Dungeon layout, short rests, and "we know you're there" problem

[TentacleSurpris]

As a DM I try to play monsters and design dungeons so that they aren't morons. In many dungeons, like in World of Warcraft, monsters sit around in packs, waiting for the players to come from room to room and massacre them. Players can plenty of time to rest between encounters.

But if you play a roleplaying game and actually roleplay the monsters instead of just rule-playing them as mobs, it doesn't work out that way.

Monster should hear swords clanging and screaming and murder from other rooms in the dungeon. Alarms should go off. The inside of a front door should have a bell connected to it to ring when it opens to alarm nearby monsters that someone is inside. Dungeon hallways echo sounds, that should be picked up. Reasonably, monsters shouldn't wait in small groups that can be easily managed with 1/4 of a day's resources. Groups of Orcs or whatever should sound horns to alarm the castle. Mind flayers should be able to communicate with the entire dungeon telepathically.

If there is any kind of Wizard or Ranger in there, he or she should use the 1st level Alarm spell to warn of intruders crossing his threshold, and then deploy everything in the dungeon at them.

If you ever take a short rest, even one hour is an eternity when you're in the home of murderous monsters. I don't see why resting for 1 hour is really less dangerous than resting for 24, since anything that is looking for you will find you in an hour if it can find you in 24. This breaks the player's need to ever short rest as well, since they can long rest in most circumstances that they can short rest (and many adventures can't be written to have a time limit).

So how do you design dungeons (castles, ruins, caves, whatever) that don't crush the players but preserve verisimilitude?

For example, on the Wizards_DND twitter account, they are featuring a map of "the amber temple" from Curse of Strahd. The temple is in total about 50 yards by 50 yards. If my friends are being murdered in one room, I can hear that from anywhere else in the temple and I'm going to get everyone else in the temple to check it out.

[krugaan]

As a DM I try to play monsters and design dungeons so that they aren't morons. In many dungeons, like in World of Warcraft, monsters sit around in packs, waiting for the players to come from room to room and massacre them. Players can plenty of time to rest between encounters.

But if you play a roleplaying game and actually roleplay the monsters instead of just rule-playing them as mobs, it doesn't work out that way.

Monster should hear swords clanging and screaming and murder from other rooms in the dungeon. Alarms should go off. The inside of a front door should have a bell connected to it to ring when it opens to alarm nearby monsters that someone is inside. Dungeon hallways echo sounds, that should be picked up. Reasonably, monsters shouldn't wait in small groups that can be easily managed with 1/4 of a day's resources. Groups of Orcs or whatever should sound horns to alarm the castle. Mind flayers should be able to communicate with the entire dungeon telepathically.

If there is any kind of Wizard or Ranger in there, he or she should use the 1st level Alarm spell to warn of intruders crossing his threshold, and then deploy everything in the dungeon at them.

If you ever take a short rest, even one hour is an eternity when you're in the home of murderous monsters. I don't see why resting for 1 hour is really less dangerous than resting for 24, since anything that is looking for you will find you in an hour if it can find you in 24. This breaks the player's need to ever short rest as well, since they can long rest in most circumstances that they can short rest (and many adventures can't be written to have a time limit).

So how do you design dungeons (castles, ruins, caves, whatever) that don't crush the players but preserve verisimilitude?

For example, on the Wizards_DND twitter account, they are featuring a map of "the amber temple" from Curse of Strahd. The temple is in total about 50 yards by 50 yards. If my friends are being murdered in one room, I can hear that from anywhere else in the temple and I'm going to get everyone else in the temple to check it out.

Rationally, yes, monsters in dungeons should be super alert, aware, and clever all the time. But really, it's not so farfetched that creatures stuck in a dungeon would get bored with guard duty and slack off. Sure you can cast alarm every day, but darnit, sometimes you really just cbf'ed to spend the 10 minutes on a ritual that never goes off anyway. Noone's invaded the keep in 500 years, what are the exact chances it's going to happen today?

If you want verisimilitude, you should allow the guards to mutter and grumble or something as they keep watch. Give them emotions and attitudes that your players can overhear. Otherwise, yes, they're going to just be groups of mobs with an aggro radius.

