ADVENTURING

By its natureadventuring involves delving into places that are dark, dangerous, and full of mysteries to be explored. The rules in this section cover some of the most important ways in which adventurers interact with the environment in such places.

FALLING 
SUFFOCATING
VISION
FOOD AND WATER
INTERACTING WITH OBJECTS
OBJECTS
MOVEMENT
TIME
REST

Falling
A fall from a great height is one of the most common hazards facing an adventurer. At the end of a fall, a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it fell, to a maximum of 20d6. The creature lands prone, unless it avoids taking damage from the fall.

Suffocating
A creature can hold its breath for a number of minutes equal to 1 + its Constitution modifier (minimum of 30 seconds).

When a creature runs out of breath or is choking, it can survive for a number of rounds equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 round). At the start of its next turn, it drops to 0 Hit Points and is dying, and it can’t regain Hit Points or be stabilized until it can breathe again.

For example, a creature with a Constitution of 14 can hold its breath for 3 minutes. If it starts suffocating, it has 2 rounds to reach air before it drops to 0 Hit Points.

Vision and Light
The most fundamental tasks of adventuring— noticing danger, finding hidden Objects, hitting an enemy in Combat, and targeting a spell, to name just a few—rely heavily on a character’s ability to see.

Darkness and other effects that obscure vision can prove a significant hindrance.
A given area might be lightly or heavily obscured. In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

heavily obscured area—such as darkness, opaque fog, or dense foliage—blocks vision entirely. A creature effectively suffers from the blinded condition (see Conditions ) when trying to see something in that area.

The presence or absence of light in an environment creates three categories of illumination: bright light, dim light, and darkness.

Bright light lets most creatures see normally. Even gloomy days provide bright light, as do torches, lanterns, fires, and other sources of illumination within a specific radius.

Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area. An area of dim light is usually a boundary between a source of bright light, such as a torch, and surrounding darkness. The soft light of twilight and dawn also counts as dim light. A particularly brilliant full moon might bathe the land in dim light.

Darkness creates a heavily obscured area. Characters face darkness outdoors at night (even most moonlit nights), within the confines of an unlit dungeon or a subterranean vault, or in an area of magical darkness.

Blindsight
A creature with Blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius. Creatures without eyes, such as oozes, and creatures with echolocation or heightened Senses, such as bats and true dragons, have this sense.

Darkvision
Many creatures in fantasy gaming worlds, especially those that dwell underground, have Darkvision. Within a specified range, a creature with Darkvision can see in darkness as if the darkness were dim light, so areas of Darkness are only lightly obscured as far as that creature is concerned. However, the creature can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Truesight
A creature with Truesight can, out to a specific range, see in normal and magical Darkness, see Invisible creatures and Objects, automatically detect visual illusions and succeed on Saving Throws against them, and perceives the original form of a Shapechanger or a creature that is transformed by magic. Furthermore, the creature can see into the Ethereal Plane.

Food and Water
Characters who don’t eat or drink suffer the Effects of Exhaustion (see Conditions ). Exhaustion caused by lack of food or water can’t be removed until the character eats and drinks the full required amount.

Food
A character needs one pound of food per day and can make food last longer by subsisting on half Rations. Eating half a pound of food in a day counts as half a day without food.

A character can go without food for a number of days equal to 3 + his or her Constitutionmodifier (minimum 1). At the end of each day beyond that limit, a character automatically suffers one level of Exhaustion.

A normal day of eating resets the count of days without food to zero.

Water
A character needs one gallon of water per day, or two gallons per day if the weather is hot. A character who drinks only half that much water must succeed on a DC 15 Constitutionsaving throw or suffer one level of Exhaustion at the end of the day. A character with access to even less water automatically suffers one level of Exhaustion at the end of the day.

If the character already has one or more levels of Exhaustion, the character takes two levels in either case.

Interacting with Objects
A character’s interaction with Objects in an Environment is often simple to resolve in the game. The player tells the GM that his or her character is doing something, such as moving a lever, and the GM describes what, if anything, happens.

For example, a character might decide to pull a lever, which might, in turn, raise a portcullis, cause a room to flood with water, or open a Secret door in a nearby wall. If the lever is rusted in position, though, a character might need to force it. In such a situation, the GM might call for a Strength check to see whether the character can wrench the lever into place. The GM sets the DC for any such check based on the difficulty of the task.

