I don't think this was talked about yet on here (a search of Ship + Travel, and Ship + Speed didn't bring anything)
Travel times for ships seem to be really inconsistent.
Overland travel for a walking human is 3 miles per hour across 8 hours for a total of 24 miles per day. If you take their speed of 30 feet per round and convert it to miles per hour (x10 for 1 min, x60 for 1 hour, ÷5280 for 1 mile) you get roughly 3.4 miles/hour or really close to the estimated overland travel speed.
However, lets take the sailing ship for example. The overland chart suggests it can move 2 miles per hour for 24 hours to total out to 48 miles per day (slower than humans walking btw) but when you take their 90 feet per round and convert it you get about 10 miles per hour or 240 miles per day.
Then if you include the fact that if a ship has favorable winds its max speed is doubled, thats a whopping 480 miles per day! (10 times the listed overland speed)
That is a pretty significant difference. Is there anywhere that clears up this inconsistency? Or should our overland travel just be handled with a ton of rounds for further distance per day?
Regardless of their max speed, there are a lot of other factors at play: wind speed and direction, a given ship's ability to tack close to the wind, local weather conditions (shore breeze, etc) river current when going up or down river, etc.
You might be able to sail all night when you're crossing a vast ocean, but not when you're hugging a shore, unless you have good moonlight. Things like that make it hard to generalize.
I'm not aware whether any extant Paizo books get into standard sailing times around Golarion.
Yeah I agree that there are a ton of variables that go into sailing, but that still seems like a ton of inconsistency that would make round by round sea travel more efficient (distance / hour wise, not time spent at table) than the overland rules.
If they are assuming average speeds on the overland travel tables, that would mean the average is barely moving at all relative to max speed (moving about 17 feet per round... 18% of max speed.) which makes across ocean travel (which is currently happening in a campaign Im playing in) realllllllly long.
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I'm currently running a game that has the PCs on a ship, and I've done a bit of research into this as well.
The rules on ship travel include some abstraction, but I think overall it works much like a PC's travel does.
Rationale
For a ship, like a PC, it's top speed is a lot faster than it's "overland travel" speed. Realistically, with favorable winds and currents and sails and sailors, etc, etc a ship can reach faster speeds than it does on average over long journeys, but the average speed it will have attained includes times when the wind is calm, the current is against you, you must tack against the wind, etc. so the average speed is less. It's similar to how a PC may have a run speed of 120', while a move action is only 30'. And, while a realistic comparison of a walking human might happen to match, remember that the distance traveled in a day of walking is explicitly stated to include taking breaks for meals etc. Plus, what if every single step of that journey is not on perfectly flat, solid ground? Even the rules for walking distance in a day have included some abstraction you see!
Realism
Plus factor in the difference between types of ships. Is the typical sailing ship in your game world a caravel? In reality the average speed of a caravel was about 4 knots, which translates into 90-100 miles per day. On a world map with 30 mile hexes, that's 3 hexes per day, while the game rules say a sailing ship can only travel, as you've stated, 48 miles. A caravel is a very old style of ship that was available in medieval times. If your game world also includes ships typical of the golden age of piracy, like sloops and schooners, those ships could cover well over 300 miles in a day. The game rules say a sailing ship can travel 2mph for 24 hours... that works out to about 1.7 knots... slower than even the slowest sailing ships in history and more in line with such a ship being propelled by rowers with oars.
Conclusion
I think ultimately the realities of sea travel, and the rules in the book should be balanced with the needs of the fantasy campaign. Do you want distances in the campaign to seem vast? Is water travel just a nuisance to be redlined? If you want ships to travel more slowly, go with the standard book speed. If it's just something getting in the way of the adventure, let them travel on a faster ship and get it over with, or just hand-wave the travel all together. But to answer your question, the rules aren't really "inconsistent" so much as "abstracted". A ship might travel 90'/rd in a combat battle map setup but only make 48 miles a day on the campaign map. That's just abstraction and gamey-rules to make the game work and in most cases it's fine. If you wanted to get more realistic though, you might find that there are an awful number of those "inconsistencies" already built-into your campaign world. If your fantasy port includes a Chinese junk sailing alongside a 17th century Spanish galleon and a medieval french cog and an 18th century English brig and a 19th century mediterranean Xebec? These ships all have different cultural roots, sail plans, handling characteristics, construction, speeds, etc. Well, with wizards and dragons in your world already, why not?
