Gradually alerting the Dungeon

[Primitive Screwhead]

Over in this thread, the following comment was made.

Now as a mechanic, having a counter stack that builds during rounds of combat is not a bad idea: add a proportion of the stack count to perception and insight of monsters in the adventure as things progress. In a dungeon it represents the dungeon gradually alerting, in a city it represents the opposition's growing awareness of the PCs.

Firebeetle said this deserves exploring in its own thread and I agree...

So, tossing it out there.. what are the thoughts of a growing stack that makes it easier for the monsters to notice the PCs?

**Note, this would not be an every day rule, but specific to a string of encounters or a set location.

 

[buddhafrog]

I agree and this is something I do. I don't have a mechanic I use for it - i sort of play it by ear depending upon the location, the size of the encounter and other factors such as how stealthy they've been to this point, how well they've hid bodies, etc.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Handwaving and improvising here, too. As I try to balance my 4e encounters, adding too many enemies to one could lead to a debacle.

If I would design a commando-style stealthy intrusion dungeon, I'd use some kind of skill challenge mechanic. Each failure could alert some monsters who in turn might "direct" the characters to the big fight. They might take up positions in the complex which stop the players from exploring certain parts. After the third failure, the PCs are openly chased through the dungeon in the direction of the final encounter, which becomes somewhat harder due to the additional enemies.

Well, this idea has just been spontaneously made up; I don't know whether it might really work...

 

[the Jester]

Generally, I'd say handwave it. Tracking counters is a pain in the butt.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I agree that tracking counters can be a pain in the butt, however in limited use I can see an 'alert stack' adding depth to a game.

Of course you would need to provide the players with options for removing counters from the stack, probably via skill challenges, making the exploration more than a wandering from room to room gig.

In a city environment, it could be used to show how much the opposition {enemy assasin guild or perhaps the law enforcement} has noticed your activities.... or for that matter it could be used the same way for a courtly social encounter, demarking the rising interest of others in the PC shenanigans.


I do like the handwavey thing, but using counters in limited scenarios would put that concern up front and center

 

[the Jester]

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think I like your idea for very complex, large areas with interconnected different groups of monsters that aren't all allied (Temple of Elemental Evil is a great example).

Rather than trying to remember which group has what alert status in an area with 4-6 different factions, it might actually be easier to use some kind of tracking sheet. Also, an npc with multiple allegiances might not always alert all their factions.

 

[wcpfish]

I think I have to second the skill-challenge notion.

Let's use the example of a city. The players are trying to "flush-out" some corrupt officials who are part of a bigger plot that connects them to the thieves guild. Obviously several factions could be interested here....The legit members of the government, the corrupt members, the thieves guild, a rival gang to the thieves guild, the typical city nobles/courtiers/busybodies, and maybe some more.

So I suggest setting up a nice default of three levels of activity. Unaware (the group in question has little interest in the PCs and is unaware of their involvement). Aware (the group in question recognizes that the PCs have been "snooping around" and "picking up clues"). The third is Active (the group in question is aware of the PCs and has a vested interest in taking actions involving the PCs). Notice in the third stage I said "taking actions "involving" and not necessarily taking actions "against" the PCs. The rival gang may wish to see the thieves guild exposed and the corrupt officials discredited and thus may take actions to aid the PCs.

These sort of tangled interactions can drive a story for quite some time. Set up the default level on a brief table of the involved factions. Along with a note or to regarding consequences. Ex: Thieves Guild - Aware- The Thieves Guild knows of the PCs meddling due to their extensive information network. When they move to the Active level they will send a pair of elite assassins to deal with with party.

This is all the more complex your set-up needs to be. Now the next step is putting together some skill challenges (and the nice part here is you can reskin some of these to get multiple uses out of your work).

Here's an example: Skill Challenge :Greasing the Palms
In this challenge the players must smoothly bribe an official to get dirt on the corrupt officials. The individual must want to help (diplomacy or intimidate look like good starts). The party must offer a proper "level" of bribe (perhaps insight helps determine the right amount). And then the party must determine if the information they have bought is good or not (History?)

Of course the party could bribe a courtier or rival gang member as well. This allows you to get more mileage out of your work.

What about lowering your profile? This will be the third and final part of my advice. I suggest skill challanges that allow your PCs to lower a particular factions "level of interest". Perhaps the Thieves Guild is at "aware" level. The party then pays a group of similar looking adventurers to dress as them and leave town amongst much fanfare to "search out the evil dragon's lair far away in the Misty Mountains". The party will be gone for weeks and surely won't be around to cause trouble for the Thieves now, right? The Thieves Guild drops back to unaware level.

