Encounters in wilderness

[killbydeath]

Got some question about random wilderness encounters.

1 : Is there any table for % of chances a the PC get a random encounter in 4E? Theres was something I saw in the DMG 3.5 ranging from 5 to 12% depending on the place they are. Should I go with that?

2: When my player's are sleeping ine the wilderness, I still did't find anything about the % of chance of getting an encounter or how to do it.

3: If the get attacked in their sleep, how do I run that fight? I know some of the PC don't have their armor when they sleep and in the PHB the say it takes 5 minute to put it on. So, some of the PC don't have their armor for the fight??

 

[James McMurray]

There are no random encounter tables in 4th. The closest thing I can think of would be the encounter deck in the DMG.

 

[killbydeath]

Well what was the rule used in the 3.x ??

 

[Phaezen]

I haven't seen any percentage chances of random encounters in the wilderness. What I have seen in some of the Dungeon modules is skill challenges used to simulate the group working thier way through the wilds, with an encounter occuring of they fail the challenge. I don't know if this is what you are lookiong for?

You could also do a skill challenge for the party camping in a dangerous area if they pass they manage to avoid attracting attention, if they fail they fight. Having the on watch characters making endurance checks if the day had been particularly tiring to see if they are still awake could be nasty.

Phaezen

 

[Wepwawet]

In 3.5 at first I used the random encounter tables.
Sometimes I just wanted them to fight, and the table didn't give me anything, or if it did, I'd just roll again to find a better monster.
Soon it became very annoying and troublessome.

So what I started doing was just throwing some monster when I found it was apropriate. And hand-picking the monster I thought was most apropriate, based on environment, time of day and all that.

At first I would pretend to roll on random tables, but what for?
I'd just say that at that time of day they had a "random encounter"

And it worked fine!
I believe this is also the 4E way, and I'm glad! Just use random encounters when they fit. The story is the most important thing, and silly randomness shouldn't break it

 

[Syrsuro]

I used a skill challenge for travel outdoors, rather than a wandering monster table.

Part of the skill challenge was a stealth check which, if failed, resulted in a wandering monster. (It also used checks for nature, endurance, etc.).

I think that this is a more '4E' approach to the problem.

My concern with this approach is that it might make frequent travel tedious (lots of rolling by the players to go anywhere). Since I only used it once (and then we started using LFR modules which don't allow for wandering encounters) this didn't come up. But I saw it as a definate problem and would probably go with a different approach where the outcome of the skill challenge determined the frequency of wanding encounters or the number of wandering encounters (by reference to a formula unknown to the players) rather than each encounter. Or something like that....

But if you want to use wandering monsters, go for it. Mearls even discussed the idea in one of his blog posts .

The interesting thing to me is that, of all the versions of D&D, 4e is perhaps best suited to make the most of wandering monsters. The characters lean heavily on their ability to take short rests. Wandering monsters are a spanner in that works.

(And yes, the idea of using a skill challenge for wandering monsters was in part originally inspired by this blog post).

All of that said: The general trend in 4E seems to be away from wandering monsters (although Scepter Tower of Spellgard has them) because they can play havoc with the carefully constructed ratio of experience to loot. For that reason you are more likely to see programmed encounters than random encounters (although some take the approach of just not giving experience for random encounters - whether that works for you depends on how you see the game).

Carl

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

As far as I know there also aren't guidelines for how to adjust encounter difficulty for wilderness encounters. If the players are planning a five-day journey and encounter a monster group on day 3, they're going to feel justified in unleashing all their daily powers. If you don't have a follow-up encounter planned (reinforcements for the first group, or scavengers attracted by the sound of fighting) then you'll want to make the initial encounter tougher than normal, but how much tougher is a matter of guesswork.

 

[Bayuer]

Like it's said in the DMG just make some extra battles. Bandits, wild animals what works for you. If on session you need a battle to make things warm up just make this pre-made battle and the problem is solved. I make 2-3 extra battles on each sessions. When I see my players want to fight i just throw one or two of them and every one is happy.

 

[Syrsuro]

As far as I know there also aren't guidelines for how to adjust encounter difficulty for wilderness encounters. If the players are planning a five-day journey and encounter a monster group on day 3, they're going to feel justified in unleashing all their daily powers. If you don't have a follow-up encounter planned (reinforcements for the first group, or scavengers attracted by the sound of fighting) then you'll want to make the initial encounter tougher than normal, but how much tougher is a matter of guesswork.

I tried to deal with this by having a part of the skill challenge deal with how successful the party was at finding an appropriate place to rest each day. If they failed that part of the skill challenge, they were unable to rest properly and did not recover their abilities.

I can even imagine ruling in 4E that fully resting requires access to a bed or town (or perhaps a shelter ritual at higher levels). But this would have far more reaching consquences and is a step I am not, yet, willing to take.

Although I am tempted.

Carl

 

[killbydeath]

I think what I'll do is that I'll go with the chance I think of them getting an encounter. Like 10% of chance the get attack by some wild animal. You mentionned bandits, I think I'll throw them some. They won't get any random encouter if they travel like 3 or 4 hours but on a long trip, I'll see.
Thanks for suggestion