D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Chaosmancer]

Combat challenges have a ticking clock built in already.

My first instinct is just to say no. But I'll go with my second instinct. What are you talking about?

Wandering monsters/random encounters are ticking clocks.

No, a wandering monster is a combat encounter. It isn't a ticking clock at al.

I'm not so sure you can cast a spell through a window (unless that window is open). You are clearly very permissible in your interpretation of rules and spells. You said that an unseen servant was a creature, for example. The more handwavy you are, the easier your challenges become. That's on you, not the rules. (And it's fine if that's what you prefer.)

Line of Effect isn't a thing. So, what exactly would be preventing it? There are no rules that state what happens when you try and cast a spell through a clear and transparent surface. I've checked, multiple times.

Also, I said Unseen Servant MIGHT be a creature. That it would depend on a DM ruling. Just because I acknowledge that different people have different interpretations doesn't mean anything. You seem awfully quick though to place a claim on me I never made.

Pillars don't necessarily stand on their own. You absolutely can make a combat challenge more difficult by adding secret doors or a social interaction challenge more difficult by giving them a puzzle. In any case, the time pressure being applied by a wandering monster makes decisions in an exploration challenge more difficult as I have already shown.

They usually don't stand alone... but they can. I know they can, because I've been in arena games where the party enters an arena, fights some monsters, exits then goes back in to fight the next set of monsters. I've also been in games where we basically never fought and mostly did RP. But pure exploration seems incredibly rare.

Also, Let's just throw some more concrete examples up, shall we?

There is a room with 5 orcs in it. This is a combat challenge. Does the challenge change at all if I do this?

There is a room with 5 orcs in it. The east wall has a secret door. To my eye... the combat challenge is identical. Adding a secret door didn't do anything. Ah, but I bet you'll say that I didn't use the door properly, this is what I should have done.

There is a room with 3 orcs in it. The East wall has a secret door behind which are two more orcs. This increases the challenge right? Except... how is it actually different from this?

There is a room with 3 orcs in it. The East wall has a door behind which are two more orcs. This seems.. identical to the secret door. So, is the secret door adding a challenge, or is the challenge just in sending the monsters in two waves? And actually, how, in terms of the combat, is this any different for the challenge.

There is a room with 3 orcs in it. Two of the orcs have a magic rune carved into their backs. When they hit 0 hp they will be teleported up to 10 ft, and restored to full hp. This is still five orcs, but in two waves, without a door.


Or let us look at the social encounter.

The player's need to convince Lord Brandon to send troops to the Mine. This is a social encounter. But... does this in anyway materially change the social encounter?

The player's need to convince Lord Brandon to send troops to the Mine, but to speak with him you must first take these stones which are at points A1, B4, C5 and D7 and move them to sit on the marked glyphs. The floor is slippery though, so pushing the stones has them move until they hit something and stop. The actual social encounter hasn't changed at all. I've just put a puzzle between the party being able to start the social encounter. That doesn't make it any more difficult once you get there, it just makes you less likely to get there.

No, I'm saying there is a challenge, but it's less difficult. And there are no problems except the ones you yourself are creating by how you run your game.

Or by acknowleding that combat isn't exploration. And that not everything is a ticking clock.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Absolutely. The inside of the room has total cover from anything outside. In addition you probably can’t see the other side of the door you are trying to unbolt.

Unseen servant is a shapeless mindless force, not an intelligent creature. You cant ask it improvise.

That can do anything a human servant can do. If you can tell it to unlock the wine cabinent with the keys from the drawer and pour you some elderberry wine, then you can tell it to lift a latch and unlock a door.

Also, why is there this insistence that you have to see what you are telling the Unseen Servant to do? Do you have to be able to see the kitchen to tell it to take the dishes to the kitchen? Do you have to pointedly look at every single dish?

And finally, whether or not windows provide total cover is a topic of debate, and the spell specifies "a space you can see" if I can see through a window then I can summon in a space I can see. Line of Effect isn't a thing.

 

[Faolyn]

Just say you're drawing on your athletic prowess as a professional wrestler and do a running jump into a dropkick to break that door down. Who could argue that Athletics doesn't apply here? Nobody I'd want to play with, that's for sure.

Ah, but what if your athletic prowess is as a professional swimmer? Or what if you had no athletic prowess but took the skill because you had an extra skill to take. Would Athletics apply here? This is a case where the DM has to make the call based on individual circumstances. Which is fine.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That's not a punishment. It's a tradeoff.

You can spend a few days foraging for food, but there's a chance that you'll run into something. You could have instead invested in more rations (and maybe a mule to carry them), or prepared Create Food and Water for a different tradeoff (in this case the risk that the spell slot would have been useful in a different situation).

