Better Cave Exploration [Archive] - Wizards Community

Better Cave Exploration [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
lulzapalooza
10-05-07, 04:47 PM I just watched the Descent, which was quite a bit better than I thought it would be. It inspired me to design a dungeon in a cave system, with a few new spins I think my players will freagin' hate!

The following could be used as a challenge in of itself in a low-level encounter, or could be obstacles to overcome during a larger encounter featuring monsters or traps.

I especially like the first one! There's nothing scarrier than being helpless.

The Tight Squeeze: This narrow tunnel in the cave walls is just barely large enough to allow one medium sized creature to crawl his way through to the other side on his stomach, assuming that the tunnel stays the same size and doesn’t get any smaller, doesn’t collapse, or take turns too sharp for the character to coerce. The character is helpless while crawling through the tunnel, and moves at five feet per round if he succeeds on a DC 10 climb check. If he fails his climb check he doesn’t move this round. Characters wearing heavy armor can’t climb through a tight squeeze.

Every round the character must make a will save (DC 8) or freeze with fear. He is unable to take any actions each round until he succeeds on a will save (DC 15) to ‘snap out of it.’ Failing the check by five or more will make the character shake, flail, and scream, unable to listen to reason. If someone within ten feet of the frozen character makes a diplomacy check (DC 15) the character frozen with fear receives a +3 morale bonus on his will save to ‘snap out’ of the fear effect.

For every character passing through the tunnel there could be (DM’s discretion) a 5% – 35% chance that the cavern collapses. 1d4 five foot sections of the tunnel collapses, crushing anyone in the square, causing 1d10 bludgeoning damage, and trapping anyone underneath it. A strength check (DC 18) and one hour for every five foot square is needed to free a trapped character. A character thus trapped cannot free himself with a strength check, but an escape artist check (DC 22) can release him.

A small characters move through a tight squeeze as their full base speed per round, and are not considered helpless, but still are subject to all checks and saves, and can only take half actions (either one standard or one move action).

Phosphorescent Rocks: Some rocks that are exposed to light ‘soak up’ the light and seem to store if for a brief period of time. This causes shadowy illumination for ten feet, but it also has a more dangerous aspect. Down in the dark, where nothing seems more real than the even smallest trace of light, these phosphorescents can look a lot like sunlight. It takes a survival (DC 12) check to realize the source of light isn’t the way to the surface.

Crags Underfoot: As natural stone floors (DMG pg. 60). Movement takes two squares and the DCs of Balance and Tumble increase by 5. Running and charging are impossible. The ground is unstable, and your weight could cause rocks and stones shift, depositing your ass squarely on the ground. Every round at the conclusion of the character’s action roll a d%, if the results are 25% or less the character trips and must make a balance check (DC 16) or be rendered prone. A character that falls takes 1d6 piercing or bludgeoning damage (DM’s discretion depending the type of stones present). A character that falls has a 50% chance of hitting his head and receiving 2d12 sub-duel damage. Characters with sub-duel damage equal his current hit-points are unconscious and helpless.

The Earth’s Ichors: There is a substance that runs in the veins of earth beneath our feet, red like blood, known only as the Earth’s Ichors. It is a combination of mud and thin gravel, mineral deposits that make it red as the color of blood or more usually rust. Large hardy bubbles rise to the surface of pools and slow moving springs. The Ichors is as thin as water, but can not be drunk. It can be swam in as water. Water Breathing and other sources of the ability to breathe underwater don’t function. Nothing lives in the ichors and nothing gains sustenance from it. The ichors can be near freezing cold or near boiling temperature and it doesn’t change appearance, smell, or consistency. The ichors, which is unrefined oil, doesn’t explode if exposed to fire. The ichors smell terrible, and anyone leaving an area where ichor is present can be freely tracked for 1d6 hours by any creature with the scent ability.
GoriceXII
10-05-07, 04:52 PM I really like your ideas. The film btw was one I really enjoyed. I think more than the crawlers themselves what I liked was how vivid the depictions of caving and rope use and so on were, and also how DARK the film was while letting you see the characters clearly.

