Pacing Dungeon Crawls

[scholz]

I have always had trouble pacing dungeon crawl style adventures, that is adventures with a large number of encounters (more than a typical party can handle without rest).

On one hand, it is always fun to see the party low on resources, healing, etc.. struggle to fight against the omnipresent evils. On the other hand, there is something weird about the typical D&D dungeon day.

Wake - 1 hour spell prep.
Adventure - Time to getting to the first encounter or from one encounter to the next, (traps, puzzles, etc), what have you. Typically this is a fair short time in dungeon since dungeons are not miles long (usually).
Fights tend to last fewer than 10 rounds (2 minutes). If a single CR equal to the party level is suppose to drain 20% of the resources, five such encounters will mean the party has to rest. Maybe a bit more assuming most encounters are less than the party's EL (is this the case?).

So a typical day in a dungeon (or evil forest, cave, castle, etc..) is going to be 10 minutes plus travel time. The result of this is that party will wake, memorize spells, go adventure, and be done for the day before lunch. Then they will want to rest or sleep before adventuring again. I've seen this many times, an adventure with numerous encounters wears a party out so quickly they end up spending hours camped out in the dungeon. It just seems very weird to me.

Q. What do I want?
A. Adventures that last all game day or more. How to achieve this.

Possible solutions.
1. Reduce number of resource draining encounters, increase time to move, mapping, role playing, puzzle solving, etc.. This is a pretty good idea, but is much more labor intensive for the DM, and can get boring for the players.

2. House Rule: Rest and Recovery. I tried this once, moving all the natural healing and spell recover to one hour of rest. Result. Party was never low on resources because they would rest after every encounter (why not, it is only an hour), so even more time was spent 'camping'.

3. Impose time limits: this old school technique can work in some games, but gets tedious from a player point of view, especially if every game is like that. Also it seems to hurt spell casters more than fighters and rogues. With adequate HPs the latter group is good to go, but wihout spells, the former are reduced to using whatever magic items you provide them with.

4. Encourage multi-classing, all characters will be able to go with just HPs. Not a bad situation especially if you provide cheap healing (wands). But without same level Priests and Mages the party may suffer against equal CR encounters.

5. House rule some kind of Mana system so that spellcasters can recover spells at a faster rate, but not so fast they are never drained. I've never come on a good mana system that managed this feat. Another spin is to give spell casters items or abilities that do not go away and provide them with something to do each round the fighters and rogues are in there, even if they are out of spells (or saving them). I tend to get bored of wands of combat spells, but I haven't quite figured a good substitute.

I am not really happy with any of the above solutions. Hence my post.
Is there a way to keep the drain of resources (spells, HPS) a feature of the game, but prolong the period of activity for all players beyond a few encounters?

 

[StalkingBlue]

Hmm. Have you considered moving away from large dungeons to a variety of scenarios set in towns, wilderness areas etc, with shorter dungeons sprinkled in? If the dungeon isn't much bigger than your party's resources they may decide to push on regardless, or will have to rest only once before they finish it. Also it's much easier to include non-combat encounters in a non-dungeon environment.

That's me, don't know whether that'd fit your style. I've never been particularly good at DMing dungeons of the neverending kind, nor at playing in them.

 

[Mark]

Is there a way to keep the drain of resources (spells, HPS) a feature of the game, but prolong the period of activity for all players beyond a few encounters?

You may have to sprinkle your treasures with resources that replenish those of the party. I'd suggest keeping a large list, along with item values, and being flexible in what they find so that it can be tailored to their immediate needs more readily.

(Good sig, btw.)

 

[scholz]

You may have to sprinkle your treasures with resources that replenish those of the party. I'd suggest keeping a large list, along with item values, and being flexible in what they find so that it can be tailored to their immediate needs more readily.

(Good sig, btw.)

I am not sure that is easy with regard to spells. You could certainly put some healing potions or the like in the treasure, but spells are harder to do. Scrolls? I guess that would work, or low charge wands? It just seems a little artificial.

I used to allow people to cast spells over their limit with a chance of spell failure, but I don't really like that idea anymore (though I never really had a problem with it).

 

[Mark]

It just seems a little artificial.

It's a world created by one person, of course it is artificial.

The trick is to make it not feel artificial. Scrolls are a good idea. It's also a good way to help expand the spellbooks of the arcane casters or to give any caster some alternatives they may not have thought of before.

Scrolls with detect magic are certainly something that are mundane but can be very helpful locating other treasure and taking advantage of them right away, or even to locate dangerous magical traps. They're cheap and really don't give a lot of advantage, but it is likely that in a game where the players are not taking a lot of rest stops that they'd be invaluable in higher frequency.

Also, rations that bestow some one-time bonus, but taste absolutely horrible can be a good way to give but not give without compromise.

A magic weapon that looks like it has been damaged might be helpful for a time but break after, say, twenty uses. In essence, you're granting an attack bonus for twenty swings of that weapon without handing over the straight-up value of the weapon if it was undamaged.

A font (or pool) of magical water that gives weapons or armor a temporary bonus if submerged within (but that loses its magic if moved) is another way to give some help that doesn't overly effect game balance.

There are plenty of one-shot items in the books that can be integrated in such a game, also. If the players start to hoard or sell them, rather than to use them, just stop leaving them lying around so much.

You can't make the players move faster, you can only give them the opportunity to do so and allow them to take advantage of it if they desire that type of game.

Look for ways to give without giving away the house and I think you'll be fine. Don't worry so much about something being artificial. It all is and only is seen as such if the DM decides to present it in that way.

 

[WanderingMonster]

Unearthed Arcana has your solutions: Reserve Hit Points and Recharge Magic.

To sum up: w/Reserve Hit Points, your recover faster, but each encounter is just as deadly. Recharge magic allows spellcasters to use their spells all day long (no slots), but at specific intervals. My group has tried these opitions and we like them for our style of play.

Of course you'd need Unearthed Arcana.

 

[Hand of Evil]

What WanderingMonster said.

Zone your dungeons too, I do three levels: Green is CR-5 of party, PCs can take out creatures with little or no effort and most monsters will avoid contact. Yellow is CR-2 of party, creatures are a danger to PCs in numbers. Red zones are CR= to party, PC will have true challenge before them.

You can get 'carried away' with this, under this system the party is a moving red zone, if half hit points/spells/such they can change color, becoming yellow, you then have an idea of what to throw at them. If you keep your monsters listed by danger level you just drop them into the game where you want them.

 

[S'mon]

In most dungeons I wouldn't let the party rest & camp within a couple of minutes of the next 'encounter'. PCs groups who do that IMC generally come to a sticky end, as the dungeon inhabitants counter-attack in force. If you want lengthy dungeon crawls I suggest extensive Underdark-style cave complexes with a variety of smaller dungeons/lairs within. Any dungeon that has a single controlling force will react to PC incursion, so the PCs need to keep attacking or else retreat once their powers are exhausted.