Employing Free Lancers

At some point you’re gonna want to hire lots and lots of men. Especially in the case of Fighting-Men, the topic and procedures inspext to commanding units of soldiers will come up sooner or later. To a more limited degree, this is true for the other classes as well. 

Perhaps the several PCs will want to clear out an area of the wilderlands in preparation for a new settlement. A 6-mile hex is gymungous: 32 square miles! For this or other reasons, they will want to hire mercenaries to make such a campaign feasible in a realistic amount of time. 

Mercenaries will generally have three functions. One is as a garrison to man keeps and forts. Two is to form the bulk of armies or navies. Three is to go into a dungeon as henchmen. 

In Garrison 

In the first case, garrison, each man will cost 20gp per month. This figure pays for their horse, meals, and board, and averages in the cost of their sergeants and lieutenants and so forth. For instance, a unit of ten figures will have eight 0-level men, two 0-level squad leaders, and a 1st-level sergeant. (Yes I know that’s 11 guys. It counts as a unit of ten.)

Such a unit will cost 200gp per month. During a month they are not paid, 25% of men will desert and all morale will lower by 1. More generous pay and better treatment will raise morale, but no higher than 9. 

As garrison costs are between 2 and 4 GP per family per month, a garrison of ten soldiers will satisfy 50-100 families. 

On Campaign

When on campaign, which broadly speaking means a formal military action, fielding troops costs an additional 25% to account for extended supply lines. In the example of the previous ten-man unit, that means 250gp per month.

Additionally, the army in total requires 50% of all plunder taken during the campaign. Waging war is expensive! 

On its face, this means a unit will have to net 250 GP of takings per month in order for the PC to break even. Over long campaigns with hundreds of troops, this is likely to be impossible. But in the short term (a month or two) as a fixed expense in the low thousands of GP, mid level PCs should be able to put together a force capable of clearing a six-mile hex. 

Units which do not receive this base pay plus combat pay plus spoils will check morale at the start of that month. Those which do not pass will desert; any critical failure results in the unit deserting and turning on the PCs. 

Rather than checking for the whole army or for the individual, check for approximately 20% of units at a time or a similar break point as the Referee determines. 

In The Dungeon

In the case of a dungeon, it is unlikely that you would hire ten men at a time; the space is too limited. It will usually be better to hire men for specific purposes, as detailed in this post. That can be significantly more expensive, but also much more lucrative. And lucrative is the name of the game. 

Dungeon Design Principles

 

Dungeon design - 9 principles 

1.     Multiple entrances and exits. At least two obvious and at least two secret ones. Add information to each entrance to the dungeon giving the players clues as to what they might discover in that area. Carvings and glyphs, types of monsters guarding that door, etc. 

2.     Consider the dungeon’s original purpose. Ex. Prison is not a fortress is not a wizard’s tower is not a natural cavern converted into monster space is not a dwarf or kobold delve. Consider shape and materials. Consider the kinds of traps and which way they would face. 

3.     Levels. Each one should have a theme. Some levels will have stairs or other vertical passages within the level. Think of super Mario bros in terms of level theme. These levels also represent a gradation of danger. The higher-numbered levels are more dangerous. These do. It have to be literal stacked vertical levels but you should have different areas of the dungeon where more dangerous ones are farther away from the dungeon entrance than less dangerous ones are.  Give the players some good clue that they are transitioning to the next level. There is a gambling aspect here (risk/reward) that players love - more choices. 

4.     Have physical loops in your dungeon. Looping paths give good guys and bad guys both tactical choices to make. It also gives exploration choices, and grants the players a sense of discovery if they complete a loop that is not obvious. 

5.     Add some verticality. Not just the stairs or a chute, but trap doors and even shafts. Have a tall cavern. Rooms with galleries where PCs can look down or shoot down, and so can enemies. Players enjoy being able to use their rope. They enjoy finding their characters can go up, over obstacles and down again and not just have to push through. 

6.      At least one secret area - an area only accessible through a secret or concealed door. Elves are good at noticing these things. Other characters have a good shot too. There should be clues pointing towards them so an observant player will have a chance to “defeat” you. Hold on the map, gap between evenly spaced doors, breeze blowing candles coming from… nowhere. Dungeons where everything is meant to be discovered doesn’t really feel like discovery. 

7.     Weirdly shaped/filled rooms. Tall, pentagon, water hazards. Pillars, debris, low walls, statues. Analogously, rooms with surfaces of an unusual material or with interesting frescoes, etc. consider different architectural motifs for different areas of the dungeon (levels or inside levels.)

