The 5^th Edition of D&D identified Three Pillars of Adventure:

• Exploration
• Social Interaction
• Combat

Of these, nobody seems to have been particularly confused by social interaction (those are the talky-talky bits) or combat (there’s a whole combat system hardwired to an action economy, tactical movement, and hit point depletion).

Exploration, though?

Rivers of digital ink have been metaphorically spilt over it. So let’s take a moment to summarize two key points from all that discussion:

Yes, exploration is the least mechanically supported pillar. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say it is the least structurally supported pillar. Combat has that whole combat system we mentioned and an entire core rulebook dedicated to monsters you can fight. Social interaction is naturally supported by the fundamental structure of an RPG as a conversation of meaningful choices. Exploration simply lacks those clear, core structures.

Second: No, the “exploration” pillar is not just about wilderness exploration. Exploration is much more than that and – like the other pillars – should ideally permeate every facet of your D&D experience. Exploration is about discovering your environment, analyzing what you’ve learned about it, and then enjoying the pay-off of using that knowledge.

I was initially baffled by why so many people make the false assumption that “exploration = wilderness exploration,” because the pervasive nature of the pillar seems very clearly explained in the core rulebook (PHB, p. 8). But I think the problem goes back to the lack of structure: Exploration doesn’t have a clear-cut structure in the core rulebooks. D&D used to have a very clear-cut structure for wilderness exploration (the hexcrawl). If D&D still had that clear-cut structure, it would solve the problem! Therefore, wilderness exploration would solve the problem of the missing exploration pillar, which means that the exploration pillar is wilderness exploration.

But here’s the thing. Even when groups reach out, grab that structure, and plug it back into 5^th Edition, they often find that there’s something missing. They’re running the hexcrawl, but it doesn’t feel as if they’re exploring the world.

So there’s something more fundamentally amiss here. What does it really mean to be an explorer? And how can we capture that experience at the game table?

EXPLORING EXPLORATION

Exploration takes place in an environment. That environment might be a vast wilderness, a dungeon, or a specific room within that dungeon — it’s a fractal concept that can (and should!) apply to the game world at all scales – but regardless of the environment being explored, there are, broadly speaking, a few different kinds of exploration.

• Curiosity: You’re just randomly looking around to see what you can find in an area.
• Searching: You’re trying to find something specific that you know or suspect is in a particular area.
• Trailblazing: You’re figuring out how to get between two known locations. (Think Northwest Passage, but this can also apply metaphorically to non-geographic exploration.)

There are probably other broad categories I’m overlooking here, but this is a good start.

One key thing to take away from this list, though, is that travel is NOT exploration. I wrote an article called Thinking About Wilderness Travel which looks at the issue of wilderness travel specifically, but what it boils down to is this: In travel, you know the route. In exploration, you’re trying to figure out the route.

Using the word “travel” sort of narrows our scope to moving from one location to another, but the same principle applies more broadly. For example, visiting and exploration aren’t the same thing, either. When the PCs visit a tavern, for example, you usually won’t run that the same way you’d run a dungeon. Even if they’ve never been to a particular inn before, when they go up to their rooms for the night, you don’t break out the battlemaps or have them start navigating hallway by hallway.

When you’re going along a known route to a known place – either literally or metaphorically – that’s travel; not exploration.

(Vague treasure maps totally count, though. “Okay, the map says head south from the mountain.” But which mountain? That’s not really a known route. You still need to find the route, and that’s either searching or trailblazing or both. The same basic principle applies to a mystery scenario, for example.)

DISCOVERING EXPLORATION

Okay, but how do you make it FEEL like exploration? Well, if we describe it in terms of a hexcrawl, there are three core requirements:

First, you have to give the players a structure in which they can make meaningful navigational choices.

Second, it has to be possible for the players to FAIL to find something they’re looking for.

Third, the players have to either have information or be able to get information about an area so that the choices they make aren’t just random.

The first of these is generally not a problem in true wilderness exploration (although navigational systems can sometimes be a little anemic), but what will kill it dead as a doornail is any kind of linear plot.

I’m not just talking about railroading. (That’s always bad.) In this case, it’s any linear plotting that kills exploration dead. If you imagine the beginning of an adventure as Point A and the end of the adventure as a known Point B with a linear sequence of planned events connecting those two points, then what you’re imagining, from a structural point of view, is a road. It’s a known route that the PCs are traveling along, and that’s why the linear plot is antithetical to exploration.

