Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in- Marketplace
Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in
Hello everyone,
I have recently started running ToA for my party.
We haven't gotten to the jungle hex crawl yet.
I am struggling to wrap my head around how to best make travel work in the hex crawl
Does anyone have any tips or even like a guide on how to run this successfully?
Let me know, thank you all for your time :D
Best video I’ve seen on running hex crawls is from Mystic Arts https://youtu.be/hEIg1DlRkLg?is=l-iI1Va8cvnodmOw
Isn't there pages on pages of random encounter tables and advice for travel in the book?
(not trying to sound arrogant or anything, just confirming)
He doesn't have much besides the skin on his bones. Me: I'll take the skin on his bones, then.
"You see a gigantic, monstrous praying mantis burst from out of the ground. It sprays a stream of acid from it's mouth at one soldier, dissolving him instantly, then it turns and chomps another soldier in half with it's- "
"When are we gonna take a snack break?"
The players are starting in Port Nyanzaru. Their destination is Omu. The most direct route requires them to traverse 39 hexes. Sadly, the party won't know where Omu is. They need to find that out. So in order to find it out they need to locate the various settlements and points of interest on the map to encounter NPCs who do know where Omu is. Below is how I run the adventure.
In Person
I have the hex map behind my DM screen. It contains information that the PCs do not know. I give the party a version of the map with no hex grid and a single meeple to dictate where the party currently are. I use settlement pieces from Catan to highlight known settlements or points of interest to which the party may wish to travel.
The party are told that they can reasonably explore 2 hexes per day as they cut their way through the jungles.
Assigning Roles - The party are asked to nominate two roles: a navigator, and a spotter. The navigator makes the survival checks as they lead the party through the jungle. The spot makes perception checks as they pass through. The perception checks will reveal any nearby trails that could lead to a point of interest, or if high enough give advanced warning of a random encounter/ambush.
DM Rolls - The main thing you as DM need to do is to keep track of what kind of terrain the party are passing through. This is important because then you know which of the random encounter tables to roll on. If they party are in a hex with a beach, you roll on the Beach table. If they're traversing a mountain tile, then you roll on the mountain table.
Pattern of Exploration
You repeat this pattern basically until the party arrive at Omu. If at any time the party move into a hex occupied by a location or point of interest, then you switch gears going from the hex map to the location. This can actually be done as the DM narrates the exploration of the terrain, or you can decide that they don't discover that location until later in the journey across the hex.
Online
If playing online, I tend to have a hex grid but unmarked image of the map for play so that the party have an idea where they are and a visual to keep focus on. I'll also have a ready supply of generic jungle/mountain/beach battlemaps ready to go for the various different random combat encounters.
The only other thing I haven't mentioned here is pace of travel. If scaling a mountain you might decide that the party can only traverse a single hex per adventuring day. This can get arduous, but it's a call you make as a DM to try and keep the pace and excitement of the adventure up.
If all of that sounds like too much
Pre-roll or pre decide what encounters are going to be in which hexes. This is a common tactic for some DMs who like to keep the pace faster. You can even just preplan a route for the PCs and have an NPC in the port town give the party a map pointing to the obvious settlement where they can get hold of some information on the location of Omu. I don't recommend this one obviously, but I've seen it done before.
The route went:
It missed off a lot of content which kinda sucked. I'd say though that the point is not that players will see all points of interest in chapter 2. It's more about giving them the opportunity to explore, get lost, find a new place, discover loot, build levels.
Final Note
Kobold Press published an exceptionally good Guide to Hexcrawl. It's primarily for those wanting to design their own Hexcrawl adventures, but as usually they do this kind of information a lot better than WotC does in my opinion. https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/book-of-hexcrawl/
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
Thank you so much for this!
My main concern has been on the mechanics of each day, and specifically if I do role play for each day individually or do it in blocks (i.e. the party travels 5 day south, and I narrate in blocks)
I have been prepping to do it all individually, so literally role play every hex, what they see and what they go through, but I am getting a bit complicated with the mechanics of water, food and foraging and stuff like that
I want to make the experience to be a proper survival, but also the mechanics of it all are confusing me deeply.
Any advice on this?