D&D (2024) Should the environmental conditions scale by tier?

[jgsugden]

Generally no. However, if you want them to scale so that they continue to provide challenge, you could provide them with a reason to scale. It could be as simple as the campaign starting in fall and then seeing the weather worsen in winter ... or it could be that a BBEG is getting more and more powerful and impacting the weather... or it could be that a curse on the lands is slowly worsening.

Personally, I tend to think of challenges for PCs falling within certain tiers. Once they "age out" of a tier, the challenge tends to be ignored or resolved so that PCs no longer need to consider it. This keeps the game from dragging on with challenges that are insignifcant to the PCs clogging up our time. Here are some examples of what I mean:

Levels 1 to 4: The PCs need to plan their food, water, shelter and ammunition. By the time they hit level 5, these challenges will no longer be generally relevant. They may find magic food provision, have the Tiny Hut spell (or another magic shelter), have a quiver of Elhonna, or be able to hunt, forage, and create shelters due to skills. Regardless, even if there is no explanation, I just stop asking about these things.

Levels 5 to 10: This is where we start phasing out most mundane locks and traps. By this time, one PC tends to have a super high investigation and/or perception. When they get hit by a trap, they feel like I'm not respecting their investment. That is not fun. To keep the investment relevant I'll tell them when there was a trap, but make it clear it was not a challenge and they dealt with it.

Levels 11 to 20: By this point, travel is mundane. They can fly, teleport, or otherwise relocate without many threats. The journey stops being a significant part of the game. If they elect to travel by horseback between towns, I do not roll a random encounter .. because it just feels punitive to them because they lowered themselves to mundane transportation. I may say something along the lines of, "6 goblins decided to attack you as you began to set up camp ... do you kill them, capture them or do something else?" We won't throw a Bulette at them just to drain hps right before they rest.

 

[Clint_L]

No, why would they scale with level? That’s just nuts.

So that they pose a challenge. Otherwise...what's the point?

I wouldn't have them change in terms of their impact on the wider environment - an f5 tornado is an f5 tornado, or whatever. But I would definitely scale their damage so that they remain a significant threat to players.

My reasoning is narrative, but also has to do with how I see hit points. To me, hit points are representative of a character's ability to survive, and relatively little of that is physical, at least when it comes to playable species. Instead, I see them as primarily reflecting skill and experience, with a little more toughness thrown in.

This is why I don't cap, and in fact increase falling damage exponentially. It's why a high level barbarian who tries to swim through lava will just die pretty much instantly - in my game, I wouldn't even bother rolling damage in that scenario, I'd just tell the player "if they do that, they are dead."

So let's take a massive tornado - my reasoning is that human beings, and human being-like species, that are directly hit by one of those are probably going to die. That is a mortal threat, regardless of level, because that's what the story demands, unless we're doing a superhero story where characters are literally becoming physically invulnerable through HP, but that's not something that interests me.

It's not a "diving into lava means you die" level of lethality, but it's on par with falling damage. So I'm going to scale the damage so that, regardless of character level it feels like the mortal threat that an f5 tornado is. Higher level characters still have much better odds to survive because they have more tools to work with, and that's as it should be - skill and experience. But in terms of physical threat, they should be very, very afraid of throwing themselves into one.

I also very much disagree with phasing out traps and other sorts of challenges as characters level up. At tier 1, they are breaking into a locked warehouse. That is very different from breaking into the archmage's locked vault at tier 4, and players should expect that the difficulty and cleverness of obstacles will have increased - after all, if they got to that level of experience, so have others, and even higher. An archmage isn't going to just put a Chubb lock on the door and be done.

So yeah, if they need to break into a locked warehouse at tier 4 then it will be trivial. But not if they are trying to steal Bahamat's treasure or something.

 

[Clint_L]

When they get hit by a trap, they feel like I'm not respecting their investment.

How do you know they feel that way? And why would they?

To me, that's exactly like saying, "if I make them fight a tarrasque, they feel like I'm not respecting their investment," but I presume you keep raising the bar on the creatures they fight. So why do some kinds of obstacles count as disrespecting their investment, but not others?

