How to make a swamp a unique environment?

[Quasqueton]

Help me come up with ideas for making adventure in a swamp more interesting, and more "swamp-like," than just having a different wandering monster chart.

What environmental things make a swamp adventure different than say travelling through a normal forest, or boating on a lake?

My first thoughts are bugs - swarms of little vermin biting the skin, getting in the eyes, and spreading diseases. How can this be worked in game mechanics? Should their be distraction penalties? A minor Fort save each day to avoid a disease? How do swamp animals avoid this aggravation and danger? Maybe having a natural armor bonus (+1 or better) protects the swamp creatures?

How to mechanically model the extreme humidity and moisture of a swamp? Some swamps are hot, some are cold, but all are wet. Is there something in the core rules that could "enforce" the problems with keeping things dry without having to create a new mechanic? If a new mechanic is needed, what should it be?

What other hazards and effects would adventurers find in a swamp, besides new monsters? Quicksand? How to work this mechanically into the environment?

I want to have the PCs really *feel* they are in a swamp, but I don't want to just punish them to the point of making the adventure unfun. How can a swamp adventure be different than a forest adventure beyond the monsters encountered?

I'd appreciate any help on this.

Quasqueton

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

What other hazards and effects would adventurers find in a swamp, besides new monsters? Quicksand? How to work this mechanically into the environment?

I'm interested in this too, Q!

Here's an idea I wrote for Horde Book 1 (originally sub-titled "A Swamp-full of Stirges):

Stirge-infested marshes are also likely to be teeming with small frogs, since the stirges will have devoured most of the larger predators which would normally keep the frogs in check. The frogs will fall silent whenever another creature draws near unless it can make a Move Silently check (base DC 25). The cessation of the frog chorus can both help and hinder the party, and can be used for dramatic effect either way.​

 

[drunkmoogle]

Lots of difficult, natural obstacles. Since this is difficult terrain to navigate in, movement costs are doubled, giving flying creatures/fast creatures an advantage. Note that you cannot 5' step in difficult terrain.

Pockets of poisonous gas escaping as a non-combat encounter.

Also, if the PCs do not have a guide, they may have to make many detours, as a swamp is usually uncharted and riddled with bodies of water of various sizes (which brings in the possibility of a water-based encounter).

Fort saves to fend off swamp diseases from insects (cause they ARE going to be bitten) could happen every day that they're in the ditches; perhaps giving them a circumstance bonus for insect netting.

Meeting the natives (NPCs) may also be interesting, but it may also be a good amount of work to set up :\.

 

[EricNoah]

PCs might want to track down an herbalist who can prepare an insect repellant (maybe it repels all normal insects plus has a chance of keeping giant insects away?).

More movement issues: no tumbling, hard to Move Silently, no running. Aquatic or amphibious creatures might not suffer the same penalties.

A swamp could have more than one degree of difficult terrain -- you could have relatively dry mounds, very wet or muddy bogs, areas with very high vegetation so visibility is just a few feet (and lots of concealment for nearby nasties).

You might want to refer to the environment portions of the 3.5 DMG. Let me see if I can dig up an SRD link here...

http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/wildernessAndEnvironment.html -- look about halfway down...

 

[Ibram]

What environmental things make a swamp adventure different than say travelling through a normal forest, or boating on a lake?

travling through a swamp is likely to involve both. I've visited a swamp on numerous occasions (the Great Dismal Swamp is about 15 minutes from where I live). Swamps combine solid ground, marshy ground, and areas completly under water.

My first thoughts are bugs - swarms of little vermin biting the skin, getting in the eyes, and spreading diseases. How can this be worked in game mechanics? Should their be distraction penalties? A minor Fort save each day to avoid a disease? How do swamp animals avoid this aggravation and danger? Maybe having a natural armor bonus (+1 or better) protects the swamp creatures?

animals that survive to adulthood tend to be a bit tough, that is they dont easily fall prey to sickness. They also may have evolved slightly to develope immunites to the diseases native to the swamp (remember that Sickle Cell disease offers some protection from Malaria)

one way to represent the various diseases is to chose three DC's and cycle throgh them. Depending on how big you want the threat of disease to be you could call for fort saves 1/day or 1/12 hrs.

How to mechanically model the extreme humidity and moisture of a swamp? Some swamps are hot, some are cold, but all are wet. Is there something in the core rules that could "enforce" the problems with keeping things dry without having to create a new mechanic? If a new mechanic is needed, what should it be?

Humidity does more then agravate the heat, it affects the equipment carried by the party as well. more specifilcy the leather (which all armor encludes) and the wood (such as bows) items that the party carries. This would lead to decreased effecivness of bows (perhapse a -1 to -3) and armor (increase armor check penalty by -1 to -3).

What other hazards and effects would adventurers find in a swamp, besides new monsters? Quicksand? How to work this mechanically into the environment?

