Revision as of 17:30, 14 March 2013

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This is where we discuss exploration.

Overview

Getting from one place to another is not nearly as simple and straight-forward as saying "we go from here to there." The world is full of dangers, interesting sites, and unplanned detours - and as such, Journey seeks to make all these possible, within a strong mechanical framework that remains flexible enough to present all that a fantasy world has to offer.

Unlike combat, exploration is significantly more dynamic in terms of what skills are used for. The same skill can be used one minute to gain an advantage over the environment, and the next used in a reactive manner to defend against something the environment is doing to you.

Terms

Hex

An area of space on the overworld map. Hexes are the smallest unit of terrain: in general, the terrain in a hex will match the hex's terrain type. Hexes are a static feature of the world map.

Hexes are universally one wheel across, from point to point. The lack of precision in definition of size of hexes is intentional to allow the LM to determine the scale on which he wants the game to operate.

Room

An area within a hex. Rooms are created dynamically as a party travels through a hex, and are dependent upon zone boundaries and character skills and abilities. A room, in essence, is simply an opportunity for the environment to act upon the party: it is not necessary that a room pose an obstacle, but rooms are the mechanical trigger that allows them to do so.

Room distribution within a hex is based upon: zones, character skills, hex danger rating, weather danger rating. A hex that is in civilized lands in calm weather will have significantly fewer rooms - and thus, fewer opportunities to present an obstacle - than a hex deep in wilderness experiencing extreme weather.

No matter what, a hex always has at least one room. This number cannot be lowered.

Zone

Zones are static areas within a hex that define characteristics of the hex beyond the base hex definition. Zones help define placement of static obstacles, and can also modify dynamic encounters, or even add them to a hex's base encounter table. Zones can be destroyed, whereas a hex can only be modified.

A zone always has at least one room when traveled.

Energy

The basic resource of exploration. Energy is consumed when performing exploration tasks, and is also depleted over time while a character is awake. Energy is restored through eating, drinking, and resting.

The maximum size of a character's energy token pool is reduced as a factor of time spent traveling. Spending time on the road is not as comfortable as sleeping in a bed at home, and over time, your ability to continue traveling is simply sapped. Younger characters and those that are explorers by nature suffer fewer penalties, while older characters suffer greater penalties.

Obstacle

Exploration encounters are referred to as a whole as obstacles. These can be anything from a potential combat with a wandering monster to having to scale a cliff to get to your destination.

It is important to note that the concept of a combat is an exploration obstacle, while the combat itself is a warrior encounter. Explorers may avoid combat encounters, or even set up an ambush to provide bonii for themselves and their party, but the actual content of the encounter is a warrior encounter. This is unlike most other exploration obstacles, which will tend to be exploration-focused.

Position

A catch-all term for basic exploration checks. Just as any character can dodge, so, too, can any character attempt to be stealthy or generally aware of their surroundings. The Positions are: Stealth, Survival, Awareness, Fortitude, and Navigation.

Positions serve as the Type I skill for explorers in EG2.

Energy, Endurance, and Time

There are three primary factors in exploration for characters to be concerned about. These are: energy, their ability to keep going; endurance, their ability to carry gear; and time.

Energy expenditure varies wildly based upon the activities being undertaken.

Endurance is the the max of a character's Strength and Constitution attributes, plus any ranks in the Endurance trait. However, just because you can carry that much does not mean you can indefinitely: the higher fraction of your endurance you carry, the more base energy you expend for travel.

Given that starting energy totals will be relatively low, this should signify the importance of containers to carry more equipment in, as carrying objects in containers reduces their effective weight.

Example Encounters

Okay, so now that we have some stuff, let's apply it, eh?

The Cliffs of Insanity

A standard Journey party (generalist Lorist) is attempting to get to a dungeon. On their travels, they encounter a series of hexes with a cliff zone barring their passage. The cliff zone seems to carry on into mountain hexes, and they would rather not leave the forest hexes they're in, as mountains are more dangerous. They decide to attempt to climb the cliff.

The cliffs are about eighty feet high, and so have a Composite Target Number (CTN) of 80, with a base TN of 7 - not only is there a lot of cliff, it's rather sheer, and so very difficult to climb. What this means is that a character must hit a TN of 7 on any given Climb check to make progress (and potentially fall), and a character's total result over a series of rolls must be an 80 to completely get over the obstacle.

Given that there is no combat here, the party decides to take their time to do this right.

The warrior, with a high Strength attribute, can climb on his own despite not being too good at it (1d8+1d4 [7]). He will make progress, but very slowly. It will take him 12 checks to climb up, and Climb has a base Energy of 1. He is carrying slightly less than half his Endurance, so his multiplier is x2, meaning each check requires 2 energy. He will spend 24 energy to reach the top of the cliff. However, he only has 14 max energy. For each check after his 7th, he will suffer two Exhaustion tokens (which are essentially Wound tokens for energy).