Tomb of Annihilation questions

[SSB_Shadow]

I'm running Tomb of Annihilation campaign and I have a few questions that I need help with.

1. Travel time - the area around Port Nyanzaru isn't coast or jungle. Would it still take one day to travel through those hexes, as it's only 30 miles/hex? In an open terrain that sounds unreasonable.

2. Camp Vengeance - how come the Order is suffering from diseases if they have a bunch of paladins and clerics who should have spells to cure diseases?

3. How should I handle water? The group are about to leave Port Nyanzaru but have very little clean water with them (and only 1 rain catcher). Can they boil water from rivee? Can they use rain catcher while on the move and on a canoe? Can cleric's cure disease clean water from throat leeches? They also have a ranger so should I just ignore these things if they can forage and cure?

[Zhorn]

2. Camp Vengeance - how come the Order is suffering from diseases if they have a bunch of paladins and clerics who should have spells to cure diseases?
The book makes no mention of the camp housing any paladins or clerics.
When it comes to factions, think of their class representation as the types of adventurer PCs they tend to attract, but not as a representation of their core NPC makeup. You'll often see many NPCs with monster manual stat blocks instead of classes as an expression of this. Examples, no clerics but instead priests, no fighters but instead knights, no rogues but instead scouts and assassins, etc.
The camp is suffering from disease because they have no adventurers amongst the ranks of the Order stationed at the camp.

[Unoriginal]

1. Travel time - the area around Port Nyanzaru isn't coast or jungle. Would it still take one day to travel through those hexes, as it's only 30 miles/hex? In an open terrain that sounds unreasonable.

The jungle starts pretty much right outside of the Port, IIRC.



2. Camp Vengeance - how come the Order is suffering from diseases if they have a bunch of paladins and clerics who should have spells to cure diseases?

They don't have any paladins, and their acolytes (who do have cleric magic) can't do that (plus the book mention they're too sick to use their magic). Sister Cyas, as a Priest, is their best caster and she doesn't have the power level or special capacity to do that.

On top of sickness they're also exhausted from the fighting and jungle environment.


Can they boil water from rivee?

Yes.



Can they use rain catcher while on the move and on a canoe?

Yes.



Can cleric's cure disease clean water from throat leeches?

I feel like the cleric just creating water would be a better use of a spell slot.


They also have a ranger so should I just ignore these things if they can forage and cure?

As long as the Ranger take the time to forage instead of guiding, sure.

[SSB_Shadow]

Thank you everyone for your answers. Now I know what to do. :)

[Keravath]

I'm running Tomb of Annihilation campaign and I have a few questions that I need help with.

1. Travel time - the area around Port Nyanzaru isn't coast or jungle. Would it still take one day to travel through those hexes, as it's only 30 miles/hex? In an open terrain that sounds unreasonable.

2. Camp Vengeance - how come the Order is suffering from diseases if they have a bunch of paladins and clerics who should have spells to cure diseases?

3. How should I handle water? The group are about to leave Port Nyanzaru but have very little clean water with them (and only 1 rain catcher). Can they boil water from rivee? Can they use rain catcher while on the move and on a canoe? Can cleric's cure disease clean water from throat leeches? They also have a ranger so should I just ignore these things if they can forage and cure?

1. If I recall, jungle is everywhere on Chult which isn't specifically marked as something else, including the area to the north of Port Nyanzaru

2. As mentioned, the camp doesn't have any casters that can cure disease and they may try to conscript any PC casters that can help.

3. Water ...

The party can use rain catchers for water - it rains every day - however they will realize within 24 hours that one rain catcher is not sufficient. They should also have heard that there is NO safe water to drink in the jungle. NONE. Water on the ground or in rivers is all contaminated. There is no safe water. Since this is such common knowledge in Chult, you should probably make sure that the party is aware of it and takes at least some of the proper gear.

Can they boil water? Yes if they have a container big enough for the water and can get a fire going - the jungle is SOAKED - the only fire that will work will be magical, they won't be able to get a mundane fire going.

