Pathfinder 2e Overland Travel

Hey Folks! Today I'm going to be going through my homebrew Overland Travel rules, including both the rules themselves and advice on how to use them. I've been working on them on and off for several years, and have used them across multiple campaigns, most recently for Chapter 2 of Strength of Thousands Book 3: Hurricane's Howl. In the next article, I'll use that campaign as a case study to see these rules in action!

This system is not for every game, table, or situation! It works best when resource management is important, when time is a major factor, and when you want to create the feeling of a living, dangerous, wonderful world. In other words, when travel is part of the adventure. What those things are not true, feel free to either do some sort of travel montage or skip through travel entirely!

Travel Rules

The Hobbit (1977)

I am only going to go through the basics of the rules in this post so as to keep it relatively contained - here are the full rules! It includes everything in this post (other than some of the explanations), plus lots of charts and further detail to flesh things out. It also has example rules for Red Hand of Doom, since that's what I'll be using this for.

Tracking Time

Each day is made up of 6 4-hour periods called watches: Dawn, Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Night, and Pre-Dawn. Each period, the party travels a number of miles based on their speed (usually for 3 periods per day). There are three types of watches:

• Rest Watches are spent sleeping and recovering.
• Active Watches are spent adventuring or similar.
• Travel Watches are spent traveling long distances.

You can take 3 Active or Travel watched per day without penalty (see "Exhaustion" below for more).

Travel Watches

During a Travel Watch, you:

1. Track time/tick durations
2. Declare a travel pace and travel activities
3. Roll for (and resolve) encounters
4. Resolve travel activities (rolling as needed.
5. Track distance (navigator rolls survival if not following a road or similar)

At the end of the day, the party will also perform camping activities (you can do some Kingmaker cooking if you want! The rest of those probably aren't worth it though), mark off rations, and similar end of day tasks.

Travel Pace

The party can pick from 4 total paces:

• Exploration: 4 miles per watch, 12 in a standard day. +2 CB to navigate, cannot attempt stealth, chance of encounters doubled as you actively explore an area to find hidden information or landmarks.
• Slow: 6 miles per watch, 18 in a standard day. +2 CB to navigate, can attempt stealth, 50% chance of avoiding threats as you carefully pick your way through the wilds.
• Medium: 8 miles per watch, 24 in a standard day. Cannot attempt stealth, no other bonuses or penalties.
• Fast: 10 miles per watch, 30 in a standard day. -2 CP to perception and survival checks, cannot attempt stealth.

That travel pace might be modified by terrain, in which case multiple the starting pace by the areas terrain modifier (3/4, 1/2, or 1/4) to find the actual distance travelled. Mounts make you faster, but only on good terrain. This can theoretically all get pretty complicated, so the full doc has several charts to make this easy to reference (minimal math required!)

Travel Activities

Unless the party is following super clear landmarks (like a road or river), one PC must navigate by rolling survival, and another PC can aid against DC 15 (the GM might raise this for supernatural terrain, but I wouldn't for mundane terrain). Everyone else can either cover tracks (if travelling slow), forage (if travelling slow), scout ahead (if travelling slow or medium), lead pack animals (at any pace), or keep watch (at any pace). Characters who are fatigued cannot take travel activities, as per usual (though you can still control one animal while fatigued, you just couldn't ride one and pull another effectively)

Random Encounters

At the end of each watch, roll the Hazard Die (1d6) to see what happens! If travelling at a slow pace, there’s a 3:6 chance threats will be avoided. If exploring an area in depth, or in dangerous territory, the GM will check for encounters twice as often (possibly ignoring weather shifts on the 2nd roll each watch).

