D&D 5E Rewarding Overland Travel

[Puddles]

I just want to chime in and say I think these rules are great. Survival and exploration is very important to my game too, so the majority of my house rules are to curtail things like Goodberry, Outlander and such and make encumbrance simpler and easier to manage. Mine is a lot of stick with the big carrot being rewarding exploration play, but I love the idea of lots of small carrots too and will borrow a few of these ideas for sure.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[pemerton]

The problem was less that your party wanted a gritty 5e campaign. But you and the other players went a made a party that wasn’t at all gritty and that was tailored to overcome those challenges.

<snip>

Players can always make campaign breaking characters. The solution is to choose not to do this.

There is a weird cycle about this.

1: Party is faced with travel/wilderness challenges

2: Party takes classes and spells to overcome those challenges

3: The challenges become trivial

4: "why are we doing gritty in D&D, there is no point"

5: Party stops taking classes/background/spells to overcome said challenges

6: Said classes/spells lose their value, and are no longer taken.

To me, a well balanced party always has some kind of "nature person", to help deal with those challenges. But if I follow your logic, the only time I should play say, a scout, is when survival isn't important... but that's why you play a scout!!!

Characters focused on wilderness exploration and survival are awesome and should be able to shine in areas where they focus.

On this topic, I would ask a parallel question: if all the players build (say) warlocks, wizards, sorcerers and bards does the magic part of the game become relegated to unfun? If all the players build (say) clerics, paladins and divine-type sorcerers does the religion part of the game become relegated to unfun?

Or what about a part of fighter, assassin, barbarian and war cleric: would this relegate the fighting part of the game to unfun?

To me it seems like an issue of design if a party of ranger, outlander and druid types makes the wilderness travel part of the game unfun.

 

[mrpopstar]

To me it seems like an issue of design if a party of ranger, outlander and druid types makes the wilderness travel part of the game unfun.

A bard, two nobles, and a rogue can trivialize high stakes conversations to the same degree.

The real question is whether or not the game is less fun when you hyper-specialize because it seems obvious (at least to me) that a party with four characters contributing much the same thing sees diminishing returns.

 

[tetrasodium]

On this topic, I would ask a parallel question: if all the players build (say) warlocks, wizards, sorcerers and bards does the magic part of the game become relegated to unfun? If all the players build (say) clerics, paladins and divine-type sorcerers does the religion part of the game become relegated to unfun?

Or what about a part of fighter, assassin, barbarian and war cleric: would this relegate the fighting part of the game to unfun?

To me it seems like an issue of design if a party of ranger, outlander and druid types makes the wilderness travel part of the game unfun.

Not really on those first few. The problem with ranger/outlander/etc type stuff is that they say things like "You have an excellent memory for maps and geography, and you can always recall the general layout of terrain, settlements, and other features around you. In addition, you can find food and fresh water for yourself and up to five other people each day, provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth.", "Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel" & "Your group can’t become lost except by magical means.". Although there are a few backgrounds with similar features like automatically knowing where to find a particular piece of information. There is an ocean of difference between being good at something & responding to a problem presented by the GM with "actually no that doesn't apply because I automatically..."

The goliath barbarian pack mule mentioned earlier is likely a combination of things. First you have the default incredibly generous item weight capacity ratios, next goliath doubles that, finally barbarian may be doubling it again on a character likely maxing strength for combat effectiveness giving them a total carry capacity that is probably easily close to if not more than all other characters in the party combined.

 

[BookTenTiger]

A bard, two nobles, and a rogue can trivialize high stakes conversations to the same degree.

The real question is whether or not the game is less fun when you hyper-specialize because it seems obvious (at least to me) that a party with four characters contributing much the same thing sees diminishing returns.

Not really on those first few. The problem with ranger/outlander/etc type stuff is that they say things like "You have an excellent memory for maps and geography, and you can always recall the general layout of terrain, settlements, and other features around you. In addition, you can find food and fresh water for yourself and up to five other people each day, provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth.", "Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel" & "Your group can’t become lost except by magical means.". Although there are a few backgrounds with similar features like automatically knowing where to find a particular piece of information. There is an ocean of difference between being good at something & responding to a problem presented by the GM with "actually no that doesn't apply because I automatically..."

