the castle via scaling the wall, through the sewers or through the front gate.

In an adventure like you propose, the PCs really don't choose anything, they just warp from spot to spot. You have no guards to sneak by or bribe. No areas to disguise your way into. It's just the party appearing and a boss fight. That sounds really dull to me.

[Wrathzog]

Yes. What we recognize as society is still completely incapable of mattering to any high level dude. Other high level dudes still matter of course, and they very definitely exist. But the crap covered peasants don't mean shit.

It's all so subjective... or is that the point? I think I'm getting terminology mixed up.

[Novembermike]

It's in the first sentence of the spell description, look it up.

Stone to Flesh then, or Shape Stone, or Rock to Mud on the foundation.

Again, it specifies in the spell description that Rock to Mud won't work like that for large structures. RTFA (Read the Furnished Materials, Sir)

I actually read that, but they were saying that with their engineer hats on, not their game design hats. As someone with an actual engineer hat they were kind of retarded on that. Large buildings would actually be more vulnerable to that than a more moderate sized building.

[CCarter]

On the OP subject:
The Epic Level Handbook (however bad, in general) has some reasonably good guidelines in the campaign design section about challenging high-level characters and designing high-level encounters and dungeons.

One thing to note here from there is that teleport is virtually essential to a plausible high-level adventure. The 30th level PCs shouldn't slog through the Same Forest They've Gone Through since 1st level, again, and keep encountering level-appropriate random encounters that would destroy the nearby city if the world had internal consistency worth a damn. Teleport or Plane Shift gets you quickly to new destinations where they can reasonably find appropriate opposition.
If you don't have teleport, a really high level game could maybe work by having appropriate challenges just appear very rarely, with the GM pushing the fast forward button until N years pass and some new challenge appears, but it may not be as much fun.

An adventure (as opposed to a dungeon) would be well-constructed if the flow of it is informational: the PCs move between locations in different cities or even planes to advance through the adventure. Scry safeguards and necessary clues mean they can't skip straight to the end boss - certain encounters unlock later encounters.
You can have trad dungeons, but they need to be scaled up and have counter measures - divert teleport or dimensional lock, wall of force barriers, anti-magic fields, consecrate + invisibility purge, or conjured adamantine or obdurian barriers (since real adamantine is so expensive). You could level the BBEG's castle and find that the actual castle is on a separate demiplane and only accessible through a gate you just buried under debris.
I once did locate a whole castle of psions in a dead magic zone up a mountain- the PCs murdered all the pirates on an island nearby to get a bunch of large rocks to drop on the castle through their teleport circle, but eventually dropped the idea and instead bargained with the guys to get the item they were after.

[mean_liar]

...In an adventure like you propose, the PCs really don't choose anything, they just warp from spot to spot. You have no guards to sneak by or bribe. No areas to disguise your way into. It's just the party appearing and a boss fight. That sounds really dull to me.

You ought to try it. You might like it.

The game of DnD changes as you level. You cease to care about zombies at some point. You cease to care about unleveled kobolds at some point. You cease to worry about otyughs at some point, along with a lot of other things. And... you ought to cease worrying about physical travel and mundane interaction (disguising and bribing gate guards, for example) along with that.

At some point the game needs to accept that it's changed, and players deserve a GM that is aware of that need. You don't tell stories about skeletons in the local graveyard as a meaningful immediate horror story at level 15, so why would you expect to treat interactions with level 3 NPCs as inviolate at the same point in the campaign?

At some point the characters reach the point where they are playing at the higher tiers of the setting's atmosphere. Why hasn't the world exploded in balors yet? Why are the outer planes themselves not invading all the damn time, as a matter of fact? What is it about gods that keeps them distant and not wading through mortals, handing out miracles like candy in order to attract more followers? You need at least some kind of answer to these larger questions about your setting in order to provide real high-level play, because your players are going to be butting up against the consequences of those answers, and it is those answers and the trickle-down stories they engender that ought to be your story-telling focus... at least with high-fantasy RPGs like DnDv3.5.

Its okay to want to maintain the same basic gameplay structure all the way through, but that's not a universally-held opinion and it shouldn't be considered high-fantasy. It's certainly not DnDv3.5. When I was younger I played the shit out of Warhammer Quest over the course of a summer with some friends of mine and we took it as far as we could before being slaughtered by a Vermin Lord and a pack of Skaven Assassins and Grey Seers. It was fantastic, and a decade later we can still talk about that summer and laugh about the fun we had. But that wasn't high fantasy, and I wouldn't pretend it was.

