Ok, so I've been GM-ing the beginner box with my brother for a few weeks now, and I'm having trouble determining whether a forest or mountainous/hilly area could be created and played in the same manner as a dungeon. The way that I have run things so far is that I'll draw up a labyrinth of a map, which we would call a forested area, and the walls would be considered a thicket of trees and other plants that were too dense to traverse. Is this how you would do forests, or would you just set up small, random encounters in between dungeons? My thought is that a forest or mountain range can offer just as much potential for exploration and navigation as a dungeon, so it doesn't make sense to run them any differently. Any feedback would be thoroughly appreciated.
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Ok, so I've been GM-ing the beginner box with my brother for a few weeks now, and I'm having trouble determining whether a forest or mountainous/hilly area could be created and played in the same manner as a dungeon. The way that I have run things so far is that I'll draw up a labyrinth of a map, which we would call a forested area, and the walls would be considered a thicket of trees and other plants that were too dense to traverse. Is this how you would do forests, or would you just set up small, random encounters in between dungeons? My thought is that a forest or mountain range can offer just as much potential for exploration and navigation as a dungeon, so it doesn't make sense to run them any differently. Any feedback would be thoroughly appreciated.
There are lots of ways to do things, and the way you've been going about it is certainly viable. It's probably the next to easiest way to run a game...the basic dungeon being the simplest. It sounds like you're doing just fine...someday, you'll expand the possibilities, and experiment with more still...some get pretty crazy, like 'space-folded dungeons'...let your imagination play. :)
For forests, it's certainly a good approach. Though instead of making the thickets impenetrable you should assign them as difficult terrain, make frequent checks for the party to become lost etc and include forest based wandering monsters. That way you are allowing the party to go wherever they want, but it will be easiest for them to follow the trails.
For hills and mountains you could follow a similar approach, where if the party go off trail they have frequent climb and/or acrobatics checks as well as natural hazards that together slow movement and make encounters with local wildlife more dangerous.
For forests, it's certainly a good approach. Though instead of making the thickets impenetrable you should assign them as difficult terrain, make frequent checks for the party to become lost etc and include forest based wandering monsters. That way you are allowing the party to go wherever they want, but it will be easiest for them to follow the trails.
For hills and mountains you could follow a similar approach, where if the party go off trail they have frequent climb and/or acrobatics checks as well as natural hazards that together slow movement and make encounters with local wildlife more dangerous.
That makes sense, but what could be used as completely impassable terrain?
Mountains and forests tend to be a lot bigger than a dungeon, and on open plains if you encounter an enemy you may spot them at great distances. A lot of people use hex crawls for overland exploration (I'm sure you can find an online resource that would contain a lot more examples than I could link to here), while others just have a hand-drawn map and explain the surrounding area.
One of the difficulties with overland combat is that it's possible to spot enemies at great distances. You'd need an enormous battlemap to deal with a situation where combat begins at 1000 feet range (200 tiles), and I sincerely doubt you'd want to actually draw a whole forest between you and the enemy. Keeping things abstract until they get into close quarters is a good idea.
My general approach is to draft a fairly straightforward map of the area, marking down any places of interest or natural formations. I then keep some "generic" battlemap areas for various environs in my notebook. When close combat occurs, I pull one out and use it (sometimes quickly jotting down extra modifications as appropriate).
Also remember that "impassible" is largely meaningless in the context of a natural wilderness. Rock formations can be climbed, and a machete can make your way through the thickest of brush (though don't forget to use difficult terrain - that should be common in natural environs). Trips to the wilderness should be a chance for people with the survival, climb, and swim skills to shine.
Mountains and forests tend to be a lot bigger than a dungeon, and on open plains if you encounter an enemy you may spot them at great distances. A lot of people use hex crawls for overland exploration (I'm sure you can find an online resource that would contain a lot more examples than I could link to here), while others just have a hand-drawn map and explain the surrounding area.
One of the difficulties with overland combat is that it's possible to spot enemies at great distances. You'd need an enormous battlemap to deal with a situation where combat begins at 1000 feet range (200 tiles), and I sincerely doubt you'd want to actually draw a whole forest between you and the enemy. Keeping things abstract until they get into close quarters is a good idea.
My general approach is to draft a fairly straightforward map of the area, marking down any places of interest or natural formations. I then keep some "generic" battlemap areas for various environs in my notebook. When close combat occurs, I pull one out and use it (sometimes quickly jotting down extra modifications as appropriate).