(If you’d like to explore how to prep adventures that aren’t based on linear plots, check out Don’t Prep Plots.)

What about our second requirement? How can that one go awry? Returning to a hexcrawl, for example, it’s not unusual to see systems in which players choose which hex to enter and then automatically find whatever is in the hex. That can be OK (they can still fail to go to the right hex, so there’s a little bit of exploration there), but it’s pretty weak. It’s kind of like a dungeon with no secret doors in which the boxed text for every room completely describes everything in the room, with further investigation or examination never revealing anything more. The players simply move through the dungeon and the DM reads each room description to them. And that’s it. It should hopefully be pretty obvious why that would make for a lackluster dungeon experience.

When it comes to failure in exploration, explorers can also:

• Fail to look in the right place.
• Get lost (and possibly only think they’re looking in the right place).
• Be prevented by danger from reaching their goal (being captured or killed or forced to flee).
• Be forced to withdraw due to limited logistics. (The logistics of a wilderness expedition, for example, creates a time limit: Can you find it / what can you find / how much can you find before you need to return home?)

Another way of looking at this is that if you want to feel as if you’ve truly accomplished something, then you must be challenged in accomplishing it. And if the challenge is to be meaningful, then failure has to be possible (even if it’s only a temporary failure or a cost you didn’t want to pay).

(We’re kind of dancing around a broader principle here: It’s not just combat where the players should feel challenged by the game. All three Pillars of Adventure are made meaningful by overcoming challenges! That includes both exploration and social interactions.)

It’s really our third requirement, though, where I think things can often go wrong even when it seems like we’re doing everything right.

It’s all right to wander aimlessly and just kind of randomly look for something interesting. That’s curiosity. It counts as exploration. But it’s a shallow experience; it’s not going to engage the players, so they won’t FEEL like they’re exploring.

Once the players start getting information, though, they can start making meaningful choices.

So where does that meaningful information come from? Well, once again limiting ourselves specifically to hexcrawls, we can consider specific techniques like:

• Information in one keyed location can indicate other keyed locations, giving the PCs the opportunity to seek those locations out. (This changes curiosity into searching. See Hexcrawl Addendum: Connecting Your Hexes.)
• Treasure maps can be discovered. (A specific variant of the same technique.)
• Rumors can be gleaned from tavern talks, befriended NPCs, interrogated enemies, and the like. (See Hexcrawl Tool: Rumors.)
• Tracks or similar “monster sign” can be followed, as described in Hexcrawl Tool: Tracks. (This changes curiosity into a form of trailblazing.)

And so forth.

The more general principles here, of course, aren’t just limited to wilderness exploration. In other forms of adventure, for example, clues can often be pursued (see the Three Clue Rule), similarly changing curiosity into trailblazing.

SUMMING UP

Exploration requires freedom. It also requires an environment or a structure of play in which players can make meaningful choices in order to navigate, inspect, and take action in their surroundings.

At the most basic level, players should be able to satisfy their curiosity. This becomes a kind of default action. In a dungeon it’s examining and interacting with a room. In a mystery, it’s investigating a crime scene. In the wilderness it’s venturing forth into the unknown.

But because exploration at random is a shallow experience, that default action of random exploration should ideally provide information which allows the players to set goals and then make meaningful choices to pursue those goals though exploration – either by seeking something specific (searching) or figuring out how to get from where they are to where they want to be (trailblazing).

These can be quite literal (searching a room or a dungeon or a forest; seeking a physical path from one point to another), but can also be thought of as principles for guiding exploration in other contexts: Figuring out how the Mad Alchemist hid the key to his cypher in the statuary; how to prove that Old Man Roberts murdered his wife; or how to bypass a particularly nefarious trap.

There are many ways you can leverage simple curiosity into deeper exploration experiences in your scenario design (placing treasure maps, clues, node-based scenario design, etc.), but you can also use matryoshka techniques (like matryoshka searches and matryoshka hexes) to easily do this at the table during actual play, too: Instead of framing the resolution of curiosity-driven actions to an answer, simply frame those actions to the method (or methods) the PCs might choose to find their answers.

Hopefully this article has whetted your curiosity when it comes to exploration-based play. Good luck in searching out your own answers for how to incorporate exploration into your adventures, and I wish you the greatest success in blazing a trail into exciting new styles of play!

(You see what I did there?)

