Resupply in Dungeon = Player Skill

At the core of dungeon crawlers, once the fantasy veneer is stripped away, is resource management. While overly obvious and reductive statements like this aren't really interesting, I think it's important to underline some concepts here. Let's talk about resources.

Light
Light is probably the most common "resource" that is associated with dungeon crawlers, and also very critical. It is easy to imagine that loss of light and all light-granting resources would just mean a TPK situation. Light is also very hard to reduce. You could imagine going on half rations for food to let them last a bit longer, but you can't really burn half a torch for less light- many games don't even have partial or low-light rules beyond other "you can see" or "you can't see". Light is also a very off or on resource in the fact that many fantasy races don't need light to see in darkness- comparatively few mechanics have in-universe methods of granting permanent, unlimited access to it. Comparatively few fantasy races have the ability of things like; don't need food or don't need arrows to shoot a bow or don't need to conserve hit points, etc.

The concept of light as a resource is often broken down into what the players can bring- namely Torches, Oil, and spells. Stranger forms of light resources- such as a racial ability to create light once p. day or a friendly torchbug companion that can glow to light up a room for you and so on go beyond the scope of this list.

Torches could be thought of as anything burnable. Potentially anything long and straight could be made as a torch or primitive torch. Real torches (as real candles) have specific methods of production; you can't just burn the end of a branch to make an effective torch. But this is fantasyland and it will work in a pinch.

Oil is more complex. Is it whale oil, plant oil, or magical fantasy oil? The concept to restore oil out of the bodies of slain monsters is a good one. Also; burning oil could make different smells- so a tribe of hobgoblins wouldn't notice your whale-oil-lamp but when they smell their chieftan burning to light your lantern then they'll get pissed. Oil is also in my opinion one of the most likely things you'll actually find in a traditional dungeon; any mineshaft or deep underground cave could have an oil drum or barrel left by the excavators or previous adventuring groups.

Light making spells is magic, and as such little rules of reality apply. Anything that can restore magic, or power from a patron of light/holy magic, or connection to the surface world for a druid, etc. could be used to restore light from a light spell. Another idea; a magical/holy light spell that gets dimmer the longer it goes on, but can be refreshed by brutal blood sacrifice of sentient beings. Imagine sacrificing bat people to Quetzalcoatl so you can search for more of that Aztec gold.

Rations & Feed
Food is the easiest thing to resupply in the dungeon; just eat monsters. Mushrooms are also around. Dungeon Meshi ran with this entire concept; it's good.

Feeding animals, especially herbivores (cave donkey?) is a bit harder and would require some supernatural elements. I like the Dwarf Fortress method of cave moss being good enough for surface dwelling herbivores to consume and survive on. In some parts of subterranian caverns it grows like a thick blanket. In smooth stone dungeon and generic mining tunnels? Not a lot of food or water here.

Of course- this only applies to traditional dungeons. Hex or city-crawls are brimming with opportunities for food- from foraging to hunting. Personal take- high towers or "vertical" dungeons like mountains have water being common, but food is more scarce. Then again, dungeons or deep caves should have more water, just less clean water, so unsure on this one.

Ammunition
Obviously spells and ammunition (either for actual guns or arrows and bolts) are a big part of the resource management. You typically have to have more risk to use a sword up close, but swords don't run out. (Equipment is also a resource too though- that's later).

Resupplying ammunition in dungeons requires some creativity. Personally, I'd allow skilled characters (dwarves) to identify nitrates in caves or soils to be used to make shitty black powder, and probably even stuff a gun barrel with little gravel flakes as an improvised form of ranged attack. Arrows are more complex, but you can probably imagine making arrows out of mushroom wood + underground birds for plummage, with arrow heads being easily reused. Ammunition made in dungeons is probably of pretty poor quality- the main cost here is time. Realistically speaking, unless you're spending multiple days or weeks in a dungeon, it wouldn't be worth the effort to try and hunt down all the materials you'd need to make arrows.

Ammunition is very easily recouped from intelligent enemies however; both their camps and patrols (goblins have shitty arrows, orcs have crossbows, drow have good arrows, bug people have bombs, and so on). It is probably one of the easier resources to recover if you aren't in a naturalist dungeon (cave) or an undead dungeon where everything is old and rotting away. If there are no intelligent monsters in the cave that use humanoid weapons, then you're screwed.

