Encounters in Chult -- Non-Monster Encounters

In Tomb of Annihilation, "While characters are exploring or camping in the wilderness, roll a d20 three times per day of game time, checking for encounters each morning, afternoon, and evening or night. An encounter occurs on a roll of 16 or higher." (Tomb of Annihilation, pg. 193)

On the result of an encounter (16-20), one is then directed to roll percentile dice on the "Wilderness Encounters" table on the next pages (194-5), which includes columns for different terrain types, including Beach, several types of Jungle, Mountains, Rivers, Ruins, Swamp, and Wasteland. These different terrains have different values for the various creatures that haunt Chult and its environs--but almost every entry is a creature of some kind, implying combat (6 out of 90 entries are with non-creatures, while at least half a dozen more are with neutral or friendly NPCs).

There follows a description of each encounter in pages 196-203, of the number of creatures or the nature of the non-creature thing found. These are generally good entries, though I find it irritating how many of them coyly resolve into non-encounters if the players don't provoke the creatures, e.g. of the dinosaurs, the Ankylosaurus, Brontosaurus, Hadrosaurus, Pteranodon, Stegosaurus, and Triceratops all ignore the characters unless attacked, touched, or bothered. And these aren't the only entries like that. Which is to say, if I roll an 18 on my d20 and then a triceratops encounter, inform the players, and then they walk away, nothing happens ... over the course of hundreds of hexes of travel this will become dozens of dice rolls to nothing, sapping my time and my players' interest.

All of which is a longwinded way of saying, these wilderness encounters need sprucing up!

First, because it seems to me that travel should involve a variety of mishaps/encounters not necessarily all of which involve creatures, I'd like to rewrite a table of non-monster wilderness occurrences that I use for wilderness travel in my homebrew game. (other blog-entries may include creating more specific wilderness terrains and resulting encounter tables, and/or nesting the results on the ToA tables with greater random variety)

"I hope we don't run into any mouth dragons out here ..."

So, per the rules, per day that the characters spend in the wilderness, roll three d20s. A result of a 16-20 indicates an encounter; the first and last such rolls indicate an encounter on the "Wilderness Encounters" table from the book, but the second/middle roll indicates a further roll on this table:

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Non-Monster Wilderness Encounters

1-3 -- Bad weather -- half movement for the next 1-6 days

4-5 -- Lamed mule/Sprained ankle -- cannot move forward until the injury is healed, either by magic or by 1-3 days of rest

6-7 -- Spoiled rations -- 1-2 weeks of rations are spoiled by mold, maggots, etc.

8 -- Lost supplies -- the party loses ... 1) 50' rope, 2) 100-600 gp, 3) 1 week of rations,
4) tinderbox, 5) lantern and 1-4 flasks of oil OR 2-12 torches, 6) 50' rope and roll again ((or one useful item at random))

9-10 -- Heatstroke -- a character at random is incapacitated and cannot act until they take a full day of rest

11-12 -- Wrong turn -- not lost per se, but no movement for the day as all "progress" must be retraced back in the proper direction

13 -- Venomous bite -- a character at random must save against poison or using CON, or die; neutralize poison or other such spells would naturally be handy in such a situation

14 -- Diseased bite -- a character at random must save against poison or using CON, or become infected with a debilitating disease; the character loses 1 STR per day of travel, and a week of full rest is required to overcome the disease; during the "crisis" another save v. poison or with CON is required, and failure indicates that 1 point of CON is permanently lost

15-16 -- Good foraging/hunting -- no rations are needed for the day due to plentiful game/forage

17-18 -- Bad water -- 1-3 characters must save against poison or using CON, or contract a debilitating disease per (14)

19-20 -- Physical Barrier -- the party has hiked into a box canyon, cul de sac, bog, mire, etc. etc., and must backtrack; no movement unless a thief with ropes climbs a way through, or a druid demonstrates a path, or some other rule or narrative is invoked by the player characters to pass through

On the Road Again ... Encounters

In my regular (non-Greyhame Dungeon game), I've had the party move areas a couple times, first relocating them down south for the winter to deal with the return of Sakatha the Lizard-King (module I2), and then of course moving them back north to the original town of Calpurnia where they started. I've now also got half the party continuing even farther north to go help the halflings of Hopshire.

