mayapuppies Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 Hello all, I have a group of adventurers traveling across lightly forested rolling hills and they are following a trail of about a dozen horsemen. The PC's are on foot and it is lightly raining. About how fast would you think they could travel while trying to keep on the tracks? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gojira Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed How encumbered are they? Do the PC's have pack animals? What kind of road are they on (paved, dirt/mud)? There's two numbers here. First is short term. If the PCs push themselves and go all night and all day, how long can they keep up like that? Second is long term. What's a sustainable pace for foot travel in that terrain, until you run out of food? Answers to both questions depend on road type and encumbrance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayapuppies Posted September 1, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed Lightly encumbered, no animals, no roads. Just looking for a generalized number for a speed that would be slow enough to keep track of the tracks and still move forward. I'm trying to see how much distance they would cover on average during a typical, non-pushing, day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawnmower Boy Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed 22.35 miles! ... There's a thread on the forum that discusses the possibilities at length, but if you want to avoid length, I would say 2.5 for 12 hours a day is a comfortable pace. Nothing in the environmental factors as given suggests deviating from that, the main issue being whether the road surface is seriously muddy and creeks swollen. If they want to go faster, and being PCs they probably will, anything up to 5 mph is arguable without invoking semi-superhuman powers. My personal view is that the high-speed tracking stunt seen in The Two Towers isn't entirely fantasy, although it is probably the epic extension of what is actually possible. If they seriously want to make marathoner speeds (approaching 10mph!), it would be appropriate to make them pay ponts for it, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordGhee Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed Good answer Lawnmower Boy, But it is lightly raining, If you had said sprinkles where it gets drops then stops this generaly would not effect the track. A light rain after a couple hours and you will have mud. cobble stone type roads will be very slick. in the wild, a group of horse men would chew up the ground and you would track fairly easily but the mud would interfere with travel. The general rule in History is that a man on a horse travel twice as fast on the first day, 50% more the secound and the same on the third unless you have forage and mount exchanges. If a horse is moving it is not eating and grazing takes time. Indians talk of 3 to 5 days to run down a wild horse. One of man advanatages is he can eat on the move better than most animals. One question is how long is the day, during summer in Europe the day can start at 4 am and end at 10 pm (pre dawn light to dark). start up at pre dawn and you got 19 hrs to drop at side of road. the party can make 40 to 50 miles with a little push. So do the horsemen know they are being pursude. if not the slick ground will mean they must go slower in order to protect their horse (laden horse falls much worse than man with break fall) a dirt road is worse case for players untill the top layer turns to mud speed would not need to be decreased, fields, heather ect get slick quick but do not get muddy as fast. If the party marches hard 5 mph pace rest for every 2 or 3 hours they can make in a long day what the horsemen would at a normal pace and normal day. the horsemen ride for 5 -6 hours make 5 mph push a little the first hour to 8 mph so they make 30 to 35 miles and then camp to alow the horse to graze and divided up the spoils. If they go they full summer day they make 80 miles but in a gruop at leat one horse will lame up and that is why remounts are important. so after a 12 hour chase the partiy is at 35 miles (with a cuople of hours pushing, pursuit was the word) and the horses at 50milles. If the horse men feel safe they make a fire and the pary has a good chance of spotting it ). then a night marche of 1.25mph in the dark (a night every thing is twice as hard ) and a dawn attk on the horsemen. just some thoughts Lord Ghee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beast Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed the range traveled in a day is the same for men and horses horses need to be rested or they will die do the horsemen know they are being followed? the PC's on foot can push themselves to over take the horseman for about 3 days but they may be very tired when they do Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajackson Posted September 1, 2009 Report Share Posted September 1, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed About how fast would you think they could travel while trying to keep on the tracks? Not that fast, but the pursued won't be going that fast either, and tracking should have negligible effect on movement speed, a dozen horses in wet weather is going to leave rather visible tracks. This is somewhat dependent on terrain -- depending on just what you mean by rolling hills and lightly forested, humans may be faster than horses over a very short time frame, or might be at a disadvantage over a rather short time scale. Also, if the PCs are in exceptional physical condition (common for PCs) and the horses are not, they'll catch up faster than historical trends would imply. