I am going to be running a group of 8 evil players through WotW adventure path (modified based off of our current Kingmaker campaign). I am thinking about having the players have access to a Megadungeon that they will have to try to pillage periodically throughout the campaign to remain geared, as I will be limiting their loot and buy appropriate gear through towns.
My question is, what would be your suggestion on the best megadungeon to include, and why.
Rappan Athuk is a load of fun.
Just make sure players bring back-up characters.
I have never ran Rappan Athuk, but everything I am coming across is very positive.
Will it be wealthy enough in treasures to entice my band of evil villains?
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Rappan Athuk has too much treasure. If they ONLY do Rappan Athuk, from first level to Level X, they will always be well above the WBL table of expected values.
So yes, it's a good place for them to "loot up" in between your other loot-starved adventure.
Actually, you may find them saying "Hey, why do we keep going back to that crappy other adventure when we could stay right here and get rich?"
Note: I only meant "crappy" as in "we never get any loot there", not in an broader sense of judging the quality of your game, which I obviously can't.
Hearing that Rappan Athuk is challenging gives me warm feelings as I plan to incorporate it into my Kingmaker campaign. :)
As for having too much treasure as DM_Blake suggests, there is a pretty easy solution. If it appears as though the party is getting too rich, you can simply cut back on some of the items given out. Note though that it is probably best to do this from the beginning as it is easier to allow the dungeon to get more profitable (i.e. not make changes) than it is if suddenly the value in the dungeon just dries up. (i.e. Well, shucks, now there's no reason to go back there). Personally, I would say just take a good look at the treasure handed out and if it looks like it will overly enrich the party, then trim just a little bit at a time.
If Rappan Athuk has too much loot, there is an easy way to reduce the final wealth of the party: since the given reason for going there in the first place is because the group won't have access to shops to buy stuff they want, then they probably can't sell stuff either.
All you need to do, then, is to limit how much directly useful loot is present and then reduce the money made when they sell the things they don't want whilst also adding a markup on things they want to buy.
This would represent the fact that they would be buying and selling things through middlemen rather than openly, and a criminal network which can do this for the party will clearly need to be able to make a profit.
Your progress through an AP will be glacially slow with 8 players at the table taking turns, needing RP spotlight, etc.; adding an entire 1-20 megadungeon on top of that will result in this game finishing sometime in the year 2025. And that's if you meet weekly. :P
I'm intrigued by talk of integrating Rappan Athuk into Kingmaker. It seems awesome. What is your intention, as it sounds very tempting to try?
Rappan Athuk is a load of fun.
Just make sure players bring back-up characters.
Yeah, my group is at level 9 and have had three party wipes in addition to a number of non-TPK deaths. :)
Actually, we are currently running Kingmaker and I am a player in that campaign. When this concludes, I am going to run Way of the Wicked modified so that it takes place in the Kingdom that we created. And then we are going to burn it to the freaking ground!
With such a big group of villains, who I am allowing to all be a bit on the higher side of regular power, the main storyline is not likely to provide a ton of challenge, but hopefully and enriching story. There are areas where I can probably challenge them, but definitely not through most of the campaign. I am going to integrate the megadungeon into the campaign as a place that they can access that they know has immense treasures, so that they can try to keep geared up some, and present a suitable challenge at the same time.
And yes, I am quite aware of the challenges of running an 8 person campaign. Oi...
Not overly worried about too much loot, remember, we are bad guys and I am allowing the higher side of power (thats the point in being bad anyways right). With 8 players, I am totally more afraid that they will roflstomp the shit out of the dungeon and that their will not be enough loots for their troubles. I am already modifying an entire AP, kinda hoping to run the megadungeon with a little less modification.
Brimgoth, they will roflstomp many sections and then run into SURPRISE TPK territory in the middle of a roflstomp.
Yeah, Rappan Athuk may not really be the right choice to use as a side-trek for characters who have an ongoing storyline of any kind. It's more from the 1e school of thought where you expect to burn through several characters which doesn't necessarily fit real well with the typical AP story experience.
It's also sized for 4-6 people so it probably needs adjustment for your group to a fair extent. I'm not aware of any megadungeons written for as many as 8 characters. Emerald Spire is written for the usual four, RA is 4-6, Castle Whiterock is 4-6 (and also kind of a mess), WLD is DEFINITELY a mess...
I understand the dangers. It will need to be dangerous to handle 8 fairly high powered evil characters. And, if they die, they die. Their souls will then belong to Asmodeous.
Thanks for all of the feedback guys! I have ordered Rappan Athuk and can't wait to dig into it.
I'm intrigued by talk of integrating Rappan Athuk into Kingmaker. It seems awesome. What is your intention, as it sounds very tempting to try?
My campaign is still very much in the planning stages at this point, so obviously everything is subject to change. That said, the biggest "problem" with Kingmaker is that it is very much susceptible to the "Five Minute Work Day", so I wanted to be able to spice that up a bit with some content that would get around that. I'll try to be fairly vague so as not to elicit spoilers.
The good thing about RA is that it has all kinds of entrances scattered around, which makes it pretty easy to seed into the Stolen Lands. I plan to scatter entrances all around the Stolen Lands, often coinciding with key encounter areas. Candlemere Tower for instance makes sense to have a hidden entrance, etc. Part of the background for the Stolen Lands then becomes that part of the reason they are so dangerous is that you have this big dungeon with all these monsters in it, and occasionally those monsters might wander out and go for a stroll.
In order to tie it into KM specifically though, I will likely flavor it with more of a fey influence (though not entirely). The main idea being that the Big Bad of the campaign has been planning the "master stroke" for a long time and that RA is a big part of trying to keep the region unstable. She also doesn't seem to be the type to shy away from making deals with the devil so to speak. Finally, when we get to the final chapter, a lot of what is designed to spur the party on will be tied into what is going on in RA (i.e. RA also becomes a mechanism for the ultimate plan).
The biggest problem I anticipate with my players is that they tend to have the mentality that once they enter a building/dungeon/etc. they shouldn't leave until its entirely cleared out. Obviously, that would be problematic with RA so I'll probably put hard stops in the dungeon (i.e. collapsed tunnels -- perhaps collapsed by fleeing dungeon delvers, etc.). The other problem with RA being thrown in will be the obvious XP issue. My solution is I am just going to get rid of XP (a sacred cow I know) and level the party up when appropriate. I will no doubt cut out portions of RA that don't fit as well or that I just don't like as much. Additionally, I am contemplating making the game Mythic which would allow for RA to be used to gain mythic ranks. I'm not decided on this yet though as going mythic would require a lot of reworking of the campaign.
That's just the rough idea of it, but as I said, I'm still in the planning stages anyway. Our current campaign probably still has a few more months left in it and I'm busy rereading the KM modules at the moment. The biggest question for myself will simply be how far to spread the dungeon out. (i.e. how far do I want to spread the entrances around).
I am getting rid of exp completely and auto leveling the group when appropriate.
Rappan Athuk is specifically designed for 6 PCs (not 4-6).
Difficulty Level: Details the average level of difficulty of the dungeon level. A party of six player characters (PCs) with the suggested experience level should be properly challenged by this level of the dungeon.
There are encounters that are significantly higher than the Difficult Level of the level. (Example: a level with a DL of 8 and an encounter with a CR of 16.) This is what causes the TPKs if the group is unlucky or unaware of the danger. :)
They advertise it for 4-6 on their site:
An adventure for 4 – 6 PCs
Character Levels 1 – 20
There are multiple versions for various systems floating around out there though, it wouldn't surprise me if it varies.