Topic: Dungeon Adventures

[Mordenkainen]

Rolemaster is much more deadly than games like D&D, so it's difficult to ask a party of PCs to go underground and fight a warren of nasty foes one after the other.

How have you, or would you, make dungeon-based adventures viable?

[Marc R]

I recently used a giant dungeon for HARP, which has similar issues, just made sure to spread the dangerous monsters out a bit, and they set up a base to retreat back to, which they did whenever the PP ran low. . .the one upside of HARP is the fact the ranger and the priest could both heal, so it wasn't one of those situations where "Oh crap the priest took a hit in the head, we're screwed."

I've done RM dungeon crawls as a PC and a GM, and I think my experiences there allowed the HARP game to work. . .I think the key elements are:

1) Watch the pile-in effects: RM combat is ill suited to another 5 goblins showing up every round for 10 rounds.

2) Keep the monsters separated: Partially due to 1, and also so that the PCs don't flee from monster 1 into monster 2.

3) If it's anything like the scale of a D&D dungeon, have the PCs know that they likely will need to hole up and rest a few times, rather than clear the whole in one run.

4) Smart/organized dungeons, rather than ones with a lot of individual, separate encounters (like the slaver modules or the giants of D&D) will likely overwhelm the PCs unless they intend to be very sneaky, or have a lot of backup handy, or are WAY over the usual level. (Like five to seven 50th level PCs might be able to approach something like G1-3 the way a D&D party would)

4) Make sure to have two healer types, or a healer and at least one healing item (held by a character other than the healer).

[Zedul]

I generally only do a dungeon crawl in 1 out of 6 adventures and I make sure that it is very story related but it's doable.  It's just important to give the characters "reprieve" points.  I always put a little hiding spot in a dungeon so the smart characters can get there and camp out and so forth.

Also it requires the characters are savy, the party is balanced and everybody is capable of certain skills. Even our Pallies take a few boxes in S&H "just because" it's one of those essential skills.  Parties that bang into a dungeon and alert every monster in the place will die right off the bat.

Just a few adventures ago we had a new player at the adventure and as the party entered the dungeon the first thing that went down is the fighter looked at the newbie mage and said closed table "You set a fireball off in here and I will hang you from the rafters and skin you alive with a dull axe!"

As a general rule make all traps and such applicable to age and reality. SOME of those things will be set off over the years and the players should be able to see the consequences and type of traps they are facing by staring at the ruin of previous parties.  Avoid the "magically resetting" traps for the most part because it's just corny and doesn't make sense story wise though in certain cases magical traps are useful but can also be devastating.   You cannot even count on Ice modules to be really together at all times either. I had a whole game session turn into a crab fest once with players storming out in a rage because those nasty x10 fireballs in the Mt. Doom section of the Gorgoroth module wiped an entire high level party that had been at it for almost two years because the burglar missed the magical trap. *gulp*

Still with the right players even the most difficult is possible.

I adopted the classic "Tomb of Horrors" to Rolemaster years ago and made it even nastier than the D&D version.  Of the 8 characters that went in only 3 came out alive but they still loved it even though they declared that they were "mentally exhausted" after the 16 hour session it took to complete the dungeon.  I told players beforehand that when their characters died they could go home so it was a "10 little indians" type scenario and those three guys that survived were literally doing the high fives.  They still brag about that to other players decades later!

Deadly can sometimes be fun with the right mentality.

[mocking bird]

Rolemaster is much more deadly than games like D&D, so it's difficult to ask a party of PCs to go underground and fight a warren of nasty foes one after the other.

How have you, or would you, make dungeon-based adventures viable?

I strongly disagree with the first statement.  At higher levels with a decent healer short of immolation and decapitation healers can pretty much fix anything fairly quickly.  HARP is similar with the availability of major healing and simplified wounds.

But as for dungeon crawls or combat heavy encounters, they really aren't any more difficult to make 'viable' than anything else.  In the end it still comes down to rationing spell caster's's ability to cast healing spells.  In RM this isn't nearly as difficult since PP's can be used for anything and spell mastery, or an arcanist with arcane healing,  can eliminate multiple castings.

[Marc R]

The dogpile effect is pronounced in RM . . .it's much harder to balance out the logic ala:

"5 Fifth level characters can take 25 first level goblins" due to how parry works. . . in most game systems your defenses are good vs all attacks in the round, in some systems (like say GURPS) parry is a bit more important. . . but in RM parry is king, and 5:1 odds way overbalance 1:5 levels.