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gojira Posted September 2, 2009 Report Share Posted September 2, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed Lightly encumbered = no food. That's my first take. PCs have a day or so before they're going to be forced to forage or head for town. You need about 4 lb of regular food per day. If the food is special travel rations, then figure 3 lbs per day. Normally, without space-age technology you can't carry more than your own kit (tent, blankets, etc.) and about 7 days of food. That's about 80 lb gear, the most a normal man can carry for extended periods. Lightly wooded -- no reduction in speed for men or animals on foot. Rolling Hills -- reduce both men and horses by half. So roughly horses and men are the same speed, but horses can sprint faster than people so they can have a head start. After that, I think the mounted troops could just dismount and walk their mounts. I like the number 30 to 35 miles for one day if pushing the horses. The horses MUST be rested after such a push, but like I say I think the horsemen could dismount and walk their mounts, staying ahead of the PCs on foot. Otherwise, I'd use 6 miles per 4 hour period for men and horses for an extended march. That's about 1.6 miles per hour. I don't know how long an individual could double-time it before having to rest for long periods, or how long one could go with food while doing so. It's raining-- are there creeks and streams that players and horsemen will be crossing? Normally there are and one just refills water containers from them. If there's none, water's going to be a big problem really quickly. Summary-- I think if the horsemen know they are being pursued, and they're smart and don't run into any bad luck like loosing several horses right away, the horsemen will make several miles more than the PCs on the first day and then stay ahead of the PCs for the remainder of the chase. The horsemen should be at least one day ahead of the PCs, if not two. Food will be a big problem in a hurry. Otherwise, the PCs could catch the horsemen after a forced march of about 12 hours or so, when the horsemen camp. BTW, travel numbers from Twilight 2000. HERO System needs some definite, real world travel numbers like those! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayapuppies Posted September 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 2, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed Horsemen rode out at a fast pace the day before, sunny day, no rain. Positive they weren't being followed. Trackers started the next day, on foot. Rain started just before dawn, trackers left just after dawn. Rain ended about 11am, total rain fall about 1/2 inch. Terrain is grassy plains/rolling hills with copses of light forest here and there, easily avoided by the horsemen. Trackers are following casually with no urgency at all, wary of ambush. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawnmower Boy Posted September 2, 2009 Report Share Posted September 2, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed This thing about mounted people and people on foot moving at the same rate is a myth. Otherwise, we wouldn't have invented horses in the first place. Back in the old days of frontier rieving, this was a scenario that played itself out many, many times. You don't get your sheep back without your own horses. The pursuers are not going to overtake without pushing themselves. They probably won't even be able to shadow the horsed party for very long. LordGhee's suggestion of a night march is the most practical possibility. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayapuppies Posted September 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 2, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed Thanks everyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordGhee Posted September 3, 2009 Report Share Posted September 3, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed where they caugth. The players blew it with no urgency, every pursuit is time depended, you do not want the mogols to get back to the hord the ocrs to get to thier caves, the Indians to thier tribe and most of all. You do not want the find the trails has been croseed by that #@$% herd of buffalo which distroyed the tracks for miles. I am not bitter. Lord Ghee we will get those Indians yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayapuppies Posted September 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed They're still hunting. It's for a HeroCentral game so this will take a bit longer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savinien Posted September 3, 2009 Report Share Posted September 3, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed They will find them. One of the players is extremely tenacious, and the PC possibly moreso. (and cute!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayapuppies Posted September 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed Those dudes are so gone. Ain't no way any of you are finding them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajackson Posted September 3, 2009 Report Share Posted September 3, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed Those dudes are so gone. Ain't no way any of you are finding them. Depends somewhat on where they went -- there's no guarantee their final destination is all that far away, and it's not hard to catch up to a campsite. Also depends on what the ground was like before the rain. If the ground was dry before the rain, the rain probably annihilated the tracks and traveling speed is a nonissue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayapuppies Posted September 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 4, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed Ah, but which way did they go? The tracks are now scattered in multiple directions. Mud made the direction easy to determine but no details. heh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DusterBoy Posted September 9, 2009 Report Share Posted September 9, 2009 Re: About Traveling Speed The trackers' will to win is absolute. Therefore, they cannot fail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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