Seriously, what do you do to stop players to just sneak behind a door or turtle on a corner.
I have played few 'dungeons' on my years as DM, and averytime this situation is presented devolving into skyrim sneak archery.
That's why I barely play inside buildings, always outside natural everyoments.
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Quick Contest on the sneak skill of the sneaker against the perception/observation of the target.
Wandering monsters ambush them while they're waiting.
>ambush them
>monsters come up behind the players and ambush
>Do something surprising.
>Patrol comes around behind them
can't, they usually select a place where they have the absolute adventage
kill someone in total silence
next one comes to check
kill it in total silence
repeat until a large mob comes
bottle neck the enemies
win
>poison gas
>kill someone in total silence
>the next one sees a dead body
>throw a shit ton of 120 proof alcohol on the room
>throw a torch
>kaboom
>???
>TPK
Stop running your monsters like utter morons and design better dungeons that aren't a series of linear corridors.
Wandering monsters are ENDLESS. Every turn is a check and fights call a check. Long fights eat time and could call a check during combat. The pile of corpses will attract the dungeon cleanup crew (another check). It becomes a war of attrition the players cannot win.
not to mention the party's supplies/light sources will begin running out
>Wandering monsters are ENDLESS.
Not unless you can justify that.
I take it you subterranean environments are not anomalous?
>Not unless you can justify that
"I'm the DM"
>has literally unlimited control of a fictional setting
>doesn't have the imagination to justify something as simple as endless monsters
Tells me all I need to know about you.
Endless random encounters are just like my video games
Where you think they got it?
>b-but m-muh dungeon ecology!
>muh realism!
Deal with it, nerd
always seemed to me that the unnatural darkness of the Mythic Underworld™ was actively hostile and would congeal directly out of said darkness. It is not a place for gods-fearing men
*congeal monsters
>can't, they usually select a place where they have the absolute adventage
Only if the design of the dungeon somehow allows it. And if it does why aren't the monsters there already? And they'll still have to fight their way to said room.
>Kill someone in total silence
This is a stupid thing to base your plan around. If ONE thing goes wrong you're fricked and there's noise. If you're a second too late the target can scream, if multiple people walk through you may not get all of them, if the target is armoured you may cause clanging, if the target survives the initial ambush you're now in a regular fight. This isn't a stealth video game where you can take out anything and anyone with a single attack in absolute silence.
>kill someone in total silence
>next one comes to check
>kill it in total silence
>repeat until a large mob comes
>bottle neck the enemies
>win
lmao, your NPCs run on video game logic
I will break from my compatriots by saying that there is nothing necessarly wrong with this tactics. Dungeon delving is supposed to be about low cunning, as in rat-bastard cunning, so PCs should do this kind of shit any time they can get away with it.
It's still completely your fault if they always get away with it. When you say "total silence" I can only assume they're working within a zone of silence (the spell), which is clever, even though it deprives them of spells. It also instantly alerts anyone who gets too close due to the oppressive and unnatural nature of the silence. This is important, because the enemy has to be inside the zone of silence when it dies, otherwise other creatures will automatically hear the death cries (there's no stealth check a player can roll to keep another creature from screaming).
If they don't have magical silence then they're making noise. That might be fine, it might be some back corner of the dungeon, with only a small number of enemies within earshot, or it might be the kind of dungeon where the screams of the dying are just natural ambience. In which case there was never an overwhelming combat threat, they could have just stormed the main chamber and taken the initiative, but they didn't. They gave the enemy the initiative. Kobold Guard #51 isn't just wandering down the hall to investigate the screams of Kobold Guard #49. He's sending a signal to Kobold Regional Commander, then waking up the owlbear, then arming the single-use traps and hiding his treasure and following all the steps in his little Manual of Lost Ground Protocal, THEN he's wandering down the hall to investigate the screams of Kobold Guard #49. The PCs wouldn't know that any of this was happening, they've given up the initiative, they're blind and they're deaf and they're waiting. The denizens could be herding giant rhinoceros beetles to one end of the tunnel and building a fire at the other and telling all their friends about the bbq.
>can't, they usually select a place where they have the absolute advantage
Secret passage in the wall behind them with a DC so high they can't detect it.
>kill someone in total silence
Make them roll for it or just say the monster screams loudly when it dies.
>next one comes to check
He never comes in to check, or after he does they stop.
>repeat until a large mob comes
They set off a trap that is only in the exact spot the players are hiding which is a save of die trap, like the cieling and floor compressing them into paste because the creatures go "Hey wait two of our guys got murdered there's only one place their murderers could hide we know this place like the back of our hands, crush em!"
>bottle neck the enemies
Dungeon isn't fixed, it can be manipulated, that bottleneck just opened into 4 3x3x3 paths on all sides of the room, prepare to die.
