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My character has a speed of 85 with nothing else: what is that in miles per hour? I have looked it up but my DM gave a different speed to what I got. They got 57, I got 14.16. I am just curious.

I think my dm did 3600 not 600, and I must have messed up the math in my head.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I am not entirely sure why this is getting the downvotes, but it would be useful to know why you care about mph, what you think it is, and what your DM thinks it is \$\endgroup\$
    – SeriousBri
    Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 19:48
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    \$\begingroup\$ My -1 is for a lack of explanation how both person calculated speed, lack of details about the character (Dash action? Dash as a bonus action? Racial movement modes?), and lack of explanation of what kind of situation is it - battle, chase, overland travel? This makes figuring out who made mistake, and where misunderstanding happened, impossible, and thus diminishes usefullness of even a perfect answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – Mołot
    Commented Nov 14, 2023 at 16:16

2 Answers 2

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A round is six seconds:

A round represents about 6 seconds in the game world.

A speed of 85 feet means you can move 85 feet in one round:

On your turn, you can move a distance up to your speed.

So 85 feet per round is 14.1666667 feet per second, which is 9.66 miles per hour (15.5 km per hour). Doubling that with the Dash action yields 19.32 miles per hour (31.1 km per hour). If you are Rogue and can bonus action Dash as well, using two dashes gives 28.98 miles per hour (46.6 km per hour).

However, it should be noted that these numbers are not used to calculate travel pace in the Player’s Handbook. For this, consult the travel pace table in the Travel Pace rules. Notably, these rules are independent of a character’s walking speed.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Also, if you use the chase rules, you need to start making Con checks pretty soon or get exhaustion which will stop you from running with dashes. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nobody the Hobgoblin
    Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 19:18
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    \$\begingroup\$ thank you, I wasn't using it for anything I was just curious, I think my DM did 85 feet per second not 85 feet per 6 seconds \$\endgroup\$
    – Yin3000
    Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 20:20
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    \$\begingroup\$ "If you are Rogue and can bonus action Dash as well" - Not just Rogues; Monks at level 2+ can spend ki to do it as well; one ki per bonus Dash means (if you spend it on nothing else) you can do so a number of times per short rest equal to your level (not meaningful in a marathon, but clearly in D&D terms, Usain Bolt is a high-level monk with a barbarian dip). \$\endgroup\$
    – ShadowRanger
    Commented Nov 15, 2023 at 1:59
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    \$\begingroup\$ If you're Tabaxi you can even further double that with Feline Agility. And don't forget to have someone give you Haste... \$\endgroup\$
    – Herohtar
    Commented Nov 15, 2023 at 3:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Herohtar: The Tabaxi ability being great for a six second sprint, but thoroughly useless beyond that; you double your speed for one round, but can't do it again until you choose not to move at all in a subsequent round. You'll win the hundred yard dash, easily, but it's mostly meaningless over any longer distance. Haste is huge though, in that it both doubles your base speed and gives you an extra action you can use to Dash; the Rogue or Monk with Bonus Action Dash could take that doubled speed, and Dash three times to quadruple the movement that doubled speed gives. \$\endgroup\$
    – ShadowRanger
    Commented Nov 16, 2023 at 0:55
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Every 10 feet of speed is approximately 1 mph

Thomas Markov's answer has done the exact math for you, but in general, there's a quick and easy formula for getting an approximate answer, based on the normal speed in the travel pace table. At a normal pace, you travel 300 feet in 1 minute, which is 10 rounds. This corresponds to 30 feet per round, the normal walking speed of most humanoids. The table tells us that this pace also corresponds to 3 mph. This gives us a simple ratio for converting feet per round (the standard 5e unit of speed) to miles per hour: 10 feet per round equals 1 mph.

Based on this formula, your character with a speed of 85 would have a travel pace of 8.5 miles per hour, which is not too far off from the exact figure of 9.7. Obviously, it's not a perfect approximation, but it's dead simple to compute in your head: just move the decimal point one place to the left. That makes this method great for using during a live session, when pausing to reach for a calculator might kill the pacing.

If you instead want the character's speed while dashing or using some other form of movement, then instead of looking at their speed, work out how many feet they can travel in one round using the relevant means of conveyance, and then divide that number by 10 to get the approximate speed in mph.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I included this approximation in a revision to my answer, but decided it was not close enough for my taste, at least not on the scale described in the question. You’ll also note I did the calculation wrong :P \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Commented Nov 15, 2023 at 1:12
  • \$\begingroup\$ @ThomasMarkov actually I got the same as you did, using a fps to mph converter \$\endgroup\$
    – Yin3000
    Commented Nov 21, 2023 at 18:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Yin3000 I did a calculation wrong in an obsolete revision of my answer. The calculations in the current version are correct. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Commented Nov 21, 2023 at 18:56
  • \$\begingroup\$ @ThomasMarkov I wrote that then redid the math and realized I did it wrong \$\endgroup\$
    – Yin3000
    Commented Nov 21, 2023 at 19:05

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