Environmental Effects: Difference between revisions
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== Environmental Damage == | == Environmental Damage == | ||
Hazardous environments can inflict damage to characters attempting to pass through them. Environmental damage is treated like any other kind of damage, except that it is damage caused by some natural condition or effect of the world, and not caused by magic, or the intent and planning of an individual or group. If you possess some means of mitigating the damage type being inflicted (such as by having some ER or DR suitable for the damage type), environmental damage is reduced exactly like normal damage. | Hazardous environments can inflict damage to characters attempting to pass through them. Environmental damage is treated like any other kind of damage, except that it is damage caused by some natural condition or effect of the world, and not caused by magic, or the intent and planning of an individual or group. If you possess some means of mitigating the damage type being inflicted (such as by having some ER or DR suitable for the damage type), environmental damage is reduced exactly like normal damage. | ||
An example of this is a tent, which reduces environmental damage by 5 points. This is treated as ER 5/- and DR 5/-, but only for purposes of resisting damage caused by environmental effects. This means an accidental rockslide will have its damage reduced by the tent, but if a mountain troll throws a rock at the tent, the tent provides no protection at all. | In addition, some equipment specifically provides resistance to environmental damage, while providing no resistance to normal damage. An example of this is a tent, which reduces environmental damage by 5 points. This is treated as ER 5/- and DR 5/-, but only for purposes of resisting damage caused by environmental effects. This means an accidental rockslide will have its damage reduced by the tent, but if a mountain troll throws a rock at the tent, the tent provides no protection at all. | ||
Note that [[Falling Down|falling]] and [[Collisions|collision damage]] are '''''not''''' considered environmental damage, even if they are caused by an environmental effect (e.g., you get pushed off a cliff by a flooding river). These types of damage are resolved using their own rules. | |||
===Endurance Feat=== | ===Endurance Feat=== | ||
Special mention must be made of the [[Endurance (Feat)]]. This feat gives you resistance to | Special mention must be made of the [[Endurance (Feat)]]. This feat gives you resistance to environmental damage. Endurance lets you basically ignore the effects of environmental cold and heat once you get high enough level, and that is exactly how it is intended to work. In harsh climate campaigns, it can be amazingly useful. | ||
===Firewood and Camp Fires=== | ===Firewood and Camp Fires=== | ||
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===Tents=== | ===Tents=== | ||
A [[Equipment | tent]] of any size provides 5 points of resistance to | A [[Equipment | tent]] of any size provides 5 points of resistance to environmental damage. Note that, like Endurance, this applies even to characters who have fallen unconscious and are now taking lethal damage from the environmental damage. Bundling your heat-stroked sorcerer into a tent to cool them down a bit is indeed a way to save their life. | ||
===Armor=== | ===Armor=== | ||
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These effects are described in a modular fashion, so that if the GM is feeling especially cruel, they may stack them up. A classic example is the top of an extremely high mountain. If the maximum realism is desired, such an environment would offer Severe Cold or worse, High Altitude effects for higher than 15,000 feet, and almost certainly Windstorm conditions or worse, with a Sandstorm effect of needle-sharp ice crystals, to boot. To say that such an environment is extremely hostile is putting it mildly, and we haven't even left the nice soft, cozy confines of the Prime Material Plane yet! | These effects are described in a modular fashion, so that if the GM is feeling especially cruel, they may stack them up. A classic example is the top of an extremely high mountain. If the maximum realism is desired, such an environment would offer Severe Cold or worse, High Altitude effects for higher than 15,000 feet, and almost certainly Windstorm conditions or worse, with a Sandstorm effect of needle-sharp ice crystals, to boot. To say that such an environment is extremely hostile is putting it mildly, and we haven't even left the nice soft, cozy confines of the Prime Material Plane yet! | ||
In general, GMs should stack environmental effects to any degree they wish and makes sense for their campaign. Heat and Cold effects at the same time would be hard to justify unless something very bad is happening (like a volcano erupting up through a glacier, which actually happens in real life and is just as bad as you think), but heat, hurricane winds, and heavy rain combined together work just fine. | In general, GMs should stack environmental effects to any degree they wish and that makes sense for their campaign. Heat and Cold effects at the same time would be hard to justify unless something very bad is happening (like a volcano erupting up through a glacier, which actually happens in real life and is just as bad as you think), but heat, hurricane winds, and heavy rain combined together work just fine. | ||
