D&D 5E [ToA] Hex-crawling and Long Rests

[CapnZapp]

You know, I have an idea that might fit the "more dangerous the deeper into the jungle / story you get" theme and address how to handle long rests in a hexcrawl...

Reading through ToA, it seems like there's lots of "monster territories" on the map. If I'm reading it right, those brown-outlined areas on the map represent undead zones that correspond to the lesser undead & greater undead random encounter tables. That's one example. So you might have a simple 3-point escalating scale representing threat level...

1- Within a couple hexes of settlements are treated as sanctuaries where long rests are always possible.

2- Much of the jungle requires special precautions (maybe a group check) to "make camp" successfully w/out drawing attention and benefit from a long rest. Alternately, this might make taking consecutive long rests harder and harder in the same area, as elements of the jungle start to amass around the party.

3- Near monster territories (e.g. goblin settlement of Yellyark or Greater Undead territory), long rests are entirely impossible unless threat is dealt with first (in which case it would probably be treated as #2).

Something like that, yes.

Except one thing: the pseudoscientific explanation why you can't rest isn't/can't be based on physical location, or the party simply brings up Leomund's Tiny Hut, Rope Trick etc

I'm more inclined to describe it as something akin to "evil radiation", i. e. something that can't be circumvented, something that makes the player permanently abandon any workarounds so they can start focusing on the real intended game here:

Conserving resources over multiple encounters, irrespective of how many days it takes to travel to the next safe camp. ☺

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[Sacrosanct]

Once again, you're handwaving away challenges based on assumptions that PCs have those spells, have them prepared, and have slots to cast them. LTH is level 3, Rope Trick is level 2. The exploration of the jungle is primarily happening at Tier 1, so some of those spells won't even be accessible.

So far, you've handwaved away the jungle exploration phase challenges because "players will easily just use workarounds" when that's only true if the PCs have access to the following every day:

purify water
create food and water
lesser restoration
Leomond's Tiny Hut
Rope Trick
Lay on Hands

That's all fine and good when theorycrafting, but in actual gameplay, I doubt this will occur. PCs have limited spell slots. They won't even have access to half of those spells for the meat of their exploration of the jungle (Tier 1), and it also means that PCs won't have many (if any) spells available during actual combat encounters. You seem to be taking this position of "Here's a challenge in the game, and here's a spell in the PHB that can mitigate that challenge, so it's never really a challenge for the PCs." That is fundamentally flawed because you're ignoring all those factors that make that solution even accessible in the game in the first place. I.e., just because there's a spell in the PHB for that situation, doesn't mean the PCs have access to it, and even if they do, they still have to decide to lessen functionality in other pillars.

 

[CapnZapp]

Once again, you're handwaving away challenges based on assumptions that PCs have those spells, have them prepared, and have slots to cast them. LTH is level 3, Rope Trick is level 2. The exploration of the jungle is primarily happening at Tier 1, so some of those spells won't even be accessible.

So far, you've handwaved away the jungle exploration phase challenges because "players will easily just use workarounds" when that's only true if the PCs have access to the following every day:

purify water
create food and water
lesser restoration
Leomond's Tiny Hut
Rope Trick
Lay on Hands

For the LOVE of the gods, accept that this thread is dependent on exactly those assumptions, and that I'm not going to question them, since I know my players will use every single one of these spells if I don't remove their power to trivialize the content.

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[hawkeyefan]

Something like that, yes.

Except one thing: the pseudoscientific explanation why you can't rest isn't/can't be based on physical location, or the party simply brings up Leomund's Tiny Hut, Rope Trick etc

I'm more inclined to describe it as something akin to "evil radiation", i. e. something that can't be circumvented, something that makes the player permanently abandon any workarounds so they can start focusing on the real intended game here:

Conserving resources over multiple encounters, irrespective of how many days it takes to travel to the next safe camp. ☺

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

"The very presence of the Soul Monger effects the entirety of the Chultan Peninsula. The dread artifact reaches out, grasping at the souls of even the living. Such effects seem lesser where souls gather in abundance, so they are not even noticed in Port Nyanzaru and other settlements. But out in the jungles? Travelers will find that the Soul Monger saps the strength from their bodies and weakens their spirits. Many are plagued by horrific visions in their dreams, leaving them unable to sleep. It is the rare individual who can find peaceful rest in the jungles."

 

[CapnZapp]

Bonus xp to you!