The goliath barbarian pack mule mentioned earlier is likely a combination of things. First you have the default incredibly generous item weight capacity ratios, next goliath doubles that, finally barbarian may be doubling it again on a character likely maxing strength for combat effectiveness giving them a total carry capacity that is probably easily close to if not more than all other characters in the party combined.

These are all reasons why I think a DM should both keep the easy-to-pay costs of Rations, Water, Encumbrance, etc. AND redesign Overland Exploration Random Encounters to be reward-inspired instead of consequence-based.

Let the Outlanders, Goliaths, Rangers, and Druids of the party do their thing! It's fun to be able to solve problems and feel powerful.

Then, add extra challenges that will reward player curiosity and creativity!

 

[tetrasodium]

These are all reasons why I think a DM should both keep the easy-to-pay costs of Rations, Water, Encumbrance, etc. AND redesign Overland Exploration Random Encounters to be reward-inspired instead of consequence-based.

Let the Outlanders, Goliaths, Rangers, and Druids of the party do their thing! It's fun to be able to solve problems and feel powerful.

Then, add extra challenges that will reward player curiosity and creativity!

does anyone feel like they are solving anything or being powerful by doing

Spoiler: this

 

[BookTenTiger]

does anyone feel like they are solving anything or being powerful by doing

Spoiler: this

When my Wizard casts Knock I feel pretty good!

 

[mrpopstar]

Not really on those first few. The problem with ranger/outlander/etc type stuff is that they say things like "You have an excellent memory for maps and geography, and you can always recall the general layout of terrain, settlements, and other features around you. In addition, you can find food and fresh water for yourself and up to five other people each day, provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth.", "Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel" & "Your group can’t become lost except by magical means.". Although there are a few backgrounds with similar features like automatically knowing where to find a particular piece of information. There is an ocean of difference between being good at something & responding to a problem presented by the GM with "actually no that doesn't apply because I automatically..."

Regarding the outlander...
The outlander's background feature is poorly worded.

You have to parse the rules for activity while traveling in the Player's Handbook, and the rules for becoming lost in the Dungeon Master's Guide, to figure out that an outlander focused on navigation has advantage when making a Wisdom (Survival) check to keep from getting lost.

A player gets to choose whether to focus on navigation (where you have advantage) or foraging (where you have a guarantee). You can do one or the other, but not both.

Regarding the ranger...
Once you become heroes of the realm and the map zooms out to kingdom scale, the party is traveling through multiple terrain types as they explore, so the ranger's ability to navigate unhindered and unerringly shines where it shines without shining everywhere.

The goliath barbarian pack mule mentioned earlier is likely a combination of things. First you have the default incredibly generous item weight capacity ratios, next goliath doubles that, finally barbarian may be doubling it again on a character likely maxing strength for combat effectiveness giving them a total carry capacity that is probably easily close to if not more than all other characters in the party combined.

I mentioned before that I always lean into container capacity on this one. All well and good that dude can offer a piggy-back ride to a frost giant, but a backpack can only hold 30 lb. worth of gear, so choose your equipment wisely.

 

[pemerton]

There is an ocean of difference between being good at something & responding to a problem presented by the GM with "actually no that doesn't apply because I automatically..."

A bard, two nobles, and a rogue can trivialize high stakes conversations to the same degree.

That's another design issue, then.

The common denominator seems to be moving from aspects of the game covered by combat and magic rules, to aspects of the game covered by a mixture of common sense, very simple procedures, and the skill rules.

The real question is whether or not the game is less fun when you hyper-specialize because it seems obvious (at least to me) that a party with four characters contributing much the same thing sees diminishing returns.

Two of the most fun AD&D games I GMed were all-thieves, and two warriors in an OA game.

Moving beyond D&D, I GMed a multi-year Rolemaster game that was all wizards (of one sort or another). I think D&D could support that, at least in principle (in 4e a party of Swordmage, Bard, Wizard, Sorcerer and Warlock looks viable to me). And in my Prince Valiant game, the three main PCs are all knights (a fourth, minstrel PC pops up from time to time).

A party of ranger-types seems like it should be playable - Faramir, Mablung and friends should be a feasible D&D group, it seems to me.

 

[pemerton]

does anyone feel like they are solving anything or being powerful by doing

Spoiler: this

When my Wizard casts Knock I feel pretty good!

Are there ways of presenting social or travel situations that aren't just GM-led narration and plot-downloads?

The answer for FRPGing in general is obviously yes. I assume that the same answer is possible within the context of D&D.