8.     Choke points. Allows a few to battle many (or inferiors to gang up on superiors.) bridges, corridors, low or tight doorways, high ground within a cavern, places with good cover. 

9.     Spying opportunities. Listening at doors. Scrying spells. Portcullis and bars - enemies can communicate but can’t pass. Rooms with echoes that will allow hearing sounds at a great distance. One-way mirrors. 

Running the Labyrinth

Labyrinths seem like they would be a perfect thematic element in the dungeon. But actually running a labyrinth is a pain. Describe every 10’ section? Make infinity directional choices? You could be playing it for longer than the characters are actually navigating it. Snore!

So how do we add the labyrinth into the dungeon in an engaging and compelling way? How do we make it feel labyrinthy but skip to the good parts?

First, do not draw the labyrinth. Do not let the players map. Just block out an area on your map marked “labyrinth.” Mark off all the connections with the outside world/dungeon.

Rather than draw out the passages, draw a flow chart between encounters. If some of them have to go in a certain order, flow chart them that way. Otherwise, roll them randomly as your hapless sods bumble about in there. Make sure one of the encounters is “big boss room” and another is “the exit.” (Which exit can be up to you or chosen randomly.)

When the several characters enter the labyrinth, be very clear about who has the light sources. This becomes important later. 

Describe the labyrinth theater of the mind style. Give it a theme. Or for a large space, give each section a different theme with a different flow chart. Make one encounter on each table “change sections.”

Now here, this is tricky. For every ten-minute Turn, roll 1d6. On a 1-3, it’s a keyed encounter - a room. On a 4, it’s a wandering monster. On a 5-6, no encounter. 

After each encounter, give the character with the best Wisdom save a chance for a saving throw. If he misses it, tell the characters they split up! Push two of the light source figures chosen randomly to two edges of the battle mat. Then have the several players roll a die for each of their figures. Odds go with one source and evens with the other. 

They’ve lost track of each other! 

This will happen unless they have taken an affirmative step to stay together - usually something with rope or twine. Even if they have marked the walls with chalk, half of the party will lose the trail. 

After each encounter, remove one encounter from the table and replace it with “they meet up again.” 

If that result comes up when there is only one group, choose a different encounter. 

Never force them into more than two groups because it bogs things down at the table too much. But getting split up? Very scary and interesting. 

Note that at no time is there a map. It forces the players to fly blind. 

Wandering monsters in the labyrinth

Some labyrinths won’t have any wandering monsters. That’s fine. 

Some won’t have any keyed rooms. That’s fine too: we call those “dungeons.”

And of course every labyrinth needs a Minotaur. That’s the rule. If you don’t have a Minotaur, you’re a doo doo head. 

 

The Dungeon 53 Challenge

Dickstein the Barking Alien suggests playing the Dungeon 23 challenge on Easy Mode, which is actually a pretty good idea. Instead of doing 365 rooms, do 53 meaningful rooms - one per Sunday on the 2023 calendar. Not sure I'm going to do it, but I did think up some interesting ideas for it. 

A ziggurat dungeon in G’harun

Secret trap door to the top level where there is some kind of blood sacrifice.

ACLs, undead, poisonous snakes and scorpions, a hungry hungry hippos themed bonus basement level with zombie hippos (!) only reachable through a door on a higher level. Maybe through a chute.

A balcony level with a huge shaft from the bottom to the top - through the hippo room

Each level (?) has a tunnel to a secret egress on the outside of the ziggurat.

Use Sultai cards to spur imagination. 

A Family of Old-School Henchmen

In old school play, it’s very important to introduce henchmen early on. In a game where character progression and personalization requires equipment rather than skills and feats, henchmen are a great colorful way to grow. 

It gives the player an instant replacement if and when his guy dies. It gives the party some leverage and wiggle room when the push too far. It builds for them a core team of trusted assistants for when they reach Name level. It’s an important way to grow a character’s personal power in the sociopolitical as well as martial spheres. Finally it provides for RP opportunities. 

It is important to introduce this idea during Session Zero. (More on that in a future post.) Then, during sessions 1+, you might use some of the following methods to get the PCs to pick up the entourage they should have. 

The first is to put the cost of hirelings right next to the cost of horses and boats. This gets the players to begin to consider them as equipment rather than a hassle or resource drain. 

The second is to introduce them to another party which has a large entourage. Perhaps the other party ridicules the PCs for being so poor or stupid as to not hire help. In character, they can explain the costs and benefits. 

