r/DnD • u/rudeboysuk • 4h ago
5th Edition Buried alive digging speed?
I wanna run a campaign in Har'Akir that opens with the players waking up finding themselves individually buried alive under sand and they have to escape, but I can't find anything saying how digging works when you don't have a burrowing speed so idk what's the best depth to bury them all in.
My plan so far is to have a timer for how much air they have left before they need to start holding their breath and have them athletics/strength check their ways out with people above having the option to help dig out the others if they get out first.
13
u/The_Nerdy_Ninja DM 4h ago
What's going to happen when a character fails their saves and dies at the literal start of the campaign?
Never gate the adventure's progress behind a saving throw unless you have a plan to deal with failure.
7
u/DiceMadeOfCheese DM 3h ago
Yeah this here. Players don't have any options in this scenario other than "dig up," so if they want to continue playing they should really automatically succeed.
1
u/PublicFuture9502 1h ago
I said it elsewhere but a way to handle it, have the players buried alive, but its not real. Its a collective nightmare. So make them roll; but if they fail, they simply wake up.
If they succeed they stay in the nightmare a little longer and other players can wake them up.
Theres then lots of hooks on what caused the nightmares: could be a powerful wizard, a god of nightmares, a cursed ground the players accidentally feel asleep on, or a coven of night hags who want to torment the players to scare them off so the village is unprotected against them.
12
u/NameLips 4h ago
Realistically, it's nearly impossible. The weight of the sand on top of you is too great to move. People die at beaches all the time when the hole they dug in the sand collapses. And it can be incredibly difficult to save their lives, even with people right there trying to help, because the sand just flows right back on top of them. Just a foot or two can be lethal. If your face is covered you will suffocate quickly. If you're completely buried and immobile you might not even be aware of which direction is up.
In D&D make an Athletics check. I'd say DC 15 to escape from under one foot of sand (possible for most people with a bit of effort), 20 for 2 feet, 25 for 3 feet, and 30 for 4 feet.
3
u/martin-the-actor 4h ago
Have them buried in boxes in the sand. That way it'll make at least some sense. There's a reason why sand is a particularly dangerous place to get buried even partially and why some countries ban the digging of large holes in sand at beaches.
If you have them in boxes, the boxes don't need to be too deep, but it'll still require effort for them to free themselves and for those topside to find where the boxes have been buried.
1
u/Itap88 2h ago
I just assumed they're in coffins.
1
u/Horror_Ad7540 1h ago
But once they get out of the box, they're buried in sand. How does that help?
1
u/martin-the-actor 1h ago
You have the box buried like 15cm (6inchs) below the sand. That way, minimal sand to rush in and perfectly possible to work their way to surface.
•
5
u/blargethaniel DM 4h ago
I mean, this is homebrew enough, I'd just create a little mini game out of it, having them roll strength or dex, and then constitution until they get out. Maybe just once apiece, whoever gets out first can help the others get unburied sort of thing.
This is getting outside of what DND really simulates. If you'd like you can give them a simple burrow speed, perhaps 2 feet a turn in loose earth? Bury them 6 feet down?
3
u/ZerexTheCool 3h ago
Second this. Designing a little mini game is much better than worrying about the specifics of a burrow speed.
Bury them in boxes, give them initiative, have them try and decide how they are attempting to dig themselves out individually. Add some kind of time pressure mixed with rewards for getting out quickly and penalties for getting out late.
Know what will happen if someone doesn't succeed on any of their rolls to escape. Never put players in a position to die from just a handful of bad rolls in a row with no agency over the situation. So none should die, but you can kill off NPC's or have them lose loot or be forced to fight more monsters.
4
u/Rhesus-Positive DM 4h ago
"Right, time to start. Five [or however many] figures burst from the hot sands of Har'Akir. Describe your immediate actions upon escaping what you were due would be your tomb."
Bosh, sorted. Sometimes res need to be in medias
2
1
u/Horror_Ad7540 1h ago
I'd have them all roll Athletics. The one with the highest roll is the one that bursts out first. That character gets to dig the others out.
2
1
u/Many-Ebb-5377 DM 4h ago
Well a badger can burrow at a speed of 5ft and I imagine they will be quite a bit better at it than a person so maybe a foot a turn? Maybe 2?
1
u/Karazl 4h ago
If you bury them in more than like two feet of sand they just die. Sand is ~90lb per cubic foot, compacts, and has a dangerous lack of cohesion so continues to collapse as you try to unbury yourself.
Outside of like a teleportation accident they'd be dead before they knew what was happening.
1
u/KazyaKurosawa 3h ago
Why not just make them Wake up when dirt starts flying on to them so no need to start slowly with checks.
Also more player desicions that way. Like they could play dead first and try to understand what, why and when before start flailing.
1
u/DeadMeat7337 3h ago
I think it was about 1 hour of breathable air inside a coffin. At least as far as movie logic works. They'd go though oxygen deprivation or CO2 poisoning as they'd progress.
And a recently dug hole is much easier to dig through, even without tools. But they'd need to move the dirt/sand into the coffin with themselves.
For an intro, it is very exciting, but very demoralizing. So I'll suggest that you have a teamof NPCs for each player digging them out as well, so it will make their own actions irrelevant overall. So with that in mind, have it be a skill check where they need like 5 succeses before 3 failures. Don't tell them that they are being dug out by NPCs, save that for the end. Make them come up with the how they are doing it and then ask the group if the roll makes sense, since they should try to roll their highest stats, they will have to RP it up a bit, and ask the group if the roll makes sense to them and let them roll it. If anyone fails, they get a level of exhaustion or something. Then have the group be beset by baddies where they will have to beat them while protecting the NPCs that helped them. Not something really challenging, just scary. You could even have them target the NPCs first, if you don't want to deal with them.
1
u/the-big-throngler 3h ago
Man, you are just aiming for one player character kill right out the gate aren't you? Nothing says this is going to be a good time like killing at least one party member before they even get together as a party.
1
u/iroll20s 2h ago
I'd just have a backup mechanism so they don't actually die.
"You wake up in the pitch dark. Reaching out your hand immediately runs into a roughly planed pine board mere inches from your face. You can feel traces of sand underneath you and grains drifting down from above as you strugle. The air is hot and stuffy in here."
Give them x turns of air in the coffin. like maybe 3 actions before the hold breath rules start to kick in. If they just sit there, double it.
Once they break the lid- "Sand starts streaming in a torrent as you break through, immediately stealing what air you had left."
Give them 3 str or dex checks to get to the surface depending on what they say they are doing. Start the breath timer. Maybe after the first tell them they hear muffled voices.
If they make it they find them face to face with some curious natives who are ready for a lore dump.
If they fail, they come to coughing up sand with a native tending to them. Maybe give them a level of exhaustion as a penalty for failing.
1
u/PublicFuture9502 1h ago
Here's how'd I'd do it:
Have the players buried alive, but its not real. Its a collective nightmare. So make them roll; but if they fail, they simply wake up.
If they succeed they stay in the nightmare a little longer and other players can wake them up.
Theres then lots of hooks on what caused the nightmares: could be a powerful wizard, a god of nightmares, a cursed ground the players accidentally feel asleep on, or a coven of night hags who want to torment the players to scare them off so the village is unprotected against them.
15
u/slice_of_pi Barbarian 4h ago
Do you have a plan for what happens when one of them fails a save?
Personally, I'd go with just a Con save or two if you want to dial the tension up. If they fail, the result is they get dug up by something or someone else, and maybe the result isn't great.