 

[Sorinth]

So that they pose a challenge. Otherwise...what's the point?

I wouldn't have them change in terms of their impact on the wider environment - an f5 tornado is an f5 tornado, or whatever. But I would definitely scale their damage so that they remain a significant threat to players.

My reasoning is narrative, but also has to do with how I see hit points. To me, hit points are representative of a character's ability to survive, and relatively little of that is physical, at least when it comes to playable species. Instead, I see them as primarily reflecting skill and experience, with a little more toughness thrown in.

This is why I don't cap, and in fact increase falling damage exponentially. It's why a high level barbarian who tries to swim through lava will just die pretty much instantly - in my game, I wouldn't even bother rolling damage in that scenario, I'd just tell the player "if they do that, they are dead."

So let's take a massive tornado - my reasoning is that human beings, and human being-like species, that are directly hit by one of those are probably going to die. That is a mortal threat, regardless of level, because that's what the story demands, unless we're doing a superhero story where characters are literally becoming physically invulnerable through HP, but that's not something that interests me.

It's not a "diving into lava means you die" level of lethality, but it's on par with falling damage. So I'm going to scale the damage so that, regardless of character level it feels like the mortal threat that an f5 tornado is. Higher level characters still have much better odds to survive because they have more tools to work with, and that's as it should be - skill and experience. But in terms of physical threat, they should be very, very afraid of throwing themselves into one.

I also very much disagree with phasing out traps and other sorts of challenges as characters level up. At tier 1, they are breaking into a locked warehouse. That is very different from breaking into the archmage's locked vault at tier 4, and players should expect that the difficulty and cleverness of obstacles will have increased - after all, if they got to that level of experience, so have others, and even higher. An archmage isn't going to just put a Chubb lock on the door and be done.

So yeah, if they need to break into a locked warehouse at tier 4 then it will be trivial. But not if they are trying to steal Bahamat's treasure or something.

My personal take on this is that even though the players can in theory get hit by an F5 tornado at any level as DM I simply won't have that happen when they are at low levels because it's unfun. They will either be hit by less powerful tornados, or more likely the tornado won't hit them directly and simply be near to them so that they can see the destruction and deal with the aftermath.

 

[Lanefan]

Like many people, no.

[...]

Of course there is also the issue of "this is part of the story arc" where the PCs have to find out why weather is getting more severe and how to stop it.

I just ran something like this. The weather's been getting significantly colder and the winters longer over the last few years (directly if unintentionally caused by PC actions much earlier in the campaign) and a party went and found a way to fix it. Good thing too, as if left unchecked the planet would have become uninhabitably cold after another decade or so (ve-e-ery long story behind all this).

However, those long cold winters are affecting everyone equally regardless of their level or standing.

 

[billd91]

So that they pose a challenge. Otherwise...what's the point?

I wouldn't have them change in terms of their impact on the wider environment - an f5 tornado is an f5 tornado, or whatever. But I would definitely scale their damage so that they remain a significant threat to players.

<snip>

I also very much disagree with phasing out traps and other sorts of challenges as characters level up. At tier 1, they are breaking into a locked warehouse. That is very different from breaking into the archmage's locked vault at tier 4, and players should expect that the difficulty and cleverness of obstacles will have increased - after all, if they got to that level of experience, so have others, and even higher. An archmage isn't going to just put a Chubb lock on the door and be done.

So yeah, if they need to break into a locked warehouse at tier 4 then it will be trivial. But not if they are trying to steal Bahamat's treasure or something.

I'm not interested in challenging PCs with normal weather in your average campaign town - if weather or environment based challenges are going to increase, it's because the PCs are choosing to go to areas that happen to be more challenging. It's not going to happen automatically just because they're higher level. But it's got to be an explicit choice to do so among the players - if they choose to still be breaking into warehouses at higher level or dealing with camping and sleeping rough out in the elements, they're going to still deal with the same difficulties they had before or anyone else would have in their situation. And that may be easy or even trivial for them - yay, higher levels and their benefits.

