D&D 5E Exploration Rules You'd Like To See

[I'm A Banana]

So I was looking over the newest playtest packet and I found myself -- still -- disappointed by the rogue. As I was puzzling about why this rogue seemed a little too "stabby death ninja" and not enough "skilled sneak-thief," I stumbled on what has actually probably been my problem with the rogue since forever.

Namely, I'm not a fan of using skills for exploration. I find the "roll Stealth versus the night watch to see if you're boned" and "roll Athletics verus this pit to see if you're boned" and "roll to find, then disable, all the traps, or you're boned" to be really underwhelming gameplay. ALL the success and failure of the action depends on one die roll, making a binary outcome: either you cross the pit, or you fall down it and die. Either you find the trap, or it poisons you and you die. Either sneak up on the watch, or they see you and fight you and you die alone. Either you succeed and it's anticlimactic, or you don't and it's anticlimactic. It's the exploration equivalent of everything in the game being save-or-die. It's not a lot of fun for me.

So in the interest of constructive criticism, rather than babble on about how the NEXT rogue is failing at its job for me, I'd like to see if we can't build a better mousetrap here at ENWorld and get a handle on what are some really awesome exploration rules you might want to add to your game, modular-like (since some folks are happy with skills and some folks want even less!). My first ideas below!

 

[I'm A Banana]

IDEAS!

• Starvation & Thirst: So, you're going on a multi-day journey to the nearest town -- did you bring enough food and water? It's something a lot of us hand-wave now, but rationing and supplies are a big part of the challenge of exploration. It's also a big part of how druids and rangers and other wilderness-types earn their keep, supplying the party with food and water when they've run out.
• Usable Encumbrance Rules: Somewhat related to the above. Even in a game where you are required to eat and drink, it often just becomes an exercise in draining enough GP to afford a nigh-infinite supply of rations. Encumbrance is what limits that supply, but counting up poundage is a massive hassle. There's gotta be an easier way to do this. I want to see people getting pack animals because they improve carrying capacity! Don't let 5e be the next edition without a donkeyhorse!
• Weather Hazards & Ruined Equipment: In a similar vein, I want a usable system for generating and applying weather. The 3e system was a nice start, but unless you were having a fight in the rain, it didn't affect much. I want 5e to apply this to exploration by having it wreck yer junk. My flimsy tent shouldn't survive a spring tempest! My boots and saddles should wear out! It doesn't need to be hyper-detailed, but there should be some sort of "upkeep cost," and some sort of penalty for avoiding that. There should also be some way to have weather events do some frickin' property damage. If my party presses through a rainstorm, it shouldn't just be fluff text, it should affect how much they can press on the next day. The rules should make my party WANT to stay indoors when it's rainy. Or snowy. Or whatever.
• Random Maps, Random Encounters, Random Lairs: I should -- hypothetically -- be able to generate a whole world, and a whole night's adventure, from rolling dice. What's over that next hill? The DICE should be able to tell me. I think you can wed this to old school hex-crawl style gameplay, too (though without even requiring the map). Bring back the 1e random dungeon tables! Let me build random encounter tables! Give the monsters habitats and terrains and "dungeon levels"! I can always take the reins as a DM when I need to, but D&D should be able to let random chance take the reins when I don't care to (which is most of the time, if you're me).
• Obstacles are as important as Encounters!: When my party comes to a bridge out over a vast chasm, that should be interesting by itself, without any goblins sniping me from the other side. It should require teamwork, problem-solving skills, and unique class abilities to get over that. It should not be a matter of mimicking a 1e fighter ("I attack...I attack....I attack..." / "I roll a skill check...I roll a skill check....I roll a skill check") to overcome. Obstacles can include encounters you're not "meant" to fight: things that are far too powerful, or traps that you might pass by.
• Combats Are (sometimes) To Be Avoided: Let my rogue use Stealth to completely avoid that fight with the goblins and get to the treasure room. Let my assassin use Disguise to completely avoid the fight with the palace guards and get to her target. Let me fly, dig, swim, bluff, wheedle, parlay, intimidate, or otherwise finangle my way out of combat. If I see another rule rejected because "it might invalidate some encounters," I will kick a puppy. Don't make me do that!
• Involve Everybody: Sneaking past the fight with the goblins is great, but what about my clumsy dwarf paladin friend with the big mouth? Like I said above, EVERYBODY should be able to be involved in overcoming obstacles.

So that's my initial thoughts. Yours?

