Overland Movement

[Sandsarecool]

Hello all, tis me again.
I've been co-DMing for a group who want to get a message sent far far away (about 1,000 miles or so.) they've got their hands on a modified griffon which has a 100ft flight speed, and due to their low level they believe this is their best bet. Trouble is, the DMG seems not to appreciate giant speeds (though we could extrapolate it to be 4/5 of the tactical speed per day.) Unfortunately, this is woefully slow for them (about 24 days for a round trip), and my googlefu is still weak. Are there any spells or the like which can thrown about to decrease the time it would take? I could probably 'encourage' the DM to 'hand out' a few scrolls of these items.

Thanks in advance.

[weckar]

24 days for 2000 miles seems about right. I mean, that's nearly a crossing east-to-west of the United States. Even with a phantom steed that'd take a while.

[InvisibleBison]

The spell cloud wings from the Spell Compendium grants a flying creature a +30 foot bonus to its fly speed and lasts 1/hour per level. If you can find a custom item of the spell or a druid who's able to ride the griffon and keep casting the spell, that brings the round-trip time down to 19 days, 6 hours. Not a huge increase, but it's something.

A better approach would be turning the griffon into a zombie. This slows it down tactically, as it can only take a single move action a round, but on an overland scale speeds it up, since it can travel continuously without suffering the consequences of making a forced march (since said consequences are nonlethal damage, to which an undead creature is immune). A zombie griffon with a fly speed of 100 feet would be able to make a 2000 mile trip in 7 days, 8 hours. If you add in a continuous cloud wings item*, the time decreases to 5 days, 16 hours.

If you can find a different way to make the griffon immune to non-lethal damage, the travel time decreases further, to 3 days, 16 hours without a cloud wings item, or 2 days, 20 hours with one.

*You'd have to use an item, as carrying a rider means the damage from a forced march becomes lethal.

[Zombimode]

Hello all, tis me again.
I've been co-DMing for a group who want to get a message sent far far away (about 1,000 miles or so.) they've got their hands on a modified griffon which has a 100ft flight speed, and due to their low level they believe this is their best bet. Trouble is, the DMG seems not to appreciate giant speeds (though we could extrapolate it to be 4/5 of the tactical speed per day.) Unfortunately, this is woefully slow for them (about 24 days for a round trip), and my googlefu is still weak. Are there any spells or the like which can thrown about to decrease the time it would take? I could probably 'encourage' the DM to 'hand out' a few scrolls of these items.

Thanks in advance.

Overland speed is 4 miles for each 5 ft. base speed. That is for an 8 hour period of actual movement. The griffon could perform a forced march. A forced march for one hour deals 1d6 non-lethal on a failed con check. For 8 hours of forced march that would be 48 points of damage at the most. A griffon has 59 hp and heals 56 points of non-lethal damage during an 8 hour rest (the rest also deals with the fatigue). Thus the griffon can safely travel for 16 hours per day making 160 miles a day.

[Troacctid]

The Traveler's Mount spell allows a mount to hustle without taking nonlethal damage for hours/level, as well as offering a speed bonus. So that could help.

[Demidos]

Wind at back lasts a full day and doubles the speed. 4th level druid.

[Fouredged Sword]

A phantom steed has a speed of 20 PER CL up to a speed of 240ft at 12th level. It can hustle to travel 192 miles in a day without hustling. If you hustle it can go twice that, so 384. That makes the trip in 3 days. At Cl 12 it can airwalk so you can ignore terrain.

You just need to spend a few healing spells to keep it "alive" or resummon it if it passes out due to non-lethal damage.

There is a higher level spell that summons multiple mounts as well.

[Shalist]

Shotgunning it with a repost of 3.0 / 3.5 speed boosting stuff (several of which have been mentioned); there will likely be -something- you find useful here:



When applying multipliers to real-world values (such as weight or distance), normal rules of math apply instead...Similarly, a blinded creature attempting to negotiate difficult terrain would count each square as 4 squares (doubling the cost twice, for a total multiplier of ×4), rather than as 3 squares (adding 100% twice).
So speed multipliers are multiplied, rather than added, together.

Psuedonatural for 2x, of course.
Paragon for 3x.
The Horned Helm (AEG pg 133; 38,000g) for 2x speed.
The 'Rapid Wrath' (Ghostwalk; 11,702g) (a carried spear) for another 2x.
Shaundakul's Boots (MoF 165; 6,300g) for another 2x, but only for 5 minutes each day.

