I'm playing in a campaign with one of the old school dungeon crawls updated to 5E. I've never played in that style of game before, though, so I think there might be some strategies and sensibilities towards surviving a huge dungeon that are lost on me.
Any advice, general or specific, towards surviving a dungeon crawl?
A lot of the stuff on the equipment list, that you couldn't imagine why anyone would need it, it's there because dungeoneers of editions past had some obscure use for it. Iron spikes (10) get used to hammer a door open or shut. 1000 ball bearings get used to check whether there is an otherwise undetectable slope to a passage (undetectable slopes to passages were a big thing in the '70's, I guess). Chalk leaves a trail for you to follow. A block and tackle can clear passageways.
Ideally, you should actually have two bags of holding. One for the loot and one for a Home Depot's worth of gear,
As stated by TimCurtin, many mundane items are incredibly useful in dungeon crawls. Take ten foot poles to poke anything and everything before touching/proceeding. Oil flasks to slick the ground and set things on fire. Torches to light the way/light said oil. Fifty foot rope, tie yourselves to each other to not get split up or fall into pits and such. Crowbars and hammers to open pesky doors. Try and keep in mind all the random items you have; you never know when you might get a fun chance to use them.
"Don't split the party" is extra important in a dungeon.
Make known to your DM the kind of thing your character would be constantly doing, so your DM can keep it in mind and use your Passive skills. People always feel like they're being annoying saying "I want to search for traps" every time they enter the room. In my opinion as a DM it's not annoying, but it's still easier to say "my character would constantly be looking for traps and secret doors" and then your DM can use your passive score rather than asking for perception checks every 5 minutes.
Thanks for the advice; that actually makes a lot of sense on all of the miscellaneous adventuring gear.
Any suggestions on managing food and drink? PHB says a character needs a gallon of water a day; that means a day's worth of water is 20 lbs of weight, which is taxing on the carrying capacity for my Str 8 tabaxi bard.
That hugely depends on both the dungeon and your party. If you have a Cleric, Paladin, or Circle of the Land(Desert) Druid that is high enough level to cast 3rd level spells, Create Food and Water negates any worry about this type of thing. Clerics and all Druids can also cast the 1st level spell Create or Destroy Water which is less of a cost, can be gotten earlier, and relieves you of needing water which is more important than food.
If you have a party member with good survival (and/or the Outlander background), and the dungeon has areas that are rife with fungi, they may be able to scrounge some food up for the party. Can always eat some monsters if you're desperate, but depending on what it is expect some Con saves.
Failing all that, hopefully you have a party member with ludicrous strength (possibly even a Goliath or other race that has double carrying capacity) that can lug all your food and water around.
Edit: How could I forget about Goodberry. A totally bull$#!% 1st level Druid & Ranger spell that can sustain an entire party (food and water) for a day.
I doubt a single person reading this thread has had a full gallon of water to drink in a single day in recent memory. A waterskin in the PHB holds 4 pints and weighs 5 pounds (when full, presumably, so 1 pound of skin and 4 pounds of liquid). A waterskin/day is probably a more manageable thing to track, rather than a gallon (although Create or Destroy Water is measured in terms of Gallons, bleh).
I don’t think we want to go too far down this path - there are a lot of things my level 13 kenku archer has done that I haven’t done in recent memory.
That said, I agree. I’ve rarely played with a DM who worried about eating let alone required a Lewis and Clark-style analysis of benefit-to-weight. I think the one time I ever played in such a game, I was running it and I’d just read Endurance and was all hyped up on doing some arctic survival thing. Unless the OP has some reason to think their DM is going to clock rations, writing “water skin” on your character sheet will be fine.
If encumbrance is an issue in the OPs game, they can buy a mule.
Resource management isn't typically a problem in many campaigns, but it's often a focus of huge dungeon delve adventures. It can be ignored in most games because you have frequent opportunity to stock up. Not so if you're in a dungeon for days or weeks.
