Outdoor Survival Rules For D&D

Outdoor Survival by Avalon Hill was one of the games cited as being needed to play D&D in Underworld & Wilderness Adventures Volume III of the original rules. Most DMs probably never picked up the game and when I first started playing D&D the Basic Box sets were out along with AD&D with any such reference removed. I certainly never met; back in my youth; or knew anyone using Outdoor Survival. A lot had already happened in the game’s development when I started playing and it has gone through lots of changes since.

However in playing D&D off and on over the years it is those Basic Rules and adapting what I wanted or needed for game play onto them that still is my favorite way to play. Little did I realize as a kid Basic was mostly the original game. Seeing as early D&D has been described more than once as a survival game I decided to see how Outdoor Survival might be used in the game by carefully reading and pilfering anything useful I could find.

THE MAP

Like most folks who have done this before me I found in Volume III where the DM is instructed to use Outdoor Survival’s map for the default beginning map. I also found the instructions to interpret the buildings as towns and the catch basins (ponds) as castles. The Outdoor Survival map represents approximately 13,200 square miles per the game. Underworld & Wilderness Adventures says to consider each hex about 5 miles wide.  However that is not the only use of the game Outdoor Survival in the D&D instructions. The D&D rules say I am not to show players the map, which is something I don’t do anyway. The D&D rules also says I should give players hex paper to map on, nope, never happening.  I give them blank non hex paper they have to guesstimate draw based on my descriptions, their questions and memories, no hex graph type paper exists in my fantasy world except what the DM has... if it did it would be a magical or divine ancient arcane treasure.

LOST

If the players become lost in the wilderness the DM is instructed to use Outdoor Survival’s random direction rules. If you read the Outdoor Survival Rules this means a 1d6 is rolled and the randomly generated number corresponds to direction of travel indicated by the blue compass on the Wilderness map. 

Number  Direction

Rolled.    Indicated 

1d6

1.            North

2.            North East

3.            South East 

4.            South

5.            South West

6.            North West

The 6 directions would make the wilderness more challenging as going East or West will require players to meander along in a zig zag pattern. However using an 1d8 you can include East and West for direct travel. However to recreate the lost effect 1d6 will do this better. 

To Use 1d8

1.          North

2.          North East

3.          East

4.          South East

5.          South

6.          South West

7.          West

8.          North West

Volume III went on to discus using Outdoor Survival for D&D terrain penalties. It gave the movement cost or factor but when I compared the numbers in Volume III with Outdoor Survival I noticed some differences. Based on the differences I went with most difficult factor per terrain feature.

Terrain.                         Movement Cost.        D&D.        House.

                                      Outdoor Survival. 

Clear (Grasslands).        1.                               1.               1.    

Woods/Rough.               2.                                2.               2.

Desert.                            2.                               2.               2.

River.                              3.                               3.               3.

Mountains.                      3.                               3.               3.

Swamps.                         4.                               3.                4.

Trails Mountains.            1.                               2.               2.

Fords.                              1.                               1.                1.

Trails Swamps.                1.                               1.               1.

So the next question is how do these numbers work? Now in Outdoor Survival the players have scenarios, movement instructions based on rolls and information on how many hexes their piece can move per turn. This does not neatly translate to D&D per say but does present some interesting possibilities. First note from D&D rules Lost parties must move the direction of the random roll but may change direction once during the turn. But how far can they move? Basically from a D&D stand point movement time through about a 5 mile hex is multiplied by the number... so a swamp will take 4 times the amount of time to transverse than a nice grass plain. I decided if using 5 mile hexes that is close enough to two leagues (6 miles) and 1 league is 1 hours travel over 3 miles of easily traveled road. So I arbitrarily decided a hex about five miles across with factor of 1 takes two hours to travel through. I could though easily increase the distance to 10 miles and thus it would take 4 hours to travel through and so on. I would like to note that many DMs decided 5 mile hexes were too small for this map as a start of a world map and went with a much larger scale. The main consideration here is deciding how big the hexes will be so you can determine travel time in a type 1 hex. Once you have your scale and travel time figured out for a type 1 hex you can then determine just how long it takes to get through each kind of terrain hex. In Outdoor Survival the players start out healthy with a maximum of 6 movement points that they spend to travel through hexes based on their rolls. So going back to my example of it takes 2 hours to go through a type 1 hex it is conceivable that a party could travel through 6 type one hexes in 12 hours. The D&D rules further states 1 turn in wilderness travel equals 1day of travel... of course things can happen  during the day that effects travel times as well. However remember horses go faster, some races go slower and encumbrance can effect actual travel time too. Another thing to consider is that in Outdoor Survival if the player does not have enough movement  left to cross a hex they cannot enter it. I decided to keep the rule in Outdoor Survival that states a player upon finding a trail can choose to use the trail they find in the hex and even change direction because of the trail when normally they could not. So even though the D&D rules say only one change of direction per turn if lost that only applies until they find a trail/road then the party can follow that instead. 

