D&D 5E Camping is dangerous (how can it be made safer?)

[The Mirrorball Man]

In The One Ring RPG, there is a "mini-game" (i.e. specific rules) focussing on travelling, with every PC being responsible for a specific aspect of the journey (scouting ahead, pathfinding, hunting, etc.)

With the 5e emphasis on short rests, I think it would be interesting to come up with a similar system for camping in D&D. You could have one PC select the campsite, another one gathering food and cooking, a third one setting up alarms, etc. I'm not entirely sure how that would work but I guess some of the brilliant minds of this forum could have an idea...

 

[MarkB]

In The One Ring RPG, there is a "mini-game" (i.e. specific rules) focussing on travelling, with every PC being responsible for a specific aspect of the journey (scouting ahead, pathfinding, hunting, etc.)

With the 5e emphasis on short rests, I think it would be interesting to come up with a similar system for camping in D&D. You could have one PC select the campsite, another one gathering food and cooking, a third one setting up alarms, etc. I'm not entirely sure how that would work but I guess some of the brilliant minds of this forum could have an idea...

There was talk of something along these lines (at least for travelling) in the Legends & Lore articles during the run-up to 5e's release. Hopefully we may see it in the DMG.

 

[Gargoyle]

Some enjoy it, but I've always found the "preparing camp" thing to be as tedious as getting out the 10 ft poles and checking every square inch of dungeon corridor mentality. It's not always the player's fault these things happen of course, it's mostly adventure design and DM's. In a dungeon it's the arbitrary placement of deadly traps that does it, while in the wilderness it's the random encounter in the middle of the night and the surprise round without armor or spells ready. These camping encounters feel like an arbitrary deadly trap in a dungeon corridor, and that's why players get nervous and paranoid when they camp, they know they're vulnerable. And that's ok to a point, but not to the extreme that I've seen sometimes.

In heroic fiction, the heroes might set watch and avoid making a fire, while in D&D there are multiple spells cast, complicate watch procedures, construction of special armor, and other silliness. I actually don't really have a problem with camping being dangerous or with player characters taking precautions or even the occasional character death; my biggest problem with all of that is that it tends to take a lot of real time while they describe their precautions, and even after they get into a routine it feels less than heroic. And if their paranoid routine fails for some reason (usually because of dice) it just gets more paranoid. It feels silly.

My take on it is, the DM needs to give the camping PC's the benefit of the doubt. Let them sleep in armor without penalty for several nights in a row; the rules don't say it hurts them, so assume it doesn't. Seriously it's not that big a stretch to think that adventurers could pull that off, even if you think it's unrealistic, give them a level of exhaustion after a few nights of it so they seek out an inn if you like. If they set a watch, don't let the sleeping player characters suffer a surprise round if alerted. Assume the watch is competent and they are sleeping lightly. If they go to the extreme of using a spell like alarm, give them a chance to turn the tables and surprise intruders. Make them feel heroic instead of like mugging victims. Giving them the benefit of the doubt goes a long way to establishing some trust. Which of course you can violate later when you really want to.

But the big benefit to building some trust with the players that you're not going to murder them in their sleep is that you won't spend ten minutes of real time going over camping procedures or have a TPK on a random encounter that feels unfair.

That said, if they are facing a foe that really would try the tactic of murdering them in their sleep, like a group of assassins, you can do that, but you really need to foreshadow it so it doesn't feel cheesy. Give them a clue that it's going to happen so they feel smart if they make the right decisions to thwart it, or to make them feel like it's their fault if they don't. But if you don't make that type of encounter the exception, get ready to spend a lot of time listening to their camping precautions. Or if you like this sort of gameplay and love 10' poles, of course that's cool too. I'm just not a fan of it.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I'm running LMoP, right now. The group is doing really well, over all -- they even killed the big thing that's not supposed to be beatable, at this level.

That said, they camped in the woods, last game. A random encounter of 6 wolves came up. That doesn't sound like it should be a big deal for a group of 5 3rd level PCs -- especially after seeing what they did to two of them, earlier.

It was nearly a TPK. The elven rogue was on watch and not surprised, though he did lose initiative. The first hit was a crit that send him to 0 hp. I let him get off a warning shout, otherwise it would have been worse. Even so, the cleric was dropped due to being squishy w/o armor. The elven fighter was only trancing, so I ruled she had her armor on and weapons at hand, but she was already slightly wounded and a pair of wolves took her down quickly. Thankfully, the tough, dragonblooded sorcerer had enough hit points to act as an improvised meat shield while the wizard drained his spell cache. It was really, really close, though. If I'd played the wolves to kill, rather than flee after losing a couple of their number, I'm pretty sure the PCs would have been toast. I definitely would have been able to kill two PCs by attacking downed characters, rather than the ones still yelling.

