Hours
As with the hexcrawl. time plays an important role on this pointcrawl. For the sake of granularity, both the hexcrawl and the pointcrawl, whichever we end up using, will use
hours instead of movement units. Barring certain circumstances, the party starts a day with
12 hours to work with. Hours are spent moving or doing actions on the world map, like the hexcrawl.
Movement
Movement takes varying amounts of time dependent on the harshness of the path being used. There are three main types of path, as well as certain special ones, represented by certain kinds of lines on the world map.
- Good Path - Double Line - This is a road or well-trodden path that is easy to traverse. Movement over this kind of path takes 3 hours by default.
- Tough Path - Single Line - This is a tougher, more uneven path that is harder to traverse. Movement over this kind of path takes 4 hours by default.
- Harsh Path - Dark Red Line - This is a very tough path, found in hard to navigate terrain. Movement over this kind of path takes 6 hours by default.
In addition to these kinds of paths, there are special ones as well.
- Subterranean - Purple Line - These paths are underground, and are often only found via exploration. Travel time varies.
- Short/Long Path - Any Line - These paths are notated with text to indicate that they take more or less time than usual to traverse.
- Secret Path - Any Line - These paths are notated with an "S" and hidden from the party by default. Finding them requires a successful Explore action, a guide, a rumor, or through play, like finding a secret passage out of a dungeon.
All these paths lead to
nodes, which can represent locations, landmarks, or simply demarcations of time to traverse that path. All these nodes can have actions taken in them, regardless of importance. The icons you'll see to represent certain nodes are listed below:
- Solid Circle - May indicate both a bend in a path and/or simply a demarcation of how far along a path your party would get in the amount of movement hours for that path.
- Dual Circle - A landmark that does not deserve a full tile, such as a back entrance to a dungeon or some other semi-important position.
- Red Card - A city or other large population center.
- Blue Card - A village or other small population center.
- Green Card - A wilderness location.
- Yellow Card - A dungeon or ruin.
Weather & Movement
Weather can make movement harder, for obvious reasons. Additional hours apply to all paths traveled that day.
- Clear Weather - No Effect
- Light Weather (light fog, light rain, etc.) - No Effect
- Heavy Weather (heavy fog, heavy rain, etc.) - +1 hour to travel
- Night Time - +1 hour to travel
Moving Off The Path
Although pointcrawls primarily operate by paths and nodes, these are abstractions, and it is still possible for the party to go "off-road" whether they want to make their own shortcut to a node, or if they get lost.
Moving over terrain in this way is an incredibly laborious affair -- it requires finding paths or making your own, and vastly increases the chances of getting lost. The terrain being moved over will determine how long this sort of travel will take. As a general rule, the time to travel over terrain will be that of a
path plus 2 hours.
- Plains - Good Path + 2 - 5 hours
- Forest/Swamp - Tough Path + 2 - 6 hours
- Mountains - Harsh Path + 2 - 8 hours
- Subterranean - Situational.
Movement of this fashion relies on going from landmark to landmark, and using high ground to survey the area. After the ordeal, if the highest INT character (or character with survivalist vocation) makes a successful INT roll at disadvantage (disadvantage does not apply to survivalist character),
they remember that path and can use it again at a faster rate.
Actions
While in a node, the party can take actions that consume a certain amount of hours, but may incur benefits and new advantages.
- Explore - The party explores the area, looking for hidden paths and locations. On a successful WIS roll at disadvantage (unless survivalist vocation), the party finds one secret location or path. Failing the WIS roll results in an encounter roll. Alternatively, the party can specifically look for an encounter in the area (this requires no roll).
- WIS roll at disadvantage (unless survivalist vocation), consumes 3 hours
- Forage - The party searches for edibles in that area. A success means the party finds 2d6 rations (trail). This action's chance of success can be positively modified by survivalist vocations by +1 and negatively modified by harsh terrain by -1. Impossible in subterranean areas unless stated otherwise.
- 2/6 chance base (+1 for survivalist, -1 for harsh terrain), consumes 2 hours.
- Camp - The party sets up camp and rests for a party-determined amount of time. Although this consumes hours in time, it does not consume hours of potential movement -- any movement the party has left will still be in play when they decide to move again. Every hour spent camping is restored to the party's movement, capped at 12 hours. For instance, a party camping for 4 hours will have 4 hours worth of movement restored to them. Daily encounter checks still apply.
- No chance, consumes player-determined amount of hours.
Getting Lost
Getting lost is a random chance event that can occur when certain conditions are not met.
The party cannot get lost while using good paths. The base chance of getting lost is 1-in-6, but this can be modified by the weather.
- Using Good Path - No chance of getting lost under any circumstance
- Clear Weather - 1/6
- Light Weather - 2/6
- Heavy Weather - 3/6
- Subterranean - Situational
This mechanic reflects the party taking a wrong turn or getting distracted and ending up in the wilderness. Travel doing these portions depends on the terrain involved, per the Moving Off The Path rules above.
While lost, there is a
base chance of 3/6 to find a known node again. This is rolled during every wilderness travel period. These can be negatively modified by weather (-1 for light, -2 for heavy) and positively modified by survivalist vocations (+1 per vocation in party), surveying from high ground, and successful WIS checks (only for that travel period, failure negatively modifies).
Negative modifiers for finding your way
can only lower the chance to 1/6. Positive modifiers
can only raise the chance to 5/6.
Keep in mind that rules on remembering the path also apply to being lost, with the same qualifiers.
Random Encounters
A random encounter check is made
every day spent on the world map. The default chance of an encounter is 1/6. The encounters vary by terrain type, which is determined by the position of the node. For instance, if the node were in a plain area, the encounter table would look like this:
- Plain Encounter
- Plain Animals
- Plain Humans
- Plain Oddity
- Plain Loot
- Plain Monsters
- Plain Situation
The Plain Encounter table is rolled on first to determine which category will be selected from. Then, another roll is made on the sub-encounter table to determine the result. Random encounters can be helpful or dangerous.
