D&D General Travel In Medieval Europe

[pemerton]

a healthy adult can comfortable walk between 4 and 5 miles per hour without significant fatigue, and a couple mph more if they don’t mind being well worn by days end.

As others have posted, 8 kph (5 mph) is a fair clip - for most people it would be jogging rather than walking. 11 kph (7 mph) is getting closer to a run. Keeping up a walking pace of 5 kph (3 mph) seems more realistic.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

So Waukeen or Fharlanghan have the resources to maintain a road several thousand miles long? Through some of the most heavily monster infested lands in Forgotten Realms? Never minding that that's just ONE road and only goes up the Coast. I mean Neverwinter to Athkathla is about 1500 miles. And one church maintains that road?

Again I ask where is the textual support for “monster infested”? It seems to me most inhabitants of Faerun don’t encounter monsters often at all.

 

[Tonguez]

So Waukeen or Fharlanghan have the resources to maintain a road several thousand miles long? Through some of the most heavily monster infested lands in Forgotten Realms? Never minding that that's just ONE road and only goes up the Coast. I mean Neverwinter to Athkathla is about 1500 miles. And one church maintains that road?

The temples of Waukeen double as money lending and changing houses and her clerics can literally call golden coins out of the sky - so yes Waukeen has the resources

 

[Oofta]

Again I ask where is the textual support for “monster infested”? It seems to me most inhabitants of Faerun don’t encounter monsters often at all.

But ... but ... there's lots of monsters in the MM! Adventurers are fighting monsters all the time, the fact that they are summoned because of an unexpected and rare incursion of monsters doesn't factor in to anything.

I'm not saying FR makes total sense, a lot of detail and explanation about things that aren't relevant to modules is left out. Experts were not consulted in the overall design. It's a game world. On the other hand it's also not monster world. Just because a specific road that passes through is well guarded just means that somehow people are paid to protect that particular section of road. Someone probably collects a toll or taxes to guard the road during the day and provide safe havens at night. Just because it hasn't been explained doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Having a protected safe road that passes through a dangerous region could actually be a fun hook for some adventures. What happens when a carriage carrying someone/something important from one safe zone to the next breaks down could be an interesting quest. Was the carriage sabotaged? Did someone leak an itinerary, pay off guards who were supposed to be patrolling or is it an inside job? Lot's of possibilities.

 

[Bedrockgames]

But ... but ... there's lots of monsters in the MM! Adventurers are fighting monsters all the time, the fact that they are summoned because of an unexpected and rare incursion of monsters doesn't factor in to anything.

I'm not saying FR makes total sense, a lot of detail and explanation about things that aren't relevant to modules is left out. Experts were not consulted in the overall design. It's a game world. On the other hand it's also not monster world. Just because a specific road that passes through is well guarded just means that somehow people are paid to protect that particular section of road. Someone probably collects a toll or taxes to guard the road during the day and provide safe havens at night. Just because it hasn't been explained doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Having a protected safe road that passes through a dangerous region could actually be a fun hook for some adventures. What happens when a carriage carrying someone/something important from one safe zone to the next breaks down could be an interesting quest. Was the carriage sabotaged? Did someone leak an itinerary, pay off guards who were supposed to be patrolling or is it an inside job? Lot's of possibilities.

I think the question here is: is what the player characters experience in a setting, what regular people in the same places would experience? I think in some worlds, encounter tables and setting are designed so anyone walking from point A to point B meets those monsters on that table. But I think for most settings it is more "because the player characters are the stars of the adventure".

 

[Oofta]

I think the question here is: is what the player characters experience in a setting, what regular people in the same places would experience? I think in some worlds, encounter tables and setting are designed so anyone walking from point A to point B meets those monsters on that table. But I think for most settings it is more "because the player characters are the stars of the adventure".

Don't get me wrong some games, especially video games, overemphasize the dangers to an extreme. There are several D&D based video games I've played over the years where there's a dangerous monsters every square mile because of the constraints of game world map size.