I'm also a big fan of magic rods as a type of "ranged magic weapon" to replace infinite use cantrips. They shoot magic blasts and are essentially a reskinned bow or sling for magic users. If you go with the lore of them being topped with a gem to be used as a power source, then this is a really easy method of resupply- just put a gem you got as treasure on the rod and each shot drains a certain amount of its value as the gem loses luster and eventually turns into a pebble if its all expended.

Spells
Spells are a tricky one. With such a massive part of the game balance being based on resource management, and Magic-Users being so reliant on spells- which are essentially their methods to solve problems at the cost of being very limited.

In some games, spells can be regained through studying your spellbook after either eight hours of rest (possible but difficult in most adventure situations / dungeons), or by studying your spellbook again after casting your magic dice/spell points, or what not. Further games have secondary mechanics- risk reward of casting extra spells past your "safe" limit but at the chance of screwing everything up. However, these methods of gaining extra spells do not count from resupplying in a dungeon itself.

The power gained by spells (instant problem solutions) can be "resupplied" in dungeons through finding scrolls, magic wands, or other magical loot in a dungeon itself. Chopping off a fetish from a defeated kobold shaman and being able to use his remaining spell he had prepared before you killed him is a fun concept- as is having yet unknown and unidentified spells scribbled on walls or stored in little glass balls. The only clue on what it does is a few random words- is it safe or will it blow you up?

Side note: "Spells" in the form of instant use solutions, not necessarily related to combat, are also somewhat "resupplied" by needing less of them over time. For example, you don't need to use Levitate to reach a high platform once you tie a rope around it and can now climb it easily.

Health & Cures
Health is one of the most important aspects to resource management. It is the primary "resource" of martial/fighter-type classes, and important to every character. Dungeons can't give back too easily, or else one of the biggest pressures for getting in and out is removed. Many rulesets allow for short or long rests to recover some amount of health, or using limited use spells or abilities like lay on hands to recover HP.

Other ideas; friendly NPCs in the dungeon that will heal you in exchange for something else. Healing potions are an easy one. Healing fountains stuck in the dungeon make a nice static location where healing can be done; but there has to be a good reason why you can't just bottle the water or swim in it- maybe mutations if you use it more and more. If a dungeon is built or famous for a famous treasure, you restore +1d8 HP or "Grit" just for touching it like a pure morale boost. This helps since it will almost always be guarded by the most dangerous monster.

As for first aid and medicine- I've already written a whole post about it.

Also; the concept of certain stats or your level being damaged (level drain) could be tied under health. Typically, these aren't easily cured in a dungeon and are instead related to the overall campaign and bed rest. An extra rule, like laying a ghost's physical remains to rest cures you of its level drain, might be a nice way to allow players to resupply in exchange for doing something difficult and karmic in universe. Curses get an extra bit- Arnold likes curses that you can cure by doing shit- make the dungeon harder for yourself to remove a penalty.

Equipment
Dungeons contain traps and situations that consume equipment- prybars break eventually, wooden doorwedges are thrown away, and your swords are eaten by rust monsters. Recovering equipment in a dungeon is simple; stealing it from the monsters and corpses here- perhaps even your own fallen party members. More recent corpses probably have better equipment, and anything you steal from monsters will be of poor quality, trapped/cursed, or both.

Creating new equipment or doing advanced repairs to serious damage is probably out of the scope of the timeframe and skill of the characters in a dungeon; but characters of a specific race or class might be able to do so. I like dwarves or gnomes, or those of magical artificer classes, being able to repair anything related to their professions in one exploration turn of downtime. Metal plates may also be stolen from various environmental pieces to patch yourself up; the classic wooden barrel lid as a shield. Why does nobody just use the armor that the animated suits of armor puppet around after you break them apart? That shit is expensive. Snailpeople can just put themselves into a new shell if they manage to find one- that's a good reason for adventuring.

