Continuing from Monday’s look at DDI, we turn to the updates for Dungeonaday.com over the past week. As this week is setting the tone for future updates you’ll see some of the dates change as we progress through updates so that I get caught up to the new schedule.

Monte Cook’s Dungeonaday.com continues this week with the first few rooms on Level 2 ~ The Font of Dreams!  Monte also has a number of posts to the Blog, a new free roaming encounter, a new listen check podcast, and the first of Jason Bulmahn’s articles for the site.

Dungeonaday.com

Note that these articles require a subscription to Dungeonaday.com to access.

Room 37-44

This week we move down to the second level where we meet everything from drunken gnolls, a werewolf, and an intelligent fountain.  Monte continues to produce interesting, dynamic, and unique encounters with every single set of rooms.  He points out later that this level will be harder not only in terms of the opposition, but also in the frequency and proximity of the encounters as the fountain works to counter intrusions.

Temples and PCs ~ link

In this first Dungeon Blog entry for the week, Monte tackles the issue of PCs expecting support from local temples.  When PCs come to town and demand to be healed for free simply because of the good services they provide they take advantage of NPCs.  Monte suggests making characters work for their prayers instead.  His design for the Temple of Vune last week had this design goal in mind, combining not only interesting NPCs but also a political and social setting to support this goal.

Level 2 Random Encounters ~ link

While normally random encounters are frowned upon in the newer school of adventure design, Monte’s old school approach makes good use of them. He suggests frequency and ties them to the themes of the level in which they inhabit. Many of them (like the font thralls on this level) are drawn from the types of creatures encountered in some of the set pieces of the level. This level you might encounter anything from bugbears up to a gray ooze. I was a little disappointed that this page was not hyperlinked to the D20 SRD. I know that it has been addressed on the forums and I hope that Monte includes that tool here.

Getting Started ~ link

This is Jason Bulmahn’s first article for Dungeonaday.com. Its quite a lengthy discussion about his background with the project and the excitement he brings to his column. Most of the article addresses some of the general items that Pathfinder RPG DMs will want to convert when they are considering using the Beta rules for the Dragon’s Delve.  He also points out that with PFRPG launching at GenCon this year, he has that on at the top of mind lately and had to remember not to refer to those rules yet.

Free Roaming Encounters – The Dark Prophesy ~ link

The Dark Prophesy is the first Free Roaming encounter presented on Dungeonaday.com. The idea is that these encounters can occur anywhere in the dungeon or even outside of it. In this case the encounter is with a pair of adventurers and their pet bird who are exploring the dungeon as well. They are a bit creepy and don’t want to join forces but wouldn’t mind chatting with the characters before setting off in a different direction. Monte has left their intentions and use pretty vague offering several suggestions. I’m curious to see if he will revisit some of these encounters again in the future.

Fights and Dreams ~ link

In this blog entry, Monte discusses some of the complexities that make Level 2 harder than Level 1. As mentioned earlier in my blog the design assumptions are that each level is progressively more difficult.  Its difficult to go into much detail about this entry without giving away spoilers, so maybe just one ~ an intelligent pool that haunts the denizen’s dreams is very cool.

Listen Check ~ link (Open)

Podcast – This week’s listen check features both Monte and Sue. Sue Cook is the moderator of this Q&A episode in which she asks Monte several of the questions that have been posed on the forums for the site. Monte tackles questions on the planning process, the history of the dungeon itself, and how to use the design assumptions to challenge characters appropriately.

Maps ~ Upper Levels, Surrounding Environs (Open)

The first map, the Upper Levels, shows the names of the top 5 or so levels in the Dragon’s Delve including hints on The Domain of the Venom Cult and the Sprawl of the Demon Liege. The second map, the Surround Environs, shows the area around the Dragon’s Delve and Brindenford.

Overall this has been a huge week (and a bit) for Dungeonaday.com.  I look forward to seeing this project grow. This ends the second in this week’s review installments as well.