Trask
2018-02-12, 03:14 AM
Hello!
These are some house rules for 5e that are based around providing a better dungeon crawling experience. Advice and suggestions are welcome, but keep in mind the spirit of the rules here. Some of these changes might seem like "nerfs" and in a way they are, but the intent is not to just nerf classes. It is to bring back resource management as a fundamental part of the game.
My qualifications and experience for making this post is my recently completed run of "The Caverns of Thracia" in 5e, a well loved, not quite megadungeon from the era of od&d. I noticed many things running it mostly how the rules and expectations for 5e are just not in line with traditional dungeon crawling. I wanted to change that.
I make reference to B/X here. For those not in the know, B/X refers to the Basic/Expert set of D&D from 1981. I highly recommend the book as a DM aid, giving great advice and more fully fleshing out a lot of the mechanics I reference here.
Inspiration and rules are used from here
http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2017/11/on-megadungeon-and-5th-edition-play.html
and here
http://dungeonofsigns.blogspot.com/2017/12/gold-for-experience-in-5th-edition-d.html
The Dungeon
The dungeon based play environment is highly dependent on resource management in form of spells, health, abilities, and most importantly, light. To this end I propose the following changes.
1. Light is a 1st level spell, can now be cast on an opponent's eyeballs (dex save to avoid) giving them the "blinded" condition for 1 minute. It can also be used to counter magical darkness.
2. Dancing lights is a 1st level spell but no longer requires concentration and lasts 1 hour.
3. Produce Flame doesn't provide light of the caster.
4. Continual flame creates a globe of fire that has double the light range of a torch, but cannot be moved
5. A caster with cantrips can cast 6 of them, each, per day. The exception is the warlock who takes the agonizing blast invocation, then these come back on a short rest for eldritch blast.
6. Goodberry provides healing but no longer nourishes you for an entire day.
7. Leomund's tiny hut is not a ritual.
These changes are meant to increase the importance of rations (mechanics for which are below), increase the importance of light sources, and decrease cantrips ability to create an abusable way to interact with the environment. What do I mean by that last one? Well let me explain.
In my experience running big dungeons a very important aspect of the crawl is interactivity with the environment. This interaction is often physical, touching the walls, pushing the bookcase, turning the sconces. This also opens up the world of traps which are *crucial* in dungeon crawling to create a tense environment that doesnt just rely on throwing monsters at players. Unlimited cantrips dont appear to clash with this but they do. Players will throw their firebolts at walls and roofs to check just about anything, will shape water away acid pools, will mage hand open every chest and door, will endlessly acid splash every lock. Cantrips and their effects themselves are not the issue, but throwing anything "unlimited" in a environment where resource management is going to matter is a bad idea. And its not that these cantrips are too strong in normal 5e play, theyre perfectly fine. But in this kind of game, they dont fit at all, they break the plausibility of the dungeon environment and trivialize what should be mainstays of the megadungeon crawling experience.
Rests
Resting is a core part of D&D. Abilities are keyed into rests, hp is tied to resting. 5e is mostly ok here, but it needs a few tweaks to be better.
1. Long rest "slow natural healing" variant.
2. Short rests only last 10 minutes.
3. "Second-Wind" no longer refreshes once you are out of hit dice.
4. Remove the "only one long rest per 8 hours" restriction.
As I said, the rest mechanics of 5e really arent bad for this, they just need some tweaking. Full healing on a long rest is too much, even in a non-megadungeon crawl game I would use this. It just makes resting feel like less of a "reset button". It also makes opens up the possibility of town downtime. Short rests only take 10 minutes so they can fit in better with hazard die checks (which are performed every 10 minutes). The second change is just to prevent a possible exploit where the fighter can simply keep short resting and using second wind all day until he is fully healed. 4. is just because i find that to be needlessly restrictive and requires more bookkeeping about time than i prefer. Also when long resting in the dungeon, the players will be subject to a 1 in 6 chance of a random encounter every hours (so eight). But any precautions they take, barricading the door, leomunds tiny hut, sleeping under a pile of garbage, sleeping in a secret room that they close behind them, any of these will reduce the chance to a 1 in 12 for every hours or if the DM deems the precautions as exemplary, no chance or simply a monster sign. Dont be too generous with this though, and monsters will catch on to player tricks eventually.
Dungeon Procedures
Big thanks to Courtney Campbell of the blog "Hack and Slash" for this one, he hits the nail on the head although I'll restate his points with few tweaks. You could also learn these by reading the B/X moldvay D&D books or pretty much any B/X retroclone. These are essential, more than almost anything else, for good dungeon play and I think its an absolute shame that they were thrown out.