Manpower / Numbers
People will die or become lost/run away as you explore the dungeon. This applies to player characters to a lesser extent, but is mostly related to your hirelings and followers. Link and lantern boys, porters, thralls, whatever- all of them perform useful labor that isn't realistic for a small party of individuals to do; like tear down barricades or haul giant gold bricks out of a dungeon. Some treasure may become totally unable to be recovered if you don't have enough people to carry it, but group size is self mitigating; too many hands means not enough coins, and larger groups tend to use up more resources and attract more wandering monsters.

Groups of people also have other advantages; taking turns on watch, being able to carry each other, etc. It's similar to Kenshi; if enough people get downed in that game and you can't carry them away is when situations quickly spiral out of control- as long as you have enough healthy and strong people to support the knocked out ones, you can remain as mobile as possible.

Manpower is hard to recover in a dungeon on purpose; fresh meat is found back in town, at the tavern, but there are some methods. The classic of finding an imprisoned or lost person in a dungeon to act as a replacement PC could just as easily work for a retainer. I also like the idea of pressing a random goblin or other mook to join your party and do dangerous or demeaning tasks- though this comes with the explicit cost of knowing they will betray you at the first opportunity. More honorable creatures, like orcs, may offer to aid you as a group in exchange for performing a task for them first.

Of course, all of the examples above are for replacing dead or lost party members with new ones, not bringing back old ones. Health is already covered above and resurrection magic tends to be too high of power and scope for being "resupplied" in a dungeon. However I could see very dangerous dungeons having "soul fountains" where the last dying breath of a person (trapped in a bottle of course) can be brought and they will be reborn within a time limit. Or a really haunted place having the ghost of the dead PC being able to be brought back- but they'll need a new, living body. Have them possess a random animal or monster for funsies.

Time
The one thing you can't get back. Time is a "resource" that (probably) can't be recovered in a dungeon at all, but thankfully isn't a problem in every dungeon. In this case, it's less "time" and moreso a time constraint mechanic. Toxic spores that get more dangerous the longer you inhale them, a dungeon slowly sinking into the mud that will soon be submerged in 1d4+2 days, or needing to get someone or something out of the dungeon very soon, else a catastrophic event will happen.

However, "time" as a resource could be returned either with super high level magics (timewarping? Rope trick?) and relating it to the fiction. I could see a campaign where killing high level cultists slows (but does not stop) the return of an elder deity, so taking a detour to search every cultist hideout becomes a valuable way to recover your "time".

Surprise
While only a vaguely resource in a quantifiable sense, the element of surprise could be a significant resource to a party when first exploring a location. If a location is heavily guarded or has at least one intelligent faction there; every time the party fights or is spotted it will be more and more clear that adventurers are coming to plunder or mess up their plans. In that regard surprise becomes like a resource; traded in when you fail stealth rolls, and making future encounters more difficult as enemies prepare for you.

Surprise cannot be recovered once directly lost, but it can be mitigated. Killing guards who spot you before they raise the alarm, covering your tracks with branches in the mud, or waiting a long time before returning to the dungeon to let their guard back down are all valid ways of regaining or preventing loss of surprise.

Confidence
This resource is totally meta- player attitude. Confidence is something that is a direct resource that is expended while a dungeon is explored, but isn't on your character sheet. In a way, the desire to take risks and explore is a resource that is slowly used up as other resources are lost- optimal and safe become more important and socially enforced as the party's position becomes more precarious.

Confidence and time (real life time) is highest when you begin a session- which usually includes a return to the dungeon. From here, the knowledge, mapping, and accumulated player power from progression acts as a sort of boost for confidence, until new areas are explored. People can only go so far before a cautious retreat is in order; especially if loaded with treasure. Winning battles and finding more treasure regains confidence, but also increases risk. If your dungeon is properly large, players may not even explore the whole thing once the cost to risk ratio of remaining treasure and acquired treasure becomes too costly to keep exploring!

This isn't a bad thing though; players not exploring an entire dungeon leads to a mystery and a more "realistic" mindset that treasure hunters would really have; once they've got the hoard, it isn't worth the time and effort to go scrabble for the last few gold coins. The unique values of OSR play make resources especially important and lead to gameplay that isn't just a set up and resolve using the most optimal combat methods your players know; it means the ability to be further invested in the fantasy space- any way players can use their own intelligence and skill to let them stay in the dungeon longer is a direct continuation of that idea.

