Adventuring

Before the game session, the referee prepares secret notes on the adventure. These notes generally include maps of the adventure site and a key indicating what people, monsters, treasures, traps, and other features of interest can be found in each area.

Although different referees have their own ways of doing things, personally I do not believe it is beneficial to plan out a “story” for a roleplaying session. Rather, the referee should prepare the world and situation, and allow the story to emerge from the actions of the player characters and the roll of the dice.

The archetypal campaign for Wizards With Crossbows is designed as a sandbox. This means that the referee will prepare a number of different adventure sites, adversaries, characters, and clues, but will not force players to tackle them in a specific order. The referee’s goal is to provide meaningful choices about risk and reward. Players can choose whether to enter a more dangerous area in pursuit of more treasure and XP. If they stumble into an area beyond your level, they may need to flee and return later. A major benefit of the sandbox model is to facilitate “open table” play, where you don’t need to attend every session to keep up with the story.

A typical adventure begins with the player characters leaving town and entering the wilderness. They may be planning to return to a dungeon they have previously discovered, or to explore an unknown area in search of new dungeons. They might also be following some clue, such as a treasure map. Once they reach the dungeon, they cautiously explore it, searching for treasure while keeping an eye out for danger.

The party’s journey may be interrupted at any moment by encounters with monsters or NPC’s. Usually, an encounter occurs either because the party has stumbled upon a creature’s lair, or because a dice roll indicates a random encounter with wandering monsters. An encounter may be resolved through combat, through conversation, or through some other means such as stealth or trickery.

If the adventure is successful, the party will return to town laden with gold, gems, and other treasures. If not, they may limp back to town, licking their wounds and plotting revenge. If the adventure goes very badly, they may never return at all.

The referee should never fudge dice rolls to help (or harm) the player characters. Of course, we all hope to see the heroes succeed, but a victory without the chance of failure is hollow and unsatisfying.

Generally, the referee should also avoid tailoring encounters to specific characters, or altering prepared content “on the fly” based on whether the players are doing well or poorly. It is better to provide an objective challenge that exists independently of the player characters, and allow the characters to rise to that challenge on their own merits.

The basic procedure for outdoor travel and exploration is as follows.

Fast Travel. If desired, you can attempt to return directly to a location you have visited before. To do so, the character leading the way must make an Intuit Direction check. The DC is determined by the referee based on how difficult the route is to find, and how familiar it is to the character leading the way.

On a successful check, the party automatically follows the correct route (the DM skips to step 3 in the travel procedure above). On a failure, the party automatically travels in the wrong direction. The greater the margin of failure, the farther astray the party goes. After a failed check, the players may not change their course until it becomes visibly obvious to the characters that they are going the wrong way.

Mapping. The referee will not provide a complete map of the adventure area. It is up to the players to draw a map of what they discover and explore. At most, the referee may draw small maps on scrap paper or a whiteboard to clarify what the characters can see from their present location.

It is useful to know which way is north for mapping and navigation.

Becoming oriented. You can orient yourself easily enough in town, or when obvious landmarks are visible (such as mountains). You can also use the sun to get your bearings, though not easily at midday, when the sun is directly overhead. If you know a little astronomy, you can use the stars to find north. Of course, you cannot use the sun or stars on a cloudy day.

Staying oriented. Once you have found your bearings, you can remain oriented as long as you can see a long distance. Even on a cloudy day, you can keep travelling in a straight line as long as you can see clearly where you are going and from where you have come.

Becoming disoriented. It is possible to become disoriented whenever visibility is limited. This includes when travelling through forest, in a deep valley, through fog or rain, at night, or underground. It is especially hard to keep one’s orientation when travelling along a winding route with many turns.

In these circumstances, the referee may call for an Intuit Direction check from the character who is leading the way. On a success, the party remains oriented. On a failure, characters lose their bearings and the party may veer off course while travelling. Note that the party as a whole either remains oriented or becomes disoriented. If nobody can agree which way is north, it’s just as bad as if nobody knows.

The procedure for dungeon exploration is similar to outdoor exploration, but the time scale is more fine-grained, and it is seldom possible to travel in the same direction for very long. Instead, the party moves from room to room in what is effectively a turn-based game.

Time scale. The standard time unit for dungeon exploration is a 10-minute exploration turn. Usually, for every 10 minutes spent in a populated dungeon, there is a chance of a random encounter with wandering monsters. Therefore, it can be hazardous to spend too long searching each room. Another danger is running out of torches or lamp oil.

Exploring a room. Exploring and mapping a new room generally takes 10 minutes. This may seem slow, but keep in mind that you need time to plan your actions, check for traps, move your light to expose different areas of the room, and so on. An especially large room may take multiple 10-minute turns to explore, while an especially small and barren room may not take the full 10 minutes.

When you spend 10 minutes exploring a room, the referee is expected to provide a clear description of the room’s contents, layout, and dimensions. If you rush through a room without taking the time to explore it, the referee may give only a vague description.

Exploring a room may include brief, directed interaction with any of the objects in the room. For example, during the course of exploration, you could look inside a closet, pull aside a rug, and knock on the wall to see if it is hollow.

