How a day of desert travel works. Matches the printed Travel Sheet (one side) and Camp Sheet (front and back), replacing the handout “Exploration Turn — Player Handout” (v2, 2026-10-08).
A day in the wasteland is four watches of about six hours each. In every watch, each character takes one action. The exception is marching: when the party marches, everyone marches together and each person takes a marching role instead.
The day
- 4 watches a day · 1 action each per watch. Rest at least one watch a day. Supper before bed: 1 food + 1 water.
- Rest. One Rest watch gives you all the benefits of a Long Rest. The party takes turns on watch, so everyone gets their full rest.
- No Rest: at the end of a day without a Rest watch, make a DC 10 Constitution save or gain 1 Exhaustion. Each further day in a row without a Rest raises the DC by 5. Finishing a Rest removes it.
- Short rests fit inside any watch you aren’t marching.
- Supper is eaten at the start of your Rest watch. It’s a social scene: cook, entertain, talk in character.
Food & water
At supper, each character eats 1 food ration and drinks 1 water ration. One of each covers the whole day.
- No water: gain 1 Exhaustion at dawn. No save.
- No food: DC 10 Constitution save at dawn, or gain 1 Exhaustion.
- Exhaustion from thirst won’t go away until you’ve drunk a full water ration; from hunger, until you’ve eaten a full food ration.
| Ration | Slots |
|---|---|
| Iron ration (dried, salted, preserved). Keeps. | 3 per slot |
| Fresh ration (meat, fruit, fish). Spoils at dawn. | 1 each |
| Water ration (one full waterskin) | 1 each |
Exhaustion
Each level: −2 to every d20 test and −5 ft Speed. Level 6 is death. A Rest removes one level, but only if you had a full supper and camp was set.
Desert heat & your armor
At the end of each daylight watch (morning and afternoon) you spend in desert heat wearing metal armor:
| Armor | Con save |
|---|---|
| Metal heavy (ring, chain mail, splint, plate) | DC 12 |
| Metal medium (chain shirt, scale, breastplate, half plate) | DC 10 |
| Leather, hide, padded, and desert-made armor (quilted silk, chitin) | No save |
Fail: gain 1 Exhaustion.
Marching
Speed
A hex is 6 miles.
| Terrain | Examples | Per watch |
|---|---|---|
| Easy | Gravel plain, salt pan, wadi, scrub, stone plateau, oasis, ruins | 2 hexes |
| Rough | Dust basin, canyon, skirting a mesa | 1 hex |
| Difficult | Dune sea, badlands, the Glass, mountains | ½ hex |
Mixed routes: each marching watch has 1 watch of movement to spend. An Easy hex costs ½, Rough 1, Difficult 2. Leftover movement carries over within the same day. Every watch spent marching is a watch nobody spends foraging, cooking or resting.
Each marching watch
- Pick marching roles (below).
- GM: weather check.
- Pick a direction.
- Navigate: the Navigator makes a Wisdom (Survival) check against the terrain’s DC. On a failure you’re lost: the GM decides which hex you really walked into, and you may not realise it yet.
- GM: random encounter check.
- End of watch: if it’s daylight, desert heat saves.
| Role | What it does |
|---|---|
| Navigator | Makes the navigation check. Every march needs one, or the party is lost automatically. |
| Scout | Ranges ahead. Uses their passive Perception to spot trouble at long range, and rolls initiative with advantage. Cost: if it’s hostile, the scout starts the fight 1d6 × 10 ft ahead of the party. |
| Handler / Driver | Runs mounts, pack beasts or a vehicle. Needed for a vehicle to travel at speed, and keeps animals calm when things go wrong. |
| Everyone else | Marches with the party. No role, no roll. |
There’s no Help action: one character makes each roll.
Tools & skills
If you’re proficient with both a tool and a skill that apply to a check, you have advantage (2024 rule). Useful pairings out here:
- Cook’s Utensils + Insight or Nature: Cook.
- Herbalism Kit + Nature: Forage.
- Brewer’s or Alchemist’s Supplies + Nature or Medicine: Preserve Food.
- Leatherworker’s Tools + Medicine or Sleight of Hand: Dress Kill (hides).
- Tinker’s Tools + Sleight of Hand: Alarms & Traps.
- Healer’s Kit + Medicine: Tend Wounds.
- A musical instrument + Performance: Entertain.
Camp actions
Pick one per watch when you aren’t marching. Each action lists the skills you can use: pick whichever suits your character.