1. The "dungeon turn" is 10 minutes. In this turn a player may do many things including, but not limited to, moving 12 squares or 120' feet unencumbered 8 squares or 80' encumbered, attempting to bash a door down, picking a lock, looking for a secret door, and short rest. Using a "dungeon turn" to accomplish an action that has no consequences will automatically succeed, similar to "taking a 10 or 20" from 3.5. If you want to do it faster, you can make the skill check and upon failure, the dungeon turn must be used.
2. The hazard die is a gameified mechanic so it may not appeal to all, but it works very well the structure your megadungeon play. Every ten minutes roll 1d6.
1) Encounter from a random encounter list.
2) Monster Sign
3) Torches Burn
4) Torches Burn & Lanterns burn. Ongoing effects, conditions, and statuses end.
5) Must short rest and share one ration among the party or gain a level of exhaustion.
6) Dungeon Sign
Every single dungeon ever should have a random encounter list. It adds SO MUCH to the dungeon eases the DM's workload a bunch to create a living environment. On 2 roll on your random monster table and determine some kind of premonition of that monster. Perhaps claw marks, a slime trail, droppings ect. Be creative. Torches have 3 statuses, Bright, Dim, and Burnt. Every roll of 3 or 4 makes the torches light levels go down one category. At Burnt the torch is depleted. At "Dim" a torch only provides half the normal light as dim light. A single flask of oil for a lantern can survive 4 depletions, going out on the fourth and suffers no dimming effects. On 4) All statuses, such as poisoned, spell effects that last 1 hour or shorter, and other ongoing effects in general will end. 5 is self explanatory. on 6, have some table for "creepy dungeon effects". A gust of wind that might blow torches out on a 2 in 6 chance. A corpse is discovered with random personal loot. Ominous sound or noises. Dungeon vertigo. Whatever you can think of to add atmosphere and a bit of mechanical challenge.
Dropping a torch causes it to go down one light category. Dropping a lantern may make it break and catch flame on 1 in 6 chance. To avoid this they must be set down gently, which takes an action. A character must have a free hand for both the torch and the lantern. Spells that do thunder damage or cause noise, immediately draw a 1 in 6 chance for a roll on the random encounter table.
Some will not like this unashamedly gameified mechanic and thats understandable. If this doesnt appeal to you then just use the classic method. Every turn roll d6, on a 1-2 a random encounter occurs. (You can make it only on 1 in 6 if you prefer to make some dungeons/areas more difficult and dangerous than others.) Torches last 6 turns (1 hour), oil flasks last 24 (4 hours). Track spell effects and conditions as normal.
Skills
The skills in 5e are mostly fine, they just need some standardized DCs. All non opposed DCs are 10+(1*x) with x being the Dungeon Level. This includes bashing down doors, picking locks, perception check, arcana checks ect. Checking for surprise on monsters and PCs is as simple as a standard DC 15 Perception check. This may be modified by extenuating circumstances that add +1 to the DC.
A few skill changes would be
Remove History(int) and replace with Appraisal(Int). History checks are not appropriate the mythic underworld of the dungeon where things should be strange and alien, discovered through roleplay, interaction with the environment, and chats with dungeon inhabitants. Appraisal is much more appropriate to determine worth of obscure items or if a seemingly worthless item actually has value.
On that note, do not let your players simply roll nature or arcana at every monster. Arcana should be reserved for magic effects, scrolls, weird happenings. Nature for plants, mundane animals, and extracting body parts. This removes the "i roll arcana on that monster" that just sucks the weird fun right out of it. This is more of a personal note, and you dont have to agree.
Dungeon Levels
Every level of the dungeon should have looping, nonlinear maps and multiple avenues into the next, or lower, levels. This makes dungeon play interesting and varied, with lots to explore.
1. Separate dungeon levels into tiers. Adventurer covers level 1-4, Heroic covers levels 5-8, and Super-heroic covers levels 9-12. The levels listed also correspond to CR, these CR levels will only be encountered in those dungeon levels. But this also means that dangerous monsters can come upon unsuspecting players. A CR 4 encounter could potentially wander into the 1st level of the dungeon, although these should be less frequent on the table. This forces players to play smart, and realize that not everything can be killed in a megadungeon, sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.
This gives clear expectations about difficulty, as well as a way for the game to continue even if some people dont show. Just explore in the upper levels where its easier!