Kenshi Homebrew Race - Biters

The world of Kenshi is a dark and violent place. It is a wild world with ancient machines, mutant monsters, bandits and cannibals, but there are those who practice the Way of the Swordsman. There is an intolerant religious regime preaching human superiority, and a corrupt republic of cities where being poor is illegal, and punished with enslavement; but even here there are groups seeking a fresh start.

If you haven't played this game, then a lot of this won't make sense to you. This is my homebrew race. I had the idea to mod this into the game myself, but my ideas (as usual) are too beyond the scope of my meager abilities. If you ever decide to play Kenshi in tabletop (and you should), then you can add these guys in to be your plucky underdogs.

Kenshi - Biters
This unusual species of small humanoids have an unusually shaped head. They are not seemingly related to humans or hive, and are their own separate species. They stand between 3 and 4 feet in height, and are thickly built. Their heads and fur is reminiscent of a landbat, a dangerous creature, so some scholars believe they are a related species. They are also totally carnivorous, but are small and can go for a long time without food. This means they can eat raw meat as well as foul raw meat similar to Hivers.

Like the other races in Kenshi, Biters have multiple subspecies. Unlike other races though, this is a gendered subspecies, and is more a result of sexual dimorphism. The male Biters grow to become Rustbacks, who are larger and have a red color along their spine. The females grow to become Sandfoot, who have a lighter, more camouflaged coloration. Redbacks have a stronger upper body which allows them to use melee weapons better, but both breeds of Biters are too small to use heavy weapons. (They do not have a primary weapon slot in their inventory). Because of their small size, Sandfeet are among the physically weakest of all the playable character choices, but are skilled with lockpicking for their small hands and gain medical skill at an advanced rate.

Out of all the intelligent races of the world, Biters are probably the dumbest. They are smarter then cannibals however, which means they can at the very least speak and commence trading with other factions. As with all non-humans, they are openly attacked and enslaved by members of the Holy Nations if they trespass on their lands. Biters believe in magic and are known to be easily fooled, but are good survivalists and well suited to many of the more hazardous places in Kenshi's world. Their bodies are well adapted to the desert; they have small, rough eyes which gives them poor eyesight for ranged weapons, but they are naturally immune to duststorms.

Limb HP	Rustback	Sandfoot
Head	80	80
Chest	100	80
Stomach	100	130
Right Arm	100	80
Left Arm	100	80
Right Leg	100	100
Left Leg	100	100

 

The Rustbacks are almost as strong as a standard human, which given their size and lack of ability to use large weapons (and legwear) means they are at a significant disadvantage in a fight without superior numbers. The Sandfoots are even more extreme, except for their stomach. This is because the females of their race have a pouch to raise young, which means their lower body is extremely well armored with loose skin, cartilage, and protective fat.

Skills

Rustback		Sandfoot
Stealth	+10%	Stealth	+10%
		Lockpicking	+20%
Precision Shooting	-20%	Precision Shooting	-20%
Field Medic	-20%	Field Medic	+20%
Engineer	-20%
Robotics	-20%
Science	-20%

Culture & Factions

The Biters cannot support large communities and are not known for great organizational skills. They also are by far the youngest race in the world of Kenshi, possibly only a hundred years or less that they began to show signs of intelligence. Their culture is therefore very bare and simple. Their settlements are more like shared nesting locations, their people are organized around breeding and food. Bands of mostly male Rustbacks hunt for wild goats or garru and bring the meat back to their camps, where the Sandfoots protect the nest, care for offspring, and sometimes tell each other stories or trade with outsiders.

Biter camps are small, made up of several burrows. Their construction skills are limited in sophistication to perhaps a flap of fabric over a burrow to keep the dust out or a small door that can be closed with a heavy stone to keep bone dogs away from meat storage. They certainly do not have any strong walls, defensive turrets, or electricity. If you decide to trade with them you will see that they almost exclusively sell animal skins, teeth, and bones. Occasionally, one will dig up a shiny thing in the sand and sell it at a seemingly random price, which could be anything from a few bolts lost in a battle to an advanced robotic limb that they will let go for peanuts.