1. Threat. Something scary approaches! Possibly a combat, though not necessarily (I recommend rolling reaction check and encounter distance).
2. Weather Shift. Either minor temperature shifts or major storms depending on the region!
3. Faulty Supplies. Rations rot (or animals get into the food), water runs out, paper/wood items rot, metal rusts, etc. Based on terrain! And precautions may negate this.
4. Terrain Changes. Something slows the party down or gets in their way! Heavy mud, thick thorns, congested roads, etc. One way or another, it slows the party down (unless they come up with clever ways around it! Having them run into the same problem multiple times might provoke them to come up with a plan, feel free to reward their creativity!)
5. Non-Encounter. Describe something in the area! A rare bird flies by. The stream of refugees is heavier here. You hear haunting music on the breathe. The goal here is to bring out the vibes of the area without necessarily causing problems for the PCs!
6. Discovery. A clue to a mystery, a dungeon off the side of the road (possibly only visible to scouts!), signs of a nearby hidden or lost culture, or other things that provide opportunities to the PCs! Or, tbh, even just "easily accessible berries so the PCs can add +1 ration" if you don't wanna come up with something more complicated.

Each of these will look very different in a dangerous area versus safe countryside. Threats might be deadly monsters or annoying antagonists! Weather shifts might be terrible storms or slight changes in temperature. Terrain changes might block the path entirely (logs across roads, broken bridges) or just slow the party (difficult terrain, congested roads).

If the party takes proper precautions, many of these might be avoided! Especially at night: having a hidden camp will avoid most encounters, and having obvious guards and a fire might ward of many as well; putting food up in a bag will likely prevent rot from condensation or animals getting in; having the right gear or spells might counter the negative effects of weather.

If you want fewer encounters, feel free to roll the Hazard Die once per day instead of once per watch, or even once per week for particularly long journeys. Make sure to adjust things to be relevant to that timescale! E.g. in longer timescales, don't give out conditions that will automatically clear at the end of the day, either give out multiple levels or just have them remain until civilization.

In my Red Hand of Doom game I've been rolling once per watch, but ignoring complications that don't make sense, treating them as Non-Encounters instead. This mainly includes Terrain Changes while resting and Threats in relatively safe territory (to make the Civilization vs. Wilderness divide more stark), but I also try to reward clever preparation or choosing safety! So weather might still occur while they're sleeping indoors, but probably won't effect them, if they put their food up in a bear bag, that has a chance to mitigate Faulty Supplies, etc.

Exhaustion

Characters can take 3 travel or active watches per day without risk of exhaustion. There are several things that might either automatically make you fatigued or might make you roll a Fortitude save not to be (either against the Navigation DC, a level-based DC if you're adventuring, or something similar):

• If you take more than 3 travel/active watches, save or gain fatigue
• For each additional, you automatically gain fatigue (based on Paizo's "fatigued after 16 hours awake" rule)
• Each day without food, save or gain fatigue.
• Each day without water, automatically gain fatigue.
• Many travel complications (especially weather) might cause fatigue as well.

Fatigue Stacks!

This is a rules change! When you would become fatigued, you instead become fatigued 1. If you would become fatigued again, increase your fatigued value. This has no additional effect, but takes longer to remove. If you ever reach fatigued 5, you can’t take travel or active watches until you reduce that condition. As per usual, you can’t navigate/forage/scout/etc. while fatigued.

Rest Watches

You need to rest for 2 watches per day, which includes sleep and daily preparations. Without proper gear (bedroll and shelter), you require an extra watch of rest. If you don’t get enough rest, you take a level of fatigue.

Clearing Fatigue

You clear 1 fatigue if you get enough rest (see above), eat 1 ration, and drink 1 gallon of water. You can sleep in to clear extra fatigue at a rate of 1 extra fatigue per extra watch of sleep. Large creatures like horses require 4x as much food, and tiny creatures such as familiars only require 1/4 the food.

Lookouts

You can spend an hour on watch without interrupting your sleep. This means that a group of 8 can fully rest in only 2 watches, but smaller groups need to spend more time. Groups of 3-7 require 3 watches to rest with lookouts, and groups of 2 require 4 watches. Note that some items or abilities (such as rings of sustenance reduce the required rest time to 1 watch) might allow a party to rest and keep watch in less time (the ring allows a party of 4 to fully rest in 2 watches as long as one member has one).

Special Rest Benefits

PCs who rest in proper beds (private rooms) clear fatigue twice as fast, and extravagant suites  clear all fatigue in 2 watches. A comfortable/fine lifestyle (respectively) has the same effect.

If they're not worried about cookfires giving them away, PCs can also cook as per Kingmaker! Eating a good meal at a tavern before setting off can count as a hearty meal (with a square meal granting a success, and a fine meal a critical success, as do comfortable/fine lifestyles respectively).

