5.5E World Building Magic, Magic Items, The DMG, and joined up thinking.

[Micah Sweet]

It'd be way better if they did something to make travel and exploration fun instead of just a logistics puzzle and resource sink. But I guess just forcing you to engage in it is fine too.

That's what Level Up is for.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I do like these spells or rituals. I think that having something that explicitly takes a significant investment in time, talent, and wealth adds to the realism of the campaign. Great works take great effort.

That said, for teleport circle I don't require the magician cast the spell daily, but rather monthly. Starting and hour before and ending an hour after twilight, the magician performs the ritual in full view of Sola and Monas, the Sun and Moon at Full, at a liminal time in order to facilitate a liminal method of travel. After a year, all of the variations of the ley lines' flow are accounted for and the circle is activated. Having it cast daily gives me a modern, workman-like feel that sucks all of the mystery out of it. Having the ritual periodically timed also allows the adventurers to go out for short excursions.

Importantly, things like this are a bag of plot hooks. Who will come to disrupt the ritual? Is there a foe of the party that is doing their own, and how would you disrupt theirs?



Well, for the scroll it looks like there was some backpedalling. For me, you would need 12 scrolls and it would still take a year. For the helm, that cost is astoundingly cheap for the level of teleport. Regardless of the correctness of the calculation, one made in my campaign would be much more expensive. Is 2000 gp still the price of a common item?

I am inclined to agree with you and would like to this kind of thinking reflect in the DMG or whatever book out likes the thinking/costing/DM advice on the making of magic items and using spells for those kinds of purposes.
Perhaps even referenced in the spell text for the world building elements.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

That's what Level Up is for.

More power to @Morrus and EN publishing but can I buy just the travel and exploration rules on their own and is it too much to ask for something actually useful right out of the box.

 

[Micah Sweet]

More power to @Morrus and EN publishing but can I buy just the travel and exploration rules on their own and is it too much to ask for something actually useful right out of the box.

Well, they're in one of the four books currently released, so I would say yes. You might need to wait a bit for availability to non-kickstarters to come in.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Speaking of travel, I would like to see something like the exhaustion rules (not as severe or death spirally as they are) incorporated in to regular play. Staying out in the wilderness should be stamina taxing.

 

[LordEntrails]

I'm fine with the rules as is. I don't want the game to devolve into magic item creation. The games I run and the games I play in are about heroic quests, acute challenges, and action. Not about how much money a wizard can make by turning the game into an economic simulation. I'm happy the designers got away from having players make magic, and am annoyed by the rules in Xanathar's.

I've ad the creation of magic items, and things like teleportation circles etc in my games, but its something going on in the background or done by NPCs. Instead the party has to go keep the sanctum safe or clear the monsters out of the Undermountain while the high level NPC priest casts sanctum everyday and can't risk missing a day.

I like the impact the way this works on world building. These permanent magic spells/effects are more expensive than just the gold piece cost. Because as we already know, their is way too much gold and little to spend it on in 5E.

 

[LordEntrails]

Speaking of travel, I would like to see something like the exhaustion rules (not as severe or death spirally as they are) incorporated in to regular play. Staying out in the wilderness should be stamina taxing.

Why? There are people all over who live off-grid and have a lot more stamina than I do. I used to do 10 day backpacking trips with no stamina loss as a young adult. Living in the wilderness is not, by itself, particularly taxing if you have experience doing so. And an adventuring party in a fantasy settings probably does, or can learn it quickly if needed.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I am inclined to agree with you and would like to this kind of thinking reflect in the DMG or whatever book out likes the thinking/costing/DM advice on the making of magic items and using spells for those kinds of purposes.
Perhaps even referenced in the spell text for the world building elements.

I don't know if that is reasonable. There is too great a variation in desires and needs.

I think it falls on us to recognize opportunities within the rules to develop interesting aspects to our games. And to change and develop the rules to adapt them to our vision. The vision of my campaign is different from Oofta's, Vaalingard's, Sepulchrave's, and yours. All are valid, but they are better once we see things that do hinder or could advance our respective visions and enact appropriate changes.

 

[Lyxen]

I'm fine with the rules as is. I don't want the game to devolve into magic item creation. The games I run and the games I play in are about heroic quests, acute challenges, and action.

Exactly the same for me. And the same with travel or everything linked to downtime activities. There is always a player who wants to have some edge building a commercial entreprise, etc. for us it's not what the game is for.

Not about how much money a wizard can make by turning the game into an economic simulation. I'm happy the designers got away from having players make magic, and am annoyed by the rules in Xanathar's.

They are optional anyway, just don't use them or change the prices.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Speaking of travel, I would like to see something like the exhaustion rules (not as severe or death spirally as they are) incorporated in to regular play. Staying out in the wilderness should be stamina taxing.

That is the opposite of what I want.

