Hiking Fatigue Costs - more detail?

[kdtipa]

My players are going to be hiking through 40 miles of dense wild jungle. They have access to supplies for the trip, including good camping and survival gear. But that stuff weighs a decent amount. So they're going to be encumbered.

The rules as written (pg 351) give a distance that you can travel per day based on your effective move (accounting for encumbrance) and based on the type of terrain. In this case with the dense jungle terrain, it works out to 2 miles per point of effective move (10 miles if effective move is 5 for example). That works fine for me.

The fatigue cost of such a trip based on the rules as written (pg 426) say that hiking works like battle for figuring out fatigue cost, but you base it on number of hours traveled instead of a flat amount for any battle over 10 seconds. It works out that for "no encumbrance" you'd lose 1 FP per hour traveled, and the fatigue cost goes up by 1 per hour per level of encumbrance (5 FP per hour at X-Heavy encumbrance).

I understand how to do the math for the rule, but the travel distance is for a day of travel, which presumably doesn't mean 24 hours. Does it assume pushing yourself for 16 hours? Does it assume a normal 8 hour "work day"? Something in between?

Also, would pushing through jungle for an hour be more tiring than walking on even ground for an hour? Even if the distance traveled is already much lower to account for the difficulty in the jungle, wouldn't you be working harder cutting with a machete, pulling your gear through branches, and climbing up and down the uneven ground and roots? Should the terrain factor into the fatigue cost? I think it probably should, but it's not accounted for in the rules as written.

What are the thoughts on this?

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by kdtipa

My players are going to be hiking through 40 miles of dense wild jungle. They have access to supplies for the trip, including good camping and survival gear. But that stuff weighs a decent amount. So they're going to be encumbered.

The rules as written (pg 351) give a distance that you can travel per day based on your effective move (accounting for encumbrance) and based on the type of terrain. In this case with the dense jungle terrain, it works out to 2 miles per point of effective move (10 miles if effective move is 5 for example). That works fine for me.

The fatigue cost of such a trip based on the rules as written (pg 426) say that hiking works like battle for figuring out fatigue cost, but you base it on number of hours traveled instead of a flat amount for any battle over 10 seconds. It works out that for "no encumbrance" you'd lose 1 FP per hour traveled, and the fatigue cost goes up by 1 per hour per level of encumbrance (5 FP per hour at X-Heavy encumbrance).

I understand how to do the math for the rule, but the travel distance is for a day of travel, which presumably doesn't mean 24 hours. Does it assume pushing yourself for 16 hours? Does it assume a normal 8 hour "work day"? Something in between?

Originally Posted by High Tech Page 55; Humping, Tramping, and Yomping

Whatever you call it, marching cross-country under full kit is exhausting. The hiking rules in the Basic Set are intentionally simplistic – they assume fine weather, ideal terrain, and a grueling 16-hour day spent doing nothing but putting one foot in front of the other. Hikers often march for less than a full day, which can make it useful to know hourly movement rates.
Assume that speed in miles per hour equals Move/2. Adjust the pace as usual for terrain, weather, and roads; see p. B351. Note the FP costs for an hour of hiking given on p. B426 – good FP scores and the Fit advantage (p. B55) give a significant edge here! Extra effort works as usual (see p. B357). Each foraging attempt (p. B427) takes an hour, during which no progress is made.

Originally Posted by kdtipa

Also, would pushing through jungle for an hour be more tiring than walking on even ground for an hour? Even if the distance traveled is already much lower to account for the difficulty in the jungle, wouldn't you be working harder cutting with a machete, pulling your gear through branches, and climbing up and down the uneven ground and roots? Should the terrain factor into the fatigue cost?

The terrain does factor in the fatigue cost. You're spending the same fatigue to travel less distance. Travelling through Bad Terrain means you are travelling 20% distance of Average Terrain, but spending 100% the fatigue, only 20% of that fatigue is being spent on distance, the other 80% is being spent on dealing with the terrain.

[kdtipa]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

The terrain does factor in the fatigue cost. You're spending the same fatigue to travel less distance. Travelling through Bad Terrain means you are travelling 20% distance of Average Terrain, but spending 100% the fatigue, only 20% of that fatigue is being spent on distance, the other 80% is being spent on dealing with the terrain.

Think about it this way: regardless of distance traveled, if I trudge through jungle for one hour, or walk on even road for one hour, which one is likely to tire me more? The RAW suggest that fatigue cost is only based on how much time you spend traveling, and not how difficult the travel is. I am currently thinking that the distance modifier from the book AND a fatigue cost increase are in order.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by kdtipa

Think about it this way: regardless of distance traveled, if I trudge through jungle for one hour, or walk on even road for one hour, which one is likely to tire me more?

Depends on how much effort you're making. Travel slowly enough and the jungle is less tiring.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by kdtipa

Think about it this way: regardless of distance traveled, if I trudge through jungle for one hour, or walk on even road for one hour, which one is likely to tire me more? The RAW suggest that fatigue cost is only based on how much time you spend traveling, and not how difficult the travel is. I am currently thinking that the distance modifier from the book AND a fatigue cost increase are in order.

