Lantander

The map of Faerun might make no sense to an earth geologist, but if one would ask a sage in the forgotten realms he could tell you why and how it is how it is... There are large deserts created by death magic (underground phaerimm activity that destroyed Netheril), Jungles lived in and expanded by Yuan-Ti praying to Zehir, large marshes caused by powerful spells (the kilmaru swamp in Haluraa), rivers flowing out of portals to the plane of water, giant rifts in the land where parts of the underdark collapsed - and of course all kinds of other things caused by actual gods walking the planet.

Some respawn would be ok, as long as it's within the bounds of reason. I don't just mean putting the same kind of monster somewhere every time, but... if you hack a gang of bandits to pieces, you could expect a dire wolf feasting on the remains when you come back next time. Or have another group of bandits move into the territory _once_ or at maximum twice. Just refilling encounters endlessly with the same monsters leads to something I hated in Fallout 3 - there you have... 30 or so friendly npcs in all of the settlements in total, surrounded by limitless numbers of raiders and deathclaws.

I'd prefer if the dungeon wasn't a thing you have to do in one continuous go. Realizing 10 lvls down that you're about to run out of arrows, food, etc. - and then having to trek up through empty hallway after empty hallway upwards will get boring pretty quick. How about this - you find the dungeon, explore it in the early/mid-game and fight your way downwards 4 lvls or so - and then run into someone/something that made its own entrance. Let's say... the cultists of the imprisoned demon lord deeper down, who tunneled directly into level 5 to bypass all the traps and monsters you went throug