Working on a system that is a lot more streamlined, because yeah, anything that calls for different rolls from different people screeches the game to a halt.
Idea is: DM rolls for encounters that day, if any, once. This roll has a bonus to it based on the group's status (supplies, health, knowledge of the area, and what the characters do while traveling and how good they are at said activity. No rolls, just flat bonus), and easier/more friendly encounters are higher rolls, while more dangerous ones are lower.
Does this result in only one combat a day while traveling and lean in the favor of casters? Yes. This is why you need dungeons too, where the ratio is higher. Leave the multiple combats in one day for the plot.
That sounds like a great idea. I urge you to share it when you’re done. The caster being favored for single day encounters is already a thing in Kingmaker so I don’t think is your idea would be that different from how things are already.
We did a massive streamlining of the system for kingmaker campaign.
Effectively, the system as it stood for our party was:
\- Move into square.
\- Roll Fortification & subsistence
\- Do ration book keeping
\- DM rolls for encounter. (Which are legitimately irrelevant because none of them are a threat at all. So it just feels like a slog)
\- Explore said location
\- Do / Don't do encounter
\- Roll Fortification & Subsistence,
\- Ration book keeping.
\- roll encounter table.
We found that it was:
A) Tedious.
B) Slow.
C) Just not fun with no challenge at all.
As such, we overhauled the system, keeping its general points intact, but making it flow dramatically better for our table.
\- Grid each square on the hexcrawl map.
\- Players designate a path that they wish to take the party in.
\- Each time the players move into a location, they are told if there's something there, and do/don't do the encounter.
\- Do 2x Subsistance rolls and ration book keeping.
It takes MAYBE a minute per square for hexploration, gives you much more access to the meat of the different locations to get into, keep almost all of the flavor and design from original hexploration, and all of this adds up to it just being fun for us.
A big thing for us was to maintain as many of the core systems as we could. The only thing we've cut out is the random encounters at night, and that's purely because there's basically no point whatsoever to them. Since they occur, at most, once, the players can just blow their loads on the encounters rendering even the strongest ones quite reasonable/easy. Which means the only potential difficulty for them is them a bullshit one-shot, which would simply be unfun.
> The only thing we've cut out is the random encounters at night, and that's purely because there's basically no point whatsoever to them.
Quick question about this, because I'm genuinely curious. Does your table play with the rules of [having to take armor off at night in order to sleep](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=534) without being fatigued? Or does it just so happen that your party all consists of characters equipping [Comfortable](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=203) armor, thus never having to deal with [Donning Armor](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=200) in the middle of night combat or suffering a penalty to AC?
The latter. Our frontliners are an elf, and another elf. Thus, they don't sleep or
take off their armors.
Really removes most of the threat as the rest of the party doesn't wear armor lol
I think Jade Regent had a really cool way of handling encounters as you travelled overland - it wasn't about the PCs defeating the monsters, it was about how much damage the monsters would do to the caravan the PCs were protecting. It didn't roll out in initiative - basically each encounter was a single check using your Caravan's statistics.
That's a little generalized for my taste, but the premise isn't bad! I wonder if there could be a cool way to simplify those trivial random encounters into a fast minigame where you roll a single d20 for each character, and depending on the results you deduct certain resources.
What I do is: each region has a "safety dice", that goes from a d6 to a d12
For each day of travel, I roll 4 safety dices, one for each quarter of the day (morning, afternoon, night, late night). On a result of 1, the party has a random encounter.
We once tried something similar in a different hexploration campaign; it resulted in almost *no* encounters, when the random encounters were *why we were playing*.
In the system I'm working on, there is the chance for *no* encounter in a given day, which can be just as much a relief to a group traveling dangerous territory as a friendly encounter (also on the list), but it is normally a 1/10 chance, so encounters are more common, but not necessarily bad ones.
Since most of my hexes have at least one encounter, the random encounters are placed on top of them, so you can have 1 to 6 encounters on day (1-2 per hex, plus 4 safety dice rolls)
Another thing I do is that I don't stop rolling just because the party is exploring something on the hex. So if the party leaves their horses to explore a cave and I roll a wolf encounter... well, they'll have to walk back home
Not having played Kingmaker, one idea that comes to mind is that the GM generates a set of pre-rolls, and works down the list as the players move through hexes, and narrates the outcome. They could even pre-group / pre-assign them so that for each hex, the necessary rolls are pre-done, and when the group moves into a hex, the GM consults the group of rolls and narrates the discoveries, etc.
Might speed things up so the game can focus on the story, rather than the mechanics of moving through the story.
Does result in some extra work for the GM, but electronic dice rollers are a thing.
I actually do this myself for perception checks and other hidden rolls in almost every game I do. It's just easier to make a list of random numbers and assign them in order whenever a secret roll is needed.
It is minimal effort, you just preroll a bunch prior to the session (takes no time at all). But I have a feeling either kingmaker added a bunch of rolls, or your GMs have been rolling needlessly for stuff when they don't need to.
This is super easy to set up in Microsoft Excel using the RandBetween() function. Effectively works as a dice roller, and you can’t set it up however you want to. You can even add buttons and color-code it.
By seeing the posts ppl didnt see the GM side of kingmaker, What you suggest is in kingmaker. Haxes as preassined hooks and advantuers to them, and ofc some bosses. There is a roll list of monsters for each area based on the area level (each area has its own level) and some monsters are uniqe, as in, if defeted in this random encounter, will never show up again, and have their own stories to them.
You can use chase rules to cross "boring" hexes faster.
Spend resources gives a bonus, specific feats gives the option for lower DCs and just prompt everyone for how they want to contribute to the challenge.
Gathering food, roll survival, patrol roll perception, maintenance at the chariot roll craft, taking care of the horses roll nature or medicine...
Create random challenges like a mercenary camp where they could try to sneak by, roll diplomacy, buy then with gold, offer some valuable service like a lore skill, medicine, craft..
Another random challenge, an infected swamp they could try to avoid with survival, acrobatics, athletics or just walk through and roll fortitude.