The one rule to live by is that all applicable environment effects are applied separately, not additively. The | The one rule to live by is that all applicable environment effects are applied separately, not additively. The damage of all effects are applied separately, so suffering from cold and high altitude means you suffer two doses of environment damage, which can separately be resisted by any gear, feats, or effects. GMs should resist the urge to 'stack these up', unless they are running a gritty, nasty, survival-horror type game. If that's what your table is after, then go for it! | ||
==Environmental Effects as Encounters== | ==Environmental Effects as Encounters== | ||
The GM may rule that any or all unusual environmental effects count as an | The GM may rule that any or all unusual environmental effects count as an encounter for calculating the duration of spells and other effects. A blustery, windy day does not usually count, but getting hit with an avalanche or a flash flood usually does count, and the effects of a volcano... might, depending upon circumstances. If a volcano makes the world so nasty it ends your spell effects every hour or two, well, that's just part and parcel of the terrible majesty of nature! As always, the GM adjudicates all such circumstances. | ||
==Scaling of Environmental Effects== | ==Scaling of Environmental Effects== | ||
GMs may choose to increase the scaling of environmental damage as a way of providing more challenge to their players. Increasing damage to 2d6 or 3d6 per interval can place appropriate levels of stress upon player resources. Note that healing spells and class features normally heal environmental damage at the same rate as they heal any other damage. A very effective stressor is to rule that environmental damage is no longer affected by healing spells, or even no longer affected by anything except for rest. As always, all such adjustments are up to the GM, but approach with care! | |||
==Beneficial and Fantastic Environmental Effects== | ==Beneficial and Fantastic Environmental Effects== | ||
Most of these rules are aimed at fairly mundane and quite dangerous aspects of the environment. Falling objects, cold weather, wildfires, avalanches and collapses, are all things that are depressingly common in the 'real world.' But this is a game, and YOUR game environment doesn't have to follow the mundane rules all that closely | Most of these rules are aimed at fairly mundane and quite dangerous aspects of the environment. Falling objects, cold weather, wildfires, avalanches and collapses, are all things that are depressingly common in the 'real world.' But this is a game, and YOUR game environment doesn't have to follow the mundane rules all that closely if you don't want it to. Towering and majestic trees, ancient groves full of peaceful life, magical forests, blessed meadows, healing and wondrous springs, highly integrated ecosystems, all these things and many more can be used to add many new and unusual effects to the environment, both for good and for ill. | ||
If you want to design a custom environment effect for your game, we strongly advise that you lay out for the players what unusual effects exist and what they do, IF the characters could reasonably know about them in advance. We don't need to explain what a falling object is, since such things are very familiar to the players from the real world, but if you decide to incorporate Basilica Grass as a common feature, well, you need to explain what Basilica Grass does, assuming the characters would know what it is. | If you want to design a custom environment effect for your game, we strongly advise that you lay out for the players what unusual effects exist and what they do, IF the characters could reasonably know about them in advance. We don't need to explain what a falling object is, since such things are very familiar to the players from the real world, but if you decide to incorporate Basilica Grass as a common feature, well, you need to explain what Basilica Grass does, assuming the characters would know what it is. | ||
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Some quick examples to set the mood: | Some quick examples to set the mood: | ||
* Basilica Grass grows incredibly quickly, to waist height in a single evening, but it is extremely fragile, crumbling to dust with a touch. Adds bonuses to concealment and tracking, but does 1d6 environmental | * Basilica Grass grows incredibly quickly, to waist height in a single evening, but it is extremely fragile, crumbling to dust with a touch. Adds bonuses to concealment and tracking, but does 1d6 points of {{dmg|poison}} as environmental damage each hour, due to allergenic dust coating EVERYTHING. | ||
* Mallorn Groves are composed of weirdly twisting Mallorn Trees, which catch the wind and make random musical sounds. Scares away predators, and thus adds bonuses to survival skill to forage for food, but creates random squares of difficult terrain from the twisting, entwining growth. | * Mallorn Groves are composed of weirdly twisting Mallorn Trees, which catch the wind and make random musical sounds. Scares away predators, and thus adds bonuses to survival skill to forage for food, but creates random squares of difficult terrain from the twisting, entwining growth. | ||