In the Matryoshka Search Technique, I described a method for resolving search checks that keeps players actively engaged with the actions of their characters so that they feel ownership of what their characters discover. You may want to read that post before reading this one, but the short version is:

• On a successful search check, instead of immediately discovering the point of interest, the character discovers an indicator pointing them in the direction of the target of the search.
• This requires the player to draw a conclusion and then act on that conclusion.

For example, instead of saying, “You find a hidden switch on the frame of the painting that opens a secret door,” you would instead say, “You notice that the frame of the painting is quite dusty, except for one spot in the lower right corner.”

Because it is the player’s declared action (“I examine that corner of the painting” and then “I push on the raised portion of the heron engraving”) that result in the switch being discovered and the secret door being opened – rather than the dice roll – the player is empowered and it feels as if THEY were the one who found it. (Because it was.)

I refer to this as a matryoshka technique because it’s like a Russian nesting doll: Instead of showing the players the innermost doll, you instead hand them the full stack and let them open each one.

But it’s not the only matryoshka technique.

If you’re running a hexcrawl, for example, you can use a matryoshka technique even within a single hex.

For example, even if you’re using an extremely simplistic hexcrawl structure in which the PCs automatically encounter the keyed content of each hex when they enter the hex, you can – instead of having them just run directly into it – give them an indicator.

So instead of saying, “You see a goblin village,” you describe the goblin tracks they stumble across. Or describe a plume of smoke on the horizon.

Do they follow the tracks? And, if they do, are they successful?

Do they head towards the plume of smoke? Or avoid it?

Instead of stumbling directly onto an ancient pyramid, the PCs spot a patch of ancient road almost completely swallowed up by the jungle.

Are they able to figure out which direction the road originally ran? Do they divert to see where it went?

And, like any matryoshka technique, this doesn’t have to be just one level deep. It can be nested to several levels.

It can also be interesting if they get two different indicators at the same time. For example, they see a plume of smoke to the west, but the goblin tracks are heading north.

(With a robust structure for running wilderness exploration, multiple indicators like this can be spontaneously generated. For example, you might have both the keyed location in a hex they just entered and the random encounter you just rolled.)

The goal of the technique is to draw players more deeply into the game world and empower them to actually explore the game world (instead of letting the dice do it for them). Not just because it will make them feel cool (although it will), but because it positions them to make meaningful choices. And that’s exciting for everyone at the table, because the consequences of those choices will transform the campaign.

FURTHER READING
Matryoshka Hexes

This is an unusual post.

After writing Part 5: Encounters of the 5e Hexcrawls series, I received feedback from readers that the post wasn’t clear enough and needed several points of clarification. I concluded it would also benefit significantly from some substantive examples of the system in practice.

Which is, of course, what you’ll find below.

This material has been added to the original article (linked above, but I also didn’t want people who had already read the original article missing this update). So this post is being posted… and is also immediately completely redundant.

So if you haven’t read the original article, you should just do that now and skip the rest of this. Otherwise, read on!

EXAMPLE: SAMPLE ENCOUNTER TABLES

Location Check: 1 in 1d6

Encounter Check: 1 in 1d10

Border Encounter: 1 in 1d20

Note: I indicate hexes which are already keyed as potential lairs for this creature type. This can inform the nature of wandering encounters and/or suggest a potential origin/terminus for tracks.

This table uses several advanced rules. When rolling an encounter, I would simultaneously roll a 1d6, 1d10, and 1d20 for each watch.

If the 1d6 result is a 1 (indicating a location encounter), it would indicate that the PCs have found the keyed location in the hex. If I’m not using simultaneous encounters, I would then ignore the other dice rolls (the location check “overrides” them; you could also just roll the 1d6, then the 1d10, then the 1d20, but that’s not necessary and is more time-consuming).

If the 1d10 check indicates an encounter, then you’d check the 1d20 roll to see which encounter table you should be rolling on. (You could also theoretically roll 2d20 of different colors, allowing you to immediately identify what type of encounter.)

With an encounter identified, you would then check % Lair, % Tracks, and # Appearing (although you don’t need to check for tracks if a lair encounter is indicated). Lairs and tracks are also exploration encounters, so if those are indicated when the party is resting, you can treat the encounter check as having no result and the watch passes quietly.

This is, of course, a fairly complicated example featuring a lot of the advanced rules all being used simultaneously. For a much simpler resolution you could just roll 1d12 (1 = wandering encounter, 12 = location encounter), roll 1d20 on the wandering encounter table (if a wandering encounter is indicated), and then the number of creatures appearing.

