My weekly 5E game (on Fantasy grounds) consistently includes 8 player characters and occasionally hits 10. The big group has vexed me a little in challenging them, especially since our play structure has lent itself toward only an encounter or two between rests (there is a lot of travelling). While I am considering manipulating the rest mechanics to compensate for that part, I also want to have them go through a more traditional dungeon adventure. I need help figuring out how to build a dungeon for such a large party.
I tried once previously and the typical style of dungeon I would have used for a regular 4 or 5 member party just did not cut it. Not only were the challenges not up to snuff with so many PCs, the layout was no good. It felt static and cramped as PCs jostled around one another to get into position and then in very short order dealt with whatever the threat was. I want to figure out how to make a dungeon environment dynamic and interesting and most importantly engaging for such a large group, keeping in mind that it should be more than a string of fights.
Any ideas are more than welcome. Thanks!
Hey, I've been in your shoes, just with a party of 7, so not quite so big.
A couple "thoughts from the DM road..."
1. Change travel
Simple change: long resting requires comfort/security that is rarely present when journeying in the wilderness. Basically, you need some kind of sanctuary where you don't have to worry about keeping watching and whether owlbears are gonna getcha. So the "journey" becomes the "adventuring day." Useful if you have usually have 1-2 encounters between rests, like you said.
2. Defined marching order
Start by having most of your passageways 10-feet wide and ask for the party to give you a defined marching order. Have that on a piece of paper, with each PC possibly numbered (for determining random targets and other stuff). This saves headache later on.
3. Think BIG atmospheric areas
You're going to need some big maps (or some big imaginations if you play theater-of-the-mind). Don't send them into kobold warrens, unless they're really into that sort of thing. Think the Mines of Moria as Peter Jackson imagined it on film, with huge chambers and pillars supporting a roof so high you can scarcely see it in torch light.
4. Encourage movement
As there are more PCs there's a force multiplier that encourages staying in place and beating the monsters down. Formation fighting may be awesome historically, but when overused in D&D it feels uninspired and static. Encourage movement, either with the carrot or stick approach. This is an entire topic unto itself. But for starters, include multiple routes to a destination, branching pathways, and circular paths. Also, think vertically and in 3D. I've found that helps a lot to bring a dungeon to life, and for a large group allows you to have 2 or even 3 encounters happening concurrently.
5. Think "zones" not "rooms" & Multiple threat vectors
Rarely will you want one vector of threat. A chimera guarding a door in a tomb is good for a smaller group but not for such a large party. Instead, you want to change that to: There's a tomb complex (the encounter zone) with several areas like a spell-warded noble's vault, a hall of funerary totems and riddling broken statues, an ossuary where the blessed progenitor of the family supposedly is interred along with his 40 priest-spouses, a trapped entry foyer, a hidden treasure vault for a bountiful afterlife, a false gate (maybe a mimic), and the gate room with its stone surface polished to an eerily reflective degree. These areas interconnect.
Channels of oil flow through special alcoves at human waist height, with an occasional lump of wax in the channel. A breeze blows through the complex from east to west, thanks to the design of tiny air passages on the easternmost wall. Massive panels of polished stone (reflective like the gate) adorn various parts of the tomb, seemingly a pattern signaling some trap on the floor (a glyph? a pit? you choose).
Three chimera block the way, but only one is an immediately obvious threat; the other two lurk in statue form in other areas of the tomb complex. Each chimera has a different colored dragon head: The red-headed one can light the oil channel, creating bright light (yah!) and also some minor walls of fire as an obstacle for the PCs (not so yah). The green-headed one breathes its cloud of poison gas, letting that drift across the tomb complex carried by the breeze. And the blue-headed includes the door in its breath attacks, causing a ricocheting bolt of lightning to to circumnavigate the entire tomb complex thanks to the orientation of the reflective stones.
Now you have multiple ways for a large party to interact with the situation. Do we plug the airways or try to use them to clear the gas? Do we want the bright light or do we look for a way to drain oil reservoir to end fire hazards...or even try to use it to our advantage? Do we try to break the reflective stones or try to discern a way to rotate them to our advantage? Do we try to figure out which gate is the right one and devise a means to open it, hoping to avoid the chimera altogether?
