I'm recently running a LMoP game and once it's done I'm planning to turn it into SKT. I'm looking into distances since it seems there's going to be a lot of traveling while playing SKT.
In LMoP I saw that in the intro trip from Neverwinter to Phandalin takes the players 3 days. Which would place Phandalin roughly under 70 miles (even less if we're counting a straight line to the town from the city).
I'm making this post since I looked up some info online and it lists Triboar at 225 miles from Phandalin (while I know it's not official I wanted to at least get something as a base).
By using the provided Sword Coast map in SKT if we trace a direct line above the sword mountains, Triboar is roughly 130 miles away from Phandalin, or ~182 by taking the Triboar Trail, something that I'm very happy to use instead of the 225 from before but at the same time, Neverwinter is about 125 miles away from Phandalin (~140 by taking The High Road, nearly double as in LMoP).
So, since I'm not too keen on retconning I'll be halving the distances mentioned on SKT on my game and that's that but if this is something you may come across on your next Sword Coast game, well, there's something to keep in mind.
I assume for ease of access, the distances between Neverwinter and Phandalin are halved in LMoP maybe it's a better experience for newer players to take a short 3-day roadtrip than an almost 1 week long journey.
Overland travel is difficult, which means the world is probably smaller than you imagine. Fit travellers on easy terrain do around 22 miles per day, pushing it to 30 sometimes. More than 30 miles needs exceptional fitness and terrain. However, throw in a river or a forests (or *shudder* a swamp) and these numbers drop dramatically. Add animals and wagons to the group, and it drops again. With really nasty terrain, travel times get ridiculous. For example, there are places in the hills near where I grew up where hunters talked about travelling less than a mile in a day.
Allowing for time to set and strike camp, a caravan with wagons or carts might only make 10-12 miles a day, so Phandelin might only be 30 miles from Neverwinter.
Weather makes a huge difference. A trip that takes the PCs five days might take six or seven in a month, as the weather worsens. One day it might take 40 minutes to cross the city, the next day 50 minutes. Flying to Mirabar might be five hours today but seven hours tomorrow.
Maybe the journey is slowed because the rogue just discovered they are allergic to crumblecake, and has to go behind a tree very thirty minutes?
Also, those pretty maps might not actually be correct. :-) In a world without satellite and high-altitude photography, maps are just artistic representations that are hopefully close to the truth.
What does this mean at the table? It means you shouldn't sweat distances and you shouldn't rely on the maps. Do not let anyone get a ruler and measure distances. Predetermine average travel times, and wing it at the table. Its OK (and actually desirable) that journeys can't be predicted to the minute. Use actual travel time to provide drama ("as you rush up the last half-mile to the gates, the dragon swoops in above you!").
For example, this is as detailed as I have got in my game:
The Long Road
The trade route from Mirabar, south through the Dessarin Valley, to Waterdeep.
Mirabar to Longsaddle: 14 days (includes 1 rest day)
Longsaddle to Triboar: 8 days
Triboar to Westbridge: 4 days
Westbridge to Red Larch: 6 days
Red Larch to Amphail: 7 days
Amphail to Waterdeep: 5 days
P.S. I'm not kidding about the ruler part. Do not do it.
Really good points here, yeah I don't show the map ruler to my players (1 hex = X miles) and well the only map we've seen in game so far is the one from LMoP. The reason why I posted about the actual distances rather than perceived trip length is because both sources have a map with a ruler in it, and both maps have the same terrain yet the distance between two points is different in them, namely SKT is twice as large as LMoP
What I'm trying to avoid is that on session one I told the players: "yeah it's 3 days from Neverwinter to Phandalin" but if in future sessions (and going by the SKT info) I'd have to tell them that it's actually 6. And worst case then if they see in the map that Triboar is roughly the same distance away from Phandalin as Neverwinter is (barring the Triboar Trail taking a long bend over the Sword Mountains) they'd expect it to be similar to the other trip.
Thanks for those distances I might look into that for the other settlements too, I like as well for every tenday on the road they'd take a full day rest.
But yeah, absolutely not going to show a map with a ruler to the players, this is just DM prep :)
The big thing, is to just ballpark days between places (then make a note of it), then use survival rolls for speeding things up or encounters.
Also, at some point, they should gain access to faster travel, either via teleportation circles or other, somewhere in the level 5-7 range this will get better.
The biggest think about SKT to me though, was as a DM you need to introduce the chars to the plot a lot earlier, and drop references to the major forces that will appear at the end.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Did you keep in mind that according to the adventure in the book the players are assumed to start halfway to Phandalin from Neverwinter? Somewhere close to the Highroad and Triboar trail crossroads.
^^ This seems like it might be the source of confusion. The story starts with the characters already partway through the journey, so they only have to travel three day's worth of it.
Current Campaign(s): Dungeons, Darkness, Drow, and Demons, an Out of the Abyss Adventure, Dungeon Delvers, a Dungeon of the Mad Mage Adventure, Jungle of Evil, a Tomb of Annihilation Adventure
Hey everyone,
I'm recently running a LMoP game and once it's done I'm planning to turn it into SKT. I'm looking into distances since it seems there's going to be a lot of traveling while playing SKT.
In LMoP I saw that in the intro trip from Neverwinter to Phandalin takes the players 3 days. Which would place Phandalin roughly under 70 miles (even less if we're counting a straight line to the town from the city).
