I am GM'ing a certain adventure path, set in the Golarion setting. The campaign is mostly taking place in Varisia.
Today my players overcame some social encounters to aquire mounts from the small town of Urglin, and then they started travelling northward through the Cinderlands, making their way to the Kazaron River.
Since this was a chance to showcase how potentially hostile nature can be, and the dangers of travelling, I decided to try to make the most of it.
I'm gonna write out what happened as my players travelled, and I would like it if you would tell me how you think you would feel, playing with that kind of GM'ing. Constructive criticism is also very much appreciated, and if you notice I did something wrong, by RAW or otherwise, I'd like to know your perspective.
Thanks in advance =)
+++Traversing the Cinderlands+++
My party started out from Urglin with 7 horses, roughly 10 days of trail rations for each character, and a barrel of water to refill their waterskins, which they had tugged into one of the big bags of holding. I was uncertain if you'd be able to get a barrel into the bag to begin with, but I decided to roll with it, since my players tend to sometimes forget the travel preparations :) Positive reinforcement and all that, I guess.
Anyway, I measured out a hexgrid for Varisia, rolled out the weather, learning that the day they set out it would be hot, so there would be hourly fortitude tests vs the heat, and felt ready to go.
I started the whole thing off by asking one of my players to roll me 1d4, then had another player roll me 1d100.
I had made the following table in secret:
1-20: The travel continues uninterrupted
21-40: The environment presents a challenge
41-50: Something in the area alludes to local dangers
51-60: Something in the area alludes to the campaign plot
61-70: Local NPCs show up (roll to determine disposition)
71-95: Random Encounter
95-100: Roll twice
The idea was that in 1d4 hours an event would happen. Then, after that, in another 1d4+2 hours, another event would happen. Then I'd use my judgement to determine whether to do another event or let the party rest until the next day, then have the players roll again.
One of my players rolled aforementioned 1d4 and it came up 4, so for 4 hours my players travelled relatively unhindered, except by the general hostily of the Cinderlands. 2 hours after leaving Urglin, I decided they could no longer see it, or use it to navigate with, so from the on out, there would be survival checks for getting lost. I also had a player roll me a d100 for the above table. It came up 80 - random encounter.
I asked who led the group, and that player got to roll 2 survival checks, none for the first two hours, and then one for each hour until the first even would happen. Then I asked my players go give me 4 fortitude saves, with the DC escalating from 15 to 19 over the course of the saves.
I have a question for this part. The heat rules state that if a character takes nonlethal damage from heat, they get heatstroke and get fatigued. I was uncertain if the fatigue rule applied to severe heat only, or also to very hot conditions, so if you know, I'd like to know. I decided on the fly that I'd rule that very hot conditions inflicted heatstroke as well.
Two of my players failed and got heatstroke, getting the fatigued condition, then on the hours following the first, they failed again and I found myself with another question. Since they failed again, would that mean the heatstroke fatigue increased to exhausted? Again, if you know, don't hesitate to tell me. I decided to rule that it would inflict the fatigue condition again, escalating it to exhausted. Now two of my players were exhausted from riding in the heat.
I then had a player make saves for all their mounts(I decided to treat their mounts as one creature, so 4 rolls), who passed with flying colours (+6 fort + endurance is pretty nifty for overland travel) and then I had the information I wanted.
I then described to my group how they travelled for a few hours, with the sun baking down on them, and how the bard and the rogue (the fort save failers) slowly but surely withered away in the crushing heat. At the 4 hour mark, my players decided to rest a bit, tossing up an obscuring mist to block out the sun if only for a moment of respite. One player was tending to the mounts while the others stood guard, so I decided to spring the encounter.
I asked for perception checks and the rogue scored highest, so I told her that as she walked through the mist, trying to cool off, she caught her foot on a bit of carved rock, jutting out of the sandy plains. She decided to take a look and see what it might be, so she dug away around it a bit, and I told her it appeared to be the edge of a building, slanted at a weird angle, almost completely buried in sand. I also said that as her spade struck the building, she could hear the echo within, then a moment later, a tap came back. She only just had time to realize something was up, before the tapping intensified as something hammered to get out, and the rogue skillfully jumped out of the way, as a bit of the ground gave way and sunk into a hole that only just opened up. Out of this hole, which opened into what appeared to be a slanted buried chamber, emerged 5 mummies (an APL-4 encounter), who then proceeded to attack the party. In short my group won without casualties, but they were cutting it a bit fine for a moment, when a member got paralyzed in melee and was lined up for a coup de grace. A well-spent hero-point let the paladin channel twice, nuking down the mummies before they could feast on the paralyzed party-member.
After checking that everyone was OK, they took a quick look into the chamber and found treasure appropriate to the encounter. When they'd finished inspecting their spoils and had packed them away, it was time to end the session, and since they'd used around 4 hours in Urglin anyway, it seemed like the right time to make camp too. I asked the player with the water to mark down the water that was consumed during the day (double water for it being very hot), and asked the rest of the group to mark down trail rations eaten. I then told them that since they hadn't taken time with survival to feed and provide water to their animals, they would probably want to look into that first thing the next day, or their mounts would start suffering from the starvation and thirst rules. Finally I calculated how far they'd travelled and marked it down so I know where to start next time. They are basically just entering a new hex, as we begin next session.
