Travel Times & Distances

[Christopher R Taylor]

See, that's something I think needs to be considered.  Even in The fellowship of the Rings, they sent away the ponies.  At the same time, there should be something other than "they get eaten" going on, too.  What if someone stole them?  Or they ran off and joined a herd of horses?  Or a strange creature is tending them and needs to be convinced to let them go?  Or they're just sitting out there waiting and the bones of various predators are lying strewn all around... what happened??

I created a spell for the Fantasy Codex that summons a stable for the horses to stay in

[bigdamnhero]

That 25 lb of beer gut may or may not mean anything. The skinny guy may or may not be in shape. The strong guy may not have great endurance.

Sure, Which is why I said assuming the same overall fitness level.

 

I don't like tying overland movement rates to characteristics, because people (and animals) are variable but movement tends to average out over time. Instead I prefer a simple rule of thumb that applies equally to everybody, and then I can adjust that a bit for situation or individual.

But if you don't tie it to Characteristics in some way, then how do you account for variability between individuals? I have no problem with assuming base movement rates, which is in fact the approach most RPGs seem to take including FH6. But you still need some way to adjust for individual capability so Studly The Ranger can go further/faster than Portly the Innkeeper. Whether you model that as a rate based on Characteristics, or as a base rate modified by Characteristics is largely tomayto-tomahto. The more relevant question to me is which Characteristic(s)? The more I think about it, the more I think it's a mix, maybe something like:

 

CON sets the upper range for how fast/how far you can go.

END & REC controls how tired you are at the end of the day and how quickly you bounce back based on LTE

STR means heavy loads don't slow you down as much

 

??

 

Leisure Backpacking I'd put at about 2mph, with a pack around 30lb (20kg), what we call a "trudge."

2mph is definitely leisurely, especially for a pre-industrial society where people are used to walking a lot more and are using it as a means of getting somewhere rather than as recreation. (Nothing against backpacking as recreation, mind you!) In my experience backpacking and in the Army, for people with even modest experience an average of 3mph with a 50 lb pack is pretty easy to sustain for people in decent shape. But you gotta figure even in fantasy worlds there are people who don't do much walking, so for them 2 mph is probably about right.

 

My research suggests that horses can manage about 6 hours a day, right in like with FH6. They move faster than men, but can't keep it up as long, so the overall distance is about the same.

I've seen similar stuff. The problem is that interpreting that too literally means there is absolutely no advantage (in game terms) to riding 25 miles over walking 25 miles. And yet historically, people who had a choice tended to prefer the latter by a wide margin. Maybe the difference is only in terms of how much gear you can carry, maybe it's only in how much LTE you've burned at the end of the day - but there needs to be some advantage or we would never have bothered to breed riding horses.

 

Dude #1 has 20 STR and 20 CON.  Dude #1 is large, muscular, and doesn't carry a lot of excess weight. But he does carry a lot of muscle.  He weighs 240 lbs.

Dude #2 has 10 STR and 20 CON.  Dude #2 is not unusually large, but he is muscular and doesn[t carry a lot of excess weight  He weighs 180 lbs

Dude #3 has 10 STR and 8 CON.  Dude #3 is not in good shape. He is your basic flabby normal..  He weighs 180 lbs.

 

Yes, 1 & 2 will march 3 into the ground, but I don't really see how 1 will out march 2, since any gain he got from extra muscle is offset by having to carry all that extra muscle around.  YET in regular 5th ED (if nobody buys up their REC separately) he will have 8 REC compared to 6 REC for #2.

Dude #1's advantage is that a 60 lb pack is only 1/4 of his weight, as opposed to 1/3 of Dude #2's. That's not an insurmountable advantage, but speaking as someone who was much closer to Due 2 back in the day, it does make a difference. Whether that's an advantage of STR per se or of Size per se is an interesting question; but given that Hero has a stat for the former and not for the latter, it probably makes more sense to use STR.

 

I created a spell for the Fantasy Codex that summons a stable for the horses to stay in

Yeah, it seems like some sort of spell(s) to protect and care for horses would be one of the first things a fantasy world would come up with, but doesn't occur to most RPG players. I did see one group of players who actually brought pseudo-squires with them to feed the horses and guard "base camp" while they were dungeon-delving...but I only saw that once.

[Outsider]

[quote name=bigdamnhero

Dude #1's advantage is that a 60 lb pack is only 1/4 of his weight, as opposed to 1/3 of Dude #2's. That's not an insurmountable advantage, but speaking as someone who was much closer to Due 2 back in the day, it does make a difference. Whether that's an advantage of STR per se or of Size per se is an interesting question; but given that Hero has a stat for the former and not for the latter, it probably makes more sense to use STR.

