Travel & Exploration

Getting there in one piece

Travel Pace

Fast — 4 mph / 30 miles/day
−5 penalty to passive Perception.
Normal — 3 mph / 24 miles/day
No penalty.
Slow — 2 mph / 18 miles/day
Can use stealth while traveling.

Difficult terrain (dense forest, deep snow, rubble) costs 2 feet of movement per foot traveled — effectively halving pace through it.

Light and Vision

Bright light
Normal vision.
Dim light
Lightly obscured — disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks relying on sight.
Darkness
Heavily obscured — creatures effectively suffer the blinded condition for sight.

Darkvision lets many races see in darkness as dim light (disadvantage on Perception) out to a listed range — but only in shades of gray.

Food, Water, and Forced Marches

A character needs 1 pound of food and 1 gallon of water per day (half for Small characters). Foraging with a Wisdom (Survival) check can cover this in the wild. Pushing beyond 8 hours of travel in a day forces a Constitution saving throw (DC 10 + 1 per extra hour) — failure gains one level of exhaustion.

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