Hiking through jungle is going to probably also risk p. B426, and heat exhaustion p. 434.

I also don't think it's unreasonable to assess extra FP for particularly arduous terrain, though. Maybe something like an extra FP per day for Bad Terrain and 2 for Very Bad.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Depends on how much effort you're making. Travel slowly enough and the jungle is less tiring.

This. If you want to travel faster, use extra effort, and lose more fatigue.

[kdtipa]

Okay, I'm coming around to the idea that the 20% speed is the way to not spend more fatigue over the same time.

I'm still curious though about how to combine the per day travel distance with the per hour fatigue cost.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by kdtipa

I'm still curious though about how to combine the per day travel distance with the per hour fatigue cost.

This will depend on how fatigued your players are willing to become before they stop and rest. The PCs should keep in mind they may have to deal with problems; and they probably don't want to meet them in a state of near exhaustion.

I would calculate how far they can travel per fatigue point. Then, after traveling a few days, 1 FP at a time, they'll develop some kind standard operating procedure, which you can then use to determine distance traveled per day (assuming nothing unusual happens). If something unusual does happen, you can use how far along they are to determine where they are in fatigue points; or just randomly determine how many fatigue points they have given what their Min and Max values could possibly be.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by kdtipa

I'm still curious though about how to combine the per day travel distance with the per hour fatigue cost.

Don't, use the per hour movement rules I posted from High-Tech.

Assuming your characters have a move of 5, that halves to 2.5, which becomes 0.5 for jungles. Assuming that there's no rain that's 0.5 miles per hour (or 14 and 2/3 yards per minute). With rain that's 0.25 miles per hour (or 7 and 1/3 yards per minute).

No Encumbrance: 1 FP.
Light Encumbrance: 2 FP.
Medium Encumbrance: 3 FP.
Heavy Encumbrance: 4 FP.
Extra-Heavy Encumbrance: 5 FP.

That gives us a range of 1FP to 5FP per hour which can be thought of as:

Per hour/1FP Per X minute
1 FP/1FP per 60 minutes
2 FP/1FP per 30 minutes
3 FP/1FP per 20 minutes
4 FP/1FP per 15 minutes
5 FP/1FP per 12 minutes

Once you drop to Less than 1/3 your FP and your move halves, it's time to rest to recover fatigue. Assuming HT 10, FP 10, Medium Encumbrance, that's 140 minutes to reach 3 FP, then 70 minutes to recover, 210 minutes, in which time you travel 2,053 and 1/3 yards, or 1,026 and 2/3 yards if it's raining. For an average speed per hour of 586 and 2/3 yards, or 293 and 1/3 yards with rain.

"If the day is hot, add 1 FP to the above." I assume this is simplification of the temperature rules that you should be rolling for fatigue every 30 minutes, so someone with HT 10 loses 1FP per hour on average (Assuming 80F-89F).

Originally Posted by Underground Adventures page 12

In extremely humid caves, such as that at Naica (90% relative humidity), lack of evaporative cooling magnifies temperature effects. Roll to withstand heat every 10 minutes rather than every 30.

So if that's a tropical rainforest, with rain, temperature 80F-89F raining with approx 90% humidity with HT 10 you might be looking at losing an additional 3FP per hour. So the above example becomes:

Assuming HT 10, FP 10, Medium Encumbrance, that's 70 minutes to reach 3 FP, then 70 minutes to recover, 140 minutes, in which time you travel 513 and 1/3 yards, because it's raining. For an average speed per hour of 220 yards. 16 hours, that's 3,520 yards, or 2 miles per day. It will take 20 days to cross 40 miles of wet rain forest.


If we change that to HT 14, FP 18, Very Fit, Breath Control 16, Perk: No Nuisance roll (Breath Control: fatigue recovery), Hiking 16, Perk: No Nuisance roll Hiking, we get:

move of 6, that halves to 3, which becomes 0.6 for jungles, 0.72 for hiking, with rain that's 0.36 miles per hour (or 10.56 yards per minute). With HT 14 + Very Fit you can forget about losing FP for temperature. So 1FP per 20 minutes, doubled for Very fit to 1FP per 40 minutes, after 8 hours you'll need rest for 12 minutes. You will have travelled 5,068.8 yards, you can then travel for another 7 hours and 48 minutes, for another 4,942.08 yards daily total 10,010.88 yards or 5.688 miles. It will take about 7 days to cross 40 miles of wet rain forest.

[ClayDowling]

Other than the actual jungle, you've perfectly described hiking in Michigan in the summer. Trust me that heat and terrain definitely take it out of you.

If you're not feeling like heavy calculations, some quick rule of thumb numbers from experience. A person of average fitness under medium encumbrance (35 lbs pack) can go about 10 miles in five hours, on cleared trails with mildly challenging terrain (temperate zone forest). Someone who is very fit can make fifteen miles in that same period of time and carrying that load.