Wind at back (MoF 134; drd4, pg 134) doubles your non-tactical speed for 24 hours.
Fly like an arrow (Dragon Magazine #308; sor/wiz 4, hr/lvl) lets you move at '10 times your normal fly speed,' but...only in a straight line, can't do anything but move, and you had to take a full move the previous round...still awesome though.


You can run for a number of rounds equal to your Constitution score, but after that you must make a DC 10 Constitution check to continue running. You must check again each round in which you continue to run, and the DC of this check increases by 1 for each check you have made. When you fail this check, you must stop running.


While wearing boots of the wanderer, you automatically succeed on any Constitution checks required for running or making a forced march (To clarify, these boots allow you to run for hours, effectively increasing your non-tactical speed by 4 or 5x)

Incidentally, the 'Calvaryman's Saddle' (Dmag 334, 8500g) gives its wearer the run and endurance feats.

Alternately, the 'Panther mask (MIC pg 201, 2700g) just gives you 'run'.

Aeriel Alarcity (RoTW, lvl 4 spell, min/lvl) gives +30 (unnamed) to fly speed, and +1 to manueverability.
Cloud Wings (SC 49, spell, lvl 2 spell, hour/lvl) gives +30 (unnamed) to fly speed.
Collar of umbral metamorphisis (ToM 156 22,000g) for +10 (unnamed) speed from the 'dark' template.
'Air Heritage' feat (Planar handbook pg 37) for +30 (unnamed) to fly speed
Haste or whatever (slotless horseshoes of speed + UMD?) for +30 (enhancement) to all speeds.
'improved speed' feat for +20 (unnamed) to flying.
Shandukal's boots for +10( unnamed) to all speeds.


-Alter Self: Shift into something faster.
-Chronocharm of the Horizon Walker (MIC, 500g) 'move' as a swift action 1/day.
-Stormstrider boots (CM 134, 18000g) 1/day lets you spend your movement as a lightning bolt, zapping everyone you pass through.
-Flyby attack (SRD) attack at any point during a move.
-Mobile spell-casting feat (CA 111) Ditto for casting.
-Flyby breath (Dragonlance Campaign Setting ~pg55) Ditto for breathing, except a double-move.
-Strafing breath (DCS) Breath AOE lengthened to 1/2 your fly speed, need to go in a straight line while breathing.

[SaintNick]

Could you just scry the sender of the message and then teleport to him/her? That would cut your travel time down to about 1 hour.

[Inevitability]

Could you just scry the sender of the message and then teleport to him/her? That would cut your travel time down to about 1 hour.

If you can reliably teleport, you can just cast Sending.

However, an even more available way to deliver a message is through a Create Lantern Archon spell. Any good-aligned (and possibly neutral) prepared caster able to cast 3rd-level spells can learn it, so it should be easily available.

The created lantern archon can then use Greater Teleport to travel to the recipent and deliver the message.

Sure, the caster will take a few points of constitution damage, but that should get healed in a few days. At worst, you can just pay for a Lesser Restoration spell.

[Fizban]

A speed of 100' is 10 miles per hour, which is pretty dang good to start with (not all that special though, Hippogriffs start with 100').

Traveler's Mount has already been mentioned, even if you can't apply the speed bonus to flight it still lets you double your overland speed by hustling all day as long as you have enough castings. That's 20 mph. Cloud Wings can get you the fly bonus, for 13mph base and 26 with TM. Wind at Back has also been mentioned, and is one of the only things that can stack further with the above: 52mph total.

Or you could just cast Forest Voice or Whispering Sand and have a good long talk, for a single 3rd level slot or scroll, no strings attached (Compete Champion and Sandstorm).

You left out two important bits of information: party level, and weather or not the message is a physical item that must be delivered. There's also class choices but magic items don't much care.

[Sandsarecool]

A better approach would be turning the griffon into a zombie. This slows it down tactically, as it can only take a single move action a round, but on an overland scale speeds it up, since it can travel continuously without suffering the consequences of making a forced march (since said consequences are nonlethal damage, to which an undead creature is immune).
Seeing as I know the DM intends to use the griffon as a plothook later in the campagin, I seriously doubt he'll allow it to become undead and derail his carefully though out evil plan. Good point, though.


