Rules Index | GM Screen

GameMastery Guide / Adventures / Dungeons

Resting in the Dungeon

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 177
It happens to every adventuring party—you power through half dozen or so encounters and suddenly the prospect of facing the tougher encounters at the end of the dungeon with your depleted resources seems foolish. Often, the party has progressed far enough into the dungeon that merely leaving the dungeon and coming back isn’t an option—especially if there are a lot of deadly hazards or traps along the way, or if the dungeon’s denizens are likely to repopulate rooms with reinforcements.

In such situations, a group of adventurers often chooses to rest inside of a dungeon. Don’t let this rattle you! In fact, you should consider putting a few rooms in your dungeon (especially if it’s a large complex) that can be easily defended or work well as campsites. When a group of PCs decides to rest in a dungeon, decide if the threats that remain will challenge the adventurers—if you know that they need to recover their strength, you should let them rest (but only after instilling a little bit of paranoia by getting a schedule of watches and details on how they fortify their campsite). But if you know that the group still has the resources to forge ahead, feel free to have wandering monsters come by to harass the characters while they relax.

If your PCs are habitual dungeon relaxers who rest after every encounter, the dungeon’s inhabitants should catch on after a few naps and set up some ambushes or assaults on the characters’ campsite. The goal is to keep the PCs challenged without making things hopelessly difficult, and to allow them time to recover when you feel they really need it—don’t let them dictate when they’ll have the luxury of a full night’s sleep!

Archives of Nethys

Rules Index | GM Screen

Resting in the Dungeon