Venture through the deadly flora and fauna of the jungles of Chult in the perilous adventure Tomb of Annihilation. Now integrated with Maps, Dungeon Masters can now run fifth edition's premier hex crawl adventure for their players on D&D Beyond.

Let’s load up our packs, fill our water skins, and explore some quick tips for DMs running this adventure in a VTT.

What Is a Hex Crawl?

A hex crawl is a style of gameplay where the party navigates overland through hostile and dangerous terrain. The name comes from the use of a hexagonal grid to divide up the map and the cautious pace the characters must take. A hexagon is concealed from the players until they explore it, potentially also revealing what threats reside within.

A hex crawl map of Chult waiting to be explored by a band of heroes.

Tomb of Annihilation features a hex crawl of the jungles of Chult. There is much to be discovered within this tropical region: ancient ruins, military outposts, settlements of people both friendly and hostile. Tomb of Annihilation features a massive table of 90 different random encounters for Chult, tailored to the type of terrain that’s being explored.

6 Tips for Running a Hex Crawl

Running a hex crawl can be a daunting task, even with a tool like Maps to help you. Here are some quick tips for making exploring those hexagons a little easier:

1. Make Use of Random Tables: Random tables, such as the massive ones found in Tomb of Annihilation, can make populating your hexes much easier. When rolling on a random table, you might choose to roll twice and take whichever result best suits the narrative or the area the players are exploring.
2. Not Every Encounter Should Be Combat: Just because you’ve rolled an encounter with a t-rex or a tabaxi hunter, that doesn’t mean it has to be a fight. Maybe that t-rex is injured and the party can help heal it, or the hunter is looking to trade some of their recent kills for fresh water? You can do a lot of storytelling with non-combat encounters.
3. Number Your Hexes: It can be difficult to keep track of everything that's happened to the party over hundreds of miles of travel. Numbering a hex when the players enter it, and then jotting down that number on a list can be a good way to keep tabs on where the players are, where they have been, and what they’ve encountered.
4. Don’t Overload the Party with Details: Try and keep each hex to a single encounter or point of interest. There’ll be a lot of them to explore and you don’t want to over saturate the map. Also, don’t be afraid of "empty" hexes; these can provide safe locales for the players to rest and plan.
5. Give the Party Goals: One thing that can make a hex crawl feel tedious is if there isn’t a clear objective. Giving the party goals, such as "rendezvous with the outpost north of the volcano" can help incentivize and motivate exploration in a way that feels purposeful.
6. Guides Are Invaluable: You can really help your players take control of hex crawling through the use of a guide. Tomb of Annihilation features several such guides and they're a great way to give the players some unique roleplay opportunities.

About Tomb of Annihilation

Nestled within the steaming jungle of the Chult peninsula lies ruins of civilizations past, crumbled by both the ravages of time and the jungle itself. But something else dwells within this inhospitable region: the source of a mysterious and magical curse that is preventing souls from being raised from the dead.

Worse still, those who have previously been raised from the dead find themselves withering away. Called the Death Curse, brave heroes must venture deep into the wilds of Chult, find the source of this bane, and put an end to it. But what, or who, awaits them at the heart of this mystery?

Tomb of Annihilation is an adventure book that takes characters from 1st to 11th level. The adventure features both dungeon and hex crawls, includes dozens of monsters for use in the Encounters tool, plus magic items and character backgrounds.

Explore Chult Today with D&D Beyond Maps

The players must explore Chult one 10-mile hex at a time. The process can be slow and arduous, but that doesn’t mean running it needs to be! With a Master-tier subscription, Dungeon Masters can use D&D Beyond Maps to load up the hex crawl map included in Tomb of Annihilation, making it easier than ever to run the adventure.

Combined with battle maps, tokens, and tools such as fog of war, Maps is there to help you prep less and play more of Tomb of Annihilation, or whichever adventure you choose to run.

Davyd is a moderator for D&D Beyond. A Dungeon Master of over fifteen years, he enjoys Marvel movies, writing, and of course running D&D for his friends and family, including his wife Steph and his daughter Willow (well, one day). They live with their two cats Khatleesi and Mollie in the south of England.