Overland movement rules.. Wacky?

[Tetsuyama]

So, a few of us were sitting around the campfire/water cooler and discussing how odd the overland movement rules are. I wasn't able to find a thread on this, so here's a new thread.

Let's take an extreme example:

A party has, at the high-end of their movement scale, an unarmored Blade Dancer/Psychic Warrior with the Dash and Speed of Thought feats wearing Boots of Striding and Springing, for a total base movement of 150'/round (not as high as it could go, but it makes the example easy).

At the low end of the movement scale, a dwarven cleric wearing full plate, for a total base movement of 15'/round.

These translate to overland movements of 120 miles/day and 12 miles/day respectively (PHB, p. 143). Convenient numbers, eh?

If the party moves at the rate of the slowest character, 12 miles/day, the Blade Dancer has moved exactly 1/10th of her personal movement for 8 hours. But according to the rules, if she has to walk for a 9th hour so the party can make the next outpost, she must make a CON save, just like the cleric -- to walk a mile and a half. (For the record, the Blade Dancer above can *walk* a mile in 3:31.2)

This seems a bit whacked to me. Does anyone know of some more reasonable rules somewhere, or would someone perhaps care to suggest some good house rules for this?

Tetsuyama

 

[melkoriii]

I would sugest giving the Boots of Sprinting and Striding to the Dwarf.

Seariously That dose sound stupid.

I look at it like this.

Blade Dancer/Psychic Warrior and Dash and Speed of thouhgt are not core rules.

The over land fatege rules were made before the ones above.

Now that does not stop you from useing a Monk but they dont get that high of speed IIRC.

In our game we only use the over land rules if the character is moving at 100% there speed or more (fast pace/running)

twice the time if moving 50% or less speed.

 

[Crothian]

It's not so much about speed, it's about walking for 8 hours straight. Not an easy thing to do I imagine.

 

[SableWyvern]

I think that your Blade Dancer would find that walking at the requisite snails pace for eight hours would cause a great deal of mental and not inconsiderable physical exhaustion.

Standing still for that period of time would be hard. Consciously forcing oneself to move so incredibly slowly would be even more difficult. Plus, the character would probably be travelling two or even three times as far as the rest of the party over the time period:

"Hey Speedy! Hold up," come the faint voices.

Oh damn, thinks the bladesinger for the hundredth time, turning to see the party 200 yards behind and walking back to rejoin them.

Of course, I'm probably over-rationalising the rules, but I think there's some merit to what I've said.

 

[Tetsuyama]

True, walking (probably hiking, really) for 8 hours would be pretty tough on you. I would guess the schedule for most adventurers when walking overland looks something like this:

Over 24 hours:
8 hours sleep
2 hours breakfast, break camp

alternate 2 hours walking with 1 hour rest for 12 hours (making 8 hours of walking, 4 hours of rest)

2 hours making camp and dinner (actually three, since the last hour of rest above runs right into the 2 hours here).


Blade Dancer ridiculousness aside, let's look at some first level characters from the PHB/SRD. We can take the human rogue in leather armor, with a base move of 30' against the dwarven cleric in scale at 15'. At the 8th hour, the dwarf is exhausted from stumping along all day in medium armor (as compared with Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli in particular, not the stuff of which ballads are composed). The rogue has moved all day in light armor at half speed, but they make the same CON check for the 9th hour of travel, which the dwarven cleric, if your clerics are anything like our clerics, is *more* likely to make on average. Can the rogue possibly be as tired as the dwarf (barring a weird distribution of carried items in the party)?

The rogue may not be happy to have to walk that 9th (and maybe 10th) hour, but it seems like the dwarf should be *way* less happy. But given the distribution of stats in our games, it seems like the cleric would have at least 2, maybe 4 more points in CON than the rogue, which translates to the cleric being able to walk the extra hour almost every time, while the rogue gets carries a bit over half the time.

Seems like armor check penalty and/or encumbrance should be involved, and possibly % of base speed moved? Maybe a Fort save instead of CON, since a seasoned fighter seems more likely to make it through a forced march than a newbie. I think a formula (or circumstance bonus table) is emerging, but I don't have it quite yet... Thoughts?

 

[SableWyvern]

Personally, I don't think its worth the effort. I do feel that forcing yourself to walk slowly is physically and mentally taxing - for the simple reason that you are forced to upset your bodies natural rhythm. OTOH, perhaps you would get used to it.

IMO, the best solution would be to just make an arbitrary decision based upon the circumstances - eg, give the rogue a +2 bonus to Con check, or disregard it altogether. Force a Con check when you think it's reasonable.

In actuality, I don't concern myself with an hour here or there unless the party's speed is of great importance to the story's progression.

Hope someone out there can be more useful than me.

 

[Gromm]

Personally, I don't think its worth the effort. I do feel that forcing yourself to walk slowly is physically and mentally taxing - for the simple reason that you are forced to upset your bodies natural rhythm. OTOH, perhaps you would get used to it.

I agree. Try to walk really slow for a day and see how exhausting it gets. You're throwing off your stride which makes movement uncomfortable over long periods.
And like someone else said, try standing for 8 hours. Walking or standing the result is basically the same, you're tired. Now if the really fast guy was to say move waaaaaay up ahead and take a rest until the party caught up, then sure he might be able to go longer, because hes resting half the time.
So if the party doesn't wait for the dwarf then they can go alot longer without having to make a roll.
Unfortunately (for one of the groups) they are also several miles apart when the DM throws an encounter thier way.

Moral of the story? Get your dwarves, halflings, and gnomes something to ride or some boots of striding and springing so you don't have to trudge along at a snails pace every day.

 

[LostSoul]

Maybe the fast guy can walk at a normal speed if he chooses.