Which path would you take --Swamp or Forest?

[Mark1733]

I have a campaign where the party will have the following choice. On their way to find a wizard who they think can help locate a kidnapped victim, the party will need to take one of two paths around a most treacherous mountain peak, the trail through which is advised against by the guardians of the highway (and I will make it clearly the most treacherous to discourage them from considering it). One path goes through a typical swamp where the trail is narrow, it rains most of the time, and low-lying mists and fog obscure vision half the time. The guardians can says that there would be expected to have a greater chance of an encounter than the forest. However, it is a 2-3 trek compared to the forest path which takes 5 days to travel. The forest has much clearer trail, less chance for encounter (I am thinking 40% in forest vs 60% in the swamp), and a wide river to cross . The characters are only 2nd level, so useful spells like fly are just not available just yet to get past certain situations easily. Time is an important consideration, but making it to the wizard is the bigger consideration. Based on the blue information, which way would you choose? What else could I provide to help them make their choice tougher. In reality, neither path is better. I believe I have equally challenging encounters for either path (and I can probably get the Wizard to take them back the other path anyway). I am just curious to know if the choice is actually clearer than I think it is and thus miss an opportunity for the party to role play a discussion. The group has a ranger and a druid, so they have plenty of skills for both wilderness terrains.

 

[Crothian]

What is the river like? Is there a bridge? How deep is it? How wide is it? Are there river monsters?

 

[Argyle King]

I would probably take the forest path. The lack of visibility in the swamp is something that will hamper travel. Under ideal circumstances, it might very well take less time to travel through the swamp. If the weather takes a turn for the worse or if the fogs and mists make it more likely to be slowed due to getting lost or due to hostile encounters, it would (in my mind) likely take more time.

If I had the knowledge that there were equally difficult encounters in both places, I believe I'd still go with the forest because the tactical limitations of moving in a swamp and environmental hazards would (I believe) make things more difficult. Though that may be something which is not true depending upon party composition. A druid or a ranger with the right skills could potentially make the environmental problems of a swamp trivial.

 

[Savage Wombat]

In my gaming experience, I'd take the swamp. More danger generally equals more reward for PCs, not actually more risk - and time is of the essence. The only way around this problem is to have made it clear to the players that you will kill them if the dice say so, so that the increased risk actually means something to them. Players that expect to triumph because losing would be "no fun" don't care what you say the danger is.

 

[the Jester]

Screw traveling through an insect-buzzing, disease-ridden swamp. I'd take the forest, even if it looks substantially harder than the swamp.

 

[Manabarbs]

If I'm deciding in-character which sounds more prudent, rather than deciding as a player which sounds more interesting, the key things that I feel like I need to know are:

- Do we have a good reason to believe that the river isn't just a completely shutdown of an obstacle?
- How important, exactly, is the time issue? If there's not really any meaningful risk associated with taking a few extra days (and the river is crossable), then the forest just sounds better. If there's much of a risk at all associated with taking a few extra days, then I lean hard on swamp.

Basically, how I feel is that even though the swamp is presented in some ways as being the risky option, in an bigger sense, the forest is swingier, since there's some chance of total adventure shutdown (the river) and extra chance of major adventure failure (being too late.) If either of those are real concerns, I go swamp. If they're not, I go forest. (Assuming I'm having the character choose pragmatically.)

 

[Dozen]

Swamp. The river could be impassible or filled with aquatic monsters for all you know. With your spellist the odds are stacked against the forest, encounter chance be damned.

I advise the ranger to keep poking the soil you're about to step onto, in case your DM is into geology. Good use of a free action, don't trust your Spot check. As someone who lives on wetland, I've seen some ugly stuff happen when someone didn't take that precaution. What looks completely stable ground on the surface could be a mudbog or a floaton.

 

[Gilladian]

I would base the decision on my character's level of urgency. If he/she feels that the extra couple of days spent sauntering through the forest rather than slogging or rafting through the swamp is not adding danger to the victim, then I'd take the forest. If time spent risks the victim's life, then it is swamp all the way.

 

[ImperatorK]

The mountain. #YOLO

 

[MarkB]

I would base the decision on my character's level of urgency. If he/she feels that the extra couple of days spent sauntering through the forest rather than slogging or rafting through the swamp is not adding danger to the victim, then I'd take the forest. If time spent risks the victim's life, then it is swamp all the way.

+1 to that. If time is a factor, take the quick route.