DESIGN NOTE: PROCEDURAL vs. DESIGNED ENCOUNTERS

A procedural encounter will usually generate one or more general elements. (For example, 1d6 friendly orcs.) As described in Breathing Life Into the Wandering Monster, the expectation is that the DM will contextualize this encounter. In other words, the procedural encounter is an improv prompt for the DM to create the encounter (often combined with a simulationist element of modeling, for example, what kinds of monsters lurk in the Darkovian Woods).

A designed encounter, on the other hand, is far more specific: You’re essentially prepping the material that you would improvise with a procedural encounter.

The Principles of Smart Prep maintain that you generally shouldn’t prep material that can be just as easily improvised at the table, so generally speaking I would describe most designed encounters as being training wheels for DMs who aren’t confident improvising encounters from procedural prompts yet. (There can be a number of exceptions to this, but they’re pretty rare in actual practice, in my experience.)

In other words, designed encounter tables typically result in a lot of wasted prep. They also get used up (a procedural encounter can be used over and over and over again to varying results; a designed encounter is specific and generally can’t be repeated). This creates gaps in your encounter table and a need to frequently restock them.

(Procedural-based encounter tables will also need to be tweaked or restocked from time to time – if the PCs wipe out the goblin village, it may result in no further encounters with goblins – but this is very rare in comparison.)

DESIGN NOTE: SETTING LAIR/TRACK PERCENTAGES

In designing your encounter tables, the % Lair and % Tracks values can be set arbitrarily. For a quick rule of thumb, use Lair 20% (or Nil for animals that don’t really have lairs) and Tracks 40%.

Older editions actually included values for one or both of these stats in their monster entries, so for some creatures you may be able to reference those older resources.

A gamist tip here is to increase the % Tracks value based on difficulty: If there’s a monster that’s a lot more powerful than everything else in the region, crank up the % Tracks so that the PCs are far more likely to become aware that it’s there than they are to run into it blindly.

A simulationist tip is to vary both numbers by a sense of the creature’s behavior. Here’s an easy example: How likely is a flying creature to leave tracks compared to a woolly mammoth? (See Hexcrawl Tool: Tracks for  thoughts on what types of tracks a flying creature would leave.)

A dramatist tip is to think about how interesting each type of encounter is for each creature type. Is a ghoul lair more interesting than running into a pack of ghouls in the wild? If so, crank up the ghoul’s % Lair.

The last thing to consider is that, as noted above, a Lair encounter will generally add a new location to the current hex. The higher you set the % Lair values on your encounter tables, the more often this will happen and the quicker areas of your campaign world will fill up with procedurally generated points of interest.

Conversely, how comfortable are you improvising this type of content? It’s good to stretch your creative muscles, but it may make more sense to keep the % Lair value low until you’ve gotten more comfortable with pulling lairs out of your hat.

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With Zariel’s story at the heart of Descent Into Darkness, the legions of Hell play a significant part in the campaign. In designing the Remix, I eventually reached the point where it felt necessary to actually nail down some of the details of how Hell’s military is organized.

My goal with these notes is not to be hyper-detailed or encyclopedic. In reality, any military with have dozens of minute distinctions within and countless exceptions to systems like this. And this is Hell itself — a fiendish bureaucracy with a legacy of aeons. Random Worldbuilding: Creating Noble Titles suggested a three-step process that will probably be useful to remember here:

1. Create a system that makes perfect sense.
2. Create two exceptions: One grandfathered in from some other system. Another that’s newfangled and recent.
3. Whenever the current system doesn’t quite work right for your current adventure… add an exception.

What I’m looking to establish here is a broad framework that will keep us oriented and consistent, while providing clear guideposts for improvising during play.

In my personal canon, the Legions of Hell are logically descended from the Legions of Heaven (because Asmodeus brought that military command with him when he betrayed Heaven to conquer Hell), which is why you’ll see broadly similar ranks in, for example, flashbacks to the Averniad.

Design Note: Our org-chart here takes inspiration from the legions of Rome, primarily because it provides a Latinate patina that feels stylistically appropriate for Heaven and Hell. Rome’s own military was reorganized countless times during its hundreds of years of history, and we’re not trying to accurately model the Roman military in any case. But if you’re looking to expand upon these ideas, you might look there for further inspiration.