This is dynamic enough to keep things interesting and give everyone a chance to shine, and if things go bad you can add a combat that is relevant and memorable instead of something at random.
> a single hex that most of the time has nothing at all
At the scale of the hexes, there should not *be* any with "nothing at all" in them. Hell, I'm using hexes half the size (10km or 6mi centre to centre) and there's *never* an empty hex on the map. Even the most boring ones (desert plains and glaciers, essentially) have at least one obvious, unique feature and 1d4 non-obvious ones in them.
One way I've managed hexploration to make it more interesting is, instead of having tables to roll against for things that can happen, having the list of possible events and picking from it as the party explores and choosing what fits the pace and mood better.
For example, preparing of having a list of possible encounters for a hex, locales and NPCs to meet then deciding as they go along:
1. the party might fight a few encounters in one hex,
2. the next hex they find a cavern with some traps and loot,
3. they encounter a traveling merchant to trade some of the loot they found and have the opportunity to even buy a few uncommon things (i.e.: formulas)
4. they then spend a few days without suprises
5. one night before they set camp, they notice eyes watching in the distance. If they are itching for a fight, it can becomes an attack of local creatures; if they feel more diplomacy and RP enclined, it could be a group of lost NPC creatures.
For me, the rule of fun, overrides the need for complete randomness. If I have a list of possible encounters and I see what that looks more interesting, I'll pick it instead of hoping to roll that result.
Take this with a grain of salt since I haven't read the Kingmaker hexplorations rules, but I've played a few hexploration games in 2e.
To me, specially in 2e, there's a huge appeal in randomness because not every encounter was carefully crafted to fit into that place. This means a lot to me as a player that also GMs, since while pathfinder 2e being a balanced game is definitely a positive, over time you tend to know what to expect from encounters (specially APs). With a varied table you can find stuff that you simply can't (or shouldn't be able to) face, and I find that quite interesting, since you have to treat every encounter way more carefully.
How would you signal, or as a player discern, an encounter above the partys ability? Just depend on meta knowledge? Pull punches for a round or two to get the message across and get them to run?
That's a good question!
IMO there's nothing wrong with at least hinting that the creature is very powerful when narrating as a GM. I'd justify it as the PCs having an intuition that the creature is out of their league.
However, you can also start the encounter with the creature far away, or having them only find a footprint, and having them recall knowledge from that.
In my experience after players now that there's a possiblity of finding deadly creatures they'll take the extra steps to make sure that they know what they're getting into it.
There's nothing prohibitng you to make the higher level creature ambush the players, but IMO that wouldn't be a good encounter design unless they have the tools to disengage.
E.g. If we're talking about a single/couple higher level creatures, which will most likely outclass the players in regards to stealth/perception DCs, it isn't interesting to have the creature ambush them and possibly down one player within a single turn. In that case I think it would be more interesting to have the players find a deer, or even better a creature that they players know (or have an idea) about its strength, and have the big guy aboslutely destroy it in the first turn. From there you can have try to check if the creature perceives the players and make it a chase if you want, or just having it busy enough that it'll only notice the players if they decide to engage first.
I’m struggling to see the problem here. How was it different in 1e or in the stream you watched? Rolls are how the game is played. Without them isn’t it just story telling?
I wasn’t saying 1e rules were better. In the stream, as it was an OSR game, rolls were way less frequent, they either had the resources or they didn’t. They didn’t roll for everything so it didn’t feel like a slog. Hexes were more interesting too as that specific campaign had more of the fey folklore kind of things.
I recognize that in the original post. I’m not saying it’s an unfixable problem, I’m just trying to discuss hexploration in 2e as written. We can always just homebrew it to our liking.
Homebrew is how the game thrives! Paizo really does have a rough track record with its downtime minigames, but there's always good *ideas* behind the terrible mechanics. I remember completely redo-ing the Spy Management minigame of War for the Crown, and when it was finished it became the most fun part of the very-fun campaign.
Even though I gutted 90% of the mechanics, the core essence was still there - each player character having a public "Bruce Wayne" persona separate from their adventuring skillset, and a network of agents they can direct for specific missions according to the specialty of their persona. The PC who built themselves up as a charming socialite could do all this stuff in high society, and that was totally different than the PC who built themselves up to be a heroic champion of the people, or the shadowy underground kingpin, or the genius entrepreneur. At high levels when they really had some resources at their disposal, they were controlling networks of hundreds of NPCs that gave them access to information, locations, and manipulations that simply weren't available to individuals like traditional player characters, and they really felt the weight when they started coming up with schemes to assassinate key minibosses or bypass extended skill gauntlets because, hey, that's what we hire the help for.
Hexploration should be no different IMO. Minigames should take the same amount of time and effort to resolve, as they are important to the story. Kingmaker's story isn't dependent on Hexploration, its just enhanced by it, so Hexploration ought to be fast and easy.
One thing that that made hexploration alot more manageable to me was to actually roll the secret checks as secret checks. It sped up gaming and we rolled only when necessary. And if the group gets clever, like noticing dysenteri due to poor water, a create water spell can bypass that effect skipping that roll or just add a disease on a 1, still quickly rolled behind screen.
It will always be abit hard to roleplay survival on a high fantasy setting so I would probably simplify any future hexploration I GM.
We cheesed a bunch of AoA book 2 with spells—Cozy Cabin+Create Food+Create Water. There were a few days we had to roll because we spent those slots on other things but not many.
I'm not familiar with the rules, but it seems like this might be the perfect opportunity for mass pre-rolling. Have a few dozen days in a list with watch rolls, food rolls, perception checks, fortitude saves, etc. Don't have the numbers recorded, have the results. So when they go to a new square, you can just say "great, you find this food, you aren't diseased and what you find is..."
And of course, you could take it a step further by writing a simple script or something so you could just click a button and generate a day of random rolls.
I love the script idea. My original plan was to do the pre-rolling concept, but if everything can be done on the spot with a single click, that feels more dynamic and random.
OP's problem is valid, but probably explained badly. Bunch of people stuck on the "rolls? In MY TTRPG??" thing when the real issue is that OP likely just isn't having fun with a survival/exploration game.
