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Finding locations during a hexcrawl — including locations that you are specifically looking for — is handled primarily through the navigation and encounter rules.

SIMPLE EXPLORATION

In the simplest form of hexcrawling, expeditions will automatically encounter the keyed location in a hex when they enter that hex. Therefore, finding a location you’re looking for — e.g., the Tomb of Sagrathea — is simply a matter of finding the correct hex.

This may be slightly more difficult for the PCs to pull off reliably if you’re running with player-unknown hexes, but the procedure remains the same: The expedition will want to navigate to the area they suspect the location to be, then move through the area in some form of search pattern until they find what they’re looking for (by entering the correct hex).

Following roads or trails, of course, may make it much easier for the PCs to hit the right hex.

BASIC ALEXANDRIAN EXPLORATION

The Alexandrian Hexcrawl includes a number of optional and advanced rules that can add complexity, challenge, and choice to exploration.

As described in Finding Locations, above, Visible and Familiar locations can be automatically found by any character passing through the appropriate hexes (just as with simple exploration). Other locations, however, are found through encounter checks, so the expedition must be in the correct hex and generate a location encounter there.

Choosing the exploration travel pace — during which the expedition is assumed to be trying out side trails, examining objects of interest, and so forth — will significantly increase the likelihood of finding the location you’re looking for by (a) reducing your speed of travel (so that you’ll spend longer in any individual hex) and (b) doubling the chance of having an encounter. Compared to moving at a fast pace, for example, the exploration travel pace makes it six times more likely that you’ll find a location.

Optional Rule – Focused Search: If the expedition is traveling at exploration pace and looking for a location that they have specific information about, the DM may allow a third encounter check per watch for that location and only that location. (Any other encounters that would normally be indicated by this check are ignored.) Obviously if the location they’re looking for isn’t in the current hex, the DM can skip this check — they are, after all, looking in the wrong place.

Design Note: It may seem unreasonable that you can pass through a hex and not find a location within it. But hexes are, in fact, very large. For example, the entire island of Manhattan could fit into a 12-mile hex more than five times over. If it still feels unreasonable that the PCs could move through a hex and NOT find the location they’re looking for, you might want to consider the possibility that this location should be classified as Visible.

BASECAMP EXPLORATION

If an expedition wants to perform a dedicated exploration of a specific area, they can establish a basecamp. There are two basic watch actions associated with a basecamp: Make Camp and Area Search.

BASECAMP ACTION: MAKE CAMP

As an active watch action, a character can establish a camp suitable for 4 creatures if they have tents or similar equipment to shelter them. (Horses and similar creatures do not require tents, but must still be accounted for in camp preparations.)

If the expedition does not have equipment for shelter, the character can only establish a camp suitable for one creature (either themselves or someone else) per watch action.

Optional Rule – Camp Required: Characters without a proper camp require an additional Resting action to gain the benefits of resting. (It takes three Resting actions in a row to gain the benefits of a Long Rest. If using the advanced rule for lack of sleep, it takes two Resting actions in a row to avoid the consequences for not resting.)

Optional Rule – Favorable Site: A character can perform an active watch action to make an Intelligence (Nature) or Wisdom (Survival) check against the Forage DC of the terrain. On a success, they have identified a favorable campsite. Characters performing the Forager action in a favorable campsite gain advantage on their forage checks.

The check to identify a favorable site can also be attempted as part of a Scout action.

BASECAMP ACTION: AREA SEARCH

As an active watch action, a character can search the wilderness in the hex cluster around their base camp. Multiple characters performing this action simultaneously can form a search group (or multiple search groups if they split up).

Encounter Checks: Make a normal encounter check for the base camp, even if no characters remain in the camp. (An encounter would indicate that the base camp has been discovered.) Make an additional encounter check for each search group. (The search counts as a travel watch for the purpose of making this encounter check.)

Search Area: The hex searched by a search group can be determined:

• Randomly. Roll 1d8 on the hex cluster chart below.
• Directionally, if the search group indicates the direction they are searching. Roll 1d8, with any roll other than 7-8 (the base camp hex) indicating the hex in the selected direction.
• By Hex, in which case the search group indicates which specific hex in the cluster (including the hex of their base camp) they wish to spend their time in.

