As we discussed in Part 2, this system is designed to be modular, including a large number of advanced rules and supplemental tools that can be optionally used or discarded depending on your personal taste and the specific needs of a particular hexcrawl.
When you’ve decided which options you want to use, you’ll want to create a clean resolution sequence to make running the hexcrawl at the table silky smooth.
Below you’ll find three examples of such resolution sequences: one for an ultra-stripped down version of the rules, a basic version with all four modules implemented in a basic form, and a third loaded up with a lot (but not all) of the bells and whistles. (Not all of the optional rules are compatible with each other, so it’s not possible to have a version with everything we’ve laid out.)
BASIC HEXCRAWL PROCEDURE
During each watch, do the following:
1. DETERMINE THE DIRECTION OF TRAVEL. Ask the players what direction they want to travel.
2. ENCOUNTER CHECK. Roll 1d12. On a roll of 1, roll on the wandering encounter table. On a roll of 12, the location keyed to the hex has been encountered.
3. HEX PROGRESS. The characters move 12 miles per watch, or 6 miles in difficult terrain.
- It takes 12 miles of progress to exit one of the hex’s 3 far faces.
- It takes 6 miles of progress to exit one of the hex’s 2 near faces.
- Changing direction within a hex will result in the loss of 2 miles of progress.
- If characters double back, reduce progress until they exit the hex. If they leave the hex by any other route, it requires an additional 1d6-1 miles of progress to exit the hex.
LEAVING A HEX. Determine the new hex (based on direction of travel) and reset progress.
FULL HEXCRAWL PROCEDURE
1. DIRECTION & TRAVEL PACE.
- Determine the expedition’s navigator.
- Navigator determines intended direction and travel pace.
2. ENCOUNTER CHECK. Roll 1d12. On a roll of 12, the location keyed to the hex has been encountered. On a roll of 1:
- If in a border hex, check to see which encounter table should be used.
- Roll on the wandering encounter table.
- Check % Tracks.
- Check % Lair.
- If it’s a wandering encounter or lair, make an encounter reaction check.
3. WATCH ACTIONS. Resolve all watch actions.
4. ARE THEY LOST?
- If they are not following a landmark or trail, make a Navigation check.
- If they are lost, determine veer. If they are already lost, veer can be increased but not decreased.
5. HEX PROGRESS
- It takes 12 miles of progress to exit one of the hex’s 3 far faces.
- It takes 6 miles of progress to exit one of the hex’s 2 near faces.
- Changing direction within a hex will result in the loss of 2 miles of progress.
- If characters double back, reduce progress until they exit the hex. If they leave the hex by any other route, it requires an additional 1d6-1 miles of progress to exit the hex.
LEAVING A HEX:
- Determine new hex (by applying current veer to the expedition’s direction of travel).
- If they were lost, make a Navigation check to see if they recognize it. If they do, they can attempt to reorient. If they do not, veer accumulates. (Note: Using a compass automatically resets veer at the hex border even if they don’t recognize they were off course.)
ADVANCED HEXCRAWL PROCEDURE
1. DIRECTION & TRAVEL PACE.
- Determine the expedition’s navigator.
- Navigator determines intended direction and travel pace.
- Modify expedition’s speed by terrain and travel conditions.
2. ENCOUNTER CHECK. Roll 1d8. On a roll of 1, roll on the wandering encounter table. On a roll of 8, the location keyed to the hex has been encountered.
3. WATCH ACTIONS. Resolve all watch actions.
4. ARE THEY LOST?
- If they are not following a landmark or trail, make a Navigation check.
- If they are lost, determine veer. If they are already lost, veer can be increased but not decreased.
5. DETERMINE ACTUAL DISTANCE TRAVELED
- Roll 2d6+3 x 10% x Average Distance.
- Make a Wisdom (Survival) check to see if they accurately estimated their distance traveled.
- TIP: If their progress would cause them to leave a hex during a watch and that would cause their terrain type to change, calculate progress by hour. When they reach the hex edge, note how many hours are left. Then you can reference the new hex, calculate the new average distance, and continue marking progress.
6. HEX PROGRESS
- It takes 12 miles of progress to exit one of the hex’s 3 far faces.
- It takes 6 miles of progress to exit one of the hex’s 2 near faces.
- Changing direction within a hex will result in the loss of 2 miles of progress.
- If characters double back, reduce progress until they exit the hex. If they leave the hex by any other route, it requires an additional 1d6-1 miles of progress to exit the hex.
LEAVING A HEX:
- Determine new hex (by applying current veer to the expedition’s direction of travel).
- If they were lost, make a Navigation check to see if they recognize it. If they do, they can attempt to reorient. If they do not, veer accumulates. (Note: Using a compass automatically resets veer at the hex border even if they don’t recognize they were off course.)
