HEX CRAWL CAMPAIGNS

You can use the following mechanics for a hex crawl campaign.

THE HEX CRAWL

Your table can use a map divided into hexagons, or “hex map,” to track the party’s movement across a large area, such as a continent. The party moves one hex at a time in a style of travel called a “hex crawl.” Each hex on the map represents roughly 24 miles of land from one side to another, although narrative always supersedes literal representation in Daggerheart.

By default, the party travels through the wilderness between sanctuaries or settlements and resolves encounters along the way. A party can take up to three short rests while traveling through the wilderness but is restricted from taking long rests outside a sanctuary.

HEX MAPS

A Daggerheart hex crawl uses two copies of the same campaign map: a GM’s key map and a player-facing map. The GM fills out the key map beforehand with important information about each hex the party is likely to encounter in the next few sessions. This information includes the hex’s habitat, terrain, and potential points of interest or encounters. Meanwhile, the players fill out their map as the party enters each hex and the GM reveals what it holds, using the key map as a reference.

PREPARING THE GM’S KEY MAP

To fill out the key map, the GM can choose the contents of each hex, procedurally generate them, or use a combination of both methods. What follows is one potential method, in which the GM rolls a set of polyhedral dice to procedurally generate one multi-hex region at a time.

FILLING WILDERNESS HEXES

Start in any hex and fill out the key map one region at a time by doing the following:

  • Roll a d20 to determine the region’s habitat:
    • 1: Blighted by Dark Magic. Roll again to determine which kind of habitat has been blighted. If you roll another 1, the entire region is so corrupted that it’s become nigh impossible to traverse.
    • 2: Underground
    • 3–4: Aquatic
    • 5–6: Wetland
    • 7–8: Grassland
    • 9–10: Tropical
    • 11–12: Forest
    • 13–14: Drylands
    • 15–16: Rolling
    • 17–18: Mountain
    • 19: Frozen
    • 20: Badlands
  • Roll a d12 to determine the region’s size (how many contiguous hexes the region covers). The region’s shape can be whatever you want, as long as you don’t encircle empty hexes.
  • Roll and add the results of a d8 and d6 to determine one type of encounter the party might face while traveling through the region:
    • 2: Roll twice and combine the resulting entries.
    • 3: Fellow travelers
    • 4: Temporary setback
    • 5: Powerful adversaries
    • 6: Extreme weather
    • 7: Potential adversaries
    • 8: Territorial beast or pack of creatures
    • 9: Environmental hazard or obstacle
    • 10: Enemy NPCs
    • 11: Wondrous or dangerous site
    • 12: Lucky break
    • 13: Settlement or outpost
    • 14: Loot or treasure
  • Roll a d4 to determine the terrain of the region, which determines how many Travel Days it takes the party to travel into the hex:
    • 1: Optimal (1 full day of traveling)
    • 2: Fair (2 full days of traveling)
    • 3: Rough (3 full days of traveling)
    • 4: Extreme (4 full days of traveling)
  • Roll a d100 to determine a rumor that the party might hear about this region referencing the result against the Rumors table from the “Journey to Horizon” campaign frame or a list of 100 rumors you create on your own. You decide how true the rumor is and whether the PCs learn it.

TRACKING THE PARTY’S LOCATION

The party tracks its movement with the player-facing map using the following procedure. This procedure assumes the PCs are capable wayfinders and trailblazers, so they know the contents of the hex they are in (their “current hex”) and any hex adjacent to it. If an adjacent hex contains a non-hidden point of interest, such as a tower, the PCs are usually aware of it as well. Together, this gives the players enough information to decide which way to proceed. As always, the GM decides how much information they convey to the players.

TRAVEL DAYS

This system assumes that, on a full day of traveling, the PCs complete the following tasks:

  1. Break camp, eat breakfast, and pack up shortly before sunrise
  2. Travel overland for about 6–8 hours
  3. Take a short break at midday to eat and get their bearings
  4. Travel overland for another 6–8 hours until about sundown
  5. Make camp, prepare and eat dinner, set a watch, and bed down for the night

As needed, various party members scout ahead, forage and hunt, refill waterskins, repair gear, and keep watch. If you like, you can narrate or even roleplay these activities, but you don’t need to spend valuable table time describing or tracking these events if your group doesn’t find them interesting or engaging.

RESOURCES & RESTING

This procedure doesn’t meticulously track rations or other supplies. Travel moves at the pace of the story, and the party’s resources are tracked via rests. Outside a safe place, such as a sanctuary or permanent settlement, the party can only take short rests, each of which represents an entire day spent in one location. Inside a safe place, the party can take a long rest, which represents multiple days recovering from hard travel and rough sleeping.

Remember that the term “rest” has a specific mechanical meaning in Daggerheart. Within the fiction, the party still rests (in the colloquial sense) most nights spent in the wilderness, but they don’t gain the mechanical benefits of a short rest every time they go to sleep. When the party takes three short rests in a row, their next rest must be a long rest (see XX).

