The Crimson Binome
Hero
Whatever the benefit of a good rest is, you probably don't want it to be too great, because every party eventually ends up spending every night in their portable luxury super-mansion.
Making a camp
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
Yeah, I'd be very cautious about giving any benefit from having a rest, I mean do you want to reward the PC's for effectively doing nothing? By definition, camping outdoors should, at best, be the same as a night's rest in a luxury hotel, so using your idea, a night's rest in a safe city place always gives inspiration or suchlike?
The default 5e rules are already super-generous with a Long Rest - you get half your hit dice back, and all your hit points back, so one good night's rest and you are virtually fully re-set, two nights and you are 100%. Personally, I remove the hit points re-set, so at least day-by-day "turn of events" has a chance of whittling down resources (spells, hit dice, rations etc) and providing some interesting choices for the players (at least for lower levels - towards high levels, spells etc pretty much provide a daily reset button regardless).
I've only really tried to make overland travel a point of interest once recently, it worked OK, but not really as I expected it to; still too much grind of players doing the same kind of thing every day, rolling some dice, maybe losing some resources... The reason I used it, was because the journey was difficult and the challenge was "can you get to the Eye of the All Father, before running out of resources, and even if you do get there, how munted are you?" Because the journey was up into the Spine of the World, snow, ice and altitude were an ongoing and increasing threat, so simply holing up and resting a few days wasn't really an option - it's like climbing Mt Everest, you need to get there and get down asap before you die trying.
So I used the Navigation rules from a recent UA, and collated all the rules in PHB and DMG into a one-page cheat-sheet. Then I added a rule or two specific to the challenges of the mountains - some "random encounters" were with environmental challenges not just monsters, also each day you had a number of cliffs etc to traverse, and overnight you had to make Con(survival) checks with escalating DC from the debilitating effects of cold, wind, altitude etc. Instead of tracking HP, I just tracked "loss of Hit Dice", with failures resulting in loss of Hit Dice and/or Max Hit Dice (then Exhaustion, when HD run out). My players by-passed any real combats, but I did have a little "mini game" for combat in mind, a bit like Risk, which again just sped it up and resulted in loss if net Hit Dice. Each day, you could recover half your lost hit dice, but because my group wasn't very good at climbing etc, they got to the Eye with a couple of PC's fairly beaten up from the journey. They had plenty of rations, so didn't run out of food despite never successfully foraging. I didn't bother making a point of "how do you make camp?", especially after the first night, because basically they put up their big tent, got out their bed rolls, and went to sleep with the usual turns of watch - once you've got the standard order of events, there's no interesting decisions left for the players to make.
So that's my advice - focus on the Goal(s), then what Choices you expect your players to have to make in order to reach the Goal(s). If you can't come up with anything interesting, just flag it.
I'd never use this again, unless there was a compelling reason to try and make the actual journey an important part of the adventure. Mostly, I just hand-wave it with a few lines of description, maybe throw a "random encounter" in near the end / just before the destination, but even with my house-rule on hit point recovery, generally whatever happens on the journey from A to B is of no real consequence once the PC's get to B, so I don't labour it unless there's some specific plot points on the way.
The default 5e rules are already super-generous with a Long Rest - you get half your hit dice back, and all your hit points back, so one good night's rest and you are virtually fully re-set, two nights and you are 100%. Personally, I remove the hit points re-set, so at least day-by-day "turn of events" has a chance of whittling down resources (spells, hit dice, rations etc) and providing some interesting choices for the players (at least for lower levels - towards high levels, spells etc pretty much provide a daily reset button regardless).
I've only really tried to make overland travel a point of interest once recently, it worked OK, but not really as I expected it to; still too much grind of players doing the same kind of thing every day, rolling some dice, maybe losing some resources... The reason I used it, was because the journey was difficult and the challenge was "can you get to the Eye of the All Father, before running out of resources, and even if you do get there, how munted are you?" Because the journey was up into the Spine of the World, snow, ice and altitude were an ongoing and increasing threat, so simply holing up and resting a few days wasn't really an option - it's like climbing Mt Everest, you need to get there and get down asap before you die trying.
