SanFlash
2019-06-17, 07:18 AM
Hello people. I always liked the survival part of gdr games, and as a GM I usually try to sneak survival mechanics even in those system that are not so well suited for such a feature... like D&D.
Now, the problem with D&D fifth edition is that, after the very first levels, the PC aren't even supposed to bother about most environmental hazards, diseases, and even their foraging. And that is, in most cases, ok.
But sometimes, you want to see these heroes go through very hellish landscapes, in search of the legendary quest objective; the very landscape that prevents most of others from getting there first. And you want them to feel the fatigue.
I always thought that, if in the world of D&D there is a monstrous biosphere, even the biomes, at least the most faraway and underpopulated ones, should match this exageration. And let's not forget extraplanar biomes.
When you want to run such an adventure, in the core rules there is actually very little that you can employ to create an environment that's really dangerous for character that are beyond the 10th level. Of course, ToA is the material that closer match what I need, but even this adventure is for PC from 1 to 10-15 level.
So, for the final adventure of my campaing, where the PC (17 level) enter this very nasty, Chult-based jungle called "the green inferno" by the locals, I designed a system that should make the travel a real pain, which drains a lot of resourses before the final confrontation. I want to share this simple system with you fellows: feedback and ideas are of course very appreciated.
THE REQUISITES
When creating it, I had precise goals in mind:
-Use as few rolls as possible, both I and the players; one thing that I strongly dislike about the current systems for travel and casual encounters are that you are supposed to roll a lot of dices for every day of travel, a thing that can make medium-long travels a pain (in the wrong way).
-Making the players do the actual rolls, so they are engaged and rewarded if they have the right skills.
-Make sure the PC go through some encounters, not to many neither few or none (another thing that I dislike about the classic casual encounters system).
-Premiate the character who his the most competent in the survival skill, but have all the party involved in the process.
-Prefer range of probability rather than the success/fail binome of the DC mechanic. So the bonus the PC have counts, but fail is always possible.
-Of course, have the players FEEL the environment, making it an important part of the game, by getting them involved and had their PC feel the hazards in meaningful ways.
So, here we are. A system that can be used for travel both for long and short distances: the only thing changing would be hours or days of travel.
Also, in any case, a requisite to the system to work is that the party is almost prevented to make long rests in-site. We all know that rest in 5e cause a lot of problems for many DM's. I actually think the rest mechanic is ok and I'm NOT advocating for banning it in your adventure. I'm sayng that you should take actions so your party can't actually take a long rest after every encounter, especially if you are working on days-long travel basis. In this case, you should introduce a local version of the "gritty realism" optional rule described in the DMG. You can use the very same hazardous environment as an explanation to why taking a long rest in it takes seven days, or, as needed, you can involve more factors. Come with an in-game explanation. If you are making a short dungeon, things will be easier, make sure you understand "dungeon ecology" mechanic and how to put time-based pressure on the players and all will be ok. In any case, there should be for them an option to take a long rest if they really need it: that being leaving the site and restart again from the beginning.
THE SYSTEM
The party is ready to depart, at the verge of the jungle (or the desert, the pole, the sea of fire etc). What we want to know is: how many days of travel they can cover before they come to a major encounter that they cannot avoid?
As you can see, this is a question that cover a couple of skills and action, focalized on the PC rather than on the monsters like the classic casual encounter system is.
For know how well they survive the environment daily, how far they can go, how good they are to hide in the wilderness, spotting the sensorial clues to monsters presence, we have the party choose a navigator, but we make all of them roll for survival. We will see for what the rolls of the others member are useful in a minute.
For have an idea of how much is a result of the roll of the navigator worth, I established a number, wich is not actually a DC because it doesn't mark a line between success and fail: even if you roll lower, you will advance some days, just less. If you critical fail, however, you will became lost, as we will see in a minute.
The number is 19: is the passive survival score of a PC of 17 or higher that is proficient in survival and has wisdom as the secondary skill at least. Is not an average PC: the navigator should be good and proficient, the challenge is hard.
As for the result of the roll, the party will advance for a set number of days:
-11 or lower: 1 day, and you become lost (see below)
-between 12 and 18: 2 days
-between 19 and 26: 5 days
-between 27 and 31: 8 days
-32 or more: 10 days
NB: The tresholds for the higher numbers assume that the roll is done with an additional d4 from Guidance;
The day system is especially useful because you can easily adapt it based on the terrain the players will choose: if going on a boat in the river doubles the party speed, you will know they will cover the double of the distance in the same number of days.