[Mith]

Personally, as a DM I have a hard time envisioning how sound would carry, but that's because my hearing is pretty bad. So I would counter this by having patrols and sound carrying around corners. So if there isn't a nearby patrol, then I wouldn't have the entire dungeon potentially fall upon the party. So my simulations are probably quieter than what would actually be the case.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Personally, as a DM I have a hard time envisioning how sound would carry, but that's because my hearing is pretty bad. So I would counter this by having patrols and sound carrying around corners. So if there isn't a nearby patrol, then I wouldn't have the entire dungeon potentially fall upon the party. So my simulations are probably quieter than what would actually be the case.

To be fair, you don't need a whole lot of creativity to come up with reasons why sound wouldn't carry.

The boss and their retinue are having a party, with dancing and singing and music.
The cave is lined with sound-absorbing moss.
There is an underground river that runs just under the dungeon, and the noise from that overpowers other sounds.
The fortress' inhabitants are deaf (gelatinous cubes, etc.).
The temple's inhabitants are mindless (gelatinous cubes, etc.).
All of the nearby monsters are so slow-moving that they couldn't swarm the party even if they wanted to (gelatinous... you get the idea).

[gfishfunk]

I have dealt with this rational problem in a couple of different ways:

1. Magic Item. One of the first magical items they received was a stone of muffling. In short, it muffled noises as they traveled out of a 45' area, essentially stopping noise from carrying. It did not silence areas or anything like that. Every now and then, I would remind folks who had the stone.

2. Few people. So, when I design an area, I use the presence of other things that overheard to be a second planned encounter. From the enemy's perspective, if one group is in trouble, the second group will support. From the player's perspective, they have learned to be careful when doing a short rest and so they find somewhere to hide and clear out other adjacent enemies.

3. Big Area. When I do plan smarter enemies (military units for example), I create a big enough area that the players can conceivably hide while behind enemy lines. Its not an issue of check 3 rooms and you are done, but caves, pantries, basements, roofs, barns, etc.

4. Enemy intelligence and tactics. An enemy's intelligence should factor into difficulty level. If I have a group of intelligent military units versus the PCs, the PCs will have that knowledge going in and can plan accordingly.

5. Magic Spells. There are a small number of magic spells that make the whole thing more manageable. Rope Trick, for example, and the Tiny Hut. If you worry for the PCs, you can certainly make magic scrolls like that available if they don't have a wizard.

[krugaan]

To be fair, you don't need a whole lot of creativity to come up with reasons why sound wouldn't carry.

The boss and their retinue are having a party, with dancing and singing and music.
The cave is lined with sound-absorbing moss.
There is an underground river that runs just under the dungeon, and the noise from that overpowers other sounds.
The fortress' inhabitants are deaf (gelatinous cubes, etc.).
The temple's inhabitants are mindless (gelatinous cubes, etc.).
All of the nearby monsters are so slow-moving that they couldn't swarm the party even if they wanted to (gelatinous... you get the idea).

Henceforth, this will be known as the "Ninja_Prawn Rationale for Sound Propagation in Jello-Filled Dungeons"

But yeah, theoretically in enclosed areas with hard surfaces like caves and stone castles, sound should travel very far, but it doesn't take much to dampen sound to a reasonable level. Ceilings have that weird spackle texture for just that reason.

This might be a good use of an investigation or perception check:

"You notice the air is moist, and the stone walls are covered with a light moss; you think sounds of battle might not travel very far."

[RedMage125]

I try to play the monsters like they're written. Orcs are savages, but can be lazy in their downtime. Kobold rely on traps and alarms. Goblins are cravens who stick together in groups, but run for help if overpowered. Hobgoblins are disciplined with a military mindset, they would hold off the party while one of them sounded the alarm. Bugbears are barely sentient brutes, too stupid to sound an alarm. Gnolls are pack animals, but savage. They would attack intruders, but make a lot of noise to alert any nearby pack mates. Mindless creatures don't cooperate. Drow are arrogant and overconfident, but also sneaky. They're more likely to attempt to ambush players. Mind Flayer telepathy, mentioned earlier, has a range limit, but within thathe limit yes, they should be alerting others in the dungeon.

