Blog (A5E) Let’s Look At Exploration in Level Up

One of our primary goals with Level Up is to expand and fully flesh out the game’s exploration pillar. There are various ways we’re doing that: we’re giving all characters exploration knacks themed to their character class, we’re making a few tweaks here and there to spells and abilities which interact with that pillar, and we’re writing new journey rules.

Let’s Look At Exploration — Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition (A5E)

One of our primary goals with Level Up is to expand and fully flesh out the game’s exploration pillar.

www.levelup5e.com

 

[tetrasodium]

the encouragement for DMs to think in degrees of success.

This is an important thing to note. 5e is really bad at providing a rules framework for the gm to do this kind of thing & go off script making more advanced gm skills like winging things on the fly when players do the unexpected off script than it should be for a newer gm to pick up those skills. That's made worse because an experienced gm playing at the table can't even point at a set of rules and explain how they use them for winging a situation that might seem too much for the newer gm trying to get their bearings.

 

[GreekGeek]

This update I think was the best thus far and the one that convinced me to bite the bullet when the KS comes out. I would like an address to the Goodberries problem (I do not like that spell at all).

What I would like would be some more granularity in the supplies. Nothing major but food/water and general supplies would be enough for me. I would prefer a differentiation between the rope and pulleys I was forced to leave behind in the chasm, the pitons that block the door compared to the spoiled food in the desert or from the pests and the nutrition that we ave to carry for the PCs, animals, followers.

 

[Blue]

Nah. Low complexity 4e skill challenges worked fine for exploration. The system was built around everything being a skill check so it functioned. The main issues was large parties, high complexity challenge, or lack of creativity of the DM or players.

That last one is the key. Out of "getting lost", animal encounters, and minor natural hazard, people are creative on wilderness encounters. So freeform wilderness encounters without some natural knowledge is quickly boring and predictable.

"The system was build around everything being a skill check" - if by system you mean the skill challenges, that's correct and that's the problem. It ignored all of the other resources at your disposal. If by system you mean 4e, then you are forgetting AEDU and magic items at the least. Either way, this is a problem.

And "Nah" doesn't disprove that the math was bad and it didnt' do what it was supposed to. Here's a couple of links for you:

D&D 4E - Showing the Math: Proving that 4e’s Skill Challenge system is broken (math heavy)

Showing the Math: Proving that 4e’s Skill Challenge system is broken (math heavy) Showing the Math: Proving that 4e’s Skill Challenge system is broken. In this thread: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=4278599#post4278599 I have created a new skill challenge system to try and correct the...

www.enworld.org

Skill Challenge Analysis

As for your last point - I think we're in agreement that the concept of challanges is a good thing. Just that the 4e system was a poor mechanical subsystem for them.

 

[Minigiant]

"The system was build around everything being a skill check" - if by system you mean the skill challenges, that's correct and that's the problem. It ignored all of the other resources at your disposal. If by system you mean 4e, then you are forgetting AEDU and magic items at the least. Either way, this is a problem.

And "Nah" doesn't disprove that the math was bad and it didnt' do what it was supposed to. Here's a couple of links for you:

D&D 4E - Showing the Math: Proving that 4e’s Skill Challenge system is broken (math heavy)

Showing the Math: Proving that 4e’s Skill Challenge system is broken (math heavy) Showing the Math: Proving that 4e’s Skill Challenge system is broken. In this thread: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=4278599#post4278599 I have created a new skill challenge system to try and correct the...

www.enworld.org

Skill Challenge Analysis

As for your last point - I think we're in agreement that the concept of challanges is a good thing. Just that the 4e system was a poor mechanical subsystem for them.

The AEDU system, especially the U, was also built around skill checks. That was the point. Skill challenges, powers, rituals, magic items, where all based around skill checks.

The math being not as tight as it should have been doesn't matter since O5E and A5E use different math and number philosophy entirely.

 

[Blue]

The AEDU system, especially the U, was also built around skill checks. That was the point. Skill challenges, powers, rituals, magic items, where all based around skill checks.

The math being not as tight as it should have been doesn't matter since O5E and A5E use different math and number philosophy entirely.

Again false.

Say we have an exploration challange. And a character can fly. Useful for navigation, scouting, and traversing challenging terrain. Yet not a skill check, and no existing mechanical hooks to work into the challenge.

Can a DM ad hoc it? Of course, like they can ad hoc everything. Will different DMs who never met be consistant in how they handle it? Unlikely.