6. Dilemmas
Finding a good dilemma for your group of players (and their characters) is an art. But once you find one, you can step out of the way and let your large party debate among themselves. This (a) encourages role-playing and deepens their experience, (b) gives you ideas that may arise during their discussion, and (c) buys you time if you need to plan something, search your notes take care of a baby or pet, grab a snack, etc.
Example from my old game: PCs were fighting kobolds, who'd ambushed them twice before, and PCs stomped them to the curb. A kobold "peace offering" is left in the form of a sack of treasure with a note pleading for the PCs not to murder the rest of their tribe and promising tribute. 2/3rds of the party doesn't buy it and smells a trap. Other 1/3 is kobold sympathetic for various reasons. Debate ensued. I was able to go over my notes about this kobold tribe. Finally, the paladin PC decides to open the bag; it looks empty, but then so does a
bag of holding. This sack also detects as magic. He reaches inside. It's a
bag of devouring. Saving him proved memorable because they chose to sacrifice their actual
bag of holding to create a dimensional rift and free him. The
sphere of annihilation they created was another story.
Later, the paladin PC is a bit jaded when the bard PC tries to forge an alliance with a kobold chief...and the debate about the nature of kobolds continued.
7. Attack the rear (and the flanks too)
Many dungeon encounters – usually in the room-by-room model (different than the zone model) – involve a frontal assault. It's like football for dummies. The melee guys go to the frontline, the artillery hang back, and everyone's trying to take one another's artillery down while keeping the opposing side's melee fighters from breaking through. Obviously that's reductively simple, but the basic idea is that there are two arrows pointed at each other and that's the only direction conflict occurs.
Screw that. For a big group you want (a) multiple routes to various archer perches, chokepoints, good spots to set up a flank, hiding places for sneak attacks, and evocative cover, and (b) monsters that use the terrain to their advantage and try to flank the PCs / attack them from behind.
8. Place shiny treasure in a risky place
Doesn't matter your group size, because there's usually at least one player who will go for that treasure. And trigger your fiendish hazard/trap/ambush. Actually with a bigger group the PCs are even more likely to be their own worst enemies. Play on that.
9. Multi-variable challenges
I'm going to use a non-combat example here. Say there's a lizardfolk tribe the PCs want to ally with (it gives them access to an area & guides), but the chieftain is cursed and won't strike an alliance until the curse is lifted. Chances are, especially in a big group, someone has
remove curse as an option. So you need to make that curse more involved...
The "curse" on the chieftain is actually on every single lizardfolk in the tribe, cursing them to experience a hypnotic sort of wanderlust when they come of hunting age, and venturing down into dangerous dungeons (and the lair of the monster that afflicted the curse). While the chieftain cares about his whole tribe, he's especially concerned for his son. However, the shaman insists the way to undo the curse is to collapse the lower tunnels, build stronger walls, and perform a painful exorcism of evil spirits on the accursed with a potentially lethal poison. Some of the shaman's ideas are strategically sound but he's off base when it comes to removing the curse. And since the chieftain is loathe to take the shaman's strategic advice, since his wife was lost in the lower dungeons (and sealing the tunnels would mean giving up hope that his wife is still alive), the chieftain feels he needs to listen to the shaman about spiritual matters.
Now, the PCs have some choices. They can save the son with
remove curse, gaining the chieftain's favor but earning the shaman's disfavor, and possibly other lizardfolk families (too many for the PCs) will beg for their young to be freed of the curse. They can venture down into the depths to confront whatever lies there...and hope the shaman and his supporters don't seal off the tunnels that are their way back up in the meantime! They can ally with the shaman to crush the monster that lies below, gaining free loot and likely the undying enmity of the chieftain...so orchestrating the shaman's secretly desired coup might help them. Or maybe they can try to covertly cast
remove curse (along with
neutralize poison) during one of the shaman's exorcisms? Lots of options.
Basic rule is: If you can think of one simple solution, your large group of players likely can think of three. Complexify it.
10. Hit them when they're down
Play your monsters with absolute ruthlessness (and Intelligence appropriate tactics, too). When a PC hits the ground unconscious, have the monster (or one of its allies if they're working in a swarm/pack/horde) go for the PCs' throat. First, it acts as an automatic critical hit. Second, ANY damage a creature takes while dying counts as two automatic failed death saves (see PHB 76). Healing magic is a huge factor for the survival of larger parties. And it's something that most monsters lack. So go for the jugular.
And also, you can apply this principle outside of combat too, but don't overdo it.
