Megadungeon Player Guide
Character Creation
- Characters are created at 1st level.
- Ability scores are rolled with 4d6 drop lowest.
- Hit points are rolled (except 1st level)
- All characters start with 1 talent point (see Talents under Reference Material). Feats are disallowed.
- Any race or class available in any official material is fair game, as is any homebrew from the "Reference Material".
- Creating replicate characters is not allowed. Dead characters can be resurrected however.
- It is advisable to have two 1st level characters ready.
- Levels 5, 9, 13 and 17 are Checkpoint Levels. A player can create new characters at the highest checkpoint level they have reached.
Rules
- Characters gain one level of Exhaustion when they reach 0 hit points (Most adventurers have found Potions of Java to be effective at removing Exhaustion).
- Critical Hits are the maximum of your weapon or spell's damage dice plus the roll. Beware: this rule applies to monsters as well.
- Establishing a permanent Circle of Teleportation takes 1 month rather than 1 year.
- Magic weapons do not bypass a monster's resistances. Undead are susceptible to silver weapons, constructs to adamantine and fiends are susceptible to weapons coated in holy oil. Features and spells that cause your attacks to bypass resistances function as normal.
- Time between sessions passes in real-time. If one week passes between each session, then one week also passes in-game.
Game Style
This dungeon wants to kill you. These sessions will find you plundering an ancient city of its riches and powerful magic. Unfortunately for would-be grave-robbers, the city is far from abandoned. You'll face a variety of monsters from diminuitive and crafty to fire-breathing behemoths. Surviving this dungeon will be a feat unto itself.
A word of warning: everything in the player's handbook (spells, abilities, restrictions, etc) are player rules. You will find creatures or spells in the dungeon that break these rules. This dungeon does not play fair.
Heroes' Respite
A small plateau at the dungeon's entrance, high on a mountaintop. Heroes' Respite is as safe as one can expect to get and can serve as a base of operations shared by all players and all parties.
Should you choose to, you can hire vendors who will make the pilgrimage to Heroes' Respite and set up shop there. These vendors can have their inventories upgraded (for a fee), allowing you and your party access to powerful weapons, armor and other wondrous magic to help you in your monster-slaying.
Vendors in Heroes' Respite
Most vendors in Heroes' Respite have four tiers with progressively larger (and more powerful) inventories and associated perks. It costs 50gp to open a Tier I shop and 200gp, 2,000gp and 20,000gp to upgrade to Tiers II, III and IV, respectively.
A shop's inventory will change between sessions, and if a vendor is slain their shop closes and can be re-established at half-cost or a new shop can be set up in its place (at full price).
Reference Material
The following is a list of homebrew material that has been vetted (in part or in whole) and is allowed.
Classes
Primevalist
Blood Hunter
Subclasses
Fighter: Gunslinger
Warlock: Heroic Spirit
Sorcerer: Sealed Horror
New Game Mechanic: Talents
Sample Weaponsmith's Inventory (Tier IV)
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Silver a weapon | 100gp |
| +1 Glaive | 1,000gp |
| +1 Sickle | 600gp |
| +1 Halberd | 1,000gp |
| Vicious Greatsword | 350gp |
| +2 Scimitar | 3,500gp |
| +2 Mace | 3,000gp |
| +2 Sickle | 2,000gp |
| +2 Javelin | 3,500gp |
| Flametongue Longsword | 5,000gp |
| Adamantine a Weapon | 1,000gp |
| +3 Scimitar | 16,000gp |
| +3 Sickle | 12,000gp |
| +3 Flail | 16,000gp |
| Hammer of Thunderbolts | 16,000gp |
.
Sample Arcanist's Inventory (Tier IV)
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Identify an Item | 100gp |
| Teleport to a location you've seen | 2,000gp |
| Burning Hands (scroll) | 60gp |
| Cause Fear (scroll) | 60gp |
| Aganazzar's Scorcher (scroll) | 120gp |
| Crown of Madness (scroll) | 120gp |
| +1 Wand of the War Mage | 1,200gp |
| Ioun Stone of Protection | 1,200gp |
| Blink (scroll) | 200gp |
| Banishment (scroll) | 320gp |
| Ring of Fire Resistance | 6,000gp |
| Cloak of Protection | 3,500gp |
| Antilife Shell (scroll) | 640gp |
| Disintegrate (scroll) | 1280gp |
| Wand of Fireballs | 32,000gp |