Hex Crawling Standards

### **Travel Pace**

According to the 5e core rules, 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. \*Edits to the core rules will be indicated with a note at the bottom of the section.

**Double Time Forced March:** The Travel Pace Table assumes that characters travel for 8 hours in day. They can push 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.

**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 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.

#### **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.

##### **Travel Pace and Effects Table**

 Normal
 Slow

*Note:* \*Based on core rules, -5 penalty to passive Wisdom (Perception) scores. That will be changed to active Wisdom (Perception) checks while exploring the hex.

### **Hex Crawl Distance & Time**

* Depending on the map, each hex will be either: (1) 6 miles across and without roads will take 4 hours to travel end to end or (2) 24 miles across and without roads will take a full day to travel end to end.
* Parties who experience no random encounters and/or perform no tasks can potentially travel for a total of 8 hours of marching per day before they either need to take a short rest or risk exhaustion.

### **Handling Random Encounters**

* Every hex the DM will call for players to roll the following: *a Perception check, and a Survival (navigation) check (in the tower)*.
* These rolls will not stack. Therefore, characters cannot provide the help action, guidance or bless.
* The DM will secretly determine if there is a random encounter (30% chance) and if so what type of encounter: evil (30%), neutral (40%), good (30%).
* The DM will describe the encounter to the group based on the player rolls for that hex.
* If no random encounter is rolled and there are no known enemies in the hex then characters are free to explore the hex more thoroughly. For example, using the opportunity to forage for plants, hunt or draw a basic map.