Primary ways to dungeon crawl

GMMichael

Guide of Modos
-martial combat/frontline tank (fighter/barbarian) takes hits and deals them back out, the usual stuff.
-offensive and controller caster (sorcerer/warlock) consistent magic damage and enemy disabler.
-defensive and support caster (cleric/bard) keeps the party topped up, fighting fit and protected.
My concern here is that if caster breaks up into offensive/defensive casters, then a party looks lopsided if half of it isn't casters, or that fighter and sneaker also deserve offensive/defensive divisions.

But if we reimagine the offensive caster as the Ranged attacker, it could include archers/rangers, and not just casters. Maybe the defensive caster should be the Supporter, then? Or, let's look at aramis's suggestion...

-knowledge skillmonkey, also possibly utility caster (bard/wizard/ranger) opens alternate paths and solutions through being able to provide additional information and context to the party.
-explorer/scout+lockpicking (rogue/ranger) able to get to/open paths to locations that the rest of the party wouldn't manage to and move about without being noticed to gather information on enemies.
I don't see Knowledge Guy as a dungeon-survival method, but Pathfinder relates to the following Miner. For some reason, explorer-scout seems to fall under the Sneaker umbrella, but I could be wrong.

You're missing the Miner and the healer. Healer is a different role from general caster in most of the fiction I've read. Often not a caster... See also Aragorn in LotR... And in D&D, healers are ALWAYS clerics, not wizards - different low-overlap spell list - if you're doing this for D&D familiar players....

Miners are not always part of a group.... but I've seen three types - Dwarf with Pickaxe and possibly explosives, Wizard with Transmute Rock to Mud, and any kind of character possessing a Horn of Blasting or Portable Hole.
What if the Healer is the Supporter? Keeping the party healthy seems like a good dungeon survival role.

Extra dungeon navigation sounds like a good thing: ropes, hammers, bridges/swings. But the stereotypical dungeon is occupied and dangerous, right? Does a party have the resources to construct things, the time to use picks, or the noise discipline to use demo?
 

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CreamCloud0

One day, I hope to actually play DnD.
My concern here is that if caster breaks up into offensive/defensive casters, then a party looks lopsided if half of it isn't casters, or that fighter and sneaker also deserve offensive/defensive divisions.
i mean as it broke down there was a 2-2-1 split between martial, magic and ultility falling in the middle as potentially being either
But if we reimagine the offensive caster as the Ranged attacker, it could include archers/rangers, and not just casters. Maybe the defensive caster should be the Supporter, then? Or, let's look at aramis's suggestion...
i'd put the explorer and support caster as 'secondary martials' but i would keep the offensive caster as a magic attacker, i mean most cantrips are ranged anyway.
I don't see Knowledge Guy as a dungeon-survival method, but Pathfinder relates to the following Miner. For some reason, explorer-scout seems to fall under the Sneaker umbrella, but I could be wrong.
i do see them as part of the survival, having a consistent person who can succeed on assorted information checks, being able to correctly identify that statue of that god, know what that monster's abilities and weaknessess are, recall historical events referred to in a riddle or figure out which of those vines are dangerous is a boon to the party's whole survival.
What if the Healer is the Supporter? Keeping the party healthy seems like a good dungeon survival role.

Extra dungeon navigation sounds like a good thing: ropes, hammers, bridges/swings. But the stereotypical dungeon is occupied and dangerous, right? Does a party have the resources to construct things, the time to use picks, or the noise discipline to use demo?
 
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aramis erak

Legend
What if the Healer is the Supporter? Keeping the party healthy seems like a good dungeon survival role.

Extra dungeon navigation sounds like a good thing: ropes, hammers, bridges/swings. But the stereotypical dungeon is occupied and dangerous, right? Does a party have the resources to construct things, the time to use picks, or the noise discipline to use demo?
Picking a lock takes an experienced picker a matter of seconds for most locks; even less in medieval locks. Ironically, the hardest to pick quickly are bronze age pin grid locks - have to height adjust ALL of them at once, and they can be set for overtravel on some without overtravel on others...
For how short a lock picking can be with modern locks, watch some Lock Picking Lawyer on youtube. He does have some medieval style ward lock episodes, but I don't have a list. Most "home store" or big box store locks are 6-12 seconds with the right method.

