D&D General Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar

[Chaosmancer]

What fantastic characters need aren't mundane survival challenges. They need fantastic challenges. Again, you don't have level 20 parties fight 4 kobolds and expect a challenge so why expect level 20 parties to starve in a regular forest.

I agree... but there are no rules for level 20 forests. What do they even look like? What do we put in them?

I've actually said this before in discussing the problem with the ranger, there is nothing in the wilderness of the game, especially on the Material Plane where most adventure takes place, that can seriously threaten a level 9 party, barring obviously fantastical super monsters to fight. No Beasts though that are a challenge past level 9. Don't think there are any plants.

So, why aren't there rules for more exoctic environments? We got closer with Tasha's, but unfortuanetly, I don't think the rules end up working as well as I had hoped for that purpose.

 

[Chaosmancer]

My rule-of-thumb for these kind of 'why can't we try again?' rolls:

When seconds count, like it you're in initiative order for example, you roll. If you fail, you bash harmlessly against the door, waste your turn, and can try again next time.

When minutes or hours count, you roll and, depending on how much you fail by I'll decide how long it takes to succeed. I'd probably present this as a choice (it's going to take you ten minutes to batter through. Do you keep at it or try something else?)

If time is irrelevant, then so is the roll. Just tell them they succeed after an unspecified amount of time

Agreed

 

[Asisreo]

I agree... but there are no rules for level 20 forests. What do they even look like? What do we put in them?

There's no rules for level 1 forests either, but we don't omit them from our game because...they exist somehow in some way. Really, there's no rules for or against the forest having evergreen trees versus Giant Magic Dandelion trees. There's no rules for how big or small a desert must be. And there's no rules for or against the regional effects and spells we place in the game.

This is true for the combat pillar in that there are no rules for where a dragon is placed, they can be in the center of the village, but there are rules to engage with them.

Likewise, there's no rules for where a party may come across a Hallucinatory Terrain or a forest connected to the Fey Wilds, but we know how to run it once it occurs.

Its bits and pieces that we need to put together as DMs.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Unless the guards blindfolded the PCs for the trip between gate and throne room, if it's the PCs' first visit to the palace the answer in both cases is yes.

It's unintentional exploration*, to be sure; but the PCs are learning a bit about what's where inside the palace that it's highly likely they didn't know before. Whether this info will ever be of any further use to them is irrelevant to the fact of their learning it now.

And the level of description doesn't matter. The PCs still see the same things during the trip in either example, with the only difference being that in 2. you described more of it. Further, if they chat with the gate guards while in transit a Social element enters as well; you're in two pillars at once.

* - but may be very intentional, if there's a Thief or Spy PC in the party making use of the opportunity to case the place/people for later...

But, as I point out in a later post, if gaining new information means you are exploring, then what is an interrogation? That's gaining new information as well, but if that is exploration then we quickly run out of spaces for the social pillar to exist.

Your models carry a built-in flaw in that they only look at descriptions rather than at a) the whole play loop and b) the context in which the description is being provided.

No, because if the context matters, then description, alone and by itself, is not exploration. If the context matters, then it is that context which need to look at. As that is what the exploration pillar would be connected to.

Also, I don't care about the play loop. It doesn't provide us anything here.

Looking at the whole play loop would answer why the description is being provided, as in what PC action(s) are the descriptions in response to. It might be exploration (and always will be at least in part if the scene is new to the PCs), it might be merely scene-setting, or whatever.

It was merely scene setting. The party was taking no actions other than following the guard to the King's Audience Chamber. I gave you all of the relevant context. You can add more, but that changes the fundamental point of the examples.

Looking at the context will tell us whether it's exploration or something else. If the description is a repeat of things the PCs have seen before (e.g. this isn't their first visit to the throne room) then there's no exploration happening. But if it's the first time the PCs have seen these things then yes, it's exploration.

Okay, let's dig into this a little bit. If it is new, no matter what, it is exploration. Let's say I give you that.

Then what do you call it when the players are interacting in a known environment? Let's say the player's return to their keep, and you describe it, and John heads to his forge, fires it up, and begins crafting a longsword. It isn't new, so it isn't exploration. There is no combat, and he's alone so it can't be social. So, what is this?

Either, it actually does fit into one of the three pillars, or there is something outside of the three pillars. So,what do we call it?

Rolling back to the New question. Let us say that the party gets an idea that they might have missed something in the Old Mine that they cleared out and decide to go back. There are no new monsters or residents. The party begins walking the paths they have already walked, avoiding the traps they have already avoided, and they are looking to see if they missed something. According to your post up above, since they have seen this all before, none of this is exploration. So, what is it? Why is this not exploration, just because it isn't new?

