TravelTimes/RiverTravel

Rules

Here's the last set of posts. In this post I am dealing with river travel. This is drawn from several river oriented websites, and several rowing websites. For long distance rowing, I used the Atlantic Rowing Challenge as a benchmark. Here are some things to know about rivers and rafting:

1.) River pilots must use their eyes when traversing a river. As a result, without magic they cannot navigate at night. This cuts down on travel distances covered in a day. Lamplight is not bright enough to go down a river and catch sandbars, logs and other navigation hazards. For someone who is crazy enough to try to navigate by the light of an anima banner, increase the Wits+Sail roll by diff 2.

2.) Rivers have speeds. This can either work for you (downstream) or against you (upstream). A rivers velocity is determined by how sharp the downhill angle, the shape of the riverbed and it's consistency. Usually the river is fastest at the headwaters, and when it is at a sharp downward angle. It is slowest on the flatlands, and near where it flows into the sea. Right at it's exit point, the mouth of a river is subject to the tides, to a greater or lesser extent. This will come into the model later.

3.) Rivers flow downhill. This seems intuitive, but can trip some up. Rivers exit into the sea. They do not flow from the sea to elsewhere, without magic. So the Grey River flows from Rathess to Nexus, not the other way around. 3.5) Most rafts and boats are considerably less efficient than a trireme or bireme. This is because they have many less rowers or polers. Also they are not going in a straight (ish) line most of the time.

4.) Poling is much less efficient than rowing. However, it is easier to use than oars / paddles, and can be used in places where the river is too shallow for efficient rowing. Paddles are less efficient than oars.

Here are the rules:

1.) Figure the average Str+Athletics of the rowers. The equation is [ (Str+Ath) / 3 ] +.5 =MPH. This is for oars. For paddles [(Str+Ath) / 3.5] +.25 =MPH. For poling [(Str+Ath) / 4 ] +.15 =MPH. If the ST determines that there aren't enough rowers for this, she can reduce the pool (i.e. if there are only half the right amount of rowers for this barge, she can reduce the rowers pool by up to half).

2.) They can do this pace for 4 hours without chance of fatigue. After that roll Sta + End. each success equals 1 more hour. After that they fatigue as stated in the first post on running speeds.

3.) They can row faster than this, a "racing speed" if you will. This is doubletime for rowers. They can keep it up for about 1/2 hour before needing to roll Sta + End. Each success counts as 20 min more before fatigue sets in.

4.) Due to the weight of water, there is no "tripletime" for rowing.

5.) The ST needs to estimate the velocity of the river. In the flatlands, this will be negligible. For decent Mississippi river speeds, this can be up to 1.3 MPH. For decent Amazon river speeds, this can be about 3-4 MPH. In whitewater, the rapids can reach 10-15 MPH. In a flood, this can be over 15 MPH. This velocity is added to the downstream speed. If you are traveling upstream, subtract half the speed of the river.

6.) The river pilot needs to roll Wits+Sail to navigate the river. The ST needs to assign a difficulty for navigating the river. For regular wide riverbeds, this is standard difficulty. Add 1-3 for navigation hazards. Add 1 for twisty, narrow banks. Add 1-3 for high (over 5 MPH) velocity rivers. If this roll is failed, the raft / boat goes at a reduced speed (I use a 20% penalty per missed success). If botched, it means that the raft hit something. If someone is trying to raft at night without light add +4 diff.

No summary on this one folks, at this time. Maybe later.