Experience
Experience is on a 1:1 basis with gold pieces. All xp for killing monsters in reduced to 1/10th. There are many reasons for this, but I couldnt say it better than GusL on his blog "dungeonofsigns" so ill just rip it off straight from his post
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Advantages of Gold for Experience:
Demphasizes combat, as violence provides no mechanical advantage over negotiation or trickery. Demphasis allows encounters with creatures that are very dangerous to the party because there is no assumption that every encounter is a test of combat ability and no inherent mechanical benefit in destroying powerful foes.
Puts exploration, setting interaction and information gathering at the center of the play experience (rather then combat) by treating challenge types equally. With players seeking wealth determining what challenges (combat, puzzle, social) will best provide it at the lowest risk the locus of play shifts from tactical combat. With combat dethroned from its position as 'the' player activity there is more room for player retreat and even less need to 'balance' encounters.
Adjusts character goals by making them very clear and more open to player decisions.
Has a neutral (or perhaps even negative) moral valiance that is very natural to contemporary players in that everyone understands making money or starving - but is open enough to allow for a range of moral play from dastardly evil to saintly good.
Creates diegetic freedom, by simplifying goals and decoupling them from a specific narrative (XP for combat could do this as well - but since it favors one type of challenge over another and creates a narrative of relentless bloodshed it tends to require a heroic narrative to justify the sheer amount of murder involved). Players don't have to guess what the GM has structured as a story to move the game forward and will likely create their own goals based on interaction with the world and its factions.
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Always put MORE treasure than the characters need to advance on the levels. Players will absolutely miss stuff so dont make it too tight. And dont just put all the treasure behind monsters, otherwise its no different from xp for killing. Some treasure should be hidden, some (not much) unguarded, needed to be pried off walls in, art, paintings ect. Read the B/X D&D section on this as a guide to treasure generation.
Simple and clear mechanical explanation for how level advancement works, giving players metrics on determining reward vs. risk. This allows GMs greater freedom in obstacle design as reward is not coupled with the completion of a specific set of acts.
On death a new character either starts at 1/2 their experience or at the bottom of the level they were on. Whichever you prefer depending on how mean you are. Speaking of experience...
The table needs to be reworked. Characters advance far far too quickly for megadungeon play. Threats that menaced a 3rd level party would be absolutely trivial by 5th or 6th level. Particularly when extra attacks and new spell levels come into play. This wont work for a dungeon that uses multiple levels of varying threats as a feature. Characters just skyrocket through the levels on a bumpy and uneven path. My suggestion is to raise what you need to advance. Here is a good suggestion. Or use the B/X cleric table.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/793t6t/dd_5e_experience_table_adjusted_for_old_school/
Other General Houserules and Tips
1. Either remove darkvision from a
a) All races.
b) All races except Mountain Dwarves and Rock Gnomes and Dark Elves
b) All races except Dwarves, Gnomes, and Elves.
However you wanna do it, but please do it. Too many races have darkvision it is absolutely ridiculous. It directly contrasts with needing light and managing your light resources. Also remember that perception checks have disadvantage in dim light, which is what darkvision sees.
2. Replace encumbrance with something easier to use so you'll actually use it. Your strength score = The number of significant items you can carry. A significant item is everything that isnt jewelry, clothes, palm sized objects. Ammo, torches, and similar things are 5 to use 1 strength slot. oil flasks, potions, weapons, armor is all 1 slot. Heavy armor and Heavy weapons are 2 slots. 200 coins is 1 slot. Going over slots gives you the encumbered condition.
3. Use morale. http://www.neuronphaser.com/dungeons-dragons-5e-morale/ The megadungeon and its de-emphasis on charging into combat needs good morale rules. Making an intimidation check against the creature of the highest charisma forces a morale check. The monster's roll will have advantage the enemy has not had to make a morale check yet. A failed morale check is not necessarily a turn and flee in terror, but may consist of an ordered retreat or starting of negotiations.
4. Restock the dungeon. Use your random encounter tables for inspiration or just be creative! More powerful monsters wandering up into the empty rooms of the upper levels is a classic way to keep things fresh and dangerous.
5. Reaction rolls. Not every monster will fight to the death, or even fight at all! Of course if you know a monster will attack the players, a hungry beast or a pack of orcs hunting them then do as you please. But if ever unsure, use a reaction table. Heres a sample.
Reaction Roll Table (2d6+ 1/2 of Highest PC Charisma modifier)
ROLL RESULT EXPLANATION
2 or less Immediate Attack: The monsters are so offended that they attack immediately.