The third way is to have an in-game bulletin board or bill post with adventure hooks and men begging for work. 

The fourth way is to put the henchman front and center and frame the hire as an act of charity. 

Consider the following: a lowly medium foot: chain, shield, helm, spear, approaches the party and asks to serve them. 

He says he has five children to feed and he needs work. He knows this lot finds gold sometimes. He’s willing to bear weight, bear shield, or even fight on a front line. But he needs to feed his kids. 

The next day, they will find he brings his grown son and his pre-teen son and daughter who will accompany him. He says that if they are paid properly they will serve as well. One medium foot and two linkboys/porters/shield maidens. 

A family of adventurer’s assistants changes the concept from cannon fodder to an interesting RP, and even tactical, situation. Do they protect the kids? Do they throw the whole family in front of danger? Should they make sure the young man has more than a a helm, shield, and clothing before they have him enter the unknown? 

Maybe one of the kids takes a shine to the wizard. Maybe the kid could be an apprentice. Many possibilities there. 

Henchmen Seeds

 This article originally appeared on February 23, 2018.

When someone plays D for the first time, they don't know what they don't know. This is a Really Good Thing.

Our friend Caty joined us for her maiden voyage into RPGs. She cast charm person on a goblin and bam! She had a very stupid henchman, but moderately useful because he could navigate through the other goblins. His name was Snotrocker. Sadly, he died (it was the best day of his life.) Caty's character kept his decrepit rusty short sword as a souvenir of the several Turns they spent as best friends.

Later, they fought a bugbear and his goblin minions. I do the pumpkin-headed long and stringy bugbears. I showed them this picture.

To their credit, they attempted parley, but they got a terrible reaction check. So it was a fight! And Caty's wizard threw the Sleep bomb. SHWAZOM! Dead!

So after they killed it, Caty says, "I'm going to take the seeds."

"..."

"..."

"...what seeds?"

"From his head. I'm going to take the seeds from his pumpkin head and use them in my magic."

THIS IS AWESOME.

So I have decided they are Henchman Seeds. 

 Henchman Seeds:

Bugbear's heads are filled with seeds. They look like pinkish pumpkin seeds. If you take 2 Turns to vivisect it, you can grab out a few big handfuls of seeds weighing 1 lb. 

If you plant these in your lab or a hothouse, 1d4 bugbear henchmen grow in 3 months. 

Or you can sell them for 500 GP if there is another wizard or something that wants henchmen. 

 ###

I awarded the party 500 XP for the awesome idea. And forever after, wizards who are In The Know will hunt bugbears for their seeds, just as people hunt dragons and rocs for their eggs today.

 

A Magical Fresco Trap

Diabolical but fun  

A fresco featuring many adventurers patrolling a dungeon with surprised looks on their faces 

If you step in front of it within arm’s length, throw Save vs. Breath Weapon (or dex save.) If you fail, an arm of stone grabs you and pulls you in. You are gone from the mortal world, and a likeness of you - with a surprised look on your face - replaces one of the adventurers.

Damaging the wall causes hit point damage to the figures inside at 1d6 per man-turn. Punching a man-sized hole or similar inflicts 25 total hits. Creating significant damage to the image of one of the figures (DMO what counts as significant) kills the person. 

A remove curse or stone to flesh restores the entrapped to the realm of three-dimensional flesh and blood; but if dead, not back to life. 

At least you can loot the body, though. 

Should your companions leave you for a sufficient amount of time, you might be replaced by another hapless sod wandering by. If so, your only hope is the Astral spell, or Reincarnation. 

Treasure Is More Important Than Monsters

This article was originally published on September 4th, 2017.

One thing that I have noticed lately is that whenever folks talk about dungeon design or wilderlands stocking or whatever adventure stage they are preparing, they start with the area, then place monsters, then figure out how the monsters interact, then place traps, then place weirdness and special encounters, and only then place the treasure.  Even if a dungeon is meant to protect a great treasure, the actual placement happens at the end.

But it seems to me that the reason the characters go and face the dangers of the dungeon is to get the treasure out. One of the axioms I like to remember as both a player and as a Ref is this:

Treasure is how you win. Monsters are how you die. 

So friends, shouldn't we place the winning conditions first, and then figure out how to protect them? It's a paradigm shift that has stuck me and I will try to develop the idea further.

Slot-Based Encumbrance

Encumbrance is important. 

Encumbrance is the word we use to mean “all the stuff I am carrying,” in terms of its weight and its bulk. The more you are encumbered, the more effort it takes to move and therefore the slower you will do it. 

