Boots of speed/carpets & brooms flying

[garhkal]

Under the Boots of speed, it mentions "they can be used continuously to run for 8 hrs, before the USER must rest". I always thought that, that was a restriction on the BOOTS themselves similar to how i thought carpets and brooms of flying had a time limit usage. BUT after checking both the 1 and 2e DMG's i see NOTHING about a time limit ON either the carpet or broom of flying.
So that makes ME wonder. Does the limit of use on the boots, JUST APPLY TO whom ever wears it, and after HIS 8 hr limit, he can pass them to someone else, who then could run for 8 hrs himself, and on and on? OR are the limits of the boots, ON THE BOOTS? And thus a similar sort of usage limit, should be applied to the broom or carpet??

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Awesome question, and happy to see some game-related topics to take a break from the politics. I should post some new threads as well.

As far as the boots of speed go, I've always considered the idea that while the boots are what magically enhances the speed of the person using them, the strain is still on the person. What the boots do is simply allow the person to move much faster, but it's still the user's leg muscles being used. Even being "artificially powered", the muscles do indeed have to contract and stretch, only at a faster rate than normally possible. The magic stunts some of the effort, but not all of it, so eventually the muscles get very fatigued.

Carpets and brooms are passive by nature - you're riding them as you would ride in a car - no exertion of the muscles, so no fatigue.

[garhkal]

So could someone say run 8 hours, maxing out his 'limit', drink a quick potion of vitality to reinvigorate him, then go back to running/rinse-repeat??

Or someone sit on a carpet flying for 49 hours straight?

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Hmmm. I'd say that yes, that would work since the potion of vitality...

"...restores the user to full vitality despite exertion...", etc.

For the carpet of flying, I'd say it's limited by the ability of the user to stay awake, since it flies by "voice command". So when the user falls asleep, the carpet lands. If he used a potion of vitality, he could remain awake and alert for 49 hrs. or more, so yes that would work.

[garhkal]

I am shocked. That's the mentality of a lot of others, in that there shouldn't BE a time limit on the boots themselves, just an 'exhaustion' issue for the wearer, so if they had lots of PoV, they could run all day and night etc...

[Halaster Blackcloak]

The reason I went with that interpretation was because of the wording. Usually, if a magic item has a limited amount of duration or activations per day or what not, it mentions the item functioning only so many times or for so long, before a certain "rest" period is taken for the item. But for the boots, it specifically mentions the user tiring.

When you mentioned others saying there shouldn't be a time limit on the boots, there actually isn't, if you're using potions of vitality. The boots normally tire the wearer after a given period of time, but a potion of vitality will allow the user not to tire, so essentially, there is no time limit on the boots if you're using a potion. The time limit would be as long as the potion lasts. So going by the rules in the DMG, a user could drink a potion of vitality, then run at full speed using the boots of speed for a full 7 days around the clock!

That's one way to travel cross country!

[garhkal]

Egads.. I wonder, why they did that since even the broom/carpets, ALSO have no time limits, that i can find (either in 1e OR 2e, or even mentioned in the sage advice..

ITS almost like they WANT folk to travel vast distances swiftly..

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I'd argue that there are inherent limits to all of those, far more restrictive than time limits. For example...

Carpet of flying - 55% of all carpets can carry only 1-2 people. 80% of all carpets can carry only 1-3 people. And only 20% of all carpets can carry as many as 4 people. Aside from some small, low level one-shot adventures, I've never seen a party of less than 4-5 people. Usually it's 5-7 PCs. 8 out of 10 carpets found can carry only 3 people, with almost 6 out of 10 only able to carry 1 or 2 people. Even the largest can only carry 4. So there's a huge problem. With an average party size of 5-7 (usually a general mix of 1 wizard, 1 cleric, 1 thief, 2 fighter types, and sometimes a specialty class like a barbarian, ranger, paladin, etc.), the carpet is useless for long range travel. The carpet also must be commanded by spoken word. A single person can only fly for a day before passing out. Multiple riders can get around that, but there's no getting around the fact that even the rarest, biggest carpets can't carry most parties all at once. And at a max speed, it's only as fast as a riding horse. The smaller carpets can fly pretty fast, but the useful, larger ones only travel as fast as a horse would. No difference than if a party of 4 just rode horses.

