If you’re walking in on the middle of the advanced fantasy dungeon series, there’s an index here.

In the context of the dungeon grid, I’m going to revise Journeying. It shouldn’t change much, but I’ll take the opportunity to reduce the rolling mechanics as well. The extra roll is purposeful in the dungeon, as it’s attached to resource exhaustion. Not so much in the wilderness, where I’ve minimised resource management.

Each day has three watches.

For each watch, the GM rolls for a random encounter. On a result of 1, there is a random encounter. Typically, the GM rolls a d10, however it may be decreased for hostile territory or increased for safe havens.

For each watch, the GM rolls on the wilderness grid. Roll d100 for what encounter, and 1d8 for the type of encounter:

What encounter: 1. Very rare; 2-3. Rare; 4-6. Uncommon; 7-10. Common; 11-14. Common; 15-17. Uncommon; 18-19. Rare; 20. Very rare; 21-100. Nothing.

What type of encounter: 1-4. Nothing; 5. Monster Traces; 6. Monster Tracks; 7. Monster Encountered; 8. Monster Lair.

Random encounters prevent a watch of rest from being completed, but do not prevent a watch of travel from being completed.

If you travel for a watch, move forward one hex. You must spend 1d6 HP to travel for a second or and 2d6 HP to travel a third watch. To travel on difficult terrain, roll fortune or a relevant proficiency or spend 1d6 HP.

If you rest rather than travel for a watch, perform a rest action such as heal, memorise spells, prayer, or repair. There is no formal lists of rest actions, but rather you can only perform one such action per rest watch (in addition to all of the other things you must do while travelling). You cannot travel and rest the same watch.

Using vehicles or mounts does not allow you to travel further, but limits or facilitates your ability to travel on certain terrain and allows an expanded inventory.

If you are stranded in the wilderness at the end of a session, each PC rolls to return to the nearest settlement. Roll fortune or an appropriate proficiency, against a target equal to the number of days travel to the nearest settlement, plus the number of turns traveled to escape the dungeon. For every point you fail by, choose either to spend that amount in HP or ten times that amount in GP.

The only adjustments here are around the wilderness probabilities being flatter than before the 2d6 and having 10 rather than 11 entries. Worth it for less die rolls in my opinion. I cut out the part on mounts and will move it to equipment.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on journeying (that’s better than overland travel, right?), if there are questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

21st May 2022