Underground Travel

[Glorelendil]

By the way, anybody who has ideas...even unfinished ones...for hazards, especially role-specific hazards, please post them and I'll incorporate.

[Glorelendil]

I probably won't be able to dive deep into this for another day or two, but those values seem a bit off (if we consider the Moria trip to be a typical example, which might not be the case). The Fellowship enters Moria on 13 January and exits on 15 January, having travelled about 40 miles and ran into two or three obstacles (the long jump, the intersection near the guard-room, the encounter with the orcs and more in the Chamber of Mazarbul).

So either having Gandalf and Aragorn with their prior experience really helped out, Moria is not a good sample (sucks that our sample size is so small... Bilbo in the goblin tunnels might help though), or the calculations need a tweak.

By the way, isn't there a rule somewhere, maybe in one of the adventures, for forced marches? Maybe that would explain it. If the east-west road in Moria were "Hard" (TN: 16) it would take 4 days according to my rules. Double the speed (halve the time) for "forced march" and we're there.

EDIT:
I forgot about the rule for prior knowledge. With -2 from Gandalf's (and Aragorn's) previous journeys it could be Severe (TN: 18).

EDIT 2:
Also, these are averages. Very lucky rolls could drop times significantly.

[Finrod Felagund]

By the way, anybody who has ideas...even unfinished ones...for hazards, especially role-specific hazards, please post them and I'll incorporate.

Give me a few days and I'll PM you a bunch of ideas. Can't do it tonight as the footie is on.

The new "A cure for Boredom" is great! Keeps the fun of the whole thing without removing player agency.

Creatures are tricky; the FFG Elder Nameless Thing looks a Dune Sandworm, and the Nameless Thing looks like a Trapdoor Spider. Both seem acceptable to me but we'd need to change the names. The other creature I think might work is a huge giant blind white slug type creature (leaves a slimy trail etc).

D and D style Gelatinous Cube's are banned

[Glorelendil]

In my first few drafts of this version I had replaced the Huntsman role with the Victualer, using Search. Now that I'm actually writing Hazards, Search seems increasingly like the more applicable skill for finding food and water underground. (Other names I came up with were Quartermaster, Scavenger, Provisioner.)

What do folks think? Good idea?

[Otaku-sempai]

In my first few drafts of this version I had replaced the Huntsman role with the Victualer, using Search. Now that I'm actually writing Hazards, Search seems increasingly like the more applicable skill for finding food and water underground. (Other names I came up with were Quartermaster, Scavenger, Provisioner.)

What do folks think? Good idea?

I don't see any need to change the name from Hunter. The role is much the same whether one is hunting for meat or fungi or potable water.

[Glorelendil]

"Forager" would be another option.

[Mim]

You guys are sharing some great ideas!

Here are some underground hazards from the books for inspiration/tweaking:

TfW, 35–37
DoM, 22–23
HotW, 14
RotN, 32

[Glorelendil]

Thanks, Mim! I shall look through all of those.

I wonder if instead of replacing Huntsman with Forager, it should be the Lookout who goes? I mean, how much "looking out" can you really do in the dark? I'm having trouble coming up with underground hazards for the lookout that aren't approaching enemies. The only other thing I've got is a situation where the lookout thinks there are enemies and keeps waking up all his companions.

[Finrod Felagund]

I wonder if instead of replacing Huntsman with Forager, it should be the Lookout who goes? I mean, how much "looking out" can you really do in the dark? I'm having trouble coming up with underground hazards for the lookout that aren't approaching enemies. The only other thing I've got is a situation where the lookout thinks there are enemies and keeps waking up all his companions.

Traps? Obstacles? Rockfalls? Wells in the middle of rooms? All need a lookout. Probably best not to change too much of the core RAW IMO.

I'm acutely aware I promised you some work - I'll get on to it this weekend. I don't know if you're a Brit, but you'll probably be aware we've had a full-on couple of days here that has delayed things!

[Finrod Felagund]

Glorelendil

BTW you listed some environments in a previous post "Dwarven mansions, orcish tunnels, natural caves, mines, Roots of the Earth, etc".

Another one would be a name for the caverns created by Dunlendings in the Dark Years (i.e. Paths of the Dead). The only other extensive underground environment I could think of were Shelob's tunnels but I expect that was a mixture of natural caves and orcish tunnels.