If the RM party starts the fight, they can likely wipe out most of those goblins from the get go with a spell or barrage of missiles, and mop up the survivors, but if they get into melee before the fight starts, you should expect to lose most of the party, if not TPK, due to the fact you just can't parry vs that many simultaneous attacks, and unparried attacks tend to have bad results.

[Zedul]

The dogpile effect is pronounced in RM . . .it's much harder to balance out the logic ala:

"5 Fifth level characters can take 25 first level goblins" due to how parry works. . . in most game systems your defenses are good vs all attacks in the round, in some systems (like say GURPS) parry is a bit more important. . . but in RM parry is king, and 5:1 odds way overbalance 1:5 levels.

If the RM party starts the fight, they can likely wipe out most of those goblins from the get go with a spell or barrage of missiles, and mop up the survivors, but if they get into melee before the fight starts, you should expect to lose most of the party, if not TPK, due to the fact you just can't parry vs that many simultaneous attacks, and unparried attacks tend to have bad results.

Aye!  At times I have run into players who are under the impression that parry is "infinite" and I have to remind them "you can only parry what you can attack"  This is why certain artifacts found in the system (like LoME) that allow 7x full parries in a single round are beyond amazing.

The impression of deadliness comes from the critical tables... X player at his first Rolemaster session gets reduced to a "burbling pile of goo" on one blast when he had full health and he runs out and tells his friends "OMG that game is too deadly!" and word of mouth goes forth.

[Marc R]

That makes it a lot chancier to have a party of 10 or less individuals confront something like "A tribe of goblins". . . .the set up needs to have them spread out in sub groups, or caught in one tight spot where that one area attack can do a big cut down, or a cliff above the camp you can drop on them. . . .there needs to be a way to finesse it, or some cavalry to call in. . .but there has to be some sort of angle. . .but good players will find it, or have the sense to back away and go a different direction.

[Kristen Mork]

4) Smart/organized dungeons, rather than ones with a lot of individual, separate encounters (like the slaver modules or the giants of D&D) will likely overwhelm the PCs unless they intend to be very sneaky, or have a lot of backup handy, or are WAY over the usual level. (Like five to seven 50th level PCs might be able to approach something like G1-3 the way a D&D party would)

I've run the entire T1-4, A1-4, G1-3, D1-3, Q1 series in RMSS.  Of those, G1 is the nastiest in Rolemaster (it's a potential TPK in D&D due to overwhelming numbers).  The players recognized the dangers, sneaked into the lower level, recruited the slaves, and (with a combination of invisibility and War Law) annihilated the giants in short order.

I do agree, though, that if the enemies are numerous, the PCs need to have an army, too.

[Zedul]

I do agree, though, that if the enemies are numerous, the PCs need to have an army, too.

Or a Bard or Mentalist... Bards and Mentalists are the oft underused mass target control in RM especially against creatures like orcs, trolls, ogres, and giants who have very low mentalism resists.  A Great Song or the high level Mind Shout can easily neutralize 5 to 10 targets and possibly more.  Lookout if your bard or mentalist has spatial skills as small armies of NPC's can simply wilt away.

[Marc R]

I like the priest's discriminating smart bomb spells also, assuming all the PCs are of the same faith, fighting faith enemies, it's nice to have an area affect attack that only targets the enemies and you can dump into the middle of melee.

[yammahoper]

Cinimatic Combat from Martial Arts Comp helps a lot too!

[Zedul]

I like the priest's discriminating smart bomb spells also, assuming all the PCs are of the same faith, fighting faith enemies, it's nice to have an area affect attack that only targets the enemies and you can dump into the middle of melee.

Priest?  That must be from the newer system.  Bard's have the same ability, ie silent song.

[yammahoper]

I like the priest's discriminating smart bomb spells also, assuming all the PCs are of the same faith, fighting faith enemies, it's nice to have an area affect attack that only targets the enemies and you can dump into the middle of melee.

Priest?  That must be from the newer system.  Bard's have the same ability, ie silent song.

The one RMSS book your players and self will love is CHanneling Companion.  50 new base list for channelers, plus add in the 6 cleric, animist, ranger healer and paladins list.  From this pool the GM creates a religions base list based on its God and teachings.  Some are very mage like in their blasting spells.

