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<blockquote data-quote="Yora" data-source="post: 8466006" data-attributes="member: 6670763"><p>XP should not come (primarily) from fighting monsters. Dungeon Crawling is not an arena fight club, but an exploration game. The character advancement mechanic should reflect that.</p><p></p><p>Use Wandering Monsters, while some dungeons are exceptions, megadungeons are living environments. The creatures dwelling there have their own lives and don't sit in their rooms for eternity waiting for PCs to find them. Use additional wandering monster checks to the regular ones any times the party does something that could attract other creatures in the area to come investigate, like making loud noises as they are tearing down stuff that's in their way.</p><p></p><p>Randomize how creatures and NPCs in the dungeon react to seeing the party. Sometimes it's obvious what they'll do, but in most cases they could react in all kinds of ways. Since it's difficult to come up with something on the spot, a simple roll to determine if the monsters attack, become threatening, run away, or try to talk with the party is a very useful tool.</p><p></p><p>Build shortcuts into the dungeon, which can be doors that can be unlocked from the other side (usually a lower level) or other connections that can only be used by parties with certain spells or magic items. Which you can place as treasures or scrolls deeper in the dungeon. Opening up shortcuts to newly opened areas is both a nice objective for the players, and a nice reward. Especially when you have wandering monsters you'll run into every time you go back to the surface and then back down to continue exploring. Especially especially when monster fights don't offer any meaningful reward to make progress, and are only a sink for resources.</p><p></p><p>Use encumbrance. A megadungeon is not a fortress assault, but an exploration expedition. The party has only the tools that they bring and that they can find, and going back to buy new ones will take time. (And a whole lot of wandering monsters on the shopping trip and the way back.) The food and water they need to bring also takes up space, as does all the nice treasure that they find. (I recommnd not giving out bags of holding, since that defeats the whole purpose of this.)</p><p>Listing all the items by weight and constantly calculating the total is impractical because it's too much work, so abstract things a bit and set the encumbrance levels simply to the number of items carried, with stuff like armor and the like counting as multiple items. Letting characters carry a number of items equal to their Strength scores without getting any penalties is often a good starting point.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Yora, post: 8466006, member: 6670763"] XP should not come (primarily) from fighting monsters. Dungeon Crawling is not an arena fight club, but an exploration game. The character advancement mechanic should reflect that. Use Wandering Monsters, while some dungeons are exceptions, megadungeons are living environments. The creatures dwelling there have their own lives and don't sit in their rooms for eternity waiting for PCs to find them. Use additional wandering monster checks to the regular ones any times the party does something that could attract other creatures in the area to come investigate, like making loud noises as they are tearing down stuff that's in their way. Randomize how creatures and NPCs in the dungeon react to seeing the party. Sometimes it's obvious what they'll do, but in most cases they could react in all kinds of ways. Since it's difficult to come up with something on the spot, a simple roll to determine if the monsters attack, become threatening, run away, or try to talk with the party is a very useful tool. Build shortcuts into the dungeon, which can be doors that can be unlocked from the other side (usually a lower level) or other connections that can only be used by parties with certain spells or magic items. Which you can place as treasures or scrolls deeper in the dungeon. Opening up shortcuts to newly opened areas is both a nice objective for the players, and a nice reward. Especially when you have wandering monsters you'll run into every time you go back to the surface and then back down to continue exploring. Especially especially when monster fights don't offer any meaningful reward to make progress, and are only a sink for resources. Use encumbrance. A megadungeon is not a fortress assault, but an exploration expedition. The party has only the tools that they bring and that they can find, and going back to buy new ones will take time. (And a whole lot of wandering monsters on the shopping trip and the way back.) The food and water they need to bring also takes up space, as does all the nice treasure that they find. (I recommnd not giving out bags of holding, since that defeats the whole purpose of this.) Listing all the items by weight and constantly calculating the total is impractical because it's too much work, so abstract things a bit and set the encumbrance levels simply to the number of items carried, with stuff like armor and the like counting as multiple items. Letting characters carry a number of items equal to their Strength scores without getting any penalties is often a good starting point. [/QUOTE]
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