[HoE] Re: Roving Templars (was Something About a Sword)

[John Goff <johngoff@erols.com>]

Steve Crow wrote:

> But..."Something... " has Ritter patrolling an area.  He seems to have no
> mode of transport, so he presumably has a patrol radius of (and let's be
> generous here) (16 miles travel a day) x (7 days from his base of operations
> to Point X, X being the furthest point out).
> [I'd contend that anything further than that and he almost certainly won't
> get there to be of a great deal of benefit).

I'd give him at least a 25 miles of travel a day. Presumably, as a Templar, he's in fairly good
shape, so his walking speed is an easy 4 mph. That means with only a little more than 6
relatively leisurely hours, he'll cover that distance. Of course, that's over fairly gentle
terrain; mountains or similar difficult ground would obviously reduce that pace.

Assuming he sticks to the path of least resistance, though, that would give him a patrol radius
of closer to 175 miles and a diameter of 350--a good chunk of land, somewhere in the
neighborhood of 100k square miles (unless my math fails me, which would be no surprise, since I
nearly failed math <g>). Granted, he would cover only a small portion of it at any time, but
certain areas--civilized communities or areas of strange goings on--would gain more attention.

> So we've got a circle 224 miles in diameter with Ritter starting at the
> center.  Exactly how many communities are _in_ this area to make this kind
> of "Templar working out of a fixed base" idea viable?

> The adventure seems to imply there are a fair amount of communities in this
> area.

With the estimate, there could be a fair number of communities--easily 3 or 4, possibly more. If
some odd activity was occuring nearby that he was aware, he might even restrict his travels to
the areas closer to that until he'd pinned it down.

It's funny, but I was in the 'roving Templar' camp until I read your math on this, Steve, and
figured exactly what sort of area a week's travel out would encompass. Now that I've looked at a
map and considered that he could have covered the majority of Wyoming with a reasonable patrol
radius, I may have to revise my stance. :-)

Just my thoughts,

John