D&D 5E Rewarding Overland Travel

[BookTenTiger]

In another thread on the Exploration Pillar, I came up with the idea of using rewards instead of consequences for Overland Travel. I had a little free time, so I worked up a system!

Reward Instead of Cost

The idea of this system is to replace the consequences of a Random Encounter during the Overland Travel portion of the Exploration Pillar. When exploring a dungeon, the characters are naturally curious, wanting to know what's behind locked doors, inside trapped treasure chests, or beyond the monsters because there are rewards: treasure, quest goals, etc. On the other hand, I've found that many Overland Travel systems rely on a series of costs: rations, water, encumbrance, exhaustion, HP, HD, and so on.

The problem is that characters are really good at mitigating costs. In my own group, we wanted to play really crunchy 5e so we studied up on the rules of encumbrance, rations, resting, and so on... Then the Druid cast Goodberry, two characters had the Outlander background, the Goliath Barbarian could carry everyone's stuff (and everyone), and my own wizard quickly got Rope Trick. We quickly mitigated the costs of survival in the wilderness.

I propose flipping this on its head. Instead of a chance for a cost, Random Encounters should always have a chance for a reward.

These rewards can be trivial: fresh food or water, a bit of lore, some healing potions... but the encounters will now reward player curiosity and drive characters to explore more!

The Simple Solution: Roll for Rewards, not Dangers

My usual Random Encounter table is made up of a big list of monsters and environmental risks, with a smaller list of friendly or neutral NPC's or natural wonders.

I think this should be flipped! DM's should be rolling on a table of Rewards first! Then, the obstacles and risks can be decided.

Now just a note: I don't think this is appropriate for Dungeon Exploration. Dungeons already have a balance of rewards and risks planned out in advance. This system is meant for Overland Travel.

How It Would Work

Theoretically, a DM would add this system to whatever they are already using for Overland Travel. If you keep track of rations and water, great! If you have characters take on levels of Exhaustion, great!

The DM would also decide how often Random Encounters occur. Maybe they roll three times a day (that's what I do, Morning, Afternoon, Night). Maybe once a day. Maybe there's one encounter per journey.

When a DM decides there will be a Random Encounter, they roll on the following tables, or just use them for inspiration. Please note that these tables don't provide rules, just flavor. A DM is invited to deviate from these ideas, or just use them to generate other ideas. In other words, a cliff doesn't have to be a cliff. A Glyph of Warding doesn't have to be a Glyph of Warding.

The first table a DM uses is the Rewards Table. This creates a reward for whatever Exploration will follow. These rewards should be adjusted to the environment; while low-level characters will be glad to find a source of Fresh Water, for a 14th-level character that source of Fresh Water in the 82nd Level of Hell might have healing properties or allow them to cure Exhaustion levels.

Once the Reward is rolled, the DM then rolls on the Obstacles and Signs tables. The Obstacles Table generates an idea for what is preventing the characters from immediately accessing the reward. The Signs Table generates ideas for what catches the characters' notice in the first place. Keep in mind more clues and signs can be found, such as finding out what enemies are near, or what risks lie in wait.

Overland Travel Tables

Encounter Reward (1d6)