If you want to add a lot of byzantine complexity, you might hypothesize that different blood legions use different org-charts (in, say, the fashion of the United States Army and Navy). In which case you could literally go Byzantine, by drawing inspiration from Byzantine military titles and the like.

BLOOD LEGIONS

There are eight blood legions – cruor legio – each commanded by one of the Dark Eight, the generals who serve the Archduke of Avernus.

Each blood legion is made up of an incredibly large number of individual legions. Some scholars cite a specific number (one hundred or one thousand or six hundred and sixty-six are popular choices); others claim there are hundreds, thousands, or even an infinite number of legions. (Thus the elven poet Suntithis famously describes the legions of Hell as the “eight infinities,” which may have inspired Aternicus to describe the apotheosis of Asmodeus as the “infinite betrayal, born eight times in blood.”) Let’s simply say “countless legions” and you can decide how much hyperbole is involved with that, if any.

There is presumably a High Command that serves as an interface between the Dark Eight and the individual legion commanders, but this strata of the military hierarchy is not particularly in our focus. If necessary, we can refer to these officers as Tribunes, with the understanding that there are many different types and gradations of the tribuni. (Members of the tribunate are perhaps further denoted by tiered honorifics that appear after their name, like augusta – e.g., Hastati Betrazalel Augusta is a devil named Betrazalel with the tribuni rank of Hastrati in the class of Augusta.)

Each legion is made up of cohorts, both of which are numbered, with cohorts (particularly cohorts on detached duty) often being identified by their number followed by the number of their legion. (For example, the 9^th Cohort of the 497^th Infantry Legion, also referred to as the 9/497.) Specific legions or cohorts may also have specific titles or nicknames, with varying degrees of “official” recognition. These can denote or be based on elements such as:

• Founding officers or notable historic leaders (e.g., the Belum legions founded by Archduke Bel, although some legions are also known as Belum or Belum Veterana because they are or were directly command by Bel)
• Important historic accomplishments (e.g. the Conquerors of Athalka)
• Awarded honorifics (e.g. triumphantes or perpessio)
• Descriptors of the legion (e.g., the Stygii legions of the fifth layer of Hell or barbazii legions made up entirely of bearded devils)

In other cases, or in addition to these elements, they can also just be adopted as cool names (e.g. Terror Incarnate).

Cohorts are specialized for specific roles or battlefields:

• Infantry
• Aerial
• Cavalry
• Aerial Cavalry
• Aquatic
• Subterrene

Most legions are formed from uniform cohorts and will be referred to similarly (e.g., the 497^th Infantry Legion), although some special legions will have diverse cohorts (for example, Zariel’s 5^th Legion is composed of the 3^rd Aerial Cohort, 7^th Infantry Cohort, and 9^th Cavalry Auxilary.)

Auxiliaries are similar to cohorts, but are either smaller in size, more limited in utility, or both. (Some auxiliaries will be highly specialized, veteran troops with extremely unique skills. Others are essentially trainee cohorts.)

KEY MILITARY RANKS

Optio (pl. optiones): Field officers who command small troop units.

Primus (pl. prima): Roughly equivalent to a lieutenant. They will either be in command of slightly larger troop units and/or have several optios reporting to them.

Triarius (pl. triarii): The commanding officer to which prima report to, and who reports to the leader of the cohort.

Signifier (pl. signifiers): A lesser leader of a cohort or auxiliary; a junior princeps.

Princeps (pl. principia): The leader of a cohort.

Legate (pl. legates): The commander of a legion. This title is sometimes translated as “General” in the Common tongue.

THINKING IN RANKS

As a practical, but completely non-binding, design guideline, I’m going to think of these ranks in the following terms at the table:

• An encounter with a couple of devil soldiers probably doesn’t feature a commanding officer.
• When encountering a squad made up uniformly of one type of devil (e.g., 6 bearded devils), I’ll generally have them led by an optio.
• A primus will generally be a slightly more powerful devil leading a squad of less powerful devils. (For example, you might have a chain devil primus leading a squad of 6 bearded devils.) Alternatively, you might use an alternative stat block from the Enhanced Devils supplement, which are handily designed not to make devils more powerful, but to make them more varied. (For example, you might have a bearded devil squadron led by a bearded devil primus with innate spellcasting.)
• A triarius is usually going to be a significant CR bump above whatever the baseline troops are. If you’ve got an infantry legion of bearded devils, then perhaps the triarius is an erinyes or horned devil. Conversely, if it’s a legion of lemures or imps, then the bearded devils might be triarii.