| Action | Check | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Set Camp | Wisdom (Survival), Strength (Athletics) or Intelligence (Investigation) vs the terrain’s DC | Read the land, dig in and raise a windbreak, or spot the flood lines and old fire pits. Success: pick camp qualities (below). Fail: a camp, but no qualities. No camp at all: your Rest doesn’t remove Exhaustion. |
| Rest | — | All the benefits of a Long Rest. The party rotates the watch so everyone rests. |
| Forage | Wisdom (Survival), Intelligence (Nature) or Strength (Athletics) | Search for plants, insects, dew and seeps against the terrain’s DC: know what’s edible, or climb for nests and dig out roots. The GM rolls on that terrain’s foraging table. |
| Hunt | Wisdom (Survival), Dexterity (Stealth) or Strength (Athletics) | Track it, stalk it to arm’s reach, or run it down. Success brings back a kill, which must be dressed or it spoils by the end of the next watch. |
| Fish | Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) or Strength (Athletics) | Only where there’s water: wadi pools, an oasis, brine flats full of shrimp. Line and hook, or spear and wade. Brings back fresh rations. |
| Set Snares | Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) or Intelligence (Nature), DC 12 | Rig the trigger or read the game runs. Check them in any later watch today, at no cost. Success: 1 fresh ration. Beat by 5: 2. Snares catch rabbits, not raiders. |
| Dress Kill | Wisdom (Medicine) or Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) DC 10 for game or fish; Intelligence (Nature or Arcana) DC 15 for monsters | Turn a kill into food, and harvest anything worth selling (hide, venom, chitin, bone). Yield: Small 1 ration, Medium 4, Large 12, Huge 40. Fail: half. Fail by 5: tainted; anyone who eats it makes a DC 12 Con save or is Poisoned for a day. |
| Preserve Food | Intelligence (Nature) or Wisdom (Medicine), DC 10 | Turn up to 6 fresh rations into iron rations, by sun-drying on hot stone (daylight watch) or salting (needs salt), and know when meat has turned. |
| Cook | Wisdom (Insight) or Intelligence (Nature), DC 12 | Read what the party needs tonight, or know your ingredients. Needs fuel for a fire (scarce) or a daylight watch to sun-cook. Success: pick dishes (below). Fail: it’s just supper. |
| Entertain | Charisma (Performance), Dexterity (Acrobatics) or Intelligence (History), DC 12 | At supper: sing, play, dance, juggle, tumble, tell a story or recite an old saga. Success: pick spirits (below). Only one entertainer’s roll counts each supper; everyone else can still perform for fun. |
| Tend Wounds | Wisdom (Medicine) or Intelligence (Religion), DC 12 | Clean, stitch and bind, or care through prayer and ritual. Allies who spend Hit Dice this watch add your Wisdom modifier to each die. You can also end the Poisoned condition on one creature, or treat a disease. |
| Blaze Trail | Wisdom (Perception) or Strength (Athletics) | Spot a landmark, or climb the ridge for a look, and mark a route into one adjacent hex. The next march into it has advantage on navigation. |
| Alarms & Traps | Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) or Intelligence (Investigation); Strength (Athletics) for stake lines and pitfalls. DC by device | Protect the camp from people and predators: rig it, work out where they’ll come in, or dig and drive it. One device per action. On a failed check it’s set badly and won’t go off. Devices protect this camp only. |
| Other | GM’s call | Anything these don’t cover: study a find, write in a journal, repair gear, pray, practise a skill, attune to an item, talk to a companion. Say what you’re doing and the GM will tell you if it needs a check. |
There’s no Help action at camp: one character makes each roll, using whichever listed skill suits them.
Camp choices
Set Camp, Cook and Entertain don’t give a fixed reward: a good roll lets you choose what the camp gets tonight.
| Success | Beat the DC by 5 | Beat by 10 or a natural 20 |
|---|---|---|
| pick 1 | pick 2 | pick 3 |
Set Camp: qualities
| Quality | Effect |
|---|---|
| Hidden | Tucked out of sight. Random encounters at camp happen less often. |
| Defensible | Backs to rock, one way in. Anything that attacks the camp starts at the far end of encounter distance, and the party can’t be flanked. |
| Sheltered | Real shelter from sun and wind. Weather can’t spoil your Rest. |
| Provident | Near game trails or a seep. One Forage, Hunt, Fish or Set Snares from this camp automatically succeeds. |
| Shaded | Deep, cool shade. Anyone who rests here during a daylight watch makes no heat save for that watch. |
| Fuelled | Dried dung, deadwood or brush: a cooking fire tonight without spending fuel. Only where there’s something to burn. |
| Lookout | High ground. The GM describes the next hex’s terrain and one landmark now, before you pick a direction. |
| Watered | A seep, a rock tank or dew traps: 1 water ration for the party. Only where the terrain holds some water. |
Cook: dishes
| Dish | Effect |
|---|---|
| Hearty | Everyone who eats gains temporary hit points equal to your level. |
| Fortifying | No one who eats gains Exhaustion at dawn from tonight’s hunger or thirst. |
| Cooling | Mint, succulent pulp or chilled broth: no one who eats makes a heat save at the end of tomorrow’s first daylight watch. The GM applies it. |
| Made Safe | Strange food goes in the pot (monster meat, a tainted kill, maggots) and no one who eats it makes the Poisoned save. |
| Medicinal Broth | Ends the Poisoned condition on one diner, or cures one diner’s disease. |
| Stretched | The meal feeds the party on one fewer food ration. Once per day. |
| Comfort Food | One diner who had a hard day removes 1 level of Exhaustion now (not from hunger or thirst). |
Entertain: spirits
| Spirit | Effect |
|---|---|
| Inspired | One listener gains Heroic Inspiration. |
| Rested | Everyone regains one extra Hit Die from tonight’s Rest. |
| Remembered | The song or story carries old knowledge: the GM tells the party one true, useful thing about the next leg or a creature you’ll meet. |
| Lifted | Every listener ends the Frightened and Charmed conditions on themselves. |
| Quiet Night | The camp settles. The GM skips tonight’s random encounter check. |
Everything resolves tonight or at dawn. Only temporary hit points and Heroic Inspiration carry into tomorrow, plus Cooling, which the GM applies. The same effect from two sources doesn’t stack.
Alarms & traps
| Device | Set DC | Effect (first creature to trigger it) |
|---|---|---|
| Can line | 10 | Cans or bones on a tripwire. The camp can’t be surprised from that side. |
| Bell line | 12 | Needs a bell. Can’t be surprised, and everyone asleep wakes at once. |
| Caltrops | 10 | Needs caltrops. DC 12 Dex save or 1 piercing and Speed 0 until its next turn. |
| Stake line | 12 | Sharpened bone or stakes. DC 12 Dex save or 1d6 piercing. |
| Leg-hold trap | 13 | Needs a hunting trap. DC 13 Dex save or 1d4 piercing and stuck (DC 13 Str to escape). |
| Pitfall | 14 | Sand or soft ground only. DC 12 Dex save or fall prone and lose its next move. |