Monsters, when played "realistically" all have different ways they would react to intruders in their desmene.

[Mith]

To be fair, you don't need a whole lot of creativity to come up with reasons why sound wouldn't carry.

I know. I was just thinking of the first adventure I designed and ran, I was laughing because I couldn't actually get it in my head how the sound would carry because my hearing range in an open area is about 10 m (~30 ft). I solved this by having parts of the dungeon sealed by either sound muffler or the like.

[GlenSmash!]

It's because dungeon monsters have really good labor unions. It's in bylaws that they only have to fight if adventurers come within a certain distance. Some, like in world of warcraft, have really good union bylaws where the distance scales to the inverse of the adventurer's level.

"Hey, Blarg, should we go investigate that sound"
"No way, that sounds like a level 10 party and we're level 2. We're only obligated to fight if they come within 10 ft of us."

[hymer]

I try to play the monsters like they're written. Orcs are savages, but can be lazy in their downtime. Kobold rely on traps and alarms. Goblins are cravens who stick together in groups, but run for help if overpowered. Hobgoblins are disciplined with a military mindset, they would hold off the party while one of them sounded the alarm. Bugbears are barely sentient brutes, too stupid to sound an alarm. Gnolls are pack animals, but savage. They would attack intruders, but make a lot of noise to alert any nearby pack mates. Mindless creatures don't cooperate. Drow are arrogant and overconfident, but also sneaky. They're more likely to attempt to ambush players. Mind Flayer telepathy, mentioned earlier, has a range limit, but within thathe limit yes, they should be alerting others in the dungeon.

Monsters, when played "realistically" all have different ways they would react to intruders in their desmene.

Pretty much this. I just did a dungeon level that's home to a bunch of bandits (with a command opening phrase to a cave and everything). If the PCs don't manage to do things quietly and quickly, the first room will result in them meeting four waves of bandits in quick succession. But below that level is an ancient series of crypts, and the guardians and traps there have very narrow parameters for their behaviour. They are also individually far more powerful than the bandits (which is why the bandits have left them alone). Swings and roundabouts.
But I do intend to have intelligent creatures react appropriately. Raiding an orc fortress needs to be done with stealth and alacrity, so the orcs have to react at least somewhat intelligently. There may be the occasional slip by an overly battle-hungry group, but it's not something to count on. And sneaking into a hobgoblin stronghold would be far worse.


It's because dungeon monsters have really good labor unions. It's in bylaws that they only have to fight if adventurers come within a certain distance. Some, like in world of warcraft, have really good union bylaws where the distance scales to the inverse of the adventurer's level.

"Hey, Blarg, should we go investigate that sound"
"No way, that sounds like a level 10 party and we're level 2. We're only obligated to fight if they come within 10 ft of us."

Another explanation (http://www.darklegacycomics.com/476).

[Sigreid]

I see this as entirely the party's problem. The monsters are going to do what they are going to do and if the party wants a short rest it is up to them to make it happen. Whether they actually get left alone for an hour or not depends on what they do to make themselves safe. it's part of the game challenge.

[Citan]

Hi OP! ;)
Thanks for this interesting thread.
I agree with everything that has been said already, with an emphasis on the two following thoughts.
1. Different groups of monsters will have different ways to react.
2. It's the party problem first and foremost.

I unfortunately don't have any prepared answer for you. The most I could suggest is mix and match different battles, some with "stupid" or "coward" monsters so that players can afford to be straightforward, and others where being "beware! We are here and will kill you" would be suicidal.

Also, imo both your fight design and general expectations of player's craftiness should depend on party composition.
For example, a party with only "pure" martials would probably have more difficulty making its way discreetly in a dungeon (basically only have to take baby steps and go stealth + surprise all the way).
Whereas I (as a DM) would fully expect from a Wizard to use spells to control the situation (stupidly simple idea: cast Silence in a corridor linking two parts of a dungeon, so that any sound from mass murder in one part won't convey to the other).

[Gastronomie]

This is exactly why I implemented the Epic Heroism variant rule from the DMG. Short rests of 5 minutes, long rests of 1 hour. Not only does it allow tougher encounters, it also allows the characters to actually take a rest in the enemy's fortress, give they can find the space (and even 5 minutes isn't an easy task - it's still often interrupted).

