D is for Dungeoncrawling in 2e

 The 2e dungeon crawl procedures exist, but almost seem like an afterthought and without prior/outside knowledge I doubt, I would have succeeded in running a 28 session long campaign. As far as I understand it, the playstyle of AD&D 2e leans more into a trad campaign style and away from the grittier and more risqué elements contained in 1e, such as the existence of assassins or demons & devils. I have heard it said that this can be mostly laid at the feet of the satanic panic, and the resulting push from TSR to create a safer/more sanitized version with 2e.

The need for treasure creates an organic incentive to explore the dungeon and plunder it of its riches. Who but adrenalin junkies, weird wizards, or the necrophiliac, would enter the deadly domain of a dungeon, if there was not a substantial monetary reward? XP for retrieved nonmagical treasure is the raison d’tetre for a dungeon crawl.

It is a real shame that elements which should be cornerstones of the system, such as gold for XP, are reduced to (badly written) optional rules in the 2e DMG. It has to be mentioned at this point that the problem is not the fact that it is an optional rule, 2e is filled with those and the modularity of the system is a strength in my opinion. The problem is the accompanying advice we get from the 2e DM is not great. Let’s take a look.   

“As an option, the DM can award XP for the cash value of non-magical treasures. One XP can be given per gold piece found. However, overuse of this option can increase the tendency to give out too much treasure in the campaign” (Advanced Dungeon & Dragons 2^nd Edition, Dungeon Master Guide. Page 69)

Giving out too much treasure is not a concern of mine; I actually do not think it is possible. There are so many things the party spends money on, and even more thing they could spend money on. For example: A fighter needs 2000XP to  reach level 2. Let’s assume that at least 2/3rds come from treasure. As I am using the silver standard, this would translate to 1500 silver pieces. He needs 150 silver for his 1 week training to level 2. If he wants to take a new weapon proficiency at level 3, he needs to train between 2 weeks 1 month for it, which will cost 300-600 silver. Every day in the prison camp costs him 3 silver just for food, which amounts to 84 silver a month. Henchmen take a cut of the total treasure hoard and reduce the actual money in the players hands, Hirelings impose a cost of 3 silver per hireling per day. Plate mail starts at 600 silver pieces. Dungeon supplies, especially burning oil, are costly at 6 silver per flask.

I got endless ways to nickel and dime my players, “too much treasure” it never a concern and misses the point entirely. And we are not even out of the prison camp (the starting location of my current campaign) at this point, the need for raw cash will only increase if the party decides to explore the wilderness or sets up a permanent basecamp somewhere else. If the campaign lasts until domain play, the characters need hoards of cash to build their castles, wizard towers, thief’s guilds, or churches.

After getting the rant portion of this article out of the way, lets cover the substantial factors that need to be addresses to run second edition as a proper dungeon crawler.

Movement Speed: A dungeon turn is 10 minutes and has 10, 1 minute rounds. Per RAW 2e a character can move tens of feet per round during dungeon movement. This means that a human character that is not encumbered could move his base movement rate, in this case 12, in tens of feet per round, which would be 12x10= 120ft per round. This results in a movement of 1200ft per turn, which is enough to cover even my most expansive dungeon in just about 1 turn. To avoid this instance, I use something much closer to B/X, characters can move their current movement speed in tens of feet per turn in unexplored, unmapped territory. In mapped territory they can move up to three times faster.  This means that they can at most move 360ft per turn. It is usually much less, because the party moves as a group, and is limited by the member with the lowest movement speed. Halflings and heavily armoured fighters are the most likely cause of slow movement speed in my game.

Wandering Monsters: In second edition, it is suggested that one random encounter check is made every hour, with an encounter occurring as a result of 1 on a roll of 1d10. This is completely neutered compared to the frequency of a random encounter check every second turn, where an encounter happens on a 1 on a 1d6 roll. The 2e DMG does mention that the frequency should be increased in case the area is particularly dangerous or the players create excessive noise, but that does not change that the base frequency is insufficient.

Reaction rolls:  These rules are quite unwieldy in RAW second edition and I adapted the simpler B/X schema to be compatible with 2e stat-bonuses. I will talk more about this in a far off article: “M is for Morale”

Vision and Light: I have implemented both normal darkvision and a form of cat-like lowlight vision in my game. It is not the usual infravision, that is common in old-school games, but it works quite well. And the fact that demi-human races have one or the other depending on locations, is a cool bit of flavour on my mind. The exact mechanics are described below.

• Lowlight Vision: Enables a character to see in an environment that possesses ambient light (moon, star, candles  etc.) for 60ft as if it were daylight, as long as they do not stand in a directly lit area (for ex. the light radius of a torch, lantern, or light spell)
• Darkvision: Enables a character to see in total darkness for 60ft as if it were daylight.

All demi-human races (Dwarves, Elves, Half-elves, Half-orcs, and Halflings) possess both lowlight and darkvision. Dwarves and Half-orcs have darkvision underground and lowlight vision above ground. Elves, Half-elves, and Halflings have darkvision above ground and lowlight vision underground

I use the AD&D 1e durations for lanterns and torches in my game, this means lanterns burn for 4h/pint of oil and torches burn for 1 hour. For some reason, lanterns burned for 6h at some point in my game, and I have no idea where I got that duration from, the standard 2e values place them at 2 hours per pint.

 

I think that implementing these procedures into the skeleton of 2e, was the essential step that enabled me to run a successful dungeon crawl. I have had failed attempts before, most of them in fifth edition, and I had the feeling that the system itself did not support this playstyle at all. Second edition at least has the necessary parts, even if they are a bit mangled and need fixing.

Next article: “E is for Equipping your character”