30 years later, Fallout creator Tim Cain is searching for a legendary D&D player who cheesed an entire competitive dungeon with a lightning-fast Monk build
Tim Cain might be best known as the creator of the Fallout series, but since there's probably no Fallout without D&D, it makes sense that he'd have an interest in the iconic tabletop game. In fact, that interest is so deeply held that Cain is now searching for a legendary player he heard about more than three decades ago.
In a recent YouTube video, Cain explores the legend of the '1 million XP dungeon', a first-edition D&D competition he says he heard about in 1993 at a gaming convention in California. In the competition, players had to run through a complex, multi-layered dungeon and become the first to reach the goal at its end. To do so, however, they were each given one million XP with which to craft a character.
XP could be used to level up, or it could be converted into gold coins at a ratio of one XP to one gold, with that gold used to buy magical items based on their assigned value in the rules. Cain explains that that meant some players would max out on levels, while others might rely on a bevy of magical items to get them through the dungeon. Most sat somewhere between those extremes, but the eventual winner was a player who pushed the rules to their limit.
The prize was claimed, Cain believes, by a level 11 human Monk. A class often defined by unarmed attacks and no armor, Monks might have seemed a risky pick, but Cain explains how this character had a strong armor class, several useful resistances and immunities, and the ability to shrug off damage on most saving throws. On top of that, at level 11, Monks have a move speed of 25 - double the base speed of pretty much any other character, and faster than both horses and players under the effect of haste spells. Clearly, the strategy was to go very fast, but the Monk faced one major hindrance - their class was limited to just three magical items. With 700,000XP given over to leveling, they risked not being able to get the most out of their build.
The items they opted for included a Cloak of Protection +5
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