Keeping the party from sleeping in a dungeon

[Kezeal]

Consider having a party who use the hell out of daily powers and then decide to sleep it off in the dungeon to regain their abilities. That just doesn't make sense to me.

How would you stop them from doing so without it being too much of a stretch?

[Blackhawk748]

Consider having a party who use the hell out of daily powers and then decide to sleep it off in the dungeon to regain their abilities. That just doesn't make sense to me.

How would you stop them from doing so without it being too much of a stretch?

Simple, have stuff in the dungeon attack them. Seriously they're inactive for 8 hours thats plenty of time for stuff to show up.

On a side note sleeping in the dungeon isnt that weird. You find a room, barricade it shut and take a nap. Makes more sense if it would take an hour or so to leave.

[Zyzzyva]

Simple, have stuff in the dungeon attack them. Seriously they're inactive for 8 hours thats plenty of time for stuff to show up.

On a side note sleeping in the dungeon isnt that weird. You find a room, barricade it shut and take a nap. Makes more sense if it would take an hour or so to leave.

I think it's more a 15 minute adventuring day issue: they're sleeping 22 hours out of every 24.

Wandering monsters is probably the best route, but houseruling that you can't have two sleeps within, say, eight hours of each other is probably also a useful adjustment.

[Karl Aegis]

Ask them to ease up on the use of their daily abilities so they don't have to rest so often.

[Blackhawk748]

I think it's more a 15 minute adventuring day issue: they're sleeping 22 hours out of every 24.

Wandering monsters is probably the best route, but houseruling that you can't have two sleeps within, say, eight hours of each other is probably also a useful adjustment.

Well if your players are going nova all the time you may need to examine your encounters. It is entirely possible that they are to hard. It is equally possible your PCs are bad at resource management. The second problem is compounded by the fact that they can "recharge" whenever with no penalty.

Also you need to rest for 8 hours to regain spells, not sleep. It usually isnt important but in this case it is. Still gives a weird visual though. The brave adventurers kill the foul beast, then pull out their lawn chairs and a deck of cards and take an 8 hour breather

[Grand Poobah]

What or who calls the dungeon home? Are they aware of this group moving through the dungeon? Is the party's slow progress giving them time to reinforce, barricade, trap the hell out of the rest of the dungeon?

[Kezeal]

Well if your players are going nova all the time you may need to examine your encounters. It is entirely possible that they are to hard.

They just really really love using every spell they have on every encounter and then they decide that they need to sleep now to make up for all the spells they wasted.


What or who calls the dungeon home? Are they aware of this group moving through the dungeon? Is the party's slow progress giving them time to reinforce, barricade, trap the hell out of the rest of the dungeon?

I love that last question and I will use that against them.

[Shadowsend]

Have new stuff move in behind them...

[Kezeal]

Have new stuff move in behind them...

They're barricaded in a room with one entrance and one guy is always keeping watch.

[JeenLeen]

If you do start having denizens of the dungeon attack them while resting, and you haven't done this in previous dungeons in the game, I recommend talking to them out-of-character first and letting them know about this change.

If it's established that, in most dungeons, you are safe while resting in a room you've cleared, then that becomes the baseline for your particular setting. If you are changing that, then it's reasonable the players could get upset unless they are told about something that is essentially changing how dungeons work in your universe.

That aside, I think it is perfectly legitimate that they would get attacked. Or, if the 'boss' realizes it would lose, it takes his most precious loot and leaves by another route while the PCs rest. (But, being D&D 3.5, don't do this so much that your party is too low on wealth, but it could work to teach them that enemies can be intelligent.)

[Kezeal]

If you do start having denizens of the dungeon attack them while resting, and you haven't done this in previous dungeons in the game, I recommend talking to them out-of-character first and letting them know about this change.

If it's established that, in most dungeons, you are safe while resting in a room you've cleared, then that becomes the baseline for your particular setting. If you are changing that, then it's reasonable the players could get upset unless they are told about something that is essentially changing how dungeons work in your universe.

That aside, I think it is perfectly legitimate that they would get attacked. Or, if the 'boss' realizes it would lose, it takes his most precious loot and leaves by another route while the PCs rest. (But, being D&D 3.5, don't do this so much that your party is too low on wealth, but it could work to teach them that enemies can be intelligent.)

