D&D 5E Lets speculate about the Rules for a new system for exploration.

[steeldragons]

Well, no, but if we're speculating about a set of Exploration rules, than the time unit for, specifically, "Exploration" parts of the game is relevant.

I concur with your ideas that movement and encumbrance become more important during exploration and require tracking.

Another thing that requires tracking is "survival" stuff, like how much food and water do you have? This has 2 problems. 1) The Survival Skill, if it exists in the game, kinda makes this not matter. 2) This kind of resource management, for many, is too akin to bean counting for them to want to bother in their games.

So how do you make it count? ......Don't look at me! I'm askin'!

Another thing I'd REALLY like to see back in the game -anywhere/everywhere, but it makes the most sense as part of an "exploration" module/rules- MAPPING! Make the Players make their own damn maps of where they are. The PCs have (in theory) never been where they are treading before, yet somehow, they can see a perfect layout of everywhere they are. I would like no more meta-gamey, "here's the map. you guys are here." (unless there's some story reason for it, like they have hunted down/paid for a full map of the place specifically for this expedition).

It doesn't really need "rules", but it needs mentioning and reinforcement that this is important to the game (i.e. you can easily get lost/turned around/trapped without it) and your characters don't have automatic knowledge of where they are, what leads where or (most likely like some players) have total recall/a perfect mental image of where they've been.

So...yeah, I think that'd make a nice Exploration module: time, movement & encumbrance, survival/resource tracking, mapping...and possibly some optional Search rules/modifiers/module or something for those who want that level of intricacy (while others can just ignore the Search and Survival stuff in lieu of using the Skills as written).

 

[Blackwarder]

Finally somthing concrete! I agree that resource tracking and the consequences of lacking food and water should be somthing to think about.

i don't see the survival skill being that important in a dungeon setting, In a wilderness setting it will need extra meat and substance.

One extra thing for the dungeon exploration should be traps, not the kind you add to the encounter as an extra monster but the one that can change the characters plans and throw a wrench into the game, from portal rooms to pit traps that plung the characters to a lower level to poisons and diseases that take affect over several turns.

Warder

 

[JoeCrow]

I'd like something like the Journey phase from The One Ring. That was the bit of that game that I (and the crew) liked best, rules-wise. Everybody gets a role to play, and there's actual consequences for screwing up your rolls (you're tired from scrambling through the woods all day, trying to get back on track, so you're easier to damage, etc.) Something like that would be awesome.

 

[Blackwarder]

Could you elaborate? I'm not familiar with that.

Warder

 

[JoeCrow]

Worked pretty much like this: the company is going to travel from one place to another, like from Rivendell to Lake-town, say. They pick a route on the map that they plan to follow, and that'll tell them about how long the trip should take. In the Journey phase, there's four Roles that specific party members can take (Guide, Hunter, Look-Out, Scout) and you usually pick those roles based on how high a certain skill relating to the role is. There's only one Guide, but the rest can have more than one player adopting them.

The map tells you what kind of terrain you're going though, and that tells you how hard the rolls are gonna be. Everybody makes fatigue rolls to see if you get Weary from travel, and if somebody botches the roll, a Hazard get activated. Sometimes it's just getting lost (adding to travel time) or some kind of environmental problem (snowstorm, flood, whatever) and sometimes it's an encounter. How the Hazard gets resolved depends on what kind it is; most get resolved by a skill check from the party member whose role matches the problem. Failing adds to Fatigue, and if you're too Fatigued at the end of the journey, you're weaker for the next episode (you get damaged easier, certain rolls are harder).

It's kind of an interesting system.

 

[Blackwarder]

So, I read through the journal rules of The One Ring, it's very interesting but it baked into the core of the game so I don't see them working like that in D&D.

I also don't think that what Mike had in mind considering that talked about turning exploration into some sort of a megadungeon that the group can explore.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to have an extensive* exploration rules module added to the game and have it baked right into the core rules, even if most groups won't use it. I think that having such module would round up such classes as the Ranger and the Druid for wilderness exploration and the rogue for dungeon exploration making them a key contributors outside of combat. I would also love to have an extensive* interactive rules module and having classes such as the Bard or the Paladin excel in that.

I think that we are in a stage in the play-test process that such things can happen but I won't bet on it .

Btw, I really dig the Fellowship phase of the game, I think it can really flash out the PCs and add substance to the game.

Warder

*By extensive I mean more than we have now which is practically none with no consequences on the mechanics.

 

[Blackwarder]

@JoeCrow Do you think that the journal phase of the game can best be described as an interactive skill challenge?
I've been thinking about it for the last couple of days and I must say that the system is very elegant, Just the fact that the chances for hazard goes up the more there are party members (due to more rolls) is genius.

The only way to add something like this into D&D is if you also add a wounds module into the game and change things so that HP are now the equivalent of fatigue and healing spells can only heal wounds, otherwise the base system works against you.

Warder

 

[JoeCrow]

Yeah, interactive skill challenge would probably describe it best. I don't think ripping the Fatigue effect out of the Journey phase would actually make that much of a difference. If you wanted to replicate that aspect of the rules module, you could do some kind of Weary condition thing that could limit your use of Hit Dice or something like that, and have it affect characters that fail the Constitution check part of the Journey until they take a long rest. So, it'd affect characters that hit random wandering monsters during the journey, or folks that don't take a night to rest up before they hit the dungeon they've been traveling towards.

But the core idea of a complex multi-player skill challenge that can trigger various effects (journey time, random encounters, hazardous environments), that should port over to DnDNext pretty easily.