So I used the Navigation rules from a recent UA, and collated all the rules in PHB and DMG into a one-page cheat-sheet. Then I added a rule or two specific to the challenges of the mountains - some "random encounters" were with environmental challenges not just monsters, also each day you had a number of cliffs etc to traverse, and overnight you had to make Con(survival) checks with escalating DC from the debilitating effects of cold, wind, altitude etc. Instead of tracking HP, I just tracked "loss of Hit Dice", with failures resulting in loss of Hit Dice and/or Max Hit Dice (then Exhaustion, when HD run out). My players by-passed any real combats, but I did have a little "mini game" for combat in mind, a bit like Risk, which again just sped it up and resulted in loss if net Hit Dice. Each day, you could recover half your lost hit dice, but because my group wasn't very good at climbing etc, they got to the Eye with a couple of PC's fairly beaten up from the journey. They had plenty of rations, so didn't run out of food despite never successfully foraging. I didn't bother making a point of "how do you make camp?", especially after the first night, because basically they put up their big tent, got out their bed rolls, and went to sleep with the usual turns of watch - once you've got the standard order of events, there's no interesting decisions left for the players to make.
So that's my advice - focus on the Goal(s), then what Choices you expect your players to have to make in order to reach the Goal(s). If you can't come up with anything interesting, just flag it.
I'd never use this again, unless there was a compelling reason to try and make the actual journey an important part of the adventure. Mostly, I just hand-wave it with a few lines of description, maybe throw a "random encounter" in near the end / just before the destination, but even with my house-rule on hit point recovery, generally whatever happens on the journey from A to B is of no real consequence once the PC's get to B, so I don't labour it unless there's some specific plot points on the way.
Last edited:
Ganymede81
First Post
It sounds like you're saying members of the camp should decide whether they're the Gladio, the Ignis, the Noctis, or the Prompto.
MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
Yeah, I've had to bite my tongue before when a DM tries to claim how my character wouldn't be rested doing things I've done myself in real life.
Uncomfortable is subjective and modern, rich-nation notions of "comfort" would be unattainable in the medieval ages and are unattainable to many people living today.
I know some DMs don't allow long-rests during wilderness travel, which I've always found ridiculous.
If I were to use a camping/survival minigame, it would be more about how well you are able to manage your resources. Clean water and food are going to be much bigger concerns than sleep or rest in the wilderness. Also, maintaining your clothes, weapons, armor, and other equipment are going to be a challenge. If you have horses, thats even more to manage. But that kind of bookkeeping slows down the game in my experience.
Better is to just have a group survival check. If the party fails, they lose or burn through double/triple the normal rations rations, they contract waterborne illness, a horse dies, their equipment gets soaked and they don't get the benefits of a long rest because they have to try to re-oil weapons and armor, dry out clothes, and otherwise try to mitigate the damage.
My problems with group checks, though, it it removes a chance for certain characters to shine. If you have a ranger, in his or her favored terrain, and a high survival skill bonus, why couldn't that player act as the guide to the party and make the roll?
Do we have a ranger/barbarian etc who can hunt for/provide food and or find a suitible campsite? Check
Do we have druid/ranger/bard(?) who can cast goodberry? Check (food issues gone right there)
Do we have someone who can cast purify food & drink? Check
Do we have a Leomund's Tiny hut to sleep in? Check
Do we need more detailed camping rules than that in this edition? I love old school resource management but IMO you are fighting against the stream of intentions in 5E with that approach. The game seriously glosses over lots of the stuff that in earlier editions that made them fun for some of us.
Do you go through the process of rolls for the sake of rolls each and every night on the trail? ("My cleric gives you guidance on your check" ad naseum). Or do you hand wave it and assume everyone is doing their particular role as that is what they are assumed to be trained/experienced in doing?
Me, apart from rolling wandering monster checks and hitting them with the odd bit of bad weather I assume they know what they are doing in the wilderness. I often ask what kind of place they want to camp and may have one of them make a roll to see if they find somewhere suitable/that matches their description then leave it at that. If they rolled well and we do have a random encounter at night I get the player who found the camp site draw it out on a map though may modify it slightly.
I do like Isereth's group check idea but it can be easily negated once pcs get to certain levels- my own ToA game my guys were 6-9th level hitting the jungle so had plenty of options to minimise the threats of the wilderness so handwaved many of them as being irrelevant.
Stormdale
Raith5
Adventurer
Yes, but I also remember someone on these forums who served in the US armed services who recounting a story of sleeping 300 yards away from an active howitzer battery. Fortunately I dont have any personal experience of this, but it expanded my notion of what people actually do in the real world vs what roleplayers think people can do in terms of rest.
Li Shenron
Legend
It's an interesting idea...
One thing I would want included, is the possibility of gaining back more HD than the usual half.
Another of course, could be advantage or automatic success on checks to remove ongoing negative conditions.
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