How long is a dungeon crawl?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


(OR How Long is a Piece of String 2: The splicing)

Ok I know there's no set answer for this but I just can't quite wrap my head around the idea of multi-day dungeon crawls.

If we make all the standard assumptions about things like 4 encounters per day then how do the party not get found and stomped while they're resting?

Small dungeons arn't a problem, with less than a dozen rooms you can fill them quite nicely with 3 warm up acts a BBEG and a handful of traps or just decorative rooms.

City sized dungeons again probably offer a myriad of nooks and crannies that a resourceful adventuring party can hole up in with minimal chance of being discovered (although if that dungeon is full entirely of soldiers rather than a large number of non-combatants to a small number of soldiers/police as you would get in an actual city things become a little trickier)

But it's that middle ground that confuses me. If an adventuring party merrily slaughters their way through the first floor of a 7 level dungeon and makes camp in a storeroom or somewhere they can barricade the door against easy entry how do they not get found or wake up to find they've either been locked into the room or a small army encamped on the threshold?

A small group of searchers can go room by room in even a fairly large building in a matter of hours (and when aided by a trail of corpses, blood spatter and a sharp demarcation between the occupied and unoccupied rooms even quicker) so how does a group even spend 1 night in a dungeon safely and sucessfully?

(We can leave the undead out for now, as they're (for the most part) mindless creatures its more understandable that they might not even notice the intrusion and if they are being directly controlled by a single entitiy that will slow down searches considerably as it will either have to split its attention or be much slower and more methodical)


First, the standard assumption about 4 encounters a day is misleading. It's 4 =APL encounters a day. You can do a lot more with weaker encounters. (Or scale up for more optimized parties) This lets you fill up more area with more quick, easier fights.

More generally I agree with you. Finding actual safe places to rest in a large dungeon should be hard. Especially if it's home to intelligent organized monsters. Even leaving and coming back can lead to problems, as the whole area is likely to be on alert and set up for ambushes, traps and alarms.
Ideally, you can often split the larger dungeon into separate sections, not just by level but by inhabitants. If the kobolds live over here and the goblins over there with some no-man's land in between, you can probably rest safely after dealing with one group, because the other won't be investigating trouble in their enemies territory.

Likewise, if there is only one (or a few) connections between levels, clearing the top level and camping by the stairs might get you woken up by the downstairs neighbors, but you won't get surrounded and trapped.


Rope trick?


Banjax wrote:
If we make all the standard assumptions about things like 4 encounters per day then how do the party not get found and stomped while they're resting?

You're right. The assumption of "four encounters and then we rest" is one that will get a party killed during an extended crawl: in an intelligently controlled area, a determined search by reinforcements will have a good chance of adding to your woes, as you note. In a more "wild" area, it's not just random bumblings of unintelligent creatures, but predators (even of animal intelligence) who understand that a recent battle means the survivors are weakened and potentially an easy lunch. (The old 2nd edition Undermountain boxed set provides tables for "attracted monsters", who show up at the sounds of combat or traps going off for just this reason.)

The proper way to deal with this dilemma is to not make such artificial meta-game assumptions. From a PC's perspective, be prepared: assume there's always going to be another hazard. Do your recon, so that you can balance the risk of one more fight before resting against the risk of leaving those guys to attack you while you rest. Take enough resources--and measure their use--in such a way that you can survive whatever the night has to throw at you. Retreat to a genuinely fortifiable area before resting.

It kind of sounds like you're asking from a GM / dungeon design perspective, though. In which case, I don't understand why there's a problem. :)


Murph. wrote:
Banjax wrote:
If we make all the standard assumptions about things like 4 encounters per day then how do the party not get found and stomped while they're resting?

You're right. The assumption of "four encounters and then we rest" is one that will get a party killed during an extended crawl: in an intelligently controlled area, a determined search by reinforcements will have a good chance of adding to your woes, as you note. In a more "wild" area, it's not just random bumblings of unintelligent creatures, but predators (even of animal intelligence) who understand that a recent battle means the survivors are weakened and potentially an easy lunch. (The old 2nd edition Undermountain boxed set provides tables for "attracted monsters", who show up at the sounds of combat or traps going off for just this reason.)

The proper way to deal with this dilemma is to not make such artificial meta-game assumptions. From a PC's perspective, be prepared: assume there's always going to be another hazard. Do your recon, so that you can balance the risk of one more fight before resting against the risk of leaving those guys to attack you while you rest. Take enough resources--and measure their use--in such a way that you can survive whatever the night has to throw at you. Retreat to a genuinely fortifiable area before resting.

It kind of sounds like you're asking from a GM / dungeon design perspective, though. In which case, I don't understand why there's a problem. :)

Well, if all the encounters are designed to use up a quarter of your resources, you're going to have to rest after 4. In fact, if you assume that the next fight is likely to draw more attention and that you're likely to be attacked when you rest anyway, you'd be smart to rest sooner. Maybe after 2 encounters or even 1.

