Area/Zone Effects, Exhaustion and Preventing extended stays

[Hobbo Jim]

TLDR: How do you set up a zone so that staying for weeks/months becomes increasingly perilous, and make it so the party must eventually seek out shelter/return to a safer zone for rest.

I'm running an exploratory/colonization of an untamed land. They have managed to set up a small town in a relatively safe portion of the new land, which was previously surrounded by a heavy amount of Wild Magic (from a very old war among gods yada yada) which is just starting to clear up. They are soon going to be heading into the greater portion of the land, which is still inaccessible by sea, and even by land there are limited options. For example, one will be pass guarded by a troll which they must befriend or pay each time they wish to cross, as well as another that is controlled by a kobold tribe, and I plan on coming up with another. That said, on this other end when they explore I don't want them to be able to stay over there for indefinite amounts of time. I do want them to be able to use skills such as survival to prolong their stay, but again I want seeking shelter to be important, but I am unsure of how to do this for a group of 5th level adventurers. Of note, a wizard also took leomund's tiny hut, which I by no means want to punish and make useless, but I don't want it to be used to stay in an area indefinitely. Given that they will be traveling for probably a few weeks at a time around here, how would you suggest eventually forcing the party to return, or at least make staying more perilous?

[Man_Over_Game]

Have the Wild Magic still be active in trace amounts in the area that they're exploring, causing toxic magic to seep into them over time.

For each 1 stack of magical toxin, they lose that many Hit Die, and start a Long Rest with that many Hit Die lost from their maximum HP.

So if a Barbarian has 3 levels of toxic magic, they start their day with 3 less Hit Dice and 3d12 HP missing. They lose all of their toxic magic levels after a long rest in an area that isn't polluted.

This sets a narrative reason why Wild Magic is harmful, and why people haven't been exploring the hostile area up until this point.

[Lupine]

If its wilds and unexplored, why not just keep interrupting their rests? They won't be able to stay for long times, due to food restrictions, and with no rests, they can't use Goodberry for long, nor will they keep their HP up. No mechanics needed, just make it very hard to rest.

While this would be negated by tiny hut, make the use of magic attract forest creatures. The higher the spell level, the more likely it is that creatures come. The longer sustained it is, the more likely creatures are to arrive. They'll begin to find ways other then tiny hut to rest after the third or fourth time they exit the hut, only to be jumped by a bunch of angry animals.

But most of all? If you want them to come back every so often, give them an active REASON to come back. If important policy and resource allocation decisions are made every two weeks, you can bet that your players will be there every two weeks to try to siphon off some resources.

And if they don't show up, punish them. Their equipment starts to wear down and break. The people of the town see them as savages. The town won't do business with them. Suddenly, they're left alone in a terrifying, dangerous wilderness, where the only civilization wants nothing to do with them.

then

ramp up the dread

Have some higher level things attack them while they move about. They can beat them, but only barely. Then, they seem some large tracks. They'll investigate. Then come the corpses. Things they've seen, and things they haven't. Then they start to see the bodies of the thinimajaber that they killed. If they're smart, they'll stop there, they'll leave, and try to get help killing this thing. They go back to the town. They ask for help to kill the whatever it is, but the town refuses, because the adventures have done nothing to help the town. They'll realize their mistake. They'll get desperate. They'll try to make a deal with the town. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. In either case, they'll not be leaving that town for long, either from the deal, or from the fear that they'll be along.

Then rinse and repeat until they start going to those policy meetings.

[Hobbo Jim]

Unfortunately, constantly interrupting rests isn't particularly feasible. It is a very large area that they are exploring, and while I might do that in certain areas, they are going to be traveling on the basis of weeks and maybe eventually months without teleportation. Given that, interrupting every rest isn't particularly feasible. What I want is an environmental effect so that the longer they are around the worse it gets, and so the deeper they venture not only are the monsters different but traveling takes its own toll. That said, policy/meetings that they could benefit from could be an interesting idea, encouraging them to be a bit quicker to do things, possibly giving a reward if they do it more quickly.

[Lupine]

Well, if you want to avoid that, you could make it so that the longer they stay out the higher chance of danger, you could map out the area they're going to be exploring, and assign "hazard levels," 1-x, where "x" is a number of one of the platonic solids at your table. Then, when they take a rest you roll said platonic solid, if it is equal to or lower than the hazard level, then their rest is interrupted.

Explain the system to them ahead of time. Then, plot some points of very high danger (I like to think with the D10, so I'd plot it as a 7 or higher) that are isolated, surrounded by low hazard levels. Naturally, players will map the areas of danger, and begin to wonder why one level is so abnormally high. This is called a side quest hook :smalltongue:

Then, make a gradient, from light danger (1s and 2s) to high danger to some focal point (say, a dragon's lair at the center of the island). There will be incentive to venture out and explore, so you find where the safe places are, but that will be balanced against the desire not to accidentally wander into a hazard 9.

Also, the town would become a place you'd want to be in the graces of, because it would be a hazard 0, and artificially depress the hazard levels around it, but that would very quickly flip on them if the town became hostile (like, if they didn't help out against a raid of wild animals, or killed someone)

I believe theangrygm was the source of the system, and while I haven't really spent a whole lot of time using it because my party doesn't like to leave the city because that's where all the plot is, the times I have used it have been pretty positive.