D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Nefermandias]

What three ways are there to deal with character advancement? And, I'm sorry, but, I don't know the two ways to deal with encumberance. I'm not being difficult here, I just honestly have no idea what you are talking about.

But, again, this line of questioning is so pointless. The whole POINT of the discussion, if people actually want to surf back was I was being told that 5e had concrete, clear, easily understood rules for exploration. That everything you could typically do in the Exploration pillar was rock solid with concrete mechanics. That's when I brought up searching for a secret door.

Having multiple mechanics is fine. But, the point that was being made, was that exploration rules were easy to find, clear, and concrete. The two, side by side answers to, "How do I find a secret door" referenced two different books, and two completely different rules. Which kinda says to me that the rules are not quite as clear cut as was being presented.

The three ways of dealing with character advancement are: Regular Experience Points, Milestone Experience points and Advancement Without XP.

"Encumbrance" is the variant carry weight rule which disregards the STR requirements for using heavy armor, but imposes a -10ft penalty to your speed when your carri e weight exceeda 5 times your STR score.

 

[Imaro]

I'm not @Chaosmancer, but, I'll take a stab here. Hopefully this will move things out of the rut of endlessly kvetching about whether or not there is an issue at all, because, frankly, I'm really tired of that conversation.

A challenge, in any pillar, requires the following:

1. Actual consequences. If something has no consequences, then it isn't a challenge. A locked box is not, in itself, a challenge. There is zero chance of failing to open that box, presuming you can actually do it of course. The only resource used is time, and that's, by and large, not much of an issue. For example, opening a locked box in a dungeon after you've dispatched the inhabitants isn't a challenge. There is no fail condition. Needing to open that box, right now, is probably a challenge.

2. Choices. Real choices. As in, the person choosing actually has enough information to make an informed decision. A T junction in a dungeon with no information about what is in either direction is not a challenge. It's a coin flip and, from the perspective of the players, it makes zero difference which way they go. Now, earlier was mentioned that you could take the safe route which took more time, or the more dangerous route - that's at least a choice. Not really a challenge since it's just pick A or B, but, at least it's a start.

3. Engagement of the mechanics of the game. Freeform doesn't count. The reason I don't count freeform stuff is that it is 100% DM dependent and isn't actually part of the game. Earlier was mentioned pushing someone down the stairs as part of combat. Fair enough, there are a number of mechanics - pushing, falling damage - to use to determine success or failure. It's not a case of "Do I convince my DM that I succeed?" which, to me, isn't part of the game. It might be fun, I'm not commenting on that. I'm simply stating that as soon as you are free forming results, then, you're no longer in a game defined challenge.

So, to give exploration challenges: Sure, finding that secret door. Scouting. Environmental hazards. These are all exploration challenges. Again, I don't think anyone is claiming that the challenges aren't there. There are challenges there. It's just that the challenges become trivial or easily ignored with little to no cost to the group. @Lanefan pointed to a couple of prime suspects - Leomund's Hut, Darkvision. Both are easily had in the game, and both have incredibly large impacts on exploration.

So I guess my thoughts on this are as follows...

1. Some challenges should be trivial or easily ignored if the right class, feat or whatever has been selected... It rewards the choice a player has made and in moderation is a staple of heroic fantasy.

2. If you want a specific range of outcomes for challenges in the exploration tier they need to be customized (just like combat challenges or social challenges) for your particular PC's.

3. Often times the pillars should be used in conjunction with each other to achieve a state of challenge for the PC's. As an example... the combat pillar and/or social pillar should be used to deplete resources, hinder PC's, etc. to make exploration non-trivial and vice versa.

4. Know the rules for specific things that you feel are trivializing encounters and play to their disadvantages at times.

