Travel by horse

[keith]

Hi, Im playing with the Condensed rules guide right now... I bought the module A1 Assult on Blacktooth Ridge and was wondering how far can horse travel per day?
Thanks.

[kreider204]

According to the CKG, walking rate, about 25 miles per ten hours, assuming relatively normal terrain.

[keith]

thanks

[Treebore]

That sounds like wagon pulling speeds to me. Out here, a good riding horse can go about 6 miles an hour with a 160 pound rider, saddle, etc... So as long as you can find some place to water them every 2 to 3 hours, you can cover good distance in a day. Real good endurance riders (and horse) can cover over 100 miles per day.

[kreider204]

That sounds like wagon pulling speeds to me.

Quite correct. The CKG speaks of it as more or less the same as human walking speed, but they advantage is one of long-term endurance, so it still allows for more travel in a day than walking would, even if it's not really faster.

[Lurker]

That sounds like wagon pulling speeds to me. Out here, a good riding horse can go about 6 miles an hour with a 160 pound rider, saddle, etc... So as long as you can find some place to water them every 2 to 3 hours, you can cover good distance in a day. Real good endurance riders (and horse) can cover over 100 miles per day.

Rgr, but I'd say that would wear down the horse and rider, eventually ... 5-6 miles a day for a week or 2 maybe longer (depending on the horse's and rider's con). For the 100 MPD, that would be shorter unless the horse and rider are VERY healthy.

Also, remember a normal adventuring party will be significantly heavier than your 160 lbs rider, saddle etc. A painful life lesson from my military time, when doing a forced march or long patrol ounces = pounds & then pounds = pain

From that, I'd say the 25 miles would be with a max load or unhurried. 35-40 would be an average part's normal travel or a max load for a few days. the 50-100 miles, great horses, with light loads.

[Treebore]

Yeah, endurance riders and their horses are very heavily conditioned, and only run their courses an average of once every two weeks.

As for the normal riding, that is for regular local travel. Like the accepted travel time from Tombstone to Benson was 4 hours (26 miles), and from my town to Tucson was two days (about 110 miles). As for how many hours you actually travelled for those two days has never been clearly defined to me. I just assume sun up to sun down, so about 12 hours per day.

As for riding around in armor, if we do it anything close to "realistic", no one in our games rides around in plate or full plate armor. Especially in hot climates. Unless they have spell casters along casting Endure Elements on them each day (which I consider one of the big advantages of playing a Cleric, I always have an Endure Elements spell for myself, so do always wear my Full Plate). What we really do is have pack horses, that are also spare mounts, to distribute the weight across as evenly as possible. Plus if you have it set up to switch out what horse you ride every couple of hours, you travel further each day as well. Typically they don't switch out horses unless they have the money to own that many, and are travelling a week or longer. Which successful adventurers would soon be able to afford to do.

[koralas]

Going at a leisurely pace, with perhaps short spurts of higher speed being required, I'll take a horse every time. But at high speeds horses will tire more quickly than a man, heat up sooner, and require more breaks for water and rest. Further, they will break down exceptionally quickly if this is attempted for extended periods of time. When in a rush, make sure to take these things into account, modern endurance runners and horses are much different from the horses and men of the past, bred and specifically trained for the task at hand. Think of the old Pony Express, they stopped at way points to change horses frequently to speed their long distance travels. This is often why unburdened horses are part of a party trying to travel quickly, they can change the load on the horses, both riders and gear, to be able to travel further without unduly wearing down the horses. Terrain also plays a huge role in this in that a horse has a much more difficult time with descending grades than a human and these will slow them a bit, usually not an issue, but keep in mind during chases.

This site has some interesting information, and talks specifically about Medieval Knights traveling 50-60 miles on their destriers or palfreys when moving quickly, while a good day is generally considered 30-40 miles per day. Click on the history link at the top for some other really cool info.
http://www.wwwestra.com/horses/history_travel.htm

[Arduin]

G
This site has some interesting information, and talks specifically about Medieval Knights traveling 50-60 miles on their destriers or palfreys when moving quickly, while a good day is generally considered 30-40 miles per day. Click on the history link at the top for some other really cool info.
http://www.wwwestra.com/horses/history_travel.htm

Here is a link to the book recommended by the above site: http://www.civilwarsignals.org/pdf/prairietraveler.pdf

Also: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23066.epub.images

[serleran]

Considering it was a guess on my part, I don't think I did half bad. Heh.