In the oldest versions of these games, encumbrance was measured coin-by coin, as a coins-weight is conveniently set at 1/10 of a lb. With the encumbrance of everything denominated in multiples of a  coin, you will only have to track the changes in one number over time. On the down side, keeping track of what you’re carrying is very fiddly and time-consuming at the table, the time when knowing the number is most important. 

The dungeoneering part of the Great Game, the part featured first in its name, is a game of prudence, judgment and fortitude. 

We have some idea of the peril our characters will face. In newer games, we handle a lot of the challenge with skills and powers on our sheet. Character skill trumps player skill. But in older games, there are no character builds; one fighting-man is much like another. Life and death are in your hands, not the character’s.

In part, preparing for the perils he may face means bringing the right equipment;!pert of the puzzle is exercising prudence before the delving begins. In an ideal world, we could bring everything we need for every situation.  Gear costs money - and more importantly, gear takes up space. What is critical and what you can (probably) afford to leave behind. 

When our figures are in the mythic underworld, we use our judgment about which dangers may lurk in the immediate future. Are you going to kick in the door and slay the orc, or are you going to sneak past? Will you bet your hit points against that blade trap, or will you attempt to disable it? Did your man bring the right tool to do that?

When you find a hoard of gold, how much do you pick up? Do you take so much that you need to leave your armor behind? I mean, hey, that’s a lot of gold, and behind you, you think you cleared a path to daylight. What could possibly go wrong?

Finally, dungeoneering is a game of fortitude. When you have run low in those resources, how much more are you willing to risk? If you had to run, could you do it holding all this stuff? 

Note well that in each case, you’re working against another, invisible, inscrutable element: Lady Fortuna, whether today be she grim or be she gay. That is, the game is swingy and things can go sideways very quickly. Balancing risk and reward are important. Minimizing the effects of luck are important. One key to maintaining that balance is tracking your encumbrance. 

Throughout the evolution of the game, some folks have tried to adhere to the encumbrance rules that Gary dictated. Some have outright ignored encumbrance. This is unsatisfactory for all the reasons we’ve mentioned. Others have  faced the challenge and looked for better ways to manage encumbrance (among other game systems.) 

Surprisingly, video games have given us a hand tracking encumbrance with the innovation of slot-based inventory. Slot-based inventory turns a chore into a fun puzzle. 

How to do it:

Each figure has six containers and each container holds three slots. Don’t worry about what the containers are called. These can be abstracted under most circumstances. These could be a backpack, a sack, a bandolier, belt pouch, a scabbard or frog, or anything else that seems reasonable. Smaller objects take up one slot while larger or heavier ones take up more. These slot encumbrance figures are listed for each item along with their price on Tables 12, 14 and 15.

There are three special rules though. 

The first one has to do with strength scores. Characters who take a strength penalty can only carry 5 containers; characters with a strength bonus can carry 7. A magic item which boosts your strength above 18 grants an 8th container, while a condition which lowers your strength below 3 removes two containers (leaving you with four.)

The second one has to do with armor. 

The bulkiest item you carry is your armor. Leather fills one “container,” chain fills two, and plate fills a third. A helmet fills one slot and a shield fills two slots, so the more heavily armored character already has four of his six containers filled by armor. 

The final one is special for dwarfs. Dwarfs move slowly but they are built to carry more. They can carry a whole extra container without collapsing under the burden, but they can only gain access to the ability when each of their other slots is completely full. 

Encumbrance and movement:

Wearing leather armor doesn’t slow you down. Wearing chain armor drops your move speed to 9”. Plate drops it to 6”. 

Regardless of armor level, having less than nine slots open drops your move to 9”. Having less than six slots open drops you to 6”. Having less than three open drops you to 3” of movement. Having every slot filled means you lose your DEX bonus to all appropriate rolls. 

Dwarfs, again, are a special case. Their base move is 9” so they can wear chain armor without slowing. Furthermore, once they are fully burdened, an additional container becomes available with three more item slots. Thus a dwarf with exceptional strength has access to 24 item slots, if he doesn’t mind crawling along. 

Tiny items:

Some items are so small that even a handful of them won’t fill up a slot. We can assume they go in pockets. Chalk, needle and thread, a lucky cockatrice foot, a piece of coal. These don’t take up an item slot, but be reasonable about how many your figure can carry. 

Coins: 

Adventurers collect coins. It’s kind of their thing. 100 coins can fit in your pockets, but more than that need to go into item slots. Each 100 coins above your free 100 fill an item slot. 300 of them would fill a sack, for instance. Also true for a like number of loose gems. Part of that encumbrance is their bulk, but most of it is their weight. 