It rains pretty much every day and night. Tropical storms are common that make travel difficult or impossible leaving the party with the choice of proceeding and possibly getting lost or taking shelter for the day.

Unfortunately, the ranger ability to forage for fresh water is not effective in Chult. ToA specifically states that there is no safe water in the jungle. This means that no matter how good the ranger might be at looking they can never find safe drinking water that has touched the ground in the jungle. They can likely find animals and other food (though if they are not a jungle specialist, the safe plants and animals may not be obvious) but the ranger can't find what doesn't exist which is safe drinking water.

In addition, the party needs a lot of water since it is so hot. Gallons/person every day.

The effective solutions are rain catchers, the create water spell and the purify food and drink spell. The last is probably the easiest. Though purifying ground water may make it safe to drink, it probably won't seem that good unless the party has the ability to filter out the dead parasites and other items that have been eliminated to make the water safe to drink.

"Explorers can avoid contracting throat leeches by drinking only rainwater or water that's been boiled or magically purified."

P.S. Since throat leeches are described as a disease, the cure disease spell or the paladin lay on hands should both be effective at curing it.

[Unoriginal]

Unfortunately, the ranger ability to forage for fresh water is not effective in Chult. ToA specifically states that there is no safe water in the jungle. This means that no matter how good the ranger might be at looking they can never find safe drinking water that has touched the ground in the jungle. They can likely find animals and other food (though if they are not a jungle specialist, the safe plants and animals may not be obvious) but the ranger can't find what doesn't exist which is safe drinking water.

In addition, the party needs a lot of water since it is so hot. Gallons/person every day.


I had forgotten about that.

Honestly it wouldn't be a bad thing if the PCs had to go back to the Port early because they realized they were underprepared the first time.

I suppose they didn't hire any guide either? 'cause even the most incompetent ones take the water thing seriously.

[Lunali]

I'm running Tomb of Annihilation campaign and I have a few questions that I need help with.

1. Travel time - the area around Port Nyanzaru isn't coast or jungle. Would it still take one day to travel through those hexes, as it's only 30 miles/hex? In an open terrain that sounds unreasonable.

To clarify, it's 10 miles per hex, 30 miles per day would be making decent time in open terrain. The rest of the question has already been addressed so I'll skip that.

[clearstream]

I'm running Tomb of Annihilation campaign and I have a few questions that I need help with.

1. Travel time - the area around Port Nyanzaru isn't coast or jungle. Would it still take one day to travel through those hexes, as it's only 30 miles/hex? In an open terrain that sounds unreasonable.

2. Camp Vengeance - how come the Order is suffering from diseases if they have a bunch of paladins and clerics who should have spells to cure diseases?

3. How should I handle water? The group are about to leave Port Nyanzaru but have very little clean water with them (and only 1 rain catcher). Can they boil water from rivee? Can they use rain catcher while on the move and on a canoe? Can cleric's cure disease clean water from throat leeches? They also have a ranger so should I just ignore these things if they can forage and cure?
After trying to run it with the rules for foraging and water catchers I ended up just building it into movement rate.


If the party needed to forage for food and water (mostly water) then they could travel no more than one hex a day. (Slow or normal.)
If they didn't need to forage (e.g. relied on rations) then they could move two hexes a day. (Fast)

I created "spicy rations" that were 1lb each (PHB rations are 2lbs, but a character only needs to eat 1lb a day!) and I created "large waterskins" that hold a gallon of water (normal waterskins hold half a gallon: not enough for one day). I gated foraging behind a good enough passive Wisdom (Survival) or background feature like Outlander's. And then ensured that all the guides had good enough Wisdom (Survival) scores (weirdly, they don't as written.)

[ScoutTrooper]

...It rains pretty much every day and night. Tropical storms are common that make travel difficult or impossible leaving the party with the choice of proceeding and possibly getting lost or taking shelter for the day...


Is there a modified weather roll table in the ToA book?? I remember it saying about torrential rainfall makes travel impossible that day.