Topic: Forward march!

[Widukind]

An NPC with an Con Bon of 9 get the order for an daily training march.
He can walk 9 hours ( 1hour per  point of Con Bonus)

When does he will fall exhausted into his sleeping bag?
The rules ( page 28, HARP Fantasy) say, that he must have a rest of 20-9 *1 = 11 rounds after a 9 hours walk. 22 seconds rest after 9nhours seems to be after my own march experience ot very realistic. Some suggestions?

[Thom @ ICE]

You missed one piece, though even with that you'd probably not be happy.

For each full time increment
spent moving, the character must rest a number of rounds equal
to ((20 – Con Bonus; minimum of 1) x Pace Multiplier).

The time increment for walking is hours, therefore for your example it should be 9x ((20-9)*1) rounds or 198 seconds = 3' 18"


Your Con bonus of 9 means that they have a 91-95 Constitution.  This is no normal grunt soldier. 


Also, it is a walk pace and not a training forced march. For that consider using a 1.5 pace multiplier and reduce the time increment to 30 minutes per Con.  Making this adjustment you get a max forced march of 4.5 hours without rest, and then a rest period of 9x((20-9)*1.5) rounds or just shy of 5 minutes.


The formula is not intended to be fully realistic as there are numerous other factors out there that could change the calculation - but HARP is not intended to be that complex.  It's meant as a rough guideline (and I would only use it for the high pace levels) otherwise BMR will breakdown. The biggest issue is a lack of encumbrance rules impacting that since even at 120 pounds of extra weight there is still nothing to prevent your character from walking for 9 hours at no reduction to movement speed and no additional rest required.


So yes - there is an issue with the realism of that formula in that application and no - it is not likely to be changed because there is no need to add extra complexity.

[Widukind]

Thx for that. Yes, i missed the "For each full time increment spent moving..." in my calculation.

[Pat]

IMHO I'd have the character rest 10mins for each hour marched. This would also be in addition to the characters normal sleep requirement however, the rest can be taken through the march (so march 4hours rest 30 mins, march another 5 hours and rest an hour for 9x10mins rest.) This is if you want a bit more realism.