Ravingdork |
Do you and your players kind of gloss over the fact that traditional firearms are really, fantastically loud? Or do you have all the dungeon inhabitants begin investigating or taking up defensive positions at the sound of the first shot? Why?
WatersLethe |
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Oh boy, I definitely don't gloss over loud things. One of my players used lightning bolt to kill a sentry robot. I couldn't, in good conscience, let a bolt of lightning be unheard a few rooms over.
That being said, I usually don't build my campaigns such that there's a bunch of chained together rooms to go through one by one, and if I do I make sure there's thick walls and long tunnels that make the noise of combat not such a big deal. The lightning example above was an outlier.
shroudb |
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If I believe something makes sounds that will be hearable from other dungeon denizens, I do have them react appropriately, yes.
It's not only gunshots though. As a recent example I had a brawl of a fight where both frontliners wore full plates, fireballs were flying and exploding, lots of backs and forth that lasted almost a full minute.
Needless to say, everything in the surrounding area became aware that a massive combat happened within earshot.
Ascalaphus |
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Are hammers hitting on steel shields really loud?
If your monsters are close enough together that combat without special precautions has a tendency to pull them in, they should be budgeted as a single encounter. You can make it a bit bigger budget encounter because they won't all be there at the start of the combat, but if you know it's more likely than not to be part of the same encounter, you should budget that way.
graystone |
Do you and your players kind of gloss over the fact that traditional firearms are really, fantastically loud?
*shrug* It's glossed over as much as any other 'loud' activity that characters take: for instance, how often does the DM figure out just how far the "strong voice" needed for verbal components are heard? Or a Command activiation's "loud and strong voice"? Or how far away an Echoing Weapon or Concordant Choir is heard? The answer to any of these is likely the same answer to the firearms question.
Ravingdork |
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Dubious Scholar wrote:I actually think those air guns are probably pretty quiet. Similar to a paintball or airsoft gun, in my estimation.How loud do you figure the air guns are (or firearms modified to use that)?
How loud is a spoon gun going SPROING?
Hence why I said "traditional " firearms.
I dread to think of the sound the tentacle cannon makes when fired.
HumbleGamer |
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I think encounters are meant to be played separately, except in rare occasions the game deliberately tells you to merge two of them ( I can think about EC book 3 ).
Unless really loud stuff, I tend not to debilitate characters ( an alchemist is supposed to throw bombs, a spellcaster to blast, combatants to swing weapons against the enemy armor, intimidate characters are supposed to scre... Oh wait, nobody goes intimidate without intimidate glare), but I let sometimes enemies withdraw to call for allies.
It's not granted that they can reach out for help, mostly because players can kill them in the meanwhile, but sometimes happened.
Sometimes players also ask whether something may be way too loud or not ( a guess, but as the DM, and because DM choices may be different depends the DM, it's for the best to give them hints).
Alchemic_Genius |
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Casual range safety advice that your should always wear hearing protection when shooting a gun, or when being around gunfire.
That said, I don't actually gloss over it. Typically, I make almost any fight alert nearby forces, but in game this generally means "the next encounter gets to prebuff" and not "the party is fighting twice and many bad guys". It's actually pretty often that the party chooses to avoid the weenies at all costs because the more they fight, the more prepared the boss gets to be.
If I'm going something like stealth movie silent guard removal, I typically adjudocate it as a stealth check to sneak up to the guard, and an attack roll to kill them quietly. It might be a different story if the party covers themselves in level 4 silence spells and takes care to keep enemies in the area, though
The-Magic-Sword |
I tend to treat sounds of fighting in a more general sense and budget multiple groups as one encounter if they're close enough to combine as a result of loud noises. If the feature mentions being especially loud, I'll let it travel further, but generally, I try to avoid dungeons where the enemy rooms are so close together that it would matter if they aren't planned to turn into a single encounter.
Of course, sometimes creatures might sort of hunker down if they hear loud noises and be like "I sure hope whatever that is doesn't bother me" especially in a traditional dungeon, the enemies aren't exactly always on the same side so the sounds of combat could very well be struggle over turf or an altercation that hopefully won't meaningfully affect them. They might also think differently about it based off where their own territory is-- 'what are the odds someone is going to find this space'
Norade |
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Even a black powder firearm with its rumbling boom instead of the sharp crack of modern weapons is going to be far-and-away the loudest sound on most battlefields. Think of it this way, a blender which is pretty noticeable even at a distance is ~90db, an airhorn 1m [3.3ft] away from you is 110db (4 times as loud), a low-powered unsilenced .22 calibre rifle is 140db (32 times louder than the blender, 8 times louder than the airhorn. There is nothing within a large range that won't hear that unless you use magic, they can't hear, or they're on the other side of a very thick wall with no cracks or nearby doors/windows.
TLDR; guns are way louder than any non-shooter might expect.
TwilightKnight |
Are hammers hitting on steel shields really loud?
Honestly, I don't know as I have never been in a dungeon when two people were fighting in close quarters, but I assume it sounds like what amounts to claw hammers on garbage cans. However, I have been on a lot of construction sites, inside industrial plants, and I can hear a neighborhood dog from many blocks away and gunfire across town, so I am going to say that unless there is a SIGNIFICANT distance and/or material (like earth) between you and the "bangers" you are going to hear it from virtually anywhere within the average fantasy dungeon.
TwilightKnight |
I usually try not to be a jerk by linking fights that are not supposed to be.
Would the players be considered jerks if their actions pull those encounters? I don't always know if the author expects the PCs to fire off an arquebus or sonic boom from a lightning bolt in an space where the echo is almost assuredly going to alert the next encounter.
SuperBidi |
In general, I consider that a single door doesn't block the sound of combat, but that 2 doors or a door and a 60ft. distance is enough.
So, if my players don't plan accordingly, they bring multiple encounters at once. The game accept quite some chaining of encounters as long as you avoid Severe ones in the middle and put at least a round between each encounter. I've found that, despite being really scary, chaining encounters is not as dangerous as people think it is.
And I hate finding a bunch of enemies in the room next to the one where a big fight happened. It's just not realistic at all (even if I agree, the sound of combat should be heard for way more than a round or two, but above that you bring the entire dungeon and it completely change the tone of the game).
Ascalaphus |
In general, I consider that a single door doesn't block the sound of combat, but that 2 doors or a door and a 60ft. distance is enough.
So, if my players don't plan accordingly, they bring multiple encounters at once. The game accept quite some chaining of encounters as long as you avoid Severe ones in the middle and put at least a round between each encounter. I've found that, despite being really scary, chaining encounters is not as dangerous as people think it is.And I hate finding a bunch of enemies in the room next to the one where a big fight happened. It's just not realistic at all (even if I agree, the sound of combat should be heard for way more than a round or two, but above that you bring the entire dungeon and it completely change the tone of the game).
That's a decent rule of thumb. I like chained encounters, they're immersive and dynamic. But they do require a careful hand planning. Quite doable like you say, but most of the published dungeons I see aren't planned that way.
You can probably convert those by just sprinkling some Weak templates around.
nephandys |
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I could have sworn I saw a sample DC for "the sound of combat" somewhere.
It's in the rules for Unconscious CRB p. 459:
Loud noise is being made around you—though this isn’t automatic. At the start of your turn, you automatically attempt a Perception check against the noise’s DC (or the lowest DC if there is more than one noise), waking up if you succeed. This is often DC 5 for a battle, but if creatures are attempting to stay quiet around you, this Perception check uses their Stealth DC. Some magical effects make you sleep so deeply that they don’t allow you to attempt this Perception check.