/QUOTE]

 

My idea as written already covers this.

Dude #1 with a 60 lb (27kg) pack is still in the 0-10% bracket for encumbrance and no adjustment to his BOM for that..

Dude #2 with a 60 lb (27kg) pack is in the 27-49% bracket for encumbrance and loses 1 or 2 off his BOM for that.

[bigdamnhero]

My idea as written already covers this.

Dude #1 with a 60 lb (27kg) pack is still in the 0-10% bracket for encumbrance and no adjustment to his BOM for that..

Dude #2 with a 60 lb (27kg) pack is in the 27-49% bracket for encumbrance and loses 1 or 2 off his BOM for that.

I don't see where you mentioned Encumbrance in your previous posts. If you meant to or thought it was implied, then fine we're in agreement.

[Outsider]

Post #34, I bolded the bit.

 

 

How about this:   The ability to travel long distances is based not on tactical movement rate, but on one's ability to keep going for hours on end.  So REC is the determining factor. 

 

Base Overland Movement (BOM) is REC in KM per hour.  Use 1 LTE each hour spent moving,

 

If encumbered, reduce effective REC by either the DCV/DEX penalty (harsh GM) or the END/Turn penalty (forgiving GM) for that level of encumbrance.

 

Quick March : 1.5x BOM, use 3 LTE per hour.

 

At a Jog : 2x BOM, use 6 LTE/Hour

 

Then adjust for terrain as needed.

[bigdamnhero]

My apologies Outsider, I think I got posts & posters confused.

[Outsider]

No problem!

[Alcamtar]

I've seen similar stuff. The problem is that interpreting that too literally means there is absolutely no advantage (in game terms) to riding 25 miles over walking 25 miles. And yet historically, people who had a choice tended to prefer the latter by a wide margin. Maybe the difference is only in terms of how much gear you can carry, maybe it's only in how much LTE you've burned at the end of the day - but there needs to be some advantage or we would never have bothered to breed riding horses.

 

I have heard it said that the horse is not for travel time or speed, but that it does the work for you. It can carry more weight and sucks up the fatigue. In Hero terms, it has more STR and it takes the LTE for travel instead of the character. If you have a serious need to move a long distance in a hurry, you can run the horse until it dies and then continue on foot; the horse may be dead buy you will be fresh and ready to walk for many more hours.

 

Not only do you arrive less fatigued, but if you arrive twice as fast (for the same distance traveled) you can now take your ease in camp for some hours. On foot you spend all day walking and then spend all evening camping and cooking, trying to beat the dark, and then fall into bed exhausted, only to do it again tomorrow. With horses you have hours to spend in camp, talking or reading or maintaining gear or exploring the local area.

 

You can cross modest rivers on a horse without getting himself or his gear wet. You don't have to walk through mud or snow. You need not watch every step, the horse will do that. Sitting on a horse gives you a commanding view of your surroundings. Horses may smell predators like wolves and alert you to danger.

 

Horses confer a large advantage in battle, if they are trained, mainly I think in terms of having "high ground" and also in speed, as well as the intimidation factor. (I think this is very significant but you rarely see it modeled in games.)

 

f you need to flee or move quickly, a horse can certainly move faster than you can, and you don't need to keep that up all day for it to be useful. Particularly for a wounded character, if you have a horse your wounds need not slow you down or prevent you carrying your gear. A well tempered horse might even carry you home by itself while you are barely conscious. A horse gives a greater sense of safety to the rider, elevating you and giving a sense of power.

 

A horse is an indication of status and wealth. People will treat you with more respect. A fine horse shows taste and reflects honor upon its owner or rider. A horse is very valuable so serves as portable wealth or a bargaining piece, should you have need of it. For some, a horse is a pet/companion. Riding is enjoyable, even a sport.

 

It is the same motivation as driving a sports car instead of an economy car. They both get you there in the same time, but one is much more fun and makes you look good in the bargain, and also gives the illusion of greater speed (even when you are not making use of it).

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well, all that, and a horse can get you there faster, if you don't care about the horse.

[bigdamnhero]

Several good points Alcamtar, tho again many of them are tricky to simulate mechanically. (Ie in Hero there's no movement penalty for being wounded, etc.) Good roleplayers will buy you a lot tho.