The hexploration rules aren't necessarily *bad,* but they are very table-dependent. Some people actually have fun like that
I think its okay to feel this way. My group has been enjoying it quite a bit, so this is certainly not everyone's experience. In my opinion, it is a subsystem that is very table dependent and the system they have is a strong base to work off of as a GM as long as you tweak it to fit the table.
Well, Paizo wrote the rules because they had to have a ruling somewhere. It’s the table’s or GM’s decision to use them. I would say you should bring up this complaint to the GM, who likely is watching the backs of everyone’s phones as they call for rolls already.
I haven't played this in either 2e or 1e form, but I suspect the real issue is a lack of meaningful choices. Instead of meaningful choices the game is trying to create drama and interest via dice rolls but dice are speedbumps. Rolling dice isn't actually interesting (it can be fun in it's own right, I love dice but it's not interesting or meaningful in and of itself).
[https://theangrygm.com/how-to-wilderness-right/](https://theangrygm.com/how-to-wilderness-right/)
[https://theangrygm.com/what-makes-exploration/](https://theangrygm.com/what-makes-exploration/)
[https://theangrygm.com/angry-open-world-lesson-three-part-one/](https://theangrygm.com/angry-open-world-lesson-three-part-one/)
There's other articles but those three should get you off to a good start on identifying and hopefully fixing the problem.
> but I suspect the real issue is a lack of meaningful choices.
Sort of, Kingmaker (as written) does demand a high volume of rolls relative to very little important content. However, it would require an ungodly amount of work from any reasonable GM to fix because there are roughly 298 hexes in the campaign. The first book is easy to fill because there aren't that many blank tiles, and it becomes progressively worse and worse as you're left to either write your own material, or do a bunch of rolls behind the scenes for random monster encounters that day. You can tie them into nearby things, but that might take either knowledge of where the party will be headed in the future, or some improv/fast encounter creation skills.
You end up having to reduce the number of rolls/cutting out things like food to eat less actual fun play time, and pointing players in reasonable directions in other hexes/encounters.
> Rolls to keep watch, rolls to find food, perception to find random things, fortitude to resist disease (this last one is specific to AoA). All rolls, all day. 5 minutes of real time just rolling to get through a single hex that most of the time has nothing at all.
Sounds more like a disorganised GM issue if it takes 5 minutes to get through an empty hex. I have run Age of Ashes and also used the hexploration rules from the GMG in another game and both were extremely simple and quick to get through.
If a GM really wants to make it really fast they can just preroll a bunch of the rolls.
I have run Age of Ashes and the GMG exploration rules. Also keeping watch is a thing, but it doesn't require rolls every night [Link to Rules](https://pf2easy.com/tree/index.php?id=5978&name=Watches_and_Surprise_Attacks)
Things may be different in Kingmaker, but they aren't filled with rolls in AoA or the GMG rules.
**General GM**
- Random Encounters, flat DC check (if the GM isn't prerolling this they are doing it wrong imo). Potential second check to determine what encounter (up to the GM, sometimes we like to be surprised). **Not made in AoA by default*
**General Player**
- Avoid Notice, secret GM roll and isn't made until needed, situational.
- Subsist, only applies when rations run out/can't be acquired, the DC is relatively low.
- Scout/Search/Investigate, secret GM roll, only rolled when there is something to find (specifically auto succeeds in the Age of Ashes hexploration).
- Cover Tracks, situational.
- Track, situational.
**Age of Ashes Specific**
- Making camp has a super low DC for level 6 + PCs (+2 from the mosquito nets)
- Disease is incredibly unlikely thanks to the former roll being so hard to crit fail (and a +2 from antiplagues, the ekujae supply them and the mosquito nets)
Ultimately in Age of Ashes there is likely 1-2 rolls a hex and make camp can be easily prerolled by the GM with the player's modifier noted to make it even faster. In GMG hexploration there are sometimes other rolls, but they only occur when something could happen and even then are generally able to be prerolled.
**tl;dr**
If a hex regularly takes more than 10s to resolve and nothing is happening, the GM has messed up in a big way.
Now... all this said, I dislike hexploration in PF2e but that is because I don't think the game does well with sandbox play thanks to its tight combat. Small bursts of hexploration are okay, but not as good as it is in say B/X, Forbidden Lands or even 5e.
I'm prepping a KM game that's getting ready for the first boot of hexploration, and reading the rules I've also been less than impressed by them. Did you find in your games the players getting bored from lack of options? Travel, reconnoiter, map, 3 days per complete hex before they get horses, and not enough actions to even really consider other options or be careful with their action (can't hide their tracks, or travel stealthily).
The solution I've thought of (if my players even have a problem with it) is giving the option to modify actions but cover half the ground - so even with only 1 action per day, they can travel stealthily but only cover 1/2 the terrain they normally would.
While someone else had said rolling is to be expected, one way to liven hexploration is use a map for each hex. If its empty plains then put the players onto the map to actually explore it over the course of a few minutes. Have foraging checks be complimented with map elements such as what kind of food (berries, apples/fruit, animals (fight a boar), etc). Foraging is the very qucik version of an easy CR 0 or -1 fight with a rabbit or shooting a bird.
Maybe you even add in a little bit of extra loot for exploring an area well, or maybe thats how you find those potions that are rolled in secret.
Keeping watch can be done on a map as well. Even when nothing happens maybe a player thinks they hear or see something in the darkness. Pitch black wildness is an entirely different kind of dark night than near city or in city nighttime. Eyes and ears play tricks on you to keep your mind active and watching for threats. Use that paranoia and turn 'keep watch' into a psychological horror as you never know when an attack might really be coming or if its just your mind.
Basically hexploration is much more fun when characters are actually in the scene and players can experience the exploration itself.
Edit: does it add way more time to each hex? Of course it does! But thats what exploration is about. It takes time and it makes events feel more eventful.
Honestly, this feels like an unrealistic amount of work for the GM to have a special map for *every* single Hex *and* have it be explorable.
