D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Nefermandias]

Important to remember that "lost" means something specific in this context - you go in the wrong direction than intended and it takes 1d6 hours to get back on track.

How dare you quote a specific parameter given by the core rulebook? Don't you know that D&D 5e is free form DM decides?

 

[iserith]

* - and rules be damned, I don't think I'd allow the mere presence of a low-level Ranger to negate this possibilty; though having a Ranger along would certainly help speed up the regain-your-bearings process.

I think it's important to keep things in perspective here. "Lost" means something specific in D&D 5e, as I said above. So all the ranger's ability means is that IF the ranger is in their favored terrain and IF they are engaged in no other task than Navigating and Remaining Alert for Danger then they can't go in the wrong direction and lose 1d6 hours getting back on track. They can't also track or forage while navigating. And there are 8 terrain types of which the ranger can only get 3 as favored (at 1st, 6th, and 10th level).

That's it. That's all it is. If going in the wrong direction and having to get back on track over the course of 1d6 hours is such a big part of a DM's planned game experience, then just say fairy magic or the like messes with them (they CAN get lost by magical means) and now they have to roll a Wisdom (Survival) check like everyone else.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If you can't see how combat is a countdown, a clock ticking to someone's doom - the PCs' or the monsters' - I don't think there's ever going to be any agreement about what time pressure is in D&D. It's the most clear example there can be in my view.

Really? If I have a ticking clock set to go off in a minute, then it goes off in a minute. Clocks measure time, that is their only purpose.

If I have barbarian, a cleric, and a rogue fighting gnolls.... how long until their hp hits zero? Can you give me a definitive time on that? No, you can't. You'd need a lot more information. You'd need levels, feats, abilities, actual HP values, AC values, to hit values, what types of gnolls, how many of them are there, what abilities do they have, what is the terrain, what is the environment... and even then you could not tell me with 100% accuracy when the fight would end, because none of that takes into account the d20 and how misses and critical hits would change the flow of battle.

A combat is not a ticking clock. Yes, there is an endpoint, but that's like saying your bank account is a ticking clock because it can run out of money. That isn't what the phrase means.

As I've explained many times already and won't do again, the threat of wandering monsters creates urgency and makes exploration challenges more difficult by making decisions harder. It doesn't matter if at some point there is a combat before, during, or after the exploration challenge. This is irrelevant.

It only creates urgency in the fact that the players have limited hp and eventually an infinite tide of monsters will take them out. Also because they probably don't want to waste time on fights that have no reward or purpose. It therefore makes decisions more difficult because they are forced to rush, to avoid getting dragged into combat.

None of that makes the actual content of the exploration harder. As I have explained, many times already. All you are doing is punishing players via the combat pillar for things that they are doing in the exploration pillar. Then seemingly patting yourself on the back for making a good exploration pillar because of it.

If you are making a sandwich, being attacked by ninjas would make making that sandwich more difficult, not because making the sandwich is difficult, but because fighting ninjas is difficult. It doesn't make for a harder sandwich recipe.

It's in the Spellcasting chapter. You can't cast through total cover and a closed window is total cover. This is further clarified by the game designers. Google it.

I have, and Jeremy Crawford talked about magical projectiles, like fireball. But, he did specify this


If you can't read the Twitter it says "Unless a spell says otherwise, you can't cast it at someone or something behind total cover."

So, does the spell say otherwise? It certainly seems so since the spell states "The servant springs into existence in an unoccupied space on the ground within range." There is no requirement to even have line of sight to the space it is appearing in, let alone any sort of line of effect. And it is "springing into existence" not traveling anywhere. Since spells always do what they say, a spell that does not say you need to see your target doesn't need you to see the target, just like Shatter and a few other spells.

If the DM is interpreting it as "rules as written," (which is practically pointless in a game context, only in discussing what the words on the page are), any interpretation that makes challenges easier is still on the DM who is the one doing the interpreting! If you're pointing at the rules, three fingers are pointing back at you.

Oh noes! Fingers are pointing at me because I said a DM might make a ruling! The horror and shock, the pure shame I must feel. How dare I ever say that DMs might make a call different than the one you think is right.

