TravelTimes/FootTravel
Rules
I am going to start with the walking speed rules:
1.) I am using the official map scale of 1" = 800 miles. As I measured it, the Scavenger Sons seeeeeems to have a 1 1/2" = 800 miles.
2.) My research comes from the historical journeys of Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus. It also comes from Marathons (26.2 miles), Ultrathons (50 mile, 100 mile and 1000 mile) and the Trans-America Foot race (2880 miles from East to West Coast U.S.).
4.) This is not incredibly realistic. According to Marco Polo's travels, his caravan traveled an average of 7.3 miles / day. This makes the optimistic assumption that they did not travel on Sundays. If they didnt, and traveled steady (they didnt) it would have been somewhere around 4.45 miles / day. Obviously, if you want more realism you would need to account for terrain and weather, stride length, etc.
5.) This is set with 2.5 MPH being the average walking speed of the average human being, which is not uncontested. I have seen stat of 2.5 - 3.3 MPH. I'm going with 2.5. It's easy.
6.) The system: get your Stamina + Endurance pool. Divide by 4, and add 2. This is your walking speed. Note that I am using Sta+End throughout, not Dex+Ath, or Dex + anything. Walking and long distance running are slow twitch, endurance based activities. Sprinters are not marathoners. To repeat, the formula is [(Sta+End) / 4] + 2 = walking speed in MPH. This means "Jed", the average peasant (2 Sta, no End) would be [ (2+0) / 4] + 2 = 2.5 MPH. How about that! On the other end, "Burning Soles" your Solar Zenith distance runner (5 Sta, 5 End) would top out at [(5+5) / 4] = 4.5 MPH.
7.) You can walk at your walking speed for 4 hours without fatigue. After 4 hours roll your Sta+End. The success are how many more hours you can walk before starting to accumulate fatigue. If you exceed this amount of time, you accumulate a -1 penalty per hour of movement, until you rest and eat. Example: Jed walks for 4 hours at 2.5 MPH. He has gone 10 miles. However he needs to push on to get to his village, so the ST rolls Sta+End (2 dice) for him. He gets 1 success. So Jed walks on for another hour without fatiguing. Unfortunately his village was 20 miles from his starting point, so he walks for 3 hours after that. By the time he gets to his village, he is suffering from a -3 penalty. He needs to rest and eat before his penalties go away.
8.) You can increase your speed to double. This is called your double time, appropriately. You can run for 1 hour before needing to roll Sta+End. Each success adds 1/2 hour before fatigue sets in, as above. Example: Burning Soles is running from the Wyld Barbarians. His double time is 9 MPH. He runs for an hour, then rolls Sta + End. He gets 6 successes. He can run for another 3 hours before fatigue starts to affect him.
9.) The next step up is triple time. Speed is tripled, obviously. You can triple time it for 30 minutes before the Sta+End roll comes. The successes only add 15 minutes per success. Example: Jed is running from Fair Folk. He is running at 7.5 MPH. He scores 2 success, and manages to run for hour. He is then eaten by a hobgoblin going 10.25 MPH.
10.) After accumulating more penalties than your current wound levels, you start to take bashing damage. Example: Burning Soles is down to 6 wound levels. After running doubletime in the above example, he runs for a total of 12 hours. He is at -8 penalties and takes 2 levels of bashing damage. Your call as to whether or not each -1 subtracts 1/4 MPH.
Summaries
Here are sample walking / Horse riding speeds based on a 6 hour day. If you wish to change things see rules above. These are not perfect, but they work pretty well for those who do not wish to do the math.
OK, for those who want a simple shortcut for how many miles per day for their party:
- Joe Genero, Average Peasant / Merchant / Extra: 13 miles /day
- Militia Soldier: 16 miles /day
- Infantry Soldier: 18 miles /day
- Elite Soldier: 24 miles / day
- Heroic Mortal: 24 miles /day
- Exalted: 28 miles / day
- Guild Caravan: 6 miles / day
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