Another element I'd want to see put in--not sure how I'd describe it but you seem to have a gift--is the unexpected chasm. At least twice in the film the characters come across a huge crevasse or drop without much warning. I believe in The Hobbit such a moment happens when the party are fleeing the goblins and Bilbo is sent tumbling down to his meeting with Gollum.

The darkness as well is something that is not mentioned much in D&D but I find that an alarming element--we're so used to light in our society in particular that those instances when you're outside of a constant source of it are alarming.
lulzapalooza
10-05-07, 11:28 PM I considered that, but there are already pretty good rules for darkness in the DMG, on page 302, and a sudden drop is the same thing as a pitfall, which are especially dangerous in the dark. I really couldn't come up with anything better than that.
GoriceXII
10-06-07, 01:25 AM Here's some grist for your mill. I'm planning an encounter for my pcs with a small clan of Spriggans for an upcoming adventure this week. It will partly involve some caving--probably unexpected though there will be a cleric who can provide some light as well as a ranger who has a continual flame cast in a bullseye lantern. However light sources can be destroyed--the Spriggan leader is a druid and all Spriggans have "shatter".

The cave in question is beneath a deciduous forest and has some wide open spaces, some narrow crawlspaces, at least one area with water. I'm hoping for unprepared pursuit.
lulzapalooza
10-06-07, 03:19 PM I had some time to kill, so I put together an encounter featuring Spriggens in a cave! I left Area 5 unfinished because I have to go to work. This took me three hours to do, map and all.

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u162/lulzapalooza/sprigganscave.jpg

I don’t own the FF, so I don’t have the slightest idea of what a Spriggen is, but I’ll do my best.

Area 1
The entrance to the Spriggen’s cave jerks around a corner quickly, suddenly leaving the party in near complete darkness. Area 1 has uneven ground, treat as Crags Underfoot. A phase spider has taken to using this chamber as it’s lair. The Spriggens allow it to stay because it’s an effective guard. The phase spider will use its ethereal jaunt ability to get as close as possible to a lone character, before attacking and using its ethereal jaunt ability to escape to the other side of the room. The phase spider uses the environment wisely, drawing characters over long distances in hopes of making them trip. The phase spider doesn’t need to make balance checks to avoid falling. If drawn into prolonged combat the spider continues fighting until it dies, it doesn’t flee its lair.

Area 2
This small tunnel functions as a Tight Squeeze. It’s a straight shot from one side of the forty foot tunnel to the other, but the party doesn’t know how long it is or whether or not it changes size or shape without an intimate knowledge of dungeon architecture. With knowledge (dungeoneering) check the party could be privy to more information:

DC 12: Small claw marks suggest many small feet pass through tunnel. (A survival check, DC 10, reveals it to be nothing more than a rat)
DC 14: The barely noticeable smell of decaying feces wafts through the hole, and it’s possible that open flames could cause the tunnel to explode if they hit a pocket of gas in the tunnel.
DC 16: Just enough wind passes through the tunnel to suggest an alternative exit exists somewhere in the cave, and aerates the caves, dispersing any harmful fumes.
DC 17: The tunnel looks unstable, and extreme caution should be taken when crawling through. There is 10% less chance of the cave collapsing with this knowledge.
DC 20: The tunnel is about forty feet long, and based on the even distribution of debris and small animal bones, the tunnel is probably straight, and the way the stones lay it is apparent the tunnel is mostly uniform in size.

