16 replies to this topic

[Tempest]

Question for more experienced FR folks: assuming not too many delays, how long would a trip from, say, the middle of the Dalelands to the western coast of Faerun take?

[Rhaella]

Depends on how exactly you're travelling. 24 miles a day seems to be standard unless you've got a warhorse speeding things up or something like a donkey or a caravan to slow things down. Ashabenford to Baldur's Gate looks like it might be roughly approaching 800 miles... so maybe about a month?

Edited by Rhaella, 11 October 2012 - 10:29 AM.

[Dakk]

Also take a look at:
Travel Times Calculator
and
Forgotten Realms Travel Times Calculator (interactive)

[Tempest]

A month or so it is. Thank you.

[Jarno Mikkola]

... unless you've got a warhorse speeding things up

Travel Times Calculator

If I were you, I would check on what's on the horses grub... cause a house is actually a sprinter, not a long distance runner...

[Rhaella]

Heh. I'm not sure exactly how they're timing the horses. It seems that they're expecting a human to be able to walk 3 miles an hour, 8 hours a day... so maybe a light warhorse alternating sprinting and ambling about can effectively double that? Or maybe you're trading horses every 5 miles or something. So many variables, even without the possibility of teleportation!

Edited by Rhaella, 11 October 2012 - 12:21 PM.

[Tempest]

Fortunately, I don't think that will be an issue in this case. I don't think the party will have horses, at least not at the start. Might be able to buy some if they head over to Ashabenford first, or stop at Arabel along the way, or Tilverton if I decide that it hasn't been destroyed yet.

[Sam.]

My normal hiking pace is a 20-minute mile (~3 miles per hour). I'm good at that pace for approximately 15-18 miles. I have been on a 24 mile hike (all at once) before. Those last 4 miles really hurt lol. I was 12 years old at the time, so 3 mph isn't that unreasonable. I don't exactly envy a tin-can paladin having to do that in full plate mail plus 200 pounds of other gear though...

And if that wasn't enough of a troll already, when I first saw the topic, I read it as "time travel" not "travel time." My first thought was WOW, time travel in Forgotten Realms!? My second thought was, "oh yeah... 'CHARNAME has died... Loading game...'

[Kaeloree]

I hope I'm not the only one who read "Time travel in the Realms" and got excited. Ah well.

[TDouglas]

You're not ... I've been wondering about how to figure that out as well (and for some time) Special thanks to Dakk (I keep forgetting CandleKeep.Com even exists ).

[Eric P.]

As an example of travel times, I once ran a PnP game in which a party traveled from Shadowdale to Tilverton. I don't recall how far that is in miles, but I believe the party traveled at an average pace of eighteen miles per day.

Edited by Eric P., 21 November 2012 - 08:07 AM.

[Eric P.]

Travel overland by foot or by horse is roughly the same, as you must account for resting/watering horses, camping out, etc.

[Dakk]

Travel overland by foot or by horse is roughly the same, as you must account for resting/watering horses, camping out, etc.

That can't possibly be true?

EDIT: I venture travelling by horseback would generally be faster (how much will vary), but the speed advantage of travelling on horseback will be compounded as you add on any sort of baggage.

Edited by Dakk, 21 November 2012 - 06:22 PM.

[Jarno Mikkola]

EDIT: I venture travelling by horseback would generally be faster (how much will vary), but the speed advantage of travelling on horseback will be compounded as you add on any sort of baggage.

But consider that you can actually travel without any gear... or you put everything in a sack that weights nothing and that has an infinite space. And as said, the house is a sprinter, not a long distance runner... there's been a 22 mile race between humans and horse riders, and the humans have been able to win.

[Dakk]

You're not the first one to bring that "race" up. But - apart from the fact that riders start at least 15 minutes behind the runners - a two hour something race does not travel make. It doesn't say anything at all actually about the cross country speed of man vs horse when we're discussing travel times of days or weeks, IMHO.

[Jarno Mikkola]

You're not the first one to bring that "race" up.

Well, I am, look up at the thread ... what comes to the G3 thread, I brought it up there too...

But the point is, horses are not actually made to be long distance runners, unlike you would think. The advantage of the horse is that it can carry a lot of stuff ... or if you have a whole fleet of "war horses", you can arrange them for cross country message bringing, or normally an Inn keeper would be happy to abide the kings messenger with a horse trade for a good cost ... but that is not adventuring.

[Eric P.]

Travel overland by foot or by horse is roughly the same, as you must account for resting/watering horses, camping out, etc.

That can't possibly be true?

EDIT: I venture travelling by horseback would generally be faster (how much will vary), but the speed advantage of travelling on horseback will be compounded as you add on any sort of baggage.

That's what the FR box set information said. I don't recall if that's terrain-specific, or if it's an overall average. I'll see if the 3rd edition FRCS or DMG have anything to say about it.