Flight Speed Question

k3estrelk3estrel
in d20PFSRD
Aside from the obvious answer of, "That's just the way the rules work", is there a good answer for why there is such a huge discrepancy between the Real World "overland" flight speeds of your average bird, and their PF equivalent? I am NOT asking about Tactical Flight speeds, as the mechanics of Aerial Combat more-or-less account for the relative slowness of most flying creatures.

Case in point:

A Golden Eagle's average horizontal flight speed on Earth is approximately 30 miles per hour. That's their "traveling" flight speed - e.g. their "overland" traveling speed.

A "Human" (or other creature) with a 30' land speed (in PF 1E) has a calculated "overland" traveling speed of 3 miles per hour, which is pretty accurate to the average human on Earth.

So given that a Golden Eagle's Real World "overland speed" is approximately 10 times that of a Human's on Earth, the "overland" traveling speed of an Eagle in PF should also be approximately 10 times a Human's - e.g. the equivalent of a 300'
Tactical Move Speed. But instead, if you look at the stats for an Eagle, they have a Tactical Speed of 80', which should logically work out to only twice the listed "Overland" speed of a 40' base move character - which is a total of 8 miles per hour.

And that is MASSIVELY slower than the *actual* speed an Eagle "travels" at when not in combat.

As a GM, I am totally going to be instituting a House Rule to sort out the huge discrepancy between the Tactical Speeds vs. "Overland" Speeds of all flying creatures in my games from now on, but I was just wondering how it is that Paizo missed (or simply let slide) this mathematical puzzle of how to more realistically represent the actual speeds of flying creatures.

Comments

  • jreystjreyst
    While I can't say with any certainty, I suspect they didn't try to EXACTLY match all real world creatures with their real world capabilities. In most cases design decisions were made for specific balance reasons and I would strongly discourage making the effort to try to make things make sense or match 'reality' when, as we know, this is a game, and games need rules and all that. That said, it's your game, do what you like.
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