NEXT TIME: let’s talk about magical jewelry and body adornment. 

Triggering Traps

Whatever you do, don’t tell them that you can barely see their adam’s apple anymore. Do it this way instead  

If there is a trap that you do not know about and a character performs the trigger action, there is only a 2-in-6 chance that he will trigger it. That means it might hit the second, third, fourth character to pass by. 

Using a ten foot pole as you go is sound practice because then the ten foot pole counts as a character for the purposes of triggering and being targeted by a hidden trap. 

If you have discovered a live trap, you will be able to trigger it harmlessly or bypass it safely unless it is magical in nature. 

Native monsters will always bypass traps harmlessly unless it’s dramatically approaching for a trap to hit them, or the clever players devise a way to use a trap offensively against a hapless monster. 

Better Traps

Dungeons have traps. It’s quintessential. But traps are not always fun. Certainly not as fun as monsters or weird stuff. 

I’ve been thinking about what works and what doesn’t in my dungeons. One thing that I noticed is that traps were a mixed bag, so I began to keep track of the features that work to make traps more fun. 

For  most of your dungeon traps, do not ask your players to have their characters search. The detection step is not very much fun.

Instead most traps “obvious” (that is, obvious to the kind of capable men who would undertake dungeoneering for fun and profit. Just say “you found a trap at location X” rather than demanding the players search everywhere. 

This turns a “trap” into a “hazard” 

For true traps (eg hidden inanimate dangers,) which should be paltry and wide-yonder, give lots of clues. Even specific clues. Make sure the players know there’s something fishy about. Perhaps blood on the walls l, blade marks in stone or skeletons with their heads lopped off. 

Better the first way than the second - just let the players know a trap is there because their characters are knowledgeable about these kinds of things. Or make it obvious. Instead of a hidden blade trap, have spinning blades extant throughout a certain length of dungeon hallway. 

Or instead of a pit with spikes, have the trap be a deep pit (20’) with smooth sides. 

Then the challenge isn’t “find it” but “beat it.”

The second part of this is that beating a trap should not be based entirely on an ability check or skill roll. There’s no real interaction there. Make traps and hazards more like a logic puzzle or party game. Then when the players are ready to put their characters to the test, they can decide to make the rolls. But have the players decide how their characters are going to beat the trap. 

To aid them, make the trap tactile or mathematical or linguistic whenever possible. Yes, this takes the players one step away from the “main” game, but they are still interacting with the world and with each other. 

Move Rate Underground

It seems like you could go quite fast through a dungeon. This is true, you could, except that it is completely dark, full of monsters and traps, and miles beneath sweet, clean, precious open air. 

Therefore the party actually travels at a very slow rate. They are sneaking, hiding, probing, being very quiet, and, importantly, mapping. 

So the actual speed the party moves through a space is is equal to double the base scale inches of its slowest member per Turn (10 minutes.)

If your slowest man moves at 9”, you’re going to make 18” in ten minutes. This is common: 9” move rate. As soon as you have one dwarf or someone becomes encumbered, you go to 9”. 

A scale inch is 10’ underground and 10 yds above ground. For now, let’s just talk underground. So in the dungeon, you’re moving 180’, 18 squares, in ten minutes. Five such moves are all you can manage in an hour because you have to stop to rest. That’s 1/6th of a mile per hour, much slower than even a casual walking pace. 

Let’s keep that 9” in mind. An adventuring day of 8 hours permits 8/6 of a mile of movement - presuming the figures don’t stop to search or fight. 

That’s 4/6 mile in and then 4/6 mile out again. About 353 squares each way. (Again this presumes 8 hours and absolutely no other activity besides moving and resting.)

In that time, each character will empty two water skins and consume a day of rations. There will be approximately 8 torches or 8 pints of oil used per instance of light. Even the best nonmagical light sources only shed enough light for three people so you’re going to be going through two, three, four instances at once. That’s a lot of fire. Did I mention you’re miles away from fresh air?

In that time, just from wandering monsters alone, you will have approximately 8 encounters. That doesn’t include traps or doors or any other weirdness. Just from being in there, 8 chances to fight to the death. 

Encumbrance, supplies, hit points. 

This is why you bring henchmen. This is why you bring porters. Why you bring an elf or dwarf. This is why you use flaming oil and holy water and by God someone play the cleric please. 

This is why it’s a thrill. It’s why we do it. 

The clock is always ticking and the torch is always burning down. Where will you be when the oil runs out?