As far as random encounter tables, I've never used them except occasionally as inspiration before a game. They tend to give a skewed view of how dangerous are is because they aren't granular enough. Going through a settled area should be far safer than wilderness. A lot of that is in the hands of he DM, many of whom are not overly concerned about verisimilitude.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Unfortunately, for those of us without 7 League Boots (which is probably pretty much everyone in the world apart from you) normal walking pace is about 3mph (or 5km per hour). If you're travelling from one village to the next, that's the maximum speed you should allow for.

(There's a point where it costs less energy to start running than to keep walking - that's about 4mph, or 6.5km per hour. Next time you're on a treadmill, walk for an hour on that speed setting. Then do an hour at 5mph. Then imagine spending a day walking at that pace.)

3 to 4 mph depends mostly on height/length of stride. I’m just shy of 6ft and I have walked 4mph for around an hour on a treadmill many times. That’s how I came back from the edge of the worst obesity I’ve ever experienced. Well, that and the standing bike, which I’m not sure the speed of because I just put it on the “variable terrain” setting and then watched some DC CW show episode. Either way, I did the walking hour at least once a week for several months. I also walked my dog at around 3.5mph average (the dog gets distracted) regularly for the first year and half we had him, because we are in a small apartment and he had too much energy to not do so.

Perhaps our definitions of “comfortably” are different. For me, it just means it isn’t painful and doesn’t leave me wrecked after an hour or so. If I can do it for even half a workday, or 4ish hours, without significant pain (sometimes just being conscious hurts) or being too depleted to do it again after a short break, then it’s comfortable.

Others seem to use the term to mean “without any particular extra effort”. In which case, sure, 3mph, give or take a bit for length of stride and general energy and fitness.

If I’m pushing myself, I could do 5mph without pain for quite a while, as long as I had food and water before, and snacks during, when I was younger. If “comfortably” and “pushing yourself” are incompatible by your definition, then feel free to translate that accordingly I guess, I’m not going to try to get you to change your definition of a word.

I used to often walked 6-7 miles to hang out with my friends when I was younger, since I didn’t get a car until 25. It would take about 2 hours sometimes 2 1/2, which includes time spent waiting for lights, slowing down bc I got a phone call, etc. My average speed was around 4mph, in decent weather, but that’s average, meaning I walked faster than that for a good chunk of the time.

The key point is you aren’t walking the average speed the whole time. You’re walking slower at times and faster at other times.

I definitely know people who can walk faster than I can, though most of them wear out faster as well.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

As others have posted, 8 kph (5 mph) is a fair clip - for most people it would be jogging rather than walking. 11 kph (7 mph) is getting closer to a run. Keeping up a walking pace of 5 kph (3 mph) seems more realistic.

I literally adjusted my estimate days ago.

 

[Faolyn]

So Waukeen or Fharlanghan have the resources to maintain a road several thousand miles long? Through some of the most heavily monster infested lands in Forgotten Realms? Never minding that that's just ONE road and only goes up the Coast. I mean Neverwinter to Athkathla is about 1500 miles. And one church maintains that road?

Waukeen's church is very rich. Yes, they have the resources. She's a very active god of trade (both legal and illicit) and a god of using wealth to improve civilization. Take a look at real-world religions that engage in charitable acts. Now imagine such a religion with a hyperfocus on trade, has access to magic, and centers on a god who is known to manifest at board meetings (no, seriously; that's in her bio).

Fharlanghn's is literally the god of roads. His clerics do nothing but travel. He has a fanatical sect of worshipers call The Guardians of the Road, and even his less-fanatical clergy are charged with helping to build roads and bridges (and sturdy shoes, a detail I find adorable).

Are the roads in their settings 100% free from danger? No. Are they a lot safer than the surrounding world? Yes, yes they are.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So Waukeen or Fharlanghan have the resources to maintain a road several thousand miles long? Through some of the most heavily monster infested lands in Forgotten Realms? Never minding that that's just ONE road and only goes up the Coast. I mean Neverwinter to Athkathla is about 1500 miles. And one church maintains that road?

I mean, one church, merchant guilds, and the city state governments those roads lead to and from, sure.

And very few parts of the realms are so "monster infested" that villages are unable to survive in those regions, so it clearly isn't as dangerous as you're making out.