How do you compare MPH to movement speed in D&D?

[eyebreaker7]

"Its top speed is 90 miles per hour (140 km/h), and it can support about 400 lb (180 kg)"
What movement speed would that have?

[Silly Name]

140 km/h means 140,000 meters per hour. Divided by 60, that gives us ~2,333 meters per minute. Since a round is 6 seconds (a tenth of a minute), we divide by ten and get 233 meters per round. In feet that's ~764, which we can round to 765 ft in order to fit grid movement.

In general, for ease of calculation, convert all mph speeds in km/h, multiply by 1000, divide by 60 as to get meters per second, then divide by 10 and convert back to feet (if you don't know how, Google can convert all units of measure from imperial to metric and viceversa), and you'll have their per round speed.

[frogglesmash]

140 km/h means 140,000 meters per hour. Divided by 60, that gives us ~2,333 meters per minute. Since a round is 6 seconds (a tenth of a minute), we divide by ten and get 233 meters per round. In feet that's ~764, which we can round to 765 ft in order to fit grid movement.

In general, for ease of calculation, convert all mph speeds in km/h, multiply by 1000, divide by 60 as to get meters per second, then divide by 10 and convert back to feet (if you don't know how, Google can convert all units of measure from imperial to metric and viceversa), and you'll have their per round speed.

Or you could just convert it to ft/h, then divide by 600, which incidentally, is 792 ft/round.

[Silly Name]

Or you could just convert it to ft/h, then divide by 600, which incidentally, is 792 ft/round.

I find the metric system easier since I'm European, but I didn't consider the rounding error due to the conversion. Shame on me.

[eyebreaker7]

Hmmm, I don't think 765 ft. movement would work very well. lol. What's the fastest thing in the game? A Solar has a fly speed of 150. A Great wyrm gold dragon has 250. A fly spell is only 60, but then again I have to make it with magic not tech in an alternate reality.
Now if we look at the carpets of flying they all have just a 40 movement speed. AND one of the requirements to make it is a spell that is made permanent on the carpet yet it's NOT on the legal permanency spell list. There's got to be a better spell list for permanency. Can I find one? Unfortunately not.


Overland Flight
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V, S
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 hour/level
This spell functions like a fly spell, except you can fly at a speed of 40 feet (30 feet if wearing medium or heavy armor, or if carrying a medium or heavy load) with average maneuverability. When using this spell for long-distance movement, you can hustle without taking nonlethal damage (a forced march still requires Constitution checks). This means you can cover 64 miles in an eight-hour period of flight (or 48 miles at a speed of 30 feet).

If I understand what you said then overland flight is 8 MPH or 42,240 feet. So divided by 60 seconds in a minute = 704 feet per minute divided by 10 rounds in a turn = 70 feet????? I think I did that horribly wrong didn't I? That's not even half of the move of a great wyrm golden boy. But I am horrible at math. Especially conversions. I think I'm one of those students that only passed because the teacher didn't want me back next year if I failed.


Carpet of Flying
This rug is able to fly through the air as if affected by an overland flight spell of unlimited duration. The size, carrying capacity, and speed of the different carpets of flying are shown on the table below. Beautifully and intricately made, each carpet has its own command word to activate it—if the device is within voice range, the command word activates it, whether the speaker is on the rug or not. The carpet is then controlled by spoken directions.

Size Capacity Speed Weight Market Price
5 ft. by 5 ft. 200 lb. 40 ft. 8 lb. 20,000 gp
5 ft. by 10 ft. 400 lb. 40 ft. 10 lb. 35,000 gp
10 ft. by 10 ft. 800 lb. 40 ft. 15 lb. 60,000 gp
A carpet of flying can carry up to double its capacity, but doing so reduces its speed to 30 feet. It has average maneuverability, but a carpet of flying can still hover.

Moderate transmutation; CL 10th; Craft Wondrous Item, overland flight, permanency.

[AvatarVecna]

It's worth mentioning, the Overland movement rules make it so that 5 ft/round travels 0.5 miles per hour. Given that 5 ft/round would travel 3000 ft. Given that half a mile is 2640 ft, that means the overland movement rules must be assuming you slow down a bit from your combat-walking pace over the course of an hour, or maybe take breaks at some point.

765 movement is a x5 run for a creature with base 155, a x4 run for a creature with base 195, and a x3 run for a creature with base 255.


