Map of Chult Turned to Stone! *SPOILERS*

[pming]

Hiya!

I'm one for the old "tough kittens, bub!" type of DM's, so they'd be screwed in my game...then again, my players are smart/experienced enough to know to keep at least two copies of the map/information on separate PC's to avoid just this type of problem

But if a Player asked "How much of the map can I remember?" or something similar, I'd let the group make Investigation rolls. The DC would probably be 12, depending on how often the PLAYERS asked about stuff when drawing the map. Every 20 gives that player another 'bonus' roll. Every 1 removes a 20 or the next highest roll. The more successes, the more info I would give them. More bad rolls, and I give them bad info. So, effectively, they can 'redraw' the map or parts of it.

Oh, forgot to mention that, I almost NEVER "give" the players a map...even when the adventure says they get one. I love the Exploration aspect of the game, as do my players, so mapping is kind of a 'thing'.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[pukunui]

But if a Player asked "How much of the map can I remember?" or something similar, I'd let the group make Investigation rolls.

Why Investigation? I would probably make it a straight Intelligence check.

Oh, forgot to mention that, I almost NEVER "give" the players a map...even when the adventure says they get one. I love the Exploration aspect of the game, as do my players, so mapping is kind of a 'thing'.

In this case, the map is mostly blank and the players have to explore to fill in the gaps.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Why Investigation? I would probably make it a straight Intelligence check.

I generally try and 'default' to saying a skill that is most appropriate. In this case, Investigation works because it involves "looking for clues and connections". The more experienced a person is at this, the more they can keep a sort of 'mental notation' of things that may or may not be important later on. In other words, seeing a pen on a table and green ink beside it. A day later, the PC's get an anonymous note saying "Stop looking for The McGuffin! Or else!", written in green ink. Sure, a normal person might put two and two together, or at least remember the pen with the green ink from a day ago...but I figure someone with skill in Investigation would have trained his mind to take better "snap shots" of things they see, hear, etc. Hence...Investigation. If you don't have Investigation then it defaults to Intelligence anyway. I'd rather have a player who specifically took Investigation in order to, well, better at investigating things, have a greater chance of recalling stuff they saw earlier.

I also believe that Investigation is a really good Thief skill to take (I use Investigation to Detect Traps; Thieves Tools to remove them). To that end I think Thieves are better at remembering 'maps' and whatnot. Not sure why...it just seems "right" to me. *shrug*

As a side note, I will usually call for a Save over a flat Ability Check. This lets classes with supposed 'focus' in a stat to get their Proficiency bonus. In the Int case, Wizards would/should be better at recalling things seen/written on paper than most other folks.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Brotton Goodfellow]

For those who care: The PC's cared little for rescuing the poor petrified party member. And despite my nudging, they refused to head back to Port Nyanzaru, instead opting to press on to Omu (the bird people of Kit Sabaal had given them the location, and handy directions).

The party consists of a ranger and a rogue with the Outlander background. These combined have essentially made it nigh impossible for them to get lost and run out of food and water. However, the directions they were given by the bird people were not exact GPS co-ordinates. So the challenge for me is how to ride the line of not getting lost, but also not knowing exactly where they're going. I'll think of something, or I might just hand wave the travel. Not sure yet.