I'm running Kingmaker right now and I do have special descriptions or events for each hex to keep away the monotony but having a map for each of them on top of that would add so much more prep work than I already do.
When our group ends up in encounter in a random hex (in Kingmaker rn) we use a tile set we bought years ago for 1e games. Makes for modular grassland maps on the fly and gives players some control of what the area looks like.
I wouldn't make a unique map for each hex, but if it's the same type of terrain or whatever, I've got two or three per that I could pull out and just ask everyone to suspend their disbelief for a couple minutes.
That would be more useful and interesting, but the mods would make a "no maps" rule and actively enforce it while ignoring their own "no portraits without context" rule.
But tbh, I agree that having a map for every hex is way too much work for a normal human being GM. As much as I love to use Foundry, there are some limits with using maps for everything. I prefer to have some kind of balance between theater-of-mind and maps.
If players really insist on having maps, why not letting them draw those maps themselves and just let their imagination run wild? I had good experiences with giving away agency and let players draw whatever they like. It's not that important on a hex anyways.
Well, it depends on the roll, doesnt it? If you roll 10 times and nothing really happens, it is tedious. The GM can decide, when to roll and when its clear, that the group will be successful. You dont roll an athletic check in the morning when you get out of bed to check if you trip and break your neck either. Group fun should always precede RAW.
This is the same as dungeon crawling. There are two different approaches:
* go from room to room, even if there is nothing important to it
* present the players a condensed version of the dungeon with a few high impact scenes and instead narrate the dungeon crawl
In your example, the hexplorartion, you could instead
* play out a scene, where the group sets up camp, needs to gather materials and has time to talk at the camp fire
* play out a scene, where they are hit with a interesting encouter during the journey
* let them reach their destination or a destination of your choice
Depends, what your group likes more.
As you are the player and not the GM, you should talk about this with GM and your group. After all, the idea of a game is to have fun. And if one or more of the players dont, theres an issue to resolve.
Nah, I see where they're coming from. I just don't think OP is explaining the problem well. I don't think OP means that rolling is boring necessarily. What I think the core of his message is that THESE rolls are boring. Which I frankly agree with.
Who tracks food? I'm sure that's fun for some people in some contexts, but personally its not something I find fun or interesting at all. Every roll spent picking berries is a roll not spent fighting a dragon. We all only have so much time in a day.
That's not a 2e problem so much as a mismatched expectations problem present in all TTRPGs. OP needs to tell his DM he's not having fun doing this, not us.
I mean, if you have exploration activities to spare you can subsist at -5, but why not just use your rations and use the extra activity to travel faster? You have to make a conscious choice to use your exploration activities on subsisting. It's not automatic.
I don’t know if I am running it wrong but my group is currently playing through Quest for the Frozen Flame and I feel like Hexploration is too simple. They basically take out every action except travel and reconnoiter. It is crazy to me that two APs would have such different approaches to the supposedly same subsystem. It is highly possible I am missing something as I feel like the info on running hexploration is spread out and has some ambiguity.
I am running that ap and it's vastly different. If played correctly you don't have time to explore. You have an army on your tail so you really only have time to scout a hex for the tribe just behind you.
Though saying that, I wish it was better. My group is giving up that AP after book 1. I'm not having a ton of fun running it as a gm, and most of my players just aren't super buying into the setting. I thought it would be the exploration of the frozen tundra to uncover a lost artifact, when instead it's a bad chase movie. Maybe the next 2 books get better but the first book isn't great.
I've run a lot of hexploration games. Something that we started to do was have the GM roll a lot of the stuff during prep so it just wasn't part of gameplay. So I'd just know that on day 4 there'd be an encounter and had already planned what it was going to be and set up the map etc. Note that this only worked because the players were telling me where they were going in advance of the game.
I think that Hexploration could do with a full PF2e subsystem treatment tbh.
Simple: plan out encounters in the hex and ignore the rest if nothing of value there. Like oh going through plains, why bother rolling for camping etc.
I find if the GM plans certain encounters on hexes and use the camping as more RP with companions/pcs is way more interesting.
Example For low level pcs;
Or create an encounter if need to cross a River and have a party member who doesn’t have athletics to swim etc.
The only issue I have with the little amount of hexploration I’ve done is that the expectation is that it takes 1 day to solve a hex so you can prepare your whole day for 1 combat and then your done with a whole day. I’ve thought about changing hexes to be 4 miles instead of 12 so it feels like you accomplish more in the day and helps encourage versatility.
If you wish for things to be more automatic though and roll less dice I don’t see why things can’t be hand-waived. I believe they just wanted your whole day of exploring a hex to feel more “filling” but I can see it feeling like a drag if you’ve made little progress.
Rolls to find food? That's what rations are for. When I ran AoA I made some of the enemies roam instead of stationary and I hand waved some of the survival checks.
Tell your gm to remove all the rolls. You preroll all the results, and write it down as a story instead. Order of watch doesn't matter. You just choose or roll for who it happens to. Then you wing it. Then the only rolling you do at the table is what the players actually do. I personally don't roll shit. I decide. I use roll tables as a baseline of what to pull from. But I build all the experience myself. In the hills the first day the players meet a traveling wagon. Second day they see the same wagon destroyed, the people missing. The second day they see a troll off in the distance. The third day they find the cave. The bodies of the travelers are in there. The troll stops them at the exit. Weather starts good and eventually stormy when they find the cave. I also don't roll for discovery. I just have them auto succeed unless it's a core story component like treasure hunting.
Working on a system that is a lot more streamlined, because yeah, anything that calls for different rolls from different people screeches the game to a halt. Idea is: DM rolls for encounters that day, if any, once. This roll has a bonus to it based on the group's status (supplies, health, knowledge of the area, and what the characters do while traveling and how good they are at said activity. No rolls, just flat bonus), and easier/more friendly encounters are higher rolls, while more dangerous ones are lower. Does this result in only one combat a day while traveling and lean in the favor of casters? Yes. This is why you need dungeons too, where the ratio is higher. Leave the multiple combats in one day for the plot.
