How to Defend Your Lair
Published on 29. November 2022
352 pages
978-1-9821-7137-7 (ISBN)
Description
Defend yourself and protect your assets in a lair that feels as real and alive as your monsters with advice from Keith Ammann, author of The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters.
The world is a dangerous place?especially when you're up to no good. Whether you're a rampaging monster, a calculating mastermind, or the current possessor of the Golden MacGuffin, someone's going to come at you. Probably more than one someone. You can't know when, but you can choose where. You need to be ready.
You need a lair.
In How to Defend Your Lair, gamemaster Keith Ammann pulls back the curtain on an underrated but crucial part of any tabletop roleplaying game: the theater of battle. Say goodbye to encounters in randomly generated dungeons and hello to a game in which where the fight takes place is just as important as who is doing the fighting.
This book teaches you how to use real-world principles of building security and area defense to create strongholds infused with flavor, informed by narrative, and complex enough to force your players to think strategically. You'll look at the strengths and weaknesses of both defenders and potential attackers, creating spaces that are strong enough to keep out ordinary intruders...and to provide thrilling challenges to extraordinary ones.
Including more than a dozen fleshed-out sample strongholds, How to Defend Your Lair is a crucial resource for any RPG gamemaster who wants to push players to think about how to solve problems before running at them head-on.
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Person
Keith Ammann is the creator of the award-winning blog and book The Monsters Know What They're Doing and author of a series of books by the same name, including the recent Making Enemies: Monster Design Inspiration for Tabletop Roleplaying Games and How to Defend Your Lair. He's been a roleplaying gamer and game master for more than thirty-five years. He likes to play outwardly abrasive helpers, out-of-their-element helpers, and genuinely nice, helpful helpers. Mostly, though, he plays non-player characters. And monsters.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Epigraph
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Principles of Defense
- Assets
- Detection, Deterrence, and Response
- Concentric Defense
- Weak Points
- Castles
- Chapter 2: Terrain
- Grassland/Hill
- Urban
- Coastal
- Forest
- Desert
- Swamp
- Mountain
- Arctic
- Underground
- Underwater
- Chapter 3: Defensive Magic
- Detection Spells
- Deterrence Spells
- Response Spells
- Chapter 4: Humanoid (and Nonhumanoid) Resources
- Chapter 5: Budgeting
- Chapter 6: Battle Strategy
- The Lay of the Land
- Perimeter Defense
- Reconnaissance and Security
- Visibility
- "Plan B"
- Avoiding the Wood Chipper
- Chapter 7: Taking Prisoners
- Approaching an Interrogation Subject
- Asking Questions
- Chapter 8: Sixteen Lairs
- Grung Village
- Wererat Nest
- Wizard's Tower
- Thieves' Den
- Unicorn Grove
- Vampire Mansion
- Hag Coven Cottage
- Green Dragon Lair
- Drow Compound
- Aboleth Grotto
- Esoteric Society Meetinghouse
- Grandmother Hag Dwelling
- Fey Court
- Genie's Palace
- Blue Dragon Lair
- Lich's Crypt
- Appendix A: Magic Items
- Appendix B: Stat Blocks
- Cartographers
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Copyright
