D&D 3E/3.5 Looking for a challenging dungeon

The Greatest Dwarven Adventurer of ALL time, slayer of dragons, defeater of Devils and saviour of the world has a slight problem.

While saving the world he destroyed demons, slayed devils, decimated squadrons of Giants (all with a little help from some colleagues) but, unfortunately, despite all his Might, all his Martial Skill, all his Magical adornments, all his accrued Wisdom and Knowledge when he entered the fray of the final fight with the last remaining member of the Party he rolled 1 (ONE) on his saving throw vs fear and fled and upon gaining his senses, girding his loins and throwing his fear over the cliff edge he returned to find his colleague TRIUMPHANT, the Fate of the World lying dead at his colleagues feet.

As they saved their fallen comrades and recounted their experiences to make sense of the whole affair, it was mentioned that the Greatest Dwarven Adventurer of ALL time had run away.

The party formed a pact not to mention this last minor part of the adventure, and so great tales were created, Bards spread the word far and wide, the people of the world learnt of the greatness of the party.

They were feted and lorded wherever they went, they were TRUE heroes, facing overwhelming odds, battling entire armies, working tirelessly through time and space to destroy the forces of evil and preventing the enslavement of all the worthy Races of men, elves, gnomes, dwarfs halfings etc etc etc.

And so, dear reader, you would expect the great adventurers to be living a life of wealth, happiness and adulation, and so they are.

Except one.

The Greatest Dwarven Adventurer the world has ever known is wallowing in sadness.

The knowledge of his cowardice is dragging his soul into the darkest, deepest depths of despair.

He has realised that he must take on one final adventure, the most dangerous he has ever undertaken, one he must complete on his own (or with a companion who can bring back the story of his death facing insurmountable odds, in short, he must prove his bravery to himself.



So as the Dungeon Master, I need to find such an adventure written for 3.5e, and I am asking your help.

Yes

This Dungeon Master needs YOU

If you are aware of any high level (around 18-20th level) adventure suitable for a single Dwarven Fighter who is small of stature but large of Ego and currently wallowing in remorse, I would be most grateful.

Maybe something prewritten that I can search out, something you may have written and are prepared to donate or even just a good idea, I would be most grateful for all your contributions.

Thank you for reading to the end,

The Gnome.

Do you want this to be a one-shot, a mini-campaign, or a longer campaign.

Rappan Athuk, Rappan Athuk (2012), may help with any of these. But I'm not that familiar with 3.5 or Pathfinder. The 2012 version of Rappan Athuk has a Pathfinder Version and a Swords and Wizardry version. My understanding is that you should be able to run the Pathfinder version with 3.5 rules without too much effort. But, again, I've not played in either system. I ran the version updated for 5e.

You can take one or more Tier IV levels. Or you can use the whole thing, but make it all about getting to the Avatar of Orcus as quickly as possible. Set up some sense of urgency so that instead of exploring, he and his companions are trying to move down levels to confront the Avatar of Orcus as quickly as possible. They will cut through the low levels quickly.

If you go through this later route, ignore also the extra content that has been added over time. Ignore the Mouth of Doom, The Cloister of the Frog God, and all the wilderness stuff (note that some of this stuff may have been added for the 5th edition version, so the older version may not have them anyway). Have him go down the well in the Sunken Graveyard and into Rappan Athuk proper. Or, there are a number of hidden ways that you can get directly into lower levels. Finding the way to the level where the Avatar is can be difficult, so you might want to have some rumors pre-fed the charact to help them out to avoid lots of time getting lost in the dungeon.

If you just want to life out a level or section of Rappan Athuk to have a few sessions, some potential options:

The Well of Agamemnon
10 pages of content. Half of it Tier II and half tier III.
A lot of the challenge her are deadly environment challenges and some traps. For the combat challenges, esp. in the Upper Level (Tier II) you may want to make them deadlier. You'll definitely want to make the final boss fight much harder.

The Bloodways
The challenge with the bloodways is how complex it it. I actually used the maps and prepped them in foundry with the multi-level tokens mod to make it easier to move the PC tokens from one area to another because there are so many interconnections throughout this section. It took forever to prep. But they have alternate rules where instead of using a map, you use a "tactical encounters" chat and a "Bloodways Flowchart" determine your progress through the area. I would recommend the later if you are running theater of the mind or if you are using a VTT and only want to prep the most important locations.

The Bloodways is Tier II, but most of the challenge is just finding your way around and is level independant. You will want to upscale the combat encounters.

You could pull out all of Level 14 and magic the adventure just about infiltrating a powerful bastion of Orcus worshiper, taking out the Grand Cornu, and destroying the Anima Engine. This is 23 pages of content that comprises 4 interlinked areas: (1) The Chapel of Orcus [tier III], (2) The Refuges of Tsar [tier IV], (3) The Grand Cornu of Orcus's chambers [Tier 4], and (4) The Architect's Workshop [tier 4]. There are some doors that lead to some interesting demiplanes with enough description to improv 7 short one-shots, though they would work better if you prep a bit.

Thanks for that, I did forget to say we play 3.5

Rappan Athuk for sure.

The Citadel of Orcus in Slumbering Tsar (this is the capstone to an entire campaign that is utterly badass in its entirety - but the citadel itself is a worthy challenge).

Gary Gygax's Necropolis.

Goth Gulgamel, the capstone section of Ptolus.

Mix together all the hardest parts of Age of Worms: the dozens of dragons vs giants; the uuuvuuulakia or however the heck you spell that; and Kyuss himself (although he’ll need to be buffed to not suck).

Soloing as a fighter in 3.5?

Is he 18-20 or is that the module level range you are looking for?

When I was soloing as a high level eldritch knight the modules I was going through were designed for parties of much lower levels and it was a good challenge. I had ranger healing wands for healing and a lot of wizard spells for utility so I was decently rounded as a character, a solo fighter lacks a bunch of typical party options and has big will save weaknesses.

Mark Hope said:

Rappan Athuk for sure.

The Citadel of Orcus in Slumbering Tsar (this is the capstone to an entire campaign that is utterly badass in its entirety - but the citadel itself is a worthy challenge).

Gary Gygax's Necropolis.

Goth Gulgamel, the capstone section of Ptolus.

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I'm not familiar with Slumbering Tsar, but both Necropolis and Goth Gulgamel are excellent recommendations. And they are 3.5e!

Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth

smetzger said:

Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth

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I believe Wizards published a 3.5e version of this in their first web issue of “Dungeon” as an online free ‘magazine’ shortly before the release of 4e.

EDIT: It looks like it is archived here:

Check out Adventure Lookup. It has filters you can use to narrow down what you want in any edition.