What is a good way to keep track of miles they’ve travelled in a hex? Maybe I’m just being silly, but it feels to me like I would end up losing track of that number really quickly somehow, especially considering situations where they go from one hex to another in a single watch. I’m probably making it too complicated, but I am notably bad at keeping track of numbers.
You’ve got 1d8 as your encounter check die here but on the encounter check article it’s 1d12. What’s the best or what’s the thought process for deciding?
Have you considered using your new video platform to demonstrate a short hexcrawl? I think a lot of newer players have no idea what it should even look like, even with your fantastic checklists, let alone how to make them “silky smooth”. indeed, the way you implement a hexcrawl will likely be a revelation to many, because as you have noted, the craft of the DM is not really taught by the rules anymore. Thanks for this terrific work!
Hey Alexandrian, is their a discord or forum for your stuff? I love your articles, but asking general questions always seems wrong to do in comments for an article. And I don’t do social media stuff like tweeter and facebook, and have zero interest in even trying them, (and anything that won’t even let me use a fake alias is outright blacklisted.)
Also, any plans for updating your Creations page? There are a few articles I have trouble finding, such as your older hexcrawl series and one post that has a ton of gm links that just can’t find after losing the link. But the Alexandrian Creations page is really easy to find even when I don’t have the saved link.
Ready for part 7!
I came here for part 7 as well
@harrisaurian
Justin uses 12 miles hexes to simplify the math when characters move at normal speed (the explorator’s speed is 30 ft.). But, as you might have noticed, players can move at different paces or they can have different modes of travel (for example, horses).
You could have a handy cheat sheet for earch Hex on the map. Every hex is 12 miles, but they can have a terrain modifier or maybe the players are traveling on a known road or maybe there is a heavy rain, etc… so it’s not that easy to have something that solves all kinds of problems. I would advice having a notebook on hand… you could potentially leave some work for one of the players… (maybe he can write what everyone did on each watch).
An example, let’s say they are in a PLAIN, they are not in an edge, so it’s like being in the center, so if they want to move to any different hex it’s 6 miles in any direction. They move off road (trackless >> x3/4) at a fast pace (18 mi. per watch). “What I would do” is to calculate the effective distance, (8 miles = 6 miles/ 3/4) and to know how much movement left they have for the watch (10 miles = 18 – 8).
Because when they enter the next hex, you could have a different terrain/weather.
It’s kind of hard to explain without pictures.
Adding my voice to those asking for Part 7!
Some questions about food/water in your hexcrawl
1. How do you track them? Just leave it to the players?
2. The players need to declare they are eating/drinking or you just ask them to cross out their suplies once per day?
3. Do you think spells like “goodberry” should be allowed? I’m used to run hexcrawls in OD&D, mas I’m thinking that 5e has some abilities and spells that eliminate resource management or navigation problems with little to no cost.
Not sure if this is the best place to get an answer to this but I figured I’d try…
Can hexcrawl mechanics still be utilized if the players are using flying mounts? If so, how?
For context, my table is about to undertake an arduous journey north and planning to secure flying mounts to do so. They are also chasing after a group of orcs, also on flying mounts, who have extradited one of their favorite NPCs back to her home nation. They have a general sense of the direction but no experience with the route or destination.
I loved running hexcrawls in older editions, but (as you’ve noted) 5e makes wilderness travel… challenging. Been thinking over how to apply your system, but it assumes travel by foot/grounded mounts. They will also be pressing hard to catch their quarry and unlikely to do much exploring; choosing to land will be either out of necessity (sleep/eat) or because they’ve spotted a place where their quarry slept/ate.
Beyond that, how to track other flying creatures – and how to navigate with their own through unfamiliar terrain – doesn’t seem to work well with this system. Not a critique of the system; I find it very thorough and useful for overland travel. I don’t want to handwave the weeks-long journey, but don’t know how to execute it mechanically.
This is a big question probably deserving of its own article, but any quick advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
@Kaique de Oliveira
#1: I use small wooden cubes – brown for food, blue for water – each represents 1 day worth.
#2: They just return the cubes to me as used.
#3: I have rules that some spells like Create Food and Water don’t exist.
@Justin
Will there be a part 7? 🙂
Thanks.
Also looking forward for part 7!
@Kaique de Oliveira @Louis Davout
Goodberry’s nutrition properties can trivialize the need for hunting and foraging, but it is also a very good healing spell for out of combat use. I’d keep the spell but rule out the nutrition part.
Any update on when the next in this series will be published? It’s been very useful reading and while it’s not impossible to adapt your other hexcrawl series to 5e with what’s already been published in this series as a head start it would be nice to see your thoughts completed here.
In any case, great work.
Great read, a lot of food for thought. Hoping for a continuation with part 7!
There will never be a Part 7.