I have a session coming up with 3 level 7 PCs. They will be passing through a forest that has pretty much died and become necrotic and decayed due to reasons outside the forest. The forest itself doesnt really have any plot significance, they will just be getting a few items from it.
My sort-of plan is to have lots of twig blights, needle blights, and violet fungus attack them pretty much constantly, with the occasional gas spore from a nearby pond popping up. My thought was to throw small hoards of very weak enemies at them. But as for doing the actual dungeon crawl itself, other than doing one massive encounter, I have no idea how to run this. A forest is a wide open area. So any ideas would be appreciated.
Im also aware that the enemies listed are very easy, but its more about numbers and grappling the PCs as they pass by than just doing a straight combat encounter. So any ideas would be welcome.
For a series of unimportant encounters not worth rolling initiative, you could take inspiration from the Pit Fighting downtime activity from Xanathar's. Have them roll a few skill checks, and a reward or penalty based on the number of successes and failures.
As for actual combats with numerous foes, you might want to combine several of them to work as a "swarm of ___" statblock. This would help keep the action economy and length of the encounter in check.
To run a level 7 dungeon, I recommend the following:
Have the PCs enter an underground area: a cave behind a waterfall, a hollowed out tree root system, or maybe inside a gigantic dead tree (a Gulthanas tree maybe if you're running blights in the forest)
Choose the main creature that lives there (the boss) and work out what they need in their lair. This will help you to populate the rooms
Find a suitable map online (go to Pinterest, search for "cave battlemap" or "tree battlemap" etc.
For a fun level 7 dungeon crawl, first of all assume that the PCs will take a long rest before entering, especially if they've got a bit dented on the way
Aim for a varied dungeon experience, featuring roughly one combat for every 3 rooms that the PCs will go through on their way to meeting the boss
The other rooms should be a combination of puzzles, traps (these can be 'natural' traps like unsafe ceilings rather than mechanical ones), strange magic, flooded chambers, social interaction with a trapped creature, ghost or other non-hostile creature, rooms where treasure can be found, and rooms that exist purely for flavour
The boss should be somewhere around CR10 with legendary actions if it has no minions. Place the best treasure in the boss room.
The Entangle spell, plus the Web one would be awesome additions, have you thought of adding Ettercaps into the mix?
Perhaps a Swarm Keeper Undead Ranger strikes from the shadows as the Big Bad of the area throwing his swarms of locusts and grave beetles at the party?
Have you considered adding a sort of locus of infection? Imagine that a greater demon came through a portal in this wood, desecrating it and starting the decay. That spot might contain an echo of that demon or it’s offspring?
An area spell of confusion could be fun to get the characters mixed up before the bad guys attack, ala the hobbit.
I feel like that would work for dungeons other than a forest crawl...
I'm confused about what you're asking. My understanding was that you were going to have the PCs travel through a forest, and then have a dungeon crawl at the end of it:
My sort-of plan is to have lots of twig blights, needle blights, and violet fungus attack them pretty much constantly, with the occasional gas spore from a nearby pond popping up. My thought was to throw small hoards of very weak enemies at them. But as for doing the actual dungeon crawl itself, other than doing one massive encounter, I have no idea how to run this. A forest is a wide open area. So any ideas would be appreciated.
Anyway, the key to it is to follow the same steps I outlined above anyway. Instead of corridors, you have passable trails. Instead of rooms, you have glades. Instead of a puzzle door, you have a puzzle tree. Think of it more like a series of glades (rooms) connected by trails (corridors) and it works exactly the same. Trails don't have to be paths: they can be a trail of yellow paint that pixies have put on trees, blood spatters on the ground, a path someone has recently cut with a machete, a stepping stone path through marshy ground etc. Have different trails lead to multiple areas so the players have choice of where to go, and the forest feels like directional choice matters.
If you prefer to abandon the idea of trails, and simply have the PCs hacking their way through in a directionless way, then throw one random encounter at them and have them out of there ASAP. If not, then you're essentially just giving them the same encounters regardless of what they choose to do.
