Along Perilous Roads (5E Travel)
How do you make travel interesting, challenging, and meaningful? This is a regular topic in my D&D circles. There is a general perception that Fifth Edition does not provide a workable travel subsystem “out of the box,” and I’ve seen many proposals to address this deficiency.
I recently wrote a convention adventure that required the characters to travel along a perilous road. Because it was a one-shot and I wanted it to be easy to run, I chose to lean heavily on the travel rules in the core books rather than develop a novel subsystem. At the same time, I wanted the journey to involve interesting choices and the “vanilla” rules did not really provide this.
And so I devised the following simple “game loop”, which is really just a refinement of the core travel rules. The playtest feedback was very good, and the system was surprisingly well-received on various design forums I frequent, which encouraged me to share it more widely.
Two assumptions before we begin:
The characters are following an established path or heading toward a visible landmark and, therefore, there is no provision for getting lost. I may create a variant in future with a navigation element.
I only permit characters to take a Long Rest in safe havens of some sort, which means they can’t take one while on the road (unless they have a spell like Tiny Hut). I think this rule is essential if you are to make travel challenging and interesting.
Here is the standard travel game loop, including some commentary on my design decisions:
At the start of the journey, the players must choose their travel pace: Fast, Normal, or Slow. These paces are defined in chapter 2 of the Player’s Handbook:
Fast. You travel 30 miles/day but have Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception or Survival) and Dexterity (Stealth) checks.
Normal. You travel 24 miles/day but have Disadvantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks.
Slow. You travel 18 miles/day but gain Advantage on Wisdom (Perception or Survival) checks.
As will be seen below, the selection of pace is very meaningful in this system.
Based on the pace, the DM determines the journey's duration. A 100-mile journey, for example, takes about 3 days at a Fast pace, 4 days at a Normal pace, and 5 days at a Slow pace.
This system assumes one encounter per day, so by selecting a pace, the party effectively selects how many encounters they will have. For each day of travel, the Dungeon Master rolls on a random encounter table. While it’s possible to use pre-programmed encounters here, I’m firmly of the view that random encounters lend a certain energy to travel that makes it more engaging for players and DMs alike. A quality encounter table is necessary, of course.
If the encounter is with a creature (rather than a landmark), each player must make a DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check to see if they notice the target. The travel penalties noted in step 1 apply. On a success, the character notices the oncoming creature before it notices the party. This doesn’t necessarily mean they see the creature itself - they might hear it coming, or see a plume of dust, for example.
If the characters all fail the roll, they notice the creature as it notices them. If the characters all fail their roll by 5 or more, the creature notices them before they notice it.
If the characters notice the creature first, assume they have enough time to either hide, set an ambush, or do whatever else they reasonably wish. If characters attempt to hide, the travel-pace penalties to Stealth defined in step 1 still apply. This makes sense if you consider that characters traveling at a faster pace probably spot their opponent later and therefore have less time to hide.
And that is the game loop, with the DM repeating steps 3-5 each day. Note that step 4 is where I depart most from the 5.5E rules, which assume everyone notices each other at the same time unless someone is deliberately hiding. In contrast, I have placed the Perception check at the heart of each encounter, making the choice of travel pace very meaningful. The characters must decide whether they want to be slow and discreet or fast and conspicuous.
Let’s summarise the steps again without commentary:
The characters select their travel pace.
The DM determines how many days of travel there will be.
For each travel day, the DM rolls a random encounter.
If the encounter is with a creature, each character makes a DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check.
If one of the characters succeeds on the check, they notice the creature before it notices them and can take appropriate action.
This is a simple refinement of the core rules, but it’s proven surprisingly effective in play. I hope you’ll try it out and let me know how it goes at your table!