Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Torx" data-source="post: 1555583" data-attributes="member: 2730">How do you begin generic outdoor random encounters?  I'm talking the good 'ol fashioned "party is tromping along and see some bugbears" type of encounters.  Assuming fairly bland, generic landscape during normal weather and vision, at what distance do each of the parties see each other?  At what distances do listen/spot checks come into play?  This question is valid for flat and grassy, barren, rural, desert, arctic, underwater, aerial, and other areas.Or another way to ask: what is a good distance for these encounters to begin?  When is initiative rolled?  I find that beginning these encounters too far away (in the hundreds of feet) largely disadvantages the melee characters.  I'm afraid some players with such characters dread random encounters that begin too far away as they rarely get to fight without the opponents already having taken significant ranged damage.  Also, I can't see a plausible reason for two groups not to see each other without majorly tweaking the surrounding landscape just for this purpose.My players' characters are at medium levels right now, 6th, if that makes a difference to anyone.  I don't use random encounters terribly often, and this is largely because I find the distance issue very akward when it's fairly flat and generic landscape.And perhaps to expand the question, at what distances do you begin random encounters in other landscapes such as wooded, mountainous, hilly, cavernous, urban, etc.?</blockquote>

Verification