Instead of worrying about CON saves, worry about resources: Food, water, shelter. If players go too long without two out of the three, like if they go to bed out in the open after a day of bad hunting, you might apply a level of exhaustion for the next day until they can next meet at least two out of the three requirements.
That way, instead of rolling endless CON saves, you might actually encourage players to explore the area in order to hopefully find more of these resources. Maybe they do decide to investigate the ominous ruins if they're desperate enough for a place to stay out of the cold, desert night. Maybe they're willing to descend into the creepy cave on the off chance of discovering an underground spring.
You don't even need to really "track resources", you just use the resources as another reward, like gold or treasure. "You find four days' worth of water in the bandit camp once you dispatch them," "The basilisk is dead, but with a 12 on your survival roll, you only recover 1d4 rations of lizard meat" etc.
Instead of worrying about CON saves, worry about resources: Food, water, shelter. If players go too long without two out of the three, like if they go to bed out in the open after a day of bad hunting, you might apply a level of exhaustion for the next day until they can next meet at least two out of the three requirements.
That way, instead of rolling endless CON saves, you might actually encourage players to explore the area in order to hopefully find more of these resources. Maybe they do decide to investigate the ominous ruins if they're desperate enough for a place to stay out of the cold, desert night. Maybe they're willing to descend into the creepy cave on the off chance of discovering an underground spring.
You don't even need to really "track resources", you just use the resources as another reward, like gold or treasure. "You find four days' worth of water in the bandit camp once you dispatch them," "The basilisk is dead, but with a 12 on your survival roll, you only recover 1d4 rations of lizard meat" etc.
The problem with "food, water, shelter" is that Goodberry and Tiny Hut pretty well sort out both of them without being particularly resource intensive. Obviously not all parties will have access to both, but they're accessible enough that it's easy for one or both to come up and trivialize the issue. Technically this can be solved with houseruling, but that can come across as aggressive railroading.
Instead of worrying about CON saves, worry about resources: Food, water, shelter. If players go too long without two out of the three, like if they go to bed out in the open after a day of bad hunting, you might apply a level of exhaustion for the next day until they can next meet at least two out of the three requirements.
That way, instead of rolling endless CON saves, you might actually encourage players to explore the area in order to hopefully find more of these resources. Maybe they do decide to investigate the ominous ruins if they're desperate enough for a place to stay out of the cold, desert night. Maybe they're willing to descend into the creepy cave on the off chance of discovering an underground spring.
You don't even need to really "track resources", you just use the resources as another reward, like gold or treasure. "You find four days' worth of water in the bandit camp once you dispatch them," "The basilisk is dead, but with a 12 on your survival roll, you only recover 1d4 rations of lizard meat" etc.
The problem with "food, water, shelter" is that Goodberry and Tiny Hut pretty well sort out both of them without being particularly resource intensive. Obviously not all parties will have access to both, but they're accessible enough that it's easy for one or both to come up and trivialize the issue. Technically this can be solved with houseruling, but that can come across as aggressive railroading.
Yeah but it's a trade-off between taking survival spells vs combat/control spells that might be more useful else where. I would reward players for selecting those options over other, arguably better options by letting them use them and feel special and clever for it. And there's still water to deal with. You can only go so many days without it, so you can still make sure that the players are regularly gathering that particular resource.
Instead of worrying about CON saves, worry about resources: Food, water, shelter. If players go too long without two out of the three, like if they go to bed out in the open after a day of bad hunting, you might apply a level of exhaustion for the next day until they can next meet at least two out of the three requirements.
That way, instead of rolling endless CON saves, you might actually encourage players to explore the area in order to hopefully find more of these resources. Maybe they do decide to investigate the ominous ruins if they're desperate enough for a place to stay out of the cold, desert night. Maybe they're willing to descend into the creepy cave on the off chance of discovering an underground spring.
You don't even need to really "track resources", you just use the resources as another reward, like gold or treasure. "You find four days' worth of water in the bandit camp once you dispatch them," "The basilisk is dead, but with a 12 on your survival roll, you only recover 1d4 rations of lizard meat" etc.