[NewDM]

As a DM I try to play monsters and design dungeons so that they aren't morons. In many dungeons, like in World of Warcraft, monsters sit around in packs, waiting for the players to come from room to room and massacre them. Players can plenty of time to rest between encounters.

But if you play a roleplaying game and actually roleplay the monsters instead of just rule-playing them as mobs, it doesn't work out that way.

Monster should hear swords clanging and screaming and murder from other rooms in the dungeon. Alarms should go off. The inside of a front door should have a bell connected to it to ring when it opens to alarm nearby monsters that someone is inside. Dungeon hallways echo sounds, that should be picked up. Reasonably, monsters shouldn't wait in small groups that can be easily managed with 1/4 of a day's resources. Groups of Orcs or whatever should sound horns to alarm the castle. Mind flayers should be able to communicate with the entire dungeon telepathically.

If there is any kind of Wizard or Ranger in there, he or she should use the 1st level Alarm spell to warn of intruders crossing his threshold, and then deploy everything in the dungeon at them.

If you ever take a short rest, even one hour is an eternity when you're in the home of murderous monsters. I don't see why resting for 1 hour is really less dangerous than resting for 24, since anything that is looking for you will find you in an hour if it can find you in 24. This breaks the player's need to ever short rest as well, since they can long rest in most circumstances that they can short rest (and many adventures can't be written to have a time limit).

So how do you design dungeons (castles, ruins, caves, whatever) that don't crush the players but preserve verisimilitude?

For example, on the Wizards_DND twitter account, they are featuring a map of "the amber temple" from Curse of Strahd. The temple is in total about 50 yards by 50 yards. If my friends are being murdered in one room, I can hear that from anywhere else in the temple and I'm going to get everyone else in the temple to check it out.

Yeah, the answer is to get a hold of the gold box games (Pool of Radiance) and then attempt to move through the market or the slums after getting into a fight. Basically they send out patrols to find the party and you track where in the dungeon patrols are and make perception checks (because they are actively listening) against the parties stealth checks. If the party chooses not to use stealth actively just act as if they rolled a 1 on the dice. Now you'll have to come up with a DC because there are no actual rules for sound beyond a creaking door filling an entire dungeon. After the party fights every monster in the dungeon a few times without being able to rest they will start doing what they should do, leave the dungeon or use rope trick.

TL;DR You should actually mob the players when they pull that trick and intelligent monsters should pour in from adjacent rooms and the rest of the dungeon should go on high alert and send out patrols. The players will learn not to be loud.


Personally, as a DM I have a hard time envisioning how sound would carry, but that's because my hearing is pretty bad. So I would counter this by having patrols and sound carrying around corners. So if there isn't a nearby patrol, then I wouldn't have the entire dungeon potentially fall upon the party. So my simulations are probably quieter than what would actually be the case.

According to the DMG if the sound is louder than a creaking door it can travel the entire dungeon. If it is quieter though, who knows?

[Sigreid]

When determining who hears what, you also should take into account what everything else in the dungeon is doing. Assuming they are not all just sitting there quietly listening intently for intruders, quite a bit of noise can be covered by their own activities and inattention. Don't coddle the players, but be fair. The other goblins 40' down loudly drinking and gambling aren't going to hear and notice much. The orcs probably hear fights break out all the time and might not be fussed about it unless they actually hear someone yell for help.

[hymer]

The orcs probably hear fights break out all the time and might not be fussed about it unless they actually hear someone yell for help.

What self-respecting orc would yell 'help'? :smallwink: I'm hearing a Warcraft 2 voice shout "We're under attack!" inside my head right now.

[Ninja_Prawn]

What self-respecting orc would yell 'help'? :smallwink: I'm hearing a Warcraft 2 voice shout "We're under attack!" inside my head right now.

I was imagining the drunken goblins were the ones yelling "help". Not that there's much chance of the orcs lifting a finger to save the goblins...

[Addaran]

Minor spoilers about Princes of the Apocalypse. This book (and other official adventures) have notes about wich encounters should hear X fight and wich ones would come to help.