[RobbyPants]

You don't have to plan out elaborate counters to all of the player's possible tricks. You have to make encounters part of the adventure so that they can't be skipped and still complete the adventure. I mean, if you kill the BBEG and don't save the princess, that a fail condition that impacts rewards and has story consequences, meaning players are not going to skip the "saving the princess" part of the adventure.

And in so doing that, you take away any real meaningful player choice.

At least in a low level dungeon crawl you get to choose going left or right, or if you want to proceed down the corridor that looks unstable. You can choose to try to get in the castle via scaling the wall, through the sewers or through the front gate.

In an adventure like you propose, the PCs really don't choose anything, they just warp from spot to spot. You have no guards to sneak by or bribe. No areas to disguise your way into. It's just the party appearing and a boss fight. That sounds really dull to me.

Now you're being deliberately fucking obtuse. If you put high level PCs up against a low level adventure, you can't throw a hissy when they bypass your encounters. This isn't a matter of choice. This is a matter of you putting them up against a stupid adventure. If you want them to have choices, design adventures with more than one way to complete it. Warping to the entrance isn't a fucking adventure if you can teleport. Simplly walking through the woods from point A to B is not a high level adventure.

If you want an the PCs to walk through the woods, you have to give them a reason too. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

[Ice9]

And in so doing that, you take away any real meaningful player choice.

At least in a low level dungeon crawl you get to choose going left or right

I used to think this - that mapping out a dungeon and picking the route at each intersection was actually interactive and meaningful. But then I realized something. A blind choice is not really a choice.

Unless:
A) There are multiple paths that different substantially.
B) The players have a way of telling (at least partially) what these differences will be before picking a path.
C) There is not an obvious best path.

Then the entire mapping/navigation procedure is just going through the motions. Time consuming fiddlyness that ultimately serves no purpose and does not add actual choices.
TL;DR - Many dungeon crawls, probably the majority, are actually no better than a linear series of encounters.

[tzor]

And in so doing that, you take away any real meaningful player choice.

I have to call you on that. This is total BS. Let's change games for a moment to something easier to visualize... golf. The whole game of golf is based on getting a little ball into eighteen holes in order. By your definition, this is railroading to the extreeme.

But on any given player hole there is massive player choice. The player could go over the hazard or around it. He could make his first shot short and his second shot long (again to avoid hazards) or vice versa. He could take a conservative approach or he could take the risky shot. He actually faces a ton of choices even though this end goal is the same (getting the ball in the current hole).

Adventures need to be written in this manner. While there are clear sub-goals, the way to approach the goal needs to be many different approaches. Moreover it has to be clear to the players why their characters are doing what they are doing and that the various approaches to any one given mini goal are likewise clear and obvious to allow that preception of player choice.

Yes, the results of an adventure, like golf are cumulative. But having clear mini goals allows the players to segment the entire adventure in ways that makes it no longer seem like one long endless trek. While most golf games generally are scored as the total number of strokes, most golfers still think of it in terms of 18 holes and how they did realative to the expected "par" for each hole, as opposed to the "par" for the entire course. This is especially true, when the players don't know what holes lie in front of them other than the one they are currently on, as is often the case with adventures.

[sabs]

Wait, Going left ro Right in a dungeon is meaninful choice? Are you kidding me?

Meaningful choice is, do we rescue the villages, or not. Do we stop the river of lava coming down, or do we stop it.

[mean_liar]

stuff

That was a good analogy, tzor.

[K]

Wait, Going left ro Right in a dungeon is meaninful choice? Are you kidding me?

Meaningful choice is, do we rescue the villages, or not. Do we stop the river of lava coming down, or do we stop it.

Yup. Left or right in the dungeon is simply the illusion of choice.

Of course, that's the theme of 4e, right? It's game that offers the illusion of choice, but could actually could be played by a random generator.

On the theory that Swordslinger is not being deliberately obtuse and arguing in bad faith, here are a few ways to get people explore a dungeon:

1. Have the goal of the mission to find something in the dungeon. It could be a hostage, an item of magical or social value, or a villain.

2. Make the goal of the mission to clear the dungeon, either as a public safety issue or as a condition of a bounty or as a personal safety issue.

3. Add a number of escorts to overwhelm the PCs teleport/sneak/etc capacity. Maybe they are king's best men or sages of some kind needed to solve riddles, but they need to walked through the dungeon the old fashioned way.

4. Make the dungeon awesome. People really will search through an ice castle with weird mystic artwork or an obsidian hive made for undead bees even when people are trying to murder them if there is a chance for something awesome around the corner.