The forest IS the dungeon crawl. Sorry, Im not great at wording things, thats my bad. That, however, could work very well, having trails and glades and stuff. I like that idea, and that I think I can totally do. Actually never thought of structuring it like a closed dungeon like that.
As they get closer to the center of the forest, or closer to the infected ponds, I could definitely do a natural sort of confusion spell effect. The smell and decay could definitely do that. And yea, ettercaps could be good at stalking them a bit, whereas the other monsters like the blights would maybe more attack them as they pass by.
An outdoor "dungeon" is perfectly feasible, especially in somewhere like a forest. Ultimately, instead of a map you will have it set up as "no matter where you go, you encounter the next "room" when you get there" kind of setup, at which point it will become a string of encounters. You will need to consider the very real possibility that they will get around some of them without necessarily fighting. If you're up for the work, you can make consequences for killing or not killing each enemy, such as the BBEG having more blights as minions at the end, or an Otyugh rampaging through the final fight if your players sneak past it (it being just an animal and not hostile to them in particular).
@Caius_Ballad13 how will you be running the encounters? Theater of the mind? Table top with minies? Online Virtual TableTop Owlbear, AboveVTT, roll20, fantasy grounds?
Your decaying forest doesn't have to be " A forest is a wide open area " it will have steeps ravines and gullies streams boggy muddy areas thicket choked points... even a plantation forest can be quite diverse... I think it might help if you paint several locations for your encounters in your minds eye... say Location 1) a steep winding climb with dense undergrowth on either side with fallen dead trees making movement very hard off the path (difficult terrain) Location 2) a deep gully filled with fallen trees like matchsticks all thick with rot a single tree fallen over it to cross...
A classic decaying forest monster encounter which I think hasn't been mentioned... Giant Spiders like the scenes from The Hobbit when they are in Mirkwood A Rot Troll would also seem quite fitting
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
If it's a dead woods, have a large section of the area covered in a dark fog - or even magical darkness if your PCs like to scream "BUT MUH DARKVIZIN" like mine do.
You could place ancient, topped ruins in the woods as places to explore, each with mini puzzles in them that all kind of build upon each other in a way that each could be independently solved without the others - but once they're all solved, because they're tied together, perhaps by magic or leylines or somesuch, it summons whatever you want your "boss" creature to be, which then begins to roam the darkness of the forest it has been called to. The group must then hunt this thing down in the woods, using survival skill checks to track where it's been, perception checks to try to see where it might be, stealth checks to avoid being seen first, etc. You could even make a small random encounter table (like a d6 one) and have the players roll on it for what they encounter as they're searching, encountering the boss on a 6 but getting lost and turned around completely on a 1, with small encounters on other numbers.
Don't forget about verticality, either. In a forest you have tree heights, birds nests, you can have flying creatures like blood hawks, and even phase spiders are really cool - and could hint that something else is lurking just beyond the ethereal in the area.
The ultimate goal is to get the party to explore as much of the forest-dungeon as possible, complete a couple of puzzles, fall for a few traps (a rapid group of gnolls perhaps?), and "solve" the dungeon in order to encounter the boss, which then "completes" the dungeon and grants them their reward. For a boss, perhaps choose a huge creature that can wear the rewards around its neck (think the Hinox from Zelda Breath of the Wild).
Probably a mix of theater of mind and tabletop minis
Thanks Caius_Ballad13 for answering that, makes the fantastical locations that one might not have a VTT map for suggestions relevant I was reminded of one of the first choose your own adventure books I loved eons ago... Fighting Fantasy series Forest of Doom by Ian Livingstone
So I had a little googly and found a lovely map some one made of the adventure were basically each location is a Scene/Room/Area from the book
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“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
It might help to think of every adventure as basically a dungeon. You have "rooms" where something happens that are connected by "hallways" that are transitions between the rooms. While a forest is not made of enclosed sections, it's presumably not absolutely chock-full of blights over every square foot. They may congregate in thickets. Maybe there are some natural barriers that can serve as goals to reach - evil/undead not being able to cross running water is a common trope. You can find rooms and hallways just about everywhere if you look hard enough.