3-7 Unfavorable: The monsters do not like the player characters, and will attack if they may reasonably do so.
8-11 Favorable: The monsters will consider letting the player characters live if they choose to parley; it does not necessarily mean that the monsters like the player characters.
12 or more Very favorable: The monsters (or perhaps only the monster leader) do, in fact, like the player characters; this does not mean that the monsters will just hand over their treasure, but it
does indicate that they may choose to cooperate with the player characters in mutually beneficial ways.
6. Use hirelings and retainers! There arent really any hard and fast ways to do this in 5e, but i would recommend allowing players to hire "guards" as in the monster manual for a rate of 5gp/per day to fight or "commoners" as torchbearers and general laborers for 1gp/day but these will not fight under any circumstance and will mostly run and hide. A player may have a number of hirelings equal to their charisma modifier at one time. They may also have 1 henchman who is a classed character no less than 2 levels below the character. These make excellent replacement characters. Their hiring process should be roleplayed, and they should have names. Henchman get a 1/2 share of any treasure (and experience) gained in an adventure. Retainers of any kind will not suffer to be used as cannon fodder or abused in any other way. Hirelings are subject to morale rolls when 1 PC falls and when 1/2 the PCs are down as well as when they are used as bait/fodder ect.
7. Try to develop a culture of ending every session with a return to town. This way between sessions people who cant make it can just hang in town, and new players can join. The town should be a stable, safe place. Put some cleric temples with healing and resurrection services, (I use standards of 250-500gp for a general magical service. Identify, healing, restoration ect.) and 2000 gp for resurrections.
Conclusion
D&D can be many things to many people. 5e is a fine game, nothing wrong with it as it. But its not suited to megadungeon, or just big dungeon, play. Its much more focused around the encounter based railroad "plot" narrative of modern games. Theres nothing wrong with that! But its not what all of us prefer, so i made this to help anyone who wants to make their game
1. Less focused on killing
2. More focused on exploration
3. Low story, easy have a loose attendance and many different players come in and out.
Premade Mega-dungeon Recommendations
Rolling your own is fun and rewarding, but not everyone has that kind of time. I totally respect that so here are some great dungeons to cut your teeth on. Not all of these are "mega" in the traditional massive sense but they'll serve fine for a first foray. Most of these will require conversions, but it shouldnt be hard to do on the fly.
1. Barrowmaze Complete for 5e. A great megadungeon converted to 5e. See a review here http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=977
2. Stonehell. Requires conversion. Review http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=648
3. Tomb of Abysthor. A 3.5 adventure so probably easier to convert. https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/classic/rev_7286.phtml
4. The Caverns of Thracia! Its what I just ran and I highly highly recommend it. Get the 3.5 version for an easier conversion. https://rpggeek.com/thread/1353429/masterpiece-pure-and-simple-well-if-massive-dungeo
5. Dyson's Delve. Very simple and super easy to run. This might be your best bet for a starting point. https://rpgcharacters.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/dysons_delve.pdf
6. The Darkness Beneath. A megadungeon posted in the OSR Magazine Fight On! Very fun and creative with good magic items and lighthearted stuff. http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=669 first level review here
7. Megadungeon #1. Not really a megadungeon but just great tips for 5e dungeon play. More issues have been released, theyre good and informative reads. http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/227977/Megadungeon-1
8. Maze of the Blue Medusa. A system neutral piece of art. Its so interconnected, so interwoven, UNBELIEVABLY creative and interactive. A masterpiece. But not reccomended for a beginner DM.
http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=2990
9. Rappan Athuk. A famous and notorious MASSIVE megadungeon. Truly this thing is the biggest dungeon on the list. Its a freaking monster. But if thats what you want, this is the best source. Oh and Orcus himself is at the bottom. For 3.5 http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=1008
Orrrr you can be a cool kid and roll up your own megadungeon! Dont be daunted, you can build it as you go. Construct the first level, enough for a session. Build and add on as you go. You should have 20 rooms or so on the first level, but its not that hard and fast, but 20 rooms should be a good minimum. Have enough xp in gold for at least double the xp needed for first level. This will let the experience be truly exploratory and player driven.
Here are some good essays on the subject, MUST READS if you are rolling your own dungeon!
