Uller
Adventurer
All the threads re short and long rests and the 6-8 encounters per "adventuring day" and Daily XP budget guidelines had me thinking about wilderness adventures. I'm running a PbP group through OotA and they just came to a new wilderness area that I want to be a fun challenge for them.
To me, there are two types of wilderness travel in D&D: Trivial and non-trivial. Trivial wilderness travel is the kind that fits the narration style described in the DMG. It might include a minor encounter or two or some other challenge but for the most part there is no question that the PCs will manage to get where they want to go with little difficulty and it is not meant to be the focus of a game session or adventure. I think it is important for players to experience some combats and other challenges that are trivially easy from time to time. They serve a purpose of giving flavor and illustrating to the players how their PCs fit in the world. For instance, at 1st level, a couple of orcs could drop or even kill a PC. At 5th, they are barely a bump. The players see how their characters have grown.
Anyway...it is the non-trivial wilderness travel that I am looking at. Following OotA by the book, the current trek that my party is facing would entail about 20 days of travel through what is supposed to be dangerous wilderness. I am supposed to make a check every 4 hours. There is a 25% chance of a terrain "challenge" and a 25% chance of a creature encounter (and they can overlap). The encounters span from trivial to Deadly+ for the party. That's 120 random checks and will work out to around 30 creature encounters and 30 terrain encounters...With the limited number to choose from there will be a good deal of repetition and with 20 long rests that means most days will have 1 or 2 encounters. PbP is already very slooowwww...so obviously this method would be pretty boring and probably not much of a challenge.
So I came up with something a little different.
One of the interesting things in stories about wilderness treks is the protagonists trying to navigate from one safe place to another over several days. You gotta get to that next town, oasis or island to rest and resupply before setting out again.
So here is what I came up with:
Difficulty Tier: Assign a difficulty tier to the area. This gives you a base number for skills checks (which can be adjusted depending on circumstances. Maybe navigation is easier in the area but foraging is harder). It also gives you the range of encounter difficulty. For my group, the party is 4th level and I want the area to be a reasonable challenge for 3rd to 5th level characters. So I set the base DC to 13 and encounter range from about 500 xp to 4000 xp.
Legs of the journey and resting: Next I divided the travel into legs. Long rests can only be taken at a safe place and those places are few and far between. Sleeping in the wilderness while traveling only prevents exhaustion. It does nothing for replenishing hp, hd and class features unless you stop and rest for 24 hours...yes, this means there must be some time pressure on the party to make the trek in a reasonable time. In my group's case, they are being pursued AND stopping for 24 hours would mean more encounters that would get progressively tougher so resting for 24 hours would be very difficult and dangerous. Long rests also do not replenish HP unless you are in a very comfortable and safe location. So they only get half their HD back plus class features at the end of each leg.
Short rests are not really taken. Instead they are just a limited resource that can just be used whenever. The number they get are dependent on pace because it is assumed that while traveling they are stopping for occasional breaks or varying how fast they travel at different times. You get three for a slow pace, two for a normal pace and none for a fast pace. Pace for the leg is the average for the entire leg...If the party decided to vary it's pace, the DM determines the consequences of that. For instance, maybe they are going at a fast pace but then decide to slow down to take some rests. The DM might decide they only get one short rest it adds some time to how long it takes to finish the leg or an encounter is added.
Certain spells can add a short rest or make the long rest restore all HP or maybe make the leg take less time.
Divide the journey into however many legs seems interesting. In my case, I divided the 20 day trip into three legs. The party must make for a safe grotto in the underdark where there is lots of fresh water to replenish water supplies and then they have to make for a set of locks and waterfalls that travelers use to change elevation that has some comfortable and fortified resting places. After the third leg they will arrive at their destination. So one leg will take 6 days, the second will take 8 days and the final leg 6 days (I determined these randomly actually...2d4+2).
Supply: Instead of tracking specific supplies I just determined that for food the party is in good supply for food for the entire trip. As long as their supplies are not lost or destroyed (which they could be...they are on boats) they will be able to eat normal rations for the entire trip. For water they have enough to be in good supply for one leg. There are three levels of supply: Good supply, poor supply or out of supplies (food and water each have their own track). Poor supply means they are on half rations and must make daily DC 10 con saves to avoid gaining a level of exhaustion. The DC goes up every two days. Out of supply means DC 15 con saves that go up every day. Different events can cause changes in their supply level. Successful foraging can extend it. Supplies being lost or damaged can diminish it.
Spells like Goodberry, Purify Food and Drink and Create Water can help extend supply or mitigate effects of poor supply.
Becoming lost: If the party becomes lost, their pace is reduced one increment without gaining rests OR they can choose to make a DC 10 con save to stay on pace OR their supplies are diminished and time is added. Failure means gaining a level of exhaustion.
Encounters and challenges: Set up a series of encounters for each leg. Choose them randomly, choose some that are just interesting. Make some tough, some easy, some in between and some that are best avoided. In case my players read this I'll leave out the details but I will say I have enough planned that they will feel pressure to rest more. I took into account the encounters per "day" and Daily XP budget but didn't stick to it like it was gospel.
Anyway...those are my thoughts. It's a little more complicated than that but this post is long enough. We'll see how it plays out (here.if you want to follow it.
