5.5e / 2024 · 5e / 2014 · Pathfinder 1E · D&D 3.5e
Wilderness & Environmental Hazards
Use this hub to run travel, exposure, difficult terrain and natural hazards outside settlements. The world and hazard are shared; the numbers are not. Use only the rules for the campaign’s edition.
Rules: choose the edition tab below, then use the hazard, climate and terrain directories that follow.
Explore: Games Master Resources · Geography · Player Resources
5.5e / 2024 Wilderness Rules
Use the 2024 travel, exploration, Exhaustion, environmental and ability-check rules. The GM determines when terrain, weather, visibility, pace, navigation or lack of food and water creates a check, saving throw, movement cost or level of Exhaustion.
- Use the current 2024 Exhaustion rules rather than importing the 2014 six-level exhaustion table.
- Use Survival, Perception, Nature or another appropriate proficiency only when the character’s approach makes it relevant.
- Apply difficult terrain, visibility and movement rules from the 2024 rules when the environment creates them.
5e / 2014 Wilderness Rules
Use the 2014 travel pace, navigation, foraging, weather, food and water, visibility and exhaustion rules. The 2014 Exhaustion condition has its own six-level progression and must not be mixed with the 2024 version.
- Wisdom (Survival) commonly handles navigation, tracking and foraging when a check is required.
- Constitution saving throws often resolve extreme heat, cold and forced exertion.
- Difficult terrain and travel pace affect movement according to the 2014 exploration rules.
Pathfinder 1E Wilderness Rules
Use Pathfinder 1E Survival checks, environmental DCs, movement by terrain, weather, exposure, starvation, thirst and hazard rules. Armour, encumbrance, altitude, temperature and terrain can all change movement or checks.
- Survival covers navigation, tracking and subsistence tasks when the rules call for a check.
- Environmental hazards often call for Fortitude saves, damage or nonlethal damage under their specific rules.
- Use Pathfinder 1E terrain and hazard values rather than importing D&D 3.5e values automatically.
D&D 3.5e Wilderness Rules
Use the 3.5e Survival skill, overland movement, terrain, weather, exposure, starvation, thirst and environmental hazard rules. Movement rates, DCs and damage come from 3.5e rather than Pathfinder 1E.
- Survival handles navigation, tracking and living off the land where the 3.5e rules call for it.
- Fortitude saves commonly govern exposure and endurance hazards.
- Keep 3.5e terrain and movement values separate from later editions.
Environmental Hazards
Choose the hazard below, then use the mechanics for the campaign’s edition. Older child pages are being retained as topic destinations while their edition-specific rules are standardised.
Climate
Climate describes the broad conditions a region usually experiences; weather is what is happening now. Terrain, altitude and season can make two places in the same climate behave very differently at the table.
Terrain
- Aquatic Terrain
- Bog, Marsh & Swamp Terrain
- Desert Terrain
- Forest Terrain
- Hill Terrain
- Mountain Terrain
- Plains Terrain
Outer Space Terrain has been removed from this wilderness directory because it is not terrestrial wilderness navigation; it belongs with science-fiction or planar environment material rather than this hub.
Running Wilderness Travel
- Choose the route and intended pace.
- Establish the terrain, climate, season and current weather.
- Identify only the hazards that can materially change the journey.
- Use the campaign edition’s navigation, movement, exhaustion and exposure rules.
- Give failure a consequence: delay, lost supplies, injury, discovery, separation or a changed route.
Rules Source and Scope
This hub organises wilderness play for the four rules editions supported across the site: 5.5e / 2024, 5e / 2014, Pathfinder 1E and D&D 3.5e. Each edition remains mechanically independent.