D&D 5E What do you do when players say "we go north" but their characters don't have the "Keen Mind" Feat or Navigation Equipment?

[Demetrios1453]

You're making a ton of assumptions. Just to name a few:

1. There are stars in the campaign world
2. The campaign world is spherical
3. The campaign world rotates
4. The apparent motion of the stars depends almost exclusively on the rotation of the campaign world
5. The stars are far enough away that their relative positions don't change with lattitude and longitude

In my campaign world, for example, only #1 and #5 are true. Navigating by the stars in my world works entirely differently than it does on Earth. (Easier in some ways, much harder in others.)

I'm not assuming 2, 3, and 4. The stars could be on a fixed sphere that itself rotates around a non-rotating, non-spherical world. Virtually everyone believed the first part of that premise, and some believed in the second part, even in our own pre-modern world, and the observed results would, for practical purposes, be exactly the same. I am assuming that the such a celestial sphere (or planet) does have a fixed axis of rotation; and though having a celestial sphere (or planet) that undergoes chaotic rotation or no rotation at all would make for an interesting premise, such exceptions would likely be few and far between in campaign worlds...

 

[Brandon Kettler]

We roll for survival and your roll determines if you head in the proper direction.. primarily only used when traveling in the outdoors in more monster heavy areas. When following a trail, it's unnecessary for obvious reasons. Inside dungeons we just pick the route we want to go and typically put a compass reference drawn on the battle mat.

 

[pming]

HIya!

I suspect you live in the city. In the woods you could easily get lost in a quarter mile, let alone the 8 miles you suggest.

...uh, "technically", yes I live in a city. Capital city actually. Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. I can get lost in my back yard... If I go on a walk for 5 minutes I'll be surrounded by nothing but trees, rivers, streams, mountains and wildlife. So I do understand how easy it is to get lost. That said, you could probably blindfold me and plop me down withing 20km of downtown Whitehorse and I'd be able to find my way. Not because I know where the north star or because I'm one of those freaky people with the mutant ability to always tell what direction North is no matter where I am; but because I 'know' what the terrain around me looks like. Now, put me 200km away and I'd have a MUCH harder time. Hell, I'd probably never be seen again. Hence the reason I don't go for 200km walks.

And generations of rural farmers, who might have rarely left their farms, grow up learning how to do all kinds of useful things. Including finding north.

I will concede that I may have miscalculated the number of commoners who would probably be taught something equivalent there-of to "North" (e.g., "As long as Goblin Peak is where the sun sets, you'll know where home is", for example). However, I still contend that the majority of commoners (farmers, shopkeepers, street sweepers, etc), if teleported 200km away from home, would have a very hard time finding "home". All the landmarks they are used to seeing, or use to guide themselves by would be gone, not in the normal location (left in stead of right of them), etc. Of course, the folk that live in relatively flat areas (deserts, tundra) or who make their livelihood on the sea/ocean would know where the north star is (...but then again, they would actually have Navigation, so...).

Anyhoo... in my campaign at least, most folks know how to navigate when near/around their home and likely wouldn't have Navigation. Those that travel a lot would have Navigation. I put PC's "out of the box", so to speak. Adventurers are not anything near "normal", so all bets are off...and hence, why I rely on the Player to make choices first, and I take his/her PC into consideration second. I guess it's a DM style thing.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Hriston]

As the title asks what do you when players ask to go a direction when their characters are unaware of which way said direction is?

I describe the immediate environment to them and ask them which direction they want to go in terms of features of the immediate environment.

 

[BoldItalic]

"We go north."

"Okay. After a long time, you reach a place that is covered in ice and very cold. Nothing lives here."

"We go south again."

"Everywhere is south. Which south do you mean?"

"Huh?"

"You're at the north pole ..."

 

[Saeviomagy]

Survival checks for heading north when there is no overriding reason that prevents the characters from knowing which direction is north are just stupid.

For starters, asking for an easy survival check means that your proficient, racially suited, individually adept character will get lost 20% of the time. It also makes 'not getting lost' hinge off of wisdom, and leaves intelligent characters somehow unable to navigate, which is idiotic.

Next up - making characters lost as a matter of fact is boring. "Haha, now you have to spend game time rolling survival checks finding food, or else your characters might meaninglessly die in the wilderness!". Woot. Unless you have something cool planned out, don't do it.

Even if you DO have something cool planned out, the odds of you needing to make your characters lost in order to encounter it are basically zero. Functionally there's no difference between meaningfully going cross country and finding something interesting, or getting lost and finding something interesting.

Finally, if you've planned out something cool that hinges on the PCs getting lost, and someone plays a ranger or takes keen mind, or simply succeeds at their roll... you don't get to have your cool thing.

If your players say "we head north", let them head north unless you actually have a good reason not to.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Really? Are you checking to see if they make that left turn at Albequerque? Unless the game revolves around navigation and exploration, let them go north. Towards the plot and the rest of the campaign, if you prefer.

 

[Hussar]

Well, to be fair, determining north should probably count as a "Very Easy" check, barring outside influences (bad weather, whatever). So, that proficient character will succeed every time - there is no autofail on a 1 with skill checks.

Even on a cloudy day, I'd probably only go with an "easy" check, DC 10, granting a 20% fail chance barring any help by other characters (granting skill bonuses isn't that hard - and a character proficient in Survival with Navigation Tools should have advantage on the check). So, I'd say that it isn't quite as unreasonable as all that to expect checks.

Note, that recent Unearthed Arcana article https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/UA_IntoTheWild.pdf makes for a really, really great basis for handling this sort of thing. IOW, the DM should take a few minutes to prep some basic stuff that can be tossed in when and if the PC's get lost that doesn't require too much work.

 

[AriochQ]

This thread makes me think many D&D players don't go outside much! North isn't really that hard unless there is some impediment to seeing the stars/sun. Field expedient methods for determining direction are taught in army basic training and were available, and widely used, in pre-industrial societies. Granted you don't get 100% certainty that you are going true North, but you generally know which direction is 'Northerly'. Finding an easy/straight path that goes in the direction you want would be the real challenge.

But, it does bring up a bigger trend I have noticed, DM's requiring skill checks for relatively mundane tasks. Not everything requires a skill check, but some DM's want players to roll for even the most mundane tasks.

 

[Horwath]

In europe, moss grows mostly on northern part of the tree/rocks.

At night you cannot miss the northern star if it is a clear sky.

Tree canopy grows little more to the south in northern hemisphere.

You can track shadow of a stick over 10-20 mins and determine the east-west direction and from that the north.


I would call a DC10 survival or nature check, whatever you have better.

Disadvantage if poor conditions.