Hmmm, I don't think 765 ft. movement would work very well. lol. What's the fastest thing in the game?

If we're talking "what's the fastest speed you could get on a creature without items or class features or spells", that would be a Paragon/Pseudonatural/Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon, which would be a CR 91 challenge and would (among many other capabilities) have a fly speed of 2100 ft per round.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

The main problem is that the stated speed for creatures and characters is not top speed. It's both speed in combat while exchanging blows and dodging a little and overland walking speed. 30 feet per round after all is only 300 feet per minute or around 100 meters per minute. A good sprinter does the 100 meters in 10 seconds, that's six times as fast. 100 meters per minute also translates to around 6km/h, a good pace for a mildly forced military march, but a good amateur jog is twice as fast.

This model doesn't really translate to vehicles, the cruising speed of a vehicle is pretty close to its top speed. A car isn't six times slower on the highway, even when loaded with gear, than it would be on a drag strip. Meanwhile in combat a vehicle is pretty slow, because you can't maneuver for jack squat.

If this is not a vehicle we're talking about, but maybe like a really fast really big pterosaur or something I'd just base it on other flying creatures. Just make it one of the fastest ones. The speed you names is about 3 times as fast as the realistic long term top flight speed of many slower bird species, so I guess that would make the movement speed of this thing around 150, maybe even 180. But that's probably too much for game balance, so maybe bring it down to 100.

Overall, I figure you're trying to model something that d&d does not model well. Although I figure you could, particularly if this is a vehicle, add some sort of an overland travel modifier. So it has speed 40, but on flat terrain over long distances it travels at 4 times that pace. And then maybe a bunch of other terrains count as difficult terrain for it, slowing it down to speed 20. Something like that. Or with a higher base number if this is supposed to be something high level and powerful. But I don't think there's any way to modify the system so that fast things compare to each other in a relatively realistic fashion.

Also, we kind of need more information here, I find myself filling in a lot of blanks.

[eyebreaker7]

Goblin Glider
In the Green Goblin's first appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #14, he rides a steel, rocket powered wingless broomstick (not a glider). In his second appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #17, he changes to the familiar bat-shaped glider. The Goblin Glider's controls and microprocessor are located behind the head of the glider. The pilot is attached to the glider via electromagnetic clasps on the wings of the glider. It has great maneuverability and is steered mostly by leaning, but manual controls are available behind the head of the glider. The Goblin later added radio-linked voice controls to his mask. Its top speed is 90 miles per hour (140 km/h), and it can support about 400 lb (180 kg), though it could lift far more for brief periods. Flying at top speed with a full load and a full fuel tank would deplete its fuel supply in about an hour.

That's all I got for info.

[Gorthawar]

If you give it a fly speed of 150ft and the run feat that would get you to 750ft per round in a straight line and a decent speed for other purposes probably with good or perfect maneuverability. If the question is how to create the wing within the rules I'm at loss however.

[AvatarVecna]

If you give it a fly speed of 150ft and the run feat that would get you to 750ft per round in a straight line and a decent speed for other purposes probably with good or perfect maneuverability. If the question is how to create the wing within the rules I'm at loss however.

If we're making a magic item...


More spells now that I'm awake, primarily via Sublime Chord and Ur-Priest.

Continuous "Aerial Alacrity". 48000 gp for fly speed +30 ft, +1 maneuverability, and AC/Reflex +1 (dodge) while airborne.

Continuous "Cloud Wings". 12000 gp for +30 ft on your fly speed.

Continuous "Flight Of The Dragon". 36000 gp for fly speed 100 ft (average). You also have decent overland speed - 15mph or 24mph on a hustle. It's a little cheap for an "expensive" item, but it's the fastest fly speed you can afford, and it can be enhanced with other spells.

Continuous "Wings Of Air". 24000 gp for +1 maneuverability.

Continuous "Wings Of Swift Flying". 6000 gp for +40 ft on your fly speed (provided that the creator was dragonblooded in some fashion).

All put together, you've spent 126000 gp for fly speed 200 (perfect) with AC/Reflex +1 (dodge) while airborne.