For these travels, I came up with a d20 table of Encounters on the Road from which I roll one item for every week of travel, rather than rolling on the wilderness encounter table day by day by day. This speeds long distance travel up significantly, without necessarily just "jump-cutting", so that the travel itself retains some interest and impact; and it is to my mind justified, because the particular journeys being made by my group are not wilderness exploration, but rather along major thoroughfares within civilization, so rolling constantly on the wilderness encounter tables just doesn't make much sense.

There's no great need for me to keep this secret from my players--I'll roll what I roll, and they can deal with it!--I thought I'd present it here:

Encounters on the Road -- roll 1d20 per week, roll a random day if you want

1 - Dragon, on a d6 (1-2) basking, (3-4) hunting, (5-6) patrolling. Will accept mere flattery sometimes, demand food if hunting, or demand tribute if patrolling. I either roll up a new dragon and place it in the world near where it was encountered, or have a dragon already placed nearby who can stand in for the enounter

"Why yes, I am quite magnificent. Do go on, mortal,
and I might let you pass without eating your mule."

2 - Zauldron the Sage and Clara Clairvoyant -- for 2000 gp, they can do in 2-5 days what takes a normal sage 1 month (because of the synergy from his encyclopedic memory and her clairvoyance!); OR, Clara can commune with a higher power for the characters (also costs 2000 gp)

3 - Caravan/Free Market -- opportunity to buy/sell/resupply, plus the possibility to get in on some arbitrage/speculative trading of goods

4 - Magic Item Peddler -- buys magic items (500 gp/+ bonus, OR per offer); has 2-7 potions from the list for sale, as well as 1 item from my magic item for sale table; and don't try to rob him, he's got a competent guard of many well-armored fellows, plus a leveled fighting-man, magic-user, or whatever

5 - Storms and/or Bad Weather -- add 2-9 days of to travel time to the party's destination

6 - Castle -- per the rules in the Expert Book, OR just assess some kind of toll on the party, demanded by a party of armored knights on their lord's behalf

7 - Fey Encounter -- the party comes upon a Faerie-knight, a nymph-grotto, a dryad-grove, a nixie/naiad-pool, an oread's mountain, dwarvish underkingdom, etc. etc. Make it weirder than just a combat encounter with a dryad

8 - Wild Animal Peddler -- sells animals per my table of Animals For Sale; like the peddler of magic items, he is well guarded by a party of armed men

9 - Haunted Keep/Shrine -- either some kind of combat encounter with undead, esp if the party comes nigh around dusk; OR come up with a unique way to use turn undead or bless ... I haven't rolled this yet, so I haven't fleshed it out like I wanted to

10 - a Hermit -- on a d6 (1-2) Good saint, (3) Lawful anchorite, (4) Chaotic outlaw, (5-6) Arcane hedge wizard/witch. The saint offers succor and healing; the anchorite can offer sage advice; the outlaw might have a band with him, likely has a bounty on his/her head (200-1200 gp?), but can offer pathfinding, etc., to those who won't snitch; the hedge wizard has 2-5 potions and 1-2 scrolls possibly for sale

You see this fellow hunched under an oak by the tree; being
St. Anthony, he can help you resist the temptations of demons

11 - Fellow Travelers -- 1) arrogant aristocrat and entourage, 2) party of pilgrims, 3) dust-weary villeins, 4) adventurers-errant, 5) muddy-booted men-at-arms, or 6) roll on the MEN wandering monster table

12-13 Wandering Monster per that table

14 - Peasants seeking aid -- when I rolled this, I had peasants seeking aid after some natural disaster, and the group decided to give them I think several hundred gold pieces--naturally, the peasants used some of that wealth to raise a shrine dedicated to the party cleric's goddess/saint in gratitude

15 - roll on the FLYERS wandering monster table

16 - Elf-Pilgrims -- you may carouse with them for the night, according to the carousing rules, but if you fail your save you might just join them and return to the mortal realm some time much later

17 - Ankhegs (I just like ankhegs; obviously, replace this with whatever particular monster you want)

18 - Greater Werewolf and his pack, obviously in the guise of fellow pilgrims/travelers; it's probable that they'll try to eat the party at some inopportune time (these fellows are currently rising in power as Chaos is on the rise in my world; given other circumstances, I would alter the particular creature)

19 - Diseased Inn or Plague Victims -- save v. poison or random members of the party are infected

20 - Doomsaying Prophet or Itinerant Preacher -- maybe he's just a madman mumbling nonsense, maybe he's a man inspired by God or the gods to bring a warning the world, a local city, or even the king; he could even just be a wandering holy man, offering healing to the injured and sick, blessings, and words of advice to those in need