Search Area – Large Hexes: If using larger hexes (or in particularly difficult terrain), it may not be possible for the PCs to reasonable travel to neighboring hexes in a single watch. In such cases, a travel watch would be required both before and after the Area Search action.

If circumstance or hex-size makes it impossible for the PCs to reach neighboring hexes even with a travel watch, then the Area Search action is limited to near-only searches in the base camp’s hex and it will be necessary to move the base camp in order to search other hexes.

Location Discovery: One character in each search group can attempt a Wisdom (Perception) or Intelligence (Investigation) check using the Navigation DC of the hex to find the location (+5 DC if the location is hidden). Additional characters in the group can assist, granting the searcher advantage on their check.

If there are multiple locations, randomly determine which one is found.

Note: At the DM’s discretion, they may assign an alternative DC to specific locations. If there are multiple locations, the DM may rule that an additional location is found for every 5 additional points of success.

Other Group Members: Characters performing Sentinel or Tracker actions can join a search group. (Note that the Wisdom (Perception) checks performed by sentinels detect approaching threats, as opposed to the checks made to find locations.)

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VESTIGIAL HEXES

The deeper you dig into the play experience of these modules, the clearer it is just how vestigial the hexes had become. You’re left with a very clear sense that the designers are not all that interested in hexmaps as hexmaps, and are really only including them because, as I’ve mentioned before, it was the expected thing to do.

For example, in DL1 there’s a pair region-keyed encounters with draconians where the draconians from one encounter are supposed to call out to the draconians in the other encounter, who can then move up and “close the trap.”

But these encounters are, of course, keyed to the hexmap. So the other draconians are three miles away. There’s no reality in which they’re going to show up to “close” anything until the combat is long over.

Similarly, in DL3 there’s a hilarious bit where an ice shelf in Area 13 is supposed to break loose, causing the PCs to go tumbling down a slide of ice (Area 14) and end up in Area 18:

This is written up as a quick, traumatic event. But, as you can see, the ice slide is 8 or 9 miles long.

(To be fair, this is an unintentional Moment of Awesome because it makes me think of the entire sequence as a Monty Oum video.)

You can see similar Hexmaps for the Heck of It™ in DL4 Dragons of Desolation and DL9 Dragons of Deceit, where cities are keyed to hexmaps to no real purpose.

CAMPAIGN HEXAGON SYSTEM

In DL7 Dragons of Light by Jeff Grubb, the Dragonlance modules actually employ a three-tier system of hex maps. On the region map you can see both 20-mile megahexes and 1-mile subhexes:

But the module also zooms into one of the 1-mile hexes and depicts 260-foot subhexes:

Although the specific measurements used here are different, this tiered approach almost precisely models the method laid out in the Campaign Hexagon System published by Judges Guild, the idea being that you can perfectly synchronize your local and regional maps, allowing you to zoom in (and out) as needed.

GUESS THE HEX

In DL10 Dragons of Dreams, another Tracy Hickman design, we return to the region-based mapping of DL1 and DL3. This particular implementation is fairly perfunctory, however:

The PCs are supposed to hitch a ride with some griffins in Tarsis, but if they don’t the scenario is backstopped with this region-based ‘crawl across the Plains of Dust.

What’s interesting here is that Hickman actually leans into what I generally consider to be the flaw with under-keyed hexmaps: The players have to blindly play a game of “guess the hex” until they find the right one.

In this case, the area is inhospitable and in order to survive the journey the PCs have to find a source of food. To do that, they need to hit one of the hexes keyed to Encounter 3 (which contain bushy plainsfruit plants).

THE WARGAME

DL11 Dragons of Glory, designed by Douglas Niles and Tracy Hickman, is not an adventure module. It is, in fact, a full-blown hex-and-chit wargame. This means, of course, that the board is a giant hexmap, this one depicting the entire continent of Ansalon at a 20-mile scale.

(The DL11 map does not include a scale, but the hexes are isomorphic with the Western Ansalon region maps in DL6 and DL8, which do indicate the 20-mile scale.)

