I realized my campaign has a flaw. Or rather, that I’m going to need a mechanic in the future that I don’t have in place now. Part of my premise is that an expedition lasts only a single session. The players need to get to where they’re going, and then back, within that 2ish hours that we use for our sessions.

Ignoring any debates about session length, I don’t want to rehash again and again the same beginning hexes, with the same random encounter chances that might throw off the entire night. I do want players to make progress. But how can I, beyond letting them walk hex by hex?

Well, a fast travel system. Obviously.

Eventually, the players will pick up spells like Teleportation Circle, or even a full Teleport. And that will basically remove the overland components from my game. But here at level 2, how do I run a session where the players travel for weeks in the span of a few minutes of talking?

Taking a Chance

As I mentioned in Losing Lost, I don’t think it’s interesting in a small scale for players to get lost. However, with fast travel, we’re not really interacting with small scale anymore. Over the time frame involved, players should get lost, spend resources, and in general, emulate having spent the time travelling without actually spending the time at the table doing so.

I spent some time dithering about what sort of check I wanted this to be. How many players could participate in it, what sort of advantages could people assist with? But nothing felt right until I stumbled on the Single Shoulders Quick Travel idea. Let me run through the basics of it here with you.

First, I’m not brave enough to force it off of Wisdom (Survival). Intelligence/Wisdom (Cartography) or (Navigation) could apply, but so many people are going to try to get me to use Survival I might as well embrace it. One character, designated the Pathfinder, is going to be the lead of the party. It’s up to them to describe the route and make the check.

Second, the DC is going to be highly variable. In general, 10 + number of hexes being skipped, plus some extra for harder to traverse hexes adds up quickly. However, I think the DC would be lowered if the player is listing landmarks to travel by. “Over the River and Through the Woods gives -4 on the DC to Granma’s house”, after all. I think that’s how the song goes.

Third, the trip has a number of rations that each character are required to spend. DC/10? Something like that. Distance and difficulty are related, after all. If a character runs out of rations, they spend hit dice to make up the difference. No hit dice? Then the hit dice you would spend gets added to the damage pool.

Speaking of the damage pool, for each point the Survival check falls short of the DC, that many d6s are added to the damage pool. These dice are rolled, and the party chooses how to divvy up the damage. A spellcaster can reduce the number of d6s in the pool for each expended spell level. So, a level 3 spell, which was spent *somehow* on the trip reduces the damage pool by 3d6. Once the pool is set and the damage is rolled, it can’t be reduced. Characters then take the damage.

NPCs like hirelings and pets can’t be used to soak damage. Exceptions may be made if the character takes enough damage to die.

Mechanically, this functions something like a meta-teleport powered by damage and resources. So, while time passes (aka, other groups get Downtime Points). You did not get a number of Night’s Rests on the trip out. It also means spells that boost the Pathfinder are not recharged. (I think Enhance Ability and Guidance are the only helpful spells I can think of? Not 100% sure on that, but the actual list of helpful spells are limited)

I think this is what I’m going to use for a bit for a fast travel ruleset, and we’ll see how it plays.

Edge Cases and Exceptions

I can see a few things that the general rule doesn’t cover that I think is worth sharing.

First, Fast Travel doesn’t deal with unsurmounted obstacles. If there’s a river that the party doesn’t have a solid answer to fix, they can’t skip it. Once they’ve built a bridge, or the Barbarian spends 2 Loot Slots to carry a canoe, then they can skip over it. Or if the Wizard has a scroll of Arcane Gate that’s slated to be used there and they’re willing to expend it. Solving an obstacle, AGAIN, isn’t interesting. Fast Travel is about doing overland travel to get to the interesting parts of the setting while allowing for the party the option of methodical, if desired.

Second, Microjumping. As I looked at the rule, it seemed that the best thing to do, mechanically, was to make a bunch of small jumps instead of one large one. If the DC is always below your average skill check result, theoretically you take no damage, although you do chew through rations quicker. This is not intended usage. I have a few thoughts about that.

First, some microjumps are not abuse. Jumping to the oasis to resupply, then jumping on, that’s okay. Some stops along the way make sense. I’d probably up the DC by, idk, 5 for a resupply stop (then possibly minus 2 for the mentioned landmark) and give the party 5 days of rations for the rest of the trip. This rewards the party for setting up outposts, manned or unmanned, as well as setting up caches of supplies for future journeys.

Really, the worst abusers of microjumps are going to be players who say “I’m not abusing the system, I’m just playing it as written.” That is who we’re preparing teeth for. The base premise of the campaign is the out and back. Some mechanic that stacks the DC for multiple out legs, might make sense. If you’re lucky enough to have civilized people at your table, you might be able to get by with a “Hey, don’t abuse this, plz” and that may be enough.

I’m sure there’s more, but I think I’ve reached the part of writing things that I need to actually run the mechanic a few times, to see how it works at the table.

Written Rules

Here is what I’m adding to my game rules for this mechanic:

Fast Travel

Session constraints may make it desirable to skip the mechanics of moving Segment by Segment. Players can choose to Fast Travel to a location that someone in the party has traveled to and reasonable knows how to reach.

One member in the party is the Pathfinder. They describe the route the party is going to take in the Fast Travel. The Game Master then presents them with the DC. which is normally 10 plus the required segments of travel. The DC can be increased if there are particular challenges and complications that could get in the way. The DC is lowered if the Pathfinder describes a route that specifies some of the Points of Interest the party would travel near on their journey. For +5 to the DC, the Pathfinder can add a Foraging day to the itinerary. The amount of rations a character requires for this travel is reduced by 5. The DC is made public.

Some spells and abilities and items may also be taken into account to lower the DC, in particular if there are Obstacles that the party needs to bypass. Specifying that they’re using an Arcane Gate spell or carrying a canoe to deal with a particular Obstacle can certainly lower the DC. Spells to assist the Pathfinder with their roll should also be spent now.

Once all the details have been established, the Pathfinder makes the check. Normally, this is a Wisdom (Survival) check, but an Intelligence check with relevant tool proficiency may be used instead. If the check meets or exceeds the DC, then the trip went without a hitch. Otherwise, a number of d6s equal to the amount the check failed by are added to the damage pool.

Each character who eats expends a number of Rations equal to the total DC divided by 10, modified by any foraging days that replenish the supplies. If a character doesn’t have enough Rations (and for some reason, there aren’t any in the group to make up the deficiency), they lose Hit Dice equal to the missing Rations. If there aren’t enough Hit Dice, what they have are expended and the remainder get added to the damage pool. If a character in this situation has multiple sizes of Hit Dice, the dice added to the damage pool are their largest size.

Once the Damage Pool is established, characters can expend resources to reduce the number of dice in it. For each spell level expended, remove that many dice. Dice are removed from the pool starting with the smallest dice. Once the pool is rolled, the damage from it can’t be prevent, only dealt with after.

The party chooses how to divide the damage among them. This damage is untyped and cannot be prevented. An NPC, Hireling, Summon, Pet, etc cannot take the damage, unless it is taking enough to kill them. A character who owns the character must agree to taking the damage, or the vote must be unanimous in the case of NPCs. A character cannot take more damage than they have Hit Points. If this brings them to 0, they die.

This ruleset is intended to be performed going out from the safety of Ravonn’s Tower, and then later to return. Performing multiple Fast Travels on an expedition may cause issues, especially if the Gamemaster feels you are trying to game the system.