5. Loot. For better or worse, people love the loots and will Greyhawk entire cities if given the chance.


Now, those are just the simple and generic options. You could do something cool like have a vault that only opens when all the demons in the dungeon are killed and that would work equally well.

[tzor]

Can we drop the stupid example of search/map/and complete explore dungeon complex? Look, I started this game on this idea, but even back in the glory days of 1E AD&D that was a medium level adventure at best and the topic is supposed to be about high level dungeons.

Dungeons start to get non ecludian at high enough levels. My campaign stoped dungeon crwals entirely at high levels; had I really wanted to get into a high level dungeon I probably would have created an Escherian Dungeon. (Note that is entirely possible on the Astral Plane.)

[RobbyPants]

had I really wanted to get into a high level dungeon I probably would have created an Escherian Dungeon. (Note that is entirely possible on the Astral Plane.)

What's an Escherian Dungeon?

[K]

had I really wanted to get into a high level dungeon I probably would have created an Escherian Dungeon. (Note that is entirely possible on the Astral Plane.)

What's an Escherian Dungeon?

As in "could have been designed by M.C. Escher," so it would have weird spacial distortions.

[erik]

This reminds me of a situation where my party was in a dungeon with a rotating room that went through some repeatable pattern. Rather than figure it out we just told the DM that we would keep checking/moving the room until we could exit the way we desired. he was a bit disappointed that we did not waste time figuring it out whereas we felt that we solved it to our satisfaction.

[Archmage]

This reminds me of a situation where my party was in a dungeon with a rotating room that went through some repeatable pattern. Rather than figure it out we just told the DM that we would keep checking/moving the room until we could exit the way we desired. he was a bit disappointed that we did not waste time figuring it out whereas we felt that we solved it to our satisfaction.

I think the real core of the disappointment here is that your DM probably spent more time thinking of the dungeon feature than you spent overcoming the obstacle. If a "puzzle" can be brute-forced without penalty, many players can and will say "we try all the obvious solutions until we succeed." Conversely, force-proofing an obstacle by making all solutions except the "correct" one highly lethal or dangerous often has the opposite effect, especially if the clues leading to the right answer are absent or insufficient--you end up with players who refuse to do anything. They'll either bicker endlessly about which lever to pull or leave the dungeon altogether if they feel like they have any choice in the matter.

I suspect that a lot of DMs have this problem--obstacles and encounters that sound really cool in the DM's head often don't actually play out in an interesting manner mechanically. Walking a tightrope over lava while under fire from invisible/hidden goblin slingers sounds awesome and epic, but in-game it's going to be a series of skill checks and die rolls with little or no player input (unless the characters have access to alternate solutions, like flight, illusions, or invisibility of their own).

[Swordslinger]

I used to think this - that mapping out a dungeon and picking the route at each intersection was actually interactive and meaningful. But then I realized something. A blind choice is not really a choice.

Very true, and a bad DM will simply give you boring left, right or forward choices. However, a skilled group should be listening at doors, using skills like dungeoneering and Arcana to get clues, and so on. And a good DM should be giving clues to that stuff.

Yes, there are occasionally parts where there's no obvious right choice, but for the most part there should be meaningful decisions. Even if that decision happens to be "Do we want to risk the passage with the unstable ceiling or do we want to try to go through the chamber with the unnatural cold?"

@K: Only #5 on your list really works for high level campaigns. #1 is subverted by divinations, #3 just means you get to where you want to go and then teleport the enemy in, #4 honestly has never really worked in my opinion, and #2 doesn't feel like a high level quest. Vermin extermination is something for low level PCs not high level ones.

And yeah, about the only real module method of controlling knot cutting I've seen is the age old "This is a series of modules and if you miss out on treasure X and Experience from these fights, you'll be short on levels for the next one, making it all the more difficult."

Of course, I'm against solutions like that that just encourage PCs to metagame.

[tzor]

had I really wanted to get into a high level dungeon I probably would have created an Escherian Dungeon. (Note that is entirely possible on the Astral Plane.)

What's an Escherian Dungeon?

In an Escherian Dungeon the arrow of gravity is relative to the observer. What may be a wall to one observer may be a floor to another.

Escherian Dungeons may also include non ecludian geometric paradoxes.



Note in this case the water actually runs flat until it reaches a paradox point where it is above the starting point.

I really think a good starting point for any DM is to pick up a copy of the illustrations of MC Escher. Ignoring the geometirc oddities, he really make a lot of prints that make one say "I can really design a adventure around this."