 

[Sekhmet]

If your Thief makes his check right on the number, the DM should be fluffing that to suit.
Pits - He wobbles his way across the pit, falling several times but catching himself just as he tips over his makeshift tight rope.
Guards - The Thief stumbles, his dagger clatters to the floor. The guard hears and comes to investigate, but by the time he arrives, the Thief has already moved to a new position, ready to either assassinate, subdue, or sneak by using another route.
Traps - The trapped chest loosens, the spring holding back the poisoned dart is unleashed, but just as the Thief manages to stick his dagger in front of the dart, stopping it from being loosed into the Cleric's kneecap.

The obvious successes that occur when you're way too good for a specific obstacle SHOULD be boring. No one cares about the times Gandalf killed an orc, or when Kheldar picked a lock. They're so good at their craft that it absolutely is boring watching them work.

In a similar vein, it seems like your complaints are mostly "DM Laziness". While it can sometimes be difficult for a DM to make these things interesting, it isn't usually the rules that stop him.

 

[Nagol]

Although I find fault with skill challenges in 4e (the straitjacket approach of 2N successes before N failures, completely reactive environments, obfuscating math, poor description of use, and terrible published examples), I think the concept of an evolving situation that is affected by and informs character choice is a great one.

I had hope from the original declared ambitions for DDN that the other pillars would receive some tactical rule coverage to expand this realm.

 

[VinylTap]

This thread is a great idea. You're completely correct in skill checks being a lame mechanic.

The old school solution is to just role play these situations through, but that's not very gamey. A crunchy system is still a good idea, but it needs to change a bit.

What about a mix of the two systems? Dice modifiers for good role-playing? This is a much better idea when you're trying to push your PCs to get into character more.

Another idea i was always playing around with was soft failures and critical successes, basically a scale of success/failure, again this is a bit of a mix between role-playing and crunch. The idea is not to punish the player for a failure, but to reward a lucky roll. Another idea would be offer softer failures for people with the trained skill-- so a fail on a skill check would force the rogue to look for another path, not make him be spotted. This could lead to more roleplaying, or maybe a completely new strategy if all pathways had been exhausted.

The DND 4th solution was basically a modification of soft failures, you only really fail after a number of failures. Its a little better, but just basically smooths out the math so its not as swingy. There's still nothing terribly rewarding about it, you're just basing success on a random roll. I'm not super familar with it, but I can total see why they went down that road. I've read its not as successful a mechanic as it could be but its not a bad "idea" in general. One of the biggest problem with the skill system is the swing.

How do you offer choices and reward characters for good decisions in a skill check situation? The only thing I can think of is a flowchart with maybe a mix of soft-failure skill checks and RP decisions, but you'd really have to be snazzy about the presentation and keep it flexible for different details. You could make templates for different common skill check situations, but this would be tougher to do the more simple the task was.

 

[ferratus]

[*] Random Maps, Random Encounters, Random Lairs: I should -- hypothetically -- be able to generate a whole world, and a whole night's adventure, from rolling dice. What's over that next hill?\

Hell yes. I'm as new-school as the day is long, but there is a reason the 1e DMG is the champ (no, sorry grognards it isn't the Gygaxian prose) but because there is a way to build random dungeon and encounters to cover your ass when the party goes left when you expected them to go right. No random dungeon, no random encounters, no exploratory play. Period.

Involve Everybody: Sneaking past the fight with the goblins is great, but what about my clumsy dwarf paladin friend with the big mouth? Like I said above, EVERYBODY should be able to be involved in overcoming obstacles.

Largely this can be avoided by not having class-specific skills. However, it is also important that someone can do scouting duties and still return alive if they fail.

1) Make sure the rogue or ranger has a good equipment chapter. When I blow my skill check, I need caltrops, dog pepper, and marbles to slow pursuit and get back to my party. Don't make me wait for my bag of tricks until "Compleat Thief handbook II". A thief's equipment table is as important to him as the weapon table is to a fighter.

2) Give me a resource I can spend that I can change a catastrophic failure into a success. 4e had the ability to automatically do a scouting mission and find info in exchange for a healing surge. That was so wonderful, I let rangers and rogues do that at first level, without a feat cost. The healing surge cost kept them from abusing it, but they contributed to exploration in a very meaningful way.

Otherwise, people don't scout ahead, even when it makes sense, because the penalty for failure is simply too high. At least when you are blundering ahead blindly, you have your friends to heal and fight with you.

