I am planning on running a desert based campaign. I am trying to figure out a good system to handle desert travel that makes the players cautious about wandering the desert. At one extreme you just handwave everything with the use of low level spells. At the other, you crack down on keeping track of food, water, and weather. I am hoping to find some sort of happy medium. My first thought is to use some sort of ration system similar to Dungeon World. I would appreciate any other thoughts that you have.
Well there is rules for starvation, dehydration, sandstorms, and high temperature. Is there anything in particular that you feel is missing?
As for not having it all just handwaved from spell, that's a tricky thing to fix without banning spells or railroading. Once I did it by having a haunt of nomads who died a slow death when their mage (who conjured all of the caravan's food and water) died, causing the spirits to cling to travellers and feast on any spells that create food or water (acting like dispel magic). But that sort of thing isn't something you can do over and over again.
My first thought would be to have a system of extreme tempature where if inadequately prepared you take damage every hour.
Depending on what they're wearing their status ranges from 1-10. Average temperatures low from 4-6, the colder it gets the lower it is, the hotter it gets the higher your number is. Water helps reduce the number, so in hotter temperatures this helps and in lower temperatures this hinders you. The more clothes they wear, the bigger bonus they get so again, helpful in cold hurts you in heat. Roll a fortitude save every hour they were not properly equipped for the tempature, if they fail take a d6 for every number they are outside their temperature range. Ex: someone is wrapped in warm furs and by a hearth, so they're status is at a 3. However, they are suddenly teleported into a 110 degree desert at the night if the sun, a climate we'all call a 7. They decide to wait by the fire in hopes they'll be seen and rescued, so an hour later they make a fortitude check. They fail, and because they're equipped for 3 but in 7 they take 4d6 non-lethal damage. They decide to take off their coat and sniff the fire before setting out, putting them at a 4. They fail their save next hour and take 3d6. Etc. Stuff like eating food, drinking water, etc improve your save
There's already environment rules and rules for starvation. Keep in mind that usually an adventure like this is beneath higher level characters. If you DO have high level party, then you need some way to elevate the danger. Like a desert with dead, wild, or hindered magic. Or a desert across the Maelstrom.
I can simply recommend playing the Sandstorm song whenever a sandstorm hits... :)
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My suggestion is to create areas where certain spells simply don't work.
Create water doesn't actually create water for example. But coalesces water from surroundings.
So it no longer works in desserts.
Decide on some "non magical" factor to spells and apply them.
Fireball gathers heat from the surrounding area so it is less effective in cold areas where there isn't latent Hest to channel. Frost spells dissipate heat so do not work in areas with high temperature as it is harder to cause the refrigeration needed.
Hope that makes sense