Pace, Encounter Distance, and DCs Explained

The 2024 edition of Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide provides explicit rules about exploration details. Exploration is one of many topics that were (mostly) left to the player’s imagination and DM’s discretion in previous versions of the game. Damage. In the revised and expanded 2024 edition, however, many of these topics are better explained with specific rules to guide their implementation in a D&D campaign, such as crafting, bastions, and travel.

Exploration is by no means a new mechanic in D&Dbut the new rules around it aim to make it more engaging and realistic than ever. By providing DMs and players with a framework for fantasy travel in the “Exploration running“section, the new Damage ensures that travel between points of interest is not something to be ignored or guessed at – it is an established process with risk and reward.

How travel terrain works in the D&D 2024 rules

Travel Terrain and Its Types, Explained

To simplify exploration rules, The types of terrain over which a party can travel have been divided into eleven different types in 2024 Damage. These types pretty comprehensively cover all the different biomes that players can traverse as they move from point A to point B: Arctic, Coastal, Desert, Forest, Grassland, Hill, Mountain, Swamp, Underground, Urban, and Aquatic. It is up to the DM to determine which category each part of the map falls into, while the sourcebook provides more information to guide the interpretation of each.

Each terrain type is associated with five different statistics that guide exploration through them. These stats are Max Pace, Encounter Distance, and DCs (Difficulty Classes) for Foraging, Navigation, and Search.

DM Guide Travel Terrain Table Explained

All terrain types in the DMG

The following table lists all 11 terrain types and their various effects. For a detailed explanation of how these effects work, see the section below.

Note that the group requires certain equipment, such as snowshoes, sleds, or skis, to travel at a fast pace in an Arctic setting. Furthermore, the speed of a water group depends on the speed of the boat they are on boardwhose resources can be found in DamageVehicles Section.

Maximum pace, meeting distance and CDs explained

What Terrain Types Do

Each terrain type has an associated Max Pacewhich determines how quickly characters can safely move through it. For example, a relatively flat patch of grassland has a maximum pace of “Fast,” while the maximum pace of a mountain is “Slow“due to the greater physical challenge provided by its slope. The rhythms determine the distance that a group can cover in a given period of time, as can be seen in the table below.

A well-maintained road always increases the Maximum Pace of a terrain type by one level (i.e., from Slow to Normal or from Normal to Fast). Note that characters with abilities that allow them to ignore difficult terrain can move at a fast pace anywhere. It is also possible for characters to travel more than eight hours a daypotentially covering a greater distance. Doing so forces a Constitution saving throw from each character, in which the DC is ten plus the number of overtime hours they have traveled; if they fail, they gain a level of exhaustion.

However, just because the group can travel faster doesn’t mean it should; Each rhythm can also incur a variety of different effects on your ability checks.. While advancing at a fast pace, players have disadvantage on Perception, Survival, and Stealth checks. At Normal pace, they only have a disadvantage in Wisdom, while at Slow pace, they gain an advantage in Stealth.

Next is a statistic called Meeting distance, which affects how close different people or parties need to be before they can see each other. The Encounter Distance is not fixed and depends on a dice roll as described in the table above. However, there is potential for much greater encounter distances in flat areas with high visibility, such as grasslands, than in dense, dark forests. Theoretically, this allows DMs to create an immersive, dynamic map in which enemies move in the same way as players, with the ever-present risk of confrontation when the two pass within Encounter Distance range.

Finally, each terrain is associated with a specific Foraging, Navigation and Research DC. In D&D language, DC stands for Difficulty Class and refers to the number a player must overcome when making a skill check or saving throw and adding modifiers. In general, the higher the DC, the more difficult the task. When it comes to exploration, the Foraging, Navigation, and Search DCs each represent the perceived difficulty of the associated activity, based on the material conditions of the terrain in which the player is performing them.

For example, Arctic areas have a Foraging DC of 20. As they are devoid of most forms of plant lifeplayers will have a much harder time finding sustenance there compared to, say, a lush forest, which has a food gathering DC of 10. A coastal area has a navigation DC of just 5, since finding your way is relatively difficult. easy with a big body. of water as a landmark, while a winding mountain pass has a Navigation DC of 15. Arid Deserts have a low Search DC at 10, while the dark, labyrinthine passages of an Underground maze are much more difficult at 20.

THE Dungeon Master’s Guide provides a handy trip planner that allows GMs to plan longer stretches of travel, potentially through several different types of terrain with different challenges. It also offers some suggestions about weather events, random encounters, and how to narrate the exploration. With all of this in hand, players and DMs have everything they need to start enjoying the most immersive travel mechanic in Dungeons and Dragons‘latest reference books.