A much more literal “layer” you can use in conjunction with a hexcrawl is a pointcrawl. You can actually imagine a hexmap and a pointmap both being used to depict the exact same swath of the game world.

But since hexcrawls and pointcrawls are both designed to handle geographic movement through an environment, why would you want to do this? Wouldn’t it just be redundant?

Not exactly, because hexcrawls and pointcrawls both look at the environment in different ways and specialize in handling different types of movement. A hexcrawl allows freeform movement in any direction, while a pointcrawl organizes the world into specific paths between points.

You can perhaps appreciate the distinction most clearly by looking at roads & trails.

While it’s certainly possible to resolve travel along a road using the procedures of a hexcrawl, in practice I’ve found that it can be quite awkward. In a typical hexcrawl procedure, there’s all kinds of decision points and resolution points that become redundant or overly complicated when the PCs are following a road. (For example, the PCs can’t really become lost.) Tracking progress through a hex while traveling by road is more fiddly than it needs to be, and also calls attention to the fact that the rigid specificity of the road is at conflict with the abstract nature of the hex. Even referencing hex keys along the road is more complicated than it needs to be.

Meanwhile, the types of decisions the players (and their characters) are going to naturally start wanting to make while traveling along a road are quite different from the decisions they’ll want to make while exploring freely through the wilderness. This creates a mismatch between the actions they’re declaring and the choices you need them to make in order to resolve the hexcrawl procedure.

In short, you’ll find yourself frequently fighting the procedure rather than using it.

THE ROAD MAP

So as you’re prepping your hexcrawl, you may want to take the time to prep a pointcrawl of the region, with a pointmap detailing all the major roads and trails. In my experience, you’ll also want to include the major rivers, since it’s quite common for PCs to use these as navigational paths.

These roads, rivers, and trails will likely also appear on your hexmap, of course, and give you the freedom to resolve travel along using either the procedures of the hexcrawl or pointcrawl, whichever one seems most appropriate and useful at any given moment.

In fact, I would do everything possible to keep these two layers in sync with each other.

If you’re starting from a hexmap, refer to the hex key as you set up the pointcrawl and:

1. Make sure to include every On Road / On River encounter located along the path.
2. Check for Visible landmarks that aren’t technically on the path, but would be seen while traveling along it. It’s quite likely that these should be included as points on your pointmap.

You probably don’t need to think about the mountains visible to the north while traveling along the Old Keep Road, but “midway between Northpoint and the crossroads you can see the ruins of an old lighthouse on an island off the coast” is a milestone you’ll want to mention.

Conversely, if/when you end up adding new points to your pointmap, you’ll usually want to make sure they also get added as On Road locations in your hex key.

BESPOKE PATHS

On that note, during actual play in your hexcrawl, your players will very quickly begin forging bespoke paths through the wilderness.

Sometimes this will be a deliberate action, which is what the trailblazing rules are for: The PCs are specifically marking paths with trail signs so that they can follow them later.

But it’s even more common for de facto paths to emerge during play: To get to the Violet Halls, we head east from Maernath until we hit the river, then follow the river southeast into the Gloomboughs until we reach the island with the standing stone. From there we turn due south towards the mountains until we reach the broken stone gate.

If you learn to recognize these bespoke paths as they emerge and add them to your pointmap, you’ll make life much easier for yourself. By resolving the journey as a prepared path, you’ll be able to much more efficiently and effectively resolve these trips through known territory, and spend more time pushing ever deeper into the Violet Halls.

(And, of course, if the PCs ever get lost along the way, you can be bounce back into the hexcrawl procedure and begin figuring out where they end up.)

In some cases, you may also discover that these bespoke paths fade away again (e.g., when the PCs have finished exploring the Violet Halls, the path they followed to get there stops being relevant). If so, and if you find your pointmap getting a little too crowded, there’s nothing wrong with pruning these paths away so that you can focus on what’s relevant.

(I do recommend archiving pruned paths somewhere that you can find them again, though. You never know when the PCs might suddenly decide to return to the Violet Halls.)

OTHER POINTCRAWL LAYERS

Pointcrawls are an incredibly versatile scenario structure, so it probably won’t surprise you to discover that there are more ways to use them in conjunction with a hexcrawl than simply an alternative navigation layer.

For example, consider an underdark tunnel system that links various dungeons keyed to your hexmap, but which can also be used to reach deeper and even more dangerous locations.

Pointcrawls can also be very useful for subhex navigation, which will be the topic of another addendum.

Back to Hexcrawls

The Ruined Temple of Illhan 5E Hexcrawl – Part 6: Watch Checklists 5E Hexcrawl – Part 7: Hex Exploration