If you can find a different way to make the griffon immune to non-lethal damage, the travel time decreases further, to 3 days, 16 hours without a cloud wings item, or 2 days, 20 hours with one.
Hm. I suppose that can be arranged.


Overland speed is 4 miles for each 5 ft. base speed. That is for an 8 hour period of actual movement. The griffon could perform a forced march. A forced march for one hour deals 1d6 non-lethal on a failed con check. For 8 hours of forced march that would be 48 points of damage at the most. A griffon has 59 hp and heals 56 points of non-lethal damage during an 8 hour rest (the rest also deals with the fatigue). Thus the griffon can safely travel for 16 hours per day making 160 miles a day.
That's not a very nice thing to do. :smallmad:
...Though it's certainly an option if the party realises it.


Shotgunning it with a repost of 3.0 / 3.5 speed boosting stuff (several of which have been mentioned); there will likely be -something- you find useful here:
Ah, useful loot items for the party to 'stumble upon'. You have my thanks.


You left out two important bits of information: party level, and weather [whether or weather?:smallconfused:] or not the message is a physical item that must be delivered. There's also class choices but magic items don't much care.
Oh, oops. It's a physical item that needs to be handed over, and the party is level 4-5 (so phantom steed isn't as obvious a choice as one would expect). The DM is willing to throw in a few one-use high level items if it helps the plot, so there's that. I'm not sure about the weather, but I don't believe it'll hinder overland flight. As for terrain, it's mostly dense forest and mountainous areas.

[ace rooster]

Overland speed is 4 miles for each 5 ft. base speed. That is for an 8 hour period of actual movement. The griffon could perform a forced march. A forced march for one hour deals 1d6 non-lethal on a failed con check. For 8 hours of forced march that would be 48 points of damage at the most. A griffon has 59 hp and heals 56 points of non-lethal damage during an 8 hour rest (the rest also deals with the fatigue). Thus the griffon can safely travel for 16 hours per day making 160 miles a day.

I don't think that works. The fatigue stacks into exhaustion, which halves movement speed and requires at least another hour rest. It still makes pretty good time, and I don't think it can be beat, but not quite 160 miles per day.



A better approach would be turning the griffon into a zombie. This slows it down tactically, as it can only take a single move action a round, but on an overland scale speeds it up, since it can travel continuously without suffering the consequences of making a forced march (since said consequences are nonlethal damage, to which an undead creature is immune). A zombie griffon with a fly speed of 100 feet would be able to make a 2000 mile trip in 7 days, 8 hours. If you add in a continuous cloud wings item*, the time decreases to 5 days, 16 hours.


The problem with this is that it requires a rider who has some method of control, because zombies are not able to act autonomously well enough for this. This needs to be at least a level 3 wizard (or items to pretend), and might not be available in a low level campaign.

Scry and pop in could work, but has a lot of if. You need to know somebody to scry on, and then they need to be in a place where a 10' radius circle is distinctive enough to teleport to*. Using an archon for the teleport is far safer, but the archon still needs to know where it is teleporting to.

You can use an archon differently though. Getting at will greater teleport allows it to use it like a LoS DD. Even if they are only teleporting a mile at a time, they can still cover 600 miles an hour. Give them some time to study where they are before they go and when they get there, and they can get back and forth in a single teleport. Lesser planar ally is only a 4th level spell, so might be available even in core. Alignment of the target and source dependent, and also depends on whether you want to bring the gods into it directly (effectively asking for demonic intervention at a similar level to the outsider called).

Also worth mentioning is dream. Slightly slower than sending, but much less limited in terms of message length. Doesn't work for elves though.


I run teleport a little differently, using a sort of zoom out, zoom in, ruling. Knowing that somebody is in an ornate throne room is never enough, no matter how much you know about the ornamentation, if you do not know where that throne room is. The ornamentation can help identify where it is, but it is too fine detail to direct a teleport from 100 miles away. At that distance you need to navigate by landmarks that are in the mile scale range, like a city or a mountain. Fluff wise, teleport lifts you most of the way into the astral plane, and as you do so the scale of the material plane appears smaller, until you get to the point where a single step will take you hundreds of miles. When you take that step you have a fuzzy perception of landmarks over that whole radius, so only the large ones stand out. As you get pulled back you can tune your position based on your perception getting finer (but less ranged), allowing you to aim at targets like: beside the throne in the throne room in the castle in the city of Tamsk in the region of Lankia.
The spell can be made to 'bounce' allowing some adjustment if the target seems wrong, but not to any great extent (hence why details help, but things can still go wrong). Greater teleport can bounce indefinately, hence why it is so much safer, and has no range limit. Due to the nature of the spell, the caster will remember none of this, meaning that it cannot be used for recon, and also that the caster has no idea how well their navigation went. They may realise pretty quick when the 'celestial' ornamentation that they were using as a help turns out to be infernal in a similar style though.