BECOMING LOST: this is almost straight from ToA, but with a harder second part. After you roll the d6 for know what direction the party takes, in order for them to found the way again, the navigator needs to pull a roll of 19 or more, so the treshold now becames an actual DC. And every time they fail again, they will only cover a day in a casual direction, with an encounter+special (see below) on top of it, making becoming lost the real critical fail of this system, as it should be.
SPECIAL: now we will see what the rolls of the other members of the party are needed to. Here is where the environmental hazards that we are craving come in play.
For this time, I choose disease as a special condition, but there could be others or more together: attrition damage, objects and equipment deterioration, madness effects.
Here too I choose to make the roll result a point in a range of probability rather than simple setting a DC and dividing only between success and fail.
So, we take the rolls of the players (even the one of the navigator) and multiplicate them x3: the result is the treshold the players should not trepass with a roll of the d100 they are going to make now, in order to not became infected by a disease. If they fail, they are infected, and we will roll a dice to see wich disease they have contracted. The nature of them is really up to you, but I have some advice: you should avoid diseases that require a daily roll, since we will cover a lot of days as you see, and we absolutely don't want to roll 8-10 dices, see how many are a fail, and calculate how many hit points the PC lose, and so on... also, if one can heal from the disease thanks to a roll, and that disease doesn't even do nothing that the character carries after he's healed (for example the diseases from ToA wich cause penalities for the rolls but you heal from them after a few days), for the next encounter probably the player will make to that roll. So there is no point in rolling, and even in put the disease in the first place.
Special effects should drain resources and make sure the party loses something (HP or, even better, consumables) permanently. Otherwise, there is little point. This is why you prevent long rests and you make the players do some rolls so they can try to avoid the special effects, but, once they are in, you don't make them reverse the situation with just one or a couple of rolls more. A party entering such an adventure should know that there are nasty hazards and they need to purchase several consumables that can help them before departing.
GIVING ALL THE PARTY SOMETHING TO DO: an ideal situation is where all the members of the party can actually make use of the survival roll even if they aren't the navigator. For example, a member could look for foraging; another for traces of the bad guy they are chasing; the fourth can be especially watchful for encounters, and so on. If a player wants to do something of the like, you allow it, and you increase all tresholds for him by 3, so it's a little easier for him to slip into an hazard while doing something else.
I think this is all for now. Thank you for reading, I'm looking forward for your feed.
Now, the problem with D&D fifth edition is that, after the very first levels, the PC aren't even supposed to bother about most environmental hazards, diseases, and even their foraging. And that is, in most cases, ok.
But sometimes, you want to see these heroes go through very hellish landscapes, in search of the legendary quest objective; the very landscape that prevents most of others from getting there first. And you want them to feel the fatigue.
I always thought that, if in the world of D&D there is a monstrous biosphere, even the biomes, at least the most faraway and underpopulated ones, should match this exageration. And let's not forget extraplanar biomes.
When you want to run such an adventure, in the core rules there is actually very little that you can employ to create an environment that's really dangerous for character that are beyond the 10th level. Of course, ToA is the material that closer match what I need, but even this adventure is for PC from 1 to 10-15 level.
So, for the final adventure of my campaing, where the PC (17 level) enter this very nasty, Chult-based jungle called "the green inferno" by the locals, I designed a system that should make the travel a real pain, which drains a lot of resourses before the final confrontation. I want to share this simple system with you fellows: feedback and ideas are of course very appreciated.
THE REQUISITES
When creating it, I had precise goals in mind:
-Use as few rolls as possible, both I and the players; one thing that I strongly dislike about the current systems for travel and casual encounters are that you are supposed to roll a lot of dices for every day of travel, a thing that can make medium-long travels a pain (in the wrong way).
-Making the players do the actual rolls, so they are engaged and rewarded if they have the right skills.
-Make sure the PC go through some encounters, not to many neither few or none (another thing that I dislike about the classic casual encounters system).
-Premiate the character who his the most competent in the survival skill, but have all the party involved in the process.
-Prefer range of probability rather than the success/fail binome of the DC mechanic. So the bonus the PC have counts, but fail is always possible.
-Of course, have the players FEEL the environment, making it an important part of the game, by getting them involved and had their PC feel the hazards in meaningful ways.
So, here we are. A system that can be used for travel both for long and short distances: the only thing changing would be hours or days of travel.