I haven’t fully explored this wargame yet (although I hope to), but what’s notable here is that it’s designed to be integrated with a simultaneous RPG campaign. The common use of hexmaps makes it possible for the events in the wargame to have a direct affect on the narrative of the RPG campaign (and vice versa).

(At leas hypothetically. In practice, this does not appear to work quite as slickly or produce as cool a result as one might hope. But, again, I’m hoping to explore this further.)

The interesting thing here is that this very much harkens back to why hexmaps were used in RPGs in the first place: The earliest RPGs were designed to integrate character roleplaying with wargame sessions. In Arneson’s original Blackmoor campaign, in fact, the idea was that characters would earn their fortunes in the dungeon, establish fiefdoms for themselves, and then fight wars for dominance.

In Arneson’s campaign, in fact, PCs belonged to either Team Good or Team Bad, who were opposed to each other in the wargame component of the campaign. (The root of the modern alignment system.) You could actually imagine a daring reimagining of the Dragonlance Saga in which the players were simultaneously playing the heroic Innfellows, the villainous Dragonlords, and a War of the Lance wargame, with all three components dynamically interacting with each other.

THE UNDERDARK

In DL13 Dragons of Truth, another of Tracy Hickman’s designs, we have yet another hexmap variation:

The poster map depicts a dual hexmap: One depicting the wilderness and another, perfectly synced with the first, showing the underdark beneath (here known as the “dark network”).

There’s not much to say about this final example, but it’s a great example of the type of utility you can glean from well-scaled maps and of the varied forms of utility the Dragonlance designers wrung from their hexmaps.

FURTHER READING
5E Hexcrawls
A Quick History of D&D

This article is going to make a lot more sense if you’re familiar with:

• the Dragonlance Saga
• Hexcrawls
• Pointcrawls

Dragonlance was created in 1982 by Tracy and Laura Hickman. Tracy and Laura had self-published several D&D modules, which had resulted in Tracy being hired by TSR, Inc. While they were driving from Utah to TSR’s headquarters in Wisconsin, they came up with the idea of an epic series of modules featuring what were, at the time, all twelve types of dragons.

In 1983, TSR’s marketing department identified a common theme in their survey data: Dungeons & Dragons had lots of dungeons, but where were all the dragons? In response, proposals were requested for a dragon-themed project. Two proposals were submitted – one by Tracy Hickman and one by Douglas Niles – and Hickman’s was selected. Under the guidance of Harold Johnson, an all-star team of designers and artists was assembled.

The result was a series of fourteen modules – DL1 through DL14 – consisting of twelve linked adventures, a setting gazetteer (DL5) and a wargame (DL11). These fourteen modules are the original Dragonlance Saga, which gave rise to novels, comics, calendars, miniatures and more.

Hexcrawls are a method of running wilderness adventures. The wilderness is mapped onto a hexmap and content is keyed to each hex. Travel mechanics then determine how the PCs move through the hexmap and when/how they trigger the content keyed to each hex. You can find more information on hexcrawls in the 5E Hexcrawls series.

Pointcrawls are another method of running exploration and travel adventures. A map is prepped with multiple points connected by paths. Content is keyed to each point, and the PCs can maneuver through the pointmap by choosing one of the paths connected to whatever point they’re currently in. Pointcrawls are often used to model wilderness trails, but can have varied applications. You can find more details about pointcrawls here, and there’s an example of a pointcrawl here as part of the Descent Into Avernus Remix.

Hexcrawls, like dungeons, have been around since the earliest days of the hobby. Even before Dungeons & Dragons was published, Dave Arneson was using the hexmap from a game called Outdoor Survival to run wilderness adventures for his Castle Blackmoor campaign.

During the ‘80s, however, unlike dungeons, hexcrawl play slowly withered away. I believe there were a couple reasons for this. First, hexcrawls are not a terribly efficient form of adventure prep. Because you’re keying content to a bunch of different hexes without knowing exactly which hexes a group of PCs might visit, hexcrawls are best suited for scenarios in which the PCs will repeatedly engage with the same chunk of wilderness (so that they’ll encounter different hexes over time).