The tunnel doesn’t explode if exposed to fire, that’s a red herring to startle inexperienced cavers. Rats do use the cave, and there is a 25% chance of encountering one, but the rat will turn around and flee immediately(You could give the player a turn to react, and you can laugh as he struggles in futility, squirming before a lowly rat, before it turns around and runs the other way. If the player takes an extreme action that compromises the integrity of the tunnel, increase the subsequent chance of collapse). There is a 15% chance of the cave collapsing for every five feet of movement, but if the party is aware of the danger before hand by succeeding on the knowledge dungeoneering check, DC 17, they can reduce the chance to 5% for every five feet of movement (That’s still a pretty good chance, for a party of four to make it through the forty foot tunnel you’d need to make that roll, 32 times. I’d suggest drawing out the tunnel in full, placing the characters minis on the map, and follow their slow progress turn after turn, make sure they know they’re helpless, and that if something happens, they’re screwed.) If the tunnel does collapse, the redistribution of rocks makes for a larger tunnel on top of the fallen rocks, which permits players to go through with ease, after they’ve dug their buried friend out, of course.

Area 3
A rat swarm dens in this chamber. The floor is covered in the bones of small animals, and one or two humanoids, treat the terrain as dense rubble (DMG pg 60). The DC of Balance and Tumble checks rise by 5 and Move Silently by 2. The rat swarm, once aware of the presence of the party, quickly moves up the tunnels to the north in a mad dash for safety. This warns any creatures waiting in area 5. A single fossilized roper corpse hangs from the ceiling, its long dead, and appears to be a hanging stalactite. A character that succeeds on a DC 15 spot check sees the roper, but believes it’s still alive, seemingly guarding the next pair of tunnels. If the player makes a spot check DC 22 the party realizes the roper is dead, and can move down the tunnel.

Area 4a
Phosphorescent Rocks make the character believe that daylight is just above their heads in the area marked 4a, but a pitfall, concealed by intelligent hands, waits under the Phosphorescent Rocks. Anyone investigating the light without making a search check (DC 25) is subject to a Camouflaged Pit Trap, (DMG 72) and falls to area 4b.

Area 4b
Fifty feet below area 4a this small chamber is half flooded with the Earth’s Ichors. Under the ichor is the corpse of an explorer, it is bloated and stained blood red. The explorer got lost in the caves, and fell victim to the phosphorescent rocks, believing them to be the way to the exit, he fell down the pit trap, and died on impact. Disgusted by his stupid mistake, the explorer became a wight, and 1d4 rounds after the character falls into the pit, the wight crawls out of the ichors and attacks. Both the wights legs are broken, and can only crawl at half speed.
GoriceXII
10-07-07, 06:05 AM Wow, thanks so much for doing this, I didn't expect you to make a map and all the encounters, but that is wonderful. I think the wight with the damaged legs is a really cool idea. My party hate undead, so that's a nice bonus to the Spriggan encounter.

Spriggans by the way are gnomelike fae that can turn into giants, and are cruel and mischeivous at the same time. I can certainly flesh everything else out but again thank you very much.
GoriceXII
10-11-07, 10:11 AM I highly recommend to anyone that they use some of the ideas presented here if you intend to use natural caves in your game. As a simple example: one of my pcs fell into the pit to the lower level simply because she didn't use her light effectively and slow her movements enough. In fairness they were actually chasing a Spriggan but the creature knew the area better.

I also recommend the novel The Descent which is quite different from the film. It is more disturbing in its implications too. There is a certain amount of hyperbole and silliness--the subterranean creatures presented are somewhat overblown in my opinion--but I think the main interesting thing is the idea the writer (who is a professional climber) has that it is such a different environment to what we're used to as surface dwelling creatures that fighting in it would be alien.
1 ton ghost
10-13-07, 03:25 PM ah, well done. "the descent" did kick all kinds of ass too. related: the director (God bless 'em) wanted a more realistic fear so he didn't introduce any of the actresses to the crawlers until they were immediately ready to shoot scene 'x'. this basically scared the Hell out of them as they were unfamiliar w/ the make-up, suits, and the actors playing the crawlers themselves.

i'd get Underdark as the subterranean text and research is terribly realistic and quite effective. very good writing.
some rule systems i love were Spotting Distant Light (this should be in the PHB btw), Survival checks for "getting along in the wild" (go up +5 DC/lvl of the underdark, upper, mid, lowerdark respectively), methane and toxic gas leaks, lava tubes, wet and dry caves, various spelunking FX, etc. etc.

