D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Lanefan]

Warning: spoilers for U1 ahead (hidden)

That's a great example. Now, you're talking about the first two floors right? Not the basement which is mostly combat, I'm assuming.

Now, searching the house, if you play the module as written is pretty much zero stakes. There might be a trap here or there? It's been a while since I ran this, so, I'm a bit fuzzy. But, as I recall, it's about 15 empty rooms, 3 rooms with something in it, and that's about it. So, the exploration part is largely searching around empty rooms, where there is no threat (but the players can't know that) and no stakes (again, totally invisible to the players) and faffing about doing an awful lot of nothing.

Well, except for the potentially-helpful-later treasure that diligent explorers might find; and except for the

Spoiler

yellow-mold death trap that wiped out 5 characters of a party of 7 when I ran this last month

; and except for the

Spoiler

"captive" NPC to be rescued upstairs, who is actually a spy for the smugglers

; and the

Spoiler

secret door down to the smugglers' lair that bypasses some other traps etc.

; then sure, there's nothing to be found.

Hey, if that's what you guys enjoy, knock yourselves out. My group, when I ran this? They didn't even bother with the second floor after realizing that there was pretty much nothing on the first floor and found the way down. That poor NPC that's on the second floor? He died of starvation. Never even got a chance to make an appearance.

Yeah, your group is definitely not my group. Explore everything.

I'm surprised you didn't have the NPC make some noise, even just thumping the floor, so as to attract attention.

Edited for typos

 

[Lanefan]

And 2 strength is 60 lbs. It can pull, lift or drag 30 times strength.

Where are you getting this number from?

Also, pull or drag (and shouldn't that be push or drag?) should be a bigger number than lift, right? I mean, I can drag a hell of a lot more weight than I can lift.

 

[Lanefan]

Great. Lightning bolt trap hits the party. Now, tell me, how would this have gone differently if the rogue had gone up and pulled the lever? Lightning Bolt trap still hits the party right? So, no difference.

Exactly, which counters your point upthread re the Servant being able to protect the party. Here, the only difference is the Rogue gets fried alongside you rather than 30' up the hall (and for extra evil, the lightning bolt should start just behind whoever sets off the trap; meaning the person who triggers the trap is safe but all their friends get fried...)

Sure, it is up for debate. And the fact that it is up for debate makes it worth at least bringing up.

It's worth bringing this idea up for exactly as long as it takes to toss it to the curb; Unseen Servants are not creatures (it's not a summon spell, for one thing) and won't trigger anything requiring the presence of a creature. Nor are they alive; even if a Servant's within range, Detect Life won't pull it.

 

[Lanefan]

Actually, even worse sometimes. I'll say something like "I'll go investigate the desk" and the DM will tell me that I find a book on the desk... then stop and stare at me. And after a few seconds I need to say "I pick up the book and try reading it." There isn't exactly anything else for me to do with the information that I found a book except try to see what it is, so why do I have to specify that. And then one of two things happens. 1) They tell me the information in the book. Meaning that they could have simply skipped me saying I picked it up to just tell me what was in it. 2) It blows up. And boy don't I have egg on my face for falling for an exploding book trap. I'm done 15 health and have wasted time doing nothing.

Because if you don't specify it the DM is left wide open to "But I never said I was opening the book!"; and who here hasn't had this argument a hundred times or more. A DM can never just assume a PC is doing something, particularly when other options are available.

Instead of stopping and staring at you, though, the DM should have said "You find a closed book on the desk. Are you doing anything with it?" This question forces you to declare whether you're leaving it where it is, or stowing it in your pack for later, or opening it [kaboom!], or just reading the outside cover, or calling someone else over to check it out, or whatever.

 

[Faolyn]

Where are you getting this number from?

Also, pull or drag (and shouldn't that be push or drag?) should be a bigger number than lift, right? I mean, I can drag a hell of a lot more weight than I can lift.

Chaosmancer is incorrect here. Here's the rules from the PH:

Carrying Capacity. Your carrying capacity is your Strength score multiplied by 15. This is the weight (in pounds) that you can carry, which is high enough that most characters don't usually have to worry about it.

Push, Drag, or Lift. You can push, drag, or lift a weight in pounds up to twice your carrying capacity (or 30 times your Strength score). While pushing or dragging weight in excess of your carrying capacity, your speed drops to 5 feet.

Size and Strength. Larger creatures can bear more weight, whereas Tiny creatures can carry less. For each size category above Medium, double the creature's carrying capacity and the amount it can push, drag, or lift. For a Tiny creature, halve these weights.