Use your imagination and think about measures and countermeasures real world intelligence agents use. The skill challenges should come fairly easily and the three-tiered system brings the enemies' collective awareness to the forefront without burdening you as the DM with more than a simple page or two of notes and some pre-made skill challenges!

Best of luck and happy gaming!

William C. Pfaff
President of Escape Velocity Gaming

 

[Saeviomagy]

How I would see it working:

The counter stack is made public: the players can see the pile and how many counters are on it, and are aware of the effects of the counters.

In a dungeon situation, one would need to actually track the DCs required for monsters to hear what's going on in the next room, set DC increases for doors, hallways etc. You could map out an entire dungeon with perception "costs" for each space.

As a default, the boss (or any other point of interest) wouldn't be particularly heavily guarded. He's not just standing in the altar room surrounded by goons all day.

The monsters would get the bonuses to their out-of-combat perception and insight scores.

This is all assuming that the dungeon denizens are somewhat friendly with each other: they're going to notice when the little old troglodyte down the hall stops answering the door and lets their mail pile up...

The idea is that stocking a dungeon with individually easier challenges, then using this system would lead to a more dynamic dungeon, and possibly even out the time-to-play between combat-heavy groups and stealth/diplomacy/cunning plan groups. s/d/c groups will take more time planning and executing their plans, and will have easier faster combats. Combat heavy groups will not spend so much time planning/executing, but will in turn get tougher and longer fights.

As for how to apply it in a city: again, it would be used to make a city that reacts more organically. The counter stack would be public, and represent a general awareness around town that something is up, which gradually would tend towards descriptions of the PCs and awareness of their goals.

For the city scenario, the streetwise skill probably needs some fleshing out: at present the possibility that your streetwise check attracts notice is assumed to be wholly controlled by the DM. In the counter system, that probably shouldn't be the case.

Either scenario should have some way to cool-off. Leaving the locale for a while, pulling off elaborate hoaxes (faking your own deaths!) and the like would all be possibilities.

I think what you gain is the idea that the PCs might need to do these things that are tangential to, but tightly related to their goals.

Now, there are some games where this sort of stuff isn't needed. I guess where it would come home heaviest is in games where the PCs are too used to the idea that a dungeon is a series of interconnected rooms with no interaction between each other.

 

[chaochou]

I really like this idea.

I'm currently prepping a heavily rewritten Keep on the Shadowfell and can see how this could add some extra dynamic to the game.

I'd use poker chips on the table. PC's head into the Keep's dungeon. Noisy battle with opening goblins adds one poker chip. Very noisy battle adds two. Goblin escapes to warn his mates add four.

Number of poker chips in the stack is a straight bonus on monsters' perception / initiative rolls in the next encounter and resets the stack. Waive the whole thing for brainless undead.

It looks neat. The bad guys get an 'awareness' of nearby trouble - higher initiative allows them to take better positions when a new combat starts - without all of them piling on the PCs in the first room.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Just an update, altho the concept is still a work in progress for me...

in an upcoming adventure the PC's get to...

Oh, spoiler alert for War of the Burning Sky, module #8
[sblock]
The PCs end up adventuring through a prison ala Chronicles of Riddick where everyone is simply dumped down a hole.
5 factions have various interests in the group, the bashers want thier stuff, the nullifiers want thier souls, the escape conspiritors want their help, the halfings want to be left alone, etc..
[/sblock]

There are 5ish factions who may be interested in the PCs for a variety of reasons. Each faction gets a token stack. Certain activities trigger adding a token for a faction, once the stack reaches a critical point.
Each faction has its 'activated' event, whether that be an ambush, diplomatic encounter, or what-ever.

The PC's can attempt short skill challenges to first identify the groups and thier motives, then to reduce the stack.
For instance, the bashers activated attack is to ambush the PCs. Reducing the bashers stack can involve intimidating them, besting them in combat, or making it appear the PCs are not a threat.. or, well the list goes on to whatever the players can come up with that makes sense.

The end result is a session focused on skill challenges built by the players that interact in a dynamic and open method with the game world.
Ideally, all the DM needs to design is the faction cards {with their activated events and notes on common ways to reduce the stack}.

disclaimer: I expect to use this for one, maybe two sessions in the entire campaign. I do not expect this to be a mechanic used every game.

This encounter should happen in my February or March session, so I have some time to flesh it out

I look forward to watching this thread for more ideas/improvements!