somone was doing a workup on a crawler to which i remember a bit. they're basically monstrous humanoids w/ echolocate or blindsense if you rather. essentially, just a human w/ a few small stat adjustments (they were quite agile), a small bite & claw attack, and one Hell of an appetite.
if you could flesh one out on your own, that would be the $hit and i'd most assuredly use it. i have a penchant for subterranean adventures as they're easier to map (edge of cave is edge of map, not like a forest and miles of trees).
lulzapalooza
10-21-07, 04:43 PM I just used these mechanics in a game, and it weant really well. Three members of the five man party got through just fine, but then the cleric, who took off his heavy armor, crawled through and lost his wits, he swung his heavy fists at an illusion in tunnel, paniced, and caused a cave in, which also caused a wall to an adjoining chamber that had a lot of the Earth's Ichors in it to collapse, slowly flooding the chamber. They quickly discovered that the player was in risk of drowning, and his desperate screams for help weren't as useful as you'd think (He wasn't at any real risk of drowning, but I wasn't tell them that). To make maters worse, a group of allips descended on the party while trying to dig him out. The party had three sources of light; a lantern, a tourch, and a dagger that had light cast on it. Pretty quickly they realized they couldn't dig and hold a torch or lantern at the same time, so one character held a torch and they set the lantern on a rock, and the dagger was handed to the trapped cleric through the rocks so he could see. After a while the ichor rose high enough to extinguish the neglected lantern, and soon after the allips attacked. The character holding the torch dropped it in knee high water so he could draw his weapon, not thinking about what they'd do in the dark. The wizard had enough forsight to prepare several light spells, and cast it on a rock he found just soon enough for the fighter to be only touched by the wisdom draining attack once. While most the party was trying to defend themselves against the allips, and moving further and further away from their trapped friend in the process, an allip descended on the cleric. It would have been the death of him, had the cleric not managed to get his holy symbol into his hands and turn the evil thing. At the end of the encounter, everyone agreed not to go into any more caves without a 'stone to mud' spell handy.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
lulzapalooza 10-05-07, 04:47 PM	I just watched the Descent, which was quite a bit better than I thought it would be. It inspired me to design a dungeon in a cave system, with a few new spins I think my players will freagin' hate! The following could be used as a challenge in of itself in a low-level encounter, or could be obstacles to overcome during a larger encounter featuring monsters or traps. I especially like the first one! There's nothing scarrier than being helpless. The Tight Squeeze: This narrow tunnel in the cave walls is just barely large enough to allow one medium sized creature to crawl his way through to the other side on his stomach, assuming that the tunnel stays the same size and doesn’t get any smaller, doesn’t collapse, or take turns too sharp for the character to coerce. The character is helpless while crawling through the tunnel, and moves at five feet per round if he succeeds on a DC 10 climb check. If he fails his climb check he doesn’t move this round. Characters wearing heavy armor can’t climb through a tight squeeze. Every round the character must make a will save (DC 8) or freeze with fear. He is unable to take any actions each round until he succeeds on a will save (DC 15) to ‘snap out of it.’ Failing the check by five or more will make the character shake, flail, and scream, unable to listen to reason. If someone within ten feet of the frozen character makes a diplomacy check (DC 15) the character frozen with fear receives a +3 morale bonus on his will save to ‘snap out’ of the fear effect. For every character passing through the tunnel there could be (DM’s discretion) a 5% – 35% chance that the cavern collapses. 