There are a huge amount of abilities, items, and utilities out there that do not modify a skill check. Please, engage with reality with your claims.

 

[Minigiant]

Say we have an exploration challange. And a character can fly. Useful for navigation, scouting, and traversing challenging terrain. Yet not a skill check, and no existing mechanical hooks to work into the challenge.

And you see. That's the core issue.

In D&D, the assumption of PCs having access to fly is level based.

Therefore an exploration challenge that is negated by flight is not of the appropriate level of the PCs if they have flight.

And that's my core issue. Most D&D players and DMs don't known what a mid level or high level exploration challenge is. Often, low level challenges are thrown at high level PCs and then people say "Magic negated it all anyway. Exploration is boring."

Now if you have magic winds and devil dust that forces ability checks to remain airborne or to see past your fingers, it would be appropriate for a mid tier party.

But info like that has to be provided since the D&D player community has been proven to not come up with it on their own.

 

[tetrasodium]

And you see. That's the core issue.

In D&D, the assumption of PCs having access to fly is level based.

Therefore an exploration challenge that is negated by flight is not of the appropriate level of the PCs if they have flight.

And that's my core issue. Most D&D players and DMs don't known what a mid level or high level exploration challenge is. Often, low level challenges are thrown at high level PCs and then people say "Magic negated it all anyway. Exploration is boring."

Now if you have magic winds and devil dust that forces ability checks to remain airborne or to see past your fingers, it would be appropriate for a mid tier party.

But info like that has to be provided since the D&D player community has been proven to not come up with it on their own.

It depends on what the pc is trying to fly over & your right that's important

• There is a pit/canyon with a long fall..
  • wooo... done meh
• There is a canyon/pit with an unchecked growth of Risian iceshard flowers known for being beautiful, fragile, and extremely lethal in part due to their direct link to risia
  • eek... PC with nature: how will these react to bob casting fly & carrying us over the pit one by one
    • GM: Your not sure, but planar infused plants are known to have rather violent reactions to the presence of certain spells & magic items crafted with ties to opposing planes... it's all very much cross your fingers & pray in a lot of cases
• There is a field with well patchy blighted grass resulting from the sort of breakdown you see when a field has been mined with certain types of wards
  • Caster: Are those wards triggered by walking over/near them or are they more active hunter killer stuff?
    • You've heard of both kinds & they can get fairly elaborate depending on who made the & why... There has been a lot of war in the area
• There is a ditch with war snake burrows in your way
  • eek: what do we know about war snakes after using our skills as a party?
    • GM: You all are pretty sure that their bottomless appetite explains the general sparseness of wildlife in the area... They hunt through all sorts of senses, are known to have spells grown into their skin for protection stealth & other stuff like invisibility. Really they are nasty pieces of work from expert magebreeders... it depends on how pure they are
    • pc's: Pure?
    • GM: Yea like how many generations since they were released & what they bred with since
• A pit caused by a planar manifest zone?
  • PCs:eek lets investigate the manifest zone to see where it is, where it connects to & so on.
• There is a canyon, just a canyon.. oh yea cannibal halflings are headed your way
  • PCs: how many?
  • GM: Like a whole tribe, you know what they want.
• there is a creek radiating blight into the environment around it, probably from the age of demons with that check bob.. it depends on which demon overlord caused the blight & how but you'd need to get closer & with your 23 int you are pretty sure that is less than entirely safe

edit: It's easy to make environmental challenges meaningfyl to higher levels by adding more stuff as the players chase a rabbit hole. Unlike the quantum ogre though PCs with useful skills they can leverage in creative/relevant ways wind up feeling awesome for being able to do some cool things with their skills.

 

[Imaculata]

I have a question. Are these 50 exploration challenges only obstacles, or do they also include other types of encounters? Because not everything you meet on your travels needs to be negative after all.

 

[James Harrison2]

Hey!
#First Post.

Just read the exploration article. It looks great. I really like The One Ring & Forbidden Lands, so bringing this to exist in D&D sounds fantastic.

Very minor point - I think you should have an "edge case" side ox that states if a critical success/failure is less good/bad than a normal one, then the normal one applies...e.g. If you have 7 or less supplies losing half could be not as awful as loosing 1d4 of them!

 

[Waller]

I have a question. Are these 50 exploration challenges only obstacles, or do they also include other types of encounters? Because not everything you meet on your travels needs to be negative after all.

Yeah, but those other things aren't exploration challenges.