Characters can also damage Objects with their Weapons and SpellsObjects are immune to poison and psychic damage, but otherwise they can be affected by physical and magical attacks much like creatures can. The GM determines an object’s Armor Class and Hit Points, and might decide that certain Objects have Resistance or immunity to certain kinds of attacks. (It’s hard to cut a rope with a club, for example.) Objects always fail Strengthand Dexterity Saving Throws, and they are immune to Effects that require other saves. When an object drops to 0 Hit Points, it breaks.

A character can also attempt a Strength check to break an object. The GM sets the DC for any such check.

MOVEMENT

Swimming across a rushing river, sneaking down a dungeon corridor, scaling a treacherous Mountain slope—all sorts of movement play a key role in fantasy gaming Adventures.

The GM can summarize the adventurers’ movement without calculating exact distances or travel times: “You travel through the Forest and find the dungeon entrance late in the evening of the third day.” Even in a dungeon, particularly a large dungeon or a cave network, the GM can summarize movement between encounters: “After killing the Guardian at the entrance to the ancient dwarven stronghold, you consult your map, which leads you through miles of echoing corridors to a chasm bridged by a narrow stone arch.”

Sometimes it’s important, though, to know how long it takes to get from one spot to another, whether the answer is in days, hours, or minutes. The rules for determining travel time depend on two factors: the speed and travel pace of the creatures moving and the terrain they’re moving over.

Speed 

Every character and monster has a speed, which is the distance in feet that the character or monster can walk in 1 round. This number assumes short bursts of energetic movement in the midst of a life- threatening situation.
The following rules determine how far a character or monster can move in a minute, an hour, or a day.

Travel Pace
While traveling, a group of adventurers can move at a normal, fast, or slow pace, as shown on the Travel Pace table. The table states how far the party can move in a period of time and whether the pace has any effect. A fast pace makes characters less perceptive, while a slow pace makes it possible to sneak around and to Search an area more carefully.

Forced March. The Travel Pace table assumes that characters travel for 8 hours in day. They can push on beyond that limit, at the risk of Exhaustion.
For each additional hour of travel beyond 8 hours, the characters cover the distance shown in the Hour column for their pace, and each character must make a Constitution saving throw at the end of the hour.
The DC is 10 + 1 for each hour past 8 hours. On a failed saving throw, a character suffers one level of Exhaustion (see Conditions ).

Mounts and Vehicles. For short spans of time (up to an hour), many animals move much faster than humanoids. A mounted character can ride at a gallop for about an hour, covering twice the usual distance for a fast pace. If fresh mounts are available every 8 to 10 miles, characters can cover larger distances at this pace, but this is very rare except in densely populated areas.

Characters in wagons, carriages, or other Land Vehicles choose a pace as normal. Characters in a waterborne vessel are limited to the speed of the vessel, and they don’t suffer penalties for a fast pace or gain benefits from a slow pace. Depending on the vessel and the size of the crew, ships might be able to travel for up to 24 hours per day.

Certain Special mounts, such as a Pegasus or Griffon, or Special vehicles, such as a Carpet of Flying, allow you to travel more swiftly.

Travel Pace and Effects
PaceDistance Traveled per...Effect
MinuteHourDay
Fast400 feet4 miles30 miles−5 penalty to passive Wisdom (Perception) scores
Normal300 feet3 miles24 miles
Slow200 feet2 miles18 milesAble to use Stealth

Difficult Terrain

The travel speeds given in the Travel Pace table assume relatively simple terrain: roads, open plains, or clear dungeon corridors. But adventurers often face dense forests, deep swamps, rubble-filled ruins, steep mountains, and ice-covered ground—all considered difficult terrain.

You move at half speed in difficult terrain— moving 1 foot in difficult terrain costs 2 feet of speed—so you can cover only half the normal distance in a minute, an hour, or a day.

Special Types of Movement

Movement through dangerous Dungeons or Wilderness areas often involves more than simply walking. Adventurers might have to climb, crawl, swim, or jump to get where they need to go.

Climbing, Swimming, and Crawling

While climbing or swimming, each foot of movement costs 1 extra foot (2 extra feet in difficult terrain), unless a creature has a climbing or swimming speed. At the GM’s option, climbing a slippery vertical surface or one with few handholds requires a successful Strength (Athletics) check. Similarly, gaining any distance in rough water might require a successful Strength (Athletics) check.