[VladD]

My players migrated fairly recently from D&D to RM and after a fair amount of warnings they now get a lot of satisfaction from NOT kicking in every monster's door and shouting "Come get us, we are filthy rich", when traveling through wilderness areas to attract XP, I mean encounters...
They have adapted from a play style where combat was the excuse, the bad guy and the reason for not roleplaying. Now they are having fun in a different type of play and they are actually really proud to evade combat, or win it by means of clever strategies and tricking the enemy.
There are still dungeon crawls, except I usually fudge the amount of noise from the player characters' actions down, so one or 2 fireballs are not heard around the entire complex and weapon noise doesn't carry through a single door. I usually roll a higher chance encounter once for such a combat and decide when I want the new foe to burst in the room. Players kinda like the look on a minotaur's face when he kicks in the door to find his little goblin buddies being looted by a bunch of unshaven, mismatched PC's.
I also plan small stories to play out in the dungeon, such as how different monsters behave towards each other and I use rivalry to insure that "the next door monster" is actually chuckling as his rival giant neighbor is mauled and mewling, perhaps not realizing he is next.
Also I prepare plans based on the dungeon and not the dungeon based on the plans. So barricades are not fixed and immovable. Goblins might actually make flammable barriers (stolen bales of hay SEEMED like a good idea at the time!) and those positions might not be as advantageous as they first thought.
The last thing is that I learned my players to use every advantage for themselves. Never fan out in a big room, use choke points and stick to the plan. Learn how to plan ahead and use surprise and "first blow knockouts" as much as possible.
A very last tip is that your players need to recognize the most important foes. Enemy casters that start to prepare; soon get peppered with arrows, enemies with silly large head dresses instantly get a lot of attention from the party fighters and those enemies that start to organize their ranks are put out of commission from the moment they start to get annoying. This will reduce the enemy's capability to hurt the party significantly, especially on the higher levels of play (10+) where I think that most party casualties are because of lucky hits. Party healers usually can heal anything up to brain destroyed  and reduced to ash.
I'd recommend to keep the fights interesting and varied and dangerous and not to be shy with using some bad ass monsters, but make sure the party can get some advantage.

Game on!

[Marc R]

The channels list I think, holy shout and the like.

The paladin has a few that are good for that also, the holy aura damage spells are great for wading into a mass melee with undead, burning the abominations without harming the friendlies. . .unlike say a fireball.

[Zedul]

The channels list I think, holy shout and the like.

The paladin has a few that are good for that also, the holy aura damage spells are great for wading into a mass melee with undead, burning the abominations without harming the friendlies. . .unlike say a fireball.

High level paladins work on undead like a bug zapper!  One time the party pally had a broken arm and a leg from fighting an Ordainer and the party had to get out of the dungeon through a horde of low level Zombies.  The paladin cast holy aura, they put her on a sled and the burly fighter drug her through the zombies while the rest of the party gathered round her in defensive stances.  By the time they were out of the dungeon there were piles of smoking zombie husks everywhere.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Does smoking zombies cause cancer? 

[Marc R]

(The FDA warnings on smoking zombies and the OSHA guidelines on long term use of Kregora tools are quite lengthy).

[boawk]

James Maliszewski over at Grognardia had an interesting blog post (http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/06/empty-rooms.html) on the subject of stocking dungeons.  He notes that the original D&D guidelines suggest that 2/3 of dungeon rooms should not have monsters.  I believe that over the years "mission creep" has led to overstocking of dungeons.  I don't know what the appropriate monster to room stocking ratio should be for Rolemaster, but I like the idea of fewer monsters rather than more.  It allows for a greater opportunity to roleplay vs (dice)-rollplay.

[Thom @ ICE]

It would all depend on what the functional purpose of the dungeons was.

• If they are true dungeons - jail cells attached to a keep - then I would expect 80% of the cells to be filled, but only about 10% of the other rooms.
• If they are living quarters for a tribe of orcs, then probably only about 1/3 of the rooms would be occupied - and many would be with small groups of non-combatant types, but there'd be at least one major common room with enough of them to swarm over you in a second.  They also are likely to have pets/guardian creatures
• If they are caves that certain beasts have taken refuge in then expect very few rooms with one major beast type and other creatures that would benefit from a symbiotic relationship with that creature.
• If it is a stocked dungeon by some powerful being/race and intended to be used for the sport of watching their pets destroy victims - then probably a higher percentage

I am sure there are plenty of other reasons for dungeons, but it really does come down to what the purpose of the space is... and it's not so that heroes can come and clean them out looking for treasure and gaining experience.