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| #1JohnLynchJan 14, 2015 18:14:35 | I'm running an old fashioned dungeon crawl tonight (complete with graph paper for the players) and have used a random encounter table to populate many of the rooms (some rooms I custom stocked though). I originally made it a straight d20 roll, but after reading the advice in the DMG decided to go with 1d12+1d8. The tables gone through a few different permutations (detailed over here) but the final encounter table I've decided to use is as follows: * 2: Necromancer as zombie + 2d4 zombies
This is intended as a sandbox for character levels 1+. I haven't shied away from allowing difficult encounters to be rolled as I've deliberately used mindless undead in tight quarters. The terrain should work in the player's favour unless they let themselves get surrounded.
Assuming 6 players (I'm expecting 5-6 players), here are the encounters I've rolled up thus far (still got about half of the level to roll up before tonight's game):
This was out of a potential 22 rooms (I roll on the encounter table if I roll a 10+ on a d20). I'll be interested to see how these encounters work out. The session will only go for 3 hours so I don't expect them to work through all of the encounters (which encounters they go with is up to them). I won't be rewarding XP for creatures killed but instead treasure found in a nod to old school gaming but also in an effort to encourage players to avoid combat wherever possible (I typically don't enjoy running dungeon crawls, but wanted to give it a shot for tonight's game).
Has anyone else used the random encounter table guidelines in the DMG? If so, what did your encounter tables look like and how did they work in actual play? |
| #2AaronOfBarbariaJan 14, 2015 19:16:23 | I haven't used the d12+d8 encounter tables since the last time they were in the DMG (2nd edition), but back then I used them fairly often... if I had one made up, which I often didn't because I'm not as much of a "planner DM" as I am an "improvise everything at the table, completely wing it, respond to what the players are doing or talking about rather than actually driving the campaign... and yet my players won't believe me that I didn't plan a thing DM"
Oddly enough, since 5th edition has come out I've gotten two campaigns up and running, and while one is me converting Rappan Athuk and using the encounter tables included there (which are mostly a single-roll system that assigns encounters to the d20 results ranging from 1 to typically 6, but sometimes as high as 10, and then treats all the higher results than that as "no encounter"), the other is a campaign which I am actually doing prep-writing for, and part of that prep has been designing encounter tables for the areas that the party are traveling through during the first couple "episodes" of the tale.
They are custom tailored to the campaign, both world and style, and the first represents a stretch of plains and hills that makes up the bulk of a recently fallen empire, that the ousted imperial ruling class are actually waging war on to try and reclaim, and have been for a couple hundred years... and are also goblins. (Note: these encounters are designed for a party of 5 3rd or 4th level characters on mounts, with their brain's screwed on tight)
The Drenna Plains, Spring of FY 1155
The second represents the forest they will travel through for the last bit of their journey before arriving at their destination, and primarily consists of incedental encounters with things that live in forests, and encountering the various sorts of peace keeper to be found.
The Briar Wall Forest, between Rivergate and Cyroth, Spring of FY 1155
So far, they have been serving their purpose (to keep me feeling organized and sure of what is to be found in the world - yet allowing me to feel as though nothing is set in stone), though I don't think my players have really noticed a difference that they would attribute to my use of random tables - it seems more likely to me they would just chalk the improved state of our campaigns up to us using 5th edition in general, rather than something so specific. |
| #3NoonJan 15, 2015 16:44:50 | Especially when XP is given only for treasure, it's not the encounters that are important - it's how you can avoid the encounters, if at all, that's important.
I suggest having a random table that suggests a way of (if possible) avoiding combat and getting the treasure (also I'm not saying the PC's have to use the right way to do it - sometimes the players have another method of avoiding it that will seem to work to you). Then roll on it for each room.
There's not much point making only treasure give XP but then forcing combat to occur to get the treasure. Old school sandbox was about the thrill of avoiding combat to get treasure, or the thrill of fighting for your life if you screwed up at that. |
| (Reply to #3)AaronOfBarbaria |
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| #5JohnLynchJan 15, 2015 21:57:36 | Last night's game was a good success. The use of the random encounter table helped cut down on the required thinking for me as to what was or wasn't located in any given area while still providing a challenge. After successfully negating a non-random encounter (and one that was meant to have insurmountable odds) through the use of environmental features, they started getting cocky and bypassed a couple of random encounters before provoking two fights at once. This caused a very harrowing fight with the PCs potentially have a large wipe out. However through the use of bravery and self-sacrifice everyone was kept alive. The crawling claws I'd rolled up that would randomly travel from room to room opening and closing doors got more than a few puzzled looks as the PC's fought for their lives. Although it did explain why they kept hearing doors opening and closing (thus releasing and imprisoning zombies at random) in this supposedly abandoned dungeon.
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| #6NoonJan 16, 2015 15:35:24 |
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| (Reply to #6)AaronOfBarbaria |
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