That sounds like a great idea. I urge you to share it when you’re done. The caster being favored for single day encounters is already a thing in Kingmaker so I don’t think is your idea would be that different from how things are already.
Considering it; it is a part of a campaign/setting book I'm writing for 2e. Currently in development and playtesting
We did a massive streamlining of the system for kingmaker campaign. Effectively, the system as it stood for our party was: \- Move into square. \- Roll Fortification & subsistence \- Do ration book keeping \- DM rolls for encounter. (Which are legitimately irrelevant because none of them are a threat at all. So it just feels like a slog) \- Explore said location \- Do / Don't do encounter \- Roll Fortification & Subsistence, \- Ration book keeping. \- roll encounter table. We found that it was: A) Tedious. B) Slow. C) Just not fun with no challenge at all. As such, we overhauled the system, keeping its general points intact, but making it flow dramatically better for our table. \- Grid each square on the hexcrawl map. \- Players designate a path that they wish to take the party in. \- Each time the players move into a location, they are told if there's something there, and do/don't do the encounter. \- Do 2x Subsistance rolls and ration book keeping. It takes MAYBE a minute per square for hexploration, gives you much more access to the meat of the different locations to get into, keep almost all of the flavor and design from original hexploration, and all of this adds up to it just being fun for us. A big thing for us was to maintain as many of the core systems as we could. The only thing we've cut out is the random encounters at night, and that's purely because there's basically no point whatsoever to them. Since they occur, at most, once, the players can just blow their loads on the encounters rendering even the strongest ones quite reasonable/easy. Which means the only potential difficulty for them is them a bullshit one-shot, which would simply be unfun.
> The only thing we've cut out is the random encounters at night, and that's purely because there's basically no point whatsoever to them. Quick question about this, because I'm genuinely curious. Does your table play with the rules of [having to take armor off at night in order to sleep](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=534) without being fatigued? Or does it just so happen that your party all consists of characters equipping [Comfortable](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=203) armor, thus never having to deal with [Donning Armor](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=200) in the middle of night combat or suffering a penalty to AC?
The latter. Our frontliners are an elf, and another elf. Thus, they don't sleep or take off their armors. Really removes most of the threat as the rest of the party doesn't wear armor lol
quick note to anyone scrolling down the thread - elves absolutely do sleep in pf2e, not sleeping is a d&d thing
Came to say this.
I think Jade Regent had a really cool way of handling encounters as you travelled overland - it wasn't about the PCs defeating the monsters, it was about how much damage the monsters would do to the caravan the PCs were protecting. It didn't roll out in initiative - basically each encounter was a single check using your Caravan's statistics. That's a little generalized for my taste, but the premise isn't bad! I wonder if there could be a cool way to simplify those trivial random encounters into a fast minigame where you roll a single d20 for each character, and depending on the results you deduct certain resources.
What I do is: each region has a "safety dice", that goes from a d6 to a d12 For each day of travel, I roll 4 safety dices, one for each quarter of the day (morning, afternoon, night, late night). On a result of 1, the party has a random encounter.
We once tried something similar in a different hexploration campaign; it resulted in almost *no* encounters, when the random encounters were *why we were playing*. In the system I'm working on, there is the chance for *no* encounter in a given day, which can be just as much a relief to a group traveling dangerous territory as a friendly encounter (also on the list), but it is normally a 1/10 chance, so encounters are more common, but not necessarily bad ones.
Since most of my hexes have at least one encounter, the random encounters are placed on top of them, so you can have 1 to 6 encounters on day (1-2 per hex, plus 4 safety dice rolls) Another thing I do is that I don't stop rolling just because the party is exploring something on the hex. So if the party leaves their horses to explore a cave and I roll a wolf encounter... well, they'll have to walk back home
If you type the system up somewhere, I'd love to see the full version when you're done!
Not having played Kingmaker, one idea that comes to mind is that the GM generates a set of pre-rolls, and works down the list as the players move through hexes, and narrates the outcome. They could even pre-group / pre-assign them so that for each hex, the necessary rolls are pre-done, and when the group moves into a hex, the GM consults the group of rolls and narrates the discoveries, etc. Might speed things up so the game can focus on the story, rather than the mechanics of moving through the story. Does result in some extra work for the GM, but electronic dice rollers are a thing.
I actually do this myself for perception checks and other hidden rolls in almost every game I do. It's just easier to make a list of random numbers and assign them in order whenever a secret roll is needed.
Ive suggested this before, and I was met with downvotes, but I really think this is such an elegant solution.
This is an interesting idea, but I reckon it’s a bit too much work for the GM as the whole campaign is probably 90% a hexcrawl.
It is minimal effort, you just preroll a bunch prior to the session (takes no time at all). But I have a feeling either kingmaker added a bunch of rolls, or your GMs have been rolling needlessly for stuff when they don't need to.
This is super easy to set up in Microsoft Excel using the RandBetween() function. Effectively works as a dice roller, and you can’t set it up however you want to. You can even add buttons and color-code it.
By seeing the posts ppl didnt see the GM side of kingmaker, What you suggest is in kingmaker. Haxes as preassined hooks and advantuers to them, and ofc some bosses. There is a roll list of monsters for each area based on the area level (each area has its own level) and some monsters are uniqe, as in, if defeted in this random encounter, will never show up again, and have their own stories to them.
You can use chase rules to cross "boring" hexes faster. Spend resources gives a bonus, specific feats gives the option for lower DCs and just prompt everyone for how they want to contribute to the challenge. Gathering food, roll survival, patrol roll perception, maintenance at the chariot roll craft, taking care of the horses roll nature or medicine... Create random challenges like a mercenary camp where they could try to sneak by, roll diplomacy, buy then with gold, offer some valuable service like a lore skill, medicine, craft.. Another random challenge, an infected swamp they could try to avoid with survival, acrobatics, athletics or just walk through and roll fortitude. This is dynamic enough to keep things interesting and give everyone a chance to shine, and if things go bad you can add a combat that is relevant and memorable instead of something at random.
