I am going to create my own map for Runeforge. My MapTool campaign will be reaching that demi-plane soon, and I really want to go all-out. The maps in Pathfinder #5 are interesting, but the level of detail is not conducive to using them directly in a MapTool campaign. There are also a few bits I would like to "fix" to my own taste, but hopefully little enough so that I can share the map.
I'm looking for a little inspiration. Tell me stories about your games in Runeforge, or your own ideas for how it will play in future. Also, linking to any existing stories is great too!
Personally, I'm very intrigued by the "void of dangerous entropy" described in Pathfinder 5, page 22. I love the idea that the whole structure is suspended in a void, and I think I might try to incorporate that into the architecture a little more, especially in the Abjuration halls, which are supposed to be totally obliterated.
Also, give me some of your ideas on expanding the "missing" wings (Envy and Sloth) or expanding any section, really. I have always felt there should be more to the Halls of Wrath, given the number of people/species in there...
So please, hand over all your creativity! Maybe you shall see it mapped!
I completely agree that Envy and Sloth need to be expanded. The bathhouse theme for Sloth is great, so keeping that will work well. Something I wanted to do was have the mini-boss for one (or more) of the halls be a spell. The PC's have to get past a very powerful, magical affect to get to whatever magic liquid they need.
Maybe for Envy have a stronger, permanent version of Covetous Aura give all the PC's spells and enhancements to a golem or something. Eh, that would probably work better if they went to an abjurer. Or, maybe something in the hall drains you of all magic and enhancements, similar to the magical dead-zone by Alkenstar, leaving the PC's to figure out a puzzle to get out.
I completely agree that Envy and Sloth need to be expanded. The bathhouse theme for Sloth is great, so keeping that will work well. Something I wanted to do was have the mini-boss for one (or more) of the halls be a spell. The PC's have to get past a very powerful, magical affect to get to whatever magic liquid they need.
ok. well i am just finishing up book five for my group (and let me say, runeforge is crazy. and the first thing i realized when i was looking through the dungeon is that while each area is absolutely fine for a lab or workspace. these people were always intended to Live there for the rest of their lives... thus to most of the areas i added a second level accessible by a staircase(either hidden or non) to living areas. in a few places like wrath this was a large area filled with a forced breeding pit, part of a partially collapsed arena, and the sinspawn pen (with hints of a sinspawn breeding experiment as well, because my players don't mind R or X rated bits in an campaign focused on the seven deadlies.)
going to go over some of the changes i made by area, as well as maybe a few suggestions on other ways to handle it.
To start the ones you mentioned. sloth and envy
Sloth- The best thing ever with sloth i found is the fact they DIDN't give me a map, it made me be creative and come up with the fact that slothful people wouldn't care to wander around long tunnels or passages on their own... so for sloth i just made some hallways and specific rooms. (not actually connected) The trick with the labyrinth is that the place twists and turns to bring you where you want to go at that second, a perfect thing for slothful people.... but hell if you have a group wandering around not realizing they need to focus on a destination. when they got hungry they found the messy hall (with a cornucopia and a small tribe of goblins that worshiped the great food producing thing... dangerous goblins living here, but still much amusement was had with thrown food improvised weapons vs a surprised spellcaster..) the baths, and other suitably decadent locations, deteremined at random until they figured the trick out. (someone is always thinking about/wanting something after all)(made up a list of rooms and a 1d10 chart to find em)
Envy- Envy was the most fun for me honestly, though i had to expand the abjurant halls somewhat, it let me play once again with an older mechanic... haunts! in one of the southern rooms i placed a nasty haunt that envyed the fact that the player was still alive and tried to take that life energy... in another there was a haunt that envied the players body.. and tried to posses the player(for a good few rounds of amusing fun...), and of course the oldest bit of all with the abjurant lord's corpse sitting there in his half destroyed library(if i cant have it no one can), his body still absorbing magic and life force from the area each round... it really played up the folly and danger of the sin,especially with the little snippets of appropriate visions and words plaguing the characters(vision of a desperate mage grabbing you while ranting over you still living while they aren't and how unfair it was... thinking your the lord of envy while surrounded by an alliance of the others who (of course) are out to kill you because they envy your obvious greatness and even while wounded you wont let them get away with this.... even if the "combat" in that area was only minor, it definitely perked things up a lot.
Wrath- as said, i took the entry area, and made the red teleport circle go to the other level, which had the breeding areas, the partial arena, the small training area where several children were becoming the next breed of wrathful warriors(and it was fun to see the moral question of what to do with a swarm of raging children... to retaliate. or not?-used the mob rules for them) the holding pen for created sinspawn, and a few other small connected areas.
Greed- Greed didn't change much, the addition of a small horde in the "living" level which i added branching off from stairs in each of the pool rooms (instead of a full level i put a group of 4 rooms above each pool room in a square basically, it worked fine, especially since it let me play some more with transmuting traps and tricks the older mages left.
