Movement Concerns

My group was wanting to do a little trading between our little town and the small Elven place that’s about a week away. The Judge decided to figure out how much distance “a week away” was. His brain hurt after working with the table comparing exploration movement to wilderness movement in Section 5: Adventures, and I bring this up so that I can understand thing better. Exploration movement is listed in feet per turn (10 minutes) and wilderness movement is listed in miles per day (assume 8 hours travel as listed just after the table). So everyone’s on the same page, a mile is 5280 feet.
Exploration movement of 30 feet a turn is equivalent, so the table states, to 6 miles every 8 hours. There are 6 turns in an hour, so there are 48 turns in 8 hours. 30 feet a turn for 48 turns comes to 1440 feet. On the opposite end, being able to move 6 miles in 8 hours (31680 feet in 48 turns) means that 660 feet can be traveled in one turn.
It was around this point that my Judge broke, so please let me know if I missed something or if there was a little oopsy with the math at some point. Thanks a bunch.

Hi Veketshian,
The source of your Judge’s confusion is in equating “exploration movement” to hiking or cross country movement. It’s not.
Think of an adventurer’s exploration movement as akin to the movement of a bargain shopper at a major mall. They move a few feet, stop and look at something; move a few feet, rummage through some merchandise; move a few feet, double back to see something they missed, then move forward again, etc. Or consider the speed at which you move through a grocery store when you’re not sure what you want to buy. It’s slow.
On the other hand, long-distance movement is the movement speed of a person hiking towards a destination they want to reach promptly. This is the speed that would be relevant for your Judge to use in determining how far the distance is between your town and the elven place is.
Thus “a week away” for a character with an exploration movement of 30 feet per turn is (6 miles per day) x (7 days) = 42 miles.
On the other hand, if the character wanted to travel 42 miles moving at exploration speed, it would take (42 miles x 5,280 feet = 221,760 feet / 30 feet = 7,392 turns / 6 turns per hour = 1,232 hours / 8 hours per day = 154 days) 154 days. That is approximately 22 times slower than the long-distance speed.
The only reason someone would want to move across country at exploration speed would be, perhaps, if they were attempting to make an incredibly detailed topographic map of the wilderness. I guess if you had a man in full plate armor try to make a detailed map by hand of a 50-mile length of land, it might take him 5 months.

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I agree with you on the movement speeds on the two examples. We understood that to be the case. We were just really confused with how the table displayed the two speeds, thinking them to be some sort of equivocation. I’m still a bit confused, but I think what you’re saying is “A person who’s capable of moving at a crawl at 30 feet per turn is capable of hiking at 6 miles a day”, right? Just the fact that the person can move in both manners, not that one exactly translate into another.
I guess, from there, maybe I should launch into the second part of what we were trying to get to, just to make sure we understand stuff. We’re trying to move with a mule hauling a cart, and we expect it’ll be moving at 30 feet per turn. So can this thing hustle at 6 miles every 8 hours, or is it going at the slow pace of about 1/5th a mile in that amount of time?
P.S. Art was going through the v20 document and found that under Time and Wilderness Movement in Section 5, it states, “Long-distance movement when traveling in the wilderness are related directly to encounter movement rates, as shown on the table below.” This should actually state exploration movement, not encounter movement. Not something that added to our confusion, but might be worth noting for editing’s sake.

I think what you’re saying is “A person who’s capable of moving at a crawl at 30 feet per turn is capable of hiking at 6 miles a day”, right? Just the fact that the person can move in both manners, not that one exactly translate into another.
ALEX: That is precisely correct, yes.
We’re trying to move with a mule hauling a cart, and we expect it’ll be moving at 30 feet per turn. So can this thing hustle at 6 miles every 8 hours, or is it going at the slow pace of about 1/5th a mile in that amount of time?
ALEX: It can hustle at 6 miles every 8 hours.
P.S. Art was going through the v20 document and found that under Time and Wilderness Movement in Section 5, it states, “Long-distance movement when traveling in the wilderness are related directly to encounter movement rates, as shown on the table below.” This should actually state exploration movement, not encounter movement. Not something that added to our confusion, but might be worth noting for editing’s sake.
ALEX: Thanks!