hexporation and rivers

[hugozilla]

If a party enters a hex and whichs to explore it. If the hex has a river passing through it do you need to account for the crossing the river? I think I'm just going to hand wave it. In reality explores would just do one side at the time, but the rules really don't address it.

[redcelt32]

I made them cross the river. I suggest you consider it, as it makes them appreciates bridges later so much more :)

[DM_Kumo Gekkou]

My players explored one side mapping it, then later explored the other side. I did not give them xp until the full hex was done. The "hex" obviously not being something definable in the real world it made no sense to them as characters to map out a 12 mile block with a river in the way so they did one side and then the other.

[hugozilla]

That would give them more reasons to establish bridges and other methods of river crossing.

[redcelt32]

In case anyone is interested, I let the PCs in my game use the haunted bridge and a natural ford (that was available or not depending on rainfall and the season) that allowed them to cross the thorn river where it meets the shrike. This gave them one location to cross each river, so they had to do some backtracking occasionally depending on where they were going.

One funny anecdote about bridges:

When my general took along his aide-de-camp on an outing involving a planning an assault on a large group of bandits, the aide began his campaign to have bridges built. Every council meeting, every time the general PC went to talk to him, he asked when they were going to build his bridges. They actually claimed hexes just so they could build bridges and shut this guy up, though he did have an excellent point. A point they soon appreciated when their capitol was under attack and most of their supplies were at their settlement at Oleg's :)

[Queen Moragan]

We almost always explore river & lake hexes one bank at a time.
We just explored the N side of the two hexes with the Shrike cascades, then crossed over and did the S sides.

We've had a lot of encounters while crossing rivers & lakes, maybe about 30%-40% of our total encounters.

We've even had to swim out and back to Candlemere a few times!

I'm surprised we haven't lost half a dozen PC's to drowning, most suck at swimming.

[Rickmeister]

I made them cross it.
Now they REALLY want a bridge across most rivers, coz swimming wasn't their strong suit ;)

[JohnB]

I also made my group cross the rivers when they cam to it. we even have a road that stops on one side of a river .

However, I gave them a Folding Boat fairly early in RR so they could work along rivers and lakes more easily. It added a different perspective to the game, and gave then a choice of how to approach some problems.

However:

They didn't get another one later

[RuyanVe]

Definitely no hand waving. It is just too funny when the pally (lvl8), the cleric (lvl8) and the wizard (lvl6) almost drown, loose their horses and command the barbarian and the druid and his treant companion ("So glad you took the plant companion!") to cross rivers.

So looking forward to them exploring Candlemere! *evilgrin*

Ruyan.

[Orthos]

My group were pretty insistent about not crossing rivers early on. The first time they ever ran into one was at Nettles's! Knowing they'd need to cross to reach the Stag Lord, they made a point of having the Oracle craft a swan boat feather token and loading up in it before heading down to face him.

Since then building bridges has been priority one after claiming a river hex.

[Philip Knowsley]

I haven't made my guys roll swim checks or anything on a constant basis,
but I have described it as a bit of a hassle & have made it so that some
places are just too difficult or dangerous... They've had to travel a
couple of hexes at times to find a place to cross.

All this is doing, I hope, is making the game faster but also establishing
that the peasants to follow will need bridges...

The boys actually found a skiff belonging to some smugglers & appropriated
it to travel to the Lizardfolk island, as well as Candelmere.
They returned it to where they left it, but when they went to use it again
- OMG - it had gone...
A long chase followed, involving multiple sets of tracks & groups of
smugglers splitting off & rejoining etc... The PCs gave it up when they
realised they weren't gaining. (Partly because some trolls had eaten
several of their horses, & they were having to double up...heh heh...)

[DBH]

Page 55 of Book 1 gives you the sizes of the rivers.

None of them are small, the Thorn river is the narrowest, it's 60 feet across and 90 deep!

The Shrike river averages 300 feet wide and 60 deep.

These aren't something you can wade across, and waterways this size are sure to have inhabitants.

I treated them as a separate encounter from the standard hex encounter and made my players work to cross them.

Later on knowing their realm so well played off, linking the rivers by canal gave them the best trade route from the south to the Lake of Mists and veils, major money earner.

DBH

[Hassy]

In my campaign, I decided that mapping the side with most of the hex was enough, since you'd see significant landmarks over the river. If the hex is about half and half, however, you need to do both sides, though not on the same trip.

[Touc]

I made my players figure out a way to cross rivers, and the author makes careful note of where there's fords and where there's a broken bridge, and what terrain surrounds the river (like the brambles). It rewarded players who took swimming and resulted in some creativeness.

By the time the players got to the 2nd book, their skills were significant enough and they'd had enough "real world" experience that I didn't enforce checks (barring something unique).