[K]

@K: Only #5 on your list really works for high level campaigns. #1 is subverted by divinations, #3 just means you get to where you want to go and then teleport the enemy in, #4 honestly has never really worked in my opinion, and #2 doesn't feel like a high level quest. Vermin extermination is something for low level PCs not high level ones.

OK, we've found the problem: you don't actually know how DnD magic works and you vastly overestimate what it can do.

For example, finding objects is actually quite hard with divination. At best, you can use Legend Lore or Divination to get a helpful riddle because things you'd think would be super helpful like Locate Object can't find unique items unless you have personally seen them (so it could find "a key," but it won't find "the key to the prison" unless you've seen that actual key, so it's basically useless when looking for something important enough to be the object of a quest). Contact Other Plane and Commune gets you "yes/no/unknown" answers to questions, so that won't even help the search much since it's just an expensive version of 20 Questions (and it sometimes gives misinformation). Scrying only finds people.

Another example: teleporting an enemy to you is actually impossible in Core. There might be a supplement somewhere that has a spell that does it, but as a DM you approve all non-Core material so it's not even an issue.

As for your problems with #4, we are all well aware that you've had terrible DMs.

[sabs]

Really, dealing with an Undead invasion, or A weakness in the Planar barriers causing random Elementals to come through and slaughter civilians isn't High Level adventure to you? For fucks sake, public safety doesn't mean, "kill the devil rat" There's a WIDE range of things that could be happening.

[Bobikus]

I just hate when people assume that once the Wizard can scry and teleport, but the BBEG's don't have defenses against it, and that those defenses can get creative as well. Need to rescue the Princess from the BBEG's castle, so you just teleport into her cell to grab her? Oh oops, the BBEG set up contingency spells that trigger when someone aside from him teleports into the area, and the princess was killed by a fireball the moment you entered the cell.

[Kaelik]

I just hate when people assume that once the Wizard can scry and teleport, but the BBEG's don't have defenses against it, and that those defenses can get creative as well. Need to rescue the Princess from the BBEG's castle, so you just teleport into her cell to grab her? Oh oops, the BBEG set up contingency spells that trigger when someone aside from him teleports into the area, and the princess was killed by a fireball the moment you entered the cell.

Or, the BBEG has a minion who sits in the room with her while invisible and with detect scrying up. Then, when he sees a sensor appear, as soon as it is gone, he immediately uses disguise self, and triggers a teleport trap, and he then dismisses invisibility, and he's standing right where she was in the exact same spot, looking like her, and she's somewhere else. Then when they teleport in, any number of things can happen, one of which is they inadvertently allow a medium level wizard to infiltrate the kings graces.

[souran]

I just hate when people assume that once the Wizard can scry and teleport, but the BBEG's don't have defenses against it, and that those defenses can get creative as well. Need to rescue the Princess from the BBEG's castle, so you just teleport into her cell to grab her? Oh oops, the BBEG set up contingency spells that trigger when someone aside from him teleports into the area, and the princess was killed by a fireball the moment you entered the cell.

Or, the BBEG has a minion who sits in the room with her while invisible and with detect scrying up. Then, when he sees a sensor appear, as soon as it is gone, he immediately uses disguise self, and triggers a teleport trap, and he then dismisses invisibility, and he's standing right where she was in the exact same spot, looking like her, and she's somewhere else. Then when they teleport in, any number of things can happen, one of which is they inadvertently allow a medium level wizard to infiltrate the kings graces.

So.... teleport, scry, etc become illusory options. Because if one of the evil wizards is smart enough/has enough time to set up these sorts of contingencies then every wizard capable of setting up such contingencies does as well.

Further; I hope that "teleport in grab the princess" was not the way the evil wizard nabbed her in the first place. Because if the evil wizard can get these sorts of wards/protections then certianly the king can get a wizard to cast them on his own castle.

Basically, this solution is just "DM FIAT" done with an in game fuck you instead of just saying "teleport doesn't work." It has the same effect, you negated abilities that the players felt that they had rightfully earned and made them plod along a path that was the one you wanted instead.

One way or another the end result has to be "teleport does not immediatly solve the advenutre."

[Kaelik]

So.... teleport, scry, etc become illusory options. Because if one of the evil wizards is smart enough/has enough time to set up these sorts of contingencies then every wizard capable of setting up such contingencies does as well.

You are fucking retarded. Did you read at all? Yes, anyone who is willing and able to set up these contingencies on their captives can do so. Or, if they are level 15, they can just cast Mindblank on their captives. So you can't rely on that. That doesn't make Scry or Teleport illusory.