This makes hexcrawls a great fit for open tables (like Dave Arneson’s Castle Blackmoor or, later, Gary Gygax’s Castle Greyhawk), in which there are multiple groups of PCs exploring the area. But as play increasingly shifted towards dedicated tables (with a smaller number of players who are all expected to attend each session) and plot-based play, it made less and less sense to prep hexcrawls.

For similar reasons, it was difficult for RPG publishers to print fully functional hexcrawls within the constraints of the pamphlet format used for adventure supplements. Very few true hexcrawls were ever published, and those that did see print were never truly complete. TSR, in particular, would usually only print hexmaps with adventure-relevant locations keyed to them (leaving vast swaths of unkeyed territory for the DM to fill in, assuming it even made sense to do so in the first place). So, unlike a dungeon, new DMs couldn’t just pick up a published hexcrawl and run it. They also didn’t have any fully developed examples to base their own designs on.

By 1984-86, when the Dragonlance Saga was published, the industry and hobby were already at a turning point. Although TSR would continue depicting wilderness areas using hexmaps until the early ‘90s, actual hexcrawls were more or less done. (They wouldn’t reappear until the early 21^st century.) It’s interesting, therefore, to look at how the Dragonlance Saga was using hexmaps as an example of this transitional period.

This was even more true because the Dragonlance Saga was a radically experimental project. Not only had nothing of this scope been attempted before, but the Saga was also a massive multimedia experience – not only the famous Chronicles trilogy of novels, but also integration with the BattleSystem™ miniature combat system and a full-fledged wargame. All of this was in service of created an epic fantasy adventure for D&D.

That might seem utterly unremarkable today. (“An epic fantasy campaign for D&D? Of course. Eighteen of them get published every month.”) But this was also something new: Del Rey Books had only recently revealed to the world that LOTR-esque fantasy epics like Terry Brooks’ Sword of Shannara or David Eddings’ Belgariad could be hugely successful, and it was this type of story that Tracy Hickman and the Dragonlance design team wanted to bring to D&D for the first time.

This meant that the designers were also trying to figure out how to do an adventure like this. So they were experimenting with adapting existing adventure design techniques and creating new techniques at the very moment that hexcrawls were dying out.

So when we look at the myriad ways that the Dragonlance Saga used hexmaps, we’re peering into an RPG skunkworks that was grappling with something utterly new and fighting with all of their ingenuity to bring players and DMs a grand experience.. Once we do that, I think we can really appreciate these innovations for what they were, and also learn from them.

REGION CRAWLS

DL1 Dragons of Despair features this hexmap:

At first glance, this sure looks like a hexcrawl. It even features sub-hexes. (The larger, 20-mile hexes are made up of smaller, 1-mile hexes.)

But if you take a closer look, you’ll notice that the map is actually broken up into regions using thin black lines. It’s these regions which are actually keyed.

For example, the entirety of region 33 is keyed as the Kiri Valley:

The forest darkens and thickens beside an ancient trail. A cold, dry stillness hovers in the air, and the trees are knotted and bent. Everything seems to watch you.

An evil wizard died here long ago. Only his essence remains.

This technique allows Hickman’s key to cover the entire map without needing to key content to every individual hex.

If I was redoing this or taking inspiration from this, I would probably ditch the hexes entirely. Although they can be hypothetically helpful in counting out movement, they’re mostly getting in the way and badly impairing the legibility of the map.

(The 20-mile hexes do appear to correspond with a larger map printed in later modules, most notably DL11 Dragons of Glory, which we’ll discuss later. So there might be an argument for keeping those.)

JUST THE MAP, MA’AM

DL2 Dragons of Flame by Douglas Niles features an all-new, full color map of the same area which has also been expanded to the south:

(This is only a sample of the large map, which extends down to a fortress called Pax Tharkas. Oddly the map lists the scale as 1 hex = 2 km, but the hexes align perfectly with the DL1 map.)

This map is an extreme version of many hexmaps that would follow: Rendered using hexes because that had become the expected norm for wilderness maps, but completely divorced from any key or structure that would make the hexmap relevant.