Quicksand: Spot DC 20, Search DC 15; Ref DC 15 to avoid, if save fail then STR check DC 25 to escape, character starts suffocating in 1d6+3 rnds.

there may be other "natural" traps like sudden changes in water depth (water filled pit traps), or entangling roots.

 

[Ibram]

Holy Double Posts Batman!!!!!

 

[res]

I'd definatly limit their movement. Let them know that they are ankle to knee deep in muck. Also, I'd make anyone trying to move more than a single move take a balance check to prevent from tripping over something or slipping on something. I wouldn't make it an insane check, maybe only DC 5, but something to leave the possibility of them slipping and falling over into the muck.

I'd also play up the smell of the place. Most swamps don't exactly have the most desirable odors.

 

[Rel]

While the "disease spreading horde of biting insects" appeals to my RBDM side, I've been on the player side of that one and it was very frustrating. The problem was that we got afflicted with this disease and started losing stat points (Str and Con as I recall). We were too low level to have Lesser Restoration and so we had to rest and use the Heal skill to try and recover. But of course while we were resting we were still in the swamp and so the party members who weren't infected when we started resting became so while we were trying to recover. Thus we got into this seemingly endless cycle of Fort saves and rest periods while we hoped we didn't get attacked.

Eventually we made contact with a tribe of Bullywugs who traded with us and thus we obtained this salve that kept the insects at bay. If you are going to implement some sort of disease, I recommend that you have a similar method of dealing with it unless you are shooting for a "Death Swamp - Nobody Goes In There and Survives!" sort of feel.

Another hazard that you could implement is navigation, particularly if you have a changing landscape. There are swamps in the southeastern US (and I presume other places as well) where the "land" that dots them is actually nothing more than floating mounds of vegitation. As such, they can move around and cause a great deal of confusion for those trying to navigate by them. For additional fun, have the islands in the swamp be on the backs of giant turtles, crabs or snails.

Most creatures that dwell in the swamp will have learned to use the environment to their advantage. In areas that are deeper water they'll probably try to capsize any boats the party uses. They should also use hit and run tactics to appear from nowhere and strike before sinking back into the water and coming at the party from another angle. Smart foes will use this to get at any "soft" targets (like Wizards and Sorcerers) if they can draw the heavy hitters away from them.

Lastly, though I think it goes without saying: Giant Crawfish! They'll kill you if they can, but they sure do taste good!

 

[scholz]

There are a couple simple and some more complex methods to get teh feel. It depends how long you imagien them to be there.
1. Fatigue - Change the forced marching time from 8 hrs to 1 hour. After one hour of treking through the hot steamy humid swamp characters must make fort saves or take sub-dual damage (you could be harsh and add armor check penalties as well to that save to show how difficult trekking through with platemail and hevay weapons).
2. Concealment - Give everyone concealment 10% - 50% or so. This gets to be a pain in combat, but it will give an appropriate sense of danger when they are in the thick (imagine dozens of arrows flying at them, not hitting them, ut it will scare there, and little they could do in response, it makes many weak foes more threatening).
3. Water... A little bit of water can wreak havoc on a party, especially if armored. Alligators grabbing and dragging under water is pretty henious.
4. Getting Lost. Give a generic survival check to get lost. Say DC 10-20. Then after traveling for an hour they get a role, use the grenade-like weapons chart to determine where they are. Or some other mechanism. I find having them eventually get back to where they were a few hours ago is the best method of demonstrating the challenge of the swamp. You'd be surprised how soon thereafter party members decide to find some way out of the swamp (spells etc..)
5. Circumstance penalties - These can be used for combat, skills and other roles (even saves and such). Give the native criiters (alligators, snakes, boars, etc..) freedom from such penalties and even pretty lower challenge rating monsters can become a serious threat.
6. I wouldn't worry about diseases, since they are so easy to cure, although, it does reduce the number of spells available to clerics and druids. --But subtle poisons can be effective as well and quicker acting (eg swamp gas = fort dc 13 -1d6 wis) (eg stinging nettles = fort save 8 -1d4 dex) those things can be realing annoying.


These are all negative (or meant to provide challenges). I sould note that rangers and druids are well suited to handle all of these, and it gives them a real chance to shine in a game that they don't always seems so good.

I like the addition of moss and vine covered ruins (I saw these for real in the jungles of Belize where you couldn't walk a 100 yards in the forest without stumbling over a block of stone from some ancient ziggurat). I wil the idea of magical properties and illusions in the swamps (aboleth are my favorite high level monster in swamps).

Any way. I think swamps offer a lot, it is important that the players know about the efects though. You shouldn't hide this stuff, if you do and then say... oh by the way you are all infected with disease.. your players will rebel, but if they know they might get infected it will have the same effect.

 

[EricNoah]

Instead of a stat-draining disease, how about a lesser condition such as fatigued? Maybe being plagued with insects at night keeps the heroes from resting properly?