Jumping

Your Strength determines how far you can jump.

Long Jump. When you make a long jump, you cover a number of feet up to your Strengthscore if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump. When you make a standing long jump, you can leap only half that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of movement.

This rule assumes that the height of your jump doesn’t matter, such as a jump across a stream or chasm. At your GM’s option, you must succeed on a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check to clear a low obstacle (no taller than a quarter of the jump’s distance), such as a hedge or low wall. Otherwise, you hit it.

When you land in difficult terrain, you must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to land on your feet. Otherwise, you land prone.

High Jump. When you make a high jump, you leap into the air a number of feet equal to 3 + your Strength modifier if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump. When you make a standing high jump, you can jump only half that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of movement. In some circumstances, your GM might allow you to make a Strength (Athletics) check to jump higher than you normally can.

You can extend your arms half your height above yourself during the jump. Thus, you can reach above you a distance equal to the height of the jump plus 1½ times your height.

OBJECTS

When characters need to saw through ropes, Shatter a window, or smash a vampire’s coffin, the only hard and fast rule is this: given enough time and the right tools, characters can destroy any destructible object. Use Common sense when determining a character’s success at damaging an object. Can a Fighter cut through a section of a stone wall with a sword? No, the sword is likely to break before the wall does.

For the purpose of these rules, an object is a discrete, inanimate item like a window, door, sword, book, table, chair, or stone, not a building or a vehicle that is composed of many other objects.


Statistics for Objects

When time is a factor, you can assign an Armor Class and Hit Points to a destructible object. You can also give it immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities to specific types of damage.

Armor Class: An object’s Armor Class is a measure of how difficult it is to deal damage to the object when striking it (because the object has no chance of dodging out of the way). Table: Object Armor Class provides suggested AC values for various substances.

Object Armor Class
SubstanceAC
Cloth, paper, rope11
Crystal, glass, ice13
Wood, bone15
Stone17
Iron, steel19
Mithral21
Adamantine23
Hit Points: An object’s Hit Points measure how much damage it can take before losing its structural integrity. Resilient objects have more Hit Points than fragile ones. Large objects also tend to have more Hit Points than small ones, unless breaking a small part of the object is just as effective as breaking the whole thing. Table: Object Hit Points provides suggested Hit Points for fragile and Resilient objects that are Large or smaller.
Object Hit Points
SizeFragileResilient
Tiny (bottle, lock)2 (1d4)5 (2d4)
Small (chest, lute)3 (1d6)10 (3d6)
Medium (barrel, chandelier)4 (1d8)18 (4d8)
Large (cart, 10-­ft.-­by-­10-­ft. window)5 (1d10)27 (5d10)
Huge and Gargantuan Objects: Normal Weapons are of little use against many Huge and Gargantuan objects, such as a colossal statue, towering column of stone, or massive boulder. That said, one torch can burn a Huge tapestry, and an Earthquake spell can reduce a colossus to rubble. You can track a Huge or Gargantuan object’s Hit Points if you like, or you can simply decide how long the object can withstand whatever weapon or force is acting against it. If you track Hit Points for the object, divide it into Large or smaller sections, and track each section’s Hit Points separately. Destroying one of those sections could ruin the entire object. For example, a Gargantuan statue of a human might topple over when one of its Large legs is reduced to 0 Hit Points.

Objects and Damage Types: Objects are immune to poison and psychic damage. You might decide that some Damage Types are more effective against a particular object or substance than others. For example, bludgeoning damage works well for smashing things but not for cutting through rope or leather. Paper or cloth objects might be vulnerable to fire and lightning damage. A pick can chip away stone but can’t effectively cut down a tree. As always, use your best judgment.

Damage Threshold: Big objects such as castle walls often have extra resilience represented by a damage threshold. An object with a damage threshold has immunity to all damage unless it takes an amount of damage from a single Attack or effect equal to or greater than its damage threshold, in which case it takes damage as normal. Any damage that fails to meet or exceed the object’s damage threshold is considered superficial and doesn’t reduce the object’s Hit Points.

TIME

In situations where keeping track of the passage of time is important, the GM determines the time a task requires. The GM might use a different time scale depending on the context of the situation at hand. In a dungeon Environment, the adventurers’ Movement happens on a scale of minutes. It takes them about a minute to creep down a long hallway, another minute to check for traps on the door at the end of the hall, and a good ten minutes to Search the chamber beyond for anything interesting or valuable.

