D&D 5E Miles per day on horseback: how many?

[doctorbadwolf]

The Speed / 10 = MPH works well and is fairly realistic guideline assuming good terrain, roads, or paths. That would result in 48 miles per day. Maybe a bit high, but not unreasonable.

That being said, a typical horse walks about 4 miles per hour. But during an 8-hour day of travel, horses can trot (8-12 mph), canter (12-15 mph) and gallop (25-30 mph) even, increasing the effective distance covered. Trots can be maintained for extended periods given breaks for walking, but canters are more limited, and gallops severely so. The equivalent would be a person walking, jogging, running, and sprinting.

You might walk 3 mph, but could jog for 1 minute in 5 and increase your distance from 24 miles a day to 28 miles without extraordinary effort.

In the same light, a horse trotting (8 mph) 15 minutes and walking (4 mph) the other 45 minutes each hour would cover 40 miles in 8 hours. Horses can easily do this given periods of rest every hour or so. If you "push" the trot (12 mph), the total daily distance is 48 miles in 8 hours (as calculated more simply above).

Over good terrain, I would have a party mounted on horseback move at least 40 miles per day, and maybe 50 max. Anything more than that an you are definitely going to strain the animal.

Hope this helps. Cheers.

Also worth noting, it depends on whether the horse is actually bred and trained for long rides.

Also also, humans who have trained themselves for long distance travel can get from A to B faster by using the horse almost entirely for carrying your gear, and jogging/running/walking in cycles beside it. If you can somehow keep your kit light enough to not need a horse, and are trained for it, you can simply get there faster without the horse.

But you can't do that with a heavy pack on your back.

 

[iserith]

I calculate that per the RAW, the miles per day works out this way when you have the horses gallop for one hour:

Fast Pace: 34 miles (30 miles normally)
Normal Pace: 29 miles (24 miles normally)
Slow Pace: 24 miles (18 miles normally)

So maybe round that to 36, 30, and 24 if you're using 6-mile hexes. Relevant rules are on pages 66-67 in the Basic Rules.

If you're designing a non-hex crawl scenario for a mounted party, you might think about making the journey to the adventure location be a set distance and them set up some parameters: Time is of the essence - the later you get there, the higher the stakes (less time to complete the mission successfully, fewer opportunities to rest, reinforcements arrive, etc.). Stick random encounter checks in every few miles, some of which include monsters who will try to surprise the PCs.

This creates a meaningful choice about the pace: Are you going to go faster and risk being surprised on the road, potentially showing up at the adventure location with reduced resources? Are you going to play it safe, go slow to avoid encounters and conserve resources, but show up later, thus raising the difficulty in the adventure location? Do you go at a more reasonable pace, but forced march, risking exhaustion for traveling over the allotted 8 hours, failure in which means some of the PCs have disadvantage on ability checks until the next long rest?

 

[Terry Herc]

Just curious: did you choose this pace because you think it is realistic or for some other reason?

It is a little faster than a realistic pace, but I consider it to be a "heroic" pace when walking.

Isrerith's measurements for the hex crawls (36, 30, 24) measures close to how I treat wilderness exploration, usually the characters are mounted. If they want to push on past a fast pace or reduce time resting for meals, then they or their mounts begin to suffer levels of exhaustion.

Combined with a hex map, it works for the players. The rules are clearly defined and it allows them to explore many hexes in a day so it doesn't feel like a grind, and they can populate the map quickly.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I ignore the rules on this one and go old school. If your movement is 60', your hourly and daily movement are also twice the movement of creatures with a 30' movement. Sure, maybe it's not realistic, but I like mounts to be an asset rather than a liability. Even so my players have yet to show actual interest in using them.

 

[iserith]

I ignore the rules on this one and go old school. If your movement is 60', your hourly and daily movement are also twice the movement of creatures with a 30' movement. Sure, maybe it's not realistic, but I like mounts to be an asset rather than a liability. Even so my players have yet to show actual interest in using them.

Are they ever in a hurry or have a lot of stuff to carry?

 

[Leatherhead]

I love it when my players chose to get horses for mounts. They are so easy to startle, kill and otherwise cause the characters troubles!

"Yes, you failed your animal handling and your dexterity check and the horse was startled by the wild boar and threw you off. Yes, it did run off will all your treasure in it's saddle bags. After you get up off the ground, do you want to fight the boar or chase after your gold?"

This is why I prefer mules.

 

[LordEntrails]

This is why I prefer mules.

"Make a handle animal check."
"Ok, why" (Rolls die)
"Sorry, you failed. Yeah, the mule has stopped moving and you can't get it to move. You are not sure why, other than it appears to be stubborn about something."
3 hours later... "Yea, it's still standing there."
"Ok, I unload all my loot from the back of the mule and start to carry it myself, I'll leave the stubborn mule behind."
"It takes about 30 minutes to get all your gear re-arranged, and you go ahead and walk away leaving the mule behind. You notice the mule following about 10 feet behind you, it seems to be smiling."

 

[Iry]

I love it when my players chose to get horses for mounts. They are so easy to startle, kill and otherwise cause the characters troubles!

"Yes, you failed your animal handling and your dexterity check and the horse was startled by the wild boar and threw you off. Yes, it did run off will all your treasure in it's saddle bags. After you get up off the ground, do you want to fight the boar or chase after your gold?"

Across more than a hundred tables, I have seen very low horse usage precisely because DM's dick with them.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Across more than a hundred tables, I have seen very low horse usage precisely because DM's dick with them.

My table, the horse would just get killed by the players, or the players would just tell the DM to stop trolling them with their mounts and play the game.

But, I assume other tables like that sort of thing, so for them it is playing the game. DnD is cool like that.

 

[LordEntrails]

Just to clarify, I don't recommend (or do myself) for DMs to ALWAYS mess with horse (or mules). I do recommend that DMs be aware of some of the ways in which they can use mounts (or hirelings/retainers/etc) to spice up of boring parts of the story or even add interesting parts to the plot.

It's just another tool for the DM. As with any tool, it should be used for fun, however the table defines that.