Friday, October 5, 2012

Statblocks for dungeon rooms:

  


An example

8. Office of the Chef
Illumination: None
Smell: A hint of corruption.
Hazards: Quiet ones, see paragraphs 1 and 2; pan rack, see paragraph 3

As the PCs enter this room, four Quiet Ones shamble towards them out of the darkness- unless they have already attacked during the fight with the feathered serpent in area 7.
A large writing desk dominates the southern wall. 


Quiet Ones
AC 5[14] HD:1 Move: 8, Attack: Spiked limbs 1d6, Special:  quiet ones project a 10’ sphere of silence
Countless spikes (each identical to the one found in on the floor of area 1) pierce the desiccated, rotting corpses of these shambling undead sasquatch. The shimmering remnants of their defiled souls flicker and flash over their patchy rotten pelts like unholy lightning.

A rack of gold and silver pots and pans lines the entire length of the eastern wall. It is rickety.  If any one attempts to remove a single pot or pan the entire rack will fall across the entire room, inflicting everyone 2d6 damage on everyone within; ST for ½ damage.
_____________________________________________________________

The benefit is the presentation of the salient aspects of the room in an ‘at a glance’ format, which can help to limit missed and/or forgotten details.

Other stats could be added, such as an arbitrary danger scale, or treasure. Furthermore, not all rooms will require the same statblock, each can be tailored for the individual room, presenting only what is deemed necessary by the DM.

2 comments:

  1. I think 'yoinked' is the term all the cool kid-daddios in the OSR use. Anyway, good idea and one that I'll be adapting for my game.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great idea!
    I wonder how one might randomize this. It might be cool to swipe some stuff from Traveler and give each room an UPP or something. Hmmm...

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.