Ooh, boss running elsewhere with the loot is a great idea as well.

[Kantolin]

What level are they? If they're low level, they may not have much choice. :P

Another option is to give them time constraints. Have the dungeon be slowly filling with water/lava/sand, have the evil lizardmen be going to sacrifice the person the party is after with the artifact the party is trying to get, have a rival adventuring group (which doesn't even need to be evil - you can make them good aligned types) who are also trying to get to the artifact before they do. This doesn't have to be some kind of 'So you must RUN!' situation, just a 'So no, you don't have two weeks'.

If they're just in the dungeon to clear out all the monsters, then there's no real rush for them to do so, prompting this concern. Although if you make the dungeon contain, say, four or five different races of monsters that don't necessarily work together, then you can make it clear that as the party slowly moves in all five groups begin to see the party as a threat, which would make the dungeon more challenging as the party spends more time there (vs if they hurried up a bit more).

Alternately, plan encounters based around the party being at full strength and call it a day.

Alternately alternately, ask them to stop out of characterly?

[Blackhawk748]

They're barricaded in a room with one entrance and one guy is always keeping watch.

Well at least they're being intelligent about this. But ya seconding the Boss ditching the dungeon.

[jaydubs]

1. The dungeon is usually heavily populated. For whatever reason (war, raid, festival, voyage, etc.) most of the creatures are off somewhere else. But, they'll only be gone for X days/hours/whatever. So yeah, they can rest as much as they want. But if they do it too often, a whole army of trouble is going to come down on them.

2. They're going into the dungeon for a reason other than to kill monsters and get treasure. Maybe they're rescuing prisoners. Or they need a McGuffin to fight an enemy elsewhere. But in any case, if they take too long, bad things happen to someone, somewhere. And make sure if they rest too much, they get to see first hand what that bad thing was, and know it was because they delayed. By which I mean, they meet the victims of whatever on-going harm was happening as they rested.

3. Sometimes enemies do in fact attack them. But don't overuse it. If this is the only thing you use, eventually they'll just come up with more and more effective ways to avoid attacks while resting.

4. As already has been mentioned, enemies decide to take their loot and leave. Make sure the PCs know that's what happened. You don't actually even have to change the treasure, just make sure the players believe they got less because they took too long.

5. There are competitors in the dungeon. If they take too long, they find the boss already dead and looted. This can also set up some cool NPC interactions.

[Necromancy]

They attract the attention of a powerful rogue npc that knows all the secret doors. Every time they rest, something goes missing.

[Aethir]

I'm a fan of having them hear sounds all through the rest, only to find the monsters have reinforced their barricade from the other side and just left them to starve to death.

Honestly I'd love to see a random encounter chart of just how dungeon denizens screw with people.

[DrMotives]

Heroes of horror has a thing on onieromancy, or dream magic. I know that really can't be used more than once, but you could have a BBEG of the episode use that. It's a set of feats that add spells to any spellcasting class list, so you can flexible with it. Obviously the dream mage can detect and mess with the resting break intruders, and having their routine get shaken up once might be enough to stop their habits.

[Telonius]

Up to a certain level (i.e. as soon as the party Wizard can Plane Shift), having a ticking clock scenario can help with this. The party needs to get through the dungeon within three days or the princess dies, the orc army attacks, the ritual is completed, or whatever horrible consequence you want to come up with.

[Seclora]

They're barricaded in a room with one entrance and one guy is always keeping watch.

Speaking as a defensively minded strategist, I'd station a handful of guards outside the room. Then I'd barricade it from the other side. Intruders want to camp out in one of my rooms for eight hours? Fine, let them have the room. They've decided to contain themselves.

For that matter, only one man on watch? That's a great opportunity for sneak attackers or incorporeal opponents. Don't have to kill them, just get them a little paranoid.

[Telok]

Vampire ooze.

