A while back Stephen Radney-McFarley had a series of great posts on his blog about Hexploration. I have waited with anticipation for some announcement that an actual product might come out from Paizo. Alas, I have become impatient and decided created some Hexploration cards for my 4e campaign.

The current campaign I am running is Isle of the Sea Drake from Goodman Games. The adventure has a major “explore the wilderness” element to it. And while the adventure does have rules for the exploration, I thought this would be a great chance to work with Hexploration. I ran into a complication, Hexploration seemed to imply a single terrain type that the heroes would be coming through and using the clues they found to guide them to their destination. In the islands my players are exploring there are 3 primary terrain types (Sea, Jungle, and Mountains) and the characters are often given points on a rough map, so they know the general direction they should be heading.

My solution was to draw out the entire archipelago on a hex map, and only mark the hexes with the terrain type (sea, jungle, or mountain). Then allow the players to move their characters around the island choosing which hex they wanted to explore next. In each hex they would flip a card from the Hexploration deck. I have completed the jungle deck and included the PDF here for all to download and enjoy. Each card was one of five types: no encounter, encounter, oddity, hazard, or refuge. No encounter simply means the hex they passed through was safe for the time being. Encounter could be angry natives or a wondering monster. Oddity was, more often than not, a clue that could fill in some gaps, however I also it used to allow me to enter plot elements that were preplanned. I also used oddities to introduce role-playing moments; a description of a gnarled tree that looked as if it was recently burned by fire! Most were red herrings. Hazards are sudden dangerous events that forced the characters to make skill checks or loose healing surges. Lastly I included a few refuges. A refuge is a guarantee of a safe place to make camp. My players chose to mark the refuges they found on the hex map, so when they were in need they could return to them.

I then had to decide on how to deal with healing surge recovery. I originally experimented with SRMs idea of Surge Damage and Surge Drain, but it proved to be too soft and too complicated. So I settled on the following. Camping in any hex that did not contain a refuge was risky. Not only could the characters be interrupted by a random encounter, they needed to make endurance checks, if they failed they were not refreshed. I determined random encounters by proximity to danger zones. I would roll between one and five d6 and if a one appeared, they had an encounter. A random encounter would interrupt their rest and only allow them to have the benefit of a short rest. If there was no encounter I would have each character make a Endurance check. If they achieved a moderate success they would gain all the benefits of an extended rest, but would not regain healing surges (they would refill to full hit points). If they made a high success they would regain 1 healing surge. The only place I allowed full healing surge recovery was at a refuge or at a village or some other safe haven.

One type of hazard to note are the inclement weather cards. Inclement weather forced the character to make an additional Endurance check each morning or actually take surge damage. Inclement weather could last up to three days. It makes for good role playing, as I described the rain seeping into their clothes. Their rations were soggy and barely edible but they were forced to eat them to survive. So disheartened were they by inclement weather, when they found a refuge they stayed for a few days to let the weather pass.

The characters could travel 4 hexes a day through the jungle and they were flipping over a card at each hex. The result was fantastic. I could see the anxiety in my players as they had to flip over a card. They also took great care in exploring the wild and they would ask to make skill checks to help lead them in the right direction of a refuge. It was easy for me to pick up the deck and shuffle some cards around if they got a good roll.

Unlike rolling on a chart for each hex the Hexploration cards added a tactile feel to the game. It also removed the mechanic from my hands and placed the control into my player’s hands. Each card has self contained rules and my players knew what to roll or what was needed from each card. I was then able to embellish with description and was not bogged down by having to ask for die rolls.

The Hexploration cards have been a fun element in my game and I encourage you to try them out. Here is the PDF and the Word Doc. Please download and enjoy.

Also, one of my players mentioned how this could be a good tool to help determine what happens when the characters enter a town. Keep an eye out as I will soon be uploading Town Exploration cards.