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?168563-Dungeon-layout-map-flow-and-old-school-game-design&p=2949651#post2949651
http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/13085/roleplaying-games/jaquaying-the-dungeon
If you didnt like these rules, please tell me why but keep in mind what the rules are for. Please come at me with critiques grounded in the vision I have here
These are some house rules for 5e that are based around providing a better dungeon crawling experience. Advice and suggestions are welcome, but keep in mind the spirit of the rules here. Some of these changes might seem like "nerfs" and in a way they are, but the intent is not to just nerf classes. It is to bring back resource management as a fundamental part of the game.
My qualifications and experience for making this post is my recently completed run of "The Caverns of Thracia" in 5e, a well loved, not quite megadungeon from the era of od&d. I noticed many things running it mostly how the rules and expectations for 5e are just not in line with traditional dungeon crawling. I wanted to change that.
I make reference to B/X here. For those not in the know, B/X refers to the Basic/Expert set of D&D from 1981. I highly recommend the book as a DM aid, giving great advice and more fully fleshing out a lot of the mechanics I reference here.
Inspiration and rules are used from here
http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2017/11/on-megadungeon-and-5th-edition-play.html
and here
http://dungeonofsigns.blogspot.com/2017/12/gold-for-experience-in-5th-edition-d.html
The Dungeon
The dungeon based play environment is highly dependent on resource management in form of spells, health, abilities, and most importantly, light. To this end I propose the following changes.
1. Light is a 1st level spell, can now be cast on an opponent's eyeballs (dex save to avoid) giving them the "blinded" condition for 1 minute. It can also be used to counter magical darkness.
2. Dancing lights is a 1st level spell but no longer requires concentration and lasts 1 hour.
3. Produce Flame doesn't provide light of the caster.
4. Continual flame creates a globe of fire that has double the light range of a torch, but cannot be moved
5. A caster with cantrips can cast 6 of them, each, per day. The exception is the warlock who takes the agonizing blast invocation, then these come back on a short rest for eldritch blast.
6. Goodberry provides healing but no longer nourishes you for an entire day.
7. Leomund's tiny hut is not a ritual.
These changes are meant to increase the importance of rations (mechanics for which are below), increase the importance of light sources, and decrease cantrips ability to create an abusable way to interact with the environment. What do I mean by that last one? Well let me explain.
In my experience running big dungeons a very important aspect of the crawl is interactivity with the environment. This interaction is often physical, touching the walls, pushing the bookcase, turning the sconces. This also opens up the world of traps which are *crucial* in dungeon crawling to create a tense environment that doesnt just rely on throwing monsters at players. Unlimited cantrips dont appear to clash with this but they do. Players will throw their firebolts at walls and roofs to check just about anything, will shape water away acid pools, will mage hand open every chest and door, will endlessly acid splash every lock. Cantrips and their effects themselves are not the issue, but throwing anything "unlimited" in a environment where resource management is going to matter is a bad idea. And its not that these cantrips are too strong in normal 5e play, theyre perfectly fine. But in this kind of game, they dont fit at all, they break the plausibility of the dungeon environment and trivialize what should be mainstays of the megadungeon crawling experience.
Rests
Resting is a core part of D&D. Abilities are keyed into rests, hp is tied to resting. 5e is mostly ok here, but it needs a few tweaks to be better.
1. Long rest "slow natural healing" variant.
2. Short rests only last 10 minutes.
3. "Second-Wind" no longer refreshes once you are out of hit dice.
4. Remove the "only one long rest per 8 hours" restriction.
As I said, the rest mechanics of 5e really arent bad for this, they just need some tweaking. Full healing on a long rest is too much, even in a non-megadungeon crawl game I would use this. It just makes resting feel like less of a "reset button". It also makes opens up the possibility of town downtime. Short rests only take 10 minutes so they can fit in better with hazard die checks (which are performed every 10 minutes). The second change is just to prevent a possible exploit where the fighter can simply keep short resting and using second wind all day until he is fully healed. 4. is just because i find that to be needlessly restrictive and requires more bookkeeping about time than i prefer. Also when long resting in the dungeon, the players will be subject to a 1 in 6 chance of a random encounter every hours (so eight). But any precautions they take, barricading the door, leomunds tiny hut, sleeping under a pile of garbage, sleeping in a secret room that they close behind them, any of these will reduce the chance to a 1 in 12 for every hours or if the DM deems the precautions as exemplary, no chance or simply a monster sign. Dont be too generous with this though, and monsters will catch on to player tricks eventually.
Dungeon Procedures
Big thanks to Courtney Campbell of the blog "Hack and Slash" for this one, he hits the nail on the head although I'll restate his points with few tweaks. You could also learn these by reading the B/X moldvay D&D books or pretty much any B/X retroclone. These are essential, more than almost anything else, for good dungeon play and I think its an absolute shame that they were thrown out.