Legates, Princeps, and Signifiers are probably all significant characters that you would be placing with some care and thought. It would be in no way inappropriate to see pit fiend legates, although less powerful (i.e., slayable) legates are quite possible.

Go to the Avernus Remix

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Having concluded that mid-dungeon rests should generally be risky and usually require effort in order to pull off successfully, how should we handle spells or other special abilities that make these rests easier to achieve? Some of these – particularly rope trick and Leomund’s tiny hut – seem tailor-made to make risk-free rests effortless!

In handling these spells in play, there are a couple general principles I think are useful to keep in mind:

First, we’ll want to think about how these spells fit into our procedure. Much like our response to a fireball spell shouldn’t be, “Well, I guess this means we don’t need the combat system any more!” our response to PCs using spells to achieve safer rests shouldn’t be to throw out our procedures for handling risky rests.

Second, it will help to remember that spells cast to increase the likelihood of a successful rest are, in fact, resources being spent. (Even if spells can be ritually cast, they’re still chewing up a prepared spell for most classes.) This is particularly true if such strategies require multiple spells to be used. (For example, using pass without trace to conceal the trail leading to an invisible rope trick while using alarm to prevent ambushes.)

In concert, these principles should make us wary of a kneejerk desire to “nerf” such spells. It’s easy to slip into thinking that the goal is to interrupt and disrupt the PCs’ rests, and thus become frustrated with strategies that successfully allow them to rest.

But if we return to thinking about an expedition model, in which players strategically choose how to spend your resources in order to maximize their rewards, this is exactly what we want.

On the other hand, if there’s a strategy which is costing them no resources at all and always results in successful rests, those are the ones we’ll want to interrogate closely and figure out how to handle better. (Or modify mechanically in order to balance them.)

LEOMUND’S TINY HUT

As our first example, let’s look at Leomund’s tiny hut, a 3^rd-level spell which lasts for 8 hours:

A 10-foot-radius immobile dome of force springs into existence around and above you and remains stationary for the duration. The spell ends if you leave its area.

Nine creatures of Medium size or smaller can fit inside the dome. The spell fails if its area includes a larger creature or more than nine creatures.

Creatures and objects within the dome when you cast this spell can move through it freely. All other creatures and objects are barred from passing through it. Spells and other magical effects can’t extend through the dome or be cast through it. The atmosphere inside the space is comfortable and dry, regardless of the weather outside.

Until the spell ends, you can command the interior to become dimly lit or dark. The dome is opaque from the outside, of any color you choose, but it is transparent from the inside.

How does this spell affect our dungeon rest procedure?

By and large, it doesn’t.

The procedure determines whether or not the bad guys locate the PCs. And whether they find the PCs or “just” a mysterious dome of force energy that wasn’t there yesterday, it doesn’t really change anything.

Leomund’s tiny hut makes the PCs perfectly secure… but also perfectly detectable. (You could even argue that an immobile dome of force is probably more difficult to conceal in many circumstances, perhaps granting disadvantage to their Stealth checks.)

What I’ve discovered, in practice, is that this creates a really interesting dilemma for the PCs when the monsters discover their position: Do you remain within to finish your rest, while allowing the monsters to fetch reinforcements and set up preparations to assault you as soon as the spell drops? Or do you disrupt your rest and leap out to deal with the threat?

The challenge for the DM, in my opinion, is to create varied and interesting threats. These will be dependent on the particular circumstances of the dungeon, but can be almost limitless in variety.

For example, in one instance the NPCs in my game pulled a Cask of Amontillado, simply walling up the room that the PCs had placed their dome in. Others have built bonfires over the dome and drenched them in oil. Triggering a cave-in to bury the dome can also be a really interesting option.

Of course, you can almost always default to the bad guys fetching reinforcements, bringing into play the principles of running an active dungeon that we discussed in Part 1. This can easily be the most dangerous option for the PCs to wait out, as a large part of strategically conquering an active dungeon is NOT allowing all the denizens of the dungeon to attack you at the same time.

As a result, in addition to simple fight now / fight later dynamics, I’ve also frequently seen tiny hut dilemmas result in tense negotiations.

My point with all this is that the tiny hut, while it gives the PCs a lot of advantages, doesn’t actually negate the logistics of seeking rest in the dungeon. In fact, the spell creates the opportunity for incredibly cool moments and incredibly difficult choices that otherwise wouldn’t exist.

