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2021-03-09, 09:28 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2009
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- Germany
Numbers encountered, Wandering Monsters, and Lairs
I've started D&D with 3rd edition, which introduced encounter building based on challenge rating, party size, PC levels, and so on, and you got XP for defeating them in battle (which everyone read as "killing"). So when I occasionally saw monster stats for Basic or AD&D that said orcs have "No. appearing 30-300", or 2-16 hill giants as random encounters, that seemed just nonsensical and something that surely everyone always ignored.
But when you bring reaction rolls (about 50-50 chance that there will be a fight), morale checks (don't have to kill all to win the fight), and XP for treasure (don't have to fight at all to get your reward) into the picture, things of course really change quite a lot. Now that I am gearing up for another B/X campaign, intending to use the rules in the ways they were designed for, I want to dive into this topic again and see if I can work out how these things are supposed to actually work.
This post is kind of my explanation of how I currently understand it myself, which just might be useful or interesting to some as it is, but I'm really looking forward to hear any corrections, additions, or suggestions to make this whole aspect of the game work better.
Originally Posted by Basic Rules, p. B30: "Monsters"
I think it's also important to note, because that part often seems to be glossed over, that there are really four different numbers for different situations.
- Dungeon Wandering (i.e. 2-8 orc warriors)
- Dungeon Lair (i.e. 10-60 orc adults plus 10-60 children)
- Wilderness Wandering (i.e. 10-60 orc warriors)
- Wilderness Lair (i.e. 50-300 orcadults, plus 50-300 children)
600 orcs is not what you get in a random encounter between two rooms in a dungeon. 600 orcs is a village.
Originally Posted by Expert Rules, p.X54: "Designing a Wilderness"
Originally Posted by Basic Rules, p. B30: "Monsters"Originally Posted by Basic Rules, p. B53: "Wanderig Monsters"
I areas close to the lair, the corresponding creatures should be more likely to encounter as Wandering Monsters than they are in other parts of the dungeon.
What are your thoughts on Wilderness Lairs, though? Should they be something that can be randomly encountered while traveling through the wilderness? Given that there's a 3% chance that randomly encountered creatures are friendly to the PCs (or much higher if the leader has good Charisma), I could see a wandering patrol or hunting band invite the party to come to their village to rest or resupply. And then being able to have a ready made wilderness lair that you can pull out of your sleeve would be really handy.
Or you defeat a group of hostile wanderers, or spot them while remaining undetected, and then follow them back to their lair. I think those could make for really awesome spontaneous adventures.We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.
Spriggan's Den Heroic Fantasy Roleplaying
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2021-03-09, 02:43 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
Re: Numbers encountered, Wandering Monsters, and Lairs
I can't say how other people addressed this, but I would generally choose to place a lair within an environment, either wilderness or dungeon, as a conscious decision.
Once I place a lair in a region, I would ensure that I would have an increased chance in my random encounter tables, usually by creating multiple entries of the same creature with different flavour noted in the table (differing weapon set, reaction adjustments, etc).
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2021-03-09, 05:56 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2008
Re: Numbers encountered, Wandering Monsters, and Lairs
While I am no expert, here is how I usually dealt with this situation.
You are right, those numbers are not intended for wandering monster encounters. You wouldn't roll for a random encounter, then roll 30d10 to see how many orcs were there. Even with a mid level party, that would be a bit much all at once. Rather, those numbers were more intended for when putting together a dungeon or small one-session campaign. You'd say "I want this to involve orcs and worgs" then roll to see how many there were. 297 orcs and perhaps 59 worgs, for example. Then roll treasure for the group.
There's going to be some sort of home base for the group - perhaps a cave or warcamp, depending on why they are there or what they are doing. The most important creature would have the most important gear, so the orc chief would have the +1 longsword and the +2 chainmail. Maybe a +1 harness on the lead worg, as well. Other important enemies would have other important gear, perhaps including a shaman or similar if there is magic items in the stash. (Although not necessarily - the orc chief might just have the scrolls and no way to use them.) The rest of the group has standard treasure - coins and the like - out of the stash, then whatever is left is the chief's hoard. It means that killing individual orcs and worgs isn't worthless, just that the majority of the treasure is in the main base. Where players would expect it to be.
Wilderness travel is a bit different from dungeon travel, although I've not really used the rules for such. Dungeons involved a closed box with corridors and limited access to other rooms. In general, if there's 100 orcs in a dungeon, you're probably going to be fighting through 100 orcs (or close to it) to get through the dungeon. Perhaps you find a circular route to bypass some of them, but it's pretty likely that a party will run into the orcs there.
In a wilderness, though, players have a large area they can move around in. They're free to fully retreat after the first encounter with a scouting group if they don't want to mess with orcs. They can simply get up and leave the area, and unless the orcs feel like pursuing en masse (or are just moving that direction) then the encounter is over. Moving around the orc group might take some time, but it's entirely possible to get to the end of the wilderness trek by avoiding the problem orcs entirely. This is mostly why the wilderness encounter is so much larger than the dungeon one: it is a large camp or even a functional town, while the dungeon encounter is closer to a bandit camp hiding in a cave.
Plus, I'll note that the presence of non-combatants means that the encounter might not even be a dangerous one. Just because they're an orc war party doesn't mean they're going to object to an adventuring party selling a +1 weapon for something the orcs have available, either information or non-useful magic items.SpoilerThank you to zimmerwald1915 for the Gustave avatar.
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