 

I have heard it said that the horse is not for travel time or speed, but that it does the work for you. It can carry more weight and sucks up the fatigue. In Hero terms, it has more STR and it takes the LTE for travel instead of the character. If you have a serious need to move a long distance in a hurry, you can run the horse until it dies and then continue on foot; the horse may be dead buy you will be fresh and ready to walk for many more hours.

This makes sense to me. The challenge is that LTE costs for movement are so low that under RAW most characters won't accrue any in 8 hours of walking or riding. For that matter, neither will horses as written. So we're back to the question of how much LTE humans & horses should burn in a day's movement?

 

Of course in reality riding a horse for long hours does burn some END/LTE for the rider - not nearly as much as walking, but it's far from effortless. But I suspect that's probably low enough we can probably ignore it for game purposes (assuming the character has TF or Riding.)

 

Not only do you arrive less fatigued, but if you arrive twice as fast (for the same distance traveled) you can now take your ease in camp for some hours. On foot you spend all day walking and then spend all evening camping and cooking, trying to beat the dark, and then fall into bed exhausted, only to do it again tomorrow. With horses you have hours to spend in camp, talking or reading or maintaining gear or exploring the local area.

The more I think of it, the more I like the idea of giving horses a higher base movement, but fewer travel hours per day. But of course I can already hear my players thinking of ways to exceed that, which brings us back to pushing/forced march rules.

[Alcamtar]

I think the traditional way around it is to change horses. The pony express covered 300+ miles in a day by changing horses every 10 miles and averaging 10-15 mph (at a canter or gallop). The Butterfield Overland Mail stage line covered 120 miles a day, changing horses every 20 miles, averaging 5-6 mph. I seem to recall reading that horses were rested for 24 hours after completing a stage, so as to not overwork them.

 

On the trail, if each character brings along a spare horse for each loaded horse, you can change horses at the midpoint and double your distance. Horses are made to run, and without a load a horse can run all day. You'll still need feeding time, so if grazing you'll want to pick up the pace to leave sufficient time for cool-down and grazing in the evening. I would guess that if horses are stabled and fed on grain, you need less feeding time, and with lamplight you could extend feeding and grooming after sunset.

 

I would think if you're bringing a whole troop of horses to increase movement speed, you might want to bring a dedicated groom to manage them.

 

It seems that cavalry would baby their horses, but even so many would die in the course of travel. A unit would take some 10% extra horses to replace losses, and by the end of the campaign many riders would be left afoot when there were no more extras. This article is interesting and touches on some of that: http://www.soas.ac.uk/history/conferences/war-horses-conference-2014/file94552.pdf

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah the Hole in the Wall Gang would set up fresh horses at regular stages along their getaway route, posses had no chance of catching them.  Plus, in game terms, riding rolls and animal handling rolls can get more out of a horse than just a rider.  Skill and care in how you ride, paths taken, how you interact with the horse, etc can all help.

[Alcamtar]

Plus, in game terms, riding rolls and animal handling rolls can get more out of a horse than just a rider.  Skill and care in how you ride, paths taken, how you interact with the horse, etc can all help.

 

According to an old saying in Texas, the ‘white man’ would ride a horse until he was played out, the Mexican will take him and ride another day until he was tired and the Comanche would take over and ride to where he was going. (from the linked pdf in my previous post)

[bigdamnhero]

Good stuff - thanks guys! Also thanks Markdoc for reminding me/us about the END cost from Encumbrance awhile back. (I tried to find where I responded to that when you posted it, but apparently that only happened in my mind...)

 

The discussion of how much "down time" horses need to recover begs a similar question for people. Let’s say you walk/ride 8 hours and then camp for 16 hours, 8 of which are spent sleeping. How many hours of "rest" is that for purposes of Recovering LTE? Presumably not all 16, as you need to make camp, fetch water & firewood, cook dinner, etc. But probably more than just the 8 hours you spent sleeping. Is 10 hours about right? That would be two full RECs worth of LTE regained. Or would 12 be closer? How is that modified if you have to hunt for your dinner vs carrying rations with you?

[bigdamnhero]

I've also been playing around more with LTE costs for walking. (Sorry, this is a long one.)

 

3 mph works out to 16m/Turn, so that's 2 END per Turn before Encumbrance. For a Normal with 4 REC, we're looking at 1 LTE per 5 minutes => 12 LTE per hour! That seems...a tad harsh to me; most able-bodied normals should be able to walk for more than 2 hours without collapsing. But slow them down a notch to 14m/Turn (2.6 mph) and they can walk all day for 0 LTE. Conversely, buy their REC up to 5, and they can do 4 mph all day with no LTE accrued...but add on 25% Encumbrance and we’re back to 12 LTE per hour.