From the GM perspective, it's easy to design a dungeon which kills any party by never giving them the chance to rest or by naturally leading to sending all the inhabitants at the PCs in waves once any alarm is raised. Don't forget that fighting is loud and the bad guys have all the incentive to raise the alarm.
The hard part is to design one that's challenging, but still breaks naturally into sequences of encounters that the PCs can handles with space for resting in between. Without seeming like it's set up for that.


Since my suggestion was missed Scroll of Rope Trick, and the PCs can rest under the BBEG's nose.

It is a level 2 spell, you buy one or you plant one as a GM that is caster level 8. You can design your effing dungeon however you effing want.


Gignere wrote:

Since my suggestion was missed Scroll of Rope Trick, and the PCs can rest under the BBEG's nose.

It is a level 2 spell, you buy one or you plant one as a GM that is caster level 8. You can design your effing dungeon however you effing want.

Rope Trick is not as useful in Pathfinder as it was in 3.5. You can no longer hide the rope. So the dungeon inhabitants are walking along looking for the intruders, and spot a length of rope floating in midair. If if they don't know its a Rope Trick spell, they would know something was not right here.


Jeraa wrote:
Gignere wrote:

Since my suggestion was missed Scroll of Rope Trick, and the PCs can rest under the BBEG's nose.

It is a level 2 spell, you buy one or you plant one as a GM that is caster level 8. You can design your effing dungeon however you effing want.

Rope Trick is not as useful in Pathfinder as it was in 3.5. You can no longer hide the rope. So the dungeon inhabitants are walking along looking for the intruders, and spot a length of rope floating in midair. If if they don't know its a Rope Trick spell, they would know something was not right here.

Yes if all your patrols have max perception and spell craft, than yes you are screwed. But most of the time patrols are looking for bodies not a rope hanging from the ceiling and if your PCs are paranoid they can just hang a rope in every room they clear out.

See if the patrols find the room with the rope trick.


Murph. wrote:

The proper way to deal with this dilemma is to not make such artificial meta-game assumptions. From a PC's perspective, be prepared: assume there's always going to be another hazard. Do your recon, so that you can balance the risk of one more fight before resting against the risk of leaving those guys to attack you while you rest. Take enough resources--and measure their use--in such a way that you can survive whatever the night has to throw at you. Retreat to a genuinely fortifiable area before resting.

It kind of sounds like you're asking from a GM / dungeon design perspective, though. In which case, I don't understand why there's a problem. :)

I suppose I am really. I'm GMing a couple of groups at the minute and neither are likely to face extended crawls (one group just arn't interested in that kind of game and the other is pretty new to gaming so wouldn't know how to prepare for an extended crawl) so it's mostly for my own curiosity on the off chance I get to run one at a later date.

Suppose we knock the assumption about the 4 encounters per day on the head, doesn't throwing wave after wave of monsters to be slaughtered get a little tedious? If the encounters don't challenge the characters isn't that boring for the players?

The idea of fortifying any part of the dungeon (or leaving and coming back) changes a dungeon crawl into a seige, one that the party will almost certainly be overmatched for.

The idea of putting gaps in between sections of the dungeon has some merit although IMO it changes the idea from the Dread Castle of Evil to the Dread Office Block of Evil where different armies rent out different floors rather than a cohesive whole (although I suppose you could get some milage out of the even the evil guys don't get along with each other trope).

SO possibly the question should just be, to those of you who have GMed such medium to large sized dungeons which approach did you use?


Gignere wrote:
Jeraa wrote:
Gignere wrote:

Since my suggestion was missed Scroll of Rope Trick, and the PCs can rest under the BBEG's nose.

It is a level 2 spell, you buy one or you plant one as a GM that is caster level 8. You can design your effing dungeon however you effing want.

Rope Trick is not as useful in Pathfinder as it was in 3.5. You can no longer hide the rope. So the dungeon inhabitants are walking along looking for the intruders, and spot a length of rope floating in midair. If if they don't know its a Rope Trick spell, they would know something was not right here.

Yes if all your patrols have max perception and spell craft, than yes you are screwed. But most of the time patrols are looking for bodies not a rope hanging from the ceiling and if your PCs are paranoid they can just hang a rope in every room they clear out.

See if the patrols find the room with the rope trick.

Not an approach I had considered but one I will bear in mind thanks.


I agree that the idea of camping in a dungeon has always seemed like a dumb idea to me (assuming the dungeon isn't the size of a small city or something like that), but some GMs are into it and they'll leave you alone when you do it. In that case, I just shrug and go along with it.


Quote:

The idea of fortifying any part of the dungeon (or leaving and coming back) changes a dungeon crawl into a seige, one that the party will almost certainly be overmatched for.

The idea of putting gaps in between sections of the dungeon has some merit although IMO it changes the idea from the Dread Castle of Evil to the Dread Office Block of Evil where different armies rent out different floors rather than a cohesive whole (although I suppose you could get some milage out of the even the evil guys don't get along with each other trope).

It sounds like your goal is to have an adventure site that is both very large and under the control of a single, organized, intelligent faction--an active fortress or similar.

If you're also approaching this as a primarily combat-oriented adventure site, then yes, you've set yourself up with an extremely difficult problem to design your way out of, and one that experienced players will readily recognize as A Bad Idea to go into. I think you have to examine your assumptions.

