Very Basic Monster Help

[heregoeshell]

I'm getting ready to actually plan out a dungeon, having only experience with building cities, inhabiting them, and running kick in the door random generation style sessions for one or two levels. As such, I have very little experience with planning out dungeons for multiple visits (under a city and necessary for the progression of plot), and with how much detail to plan especially when it comes to monsters, considering that most of my encounters have been either random, or built NPC vs PC. As such I have a few questions:

1: Considering I plan for the dungeon to be a major locale throughout the campaign, is it necessary for me to pre fill each room with monsters? (this is my assumed best option, but one I am the least wanting to undertake)
2: Will a random generator work for creating worthwhile encounters for my players, many of whom are experienced players and DMs themselves?
3: Is there a middle ground between purely random and purely pre-planned?
4: Considering the vast amount of monsters, are there any monsters which are simply better than others for different reasons? (challenge, unique problems, interesting mechanics, worthwhile resistances, etc?)
5: How do other DMs operate their pre-planned dungeons? This is a very new aspect to me, and as such, I am looking for any experience that I can learn from before failing.

Thank you all for your time.

[Gelcur]

Misleading title, more like dungeon planning/populating. I'll take a crack at it, I love to build dungeons. My suggestions are by no means the only way of creating a dungeon but they are sort of tried and true techniques you find in a lot of modules, etc.


I have very little experience with planning out dungeons for multiple visits (under a city and necessary for the progression of plot)
So I take it this dungeon is going to be on the Extra Large size, either with multiple large levels or just a sprawling below a large city dungeon.


1: Considering I plan for the dungeon to be a major locale throughout the campaign, is it necessary for me to pre fill each room with monsters? (this is my assumed best option, but one I am the least wanting to undertake)
No. This option will not only waste your time but also may drive you mad.


2: Will a random generator work for creating worthwhile encounters for my players, many of whom are experienced players and DMs themselves?
No. Random generators have their place but if you want something "worthwhile" random rooms will not give you this.


3: Is there a middle ground between purely random and purely pre-planned?
Yes. This is the way to go I will elaborate below.


4: Considering the vast amount of monsters, are there any monsters which are simply better than others for different reasons? (challenge, unique problems, interesting mechanics, worthwhile resistances, etc?)
Very much Yes. This can be level and theme dependent but to name a few briefly:

Gelatinous Cube - Note the 15 Spot DC in best of conditions, "Creatures who fail to notice a cube and walk into it are automatically engulfed"
Otyugh - Fun with grappling plus "Filth fever—bite, Fortitude DC 14, incubation period 1d3 days; damage 1d3 Dex and 1d3 Con", don't let them know they failed their save or make the save for them. The fever hits down the line to make things "fun" elsewhere.
Mimic - can you say, "Surprise!", was that barrel always in that corner? Odd place to have a ceiling fixture? Why is there a doorway but no opening? Mimics are patient and with a disguise of +13 can wait to pick off a straggler. Also can temporarly remove a melee weapon, less painful than our next monster.
Rust Monster - everyone hates them, and one of the first monsters that teaches players maybe some battles are not worth winning. Rust makes its attacks Save or Suck and if you attack it just suck. Great reason to always carry some ranged weapons or a club.
Re-animating Skeleton - the monster has been left here doing a task, maybe long forgotten. Adventures intially kill it and move on. But it reforms and might be crucial to completing a puzzle or progressing further in the dungeon.



5: How do other DMs operate their pre-planned dungeons? This is a very new aspect to me, and as such, I am looking for any experience that I can learn from before failing.
This is how I have learned to approach it.

Groundwork:

Step 1) What is this dungeons purpose/theme, is it the city sewers?, was it built as a fortress originally?, maybe someone built a city on top of a Dwarven city?, some wizard created this to guard his treasure or to find peace? It could be all of the above, which brings us to...
Step 2) Create zones with themes/sub-themes. Maybe the main corridors of the dungeon are sewers, but over time things have started inhabiting various corners of it.
Step 3) Create lock out mechanisms, maybe you can delve a room or two deep into each zone but then you hit a wall, a lock that requires a magical key that is found elsewhere in the dungeon. Or just a plot device, that this area is not available yet, it can be as simple as an empty room that looks suspicious that later will have a doorway magically appear in it.

