In game travel time

[Soulz_Stealer]

So my group has been having trouble trying to figure out time during the day. We know that over the course of a day you only travel for effectively 8 hours. We sleep for 8 and we give 1 hour on each side for camp set up and breakdown. so we are looking at 18 hours used of 24. We've been using the 10 hours of rest so when we have an encounter during the night we can roll a die and find what hour of watch it happens, though we have been thinking of changing it to 12 hours to eat up a few hours. Even doing that though, 4 hours seems like a lot of time for breaks and the like. So what do you guys think could be eating up the extra time?

[skunk3]

Time has always been a weird thing in D&D especially when it comes to some casters. Wizards and Clerics in particular need a certain amount of time (one hour or so) spent studying/praying/meditating...

Between sleeping, setting up and breaking down camps, doing required preparations for spellcasters, and all of the other minutiae... there's actually little time for encounters. For the sake of conversation let's assume that PC's sleep 8 hours per day. There's also another extra hour required for spellcasters, so that puts us up to 9. 30 minutes (at minimum) set up and tear down time for camps is another hour. That's 10 out of 24 hours in a day, and then we have to factor in traveling, and do they travel non-stop?


There's a lot of things that can eat up time over the course of a day that aren't encounter-oriented. Truth be told, in D&D it shouldn't be uncommon for some days (even many days) to pass with basically nothing going on at all. Also, some races need less sleep than others. IIRC Elves only need like 4 hours (I could be wrong) but most Humans would eventually succumb to exhaustion if forced to subsist on less than 8 hours of sleep per day over a certain period of time.

[theblasblas]

I wouldn't say that there's little time for encounters when encounters typically last for only a few minutes.

In any case, in my group we just assume we're training in some manner, or otherwise doing something related to class progression. Those bonuses have to come from somewhere.

[unseenmage]

Could the Downtime rules (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCampaign/downtime.html) be any part of what you're looking for?

[Firest Kathon]

You are not spending enough time sleeping in your calculation. To regain spells, ward off fatigue etc, a character needs to sleep/rest for 8 hours. However, time spend keeping watch does not count for that, so you are looking at 12 hours for a three-watch roster (8 hours sleep, 4 hours watch). Then you have 1 hour for spell preparation. Calculate 1 hour per meal/rest, that's an additional 3 hours, and you are at 16 hours, leaving 8 hours for travel.

From the SRD on resting (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/#TOC-Preparing-Wizard-Spells):

The wizard does not have to slumber for every minute of the time, but he must refrain from movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task during the rest period.

[heavyfuel]

Practicing that feat you will take next level, practicing your class abilities / a new class, researching new spells, praying for better spells.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I think travel time is the way it is because it's sort of the limit for real people traveling on foot. An army that marches 40km a day fully packed is making good time. It's the distance soldiers from all over the world walk per day at the "Nijmeegse vierdaagse", a four day walking event. (If they choose to walk without pack they have to do 50km.) 40km is 8 hours at normal marching speed. There is time for walking further in a day, but your average human won't be able to do that and still have feet to walk on for the rest of the week.

Of course, D&D characters are not average humans. If the 15th level fighter tells me he's going to burst out in a jog and keep it up for 16 hours because the kingdom needs to get this message I'll try to find a way to accommodate him. But for normal days, maybe find a hobby? Craft(alchemy) maybe?

[Elkad]

You can Hustle an hour a day without ill effect.
You can take the 9th hour of movement every day. (Forced March)
Sure, occasionally you will fail the easy Con check and be fatigued, but it will be clear almost immediately (clvlpoints/hr, and you can only take 6pts).

Note that it doesn't say you have to rest to cure non-lethal either, and every time the non-lethal from Forced March clears you become un-fatigued (an exception to the 8 hours of rest rule).

So a mid-level character can alternate Hustle and March for 8 hours easily, (taking 8 non-lethal at the end of the 4th hustle), and then continue on with Forced March. Forced March damage never increases, so if 1d6/hr isn't a problem (6th level, or healing available), they can continue basically forever. Even at 4th level, they'll spend the occasional hour or three fatigued, but the odds say they should never go unconscious.