Composer99
2021-10-23, 08:10 AM
On this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?637652-How-does-the-Exploration-Pillar-work), I raised the point of how slippery ice as a wilderness hazard is poorly implemented in D&D. It has a specifically concrete effect in combat situations and then has no meaningful effect when PCs are interacting with it on time scales of minutes or hours, when the specific rules it does have are unworkable. ("You want to spend an hour crossing this frozen lake? Make 600 checks to see if you stay on your feet, everyone!")
The same goes for several dungeon hazards - webbing, for instance. Do you really want to interrupt your minute-by-minute exploration of a dungeon to use rounds-and-turns time when you run into webs? Or interrupt your hour-by-hour crossing of a bog for quicksand?
(Some hazards, such as temperature extremes or frigid water, are implemented more or less well enough at those time scales.)
Now, it's all fine that the DMG doesn't provide boatloads of possible hazards the PCs can face (although a few more might have been nice), but it really ought to have provided guidelines for DMs to more smoothly integrate difficult terrain, bad weather, and not-particularly-dangerous-but-still-inconvenient hazards into minute-by-minute or hour-by-hour exploration and travel (among other things that could be smoothly integrated).
One idea I have been considering is that at those scales of time and space, a lot of this stuff turns into hindrances. The rain turns roads to mud? That's a hindrance. Forced to shelter from a sandstorm? Hindrance. Trying to cross a frozen lake? Pick your way through a swamp? Cut through thick underbrush? All hindrances. Even something like webbing can be a hindrance, albeit one you can overcome easily (set fire to it). Have to spend minutes or hours climbing or swimming? Hindrance.
What hindrances share in common is that that they slow you down over a given span of time.
Now, there are a couple of possible ways of approaching hindrances that are still streamlined and in keeping with the 5e design aesthetic, and including multiple approaches is probably for the good for different DMs with different preferences.
Simple Approach
The simple approach is to have a hindrance work like difficult terrain in combat - just like either there's difficult terrain or there isn't, there either is a hindrance or there isn't.
- If you traverse a hindrance over any given span of space ("the next five miles consist of swamp"), it takes twice as long to traverse that space. So if you're crossing over two miles of hindrance at a slow pace, for instance, you spend two hours instead of one crossing it.
- If you traverse a hindrance over any given span of time ("you spend the next three hours with your progress slowed by the thick snowfall"), you cover half the distance you normally would in that time. If you spend two minutes taking a fast pace (400 feet per minute normally) in a hindrance, you only cover 400 feet over that time instead of the normal 800 feet, for instance.
Taking this approach, multiple effects that could case a hindrance don't stack.
Sliding Scale Approach
With a sliding scale approach, there are at least two grades of hindrance, each of which has a progressively more significant effect.
The simplest way to create a sliding scale is to start with the simple approach and add, say, a second grade of hindrance - maybe either something that quadruples time spent or quarters distance covered, or even "you make no progress for X amount of time".
But you could have your own sliding scales. For instance:
- You could have three grades of hindrance that cause characters to cover 3/4, 1/2, or 1/4 the distance, whatever their pace, over any given span of time. (If the hindrance applies over spans of space, it takes four-thirds, twice, or four times as much time to cover that space.)
- You could have grades of hindrance that go by thirds, fifths, tenths instead.
Taking this approach, you can either have multiple effects stack ("you're trying to climb a mountain in the middle of a blizzard, so that's going to really slow things down") or just have the most severe effect apply.
Advantages
- Even a fairly complex sliding scale has a simple approach - either it takes longer for the PCs to cover a span of space, or they cover less distance over a span of time. The complexity just has to do with the gradation of magnitude.
- Broadly applicable to a wide variety of situations - slippery ice and swamps can both be managed using the same mechanic, for instance
- Allows you to abstract certain hazards away when you don't want to deal with their round-by-round effects.
- Can give PC abilities concrete use at these scales. Things like control weather - now, while that spell is in effect, the PCs are creating (or removing) weather as a hindrance over its duration, or a ranger's Natural Explorer (ignoring difficult terrain now maps cleanly onto, for instance, the simple approach hindrance). (Edit to add: This also makes things like climb or swim speeds work seamlessly across scales of time and space outside of "combat time". Swimming is a hindrance that a swim speed removes. Or flying speeds allow you to ignore terrain hindrances, for instance.)
Disadvantages
- The biggest one I can think of is that this doesn't mean very much when keeping track of time isn't an issue. (But, I guess if you're not really keeping track of time, you'd just be handwaving most of this stuff away anyway?)
- Doesn't (yet) include incorporating dangerous situations in a way that makes them feel dangerous.
- Doesn't (yet) include ways to make certain "passive" hazards (DMG quicksand, say) dangerous if you stumble into them unawares without switching over to rounds-and-turns.
