Digging a hole

[Slider Wade]

As a DM, I would grow tired of players constantly using this tactic.

I'd start to have my monsters NPCs find other ways into the encampment; using trees (Climbing up then shimmying across branches to drop down into the camp), flight, rings of blinking, etc.

Just something to keep in mind.

 

[Old_school_overlord]

Well, a basic covered pit trap has a cost of 1,800 gp eek and has a craft dc of 20 eek:) if your character has craft (trapmaking) +10 then he will first need to spend 600 gp's on raw materials eek:).

By taking 10, he can succeed at the craft DC automatically, and complete 40gps worth of work each week. So it will only take him 45 weeks to dig the pit, and make a cover for iteek:).

Its all in the PHB & DMG's extremely well thought out trap & craft sections

 

[aboyd]

I'd start to have my monsters NPCs find other ways into the encampment; using trees (Climbing up then shimmying across branches to drop down into the camp), flight, rings of blinking, etc.

I hate Borg tactics.

Somehow these enemies who never would have dropped into camp via tree branches suddenly start doing it. Why? Apparently they just "know" that there is a hidden moat. The knowledge is just shared among all enemy creatures, like a hive mind.

I prefer that my monsters are not mind-linked. They do not know that the previous group was spiked to death while trying to engage the party. They may be spiked to death too. If so, tough luck for the monsters, and kudos to the party for finding a winning strategy.

If this means that my wandering monster attacks dwindle down to a minuscule part of the game, so be it. The players will be engaged in other ways.

I dislike similar handling of successful feat combos. The player did the spiked-chain-combat-reflexes thing and all your monsters are getting walloped? As the DM, your job is not to "put an end to that" any more than you should be putting an end to the fireball spell.

Some things are successful. That's why they get used. Nerfing these things undermines a player's choices.

That's not to say that you blindly put every monster into the stew pot. The players will eventually get an encounter with stirges or something that bypasses their defenses every now & then. The trick is just to do that only at the same rate that it would have happened normally. That may mean lots of hobgoblins falling into spiked pits over and over again.

At one point my cleric used Glyph of Warding spells with sonic damage -- the natural assumption being that if it is so loud as to damage someone physically, it ought to be loud enough for the party to hear. We would make camp, spread multiple glyphs out around the perimiter, and all sleep without watches.

Time and time again, our DM had us being awakened by loud blasts. The monsters rarely died, but always entered into combat with us in wounded shape. Our battles were easier because of the work we did on our spell-ish imitation of a moat.

If my DM had not allowed that to play out similarly most times, I would have accused him of metagaming.

 

[irdeggman]

I hate Borg tactics.

Somehow these enemies who never would have dropped into camp via tree branches suddenly start doing it. Why? Apparently they just "know" that there is a hidden moat. The knowledge is just shared among all enemy creatures, like a hive mind.

I prefer that my monsters are not mind-linked. They do not know that the previous group was spiked to death while trying to engage the party. They may be spiked to death too. If so, tough luck for the monsters, and kudos to the party for finding a winning strategy.

If this means that my wandering monster attacks dwindle down to a minuscule part of the game, so be it. The players will be engaged in other ways.

I dislike similar handling of successful feat combos. The player did the spiked-chain-combat-reflexes thing and all your monsters are getting walloped? As the DM, your job is not to "put an end to that" any more than you should be putting an end to the fireball spell.

Some things are successful. That's why they get used. Nerfing these things undermines a player's choices.

That's not to say that you blindly put every monster into the stew pot. The players will eventually get an encounter with stirges or something that bypasses their defenses every now & then. The trick is just to do that only at the same rate that it would have happened normally. That may mean lots of hobgoblins falling into spiked pits over and over again.

At one point my cleric used Glyph of Warding spells with sonic damage -- the natural assumption being that if it is so loud as to damage someone physically, it ought to be loud enough for the party to hear. We would make camp, spread multiple glyphs out around the perimiter, and all sleep without watches.

Time and time again, our DM had us being awakened by loud blasts. The monsters rarely died, but always entered into combat with us in wounded shape. Our battles were easier because of the work we did on our spell-ish imitation of a moat.

If my DM had not allowed that to play out similarly most times, I would have accused him of metagaming.

Good points all.

Now if on the other hand the PCs are being pursued by a common enemy, subsequent groups could reasonably be expected to "find" the previous trap and "see what happened to those who fell prey to it", this would be a reasonable learning experience.

But as far as random (from different directions) groups of monsters (or even NPCs) it doesn't make sense for them to understand the trap setting pattern of the PCs.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

If the party spends more than one night in hostile territory using these tactics, it's entirely possible the natives could know what's going on. I very much doubt the group wants to take still more time filling in their work and disguising the fill-in.

"Hey, Regdar? Have you noticed the intermittent colored smoke a few hours along our backtrail? What do you think it means?"

That said, if territory is dangerous enough these tactics might be warranted, and the slower travel worth the trade-off, so I wouldn't discourage them just because I can, as DM.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

The 1E AD&D Wilderness Survival Guide had rates for digging through earth and stone. I think the 2E Complete Book of Dwarves also had digging rates (near the back under Mining, IIRC).

If you have either of those source books, you could reference the rates found there.

 

[taliesin15]

One factor I don't think has been broached here is very important--how dry or wet is the soil. Here in Central Texas we are currently in the midst of an exceptional drought. The other day I tried to dig a hole in the garden to plant some veggies--the soil was parched and required some very serious elbow grease and pitchfork, this for breaking up soil maybe 6 inches deep, and a vary small area at that (I should add that the soil here is inundated with caliche, or limestone).

If I had watered that area 5 days hence, it would have been easier to break it up and dig in.

If, on the other hand, it was all freshly wet, one would have the opposite issue.

This however does require the DM to keep realistic tabs on the weather, something I suspect few DMs bother to do.

 

[Trance-Zg]

As a tactic, my group has decided to construct some basic defenses when camping out in the wild. One such defense is to dig pits around where we bed down for the night. However, we're having a hard time figuring out how long doing so takes, and if it'd require any sort of check or die roll.

All I can find in the SRD about digging is the following, regarding cave-ins and collapses in dungeons:



This isn't very helpful for trying to figure out the rate at which a character with a shovel can dig a 10-foot hole in a 5-foot square area.

We're also considering camouflaging the pit, and putting in spikes as well. Presumably, at some point - probably when adding the camo and/or spikes - this will require the Craft (trapmaking) skill, which nobody has. I'm assuming that they'll just need to make an untrained Craft (trapmaking) check at that point, right?

EDIT: Another issue is creating cover around their encampment. Presuming they can use dirt from digging holes, how much (that is, how many 5-foot square, 10-foot deep holes' worth) of dirt and surrounding debris are necessary to create low obstacles for cover? How long would it take to make them for a 5-foot square (presumably it wouldn't take up the square, would it)?

1st of all, do you plan to have a camp there for weeks of just for a night?

If it's just for a night I would say that this idea is pretty dumb

Let's say that you want to leave at least 10 by 10 feet of encircled space for sleeping. that's 60 ft of hole lenght around it. and 5 feet wide 10 ft deep. If you're using digged out debris for aditional wall I would still say that you need to dig at least 7 ft into the ground.

That is a lot of work for a night bed. I would say atleast 3 days worth of 8 hr diging.

Solutions;

1. wizard casts alarm.

2. you have 2 elves in party that take turns on watch.

3 dig a foxhole and put on a scent breaker and have a ranger/druid/barbarian camo you inside.