Resting during travel

Question

When travelling, it says in the PHB that players can travel at either fast, normal, or slow pace. When moving at this speed, is resting accounted for? For example, if a party all takes a long rest while travelling at a fast speed, does this mean they still get 30 miles of travel per day, or less? Same with a short rest.

Answer 1

Travel pace assumes you only travel for about 8 hours actively

This means you can fit both a long rest and some short rest into a typcial day of travel, no matter at what pace you travel during those eight or so hours. Here are the details behind it:

The PHB on page 182, includes a Travel Pace table. The table lists the following speed for overland travel:

• Normal Pace: 3 miles per hour, 24 miles per day

The Dungeon Master Guide on page 243 also states (for calculating special travel speeds)

For daily travel, multiply your hourly rate of travel by the number of hours traveled (typically 8 hours).

So the typical day of travel involves 8 hours of active traveling, and at a pace of three miles per hour, this will give you the 24 miles of travel.

A day however has 24 hours. Travel will only take 8 hours and a typical long rest will take 8 hours, so both are accounted for in a normal day of travel. You also have a buffer of another 8 hours for forced marches, making camp, cleaning your weapons, cooking dinner, eating, etc. and you should be able to take a break for a short rest after you encounter a fight during the day's travel, and still travel your normal distance because of this.

The times are not very exact and allow for a certain amount of slack (for example, Slow pace is 2 miles per hour, but 18 miles per day, not 16, which would mean you travel 9 hours, not 8).

Fast pace has the effect of not being able to look out for danger and receiving a -5 penalty on passive Wisdom (Perception) to notice hidden threats, while slow pace allows you to be stealthy while traveling. They do not change your ability to take rest.

If you run into several fights and want to do several short rests, or spend hours on exploration, the DM might adjudicate that you will not be able to travel the full eight hours worth of time any more that day.