The whole group is okay with PC death being a reality, but a TPK to a pack of wolves seemed like a chump way to go. It raised several questions around setting up an effective camp in 5E:

1) Not really a question, but even having another character on watch doesn't seem like it would have helped too much. Being asleep (i.e. unconscious) is nasty bad.

2) What's a reasonable DC for waking up sleepers by yelling? My gut says its "hard", so DC 20. A couple players felt that was too high. Since everyone rolled under 15 or over 20, it wasn't an issue. Feedback welcome, though.

3) Can Alarm be used to effectively protect a camp? It says 20' cube, which isn't much more warning than the rogue had when he yelled. It would have made the "yelling" automatic, but a larger area still seems better. Can the 20' cube be reshaped, say, to a 5' think ring/square that's hollow in the middle. That seems against both RAW and intent, IMO.

4) Does wearing armor negate a long rest (i.e. sleep)? Could the tanks still wear light armor and sleep?

5) How deep is elven trance? I read it as still being effectively asleep. The advantages are that the elf only needs 4 hours and doesn't need to remove armor or lie down.

6) Do familiars need any down time? I ruled that they needed some recharge, so they disappeared for a few hours, but were around for their masters' watch.

7) Any other thoughts on avoiding a dirt nap when taking a long nap in 5E?

I would have ruled auto waken if a party member yells loud enough, and I also allow sleeping in armour, or at least keep breastplates strapped on, etc. I would definitely allow trance in armour. I would allow familiars to stay up all night every night, they are magical creatures, not mortals. And yes, alarm is supposed to be an auto alert for the camp I expect (or at least one side of it). The encounter would have been much more manageable with a bit of ruling tweaking.

 

[Henrix]

Now you only have to worry about deer, badgers, monkeys, larger species of owl, and, of course, predators smaller than a spaniel.

Well, few deer or other friendly animals come within speaking distance of humans and a camp fire.
And how many smaller predators attack humans, and are dangerous? (Lice, of course.) Not many.

 

[Henrix]

Some enjoy it, but I've always found the "preparing camp" thing to be as tedious as getting out the 10 ft poles and checking every square inch of dungeon corridor mentality.

It can be shortened to the DM assuming that the party tries to find a good spot, and perhaps a Survival check to determine how good it was when an encounter happens.

 

[Mercule]

Not in any D&D game I've ever been in. Wolves always attacked humans fearlessly, just like everything else on the random encounter table.

I assume that any encounter is somehow "meaningful". Just as there are no random encounters with squirrels, despite some editions having stats for them, if wolves come up, they're hungry enough to at least test the waters with the PCs. I do try to run various critters based on intelligence and personality/instinct (I'm not much of an outdoors-man, but I figure I just need to be "literary close"). In the case of the wolves, they took off the second the combat turned against them.

There's some play style decisions in that. I've tried having random wildlife encounters that weren't even potentially combat, to add "realism"; it was poorly received as a waste of game time.

Also, FWIW, the party specifically did not light a campfire.

 

[Selkirk]

yeah rests are super dicey...my party had just finished a long battle and we went to rest (with watch). got ambushed by seven goblins... watchperson fails dc and is taken out. everyone else still asleep in their tents. first guy out that wakes up is shot down. that leaves 2 sleeping pc's....on a meaningless encounter-waking up in the dark in the middle of a hail of arrows. some serious handwaving was required for us to survive...and then immediately after the encounter we took a long rest ^^;... felt like time wasting.

 

[KarinsDad]

yeah rests are super dicey...my party had just finished a long battle and we went to rest (with watch). got ambushed by seven goblins... watchperson fails dc and is taken out. everyone else still asleep in their tents. first guy out that wakes up is shot down. that leaves 2 sleeping pc's....on a meaningless encounter-waking up in the dark in the middle of a hail of arrows. some serious handwaving was required for us to survive...and then immediately after the encounter we took a long rest ^^;... felt like time wasting.

Yeah, I learned that this type of encounter can suck playing Rolemaster back in the day. No matter how capable PCs are, it can be all for naught if they are asleep and ambushed.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Well, few deer or other friendly animals come within speaking distance of humans and a camp fire.
And how many smaller predators attack humans, and are dangerous? (Lice, of course.) Not many.

I have heard of mutant ninja turtles attacks and don't under estimate squirrels. Just saying.