D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Imaro]

Luckily fireball is limited to a 20 foot radius sphere, is subject to line of sight, and consumes a nontrivial 3rd level slot.

But... but... if the DM makes his NPC"s spread out and take cover then he's just being an adversarial DM and only doing it to nullify a character's ability... and on top of that spreading out and taking cover is such a bad combat cliche....

 

[Lanefan]

That's only because the warlock doesn't know what the future adventuring day holds. If they're guaranteed 1 fight, even per short rest, they'll be very confident in using their spell slots.

And this is the same concept with bypassing mundane encounters. It takes at least a 1st-level spell to create food, which could be needed for something else. But because we're guaranteeing that the player doesn't need the spell slot for anything else, they're free to cast spells like Goodberry without any competition.

If these can be cast as rituals they don't use slots or resources; which I think is some of the problem here.

You won't often be casting Create Food or Goodberry while in combat, I think.

 

[Asisreo]

If these can be cast as rituals they don't use slots or resources; which I think is some of the problem here.

But they can't be cast as rituals as they aren't ritual spells.

The ritual list is very weak for survival challenges. The only real spell that is really tangential to exploration is Purify Food and Drink. And it does not create nourishment in substances that don't have nourishment anyways. You can't cast Purify Food and Drink on grass if that grass doesn't provide the necessary nutrients for survival. I mean, you can, but its not going to do anything since the food isn't poisoned or diseased, it just can't be processed.

Things like Unseen Servant or Find Familiar aren't as powerful as accredited when it comes to survival. They can't really forage or track game any better than an actual character can.

The rituals aren't really problematic in this case.

 

[tetrasodium]

If these can be cast as rituals they don't use slots or resources; which I think is some of the problem here.

You won't often be casting Create Food or Goodberry while in combat, I think.

More likely with an unused spell slot just before bedding down to recover it. In past editions spells scaled in duration & power based on caster level so a first or second level spell slot continued to grow in value as those spells improved compared to the cost/benefit of things like goodberry create food & so on instead of carrying/foraging supplies . If a caster devoted a spell slot to one of those spells it was simply gone.

In 5e by comparison those low level spells only improve by casting them from a higher spell slot & the scaling is so bad it's almost always a waste to do so. Spells like goodberry create food etc don't claim an particular spell slot in 5e & can be cast from any unused slot just before a rest at what is effectively zero cost despite not being a ritual spell

 

[Chaosmancer]

Every environment is actionable if the players want it to be. Doesn't matter what the DM has planned.

Yeah, but interrupting the DM to do your own thing isn't what we are talking about.

Who decides it is a social encounter? Sounds like by virtue of the DM setting it up as a meeting with the king that you are presupposing that it is a social encounter. Truth is, the DM has no idea which pillars are being engaged until the players declare what activities their PCs are doing. The throne room scene could be all three at once, or two out of three, or even one out of the three (though it would be a real stretch to say it was pure exploration if they are approaching the king in full view). You said earlier in the thread that a wandering monster is part of the combat pillar. It's no such thing until the PCs take action to make it so.

So it isn't part of the exploration pillar either. You're just setting the scene, that isn't exploration any more than it is combat or social. So, yeah, if I presuppose the players had the goal of talking to the king, and decide to talk to the king, then they are not engaging in the exploration pillar, and there is no reason to assume any description is exploration outside of the player's actions.

I think we just about found some common ground here. Also, very Zen: something that isn't and yet is.

I think this is less Zen and more that we are trying to stretch the pillars beyond their conceptual usage.

 

[Tallifer]

Wilderness exploration as I envisaged for my campaigns:
Tales from the Gnomish Tarot on Webtoon

Wilderness exploration as my players often experienced it:
Another panel from the same

Actually my favourite dungeon master for a long time was Johann Maximillian Adolphus Coffey because exploring his world of Kubyon was so interesting and surprising.

 

[Mordhau]

I think if one thinks the way WotC uses the exploration pillar is too broad one first needs to justify the continuted existence of three pillars before arguing that the exploration pillar needs to be better defined.

If the three pillar system does not work as is, one shouldn't just assume that there should be three pillars.

 

[Mordhau]

The whole idea seems at first to make a certain kind of sense.
There's fighting and there's talking but that doesn't cover everything so we need at least one more pillar.
But the more you look at exploration as a pillar the more you realise that it's either: a) so broad as to be just basically be a big bucket to cover nearly everything that's not talking or fighting or b) so narrow that there really ought to be a whole lot of other pillars to cover a host of clearly different kinds of activities.

And then when people want to zero in on what the exploration pillar is, they often tend to zero in on aspects of travel and wilderness survival and exploration. This makes a kind of sense. It activates our common sense idea of exploration, and it describes the kind of thing which many other games have well structured resolution systems for so it feels like something more comparable to fighting and talking. The problem with the idea is that it doesn't fit the evidence. If this was what the exploration pillar was meant to be, then one would assume some effort would have been put into this area. And it clearly isn't how the exploration pillar is described by WotC whenever they try to gesture at what they were thinking.

a) The exploration pillar is pretty poor.
b) Wilderness travel and exploration and survival rules in 5e are also poor and lacking.

a) is not poor because of b)

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't understand this... Have you never had a combat where for whatever reason (noise, waiting in ambush, betrayal, etc.) new combatants enter the fray?

