Or as its otherwise known, the Swim/Jump/Climb thread!
I though it was worthwhile taking this discussion away from the additional skills discussion, since it is a whole different topic. To start us off, Emiryn said:
I wouldn't think it would cause the areas to be less flexable I think it could add incentive to allow for new ways to use the maps. Instead of designating that the only way to cross this section of the river is to swim across.. Or Jump across this hole or what have you. Would of course mean map designers would have to provide alternate options.. or areas to get a cross.. Also It could be possible for someone with a survival and spot / search to discover a well disguised path down the embankment . Or what looks to be the ruins of a bridge is actually a ploy to discourage. admittedly this could also be handled by the DM, but some of it would be nice to have scripted into the maps to some degree. incase the DM may forget what the map has to offer.
-- Edited by MimiFearthegn on Saturday 1st of December 2012 03:23:46 PM
I more meant in cases where you're dealing with planar areas. For instance, we have a jungle-y set of areas that I have designated as Carcerie right now, but there's nothing besides lighting and a name that makes DM's use it as a lower planes area specifically. If we make the water/air acidic, and the blades of grass super sharp, and add in some man-eating plants (or other hazards / obstacles), it will give us the full effect of the layer of Carcerie, but mean we can't use it for much else as DM's without constantly going "oh, I'm sorry, no, the plant was not supposed to eat you just then!" Of course, we could also add in a switch for DM's to turn off such enviromental effects, but this might not be particularly practical in all circumstances.
As for swimming / jumping / climbing obstacles--at least the way Emiryn just described them--those are things you need to keep in mind while building areas and we don't have any adventure areas developed in house. Now I'm all for making extensive use of jumping/swimming/climbing points in future areas, but from the design standpoint, they bypass many of the standard "border" tricks (many rivers exist just to mark the end of walkable territory, same with cliffs and such), and again, once they're in the area a DM is to some degree stuck with how the area was scripted. Its no longer a "clean slate," and that can become very irksome after months of working with the same area set.
Again, I'm not saying its not a cool idea, just that we might want to consider the downsides.