Also remember that "impassible" is largely meaningless in the context of a natural wilderness. Rock formations can be climbed, and a machete can make your way through the thickest of brush (though don't forget to use difficult terrain - that should be common in natural environs). Trips to the wilderness should be a chance for people with the survival, climb, and swim skills to shine.
This is an interesting approach as well, and thanks for the advice. My thought is that rather than placing an entire forest in front of the players, you could give them smaller areas of the forest, introducing these through a battlemap little by little until they reach their destination. While this could mean a session or two of travel, you can also introduce small clues and story elements about the final cave, dungeon, temple or what have you using the surrounding area as a setting. For example, let's say I run an adventure arc where the party needs to search the forest for an old fort that's been overrun by monsters. I could then give clues about what monsters will be faced in the final dungeon, as well as historical factoids about the fort, by seeding small encounters in the adventures set in the forest.
That makes sense, but what could be used as completely impassable terrain?For forests, it's certainly a good approach. Though instead of making the thickets impenetrable you should assign them as difficult terrain, make frequent checks for the party to become lost etc and include forest based wandering monsters. That way you are allowing the party to go wherever they want, but it will be easiest for them to follow the trails.
For hills and mountains you could follow a similar approach, where if the party go off trail they have frequent climb and/or acrobatics checks as well as natural hazards that together slow movement and make encounters with local wildlife more dangerous.
There isn't much in the way of impassable terrain. An extremely dense grove of large trees with some nasty thorny plants between might work in a forest and a chasm might work in hills. Having lots of these though breaks versimiltude and players will feel railroaded rather than having free choice.
I posted a reply to Climbing a mountain that could be adapted as an alternative. Essentially create a nodal tree/network across the forest or hills terrain and if the players try and cross between connections then have a standard difficult terrain description plus 0-3 wandering monsters. This way all of your staged encounters can still be met on the route they chooise to go and they have at least 3 routes to choose from, i.e. left, right and off-path with off-path consistently being the hardest.
That makes sense, but what could be used as completely impassable terrain?For forests, it's certainly a good approach. Though instead of making the thickets impenetrable you should assign them as difficult terrain, make frequent checks for the party to become lost etc and include forest based wandering monsters. That way you are allowing the party to go wherever they want, but it will be easiest for them to follow the trails.
For hills and mountains you could follow a similar approach, where if the party go off trail they have frequent climb and/or acrobatics checks as well as natural hazards that together slow movement and make encounters with local wildlife more dangerous.
There isn't much in the way of impassable terrain. An extremely dense grove of large trees with some nasty thorny plants between might work in a forest and a chasm might work in hills. Having lots of these though breaks versimiltude and players will feel railroaded rather than having free choice.
I posted a reply to Climbing a mountain that could be adapted as an alternative. Essentially create a nodal tree/network across the forest or hills terrain and if the players try and cross between connections then have a standard difficult terrain description plus 0-3 wandering monsters. This way all of your staged encounters can still be met on the route they chooise to go and they have at least 3 routes to choose from, i.e. left, right and off-path with off-path consistently being the hardest.
So, in a sense, you'd be using a network of paths connecting each important encounter, each with varying difficulty and challenges to face, as well as a chance for the appearance of a random monster?
So, in a sense, you'd be using a network of paths connecting each important encounter, each with varying difficulty and challenges to face, as well as a chance for the appearance of a random monster?That makes sense, but what could be used as completely impassable terrain?For forests, it's certainly a good approach. Though instead of making the thickets impenetrable you should assign them as difficult terrain, make frequent checks for the party to become lost etc and include forest based wandering monsters. That way you are allowing the party to go wherever they want, but it will be easiest for them to follow the trails.
For hills and mountains you could follow a similar approach, where if the party go off trail they have frequent climb and/or acrobatics checks as well as natural hazards that together slow movement and make encounters with local wildlife more dangerous.
There isn't much in the way of impassable terrain. An extremely dense grove of large trees with some nasty thorny plants between might work in a forest and a chasm might work in hills. Having lots of these though breaks versimiltude and players will feel railroaded rather than having free choice.
I posted a reply to Climbing a mountain that could be adapted as an alternative. Essentially create a nodal tree/network across the forest or hills terrain and if the players try and cross between connections then have a standard difficult terrain description plus 0-3 wandering monsters. This way all of your staged encounters can still be met on the route they chooise to go and they have at least 3 routes to choose from, i.e. left, right and off-path with off-path consistently being the hardest.
