D&D Ideas — Terrain
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is terrain, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of terrain in Albatross heroes are caught between insect ravagers and forest elves in a tense pursuit through treacherous terrain with an infant chieftain at stake. You can get Nerdarchy the Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.
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Delving Dave’s Dungeon
Terrain can mean a bunch of things in RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons. It could relate to a group’s playstyle. Do you use terrain and minis or do you play your 5E D&D games through theater of the mind? Theater of the mind is my jam so I’ll leave terrain at the table to Nerdarchist Ted. He’s always building terrain to throw out on the table.
Instead I’ll focus on terrain in your games. 5E D&D introduces some interesting terrain-based concepts via the monsters themselves through lair actions and regional effects. Lair actions taken by the monsters within their lairs on initiative count 20 each round while engaged in combat. Regional effects take up miles around a monster’s lair. Some of them are passive while others are active things the monster can do.
These two additions to the game add more ways for terrain to affect the story. All three pillars can be added to through regional effects but lair actions primarily focus on the combat pillar. I recommend Dungeon Masters utilize both these features when creating exploration and combat encounters even if the monsters you are using don’t have them.
Terrain itself can be a challenge to overcome or by adding environmental aspects to an encounter you can both make it more challenging and interesting. An easy way of doing this is looking at those lair actions and regional effects I mentioned above. The mechanics are already done for you to just lift them into your encounters. There are about a 140 monsters in 5E D&D with lair actions. These monsters range from challenge rating 3 to 26. Not all but many have regional effects from which you can borrow.
Terrain can be used as obstacles, places to be explored or even something to be battled. It can be natural, constructed or even supernatural in nature.
- Think about any natural disaster movie and what the characters faced in those movies. Any of these could be added to your D&D game. Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything lists 23 environmental hazards and what spells to use to simulate those hazards.
- Exploring ancient crumbling ruins could be its own challenge. Collapsing walls and floors, toppling pillars and rubble can all be obstacles characters have to overcome. Call for Dexterity saving throws to avoid walls collapsing on characters or floors crumbling below them. Areas covered in in rumble become difficult terrain to move through.
- Haunted forests full of restless spirits and the like present places where getting rest might be difficult. During long and short rests characters must succeed on a Constitution saving throw to get the benefits of these rests. Random encounters with haunts presented as supernatural phenomena may plague adventurers too. For example when a character looks into a pool they see their reflection begin to age before their eyes. If they fail a Wisdom saving throw they become frightened as long as their reflection is in sight.
These are just some examples off the top of my head. As I was looking into ways to use terrain I see there are three sections from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything and the section on using spells to simulate natural hazards is just one of them. The other two are supernatural regions and magical phenomena — both of which are full of ideas for making the terrain in your games more interesting.
From Ted’s Head
Of the three of us here at Nerdarchy I am the only one who prefers using a battle map and physical terrain. I love using all sorts of products to make my battle maps more fun at the table. As a novice crafter I use a lot companies’ products not only as inspiration but as a complement to the things I make.
I am going to give a large shout out to the companies whose products I use regularly at the table in no particular order.
- Dungeons and Lasers is a great company offering quality products that need to be painted and removed from their sprues. They have just partnered with Paizo to make terrain for pathfinder.
- WizKids’ Warlock Tiles are sturdy, easily assembled and have a large amount of scatter as well. WizKids’ stuff has a combination of painted and unpainted so get it how you want it.
- Galladoria Games a large selection of scatter and you can get it painted or unpainted. I have a large selection of their stuff that can really make an encounter shine.
- Dungeon Craft has a large selection of double sided 2D paper terrain and it is great. If you are limited or concerned about storage space this is the company for you. With two sided terrain you can deploy numerous pieces set up to be one thing and make a change, like mimics or they can represent different levels of a building. Their size ranges from a single square scatter to full 8×8 square or large buildings set to be your entire backdrop that easily fit into your DM folder.
- Dwarven Forge offers high quality terrain, tiles and scatter that can be purchased painted or unpainted. It has become so popular that if you do not get in on it during their Kickstarters you wind up waiting for restocks and hope the products you want are available before they sell out. They are extremely high quality and beautiful.
There are certainly other great companies out there as well but these are the ones that stand out.
When it comes to making terrain I like to purchase things that are ready to use right out of the box. Buying aquarium plants makes for some great alien or fey plants when you want to have things players are not expecting. Using sand or other materials for basing makes many different products suitable for desert terrain. Your local craft store especially around certain holidays have a variety of trees to use and they are often at lower price points — especially if you wait for the inevitable 50% off sales at the end of the season. I am sure if you look online there are many, many options and advice for making great terrain cheap if you are inclined to go in the crafting direction.
From the Nerditor’s Desk
I’ve spent a lot of time traveling both all around the US and abroad and these excursions instilled great fascination within me for terrain. I get tremendous enjoyment from putting myself in a character’s shoes to consider the world around them and as a DM I love describing the terrain with the goal of evoking the same fascination and engagement from the rest of the players.
One of the best aspects of 5E D&D especially is how far this iteration of the game leans into the fantastical. It’s been quite a while since D&D reflected a quasi-medieval world (barring anyone’s particular setting for their own games). Extraplanar influences, magical phenomena and creatures themselves can create truly amazing terrain. At the same time characters bring their own incredible abilities to the table and help transform even mundane terrain into memorable experiences.
Have you ever embarked on a long hike through the wilderness? Many years ago my friends and I went on a classic European backpacking trip where we spent a good portion of it traveling through Germany’s Schwarzwald. Our trail talk often involved D&D discussions and we marveled at adventurers’ ability to traverse long distances on foot while also bearing more weight plus stopping every so often to fight for their lives against monsters or after stumbling upon the entrance to an ancient ruin. Incidentally this was when I really began to love the exploration aspect of D&D, long before it was codified as a pillar of play for 5E D&D.
Terrain impacts those who live within it too, which is where I always begin with my worldbuilding. In my own setting I leaned heavily into my Slovenian roots and developed the starting area from this foundation. Learning more about this stuff was personally satisfying for me and also translated into compelling game experiences for players. Whenever I expand on this world I follow the same procedure and layer in the fantasy elements of 5E D&D that intrigue me the most.
- Orcs in my setting take their cues from the terrain of Mechanus where they originally come from. You can read all about their unusual history in a post right here.
- My goblins exhibit some wild abilities thanks to their connection with the terrain of the Beastlands, which I share in a post right here.
- Kobolds reflect the weirdness of their origin in Bytopia, explored further in a post right here.
- Terrain dictates what sorts of armor become most useful in a series of posts inspired by Game of Thrones:
How has the terrain in your games affected the world, the characters and the adventures they embark upon? Let us know in the comments and as always, stay nerdy!
*Featured image — Heroes are caught between insect ravagers and forest elves in a tense pursuit through treacherous terrain with an infant chieftain at stake in Albatross. Check out Out of the Box here.
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