Your model 2 is correct whenever the PCs are seeing or learning something new; as that's exploration, whether passive or intentional. Your model 3 holds water if-when the PCs are covering familiar ground, or are not engaged in adventuring at all.

Model #2 and Model #3 are mutually exclusive. Either everything is exploration, unless it is specifically combat or social, or there are additional elements in the game that are not exploration, combat or social.

Which leads me back to my above questions. Why does something new matter? And what do we call it then when interacting with something known?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Or we have to allow the pillars to overlap, and assume they rather often do.

I certainly don't see them as being completely isolated; they're more like three partly-overlapping circles on a Venn diagram.

Sure, but "all the pillars overlap and are indistinguishable" really doesn't help us talk about exploration.

I'm not much of a fan of fail-forward as it's been presented, mostly because it often seems like the intent is to turn a failure into a success-with-complications. To me, a fail's a fail; success-with-complications can come in on a narrowy-successful roll, rather than a failed one.

Yes, that is the intent.

As someone who has seen a game grind to a halt because "we failed" and now have nothing to pursue, I very much get the appeal.

Not familiar with Doom Pool. Readers' Digest explanation, please?

People were referencing it earlier as a tracker for time. The idea being that every time you take an action, you put a dice in the pool, then when you reach a set number, you roll them for something bad happening. Usually a monster.

My thought was abstracting it, and making it the number of failures you get. Yes, it abstracts failure and turns it into "success but complications" but I think this is a far more interesting use of the concept than as a pure time clock, because it is a consequence the players can more easily gamble with, instead of every set interval of time.

That sounds very much like the 4e approach: you're already heroes before you even start adventuring.

To a degree yes. Or more accurately, you are already exceptional. 5e doesn't do "commoners on an adventure" very well in my experience.

At the other end, there's always a bigger fish.

Oh, of course. I think in my games it might actually be impossible to kill beings like Orcus. You'd have to find the heart of his power, and survive so many defenses, to fight a being that is godlike in strength, level 20 isn't going to cut it.

I think there's an opening to flatten the power curve significantly by making everyone except commoners less powerful in general, starting right at 1st level (or 1 HD for monsters) by making those be closer to commoners and then scaling back the powers gained through levelling.

The problem is that to do this in the current 1-20 environment would necessitate "dead levels", which while being fine with me tend to generate howls of complaint from others. So, the answer might be to reduce the number of levels - sure, design from 1-20 but make 1-9 or 1-12 the playable range (and thus, those are the only levels shown in the PH) with harsh warnings for DMs that going beyond this will cause things to wobble; the higher levels are presented in the DMG largely for purposes of world, monster, and opponent design.

Even by 9th, the changes are pretty drastic.

Even by level 1, a PC is far hardier than a commoner. And goblins would be a nightmare threat that could almost single-handedly wipe out towns, if people stopped playing them as idiots and cowards (I know it is the trope, but I despise that trope with every fiber of my being)

Quick and dirty houserule idea: disallow some things from stacking.

Sure, you can change the rules to prevent it. But I still don't think changing the rules to remove abilities is the way going forward. It is very reactionary. I'd much rather find a way to challenge even that level of craziness with some regularity.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

Create Food and Water conjures 45 lbs of food. You need to eat only a single pound of food per day. The food lasts 24 hours. If you have a 3rd level slot left at the end of the day, you cast it and then eat a pound of food each. You then take a pound with you to eat during the next day. Or you can do Goodberry, which is 10 berries, and enough for a full days meal.

If during that day you don't get a chance to eat, you may start starving. First you check if you have eaten at least 1 lbs of food in the last 3+constitution modifier days. If you have? Then no penalty. If during that time period you eat a pound of food? The clock resets.

So, needing to go at least three days without having a single leftover spell slot. Yeah, I can see how that is exactly identical to only having one fight then short resting.

Now, water is far far less forgiving. A single day without a gallon of water is exhaustion, half a gallon is a DC 15 check (higher than many checks against affects of other planes of existence), but Create Food and water creates 30 gallons, and it doesn't go bad, so as long as you can cast it once every 6 days, you are good. And you also have Create Water, which creates 10 gallons at level 1, which only needs to be cast every two days.

In an adventuring day, mundane things become a challenge. But when we're talking about "travel days" with no other encounter besides the one exploration/social/combat challenge, it will be trivialized extremely easily.

