Megadungeons 5e - Fg Con - Rappan Athuk - Barrow Maze and the like

[*Neuro*]

Hi.

Don't know if is the right place the post.

I was looking for 5e FGU versions of megadungeons, such as Rappan Athuk and Barrow Maze, including of course the occluders.

After looking around I understood there are no conversions for FGU.

But then I see on FG CON Rappan Athuk and Barrow Maze scheduled on UNITY, can someone explain situation?

So somebody just bought PDF and did all the job?


I would like to run for my players a mega dungeon of this kind, in 5e.

I already know about Dungeon of The Mad Mage but I want to consider a wider range of options.

A pity that many of these megadungeons are not ported to FG, seems there is no interest maybe.


Some info maybe on some other 5e megadungeons converted for FG maybe on DM GUILD?

[johnecc]

Actually someone has been working on converting Barrowmaze for FG. They had recently been looking for playtesters here in the forums:
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...the-Barrowmaze

[*Neuro*]

I saw the link thanks, but he is converting for personal use only.

I asked him anyway some info on conversion and where did he start from.

[TVDinner]

But then I see on FG CON Rappan Athuk and Barrow Maze scheduled on UNITY, can someone explain situation?

So somebody just bought PDF and did all the job?

I think there are at least three or four people converting Barrowmaze around here. I am one and started from the not-official-5E pdf well before FG Unity came out. Personal use.

I have some serious doubts that 5E Barrowmaze will ever see an official release on FG. Barrowmaze is not sold on dmsguild. Smiteworks should never risk biting the hand that helps feed them. I think there was a Labyrinth Lord ruleset for FG at one point but I don't think it's supported anymore.

So you're stuck doing your own conversion. Getting the story text out of the pdf is tedious but pretty straight forward. The map was not trivial. Yanking the map out of the pdf for FGClassic looked over-compressed and the FG grid needed constant nudging during play. I gave up using that version for FGUnity LoS and basically remade the map myself in an image program, imported that to FGUnity, and used the keyboard to draw the LoS. FGUnity lacks the grid snap for using the mouse to make the lines look decent. There's also a FGUnity bug that lets PCs see through some walls which got reported but I haven't seen a fix in the Live channel yet.

The not-official-5E conversion is a bit strange. Some of the monster CR values are off and I'm not sure if the PCs will be able to gain the XP they need to get from maybe 10-12th to actually beat the endgame content. My bunch is crossing 6th right now, playing 2-3 hours a week. It has been fun.

[LordEntrails]

Megadungeons are a huge effort to convert. Depending upon what you do with them, they truly can be a huge time sink. I am re-doing the classic Undermountain into FG and 5E. When its ready I will sell it on the DMsGuild. But it's not ready yet. I have about 1000 to 1200 hours into it so far, and only the first level is about 90 percent done, and that is without occluders (I started before that was a thing!)

You can find some samples, discussions and YouTube videos of play if you search "Ultimate Undermountain".

In the meantime, you have DoMM, though I'm not sure that counts as a mega dungeon.

[*Neuro*]

Looking towards this module on DM Guild thanks!

[Nylanfs]

Ultimate Dungeon anyone?

[Myrdin Potter]

I run Rappan Athuk Mouth of Doom (personal conversion) pretty often as a con game. The amount of work needed to convert the 660 page 5e book ... that makes me shudder. I am going to do a few more levels of that Rappan Athuk section, but my reaction is why there are nmot so many megadungeons all converted. At least today most modern ones come with VTT maps.

[celestian]

I run Rappan Athuk Mouth of Doom (personal conversion) pretty often as a con game. The amount of work needed to convert the 660 page 5e book ... that makes me shudder. I am going to do a few more levels of that Rappan Athuk section, but my reaction is why there are nmot so many megadungeons all converted. At least today most modern ones come with VTT maps.

The reward for the amount of effort is not worth it IMO. If someone wants something like RA or Barrowmaze they would need to be compensated well for the project. Either that or find 10 people to do 1-2 levels and combine the work. To do something like RA right, it would take one person 4-6 months full time work in my estimation.

[LordEntrails]

The reward for the amount of effort is not worth it IMO. If someone wants something like RA or Barrowmaze they would need to be compensated well for the project. Either that or find 10 people to do 1-2 levels and combine the work. To do something like RA right, it would take one person 4-6 months full time work in my estimation.

Can't disagree with this at all. I'm not familiar with RA, but take Undermountain.

I'm close to doing this from scratch as; one, a straight conversion would be limited as most of the UM has never been detailed and just key locations have been described, and two, for my use case, I can't legally just do a conversion, I have to create "new". Each level has around 400 rooms. So you can start with something like my Dungeon Room Description Generator that creates a story based upon a template and a dozen tables. It's a huge time saver, but it's just a start. Then you have to modify most of the descriptions to fit that part of your dungeon, and to include encounters and treasure. And of course you need new creatures and traps, not just the same-old same-old, you need variety. And then unless you want a kick-in the door no context/setting dungeon, you need to have already laid out regions, factions and reasons for things having some semblance of why.

Depending upon what you do, UM has around fifteen levels, not all as large, and as you do more levels you might get faster (I have within a level, but their are still stops and starts). Anyways, full time would take somewhere around fifteen years. I've tried getting a group of folks together, but people don't want to really commit that much time when they think about it.

Considering financials/compensation;
Given what I've already put in, one can easily take 1500 hours per level. And if it sells well, maybe I'll sell 200 copies, at fifteen dollars, of which I will get half. So fifteen hundred dollars, or one dollar an hour.

Converting and creating a mega-dungeon is really a passion project. Would be nice if it wasn't, but they are until we get AI.