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 to enhance their already strong armor class and give a +5 to their already-enhanced saving throws, which they boosted even further with a Scarab of Protection. The real cherry on top, however, was the Ring of Air Elemental Command – as well as some extra bonuses like the Gust of Wind spell, that ring offered unlimited flight and visibility.
Players entering the competition were matched up with a DM in groups of three to five, with the first person to reach the final goal out of all the entrants winning the contest. To hear Cain tell it, the Monk in question lined up with their fellow players, went invisible, and took off running. Moving twice as fast as everyone else, able to fly over any traps and remain invisible to any enemies, it sounds as though there was no contest whatsoever. The Monk reached their goal on the final floor of the dungeon before most other players had even made it off the first floor – several players were yet to even get into the castle.
Cain claims that the mystery Monk’s victory was so emphatic that it forced the organizers to change the rules, ensuring that some dungeon puzzles would require two people to work together in order to progress. Despite all the details he has about the competition, however, Cain says he “literally cannot find any information about it online,” despite having looked around for any form of confirmation. He claims, though, that he’s heard about it from multiple people – either that, or the whole thing was “a coma fantasy” that he dreamed up for himself. A few commenters beneath the video suggest that they played in events similar to the one that Cain is describing, but none of them profess to know the identity of the mystery Monk. All I know is that I’d have loved to have them to hand during the Iron Throne sequence in Baldur’s Gate 3.
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