It really depends on how you want to run it. I'd lean towards OverdesignBob's suggestion to make it mostly a skill challenge since the question is less "win or lose" and more about how many resources are eaten up by the journey. But it could be fun to have a single showcase encounter in the middle or at the end, with the previous skill check successes/failures having an impact on the starting conditions of the battle. I would just recommend avoiding a long drawn-out slog where the players are constantly facing a low threat. There's no drama in a scene like that.
I have a session coming up with 3 level 7 PCs. They will be passing through a forest that has pretty much died and become necrotic and decayed due to reasons outside the forest. The forest itself doesnt really have any plot significance, they will just be getting a few items from it.
My sort-of plan is to have lots of twig blights, needle blights, and violet fungus attack them pretty much constantly, with the occasional gas spore from a nearby pond popping up. My thought was to throw small hoards of very weak enemies at them. But as for doing the actual dungeon crawl itself, other than doing one massive encounter, I have no idea how to run this. A forest is a wide open area. So any ideas would be appreciated.
Im also aware that the enemies listed are very easy, but its more about numbers and grappling the PCs as they pass by than just doing a straight combat encounter. So any ideas would be welcome.
For a series of unimportant encounters not worth rolling initiative, you could take inspiration from the Pit Fighting downtime activity from Xanathar's. Have them roll a few skill checks, and a reward or penalty based on the number of successes and failures.
As for actual combats with numerous foes, you might want to combine several of them to work as a "swarm of ___" statblock. This would help keep the action economy and length of the encounter in check.
To run a level 7 dungeon, I recommend the following:
I feel like that would work for dungeons other than a forest crawl...
The Entangle spell, plus the Web one would be awesome additions, have you thought of adding Ettercaps into the mix?
Perhaps a Swarm Keeper Undead Ranger strikes from the shadows as the Big Bad of the area throwing his swarms of locusts and grave beetles at the party?
Have you considered adding a sort of locus of infection? Imagine that a greater demon came through a portal in this wood, desecrating it and starting the decay. That spot might contain an echo of that demon or it’s offspring?
An area spell of confusion could be fun to get the characters mixed up before the bad guys attack, ala the hobbit.
I'm confused about what you're asking. My understanding was that you were going to have the PCs travel through a forest, and then have a dungeon crawl at the end of it:
Anyway, the key to it is to follow the same steps I outlined above anyway. Instead of corridors, you have passable trails. Instead of rooms, you have glades. Instead of a puzzle door, you have a puzzle tree. Think of it more like a series of glades (rooms) connected by trails (corridors) and it works exactly the same. Trails don't have to be paths: they can be a trail of yellow paint that pixies have put on trees, blood spatters on the ground, a path someone has recently cut with a machete, a stepping stone path through marshy ground etc. Have different trails lead to multiple areas so the players have choice of where to go, and the forest feels like directional choice matters.
If you prefer to abandon the idea of trails, and simply have the PCs hacking their way through in a directionless way, then throw one random encounter at them and have them out of there ASAP. If not, then you're essentially just giving them the same encounters regardless of what they choose to do.
The forest IS the dungeon crawl. Sorry, Im not great at wording things, thats my bad.
That, however, could work very well, having trails and glades and stuff. I like that idea, and that I think I can totally do. Actually never thought of structuring it like a closed dungeon like that.
As they get closer to the center of the forest, or closer to the infected ponds, I could definitely do a natural sort of confusion spell effect. The smell and decay could definitely do that. And yea, ettercaps could be good at stalking them a bit, whereas the other monsters like the blights would maybe more attack them as they pass by.
Tree blights from Ravenloft. Those things are nasty.
