Gritty campaign with environmental dangers - is it possible?

[Wonton]

One of the things I've always sort of disliked about D&D is that makes the dangers of the environment completely irrelevant as early as level 1. Create Water is a level 0 spell, and Endure Elements is 1st level. In Pathfinder, there is even Cloak of Shade (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/cloak-of-shade/), which is basically a Mass Endure Elements in a 1st-level spell slot.

But surviving The Great Desert or The Frozen Tundra are both staples of fantasy books (and just adventure stories in general). Ever since I read Sandstorm and Frostburn back in 3.5, I always wanted to run a campaign set in a gritty (metaphorically and literally) desert setting - but can such a thing really be done in 3.5/PF? Sure, we could say the Create Water/Endure Elements/etc spells were lost and are not commonly known, or even restrict the party from playing wizards/clerics/druids.

But even then, could a campaign where the challenges are not orcs and dragons but finding water and avoiding dangerous sandstorms even be interesting? Is it possible to tell a good story in such a setting, or are things like this bound to get mundane and repetitive quickly?

Interested to hear your thoughts on this.

Edit: P.S. If anyone has suggestions for a system that DOES suit itself well to, say, a long trek through a desert, I'm curious to hear them.

[PhantasyPen]

Generally I find if you want the environment to be dangerous to your players, it shouldn't necessarily be because of normal "real world" weather conditions. Instead, I find if one wants to have the environment as a factor in combat, "magical" weather should be a factor. This also has the benefit of giving you the ability to try out some rather unusual field conditions.

[Nifft]

Sure it's possible, and that's because baseline survival isn't the only environmental challenge.

If you put no pressure on them, then survival is easy, and passive obstacles are just one rest & one spell away from an auto-win. So, don't give them passive obstacles, and do turn up the pressure.


Maybe the PCs are trying to avoid the notice of a great wyrm nearby. This means that being spotted by overhead wyverns is a major concern, and every fight is immediately followed by a desperate chase as the PCs need to avoid being tracked.


Maybe the PCs are running from a volcanic explosion which was so massive it triggered a planar breach. First the PCs need to deal with the volcanic ash nearby, and they probably notice that [Teleportation] and sending spells don't work. Then ash fills the sky and embers rain down, and only [Fire] & [Earth] creatures can be summoned. There is no dawn, only ash; and all [Water] spells stop working. Finally, the forests & grasslands start to burn, as the plane of elemental fire comes into alignment: [Cold] spells don't function. Efreeti race through the air, seeking slaves and sport. Now the PCs find the city they'd been seeking, but it's already surrounded by a brass palisade, making blatant its change in ownership. The PCs need to survive off the land -- which is mostly on fire -- while drumming up support for a revolt against the Efreeti overlords, which they need to do so they can get past the city to a place where planar travel & sending spells work.

[Darth Ultron]

But even then, could a campaign where the challenges are not orcs and dragons but finding water and avoiding dangerous sandstorms even be interesting? Is it possible to tell a good story in such a setting, or are things like this bound to get mundane and repetitive quickly?


Yes, it is possible.

But the vast majority of players...even more so modern players...don't want to have this sort of game at all. So check with your players first.

For the most part, the D&D rules don't do ''character vs nature'' well, as even 1st level characters are super humans. So the ''common weather'' does not work well at all.

So for D&D, you need to go at least ''extreme natural weather'' to get any effect

And for the ''real'' effect....you need to go fully to Fantasy Weather Hazards.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Things change as you go up in level, but I've found that environmental hazards can amp up the danger in a wilderness environment--they just can't be the only danger.

Two key items to keep the tension in a wilderness survival adventure are random encounters and survival checks to avoid getting lost. Random encounters will add a big element of risk to the adventure. Your first level casters may not want to blow all their slots on endure Elementa if there is a chance of running into an ettercap in the morning and assassin vines that night. They also let you distinguish between the swamp of fiendish Doom crocodiles and the forest of fluffy fey other than just with your verbal descriptions and the labels on the map.

Survival checks to avoid being lost aren't usually thought of as fun but not getting lost is an important part of the wilderness survival genre and they also introduce more elements of strategic uncertainty. Is 11 days rations enough to make it to the dwarf holds? Maybe and maybe not.

Another important element of the genre is planning/supplies. This will require bookkeeping but if done right, it can add to the adventure. You need to track encumbrance. Doing this will probably result in the pcs bringing mounts and pack animals. At that point, there may not be enough endure elements to go around and even the "wolf" random encounter that doesn't threaten the PCs could easily kill the last pack mule in the line and force some tough choices about carrying fodder/supplies vs maintaining an unencumbered pace. I've found that using a sheet with daily supply boxes and checking them off as used helps to make the bookkeeping manageable.

One last item to consider is weather. There should be blizzards, heatwaves, sandstorms, fogs, thaws, cold snaps, etc. This will impact the base survival DCs from the PH and let things that would be trivial (or which were trivial until the environment modified the DCs) become challenging again.