1. Treasure (1d4)
   1. Coins, Gems, and Art Objects
   2. Magic Item (common)
   3. Magic Item (uncommon)
   4. Useful Tools, Supplies, Weapons, or Armor
2. Resources (1d4)
   1. Food: hunting grounds, wild fruits and vegetables, or stored rations.
   2. Fresh Water: natural spring, ancient fountain, or stored bottles
   3. Magic Materials: adamantine, mithril, or material components
   4. Potions: healing potions, holy water, or alchemist's fire
3. Knowledge
   1. Information (1d6)
      1. about a local enemy (resistances, vulnerabilities, motivations, etc.)
      2. about a local settlement (secrets, alliances, thieve's guilds, etc.)
      3. about the current quest (secret doors, traps, treasures, etc.)
      4. about a treasure (reroll a random encounter with a Treasure Reward)
      5. about a shelter (reroll a random encounter with a Shelter Reward)
      6. about a shortcut (reroll a random encounter with a Shortcut Reward)
   2. Source (1d4)
      1. a hunter, turncoat, spy, adventurer, traveler, or hermit
      2. a tome, map, journal, scroll, or sign
      3. a mosaic, carving, statue, song, or legend
      4. a ghost, devil, talking animal, or awakened plant
4. Alliance (1d6)
   1. Helpful expert
   2. Enemy with information
   3. Merchant with goods for sale
   4. Local politician or nobility
   5. Important guild representative
   6. Traveler with knowledge (reroll on the Knowledge Reward table)
5. Shelter
   1. Lookout tower
   2. Deserted village
   3. Fortified outpost
   4. Secure cave
   5. Abandoned temple
   6. Crumbling castle
6. Shortcut (1d4)
   1. safe (no encounters)
   2. dangerous (characters will encounter enemies; roll on the Enemies Obstacles Table)
   3. difficult (characters will encounter natural obstacles; roll on the Natural Obstacles Table)
   4. magical (teleportation circle, flying rug, etc.)

Obstacles (1d4)

1. Natural Obstacle (1d6)
   1. cliff or gorge
   2. avalanche or fallen trees
   3. storm or exposure to the elements
   4. thorns or thick vegetation
   5. biting insets or poisonous pests
   6. thick fog or toxic miasma
2. Dangerous Enemies (1d4)
   1. easy encounter
   2. medium encounter
   3. hard encounter
   4. deadly encounter
3. Difficult to Locate (1d4)
   1. far away
   2. in a labyrinthine location
   3. purposefully hidden
   4. known only in legend or song
4. Magical Barrier (1d4)
   1. magical traps
   2. illusionary terrain
   3. glyphs of warding
   4. desecrated territory

Signs (1d6)

1. Gossiping Travelers (1d20)
   1. thieves
   2. merchants
   3. brigands
   4. hunters
   5. herbalists
   6. smithies
   7. sages
   8. bards
   9. captured enemies
   10. couriers
   11. soldiers
   12. knights
   13. exiled nobles
   14. caravanners
   15. mercenaries
   16. priests
   17. weary travelers
   18. cartographers
   19. toll takers
   20. bridge builders
2. Traces or Tracks
   1. old coins printed with the symbols of a long dead kingdom
   2. monstrous footprints
   3. footprints of hungry or thirsty beasts
   4. traces of fresh water or food
   5. signs of a recent battle
   6. signs of a battle from long ago
   7. torn pages from a book
   8. footprints from the indigenous population
   9. footprints of enemy scouts
   10. wagon wheel tracks
   11. torn bit of a banner
   12. footprints of a unique mount
   13. caravan tracks
   14. footprints of a roosting beast
   15. an ancient, overgrown road
   16. footprints of travelers
   17. broken branches and twigs leading in one direction
   18. footprints of outlanders, purposefully covered up
   19. an abandoned campsite
   20. lots of blood
3. Corpses (1d12)
   1. thieves
   2. monstrous guards
   3. travelers with fresh food or water
   4. beasts with fresh food in their claws, mouths, or bellies
   5. slain enemies
   6. slain adventurers
   7. a sage with blood-spattered notes
   8. couriers
   9. guards wearing the sigil of a noble house
   10. roosting beast
   11. caravanners
   12. a local hermit
4. Documents
   1. a treasure map
   2. a journal entry
   3. a song
   4. a lost letter home
   5. a hand-drawn map
   6. a merchant's itemized list of supplies
   7. a tome of lore
   8. a lost painting
   9. a letter of scholarly inquiry
   10. a scroll sealed with a signet ring
   11. an order signed by a knight
   12. an intercepted letter of political import
   13. written directions on a scrap of parchment
   14. a letter from a guest
   15. a charcoal sketch
   16. a coded letter
   17. an ancient traveler's tale
   18. a star map
   19. a will
   20. a wanted poster
5. Signs and Carvings (1d12)
   1. a hand-carved sign
   2. codes carved into trees and rocks
   3. an old, cracked wooden sign
   4. the carved sigil of an old merchant house
   5. statues of legendary heroes
   6. signs carved in an enemy language
   7. sigils of important factions carved into trees or stones
   8. the word HELP, BEWARE, or DANGER quickly slashed into an old stump
   9. statues of an ancient ruler forgotten to time
   10. an overgrown archway that once stood over a common road
   11. signs naming a village that no longer exists
   12. carvings into overgrown cobblestones of horses or other common animals
6. Magical Signs
   1. ghost
   2. programmed illusion
   3. consecrated ground
   4. trickling stream of holy water
   5. magic mouth
   6. animal messenger
   7. alarm spell
   8. glyphs of warding
   9. spirits of the former inhabitants of a lost village
   10. wandering animated objects
   11. druid signs
   12. unnatural changes to the environment