Because, shockingly for how you guys keep trying to rake me over the coals of ultimate shame... that's all I did. I acknowledged that a DM might see this as a grey area. So, point all the fingers at me that you want. I fully admit that I am guilty of declaring that a DM might make a ruling you disagree with. Not that I would. Not that anyone I know ever has. Just that based on other issues that have come up involving a similar grey area, that it could be possibly something a DM might rule.

Examples never help in these discussions because the goal isn't actually to create understanding. It's to defend a position in a discussion where neither side has an incentive to change their mind.

If you have no interest in changing your mind, why do you keep posting? See, I actually do want to create some understanding, and I find examples help by turning vague ideas into more concrete sets that people find it easier to wrap their heads around.

Yes, you keep saying this as if it matters. But it doesn't. What I don't understand is why you keep saying it.

Because if fighting monsters is an exploration challenge, then what's the combat pillar of the game? Do we have two pillars, exploration and social? If so, man do the designers have egg on their faces from talking about a non-existent combat pillar.

Oh, the monster doesn't want to fight and we talk instead? Great, we generally refer to talking to NPCs (which a monster is) the social pillar of the game. Which, again, is not the exploration pillar of the game, because those are supposed to be different pillars.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No benefit without penalty.

Simple design philosophy. Works well. Keeps the game playable.

IF you can't give players benefits without penalizing them, then the game is not playable. It is just a pantomime of forever keeping them running in place.


Edit: Might as well keep this to one post

Sometimes the goal is slow steady resource attrition. Hit points are a resource.

I get that hit points are a resource, but if your goal is just to do anything possible to make the hp number go down, no matter what I do. Then I'd rather save the hour and half of talking through every single detail of everything, take the damage and move on. My IRL gaming time is worth more than a few hitpoints I'm going to lose either way.

Did you-as-PCs know this already?

Yes, it was a dream dungeon and we had gone here repeatedly. It was also massive. Even with a perfectly accurate map and multiple sessions I think we only got to the second floor.

If the door was that decrepit I'm surprised the DM had you roll at all. The only roll I probably would have had would be one to somehow determine how much noise you made.

I wouldn't have even bothered with that.

But this is the thing people seem to always miss in these discussions "I would never do that" never means "No one would ever do that." This isn't even the only DM or the only scenario where I've been in this exact same situation. We are going to get through the door (and yes, it is almost always doors) but we roll, and fail, and someone else rolls, and fails, and then we do it again, because some DMs don't follow the idea that if there are no consequences for failure, you don't roll.

And I've seen it enough, that no, I'm not going to just say "well bad DMs do this, so it doesn't matter" because yes, it does matter. I've even had good DMs do this.

No player IME ever complains when they happen to find the gold and miss the cursed key.

Every player IME complains "But I didn't say I was touching it!" when they trigger the cursed key.

So, bloody well tell me in specifics what you're doing, 'cause I'm tired of having that argument over and over again.

I respect that you are tired of the argument. I'm tired of having to specify every single thing I'm doing, in every single room, because in one of them I might decide to pick up a cursed key.

There are plenty of other ways to handle this. And yes, a quite of few of them ruin the "surprise" of the key being cursed. But, if the only challenge is that the player is unaware of the challenge, then it isn't actually challenging. It doesn't matter if they know the key is cursed if they have to interact with it to get what they want, and figuring out how to use a cursed key either without getting cursed, or dealing with the curse, is infinitely more interesting than grabbing it by accident and getting cursed.

Yes it does; in that oftentimes someone's houserule is a better solution than what the RAW provides.

Maybe it is a better solution. But, that doesn't change the fact that if we are saying "by RAW, this is what happens" that saying "that's stupid and shouldn't be the rule" doesn't suddenly make it not the rules.

And sometimes it can be just as effective to look at what the rules lead to, and respond to that, than just telling everyone they should change all the rules one by one.

 

[Nefermandias]

Really? If I have a ticking clock set to go off in a minute, then it goes off in a minute. Clocks measure time, that is their only purpose.