 

[Quickleaf]

Evasion and Pursuit.

I'm looking at the Rules Cyclopedia chapter 7 specifically, with it's rules for evading encounters.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If your Thief makes his check right on the number, the DM should be fluffing that to suit
...
In a similar vein, it seems like your complaints are mostly "DM Laziness".

Nnnnnnnnope!

My complaints are mostly that the rules aren't interesting enough. I'm a fan of using rules for things I want to do a lot of, and I want a lot of exploration in my games!

The old school solution is to just role play these situations through, but that's not very gamey. A crunchy system is still a good idea, but it needs to change a bit.

Bingo.

I want crunchy rules goodness. I get that not everyone does (which was why my first post had that "it should be modular" caverat), but "make stuff up" isn't a good enough rule for me for what is a major component of my games.

I want to roll dice. I want to problem-solve. I want to keep it dynamic. I want to use class abilities.

Although I find fault with skill challenges in 4e (the straitjacket approach of 2N successes before N failures, completely reactive environments, obfuscating math, poor description of use, and terrible published examples), I think the concept of an evolving situation that is affected by and informs character choice is a great one.

I like it, but what would it look like? Gimmie an example!

 

[GX.Sigma]

I want rules to track how long the party stays in a dangerous environment, and rules that make it a bad idea for them to do so (e.g., exploration turns, wandering monsters). Otherwise it feels silly that they can map the entire dungeon, search every room for traps, treasure, secret doors, etc. (something that should take hours), with nothing in the rules saying it's a bad idea.

 

[Stormonu]

Skill challenges FTW!

However, there's some significant problems with the skill challenge rules that need to be addressed. I think it's an excellent skeleton, but it needs a lot of meat put on it's bones to make it more than a dice rolling fest (by one person).

In the right hands, a skill challenge ought to play out like combat. Characters take turns deciding on and then preforming an action. The environment reacts to the character's action. The result of that action/die roll propels them toward or away from their goal and updates the environment.

An example might be sneaking past the Night Watch.

First, the rogue decides how he's going to get around. The first player decides he'll slip through the dark alleys. The second decides he'll go by rooftop and the third dons a disguise and hopes to sneak under the watch's very nose.

For the first round, Character 1 makes a stealth roll to slip into shadows. Character 2 makes a climb check to get onto the rooftops and Character 3 makes a disguise check to don his "peasant beggar" disguise.

The DM sets up the night watch - it's a chilly night and the two lax guardsmen hover near a blazing barrel, their halbards resting against their chest as they warm their hands over the barrel and discuss matters of import only to them.

As Character 1 nears the guardsmen, the DM makes a perception check for the guards to notice the stealthed character, and fail. Unfortunately, Character 1 will have to cross out of the shadows to pass the strategically placed guards, so he decides to create a distraction. Grabbing a pebble, he hurls it over the guards heads, where it makes a "plunk" sound as it scatters across the far cobblestone. With a successful Bluff vs. Perception check on Character 1's part, the guards shift to check what made the noise. Character 1 makes another Stealth check, with a bonus from his Bluff check and quietly slips by the watch.

As the two guards return to their barrel to warm back up, Character 2 - who has made a successful Streetwise and Jump check to navigate the rooftops so far, crouches out of sight of the talkative guards. With careful aim, Character 2 launches his grappling hook across the open square and with a successful attack roll, manages to secure it around a chimney on the far side of the plaza. He likewise makes a successful Stealth vs. the Guards perception, so the guards don't even pause their conversation as the grappling hook hits home. After a quick test, Character 2 hooks up and slides across his grappling line to the far side and past the watch.

Meanwhile, Character 3 has humbly made it to the open square where the guardsmen are on watch. Carefully, he makes his way up to the fire, requesting to warm his chilled hands at the blazing barrel. With a successful Bluff and Disguise check vs. the guards Sense Motive and Perception checks, Character 3 is catting up the guards. With yet another successful Gather Information roll, he learns the guards are on watch for three rogues who just robbed the mayor of all his valuables, and that bounty hunters are on the prowl for the substanacial reward for the three. Pressing his luck, Character 3 hits the guards up for some alms so that he may get "some food, drink and a warm bed" for the night. With a successful Diplomacy check vs. the guard's Sense Motive check, Character 3 quits the scene with a few extra silvers to add to the pearl necklace taken from the mayor wife's jewelry box.

That's what a skill challenge ought to be like.