Hello everyone!
Winter is in the air here in the Midwest of the USA. Thanksgiving is over, the Christmas carols are beginning to come out in force and it’s time for the end-of-November monthly deep dive into one of the features in Revenge of the Firstborn. This month, we’re going to talk about exploration. We’ll touch a bit on the overland map and look more closely at the ways you get the most out of dungeons in the game.
The Overland Map
The overland map is completely open from the start of the game. There are a number of cities and villages you can visit, most of which will have something for you to do, if you need a distraction from saving the world. There are also a number of hidden dungeons where you can find unique gear, including parts of artifacts that can be combined into powerful items.
Just be careful where you wander, you may quickly find yourself in a fight that is too tough for your current level! Each part of the map has a chance for a random encounter and there are hotspots scattered around the map with their own higher challenge rating. For instance, the area around an ancient ruin will have a higher chance of an encounter with undead, some of them potentially powerful.
The distance you can cover each day depends on whether you are traveling on foot or whether every member of the party has a horse. When traveling on roads you travel more quickly and when traveling off-road, you must make survival checks periodically to avoid getting lost.
There are lots of hidden secrets on the overland map that should make exploring every square inch worthwhile for the wandering adventurer.
Dungeon Delving
The real meat and potatoes of Revenge of the Firstborn is dungeon delving. You’ll find the full suite of exploration options from the 3.5 SRD at your disposal. More and more frequently these days isometric RPGs include a lot of vertical features to bring a wider range of character skills into play. Revenge of the Firstborn is no different in that regard; in order to fully explore all of the dungeons in the game, you’ll want to have at least one character who is good at Climbing, Swimming and the other exploration skills such as Balance and Jump.
Climbing
The game includes a lot of ruins, and many of those ruins don’t have intact stairs anymore, so you will be required to use the climb skill, or the Fly spell if your wizard can cast it, to reach some areas in the dungeons of Revenge of the Firstborn. While some games take the approach of marking specific surfaces as being climbable, Revenge of the Firstborn allows any vertical surface to be climbed, including overhangs if you have a rope!
As per the SRD rules, characters with a higher movement speed also climb higher. Climber’s kits and ropes provide a bonus to the Climbing skill check. Of course, a wizard can make all of this trivial by casting the Fly spell and simply willing himself up to the top of a climb.
Swimming
Some dungeons in the world have become flooded over time. In order to reach tantalizing loot or open up other parts of a dungeon, you’ll need to have a character skilled in swimming. Don’t forget to remove your armor as the armor check penalty is doubled!
Clearing the Gap
Next, we have the Balance and Jump skills. There are many areas in the game where you can reach optional parts of a dungeon by walking over a narrow ledge, or jumping over it if your Jump skill is high enough (once again, the wizard in the party can save the day with the Jump spell).
Characters with higher strength can jump farther. The Difficulty Check for all jumps is equal to the distance of the jump. If you fail the check by less than 5, you clear the gap but fall prone when you land. Fail the check by more than 5 and you will find yourself falling into whatever gap you’re trying to clear, with potentially disastrous results!
Traps
Last but not least are the rogue’s bread and butter, traps. In Revenge of the Firstborn, you can manually search for traps in areas where you’re suspicious, but rogues (and clerics with the Find Traps spell active) also automatically get a chance to Spot traps as they are nearing them. If your rogue’s Spot skill is high enough, they will bring the party to a stop and point out the trap. If your rogue’s Spot skill is good, but not quite good enough, they will stop the party’s movement and warn everyone that the area looks suspicious. This is your cue to manually search for traps. Some traps have search Difficulty Checks high enough that they can only be found by manually searching but this should be rare unless you are exploring a dungeon far above your capabilities. The goal is to not force the player to manually search every 10 feet.
The traps themselves range from fire spout traps, to spike traps, to poison cloud traps and pit traps filled with anything from spikes to water to the occasional gelatinous cube.
Hopefully you’ve found this little dive into how you explore the world of Revenge of the Firstborn interesting!