Do druids and rangers make the wilderness too freindly?

[Janx]

Now in most of my games the rogues, mages, cleric, fighters usually come from more urban areas and don't tend to have that kind of experience and if they don't take precautions like hiring a guide or learning what they need to do to make the journey safely I use it against them the same way I would if they took on a monster in his lair without bothering to do any prep.

If you think nature is extra dangerous, for rogues, mages and clerics and fighters, then I am a Ranger and I am what makes nature safe for the party.

I'm not even an expert, but I apparently know enough to have not gotten myself killed.

 

[Dioltach]

Pick a year and a place. go look up the weather. Then pick a 2 week period that your party might be making a trek that ain't in the winter when anybody with brains knows not to travel. Now, what's the weather like? You may have some rain, but you ain't facing surprise storms and floods every other day. the probability of bad weather happening frequently is low.

I was in Colorado a few years back, and we drove up into Estes Park in the Rockies. Mid-July, beautiful weather. While we were in the park it suddenly clouded over, the next peak over from where we were was hit by lightning, and we had six inches of snow on our windshield.

A few weeks ago I was hiking in a pretty remote part of Spain. During the day the weather was generally very pleasant, but temperatures plummeted in the evenings and at least one night the wind was howling round our lodgings. Parts of the trail had been washed away by rain a week or so before we were there.

My point is that weather is a fickle thing. It can, and does, change without warning. Read Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, about hiking the Apalachian Trail. Then consider that our modern world is much, much tamer than most medieval-like fantasy settings: maps are generally accurate, settlements are much closer, weather forecasts are better.

I guess a ranger or druid can help a party survive the wilderness, but nothing is guaranteed. Landslides, absolute lack of shelter, flash floods -- those things do happen.

As a DM, though, I wouldn't through these unstoppable natural forces at the PCs without making them part of a larger plot: to force them somewhere, or to eliminate certain options, or present them with tough choices.

 

[Nytmare]

I think some folks make too much of the wilderness.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/MindRevelation/oregon-trail

 

[Janx]

I guess a ranger or druid can help a party survive the wilderness, but nothing is guaranteed. Landslides, absolute lack of shelter, flash floods -- those things do happen.

As a DM, though, I wouldn't through these unstoppable natural forces at the PCs without making them part of a larger plot: to force them somewhere, or to eliminate certain options, or present them with tough choices.

yes, bad weather does happen. But statistically, it doesn't happen constantly in the same area to the same people.

If you look at it as "this one time, bad stuff happened to people" so it should happen to the PCs as well, that's one thing.

I'm looking at it as a function of real weather patterns and random generator tables. A group of people choosing to travel a week's journey within the "normal travelling season of Spring to Fall" are not statistically likely to hit constant weather challenges or terrain challenges (that part's more driven by WHERE the party is going), or animal attacks.

It's just not plausible that EVERY caravan going from point A to point B for a week long trek experiences animal attacks, horrible weather, avalanches, floods, and other natural catastrophe's. Take Dioltech's example. Look up that season and see how many OTHER events like that happened that year. Though mountains are in the area of more random/dangerous weather, it sure wasn't constant. He just got lucky (or unluck) to have chosen that week to be out there.

It is plenty likely that intelligent threats may make the journey dangerous (monster encounters). More so than any given day, yet another storm washes out the bridge, floods the valley, and destroys our supplies that the rapacious racoons didn't steal.

 

[gamerprinter]

If I stay on theme with what the OP is talking about - and that is adventuring parties with druids and rangers as members, sure it can alleviate some of the dangers of crossing the wilderness.

But the first thought that came to my mind, when I first looked at the thread title regards druids and rangers that aren't members of the party, rather residents of the wilderness that parties could encounter. In that light, druids are neutral. What is it about neutral alignments that could engender 'friendliness'? Answer, 'nothing really'. Druids aren't necessarily friendly, and depending on how a party is treating the wilderness around it, could be quite unfriendly, even very dangerous. And Rangers since 3x, don't have to be good, rather any neutral alignment, including neutral evil.

As an aside, my favorite urban strangeness is running into a homeless wino druid with an affinity for vermin, as an anti-social and possible sociopath. As well as urban rangers, whom might even serve a Thieves Guild...