I'm making this post since I looked up some info online and it lists Triboar at 225 miles from Phandalin (while I know it's not official I wanted to at least get something as a base).
By using the provided Sword Coast map in SKT if we trace a direct line above the sword mountains, Triboar is roughly 130 miles away from Phandalin, or ~182 by taking the Triboar Trail, something that I'm very happy to use instead of the 225 from before but at the same time, Neverwinter is about 125 miles away from Phandalin (~140 by taking The High Road, nearly double as in LMoP).
So, since I'm not too keen on retconning I'll be halving the distances mentioned on SKT on my game and that's that but if this is something you may come across on your next Sword Coast game, well, there's something to keep in mind.
I assume for ease of access, the distances between Neverwinter and Phandalin are halved in LMoP maybe it's a better experience for newer players to take a short 3-day roadtrip than an almost 1 week long journey.
I personally prefer longer distances. Travelling should be long and dangerous in a D&D world, otherwise everybody would be doing it!
Overland travel is difficult, which means the world is probably smaller than you imagine. Fit travellers on easy terrain do around 22 miles per day, pushing it to 30 sometimes. More than 30 miles needs exceptional fitness and terrain. However, throw in a river or a forests (or *shudder* a swamp) and these numbers drop dramatically. Add animals and wagons to the group, and it drops again. With really nasty terrain, travel times get ridiculous. For example, there are places in the hills near where I grew up where hunters talked about travelling less than a mile in a day.
Allowing for time to set and strike camp, a caravan with wagons or carts might only make 10-12 miles a day, so Phandelin might only be 30 miles from Neverwinter.
Weather makes a huge difference. A trip that takes the PCs five days might take six or seven in a month, as the weather worsens. One day it might take 40 minutes to cross the city, the next day 50 minutes. Flying to Mirabar might be five hours today but seven hours tomorrow.
Maybe the journey is slowed because the rogue just discovered they are allergic to crumblecake, and has to go behind a tree very thirty minutes?
Also, those pretty maps might not actually be correct. :-) In a world without satellite and high-altitude photography, maps are just artistic representations that are hopefully close to the truth.
What does this mean at the table? It means you shouldn't sweat distances and you shouldn't rely on the maps. Do not let anyone get a ruler and measure distances. Predetermine average travel times, and wing it at the table. Its OK (and actually desirable) that journeys can't be predicted to the minute. Use actual travel time to provide drama ("as you rush up the last half-mile to the gates, the dragon swoops in above you!").
For example, this is as detailed as I have got in my game:
The Long Road
The trade route from Mirabar, south through the Dessarin Valley, to Waterdeep.
P.S. I'm not kidding about the ruler part. Do not do it.
Really good points here, yeah I don't show the map ruler to my players (1 hex = X miles) and well the only map we've seen in game so far is the one from LMoP. The reason why I posted about the actual distances rather than perceived trip length is because both sources have a map with a ruler in it, and both maps have the same terrain yet the distance between two points is different in them, namely SKT is twice as large as LMoP
What I'm trying to avoid is that on session one I told the players: "yeah it's 3 days from Neverwinter to Phandalin" but if in future sessions (and going by the SKT info) I'd have to tell them that it's actually 6. And worst case then if they see in the map that Triboar is roughly the same distance away from Phandalin as Neverwinter is (barring the Triboar Trail taking a long bend over the Sword Mountains) they'd expect it to be similar to the other trip.
Thanks for those distances I might look into that for the other settlements too, I like as well for every tenday on the road they'd take a full day rest.
But yeah, absolutely not going to show a map with a ruler to the players, this is just DM prep :)
A couple years ago, I ran a LMOP -> SKT campaign, it was a lot of work, but fun. (the SKT part requires a good bit of DM prep and restructuring)
I found this map helped with overland travel: https://www.aidedd.org/atlas/index.php?map=R&l=1
The big thing, is to just ballpark days between places (then make a note of it), then use survival rolls for speeding things up or encounters.
Also, at some point, they should gain access to faster travel, either via teleportation circles or other, somewhere in the level 5-7 range this will get better.
The biggest think about SKT to me though, was as a DM you need to introduce the chars to the plot a lot earlier, and drop references to the major forces that will appear at the end.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Have you tried this? Link: https://loremaps.azurewebsites.net/Maps/Faerun
You can set two or more points and get distance in miles.
Did you keep in mind that according to the adventure in the book the players are assumed to start halfway to Phandalin from Neverwinter? Somewhere close to the Highroad and Triboar trail crossroads.
^^ This seems like it might be the source of confusion. The story starts with the characters already partway through the journey, so they only have to travel three day's worth of it.
I need the distance from phandalin to waterdeep as i am running DoTMM from LMoP rewritten (PaBtSO(new abbreviation yey11!111!!!!11!!))
I need distance from Red Larch to Beliard via the Larch Path and the Stone Trail.
Character(s): Chak-tha, Thri-kreen Battlemaster Fighter, Théodmon Rokas, Eladrin Druid, Grayhawk the Aerial Ace, Aarakocra Bladesinger Wizard
Current Campaign(s): Dungeons, Darkness, Drow, and Demons, an Out of the Abyss Adventure, Dungeon Delvers, a Dungeon of the Mad Mage Adventure, Jungle of Evil, a Tomb of Annihilation Adventure
Check out the Chatty Tavern | Jester and Breadman's Character Bakery
My title from drummer is Wielder of Whispers
I also need the distance from phandalin to waterdeep.