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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7451294" data-attributes="member: 97077"><p>As DM, I'm particularly interested in decisions points for the players and setting up structures and situations that provide no "right" answer, just a series of "good enough" answers with reasonable trade-offs. Sometimes there's a right answer if the context lines up that way, but generally, the PCs might have several decent options to pick.</p><p></p><p>In this campaign, the PCs have a couple of long rest options: Travel back to Jerkwater or make a camp in the wilderness. In Session Two (still Day One of the adventure), the players retreated from the dungeon. Three of the characters had reached 2nd level and one was still 1st level. But they were low enough on resources that they figured a long rest would do them some good. So now they had to make a decision...</p><p></p><p>They had initially traveled to the dungeon from Jerkwater off-road at a Normal pace, which took 6 hours, in order to mitigate their chances of a random encounter. A heavy rain was coming down and that imparts a penalty to Perception meaning being surprised was a good possibility. They didn't want to spend resources on the way to the dungeon and some of the random encounters from the chart could be quite deadly to 1st-level PCs, so this is how they dealt with that exploration challenge.</p><p></p><p>But of course that created something of an issue later. If the PCs travel more than 8 hours in a day, they risk gaining levels of exhaustion. If they got more than one level of exhaustion on the trip back, Day Two would start with exhaustion and that wasn't ideal. If they traveled back to Jerkwater on Day One, they would have to go on the Old Road at a Fast pace since that trip takes only 2 hours. However, the Old Road comes with a higher chance of random encounters. Plus a Fast pace means a -5 to passive Perception. The rain further imparts disadvantage to sight- and sound-based Perception checks. That's a big penalty and almost certain surprise if a lurking monster was indicated! And the DM would be making one random check per hour.</p><p></p><p>Alternatively, they could make a camp. I created a Camp Phase to handle this aspect of the game. Basically, it involves taking an hour to locate a decent spot and build a defensible camp. There's a group Wisdom (Survival) check with a DC of 15 for this area and that includes skilled hirelings like Lex Spears (but not unskilled hirelings like Wes Handy). If a PC has a tent, he or she gets advantage on the roll. But once again, the heavy rain conspires to interfere - disadvantage on checks to make a camp during a heavy rain. If the PCs succeed at the group check, the defensible camp is created and there are no random encounter checks during the rest. If the PCs fail, there are two random encounter checks. If a random encounter forces the PCs to quit their camp (as in a chase scene), the rest is interrupted. There's a bit more to the Camp Phase than that, such as deducting rations and water supplies, setting watch order, and whatnot, but the major decision point is between camping or traveling back to town.</p><p></p><p>Given the particular PCs on this adventure and the state they were in when they had to make a decision, the opted to go back to town in the pouring rain at a fast pace. I found that somewhat curious. After all, a fast pace on the Old Road back to Jerkwater was 2 random encounter checks. Making a camp would be at most 2 random encounter checks and possibly none if they rolled well. I think they wanted to get some additional supplies, but I probably would have stayed put in the wilderness in this case. As it happened, their choice paid off - no random encounters occurred on the road. But it might have gone very badly, too.</p><p></p><p>What choice would you have made? What kinds of decision points like this do you see in your campaign?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="iserith, post: 7451294, member: 97077"] As DM, I'm particularly interested in decisions points for the players and setting up structures and situations that provide no "right" answer, just a series of "good enough" answers with reasonable trade-offs. Sometimes there's a right answer if the context lines up that way, but generally, the PCs might have several decent options to pick. In this campaign, the PCs have a couple of long rest options: Travel back to Jerkwater or make a camp in the wilderness. In Session Two (still Day One of the adventure), the players retreated from the dungeon. Three of the characters had reached 2nd level and one was still 1st level. But they were low enough on resources that they figured a long rest would do them some good. So now they had to make a decision... They had initially traveled to the dungeon from Jerkwater off-road at a Normal pace, which took 6 hours, in order to mitigate their chances of a random encounter. A heavy rain was coming down and that imparts a penalty to Perception meaning being surprised was a good possibility. They didn't want to spend resources on the way to the dungeon and some of the random encounters from the chart could be quite deadly to 1st-level PCs, so this is how they dealt with that exploration challenge. But of course that created something of an issue later. If the PCs travel more than 8 hours in a day, they risk gaining levels of exhaustion. If they got more than one level of exhaustion on the trip back, Day Two would start with exhaustion and that wasn't ideal. If they traveled back to Jerkwater on Day One, they would have to go on the Old Road at a Fast pace since that trip takes only 2 hours. However, the Old Road comes with a higher chance of random encounters. Plus a Fast pace means a -5 to passive Perception. The rain further imparts disadvantage to sight- and sound-based Perception checks. That's a big penalty and almost certain surprise if a lurking monster was indicated! And the DM would be making one random check per hour. Alternatively, they could make a camp. I created a Camp Phase to handle this aspect of the game. Basically, it involves taking an hour to locate a decent spot and build a defensible camp. There's a group Wisdom (Survival) check with a DC of 15 for this area and that includes skilled hirelings like Lex Spears (but not unskilled hirelings like Wes Handy). If a PC has a tent, he or she gets advantage on the roll. But once again, the heavy rain conspires to interfere - disadvantage on checks to make a camp during a heavy rain. If the PCs succeed at the group check, the defensible camp is created and there are no random encounter checks during the rest. If the PCs fail, there are two random encounter checks. If a random encounter forces the PCs to quit their camp (as in a chase scene), the rest is interrupted. There's a bit more to the Camp Phase than that, such as deducting rations and water supplies, setting watch order, and whatnot, but the major decision point is between camping or traveling back to town. Given the particular PCs on this adventure and the state they were in when they had to make a decision, the opted to go back to town in the pouring rain at a fast pace. I found that somewhat curious. After all, a fast pace on the Old Road back to Jerkwater was 2 random encounter checks. Making a camp would be at most 2 random encounter checks and possibly none if they rolled well. I think they wanted to get some additional supplies, but I probably would have stayed put in the wilderness in this case. As it happened, their choice paid off - no random encounters occurred on the road. But it might have gone very badly, too. What choice would you have made? What kinds of decision points like this do you see in your campaign? [/QUOTE]
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