Since rangers cant get lost if they are in their favored terrain, what is stopping a ranger from choosing forest and completely negating the getting lost mechanic of tomb of annihilation?
Likely nothing, though an enterprising DM can turn the "you are lost" outcome of the map mini-game into "you are not able to find a clear path and need to head another direction to find a better way to get to where you are going."
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
As someone who has played in Chult there is actually a lot of terrain.
Jungle, Mountain, Coastal (rivers), and Wasteland.
If your party is planning on using canoes then Coastal is better then Jungle. Jungle is better if you plan on hoofing it.
That's said I'm dissapointed the devs didn't account for the ability for a Ranger to lead a group without a speed penalty for difficult terrain.
When running Tomb of Annihilation I chose to make it so if the party moved at slow speed they always move 1 the, and if they move fast they always move an extra. It ignores the 50% failure. I did the math on doessp and the hexes and I felt it was the best compromise.
NOTE: animals are not susceptible to infection and so don't need to be protected from throat leaches and insects carrying disease. If they plan on walking this is important for having pack animals.
As someone who has played in Chult there is actually a lot of terrain.
Jungle, Mountain, Coastal (rivers), and Wasteland.
Most of the party's travel will be 'Forest' hexes. Out of four groups that completed the chapter (I ran three and played in a fourth), rarely was the party in other terrain (note: river hexes were usually Forest hexes).
I'm dissapointed the devs didn't account for the ability for a Ranger to lead a group without a speed penalty for difficult terrain.
ToA's 10 mile per day travel rate seemed to be an approximation of the normal 24 mile per day, with the addition of "adventurers often face dense forests, deep swamps, rubble-filled ruins, steep mountains, and ice-covered ground—all considered difficult terrain. You move at half speed in difficult terrain—moving 1 foot in difficult terrain costs 2 feet of speed—so you can cover only half the normal distance in a minute, an hour, or a day."
Advancing the group's travel rate to 20 miles per day seems like a reasonable interpretation of the Ranger's ability: "While travelling for an hour or more in your favored terrain, you gain the following benefits: Difficult terrain doesn't slow your group's travel." (otherwise: what is that ability for?).
But yeah: seems like an oversight that the adventure doesn't mention the Ranger abilities.
Given that p194 for Wilderness Encounters lists: Beach, 3 types of jungle, rivers, ruins, swamp, and wastland and p38 listes the hexes as coastal, jungle, mountain, swamp, or wasteland.
The game of Tomb of Annihilation I played in ruled that rivers were "coastal" not "jungle". Also under p38 for Navigation it lists: jungles, mountains, rivers, swamps, and wastelands as being DC 15 for checks and coasts and lakes being DC 10.
I'm not saying either is correct, but the GM running us through had river under "coastal" as the rivers are huge (like Amazon River huge or bigger) and possibly to regulate favored terrain not to be a single win.
Since Rivers were ruled as Coastal, 80% of our checks were in coastal.
The game of Tomb of Annihilation I played in ruled that rivers were "coastal" not "jungle".
Semantically, rivers have banks rather than coasts (and as your quote indicates: Jungle and River navigation checks are DC 15, while Coasts are DC 10), but I have no problem with a DM wanting to make coastal favored terrain more useful. It's irrelevant for movement purposes though: rivers double movement, so I wouldn't count them as difficult terrain, which means the Ranger will not increase movement during river travel.
Since rangers cant get lost if they are in their favored terrain, what is stopping a ranger from choosing forest and completely negating the getting lost mechanic of tomb of annihilation?
Anyone know? Am I missing something?
Likely nothing, though an enterprising DM can turn the "you are lost" outcome of the map mini-game into "you are not able to find a clear path and need to head another direction to find a better way to get to where you are going."
It is absolutely legit. A Ranger would literally shine in ToA.
As someone who has played in Chult there is actually a lot of terrain.
Jungle, Mountain, Coastal (rivers), and Wasteland.
If your party is planning on using canoes then Coastal is better then Jungle. Jungle is better if you plan on hoofing it.
That's said I'm dissapointed the devs didn't account for the ability for a Ranger to lead a group without a speed penalty for difficult terrain.
When running Tomb of Annihilation I chose to make it so if the party moved at slow speed they always move 1 the, and if they move fast they always move an extra. It ignores the 50% failure. I did the math on doessp and the hexes and I felt it was the best compromise.
NOTE: animals are not susceptible to infection and so don't need to be protected from throat leaches and insects carrying disease. If they plan on walking this is important for having pack animals.
Given that p194 for Wilderness Encounters lists: Beach, 3 types of jungle, rivers, ruins, swamp, and wastland and p38 listes the hexes as coastal, jungle, mountain, swamp, or wasteland.
The game of Tomb of Annihilation I played in ruled that rivers were "coastal" not "jungle".
Also under p38 for Navigation it lists: jungles, mountains, rivers, swamps, and wastelands as being DC 15 for checks and coasts and lakes being DC 10.
I'm not saying either is correct, but the GM running us through had river under "coastal" as the rivers are huge (like Amazon River huge or bigger) and possibly to regulate favored terrain not to be a single win.
Since Rivers were ruled as Coastal, 80% of our checks were in coastal.