 

The Biters have few leaders or little social complexity- with the exception to healers. Biters believe in magic and they view healing as a form of magic. The leader of every Biter nest will always be a Sandfoot mendermother; a practiced healer who is viewed as a shaman. The Biters are known to be a good partner to trade with for medical supplies; they buy them at a high markup as they cannot make them themselves, but they have little currency with which to trade. It won't be long before the Trader's Guild catches wind of it and finds a way to exploit these primitive people.

The Biters do not control many lands and they are not well defended. The areas where dust bandits, hungry bandits, and wild animals patrol are the same places where they live. They are relatively peaceful and have no interest in attacking or robbing travelers. The exception are Shek. If a lone Shek or small group wander nearby a Biter den, the Rustbacks may mistake the Sheks for wild goats (their eyesight is bad and the bone plates make them look similar at distance), which could lead to some Shek warriors getting swarmed. Tales of these random attacks have begun to reach the Shek Kingdom's, and may cause a war between the races. Unfortunately for the Biters, it is likely this will end in their extermination.

Kenshi - The Wrong Headcanon

So before I start writing this; I want to make it clear- this is my headcanon lore for a game that is absolutely 100% wrong. See, when I first started playing Kenshi a few years ago, I played it from time to time. But the world of Kenshi is really weird and unique, and for whatever reason I began to make up a "story" all on my own. But here's the thing- the game already has lore. It already has a background story that is quite interesting on its own involving a cycle of falling empires, a race of machines, and so on. For this blogpost, we won't be discussing any of it- so you can consider this spoiler free.

In the end, my headcanon explanation for the world and what was going on in it was totally shot to hell because of it, so I ended up not writing this blogpost. But then I realized it doesn't really matter- as its just a headcanon. Maybe this concept is something that a out-of-touch noble of the United Cities thought up in their spare time, where as a faction like the Tech Hunters would be more "in the know" and know that none of this is true. Still, maybe you can enjoy this wrong headcanon.

Kenshi Origins
The world of Kenshi is set on a moon. It orbits a great gas giant. The moon has a decent amount of water and a breathable atmosphere. While the most ignorant of souls in the world of Kenshi might think this planet is all there is, or the center of the universe, most with at least some scientific education know otherwise.

Think about it- there are advanced machines still running hundreds of years after whatever destroyed the world (and let's face it- it is destroyed, there are ruins everywhere. Ancient blades and armor are better then our new stuff- they wouldn't live and scrounge among ruins like we do). Technology has clearly regressed. Most people would know that Kenshi's planet is not the origin of intelligent life on it. It is clear that life has come from somewhere else- travelling on spaceships.

Dotted around Kenshi's planet are massive superstructures. Some of them are so big entire towns can be fit inside. Huge piles of scrap metal that look part of an even larger structure. What possible weapon or machine could these be a part of? At the size and shape they are; the only real explanation is that they are part of great world-vessels, huge starships meant to ferry many living things or people across vast distances in space. Therefore, people didn't originate here, they came here through space. But something went wrong; the spaceships they lived on in orbit around the moon started to fail. They had to land on the planet- the spider bots and bases may have been their first outposts the original people lived in before their technology and knowledge was slowly lost.

Kenshi Races
The world of Kenshi has a few different intelligent races. There are four- Humans, Shek, Hive, and Skeletons (Robots). While the skeletons are artificial and could not have come about naturally, the other races/species leave more up to questions.

Firstly; Humans. Humans don't really look like anything else on the Kenshi planet. There are two subraces of humans; Greenlanders, and Scorchlanders. They are both humans, but have different skin colors and slightly different stat and skill growths. This indicates that these people did not originate from the Kenshi homeworld, and are instead the original race of interstellar travelers. The two races appeared later- Scorchlanders created themselves using advanced genetic engineering after the planet-ships crashed to better survive the wastes.

Second; Shek. Shek look like humans (and even call themselves humans in some dialogue events, but it is unclear if this is an oversight), but are covered in bone plates and are very physically strong. In fact, their appearance is similar to many of the animals on Kenshi's world. This would indicate that they are more naturally from the world? Wrong.

