Why would the party choose the direct route if it's longer and more dangerous?
Targos to Caer-Konig
Sticking to trails and roads, the characters can safely reach Caer-Konig in 14½ hours on foot. The trip begins with a 3-mile jaunt to Bryn Shander, continues with an exhausting 23-mile journey to Caer-Dineval, and ends with a 3-mile hike around Lac Dinneshere to Caer-Konig. Characters can reduce the total travel time to 7 hours if they use dogsleds.
Plus however long it is to the mountains which I can't seem to find.
Targos to Kelvin’s Cairn
By crossing open tundra, the characters can travel directly from Targos to Kelvin’s Cairn, covering 12 miles in 24 hours on foot. They can halve the travel time if they use dogsleds.
7 hours safely on dogsled vs 12 hours dangerous. (14.5 vs 24 on foot)
I don't see any benefit to them attempting the straight shot.
I mean I suppose they wouldn't know exactly how long each path would take, weather and road conditions. Even still, am I missing something?
As written, the adventure doesn't specify the number of random encounters are had in the road route described. Nor did I notice a minimum number of encounters in each of the towns. It does mention an encounter on the direct route.
I guess that what I'm saying is, there are plenty of opportunities to have more encounters where there are more dense populations. One might suppose that the populated route may be slower than advertised because of this.
Moreover, the adventure failed to mention the possibility of the party sticking to the road to Termaline and crossing from that vantage point. What does that do to the travel time?
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I haven't played this campaign, so I can't speak to specifics, but the most obvious issue seems to be that you're comparing travel times to two different destinations.
Kelvin's Cairn is a mountain, and Caer-Konig is a town at the foot of the mountain.
The longer path presumably takes the players to the peak of the mountain, which is not accounted for in the shorter path. Based on a map I've found online, it should take around 6 or 12 additional hours to travel from Caer-Konig to the peak of Kelvin's Cairn, which would put the relative travel times closer to 13 hours "safe" versus 12 hours "dangerous". Though, for the sake of altitude, I would probably expect it to take closer to this:
As far as random encounters, it's fairly safe along the roads, the wilderness random encounters happen in the not so safe areas.
Yeah the closest thing I could find for Konig to Kelvin was the other quest where you track down the fortress nearby. Which takes a few more hours still. So that's definitely a factor. You're right, it does seem about 4-5 miles away, in the unpathed wilderness. Looking at the pace chart in the basic rules, difficult terrain to halve the distance, it's 2 hours fast pace, about 3 normal. (Walking), but they actually have a ranger so it wouldn't halve movement. Which makes me think, now, that maybe the direct route would be shorter than listed if we assume they factor difficult terrain. "While traveling for an hour or more in your favored terrain, you gain the following benefits:
Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel."
That could potentially make the direct route faster? 12 hours walking instead of 24? Where the pathed would still be 14.5.
And then halved again for the dogsleds both ways? So you've hammered out the time bit, but I'm still with you that there is no clear reason that they would choose the direct path. That's why I mentioned the encounter schedule. I'm not suggesting that this be limited to combat alone, there are NPCs with quests, people reportedly travel these roads frequently and could pose an obstacle to unfettered movement. I would agree that the roads would be safer, but the path chosen should offer a consequence for its selection. Be that more danger or more time taken.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
My DM made it clear that the roads were longer but safer, and the tundra was shorter, but more dangerous. We had a sled and axebeaks. (And once we hit level 9, the warlock just cast Fly and we zipped around Ten Towns like crazy, lol.)
We usually stuck to the roads when we could. But the times we didn't, we had a deadline and lives we were trying to save. We went to Kelvin's Cairn straight from Bryn Shander because Mishann was there and we needed her to remove a curse from our warlock before he died of exhaustion.
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Why would the party choose the direct route if it's longer and more dangerous?
Targos to Caer-Konig
Sticking to trails and roads, the characters can safely reach Caer-Konig in 14½ hours on foot. The trip begins with a 3-mile jaunt to Bryn Shander, continues with an exhausting 23-mile journey to Caer-Dineval, and ends with a 3-mile hike around Lac Dinneshere to Caer-Konig. Characters can reduce the total travel time to 7 hours if they use dogsleds.