Not that I did not set up before hand. I decide how many monsters are nearby and if they come to join the fray then they do, but no more than was decided ahead of time.

Have you never had opponents who have faced your PC's on more than one occasion... or have henchmen who faced them and were able to relay their tactics and general capabilities to the BBEG so that he/she was prepared for them? The fact that surprise is a part of combat means the space and rules can change...

You mean that in a new combat there are different rules? Sure, that happens all the time. But now you are talking about one combat leading to a second combat, which is far different than talking about a single combat.

Okay putting aside the fact that lost is defined in the D&D DMG as inadvertently travelling in the wrong direction and spending 1d6 hours before being able to check to see if you travel in the correct direction... and doesn't mean... "always knows the route". In fact being lost or not only deals with whether one spends time going in the correct direction not anything around a specific route... Let's put the actual rules aside and...

What if there is? What if there is an impassable river or magical interference or a number of other things that could plausibly be in the wilderness of a world where magic and monsters exist?? The ranger's ability in no way guarantees totally safe passage. the fact you've chosen to homebrew it into that is a self-made problem.

Did that magical interference exist before ranger declared their favorite terrain? Or did it appear after the DM realized the ranger was breezing through the challenge and then added it for the sole purpose of canceling the ranger's ability? Therein lies the difference.

We presented a set-up, and instead of acknowledging the set-up, it was then immediately declared not a problem, because you can change the set-up.

Also, on the ranger and being lost, if I know my destination is to the west, about a week's travel, and I set out, and I am incapable of accidentally going in the wrong direction and losing 1d6 hours... then I will always reach my desitination. I always know the route to where I am going, because I never go the wrong way. I won't say it is the best route, but without magical interference or impassable barriers, you can't stop a ranger from getting from Point A to point B in their favored terrain.

I would consider tailoring your challenges to your players good advice... and I believe, though I could be worng that 5e espouses that philosophy.

That said the "challenge" shifting is an assumption you are making... it easily could have also had a complication added to it or it could have been set up beforehand.

It can be good advice, but too much tailoring just cancels player abilities.

And it could have been something set up beforehand... but in this case it wasn't. In this case we set up the example, and then other people came in and changed it to prove our example invalid. We have the entire conversation.

You're addressing the specific example but instead try addressing the principle of putting the players in a situation where they can choose between that safe hut or something else... an NPC, treasure, knowledge, etc. The specific doesn't matter... What do they value? Put it at risk or up for grabs and suddenly that hut isn't ALWAYS a safe haven no one will venture out of.

And once the thing isn't at risk? Or do you interrupt every single long rest they try to take until they stop casting the Hut?

Every challenge you create for the PC's is a direct action against some ability they have. Seriously you are challenging their capabilities, that is kind of the point of the game. My example doesn't neutralize anything... it offers a choice, that's the challenge.

I never said it neutralized it, because as I pointed out, after they go get the kid, they just head back, recast the Hut and rest again. And unless you have the kid wander off a second time, the Hut still provides a safe haven to rest in.

And, you seem big on choice, but you have to realize that what you are doing by having a kid wander out of the hut, or a monster threaten something they left outside the hut, is you are negating their choice. They chose to sleep in the hut, and now you have put forth something where they can either stick by their decision, and lose something, or follow your plan and not use the Hut.

And if you do this every single time... eventually it stops being a challenge to the player's capabilites and is just you punishing them for making a choice you don't like.

Again let go of the specific example... it's not the point.

Then you should have been clear it was only a general example, and explained the larger point, because everyone has been reacting to the specific example.

But every single one of your general examples runs into the same two problems. 1) They don't stop you from resting in the Hut, they only delay the rest until after the threat is over and 2) they are being presented entirely to force them to not rest in the Hut. What if a dragon attacked their town every time they cast the spell. That doesn't even make sense. What knowledge is being threatened that they know is being threatened after settling down for a long rest? It seems much more like you are just advocating for interrupting the Long Rest, which does nothing to them using the Hut later when you stop interrupting their rest.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Did you mean "use insight" in the sense of telling the DM you want to roll a d20, add your wisdom modifier and PB (if proficient in Insight), and if the number is high enough the DM will tell you if he's lying?

Or do you mean the players themselves being (literally) insightful and asking probing questions?

The skill. The players can't be insightful if they aren't given clues by the DM and the DM can just lie about any answers they get from the probing questions. And if they ask if he is lying... they can't find out. It is literally written to be a perfect deception, based solely on having "prepared ahead of time"

I know that's dum. I imagine other long-term DMs know that is dum. But this is a precedent I don't like. It only encourages that sudden backstabbing that gives NPCs a bad name.