Exploration Encounters

If complications are common, they should usually not be combat encounters. Instead, use encounters that attack whatever should be scarce - time if the journey is time sensitive, fatigue if they are expecting combat around any corner (i.e. actively fighting through enemy territory), or supplies that they need to continue. Or just use them to build the vibes you want for your game world!

I used a simple 1d6 table for to see what category we'd roll on, and then a second die to to randomize within a category, but you can totally use a 2d6 table (as Bob World Builder recommends) or a full D66 / D100 table if you want more granularity.

If you do use combat encounters, I recommend using them in one of three ways:

1. Progressing the story - If travel is part of your adventure, consider having scripted encounters at certain points (I'm a big fan of saying "the next encounter after they've gone 20 miles is [x]"), as the party catch up to their quarry, get closer to a conflict, etc.
2. Showcasing Factions - Who lives around here, and what might they want? Maybe factions attempt to waylay the party, or maybe the party comes across a fight between factions. They might even come across someone who's only hostile because they mistake the party for members of a certain faction!
3. Reinforcing Themes - What creatures might live around here? Or what problems are pervasive in the world? Random encounters should tell the players something about the world, even if that's just "there's a lot of spiders in this forest!"

As mentioned above, however, most encounters probably shouldn't be combat! I recommend about 1/6 potential combat encounters (even more than normal, it should be possible for the party to talk/sneak their way past), potentially flexing up or down based on the length of your journey and how much game time you want to spend on it.

Here are some non-combat complications for you to use! Many are stolen from various places on the internet.