The problem with "food, water, shelter" is that Goodberry and Tiny Hut pretty well sort out both of them without being particularly resource intensive. Obviously not all parties will have access to both, but they're accessible enough that it's easy for one or both to come up and trivialize the issue. Technically this can be solved with houseruling, but that can come across as aggressive railroading.
Yeah but it's a trade-off between taking survival spells vs combat/control spells that might be more useful else where. I would reward players for selecting those options over other, arguably better options by letting them use them and feel special and clever for it. And there's still water to deal with. You can only go so many days without it, so you can still make sure that the players are regularly gathering that particular resource.
Point on water, though I had to find a tweet from JC to confirm Goodberry didn't cover it. Still, Create and Destroy Water is a 1st level spell, and two 1st level spells and a ritual spread out between two characters is not particularly resource intensive on a party.
What level is the campaign? At tier 2/3 goodberry and create water aren’t major resource drains, at tier 1 ( especially levels 1-3) they are/can be. Stocking up for desert travel is a bit like like fueling a rocket - you need 1 pound of fuel for 1 pound of payload but you need 4 pounds of fuel for 2 pounds of payload ( you need fuel to lift the other fuel) in the desert very quickly you need beasts of burden to carry the food and water for your beasts of burden to carry the food and water for you - etc. using food and water as rewards is a good idea as well as making sure your PCs include a ranger/Druid ( versed in desert survival) as well as a DM+ player with some knowledge to draw on - deserts are nasty places for the inexperienced - mirages, direct sun, extreme heat, extreme cold, killer creatures, sandstorms and more. PCs with skills like cartography and navigation can be huge helps as well.( nothing like doing a drunkards walk in a sand sea to kill a person.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Instead of worrying about CON saves, worry about resources: Food, water, shelter. If players go too long without two out of the three, like if they go to bed out in the open after a day of bad hunting, you might apply a level of exhaustion for the next day until they can next meet at least two out of the three requirements.
That way, instead of rolling endless CON saves, you might actually encourage players to explore the area in order to hopefully find more of these resources. Maybe they do decide to investigate the ominous ruins if they're desperate enough for a place to stay out of the cold, desert night. Maybe they're willing to descend into the creepy cave on the off chance of discovering an underground spring.
You don't even need to really "track resources", you just use the resources as another reward, like gold or treasure. "You find four days' worth of water in the bandit camp once you dispatch them," "The basilisk is dead, but with a 12 on your survival roll, you only recover 1d4 rations of lizard meat" etc.
That’s actually a really good idea! Thanks!
The problem with "food, water, shelter" is that Goodberry and Tiny Hut pretty well sort out both of them without being particularly resource intensive. Obviously not all parties will have access to both, but they're accessible enough that it's easy for one or both to come up and trivialize the issue. Technically this can be solved with houseruling, but that can come across as aggressive railroading.
Yeah but it's a trade-off between taking survival spells vs combat/control spells that might be more useful else where. I would reward players for selecting those options over other, arguably better options by letting them use them and feel special and clever for it. And there's still water to deal with. You can only go so many days without it, so you can still make sure that the players are regularly gathering that particular resource.
Point on water, though I had to find a tweet from JC to confirm Goodberry didn't cover it. Still, Create and Destroy Water is a 1st level spell, and two 1st level spells and a ritual spread out between two characters is not particularly resource intensive on a party.
What level is the campaign? At tier 2/3 goodberry and create water aren’t major resource drains, at tier 1 ( especially levels 1-3) they are/can be. Stocking up for desert travel is a bit like like fueling a rocket - you need 1 pound of fuel for 1 pound of payload but you need 4 pounds of fuel for 2 pounds of payload ( you need fuel to lift the other fuel) in the desert very quickly you need beasts of burden to carry the food and water for your beasts of burden to carry the food and water for you - etc. using food and water as rewards is a good idea as well as making sure your PCs include a ranger/Druid ( versed in desert survival) as well as a DM+ player with some knowledge to draw on - deserts are nasty places for the inexperienced - mirages, direct sun, extreme heat, extreme cold, killer creatures, sandstorms and more. PCs with skills like cartography and navigation can be huge helps as well.( nothing like doing a drunkards walk in a sand sea to kill a person.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.