Exploring Dungeons and Ruins

Often times your travels will lead you to explore dungeons or ancient ruins. We will call these areas dungeons for simplicity. Dungeons are basically any area that is uncivilized, and often abandoned except for maybe bands of thieves, beasts of the wild, and perhaps even the living dead. These areas are referred to as dungeons for game use only, as exploring through them is an action commonly referred to as a dungeon crawl.

These dungeons all take place in area maps, so area movement is used. They are often littered with treasures and dangers such as traps, frail construction, and hostile enemies. The ultimate design and layout of the dungeon, as well as what it holds, is up to the GM, though many campaigns will come with pre-designed dungeon maps if the GM does not wish to create one himself. It is within the dungeons of the world that you are likely to spend most of your active play, therefore it is very important that you understand how to explore the dungeon. Also your character should be well prepared before venturing into one, as you never know how long you will be there or what you will encounter. The well prepared adventurer is likely to emerge from a dungeon with treasures, riches, and more powerful, while the under prepared adventurer will likely die there.

1) Movement in Dungeons

You movement in dungeons is just like it is in world map movement or in towns. You would use the inches side of the ruler instead of the centimeters side, but it is all the same. Using roll20, moving your token will show you your movement distance. Movement is measured in feet. 

1.1) Using Movement Abilities

Just like on the world map, you can make use of movement abilities.

• Climbing: There are various situations in which you might need to climb. Climbing is an athletics check.
  • Simple Climb: 2 Power per movement; movement decreased by 1
  • Average Climb: 4 Power per movement; movement decreased by half
  • Hard Climb: 8 Power per movement; movement decreased to 1
  • Challenging Climb: 12 Power per movement; movement decreased to 1 every 2 hours
  • Nearly Impossible Climb: 16 Power per movement; movement decreased to 1 every 3 hours

• Swimming: As long as you are unarmored, you can swim. Everyone in Nor'Ova has basic swimming ability. If you are wearing armor, you will need the Swimming While Armored ability. Swimming does cost Endurance and can impact your world movement rate, depending upon the swimming environment.

• Ability	Effects	Requirements
  Swimming While Armored	+1 to athletics for checks to swim while armored.	Skillful Climbing
  • Wading: You aren't really swimming as you can reach bottom. Your world movement is decreased by 1.
  • Gentle Waters: A still pond or a creek with barely any current, this water is easy to swim in. 1 Power per movement, world movement decreased by 1.
  • Average Currents: a river with a steady current, 2 Power per movement. If moving with current world movement increased by 1. If going against the current world movement decreased by half.
  • Rapids: heavy currents, 4 Power Endurance per movement and Acrobatics Checks may be required to keep swimming and not drown. If moving with current world movement increased by 2. If going against the current world movement decreased to 1.
  • Run: You can run over long distances. Every character can. You simply use 2 Power per movement that you run, increasing your world movement rate by half. If you are running downhill, increase movement rate by an additional half.
  • Racial Movement Abilities or Skills: You can use any racial movement skill such as fly or teleport. Their effect and cost is once per hour.

  1.2) Dealing with Different Terrain

  Of course you won’t always be walking across a flat floor throughout the entire dungeon. Occasionally you will encounter ladders, stairs, ropes, or other means of ascending or descending floors. Using the following table will help you to handle these challenges.

  Ascending or Descending Table

  Obstacle	Description	Modifier
  Walking up stairs	Walking up stairs to the floor above is slower than walking on a flat, level surface. The run skill can be used.	-2 move
  Walking down stairs	Walking down stairs to the floor below is faster than walking on a flat, level surface. The run skill can be used.	+1 move
  Climbing up or down a rope	Climbing up or down rope to another floor is slow and time-consuming. This action requires a normal athletics check.	-4 move
  Climbing up or down a ladder	Climbing up or down a ladder is slow but not as slow as climbing up or down a rope.	-3 move
  Scaling a rocky ledge up or down	Dangerous and slow, requires a hard athletics check. Penalties can apply depending upon surface conditions.	-6 move
  Climbing up or down vines or other plants	Climbing up or down vines is treated like climbing up or down ropes. This action requires a normal athletics check.	-4 move
  Jumping down to a lower level	If you are able to jump down without injury to a lower level you will lose no time or movement. However you may be asked to make an acrobatics check. Difficulty and penalties depends on the situation and is up to the GM.	A failed check could cause you to lose the rest of your move to rest and recover. Otherwise it is treated as normal move with only the distance across counting against your move rate.

  There are also other terrain obstacles that you may encounter in your dungeon exploration, such as the need to swim, or trying to walk over a ruble and debris covered walkway. The following table will help you handle these challenges.