Populating:

Step 4) Take roughly 1/3 of the rooms in a zone and populate them by hand using your theme. I nearly always start with architecture which leads me to naming the room. These will have your major events, big fights. Is it the wizard's lab? or his larder?
Step 5) Speaking of larders, what do all these monsters eat? Maybe there is a contested areas which has trash chutes from the city above, or a magical one way portal that brings in water? Where do they use the bathroom, even the most basic of animals know to keep their food and bathroom separate. These are your points of interest, again another 1/3 of your rooms. Some might lend themselves to combat, others puzzles, others traps. No need to fill them all.
Step 6) The remaining 1/3 of rooms I like to use as window dressing and clues for the rest of the dungeon. No monster needed. You could create a table or details per zone, really make each zone feel unique.
Step 7) Fill labeled rooms with level appropriate monsters as needed. Try to be creative, then search by CR. If a water source is guarded at low level it could be a band of goblins, at higher levels it could be a carnivorous plant. Don't forget to have groups or gangs of monsters as well as single ones.
Step 8) While filling rooms find monsters that don't fit a room specifically but are a good CR range for your zone and loosely fit the theme. Add these to a random table to be used later.
Step 9) Traps. This is optional but I always like to scatter around traps I try to do it purposefully, a boring encounter with some goblins becomes a lot more interesting if there is a trap in the center of the room they know about and avoid but the party does not. If there is a rogue who is all about the traps it can be as high as 1 in every 4 rooms/corridors. If the party just wants to fight its way through more like 1 in every 10. Try to make the traps a party effort, maybe the party has to keep monsters off the rogue before the room fills with gas. Or they have to hold a gate open so the rogue can work on the trap.
Step 10) Repeat 6-9 for each zone as needed.
Random Encounter Table: If players do something silly (knocking over a row of fullplate?), are being indecisive, revisiting old areas, wasting time, or if pacing is slowing down. Roll on your table. Once multiple zones are open/cleared you can use other zone tables too.

Note the locking mechanisms keeps you from having to make a whole giant dungeon at once. Hinting at what is ahead is part of the fun, if they enter a few rooms that look like a tomb but they find no way to progress they know chances are there are undead in the future. If they find an area with a gap to large to leap but they can see beyond a doorway full of somehow full of water, they know an underwater area might be in the future.

By combining themes with your plot you will narrow down monster choices. Also since you are under a city don't forget to pull elements of the city in too. Waste, guilds, wells, links to the basements, etc.


Thank you all for your time.
You are very welcome. If you like what you hear please feel free to ask follow up quesions.

[Zaq]

What really matters is that what you bring to the gaming table is fun. The method of generating the fun material only matters to the extent that the end result is of acceptably high quality.

If you and your group enjoy random monsters (and you don’t feel like they get awkward, clunky, swingy, immersion-breaking, etc.), then by all means, go with random monsters. If your group can sniff out a “this feels like it came off a table rather than having a reason to be here” encounter a mile away and you don’t collectively enjoy it, then you’ll want to spend a little more effort constructing the challenges you want your friends to experience.

Personally, I’m not a good enough GM to really sell an encounter I didn’t prep*. I don’t exhaustively plot out the backstory for every monster or anything, but I feel the need to impose some measure of balance on each encounter so that it doesn’t feel too easy or too punishing. I personally feel like the game suffers a little without that touch.

That said, I’ve played with people who are good enough at the improv side of things that random encounters can sometimes be even more entertaining than planned ones. If both the GM and the players are good at both alternative methods of problem solving and at taking concepts and running with them, sometimes you can end up with more memorable scenarios than those that you tried to plan. But I will say that such group dynamics are kind of rare and special, definitely not universal.

Basically, what it comes down to is having fun. Put in an appropriate amount of effort to ensure that everyone, including the GM, has fun. That’s sometimes more effort than we might hope for, but it’s often less effort than we expect once we know what we’re doing. The only “wrong” answer is one that isn’t fun.

