Reinventing the Travel Rules
The travel rules of Into the Dungeon: Revived remained almost unchanged since their introduction in v1.2,1 except for some minor tweaking here and there. They do the job, but have some issues that I've always wanted to address, but couldn't devise a proper way to do so. Until now.
Contents
The Current Rules ↩
The core part of the current (v2.42) Travel rules is presented below.
Travel for 8 hours/day before resting for the night.
Grid of 5-mile tiles simplifies distance calculations.
| Terrain | Example | Miles | Grid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clear | grasslands, plains | 20 | 4 |
| Rugged | desert, forest, hills | 15 | 3 |
| Difficult | jungle, mountains, swamp | 10 | 2 |
To speed up calculations, choose a dominant terrain for a day (or half a day) of travel and apply it to the whole duration.
Exhaustion Check: make a STR Save or lose d4 STR (if mounted or on a vehicle — for your mounts).
Rest for a day for every 6 days travelled or make an Exhaustion Check for each extra day of travel.
| Speed Modifier | Miles | Grid |
|---|---|---|
| Roads | +5 | +1 |
| Forced March for extra 2 hours, make an Exhaustion Check | +5 | +1 |
| Large Groups | -5 | -1 |
| Encumbrance over 50 lb on foot, mount or vehicle overload | -5 | -1 |
| Harsh Weather | -5 | -1 |
| Extreme Weather | -10 | -2 |
| Concurrent Activities (exploring, sneaking, foraging, etc.) | -10 | -2 |
| Mounted: | ||
| * Horses on clear terrain | +5 | +1 |
| * Camels in a desert | +5 | +1 |
| * Elephants in a jungle | +5 | +1 |
| * Rugged or difficult terrain (except donkeys and mules) | -5 | -1 |
| Vehicles: | ||
| * Rugged terrain | -5 | -1 |
| * Difficult terrain | -10 | -2 |
The Issue ↩
It all works well as long as the terrain stays the same for the day, but once you start mixing in other types, you must either divide the day into portions or just pick a dominant terrain and ignore the other ones. The same issue persists with the modifiers, which are presented in whole-day bonuses/penalties. Surely, there should be a better way?
The Reasoning ↩
The most obvious solution, of course, is a point-cost system. You've probably already seen something similar before. For example, the original D&D's3 travel rules from Vol.3 (pp.16-17), heavily abridged here for brevity, present this approach quite clearly:
| Movement | Hexes |
|---|---|
| Man on foot | 3 |
| Wagon or Cart | 4 |
| Draft Horse | 5 |
| Terrain | Cost |
|---|---|
| Clear, Tracks through woods or swamps | 1 |
| Woods, Deserts, Tracks through mountains | 2 |
| Mountains, Swamps, Rivers | 3 |
So, to summarize, the faster you move, the more points you have for a day of travel, and the harsher the terrain, the more points it costs to enter such a hex.
While this method certainly works, it suffers from some issues:
- Different movement speeds for each type of transportation make calculations difficult if you switch the travel mode midday.
- Penalties for difficult terrain are constant, regardless of the type of transportation used.
- Rough granularity of speed and terrain cost steps is too drastic and, due to this, too far removed from reality.
The solution I propose for a better point-based travel system tackles these issues in the following way:
- Make travel points represent segments of time available for daily travel.
- Differentiate terrain penalties depending on the method of transportation used.
Various time segment lengths were considered. 10-minute segments (6/hour), while highly granular, make hex costs too high; 30-minute segments (2/hour), on the other hand, are too large to be useful. Thus, 20-minute segments (3/hour) were chosen as a compromise.
Not only does this new approach allow for the simple transition between different types of terrain and transportation modes, but it also makes time tracking a trivial matter of dividing spent points by their number per hour. It also plugs into the current ItDR travel rules seamlessly, keeping most of the text intact. Naturally, the waterborne and aerial travel rules lacking differentiation of terrain remain unchanged.
The New Travel Rules ↩
Travel for 8 hours/day before resting for the night. The daily travel is divided into 24 time segments (TS), 20 minutes each. TS cost of every 5-mile leg of the journey (or 5-mile hexagon) depends on the terrain and certain factors listed below.
Lacking up to 5 TS to finish the leg, you can complete it regardless. Lacking more, you can perform a Forced March: every 2 extra hours of travel adds 6 TS, but requires an Exhaustion Check right after.
Exhaustion Check: you or your mount must make a STR Save or lose d4 STR and stop for today, becoming exhausted (major hindrance) until a day of rest.
Rest for a day every 5 days of travel, or make an Exhaustion Check for every extra day of travel. Each day of rest restores d4 STR lost to exhaustion.
Overload (over 50 lb on foot or Cargo capacity) doubles the base travel cost (before any modifiers).
| Travel | Clear | Rugged | Difficult |
|---|---|---|---|
| Road | 5 | 6 | 9 |
| Off-road on foot | 6 | 8 | 12 |
| Off-road mount/vehicle, except donkeys & mules | 7 | 10 | 15 |
| Minor hindrance | +1 | +2 | +3 |
| Major hindrance | +2 | +4 | +6 |
- Horses: –1 TS on any clear terrain;
- Camels: –2 TS off-road in a desert;
- Elephants: –3 TS off-road in a jungle.
Minor Hindrances: fording a river, harsh weather, large groups (caravans, army units, etc.).
Major Hindrances: concurrent activities (exploring, sneaking, foraging, etc.), exhaustion, extreme weather, wading across a river.
These new rules will be available in the next yearly release of ItDR, along with other significant updates.
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