   Dungeon Terrain Modifiers Table

  Terrain Type	Description	Modifier
  Ice	A layer of ice which covers the entire ground.	will move 1d6 extra feet, hard brace check against falling down
  Mud	Large areas of thick and soft mud which a traveler's feet could sink into.	move rate cut in half
  Sand	Sand that is at least 2 inches deep and covers the entire ground.	move -2
  Thick Underbrush	Bushes, ivy, and other plants that come up no higher than to your chest.	move -2
  Holes	Large holes in the floor that cover at least one movement block. Requires jumping over or finding a way to cross,amount of area blocks jumped over is deducted from your movement.	jumping counts as movement
  Rubble & Debris	Any amount of uneven material in the walkway that requires carefully stepping and walking on. You may need to make a normal or hard brace check to see if you fall.	move -2
  Tight Spaces	Any tight space that you can still fit through but only by turning your body and walking sideways. This can also be used for sidestepping on edges.	move rate cut in half
  Crawl Spaces	Any space that requires you to crawl in order to travel through.	1/4th move rate
  Weak Floor	Any floor that has the potential to break beneath your weight.	move rate cut in half
  Low Ceilings	Any area that requires you to walk for a good length while ducking to avoid head clearance.	move -2

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  2) Searching for Traps

  While exploring a dungeon you will want to search for traps. Searching for traps not only includes traps that are man-made, but also other dangerous obstacles, such as weak floors, unsteady rooms, and any other hard to see hazards that could really mess up your adventure.

  In order to search for such traps, you will need to make a successful perceive check. A perceive check is rolling a 1d20 to attempt to beat the difficulty, adding whatever is in your character's Perceive trait. Failing to beat the difficulty means you would not notice anything that is not already obvious. Of course what you notice and what is obvious is up to the GM, and the GM may decide to give you some extra leeway for more easily noticed things, while giving you a handicap for harder to notice things.

  Perceive checks can be done at any point you want to. You have as many tries as your GM allows for.

3) Traps & Obstacles

Another peril you will likely encounter are traps and obstacles. Traps can be found anywhere. They can be set up in otherwise peaceful looking roads, or deep in the middle of wild forests. They can be found in homes and sewers, and of course deep within ancient ruins. Traps do not always have to be man-made traps, but can include anything that could endanger your character or cause trouble in your adventure. To disarm traps you must have the right ability and describe how you are going to do so. The disarming trap abilities don't do the work for you, but they give you the knowledge to be able to disarm traps. The abilities you need are: 

You can also set traps in Legends of Nor'Ova. You will need the above listed abilities depending upon the complexity of the trap you wish to set. You will also need the Trap Setting skill. If you have all that and the material to set a trap, plan it out with your GM. Your GM will decide the difficulty of the trap based on your explanation, and how long it will take you to set the trap.

Traps are but one form of obstacle. Other obstacles could be things that require a skill to pass, such as having to swim across a river, or things that are impossible to pass such as a wall within an enclosed ruin that you cannot climb over. Many obstacles require you to backtrack back through dangerous areas that you have already passed through in order to find your way around the obstacle. Other obstacles could be a part of a puzzle that has to be solved in order to progress, or require a key or other item to get passed such as a locked door. Some obstacles may even include rare treasures such as chests.

What traps and obstacles you face are always up to the GM.

4) Searching for Hidden Treasure

While exploring the dungeon, you may find yourself, for example, in a small room filled with drawers, pots, or other places that things could be hidden in. This will almost always be small things, like lose coins, notes, or perhaps items needed to progress in the dungeon like keys and other clues. The GM may come up with any method to let you search this room, but here is a simple, common method.

When you enter the room, tell the GM where you are searching. The GM may desire for you to make a Luck check. Making a luck check is done the same way as making a perceive check. Depending on the GM, a successful luck check could mean you found something, but it could also mean that when you reached your hand in that dark jar some bug didn’t bite you and poison you. What you find, if you find anything at all, is up to the GM, as is how long it took you. You may want to refer to the Check Difficulty rules here.

4.1) Check Difficulty

Difficulties show you how hard or easy it will be to successfully perform that check. Difficulties are Easy, Normal, Hard, and Impossible. The difficulty shows you what you must beat on your check roll.

• Easy Difficulty: must roll 5 or greater
• Normal Difficulty: must roll 10 or greater
• Hard Difficulty: must roll 15 or greater
• Impossible Difficulty: must roll 20 or greater

What you roll plus any bonuses or penalties and what is in the trait you are checking give you your total. If the total beats the difficulty, you succeed. If the total is less than the difficulty, you fail. 

5) Resting While in Dungeons

You may find yourself needing to rest for the night (rest for a full cycle) while in a dungeon. This could be because you have spent so much time in a dungeon already that you have spent your first two cycles of the day, and are still in the dungeon, or because you were traveling the world map without a tent and it started to rain so you ducked real quick into a dungeon, or any other reason really.

Resting in a dungeon is not that much unlike resting out in the world map. You camp. Camping allows you to rest and regather some of your lost energy. Most races require rest. When you stop to make camp, you will need to remove from your inventory any food and water for that day.

Your GM may use this time to also plan a battle or check for a random battle. More on this is in the section entitled Combat.

Every hour of sleep restores your Vitality, Soul, and Power by the secondary Gen Dice. On roll20 character sheet you can use the dice icon next to each gen dice. In chat you will see how much of that stat you recover by each hour you get to sleep. Obviously you can not recover past your full stat.