Searching a room. Searching a room’s features in more depth requires spending an additional 10-minute turn. When you search, you must pursue some specific policy, not just “searching the room.” For example, you could spend 10 minutes searching all the coats in a wardrobe for loose change or hidden pockets, or you could spend the time banging on every surface of the walls with a pole to search for secret doors.

If there is anything to find in the place you are searching, you discover it automatically, with no dice roll required. (It’s no fun to miss out on a secret because of a poor die roll even though you were searching in exactly the right place.)

Doors and locks. Locked or stuck doors are a common obstacle in dungeons. Without taking a turn, you can attempt one Open Lock check, or one Strength check to break down a door. If your check fails, you can abandon the attempt and move on, or spend 10 minutes making a brute-force check (“taking 20”). The same principle applies to other skill checks.

Simultaneous actions. When one player declares an action that will take 10 minutes, the referee will establish what the other players are doing before resolving all the actions. It is usually a good idea for at least one character to stand watch while the other characters perform tasks like searching or picking locks.

Three different lengths of rest are recognized. A longer rest always includes the benefits of a shorter rest. For example, if a one-hour rest is required to restore an ability, an eight-hour rest also restores it.

One-Hour Rest. A one-hour rest is a period of at least 1 hour, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds. Some class abilities are regained after a one-hour rest.

Eight-Hour Rest. An eight-hour rest is a period of at least 8 hours, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. If your rest is interrupted for an hour or more, you must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it. You can only benefit from an eight-hour rest once per day (normally overnight).

A successful eight-hour rest requires adequate protection from the elements. On a warm summer night, you can simply lie down beneath the stars. But in the middle of a rainstorm, you can’t go to sleep without a tent, cave, or other shelter of some kind. On a cold night, you will need warm blankets or a fire.

When you complete an eight-hour rest, you recover hit points equal to your level. Additionally, some class abilities are regained or partly regained after an eight-hour rest. A spellcaster who completes an eight-hour rest may regain spell slots that add up to his or her caster level. For example, a level 5 spellcaster could choose to regain five 1st-level spell slots, or one 3rd-level spell slot and one 2nd-level spell slot, or any other valid combination.

Week-Long Rest. A week-long rest is at least seven days of downtime in a safe place such as a town. During this time, no adventuring may be undertaken, though characters can pursue other downtime activities for up to 8 hours per day. Characters spend the remainder of their time recovering, practicing their class abilities, and preparing for the next adventure. A week-long rest heals all hit point damage and all temporary ability damage, and restores all used spell slots and class abilities.

You may be required to make endurance checks when you attempt a feat of physical endurance such as running, climbing, or swimming for an extended period of time. The frequency of endurance checks depends on the activity you attempt; a more strenuous activity demands more frequent checks.

An endurance check is a raw Constitution check. The DC is 10 for the first endurance check, and increases by 1 for each subsequent check. The DC normally resets to 10 when you complete an eight-hour rest.

If you fail an endurance check, you become exhausted until you complete an eight-hour rest. If you fail an endurance check while already exhausted, you take 1d6 subdual damage. The next failure deals 2d6 damage, then 3d6, and so on. You cannot be reduced to fewer than 0 hit points by exhaustion. If reduced to 0 hit points, you collapse, too weak to keep moving until you regain hit points.

Characters can walk up to eight hours per day without facing endurance checks. A standard daily routine is to pack up camp, journey for four hours, stop for lunch, journey for another four hours, and then stop to make camp for the evening.

In open terrain, a character’s overland travel speed is as shown in the following table.

Through difficult terrain, such as forest or hills, travel times may be doubled or more.

Hustle. It is possible to move more quickly, but this is tiring over long distances. When you hustle, you travel twice as fast, but you must make an endurance check each hour.

Forced march. If you travel more than 8 hours per day, you must make an endurance check for each additional hour. As you might expect, if you hustle during a forced march, you must make two endurance checks per hour.

To remain healthy, you must eat enough food and drink enough water. See Adventuring Gear for prices and weights. Water requirements are doubled in hot weather.

As a player, it is your responsibility to track your food and water supplies. It is the referee’s responsibility to announce when characters are getting hungry and thirsty (usually when stopping for the night), so that players know to mark off the food and water they consume.

Food and water requirements can be satisfied at any time during a day. For example, if you pass a stream and berry bushes, you can stop to eat and drink enough that you will not have to use any rations in the evening. If you kill some wild animals (or even monsters), you could collect some of the meat to cook over your fire in the evening. Be aware that eating and drinking things you find in the wild may carry the risk of disease.

Hunger and thirst. If you do not eat or drink enough for a day, you become exhausted until your hunger is satisfied and your thirst is quenched. While hungry or thirsty, you cannot gain any healing from an eight-hour rest, and completing a rest does not reset the DC for Endurance checks to 10.

Starvation. If you fail to eat for multiple days, you must make an endurance check at the end of each day after the first. On a failure, instead of taking subdual damage, you take 1 Constitution damage.

Dehydration. If you fail to drink for multiple days, you automatically suffer 1d6 Constitution damage at the end of each day after the first.