Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Feb 02, 2007 15:30:23	Hi, I have a constant problem with traveling in Athas as a DM. In both my campaigns, I emphasized the danger of travelilng in the wastes. So travel was something the players planned very carefully, calculating the water and stopping points along the way, and choosing the less dangerous routes. I also take care to take notes of times (one of the player is the time tracker). All this is very realistic and fun, but In the coming campaign I would like to take the players very far, to play in the new locations which I never had the chance to show, such as the Kreen empire, deadlands ETC. How do you take care of long journies in your campaigns? what means do you allow to make travel faster? My solution for the last two campaigns is to let the players use a from of trasporter gates, five in all, which of course extracted a toll on the travelers, but allowed for quick move from a couple of locations. Thanks!
#2 j0lt Feb 02, 2007 19:48:40	I don't remember the correct name of the spell/power, but something like Astral Caravan comes to mind.
#3 zombiegleemax Feb 02, 2007 23:02:11	depending on the type of campaign you want to run and how your characters get around, there are all sorts of ways. While teleportation or a circle of teleportation might seem like the easiest way, you could decide for yourself. I believe in some ruins (under them mind you) have a psionic device that resembles a subway system. This would allow your characters to travel very fast and very far (or atleast how far the ruins survived). If players were walking before, pick mounts. If there were already mounts, enhance the mounts with spells or psionics. Skate, expeditious retreat would be good ones. Overland Flight (i believe it is called that) is a good one as well. If magic and psionics aren't really open to your players, rough luck cause it'll go the long way unless they buy it or they find one of the afformentioned ruins. Alternate suggestion. Caravans could possibly increase travel time because u could hop along on the quick moving kank carts. Even if your players don't have those spells, let them get creative. Get a construct or undead to haul their cart for 24 hours on end. switch drivers continuously. All in all, i don't think that transportation amongst the city-states, let alone the world is supposed to be easy. If your players have the money, magic or psionic from an NPC, if they have the supernatural powers themselves, use them. If you want to make it part of your campaign, add it in yourself as you have stated with the teleportation platforms. I really don't agree with this unless it's in an infested ruin, but even then i don't belief that something from the green age would have something being powered by psionics. I could be wrong, and it is your game. I made the game a little bit easier for my friends and I. Simple, bring a herd of Kanks along. You ride the warriors, the workers produce honey which you switch out with water and food, and continue on your ride. Quicker than the average human and you can last a little longer. To me, Athas is a lot more about the journey when travelling. That's how i like to play it, but that's me. Hope i helped
#4 j0lt Feb 03, 2007 0:35:32	Tell everyone to play as an or Aarakocra! :P
#5 zombiegleemax Feb 03, 2007 14:37:49	Hi, Thanks. My campaign has very limited magic, so when magic items are found they are usually remains of the green age. The transporters I mentioned are one of these artifacts, and they started as five obsidian beads and one rod. The idea was that the bead can be planted somewhere, to open a gate, but it cannot be replanted. So, the players had the choice of where to plant the gates, hide them ETC. When travelling through these gates, the travel is quick, but the real world time can be much longer, so the players can't tell when they will get out. There was also some type of disease that could affect the travelers and weaken them when they get out. This transportation method is very limited and was given to the players after a very long campaign. As magic is very scarce in my campaign, I am seeking a more natural way to travel. Another way I once used was three air ships created by Draj to travel to a basin in the sea of silt. The players managed to hijack one, but decided it is too dangerous to use and left it for others.
#6 zombiegleemax Feb 03, 2007 16:48:29	i have an idea that just struck me. I believe it is in the book Sandstorm. They have sleds with sails. You could make them larger for your players to use.
#7 ruhl-than_sage Feb 03, 2007 16:55:02	Tell everyone to play as an or Aarakocra! :P Or Thri-Kreen, no need for sleep extremely quick, they require very little water, and are natural hunters. If they take levels in Barbarian and Scout and the sprint feat then their movement rate can climb as high as 65 without magical agumentation.
#8 dirk00001 Feb 04, 2007 16:25:30	In my DS campaign(s), travel speed, both in-game as well as "real world" time, really boils down to how long I want the PCs (and players) spend getting from Point A to Point B, and more importantly is a matter of how I want the travel to figure into the overall storyline. Although I make my group worry about food and water and such, each journey is different and in some cases it doesn't really matter. I've had PCs travel from Urik down to Balic in 2 or 3 game sessions by glossing over minor details and only going into detail (i.e. role-playing opportunities and small encounters) at the various towns/forts/oasis' along the way, and I've also spent multiple months of real-time getting the group across a tract of wasteland that only took a few days in-game to do (by throwing in encounters, some ancient ruins to spend an in-game afternoon exploring, etc.). Even PCs capable of "insta-travel" using teleportation spells, powers or similar can be slowed down through various means: Give them knowledge of a destination near to where they *really* want to go, but not the end-destination itself (i.e. if they're looking for a magic item or something, let 'em know that it's near a certain landmark (that they could teleport to) but only hint at where they need to go from there ("you spot ruins on the horizon"), or work a "mundane escort" into the plot to prevent this sort of quick travel. Or, on the other side, give them direct access to their destination and let them get there instantly with magic/psionics/etc. In the end, I've found that there are many reasonable, sensical ways to prevent even the highest-level group of PCs from instantaneously zooming around the game world, just as I've found ways to take an otherwise long, painful journey and shorten it down to a single game session for even a low-level group of characters. It all comes down to good DM planning and plotting, knowing the limitations and abilities of the PCs, and of course determining what's best for the game - some groups *like* taking a ton of real-world time planning and executing cross-country travel, while others hate the idea and are willing to do just about anything to get to the "fun stuff." Dunno if any of that helps, but there's my 2 bits. ;)
#9 zombiegleemax Feb 05, 2007 7:18:14	I was going to say Dream Travel would be great since that seems to be what they used in The Darkness Before The Dawn to good effect. It creates a sort of symbolic dream journey that could be as short or long as you want. But it also strikes me that whereas Dream Travel used to be a discipline under AD&D rules, now it's something like an 8th level power. Not exactly the sort of thing characters are going to be able to acquire at low levels, though I don't know if that's an issue for you. A psionic Dream Travel artifact maybe of use?