Exploration Mode

Encounters run in rounds; exploration is freer. The GM sets the flow of time: you might be riding across craggy highlands, haggling with merchants or delving into a ruin after danger and treasure. Exploration lacks the immediate danger of an encounter, but has challenges of its own. Much of it is movement and roleplay: travelling between towns, talking with traders at an outpost, a tense exchange with wary guards. Instead of 5-foot squares each round, movement is measured in feet or miles per minute, hour or day using your travel speed; instead of choosing actions each turn, you take part in an exploration activity; and you usually spend part of each day resting.

Travel Speed

You move in feet or miles based on your Speed for the kind of movement you're using. Your base Speed comes from Might + Reflex on the table below (the same as 25 + 5 × half of Might + Reflex, rounded down), and runs from 10 ft to 50 ft. Talents, mounts, spells and other bonuses can raise your Speed beyond 50.

Travel always uses your actual Speed, whatever it is: you cover 10 × Speed feet per minute, Speed ÷ 10 miles per hour, and Speed × 0.8 miles in an 8-hour travel day. The table shows the usual values.

These rates assume flat, clear ground at a steady but not exhausting pace. Difficult terrain halves them, and greater difficult terrain cuts them to a third. When travel needs a skill check (climbing a mountain, swimming), the GM may call for a check once per hour and use the result with the table to work out your progress. For overland travel on the hex map, see Hexploration.

Exploration Activities

While travelling and exploring, tell the GM what you're generally doing along the way. If you do nothing but make steady progress, you move at full travel speed. If you want to do something else, describe it plainly ("I'm searching the area for hazards" is enough; there's no need for "I nudge the door with my dagger to check for traps"). The GM picks the activity that best fits and describes what it does. Some activities limit how fast you can travel and still be effective. These are the most common:

• Avoid Notice (Exploration): you make a Stealth check to avoid notice while travelling at half speed. With Swift Sneak you can move at full Speed, but still can't use another activity at the same time; with Legendary Sneak you can move at full Speed and use a second exploration activity.
• Defend (Exploration): you move at half travel speed with your shield raised. If combat starts, you have the benefits of Raise Shield before your first turn.
• Detect Magic (Concentrate, Exploration): you use Detect Magic at regular intervals, moving at half travel speed or slower. Up to 300 feet per minute you never accidentally miss an aura; to notice auras before the party walks into them you must be going no faster than 150 feet per minute.
• Follow the Expert (Auditory, Concentrate, Exploration, Visual): choose an ally making a recurring skill check while exploring (such as climbing) or using an activity that needs a check (such as Avoid Notice). The ally must have at least 2 Ranks in the skill and be willing to help. You copy their approach, and may replace your own skill bonus with half your level (rounded up) + half the ally's Ranks in the skill (rounded down), as a circumstance bonus.
• Hustle (Exploration, Move): you push yourself to move at double travel speed, for up to Fortitude × 10 minutes (minimum 10 minutes). A group hustling together uses the lowest Fortitude among them.
• Investigate (Concentrate, Exploration): you look for information about your surroundings while travelling at half speed, using Lore checks the GM rolls in secret to find clues among the things you see and handle along the way.
• Scout (Concentrate, Exploration): you range ahead and behind the group watching for danger, at half speed. At the start of the next encounter, everyone in your party gains a +1 circumstance bonus to Initiative.
• Search (Concentrate, Exploration): you search carefully for hidden doors, concealed hazards and the like. You can usually guess the best places to check and move at half speed; to be thorough and guarantee you've checked everything you must go no faster than 300 feet per minute, or 150 feet per minute to check everything before you walk into it. You can always go slower to be more thorough, and Expeditious Search raises these limits. When you come across a secret door, item or hazard while Searching, the GM makes a free secret Search check for you to see whether you notice it. Places full of objects take much longer to search thoroughly.