(possible spoilers) Resting in the Tomb of Annihilation

[Inglorin]

I am currently away from my books (by at least a couple of hours) but just thought about this. How is resting handled inside the Tomb of Annihilation? If I recall correctly (*spoilers*) the characters can't easily vacate the tomb. Is there anything written in the module how resting should be handled or how long a stay in the tomb should take? Are there "safe" spots designated?

How did you handle this when you ran this thing?

 

[jasper]

I am currently running it. There are no wandering monster checks. And the cleaning crew (wights) are a speed bump if they want to interrupt a rest. So if they clear certain rooms it a safe area. So far my people have spend one night in the tomb.

 

[Eltab]

There IS a small room where the party can safely rest, written into the adventure.
Some other rooms, the party can clear the trap/fight, take turns posting a guard and letting the other members rest up.
A clever party with illusion magic available could make themselves look like the 'repair crew,' break something, and stay there "fixing it" wherever they want.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Yeah, there are one or two sections denoted to be basically forgotten areas that the party can rest undisturbed, but if they've already taken care of the repair crew, there's not much stopping them from sleeping in lots of different places.

 

[mvincent]

I imagine the Sewn Sisters would grow restless if the party tarried long.

 

[Stormdale]

I had Withers send tomb guardians and wights against the party interrupting their rests (he can use the pool of scrying to keep tabs on their progress)- and eventually they had a showdown with Withers himelf as a "wandering" encounter.

The Sewn sisters is another choice, you could also have the tomb send disturbing dreams preventing/making rest difficult.

Plenty of place to hold up though, especially if you add Leomund's Tiny hut to the equation.

Stormdale

 

[CapnZapp]

Free resting means the resource game of D&D becomes trivial (i.e. the only challenge left is for a single encounter to be so deadly it threatens to kill a player character; which is a spice best used sparingly), so I'd advise against it.

I'd suggest having the Tomb power the undead to be re-raised every night, making it pointless to kill Tomb Guardians or Withers.

If the repair crews are only "a speed bump" that means next time make them stronger. If this makes the players avoid killing them that can only be for the better (since it is considerably more challenging to avoid/defeat an enemy when you can't simply kill it).

The purpose of having "wandering monsters" as it were is to have a measure of uncertainty; to avoid players going "okay, so this trap will shave 40 hp off my Barbarian, no big deal, I'll still have 15 hp left for when we take a long rest."

With even a small risk of having unexpected visitors during the night, the idea of going to sleep with only 15 hp no longer sounds like such a good idea.

This guides the players into playing the game as it was meant: the Tomb is supposed to be scary, and nothing is supposed to be certain.

 

[Gwarok]

Resting in a dungeon comes up a lot, especially with these types of things. Fact is static defenses will always fail against someone trying to penetrate them unless pressure can be applied. There are a few ways to do that.

1) Have active defenses as well, such as in this case the cleaning crew.

2) Put a time limit on the party.

Obviously the theme of this dungeon is a trap filled monstrosity, less one filled with monsters. Indiana Jones style. So if you wish to maintain that theme, and of course you do, you'll want to use #2 somehow. I assume Acerack would have figured this out, and so once the party as "Entered" the dungeon, work in some sort of shot clock. Seeing as how the entire adventure has one with the whole world dying this is thematically correct. Perhaps that the drain speeds up drastically if there are living intruders in the dungeon. You get the idea.

 

[posineg]

Bah, let them rest. Is your job as a DM to kill the PC's or to bring the module to life in there minds eye?

If it is to kill them, revive the undead, make them more powerful and institute wandering monster checks every hour.

If it is to lead your D&D group then modify the difficulty as needed but let the players have fun.