ENCOUNTER ROLLS

When the party enters a hex, roll a number of d6s equal to the hex’s terrain rating. If any of the dice show a result of 1, activate an encounter you designed during region creation. Otherwise, you can spend Fear to activate an encounter. You can also change the size of the dice you roll to reflect more dangerous (d4) or safer (d8) areas.

The party can trigger more than one encounter in a single region. If this happens, either roll on the Encounter table to generate a new encounter in the moment or shift an encounter from a region that the party seems unlikely to pass through, then modify or reflavor it to suit the current situation.

ENDURANCE COUNTDOWNS (OPTIONAL)

You can heighten the tension of wilderness travel by giving each PC an Endurance Countdown (6) at the end of a rest. When the party enters a wilderness hex, each player rolls their Hope Die. If the result is equal to or lower than the value of their PC’s Endurance Countdown, they mark a Stress. Otherwise, they tick down their Endurance Countdown. When a PC’s Endurance Countdown triggers, they become Vulnerable until their next rest. At the start of a rest, all PCs’ Endurance Countdowns end.

TRAVELING OVER WATER

For travel on rivers and oceans, use the standard travel mechanics with the following changes and clarifications:

  • Rivers. The party can travel across overland hexes with navigable rivers if they acquire passage on an appropriate vehicle (usually a boat). Moving downstream reduces the terrain rating of the hex the party enters by 1. For example, entering a hex with rough terrain would take two days instead of three. Traveling upstream increases the terrain rating of the next hex by 1.
  • Ocean. The party can travel through ocean hexes if they acquire passage on an appropriate vehicle (usually a ship). When the party enters an ocean hex, roll a d4 to determine the weather they encounter:
    • On a result of 1, the party gets a tailwind, and entering the hex takes a day.
    • On a result of 2, the party enjoys fair weather, and entering the hex takes two days.
    • On a result of 3, the party encounters rough waters, and entering the hex takes three days.
    • On a result of 4, the party encounters extreme weather, and entering the hex takes four days.

DOOM TRACKS

You can use a Doom Track to represent the growing disasters that might befall your group’s setting if the party acts too slowly. You can make your own Doom Track using the example track available in Hope & Fear or at daggerheart.com/downloads for inspiration.

To use a Doom Track, mark a box in the party’s tier or below at the end of each session. You can’t mark a nested box until you mark the box it’s nested under. As your table’s story develops, you can adjust how many boxes you mark at the end of a session.

HABITAT-BASED FEATURES

You can add the following habitat-based features to an adversary:

  • Blighted – Passive. This adversary is corrupted by magic. When encountered within a similarly affected area, this adversary critically succeeds on attacks with a die roll of 18–20.
  • Enviromancer – Passive. This adversary can draw upon the wild magic of their surroundings to fuel magical effects. Mark a Stress to activate an effect based on the habitat of their current location (if an effect’s damage roll uses the adversary’s tier, roll the damage die a number of times equal to their tier and total the results):
    • Heat Spell (Desert, Salt Flats, Volcano). The adversary exudes oppressive supernatural heat. Each target within Very Close range must succeed on an Instinct Reaction Roll. Targets who fail must mark a Stress and take d6 direct magic damage using this adversary’s tier.
    • Overgrowth Spell (Forest, Jungle). This adversary unleashes a burst of branches, brambles, or vines in all directions. Each target within Close range must make an Agility Reaction Roll. Targets who fail take d8 physical damage using this adversary’s tier and are Restrained until they break free with a successful Strength Roll.
    • Wind Spell (Cliffs, Plains, Steppe). A tornado surrounds this adversary. Each target within Close range must make a Strength Reaction Roll. Targets who fail take d8 magic damage using this adversary’s tier and are pushed up to Far range. Until this adversary takes damage, attack rolls against them have disadvantage.
    • Ice Spell (Alpine, Glacier, Tundra). This adversary unleashes daggers of ice. Make an attack against each PC in front of this adversary within Close range. Targets they succeed against take d10 magic damage using this adversary’s tier and are Frostbitten until they spend a Hope to clear the condition. While Frostbitten, a PC gains a −1 penalty to their Proficiency.
    • Poison Spell (Moor, Swamp, Wetlands). A cloud of toxic spores explodes from this adversary. Each PC within Close range must succeed on a Strength Reaction Roll or take d6 direct damage using this adversary’s tier and become Nauseated until they clear a HP. While Nauseated, a PC can’t gain Hope.
    • Stone Spell (Canyon, Mountain, Badlands). This adversary gains a bonus to their damage thresholds equal to their tier until they take Severe damage or use this feature again.
    • Water Spell (Riverlands, Sea). This adversary unleashes a geyser or tidal wave. Make an attack against all targets within Very Close range. Targets they succeed against are pushed to Close range of where they were and mark a number of Stress equal to this adversary’s tier.