Hexcrawl Procedure

Resources – Adventurers have a D8 (D12 if they prepared) die of food and water. They must roll each type each day to see if they use up their food (on a roll of a 1 or 2 – reduce one die size). When you buy food, you can buy it in single die quantities (you would need to buy 4 lots of food to go from a D0 to a D12).

No food or water – the character must roll CON save each day. DC 10, increase by 3 for each day you go without food or water. Suffer exhaustion on a fail. Cannot clear exhaustion until you eat.

• Day has 4 sections, morning, noon, evening and night. Can travel 2 sections a day, must sleep for one section.
• Check weather. Adverse weather is half speed.
• Move speed (per day) Normal 2 hexes, fast 3 hexes -5 to checks, slow 1 hex + 5 to checks. Difficult terrain 1 / 2 hexes per day.
• Can move for a third section in a day but must save VS DC 12 CON save against exhaustion.
• You have 1 section a day (6 hours) to hunt, fish, search the area, gather, craft, repair, make camp, tell stories, scout, read lore, scribe, tinker.

Lead the Way – Make a survival roll to flex your path finding abilities.

If fail, Roll a 1d6:

1-2 – Suffer damage from a fall, obstacle or incident 1d4 /level (you trip, you fall while climbing etc)

3-4– Lost – you make no progress (lose your way, resources might become an issue)

5– suffer a debilitating injury (ankle, shoulder, takes a long rest to recover)

6– suffer hardship, DC 10 CON save to sleep. (torn clothes, insect bites)

Keep Watch – useful in all quarters of the day. A party member keeps watch with a Perception (wis) check to notice incoming threats. You can hike and keep watch but not keep watch and lead the way. This is an opposed roll.

Forage / hunt / fish – roll Survival (nature as well to forage)– success, you find food or water. If you find enough water you can fill to D12. You need the proper equipment to hunt or fish. If you fail, mishap:

1-3 – you find nothing, time to go hungry.

4 – You tore your clothes and the weather affects you. (15 CON save to sleep).

5 – poisoned (until long rest or DC 15 medicine check)

6 – an animal harasses you. They take either some food and break a piece of equipment, your choice.

Explore – roll appropriate skills for searching an area. Cannot do other activities while exploring.

Make camp – during the activity ¼ of the day one party member must ‘make camp’. They roll Survival (or Nature) to make camp. If you fail, the party must roll DC 10 CON save or suffer an interrupted rest.

Interrupted Rest – Party only recovers ¼ of their HD instead of ½ and take 1 level of Exhaustion.. We are using Slow Natural Healing. Applies to mishap rolls.

Terrain DC’s and NPC reaction table –

Terrain open / difficult	Navi DC	Forage DC	Search DC	2d6	Reaction result
Arctic (dif)	10	18	10	2	Hostile, reacting as negatively as is plausible
Coastal (op)	5	13	10	3-5	Negative, unfriendly and unhelpful
Desert (op)	10	20	10	6-8	Neutral, reacting predictably or warily
Forest (op)	15	13	15	9-11	Positive, potentially cooperative with PCs
Grassland (op)	5	12	10	12	Friendly, helpful as is plausible to be
HIll (op)	10	12	13	1d6	SIMPLE VERSION
Mountain (dif)	15	18	15	1	Friendly
Swamp (dif)	15	16	15	2-4	Neutral
Underdark (dif)	15 20 new	15	15	5-6	Hostile
Underwater (dif)	15	15	15

Random Encounters – Roll encounter d6 check 4+ in daytime and 5+ in night. mod to roll = -1 if in civilized lands, +1 if in dangerous lands. If an encounter occurs, determine whether it is from the encounter table or a keyed location 1-3 keyed 4-6 encounter (if using keyed locations).
Roll to see if encounter is location, hazard or creature or combined.