1. The "dungeon turn" is 10 minutes. In this turn a player may do many things including, but not limited to, moving 12 squares or 120' feet unencumbered 8 squares or 80' encumbered, attempting to bash a door down, picking a lock, looking for a secret door, and short rest. Using a "dungeon turn" to accomplish an action that has no consequences will automatically succeed, similar to "taking a 10 or 20" from 3.5. If you want to do it faster, you can make the skill check and upon failure, the dungeon turn must be used.
2. The hazard die is a gameified mechanic so it may not appeal to all, but it works very well the structure your megadungeon play. Every ten minutes roll 1d6.
1) Encounter from a random encounter list.
2) Monster Sign
3) Torches Burn
4) Torches Burn & Lanterns burn. Ongoing effects, conditions, and statuses end.
5) Must short rest and share one ration among the party or gain a level of exhaustion.
6) Dungeon Sign
Every single dungeon ever should have a random encounter list. It adds SO MUCH to the dungeon eases the DM's workload a bunch to create a living environment. On 2 roll on your random monster table and determine some kind of premonition of that monster. Perhaps claw marks, a slime trail, droppings ect. Be creative. Torches have 3 statuses, Bright, Dim, and Burnt. Every roll of 3 or 4 makes the torches light levels go down one category. At Burnt the torch is depleted. At "Dim" a torch only provides half the normal light as dim light. A single flask of oil for a lantern can survive 4 depletions, going out on the fourth and suffers no dimming effects. On 4) All statuses, such as poisoned, spell effects that last 1 hour or shorter, and other ongoing effects in general will end. 5 is self explanatory. on 6, have some table for "creepy dungeon effects". A gust of wind that might blow torches out on a 2 in 6 chance. A corpse is discovered with random personal loot. Ominous sound or noises. Dungeon vertigo. Whatever you can think of to add atmosphere and a bit of mechanical challenge.
Dropping a torch causes it to go down one light category. Dropping a lantern may make it break and catch flame on 1 in 6 chance. To avoid this they must be set down gently, which takes an action. A character must have a free hand for both the torch and the lantern. Spells that do thunder damage or cause noise, immediately draw a 1 in 6 chance for a roll on the random encounter table.
Some will not like this unashamedly gameified mechanic and thats understandable. If this doesnt appeal to you then just use the classic method. Every turn roll d6, on a 1-2 a random encounter occurs. (You can make it only on 1 in 6 if you prefer to make some dungeons/areas more difficult and dangerous than others.) Torches last 6 turns (1 hour), oil flasks last 24 (4 hours). Track spell effects and conditions as normal.
Skills
The skills in 5e are mostly fine, they just need some standardized DCs. All non opposed DCs are 10+(1*x) with x being the Dungeon Level. This includes bashing down doors, picking locks, perception check, arcana checks ect. Checking for surprise on monsters and PCs is as simple as a standard DC 15 Perception check. This may be modified by extenuating circumstances that add +1 to the DC.
A few skill changes would be
Remove History(int) and replace with Appraisal(Int). History checks are not appropriate the mythic underworld of the dungeon where things should be strange and alien, discovered through roleplay, interaction with the environment, and chats with dungeon inhabitants. Appraisal is much more appropriate to determine worth of obscure items or if a seemingly worthless item actually has value.
On that note, do not let your players simply roll nature or arcana at every monster. Arcana should be reserved for magic effects, scrolls, weird happenings. Nature for plants, mundane animals, and extracting body parts. This removes the "i roll arcana on that monster" that just sucks the weird fun right out of it. This is more of a personal note, and you dont have to agree.
Dungeon Levels
Every level of the dungeon should have looping, nonlinear maps and multiple avenues into the next, or lower, levels. This makes dungeon play interesting and varied, with lots to explore.
1. Separate dungeon levels into tiers. Adventurer covers level 1-4, Heroic covers levels 5-8, and Super-heroic covers levels 9-12. The levels listed also correspond to CR, these CR levels will only be encountered in those dungeon levels. But this also means that dangerous monsters can come upon unsuspecting players. A CR 4 encounter could potentially wander into the 1st level of the dungeon, although these should be less frequent on the table. This forces players to play smart, and realize that not everything can be killed in a megadungeon, sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.
This gives clear expectations about difficulty, as well as a way for the game to continue even if some people dont show. Just explore in the upper levels where its easier!
