Wandering monsters while resting

[tmatk]

The 5 minute adventure day is quite annoying for DMs looking to challenge their players, especially with the advent of healing surges. I'm looking for some ideas on how to deal with it.

Here's one I'm considering - When the party tries to rest, I add up all the remaining healing surges the party has, and that becomes the percentage chance of a random encounter. This would be subject to modifiers based on the situation. I'm also considering setting the XP on these encounters to half or zero.

I'm thinking each party member would roll a check during his/her turn on watch. Or, roll one percentage check to see if the encounter occurs, then a random roll to see when it occurs.

I'm hoping this will be an encouragement to "fight on" rather then try and rest to replenish powers. The milestone system isn't quite enough IMO.

Does this sound unreasonable, or too meta-gamey? I would love to hear the systems that others use!

Thanks

 

[Sporemine]

During any rest in a hostile area there is a 10% chance of the players being attacked by a group that is an appropriate encounter for their level.

Thats my system

Kudos

-Sporemine

 

[LostSoul]

That's what I do.

I use a 1d6 roll, on a 1 there's an encounter.

The wandering monsters never have any treasure and are usually within 1 level of the dungeon's level. Giving 1/2 or no XP is an interesting idea, one I've toyed with, but... it might be a little frustrating for the players. Run it by them, though.

I roll after each short rest or after the PCs do something noise or time-intensive. I put things in like secret doors or treasures that need to be searched for, taking about 5 minutes before the PCs can get a roll. That means they are risking another encounter if they take the time to search.

The way I justify this in game is this: any underground complex - a dungeon - falls under the domain of Torog if it isn't routinely explored and lived in. His influence causes all sorts of crazy things to happen. Portals open, monsters crawl up from cracks in the earth, normal things are corrupted, that sort of thing. A simple pool formed by water condensation may turn into an ooze over time, that sort of thing.

Dungeons don't obey natural laws, they are warped and evil.

There might be a reason the dungeon exists, but there might not; it might simply be. It certainly can, and perhaps should, be the centerpiece of the game. As for ecology, a megadungeon should have a certain amount of verisimilitude and internal consistency, but it is an underworld: a place where the normal laws of reality may not apply, and may be bent, warped, or broken. Not merely an underground site or a lair, not sane, the underworld gnaws on the physical world like some chaotic cancer. It is inimical to men; the dungeon, itself, opposes and obstructs the adventurers brave enough to explore it.​

From Philotomy's OD&D Musings.

 

[tmatk]

Thanks for the replies. I've thought about it, I'm leaning towards: 10% chance of an encounter in a hostile area, random "hour" (to see if they are rested or not), divide the total XP by surge# of the party member with least remaining.

So if at least one member has 0 or 1 surges remaining, full XP.

 

[Nytmare]

The 5 minute adventure day is quite annoying for DMs looking to challenge their players, especially with the advent of healing surges. I'm looking for some ideas on how to deal with it.

Here's one I'm considering - When the party tries to rest, I add up all the remaining healing surges the party has, and that becomes the percentage chance of a random encounter. This would be subject to modifiers based on the situation. I'm also considering setting the XP on these encounters to half or zero.

I'm confused. You're having a problem with players resting after one fight because of healing surges, but they're resting with enough healing surges that you're going to base a wandering monster mechanic off of it?

I haven't had a problem, and I don't know if it's the way that I run, or if it's the way my players play, but I don't relish the idea of trying to run a session with overland travel. The one thing I had been thinking about doing was rebalancing encounters so that we could treat daily powers as once per session powers instead.

 

[Flipguarder]

No Nytmare what's happening is that his players are taking an extended rest after every fight and he doesn't like it but doesn't want to throw wandering encounters all the time.

 

[Mesh Hong]

I am a bit confused by this. You are having a problem with your PCs resting after every fight and in hostile areas?

If they are hostile areas then you know exactly what is there, and had already planned encounters. Surely all you need to do is to have the encounters go to the PCs rather than the PCs go to the encounters.

A hostile area should be hostile what ever your players are doing, the inhabitants are not going to sit around waiting to be attacked they are going to do some attacking themselves!

One thing I have done in the past in lairs when the initial creature defence is breaking is to have one creature try and rush to other nearby locations and sound the alarm. Then if that creature succeeds have the next couple of encounters join in the fight. It can make for a truely epic battle.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Combining encounters is nasty and can lead to lots of fun due to the extreme dangerous nature of the resulting combat. Of course, after that encounter, the PCs sure need to rest.

I think somewhere we played around with a random encounter table taking into account the characters level. Rolling something like 1d20 + party level and compare to a table to determine the encounter (level and a ready-made setup)

I think just using the existing encounters as "fodder" for the random encounter makes also sense. I wouldn't even classify it as "random". Through some hostile environments, enemies are sending patrols. If they find some of their allies (or even their enemies) slaughtered, they might organize a response - someone tracking the agressors and taking them down.

Of course, that wrecks any "suggested tactics taking into account special terrain", but it doesn't wreck your expectations on level gains and such stuff.

 

[Mesh Hong]

My problem with the whole "random encounters" situation in general is that in 4e you only have about 8 encounters between levels. This already leads to the PCs gaining levels very quickly (in game time) so if you start to introduce even more xp even in small doses it can cause havoc.

If I was introducing random encounters I would probably be forced to either:

build them into the plot in some way, i.e there will be 1 random encounter this level (though that really isn't very random at all is it? )

or

I would not award xp for the encounter (I am not sure the players would feel this was fair. )

 

[Nytmare]

I don't remember who it was who had been talking about it, but the long and the short of their system was a focus on encounters that furthered the story, and that random encounters didn't give any XP.