Around the World in Eighty Days: A Campaign

[jian]

(I did wonder whether to put this under Pathfinder or one of the D&D forums but decided to put it here since the idea is system-agnostic.)

In the D&D style fantasy adventure setting of your choice (I was starting from Avistan/Golarion/Pathfinder but the idea probably works fine for lots of other places, such as Toril or Eberron), a certain eccentric traveller of great personal wealth is offering a king’s ransom to whoever can meet his challenge.

Morrelius Mist is a well-known traveler, explorer, and adventurer who retired a decade ago due to age and injury, famous for his (probably serialised if that’s a thing) death-defying voyages in far-flung lands. And now it’s the turn of the next generation.

One of Mist’s great regrets is that he has never circumnavigated the planet, and he has calculated that it should be possible for an intrepid and fortunate adventurer to do so in 80 days. If anyone can accomplish it, he will pay the first to do so the princely sum of twenty thousand crowns*, enough to set anyone up for life.

*Adjust currency as wished; the 20k number is from the book.

The rules are as follows:

1) No teleporting or dimensional travel. You must physically traverse the world between the way stations (see below).

2) No polymorphing for travel purposes. You can turn into a goose to flee danger but not to cover 1000 miles easily in a day.

3) You may not interfere with any other team taking part in the challenge.

4) You must stop at each of ten way stations along the way (manned by the Pathfinders’ Society or similar) who will stamp and date your pass and magically check you haven’t broken the first three rules.

5) You can travel in as large a group as you wish; to complete the challenge, at least one person who set off from the origin point must attend each way station and arrive back at the origin point within 80 days.

6) You will all set off at the same day and hour from the same city defined as the origin point, and arrive there when you complete your journey.

May the best adventurer win!

What are your thoughts, both D&D specific and more specifically for your preferred setting? Would it be possible? How much cheating, bribery, and other chicanery would you expect (and what are the obvious ways to do it and not get caught, and equally to see it coming and prevent it)?

 

[Celebrim]

I think the rules show why the conceit of the story doesn't work so well in a magical setting, as well as the sheer size of the earth no longer boggles the mind of the average modern person so the original story doesn't work so well for the modern reader.

As an obvious loophole, I could summon an elder air elemental (or insert other magical creature or steed) to carry me within your rules and cover at least 3000 miles per day. Even something like a phantom steed can carry a moderately high-level wizard over 1000 miles per day. Flying carpets and the like can do similar things in even greater comfort. I suspect an optimizer could figure out for any edition what the fastest means of physical travel are. A quick look around suggests the fastest you can manage in recent editions is something like 2500 mph, so an optimized PC completes the route in about a day.

The more serious question perhaps is let's day we aren't doing this in D&D where achieving Justice League levels of power is possible or given. What is the gameplay like? What makes the travel interesting?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I think the rules show why the conceit of the story doesn't work so well in a magical setting, as well as the sheer size of the earth no longer boggles the mind of the average modern person so the original story doesn't work so well for the modern reader.

As an obvious loophole, I could summon an elder air elemental (or insert other magical creature or steed) to carry me within your rules and cover at least 3000 miles per day. Even something like a phantom steed can carry a moderately high-level wizard over 1000 miles per day. Flying carpets and the like can do similar things in even greater comfort. I suspect an optimizer could figure out for any edition what the fastest means of physical travel are. A quick look around suggests the fastest you can manage in recent editions is something like 2500 mph, so an optimized PC completes the route in about a day.

The more serious question perhaps is let's day we aren't doing this in D&D where achieving Justice League levels of power is possible or given. What is the gameplay like? What makes the travel interesting?

I have a couple of questions:

1) How does one achieve 2500mph in D&D or Pathfinder?

2) What level are you imagining this scenario to be designed for?

 

[Celebrim]

I have a couple of questions:

1) How does one achieve 2500mph in D&D or Pathfinder?

The same way a Hulking Hurler is capable of throwing a hapless victim to the moon I'd imagine - by abusing and staking multiplying effects that were published in multiple official sources without editorial oversight because moving fast wasn't considered an abusable effect. Go look around the CharOp boards. In 5e it had something to do with a Tabaxi (the calculated movement rate was like 11000 ft/round). CharOp has never been particular interesting to me as a GM save as a warning what sort of things not to allow in my game, but a lot of players are really into it and there is plenty of advice online.

2) What level are you imagining this scenario to be designed for?

It doesn't really matter what level the scenario is designed for. A "well-known traveler, explorer, and adventurer" offers a "king's ransom" to whomever completes the challenge, and the Pathfinder Society (or equivalent organization) organizes and supports it, so obvious it will not be open merely to the PC's. There is every reason to imagine that this would gather the interest of every aura farming wizard or explorer for a wide radius. Pretending that only a few low level idiots would be interested in the fame and glory is kind of like ignoring just how fast you can cover ground in D&D even without a teleportation spell. If the PC's aren't high enough level to harness the resources necessary to win, then they are observers in the story rather than protagonists. The question is what's the highest level NPCs in the setting that would reasonably be interested in aura farming a contest like this to demonstrate their cleverness or just for the experience.

Think about in the real world how many teams ran the Cannonball Run during the pandemic. They were breaking new records multiple times a week for no prize at all.

 

[jian]

There’s various answers to that. You could rule out summoning as well. It could be that the prize is simply not worthwhile to someone high enough level to do this trivially. Yes, you could cast wish to travel safely around the world in less than eighty days without breaking the rules, but why bother when it’s so trivial for you, for a trivial prize?

(You could simply rule “no magical travel” so you can’t use even a flying carpet and you just have to use whatever is possible within mundane travel methods (though presumably you could use magic to avoid accidents, storms, and loss of supplies), but honestly there’s no way in Hades you could do it in 80 days then.)

I wouldn’t be keen to put level caps on this. It’s probably a suitable adventure for levels 4-9 or thereabouts but it would be a bit hard to enforce that in the setting.

I have no idea how you could reliably achieve 2500mph sustainably in Pathfinder. Phantom Steed (and an elder air elemental IIRC) can only manage about 100ft per round = 11mph, maybe 120 miles a day so it’s very helpful but not deal-breaking. Even if you knew exactly where you were going and weren’t slowed down by random monsters and fights, it would take you about 200 days to circumnavigate the planet that way.