I forgot one of the most important pieces of dungeon crawling equipment!
Graph paper.
For various reasons, long long ago, it was expected that one player at the table would be making their own map of the dungeon as the party went along, according to the description of the DM, who held the master copy of the map. Mapping this way would keep the party from getting lost in a maze of tunnels, perhaps while being pursued by a big monster; help the party avoid areas that were too dangerous for them; make note of traps; eliminate areas of the site that had already been looted; and, if they were accurate enough, even help a party find secret passages and chambers..
It's a very weird art form, making maps this way, and your DM might not require you to, but if you really want to be ready to go old-school, graph paper is the way to go to keep things accurate.
The only thing that concerns me about Create or Destroy Water is that it says it creates up to 10 gallons "in an open container." It makes me wonder if we'd need to cart an empty barrel around with us just to have something to fill with the spell, then fill our waterskins from.
And while the graph paper is great advice, it's kind of negated by the game taking place in Roll20, so we have reliable access to the maps at any given time.
Search everything. Examine all walls that do not have a known room on the other side already, for possible secret doors. Look out for traps... there will be many.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
On slight correction: Goodberry does nothing for hydration. It provides you the food requirement, not the water. This is why Goodberry is 1st level and Create Food and Water is 3rd.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Well, "nourishment." Whether that encompasses hydration probably depends on your DM's interpretation of that word, or which definition you settle on after a google search.
I'm playing in a campaign with one of the old school dungeon crawls updated to 5E. I've never played in that style of game before, though, so I think there might be some strategies and sensibilities towards surviving a huge dungeon that are lost on me.
Any advice, general or specific, towards surviving a dungeon crawl?
Conserve your spell slots / resources.
When resting, make sure to have a watch rotation.
Site Info: Wizard's ToS | Fan Content Policy | Forum Rules | Physical Books | Content Not Working | Contact Support
How To: Homebrew Rules | Create Homebrew | Snippet Codes | Tool Tips (Custom) | Rollables (Generator)
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Feats | Spells | Magic Items
Other: Beyond20 | Page References | Other Guides | Entitlements | Dice Randomization | Images Fix | FAQ
A lot of the stuff on the equipment list, that you couldn't imagine why anyone would need it, it's there because dungeoneers of editions past had some obscure use for it. Iron spikes (10) get used to hammer a door open or shut. 1000 ball bearings get used to check whether there is an otherwise undetectable slope to a passage (undetectable slopes to passages were a big thing in the '70's, I guess). Chalk leaves a trail for you to follow. A block and tackle can clear passageways.
Ideally, you should actually have two bags of holding. One for the loot and one for a Home Depot's worth of gear,
Ah, massive dungeon delves. Classic DnD stuff.
As stated by TimCurtin, many mundane items are incredibly useful in dungeon crawls. Take ten foot poles to poke anything and everything before touching/proceeding. Oil flasks to slick the ground and set things on fire. Torches to light the way/light said oil. Fifty foot rope, tie yourselves to each other to not get split up or fall into pits and such. Crowbars and hammers to open pesky doors. Try and keep in mind all the random items you have; you never know when you might get a fun chance to use them.
"Don't split the party" is extra important in a dungeon.
Make known to your DM the kind of thing your character would be constantly doing, so your DM can keep it in mind and use your Passive skills. People always feel like they're being annoying saying "I want to search for traps" every time they enter the room. In my opinion as a DM it's not annoying, but it's still easier to say "my character would constantly be looking for traps and secret doors" and then your DM can use your passive score rather than asking for perception checks every 5 minutes.
Good luck and have fun!
Thanks for the advice; that actually makes a lot of sense on all of the miscellaneous adventuring gear.
Any suggestions on managing food and drink? PHB says a character needs a gallon of water a day; that means a day's worth of water is 20 lbs of weight, which is taxing on the carrying capacity for my Str 8 tabaxi bard.