Two Examples: Low-Level and High-Level

I'm going to create some examples of Random Encounter using this system, using imagined adventures for a 2nd-Level Group and a 14th-Level Group.

Encounters in the Witchwoods (2nd Level)

The first example will be a 2nd-Level Group traveling through the Witchwoods to a big dungeon called Blind Bear Hollow, a series of caves beneath the roots of a gargantuan oak tree. As a DM, I've sketched out some ideas of what the Witchwoods are like: a big tangle of trees, branches, and briars. There are goblins and worgs who work for a nearby hag. It'll take three days for the characters to reach Blind Bear Hollow. There's a 10% chance for a Random Encounter, which I roll three times a day.

Encounter 1:

On the first afternoon I roll a Random Encounter! I roll a Reward, Obstacle, and Signs.

Reward: Shortcut (safe - no encounters)
Obstacle: Dangerous Enemies (hard encounter)
Signs: Signs and Carvings - statues of an ancient ruler forgotten to time

While traveling, the rogue scouting ahead sees the statue of some ancient queen, worn smooth by rain and time. It's standing above the entrance to an old tomb. The characters will find out that this tomb is a shortcut, a tunnel beneath a series of hills with a thick growth of trees. It'll cut a day off their travel. Using a Random Encounter Generator, I create a Hard Encounter: a Goblin Boss, two Goblins, and a Wolf. These goblins have set up a camp here, and don't like intruders!

Encounter 2:

The next evening I roll another Random Encounter. So once again I roll a Reward, Obstacle, and Signs. Here's what I get:

Reward: Resources (potions)
Obstacle: Magical Barrier (desecrated territory)
Signs: Corpses (caravanners)

The group notices corpses of caravanners near a big gnarled tree. When they approach, they all have to make Wisdom Saving Throws or become Frightened of the tree! The Wizard uses an Arcana check to recognize the area around this tree is Desecrated. The cleric makes a Medicine check and finds out these caravanners died of fright! The Barbarian gets buffed up with some Saving Throw bonuses and charges in. In the hollow of the tree they find a few Healing Potions, brewed by the local hag. Meanwhile, the Cleric starts rituals to cleanse the souls of the caravanners and bury them away from the evil tree. And the rogue searches around for where these people left their cart... maybe there's something valuable!

Encounter 3:

On the way back out of the dungeon, the characters again head towards that useful Shortcut! Luckily they drew it on their map. I roll a Random Encounter on the morning of their last day in the Witchwoods...

Reward: Resources (magical resources)
Obstacle: Natural Obstacles (thorns or thick vegetation)
Signs: Magical Signs (glyph of warding)

On the final day, the group is passing through some very thick briar patches, hacking and slashing, when they come upon a clearing that looks like it was hit by a tornado! On the far side of the clearing is a massive thicket of dry, thorny vines. At the front of this thicket, the vines have been curved and shaped into an odd glyph. This a Glyph of Warding, set by the local hag to protect some valuable magical materials inside the thicket. If a character approaches too close, the triggered Glyph casts the spell Dust Devil! Inside the thicket, the characters find three leather bags with 50 gp worth of Ruby Dust in each, perfect for the now 3rd-Level Cleric's Continual Flame spell!