"You took a background thinking you could live off the land? Hah, you fool, didn't you realize that not spending money on rations and mounts and hirelings and wagons means that you've decided you want to be ambushed every single time by monsters who immediately get a surprise attack!"

Yeah, no punishments going on here. Just the DM deciding after character creation that a player choosing to use their background ability to bypass a need for food is a choice that leads to monster attacks. Just like when the Acolyte uses their ability to find shelter it turns out that the church can't possibly spare anything, unless they are willing to fight these monsters for them...

 

[Asisreo]

And I've never seen a resource that really makes a well-designed trap, but you seem more intent on judging games I have been in rather than anything about the points I'm making.

Then you're not looking well enough. What's your passive Perception again?

I mean, I don't sit there when a DM presents me with a challenge I can't possibly fail and think "wow, I'm so glad this is so realistic and the DM didn't cater to the party" I'm usually thinking "Why am I bothering to roll this and waste time"

You don't roll. If it was a situation you couldn't fail, you succeed without a roll.

... To avoid traps and ambushes? I'm not saying it is the best solution, but if the cleric is going to spot every trap, and see every ambush then there is also a point where adding those into the game is just putting them in so you can tell the cleric that they are about to be ambushed.

Uh, yes. You do that so they can use their feature. Do you never use undead below CR 1 in an undead campaign just because the cleric has Turn Undead? You're essentially nullifying that feature and they might as well not have it anymore.

And they then tell the party... You do let the party communicate right?

The ambush imparts the surprised condition just before combat is rolled. It occurs too late for the cleric to verbally react and discuss with others.

So... having a high enough passive perception to see a trap just means I get to roll perception to see if I see the trap? Isn't that an utter waste of time? It almost comes across like wanting a roll so the player can fail and then not see the thing they saw.

When you perceive something, you'll notice the object but you won't know more until you investigate. The players can make assumptions and avoid everything but that's dangerous in-and-of-itself.

All it takes is for them to say "I want to take a closer look" or "I want to turn away," then they deal with those consequences.

---

I believe the crutch of the miscommunication is that your DMs appear to improvise the game on a session-to-session basis. I do not.

I've already completely created the adventure by time the players sit at the table for session 0. The maps, the lore, the dungeons, and the wilderness are done and I run them as written. I improvise the interactions but once a trap is set with a DC and an effect, its there and I'm not changing it. If the players somehow pass it with ease, cool. They should feel proud of themselves.

I'm not one to enjoy curated games because my choices begin to matter less and I'll end up with some bitter mindset about the game.

 

[TheSword]

No, hitting a dead end is because you've become lost, not that you aren't lost you just aren't where you expect to be.

Look, I can know where I am, but not know where X is. This is very true. However, if I start out with the intention to get to X, then I am lost -- I do not know my way. While this is a very literal reading of what "can't be lost is," it does show the issues with this kind of ability because you cannot point to a line where you are or aren't lost with regards to getting to X.

I mean, your argument can be reduced to saying that you know where you are in relation to something you already know, right? This is not lost. if you move the reference point to a place you don't know -- if you're trying to ascertain where you are in relation to X -- then you are lost, because you do not know where you are in this context nor do you know your way. "Lost" is always in relation to something, and the statement in the PHB is not qualified. So, the argument you have to still plan your journey and know where you're going is a GM added qualifier not present in the rules. You cannot assume that your ruling is ubiquitous, or that it should be.

I’m sorry Ovinomancer you are demonstrating a lack of experience here. A dead end can be a river that you though you could ford but turns out you can’t. Or it could be a slope that you thought you could navigate that you can’t with the equipment you have, or a bridge that’s not where the map suggests it should be. I’m speaking from experience here. I knew my exact location in relation to my map in all three cases. All three cases involved back tracking and plotting another route.

Lost is when you don’t know where you are, or don’t know which direction to travel that’s it. It’s no more complicated than that.

Not getting lost doesn’t bestow you with supernatural knowledge and foresight of things you couldn’t know until you get there.

 

[Chaosmancer]

A trap's not much of a trap if you can see it coming.

And it isn't much of something I care about if your goal is just to reduce my character's hp by any means necessary. I can play the 15 ft pole and dismantling every door starting at the hinges game, but if the entire goal is just to make us lose hp, just tell us how much we lost and let's move on to something more interesting.

Are you? Why are you allowing re-rolls? And even if you are, doesn't there come a point where you-as-DM just say "guys, you've blown this six times; you'd better come up with a different method 'cause it's clear this one ain't gonna work."

Because we were in a dungeon where none of the monsters were intelligent, all of them were undead, and both the characters had high enough athletics scores to break down the doors, we just couldn't roll above a 7.

And why couldn't we retry? Does the decrepit wooden door suddenly become indestructible just because a character rolls a 2?

