Trekking Routine - Encounters
Question for clarification...
I have a scenario in which a party is searching for lost people in the forest. I'll offer the full scenario to make sure I'm doing this right; or if I'm not, what would be the proper way to handle this. The real question is when we get to the encounter phase.
SCENARIO: Some children ran off into the woods, and they've been captured by a giant spider. The party is searching for them, and they are not familiar with the area. Prior to the Trekking routine (Short Trek), the players will need to find directional indicators to begin the Trek. If actively looking for signs of passage, they test Perception (P/F) with up to 2 assistants. If not actively looking, each individual will test Awareness with a -10 special penalty (just b/c I feel it appropriate). Any success shows signs of the children stomping off in a general direction towards the forest. Thus begins the Trek routine:
1. Environment: Spring, Cool Temperate Zone, Daylight
2. Landscape: Mixed Forest, no path
3. Weather Rolls: No Cold Hazard, No Precipitation
4. Orienteering Roll: Survival SV test with up to 2 assistants. Party ought to choose a Bearing Mode and Stalking Mode before other options, but hey... it's up to them.
5. Movement: LPW calculated. Results will be either 0.75 leagues or 1.5 leagues for a 1/2 watch of travel. (Mixed Forest = 3 LPW. 1/2 watch travel is 1.5 leagues. If Slow Mode is taken for Stalking Mode, movement will be 0.75 leagues per half-watch. And this assumes they have the Bearing Mode to burn.) This gets a little muddy, b/c the spider will be 1.5 leagues away. If the party is in Stalking Mode, then we're not at 1/2 watch anymore, but rather a full-watch in order to reach the destination (unknown location). And then this would cause fatigue, but this is fine. I guess the question is... if it is determined that the party can reach a destination in 1/2 watch, they would not accrue Fatigue for that watch, right? But let's go full-nuts. What if they rolled a 3-star success.... they select Bearing Mode, Stalking Mode, and Progress Mode. Stalking Mode grants a Slow Mode (so 1.5 LPW, 0.75 leagues per half-watch). This will get offset by Progress Mode (back to normal leaguage). So now... there is no Slow or Loaded Modes; could they now take Double-Time Trekking, which turns 3LPW to 6LPW, 3 leagues per half watch, 1.5 leagues per 1/4 watch, and now they can find the kids in an hour if they take 5-10 fatigue (depending on END SR)?
6. Wilderness Tasks: If Stalking Mode was selected, then the party can make a Tracking SV test with up to 2 assistants. Any Spoor result will allow the party to continue tracking the children. Failure... does that mean they get Misdirected later automatically?
7. Hazards: If no Bearing Mode was acquired, then a Direction Hazard is generated. If the earlier Survival SV test was a CF, then a Survival Hazard is generated. For this encounter, there is no Weather Hazard.
8. Trekking Fatigue: If the journey was done in only a Short Trek, no fatigue accrues, correct? But if it required the full watch to travel 1.5 LPW, then each character accrues 5 weariness, possibly offset by END SR, right? Then encumbrance might add additional weariness. And if they're double-timing it... well, we addressed that earlier.
[INTERMISSION]
9. Encounter: So now we come to the real question, assuming I have everything else correct. At this point, we're inserting a planned encounter. Assuming the party has gone 1.5 leagues, and assuming they are in Stalking Mode, the rules-flow and scenario unfurls as such:
- Watchfulness: The Spider is Normal (she has caught the children, waiting to feed, and so is disinterested in hunting). She has no natural enemies, and she's up in the tree-tops, semi-camouflaged. I would think she's not Lax, but is just in her normal element; thus, Normal. The party would be Alert if in Stalking Mode.
- Surprise: The party will get an Unopposed Stealth (and maybe Awareness too?) test. If they succeed, the spider will be surprised.
- Decision: The party decides to Ambush or Observe (in this case).
- Encounter Distance: The Awareness distance is set to 50-ft for Mixed Forest. Hearing Awareness is set to 500 ft.
Here is where I'm a bit confused.
1. Although the spider isn't hunting or stalking, would it instead be Alert as well? I ask that b/c the hearing awareness in the forest is going to be WELL before the party is able to SEE the spider.
2. How can the party decide to ambush that which they might not see? The routine has the party deciding whether or not to ambush something, and yet we don't know yet how far away that something is. Should these steps be swapped?
3. The spider is up in the canopy, so is it rather considered in-hiding, in which case we have a mutual Stealth-Awareness/Stealth-Perception (with assist?) roll-off? Not sure if the party would know to be looking up in the trees when they're Stalking tracks in the dirt.
4. Given the spider's superior PER/Awareness, wouldn't the 500-ft distance in the forest give it the chance to hear the party first and prepare an ambush of its own?
5. Wouldn't it go more like:
- Encounter Distance: The distance between parties is determined by maximum perceptibility. In this case, 500-feet for noise.
