D&D 5E For those with experience on OotA: Getting rid of travel rate (and tips on time management overall)

[Ralif Redhammer]

Pretty much how I've been doing it. The random tables have been good for when I needed stuff on the fly, though. As long as the group makes some pretext of getting food and water, I'm not too concerned about it. This is about heroes saving the Realms, not those guys that starved to death after 30 days in the Underdark wilds.

One thing I did wrong is that I took some of the early sections too fast. The group is in danger of getting over their heads challenge rating-wise, so I'm hitting the breaks and slowing progress down.

I mostly narrated travel. I rolled all the encounters in advance. I inserted a few of the premade encounters. I started off having them make navigation and survival rolls. It became tedious and boring, especially considering the rolls weren't difficult and they never failed. It did not affect the pacing at all. You can narrate the travel and pick a few key encounters to run to sprinkle in some combat to get them xp.

 

[Goober4473]

I haven't started my OotA game yet, but I plan to use the suggestion included in the book where you roll a die to determine when the next random encounter happens, rather than randomizing it every day. That way, I can plan it ahead of time, and do things like say "you travel though _ terrain for another 4 days, passing _ and _, when suddenly..."

You can easily eliminate the exact rules for travel if you want. My suggestion there would be to include situations where the players run out of food or have a chance at getting lost, as additions or replacements to other encounters. You can then just assume everyone has the food and water they need, and are on track, until it becomes important and dramatic. This also might be a good framing device for encounters. "After days of travel, you find yourselves low on food. Shuushar knows of a species of fish that are easy to catch in a nearby river, but Chuuls are known to lurk in the water as well. Sarith suggests you might be able to hunt some giant fire beetles instead, but they'll likely put up more of a fight."

 

[Eltab]

How long does a fight take?

My Tiamat group went up against Arauthator - an Ancient White Dragon with max HP and everything else that is normally variable (I amp'ed him up a bit, because the fights before had been easy).

It took 3 1/2 hours IRL to defeat him.
It took 6 rounds - not even a minute ! - of in-game time.

My players liked "hours" better, for the difficulty involved.

 

[mgshamster]

So tonight I had my players rolls the random encounters. They skipped about 10 days worth of travel with "nothing happened." Really easy to roleplay their travel time. Then I had them meet a member of the Society of Brilliance which was working on a shorter path from Gracklestugh to [this other city].

It so happened that they rolled up a ledge, so I had them pressed against the wall trying not to fall into a 200' drop. Half way across, they met a crazy Derro (I know, it's redundant), that claimed to be making a shorter path to Gracklstugh. After much inter-party debate, they chose to believe him. It shaved 10 days off their 28 day journey.