*I haven’t GM’d 3.5 in many years and I don’t plan to do so anymore, but in this specific context, the edition isn’t very important.

[heregoeshell]

Thank you both for the information and feedback, I greatly appreciate it. Firstly to clarify: I have regions of the underground thematically sectioned out, and have worked to create it as a place that is interacted with by inhabitants of the city.

Gelcur:
Thank you so much for the information, I will probably be opening up a new thread involving people's favorite monsters with interesting mechanics or otherwise, but I appreciate your information as a starting place. Specifically: "Re-animating Skeleton - the monster has been left here doing a task, maybe long forgotten. Adventures intially kill it and move on. But it reforms and might be crucial to completing a puzzle or progressing further in the dungeon." I hadn't considered providing the monsters as challenges that would also be included with skills, or with plot devices to provide aspects outside of "kill this, harvest that, capture this, etc." And to me this is a great way to keep monsters fresh and interesting.

My difficulty with the lockout mechanism is difficult insofar as there are over 50 alternate entrances at the various levels into the dungeon, most of which could be easily accessed by the players early on if they decide to, and so lock out becomes a bit more difficult. Similarly, considering these have been traversed by citizens for years, this lock out mechanism becomes less likely, though still useful. I really appreciate your idea on fleshing out specific rooms, and creating thematics in the remaining, provides better information on how to operate and keep rooms more interesting than "you enter yet another flagstone room..." Thank you again for your input.

Zaq:
Thank you for your time, I also find that too little prep doesn't sell the encounter, and that I personally have difficult interacting with monsters whom I have little to no familiarity with. I know my players are most likely going to be creative, as all but one has over 5 years of gaming experience, with two of the five having decades.


From both of your suggestions, I am considering making thematic monster groups of CRs for every 3 levels, from large single monsters to multiple lower monsters, which can be adjusted through several thematic rooms, and which can be provided onto a roaming table. By building the rooms, and then having thematic monsters ready, I can find a middle ground between full prep, and no prep, which should lessen my anxiety in running this portion of the campaign, and should similarly keep my sanity from exploding by trying to flesh every single room to the nines.

[Gelcur]

Glad you found it helpful. I would strongly suggest looking at video game puzzles they often have tricks where monsters are more than they seem.

Don't forget as the DM you control things like how many entrances there are. A quick earthquake can bring that count from 50 to 5. Eventually they will get dug out but till then fewer options will exist. You could even tie that to the plot as to why they have to go down into the dungeon.

Or maybe your players do not know all the ins and outs. Sure there are 50, maybe only a few are public knowledge. Going in one entrance coming out another can be fun. Using underworld contacts to find another, etc. You are the DM don't tie your hands behind your back unless you want that sort of challenge/headache. A wave of the hand and some magic explains away most "problems".

[Jay R]

Figure out its history. That will give you an idea of what is should contain.

Whether it was built to be sewers or a necromancer's lair determines how many alligators or undead are there. Are the top levels used as a hid-out by local thieves? Are there tunnels out to the wilderness. What spells are still active there, and why? Do the levels go on forever, further and further down int the underworld? Why don't the inhabitants come up and invade the town? [Or do they?]

Are they corridors hollowed out as a mine, or natural caverns?

I would have it be a long dead mine, and the townsfolk might not even know that it started out as a mining town.

The ore petered out long ago, and a cave-in blocked the lowest caverns down to the underworld. The highest levels are used as a sewer system, so some city workers go down into them. The next level is old catacombs, now used by thieves, smugglers, cultists, or raiders. People don't generally go further down.

Two or three levels were once used by a necromancer for forbidden experiments, and so there are undead still walking around.

Those blocked passages have recently been re-opened, but the denizens of the underworld haven't realized it yet, any more than the townspeople have. their outcasts are being force up, even as the town's outcasts are going down.

Orcs in a village to the north have just discovered a long tunnel going southward, and will eventually realize that it leads to the town, and is perfect for night raids.

This history should give plenty of scope for continuing adventures.