SURPRISE POINTCRAWL

DL3 Dragons of Hope, once again by Tracy Hickman, features a large, unkeyed poster map that unifies the previous hexmaps and then adds a big region to the south of Pax Tharkas (where DL3 takes place).

(Sorry for the poor image quality. Unfortunately, I only have a digital copy of this module and when Wizards scanned the PDF they completely botched it.)

This map seems pretty clearly intended for players, but it’s an odd one. Since DL2 didn’t feature regions, the middle of the map just… doesn’t have them.

The new DL3 regions were keyed on a separate inset map, which looked like this:

As you can see, the hex borders were eliminated. This makes the regions much easier to pick out, but obviously obfuscates the hexes.

The more crucial thing is that, although this looks like it’s meant to be run like the region-crawl in DL1, it’s actually keyed to work like what we would now call a pointcrawl. Here’s an example:

3. Southern Road

The broken remains of an ancient roadway glitter with windswept ice. Here and there, old monuments of stone jut from the frozen ground. Their surfaces are covered with snow-filled runes.

To the south, the way branches. The roadway, mostly covered in snow, turns to the east. To the west is a mountain pass that leaves the road. A set of footprints, short of step, follows the southwest route.

You’re not navigating by hex here. You’re choosing whether to follow the road or the pass and then you’re proceeding to the next keyed encounter along the path you’ve selected.

Go to Part 2

There are two places where tracks (along with the associated concept of tracking) can be found in the Alexandrian Hexcrawl: First, there is the Tracker watch action, in which characters can actively search for and follow tracks.

Second, the encounter system is designed to generate random encounters, lairs, and tracks.

Random encounters provide immediate obstacles and interludes while traveling, lairs spontaneously generate new locations in the hexcrawl (organically building up material along well-traveled routes as the campaign develops), and tracks are a trail that can be followed to a point of interest.

Thinking in terms of “tracks” seem to commonly conjure up the image of hoof prints in the sod, but we shouldn’t limit ourselves to that. In the wilderness exploration of the hexcrawl that sort of physical spoor is most likely very common, but the concept of “tracks” can really be generalized to “clue.”

For example, if we generated a result of “tracks” for bandits, that might mean footprints in the forest. But it could just as easily include a merchant caravan in panicked disarray due to their latest highway robbery; the dead body of a bandit that was critically wounded and abandoned; a bolt-hole containing documents implicating the mayor of a local village in collusion with the bandits; and so forth.

TYPES OF TRACKS

Spoor: What can be thought of as the “classic” tracks we commonly think of. This includes both physical prints and scents (particularly if you have a hound for a familiar or live life as a werewolf). Following a spoor path usually also means looking for and encountering other signs (like broken foliage) that are described below.

Spoor paths can include trails, which are paths used frequently repeatedly by a create. The common image here is the worn rut of a deer or fox path. Runs are similar to trails, but are less frequently used.

Subsurface trails are tunnels. In the real world, trackers frequently look for where small tunnels re-emerge (and will use the diameter of tunnels to identify creatures). In a fantasy world, it’s quite possible the tunnel will be more than large enough for adventurers to follow the spoor path right inside. (Tunnels created by one creature may also be used by other creatures.)

Sounds: The howl of a wolf, the roar of a dragon, the screech of a griffon, or the distant sound of a fireball exploding. Sounds emanating from nearby can be used as an encounter trigger, but distant sounds can (often ominously) indicate the presence (and direction) of creatures.

Smells: The zombie stench of putrefacting flesh, the lingering ozone odor of a beholder’s rays, the sulfurous stench of a hell hound, or the distinctive musk of more mundane creatures can linger in the air long after they have passed.

Moulting: Anything shed by a creature, such as feathers and fur. This can also include skin (like a snake) or an exoskeleton (like a crab, spider, or insect). Some lizards will actually lose their entire tails (a process known as “caudal autotomy”) in order to evade predators, and you could imagine similarly fantastical abilities. Perhaps there are creatures which, when threatened, will spontaneously generate a cloned copy of their “corpse” and leave it behind to slowly decompose into ectoplasmic residue.