I'm currently running a game that has the PCs on a ship, and I've done a bit of research into this as well.
The rules on ship travel include some abstraction, but I think overall it works much like a PC's travel does.
Rationale
For a ship, like a PC, it's top speed is a lot faster than it's "overland travel" speed. Realistically, with favorable winds and currents and sails and sailors, etc, etc a ship can reach faster speeds than it does on average over long journeys, but the average speed it will have attained includes times when the wind is calm, the current is against you, you must tack against the wind, etc. so the average speed is less. It's similar to how a PC may have a run speed of 120', while a move action is only 30'. And, while a realistic comparison of a walking human might happen to match, remember that the distance traveled in a day of walking is explicitly stated to include taking breaks for meals etc. Plus, what if every single step of that journey is not on perfectly flat, solid ground? Even the rules for walking distance in a day have included some abstraction you see!Realism
Plus factor in the difference between types of ships. Is the typical sailing ship in your game world a caravel? In reality the average speed of a caravel was about 4 knots, which translates into 90-100 miles per day. On a world map with 30 mile hexes, that's 3 hexes per day, while the game rules say a sailing ship can only travel, as you've stated, 48 miles. A caravel is a very old style of ship that was available in medieval times. If your game world also includes ships typical of the golden age of piracy, like sloops and schooners, those ships could cover well over 300 miles in a day. The game rules say a sailing ship can travel 2mph for 24 hours... that works out to about 1.7 knots... slower than even the slowest sailing ships in history and more in line with such a ship being propelled by rowers with oars.Conclusion
I think ultimately the realities of sea travel, and the rules in the book should...
I see you have done some research xD Thanks for the insight! Definitely linking this to the DM for reference. ^__^
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There is a simple formula to determine practical max speeds for ships that arent designed to plane. See Wikipedia article hull speed. As there are lots of technicalities around this keeping it simple for game use is the aim.
Max speed in knots = 1.34 * square root (waterline length in feet)
For a 100ft length boat that means max speed is 13.4 knots. Which conveniently turns out to be around 134 ft movement per round.
As you need to tack (zig zag) to sail at speed and to sail upwind you are probably doing only about 70% of max straight line speed. Around 95ft per round towards your destination. Around 10 miles per hour.
Note this is going for speed at the expense of comfort with the deck likely tilted at 45 degrees to one side, changing every few minutes. This makes combat and sleeping very difficult. It is also very tiring on the crew.
Going at a more reasonable and comfortable half speed gives you around 5 mph. Probably also use this as max river sailing speed.
There's also a point in the game when players get access to greater teleport and all the overland travel speeds becomes less important.
It's good to do research, yet it's best not to dig too deep into things when the players might do something that completely bypasses the matter you spent a lot of time researching.
There's also a point in the game when players get access to greater teleport and all the overland travel speeds becomes less important.
It's good to do research, yet it's best not to dig too deep into things when the players might do something that completely bypasses the matter you spent a lot of time researching.
Point taken, but until mid to high levels teleportation isn't really feasible, and it also depends on the party having a wizard or a Sorcerer willing to dump a spell slot for it, or a lot of gold to hire NPC wizards, or a lot of gold on scrolls, etc., etc. so teleportation isn't always the answer in every game.
Plus as a side note, in my game world teleportation doesn't work, so travel speeds, ships, wagons, horses, caravans, etc have all taken on A LOT more importance than they ever have before in my games. I must say, I greatly prefer it this way for many reasons. Among those reasons are that the PCs get more time to interact with one another and various NPCs out of combat. It gives me new plausible ways to introduce new NPCs into the game, who happen to be traveling with the same caravan/ship/etc. It gives the PCs a new source for hirelings and contacts. It allows the players to role play their downtime in more variations by taking part in shipboard/caravan activities. It allows the PCs new ways to put their non-combat skills to good use in ways that feel important. It gives the GM more angles for plot hooks. Virtually every aspect of my game has been improved by nixing teleportation magic. And the best upshot is that my players don't even miss it. They can have fun on the ships and caravans, partying and spreading the word of their epic exploits to new NPCs all the time. And when playing out the travel seems pedantic or would hurt the pacing of the game, we just hand wave it, and it is effectively almost identical to teleportation anyway. I never realized what a game-killer teleportation magic was until I took it away.