Darkvision: does not allow one to see color and in total darkness grants disadvantage to perception checks. Play on these factors to create a challenging situation. The PC's find themselves forced to climb a sheer cliff face on a moonless night where the natives have color coded the safe hand holds they use for ascent... Suddenly darkvision isn't an overwhelming advantage anymore (But also refer to 1 as the darkvision should at times bypass or make things trivially easy because they chose a race with darkvision).

Leomund's Hut : Give the party a challenge that has them choose between the safety of their spell or leaving the area of it. Perhaps one of the rescued children they are escorting wanders out of the dome. Perhaps they can see a traveler being assailed by a band of brigands that they could stop. Do the conditions they are seeking protection from always let up in 8 hrs?? Also use time constraints to make the spell less effective... and so on.

5. Use the optional rules from the DMG. Plain and simple use the optional rules for the dungeon masters guide to increase the challenge exploration poses if necessary. Perhaps in the Badlands the environment is so taxing that travel through it has the Gritty Realism rules as an environmental effect. Use Natural/Environmental/Supernatural Hazzards... and create your own since between the DMG and Xanathar's the framework is there (see point 2 above)

 

[iserith]

I feel seen more than attacked, as to this I must say "guilty as charged" – but mostly with VTTs.

I've found that I need far more control over proceedings if I need to pre-load maps and have tokens at the ready. Random tables are for things like treasure, fumbles, hunting, and wild magic. At most while traveling or cutting loose in an area that's not a dungeon/castle, etc. you're going to get a binary choice and if there's weather, it's either to stop you for an encounter I already have loaded or simply to add atmosphere and mood.

I wish it weren't the case and I'm certainly not advocating for eliminating exploration, but if I'm running 10 hours of D&D/week online I need to do some detailed storytelling (far from perfect, sadly) or it's going to be double that while we both enjoy random exploration with increased agency and partake in the visual "video game" experience we've become accustomed to.

All this is probably to say "I miss the table". Stupid pandemic.

The way I do a hexcrawl is I have the hex crawl map on one page of the VTT, then each point of interest map on its own page. Then for random encounters, I have 9 maps of the appropriate terrain on one page, numbered on the GM layer so the players can't see it, and separated by dynamic lighting. When I hit the macro to roll for a random encounter, it returns the monster/exploration opportunity, the disposition of the monster (hostile, indifferent, or friendly), the random map where the encounter occurs, and the distance at which the encounter occurs (1d3*30 feet). So if it says hostile goblins 60 feet away on Map 6, I just set up the encounter accordingly and off we go!

 

[Imaro]

Honestly what I feel 5e doesn't have in place for the exploration pillar is... a hard-coded process like say Forbidden Lands. That said I don't think a hard-coded process is necessary, I prefer a building blocks approach where I am constructing my own process dependent on what is taking place. I get some people prefer the process be hard-coded and spelled out for them... but that in and of itself is a preference that doesn't really speak to whether there are rules or not or whether they work well or not.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Honestly what I feel 5e doesn't have in place for the exploration pillar is... a hard-coded process like say Forbidden Lands. That said I don't think a hard-coded process is necessary, I prefer a building blocks approach where I am constructing my own process dependent on what is taking place. I get some people prefer the process be hard-coded and spelled out for them... but that in and of itself is a preference that doesn't really speak to whether there are rules or not or whether they work well or not.

I agree, but I also think that the DMG could have done a much better job in providing building blocks, providing tips on how to structure them and describing likely outcomes.

For a Dungeon Master’s Guide, the book is rather light on the actual guidance part, and it is terribly laid out (though I will grant that the section on magical items is well done).

 

[Faolyn]

Yes, they are contradictory. Because they are different answers for doing the exact same thing. How do you inflict damage can be answered in a hundred different ways because there are a hundred different, rules defined, ways to inflict damage. Your answers actually conflict because if I sit at your table, I roll one skill, if I sit at the other table, I roll another skill, and there is no way for me to know which skill will be used beforehand. It seemed a pretty simple question actually. How do you find a secret door? Apparently, in the well defined ruleset of exploration, you either roll perception or investigation, and it's up to your DM to tell you which one it will be.