As for active mining, it takes a bit to manually dig - a coal miner in 1900-ish was expected to mine 6-10 tons¹ of coal (short tons) or about 140 cubic feet per day; 10 hour days. But coal is rather brittle compared to matrix... and that was a partially automated era... late medieval iron ore² was 33 to 44 lbs per day; that's about ¹/₁₀ to ¹/₁₅ cubic foot per day, but in generally much harder

As for healers vs support - I think of support characters as NPCs, mostly Porters, Torchbearers, Grooms, and sometimes camp-minders. But in the sense of active combat support, it depends upon the game
TFT, T&T, Pendragon 4e (only): Healing Spells are not different from normal spells, there's not strong clerical distinction. Also worth noting: Pendragon Magical Healing is a buff, not an insta-gain; it increases the healing rate for a number of weeks, rather than instant return of HP.
Arrowflight, Dragonbane, Rolemaster: healing spells are only in certain schools of magic, but those schools are not great about buffing spells.

Nice lateral thinking there.

The Archaeologist class in Nethack is this. You start with the pickaxe and as such it's your primary problem-solving device until the midgame when the classes mostly start looking similar.

However, you could argue that "Miner" is a variety of "Sneaker" since it's about evading the problems rather than overcoming them directly.
You're missing a few approaches... a horn of blasting is an ideal "Drop a ceiling on the oncoming foes" tool, and a Transmute Rock to Mud and its reverse (in both D&D -- most editions -- and T&T -- all editions) are a great way to imprison foes.

Or, in T&T, to totally ruin the job of brickmaker... a caster plus a couple of workers can make several hundred solid stone bricks per day. Process: have a carpenter build your desired stone shape as a mould. Then, take it to the quarry, place it under the target wall. slush-yuck (which is the name in T&T for D&D's Transmute rock to mud) the wall oriented inward and slightly upward, workers muck the resulting slosh into the mould, wait for the spell to end, demould, stack for transport and sale. The only reasons for brick are decorative...


In a dungeon, rock to mud can be used for a lot of silly things, but most importantly, going through walls up to 10' thick Or opening the ceiling. they're not about evading -- a horn of blasting is a siren's call to monsters - it's about bypassing the plot railroad that is part of many dugeons. A Slush-Yuck or TR→Mud can make new paths easily; bypassing paths isn't about avoiding enemies so much as bypassing the plot enshried in the dungeon's labyrinthine nature.

In other words, a sneaker wants to avoid the foes; a miner wants to take the shortest path, and some can readily do so. Oh, and if the wall's not a couple feet thick or bigger, a pickax can break through pretty quick. Orders of magnitude slower, but the pick miner also tends to be dungeoneering knowledgable.



1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...est-virginia/2011/08/15/gIQAKumZVK_story.html
2: https://www.quora.com/How-efficient...would-an-average-miner-produce-in-a-days-work
 

Whizbang Dustyboots

Gnometown Hero
I always suggest the classic four archetypes in D&D-style fantasy: a fighter, a thief, a healer and a wizard.

But these are in broad archetypes -- the "fighter" could be a barbarian, the "thief" could be a bard, the "healer" could be a druid, the "wizard" could be a warlock -- but the goal is to have the bases generally covered. Players can, of course, ignore this advice, but I think most dungeons tend to reward having the four core archetypes represented, and some essentially require it.
 

Haiku Elvis

Knuckle-dusters, glass jaws and wooden hearts.
86351-Gauntlet2-115149764.jpg


According to classic 1987 Dungeon crawling classic Gauntlet II the main archetypes needed for a dungeon crawl are Moses, He Man, Angry Swimsuit Model and Will Ferrell.
 


GMMichael

Guide of Modos
Settling on these, for now:

Brawler - get into melee and fight it out.
Harrier - distance attacker, with spells, strings, or slings.
Sneaker - handles the quiet side of dungeoneering. Including keeping traps quiet.
Supporter - provides healing, tools, knowledge, and/or traversal.

I was pretty happy with myself for divorcing the direct character class associations (like wizard and cleric), but disappointed that it still boiled down to the basic 2e/3e four class-roles. Oh well... if it ain't broke...

I thought that Dungeonscape from 3e would have something interesting to say on the topic. But after a quick browse, I found only this mention of "vital" roles listed as a way of sorting prestige classes: melee combat, stealth, traps, knowledge, and divine. Which just muddied the topic for me.
 

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