Calling [Real Life] Outdoor Experts!

[Tequila Sunrise]

Think also about extreme terrians, places like Okefenokee Swamp and Australia. In the Okefenokee preditors outnumber prey animals 7 to 1, this is against the norm and backwards, something is always eating something else. In Australia, the only things that don't have poison came from someplace else, it is like 70% is vemous!

I wonder what makes the predator/prey ratio so high? I'm sure whatever it is, it also applies to D&D!

Going by what you've written, I'd classify forests as: Cold Forests, Temperate Woodlands, Hot Jungles. If you lose the rainfall stuff, it lines up with the rest of your entries and makes things a little simpler (and there are temperate rain forests, and non-rain forest jungles.)

Didn't know that!

Taiga is a cold evergreen forest, not a badland. A cold badland might be an ice sheet (ie, antartica or greenland)

Not sure if I like 'ice sheet'...maybe 'iceland'...hm that's very real world-y.

In mountainous areas ice is frequently a serious hazard. And of course, anywhere that's cold could give the unprepared hypothermia.

One huge risk across many terrain types you are missing is hypothermia. You can become hypothermic if wet at 60 degrees F. So when you look at someplace that has enough rainfall for a forest that isn't jungle, you risk hypothermia.

I wrote a chart of Endurance DCs based on temperature. (In other editions, they'd be Fort DCs or ability checks.) 20 degrees C (68 F) is the 'safe' temp, but the DCs increase when the temp rises or falls.

I also spent entirely too much time writing random temp tables based on aridity and temp regions.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I wonder what makes the predator/prey ratio so high? I'm sure whatever it is, it also applies to D&D!

land is not "nuture rich" enough to support grazers, it is a land of meat eaters! Has to due with the water and a chemical released by the peet (can't remember what it is) that helps preserve anything in the water. Another point of note about the Okefenokee Swamp, it is home to a number of Carnivorous plants!

 

[Nellisir]

Didn't know that!

The Pacific Northwest is temperate rainforest, as is pretty much all of Japan and a number of other spots worldwide. Some are in "warmer" climates, but at a higher elevation.

Not sure if I like 'ice sheet'...maybe 'iceland'...hm that's very real world-y.

Could use glacier or glaciated, but those are technically different beasts. Ice sheets and ice caps (smaller sheets) feed (create) glaciers off of them.

I also spent entirely too much time writing random temp tables based on aridity and temp regions.

An example, using the southern Appalachians as the setting. You are high up in a river gorge in the fall, and a rainstorm hits. You are now faced with wet conditions that could lead to hypothermia, flash flooding in the streams that you crossed to get where you are now (which are probably several feet higher and running faster than they were before) and lowered visibility (and someone mentioned earlier how disorienting it can be in a densely wooded area w/ no map/compass or landmarks to go by). If you stay where you are, you have to try to make a fire out of sodden wood in the humid drizzle, which is no easy task, as it gets colder. If you try to backtrack, you face treacherous water crossing that could lead to injury. Not to mention the increased exposure to moisture/cold...

Yeah...this is a whole fiddly issue that generates a lot of opinions. In mine, these are everyday hazards in a D&D world, and shouldn't be challenges unless they're really unusual circumstances. Ogres are pursuing the characters across the stream. Fire is required to keep the troll down, and the mage is all out of sparky spells. They (the situations, not the trolls and ogres) were everyday hazards for many people in our world until a century or two ago. People die from exposure now because they don't dress for the weather. That's 80% of it right there. That wasn't the case then. Simple things, like getting dry tinder material from underneath the top layer of leaves, or inside a rotted log or standing snag, and seeking shelter under an evergreen, are not considered "simple" anymore.

 

[Nellisir]

land is not "nuture rich" enough to support grazers, it is a land of meat eaters! Has to due with the water and a chemical released by the peet (can't remember what it is) that helps preserve anything in the water. Another point of note about the Okefenokee Swamp, it is home to a number of Carnivorous plants!

Peat bogs are usually highly acidic and low in nutrients, neither of which encourages plant growth or decay (which would create nutrients). Carnivorous plants develop in these environments because insects are a nutrient source.

I can't find anything that supports the idea that the Okefenokee Swamp has an unusual high density of carnivores, particularly not the (unsustainable) 7-1 ratio that you cite. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-649

Australian wildlife, however, IS highly venomous. Reading about the ecology of western Australia several years ago thoroughly dissuaded me from ever wanting to visit there. I prefer to maintain the illusion that, should civilization collapse during my morning constitutional, I could survive for at least a short while. In Western Australia I think I might manage 6 hours.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

In regards to the predator/prey thing, it doesn't really matter to me. At the end of the day, I'm just going to say something like "Plants draw mana from the earth, in addition to the usual nutrients, which then trickles up the food chain and enables an abundance of species...etc, etc,...dire manbearpigs!"

Anyhow, going back to Nellisir's comment about categorizing forest-y terrain...how many vegetation types are worth categorizing?

There are rain forests that exist in warm(?) to tropical climates. They have enormous trees (4+ spaces on the battlemat) and possibly thick undergrowth that slows and grants everyone total concealment against ranged attacks (?).

There are deciduous forests that exist in temperate to warm climates. They have mid-sized trees (1 space on the battlemat), and possibly undergrowth that slows everyone down.

There are evergreen forests that exist in cold to temperate climates. They have mid-sized trees that create lots of soft concealment.

There are scrublands that exist in all climates(?). They have small trees and shrubs that simply grant cover.

And grasslands that exist in all climates(?). They add basically nothing to the battlemat.

Not going for super-accuracy here, just a few rough categories.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Peat bogs are usually highly acidic and low in nutrients, neither of which encourages plant growth or decay (which would create nutrients). Carnivorous plants develop in these environments because insects are a nutrient source.

I can't find anything that supports the idea that the Okefenokee Swamp has an unusual high density of carnivores, particularly not the (unsustainable) 7-1 ratio that you cite. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-649

It is a tourist thing, guide on canoe trip told us. Great way to tour.

 

[Nellisir]

Hey Tequila, check this out http://shadowend.pbworks.com/w/page/7570189/Wilderness Terrain
and email me at nellisir at gmail dot com. I transcribed a lot of OGL material from Fantasy Flight Games' Wildscape book a long time ago, and forgot I had put it on my old site. I should still have the Word files as well, which should include stuff that didn't make it onto the site. It's all OGL and documented, so this is legal. It's 3e rules, but you should get some inspiration out of it regardless.