Sea Travel times and distances?

[FireHawk]

Did some quick searches, what should the _average_ travel time or length be for a common seafaring ship. IE how far can a ship get in one day.

[Rezdave]

FireHawk wrote:

Did some quick searches, what should the _average_ travel time or length be for a common seafaring ship. IE how far can a ship get in one day.

I just came off running a sea-faring story arc. The simple answer is ... there are too many variables.

You have to consider:

- Type of boat
- Prevailing winds
- Prevailing currents
- Quantity and quality of crew
- Hours traveled per day

... and this doesn't even include the use of any magic, such as a rudder of propulsion or magic rituals that summon elementals into your sails or beneath your keel.

All that said, I used a range of 4-12 knots as the nominal "top speed" of different boat types, then limited them to daylight-only travel. In my world, people are generally coastal sailors and fear the deep. They prefer to remain within sight of the coast, and definitely drop anchor near the coast each night. This limited the distance they could cover.

I also established some "prevailing winds & currents" that were also seasonal. Under ideal circumstances a boat could perhaps get a boost to 125-150%, but most of the time they were doing 75% of their nominal speed or less ... sometimes in the 10-30% range if against wind and currents and that's even with rowers. We has a sailing ship once spend half a day getting towed up-river, and less than an hour to sail back down.

Sorry I can't be more precise, but depending upon your level of involvement, these are some of the issues you'll need to consider.

If you just need a DT figure for "how long does it take to get from here to there by boat" then I'd go with 4-6 miles/hour with all other factors taken into account. Multiply that by the number of hours in a "sailing day" and you have your answer.

Not that it may not sound that fast, considering that the average party will do 3 mph during an 8-hour travel-day, but that speed is over a pretty fair road or trail. Traveling in the wilds, over mountains and so forth will slow them down considerably, so even a ship traveling against the current and across the wind at a mere 1-2 mph for forward progress (i.e. progress towards the destination as opposed to distance traveled) may still be faster between two coastal locales across a wide bay or gulf than a circuitous land route.

HTH,

Rez

[Davelozzi]

FireHawk wrote:

Did some quick searches, what should the _average_ travel time or length be for a common seafaring ship. IE how far can a ship get in one day.

48 miles per day for a common sailing ship, according to the rules. Check the Additional Rules chapter of the Core Rulebook, under Overland Movement there is a chart listing hourly and daily speeds for various vehicles.

Or online, go to this page on the PRD and scroll most of the way down.

[thelesuit]

I think RezDave's numbers are probably more fun to play with than the "one size fits all" espoused by the Core Rules.

CJ

[Rezdave]

thelesuit wrote:

I think RezDave's numbers are probably more fun to play with than the "one size fits all" espoused by the Core Rules

Thanks ... however, note the caveat "play with".

If you're running a story arc at sea or involving trade and such, then it's an issue, but could be fun as well.

If the PCs (or some-one/-thing else) simply need transport from point-A to point-B then the 48 mpd average works for maintaining an in-world calendar and DT clock.

R.

[far_wanderer]

Based on a very rudimentary knowledge of sailing, the numbers in the book seem to be pretty good averages. Just as a rough guide, this is what I have squirreled away as a baseline for if sailing ever comes up in one of my games:
-Every 10 points you exceed the DC of a Profession: Sailor check grants a 10% speed increase, up to 50% max. Failing a check reduces speed by 50% and may cause you to become lost (or crash). Sailing through normal weather on open water is a DC 10, damage and weather both increase the DC by the same amount they affect speed.
-Weather can reduce or increase speed by up to 30% (more severe weather is possible, and still affects sailing DCs, but you have to reign in the sails to avoid damage so your speed ends up not being affected any more). If the vessel doesn't use sails, weather can only decrease speed and the effect is reduced by 10%.
-Obstacles like reefs or sandbars decrease speed by 20%, and generally have a maximum top speed.
-Damage to the ship reduces speed by up to 50% (more than that and it sinks)
-Everything is in increments of 10%
-Currents affect speed by a direct miles-per-hour.

[FireHawk]

Thank yall

[Coridan]

You might want to pick up Stormwrack if you don't have it already. It's a pretty good book and has some stuff for dealing with naval combat as well as rules for a few different types of boats.

It might be cheaper on eBay or at an FLGS if they still have a copy. The setting books (Sandstorm, Stormwrack, Frostburn) are a few of WotC's best supplements for 3.5 (along with Heroes of Battle and Fiendish Codex I))

[thelesuit]

*Resurrect*

I'm looking for sailing distances from various ports.

Specifically how far, by sea, is it from Magnimar to various other ports?

Has anyone done these calculations, or do I need to sit down with a map and ruler myself?

CJ

[MendedWall12]

In my experience map and ruler are the preferred method. I don't believe there are listings anywhere for common travel times to and from distances. If you're digitally inclined, I, sick of ruler calculations, just started using GIMP (which has a ruler function) to measure distances on the Inner Sea map. You can use the ruler tool to find out a decent pixel:mile ratio by measuring the legend reference, and then go from there.

[FrankManic]

Map and naval divider, more like!

[Ernest Mueller]

In my pirate game ships make anywhere from 4-12 knots top speed as well, but wind direction and strength (rolled daily) has a large effect on it. As a result, a trip from Magnimar to Riddleport can be quick or nearly infinitely long, it doesn't make sense to have a bus-schedule type of thing. I also mapped out some default wind patterns based on Earth's (trades, etc) and my PCs have used that to go out to the Azlanti Islands and back (coming back involved going way north...).