 

[Clint_L]

I'm not interested in challenging PCs with normal weather in your average campaign town - if weather or environment based challenges are going to increase, it's because the PCs are choosing to go to areas that happen to be more challenging. It's not going to happen automatically just because they're higher level. But it's got to be an explicit choice to do so among the players - if they choose to still be breaking into warehouses at higher level or dealing with camping and sleeping rough out in the elements, they're going to still deal with the same difficulties they had before or anyone else would have in their situation. And that may be easy or even trivial for them - yay, higher levels and their benefits.

But why, from a story perspective, should sleeping in a blizzard or stepping into a tornado or swimming through lava ever be trivial?

The environment is a key antagonist in a lot of great stories. Why do I want to take that off the table?

Let's say I'm designing a game for a level 10 party, and it's set in the frozen north. I want there to be constant pressure from exposure, so I'm going to maybe have them potentially suffer a level of exhaustion for every eight hours (or whatever) they spend outside. And I'm going to set the DC to whatever it needs to be so that, at level 10, this is viable risk. Otherwise, why even bother? And then there goes a cool story element.

If you're worried about players having hurt feelings, just tell them that a lower level character couldn't even possibly survive, or whatever. If they ask. Which I doubt they will, but I guess that depends on how much they prioritize role playing.

 

[billd91]

But why, from a story perspective, should sleeping in a blizzard or stepping into a tornado or swimming through lava ever be trivial?

The environment is a key antagonist in a lot of great stories. Why do I want to take that off the table?

Why would I want to make it impossible for their horses and pets, or their locally-hired guides, or henchmen, or apprentices, or the other non-adventurers traveling the same roads? The fact is their experiences and resources should offer some value in navigating their way through a blizzard, of finding critical shelter during that blizzard, of avoiding having to sit in the way of the tornado, or avoiding trying to swim through lava in the first place (which is pretty much impossible without advanced magic to 1) survive the heat, and 2) move through what is essentially stone).
I don't see why weather or the general environment should become deadlier simply because they're better at what they do and are somewhat hardened to difficulties compared to some greenhorn who hasn't been around as long or survived as many tough situations.

 

[Clint_L]

I don't see why weather or the general environment should become deadlier simply because they're better at what they do and are somewhat hardened to difficulties compared to some greenhorn who hasn't been around as long or survived as many tough situations.

They aren't deadlier. They are just a little less deadly, rather than trivial.

And what you are describing doesn't differentiate between experience at survival, it merely differentiates between level. So a level 10 wizard who has never camped a day in their life and spent all their time in the city - a total "greenhorn", as you say - would be way better at surviving a blizzard than a level 1 barbarian who grew up in the frozen north just because of hit points. Where's the story logic in that?

Now, they could learn and cast Leomund's Hut, and then that's fine - that's an advantage they've earned. But I'm talking about just withstanding the elements.

I find it very strange that DMs think it is perfectly rational to scale monster threats according to level, but not other kinds of threats.

I would just ask myself: what is the story we are going for here? A story of survival in the frozen north? Okay, what does that look like in terms of the game mechanics I need for it to feel like a suitable challenge at level.

Same reasoning I apply to building a monster encounter, or designing a trap, or a tough negotiation, or whatever. Few things in a story should ever be trivial. That's a waste of time.

 

[Sorinth]

They aren't deadlier. They are just a little less deadly, rather than trivial.

And what you are describing doesn't differentiate between experience at survival, it merely differentiates between level. So a level 10 wizard who has never camped a day in their life and spent all their time in the city - a total "greenhorn", as you say - would be way better at surviving a blizzard than a level 1 barbarian who grew up in the frozen north just because of hit points. Where's the story logic in that?

Now, they could learn and cast Leomund's Hut, and then that's fine - that's an advantage they've earned. But I'm talking about just withstanding the elements.

I find it very strange that DM's think it is perfectly rational to scale monster threats according to level, but not other kinds of threats.

Being exposed to the elements isn't represented by HP damage though, it's done via exhaustion so it's already just as deadly to the level 10 wizard as the level 1 one without any kind of scaling on the DM's part.