Two days ago, my players (four lvl 4, a warlock, a druid, a cleric and a paladin) went into the Rivegard keep and were brought before Jolly. He had lots of allies with him at the time and they decided to start a fight anyway. The fight started with the wereboar, a warlock, and five reavers (strong grunt). The noise attracted four more reavers though, then a while later, a priestess and three bugbears. The only thing left in the keep that they didn't fight was another warlock, a caster, four more reavers, the very weak bandits and giant rats.

The fight was very long, dangerous and pretty epic. But they won, even though i made a big error (assumed spike growth and cloud of daggers was "normal" damage, so ignored over 100 hp of damage to the boss lycanthrope).

In the end, with a bit of time, you'll know what your players should be able to handle. Adding waves of attacker is a great way to make an easy fight more stressfull, without going overkill (the action economy from 15 enemies from the start would have been too much).

[Skylivedk]

As a DM I try to play monsters and design dungeons so that they aren't morons. In many dungeons, like in World of Warcraft, monsters sit around in packs, waiting for the players to come from room to room and massacre them. Players can plenty of time to rest between encounters.

But if you play a roleplaying game and actually roleplay the monsters instead of just rule-playing them as mobs, it doesn't work out that way.

Monster should hear swords clanging and screaming and murder from other rooms in the dungeon. Alarms should go off. The inside of a front door should have a bell connected to it to ring when it opens to alarm nearby monsters that someone is inside. Dungeon hallways echo sounds, that should be picked up. Reasonably, monsters shouldn't wait in small groups that can be easily managed with 1/4 of a day's resources. Groups of Orcs or whatever should sound horns to alarm the castle. Mind flayers should be able to communicate with the entire dungeon telepathically.

If there is any kind of Wizard or Ranger in there, he or she should use the 1st level Alarm spell to warn of intruders crossing his threshold, and then deploy everything in the dungeon at them.

If you ever take a short rest, even one hour is an eternity when you're in the home of murderous monsters. I don't see why resting for 1 hour is really less dangerous than resting for 24, since anything that is looking for you will find you in an hour if it can find you in 24. This breaks the player's need to ever short rest as well, since they can long rest in most circumstances that they can short rest (and many adventures can't be written to have a time limit).

So how do you design dungeons (castles, ruins, caves, whatever) that don't crush the players but preserve verisimilitude?

For example, on the Wizards_DND twitter account, they are featuring a map of "the amber temple" from Curse of Strahd. The temple is in total about 50 yards by 50 yards. If my friends are being murdered in one room, I can hear that from anywhere else in the temple and I'm going to get everyone else in the temple to check it out.

Largely, I agree. Strong points.

I've mitigated the issue by:

a) making short rests last 20 minutes.
b) mix enemy brains with enemy cowardice (why storm into whatever is murdering loudly when you can ambush them here?) /infighting (screw the ettercap guard/alarm system - they ate my friend last week) / opportunity costs (there's a fire to put out, started by the players, in another area of the enemy compound) - see c).
c) having rising water/poisonous cloud/other time constraints drive my players forward into scenarios where the inhabitants have no reason to leave due to massive tactical advantages
d) have the players being the ones protecting something: the short rest comes at the cost of the city losing another 20% of the population (with NPCs etc. dying).
e) encourage scouting, sneaking, diversions and ambushing

I still find that the short rest system can feel a bit contrived at times and will occasionally convert short-rest classes into long rest ones if I want more action intensive scenarios (haven't done it yet).

[Saeviomage]

I always imagine many dungeon denizens as more like apartment dwellers or office workers.

Most apartment dwellers would ignore the sounds of fighting coming from a nearby apartment, at least for several minutes.
I could easily imagine something similar in a office. There would be a ruckus, people would stand up, look at each other, and after a while, someone would go see what was going on. If that person never came back, but the ruckus stopped, I doubt anyone would follow up. I could easily imagine someone holing up in one of the rooms with no windows, and if they jammed the door shut, people wouldn't think twice unless they specifically needed something from there AND typically worked in there.

So from a dungeon that isn't purely a military installation, that's what I'd expect to see.