But wait there’s more! As I perused Outdoor Survival’s rules I realized the rules that effect players maximum movements really are relevant to D&D. In Outdoor Survival it is vital that the player while wandering around the board secures food and water. If a player goes to long without food and or water they begin to lose life as they lose life they also lose the ability to travel as far each turn. I worked up some tables for use in D&D based on Outdoor Survival. 

The Water and Food Tables can be used in both a Wilderness and Underground.

No Water Table

No. Of Days.                            Hit Points.              Travel Fatigue

Without Water.                         Lost.                       Penalty

3.                                               -1                            +1

6.                                               -1.                           +1

8.                                               -2.                           +2

10.                                             -4.                           +4

12.                                             -7.                           +7

14.                                              

No Food Table

No. Of Days.                        Hit Points.                 Travel Fatigue

Without Food.                      Lost.                           Penalty

5.                                             -1.                             +1

10.                                           -1                              +1

14.                                           -1.                             +1

18.                                           -1.                             +1

22.                                           -1.                             +1

25.                                           -1.                             +1

28.                                           -2.                             +2

30.                                           -2.                             +2

32.                                           -3.                             +3

34

The way the tables work is every day a player must have food and water, as long as these necessities are met the slow slide toward death does not start. For example the party runs out of water, the first two days they will not suffer immediately, but on day three they will all lose 1 hit point and now every hex they travel through will be one type harder and thus slower. The Party finds a water source they can drink from on day 4. This stops their slide toward death but does not negate the damage done or start the table over. If the players want to heal per the D&D Rules they will need to rest two additional days (turns). This means the party will have to remain in place, on the first day of rest no hit points are regained but on the second day and every other day after one hit point is regained. As each hit point is regained the fatigue penalties go away as well. So in the example after 2 days of rest and water the party will have recovered on the No Water Table. I decided to keep recovery simple each time they rest and heal per D&D rules to regain lost hit points from No Water or Food they move up to the next loss point... for example let’s say the party went 8 days in the desert without water but on the 9th found an Oasis... they will need to rest 4 days to regain the 2 hit points lost on day 8 taking them to day 7s physical state... if they decide to rest 4 more days they will regain all lost hit points and I will consider them recovered at that point, but if they choose to continue across the desert after the first 4 days they must have water or they will suffer another -2 to their hit points the next time they run out of water as they had not fully rested and rehydrated before setting out again. 

Obviously if the party runs out of food too they will quickly be racking up damage and movement penalties. Clearly this sort of system can turn deadly quick. After reading the rules in Outdoor Survival I decided the best way to handle food and water being found is to allow PCs to meet their water needs automatically if the pass through a hex with a river, stream, fresh water lake or some other clean water source is known to me on the map... if however they are in an area with no obvious water feature they will have to roll for it. I decided to treat food similarly, if an area is marked for food, they will find food for the day... however all other areas must be checked throughly and rolled for. Swamp and Salt Water areas are not useable water. Obviously player creativity will go a long way towards their survival.

ENCOUNTERS!

Outdoor Survival has encounters. These encounters can be made into tables or added to tables that a DM could roll once for every Turn/Day. D&D focuses mostly on Wandering Monsters as the main threat, however that is not all that can go wrong when you are wandering around lost. Depending on what has happened the party might suffer injuries from accidents, acts of nature or fighting off the local wildlife. The party might need to rest for several days. Some Encounters should be positive not just negative and offer benefits to the party. 

A few ideas...

Natural Hazards

I table of Natural Hazards appropriate for the terrain could be swapped out for a Monster

Avalanche 

Rock Slide

Forest Fire

Weather 

Flash Flood

Sand Storm

Poisonous Gas

Falling Tree

Of course Insects and Animals could be a problem in Outdoor Survival and problems caused by these more mundane creatures could easily plague players.

Insect bites

Raiding animals destroy some food and or water provisions

Animal attacks player characters.

Animals destroy shelter and other supplies

Animals scare or drive horses away

Bandits steal horses

Find Food

Finally there was a Personal Encounter option as well

PCs become ill from bad water or poisonous food

PCs come into contact with a poisonous plant and have a reaction 

A PC suffers an injury

Pack Animal becomes lame

Find water

Find Food

Find healing herbs

Find boat or shelter

Unexpected help

I know some of the rule ideas presented here have been created using different game mechanics or the tables exist now with many of the above ideas for various versions of D&D.  The purpose of this exercise for me was to see what I could apply to game play outside of the map. To really look at the game from a different perspective. Anyhow this is my attempt at merging Outdoor Survival with D&D for my house rules.