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View Full Version : DM Help Intruder Alert! - Running the defenders in a dungeon raid



Yora
2014-05-30, 10:23 AM
I always love it when players are cautious and plan ahead, using their brains to overcome obstacles much larger than they could handle with their brawns. I also love it every time in a movie or video game when things suddenly go completely out of control and the characters have to improvise as they go, while having no clear idea what's going on in the chaos around them. Like Indiana Jones or pretty much every Tarantino movie.
Attacking a dungeon is often treated as going to each room one in a time and dealing with whatever is inside before proceeding to the next area. But realistically, that's not what would happen in an assault on a fortified and guarded compound. When people are fighting each other to the death, it will be heared not only in the next room. And if you play enemies smarter than attacking everything on sight until it is dead, they will often try to get away to save their lives and get reinforcements.

But getting every single enemy come running the first time the party fails to take out an opponent stealthily wouldn't really be playable. And even if the party wins, they now can explore the empty dungeon at their leasure. Also not too fun. And after you killed everything in the dungeon, would you expect the big bad sitting on his throne being surprised as the party enters?

Can you share any tips or advice on how to play guards and boss-npcs during dungeon assaults?

Broken Crown
2014-05-30, 10:49 AM
When I'm setting up a dungeon or fortress in which the inhabitants will react to intruders in an organized fashion, I usually make a few notes in advance about the following:

- Who is awake and on duty at any given time?
- How long will it take the off-duty inhabitants to react to an alarm? How long will it take them to equip themselves?
- After being alerted, where will the inhabitants go, to defend against intruders? How long will it take them to get there?
- What spells or other buffs are available to the defenders, and how will they use them to maximum effect?
- What avenues of retreat are available, if things go badly?

My players know that the moment the defenders sound the alarm, the adventure becomes a race against the clock: The longer they delay, the more time the defenders have to get organized, and the tougher the opposition will be. Even if the PCs win the fight, they may not achieve their objective, because the enemy leaders may have time to make off with the treasure/hostage/McGuffin while the PCs are fighting their way through the defenses. No five-minute adventuring days here: Once the battle begins, it doesn't end until one side wins.

I find that planning things like this in advance helps keep the game from bogging down, which helps maintain the atmosphere of tension and urgency.

Worgwood
2014-05-30, 11:03 AM
Well, you could have poor communication work to their advantage.

Once the players are detected, the enemies could start communicating with horns, bells, drums, gongs, fires, whatever - but they're hunting a small party moving through tight, confusing quarters. Although the inhabitants of the dungeon/castle/fortress/whatever are now actively looking for them, as long as the players keep moving, they'll only have to tackle small groups of enemies at a time. You could mix it up by throwing in choke point encounters which include signalling devices - if the players don't prevent the enemies from signalling their position, they're in for a much tougher fight. Alternatively, if you want to encourage the stealthy approach, you could say that due to the thickness of the fortifications, enemies can't hear fighting over long distances. Only whatever signalling system the enemy has set up will give the party away.

In the event they need to escape from one battle, let them take advantage of dungeon defenses - "at a cursory glance, you think cutting that rope would drop the portcullis," "you're pretty sure that door will bar from the other side," "pulling that lever will activate the spike trap and buy you time to retreat".

You might also have them working as one prong of a multifaceted assault. If the fortress is under siege at its main entrance, the players are going to meet lighter resistance when they sneak their way in the secret tunnel, or whatever they sneak in through.

Also keep in mind that if the goal is no longer to clear the dungeon room-by-room, then you're changing the dungeon environment. Players probably aren't going to be able to back off and rest for eight hours - enemies will find them if they camp in the dungeon, or if they leave, the way they came in might be sealed, or the enemies might send hounds to sniff them out. So you'll probably want to encourage them to go stealthy as long as possible and give them a clear objective to measure their success that doesn't involve killing the boss and stealing his loot (well, unless they're assassins).

It might also pay to have an idea of what the standard reaction to intrusion is for the enemy. Hobgoblins or humans or other organized enemies might have shifts, and when the alarm is sounded, off-duty guards might make for the armory (which buys your players some time) and then head for predetermined choke points.

Yora
2014-05-30, 12:20 PM
Camping inside an enemy base is something that should be regarded as impossible in any case. It only becomes an option if the party is exploring a mostly empty cave or ruin.

Going stealthy is always a smart thing to try, but one thing that is frequently overlooked is that at some point they are almost certainly to be detected.
Quote Iroh: "And then what?!"