I don't remember where I saw it, or even if it was for D&D or some other game. Mindless, heat seeking, blood scenting, transparent and watery. It would follow blood trails and scents before homing in on humanoid/animal level heat sources. It looked like water and seeped under doors or through cracks never making any sound. It sported a fairly unpleasant paralytic contact poison and would drain the blood of anything that didn't move. Once it drained the blood it looked like a pool of blood and stayed around to spawn more oozes over a couple of hours. Pretty hard to hurt with weapons, it was only 1/2 inch thick and pretty watery. Fire/cold worked though.

Thief on watch thought it was water seeping in. Rest of the party woke up to see the thief and two henchmen laying dead in pools of their "blood". When the fighter tried to loot them he fell down and his blood started draining out. Almost a TPK to something that didn't even have an attack.

[Dexam]

They're barricaded in a room with one entrance and one guy is always keeping watch.

Incorporeal undead are the DM's best friends in this situation. Shadows, ghosts, spectres, wraiths - take your pick.

Swarms are also a good choice. Having a swarm of rats, spiders, or centipedes come boiling out of a hole in the wall in the middle of the night will spoil just about anyone's rest.

For bonus terror, find out if any of your players have a particularly strong phobia regarding rats or arachnids, and have the swarm come out of the ceiling and land on their sleeping character. Go into fine detail about how they wake up to twitchy whiskers/scrabbling claws/wormy tails, or chitinous segmented bodies/scuttling legs/dripping fangs. Once the screaming and/or swearing stops, casually mention that this wouldn't have happened if they'd spent the night in a comfortable inn.

[Karl Aegis]

Does every underground complex have an absurdly good ventilation system? I can't ever figure out how a barricaded room holds enough air to keep a party of adventurers and a light source alive for several hours.

[torrasque666]

Incorporeal undead are the DM's best friends in this situation. Shadows, ghosts, spectres, wraiths - take your pick.



For that matter, only one man on watch? That's a great opportunity for sneak attackers or incorporeal opponents. Don't have to kill them, just get them a little paranoid.

Thirding the Incorporeal idea. As soon as I saw "one guy and a barricade" I thought "use a damn ghost or thing-like. it goes through the friggin walls/floor/ceiling."

Or, even better, I remember that there was a set of three enemies from an older edition(name and edition slip my mind) that mimicked the floor, walls, and ceiling respectively. Make a room out of that.

[Dysart]

Consider having a party who use the hell out of daily powers and then decide to sleep it off in the dungeon to regain their abilities. That just doesn't make sense to me.

How would you stop them from doing so without it being too much of a stretch?

I'll be honest, not read all the posts but my suggestion is to have another adventuring part beat them too it. Make them a party of nice folk too.
While they slept this other group came in and took out all the monsters and took the loot, they run into them while they're leaving...chaos insues!

[atemu1234]

Anything that can move silently is a must. Dvati Mc-OptOptimizedRogue sends his regards.

[Brendanicus]

If your dungeon is filled with intelligent creatures, such as Goblins or necromancers, they will actively search for PC's once their guards go missing for 8 hours. The players could easily get ambushed by them no matter how well they set up watch/roll on their Spot checks.

Alternatively, your antagonists could be patient, and simply surround all entrances to the room. They could then either hide and sneak up on the party as they leave, or simply lay siege with superior defenses and try to starve them out.

EDIT: If your players take an 8-hour nap after every fight, bear in mind that intelligent enemies could have time to call in allies from outside the dungeon to aid them.

[phlidwsn]

Keep in mind that divine types, ie cleric, druid, etc. are limited to regaining spells at a certain time each day, not whenever they rest for 8 hours.

Also, arcane casters do *not* get back anything they cast within the last 8 hours.(Divine casters have the same limit).

Enforcing both of those limits should help cut down on the 15 minute workday.

Edit: If they're willing to just burn a whole day to rest anyway, see the above ideas, or make a Team B party of adventurers that goes ahead and clears the dungeon and walks off with the treasure while they are napping.

[Necromancy]

Tucker's kobolds show up and a full 23.5 hours to set up outside the door

[GreyBlack]

Consider having a party who use the hell out of daily powers and then decide to sleep it off in the dungeon to regain their abilities. That just doesn't make sense to me.

How would you stop them from doing so without it being too much of a stretch?

A patrol of mooks stumbles upon them sleeping and then eats them alive. That'll teach them to sleep in a dungeon.

