MDBC 17: Grande Temple of Jing 2 (First Floor)
Megadungeon Book Club is moving on to Grande Temple of Jing (2016).
See last week's post here.
Ok, so each floor has a couple of normal Pathfinder dungeons, with some floors also having special dungeons like a Gauntlet dungeon or a Trial dungeon. These special dungeons are related to the different ways to play through Grande Temple of Jing and are meant to be connected to each other. I'll review each floor (including the special dungeons) on their own, then do a wrap-up post at the end detailing how they fit together.
1.1 Kobold Caverns
This is your standard classic kobold lair, complete with absolutely pathetic kobolds and common traps. The kobolds as a faction are somewhat useful because they know about the dungeon, but are also somewhat useless because they can't offer the PCs backdoors to other parts of the dungeon or fighting forces. The king attempting to betray the PCs at first opportunity should be simply assumed at this point, and this dungeon does not break this trope.
This dungeon looks to be an intro softball dungeon intended to just give PCs XP and have them make some easy slam-dunk decisions. It's like many other level 1 dungeons you've seen and read before. There are a few spots of interest (like the save-or-die "Trial of the Lickspits" and "Secret Library" rooms) but altogether it's what you call to mind when thinking the words "Kobold Cavern."
The inclusion of a small screenshot of the room in the keyed room descriptions themselves is a nice touch. I do wish that some of the surrounding area had been included in these images to make it easier to figure out where the room is in the floor without flipping back to the first page, but something is better than nothing. There are a few bizarrely high DCs for checks present in this dungeon, especially as a place that the PCs are likely to interact with once at level 1 and then never again. I'm ignoring the bulk of the Pathfinder-specific numbers as things that could merely be converted, but it stands out as odd to have DC 30 Knowledge checks to make basic inferences in a level 1 dungeon.
Halls of Deep Darkness
OK, so this dungeon is dark. The PCs start off in a portion of the dungeon that is overlapped by multiple magical darkness spells, to the point where they will not be able to see at all barring powerful Daylight spells (far beyond the intended level and toolset of this dungeon). PCs will instead need to blindly navigate to two different levels to turn off the darkness, or somehow manage to blindly navigate to the set of stairs for the central upper platform that's out of range of the darkness spells. I can see this being incredibly frustrating in play, especially for a gimmick that actively punishes common PC actions (undead who seek out anyone who turns on a light).
The gimmick of darkness spells tied to levers that hide light-seeking undead repeats throughout each room, with nothing especially noteworthy beyond that. I recommend GMs either take steps to give players more interesting actions other than "blindly fumble around until you find an interactable object" or skip this dungeon.
Gnashteeth Orc Halls
The western half of the dungeon is a Gygaxian naturalist take on an orcish clan's living complex. The implication is that the PCs are to kill their way through this portion, and the majority of the rooms' complexity reflects that (it's lacking).
The attached "bugbear area" part of the dungeon is a bit more interesting, featuring several ties to other parts of the dungeon. Combined with the trapped priest from the orc half, PCs will leave this dungeon with two quests to search for treasure (and specific kinds of treasure) and return back to this dungeon with it. The changes in monster variety if not in demeanor is welcome after the rest of the orc complex.
Green Gauntlet
It's an incredibly linear gauntlet of combat encounters and Acrobatics checks to pass through. The time-limit portion of the gauntlet rooms is a main factor to its difficulty, this one is 15 minutes and seems more than enough for standard Pathfinder sprinter parties. For most PC of appropriate level, they will not need to do anything except the proverbial hold-right-and-press-attack of simpler 2d platformer levels.
Trial of Copper
This is a looping puzzle dungeon requiring PCs to flip up a certain number of levers before they can leave. Most of the rooms merely require a certain amount of spatial reasoning or common dungeoneering tools and skills to solve. There's a bit of combat but its sparse and not necessary for the theme or flow of the dungeon, making it easy to excise if necessary. This dungeon would be great as a no-combat funnel to show off the basics of dungeoneering to new players or new systems.
I like this dungeon a lot, easy favorite of the bunch. It's one of the easiest to lift out and put somewhere else, it could fit literally anywhere that a "trial" structure is demanded.
Floor 1 Conclusion
The contents of Floor 1 seem mainly to favor intro segments or basic XP-infusions. There are some intros to some meta-quests here, but they don't incentivize players to do anything they wouldn't do already (hoard gold, pick up strange gems, talk to any creature that doesn't try to stab them straight off). The dungeons strike me as necessary inclusions for a "realism" approach where players ask who cleans the dungeon, how do factions get their wood for their campfires, etc. I'm not tempted to run any of the dungeons beyond the Trial of Copper and maaaaaybe the eastern half of the Gnashteeth Orc Halls, the others either don't strike me as interesting (Halls of Deep Darkness) or I feel I could replicate something similar to them easily on the fly at the table (Kobold Caverns, Gnashteeth Orc Halls, Green Gauntlet).