The animals of Kenshi come in different categories. Three species in particular match real-world animals we know of; goats, bulls, and dogs. These animals look like Earthling animals to an extant, but with bone plates similar to those the Shek have. This shows that these animals are also artificial; genetically modified and created to live on the planet with the Shek. It could be the Shek were created as a primitive culture, to either be studied by the advanced humans living in orbit, or to help the early colonization of the planet, as there is no better way to destroy harmful megafauna then to create early hominids and let them run amok for a few thousand years. But the Shek, being primitive and aggressive, were never meant to last. They were supposed to be wiped out or uplifted after a certain point, to ready the planet for human colonization.

Next are the Hive. The Hive don't look like any other races and don't have sex (well technically they have Queens- but we won't talk about that here). Instead, they don't look like any other race. The Hive look like some of the native life of Kenshi; baring superficial resemblance to the beak-things, leviathans, etc. They have a similar coloring and skin coatings- the Hive are natives to the planet. Created or uplifted by human involvement; their role was to become differing castes of servants and planet-colonizers. They have castes innate to their biology, and their reproduction via the Queens is clearly augmented by technology.

Finally; the Skeletons. The Skeletons are robots, obviously. Not much needs to be said there. They were created by humans as their various workers or servants. With the ability to gain self awareness, they became their own race since the secrets to building them was lost along with the high tech factories. Any of them you see are basically antiques.

Kenshi Mechanics
Now finally, let's talk about game mechanics. Kenshi's own people wouldn't know about this, but compared to our world, the game mechanics are very unrealistic when compared to our world.

For starters, people in Kenshi can become extremely strong, supernaturally so. Enough to punch metal and take multiple powerful sword blows without serious bodily injury or death. While it is possible to do exercises to become tougher in real life, it's not an infinite scale up- there are limits to how tough flesh and bone can be. In Kenshi, people clearly exceed that level. The same goes for physical strength and speed- with people able to sprint for extended periods while carrying super humanly heavy loads. Finally; limbs can be chopped off and removed. In the real world, people can survive this, so it isn't a huge stretch. With the advanced technology of Kenshi left around in old relics, people can use robotic limbs to replace them. That's sensible. But what isn't so sensible is how quickly people recover from limb loss- both in terms of shock and how quickly they can adapt to having a new limb. The moment they put a new robotic limb on, they can instantly use it as well as their own limbs, with some small negatives to dexterity or highly precise movements like picking locks. How could this be the case?

The answers are simple- and are done in two. First is genetic engineering, and the second is oxygen.

In the real world, humans have evolved to a certain state that we are because of evolution. The truth is humans could be stronger, smarter, taller, etc. But the reason why we aren't is because of the cost- mostly in the form of calories, heat exchange, and childhood development. The square-cube law is a huge bitch anyway. In real evolution, humans had to evolve the correct balance of being useless after being born for a number of years with a payoff, and they had to balance our physical and mental abilities with the amount of food we could realistically get. But once humans gain modern technology, these restrictions become less important. For this reason, I believe the humans (and all races based on them) are highly genetically modified to allow for things like ultra-dense muscle formation, rapid healing, and supernatural levels of cardiovascular conditioning and ability.

But the question is, why do characters start so weak in that case? Simple- humans aren't stupid. Humans know that there is a chance they or their descendants could be trapped on barren planets or stuck in spaceships for many years, and these changes require heavy amounts of calories and proteins to power. As such, you don't start with this level of strength because your body isn't efficient enough. For a highly advanced society that manipulates the genome like clay, there's no reason you can't have both- efficient bodies for emergency situations and survival/regression into a pre-advanced society, and advanced, powerful bodies once agriculture or mechanized society comes around. (The only problem is that characters don't require more food as they get higher stats, which is just a part of the gameplay. Maybe the body-structures are also genetically engineered to be really efficient once set up?)

Finally; there is Oxygen. The Kenshi moon has a lot of oxygen. You can see this because all the metal outside is rusted to hell and there are few plants in most places. This oxygen is terrible for plant life, but great for mammals and other species that breathe oxygen. The fact some creatures can reach such huge sizes and people have such great cardio is directly caused by oxygen. The only places where plant life grows are in swamps, valleys, and other places where carbon dioxide can be found in great quantities- perhaps leaking from the ground from ancient garbage dumps buried from the previous civilization.