Encounters in the Fractured Lands (Level 14)

A group of 14th-level characters is traveling in the Fractured Lands, an area torn apart by planar forces. They're heading to a kingdom of Genasi who live on a floating bit of earth above the arctic sea. I'm imagining the Fractured Lands as a series of volcanoes, but each erupts with a different element: fire, cold, acid, lighting... This is a long journey, two full weeks, and the characters are most likely flying around. Because of the elemental forces, the characters must make Constitution Saving Throws three times a day or take on a level of Exhaustion (max: 3). I don't want to interrupt the journey too often, so I roll for Random Encounters once a day.

Let's say during the journey they have three random encounters...

Encounter 1:

Reward: Shelter (deserted village)
Obstacle: Dangerous Enemies (medium encounter)
Signs: Traces or Tracks (footprints of an enemy scout)

The group's ranger finds footprints of half-dragon scouts emerging from a cave in the nearby obsidian cliffs. This cave leads to an underground abandoned village, now home to a camp of four half-red-dragon veterans. The cave keeps the village protected from the exhausting heat of the volcano, allowing the group to rest without having to make Constitution Saving Throws!

Encounter 2:

Reward: Knowledge (of a local enemy from a hunter, turncoat, spy, adventurer, traveler, or hermit)
Obstacle: Magical Barrier (magical traps)
Signs: Gossiping Travelers (bridge builders)

This is a high-level area, so those bridge builders are not ordinary! In fact, they're celestials, building a Planar Bridge that will eventually allow other celestials to use the Fractured Lands to journey to different planes. They tell the characters that there's a local Hermit, a Deva who prefers to live in the Fractured Lands, and who is an expert on the Fiendish Dragons who are the most powerful enemies in the territory. However, they should be careful, they hear he's surrounded his abode with magical traps! Using a Random Trap Generator (thank you, internet!) I develop a Lightning Coil Trap, and I like the idea of the Hermit living on a Lightning Volcano, trapping and using the lightning for strange planar experiments! If the characters get through the trap, the Hermit will tell them of the Resistances and Vulnerabilities of the various Fiendish Dragons who rule over the Fractured Lands.

Encounter 3:

Reward: Alliance (enemy with information)
Obstacle: Difficult to Locate (purposefully hidden)
Signs: Signs and Carvings (signs naming a village that no longer exists)

While flying about, the characters start to notice odd floating cobblestones, and finally a sign floating in mid-air, held aloft by a propeller! It points to an old floating Modron City that long ago was destroyed by an eruption from an Acid Volcano below. However, in the direction the sign points, the characters notice a big, unnatural storm cloud, just floating there. It turns out one of the Air Genasi Pirates (enemies of the kingdom they're traveling to) was injured in a recent attack. They've hidden themselves inside a big summoned storm cloud. If the characters can locate the Pirate and give them healing, they'll give the characters a token of gratitude, which will be useful in any future encounters with Air Genasi Pirates!

Conclusion: Rewarding Exploration

My hope with this system is to create opportunities that reward players for exploring more, rather than focusing their efforts on mitigating costs.

So what do you think? Would this be useful?

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I'm intrigued.

 

[tetrasodium]

I've tried doing things like this & logically it should work but there are a few unique problems 5e creates. The biggest stumbling blocks I see this running into:

• As you noted carrying capacity is so high that it might as well not even exist as a limitation in the rules so resources and such are pointless... then there is goodberry create food/water outlander etc.
• Skills are so simplified that anything adding to one thing adds to a ton of things & gets very powerful very fast.
• Bounded accuracy & unsupported "optional" magic items gives you as the gm zero room to scribble in cool little things players might care about.
• Everything above ensures that no matter what or how much money players gain from exploration you as the GM still have zero room to scribble in cool little things or magic items players might care about when they go shopping. It's a vicious cycle of simplified to let you fix it yourself with so many parts of the system fighting you that you simply can't fix it and still be playing 5e

 

[Faolyn]