Some possible solutions to those last two items might involve cribbing ideas (https://www.levelup5e.com/news/exploration-tools) from ENWorld's 5e... er... retroclone? (The linked article has an example of a tornado challenge, which uses some terminology that doesn't apply to regular 5e games, but I think you get the idea that it is meant to be a concrete way for the danger a tornado poses to be reflected in gameplay.)
The same goes for several dungeon hazards - webbing, for instance. Do you really want to interrupt your minute-by-minute exploration of a dungeon to use rounds-and-turns time when you run into webs? Or interrupt your hour-by-hour crossing of a bog for quicksand?
(Some hazards, such as temperature extremes or frigid water, are implemented more or less well enough at those time scales.)
Now, it's all fine that the DMG doesn't provide boatloads of possible hazards the PCs can face (although a few more might have been nice), but it really ought to have provided guidelines for DMs to more smoothly integrate difficult terrain, bad weather, and not-particularly-dangerous-but-still-inconvenient hazards into minute-by-minute or hour-by-hour exploration and travel (among other things that could be smoothly integrated).
One idea I have been considering is that at those scales of time and space, a lot of this stuff turns into hindrances. The rain turns roads to mud? That's a hindrance. Forced to shelter from a sandstorm? Hindrance. Trying to cross a frozen lake? Pick your way through a swamp? Cut through thick underbrush? All hindrances. Even something like webbing can be a hindrance, albeit one you can overcome easily (set fire to it). Have to spend minutes or hours climbing or swimming? Hindrance.
What hindrances share in common is that that they slow you down over a given span of time.
Now, there are a couple of possible ways of approaching hindrances that are still streamlined and in keeping with the 5e design aesthetic, and including multiple approaches is probably for the good for different DMs with different preferences.
Simple Approach
The simple approach is to have a hindrance work like difficult terrain in combat - just like either there's difficult terrain or there isn't, there either is a hindrance or there isn't.
- If you traverse a hindrance over any given span of space ("the next five miles consist of swamp"), it takes twice as long to traverse that space. So if you're crossing over two miles of hindrance at a slow pace, for instance, you spend two hours instead of one crossing it.
- If you traverse a hindrance over any given span of time ("you spend the next three hours with your progress slowed by the thick snowfall"), you cover half the distance you normally would in that time. If you spend two minutes taking a fast pace (400 feet per minute normally) in a hindrance, you only cover 400 feet over that time instead of the normal 800 feet, for instance.
Taking this approach, multiple effects that could case a hindrance don't stack.
Sliding Scale Approach
With a sliding scale approach, there are at least two grades of hindrance, each of which has a progressively more significant effect.
The simplest way to create a sliding scale is to start with the simple approach and add, say, a second grade of hindrance - maybe either something that quadruples time spent or quarters distance covered, or even "you make no progress for X amount of time".
But you could have your own sliding scales. For instance:
- You could have three grades of hindrance that cause characters to cover 3/4, 1/2, or 1/4 the distance, whatever their pace, over any given span of time. (If the hindrance applies over spans of space, it takes four-thirds, twice, or four times as much time to cover that space.)
- You could have grades of hindrance that go by thirds, fifths, tenths instead.
Taking this approach, you can either have multiple effects stack ("you're trying to climb a mountain in the middle of a blizzard, so that's going to really slow things down") or just have the most severe effect apply.
Advantages
- Even a fairly complex sliding scale has a simple approach - either it takes longer for the PCs to cover a span of space, or they cover less distance over a span of time. The complexity just has to do with the gradation of magnitude.
- Broadly applicable to a wide variety of situations - slippery ice and swamps can both be managed using the same mechanic, for instance
- Allows you to abstract certain hazards away when you don't want to deal with their round-by-round effects.
- Can give PC abilities concrete use at these scales. Things like control weather - now, while that spell is in effect, the PCs are creating (or removing) weather as a hindrance over its duration, or a ranger's Natural Explorer (ignoring difficult terrain now maps cleanly onto, for instance, the simple approach hindrance). (Edit to add: This also makes things like climb or swim speeds work seamlessly across scales of time and space outside of "combat time". Swimming is a hindrance that a swim speed removes. Or flying speeds allow you to ignore terrain hindrances, for instance.)
Disadvantages
- The biggest one I can think of is that this doesn't mean very much when keeping track of time isn't an issue. (But, I guess if you're not really keeping track of time, you'd just be handwaving most of this stuff away anyway?)
- Doesn't (yet) include incorporating dangerous situations in a way that makes them feel dangerous.
- Doesn't (yet) include ways to make certain "passive" hazards (DMG quicksand, say) dangerous if you stumble into them unawares without switching over to rounds-and-turns.
Some possible solutions to those last two items might involve cribbing ideas (https://www.levelup5e.com/news/exploration-tools) from ENWorld's 5e... er... retroclone? (The linked article has an example of a tornado challenge, which uses some terminology that doesn't apply to regular 5e games, but I think you get the idea that it is meant to be a concrete way for the danger a tornado poses to be reflected in gameplay.)