Personally, I would have just let the low roll mean it took longer and was louder (two things that didn't matter) and moved on. But this DM insisted that we roll, every single time, despite no time limit, no consequences, and no other way to go other than forwards.

Fine, if you don't mind missing lots of potentially-useful stuff and treasure; while at the same time very likely missing any traps or curses. "I search the room" tells me you're giving it no more than a quick once-over and not really interacting with anything there. If you want to go more in depth, or interact with anything, you have to tell me; otherwise we're into "I never said I was doing that" territory the second something goes wrong.

Fine, "I thoroughly search the room" Better? Or am I going to miss the gold under the bed but get cursed by the key in the drawer just because I didn't specifically tell you how I'm specifically touching or not touching every item in the room?

Maybe you find it exciting, but I find it utterly mind-numbingly boring to have to go through every single item in every single room, for an entire complex, just so I don't "possibly miss something" and even then, because we are rolling I bet, I'll miss it anyways.

I've had plenty of bad experiences like this. No thank you.

If you don't ask 20 questions, don't expect to get 20 answers.

If I wanted to play guessing games and 20 questions, I wouldn't have sat down to play DnD.

Rulings, not rules, old chap: what it should be is what it is, once you rule it that way at your table.

And when discussing the game as it exists with other people, your houserules need not apply. Yes, you can make vampires shoot lasers out of their mouths. No, it doesn't really matter when talking about how to use vampires from the MM.

 

[TheSword]

That can do anything a human servant can do. If you can tell it to unlock the wine cabinent with the keys from the drawer and pour you some elderberry wine, then you can tell it to lift a latch and unlock a door.

Also, why is there this insistence that you have to see what you are telling the Unseen Servant to do? Do you have to be able to see the kitchen to tell it to take the dishes to the kitchen? Do you have to pointedly look at every single dish?

And finally, whether or not windows provide total cover is a topic of debate, and the spell specifies "a space you can see" if I can see through a window then I can summon in a space I can see. Line of Effect isn't a thing.

It can do it everything a human servant can do… except demonstrate independent thought or initiative… it’s mindless.

If you’ve never been inside the kitchen and don’t know for sure the dishes are there no, I wouldn’t let it.

You do you though hon!
I’ve given my explanation about spells not being able to work through total cover. Good luck convincing your DM

I look forward to the next time someone in your party tries to use wall of force for battlefield control and gets a nasty surprise from your DM

 

[iserith]

My first instinct is just to say no. But I'll go with my second instinct. What are you talking about?

You said combat doesn't have a ticking clock. It does. Everything is measured in turns with discrete actions and, if you aren't successful, then the monsters eventually take away your hit points and you die.

No, a wandering monster is a combat encounter. It isn't a ticking clock at al.

A wandering monster is a wandering monster - what happens when it shows up depends. But wandering monster or random encounter checks are absolutely a ticking clock in that they occur at regular intervals determined by the DM. They create a sense of urgency, as the DMG states. Typically, my dungeons have these at every 10, 30, or 60 minute interval, plus every time the PCs make noise.

Line of Effect isn't a thing. So, what exactly would be preventing it? There are no rules that state what happens when you try and cast a spell through a clear and transparent surface. I've checked, multiple times.

Also, I said Unseen Servant MIGHT be a creature. That it would depend on a DM ruling. Just because I acknowledge that different people have different interpretations doesn't mean anything. You seem awfully quick though to place a claim on me I never made.

A pane of glass is total cover because it is a physical obstacle that is between the caster and where the unseen servant would otherwise appear. Someone quoted the appropriate rules clarifications upthread.

If you're allowing it to be cast through glass and counting it as a creature, again, we're back to a DM handwaving all the difficulty away by making unseen servant more effective than seems to be intended. Hardly the fault of the rules or exploration pillar here.

They usually don't stand alone... but they can. I know they can, because I've been in arena games where the party enters an arena, fights some monsters, exits then goes back in to fight the next set of monsters. I've also been in games where we basically never fought and mostly did RP. But pure exploration seems incredibly rare.

Also, Let's just throw some more concrete examples up, shall we?

Let's not. Discussing examples with you has not been very productive.

Or by acknowleding that combat isn't exploration. And that not everything is a ticking clock.

Again, it's not clear why you're trying to saying this about combat and exploration. But you can very easily have a ticking clock in your games. If you choose not to, that's on you. Your exploration challenges may be less difficult as a result.

 

[iserith]

Ah, but what if your athletic prowess is as a professional swimmer? Or what if you had no athletic prowess but took the skill because you had an extra skill to take. Would Athletics apply here? This is a case where the DM has to make the call based on individual circumstances. Which is fine.

The correct choice is to be a professional wrestler.