If I have barbarian, a cleric, and a rogue fighting gnolls.... how long until their hp hits zero? Can you give me a definitive time on that? No, you can't. You'd need a lot more information. You'd need levels, feats, abilities, actual HP values, AC values, to hit values, what types of gnolls, how many of them are there, what abilities do they have, what is the terrain, what is the environment... and even then you could not tell me with 100% accuracy when the fight would end, because none of that takes into account the d20 and how misses and critical hits would change the flow of battle.

A combat is not a ticking clock. Yes, there is an endpoint, but that's like saying your bank account is a ticking clock because it can run out of money. That isn't what the phrase means.





It only creates urgency in the fact that the players have limited hp and eventually an infinite tide of monsters will take them out. Also because they probably don't want to waste time on fights that have no reward or purpose. It therefore makes decisions more difficult because they are forced to rush, to avoid getting dragged into combat.

None of that makes the actual content of the exploration harder. As I have explained, many times already. All you are doing is punishing players via the combat pillar for things that they are doing in the exploration pillar. Then seemingly patting yourself on the back for making a good exploration pillar because of it.

If you are making a sandwich, being attacked by ninjas would make making that sandwich more difficult, not because making the sandwich is difficult, but because fighting ninjas is difficult. It doesn't make for a harder sandwich recipe.



I have, and Jeremy Crawford talked about magical projectiles, like fireball. But, he did specify this


If you can't read the Twitter it says "Unless a spell says otherwise, you can't cast it at someone or something behind total cover."

So, does the spell say otherwise? It certainly seems so since the spell states "The servant springs into existence in an unoccupied space on the ground within range." There is no requirement to even have line of sight to the space it is appearing in, let alone any sort of line of effect. And it is "springing into existence" not traveling anywhere. Since spells always do what they say, a spell that does not say you need to see your target doesn't need you to see the target, just like Shatter and a few other spells.



Oh noes! Fingers are pointing at me because I said a DM might make a ruling! The horror and shock, the pure shame I must feel. How dare I ever say that DMs might make a call different than the one you think is right.

Because, shockingly for how you guys keep trying to rake me over the coals of ultimate shame... that's all I did. I acknowledged that a DM might see this as a grey area. So, point all the fingers at me that you want. I fully admit that I am guilty of declaring that a DM might make a ruling you disagree with. Not that I would. Not that anyone I know ever has. Just that based on other issues that have come up involving a similar grey area, that it could be possibly something a DM might rule.



If you have no interest in changing your mind, why do you keep posting? See, I actually do want to create some understanding, and I find examples help by turning vague ideas into more concrete sets that people find it easier to wrap their heads around.



Because if fighting monsters is an exploration challenge, then what's the combat pillar of the game? Do we have two pillars, exploration and social? If so, man do the designers have egg on their faces from talking about a non-existent combat pillar.

Oh, the monster doesn't want to fight and we talk instead? Great, we generally refer to talking to NPCs (which a monster is) the social pillar of the game. Which, again, is not the exploration pillar of the game, because those are supposed to be different pillars.

You are the only one in this thread claiming that combat is part of the exploration pillar. @iserith clarified that wandering monsters are consequences for some actions during exploration, but not necessarily part of the same pillar. Exploration can lead to combat or social e encounters. It's really not that difficult to understand.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm a big proponent of session zero, and very anti-gotcha DMing.

They'd take it because they want to automatically succeed on foraging, which is what that background is for. That remains the same, whether or not the DM uses wandering monsters.

Sure, but they may never get to use that if the rest of the party tells them after the first monster attack that they are never foraging again for fear of wandering monsters.

Hence the question. Do you actually pull the player aside when they take outlander, and explain to them that while they will succeed in foraging, you will also make sure that wandering monsters are likely to attack while they forage, and they will be automatically surprised, because they were foraging, and not looking for monsters?

 

[Chaosmancer]

It was a joke.

Then it was in poor taste to tell someone that the problem is they haven't researched enough as a joke.

That's bad DM'ing. No rule to stop rule-breaking DMs.