When designing a stealth adventure, you always need to have a contingency plan for when the party is discovered. Even by the very first guard they encounter. Going stealthy should be treated as having a chance of taking out a number of enemies or advancing some distance into the enemy base before the party gets spoted. But getting spotted they almost certainly will.
That's not saying that stealth is irrelevant or futile, but underscoring the importance of having a well thought through plan for the enemies defenses.

jedipotter
2014-05-30, 01:09 PM
Very often, a Dungeon is not a single place. It is not often that a single dungeon is held by a single power or force. You could have an orc army in all 100 dungeon rooms, but it does get a little boring. Most of the time the dungeon is sectioned off between a couple groups. And an alarm would only go for one group. The other groups would not even care if another group was attacked.

Group size is a factor too. Unless the group is huge, they can't stay ''on guard and alert'' 24/7. Even if they want too, they can't ''double the guard'' as that would take people away from other tasks.

Geography is a big factor too. If your group must guard five access points, your going to need a number of guards for each one. And if a fight does start over within sight of point two, you can't leave the other points unguarded.

Politics matter too. Group A does not like Group B, so if group a is attacked by group C, they still have to watch out for group B as they might attack from behind.

Rhynn
2014-05-30, 01:24 PM
Can you share any tips or advice on how to play guards and boss-npcs during dungeon assaults?

First, factions. Are all the creatures in the dungeon one group? If so, it's going to be a lot tougher. If not - a pretty frequent situation in large dungeons - the PCs can actually use them against each other, and at the least they have fewer allies. (Although the monsters can totally lead PCs to other, tougher monsters; if a goblin is being chased by the PCs, it might run through or hide near the trolls' room, luring the PCs in, and booking it while they deal with trolls.

Second, the physical reality. Which rooms can actually hear which rooms? You can fudge this one a lot, but you need some idea about which rooms fights can be had in without attracting attention.

Third, defense plans. Where are the strongpoints the enemy uses? Where do they gather? Who fights, who hides, who runs? Is their response to an attack really to bunch all together in one room so a fireball can take out more of them? Are they even trained well enough, or do they have high enough morale, to want to fight if someone attacks their buddies a few rooms over? Maybe they'll just leg it with the treasure.

The G1-3 Against the Giants series of modules (Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, Hall of the Fire Giant King) all include examples of these, and more.

Having a dungeon respond plausibly to PC actions is pretty essential to running a good dungeon (and to running a game that grabs the players and makes them involved; IMO players are always more invested in a world that responds reasonably and thus somewhat predictably).

Yora
2014-05-30, 02:18 PM
I think dealing with a dungeon or with a faction doesn't make an effective difference. A small dungeon with 20 inhabitants of the same faction will be a lot easier than entering the territory of a faction of 100 inhabitants in a dungeon that also houses 5 other factions. I think for this purpse here, "dungeon" and "section of a dungeon controled by a single faction" can be treated as the same thing.

If you are dealing with a large dungeon with 30+ warriors and possibly additional civilians in much larger numbers, then I think it would make sense to have everyone "report to battle stations". The vulnerable people get to the save rooms, which gets a team of guards, as well as any other vital locations in the dungeon. Then the remaining warriors form teams and go searching for the intruders.

When dealing with a very small group of under 8 or so, then being detected probably means the whole gang sees the PCs or are at least within shouting distance, so it comes down to one big brawl between everyone.
Or the PCs manage to take out a few of the enemies and the remaining ones will just post a guard or two when they sleep. But searching the whole place for what might be a single person who might already have left is probably not feasable. They might go looking for one missing member, but once they find hints that he has been killed, they shouldn't spread out to search for the attackers, that's what gets you killed in a dumb slasher movie.

The dungeon I am currently working on is of medium size with a group of inhabitants in the middle range between one and two dozen people. The place is large enough that shouting will only be heard in maybe a third or just a quarter of the whole compex, and usually nobody is totally sure where everyone else is right now. If you want to get the boss, you'd go to his room and if he isn't there you have to start searching, possibly while yelling for him at the same time.
Now to get the boss (or a group of elite mooks) and get back to the place where an attack did happen might take two or three minutes. If reinforcements arrive at the site of the fight and the attackers are gone, what could the defenders (like bandits or a cult) do next?
Right now that I am writing this, I think one good start would to alert everyone who is still left and then try to find out how the intruders got in in the first place.

Yora
2014-06-08, 02:21 PM
Things did turn out quite interesting. After the party got attacked during the night and they managed to capture some of the attackers and make them talk, they decided not to wait until morning but attack the bandit camp immediately. They arrived about an hour before sunrise when the only people already being up where the two cooks and a single guard.
They arrived just as one of the cooks and the guard were feeding the five war dogs kept inside the entrance cave and though the dogs did deal out significant damage, they died pretty quickly as well. Knowing that there was a guard and with the camp well hidden, nobody felt like getting up and checking out why the dogs had been barking, so everyone stayed in bed. Most fighting later on went very quickly and when they fighting finally did wake up a guard who woke the other men in his room, they happened to be the last four people on the entire floor.

The players didn't plan on assaulting the complex while everyone was sleeping, but still a very interesting turn of events.