D&D 5E How to Run Combats in a Cavernous Dungeon Without Alerting All NPC's?

[UngainlyTitan]

Also, add in doors, if they make sense. If the pcs need some tools, make them available without any commentary about their use.

 

[aco175]

he party is in a massive underground lair for Stone Giants (this particular tribe is extremely warlike,

Extremely warlike generally means to me that the other giants are used to having kerfuffles among themselves and sounds of combat is common in many of the areas. Fireballs and lightning bolts may be more than they are used to though.

You can telegraph to players that reinforcements can come by having them see a fight between giants and others come to watch or just tell them about seeing shadows from other giants in the firelight from the next room.

Another thing is to make the halls longer than on the map. Large rooms are separated by 100ft hallways. Have small toilets and cleaning closets or empty meeting rooms join them but are empty.

 

[Nefermandias]

Let the players solve their own problems.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Your point is a good one, thanks, but I have to say that I see these maps frequently. Similar to this one:
View attachment 382756
There are no doors on that map but I assume that the designer intended it for use as a battle map. Outside of building in good covers like the one you suggested, I don't really understand how to make use of these kinds of maps if there are going to be combat encounters in them.

Thanks to you and to any others who've got some thoughts!

Maps such as this are designed in a way that allows them to be printed on a single sheet of paper, which means distances are much more crammed than they otherwise should / need to be. Especially in the "natural cavern" section... those rooms and tunnels would in actuality be much, much further apart than what gets represented by a printable map. So my recommendation is not treat these maps always as sacrosanct.

So when scaling this map up to "Giant size"... you can keep the cardinal directions as they are, but just double / triple / quadruple the lengths of all the corridors. That will spread all the rooms and caverns out, and thus when coupled with a lot of the great ideas already given (I especially like the point that said that thee war-like giants would all wrestle and beat up on each other and thus and probably used to hearing the sounds of fighting and think nothing of it)... you can get away with "the logic" much easier.

 

[Plaguescarred]

You can rationalize it by saying that such cavern are very sound proof in general and the stone giants are used to not-so audible loud noise from conflict that occasionally arise between them often leading to yelling or fighting and that the clan adopt a leave-it-alone approach toward, where they don't check or intervene unless an alarm is raised, be it a horn, gong, stone tap (morse-like) or other distincting signal system.

Of course very unusual noise coming from spells for example could always cause some to investigate out of curiosity.

 

[pontinyc]

These are all excellent thoughts so far, thanks to all!

 

[abirdcall]

Extremely warlike generally means to me that the other giants are used to having kerfuffles among themselves and sounds of combat is common in many of the areas. Fireballs and lightning bolts may be more than they are used to though.

You can telegraph to players that reinforcements can come by having them see a fight between giants and others come to watch or just tell them about seeing shadows from other giants in the firelight from the next room.

Another thing is to make the halls longer than on the map. Large rooms are separated by 100ft hallways. Have small toilets and cleaning closets or empty meeting rooms join them but are empty.

I like this suggestion the most.

Puts players in a situation where they need to be careful about how they attack.

I could see the giants being too proud to call out for help too.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

RAW very few things generate noise that travels. The noise from Thunderwave, a spell that creates a blast of thunder powerful enough that it can knock creatures away, is stated to only be audible up to 300 feet away. The Thunderclap cantrip has an even shorter range at 100 feet.

 

[Rabulias]

Moss/fungi/mold/algae growing on the walls and ceilings can act like sound dampening foam in modern recording studios. Bonus: they can be an opponent or hazard themselves!

 

[Quickleaf]

Can you share the map? One of the lenses that I examine a dungeon map through is "how sound might travel."

For example, flowing water or a waterfall might mask all but the loudest of sounds.

Thick stone can muffle sounds to be all but undecipherable echoes.

Giant chanting in Area 13 might drown out sounds in Areas 10, 11, 12, 14, and 15.

Sound in the central chamber might travel within a certain zone of the dungeon, but not into adjoining zones.