Pathfinder: Logistics, The Adventure

[JohnnyCancer]

Our group is currently playing a game where we cleave to the rules as written as closely as possible. When you don't gloss over weather and encumbrance, it's amazing how complicated the process of adventuring becomes. Here's some of things we have had to worry about:

1.The carrying capacity of our characters, retainers, and animals.
2.The effect our cargo has on our overland traveling speed.
3.The need for proper shelter from the elements for not just ourselves, but our animals to avoid fatigue.
4. The apparent fact that horses out of the equipment section aren't explicitly trained in the Work trick, and thus aren't qualified to pull wagons.

In our somewhat low-magic game, making sure that we have the means to carry our supplies and any treasure we find, and keep everyone in the group hale and hearty has caused us to spend a lot more time than some other groups I've played with but it's an oddly satisfying challenge on its own. Does anyone else go full Oregon Trail in their game, and do you have any interesting stories or advice?

[JohnnyCancer]

Going through the expedition notes for our group's last big venture highlighted the high costs involved. Our group of seven players with seven henchmen spent over ten thousand gold pieces on horses and their related accessories (bit & bridle, barding [we went with cheap barding], saddles, and saddlebags), a heavy wagon and four horses to pull it, sufficient pavilion tents for all men and horses, masterwork backpacks for everyone involved.

Just to save money and cargo space, my divine caster was praying for multiple castings of create food and water every day.

[Snowbluff]

What classes are you running? Endure Elements and Floating Disk would be handy spells.

[Volos]

If that level of realism or adherence to RAW is what your group finds fun, then more power to you. For most of the games I have played in or run, we tend to gloss over most of the encumbrance rules and overland travel issues. Basically I ask myself this question when running a game. "Is it dramatic enough to bother with?" If pitching a tent for a horse is a major goal of the character, then I'll cover it. If keeping track of how tired a horse is down to the number of minutes it can drag a wagon isn't fun, then I skip over it. For most things that fall into this 'not-fun' category, I come up with averages between sessions. A horse an go X far in one day, costing Y money to operate. I have the players pay the cost and all the horse stuff goes off in the background. Same goes for encumbrance. Player can carry about X-ish stuff before I warn them they are getting close to being encumbered.

[Palanan]

That's the kind of detail I like to go for in my campaigns, especially in wilderness settings where the party is far, far away from warm beds and convenient shops.

We always pay close attention to watch schedules as well--who's on watch at what hours of the night. That can be interesting, depending on who has darkvision or an especially terrible Listen mod.

:smalltongue:

[BWR]

Our group is currently playing a game where we cleave to the rules as written as closely as possible. When you don't gloss over weather and encumbrance, it's amazing how complicated the process of adventuring becomes. Here's some of things we have had to worry about:

1.The carrying capacity of our characters, retainers, and animals.
2.The effect our cargo has on our overland traveling speed.
3.The need for proper shelter from the elements for not just ourselves, but our animals to avoid fatigue.
4. The apparent fact that horses out of the equipment section aren't explicitly trained in the Work trick, and thus aren't qualified to pull wagons.

In our somewhat low-magic game, making sure that we have the means to carry our supplies and any treasure we find, and keep everyone in the group hale and hearty has caused us to spend a lot more time than some other groups I've played with but it's an oddly satisfying challenge on its own. Does anyone else go full Oregon Trail in their game, and do you have any interesting stories or advice?

This is how we always play our games. Well, not the first month or so we played. Then we realized we were carrying around something like 30 suits of armor, shields and weapons each and thought this was ridiculous. Since then we've been scrupulous about encumbrance. After a few levels it ceasd to be quite as important, what with Rings of Sustenance, Create Food & Water, long-lasting spells like Floating Disk, Mount, Bags of Holding, etc.

[Bickerstaff]

Sometimes we do this in our group, but generally for special occasions. Like if the group goes to an icy, preternaturally cold mountain range, I'll break out the environment rules because it makes it more interesting and it generally adds something fun to the campaign (IMO, environment rules all-day, every-day doesn't really add anything to a campaign).


Side note: the above example comes from a Pathfinder game I was running where the PCs were being sent to the Icerime Peaks (sounds cold, right?), and were explicitly told so:

So the group was all kinds of excited to move out and get on with the adventure, and I kept asking "Are you suuuure you haven't forgotten anything?" to which they effectively responded with "We're done, stop stalling!"

So I let them go on the merry way, one week's travel to the Icerime Peaks (I kept saying "The Icerime Peaks" as forebodingly as possible) and they arrived. After a day of hiking up the mountain trails, I started to call for Fort checks because of the cold they were beginning to experience.

"Wait, what, this place is COLD? NO ONE TOLD US."

So, naturally, they had to trek back to town for supplies (cold-weather gear, tents, etc.), where they were greeted by the governor himself who expected the PCs must have finished their task and set up a "welcome home" party.

Never was a man so disappointed.

[JohnnyCancer]

Though we've stuck to the rules for most things, we're play testing a sort of "a la carte," system of character creation and progression among other things. These house rules we're testing have translated into a world where magic items are rare, so while our characters were around the equivalent of level 8 or so, we were all using masterwork and alchemical items, rather than magic though we did have quite a few spells and spell-like abilities at our disposal. Many of the magical conveniences you might expect to use were not in play for us.

I don't know how much the DM wants us to share of system particulars, but perhaps you'll get an idea of how unusual our system is if I described my character as having abilities drawn from bards, cavaliers, clerics, druids, and paladins without having so much as a single point of BAB.

[Palanan]

Sounds like a really interesting campaign, actually. I'd love to know more about the system if your DM is willing to share.

[Water Bob]

Yes, I like to run gritty, detail oriented games like this. It can be quite fun. Especially when the PCs run out of food and have to go hunting. That sometimes leads to an impromptu adventure, once you throw in random encounters and wandering monsters.

The challenge for the GM, though, is to keep it from not being boring for the players who don't like such detail (and, those guys are out there, believe me).

I make my players account for everything the character owns, down to his socks and loincloth. And, I have the clothes wear out, from time to time, requiring the purchase of new attire.

But, I never do this in an obtrusive way. In the middle of a cavern crawl, I'll never say, "Damn! Your boots have had it! Time to get some new ones! Did you bring a spare pair?"

When the PCs are gearing up is usually when I bring this up. "How about a new pair of boots? Those you have are getting pretty warn out." Then, the player will scratch off a few coins--whatever the cost--and we move on. Sometimes, I'll turn it into a roleplay barter moment, but I try to keep my finger on the pulse of the game. I never try to enforce this stuff if I think it will bog the game down.

The only time, in an adventure, that I'll destroy clothing and equipment is when it becomes a focus moment in the adventure. Say green slime plops down over a character's shoulder, and his armor fails the save. Then, and only in these types situations, do I say, "Well, your armor is kaput. It ate through your jerkin and cotton shirt, too. Your skin is red and blistered."