Although, it does depend on the size of the dungeon. A multi-story dungeon that stretches down to the Underdark might be a legitimate time to sleep and get back their sleep instead of travelling all the way back up to the surface. A simple "Enter the dungeon and fight the BBEG" dungeon might be a bit too much, though.

[BilltheCynic]

It seems like your problem is that your players are bad at resource management. They just nova everything then rest later. You can correct this with smart enemies.

Throw a small group of weak goblins at them, below the party's cr. Mention that the goblins look haggard and beaten, maybe even some whip scars. After the PCs beat the goblins, reveal that they were slaves of a small group of drow, who were watching the whole time and using the goblins to drain the party's resources and determine their strengths and weaknesses. Immediately after the goblins are defeated, have the drow move in for the kill. If the party used up all of their spells on weak goblins, they are in for a world of hurt. You can change the species of the monsters to match your setting.

[AnonymousPepper]

Tucker's kobolds show up and a full 23.5 hours to set up outside the door

This was my thought. Let them rest, but run them through a dungeon full of kobolds, and the more breaks they take, the more Tuckerized the dungeon becomes.

One trip though a dungeon filled with Tucker's Kobolds could make any PO-and-lower (wouldn't faze something like Priya the Prismatic Princess or something, but you get my point) party cry and give up. I don't think a party of high-op Artificers could do it if built properly.

So, you make it very clear to them that their pain is self-inflicted, and hopefully that teaches them a lesson about constant nova-break cycles. If it doesn't, then you start actively disrupting their rests with incorporeals and swarms.

[Inevitability]

Dungeon-specific, of course, but how about giving the PC's a limited resource they will run out off if they rest? For example, my players are soon going to inspect a sunken ship, and as no one is aquatic they have gathered a few dozen potions of Water Breathing. If they try to rest after each encounter, they'll suffocate before clearing the first couple of rooms.

[Tvtyrant]

"You open the door of your room to find that a ramp has been constructed against it. At the top of the ramp a group of Kobolds with a barrel coated in pitch and hay are waiting. One ignites the barrel, the other pushes it down the ramp. Reflex DC 15 against prone, DC 15 against 10d6 fire damage when the blackpowder explodes, then the kobolds drop as a free action allowing the two behind them to use their readied action to repeat. "

[daremetoidareyo]

Here's the thing: how much "rest" can you get if there are dudes on watch who have to deal with monsters bashing down the door? It's my understanding that If you interrupt the rest, they have to start over, (double check me on that). Orcs bashing in the door, or coralling an ooze to eat through it is no way to get your spells rekindled. This "lesson" means that the PCs will begin camping outside of the dungeon.



Once this occurs, you talk to them OOC, and give them a heads up that playing so conservatively is no fun for you, it unbalances the CR, and that if they keep doing it, that you'll think of a way for there to be in-game repercussions for taking two weeks to do a job that takes two days. It's always nice to get a warning OOC. Further, the next time they do the whole barricade the door thing, utter this magic DM phrase of dragonic might, "Are you sure you want to do that?" whether or not you plan on their being repercussions, that should be unsettling enough to curtail it.

[Curmudgeon]

They're barricaded in a room with one entrance and one guy is always keeping watch.
Wandering monsters will often have Scent. The longer the PCs stay barricaded in the room, the more of these hungry monsters will accumulate. Eventually they'll be able to batter down the barricade and overwhelm the resting PCs, or will simply constitute so great an opposing force that the PCs won't have a chance.

Basically, make it obvious that the longer the PCs stay resting, the bigger the enemy force they will have to face.

[Duke of Urrel]

Consider having a party who use the hell out of daily powers and then decide to sleep it off in the dungeon to regain their abilities. That just doesn't make sense to me.

How would you stop them from doing so without it being too much of a stretch?

As others have already said, this situation cries out for visits from very annoying monsters. I would suggest rust monsters and ethereal filchers at first, then nastier monsters if the players don't take the hint.

[Brendanicus]

As others have already said, this situation cries out for visits from very annoying monsters. I would suggest rust monsters and ethereal filchers at first, then nastier monsters if the players don't take the hint.Don't do that, that's a horrible idea. Punishing your players for not playing the game how you want it to be played will just make your players resent you. Simply give them believable consequences for their actions.

