Rappan Athuk AS&SH Campaign Data

A year ago I ran several sessions of Rappan Athuk (using AS&SH for those sweet sub-classes) - 18 sessions out of a 26-session campaign, to be precise. The sessions were 2-3 hours long each, conducted over TeamSpeak. I kept notes and maintained an ugly master sheet for XP and mortality data, of which I was just reminded by a question on Reddit (How many XP do characters bring back per session in your games?).

My answer to the question lies in the document hereby shared for all of you kind readers to see.

Most of the stuff in there should be fairly obvious, but here are some notes: In the Overview tab the PC and NPC columns show the number of characters present at a particular session, whereas in the Mortality tab the Sum columns have the number of PCs/NPCs present up to that point combined for purposes of lethality calculations (given in the mW columns). In the XP tab the "Loot XP %" value notes that over the course of these 26 sessions about 60.69% of XP came from treasure.

Lessons Learnt Running Megadungeons

Disclaimer: Some of the links below are affiliate links (meaning I get a small percentage of sales without extra cost to you).

I have been running megadungeon products a lot. I've run Barrowmaze (the first volume) for two regular players in person, I am still technically running Dwimmermount for a face-to-face group (although we only played like 3 sessions each year, and none so far this year), plus I am actively running Rappan Athuk online (we spent about 20 sessions down there, but the campaign is on the cusp of turning into something very different).

I have tried to summarise my thoughts about running megadungeons, focussing on some of the issues that I have. I must add that I immensely enjoy reading and running megadungeons, so these concerns aren't about invalidating the concept but rather things that if solved would make it an even better, smoother, and more rewarding experience. I should also add that these issues may come up in other types of adventures as well; they just seem exacerbated in megadungeons.

TL;DR: (1) consider the costs and benefits of grids and gridless dungeons; (2) add environmental cues around branching off points on the map; (3) use observable warning details around traps consistently; (4) secrets doors should always be interesting; (5) random encounters should have details that you can build on

Rappan Athuk - Session Three

Session 3 (October 15, 2013)

(Back to Session 1)

This report should've been written two weeks ago. Now I don't remember every detail and my mind is occupied with other things. In fact, I only finished it because I didn't want it to be missing. I intend to continue with this, I'm just busy right now.

The party included the following characters:

• Azureus (Magic-User 1)
• The Baron (Fighter 1)
• Bolwír (Fighter 1)
• Starbucks (Fighter 1) and Starbucks Junior (light infantry)

The highlights of the session were the following:

• The party entered the dungeon through the Mouth of Doom and found themselves in a room of many doors, one of which (the one with the carving of a goat-face above it, claims one of the partying adventurers) turned out to be a false door with a pit trap in front of it.
• The eastern exit lead them to a couple of outlaws, hiding from the authorities. The party killed all of them but one; he joined the murderous company in hopes of staying alive.
• The party fought some skeletons and, after an intermezzo with the bandits, a mummy-like creature (fortunately, they managed to kill it before it could rise from its grave).
• They were surprised by a bunch of bandits, who led them to their base of operations within the dungeon. There they met their leader, found a girl (possibly Emily, daughter of Bernard), and received a quest which would require their descending to the second level.

Rappan Athuk - Session Two

Session 2 (October 10, 2013)

(Back to Session 1)

The present party:

• Azureus (Magic-User 1)
• Erik (Fighter 1)
• Ozborn (Cleric of the Sun God 1) and Milkiway (archer)
• Starbucks (Fighter 1), and Starbucks Junior (light infantry)

The major events were the following:

• The party returned to the mausoleum where they left an animate corpse wearing a ring. Long story short, said undead lost his ring and his head, as well.
• Entering the main mausoleum the party figured out the puzzle to enter Rappan Athuk; unfortunately, members of the adventuring party refused to share the secret. The only thing they mentioned was a fight with two skeletons black as coal.
• The party, due to sheer luck, successfully avoided a dangerous trap; they also marked its place with white chalk.
• They encountered a bunch of ratlings, who shared some useful information with the party: (1) the northern half of the first level, as the party suspected, is the territory of the infamous Dung Monster, (2) the western corridor leads to the second level, home to a group of ogres, and (3) the river supposedly leads to a temple of sorts.
• The ratlings also offered some vials of poison in exchange for eliminating Ambro, the leader of the ogres.
• The party encountered the Dung Monster; reasoning with it seemed to be less than fruitful (all it cared about was food), and eventually they had to run away.

It was a much less fruitful delve than the first one; the party only recovered 247gp worth of treasure (compared to 3170gp for the last time). Nevertheless, they have explored most of the first main level and have a rough idea what else is about to come. Furthermore, the rumours and quests also helped in certain situations, which is exactly why I devised them in the first place.

(Next session)

Rappan Athuk - Recruiting Henchmen

It may be wise for a party of adventurers to hire additional muscle; henchmen are zero-level NPCs who fight alongside the PCs. Their statistics are the following: HP (1d6), AC (determined by armour), and Morale (7 + employer's CHA modifier).