* Ghost Fronds are tall, eerily glowing plants that give off dim light in a ten foot radius. They are ethereal plants, which weirdly bridge the Material Plane, and are animated to boot. They move on their own, angrily lashing at motion near them, which is harmless to material creatures but dangerous for ethereal beings. They grant light in the darkness and drive away all ethereal creatures, but inflict the [[Distracted]] condition at the beginning of any combats. | * Ghost Fronds are tall, eerily glowing plants that give off dim light in a ten foot radius. They are ethereal plants, which weirdly bridge the Material Plane, and are animated to boot. They move on their own, angrily lashing at motion near them, which is harmless to material creatures but dangerous for ethereal beings. They grant light in the darkness and drive away all ethereal creatures, but inflict the [[Distracted]] condition at the beginning of any combats. | ||
* Forgewood Trees are sturdy, gnarled trees that glow orange with their internal heat. Their thick, gnarled bark is warm to the touch, and they radiate heat as a campfire, negating cold environmental effects in a ten foot radius. Touching or climbing one inflicts [[Singed]] ( | |||
* Wolframith Trees are weird, skinny trees with bright silver leaves that distill death aura from sunlight, and are killed by water. They inflict 1d6 per minute | * Forgewood Trees are sturdy, gnarled trees that glow orange with their internal heat. Their thick, gnarled bark is warm to the touch, and they radiate heat as a campfire, negating cold environmental effects in a ten-foot radius. Touching or climbing one inflicts [[Singed]] (as fire damage), as a campfire does, and being in a Forgewood Grove in hot weather doubles all hot weather environmental damage. | ||
* Wolframith Trees are weird, skinny trees with bright silver leaves that distill death aura from sunlight, and are killed by water. They inflict 1d6 points of {{dmg|threnodic}} damage per minute as environmental damage, but only during daylight and only if they have line of sight to a creature. At night, they are harmless. | |||
* Floating stones can be found in flat wastelands, and are exactly what they sound like, rocks that float. The create a 3 dimensional terrain, with large stones filling one of more squares and being perfectly solid to walk upon. At night, if the winds and other conditions are just right, they move around. Can have many effects, left to the GM to interpret. | * Floating stones can be found in flat wastelands, and are exactly what they sound like, rocks that float. The create a 3 dimensional terrain, with large stones filling one of more squares and being perfectly solid to walk upon. At night, if the winds and other conditions are just right, they move around. Can have many effects, left to the GM to interpret. | ||
As can be seen, many weird and interesting effects can arise from magical, wondrous, and fantastic environments. | As can be seen, many weird and interesting effects can arise from magical, wondrous, and fantastic environments. | ||
==Extra-Planar Environmental Effects== | ==Extra-Planar Environmental Effects== | ||
All of the rules in this page are written with the assumption that the action is happening on the Prime Material Plane, or at least a Material Plane. This means "The World", no matter how magical and fantastic it may be, is fairly recognizable and acts 'normally'. But as we all know, as those pesky players get more advanced, they will eventually find themselves in another plane. | All of the rules in this page are written with the assumption that the action is happening on the Prime Material Plane, or at least a Material Plane. This means "The World", no matter how magical and fantastic it may be, is fairly recognizable and acts 'normally'. But as we all know, as those pesky players get more advanced, they will eventually find themselves in another plane. | ||
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Of course it does! | Of course it does! | ||
Simply put, | Simply put, environmental effects that occur on planes other than your native conditions are far more harmful than otherwise. This is simulated by adding a modifier to all damage dice caused by environmental effects based upon 'how far out' the Plane happens to be. | ||
The First World, for example, is the Material Plane closest to the Prime Material, and so, an avalanche there looks very similar to one on the Prime material, it's just that all the rocks break into razor-sharp jagged chunks, because that is simply the nature of reality there. As a result, all environmental damage in the First World has a +1 per die damage modifier. | The First World, for example, is the Material Plane closest to the Prime Material, and so, an avalanche there looks very similar to one on the Prime material, it's just that all the rocks break into razor-sharp jagged chunks, because that is simply the nature of reality there. As a result, all environmental damage in the First World has a +1 per die damage modifier. | ||
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* '''Very Bad Places:''' The Sunward Reaches, The Infinite Well, Temperest, Hellcore, Lavarna, etc. +5 to each damage die | * '''Very Bad Places:''' The Sunward Reaches, The Infinite Well, Temperest, Hellcore, Lavarna, etc. +5 to each damage die | ||
* '''The Edge of Reality:''' Apocolyptica, The Outer Dark, The Fount of Reality, The Nascent Seed, etc. +6 to each damage die | * '''The Edge of Reality:''' Apocolyptica, The Outer Dark, The Fount of Reality, The Nascent Seed, etc. +6 to each damage die | ||
=Environmental Effects= | =Environmental Effects= | ||
==Altitude== | ==Altitude== | ||