Hello, folks!
After leaving the Tower of Vigil, the party is ready to enter Thirburg - the first region of our game. So this Saturday I’ll present my rules for building the exploration map, and present Thirburg as a region in another, smaller article halfway during the week.
Let’s start exploring!
Going by the book
The first thing we need to do is have an understanding of the official hexploration rules. To summarize:
Each Hex is 12 miles (or 20km) from corner to corner, making the distance from the center of an hex to the other 20 miles (the exploration map uses hex because the distance from the center of a hex to the center of each adjacent one is the same);
The speed of the slowest member determines the party’s speed, and how many actions the party can take on a day;
It takes one day on regular terrain to travel or reconnoiter an hex (1 action);
Difficult terrain requires 2 activities to explore, while greater difficult terrain requires 3.
A group can take a forced march to gain an extra travel action.
We’re going to adhere to those rules, while building on top of that our “Region” system.
Region Overview
A region is composed of one or more hexes that share the same terrain type and overall features.
Name: the name of the region.
Regional Level: The regional level describes the overall difficulty of a given territory. The GM uses it to determine the Navigation and Survival DCs and build the random encounter table.
Terrain Type: as by the hexploration rules, the main terrain types are: Aquatic, Arctic, Desert, Forest, Mountain, Plain and Swamp. The Terrain Expertise Feat adds Sky and Underground to the list of terrain types.
Terrain difficult: normal, difficult or greater difficult.
Navigation and Survival DC: Use Table 10-5 of the Core Handbook to determine the appropriate DC for the Region. Then, adjust both the navigation and survive DCs depending on the geography, vegetation and other elements of the terrain, using Table 10-6.
For example, it is easier to get lost in a forest than on an open field, so a Level 2 Forest should have an 18 Navigation DC (16 from table 10-2 with a +2 from table 10-6). However, it is also relatively easier to find food and water, so the Survival DC should be 14.
Veer: if the party fails the Navigation DC, roll a d6. On a result 1-2, they veer counter-clockwise, 3-4 they stay on their path, and 5-6 they veer clockwise.
Safety Dice: Each Region has an initial Safety Die, going from d4 to d12. The lower the Safety Die, the more dangerous it is to travel in the region. The exploration day is divided into four 6-hours watches (morning, afternoon, evening, late night). At the start of an exploration day, the GM rolls 1 Safety Dice per watch. A result of 1 indicates that the party has found a
Random Encounter
This system allows the party to find up to four random encounters during a single traveling day. That adds variety to the random encounter system. The chance to find at least one random encounter during a day is the following:
Dice Chance to Find at least
one random encounter
d4 69%
d6 52%
d8 42%
d10 35%
d12 30%
Usually, the safety die is the same during day and night. You should adjudicate that some actions may increase or decrease the safety dice. For example, the Fortify Camp action could increase the safety die, while a large bonfire could decrease the safety die(increasing the chance of finding random encounters during the night). You can roll four dice of different colors and assign each to a particular watch, or roll the dice in order (morning, afternoon, evening, late night).
If the party does something during the travel that changes the safety dice, roll again. Even if they increase the safety dice and you’ve rolled no encounters. After all, the party doesn’t know that, and at the end of the day, it’s just another consequence of their actions.
Region Example:
Evergreen Woods (Level 2) Navigation DC 18
Forest | Difficult Terrain Survival DC 14
Safety Dice | d8 |Building Random Encounters tables
When planning for random encounters, use the Regional Level to create your Random Encounter Table following the rules below.
Creature Level | XP | Number appearing | Average Number
Region Level -4 10 2d6 7
Region Level -3 15 2d4 5
Region Level -2 20 1d6 4
Region Level -1 30 1d4 3
Region Level 40 1d4 3
Region Level +1 60 1d4-1* 2
Region Level +2 80 1d4-2* 1
Region Level +3 120 1 1
*minimum of one Mixing different creatures: if you plan to have a random encounter with creatures of different levels, you can halve the dice rolled, adjusting when needed.
Example
Using Nethys Monster Filter, we’ll take a look at creatures from Level -1 to 5. Since we’re looking for 20 random encounters, I’ll pick at least 20 different creatures, so we can have some variety in our random encounters. Using the table, we have:
Level Creatures
-1 Bloodseeker, Flash Bettle, Goblin Warrior
0 Leaf Leshy, Vine Lasher, Dream Spider
1 Cave Scorpion, Giant Fly, Goblin Pyro, Goblin War Chanter, Wolf
2 Black Bear, Boar, Slime Mold
3 Assassin Vine, Dire Wolf
4 Flytrap Leshy, Ogre Glutton, Satyr
5 Basilisk
Combining our results, we have our Random Encounter Table
d20 Encounter
1 2d4 Bloodseekers
2 2d4 Flash Bettles
3 1d4+1 Goblin Warriors and 1 Goblin Pyro
4 1d6 Leaf Leshys
5 1d6 Dream Spiders
6 1d6 Vine Lashers
7 1d4 Cave Scorpions
8 1d4 Giant Flies
9 1 Goblin WarChanter and 1d4+1 Goblin Warriors
10 1d4 Wolfs
11 1-2 Black bears*
12 1d4 Boars
13 1d4 Slime Molds
14 1d4-1 Assassin Vines
15 1d4-1 Dire Wolf
16 1 Dire Wolf and 1d4-1 Wolfs
17 1d4-2 Satyr
18 1d4-2 Flytrap Leshy
19 1d4-2 Ogre Glutton
20 1 Basilisk
*It should be 1d4, but I think that it makes more sense to have bears solitaries or in pairs. Keep this in mind when building your own random encounter tables.
Filling Hexes
In traditional hexploration, it is generally presumed that each hexagonal space has one point of interest. The hexes’ actual area, however, is roughly 1300 square kilometers (about 320 acres, or one hundred eighty thousand soccer fields). That’s a lot of space to have a single, funny-looking rock.
In addition to that, hex navigation is not cardinal. Depending on the hex orientation, you can go either east-west or north-south, but not both. That’s because Hex exploration assumes you’re in the center of a given hex. However, there’s a simple way to resolve this: hex sections.
A hex is composed of 6 equilateral triangles. Instead of presuming that the party is at the center of the hex, our system presumes that the party is at one of the six sections. Like this:
The section numbers follow the d6 rule: opposing numbers always sum up to 7.
In the example above, a party at D6 that decides to travel north would travel through D3, landing on C6. Going south, they would go E3-E6. However, going west would take the party to Hex G, passing through G1, G2, stopping their movement at G3. Note that if the party was in D3 they would enter Hex F instead.
So in our game, the party is never considered at the “center” of the hex, but instead in one of the six sections of it. So this gives us two guidelines.
A) An hex should have at least one and a maximum of six points of interest (you can either roll or pick as you like);
B) At normal speed and regular terrain, it takes half a day to reach any other point from the same hex;
In my experience, it is better to assign letters to the Hexes themselves, using the numbers to identify the section.
Using those rules, we’re going to build our first region: Thirburg
Until next time!