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

[CapnZapp]

How about responding to what I wrote

In case it's not clear: no. I don't want to.



Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

…I know my players will use every single one of these spells if I don't remove their power to trivialize the content.

Why is a player using character resources to overcome a challenge "trivialising"?

 

[cmad1977]

Why is a player using character resources to overcome a challenge "trivialising"?

It's just one more in the long list of things that 'break the game'.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well, no, since this creates a spread from perhaps 2 - 12 encounters with 7 being the average in the middle.

And 12 encounters is probably much too much,

The average of 6-8 is 7, and after 12 encounters, we might finally stop hearing how the game is too easy.

 

[bleezy]

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.

We have been playing 5e for the last three years. We have run wilderness games before and we already know they don't work the way we want them to. I have read through ToA and there is nothing in there that will make 0-2 combat encounters per long rest balanced or interesting to run, and there is nothing that will prevent the PCs from taking approximately one long rest per adventuring day if you go by RAW.

It's wonderful that you don't experience these issues in your wilderness campaigns, but unfortunately because you don't experience these issues you have nothing to contribute to this thread.

I promise you, the people in this thread looking for solutions have actually experienced the problems they describe. Please just take our word for it.

 

[CapnZapp]

Why is a player using character resources to overcome a challenge "trivialising"?

Breaking the game's fundamental assumptions isn't a "challenge" to me.

I have already explained, several times, that I don't want the players to focus on minimizing the number of encounters per long rest. That's a meta challenge I don't want.

I want the players to accept the number of encounters per long rest as a given, and instead focus on surviving them. That's a role-playing and combat and resource management challenge I do want. ☺



Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

The average of 6-8 is 7, and after 12 encounters, we might finally stop hearing how the game is too easy.

Ha ha, you jest... but seriously, no.

Lifting the game up from 0-3 encounters per game day (to approximately double that) is enough of a gargantuan task for me.

So if there's going to be a 12 encounter stint, that better be fairly memorable and unique, with the players themselves realizing how bad their luck has gone. It really needs to be apparent how they must have missed several safe hexes, and/or had maximum encounters every day.

I am quite aware there's a thin line between ardor and challenge on one hand, and frustration and hopelessness on the other.

Not sure how classic hex crawls are handling character agency. Are there clues given as to what direction to travel in? (Not if hexes are randomized, I would think) Should there be Survival rolls that help the party to travel in the "right" direction?

Perhaps a successful roll means the DM indicates two forward hexes to be somewhat better than the third (assuming the party is traveling in a general direction such as "south")?

Or, like the television game, the party chooses their next hex and makes some roll.

Assuming it isn't a failure, the DM then reveals one of the three forward hexes the party *didn't* choose (the worse of the two), and then gives the party Ranger the opportunity to switch into the direction of the remaining unchosen unknown hex... ☺

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

We have been playing 5e for the last three years. We have run wilderness games before and we already know they don't work the way we want them to. I have read through ToA and there is nothing in there that will make 0-2 combat encounters per long rest balanced or interesting to run, and there is nothing that will prevent the PCs from taking approximately one long rest per adventuring day if you go by RAW.

Thank you for confirming the thread's basic premise, Bleezy!



Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

Sure, many ways up the mountain. Nothing wrong with an easier one.

This may be relevant to your topic about "risk of 7 encounters, but not necessarily followthrough"... When I created an Underdark mega-encounter table with my friend for our Night Below/OotA game, I used a "meta-table" that involved checking for...

• Is there a terrain/environmental encounter? Just one? More than one?
• Is there a monster encounter? Just one? More than one?
• How do the monsters react to PCs as a baseline? If there are multiple monster groups encountered, how do they interact?

I seem to recall something like this back during the OotA discussions; essentially coupling one terrain table with one encounter table. Perhaps it was you whose posts I read...?

 

[Warmaster Horus]

...and there is nothing that will prevent the PCs from taking approximately one long rest per adventuring day if you go by RAW.

...

Isn't there a time limit? In the HC the PCs' patron is wasting away. Taking a slow-boat approach to inch through the jungle doesn't work since it's dozens of hexes (hundreds of miles) between Port Nyanzaru and the objective location through hostile territory. And that's assuming they know where their objective is and can take the straightest route to it without issue.

I would emphasize story-based reasons for urging player action over artificial limitations that appear to break basic game assumptions and player agency. It puts players off to hear DMs say, "Well, yeah, you do that thing that the rules explicitly say should work the way you assert, but I'm the DM and that's too easy..."