1d4 five foot sections of the tunnel collapses, crushing anyone in the square, causing 1d10 bludgeoning damage, and trapping anyone underneath it. A strength check (DC 18) and one hour for every five foot square is needed to free a trapped character. A character thus trapped cannot free himself with a strength check, but an escape artist check (DC 22) can release him. A small characters move through a tight squeeze as their full base speed per round, and are not considered helpless, but still are subject to all checks and saves, and can only take half actions (either one standard or one move action). Phosphorescent Rocks: Some rocks that are exposed to light ‘soak up’ the light and seem to store if for a brief period of time. This causes shadowy illumination for ten feet, but it also has a more dangerous aspect. Down in the dark, where nothing seems more real than the even smallest trace of light, these phosphorescents can look a lot like sunlight. It takes a survival (DC 12) check to realize the source of light isn’t the way to the surface. Crags Underfoot: As natural stone floors (DMG pg. 60). Movement takes two squares and the DCs of Balance and Tumble increase by 5. Running and charging are impossible. The ground is unstable, and your weight could cause rocks and stones shift, depositing your ass squarely on the ground. Every round at the conclusion of the character’s action roll a d%, if the results are 25% or less the character trips and must make a balance check (DC 16) or be rendered prone. A character that falls takes 1d6 piercing or bludgeoning damage (DM’s discretion depending the type of stones present). A character that falls has a 50% chance of hitting his head and receiving 2d12 sub-duel damage. Characters with sub-duel damage equal his current hit-points are unconscious and helpless. The Earth’s Ichors: There is a substance that runs in the veins of earth beneath our feet, red like blood, known only as the Earth’s Ichors. It is a combination of mud and thin gravel, mineral deposits that make it red as the color of blood or more usually rust. Large hardy bubbles rise to the surface of pools and slow moving springs. The Ichors is as thin as water, but can not be drunk. It can be swam in as water. Water Breathing and other sources of the ability to breathe underwater don’t function. Nothing lives in the ichors and nothing gains sustenance from it. The ichors can be near freezing cold or near boiling temperature and it doesn’t change appearance, smell, or consistency. The ichors, which is unrefined oil, doesn’t explode if exposed to fire. The ichors smell terrible, and anyone leaving an area where ichor is present can be freely tracked for 1d6 hours by any creature with the scent ability.
GoriceXII 10-05-07, 04:52 PM	I really like your ideas. The film btw was one I really enjoyed. I think more than the crawlers themselves what I liked was how vivid the depictions of caving and rope use and so on were, and also how DARK the film was while letting you see the characters clearly. Another element I'd want to see put in--not sure how I'd describe it but you seem to have a gift--is the unexpected chasm. At least twice in the film the characters come across a huge crevasse or drop without much warning. I believe in The Hobbit such a moment happens when the party are fleeing the goblins and Bilbo is sent tumbling down to his meeting with Gollum. The darkness as well is something that is not mentioned much in D&D but I find that an alarming element--we're so used to light in our society in particular that those instances when you're outside of a constant source of it are alarming.
lulzapalooza 10-05-07, 11:28 PM	I considered that, but there are already pretty good rules for darkness in the DMG, on page 302, and a sudden drop is the same thing as a pitfall, which are especially dangerous in the dark. I really couldn't come up with anything better than that.
GoriceXII 10-06-07, 01:25 AM	Here's some grist for your mill. I'm planning an encounter for my pcs with a small clan of Spriggans for an upcoming adventure this week. It will partly involve some caving--probably unexpected though there will be a cleric who can provide some light as well as a ranger who has a continual flame cast in a bullseye lantern. However light sources can be destroyed--the Spriggan leader is a druid and all Spriggans have "shatter". The cave in question is beneath a deciduous forest and has some wide open spaces, some narrow crawlspaces, at least one area with water. I'm hoping for unprepared pursuit.