An outdoor "dungeon" is perfectly feasible, especially in somewhere like a forest. Ultimately, instead of a map you will have it set up as "no matter where you go, you encounter the next "room" when you get there" kind of setup, at which point it will become a string of encounters. You will need to consider the very real possibility that they will get around some of them without necessarily fighting. If you're up for the work, you can make consequences for killing or not killing each enemy, such as the BBEG having more blights as minions at the end, or an Otyugh rampaging through the final fight if your players sneak past it (it being just an animal and not hostile to them in particular).
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@Caius_Ballad13 how will you be running the encounters? Theater of the mind? Table top with minies? Online Virtual TableTop Owlbear, AboveVTT, roll20, fantasy grounds?
Your decaying forest doesn't have to be " A forest is a wide open area " it will have steeps ravines and gullies streams boggy muddy areas thicket choked points... even a plantation forest can be quite diverse... I think it might help if you paint several locations for your encounters in your minds eye... say
Location 1) a steep winding climb with dense undergrowth on either side with fallen dead trees making movement very hard off the path (difficult terrain)
Location 2) a deep gully filled with fallen trees like matchsticks all thick with rot a single tree fallen over it to cross...
A classic decaying forest monster encounter which I think hasn't been mentioned... Giant Spiders like the scenes from The Hobbit when they are in Mirkwood
A Rot Troll would also seem quite fitting
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
If it's a dead woods, have a large section of the area covered in a dark fog - or even magical darkness if your PCs like to scream "BUT MUH DARKVIZIN" like mine do.
You could place ancient, topped ruins in the woods as places to explore, each with mini puzzles in them that all kind of build upon each other in a way that each could be independently solved without the others - but once they're all solved, because they're tied together, perhaps by magic or leylines or somesuch, it summons whatever you want your "boss" creature to be, which then begins to roam the darkness of the forest it has been called to. The group must then hunt this thing down in the woods, using survival skill checks to track where it's been, perception checks to try to see where it might be, stealth checks to avoid being seen first, etc. You could even make a small random encounter table (like a d6 one) and have the players roll on it for what they encounter as they're searching, encountering the boss on a 6 but getting lost and turned around completely on a 1, with small encounters on other numbers.
Don't forget about verticality, either. In a forest you have tree heights, birds nests, you can have flying creatures like blood hawks, and even phase spiders are really cool - and could hint that something else is lurking just beyond the ethereal in the area.
The ultimate goal is to get the party to explore as much of the forest-dungeon as possible, complete a couple of puzzles, fall for a few traps (a rapid group of gnolls perhaps?), and "solve" the dungeon in order to encounter the boss, which then "completes" the dungeon and grants them their reward. For a boss, perhaps choose a huge creature that can wear the rewards around its neck (think the Hinox from Zelda Breath of the Wild).
Best of luck!
Probably a mix of theater of mind and tabletop minis
With the help of a few other commenters, I think I have come up with doing the idea of no matter where they go, it is a "room" of sorts
Thanks Caius_Ballad13 for answering that, makes the fantastical locations that one might not have a VTT map for suggestions relevant
I was reminded of one of the first choose your own adventure books I loved eons ago... Fighting Fantasy series Forest of Doom by Ian Livingstone
So I had a little googly and found a lovely map some one made of the adventure were basically each location is a Scene/Room/Area from the book
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
It might help to think of every adventure as basically a dungeon. You have "rooms" where something happens that are connected by "hallways" that are transitions between the rooms. While a forest is not made of enclosed sections, it's presumably not absolutely chock-full of blights over every square foot. They may congregate in thickets. Maybe there are some natural barriers that can serve as goals to reach - evil/undead not being able to cross running water is a common trope. You can find rooms and hallways just about everywhere if you look hard enough.
It really depends on how you want to run it. I'd lean towards OverdesignBob's suggestion to make it mostly a skill challenge since the question is less "win or lose" and more about how many resources are eaten up by the journey. But it could be fun to have a single showcase encounter in the middle or at the end, with the previous skill check successes/failures having an impact on the starting conditions of the battle. I would just recommend avoiding a long drawn-out slog where the players are constantly facing a low threat. There's no drama in a scene like that.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm