Caving/potholing/spelunking in tabletop D&D

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Urch
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Caving/potholing/spelunking in tabletop D&D

Post by Urch » Mon Jun 15, 2015 10:48 pm

So yeah, I've been running my first tabletop campaign for a few weeks now, and so far it's been hilarious. (One guy kept rolling a 1 whenever he'd encounter a river and would always fall in. Another guy got javelin'd in the thigh, and he snapped it in half and fired it back at the attacker, killing him).

As the party has 2 rangers, I have an idea to create a deep cave network for the party to explore, with all the features normally found in caving. I realise there is an AD&D dungeoneering guide however that's 1st Edition and I'm not quite sure how to convert it over.

I was thinking of just rolling to see what would come up next on their journeys. I.e. A dead cave, a grotto, a drop, a waterfall, etc.

Has anyone ever DM'd something like this/partaken in a campaign like this before?
Does anyone have any advice and/or tips for what books I should read?

Thanks in advance.
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Re: Caving/potholing/spelunking in tabletop D&D

Post by CragOneEye » Tue Jun 16, 2015 12:16 am

Which version are you running?
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Re: Caving/potholing/spelunking in tabletop D&D

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Tue Jun 16, 2015 1:11 am

You could probably do a lot of simulation of this kind of exploration with knowing the ins and outs of the Climb skill, Cave terrain, and some interesting "non combat encounters" ("knot loosens, companion drops!" "aaaah bat swarm!" and so forth).

But again, spelunking is a hard thing to do, because it's extremely difficult to convey the "Z" axis in a visual manner. I'd be very curious to hear about how other PnPers treat Z axis encounters and exploration (from aerial combat to spelunking). I always have a hard time with it, and thus tend to avoid it. My only solution I've ever thought of is tacking a Chessex battlemat to a wall and propping up tiles somehow against it. buuut...
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Urch
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Re: Caving/potholing/spelunking in tabletop D&D

Post by Urch » Tue Jun 16, 2015 2:49 am

I'm running 3.5 edition.

Hmm. We sometimes use Lego on top of the battlemat for objects and small heights. (purely because we don't have proper terrain/stuff).

Hah bat swarms, I like it.
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Re: Caving/potholing/spelunking in tabletop D&D

Post by CragOneEye » Tue Jun 16, 2015 5:41 am

Well the PHB has mmmm tables for climbing, falling and jumping. The DC's are listed in the climbing, jump and tumble skills section of the book. As for falling damage I'm not sure where t is but it's also in the PHB and DM guide. As for high ground versus low ground in combat I found most DM's fudged it. You also can use the "partial" cover chart listed in the PHB.
Last edited by CragOneEye on Wed Jun 17, 2015 10:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Caving/potholing/spelunking in tabletop D&D

Post by The Man of the Moon » Tue Jun 16, 2015 10:35 am

When in doubt, use an imaginary table behind your DM wall... and use common sense.
As they roll their dices, is easy to go, allowing success when they are not failing by 1's or 2's...
On generic physical enviroments, go with 1d3 dmg on small issues... 1d6 per each 3 meeters falls and such...
Be piety with your player chracters, as the best they might do, the more fun.

Don't allow the lack of info to stop your party session... just use the imagination and go on!

And this is a lot more funny to describe everything avoiding the use of legos or whatever... They are going to need the battle figurines only for epic battles where even every spit counts as ranged weapon.
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Re: Caving/potholing/spelunking in tabletop D&D

Post by ChrisY » Tue Jun 16, 2015 4:51 pm

Hi Urch,

Alright, I will respond in two parts.

The first part will pertain to the fleshing out of your dungeon. If you are exploring a natural environment, you can refer to documentaries on natural rock formations / caverns, etc. These will give you the ideas of how to flesh out your dungeon.

If your cave is man made/inhabited/modified from it's natural state, you might want to check reference material on underground construction, such as mines and tunnels (like the Viet Cong tunnels). These will give you an idea on how to plan the layout of your man-made dungeon - air shafts, living areas, entry/exit points, etc.

Rules wise, z axis is taken exactly like your x and y axis, except that it goes up. They do sell adjustable height thingies that hold your minis. Although, most of the times I play, people just stand their mini on a die, using the number facing up to indicate the height of the character. Eg, goblin standing on 6 side = 6x5 = 30ft above.

For ranges and spell areas, if you REALLY want to count it exactly, use the hypotenuse of your horizontal and vertical distances to calculate the length of the diagonal. However, as it is a game, most of the time we rely on just estimates... unless you have a player/gm who's really hard up about that 5 feet give or take.

Also note that for flying creatures, the space that they have inside these caverns will determine how well they can maneuver. Creatures with perfect flight can just move around as long as there's space, make sharp turns / 180's, etc, as compared to creatures with less than perfect flight that require a turning radius.

Don't forget, you are the dm, you call the shots (of course within reason and acceptance of all parties).

Of course, instead of reading up reference material like I mentioned earlier, you could also try your luck googling for cave environments and making your own environment generator rolling table.

I hope the above has been helpful, please let me know if I can help further.

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Urch
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Re: Caving/potholing/spelunking in tabletop D&D

Post by Urch » Wed Jun 17, 2015 10:34 am

Thanks guys, it's been very useful.

I might set about making a bunch of cave environment tables to roll with.
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