Research (D20)
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Dungeon-Crawling Spell Research System
Concept
This system is designed to handle spell research but can be easily adapted to researching magic items, new technology, or just about anything else. Even if you want to apply it to a nuclear physics research project in a modern RPG, you can keep the "dungeon" terminology. It's only a model.
The basic system involves drawing a dungeon with rooms, connecting tunnels, locked doors, secret doors, traps, monsters, and treasures. The actual sizes and shapes of things do not matter. Every dungeon map will have a starting entrance. Each map will be customized to the problem that the researcher wants to solve. Each object on the map represents some aspect of research.
Rooms represent achievements. Reaching a room means that the researcher has discovered something that leads him one step closer to the end.
Doors represent choices. A room may have several doors, each leading to different areas. Some doors may lead to dead-end tunnels. Each door can be described with what the choice means ("Do you want to try eye of newt or mercury in the compound?") or the abstraction can be left as-is. Some doors are one-way only. That is, once a researcher goes through the door, he may not come back. These represent research paths that require committal to a "no return" option.
Locked doors represent difficult problems that the researcher must solve. Locks may be "picked" open using skill checks (an appropriate Knowledge skill is an obvious choice of solution for many locks). Some researchers may not have the right skill to unlock a door, and this creates role-playing opportunities. The wizard might have to go find a gemcutter to understand some property of quartz to open a door. In these cases, the DM can substitute the helper's skill check in place of the wizard's. Generally, if a wizard fails to pick a lock, he must either get someone else to do it, or he must wait until he gains a level before retrying.
Secret doors represent special insights that lead to shortcuts or special unexpected discoveries. Some secret doors must be explicitly sought by the researcher. In most cases, the DM will make a skill check for the researcher automatically. A secret door might be detected by an unusual Knowledge skill check at a high DC (18-25, or even higher), or be detected automatically by certain races or cultures. Any circumstance or aspect can be the key to detecting a secret door. A secret door may be locked like a normal door; such a door must be first detected, then unlocked.
Traps represent one kind of pitfall that can up-end the research process or slow it down. Traps should usually grant a skill check to avoid them entirely or to take half damage. Sample trap effects include "fire traps" that destroy lab equipment or components, "teleporters" that relocate the researcher to a totally different area of the dungeon (perhaps back a few rooms, meaning lost time), "pits" that cannot be escaped without spending a lot of money, and "dart holes" that cause literal damage to the researcher.
Monsters represent serious dangers of the research process. They are like traps, only they tend to chase researchers until destroyed. Traps, while inconvenient in that they won't go away until conquered, do not attack you every round even if you leave the room. Monsters do this. The effect of monsters may be to drain available gold, to destroy equipment, or to cause damage to the caster. An example of a monster might be an affliction gained while researching that causes a wizard to lose one spell of each level he can cast. The monster may be defeated by a single skill check or may require some number of successful checks to defeat it.
Treasures represent the fruits of research labor. When a treasure is discovered, the researcher may stop his work or he may backtrack to research other areas. The DM is encouraged to drop more than one treasure in the dungeon, but at least one of them should represent the goal the researcher was trying to achieve. For example, if a wizard wanted to research a limited wish spell to add to his spellbook (because he could not find a mage to teach to him), one of the treasures should be a limited wish spell. However, there might be secret doors that lead to new levels of the dungeon that lead to the wish spell, or there might be other treasures which represent unique insights into magic. Treasures don't have to be spells: they can be skill points, feats, and magic items (things created in the process of research).
Exploring the Dungeon
The goal of the researcher is to travel from the entrance to the treasure. To do so will require a path consisting of a number of "moves" through the rooms and doors. The DM should determine the time resolution. Essentially, this is the amount of research time that it takes to make one move. A good amount of time for spell research is a week per move.
With each move, the researcher can perform a single action. The possible actions are described below.
Enter a room. For research purposes, connecting hallways are not rooms. You can move around them for free. When a research enters a room, he learns its obvious contents (doors, treasures, monsters, traps) and may automatically learn its hidden contents (secret doors).
Open a locked door. If there is a locked door between the researcher and his destination, he must unlock it. Each attempt costs an action.
Search for secret doors. During each search action, the DM should check each secret door in the room to see if the researcher discovers it.
Escape a trap. Researchers that have been snared in a trap must escape it. Each attempt (other than the initial "saving throw," if one was given) costs an action.
Fight a monster. To get rid of a monster, the researcher must defeat it. Each attempt costs an action.
Pick up a treasure. To gain the fruits of labor, the researcher must spend an action to pick up the treasure. This reflects time understanding what he has found.
The researcher may back-track in most cases, but this takes time. It still costs to back track into a room, just as if he entered it from the other direction.
Spellcasting in the Dungeon
In short, no. The dungeon is not a real place, and thus real spells do not work.
However, a door might require a certain spell to be cast to open it, or a trap might require the casting of a spell to escape it. These represent the research process. In the case of needing a fly spell to open a door, the DM might rule that the end result (the completely researched spell) only works on a flying creature, or something similar.
Drawing the Dungeon
Each dungeon should be tailored to the specific needs of the researcher. The researcher should have some goal in mind when he starts researching. Otherwise, there is no "entrance" to draw. If the researcher is pursuing more than one project, and they are unrelated, draw two separate dungeons. (However, the DM might choose to make some interesting connection between the two.)
The number of rooms and the seriousness of the traps and monsters should reflect the difficulty of a research project. For spell research, use a formula like number_of_rooms = (spell_level + 1)^2 + 5. For a 0-level cantrip or orison, that's 6 rooms. For a 1st-level spell, that's 9 rooms. For a 5th-level spell, that's 41 rooms. For a 9th level spell, that's 105 rooms. While it can be a chore to draw so many rooms, remember that the actual rooms are just squares on the page and the tunnels that connect them are just lines. The DM does not have to put together a work of art, though creating an interesting research project requires thought and creativity.
A smart DM will create a number of dungeon maps of various complexity in advance, and photocopy them. Whenever a researcher starts a new project, he can add in the secret doors, extra tunnels, traps, monsters, and treasures. Most likely, the photocopy will already show suggestions for placement of these things, and the DM can just label them with notes.