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[Sacrosanct]

For the LOVE of the gods, accept that this thread is dependent on exactly those assumptions, and that I'm not going to question them, since I know my players will use every single one of these spells if I don't remove their power to trivialize the content.

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And I'm telling you they can't. Not sure why this is so hard to understand. Unless you completely change all the rules and give your PCs spells they shouldn't have, then you can't have access to all of those. And the ones you could have access to, is only if your players play all paladins and clerics and give up combat spell slots to use them for the exploration spell slots instead. Judging by how you have always described your playstyle (combat heavy), I have legitimate thoughts that they wouldn't do that.

Exploring Chult is tier 1, therefore half the spells you list aren't even accessible. Get it? I'm not bagging on your playstyle, or your preferences, or your player's competence. I'm telling you that it's physically impossible for your assumptions to even work with half of those.

Which is why I will go back to what I've been saying all along. Get the book. Read it. Play it. I am positive half of your assumptions and hand waving away of challenges will be rendered moot once you do. You're making assumptions based on something you don't even have yet, and I'm here, as a person who's actually played part of it already, to advise that your assumptions are flawed.

 

[Sacrosanct]

double post.

 

[jimmytheccomic]

I was thinking the same thing too! Limiting long rests in the jungle will stop them from just NOVA-ing their way through a 1-2 encounter travel day.

One thing I'm playing with is, the idea that they can only take long rests in base camps. So they either have to become friendly with a group that already has a base camp, or they've got to set up their own somehow. I'm trying to work out a system for how setting up a safe basecamp would work- maybe they've got to clear out hexes surrounding the one they want to set camp on, or maybe it's a reward for a side quest, something like that?

I'm also thinking, once they've got multiple base camps set up, they can essentially "Fast travel" between them, we handwave those journeys because we assume they're able to push through to safety along known trails.

"Set up lots of base camps" can be a good side goal during the exploration part of the adventure.

 

[Mull Ponders]

I see the jungle environment as somewhat "aware". You have a random encounter, you make a bunch of noise, you spill some blood, some creatures can smell and hear from a very long distance. Are you seriously going to camp anywhere near there, now that every hyena/t-rex/etc. can smell a bunch of fresh meat? That sounds like a guaranteed encounter, no need to roll.

 

[DEFCON 1]

And I'm telling you they can't. Not sure why this is so hard to understand. Unless you completely change all the rules and give your PCs spells they shouldn't have, then you can't have access to all of those. And the ones you could have access to, is only if your players play all paladins and clerics and give up combat spell slots to use them for the exploration spell slots instead. Judging by how you have always described your playstyle (combat heavy), I have legitimate thoughts that they wouldn't do that.

Exploring Chult is tier 1, therefore half the spells you list aren't even accessible. Get it? I'm not bagging on your playstyle, or your preferences, or your player's competence. I'm telling you that it's physically impossible for your assumptions to even work with half of those.

Which is why I will go back to what I've been saying all along. Get the book. Read it. Play it. I am positive half of your assumptions and hand waving away of challenges will be rendered moot once you do. You're making assumptions based on something you don't even have yet, and I'm here, as a person who's actually played part of it already, to advise that your assumptions are flawed.

He's making assumptions FOR - HIS - GAME. Not yours... HIS. And thus you are in absolutely no position to tell him that what he thinks his players will do WON'T happen. So rather than trying shut down his thread by saying "There's no reason to even talk about this other ideas because they aren't going to happen"... why don't you just walk away and let CapnZapp and anyone else who wishes to participate do so.

Besides which... how do you even know he's going to run sections 1 and 2 at level? Hmm? You don't. Perhaps he's going to start at level 9 like the book says he can. And yes, while the book says doing so will make sections 1 and 2 rather trivial... perhaps he's trying to figure out ways so that IT ISN'T TRIVIAL. Even *if* his party has Create Food and Water and Leomunds Tiny Hut, etc. etc. etc.

But you've got this huge bug up your rear end that make you come running into a completely new thread trying to shut it down just because you don't like how CapnZapp expresses himself. A thread that he purposefully took out of another thread in order to avoid overlapping on that one... and you come chasing after him telling him his thread isn't worth even looking at.

I'd like to think that if he had just put at the top of his first post "Okay, here's a thought experiment I'd like to work out for my personal game I'm going to run... it might not happen but just in case it does..." that you wouldn't spend all your time going through it saying "No! No! False! No!"... but my instincts tell me you'd probably have done that anyway because you just can't help yourself when CapnZapp is involved.