Yes, which is part of the problem. Putting more challenges in front of them ends up dragging out play and becomes boring.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There's no rules for level 1 forests either, but we don't omit them from our game because...they exist somehow in some way. Really, there's no rules for or against the forest having evergreen trees versus Giant Magic Dandelion trees. There's no rules for how big or small a desert must be. And there's no rules for or against the regional effects and spells we place in the game.

This is true for the combat pillar in that there are no rules for where a dragon is placed, they can be in the center of the village, but there are rules to engage with them.

Likewise, there's no rules for where a party may come across a Hallucinatory Terrain or a forest connected to the Fey Wilds, but we know how to run it once it occurs.

Its bits and pieces that we need to put together as DMs.

So, we need to make sure we challenge the players with elements that we have been given zero access to, hopefully by using the monster manual to cobble something together.

That's a pretty weak argument. I'm not saying it isn't the best we have, but this highlights the lack of anything for us to actually use more than it makes me thing that this was the intent.

 

[Maxperson]

Now, water is far far less forgiving. A single day without a gallon of water is exhaustion, half a gallon is a DC 15 check (higher than many checks against affects of other planes of existence), but Create Food and water creates 30 gallons, and it doesn't go bad, so as long as you can cast it once every 6 days, you are good. And you also have Create Water, which creates 10 gallons at level 1, which only needs to be cast every two days.

Good God my con must be through the roof. I don't drink anywhere near that much water daily. Probably between 1/4 of a gallon and 1/2 gallon.

 

[Rabulias]

Good God my con must be through the roof. I don't drink anywhere near that much water daily. Probably between 1/4 of a gallon and 1/2 gallon.

Some of our daily water intake comes from what we eat, not just what we drink. Even then, a gallon is a lot.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure, but "all the pillars overlap and are indistinguishable" really doesn't help us talk about exploration.

Sometimes the pillars are distinct other times they combine. An example of a combination: you asked about interrogations, which are a perfect blend of Social (you're interacting with someone else) and Exploration (once you start getting any info out of the victim).

Yes, that is the intent.

As someone who has seen a game grind to a halt because "we failed" and now have nothing to pursue, I very much get the appeal.

Where I'm quite willing to let it grind to a halt, if that's what it takes to get them to come up with a viable Plan B (and yes, this can include bailing on the mission) without my having to hold their hands.

People were referencing it earlier as a tracker for time. The idea being that every time you take an action, you put a dice in the pool, then when you reach a set number, you roll them for something bad happening. Usually a monster.

My thought was abstracting it, and making it the number of failures you get. Yes, it abstracts failure and turns it into "success but complications" but I think this is a far more interesting use of the concept than as a pure time clock, because it is a consequence the players can more easily gamble with, instead of every set interval of time.

OK, I think I get it.

My immediate idea is what about tying it not to successes or failures but to side effects. Regardless of whether the original action succeeds or fails, every time an action generates a side effect (noise would probably be the most common), bang another die into the pool.

So, if you try to bash down a door without first casting Silence you're guaranteed to generate a Noise side-effect, regardless whether your bash attempt succeeds or fails.

To a degree yes. Or more accurately, you are already exceptional. 5e doesn't do "commoners on an adventure" very well in my experience.

Too bad. It's hard to do a true zero-to-hero character arc when the system chops off the zero end.

Oh, of course. I think in my games it might actually be impossible to kill beings like Orcus. You'd have to find the heart of his power, and survive so many defenses, to fight a being that is godlike in strength, level 20 isn't going to cut it.

Ayup.

Even by 9th, the changes are pretty drastic.

By 9th I can get behind it, in part because in my eyes 9th counts as high level (my games tend to soft-cap at about 11th-ish) and thus a 9th-level character has earned the right to be a big damn hero.

Even by level 1, a PC is far hardier than a commoner. And goblins would be a nightmare threat that could almost single-handedly wipe out towns, if people stopped playing them as idiots and cowards (I know it is the trope, but I despise that trope with every fiber of my being)

In 1e a typical Goblin was about a match for one or two typical commoners. A single Goblin against a 1st-level character - even a MU - would be the underdog.

It seems there's room in 5e for a level 0 and maybe even a level -1, to fill the gap between commoner and ordinary 1st-level. In 4e there was room for about 4 or 5 levels in that same gap; while in 1e-2e-3e there's room for 0th level and that's about it.

Sure, you can change the rules to prevent it. But I still don't think changing the rules to remove abilities is the way going forward. It is very reactionary. I'd much rather find a way to challenge even that level of craziness with some regularity.

Which might mean you end up having to houserule some DM-side stuff in order to generate those challenges.

That said, I'm not shy about changing rules to remove abilities if I have to; largely because the other option - beefing up the challenges - just plays into a power-creep arms race I'd rather avoid if possible.