Also, in any case, a requisite to the system to work is that the party is almost prevented to make long rests in-site. We all know that rest in 5e cause a lot of problems for many DM's. I actually think the rest mechanic is ok and I'm NOT advocating for banning it in your adventure. I'm sayng that you should take actions so your party can't actually take a long rest after every encounter, especially if you are working on days-long travel basis. In this case, you should introduce a local version of the "gritty realism" optional rule described in the DMG. You can use the very same hazardous environment as an explanation to why taking a long rest in it takes seven days, or, as needed, you can involve more factors. Come with an in-game explanation. If you are making a short dungeon, things will be easier, make sure you understand "dungeon ecology" mechanic and how to put time-based pressure on the players and all will be ok. In any case, there should be for them an option to take a long rest if they really need it: that being leaving the site and restart again from the beginning.
THE SYSTEM
The party is ready to depart, at the verge of the jungle (or the desert, the pole, the sea of fire etc). What we want to know is: how many days of travel they can cover before they come to a major encounter that they cannot avoid?
As you can see, this is a question that cover a couple of skills and action, focalized on the PC rather than on the monsters like the classic casual encounter system is.
For know how well they survive the environment daily, how far they can go, how good they are to hide in the wilderness, spotting the sensorial clues to monsters presence, we have the party choose a navigator, but we make all of them roll for survival. We will see for what the rolls of the others member are useful in a minute.
For have an idea of how much is a result of the roll of the navigator worth, I established a number, wich is not actually a DC because it doesn't mark a line between success and fail: even if you roll lower, you will advance some days, just less. If you critical fail, however, you will became lost, as we will see in a minute.
The number is 19: is the passive survival score of a PC of 17 or higher that is proficient in survival and has wisdom as the secondary skill at least. Is not an average PC: the navigator should be good and proficient, the challenge is hard.
As for the result of the roll, the party will advance for a set number of days:
-11 or lower: 1 day, and you become lost (see below)
-between 12 and 18: 2 days
-between 19 and 26: 5 days
-between 27 and 31: 8 days
-32 or more: 10 days
NB: The tresholds for the higher numbers assume that the roll is done with an additional d4 from Guidance;
The day system is especially useful because you can easily adapt it based on the terrain the players will choose: if going on a boat in the river doubles the party speed, you will know they will cover the double of the distance in the same number of days.
BECOMING LOST: this is almost straight from ToA, but with a harder second part. After you roll the d6 for know what direction the party takes, in order for them to found the way again, the navigator needs to pull a roll of 19 or more, so the treshold now becames an actual DC. And every time they fail again, they will only cover a day in a casual direction, with an encounter+special (see below) on top of it, making becoming lost the real critical fail of this system, as it should be.
SPECIAL: now we will see what the rolls of the other members of the party are needed to. Here is where the environmental hazards that we are craving come in play.
For this time, I choose disease as a special condition, but there could be others or more together: attrition damage, objects and equipment deterioration, madness effects.
Here too I choose to make the roll result a point in a range of probability rather than simple setting a DC and dividing only between success and fail.
So, we take the rolls of the players (even the one of the navigator) and multiplicate them x3: the result is the treshold the players should not trepass with a roll of the d100 they are going to make now, in order to not became infected by a disease. If they fail, they are infected, and we will roll a dice to see wich disease they have contracted. The nature of them is really up to you, but I have some advice: you should avoid diseases that require a daily roll, since we will cover a lot of days as you see, and we absolutely don't want to roll 8-10 dices, see how many are a fail, and calculate how many hit points the PC lose, and so on... also, if one can heal from the disease thanks to a roll, and that disease doesn't even do nothing that the character carries after he's healed (for example the diseases from ToA wich cause penalities for the rolls but you heal from them after a few days), for the next encounter probably the player will make to that roll. So there is no point in rolling, and even in put the disease in the first place.
Special effects should drain resources and make sure the party loses something (HP or, even better, consumables) permanently. Otherwise, there is little point. This is why you prevent long rests and you make the players do some rolls so they can try to avoid the special effects, but, once they are in, you don't make them reverse the situation with just one or a couple of rolls more. A party entering such an adventure should know that there are nasty hazards and they need to purchase several consumables that can help them before departing.
GIVING ALL THE PARTY SOMETHING TO DO: an ideal situation is where all the members of the party can actually make use of the survival roll even if they aren't the navigator. For example, a member could look for foraging; another for traces of the bad guy they are chasing; the fourth can be especially watchful for encounters, and so on. If a player wants to do something of the like, you allow it, and you increase all tresholds for him by 3, so it's a little easier for him to slip into an hazard while doing something else.
I think this is all for now. Thank you for reading, I'm looking forward for your feed.