>can't, they usually select a place where they have the absolute adventage
>kill someone in total silence
>next one comes to check
>sees blood on the floor, raises alarm
Are you moronic or has your brain just been completely poisoned by spending 10 000 hours playing Skyrim?
Then frick off. You make the rules.
"Absolute advantage" flies out the window when a random balhannoth comes barreling around the corner.
The monsters just don't come out.
If the players are hiding behind a door, I have the monsters come up behind the players and ambush them that way.
If the players are hiding in a corner, I have the monsters punch through the walls behind them, slasher movie villain style, and grab the player with the lowest reaction roll.
Monsters aren’t moronic and wandering in static patrol paths. It might take hours for a monster to walk exactly how you want, and if a monster sees a dead body by a door he won’t go through that door.
Not having the world work on video game logic.
If you're talking DnD most things can take a hit or two, even if its a sneak attack, so its not a stealth kill like in a video game
Monsters and even human enemies don't patrol back and forth. They wander about along random routes. If they even check the same room twice in a 24 hour period it'll be kind of strange.
Concentration. Just sitting there, on alert, until something comes along is exhausting.
Shit can wander in behind them.
If enemies know they're there from finding other evidence they can do something about it, explosives, spells, gas, a breach operation. Depending on the enemies and context enemies will figure out a way to deal with someone guarding doors like that. Hell we have teams of law enforcement to take inspiration from.
Basically stop playing things straight if your are trying to cheese things. Do something surprising.
dumb troll OP. "turtle on a corner", lol
the monsters try to fumigate the campers with poison gas
best answer so far
TTRPGs aren't videogames you fricking zoomer moron
Time constraints and enforcing the idea the location is dangerous.
Also, not playing D&D and running a solo game instead helps me avoid players who turtle.
>dungeons tha aren't just straight lines with 1 point of entry and 1 exit
>finite resources like food and light
>opponents that aren't moronic
Patrol comes around behind them, stabs them all in the back.
>whaat players using tactics!?!?!?!?
>this is le bad for some reason
>better have combats in aaaaanother featureless outfoors area
>why the frick does combat suck so much?!??!?!
have a nice day NOW
By not having skyrim level of intelligence for monsters.
Because after the first one they hear the sounds of battle, realize they are under attack and then raise the alarm before bringing the entire pre-fight buffed dungeon down on the players heads.
The players only advantage in a dungeon is shock ad awe, attempting to rush through before the denizens can organize. Every moment waiting is a moment the enemy has to surround the party, cut off retreat and overwhelm them.
Players should be disincentivized from spending even a second longer in enemy territory than they must.
>kill someone in total silence
No one dies in total silence. Nothing happens with zero indicator it happened. Even if the patrols don't notice the sounds of someone being strangled they'll notice when patrols are missing, and ramp up security.
Hell why are you running patrols of only single entities if this is a known pattern for your players? Even if you keep the CR the same, just use more monsters. A 5 man goblin patrol is not going to go down silent
Ok so let's talk about that. You have two options, mundane and magic.
Mundane is unlikely, people make noise. Somebody is going to shout. Even if your party can stealth kill a single dude, the chances that two people are walking and talking are pretty high. You're not going to be able to handle it.
Now let's assume magic. At this point it gets a bit system dependent, but let's look at dnd which generally has the biggest market share. Most editions have a spell called silence which lasts at most about 20 minutes. Are you going to just be chain casting it all day waiting for people? You don't have the spell slots! And if you did, you are a high enough level to use better options than waiting around anyway.
Pretty sure silence has verbal components anyway so the initial casting would be audible. Not only that, but it would make all the casters useless in a fight so if the silent takedown plan fails and a fight starts up the magic users are fricked and the martials are fighting a lopsided battle
That dungeon map is a fricking travesty. Completely linear, and worse, secret doors that block off the main content of the map.
"5-room dungeons" is such a garbage meme.
found it on internet, it's just an example
Your example sucks, your players are terrible and you're a moron.
Let them get away with it this time. When you make your next dungeon, make it with the tactics they're using in mind. Have chambers with multiple entries but no doors. Make/use monsters that are silent. Have hazards in rooms that trigger periodically to force them to move. Have secret doors that intelligent monsters know about. Put ear seekers in doors. Make the scenario time sensitive. Have monsters attempt to parlay instead of walking into kill rooms.
great answer
>Make the scenario time sensitive.
note taken
thanks
>the randomly placed bear trap icons
>the same icon for statues and tombs
>the same icon for secret doors and locked doors
>"(A maze)"
8/10 you got me riled a bit but I calmed down after drinking some cold water
Add "Enemy Adventuring Party" to random encounter table
a fireball in a cul de sac works wonders (2x damage)
> Seriously, what do you do to stop players to just sneak behind a door or turtle on a corner.