You need to learn what "contradictory" means. Because having two methods for doing the same thing isn't contradictory; it's at most redundant. And it's not even that, because the skills do different things.

Also, it's always up to the DM to tell you what to roll.

You: I search for secret doors.
DM: Roll Perception.

Most of the time, there's only one appropriate way to roll. But most of the time isn't all of time.

DM: The wall is covered by a mural. [describes mural]
You: Anything interesting about the mural? I'm proficient in artist's tools.
[There's a secret door there, its outlines built into the mural in such a way that they blend in. The DM has already decided that DC for finding it with Perception is 15. The DM also knows that your Perception is not very good.]
DM: OK, roll it.
[You roll a 17]
DM: After examining the mural for a moment, you realize what you thought was an unusual image of rollicking goblins actually hides the outlines of a secret door.

(This would be part of exploration, BTW.)

To be honest, it's a fast moving thread and I didn't see your questions.

Considering you replied to part of the post (mostly to parts you felt you could mock), but snipped all the questions, I doubt that.

But, remember, the flood is YOUR side's reason why the ranger's powers are not working.

The flood is an example. You can insert whatever insurmountable obstacle you wish.

That wasn't my example. The flood only came into being when the DM realized that the ranger was bypassing the challenge. And, yup, I speak to the DM about this behavior. And I'm told that nope, it's not "railroading". It's a "natural consequence" of the setting and how dare I question the DM this way.

Then you have an antagonistic, jerky DM and might benefit from finding a different one. Because a DM who makes decisions like this probably also makes other antagonistic, jerky decisions as well.

Because I don't claim this? Again, you aren't bothering to read what I write, so, why do you keep replying to me?

You wrote in post #1040 (emphasis mine):

Combat's pretty popular. And, oh look, an entire abstract system for resolving combat conflicts. Interacting with NPC's is pretty popular. Oh, look, an entire abstract system for dealing with social encounters. But, apparently, despite exploration being popular with lots and lots of people, in forty years of the game, no one has bothered coming up with systems for resolving challenges.

So, you forgot you wrote this?

My point is that exploration in 5e is made trivially easy by the presence of a number of very common class elements. That there are people who write about exploration challenges doesn't surprise me. Lots of DM's think that sudden floods are a "challenge" too.

A flood is a challenge. It could involve difficult Strength (Athletics) checks to wade or swim through it, exploring the flood's edges to find shallow spots where the Athletics checks are easier or not needed, rescuing creatures or retrieving objects that have been washed away by waters, preventing the flood waters from damaging the village below, using different tool proficiencies or magic to fix the broken bridge or dam, using magic to reshape the water, finding the cause of the flood (if it's not obvious, like you're in the middle of the rainy season), and so forth.

If there's a time crunch, then the first option, just wading or swimming through, is the fastest but hardest, while finding a safer location is easier but takes more time. Your party has to decide whether they can spare 1d4+1 hours finding a safe way to cross or if they want to risk swimming the very dangerous waters that are right here. Your party has to decide if they can afford to spend a day or two locating the lake monster that caused the flooding--which will likely wipe out a nearby village if it's not stopped--or if rescuing the princess takes top priority. All of these things are challenges.

A flood whose sole purpose is to prevent the party from going to location B is railroading, yes. So yes, there's a problem, but not with exploration. The problem is with bad DMing. You might view that as just passing the buck, but it's true.

I mean, good grief, I POSTED my solution to the problem. Dice pools and mechanical frameworks based on character stats that leverage class and character abilities in order to overcome challenges. I immediately get told to sit down and shut up. Instead of spending all this time trying to tell me why the issues I'm having don't exist, why not take a stab at trying to resolve the problems?

"It's a fast moving thread so I missed that." Seriously, I didn't see that response, nor did I see anyone tell you to sit down and shut up.