Day time (D12) – 1-4 – location, 5-7 hazard, 8-10 creature, 11 Location and Creature, 12 Creature and hazard.
Night time (D12) – 1-2 – location, 3-6 hazard, 7-11 Creature, 12 creature roll twice.
DM discretion – Max 2 random encounters in a day. I would pre-roll a few days’ worth of encounters to help spice up the encounters with some forethought. Depends on the group and how much of a ‘slog’ too many random encounters might become. Talk to your group.

Spot distance – an opposed perception roll. Distance based on the fiction (near, far or just tracks). If no party member is ‘Scouting’ then there is no chance to see incoming enemies.

General rules additions:

• Slow Natural Healing – Long rest must use HD to recover HP.
• Shove a creature prone and disarming rules: When a creature stands in melee or if they pick up their weapon after being disarmed they will suffer the ‘on your heels’ condition. This results in DADV on the creatures attacks until the end of its next turn as well as being unable to take reactions.
• Flanking: Will give a +1 to hit modifier.
• Casting a saving throw spell in melee will give the target of the spell ADV on their saving throw. (for harmful spells kinda thing)
• Lingering injuries and massive damage tables will be used. We can discuss the lingering injury resulting from a crit. Reading through it.. with the ability magical healing being able to right many of the injuries.
• Use a potion is either a BA or an action.
• Failing a roll by 1 means a success with a consequence. A broken lockpick, you climb the cliff but drop an item etc.
• Those without proficiency in a skill can help a proficient character or make a DADV roll for the skill.
• After your 9th failed death save, your character can’t take it anymore. Retire them and bring a new adventurer to life.

Acknowledgements – Forbidden Lands RPG (Free League), Old School Hacks: Hexcrawling (Tim Bannock), The Alexandrian: Hexcrawl.

Example Random Encounter Table

	Sites	Hazards	Creatures
1	The Grandfather Tree	Fog: All navigation checks are DADV, all foraging checks are DADV. all sight based things not within 10 ft are DADV	A young woodcutter scout, racing through the forest to find a lost friend. Her friend has gone missing and she fears the worse. Help track, find a basilisk cave, the friend is inside, dead and mauled and a basilisk is hiding.
2	Players discover standing stones with stones descending down (run modified Temple of the scale adventure)	Storm: A storm rages overhead. Characters must take shelter. If they choose to travel they run the risk of a widow maker falling on them Tree branch doing 2d10 damage.	2 Brown Bear which avoids fighting at all costs as it plane shifts around and does not know why.
3	Gnoll scouting encampment. There are 1d6 gnolls camping. They have freshly hunted meat cooking.	Webs from giant spiders blocks the path. They stick to your feet and slow movement.	1d6+1 needle blights 1d3+1 twig blights
4	Toppled Obelisk of a nature deity.	Poison marsh – acts as enervating water. After CON score in minutes you begin to suffer exhaustion if fail DC10 CON check.	1d6+1 Vine blights
5	Find a soft leaved herb nature check to know what it does – 3 temp hp for 24 hours.	Gnome hunter’s traps. There are many non lethal traps about. Gnomes use them to capture forest creatures and talk to them about what potential dangers there are in the forest.	1d3+2 panthers That are searching for food, they are deadly hungry and will risk it to get some food.
6	A mound of rocks – investigating leads to a were boars lair. Roll treasure he has 1600 CP	Snake bite – DC 15 CON save or be poisoned for the rest of the day.	1d4+2 gnolls and 2d4 hyenas Wish to protect weaker members of their group, the party sees their tracks.
7	A waterfall in the jungle. There is a pool here with abundant silver and orange fish swimming.	A stick to the face – your party member was careless with a branch – DC 12 DEX save have a swollen shut eye. Lasts 2 days and DADV on checks requiring site (including attack rolls with weapons.)	1 Gnoll Flesh Gnawer and 2d4 gnolls are chasing a deer stag with an arrow in its side. It is slowly losing the chase.
8	An empty cave full of bones of animals.	Heat wave or cold snap: Extreme heat on pg 110 of DMG	1 Shambling mound wants help to remove poisoned matter from its body and is chasing a dryad. The dryad moves away from the mound. Taunting is as goes.