Plus however long it is to the mountains which I can't seem to find.
Targos to Kelvin’s Cairn
By crossing open tundra, the characters can travel directly from Targos to Kelvin’s Cairn, covering 12 miles in 24 hours on foot. They can halve the travel time if they use dogsleds.
7 hours safely on dogsled vs 12 hours dangerous. (14.5 vs 24 on foot)
I don't see any benefit to them attempting the straight shot.
I mean I suppose they wouldn't know exactly how long each path would take, weather and road conditions. Even still, am I missing something?
Call me Knives.
As written, the adventure doesn't specify the number of random encounters are had in the road route described. Nor did I notice a minimum number of encounters in each of the towns. It does mention an encounter on the direct route.
I guess that what I'm saying is, there are plenty of opportunities to have more encounters where there are more dense populations. One might suppose that the populated route may be slower than advertised because of this.
Moreover, the adventure failed to mention the possibility of the party sticking to the road to Termaline and crossing from that vantage point. What does that do to the travel time?
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I haven't played this campaign, so I can't speak to specifics, but the most obvious issue seems to be that you're comparing travel times to two different destinations.
Kelvin's Cairn is a mountain, and Caer-Konig is a town at the foot of the mountain.
The longer path presumably takes the players to the peak of the mountain, which is not accounted for in the shorter path. Based on a map I've found online, it should take around 6 or 12 additional hours to travel from Caer-Konig to the peak of Kelvin's Cairn, which would put the relative travel times closer to 13 hours "safe" versus 12 hours "dangerous". Though, for the sake of altitude, I would probably expect it to take closer to this:
Targos >> Kelvin's Cairn: 12 hours "dangerous"
Targos >> Caer-Konig >> Kelvin's Cairn: 7 hours "safe" + 8 hours "dangerous"
Practically speaking, this is the difference between one arduous adventure day versus two days at a comfortable pace.
As far as random encounters, it's fairly safe along the roads, the wilderness random encounters happen in the not so safe areas.
Yeah the closest thing I could find for Konig to Kelvin was the other quest where you track down the fortress nearby. Which takes a few more hours still. So that's definitely a factor. You're right, it does seem about 4-5 miles away, in the unpathed wilderness. Looking at the pace chart in the basic rules, difficult terrain to halve the distance, it's 2 hours fast pace, about 3 normal. (Walking), but they actually have a ranger so it wouldn't halve movement. Which makes me think, now, that maybe the direct route would be shorter than listed if we assume they factor difficult terrain.
"While traveling for an hour or more in your favored terrain, you gain the following benefits:
That could potentially make the direct route faster? 12 hours walking instead of 24? Where the pathed would still be 14.5.
Call me Knives.
And then halved again for the dogsleds both ways? So you've hammered out the time bit, but I'm still with you that there is no clear reason that they would choose the direct path. That's why I mentioned the encounter schedule. I'm not suggesting that this be limited to combat alone, there are NPCs with quests, people reportedly travel these roads frequently and could pose an obstacle to unfettered movement. I would agree that the roads would be safer, but the path chosen should offer a consequence for its selection. Be that more danger or more time taken.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Yup! Dog sleds would halve both. So with the ranger on sleds it would be 6 direct ~8 indirect. Plus short rests for the dogs.
yeah there's a dms guild supplement for 10 towns encounters. I could toss a couple of those along the path too.
Call me Knives.
My DM made it clear that the roads were longer but safer, and the tundra was shorter, but more dangerous. We had a sled and axebeaks. (And once we hit level 9, the warlock just cast Fly and we zipped around Ten Towns like crazy, lol.)
We usually stuck to the roads when we could. But the times we didn't, we had a deadline and lives we were trying to save. We went to Kelvin's Cairn straight from Bryn Shander because Mishann was there and we needed her to remove a curse from our warlock before he died of exhaustion.