First time DM, desert campaign

[Jthw]

So I am DMing for the first time after the current campaign ends and it will be my first time DMing, I already have about the first session fleshed out a bit and it is starting at level 4.

What I would like to ask of you people is if there is any suggestions of how to make the desert harder and more of a survival because at level 4 your kinda fine with all water and things even with an idea I was throwing around with the 0th level create water spell being changed to extract water and a 1st level spell being adding to create water as the 0th level spell but it is not suitable for drinking (like ocean water) so what you would have to do usually is cast the 1st level spell and then the 0th on that.

Extract water is essentially like create water but instead of making water it pulls water out of suitable sources in your square.

The 1st level create water creates unclean water from misc sources around the world commonly ocean water.

The world will be nearly entirely desert with very few exceptions (pretty much open up the Sandstorm 3.5 book, that's my campaign.)

If you have any suggestions on making the struggle for water harder? The main campaign starting hook is that they were raised by the village as a group to find water to sustain the small village they start in.

Any suggestions help and if I forgot anything just tell me and I'll answer the question as soon as i can.

[VoxRationis]

Well, if your hypothetical 1st level spell works by siphoning ocean water, it's going to be useless if the world is all desert. Or is your world just a Pangaea affair, with one ocean and one landmass, the latter of which is mostly desert due to having a proportionally large interior? (Incidentally, if that's the reason, I would like to remind you that latitude is also an important part of desert formation—Siberia is very continental and very not a desert per se).

If you really want to make the setting emphasize survival, I'd just recommend removing the spells that create water in a wholesale fashion.
Furthermore, restrict the use of Survival such that it just identifies sources of food, water, and shelter, rather than provides them. If there is no such food, water, or shelter in a locale, all the Survival ranks in the world won't help you there. If you are lucky enough to have such means of survival, you'll still have to squabble over it with local animals.
A common survival trick is to weigh down a cloth or sheet over a pit such that condensation forming on it in the morning drips down from the center of the cloth into a collection vessel. Make sure you look up how much water you can actually get from that.

[MonochromeTiger]

use enemies with moisture draining abilities that speed up dehydration or threaten any sources of water they manage to find? make the drinkable water sources be at risk of dangerous or debilitating effects that your players have to find specific counters for? make it so the water generated by the level 1 and level 0 spell combination is in some way less efficient at keeping people hydrated than normally gathered water? heck, if you really want to make the water search dangerous tie a creature that's suitably bitey and hard to kill into the plot as the only truly viable water source, let it bleed pure clean water in a land that has none and make subduing and harvesting from it be a dangerous task.

there's not much I can say about making looking for water in a water deficient setting more difficult without knowing how difficult you want it to be and the available abilities of the group in question.

[VoxRationis]

use enemies with moisture draining abilities that speed up dehydration or threaten any sources of water they manage to find? make the drinkable water sources be at risk of dangerous or debilitating effects that your players have to find specific counters for? make it so the water generated by the level 1 and level 0 spell combination is in some way less efficient at keeping people hydrated than normally gathered water? heck, if you really want to make the water search dangerous tie a creature that's suitably bitey and hard to kill into the plot as the only truly viable water source, let it bleed pure clean water in a land that has none and make subduing and harvesting from it be a dangerous task.

there's not much I can say about making looking for water in a water deficient setting more difficult without knowing how difficult you want it to be and the available abilities of the group in question.

I think that realistically, strictly enforcing water availability and denying magical solutions to the problem will be hard enough on water in the desert without making the monsters drain water to boot.

[MonochromeTiger]

I think that realistically, strictly enforcing water availability and denying magical solutions to the problem will be hard enough on water in the desert without making the monsters drain water to boot.

oh definitely but as I said, I don't know how hard the task has to be to qualify as "hard enough" for their desires. they could want something that is more realistically difficult or something that is outright deadly and likely to get a body count. it's why I was hoping a post with context on that would occur.

[torrasque666]

I can easily think of a work around for the "Create Water makes sea-water" situation. Purify Food and Drink(level 0)
This spell makes spoiled, rotten, poisonous, or otherwise contaminated food and water pure and suitable for eating and drinking. Emphasis mine.
This means that all they have to do is cast Create Water-Purify Food and Drink until either they run out of spells per day or are sated.

[Jthw]

I forgot to mention why the world is desert, it is due to how magic works in the world, no spell makes anything, it simply changes things. Like create water is opening a hole to the elemental plane of water for a very short time. Now this leads into the world being desert because, well wizards and such started to use spells way too much and right when people start to realized what was happening a wizard decides to try out an epic epic level spell and, well here we are. The wizard died after the spell was cast and the story of the world before then was mostly lost, only legends remain of what happened.

I'm perfectly fine with barring all water creating spells with some thing like there is no water near you for the spell to have any effect and you would need to planeshift to the elemental plane of water to use the spell.

[Crake]

Why not just use the impeded magic planar trait in the desert for all [Water] spells?

[Dr. Azkur]

I believe Sandstorm covers the subject of Create Water... but don't quote me on that, I'm not sure. Either way it is a book you should most definitely read, no doubt.


Why not just use the impeded magic planar trait in the desert for all [Water] spells?

I second this. And would extend that to [Cold] as well.

[da_chicken]

That's what I was thinking. Sandstorm is an entire book devoted to the desert environment. If your campaign is going to be spending a significant amount of time in a desert, it's certainly worth your time to pick up.

[torrasque666]

The world will be nearly entirely desert with very few exceptions (pretty much open up the Sandstorm 3.5 book, that's my campaign.)


That's what he already intends to do guys. Or at least what I could tell.