lulzapalooza 10-06-07, 03:19 PM	I had some time to kill, so I put together an encounter featuring Spriggens in a cave! I left Area 5 unfinished because I have to go to work. This took me three hours to do, map and all. http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u162/lulzapalooza/sprigganscave.jpg I don’t own the FF, so I don’t have the slightest idea of what a Spriggen is, but I’ll do my best. Area 1 The entrance to the Spriggen’s cave jerks around a corner quickly, suddenly leaving the party in near complete darkness. Area 1 has uneven ground, treat as Crags Underfoot. A phase spider has taken to using this chamber as it’s lair. The Spriggens allow it to stay because it’s an effective guard. The phase spider will use its ethereal jaunt ability to get as close as possible to a lone character, before attacking and using its ethereal jaunt ability to escape to the other side of the room. The phase spider uses the environment wisely, drawing characters over long distances in hopes of making them trip. The phase spider doesn’t need to make balance checks to avoid falling. If drawn into prolonged combat the spider continues fighting until it dies, it doesn’t flee its lair. Area 2 This small tunnel functions as a Tight Squeeze. It’s a straight shot from one side of the forty foot tunnel to the other, but the party doesn’t know how long it is or whether or not it changes size or shape without an intimate knowledge of dungeon architecture. With knowledge (dungeoneering) check the party could be privy to more information: DC 12: Small claw marks suggest many small feet pass through tunnel. (A survival check, DC 10, reveals it to be nothing more than a rat) DC 14: The barely noticeable smell of decaying feces wafts through the hole, and it’s possible that open flames could cause the tunnel to explode if they hit a pocket of gas in the tunnel. DC 16: Just enough wind passes through the tunnel to suggest an alternative exit exists somewhere in the cave, and aerates the caves, dispersing any harmful fumes. DC 17: The tunnel looks unstable, and extreme caution should be taken when crawling through. There is 10% less chance of the cave collapsing with this knowledge. DC 20: The tunnel is about forty feet long, and based on the even distribution of debris and small animal bones, the tunnel is probably straight, and the way the stones lay it is apparent the tunnel is mostly uniform in size. The tunnel doesn’t explode if exposed to fire, that’s a red herring to startle inexperienced cavers. Rats do use the cave, and there is a 25% chance of encountering one, but the rat will turn around and flee immediately(You could give the player a turn to react, and you can laugh as he struggles in futility, squirming before a lowly rat, before it turns around and runs the other way. If the player takes an extreme action that compromises the integrity of the tunnel, increase the subsequent chance of collapse). There is a 15% chance of the cave collapsing for every five feet of movement, but if the party is aware of the danger before hand by succeeding on the knowledge dungeoneering check, DC 17, they can reduce the chance to 5% for every five feet of movement (That’s still a pretty good chance, for a party of four to make it through the forty foot tunnel you’d need to make that roll, 32 times. I’d suggest drawing out the tunnel in full, placing the characters minis on the map, and follow their slow progress turn after turn, make sure they know they’re helpless, and that if something happens, they’re screwed.) If the tunnel does collapse, the redistribution of rocks makes for a larger tunnel on top of the fallen rocks, which permits players to go through with ease, after they’ve dug their buried friend out, of course. Area 3 A rat swarm dens in this chamber. The floor is covered in the bones of small animals, and one or two humanoids, treat the terrain as dense rubble (DMG pg 60). The DC of Balance and Tumble checks rise by 5 and Move Silently by 2. The rat swarm, once aware of the presence of the party, quickly moves up the tunnels to the north in a mad dash for safety. This warns any creatures waiting in area 5. A single fossilized roper corpse hangs from the ceiling, its long dead, and appears to be a hanging stalactite. A character that succeeds on a DC 15 spot check sees the roper, but believes it’s still alive, seemingly guarding the next pair of tunnels. If the player makes a spot check DC 22 the party realizes the roper is dead, and can move down the tunnel. Area 4a Phosphorescent Rocks make the character believe that daylight is just above their heads in the area marked 4a, but a pitfall, concealed by intelligent hands, waits under the Phosphorescent Rocks. Anyone investigating the light without making a search check (DC 25) is subject to a Camouflaged Pit Trap, (DMG 72) and falls to area 4b. Area 4b Fifty feet below area 4a this small chamber is half flooded with the Earth’s Ichors. Under the ichor is the corpse of an explorer, it is bloated and stained blood red. The explorer got lost in the caves, and fell victim to the phosphorescent rocks, believing them to be the way to the exit, he fell down the pit trap, and died on impact. Disgusted by his stupid mistake, the explorer became a wight, and 1d4 rounds after the character falls into the pit, the wight crawls out of the ichors and attacks. Both the wights legs are broken, and can only crawl at half speed.