- Watchfulness: The Spider tests Awareness from sound to sighting; so from 500 ft. to 50 ft., the Spider tests Awareness vs. Stealth. If successful, the Spider is now Alert. If failed, then the spider remains Normal. At 50 ft. the party tests Perception (asst) vs. Stealth to notice the spider in the canopy, maybe -10 for coloration/camouflage. Maybe the penalty is offset b/c they notice kids in cocoons hanging in the trees (near the spider). But now we have to look at the spider's side. If it didn't hear them approaching, then now it rolls Awareness vs. Stealth. But if it heard them coming, maybe it just tests straight Perception? It hears them. And so now one side is alert towards a definite SOMETHING, and the other side is on alert for a possible-ANYTHING. I'm a little confused here, in case you can't tell.
- Surprise: So only after the above is resolved would we be able to know who surprises whom.
- Decision: And in turn, only now would we know how the surpriser will react, especially once distance is known.
This is a little tricky, so any advice is appreciated.
(I would lean towards, this is an exception and I get to handle it how I damn-well please, but I do find the Encounter Distance to be a little out of order.)
Trekking
Great questions—very smart of you to game all of this out before the session. Just reading through, here are my thoughts:
SCENARIO: most active observation tests will be Perception but, remember, you can use Awareness for these same active tests if Awareness ML is higher than PER ML (as in the case of well-trained hunters and the like). On the other hand, as you note, passive (reactive) tests are always Awareness (and your -10 special penalty is perfectly fine).
It might be fun to give the party an automatic bonus Bearing Mode in the first watch if they get a CS on this initial observation test...another idea is to still let the game proceed even on a Failure (F)—but level an auto-Bearing Mode requirement in the first watch as punishment (the same with even CF—but two Bearings or one Bearing and a MISHAP)...the point is to consider hooking outlier results of the initial Passage Observation challenge to the ensuing Search Through The Forest challenge.
5. MOVEMENT: yes, I'd round half of 5 fatigue down to no fatigue for 1/2 watch move (but perhaps logically apply 5 fatigue for a 10-fatuge result). Your Double-Time calculation looks correct.
6. WILDERNESS TASK: not achieving at least 1 Spoor to see the children's trail simply means the PCs have lost the trail, not that they have become lost themselves. Do note that even a lowly SV 3–4 result allows for an Awareness "save" to get that 1 Spoor. But, if still failing, this is a classic GM quandary: how to keep the adventure rolling?
You could tie the Spoor result to how ADVANTAGEOUSLY the party arrives at the Fight The Spider challenge and not simply WHETHER they keep following the trail. The logic of this is that the trail is an "obvious" or "simple" Spoor 1 trail—perhaps nearly impossible not to follow, so it's just a matter of how long it takes. There's some support for this in the details of your adventure (the PCs are following a giant spider that has hauled off some children...leaving a rather obvious trail of sticky webs...and shoes!).
8. FATIGUE—all your calculations seem correct. But, as you allude to, remember that PF (Personal Fatigue) equals 5 + ENC...so the Short Trek Fatigue can very likely be waived for people with no ENC...but that ENC10 knight in a mail habergeon will likely have PF15 and so even Short Treks will probably induce some Fatigue.
9. ENCOUNTER: all your comments seem spot on. And your feeling that the Encounter Distance step is out of order is fair—yes, handle it however it works best for you.
ADVICE: while the various contingencies you outline for the spider in the last, long Watchfulness section of yours make sense, I would advise to boil the Fight The Spider encounter down to the player's previous rolls and Trekking Modes.
Thus, if the PCs have earned a Stealth Mode and went on to achieve a 3-star Tracking SV result, then make this very much matter in the spider challenge. There's nothing worse for players than to achieve some awesome rolls at Step A....only to have it not matter at Step B because the GM has suddenly required a gauntlet of new tests that seemingly apply to the spirit of Step A. Do you see what I'm saying?
And the inverse of this could be the solution to the party having failed (F or CF) the Tracking Spoor situation (as I discussed above): perhaps the PCs still ARRIVE at the spider, but a poor or no Spoor result has simply increased the spider's watchfulness to Alert (opposed test) rather than Normal (PCs only roll)....in a CF or awful Tracking/Spoor result, perhaps the Spider ambushes the PCs!
Thus, I think the clarity to your confusion surrounding the status of the spider when the PCs arrive can be found in looking to the Spoor result of the preceding Stalking/Tracking SV test:
NO Stalking Mode (so not even a Tracking test!): auto Spider ambush (although a Vigilance Mode would avoid this)...
Stalking Mode but SV1–2 tracking: Spider is Alert
Stalking Mode with Spoor 1: Spider is Normal
Stalking Mode with Spoor 2: Spider is Lax
Stalking Mode with Spoor 3+: auto PC ambush
You might want to tweak the details of the above—but you get the idea.
I'd love a combat/adventure report on this! Very interested...
Failing forward
One more comment: for the record, I'm not a fan of "failing foward". That is, that, no matter how much the PCs bungle the rolls and situations, the PCs will still "win out" or something.
Much of this has to do with each gaming group's own threshold for failure. As both a GM and player, I personally have a very high threshold! I love grisly demises when it's earned.
I would argue that my above "hooking" of encounters is not an example of failing forward: it's simply a "law of repercussions" that is logical and can be quite satisfying, for both GM and player.
At the end of the day, however, I think it is important to sketch out the parameters of when, indeed, the PCs could arrive too late to save the victims from the spider. Perhaps all that's left is to avenge them.