Something like that, yes. The climbing a mountain example is a bit easier to control beacuse the party are climbing up to a point so there is no off-the path option. But the labyrinth you are planning could be codified with the nodal diagram (the players map the forest trail you know it's the path between encounter 2 and 3). The problem you are likely to run into with the placing of hazards along the paths is the party's default option would be to walk around so when designing obstacles answer that question first - surprise is often a good option as is a minor obstacle that develops into something more (e.g. crossing a log when a harpy turns up), though to work there need to be several minor obstacles that are just that.
For the off-path encounters, you could design several of those in advance and drop them in wherever suits.
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That makes sense, but what could be used as completely impassable terrain?For forests, it's certainly a good approach. Though instead of making the thickets impenetrable you should assign them as difficult terrain, make frequent checks for the party to become lost etc and include forest based wandering monsters. That way you are allowing the party to go wherever they want, but it will be easiest for them to follow the trails.
For hills and mountains you could follow a similar approach, where if the party go off trail they have frequent climb and/or acrobatics checks as well as natural hazards that together slow movement and make encounters with local wildlife more dangerous.
There isn't much in the way of impassable terrain. An extremely dense grove of large trees with some nasty thorny plants between might work in a forest and a chasm might work in hills. Having lots of these though breaks versimiltude and players will feel railroaded rather than having free choice.
I posted a reply to Climbing a mountain that could be adapted as an alternative. Essentially create a nodal tree/network across the forest or hills terrain and if the players try and cross between connections then have a standard difficult terrain description plus 0-3 wandering monsters. This way all of your staged encounters can still be met on the route they chooise to go and they have at least 3 routes to choose from, i.e. left, right and off-path with off-path consistently being the hardest.
Fast-moving rivers might be impressive boundaries. Nettlevines and other thick undergrowth might be considered "very difficult terrain", costing three squares of movement per square?
There isn't really much that you can say "you just plain can't get through". You can make it hard enough that most sensible PCs will look for another way around, but sometimes PCs aren't sensible, and other times they're determined to see how far off the railroad tracks they can go. If the PCs are that determined to get through, then you're better off just making it an encounter in and of itself.
Druids, for example, can pass through the worst underbrush around, with ease. :)
Very true, but it's not much use if the fighter and wizard who are accompanying him are over a mile away when he stumbles into a nest of ettercaps :-)
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Druids, for example, can pass through the worst underbrush around, with ease. :)Very true, but it's not much use if the fighter and wizard who are accompanying him are over a mile away when he stumbles into a nest of ettercaps :-)
That's time to go straight back into the underbrush...if you can. ;)
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The biggest difference between a forest and a dungeon is that a dungeon has a ceiling. As was mentioned, fly spells will eventually render meaningless any ground-based obstacles in a forest. In a dungeon, this isn't really an option, though spider climb and teleport spells do a passable job as well.
If you want to make a "forest dungeon" which runs like a dungeon but is actually a forest, then you'll have to make up rules for the canopy.
I would say that flying through the canopy counts as "difficult terrain"-- move at half-speed, plus a likely increase to the DC of Fly checks and a possibility of becoming entangled in the branches. The canopy also probably imparts a penalty to Perception checks, and may count as 20% concealment. Depends on how much you want to discourage/encourage bypassing forest obstacles through flight.
Above the canopy, you may be susceptible to stronger winds now that the foliage isn't breaking them. You definitely wouldn't be able to see anything going on underneath the canopy from above it-- no flying snipers taking pot shots.
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Ok, so I've been GM-ing the beginner box with my brother for a few weeks now, and I'm having trouble determining whether a forest or mountainous/hilly area could be created and played in the same manner as a dungeon. The way that I have run things so far is that I'll draw up a labyrinth of a map, which we would call a forested area, and the walls would be considered a thicket of trees and other plants that were too dense to traverse. Is this how you would do forests, or would you just set up small, random encounters in between dungeons? My thought is that a forest or mountain range can offer just as much potential for exploration and navigation as a dungeon, so it doesn't make sense to run them any differently. Any feedback would be thoroughly appreciated.
Yes. This works. There was a classic D&D adventure titled Horror on the Hill which was run this way. I ran it as a 3.5 conversion at some point, and it worked great. If you can find it, take a look at it. Actually, a google search shows the maps; they are exactly what you are talking about.