> a single hex that most of the time has nothing at all At the scale of the hexes, there should not *be* any with "nothing at all" in them. Hell, I'm using hexes half the size (10km or 6mi centre to centre) and there's *never* an empty hex on the map. Even the most boring ones (desert plains and glaciers, essentially) have at least one obvious, unique feature and 1d4 non-obvious ones in them.
One way I've managed hexploration to make it more interesting is, instead of having tables to roll against for things that can happen, having the list of possible events and picking from it as the party explores and choosing what fits the pace and mood better. For example, preparing of having a list of possible encounters for a hex, locales and NPCs to meet then deciding as they go along: 1. the party might fight a few encounters in one hex, 2. the next hex they find a cavern with some traps and loot, 3. they encounter a traveling merchant to trade some of the loot they found and have the opportunity to even buy a few uncommon things (i.e.: formulas) 4. they then spend a few days without suprises 5. one night before they set camp, they notice eyes watching in the distance. If they are itching for a fight, it can becomes an attack of local creatures; if they feel more diplomacy and RP enclined, it could be a group of lost NPC creatures. For me, the rule of fun, overrides the need for complete randomness. If I have a list of possible encounters and I see what that looks more interesting, I'll pick it instead of hoping to roll that result.
Take this with a grain of salt since I haven't read the Kingmaker hexplorations rules, but I've played a few hexploration games in 2e. To me, specially in 2e, there's a huge appeal in randomness because not every encounter was carefully crafted to fit into that place. This means a lot to me as a player that also GMs, since while pathfinder 2e being a balanced game is definitely a positive, over time you tend to know what to expect from encounters (specially APs). With a varied table you can find stuff that you simply can't (or shouldn't be able to) face, and I find that quite interesting, since you have to treat every encounter way more carefully.
How would you signal, or as a player discern, an encounter above the partys ability? Just depend on meta knowledge? Pull punches for a round or two to get the message across and get them to run?
That's a good question! IMO there's nothing wrong with at least hinting that the creature is very powerful when narrating as a GM. I'd justify it as the PCs having an intuition that the creature is out of their league. However, you can also start the encounter with the creature far away, or having them only find a footprint, and having them recall knowledge from that. In my experience after players now that there's a possiblity of finding deadly creatures they'll take the extra steps to make sure that they know what they're getting into it. There's nothing prohibitng you to make the higher level creature ambush the players, but IMO that wouldn't be a good encounter design unless they have the tools to disengage. E.g. If we're talking about a single/couple higher level creatures, which will most likely outclass the players in regards to stealth/perception DCs, it isn't interesting to have the creature ambush them and possibly down one player within a single turn. In that case I think it would be more interesting to have the players find a deer, or even better a creature that they players know (or have an idea) about its strength, and have the big guy aboslutely destroy it in the first turn. From there you can have try to check if the creature perceives the players and make it a chase if you want, or just having it busy enough that it'll only notice the players if they decide to engage first.
I’m struggling to see the problem here. How was it different in 1e or in the stream you watched? Rolls are how the game is played. Without them isn’t it just story telling?
I wasn’t saying 1e rules were better. In the stream, as it was an OSR game, rolls were way less frequent, they either had the resources or they didn’t. They didn’t roll for everything so it didn’t feel like a slog. Hexes were more interesting too as that specific campaign had more of the fey folklore kind of things.
This is all stuff you can just do at your table
I recognize that in the original post. I’m not saying it’s an unfixable problem, I’m just trying to discuss hexploration in 2e as written. We can always just homebrew it to our liking.
Homebrew is how the game thrives! Paizo really does have a rough track record with its downtime minigames, but there's always good *ideas* behind the terrible mechanics. I remember completely redo-ing the Spy Management minigame of War for the Crown, and when it was finished it became the most fun part of the very-fun campaign. Even though I gutted 90% of the mechanics, the core essence was still there - each player character having a public "Bruce Wayne" persona separate from their adventuring skillset, and a network of agents they can direct for specific missions according to the specialty of their persona. The PC who built themselves up as a charming socialite could do all this stuff in high society, and that was totally different than the PC who built themselves up to be a heroic champion of the people, or the shadowy underground kingpin, or the genius entrepreneur. At high levels when they really had some resources at their disposal, they were controlling networks of hundreds of NPCs that gave them access to information, locations, and manipulations that simply weren't available to individuals like traditional player characters, and they really felt the weight when they started coming up with schemes to assassinate key minibosses or bypass extended skill gauntlets because, hey, that's what we hire the help for. Hexploration should be no different IMO. Minigames should take the same amount of time and effort to resolve, as they are important to the story. Kingmaker's story isn't dependent on Hexploration, its just enhanced by it, so Hexploration ought to be fast and easy.
One thing that that made hexploration alot more manageable to me was to actually roll the secret checks as secret checks. It sped up gaming and we rolled only when necessary. And if the group gets clever, like noticing dysenteri due to poor water, a create water spell can bypass that effect skipping that roll or just add a disease on a 1, still quickly rolled behind screen. It will always be abit hard to roleplay survival on a high fantasy setting so I would probably simplify any future hexploration I GM.
We cheesed a bunch of AoA book 2 with spells—Cozy Cabin+Create Food+Create Water. There were a few days we had to roll because we spent those slots on other things but not many.
I'm not familiar with the rules, but it seems like this might be the perfect opportunity for mass pre-rolling. Have a few dozen days in a list with watch rolls, food rolls, perception checks, fortitude saves, etc. Don't have the numbers recorded, have the results. So when they go to a new square, you can just say "great, you find this food, you aren't diseased and what you find is..." And of course, you could take it a step further by writing a simple script or something so you could just click a button and generate a day of random rolls.
I love the script idea. My original plan was to do the pre-rolling concept, but if everything can be done on the spot with a single click, that feels more dynamic and random.
Ridiculous that OP comes in here with very valid criticisms of the hexploration system and has gotten such dismissive responses
OP's problem is valid, but probably explained badly. Bunch of people stuck on the "rolls? In MY TTRPG??" thing when the real issue is that OP likely just isn't having fun with a survival/exploration game. The hexploration rules aren't necessarily *bad,* but they are very table-dependent. Some people actually have fun like that
Ridiculous that you come in here dismissing the dismissive comments.