 

Basically I’m coming to the conclusion that the existing rules for calculating LTE per Turn are not what we’re looking for, and what we need is a method for calculating LTE based on number of hours walked. As a starting point, what if we said walking at the standard rate* burns 1 LTE per hour, and the END Cost/Turn on the Encumbrance table also adds to the hourly LTE Cost (ie +1 LTE/hour @ >25% Encumbrance, +2 @ >50%, etc).

 

So Joe Normal walks 8 hours with 24% Encumbrance (24 kg @ 10 STR) and accrues 8 LTE. With his 4 REC, Joe needs to rest 10 hours to gain that back, and he starts the next day fresh.

 

Give Joe a heavier load, (49 kg = 49%) and now he burns 16 LTE in 8 hours, which means he’s going to be pretty tired at the end of the day. Say he rests 12.5 hours (2.5 Recoveries); that gets back 10, so he starts the next day down 6 LTE. He can go for another day or two like that before completely running out of steam and needing a significantly longer rest. Alternately he could walk for just 6 hours, get a couple additional hours of rest, and only lose 2-3 LTE per day net.

 

Now let’s look at Jane Heroic: 15 STR, 6 REC, 30 END, carrying 48 kg (24% Encumbered). At 1 LTE/Hour, she can walk for 8-12 hours a day and recover all the LTE in 10 hours of rest. If she really has to, she can walk 30 hours straight before collapsing. Go Jane!

 

Double the amount of gear Jane is carrying (96 kg = 49%), and now 8 hours of walking accrues 16 LTE – hope you don’t get into a big fight at the end of the day! Catch 10 hours of rest, and she Recovers 12 for a net loss of 4 LTE per day. Or if she can manage 12.5 hours of rest, she gets back 15 for a net loss of 1 LTE per day. She can march 15 hours straight with that load if she absolutely has to, but she’ll be toast at the end and need a full day of rest to fully recover.

 

Meanwhile, Jake Legendary (18 STR, 8 REC, 40 END) can carry 147 kg for 8 hours, rest for 10 hours, and do it all again the following day. Dude could push himself for 20 hours straight with that load if he really had to. What a stud!

 

And Joan the Elder with her 6 STR, 2 REC & 12 END? Well assuming 0 Encumbrance, she can still manage 8 hours of walking. But after 12.5 hours of rest she’s still down 3 LTE the next morning, which means she can’t keep that up for more than a day or two. Give poor Joan 20 kg to carry, and she runs completely out of END after 6 hours.

 

Forced marching for more than 8 hours then becomes a simple matter of +x LTE per hour, compounded by getting 1 less hour of rest at the end of the day. So if Jane above marched 10 hours with her 96 kg, and only got 10 hours of rest that night, she’d start the next day down 8 LTE; she could hold that pace for a few days, but it will take its toll. Jake could do the same with his 147 kg, and be down 4 LTE net per day.

 

Hmm…that all feels about right to me. It means most heroic characters can essentially ignore LTE if they stick to 8 hours per day and <25% Encumbrance. If they want to go longer than that, or have more gear to carry, then they’re going to start getting tired and should really consider horses. 

 

 

* Say "standard rate" is 3 mph before accounting for terrain, weather & encumbrance, per previous discussion & tables.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Its really hard to find a solid formula for Long Term Endurance that's both plausibly accurate  and easy to use.  Any realistic system becomes hopelessly complicated and any simple formula falls apart in too many circumstances.  So its probably best to just hand wave it, and say "you burned up x LTE today" based on events and baggage.

 

And I really like Long Term Endurance in a game, because it helps create things like diseases and force reasonable behavior.  If you have the flu, you burn through long term END faster.  If you jog with a 50 pound pack full of jewels on your back, you're going to tire out.  It prevents excesses in plausibility, and in many settings, that's a positive.  Because of superior stats, players will be able to do more and be more heroic than the average fellow, but still will face limits.

 

Honestly, while I do appreciate the idea behind movement being tied to speed, it really probably ought to be separate, so you act on your speed, but move at a set rate separate from your actions, like riding in a vehicle.

[bigdamnhero]

So its probably best to just hand wave it, and say "you burned up x LTE today" based on events and baggage.

...

Because of superior stats, players will be able to do more and be more heroic than the average fellow, but still will face limits.