 

[Norton]

The way I do a hexcrawl is I have the hex crawl map on one page of the VTT, then each point of interest map on its own page. Then for random encounters, I have 9 maps of the appropriate terrain on one page, numbered on the GM layer so the players can't see it, and separated by dynamic lighting. When I hit the macro to roll for a random encounter, it returns the monster/exploration opportunity, the disposition of the monster (hostile, indifferent, or friendly), the random map where the encounter occurs, and the distance at which the encounter occurs (1d3*30 feet). So if it says hostile goblins 60 feet away on Map 6, I just set up the encounter accordingly and off we go!

So, you set up the encounter during the session or are you prepping randomly? Nice ideas with the GM layer. I have only recently started incorporating it and I feel so silly for not having done so sooner for a number of reasons. Not sure yet how to "number" more than one map on the same page using the GM layer, though. I'm just happy to know how to make enemies pop into the token layer instead of dragging them in. I can have a number of them set up and waiting and then choose on the fly.

 

[iserith]

So, you set up the encounter during the session or are you prepping randomly? Nice ideas with the GM layer. I have only recently started incorporating it and I feel so silly for not having done so sooner for a number of reasons. Not sure yet how to "number" more than one map on the same page using the GM layer, though. I'm just happy to know how to make enemies pop into the token layer instead of dragging them in. I can have a number of them set up and waiting and then choose on the fly.

I set up the encounter on the fly, but I prep ahead of time all the monsters that are on the random encounter table (before the adventure or campaign begins). So it's just a matter of rolling the macro to see what monsters and where, then dragging and dropping them onto the appropriate map, copy-pasting the PCs onto it and off we go.

 

[Lanefan]

I completely agree with this and have been thinking along the same lines.

The pillars don’t seem to be named in a thematic way, and I think that is causing some of the disagreement on this thread. It seems weird to me that finding out information about the Sultan before our diplomatic meeting would be considered an exploration activity rather than part of the social pillar.

It's not that weird at all if one lumps info-gathering of almost any kind in with exploration; as in the end that's what exploration really is - the self-motivated learning and gathering of information you didn't have before, be it about a place (the most common use), a person, a thing, or whatever.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not @Chaosmancer, but, I'll take a stab here. Hopefully this will move things out of the rut of endlessly kvetching about whether or not there is an issue at all, because, frankly, I'm really tired of that conversation.

A challenge, in any pillar, requires the following:

1. Actual consequences. If something has no consequences, then it isn't a challenge. A locked box is not, in itself, a challenge. There is zero chance of failing to open that box, presuming you can actually do it of course. The only resource used is time, and that's, by and large, not much of an issue. For example, opening a locked box in a dungeon after you've dispatched the inhabitants isn't a challenge. There is no fail condition.

Well, yes there is: the fail condition of finding yourself unable to open it, or unable to open it without using enough force to break anything fragile inside.

Also, in "Actual consequences" I'd switch out the word "actual" for "potential" or maybe "perceived"; as sometimes players/PCs might think there's consequences when there really aren't and other times might think there's no consequences when in fact there are and this will affect their approach.

3. Engagement of the mechanics of the game. Freeform doesn't count. The reason I don't count freeform stuff is that it is 100% DM dependent and isn't actually part of the game.

Dismissing freeform as "not actually part of the game" badwrongfun doesn't help your argument...or any argument, for that matter.

So, to give exploration challenges: Sure, finding that secret door. Scouting. Environmental hazards. These are all exploration challenges. Again, I don't think anyone is claiming that the challenges aren't there. There are challenges there. It's just that the challenges become trivial or easily ignored with little to no cost to the group. @Lanefan pointed to a couple of prime suspects - Leomund's Hut, Darkvision. Both are easily had in the game, and both have incredibly large impacts on exploration.

Indeed, and it's not just 5e that's guilty of this. Find Traps, for example has been around since forever as a spell.