GoriceXII 10-07-07, 06:05 AM	Wow, thanks so much for doing this, I didn't expect you to make a map and all the encounters, but that is wonderful. I think the wight with the damaged legs is a really cool idea. My party hate undead, so that's a nice bonus to the Spriggan encounter. Spriggans by the way are gnomelike fae that can turn into giants, and are cruel and mischeivous at the same time. I can certainly flesh everything else out but again thank you very much.
GoriceXII 10-11-07, 10:11 AM	I highly recommend to anyone that they use some of the ideas presented here if you intend to use natural caves in your game. As a simple example: one of my pcs fell into the pit to the lower level simply because she didn't use her light effectively and slow her movements enough. In fairness they were actually chasing a Spriggan but the creature knew the area better. I also recommend the novel The Descent which is quite different from the film. It is more disturbing in its implications too. There is a certain amount of hyperbole and silliness--the subterranean creatures presented are somewhat overblown in my opinion--but I think the main interesting thing is the idea the writer (who is a professional climber) has that it is such a different environment to what we're used to as surface dwelling creatures that fighting in it would be alien.
1 ton ghost 10-13-07, 03:25 PM	ah, well done. "the descent" did kick all kinds of ass too. related: the director (God bless 'em) wanted a more realistic fear so he didn't introduce any of the actresses to the crawlers until they were immediately ready to shoot scene 'x'. this basically scared the Hell out of them as they were unfamiliar w/ the make-up, suits, and the actors playing the crawlers themselves. i'd get Underdark as the subterranean text and research is terribly realistic and quite effective. very good writing. some rule systems i love were Spotting Distant Light (this should be in the PHB btw), Survival checks for "getting along in the wild" (go up +5 DC/lvl of the underdark, upper, mid, lowerdark respectively), methane and toxic gas leaks, lava tubes, wet and dry caves, various spelunking FX, etc. etc. somone was doing a workup on a crawler to which i remember a bit. they're basically monstrous humanoids w/ echolocate or blindsense if you rather. essentially, just a human w/ a few small stat adjustments (they were quite agile), a small bite & claw attack, and one Hell of an appetite. if you could flesh one out on your own, that would be the $hit and i'd most assuredly use it. i have a penchant for subterranean adventures as they're easier to map (edge of cave is edge of map, not like a forest and miles of trees).
lulzapalooza 10-21-07, 04:43 PM	I just used these mechanics in a game, and it weant really well. Three members of the five man party got through just fine, but then the cleric, who took off his heavy armor, crawled through and lost his wits, he swung his heavy fists at an illusion in tunnel, paniced, and caused a cave in, which also caused a wall to an adjoining chamber that had a lot of the Earth's Ichors in it to collapse, slowly flooding the chamber. They quickly discovered that the player was in risk of drowning, and his desperate screams for help weren't as useful as you'd think (He wasn't at any real risk of drowning, but I wasn't tell them that). To make maters worse, a group of allips descended on the party while trying to dig him out. The party had three sources of light; a lantern, a tourch, and a dagger that had light cast on it. Pretty quickly they realized they couldn't dig and hold a torch or lantern at the same time, so one character held a torch and they set the lantern on a rock, and the dagger was handed to the trapped cleric through the rocks so he could see. After a while the ichor rose high enough to extinguish the neglected lantern, and soon after the allips attacked. The character holding the torch dropped it in knee high water so he could draw his weapon, not thinking about what they'd do in the dark. The wizard had enough forsight to prepare several light spells, and cast it on a rock he found just soon enough for the fighter to be only touched by the wisdom draining attack once. While most the party was trying to defend themselves against the allips, and moving further and further away from their trapped friend in the process, an allip descended on the cleric. It would have been the death of him, had the cleric not managed to get his holy symbol into his hands and turn the evil thing. At the end of the encounter, everyone agreed not to go into any more caves without a 'stone to mud' spell handy.