Pacing a megadungeon

[Pauly]

Deliberate.

Then your players got a valuable life lesson.

https://youtu.be/pP2ORXWXV18

[gbaji]

Deliberate.

Yeah. I think this ties back to earlier conversations about your players and lack of sufficient scouting/prep capability with their characters.

Maybe they should reconsider this as a greater priority for their next group? Just seems like if you are going to be wandering around in a large dungeon, where the powerlevel of the monsters within may very well range from "easy" to "you're dead", having some sort of ability to determine where any given foe may fall in that range *before* you engage might be a good idea.

And, well, if they did know how tough this thing was, and decided to risk it anyway, maybe having a backup/retreat plan ahead of time might be a good idea...

[Talakeal]

We played again with new PCs, and it went poorly.

The group made so many poor decisions, although I admit that most of them were out of ignorance. Four times they got away from the monster, only to turn back toward its lair. Its really painful being the guy with the map and watch them keep circling toward their doom.

In the end they, again, tried a direct fight against the three-headed monster, and again it crushed them.

We had two major issues with the group. One; the party face is an illusionist, and she refused to break her invisibility spell to talk to anyone, so they failed every social encounter. Two; Brian's new character is a ranger sort. He asked me if he could have a saber-toothed tiger as a companion, and I said yes. Then he showed up with two character sheets, one for his PC and the other for his companion. When I said that I didn't mean he could make one as a PC, I meant he could have one out of the book, he said it wasn't worth the hassle as he didn't think he could keep it alive, and decided to go without an animal companion at all.

On the plus side, the party decided not to open the sealed door to the ghast pit this time!

Yeah. I think this ties back to earlier conversations about your players and lack of sufficient scouting/prep capability with their characters.

Maybe they should reconsider this as a greater priority for their next group? Just seems like if you are going to be wandering around in a large dungeon, where the powerlevel of the monsters within may very well range from "easy" to "you're dead", having some sort of ability to determine where any given foe may fall in that range *before* you engage might be a good idea.

And, well, if they did know how tough this thing was, and decided to risk it anyway, maybe having a backup/retreat plan ahead of time might be a good idea...

That is very much my idea. The new party is a lot better than the old at it, atleast on paper, but they still seem to have an allergy to scouting / information gathering.

[Pauly]

That is very much my idea. The new party is a lot better than the old at it, atleast on paper, but they still seem to have an allergy to scouting / information gathering.

Have you tried giving your players rewards for scouting? Not just being better prepared for encounters but things like
- XP for doing it? E.G. if an encounter is worth 500XP, split it so they get 100XP for scouting/preparing and 400XP for defeating the enemy. Not just giving them 500XP when the last monster loses its last HP. Or give them bonus XP for scouting, bonus XP for coming up with a plan other than kick the door down then kill everything. XP for successfully avoiding an enemy that is too tough.
- finding GP and/or random minor treasure that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to access?

People tend respond better to immediate actual rewards.

[gbaji]

The group made so many poor decisions, although I admit that most of them were out of ignorance. Four times they got away from the monster, only to turn back toward its lair. Its really painful being the guy with the map and watch them keep circling toward their doom.

Huh? How did that happen? I'm struggling to figure out how a party, having retreated from something, would fail to just retreat back the way they came, through tunnels they'd already explored, and back to somewhere "safe" to recover before heading out again.

Or was it just that there were multiple paths that all lead to the same place with the same monster, and they just kept happening to pick the "bad ones"? Is it possible that your dungeon design just keeps funneling them in some way? That just seems "odd" that they'd run into something powerful down one direction, then later pick another route and end up running into the same thing, then go back and try another path and still end up in the same area. I mean, unless the lair is like in the center of the entire area, and all tunnels lead to it, I'm not sure how this can happen.

One; the party face is an illusionist, and she refused to break her invisibility spell to talk to anyone, so they failed every social encounter.

/boggle!

What? The illusionist really just walked around invisible the entire time? Why? How exactly does that work? Like does everyone else in the party have a see invisible item so they aren't constantly running her over or something? Usually, invisibility is something you keep ready and then only cast when you need to be... you know... invisible. But to cast it ahead of time, for no reason, and then need to keep it going so you can't interact socially with any NPCs is kinda baffling. Doubly so if this is the character with the social skills. Hmm....

The character is an illusionist. If she had any spell up all the time, it should be like an illusion on herself or something. You know, so she could change her appearance on the fly, interact with people without them knowing exactly who she was, pretend to be other people, get better reactions maybe, etc. That's actually useful. Walking around invisible isn't really that useful most of the time.

[Talakeal]

Huh? How did that happen? I'm struggling to figure out how a party, having retreated from something, would fail to just retreat back the way they came, through tunnels they'd already explored, and back to somewhere "safe" to recover before heading out again.

Or was it just that there were multiple paths that all lead to the same place with the same monster, and they just kept happening to pick the "bad ones"? Is it possible that your dungeon design just keeps funneling them in some way? That just seems "odd" that they'd run into something powerful down one direction, then later pick another route and end up running into the same thing, then go back and try another path and still end up in the same area. I mean, unless the lair is like in the center of the entire area, and all tunnels lead to it, I'm not sure how this can happen.



/boggle!

What? The illusionist really just walked around invisible the entire time? Why? How exactly does that work? Like does everyone else in the party have a see invisible item so they aren't constantly running her over or something? Usually, invisibility is something you keep ready and then only cast when you need to be... you know... invisible. But to cast it ahead of time, for no reason, and then need to keep it going so you can't interact socially with any NPCs is kinda baffling. Doubly so if this is the character with the social skills. Hmm....

The character is an illusionist. If she had any spell up all the time, it should be like an illusion on herself or something. You know, so she could change her appearance on the fly, interact with people without them knowing exactly who she was, pretend to be other people, get better reactions maybe, etc. That's actually useful. Walking around invisible isn't really that useful most of the time.

On the road right now and no keyboard, so I will keep it brief.

They killed or drove off the kobolds who were feeding the hydra so it had to leave its lair to feed.

Two entrances to dungeon, they chose the one near the monsters lair and current (randomly determined) feeding grounds.

They chose not to explore the monsters lair while it was out hunting, which would have allowed them to loot its treasure and the corpses of the old party without a fight.

Then twice they came to an unexplored section of the dungeon, failed to talk to the inhabitants and, not wanting a fight, turned around and went back into the explored areas in which the hydra was hunting.

Edit: oh, they had also rigged a portcullis to drop when a rope was pulled. At one point the halfling rogue was being chased by the hydra right past it. Had she gone in, they could have pulled the cord, then she could have hidden and slipped through the bars, leaving the hydra trapped in that small area of the dungeon to be dealt with at their leisure, ut instead she turned away from the portculis and ran deeper into the dungeon.

[many_bubble]

I think one of the simplest ways is to use gold/ treasure for xp. It incentivises the players to keep pushing, just one more room... it also teaches them to play cleverly instead of bulldozing through, expending all their resources and getting that '15 minute day' issue.

[Talakeal]

I think one of the simplest ways is to use gold/ treasure for xp. It incentivises the players to keep pushing, just one more room... it also teaches them to play cleverly instead of bulldozing through, expending all their resources and getting that '15 minute day' issue.

I thought about that, but afaict it doesn't really change the issue, as the treasure will still be waiting for them tomorrow.

[Bohandas]

How about shifting rooms. So they have to actually find the exit before they go back to town

[kyoryu]

I thought about that, but afaict it doesn't really change the issue, as the treasure will still be waiting for them tomorrow.

If the dungeon restocks itself, they'll have to get through the same low-reward stuff again.