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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Baron Opal II" data-source="post: 8385712" data-attributes="member: 6794067">This is the third post in my explanation of how I do wilderness journeys. Previous posts are #1360 and #1489.Let's roll back a bit. Last time I mentioned that when I rolled for weather during a sea journey all was fair. How would I handle a storm?Based on the season and location, hurricanes are a possibility. While I have strong OSR leanings, that would just be mean at 6th level. The ship would most likely sink as would any ship in a hurricane during the Age of Sail. But we can still have a bad storm. When dealing with bad weather, knowing the Beaufort Scale is very helpful to understand how bad is bad. There is a great pictorial on Howtoons on this.There are no rules that I see in the core three books on how to deal with this. For me, this is something I would do in seven stages for a severe storm. Spells and effects that last less than an hour can help with checks, but won't last the length of a stage or even an appreciable fraction thereof. Spells and effects that last an hour can be considered to last a majority or the whole of a stage. Spells and effects that last 8 hrs or more can be considered to last the whole of the storm. Since the length of the storm is so variable as well as long, tracking round by round, even hour by hour can become tedious.Concentration spells need only be checked once per stage to see if the caster has been able to maintain them long enough to get the benefit desired.Stage 1 - DC: 10 - Calm / Breezy / Sighted on the horizonStage 2 - DC: 15 - Windy / Sea Foam / Ship rockingStage 3 to 6 - DC: 20 - The tiny ship is tossedStage 7 - As stage 2Is the ship laden with cargo or just sea ballast? +5 to DC checks if unladen as the boat can rock +/- 30 degrees.Rangers and those proficient in Nature get a check to notice that a storm is coming. Otherwise it surprises them and the ship starts at stage 1 rather than trying to prepare.The captain must make a handling check each stage, starting at stage 2 to see if the ship can be maneuvered beneficially into the waves DC is the same as above. If so, all saves except those for exhaustion are at advantage. The ship must make a saving throw against bludgeoning damage each stage starting stage 2. The ship takes 6d10 damage each stage, half if saved against. A "1" is double damage, a "20" is minimum damage. Stage 2 and 7 only inflict 3d10 damage on a failed save. Stages 3-6 everyone must save or be washed overboard or blown from the rigging. Everyone not below decks (i.e. helping) must make a Constitution save vs. exhaustion each stage.The PCs can perform actions or make checks as appropriate to help safeguard the crew, repair the ship, or perhaps recover those washed overboard. Tiny hut can provide shelter for crew to run in and out of for quick rests. However, that will collapse stage 3. An arcana check, perhaps, could allow the wizard to try and magically reinforce the tiny hut so that it stays up for the crew.There's the bare bones of it. I apologize- I had intended to write far more detail about my notes for wilderness journeys but I haven't the time to do it justice. Again, what is in the 5e DMG is really simplistic but even so you can still have interesting aspects of this part of adventuring. What you need to do is research what can happen and translate that into game terms. And, you need to decide what level range you want these obsticales to matter in your game and make changes accordingly. By 5th level, most overland difficulties can be mitigated to the point where only significant bad luck or overreach will harm the party. In my mind, these issues should be impactful until 7th or 8th level. At 9th, "name level" if you will, then I would expect to transition to more fantastical obsticales as a poster mentioned above.Create food and water - really useful, but you have to be able to carry a day's worth of food and water. It's always fresh, and you need to have the energy to cast it in the morning or evening, but you only ever have a day's worth of food in jeopardy of being lost.Rangers in difficult terrain- Walking through a swamp is going to be slow regardless if the Dunedain are with you or not. But, you do get to prevent your fighter buddy unexpectedly drowning when they step into a part of the swamp that has no vegetation and is unexpectedly 12 feet deep instead of a foot. (Which happened to me, minus the drowning part, obviously) And, you won't get lost.</blockquote>

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