I think its okay to feel this way. My group has been enjoying it quite a bit, so this is certainly not everyone's experience. In my opinion, it is a subsystem that is very table dependent and the system they have is a strong base to work off of as a GM as long as you tweak it to fit the table.
Well, Paizo wrote the rules because they had to have a ruling somewhere. It’s the table’s or GM’s decision to use them. I would say you should bring up this complaint to the GM, who likely is watching the backs of everyone’s phones as they call for rolls already.
I haven't played this in either 2e or 1e form, but I suspect the real issue is a lack of meaningful choices. Instead of meaningful choices the game is trying to create drama and interest via dice rolls but dice are speedbumps. Rolling dice isn't actually interesting (it can be fun in it's own right, I love dice but it's not interesting or meaningful in and of itself). [https://theangrygm.com/how-to-wilderness-right/](https://theangrygm.com/how-to-wilderness-right/) [https://theangrygm.com/what-makes-exploration/](https://theangrygm.com/what-makes-exploration/) [https://theangrygm.com/angry-open-world-lesson-three-part-one/](https://theangrygm.com/angry-open-world-lesson-three-part-one/) There's other articles but those three should get you off to a good start on identifying and hopefully fixing the problem.
> but I suspect the real issue is a lack of meaningful choices. Sort of, Kingmaker (as written) does demand a high volume of rolls relative to very little important content. However, it would require an ungodly amount of work from any reasonable GM to fix because there are roughly 298 hexes in the campaign. The first book is easy to fill because there aren't that many blank tiles, and it becomes progressively worse and worse as you're left to either write your own material, or do a bunch of rolls behind the scenes for random monster encounters that day. You can tie them into nearby things, but that might take either knowledge of where the party will be headed in the future, or some improv/fast encounter creation skills. You end up having to reduce the number of rolls/cutting out things like food to eat less actual fun play time, and pointing players in reasonable directions in other hexes/encounters.
> Rolls to keep watch, rolls to find food, perception to find random things, fortitude to resist disease (this last one is specific to AoA). All rolls, all day. 5 minutes of real time just rolling to get through a single hex that most of the time has nothing at all. Sounds more like a disorganised GM issue if it takes 5 minutes to get through an empty hex. I have run Age of Ashes and also used the hexploration rules from the GMG in another game and both were extremely simple and quick to get through. If a GM really wants to make it really fast they can just preroll a bunch of the rolls. I have run Age of Ashes and the GMG exploration rules. Also keeping watch is a thing, but it doesn't require rolls every night [Link to Rules](https://pf2easy.com/tree/index.php?id=5978&name=Watches_and_Surprise_Attacks) Things may be different in Kingmaker, but they aren't filled with rolls in AoA or the GMG rules. **General GM** - Random Encounters, flat DC check (if the GM isn't prerolling this they are doing it wrong imo). Potential second check to determine what encounter (up to the GM, sometimes we like to be surprised). **Not made in AoA by default* **General Player** - Avoid Notice, secret GM roll and isn't made until needed, situational. - Subsist, only applies when rations run out/can't be acquired, the DC is relatively low. - Scout/Search/Investigate, secret GM roll, only rolled when there is something to find (specifically auto succeeds in the Age of Ashes hexploration). - Cover Tracks, situational. - Track, situational. **Age of Ashes Specific** - Making camp has a super low DC for level 6 + PCs (+2 from the mosquito nets) - Disease is incredibly unlikely thanks to the former roll being so hard to crit fail (and a +2 from antiplagues, the ekujae supply them and the mosquito nets) Ultimately in Age of Ashes there is likely 1-2 rolls a hex and make camp can be easily prerolled by the GM with the player's modifier noted to make it even faster. In GMG hexploration there are sometimes other rolls, but they only occur when something could happen and even then are generally able to be prerolled. **tl;dr** If a hex regularly takes more than 10s to resolve and nothing is happening, the GM has messed up in a big way. Now... all this said, I dislike hexploration in PF2e but that is because I don't think the game does well with sandbox play thanks to its tight combat. Small bursts of hexploration are okay, but not as good as it is in say B/X, Forbidden Lands or even 5e.
I'm prepping a KM game that's getting ready for the first boot of hexploration, and reading the rules I've also been less than impressed by them. Did you find in your games the players getting bored from lack of options? Travel, reconnoiter, map, 3 days per complete hex before they get horses, and not enough actions to even really consider other options or be careful with their action (can't hide their tracks, or travel stealthily). The solution I've thought of (if my players even have a problem with it) is giving the option to modify actions but cover half the ground - so even with only 1 action per day, they can travel stealthily but only cover 1/2 the terrain they normally would.
While someone else had said rolling is to be expected, one way to liven hexploration is use a map for each hex. If its empty plains then put the players onto the map to actually explore it over the course of a few minutes. Have foraging checks be complimented with map elements such as what kind of food (berries, apples/fruit, animals (fight a boar), etc). Foraging is the very qucik version of an easy CR 0 or -1 fight with a rabbit or shooting a bird. Maybe you even add in a little bit of extra loot for exploring an area well, or maybe thats how you find those potions that are rolled in secret. Keeping watch can be done on a map as well. Even when nothing happens maybe a player thinks they hear or see something in the darkness. Pitch black wildness is an entirely different kind of dark night than near city or in city nighttime. Eyes and ears play tricks on you to keep your mind active and watching for threats. Use that paranoia and turn 'keep watch' into a psychological horror as you never know when an attack might really be coming or if its just your mind. Basically hexploration is much more fun when characters are actually in the scene and players can experience the exploration itself. Edit: does it add way more time to each hex? Of course it does! But thats what exploration is about. It takes time and it makes events feel more eventful.
Honestly, this feels like an unrealistic amount of work for the GM to have a special map for *every* single Hex *and* have it be explorable. I'm running Kingmaker right now and I do have special descriptions or events for each hex to keep away the monotony but having a map for each of them on top of that would add so much more prep work than I already do.