The reason people like fast travel is to avoid the annoying, stressful parts. DMs like forcing it because they think it's dramatic.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Why? There are people all over who live off-grid and have a lot more stamina than I do. I used to do 10 day backpacking trips with no stamina loss as a young adult. Living in the wilderness is not, by itself, particularly taxing if you have experience doing so. And an adventuring party in a fantasy settings probably does, or can learn it quickly if needed.

Where you in a small party of 4 or five, cut off from all communication of thing went wrong and subject to attack from monsters that would rat your face. Somehow I could imagine that, that would somewhat stressful.

That is the opposite of what I want.

The reason people like fast travel is to avoid the annoying, stressful parts. DMs like forcing it because they think it's dramatic.

That is fair enough, I just have a dislike of rules that just hang there, like the exhaustion rules, with little actual application.

 

[Oofta]

Speaking of travel, I would like to see something like the exhaustion rules (not as severe or death spirally as they are) incorporated in to regular play. Staying out in the wilderness should be stamina taxing.

Throughout history most people have been far, far more physically active than we are now. Unless conditions are extreme, I see no reason to impose exhaustion.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Throughout history most people have been far, far more physically active than we are now. Unless conditions are extreme, I see no reason to impose exhaustion.

They also had no good ideas about disease prevention and one of the consistent things about old travel stories is the number of people that got sick, especially with dysentery.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That is fair enough, I just have a dislike of rules that just hang there, like the exhaustion rules, with little actual application.

I mean if it was a good set of rules, but 5Exaustion is just a Death Spiral with more steps as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Oofta]

They also had no good ideas about disease prevention and one of the consistent things about old travel stories is the number of people that got sick, especially with dysentery.

I'm not looking for a medieval travel simulator. Diseases are different from exhaustion and is largely avoided by the game.

 

[jayoungr]

I am using the cost of the Helm of Teleportation as a guide to the cost of a magic item that replicates the permanent teleport circle, assume for the moment that the DM allows it.

If you're inventing the magic item, can't you also decide on the price? I'm confused about where the problem is.

It'd be way better if they did something to make travel and exploration fun instead of just a logistics puzzle and resource sink.

I don't disagree that travel for travel's sake can often be handled badly. But if travel doesn't happen, you lose the chance for encounters that are actually important to the main story to happen during travel. You don't just eliminate filler--you cut out the possibility of non-filler as well.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I don't disagree that travel for travel's sake can often be handled badly. But if travel doesn't happen, you lose the chance for encounters that are actually important to the main story to happen during travel.

How often does that actually happen though? Travel is mostly for trash fights via random encounters to fill out the increasingly greedy adventuring day.

"I know you want to get back to dealing with Duke Killmuderton, but here, punch these wolves until you're leveled enough to deal with the real plot"

 

[Oofta]

How often does that actually happen though? Travel is mostly for trash fights via random encounters to fill out the increasingly greedy adventuring day.

"I know you want to get back to dealing with Duke Killmuderton, but here, punch these wolves until you're leveled enough to deal with the real plot"

If the DM's goal is to have the PCs higher level than they are currently, they will just come up with other "trash fights". In the meantime if an interesting story can be told via travel, cool. If not I recommend just hand-waving and maybe narrating that they had some minor difficulties along the way.

 

[LordEntrails]

Where you in a small party of 4 or five, cut off from all communication of thing went wrong and subject to attack from monsters that would rat your face. Somehow I could imagine that, that would somewhat stressful.

No monsters, but got chased by a mother brown bear. Everything else yes. Carried food, bedding, shelter, tools; everything but one days water with us every day for 10-20 miles hiking per day depending upon our objective.

Look, I get it if you haven't done something similar, that you think one might deteriorate over time. But there is plenty of hard evidence as well as anecdotes like mine that people can live and thrive under much harsher conditions than travelling through wilderness. Yes, over long periods of time at above a sustainable pace, sure, one can get run down.

Go ahead and work out a system of stamina reduction or exhaustion to fit your vision But as others have said, very few players are going to care about such or enjoy such an experience. You do you.

 

[jayoungr]

"I know you want to get back to dealing with Duke Killmuderton, but here, punch these wolves until you're leveled enough to deal with the real plot"

How about "While you're on your way to see the famously good and kind Duke Killmuderton, you run across some of his soldiers terrorizing a family who were unable to pay their taxes"? Or "While you're on your way to negotiate with Duke Killmuderton about getting access to his mines to search for the lost pickaxe of McGuffin, you are attacked by bandits who have a map showing a secret entrance to the mine"?

As for how often it happens, the only way to know that would be to survey every DM ever.

In the meantime if an interesting story can be told via travel, cool. If not I recommend just hand-waving and maybe narrating that they had some minor difficulties along the way.

I agree with that. It just sounds like some people want to cut out the choice part.