 

[Wiseblood]

If I stay on theme with what the OP is talking about - and that is adventuring parties with druids and rangers as members, sure it can alleviate some of the dangers of crossing the wilderness.

But the first thought that came to my mind, when I first looked at the thread title regards druids and rangers that aren't members of the party, rather residents of the wilderness that parties could encounter. In that light, druids are neutral. What is it about neutral alignments that could engender 'friendliness'? Answer, 'nothing really'. Druids aren't necessarily friendly, and depending on how a party is treating the wilderness around it, could be quite unfriendly, even very dangerous. And Rangers since 3x, don't have to be good, rather any neutral alignment, including neutral evil.

As an aside, my favorite urban strangeness is running into a homeless wino druid with an affinity for vermin, as an anti-social and possible sociopath. As well as urban rangers, whom might even serve a Thieves Guild...

Right you are about party members.

Something that has been pointed out by the storm in NE U.S. Is that sometimes weather can have a lasting impact. It can wash out roads, render mountains impassable and displace denizens the list goes on.

I posed the question because, I felt that, I had been too easy on players due to party composition. Overlooking the RP opportunities of wilderness travel. IMO wilderness, not roads and trails near settlements, wilderness should be as dangerous as a dungeon.

Wilderness in most games is made less dangerous by virtue of the fact that specific injuries are usually off the table. Illness is also often overlooked, because dysentery isn't particularly heroic or iconic to fight. Starvation and exposure can be dramatic in movies but in TTRPGS they are more like nuisances to be avoided or ignored if you pack you bags correctly. This forces GM's to lean more on weather, monsters or geological events. Add in rangers or druids to the mix. They alleviate just about everything except monsters and they do it all with one skill check.

 

[Janx]

Wilderness in most games is made less dangerous by virtue of the fact that specific injuries are usually off the table. Illness is also often overlooked, because dysentery isn't particularly heroic or iconic to fight. Starvation and exposure can be dramatic in movies but in TTRPGS they are more like nuisances to be avoided or ignored if you pack you bags correctly. This forces GM's to lean more on weather, monsters or geological events. Add in rangers or druids to the mix. They alleviate just about everything except monsters and they do it all with one skill check.

As much as I say wilderness ain't nothing to worry about, rangers won't necessarily make natural disasters easier.

It's more like your basic party is pretty safe from animals, and the ranger/druid can probably avoid the dangerous animals (bears, crocs, tigers, etc)

The ranger/druid can probably help with food/water as well. A party MIGHT be OK at packing their travel food, but not be handy at finding new food/water, where a ranger can help with that.

On weather, it's my assertion that statistically, the chances of bad weather happening in a specific area at the party's location is pretty slim. There's not a lot a ranger may help with the actual hurricane survival (maybe some if the party is really dumb). But the odds of the party being out travelling in THAT area WHILE it is under hurricane effect is pretty slim. Consider the north east. They just got hit for the first time THIS year. They got hit a year or so ago, once.

This means that anybody that anybody planning a weeklong journey sometime from April to November, had 8 months to choose from, and only one week out of those 8 months had catastrophic weather to deal with.

Sure, there's places that can get a tropical storm/hurricane every other week for a spell. But that ain't often.

Now, given a party that isn't travelling mega miles (as in cross the entire contiental US via magic), they may certainly end up criss-crossing an area the size of a state, and thus ultimately, be in the path of a hurrican when it gets there.

But what that should mean is that once per year, a natural disaster MAY occur where the PCs are.

Let's say the party travels for one week, does heroic stuff in whatever place they are at for another week, then travels again. So on the road for a week long wilderness trek every other week. They should not be suffering natural disasters every other week becuase the GM wants to make the trek more interesting. It just isn't probable (barring unnatural interference).

 

[GhostBear]

I never met any country folk who were scared of nature or afraid to go walking about in it. they respect nature, and don't antagonize it. But they know most animals will avoid them, and they know to avoid the animals that won't.