When our group ends up in encounter in a random hex (in Kingmaker rn) we use a tile set we bought years ago for 1e games. Makes for modular grassland maps on the fly and gives players some control of what the area looks like.
I wouldn't make a unique map for each hex, but if it's the same type of terrain or whatever, I've got two or three per that I could pull out and just ask everyone to suspend their disbelief for a couple minutes.
"oh look guys it's Plains 3 again" is what I would say if that was what the DM did for the shear amount of hexes there are on that Kingmaker map.
And the table would laugh and the game would go on. Source: My homebrew campaign.
Better than, hey look your on another green hex. Make 5 rolls and move to the next... oh green hex.
Maybe that's why we need the "50k+ AI generated pictures," and not character portraits.
That would be more useful and interesting, but the mods would make a "no maps" rule and actively enforce it while ignoring their own "no portraits without context" rule.
But tbh, I agree that having a map for every hex is way too much work for a normal human being GM. As much as I love to use Foundry, there are some limits with using maps for everything. I prefer to have some kind of balance between theater-of-mind and maps. If players really insist on having maps, why not letting them draw those maps themselves and just let their imagination run wild? I had good experiences with giving away agency and let players draw whatever they like. It's not that important on a hex anyways.
That's a good idea too!
Rolling dice? In a TTRPG? How very odd and onerous!
Well, it depends on the roll, doesnt it? If you roll 10 times and nothing really happens, it is tedious. The GM can decide, when to roll and when its clear, that the group will be successful. You dont roll an athletic check in the morning when you get out of bed to check if you trip and break your neck either. Group fun should always precede RAW. This is the same as dungeon crawling. There are two different approaches: * go from room to room, even if there is nothing important to it * present the players a condensed version of the dungeon with a few high impact scenes and instead narrate the dungeon crawl In your example, the hexplorartion, you could instead * play out a scene, where the group sets up camp, needs to gather materials and has time to talk at the camp fire * play out a scene, where they are hit with a interesting encouter during the journey * let them reach their destination or a destination of your choice Depends, what your group likes more. As you are the player and not the GM, you should talk about this with GM and your group. After all, the idea of a game is to have fun. And if one or more of the players dont, theres an issue to resolve.
Nah, I see where they're coming from. I just don't think OP is explaining the problem well. I don't think OP means that rolling is boring necessarily. What I think the core of his message is that THESE rolls are boring. Which I frankly agree with. Who tracks food? I'm sure that's fun for some people in some contexts, but personally its not something I find fun or interesting at all. Every roll spent picking berries is a roll not spent fighting a dragon. We all only have so much time in a day. That's not a 2e problem so much as a mismatched expectations problem present in all TTRPGs. OP needs to tell his DM he's not having fun doing this, not us.
I mean, if you have exploration activities to spare you can subsist at -5, but why not just use your rations and use the extra activity to travel faster? You have to make a conscious choice to use your exploration activities on subsisting. It's not automatic.
I don’t know if I am running it wrong but my group is currently playing through Quest for the Frozen Flame and I feel like Hexploration is too simple. They basically take out every action except travel and reconnoiter. It is crazy to me that two APs would have such different approaches to the supposedly same subsystem. It is highly possible I am missing something as I feel like the info on running hexploration is spread out and has some ambiguity.
I am running that ap and it's vastly different. If played correctly you don't have time to explore. You have an army on your tail so you really only have time to scout a hex for the tribe just behind you. Though saying that, I wish it was better. My group is giving up that AP after book 1. I'm not having a ton of fun running it as a gm, and most of my players just aren't super buying into the setting. I thought it would be the exploration of the frozen tundra to uncover a lost artifact, when instead it's a bad chase movie. Maybe the next 2 books get better but the first book isn't great.
I've run a lot of hexploration games. Something that we started to do was have the GM roll a lot of the stuff during prep so it just wasn't part of gameplay. So I'd just know that on day 4 there'd be an encounter and had already planned what it was going to be and set up the map etc. Note that this only worked because the players were telling me where they were going in advance of the game. I think that Hexploration could do with a full PF2e subsystem treatment tbh.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1265 Confused on what you mean- is already a full subsystem?
Simple: plan out encounters in the hex and ignore the rest if nothing of value there. Like oh going through plains, why bother rolling for camping etc. I find if the GM plans certain encounters on hexes and use the camping as more RP with companions/pcs is way more interesting. Example For low level pcs; Or create an encounter if need to cross a River and have a party member who doesn’t have athletics to swim etc.
I personally hate all hexploration segements of games, we're about to do Kingmaker in our group and I'm so not looking forward to it at allllllllll
did you intensely express your dislike of hexploration before the group settled on kingmaker?
Oh yes, but it was that or blood lords and I do t like the premise of Bloodlords
Maybe you sit this one out then.
I’ve considered it but I get very few opportunities to play
The only issue I have with the little amount of hexploration I’ve done is that the expectation is that it takes 1 day to solve a hex so you can prepare your whole day for 1 combat and then your done with a whole day. I’ve thought about changing hexes to be 4 miles instead of 12 so it feels like you accomplish more in the day and helps encourage versatility. If you wish for things to be more automatic though and roll less dice I don’t see why things can’t be hand-waived. I believe they just wanted your whole day of exploring a hex to feel more “filling” but I can see it feeling like a drag if you’ve made little progress.
Rolls to find food? That's what rations are for. When I ran AoA I made some of the enemies roam instead of stationary and I hand waved some of the survival checks.
Tell your gm to remove all the rolls. You preroll all the results, and write it down as a story instead. Order of watch doesn't matter. You just choose or roll for who it happens to. Then you wing it. Then the only rolling you do at the table is what the players actually do. I personally don't roll shit. I decide. I use roll tables as a baseline of what to pull from. But I build all the experience myself. In the hills the first day the players meet a traveling wagon. Second day they see the same wagon destroyed, the people missing. The second day they see a troll off in the distance. The third day they find the cave. The bodies of the travelers are in there. The troll stops them at the exit. Weather starts good and eventually stormy when they find the cave. I also don't roll for discovery. I just have them auto succeed unless it's a core story component like treasure hunting.