That hugely depends on both the dungeon and your party. If you have a Cleric, Paladin, or Circle of the Land(Desert) Druid that is high enough level to cast 3rd level spells, Create Food and Water negates any worry about this type of thing. Clerics and all Druids can also cast the 1st level spell Create or Destroy Water which is less of a cost, can be gotten earlier, and relieves you of needing water which is more important than food.
If you have a party member with good survival (and/or the Outlander background), and the dungeon has areas that are rife with fungi, they may be able to scrounge some food up for the party. Can always eat some monsters if you're desperate, but depending on what it is expect some Con saves.
Failing all that, hopefully you have a party member with ludicrous strength (possibly even a Goliath or other race that has double carrying capacity) that can lug all your food and water around.
Edit: How could I forget about Goodberry. A totally bull$#!% 1st level Druid & Ranger spell that can sustain an entire party (food and water) for a day.
Yeah, goodberry is #1 - covers basically a full party indefinitely.
Also, a gallon of water is only 8 pounds, not 20. A pint's a pound the world around.
I doubt a single person reading this thread has had a full gallon of water to drink in a single day in recent memory. A waterskin in the PHB holds 4 pints and weighs 5 pounds (when full, presumably, so 1 pound of skin and 4 pounds of liquid). A waterskin/day is probably a more manageable thing to track, rather than a gallon (although Create or Destroy Water is measured in terms of Gallons, bleh).
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I definitely drink a gallon of water a day. Coffee is mostly water, after all.
I don’t think we want to go too far down this path - there are a lot of things my level 13 kenku archer has done that I haven’t done in recent memory.
That said, I agree. I’ve rarely played with a DM who worried about eating let alone required a Lewis and Clark-style analysis of benefit-to-weight. I think the one time I ever played in such a game, I was running it and I’d just read Endurance and was all hyped up on doing some arctic survival thing. Unless the OP has some reason to think their DM is going to clock rations, writing “water skin” on your character sheet will be fine.
If encumbrance is an issue in the OPs game, they can buy a mule.
Resource management isn't typically a problem in many campaigns, but it's often a focus of huge dungeon delve adventures. It can be ignored in most games because you have frequent opportunity to stock up. Not so if you're in a dungeon for days or weeks.
I forgot one of the most important pieces of dungeon crawling equipment!
Graph paper.
For various reasons, long long ago, it was expected that one player at the table would be making their own map of the dungeon as the party went along, according to the description of the DM, who held the master copy of the map. Mapping this way would keep the party from getting lost in a maze of tunnels, perhaps while being pursued by a big monster; help the party avoid areas that were too dangerous for them; make note of traps; eliminate areas of the site that had already been looted; and, if they were accurate enough, even help a party find secret passages and chambers..
It's a very weird art form, making maps this way, and your DM might not require you to, but if you really want to be ready to go old-school, graph paper is the way to go to keep things accurate.
The only thing that concerns me about Create or Destroy Water is that it says it creates up to 10 gallons "in an open container." It makes me wonder if we'd need to cart an empty barrel around with us just to have something to fill with the spell, then fill our waterskins from.
And while the graph paper is great advice, it's kind of negated by the game taking place in Roll20, so we have reliable access to the maps at any given time.
Has anyone mentioned tiny hut? That spell can be your best friend in dungeons.
Search everything. Examine all walls that do not have a known room on the other side already, for possible secret doors. Look out for traps... there will be many.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
bring shovels or mold earth cantrip and just dig your way through walls as well to make your own route :D
Chalk
Light.
A spear or staff or 10 foot pole.
Rope.
Robe of Useful Items
Candles.
Oil.
Whistle.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
On slight correction: Goodberry does nothing for hydration. It provides you the food requirement, not the water. This is why Goodberry is 1st level and Create Food and Water is 3rd.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Well, "nourishment." Whether that encompasses hydration probably depends on your DM's interpretation of that word, or which definition you settle on after a google search.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.