A River current ...

[orlondok]

I am currently DMing the Dungeon of the mad mage (Very cool adventure if you enjoy dungeon crawls)
I am prepping level 3 (Sargauth level) ...
Our group plays 3.5 ... and converting the module from 5e to 3.5 is a P.I.T.A. ... lol
but that is not really what I am asking here ...
(although if anyone can point me in the direction of a decent resource for converting 5th to 3.5 ... that would be awesome)
Anyways ... seen as our group uses 3.5 rules ... we like a LOT of detail ...
So I was wondering: is there anywhere that might show how fast a raft would float with the current of a river (the sargauth)?
I thought "Stormwrack" might have some info on it ... but I am not really seeing any.
I realize I can prolly just say it runs at whatever rate I would like, but I was looking for sort of a guideline.
Also ... what would be a good CR on a STR check to row against the current?
(there are some caves in the opposite direction of the current that have loot ... ect.)
Thanks for any info/opinions in advance.

[Albions_Angel]

Dungeon of the Mad Mage takes inspiration (and its first 3 levels) from Ruins of Undermountain, a 2e module. 2e liked rules more than 5th. If you can get hold of a copy, it might have some information about the river that you can port forward.

Stormwrack is more about sea travel than river travel. I am sure I have seen river flowing mechanics somewhere indicating how fast boats travel and thus how fast you have to row against a current.

If you want to come up with the guideline yourself, base it on character movement. A boat drifting down a lazy, wide river moves are roughly walking pace. You can walk along the bank at the same speed, or slightly slower, and keep up with a bit of driftwood. There are rules in the DMG or PHB for converting combat speed (assume its jogging) to walking speed and marching speed (which are slightly different).

From there you can work up. Do you want it to be a challenge to keep up if people are on the bank? Then make it double basic move speed. Faster? Ok, its 3 times (sprinting speed). Once you hit that level, players start making checks to keep up that pace over long distances. Faster still puts it out of most PCs ability to keep up... on foot.

Rivers tend to be faster in their centre. Thats both the furthest point from the banks, but also the point between surface and river bed. A raft sits on top. A person bobs partly in the middle. If someone falls overboard, add 10', or 20, or 30. Then the other players have to row to keep up and rescue them, or the fallen PC has to swim that fast to stay near the raft.

Unless they are actively opposing the movement, the speed the river moves the players should be free. If the river is 60' wide, and they can row 30'/round in any direction, let them row across in 2 rounds, but ALSO move them 2 rounds worth of river speed down stream. If the river is moving at 30' a round, they physically cant cross to a point directly opposite them, because all their move speed is expended just countering the river speed. If it moves at 15' per round, it will take 4 rounds to cross to a point opposite, as every round, they spend 15' movement countering the river, and 15' movement crossing it.

With a framework like that, it should be easy to come up with consistent rules, even if you cant find the reference.

[Rebel7284]

Once you figure out how fast the boat can go, you can just adjust it for the stream speed. IE: if it's 10ft/round, then the normally 30 foot/round boat can go 20 feet upstream, 40 feet downstream and 25 feet sideways (you need to make up for two forced diagonals, and as I recall, the first diagonal is free)

[Kelb_Panthera]

DMG 92 and Stormwrack 10 seem to be the extent of the rules on interacting with rivers, rather currents.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

If it's a raft and it's just drifting, it'll go almost exactly the speed of the current. The only things that slow it down are getting caught/dragging on something (which presumably isn't happening) and wind resistance (which a raft has a negligible amount of).

A quick google search suggests rivers typically flow between almost 0ft per second and 10 ft/s, so pick a speed between 0 and 60 ft per round for the river's current and there you go. You could have it travel that distance downstream at initiative count 0, or divide it up and move it a little in between turns (perhaps at set initiative counts like 15, 10, 5).