 

[Lanefan]

Chaosmancer is incorrect here. Here's the rules from the PH:

Carrying Capacity. Your carrying capacity is your Strength score multiplied by 15. This is the weight (in pounds) that you can carry, which is high enough that most characters don't usually have to worry about it.

Push, Drag, or Lift. You can push, drag, or lift a weight in pounds up to twice your carrying capacity (or 30 times your Strength score). While pushing or dragging weight in excess of your carrying capacity, your speed drops to 5 feet.

Size and Strength. Larger creatures can bear more weight, whereas Tiny creatures can carry less. For each size category above Medium, double the creature's carrying capacity and the amount it can push, drag, or lift. For a Tiny creature, halve these weights.

Ah, I see the confusion.

To me, "lift" and "carry" are the same thing; if I can lift it, I can carry it.

Never mind that those numbers are, in reality, completely absurd. An average-strength real person (i.e. Strength 10 in game terms) couldn't dead-lift anywhere near 300 lb. and would have a mighty hard time even making that weight budge by pushing or dragging, unless the floor was ice and-or there was serious help to be had via leverage e.g. a wall to brace against.

 

[Yora]

Historical experience from thousands of years all over the world has shown us that you can expect fit and healthy young men to march with 40 kilos of gear at a decent speed. (Commanders thought that's as much as they can make their soldiers carry 2,000 years ago, and still do today. Any successes in making equipment lighter lead to soldiers carrying more stuff instead of less weight.) Since soldiers generally don't fight jumping around and don't travel as fast as messengers on foot, I think we can assume that 40 kilo puts them at the first level of encumbrance penalty.
It only remains to determine the strength score of a fit and healthy young men. Originally, 3d6 was the Strength score for the average PC, which would be a 10. No clue how that would look with current attribute generation methods.

But I think any system that puts a Strength 10 character with 80 pounds of gear at the first level of encumbrance penalties is a good place to start.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Now, searching the house, if you play the module as written is pretty much zero stakes.
[snip]
That poor NPC that's on the second floor? He died of starvation. Never even got a chance to make an appearance.

Warning: spoilers for U1 ahead (hidden)

and except for the

Spoiler

"captive" NPC to be rescued upstairs, who is actually a spy for the smugglers

;
[snip]
I'm surprised you didn't have the NPC make some noise, even just thumping the floor, so as to attract attention.

Yeah, missing the point of the NPC on the second floor seems to indicate not playing the module as written - which might explain some of the dissatisfaction with the manor exploration.

 

[Faolyn]

Ah, I see the confusion.

To me, "lift" and "carry" are the same thing; if I can lift it, I can carry it.

Yeah, they should have called it dead-lifting or brenchpressing or something like that, I dunno from weightlifting terms. But you know what I mean: a word that means you can lift something but can't actually move it around.

Never mind that those numbers are, in reality, completely absurd. An average-strength real person (i.e. Strength 10 in game terms) couldn't dead-lift anywhere near 300 lb. and would have a mighty hard time even making that weight budge by pushing or dragging, unless the floor was ice and-or there was serious help to be had via leverage e.g. a wall to brace against.

Yeah, I found this page which gives some presumably more accurate averages. It probably would have been better if your carrying capacity was based at least somewhat on your Athletics skill. Your raw Strength provides a low base; if you're proficient in Athletics, it multiplies it somehow. If you manage to get expertise in it (and all classes should allow expertise, at least in some skills), then it multiplies it by even more.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That’s a very limited view on exploration you have there.

I’ve recently a couple of month ago, ran a game that involved exploring a haunted house, the haunting of which is represented by skill checks involving several generations of folks who dies in the house. By exploring these clues the party pieces together the true events of the house and were able to defeat the BBEG the youngest member of the family using the information they found through their explorations, not through combat. It ran over two sessions and was a lot of fun.

To heighten the effect, several of the haunts could only be seen by one person in the party and I used the whisper function to send them a full description that they had to explain to the rest of the group.

Does that qualify?

Sure, that sounds like a lot of fun.

But I'm curious why I'm the one being called out as having a "limited view"? I'm just responding to what people have been saying. Any times we point out that they could bypass a trap or deal with an issue by just taking more time and using basic resources, we get told there are wandering monsters, or a time limit. You are actually one of the first people to present an exploration challenge that didn't involve a trap, monsters, or a time limit, and we are 36 pages into this thread.

Why is exploration such a difficult pillar to do right? Well, because it seems like people only throw basic challenges like traps or resources, or make it into the combat pillar. But, that isn't really leaning into the idea of exploration.