Experience
Experience is on a 1:1 basis with gold pieces. All xp for killing monsters in reduced to 1/10th. There are many reasons for this, but I couldnt say it better than GusL on his blog "dungeonofsigns" so ill just rip it off straight from his post
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Advantages of Gold for Experience:
Demphasizes combat, as violence provides no mechanical advantage over negotiation or trickery. Demphasis allows encounters with creatures that are very dangerous to the party because there is no assumption that every encounter is a test of combat ability and no inherent mechanical benefit in destroying powerful foes.
Puts exploration, setting interaction and information gathering at the center of the play experience (rather then combat) by treating challenge types equally. With players seeking wealth determining what challenges (combat, puzzle, social) will best provide it at the lowest risk the locus of play shifts from tactical combat. With combat dethroned from its position as 'the' player activity there is more room for player retreat and even less need to 'balance' encounters.
Adjusts character goals by making them very clear and more open to player decisions.
Has a neutral (or perhaps even negative) moral valiance that is very natural to contemporary players in that everyone understands making money or starving - but is open enough to allow for a range of moral play from dastardly evil to saintly good.
Creates diegetic freedom, by simplifying goals and decoupling them from a specific narrative (XP for combat could do this as well - but since it favors one type of challenge over another and creates a narrative of relentless bloodshed it tends to require a heroic narrative to justify the sheer amount of murder involved). Players don't have to guess what the GM has structured as a story to move the game forward and will likely create their own goals based on interaction with the world and its factions.
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Always put MORE treasure than the characters need to advance on the levels. Players will absolutely miss stuff so dont make it too tight. And dont just put all the treasure behind monsters, otherwise its no different from xp for killing. Some treasure should be hidden, some (not much) unguarded, needed to be pried off walls in, art, paintings ect. Read the B/X D&D section on this as a guide to treasure generation.
Simple and clear mechanical explanation for how level advancement works, giving players metrics on determining reward vs. risk. This allows GMs greater freedom in obstacle design as reward is not coupled with the completion of a specific set of acts.
On death a new character either starts at 1/2 their experience or at the bottom of the level they were on. Whichever you prefer depending on how mean you are. Speaking of experience...
The table needs to be reworked. Characters advance far far too quickly for megadungeon play. Threats that menaced a 3rd level party would be absolutely trivial by 5th or 6th level. Particularly when extra attacks and new spell levels come into play. This wont work for a dungeon that uses multiple levels of varying threats as a feature. Characters just skyrocket through the levels on a bumpy and uneven path. My suggestion is to raise what you need to advance. Here is a good suggestion. Or use the B/X cleric table.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/793t6t/dd_5e_experience_table_adjusted_for_old_school/
Other General Houserules and Tips
1. Either remove darkvision from a
a) All races.
b) All races except Mountain Dwarves and Rock Gnomes and Dark Elves
b) All races except Dwarves, Gnomes, and Elves.
However you wanna do it, but please do it. Too many races have darkvision it is absolutely ridiculous. It directly contrasts with needing light and managing your light resources. Also remember that perception checks have disadvantage in dim light, which is what darkvision sees.
2. Replace encumbrance with something easier to use so you'll actually use it. Your strength score = The number of significant items you can carry. A significant item is everything that isnt jewelry, clothes, palm sized objects. Ammo, torches, and similar things are 5 to use 1 strength slot. oil flasks, potions, weapons, armor is all 1 slot. Heavy armor and Heavy weapons are 2 slots. 200 coins is 1 slot. Going over slots gives you the encumbered condition.
3. Use morale. http://www.neuronphaser.com/dungeons-dragons-5e-morale/ The megadungeon and its de-emphasis on charging into combat needs good morale rules. Making an intimidation check against the creature of the highest charisma forces a morale check. The monster's roll will have advantage the enemy has not had to make a morale check yet. A failed morale check is not necessarily a turn and flee in terror, but may consist of an ordered retreat or starting of negotiations.
4. Restock the dungeon. Use your random encounter tables for inspiration or just be creative! More powerful monsters wandering up into the empty rooms of the upper levels is a classic way to keep things fresh and dangerous.
5. Reaction rolls. Not every monster will fight to the death, or even fight at all! Of course if you know a monster will attack the players, a hungry beast or a pack of orcs hunting them then do as you please. But if ever unsure, use a reaction table. Heres a sample.
Reaction Roll Table (2d6+ 1/2 of Highest PC Charisma modifier)
ROLL RESULT EXPLANATION
2 or less Immediate Attack: The monsters are so offended that they attack immediately.
