Dungeon Design Tips: Cover, Firing Lines, and Dynamic Arenas

If you've played RPGs long enough, chances are you've been in your share of scrapes and scraps. And while there might have been one or two memorable events, chances are good that a majority of these combats were in wide open fields, square or rectangular rooms, and with an occasional circular chamber mixed in for variety. But while the shape of these arenas might change, many of them suffer from the same problem; they're wide open spaces with clear sight lines.

So if you want to make your arenas more dynamic, consider changing that up.

Who's up for a little crossfire?

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Cover, Firing Lines, And Changing Up Your Formula

Let's use the humble tavern as an example. It's one of the most infamous places in fantasy RPGs, because it feels like this is always where your adventure takes place. And while we often think of taverns as little more than long, rectangular rooms, consider all the potential aspects of them. There's the bar itself, which provides cover for those standing behind it. There might be heavy support columns that could do the same throughout the room. There's also the benches and tables that one could leap up onto in order to claim the high ground, or flip over in order to hide behind them in the event that arrows, crossbow bolts, or spells start flying.

And that is just a single example of how a relatively "normal" location for a combat could immediately become a more dynamic arena. But ask yourself what could happen if you introduced that same kind of philosophy to other places where it's likely that steel and spells will come into play.

This is where creativity can really alter the challenge.

Consider the goblin cavern that most adventurers will venture into at some point in their careers. Are there small niches higher on the wall where said goblins can station archers to fire down on intruders? Are there lower ceilings that make their home difficult to invade for anyone Medium-sized, forcing them to fight at a disadvantage? Are there stalagmites that break up line of sight along the cavern, making it hard to target individual enemies as they converge? You could even take this strategy and apply it in outdoor areas, using tall grasses, underground burrows, and even simple hills to give some targets high ground, cover, and so on.

And this is before you have players assault locations that are specifically built to give the advantage to defenders.

This isn't just castles, though they're the most obvious location. Narrow bridges and hallway choke points, stairways, balconies, fences and barricades can all add dynamic aspects and elements to your dungeons and encounters, while also making particular powers more viable and interesting than they would otherwise be in a game where all your arenas are empty, square rooms with no real strategy involved except swinging a sword or firing arrows until all the enemies fall over.

For example, say you have a castle courtyard where there are melee warriors down in the dirt with the party, but there are archers or spellcasters up along the ramparts directing their aggression downward. At this point, characters who have access to spells like spider climb, or abilities like shadow jump could use those to immediately close vertical distance, shifting their position up to threaten the ranged enemies who thought they were safe. Alternatively, if you had an evoker with a spell like chain lightning or fireball up their sleeve, they could use those to clear the upper deck, while the party melee brutes kept the other enemy fighters busy.

And if you had a particularly acrobatic/mobile party, they might all be able to clamber up to the ramparts, keeping themselves out of melee reach while using their new, more protected position to their advantage by slinging spells, firing arrows, or just hucking bombs down at an enemy that can no longer reach them.

These will fix a VARIETY of problems...

The more dynamic you make an area with things like cover, difficult terrain, high ground, low ground, and so on, the wider a variety of tools and strategies your players will be able to use to achieve their goals. And, on top of that, it can stop combat from feeling like just another slog... which is what this whole series is about!

Lastly, when designing these arenas, keep in mind that this also adds to the CR of the encounter. So keep in mind that fighting a squad of orc berserkers and a single shaman in a knock down, drag out brawl is a very different matter than crossing an area of difficult terrain with cover, Czech hedgehogs, and so on that forces the party to get... creative with their solutions!

 

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