In a city or Wilderness, a scale of hours is often more appropriate. Adventurers eager to reach The Lonely tower at the heart of the Forest hurry across those fifteen miles in just under four hours’ time.

For long journeys, a scale of days works best. Following the road from Baldur’s Gate to Waterdeep, the adventurers spend four uneventful days before a Goblin ambush interrupts their journey.

In Combat and other fast-paced situations, the game relies on rounds, a 6-second span of time.


A rest is a term for a break that players can take. Each type of rest has their own length and specific actions allowed during it, but all are filled with light activity to give characters a chance to recuperate. The two major types of rests are short and long rests. If a rest is interrupted, characters gain none of the benefits of a rest until they resume resting. Generally, an interruption is dealt with quickly. If it takes too long, the rest may have to be restarted.

REST

Short Rest

A short rest is an hour-long break. While there's no official limit to how many short rests can be taken between long rests, most will only have one to three.
During a short rest, players can choose to spend hit dice to recover lost hit points. Players have a maximum number of hit dice equal to their total level. They can spend as many of these as they like, so long as they don't go over their maximum. The number rolled plus the character's Constitution modifier equals how many hit points are recovered. Players can't recover more hit points than their maximum.
The type of die rolled is determined by class.
In addition to spending hit dice, certain classes can regain benefits. Examples include:

Long Rest

A long long rest is a break that lasts 8 hours. At least six hours, with the exception of androids, must be spent sleeping in order to gain the benefits of a long rest. The rest must be filled with light activity. Being on watch duty counts as a light activity.

Once a long rest is completed, characters regain any missing hit points, spell slots, and up to half (rounded down) of spent hit die. Clerics, druids, paladins, and wizards can change their list of prepared spells. Additionally, most class and racial features are regained after a long rest. 

The list of features regained includes but is by no means limited to:

Between Adventures

So you toughed it out, you won the fight, and now your back in civilization with a completed task, gold and time before you go looking for a new adventure. Your party is now off in different directions deciding what they will do with their well earned gold pieces, and are out exploring the many ways to spend them. There are many ways to spend your time between adventures, but here are some that may benefit you.

Lifestyle Expenses

What we choose to do as adventurers between the campaigns will decide how well we are prepared for the next campaign we take part in. We pay a particular amount of money for what we decide to do in the interim between adventures. One can choose to live a meager life and spend a silver a day or be the city social butterfly and spend ten gold a day. One can be in-between and perhaps pick up some training and some gossip that would further knowledge of a given thing. It does depend on ones chosen a lifestyle, be you the life of the party and have knowledge of every Lord in town or a hermit that works leather earning a days meal for his efforts.

Recuperating

There is the chance that one has come to town with a malady picked up on the campaign. A disease or illness that is affecting you and you need to be rid of it. One may use the time between adventures to cure this illness. After three days, one can make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw and with a successful roll, the following options are yours.
  1. End one effect upon you that prevents the regeneration of Hit Points.
  2. A 24-hour advantage on saving throws against one poison or disease affecting you.

Training

One can consult with their DM as to what training options are available for your character. Perhaps you can pick up a feat, gain a new proficiency or even a second class. Time spent with a Mentor of your craft is time well spent. Normally training takes most of a year 250 days at a gold piece per day, but in regions may vary.

Crafting

Creating new things is good, but one may need to take up a new skill to do it or apprentice oneself to a master to learn it. Perhaps you came from yeoman stock and already have a skill? One may earn up to 5 gold a day crafting after materials spent. There is a lot of crafting and one may wish to visit the crafting and skills pages.

Researching

AH! For the love of books! Your DM has a wide range here and may allow you to research what you wish in the vast library of whatever city or place you are in, but in general, for one to have uninterrupted research time costs a gold piece a day. The DM may also require various ability checks to see if you actually understand what you are reading, i.e. Cons, Int, Cra, and so on.

Practicing a Profession

The Craftsmen; should one already have a craft and decide to make use of that skill in the interim of adventures, a modest living can be earned. One can make ends meet and not suffer the One gold piece per day for being a bum. If one is a member of a Guild or Craft then one can make a reasonable wage and support one's needs perhaps save enough to become moderately wealthy.

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