Nerf Note: If you want to nerf this spell, consider reverting a major change that was made to the spell with 2^nd Edition (which inflated the number of creatures which could fit inside the hut) and 3^rd Edition (which inflated it again to the current total of nine). In 1^st Edition, it could only hold six man-sized creatures.

This makes the spell useful for a PC-only adventuring party, but the minute you add hirelings, allies, or just some mounts, the utility of the spell rapidly degrades.

ROPE TRICK

Next up, let’s consider rope trick, a 2^nd-level spell that lasts for 1 hour:

You touch a length of rope up to 60 feet long. One end of the rope then rises into the air until the whole rope hangs perpendicular to the ground. At the upper end of the rope, an invisible entrance opens to an extradimensional space that lasts until the spell ends.

The extradimensional space can be reached by climbing to the top of the rope. The space can hold as many as eight Medium or smaller creatures. The rope can be pulled up into the space, making the rope disappear from view outside the space.

Attacks and spells can’t cross through the entrance into or out of the extradimensional space, but those inside can see out of it as if through a 3-foot-by-5-foot window centered on the rope. Anything inside the extradimensional space drops out when the spell ends.

Although a lower level spell with a much shorter duration, rope trick, in my opinion, can actually be far more effective in gaining a secure rest than Leomund’s tiny hut.

Once again looking at our dungeon rest procedure, the key thing to note is that the rope trick is a very good way of creating an effective hiding place almost anywhere in the dungeon.

However, let’s consider the key feature of the spell: The dimensional portal created by the rope trick is invisible, but does not actually disappear.

This means that NPCs can enter the portal. (And it only takes a few for the whole thing to collapse.) This might be the result of them tracking the PCs’ to the portal entrance. Particularly tall creatures might also just stumble straight into it if the PCs aren’t careful in where they place the entrance.

The other key thing is that the spell doesn’t block sound. This is particularly significant in 5^th Edition because of how the game handles invisibility: Being invisible makes it possible to hide, but doesn’t even grant advantage on Stealth checks (including the Stealth checks built into our dungeon rest procedure).

In addition to assaulting a rope trick, of course, the NPCs might also choose to besiege it using tactics similar to those described for a tiny hut above.

Nerf Note: A really key limitation of rope trick from previous editions was that you couldn’t put extradimensional spaces inside other extradimensional spaces, preventing anyone carrying a bag of holding from entering a rope trick. Given the ubiquitous utility of a bag of holding, this creates a meaningful strategic dilemma: Be able to carry a lot more loot out of the dungeon OR take advantage of the respite of a rope trick. You can’t do both.

MORDENKAINEN’S MAGNIFICENT MANSION

Mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion is a 7^th level spell that lasts for 24 hours:

You conjure an extradimensional dwelling in range that lasts for the duration. You choose where its one entrance is located. The entrance shimmers faintly and is 5 feet wide and 10 feet tall. You an any creature you designate when you cast the spell can enter the extradimensional dwelling as long as the portal remains open. You can open or close the portal if you are within 30 feet of it. While closed the portal is invisible.

There is more to the description of this spell, but this first paragraph contains the bits relevant to our discussion.

The key thing to note is that Mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion largely bypasses most of the strategies we discussed for tiny huts and rope tricks: Once the portal is closed, it blocks sound and cannot be accidentally passed through. And it’s invisible, so the whole thing will not be easily discovered by patrolling monsters.

Its only Achilles’ heel is that the entrance to the mansion will still be readily apparent to any creatures with truesight (or other means of seeing the invisible).

How much of a problem is this?

Well, probably not that much. This spell is the same level as teleport, which provides an entirely different way of securing a safe rest before resuming your dungeon exploration from the exact point you left off (by, obviously, teleporting out of the dungeon and then teleporting back in).

This isn’t an accident: At the levels where these spells become available, the game is shifting away from dungeon expeditions being the focus of play. (This is not always reflected in published adventures, but nonetheless remains true in the game’s design.) Teleport away? Hide in a magic mansion? Use passwall (albeit nerfed in more recent editions) or transmute rock to reengineer the dungeon? From a design standpoint, that’s fine, because at these higher tiers of play, the game has (or at least should) move beyond the low-key logistics of dungeon delving.

This was an unexpected Part 2. Thanks to the Alexandrites on my Discord, particularly Pooserville, for suggesting it.