Further; I hope that "teleport in grab the princess" was not the way the evil wizard nabbed her in the first place. Because if the evil wizard can get these sorts of wards/protections then certianly the king can get a wizard to cast them on his own castle.

Well sure, the King could keep his daughter in a prison by telling her to never step foot off the teleport circle, and never move, even to shit, and hire a wizard to stand beside her. Of course, if that's the case, maybe the PCs are rescuing the Princess from the King who is doing that shit to her, because that's a great set up for dealing with a captive, but shit for anything else.

Basically, this solution is just "DM FIAT" done with an in game fuck you instead of just saying "teleport doesn't work." It has the same effect, you negated abilities that the players felt that they had rightfully earned and made them plod along a path that was the one you wanted instead.

No. There is no DM fiat. Just an intelligent enemy. Nor did I force any plodding along, since they could teleport in, see the guy with their true seeing, capture him, detect thoughts him, and then use the teleport circle to go to where the princess now is, and deal with whatever protections are on the other side of the circle. And that's a lot easier than showing up and the front gate, busting through a whole dungeon killing everything, then showing up at the princesses cell, where the princess is teleported onward, and a guy is pretending to be her. I fail to see how that works out to being a punishment on the teleporting party.

And since, hypothetically, all XP should be quest XP, there is no disadvantage to the teleport tactic, unless your character is really set on killing all the evil guy's minions so they aren't going to bother you later, or whatever else.

[Swordslinger]

For example, finding objects is actually quite hard with divination. At best, you can use Legend Lore or Divination to get a helpful riddle because things you'd think would be super helpful like Locate Object can't find unique items unless you have personally seen them (so it could find "a key," but it won't find "the key to the prison" unless you've seen that actual key, so it's basically useless when looking for something important enough to be the object of a quest). Contact Other Plane and Commune gets you "yes/no/unknown" answers to questions, so that won't even help the search much since it's just an expensive version of 20 Questions (and it sometimes gives misinformation). Scrying only finds people.

There are ways around limitations. The easiest such one is grabbing a ring of spellstoring and giving it to the guy who actually saw the object in question. You can also use a bunch of clairvoyance spells to check out a dungeon and figure out a good point to enter, or even dropping Locate object and asking for an object similar to what you're looking for like "Key made of gold" will work well in narrowing down your search unless your enemy has deliberately made duplicates. Vision spell can also show you things, which lets you see the object, and thus locate object on it.

And note that I'm not saying you can't stop all of that stuff, it's just that when you're designing a high level adventure, your focus isn't on the story and it's characters, but rather a stressful paranoia-fueled search for every spell combo, because if you fail to notice one, the adventure is over, and all your hard work is gone. That's a ton of pressure, and most DMs just don't want to subject themselves to that. You can make excuses all you want, and call them bad DMs, but that's a fact, and it's the reason there are so few high level games, and most of them run with a book of house rules.

Another example: teleporting an enemy to you is actually impossible in Core. There might be a supplement somewhere that has a spell that does it, but as a DM you approve all non-Core material so it's not even an issue.

Gate spell brings an enemy to you. It costs you 1000 XP a pop but chances are the enemy you're killing is worth more than that. The enemy does depart at the end of the spell (which could also be interpreted as his equipment too), but he still remains dead.

Calling Creatures

The second effect of the gate spell is to call an extraplanar creature to your aid (a calling effect). By naming a particular being or kind of being as you cast the spell, you cause the gate to open in the immediate vicinity of the desired creature and pull the subject through, willing or unwilling. Deities and unique beings are under no compulsion to come through the gate, although they may choose to do so of their own accord. This use of the spell creates a gate that remains open just long enough to transport the called creatures. This use of the spell has an XP cost (see below).

If you choose to call a kind of creature instead of a known individual you may call either a single creature (of any HD) or several creatures. You can call and control several creatures as long as their HD total does not exceed your caster level. In the case of a single creature, you can control it if its HD do not exceed twice your caster level. A single creature with more HD than twice your caster level can’t be controlled. Deities and unique beings cannot be controlled in any event. An uncontrolled being acts as it pleases, making the calling of such creatures rather dangerous. An uncontrolled being may return to its home plane at any time.

A controlled creature can be commanded to perform a service for you. Such services fall into two categories: immediate tasks and contractual service. Fighting for you in a single battle or taking any other actions that can be accomplished within 1 round per caster level counts as an immediate task; you need not make any agreement or pay any reward for the creature’s help. The creature departs at the end of the spell.