3-7 Unfavorable: The monsters do not like the player characters, and will attack if they may reasonably do so.
8-11 Favorable: The monsters will consider letting the player characters live if they choose to parley; it does not necessarily mean that the monsters like the player characters.
12 or more Very favorable: The monsters (or perhaps only the monster leader) do, in fact, like the player characters; this does not mean that the monsters will just hand over their treasure, but it
does indicate that they may choose to cooperate with the player characters in mutually beneficial ways.
6. Use hirelings and retainers! There arent really any hard and fast ways to do this in 5e, but i would recommend allowing players to hire "guards" as in the monster manual for a rate of 5gp/per day to fight or "commoners" as torchbearers and general laborers for 1gp/day but these will not fight under any circumstance and will mostly run and hide. A player may have a number of hirelings equal to their charisma modifier at one time. They may also have 1 henchman who is a classed character no less than 2 levels below the character. These make excellent replacement characters. Their hiring process should be roleplayed, and they should have names. Henchman get a 1/2 share of any treasure (and experience) gained in an adventure. Retainers of any kind will not suffer to be used as cannon fodder or abused in any other way. Hirelings are subject to morale rolls when 1 PC falls and when 1/2 the PCs are down as well as when they are used as bait/fodder ect.
7. Try to develop a culture of ending every session with a return to town. This way between sessions people who cant make it can just hang in town, and new players can join. The town should be a stable, safe place. Put some cleric temples with healing and resurrection services, (I use standards of 250-500gp for a general magical service. Identify, healing, restoration ect.) and 2000 gp for resurrections.
Conclusion
D&D can be many things to many people. 5e is a fine game, nothing wrong with it as it. But its not suited to megadungeon, or just big dungeon, play. Its much more focused around the encounter based railroad "plot" narrative of modern games. Theres nothing wrong with that! But its not what all of us prefer, so i made this to help anyone who wants to make their game
1. Less focused on killing
2. More focused on exploration
3. Low story, easy have a loose attendance and many different players come in and out.
Premade Mega-dungeon Recommendations
Rolling your own is fun and rewarding, but not everyone has that kind of time. I totally respect that so here are some great dungeons to cut your teeth on. Not all of these are "mega" in the traditional massive sense but they'll serve fine for a first foray. Most of these will require conversions, but it shouldnt be hard to do on the fly.
1. Barrowmaze Complete for 5e. A great megadungeon converted to 5e. See a review here http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=977
2. Stonehell. Requires conversion. Review http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=648
3. Tomb of Abysthor. A 3.5 adventure so probably easier to convert. https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/classic/rev_7286.phtml
4. The Caverns of Thracia! Its what I just ran and I highly highly recommend it. Get the 3.5 version for an easier conversion. https://rpggeek.com/thread/1353429/masterpiece-pure-and-simple-well-if-massive-dungeo
5. Dyson's Delve. Very simple and super easy to run. This might be your best bet for a starting point. https://rpgcharacters.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/dysons_delve.pdf
6. The Darkness Beneath. A megadungeon posted in the OSR Magazine Fight On! Very fun and creative with good magic items and lighthearted stuff. http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=669 first level review here
7. Megadungeon #1. Not really a megadungeon but just great tips for 5e dungeon play. More issues have been released, theyre good and informative reads. http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/227977/Megadungeon-1
8. Maze of the Blue Medusa. A system neutral piece of art. Its so interconnected, so interwoven, UNBELIEVABLY creative and interactive. A masterpiece. But not reccomended for a beginner DM.
http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=2990
9. Rappan Athuk. A famous and notorious MASSIVE megadungeon. Truly this thing is the biggest dungeon on the list. Its a freaking monster. But if thats what you want, this is the best source. Oh and Orcus himself is at the bottom. For 3.5 http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=1008
Orrrr you can be a cool kid and roll up your own megadungeon! Dont be daunted, you can build it as you go. Construct the first level, enough for a session. Build and add on as you go. You should have 20 rooms or so on the first level, but its not that hard and fast, but 20 rooms should be a good minimum. Have enough xp in gold for at least double the xp needed for first level. This will let the experience be truly exploratory and player driven.
Here are some good essays on the subject, MUST READS if you are rolling your own dungeon!
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?168563-Dungeon-layout-map-flow-and-old-school-game-design&p=2949651#post2949651
http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/13085/roleplaying-games/jaquaying-the-dungeon
If you didnt like these rules, please tell me why but keep in mind what the rules are for. Please come at me with critiques grounded in the vision I have here