[eyebreaker7]

Are those prices if YOU make them yourself? Or can I have someone else do it for that cost?
The "Continuous "Wings Of Swift Flying". 6000 gp for +40 ft on your fly speed (provided that the creator was dragonblooded in some fashion)." is in question mainly because he's not dragonblooded. But then again he's not either of those 2 classes either. lol

[AvatarVecna]

Are those prices if YOU make them yourself? Or can I have someone else do it for that cost?
The "Continuous "Wings Of Swift Flying". 6000 gp for +40 ft on your fly speed (provided that the creator was dragonblooded in some fashion)." is in question mainly because he's not dragonblooded.

Those are the market prices for those abilities. It costs less gold if you craft them yourself (although then it costs time/XP).

That particular one ends up 10 ft slower if youre not dragonblooded. So only 190 for the same cost, which gets to 760 ft while fly-running.

[Max Caysey]

A great wyrm time dragon (DR#359) has a fly speed of 380 ft./ round. So, a top speed of 1520 ft./ round!

[hamishspence]

It's worth mentioning, the Overland movement rules make it so that 5 ft/round travels 0.5 miles per hour. Given that 5 ft/round would travel 3000 ft. Given that half a mile is 2640 ft, that means the overland movement rules must be assuming you slow down a bit from your combat-walking pace over the course of an hour, or maybe take breaks at some point.


Or it could just be that a "D&D mile" is 6000 ft instead of 5280 ft.

[Rebel7284]

Top speed would certainly be the run speed, you would need to divide it by 4 to get the regular speed, or 5 if the creature has the Run feat. You are likely looking at something just under 200ft/move action. This is pretty fast, but plenty of fast fliers can hit that. A ton of high level creatures have speeds between 150 and 200.

[eyebreaker7]

AvatarVecna where does that info come from? Where can I find it?

[AvatarVecna]

AvatarVecna where does that info come from? Where can I find it?

SRD Link (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/movement.htm)

Alternatively, Player's Handbook pages 162-164.

[eyebreaker7]

I mean the:

Item Of Flight

Continuous "Aerial Alacrity". 48000 gp for fly speed +30 ft, +1 maneuverability, and AC/Reflex +1 (dodge) while airborne.

Continuous "Cloud Wings". 12000 gp for +30 ft on your fly speed.

Continuous "Flight Of The Dragon". 36000 gp for fly speed 100 ft (average). You also have decent overland speed - 15mph or 24mph on a hustle. It's a little cheap for an "expensive" item, but it's the fastest fly speed you can afford, and it can be enhanced with other spells.

Continuous "Wings Of Air". 24000 gp for +1 maneuverability.

Continuous "Wings Of Swift Flying". 6000 gp for +40 ft on your fly speed (provided that the creator was dragonblooded in some fashion).

All put together, you've spent 126000 gp for fly speed 200 (perfect) with AC/Reflex +1 (dodge) while airborne.

[AvatarVecna]

I mean the:

Item Of Flight

Items mimicking a continuous version of an existing spell effect have their market price estimated as thus:

[spell level] x [caster level] x [2000] x [duration modifier]

There are additional tricks you can pull by having the person crafting the item be of a particularly weird build, such that they have a surprisingly low minimum caster level for casting various spells. For example, An Ur-Priest casts off the cleric list, with minimum CL equal to the level of the spell. A Divine Crusader casts off a single cleric domain, with minimum CL equal to the level of the spell. And a Bard 1/Wizard 9/Sublime Chord X who adds SC's CL to Bard's CL, will cast 4th/5th/6th/7th/8th/9th lvl Bard/Sorcerer/Wizard spells at minimum CL 2/2/4/6/8/10 (respectively).

(also in that part of that thread I was under the weird impression that all Wondrous had to have minimum CL 3 on all spell effects, but that's just to craft the item itself, it's unrelated to the spell effect being replicated). Thus:

Aerial Alacrity (RotW): 4x2x2000x2=32000 gp

Cloud Wings (SpC): 2x3x2000x1=12000 gp

Flight Of The Dragon (SpC): 4x2x2000x1.5=24000 gp

Wings Of Air (SpC): 2x3x2000x2=24000 gp

Wings Of Swift Flying (RotD): 1x1x2000x1=2000 gp

So the total can actually come to just 94000 gp. If you "curse" the item so that it can only be used by (for example) a Lawful Evil Human with 10 ranks in Use Magic Device, you can get it for half price at 47000 gp.