Sending incorporeal creatures only in situations when incorporeal creatures would be useful is contrived, as is sending Rust Monsters as "punishment". How dare the players develop strategies.

Having enemies who adjust their tactics around sleepy players? Completely believable, and will teach your party to think a lot more about the effects of their actions rather than "punishing them" for doing what the party no doubt sees as smart, tactical thinking.

[Tarqiup Inua]

You could let the denizens of the dungeon barricade the entrances from the other side as well. If trying to starve or prevent the resting adventurers from leaving isn't enough for you, monsters could pile wood against the door and set it afire - it is sure to get hot inside, not to mention the air inside will run out faster.

[Nibbens]

When me and my group were playing 4e, our DM was sadistic. Nearly every encounter was like the situation you are describing. We would have burnt 100% of our dailys just to make it to encounter 3 in a dungeon. He perpetually kept us under level, under looted, and under powered. If I'm not mistaken, an at level encounter is supposed to burn 20% of a players resources in 4e. So just keep that in mind when designing them. Not every encounter should be harder or equal to the pc, some should be lower. And don't forget to throw minions at them! lol.

There is some merit to the argument that maybe the PCs just feel "unheroic" and have to burn everything just to survive - rather than saving the powers for more heroic times.

Now, barring the above statement. If your PCs truly are just burning all their powers just because and wanting to sleep in a dungeon. I'd say only one 8 hour rest in a 24 hour period as a house rule - and design your encounters with this rule in mind. Secondly, a dungeon is a living breathing environment - others suggested throwing wandering monsters at them - this is also good. Don't forget to half or quarter the power/surge regain for "not getting enough rest" or "sleeping in a hostile environment."

And not all sleepy-time interruptions have to be dangerous. Maybe, a pair of thieves sneaking in behind your group to scavenge the loot you don't claim or miss come upon your sleeping group. Maybe a hostage escaped and winds up in their protection mid-dungeon. The possibilities are endless to interrupt their sleep patterns.

[Bronk]

They're barricaded in a room with one entrance and one guy is always keeping watch.

Do you ever have anyone try to get in?

I like some of the other ideas, (incorporeal foes, hard to see oozes, nightmare spell, stuff like that) but you might want to just have some bad guys try to beat the door down at some point.

Basically, it sounds like you have the danger level go way down while they're resting, but it really shouldn't. I think the idea would be to keep the danger level the same.

It wouldn't be about 'punishing' the players, it would be more about rewarding whatever preparations they use while they're resting.

Did they make any tracking rolls to determine if the room or the corridor outside the room was used often?

Did they check the room for traps or invisible creatures?

How good is their barricade?

How good are the spot and listen checks of the guy on watch?

Is he the only one on watch, or do they switch out?

Do the magic users, if any, have their familiars help with the watches?

Have they used any magical protections like the 'alarm' spell or are they sleeping in a 'rope trick' or 'tiny hut' spell, etc.?

Those are the kinds of things to think of if you want more 'realism' while camping out in a dungeon. I'd ease them into it slowly and with a lot of warning signs. Maybe call for a tracking roll if someone can do that, call for a few extra search rolls, that sort of thing.

The players may very well get frustrated at first, too, but it would be your job to reward them by showing them what they're avoiding, giving them surprise rounds, and generally having their preparations work.

As an aside, if they're not high enough level to start teleporting out of the dungeon entirely to rest, then popping back in, you might want to start laying the groundwork now for having parts or all of your dungeons be dimensionally locked via the spell. That'll keep them in danger for longer, and they can have fun figuring out how to get around that next.

[Jay R]

Track food, water, torches, and lamp oil.

Wandering monsters.

Anything that ran from them shows back up with their 50 big brothers.

Anything they killed completely gets discovered by their 50 big brothers.

Some rival party is also after the McGuffin, and only the first party there will get it.

Rats that bite them occasionally and don't let them rest enough to recover spells.

They can hear the monsters setting up a trap or ambush in the next room.

[LoyalPaladin]

Priya the Prismatic Princess
Can you link that to me? I can't seem to remember what it is even.