What’s stopping the baddies in the dungeon from doing the same thing to the PCs?
That would take away player agency. If the enemy is unpredictable it's impossible to make reliable plans, which leads to randomly wandering murder hobo PCs.
>That would take away player agency.
It literally is the result of their choices. It's the ultimate agency. Agency doesn't mean infinite freedom, it means your actions have consequences that matter.
>If the enemy is unpredictable it's impossible to make reliable plans
Yeah, good! Smart enemies should be smart, players need to be smart too and if they aren't they get punished because their actions were stupid.
>which leads to randomly wandering murder hobo PCs.
Not if your players aren't morons, which yours clearly are. They're already metagaming murderhobos taking advantage of shit dungeon design.
You're missing the point. Monsters should behave in at least a somewhat predictable way or they just become a stat block. Lesser undead and vermin should generally attack on sight. Animals won't attack unless provoked or hungry, and then not a full party of people. Beastlike humanoids should be generally hostile and untrustworthy. If there's no context behind their actions they're just roving attack routines that might do anything. Predictability is good for verisimilitude.
>Monsters should behave in at least a somewhat predictable way or they just become a stat block
False, they should behave as needed to challenge the players, and you should be using creatures that can challenge the players as well as designing environments that challenge the players.
>Predictability is good for verisimilitude.
But terrible for actual gameplay. If you're so anal about this, stop using moronic enemies and/or stop making moronic dungeons.
A group of goatmen are approaching.
In game A the players have learned that goatmen are rapacious and cruel but generally not very bright and willing to trade with a superior forces. The players have the female characters conceal themselves at the rear and the party goes out to meet the goatmen boldly to make themselves seem as strong and unafraid as possible. If combat is avoided the players know to watch their backs while they're in the area because they know goatmen are untrustworthy and may attack when the party isn't at full strength.
In game B the players know that goatmen have a decent about of hit points, a ramming attack, and like to use axes. They make sure there aren't any pits the goatmen might try to ram them into and prepare to fight. The GM decides at will that the goatmen will attack this time. The combat is resolved and the party moves on to the next encounter at the GM's whim.
In Game C, the area around the players is not designed with any choke points or hidey holes for the players to use, and they aren't fighting Goatmen, they're fighting something able to actually use tactics.
>they know goatmen are untrustworthy and may attack when the party isn't at full strength.
Game A is the one where players should attack goatmen on sight.
If you insist on making enemies predictable, don't act surprised when your players notice and exploit it.
So what you’re saying is that encounters that force you to employ actual tactics and adaptability is bad-wrong and ruins your immersion?
Did I get that right?
get the hell away from my table
jfc you're dumb
Roll for surprise and reaction. Have a general idea of what the monsters are.
Describe the monsters and their general bearing.
Let the players figure it out.
A game called dungeons and dragons made this workable for 12 year-olds in the 80s, get your shit together.
>Predictability is good for verisimilitude.
So is it good for verisimilitude when monsters are so predictable that they continuously fall for the same sort of tricks?
If all the enemies are moronic, then you need to bear with the players exploiting that moronation. Otherwise, include some smarter enemies.
Baddies are supposed to be doing that all of the time. They're not just standing around waiting to be killed.
This might actually be a bot.
Introduce a countdown situation. You're the fricking GM, it's fricking allowed.
The roof start caving in, they have X rounds to get out. Fire starts (may even be started on purpose by the monsters/enemies), get out or suffer from smoke and then fire. You hear the enemies call or send someone to get reinforcement. Good luck staying put.
As for sneaky shit, I would allow it, but rill to see if there's more than one enemy or if they make enough noise while wounded/dying to attract attention.
If the bandits know they’re there? Magic flash-bang equivalent.
>Seriously, what do you do to stop players to just sneak behind a door or turtle on a corner.
The boredom, mainly. That corner is going to run out of treasure and enemies pretty fast.
have the monsters put 2 + 2 together and lay siege
>What stops players
You do. You do, anon. You can justify anything as GM, you can steer the course of the adventure to something that everyone finds fun.
So you dont like players using initative or tactics to gain an advantage? Weird. Maybe you should play something simpler, like Heroquest, chess or draughts, where the pieces cant do anything outside of what the rules say.
Really what these kinds of threads boil down to is that OP doesn’t like that his players are smarter than him and keep outwitting his “oh so clever” but not really encounters.
Grenades, poison gas, fire, wall-piercing munitions, teleporting enemies, tunnelers breaching from an unexpected angle, artillery, time-sensitive objectives deeper inside the facility.