Never said it did. But if it is common DMing (and I have run into it quite a bit) then we need to acknowledge that it is common. And you criticizing people not putting challenges in so players don't waste their time, while ignoring that some of those DMs have had my exact expeirence of their time being wasted in this exact manner, seems like you are edging towards the fallacy of "well, if you were just a better DM, you wouldn't have any problems with this"

The sense that their build was useful and not something they could have ignored since the adventure never calls for perception anyways.

But at what point is it "a build"? I ask because I've noticed many traps have a DC 13 to be noticed... and a level 2 rogue with expertise in Wisdom can easily get a Passive 16. So, by level 9 when that has risen to a 20 through no action or build being made by the player, when do you stop putting in traps just to validate their build? They've been able to spot the majority of traps, without a roll... for 7 levels.

At what point do we decide to focus on something else?

Then you've essentially erased the cleric's feature. Might as well not play a cleric since anything they have that is good instantly gets nerfed.

If that is the only good thing they have, they aren't worth playing anyways.

And yeah, I get it, I really do. But there is a second issue here. If every single fight, heck if every third fight the cleric gets in has a bunch of undead charge them then turn to ash... it's boring. Mind-numbingly boring. I've played video games where after a certain point you get "random fights" that you cannot possibly lose... and it is the most boring thing in the world. Just mindlessly bashing the buttons until you win and can move on.

And the big difference between this cleric ability and trapped or locked doors? I can send other things at the cleric, and only occassionally let them use that super-powerful ability in a way that makes them feel badass... but the door being locked and needing to roll for it is never going to be anything more exciting. And it happens far far far more often.

The party doesn't notice the enemy group until they're at least in peripheral view. Once its possible for the cleric to notice, the enemy rolls stealth. At this point, the enemy group also knows the party is there and will, at the same time, lash out to ambush because waiting too long is bad.

Or waiting longer to ambush the back row is good. Nothing says that the ambush has to happen immediately. How do you ever get a counter-ambush if the roll to see if you notice the ambush is also the signal that they enemy attacks?

Page 189 in the PHB. The DM rolls stealth against passive Perception. The characters that have lower passive Perception than the Stealth total of the enemy or if the enemy is unnoticeable (such as a gelatinous cube) are surprised.

Yeah, you aren't fully reading those rules.

"Otherwise, the DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter."

They left this vague on purpose. The people who don't notice are surprised at the start of the enocunter. Rolling Stealth does not mean that they encounter immediately starts. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. It depends on the broader context.

No roll. Just specification that they want to look closer. That's it. No dice.

Then literally what is the point of asking? Does anyone ever say "No, I don't want to look closer, I'll ignore it."?

This is just such a waste of time.

 

[Chaosmancer]

A character that is not specifically looking out for danger (be they navigating, foraging, etc.) do not get to use their Passive Perception to notice a hidden or stealthy enemy (PHB, p.183). (Mind you, this doesn't apply to Rangers in their Favored Terrain.) This isn't a punishment, it's just a possible consequence of what activity that you want your character to choose. Whether the enemy is hidden/stealthy/whatever will depend on the encounter, though, be planned or random as appropriate.

I assume you are referring to this rule? "Characters who turn their attention to other tasks as the group travels"

So.. what if they aren't traveling? The outlander rules don't specify you have to be traveling, so if they go to get food while not traveling, there is no monster attack, and the monster certainly can't ignore their passive perception.

No, assuming the DM isn't specifically a douche, the DM isn't using encounters with stealthy enemies just to punish the player that too the Outlander Background. That doesn't mean that the DM should never use such encounters, though.

Mind you, if your group doesn't want to deal with this part of the exploration rules, they should feel free to ignore the extant rules and just do a travel montage like the DMG suggests as an option.

That's a great idea. They can just do a travel montage, have all the food foraged, and no threats.

Funny though, a lot of people have talked about how skipping by doing a montage is bad... and what if they DM decides not to do a montage?

Also, all of this ignores the fact that this whole issue came up because people responded to "outlander means you don't have to worry and food and water" with "but surprise landsharks!" So, assuming the DM isn't out to get the party is already stretched a bit.

That actually sounds like an adventure hook.

And I wrote it that way specifically. Because who wants their ability to find shelter to let them have a place to rest for free, when instead it could be a hook for them to go on an adventure and earn that shelter... that they get for free...