+++End of today's travels+++
I realize that was probably long-winded, but I wanted to describe what I was doing, not just what my players experienced was happening.
So, how would you like to play at my table? Would you enjoy the use of travelling rules and my use of dice-based randomness to determine what happened during travel, or would you find it tedious? Would you prefer your GM kept the travelling to narration, or would you like being involved the way I tried to involve my players? Would you prefer to do away with the travel-time entirely and arrive at the next part of the plot? I am very interested in knowing your point of view here.
If you find it relevant, I enjoyed working with travel in this way.
Your thoughts and time is very much appreciated.
-Nearyn
Having random things happen during travel makes perfect sense.
My main question is, why are you asking for confirmation if you feel that everything went well?
Did one of your players express that he has different feelings on the matter?
I think making your players suffer this much from the heat and having them exhausted was a bit much maybe. I also wonder how a level 10-12 party is unable to shield themselves from heat. As for the fatigued vs. exhausted part. I personally think that characters only get exhausted if the rules explicitly say so. Otherwise a fatigued over a fatigued condition should logically have no notable effect other than extending the duration of the fatigue.
I also wonder whether the encounter was at a lower APL intentionally or whether you randomly determined that as well. Your party must have had a pretty rough ride if they barely beat that APL-4 encounter. One could say that they've been lucky that you didn't decide to go equal-CR against them.
The biggest downside of random encounters could be that they're often dangerous if they are combined with environmental hazards. Some GMs also throw in some CR+ monsters just to make their world feel more real, but it's risky.
I think that the only time travel becomes really tedious is when players clearly are not enjoying the travel sequence, or feel that it is boring, just rolling Fort saves one at a time. I hope you went through that pretty quickly. A strong narration always helps making travel sequences more interesting.
A confirmation from people on the internet should not be all that important to you. Ask your players whether they thought it was fun, or at least whether they were having fun... and if so, everything is fine!
Because even if you were playing the game wrong, as long as you and everyone in your group is having fun, you're doing it right!
Thank you kindly for your feedback Diminutive Titan.
My main question is, why are you asking for confirmation if you feel that everything went well?
Did one of your players express that he has different feelings on the matter?
It seemed to me that my players were enjoying it, and at least one has responded positively to the session. I ask mostly for general feedback and to see if someone has anything golden to share. Also, since it was my first time trying to run travelling like this, I am curious whether people think they'd enjoy playing like that, or not :)
I think making your players suffer this much from the heat and having them exhausted was a bit much maybe. I also wonder how a level 10-12 party is unable to shield themselves from heat
In total they racked up 12 nonlethal damage from the heat, and the heatstroke fatigue is based on a bit of text from the environment rules. However, I am in doubt as to whether the heatstroke happens if you take ANY nonlethal from heat, or only if it is in severe heat(severe heat is when the temperature is above 110 fahrenheit)
As for the fatigued vs. exhausted part. I personally think that characters only get exhausted if the rules explicitly say so. Otherwise a fatigued over a fatigued condition should logically have no notable effect other than extending the duration of the fatigue.
That was my first thought too, but the fatigued condition says that if a character does something that would cause fatigue, while fatigued, they become exhausted. I was in doubt as whether suffering from more nonlethal heat damage, and being exposed to heatstroke again, would cause that effect.
I also wonder whether the encounter was at a lower APL intentionally or whether you randomly determined that as well. Your party must have had a pretty rough ride if they barely beat that APL-4 encounter. One could say that they've been lucky that you didn't decide to go equal-CR against them.
It was intentional, since I wanted to try out this new way of doing travelling with an encounter that would not be instant-walkover, but would not cripple my party either. The party did not suffer much HP damage, but when the Mummies burst forth, the party suddenly found themselves within 5 despair auras. A low roll from the bard and a natural 1 from both the rogue and the witch made it so over half the party was paralyzed. On round two the mummies had closed for melee, ready to go for the coup de grace, but the channel energy of the paladin really came through for them.
But yeah, low CR was my intention with this first encounter, just to see how it worked :)
The biggest downside of random encounters could be that they're often dangerous if they are combined with environmental hazards. Some GMs also throw in some CR+ monsters just to make their world feel more real, but it's risky.
Thanks for the advice, I'll make sure that not every random encounter springs a group of enemies on my players from just beneath them, but that they sometimes get time to spot the enemy coming, sneak around, sneak around, get clever and otherwise overcome their challenges without having to resort to combat.
I think that the only time travel becomes really tedious is when players clearly are not enjoying the travel sequence, or feel that it is boring, just rolling Fort saves one at a time. I hope you went through that pretty quickly. A strong narration always helps making travel sequences more interesting.
I thought that the fort saves would be boring too, if I did them on an hour-by-hour basis, which is why I asked my group to roll them all at once, and marked down when, along the travel, the different party members would get affected, unless they took measures to prevent the heat from getting to them :)
A confirmation from people on the internet should not be all that important to you. Ask your players whether they thought it was fun, or at least whether they were having fun... and if so, everything is fine!
Because even if you were playing the game wrong, as long as you and everyone in your group is having fun, you're doing it right!
I find myself in agreement :)
-Nearyn