The DnD Environment

Welcome back to everyone’s favorite DnD guide-blog! Last week, we discussed some vital rules within the game, but those rules would mean nothing without a setting for the campaign to take place in.  Today, we will talk about the environment in which the game takes place.  Often, the environment within the game dark and mysterious.  Usually it is described in the specific campaign, but the DM can also use his or her imagination to come up with other aspects of it.  The most important takeaway from these weeks blog is the interaction of characters with their environment.  This includes the topics of falling, suffocating, and vision and light.

Falling

Throughout the game, players often come to all kinds of different scenes.  Many include cliffs, chasms, or even traps with the possibility of falling into a hole.  Obviously, this can do damage to a players health, or hit points.  Each race and class of character begins a campaign with a certain number of hit points and they can be lost during the play-through.  In the case of falling, a character loses a number a hit points equal to a 1d6 role for each 10 feet he or she falls.  Recall that the notation 1d6 means one role of the six-faced dice.  For example, if a player falls 30 feet, the d6 is rolled 3 times and the sum of the rolls is the amount of hit points taken off of the player.  If a player reaches 0 hit points, she is knocked unconscious until you regain hit points.  This is usually done through potions of healing.

Suffocating

Characters also come across bodies of water often.  When underwater, players can hold their breath for the number of minutes equal to 1+the constitution modifier of the character.  If the constitution modifier is negative, the player can hold his or her breath for 30 seconds.  When a player cannot hold his or her breath for any longer, they begin to suffocate and can only survive for the number of rounds equal to the constitution modifier, with a minimum of one round.  After this number of rounds the character decreases to 0 hit points and cannot regain them until he or she can breathe again.

Vision and Light

Much of the game relies on a characters ability to see.  There are various forms of light throughput the game that might impede a character’s ability to see enemies, traps, or other characteristics of the environment.  Light such as dim light and lightly obscured areas cause a character to have disadvantage on certain combat rolls.  Darkness causes heavily obscured areas in which a character cannot see at all.  At times like this a character might have to light a lantern or a torch, or else the path will be dangerous!

After this week your character should be confident in navigating the mysterious environments encountered in DnD.  Thank you for reading, and see you next week!

Sources:

10, Posted by BadEye Apr. “D&D Beyond.” Races, 10 Apr. 2017, www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/races.

Crawford, Jermey, et al. Dungeons and Dragons Essentials Kit Rulebook.