Broom of flying - The broom is faster, at a speed of 30, but it can only carry 1-2 person, realistically. And the max weight is 182 lbs. Every 14 additional pounds slows it by 1. So say we could somehow fit 3 PCs on a broom (that's one cramped broom!), and say one is a wizard, one a fighter type, one a cleric. An average weight for a wizard is say 150 lbs., another 185 for a burly fighter, and say 175 for the cleric. Then we have to add armor and equipment. Say the fighter has field plate, a shield and a bastard sword. The cleric has bronze plate and a warhammer. The wizard has a dagger. That adds 147 lbs. Let's say the other stuff...spell books, prayer books, potions, rations, bandgades, rope, etc, comes to another 60 lbs. (20 lbs. per person total). Again, this is with the fighter and cleric not having a back up weapon at all. That all comes to 717 lbs. After the initial 182 lbs, that leaves 535 extra lbs, divided by 14 = -38 penalty to the speed. Guess what? These three lightly equipped PCs can't even fly the damned broom! A base speed of 30 minus a 38 pt penalty is a negative number. They'd be moving at a negative speed, which isn't possible, so it means the broom cannot lift them, much less fly. And how many parties do you know that consist of only 3 lightly equipped PCs? We also did not account for gold or other treasure. No way is a party going to travel via broom. Not even to cross the road!

Boots of speed - Again, only one PC can wear them at a time. What do you do? Send the guy with the boots a few miles ahead of the rest of the party and hope he isn't ambushed and killed before the other PCs can catch up? The boots of speed move at twice the movement rate of the human PCs (24 vs 12), even more than that compared to dwarves and gnomes. If on foot, by the time the guy wearing the boots is 1 mile from their destination, the rest of the party is still 2 miles away. The boot wearer is on his own, and by the time help arrives (if he's attacked, etc), it's all over. If the other PCs have horses they can all travel at the same speed, but then what good are the boots? That PC is moving at the same rate as the rest of the party riding horses. They are useful if the party is short one horse, I guess.

So I don't see any of these items as being unbalanced or anything. None of them allow a party to travel swiftly across country. The boots only work for one person, the broom only works for 1-2 people - and realistically, even that would slow the broom down to right around the speed of an average horse, and the carpet can only hold at most 4 people and no faster than a horse would move. The smaller carpets can't possibly fit even a small party. Even the largest one is too small for virtually all parties.

Mixing the potion of vitality with the boots can create a very fast moving PC for 7 straight days, but he's on his own. The other PCs and horses need to rest and could not keep up with him, so what good does it do? Unless the DM is running a very generous Monty Haul campaign where potions of vitality are as common as ale in a dwarven tavern, it's not a problem.

[garhkal]

True,but if all he's doing is running, from say one town to another, to alert, and there's a time limit to do that, having the boots and the PoV, can shift that from a Challenging time, to a brief interlude..

And as for the horse vs carpet, sure the horses can move roughly the same speed, but the Carpet flies straight, the horses don't. They have to maneuver around terrain, pay costs FOR said terrain, so generally are NOT moving at the same speed as the carpet is..

[Halaster Blackcloak]

Garhkal wrote:

True,but if all he's doing is running, from say one town to another, to alert, and there's a time limit to do that, having the boots and the PoV, can shift that from a Challenging time, to a brief interlude..

But again, unless the DM is handing out potions of vitality like candy, this isn't a problem. He's moving no faster than riding a horse. Potions of vitality were pretty rare in my games. Hell, I could even see a DM requiring a system shock roll to see if the exhaustion causes the user to collapse, unable to keep moving, or even kills him (similar to how a haste spell could overtax his system). I'm just not seeing this becoming a problem - again, unless the DM is Monty Haul with potions of vitality, in which case the DM created the problem not the boots.

And as for the horse vs carpet, sure the horses can move roughly the same speed, but the Carpet flies straight, the horses don't. They have to maneuver around terrain, pay costs FOR said terrain, so generally are NOT moving at the same speed as the carpet is..

Damn good point I hadn't thought of - there is some advantage there. But again, virtually all carpets cannot carry more than 3 people. Most can only carry 1 or 2 people. So it's not at all unbalancing for a party to have one, even the largest ones that carry 4 PCs (again, how many parties have only 4 members?). And even assuming a small enough party to fit on the carpet and the terrain cost, if they get to their destination a day or so before they could on horses, is that really a problem? I'd say no.

[garhkal]

So i guess the time limits i put on all 3 of the items, i need to go back and remove..

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I don't see the need for time limits on them myself, given what I mentioned above.

[garhkal]

Well, initially i did place one (8hrs each). BUT after seeing this thread, and the one on DF, i am re-thinking that, and removing them.

[Halaster Blackcloak]

I've done that before, made a rule then realized I didn't need it. Sometimes I've only figured it out during play.