Lust- Lust was easy enough, since at one point there WAS supposed to be a full group of people there, i made a trap door under the pavillion which led down to their richly furnished old corridors, complete with some summoning chambers, murals of extremely debauched acts, as well as a few interesting situations... including a "training" room that looked more like a dungeon, and some Animate objects that attempted to chain down and "train" the first few people in the room, i would say more, especially about certain assimar learning about things that do and don't fit... except then i would have to rate the post x rated...
Pride- Pride was down and out hilarious. no holds barred... the mirror trap is insanely fun, esp with an amusing group... the eldritch knight duplicates herself first. followed by the cleric... they then run back down the hallway to avoid fighting in an area where the rest of the party will duplicate themselves... (not realizing the mirrors had limits), so they trade spells for a minute, but to avoid complications of which eldritch knight is the real one... the real one used the stalkers mask to duplicate sulani(the sorceress), and also cast mirror image... so now there are 7 sorceresses... not having a target that round, (since the doubles took cover behind the wall at the start of the hall while buffing) the sorceress also cast mirror image... bringing it to 14 sulani's in a tight space.. and a very confused cleric and rogue... the rogue figuring to take advantage of the confusion to avoid being targeted used his hat of disguise to Also become sulani.... so when the next round happened and the mirror foes looked. there were now 15 sorceresses, and one very confused cleric... which led to one of the eldritch knights greasing the floor and ducking back, while the other mirror imaged as well and used Their duplicated stalkers mask... also to look like sulani...
leading to the next round with almost 20 sulanis in the corridor, and about 6 of them slipping around on the floor like idiots (because real sorceresses cant make reflex saves.... and a hysterically laughing sulani(the rogue) who cant belive the situation...... and since the sulani on the floor couldn't tell who was who or what was going on.... they then lightning bolted the laughing sulani because it must be evil to laugh at her right?
very crazy but probably the best game session we've had in a long time... the simulacrums were definitely anticlimactic. and i didn't need to add anything else to the area other then a statue gallery filled with veraxis's own images (two of which were animate)... after all he was so prideful he didn't need a large staff
Gluttony is what they are gearing up for now.. and other then expand the "crypt" theme of the area slightly by placing a couple more mausuleums , it also doesn't need much.
But there, hope that was some of the ideas you were looking for, if not hopefully it helped or was at least amusing.
I am running my group in Runelords 5 and am on my way to Runeforge as well.
I know what you mean about the maps. In general, I have found the dungeon maps in paizio products under-whelming. While beautifully illustrated, they seemed designed with the priority of fitting into a half page. The areas for major boss fights are often restrictively small. Runeforge needs to blow that all out of the water. i'd recommend working up only the areas of encounters and not getting bogged down into how all the passages connect.
I also rely heavily on miniatures for the battles and am looking forward to adapting a dark eldar army from Warhammer 40k to fit the style of the ancient thassilonians. Decadent and wicked and given to inflicting pain, they will give the dungeon a feel that is both alien and ancient, high fantasy yet also kind of truly advanced lost civilization. I'm using Mandrakes for undead, Wyches for eldritch knights/magus, Incubi for armored sin spawn, Scourges for alu-demons, etc.
Using the new stuff I altered the halls of wrath to be a den of Magus types, though eldritch knight can be just as good. Similarly, the sloth halls could be converted to a bastion of summoners.
For sloth I envision an area in which magic does all the work for you. Teleporters and gates weave the place together so you need not spend much effort. Summoned creatures do all the work. However, the fact that they have been taken out in mage battles suggests some damage to the system with chaotic effects. I honestly thought it was paizo's idea of a joke/pun to be too lazy to bother designing this area which could be so cool.
Don't know where you are in your mapping project, but I had an epiphany the other day while I was playing Super Mario Kart with the kids and although I'm not even running RotRL yet, I will once the hard cover comes out.
Sorta Long and Meandering Thought:
My idea for one of the wings basically consists of a dungeon that has no walls or ceilings, only the floor. When standing in a room, they only see the room, stuff in the room, and any doors leading to other rooms. If they open a door, they can see the next room through the door, but they don't see if if they look around the door. The rooms are lit from an unknown magical source as though there were torches attached to walls.
Now, if someone were to fall off the edge of the floor, another person would observe them falling away until they couldn't be seen and then instantly falling from above to land on the floor from where they fell.
For the one who fell, though, they have to make a save, and if they fail the save, they return to the floor after suffering some kind of ability damage/drain (INT and/or WIS, perhaps). Each time they take the damage, they must roll the save again, and if they fail, they suffer the damage; if they pass, they are returned to the floor. If their ability score drops to 0, they return to the floor unconscious but suffer from some kind of insanity affect once they wake up. From the falling character's perspective, the fall took years, as opposed to a few seconds observed by the others.
When I first thought of this, I was going to have a failed save equal to so many years, and the character would age accordingly, but I figured this would unfairly penalize humans as compared to elves. Then again, maybe elves are just more resilient to aging affects because they do live longer. I think it would scare the hell out of the players to see a bad guy fall off and return having died from old age during his "fall", I just don't know how to work that out.
Of course, the Anniversary Edition will reportedly include a lot more of Runeforge.
Given our pace, my game will be about halfway through "Hook Mountain Massacre" when the Anniversary Edition becomes available, and I'm planning to buy it the day it ships.