[Fizban]

[whether or weather?:smallconfused:]
Good question, never could keep them straight, hardly anyone ever asks *shrug*

I don't think that works. The fatigue stacks into exhaustion, which halves movement speed and requires at least another hour rest. It still makes pretty good time, and I don't think it can be beat, but not quite 160 miles per day.
Not neccesarily.

A character can hustle for 1 hour without a problem. Hustling for a second hour in between sleep cycles deals 1 point of nonlethal damage, and each additional hour deals twice the damage taken during the previous hour of hustling. A character who takes any nonlethal damage from hustling becomes fatigued.
That last part is phrased very peculiarly. If it just said "takes nonlethal damage," there'd be more of a case that fatigue is supposed to apply every tick, but by saying "takes any" it implies that the amount does not matter. It's also impossible to take a greater amount of damage from the later ticks without taking the earlier damage, and no mention of healing magic, so it's unlikely they thought anyone was confused about if taking 2 or more points should cause exhaustion even if you healed it.

Finally, we kinda have long-distance runners in real life that hustle for many hours at a time, without being cut to half speed (wiki says 20km/h, more than 10mph).

[ace rooster]

Good question, never could keep them straight, hardly anyone ever asks *shrug*

Not neccesarily.

That last part is phrased very peculiarly. If it just said "takes nonlethal damage," there'd be more of a case that fatigue is supposed to apply every tick, but by saying "takes any" it implies that the amount does not matter. It's also impossible to take a greater amount of damage from the later ticks without taking the earlier damage, and no mention of healing magic, so it's unlikely they thought anyone was confused about if taking 2 or more points should cause exhaustion even if you healed it.

Finally, we kinda have long-distance runners in real life that hustle for many hours at a time, without being cut to half speed (wiki says 20km/h, more than 10mph).

Fair enough. I'd rule otherwise, but I see where you are coming from.

Bringing real life points into a discussion involving a griffon flying at 10mph is not going to convince me though. :smalltongue: I am unconvinced that a griffon could fly at that speed if it tried! The movement system is all kind of borked, with epic characters being unable to run at 8mph and fire a bow at the same time, but it really doesn't work for flyers that find it easiest to move fast. This goes twice for zombies. No point trying to use reality as a reference, we are way past that point.

If you wanted to work with real world thoughts, a look at migratory birds is probably a good starting point, with an average in the 30mph range. Maybe expect 40mph from a large flyer like a griffon. I would guess around 3 days for the round trip.

[Tiktakkat]

Low Level Spell
Snowshoes (Spell Compendium) Cleric 1, Druid 1, Ranger 1; 1 hour/level; +10 ft. enhancement bonus to speed.


Not Low Level Spells
Wind Walk (PHB) Cleric 6, Druid 7; 1 hour/level; 60 MPH fly speed.

Shadow Walk (PHB) Bard 5, Wizard 6; 1 hour/level; 50 MPH "walking" speed.


Cheap Items
Drums of Marching (Heroes of Battle) 1,100 gp; +4 on forced march checks to avoid damage; 50 ft. speed.

Clockwork Steed (MM 4) 2,000 gp; tireless (force march 24/7); 50 ft. speed.


Not Cheap Item
Stone Horse (DMG) 10,000 gp; tireless (force march 24/7); 50 ft. speed.

[Fizban]

Fair enough. I'd rule otherwise, but I see where you are coming from.

Bringing real life points into a discussion involving a griffon flying at 10mph is not going to convince me though. :smalltongue: I am unconvinced that a griffon could fly at that speed if it tried! The movement system is all kind of borked, with epic characters being unable to run at 8mph and fire a bow at the same time, but it really doesn't work for flyers that find it easiest to move fast. This goes twice for zombies. No point trying to use reality as a reference, we are way past that point.