Now, how does leveling up impact this? At high levels, endure elements becomes plentiful though pack animals can still make it a noticeable cost. Create water trivializes finding water from level 1 (though the super bright desert might have taken on a planar trait of impeded water magic which would make it a challenge again in 3.5 though not Pathfinder). Create food and drink and remove disease start to mitigate some challenges by level 5 but they're not gimmes to prepare so given the risk of random encounters, a lot of players will just deal with supplies etc until they run out or hit lvl 11. However create food and drink is a safety valve so you can probably be sure your characters won't starve to death. At level 11, though, hero's feast and wind walk close the window on this kind of adventure.

Things like secure shelter and mount play into the adventure and make it easier without trivializing it. However lots of magical storage like multiple handy haversacks or especially the better bags of holding do eliminate pack trains and make things much easier.

Unusual environments like the thornwaste in red hand of Doom (every hour essentially save vs spike growth) also can amp up the challenge. Environments that force disease saving throws can also be a challenge even after level 5 if Pathfinder rules are in effect. (Wait for the incubation period to take effect, take the damage once, cast remove disease-if it doesn't work, how many did you prepare and what if you catch it again from the other party members who was still in the incubation period this morning).

Bottom line, you can do it in 3.5 of pf. The sweet spot for this kind of thing is levels 1-4 but it continues to be possible up to level 9 or so before it becomes utterly trivial at level 11 (but at that point, planar travel is an option and that make more magical "wilderness" survival a possibility).

[kulosle]

I would say do an e6 campaign. I've been working on a desert e6 campaign for a while. I've made a city that is essentially a safe space and they need to travel for trade and alliances to face an incoming army. It really forces them to optimize their resources. They have to choose when and where to weather the desert. But they have to do it enough or they will get overrun. Magic items are limited. And they never get too many spells for spells to be able to auto answer the environmental problems

[Fouredged Sword]

I did a fun desert game. I had to make some rule changes to make things work, but I pulled it off.

First it was a psionics only game. If you want to change that all it would take is to say conjured water lacks a vital component of life and thus acts as all other magical means to avoid thirst.

What is that you ask? Well i just implemented a rule that said that things that rendered you immune to thirst actually just decreased your thirst by 1 gallon per day or by half, whatever number is smaller.

Then ban extradimensional storage and suddenly carry capacity dedicated to water stays relevant well into 6th-10th level.

The desert is hungry. It TAKES from you in a maner simple magic cannot replace. You can resist, you can mitigate, but you must in the end pay the desert's price.

Geting caught in a 3-4 day sandstorm is deadly if you are running low on water. Getting lost is a death sentence. Taking someone's water is to take their life.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

Just play at low level (or E6) and put pressure on their spell slots. After a day or two they'll start thinking they don't need magic to survive... And then they discover that in fact, they do!

But don't make survival be the whole game. Just make the adventure happen somewhere where survival will be a real threat (maybe in a harsh desert?). Tests will regularly come up.

A prepared local can survive harsh weather conditions. Unprepared idiots who just teleported in will suffer for the first day or so. Getting anything more out of environmental threats requires some planning, or time.

[Pleh]

As other people have said, Environmental Hazards are really a matter of how much Agency your players are using.

For most Natural Environments, even the Earth's most extreme hazards are a rather trivial problem to basic heroic characters. Spells that negate most natural hazards are low level and a ton of mundane equipment makes managing the hazards very reasonable.

The Environment becomes a real problem when the players encounter a lower than average Agency scenario. What I mean is you limit their resources: surprising them with unexpected exposure to the elements limits their preparation time, leaving them stranded in the wilderness limits their access to purchasing equipment or sheltered housing, making natural resources sparce forces the heroes to make hard choices about how much time to spend navigating wilderness vs time spent crafting tools, food, shelter, etc, repairing damaged equipment, foraging and/or hunting raw materials to use, all while the clock ticks away at the player's dwindling resources.

Storms are the other big tactic. Storms allow the generally hour-by-hour threat of the environment to escalate to minute-by-minute dangers that force the party to seek shelter before the storm takes them (and also apply regional debuffs to a ton of actions typically related to visibility and mobility).

As DU said, it's not the game most players are looking for from High Fantasy RPG. Most narratives have solved the problem of Weather long ago through civilization. In order to reinstate the threat of Environment, you have to remove the common solutions to that problem.

OR you make the environment Unnatural. Enhance it with magic, either as a cosmic catastrophe or an angry tribe of Druids terrorizing the countryside with inconsolable storms.

And E6 is a great recommendation. Wander too far above level 6 and a ton of full casters will start having options to negate if not outright dictate the weather and environment around themselves.

DM: "It's a heavy blizzard outside."

13th level Druid/Cleric: "I cast Control Weather. The Blizzard subsides."