Albions_Angel
2015-10-01, 07:37 AM
Hi all
My upcomming session on Sunday will have my party tasked with destroying a Forestkith encampment deep in the forest. The latter half of the session will take place in a large underground cave network, which I have resigned myself to drawing (mostly constructed of 30'x30' chambers connected by 10' wide corridors, a few smaller chambers and dead end passages, traps, natural hazards, and beasts waiting in the dark. Simple to make and draw out, easy to repeat over and over.).
But the first half of the session will involve them tramping through a forest that is angry at something. They will run into bands of fey (some who will attack, some who will give warnings, one who will give story elements), sentient (and violent) plants, goblin raiding parties and maybe enemy combatants from the war that is going on. I can build cumulative tables, and random encounter chances, and vast tables and trees, and I like doing that. My issue is one of location.
How should I create a series of small forest battle fields, with rocks, trees, small streams, etc?
One idea I had was to predraw 6 different battlefields on the map, give each a number and a series of enemy entry points, and have the party randomly roll the map.
IE, the party rolls an enemy encounter. I ask for a percentile roll and a d6 roll. The percentile tells me which random encounter to throw at them, lets say 3 bands of goblins entering from entry points A, B and C, while the party enters from D. The d6 tells me which map to use, say map 3, which contains few trees but a large central boulder and a small stream (double movement).
What does the playground think of the idea? Have any of you built random maps in a forest before? What methods could I otherwise use?
My upcomming session on Sunday will have my party tasked with destroying a Forestkith encampment deep in the forest. The latter half of the session will take place in a large underground cave network, which I have resigned myself to drawing (mostly constructed of 30'x30' chambers connected by 10' wide corridors, a few smaller chambers and dead end passages, traps, natural hazards, and beasts waiting in the dark. Simple to make and draw out, easy to repeat over and over.).
But the first half of the session will involve them tramping through a forest that is angry at something. They will run into bands of fey (some who will attack, some who will give warnings, one who will give story elements), sentient (and violent) plants, goblin raiding parties and maybe enemy combatants from the war that is going on. I can build cumulative tables, and random encounter chances, and vast tables and trees, and I like doing that. My issue is one of location.
How should I create a series of small forest battle fields, with rocks, trees, small streams, etc?
One idea I had was to predraw 6 different battlefields on the map, give each a number and a series of enemy entry points, and have the party randomly roll the map.
IE, the party rolls an enemy encounter. I ask for a percentile roll and a d6 roll. The percentile tells me which random encounter to throw at them, lets say 3 bands of goblins entering from entry points A, B and C, while the party enters from D. The d6 tells me which map to use, say map 3, which contains few trees but a large central boulder and a small stream (double movement).
What does the playground think of the idea? Have any of you built random maps in a forest before? What methods could I otherwise use?