Exactly. I don't need or want something hyper-realistic that accounts for every possible situation. I just want some sort of general guideline to base my handwaving on, and that takes superior stats into account.

 

IHonestly, while I do appreciate the idea behind movement being tied to speed, it really probably ought to be separate, so you act on your speed, but move at a set rate separate from your actions, like riding in a vehicle.

To clarify: do you mean speed (ie movement rate) or SPEED the game stat? Assuming the latter I agree, which is why I only broke it down to meters per Turn instead of per Phase. If the former, my next step is to work up some guidelines for when characters want to go faster than the standard movement rate - how fast for how long, how much LTE you rack up, etc.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah Speed, the stat.  So you move at speed 4 no matter what your actual Speed stat is instead of moving faster because you have a higher Speed.  I mean, a guy with 12m movement and 4 speed (theoretically human max) is twice as fast as a guy with 2 speed.  Its just odd.

 

And of course all this is about humans and horses.  How fast does a centaur run?  And how long?  What about a Griffon in flight?  A riding spider?

[bigdamnhero]

We played with a house rule once where movement was priced by the Turn rather than the Phase so that SPD 4 characters couldn't automatically run twice as fast as a SPD 2 character. Worked okay for a limited modern heroic game, but honestly I'm not sure it made enough of a difference to justify the increased complexity. (Like most of the "more realistic" house rules I've come up with over the years.)

 

As for other animals and fantastic creatures: my thinking is that once we establish baselines for humans and horses, other creatures would count as either one or the other for overland travel purposes. Haven't even thought about fliers yet.

[Alcamtar]

Hmm…that all feels about right to me. It means most heroic characters can essentially ignore LTE if they stick to 8 hours per day and <25% Encumbrance. If they want to go longer than that, or have more gear to carry, then they’re going to start getting tired and should really consider horses. 

 

Nice! I looked at the LTE rules a few years back and came to the conclusion they didn't yield satisfactory results for travel, but never bothered trying to fix it. I really like this proposal.

 

I would suggest one adjustment: Each 600m (2000 ft) of ascent adds 1 hour and 1 LTE. The idea is that you burn energy at a fixed rate, so when climbing you naturally slow down to compensate for the extra work.

 

This adjustment is really easy to apply. If the GM knows the route is going to cross a 4000ft ridge, just subtract 2 hours, leaving 6 hours of forward travel: the heroes still spend 8 total hours hiking so incur 8 LTE.

 

I wouldn't bother with adjusting time or LTE for descent. Descent can be faster or slower, but not enough to worry about, it's just normal travel.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Alternate or fantastical mounts bring up interesting ideas.

 

Does that intelligent super warhorse run better and longer, because it can think through what its doing, or will it be too smart to run its self too far, and not go as far?  Does the unicorn's healing ability make it able to run forever?

[Alcamtar]

Yeah Speed, the stat.  So you move at speed 4 no matter what your actual Speed stat is instead of moving faster because you have a higher Speed.  I mean, a guy with 12m movement and 4 speed (theoretically human max) is twice as fast as a guy with 2 speed.  Its just odd.

 

And of course all this is about humans and horses.  How fast does a centaur run?  And how long?  What about a Griffon in flight?  A riding spider?

 

I use a rule of X: Running x SPD = 36m for all non-super humans. When you do all the calculations this matches real world movement rates very closely. I allow an adjustment of perhaps +/-2m, but more than that is just unrealistic. If you buy up SPD with experience points, you have to sell off an appropriate amount of Running.

 

It also plays nicely with bigdamnhero's 1 LTE/hour travel rule.

 

For non-humans and animals, I suggest computing movement per turn and then adjusting for SPD:

If you know km/hour:   Running = kph/SPD * 10/3

If you know Running:   km/hour = Running * SPD * 3/10

[Markdoc]

I've also been playing around more with LTE costs for walking. (Sorry, this is a long one.)

 

3 mph works out to 16m/Turn, so that's 2 END per Turn before Encumbrance. For a Normal with 4 REC, we're looking at 1 LTE per 5 minutes => 12 LTE per hour! That seems...a tad harsh to me; most able-bodied normals should be able to walk for more than 2 hours without collapsing. But slow them down a notch to 14m/Turn (2.6 mph) and they can walk all day for 0 LTE. Conversely, buy their REC up to 5, and they can do 4 mph all day with no LTE accrued...but add on 25% Encumbrance and we’re back to 12 LTE per hour.

 

.....