If you wanted to work with real world thoughts, a look at migratory birds is probably a good starting point, with an average in the 30mph range. Maybe expect 40mph from a large flyer like a griffon. I would guess around 3 days for the round trip.

Movement and carrying capacity are some of the only things in the rules that actually are calibrated roughly against real-world figures. If it's the fact that animals so big shouldn't fly so good that bothers you, you're wrong on two counts: one, we have fossilized evidence of ridiculously large flyers, and two, standard fantasy mechanics are that big versions of little things are just as good if not better than the smaller version, square-cube law to the abyss.

As you've already noted, if anything flying creatures in DnD are getting completely shortchanged. You mentioned migratory birds, I don't know if there's a common raptor that isn't migratory but red tailed hawks and bald eagles (which I could have sworn were cited as matches for the MM stats), go 30-40mph soaring. With 80'-100' flight speed you need either a run action or a downward hustle to reach 32-40mph (assuming you interpret the flight rules so the downward hustle even works). Now that I've looked at it that's probably how it's supposed to work: birds reach their real life speeds by running at low altitudes, or by flying a constant slight down angle to get them double speed while riding a thermal that negates the downward movement from the angle.

In fact, the most unrealistic thing about most DnD flight is, if you ask me, the fact that its so slow. The slower you go, the smaller you need to be, and there are some creatures with phenomenally slow flight speeds (20', 2mph or less) for their size. I find it much harder to believe that a large or even bigger creature could fly at a speed of .75mph for any amount of distance with wings from the Starspawn feat, or a Dragonborn to fly at 1.5mph (half walking speed, only 2.5 ft per second, minimum before stall), than I do for a large beast based on an eagle to soar like an eagle. I may have just said square-cube law need not apply, but at low speeds you need insect style wings to invoke the fantasy trope effectively (bats and humming birds are too far removed from the humanoid body type).

[Elkad]

5th level wizard with things he should have already. Ring of Sustenance (or Fortifying Bedroll?). Lesser Rod of Extend Spell. Phantom Mount x2 memorized.
This is the last point the griffon (unsupported by spells of it's own) is competitive, other than the fact it's flying instead of following terrain.

Same 100' speed. Up to the DM whether your phantom steed can run and/or hustle without taking damage. (does it have a con score?)
Even if it does, you can get in a couple hours of hustle, and then 8 hours of regular movement (force-marching at the end). Cast 2nd one for 2+8 more hours. Sleep your 2 hours Another hour to rememorize. 2x10min cast times. That leaves 40 minutes for encounters, bio breaks, etc.

You get 12 effective hours (8 normal, 2 hustling), times 2 steeds, per cast. Or 24 effective hours at 10mph. 240 miles/day. Every caster level beyond 5th adds 48 miles to that at least, and more spell slots lets you ditch the extend rod and recast more often (for more hustling).

If a phantom steed is Con:- so it can Run all the time, then it gets really insane. 10 hours of galloping at 40mph, or 800 miles per 20hr movement day. (At CL12 cap it's 96mph, which is "Cannonball Run in a specially modified car with lots of fuel tanks" speed, and it can Air Walk in 960' increments to jump canyons (plus water walk, ignore terrain, etc).

[Calthropstu]

The spell cloud wings from the Spell Compendium grants a flying creature a +30 foot bonus to its fly speed and lasts 1/hour per level. If you can find a custom item of the spell or a druid who's able to ride the griffon and keep casting the spell, that brings the round-trip time down to 19 days, 6 hours. Not a huge increase, but it's something.

A better approach would be turning the griffon into a zombie. This slows it down tactically, as it can only take a single move action a round, but on an overland scale speeds it up, since it can travel continuously without suffering the consequences of making a forced march (since said consequences are nonlethal damage, to which an undead creature is immune). A zombie griffon with a fly speed of 100 feet would be able to make a 2000 mile trip in 7 days, 8 hours. If you add in a continuous cloud wings item*, the time decreases to 5 days, 16 hours.

If you can find a different way to make the griffon immune to non-lethal damage, the travel time decreases further, to 3 days, 16 hours without a cloud wings item, or 2 days, 20 hours with one.

*You'd have to use an item, as carrying a rider means the damage from a forced march becomes lethal.

Murdering things and animating their corpse to gain slight tactical advantage. Xykon would be proud.