Other creatures use parts of their bodies as weapons, which could be left behind in their victims or embedded in the environment, like the spines of a barbed devil being left in a tree.

On a similar theme, there might be body parts lost by animals due to hazard rather than nature (like a dismembered limb or pool of blood).

Food: This might include food that’s been stored (whether squirrels hiding nuts or a cache of the local rangers), but is probably more commonly partially consumed meals. This can include carcasses (including human corpses depending on which predators are active in the area), but also plants or area of foliage which have been grazed by herbivores.

Also consider pellets, which are masses regurgitated by hawks and the like. These include trace remnants of food, but are primarily made up of indigestible remnants from their meals (bones, exoskeletons, fur, feathers, bills, teeth, etc.).

Fewmets: The other end of the digestive track, specifically scat and excrement. Urine is also an option. Don’t be afraid to embrace the fantastical here, ranging from the well-known scale of triceratops poop to, say, the scorching phosphorescence of hell hound pee.

Kill Sites: This includes carcasses, but may just be signs (like blood spatter) left from a kill which a predator later dragged from the site (or consumed whole). This category is also worth calling out specifically because far more dramatic kill sites are frequently left by intelligent creatures (victims of goblin raiders or the rotting corpses left by poachers).

Glyphs: Intentional markings left by intelligent creatures. These might include navigational signs carved into trees, strange runic carvings, odd fetish sculptures, demonic graffiti, or simply a discarded note.

Sleeping Areas: Many sleeping areas will actually be generated as lairs, but there are also transit beds and lays, which are used as less frequent or irregular resting areas. For animals, this often takes the form of crushed vegetation. Intelligent creatures may leave a wide variety of signs (remnants of a campfire, a latrine, discarded food remnants, miscellaneous refuse, etc.).

Marring: The activities of beasts and monsters will often damage or leave their mark on the natural environment. Rubs are produced by an animal rubbing against trees or rocks. Gnaws and chews can give clear indication of the size of a creature’s teeth. (You might similarly find a place where intelligent creatures were practicing with their weapons or using a machete to chop through thick overgrowth.) Scratchings can be both intentional (sharpening your claws or digging for grubs) and unintentional (signs left from climbing or scampering over terrain).

In the realm of fantasy we might add to this things like burns (fire or acid), phase marks (distinct traces left by incorporeal creatures passing through physical objects), ectoplasm, and the like.

Tip: When imagining tracks and other signs, don’t get fixated on the ground. Remember verticality! In the real world, woodpeckers drill in trees above your head. In fantasy, bloated stirges can leave smears of blood up there, too.

SCALE OF TRACKS

Something else to consider is that tracks can vary from the obvious to the almost impossibly obscure. You can use this to provide varied flavor to tracking sequences, or to reward particularly good Wisdom (Perception) or Wisdom (Survival) checks.

Large scale tracks are significant and obvious. You might not automatically notice them, but even untrained people will likely recognize clear pawprints in mud, well-worn trails, significant damage to foliage, big animal carcasses, and the like.

Medium scale tracks are perhaps the most common (being left almost constantly by anyone or anything not intentionally covering their tracks), but are more difficult to notice or may only be significant to those with training. This can be stuff like gnaws and chews, pellets, and subtle vegetation breaks. It can also include more obvious tracks which have been obscured by the passage of time.

Small scale tracks usually require a sharp eye, special training, or both. They include many of the same signs as previous categories, but are subtler, sometimes as the result of extreme age. These are faint pawprints on hard ground, a handful of partially buried bones left from a months-old kill, or an orcish arrowhead buried deep in a tree trunk.

Ghost scale tracks almost certainly require training and experience to spot and interpret. They also frequently disappear quickly. This can include dullings (in which a creature passing through the morning dew leaves a “dull” area by brushing the water off foliage), shinings (later in the day, creatures walking through the grass press it down, revealing its shiny side), and other incredibly subtle tracks (like leaf depressions).

Back to 5E Hexcrawls

Go to Part 1

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.)

Go to Part 7: Hex Exploration