Are you noticing the issue that I was highlighting?

 

[TheSword]

Then they immediately know another way. This is a strange argument though, because it presupposes the GM has laid a barrier specifically to deal with the ranger's ability and then is also making the ruling that the ranger has to walk into it.

Also:
Characters:
Fred, the Paladin, leader of the group.
Bob, the Ranger, who is a Ranger.
Assorted other party members who have no lines.

"Okay, so we're agreed. We're headed to the Desolate Keep of Desolation, which the map says is along this road until we get to Hanging Tree and then we turn left into the Dreaded Forest of Annoying Thistles. Sound good? Cool, let's get going... hey, where are you going Bob, the road's this way."
Bob grunts as he shoulder his pack on the way into the woods -- away from the road.
"Bob, BOB! Stop. We're not going that way, we need to go down the road."
Bob stops and sighs.
"Are you blind?"
"What? No, what's that... what's going on?! We need to go down the road."
"You can't."
"What? Of course we can, it's right here! Make sense, Bob!"
"The bridge is out."
Fred sputters. "What?! How on earth do you know that? It's a day's hike away!"
"Like I said, are you blind? Did you not notice the Red Tufted Darter that flew past while we made breakfast?"
"Red.. tufted... what?"
Bob sighs again. "Okay, look, the Red Tufted Darter only lives in ground burrows in the deciduous forests around the Narrows Bridge. This is because they only eat the nectar from the Polystem plant that only grows in that small region due to the soil acidity. Now, if we're seeing a Red Tufted Darter here, this far west, it's because the river's flooded, which makes sense because I saw a hippogriff circling to the north a few days ago, and they only do that this far from the ranges when there's been a big rain and they're following the floodwaters. Anyway, Red Tufted Darters. If we're seeing them, that means their burrows are flooded, and they've relocated to the west because they can live on, but don't like, the Unistem plants that grow in that direction. Ergo, we see one, it's because there's a flood. And a flood big enough to flush a Darter means the bridge is out. That's becausee there was that old cedar that fell two years ago, if you recall, and was lodged upstream. A flood will pick that up, sure as Meilikki hunts, and smash it into that bridge, which has needed fixed for decades due to the soil erosion around the central buttress. Little tap, no bridge, but, even if it stands, the flood water will make it so you can't get to it. So, we need to go north, take the Highline Ridge back east. It'll add 2 days to the trip, but we'll skirt the floods. Meilikki preserves, you people don't know anything."
Bob shoulders his pack again and walks into the woods, northwards.
"Wow. Have any of you ever heard Bob say that much in one go... like ever?"
Scene.

It sounds like Bob is a DM NPC, as Bob’s player would have no way of knowing the bridge was out until he got there… unless the DM briefed Bob on the tufted grubwort bunkum before hand. If that happened from my DM I would be looking at him very oddly.

I think that little spiel is what known as a contrivance. It’s not very convincing, practical or realistic. Particularly if Bob has never been to this particular forest before… highly likely in adventuring.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I too believe you're extrapolating too much.

Ignoring how to get somewhere isn't being lost. Being lost is when you can't track your steps back. As long as you know how to go back where you started, you're not lost.

The ranger will always know where (s)he is in relation to their starting point (as long as they are in their favoured terrain, that is). You could even argue that since they can always retrace their steps, they'll never search the same area twice by mistake and thus won't lose efficiency. This they can do intuitively.

However, this doesn't mean that they know how to reach their destination just as intuitively.

It can take me a while before I find Oreo cookies in a grocery store I've never been to. I'm pretty sure I'll always be able to go back to the checkout cashes no matter where I am however. Not knowing where the Oreo cookies are =/= being lost in the grocery.

I still haven't seen someone answer the question though in the seeming reverse.

Let us say that the Ranger can never get lost, that they can always retrace their steps and get back to their starting point.

The Tower of Evil is in the Dark Forest, forests are the favored terrain. How do they NOT find the tower eventually? They can never get lost. They can never be walking in circles and have no idea. So, how do you have it so that they do not eventually find their destination?