 

Now let’s look at Jane Heroic: 15 STR, 6 REC, 30 END, carrying 48 kg (24% Encumbered). At 1 LTE/Hour, she can walk for 8-12 hours a day and recover all the LTE in 10 hours of rest. If she really has to, she can walk 30 hours straight before collapsing. Go Jane!

 

 

..........

 

And Joan the Elder with her 6 STR, 2 REC & 12 END? Well assuming 0 Encumbrance, she can still manage 8 hours of walking. But after 12.5 hours of rest she’s still down 3 LTE the next morning, which means she can’t keep that up for more than a day or two. Give poor Joan 20 kg to carry, and she runs completely out of END after 6 hours.

 

This is an interesting approach (and is probably good enough for most use) but it shows how hard it is to get a good fit. I agree that an average person should be able to manage more than 2 hours without collapsing

 

But the proposed fix means that Joan the Elder can just about qualify for US Marine Recon: they have to cover 8 miles with a 23 kg pack. She'd be a bit slower than the pace they would like (4 MPH), but she can do 18 miles with that load - which is more than double the distance demanded of potential recruits - and probably about 72x as much as a fit elderly person could reasonably be expected to manage.

 

The problem here is highlighted in the first quoted paragraph. For a normal, being exhausted after two hours brisk walking is clearly too low - but drop the speed just a touch and now they can go all day. A normal who buys up their REC by 1 (for a whole 2 points) could now do that Marine Recon. qualifying run I mentioned, having the stamina to meet both the weight requirement and the speed requirement. 2 points is not a big investment to meet that standard.

 

So the problem is that there is a very fine tipping point in the rules between "too harsh" and "Not harsh enough". For me, the LTE rules on movement + encumbrance work OK, since PCs are almost inevitably superior to normals anyway, and you can reconcile the first example above by simply noting that a normal carrying a load can avoid the LTE penalties by moving a bit slower (which they would anyway) or interspersing periods of brisk walking and slower walking, meaning they can still average near 3 MPH without tiring. I recognise that's not a perfect solution, just a 'good enough' approximation for me. The fact that even for heroic types it can get harsh at the higher end of speed and encumbrance is a feature, rather than a bug, for me.

 

If we wanted a better approximation I would look less at speed, and more at encumbrance - carrying heavy loads really does slow people down and the heavier the load is, the more drastic the effect. To use the example of Jane Heroic above, she's carrying 48 kg (108 lbs for you USA'ians). That's about 25% more than British paratroopers and Royal Marines carried on their famous Falklands Yomp, and she's moving about 50% faster than they did. In operation Resolute Strike in Afghanistan, the US paratroopers carried loads nearly as heavy as Jane's (when you include their weapons and armour) - but some of them had to be medivac'ed due to exhaustion and collapse even during the first day, and movement had to restricted to only a few miles at a time to avoid soldiers collapsing. The failure of Resolute Strike to meet all its objectives was squarely placed on the fact that the paratroopers were expected to move carrying weights that sometimes exceeded 100 lbs ... and they could not sustain that (there's both a DoD report and a book (Making the Soldier Decisive on Future Battlefields) that covers this in detail). 

 

So the suggested figures put her out at the very extreme end (or actually a fair bit beyond) what real humans are capable of (though that might not matter for more cinematic heroes). What is striking is that the British paras could move for several days - albeit at a pace of about 3 kph (1.8 MPH) with 36 kg (80 lb) packs, while the US paras (who I don't doubt are every bit as fit and motivated) were slowed to a crawl by 45 kg (100 lbs). Part of that is certainly temperature (it was lot hotter in Afghanistan) but you can find other examples as well - as you approach your lifting capacity, in real life your ability to move drops off dramatically. I haven't run the numbers, but you could perhaps add a penalty for higher percentage encumbrance - =1 at 25-49%, +2 at 50-74 and +3 at 75%+.

 

cheers, Mark

[Steve]

How would temperature and humidity affect these calculations? Marching across a desert or through steamy jungle would be more draining than moving through temperate-weather terrain. Is that covered under environmental effects in the rules?

[bigdamnhero]

I would suggest one adjustment: Each 600m (2000 ft) of ascent adds 1 hour and 1 LTE. The idea is that you burn energy at a fixed rate, so when climbing you naturally slow down to compensate for the extra work.

 

This adjustment is really easy to apply. If the GM knows the route is going to cross a 4000ft ridge, just subtract 2 hours, leaving 6 hours of forward travel: the heroes still spend 8 total hours hiking so incur 8 LTE.

Good idea.