CapnZapp
Legend
(Breaking out these ideas into a thread of its own)
We've discussed the exhaustion rules for trekking through the Chult jungles. And we've discussed how you crawl through one hex per game day (approximately).
To me this feels backwards. Or to put a positive spin on it, a great opportunity.
Problem: exhaustion isn't fun. A hero doesn't want to keep adventuring with more than one level, and even the first level seriously hampers his ability to function outside combat (including spotting ambushes et al).
Problem: having 0-2 random encounters per long rest brings zero challenge, which isn't fun.
Solution: how about denying the heroes the ability to take long rests in the majority of hexes, to better represent "jungle fatigue"?
This doesn't burden the PCs with penalities (like exhaustion), instead makes the game run as intended (you never know when you must press through half a dozen encounters before your next long rest).
Now, I have a few questions, some to people with the module.
How many hex types are there? (I'm assuming as a classic hex crawl, each hex isn't unique, but typed into perhaps six or seven types of terrain)
If each hex carries an equal risk of having 0, 1, and 2 random encounters, we should aim for an average of half the 6-8 encounters the DMG tells us the heroes can handle (assuming the module's list of random encounters isn't noticeably more deadly than in previous offerings). So that many days see 3 or 4 encounters, some see fewer and others see more.
As opposed to having the average set at 6-8 I mean. That's probably too harsh overall (but might work in a part of the map, especially dangerous)
This tells me that from a "good" hex (a perhaps a highland hex, where you can longrest safely) the next good hex should be 3 or 4 hexes away; there should be 2 "bad" hexes in-between.
"bad" hex = a hex where you can sleep, but without gaining the benefits of a long rest.
That's not one out of four hexes, by the way. One good hex is after all adjacent to six bad ones.
A rough guesstimate: that's one out of eight hexes, assuming uniform distribution. Since distribution probably isn't uniform, lower. However, if players are reasonably going to ask for Survival checks to move towards likely good hexes, not lower (because they are no longer striking out in an essentally random direction)
We've discussed the exhaustion rules for trekking through the Chult jungles. And we've discussed how you crawl through one hex per game day (approximately).
To me this feels backwards. Or to put a positive spin on it, a great opportunity.
Problem: exhaustion isn't fun. A hero doesn't want to keep adventuring with more than one level, and even the first level seriously hampers his ability to function outside combat (including spotting ambushes et al).
Problem: having 0-2 random encounters per long rest brings zero challenge, which isn't fun.
Solution: how about denying the heroes the ability to take long rests in the majority of hexes, to better represent "jungle fatigue"?
This doesn't burden the PCs with penalities (like exhaustion), instead makes the game run as intended (you never know when you must press through half a dozen encounters before your next long rest).
Now, I have a few questions, some to people with the module.
How many hex types are there? (I'm assuming as a classic hex crawl, each hex isn't unique, but typed into perhaps six or seven types of terrain)
If each hex carries an equal risk of having 0, 1, and 2 random encounters, we should aim for an average of half the 6-8 encounters the DMG tells us the heroes can handle (assuming the module's list of random encounters isn't noticeably more deadly than in previous offerings). So that many days see 3 or 4 encounters, some see fewer and others see more.
As opposed to having the average set at 6-8 I mean. That's probably too harsh overall (but might work in a part of the map, especially dangerous)
This tells me that from a "good" hex (a perhaps a highland hex, where you can longrest safely) the next good hex should be 3 or 4 hexes away; there should be 2 "bad" hexes in-between.
"bad" hex = a hex where you can sleep, but without gaining the benefits of a long rest.
That's not one out of four hexes, by the way. One good hex is after all adjacent to six bad ones.
A rough guesstimate: that's one out of eight hexes, assuming uniform distribution. Since distribution probably isn't uniform, lower. However, if players are reasonably going to ask for Survival checks to move towards likely good hexes, not lower (because they are no longer striking out in an essentally random direction)