There is a limit of how many henchmen may follow one particular player character (the modifiers are cumulative):

• the base limit is 2
• +1 if CHA modifier is positive
• -1 if CHA modifier is negative
• +1 if 4th level or higher
• +1 if 8th level or higher

It is generally true that seeing luxury lures more brave and foolish people than poverty; the players are able to manipulate the number and quality of possible henchmen by spending gold between sessions as shown below (note, these amounts must be spent in addition to other purchases as they represent drinking festivals, victory feasts, luxurious wakes, and oh-my-god-we're-alive orgies).

• Zero GP: 3d6; each 5 is a light infantry and each 6 is a light archer
• 100 GP: 3d8; as above, plus each 7 is a heavy infantry and each 8 is a crossbowman
• 200 GP: 3d10; as above, plus each 9 is a barbarian and each 10 is a swordsman
• 500 GP: 3d12; as above, plus each 11-12 is a special henchmen rolled on an upcoming table

The number of dice rolled may also be increased by spending the initial cost multiple times or 50gp for the base option (for instance, for 400gp players may choose 4d10 or 6d8), but no more than 10 dice can be rolled.

Below you find the base statistics, equipment, and hiring cost of the different henchmen types:

• light infantry, 10 GP (leather, spear)
• archer, 15 GP (leather, short bow, 2 quivers, dagger)
• heavy infantry, 20 GP (chain, spear)
• crossbowman, 30 GP (chain, light crossbow, 2 quivers, dagger)
• barbarian, 40 GP (leather, great axe)
• swordsman, 50 GP (chain, shield, sword)

After surviving the first expedition, henchmen earn a name and the ability to advance as they survive further expeditions. After each session, their master has the option of paying them an extra 100 GP, for which one of the following bonuses may be chosen (each may only be taken once): (1) +1 to damage rolls, (2-3) increase HD by one, (4) improve AC by 1 point, and (5-6) increase morale by 1 point.

Rappan Athuk - Session One

Session 1 (October 3, 2013)

Due to sickness on my part, we could only start the campaign this week. Three players were present for the first session, during which they talked to dead guys, killed an undead knight, and looted some nifty items.

Rappan Athuk - Session Zero

Below you find invaluable information about Rappan Athuk: a list of known entrances, circulating rumours, quests to take, and followers ready for hiring. The campaign hopefully starts in no later than a week or two from now; if you are interested, send me an e-mail, a u2u on LFG.HU, or post a comment here (as of now, the game is run in Hungarian).

For those of you who do not participate in this campaign but currently are or sometime will be delving through Rappan Athuk, proceed reading at your own risk (the long way of saying spoiler alert).

Rappan Athuk - Stages of Play

What follows is a detailed gameplay description of my forthcoming Rappan Athuk megadungeon campaign. I tried to make it as thorough yet simple as possible, but I am sure there may still be parts unclear to some, so I encourage those who are interested in either playing or are simply into the idea of such a campaign to articulate their questions or concerns.

To be sure you understand the context in which the following applies, read my proposition for the campaign and possibly the description of the available classes (it comes particularly handy for typical exploration activities).

To put it simply, the game consists of the following parts: (1) first, the players are given information about the dungeon so they can plan ahead, buy proper equipment, and hire qualified followers; (2) then actual dungeon crawling is resolved with exploration, friendly encounters, and deadly combats galore; (3) finally, they return to base, sell loot, and spend some money. Below, you find detailed description for each stage, procedures that have to be followed, and some of the rules that help resolve the situations that arise.

Rappan Athuk - Classes

Below you can find the re-worked versions of the four basic classes that are going to be available for players in the Rappan Athuk campaign. Note, that certain advanced classes and special abilities can be unlocked in play (see Talysman's Leech and Apothecary to get the idea).

Before describing each class, some general notions:

• There are no Prime Requisite abilities, thus no bonus XP.
• The given base XP is for 2nd level; it doubles for each level thereafter (e.g. a base XP of 2,000 means 4,000 for 3rd and 32,000 for 6th level).
• There are no weapon or armour restrictions. Spell-casting, however, is impossible in metal armour and takes twice as much time in leather armour (thus, usually 2 rounds). Also, some other actions may be penalised or even forbidden in armour. For our purposes, "changing" takes 1 full turn.

Rappan Athuk - Starting a Megadungeon Campaign

Since I got my hands on a pdf copy of Rappan Athuk Reloaded (available on rpgnow), I have been thinking about running it. Then the new edition came out (which was reviewed by Bryce Lynch, if you are interested), and I really wanted to run this baby of monstrous beauty. So, that is exactly what I am going to do. Below you find a couple of my thoughts on the campaign, a sort of "design goals" that I intend to accomplish.

Mind you, this is going to be a Google+ game, for now, run in Hungarian.

To sum it up:

• an exploration-driven campaign
• XP awarded only for treasure recovered
• extensive use of rumours and quests
• limited number of town activities
• unique magic items (except for potions, scrolls, and wands)
• B/X-esque base + house rules