Having lived in rural and semi-rural areas for almost all of my life, I can say that this is true. Where I live right now we don't have any wolf packs, but we do have the occasional bear, and a good amount of coyotes, foxes, raccoons, and other assorted critters. You'll rarely ever see any of them. They just don't want to bother with us.

Animals in general want to avoid confrontation. Even if there is confrontation, most of it is posturing and trying to scare the other guy off. Why? Because getting hurt as an animal is a BIG DEAL. Wounds get infected. A hurt paw means you can't run. A cracked jaw makes eating difficult, if not impossible. For an animal, fighting is something you do when it's a matter of life and death - because even if you win the fight, you might die in the end anyway.

This means that even predation is problematic. When hunting, the predator is looking for the biggest reward for the least effort and risk - especially risk. Why do wolves, lions, and others go for the young, the old, and the sick? Because those can't fight back as much, and it only takes one good hoof to the head to ruin your day.

DMs who constantly pit the players against wolves and bears and such annoy the heck out of me. Why would the wolves attack a group of humanoids when there's less dangerous game elsewhere?

Bear attacks do happen, but a quick check on wikipedia for fatal bear attacks in North America resulted in 28 deaths - between 2000 and 2010. About 3 a year. Those are only the fatal attacks, but even so, it's pretty clear that this is exceptional behavior. This is especially true when you remove the deaths spurred on by stupid behavior on the part of the human (like feeding wild bears). You can also remove the attacks where a human stumbled across a bear cub or otherwise directly provoked a response. "For the heck of it" attacks are just not common at all.

Same with shark attacks. We have millions of people in the oceans every year - and how many shark attacks do we really have? It's exceptional behavior (though, of course, one can fairly argue that millions of humans in the middle of the ocean instead of the beach would have different results).

And yet, at the same time, wild animal attacks can be useful to show how bad this winter has been, for example. Animals will attack if they feel desperate enough to do so; between certain death and possible death, they're going to go for possible death every time.

I've seen a video of wolves attacking a bear (one of those wildlife documentaries on Discovery), but never in my life have I seen a more lethargic, stringy, starving bunch of wolves. Those guys were desperate. Bear held his ground too; wounded two of the wolves quite badly and the pack withdrew.

I occasionally hear that animals were more dangerous and aggressive back in the medieval era, but I've yet to see any actual good proof of that. Just people saying that it is true.

Adding D&D into the mix, you could just dictate that animals are indeed more aggressive and that's fine, but that should not be the explanation for pure suicidal behavior. Animals shouldn't attack unless they have a good expectation of "winning" - which may simply mean grabbing the halfling and dragging him off into the woods before the rest of the party can do anything about it. Or a backpack, if the creature is a little smarter (or your pack has something nice smelling).

Minimal risk, maximum reward.

For anyone wandering the wilderness, exposure, water, food, and getting lost are far greater concerns than wild animals.

 

[Wiseblood]

I try to portray animals sensibly.

Not fighting to the death unless cornered.

Picking on small pc's first and stragglers.

Stealing food.

Running away.

Openly hostile animals usually have some underlying motivation, such as extreme hunger, illness, compulsion or something else.

They are definitely more aggressive than their real world counterparts and very resilient too. The super-predators and mega-fauna would be putting up some stiff competition.

I doubt medieval animals were more aggressive. Humans were more ignorant and weapons more primitive. We were also more spread out and apt to be alone in endeavors such as farming. Farming to feed your family will bring you into conflict with animals. That conflict can get quite dangerous when you're 1/2 day's walk from even a primitive chirurgeon. (i'm sure I spelled that right but it's telling me I got it wrong)

 

[Hussar]

Let's be honest - the entire system makes natural threats mostly superfluous. By 5th level, say, any natural animal becomes a speed bump as far as threats go. A grizzly bear? Yeah, 5th level party turns that into kibble without breaking a sweat. And solves their food problems for the immediate future at the same time.

Add in the magic system - create water, purify food and drink (both very low level and easily accessible ), create food and water, etc. - and overland traveling spells, and the only time the wilderness is a credible threat is to very low level parties - say 1-3.

Unless we're talking about a Lost World scenario where there are dinosaurs, the wilderness just doesn't hold that much of a threat to any group over about 4th level.