I'm a big fan of making things go missing. Nothing scares a party more than their weapons going missing. You know what else is terrifying? Kender. Why not populate the walls of the dungeon with Kender? That'd motivate me to get out of there ASAP. Secret tunnels filled with Kender that "borrow" things. That way they get their stuff back, but are still motivated to go fast. Also, Kender. *shudders*

[Lightlawbliss]

Dungeons are not known for being the nicest place to live, and are occupied by more then just monsters. Rats and bugs could easily be drawn to the PCs food and water supplies and/or the PCs themselves. If block every way a bug could get in, that room must be really big for you to have enough air for 4+ people for 8 hours (if one assumes they are all medium, then it is a 20x20x10 room for 6 hours and about 20x25x10 for 8), and even bigger for 9 so arcane casters can prepare spell (about 20x30x10 for 4 medium PCs).

I also second the "the locals may attack" option.

As a side point: it doesn't take much for noise to mess up their rest, and the other PCs are going to do SOMETHING during those 8 hours.

[Seerow]

Do note that not all instances of sleeping in a dungeon are caused by blowing everything you have in a single encounter. Frankly I find it hard to consider it a real "dungeon" if it's completed in less than 10 encounters. I've been in groups where we went through around a dozen encounters, found a place to hole up for the night, and then had to go through a dozen more the next day. It's just not always feasible to complete everything in one day.

[Jay R]

Agreed. We're currently in a long cave system, and there were two nights in a row in which our sleep was disturbed enough that the spellcasters couldn't renew their spells. That made for two days' worth of heightened suspense, and a really cool game.

[Malroth]

In my group this kind of response is WHY the pc's go for the 10 minute work day, if they're simply assuming they're going to be ambushed 3 times in the night regardless of their preperations then the logical choice is to rest when down to 75% of resources so that you might survive the wraiths, rat swarms and artificer kobolds who are going to attack them anyway regardless of what they do.

[Jay R]

In my group this kind of response is WHY the pc's go for the 10 minute work day, if they're simply assuming they're going to be ambushed 3 times in the night regardless of their preperations then the logical choice is to rest when down to 75% of resources so that you might survive the wraiths, rat swarms and artificer kobolds who are going to attack them anyway regardless of what they do.

Then you need to explain to them that if they spend three times as much time resting (3 8-hour periods per day), then they will get 3 times as many nuisance monsters that use up resources and don't help them achieve their goal.

[Malroth]

Yes but it only takes 1 night ambush to teach the lesson, unfortunately the lesson isn't "we should keep going to the end in one stretch" but "the DM is going to try to pull a TPK out of his A** so we better be at full stregnth at all times" Time constraints, rival parties and the monsters simply leaving is a MUCH better deterrent than resting encounters.

[ObnoxiousKender]

Can you link that to me? I can't seem to remember what it is even.

I'm a big fan of making things go missing. Nothing scares a party more than their weapons going missing. You know what else is terrifying? Kender. Why not populate the walls of the dungeon with Kender? That'd motivate me to get out of there ASAP. Secret tunnels filled with Kender that "borrow" things. That way they get their stuff back, but are still motivated to go fast. Also, Kender. *shudders*

You called?

[ObnoxiousKender]

My current DM rolls a % Dice for an encounter whenever we rest. It must be pretty low, because in four years we have only been interrupted about three times.
I am personally a huge fan of having the person on watch getting lured off by something and then the rest of the party getting jumped.

[Jay R]

In our party, the person on guard instantly kicks somebody else awake when she sees something. The second person decides whether to wake the entire party.

[The DM hasn't yet thought to send rats or bats on a regular basis to defeat this tactic.]

[AnonymousPepper]

Can you link that to me? I can't seem to remember what it is even.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?280365-Priya-the-Prismatic-Priestess-Buffs-Across-the-Spectrum

'scuse me, *Prismatic Priestess. Uses Spelldancer, Time Stop, Absorption, and Miracle to instantly coat herself in ridiculous amounts of buffs to make herself untouchable. Even has an active defense against Mordenkainen's Disjunction; if she gets Disjoined, she can just buff herself up again inside Time Stop as an immediate.