D&D General How much time exploring a 6 mile hex?

[LordEntrails]

One addition or comment, if you go with something like 60% chance of finding something interesting when searching a hex, don't make it a one and done thing. Even when searched, it would be easy to miss something like a cave or a building or faierie ring. So each time the square is searched, allow a new role to see if something is discovered this time around. Maybe reducing the chance by 10% each time to prevent one hex from containing a thousand things and to give reason to more to the next hex.

 

[pnewman]

31 square miles is about 864,230,400 square feet, or 34,569,216 five foot squares. If they take one six second turn to search each square it will take them 57,615 hours to do so. If they do so 12 hours per day and 365.25 days per year they can complete the project in about 13.145 years. If the party has five members and they all search different squares at the same time it will take only about 2.629 years. By then they'll have to start searching all over, to find everything that has changed in the last 31 months.

Therefore the search will take forever....

 

[jgsugden]

One addition or comment, if you go with something like 60% chance of finding something interesting when searching a hex, don't make it a one and done thing. Even when searched, it would be easy to miss something like a cave or a building or faierie ring. So each time the square is searched, allow a new role to see if something is discovered this time around. Maybe reducing the chance by 10% each time to prevent one hex from containing a thousand things and to give reason to more to the next hex.

Sure - but generally people do not search, or even explore, a hex twice. They want to move on to the next hex. Thus, if they miss it, the most ready path to 'discovering' what they miss is through social engagement, not exploration. This is not a universal rule - just a trend I see over and over.

The chances I use range wildly depending upon circumstance, and I give bonuses and penalties on the fly to adjust for circumstance. This is something that has 10,000,000 or so variables - so you need to trust in your approximation skills.

 

[Yora]

I find hexes much more useful as a length approximation of curvy paths rather than as a unit of space. If you're in a forest or mountain area, you won't find most interesting locations by just wandering around. First someone needs to give you a hint where something can be found, and then you can try finding it based on the clues you've been given. The hexes only tell you how long it takes to get from one known point to another.

 

[not-so-newguy]

31 square miles is about 864,230,400 square feet, or 34,569,216 five foot squares. If they take one six second turn to search each square it will take them 57,615 hours to do so. If they do so 12 hours per day and 365.25 days per year they can complete the project in about 13.145 years. If the party has five members and they all search different squares at the same time it will take only about 2.629 years. By then they'll have to start searching all over, to find everything that has changed in the last 31 months.

Therefore the search will take forever...

I'll have to save this for my island of sisyphus adventure

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Commune with Nature. Done. It’ll take a few minutes. Plus travel time

 

[jgsugden]

Commune with Nature. Done. It’ll take a few minutes. Plus travel time

This brings up a good point - I run hexploration between levels 2 and 9. After 9 it begins to be a bit trivialized by magic.

 

[not-so-newguy]

Commune with Nature. Done. It’ll take a few minutes. Plus travel time

Good to know, but that's A 5th level spell. The druid wouldn't get that until 9th level. I'm fine with that

 

[overgeeked]

We're about to start Isle of Dread and one of the adventure hooks I have is filling out the unexplored area of Rory Barbarossa's map*. I'm unsure how long it would take for an adventuring group to properly explore a six mile hex in order for a cartographer to say "yep, definitely mark a little palm tree in that hex. It's all jungle here." I guess that simply moving from one side of the hex to the other side would not be enough (maybe I'm wrong though). So I need a base time of exploration as a point of reference.Then I can add in circumstantial factors like "is the party moving slowly and carefully" or "is there a ranger in the group."

*Rory Barbarossa's map

I default to the method used in Dark of Hot Springs Island. You automatically find the one important thing when you enter the hex. It doesn't mean you're there, at that location, only that you're aware of it. Like seeing the 100' tower (which you'd actually see from about 12 miles away, but anyway) that is the main points of interest in the hex. To find anything further, you spend a 4-hour watch exploring the hex...which yields another important point of interest or secret about a previous point of interest in the hex. Dark of Hot Springs Island usually has three main points of interest in each hex. The first is automatic, the second takes a 4-hour watch to find, the third takes a 4-hour watch to find. But you could go as deep as you wanted. Going with the predominant answer so far in the thread, "one day", that would give you enough time to find four big points of interest...but not necessarily explore them all.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Good to know, but that's A 5th level spell. The druid wouldn't get that until 9th level. I'm fine with that

Creative use of Locate Object could be good if you allow trees as objects. It only lasts 10 minutes though but you could target a type of tree and get the general density within 1000 feet. Is water an object? I wonder how that would ping if you used that spell.(probably, OMG, THERE'S WATER EVERYWHERE!)..but you, as a DM could allow it to find nearby pools or springs.