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5th level characters vs a purple worm
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<blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7523527" data-attributes="member: 20323"><p>Old modules like <em>Desert of Desolation</em> had an ethos that's absent from many modern adventures, and that ethos was: <em>There's always a bigger fish, and sometimes the wise adventurer runs away to live another day.</em></p><p></p><p>The 5e DMG has (mediocre) chase rules, but I'd have those on hand for a purple worm encounter for 5th level PCs, adapting them for a flight & pursuit situation.</p><p></p><p>AFAICR, purple worms were borrowed from <em>Dune's</em> sandworms with a limited tremorsense and limited burrowing. At least that's how I ran them in AD&D. Generally there were clues of a purple worm's presence before encountering it – mounds, wormwrithings, excrement, etc. And in my games they were mostly drawn to large creatures (smaller prey not being worth the effort) or very heavy footfalls, so stealthy parties could avoid triggering an encounter entirely. If you got outside of its tremorsense and circled, the worm could lose track of you. If you reached really hard dense rock, the worm would be unable to burrow through that. Finally, they only had medium morale (12 I think), so reducing one to half hit points or so should be enough to drive it off.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Quickleaf, post: 7523527, member: 20323"] Old modules like [I]Desert of Desolation[/I] had an ethos that's absent from many modern adventures, and that ethos was: [I]There's always a bigger fish, and sometimes the wise adventurer runs away to live another day.[/I] The 5e DMG has (mediocre) chase rules, but I'd have those on hand for a purple worm encounter for 5th level PCs, adapting them for a flight & pursuit situation. AFAICR, purple worms were borrowed from [I]Dune's[/I] sandworms with a limited tremorsense and limited burrowing. At least that's how I ran them in AD&D. Generally there were clues of a purple worm's presence before encountering it – mounds, wormwrithings, excrement, etc. And in my games they were mostly drawn to large creatures (smaller prey not being worth the effort) or very heavy footfalls, so stealthy parties could avoid triggering an encounter entirely. If you got outside of its tremorsense and circled, the worm could lose track of you. If you reached really hard dense rock, the worm would be unable to burrow through that. Finally, they only had medium morale (12 I think), so reducing one to half hit points or so should be enough to drive it off. [/QUOTE]
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