• Lost/Damaged Supplies!
• Food spoils! (mark off an extra ration each, or if you want something more complicated DC10 flat check for each ration you carry or spoil)
• Leaky waterskins! (make a check to find more water or risk fatigue; on a failure, you waste time)
• Supplies swept away! (while fording a river, Reflex save or lose rations, adventuring gear, or even entire bags of things if you're feeling especially mean!)
• Animals get into bags, definitely targeting rations and possibly other things based on type (i.e. rats might chew up scrolls and other paper goods, if they fail a flat check, termites might chew up wood, large animals might smash potions, etc.)
• Lost/Damaged Equipment! (in the Hazard Die system I combined these)
• Rusting Metal / Rotting Wood (any metal or wooden/paper equipment respectively might become broken and need to be repaired/treated using tools not available in the wilds! So not permanently, just until you get to town basically. Everyone rolls 1d6: on a 2-3, this happens to 1 item, or 1d6 if they roll a 1.
• Fragile items like scrolls have a 2:6 chance to be destroyed instead of broken (maybe higher chance for non-magical items).
• Precautions might give you a chance to ignore this (maybe 3:6 per item? or 1d3 instead of 1d6 on a 1?), might ignore it outright, or might stop it from affecting certain items (like scrolls in a waterproof scroll case).
• Damaged armor from training/sparring (if someone has quick repair they're fine, otherwise it takes a period to fix, and the armor takes a -1 or -2 to AC until it's fixed)
• A river crossing, quicksand, or animals might mess with non-food equipment as well!
• Difficult Terrain!
• Rough Ground (either everyone saves vs. Exhaustion or the person with the worst Fortitude makes a save, losing a period of travel on a failure)
• Thick undergrowth! (everyone needs to either make an Athletics check or use magic or something to help clear it - everyone has to make a check, even if they suck at it, and if not enough people succeed you lose time - one of my players used fire magic, for example!)
• Deep River Crossing / Broken Bridge - either lose a travel period finding a way around or find away across! Clever or magical solutions might just work, otherwise gear might be swept away
• Tree Blocking the Road (only matters if they have a cart, obviously - Athletics checks to move it, failures take more time)
• Unexpected Crevice (either not on map or new/from earthquake like river, either find a way across and risk falling in or find a way around and lose time)
• Quicksand! Roll Perception vs. its Stealth or be trapped! I'd probably throw in some way for folks to lose items/etc. in it
• Many other hazards (especially complex hazards) can make interesting travel complications, but they take more time to resolve at the table and so should be avoided if you're trying to keep travel relatively snappy
• Inclement Weather! (replace any DCs with the Navigation DC)
• Heat Wave! (save vs. exhaustion if you are traveling faster than a slow pace)
• Heavy Rain! (save vs. exhaustion every period of travel for 1d4 periods, anyone far enough away is concealed)
• Mild Chill (if not wearing appropriate clothes, save or be clumsy! when you reach clumsy 3 you're also fatigued)
• Extreme cold (if not wearing appropriate clothes, save vs. exhaustion every period! If you are, instead save or be clumsy, and become fatigued at clumsy 3)
• Fog! (also applies a -2 to navigate, or -4 if moving fast. If you're feeling mean, you can have this make the terrain dangerous, and roll for further encounters every travel period)
• There are lots of other weather hazards on Archives of Nethys that you can use for inspiration, but I'd tailor them more towards these Travel rules if there aren't also going to be combat encounters.
• You can tailor this to your environment, it could even all be the same type of thing (i.e. different degrees of cold, or different amounts of rain possibly culminating in a flood)
• NPCs!
• An animal that takes a liking to the party and wants to come with them, but they have to feed it (1 ration every 2 days) and it might wake them up in the middle of the night! (1/6 chance)
• Stampede!! (maybe they're running from something, like a forest fire or monster, but the party should probably get to choose whether they want to interact with it)
• Travelling merchant who might have supplies!
• Scouts/refugees/travelers from something nearby you wanna set up
• A shepherd is herding their animals in front of you, moving at a slow pace! It would be very inconvenient for them for you to burst through and scatter all the sheep...
• Misc.
• Food Poisoning! (Fortitude save or lose a period of travel - ask who was cooking the night before lol)
• Someone travelling with the party gets sick and can't travel (if it's an escort quest this is basically "waste time" unless the party can think if a way to bring them without having them move, otherwise it's an interesting moral dilemma)
• Signs of something else (i.e. a carcass killed by a nearby monster, tracks of some large creature or another traveling party, items left behind by fleeing people, etc.). This can be a quest hook, a little bit of cool treasure, or just a warning that something else is near...
• An abandoned building off the beaten path! Possible treasure, possible danger, maybe even a full dungeon (or mini-dungeon, I've used 5 room dungeons to great effect)
• A shrine, with several offerings of money, food, etc., whatever the players might want/need. If they leave offerings of their own, they gain a hero point! If they take anything, they lose a hero point (don't tell them until after the party moves on), and are possibly subjected to some sort of curse... They can theoretically trade items without gaining or losing hero points, as long as the gifts are more valuable than the things they take.
• The clouds are especially fluffy today! (or some other seemingly innocuous detail that you tell them is the complication... the idea is to possibly get them freaked out over nothing)

Closing Thoughts

There are certain elements of these rules that are still in playtest, and I'll likely be making tweaks, but I think we're in a good place! I cut a lot of previous more finicky rules that had tougher sleep/food requirements, replacing them with stacking fatigue, as well as a weirder encounter system that had threats on a 1, other things on a 6+, and a variable die size based on danger (the Hazard Die does it better). I playtested these previous versions pretty heavily, primarily when running Hurricane's Howl (SoT Book 3 chapter 2). Even that version, despite the pain points, led to some really cool decision making!

So far, the current version feels good in play! I've only played a single session with the current rules, but the system has been working really smoothly so far. Stacking fatigue isn't that hard to track, rules seem to more or less line up with intuition, and there seems to be a good balance of "things happening" while keeping things moving. Most "encounters" don't take up that much in-game time - a skill check here (the kineticist has been great at ignoring difficult terrain), a moral dilemma there (do we kill the injured alchemically-altered wolf, or take the time to heal it?), and the feeling of a wide and vibrant world leading to several cases of the players finding creative solutions to annoying problems and our dwarf player remarking "I don't know why anyone lives above the ground" after a series of bad weather led to the players spending a day sheltering in a cave.

I'm excited to see what tweaks can be made to make them even better! Already I adjusted some little elements of encounters (the rot/rust were a little too finicky, for example, so I edited the above to be a simplified version), and I'm sure there will be more edge cases that come up when time is tighter. Still, I'm very happy with where things are at right now.

Let me know what you think!