Can you make it an infiltration-based adventure site, such that the ultimate goal (kill a particular baddie, rescue a hostage, retrieve an artifact) can be achieved without the PCs slaughtering their way through everything? I don't know about you, but my group loves spending entire sessions planning out stealth/finesse approaches, picking supplies and spell lists, performing recon, etc. When you're on the GM side of the table, this can be really frustrating, unless you're willing to roll with it and say, "yes" to whatever questions they ask that allow them to invent solutions to this uncrackable fortress.

Otherwise, think of Kings Landing from Game of Thrones, and the various hidden tunnels and staircases that even most of the castle's inhabitants don't know about. Make your adventure site that convoluted / secretive, and arrange for your party to discover at least one such secret passageway that they can hole up in. The dungeon may then be on high alert, and it's going to be a really tense night as armed guards repeatedly pass within yards of the PCs, since they'll never know who does and who doesn't know this passage exists, but at least they can recharge. (Esp. if they can use illusions or similar to extra-hide their secret passage.)


When I think of a multi-day dungeon crawl I do not think of a single map filled with rooms one next to another and levels stacked like lego blocks.

Rather, I think of various areas that maybe connected by cave systems and tunnels. So that a "single" dungeon crawl could cover miles of area and include lots of "dead" areas.

I have also had games where the party was in fatigue when they broke out and found areas they could rest in. It was part of the fun of the game, or at least the players thought so.


Murph. wrote:


It sounds like your goal is to have an adventure site that is both very large and under the control of a single, organized, intelligent faction--an active fortress or similar.

If you're also approaching this as a primarily combat-oriented adventure site, then yes, you've set yourself up with an extremely difficult problem to design your way out of, and one that experienced players will readily recognize as A Bad Idea to go into. I think you have to examine your assumptions.

Can you make it an infiltration-based adventure site, such that the ultimate goal (kill a particular baddie, rescue a hostage, retrieve an artifact) can be achieved without the PCs slaughtering their way through everything? I don't know about you, but my group loves spending entire sessions planning out stealth/finesse approaches, picking supplies and spell lists, performing recon, etc. When you're on the GM side of the table, this can be really frustrating, unless you're willing to roll with it and say, "yes" to whatever questions they ask that allow them to invent solutions to this uncrackable fortress.

I'm not actively planning one, I was just looking at some of the maps people have made available online and wondered how people do run those kind of storming the castle scenarios

Murph. wrote:
Otherwise, think of Kings Landing from Game of Thrones, and the various hidden tunnels and staircases that even most of the castle's inhabitants don't know about. Make your adventure site that convoluted / secretive, and arrange for your party to discover at least one such secret passageway that they can hole up in. The dungeon may then be on high alert, and it's going to be a really tense night as armed guards repeatedly pass within yards of the PCs, since they'll never know who does and who doesn't know this passage exists, but at least they can recharge. (Esp. if they can use illusions or similar to extra-hide their secret passage.)

That's another idea I hadn't considered which has some possibilities.

From what other people have said the Dread Office Block of Evil model is more common than I thought as well, has anybody actually run/played in a storm the castle style crawl, how was that handled?


There have been several discussions centered around this and you are right. I dont recall many heroic stories where the heroes camped half way through the bad guys stronghold.

One of the best answers I have seen and have been considering using is "Rest/Extended Rest".

I would have to look up the details but... Basically you can rest for a short period (5 minutes) and regain lost HP and one use of an ability/spell/ect. Or you can rest for an Hour and it resets all your abilities/spells/ect(like sleeping does under the normal rules). I think it had a limit on the number of times you could do it, but I would say no more then what a normal human could manage... say 12 hours of hard adventuring in a dungeon before you would require a real 8 hour rest.

Honestly I dont see the point in limited resources. I know its to keep characters from blowing their best spells/abilities every fight, and some people I am sure enjoy micro managing their characters through a day... but usually what happens is a few fights and then the party is camping away.

I still have bad memories of my first foray into Harrstone in Carrion Crown... took us 4 days and 3 character deaths to clear... after a few PC deaths we stopped progressing when the cleric ran out of channels. If we had had a rest mechanic it would have gone much smoother. I mean really... what band of hero's would REALLY take 4 days to clear a dungeon like that. One of the days I kid you not... we had been inside the dungeon all of 30 minutes and had to retreat back outside to let the cleric rest. Was literally a 30 minute work day.


To be fair, Harrowstone is explicitly designed so the players can take their time with it. You're *supposed* to leave and rest often (and you will, since you're a low level party with limited resources). The time limit is extremely generous.

And that's probably the only good way to do a low-level dungeon crawl. At higher levels you can do much longer crawls because people will more resources and won't burn out very quickly.

To adress the general topic of resting it depends very much on the context. Dungeons with unintelligent creatures are easier to rest in, because they'll often be territorial (for animals/monsters) or magically bound to a specific area (undead, constructs).

I don't remember which adventure path it was, but we once did a rather huge dungeon, where we found a secret room protected by powerful abjuration - essentially, a "safe room" for resting.

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