I've tried doing things like this & logically it should work but there are a few unique problems 5e creates. The biggest stumbling blocks I see this running into:

• As you noted carrying capacity is so high that it might as well not even exist as a limitation in the rules so resources and such are pointless... then there is goodberry create food/water outlander etc.
• Skills are so simplified that anything adding to one thing adds to a ton of things & gets very powerful very fast.
• Bounded accuracy & unsupported "optional" magic items gives you as the gm zero room to scribble in cool little things players might care about.
• Everything above ensures that no matter what or how much money players gain from exploration you as the GM still have zero room to scribble in cool little things or magic items players might care about when they go shopping. It's a vicious cycle of simplified to let you fix it yourself with so many parts of the system fighting you that you simply can't fix it and still be playing 5e

I'm not sure what shopping (or bounded accuracy) has to do with finding stuff while exploring or while shopping. Especially when you consider there are probably dozens of websites and tons of books that contain huge lists of trinkets, treasures, weird objects, and minor magic items that can be found. Not every item has to give you a bonus to something to be cool.

 

[mrpopstar]

You've left home with a wilderness-focused party, so I would anticipate they're awesome in the woods, but there are still things to consider...

Outlander
An outlander can forage, navigate, or focus on watching for danger while traveling. They can't do all three, which is an important consideration

Goliath Barbarian
Carrying capacity is limited by the containers you carry on your person. Common sense and realism affords that you wear a backpack (which only holds 30 lb. of equipment), you strap a bedroll and a rope to it, you carry a waterskin (which only holds 1/2 a day's water), you maybe carry a pouch or component pouch (which only hold 1or 2 lb. of equipment), and you carry two or three weapons.

The goliath's powerful build is useful when you're pushing, dragging or lifting, but also when you have an unconscious ally that needs to be thrown over someone's shoulder, or a treasure chest to carry out of the dungeon. It's not for turning the guy into a pack mule.

Druid
Goodberry is a good spell. Sucks to be taxed with having to prepare it all the time, of course, but spells are a resource just like any other.

Wizard
I'm unsure what rope trick does for you in this example?

As for your proposal...

I love Dungeon Masters who tinker! Although there's nothing stopping anyone from simply populating their random encounter tables with more scenery, advantageous finds, and benign encounters. You can use the rules as written to do just that.

 

[R_Chance]

How about just giving them XP for seeing new things as they explore? More for unique / first time they encounter something (in example their first elf settlement), somewhat less for "new" things (say a different human town along the river), and less for typical things (say another midlands village that they've seen many of). You learn by exploring and seeing new things. Just set up some experience rewards, keep track of what they pass through and hand out the experience when they have time to consider what they've seen. You could vary XP by level, race / ancestry, background, class etc.

 

[Bolares]

The problem is that characters are really good at mitigating costs. In my own group, we wanted to play really crunchy 5e so we studied up on the rules of encumbrance, rations, resting, and so on... Then the Druid cast Goodberry, two characters had the Outlander background, the Goliath Barbarian could carry everyone's stuff (and everyone), and my own wizard quickly got Rope Trick. We quickly mitigated the costs of survival in the wilderness.

This is my main problem with 5e's exploration. It's so easy to make exploration cost free. I had to change how outlander and some other stuff work in Tomb of Anihilation so the survival aspect of it wasn't completelly negated by minimal character choices.

 

[aco175]

"Just whipped this up since you had some time". I want to play in one of your games, great job.

 

[mrpopstar]

This is my main problem with 5e's exploration. It's so easy to make exploration cost free. I had to change how outlander and some other stuff work in Tomb of Anihilation so the survival aspect of it wasn't completelly negated by minimal character choices.

Can you expand on this? What did you change about outlander's wanderer feature, or other things you mention?

 

[Bolares]

Can you expand on this? What did you change about outlander's wanderer feature, or other things you mention?

I had 2 outlanders, one druid and one ranger. They all deal in absolutes. One always finds food, the other never gets lost.... I talked with my players and made them very good at it (advantage in foraginf and double the proficiency when navigating) but not automatic successes.