Wandering Monsters

Before I get into this, WTF happened with blogger? The auto-formatting sucks. May be time to fuck off to another platform. 

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Wandering monster have been a staple of D&D from the beginning, but the some time (3e era i think) people started complaining they didn't make sense or they screwed up carefully balanced encounters or something along those lines. If you don't like wnadering monsters don't use them, but I personally think they add some fun for both the GM and the players. They are mysterious forces, a bit of random mayhem to cause some fucking havoc. Linger too long and you might get a wandering monster ... try to rest in the dungeon? oh good luck - wandering monsters.

Here is how I'm doing wandering monsters these days.

Chance of Encounter

• Active Dungeon: 1 in 8 every Turn/10 minutes
• Normal Dungeon: 1 in 6 chance every 2 Turns/20 minutes
• Quiet Dungeon: 1 in 6 every 3 Turns/30 minutes
• Passive Dungeon: 1 in 6 every 6 Turns/ 1 hour

Other Times to Check

If the party makes a big noise - like bashing open a door, a combat, or anything else, immediate check. Wait - every time they have a combat? Oh hell yes. Sometimes other monsters join the battle, sometimes they think they'll have a moment to recover but them BLAM. Combat isn't a goal in my games, it is a challenge to overcome. It doesn't provide shit for XP and depletes resources.

Resting in the Dungeon

If the party managed to create a safe/secure location somehow, I bump the check die up 2 times (d6 becomes a d10, d8 becomes a d12). If it is really secure, like they've locked themselves in between two secret doors and cast Safe Haven, then I'll also double the time between checks. 

In the last session, the crew was wandering about a "standard" dungeon - 1 in 6 every 20 minutes. They decided to do a long rest as they'd been exploring around for quite and were tired, but didn't want to leave. They found a secure location (the secret door think I mentioned above) and the templar dropped a Safe Haven. So the checks went from 1 in 6 every 20 minutes to 1 in 10 every 40 minutes. Over a 6 hour rest period

What Gets Encountered

Rather than have a wandering monster table for every dungeon level, I roll 1d10.

• 1 - 3: Nearest Monster
• 4 - 6: Nearest Lair Monster
• 7 - 8: Dungeon Monster
• 9: Regional  Monster 
• 10: Creatures of Dust

Nearest Monster: 1d6 monsters, but never more than half of those set to be encountered, have wandered over to investigate whatever bullshit the crew is up to.

Nearest Lair Monster: With each stocked monster in a dungeon there is a chance that  this is the creature's lair. There are always a lot more monsters here than you would like. When this comes up, the standard number appearing for a wandering encounter is used - they are from the lair and continuing to assert their dungeon dominance.

Dungeon Monster: Encounter a random monster that is specific to this dungeon. these are always monsters that are unique to the dungeon - if there are goblins, fine, but they won't show up on this roll. If for some reason there are no unique monsters, then go with Creatures of Dust.

Regional Monsters: Roll on the random table for monsters of this type. In a Gorehaven dungeon, roll on the gorehaven tables, and so on. If in a Dust dungeon, roll on the Dust table. This is the long-form ecosystem of the dungeons circling into this reality.

Creatures of Dust: These are the common dungeon monsters that you find all over the goddamn place.

The Good Old Danger Level

Regional Monsters are broken down into 5 grades (A-E). A is the least dangerous for that region, E is pretty rough no matter what dungeon region you are in. The threat level of the dungeon determines what grade of critter gets rolled up based on this chart:

Threat	A	B	C	D	E
1	1-5	6	-	-	-
2	1-4	5-6	-	-	-
3	1-3	4-5	6	-	-
4	1-2	3-5	6	-	-
5	1-2	3-4	5-6	-	-
6	1	2-3	4-5	6	-
7	1	2	3-4	5-6	-
8	1	2	3	4-5	6
9	1	2	3	4	5-6
10	-	1	2	3-4	5-6

Then to make sure things don't go entirely out of control or are far to simple, the number encountered is multiplied by this sweet table. Mind you, I only use this math when I'm automating the population of a dungeon. When I'm doing it by hand I just eyeball the numbers.

Threat	A	B	C	D	E
1	x1	x0.5	-	-	-
2	x1.1	x0.75	-	-	-
3	x1.2	x1	x0.5	-	-
4	x1.3	x1.1	x0.75	-	-
5	x1.4	x1.2	x1	-	-
6	x1.5	x1.3	x1.1	x0.5	-
7	x1.6	x1.4	x1.2	x0.75	-
8	x1.8	x1.5	x1.3	x1	x0.5
9	x2	x1.6	x1.4	x1.1	x0.75
10	-	x1.8	x1.5	x1.2	x1

Example: the crew is puttering around a threat level 5 Gardens dungeon. Time for a regional encounter! First I roll 1d6 to determine the grade of monsters. I rolled a 3 so it is "grade B" monsters. I roll 1d100 on the Gardens-B table and get Eelheads, 1d6 of them. I roll 1d6, get a 6, then multiple that by 1.2 for a total of 7 Eelheads. How these large plants fit into the situation is a different matter - I'll like have them clogging up the next unexplored corridor the party wanders into.

This method works for me, but it might be too many tables for some folks. If I get around to it I'll just make tables for each regional threat level that includes number encountered. In any case, I always roll up a bunch of random encounters BEFORE the game starts. Nearest and Lair I leave as notes, because i don't know where folks will be. I roll to see if there is an encounter, then just grab the next one on the list. Easy. anyone who fully rolls up random encounters AS THEY HAPPEN is a GM that doesn't understand pacing.

What Are the Monsters Doing? 

I make this a super simple 1d6 roll.

• 1-3: checking out whatever the PC Crew is up to
• 4-5: just wandering around
• 6: weird monster-specific behavior

That seems like a pretty weak list, but it really covers all the things I need. Checking out the PCs? If they are intelligent then based on their demeanor and ferocity that will be watching, stalking, hunting, ambushing, or whatever. Beasts might be hunting them. Or mayeb they just heard a weird noise and are checking things out. Like it says. Just wandering around might be exploring, pushing into new terrain, hunting for food, things like that. They are doing what they do, just not expecting the PCs in particular. The last one is the most fun - monsters are weird. That is the entire point of monsters - to be terrifying and strange. This one lets the PCs wander across (or vice versa) the monsters doing something that makes them monsters. 

Examples? Fine. Some shell horrors pulling the skeleton out of a corpse to make a shell from it. Harbingad animated and arguing over a scrap of rotten fruit. A Red Hunter bubbling out from a crack in the wall and another crack nearby disgorging the undigested remains of it's last meal. Option 6 is all about some improv - and GMs - take notes!