To me, there are two types of wilderness travel in D&D: Trivial and non-trivial. Trivial wilderness travel is the kind that fits the narration style described in the DMG. It might include a minor encounter or two or some other challenge but for the most part there is no question that the PCs will manage to get where they want to go with little difficulty and it is not meant to be the focus of a game session or adventure. I think it is important for players to experience some combats and other challenges that are trivially easy from time to time. They serve a purpose of giving flavor and illustrating to the players how their PCs fit in the world. For instance, at 1st level, a couple of orcs could drop or even kill a PC. At 5th, they are barely a bump. The players see how their characters have grown.
Anyway...it is the non-trivial wilderness travel that I am looking at. Following OotA by the book, the current trek that my party is facing would entail about 20 days of travel through what is supposed to be dangerous wilderness. I am supposed to make a check every 4 hours. There is a 25% chance of a terrain "challenge" and a 25% chance of a creature encounter (and they can overlap). The encounters span from trivial to Deadly+ for the party. That's 120 random checks and will work out to around 30 creature encounters and 30 terrain encounters...With the limited number to choose from there will be a good deal of repetition and with 20 long rests that means most days will have 1 or 2 encounters. PbP is already very slooowwww...so obviously this method would be pretty boring and probably not much of a challenge.
So I came up with something a little different.
One of the interesting things in stories about wilderness treks is the protagonists trying to navigate from one safe place to another over several days. You gotta get to that next town, oasis or island to rest and resupply before setting out again.
So here is what I came up with:
Difficulty Tier: Assign a difficulty tier to the area. This gives you a base number for skills checks (which can be adjusted depending on circumstances. Maybe navigation is easier in the area but foraging is harder). It also gives you the range of encounter difficulty. For my group, the party is 4th level and I want the area to be a reasonable challenge for 3rd to 5th level characters. So I set the base DC to 13 and encounter range from about 500 xp to 4000 xp.
Legs of the journey and resting: Next I divided the travel into legs. Long rests can only be taken at a safe place and those places are few and far between. Sleeping in the wilderness while traveling only prevents exhaustion. It does nothing for replenishing hp, hd and class features unless you stop and rest for 24 hours...yes, this means there must be some time pressure on the party to make the trek in a reasonable time. In my group's case, they are being pursued AND stopping for 24 hours would mean more encounters that would get progressively tougher so resting for 24 hours would be very difficult and dangerous. Long rests also do not replenish HP unless you are in a very comfortable and safe location. So they only get half their HD back plus class features at the end of each leg.
Short rests are not really taken. Instead they are just a limited resource that can just be used whenever. The number they get are dependent on pace because it is assumed that while traveling they are stopping for occasional breaks or varying how fast they travel at different times. You get three for a slow pace, two for a normal pace and none for a fast pace. Pace for the leg is the average for the entire leg...If the party decided to vary it's pace, the DM determines the consequences of that. For instance, maybe they are going at a fast pace but then decide to slow down to take some rests. The DM might decide they only get one short rest it adds some time to how long it takes to finish the leg or an encounter is added.
Certain spells can add a short rest or make the long rest restore all HP or maybe make the leg take less time.
Divide the journey into however many legs seems interesting. In my case, I divided the 20 day trip into three legs. The party must make for a safe grotto in the underdark where there is lots of fresh water to replenish water supplies and then they have to make for a set of locks and waterfalls that travelers use to change elevation that has some comfortable and fortified resting places. After the third leg they will arrive at their destination. So one leg will take 6 days, the second will take 8 days and the final leg 6 days (I determined these randomly actually...2d4+2).
Supply: Instead of tracking specific supplies I just determined that for food the party is in good supply for food for the entire trip. As long as their supplies are not lost or destroyed (which they could be...they are on boats) they will be able to eat normal rations for the entire trip. For water they have enough to be in good supply for one leg. There are three levels of supply: Good supply, poor supply or out of supplies (food and water each have their own track). Poor supply means they are on half rations and must make daily DC 10 con saves to avoid gaining a level of exhaustion. The DC goes up every two days. Out of supply means DC 15 con saves that go up every day. Different events can cause changes in their supply level. Successful foraging can extend it. Supplies being lost or damaged can diminish it.
Spells like Goodberry, Purify Food and Drink and Create Water can help extend supply or mitigate effects of poor supply.
Becoming lost: If the party becomes lost, their pace is reduced one increment without gaining rests OR they can choose to make a DC 10 con save to stay on pace OR their supplies are diminished and time is added. Failure means gaining a level of exhaustion.
Encounters and challenges: Set up a series of encounters for each leg. Choose them randomly, choose some that are just interesting. Make some tough, some easy, some in between and some that are best avoided. In case my players read this I'll leave out the details but I will say I have enough planned that they will feel pressure to rest more. I took into account the encounters per "day" and Daily XP budget but didn't stick to it like it was gospel.
Anyway...those are my thoughts. It's a little more complicated than that but this post is long enough. We'll see how it plays out (here.if you want to follow it.
I was also running an OotA / Night Below mash-up, and created a massive Underdark encounter table. *If* you wanted something really deep and big for generating Underdark encounters, and don't mind filling in the gaps (and converting old AD&D material) yourself, here it is: 
